‘Mind and brain seem to be seperate’ says professor

PROFESSOR PETER Fenwick, one of the world’s leading researchers into near-death experiences (NDEs), has told an audience of his belief that NDEs seem to provide evidence which strongly suggests that the mind and brain are not the same.

Speaking at a lecture given at the London headquarters of The White Eagle Lodge, the professor spoke for over an hour about the phenomena which have been reported at the time of dying, prospective NDE studies and explanations for the phenomena of NDEs.

Professor Fenwick said:

“What I’d like to do is look at the whole process of dying. If near death experiences are really something about what happens at death then we must be able to get this reflected in some sense in the dying process itself. So if we start looking at the phenomena which occurs when people die we should begin to get a match with the near death experience, looking at it from different points of view.

“Then I want to look at prospective NDE studies - prospective means that you don’t advertise in the papers for people who claim NDEs, you go somewhere where you know the experiences are likely to occur. and then, you find out from people who have them. You see the difference? Because although Heather said, and I know she’s right because there is work to support it, that she remembers everything that happened during her NDE, you have to test that. It may be that in the telling of the experience it all changes. It normally doesn’t, in fact, and there is some good data from France that shows it doesn’t. But you still have to check it and show that it’s true.

“Then I want to look at some explanatory frameworks that we can put it in and then ask the question ‘are brain and consciousness the same?’

“Let’s look at the dying process itself. Stage 1 is what are called nearing death experiences. These include what are called ‘take away visions’ or death bed visions. These are visions of relatives and friends who have already passed over who have come to help you through the dying process. The second one is the experience of light in other worlds that the dying person has. The dying person experiences these worlds, and then come back and tell you about it.

“There are also what are called death bed coincidences. Now, we don’t know if these are in fact coincidences or whether they are real. These are visits to friends or relatives at the time of death. In other words you may be dying, your sister may be in Australia and she then has a visit from you at the time of your death.

“So, what sort of things do the dying say? This is a patient of mine who had a slow growing tumour. His wife was able to talk to me about the time she spent with him just before he died. This is what she said:

“He was going unconscious when I looked at him. He was looking fixedly at something in front of him. A smile of recognition spread slowly over his face as if he was greeting someone. Then he relaxed peacefully and died’.

“Another example from a researcher called Erlendur Haraldsson. This is a 16 year old girl who starts the dying process and goes into a coma. Then, just before she dies she says:

“‘I can’t get up.’ She opened her eyes. I raised her up a little. She said: ‘I see him, I see him! I’m coming.’ Then she died immediately afterwards with a radiant face, exalted and elated.

“I want you to see the relationship between the patient seemingly greeting somebody and then almost immediately afterwards, dying. It seems as if we have within us the capacity, if we aren’t drugged completely, to choose the actual moment when we die. Quite often people seem to die and go with people at the time of death. Now, there isn’t very much literature on this. You could read ten papers on it, and become a world expert on it!

“What happens at the time of dying? What do witnesses actually see? This was told to me by a GP in New Zealand. He was playing golf when another player had a heart attack. As he was going to help he saw what he described as a white form which seemed to rise and separate from the body. So here is the idea that something separates from the body at the time of death.

“The approaching death experiences are telling us something about the dying process and what consciousness is.”

Speaking of his own research professor Fenwick said:

“We need now some theories about the causation of NDEs. Now, you can’t say these are transcendent experiences because the people are unconsciousness. You can’t say they are psychological because the brain isn’t working. You can look at physiological models as to what state the brain is in, and if the brain function won’t support the experience you have to argue that mind and brain are separate.

“So, let’s look at the physiological state of the brain and body at the time of reported NDEs. No detectable cardiac output, no respiratory output - they certainly weren’t breathing. Neither did they have any brain stem reflexes - in other words they was no activity whatsoever in the brain.

“The NDE experiencers say that they didn’t have the experience before the heart attack occurred. We know that it couldn’t have occurred during the recovery of consciousness because in such cases the mind is very confused and the reported experiences are very lucid and clear.

“So we are left with a real scientific problem. It looks as if what the NDE experiencers are saying is probably correct. Now, if that’s true then you have to say some very fundamental things about brain and mind. That carries a huge cost and consequence for science. So research in this area has to be done properly. But it looks as if mind and brain - if the data is correct - are separate.”

‘Brain scans may help validate near-death experiences’ claims doctor

‘Brain scans may help validate near-death experiences’ claims doctor

ONE OF the world’s leading researchers into near-death experiences (NDEs) has called for the use of brain scans to help discover if changes have taken place in the brain after an NDE.

PMH Atwater

Dr PMH Atwater, based in Virginia, USA, told The Psychic Times:

“There is a pattern of psychological and physiological changes after an NDE. These can be incredible. For example, the average near-death experiencer is without vital signs for between five to twenty minutes, but it’s not unusual to find this extending for an hour or more. It is not exceptional for people to revive in the morgue. Yet, no matter how long they are deprived of oxygen and the heart is not beating, these people literally come back smarter than they were before.

“Whether they have extreme or partial intellect enhancement, they invariably come back as creative intuitives and creative problem solvers. I call the near-death experience a brain shift. This is why I want before and after brain scans. If we can establish clinically that the NDE changes the structure of the brain it will be a tremendous discovery.

“As far as I’m concerned the after effects of an NDE are what validate the experience. You cannot talk about the experience without talking about the after effects.”

Dr Atwater is one of the original researchers of the near-death phenomenon, having begun her work in 1978 after experiencing 3 NDEs herself the previous year. Today, her contribution to the field of near-death studies is considered on par with those of Raymond Moody, author of the world famous book Life After Life. Her first two books, Coming Back to Life and Beyond the Light, are considered the bibles of the near-death experience. She has served two terms on the board of the International Association for Near-Death Studies.

Her research is comprehensive and original. “So far, I’m the only person we know of who uses police investigative techniques in near-death research,” she states. This research comprises the experiences of over 3000 adults and 277 children. The findings are startling.

“My research shows that after the near-death episode, forty-eight percent of the children between the ages of birth and fifteen years that I had sessions with tested as genius (average IQ being 150-160) with no genetic markers to account for it. In the sub group of children, between three to five years of age, the number jumps to eighty-one percent. The younger the child, the more apt they are to have an extreme jump in intelligence. Now, if you go even further and look at children with a near-death scenario between birth and eighteen months, those who had a dark or black light experience instead of a white or bright light experience, the IQ rating begins at 182.”

Dr Atwater’s research includes ‘before’ and ‘after’ IQ comparisons. These show that the intelligence jump comes right after the near-death episode had occurred.

“Ninety-three percent of all the children came back loving math, science and history and eighty percent of those also had an enhancement in musical ability,” she said. “Now, if you are familiar with the brain, you know that the regions for music and math are right next to each other. It’s as if they are being linked together, as if they are one functional unit.

“Even those who did not test out with extraordinarily high IQs evidenced uniquely creative and intuitive minds, numerous faculty enhancements, an unrelenting curiosity, and exceptional knowledge soon after reviving. Some were gifted with foreign languages. Adult experiencers also returned more intelligent than before, and many became intuitive problem solvers. All of this occurred without genetic markers of any kind to account for what happened.

“Overall, child experiencers are natural computer whizzes. Many become physicists and inventors once grown, or masters of the arts and humanities; some are professional psychics. Older teenage and adult experiencers are most often drawn to healing, counselling, and ministerial roles afterward. Not so the younger kids, at least not the majority. But mention math or science, and they’re all aglow. History intrigues them, along with anything to do with times past, as if it might apply to who they were before in past lives.

“Most (85 percent) of the kids with the greatest acceleration in mathematical ability also acquired an intense and passionate love of music. In the brain, math and music functions are located next to each other. Children’s near-death states seem to activate both of these regions, as if they were a single unit. The child who returns from a near-death episode is a remodelled, rewired, and refined version of the original. The changes children undergo are more dramatic than those of adults. Not, I suspect, because their after effects are different, but because they are still in the process of basic brain development when the episode occurs. They are hit with a life-changing experience at a time when they are most vulnerable to the power of such a shift.”

Dr Atwater explained that children of any age can have an NDE.

“That includes newborns and infants. What they describe, once they are able to verbalize, can be quite shocking to parents who are unfamiliar with the startling reality of near-death states.

“With a research base of 277 child experiencers, I can say that the vast majority (76 percent) of children’s scenarios are rather simple, featuring only three or fewer elements. Things like loving nothingness, friendly darkness, a special voice, an out-of-body experience, or a visitation of some kind. The closer the child is to puberty, the more apt he or she is to have a longer, more involved episode. Still, kids’ cases run the gamut from hellish to heavenly, regardless of age. The youngest to have a terrifying experience was only nine days old. This baby girl was traumatised by ghoul-like beings who threatened her when she died during surgery. The event haunted her throughout her growing years until the age of twenty-eight, when she had a second near-death experience that explained the first one.”

Dr Atwater is adamant that her research provides concrete evidence that the mind and brain are separate. She also documents physiological changes, such as lower blood pressure, increased allergies, sensitivity to light and sound, and less tolerance for pharmaceuticals and other chemicals. She is therefore not impressed by the arguments put forward by the sceptics of her work.

“Every single sceptical theory or argument put forward to explain NDEs has been disproved and discredited by clinical research”, she explained. “This includes all the work of Susan Blackmore. For example, one of her explanations for NDEs is that they can be caused by lack of oxygen to the brain. We now know through studies conducted by the US navy into deep oxygen deprivation that NDEs do not match that at all.

“They are quite distinctively different from the studies done by the navy. Although the basic imagery and some of the basic patterning is similar, the navy’s findings showed they weren’t as detailed and they did not display the same pattern of physiological and psychological after effects. Nor did they come up with these incredibly detailed out of body experiences. Nor did their subjects bring forth information that they could not possibly have known.”

Dr Atwater pointed to the research conducted by Pim van Lommel as the most impressive clinical study ever done on NDEs.

“It was the best because it involved about a dozen different hospitals, covering over 300 people and two follow up studies. He was exceedingly thorough. Among the things he was able to prove was that all of the people were brain dead. And they still had long, involved NDEs. In essence, what he proved was that other-worldly journeys are real and not fantasy. They are part of the human condition.

“The brain is not the origination of the mind. The brain and mind are separate. In the future we are going to get even more evidence for all of this as more research is done. So much, in fact, that anybody who dismisses the idea that mind and brain are separate is just going to look silly. I don’t think we are very far away from this. It is only a matter of time.

“More medical people are now willing to consider the reality of the near-death phenomenon and the effect it has on experiencers. Much of this turn-around in relative acceptance is because of the Pam Reynolds case that was reported on in cardiologist, Michael Sabom’s book Light & Death. Pam’s case is the first absolute medical proof that an individual can see and hear when dead (without vital signs, brain dead as well), and can have a long, fully involved near-death experience absent of any brain response whatsoever. Since her case cannot be refuted, medical science has had to reconsider its position.

“Even though this has occurred, there is still reluctance amongst medical people to admit what cannot be denied. Any further breakthrough will depend on continuing research, and specifically with medical researchers with sterling reputations - who are willing to put their reputation on the line. Several such people are now doing just that. We’ll have to wait for results. But even solid evidence that cannot be refuted is not enough to convince a person with a closed mind. Only a personal experience can do that.

“It is time now we mature as a society and admit and recognise that we have all the proof we need to establish that human beings are more than just their physical body and senses. There are other realities that we can reach.”

Speaking of her own NDEs, Dr Atwater said:

“I died 3 times in 1977 over 3 months. Twice in January of that year and once in March. It was this third NDE that specifically put me in research. It was a long complicated episode. During that third NDE I reached that plane that many reach. Many people call it The Plane of All Knowing where you just suddenly know all things and all the puzzles of life unravel themselves and you understand everything and the why of things.

“I reached that point, and afterwards a voice spoke to me. I call it The Voice Like None Other because it was completely different to anything I had heard before. It was so huge, and powerful. It permeated everything. It was very specific and it said ‘Test Revelation. You are to do the research. One book for each death.’ Then it showed me what that meant.

“It named books two and three but didn’t name book one. It showed me what was to be in each book. It didn’t tell me how to do it or how long it would take or how much effort would be involved, but it was specific in other areas. So I went along with it and said I would do it. Then I came back to life. I sensed it was God’s voice, but of course I have no way of proving that.

“As a researcher of near-death states, I can assure you that any type of near-death experience can be life changing. But as an experiencer, I can positively affirm that being bathed in the light on the other side of death is more than life changing. That light is the very essence, the heart and soul, the all-consuming consummation of ecstatic ecstasy. It is a million suns of compressed love dissolving everything into the one great brilliance of all that is and all that ever was and all that ever will be.

“You know it’s God. No one has to tell you. You just know….”

Dr Atwater’s website can be found at: www.cinemind.com/atwater/

Dr. Schwartz continues life after death research

by Michael E. Tymn

In an exclusive interview with The Psychic Times, bestselling author and acclaimed scientist, Professor Gary Schwartz, reveals why his quest for the scientific evidence for life after death will never convince the sceptics

Gary Schwartz

“The quest continues…”

SO WROTE Dr. Gary Schwartz, famous research scientist at the end of his 2002 book, The Afterlife Experiments. Subtitled Breakthrough Scientific Evidence of Life After Death, the book tells of experiments carried out with five prominent mediums by Schwartz and his research partner, Dr. Linda Russek, in their University of Arizona Human Energy Systems Laboratory.

Highly sceptical about the whole subject of mediumship when he first met Susy Smith, a medium and popular author on psychic matters, in 1995, Schwartz, who received his doctorate from Harvard University and served as a professor of psychology and psychiatry at Yale University before moving to Arizona, gradually came to accept the reality of mediumship.

“I can no longer ignore the data and dismiss the words,” he wrote in his popular but somewhat controversial book. “They are as real as the sun, the trees, and our television sets, which seem to pull pictures out of the air.”

Allison DuBois

Among the mediums studied by Schwartz has been John Edward, who hosted a popular television program, Crossing Over, and, more recently, Allison DuBois. DuBois’ life as a psychic legal investigator is the model for the new American television weekly drama, Medium. In its third week of showing during January, the program drew an estimate 15.8 million viewers and ranked ninth among all prime-time programs.

While also involved in energy medicine and healing research, Schwartz is continuing with his life after death research.

“We are not just doing research to get percent hits under different levels of control [as is the focus of the book],” he told The Psychic Times. “We are now interested in studying the process. The whole idea of how you establish that the medium is actually receiving communication from a genuine conscious, decision-making person (spirit) is a very important question, and we’re now asking questions as to what the afterlife is like. That takes the work substantially further.”

Schwartz pointed out that in the ‘discarnate intention’ experiment, there are 18 life questions and 38 life after death questions.

“The reason we do the life questions first is to be sure the medium is getting accurate information about a particular deceased,” Schwartz explained. “That allows the medium to earn some credibility before we get into the afterlife questions and take them seriously. And if you have multiple mediums independently contacting the same deceased persons and asking the same questions of the afterlife to the extent that you get replication of information, you then have a scientific way of drawing a conclusion, saying, ‘yes, it’s very possible this deceased person is experiencing the afterlife in this way and another deceased person is experiencing it differently’.”

It is too early in this experiment for Schwartz to make any generalizations as to what his findings into the reality of life after death are, but he did comment briefly.

“There is a massive amount of data and we are in the throes of analyzing it now”, he said. “There is only one thing I feel comfortable talking about now, even though we have all these questions. What I find most amusing and potentially reassuring is that when people are ‘dead’ it’s easier for them to ‘multitask’ in the afterlife. Meaning, to do multiple things at the same time but also to be in ‘multiple places’ at the same time as well. The capacity for doing non-local and multi-process activities is just easier than when you are in the physical and located in a very specific place. That’s something that has been universally observed.”

University of Arizona Human Energy Systems Laboratory

Since the release of The Afterlife Experiments, Schwartz has come under attack by the fundamentalists of science, the people some refer to as ‘debunkers’ or ‘pseudo-sceptics’ of life after death, but whom Schwartz kindly calls ’super-sceptics.’ They have scoffed at his research, calling it ‘junk science’ while pointing out that the studies detailed in the book were not double-blind or subject to replication, two fundaments of hard science.

In fact, Schwartz has since done double-blind and even triple-blind studies (where the researcher, the medium, and the sitter were kept in the dark), but they have been equally unacceptable to the scientific fundamentalists.

“Based on my repeated observations of them and my experience with them, I would say that there is no experiment that I could even imagine designing that would convince them,” Schwartz said. “Let’s say, for example, that we design an experiment where the mediums are sequestered and locked in a room with no telephone or communication and we have them watched by security guards to be certain no one provides them with information from the outside. Well, then these sceptics will ask how we can be sure the guards weren’t paid off by the mediums, how we can be sure the guards weren’t involved in fraud. The truth is that if you are absolutely convinced that the phenomena can’t be true, then no matter what experiment you design, you can always find some way in which there might be fraud. Therefore, you are going to dismiss it, or you’re going to admit that you got it in that case but you want to see it replicated by other people. Then you want to see it replicated again, and it just goes on and on.”

University of Arizona Human Energy Systems Laboratory

Schwartz recalled recently talking with one of the super-sceptics, a university professor, and asking him what his reaction would be if he were able to observe positive results for the reality of life after death in a multi-centre double-blind study.

“He said he would want to see it replicated a few more times before he’d take it seriously,” Schwartz said, “but I pointed out to him that the whole purpose of a multi-centred study is that you have independent laboratories replicating the phenomenon. We’ve already built in the replication, so I asked him why he’d need to see it a few more times, and his answer was, ‘Gary, one of the things I’ve become interested in is why it is that I have no control over my beliefs.’ Now, if you can’t change your beliefs as a function of evidence, that’s a sad state of affairs.

“I’m not hopeful that the super-sceptics will accept any degree of data, but I’m not doing research for them. We’re just doing the work. We want to know if it is true. Our project is called Veritas (Latin for truth) for a reason.”

Schwartz added that he is just beginning research relative to the mindset of the super-sceptic, hoping to find out what pathology drives their closed-mindedness. As frustrating as the scientific fundamentalists are, Schwartz finds that the mainstream media is just as difficult to deal with when it comes to his findings into life after death. He recalled that after attending a memorial service for Montague Keen, the renowned British psychical researcher, last year, he was interviewed by a London reporter.

“He got 15 to 20 facts wrong, some of which he literally changed because he thought it would read better for the London public,” Schwartz lamented. “He’s not a bad guy and was sort of trying, but he got it garbled.”

In jest, Schwartz added that the mediums outdo the media when it comes to accuracy.

As Schwartz sees it, the biggest problem with the media is that they see only two sides.

“I was recently contacted by a national television show which wanted to have a medium for research and then wanted to have a sceptic,” he explained, “and I said you are telling this as if there are only two stories. There’s the medium and science versus the sceptic. I told him he had it wrong, that there are three stories here. There are what the mediums claim, there are what the sceptics claim, then there is the science which attempts to look at what the truth is. Science is actually the third story. Somebody can criticise the science, but that’s a different issue. The media is making a huge mistake when it sees it as two stories only. They’re looking for conflict, not resolution.”

Orthodox religion has ignored Schwartz’s research into life after death, apparently satisfied with faith alone, even though that faith might be turned into conviction with Schwartz’s findings.

“It’s remarkable how this research has been for the most part ignored by religion,” Schwartz said, “but, frankly, I’m relieved.”

In spite of the attacks by the scientific fundamentalists, the indifference of orthodox religion, and the ignorance of the mainstream media, Schwartz courageously moves on with his research into life after death, feeling that it is having some impact on the public.

“I think it is ultimately the research mediums, like Allison DuBois, as they become visible and public,” he concluded, “who will awaken the public to the science, and then the people can go to the science and reach their own conclusions.”

Doctor Cites ‘Power Greater Than Us’

Sometimes healers get healed. At least that seems to have been the case with Richard Bingold — whose conversion story we featured some years ago.

Richard, who is now in his seventies, and founded what he calls the Miraculous Pilgrim Rosary Healing Ministry, received a hip replacement in 2005 and, shortly afterwards, while praying at a church in Rouses Point, Vermont, suffered a vertical shear of bone in such a way that it made a loud cracking sound (or something did).

It was from what doctors call the greater trochanter, and in essence what it meant was that there was now a space between crucial bone connections — one that doctors said could never heal by itself.

They might try, said the doctors, to wire it together. And Bingold agreed. He was limping. He had been in pain for 26 months. There was a 17-millimeter difference in the lengths of his legs.

X-rays were taken days before the surgery (as they had also been taken for several years), and that’s when one of the doctors, Daniel M. Ward, of Longwood Orthopedic Associates in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, called to report the impossible — that the shear of bone had by itself become reattached to the spot from which it has split — closing an eight-millimeter space between one part of the hip and what is known as the partial lateral.

He told Richard that several surgeons were shown the x-rays and were astonished. “I am a devout Catholic,” the surgeon told Bingold. “And in all my years of surgery and experience, this could only happen through Divine intervention.”

In fact, the most remarkable part of the story is that a surgeon went on the record about his astonishment. Doctors are usually extremely reluctant to acknowledge a potential supernatural factor. Surgeons are perhaps more so.

“The x-rays were reviewed prior to surgery and it was quite clear that based on his change in his symptoms, essentially now he was pain free and was not limping,” wrote Dr. Ward in a formal letter dated April 29 this year. “I had inquired to Richard about what he had done and essentially he had been praying about his hip and hoping that there was some sign that the path he had chosen in his life was the correct path.”

Bingold once ran a lucrative private-investigation firm (with Eddie Egan of French Connection fame) in South Florida but converted after a close brush with death in a boating accident during a stakeout. He now travels widely, ministering and leading pilgrimages to places such as Medjugorje in Bosnia, Hercegovina.

Continued the doctor: “At this time I do not have a good explanation medically why the trochanteric piece and his extreme disability, which had been present for almost two and a half years, suddenly became dramatically better. From a scientific and medical standpoint I cannot explain this. I have been doing orthopedic surgery now and have been involved in orthopedics for almost twelve years and cannot explain why this essentially went on to be a healed trochanteric fragment at this time. Richard has his beliefs as to why this happened and I would agree that this is quite possibly a power much greater than ours.”