Out-of-Body and Near-Death Experiences: Brain-State Phenomena or Glimpses of Immortality? (Oxford Theology and Religion Monographs)

Personalised accounts of out-of-body (OBE) and near-death (NDE) experiences are frequently interpreted as offering evidence for immortality and an afterlife. Since most OBE/NDE follow severe curtailments of cerebral circulation with loss of consciousness, the agonal brain supposedly permits 'mind', 'soul' or 'consciousness' to escape neural control and provide glimpses of the afterlife. Michael Marsh critically analyses the work of five key writers who support this so-called "dying brain" hypothesis. He firmly disagrees with such otherworldly 'mystical' or 'psychical' interpretations, ably demonstrating how they are explicable in terms of brain neurophysiology and its neuropathological disturbances. The original basis and thrust of Marsh's claim sees the recorded phenomenology as reflections of brains rapidly reawakening to full conscious-awareness, consistent with other reported phenomenologies attending recovery from antecedent states of unconsciousness: the "re-awakening brain" hypothesis. From this basis, Marsh also offers a re-classification of NDE into early and late phase sequences, thereby dismantling the untenable concepts of "core" and "depth" experiences. Marsh further provides a detailed examination of the spiritual and quasi-religious overtones accorded OBE/NDE, highlighting their inconsistencies when compared with classical accounts of divine disclosure, and the eschatological precepts of resurrection belief as professed credally. In assessing the implications of anthropological, philosophical, and theological concepts of 'personhood' and 'soul' as arguments for personal survival after death, Marsh celebrates the role of conventional faith in appropriating the expectant biblical promises of a 'New Creation'. Contents Preface List of Figures List of Abbreviations Introduction: Prospects for Life After Death 1 Getting a Sense of the Other-Worldly Domain 1. Having that Kind of Feeling: Being Out-of-Body and Other-Worldly 2. Specific Case-Studies 2 Surveying Past Horizons 1. Making Sense of the Collective ECE Narrative 2. Cultural Relativity: ECE in Historical and Geographical Context 3. The Argument So Far 3 Authors’ Interpretations of ECE Phenomenology 1. Authors’ Perspectives on Subjects’ Narratives: The Big Cosmic Picture 2. The Problem of Pre-Cognition and Acquired Psychical Powers 3. The Future Task 4 Objective Analyses into ECE Subjectivity 1. Initial Approaches to a More Objective Account of ECE Phenomenology 2. Grammatical Critique of ECE Narrative: Semantics and Syntax 3. The Intrusion of Cognitive Activity into the Subjective World of ECE 4. Evidence that Pre-existing Cognitive Paradigms Influence the Experiential Contours of ECE 5. A Re-Classification of OB and ND Experiential Phenomenology 5 Conscious-Awareness: Life’s Illusory Legacy 1. The Illusory Foundations of Conscious-Awareness 2. ‘Phantom Limb’ Phenomenology: The Neurophysiology of Absence 6 The Temporo-Parietal Cortex: The Configuring of Ego-/Paracentric Body Space 1. The Posterior Parietal Cortex and Body-Image 2. Abnormal Disturbances of Body-Image 3. The Ups-and-Downs and Ins-and-Outs of Ego-/Paracentric Body Space 4. Out-of-Body Phenomenologies: The Experiential Repertoire 7 Falling Asleep, Perchance to Dream—Thence to Reawaken 1. Sleeping and Dreaming 2. The Neuropathology of Dream-State Modes 3. The Paediatric ECE/Dream Problem Revisited 4. Dreams, Dreaming, and ECE Reviewed 8 ECE and the Temporal Lobe: Assassin or Accomplice? 1. The Experiential Outcomes of Temporal Lobe Pathologies 2. Transports of Joy, Love, and Ecstasy 3. The Emerging Critical Relevance of Latent Temporal Lobe Dysfunction 9 Other Neurophysiological Aspects Pertinent to ECE phenomenology 1. Intrinsic Mechanisms 2. The Tunnel and Related Phenomenologies 3. Extrinsic Factors 4. Insights into the Brilliantly Coloured Heavenly Pastoral 5. Moving Onwards: Theological Perspectives on ECE 10 Anthropological and Eschatological Considerations of ECE Phenomenology 1. Biblical Accounts of Human Anthropology 2. The Person, Death and a Future Hope 3. Personhood, the Afterlife, and the Soul 4. Personhood, the Afterlife, and the Resurrection of the Body 5. ECE and Afterlife: Not an Enlightening Eschatological Paradigm 11 ECE, Revelation and Spirituality 1. ‘Spiritual’ Dimensions in a Secular World 2. ECE Phenomenology Considered as Spiritual Event 3. The Brain and the ‘Mystical’ Experience 12 Subjects’ Interpretations of Their Experiences 1. The NDE and the Subject: Consequential Outcomes 2. NDE Outcomes: The Exaltation of Personhood 13 Overview and Recapitulation 1. Consciousness and Soul 2. On True Resurrection versus a Hallucinatory Metaphysic 3. The Forgotten Potential of the Post-Experiential Subject 4. The Eschatological Meaning of Salvation Glossary A B C D E F G H I L M N O P R S T U V W Bibliography Index A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W Discrediting 'mystical' or 'psychical' interpretations of out-of-body and near-death experiences, Michael Marsh demonstrates how these phenomena are explicable in terms of brain neurophysiology and its neuropathological disturbances, and discusses the theological and philosophical implications of his hypotheses.