Keith Augustine - NDEs with Hallucinatory Features

There's also the idea of the Imaginal Space which it seems people pass through or interact with whether it's an NDE, a shamanic psychedelic trip, a telepathic dream, or mediumship.

Sometimes you get veridical information, other times the fictional/confused content is all you get.

Mundus Imaginalis or the Imaginary and the Imaginal

Henry Corbin

edit: Chris Carter has also covered the cross-cultural aspect of NDEs in his books.

Early Spiritualist Discussions About the Distortions of Mediumistic Communications (page 45)

Carlos S. Alvarado

In all ages, revelations from the Spiritual World have been essentially modified by the physical and mental characteristics of the person through whom they have been given to mankind. In the process of influx, the elements of two minds are blended, and the revelation is the result of their mingled action. Sometimes this infusion is labored and difficult, and the spiritual influence is only perceptible in a slight abnormal quickening of the human faculties. Again the thought is directly inspired, but is left to be invested by the mind of the medium, from which it takes not only its coloring and clothing, but its specific form. (Brittan, 1852, pp. 39–40)

The mind which has been, through the formative influence of prevailing education and custom, moulded into a receptacle for the entertainment of any particular notion, theory, or creed extant, is almost certain to unconsciously alter, modify, and arrange all impressions, from whatever source received, invariably in accordance with the state and style of its own growth and individual culture. And furthermore, it may be accepted as a principle, fully demonstrated in the world’s history, that the Divine cannot flow into Human structures—the celestial cannot blend, intimately, with the terrestrial, without the former (the Divine) participating to a degree more or less obvious, in the imperfections which are infinitely and eternally consequent upon, and inseparably connected with, a physical or material state of existence. Discord and contradiction, therefore, growing out of the intimate association or conjunction of the spiritual with the material, must invariably and everywhere be more or less apparent. This fact will certainly appear, notwithstanding the honesty or good intentions of the media,1 or that entire passivity of mind which Truth requires. (Davis, 1853, p. 203)

...There is another cause, and that is, the passiveness or otherwise of the mediums to the influence at work with them. Sometimes they resist with a very determined will, and it is impossible for others, and often even for ourselves, to know when the operation of that will is entirely overcome, or how much of its influence may hang around and stain the communication with its taint of mortal life. Sometimes timidity and diffidence will color and sometimes vanity and fanaticism distort the teaching of the spirits. Often the want of confidence will warp them; for, strange as it may appear! there are mediums who are not Spiritualists, and who, unaccustomed to the examination of their own minds, can not discriminate between their operation and the spirit-influence; and as often an overweening credulity will put awry that which was designed to be plain and straightforward. (Edmonds & Dexter, 1855, pp. 39–41)

Early Spiritualist Discussions About the Distortions of Mediumistic Communications (page 45)

Carlos S. Alvarado

'For how can one describe, as other than oneself, that which, when one saw it, seemed to be one with oneself?


This is no doubt why in the Mysteries we are forbidden to reveal them to the uninitiated.'
 -Plotinus

[T] he issue of universality is controversial in NDE studies, with some researchers promoting cross-cultural difference at the expense of similarity. For example, in his assessment of perhaps the earliest western NDE account which explicitly claims to be factual (related by the Greek philosopher Clearchus of Soli, C. 310 BCE), Bremmer … states that the only similarity between the account and the modern NDE is a ‘feeling of drifting away.’ This, despite clear references to typical NDE elements such as OBE, meeting deceased relatives, moral evaluation assisted by mystical/ divine beings, and clairvoyance. In a study of Chinese NDEs, the researchers (Zhi-ying and Jian-xun 1992) seem to have interpreted cultural/ individual expressions of typical NDE elements as dissimilarities. Sensations of weightlessness and ‘feeling estranged from the body,’ for example, must surely be equated with the OBE. ‘Unusually vivid thoughts,’ a feeling that thought has sped up, a sense of peace and euphoria, and a life review are all standard NDE elements reported by their subjects. Murphy (2001) states that there is no being of light in Thai NDEs – despite reports of the Buddha appearing as a star, and an encounter with ‘spiritual lights.’ (ibid.) He also states that Thai NDErs do not report feelings of bliss, ecstasy, peace and the like, but rather ‘pleasantness, comfort, a sense of beauty and happiness.’ Rather than seeing these as analogous emotional states, he sees discontinuity. Encounters with deceased friends and relatives are similarly classified as dissimilarities because they do not specifically greet the NDEr, but rather instruct him/ her. Murphy’s conclusion that ‘accounts of Western NDEs would seem to be useless in helping Thais know what to expect at their deaths’ is not supported by Thai references to OBE, travelling in spiritual form to another realm, life review with moral evaluation, encounters with divine/ mystical presences, positive emotions, transcendent feelings and an impression of knowing ‘all the truths of the universe,’ visions of the future, deceased relatives, and being instructed to return.

Gordon White. Star.Ships

[T] he issue of universality is controversial in NDE studies, with some researchers promoting cross-cultural difference at the expense of similarity. For example, in his assessment of perhaps the earliest western NDE account which explicitly claims to be factual (related by the Greek philosopher Clearchus of Soli, C. 310 BCE), Bremmer … states that the only similarity between the account and the modern NDE is a ‘feeling of drifting away.’ This, despite clear references to typical NDE elements such as OBE, meeting deceased relatives, moral evaluation assisted by mystical/ divine beings, and clairvoyance. In a study of Chinese NDEs, the researchers (Zhi-ying and Jian-xun 1992) seem to have interpreted cultural/ individual expressions of typical NDE elements as dissimilarities. Sensations of weightlessness and ‘feeling estranged from the body,’ for example, must surely be equated with the OBE. ‘Unusually vivid thoughts,’ a feeling that thought has sped up, a sense of peace and euphoria, and a life review are all standard NDE elements reported by their subjects. Murphy (2001) states that there is no being of light in Thai NDEs – despite reports of the Buddha appearing as a star, and an encounter with ‘spiritual lights.’ (ibid.) He also states that Thai NDErs do not report feelings of bliss, ecstasy, peace and the like, but rather ‘pleasantness, comfort, a sense of beauty and happiness.’ Rather than seeing these as analogous emotional states, he sees discontinuity. Encounters with deceased friends and relatives are similarly classified as dissimilarities because they do not specifically greet the NDEr, but rather instruct him/ her. Murphy’s conclusion that ‘accounts of Western NDEs would seem to be useless in helping Thais know what to expect at their deaths’ is not supported by Thai references to OBE, travelling in spiritual form to another realm, life review with moral evaluation, encounters with divine/ mystical presences, positive emotions, transcendent feelings and an impression of knowing ‘all the truths of the universe,’ visions of the future, deceased relatives, and being instructed to return.

Gordon White. Star.Ships

Now this is some good stuff.