fied research mediums (WCRMs) research paradigm is ideal in that,we can demonstrate a phenom- the phenomenon is easily replicableenon called ‘anomalous informa- and occurs on demand.tion reception’ (AIR), which involvesmediums reporting accurate and We do not need to try to catchspecific information about the spontaneous events or experiencesdeceased loved ones (termed ‘dis- as they occur; we can bring thecarnates’) of living people (termed mediumship phenomenon into the‘sitters’) without any prior laboratory and study it under con-knowledge about the discarnates or trolled conditions and on a schedulesitters, in the absence of any that is convenient for all of the par-feedback and without using ticipants.”deceptive means.Based onthe inten- …the mediums have highersive test- brain activity and increaseding pro- blood flow in the region ofcedure the pineal gland comparedwe use toscreen to the control group.pro-spectiveWCRMsand the sub-sequent studiesin which they participate, we canconfidently state that certain medi-ums are capable of AIR.”In addition, Dr Beischel said: “This 50
In her study of mediumship, Dr. THE PINEAL GLAND ANDBeischel is very strict and accurate, MEDIUMSHIPapplying a quintuple-blind scientificmethod, i.e., involving five elements. Neuroscientist Dr. Sérgio Felipe deCompare this with the double-blind Oliveira from Sãostudy, a very well known scientific Paulo University, Brazil, investigatesmethod that is used in experiments the relationshipwith the aim of avoiding bias in the between the pineal gland and medi-results induced by two elements: the umship. In performing his research,placebo effect and the researcher. It he uses techniques such as X-rayis called “double blind” because the diffraction,subjects in the study do not know computed tomography and magnet-to which experimental group they ic resonance imaging. Comparingbelong. the “brain sand” (calcified struc- tures in the brain) of mediums andIn a tripleblind study, a third ele- non mediums,he showed that medi-ment is included with the aim of ums have a higher amount of brainavoiding even more bias. For sand in the pineal gland than doinstance, the third element could non mediums.be a statistician who interprets the In addition, he demonstrated that,data without knowing the type of during spirit communication, theexperiment that was performed, or mediums have higher braina scientist who works on the pro- activity and increased blood flow inject but does not know the experi- the region of the pineal gland com-mental group. pared to the control group. Dr. Felipe de Oliveira hypothesises Dr Beischel’s research demon- that the pineal gland is the sensorialstrates that the anomalous infor- organ of mediumship. For instance,mation reception phenomenon is the gland would be like a mobileindeed authentic. phone that captures the electro- magnetic waves coming from the spirit world.51
Once the waves reach the pineal gland, they bounce off the brain sand, sequestering the electro- magnetic field and transmitting the information to the cerebral cortex for the interpretation of the message. In October 2010 in Valencia, Spain, I (Martínez) conducted an interview with Dr. Sérgio Felipe de Oliveira, who showed images from his magnetic resonance experi- ments and pointed out these dif- ferences in the level of brain sand in the pineal gland that are related to extrasensory abilities.Dr Sérgio Felipe de Oliveira RESEARCH INTO NEAR- DEATH EXPERIENCE At King’s College London there is a revolution going on in the world of thanatology, the scientific study of death. The researcher, Peter Fenwick, MD, is performing detailed experiments on the phenomenon that takes place between the 24 and 48 hours before and after death and also at the moment of death. He concentrates on visions from people who were lying in bed and spoke with deceased family 52
members who came experience Moody, Jr., MD, wroteto receive them. He (NDE) refers to a broad his book Life After Lifealso investigates coin- range of experiences (1975) and Elisabethcidences involving associated Kübler-Ross, MDdeceased people who with impending death. (the now-deceasedcontacted someone These can encom- eminent researcherjust to tell them that pass multiple possible who received ahe/she has died. In sensations including: score of honorary doc-addition, he studies detachment from the torates from universi-family members who body; feelings of levi- ties around the world)saw shadows around tation, extreme fear, compiled hundreds ofthe bed of the ceased total serenity, securi- stunning testimoniesand observed that the ty, warmth or abso- and wrote some of theroom became a lot of lute dissolution; and most powerful booksbrighter at the time of the presence of light. concerningthe person’s death. These phenomena are NDEs, scientists haveThese occurrences usually reported after become very attract-happen in a very high an individual has been ed to this phenom-percentage of cases, he pronounced clinically enon.concludes. Dr. Fenwick dead and then comesalso insists that the back to life. Thesesoul is different from experiences suggestthe brain. the existence of life after death. Since psy-The term near-death chologist Raymond Dr Peter Fenwick 53
Dr Kenneth Ring, then the scientific method inbased at the University his research, we decid-of Connecticut, and ed to contact him toSharon Cooper, then a find out more aboutPhD candidate from the his work. In our e-mailUniversity of New York, interview with him in 1.performed a two-year August 2011, hestudy of near-death stated: “My area ofexperiences in the blind, expertise is in near- Crystalwith amazing results. death experiences. Clear ConsciousnessThese were published in NDEs provide, in mytheir book opinion, the strongest The level of conscious-Mindsight (1999), which scientific evidence of life ness andalertness dur-provided strong evi- after death.” ing near-deathdence from 31 blind In his book Evidence of experiences is usuallypeople who describe the the Afterlife: The evengreater than thatexperience of seeing for Science of Near-Death experienced in everydaythe first time in their Experiences (2010), life, even though NDEslives, giving details of Dr. Long gives a sum- generally occur when amedical procedures on mary of the nine person is unconsciousthe operating table, for lines of evidence that or clinically dead.instance. point to the This high level of con-Jeffrey Long, MD, an reality of NDEs and their sciousness while physi-oncologist, directs the consistent message of cally unconscious isNear Death Experience an afterlife: medically inexplicable.Research Foundation Additionally, the ele-(http://www.nderf.org), ments in NDEs gener-which has collected ally follow the samemore than consistent and logical2,500 case studies order in all age groupsworldwide of people who and around the world,have had near-death which refutes the pos-experiences. sibility that NDEs have any relation to dreamsBecause Dr. Long applies or hallucinations. 54
2. Realistic Out-of-Body has occurred in those Experiences with significantly impaired vision and even legal blindness. Several peopleOut-of-body experiences (OBEs) are who have been totally blindone of the most common elements since birth have reported highlyof NDEs. What “NDErs” see and visual near-death experiences.hear of earthly events in the out-of- This is medically inexplicable.body state is almost always realistic.When the NDEr or others later seek 4. Consciousness Duringto verify what was observed or heard Anaesthesiaduring the NDE, the OBE observa-tions are almost always confirmed Many NDEs occur whileas completely accurate. under general anaesthesia—at aEven if the OBE observations during time when any conscious experiencethe NDE included events far from should be impossible. While somethe physical body and far from any sceptics claim that these NDEs maypossible sensory awareness of the be the result of too little anaesthe-NDEr, the OBE observations are still sia, this ignores the fact that somealmost always confirmed as com- NDEs result from anaesthesia over-pletely accurate. This fact alone dose.rules out the possibility that near- Additionally, the description of andeath experiences are related to any NDE differs greatly from that ofknown brain functioning or sensory one who experiences “anaestheticawareness. awareness”. The content of NDEsThis also refutes the possibility that that occur under general anaesthe-NDEs are unrealistic fragments of sia is essentially indistinguishablememory from the brain. from NDEs that did not occur under general anaesthesia. 3. Heightened Senses This is further strong evidence that Not only are heightened NDEs are occurring completely inde- senses reported by most pendently from the functioning ofwho have experienced NDEs, the physical brain.but normal or supernormal vision55
5. Perfect Playbacks gion or near-death experiences, are essentially identical to those of olderLife reviews in near-death experi- children and adults.ences include real events that pre- This refutes the possibility that theviously took place in the lives of content of NDEs is produced by pre-those having the experience, even existing beliefs or cultural condition-if the events were forgotten or hap- ing.pened before they were old enoughto remember. 8. Worldwide Consistency 6. Family Reunions Near-death experiences appear remarkably consistent aroundDuring an NDE, the people the world and across many differentencountered are virtually always religions and cultures. NDEs fromdeceased and are usually relatives non-western countries are incrediblyof the person having the experience; similar to those that occur in peoplesometimes they are even relatives in western countries.who died before the NDEr was born.Were the NDE only a product of 9. Aftereffectsmemory fragments, it would almost It is common for peoplecertainly include far more living peo- to experience major lifeple, including those with whom the changes after having near-deathNDEr had interacted more recently. experiences. These aftereffects are often power- 7. Children’s Experiences ful, lasting and lifeenhancing, and the changes generally follow aThe near-death experiences consistent pattern. As the NDErsof children, including very young themselves almostchildren who are too young to have always believe, near-death experi-developed concepts of death, reli- ences are, in a word, real.56
PAST-LIFE REGRESSIONTHERAPY The research on past-life regres- 64 per cent.sion consists of practices and evi- In 2006, Ron van der Maesen obtaineddence based approaches. The his PhD in the research area of past-results come from questionnaires life therapy from Utrecht University incompleted before and after the the Netherlands. His doctoral thesistherapy with a large number of was based on different studies withindividuals with a specific type of people who underwent treatment withproblem, including a control group past-life therapy. The studies includ-to demonstrate their effectiveness ed one in Suriname, one with the(the double-blind scientific meth- Dutch Association of Reincarnationod).Between 1985 and 1992, Dr. HazelDenning (now deceased), founderof the International Association forRegression Research andTherapies (http://www.iarrt.org),studied the results of eight regres-sion therapists with about 1,000patients. The results were mea-sured immediately after the ther-apy, with follow-ups six months,one year, two years and five yearsafterwards. From the 450 patients who couldbe traced after five years, 24 percent reported that their symp-toms had completely disappeared,23 per cent reported a significantimprovement, 17 per cent reportedan improvement, and 36 per centreported no improvement. Overall,this makes a positive balance of 57
Therapists and anoth- conducted a 10-year of clothes and shoeser with patients with survey of past-life rec- they wore, the kinds ofTourette syndrome. The ollection and reincar- utensils and money theystudies showed that nation. She performed used, the style of housethe pastlife treatments her main study with they lived in, and so on.had statistically signifi- 26 regression thera- She concluded that thecant beneficial results pists who had worked results were very accu-in patients compared with a total of 17,350 rate, and that fantasywith the controls (with patients. Among those, and genetic memoryno health problems). 63 per cent reported an could not account for theThe level of satisfac- improvement in physi- patterns that emergedtion among the patients cal symptoms whereas from the results. Withwho had improvements 40 per cent reported an the exception of reportswith past-life therapy improvement in their from 11 subjects, allwas very high. interpersonal relation- descriptions of cloth- Psychologist Dr. Helen ships. Dr. Wambach had ing, footwear, utensils,Wambach, who carried very specific questions housing and so on wereout past-life research about the time periods consistent with histori-from the mid-1960s in which people lived cal records.until her death in 1985, other lives, the typesEVIDENCE OFREINCARNATIONPsychotherapist Brian Weiss, Attorney Victor ZammitMD, is Chairman Emeritus of has gathered evidence forPsychiatry at the Mount Sinai the existence of life afterMedical Center in Miami. One death that he thinks is strongday he found that one of his enough to be accepted inpatients started to recall pastlife any court of law.traumas in recurring nightmaresand began to give astonishingdetails about Weiss’s family andhis dead son. Although at thebeginning he was very sceptical, 58
he decided to do some in-depth and verified body marks and birthresearch. He has since published defects with wounds and scars ofseveral books where he describes thedeceased, all of them confirmed byhis investigations of past lives. medical records.In Many Lives, Many Masters(1988), Dr Weiss explains the real- A good example of a birthmarkity of reincarnation case involved Ravi Shankar. This childand the spirit world from the psychi- remembered being decapitated inatric perspective. Ian Stevenson, his previous childhood by a familyMD, who died in 2007, was one of member who was hoping for a patri-the most well known researchers to mony from the child’s father. Ravihave provided strong evidence for Shankar had a birthmark around histhe reality of reincarnation. From neck. When Dr Stevenson investigat-1957, at the University of Virginia, ed this case, he was able to confirmhe headed the Department of that the child whom Shankar told himPsychiatry and later the Division about from his past life had in factof Perceptual Studies until his been decapitated.2002 retirement. He did not usethe method of hypnosis to verify Dr Ian Stevensonwhether a person had a recollec-tion of a previous life; instead, hestudied thousands of cases in chil-dren in the USA, England, Thailand,Burma, Turkey, Lebanon, Canada,India and other countries who hadspontaneous memories about theirprevious lives.First, he verified all the informa-tion from a child about their pre-vious life. Next, he identified thedeceased person whom that childclaimed to be in their previouslife. Later, he verified the facts ofthe past life of the deceased per-son that coincided with the memo-ries of the child. He also compared 59
It was Jim Tucker, MD, who took belief in reincarnation.over Dr Stevenson’s I’ve been focusing on westernresearch. At the University of cases, and I’m finding thatVirginia, Dr Tucker is currently the phenomenon is essentially theMedical Director of the Child and same here as it is in Asia. At thisFamily Psychiatry Clinic as well as point, we certainly don’t have asAssociate Professor of many really strong cases here asPsychiatry and Neurobehavioral Ian found in Asia, but we do haveSciences. some interesting ones.”His book Life Before Life: A ScientificInvestigation of Children’s Memories THE SCIENCE OF THEof Previous Lives (2005) summaris- AFTERLIFEes the 40 years of investigation ofreincarnation which Dr Stevensonperformed during his career. In August 2011, we conducted an Australian lawyer turned full-timeemail interview with Dr Tucker about researcher/writerthe scientific evidence for life after Victor Zammit has investigated thedeath. He responded: afterlife from the judicial point of“As to your questions, the most view. He thinks that the evidenceimportant evidence for life he has gathered for the existenceafter death, other than neardeath of life after death is strong enoughexperiences, includes controlled to be accepted in any court of lawmediumship studies, carefully stud- (http://www.victorzammit.com).ied reports of apparitions, and veri- In his book A Lawyer Presents thefied claims Case for the Afterlife (2006, 4thby children of past-life memories. ed.), Zammit showed 23 different areas that demonstrate the The most important evidence of existence of life after death. Hereincarnation is this last phenom- has put out a challengeenon: children’s reports of past-life to scientists to provide evidencememories. that there is no life after death,Ian Stevenson spent 40 years study- promising to pay $1,000,000 ifing such cases, documenting them they do.as carefully as he could. Most ofhis cases came from cultures with a60
Professor Lisa Randall if this is so, the larg- er hidden dimensionsThe pioneering research Pim van Lommel, MD, in which our universeof Dr Raymond Moody and many others. exists may influence ourand Dr Elisabeth Kübler- Is the quest progressing own three-dimensionalRoss has contributed to towards a final answer? space-time world andthe development of this Probably never: the its laws of nature. Butdiscipline. more answers unveiled, what is consciousness,Now there are numer- the more questions one of the mostous studies being con- revealed. Professor Lisa vibrant areas of study inducted in the area of Randall is a theoreti- science today? Accordingspirituality and life after cal physicist at Harvard to Professordeath, utilising the lat- University, a leading Randall (Discover, 29est technologies and expert on particle phys- July 2006):scientific methods. ics and cosmology, and “Neuroscience is excit-Over the years, sig- a member of the sci- ing. Understanding hownificant research has entific staff at CERN. thoughts work, howbeen carried out by She theorises that our connections are made,such luminaries as Dr universe exists within a how the memory works,Erlendur Haraldsson of universe of many high- how we process infor-Iceland University, past- er and unseen dimen- mation, how informa-life therapist Dr Morris sions, and that the tion is stored—it’s allNetherton, psycholo- laws of nature may be fascinating.gist Dr Peter Ramster, very different in differ- Experimentally, though,psychotherapist Andy ent regions of this so- we’re still rather limitedTomlinson, cardiologist called multverse. Then, in what we can do. I don’t even know what consciousness is. I’d like someone to define consciousness.” Right. So if we want to know more about the possibility of the surviv- al of consciousness after death, maybe we need more accurate studies 61
which consider ence works like that; been demonstrated.”consciousness itself. for example, Then why do they study In the meantime, some astronomers and astro- this “correlation” if itscientists are finding physicists can identify has not been demon-impressive evidence to a relationship between strated that it reallysuggest that there is the activity cycles of exists? The answerlife after the Sun and is simple: it is becausedeath, or at least sur- the weather on Earth, they have observedvival of consciousness, so they assume that evidence which sug-although they don’t this relationship exists gests that it may beknow yet how it works. although they don’t that way…In the meantime, some Well, it seems scientists are finding that we are in impressive evidence to a very simi- suggest that there is life lar situation after death, or at least with stud- survival of consciousness… ies about the afterlife.This is the reason why know how it works. Scientiststhe key is in the brilliant Yet, as Professor Sami haveconfession of Professor Solanki, of the Max observed evi-Lisa Randall, one of the Planck Institute for dence whichmost influential scien- Solar System Research suggests thattists in the world: “I in Germany, has there may be lifedon’t even know what stated (http://tinyurl. after death, but theyconsciousness is. I’d com/77taz9c) :“The don’t know what thelike someone to define correlation between process is or what con-consciousness.” solar cycles and terres- sciousness is, and they trial weather has not can’t say that life after Yes, sometimes sci- death can be real in case it really is real! 62
“One of the near-death experience truths is that eachperson integrates their near-death experience into theirown pre-existing belief system.” - jody long FREE SUBSCRIPTION www . ispectrummagazine . c o m 63
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