A Spirituality of Death in the Context of Pastoral Care and Counseling.

Abstract

In major world religious/spiritual traditions, death is accepted as a natural end of life and a point of transition into the unknown. In this paper, I reflect from my personal experience as both a survivor of a Near-Death Experience (NDE) and as a theologian doing pastoral care and counseling. NDEs foster an internal sense of connection to the divine and to something greater or higher than the self which I call the "Spirituality of Death."