The NDE and the Cultural Distinction

The text below is taken from this link: http://www.horizonresearch.org/culturalnde.html


"Understanding the role of culture on NDE is very important. The central features of the NDE have been recorded throughout history and across numerous cultures and religious groups. NDE have also been described in atheists as well as those with a particular faith, whether it be as practising members or non practising members of a particular religion.

Historically, there have been descriptions closely resembling the NDE in the beliefs of Bolivian, Argentinian and North American Indians, Buddhist and Islamic texts and accounts from China, Siberia and Finland. The commonest features are a) having an out of body experience, b) a reunion with ancestors and departed friends, c) an experience of light accompanied by joy and peace, d) a border or dividing line between the living and the dead. Today, stories of near death experiences have also been described from many areas of the world including India, China, South America, and the Middle East. Interestingly in these countries there has been relatively very little if any publicity given to this phenomenon. With the NDEs recalled from people in non western cultures, it has been found that although the central features are universally present, the interpretation of the experience may reflect personal religious or cultural views. In other words people from different parts of the world may all feel peaceful, see a tunnel, a bright light together with a being of light, and also have a sensation of detaching from their bodies, but they may describe the identity of the being of light according to their own cultural and religious backgrounds. In one study carried out in 1985, the experiences of 16 Asian Indians were compared with those from Americans and it was found that the Indians unlike the Americans often encountered Yamraj, the Hindu king of the dead. The largest cross cultural study was carried out in 1977 by Osis and Haraldsson, which focused more on death bed visions, these are the experiences that people have had usually in the 24 hours before death. These are different to the classical near death experiences in that carers who had looked after the individual during the dying process had recalled them from what they had observed of the dying patients'. In this study they examined approximately 440 terminally ill American and Indian patients as described to their doctors and nurses. The commonest feature, which occurred in 91% of cases was the apparition of seeing deceased relatives. There were a total of 140 reports of seeing religious figures, usually described as an angel or God. In the cases in which these were specifically identified, they were always found to be described according to a person's religious beliefs: no Hindu reported seeing Jesus, and no Christian a Hindu deity."
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