Ghost Hunters: William James and the Search for Scientific Proof of Life After Death
Review by Michael Schmicker
Journal of Scientific Exploration (2007)
I have a good friend who earned his Ph.D in chemistry from Harvard. He’s a college dean and professor of
oceanography at a name-brand U.S. university. He’s authored textbooks in his field of research. In short, he’s
the very model of a modern, major-league scientist. He tolerates my membership in SSE, but has no interest
himself in joining or reading my JSE. He doesn’t believe in ghosts, and scoffs at mediums who claim to contact
the dead. He steadfastly refuses to look at any evidence offered to the contrary. To him, it’s all unscientific
bunkum.
He’s also a practicing Catholic. In church every Sunday, he fervently recites a creed that affirms his belief in
scientifically impossible phenomena – a virgin birth, the magical changing of bulk table wine into real blood.
More to the point, he believes all people rise from the dead (along with their actual physical bodies), and the
existence of an invisible world populated with angels, devils and demons who share it with his deceased
grandmother and assorted others.
The contradiction eludes him, and frustrates me.
He believes in an afterlife but won’t look for, or at, collected scientific evidence suggesting its reality.
Compartmentalization is his solution to the triumph of science over traditional religion, a process that started
with the Renaissance, accelerated in the Victorian age, and ended in dominance in the early 20th century.
Reason rules unchallenged from Monday through Saturday, faith on Sunday. His disconnect epitomizes the
uneasy accommodation existing today between faith and science. The two protagonists divide up territory like
Mafiosi, and try to avoid interfering in each others’ business.
Harvard professor William James, the father of American psychology, together with a small band of
exceptional, Nobel-winning European scientists and thinkers hoped to avoid this separate-boxes solution.
They made a valiant attempt at the turn of the last century to produce scientific proof for religion’s boldest
assertion, which would allow faith and science to share a common, consensual reality. Their melancholy story
is told with admirable skill by author and science writer Deborah Blum in Ghost Hunters: William James and
the Search for Scientific Proof of Life After Death.
Three years of serious research shine through these pages. A professor of science journalism at the University
of Wisconsin, Blum read widely; worked with primary documents; focuses on the best evidence (mediums like
Leonora Piper, Margaret Verrall and Eusapia Palladino, seminal publications like Phantasms of the Living);
serves up historical context (1842-1910, the span of James’ life, the early history of the SPR and ASPR, the
unstoppable march of science); extensively footnotes her quotes and sources; and narrates her story with a
scholarly grace approaching today’s gold standard in historical writing, David McCollough.
This is a book my Harvard scientist friend should read – not that he will. The fact that he and James share old
school ties, or that James was a recognized giant in his field, won’t be enough to entice them to spend a few
hours together. Like too many scientists today, he lives and works in a confined mental cubbyhole, with little
time to read anything outside his academic field, even if he were so inclined.
If he did, what would he think of the evidence produced by James and his apostles of the afterlife?
I am familiar with most of the evidence (fairly compelling), but came away with new facts, information and
insights I might have uncovered in my own three years spent researching the best scientific evidence life after
death, but never did. Example? Mark Twain’s personal run-in with the paranormal and his subsequent
endorsement of “mental telegraphy” (telepathy) in the December 1891issue of Harper’s. Twain skewered
organized religion repeatedly and acidly in his lesser-known writings, but his beef with religion didn’t close his
mind. He remains a hero of mine.
Blum came away changed in the way she thought. William James and his colleagues “questioned and explored
possibilities so accurately that it was impossible not to reevaluate my assumption.” Along the way, “I read
reports by psychical researchers that I couldn’t explain away. I thought all over again about the shape of the
world, about the limits of reality and who sets them, illuminated by history, philosophy, theology as well as
science. There were days when I could feel the hinges of my brain, almost literally, creaking apart to make room
for new ideas.” She remains still grounded in the current, consensual definition of reality, but adds, “I’m just
less smug than I was when I started, less positive of my rightness.”
The melancholy part? James came away with a tenuous epiphany he tried but ultimately failed to share with his
fellow scientists whose downright pigheaded prejudice and intellectual dishonesty allowed so few of them to
look at – much less fairly judge – the intriguing evidence he uncovered. At the end of his career, his brilliance
and towering achievements in the infant field of psychology forever tainted in the public eye and press by
what they judged unwise dabbling in supernatural hokum, James felt betrayed and bitter towards many of his
scoffing colleagues. “Let them perish in their ignorance and conceit,” he concluded.
SSE members wishing to avoid being lumped in with that cursed lot should familiarize themselves with the rich,
early history of serious scientific research on life after death, if they haven’t already. You can’t do better than
Blum, and James’ ghost – should you subsequently decide it exists – will rest easier.
_______
Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife
Review by Michael Schmicker
Journal of Scientific Exploration (2008)
Mary Roach is a funny writer. While reading Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife, I often found myself
laughing out loud. The book is chock full of zingers and hilarious, footnotes. Her sharp, witty, humor-column
style of writing makes the complex scientific and philosophical debate regarding survival of consciousness
both entertaining and enjoyable. That’s the good news.
The bad news? She seems to have selected much of the material presented in her book for its humor potential
rather than its ability to seriously address the question she promises to examine. She dedicates one chapter to
early science’s misguided search for the soul in human cadavers, sperm and brains; a second full chapter to the
history of various obsessed oddballs who attempted to weigh the soul; a third to long discredited but grin-
provoking notions of soul-as-ether or capable of being captured on X-rays; and a fourth chapter describes her
three-day stay at the Arthur Findlay College of mediumship, learning how to become a psychic.. Throughout
the book, she plays it for laughs and they come fast and furious. Like all good magazine writers, she’s also not
about to let the reader get bored or lost in a complex argument. Instead of offering a careful, detailed (and
potentially yawn-producing) analysis of one of Dr. Ian Stevenson’s strongest reincarnation cases, she opts for
a four-day travelogue trip to India to accompany a researcher investigating a random case that’s landed on his
desk. She avoids any serious discussion of death bed visions, possession cases and several other intriguing
phenomena which might have bearing on the survival question (though she does do a good job on the famous
Chaffin ghost case). The result is not so much “science tackles the afterlife,” but more accurately “Mary Roach
tackles the afterlife.”
Coincidentally, the day I received my review copy of Spook, I was in the middle of plowing through David
Fontana’s new –and infinitely drier – 500-page tome on the same subject, entitled Is There an Afterlife?
Fontana is a professor of psychology and Chair of the Survival Research Committee for England’s venerable
Society for Psychic Research (SPR). The contrast is stark. His knowledge of the field and his scholarship puts
Spook to shame.
Their different takes on two famous mediums illustrate the point. Roach’s short, 14-page dismissal of early 20th
century mediums Margery (Mina) Crandon and Helen Duncan is one of the funniest pieces of writing I’ve read
in a long time. That chapter alone is worth the price of the book. Both women claimed to produce “ectoplasm” –
a visible, semi-fluid substance that reportedly emanated from the medium’s body which took the shape of
spirits or ghostly body parts – an irresistible subject for a satire writer as accomplished as Roach. Roach
introduces the portly, 250-pound Duncan with a wink to the audience: “Her séances were high drama. She
tended to swoon and fall off her chair and occasionally wet herself in a frenzy of spiritual possession. She once
emerged from the séance cabinet naked under a floor-length ‘ectoplasmic veil.’ For those whose interest in
spiritualism was purely voyeuristic, Helen Duncan was the hottest ticket in town.” Roach makes a visit to
Cambridge University library where she examines from the archives a pound of stinky ectoplasm (cheesecloth?)
reportedly extruded by Duncan. Roach cites arguments to support the theory that Helen Duncan was
swallowing and regurgitating sizeable rolls of cheesecloth. ‘To demonstrate the convenient compactability of
the fabric, (famous English psychic researcher Harry) Price once bought a six-foot by thirty-inch swath, rolled it
up tight, and photographed his secretary Ethel with the fabric sticking from her mouth like a Mafia gag.” Roach
also highlights some of the Groucho Marx moments surrounding the controversy over Crandon’s mediumship
“The debate deteriorated into name-calling and threats…Margery threatens Houdini with a ‘good beating,’
Even the discarnate Walter joins the fray, calling Dr. Code ‘a boob.’” Fun done, Roach pronounces her
verdicts. “Crandon managed to fool the best and the brightest.” As for Duncan, it was “more likely a case of
masterful regurgitation.”
Fontana’s take on both mediums isn’t half as funny. But his serious, meticulous, 18-page examination of the
two mediums (in eye-straining, ten-point type that would run twice as long if printed in Spook type) makes
Roach’s scholarship look superficial and her conclusions premature. Fontana is not a wide-eyed believer. He
titles the section, “The Question of Fraud in Physical Mediumship: Mina Crandon and Helen Duncan.” But he
also covers the multiple scientific tests conducted on both mediums over several decades in significant enough
detail to allow the reader to understand, examine and decide for himself what to accept or reject. Where
appropriate, Fontana points out absurdities in skeptics arguments. Example: One scientist suggested that a
piano stool moved about during a Crandon séance was accomplished by a string attached to the stool and
threaded down a hot air conduit to an accomplice hidden on a floor below – quite a trick when the string in
question was only eight inches long. He digs deeper, providing evidence Roach fails to find – or fails to report
for space or style reasons. Example: Roach tells us that the great magician Houdini, who sat in on some of
Crandon’s séances, noticed the more constrained Crandon’s hands and feet were, the less likely she was to
produce ectoplasm. So Houdini “…built a special cabinet-box for her, similar in appearance to those 1960s
steam cabinets in which villains would lock James Bond and spin the temperature dial to max.” At this point,
Roach leaves the story – and us laughing. The innuendo? Constrain Crandon and she can’t produce. It takes
Fontana to inform us that “Mina apparently produced phenomena while enclosed in the special fraud-proof box
designed by Houdini in which she sat for three other sittings, and which only left her head and hands free.
Houdini remained silent about this…. He also remained silent about those séances with Mina when impressive
phenomena had been produced and when, along with the other members of the Scientific American committee,
he had signed a statement affirming that the controls were perfect.” Fontana’s take on Duncan is equally more
balanced and informative than Roach’s. After looking carefully at the evidence, Fontana suggests both
mediums may have resorted to trickery at times, but he concludes that genuine phenomena also took place. It’s
not the neat, easy answer the lazy reader may want, but it’s what the evidence suggests. Fontana isn’t fishing
for laughs; he’s fishing for the truth.
In fairness, Roach isn’t competing with Fontana. Her book targets the average reader with a layman’s curiosity
about the afterlife question, and she delivers a decidedly delightful evening’s read. If you’re in the mood to
skip the broccoli and proceed directly to dessert, Spook is a tasty treat.
_________
Parapsychology and the Skeptics
Review by Michael Schmicker
Journal of Scientific Exploration (2009)
Chris Carter’s slim volume is a slam-dunk future classic in the field of parapsychology. In it he asks, then
answers, three simple, straightforward, questions:
Q. Is there conclusive experimental evidence for psi? Absolutely.
Q. Would the existence of psi contradict established science? Classical science, yes; modern science, no.
Q. Is parapsychology a science? Definitely.
I got a personal kick out of the quote Carter chose to introduce his discussion of the evidence for psi, offered
up in 1995 by psi-cop and physicist Victor Stenger: “Psychic phenomena have failed to be verified after 150
years of attempts involving thousands of independent experiments. After all this time, we can safely assume
they do not exist.”
Ironically, Stenger’s head-scratching pronouncement was delivered the same year the U.S. government finally
disclosed its secret 20-year, $20 million psychic spying program; the American Institutes for Research final
report on the Department of Defense’s Stargate program concluded that its ESP laboratory experiments were
statistically significant; and CSICOP hero Ray Hyman publicly stated “the case for psychic functioning seems
better than it ever has been,” admitting that “I do not have a ready explanation for these observed effects.” By
1995, we already had replications by four independent labs in both Europe and the U.S. of Honorton’s game-
changing autoganzfeld experiments. Six years earlier, the respected academic journal Foundation of Physics
had published an analysis by Dean Radin and Roger Nelson of over 800 PK studies conducted between 1959
and 1987 which concluded the odds against its positive results being due to chance were more than one trillion
to one. You can only shake your head in wonder. “There is little point in continuing with more replication
studies,” Carter concludes. His advice to parapsychologists? Move on. Stop wasting time rebutting die-hard
debunkers.
I actually met the good professor once. Stenger taught at the University of Hawaii, my alma mater. I had just
joined the SSE and Dr. Peter Sturrock was visiting UH, giving an invited talk on campus to a small group of us
rookie scientific explorers. I only recall two things from that evening – the erudition and graciousness of Dr.
Sturrock, and the sour querulousness of Dr. Stenger, who also attended. He appeared affronted that the
university had lent its facilities for a meeting of kooks, and argued incessantly and unpleasantly.
Classical science may have no room for psi, but we no longer live in the 17th century. The rules have changed
in psi’s favor. Carter’s concise discussion of Newtonian vs. Quantum Physics, and the ontological implications
of each for psi claims, is the finest brief I’ve ever read on this hard-to-explain topic. Psi is preposterous under
the “laws” of the former; it’s possible, even probable (cf. de Beauregard ) under the latter, Stenger
notwithstanding.
Carter lays out six assumptions of classical science that conflict with the existence of psi – determinism,
observer independence, localism, reductionism, upward causation exclusively, and the philosophy of
materialism. Then in twenty incisive pages, he describes the topsy-turvy effect new discoveries in quantum
physics – “the most battle tested theory in science,” but largely undigested by most scientists – have on each
of those previously reasonable assumptions. Among the most damaging: quantum mechanics replaces the
deterministic universe with a probabilistic universe and gives a prime role to the observer; further, it forces
classical physics to deal with the experimentally demonstrated fact of quantum non-locality – action at a
distance, with no signal required to transmit information. Consciousness studies, meanwhile, are also
undermining the philosophical foundation of dogmatic skepticism. Carter notes the “dwindling number of pure
materialists that still deny the existence of consciousness,” and explores the merits of the two hypotheses
currently contending to replace materialism. Both mentalism and dualism acknowledge that mind can exert a
causal influence on matter, which “removes the last barrier skeptics can raise about the scientific legitimacy of
psi.”
Carter doesn’t suffer fools gladly. Throughout the book, he highlights some egregious examples of intellectual
dishonesty, willful ignorance, double standards, fuzzy thinking and goal post-moving by well-known skeptics
and debunkers unwilling or unable to play fair (visit www.skepticalinvestigations.org for more horror stories).
James Randi, Susan Blackmore, Richard Wiseman, Martin Gardner, and Ray Hyman all take it on the chin;
Michael Shermer earns a passing cuff. In his chapter on the current, impoverished state of skepticism, Carter
quotes Hyman’s baffling assertion, “Only parapsychology, among the fields of inquiry claiming scientific
status, lacks a cumulative database.” This despite J.B. Rhine’s landmark 1940 publication summarizing 60 years
of quantitative ESP studies dating back to 1882; Honorton’s meta-analysis of 42 ganzfeld studies conducted
over eight years between 1974-1981; and Radin and Nelson’s meta-analysis of 28 years of PK studies,
mentioned above. (Scolds Carter: “Meta-analysis is by definition the analysis of cumulative experiments.”) To
put it kindly, Hyman looks ridiculous. As John Beloff says, “Skepticism is not necessarily a badge of tough-
mindedness; it may equally be a sign of intellectual cowardice.”
Is parapsychology a science? Let’s retire this question. Besides having a cumulative database,
parapsychology has generated theories that entail falsifiable predictions -- Karl Popper’s criterion for scientific
status. They include both physical theories based on quantum mechanics (physicist Evan Harris Walker’s
theory stars in Carter’s book); and psychological theories dealing with states of mind associated with psi
experiences (as examples, Carter cites Rex Stanford’s psi-mediated instrumental response, and Charles
Honorton’s “noise-reduction” model.)
Carter ends his tour-de-force by revisiting David Hume’s argument: “A miracle is a violation of the laws of
nature.” Skeptics wave this as a talisman to ward off scientific anomalies that threaten their scientific
fundamentalism. Carter points out that it rests on two assumptions: first, that the “laws of nature” are known to
be correct and complete; and second, that the existence of psi would necessarily conflict with them. The first is
obviously wrong, given three centuries of paradigm-busting, scientific revolution since then, most recently by
Einstein and Bohr. The second is correct, in the sense that psi does conflict with Hume’s 18th century science.
But as Carter drives home in his book, “the laws of nature as Hume understood them are now long obsolete,
and so is his skeptical argument.”
My money is on the psi cops ending up in the dustbin of history.
_______
The Witch in the Waiting Room: A Physician Investigates Paranormal Phenomena in
Medicine
Review by Michael Schmicker
Journal of Scientific Exploration (2008)
In 1997 an English housewife heard a voice in her head one evening when she was quietly reading at home.
“Please don’t be afraid,” the voice said politely. “I know it must be shocking for you to hear me speaking to
you like this.” The voice explained that it was only trying to help, that the poor woman had a brain tumor and
should immediately seek a CAT scan at a certain London hospital. The panicked lady called her psychiatrist
who quickly diagnosed “functional hallucinatory psychosis” and loaded her up with anti-psychotic medication.
But the voice persisted, the woman insisted on a scan, and you can guess the rest. Neurosurgeons spotted
something suspicious, they opened her skull, and discovered a meningioma brain tumor the size of an egg.
When she awoke from anesthesia, the voice spoke one last time. “We are pleased to have helped you.
Goodbye.”
Her experience is just one of many puzzling, health-related, paranormal experiences Dr. Robert Bobrow M.D.
describes in his delightful, thought-provoking book The Witch in the Waiting Room.
More surprising than her bizarre story is the fact that the respected, mainstream British Medical Journal
published it. Bobrow offers skeptical colleagues sober reports describing a plethora of “paranormal”
experiences patients share with their physicians and psychiatrists – voodoo spells, telepathic dreams, déjà vu,
acupuncture and hypnosis cures, self-predicted deaths, energy medicine cures and faith healings, near death
experiences – all drawn directly from refereed medical journals accessible through MEDLINE, an internet
database and “our profession’s Gospel, from which all our knowledge derives, from which our textbooks are
largely written.” This cabinet of curiosities deserves exploring by the medical profession, he argues. Patients’
paranormal beliefs and experiences can directly affect their mental and physical health; and the anomalies
themselves suggest new avenues of research which may advance medical science.
MEDLINE stubbornly refuses to index leading anomalies journals like the Journal of Scientific Exploration or
the Journal of Parapsychology, depriving Bobrow and his readers of a wealth of additional evidence. But the
paradigm-changing work of a number of luminaries in anomalies research still manages to sneak into the
medical community’s canonical literature – Ian Stevenson’s reports of childhood memories and birthmarks
suggesting a past life, and Bruce Greyson’s near death experience scale (Journal of Nervous and Mental
Disease); Dean Radin’s psi studies using EEGs (Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine); and
Michael Persinger’s one-theory-fits-all attempt to use the earth’s magnetic properties to explain everything
from poltergeists and UFOs to sightings of the Virgin Mary (Perceptual and Motor Skills).
Bobrow’s writing style is crisp, but his topic selection quirky. He devotes a chapter to lycanthropy, describing
patients with “species identity disorder” who believe they’re wolves, cats, birds or gerbils. But he oddly fails to
cover patients who claim alien abduction experiences, courageously investigated by the late Harvard
psychiatry professor John Mack; or the landmark surveys of death bed visions conducted by Osis and
Haraldsson. Surely physicians encounter these paranormal claims more frequently than werewolf confessions.
And why no reference to Michael Murphy’s classic exploration of extraordinary human potential, The Future of
the Body?
Still, the author’s cauldron bubbles with a heady brew of odd, unsettling experiences worthy of more stirring
and tasting by a Western medical establishment bewitched by hubris and scientific reductionism.
_______
Explorers of the Infinite
Review by Michael Schmicker
Journal of Scientific Exploration (2008)
The first and last time I jumped out of an airplane, I was 17 years old. It was my mom who nearly died of fright.
She had to sign a waiver that listed in gruesome detail all the ways her underage, unlucky son could die or
sustain serious injury from skydiving. True to the odds, nothing went wrong. After four hours of “training,”
the actual skydive, from Geronimo! to hard landing, lasted just a few minutes. My weekend parachute was an
adrenaline rush, but hardly death-defying or life changing.
Mary Coffey’s extreme adventurers, in contrast, push themselves physically and psychologically to the
breaking point. Skydiver Cheryl Sterns jumped from an airplane 352 times in 24 hours, setting a Guinness World
Record. Tanya Streeter free dove without oxygen to a depth of 525 feet below the ocean, holding her breath for
almost three and a half minutes, her heart rate plummeting to five beats a minute, before resurfacing. Cyclist
Jure Robic pedaled for 3,042 miles across the continental U.S. in 8 days, 19 hours and 33 minutes.
Such super-athletes suffer mind-numbing exhaustion, unbearable pain, intense solitude, sudden terror, and
narrow escapes from death – conditions which parapsychologists know can generate paranormal experiences.
And the heroes of this book have a journal’s worth, experiencing time distortions, altered states of
consciousness, telepathic communications, out-of body experiences, precognition, premonitions of death, and
visions of the dead.
The reading pleasure for me came less from the garden-variety paranormal experiences these crazies report than
from the god-awful, insane exploits which trigger them.
Fifty-five year old ultra-marathoner Marshall Ulrich had a classic out-of-body experience running the Badwater,
a 135-mile, non-stop foot race across Death Valley in July when daytime temperatures can hit 129 degrees
Fahrenheit. He’s done it 13 times, won it four times. Insanely, he once did it four times back and forth, non-
stop, for over 77 hours, while pulling a modified baby jogger loaded with 200 pounds of water, ice and spare
clothes. In 1993, while trying to break his own record, he suddenly stepped out of his body. From above, he
watched himself running along, “like watching myself on a movie screen.” He remained out of body all night,
until the next morning when he realized that “dawn was coming, the sun was about to rise. I knew it was time to
go back into my body.” (Skydiver Sterns experienced a similar, extended OBE during her non-stop jumping.)
“Many mountaineers have sensed unexplainable presences in the high mountains,” notes Coffey. American
climber Lou Whittaker in 1989 was guiding the first American assault on 28,169-foot high Kanchenjunga in the
Himalayas, the third tallest mountain in the world. At his base camp, he kept sensing the presence of a middle-
aged, friendly Tibetan woman spirit who communicated with him mentally, telling him everything would go OK.
His wife Ingrid arrived at the base camp shortly after Lou had departed for the summit, but her ascent to 16,000
feet was so fast she suffered severe altitude sickness. She spent three days in agony in Lou’s tent, ministered
to by the same Tibetan spirit. “She was wearing a headscarf and a long dress. She was shadowy and two-
dimensional, like a silhouette.” The spirit would put her hand on Ingrid’s forehead, very comforting, and help
her to roll over. She didn’t speak; the two women communicated telepathically. Two months later, after they
had returned to the States, Ingrid finally told Lou about her strange helper. Stunned, he admitted seeing her
too. They’re convinced it wasn’t a hallucination, since both sensed the same apparition. Coffee notes similar
“spirit friends” assisted and comforted many well-known adventurers in their perils, including Antarctic
explorer Ernest Shackleton during his desperate 36-hour trek across frigid South Georgia Island; aviator Charles
“Lucky” Lindbergh on his record-breaking, non-stop transatlantic flight to Europe in 1927; and mariner Joshua
Slocum, the first man to sail solo around the globe.
In 1997, Tony Bullimore was attempting to duplicate Slocum’s feat, competing in the around-the-world Vendee
Globe single-handed yacht race. Two months into the race, a fierce storm in the Southern Ocean rolled his boat,
trapping him upside down in his watertight cabin for almost five days. Race officials informed his wife Lalel his
upturned boat had been spotted in huge seas; he was presumed dead. That night, kneeling by her bed, she
received a telepathic message from him. He was alive, he had food and water, but he was exhausted and had to
sleep. The following day, he mentally spoke to her again. “Oh Lal, I’m in a mess. It’s wet. The boat won’t stop
rolling. I’m cold.” She told him to keep fighting. Back in his watery tomb, shivering and staring into darkness,
he suddenly had a vision. He saw an Australian warship steaming for him, a boat was lowered, sailors started
banging on the hull, and he watched himself swim to the surface where he was rescued. Twenty-four hours
later, everything happened exactly as his vision had foretold.
Coffey presents dozens of such puzzling experiences while pondering their reality and meaning. For an outdoor
adventure writer, she demonstrates a surprising familiarity with parapsychological literature, referencing among
others Rupert Sheldrake’s ESP research; Montague Ullman’s dream lab investigations; NDE studies by
Raymond Moody and Sam Parnia; plus conventional counter-explanations from popular skeptics like Susan
Blackmore and Robert Persinger. Her references are understandably brief and occasionally incorrect – for
example, her assertion that scientists know very little about the out-of-body phenomenon (p.250).
Psychologists, physicians and investigators such as Charles Tart, Stuart Twemlow and D. Scott Rogo mapped
the phenomenon several decades ago, and recent NDE research has advanced our understanding. We know a
lot about them; it’s just that, like so many other paranormal phenomena, we can’t agree on where they fit in our
current model of reality.
But Coffey can be forgiven for not penning a dry parapsychology book few would read. She offers enough
science to ground her stories, but wisely focuses on the sense of surprise and wonder her eclectic community
of daredevils find in their unexpected brushes with the infinite. As British BASE jumper Shaun Ellison puts it,
“There’s so much out there that we don’t understand.”
______
The Near-Death Experiences of Hospitalized Intensive Care Patients: A Five Year
Clinical Study
Review by Michael Schmicker
Journal of Scientific Exploration (2008)
In a January 19, 2007 article entitled “The Mystery of Consciousness,” Steven Pinker, Johnstone Professor of
Psychology at Harvard University, assured readers of Time magazine that “Consciousness does not reside in
an ethereal soul that uses the brain like a PDA; consciousness is the activity of the brain.” Scientists had
exorcised the ghost from the machine, he declared. “And when the physiological activity of the brain ceases, as
far as anyone can tell the person’s consciousness goes out of existence.”
Pinker’s assertion, “as far as anyone can tell,” is a bit disingenuous. Consciousness as a mere byproduct of the
brain certainly remains the favored hypothesis within the scientific community. But contrary evidence clearly
exists calling into question both the “mind equals brain” model and the philosophy of materialism which
underpins it. This heretical neuroscience, forcefully argued in depth and detail in Irreducible Mind, is further
buttressed by recent research focused on the near death experiences of cardiac arrest patients in hospitals in
Europe and the U.S.
In the 1970s and 1980s, NDE pioneers like Moody, Ring, Morse, and others “retrospectively” collected
anecdotal NDE reports. Many experiences were months or years old when shared, and subject to faulty or false
memories. Few were verified through follow-up investigation. But more recently, a new generation of NDE
investigators has proactively set up shop in hospital intensive care units where death occurs daily, NDEs can
be studied in a controlled setting, and experiencers interviewed within days of their NDE.
This new “prospective” approach has allowed NDE researchers like Parnia (2001), Lommel (2001),
Schwaninger (2002), Greyson (2003), and Sartori to scientifically put to the test the full panoply of reductionist
physiological and psychological explanations offered up by skeptics to dismiss NDEs as hallucinations or
mental disorders – the effects of anoxia or hypercarbia; drug/medication reactions; natural brain chemistry;
temporal lobe seizures; REM intrusions; religious expectations; fear of death; mental instability; an artifact of
demographics. Their probing has systematically identified weaknesses in each argument – including Pinker’s
belief that near death experiences are “symptoms of oxygen starvation in the eyes and brain.”
Faced with this rebuttal, skeptics can always fall back on what philosopher of science Karl Popper calls
“promissory materialism.” – we don’t have the answer now, but we will eventually find one that fits our
philosophy. One way to break the stalemate is to falsify through observation or experiment the “mind equals
brain” assertion. This requires demonstrating persistence of consciousness – memories, cognition, emotion,
self-identity, perception – during a state of verifiable clinical death.
The NDE experiences of cardiac arrest patients are particularly promising for this purpose. As Parnia notes,
“During a cardiac arrest, all three criteria of death are present,” – the heart has stopped beating, the lungs have
stopped working and the brain ceases functioning. Yet some cardiac arrest survivors do describe a
continuation of consciousness. E pur si muove.
If Dr. Raymond Moody’s 1975 blockbuster Life After Life (13 million copies sold) was the last book you read on
NDEs, Dr. Penny Sartori’s book can quickly bring you up to 2008. Sartori spent 14 years working as a staff
nurse in the Intensive Therapy Unit (the equivalent of an ICU in American hospitals) at Morriston Hospital,
Swansea, Wales, where she conducted the doctoral research which underpins this book.
Sartori’s book presents in scientific detail the results of the largest prospective NDE study ever undertaken in
the U.K., involving survivors admitted to the ITU between Jan. 1998-Jan. 2003 for elective and emergency
surgery, trauma, medical emergencies and cardiac arrest. Skeptics can carefully examine and evaluate her study
design; the patient sample; the questionnaire and the tools used (e.g. Greyson’s NDE Scale); the ten
hypotheses tested; and her data analysis and results.
This is serious, credible science, presented hard and dry. Here’s a sample of what we know about Patient #7,
for example, before and during his cardiac arrest and NDE: “Sex: male. Age: 73. Religion: agnostic. Occupation:
steel worker…. Clinical details: Heart rhythm: SVT, VT. Treatment: CPR, DC shock. Drugs: atropine, adrenaline,
adenosine 12 mg x2, amiodarone. O2 given via face mask (ambu bag during arrest). Revived GCS 15/15. Arterial
blood gas: 17.49 O2 100%. Post-arrest: PH:7.518, PO2: 16.72, PCO2:2.11. Glu;9.9, Na:140, K:3.5…” (p.171). The
patient had a cardiac arrest in the presence of the admitting doctor, was resuscitated, immediately regained
consciousness and was not confused. He was not given any sedative or painkilling drugs, and reported an
NDE during the time he was unconscious which involved seeing his deceased father.
Pinker notwithstanding, “as far as anyone can tell” the survival of consciousness remains a scientific
possibility.
The simply curious will enjoy Sartori’s concise history of NDE reports and the 144 pages of engrossing,
verbatim interviews with NDE and OBE experiencers (including our agnostic steel worker). Collectively, their
stories helped Sartori reach her contrarian conclusion (p. 313): “According to the materialistic view of the
world, life after death cannot be possible. This research suggests that the materialistic beliefs are no longer
valid and require revision and expansion.”
______________
The Power of Premonitions: How Knowing the Future Can Shape Our Lives
Review by Michael Schmicker
Journal of Scientific Exploration (2010)
Larry Dossey is a New York Times bestselling writer for a reason. He persistently leavens his scientific
research with wonderful anecdotes and intriguing tidbits of information, here offering his fresh take on a time-
worn subject familiar to most SSE members.
J.B. and Louisa Rhine and the generation which followed them wrote the book on premonitions, establishing
the evidence and describing their what, why and how. Dossey recaps their pioneering work; presents a grab
bag of broadly defined premonition cases both familiar and fresh; then turns the spotlight on what he calls “the
most important experiment in psi research” today – Dean Radin’s “presentiment effect” research. Dick Bierman,
Rupert Sheldrake, Ed May and others have since successfully replicated Radin’s experiments first launched in
1993, rekindling the kind of excitement and hope Charles Honorton brought to psi research 20 years earlier with
his celebrated Ganzfeld experiments. Dossey also credits Radin for taking psi research into the 21st century. In
August 2000, Radin uploaded his “Got Psi?” online suite of psi experiments and invited the public to play. By
2006, Radin had logged more than 20 million trials – collecting more test data in six years than Rhine did in sixty.
But spontaneous experiences enjoy star billing in this book. The author constantly entertains as he instructs,
adroitly using everyone from Harriet Tubman and Bernie Madoff to Oscar the “feline angel of death.” He’s also
thought-provoking. We’re conditioned by New Age treacle to think of premonitions as gifts of the gods to the
needy worthy. So when Winston Churchill uses intuition to escape a bomb during the Blitz, we nod our heads
knowingly. But Dossey follows it up with a zinger: In World War I, evil incarnate, Adolph Hitler, also dodged
death when, acting on his own premonition, he scooted down a trench just before a shell exploded where he
had been standing guard. The point? Like it or not, premonitions are a common “human birthright.” It’s up to
each of us whether we cultivate our native, intuitive powers or not.
Dossey strongly argues we should, starting with his own medical profession. He speaks from personal
experience. One of his patients at Dallas Diagnostic knocked on his door one morning, worried sick. In an
exceptionally vivid dream, she had seen three little white spots on her left ovary. No symptoms, nothing else.
Instead of dismissing her, he ordered a sonogram from a skeptical radiologist who gave him his best “you got
to be kidding me” glance. An hour later the radiologist walked in, nervous and pale, and handed Dossey the
sonogram. Three little white spots, on her left ovary. Fortunately they were benign cysts.
“We pay a price for excluding premonitions from our concepts of healing,” Dossey warns. “This is nowhere
more obvious than in sudden death infant syndrome.” SIDS is the leading cause of death in infants between
the ages of one month and one year in the United States, and premonitions are a recurring feature in the
experiences of SIDS parents. One scientific study of 174 SIDS parents found more than one in five had a
premonition that their child might die. More than half of the parents described a vivid dream, or auditory or
visual hallucination while awake. A third of the SIDS parents actually confronted their physician with their
premonition. “Although they requested further medical intervention and tests, non-routine medical follow-up
was not recommended for any of the SIDS infants studied” (author’s italics), leaving many parents feeling both
angry and guilty for not pushing their pediatricians harder to do something.
You feel for everyone involved – the grieving parents; the average physician who simply lacks the
understanding or courage to take premonitions seriously; and a strained health care system struggling just to
pay for accepted treatment modalities, much less inexplicable “woo-woo.”
So when should we pay attention to our premonitions? Dossey’s advice is simple and succinct: Pay attention
when they’re accompanied by physical symptoms; pay attention if they’re intrusive and insistent; pay
attention when they indicate death, no matter how fuzzy the details may be.
His suggestions for readers wishing to become more “premonition prone” are poetic: “Court difference, variety
and ambiguity in your life, relax and let go. Don’t try too hard. Give up your pet ideas of how the world should
work. Make a place for variety, risk, novelty, playfulness, generosity and mystery in your life. As Rumi advises,
‘Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.’ If you do these things, you will probably discover that the
universe meets you more than halfway, perhaps with premonitions as its calling card.” (No wonder scientists
report fewer premonitions.)
But he serves up his tip sheet with a sober warning: “Premonitions can be grossly misleading, and they can be
used as an excuse for irresponsible, reckless or criminal behavior.” Marshall Herff Applewhite, leader of the
Heaven’s Gate cult, triggered the largest mass suicide in the history of the United States when he and 38 of his
followers acted on his premonition that the earth was about to be “recycled” of human life, and decided their
ticket to survival was to shed their bodies and catch a ride on the spaceship they believed was trailing comet
Hale-Bopp. “This side of the psyche can be a minefield, and is not for everyone.”
Still, if you’re an SSE member bored with merely reading about scientific anomalies, and studiously practice
your premonition skills, it’s a relatively safe and easily accessible mind field ripe for personal exploration.
_________________
The Parapsychology Revolution
Review by Michael Schmicker
Journal of Scientific Exploration (2008)
Author Dr. Robert Schoch, Yale-trained geologist and professor of natural sciences at Boston University, is
famous for re-dating the construction of the Great Sphinx to 7000-5000 B.C. His well-researched conclusion,
resting on the known physics of limestone weathering, enraged establishment Egyptologists who adamantly
proclaim Pharaoh Khafre’s subjects carved the iconic human-beast around 2,500 B.C. Faced with physical
evidence that challenged their more circumstantial evidence, they countered that Neolithic man was neither
socially nor technically advanced enough to carve such a stupendous monument.
Accepting the challenge, Schoch responded by embarking on an intellectual quest to examine ancient
civilizations and monuments world-wide, slowly collecting evidence over two decades of globe-trotting which
suggests that the currently accepted history of Holocene man needs rethinking. Civilization wasn’t one
smooth, linear climb up from grunting cave men to skinny latte drinkers; instead, natural catastrophes both
terrestrial and celestial occasionally destroyed relatively advanced societies and forced humans to relearn arts
and skills.
The Parapsychology Revolution is the latest step in Shoch’s intellectual journey to the edge of established
science, sparked when his co-author shared her copy of Lynn McTaggert’s parapsychology best-seller, The
Field. Experienced in researching potential paradigm-busters and unafraid of controversy, Schoch decided to
examine the scientific evidence for psi phenomena as well.
In this “concise anthology of paranormal and psychical research,” Schoch and Yonavjak present their take on
the history, debates, achievements and shortcomings of a century-plus of research into ESP and PK. In an
extended 57-page Introduction, they explain why people should take the paranormal seriously – because “there
is solid evidence for at least some paranormal phenomena.” Then they serve up, with a side of uneven
commentary, excepts from fourteen seminal papers/articles which collectively tell the story of parapsychology’
s frustratingly slow, two-steps forward, one-step-back march to academic respectability and grudging, partial
acceptance by the scientific community.
The anthology opens with historical writings by the SPR’s Edmund Gurney (on crisis apparitions), the ASPR’s
William James (on the mediumship of Mrs. Piper), and ESP pioneer J.B. Rhine (on pioneering ESP tests at Duke
in the 1930s). It closes with contemporary writings by William Roll (on poltergeists, electromagnetism and
consciousness), Marcello Truzzi (on unfair practices of skeptics), and Navy Commander L.R. Bremseth who
reviews the history of the U.S. government’s Stargate remote viewing program and calls its termination a
“missed opportunity” to more fully explore what he concludes was an effective spying technique. Robert Jahn,
Larry Dossey, Jessica Utts, Nobel Laureate Charles Richet and others also contribute to this academic
smorgasbord.
Schoch originally approached maverick claims for an “older Sphinx” with considerable skepticism, but ended
up convinced by the evidence, skeptics be damned. To his credit, he does the same here. That doesn’t mean he
believes noisy spirits of the dead are producing PK, or Atlanteans or aliens carved the Sphinx. His conclusions,
as usual, are circumscribed and modest but eminently defendable and persuasive.
___________
Filters and Reflections: Perspectives on Reality
Review by Michael Schmicker
Journal of Scientific Exploration (2010)
In my college days, I chanced across a wonderful poem called “Chuang Tzu and the Butterfly,” written by the
well-known Chinese poet Li Po. In it, Chuang Tzu falls asleep and dreams he is a butterfly. When he awakes, he
asks himself the question, “Am I a man who dreamed I was a butterfly, or am I now a butterfly dreaming I am a
man?”
You have to be a bit peculiar to ask that question, and odder still to concern yourself with the answer. Other
than the occasional poet, philosopher or theologian, we take our consensus definition of reality for granted.
Ontology and epistemology are not mankind’s favorite subjects.
They never will be, but Robert Jahn and Brenda Dunne sparked a modest revival of interest within the academic
and scientific community with their 2004 paper “Sensors, Filters and the Source of Reality.” Based partly on
their two-plus decades of rigorous research into psi (psychokinesis and ESP) conducted at the Princeton
Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) laboratory, Jahn and Dunne concluded that consciousness
transcends the brain, and is more than just a mere antenna passively acquiring information from an
independent, objective, out-there world. Instead, our consciousness is the “ultimate organizing principle of the
universe.” We co-create reality. This consensus reality we share, however, is an imperfect approximation of
absolute Reality because it comes to us through an array of physiological, psychological and cultural filters.
The nineteen essays included in this book collectively explore these ontological filters from a fascinating
variety of viewpoints – art, Buddhism, evolutionary biology, fantasy, out-of-body experiences, philosophy,
physics, psychology, semiotics and systems engineering. But make no mistake: reading this book can be work.
Some papers are provokingly dense and academic. Sample: “The representamen, similar to Saussure’s signifier,
is the perceptible part of the sign – for example, the written letters ‘b-e-l-l.’ The object is the referent of the
representamen, in other words, the physical object that rings when shaken. The interpretant is the
understanding and interpretation of this connection, similar to Saussure’s signified…” If you’re not familiar
with semiotic analysis, or uninterested in poststructuralism, it’s a trudge. Meanwhile, I found the closing essay
downright bizarre: “…This essay shares Sam’s experiences as he confronts Od, Po, and Dwinkle, the big
squishy scintillating glob that the gnomes call Everything, unpredictable and insubstantial drywall of
seemingly random translocation, and markedly unsettling eyewear…” You applaud the author for the attempt,
but you wince at the result.
Still, many papers surprise and delight. Vasileios Basios examines the impact chaos and complexity studies are
having on classical determinism, reductionistic mechanics, and a static, monolithic vision of reality – all current,
pervasive, reality filters. William Eddy, Jr. offers up four folksy essays illustrating how verbal metaphors shape
human thought, deftly using Shakespeare, Galileo, Walt Kelly’s Pogo, and the experience of a returned Peace
Corps Volunteer from Ohio, to drive home his points. Psychoanalyst Ruth Rosenbaum cautions that we
accumulate filters from the moment we are born. Culture, gender, religion, genetics, and family dynamics are
dominant filters that form “powerful lenses through which every other experience is shaped in both overt and
subtle, unconscious ways.” Scientists are no more immune to these filters than laypersons. Recognizing and
removing these filters is a Sisyphean challenge.
My favorite is John Valentino’s essay “You’ll Never Get There From Here: REG Experiments and Conventional
Assumptions About Reality.” Valentino worked for a year in the PEAR laboratory as an experimenter,
hardware designer and data analyst. Like Jahn and Dunne, he concluded that consciousness can interact with
the physical world, and can be demonstrated scientifically. But Valentino argues that we’ll never explain how
consciousness accomplishes this until we remove our conventional scientific and philosophical filters and view
subjective and objective reality as complementary. The PEAR experiments, for example, demonstrate that
human intention and attention (subjective realities) can affect whether more polystyrene balls in a random
mechanical cascade fall to the left side or the right side (objective reality). “We cannot continue to separate
them if we truly hope to understand our experience in this universe.”
In the end, when it comes to comprehending Reality we’re both the solution and the problem. The solution,
because with effort we can become aware of the subtle filters making us mistake the dancing shadows on the
wall of Plato’s cave for Reality. The problem, because first we have to accept that we’re looking at shadows.
________
Outside the Gates of Science: Why It’s Time for the Paranormal to Come in from the
Col"
Review by Michael Schmicker
Journal of Scientific Exploration (2008)
Psychologists, physicists, astronauts, engineers, clergymen, medical doctors and magicians have all
pontificated on psi, so why not a sci-fi writer? After all, who else spends as much time at the far edges of
science with such a wide open mind? Author Damien Broderick is acclaimed for his science fiction
(Godplayers, K-Machines, Schrödinger’s Dog) and futurist musings. Here, he tackles the paranormal, devoting
the first half of his book to recapping the scientific evidence for ESP and PK. Dean Radin and Richard
Broughton do a better job of it in my opinion, but Broderick reaches the same conclusion: the phenomena
“point to some central failure in the way reality is represented by orthodox science.” He spends his remaining
ink tramping through the thicket of some half-dozen theories – from fraud, to quantum physics, to Decision
Augmentation Theory – which attempt to “knot together psi and the rest of physics.” Broderick raises but
ignores the possibility of a spirit surviving physical death (e.g. is a poltergeist RSPK, or the dead at work?);
ditto divine intervention. “Let us keep gods, demons and tricksters at bay as the hypothesis of last resort.” His
musings are thus disappointingly drier than might be expected from a science fiction author, despite the
occasional, delightful allusion to the Matrix, Akashic Records and H.G. Wells.
_______
Do You See What I See? Memoirs of a Blind Biker
Review by Michael Schmicker
Journal of Scientific Exploration (2008)
Author Russell Targ co-developed with Hal Puthoff the clairvoyant technique of remote viewing which
spawned the U.S. military’s secret, 20-year, $20-million “psychic spy” program called Star Gate (Journal of
Scientific Exploration, Spring 1996). Targ’s impact on psi research rivals J.B. Rhine’s, but Targ’s personal life
appears infinitely more colorful, based on this tell-all autobiography. It’s a grand goulash of Jewish family
history, childhood memories, marriages, romances and affairs, travels, liberal political opinion and Eastern
spiritual-philosophical musings, spiced up with some serious name-dropping (eccentric chess great Bobby
Fischer was Targ’s brother-in-law; his publishing industry father William Targ discovered Mario Puzo,
advancing him $5000 on the basis of the plot that became The Godfather; Russell and Russian-born
novelist/libertarian philosopher Ayn Rand quarreled over Einstein’s theory of general relativity at her mid-
Manhattan salon haunted by future Fed chairman Alan Greenspan; the young actor Alan Alda lived across the
hall from their apartment, etc.)
Targ’s pioneering psi experiments receive second billing here; you’ll find them covered much better in
scientific papers and other books he’s co-authored –Mind Reach, Miracles of Mind, Limitless Mind. This
book is instead an uneven but ultimately enjoyable celebration of a legally-blind, 74-year old former Cub Scout,
magician, Columbia University drop-out, physicist, optical engineer, drug-experimenter, ESP researcher, lover,
book publisher, biker, song-writer, treasure hunter and truth seeker who’s still seeking. May we all enjoy and
accomplish so much in our own allotted time.
_______
The End of Suffering: Fearless Living in Troubled Times
Review by Michael Schmicker
Journal of Scientific Exploration (2006)
During the Vietnam War, I taught English at a Buddhist monastery school in Thailand as a Peace Corps
Volunteer. I led a spartan but happy life, personally untouched by the immense suffering experienced by
thousands of my peers and millions of Vietnamese just an a hour’s flight from Bangkok. I returned home three
years later with a great appreciation for Buddhist meditation techniques and their ability to help me live in the
present. But I skipped the opportunity to delve into the teachings of Buddha regarding suffering and how to
overcome it. When you’re healthy and 21, you don’t need comforting.
Author Dr. Russell Targ did. He personally suffered cancer and the untimely loss of his daughter, Dr. Elizabeth
Targ. And he found comfort and answers in the teachings of a famous disciple of Buddha, Nagarjuna, who
offers a therapy for people caught up in suffering.
Personal happiness and how to achieve it is not a typical target for SSE investigation. But the nature of
“reality” is, and this is where The End of Suffering and science intersect. Robert Jahn’s exploration of micro-PK
and Dr. Larry Dossey’s investigations into mind-body medicine both raise profound questions about the model
of reality and consciousness proposed by Western science. Buddhism offers up an Eastern model of reality
that avoids the materialistic absolutism embedded in Descartian, either-or thinking and the psychological
problems Targ associates with this Western view of reality. Targ and his co-author Dr. J.J. Hurtak point out the
compatibility of this alternative model of reality with modern quantum physics’ view of reality (e.g. light is
neither a wave nor a particle but can be manifest as either). They’re not alone in exploring this linkage. B. Allan
Wallace, president of the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies, is a former Buddhist monk who
earned a doctorate in religious studies at Stanford and has studied under the Dalai Lama. His new book,
Contemplative Science: Where Buddhism and Neuroscience Converge, offers additional intriguing insights
into the compatibility of Buddhism and science. The point? It’s possible Buddhism has it right. And if we can
accept this non-Western model of reality, new ways emerge to view and overcome personal suffering. This in a
nutshell is Targ’s and Hurtak’s argument. It’s not unreasonable.
I don’t have the expertise to judge the authors’ claim that Nagarjuna “stands out in global history as an
unprecedented teacher of the highest order.” It seems excessive. And the authors’ liberal use throughout the
book of Hindu words/concepts (which requires a six-page glossary) makes it read at times more like a
philosophy textbook than your typical nirvana-in-nine-minutes, self-help handbook. But chronic worriers,
negative thinkers and fundamentally unhappy folk in slow psychological or spiritual melt-down with the time
and willingness to walk East a few hundred steps may find the exit they’ve been seeking from their
unhappiness.