The Survival of Human Consciousness

Essays on the Possibility of Life After Death
Herausgeber: Storm, Lance; Thalbourne, Michael A.

• Broschiertes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

According to several recent polls, more than 80 percent of Americans believe in life after death. Of those, many adhere to their beliefs because of religious faith. Beyond religion, though, there is increasing scientific examination of life after death hypotheses. Both religious and secular believers are more frequently using empirical research to answer the key questions of how consciousness may transcend corporeal life and death. These essays from leading survival theoreticians scientifically assay the issues and evidence. Interdisciplinary in nature, it covers diverse topics including the origins of life after death hypotheses; theoretical, methodological and empirical approaches to afterlife research; hallucination experiences; evidence for consciousness survival; birthmarks and previous-life memories; suicide; and spirit participation. Concluding chapters discuss the future of afterlife research and offer a new interpretation of consciousness survival.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: McFarland
• Seitenzahl: 320
• Erscheinungstermin: 12. September 2006
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 229mm x 152mm x 19mm
• Gewicht: 522g
• ISBN-13: 9780786427727
• ISBN-10: 0786427728
• Artikelnr.: 21722501

Autorenporträt

The late Michael A. Thalbourne worked in the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit in the School of Psychology at the University of Adelaide in South Australia. Lance Storm works in the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit in the School of Psychology at the University of Adelaide in South Australia.

Inhaltsangabe

Table of Contents
Foreword by James Houran     
Preface     
SECTION I. HISTORICAL ISSUES
1. Refutation of the "Denial of Death" Hypothesis     
2. Mystical Experience and the Afterlife     
SECTION II. THEORETICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL ISSUES
3. Mind, Matter and Death     
4. Conversations About Survival: Novel Theoretical, Methodological, and
Empirical Approaches to Afterlife Research     
5. Hallucination Proneness and Experiences Related to Survival     
6. Constructing Time After Death: The Transcendental-Future Time
Perspective     
SECTION III. EVIDENTIAL ISSUES
7. Evidence for Survival from Recent Research into Physical Phenomena     
8. On Apparitions and Mediumship: An Examination of the Evidence That
Personal Consciousness Persists After Death     
9. Getting Through the Grief: After-Death Communication Experiences and
Their Effects on Experients     
10. Birthmarks and Claims of Previous-Life Memories: The Case of Purnima
Ekanayake     
SECTION IV. SOCIOLOGICAL AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL ISSUES
11. What the Channeled Material of Suicides Tell Us About the
Afterlife     
12. Some Observations on Spirit Participation in Medium-Sitter Interaction
and Its Organization     
13. Origins of Belief in Life After Death: The Ritual Healing Theory and
Near-Death Experience     
SECTION V. CONCLUSIONS
14. Where Do We Go from Here?     
15. A Solution: Radical Survivalism     
About the Contributors     
Index