100 books like The North American Indian Orpheus Tradition

Scholarly works that deal with the subject of near-death experiences in the history of religions are very rare.

This one also happens to be well-written, in a clear and accessible style. It contains a wealth of information about ideas of the afterlife in Late Antiquity that will be unfamiliar to even the most dedicated readers on the subject.

It’s also another great example of a rigorous, knowledgeable scholar concluding that visionary experiences such as NDEs contribute to the formation of afterlife beliefs.

By setting the context with chapters on “Journeys to paradise in the Jewish Apocalyptic tradition” and “Otherworld journeys in the Greco-Roman traditions,” Potthoff reminds us that Christianity did not develop in isolation but was one of various interlinked Mediterranean religions.

It also shows further how these kinds of beliefs and experiences are found around the world and throughout history. 

Wondrous Events is one the best books on the “experiential source hypothesis” – a term coined by David Hufford that describes how apparently “paranormal” experiences lead to the formation of new “supernatural,” religious, or folk beliefs.

McClenon, a sociologist, saw the importance of looking at the evidence for this hypothesis across cultures, taking in historical and modern cases in China, Japan, and elsewhere.

Rather than focusing on one particular type of experience, he hones in on the dynamics of how extraordinary experiences are interpreted in cultural terms and integrated into beliefs systems. Along the way he discusses NDEs and out-of-body experiences, apparitions, ESP, sleep paralysis, psychokinesis, poltergeists, spiritual healing, and more.

Written within a concise, clear, and authoritative style, the book is a model of how scholarly wring can appeal to mainstream readers.

This long-lost early book on near-death experiences was written around the same time as Raymond Moody’s classic Life After Life, but totally independent of any knowledge of that more famous work.

Hampe was a German philosopher, and while the book made a huge splash in Germany it’s practically unknown to the English-speaking world, even though an excellent translation was published in the 1970s (finally now reprinted).

Hampe is a deep thinker though has a very engaging style. Knowing that he had his own NDE makes the book poignant and moving to read. What I find most interesting about it is the very different approach he took compared to Moody.

Rather than looking at the phenomenon as a scientific puzzle and focusing on the possibility that NDEs are evidence for an afterlife, Hampe was interested in their metaphysical implications. 

Alan Gauld has set a new standard in the historical study of psychical research with this new in-depth examination of the history of mediumship.

Impeccably researched and with extensive use of unpublished sources, it’s also written with an engaging combination of erudition and subtle wit. Gauld brings his subjects to life in a way that gives readers a more immediate, personal glimpse of the mediums, the researchers, and their world.

He is always critical but objective when weighing the debate for and against genuine communication from souls of the dead, without flinching from considering either evidence of fraud or apparently veridical phenomena.

What I find especially satisfying is the way the book deals not only with the question of survival, but also the social history of mediumship and associated attitudes towards death and the afterlife.

I read this book not long after reading Spook, and it scratched many of the same philosophical itches for me. I love its dreamlike quality and haunting sense of nostalgia. As far as I know, it's also unlike any other work of fiction in its approach to the question of life after death.

It blends two seemingly unrelated topics—historical disasters (e.g., the Hartford circus fire, the sinking of the Titanic)—and the science of near-death experiences in a striking, unique way. Although it is, in many ways, a deeply sad story, it ultimately feels hopeful. This is one of those novels that left a lasting impact on my psyche.   

This book spent five years on the New York Times bestseller list. Despite what some see as controversial claims that the author spent ninety minutes in heaven and then came back to life, only five of the eighteen chapters dwell on Piper’s “near-death experience.” The majority of the book chronicles his horrifically painful struggle to survive and then recover the use of his legs which were mangled in an accident. He often begged God to let him die. Instead, God brought people into his life to help him move past self-pity and find a renewed purpose.

Thinking about the hope of heaven kept my mental health positive while going through cancer treatments.

This book includes several near-death experiences of people all over the world who literally died for a moment and saw the afterlife. As a witness to the spiritual realm, they give us vivid descriptions of heaven and what they saw while their physical bodies were dead.

These amazing stories from people of different ages and religions point to the reality of a beautiful place that I can’t wait to experience after I die.

Bestselling author Sebastian Junger is known for reporting on dangerous and demanding occupations and for embedding with American soldiers in Afghanistan as a war correspondent. But his most recent book describes his encounter with perhaps the most deadly situation he has ever faced.

A burst aneurysm lands him in the emergency room, and while fighting for his life, Junger becomes aware that his father—who had died eight years ago—is “communicating” to him that everything will be all right. The appealing slant is that Junger, raised by his physicist father as an atheist and materialist, has to try to make sense of a near-death experience.

In a recent interview by the New York Times, Junger is asked how the NDE changed the way he thinks about death and God. “It never crossed my mind to start believing in God,” Junger responds. "But what did happen was I was like, maybe… show more.

Near-death experiences on the surface sound like they have no relationship to politics and economics. However, they allow us to make inferences about a “moral imperative” embedded within the structure of reality itself.

Near-death experiences are instances in which a person’s consciousness has remarkable perceptions—even though the person is sometimes clinically dead. In fact, the experiences are often reported to be “realer” than real. This perplexing phenomenon has been studied extensively by the University of Virginia’s Bruce Greyson, MD, and he explains in his book why many of these profound cases are likely not hallucinations. (And he further explained these concepts to me when I interviewed him for my podcast, Where Is My Mind?).

The life-changing messages from near-death experiences teach us that we are all interconnected at a deep and fundamental level. Many near-death-experience survivors even report that they relived their whole life, and they become each person… show more.

Hideaway explores the question: what would happen if people who’ve had near-death experiences bring something back with them from the other side? Koontz offers two characters resuscitated after being clinically dead for more than half an hour, one who tastes Heaven while the other sees Hell. Is the carnage that follows the result of their angel/demon hitchhikers wreaking havoc among the living, or is something else at play? The novel offers unique perspective on the desire to return to the land of the dead, and how closely the forces of Heaven and Hell are linked to the realm of the living.