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Flights of the Soul: Visions, Heavenly Journeys, and Peak Experiences in the Biblical World is unavailable, but you can change that!

Reports of prophetic dreams, of journeys into the heavens, and of other alternate states of consciousness abound in the Old and New Testaments and in extra-biblical literature. And although some scholars consider such reports to be simple literary devices, John J. Pilch—a leading expert in social scientific interpretation of the Bible—argues that ancient accounts of alternate consciousness are...

at the lefthand side of the model in Figure 1 is another example. He relies for these insights on Foster (1976). Yet the contrast between “supernaturalistic” and “naturalistic” explanations is no longer valid or useful. Benson Saler (1977: 38) has demonstrated that the distinction is a Western, culturally determined concept. There is no word in the New Testament, the early patristic writings, or the liturgical texts that can be correctly glossed “supernatural.” Christian thinkers up to the fifth
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