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Science and the Afterlife Experience: Evidence for the Immortality of Consciousness [Paperback]

Chris Carter
4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)

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Book Description

August 22, 2012
Reveals the evidence of life beyond death

• Examines 125 years of scientific research into reincarnation, apparitions, and communication with the dead showing these phenomena are real

• Reveals the existence of higher planes of consciousness where the souls of the dead can choose to advance or manifest once again on Earth

• Explains how these findings have been ignored and denied because they are incompatible with materialist doctrines

In this book, Chris Carter shows that evidence of life beyond death exists and has been around for millennia, predating any organized religion. Focusing on three key phenomena--reincarnation, apparitions, and communications from the dead--Carter reveals 125 years of documented scientific studies by independent researchers and the British and American Societies for Psychical Research that rule out hoaxes, fraud, and hallucinations and prove these afterlife phenomena are real.

The author examines historic and modern accounts of detailed past-life memories, visits from the deceased, and communications with the dead via medium and automatic writing as well as the scientific methods used to confirm these experiences. He explains how these findings on the afterlife have been ignored and denied because they are incompatible with the prevailing doctrine of materialism. Sharing messages from the dead themselves describing the afterlife, Carter reveals how consciousness exists outside the parameters of biological evolution and emerges through the medium of the brain to use the physical world as a springboard for growth. After death, souls can advance to higher planes of consciousness or manifest once again on Earth. Carter’s rigorous argument proves--beyond any reasonable doubt--not only that consciousness survives death and continues in the afterlife, but that it precedes birth as well.


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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Chris Carter addresses the question that is, or should be, the single most important question for any being that considers himself—or suspects himself to be—mortal. He argues that this is not the case. If he is right than this is not only the single most life-transforming realization for a mortal or perhaps immortal being, but also one of the most potent realizations that could prompt such a being to enter on a better path during his or her known life. And a better path is one that people now absolutely need to enter upon now if they are to thrive as individuals, and if humanity is to survive as a species.” (Ervin Laszlo, Ph.D., author of The New Science and Spirituality Reader and Science and the Akashic Field)

“The evidence in favour of an afterlife is vast and varied. The evidence from near-death experiences and deathbed visions was described in two previous books by Chris Carter. Science and the Afterlife is the final work of his trilogy, and one will see in this wonderful book that we do indeed have strongly repeatable evidence for the continuity of consciousness after physical death, based on children who remember previous lives, reports of apparitions, and communication from the deceased. What all these cases show is that human personality survives death and, by implication, human consciousness can exist independently of a functioning brain. When one has read the overwhelming evidence as described in this excellent book it seems quite impossible not to be convinced that there should be some form of life after death. Any continuing opposition to the evidence is based on nothing more than willful ignorance or ideology. Highly recommended.” (Pim van Lommel, MD, Cardiologist, author of Consciousness Beyond Life)

“Chris Carter’s Science and the Afterlife Experience is a vigorous, detailed exploration of survival following physical death. It is a withering rebuttal of the perennial, timeworn, anemic arguments of skeptics. This book is extraordinarily important-for, as Jung said, ‘The decisive question for man is: Is he related to something infinite or not? That is the telling question of his life.’ This brilliant book is an antidote to the fear of death and annihilation. It will help any reader find greater meaning, hope, and fulfillment in life.” (Larry Dossey, M.D., author of The Power of Premonitions and the New York Times bestseller, Healing Words)

“…evidence that consciousness survives bodily death is overwhelming for those with open minds. Chris Carter has presented some of the best evidence offered by the near-death experience. In this book, he astutely examines impressive and irrefutable evidence coming to us from the study of reincarnation, apparitions, and mediumship. It’s informative, interesting, intriguing, and inspirational.” (Michael Tymn, author of The Afterlife Revealed and The Afterlife Explorers)

“This clearly written book, by one of the world’s few experts on what evidence actually bears on the survival question, points to some kind of survival. If that fact doesn’t grab your attention and make you want to know more – you’re not thinking.” (Charles Tart PhD., Professor  Emeritus of Psychology University of California, Davis; a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Noetic Sciences in Petaluma, California, and Executive F)

“The third volume of Chris Carter’s trilogy may be the best. Reincarnation, ghostlike visions, and messages from the dead make for some very stimulating reading. As an historical chronicle alone this would be a valuable work. But Carter’s historical treatment also combines philosophy and analysis into an always interesting and well–organized treatise.” (Robert Bobrow, M.D., Clinical Associate Professor of Family Medicine, Department of Family Medicine, Stony Brook University, author of The Witch in the Waiting Room)

“‘Survival of human consciousness past the point of biological death is a fact.’ That will seem an extraordinary claim to some, and they may reasonably demand extraordinary evidence to support it. Carter has both made the claim and provided the evidence.” (Guy Lyon Playfair, author of This House is Haunted, If This Be Magic, and Twin Telepathy)

“Scientists and philosophers who have seriously studied the phenomenon of mediumship have concluded that there are only two hypotheses that, if true, would account for all the observed empirical data: either (i) human consciousness survives the death of its body or (ii) human consciousness possesses extraordinary abilities known as super–ESP. In Science and the Afterlife Experience, Chris Carter presents the data supporting survival with remarkable clarity and shows that the so–called “super–ESP” hypothesis is pseudo–science, and that its “purpose” is not to advance knowledge but rather to block an otherwise straight–forward inference from empirical data to the hypothesis of survival. With the “super–ESP” hypothesis disposed of, Carter boldly (and correctly, in my opinion) concludes that the survival of consciousness after the death of the body is a scientific fact, as well established as any other scientific fact.” (Neal Grossman, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, University of Illinois at Chicago)

“Addiction to the materialistic paradigm has wreaked immense havoc upon the world over the last few centuries. Many believe it has brought us to the brink of an apocalypse. Chris Carter opens this marvelous book with a statement of concurrence with philosopher David Griffen on the current dire predicament wrought by this addiction, and how it has reached a crucial juncture. Coming to know that our souls do not die with our bodies but they have a much grander role on the stage of eternity, offers a glorious reprieve from this ignominious fate that is the inevitable result of limited materialistic beliefs. This book proceeds through a detailed review of reincarnation, apparitions and messages from the dead. In my opinion, he establishes the existence of the afterlife beyond a reasonable doubt. I congratulate him on such a solid synthesis of the relevant data and arguments, both for and against.” (Eben Alexander III, M.D., Director of Research, The Monroe Institute, Faber, VA, author of Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Near–Death Experience and Journey through)

“Those who think they already know the answers don’t need to waste their time with this book. For the rest of us, it is a gem. We should drop the pretense that the question of survival is not worthy of the attention of really smart people. It is and always has been the key question of humans throughout history. Thank you, Chris Carter, for shedding light on this, the Greatest Question.” (Larry Dossey, MD., author of The Power of Premonitions and Reinventing Medicine )

From the Back Cover

SPIRITUALITY / SCIENCE

“When one has read the overwhelming evidence as described in this excellent book, it seems quite impossible not to be convinced that there should be some form of life after death. Highly recommended.”
--Pim Van Lommel, M.D., cardiologist and author of Consciousness beyond Life

“This brilliant book is an antidote to the fear of death and annihilation. It will help any reader find greater meaning, hope, and fulfillment in life.”
--Larry Dossey, M.D., author of The Power of Premonitions and the New York Times bestseller Healing Words

In this book Chris Carter shows that evidence of life beyond death exists and has been around for millennia, predating any organized religion. Focusing on three key phenomena--reincarnation, apparitions, and communications from the dead--Carter reveals 125 years of documented scientific studies by independent researchers and the British and American Societies for Psychical Research that rule out hoaxes, fraud, and hallucinations and prove these afterlife phenomena are real.

The author examines historic and modern accounts of detailed past-life memories, visits from the deceased, and communications with the dead via medium and automatic writing as well as the scientific methods used to confirm these experiences. He explains how these findings on the afterlife have been ignored and denied because they are incompatible with the prevailing doctrine of materialism. Sharing messages describing the afterlife from the dead themselves, Carter reveals how consciousness exists outside the parameters of biological evolution and emerges through the medium of the brain to use the physical world as a springboard for growth. After death, souls can advance to higher planes of consciousness or manifest once again on Earth. Carter’s rigorous argument proves--beyond any reasonable doubt--that consciousness not only survives death and continues in the afterlife but also that it precedes birth as well.

CHRIS CARTER received his undergraduate and master’s degrees from the University of Oxford. The author of Science and the Near-Death Experience and Science and Psychic Phenomena, he is originally from Canada and currently teaches internationally.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 384 pages
  • Publisher: Inner Traditions; Original edition (August 22, 2012)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1594774528
  • ISBN-13: 978-1594774522
  • Product Dimensions: 6 x 1 x 9 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #19,152 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Chris Carter was educated at Oxford University in Economics and Philosophy. He is the author of three highly acclaimed books that explore controversial areas of science and philosophy, and currently teaches internationally.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
61 of 63 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars A STUNNING ADVANCE September 11, 2012
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
One of the go-to talking points of materialists -- those who believe that consciousness is produced by the brain, like the liver makes bile, and will cease to exist with physical death -- has been that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." This argument is routinely used to dismiss any claim of the survival of consciousness without a hearing. Unless someone who has died re-appears and holds a press conference on the lawn of the White House, any evidence pointing to survival is summarily disregarded. But with the publication of Chris Carter's Science and the Afterlife Experience: Evidence for the Immortality of Consciousness, this bolthole of skeptics has been considerably closed.

Carter has emerged as one of the most careful analysts of a body of data that has gradually accumulated for most of the twentieth century. His previous books Parapsychology and the Skeptics and Science and the Near-Death Experience are nightmares for those who believe that the Great Questions -- the origin, nature, and fate of consciousness -- have long been answered. Carter has an intellectual embouchure that is elegant and precise. He has something else as well: a confidence based on an encyclopedic knowledge of the field, filtered through trenchant logic. Carter commands the philosophico-analytical high ground, with undergraduate and master's degrees from the University of Oxford.

Carter's book is divided into four parts: Reincarnation, Apparitions, Messages from the Dead, and Conclusions. After providing provocative observational material, including the key characteristics of reincarnation and apparition-type experiences and messages from the dead, he provides alternative explanations for these ostensible phenomena. He meets head-on the criticisms of skeptics. His summary sections, "How the Case for Survival Stands Today" and "Is Survival a Fact," is not a winner-take-all conclusion. He proposes three categories for possible conclusions: (1) proof beyond all doubt, (2) proof beyond all reasonable doubt, and (3) preponderance of evidence. His final chapter, "What the Dead Say," offers the conclusion to those who, if survival is a fact, are most qualified to weigh in with an opinion. They've been there. We haven't. These sections are a tutorial on how the evidence in a controversial domain should be handled.

Anyone who has followed the debates about the origin and fate of consciousness in recent decades realizes our appalling ignorance about these great issues. The nature of consciousness remains a mystery -- not just its origin, but also its fate. As cognitive scientist Donald D. Hoffman of the University of California-Irvine, says, "The scientific study of consciousness is in the embarrassing position of having no scientific theory of consciousness" ["Consciousness and the Mind-body Problem." Mind & Matter. 2008; 6(1): 87-121]. As to how consciousness might arise from a physical system such as the brain, if indeed it does and for which there is no convincing evidence, Harvard University experimental psychologist Steven Pinker confesses, "Beats the heck out of me. I have some prejudices, but no idea of how to begin to look for a defensible answer. And neither does anyone else" [How the Mind Works. New York, NY: W. W. Norton; 1997: 146].
Recognizing our ignorance about the origin of consciousness, we might muster a bit of humility about its fate.
This is the gap Chris Carter is attempting to fill with Science and the Afterlife Experience. Those who think they already know the answers don't need to waste their time with this book. For the rest of us, it is a gem.
We should drop the pretense that the question of survival is not worthy of the attention of really smart people. It is and always has been the key question of humans throughout history. Thank you, Chris Carter, for shedding light on this, the Greatest Question.

Larry Dossey, MD
Author: THE POWER OF PREMONITIONS and REINVENTING MEDICINE
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42 of 45 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars It's all about Consciousness! September 8, 2012
Format:Paperback
Science was well along the pathway of supporting the afterlife until the dawn of the twentieth century, and the resultant successes of materialist science that resulted from Albert Einstein's annus mirabile (1905, in which he wrote papers on atomic theory, special relativity, and the photoelectron effect, which ushered in quantum mechanics). In the darkest recesses of that materialist rally, consciousness and "the mind" were relegated to the ignominious fate of non-existence by behaviorist and functionalist branches of psychology.

With the rising acknowledgment of the profound nature of the hard problem of consciousness, and the contributing role of the enigma of quantum physics, serious scientific assessment of the deep nature of consciousness, including its extension beyond time and space and any dependence on the necessity of the physically intact brain, is coming back into fashion. Chris Carter's trilogy addressing the scientific aspects of the prospects for the afterlife concludes with Science and the Afterlife Experience, a very thorough analysis of the data, its interpretation, and any significant alternative explanations.

Addiction to the materialistic paradigm has wreaked immense havoc upon the world over the last few centuries. Many believe it has brought us to the brink of an apocalypse. Chris Carter opens this marvelous book with a statement of concurrence with philosopher David Griffen on the current dire predicament wrought by this addiction, and how it has reached a crucial juncture. Coming to know that our souls do not die with our bodies, but have a much grander role on the stage of eternity, offers a glorious reprieve from this ignominious fate that is the inevitable result of limited materialistic beliefs. The rapidly growing community of near-death experiencers resulting from the rise in survivors of cardiac arrest and others rescued by the tools of modern medicine over the last five decades comprise the tip of the spear poised to slay the blind and pedestrian materialistic world view.

Carter's first book in this trilogy Science and Psychic Phenomena offered a rigorous examination of phenomena such as telepathy, indicating the overwhelming evidence of the existence of such phenomena. He also attacked the towering edifice of denial surrounding the conventional scientific camp even in the face of irrefutable ocean of evidence. His second book Science and the Near-Death Experience was a landmark work supporting the survival hypothesis -- that some aspect of our personal awareness survives bodily death. The current book, which completes the trilogy, pursues additional lines of inquiry concerning reincarnation (notably children remembering previous lives), communications through mediums and apparitions. Those who deny the reality of these phenomena because they cannot explain them from their limited simplistic materialistic world view are willfully ignorant. Just do the homework!

As Carter points out in the current work, the scientific assessment of the survival question is addressed first and foremost through a knowledge of modern physics, although deep knowledge of the science of consciousness, philosophy of mind and psychology also contribute to its resolution. In fact, the enigmatic results of experiments in quantum physics invoke the non-locality of extended phenomena of consciousness, and the existence of consciousness independently of the brain.

The current volume proceeds through a detailed review of reincarnation, apparitions and messages from the dead. In my opinion, he establishes the existence of the afterlife "beyond a reasonable doubt." I congratulate him on such a solid synthesis of the relevant data and arguments, both for and against.
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18 of 19 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding! September 28, 2012
Format:Paperback
Science and the Afterlife Experience is the concluding volume in a trilogy by Oxford-trained philosopher Chris Carter. Together, the books meticulously build a case for the proposition that materialism is fatally flawed because it cannot deal with a raft of evidence for paranormal phenomena and postmortem survival. All three books are outstanding, but Science and the Afterlife Experience trumps the other two and brings Carter's argument to a dramatic conclusion.

In this book Carter deals with children's past-life recollections, apparitions, and mental mediumship. He selects his examples carefully, and weaves further examples into his rebuttals of skeptical arguments, covering a considerable amount of ground with economy and skill. The result is a book that can be read quickly, but which will also reward rereading and detailed study.

In his coverage of mediumship, Carter provides clear and persuasive accounts of the investigations into Leonora Piper and Gladys Osborn Leonard, stressing the seriousness of the investigators, their gradual evolution from skepticism to "super-ESP" explanations and finally (in some instances) to complete acceptance of life after death. He addresses the super-ESP position in depth, demolishing its claim to be simpler and more parsimonious than the afterlife hypothesis, and supplying a wealth of cases that strain super-ESP past the breaking point.

Perhaps the most impressive of all this evidence are the cross correspondences. Carter devotes three chapters to the subject, expertly summarizing several cases and making it abundantly clear that no non-survival hypothesis other than willful fraud on the part of all the mediums and researchers can explain them. He also takes pains to point out that mere logical possibilities unsupported by any empirical evidence (for instance, the notion of a massive fraudulent conspiracy) simply have no weight, and should not be confused with reasonable possibilities grounded in evidence.

Having concluded that postmortem survival is a proven fact -- a fact established beyond reasonable doubt -- Carter boldly explores the messages that come through mediums to paint a picture of the dying process and the next stage of existence.

Science and the Afterlife Experience is perhaps the best book I've read on evidence for life after death, and I've read quite a few. I recommend it highly.

- Michael Prescott, author of Grave of Angels and other bestselling suspense novels
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars A very persuasive book, a little bit too philosophical
The author has done his homework before writing the book. He presents the best evidence from afterlife from the best books or texts written in the last 150 years. Read more
Published 26 days ago by P. Filho
2.0 out of 5 stars More philosophical
I am open-minded and enjoy thought-provoking material. However, this is not really as "scientific" as I expected. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Eclectic Dreamer
2.0 out of 5 stars Science and the Afterlife Experience
Over my head in parts and simply boring in others. Ten words required........one, two three, four five, six seven eight
Published 1 month ago by lamberdino
5.0 out of 5 stars A Compelling Set of Arguments
This book does an excellent job of demolishing the arguments of sceptics who claim that "there is no evidence for an afterlife". Read more
Published 1 month ago by Kumera
4.0 out of 5 stars Well reasoned but a bit dry to read
The book was interesting and well-reasoned but it took me awhile to get through it. Also, a lot of the discussion was about afterlife communication that occurred in the 19th and... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Marge
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent defense of the survival hypothesis
Chris Carter provides another excellent account of the evidence supporting the survival hypothesis. Like with Carter's previous book, this one will be an eye-opener to most... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Truth-seeker
2.0 out of 5 stars Comprehensive but outdated examples
This is an interesting book making the case for reincarnation, apparitions, and messages from the dead. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Vicente Gannam, PhD
5.0 out of 5 stars The Reality of Afterlife Experiences
One would be hard pressed to find more comprehensive research of psychic phenomena and survival evidence than the in-depth trilogy of books by Chris Carter, the latest being... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Forever Family Foundation
5.0 out of 5 stars The Afterlife - Beyond Reasonable Doubt
I purchased this book expecting a reliable and scientifically valid basis for belief in the afterlife to be forthcoming, such that I could dispel doubts that I had about what... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Elizabeth Jane
5.0 out of 5 stars A Fantastic Read
I so enjoyed Chris' Science and the Near Death Experience, that I was really looking forward to reading this one as well. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Theresa
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