Peter Mulacz
Austrian Society for Parapsychology,
Vienna, Austria
There are many different concepts of "survival after death". Thus the first question in this panoramic overview is: what are we really talking about when discussing "survival after death"? It is suggested to narrow this discussion on the (traditional) model of personal survival as opposed to other models such as merging in into a super-individual entity like a drop of water in the ocean, and many other variations of what might happen to us after death. The "top-down" approach to the survival problem -- mediumistic enunciations, spontaneous cases, apparitions, hauntings, CORT, the Thouless cipher code, ITC/EVP, or other -- has resulted in a centennial discussion between the positions of survival and "super-psi" with no real progress. It has been shown (Mulacz 1976) that on pure logical grounds no compelling evidence for survival is possible by this kind of approach. Even more, as long as the underlying problem remains unsolved, all the ostensible evidence collected since more than hundred years remains but a colossus with feet of clay. Thus, the question about the premise for "survival" arises: who or what is supposed to survive? Traditionally, there is the notion of a kind of "something" that is in existence already during physical life but is different from the physical body which disintegrates after death. Does such thing -- regardless, how we name it (soul, mind, spirit, "shin") -- exist at all or is it just either a traditional belief or a posit based on wishful thinking? What properties do we ascribe to it? If the answer is: personal recollections that over one's lifetime have shaped the personality, the question arises which recollections -- "true" ones or such that are distorted by Alzheimer's disease or atherosclerotic dementia? Where else may memories be stored if not in the brain for which there exists overwhelming evidence? All these open questions show that the very basis for approaching the survival problem is a likely solution to the mind-body-problem, in other words philosophical anthropology. It comes quite naturally that the solution is sought on the basis of a dualistic model: mind vs. matter whereby mind is thought to be non-physical. Thouless and Wiesner in their "psi"-theory attempted a grand unification encompassing the mind-body-relation as well as the various paranormal phenomena which I consider to be still a very intriguing model, however, the underlying general problem how elements belonging to different categories (e. g. non-physical mind as opposed to the physical body) can act upon one another remains unsolved. Is there perhaps a third "something", mediating between the physical and the non-physical (like the "subtle body" of the occult tradition which is supposed to have mass that can be weighted) -- a concept prone to further complicate things? One possible solution to this problem, which I suggest, is to abandon the category of "influence" (i.e. causality, which in itself has its weakness as it is based on induction) and confine ourselves to establishing correlations -- a shift in our frame of thinking. Turning now to empirical research into the addressed issues, OBEE investigations are at the core of the problem. Recent research in NDEs has provided us with a wealth of case studies the interpretation of which remains disputed. It needs to be borne in mind that all narrations by OOBE experiencers originate from memory, not from actual experience, and are therefore prone to all kinds of distortions, even more, they may be mere (re-)constructions based on memories, as pointed out by Blackmore (Blackmore 1993) and others. Recently it has been shown (Woerle 2005) that even the much-praised Pam Reynolds case, hailed by some as a breakthrough, is not decisive and proves no conclusive evidence for the independence of "mind" from the physical body. Thus the conclusion is that the foundation on which the various phenomena of ostensible "survival" -- most ambiguous themselves -- may be discussed is very weak indeed and that all reasoning on the significance of these phenomena must necessarily remain purely hypothetical.