Reincarnation and the Question of Near Death Experiences

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 PhD Candidate, Department of Philosophy and Theology, University of Qom, Qom, Iran

2 Associate Professor, Department of Islamic Mysticism, Islamic Azad University, Science and Research Branch, Tehran, Iran

3 Professor, Department of Philosophy and Theology, University of Qom, Qom, Iran

Abstract

Today, scholars take a significantly different approach to the question of reincarnation. Probably up to 100 years ago, most issues including reincarnation were examined and discussed based on a completely rational and discursive approach. However, Today’s scholars adopt an experimental and posteriori approach to this issue.  One of these issues regards “near death experiences”, which is briefly called NDE. Some claim that when they were near the clinical death, they have seen many events. Seeing the successive previous lives is one of the observations that has been recounted by these NDE participants and has been taken as a proof for the verification of reincarnation. The main question of the study at hand, then, is that if these reported experiences could prove reincarnation? The examination of the reports of these participants based on the library research method and the analyses provided by psychologists for this hypothesis proves that even if we accept the very occurrence of the NDE, many of its details such as the verification of the successive lives based on NDE is no possible and these experiences are unable to prove the reincarnation. 

Keywords


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