The Implications of Near-Death Experiences for Research into the Survival of Consciousness

Abstract

It is generally supposed by psychical researchers that evidence suggestive of consciousness surviving bodily death would always be compatible with the so-called 'super-psi hypothesis', according to which living-agent psi is wholly responsible for the evidence.  In this paper, I argue that, granted how super-psi is supposed to work, a case can be made for certain near-death experience cases to be incompatible with the super-psi hypothesis.  From such a base, the explanatory impasse between the super-psi hypothesis and the survival hypothesis can be broken.  

Keywords:  near-death experiences, NDEs, super-psi, mind-body dualism, survival, consciousness