Customer Reviews
Critical Thinking Book Review
In The Afterlife Experiments, Dr. Gary Schwartz attempts to prove the existence of life after death. The main premise of his argument is that there is life after death. Dr. Schwartz attempts to prove this by designing several elaborate, scientific experiments using mediums to communicate with the dead. This book explains the experiments he conducted and the seemingly conclusive evidence of life after death. Just by telling us about these experiments, Dr. Schwartz gives us some very good and convincing arguments of life after death. Even though you can tell that he is fully convinced of the power of mediums Dr. Schwartz never tells you what to believe. He just presents the information and lets you decide what to think. As he states in Chapter One, "Let the data speak for itself." As we all know, it is hard to ague against statistical data.
The first experiment Dr. Schwartz and his college, Linda Russek designed was called the HBO experiment and was going to be broadcast on that network. This experiment was much more elaborate than what you would see on Crossing Over with John Edward. You can tell that Schwartz has taken a lot of time and effort into eliminating all the pathways that potential frauds could take. The fact that the mediums could not see the sitter and could only ask yes or no questions left little room for phonies and skeptics, therefore enhancing his argument. Making his argument even stronger were the specific facts that all five mediums picked up on. The best example being that all five mediums talked about the sitter having a dead son with a name beginning with the letter M without even asking the sitter anything. Schwartz did the math and figured out that the probably of this is 1 in 4 million. This is a strong argument based on the nature of the experiment and the answers of the mediums, statistical data just makes it stronger. Schwartz's main argument after the HBO experiment is that this isn't conclusive proof of life after death, just that something extraordinary is going on.
Schwartz wasn't happy with the results of the HBO experiment, so he designed a different, better experiment that would make his argument stronger. By adding the ten-minute silent sitter experiment to the Miraval Silent-Sitter experiment Schwartz accomplishes his goal of strengthening his argument. In this experiment Schwartz writes that during the ten-minute silent sitter period the mediums guessed correctly 77% of the time while the control group (his students) when given specific questions to guess an answer only had 34%. Using this and other facts and statistics, Schwartz reels you into his argument. How else could the mediums have guessed correctly 77% of the time without seeing or hearing the sitter? Logically, the mediums must have some time of communication with the dead.
Gary Schwartz being a somewhat skeptical scientist; still wasn't happy with the results of the Miraval Silent-Sitter experiments. So he created a new experiment that would add even more strength and legitimacy to his arguments. The Canyon Ranch experiment forced the mediums to communicate with the dead without hearing or seeing the sitter for the entire session. The strange occurrences during this experiment really made me believe in his argument. There seems to be no other explanation for John Edward getting signals from the author's mom other than he was really communicating with her. Dr. Schwartz wasn't even the sitter, but unknown to Edward; he was behind the screen with the sitter. After reading that passage all I could think was wow, Schwartz really has made a good argument for the survival of conscious.
The Campbell White Crow readings went one step further than all of the previous experiments. Seemingly, the experiment seems like it would make his argument stronger, but all it did was make it weaker. The idea that one person could meditate, talk on the phone to the sitter, and get that accurate of answers was a bit hard to swallow. I had an easier time believing the previous experiments because they weren't as abstract and seemed more scientific. I'm not saying I completely disagree with the results; I just have a little harder time believing them.
I'm glad Schwartz shared his experiments and arguments with the public by writing this book. He knew full well that most people would not agree with his arguments, but he wrote the book anyway. This book really enlightened me to the art of mediumship and to the survival of the conscious after death. Before reading this book, I thought all mediums were fakes. Now after reading this book, I don't think I could say that. Schwartz did a wonderful job of posing one of our greatest existential questions and scientifically trying to answer it.
Read This Now
With a foreword by Deepak Chopra, this new book details experiments on mediumship conducted under the best set of scientific protocols yet attempted. Over the years, Gary Schwartz, an Ivy League psychologist with impeccable credentials, assembled his Dream Team of mediums and convinced them to work under strict supervision-usually not their venue of choice.
The experiments constituted significant risk for all involved. For Gary Schwartz, his academic standing was on the line. As a professor of psychology, medicine, neurology, psychiatry, and surgery at the University of Arizona, venturing into such controversial and uncharted waters could be devastating. The mediums participating also were placed at risk in that it was made known that anyone caught cheating would be publicly exposed. For those making a livelihood from readings with departed loved ones, such official denouncement could hurt them financially.
Schwartz is first to acknowledge that readings from mediums are rarely perfect. In fact, he uses the Michael Jordan analogy. Jordan is acclaimed, not because he is perfect, but rather, because he is better than everyone else playing the game. His lifetime shooting average is about 45 percent. That's scoring less than half of the time. So too, Schwatz's Dream Team was made up of individuals who have remarkable track records, most of which have held up over a period of many years. Their exact averages have not been established, but they are far better than average or chance.
In designing the experiments Schwartz carefully listened to the established skeptics and incorporated their concerns and criticisms into the protocols. Foremost among these was the notion of a cold reading in which some self-professed psychics use feedback from the person to zero in on relevant issues. To prevent leakage of information, the protocols prevented direct visual contact between the medium and the sitter. In fact, during the initial phase of the experiments, the mediums provided their impressions with no feedback whatsoever. Only later in the process was controlled acknowledgement incrementally provided to them.
Just as Michael Jordan occasionally has a phenomenal game, some of the mediums have had extraordinary hits. Schwartz includes these as the White Crow Readings, ones in which the amount of specific and verifiable information exceeds any expectations, let alone chance. As an example, one medium, Laurie Campbell, a delightful young California housewife, correctly identified close relationships between George, Michael, Alice, Bob, and Jerry before any contact had been established. While most people might have relationships between friends and relatives with one or two of those names, five for five is well above chance. It gets better from there but you can read the rest of the story yourself.
It should be noted that the protocols call for the readings to be divided into information segments and then judged by the sitters to ascertain the degree of correctness. What seems to be most striking is when the mediums correctly identify specific information, previously unknown to the sitter. Only after later verification does the sitter learn that the reading was correct. With sufficient specificity, such examples can rule out any possible inadvertant information transfer between the sitter and the medium.
Most who claim the title of skeptic are really debunkers. For them, no amount of evidence will ever suffice. For the vast majority, who have an open mind but would like to believe we outlast our mortal coil, The Afterlife Experiments will provide both reassurance and guideposts. The true believers are often far out on the other end of the spectrum from debunkers. For them this book will be preaching to the converted. Still, it will provide facts to support their beliefs in a nonsectarian manner.
Ultimately, death remains the final great mystery. Gary Schwartz has yet to solve this teleological puzzle definitively, but he has gone a long way in presenting hard evidence in support of the nearly universal theories and belief systems that consciousness, in some form, continues beyond cessation of bodily functioning. If you're planning to make the trip-and who isn't-then I highly recommend you read this book.
No Science in These Experiments
The book is not evidence of an afterlife nor of telepathy. Those two phenomena may well exist, but this book does nothing to evince it.
For detailed reviews, I suggest the Skeptical Inquirer (sorry, I don't know which volume off the top of my head), skepticreport.com, or the Forum at randi.org. For a quick list of flaws, though, I'll give it a shot:
-There is no hypothesis put forth which the experiment attempts to demonstrate or falsify.
-The protocols are ludicrously porous; Schwartz claims that cheating is not possible but a reading of the book reveals myriad opportunities for cheating by the medium and for cold reading (for instance, and this is not the worst of it: Schwartz says the sitters give no feedback, but they consistently do
-Schwartz's statistical analysis contains sophomoric errors, particularly where he averages "accuracy"
-The "control" survey done is not a control at all and is instituted after and differently than the actual experiments
-Schwartz refuses to say how he turns a subjective sitter determination of accuracy (on a scale of -3 to +3) into a percentage accuracy; he just does it
-Only one complete transcript is shown (and that's not really complete in that it leaves out the "mood setting" introduction by medium George Anderson); only snippets of some others are shown; the vast majority are not referenced at all
-One John Edward is missing with the sitter, Schwartz takes the sitter's place and counts the information as hits for him
There's plenty more, but the holes in this book are huge. It is not remotely science. You can determine that by noting that Schwartz does not publish it in scientific journals; he publishes it in the media. He then refuses to share the actual data with anyone.
The experiments are worthless. Schwartz demonstrates nothing.
Buy the book if you are interested in how people deceive themselves and others by donning the trappings of science while avoiding its rigors, but do not buy it if you want actual science demonstrated.
And, yes, I have communicated my thoughts to Schwartz.
