Surviving Death

February 20, 2017
Examining evidence of extra-mortal existence with the critical eye of a seasoned reporter, journalist Kean demonstrates that such phenomena merit serious study. The book’s four sections cover past-life memories, life beyond death, communicating with beings in the spirit world, and, in a grand denouement, a section titled “Physical Manifestations—The Impossible Made Real.” Kean writes from a believing perspective while recognizing that her readers will be skeptics. In the many accounts she includes, particularly those of children relating information that can only be explained by memories of a past life, Kean challenges readers to consider the many possibilities of a reality beyond that which can be seen with human eyes. In an additional chapter, cardiologist and near-death researcher Pim van Lommel states, “Today science for me means asking questions with an open mind.” Those who come to this book with an open mind will be pleasantly surprised.

February 1, 2017
A glimpse through the veils separating this world from the next.How do you begin to investigate whether there's an afterlife, a beforelife by way of reincarnation, a limbo state by which the dead walk among the living, and so forth? Insisting that her intriguing though ultimately unconvincing project is a journalistic account, Kean (UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go on the Record, 2010, etc.) heads off to talk to the psychics. "To locate them, I checked with two respectable organizations that run certification programs for mediums," she writes. Respectable? That's a value judgment--and just how does one certify a medium, anyway? The author dutifully explores the ethereal realms, looking into out-of-body and near-death experiences, "intermission memories," apparitions and auras, and the like. The whole enterprise is garbed in a sort of science-y mantle, replete with terminology along the lines of "living-agent psi" and "materialization." Mostly, Kean's argument is one of assertion; as one of her like-minded contributors puts it, "I am now ready to say that we have good evidence that some young children have memories of a life from the past." Unfortunately, that good evidence is not forthcoming, and in any event, as the same contributor notes, children who express these memories tend to be "very intelligent and very verbal," which might lead a skeptic to conclude that such stories are inventions of the imagination. In the end, Kean's case proceeds on touchy-feely grounds ("these feel so clearly external to me, that I am compelled to allow them that reality") without much in the way of actionable proof: it's certainly not science, and it's not really journalism, either. Those given to believe in ghosts, heaven, and white lights will find this a fine example of confirmation bias, while those who are not will not be swayed.

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