ESALEN INSTITUTE EXPLORES THE SURVIVAL OF BODILY DEATH

Conference Summaries: 1998 - 2008

http://www.esalenctr.org/display/survival.cfm

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THE SURVIVAL OF BODILY DEATH
Tenth Annual Conference
May 25 to 30, 2008

Original Link

EXCERPT:

Every spring for the past ten years a group of scholars has gathered at Esalen Institute to inquire into one of the greatest mysteries of all time: what happens to us after we die? In May 2008 nearly all of the regular participants attended along with a few new members who contributed some interesting perspectives to the overall conversation. The following conference summary provides a brief overview of the discussions that happened during this week. Because this is an ongoing conference series, this summary builds upon and makes periodic reference to summaries from previous meetings. The reader is thus encouraged to look at the content from previous years to help flesh out some of the several complicated issues that are involved with both the research and theory concerning the hypothesis that some kind of "personalized consciousness" survives bodily death.

In recent years this group of scholars has turned its focus to look at how to create a viable theory (or new metaphysical system, or new worldview) that is capable of bringing intelligibility to an array of empirical data suggestive of the survival of bodily death. This data spans a range of reports and phenomena that include: near-death experiences, multiple personality disorder, the possible existence of subtle dimensions or worlds, mediums who can communicate with dead spirit beings, telepathy, clairvoyance, and the spontaneous appearance of dramatic bodily changes like stigmata. Many of these phenomena are described in the book Irreducible Mind, written by Ed Kelly and others from this group.

Of course, creating a more encompassing theory that can rationally account for such a vast range of data is no small task. As Eric Weiss said at one point during the conference, the data suggestive of survival is more radical than the still inscrutable data that led to the quantum and relativity revolutions in the first part of the 20th century. Today, approximately 75 years after these revolutions, scientists are still unable to create a broadly agreed upon GUTs theory-a grand unified theory of all the known physical forces of the universe. Thus, Weiss suggested that given that the survival data is even "weirder" than that of non-local electrons, infinitesimal quarks, and dark matter, then we must think much grander to be able to encompass the survival data into a larger worldview that brings coherence to it. A different way to put this is that we live in an age between worldviews: the modern scientific worldview is running out of gas (literally and figuratively), and yet we have no other worldview to take its place. One of the central goals of Esalen's Center for Theory and Research (CTR) is to make sure this Survival of Bodily Death conference series contributes its knowledge and wisdom to the larger project of forming a new worldview for the 21st century and beyond.

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NHNE On Near-Death Experiences

NHNE On Past Life Research