During the past decade, behavioral and medical scientists have compiled an increasing amount of scientific work on the aspect of death known as the near-death experience. Investigators have found over 100 cases of near-death experience where persons have encountered another realm or mode of existence. This paper describes the perceived other world based on a limited number of insightful cases of Mormon near-death experiences. The social system of the other world is very organized and based on a moral order. The basic societal unit is the family. The other world has a system of social stratification and its most important desirable is morality. Social control processes are also evident in the other world. The Mormon findings suggest that a tremendous process of socialization is being undertaken there. The Mormon descriptions suggest the other world is vast and located near the earth. It contains buildings that are better constructed than the buildings on earth and landscape and vegetation “indescribably beautiful.” New powers and capabilities are experienced in the body form of the other world, and there are various styles of dress. The influence of the Mormon frame of reference on the findings is discussed.
The literature on near-death experiences (NDEs) contains no substantive discussion of angels in NDEs, even though there are references to angels in several studies of these experiences. In this article I identify angels in NDEs and describe their functions in the NDE based on published NDE accounts. I conclude that angels are personages with whom the NDEr does not usually recall having previous acquaintance. Angels serve as guides, messen gers, or escorts in the NDE. References to angels in near-death experiences (NDEs) are found in several studies of the subject. Angels were referred to as "beings of light" by some near-death experiencers in Raymond Moody's book Life After Life (1975); in fact, Moody described the being of light as one of 15 elements in the NDE. In Moody's first case of a childhood NDE, a 9 year old boy was met on the other side by a group of angels whom he described as having no wings, glowing, and seeming to love him very much (Moody and Perry, 1988). Kenneth Ring (1982) cited the NDE of a man who came close to dying as a result of being ill during a tooth extraction, and took a trip to heaven where he saw angels. In one of the most extensive narratives they received in their na tional survey of NDEs in the United States, George Gallup, Jr., and William Proctor (1982) related the account of a nurse who described angels holding hands to form a stairway to heaven. Once she reached
ABSTRACT:The article describes the physical environment found in the other world or the City of Light, based on published accounts of near-death experiences (NDEs). The City of Light appears to be a world of preternatural beauty that cannot be described adequately. NDE accounts provide descrip tions of the landscape, animal life, plant life, and architecture found in the other world.
Kenneth Ring (1982) described two kinds of precognitive vi sions in the near-death experience (NDE): the personal flashforward and the prophetic vision. I describe a third category, the otherworld personal future revelation (OPFR). The OPFR resembles the personal flashforward in that it previews the experiencer's personal future, but differs from the personal flash forward in that it is delivered to the experiencer by another personage in the otherworld rather than appearing in the visual imagery of a life review. The OPFR differs from the prophetic vision in having a personal rather than planetary focus. I cite four historic accounts to illustrate major features of the OPFR: entrance into the otherworld, encounter with others who foretell the experiencer's future, and later occurrence of the foretold events.Kenneth Ring (1980) labelled the apparent preview of an individual's future during the life review portion of his or her near-death experi ence (NDE) as "flashforwards." The life review is one of the common elements of the NDE, in which the experiencer sees an extremely vivid, real, and extraordinarily rapid visual display depicting various events of his or her life often extending back into very early childhood. Ring wrote that "it is as though the individual is lifted out of the on going daily stream of mundane life and, for one moment outside of time, sees something like a life trajectory, extending in either direction from the present" (1988, p. 5).
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