RESEARCH BASE
Search 3,721 documents across 34 fields — every claim tier-rated by evidence
3,633 are the core, quality-scored corpus (34 lettered sections — see How We Work); the remaining 88 are cross-corpus synthesis documents (68 InterDocs, 12 Connections, 8 Theories) also indexed here.
115 results for "shamanic death" — page 2 of 6
C_3_08 — Death Rituals, Funerary Architecture, and the Technology of Dying
How a culture treats its dead reveals its deepest beliefs about what a human being is and what (if anything) lies beyond death. From the earliest known intentional burial (~100,000 BCE, Qafzeh Cave, Israel — ochre-staine
E_2_06 — Black Death, Pandemic Cycles, and Civilizational Reset
The Black Death (1347–1353 CE) was the most devastating pandemic in recorded human history. Caused by the bacterium *Yersinia pestis and transmitted primarily through flea bites from infected rats, the plague killed an e
ZB_2_13 — Death Biology: Programmed Cell Death
Death in biology is not merely the passive failure of living systems but an actively regulated process at multiple levels — from individual cells to whole organisms. Programmed cell death (PCD), particularly apoptosis, w
ZC_4_11 — Anthropology of Death: Mortuary Practices, Grief, and the Afterlife
The anthropology of death examines how human societies construct, perform, and give meaning to dying, death, the disposal of the dead, mourning, and beliefs about postmortem existence — revealing that mortuary practices
T_2_01 — Psychology of Grief, Loss, and Death Awareness
The psychology of grief, loss, and death awareness spans clinical bereavement research, existential psychology, and experimental social cognition. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross's five-stage model (1969), though culturally ubiqui
B_1_03 — Osiris — Death, Resurrection, and the Underworld Kingdom
Osiris (Egyptian: Wsjr, conventionally vocalized as Wesir/Usir) is one of the most important deities of ancient Egypt — the god who rules the underworld (Duat), judges the dead, and provides the template for resurrection
Y_2_05 — Near-Death Experiences: Cross-Cultural Analysis
Near-death experiences (NDEs) — profound subjective experiences occurring during clinical death, cardiac arrest, or perceived proximity to death — have been reported across virtually all cultures and historical periods.
Y_2_04 — Neuroscience of Death — Terminal Lucidity and Dying Brain
The neuroscience of death has emerged as a legitimate research frontier, revealing that dying is not a simple cessation but a complex neurobiological process with surprising features. Michael Nahm and Bruce Greyson's doc
P_4_01 — Death and the Afterlife Across Cultures
Every known human culture has developed beliefs about what happens after death — making afterlife cosmology one of the most universal features of human thought. The major frameworks include: judgment and reward/punishmen
N_5_01 — The Shamanic-to-Institutional Pipeline
Across every major civilization, a remarkably consistent pattern emerges: direct, experiential knowledge-traditions — shamanic practices rooted in altered states of consciousness — undergo a five-stage transformation int
C_5_25 — Underworld Journey / Katabasis: Descent to the Land of the Dead
The katabasis (Greek: κατάβασις, "going down") — the hero's or god's descent to the underworld and return — is one of the oldest and most universal narrative structures in world mythology. The Descent of Inanna (Sumerian
O_4_11 — Sailing Stones of Racetrack Playa: Self-Moving Rock Mystery Solved
The "sailing stones" of Racetrack Playa — a flat, dry lake bed in Death Valley National Park, California — are rocks, some weighing hundreds of kilograms, that have been observed to leave long trails (tracks) scored into
B_1_17 — Underworld Deities: Ereshkigal, Hades, Hel, and the Rulers of the Dead
Every major world civilization has produced deities or supernatural rulers associated with death and the underworld. The Sumerian Ereshkigal (attested from the 3rd millennium BCE), the Greek Hades (first named in the Ili
B_3_12 — Phoenix and Firebird: Resurrection Bird Across Cultures
The Phoenix — a mythical bird that dies in fire and is reborn from its own ashes — is among the most enduring and widespread symbols of death, regeneration, and immortality in world mythology. The concept appears in dist
Y_2_10 — Drowning and Near-Drowning: Aquatic Altered Consciousness
Drowning — defined by the WHO (2002, revised 2005) as "the process of experiencing respiratory impairment from submersion/immersion in liquid" — is one of the leading causes of accidental death worldwide (~236,000 deaths
H_3_17 — Linguistic Genocide: Language Suppression as Cultural Erasure
Linguistic genocide — the systematic, deliberate destruction of a people's language as a means of cultural erasure — has been a consistent tool of colonial and authoritarian regimes worldwide. Distinguished from natural
A_4_02 — The Norse Eddas: Cosmology, Ragnarök, and the World Tree
The Norse Eddas — the Poetic Edda (anonymous, compiled ~1270 CE from older oral sources) and the Prose Edda (written ~1220 CE by Snorri Sturluson) — preserve the most complete surviving mythology of the pre-Christian Ger
A_4_03 — Popol Vuh: The Maya Book of Creation
The Popol Vuh ("Book of the Community" or "Book of Counsel") is the most important surviving mythological and historical text of the ancient Americas. A K'iche' Maya creation narrative, it was written down in the Latin a
A_4_16 — Tibetan Book of the Dead (Bardo Thodol) and Bon Tradition
The Bardo Thodol (བར་དོ་ཐོས་གྲོལ, "Liberation Through Hearing in the Intermediate State"), popularly known as the Tibetan Book of the Dead, is a collection of funerary texts attributed to the 8th-century Indian master Pa
U_1_03 — Music, Acoustics, and Consciousness in Ancient Traditions
The relationship between music, sound, and altered states of consciousness has been recognized in virtually every known culture — from Paleolithic bone flutes (~40,000 BCE, Hohle Fels, Germany) to Pythagorean harmonic th
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