Synopses & Reviews
John Edward, Suzane Northrup, and George Anderson are just a few of the prominent American mediums who have been accused of being frauds. But what if a respected scientist challenged them to make contact with the beyond under controlled laboratory conditions? What if the results not only stunned a skeptical scientist but also offered astonishing answers to a timeless question: Is there life after death?
THE AFTERLIFE EXPERIMENTS
Risking his academic reputation, Dr. Gary E. Schwartz asked well-known mediums to become part of a series of experiments to prove, or disprove, the existence of an afterlife. This riveting narrative, with electrifying transcripts, documents stringently monitored experiments in which mediums attempted to contact dead friends and relatives of "sitters" who were masked from view and never spoke, depriving the mediums of any cues.
Here are the results that awed sitters and researchers alike: a revelation about a son's suicide, what a deceased father wanted to say about his last days in a coma, the transformation of a man's lifelong doubts about the afterlife, and, most amazing of all, a forecast of a beloved spouse's death. Forced by data to abandon skepticism, Schwartz presents this amazing account of his groundbreaking work, compelling from first page to last.
Review
Deepak Chopra Gary Schwartz applies procedures of experimentation that no honest skeptic could argue with.
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John Edward host of "Crossing Over with John Edward" This book is an absolute must-own and must-read for anyone who struggles with faith, love, death, and aspects of divinity.
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James Van Praagh spiritual medium, and author of Talking to Heaven Science meets Spiritualism in this extraordinarily precise and detailed chronicle of experiments, proving once again that the consciousness survives physical death. It is one of the most important books written on this subject.
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Richard C. Powell Vice president for research and graduate studies, University of Arizona Professor Schwartz exhibits courage and integrity...in his groundbreaking experiments. This book...is an important milestone in the scientific research on the survival of consciousness after physical death.
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George E. Dalzell, L.C.S.W., Author of Messages: Evidence For Life After Death A compelling read, this book supports with real evidence the existence of a spirit world that many assumed was there, but may now embrace beyond reasonable doubt.
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Rustum Roy Evan Pugh Professor of the Solid State and professor of geochemistry, Pennsylvania State University [A] painstakingly assembled hypothesis followed by rigorous experimentation. Dr. Schwartz has made his case -- compellingly in my view.
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Joel Rothschild Author of Signals Anyone who has ever questioned life after death must read THe Afterlife Experiments. Dr. Schwartz's work finally closes the gulf in our understanding of life and death.
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Judy Guggenheim After-death communication researcher and co-author of Hello From Heaven! Gary Schwartz navigates his readers on a journey of discovery. At last we can take another collective step toward affirming that life and love survive physical death....Thanks, Gary!
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John Edward Host of Crossing Over With John Edwardand author of Crossing Over: The Stories Behind the Stories Dr. Schwartz perfectly blends the academic principles of science with the abstract possibilities of spirituality, searching to answer the age-old question of what happens after we die. This book is [a] must-read and must-own...for anyone who struggles with faith, love, death, and aspects of divinity.
Synopsis
This book provides astonishing answers to a pair of timeless questions: Is there life after death? Are love and life eternal?
Daring to risk his worldwide academic reputation, Dr. Gary E. Schwartz asked some of the most prominent mediums in America -- including John Edward, Suzanne Northrup, and George Anderson -- to participate in a series of stringently controlled experiments.
The book, coauthored with bestselling writer William L. Simon, describes in fascinating, fast-reading style how the results banished Dr. Schwartz's skepticism and filled him with a sense of wonder and awe.
Through electrifying transcripts and eye-witness commentary, Schwartz and Simon put readers right on the scene as the mediums contacted dead friends and relatives of "sitters, " people unknown to the mediums and even in remote locations. The messages they received ranged from moving revelations about a son's suicide to a father's thoughts during his last days in a coma, to an uncanny forecast of a beloved spouse's death. Based on the most objective, untainted, and convincing evidence ever collected, The Afterlife Experiments will reshape the way we think about the boundary between life and death.
About the Author
Gary E. Schwartz, Ph.D., is a professor of psychology, medicine, neurology, psychiatry, and surgery at the University of Arizona and director of its Laboratory for Advances in Consciousness and Health. After receiving his doctorate from Harvard University, he served as professor of psychology and psychiatry at Yale University, director of the Yale Psychophysiology Center, and co-director of the Yale Behavioral Medicine Clinic, before moving to Arizona in 1988. He has published more than four hundred scientific papers and coedited eleven academic books. He is the author of The Afterlife Experiments and The Truth About Medium and coauthor of The Living Energy Universe.William L. Simon is a screen and television writer and bestselling author.Deepak Chopra, MD, has gained worldwide acclaim as a teacher and writer in fields as diverse as mind-body medicine, Ayurveda, the nature of God, and the path to success. Time magazine called him one of the 100 icons of the twentieth century, “the poet-prophet of alternative medicine.” The author of more than sixty-four books translated into over eighty-five languages, including nineteen New York Times bestsellers, Dr. Chopra has sold more than twenty million copies of his books worldwide. He is the founder of the Chopra Center in Carlsbad, California.
Table of Contents
Contents
Foreword by Deepak Chopra
Preface: Are Life and Love Eternal?
Part I You Don't Find a Mission -- a Mission Finds You
1 The Journey Begins
2 Bringing Soul Science into the University
3 Five Words That Changed My Life
4 Here-to-There-and-Back-Again
Part II The HBO Dream-Team Experiment
5 What a Difference a Dinner Can Make
6 Mediums Read While Cameras Roll: The Patricia Readings
7 The Ronnie Readings
Interlude: A Case of Precognition?
8 HBO Results
Part III The Miraval Silent-Sitter Experiment
9 Seeking a New Design
10 The Christopher Readings
11 The Revealing Pat Price Readings
12 Is There Such a Thing as Precognition?
Part IV The Canyon Ranch Totally Silent Sitter Experiment
13 The Canyon Ranch Experiment: What if the Sitters Never Speak?
14 More Canyon Ranch: An Unexpected Visitor
Part V Discovering the Larger Reality
15 What's Fraud Got to Do with It?
Interlude: "Re-Contact"
16 Answering the Skeptics
17 The Campbell White Crow Readings
18 How Our Lives Might Change
19 Looking Forward and Outward
Appendix A: Integrating Science and Spirituality
Appendix B: The Energy Is Love
Appendix C: Journal Article on Accuracy and Replicability of After-Death Communication
Appendix D: Journal Article on Accuracy and Replicability of Anomalous Information Retrieval
Appendix E: Journal Article on the Campbell "White Crow" Readings
Acknowledgments
Recommended Readings
The Contributors/The Research Mediums
Index