Man REVEALS Evidence For Life After Death! NOT LIKE YOU THINK!

Now I think that many people are repelled by the idea of reincarnation because they dislike the idea of being trapped on some sort of endless wheel of birth and death and rebirth. But I think that the evidence indicates that most of us only reincarnate two or perhaps three times. Once the lessons of Earth life are learned, there's simply no reason to come back and repeat them. Hello everyone, my name is Chris Carter. I was educated at Oxford University in philosophy and other subjects and I've written four books. My latest one is The Case for the Afterlife, which covers five independent lines of evidence for the afterlife and argues that the case for the afterlife can be proven beyond all reasonable doubt based upon nothing but evidence. When I was a student in my first year in England, my first year of grad studies, my first year I lived in a college dormitory and one of my friends, I was talking to one of my friends one night and he was trying to convince me to spend my second year there living with him and two other graduate students in a farmhouse owned by our college, which lay on land just outside of town. And I was hesitant. I wasn't sure if I wanted to leave dormitory, which was much closer to town and college, but he was persistent and he ended up saying the place has a ghost. I was surprised and I didn't know much about these things at the time. So I said, has anyone seen anything? And he said, no, but there's been a lot of strange sounds reported. I decided to see the place for myself. The college carpenter had his workshop on the property. So I stopped in for a chat and I soon came straight out with it. I just said, they tell me the place is haunted. He said, well, I haven't seen anything myself, but the carpenter before me, he swore the place was haunted. That was enough for me. I decided to move in to make a long story short. I did see and hear some things that I could not readily explain, which were not consistent with materialist views of some of the philosophers I'd studied, but I was open enough to admit that perhaps these things were of just what they seem, evidence for the lingering disembodied presence of someone who'd lived in the house in days long past. That's what sparked my interest. So when I returned to Canada, I began to think about, wonder if any serious research had been done on these topics. And during a visit to the local library, I was surprised to find an enormous volume of research had been performed. I was particularly impressed by the enormous volume of research performed by the British and American Societies of Psychical Research. These were both formed and founded in 1880s. The British Society was founded in 1882 with Henry Sidgwick, a philosopher at Cambridge University as the first president. Two years later, the American Society was founded with William James as the first president. He was a philosopher at Harvard University. And the early membership included some of the most esteemed scientists, philosophers, scholars, lawyers, and other physicians on both sides of the Atlantic. And despite the often repeated lie that the British and American Societies found no evidence, the simple fact of the matter is they found an enormous volume of evidence. And their work was very carefully documented. And again, to make a long story short, they found such a volume of high quality evidence that by the early years of the 20th century, almost all of the leading members of the British and American Societies were convinced by the evidence that we survived the deaths of our bodies, including those such as the lawyer Richard Hodgson, who started off as diehard skeptics, whose goal was to discredit mediumship and the other forms of evidence. So to answer your question, my own personal experiences were not particularly dramatic, not particularly evidential, but they did spark my interest. And what I found was an enormous volume of evidence that was far more impressive than anything that I ever experienced. I described two near-death experiences in my book. One of them was described by a physician, Lloyd Rudy, about a patient who seemingly came back to life. He was carefully monitored. He'd been dead 20, clinically dead, I mean, 20, 25 minutes without a heartbeat, without breathing. Came back to life and described floating above his body, being near the ceiling of the operating room and witnessing Dr. Rudy and his assistant surgeon discussing what went wrong. Rudy was very impressed with what happened. Described seeing things he shouldn't have. Dr. Amodo Cantineo, he was the other physician there, he said, this was no hoax. This was no way, it's as real as it gets. We were absolutely shocked that he would come back to life. After 20 or more minutes, we had pronounced him dead on the operating room table and told the wife that he had died. I've seen people recover from profound and prolonged shock, but still having life. In this case, there was no life. That was from Amodo Cantineo, January 28th, 30th, 2013. That was one of the two patients that I mentioned. Yeah, he continues. The patient was dead for 25 minutes or more with no cardiac pulmonary movement or brain function. The brain dies after a few minutes of lack of oxygen, period. This case was 25 minutes at least, if not more. I cannot explain it, but it happened and I am living witness of the case. I was there. Many times in medicine, we just do not have the right answer or any answers. One can believe whatever one wants to believe, but in my mind, this is a miracle unexplainable by current scientific knowledge regards Dr. Roberto Amodo Cantineo. So that's one of the two cases I described. The other was Operation Standstill. It's a famous case involving Pam Reynolds, who had an operation to remove an aneurysm at the base of her brain. They had to stop her heart, stop her breathing, drain the blood from her brain in order to operate on this aneurysm because it was so deep within the brain. This operation was given the nickname Operation Standstill because essentially the surgeons had to induce clinical death in the operating room. So Pam was clinically dead. Her bodily functions were closely monitored by a variety of equipment. By all medical terms, she was clinically dead. No heartbeat, no breathing, no blood running through her brain, no activity in any part of her brain, including her brainstem. And yet she experienced probably the deepest near-death experience ever recorded on record. Well, she was being closely monitored by sophisticated medical equipment. I don't want to go through this case right now. It's quite lengthy, but interested folks can find it among other places. I describe it in my book and there's references to other places which they can see. Let's see here. The chief physician was Dr. Robert Spetzler. This is how he described it. I don't have an explanation for it. I don't know how it's possible for it to happen considering the physiological state she was in. At the same time, I've seen so many things that I can't explain, but I don't want to be so arrogant as to be able to say there's no way it can happen. So by three measures, Pam was clinically dead. No spontaneous breathing, no heartbeat, and fixed dilated pupils indicating no activity in the brainstem. Remember, all the blood had to be drained from her brain in order for them to operate on the aneurysm. And yet she reported the deepest near-death experience ever reported. And as for whether or not Pam was really dead, this is what Pam had to say. I think death is an illusion, a really nasty and bad lie. In my latest book, The Case for the Afterlife, I mentioned five independent lines of evidence. Deathbed visions, the near-death experience, children who seem to remember previous life, apparitions, and messages seemingly received from the departed via human mediums. These five lines of evidence, all very different from each other, all point in the same direction towards the existence of consciousness after biological death. The single strongest line of evidence, probably the last one I mentioned, seeming communication from the departed via human mediums. This was the line of evidence most carefully studied by the British and American Society of Psychical Research, and it was the line of evidence that convinced many of them, again, such as the skeptical lawyer Richard Hodgson, that he was indeed with his departed friend, and also convinced his friend George Pellow, who's a fellow lawyer who died at age 32 after a fall, that they were departing, were communicating with their deceased friend. Hodgson devised a variety of very ingenious ways of testing the medium, Ms. Lenora Piper, whether or not she was actually relaying messages from George Pellow. In later stages, Pellow seems to have actually taken control of the medium's vocal cords and her hand in order to write messages, and he's very convinced. The messages seem to be very convincing, and they absolutely rule out fraud or any form of telepathy. So for a variety of reasons, which the reader will understand, I think that the single most convincing line of evidence would be the communication of the departed via human mediumship, in other words. I think it's important to remember that most of these so-called skeptics are actually militant atheists. Now one of the pillars of their worldview is the ancient doctrine of materialism. This is the idea that all events ultimately have a physical cause, and therefore the mind is produced somehow by the brain. Now any evidence to the contrary provides a direct challenge to the doctrine of materialism, and thus threatens the collapse of this entire worldview. And this, more than anything else, I believe explains their vehement opposition to the evidence that proves materialism false, such as, for instance, psychic phenomena, and the near-death experience, and other lines of evidence that the mind can operate independently of the brain. You asked me if belief in a life after death is a matter of faith. I think that the evidence supplements and reinforces our faith, as the Reverend Charles Drayton Thomas wrote so eloquently. As I mentioned earlier in my latest book, I deal with five independent lines of evidence, and these lines of evidence are all very different from each other. They all point in the same direction. So I think that the case for the afterlife can be made entirely on the basis of the evidence, and the evidence supplements and reinforces any religious beliefs we may have had. You asked me what I think is the relationship between the mind and the brain. I think that the evidence indicates that the brain acts as a two-way receiver-transmitter for the mind, sometimes from brain to mind, as in sense perception, and other times from mind to body, as in willed action. And I don't think that it's even necessary to invoke the so-called paranormal in order to make this case. I think that even mainstream medical evidence supports this idea. For instance, we have the well-known phenomenon of terminal lucidity. This is well known among people who work with the dying and hospices and so forth, nurses and physicians. And it refers to something that has been noticed for thousands of years, and that is the strange phenomenon that as death approaches, people who are suffering from damaged, diseased brains, whether due to illness or injury, suddenly seem to regain their normal senses, often after years of being little more than existing in a vegetable type of state. And some of these effects are quite dramatic. And I'd like to read something for you here about a certain case. Yes, terminal lucidity. This case involves an elderly woman suffering from Alzheimer's disease, which was caused by degeneration and degradation of the cerebral cortex and hippocampus. So the woman had neither talked, this case is mentioned in my book, the woman had neither talked nor reacted to family members for years. And yet one week before she died, she suddenly started chatting with her granddaughter about various family members and giving her advice. Her granddaughter said that it was like talking to someone who had been asleep 20 years. So the reports such as these suggest that the mind of the patient is disengaging from the restrictions of a damaged or diseased brain. And this has been known since ancient times. Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine, wrote about this. Cicero, Galen, and several others. They all held the view that as death approaches, the spirit, the mind, whatever you want to call it, disengages from a damaged brain, damaged body, and goes on its own way. So it's not even necessary to invoke the paranormal. And by the way, this view has been held by very esteemed scientists and physicians. For instance, Sir John Eccles, he won the Nobel Prize in Physiology for his work in discovering how neurons, brain cells, communicate with each other. They do so through the exchange of chemicals, which he called neurotransmitters. And he was convinced that the brain is the instrument of the mind, interacts with the brain at the level of the synapse. The esteemed brain surgeon, Wilder Penfield, who won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his work with epileptic patients, he started off trying to explain how the brain generates the mind. After years of study, mostly with epileptic patients, he came to the exact opposite conclusion. He thought that the relationship between the mind and the brain was that of programmer to computer. In other words, the brain is a sort of biological computer which is programmed by the mind in order to handle mundane tasks, therefore freeing up our consciousness to deal with more exceptional issues. And we've all experienced this. Think about learning how to drive a car, play a musical instrument, learn a new sport. At the very beginning, it requires a lot of conscious effort. We have to think about everything that we're doing. We have to remember to look over our shoulder, turn on the signal light, and turn the signal light off, and so forth. But once we've been doing it for a while, these functions become automatic, and then we're free to think about other things. Many of us have had the experience of driving in a car, perhaps visiting a friend on a Saturday night, and we're thinking about something else as we're driving, or daydreaming, or talking to a friend, and we find that we're driving to work. We're automatically, as if on autopilot, driving to work or to the grocery store. Why? Because we've programmed our brain to carry out certain tasks automatically. Same thing with playing a musical instrument. At the very beginning, we have to think about everything we're doing, our position around our hands on the keyboard, or on the frets, what have you. But after we've been doing it for a while, these things become automatic, and therefore we're free to think about how we want the music to sound. Same thing playing a sport. The beginning requires a lot of concentration. So I think that the relationship between the mind and the brain can be described as that between programmer and computer. And I think all the evidence, including the mainstream medical evidence, most of which is not particularly well known by the public, I think, but which I describe in my book, indicates that the brain operates as a two-way receiver for the mind. Yes, while mediumship is actually mentioned in the Old Testament, King Saul contacted a medium described in the New International Version of the Old Testament as the Medium of Endor, an older version she described as the Witch of Endor, but it's believed the more accurate translation is the Medium of Endor. He visits the medium, and it's reported that the spirit of the Prophet Samuel rose out of the ground and told King Saul that he would perish in battle the next day, which he reportedly did. Now, this description of mediumship is simply described as historical fact. It's not described in terms of it's a warning or anything like that. But some Christians and others think that the Old Testament somehow prohibits mediumship or communication with the But I don't believe so. I think that Christianity and the evidence for survival are compatible, and I argue that in my latest book, The Case for the Afterlife. Now, there's several passages in the New Testament that do not seem to prohibit such communication, although they urge caution. For instance, there's the words of Jesus of Nazareth, who is quoted as saying, Now, if we think that the change called death does not suddenly transform bad people into good, then of course it's wise to test the spirits. And there's another passage, Now, here Jesus is referring to false prophets, but the author Miles Edward Allen wrote recently, reduction of anxiety, a feeling of being closer to God, and other such positive feelings and actions, then what role could the devil be playing? What sort of demon goes around encouraging folks to love one another? And there's also evidence that the early Christians did indeed spend time communing with spirits. The Christian described a woman whose gifts include, and he wrote, So I don't think there's any necessary conflict between the evidence for survival and Christianity. It's also important to remember that many of the researchers of the early British and American Societies for Psychical Research were clergymen and theologians. One of them was the Reverend Charles Drayton Thomas. He was a Methodist minister. He was an active member of the British Society for Psychical Research, held many sittings with mediums, and he devised some innovative procedures, such as the so-called proxy sittings, in which someone who doesn't know the medium, doesn't know the deceased, I should say, visits a medium on behalf of a third person. In other words, he's a proxy sitter, and this person will be told only the name of the person and the date of their death, and yet the successes continued. This ruled out telepathy between the medium and the sitter, and also ruled out any sort of phishing for information on the part of the medium. Now, Charles Drayton Thomas is quoted in my book. This is what he had to say. Perhaps it will be asked what benefit may be expected from a general acceptance of this evidence for survival. I think it will do for others what it has done for me. It has supplemented and reinforced my faith, both in times of bereavement and in the prospects of old age and death. Also, it has further emphasized the value of personal religion. I also quote Catholics, Anglicans, as also saying that there's no necessary conflict between the evidence and ancient revelation. Well, if you're asking me if reincarnation is incompatible with Christian belief, I don't think so. There are also theologians and clergymen who disagree with that. There's a story in the Old Testament. It's mentioned in John. It deals with Jesus and disciples encounter a man born blind. This is what John wrote. As Jesus passed by, he saw a man blind from birth, and his disciples asked him, Rabbi, who has sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? Now, this would indicate that the disciples accepted the idea of reincarnation, and Jesus did not rebuke them on his reply. He also refers to John as Jesus is quoted as saying in Matthew, I say to you, among those born of woman, no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist, and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come. In other words, he's saying that John apparently was a reincarnation of the prophet Elijah. There's also many modern theologians who agree with this. Gettys MacGregor wrote, reincarnation takes care of the problem of moral injustice. To the age-old question of Job, why do the wicked prosper and the righteous suffer? The reincarnationist has a ready answer. We are seeing in this life only a fragment of a long story. Death is not the end of a chapter. It is not the end of the story. Oh, I'm sorry. Death is but the end of a chapter. It is not the end of the story. Can I read that again? Is that okay? Theologian Gettys MacGregor wrote, reincarnation takes care of the problem of moral injustice. To the age-old question of Job, why do the wicked prosper and the righteous suffer? The reincarnationist has a ready answer. We are seeing in this life only a fragment of a long story. Death is but the end of a chapter. It is not the end of the story. And there's Leslie Weatherhead. He's a former president of the British Methodist Conference. He gave a lecture titled The Case for Reincarnation. And he asked, if I fail to pass those examinations in life, which can only be taken while I dwell in the physical body, shall I not have to come back and take them again? Now, I think that many people are repelled by the idea of reincarnation because they dislike the idea of being trapped on some sort of endless wheel of birth and death and rebirth. But I think that the evidence indicates that most of us only reincarnate two, perhaps three times. Once the lessons of earth life are learned, there's simply no reason to come back and repeat them. Well, no one knows why some children claim to remember previous life and others don't. Ian Stevenson found that in those cases in which children claim to be claim to recall a previous life, the period of time between the death of the previous personality and their birth is usually short. That may have something to do with it. He also found that children who normally claim to remember previous life, the previous personality often died young, sometimes violently. So in these cases, there seems to be a sense of unfinished business in the previous personality's life. And this may account for the brief interval of time between the previous personality's death and the birth of the child who claims to remember living the life of that previous personality. And that may account for the fact that these children in particular recall a previous life. And most children simply do not make those claims. And by the way, these children usually start making these claims as soon as they can talk. They don't say, I remember being somebody. They say, I am this person. I was this person. My name is this. I lived here, what have you. And the memories usually start to fade by the time they're eight, nine years old. By the time they're 11 or 12, the memory is usually simply gone. You asked about the nature of heaven and hell. That's an enormous question. The last appendix of my book is simply titled, What the Dead Say. There's no simple and straightforward answer to that question. The afterlife is not a static place. It seems to involve various levels, some more desirable than others. And the reports via Medium seem to indicate that that aspect of the afterworld we first encounter depends upon what sort of person we are, depends upon our interests, depends upon the skills and the mentality that we've cultivated in this life. And it also very much seems to depend upon the way we've treated others and our attitude towards the welfare of those around us. Having said that, I do think that there seems to be, the afterlife seems to be a world or in a world of progression through the various stages of existence as we grow as spiritual beings. When I was in my teens and early 20s in college, like many people, I had my doubts. I never became an atheist. I did become for a while in college. I was agnostic. I just didn't know. I often wondered if there was any good evidence for the existence of a creator or the existence of an afterlife. I do think that there's evidence for the existence of a creator, the universe. The arguments for the existence of God, a creator, are scientific. The evidence for Jesus of Nazareth being who he said he was are historical, different categories of evidence. I think that the scientific evidence for the existence of a creator is convincing. I think that the evidence for Jesus of Nazareth, the historical evidence for Jesus of Nazareth being who he said he was, is also convincing. This is not the focus of my book. People can probably seek out the books of former militant atheist Lee Strobel. He wrote a book called The Case for the Creator. He wrote another book called The Case for Christ. Those are two excellent books. Essentially, in the first book, he interviews various scientists from different disciplines and philosophers on the scientific evidence for the existence of a creator. In the second book, The Case for Christ, he interviews various historians, theologians, a physician on the historical and medical evidence for Jesus of Nazareth being who he said he was and for the resurrection. That's far beyond the scope of my latest book, but I think that we should follow the evidence wherever it leads, and that's my creed. I think that there's some truth in all religions. I do not want to disparage any particular belief system that's different from mine. There is often widespread agreement on certain fundamentals between various religions. I think that the facts of modern revelation, as summarized in my book and as carefully gathered by the British and American Societies for Psychological Research, by various cardiologists and others studying the near-death experience, as analyzed by philosophers such as myself, I think that the facts of modern revelation fully support the reports of ancient revelation. Well, my latest book is titled The Case for the Afterlife, and if readers or listeners are interested in learning more about the book, they can go to the website of my publisher, Llewellyn, and they can simply look up Chris Carter, The Case for the Afterlife, and on the website they will find a description of the book. They will find endorsements from leading people in the field, and they will also find a brief essay written by yours truly titled Can We Prove There's Life After Death? in which I argue that yes, we can prove it, but we have to be careful by what we mean by proof. It can be proven beyond all reasonable doubt based upon the evidence. And if readers are interested in purchasing the book, it's on various online sites, Amazon, Goodreads, and also at fine brick-and-mortar bookstores, where I like to shop, such as Barnes & Noble. But again, probably the best place to start looking or start investigating if you want to learn more about the book would be the website of my publisher. Thanks for having me on today, Llewellyn, and I wish you and your listeners a very pleasant morning, afternoon, or evening, depending upon when they're listening or watching this broadcast. Thanks for having me on.