Beyond Death: The Best Evidence for the Survival of Human Consciousness

By: Sharon Hewitt Rawlette PhD

Narrated by: Sharon Hewitt Rawlette

Runner-up in the 2021 Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies Essay Contest.

Does consciousness continue after death? For 150 years, scientists, doctors, and other highly qualified investigators have carefully collected evidence in hopes of answering this question. In this award-winning essay, Sharon Hewitt Rawlette analyzes the best of that evidence to date.

Starting with third-person phenomena such as after-death apparitions, mediumship, and telephone calls from the dead and moving on to first-person phenomena like near-death experiences, memories of previous lives, and memories of the period between lives, Rawlette lays out the vast landscape of evidence for life beyond the grave. She argues that extensive cross-validation between first - and third-person evidence cripples the strongest skeptical arguments brought against each type considered alone. Ultimately, she concludes that the survival of consciousness is the best explanation for the evidence taken as a whole and considers what implications this has for our understanding of the world we live in, even while we are still on this side of death.

Both listenable and rigorous, Beyond Death is a fascinating distillation of a century and a half of afterlife research.

©2021 Sharon Rawlette (P)2022 Sharon Rawlette

Parapsychology was a serious scientific study in the 1800s...

and even psychology greats like William James studied paranormal phenomenon with great interest. Unfortunately, the study was eventually ostracized from serious science, without real proof one way or the other. Thanks to scientists like Rupert Sheldrake Jeffrey Krippel and Tanya Luhrman, as well as philosopher Sharon Rawlette, we are able to reconsider the Paranormal and what possibly might be going on. Paranormal experiences are Universal and have always existed throughout human history. Thus, they deserve a serious investigation