Are you out of your body? At least part of you may be, if consciousness can extend beyond the brain in your skull. In Science and Spirit, authors Charles F. Emmons and Penelope Emmons explore some intriguing questions: What evidence is there for consciousness apart from the body, and what evidence is there for survival of consciousness after bodily death? Through ethnographic interviews with scientists, observations at conferences, and visits to research institutes, they investigate the existence and meaning of ESP, out-of-body experiences, near-death experiences, reincarnation, spirit mediumship, lucid dreaming, and ghost experiences. In this study, they share a variety of scientific frames for looking at these questions and happenings, and they disclose their own paranormal experiences. Science and Spirit uses a unique blend of strong academic and scientific theory and methodology and applies it to the examination of paranormal topics.

Science and Spirit

Exploring the Limits of ConsciousnessBy Charles F. Emmons Penelope Emmons

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2012 Charles F. Emmons and Penelope Emmons
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4759-4262-0

Contents

Acknowledgments..................................................................xiIntroduction.....................................................................xiiiChapter One: What Inexactly Are the Questions?...................................1Chapter Two: Why Would We Ask These Questions?...................................3Chapter Three: What's Science Got to Do with It?.................................7Chapter Four: Who's Going to Pay for This?.......................................13PART TWO: HOW WE THINK WE KNOW WHAT WE THINK WE KNOW.............................19Chapter Five: Skepticism, Ridicule, and Smart-Ass Journalism.....................21Chapter Six: There's Nothing Like an Experience..................................37Chapter Seven: Subjectivity......................................................47Chapter Eight: A Gallery of Frames...............................................54PART THREE: TYPES OF EVIDENCE....................................................63Chapter Nine: Consciousness......................................................65Chapter Ten: OBEs and NDEs.......................................................76Chapter Eleven: Lucid Dreaming...................................................84Chapter Twelve: ESP and Remote Viewing...........................................92Chapter Thirteen: Ghosts or Apparitions..........................................102Chapter Fourteen: Physical Effects (PK, Healing).................................113Chapter Fifteen: Spirit Mediumship...............................................125Chapter Sixteen: Reincarnation...................................................136PART FOUR: MAKING SOMETHING OF IT................................................147Chapter Seventeen: Practical Applications........................................149Chapter Eighteen: Summing Up and Looking to the Future...........................154Bibliography.....................................................................165Index............................................................................175

Chapter One

What Inexactly Are the Questions?

As in most scientific research and, as philosophers will tell you, in clear thinking in general, the most important step is to define the question clearly. I'm asking two questions: what evidence is there for consciousness apart from the body, and what evidence is there for the survival of consciousness after bodily death? I must admit that these questions are very difficult to clarify.

To begin with, what exactly is consciousness? Several times my review of the literature on the subject came across statements like, "Science has no clue about what consciousness is, or how to locate it in the brain." This could be a problem.

I remember at one meeting of the Society for Scientific Exploration, a highly respected member who had researched the mysteries of consciousness for decades stood up and chided (or perhaps commiserated with) fellow members by pointing out how the term "consciousness" was being used in so many different ways that we didn't really seem to know what we were talking about. Is it awareness, self-awareness, being awake rather than unconscious, some transcendental mystical state, or what?

And yet we all know when we are conscious. We may not know what it is, but we know when we've got it (or when we're "conscious" of it). Right now, I am conscious of myself typing on a MAC. Wouldn't you think that with all of our modern neuroscience somebody could explain how I know that, and how I know that I know that? It's maddening and fascinating at the same time. There's a lot more like this, just wait.

Another major issue has to do with what we mean by "survival after death." How would we know if Uncle Harry's "spirit" survived death? Or rather, what would we mean by saying that his spirit survived (how we would know it is another tough issue, as you will see later on)? Would he have to remember his life and identity as Uncle Harry? If he has no memory or sense of self, and he reincarnates as little Susie Q., in what sense is that a surviving Uncle Harry?

As it turns out, there are really a number of interconnected and inexact questions involved in the subject area of consciousness and whether it can exist apart from or beyond a living body. As noted in the Introduction, some of the reported phenomena that suggest consciousness beyond the body are ESP (or psi, for psychic phenomena in general), OBEs, NDEs, reincarnation, spirit mediumship, and apparition (ghost) experiences. All of these phenomena have been variously explained in different scientific frames as nonexistent, as misinterpreted normal events, as evidence for survival after death, or as evidence for psi but not necessarily for survival.

Chapter Two

Why Would We Ask These Questions?

In the introduction I said that it was hard to imagine people not being curious about consciousness and about whether consciousness (or spirit) survived death. I was being a bit ethnocentric when I wrote that; in other words, I wasn't taking into account cultural variations worldwide or even within the United States. As a sociologist and anthropologist I actually know better, having encountered points of view all the way from traditional Chinese who have taken the afterlife of their ancestors for granted to some mainstream scientists in Western society whose attitude seems to be, "Why are people so silly as to believe in survival?" In other words, some people's answer to "Why would we ask these questions?" is, "We wouldn't."

Of course religion has a lot to do with how people understand or question consciousness and survival. In the research I did in Hong Kong for the book Chinese Ghosts and ESP (Emmons, 1982), most people took the existence of ghosts for granted and sometimes minded being asked whether they believed in them ("Why do you ask me about such unlucky things?!"). Chinese ghosts are considered very unlucky or dangerous if they are not worshipped properly.

Amazingly, 72% in my random-sample survey of the residents of modern Hong Kong still practiced ancestor worship in 1980. Worshipping ones ancestors (ones ghostly relatives) rests on the assumption that they live an afterlife similar to this one and require symbolic objects or effigies of practical things like money and material goods to be sent to them by burning the effigies. People go to spirit mediums to find out what their ancestors want. This is very practical, because the living help the dead in return for favors in their own lives, in terms of health and wealth.

One day I was sitting in the waiting room of a very popular spirit medium in Hong Kong, waiting for a reading. All the others in the room were Chinese women, who started gossiping about me in Cantonese (which they never dreamed a foreigner like me could understand). Some of them recognized me as having been there before, and they had eavesdropped on my previous readings, a common practice. "Here comes the Westerner again [me] to chit-chat with his auntie!" In other words, I was being ridiculed for just "visiting" with my dead aunt through the spirit medium, instead of asking important questions like, "Did you like the [Mercedes] Benz effigy I burned for you last week?" and "Will you help me win the housing lottery?"

Aside from ancestor worship there are other Chinese traditional...