Greg Taylor writes: A number of dedicated researchers continue collecting evidence for the survival of consciousness, with new approaches and more refined experiments. For example, veridical NDEs are now being investigated in studies involving various hospitals around the world, in which patients who survive a cardiac arrest are being asked if they saw hidden ‘targets’ placed in the room that are only visible from near the ceiling.
However, while researchers continue to search for more evidence, it should now be clear that there is currently more than enough to rationally believe that consciousness does survive death. We have barely skimmed the surface of the literature in this essay – I suggest readers seek out the source materials and explore them at length – and yet we have seen the quantity and quality of the evidence is abundant and strong.
Professor Bruce Greyson, perhaps the world’s foremost expert on NDEs, says that while he is always open to alternative explanations, at this point in his opinion “some form of continued consciousness after death seems to be the most plausible working model” to explain the evidence.
Peter and Elizabeth Fenwick, after years researching end-of-life experiences (ELEs), note that “the hypothesis of extended mind manifesting at the time of death is a much more persuasive explanation for most of these experiences than coincidence or expectation.” Past-life memory researcher Jim Tucker says “I do think that these cases contribute, along with near-death experiences and the other things, to a good body of evidence that there are times where consciousness does survive after the body dies.”
Professor Stephen E. Braude, in his comprehensive review of the evidence for survival of consciousness – and related skeptical explanations, including super-psi – concluded that in his opinion we can say “with some justification, that the evidence provides a reasonable basis for believing in personal postmortem survival.” Alan Gauld in his authoritative examination of the evidence for mediumship says that in each area that we have reviewed there are “cases which rather forcefully suggest some form of survival,” and that “the super-ESP hypothesis will not suffice to explain the quantity of correct and appropriate information.”
And yet, orthodox science continues to largely ignore this evidence, with minimal funding and support for continued research – despite the fact that it provides answers to the greatest question facing us as humans, and a balm to the anxiety and suffering of those facing their own death or the loss of loved ones. Surely it is past time for honest appraisal of the substantial quality and quantity of evidence that has been collected by dedicated scientists, putting aside illogical fears of disrupting the scientific paradigm.
As Thomas Henry Huxley once said, scientists should be prepared to “sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses nature leads,” or else they “shall learn nothing.” A huge pool of evidence for the survival of consciousness beyond death has been collected across multiple fields, by honest scientists with critical minds using careful methods, often over the course of decades with little funding and chance of reward (in fact, often in the face of scorn or hostility from skeptics and fellow scientists):
10-20% of people who have a brush with death report undergoing an experience in which their consciousness separates from their body – confirmed by a substantial number of ‘veridical NDEs’ in which they provide details which they could not have known via any normal means – and meet deceased individuals and travel to another realm.
A majority of carers surveyed report that people, in the days and weeks before their death, undergo experiences in which they are greeted by deceased individuals and transit to and from another realm.
These experiences are not caused by drugs or a malfunctioning brain, and ‘Peak-in-Darien’ experiences provide evidence substantiating the reality of these visitations. Additionally, carers and family of the dying also often report experiencing anomalous events, including lights, ‘crisis apparitions’, and other strange phenomena at the time of death that have in a number of cases been corroborated by multiple witnesses.
Mediums who claim to be in communication with deceased individuals have been found by scientists to be able to provide accurate information that cannot be explained through normal, everyday means.
A collection of thousands of reports of ‘past-life memories’ reported by children across the globe provides numerous evidential cases where details were known about deceased individuals that the child had no means of knowing. Furthermore, in a substantial number of cases birthmarks and birth defects correspond to wounds on the body of the previous identity.
If we are seeking proof beyond reasonable doubt, we have it. A huge number of credentialed witnesses, providing details that have been found by honest, skeptical researchers to be backed by evidence, and pointing at the one conclusion. The only way not to accept the evidence is by being unreasonable; it requires multiple convoluted and unlikely explanations that reject all of the testimony of an impressive number of witnesses, motivated by an illogical desire to protect a worldview from being overturned.
The evidence is freely available, vast, of high-quality, and is all explained by one simple, parsimonious solution – if we are just willing to take the next step, move beyond the current paradigm, and accept that it clearly shows that human consciousness can survive permanent bodily death.
Greg Taylor, “What is the Best Available Evidence for the Survival of Human Consciousness after Permanent Bodily Death?” An essay written for the Bigelow contest addressing this question. I am presenting excerpts without references.
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