The Afterlife Experiments: Breakthrough Scientific Evidence of Life After Death

by Gary E. Schwartz

Book Overview

John Edward, Suzane Northrup, and George Anderson are just a few of the prominent American mediums who have been accused of being frauds. But what if a respected scientist challenged them to make contact with the beyond under controlled laboratory conditions? What if the results not only stunned a skeptical scientist but also offered astonishing answers to a timeless question: Is there life after death?
THE AFTERLIFE EXPERIMENTS
Risking...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0743436598
• ISBN13: 9780743436595
• Release Date: March 2003
• Publisher: Atria Books
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 0.86 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.5" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

You won't forget it!

If this book doesn't outright change your mind (it didn't) by God, it will sit in your mind and make you think and refuse to allow to NOT think about and give serious consideration to the idea of life after death (it did). Absolutely would recommend it for anyone with an active interest in this field or is looking for peace of mind that they will, one day, see their loved ones again. So much so, I've bought three copies so I can aways lend two out and keep one at home!

Opens your eyes

The author wrote the book to address our intellect, not our emotions. There is nothing "misty" and "spiritual" about his writing style or his facts. He is a scientist who, with professional hoax-exposers (hired to spot any funny business or "magic tricks"), put five psychic mediums through a series of tests to either prove or disprove their claims that they communicate with the deceased. Then they tested the results against a control group of non-psychics, and reported their findings. The book begins with what, at first sight, appears to be a self-congratulatory chapter where the author seemingly brags about his background, education, and standing within the scientific and academic community. As dry as that is, I got the sense that he wasn't bragging, nor was he being defensive. He was simply trying to demonstrate to us he that isn't a kook, and was looking for the truth whatever that is. He put his career at risk to complete this experiment, and was merely telling us he risked quite a lot. His conscientious attention to detail and completely balanced approach to the experiment appealed to me. I'm not looking for the misty and the spiritual; I want facts as much as he does, and I'm less concerned with what the truth is than with what can be proved. If something can be proved, I get over myself and accept it whatever it is and regardless of how sincerely I wanted the truth to be something else. So an approach that others might find dry works well for me - and was particularly fascinating because his Scientist Hat kept slipping momentarily as the author got more flabbergasted and excited with the results, and with the careful calculations of probability (he explains them to you so you don't think he's merely tossing numbers) that suggest to a factor of one in hundreds of millions that this is no coincidence. Someone else might be looking for a book that supports their opinion that psychic stuff is all smoke and mirrors. Or, they're looking for someone who is going to stroke their need to keep spiritualism mysterious and creepy. If you're that person, avoid this book. If you're up for a challenge to your way of thinking, however, read it. I don't think you'll find a flaw - though the author repeatedly invites you to look for one. Opinion: This is one of those times when society is going to have to shift its paradigm and accept the fact that the world is NOT flat, and that the sun does NOT circle the earth. It's tough, but the human race has done it before and survived. There are now reams of scientific data that indicate that there is life after death, and that the dead are around us and communicate if we can, or are willing to listen. I saw the documentary of this experiment when it aired on HBO some years back. It blew me away to the extent that I bought a ticket to a John Edward seminar to see for myself. And I did. The stuff is real, like it or not, and it has now been scientifically tested and documented. Believe it or don't believe it, b

BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT

In offering evidence that consciousness survives bodily death, the author goes well beyond the "preponderance of evidence" standard required to prove civil law suits and, in this reviewer's opinion, easily exceeds the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard required for criminal cases. Certainly, Dr. Schwartz has the credentials of a true scientist. He received his doctorate from Harvard and taught at Yale before moving on to the University of Arizona, where he is professor of psychology, medicine, neurology, psychiatry, and surgery as well as the director of its Human Energy Systems Laboratory. But Schwartz is not your mainstream scientist. Even though very much a skeptic himself, he had the courage to take on a research project in a scientifically taboo area after being introduced to a medium who immediately began communicating very evidential material from his mother. Schwartz arranged for five mediums, including the well-known John Edward and George Anderson, to undergo testing at his laboratory. All possible scientific controls and precautions were taken. The conclusion by Schwartz and Dr. Linda Russek, who collaborated with him in the research, was that the mediums were indeed gifted and able to communicate with spirit entities. In in the initial stages of the research, Schwartz found it difficult to believe what he was seeing and hearing. "My degree of doubt in the presence of all data was frankly irrational," he writes. "I was experiencing skeptimania." But as the research continued, Schwartz was forced to face the truth. "I can no longer ignore the data and dismiss the words," he continues. "They are as real as the sun, the trees, and our television sets, which seem to pull pictures out of the air." While the appendix to the book reads like a scientific journal, the book itself is well written in layman's language. To the "believer" in survival of consciousness, this book should signifantly bolster his or her faith. To the "true" skeptic, the book will open some eyes and the light might be allowed to penetrate an open mind. To the pseudo-skeptic, however, it will, unfortunately, do nothing more than raise eyebrows. These pseudo skeptics are the intellectually arrogant with closed minds who don't really examine the data. If Schwartz's research can't convince them, nothing can.

Read This Now

With a foreword by Deepak Chopra, this new book details experiments on mediumship conducted under the best set of scientific protocols yet attempted. Over the years, Gary Schwartz, an Ivy League psychologist with impeccable credentials, assembled his Dream Team of mediums and convinced them to work under strict supervision-usually not their venue of choice.The experiments constituted significant risk for all involved. For Gary Schwartz, his academic standing was on the line. As a professor of psychology, medicine, neurology, psychiatry, and surgery at the University of Arizona, venturing into such controversial and uncharted waters could be devastating. The mediums participating also were placed at risk in that it was made known that anyone caught cheating would be publicly exposed. For those making a livelihood from readings with departed loved ones, such official denouncement could hurt them financially.Schwartz is first to acknowledge that readings from mediums are rarely perfect. In fact, he uses the Michael Jordan analogy. Jordan is acclaimed, not because he is perfect, but rather, because he is better than everyone else playing the game. His lifetime shooting average is about 45 percent. That's scoring less than half of the time. So too, Schwatz's Dream Team was made up of individuals who have remarkable track records, most of which have held up over a period of many years. Their exact averages have not been established, but they are far better than average or chance.In designing the experiments Schwartz carefully listened to the established skeptics and incorporated their concerns and criticisms into the protocols. Foremost among these was the notion of a cold reading in which some self-professed psychics use feedback from the person to zero in on relevant issues. To prevent leakage of information, the protocols prevented direct visual contact between the medium and the sitter. In fact, during the initial phase of the experiments, the mediums provided their impressions with no feedback whatsoever. Only later in the process was controlled acknowledgement incrementally provided to them.Just as Michael Jordan occasionally has a phenomenal game, some of the mediums have had extraordinary hits. Schwartz includes these as the White Crow Readings, ones in which the amount of specific and verifiable information exceeds any expectations, let alone chance. As an example, one medium, Laurie Campbell, a delightful young California housewife, correctly identified close relationships between George, Michael, Alice, Bob, and Jerry before any contact had been established. While most people might have relationships between friends and relatives with one or two of those names, five for five is well above chance. It gets better from there but you can read the rest of the story yourself.It should be noted that the protocols call for the readings to be divided into information segments and then judged by the sitters to ascertain the degree of corr

Skeptic loved it

To say I'm a total skeptic about psychics, mediums, and communicating with the dead puts it too mildly. Can't be, isn't, never was, won't be.And yet, and yet...I wss surprised to find this book compelling reading and with experiments under scientifically controlled conditions that are just spooky. Something's going on. I don't know what it is; I'm still a skeptic, but it certainly appears that a small number of mediums are able to do things that are well beyond explanation.It helps that the sessions with the mediums were well planned and very carefully carried out, and that the book is so well written that it holds your attention like a mystery novel. Quite a feat, given that I'm such a non-believer. I'm not sure what I am now; I still don't believe, but I'm not as ready to say it can't be done!David Simondhs14@cornell.edu

Amazing, Incredible SCIENCE on Consciousness after Death

If you've lost a loved one, if you are a fan of Jonathan Edwards or James Van Pragh or Sylvia Browne, this book will be a pleasure. The book reports on scientific findings about consciousness after death from the University of Arizona Laboratory of Gary Schwartz, former Yale and Harvard professor. He works with mediums, who are "superstars of mediumship" including Jonathan Edwards. The findings are based on data the mediums report based on their contact with people on "the other side" who are associated with "sitters" who are volunteers for these experiments. For example, if a person says to a sitter that she had a grandmother, that's not impressive. If the medium says the grandmother loved the sitter very much, that's not too impressive either (My grandmothers died before I was born so it would be a wrong answer in my case) But if the sitter said that the grandmother is talking about daisies and her wedding-- well, that stands out. And if the medium reports that the daisies were in the sitters hair.. That's pretty amazing. Schwartz's research takes hundreds of items like this and then has the trained sitters rate them for accuracy. The mediums never meet, never see or hear the sitters, except when the medium hears the sitter in the next room sob, if the medium really nails a connection. This work has evolved as a logical step in Dr. Schwartz's research into human energy systems and energy medicine, and from ideas that he first developed and reported with Lynda Russek in the book Living Energy Universe. This research is very controversial, and while exciting and comforting to some, it is upsetting to some of the science skeptics, like James Randi, who seems to have made Dr. Schwartz his number one target recently. I've read his attacks though, and the attacks are personal and subjective, and if Randi submitted his own statements about Schwartz to the same requirements he expects of others, well, we wouldn't be hearing from Randi. I expect that I'll get more than the usual number of negative feedbacks on this from people who are skeptics, regardless of what the content of the review is. The findings in this book are fantastic and call for further research and replication. And Schwartz is bravely continuing to do just that. Hopefully, as his research reaches broader audiences, other scientists will be encouraged to come out of the closet (there are plenty who believe, based on existing data) and start publishing and researching more on these and related parapsychology topics.