Skip to main content

Research Repository

Advanced Search

Did Emanuel Swedenborg have near-death experiences? Envisioning a developmental account of NDEs.

Jones, S.R.; Fernyhough, C.

Authors

S.R. Jones



Abstract

The causes of Emanuel Swedenborg's (1688-1772) voices and visions remain unclear. It has recently been argued that post-hoc diagnoses of schizophrenia and epilepsy are not congruent with Swedenborg's actual experiences. In this article we examine the phenomenological commonalities between Swedenborg's experiences and near-death experiences (NDEs). Using the Near-Death Experience Scale (Greyson, 1985), we show that Swedenborg's experiences meet accepted criteria to be classified as NDEs. However, despite significant evidence for such commonalities, Swedenborg's experiences also show a number of points of divergence from NDEs. After reviewing the evidence for a potential role of hypoxia in generating NDEs, we hypothesize that a proximal cause of Swedenborg's experiences was his tendency to hypoventilate. Further, we argue that a distal cause of Swedenborg's experiences was neural changes induced by his lifetime of unusual respiration, in conjunction with a predisposition to temporal lobe seizures. We conclude by proposing a number of empirically testable hypotheses emerging from our arguments, centered around a developmental approach to NDEs.

Citation

Jones, S., & Fernyhough, C. (2009). Did Emanuel Swedenborg have near-death experiences? Envisioning a developmental account of NDEs. Journal of near-death studies, 27(3), 157-187. https://doi.org/10.17514/jnds-2009-27-3-p157-187

Journal Article Type Article
Publication Date 2009
Journal Journal of Near-Death Studies
Electronic ISSN 1573-3661
Publisher lANDS
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 27
Issue 3
Pages 157-187
DOI https://doi.org/10.17514/jnds-2009-27-3-p157-187
Public URL https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1532342