The medical mainstream: Sommer excerpt #7

Historian Andreas Sommer writes: You probably noted that I still haven’t made anything like a strong statement about the reality of parapsychological phenomena. But as it should be evident by now, one major obstacle for many people to even look at the evidence has long been removed by perfectly mainstream history of science and medicine scholarship: The standard belief that ‘scientific naturalism’ – the categorical exclusion of ‘paranormal’ explanations from science, and indeed academic discourse at large – is the inevitable, cumulative and irreversible result of impartial scientific research over the past centuries, is not supported by evidence. Quite on the contrary: perhaps shockingly, ‘naturalism’ turns out to be little more than a gentleman’s agreement, one that has been shaped by theological as much as by properly secular concerns.   

Our Judge might of course still object even before we get to the empirical evidence, and say: Fine, Skeptics and their orthodox religious forerunners shouldn’t have twisted historical facts to suit their ends. But their battle against paranormal beliefs is still praiseworthy and noble. After all, it’s undeniable that such beliefs have always disastrous consequences: Jihad suicide bombers commit unspeakable atrocities for rewards in the afterlife. In Africa and other parts of the world, people accused of witchcraft continue to be tortured and murdered. Even here in the West, people still sometimes die in the course of exorcisms. Then there’s the undeniable emotional and economic damage caused by charlatans making a profession out of preying on the bereaved and other vulnerable people.

Similar arguments were of course common throughout history. In fact, Wilhelm Wundt advanced such concerns in his 1879 attack on spiritualism, where he explicitly stated that evidence for paranormal phenomena simply didn’t matter. Wundt thought it would be irresponsible to admit them even if they were real: “The moral barbarism produced in its time by the belief in witchcraft”, Wundt wrote, “would have been precisely the same, if there had been real witches,” and he added: “We can therefore leave the question entirely alone, whether or not you have ground to believe in the spiritualistic phenomena”.

Nobody in their right mind will deny that uncritical belief in the paranormal has caused disasters and will continue to do so. In fact, my own journey into the strange world of survival research as a teenager back in Germany began with such a tragedy: My surrogate family fell apart as a result of my closest friend’s mother’s growing obsession with the Ouija board, leading to divorce and grief which continues up to the present day. For me, this was a painful experience, and it’s probably easy to image it would bias me against rather than in favor of belief in the paranormal. But I have also witnessed how friends and acquaintances became better people – kinder, more responsible, and more resilient to the hardships of life – after adopting certain paranormal or spiritual beliefs which I myself find rather odd and do not share. 

And here I have to confess I don’t quite buy it when Skeptical activists claim they are primarily motivated by feelings of social responsibility. After all, it would never occur to Skeptics associations to try and debunk nuclear physics because of Hiroshima and Chernobyl; or destroy the automobile industry because of hundreds of thousands of traffic accident fatalities; or attack mainstream medicine and pharmaceutical corporations because of tens of thousands of patients dying of medical misconduct and side-effects of drugs every year. What’s missing here is a basic appreciation of symmetry regarding evident functions of paranormal beliefs. And the need for symmetry as a basic methodological tool in the assessment of the empirical evidence should start becoming clear once we face certain drastic changes in recent mainstream medicine in approaches to survival-related experiences (as I have argued in a recent contribution to a volume published in the Oxford Cultural Psychiatry series).

For example, since the early 1970s there has been growing medical attention to so- called ‘hallucinations of widowhood’ or ‘bereavement hallucinations’, medical terms for encounters of the bereaved with deceased spouses and loved ones. These ‘hallucinations’ are now recognized to be remarkably widespread, with a conservative estimate of at least 40% of the bereaved experiencing them. They range from a vivid sense of presence to tactile, auditory and visual impressions, which can be indistinguishable from encounters with actual people. These ‘hallucinations’ are reported by persons with no other indications of mental illness, and they can be transitory but can occur over years. ‘Ghostly’ encounters experiences by the bereaved are not usually perceived as scary or disturbing, and physicians do not consider them pathological or even therapeutically undesirable. On the contrary: whatever their ultimate explanation, it is recognized that these ‘hallucinations’ often provide the bereaved with much-needed strength to carry on.

A related body of clinical data concerns so-called ‘end-of-life experiences’ including ‘deathbed visions’, i.e., comforting other-worldly visions reported by dying patients. The first mainstream psychiatrist to call systematic attention to often emotionally striking visions of dead relatives and friends by terminally ill patients was Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, a pioneer of the modern hospice movement. Like ‘hallucinations of widowhood’, these visions, which seem to differ markedly from drug- and dementia- induced hallucinations, are also reported to have overwhelmingly constructive effects, and are recognized to be of significant help for the dying and sometimes bystanders (including family and medical personnel) to come to terms with the fear of death.

Kübler-Ross was also one of the first psychiatrists to write about ‘near-death experiences’ (NDEs), which have been reported by survivors of cardiac arrests and other close brushes with death. Certain NDE elements have become part of popular culture – impressions of leaving the body, passing through a barrier or tunnel, encounters with deceased relatives and friends, a light representing unconditional love, a sudden insight of the interconnectedness of all beings, and so on. The public discourse over NDEs is typically polarized by claims that scientists who study NDEs have either proven life after death or debunked them through ‘natural’ explanations. But once you get past the clickbait, it again turns out there exists a wealth of rigorous research published in biomedical mainstream journals which suggests something strange is going on indeed. Medical authors usually steer clear of discussions of paranormal effects often reported by NDE survivors, but yet again even the ‘naturalistic’ clinical consensus is that NDEs have often strikingly constructive after-effects and can even be transformative.

While no two NDEs are identical, they can often occasion lasting and significant personality changes. Regardless of survivors’ previous religious convictions or lack thereof, they usually ‘come back’ with the unshakable conviction that personal consciousness persists after bodily death. Other long-term effects of NDEs are striking increases in empathy, altruistic engagement and environmental responsibility, as well as significantly reduced consumerism and competitiveness. Considering that NDEs are overwhelmingly characterized as a state of bliss, perhaps the most counter-intuitive finding is that those having them are not prone to commit suicide. In fact, studies have suggested that suicide survivors reporting NDEs typically don’t repeat attempts to end their lives, and claim their NDEs as a reason to categorically rule out suicide in the future.

Interestingly, full-blown NDEs can occur in situations other than near death, such as in states of deep meditation. Practically each of its elements have also been described throughout history by people (including – you guessed it – modern scientists) reporting to be overcome by ‘mystical’ ecstasy and related states. The mainstream biomedical literature has also shown NDE-style experiences to occur in psychedelically induced mystical states, using substances such as psilocybin (‘magic mushrooms’) and N, N- Dimethyltryptamine (DMT, naturally occurring in the ayahuasca plant). Clinical trials have demonstrated that these induced ‘other-worldly’ experiences often cause similar personality changes as NDEs, most notably a loss of fear of death, and a newfound courage to face the struggle of life. For these reasons, psychedelic therapies have become serious contenders in the treatment even of severe conditions, including alcohol- and drug-addictions, and treatment-resistant depressions and post-traumatic stress disorder.

There is great irony in the fact that experiences and states of mind which mainstream medics now induce for therapeutic purposes have been demonized and aggressively pathologized throughout the history of Western science and medicine. The fact that today’s medicine is far more discerning in its diagnoses of patients reporting ‘weird’ experiences, and has even begun to exploit apparently striking therapeutic benefits of certain mental states and experiences which were systematically suppressed throughout the last four centuries, might justify a rather delicate question: Can clinicians afford historical illiteracy?

After all, it seems the ‘naturalistic’ self-image of modern scientists and clinicians has been informed – or rather, fundamentally misinformed – by certain historical myths and evidence-free assumptions. Modern axiomatically ‘naturalistic’ sensibilities have had a considerable limiting impact not only on scientific and medical research, but also on clinical practice. And while it remains important to keep exaggerated and uncritical beliefs in the ‘paranormal’ in check to avoid tragedies, I think it is high time to finally look at the other side of the coin, and wonder how much concrete damage has been caused by centuries of stigmatization, mis-diagnoses and mis- or overmedication of people reporting ‘paranormal’ experiences.

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.