Why don't more people know about
the scientific evidence for the afterlife?
In 2005 Professor David Fontana, Professor
of Trans-personal Psychology at Liverpool John Moores University,
published a scholarly 500 page book called Is
There An Afterlife which reviews some of the evidence
for the afterlife collected during more than one hundred
and fifty years of scientific research.
In the Introduction to the book Professor Archie Roy points
out that as yet most traditional scientists are simply unaware
of the evidence for the afterlife. They have never done
psychic research and have never read the evidence. But they
are often hostile to it because they think it challenges
their outdated scientific world view.
Traditional western science has been based on a strict separation
of science from religion. It is based on observation and
experiment which means it is only interested in things which
can be sensed and measured within the narrow range of vibrations
which make up our five senses. It rejects the possibility
of an afterlife because materialist science teaches that
consciousness is located only in the physical brain and
once the brain dies that is the end of consciousness.
Most religions want people to follow their teachings which
were created hundreds of years ago and discourage people
from direct investigation of the afterlife, saying that
it is dangerous.
This created a "taboo" or prohibition on publicly
investigating or even talking about psychic phenomena (psi)
or the afterlife.
Dr Dean Radin calls this the "woo woo
taboo" [woo woo is a negative name given by skeptics
to the paranormal].
This academic hostility to the study of psychic phenomena
and the afterlife has meant that there has been almost no
money for research and no career possibilitites for researchers
even though the subject is of great interest to most people,
even many scientists. Even today there are very few organizations
dedicated to paranormal research and most of the work is
being done by dedicated people in their spare time.
The research information is complex
As well, in a time-poor society most people
do not have the time to sift through the
huge amount of complex research materials that have been
accumulated by previous researchers. For example the
cross correspondences consist of three thousand scripts
transmitted over thirty years. Some of them were more than
forty typed pages long. Together they fill 24 volumes and
12,000 pages and contain much information that would only
make sense to a scholar of Latin and Ancient Greek.
Information was not shared
Until recently many of the best books on
psychic and afterlife research were not easily available,
even in most libraries. They were called "occult"
which means hidden. And people were frightened to talk about
their experiences in case others thought they were crazy
or attacked them. It is only recently with the development
of the internet that many of these books have been made
available online and websites have been set up to allow
people to share experiences.
Most people don't know about the
evidence
This has led many highly intelligent people
to wrongly conclude that there is no evidence for the afterlife
simply because they are unaware that scientists have been
systematically studying the afterlife for more than a hundred
and fifty years.
