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.

This chapter examines certain claims made for near‐death and out‐of‐body experiences (ND/OBE), adding neuro‐physiological and theological insights. ND/OBE aredecidedly this‐worldly events and have nothing to do with supposed journeys to spiritualized or nonphysical realms, nor amalgamations with so‐called cosmic consciousness. Classical spiritual encounters were discussed by William James, and by William P. Alston. The chapter compares classic examples of divine disclosure with those given by NDE subjects. Considering the “spiritual” properties of NDE reports, one might be somewhat reluctant to credit (...) them with any serious divine import, or, like some of the otherreports, of enlightening revelatory content. The chapter also summarizes author's analysis that offers arguments against any serious import to NDE phenomenology, other than deriving from stored material in brains of subjects reporting. It continues in critically examining the notion of afterlife, as envisioned throughout the NDE literature, compared with Christian precepts of the creedal “Life Everlasting”. (shrink)