The Uttermost Deep

The Uttermost Deep: The Challenge of Painful Near-Death Experiences

Although there has been a considerable amount of research conducted in the last twenty-five years on near-death experiences, comparatively little has been written on those that did not provide moments of peace or joyful revelation, but instead were terrifying or painful.

The Uttermost Deep is a wide-ranging survey and analysis of background material and case studies of those who have experienced painful near-death experiences.

Religion scholar Gracia Fay Ellwood studies some of the constant themes that run through both good and bad near-death experiences, reveals their roots in their respective religious traditions, and attempts to shed light on their meaning through neurological, pharmacological, and psychological lenses. – Written for anyone interested in spirituality and mysticism, The Uttermost Deep will also be of interest to parapsychologists, researchers on death and dying, psychologists, and clergy encountering such issues in pastoral work. – Thoroughly comprehensive and wide-ranging, The Uttermost Deep is on a par with William James’ The Varieties of Religious Experience in uncovering how different cultures and people talk about the supreme mystery.

About the Author

Gracia Fay Bouwman Ellwood was born into a devout Calvinist family in a Dutch immigrant community in Washington. Having experienced from an early age the confusing effects of a conception of God that was both life-giving and life-destructive, she has long been possessed by a desire for understanding, for the healing of hurts, and for union with God. In the early 1960’s at the University of Chicago Divinity School, the search for understanding increased its focus as a result of an aside by Paul Tillich in a lecture on imagery of God.* The search continued with the flowering of the contemporary feminist movement. In the early 1980’s it led her, together with her family, to join the Society of Friends, where she is presently active in work for peace.