Africans are generally regarded as great proponents of afterlife belief. Evidence of ancient afterlife practices found in Egypt suggests that Africa's role in the practice and spread of afterlife beliefs deserve a serious recognition (Turner 1993:12). The elaborate burial practices of the ancient Egyptians, which led to the availability of much evidence concerning the Ancient-Egyptian afterlife beliefs, have led some scholars to think that afterlife beliefs originated in Egypt (James 1976:156–157; Murnane 1992:37–46; Otey 2004:1–4). For example, Herodotus taught that the ancient Egyptians were the first people to assert that man is immortal and would live after death and that when the body perishes it enters into animals, ‘constantly springing into existence’ (originally from Herodotus, Edition Bohn, II, 123; Lucas 1948:263). Remains of food-offerings to the dead found in some Canaanites graves together with evidence for the practice of the Cult of Osiris found in Byblos have also caused some scholars (Albright and Koenig are of this opinion – Spronk 1986:57) to believe that those practices were strictly of Egyptian origin. Furthermore, there are many similarities between the ancient Egyptian and Yoruba afterlife beliefs, and these similarities have caused a number of writers to think that the ancient Egyptians were responsible for influencing or originating the Yoruba afterlife beliefs (Johnson 2001:5–7; Umoh 1971:116; cf. Agai 2013:10–12). I am aware that some Western biblical scholars have made several attempts to declassify Egypt as a part of modern Africa. This research is done with the assumption that Egypt was and is a part of the African continent (Adamo 2013:73).

Since the Society for Psychical Research was founded in London and in the USA in 1882, scientific experimentation or studies on psychical experiences and psychobiology have been improving immensely. Unlike in the past, many more scientists are now interested in researching psychical topics such as telepathy, precognition, psychokinesis, mediums, hypnosis, trance and other extra-sensory perceptions (Grosso 1989:237–239; Small 1977:99–100). The study of these kinds of topic has advanced the debate on the mind and brain or mind and body psychology, and this psychology is relevant in the scientific study of the after-life beliefs. Some scientists argue that the mind survives bodily death, but others object to this argument due to insufficient or lack of evidence (Harpur 1991:98; Ma’ SU’ mian 1996:138; Trueblood 1963:137). The near-death experience (NDE) in particularly is a topic which promotes the study of connections between the brain and mind or mind and body. Whilst this is relevant in psychology, it is also pertinent to note that, before the emergence of psychology as a formal subject, Africans had and still have their views concerning the activities of these various body components. I explore such conceptions with a view to find means through which the topic of near-death experience could be conceptualised in African culture and in African societies. I hope to achieve this by an explanation of the African views on death and the after-life in comparison to the scientific conception of death. According to the resources used in this research, it is evident that nothing or very little has been done by scholars to define the NDE from African perspectives, hence the need to begin to address the topic. Using the ancient Egyptian and Yoruba conceptions of the use of the various parts of the human body, I propose that scientific and African beliefs concerning the NDE are not the same.

Daniel Ekechukwu died through injuries he sustained in a fatal car accident on 30 November 2001 in Owerri in south-east Nigeria. Two different medical practitioners confirmed him dead, and his corpse was taken to the mortuary where a mortician applied the necessary chemicals to be embalmed. Daniel's wife insisted that her husband's dead body be taken out of the mortuary to a Christian crusade ground where the popular German Evangelist Reinhardt Bonnke was preaching with thousands of his followers listening. The deceased body was kept in another room in the crusade venue so as not to distract the attention of the huge audience on the crusade ground. Whilst the evangelist was praying for the entire audience, to the surprise of many, Daniel's corpse shivered and was raised to life whilst the injuries on his body disappeared immediately. Daniel claimed that, during his 48 hours of near-death experience, he came across hell, heaven, people he knew, beautiful edifices and angels (De Ruiter 2001).

Similarly, Augustine Chidozie, a renowned evangelist in Nigeria, also believes that he had once died but returned to life. In 2003, he spoke about his death experience in a Pentecostal Church in Bukuru in north-central Nigeria. Chidozie believes that he had truly died because the medical doctors who attended to him certified him dead, but he came back to life after three days. Chidozie claims that he was taken up to heaven where he met with Jesus and other saints. However, he was told that it was not yet his time, hence he had to return to the world to preach the Gospel of Christ to people. I had personally met with Augustine Chidozie and with many other people in Africa who claim that they have had an experience of death. One of them, a blind man living in Jos (north-central Nigeria), said that, whilst in heaven, he never saw any of his physical deformities and that his eyes were not blind. He also claimed that he saw Jesus, the angels and other biblical saints. In today's language, the experiences of Daniel, Augustine and many others who have had similar experiences are referred to as a near-death experience, and it is a universal phenomenon. Yet in Africa, the phenomenon has not been recorded and researched formally as it has been in Europe and in America.

A proper understanding of the meaning of death is required for understanding NDE, and in Africa where it seems that death and life are inseparable, it would have been an advantage to our knowledge if NDE could be studied from an African point of view. At present, the study of NDE is more advanced in medical sciences and in psychology than in theology and anthropology (Fox 2003:62–63). Opening up the study of NDE from another perspective such as religion and anthropology can break the scientific monopoly of knowledge over this interesting subject, and it would allow for a wider view of the subject such that both anthropologists and scientists stand the chance to benefit:

The medical explanations have a fixed, menacing, and unassailable quality, especially for those who feel that the explanations are too reductionist or overzealous. Medical science explanations [even in explaining NDE] appear ‘hard’, that is, difficult to understand and more objective than social or philosophical explanations. That stereotype hides many recent insights in the sociology of knowledge and in the history and philosophy of science. (Kellehear 1996:5)

The ‘hard sciences’’ monopoly of knowledge in the study of NDE is one of the reasons why NDE should be studied from a theological point of view as well. Hampe (1979:33–48) and Fox (2003:59) have done much work in this regard. The study of NDE from an African perspective would allow for the following:

In medical science, the word dying signifies the process of death, and a dying person can be resuscitated. One of the strands of death (somatic death) teaches that death means the absence of life characterised by the complete malfunctioning of vital body organs such as the lungs, the heart and the liver. Somatic death can be caused by sustained injuries, accident, internal illness and even old age. A very important organ that helps to sustain life is the heart. Whenever the heart stops beating for any reason, blood will not be able to circulate through the body, and the oxygen supplied to the brain through blood circulation will no longer be available as a result. This oxygen is what the brain needs most, and the absence thereof causes the brain cells to begin to die through a process called necrosis. The last cells that might survive for some time before finally dying are the hair and nail cells. The body cells that are in the process of dying have the tendency to survive for about four to six minutes before they die finally, and when this happens, such person could be declared clinically dead (Halsey & Johnston 1989:758).

Furthermore, it is appropriate to note that clinical death occurs when the heart and lungs cease to function, yet, before the cells finally die, immediate restoration or resuscitation could be achieved by restarting the breathing and heartbeat through electric shock, heart massage and other medical techniques. However, more than six minutes after clinical death, resuscitation is often difficult and sometimes impossible. When a person is dead, the body temperature of the deceased gradually drops to the temperature of the environment thus causing the blood to begin to settle down in the lower parts of the body. Within a short period of time, the corpse experiences a state known as rigor mortis, meaning that the body muscles become rigid, that all body tissues become vulnerable to attack by bacteria and that the body begins to decompose as a result (Halsey & Johnston 1989:758).

In the past, medical practitioners regarded a lack of heartbeat as the ultimate criterion for certifying death. This lack can be determined by means of electrocardiographic (EKG) tracing. However, brain impulses, determined by means of the process of electroencephalographic tracing (EEG), are today regarded as the ultimate criterion for certifying death. Brain death occurs when there have been no electrical impulses in the brain for about 24 hours. At present, there is no medical technique for resuscitating a brain that has had no electrical impulses for more than 24 hours, hence a person whose brain cells are dead could be declared medically dead as well (Moody 1975:196–199). Contrary to the medical criterion for certifying death as discussed, Moody (1975:196–199) argues that there are people or percipients whose EKG or EEG tracings ran negative or flat, and yet, they were resuscitated. Moody believes that EEG and EKG tracings have little or nothing to do with the events and experiences of what he terms near death. In summary, death could generally mean one, two or all of the following:

Ancient Africans had their ways of expressing their beliefs and their technology, and these were not written up until in modern times (Parrinder 1967:12–13). This implies that records stating the criteria used by ancient Africans to certify death are rare or unknown, and as a result, Africans rely on carefully handed-down myths about certain cultural practices together with artefacts and other information often found in burial tombs to understand the African perspective on death. At present, there is no record, despite mummification in ancient Egypt, that any deceased had ever returned to life to share his or her death experience. The same holds true for the Yoruba, who remove the heart of a deceased king to be eaten by the king's successor as a burial process (Lucas 1948:252–253). Ancient Egyptians also removed the heart of a deceased to be stored in canopic jars (Otey 2004:1). As a result, it can be suggested that, before Africans began to document events, death was certified when vital body organs ceased to function or when the deceased's physical body failed to operate in exactly the same way as before death or when the deceased failed to return to life for a long period of time (say from three or seven days and above) whilst the bereaved prepared for his or her burial (most Africans take a minimum period of three to seven days to prepare for a deceased's funeral).

In other contexts, the EEG and EKG tracings are the final yardsticks in certifying death in medical science, and when the physical body has been certified dead, the role of medical science ends, and it has nothing to do with what happens to the deceased in the after-life. Certain body organs may be removed for research or for use to support other lives, but this marks the end of the deceased. This is not the case in the African tradition. To an African, death means a transition from one level of existence to a supreme (ancestral) level of existence, particularly when burial rites are observed or when the deceased died at an old age (Lawuyi 1988:372). Opoku taught that, in Africa, life is not perceived as the opposite of death just as death is not the opposite of life, but death is perceived as a continuation of life in a different existence. Opoku (1989) adds the following:

The dead have an independent existence. They do not continue to live merely because they are remembered by those who are living, for the fact of life and non-life is not dependent on the memory of human beings, for human memory does not create life. (p. 19)

In the African tradition, God or the gods did not create life only to end it when the body ceases to function and that is why death and immortality are regarded as inseparable concepts (Booth 1987:158). The original intention of God or the gods who created humans were to give humans immortality, resurrection and the ability to become young again and that is why death could be regarded as a transition (Mbiti 1977:110). Furthermore, Africans teach that the living is expected to live for a period of time on earth before they are allowed to exist in a supreme form through death. The Yorubas, for example, believe that the ancestors are charged with the responsibility of overseeing that the living live out their life span as allotted to them by the gods (Eades 1980:122). Opoku (1989) sums it up when he notes that death is a stage of life:

The terms ‘this life,’ ‘next life,’ ‘afterlife,’ ‘eternal life’ are terms borrowed from European Christian philosophies [philosophy] which are foreign to African system of thought. Life is one continuous stretch of existence and is not split up into ‘this life’ and ‘the next life.’ What happens after death is not the terminal, definitive stage of man's life; it is only a phase in the continuing round of human existence ... The spirit land is not a place of eternal repose and happiness. It is rather a transit camp for those awaiting reincarnation to continue the life cycle. (p. 22)

The belief that the dead continues to live is what made Africans to undertake extravagant burial rituals after the demise of their loved ones, especially when the deceased is wealthy (Mbiti 1977:110–111). For example, the tomb of Kea in Egypt gives evidence of people who were loyal to the king and were buried alongside the king together with other expensive objects (Spronk 1986:57–58). In summary, Africans believe that the dead live amongst the living not only because they are being remembered or certain rituals are done in their honour. Rather, they believe that the dead are truly and visibly part of the living:

The deceased are truly members of the families on earth; but they are no longer of the same fleshy order as those who are still actually living on earth. They are closely related to this world; but are no longer ordinary mortals. Because they have crossed the borderland between this world and the supersensible world, entering and living in the latter, they have become freed from the restrictions imposed by the physical world. They can now come to abide with their folk on earth invisibly, to aid or hinder them, to promote prosperity or cause adversity. (Awolalu 1979:63–64)

The quote above suggests that the African perception of death is relevant to the understanding of their conceptualisation of NDE.

Africans believe in the division of the body, and they think that the spiritual parts of the body and sometimes the physical body itself will survive death. During the NDE, it is generally said that the mind or spirit leaves the body, and this idea is not a strange or new phenomenon to Africans. Developments in parapsychology and in other psychical research at present are encouraging positive research concerning the relationship between mind, brain and body, and this kind of research has aspects that support African beliefs that the mind or spirit could operate separately from the body and may survive bodily death, yet this has not been proven. Both Harpur (1991:55) and MacGregor (1992:142) point out that recent empirical studies on death experiences have without a doubt led to more research being done on the subject of traditional-mythological beliefs in life after death. It is not surprising that people in Africa who had a near-death experience are regarded to have truly died, and this is the case with Augustine Chidozie, Daniel Ekechukwu and the blind man cited in the introductory section of this research. Their confessions are taken seriously by Africans, the reason being that Africans believe that the dead can return home as a reincarnated being, an ancestor, a supreme spiritual being and sometimes as a normal human being. The Yorubas believe that it is an honour to be reincarnated, except for the Ogbanje, who came to the world to be punished or made to amend their ways (Asakitikpi 2008:59–60). At this stage, it can be suggested that, to Africans, NDE is not just an experience that leads someone to be close to death but one that leads someone to die and to return to life after death. As a result, when counselling NDE percipients or friends or relatives of people who have had near-death experiences in Africa, the counsellor ought to counsel bearing in mind that Africans regard NDE as real death, yet, with an opportunity for the percipient to return to life as ordered by the gods or ancestors. Hampe (1979:99–100, 102) also thinks that the transformative impact of NDE do help percipients to live a more valued life both physically and spiritually, hence this subject is relevant to both medicine and pastoral counselling. The most serious challenge concerning this research is the fact that the criteria for certifying death from an African perspective is under-studied, otherwise it can be suggested that the complete malfunctioning of the physical body, especially the heartbeat, would have served as an ultimate criterion for certifying death in ancient Africa. This aspect of the research requires further study.