In The Next World , historian of religions Gregory Shushan explores the relationships between extraordinary experiences and beliefs in life after death. He first shows how throughout history and around the world, near-death experiences have influenced ideas about the afterlife. Shushan also takes a deep dive into the problem of similarities and differences between NDE accounts. Not only do they vary widely, but so does a culture's way of responding to them and integrating them into their belief systems.   In this book Shushan also compares NDEs with accounts of shamanic spirit journeys to afterlife realms, intermission states between reincarnations from people who remember past lives, and descriptions of otherworlds by souls of the dead communicating through mediums. Accounts of all these phenomena bear striking similarities to NDEs, though also have important differences. Examining them each in relation to the other results in a kind of reciprocal illumination, in which each type of extraordinary experience sheds light on the other.   Drawing on over two decades of research into cross-cultural afterlife beliefs and extraordinary experiences, The Next World presents not only an accessible overview of Shushan's work, but also takes a bold new step in psychical research. By combining ideas and methods from a variety of disciplines - archaeology, anthropology, sociology, and the study of religions - Shushan's unique take on the issues leads to new understandings of them. Unlike any of these disciplines, however, Shushan also crosses over into metaphysics, philosophy, and parapsychology, considering the implications of the cross-cultural data for the survival hypothesis: Are NDEs and other extraordinary experiences actually glimpses into another world and a taste of the true spiritual reality? If so, what could this afterlife actually be like in light of all the diversity of accounts? " Gregory Shushan's book, The Next World: Extraordinary Experiences of the Afterlife is an original treatment of the subject, as wide-ranging in thought and feeling as it is rigorous and scholarly. Heartily recommended."   ~ Michael Grosso , Journal of Scientific Exploration. "This extraordinary book provides concise, clearly-written text describing important NDE elements: universal, cultural, and individual layers; revelations; geographical and historical perspectives; reincarnation; academic and popular hypotheses. Shushan provides abundant NDE narratives, illustrating his arguments. This book is both academically accurate and highly entertaining, a remarkable combination. A brilliant book - fun to read!" -- James McClenon, Ph.D, author of Wondrous Healing: Shamanism, Human Evolution, and the Origin of Religion and The Entity Letters: A Sociologist on the Trail of a Supernatural Mystery . "In The Next World: Extraordinary Experiences of the Afterlife , Gregory Shushan explores near-death experiences as inextricable from the cultures of the individuals who have them. As a comparative historian of religious and spiritual experiences, Shushan takes us beyond the usual arguments over the reality of NDEs, and shows that the true nature of NDEs is irrelevant to their ability to inspire and influence our views of life and death. Examining the relationships between afterlife beliefs and NDEs throughout history and across cultures enables Shushan to shed a unique light on what NDEs imply about the true spiritual reality and the possibilities of an afterlife, and to advance our understanding of NDEs and of our own nature as few other books have. This truly is a remarkable book." -- Bruce Greyson, M.D., author of After: A Doctor Explores What Near-Death Experiences Reveal About Life and Beyond. "This fine new book by Gregory Shushan encapsulates his decades of painstaking ethnohistorical research on Near-Death Experiences (NDEs) and various related phenomena, spanning a remarkable range of cultures and times. Examining these complex and multifaceted phenomena from his perspective as a scholar of comparative culture, religion and psychology, and paying close attention to both similarities and differences among experiences reported in different cultural settings, he arrives at a picture which avoids both facile universalism and facile cultural and psychological determinism. What emerges is a more complex picture according to which the underlying experiences, having much in common with mystical experiences more generally, end up being reported in terms which also reflect the influence of personal psychology and the cultural or doctrinal setting. A final chapter seeks to distill the implications of this impressive body of work for the possibility of postmortem survival, and for our nascent conception of what it might be like. Strongly recommended!" -- Edward F. Kelly, Professor in the Division of Perceptual Studies, Department of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences, University of Virginia School of Medicine; co-editor of I