In Part II of this series, I wrote the following about near-death experiences:
There are thousands of people who have had near-death experiences, who say the afterlife is permeated with love, that the afterlife is just by any sane definition of justice, that consciousness is eternal, that we are all connected, etc. etc. Knowledge of this gives hope, purpose and meaning to people, it consoles people, deters suicide, eases grief and fear of death. Not just for people who have near-death experiences, but for millions of people who learn about other people who have near-death experiences.
Unfortunately, pseudoskeptics often resort to wrong explanations to discredit the reality of near-death experiences.
What kind of people would use wrong explanations to discredit the reality of a phenomena that helps people suffering from grief, eases fear of death, deters suicide and gives people hope, purpose and meaning in life?
One answer to that question is: people like Caroline Watt and Dean Mobbs the authors of a paper titled, There is Nothing Paranormal About Near-Death Experiences which ignored the evidence of the paranormal aspects of near-death experiences.
The evidence that near-death experiences are paranormal comes from verifiable (veridical) events that the experiencer perceives while their brain is inactive. Near-death experience researcher, Dr. Pim van Lommel MD says:
These [veridical] aspects can be corroborated by doctors, nurses, and family members. It’s important, because it not only can tell us what they perceived, but also the moment that it happened can be corroborated. That what they perceived from a position out of the body really happened at a time that they were unconscious. In other words, no cardiac function; there was no brain function at all.
In an interview on Skeptiko Podcast, Caroline Watt said, about the paper There is Nothing Paranormal About Near-Death Experiences:
"Our paper didn’t deal with this question of veridicality at all."Near-death experience researcher, Dr. Bruce Greyson MD says:
As I said, it was intended to be a provocative piece. It’s not claiming to be balanced.
If you ignore everything paranormal about NDEs, then it’s easy to conclude, there’s nothing paranormal about them.
What kind of people would resort to wrong explanations to discredit the reality of a phenomenon that helps people suffering from grief, eases fear of death, deters suicide and gives people hope, purpose and meaning in life?
Here are some excerpts from the interview:
165. Dr. Caroline Watt Defends, There is Nothing Paranormal About Near-Death Experiences
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Dr. Caroline Watt: These articles are deliberately designed to be provoking of debate. The whole idea of this group of articles, this type of articles in this journal, is not to claim that you’re making some comprehensive review. It’s not to produce any new evidence for testing a theory, for example.
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Alex Tsakiris: Do you stand by the title?
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Dr. Caroline Watt: ...I believe it’s an overstatement. It’s too soon to say there’s nothing paranormal, because we don’t have all of the evidence in yet.
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I think the title, which is deliberately provocative, is going too far because it’s too soon to say there’s nothing paranormal. The content of the article itself is not saying anything new.
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Alex Tsakiris: ... all the main researchers in the NDE field; Bruce Greyson, University of Virginia; Pim van Lommel, who you cite in the paper; Jeff Long; Peter Fenwick; all of them agree in saying a conventional medical explanation of NDEs doesn’t fit the data.
I don’t know where you can point to any prominent NDE researchers that would support the title like that. It’s provocative, okay, but is it representative even of the field and of the research?
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Alex Tsakiris: In the paper, your first citation for van Lommel doesn’t seem to be correct. You site this case; here’s from your paper. ... “One example is a case study in which a patient with diabetes reports a near-death experience during an episode of hypoglycemia. There’s REM…” At the end, it’s cited as being in the Van Lommel paper.
I can’t find that in the van Lommel paper; I have it pulled up right here. Did I miss something? What is going on there?
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Alex Tsakiris: Here’s the point, I guess. What I read, I’m going to read directly from his paper on his findings, and this is the most important point. Occurrences of the experience, the near-death experience, were not associated with duration of cardiac arrest—that’s very important, or unconsciousness, medication, or fear of death before cardiac arrest.
This directly contradicts what your inclination or theory about what some of the causes would be. That’s why this was such a landmark study, because they looked for these things on the physiological or psychological front, and they didn’t find it. I guess I’d come back to saying, if we’re really going to push against this, then I think it behooves you to put forward some data.
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Dr. Caroline Watt: I disagree with you on that, because I don’t think van Lommel or anybody else has yet provided the evidence that the experience occurred during the time when the patient was clinically dead.
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Alex Tsakiris:
Dr. Pim van Lommel: …an out-of-body experience, where they have [inaudible 32:57] perception. These aspects can be corroborated by doctors, nurses, and family members. It’s important, because it not only can tell us what they perceived, but also the moment that it happened can be corroborated. That what they perceived from a position out of the body really happened at a time that they were unconscious. In other words, no cardiac function; there was no brain function at all.
Alex Tsakiris: He goes on in that quote, then, to cite the paper by Dr. Jan Holden, who I told you we just had on in the previous episode to talk about this paper. She did a peer reviewed published paper that did exactly that; it followed up with people, and found that their perceptions were significantly more accurate than the control group. We’ve also had Dr. Penny Sartori from the UK who’s done a similar study, and had similar findings. I think we can pinpoint and say that these conscious experiences are happening during the time when there is no brain activity.
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Dr. Caroline Watt:
These out-of-body experiences are actually quite rare when you tabulate their frequency. Even when people have a near-death experience, they don’t always have an out-of-body experience as part of it, so it takes a lot of time to gather the data.
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Our paper didn’t deal with this question of veridicality at all.
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Alex Tsakiris:... Dr. Jeff Long. ... He’s compiled probably the largest database of NDE accounts, and has done some very insightful analysis that I think would contradict a couple of things that you’re saying. One, the veridicality of the evidence and the number of percentage of people who have had an out of body experience is much larger. Hundreds and hundreds in her [sic] survey have experienced that, and have reported that.
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Alex Tsakiris: Let me just throw this last quote. I’ve been dying to get this quote in. Please. This is Dr. Bruce Greyson from the University of Virginia, and it’s a great response to your article.
His quote is, “If you ignore everything paranormal about NDEs, then it’s easy to conclude, there’s nothing paranormal about them.” That’s what I think I hear over and over again. Let’s ignore this, and then we can talk about how they’re not paranormal.
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Alex Tsakiris:You also reference people like Susan Blackmore in the paper. We’ve had her on. She said, specifically, “I’m no longer a researcher in this field. I shouldn’t be considered a researcher in this field,” and yet she’s cited, even though her research has been pretty thoroughly countered in, for example, the Handbook of Near-Death Experiences by Greyson and Jan Holden. They cover all that stuff.
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Dr. Caroline Watt: As I said, it was intended to be a provocative piece. It’s not claiming to be balanced.
What kind of people would resort to wrong explanations to discredit the reality of a phenomenon that helps people suffering from grief, eases fear of death, deters suicide and gives people hope, purpose and meaning in life?
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