Near-Death Experience in Indigenous Religions

This week I am talking to Dr Gregory Shushan about his book 'Near-Death Experience in Indigenous Religions'. Near-death experiences are known around the world and throughout human history. They are sometimes reported by individuals who have revived from a period of clinical death or near-death and they typically feature sensations of leaving the body, entering and emerging from darkness, meeting deceased friends and relatives, encountering beings of light, judgment of one's earthly life, feelings of oneness, and reaching barriers, only to return to the body. Those who have NDEs almost invariably understand them as having profound spiritual or religious significance. In this book, Gregory Shushan explores the relationships between near-death experiences, shamanism, and beliefs about the afterlife in traditional indigenous societies in Africa, North America, and Oceania. Drawing on historical accounts of the earliest encounters with explorers, missionaries, and ethnologists, this study addresses questions such as: Do ideas about the afterlife commonly originate in NDEs? What role does culture play in how people experience and interpret NDEs? How can we account for cross-cultural similarities and differences between afterlife beliefs? Though NDEs are universal, Shushan shows that how they are actually experienced and interpreted varies by region and culture. As the historical documents reveal, in North America, they were commonly valorized, and attempts were made to replicate them through shamanic rituals. In Africa, however, they were largely considered aberrational events with links to possession or sorcery. In Oceania, Micronesia corresponded more to the African model, while Australia had a greater focus on afterlife journey shamanism. Polynesia and Melanesia showed an almost casual acceptance of the phenomenon as reflected in numerous myths, legends, and historical accounts. This study examines the continuum of similarities and differences between NDEs, shamanism, and afterlife beliefs in dozens of cultures throughout these regions. In the process, it makes a valuable contribution to our knowledge about the origins of afterlife beliefs around the world and the significance of related experiences in human history. Gregory Shushan explores the relationship between NDEs and beliefs about the afterlife in traditional indigenous societies. Bio He was Grawemeyer Award-nominated for his book Conceptions of the Afterlife in Early Civilizations. He is an Honorary Research Fellow at the Religious Experience Research Centre, University of Wales Trinity Saint David, and was previously Perrott-Warrick Researcher at University of Oxford's Ian Ramsey Centre for Science and Religion; and Scholar-in Residence at the Centro Incontri Umani (The Cross Cultural Centre), Ascona, Switzerland. My book 'Verified Near Death Experiences' Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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Near-Death Experience in Indigenous Religions is an episode from The Past Lives Podcast by Simon Bown.

This episode is 00:53:48 long.

This episode was published on May 1, 2026.

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