Summary: This essay makes the case for survival in two parts. Part 1, which draws on my work in the academic history of science, intends to clear the path for an unbiased appreciation of the empirical evidence discussed in Part 2, as well as for other essays in this contest which I presume will confront the empirical data head-on: It identifies and eliminates common obstacles in the way of recognizing the very existence of a serious survival research tradition, which began in the late 1800s and continues in the present time. In line with the consensus of perfectly mainstream history of science, I will show that the marginalization of survival research had practically nothing to do with the growth of scientific knowledge. I reconstruct striking continuities of serious scientific interest in survival from the Scientific Revolution to the present time, beginning with founders of modern science like Francis Bacon and Robert Boyle in England. I then discuss later eminent scientific figures interested in survival research, including William James, the ‘father’ of American psychology. Closely working with psychical researchers in England, James in fact conducted ground-breaking empirical investigations of spirit apparitions and mediumship, and formulated important methodological maxims of survival research.
The empirical Part 2 begins by discussing evidence from conventional biomedical sciences showing that, contrary to popular assumptions, survival-related subjective experiences – of encounters with the departed, end-of-life and near-death experiences (NDEs) – are widespread and can have strong therapeutic effects. I will then look at recent developments in neuroscience, which increasingly show that traditional ‘production’ models of mind-brain connections, which predict that consciousness is annihilated at death, are inadequate to account for recognized psychophysical anomalies such as ‘terminal lucidity’ and paradox findings of neuroimaging studies during induced mystical and NDE-type experiences. I will then discuss evidence showing that not all experiences suggestive of survival are subjective, by drawing on rigorously investigated cases of mediumship and children claiming memories of past lives. Finally, I will argue that the only rational alternatives to the assumption of personal survival are not fraud or chance coincidence, but squarely parapsychological explanations. I will conclude by arguing that there is strong evidence for personal motivation in certain categories of mediumship, which, together with certain features of well-documented cases of the reincarnation type, more than just tip the scale towards survival.
PART 1: IDENTIFYING AND REMOVING THE OBSTACLES
120 years ago, the only substantial scientific body dedicated to questions touching upon the subject at the time was the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) in England. Founded in 1882 by eminent Victorian intellectuals, the SPR’s mission was to investigate various contested phenomena associated with spiritualism and other controversial beliefs and practices, “in the same spirit of exact and unimpassioned inquiry which has enabled science to solve so many problems, once not less obscure nor less hotly debated”. Members of the SPR included the leading scientists of the day, such as physics Nobel Laureates J. J. Thomson (the discoverer of the electron), and later Marie Curie. Serving as a the SPR’s president in the years 1894 to 1895 was the great Harvard psychologist and philosopher, William James, who was also a co-founder of the smaller (and initially rather passive) American SPR in 1884. Certain influential accounts have portrayed the SPR as little more than a club of self-deluded spiritualists. But as we will see shortly, SPR membership often did not even indicate interest in the question of survival in the first place.
Fast forward to the present day: The SPR still exists, and although it continues to publish research on the ‘paranormal’ in its peer-reviewed Journal and Proceedings, it is now a mere shadow of its glorious Victorian self. Today, still not all of the research published by the SPR is concerned with survival, and the society is still lacking means to train let alone employ investigators. In the USA, on the other hand, there exists a research unit, which – housed by one of the country’s most prestigious medical schools – has specialised in survival research for over half a century. Founded in 1967 at the University of Virginia by the Canadian psychiatrist Ian Stevenson, the Division of Perceptual Studies (DOPS) is a team of psychiatrists, neuroscientists and psychologists, who investigate a wide range of reported phenomena suggestive of survival – e.g., near-death experiences, apparitions, spirit mediumship, terminal lucidity, and children’s memories of previous lives. Applying open-minded yet critical and rigorous methodological approaches, members of DOPS have produced an astounding wealth of sophisticated research, much of which has been published in scientific and medical mainstream journals.
As I will argue in Part 2 of this essay, anybody who has carefully studied this and the vast psychical research literature produced since the 1880s (and the critical responses to it) should agree it can no longer be doubted the data suggests that something strange is going on. Obviously, the ‘paranormal’ has always attracted dubious characters, and it would be ludicrous to deny that bias, wishful thinking, fraud and errors of human perception are problems which serious researchers constantly have to grapple with. But good science should and can separate the wheat from the chaff. And as I’ll try to indicate later, a perspective which integrates these data with more conventional scientific and medical knowledge can demonstrate that they point to a coherent picture of mind-body interaction that far outstrips mainstream reductionist accounts. In short, we are dealing with pretty revolutionary stuff, clearly demonstrating that the still prevailing worldview of nineteenth century physics is in urgent need of a facelift, to put it mildly.
But ask a random scientist if he or she has ever heard of DOPS or the SPR, let alone studied any of the psychical research data published over the past 150 years. Chances are that your question will either be met with a shrug or a reference to Wikipedia entries debunking all these studies as obvious pseudoscience. In fact, sociological evidence suggests that the average scientist rarely studies original, peer- reviewed research publications on ‘paranormal’ phenomena. Like the opinions of most non-scientists, judgements by members of the ‘scientific community’ on these controversial topics seem overwhelmingly informed by secondary, popular portrayals of this research.
Accounts informing public and mainstream scientific opinion are often produced or inspired by professional ‘Skeptics’, who usually make no secret of their outright hostility to the ‘paranormal’ in all its guises. The reason I write ‘Skeptics’ in American spelling and with a capital S is to specifically refer to self-appointed gatekeepers of scientific orthodoxy, who are typically associated with the ‘Committee for Skeptical Inquiry’ (CSI, formerly CSICOP) in the US. Well organized internationally in associations for the supposed promotion of ‘science’ and ‘reason’, these self-styled experts on ‘pseudoscience’ actively maintain and cultivate links to journalists, but have often no scientific or relevant academic training. To publicly bolster their supposedly scientific mission, Skeptics organizations have recruited celebrity scientists and science popularizers as ‘Fellows’ – astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson, Harvard psychologists Steven Pinker, and the ‘Science Guy’, engineer Bill Nye, are just some of the most prominent names in the US. And while Skeptics portray their widely publicized debunking exercises as ‘investigations’ and ‘inquiry’, their targets have documented grave misrepresentations of the targeted research, along with other serious acts of intellectual dishonesty.
Sociologists of science studying marginalized disciplines have independently confirmed these serious accusations: Regardless of the quality of scientific methods employed by unorthodox scientists, professional Skeptics have misrepresented even rigorous research as dangerous quackery, as soon as it produces findings suggesting the existence of ‘paranormal’ phenomena. Skeptical activists and their followers typically don’t err on the side of responsible caution, but are out to eradicate belief in the ‘paranormal’ whatever it takes – consciously destroying reputations and careers of serious, qualified scientists in due course. In the face of well-documented instances of unethical conduct, scholars who studied the strategies by which ‘Skeptics’ and their supporters powerfully shape public opinion for decades have expressed concern. Sociologists of science Harry Collins and Robert Evans, for example, felt it was their duty to speak up and say:
this is wrong – it is a dereliction of scientific duty. After all, among other things, scientists are there to help us know whether there are paranormal effects [...], but their input should be based on their best scientific efforts; ex-cathedra statements, or dirty tricks, are of no special value, nor should scientists pass their responsibility to outside groups.
Neither the general public nor scientists normally read sociological studies, any more than psychical research periodicals. It’s therefore pretty uncontroversial to say that your average scientist is usually unaware of the actually relevant research on the ‘paranormal’ – and the not exactly scientific ways by which the supposed consensus of the ‘scientific community’ regarding the non-existence of ‘psychic’ phenomena has been formed. This has certainly been my personal experience as well, in countless discussions I had with scientist friends and acquaintances over the last decades.
Most instructive in this regard were almost daily encounters with elite academics from a wide range of scientific backgrounds during my three years as a Research Fellow at Churchill College at the University of Cambridge. The Fellowship was awarded in recognition of my doctoral studies, which reconstructed the simultaneous emergence of experimental psychology and psychical research in nineteenth century Europe and US. Being a Fellow at a typical Oxbridge college is a little like being part of a monastery, as you live on college grounds and take your meals with other Fellows. Modeled on the MIT in the US, Churchill is one of the youngest and most secular Cambridge colleges, and its research and teaching staff are predominantly natural and applied scientists. Overwhelmingly, when I told scientists – including Fellows from other Oxbridge colleges and visitors from universities abroad – about my historical research, I had the impression of a general open-mindedness regarding my historical work.
Usually, however, there was considerable surprise when I mentioned that serious research on psychic phenomena was still going on. But as far as I can tell, even the few whose interest appeared sufficiently strong to request some of this literature never actually read it.
I was particularly stumped by several Fellows who told me in private of their own strange experiences. For example, one stressed he didn’t believe in spirits or any other ‘paranormal nonsense’. But then he shared what he said was the most striking experience of his life: he claimed that he knew his son had just died, at the very moment he had in fact perished in a car accident in London. Another senior scientist at Cambridge claimed that his wife saw apparitions of the dead on a regular basis. But even in these and other instances, there was not the slightest interest to study the literature, let alone to conduct research first-hand – or at least help bring critical but open-minded scientific attention to such experiences into the academic mainstream.
Another group of academic experts whose very job it is to help us separate the wheat from the chaff are professional philosophers of science, notably those trying to work out formal criteria distinguishing legitimate science from pseudo-science. But this literature hardly inspires confidence either. Seven years ago, I guest-edited a special section in a leading journal for the history and philosophy of science, with articles by fellow scholars working on psychical research in the history of science. In my introduction, I surveyed the professional literature and found that philosophers quite often literally didn’t know what they were writing about when it came to psychical research: primary sources such as original studies published by trained scientists in peer- reviewed organs were bypassed, and instead there was an unquestioning reliance on highly problematic secondary accounts popularized by media-savvy Skeptical activists and their supporters.
To illustrate ambiguous attitudes by philosophers of science to the topic, I also quoted from a private letter by Karl Popper, one of the most prominent philosophers of science of all time. Turns out that Popper himself was convinced of the existence of ‘paranormal’ phenomena, but absolutely rejected the idea of studying them scientifically – without bothering to offer a rational explanation why.
Knowing my audience, I deliberately didn’t make any claims about the reality of psychic phenomena in my review, but simply focused on the philosophical reception of parapsychological research. Still, when I submitted the proofs for print, I felt a little nervous and started bracing myself for the expected onslaught.
But what happened? Practically nothing. No barrage of emails hurling abuse, no constructive critiques, no expressions of agreement.
It seems, then, that you can’t just throw the data at scientists and other professional thinkers, expecting them to engage with this controversial material the way they engage with their own, conventional research specialities. Of course, serious research requires time and funding. So the situation may change if we could provide scientists with real career opportunities and some projection from the machinations of Skeptical activists and their journalistic supporters.
And I’m convinced that outright hostility to this research is not nearly as widespread as indifference. Not much has changed in this regard since 1869, when William James began complaining about responses by most of his fellow scientists to the reported marvels of spiritualism: James (who never came to fully believe in personal survival and was critical of the excesses of spiritualist beliefs) found that it was almost impossible to move scientists to actually investigate these empirical indications for survival.
Andreas Sommer, “What is the Best Available Evidence for the Survival of Human Consciousness after Permanent Bodily Death? Submitted to the Bigelow Institute 2021 contest on this topic. The paper with all notes and bibliography is available at https://bigelowinstitute.org/Winning_Essays/12_Andreas_Sommer.pdf.
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