Do we survive the death of our physical bodies? Is there such a thing as a postmortem continuation of the individual? If there is survival, what survives? Does everyone survive? What does it even mean to survive? Answers to these questions are central to thedogmas of many religions. These same issues are amongst the most refractory when addressed using the techniques of scientific inquiry: data gathering, hypothesis formulation and testing, logical analyses. Indeed, such topics are generally viewed as outside the scope of scientific inquiry, not worth serious thought. As Bertrand Russell commented, “most people would die sooner than think – in fact, they do so.” Sphinx Geology In my youth, I didn’t bother to give the afterlife much consideration. I never needed the threat of future hell and damnation to persuade me to be moral now. I identified with those ancient Hebrews who did not necessarily believe in an afterlife (de Vesme, 1931), yet still found it prudent to pursue an honourable life in this world. In college I pursued a very earthly field – the study of rocks – ultimately earning a Ph.D. in geology and geophysics from Yale University (1983). My life changed in 1990. At the invitation of independent Egyptologist John Anthony West, I took my first trip to Egypt – specifically to study the Great Sphinx from a geologic point of view. After several more trips, undertaking various tests and analyses, I came to the conclusion that the oldest portions of the Great Sphinx date back to a much earlier period than previously believed by most Egyptologists and historians. Conventional wisdom places the Great Sphinx in the reign of the Pharaoh Khafre (Chephren), circa 2500 BCE. My studies indicated that the oldest portions of the Great Sphinx (the statue has been repaired many times, and the head re-carved) date back to at least the period of 7000 BCE to 5000 BCE, and perhaps 9000 BCE or earlier. My Sphinx work immediately caused a firestorm and, though the controversy has abated somewhat two decades later, the implications have only deepened. Essentially, sophisticated culture and civilisation goes back much earlier than formally thought; “history must be rewritten.” Over the years I have been pleased to see confirmation of the crux of my work, as other very ancient sites have been uncovered. A good example is Gobekli Tepe in Turkey where a major monumental carved stone building phase dating to the period of 8000 BCE and earlier has been discovered. Egypt And Its Obsession With Death Working on the Great Sphinx, I could not help but become fascinated with the pyramids, temples, tombs, and other relics of ancient Egypt. According to the traditional view, what was the overriding preoccupation of ancient Egypt? Death and the afterlife. Say “Egypt” and pyramids (popularly interpreted as giant tombs), mummies, and the so-called Book of the Dead immediately come to mind. Having studied them in depth, it is clear to me that the pyramids, and the Great Pyramid in particular, were not solely or even primarily overblown mausoleums. Indeed, the Great Pyramid may have served both astronomical/astrological functions, literally being an observatory at one stage of its development, as well as ritualistic purposes. Many modern visitors describe powerful and life changing experiences in the Great Pyramid. One of the most famous is Napoleon Bonaparte. While in Egypt, August 1799, Napoleon visited the Great Pyramid. He entered the King’s Chamber and asked to be left alone. Upon emerging, Napoleon was pale, faint and silent. Asked by an aide what happened, Napoleon refused to say anything of substance, intimating that he had experienced a preview of his own fate. Just before his death in 1821, Napoleon appeared to be on the verge of telling a close friend what had occurred in the King’s Chamber. Then he hesitated. “No. What is the use? You would never believe me.” I have spent many hours, including several times almost the entire night (but not sleeping, mind you), in the Great Pyramid. And I have spent much time exploring other temples and tombs throughout Egypt, as well as pyramids, temples and sacred places elsewhere in the world. Initially I approached the ancient monuments as a geologist, focusing on the materials from which they were constructed. Soon, however, I became involved in studying not just the stones, but why past civilisations had erected the stones into magnificent edifices. The why behind the monuments, more often than not, apparently included religious beliefs and practices, initiation rites and rituals, which in many cases seemed to have an ostensible paranormal aspect, whether it was clairvoyance, divination or manifestations of higher levels of consciousness. Were, I asked myself, the ancient structures used to genuinely alter consciousness and possibly enhance paranormal phenomena? Or did superstition, perhaps combined with pious fraud on the part of a priest or priestess, account for the tales? Furthermore, I could not help but think about postmortem survival issues, particularly when studying ostensible tombs! Death, transformation, resurrection, union with the gods, attainment of immortality – was all this ritualistic hocus pocus and pure nonsense? Or were the ancients skilled psychic engineers, carefully manipulating the incorporeal with their megalithic stone monuments and occult practices? My formal training as a physical scientist certainly did not encourage the notion that paranormal and psychic phenomena, much less life after death, were anything other than imagination gone wild or charlatans preying on the gullible. According to a conventional materialistic and secular “scientifically rational” worldview, the paranormal does not exist and death is the final end. It was all too easy, and indeed comforting, to put such issues out of mind. Stick to the hard evidence of the rocks, the domain of the geologist. Exploring the Paranormal Issues of the paranormal and questions about survival kept nagging at me. Ultimately, I realised, I must address these topics head-on, if only for the sake of satisfying my intellectual curiosity. For me the first issue was to research various reputed anomalous psychic abilities among the living, such as telepathy (direct mind-to-mind transfer of information without utilising any of the conventional senses) and psychokinesis (PK, essentially the concept of mind-over-matter). I wanted to establish what, if anything, in terms of the paranormal is possible among the living before addressing the issue of postmortem survival. It took me over ten years from my first visit to Egypt to get to the point where I was prepared to take a serious look at the paranormal. I have taught fulltime at Boston University since 1984, and every year I have a new batch of students. Many simply want to take their courses and get a degree, but then there are those who really strive to go beyond their formal studies. One such student was Logan Yonavjak. She served as my field assistant on research expeditions to Egypt and Peru in 2003 and 2005, and she prodded me to take a serious look at the paranormal. She and I undertook a comprehensive survey of the serious scientific literature addressing psychical research and the paranormal (the field now generally referred to as parapsychology). We read literally thousands of papers, pro- and con-, and we both became involved with the field first-hand. The result of our collaboration was The Parapsychology Revolution: A Concise Anthology of Paranormal and Psychical Research. Our studies convinced me that, once the fraud, bunk, and self-delusion are eliminated, there is something to the paranormal. The best-documented class of paranormal phenomena is telepathy. There is strong laboratory evidence for telepathy, such as classic card-calling experiments as well as many more sophisticated tests. There is also a large and compelling body of evidence from spontaneous cases (non-laboratory experiments) supporting the reality of telepathy. For instance, crisis apparitions, veridical hallucinations, or “ghosts” are well known. The evidence for PK is also strong, including micro-PK studies at an atomic level using random event generators and similar devices, such as the evidence developed by the PEAR (Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research) labs over more than a quarter of a century, and the carefully studied incidents of macro-PK (affecting larger objects) associated with genuine spontaneous poltergeist cases. Another line of evidence for the reality of paranormal phenomena is research on presentiments or “pre-sponses,” essentially a form of short-term precognition as measured by physiological parameters (heart rate, electrodermal activity and so forth). Numerous replicated experiments have demonstrated the physiological responses of individuals to disturbing photographs, for instance, a second or two before they are actually viewed by the person. According to conventional science, this should not be possible. My research on parapsychological phenomena among the living continues, but at this point I agree with the following statement made by David Fontana, Professor of Transpersonal Psychology at Liverpool John Moores University and a well-known psychical researcher: “Psychic abilities are a matter of fact not of belief. What they are and what they mean for our view of reality is another matter, but one cannot dismiss them as fiction and yet retain credibility as an unbiased observer.” (Fontana, 2005, pp. 468-469) But how do we interpret paranormal phenomena? This brings us to the issue of postmortem survival. Survivalist Interpretations Serious study of psychical and paranormal phenomena dates back to at least 1882, the year when the Society for Psychical Research was founded. At that time, and right up to the present day, some psychical researchers have interpreted some of the phenomena they study as being communications from deceased persons or discarnate (non-bodily) entities. Indeed, among many people the prime interest in psychical studies is to establish the possibility of an afterlife. To give a classic example, let us suppose you attend a séance. The medium goes into trance and begins to speak in a different voice. The voice claims to have a message from the beyond, a message from your departed grandmother. Through the medium, you are told that your deceased grandmother still cherishes those moments you had with her, and a very private story is related, a story that you are certain you never shared with another person and only you and your grandmother knew about. So, is this proof that you received a communication from your beloved grandmother? Does she live on in the afterlife? Many people would say yes, absolutely (of course, we are assuming there is no fraud on the part of any involved in the séance). No one other than your grandmother knew the private story, and so it must be her who now relates it (indirectly through the medium). What other explanation can there be? Indeed, there is another explanation, and it gets to the crux of the arguments for and against postmortem survival. Instead of your grandmother contacting you from beyond the grave, perhaps the medium is telepathically picking up information from your brain, perhaps information that is stored away deep in the unconscious, and then relaying it in a form that is ostensibly a communication from your grandmother? (Granted, the medium is doing this unconsciously, and in no way intends to deceive. The medium truly feels that she or he is communicating with the dead on your behalf.) Let’s make the situation a little more complicated. What if the supposed communication from grandmother relays information unknown to you, perhaps concerning your aunt when she was young? After the séance you consult your aunt, and indeed the communication is true, and what is more, your aunt is shocked and flabbergasted because the information is something that only she and your grandmother shared, and absolutely no one else had ever known it. So, is this proof of the continued existence of your grandmother in the “ethers”? Some parapsychologists would counter that possibly the medium telepathically raided, if you will, your aunt’s mind to find interesting information that was then relayed to you at the séance, information that appeared to come from your grandmother.
Posted on: Mon, 08 Jul 2013 17:00:01 +0000
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