The Near-Death Experience of a Tlingit Shaman (1690-1740) - Historical NDE of the Month

The Tlingit people of the Pacific Northwest coast told the German anthropologist Franz Boas that they knew about the afterlife from people who had been there and returned. As an example, they told him of the NDE of a shaman who lived 150– 200 years earlier.

The account is fascinating one, and an excellent example of how NDEs contain universal, cultural, and individual themes and imagery. The fact that the shaman disliked the other world so much that he made an effort to return to his body on Earth conflicts with so many NDEs. The much more frequent feeling is that the other world is so wonderful that NDErs long to remain and resist returning to the body. The shaman’s concern to prove his OBE observations is also notable.

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