Customer Reviews

Is There Life After Death?

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The essence of Peake's theory is that death is something that happens to other people.

There are many threads in Peake's argument, which he tries to bring together at the end of his book. En route it's an interesting journey through the twilight zones of quantum physics, the science of the brain, and human experience, mostly documented by individuals and therefore "unproven."

Peake seems keen to prove that all of human experience takes place within the brain, which is in his view the seat of consciousness. But, in contrast with other materialists, Peake uses scientific evidence to argue that there is no death, as far as the individual is concerned. At the point of death, he argues, the chemicals in our brains which affect our perception of time slow that perception down to a virtual standstill. At this point our brains run through what he calls a Bohmian Imax (named for the physicist David Bohm) , creating a "virtual reality" replay of our entire lives. Everyone else watching us sees us die, but from our point of view we never do.

I am of course oversimplifying a theory that takes Peake several hundred pages to elucidate. But that is the nub of it. There are a number of obvious queries that arise from it. The most obvious is the sheer solipcism of the whole thing. If we are hallucinating our lives as we lie on the ground somewhere bleeding to death, what are we to make of the people with whom we imagine we are spending our lives ? How can they be anything more than 'sims'? If Peake or any of his followers sincerely believe that they are experiencing the Bohmian IMAX, how can they treat anyone else with the respect that a real human being might expect?

Peake claims to have dealt with this question in his book, but this reader at least didn't get it. At one point he brings in the concept of parallel universes, to suggest that when we die, a new world branches off in which we "escape" from the danger that kills us in one world. But this would appear to be a different road completely than starting our lives all over again "eternal return" style. Does he mean that we actually keep going on one road and start all over again on another? Peake claims somewhat annoyingly that parallel universes are a proven fact, but it's also a fact that a lot of physicists don't believe in them.

There are other problems. Do we always know when we are going to die, so that we can slow time down quickly enough (!) to live our lives over and over again? It is hard not to believe that there are many times in which sudden death would win the race with the brain chemicals.

Peake argues that the "life review" which people who have near-death-experiences describe is proof of his theory. In my opinion, it's not. Descriptions of life reviews usually involve some sense of observation, whereas Peake's proposal involves a three-dimensional re-experience of one's whole life, repeated ad-infinitum.

On the other hand it must be said the author raises enough questions and highlights enough bizzare phenomena for us to at least be forced to admit that something is happening Mr Peake ... but we don't know what it is. Is There life After Death? is like a more erudite version of Ripley's Believe It Or Not. And his attempts at holism are admirable. He has since published another book, which I have not read, called The Daemon, and he does say that he and a colleague are working on the original theory with a new line that seems to involve some sort of collective unconscious.

How this would be sustained in his materialistic model of life I'm not sure. Peake rejects telepathy, ghosts, reincarnation and indeed anything outside the brain in Is There Life After Death?, when I believe his model would be well-served by adopting the ideas of Rupert Sheldrake, and conceding that there are waves and fields which don't have a material existence and don't required the continued existence of brains to sustain them.

For a longer version of this review, and other chats, visit my blog, wwmentaltraveller.

Is There Life After Death by British author Anthony Peake is a brilliant book. It is a very hard, but extremely interesting read and would be helped greatly by a table of contents and index. However, it is a must read by all people interested in this genre, absolutely and unequivocally.

In this book, Peake attempts to update the ideas of J.W. Dunne in the light of the latest theories of quantum physics, neurology and consciousness studies.

The basic premise is that nearing the point of death, you actually never die and the brain gushes with glutamate, as it did once before, during birth, and you re-live your current life again in a virtual reality generated by the brain (or something else) - a Groundhog Day existence, so to speak. This is due to the fact that time dilates and you literally enter a time-less state or at least a state where time is near endless. This is alluded to by the way your perception of time changes dramatically throughout your life for one reason or another - dreaming, playing, getting bored, endangered, excited, sad and so on. Dropping out of time is what Peake calls it.

Come the near time of your virtual reality death, the process is repeated, ad infinitum so it seems. The doctrine is called Recurrence and it seems the ancient Greeks and others alluded to it, so we find Peake uses Greek terminology for some of his concepts.

Peake uses the fact that time is not constant as well as the NDE, deja-vu, epilepsy and a host of neurological diseases to convince you to believe Recurrence. He does this quite well, but as with anything, the judgement is up to you. In fact, I found that some of the arguments materialists use to bludgeon a random and meaningless existence where they are the final arbiters of truth and the high priests of knowledge and wisdom, Peake uses to good effect in proving his point which is contra to theirs.

He uses quantum physics theory and its interpretation to convince us that the virtual life and all those thereafter are not exactly the same, as you have the freedom to choose and thus enter a different parallel universe with each choice you make.

Deja-vu is a glitch in the system, when you actually remember the previous Recurrence of your virtual life.

NDE is more or less another glitch in the system where your next Recurrence is prematurely triggered and you come back and call it a "Life Review". You're actually alive and the next virtual life starts running.

Prophecy alludes to Recurrence too, according to Peake and his argument here is that prophets like Nostradamus, are exceptionally good at predicting future events within the time span of their lives, but hopeless once past their date of death. That's because they're somehow remembering their previous Recurrence and can't gather information outside their existence. Get a young prophet is the message here as they should be able to see more years into the future, their future as well as yours.

Don't be fooled, while I believe the title is quite banal, the book reeks of freshness and originality.

In fact it's the first non-study book, I'm going to read again (over 400 pages worth) and take notes, so that I can remember the concepts. I hope I have them correct for the purposes of this review.

In order to argue his theory that such phenomena as deja vu, near death experiences and precognition can all be explained by understanding that anyone who has had such experiences is reliving their entire life in the last few seconds of their previous one, Peake brings together a mishmash of quantum theory, neuroscience, personal accounts of paranormal experiences and bad logic. He has the usual crank theorist characteristics of jumping to unwarranted conclusions and being highly selective about evidence. Examples: Many people who experience NDE's report journeying to a paradisical place - Peake ignores this because it doesn't fit in with his theory. He quotes from a Gnostic gospel to suggest that the Gnostics believed in "eternal return" - the quotation doesn't in fact support this, and even if it did, it wouldn't count as evidence. He misconstrues scientific theories and facts... For instance, he says that a radioactive half life implies that there will always be a quantity of a given radioactive substance - not so, a billion atoms of cobalt 60 will eventually be reduced to one, and then none. I could go on and on.

Nevertheless, his theory (which might be better argued), is intriguing and disturbing. If nothing else it will have me thinking hard for ways to refute it.

It's a rare thing for me to rave about a book. I love to read and consequently, I read a lot of books and am often disappointed. Not so with "Is There Life after Death" by Anthony Peake. In fact, this was a book that I couldn't and didn't want to put down and yet had to just to think about its content. It's well researched, well written and frankly well published in the sense that it's a quality book too for the price. Peake has a slightly humorous writing style yet delivers on content and punch.
So what is the book about? Well, it's really not about life after death and to some extent the title seems an odd choice. Peake lucidly explores quantum physics, medicine, psychology, certain aspects of occult thinking, gnosis, history and more besides, too progressively and comprehensively builds a picture that supports his thesis. It's a book that needed writing because, as I have noted many times, many disciplines are coming together to point to some startling conclusions about reality and Peake manages to communicate the complex with simplicity.

Rest of review at [...]

The only bad thing about this book is its title, which gives the impression you'll read about mediumship or psychical research. You won't. This work is soundly based on the latest findings of Quantum Physics and, in a stroke that amounts almost to genius, elects to take their implications seriously. The result is a book that should be required reading in every school in the country. This is reality not as we experience it, but as it must be. I cannot recommend it highly enough to anyone concerned with the big questions in life. (Including whether there is life after death, but, oddly, that's the least important question.)

There has been a rather large volume of books in the past two or so decades dealing, one way or another, with the philosophical implications of the so-called New Physics (a term that refers mostly to Quantum Mechanics). The central thesis of most of these efforts has been, more or less, the idea that consciousness and the observer are not, shall we say, innocent bystanders in the great scheme of things, but actual participants. The level of participation implied varies, with some authors allowing, often timidly, a certain degree of influence, while others boldly claim that without consciousness not only do we not have physics, but we do not actually have anything. Nothing at all. This book can be found in this latter category.

The book contains a rather large variety of reports, pieces of research, books, even movies, that one way or another deal with the issue of consciousness. Who is the "I", what is "time", what is "reality"? The issue of death does show up, but I think the book title is rather misleading - and certainly does not do justice to the content; it has an aura of New Age, which is not the case. Not entirely at least.

So, what is this book? It is science? Is it pseudo-science? Is it an academic research of Physics? Well, let's start from the latter. That, it ain't. I think the debate scientific vs unscientific is like walking on very, very thin ice (Indeed I'd say it's unscientific to call something unscientific!) but we can agree that this is not an academic text. It lacks a proper thesis, and it lacks the argumentative depth. Matters of philosophy and physics can always be a little bit speculative, that's not only acceptable but probably necessary. But the fundamental flaw of this book is that it is excessively speculative, making quite a bit of ad hoc hypotheses, that although may or may not "fit" certain other hypotheses, they appear to be just too random. Furthermore, the writer seems more preoccupied in listing the (long and distinguished) list of relevant bibliography in the area, rather than analyzing his own ideas in a coherent manner. There is simply no or very little coherence regarding the theoretical foundations of Peake's arguments. Copenhagen, MWI, and Implicate Order, are all offered in a quantum cornucopia of interpretations, with Peake giving the impression he's changed his mind while writing the book regarding which one he accepts.

Having said that, probably this is one of the best books for people who have little or even no knowledge of quantum (meta)physics. If you're looking for a book to introduce you to the whacky world of quantum (un)reality, this is a pretty good choice (although, few diagrams would have helped). Even people who have read tons of other books on the subject, will still find interesting references. But make no mistake: this is definitely not a book that has the answers to anything. Good for ideas, and to explore some interesting researchers, but not a piece of research in itself.

If you have read Talbot's "The Holographic Universe", this is a very, very similar book in its structure and style. Pretty all-encompassing, generally relying on scientific work (of others), throwing in some very questionable bits and pieces that undermine the whole edifice. In Talbot's book, it was Sai Baba that made me lose interest. In this book, it was when I reached the section about Nostradamus. Nostradamus in the same book with Wheeler, Bell, and Bohm? No, thanks.

Ultimately, 3/5 is probably a very accurate rating. I'd give it a 3+ if you haven't read much on the subject, and 3- if you have. Interesting, but nothing special.

I did enjoy the book at the beginning, but as further I read into it as more repetitive it seems to become. The author uses the same arguments for his theory again and again, but can not convince in my opinion. His main proponents are Bohm and Everett, both physicist with a particular view on quantum mechanics. There are a lot of physicians out there that find in particular Everett's "Many World Theory" unconvincing and far from a parsimonious theory ridden with conceptual error and bordering on meta-physics or philosophy.The authors also uses a lot of inconclusive evidence to substantiate his view on the subject.Also he approves of the concept of Occam's razor, his theory is to far fetch't and is missing exactly this concept in many ways. It is a though provoking book never less, and I don't think that I have wasted my time reading it.My main critic is that readers with little knowledge about physics, particular quantum mechanics will follow the authors views to uncritically and will take his conclusions as scientifically sound.

Britisher Anthony Peake's book is especially intriguing. It is noteworthy not only because of its approach but also for its author's background. Peake is a psychometrician, one who specializes in psychological measurements of mental variables. Much of his book therefore addresses states of mind or awareness. He sets his commentary in the context of historical, religious, and scientific concepts of the "duality" of mankind. Duality in this case refers to beliefs that the human body is occupied by two entities, one materialistic (ego) and one transcendent (spirit), to use contemporary terms. The former has been called Eidolon ("lower self") and the latter Daemon ("higher self") down through history. Readers of my book "Love and Immortality: Long Journey of My Heart" may recall Julian Jaynes' theory of the "bicameral brain" (2008): modern man developed a left brain to process inputs from his five senses, while primitive man had depended on a brain that utilized other environmental and transcendent inputs, more like our present right brain. Scientists today do acknowledge that brain functions are largely split between left and right hemispheres, the left often called the "executive" and the right the "emotional." The left also typically is the dominant half. From that distinction many theories have developed regarding humankind's phenomenal mental capabilities involving the right hemisphere.

This book is going to change your life forever. You are not going to be the same, and when you read it, you'll understand why. If you are comfortable as you are right know, better do not get this book, if you are concern about: Who you really are!... then you are advised!

Besides being an innovative and fascinating work on human consciousness after death, Peake's text is delightful to read for its many parallels to existential thought and phenomenology. I for one was less interested in the quantum physics and cognitive science (although I certainly did take these sections of the book very seriously and learned much from them) than those parts which examined the contents of our consciousness. In his eidolon/daemon dyad and its concept of a second, higher Self, Peake mirrors so many thinkers (James, Emerson, Fechner, Heidegger, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Jaspers and Jung to name only a few) and manages to elegantly tie together key concepts which are essential to deeper comprehension of human existence. The theory of eternal recurrence obtains from Peake's theorizing an aspect of realness and validity for perhaps the first time. I highly recommend his book for anyone interested in the depth of our human existence, in life and at the point of death.