EeEVOLUTION AND LIFE AFTER DEATH

(Please see under Comments Section for email and links from the Campaign for Philosophical Freedom. Amongst other things these articles state that Einstein's Theory of Relativity was wrong and incompatible with Quantum Physics. Also that the term 'Spiritualism' now usually describes a monotheistic Christian sect, and no longer accurately describes the scientific search for proof of survival. I therefore take these points on board, and will in future describe myself as a 'Survivalist' rather than a 'Spiritualist', and be wary of Einstein's Theory of Relativity.

However there are many in Spiritualism not bound up by Christian dogma, and I am still not convinced that everything in Einstein's Theory of Relativity is wrong. But I always welcome different points of view, and the articles made available by the Campaign for Philosophical Freedom are the most interesting and exciting I've read for a long time. They explain such a lot - for instance why the best evidence of survival is hidden, and why debunkers like Dr Susan Blackmore are wheeled out on every occasion to ignore the evidence and pull the wool over people's eyes with the absolute nonsense she, and those like her, talk. Too many people have too much to lose if current scientific theories were proven to be wrong.)

I was brought up in a Christian background, but by my mid-teens was developing doubts – how could one religion be right and all the others wrong? I went thru a period of atheism and for a while became a Communist.

It was during this period I read about paranormal experiments in the Soviet Union and other Socialist countries. These experiments opened my mind to the scientific possibility of ‘life after death’ precisely because they were conducted by atheistic scientists.

What is meant by the term 'life after death' is survival of consciousness, and until we know exactly what consciousness is and where it originates, we cannot rule out survival. Is our personality, our conscious being just a mass of brain cells which ceases to exist when they die, or is it something separate which exists independently of our brain and body? In essence, are our brains the root of our conscious beings or are they more like a radio receiver, a kind of remote control for our physical bodies if you like?

Kirlian electronic field photography, a process developed in Russia, was able for the first time to show an image of an ‘aura’ around all living things, very similar to that ‘seen’ by mediums. The Soviet scientists called this aura ‘bioplasma’. Experiments indicate it seems to survive damage to the body, and even death. The Kirlian image of a complete leaf has been produced even after part of it has been cut away. Corpses in a Moscow morgue continued to have an ‘aura’ for about 36 hours in the case of peaceful deaths, but much longer in violent deaths, and in suicides the aura often hung around for weeks. Is this aura or bioplasma image the spirit or astral body mediums claim to see, and does it take longer for suicides and victims of violent death to adjust to their new situation and move on?

In my view there is convincing evidence that our conscious self exists separately from our physical bodies. The most important volume of evidence concerns Out Of the Body Experiences (OOBEs) reported from all round the world. It is all very well for skeptics to say these are hallucinatory visions caused by drugs administered in hospitals as death approaches or by lack of oxygen to the brain near death, but this simply does not correspond with the facts.

There have been many documented cases of people clinically ‘dead’ on operating tables who have accurately reported attempts to revive them, citing conversations in the operating theater at the time they were ‘dead’, and what instruments were used. In one case a hat pin was accurately described in a nurse’s head dress but was only visible from a point just below the ceiling looking down, and in another case the correct time was reported by the revived patient who had somehow seen a clock on a wall around a corner and not visible from where the ‘dead’ patient was lying on the operating table. Other patients have floated out of the operating room altogether and reported seeing relatives and friends in adjoining rooms, and have accurately described what they were wearing, what they were doing, etc..

The most convincing evidence of this type concerns the shoe on a ledge incident reported in the BBC TV series ‘In Search of The Dead’ and in the book of the same name by Jeffrey Iverson. A woman, clinically dead after a heart attack, was on the operating table. During attempts to revive her she reported floating out of her body, thru the ceiling of the operating theater and seeing a tennis shoe on an upper story ledge of the hospital. When the woman was revived she reported what she had seen, and they thought she had been hallucinating or dreaming.

However, a social worker was finally persauded to go and look for the shoe, just to quieten the woman down. She discovered it on a window ledge, and all the details described by the woman were correct – it was scruffy and the lace was under the heel. However there was something else unusual about the shoe the woman hadn’t mentioned.

Kim, the social worker, took the shoe down to Maria, the woman who had been clinically ‘dead’ on the operating table. Holding the shoe behind her back, she asked Maria what color it was, and got the accurate answer ‘blue’.

This is the nearest thing to scientific proof of life after death I know of. It is almost impossible to explain away by conventional theories. Had Maria secretly gone to Seattle, a city she did not know, and spied the shoe on a ledge in all its detail, and then made out she saw it when ‘dead’? This hardly seems likely, and what would be the reason a woman just recovering from being pronounced clinically ‘dead’ should put up such a pretense? She couldn’t have seen the shoe from her hospital bed because she was wired up to equipment and couldn’t get near the windows. In any case the shoe was on an upper story.

When people clinically dead see and report things which can later be verified, it is very strong evidence that the conscious self is independent of the physical brain and in certain circumstances, such as death, can separate from it and exist independently.

According to Spiritualist mediums who claim to communicate with spirit entities, there are many Spiritual planes. The whole purpose of life on Earth, and presumably any other inhabited planets in the Universe, is to learn and progress. We keep coming back and living different lives until we have no need to reincarnate on Earth-like planes any more; we progress permanently to the higher Spiritual planes. Many Eastern religions also believe in reincarnation, and there is a host of evidence of children who have given accurate descriptions of recent past lives, even recognizing surviving partners and other relatives.

In what used to be called the Western world, one of the most compelling cases concerned an Australian woman who felt she had lived before as a little girl in the West of England. She had never visited England in her life, but a television company was doing a research program about reincarnation and they agreed to fly her to England to see if they could find the place where she claimed to have lived in a past life. This Australian woman had a strong recollection of watching a man take a slab of stone out of a quarry, and later laying it in the floor of their home. It had natural markings on the stone, a series of irregular lines, one inside the other. Before flying the woman to England the TV company got her to draw the stone with its lines, and this was stored on computer.

Once in the English West country, the woman led the TV crew along a river bank. She felt her old home was somewhere near a fork in this river. Eventually they found the place where she thought she used to live, but the only building in the vicinity was an old outhouse, used as a barn. However the woman was adamant that it was the house where she used to live in a previous life. Getting permission from the farmer who owned the outhouse, the TV crew took the woman inside what was now a barn. She looked around and obviously found the place much altered over the centuries. Windows she remembered had been blocked up, and much to everyone's disappointment there was no flagstone floor, just an earthern floor below all the straw. However, the TV crew got permission to dig down to see if there was anything beneath this earthern floor, and indeed there was a flagstone floor. They eventually uncovered a flagstone with very similar markings to the one the woman had drawn back in Australia. The stone was photographed, and later compared with the drawing. Using computer technology and by superimposing the drawing with the photograph they were able to verify a remarkable match.

This flagstone had been hidden for centuries beneath earth, straw and muck. Nobody knew it was there, except this woman in Australia who felt she had seen it laid down in a previous life. Had she secretly flown to England, dug up this earth floor for no good reason, found the flagstone with the markings and photographed it so she could remember it and make up the reincarnation story? This is preposterous - in any case it was obvious the earth on the floor hadn't been disturbed for many years. The only explanation which fits with the facts is that the woman did indeed see the stone laid in the floor, perhaps by her father in a past life. Maybe she had played on that flagstone floor as a little girl, and knew the markings on that particular stone like the back of her hand. Possibly she died in childhood, so the memory of that flagstone and its markings were strongly connected with that short life. But this is typical of the kind of evidence for reincarnation which skeptics prefer to ignore, but which cannot be easily explained away.

What is the explanation for hauntings, ghosts and poltergeists? Regarding the latter, this phenomenon seems to be closely related to telekinesis, which the Soviets also experimented with. Telekinesis involves using the mind to move or affect matter in some way. In laboratory controlled experiments in the Soviet Union a certain woman was repeatedly able to move small objects apparently by the power of her mind. Poltergeist phenomena involves objects moving around, glasses smashing, etc. apparently of their own accord. Are they due to some spirit energy, or are there other factors. Often an adolescent is involved - it seems the explanation may lie partly with the living at least. It seems there are all sorts of forces and energies of which orthodox science at present knows very little.

Ghosts and haunting spirits often seem to be souls which become trapped on the Earth plane, probably not realizing they are 'dead' and so refusing to move on to the Spiritual planes. They can be released by exorcism. It is almost as if they are trapped in Time, reliving some traumatic event over and over, and to mortals witnessing these hauntings it is like watching a loop in some old movie - seeing the same scene enacted over and over. To the entity or entities involved, Time means very little, for it doesn't really exist outside our physical Universe. They certainly wouldn't realize they had been hanging around the Earth plane for centuries.

According to Spiritualist mediums, normally when a person dies they are met by loved ones, relatives and friends who have gone before. By now the concept of a long, dark tunnel with a bright light at the end has now become folklore. It is reported by those experiencing OOBEs, and seems to be what usually happens when someone dies. They pass thru this tunnel and emerge into the bright light of the Spiritual planes, where they meet those who departed their Earth life earlier.

In violent deaths, however, the disembodied spirit is sometimes confused, and as the Moscow experiment shows, they take longer to adjust to their new situation and move towards the light. Some spirits never seem to move on. Either they are too attached to Earthly things, they feel there is something they have to do here first, or perhaps they simply retain their skepticism and atheism after death and continue to refuse point blank to believe in life after death. If they are still conscious of their surroundings, they must be still alive, so they hang around trying to draw attention to themselves.

All this could be dismissed as mere hocus pocus or at best religious theory with no facts to back it up, but countless reports of OOBEs and medium communications with the dead back it up. Why are reports from all religions and cultures so similar if they are purely imaginary or hallucinatory? Furthermore, the latest quantum scientific theories are very similar to some of the above phenomena.

Quantum physics postulates many parallel universes interpenetrating each other; very similar to the Spiritualist model of many Spiritual planes, normally invisible to us but surrounding us all the time. Furthermore, there is a theory about wormholes linking various parts of our own universe, but also possibly acting as gateways to other parallel universes. These wormholes are linked to black holes, and it is even postulated they could provide a means of traveling to distant parts of our own universe. Hyperspace travel is the term for using such short-cuts, but no-one knows if it will ever prove possible. Nevertheless, wormholes seem to be very similar to the dark tunnel emerging into light which those who have experienced OOBEs say leads to the Spiritual planes. Are they actually entering a wormhole in their bioplasma or astral bodies and emerging in a parallel universe? This would seem to be a logical scientific explanation, if only orthodox science would examine the mounting evidence instead of ignoring it, burying their heads in the sand like ostriches.

In 2004 Professor Stephen Hawkings announced he had mathematically revised his theories about black holes, and now believed it was possible for information to escape. If this theory proves correct, and some information can indeed bounce off the event horizon of a black hole and be retrieved, it in no way invalidates the theory that matter/energy sucked into black holes/wormholes may emerge in distant parts of our Universe or into a parallel universe. It remains true that matter and energy is constantly being sucked into black holes apparently never to reappear. Where does all this matter and energy go? The fact that some information may escape the black hole is really neither here nor there. Black holes/wormholes could still be gateways to parallel universes.

Theories can be developed to explain all this. I have read many books and seen investigative TV programs, I have been to Spiritualist mediums, and I have had direct experience of communication with the dead myself. My deceased partner has communicated directly with me many times, and continues to do so. I have no doubt whatsoever that we survive what we know as physical death.

My own theory, for what it is worth, is that Charles Darwin was essentially right, evolution is the key to everything. But it is not just our physical bodies which evolve, our spiritual entities are also evolving. The monotheistic religions believe in one all powerful, all knowing Creator or God who planned everything right from the start, but for me this leaves too many questions unanswered. Why is Nature so cruel - the survival of the fittest being the primitive law of the jungle? Is this the work of a wise, all loving God? Why is evolution necessary at all if God has planned everything from the start?

To me the facts seem to suggest that everything is evolving, including what many people refer to as 'God' and which I prefer to call the Great Spirit. I believe Thought or Mind is a basic form of energy in its own right, and just as Einstein proved that energy and matter are interchangeable, so Thought energy can be converted into matter. Telekinesis experiments already suggest thought can influence matter.

In the beginning there was Thought energy which converted into matter. We must be careful about terminology though, because Time itself was created as the fourth dimension of our physical Universe. Outside our Universe there is no such thing as Time - everything is eternal. There is no beginning and no end.

My theory is that evolution involves us reincarnating over and over again, first as very basic life forms, moving up the evolutionary chain thru fish and animals to human beings. Between lifetimes our astral bodies, bioplasma energy or whatever you like to call it plans the next stage of evolution, constantly learning from the last incarnation. The overall tendency is to progress upwards, and for the bioplasma energy of individuals to merge to form a more complex individual. It would take the bioplasma energy of many single-celled creatures to make a fish or an animal, for instance.

Eventually we learn all we can from life on Earth and similar planets, and move on permanently to the higher Spiritual realms. The highest of these planes is where we merge our individual identity and become One with the Great Spirit. I see the Great Spirit as the sum total of highly developed spirits who have completed their evolution, in other words, what people refer to as 'God' is still evolving, and we will all be part of this entity one day if we continue to progress.

In more scientific terms, our bioplasma energy eventually exists independently in a parallel universe and does not need to reincarnate any more. As it progresses and develops this conscious entity of pure energy ultimately merges into a unified conscious energy field, otherwise known as the Great Spirit or God.

This is only a theory, and could be competely wrong. The important thing is, we survive the death of our physical bodies - the evidence is overwhelming for those who care to look at it and study it. This fact alone should influence how we live our lives on Earth. Hatred of other people because of their race, color or creed becomes nonsensical once you realize you could be re-born as a member of one of these other groups. So the anti-Semetic could be re-born as a Jew, the racist as a black person, the homophobe as a gay man or woman. Karmic justice rules, and although there is always free choice, the spirit between lives has to choose whether to come back and learn the lessons necessary to progress to the next stage of their development. Some souls choose not to progress, they reincarnate in similar lives many times and learn very little, repeating the same mistakes over and over again. Most of us, however, do progress.

Science and religion are actually converging. Once upon a time a materialist could believe in only what could be verified by the five senses. Now we know of all sorts of things which can't be sensed by humans at all without special equipment - radio waves and television transmissions fill the air around us, but we can't sense them. We now know of the existence of anti-matter, and quantum physics states that parallel universes could well be all around us, interpenetrating our own yet undetectable by our senses. Even an apparently solid block of concrete is actually composed mainly of empty space, the sub-atomic particles bound together by electro-magnetic forces. The whole world we sense around us is an elaborate illusion. Mediums can sense some of the parallel universes next to our own. I predict it is only a matter of time before orthodox science catches up.

One day it will be possible to dial a number and speak to Granny on an inter-dimensional videophone, the Granny who died last year that is and who now exists on the spiritual plane, which is simply another term for a parallel universe.

Science is due another leap forward, but as always conservatism and orthodoxy hold it back. Only those brave enough to look at the evidence which contradicts the known laws of physics can discover the hidden truths which will one day re-write these laws to explain the multi-universe as it really is.

I just read your page on evolution and the afterlife and I was struck about how similar my thinking is to yours. I am fascinated by near-death experiences and I remember reading of the shoe on the ledge. I have also examined quantum physics a bit and the "multiverse". I don't know if you're aware of David Bohm and Karl Pribram's holographic universe, but it is an interesting possibility as well.

There is one thing that I am trying to resolve regarding the afterlife. I personally believe that life after death is extremely likely and I think that reincarnation is also likely. You said that you think we progress to higher levels and eventually come into a union with the "Great Spirit". From many of the stories I have learned of, this union is common with many people who have NDEs. I guess the best way I can conceptualize is now is that possibly we "take a break" from tougher states of being to be with God and return to some sort of Earth or Earth-like existence later when we are ready.

The worm-hole/black hole parallel with the NDE tunnel is also something that has intruiged me. The laws of physics change for something with little or no matter.

hI Interesting stuff I was searching for similar NDE and theory of the soul material and stumbled on your site . I too was a Christian in my early teens . Have recently (in my fourties) taught in A Christian school and began to thinkl about these matters again but on a broader front . Have had lots of CDES (came close to death! ) not NDES . Been struck by lightening 3 times twice down a phone and once thro a water pipe One was in middle of night when brilliant white orbs entered house and I was blind for 40 minutes afterwards. Those experiences have changed my life . As a Scientist and Engineer I cant believe 70/90 YEARS maxis all there is! I beleive the Soul is coherently radiated from the body in some way Mediums are coherent receivers Just like hearing a pin drop is less energy than KT ETC ETC If u want mail me back Best wishes Chris .

Unfortuantely, you rigorous examination of the facts seems to have lapsed a little when considering the spiritual stuff. If you don't mind I'd like to discuss this with you a bit and make some comments.

For example when discussing 'the blue shoe on a ledge' or 'patterns on a flagstone' you think it incredulous that these people could have seen at some previous time (in a non-spiritual way) these objects and mis-represented their knowledge as coming from a 'spiritual experience'. This I agree is highly unlikely, but highly unlikely is NOT impossible. When considering the other explanation (the spiritual take on this) there are at least three objections I can think of that preclude the possibility of this taking place and so am forced to accept the highly unlikely and but possible rational solution. You maintain in one case (the blue shoe on the ledge) that someone has seen an item whilst not residing in their body. This on the face of it appears plausible until you remember that we see objects by analysing the light bouncing from them and we have a very complex and highly evolved organ (the eye) to do this for us.

Now my objection rests on three grounds 1) If Humans could 'see' other objects without the benefit of an eye, why or how would the eye have evolved in the first place ? (Given the driving force for it's evolution was that animals with an eye had an advantage over animals without). 2) Ignoring this first objection and assuming human eyes are a 'given' we know they work but placing an opaque barrier in the path of light enterring the eye and use this barrier (the retina) as the means of generating the image. This is true of ALL light capturing devices (eye's, cameras, radio telescopes, microscopes, light meters etc.) Given this and the fact that such spirits are reportedly transparrent (no one sees them floating in the operating room or in adjascent rooms) no light can be stopped to record this image. 3) Given human eyes and also given how all light capturing devices work and ignoring both these givens there is still a further objection. The information captured by this spirit (an image) still has to be transmitted in some way to the brain (where we can prove such information is stored). In the human body there are many many such conduits of information (nerves). However, the spirit must somehow transmit this information to the brain without the use of nerves (as it is an immaterial body). Given that this can take place (which is extremely doubtful) why does the rest of our body use such an inordinate amount of it's limited energy budget building these nerves (bear in mind in our evolutionary past such energy was in short supply) when it could transmit this information without them (and so have an overwhelming evolutionary advantage over 'nervy' creatures).

The sum of these objections can be summarized in a simple experiment. If your immaterial 'spirit' or 'soul' is capable of perceiving these images an obvious experiment would be to blindfold your eyes and use your 'spirit eyes' to read the value of playing cards in front of you. After all according to the story as written your 'spirit' should be able to see the cards as you know 1) that it is in the vicinity of your body (as you are not having an out of body experience at the time) 2) that it does not use your eyes to 'see' these images. I have tried this experiment myself and can report negative results. Because, of the high standard set in the rest of your site of rational and insightful writing I would welcome any reply explaining these objections and am prepared to discuss possible alternatives. NW.

To try to answer your points, first I would ask how on Earth the shoe on the ledge could have been seen thru a ceiling by a patient clinically dead on an operating table by purely physical means? Similarly for the markings on the flagstone, buried for centuries beneath earth and muck. According to the scientific theory of Occam's Razor, once you have discarded the impossible any remaining explanation, however unlikely, must be the correct one. This is the principle I have tried to apply to the known facts.

First of all I don't accept that 'spirit' or 'soul' is non-material. I simply use these religious terms as people understand what they mean, whereas if I used the terms coined by Soviet investigators, 'bioplasmic energy' or 'bioplasma body', nobody would know what I was talking about. The evidence I have examined suggests that the bioplasmic energy body of all living things is the blueprint for what we think of as the physical body. Illnesses and disorders show up in the 'aura', which only means the fringes of this bioplasmic energy field detectably by Kirlian photography.

However, whilst trapped inside the physical body it seems this bioplasmic energy is either greatly restricted, or has very limited ability to transmit information to our brain. Maybe we once possessed this ability but have lost it, relying on the five physical senses too much. Some animals seem to have more developed extra-sensory perception, as do psychics, but most of us rely almost entirely on hearing, sight, touch, taste and smell to interpret the world around us, as relayed by our physical organs.

However, once separated from the physical body at death or during an out-of-body-experience the bioplasmic energy entity seems to have a much more vivid perception of its surroundings than can be achieved by the physical organs of the body. For a start it can 'see' more than one parallel universe - at least ours and the ones adjacent to it.

We have to be careful when discussing how spirit or bioplasmic energy entities perceive their surroundings. It would seem it is at a much higher level than ours, and not really related to our five senses. Being much less dense these entities can pass thru physical objects in our world (so they cannot 'touch' physical objects easily), and they seem to communicate by means of telepathy and other extra-sensory means of which we at present know very little. They seem to have some affinity to the universe, perceiving it as inter-connected. 'We are all one' is the common perception of people who have had OOBEs. So it seems there are means of perception and communication in the meta-physical worlds of which we at present know very little.

As to how this information, gained during OOBEs, is transmitted back to the physical brain we don't yet know - by telepathy, thru the silver cord which connects the two bodies until death? I believe our physical brains are akin to radio receivers, and that thought originates in our real selves, the eternal bioplasmic energy entity. In order to exist and fully interact with the physical universe and everything in it, we need a physical body. That physical body can only perceive things thru the five senses.

This may not be a very good or full explanation, but it's the best I can do at the moment until more scientists start examining these phenomena and coming up with scientific explanations. I am not a quantum scientist, so am perhaps not qualified to pontificate on how beings in a parallel universe might sense their surroundings or communicate what they sense to each other, or to beings in our own universe. All evidence from people who have experienced OOBEs and near-death experiences suggest they had a much more vivid and wider sense of the universe and as I said the immediate parallel universes than we do whilst trapped in our physical bodies. In short, we need eyes to see whilst in the physical body, but not when our bioplasma energy entity escapes from the physical body. This was demonstrated in another TV program recently when a woman, blind from birth and so with no conception at all of what sight was, had an OOBE and for the first time since she was born was able to somehow 'see' her surroundings and colors tor the first time. This information was somehow communicated to her physical brain, and she was able to remember and describe what she had 'seen' when she was resuscitated. Hope this gives you food for more thought at least.

Subject: Etheric Body

Dear Tony,

Your website offers a reasonable summary of the standard set of beliefs and
understandings of people interested in the survival of bodily death, and you
have expressed it briefly and well. After my own reading on this subject I
too am almost convinced it is true. However the proof is not 100%. I have
read reports of sensitive nurses watching the etheric or bioplasmic body
leaving the physical body after death, but in scanning google and the
literature I can find no solid proof of the existence of the etheric body.
It is only ever asserted, which is not enough proof. If you could point me
in the direction of such scientific proof I'd be very grateful indeed. For
example, the Kirlian leaf photograph showing the existence of the bioplasmic
'whole' even though the leaf has been cut. Has this been successfully
repeated on human beings who have lost a limb? And if not, why not? And if
it can't be successfully replicated what does that tell us about the leaf
photo and about Kirlian photography? Can Kirlian photography be developed
into Kirlian movie photography so that we can record dying people to watch
them exit their physical body? Or has this been done already? I emphasise
this issue as I see it as absolutely central to the matter of survival. No
proof of an etheric body, no proof of spirit life. I'd love to be pushed in
the direction of the most convincing bibliography relating to this topic. A
personal reply will do better than a posting on your website.

Thanks

KP

I agree with everything you say. We need a lot more research and repeatable
experiments in this whole field. Trouble is there are few scientists who
approach the subject with an open mind, just a few brave individuals who
seem to fund their own research.

Until more financial resources are put into this area, I can't see any big
breakthroughs of the kind you seek. I did mention the Moscow morgue
experiments with Kirlian photography, but I agree what we need is properly
funded research with repeatable experiments.

I think perhaps within the next 10-20 years we may see something along these
lines. Already some scientists are theorizing on the possibility of the
survival of consciousness after death.

I feel the theories of quantum physics may eventually open up the way to
research along these lines. After all, what we are really talking about is
evidence of parallel universes.

Tony

Interesting points. If you remember, I didn't say that I didn't believe in
life after death, or the survival of conciousness as you put it, but that I
wasn't convinced of the evidence, and therefore couldn't class myself as a
believer in it either.

A couple of points about "Oculm's Razor":

Firstly, it should be "Occam's Razor"; secondly Occam's Razor states
"plurality should not be posited without necessity". This is generally
interpreted to mean that the simplest of two or more competing theories is
preferable and that an explanation for unknown phenomena should first be
attempted in terms of what is already known.

(You can use this to argue against the existence of God: God is an
unnecessary hypothesis. We can explain everything without assuming the
extra metaphysical baggage of a Divine Being.)

Likewise, one could argue that the "Shoe" incident can be explained in
terms of what is already known. The woman could have seen the shoe herself
previously, or have been told about it by someone else who had seen it.
This is the simplest solution.

The maxim "If you eliminate the impossible, then whatever remains, however
improbable, has to be the truth." is actually a quote by Conan-Doyle's
character Sherlock Holmes, used (in different variations) in 6 of his
adventures.

It seems to me that you're not even following this maxim correctly, though:
Although it's unlikely that the woman knew about the shoe previously, it's
not impossible. You therefore shouldn't eliminate it, and the story
certainly doesn't prove life after death.

Likewise (having read your website), it's unlikely that the woman in
Australia could have known about the stone slab, but it's not impossible.
The whole thing could have been concocted as an elaborate hoax with a
friend or accomplice (possibly the farmer) in the UK, with the mud floor
put on top a lot more recently than was claimed. As to why would she do it
- some people get a kick out of feeling that they've fooled the experts.

I remember the controversy about Crop Circles a few years back, when
several very learned people said that it would be impossible for hoaxers to
form circles in such a precise way, and eventually two guys told the world
exactly how they did it, using little more than a plank of wood!

It seems to me that far from eliminating the impossible, you're eliminating
the possible!

I seem to recall that on several occassions, Sherlock Holmes used this rule
to find natural explanations for what others thought were "supernatural"
phenomena - I don't recall him using it to do the opposite!

Having said all that, I accept that there is strong evidence for life after
death. Unfortunately, as a scientist, I have to say that evidence doesn't
necessarily mean proof. The fact that I can't readily explain something
doesn't mean that I feel I have to accept an explanation based on theory,
rather than fact. I therefore keep an open mind about it, believing that
it could exist, without actually believing that it does. That's also why
I'm agnostic, rather than atheist.

The bit about Kirlian Field Photography is probably the weakest part of
your argument:
Kirlian Field Photography works by passing a high-voltage electrical field
through an object which is on a photographic plate. Far from recording a
person's aura, the image recorded is due to natural phenomena such as
pressure, electrical grounding, humidity/moisture, and temperature.
A quick search on the Internet reveals only one site which claims to have
been able to reproduce this effect - and that's from an paranormal site
(which doesn't seem exactly unbiased), rather than any kind of reputable
organisation. Some have suggested that the effect, if it does exist, could
have been caused by microscopic etching on the glass during preparation of
images of the uncut leaf, or due to moisture from the leaf being left on
the glass after photographing the complete leaf, but the general consensus
seems to be that the effect cannot be repeated.
James Randi has offered US$1million to any person capable of repeatedly
detecting auras, and as yet no-one has stepped forward to claim the prize,
despite it supposedly being such a simple thing to do!

Once again, using Occam's Razor, we can say that Kirlian Field Photography
can be explained in purely scientific terms, without the need to
hypothesise about living things having "auras". To me, there is far more
evidence to suggest that Kirlian Photographs do not show auras than
evidence to show that they do.

This isn't to say that Kirlian photography can't be used to detect changes
in a person's health, or even emotional state - it's well known that the
body changes temperature, and produces more moisture (i.e. sweat) when
unwell or stressed. It's these changes that the Kirlian photograph will
detect, however, not changes to their aura.

Finally, if you take a Kirlian photograph of a magnet, a coin, or a water
droplet, you will see an "aura". It doesn't mean that these objects have
any kind of conciousness, in fact, I would argue that this proves that
what's being detected is not aurae. NS

Very many thanks for your most interesting reply. Obviously you are quite
knowledgeable on the subject, and have read up much of the material I have
myself. Thanks also for correcting my spelling of Occam's Razor - I had a
feeling I hadn't got it quite right, so will correct it when I get a
chance.

I admit you essentially are right in all your comments. When applying the
principle of Occam's Razor or the Sherlock Holmes maxim, it is to some
degree subjective. But it can also be cumulative. For instance, in one
instance of someone claiming to have 'seen' something whilst experiencing
an OOBE or in a previous life it could be put down to coincidence or more
conventional causes, however unlikely. I suppose it is just possible Maria
did visit Seattle and saw the shoe, or someone in another ward told her
about seeing it. But when these unlikely events and coincidences crop up
too often, they become a much less likely explanation. However, I agree
with you that we are not yet in a position of absolute proof.

I am also aware of the controversy about Kirlian photography, of the
difficulty of repeating the 'leaf' experiment, and of the 'aura' around
coins and other inanimate objects (though I believe this aura is
essentially different from that around living organisms.) Nevertheless I
believe there is more to the Kirlian aura than just heat, damp, etc., and
certainly Soviet scientists came to that conclusion. The Moscow morgue
experiments are particularly interesting in this regard. I would be most
interested to see a similar experiment with people divided into atheists
and believers, to see if the aura of non-believers 'hung around' for longer
periods. The trouble with all this paranormal experimentation is lack of
funding, and lack of evidence from different sources proving the results
are repeatable.

However, I am sure you are aware that the CIA, former KGB and other
intelligence services have spent considerable resources over the years
investigating paranormal phenomena such as ESP, 'remote viewing' (astral
traveling), etc. for possible use for espionage, etc. with some quite
promising results, though with modern spy satellites, etc. perhaps such
revolutionary methods are not so important, and are certainly less
reliable.

However, the most convincing evidence for me personally are the regular
conversations I have had with George since he died, using various methods.
Some of these are really astounding, and he NEVER fails to give me sound
advice when I really need it. Won't go into details here - there are far
too many instances over the last 13 and a half years, one involving my
father who passed away in 1998.

Just one I will recount briefly. I was writing posthumous 'letters' to
George (apparently a quite common practice for surviving spouses, and
sometimes recommended for therapeutic reasons to help the grieving
process). After a few months I wrote: 'perhaps I should stop writing these
letters, it might be preventing both of us from moving on'. The very next
day I got an urge to play some of his vinyl albums. (Since our musical
tastes were so different I had very little idea what was in his record
collection.) I pulled an album out at random without looking at the sleeve,
and stuck it on the turntable again without looking, and stuck the stylus
down somewhere in the middle of the record. Immediately came the answer to
my question in my letter the night before - Dorothy Squires' voice singing:
'Love letters straight from your heart, keep us so close while apart'. I
still write him letters once or twice a year. I can recount numerous
similar instances over the years, for instance when he has helped me find
things in the flat which I have mislaid or never even knew were there.

Would you like your comments/observations included on the Website after my
article, along with this reply? I would only use initials, so you wouldn't
be identified? The whole idea of the Website is to provoke intelligent
discussion.

Hi Tony, I just came across your website on life after death etc. yesterday, and was really delighted to find it. Your sensitive answers to some not-so-sophisticated questions are encouraging of more discussion. My interests are similar to yours, I think. I have written two books recently on the evidence for life after death, one published by Abingdon Press (United Methodist Publishing House), and the other one is on the self-publishing press now. I'm not trying to sell books and will not tell you titles. Suffice it to say that the Methodists have been VERY interested and that book is a study guide for adult study. It even includes chapters on reincarnation and mediumship, among others. My particular interest is education, especially for bereaved people, and especially for those who are of a somewhat skeptical mindset, as I was when my son was killed. My books deal with scientific method in this area of research, and the Methodist one deals of course with Biblical and theological issues. I wrote these books because I think there is a vacuum of good solid but readable material on this issue. There are the professionals who write for each other and are hard to understand, and there are the kooks who want to believe almost anything. I try to write somewhere in the middle. I am thinking about ways to best disseminate this information, and of course the books are one way. But I've been thinking of a website, and wondering what your experience has been so far with yours? Did you recently start it? Do you have other plans? Do you know about Bob Olson's GriefBelief website ? I just discovered him also - he's in Kennebunkport, Maine, and I am near Portland, Maine. Where are you? Keep up the good work - maybe we can think of ways to help each other. G. H.

Many thanks for your email and comments on my article. I am located in London, England. I don't know much about the Web - I gleaned as much info as I could from the Website team where I work. I can just about post articles and updates, but I have no idea how to do more complicated things such as put pictures on the site, fancy logos, etc. so I'm very much an amateur. However it is encouraging to receive comments and know that other people read these articles on the Web. I intended the site to be a sort of Forum, but most replies/comments so far have been to an article on The Rebel Flag. I will add you comments to the 'Life After Death' article with just your initials and nothing else to identify you. I had an interesting discussion with a neighbor, the guy who sold me this computer second-hand actually, and he'd read the arrticle on my Website on Life After Death. He's agnostic, but keeps an open mind on the subject. I would say he is more skeptical than I am, but to me when you choose to believe in endless coincidences to explain away these things it becomes totally unbelievable. E.g. someone must have told the woman in hospital about the shoe on the ledge (why on Earth would they do that?) or she saw it on some previous visit, the Australian woman who saw the markings on the stone concocted some elaborate hoax with a farmer in England, everything else is just hullucination or coincidence. This is what the skeptics would have us believe. I don't swallow everything people claim. There are so many Marie Antoinettes and similar famous persons supposedly 'reincarnated' they are obviously fakes. I underwent hypnotic regression to supposedly past lives once. Nobody famous, and very interesting, but until I get confirmation I keep an open mind as to whether it was real or my subconscious imagination. But as to life after death I am 100% convinced - too many things have happened to me personally and I've read/seen too much evidence in books/articles/on TV. The counter-arguments of professional skeptics carry very little weight as they are very selective in their evidence. They just choose those near-death experiences which can be explained away by hallucinations, lack of oxygen to the brain, drugs administered to dying patients, religious beliefs, etc. and ignore all the hard evidence such as that described in my article. My partner has kept in constant touch with me since he passed over 13 years ago. Before that a cat we both loved died and woke us both up on different occasions by jumping on our bed after he had died. Whenever I'm in trouble or need advice, my partner always gives it to me. My father too has sent me at least one very clear message from the other side - far too strange to be mere 'coincidence'. He criticized me once for having pictures of 'murderers' on my bedroom wall - in my days as a Communist Party member I had tapestries of Lenin and Stalin displayed. However he had a picture of Cypriot EOKA-B terrorist George Grivas on his London mantelpiece for years. He moved back to Cyprus in the 1980s, and took the Grivas picture with him. It was on the wall of his house in Paphos. When I was in this house for an hour or so after his funeral, the picture fell from the wall. It had been there all those years, yet fell down the very short time I was there. Clearly this was my dad saying we had both learnt our lesson, and just as I had taken my pictures of mass-murderers down from my wall long ago, he now wanted to remove his picture of a mass-murderer. I have endless tales like this I could tell, especially regarding my partner. I have put them all in a book, but I don't know if it will ever be published.

Sent: Tuesday, June 01, 2004 2:03 AM Subject: Skepticism
Tony, Thanks for answering my letter. I think that while we all need SOME skepticism, on the topic of life after death most of it comes from a philosophy of materialism. "Only what can be seen and measured is real." Philosophically, materialism was some time ago shown to be pretty old hat, so skeptics should be skeptical of their own skepticism. I like Carl Jung's comment, something to the effect that these days it is fashionable to disbelieve everything we don't understand, but that he would not participate in that. Or, like Schiller said, "Single facts can never be 'proved' except by their coherence in a system. But, as all facts come singly, anyone who dismisses them one by one is destroying the conditions under which a conviction of truth could arise." I think that applies especially to paranormal events like the red shoe on the ledge, and the other things near death pateients report seeing while they are comatose. "Coincidence" is an easy but lazy skeptical argument. G.H.

Tony's reply:

Quite so. Materialism IS old hat. You can't see radio waves, TV transmissions, electricity, infra-red or all sorts of other waves in the atmosphere. Nor can you see anti-matter or parallel universes interpenetrating our own, the curvature of space-time or a million other scientific phenomena. Moreover what we CAN see and measure is largely an illusion. NOTHING is solid matter, it is all composed of sub-atomic particles with space in between them. As for coincidences, one or two I can believe in, but when there are too many and you can see a definite pattern, there HAS to be some other explanation. Trouble is scientists HATE to have their orthodox theories upset, so for years they insisted the Sun, stars and planets revolved around the Earth and called those who said this was wrong 'heretics'. What we need is sufficient resources put into near-death research to enable repeatable experiments under laboratory conditions. What we actually have are isolated here-say incidents at random and amateurs conducting their own unverified experiments outside orthodox science laboratories.

****

Einstein was wrong !

"I don't believe that the individual survives the death of his body,
although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous
egotism."

< Albert Einstein, New York Times, April 19, 1955 >

The Campaign for Philosophical Freedom

The Campaign for Philosophical Freedom, for 24 years, is a non-profit
organisation founded by Michael Roll to present the secular scientific case
for survival after death - a separate mind and brain. The study of the
normally invisible part of the universe - subatomic physics - provides a
rational explanation for so-called "paranormal" or "supernatural"
phenomena, "ghost stories". The alternative to all the supernatural
religions, invented by priests who knew nothing about cosmology, is not yet
another one-god religion, as is Spiritualism.

The Scientific proof of Survival after Death

http://www.cfpf.org.uk/articles/background/scientificproof/scientificproof1.html

Constitution:

"The USA has a written constitution that forbids the censoring of
uncomfortable discoveries in physics that BELONG TO THE PEOPLE "

From: "Michael Roll"

Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2006 08:59:04 -0000

CC: Subject:

Sir William Crookes Physically Reunited With His "Dead" Wife

Ref: "Crookes and the Spirit World" (Souvenir Press) 1972.

Material introduced and edited by M.R. Barrington, M.A. (Oxon)

The main thing that was missing from Sir William Crookes' early experiments
with the materialisation medium Florence Cook (Published in the Quarterly
Journal of Science in 1874) was that he could not carry out the same
scientific exercise that Alan Cleaver did in 1982 with the materialisation
medium Rita Goold - unite the person who was materialising at his
repeatable experiments under laboratory conditions with her relations. This
is because the "dead" person who materialised, Katie King, had left Earth
and passed to the normally invisible part of the universe so long ago that
nobody on Earth could confirm her identity.

Therefore Crookes was unable to confirm in the 1870's that he had the
definitive proof that we all survive the death of our physical bodies and
that all scientific calculations must now take into account the discovery
of what religionists refer to as the spirit world.

However, this changed during the First World War when Sir William travelled
to Crewe and during an experiment with the direct voice medium, William
Hope, he was photographed together with his "dead" wife! This is what
Crookes said in a letter to Sir Oliver Lodge on 22 December 1916, "I am
glad to say the possession of this definite proof of survival has done my
heart much good."

The definitive scientific proof of survival that Sir William had worked so
hard to achieve came after this photographic evidence that his beloved wife
had indeed survived the death of her physical body when she fully
materialised at his final experiments that were held in his own laboratory
in London. Account of a Materialisation given by Miss F.R. Scatcherd in
"Survival" (Putnam 1924). Miss Scatcherd knew Mrs Crookes when she was on
Earth. "Meanwhile a lively conversation was in progress between Sir William
and the spirit of his late wife."

This book, 'Crookes and the Spirit World' ends with a letter from Sir
William to Miss Scatcherd dated 11 May 1917. The Editor makes the following
comment:

[This handwritten letter is preserved in the College of Psychic Studies.
Also there is a framed copy of the Crewe circle photograph of Crookes and
"spirit" of his dead wife, with slip pasted underneath typed by Crookes and
signed by him, reading: "Presented to the Ghost Club at the request of my
Wife, speaking in the direct voice after her entry into Spirit Life.
William Crookes."]

Michael Roll

Website: http://www.cfpf.org.uk

The Campaign for Philosophical Freedom

*****

Email to Sylvia Browne organization (American medium/psychic) after reading her book Life On The Other Side:

I notice the site says Sylvia does not read emails, which is understandable as she must get thousands. Completely unknown here in UK, I gather she is well-known in America.

I just bought and read her book Life On The Other Side, and would like to make a few comments for the benefit of either Sylvia or one of her colleagues.

I am a great believer in the reality of survival, as are an increasing number of fellow atheists like myself. I still call myself an 'atheist', or alternatively a 'survivalist' or 'non-religious Spiritualist', since I cannot accept the concept of an all-loving, all-wise Creator. However I most certainly believe in a greater power which some people call God, others call Allah, Jehovah and many other names. I prefer the terms 'the Great Spirit' or the 'Unified Conscious Energy Field'.

Several things in Sylvia's book resonate with what I have discovered and worked out for myself in my nearly 62 years on this Earth (this time round, yes I also believe in reincarnation). The concept Sylvia finds most difficult, i.e. the 7th stage of The Other Side when we 'merge with the force field that is God's love' is something I had already worked out for myself, though I put it in slightly different terms - merging with the Unified Conscious Energy Field or with the Great Spirit. That is surely the ultimate goal of all living things, the peak of our spiritual evolution; to sink our individual identities in the Great Spirit, and become One with it and all the individual spirits already absorbed into it. I can think of no greater ultimate goal than to merge my identity and become One with all the people I have ever loved, and many good people I have never known, including Jesus and the other great spiritual leaders/philosophers.

I believe everything, including 'God' or the 'Great Spirit', has evolved and is continuing to evolve. It is logical to me that we started off as the most basic life forms and evolved into humans, not just in the Darwinian physical sense, but also spiritually. I cannot accept Sylvia's premise that there is no reincarnation or progress from species to species, but I don't believe we ever go back to being animals once we have achieved human form. Indeed, thru the continuous process of merging spirits/souls/conscious energy fields we evolve. It takes the 'spirits' of many one-celled creatures to create a fish, and by the time we reach human form our spirit probably comprises the merged energy fields of many animals who have lived and died before.

Of course insects have spirits or conscious energy fields, as do all living things, including plants. Whether they go to the Other Side or immediately reincarnate in some life form on Earth, of course, is another matter.

What I find difficult to accept about Sylvia's picture of the Other Side is that is sounds too much like a new religion, and indeed she has started her own church. Her book also sounds like a science fiction story of some idealized society on another planet. While I don't dispute that the wonderful buildings she describes in such detail, the various areas corresponding to Earthly continents, the different ranks of 'angels', etc. are all real to her, has she ever considered that reality on the Other Side is subjective? That is, we create our own environment and our own 'Heaven' if you like by the power of thought? So although the essentials may be the same, my Other Side may look rather different to hers, or anybody else's?

I believe everything has ultimately a scientific explanation, as do an increasing number of atheists and agnostics who have come to believe, based on evidence of near-death experiences, spirit communications, etc., that we survive death. Quantum physics tells us that parallel universes and alternate dimensions, theoretically at least, interpenetrate our own, and Soviet scientists long ago discovered that all living things have an 'astral' or 'bioplasma' body or 'aura'.

I love the idea of meeting with your own messiah which Sylvia describes in her book. This could well be very accurate, as if Jesus, Mohammed, the Buddha, etc. ever lived on Earth or any other planet, they are most certainly still alive in some form today, since there is no death. (I just hope Jesus doesn't have to go on the Grand Tour of millions of inhabited planets being Crucified over and over again so people can be 'saved'. I'm not being facetious, but I believe in the progress of each individual spirit thru our own efforts and karma, not thru 'salvation' thru some barbaric sacrifice, whether that of Jesus or some poor animal or human.)

Sylvia never once mentions in her book the fate of atheists/agnostics on The Other Side. I'm sure some of these become trapped on the Earth plane as ghosts, since they refuse to believe in 'life after death' so cannot come to terms with still being alive when they are (as far as Earth is concerned) 'dead'. But who do we agnostics/atheists consult before we reincarnate on Earth? I would choose some great atheist philosopher such as Sir Bertrand Russell or Karl Marx, who like the rest of us certainly survived death.

The concept of the Holding area outside the Left Door I also have problems with, since Sylvia says all these spirits have to do is say they 'love God'. How can you 'love' something which you don't believe exists? And why should you be condemned for this? This concept suggests all atheists and agnostics are doomed unless they convert to a belief in God, or Gods (Sylvia believes in two - a male and a female one. In actual fact, of course, the Great Spirit is neither male nor female, but a combination of these, a sum total of all the highly developed spirits who have ever lived.) Do I 'love' this Great Spirit or Unified Conscious Energy Field? Well I guess I do, I try my best to love all humanity, and all living things/spirits, hard as that may be at times.

There is also, as Sylvia rightly points out, no such thing as Time on The Other Side - everything is eternal. There is no beginning and no end. That to me is blindingly obvious. If we are here now, we must always have existed in some form or another. Something can't come out of nothing, which is why the Big Bang theory for the formation of our Universe, favored by many scientists, explains nothing. What I want to know is what existed BEFORE the Big Bang?

So saying the Universe came out of nothing in the Big Bang is plainly unscientific nonsense, as is the equally ridiculous theory that God created itself/himself/herself out of nothing. I'm sure the Big Bang happened, but it was NOT the start of anything but our present Universe. Before that everything existed as either pure energy, or as energy and matter in another universe, possibly exploding thru a Black Hole and so creating the Big Bang. (Incidentally, the 'tunnel' we experience when traveling to the Other Side is probably a quantum 'wormhole' to a parallel universe/alternative dimension.)

The obvious solution is that the muti-universe and everything in it, including the Great Spirit, are eternal, though at some stage could have existed as pure energy or thought. Einstein proved that energy and matter were essentially the same thing, and also that Time was merely the 4th dimension of our physical Universe.

I cannot easily accept Sylvia's description of the various strata of 'angels', as I don't really believe in angels. Why would they need wings when it is perfectly obvious that on The Other Side we can float in the air and move anywhere in the multi-universe simply by wishing ourselves there? Angels with wings are illogical. But if Sylvia wishes to create them with thought power on The Other Side, she is perfectly free to do so of course. As I say, we can all build our own subjective idea of 'Heaven'.

So an interesting book, but I'm afraid for me the devil is in the detail. I don't think Sylvia can know everything, even down to the U shape of the table where the Council sits. And indeed this might differ with every person. What Sylvia has described is HER version of the Other Side, which may well be accurate for her.

One other thing worries me. Sylvia is selling books, appearing on TV shows regularly, and selling readings. Anyone who makes a lot of money out of promoting the idea/evidence of 'life after death' is in danger of being accused of being a phony exploiting gullible people just for financial reward. I don't accuse Sylvia of that, I had never heard of her till the other day. But it is an accusation all psychics must try to avoid. We all have to live, and earn a living, but there is a fine line between doing this and exploiting the gullible. We must all be careful we don't lay ourselves open to this last accusation.

If you are interested, you can read my views on Life After Death on my website. (Link given in original email.)