SCI/TECH: Scientist says the evidence points to the survival hypothesis

What happens after we die -- do we continue on or is this life the end?
Many of us hope there is an afterlife, and now Arizona scientists say they have proof through afterlife experiments.
There are many people who say they have died and come back to life. They claim to have experienced an afterlife, even if for only a short time.

Phenomena Magazine

Scientists at the University of Arizona say that they have the proof that consciousness survives our bodily death. Through detailed research, nicknamed "the afterlife experiments", they believe they can show that the evidence supports this fact.

"Almost anyone who sees the data says there's something real here," said one of the researchers. The 'afterlife experiments' investigated the alleged talents of several of the most well-known spiritual mediums in the world, including John Edward and Allison Dubois. While Edward is more famous, lead scientist Dr Gary Schwartz describes Dubois as the 'Michael Jordan' of mediums, due to her amazing 'hit' rate.

Dubois said that she is happy to take part in the experiment, as she would like to be distinguished from the charlatans in the field. "I think there are some people that are Charlatans, and with any profession there's going to be some bad apples, so I mean that just goes with the territory, so the ones that are accurate and are legitimate just have to prove themselves," said Dubois.

In one experiment, Dubois attempts to contact the deceased relatives of 'sitter' Christine Vettore. Before too long, Vettore's daughter is contacted, and soon after her brother and mother. Vetorre is amazed at Dubois' ability to nail 'secret' facts - and says the medium achieved about an 85% success rate.

At one stage, Dubois tells Vettore that her deceased mother says there is a carrot cake and bowl of peanuts in her house. "None of those things do I ever have in my house. I have those things in my house this month, carrot cake and peanuts, so that was weird," said Vettore.

Dr Schwartz dismisses skeptics' claims that Dubois is just a lucky guesser, saying it would be near impossible to maintain such a high success rate of accurate readings. But he's used to the criticism.

"Saying that this is against the grain with academia sort of puts it mildly," said Dr Schwartz.

In another intriguing experiment, Dr Schwartz used one sitter and had them 'read' by five top-class mediums, one after another. When Dr Schwartz and his staff compared the readings they were astonished to find that in most cases, the mediums would bring through the same people and the same messages, with an 80-90 percent accuracy rate.

"There are so many people that are going to try to find holes in what we've done ? there is not a hole to find when we agree, or get a final protocol done," said Schwartz. The team's next project will investigate the related subject of near death experiences (NDE). Dr Schwartz believes the NDE research dovetails with his earlier research perfectly, and supports the details being given by the mediums.

"When you look at the totality of the data from our laboratory, the simplest explanation is actually that survival of consciousness is real," Dr Schwartz said.

Skeptic articles about Gary Schwartz' claims:

A Critique of Schwartz et al.'s After-Death Communication Studies
How Not to Test Mediums: Critiquing the Afterlife Experiments

After reading the story, here is the part, that to me, gets "murky"
I'm not saying that there are not people out there that in one way or another, can "listen in" on another dimension, higer plane, what ever you want to call it.
But, wouldn't that person be "deluged" with frantic people(dead) trying to communicate with their loved ones (live)?
Or does this "medium" somehow. zero in on the "essence" of the dead person and "connects" to them?
It would be like if radio stations, had no set frequency and all broadcast at the same time all you would get would be thousands, millions of different songs, announcers, comercials, static etc at the same time.
Or, are the dead, part of "all that is and can sense when they are being "called"?

Thats dissapointing. I was expecting some good scientific evidence.
Even if the above was true, it wouldnt necessarily mean that there is life after death. To believe that, you would have to assume that the 'medium' or whatever is actually conversing with dead people's souls, or if they are just reading the minds of those around them, and mistakenly thinking that it is somebody's spirit.

Ill have to say that NDE's are interesting, some of them. Although, the fact is that nobody actually "comes back to life". Death is defined as the complete and IRREVERSIBLE cessation of all brain activity. In other words, youre not dead until...well........youre dead. So I dont think anything can be proven by people that nearly die, and then come back with all these cool stories that basically amount to the tricks your brain starts to play on you when it begins to die.

.......not saying I dont believe in an afterlife either. Just that for me, this says nothing.

there's no way he could've really proved that! it's all a bunch of bull. it's like trying to prove that elves exist. i'd say that those scientist are cracked in the head and they just want some attention and money