Survival of Bodily Death
An Esalen Invitational Conference December 6 - 11, 1998
Future Directions for Research
General
- Work more in the direction of Tart's (1975) state-specific science.
Stephen LaBerge's (1985) work with lucid dreaming is a good prototype;
he has developed a network of "oneironauts" who undertake experiments
while in the lucid state and report back the results. This paradigm
of science challenges some of the objectivist assumptions of modern
science for it requires a move in the direction of greater participation
and personal experience.
- Develop more targeted hypotheses rather than merely gather more
data. Erlendur Haraldsson did this with the hypothesis that children
reporting reincarnation memories have a more active and vivid fantasy
life or are more suggestible. His tests showed them to be less susceptible
to suggestion.
- Train rather than find subjects. The issue of a paucity of talented
subjects is pervasive in almost all the fields discussed. Developing
better methods to train cadres of subjects would allow us to do
sophisticated, in-depth research. For example, if it were possible
to regularly produce OBEs, we could begin to design experiments
where the veracity of such experiences could be better studied.
- Mine cross-cultural studies to generate ideas for further research
and to detect areas of lingering bias in our own work.
For the Next Conference
- Less coverage of current and past research, more planning and
brainstorming for future projects.
- Have each participant take one juicy topic and extend our knowledge
of it by the next gathering. For example, Michael Grosso plans to
do a study of retrieval of mental functioning on the verge of death.
Michael Murphy will investigate fast-track publishing of books out
of copyright. Adam Crabtree agreed to spearhead web efforts.
- Generate a good web site.
- Circulate more articles and materials in advance.
- Explore philosophical frameworks (the big picture) more extensively.
- Targeting the filter versus production hypothesis of consciousness,
which is crucial to all the work of the conference.
Near-Death Experiences
- Investigate extreme surgery. For example, a recently developed
procedure to operate on previously inaccessible aneurysms in the
brain relies upon an elaborate death-defying procedure. The body
is cooled to sixty degrees, the blood is drained from the head,
and the patient's eyes and ears are blocked for the duration of
the several hour surgery.
- Cast a wider net for blind people, especially the congenitally
blind, who have had near-death experiences in which they report
being able to see. Ken Ring (1999) has pioneered research in this
area in his most recent book but the work can be taken still further.
- Emily Kelly and Bruce Greyson are looking into doing a study
in a hospice, a systematic survey of death-bed phenomena with the
patients, extending the work of Osis and Haraldsson (1977). They
would look at basic and pathological visions, mood elevation, and
physical phenomena such as clocks stopping. There is evidence that
people are able to postpone their own deaths to wait for anniversaries,
holidays, or the arrival of relatives. This would be a longitudinal
study in a hospice to follow patients until they die. In addition,
they would examine what the families experience.
- Hospice research placing Schmidt random-number generators in
the room of a dying person. A good deal of evidence shows that these
generators become less random during collectively focused emotional
events.
Out-of-Body Experiences
- Charles Tart's (1968) work with one promising subject who reported
regular OBEs indicated that the times when she was "out" corresponded
to an unusual EEG pattern dubbed slow alpha. William Dement, the
world's foremost authority on sleep, agreed that this pattern was
indeed highly unusual. This brought up the idea that subjects might
be trained via biofeedback to generate slow alpha, perhaps inducing
an OBE.
Reincarnation Research
- Examine behavioral and personality characteristics of reputed
incarnations for parallels in psychological make-up, behavioral
traits, emotional disposition, psychopathology, etc. to the deceased
individual in matched cases. Follow the kids through their lives
and see what turns up. There ought to be a strong statistical correlation.
- Hypnosis research targeted specifically to past-life material.
Though a reasonable amount of data has been collected in the field
of past-life regression hypnotherapy, the idea here would be to
collect more traceable data, especially with excellent hypnotic
subjects. This would introduce a measure of experimental control.
Basic hypnotizability and susceptibility scales, which usually are
not administered in therapeutic settings, would be incorporated.
- Develop an experimental protocol using the body-marking traditions
of Laos and Thailand as a model. This might mean, for example, encouraging
them to make more distinctive markings.
- Investigate the population of people who have lost children
and who believe that a subsequent child is the reincarnation of
the dead child. Often, this is problematic for the family. Though
it would be difficult to control for confounding variables, this
group may well be worth investigating.
- Study the rates and types of birthmarks following significant
wars. Since evidence is accumulating that birthmarks often correspond
to death wounds in the reported previous life, it is possible that
the percentage of birthmarks of certain types (such as those suggestive
of bullet wounds) might increase in the years following a war. Such
a study would make the superpsi hypothesis much less plausible.
- A simple study asking children, "What do you remember about
your past life?" Most people assume that children can not remember
their birth, but David Chamberlain (1988) makes the case that if
you ask them, many actually can. We assume that the average child
does not remember past lives, but perhaps many actually do.
- Charles suggested revisiting The Case for Bridey Murphy (Bernstein,
1965) which caused a sensation in the sixties and which still stands
as an excellent case.
- Xenoglossy: Stevenson has done 90% of the work in this field,
showing how people appear to speak languages they have never consciously
studied. Ed Kelly suggested studying this phenomenon with functional
MRI's. A recent study of bilingualism showed that when people learn
languages contemporaneous with the first, the organization in the
brain is largely intertwined. If one language is learned later,
the organization is separate. This could lead to very interesting
studies with the xenoglossy cases.
Channeling and Mediumship
- Examine cross-correspondence data at greater depth. This material,
which is derived from multiple "transmissions" to unrelated mediums
and is reputed to make sense only when pieced back together, appears
very promising but is underanalyzed. One of the reasons this data
is so promising is that it makes fraud and the "super-psi" hypothesis
far less plausible.
- A psychomanteum is a cloth-enshrouded "room" with a mirror at
one end. It is currently being used for research and as a therapeutic
tool to create an environment conducive to contacting departed loved
ones, thereby bringing emotional resolution. The question of whether
it is actually effective in contacting "real" spirits has not been
adequately addressed but the therapeutic benefits are commonplace.
A more extensive study might prove valuable.
- Examine more carefully some of the literary works that have
been produced as a result of channeling. For example, a fairly high
quality channeled version of the second half of Edwin Drood is available.
Initial commentators have said it resembles an "early Dickens."
Ed Kelly tracked it down and was amazed by it. It could be subjected
to some of the more recent authorship-analysis tests which compile
profiles of function words (like prepositions) to determine probable
authorship. This would bring in a quantitative angle.
- Elaborate upon all the possible explanations for channeled material.
Most research dwells only on its validity as evidence for discarnate
existence. However, it is equally, if not more interesting to see
what sort of picture of the psyche emerges when we assume only unconscious
processes are at work. The conclusion is that human consciousness
is capable of exhibiting remarkable skills without a development
process, can perform psychic feats, can create elaborate personalities
and histories at will, and is capable of enormous self-deception.
- Conduct a survey of the training of channelers to begin a systematic
program of training subjects. The College of Psychic Sciences in
London has the best reputation for such work. Again this is part
of the general trend away from finding subjects to training and
developing them.
- Examine the psychology of mediumship: do certain personality
scales or traits predict this ability? Is there perhaps a developmental
process involved
Multiple Personality Research
- Charles Tart hypothesized that there must be many high-functioning
multiples in society who never enter therapy. A carefully organized
search for such high-functioning multiples might turn up more.
- Bruce Greyson reported that one person with multiple personality
disorder had a near death experience and reported that she experienced
her Inner Self Helper (ISH) as the being of light at the end of
the tunnel. Since the ISH often plays a dispassionate organizing
role in the course of treatment and often disappears at the end,
there is a plausible link to suggest that ISHs might be discarnate
spirit helpers, or, conversely, that the part of the deeper psyche
that creates an externalized helper being constructs such an entity
when approaching death. In either case, the ISH may provide us with
a bridge between the two areas of research.
- Charles Tart wondered if multiple personality clients experience
a near-death experience from one or all of their separate identities.
Small populations involved here, but the results could be important.
Other
- Several reports have surfaced (Sylvia, 1997;Pearsall, 1998)
of organ recipients with memories, feelings, and cravings which
appear to be associated with the deceased donor. A recent murder
was actually solved after an organ recipient correctly identified
an accused murderer from a line-up based upon memories he seemed
to inherit with his transplanted heart. This line of evidence raises
particularly interesting questions about the nature of memory and
bears upon the issue of survival, though the situation may be confounded
by psychic influences parallel to those in psychometry, in which
a person provides information about a remote person based upon an
associated object or picture. To the knowledge of the participants,
no systematic study has been undertaken, though John Mack reportedly
has been collecting some cases.
References
Bernstein, Morey. 1965. The Case for Bridey Murphy.
Chamberlain, David. 1988. Babies Remember Birth: And
Other Extraordinary Scientific Discoveries About the Mind and Personality
of Your Newborn. Los Angeles: Tarcher. LaBerge, Stephen.
1985. Lucid Dreaming. New York: Ballantine Books.
(buy at amazon.com) Osis, Karlis, & Haraldsson, Erlendur.
1977. At the Hour of Death. New York: Avon.
(buy at amazon.com) Pearsall, Paul; Marino, Lauren; Russek,Linda; &
Schwartz, Gary. 1998. The Heart's Code. New York: Broadway.
(buy at amazon.com) Ring, Kenneth and Cooper, Sharon.
1999. Near-Death and Out-of-Body Experiences in the Blind: A Study of
Apparent Eyeless Vision. Palo Alto, CA: Institute of Transpersonal Psychology/William
James Center. Sylvia, Claire and Novak, William.
1997. A Change of Heart. New York: Warner.
(buy at amazon.com) Tart, Charles. 1968. A psychophysiological
study of out-of-the -body experiences in a gifted subject. Journal for
the American Society of Psychical Research, 62, 3-27. Tart,
Charles. 1975. States of consciousness and state-specific sciences.
Journal of Altered States of Consciousness 2, 87-105.
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