Evidence for the Afterlife

Prologue

Many scientists have conducted their own research into the afterlife and found the phenomena are real. Several Nobel Prize winning scientists, including Max Planck, Erwin Schrödinger, Wolfgang Pauli, Brian D. Josephson, Marie Curie, Pierre Curie and others believed that consciousness or psychic phenomena cannot be explained by mainstream scientific explanations. (see the chapter on: Eminent Researchers for more information and links). These scientists were not fooled by magic tricks. Highly skilled stage magicians have investigated many mediums and have found them to be genuine (see the chapter on Skeptical Fallacies for more information and links). Studies have shown people with more education are more likely to believe in the afterlife, and most medical doctors believe in the afterlife (see the chapter on Skeptical Fallacies for more information and links). These highly educated and intelligent people are right, there is no death. Departed loved ones are not gone, they continue to live in a higher realm.

Not many people are aware of how much solid evidence there is for the afterlife. If you read through this chapter, you will be one of the few people who can fully appreciate how many different types of evidence there are. This evidence comes from mediumship (Mrs. Piper, proxy sittings, drop in communicators, and cross correspondences), shared near death experiences and veridical NDEs, shared death bed visions, multiple witness apparitions, children with past life memories, quantum mechanics and more. There are also links to web based sources of information including free e-book versions of important studies on the afterlife. If you look into those linked sources of information, you will be able to see the rigor and substantiveness of the evidence for the afterlife. Do you want to learn more about this life affirming subject? If so, read on ...

Some of the best evidence for the afterlife is:

• • People on their death beds see spirits who come to help them make the transition. These experiences have been confirmed in various ways and shown to be objective phenomena and not hallucinations. Sometimes other people attending the dying also see the same spirits at the same time. In one case a spirit communicating through a medium told of how she assisted a dying man. A relative of the man was sought out and the information the man related to the relative confirmed what came through the medium. (see below: Death Bed Visions)

  • Near the time of their death the spirits of the dead have appeared to friends or relatives at distant locations where more than one person present at the location sees the spirit. (see below: Crisis Apparitions)

  • Mediums sometimes receive communications from spirits who are unrelated to and unknown by the sitters and the medium. These spirits come through to communicate for purposes important only to themselves. They give verifiable information about their identity and cause of death. (see below: Drop-in Communicators)

  • Mediums can receive communications from spirits even when the person getting the reading is not present in the room with the medium. In these cases, the medium may not know who the sitter is and cannot get any type of feedback from the sitter yet the medium can bring through specialized knowledge known by the spirit. (see below: Proxy Sittings)

  • When people are unconscious and near death, they sometimes experience leaving their body and when revived, bring back information that they could not have obtained with their normal senses even if they had been conscious and that information is later verified as correct. "Scientific" explanations cannot explain this and other aspects of the phenomena. (see below: Near Death Experiences)

  • Children have been studied who remember past lives. They can speak languages they have never heard. They remember geography, faces, and names of people in locations they have never been to. They have birthmarks on their body where they had sustained injuries in the previous life. An investigator interviews everyone involved, the children, the current families, surviving members of the families from the previous life and everything checks out. (see below: Reincarnation)

  • Spirits have communicated parts of messages through different mediums. When combined, these partial messages produce a complete message. The messages contained very specialized knowledge known to the spirit and were communicated spontaneously, not at the request of any living person. These messages show that the spirit lives on after the death of the body, retains knowledge from its earth life, and continues to have the ability to initiate, organize, and carry out complex activities. (see below: Cross Correspondences)

  • Experiments attended by scientists and a stage magician have been conducted under controlled conditions where voices of spirits were heard, objects were materialized, and images imprinted on photographic film. (see below: The Scole Experiments)

  • When physicists study matter at the atomic level, they find that the properties of matter are not determined until a conscious being perceives that matter. This demonstrates that physical matter depends on consciousness for its existence and therefore consciousness cannot arise from matter. The brain, which is composed of matter, cannot produce consciousness so consciousness must have an existence independent from matter. While this interpretation of quantum mechanics in not universally held by all physicists, some of the original founders of quantum mechanics, including Nobel Prize winners believed this. (see below: Quantum Mechanics)

  • Other individual cases include:

    • • The spirit of a grand master chess player plays through a medium at the grand master level in a style characteristic of the time of his life on earth. (see below: Individual Cases)

      • A scholar of Asian languages speaks in an ancient Chinese dialect with a spirit who successfully explains an ancient Chinese poem that modern scholars did not understand. (see below: Individual Cases)

      • Spirits of crew members of a crashed dirigible, R-101, "provided technical details about its design and construction, recollections of test flights, discussions of political pressures and unrealistic deadlines that plagued the project, and a description of the crash itself and its causes" † and "the personalities of the dead airmen also came through in recognizable detail" †. (see below: Individual Cases)

I can tell you the evidence for the afterlife is overwhelming and it is extraordinary. This evidence supports the conclusion that the afterlife is real, it has withstood the test of time and the collection of new data. However, I can't make you read about it. You have to do that yourself....

Introduction

About the Evidence

This chapter summarizes some of the scientific evidence for the afterlife and, wherever possible, includes links to on-line references and additional sources of information. In many cases, the links include references to the actual reports and writings those who conducted the investigations which you can look up to more fully understand this evidence. The purpose of this chapter is to acquaint readers with the wide variety and compelling nature of this evidence which is not well known to the general public. The evidence goes beyond proving paranormal phenomena are real, it proves the existence of spirits and therefore the afterlife. The definition of scientific proof that skeptics use to assert that evolution by natural selection is proved is discussed and that same definition holds for the existence of spirits and the afterlife.

A quick glance through this chapter will show that there are many different independent forms of evidence and that the evidence is not limited to mediumship. There is objective evidence obtained through electronic instruments as well as evidence obtained through collecting reports directly from people who have witnessed afterlife phenomena and who otherwise have no involvement with the field of afterlife research or mediumship. Some people feel that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The evidence for the afterlife is so extensive and varied that it is, in fact, extraordinary evidence.

The chapter Skeptical Fallacies examines objections to this evidence and shows those objections are not valid. The possibility that these phenomena are the result of psychic powers of living people are disproved in the sections on Super-Psi and Where Do Mediums Get Information From? in the chapter on Short Topics.

If you follow the links and look further into the evidence you will see that besides a variety of types of evidence, there is also a large cumulative amount of evidence. Theoretically, one solid case is sufficient to prove the assertion that a thing exists. However, for the afterlife, there are many, many solid cases from many types of evidence.

A Definition of Scientific Proof

The following passages are taken from "29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: Scientific "Proof", scientific evidence, and the scientific method" by Douglas Theobald, Ph.D. This is part of the FAQ for one of the foremost communities of skeptics on the internet. Interestingly, much of what is written about the theory of scientific proof that is used to justify the theory of evolution by natural selection also applies to belief in the afterlife.

The primary function of science is to demonstrate the existence of phenomena that cannot be observed directly.

...

In fact, the most important discoveries of science have only be inferred via indirect observation. Familiar examples of unobservable scientific discoveries are atoms, electrons, viruses, bacteria, germs, radio-waves, X-rays, ultraviolet light, energy, entropy, enthalpy, solar fusion, genes, protein enzymes, and the DNA double-helix.

...

The validity of a hypothesis does not stand or fall based on just a few confirmations or contradictions, but on the totality of the evidence.

...

In scientific practice, a superior and well-supported hypothesis will be regarded as a theory. A theory that has withstood the test of time and the collection of new data is about as close as we can get to a scientific fact.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/sciproof.html

Science is when you make hypotheses and and test them against empirical evidence. Our hypothesis is that spirits and the afterlife exist and when considered against the evidence the conclusion that they do exist is inescapable.

Detailed Overviews of the Evidence

After reading the cases below, you can find out much more about the scientific evidence for spirits and the afterlife by reading these detailed overviews.

• • "A Lawyer Presents the Case for the Afterlife" by Victor J. Zammit

  • http://www.victorzammit.com/book/4thedition/index.html

  • "21 Days into the Afterlife" by Piero Calvi-Parisetti, MD

  • http://www.openmindsite.com/book.htm

  • "Your Eternal Self" by Craig Hogan

  • http://www.ebook.youreternalself.com/chapter1textlink.htm

  • "The Survival Top 40" by Miles Edward Allen

  • http://www.aeces.info/Top40/top40-main.shtml

  • Near Death Experiences and the Afterlife (near-death.com)

  • "Nothing Better Than Death" by Kevin R. Williams:

  • "Is There an Afterlife?" by David Fontana.

  • Better Evidence weblog post by Michael Prescott

  • "Psychical Research and the Survival Controversy" by D. Scott Rogo

Individual Cases

The spirit of a grand master chess player plays through a medium at the grand master level in a style characteristic of the time of his life on earth.

Source: The Survival Files by Miles Edward Allen

http://www.aeces.info/Top40/Cases_8-25/case24_soulmate.pdf

A scholar of Asian languages speaks in Chinese with a spirit who successfully explains an ancient Chinese poem that modern scholars did not understand.

Source: Psychic Adventures In New York by Neville Whymant

http://www.freewebs.com/psilib/PsychicAdventuresWhymant.txt

Spirits of crew members of a crashed dirigible, R-101, "provided technical details about its design and construction, recollections of test flights, discussions of political pressures and unrealistic deadlines that plagued the project, and a description of the crash itself and its causes" and "the personalities of the dead airmen also came through in recognizable detail".

Source: "R-101" by Michael Prescott

† http://michaelprescott.freeservers.com/R-101.htm

Also see:

• • The Survival Files by Miles Edward Allen

  • http://www.aeces.info/Top40/Cases_8-25/case14_R101.pdf

  • http://www.euro-tongil.org/swedish/english/er101.htm

Relatives of a deceased child receive convincing evidence of identity from the spirit of the child.

Source: "An Amazing Experiment" by Charles Drayton Thomas

"Police in Nelson, B.C., have found the body of a young woman who disappeared last March, and they credit a local psychic for pointing them in the right direction."

Source: CBC News Thursday, January 27, 2005

http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2005/01/27/psychic-body050127.html#

Reincarnation

Reincarnation researcher Ian Stevenson investigated children who had verifiable memories of past lives. Stevenson interviewed everyone involved, the children, the current families, and surviving members of the families from the previous life. He found that these children remembered geography, faces, and names of people in locations they had never been to. Some children could converse in a foreign language they spoke in a past life. Some had birthmarks on their body where they had sustained injuries in the previous life.

http://www.ial.goldthread.com/kidspage/stevenson.html

Three New Cases of Reincarnation Types in Sri Lanka With Written Records

http://www.scientificexploration.org/journal/jse_02_2_stevenson.pdf (1.3MB)

Birthmarks and Birth Defects Corresponding to Wounds on Deceased Persons

http://www.scientificexploration.org/journal/jse_07_4_stevenson.pdf

More links to on-line research articles by Ian Stevenson can be found in the chapter on Recommended Reading.

Also see the following URL for a list of publications by Ian Stevenson

http://www.healthsystem.virginia.edu/internet/personalitystudies

/publications.cfm#Reincar-articles

The evidence for reincarnation cannot be explained by inadvertent mediumship or other forms of psychic perception.

• • Birthmarks are often located on the body at the same place injuries occurred in a previous life.

  • Past life regression has been shown to have immense therapeutic value.

  • During hypnotic regression, subjects recognize people they knew in past lives as incarnating again as people they recognize in their current life.

For more information on reincarnation see the Reincarnation section in the Short Topics chapter.

Shared Death Bed Visions

Individuals near death can often see the spirit world and they also see spirits who come to help them make the transition. Many examples of this are described in Death Bed Visions by William Barrett:

Visions have included spirits of individuals who had died but who the patient thought were still living. This proves the visions are accurate and not imagined. (Chapter 2)

Those attending the dying sometimes see the same spirits the dying see. This also rules out hallucinations since multiple witnesses would not have identical hallucinations.

"A short time before she expired I became aware that two spirit forms were standing by the bedside, one on either side of it. I did not see them enter the room; they were standing by the bedside when they first became visible to me, but I could see them as distinctly as I could any of the human occupants of the room....

Just before they appeared the dying girl exclaimed, 'It has grown suddenly dark; I cannot see anything!' But she recognized them immediately. A smile, beautiful to see, lit up her face. She stretched forth her hands and in joyous tones exclaimed, 'Oh, you have come to take me away! I am glad, for I am very tired.'

As she stretched forth her hands the two angels extended each a hand, one grasping the dying girl's right hand, the other her left hand.... (Chapter 6)

More examples of shared death bed visions can be found in

• • Near-death.com. The Trigger of Shared Death Visions And:

    • • Links to Shared Death Experience Articles, Videos and Books

  • My blog: Death-bed Visions Confirmed

  • Shared Death Experiences at paranormalia.com.

There is also a case of a death-bed vision being confirmed through a medium. It occurred while Richard Hodgson was investigating the medium Mrs Piper. During one sitting, a spirit communicated through automatic writing and explained that she had attended someone on his death bed and had spoken to him using an unusual phrase. A relative of the deceased who was with him at his death-bed was contacted and confirmed that the dying man claimed to have seen the spirit. The relative spontaneously told what the dying man said of the spirit including the use of the unusual phrase given through the medium. An account of this is related in:

A FURTHER RECORD OF OBSERVATIONS OF CERTAIN PHENOMENA OF TRANCE by Richard Hodgson L.L.D. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research Vol. XIII. 1898, p 284 - 582

http://books.google.com/books?lr=&output=html&id=5dTNAAAAMAAJ

&dq=editions%3ALCCN09022954&jtp=378

See the foot note on page 378:

The first writing of the sitting came from Madame Elisa, without my expecting it. She wrote clearly and strongly, explaining that F. was there with her, but unable to speak directly, that she wished to give me an account of how she had helped F. to reach her. She said that she had been present at his death-bed, and had spoken to him, and she repeated what she had said, an unusual form of expression, and indicated that he had heard and recognised her. This was confirmed in detail in the only way possible at that time, by a very intimate friend of Madame Elisa and myself, and also of the nearest surviving relative of F. I showed my friend the account of the sitting, and to this friend, a day or two later, the relative, who was present at the death-bed, stated spontaneously that F. when dying said that he saw Madame Elisa who was speaking to him, and he repeated what she was saying. The expression so repeated, which the relative quoted to my friend, was that which I had received from Madame Elisa through Mrs. Piper’s trance, when the death-bed incident was of course entirely unknown to me.

Shared and Veridical Near Death Experiences

There are people who, due to accident or illness, have been effectively dead for a time with their brain in a state incapable of supporting consciousness. When they were revived by doctors, they reported being in the spirit world and seeing deceased loved ones. If a person who is effectively dead can have a conscious experience, that is very strong evidence for the afterlife. However, some people who have had an NDE have also reported verifiable information from remote locations they could not have perceived with their normal senses even if they had not lost consciousness. Other people who have had an NDE have reported verifiable information about events around them that occurred during a time when they had no brain activity. These veridical NDEs pinpoint the time of the NDE and they demonstrate that consciousness does not require a functioning brain. Veridical NDEs also demonstrate the accuracy of NDE perceptions.

Some NDEs have been shared by healthy people attending those who are near death. Other NDEs have been shared by several people who were involved in the same life threatening accident. These shared NDEs show that NDEs are not hallucinations but real experiences and the information in reports by people who have had NDEs is reliable.

Here is an example of a veridical NDE:

While Maria's body was being worked on by the medical staff she experienced leaving her body. She floated upwards some 4 stories and came out onto the roof of the hospital. There on the ledge of the roof she saw an old sneaker with a worn little toe and one lace tucked under the heel. When the resuscitation procedure had proved successful Maria came to and was quite preoccupied with her vision of the sneaker. ... She managed to persuade the social worker Kim Clark to go check and directed her to a window from which the shoe could be seen when leaning out. ... Clark easily found the correct window and there, indeed, lay the sneaker on the ledge with the worn little toe and the lace tucked under the heel just as Maria had described it.

http://www.deathisanillusion.com/page.pl?id=2&cid=2

An account of this NDE is also given in "Is There an Afterlife" by David Fontana.

Here is an excerpt from a shared NDE described on near-death.com:

We saw that the sparkling lights were tiny, transparent bubbles that drifted in the air and sparkled on the grass. We realized that each tiny sparkle was a soul. To me, the valley appeared to be Heaven, but at the same time I knew that James and Rashad were seeing it differently. James saw it as the Gulf of Souls. Rashad saw it as Nirvana, and somehow we knew all this without speaking. The light began gathering at the far end of the valley, and slowly, out of the mist, a pure white being began to materialize. I saw an angel with a strong, bright face, but not like you'd usually imagine. She was closer to a strong, Viking Valkyrie. I knew she was the special angel that watches over the women of my family, and I perceived her name to be Hellena. James saw this same being as his late father, a career Naval officer, in a white dress uniform. Rashad perceived the being to be the Enlightened One, or Buddha.

http://www.near-death.com/group.html

More examples of shared NDEs can be found here:

Group Near-Death Experiences (near-death.com)

Groups of People Can Share a Single NDE (near-death.com)

The Trigger of Shared Death Visions (near-death.com) And:

Links to Shared Death Experience Articles, Videos and Books (near-death.com)

Additional On-Line References:

Veridical NDE's

• • "People See Verified Events While Out-Of-Body"

  • http://www.near-death.com/experiences/evidence02.html

  • "The NDE and Out-of-Body: Kevin Williams' research conclusions"

  • http://www.near-death.com/experiences/research11.html

  • "Individual NDE Experiences" published by the Near Death Experience Research Foundation

  • http://www.nderf.org/archives_1stHalf2002.htm

  • (Search the page for "veridical" to find these types of cases.)

Also Recommended:

• • "Nothing Better Than Death" by Kevin Williams

"Scientific" hypotheses do not explain NDEs.

There have been several hypotheses advanced to explain NDE's by means of ordinary biological phenomena. None of these hypotheses adequately account for the observed phenomena that have been reported to occur during NDE's. For more information see the section on Near Death Experiences in the chapter on Skeptical Fallacies.

Multiple Witness Crisis Apparitions:

There are many reports of people observing spirits at the time of the spirit's death. Often the observer had no reason to suspect the observed person was near death. This rules out imagination as a source of the vision and proves the accuracy of the observation. Often there are multiple witnesses to the apparition which rules out hallucination as an explanation.

As I reached the top of the stairs a lady passed me who had some time left us. She was in black silk with a muslin 'cloud' over her head and shoulders, but her silk rustled. I could just have a glance only of her face. She glided fast and noiselessly (but for the silk) past me, and was lost down two steps at the end of a long passage that led only into my private boudoir, and had no other exit. I had barely exclaimed 'Oh, Caroline,' when I felt she was something unnatural, and rushed down to the drawing-room again, and sinking on my knees by my husbands side, fainted, and it was with difficulty I was restored to myself again. The next morning, I saw they rather joked me at first; but it afterwards came out that the little nursery girl, while cleaning her grate, had been so frightened by the same appearance, 'a lady sitting near her in black, with white all over her head and shoulders, and her hands crossed on her bosom,' that nothing would induce her to go into the room again; and they had been afraid to tell me over night of this confirmation of the appearance, thinking it would shake my nerves still more than it had done.

...

I wrote immediately to my uncle (the Rev. C. Crawley, of Hartpury near Gloucester) and aunt, and recounted all that had happened. By return of post, 'Caroline is very ill at Belmont' (their family place then), 'and not expected to live; and die she did on the very day or evening she paid me that visit.

From Psychical Research and the Survival Controversy by D. Scott Rogo

Also see:

"Phantasms of the Living" by Edmund Gurney at

http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=title%3A%28phantasms%20

of%20the%20living%29%20AND%20creator%3A%28edmund%20gurney%29

Book and Newspaper Tests

In the books tests, a spirit would give the position of a book on a shelf, the page number in the book, and the location on a page where an evidential message could be found. In the newspaper tests, a spirit would tell the contents of newspaper articles before they were printed. The purpose of these test was to show that mediums received information from spirits and not from the sitters by ESP or investigation since neither the medium nor the sitter could know this information.

Here is one example where the spirit gives the location and content of an item in a newspaper not yet published and the person receiving the reading confirmed the prediction.

October 4th, 1922, at 2:36 p.m.: "In to-morrow's Times, page one, column one, and near the top, see the name of a place which you much liked while away; you went to see it, but not to stay there, and were very interested. It is not the name of a county, but of a small locality."

... on looking at The Times on October 5th to discover the solution of the riddle, we were, I candidly admit it, astonished to see the words, School House, Sherbourne, placed precisely where I had been instructed to look, viz., "near the top of column one of the first page."

... Only five days previously we had stayed for an hour at Sherbourne, where we took tea in an upper room, the window of which overlooked a street adjoining Sherbourne School.... Before leaving the town we inspected the school buildings from the outside, and were sufficiently interested to read, on arriving home, all we could find in my books relating to Sherbourne and its school.

Source: "Life Beyond Death with Evidence" by Rev. Charles Drayton Thomas. Many book and newspaper tests are described in detail in this book which may be downloaded free from:

http://www.freewebs.com/psilib/

An overview of the book and newspaper tests is given in this blog entry by Michael Tymn:

Proof Positive of Spirit Communicatio?

Cross Correspondences

In cross-correspondence experiments, spirits give a message through multiple mediums. There may be a simple message, or the message may be given indirectly, for example, through a literary allusion, or parts of the message may be given to different mediums and only when the parts are pieced together do they provide the complete message. These experiments show that mediums are communicating with intelligent beings rather than using their own psychic powers to provide information about the deceased.

A more detailed discussions of the cross-correspondences can be found at:

"Cross-Correspondences" by Konstantin Oesterreich

(Also see "Related Articles" at the bottom of this page.)

The Eager Dead & Undying Love by Michael Tymn

A Lawyer Presents the Case for the Afterlife by Victor Zammit. Chapter 16. The Cross Correspondences.

http://www.victorzammit.com/book/4thedition/chapter16.html

Several examples of cross-correspondences are given in the book "Contact with the Other World" by Professor James Hyslop in chapter XIII "Experimental Incidents". This book can be downloaded free from:

http://www.spiritwritings.com/ContactOtherWorldHyslop.pdf

Drop-in Communicators

Mediums sometimes receive communications from spirits who are unrelated to, and unknown by, the sitters and the medium. These spirits come through to communicate for purposes important only to themselves. They give verifiable information about their identity and cause of death.

For example, the spirit of Runolfur Runolfsson was buried with a thigh bone missing. He communicated through a medium and gave the correct location of his thigh bone which was hidden in a wall. He asked for it to be found and buried. When the wall was opened up and searched, a thigh bone was found.

For more information see:

A brief description at AECES.info:

http://www.aeces.info/Top40/Cases_26-50/case42_Icelandic-leg-hunting.pdf

Haraldsson E. and Stevenson, I, 1975. 'A Communicator of the Drop-in Type in Iceland: the case of Runolfur Runolfsson'. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 69. 33-59.

http://www.hi.is/~erlendur/english/mediums/Runki.pdf

You can read more about drop-in communicators from these on-line sources:

The Harry Stockbridge case:

Is there Life Beyond Death?

http://www.aeces.info/Top40/Cases_26-50/case47_young-soldier.pdf

The Biedermann drop-in case:

http://www.aeces.info/Top40/Cases_26-50/case46_rationalist-spirit.pdf

Gudni Magnusson:

Haraldsson E. and Stevenson, I, 1975. 'A Communicator of the Drop-in Type in Iceland: the case of Gudni Magnusson', Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 69, 245-261.

http://www.hi.is/~erlendur/english/mediums/gudni.pdf

Proxy Sittings

Proxy sittings are when a person goes to a medium on behalf of someone who is not present at the sitting. In such cases the medium and the proxy sitter may not know who the reading is for or anything about that person. In this case it is impossible for the medium to use cold reading or any previous knowledge about the person in their reading. When a medium can give verifiable information about the actual sitter and deceased individuals known to them, it is very strong proof of psychic functioning and when the medium can give specialized knowledge known only to the deceased it is very strong evidence that they are communicating with the spirit of the deceased.

More information on proxy sittings can be found in "The Mediumship Of Mrs. Leonard" by Susy Smith:

http://www.enformy.com/LeonardTOC.htm

in chapter V "Proxy Sittings":

http://www.enformy.com/LeonardCh05.htm

The use of proxy sittings has also been described in the scientific research report: "Anomalous Information Reception by Research Mediums Demonstrated Using a Novel Triple-Blind Protocol" Julie Beischel, Gary E. Schwartz Explore (New York, N.Y.) 1 January 2007 (volume 3 issue 1 Pages 23-27 DOI: 10.1016/j.explore.2006.10.004)

http://www.explorejournal.com/article/PIIS155083070600454X/fulltext

Instrumental Trans Communication (ITC)

Electronic devices have allowed interactive conversations with spirits that anyone can hear. A demonstration was given live on Radio Luxembourg.

Koenig installed his equipment under the watchful eyes of the Radio's own engineers and the presenter of the program, Herr Rainer Holbe. One of the Radio's staff asked if a voice could come through in direct response to his requests. Almost immediately a voice replied:

'We hear your voice' and 'Otto Koenig makes wireless with the dead' (Fuller 1981:339).

Source: A Lawyer Presents the Case for the Afterlife by Victor J. Zammit

http://www.victorzammit.com/book/4thedition/chapter05.html

Also see:

The Survival Files by Miles Edward Allen

http://www.aeces.info/Top40/Cases_8-25/case17_ghosts-machines.pdf

The Scole Experiments

During the Scole experiments the voices of spirits were heard, objects materialized, and "images were imprinted on unopened rolls of film". These experiments were observed by a number of scientists and a professional stage-magician with more than fifty years experience in psychic research who wrote "I discovered no signs of trickery, and in my opinion such conjuring tricks were not possible, for the type of phenomena witnessed, under the conditions applied."

Source: A Lawyer Presents the Case for the Afterlife by Victor J. Zammit

http://www.victorzammit.com/book/4thedition/chapter08.html

ESP

There is a vast amount of proof of ESP. ESP is not limited by time or distance. It cannot be explained by the known laws of physics including quantum entanglement because there is no practical means by which entanglement in a brain may be established over large distances.

In the case of telepathy, that phenomenon cannot be the result of any physical interaction between brains because each brain has its own unique structure and any meaning in the structure in one brain will be unintelligible to any other person whether they are entangled or not. The very existence of telepathy is evidence that consciousness is not produced by the brain, i.e. consciousness is non-physical.

Since human consciousness is capable of telepathy and other forms of ESP, consciousness cannot be the result of any physical process in the brain. Consciousness must be non-physical and thus capable of existing without any physical body. The section ESP is not produced by the brain in Near-death Experiences and Afterlife Phenomena explains this in greater detail.

Quantum Mechanics

When physicists study matter at the subatomic level, they find that matter does not exist until it is observed by a conscious being. Double-slit experiments demonstrate that a conscious observer is required to collapse a probability wave into a particle. Quantum entanglement experiments demonstrate that certain properties of matter are not determined until they are observed by a conscious observer. Therefore consciousness is necessary first before matter can exist, so it is impossible for consciousness to have been produced by matter. Therefore the it is impossible that the brain, which is composed of matter, could produce consciousness. Founders of quantum mechanics, including Nobel Prize winners in physics such as Max Planck and Erwin Schrödinger, believed this. You can find more information on these scientists in the chapter on Eminent Researchers.

Furthermore, if something in an unstable quantum state is observed continuously by a conscious observer, it will not decay. This is called the quantum Zeno effect. The effect cannot be produced by matter alone which indicates that consciousness cannot be produced by any physical process.

John Archibald Wheeler believed the evidence from quantum mechanics shows that the physical universe has information as its basis. This is exactly what you would expect if physical reality is produced by consciousness. Information would have to be more fundamental than space, time, matter and energy, because consciousness operates on information.

Observations in quantum mechanics must be made by conscious observers according to John von Neumann:

In his treatise The Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, John von Neumann deeply analyzed the so-called measurement problem. He concluded that the entire physical universe could be made subject to the Schrödinger equation (the universal wave function). Since something "outside the calculation" was needed to collapse the wave function, von Neumann concluded that the collapse was caused by the consciousness of the experimenter.[22]

Wikipedia

Max Plank the founder of quantum mechanics and winner of the Nobel prize in physics said:

I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness. As quoted in The Observer (25 January 1931)

And ...

As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter.

Das Wesen der Materie [The Nature of Matter], speech at Florence, Italy (1944) (from Archiv zur Geschichte der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Abt. Va, Rep. 11 Planck, Nr. 1797)

Erwin Schrödinger winner of the Nobel prize in physics wrote:

"Consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms. For consciousness is absolutely fundamental. It cannot be accounted for in terms of anything else." http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/show/325387

John Archibald Wheeler wrote

It from Bit symbolizes the idea that every item of the physical world has at bottom - at a very deep bottom, in most instances - an immaterial source and explanation; that what we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes-no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and this is a participatory universe.

- Information, Physics, Quanutm: The Search for Links

Philosophy

There are very good philosophical reasons to believe the mind is not produced by the brain and therefore the mind is non-physical. Peter Williams discusses several reasons for this in his article: Why Naturalists Should Mind about Physicalism, and Vice Versa, (Quodlibet Journal: Volume 4 Number 2-3, Summer 2002.)

Williams explains that if the mind and the brain were the same, then all the properties of the mind would be properties of the brain. He then demonstrates that the mind cannot be identical to the brain by giving several examples of properties of the mind that are not properties of the brain.

One example he gives is that the experience of consciousness described in the first person cannot be understood by a description of the physical brain in the third person. "I feel warm", cannot be understood in the same way as "His brain responds to impulses from nerves that sense temperature."

Thomas Nagel argues that your subjective experience of tasting chocolate cannot be reduced to any objective physical event inside your brain because any such physical state is observable by a third party, whereas your experience is not:

"If a scientist took off the top of your skull and looked into your brain while you were eating the chocolate bar, all he would see is a grey mass of neurons. If he used instruments to measure what was happening inside, he would detect complicated physical processes of many different kinds. But would he find the taste of chocolate?

It seems as if he couldn't find it in your brain, because your experience of tasting chocolate is locked inside your mind in a way that makes it unobservable by anyone else. . . Your experiences are inside your mind with a kind of insideness that is different from the way that your brain is inside your head.

Another example of a property of the mind that is not a property of the brain is qualia. Qualia are the qualities of things you experience subjectively, ie, the way red looks or the way happy feels. If you imagine the color pink, someone observing your brain will not see anything pink that corresponds to your mental image.

Gary R. Habermas and J.P.Moreland argue against physicalism from the ‘qualia’ of imagined sensory images. Qualia is the subjective feel or texture of conscious experience:

"Picture a pink elephant in your mind. Now close your eyes and look at the image. In your mind, you will see a pink property. . . There will be no pink elephant outside you, but there will be a pink image of one in your mind. However, there will be no pink entity in your brain; no neurophysiologist could open your brain and see a pink entity while you are having the sense image. The sensory event has a property – pink – that no brain event has. Therefore, they cannot be identical." [19]

To put this another way, the subjective feel of mental experiences such as the feeling of pain, the hearing of sound or the taste of chocolate seems very different from anything that is purely physical: "If the world were only made of matter, these subjective aspects of consciousness would not exist. But they do exist! So there must be more to the world than matter." [20]

Williams gives several more examples. These include intentionality, the ability to reason, free will, and moral responsibility. See the linked article for an explanation of why these phenomena demonstrate that the mind cannot be made of matter.

Williams concludes:

At the very least, the mind has several immaterial properties ... It follows that no merely physical explanation of the mind is possible.

Edward Feser has several posts on his blog that also discuss why the mind cannot be produced by physical causes:

Some Brief Arguments for Dualism

• • Part I

  • Part II

  • Part III

  • Part IV

  • Part V

Parts I and II discuss intentionality, part III discusses qualia, part IV discusses universals, and part V explains that mental states cannot be specified by the brain without a mind to define them and therefore the brain cannot be the cause of the mind. There are other posts on Feser's blog on similar subjects. These are collected in his post:

Mind Body Problem Roundup

Survival not Super-Psi

Some researchers have considered whether afterlife phenomena can be explained by the psychic powers of living persons simulating afterlife phenomena. This possibility does not stand up well under close scrutiny. This is discussed on my blog in the post Survival and Super-Psi.

Twenty Cases Suggestive of Survival

The venerable psychical researcher Montague Keen collected a list of twenty cases suggestive of survival. This list was based on a similar list originally published by Professor Archie Roy in The Paranormal Review, a magazine published by The Society for Psychical Research. The original references for a number of these cases are available on the internet. Some of the cases can be found in on-line books written by the same author as the referenced article. Descriptions of many of the remaining cases can also be found on various websites on the internet.

• 1. The Watseka Wonder, 1887. Stevens, E.W. 1887. The Watseka Wonder, Chicago; Religio-philosophical Publishing House, and Hodgson R., Religio-Philosophical Journal Dec. 20th, 1890, investigated by Dr. Hodgson.

     1. A brief description of this case be found on line at answers.com.

     2. http://www.answers.com/topic/the-watseka-wonder

     3. A slightly longer description is available at AECES.info.

     4. http://www.aeces.info/Top40/Cases_26-50/case45_Roff-return.pdf

  2. Uttara Huddar and Sharada. Stevenson I. and Pasricha S, 1980. 'A preliminary report on an unusual case of the reincarnation type with Xenoglossy'. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 74, 331-348; and Akolkar V.V. 'Search for Sharada: Report of a case and its investigation'. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 86, 209-247.

• • 1. A description of this case is available from the archive.org archive of survivalafterdeath.org:

    2. Some Personal Thoughts on Survival by D. Scott Rogo

• 3. Sumitra and Shiva-Tripathy. Stevenson I. and Pasricha S, and McLean-Rice, N 1989. 'A Case of the Possession Type in India with evidence of Paranormal Knowledge'. Journal of the Society for Scientific Exploration 3, 81-101.

• • 1. The referenced article is available in PDF format on-line at:

    2. http://www.scientificexploration.org/journal/jse_03_1_stevenson.pdf

    3. The article is available in HTML format from the google archive at:

    4. http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:O5IdlJznibsJ:

    5. www.scientificexploration.org/journal/jse_03_1_stevenson.pdf+

    6. Sumitra+and+Shiva-Tripathy&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

• 4. Jasbir Lal Jat. Stevenson, I, 1974. Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation (2nd edition) Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia.

• • 1. A brief description of this case is available from trivia-library.com:

    2. http://www.trivia-library.com/b/history-and-cases-of-reincarnation

    3. -case-of-indian-boy-jasbir-part-2.htm

• 5. The Thompson/Gifford case. Hyslop, J.H. 1909. A Case of Veridical Hallucinations, Proceedings American Society for Psychical Research 3, 1-469.

  6. http://books.google.com/books?id=M6TNAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA1&lr=

• • 1. This case is also discussed in chapter 14 of "Contact With the Other World" by Professor James Hyslop. The book is available on-line in PDF format from spiritwritings.com.

    2. http://www.spiritwritings.com/ContactOtherWorldHyslop.pdf

    3. Chapter 14 is also available in HTML format from magick-spell.net.

    4. http://www.magick-spells.net/books/01/23/14.htm

    5. The case is also discussed in the article Some Personal Thoughts on Survival by D. Scott Rogo in the archive.org archive of survivalafterdeath.org.

    6. Some Personal Thoughts on Survival by D. Scott Rogo

• 7. Past-life regression. Tarazi, L. 1990. 'An Unusual Case of Hypnotic Regression with some Unexplained Contents'. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, 84, 309-344.

  8. Cross-correspondence communications. Balfour J. (Countess of) 1958-60. 'The Palm Sunday Case: New Light On an Old Love Story'. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, 52, 79-267.

• • 1. This case is described at prairieghosts.com.

    2. http://www.prairieghosts.com/cross_corr.html

• 9. Book and Newspaper Tests. Thomas, C.D. 1935. 'A Proxy Case extending over Eleven Sittings with Mrs Osborne Leonard'. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 43, 439-519.

• • 1. Many of the book and newspaper tests are also described by Rev. Charles Drayton Thomas. in his book "Life Beyond Death with Evidence"

    2. http://www.freewebs.com/psilib

• 10. "Bim's" book-test. Lady Glenconnor. 1921. The Earthen Vessel, London, John Lane.

• • 1. The book "The Earthen Vessel" where this case is described is available on-line from archive.org.

    2. http://www.archive.org/details/earthenvesselvol00glenuoft

• 11. The Harry Stockbridge communicator. Gauld, A. 1966-72. 'A Series of Drop-in Communicators'. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 55, 273-340.

• • 1. This case is discussed very briefly in an article at survivalafterdeath.org and in more detail at AECES.info:

    2. Is there Life Beyond Death?

    3. http://www.aeces.info/Top40/Cases_26-50/case47_young-soldier.pdf

• 12. The Bobby Newlove case. Thomas, C. D. 1935. 'A proxy case extending over Eleven Sittings with Mrs. Osborne Leonard'. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 43, 439-519.

• • 1. This case is the subject of the book "An Amazing Experiment" also by Charles Drayton Thomas and is available on line at survivalafterdeath.org:

    2. An Amazing Experiment

• 13. The Runki missing leg case. Haraldsson E. and Stevenson, I, 1975. 'A Communicator of the Drop-in Type in Iceland: the case of Runolfur Runolfsson'. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 69. 33-59.

• • 1. This article can be found on Dr. Haraldsson's web site:

    2. http://www.hi.is/~erlendur/english/mediums/Runki.pdf

    3. A brief description of this case can be found at AECES.info:

    4. http://www.aeces.info/Top40/Cases_26-50/case42_Icelandic-leg-hunting.pdf

• 14. The Biedermann drop-in case. Gauld, A. 1966-72. 'A Series of Drop-in Communicators'. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 55, 273-340.

• • 1. A brief description of this case can be found at AECES.info:

    2. http://www.aeces.info/Top40/Cases_26-50/case46_rationalist-spirit.pdf

• 15. Haraldsson E. and Stevenson, I, 1975. 'A Communicator of the Drop-in Type in Iceland: the case of Gudni Magnusson', Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 69, 245-261.

• • 1. This article can be found on Dr. Haraldsson's web site:

    2. http://www.hi.is/~erlendur/english/mediums/gudni.pdf

• 16. Identification of deceased officer. Lodge, O. 1916. Raymond, or Life and Death. London. Methuen & Co. Ltd.

• • 1. Raymond or Life and Death by Sir Oliver Lodge FRS

• 17. Mediumistic evidence of the Vandy death. Gay, K. 1957. 'The Case of Edgar Vandy', Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 39, 1-64; Mackenzie, A. 1971. 'An Edgar Vandy Proxy Sitting'. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 46, 166-173; Keen, M. 2002. 'The case of Edgar Vandy: Defending the Evidence', Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 64.3 247-259; 'Letters', 2003, Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 67.3. 221-224.

• • 1. A brief description of this case can be found at AECES.info:

    2. http://www.aeces.info/Top40/Cases_26-50/case39_vandy-death.pdf

• 18. Mrs Leonore Piper and the George "Pelham" communicator. Hodgson, R. 1897-8. 'A Further Record of Observations of Certain Phenomena of Trance'. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, 13, 284-582.

• • 1. This article is available on-line from books.google.com: at books.google.com.

    2. I also give an overview of this case on my blog:

    3. http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2009/05/further-record-of-observations-of.html

• 19. Messages from "Mrs. Willett" to her sons. Cummins, G. 1965. Swan on a Black Sea. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

• • 1. This case is described in two articles in the archive.org archive of survivalafterdeath.org:

    2. Mrs Willet Communications Ostensibly Proceeding from the Dead by G. N. M. Tyrrell

    3. The Willet Scripts by Rosalind Heywood

• 20. Ghostly aeroplane phenomena. Fuller, J.G. 1981 The Airmen Who Would Not Die, Souvenir Press, London.

• • 1. This book includes a discussion of the R-101 disaster discussed above in the section on individual cases.

    2. Also see:

    3. * http://michaelprescott.freeservers.com/R-101.htm

    4. * http://www.euro-tongil.org/swedish/english/er101.htm

    5. * The Survival Files by Miles Edward Allen:

    6. http://www.aeces.info/Top40/Cases_8-25/case14_R101.pdf

• 21. Intelligent responses via two mediums: the Lethe case. Piddington, J. G. 1910. 'Three incidents from the Sittings'. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 24, 86-143; Lodge, O. 1911. 'Evidence of Classical Scholarship and of Cross-Correspondence in some New Automatic Writing'. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 25, 129-142.

• • 1. These two articles are available on-line from books.google.com.

    2. Three incidents from the Sittings':

    3. http://books.google.com>/books?id=rUzOAAAAMAAJ

    4. &pg=PA86&dq=editions:LCCN09022954&lr=&output=html

    5. Evidence of Classical Scholarship and of Cross-Correspondence in Some New Automatic Writing:

    6. http://books.google.com/books?id=O03OAAAAMAAJ

    7. &pg=PA113&dq=editions:LCCN09022954&lr=&output=html

Early Research

Afterlife research should have been accepted by mainstream science long ago. There was sufficient evidence reported by highly reputable scientists for this to have occurred as early as 1922.

• • Charles Richet was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 1913. He wrote "Thirty Years of Psychical Research". An English translation was made 1922 and can be found on-line at:

  • http://survivalebooks.org/#Thirty Years of Psychical Research

  • Sir William Crookes was a highly regarded scientist who invented the cathode ray tube. He wrote "Researches Into the Phenomena of Modern Spiritualism" the fourth edition was published in 1922 and can be found on-line at:

  • http://books.google.com/books?id=PMg0AAAAMAAJ&printsec

  • =titlepage&output=text

  • John William Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1904. He was president of the Society for Psychical Research and said:

    • I have seen enough to convince me that those are wrong who wish to prevent investigation by casting ridicule on those who may feel inclined to engage in it.

    • Lord Rayleigh

Eminent Researchers

Brian David Josephson recipient of the the 1973 Nobel Prize for Physics wrote:

"What are the implications for science of the fact that psychic functioning appears to be a real effect? These phenomena seem mysterious, but no more mysterious perhaps than strange phenomena of the past which science has now happily incorporated within its scope."

http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~bdj10/psi/tucson.html

Charles Robert Richet winner of the 1913 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine conducted his own investigations into the afterlife and wrote:

The "guide" of the medium (i.e., the new personality that appears) then seems to be a genuinely extraneous intelligence. These phenomena can rightly be called metapsychic because, taking them all in all, the normal intelligence of the sensitive is quite insufficient to explain the strange and potent cryptesthesia.

From: Mediums and Metapsychics by Charles Richet

Sir William Crookes, discoverer of the element thallium and inventor the cathode-ray tube started out as a skeptic but after examining the medium D.D. Home for himself came to believe:

"Of all persons endowed with a powerful development of this Psychic Force, Mr. Daniel Dunglas Home is the most remarkable and it is mainly owing to the many opportunities I have had of carrying on my investigation in his presence that I am enabled to affirm so conclusively the existence of this force."

From: Researches into the Phenomena of Spiritualism by Sir William Crookes

Gary Schwartz has published numerous research articles demonstrating the accuracy of mediums in scientific experiments including a triple-blind experiment in which the medium has no contact with the person getting the reading. This eliminates cold reading or the use of previous knowledge as an explanation for mental mediumship.

Anomalous Information Reception By Research Mediums Demonstrated Using A Novel Triple -Blind Protocol

http://veritas.arizona.edu/papers/Beischel%20EXPLORE%202007%20vol%203.pdf

These scientists were not fooled by magic tricks. Highly skilled stage magicians have investigated many mediums and have found them to be genuine (see the chapter on Skeptical Fallacies for more information and links).

Studies have shown people with more education are more likely to believe in the afterlife, and most medical doctors believe in the afterlife (see the chapter on Skeptical Fallacies for more information and links).

See the chapter on Eminent Researchers for more eminent researchers.

On Line Classics in Psychical Research

If you want to read more about the evidence for the afterlife, there are several recommendations in the section above on Detailed Overviews. If you would like to read a more in depth discussion by the researchers who collected the evidence, the following books may be of interest to you.

William Barrett: Death Bed Visions

A compilation of first hand accounts of death-bed visions of spirits. Reports including multiple witness accounts and visions of spirits of individuals who had died but who's death was not yet known.

Julie Beischel, Gary E. Schwartz: "Anomalous Information Reception by Research Mediums Demonstrated Using a Novel Triple-Blind Protocol" Explore (New York, N.Y.) 1 January 2007 (volume 3 issue 1 Pages 23-27 )

http://www.explorejournal.com/article/PIIS155083070600454X/fulltext

This paper describes a modern triple-blind experiment in which the medium had no contact with the person getting the reading. It eliminates cold reading or the use of previous knowledge as an explanation for mental mediumship.

Sir William Crookes:

Researches Into the Phenomena of Modern Spiritualism

Describes the author's observations of the mediumship of D.D. Home and Florence Cook. Crookes was the discoverer the element thallium and inventor the cathode-ray tube. He started out as a skeptic but after conducting his own research became a believer.

Edmund Gurney: "Phantasms of the Living"

http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=title%3A%28phantasms%20

of%20the%20living%29%20AND%20creator%3A%28edmund%20gurney%29

Erlendur Haraldsson & Ian Stevenson (1975). A communicator of the "drop in" type in Iceland: The case of Runolfur Runolfsson. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, 69, 33-59.

http://www.hi.is/~erlendur/english/mediums/Runki.pdf

This case is frequently cited to refute the super-psi hypothesis because the spirit was not related to the medium or sitters, gave verifiable information, and communicated for reasons that were meaningful only to himself. He gave the location of a thigh bone hidden in a wall and asked that it be buried because it was from his own corpse.

Loftur R. Gissurarson & Erlendur Haraldsson (1989). The Icelandic Physical Medium Indridi Indridason. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, 57, 53-148.

http://www3.hi.is/~erlendur/english/IndridiPSPR_v53p214_1989.pdf

Erlendur Haraldsson & Ian Stevenson (1975). A communicator of the "drop in" type in Iceland: The case of Gudni Magnusson. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, 69, 245-261.

http://www.hi.is/~erlendur/english/mediums/gudni.pdf

Anna Hude: "The Evidence for Communication with the Dead"

http://www.archive.org/details/evidenceforcommu00hude

Professor James Hyslop: "Contact with the Other World"

http://www.spiritwritings.com/ContactOtherWorldHyslop.pdf

Describes examples of the cross correspondence experiments.

William James: "Human Immortality: Two Supposed Objections to the Doctrine"

http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=title%3A%28human%20

immortality%29%20AND%20creator%3A%28james%29

Sir Oliver Lodge: The Survival of Man

Frederic William Henry Myers: "Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death"

http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=title%3A%28human%20

personality%29%20AND%20creator%3A%28myers%29

Charles Richet: "Thirty Years of Psychical Research"

http://survivalebooks.org/#Thirty Years of Psychical Research

Charles Robert Richet was the winner of the 1913 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine. This book is an account of his own investigations of mediums.

Michael Sage: "Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research"

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/19376

Ian Stevenson: Birthmarks and Birth Defects Corresponding to Wounds on Deceased Persons, Journal of Scientific Exploration, Vol. 7, No. 4, pp. 403-410, 1993

http://www.scientificexploration.org/journal/jse_07_4_stevenson.pdf

Charles Drayton Thomas: An Amazing Experiment

The spirit of Bobby Newlove provides evidence of his identity through the mediumship of Mrs Leonard.

Rev. Charles Drayton Thomas: "Life Beyond Death with Evidence"

http://www.freewebs.com/psilib/

Describes many of the book and newspaper tests.

Baron Von Schrenck Notzing: "Phenomena of Materialisation"

http://www.archive.org/details/phenomenaofmater00schr

Detailed accounts of experiments that prove the reality of ectoplasm and materialization of spirits.

Alfred Russel Wallace: "Miracles and Modern Spiritualism"

http://www.archive.org/details/miraclesmodernsp00walliala

The scientists who discovered the theory of natural selection at the same time as Charles Darwin also investigated afterlife phenomena and mediums. He started out as a skeptic but his observations caused him to recognize the truth of the afterlife.

Neville Whymant: "Psychic Adventures In New York"

http://www.freewebs.com/psilib/PsychicAdventuresWhymant.txt

A scholar of Asian languages describes his experience at a sitting with a direct voice medium who brings through a spirit speaking an ancient Chinese dialect who is able to clarify points about a poem that had baffled modern scholars.

"Journal of the Society for Psychical Research" and "Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research

http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=publisher%3A%22Society

%20for%20Psychical%20Research%22

Journal of the Society for Psychical Research

http://books.google.com/books?q=editions:0HoKx8DYFXcTcQ7S6m1

&id=OGcAAAAAMAAJ

Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research

http://books.google.com/books?q=editions:LCCN09022954&lr

=&id=rUDOAAAAMAAJ&sa=N&start=0

Proceedings of the American Society for Psychical Research

http://books.google.com/books?q=editions:0YtIlDFzRgAlrBaY9b

&id=SqPNAAAAMAAJ

Mrs. Piper in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research

• • A RECORD OF OBSERVATIONS OF CERTAIN PHENOMENA OF TRANCE By Frederic W. H. Myers, O.J. Lodge F.R.S, Walter Leaf Litt. D., William James, Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research Vol. VI., 1889-90, pp. 436-650

    • Article:

    • http://books.google.com/books?id=1moAAAAAMAAJ

    • &pg=PA436&dq=editions:LCCN09022954&lr=&output=html

    • Contents:

    • http://books.google.com/books?id=1moAAAAAMAAJ

    • &pg=PR10&dq=editions:LCCN09022954&lr=&output=html

  • A RECORD OF OBSERVATIONS OF CERTAIN PHENOMENA OF TRANCE. by Richard Hodgson L.L.D. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research Vol. VIII. 1892, pp. 1-167

    • Article:

    • http://books.google.com/books?id=GdTNAAAAMAAJ

    • &pg=PA1&dq=editions:LCCN09022954&lr=&output=html

    • Contents:

    • http://books.google.com/books?id=GdTNAAAAMAAJ

    • &pg=PR10&dq=editions:LCCN09022954&lr=&output=html

  • A FURTHER RECORD OF OBSERVATIONS OF CERTAIN PHENOMENA OF TRANCE by Richard Hodgson L.L.D. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research Vol. XIII. 1898, p 284 - 582

    • Article:

    • http://books.google.com/books?id=5dTNAAAAMAAJ&

    • pg=PA284&dq=editions:LCCN09022954&lr=&output=html

    • Contents:

    • http://books.google.com/books?id=5dTNAAAAMAAJ

    • &pg=PR8&dq=editions:LCCN09022954&lr=&output=html