Page 14 - NAMAH-Jan-2017

Namah Vol. 24, Issue 4, 15th January 2017
asylum seekers
• patients and carers who experience the
mental health system
• psychiatrists who know their training
doesn’t fit the spirit of the times
• psychologists aware of the importance of
personal history.
In addition, there are the original peoples of
Australia, Canada and USA who want their
spirituality acknowledged, and do not want
their spiritual practices pathologised. My
aim is to acknowledge the dilemma between
these different frameworks of knowledge and
bridge the gap between the perspectives of
physicians and those of their patients.
In this age of the Internet everything is seen, reincarnation was also central to Native
nothing can be hidden. If the mainstream press
doesn’t cover a story, we find it mentioned on
social media. If peer-reviewed journals avoid
certain research topics, then social media will neglected the study of it (8).
publish it. So our mainstream media appears
to be playing ‘catch-up’.
Below I present a range of ways on interpreting death. He suggested some kind of memory
human experiences, which when taken
together provides evidence of narratives
about altered states of consciousness.
Beliefs about survival beyond death and
mental health
Many people believe an individual does not
die with the body. They believe ancestors
exert an influence over the living, and
discarnate beings like djinns influence mental
health. A human being is said to consist of
physical and non-physical components, some
of which precede and survive death. Belief
in ghosts is ubiquitous in Asia and Africa.
A person’s body is said to be permeable to
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ghosts and spirits of the dead, who could
cause misfortune.
In the West, one part of the population
believes there is only mundane physicality
and no survival beyond death, while those
who claim to be psychics, mediums or
clairvoyants assert consciousness survives
beyond bodily death. Is it possible that
our understanding of physical reality and
consciousness beyond death influences our
interpretation of mental health symptoms?
Cross-cultural beliefs of survival beyond
death
In the past there was an assumption that
reincarnation beliefs were only held by
Hindus. However, the American anthro-
pologist, Obeyesekere argued that belief in
Americans, Africans and Oceanic peoples
(7). Other anthropologists suggested Western
scholars could not accept this, and so they
The psychiatrist, Stevenson claimed birth-
marks were suggestive of survival beyond
was transmitted between lives, and proposed
reincarnation as the most suitable explanation
(9). Young and Goulet suggested scholars
rarely acknowledged as veridical, beliefs
which were different from their own (10).
It is our beliefs which influence the ways
we interpret and treat mental distress and
extreme experiences. Evidence for survival
beyond death comes from end-of-life
experiences (11), bereavement visions (12),
or from the memories of patients with organ
transplants (13).