Is There An Afterlife?: A Comprehensive Overview of the Evidence [Paperback]

David Fontana (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 17, 2005

This book presents the most complete survey to date of the evidence, both historical and contemporary, for survival of physical death.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Is death the end of this existence, as some scientists seem to assume? Fontana, a British psychologist and fellow at Cardiff University, thinks not. In this manual, he marshals studies and other evidence to demonstrate the persistence of unexplained phenomena that point to the likelihood of life after death. In systematic fashion, Fontana plows through chapters on parapsychology; apparitions and visions of ghosts; hauntings (where apparitions are seen by more than one person in the same place over a long, continuous period); the history and nature of mediumship; different kinds of mediums; electronic voice phenomena; near-death experiences; out-of-body experiences; and reincarnation. Throughout, he includes case studies of alleged paranormal events from around the world, and also describes some of his own experiences, including a local Cardiff poltergeist he investigated from 1989 to 1992, and a medium who seems to have communicated with Fontana's deceased mother. It's clear that Fontana believes that many claims to the paranormal are true and that they provide credible evidence that a soul or spirit survives beyond physical death. Still, his tone is a bit more balanced than other paranormal apologetic texts. The book is indeed "comprehensive," as the subtitle indicates, and it is organized well enough that readers can easily skip to the chapters or sections that interest them rather than slogging through each chapter sequentially, since the writing can be overly detailed.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

'Scholarship, personal experience and high quality always show. This highly accessible, detailed and authoritative book will become a classic. After reading it and assessing the evidence, there can no longer be any doubt that there is life after death. David Fontana's book should be mandatory reading for all those involved in the care of the dying - and of course for the rest of us who know we will have to face it one day! Dr Peter Fenwick, Britain's leading clinical authority on Near-Death-Experience

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 496 pages
• Publisher: John Hunt Publishing (January 17, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1903816904
• ISBN-13: 978-1903816905
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.8 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #695,463 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

74 of 80 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a long overdue book, April 12, 2005

By 

Michael E. Tymn (Kailua, Hawaii) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Is There An Afterlife?: A Comprehensive Overview of the Evidence (Paperback)

Since becoming interested in psychical research some 15 years ago, I have accumulated a library of more than 1,000 books dealing with mediumship, channeling, near-death experiences, death-bed visions, apparations, past-life regressions, and every other aspect of the paranormal. This book is without a doubt the most comprehensive overview of the entire field that I have encountered.

The author is a professor of Transpersonal Psychology at Liverpool John Moores University in Great Britain and a past president as well as current vice-president of the Society for Psychical Research. Professor Fontana examines everything from the mediumship of the Fox Sisters of the 1800s to the recent
Scole experiments, including such famous cases as Patience Worth, Margery, the R-101 disaster, the cross-correspondences, to name just a few. He looks at the mediumship of Leonore Piper, Gladys Osborne Leonard, Eileen Garrett, Geraldine Cummins and many others.

So many of the earlier books present a one-sided view of various phenomena, but Fontana presents both sides, turning the evidence inside out and upside down,leaving no stone unturned. I had just recently reread a book about the mediumship of Mina Crandon, the medium in the sensational "Margery" mediumship of 1920s. I finished the book not knowing what to believe as there was strong evidence for Crandon being a gifted medium, but there was also some evidence suggesting fraud. The fact that the distinguished researcher, Dr. J.B. Rhine, was one of those concluding she was a charlatan made me lean toward that conclusion, even though I was mystified as to how so many other scientific examiners could have been duped. After reading Fontana's thoughts on the case, I am now back to believing that Crandon was a true medium, although she might have been a mixed-medium, i.e., one who occasionally cheated to please her audience when no phenomena manifested. There also seems to be the possibility that many of the mediums deemed cheaters were in fact sabotaged by malevolent spirits.

As Professor Fontana says, the question of whether or not our consciousness survives bodily death is without a doubt the most important facing us. For most religions, faith alone is seemingly all that is necessary. Perhaps that is the reason we have so much turmoil in the world today. Faith is not enough. We need conviction. That is what this book offers.

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Certainly the best, single volume on this subject, April 12, 2006

By 

Jeffrey Mishlove (Las Vegas, NV) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Is There An Afterlife?: A Comprehensive Overview of the Evidence (Paperback)

Professor David Fontana's book is certainly the best, single volume available today on the question of survival after death. It is written from the perspective of one who accepts that the available evidence does, indeed, point toward the existence of an afterlife. But, he did not come to this conclusion easily. He carefully weighs and balances all of the available competing arguments. And, he also acknowledges that, even after 150 years of investigation, the evidence is not scientifically complete. In fact, he does not hesitate to share the frustrations of researchers working in this field.

At one point, when discussing a particularly frustrating situation (George Meek's "Spiricom," at one time an excellent source of ITC data, that ceased functioning) he cites William James, who suggested "the Almighty may have decreed that we are never going to receive the final element of proof for which survival researchers have been looking, and that Spiricom was in danger of giving this proof."

As a past president of the British Society for Psychical Research, the oldest organization in the world continuously devoted to exploring the question of human survival, Fontana is eminently qualified to write about this subject. (Within the last few weeks I, myself, have joined this organization - upon learning about their excellent online library.) Fontana is also a specialist in the areas of EVP (electronic voice phenomena) and ITC (instrumental transcommunication) that are now a particular interest of mine. See my earlier blog on White Noise. I am inclined to think that if this area continues to show progress, as it seems to be doing, than it will - indeed - result in the major breakthrough that survival researchers have been seeking for 150 years.

Regular readers of my blogs will know that I have been fond of an alternative hypothesis that I call "archetypal synchronistic resonance." I think that it may have the potential to sufficient explain the existing data for human survival after death, without actually requiring an afterlife.

There is currently another alternative hypothesis, known as Super Psi. The tricky question here, from a philosophical perspective, is that there is no test that can absolutely distinguish between "survival" and "super psi." This is why many parapsychologists have simply stopped considering the question of survival after death. Nevertheless, Fontana does an excellent job of looking at the Super Psi hypothesis and showing why it seems highly implausible as an explanation in many of the cases he cites. In general, I am convinced by his arguments.

However, I am not yet convinced that "archetypal synchronistic resonance" would be so easily dismissed. But, there is no blame that David Fontana does not address my alternative explanation. The argument in behalf of "archetypal synchronistic resonance" has yet to be made in any academic journals (although one paper has been submitted). In fact, to date, my blogs on the subject are probably the most extensive place in which the topic is discussed.

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very Thorough and Informative, October 31, 2005

By 

E. Lipinski (Verona, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Is There An Afterlife?: A Comprehensive Overview of the Evidence (Paperback)

Dr. Fontana's presentation is well suited to inform both the
experienced and new readers of the vast amount of research that
has already been undertaken in this area. I particularly liked
the way he presented the pros and cons of the various hypotheses
forwarded to explain the various phenomena. This is an excellent
introduction to the myriad facets of this fascinating subject.