SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATIONS INTO LIFE AFTER DEATH

1.  The Afterlife Experiments

In his book, The Afterlife Experiments, published in 2002, paranormal investigator Dr. Gary E. Schwartz and his research partner Dr. Linda Russek detailed a series of experiments and case studies they conducted with 8 mediums who were able to gather accurate information of deceased individuals under highly controlled scientific conditions using a triple blind protocol.  These mediums achieved an amazing 85% accuracy rate (control group was 36%).

Dr Schwartz is the director of the Laboratory for Advances in Consciousness and Health, a professor of psychology, medicine, neurology, psychiatry and surgery at the University of Arizona, a graduate of Harvard University, a past lecturer at Harvard and Yale for nearly 30 years and an author of more than 400 academic papers. Though initially a skeptic, he came to a scientific conclusion that the mediums had actually communicated with the dead and there is life after death!  


2. Near-Death Experiences (NDEs)

Dr Raymond A. Moody, MD, a medical doctor with postgraduate degrees in philosophy, was the first to investigate the phenomenon when he studied the experiences of about 150 people who were clinically dead before being revived.  He published his results in his book, Life after Life, in 1975.

Later research corroborated his reports of the common elements of NDEs which include a sense of peace, an awareness of being dead, an out-of-body experience, a sense of moving up a tunnel toward a bright light that mysteriously does not hurt the eyes, a non-verbal communication with a being of light, an intense feeling of unconditional love, being reunited with deceased loved ones, having a life review, hearing music, having heightened mental functions, a reluctance to return to the body, an altered perception of time and the congenitally blind being able to see.

These common experiences are being reported by people of different ages, beliefs, religions, races, cultures, sight ability and causes of NDE. After such experiences, people undergo a consistent set of value and belief changes, including a greater appreciation for life, a higher self-esteem, a greater compassion for others, a heightened sense of purpose and self-understanding, a desire to learn, an elevated spirituality, a greater ecological sensitivity and concern for our planet, a feeling of being more intuitive, a loss of the fear of death and a re-prioritization of life choices.Yet, there are some near-death experiences consisting only of being in a dark void, lacking love and surrounded by negative energies filled with anger and arrogance!

The consistency in the accounts of NDEs irrespective of culture and religion, the encounters with only previously deceased relatives during these experiences, their inexplicably accurate descriptions of hospital events which happened when they are brain-dead, and the amazing gift of sight during NDEs in the genetically-blind, suggest that NDEs constitute arguably the most convincing evidence of the afterlife.

3.  The Scole Experiments

Four mediums, Robin Foy, Sandra Foy, Alan Bennett and Diana Bennett were able to prove that there is an afterlife and that discarnate spirit entities exist in another dimension.  Between 1993 and 1999, in a series of sittings in Scole (England), US, Germany, Spain, Switzerland and Ireland, in full view of an audience of scientists, intellectuals and paranormal investigators, they demonstrated the voices of spirit entities, their physical touches, levitations and apports of objects, the spontaneous playing of musical instruments, the mysterious appearance of images in unopened photographic films kept in locked boxes and the materialization of complex patterns of psychic dancing lights.  Subsequently, researchers David Fontana, Arthur Ellison and Montague Keen, from the Society for Psychical Research published "The Scole Repport" which endorsed the authenticity of these phenomena during the experiments.  To-date, their findings have remained unchallenged.

Conclusion

It appears that there is an afterlife, but it is unclear what that afterlife is like.  It seems different from the accounts as told by the various religions.  However there are clues.  Some people who had NDEs were told during their experiences how they could live their lives better, emphasizing the importance of love for others, morality and the acquisition of knowledge.

     "Are you a human being having a spiritual experience, or a spiritual being having a human experience?"
                                                                       - Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Could de Chardin be right, after all, in suggesting that we are spiritual beings sent here to have a human experience to learn about love, to become moral and to gain knowledge?  If so, paradoxically, the afterlife is the real existence and our present life the unreal one!