Science and the afterlife

I've been thinking lately about the scientific approach to proving the reality of life after death, and I'm beginning to wonder if, to some extent, these ongoing efforts are bit misguided. I'm not sure, but here is the direction in which my thoughts have been going.

The scientific method is an incredibly powerful tool, but like any tool, it has its limitations. A hammer is a useful tool also, but it's not of much help when what you need is a screwdriver. It's been said that when you've got a hammer, everything looks like a nail. This is the basic mistake made by adherents of scientism -- thinking that one tool, science, can do every job that's worth doing. It can't. And when science is pressed into roles for which it is unsuited, it becomes as clumsy and unhelpful as a hammer filling in for screwdriver.

The great hope of the early psi investigators who founded the Society for Psychical Research and its American equivalent was that, by using the scientific method, they would be able to prove the reality of paranormal phenomena. This hope was sustained by J. B. Rhine, Ian Stevenson, and other researchers. Some of the results have been impressive. For those who care to look with an inquiring mind, there is copious evidence for many psi phenomena and, I think, clear-cut proof of some (telepathy, remote viewing, precognition, and micro-PK).

And yet, when we come to the subject of life after death, we enter a realm where the evidence, however plentiful, is not ultimately dispositive. It is always possible to argue the evidence away on the grounds of coincidence, error, deceit, or "super-psi." These arguments generally do not seem compelling to me, because I'm impressed by the wide scope of the data and the high quality of some of it, as well as by the curious consistency of reports across cultures and eras. But it is impossible to refute such objections absolutely. And I'm starting to think that even the effort to refute them is not worthwhile. I'm starting to think that while the hammer of science may be able to hit the nail on the head in some areas of psi research, it is simply not the right tool for the exploration of the afterlife.

Afterlife cases, by their nature, don't lend themselves to laboratory testing. When a person is dying, there are other priorities besides running tests. We should want it no other way. The dying process has been dehumanized enough as it is, without further robbing the patients of dignity by intruding with scientific instruments on their last moments.

Of course, it's possible to test mediums under controlled conditions, but mediumistic communications are always problematic -- a mixture of valid and invalid information, remarkable hits and significant misses -- as well as a lot of material that defies analysis (philosophical claims, descriptions of the afterlife, professions of love, etc.).

Patients can be hypnotized and helped to remember alleged past lives, but the creative imagination of the hypnotized subject can never be ruled out as the material's source. And cryptomnesia, the mind's uncanny ability to retain and regurgitate detailed information obtained decades earlier, means that even verified factual details can be ascribed to "normal" perception. In those rare cases where imagination and cryptomnesia can be safely ignored, there remains the possibility of super-psi.

Even spontaneous recollections of children are susceptible to the super-psi argument, as are the comparatively rare but sometimes dramatic birthmark cases -- which, in a pinch, can be explained by PK.

Do I find these explanations credible? Not at all. But that's because I'm convinced, for a variety of reasons, that life after death is a fact. If I were not so convinced, I might find these other explanations acceptable. And from scientific standpoint, it's not enough just to prove your case to those who are already predisposed to accept it. You have to be able to prove your case to doubters, too.

It's not at all clear that the scientific method, no matter how rigorously applied, will be able to clear this hurdle with regard to afterlife research -- at least, not any time in the foreseeable future. The reason is not that the evidence is weak, much less that there is "no evidence," as some skeptics maintain. The reason is that the strongest evidence to date has been typically collected under conditions that are not altogether "scientific." Better results are obtained when investigators are not overtly skeptical, when controls are not too stringent, and when personal feelings are allowed to play a role in guiding and assessing the phenomena. But tough skepticism, tight controls, and the suppression of personal feelings are the hallmarks of the scientific method.

So what is the solution? It just may be the case that afterlife studies aren't particularly amenable to a scientific approach. Science may be the wrong tool in this area. A different, more personal approach may be needed. Perhaps the goal should be, not to prove the afterlife to the satisfaction of skeptical bystanders, but to prove it to our own satisfaction. Each of us has different standards of evidence and proof. Each of us has different personal experiences, and each places trust in different people. If your best friend, whom you have no reason to doubt, confides in you with a story of a near-death experience, would you dismiss it as a hallucination or a lie because it's not "scientific"? I think it makes more sense to recognize that science is not the appropriate instrument to use in this instance. Honor your friend and his story. Who cares if no one else would be convinced? It's not your job to change the world or save the world -- an impossible task, anyway. Your job is to be true to yourself, not to "the world" (which is only an abstraction) or to "science" (also an abstraction, and quite possibly an inapplicable methodology in this area). To place either "the world" or "science" above your own truth is to commit an act of self-abnegation. There are higher truths than worldly truths, and there are other avenues to truth besides science, just as there are other tools in a well-stocked toolkit besides a hammer.

To be clear: I don't mean to denigrate science, which is an extraordinarily powerful means of knowledge, when applied to appropriate subjects. I'm just not so sure that postmortem survival is one of those subjects. In this area, perhaps the poets and mystics are more reliable guides. Better still, let your own experience and exploration be your guide. And if anyone tells you that your experience is not good enough, you might just answer, "It's good enough for me."

Comments

[The Major]

Nice post, Michael, as always. Dr Raymond Moody made similar points in The Last Laugh, about viewing NDE's as entertainment rather than science, because they can't be absolutely proven by science, but that entertainment holds truths for us as well.

I guess a way of looking at it would be: imagine trying to scientifically prove the world's funniest joke, in an investigation by a scientist with no sense of humour. The atmosphere wouldn't be conducive to get the most out of the humour. However, given the right environment, the right atmosphere, jokes are wonderful and hilarious. I think there's a similarity here.

Art, music, humour, beauty, morality- they cannot be examined by science. And I wouldn't want them to be even if they could.

[Jacob]

Great post indeed and I have to agree with the main idea. I simply can't agree with the scientific approach that "anecdotal" evidence doesn't count at all. My mother-in-law has been in a 3-hour reading after her husband passed away and she was totally blown away by the confirmation details that the medium gave her in order to prove that this was her late husband giving the messages.

And even though skeptics sometimes say that "plural of anecdotal" is not data, I don't think it's noise either and should be taken into account.

[Leo MacDonald]

I disagree Michael survival after death can be tackled by science let's not give into the skeptics that what they want so they can poke more jokes at there opposites. See knowing that a lot of the evidence for life after death is scientific that is what the skeptics don't like and if anything i think they feel threaten by it as they should.

[Marcel Cairo]

Beautiful prose, Mr. Prescott. However, I wouldn't compare the hammer to a screwdriver. I would say that consciousness survival requires a pair of tweezers and a steady, calm hand to pull something out that's felt within. In that case, a hammer would definitely not fit the task at hand.

In my interview with George P. Hansen, I was struck by something he said -

"Don't forget, anthropology is a science, too."

It wasn't as if I had forgotten that anthropology fell under the sciences, but that anthropology is a valid method of acquiring real knowledge of the human experience.

So in some ways, I agree with you that a militant following of the scientific method only leaves you holding a hammer, but now I'm also thinking that our saving grace may actually lay in sciences like anthropology, sociology and psychology, all of which employ tweezers more than hammers.

Look, if science and its scientific methods can't convince all the people of the world that the Earth is round, how could we ever hope it could prove that consciousness survives.

The goal of the psi community isn't just to prove life after death or win an argument, it's also to keep vigilant and not let the reductionist materialist drunk on their own ego hog the microphone at the wedding. At least not on my watch.

[Leo MacDonald]

Wait a second the psi community isn't out to prove life after death it's just that psyhical research has amassed ovelwhelming evidence for survival after death but did not wish for it to be that way.

[Tim]

Beautifully expressed, Michael (do I detect a hint of ennui in your two most recent postings?), yet I don't completely agree. I think science can be a useful tool in researching postmortem survival, but only if science itself evolves. It's a human enterprise, and as Matthew Cromer is fond of saying, a method, not a position. Because so much of the survival evidence depends on subjective experience, the only way science can truly be relevant is if it changes to recognize subjective reality as valid and testable.

To date, science completely rejects subjectivity, despite forays into things like studies of meditators. These are just fMRI games, not recognition of subjective events as causal and real. The disdain for subjectivity is why Skeptics dismiss anecdotal evidence as worthless; that's a paradigm, not an eternal truth! Thousands upon thousands of consistent anecdotal reports about crisis visions, deathbed visions and so on cannot be so easily dismissed in my view--unless your goal is to dismiss the entire field by insisting that it depends on replicable laboratory evidence. No science that focuses on human behavior, such as anthropology or sociology, has to meet this requirement. Human behavior is inherently chaotic and unpredictable. So why should survival or psi research? Because it's unnerving to the Skeptics.

The aspect of survival work that drives me batty is the damned ambiguity of the evidence. If you allow super-psi into the mix (and that's a big IF in my opinion), then there isn't much of even the most impressive survival evidence, such as the cross-correspondences, that can't be explained away by psi. Now, of course, the Skeptics gnash their teeth over psi as well, so that's not even an option for them. It must all be chance, delusion or fraud. I'm not an experiment designer, but I can't see too many ways of getting around the problem of postmortem communication versus high-powered psi by the medium in a way that would satisfy today's scientific community. Either you accept that certain evidence is supportive of survival or you don't. However, some common sense is required. Super-psi seems to me to be like the "many worlds" theory used in physics to explain the quantum observer effect: a desperate attempt to get around an uncomfortable possibility. To quote the favorite principle of the Skeptics, Occam's Razor, that's a more complex solution than the phenomenon requires.

I do believe science can have something to say on this question, but not until we as a society can transform science to respect and acknowledge the subjective. I don't see that happening in this generation. But it's our responsibility to keep promoting that idea.

[Kevin]

"Perhaps the goal should be, not to prove the afterlife to the satisfaction of skeptical bystanders, but to prove it to our own satisfaction."

In High School, I had a good friend who was convinced lots of hot chicks wanted him. That didn't make it so. Don't look at what science has proven. Look at what people believed (with great certainty) until science gave them a better answer. That is why you need to be able to convince the skeptical bystanders.

[Kevin]

Dr. Robert G. Jahn, he of the late Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research group, suggested a modification of scientific methods for gathering and interpreting data related to experimental inquiries into psi phenomena, into which I would include NDE/afterlife studies. He emphasized the need to include "feel", the emotional reaction, the intuitive and personal, as well as the "generous utilization of conceptual metaphors". I enjoyed your post, Michael, in particular because it reminded me that my convictions about afterlife and precognition (as well as other related phenomena) were crystallized by my OWN experiences, and my subsequent searches for meaning and understanding have been initiated by those personal moments. It can be quite convincing to encounter the presence of your father at your side at the same moment that he lies some 35 miles away, having just "passed", and you haven't yet received the phone call bringing the news. Such an experience cannot be described as "scientific", but, as noted above by The Major, neither can contemplation of a painting or appreciation of a piano sonata. Personal experiences are far more galvanizing for the sake of conviction, and will never be scientifically "provable". Michael is correct in his assertion: "science" (and scientifically acquired knowledge) is not the only pathway to KNOWING. (For clarification's sake, I am not the same "Kevin" as the previous contributor above)

[william]

From my point of view there is a lot of evidence that highly suggest life after death. More evidence than we usually get in a jury trial when someone is on trial for murder and found guilty for that murder with that evidence based on eye witness testimony.

Granted eye witness testimony is always suspect but if thousands say they saw something or experienced something it usually stands up in a court of law.

Scientists and atheists have a huge stake in the materialistic paradigm and to ask them to even consider looking objectivity into the paranormal is too much to ask.

It would be like asking them to start over from zero again in their view of life.

As I have stated here many times try and convince my wife and her sister that death side visions are not for real. If you did she would only laugh at your suggestions that she and her sister were hallucinating or lying.

When I started this research into the paranormal 16 years ago I was naïve enough to think that the atheists would be the most open minded and not overwhelmed by religious beliefs; boy was I wrong. Atheism and religious fundamentalism are two sides of the same coin called “a closed mind”.

[MarkL]

The actual collected data indicating the existence of the paranormal, including some kind of survival after death, in my estimation is orders of magnitude greater than most of the evidence in the field of cosmology. Pronouncements are made and respected papers are published often based on _one_ set of data, sometimes so deeply embedded in noise that only statistical methods support the conclusions. Years or decades later the next set of data leads to an entirely different conclusion. But this is acceptable and "scientific" while repeated, consistent data sets from examination of the "paranormal" aren't. The bias and mental blindness is so obvious.

[Arthur]

People who have NDE's routinely make statements that exactly parallel/corroborate what Michael Talbot wrote about in The Holographic Universe. No one has ever been able to adequately explain that to me.

"This was very pleasant and comforting and went on for microseconds or billions of years, I have no idea since time just wasn't an operative construct and had no meaning or relevance to existence. I literally had the feeling that I was everywhere in the universe simultaneously." - excerpt from Mark Horton's NDE, http://www.mindspring.com/~scottr/nde/markh.html

essay about The Holographic Universe: http://www.earthportals.com/hologram.html#zine

[Allen]

Great post. I don't think that psi experiments are the path to try to get at the root of this question, that is, can science give us an answer of what happens after death. However, I think that research into near-death experiences (NDEs) can provide the best window into the subject, although some maintain it will never be definitive.

The most credible source for current research into the topic is the website of the International Association for Near-Death Studies at www.iands.org. In particular, you might want to check under the Research tab for two published papers outlining new findings, particularly the two written by Dr. Peter Fenwick and Dr. Pim Van Lommel.

During the past 30 years, NDEs have been the focus of many scientific studies at universities and medical centers throughout the U.S. and around the world. Many medical professionals who have seriously studied the research – and it is extensive – no longer dismiss this phenomenon as hallucinations, intense dreams, or caused by physiological or pharmacological factors. The best analysis of the many physiological theories regarding NDEs is on a DVD that has a presentation by Dr. Bruce Greyson (from the University of Virginia Medical School) titled “T3-Explanatory Models of NDEs.” It can be obtained from the website above at http://www.iands.org/conferences/2006_conference_presentations
This presentation was from an international conference in 2006 at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.

I am a member of the above association because it seems to me that this research can lead to the closest we will get to answers. To join is inexpensive, and they keep you up-to-date with the latest NDE research along with e-mails of experiencer accounts every month.
Allen

[Alex]

"I think science can be a useful tool in researching postmortem survival, but only if science itself evolves."

I think we have to realize that the scientific enterprise is in a different stage than it was even just 100 years ago. In addition to the powerful corporate influence on the scientific establishment's research interests, the "shut up and calculate" attitude has taken over the scientific community's mindset so investigation is strongly funneled into pragmatically oriented areas that are economically viable. The scientist type that is simply interested in gaining a philosophical understanding of reality simply has no influence on mainstream academic culture anymore.

In contrast to something like stem cell research, psi research, as far as I can discern, simply wouldn't contribute to the economy in any directly beneficial fashion. I hate to say it, but I think George Hansen is correct in his assertion that this research will always be confined to the fringe. Michael Grosso, in his review of Hansen's book, made a good point:

"For life after death would collapse the binary opposition of life and death, one of the mightiest pillars of our social and economic structures. Why would economic status, structure, and privilege choose to disrupt its own self-confirming worldview? Keep the trickster psi safe and tame under the guise of horror flicks, harmless in the form of New Age bromides, and the
smooth road to disenchantment remains unobstructed. Spending billions on a military budget designed to maintain our status as the world’s sole superpower and superstructure is perfectly
rational. The more we spend and the more we maintain the binary oppositions—life/death, good/evil, us/them—the more we buttress structure and rationality, and thus our superior
status and extravagant financial power. To understand why there is little interest in the scientific study of life after death, we have only to ask: What would happen to our angst driven, Hobbsean-paranoiac power structures, if the distinction between life and death were dissolved by proof of life after life?"

http://www.nidsci.org/pdf/grossoreview.pdf

[william]

We are a unique group of people that post on here. Art has his NDE’s and holographic universe, William has his variation and the paradigm effect, and well you get the picture.

As I was playing with my granddaughter today at the park in the sand with several other 3 and 4 year olds and every child was so unique in their personality I thought to myself "oh yes and all of this is due to chance".

Someday I suspect future generations will look back on us and our beliefs in the same manner as we now look back on the flat earth people; hopefully with a smile and not arrogance.

Speaking of understanding variation loved this bit of information.

“Pronouncements are made and respected papers are published often based on _one_ set of data, sometimes so deeply embedded in noise that only statistical methods support the conclusions.”

[Arthur]

I doubt we will ever be allowed to know absolutely 100% for certain that there is life after death because the death of someone we love is the ultimate lesson in separation which has everything to do with why we are here. The more emotional the experience the more powerful and long lasting the memory it creates. The death of someone we love imprints on the soul what it means and how it feels to be a separate, unique, individual which may be very difficult or even impossible in the Spiritual Universe due to those overwhelming feelings of connectedness and oneness which I believe is a by-product of it's "holographic" nature.

[Greg Taylor]

Once again, an excellent post Michael. I've been considering a related question lately: consider if one were to sit with a medium, and have 200 'misses', one after another. Then, out of the blue, the medium tells of the time you and your grandfather found a metal tobacco case beneath an oak tree, which you took home and kept your toy soldiers in...all of which are spot-on matches to an event in your life. I'm sure science - and most definitely the skeptics - would consider this sitting a resounding failure...and yet to anyone experiencing it, that one moment would outrank the 200 misses. In my estimation, correctly so - is this then a flaw in science, or simply in scientists' inability to use statistics/probability correctly?

Kind regards,
Greg

[Tim]

Greg, if you read Mary Roach's book "Spook" (which I think came out under another title in the UK), she has a moment like this when she's sitting with medium Allison Dubois. Dubois has very so-so success with her reading, and then pulls out a "dazzle shot" that leaves Dr. Gary Schwartz (the session took place at his University of Arizona lab) speechless: a question about someone in Roach's life collecting hourglasses. Obviously, that's a very specific piece of information; I can't imagine many people collect hourglasses, so you can rule out chance. Roach's brother is still very much alive, so you have to question whether this was spirit communication or psi.

But to answer your question, this is a flaw is scientific thinking: holding human performance, which is subject to infinite subjective variables from anxiety to whether or not you had a fight with your girlfriend the morning you went to take part in a Ganzfeld session, to the same rigor as a chemistry experiment involving inanimate substances is completely ridiculous.

With the incident with Roach as well as with your example, rational persons would say that the amazing "hit" proves psi despite all the misses, while also proving that these are highly unpredictable talents that cannot always be controlled by even practiced users. Of course, skeptics would point to the .5% hit rate in your example and shout: "See! It's garbage!" Such is bias.

[lucyjane412000]

What a beautiful post Michael and the contributions are just hitting that nail until the head is no longer visible :-) in other words bully for us against the naysayers. However I wouldn,t blame religion and science as the culprits in every case. Some beleive in life after death because of their religious upbringing. To have a *faith* is inbred early in life and begets *Hope* that this life has a purpose beyond just existing for humanity don,t you think William? I beg this question because you strike me as having been turned off so many times by religiosity banner wavers who jump on every band wagon for a while before experimentating the next one and never really getting below the surface. I respect your opinions but wonder why you seem to bash religion? I am a Catholic by the way and my religion has made me a good person and also heals me, knowing that my purpose will not expire upon leaving this life.
by the way you are more than the sum and total of this life.

Lucyjane D

[Tony S]

I think we aren't meant to know the answer to this with any certainty. If we knww for sure that there is/isn't life after death, or there is/isn't reincarnation, it would radically affect how we live our lives. It might even ultimately defeat the purpose for us being here in the first place. I think we are given tantilizing glimpses with enough deniability to keep us uncertain and searching for answers.

[Michael H]

Very well expressed Michael, and I understand your frustration. I also agree that at this point it is up to each of us to draw our own conclusions, based not just on studies and data, but taking into full consideration the experiential aspect of our own lives.

To my mind, what we are faced with here is not that science is inadequate to investigate the existence of an afterlife or the survival of consciousness, but that science has been hijacked by scientism and philosophical academia in order to support the concept of materialism.

It is quite remarkable to me that the idea that we live in a mechanistic universe survives with such tenacity nearly a century or so after physics uncovered the mysterious operations of the subatomic world. The behavior of subatomic particles is so puzzling that many of our top physicists have drawn analogies to thought and consciousness existing at the heart of all matter. James Jeans commented that the “universe is more like a great thought than a great machine”. Arthur Eddington stated that “the universe is of the nature of a thought or sensation in a universal Mind... To put the conclusion crudely — the stuff of the world is mind-stuff”. David Bohm noted that the “ability of form to be active is the most characteristic feature of mind, and we have something that is mind-like already with the electron”. Yet materialism marches on, determined to prove that we live in a clockwork universe and that consciousness somehow arose from dead matter.

Neal Grossman suggests in his excellent deconstruction of materialism “Who’s Afraid of Life After Death” that there are several factors at the heart of this resistance.

First is the confusion between evidence and proof. Mathematics and logic require absolute proof of theorems, the hard sciences do not. Science is about probability, not absolute proof. Astronomers are apparently comfortable with the idea that 96% of the observable universe consists of dark energy and dark matter that cannot be observed, yet in regards to NDE research, the mainstream demands absolute proof.

Second is the paradigm of materialism itself. As Grossman notes, if souls and spirits are in fact a component of reality, it should be possible to develop methods to investigate such phenomena. But souls and spirits cannot exist according to the paradigm of materialism, therefore it is impossible to investigate such things.

Third is intellectual arrogance. The keepers of the flame of materialism are deeply invested in their own intellectual brilliance. These are people who have spent their entire lives developing their intellect, and understandably like the concept that they exist at the very top of the evolutionary tree. The suggestion that there is an intelligence at the core of existence that far surpasses their own necessarily causes their egos to recoil in horror.

Finally, there is the powerful social taboo against belief in an afterlife, especially the idea of a life review. Our entire society is constructed on the materialist paradigm. As Grossman notes, the evidence already exists to conclude that the hypothesis that consciousness survives death is “more probable than not”. The societal implications of this are so far reaching that the acceptance of this hypothesis would require an absolute total reworking of all of our institutions. It is interesting to speculate what that society might look like.

The entire article should be evaluated by anyone truly interested in this subject. It is available here (registration may be required):

http://71.18.123.59/ojs-2.1.1/index.php/antimatters/issue/view/1/showToc

Ultimately, the issue isn’t with science being inadequate per se. The issue ultimately has to do with metaphysics. As Willis Harman identified in Global Mind Change, scientists are not usually conscious of the assumptions, but they control thinking. He refers to Metaphysic 1 (M-1) as the established ideas behind science:

"... the basic stuff of the universe is matter-energy. We learn about reality from studying the measurable ... Whatever consciousness is, it emerges out of matter (that is, the brain) when the the evolutionary process has progressed sufficiently far. Whatever we can learn about consciousness must ultimately be reconciled with the kind of knowledge we get from studying the physical brain, for consciousness apart from a living physical organism is not only unknown, it is inconceivable."

The second Metaphysic (M-2), originally proposed by Descartes, Harman describes as:
"... dualistic. There are two fundamentally different kinds of stuff in the universe: matter- energy stuff and mind-spirit stuff. Matter energy stuff is studied with the present tools of science; mind-spirit stuff must be explored in other ways more appropriate to it ..."

And yet a third Metaphysic (M-3) suggests that:

"... the ultimate stuff of the universe is consciousness. Mind (or consciousness or spirit) is primary and matter-energy arises in some sense out of mind. The physical world is to the greater mind as a dream image is to the individual mind. Ultimately, the reality behind the phenomenal world is contacted, not through the physical senses, but through deep intuition. Consciousness is not the end product of evolution; rather, consciousness was here first."

Until we have reached the point where Harman’s M-3 is the accepted paradigm, scientific investigation of the afterlife will necessarily be hampered. And until that point, we have no choice but to draw our own conclusions and, as you suggest, “let your own experience and exploration be your guide”.

Note: The last three characters of the link listed are TOC (it appears to be cut off in the preview).

[Arthur]

Great post Michael H! I plan on stealing some of it to use in a high school class on Science and Religion I'm teaching in a couple of weeks. I'm going to try and concentrate on physics and avoid the debate on biology and intelligent design. I especially liked your quotes by James Jeans and Arthur Eddington. I hope the kids are as interested in this stuff as I am. Thanks! Good stuff. - Art

[Tony M]

Great Post. I look forward to reading the rest of the comments later. Allow me a brief reaction now:

My attitude toward the scientific exploration of life after death is simple: it has given me enough to doubt my doubt.

In the twentieth century, materialism became the primary belief system. Even those who resisted it surrender to it to a significant degree. (I think of religion classes in my catholic high school that drained the miraculous out of biblical stories, yet still tried to find religious validity in them as symbols.) It is one of histories great ironies that the tools of science that established materialism as the dominate ethos of our time also planted the seed of its destruction. Psi research and after death research has shown that there is enough "there" there to justify belief in a spiritual reality in just the way you suggest.

[Dey]

Excelent post. I think many people believe that science is about "proofs", when actually most of science results are based on "evidence" (acumulative evidence).

Science isn't about absolute truth, but about a constant, progressive and systematic approach to the truth. In many cases, these scientific results are provisional, not definitive.

I think we can to get scientific evidence about afterlife. Maybe not "proofs", only scientific evidence (and it can be controversial because it touches deep ideological beliefs and prejudices).

I think the evidence obtained with "direct voice" mediumship is more convincing that other forms of mediumship, because the data obtained is more specific and less subject to arbitrary interpretation (See On The Edge of The Etheric by Arthur Findlay). It may be a excellent field to research and controlled experimentation about the afterlife.

Yes, you can try to interpret the data according to alternative ad hoc and post hoc hypothesis; but these hypothesis should be empirically tested too to know if they are correct or not. This is the only way to know which of the competing hypotheses is the best. The hypothesis better supported by empirical evidence will prevail. (The hypothesis not tested, as interesting or persuasive as it can be, don't have much scientific value)

For me, the problem isn't the scientific method, but the positivistic view of it. It becomes in scientism. I recommend to read Henry Bauer's scientific Literacy and the Myth of the Scientific Method to a discussion of scientific method and the progress of science:
http://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/77xzw7sp9780252064364.
html

On positivism:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positivism

[william]

“I doubt we will ever be allowed to know absolutely 100% for certain that there is life after death because the death of someone we love is the ultimate lesson in separation which has everything to do with why we are here.”

I take a different view I believe it is possible to know if there is life after death just as it was possible to know that the earth was not flat and the earth was not the center of the universe. Nothing is kept from us that is one of the great challenges of life: to explore and learn new knowledge and share that knowledge with our fellow humans.

If we are kept from learning if life after death exists; who is doing the controlling? Does god/universe/whatever put restrictions on us or do we put our own restrictions on ourselves. We are that that is having one magnificent drama and maybe even discovering ourselves anew. Without a not-knowing status there would be no exploration or discoveries.

We are souls on a journey to discover truth/s. Nothing and nobody can stop us from discovering those truth/s. On going continual improvement in knowledge and intelligence makes the journey meaningful. Watch a baby when they first discover they can climb stairs; they love the challenge. They climb to the top and then want to go down and start all over.

We are "programmed" by having a now knowing status to discover and to grow in love and intelligence. I would say we are programmed to grow in compassion but I have discovered most people, including Webster, believe sympathy and compassion are synonyms.

As a person that experienced compassion (once) in what is often referred to as a spiritual visitation the difference between compassion and sympathy is beyond works to describe. We can “do” sympathy but compassion comes from our level of consciousness and cannot be done.

[william]

whoops mistake. meant to say we are programmed by having a "not knowing" status not "now knowing" status. although an interesting slip as maybe we are meant to be in a "now knowing" (ie live in the now) status.

[Barbara]

I once heard a construction worker say if a hammer didn't work he got a bigger hammer, and if his biggest hammer didn't work, he used his truck.

"Science may be the wrong tool in this area. A different, more personal approach may be needed. Perhaps the goal should be, not to prove the afterlife to the satisfaction of skeptical bystanders, but to prove it to our own satisfaction. Each of us has different standards of evidence and proof."

This is exactly the reason that I follow an individual spiritual path rather than an organized religious one. The weakness of scientific or dogmatic study of such things is that so much of the evidence is experienced on a personal, as yet undetectable and unmeasurable, level. Organized religion doesn't on the whole encourage such exploration. Afterlife study takes place at the shoreline, that edge of accepted science where it meets spirituality. And it won't happen from within the rigid confines of a religion that skews openmindedness into conventional, embedded belief sets or fear of the unknown, or from a hardnosed atheistic mindset, but from a sort of mystical spiritual mindset that also holds to a notion of personal experience as a path toward truth. The danger there is one of gullibility, so one must check one's objectivity constantly.

I think perhaps the best starting point is exactly where parapsychology began, the field of psychology, which depends on personal experience and anecdotal evidence to a great degree. There's also some overlap in the medical field where, for instance, studies of pain management depend so much on the patient's reported experience of results. This isn't as cut and dried as weighing a sponge to see how much water it absorbed. One can be too mechanistic in one's approach and miss the real evidence.

[Michael H]

>I plan on stealing some of it to use in a high school class on Science and Religion I'm teaching in a couple of weeks.

Arthur, I can’t conceive of a better use of these ideas than sharing them with high school students.

If you do want to tackle what the implications of M-3 might be for biology, you might want to consider this link:

http://www.mkzdk.org/es/interviewes2.html

Good luck with your class!

[william]

"Organized religion doesn't on the whole encourage such exploration."

Maybe religion is changing. A couple of years ago I attended with friend a program called living the question and it was an in-depth look at Christianity. This program was developed by a group from the United Methodist church. Excellent study group where we shared a meal watched a video and then had open discussion.

Although I quickly earned the nickname the heretic it was said with laughter and smiles. Everyone wanted to ask questions and talk so much they had to put limits on each person’s allotted time.

The people attending still wanted the spiritual aspect of Christianity but did not buy into all the dogma. No question was off limits and the presenters in the video were sincere seekers of truth and showed more compassion for humanity than most Christians I know. Great personal stories from these presentors. Some moments of intellectualism from one of the Jesus seminar presenters but overall a great rewarding experience.

My recommendation if you ever get a chance to attend this program called living the question as an evening study group sharing a meal do it. The food is good (pot luck) the videos are excellent and the discussions are fantastic. You will come away with a whole new appreciation of what religion can be and will hopefully be in the future.

These people I met were all to a person spiritual seekers. You may leave with a whole new perception of the meanings and history of the New Testament and to the possibilities of Christianity.

[william]

Some comfort (kind of) for the seekers into the mysteries of life and life after death from one of my favorite authors. The subtitle of his book is “a theory that: all of creation is relative” was one of my breakthrough books that helped me on my journey to discover that for oneness to express its isness (static?) and become dynamic the necessity of ignorance. I am forever grateful to him for taking the time to self-publish his thoughts.

"It is frustrating to keep on trying to think and to fumble and start over again. It is much easier to follow a book or a leader, to sign on the dotted line, whether it is religion, science, economics, or human values. The beginning of wisdom is the realization of ignorance." (The Journey of the Soul: Gunnels)

[Barbara]

William, that at least sounds promising. I thought Christianity and religion as a whole was headed in that direction, toward a more progressive view, back in the '70s, and I realize there are progressive religious groups out there. Hopefully the current status, of more public voices of fundamentalism and dogmatism, is just a temporary backlash or something, but I find it disturbing, and it's unfortunately given religion a bad name in many people's minds, including mine if I only listen to the more strident voices. So thanks for adding that.

[Laura Knight-Jadczyk]

Your post was an excellent overview of the problem. Like others, I would like to think that somehow life after death could be proved, but I'm not sure it is possible. I've certainly had my own convincing experiences - with witnesses - which basically amounted to communication from the newly deceased. But, even with that, I was not fully convinced because I know how the human mind can fool us, even our own. What was more convincing that "visitations," was the experience I had with my son that actually unfolded under the eye of a journalist. This was reported in the St. Petersburg (FL) Times here:
http://sptimes.com/News/webspecials/exorcist/index.html
and I wrote a bit of the backstory here:
http://www.cassiopaea.org/cass/george_ray_kidd.htm

Anyway, for what it's worth.

By the way, I'm a great fan of your books! Keep them coming!

[The Major]

Here's another way of looking at it.

I was glancing through a new Derren Brown book the other day, and he was bashing the paranormal, without being terribly convincing, when he was trying to change people's view by the following analogy:

Take something 'paranormal'. Now, put it in a box where it won't be attacked, it won't be contradicted. You're leaving it alone for the time being. Then, try and think if could think up a materialist reason for it. Then, see what you think about it.

Now for me, that just wouldn't work. If you take the evidence for the paranormal, put my beliefs in a box, then I still wouldn't be able to come up with a materialistic reason for some of the phenomena.

Now, the way I look at, imagine you were a materalist. Put that in a box. It won't be contradicted, it won't be argued with. Imagine there was a God, or a Higher Being. How would he reveal himself to us?

Would he offer us definitive proof that there is life after death? How would we learn anything if he did? Life may be a spiritual journey for us, and we have to find the proof within ourselves, and through our experiences rather than simply being told the truth.

So, now with that concept in mind, does the scientific method still seem appropriate in this area?

I hope that made sense. It's some thoughts I've been chewing over today.

[Pat]

Laura,
I enjoyed reading your story -- both the article and your personal thoughts on it. I don't know what all of it means, but I'm interested in reading about it.

About Michael's post...I don't know. I think there's something there, but I can't say what it is. Reports of NDEs have been rather consistent, from what I can tell, and while I don't think you can know for sure (unless, of course, you've experienced it yourself) I would think that the sheer volume of consistent reports must point to something.

[william]

Major: “Life may be a spiritual journey for us, and we have to find the proof within ourselves, and through our experiences rather than simply being told the truth.” After 16 years of research and a lifetime of thinking about such things what you just stated appears to be so. Those that profess to tell us the truth can very well be our greatest handicap to discovering truth/s if we accept their truth/s as absolutes.

Laura: "Scars of the soul" hey I like that term.

“And, so it goes. Two steps forward, one step backward.” There are days in my research life where I feel two steps forward and three steps backward. Just kidding. If we did not need to take the steps I doubt we would have taken them. What may look like two steps backward were actually needed to get to the next step.

Thanks for sharing your son’s story. Chalk one up for hypnosis in the future being a very viable and useful research tool.

Just this day I met my daughter in law at a gym for kids and she stated that yesterday her 2.5 year old daughter asked her last night “ mom who is the boy standing on the steps” her mother stated I don’t see anyone on the steps and she repeated “mommy there is a boy standing on the steps” again the mother stated she could not see a boy on the steps.

My daughter in law has no idea if her daughter actually saw someone on the steps in their home. This child appears to be a very sensitive child from day one and cannot stand to see anyone hurt even in the movie nemo she cries when nemo’s parents are eaten by a larger fish.

Do children see things we are unable to see? I once read a story where a 3 year old went into the room of her baby brother in the crib and asked “tell me about the other side I am starting to forget what it is like there” the parents listening on a home monitor in another room where shocked.

I wonder how many of these types of incidents go unnoticed by parents that are not in tune with the possibility of reincarnation.

Barbara: I have this theory that as a nation loses it wealth the majority of citizens become very conservative and defensive in both religious beliefs and politics. Long term (50 to 100 years) I see religion being more progressive but short term (10 to 40 years) the road may be very hostile. Two major religions appear to be heading for a collision course. Of course out of chaos are opportunities.

[Michael Tymn]

I think Marcel and others have already said this, and I have said it many times, but not all science is exact science or laboratory science. Courtroom science is an example and the best we can hope for is evidence that meets the preponderance of evidence standard required for civil cases, or, better yet, the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard for criminal cases. It is science, even in inexact.

Incidentally, speaking of the SPR, Admiral W. Usborne Moore, of the Royal Navy, divorced himself from the SPR and called it the Society for the Prevention of Research, mainly, I think, because the SPR backed away from investigating anything that required darkness and thus missed out on some of the most evidential mediumship ever. One cannot help read Moore's Book, "The Voices," and wonder how Etta Wriedt, the subject of that book, could possibly fake scores of voices and very personal information that came though to various sitters. The book is full of testimonials from educated and professional people who heard their loved ones speak in their old voices, often in foreign languages, for 20 minutes or longer at a time. They talked about incidents that happened years before and certainly could not have been researched. Telepathy is also ruled out by many of the communications. Many of the witnesses mentioned that Mrs. Wriedt was talking to the person next to her as as many as three voices at a time were communicating with people in the circle. It seems to me that that type of evidence goes beyond the need for light. They spoke in Croatian, Servian, Norwegian, German, Italian, what-have-you. They spoke with different Scottish accents and used words that were familiar only to the sitters. Mrs. Wriedt was from Detroit.

I think Etta Wriedt is heads above Lenora Piper as the best American medium ever. However, she is not recognized as such because the SPR would not investigate phenomena in the dark.

[william]

Just a note on David Thompson’s mediumship. The latest is a materialized pet dog of one of the sitters. If that were the case it would be hard for David to undo his handcuffs and turn himself into a dog. Anyone have more information about this séance?

[Pearl]

With regard to children being able to see things -I firmly believe they can.

A close friend told me of the time her 2 yr old was playing happily when her Daddy put on some music. Suddenly the little girl began to cry bitterly and started screaming "No- I dont want to go I dont want to go". My friends husband was shocked and turned the music off. She quickly calmed down and seemed none the worse.My friends husband was so disturbed by it he never played the music again . Sorry I can't remember what the music was .

My own son used to point to a lady that he could see above his bed.When he was a bit older he described her and my husband recognised her as his mother who had died before he was born .
When our son was born my husband said "I wish my Mum could see him." I said "I'm sure she can." I had no idea then that my son would be able to see her too !

[Chris]

At this moment, while a fair percentage of the mainstream population are open-minded to some form of an afterlife and ESP, its unlikely that evidence for the above is going to create any significant changes. All it can really do at this moment for the majority is serve as a source of comfort. The thing is, most people cannot perform ESP or peer into other realms on any consistent basis without thousands of hours training (generally in eastern and western occult systems which try to maintain a degree of secrecy so their practices aren't watered down, misused, degraded and consumerized ala Yoga), thus making such pursuits the domain of the few.

I don't think the domain of the paranormal is going to change our society on any sizable level without the introduction and proliferation of technologies which operate based on the powers and laws which make up those higher levels of existance.

Which, in the end, brings us to the murky world of alternative free energy and medical treatments. I have no way of knowing myself whether these technologies actually work, but there does seem to be evidence of covert suppression of the above.

[Filip]

Nice post I think the following extrapolates a little bit about what you talk.
There is a big difference between proving something and having evidence for something.
And there is a lot of confusion about this.
This is explained pretty well in Neal Grossman's "Who's afraid of life after death" check http://71.18.123.59/ojs-2.1.1/index.php/antimatters/article/view/25/16
Proving for me is a mathematical proof beyond doubt but in social sciences and others this is impossible.
With evidence, theories can be created to explain the evidence and try to convince other people. But with every theory you have believers and disbelievers. Especially with controversial stuff there is a huge problem with previous belief systems to accept the evidence. The history of science has shown this, just look how the scientific establishment reacted on the tectonic plate theory or the idea of meteorites.
Now these aren't very controversial things when you compare it with evidence for life after death. And Michael has shown in his blog several times how ultra skeptics react on this. Life after death evidence just goes into conflict with one of the methaphysical assumptions in science: materialism and the accompanied belief atheism... Which aren't proven at all of course but ideas, theories!
Some skeptics will require mathematical proof before they will change their minds. Which is impossible.

Now there is also another thing.
Scientific knowledge is only one form of knowledge. Science excludes the whole subjective side of knowledge which therefore makes it a limited world view system.

For example: I don't need a consensus in the scientific establishment and a paper in a peer reviewed science journal and media attention about the fact that I breath before I can know that I breath. This is absurd but it is the reasoning with a lot of people concerning a wide range of topics.
What would such a peer reviewed article about me breathing mean to me? Nothing at all but a confirmation that I breath.
If I wouldn't have the experience of me breathing I would have to rely on the scientists word and eventually take a leap of faith in believing it to be true or not.
Now when I do this it's clear there is a level of uncertainty, are they speaking the truth, is there other data, rationalisations which could show otherwise? Suddenly a bunch of "filip is not breathing people" emerge and try to debunk every piece of evidence. What happens is a fierce discussion between believers and non believers. Both making use of the degree of uncertainty in the filip is breathing hypothesis. Very emotional stuff, people getting really mad and frustrated. I just keep breathing through all the commotion.
This whole mechanism plays very highly in all the discussion between ultra sceptics and believers about psi, NDE's, etc. Uncertainty about beliefs!
People believing something based on words are always stuck on the level of this and will have a degree of uncertainty and will have rational discussions to convince one of the other never fully able to resolve the uncertainty. Something a lot if not all people are looking for. Knowing that you can't know and understand everything rationally is a big step. That you can't prove anything beyond doubt through science is of course already totally forgotton by now. So I agree fully with Michael that reading and following all these skeptic arguments is pretty boring even when we let out the idea that they are wrong.

Now, Knowing that I breath is a different kind of knowing than the scientific method. Subjective knowing.
This subjective knowing can be applied to other things.
For example if I can give you a set of procedures to follow which would make you experience an out of body experience and everybody who follows this procedure could experience an OBE then this would be valid subjective knowledge.

This goes even deeper, there is a way to experience truth, reality as it is, unity as described in all the ancient religious traditons. The stages are pretty well described and a technique is well known: meditation.
These experiences are beyond words, there is no subject or object anymore, it is non duality, it is beyond experience but can be experienced. Talking about it is not the experience itself and talking about it is bound to end in paradoxes. This is a totally different kind of knowing and the scientific method will never be able to bring this.
But once you experienced these things yourself then the knowledge from near death experiences, psi etc will be seen as a confirmation but the whole emotional attachment to it will become a lot less.
Like me knowing I breath, if there would be 100's of people argueing about the scientific truth in favor or against me breathing, it wouldn't change a thing about me knowing that I breath and I don't need their arguments or theories to know it!
So I think if people are looking for knowledge from NDE's, reality, then there is no easy way out. We will have to practice to reach it like all the mystics had to do. Their experiences give hope and insight but they all point to the fact that we have to practice ourselves if we truly want to understand! Which I think a lot of NDE and psi believers are looking for.

greets,
Filip

[wvogt]

I would like to add a footnote to Michael Tymn's post above. The failure of the SPR to investigate the seances of Etta Wriedt appears all the more wrong-headed in light of the fact that they were not all held in darkness. As Admiral Moore tells us,

"...if she is in the room, we can distinguish voices in full light or darkness; if in the latter, they speak louder, longer, clearer, and, in every way, more satisfactorily than in light. When the room is made pitch dark we can not only hear the voices, but can see, as phantasms, those to whom they belong." (The Voices, p.6).

By the time Adm. Moore was writing the SPR had left behind its "heroic age," (i.e., the main original founders had died), and the drive to become accepted in the scientific mainstream--with a somewhat exaggerated emphasis on skepticism--had begun.

I agree with Michael T. as to Mrs. Wriedt's stature. She is arguably the most powerful medium ever to have emerged in the U.S. This is what Moore had to say about her:

"No psychic ever brought me so near to the spirit life. It is to Mrs. Wriedt that I owe the absolute knowledge of the near proximity of my friends who have passed over, and I feel greatly indebted to her for making it so easy for me to obtain that knowledge. It is a possession of priceless value; it outwears all time, and places the fortunate man who has it in a position of certainty that death has no sting and the grave no victory; that what is, is right; that all things work together for good; and that our brief span on earth, acquiring our individuality, is but the introduction to a higher life of greater possibilities and expansion." (Glimpses of the Next State, p. 160).

This from a man who had contact with many mediums. Of course, he was no scientist. Neither was Mrs. Wriedt.

[Alex]

"This is explained pretty well in Neal Grossman's "Who's afraid of life after death"

If you're trying to convince somebody that there is evidence in this area, I would refrain from recommending this article. I hate to seem dogmatic, but Grossman's article is so embarrassingly bad that I have a difficult time believing that it came from a professional philosopher. The researchers he cites wouldn't even endorse his over-the-top conclusions:

"Eventually, the weight of evidence begins to set in, and scientists are ready to announce to the world, if not as fact, then at least as highly confirmed scientific hypotheses:

(1) There is an afterlife.

(2) Our real identity is not our body, but our mind or consciousness.

(3) Although the details of the afterlife are not known, we are reasonably certain that everyone will experience a life review in which the individual experiences not only every event and every emotion of his or her life, but also the effects his or her behavior, positive or negative, have had on others. The usual defense mechanisms by which we hide from ourselves our sometimes cruel and less-than-compassionate behavior towards others seem not to operate during the life review.

(4) The purpose of life is love and knowledge—to learn as much as possible about both this world and the transcendent world, and to grow in our ability to feel kindness and compassion towards all beings.

(5) A consequence of (3) is that it appears to be a great disadvantage to oneself to harm another person, either physically or psychologically, since whatever pain one inflicts on another is experienced as one's own in the life review."

It isn't difficult to understand why skeptics are repulsed by this topic when so many of the proponents of this research are prone to writing such sentimental bullshit.

[Arthur]

(4) The purpose of life is love and knowledge—to learn as much as possible about both this world and the transcendent world, and to grow in our ability to feel kindness and compassion towards all beings.
--------------------------------------------

Yeah, I'm sorry but I have a real problem with this one. If this were true this Universe is very poorly designed indeed. Personally I think the purpose of this life is to experience duality and separation, time and space, and imprint memories of the parameters of what it's like to be in a physical body.

Duality and separation teach the soul what it's like to be separate, unique, individual. Time and space teach the soul what time and space look and feel like (numerous NDE'ers say that time and space don't exist on the other side), and those imprinted memories of the body might be used to conjure up a new body in the Spiritual Universe. Smack your funny bone and it imprints on the soul what an elbow feels like. Sort of like computer code.

[william]

“Some skeptics will require mathematical proof before they will change their minds. Which is impossible.”

Mathematical proof? How much mathematical proof is there for Darwinism and it is taught in our schools as fact. We humans believe what we want to believe in spite of mathematical proof.

How much mathematical proof is there for the vacuum genesis theory and the advaita followers teach it as the explanation how nothingness can create life and our universe. Again we humans believe as fact that which brings us the most comfort or recognition.

“This from a man who had contact with many mediums. Of course, he was no scientist.”

It matters not to the ultra skeptics if a person is a scientist they only say the scientist is not qualified to analyze the paranormal. Crookes and Lodge were great scientists and not believed. Look up some synonyms for religion and one will find that atheism is a religion.

“Alex stated: (4) The purpose of life is love and knowledge”

Art replied: “Yeah, I'm sorry but I have a real problem with this one. If this were true this Universe is very poorly designed indeed.”

Art I see it exactly opposite. I see life on earth perfectly designed for our consciousness to advance in love and knowledge although I prefer the words compassion and divine intelligence. Compassion is love in action and divine intelligence is awareness of reality.

Compassion cannot be done it is a state of Being and divine intelligence is not intellectual capability. As Emmanuel stated the earth experience is “perfectly imperfect”. Karma appears to be a perfect feedback system to give us opportunities to learn and advance our consciousness in love and intelligence.

“Duality and separation teach the soul what it's like to be separate, unique, individual”

I suspect this may be true. How else could oneness or pure awareness express/experience/share/ itself without duality and a perception of separation? Both duality and a perception of separation are mandatory for oneness to become twoness.

[Michael H]

>If you're trying to convince somebody that there is evidence in this area, I would refrain from recommending this article. I hate to seem dogmatic, but Grossman's article is so embarrassingly bad that I have a difficult time believing that it came from a professional philosopher. The researchers he cites wouldn't even endorse his over-the-top conclusions:

Alex, it is precisely this kind of selective, out-of-context “criticism” that Grossman eloquently elaborates on throughout the first thirteen pages of the document, and that you most conveniently ignore.

For those who have not had the opportunity to read the article in its entirety, I feel it is required for the sake of accuracy to quote what immediately precedes the selection you provided. He is clearly speculating:

“Consider the following scenario: Further near-death research confirms in great detail what has already been established, many more cases of verified veridical perceptions while “out of body” are collected and documented, advancing medical technology makes possible many more “smoking gun” cases of the type discussed above, longitudinal studies on NDErs confirm the already observed behavioral changes aligned with their newly acquired (or recently reinforced) spiritual values, and so forth. The studies are replicated in different cultures, with the same results. Eventually, the weight of evidence begins to set in, and scientists are ready to announce to the world, if not as fact, then at least as highly confirmed scientific hypotheses:”

Furthermore, Grossman clearly states his objective for the article on the first page, which is obviously not to “convince somebody that there is evidence in this area”. To quote Grossman:

“It is not my purpose here, except for a few examples below, to review the wealth of data that falsifies materialism. Rather, I wish to examine here the academy’s failure to examine the evidence — a failure that is especially perplexing when one considers the immense importance the question of an afterlife has for human beings. In this paper I will take the position that the evidence against materialism has accumulated over the years to the point that it is now reasonable to assert that materialism has been shown to be empirically false; hence, what needs to be explained is the academic establishment’s collective refusal to examine the evidence and to see it for what it is. The academic establishment is in the same position today as was the bishop who refused to look through Galileo’s telescope. Why is that the case?”

He then goes on to explore why that is the case, which I summarized in my previous post. In my opinion, Grossman delivers a devastating assault on the ideology of materialism over the course of the piece, and convincingly demonstrates that materialism is no longer regarded by academics as a hypothesis that is itself open to question, but has been transformed into a paradigm that is regarded as “a priori” true.

It also strikes me that, if as you suggest, “Grossman’s article is embarrassingly bad”, you should want as many people as possible to read it so they can draw that conclusion for themselves.

[Arthur]

Art replied: “Yeah, I'm sorry but I have a real problem with this one. If this were true this Universe is very poorly designed indeed.”

Art I see it exactly opposite. I see life on earth perfectly designed for our consciousness to advance in love and knowledge although I prefer the words compassion and divine intelligence. Compassion is love in action and divine intelligence is awareness of reality. - william
------------------------------------------

In my universe everyone learns what they are supposed to learn whether they want to or not. It's called "holistic learning." It's Imprinted on the soul with no effort required on the part of the individual whatsoever. Just living in this universe is enough. You don't have to do jack squat. What's the difference? In my scenario everyone wins in the end. God is so smart that He/She has designed a universe where every living thing graduates. I've read a blue million NDE's that say everything happens for a reason and there are no coincidences. And that EVERYONE wins in the end. If you want some links to NDE's that say so just let me know; but we're fixing to go out and eat Mongolian food so it may be later rather than sooner before I can find them. - Art

[william]

art have spent much time reading about NDE's but your post supported what I stated. I see no difference what I stated and what you just stated.

the one point I may disgree is that we learn everything we are supposed to learn. did you mean in this life? sometimes we do not learn the lessons in this life hence another life or many lives.

not sure about the imprinted part as being an absolute but I suspect a soul at least a soul with some advancement in soul development knows what it wants to work on in its physical life.

I try not to put all my research into one basket such as just NDE's but try to use a cross validation approach researching many areas of paranormal and life after death research.

[Bill Ingle]

Some of the publication dates in my small, new and slowly growing Psychical Research section are over one hundred years apart.

I'm not convinced that those taking a scientific approach today, in 2007, are necessarily any more successful than William James and company were in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries.

I found Deborah Blum's _Ghost Hunters_ fascinating, and was quite impressed with the activities of the featured investigators.

As someone who has played with mediumship for years and has many friends and associates who share this activity (all amateurs, each displaying their own unique version of this activity, each with different skill levels, and so on) this statement, allegedly from the dead Frederic Myers, impressed me:

"The nearest simile I can find to express the difficulties of sending a message is that I appear to be standing behind a sheet of frosted glass -- which blurs sight and deadens sound -- dictating feebly -- to a reluctant and somewhat obtuse secretary."

"A terrible feeling of impotence burdens me."

So here we have a putative afterlife communication from one of the psychical researchers, elucidating the difficulties from _that_ perspective! Marvelous!

I was struck by how James and company, despite so many years of effort, didn't seem to experiment themselves with trance and mediumship -- they attempted to maintain the distance, the "objectivity" of the scientist. Yet what might they have discovered had they done so? The problem, of course, would have been that few, if any, of their scientific detractors would have believed them.

In their strenuous search for evidence, they didn't seem to ask the sort of questions, either, that might have enabled the expression of some entity seeming to possess much greater knowledge of the situation (and ability to express this, through Leonora Piper or someone like her) -- an entity akin to a Victorian Seth, or the Edgar Cayce "Source." The "control personalities" and snippets from, possibly, the dead, are of a different nature.

They did not wonder, for example, whether Leonora's "control personality" might not access, say, the inner being or greater entity of William James, when William was in the same room.

What if they had done so? Would those of their world have accepted the results or, as in our world, would only those who found these in accordance with their own beliefs have done so?

In didn't happen in our particular branch of reality, and the intriguing results of many later researchers remain intriguing, hardly conclusive, ignored by those who simply refuse to look at such things.

In the end, I don't think this matters at all.

People will explore these realms no matter what opinions are held by others while those who cling to materialism will die like everyone else, eventually to be replaced (in my opinion) by those more open to other experiences and beliefs regarding the nature of reality, physical and otherwise.

Still, I often wonder whether or not it might, nevertheless, be possible to "prove" the existence of post-life awareness, to greater numbers, even to convince die hard skeptics.

This would require more than those informal experiments conducted all the time by mere amateurs, frequently using themselves as test subjects.

It would require sustained effort by a good number, much as Jane Roberts and her husband, Rob, persisted in channelling volumes and volumes of Seth's thoughts, getting well past the initial early days of gobbledygook and distorted snippets.

Further, as in a number of experiments conducted over the years by various groups (inevitably held in disrepute by the hard boiled types, those whose egoic walls are as thick as the walls of some medieval fortress) the very best intelligences to contact would be those whose personalities, in life, were familiar with science and the problems of "proving" the existence of an afterlife, and those, too, whose minds could well deal with esoteric technical challenges.

These non-living entities would be those who shared an interest with the group of living researchers.

I believe it could be accomplished.

Regards

Bill I.

[Bill Ingle]

Addendum to previous post:

1.) Note how Myers message "came through" one of the mediums investigated by the Victorian researchers, not a living counterpart of his own greater being. Such a counterpart (an "incarnation" whose life overlapped somewhat with Myer's) might have been much more "sympatico" with the Myers personality.

2.) In this regard, see
Exercise 7. Your Subliminal Self at the Keyboard (this is currently the last exercise, at the bottom of the page).

Amongst my acquaintances are those who can successfully "get" -- perceive and translate -- information from dead personalities not directly affiliated with their own entities, their "souls," but more often than not they are most successful at accessing their own entities.

A variation, one I employ, is to allow a dead version of myself to express himself in this way.

The result can be uneven (just the right attunement and light trance level is required) and difficult to maintain, consistently, while there is the added complication that over time we influence each other -- I begin to employ his language and thoughts in my writing even as he becomes familiar with me, my thoughts, and the world I live in.

Even so, this particular approach seems to work best for me, and, given sufficient time and energy, I hope to extend it to other such personalities. (Note the potential difficulties involved with accessing, say, an Elizabethan personality; such a personality employed beliefs and was "programmed" with a version of English much more removed from my 2007 self as compared to a Victorian personality who died a mere two decades or so before my birth.)

One reason I likely enjoyed _Ghost Hunters_ so much is owing to the time period involved; my own counterpart was alive, then, and knew some of the same people, even if he had no interest whatsoever in the occult.

Reading the book, then, with the events taking place in familiar places (like London) and a familiar time, was an extension of his education, focusing on areas he never had the time or interest to focus on in life. We both enjoyed it, then (and this brings up the question of identity -- are we one, two, or each part of something greater? There is no simple answer ; "separation" creates some peculiar situations).

As you might expect, some of my friends and associates access "dead" Victorians -- associates in one life situation often encounter each other, again, in new situations.

It was years before I noticed this particular Victorian pattern (the story is too long and complex to post here) and "put two and two together," plus I cheated a bit by asking about this; even so, my own particular entity only gave me clues -- he has long been concerned with my tendency to focus too much on "other" lives while neglecting my own.

Regards

Bill I.

[Pat]

Bill I.-
Thanks for sharing your account; it was really interesting. :) But what do you mean by "accessing their own entities"? I'm not sure what you mean y that, or by accessing a "dead" version of yourself. Could you please elaborate?

I've experimented a bit with automatic writing (which sounds similar to the exercise you linked) but I haven't had any particular success. I've had a couple of 'people' come through, with different names, but I don't know if this is just a figment of my own imagination or if I'm actually accessing anyone.

[william]

“I found Deborah Blum's _Ghost Hunters_ fascinating, and was quite impressed with the activities of the featured investigators.”

I also found this an interesting insight into the lives of some paranormal investigators such as William James. But: she did not do enough research into the Bridey Murphy case and dismissed William Crookes research with mediums Holmes and Cooks with one sentence in her book.

Apparently Ira Stevenson did his research because he suspected that the Bridey Murphy reincarnation case using hypnosis may have been a legit past life account of her life in Ireland.

Pat can you get those possible entities to verify their information about themselves that you could check out. Like their names and where are their records located in what courthouse etc.