What Next in Survival Research?

Reprinted from the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research Volume LIX — April 1965 — Number 2 WHAT NEXT IN SURVIVAL RESEARCH? AS Introductory Remarks Body-Mind Theory as a Factor Guiding Survival Research An Experimentalist’s Approach to Survival Research Evidence of Survival from World” Experiences ium Arranged by the Psychical Research Foundation, Inc. “Other- W. G. Roi GarpNerR Murruy r GeErTrRuDE R. SCHMEIDLER J. H. M. WurreMan

—— What Next in Survival Research? A Symposium Arranged by the Pochial Research Foundation, Inc. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS W. G. Rott In a difficult field of research the survival problem is perhaps the most difficult. Why be concerned with it? The very complexity of the problem and the need for ingenious research is challenging. But the survival question is important mainly because it asks shows a crucial event in the existence of every human being, death. As Dr, Herman Feifel says in The Meaning of Death (McGraw-Hill, 1959), a person’s attitude toward death “can serve as an important one principle in determining how he conducts himself in c.”" Survival research combines two difficulties: scarcity of data and the problem of interpretation. Ostensible survival phenomena were ntly less rare in earlier times. This is probably not because ere were more gifted subjects available then, but because more efforts were made to find them. Research that depends on whether suitable subjects will volunteer for testing at a laboratory is not likely to go far. The newcomer to this area should familiarize himself with these earlier efforts. He ought to do so, not with the purpose of reaching a judgment about the survival hypothesis, or even about the simpler question whether there is decisive evidence for psi in this material, but to become aware of the problems of analysis and interpretation which may confront him in his own research. A study of survival, of necessity, includes the general field of psychical research because the psi abilities of the living play a central role in the counterhypotheses. At this stage, it is even more important that the investigator should form a clear picture of the conventional psi processes than of the survival hypothesis itself. If he can discover something about the nature and limitations of the channel of information that connects a subject with events distant in space and time, an important step will have been taken toward a test of the survival hypothesis, We cannot know whether a subject is communicating with the deceased if it is equally gg that the information was obtained solely by means of is own ESP abilities. ium: What Next in Survival Research? 147 ‘he research worker of today has some advantages over his é R f & E B i ¢ — = Ce’, Developments in statistics, personality testing, and ie eentetion for measuring physical and physiological effects in the design of better projects. Recent progress in areas dream research and the work with “consciousness anding”’ may also suggest leads, since ostensible commu- with deceased personalities sometimes occurs in dreams, hypothetical after-death state might resemble states induced by drugs. The investigator should be guided research opportunities, not by some image of the “ideal” ich will once and for all prove survival. Psi phenomena and ostensible survival phenomena in particular are made to order. a major research effort, the investigator finds that he roved anything about survival, but only about living L z 2 ‘agency this is not a defeat; it may lay the foundation for a more ttacd Diteccvasioe. cores tha. saceng-of psi are discoveries about the force or weakness of the counterhypotheses. Fortunately, ESP and PK often appear to operate in their most striking form in the same subjects and situations where ostensible survival phenomena are found. in Research this area can therefore be profitable also for who are interested in ESP and PK rather than survival issue as such. The subjects who claim that they sometimes communicate with the deceased also often show greater ESP abilities than the common run of laboratory subjects; it would therefore seem that they are more likely to contribute information about ESP. Similarly, whether or not alleged cases of recurrent spontancous PK (“‘poltergeist,” “‘haunting”’) involve agencies, they may reveal more about the nature of PK than the faint traces that are produced at the laboratory dice tables. An effective attack on ESP and PK can perhaps best be made in situations where there is ostensible survival evidence in the same way as an effective attack on the survival problem largely depends ee ete reecerch. aie ui meaningful expression e survival hypothesis must not only relate to psi se tains but also to other natural events. The establishment of survival, if it ever is established, will not mean that the picture given by physics and the other sciences is false, but merely that iti incomplete, This is already recognized and additions are frequently ‘ ee the survival theory has to rechten gy gee Sine ich the known facta of nature. tical work as well as empirical explorations are necessary. Fortunately, among ,

148 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research those who are active in parapsycho there are many capable aR a and scientists. The Research Foundation invited some of these to assist in the clarification of the survival problem and to outline new research projects by participating in the present symposium. The editorial committee for the symposium consists of Professor C. J. Ducasse, Dr. Gardner Murphy, and myself. Abstracts of all symposium papers have appeared in Theta (Numbers 4-8), the quarterly bulletin of the Foundation. In consultation with the three symposium editors and the A.8.P.R. editor, a selection of these papers is printed in full in this and subsequent numbers of the Journal. Readers are invited to submit papers on the symposium topic or comments on the published contributions for possible future publication in the Journal. Symposium papers should be fifteen hundred words or less and should state clearly what types of i igations, in the writer’s opinion, would provide data that are difficult to reconcile with any hypothesis other than that of the survival after death of human personality, or some aspect of it. The proposals need not be restricted to what might be the ideal evidence for survival, but = cre neg hrace gover ne research i ep or reflect © writer's ial interests. posium papers and correspond- ence should be sent to “What Next in Survival Research ?”’ tt the address below. Psychical Research Foundation, Inc. Box 6116, College Station Durham, North Carolina 27708 Body-Mind Theory as a Factor Guiding Survival Research Garpner Murpxy I The conception of steps to be taken in survival research will depend upon an evaluation of what has really been achieved and what can ultimately be expected. That is to say, the next steps will be defined partly by our situation and the terrain in which we now find ourselves, and partly by our conception of paths that may lead from this terrain to a defined goal. Symposium: What Next in Survival Research? 149 From this point of view, I must say at first that I think the hope Myers, and others a half century or more ago, of definitively settling the survival issue in a positive sense has dimmed considerably. The steady growth in the solidity and convincingness of the biological approach to human nature, while leaving some questions open, has certainly not made it easy to conceive of detaching the personality from the living system as a , and projecting it in time beyond the point of physical death. This means, I think, that the question comes down to the of what aspects of the personality may, perhaps, be so of physical organization as to be likely to continue, at least for a while, in time, undergoing changes as do all things which have life in any sense of the term. From this viewpoint, the question is to assess, not how strong the case “for survival” is, but what of the a are relevant to ve kinds of questions ting to survi certain aspects of personality beyond death ; all this is a greatly modified and much more cautious question. The next questions in survival research are thus questions as to aspects of individuality which seem to survive, at least for a we may expressly state that in the case of the best sur evidence, some of which I have tried to review in Challenge of Psychical Research (7), we have (a) clear retention of memories expressed in accurate reproduction of events in the lifetime of the porting communicator and not known to any living person or interpreted as clairvoyant or retrocognitive contact with the past; (b) continuity of aim or purpose, as in the case of some of the sie cross correspondences, notably where there is plainly a will which contravenes the will toward sheer drowsiness, free association, superficial play-acting, etc.; in short, the cases like those in which the persistence of the living Myers is found again in the persistence of the entity which appears to be communicating, and (c) “personality style,” or a type of organization or mode of reting the world and living it out which is highly personal iosyncratic and hard to reconstruct through any conception automatisms or suggestibility or histrionic poses, no matter how ious. It seems to me that “what next in survival research ?” mean “how get evidence regarding memory or continuity of ae or preservation of the style ?” I would Ser in all three, Study with powerful mediums is a major mode of investigation and, therefore, whether we like the answer or not, the discovery of powerful mediums is our most immediate task. It is, of course, (si aa tale i x ace anywhere today, and also that there is no very active search being made for them. For this reason, I think that ‘what next in ng |

150 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research survival research ?” is something which we are failing to define in such a way as to get ourselves to act. II From my own outlook, the next step in any such task as this is to define the general philosophic-scientific situation which confronts our present-day attempts to make a soul or personality i definable apart the living system which it represents ; old problem of Aristotle as to how active reason or any other spiritual or intellectual entity can exist except as “form” intimately related to matter. Plato and most of the Western tradition have soul as an entity really independent of the living system and this is exactly the concept against which almost all of modern science and all of modern opus an rebelled. It seems to be necessary, therefore, to devote a few pages to the simple question: Are we inexorably tied to a modern monism of oak pi body, or are there some conceivable ways in which modern man may rationally think of soul or mind as having a certain kind of existence independent of the physical organism? It is still philosophically permissible to take one’s choice among many body-mind theories. Indeed, C. D, Broad (1) tells us that there are at least seventeen workable theories of the body-mind relationship. In practice, however, the issue has become greatly simplified since the time of Spinoza’s suggestion that mind and body are simply two aspects of the same living reality. The research done in the physical sciences, in the biological sciences, and in the ial sciences presents no very scrious difficulty today to the conception that the living Yo can be studied by the methods of science and that, while the physical activities go on, there is a subjective or personal or psychological aspect likewise going on. As a man thinks, knowing his own subjective thought, the physician might be studying the electrical activities in the man’s brain. The electrical activities and the other concomitant physiological activities would simply be aspects of the same reality which is known subjectively in his thought. This is not “materialism,” for it does not say that the subjective is derived from the physical. It can be called the body-mind “double-aspect theory.” One can, however, quite legitimately say that what is known as the physical approach is just another way of stating the perceptual, that is, the subjective, responses of those who study the brain. The “real reality,” so to speak, is the man’s thought, and the electrical and other physiological activities which the physician describes are simply reflections of thought. This is Symposium: What Next in Survival Research? 151 not 1, however, in pushing the matter to a philosophical conclusion as it leads into an infinite regressus; and it still does nothing to belittle the importance of the systematic space-time formulations which we know as physical science. The abstractions of ics are highly useful in connection with the study of what we call space, time, matter, energy; that is, the physical relationships which go on as thought itself goes on. My own view is that all body-mind dualisms ultimately result in double-aspect theories and that all double-aspect theories finally give the explanatory advantage to the subjective or a experience. There is no pu whatever in denying reality of the brain and the rest of the physical machinery of the body; but they are not ultimate, whereas the experience which we know in ourselves is ultimate. This point of view is ancient and will be found in most of the ical texts. I have stated here only an over-simplified form of the theory; but I did want to make my initial position clear. An important contribution of modern physical science is the definition of the relations of the organism to its environment, stating these relationships in terms of space-time and matter-energy interactions. This makes it convenient to describe the physiological substrate of mental processes without saying that the substrate is the “cause.” At the same time, it is unnecessary to say that the mental or conscious event is the “cause” of the physiological substrate. Since the physiological phenomena probably have to reach a fairly high level of coenney to give the kind of awareness or consciousness which is subjectively perceivable and describable, we may suppose that organized matter which is not highly enough Organized to be a substrate for consciousness is a substrate for unconscious or semiconscious or subconscious processes. Il In its study of the relations of organisms to their environments, science Soak. diavovered a number of modalities by which contact is maintained, For the most part, sensory communication is a matter of sensitive spots developing on the outer surfaces of the living individual or, in some cases, on the inner surfaces such as the mucous membranes of nose, throat, or gastrointestinal canal; and when stimulation gets above a definable threshold value, there is an eruption of new experience into awareness, This means that the ph: ical aspect and the psychological aspect come into view at the same time and their reciprocity as aspects can be studied. Let us call this process of response to the environment sensory communication.”

152 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research There is also, however, according to the generally acceptable findings of parapsychology, the eruption of impressions regarding distant events, sometimes ns. Set contact, known as clairvoyance, sometimes through contact with another mind, known as telepathy. ri cen aitanioin Wing elena on making contact with other processes in other systems, nonliving and living. In fact, it is mainly these processes which we investigate. We find it necessary to assume that space as an abstraction developed in physics is not useful where the contact is made without using any of the forms Wo: tpelt of energy about which we are relatively well informed. ce and pee rind precisely when we do not have = Act He to say about the transfer of energy over space. In exactly the same way, contact is made with temporally displaced events—events y past or not yet having occurred, Nothing whatever the nature of time or the solidity or flexibility or discontinuity of events in the time series has so far been shown by the findings dicgn Consscueatiy, the fact of precognition has no implications one way or the other Se deterministic, or other conceptions of causality, or even for the existence of a pees Soe sequence. Sticking to our empirical findings, we appear to have a transcendence of the ordinary time dependencies, just as we have a transcendence of the ordinary space dependencies whenever organisms make the kind of contacts which we call paranormal. IV From this viewpoint, we must ask ourselves under what condi- tions these paranormal contacts are actually made. On various other occasions I have pleaded that they operate according to the generally known psychological laws of motivation, sensitivity, and variation of threshold, in terms of needs and the principles of association, facilitation, and inhibition which apply a9 ver phenomena are found. In general, as worked out by G. R. Schmeidler (8) in it esc rast 6) on cok cone the need and habit system of the living individual — part in the extrasensory functions. the needs particularly important in man, and in some hmong the ends partly import in man and in some members of the species; most cases of extrasensory perception deal with such significant entities. Through ESP one makes contact. There are, in addition, many cases where there is an intense need to act as if one were in contact. Symposium : What Next in Survival Research? 153 Vv We have, therefore, some working concepts necessary to explain why through most cultures and throughout the ages extrasensory phenomena occur in connection with illness and death of loved and the need to make contact with them both d Ses ee eiiets and, if possible, after their demise. In primitive as pointed out by Andrew Lang (4), there is contact with the deceased in the case of ghosts, possession, and reincarnation itaroege sim in thie direction and hopes of the members of aim in this direction. There are, however, widely cultural expectations and hopes, and the nature of the with which contact is made varies all the way from human gh animal, supernatural, diabolical, and other entities which d upon the direction of the attitudes, wishes, hopes and fears, autistic and other well-known perceptual responses, There is, of course, a mixing of normal and ormal processes as there is ees potation of one by the other: a normal dream may upon it a paranormal element. A normal desire to SEE chine Sade grotod- open ¢ daccoend perme waa a eee ae elps in the finding 12 ee own by Mrs. Henry ick (9, 5-7), it is possible to accept the hypothesis of oats tro “Ee ivi living and, with only minor adjustments, telepathy from the deceased. If one asks how the deceased can exist in terms of a body-mind theory such as we have sketched, just two things need to be said: (a) We have not the slightest idea as to the terms under which the deceased may exist. The controversy of scientists and philosophers and reli- gionists goes on unabated, century by century. (b) From the point of view of psychical research, we have regarded the mental, or subjective aspects of organic reality as fundamental and the physical aspect as one which is set up for conceptual convenience and for such convenience only, Consequently, if there be such a thing as survival—and this paper is completely neutral on the issue—it would probably follow that the personal aspect should be conceptualized as continuing and the physical-cellular- emery aspect as disint course, also eke he some other physiological substrate may be found, as a wave form in music may set one series of activities, like wires, vibrating and then another set like the air columns of organ pipes. The basic form or mathematical aspect of music is not dependent — any particular physical structure; and if the personality is a form or reality embodying a certain organization, it can perfectly well get along for a time without a physical substrate that is visible to us. And it may at a

154 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research ~ ie ee ete en to us—though perhaps taking rising form. The same motives which led toward im Liste theiuae tk suadiuemahip sey have led to the establishment of a system of congruent impersona- tions among the automatists involved in the cross correspondences, Indeed, having once accepted, as in the Piddington “Sevens Case” (3, Pp. 243-258), the fact that a whole orchestra of subconscious activities to the theme of Seven can be set going in several he decide ea basta es ee aa Ge an i prove to bea resonating system to ¢ social bellefa abaie pobpsanseteen idessnce solidly ee faked end cacsiod forward generation by generation. VI So far as I can see, the logic of reincarnation will follow all the principles laid down. The first hypothesis will always be that the members of any cultural group who believe in post-mortem existence will continue to experience and report contact—visual, auditory, etc.—with surviving entities. These entities will become Se enn re nnnrees ais et tie iehene ore striking resemblances een their known ways and the ways of > ogame the suggestion will arise sooner or later that the chil are incarnations of the deceased. The belief will become self-reinforcing as on these terms the ghost with which one has been communicating will now disappear and the child will continue to show the attributes which the ghost previously exhibited. Insofar as a cult of transmigration belief develops, there will always be plenty of opportunities for individuals that die within Soe pouiel get: to, be" seogeaned. in shiicee bein tase, The children will remember events in the lives of their prior sojourns in this world insofar as they make sufficiently real logical contact with the group (and mostly they stick very to the group which shares the belief regarding the deceased, regarding the reality of papa pan: and regarding the availability of a given child’s body as a fresh vehicle for this entity). The child draw further necessary information by clairvoyance or telepathy; he may also draw such information by retrocognition, an hypothesis supported by several striking cases of contact with remote past events. Although not ordinarily a principle exploited in para- psychology, we may, following Whately Carington (2), assume a rich associative system which makes possible a “‘psychon system” to borrow and blend, mind to mind, ing higher 3; moreover, such aggregates may invade the future the past equally well. ‘Symposium: What Next in Survival Research? 155 ulting theory, therefore, stretches extrasensory perception ac cctinans tn wich 4 is Tealy to tava; and: opnacendty this kind of stretching rocess is necessary. We have been too timid rather than too bold in such matters, Several attempts have already been made (such as Carington’s) to show that a psychon th cats be legitimately pushed quite far without snapping. From a viewpoint, Ian Stevenson's cases (10) and other reincarnationist cases strongly suggest that the sensitive mind of a small child, by persons who believe in reincarnation, latches on and begins to exploit more and more the possibilities for both normal and paranormal information. At times this may be supple- mented by rather dramatic cases of “big time” sensitivity. But actually, in reading these cases, I have not found a single one that seems to involve the high order of paranormal er shown by Mrs. Piper or Mrs. Leonard. Very simply, the ry is that the amsociative pattern is followed and the personal system of ideas and self-concepts within the child are molded as social conditions and personal needs permit. Social conditions, of course, usually play a very large part in the case of the child. Vil I hope it is clear that I have tried to provide here a deductive as well as an inductive approach to the survival problem. Side by side with the discovery of new working instruments such as more powerful mediums, there is the need for fresh philosophical sophistication and the development of both dualistic and monistic tions of the body-mind relationship which will make ible the establishment of rational bh as to what it is in uman personality that might survive physical death. Considering the complexity and mde, oF the problem, it is rather pitiful to find modern science and philosophy rehashing old ideas; and it is also rather pitiful to find them usually failing to define new issues in such a way as to permit the planning of new experiments. REFERENCES 1. Broap, C. D. The Mind and its Place in Nature. London: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1925. 2. Carnmvcton, Wuatety. “Experiments on the Paranormal Cognition of Drawings, IV. Section B: A Theory of Paranormal Cognition and Allied Phenomena.” Proc. S.P.R., Vol. 47, 1 155-228.

156 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 3. Jonnson, Anice. “Second Report on Mrs. Holland’s Script." Proc. S.P.R., Vol. 24, 1910, 201-263. 4. Lana, Anprew. Cock Lane and Common Sense. New York: Green and Co., 1894. 5. Murpruy, Garpner. “Psychical Phenomena and Human Needs.” AS.P.R., Vol. 37, October, 1943, 163-191. 6. ———. “Personality Appraisal and the Paranormal.” Journal AS.P.R., Vol. 41, January, 1947, 3-11. 7. ———. Challenge of Psychical Research. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1961. 8. Scumerpier, G. R. “Rorschach Variables in Relation to ESP Scores.”” Journal A.S.P.R., Vol. 41, April, 1947, 35-64. 9. Sipewick, E. M. “A Contribution to the Study of the Psy- of Mrs. Piper’s Trance Phenomena.” Proc. S.P.R., Vol. 38, 1915, 1-652. 10. Stevenson, Ian. ‘'The Evidence for Survival from Claimed Memories of Former Incarnations. Part I. Review of the Data.” Journal A.S.P.R., Vol. 54, April, 1960, 51-71. The Menninger Foundation Topeka, Kansas 66601 An Experimentalist’s Approach to Survival Research Gertruve R. SCHMEIDLER Wuat We Cannot Hops To ACHIEVE Let us consider what can be accomplished by research on survival after death. Will finding the ideal case, or performing the crucial ent, prove that survival occurs? Or can a carefully condu series of investigations prove that survival does not occur? Can the best research give us a definitive answer? From two different roaches we come to the same reply to questions so worded, the reply is a flat, unqualified No. One approach begins with the familiar argument that we cannot prove by research, any more than by kicking a stone as Dr. Johnson did, sch comscadl world eniete (thikigh ths Geetonen <cxteloly seams osm nor can we prove that we ourselves are conscious though we can assert it loudly and often); and we certainly cannot prove that anyone else is conscious. We cannot even prove by research, while we ourselves are alive, that we will die. Since conclusion so plausible that any reasonable person Symposium: What Next in Survival Research? 157 we cannot prove these, it follows that survival after an (unproven) death of some (unproven) consciousness is unprovable by research methods. The other approach begins where this leaves off; it assumes as the existence of an external world and of other conscious beings in it. But even with these assumptions we cannot “prove” general positive law by research. If every stone that is released Sites cail of the Tower of Pisa falle dows, thie. doce not prove that the next stone released will fall down; it merely makes the is likely to it—unless perhaps he knows so much about local wind conditions that he can predict that the next light stone will be carried upward by a gale. Research data can never prove; they can only provide the basis for a consensus. Wuart We Can Hope To AcuIeve Research results can lead to a consensus. Therefore the experi- mentalist, gua experimentalist, comes to research on survival with hope for meaningful findings but no <q for certainty; with an attitude different from that Fee e to a philosopher or theologian and even different his own natural feelings as a _. being who yearns for something stable in which to believe. experimentalist’s most ambitious question before beginning gesearch might be phrased something like this: ‘““What sort of evidence on survival after death would make the survival hypothesis seem extremely likely—more likely than any counterhypothesis; and what sort of evidence would make survival seem extremely unlikely ?” Answers naturally vary. But one with which few would di ie hypothesis-testing: if an hypothesis leads to many predictions which are confirmed, the hypothesis is stro: supported. Little of the research on survival has so far been of the hypothesis-testing type; presumably we should do more of it if we can. Another answer with which many concur is construct validity: if there are several theories, each weakly supported, and if these theories tie in with each other, then the resulting pattern is more Persuasive than any single part of it would have been. The major positive argument to be presented here is that the Se smiethnd of Lagpotheats tating the seine toute which leads to fonstruct-validity. This can be restated in more specific form: to find persuasive evidence we should think up complex theories— and test them. Research has been ham because it has tried to test only some such global theory as ‘There is survival after death,” a statement too vague to point clearly at testable predic-

158 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research tions. A detailed series of interlocking hypotheses would be more useful even if they were wrong, because testing would show where their errors lay and thus would (if there is survival) lead to better constructs for further testing. An analogy would be the case of the paleontologist who finds bone fragments which he thinks represent a new type of man, but which might be only i ities in some known type. One odd bona, eonld: dese caaie an unusually tall person, another from a short one, a third from puting Ah an endocrine rs mality, and so on. If the paleontologist demonstrates —— baleen shh onculeritien, ie ducks OP-4 maw type construct validity. And once the meaningful pattern has been riage he will, : ote bight, a surely predict that other not yet found will vary from iliar ones in specific pe ae digging on a nearby site which yielded other body would then support or fail to support his hypothesis. Before ¢ stated his complex theory, no hypothesis-testing could be done. What a aA § worker can and should do, then, is to construct from prior observations as detailed a theory as possible, test each revise it where the test results refute his predictions, enlarge it as new data emerge, and the testing. The theory in a late revision will either have failed so often that no reasonable person will espouse it, or else it will have made possible such varied, specific, and successful predictions, which other theories do not make, that there will be a consensus of at least tentative acceptance, An Exampte or How To Brecin We start with observations: provocative ones that seem anomalous from one point of view but fit together from another. We observe, for —_— a wide range of both feeling-tone and content in purpo messages from the dead. ical in our society are messages that say, in effect, “This is I, I, /. I am still with and I love you.” But among the Atimelang of Alor, typical messages say, “You are sick and suffering because you did not ive me a death feast." A young mother purpo appears to Bo Rranlh learns tia gph oe tender, loving. A middle- man rtedly appears to a fri of his divorced wife, demanding the first sale intrude into his second wife’s home; his mood is peremptory, imperious, — ¢ reconcile such differences in both mood and content by noting that they correspond to descriptions of the societies, or of the individuals when alive. Our Western culture is frequently Symposium: What Next in Survival Research? 159 described as individualistic, with extreme needs for recognition and love. Atimelang men are described as having characteristically hostile, demanding attitudes and need for superiority, which is demonstrated by ceremonial displays of wealth. The young mother had been tender and loving; the middle-aged man had been insensitive and overbearing. These are the observations with which we Now let us construct a simple, incomplete theory of survival— inadequate, but a start. We postulate that (a2) messages from the dead can be communicated through a medium; (b) a medium who can receive messages from the dead in one society can also receive them in another society even though the language is different; ‘c) the major psychological needs of a n when alive will also the needs of this person when reveals dead, and (d) the content of from dead will refer to needs which have goals that can be attained through mediumistic messages. We cannot predict very much from this theory, but we can ict a little; a few sample tests of such predictions might be: Baro enlist the cooperstion of e mediums wad of pavchclogine who analyzed the need patterns of terminal patients or of the . to ask the medium for messages from these individuals after thei death; to have the psychologists make a blind matching of need pattern and message content. The —— is that the match will show more than chance success. (b) To distinguish, in the above experiment, between major needs which cannot be satisfied by mediumistic communication (isolation, withdrawal, curiosity) and needs which can be satisfied or partially satisfied (recognition, affiliation, hostility). The prediction is that the former catego ill be matched with only chance success, but the latter cite better than chance success. (c) To find a medium who has obtained Messages in our culture and transport her to a society which logists describe as having different dominant needs; to make a blind sorting of a representative sample of her messages from the other culture and from ours. The prediction is that the Any critical reader has probably by now developed a better and more complex theory than the one proposed above, and probably has also noted with dissatisfaction that even if all the proposed predictions were confirmed they could not give information about

160 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research the major counterhypotheses to survival: telepathy from the living and clairvoyance. The criticism is justified, and research designed to test the counterh eses should surely take precedence over this other plan. But ste onde, the systematic gathering reparation for seren : it is likely to lead to an unanticipated expansion of knowledge. Possibly, for a initial research yp peee: theory eet roposed will w a special up of purpo discarna’ fidividuals whose “messages” include evidential material. Further examination might indicate some unanticipated quality which they had in common when alive. If further tests confirmed this pattern, a long-term project could use selected communicators as well as special sensitives, so that the likelihood of obtaining evidential messages would increase. The by-products of a theory and its testing are often more important than the theory itself was; but until a theory is constructed and tested, its by-products may not be found. Department of Psychology City College of New York New York, N. Y. 10031 Evidence of Survival from “Other- World” Experiences J. H. M. Wurreman Before suggesting some possible lines of advance in survival research, I would like to make some general remarks on the problem as it presents itself to me. The root of the difficulties seems to lie in the fact that we are hoping to deduce the survival of something whose nature we are unable to specify clearly. If it is the personality which is claimed to survive, what exactly is a personality apart from the body? When have we met a person seeing, feeling, and thinking without a body? The situation is as if, knowing nothing of complex numbers, we aimed to show that the equation x* + x + 1 =0 has a solution, although we know perfectly well that it has no solution CP terms = which “ peta ie For an investigation survival to be possible, we m ave at least a preliminary idea of what survival could be and what it would imply. P: we picture a “dead” person still conscious in some non-physical world, with a non-physical body Symposium: What Next in Survival Research? 161 and able to manifest recognizably through a medium. In that case, _ | take it that the intention of investigation would be to find fonvincing reasons, supported by evidence, for believing that these mon-physical beings and worlds either exist as we have pictured them, or do not exist. Are we to be limited in this work, however, to data which are observable in normal physical states (¢.g., trance utterances) or which are located in physical space and time and have veridical reference to physical events (¢.g., apparitions)? Returning to the analogy of complex numbers, this would be like trying to deduce the properties of complex numbers from the behavior of real numbers. We can indeed deduce some properties of complex numbers if we assume that they obey the same laws as real ones; €.g., any solution of x* + x + 1 =0 also satisfies x* = |. In the same way, we can deduce some necessary characteristics of the icture”’ of survival if we assume certain general principles. us, we actually get a proof of survival if we assume that the divulging of a coherent system of ostensible memories can occur aif when the person (imagined as some non-physical entity) who the — experiences is present and actually or potentially conscious. discovery and evaluation of our assumptions is the concern of the “implicit problem of survival,” as I suggest calling it. Unfortunately, as with all applications of the hypothetico-deductive method, the status of the solution is only that of a “saving of appearances” most simply, comprehensively, etc., according to the criteria used. The alternative is to explore the field of non-physical data and to formulate the needed concepts and propositions in terms of ostensive definitions. The data could be either observed by us directly in some non-physical state, or reported to us by someone directly observing them. I am concerned here only with such non-physical data as are reported by observers who make it clear that they exercised at the time a detached and balanced mind; that they were able to note details accurately and to weigh alternative explanations impartially in the light of the total circum- stances. Under such conditions ¢ is, in my opinion, no more risk of a lack of objectivity than in a normal physical state, and the risk can be made vanishingly small by experience and determina- tion. I emphasize this point to make it clear that scientific investiga- tion is, for me, perfectly compatible with the direct exploration of non-physical states. The exploration evidently needs tools and experimental skills. Particularly important in this connection are two kinds of out-of-the-body experiences which I have described in my book (5) as “full” and “free” separation, respectively. I know it is

162 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research sometimes argued that (a) claimed separation to a non-physical state is irrelevant to survival research because not verifiable by physical observations, and (b) separation in an appearance of ae agers ace could be sessty & power of the living: physica y, in which case also it provides no evidence bearing on survival. This seems to me, however, to be muddled thinking. It is as if a man blind from birth said to a sighted man, (a) if your evidence of seeing has nothing to do with the senses which I have, it is irrelevant; and (b) if it has, then it provides no proof of the existence of another sense. The assertion is of course the p75 li tirana cnn mht ter alana ut the assertion thet eoperation is merely a power of the ving body also fails, in my opinion, and for three reasons: evidential, loge cal, and scientific-methodological. How can we try to convince lind man of the existence and reliability of seeing? Certainly not by * pee " He will (a) direct testimony by reliable people who claim to see, and this he must try to interpret by the powers at his command $0 as to arrive at (b) a definition or concept of seeing which is “open” and does not prejudge the issue; and oa. (c) a successively more and more convincing demonstration so defined) is a system, rationally coherent in itself ia in a ar ions to other evidence directly available to him. So with separation, the chief fact directly testified to is, I suggest, that it avila for the separated person an experience of trans- cending physical space and being “reborn” in a world of non- present pon aed ee ere emeraee 27 oe ee ife. To those who insist that this claim is mistaken, and that there is no ibility of a non-physical existence other than what is merely a function of the living physical body, like b we can point out that they have prejudged the issue. Survival, in ee cee eee tees OF OS ee ee eee a priori le, and survival research must forthwith be abandoned. itting, on the other hand, that the evidential claim could be a valid one, a form of the survival concept in accord with a significant body of evidence becomes at once admissible. We have exhibited a new field of experience and can proceed with investiga- tions having this concept in mind. On the survival question, then, we have to ask whether we are correct in identifying the non- er iy reed airy separation takes us in all the fullness of rene yh soap Bs ) with those to which a person who has died may be “taken” and in which he may consciously continue. This ia the explicit problem of survival, It f to be sulved by the exhibiting of rational coherence, or incoherence, in successive stages. Symposium: What Next in Survival Research? 163 As a preliminary clarification, I propose to distinguish three oF costhesicn ka the poutbilioy of survival. First, to take an analogy, cue won ih treduenacanset live a full life there for a short while, and then return, we would think it very bable that other peo Ce ee ee ee ee ee a not return. Thus, i ¢ recognize that the “worlds” known in peparation are existent in their own right and that we ourselves can live a full life there, we will feel a first degree of conviction in the possibility of people remaining there (as we did for a time) and not returning to their physical bodies. It might be suggested, however, that survival in that country is possible only for short visits such as we have made. We should then feel a second d of conviction in the possibility of (longer) survival if it were a uent occurrence, on our own visits, for us to meet real living people there. The identification of some of these people as ones who had “gone before,” and not returned, would Prov eet atl oc: cite bas Belief in some kind of survival then follow from be realization that a process of ach Gale universal anges and physiol import is most unlikely to be built into a few selected individuals only of the human race, For those who re had vividly objective experience of separa- tion, the first degree of conviction is, I believe, usually regarded as sufficient. Survival research, however, will be principally concerned, I suppose, with the problems of personal reality and identity. Any criteria proposed for deciding these questions could also be applied to the study of apparitions; but I think the study of separative experiences will be found to offer considerable advantages. Let us begin by asking how we ay os people in the physical world (a) as real ae persons, and (b) as particular persons we know. We might use one or more of four methods: 1. We notice a large number of interrelated details of appearance and behavior, al idiosyncrasies, etc., which give the impres- sion of an individual life or person. 2. The n is manifested to all our senses, and three- dimensionally t our quasi-tactual sense of position; that is, the person is solidly in the same world with us. 3. If our encounter with such as living beings is sufficiently vivid and real, a power of empathy is awakened in us, as if to fuse with them, by the knowing, in them and us, of a Presence transcending mere appearances—an J Am or Very Self ‘or we can speak simply of Teed this exsbin ladividuals to be own simultaneously as two and as one, 4. We can converse with them intelligently, distinguishing

164 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research between what comes through them and what comes through us, and between the two “stores of memory” thus revealed. There comes quite soon a stage when, as it seems to me, the power and rational objectivity of the impressions referred to above in 3 and 4 are such that the reality of the person simply cannot be doubted; these impressions provide the ultimate criterion of personal reality and we have no other means of judging personal reality which could take precedence. The same will now hold true of meetings with living beings in out-of-the-body conditions. Although there are dream-figures, thought-forms, and other illusory appearances, we have also, if our own state is balanced and objective, this ultimate means (empathy, conversation) of verifying personal reality. Points could be allocated under each head, first for the personal reality and secondly for the personal identity of the alleged bei encountered out of the body or as apparitions. I think it would work out reasonably well if we allocated five points under each head for personal reality, and count a total of ten points as testifying to “complete” reality; also, six points under each of heads | and 4 ~ personal identity and a total of ten as testifying “assured” identity. Consider, for example, the reported conversations and other- world association of Mrs. Willett with Myers, Gurney, and others (1), and in particular the experience with Gurney discussed in my book (5, p. 92). On the suggested scheme, the points might be 3, 3, 4, 4, totaling 14 for reality (“complete,” therefore), and 3, 4, totaling 7/10 for personal identity. The experience thus provides a second degree of conviction in survival, and far toward providing a third degree of conviction. For the welt-ktown experience of Mr. F, G., to whom a sister dead for nine years “hardly a foot away” and with a relevant scar visible on her face (3, Vol. 2, pp. 27-30), the score might be 4, 3, 3, 0, i one personal reality, and 6, 0, totaling 6/10 for perso identity. It must be borne in mind, of course, that appearances alone are not a sufficient tee of identity. Personation is evidently easy in ee a ey states—wvide the Gordon Davis case investi- gated by S. G. Soal (4, pp. 560-589). Doubles of people still alive in the physical world (including ourselves) can appear convincingly before us, and conversation can take place between them and us, In allocating points, this and other facts have to be allowed for. Thus, under the fourth head we might award to an experience 5 — for personal reality, 0 for personal identity (veridical), and 3 cine identity (non-veridical), if this last is considered to be interest. : What Next in Survival Research? 165 What I have in mind here is the remarkable power, which ‘Swedenborg long ago described, of nee the memory in non- physical states. In one of the two cases of this which I have on record, my own inner questioning about the identity of the person encountered was answered (in the usual thought-transfer, as if in words) by a declaration of the town in which the person had lived, and other details, and finally by the presentation, as by a change of stage make-up, of the clear visual image of an old man which the thought-flow indicated was the appearance of the person at the time of his physical death. It seems to me that survival research could profit greatly if more descriptions of identification experiences of this were collected and studied. Possibly, however, the best type of identification is when the person concerned has only recently died and the total circum ox pees are yer =“ in the come of “meeting,” es personal appearance, and the conversation. My only experience this kind might reach 15 points for personal reality and 7/10 for personal identity. The whole subject of memory and personality out of the body seems to me to require thorough investigation before our concep- tion of survival can be regarded as sufficiently clear. In particular, certain questions Bg in quite a different light if a monadic theory. of personality is envisaged. The results of Whately Carington’s well-known experiments (2) on the relationship between Mrs. Leonard and her control, Feda, for example, may be opposed to survival of personality in the ordinary sense (as a single, sealed-off entity); but they are in conformity with the survival of a monadic life as a constituent able to flow into, guide, possess, or blend with others to form a physical personality. To sum up, what I am suggesting as the next step in survival research is an all-out attack on the explicit problem of survival, entailing the collection, systematization, and assessing of evidence on (a) what may be called “other-world geography” or ‘‘experi- mental metaphysics,” especially the phenomena of mergence, blending, etc., of “worlds” and ‘bodies’; and (b) experiences of alleged non-physical personalities encountered face to face, especially identification experiences. I am not aware that any sustained attempts have yet been made to collect or study experi- ences of the types I have mentioned. Only in this way, it seems to me, will “survival” cease to be a term loaded with vague presuppositions. . REFERENCES 1. Batrour, G. W. “A Study of the Psychological Aspects of Mrs. Willett’s Mediumship . . .” Proc, 8.P.R., Vol. 43, 1935, 43-318.

166 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 2. Carincton, Wuatety. “The Quantitative Study of Trance Personalities.” Proc. S.P.R., Vol. 45, 1938-39, 223-251. 3. Myers, F, W. H. Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death. London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1903. 4. Soar, S. G. “A Report on Some Communications Received through Mrs. Blanche Cooper.”’ Proc. S.P.R., Vol. 35, 1924-25, 71-594. 5. Wuiteman, J. H. M. The Mystical Life. London: Faber and Faber, 1961. Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics University of Cape Town Rondebosch, C.P., South Africa PRINTED IN BRUGES, BELGIUM, BY THE ST CATHERINE PRESS, LTD.