Stories about near-death experiences (NDEs) are nothing new. However, in some cultures, this topic remains taboo. For example, in Iran, all supernatural phenomena, including NDEs, are considered forbidden. Alireza Azeri Matin, a researcher from Malaysia, explains this with the “spiral of silence” theory, which implies that people tend to remain silent when they feel that their views differ from the point of view of the majority, for fear of being isolated from society or incurring more serious consequences.
In many religious countries, including Iran, the subject of NDE is taboo, because there it is believed that extraordinary abilities can only be ascribed to a few prophets and other divine figures who lived in the past.
However, in 2020, the unconventional concept of NDE became accepted overnight when the television series Life after Life was broadcast during Ramadan on the Iranian Channel 4. Discussions of near-death experiences have since become not only acceptable, but also popular, and in 2022 the show aired its third season.
For the first time in Iran, this personal and spiritual phenomenon has become the subject of public debate, although, as Azeri Matin notes, it took producers several years to get broadcasters to approve the project, and the first season started on self-financing terms.
Do you know other cultures in which phase states (lucid dreams, out-of-body and near-death experiences, sleep paralysis, etc.) remain taboo?
The article was published in August 2022 on the researcher’s ResearchGate page.
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