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Near- Death Experiences” ABSTRACT Title of Document: FIELD NOTES FROM THE LIGHT: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDY OF THE MEANING AND SIGNIFICANCE OF “NEAR- DEATH EXPERIENCES” Laura Suzanne Gordon Doctor of Philosophy, 2007 Directed By: Professor John L. Caughey Department of American Studies This dissertation is based on a comprehensive study which investigated the meaning and social significance of “near-death experiences” (NDEs) by situating 50 experiencers (NDErs) as the “inside” experts on these profound, subjective experiences and their real-world impact. I used a phenomenological, “person- centered” ethnographic approach, new to Near-Death Studies, to make experiencers’ lives the orienting framework for my study. Informed by “reformist” qualitative- research ethics and health-education-and-counseling values, I analyzed study- participants’ life-history narratives against medical-scientific Near-Death Studies explanatory models, an NDE-Integration-Trajectory (NDE IT) patterns model, and social construction and identity-alternation theory. My findings were, first, that study participants’ descriptions of NDE impact and aftereffects, which matched previous findings, were adequately explained by neither social construction nor medical-scientific theory. Second, participants in this and previous studies described significant NDE interpretation and integration problems, in which I recognized a previously unidentified, health-education-and- counseling-related, pattern of unmet NDE integration needs. Third, my findings supported the previous NDE IT findings and model; and also recognized the importance of individuals’ multiple cultural meaning systems in shaping their NDE integration patterns.. Fourth, 29 of 50 study participants had not sought out and did not identify Near-Death Studies as a useful NDE integration context or resource; and they described it negatively if they mentioned it at all. Moreover, the 21 participants who had sought a connection with Near-Death Studies also expressed dissatisfactions. My findings speak to the need for development of a research agenda and model(s) designed to assess and address the education and counseling needs of tens of millions of NDErs, and their health care providers. My analysis addresses the potential social-wellness value, as well as the needs, of a community of 13 million adult NDErs, in the U.S. alone. It situates its analysis within a context of escalating social and ecological crises and an in-progress paradigm-shift away from the still- official Newtonian/Cartesian material world view of Western culture. It recognizes the potential social value of NDErs’ collective visibility as agents, among many others of a (re)emergent sacred worldview; one that is linked to the world views of diverse indigenous knowledge systems as well as of quantum physics. FIELD NOTES FROM THE LIGHT: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDY OF THE MEANING AND SIGNIFICANCE OF “NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCES” By Laura Suzanne Gordon Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2007 Advisory Committee: Professor John L. Caughey, Chair Professor Bruce Greyson Professor Daniel Leviton Professor Myron L. Lounsbury Professor Sheri L. Parks © Copyright by Laura Suzanne Gordon 2007 Dedication For my mother, Elizabeth Van Nuys Thomas Gordon Thank you for being my mother. Thank you for showing me how to live and how to die. Thank you for loving me to death—and beyond. Your Impossible Acts of Power, posthumously, weave a fantastic narrative of overlapping realities, inexplicable events with multiple witnesses, and a trail of unlikely outcomes, including this one, which no one could have predicted. In the beginning, I situate you: You are telling me about where you went after you died and why, despite your reluctance, you came back—“because I heard you kids calling me.” Thank you for being the ring of truth I heard sounded by every other mother who participated in my study. Thank you for registering the shock of realizing, simply because you had died, that you were no longer afraid of death. ii Acknowledgements First, I am indebted to the participants in my study for their time, input, and for sharing their stories. I am also indebted to them for being my own NDE disclosure and integration peer-support system—particularly since they do not yet have one of their own. I am deeply grateful for the guidance and knowledge of my dissertation advisors. John Caughey directed my project, taught and trained me as an ethnographer, and informed my interest in consciousness and cultural change. Myron Lounsbury helped me gain the knowledge and roots I needed to think and write as an Americanist. Bruce Greyson was a trusted guide to Near-Death Studies knowledge and culture. Likewise, Dan Leviton helped me build a foundation of knowledge in Death Education and Counseling. He also challenged me to face my responsibility as a planetary care-taker, and he became a friend. I am also grateful to Sheri Parks for her brilliance and her scholarly and professional mentoring. P.M.H. Atwater was unfailingly generous with her encouragement, knowledge, and time. Edith Turner, Katie King, and Donna Rowe gave me courage to claim what I found beyond the material reality borders. Marcy Fallon–Marinelli and the Dissertating Sisters soothed my fears and cheered my successes. Gloria Anzaldua was my inspiration, and her work helped me find my voice. Valerie Brown was a constant source of help and encouragement. From the beginning, I have been held within the strong Hoop of the Earth Council of the Shield Sisterhood and Gate Keeper AmyLee. Niyaweh. I am very grateful to my brother and sister-in-law, Bob and Robyn Gordon, my sister Linda Gordon, and my nieces and nephews, for their encouragement and faith in me. And I thank my partner Reg Stout for his loving support. Finally, I want to acknowledge the support provided the project by small research grants awarded by the International Association for Near-Death Studies and the Association for Death Education and Counseling. iii Table of Contents Dedication .................................................................................................................ii Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................iii Table of Contents .....................................................................................................iv List of Tables............................................................................................................vi Chapter 1: What Are Near-Death Experiences? About the Medical NDE Model and Contemporary Near-Death Studies Research .............................................................1 The Near-Death Experience as a Medical-Scientific Phenomenon .........................2 NDE Impact and Aftereffects – A Psychological Profile.....................................3 Emergence and Development of the Near-Death Studies Field...........................9 The Medical Model’s Description of NDE Features.............................................12 Explanatory Models.........................................................................................17 Religious vs. Sociological Explanations ...........................................................20 Critiques of the NDE Model, and Proposed Alternatives..................................21 An Introduction to the Study’s Core Participant Group ........................................27 Background – Placing Myself ..........................................................................31 Chapter 2: Listening to Near-Death Experiencers as the Experts – About the Study.34 Field Work Approach, Participants, and Selection Criteria...................................34 NDE Scale and Informant’s Scores ..................................................................39 Background Participants – The Study’s Larger Context .......................................46 Theoretical Framework and Research Method for Exploring Experiencers’ Lives ........................................................................................................................52 Life Histories and Cultural Assumptions ..........................................................63 The NDE Integration Trajectory Patterns (IT) Model.......................................70 Chapter 3: Seeing and Being the Light: Near-Death Experiences of Selected Study Participants..............................................................................................................75 Gwen: World of Shadows, World of Light..........................................................78 Chris: A Bar in Heaven?.....................................................................................84 Neil: “I Was Dead, and I Chose to Come Back to This World” ...........................86 Jenny: A Priest Blocks the Light..........................................................................90 Kelsey: Falling into the Dark, Dancing in the Light .............................................92 Alicia: Finding a Real Home and Family in the Light .........................................97 Eric: Just Floating Along, Perfectly Content ......................................................101 Chapter 4: Listening to Lives that Don’t End with Death, Selected Life History Narratives..............................................................................................................107 Gwen’s Stone Soup,
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