(Hoppál, 1987; Walsh, 1989). In contemporary popular culture,
examples of ascension experiences include UFO abductions and near-
death experiences (NDEs). We can mention here the story of the
neurosurgeon Eben Alexander (2012), who fell ill with a rare form of
meningitis, spent a week in coma, and after waking up had a detailed
recollection of a journey he took in the afterlife. Alexander’s ascension
experience received much publicity and been a favorite topic in evan-
gelical and esoteric mass media, also called a“proof of heaven.”Not-
withstanding Alexander’s claim that he had not had religious faith
before the experience, the story shows Christian influence and could
be classified as a tour of heaven, as well.
(3) Third,tours of heavenproper can be considered as the smallest group
within the broader categories offlights and ascension experiences. They
always involve upward motion and visiting places above familiar earth-
ly realms. In addition to that, they describe a heaven or heavens
populated by superhuman agents (angels, but sometimes also“rulers”
and other negative characters), humans in the afterlife, and particularly
an Abrahamic deity who dwells on the highest level and/or occupies a
throne. The roots of the Western tours of heaven are usually sought in
ancient Iran (Segal, 2004), where journeys to the hereafter were prob-
ably facilitated by hallucinogens, a practice that dates back to times
before Zarathustra (eighth centuryBCE) (Flattery & Schwartz, 1989;
Bennett, 2014). Since tours of heaven always include a mythological
apparatus in the sense I suggested above, they always have a religious
character. People who undergo something similar to what is described
in these traditions are likely to have subjectivereligiousexperience.
Apart from the mythological apparatus, however, the categories of
ascensionandtours of heavencover similar phenomena. Below I will
suggest that there are shared elements of subjective experience behind
all of them, which, in turn, are shaped by shared neurological correlates.7.6 NEUROSCIENTIFIC EXPLANATIONS OF
EXTREME RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCEIn the lastfifteen years, the neuroscientific study of religion produced some
preliminary insights about religious experience. As we have seen above,
scholars pursued different agendas and disagreed on what constitutes religious
experience at all. The tours of heaven we are interested in belong to the
category of“big experiences”or“extreme experiences”that are difficult to
approach in a systematic, empirical manner. One way to address the problem
Religious Experience 157