Comparative religions, near-death experiences, cultural connections are just some of the factors that weigh in to “paranormal” research. Dr. Gregory Shushan is considered one of the is the leading authorities on near-death experiences and the afterlife through history and culture. He is an Honorary Research Fellow at the Religious Experience Research Centre, University of Wales Trinity Saint David, and has authored the books “Near-Death Experience in Indigenous Religions,” and “Conceptions of the Afterlife in Early Civilizations.”
Shushan is an expert on the above topics, but also theories, cases, and other scholar’s takes on high strangeness. He’s also got an interest in punk rock, and natural journalistic instinct to “question everything.” Shushan weighs in below on some current and past topics in the world of UFOs, and the weird.
Q: As there is a cross-cultural commonality between NDEs, there is also cross-cultural paranormal and UFO abduction phenomena. Why do you think so many "paranormal" occurrences happen cross-culturally?
SHUSHAN: “At risk of seeming overly pedantic, I would question the assumptions behind the word ‘happen,’ because it seems to me to imply an acceptance that the experiences are, in fact, paranormal. So I would replace it with ‘are reported.’There are essentially two possibilities as to why ‘paranormal’ occurrences are reported cross-culturally: (1) the human brain universally creates similar types of hallucinatory experiences in response to similar kinds of physical and/or psychological and emotional stimuli; or (2) they’re genuine experiences of what they purport to be.
In either case, whatever the base or ‘core’ experience is, it is invariably colored and even co-created by cultural and individual particularities. Scholars and scientists often try to reduce such phenomena down to a single prime-mover factor: put crudely, they essentially argue either that they’re all in the brain (neuro-physiological), all in the mind (psychological), or genuinely paranormal. One my main arguments – going back to my work on ancient Greek and Egyptian dream diaries – is that unusual experiential phenomena have three layers of meaning and interpretation: universal, cultural, and individual. David Hufford’s work on sleep paralysis is a great illustration of this. He identified the phenomena as a genuine cross-cultural experience, marked by a combination of sub-experiences such as an entity sitting on a person’s chest, suffocating them or holding them down; inability to move, speak, or cry for help; fear and panic; and sometimes sounds such as voices or roaring. Hufford found that while these basic elements are stable across cultures, the identification of the entity changes according to local beliefs. So, in Newfoundland it’s a witch they call the Old Hag, across Asia it’s identified as different types of ‘sitting ghost,’ and in the modern Western world it seems to account for at least some reports of extraterrestrials.
Hufford’s research was key in lending support to what he calls the experiential source hypothesis: that paranormal, spiritual, or religious beliefs are often rooted in extraordinary experiences rather than the other way around (i.e., that the experiences arise from prior belief). And this is regardless of whether or not the experience is genuinely paranormal.”
Q:The same NDE experience people experience during trauma can be replicated through synthetic DMT. Is this a gateway to other "worlds?
SHUSHAN:”Again, I’d have to question some underlying assumptions here – that NDEs are the ‘same’ as DMT experiences, and that the drug can be used to ‘replicate’ them. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and I’m not sure this has really established. There are certainly similarities, but because both kinds of experience can vary so much between individuals we need to tread lightly with straight one-to-one equations. Moving through darkness and emerging into light doesn’t seem to be typical of DMT experiences, nor do meetings with deceased relatives. Feelings of being separated from the body are common, but I’m not sure that specific descriptions of leaving the body and seeing it below are. And more idiosyncratic imagery reported in DMT experiences - like giant insects or aliens - aren’t really typical of NDEs, but to answer the question to the best of my ability: who knows? These experiences could be gateways to other worlds, or simply to other states of consciousness resulting from non-paranormal factors. In both cases – though especially in NDEs – they are profound and often life-changing, but this doesn’t necessarily mean they’re veridical.”
Q: Orbs, voices of deceased relatives are sometimes associated with other areas of paranormal. Do you believe these orbs are "souls" that live on in the universe?
Gregory Shushan holds degrees in Religious Studies (University of Wales Lampeter), Research Methods for the Humanities, Egyptian Archaeology (University College London), and Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology (Birbeck College, University of London).(Gregory Shushan)
SHUSHAN: “The best way I can answer this is to make clear my own philosophical commitments: on a personal level, I don’t really believe in belief. What I mean by this is that I either know something, or I don’t. So for example, I know that people around the world and throughout history have reported NDEs, and my research has convinced me that NDEs frequently contribute to beliefs about an afterlife across cultures. I also know that such reports often describe encounters with deceased relatives, for example – but I have no way of knowing whether they really are the surviving consciousnesses of deceased human beings, or any objective entity at all, or indeed whether they are hallucinatory. The same can be said of any NDE element. Even if I were to experience them myself, I would probably still question them (as I have with apparently genuine extraordinary experiences with psychedelic drugs, meditation, and mediumship experiments). Same if I were to encounter orbs speaking in the voices of my deceased relatives. Although, if I were awake and in my right mind, admittedly that would be pretty compelling! Especially if someone else was there to independently corroborate. In any case, I’m comfortable sitting with that uncertainty, in knowing what I don’t know, and reserving judgement until I eventually find out for myself.
This approach is why I often frustrate both skeptics and believers, because they want me to support one ‘side’ or another. I can’t count how many times I’ve been told ‘oh, come on!’ when I bring up conflicting evidence or ideas, but I think it puts me in a good position as a scholar because I question everything. And my contrary nature means that if I’m talking to an arch skeptic I become more supportive of the paranormal arguments; and if I’m talking to a believer in the paranormal I become more supportive of the skeptical arguments, but really my research is outside this debate. It’s more about why people believe what they believe across cultures, rather than whether or not what they believe is true. Having said that, I do engage with the implications of my findings about NDEs and culture for the various truth claims (and am criticized for it by other scholars who believe it crosses a line into theology!). In both of my books, I talk about how the diversity of NDE accounts impacts materialist theories, but also how they impact metaphysical theories. Specifically, what kind of afterlife could be philosophically imaginable given both the cross-cultural similarity and diversity of NDE accounts? In the first the questions were in relation to ancient civilizations, and in the second to indigenous societies.”
Q:The Bledsoe family ( popular UFO experiencer Chris Bledsoe) has seen UFOs, orbs, light beings, and angelic ladies visit him. They have some photographic evidence of orbs, and weird shadowy figures on their property. NASA, the CIA and To The Stars Academy have all investigated his property and claims. What do you make of the claims, and what do you make of what he is potentially seeing?
SHUSHAN: “I know a lot more about punk rock than I do about UFOs, so I’m not really qualified to answer this! I’ll just say that I’m more skeptical about the veridicality of UFOs and alien abduction than I am about NDEs. This is not to say that I believe we’re the only intelligent life in the universe (especially given my attitudes towards ‘belief’), but that I don’t think there’s sufficient evidence to prove than any have visited Earth let alone abducted people. Having said that, I have trusted friends and academic peers who claim to have had different kinds of extraordinary experiences, and who firmly believe they were real. One highly respected scholar whose work, thought, and friendship I value greatly has encountered ‘alien’ entities during ayahuasca experiences, and is fully convinced of their veridicality, so I don’t simply dismiss such claims. I don’t feel that I – or anyone for that matter - is in a position to do so.”
-By MIKE DAMANTE