Can individual human consciousness survive the death of the individual's body?

For Western society, this question has been of persistent and absorbing interest, since the Greek philosopher Plato popularised the doctrine of a separation of soul and body. Two thousand years later, the French philosopher Rene Descartes argued the duality of mind and body, with "life" as the conjunction of the two.

Today, there is a growing body of evidence suggestive of life after death, including near-death experiences, death-bed visions, spontaneous apparitions, and spirit communication through mediums.

While personal survival of death has yet to be scientifically established, the potential implications for philosophy, psychology, science, religion and people in general are enormous.

In the past, scientific investigation into the question of life after death was the domain of organisations such as the Society for Psychical Research in England (founded 1882) and the American Society for Psychical Research (1884). These organisations were established by academics who hoped that, through objective study of telepathy and investigation of the phenomena of Spiritualism, their research would determine whether the human personality survives death.

In Canada, the Association for Psychical Research of Canada (1908) operated until the mid-1920s; the principals were Toronto-based medical doctors and academics. Much valuable survival research was conducted and published by these organisations and their founders.

From the 1930s onwards, these organisations began to take a broader research view. Attention turned to quantitative parapsychological studies not related to spirit survival, such as Dr. J.B. Rhine's studies of extrasensory perception, and to other paranormal phenomena.

As a result, other organisations were founded to refocus research on human survival after death. The best known is the Survival Research Foundation, a Florida-based non-profit organisation founded in 1971 in Arizona by Susy Smith who is the author of numerous books on aspects of the paranormal.

Historical Literature

Over the past 150 years, there have been numerous reports published by well-known and highly respected individuals that document evidence suggesting that some part of the human consciousness of individuals has survived bodily death.

Perhaps the best known among those accounts are F.W.H. Myers' Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death (1907), Sir Oliver Lodge's Raymond, or Life After Death (1916). Charles Richet's Thirty Years of Psychical Research, Arthur Findlay's The Psychic Stream (1939), C.J. Ducasse's A Critical Examination of the Belief in a Life After Death (1961), and Paul Beard's Survival of Death (1966).

In Canada, the experiments conducted by Winnipeg medical doctor T. Glen Hamilton and his colleagues are documented in Intention and Survival: Psychical Research Studies and the Bearing of Intentional Actions by Trance Personalities on the Problem of Human Survival (1942). Arthur S. Berger's Evidence of Life After Death: A Casebook for the Tough-minded (1988) provides perhaps the best modern critical analysis.

In the many modern studies of spirit survival, it is recognised that evidence and proof are two different things. Black's Law Dictionary provides useful definitions. Evidence may be defined as "testimony, writings or material objects offered in proof of an alleged fact or proposition." Proof may be "any fact or circumstance which leads the mind to the affirmative or negative of any proposition." Of course, minds can be changed over time, and what seems to be convincing to someone might no longer seem so, later in time. Proof is not absolute.

Thus, proof depends on personal belief resulting from the presentation of information or evidence. American survival researcher Arthur S. Berger has written: "… belief is arrived at by a process of reasoning that goes on entirely within the mind of the individual to whom something is proved."^[1]

No matter how acceptable evidence may be to one group of individuals, inevitably there will be others who still will not accept it as proof. Others still will not allow it to affect their own beliefs.

Though spirit survival research is not concerned with religious belief and the faiths to which large portions of humanity adhere, some religions nonetheless provide evidence of spirit survival that cannot be ignored.

While it cannot be proven that spirit survival is eternal, the evidence suggesting that there may be some form of continuation of the human personality after death can be documented and compiled.

In 1978, British mathematician and psychical researcher Robert H. Thouless classified the existing theories about what happens to an individual stream of consciousness at bodily death into the following categories:

The physical and mental psychic phenomena suggestive of and investigated for evidence of life after death is typically described as falling within the realm of the "paranormal," which includes physical and mental components.

Physical psychic phenomena has included transfiguration, materialisation and psychokinesis.

The mental phenomena includes telepathy, death-bed visions, mediumistic communication, trance states, out-of-body experiences, and the near-death experience.

Spontaneous apparitions may combine elements of both the physical and the mental.

While scientific investigation requires the establishment of research protocols, control and test conditions, and repeatability, researchers in this field have long recognised that the imposition of rigid conditions may cause mediumistic or psychic workings to "seize up".

The experimenters and conditions can become a part of the experiment.

In 1890, American philosopher and psychologist William James, who had helped found the American Society for Psychical Research stated in what was to become a famous lecture "that to upset the conclusion that all crows are black, there is no need to seek demonstration that no crows are black; it is sufficient to produce one white crow; a single one is sufficient."

William James believed that Boston medium Mrs. Leonora Piper (1859-1950) was his white crow, an authentic medium capable of demonstrating evidence of survival through her clairvoyant ability.

In her history of the Society for Psychical Research, Renee Haynes, who edited the society's journal and proceedings from 1970-81, concluded that 100 years of psychical research had established the reality of psychokinesis and telepathy, through careful observation and recording of spontaneous cases and through experimental work.^[3]

However, no general consensus had been reached with respect to life after death or the myriad other phenomena investigated.

Though the scientific establishment has yet to incorporate these conclusions with respect to psychokinesis and telepathy into our broader knowledge base, the general public is clearly more accepting.

SRIC Research and Publication

The Survival Research Institute of Canada (SRIC) was founded in 1991

to undertake academic study of the question of human survival of bodily death.

In over 80 collective years of investigation of the survival question, the first directors have been exposed to evidence suggesting that there is some form of continuation of the human soul after death.

Because even the best evidence of the continued existence of a particular deceased personality cannot constitute proof of life after death except to the individual(s) directly involved, evidence is still being gathered.

The directors are dedicated to the ongoing study of the field. SRIC will conduct spirit survival research, investigate phenomena experienced by Canadians, study historical findings and analyze existing psychical research.

Many Canadians have long held the belief in the continued existence of the soul in an afterlife state, some through sheer faith and others through personal experience of mediumship and other phenomena. In recent years, as their generation grows older, the baby boomers are showing an increasing interest in the question.

An Angus Reid poll (ca. 1997) has shown that over half of Canadians believe that their family and friends survive death in a recognisable form.

SRIC’s intent is to publish the best documented examples, together with critical analysis, so that Canadians will have access to reference works that guide them through the myriad popular publications and theories relating to life after death.

Its goal is to have research findings compiled in well-documented analyses that remain readable to the layman. It is not the intention of the Institute’s directors to publish popular anecdotal accounts of phenomena that might be readily explained through any of a number of different hypotheses. The focus will be on the evidence provided by the best cases and the provision of alternative explanations.

Plans are being made to undertake a detailed study of Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King's thirty-year investigation of Spiritualism (1919-1950).

Another aim of SRIC is to publish an in-depth historical analysis of the paranormal experiments that Dr. T. Glen Hamilton and associates conducted in Winnipeg between 1918 and 1935. A great deal of research on this topic has already been conducted.

It is anticipated that the study will be of interest to Canadians because of the large number of prominent historical figures involved. Another SRIC project, which is currently in progress, involves the use of genealogical data. Specific details are not being released in advance of the conclusions so that genealogists participating in the study are not influenced through prior knowledge of its aims.

Before any findings are published, they will be subjected to peer review by academics and others interested in and knowledgeable in the fields of psychology, parapsychology, religion, anthropology, physics, statistics, or other relevant areas of study.

Through documentation, workshop discussion and publication of the examples of evidence in an objective and clear manner, the Survival Research Institute of Canada will provide interested individuals with the opportunity to come to their own conclusions with respect to this fundamental issue relating to the very nature of human existence.

The directors of SRIC look forward to being able to share the results of their endeavours with the members of its audience, and appreciate their interest in this research overview.

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