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The Case for Immortality: The Story of Life After Death
Book by Spaggett
Hardcover
First published March 4, 1975
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August 16, 2024
A PARAPSYCHOLOGICAL WRITER GIVES EVIDENCE
Allen Spraggett (born 1932) is an author, radio and TV broadcaster, and psychical researcher and consultant, as well as an ordained Evangelical, and later Spiritual Sciences Minister. This book was published in 1974.
He argues, "we must examine the antisurvivalist counterhypotheses. There are only two, really. The first is that the medium acquired the evidential information by normal means, probably fraud... The question must be taken very seriously. Besides the possibility of the medium having innocently picked up the information---by reading, conversation, or some other way---the history of spiritualism reveals only too clearly that many mediums have used trickery. Even genuine mediums have been known to lapse into fraud." [See his book Arthur Ford: The Man Who Talked with the Dead He adds, "The second counterhypothesis to survival is super-ESP in the medium... the information came not from the dead, but from the medium's own psychic powers." (Pg. 30)
He admits, "A medium in a self-induced trance is in a highly suggestible state, and the sitter's thoughts and expectations, spoken or unspoken, can color the medium's utterances... Does this mean all purported spirit communicators are purely subjective creations. This conclusion does not follow at all from the evidence, any more than the existence of some fictional characters in books means that ALL characters in books are fictional." (Pg. 35) He acknowledges, "The evidence, in the case of apparitions of the dead, that these are telepathic images rather than actual spirit entities lies in the fact that the information communicated usually shows the same kind of distortion as commonly occurs in mediumistic messages." (Pg. 66)
Of non-verbal messages (e.g., physical effects), he says, "such manifestations can be plausibly interpreted as 'signs'... that a deceased personality is still in existence and able... to manifest his presence... It may be that after-death conditions are such that sometimes the deceased can only manifest in ways which seem to us odd or even bizarre... Often, too, there is a deeper meaning in these telekinetic manifestations than may at first appear." (Pg. 107)
Discussing reincarnation, he observes, "If we have all lived past lives, why do we not remember them? Without memory of them, say some critics, or past lives can do us no good... However, all of us have been shaped by experiences we had in earliest childhood, none of which... we remember... Are we less influenced by those experiences because we cannot remember them?" (Pg. 140)
This book, though nearly 50 years old, will still be of interest to those researching life after death from the paranormal side.
Allen Spraggett (born 1932) is an author, radio and TV broadcaster, and psychical researcher and consultant, as well as an ordained Evangelical, and later Spiritual Sciences Minister. This book was published in 1974.
He argues, "we must examine the antisurvivalist counterhypotheses. There are only two, really. The first is that the medium acquired the evidential information by normal means, probably fraud... The question must be taken very seriously. Besides the possibility of the medium having innocently picked up the information---by reading, conversation, or some other way---the history of spiritualism reveals only too clearly that many mediums have used trickery. Even genuine mediums have been known to lapse into fraud." [See his book Arthur Ford: The Man Who Talked with the Dead He adds, "The second counterhypothesis to survival is super-ESP in the medium... the information came not from the dead, but from the medium's own psychic powers." (Pg. 30)
He admits, "A medium in a self-induced trance is in a highly suggestible state, and the sitter's thoughts and expectations, spoken or unspoken, can color the medium's utterances... Does this mean all purported spirit communicators are purely subjective creations. This conclusion does not follow at all from the evidence, any more than the existence of some fictional characters in books means that ALL characters in books are fictional." (Pg. 35) He acknowledges, "The evidence, in the case of apparitions of the dead, that these are telepathic images rather than actual spirit entities lies in the fact that the information communicated usually shows the same kind of distortion as commonly occurs in mediumistic messages." (Pg. 66)
Of non-verbal messages (e.g., physical effects), he says, "such manifestations can be plausibly interpreted as 'signs'... that a deceased personality is still in existence and able... to manifest his presence... It may be that after-death conditions are such that sometimes the deceased can only manifest in ways which seem to us odd or even bizarre... Often, too, there is a deeper meaning in these telekinetic manifestations than may at first appear." (Pg. 107)
Discussing reincarnation, he observes, "If we have all lived past lives, why do we not remember them? Without memory of them, say some critics, or past lives can do us no good... However, all of us have been shaped by experiences we had in earliest childhood, none of which... we remember... Are we less influenced by those experiences because we cannot remember them?" (Pg. 140)
This book, though nearly 50 years old, will still be of interest to those researching life after death from the paranormal side.
Displaying 1 of 1 review