Otherworld journeys: accounts of near-death experience in medieval and modern times

286 Pages·1987·16.58 MB·English

by  Carol Zaleski

Otherworld Journeys
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Otherworld Journeys
ACCOUNTS OF NEAR-DEATH
EXPERIENCE IN MEDIEVAL AND
MODERN TIMES
Carol Zaleski
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York Oxford
Oxford University Press
Oxford New York Toronto
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and associated companies in
Berlin Ibadan
Copyright © 1987 by Oxford University Press? Inc.
First published in 1987 by Oxford University Press, Inc.
198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 1001t^4314
First issued as an Oxford University Press paperback, 1988
Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of Oxford University Press, Inc.
Portions of I Died Three Times in 1977, P.M.H. Atwater, reprinted by
permission of the author.
Portions of Life After Life, Raymond A. Moody, Jr., teprinted by
permision of Mockingbird Books, Inc.
Portions of Life at Death: A Scientific Investigation of the Near-Death
Experience, Kenneth Ring, reprinted by permission of the
Putnam Publishing Group. Copyright © 1980 by Kenneth Ring.
"Prophetic Voices" videotaped interview with near-death experiences
reprinted with permission of Andrew ). Silver.
Extract from Canto 3? reprinted by permission of the Bodley Head Ltd.
from Dante's Paradise, translated by John D. Sinclair.
"Profile of an Experiencer: Tracy Lovell," Vital Signs I, no. 4,
reprinted by permission of Vital Signs.
"St, Patrick's Purgatory/' Carol Zaleski. Acknowledgment to
Journal of the History of Ideas XLVI (October-December 1985):
467-85.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Zaleski, Carol Goldsmith.
Otherworld journeys.
Bibliography: p. Includes index.
1. Near-death experiences—Religious aspects—Christianity.
2. Voyages to the otherworld.
3. Voyages to the otherworld in literature. I. Title.
BT825.Z34 1987 133.9'01'3 86-17983
ISBN 0-19-503915-7
ISBN 0-19-505665-5 (PBK.)
6 8 10 9 7 5
Printed in the United States of America
Acknowledgments
THIS BOOK BEGAN several years ago as a dissertation in the Study of Religion
at Harvard University. I am grateful for the advice, encouragement, arid
friendship of my teachers and colleagues, especially Richard R. Niebuhr, Jane
I. Smith, William A. Graham, Jr., Margaret R. Miles, Clarissa W. Atkinson,
Diana L. Eck, and Wilfred Cantwell Smith.
A doctoral dissertation grant from the Charlotte W. Newcombe Foun-
dation and a residency at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts allowed
me to work on this project without distraction, and the staff of the Harvard
Arts and Sciences Computer Services helped me find my way in the labyrin-
thine other world of electronic text processing. Nicole Galland and Lisa
Vines provided valuable eleventh-hour research assistance. Cynthia A.
Read's discerning editorial suggestions and Wendy Warren Keebler's vigi-
lant copy editing made the process of revising for publication both edifying
and pleasant. John L. Barger deserves credit, too, for his careful work on the
index.
Nancy Evans Bush, Bruce Greyson, Raymond and Louise Moody, Karlis
Osis, Kenneth Ring, Kimberly Clark, Leslee Morabito, and James Krum were
very gracious to me. I would also like to thank those who have taken the risk
of publicizing their own experiences in the face of death. Although my per-
spective is inevitably different from theirs, I hope they will find that this study
contributes in some way to our common aim of understanding near-death
testimony.
Finally, I wish to acknowledge the wonderful support I received from
my family: Philip Zaleski, Morton and Laura Goldsmith, and Berenice Siki-
delsky. This book is dedicated to them.
A Note on Terminology and Translations
THE TERM "near-death experience," coined by Raymond Moody, applies to
the testimony of individuals who have revived from apparent death as well
as those who have only come close to death. As I shall indicate in chapter 10,
definitions of death, return from death, near-death states, dreams, and visions
are often blurry in the material we are considering. Whenever finer distinc-
tions are needed, I supply them; otherwise, for the ease of the reader I use
such terms as near-death experience, near-death vision, otherworW journey,
otherworld vision, deathbed vision, and return from death almost
interchangeably.
Translations are my own, unless otherwise noted. For the sake of brev-
ity, I have not reproduced the original Latin or vernacular European texts,
but I have indicated where these sources can be found. Latin editions of many
works cited here are included in the PatroJogia latina series edited by J.-P.
Migne, indicated in the notes by the abbreviation PL. Biblical passages are
taken from the Revised Standard Version or, in some cases, the Douay-
Rheims edition. For apocalypses and other extracanonical texts, I have relied
most often on The Old Testament Pseudepi'grapha, edited by James H.
Charlesworth.
Contents
INTRODUCTION 3
PART I
ORIENTATION
CHAPTER 1 A Wide-AngJe View 11
CHAPTER 2 Four ModeJs of Christian
OtherworJd Journey Narration 26
The Otherworld Journey as Apocalypse:
The Vision of St. Paul
The Otherworld Journey as Miracle Story:
The Dialogues of Gregory the Great
The Otherworld Journey as Conversion:
' The Vision of Drythelm
The Otherworld Journey as Pilgrimage:
St. Patrick's Purgatory
viii Contents
PART II
MEDIEVAL CHRISTIAN RETURN-FROM-DEATH STORIES:
A THEMATIC TREATMENT
CHAPTER J The Other World: Medieval Itineraries 45
Exit from the Body
The Guide
The Journey
CHAPTER 4 Obstacles 61
Fire
The Test-Bridge
Encounter with Deeds
CHAPTER 5 Reentry 75
The Visionary Transformed
The Visionary as Messenger
The Narrator as Messenger
Vision and Revision
Interpretation of Visions
PART III
THE MODERN NEAR-DEATH NARRATIVE: A THEMATIC
AND COMPARATIVE TREATMENT
CHAPTER 6 From Deathbed Visions to Life After Life 97
Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Precursors
Life After Life: A New Phase
The Researchers
CHAPTER 7 The Other World: Modern Itineraries 113
Attitudes toward Death and Dying
Images of the Soul
Liminality
The Journey
The Light
Judgment
Contents ix
"Falling into Heaven": Mystical States and Visions of the
Whole
Otherworld Topography
Otherworld Demography
CHAPTER 8 Back to Life 136
Approaching the Point of No Return
The Visionary Transformed
The Visionary and the Interviewer
PART IV
THE INTERPRETATION OF NEAR-DEATH VISIONS
CHAPTER 9 Ecstatics and Statistics 153
Credentials
Verification
CHAPTER 10 Explanations and Counterexplanatidns 161
Were They Dead?
Models of Death
"Natural" Causes
Counterarguments
CHAPTER 11 Evaluating Near-Death Testimony ] 84
Experiential Claims
Double Vision
Corporeal Imagery
The Question of Interpretation
Another World to Live In
Orientation
APPENDIX Chronology of Medieval Visions 206
NOTES 210
BIBLIOGRAPHY 248
INDEX 267