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JOURNAL OF NEAR-DEATH STUDIES
experiencer (NDEr) reports having perceived events during either the
material, physical or the transmaterial, nonphysical aspect of the
NDE, events that should have been impossible for the NDEr to
perceive considering the location and condition of the NDEr's physical
body, and objective evidence in consensus reality later corroborates
the accuracy of the NDEr's perceptions.
When I first read Keith Augustine's paper, I was impressed. In only
a very few places did I consider his statements to be unfounded, for
example, that "the near-death literature is rife with wildly irrespon-
sible claims about NDErs gaining psychic abilities, healing powers,
and accurate prophetic visions of the future after their NDEs." In my
reading of the works of most near-death researchers, they were merely
presenting the self-reported claims of NDErs, and not endorsing the
objective accuracy of those claims. Overall, I thought Augustine had
compiled a list of persuasive arguments that brought AVP into serious
doubt, thereby supporting the hypothesis that reduces consciousness
to a product of the brain that dies with the brain, and refuting the
hypothesis that consciousness exists independent of the brain and may
survive its death.
However, as I have pursued my own analysis of some of the material
he presented, I have become less convinced. In this response, I will
describe that analysis.
Before I do, however, I want to step back and make one point that I
made in a recent presentation (Holden, 2006) and that several other
near-death researchers and theoreticians have made before me: that,
from a purely scientific perspective, NDEs can never "prove" the
ongoing functioning of consciousness after physical death. Scientific
proof would involve verifiable and reproducible data, such as question-
naire responses and interview material, from irreversibly dead people.
Personally, I have found the irreversibly dead to be highly unreliable
participants in systematic research on postmortem consciousness, and
no researcher I know has had any better success than I, although Gary
Schwartz (Schwartz and Simon, 2002) might take issue with this point.
The most that we can ever learn from near-death experiences is the
nature of consciousness among, in the most extreme condition, the
reversibly dead. Even a clear preponderance of evidence favoring the
survival over the reductionist hypotheses can only point to the
possibility of the ongoing survival of consciousness after death. Such
evidence cannot bridge but can only narrow the gap in the leap of faith
regarding ongoing postmortem consciousness. Belief in life after
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