August 3, 2012 – 18:00
News that the Templeton Foundation is providing $5 million dollars for a University of California, Riverside (UCR), professor – John Martin Fischer – to set up the Immortality Project (as reported in my previous Blog), an inquiry into the after-life, has been greeted with mixed reactions.
On the one hand, most commentators – myself included – are agreed that it is a worthwhile venture. But some have questioned why the Templeton Foundation feels it is necessary, when so much peer-reviewed research producing positive results has already been done, over the decades, without influencing public or scientific opinion.
In any such discussion, it is important not to point a finger at the Templeton Foundation. Prof Fischer has not been asked by the foundation to carry out the Immortality Project. It is his concept: one that he clearly feels is important and the Templeton Foundation agrees, to the extent of funding it over three years.
One assumes that in conceiving the Immortality Project Prof Fischer was already familiar with parapsychological literature and the work of eminent scientists in the field. But if so, why did the UCR announcement include this statement:
“Anecdotal reports of near-death experiences, out-of-body experiences and past lives are plentiful, but it is important to subject these reports to careful analysis, Fischer said.”
In fact, the UCR Today report, written by the university’s media contact, Bettye Miller, went further, saying “Anecdotal reports of glimpses of an afterlife abound, but there has been no comprehensive and rigorous, scientific study of global reports about near-death and other experiences, or of how belief in immortality influences human behaviour.”
When author and researcher Chris Jensen Romer read UCR’s take on previous investigations into aspects of life-after-death, he “nearly spat my coffee all over my keyboard”, adding, “the cat is still holding his paws over his ears from my indignant yelp”.
“How can anyone write this?” he asks at his entertaining Polterwotsit blog. He then proceeds to explain that the claim had resulted in such a violent reaction because “for 130 years exactly this kind of work has been going on….” Chris also points out that eight Society for Psychical Research presidents have been Nobel Prize winners. Click on this link to read Chris’s excellent response in full.
He’s not alone in reminding UCR that an enormous amount of work has been done on investigating immortality. So why reinvent the wheel? Doug Todd, a Vancouver Sun staff writer who “explores faith, religion, sex, spirituality, politics, ethics and the soul”, urges those involved in the Immortality Project to “take seriously the impressive investigations that have already been done in the field by several key people, including philosophy professor emeritus David Ray Griffin, of Southern California’s Claremont Graduate University (which, coincidentally, is only 50 kilometres from UC Riverside).” Griffin is the author of Parapsychology, Philosophy and Spirituality: A Post-Modern Exploration which includes chapters on studies into life after death, reincarnation and communication with the dead.
Todd also names a number of Canadian scientists who have made important contributions to the subject, and concludes his excellent piece (which can be read in full here) with these words: “Let’s hope the 20th-century pioneers in the field such as Griffin, and newcomers like Norenzayan and Beauregard, are welcomed into the Immortality Project at UC Riverside”.
And since the Immortality Project seems to be particularly interested in near-death experiences, it will find a paper just published by Italian scientists Enrico Facco and Christian Agrillo invaluable. “Near-death experiences between science and prejudice” has been published online by Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. As well as outlining the three essential items they consider necessary for a proper assessment of NDEs, they also provide an extensive list of reference sources which demonstrate how much research has already been conducted into NDEs.
John Martin Fischer is currently based at the Centre for Advanced Study in Bioethics, University of Muenster, Germany, where he has a fellowship until December. In an interview with Los Angeles Times writer Larry Gordon, he said of the Immortality Project: “It doesn’t mean we are trying to prove anything or the other. We will be trying to be very scientific and rigorous and be very open-minded.”
Fischer has indicated he is “not a religious person” and is sceptical about an afterlife, but believes “endless life without death could be a good thing”.
Perhaps most disturbing revelation, in an interview with Marc Parry of The Chronicle of Higher Education, is Fischer’s statement that “the Immortality Project will avoid trying to prove or disprove whether an afterlife exists”. Instead, it will “chip away at the problem by studying what we can study”. For example, Parry writes, “possible subjects like whether brain structures predispose people to believe in an afterlife, or whether people who believe in an afterlife are more likely to behave morally”.
His thinking seems to be influenced by scientific advances that suggest human and computers will merge at some time in the future. That promises physical immortality. But, surely, looking for evidence that we are already immortal – in spiritual terms, having a soul – is a far more exciting prospect and one that deserves the lion’s share of the Templeton Foundation’s $5m funding.
July 31, 2012 – 17:48
I have often argued that if just a fraction of what is spent on space exploration or sub-atomic particle research were to be given to investigating evidence for an after-life, we might soon have an incontrovertible answer to the question everyone asks at some time in their life: What happens when we die?
So I am overjoyed to report that the wonderfully philanthropic John Templeton Foundation has given a grant of $5 million (£3.19m) to enable an American professor, John Martin Fischer, to set up the Immortality Project at the University of California, Riverside (UCR).
My initial concern was that most of the finance might be used to explore philosophical topics at the expense of empirical issues, and that would not get us any closer to the truth. But an announcement released today on the UCR website gives an assurance that half the funding will be used for research projects. The Immortality Project is inviting eminent scientists to make research proposals.
Though near-death experiences (NDEs) are a particular focus of the announcement, the Immortality Project will not have lived up to its title if it does not also explore spirit communication and reincarnation. After all, it is frequently argued that the apparent glimpses of an afterlife reported in NDE cases are created by a dying brain and have nothing to do with an after-life. That’s a question the Project will attempt to answer. But alleged spirit communications, through mediums or through electronic voice phenomena, for example, and also cases suggestive of reincarnation, deserve just as much attention.
There have, of course, been many scientific investigations into after-death communications and claims of past lives in the past, so it remains to be seen why Prof John Fischer believes his Project’s findings will be any more convincing or acceptable than others. But I wish him, and those who work with him, every success in their exciting, if challenging, endeavour.
Here’s the full statement from the University’s website:
RIVERSIDE, Calif. – For millennia, humans have pondered their mortality and whether death is the end of existence or a gateway to an afterlife. Millions of Americans have reported near-death or out-of-body experiences. And adherents of the world’s major religions believe in an afterlife, from reincarnation to resurrection and immortality.
Anecdotal reports of glimpses of an afterlife abound, but there has been no comprehensive and rigorous, scientific study of global reports about near-death and other experiences, or of how belief in immortality influences human behavior. That will change with the award of a three-year, $5 million grant by the John Templeton Foundation to John Martin Fischer, distinguished professor of philosophy at the University of California, Riverside, to undertake a rigorous examination of a wide range of issues related to immortality. It is the largest grant ever awarded to a humanities professor at UC Riverside, and one of the largest given to an individual at the university.
“People have been thinking about immortality throughout history. We have a deep human need to figure out what happens to us after death,” said Fischer, the principal investigator of The Immortality Project. “Much of the discussion has been in literature, especially in fantasy and science fiction, and in theology in the context of an afterlife, heaven, hell, purgatory and karma. No one has taken a comprehensive and sustained look at immortality that brings together the science, theology and philosophy.”
The John Templeton Foundation, located near Philadelphia, supports research on subjects ranging from complexity, evolution and infinity to creativity, forgiveness, love, and free will.
Half of the $5 million grant will be awarded for research projects. The grant will also fund two conferences, the first of which will be held at the end of the project’s second year and the second at the end of the grant period. A website will include a variety of resources, from glossaries and bibliographies to announcements of research conferences and links to published research. Some recent work in Anglo-American philosophy will be translated for German philosophers who, in the last 30 years, have been increasingly studying the work of American philosophers.
UC Riverside Chancellor Timothy P. White said Fischer’s research “takes a universal concern and subjects it to rigorous examination to sift fact from fiction. His work will provide guidance for discussion of immortality and the human experience for generations to come. We are extremely proud that he is leading the investigation of this critical area of knowledge.”
Noting Fischer’s renown as a scholar of free will and moral responsibility, Stephen Cullenberg, dean of the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, said, “There is perhaps no one better suited to lead a multidisciplinary research project on the question of immortality and its social implications. The Templeton Foundation’s generous support will enable scholars from across the world to come to UCR to investigate how the question of immortality affects all cultures, albeit in different ways.”
Anecdotal reports of near-death experiences, out-of-body experiences and past lives are plentiful, but it is important to subject these reports to careful analysis, Fischer said. The Immortality Project will solicit research proposals from eminent scientists, philosophers and theologians whose work will be reviewed by respected leaders in their fields and published in academic and popular journals.
“We will be very careful in documenting near-death experiences and other phenomena, trying to figure out if these offer plausible glimpses of an afterlife or are biologically induced illusions,” Fischer said. “Our approach will be uncompromisingly scientifically rigorous. We’re not going to spend money to study alien-abduction reports. We will look at near-death experiences and try to find out what’s going on there – what is promising, what is nonsense, and what is scientifically debunked. We may find something important about our lives and our values, even if not glimpses into an afterlife.”
Fischer noted that while philosophers and theologians have pondered questions of immortality and life after death for millennia, scientific research into immortality and longevity are very recent. The Immortality Project will promote collaborative research between scientists, philosophers and theologians. A major goal will be to encourage interdisciplinary inquiry into the family of issues relating to immortality – and how these bear on the way we conceptualize our own (finite) lives.
One of the questions he hopes researchers will address is cultural variations in reports of near-death experiences. For example, the millions of Americans who have experienced the phenomenon consistently report a tunnel with a bright light at the end. In Japan, reports often find the individual tending a garden.
“Is there something in our culture that leads people to see tunnels while the Japanese see gardens?” he asked. “Are there variations in other cultures?” What can we learn about our own values and the meanings of our finite lives by studying near-death experiences cross-culturally (as well as within our own culture)?
Other questions philosophers may consider are: Is immortality potentially worthwhile or not? Would existence in an afterlife be repetitive or boring? Does death give meaning to life? Could we still have virtues like courage if we knew we couldn’t die? What can we learn about the meaning of our lives by thinking about immortality?
Theologians and philosophers who examine various concepts of an afterlife may delve into the relationship between belief in life after death and individual behavior, and how individuals could survive death as the same person.
“Many people and religions hold there is an afterlife, and that often gives people consolation when faced with death,” Fischer said. “Philosophy and theology are slightly different ways to bring reason to beliefs about religion to evaluate their rationality. If you believe we exist as immortal beings, you could ask how we could survive death as the very same person in an afterlife. If you believe in reincarnation, how can the very same person exist if you start over with no memories?
“We hope to bring to the general public a greater awareness of some of the complexities involved in simple beliefs about heaven, hell and reincarnation, and encourage people to better understand and evaluate their own beliefs about an afterlife and the role of those beliefs in their lives.”
For example, “We think that free will is very important to us theologically and philosophically. And heaven in the Judeo-Christian tradition is supposed to be the best place. Yet we arguably wouldn’t have free will in heaven. How do you fit these ideas together?”
At the end of the project Fischer will analyze findings from the Immortality Project and write a book with the working title “Immortality and the Meaning of Death,” slated for publication by Oxford University Press.
The John Templeton Foundation serves as a philanthropic catalyst for discoveries relating to the Big Questions of human purpose and ultimate reality. The foundation supports research on subjects ranging from complexity, evolution and infinity to creativity, forgiveness, love, and free will. It encourages civil, informed dialogue among scientists, philosophers and theologians, and between such experts and the public at large, for the purposes of definitional clarity and new insights. The foundation’s vision is derived from the late Sir John Templeton’s optimism about the possibility of acquiring “new spiritual information” and from his commitment to rigorous scientific research and related scholarship. The foundation’s motto, “How little we know, how eager to learn,” exemplifies its support for open-minded inquiry and its hope for advancing human progress through breakthrough discoveries.
A case that will challenge sceptics to find a non-spiritual explanation is making headlines in America’s media, following the publication of Real Messages from Heaven by Faye Aldridge (right). 
The testimonies of oncologist Dr Carl Willis and neurosurgeon Dr Arthur Cushman are included in the book and they have both testified to the occurrence in a TV news report (see video below or go the the 
Dr Willis testified that on seeing Burke: “I pretty well knew what had happened and who it was – it was just amazing.”
It’s more than 30 years since Raymond Bayless and D. Scott Rogo wrote their ground-breaking book Phone Calls From the Dead. What has happened since? Well, for one thing, telephones have changed radically and we also have various new methods of communication available to us – such as emails, texts and Skype. But people continue to receive anomalous messages on phones as well as these new forms of electronic media. It’s a phenomenon in which I have long had an interest so I was delighted to learn that Callum Cooper (right), who is pursuing doctoral research in psychology and parapsychology at the University of Northampton, England, has decided to reprise the subject and bring the work of Bayless and Rogo up to date. 
