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Near-Death Experiences and the Problem of Evidence for Survival after Death

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Chris Cherry
Chris Cherry
Affiliation:
University of Kent
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Extract

Many people believe it absurd to seek evidence for - or against - personal survival of death. Some do so because they think, for a variety of reasons, that the idea of personal post-mortem survival makes no sense. Whether or not they are right they are at any rate consistent: nothing can be evidence for or against a nonsense. However, there are others who also believe that looking for evidence is absurd and yet do not similarly dismiss the idea as unintelligible. They allow that survival is possible and commonly hope it will ensue; but at the same time they insist that absolutely nothing helpful can be said on the subject.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 22 , Issue 3-4 , September 1986 , pp. 397 - 406
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1986

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References

page 397 note 1 The best recent general works on the phenomenology and implications of N.D.E.s are: Osis, K. and Haraldson, E., At the Hour of Death, (N.Y.: Discus, 1977);Google ScholarRing, K., Life at Death, (N.Y.: Coward McCann and Geohegan, 1980);Google ScholarSabam, M. B., Recollections of Death, (London: Corgi, 1982);Google ScholarGallup, G. and Proctor, W., Adventures in Immortality (London: Corgi, 1984).Google Scholar The most meticulous and detailed research into specific aspects of near-death is to be found in medical and psychological journals. For N.D.E.s and survival after death, see Stevenson, I. and Greyson, B., ‘Near-Death Experiences: Relevance to the Question of Survival after Death’, J.A.M.A., CCXLII (1979), 265–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For incidence of N.D.E. occurrence, see Gabbard, G. O., Turemlow, S. W. and Jones, F. C., ‘Do “Near Death Experiences” Occur Only Near Death?’, J.N.M.A., CLXIX (1981), 374–7.Google Scholar For an overview of N.D.E. incidence and frequency, see Stevenson, I. and Greyson, B., ‘The Phenomenology of Near-Death Experiences’, Am. J. Psychiatry, CXXXVII (1980), 1193–1196.Google Scholar

page 398 note 1 Jung, C. G., Memories, Dreams, Reflections, pp. 326–7 (Fount Paperbacks, 1977).Google Scholar

page 398 note 2 Ring, K., Life at Death, chap. 4.Google Scholar

page 398 note 3 Evidence, that is, for us, the living. I shall return, briefly, to the indefinite deferrals of eschatological verificationism.

page 399 note 1 Of a Particular Providence and of a Future State

page 399 note 2 On the Immortality of the Soul.

page 399 note 3 See in particular Gallup and Proctor, op. cit. footnote I.

page 400 note 1 For the near-death experience apologist, some of these features will be centrally relevant, such as autoscopy and encounter with a ‘being of light’, and others peripheral, such as post-recovery euphoria.

page 400 note 2 For all I know these and other probabilities can be assigned a numerical value, but this does not affect the argument.

page 401 note 1 C.Pu.R., B. 307 (Kemp Smith translation (1961), p. 268).Google Scholar The italics of the final clause are my own. See also A 256, B 298, A 239, B 307, B 309, A 251, A 255, B 311–13.I discuss the more general aspects and implications of the ‘oddity’ in ‘Reality and the Problem of Access’ (Philosophy, XXXVI(1981), 181–91) and ‘Knowing and Changing’ (Philosophia, XII (1983), 283–98).

page 401 note 2 There is a contrary expedient, one to which Hume has recourse in his Of Miracles. Hypotheses, whether about miracles or survival, are held to be minimally real by virtue of the fact that they are always potentially, though never actually, on serious offer: there will and must always be immeasurably preferable alternatives. This line of argument is not worth pursuing. A distinct confusion, which again I only note, is to suppose that in areas like the present one evidence may be poor, or moderate, or good but never, ever conclusive.

page 402 note 1 A conviction which is not the concern of this paper. Throughout I have assumed - something I believe - that considerations of personal identity and individuation are at the least not decisive against post-mortem survival claims.

page 402 note 2 Gallup, and Proctor, , op. cit.Google Scholar

page 402 note 3 British Medical journal (Dec. 1979), 1530Google Scholar

page 402 note 4 Noyes, R., Psychiatry (1972).Google Scholar

page 402 note 5 Rodin, E. A., ‘The Reality of Death Experiences’, The journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, CLXVII 5 (05 1980), 259.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 403 note 1 Physiologically and epistemologically instructive because it forces us to reconsider and refine definitions of dying and death. See in particular a series of papers on brainstem death in The British Medical journal, Nov. 1982 Jan. 1983.Google Scholar

page 403 note 2 Essay vol in Religion and Understanding, edited by Phillips, D. Z., p. 163.Google Scholar Holland's preoccupations - and conclusions - are rather different from my own; and it is his example and not the use he makes of it I appropriate.

page 404 note 1 Ibid., and in particular p. 166.

page 404 note 2 I discuss these and related issues in ‘On Characterizing the Extraordinary’, Ratio, XVIII I (1975), 52–64;Google Scholar and ‘Miracles and Creation’, International journal for the Philosophy of Religion, V, 4 (1974) 234–45.Google Scholar

page 404 note 3 Strictly speaking, the a priori assumption embraces a second proposition, that no deceased person can communicate to the living information about any post-mortem state. But this may be ignored.

page 405 note 1 See Cherry, C., ‘Knowing and Changing’ op. cit., in particular 288–9.Google Scholar