Profs & Pints San Francisco: A World History of Seeing the Beyond

Profs and Pints San Francisco presents: “A World History of Seeing the Beyond” on near-death experiences and the origins of afterlife beliefs across time and cultures with Gregory Shushan historian of religions former lecturer at the University of Cork and the University of Wales and award-winning author of books such as Near-Death Experience in Ancient Civilizations and Near-Death Experience in Indigenous Religions.

In addition to the sacred texts describing beliefs in the afterlife most of the world’s civilizations have left behind accounts of near-death experiences that generally portray the journey of the soul in similar ways. Might the visions seen by those who had been at death’s door shaped their societies’ understanding of what lies beyond it? 

Hear that fascinating question explored by Dr. Gregory Shushan who has spent decades exploring the historical cultural and religious dimensions of afterlife beliefs and of near-death experiences through research posts at institutions such as University of Oxford's Ian Ramsay Centre for Science and Religion University College London's Institute of Archaeology and the University of Winchester's Centre for Death Religion and Culture. 

Having emerged as a leading authority on beliefs about near-death experiences and the afterlife around the world and throughout history he’ll discuss how his research reveals the existence of a symbiotic relationship between the two and he will explain the differences and similarities across cultures. 

He'll start by giving an overview of his findings from a sweeping survey of afterlife beliefs in the world’s earliest civilizations in Egypt Mesopotamia India China and Mesoamerica. Although they emerged independently of each other each of these civilizations had afterlife beliefs with features strikingly similar to each other’s and to reports of near-death experiences. Examples of what they thought would happen after death include leaving the body seeing one’s own corpse traveling through darkness meeting deceased relatives encountering a being that radiates light evaluating one’s earthly life and reaching a border or barrier. The afterlife was expected to be a place of other worlds transcendence and transformation. 

The implication from his research is that afterlife beliefs are not entirely invented by cultures. They’re also inspired by near-death experiences of which most of these civilizations left actual accounts. 

Dr. Shushan also will discuss his ethnohistorical comparison of near-death-experiences in numerous small-scale societies found in Native North America sub-Saharan Africa and Oceania. These accounts documented by early European explorers missionaries and ethnographers were often accompanied by statements that beliefs about the afterlife derived directly from known individuals who had been to the otherworld and returned. 

In addition to shedding light on a subject neglected in the history of religions Dr. Shushan's findings have profound metaphysical implications related to the nature of near-death experiences the possibility of an actual afterlife and what an afterlife could be like. As someone who has taught courses on death and immortality religious experience and ancient mystery cults he’s uniquely qualified to immerse you in a subject this profound. (Advance tickets: $13.50 plus processing fees. Doors: $17 or $15 with a student ID plus processing fees. Doors open at 5:30 and the talk begins at 6:30. Parking is available nearby at the Mason O'Farrell garage.)

Image: An illustration from ancient Egypt’s Book of the Dead. (The Louvre Paris / Wikimedia Commons.)

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