In the first stages a science's development, individuals carefully record phenomena they observe in the natural world, not fully understanding the relationships among them or their causes, but intent on advancing their understanding through careful attention to the data. The records become natural histories. In the early 19th century, William Smith, Georges Cuvier, and Alexander Broignart recorded the presence of fossils in layers of rock, leading to theories about stratification. Adam Sedgwick, Charles Lyell, and Roderick Murchison then used that understanding to map geological periods in the stratifications. Eventually, sciences of geology and evolutionary biology developed from these natural histories.
Observations of natural phenomena involving the afterlife and after-death communication were recorded from 1848 through 1944 by the early pioneers such as John W. Edmonds, Allan Kardec, Sir William Crookes, Sir William Barrett, Federick W. H. Myers, James Hyslop, Richard Hodgson, Oliver Lodge, and Robert Hare. Their observations provided natural histories of the afterlife and after-death communication that had the potential for providing succeeding generations of researchers with the bases on which to formulate theories and perform research. Hare, for example, noted in 1855 the "deliberate attempt on the part of the inhabitants of the higher spheres to break through the partition which has interfered with the attainment, by mortals, of a correct idea of their destiny after death" (quoted on page 10). However, the partnership between scientists on the next plane of life and researchers on this plane of life remains poorly understood and virtually undeveloped today, in spite of Hare's very early observation of this natural phenomenon. Researchers into the afterlife and after-death communication have not sufficiently attended to the records developed by these pioneers, and today's research remains poorly developed because the natural history from this period hasn't guided research designs.
We who are engaged in research in the afterlife and after-death communication owe a great vote of thanks to Michael Tymn for reviving the natural history of that period from 1848 through 1944 to bring to us the neglected records we need to inform our studies of the afterlife and after-death communication today. The Articulate Dead provides a chronological overview of after-death communications from the Fox sisters through Wicklund's astonishing discoveries of the sinister effects lower-level discarnates have on people. Most of the valuable insights from the period described in the book have been neglected because of the current fascination with near-death experience research that can more readily be fitted into today's dominant, physical-science research paradigm. Researchers wouldn't consider holding séances to gather data, even though through the encounters Tymn describes between people on the two sides of life, clear, valuable insights into the nature of the death, the afterlife, and after-death communications have emerged.
I recommend that anyone engaged in afterlife and after-death communication research purchase a copy of this book and read it thoroughly, then listen to as many of the Leslie Flint séance tapes as he or she can obtain, and only then begin to develop theories and create research designs. Only with this solid background in the literature can we move forward in our attempts to understand death, the afterlife, and after-death communication.
And because it's an interesting, easy read, I recommend that skeptics and people who don't know the rich literature and history of after-death communications read this book as a primer, then delve into any of the lives and mediumship accounts of the great mediums and researchers described in the book. The open-minded, albeit skeptical reader cannot help but be moved at least a few steps from ignorance toward understanding by the contents of this book.
