Surviving Death: A Journalist Investigates Evidence for an Afterlife

by Leslie Kean

"While exploring the evidence for an afterlife, I witnessed some unbelievable things that are not supposed to be possible in our material world. Yet they were unavoidably and undeniably real. Despite my initial doubt, I came to realize that there are still aspects of Nature which are neither understood or accepted, even though their reality has profound implications for understanding the true breadth of the human psyche and its possible continuity after death."

So begins Leslie Kean's impeccably researched, page-turning investigation, revealing stunning and wide-ranging evidence suggesting that consciousness survives death. In her groundbreaking second book, she continues her examination of unexplained phenomena that began with her provocative New York Times bestseller UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record.

Kean explores the most compelling case studies of young children reporting verifiable details from past lives, contemporary mediums who seem to defy the boundaries of the brain and of the physical world, apparitions providing information about their lives on earth, and people who die and then come back to report journeys into another dimension. Based on facts and scientific studies, Surviving Death includes fascinating chapters by medical doctors, psychiatrists, and PhDs from four countries.

As a seasoned journalist whose work transcends belief systems and ideology, Kean enriches the narrative by including her own unexpected, confounding experiences encountered while she probed the question concerning all of us: Do we survive death?

Genres: Nonfiction, Paranormal, Spirituality, Science, Philosophy, Death, Religion

432 pages, Paperback

First published March 7, 2017

Reviews

[Heidi Wiechert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Investigative journalist Leslie Kean takes a close look at a wide variety of unexplained phenomena in order to answer the age old question- does human consciousness survive death intact with the memories, personality, and uniqueness that was exhibited in life? I found her evidence astonishing.

Much of her research into near-death experiences (NDEs), I had been exposed to in other books. But, the chapters about children remembering past lives, psychic mediums and physical mediums was entirely new to me. As I read, I kept getting goose bumps up and down my arms. The stories are that powerful.

(Reminder, the following quotes were taken from an advance reader's copy and may change or be edited in the final printed version.) Why did Kean write this book? "My intention is to present some of the most interesting evidence from diverse sources and show how it interconnects, making it accessible for the intelligent and curious reader encountering the material for the first time. Strict journalistic protocols can be applied to any topic for which there is data, no matter how unusual or even indeterminate." loc 51, ebook. I think she succeeded admirably. Most of Surviving Death is easy to understand, no matter how far-out the material may be.

I'll admit to losing interest in the passages where she tries to distinguish between intelligence coming from the living human psyche or dead ones, the psi theory vs the survival theory. But, since that was the point of the book, that may be some people's favorite part so don't let me put you off.

Take these death bed descriptions of the other side by those about to leave this world: "The great inventor Edison, just hours before his death, emerged from a coma, opened his eyes, looked up, and said: "It's very beautiful over there." And more recently, the sister of Steve Jobs reported that just before he died, Jobs looked over the shoulders of his family members, right past them, and said, "Oh wow. Oh Wow. OH WOW!!" loc 2176, ebook. I was not present when my grandpa passed, but Grandma told me later that at the moment he took his last breath, that a light came into his eyes and his face became so completely peaceful that he looked thirty years younger. I can't say that I know for sure what waits for us beyond this life, but I can say that I'm not afraid. If you happen to have any fears in that regard, Surviving Death could be of great help to you.

Kean doesn't answer the question she poses definitively because, of course, she hasn't died and come back to tell us about it, but the stories and evidence that she presents is compelling. Throughout the chapters, Kean writes about personal, first-hand experiences that she has had. I believe that they are genuine. The hardcore skeptics may disagree.

The most extraordinary part of this book were the physical manifestations that Kean observed in the medium seances. Apparently, these seances have been going on for hundreds of years in certain areas of the world. Did you know that in the 1920s in Warsaw, Poland, bowls of wax were placed in the seance chapter and apparitions were able to make molds of their hands? "In the Warsaw experiments, gloves were produced with interlocking fingers, with two hands clasping one another, and with the five fingers spread wide apart. Needless to say, the removal of a human hand from such formations would be impossible. Dematerialization was the only method that would leave the molds intact." loc 4504, ebook. How had I never heard of this!

Recommended for readers who are prepared to have their minds blown. Surviving Death is incredible and almost indescribable. If you are interested in such studies, it is an absolute must-read. You may also want to look into Wisdom of Near Death Experiences: How Understanding NDEs Can Help Us Live More Fully and The Map of Heaven: How Science, Religion, and Ordinary People Are Proving the Afterlife.

Thank you to NetGalley and Crown Publishing for a free digital copy of this book.

[MacWithBooksonMountains Marcus · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s a fair enough read, the part about reincarnations more so than others, but written by a female journalist with an agenda, it is lacking objectivity in several areas. There is the typical fallacy of “cherry picking” what she needs to support her agenda and ignoring all else. I picked up on that for the first time when she described the particular case of an out of body experience. A woman whose consciousness supposedly detached from here body enabling here to see several objects she supposedly could not have seen while on the hospital bed. One of the objects was a shoe that lay abandoned on a window sill of a hospital window.
In another paper by another author where the very same case of the claimed out of body experience was closely examined , it is noted that she could have and indeed must have seen the shoe in question as she entered the hospital from the ground level. The angle was just right.
Then of course our journalist falls prey to the oh so typical fallacy of uncalled for assumption that because out of body experiences induced by NDA being generally quite similar no matter the culture and gender, she can (wrongly) conclude that consciousness can and does exist without the brain after death. Well, unfortunately she forgets the simplest of all explanations. We all have brains that pretty much function and consequently react to a similar stimulus the same no matter who we are and where we are from. That I myself had an out of body experience once doesn’t exactly make her professed beliefs look any better. I had my own few seconds of ”heaven” once. I couldn’t feel my body and an indescribable warm feeling flooded through my being. When I entered my body again I was disappointed and to this day I remember that eerily relaxed feeling of being detached from the body. No, I was not on a hospital bed. I was on a 20,000 ft mountain. Yes, my friends it was oxygen starvation, a very stimulating experience for any brain. There is more, but suffice it to say that I remain unconvinced of radiant white lights and shiny rainbow passages to the heavens and especially so by smiling relatives waving from the other side, and with that of life after death as a whole.

[Brian Griffith · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a fairly voluminous collection of evidence and experiences about life after death. Kean tells her own stories, other people’s stories, and several chapters are reprints of studies done by experts. Some stories are gripping and seriously convincing, but parts of the studies were boringly analytical. Kean herself is clearly a believer, who wants to honestly admit the limits of our evidence. Regarding the mass of reports regarding personal survival after death, she puts it this way on page 220:

"... the hypothesis of complete continuity remains unproven, and all sorts of possibilities remain open. Is there partial or complete survival? Sentient survival, or (far worse than mere extinction) survival with just a lingering, dim consciousness? Is there long-term survival or survival during a brief period of disintegration? Is there enjoyable survival, or survival such as one would wish to avoid? Survival as a individual, or survival with one’s individuality for the most part dissolved in something larger? Is survival the rule, or is it just a freak? To these and other questions I can at the moment see no very clear answers.”

But on page 9, she confidently predicts the following: “The reader will encounter the reality of the most refined psychic functioning throughout this book, and by the end will have no questions as to it’s existence.”

And by page 246 she can conclude, “So I too can’t see a reason not to trust the intuitive certainty that comes during the experience, when one steps unintentionally outside the materialist framework. In these moments, I can’t see a reason not to believe.”

I sort of like it when people express both doubt and certainty at the same time.

As for my own experience, I’ve had my share of people telling me what spirits, angels, or God are saying, about things like how I should be raising my kid. But since I didn’t experience those voices myself, I had doubts about whether I should live according to what other people heard. Furthermore, I always suspected that religious leaders make up things you have to do to get an afterlife. So you could say I’m every open minded toward doubt. Except for the fact that I once floated right out of my body, and can remember every detail of it like it was yesterday.

[Ciarrah, MHA · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I initially got chills listening to this book, it became a circus in the last chapter once seances, ectoplasm, and materializations became the topic. The fact that the last person interviewed refused to have his "work" filmed or photographed tells a lot. He's full of it and so is the author for even including him in her book. That immediately dropped my rating down to 3 stars.
Otherwise, it was an interesting read.
And these ghosts are probably all demons anyway.
Yea, I said it!

[Erik Graff · Rating 3 out of 5]

The issue of personal survival after physical death is a sensitive one involving everyone. Such religious traditions as address the issue disagree as do individuals. The evidence is elusive, interpretations of it widely varying.

I approach the matter with prejudice, agreeing with the old Buddhist tradition that dwelling on such matters is not conducive to what ought most matter. Yet it's noteworthy that some Buddhist traditions do precisely just that.

Kean's book is also prejudiced in the presumption that there is evidence for personal survival. Here I agree with her. There is, in fact, evidence suggestive of such a hypothesis. To her credit she also allows for the counter hypothesis of super-psi, that being some combination of purported psi abilities (telepathy, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, precognition) which might account for all the cases she addresses. Sadly, there seems as yet to have been found no scientific means to falsify either proposition. The question remains open--and elusive.

The cases Kean present range from some suggestive of reincarnation to others lending themselves more to the idea of something like an afterlife, a dimension beyond the one we inhabit as material beings. However, as has been pointed out by others, the evidence, such as it is, merely suggests that elements of some persons persist for some time after their deaths--elements, not perhaps actual, self-aware personalities; elements such as information pertinent to such previous living persons.

The kinds of evidence Kean takes up include Out of Body and Near Death Experiences as well as psychic and physical mediumship. Most impressive, anecdotally, is the first case, that James Leininger, a little boy with veridical memories of an American airman killed in WWII. It's a good story, well told and very, very disconcerting. Most impressive, scientifically speaking, is the work of some cardiologists and other medical specialists on the cases of flat-lining patients who return to consciousness with verifiable accounts of events which occurred while they were clinically dead, events which, in some cases, suggest an ability to leave the body and return.

I've read at least five books about evidences for survival hypotheses now, not to mention dozens of books about religious beliefs pertaining to the subject. Like UFO books (and Kean has written a good one), I find the evidences fascinating but ultimately elusive.

[Vladimir · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is pretty much best described as a downward spiral. It starts off in an interesting way with a few cases of reincarnation and near death experiences. I have to say that reincarnation cases are neither new nor is Leslie Kean's coverage particularly detailed, all the information has been already widely reported and one of the cases she writes about has a whole book devoted to him. Once she gets to talk about her experiences with psychics the book becomes shaky and less and less evidence is presented, and by the time she gets to talk about physical mediums the book devolves into complete nonsense with people manifesting levitating trumpets and what not. My problem with the book is not the claims that she makes but the fact that she thinks it's evidence of anything. There is no real scrutiny of the stories she tells even the stories that she witnessed. Writing "I don't believe it can be explained in any other way" is really no hard evidence. In general, the book lacks a skeptical perspective. When I say that, I don't mean that someone's intention should be to show that any of this is fake, but to be more caution in weighing the evidence. I think it would greatly benefit the book as well as the "paranormal cause". She starts off well by covering scientific research, but half way through the book, she just presents things without any scientific scrutiny. In some cases, she explicitly said that mediums were "unchallenged" or that no one ever claimed they were frauds... all you have to do is google them and you'll see that the depth of her research didn't go past the first page in google search, and she didn't even bother to read their wikipedia articles to find clues about who, when and how challenged their claims. Especially for someone who is a New York Times reporter you'd expect her to do her job.
I gave it 2 stars because it is fun to read, but much of the "evidence" she presents past near death experiences and Jim Tucker's work on reincarnation is "believe me I was there, I swear it was real".

[Robert · Rating 1 out of 5]

Oh dear! Where to begin? This book follows the author's investigations into survival of consciousness after death. I'm not here to argue for or against this position, just to review the book.

It’s clear from the book's foreword and the author's introduction that Leslie Kean is a firm believer in such phenomena of psychic abilities, ESP and the like and so worth noting that this book is not written with any skeptical eye at all and is a one sided argument supporting the book title. I have to say that it is evident throughout that the author displays confirmation bias in her “scientific” endeavors. In fact, this is my main problem with this book, that the author hasn't furnished a page of it to give counter-arguments to any of the metaphysical assertions that she makes throughout the narrative. It would be much better to do so and allow the reader to decipher the nuances for oneself. However the author's over-eagerness to push her agenda is kind of off-putting to a neutral reader. I feel that this book is one that is preaching to the converted.

The initial few chapters are actually quite intriguing; subjects regarding such matters as children having past life memories and people having out of body and near death experiences are examined. At least some of these have been investigated (although not conclusively) by people applying scientific rigour to some extent, and it does make you stop and actually ponder the details. Although even in these early stages of the book it is clear that the author is arguing fervently for these phenomena as being completely self-evident and not much (ahem, no) critical thought being given to possible flaws in the evidence presented.

However, it's when the author moves onto mediumship that she totally lost me. It made for awkward cringe-worthy reading at times. I have no doubt that the author genuinely believed everything that she wrote, but it honestly came across as wishful thinking on her behalf. The evidence much of the time is taken from old documents mostly from late 19th or early 20th century mediumship cases. It is difficult to know now the integrity of these attestments or if the witnesses were duped at the time. The author's evidence to paraphrase is "well it sounds true to me, so it must be true". I found this so disappointing, I was hoping for a healthy debate regarding the subject matter.

You know when a kid tells a fib, and at first you have your doubts and are not sure whether or not to believe them, and then the child over-reaches and embellishes the lie to the point of absurdity. Well, that really is how this book reads.

Disappointing to say the least, I think a more objective approach would have better served the author and her readership.

[Marsha · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you've never read a book about afterlife experiences, Surviving Death is a good place to start. Kean devotes a chapter to each kind of afterlife experience -- reincarnation, near-death experience, death-bed visitors etc -- and in each chapter she explores all aspects of cited instances, looking for other possible explanations. This would be a great book for a skeptic to read.

Thank you, Netgalley, for the e-review edition of this book.

[shagun · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Hypeness" Rating: 3.0
Book received through Blogging for Books in exchange for an honest review.
* Review Posted on http://thebookuniverse.weebly.com/ *

Summary:

So begins Leslie Keans impeccably researched, page-turning investigation revealing stunning and wide-ranging evidence suggesting that consciousness survives death. Here she continues her examination of unexplained phenomena that began with her provocative and controversial New York Times bestseller UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record. Kean explores the most compelling case studies involving young children reporting verifiable details from past lives, contemporary mediums who seem to defy the boundaries of the brain and the material world, apparitions providing information about their lives on earth, and ordinary people who recount some of the most extraordinary near-death experiences ever recorded. Kean's first book, and her credibility as a seasoned and well-respected journalist, made people take notice of a topic that many considered implausible. This book will do the same this time enriched by Kean's reactions to her own perplexing experiences encountered while she probed the universal question concerning all of us: Is there life after death?"

My Review:

This book was definitely not my cup of tea. When I initially received this book, I was very excited because I had read several good reviews about it. If you've never read a book about afterlife experiences this may not be the book for you. I would start with a book that has much lighter content on this topic. I hadn't read a book of this topic and I found it to be a little overwhelming. I usually avoid topics like this but I decided to try this topic out. This book started out with an interesting topic of children remembering past lives. After reading this chapter, there wasn't a way to prove if James' parents were playing a entirely truthful role. How do we know that every word they said is true? Following this, the author talked about a story about a shoe on a hospital ledge. The story was very interesting and kept me at the edge of my seat the whole time. My disinterest started to kick in when the author talked about after-death communications and so on. Additionally, the way of the content was organized confused me. In the book, the author would leap back to certain stories. This would lead to some confusion because there were quite a few stories in the book. Other than that, the author's vocabulary and writing was spot-on. Overall, it was a easy read and it was descent. Would I recommend it? Though it wasn't the book for me, I encourage you to try it out and see how you like it. Will I read this book again? Possibly. I don't usually give up on books. Hopefully in the near future I will pick this book up again. Thank you to Blogging for Books for providing me a copy of this!

[SundayAtDusk · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you’ve read a lot of metaphysical books, how much you like this one will probably depend on how much new information you discover, as well as how interested you are in mediumship–-mental, trance and physical. Author Linda Kean starts the book off with the topic of reincarnation, specifically cases involving children who remember past lives. The two main American cases looked at are the James Leininger and Ryan Hammons ones. Also discussed is the work of the late Ian Stevenson and his successor Jim Tucker. If you know a lot about the topic already, there’s really nothing new in this book about reincarnation.

Next, the author moves on to NDEs (near-death experiences), and the story she starts off with is . . . yes, you may have guessed it . . . the shoe on the hospital ledge story. But, never fear, instead of then discussing the works of Raymond Moody and con man Eben Alexander; who Dr. Moody said was a “humble man”, and the teller of one of the most fascinating NDE stories ever told in the history of the world; Ms. Kean smartly concentrates on the work of non-American NDE researchers like Pim van Lommel. (Oops...since writing this review, I have discovered Dr. Lommel highly recommended Eben Alexander's book when it came out. Hence, he has lost all credibility, too, in my opinion.) For me, there were some new stories, including one where a woman left her body during surgery when the instrument the surgeon was using started making the most irritating sound. She was a trained musician, sensitive to and knowledgeable about sounds and pitches.


Then there are chapters on life between life memories told by children, end of life experiences, poltergeists, etc. Some new stories and ideas, but many typical type stories, too. One of the interesting things told about poltergeists in this book was when the recorded knocks supposedly made by poltergeist were compared to recorded knocks made by humans on wood, the wavelengths of the poltergeist knocks were different than the wavelengths of the human knocks.

Finally, the author looks at ADC (after-death communication) and mediumship. These are the topics given the most attention. Some of the chapters in the book are written by other people, such as Loyd Auerbach. (You have to be careful when reading that you do notice someone else besides Ms. Kean wrote the chapter.) Many of the stories about ADCs and mediumship are personal ones told by the author, though. So, that’s all new stuff.

The mediumships covered are mental, including the author’s experience with Laura Lynne Jackson, trance and physical. Mental and physical mediumship get the most attention, and that was a surprise about the latter one. Physical mediumship involves seances in dark rooms, ecotoplasm, materialized human hands, Native American guides, etc. That is a type of mediumship that seems to be rarely talked about these days except in an historical type of way. Apparently, though, such mediumship still exists, and Ms. Kean has participated in such seances.

Hence, while this book ended up being only somewhat interesting to me, I would recommend it to those highly interested in mediumship; those who have not read that much about reincarnation stories involving children; those who wonder if telepathy explains certain paranormal phenomenons; and those who like stories of one person’s search for the survival of a soul after death.

(Note: I received a free e-copy of this book from NetGalley and the publisher.)

[Ian Beardsell · Rating 4 out of 5]

What happens when your two-year old son remembers actual, verifiable names of fellow pilots, technical aircraft details, and the moment the Japanese shot down his plane in the battle for Iwo Jima from his past-life in WWII? What happens when, as a professional, skeptical journalist, you visit a medium and she tells you the most obscure details of your deceased brother's life? What happens when you later ask that deceased brother for a sign that he is really "there" and the next day he sends you a sign foretold by the medium weeks previously? What happens when you sit with a physical medium who goes into trance and can then slowly materialize a warm, flesh-and-blood hand out of nothing, directly in front of you?

Although die-hard skeptics are almost impossible to convince of the verity of the above events, those who seriously research the ever-increasing scientific and lay knowledge around the possible continuing existence of the human mind after death are beginning to realize that the concept cannot be dismissed out-of-hand.

Leslie Kean is a seasoned journalist who conducted thorough investigations into the "survival hypothesis", always cognizant of possible fraud and taking every reasonable precaution against it, and has produced this a well-written, well-researched book outlining the latest evidence that human consciousness somehow continues after death. Although some may believe that she was in a potentially compromised condition, as her brother and a good friend had recently died when she set out to work on the subject, her own experiences and those of more and more of the scientific community, such as cardiac surgeons, psychologists, neural researchers and others, lead the reader to fascinating, if not compelling, evidence that can no longer be ignored.

[Whitney · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was very impressed by this book. Recognizing the instant dismissal that often comes from scientists in regard to attempted explorations of the question of an afterlife, Kean grounds her impeccably researched work with chapters written by highly credentialed scientists who have spent decades researching and studying death. Kean applies an appropriately skeptical eye to the material, but definitely transitions toward acceptance of statements repeated by each scientist - we may not know WHAT happens after death or HOW, but there is ample evidence to prove that something of us extends beyond the expiration of the physical body, and to ignore that is to close the door on perhaps the most important question of human existence. Each subject is presented through a few selected, heavily documented cases, including childhood reincarnation memories, Near Death Experiences, and physical mediums.

[Bryn D · Rating 5 out of 5]

Possibly the most interesting, compelling and fun book about the existence of an afterlife and the survival of consciousness after death I’ve ever read. The author addresses the following: Reincarnation, near death experiences, end of life experiences, after death communication (ghosts, apparitions, paranormal activity), and mediumship.

Real page turner and written for the general reader interested in this topic plus the possible science behind some of it without being overwhelming. Highly recommended if you have an open mind or considering opening it soon, lol. Read it!

[Danielle · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book provided questions rather than answers- a humbling reminder that there is so much we don't understand about human consciousness and so much that Western science cannot explain. As an atheist with no framework for death besides an absolute and material end, I found this book particularly comforting in the wake of loss. Ultimately this book reminded me we can, and should, question everything we somehow convinced ourselves is fact along the way.

[Rachel Wall · Rating 3 out of 5]

Listened to this on audio. Much of it I loved and was very interested. Some of it (the medium parts) did not interest me at all. I would only recommend if this subject is one you like to explore.

[Stan James · Rating 4 out of 5]

I suspect a lot of people will have one of two reactions on reading this book. They'll either roll their eyes and put it down, dismissing it as a bunch of non-scientific hooey, or they'll allow themselves to admit that definitive evidence may be ever-elusive, but that Kean presents a strong set of circumstantial evidence to suggest that consciousness can and does exist outside of the human body, and can therefore exist after death.

Kean breaks the book into sections and devotes chapters to letting direct witnesses or participants tell their stories in their own words, ranging from classic out-of-body experiences. My favorite is a woman in hospital who floated around and outside the building while suffering cardiac arrest, spotting a blue tennis shoe out of sight on a ledge. A medical social worker later looks for and finds the shoe, which precisely matches the description the patient offered. This story is also a good example of the evidence Kean provides. While you can come up with ways the story might be faked--the patient and social worker may have conspired together, the patient may have planted the shoe herself before her hospital stay--they all seem highly implausible, but not quite impossible, always leaving some room for doubt for the skeptical.

Kean devotes further chapters to past life experiences, "actual death" experiences where the patient is clinically dead for a period of time, and a large part of the book to communicating with the dead through mediums and seances. Kean ends up inserting herself into the story after attending several seances in which she believes she is contacted by two spirits, those of her brother and Budd Hopkins, the UFO investigator, with whom she was acquainted. She also sees physical manifestations of objects like human hands forming out of ectoplasm. If it sounds weird, it's because it is weird.

Kean admits as much while asserting that she always remained analytical, taking notes and doing all she could to establish the events were authentic and happened as she recollected.

The underlying thesis is that there exists two things we can't really see or even prove. The first is psi energy--the ability to do things like move objects through thought alone (yes, just like Carrie, but with less burning-down-the-high-school), and the second is that each person has a consciousness or what some might call the soul, that resides within our brains and bodies, but is not bound to them, so that when we die, this essence or soul is released and joins others in another dimension that doesn't quite overlap ours. It's established that those in this other dimension cannot easily communicate with us, because they exist outside of regular physical space. But the other dimension is very groovy and peaceful and wonderful, and is why virtually everyone having a near-death or out-of-body experience loses their fear of death.

A good part of the book is spent on various observers debating whether the experiences are created by discarnates (spirits) or through the psychic energy of those who report seeing them. It is notable that those having this debate are only arguing between the two possibilities, not that the phenomenon is fake or staged in any way.

The evidence presented is about as good as can be expected and Kean comes down on the side suggesting the evidence points toward survival (life after death) rather than just being projections made by the living. I found few instances where I thought, "Yeah, but..." in the many examples provided, and this is a credit to Kean's research and thoroughness.

It's still all very weird, though.

I went into reading Surviving Death with an open mind, and I remain the same after. I can't say I "believe" as I haven't seen any of the things Kean documents, but I also can't deny that any of it might be possible. I've long felt that the world we see and the world that is are two vastly different things, that we only understand a small sliver of what we consider reality. I find this intimidating, but also exciting. And in the end (no pun intended--well, maybe a little), the idea that death--something none of us can avoid--is nothing to fear, but rather something to embrace when it comes, is a welcome one, particularly in western culture where death is treated as something terrible. Myself, I want a wake, not a funeral, and if I am still around in some form post-death I would absolutely delight in freaking out any surviving friends by messing with them. In a good-natured way, of course.

I did feel that the final section on mediums and seances could have been trimmed a bit, as the material starts to feel same-y as Kean documents various mediums and episodes, but it's a minor criticism.

If you are intrigued by the idea of the consciousness surviving outside the living body, and of life only being one part of the human experience, Surviving Death is easy to recommend.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

A competent introduction to the subject. Occasionally overwritten and maudlin this book is a good introduction to the topic.

Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars.

Worth a look.

[Samantha Glasser]

My husband recommended this book to me. The first half is five stars, out of this world, I couldn't put it down, exciting and fascinating. The second half is much more dry and difficult to get invested in.

[Lindsey Baltimore · Rating 3 out of 5]

The beginning is fascinating but then gets SO boring. But the kids stories alone are worth the read.

[Joseph Schrock · Rating 5 out of 5]

This review is for an impressively informative and highly engaging book, “Surviving Death”, by Leslie Kean. Kean does a masterful job of marshaling information that not only proves – to the open-minded person – that paranormal phenomena are part of objective reality, but that also provides strong support for belief in an afterlife for human beings. The author is highly professional, objective, and even scientific in her approach.

Let me quote from this book the following observations by Kean (page 360): “I’m not a scientist, but I would think that if consciousness is nonlocal and if there are nonphysical realms, these would naturally exist outside the confines of the material world and would therefore not be subject to the laws of physics. My only request of those who deny that any of this is possible is to simply look at the evidence with an open mind.”

This is a highly credible bit of advice to skeptics: rather than ridiculing the claims made in books like this, take the time to OPEN-MINDEDLY LOOK AT THE EVIDENCE! Skeptics regarding spiritual or paranormal events are just as susceptible to close-mindedness as are gullible believers in such phenomena who refuse to even doubt that they could be wrong. Open-mindedness is pretty nearly beyond the powers of the human intellect, because the moment that one believes that a certain state of affairs holds, it is preciously nearly impossible to truly objectively examine the evidence that would militate against that state of affairs actually existing. In other words, bias is an inextricable property of human thinking and believing. However, we CAN asymptotically approach truly unbiased thinking with sufficiently great humility and self-discipline.

Leslie Kean quotes a highly professional researcher who has done research on paranormal phenomena since the 1970s, Stephen Braude. On page 361 Kean has the following quote from Braude:

“I am hardly comfortable about announcing to my academic colleagues that I believe, for example, that accordions can float in midair playing melodies, or that hands may materialize, move objects, and then dissolve or disappear…. But I have reached my present position only after satisfying myself that no reasonable options remain. Actually, I find that my discomfort tends to diminish as I discern more clearly how little the most derisive and condescending skeptics really know about the evidence and how their apparent confidence in their opinions is little more than posturing and dishonest bluffing.”

That is an interesting view from one who has OBJECTIVELY EXAMINED the evidence. Kean also refers to an initially skeptical researcher, Hereward Carrington, who wrote the following observations (pages 361-62):

“I did not go to Eusapia’s séances any too ready to be convinced; and the fact that I was so convinced (this being the first case of genuine physical mediumship I had ever seen during ten years’ continuous investigation) proves, it seems to me, that the severest skeptics are likely to become converted if they would but deign to stop criticising the reports and sittings of others, and go and have sittings themselves. Only in that manner can one’s mental attitude be changed, and the genuine nature of the facts be forced upon one---as they were forced upon me.”

For anyone with a whatsoever open mind, there is abundant evidence available that paranormal phenomena (like ESP, psychokinesis, etc.) are aspects of objective reality. Virulently and dogmatically rejecting such evidence, without even objectively examining its credibility, is not worthy of the truly intelligent person. Leslie Kean, in her book, reviewed here, provides voluminous evidence that not only do paranormal phenomena occur, but that some of those phenomena can hardly be reasonably accounted for without reference to intelligent people (who previously lived in the human realm) who died and are communicating and revealing (later verified) information to living human beings, information that only the departed ones would have been reasonably capable of knowing.

There is no doubt that many uncertainties remain about the spiritual realm, life after death, mind over matter, etc., but Kean’s book does a fine job of sufficiently well sorting out the evidence to make a strong case for belief in an afterlife for humanity.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great book. I’d be hard pressed to find a better one for a general audience on the reasons we need to take survival research and its findings seriously. In fact, it’s so good, so clear and well-organized, that I’ve read it three times, recommended it to friends and family, and will continue to give it as a special gift to those I think might appreciate its worth. To paraphrase a spiritual teacher I know who read it upon my recommendation and loved it: it has the capacity to change lives and how we view death and the likelihood of an afterlife. It can also change the very nature of spiritual practice, for those engaged in it, once we begin to understand that indeed, we survive death as individuals who live, love, learn, and grow and deeply wish to continue to do so—apparently, in a process that cycles and evolves through a mysterious marriage of both biological and spiritual realms.

It’s not just that Ms. Kean has done her homework exceedingly well, examining a broad range of survival evidence—from field research into verified reincarnation cases, to near-death/after-death experiences, to mental and physical mediumship, and to apparition cases where spirits are clearly interacting with the living—but that her own integrity and sincere personal engagement continually shine through. Her skepticism, from the start, has been open to being changed by the evidence, unlike those who are victims of the will-to-disbelieve it. As she takes us on her investigative journey, while inviting long-time researchers to weigh in with their own excellent chapters, the strong evidence for an afterlife is triangulated in the radar. If that weren’t enough, she shares her personal evidential sessions with mental and physical mediums, including exchanges with her friend, the dead ufologist Budd Hopkins, and direct encounters with her beloved dead brother.

As she wrestles sincerely with the wily dog guarding the door to the afterlife—the super-psi hypothesis that would reduce much of the evidence of mediumship, whether mental or physical, to the psychic (psi) abilities of the living—I think she and her fellow researchers show (even when she cannot quite bring herself to say it) the strength of the evidence against that argument. But that’s not all. More radically—as long-time afterlife researcher Dan Drasin puts it near the end of the book—I think she winds up showing that the various phenomena examined by afterlife research are only explicable in a hyper-dimensional view of reality—where the sources of life and consciousness, in opposition to scientific materialism, have their true home. In the end, the psi abilities shown by psychics and mediums—whether they’re focused on living psi or survival psi—are only possible because the mind, consciousness, individuality, and indeed, life itself, have their roots in higher dimensions.

Ms. Kean doesn’t quite fully move onto the higher ground of hyper-dimensional model-building by the end of the book, nor does she discuss the first-hand findings of conscious out-of-body experience practitioners—which I think are highly relevant to exploring the relationship of such things as “ectoplasm,” “etheric” or “astral bodies,” and the mind and consciousness itself, to the physical brain and body and the material domain itself. Once we’re convinced the afterlife exists and that we can interact with it and the people within it, we need to explore scientifically how it’s all structured, it’s various constituents, and what makes it all work so elegantly together. Moreover, since Leslie is a UFO researcher as well (see her UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record)—what are the implications of a non-materialist view of reality for ufology?

I’ll be eagerly awaiting Ms. Kean’s next books, where I hope she’ll take up some of these topics. In the meantime, I can highly recommend Surviving Death. It’s one of the best books out there for the general public on the evidence for the afterlife.

[Amber · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little slow, but interesting material.

[Maria Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Is There Such a Thing as Death?

An investigative journalist tackles the difficult to swallow theory that consciousness survives the death of the body and that we live on with our conscious awareness, personality, emotions, and memories fully intact after we “die”. In other words, there is no such thing as death.

Through various case studies in reincarnation, out of body experiences (OBE), near death experiences (NDE), and mental and physical mediumship, we see example after example of life surviving death of the body and or the brain. There is no doubt that Kean’s research is compelling as is the research of others working in the field however even she reminds us that there is ultimately no real and concrete way to prove that a “survival theory” actually exists. Also, those who have firsthand experience with this type of phenomenon will always exist on a different plane then those of us who haven’t. My burning question is why some of us and not others? If the two worlds are that closely connected, why is there not a whole lot more evidence of these experiences? She does offer theory on what is required to convene with those no longer living on earth however this can be construed as a bunch of convenient excuses from believer to non-believer. It doesn’t help with acceptance.

I found the book fascinating all the way through however I will admit to a certain frustration with the chapters dealing with physical mediumship, materializations, and object movement, what Kean terms in part four of the book, “The Impossible Made Real”. These enigmas are impossible to imagine unless, I suppose, one has been present to witness it and even then, doubt can still creep in after the séance session has ended. However, the controls are so tightly monitored that it is equally hard to imagine that the survival theory is anything short of what it appears to be.

Like any good journalist, Kean counters the survival hypothesis with the super-psi hypothesis, that all the phenomena she presents can be explained by way of telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, and telekinesis or psychokinesis. She makes a strong case time and time again for the survival hypothesis while fully informing us that there will never exist a way to know for sure.

Kean does a thorough job explaining in vivid detail, all processes of examination for all cases studies put forth. The tone throughout is predominately hopeful however this book leaves us with more questions than answers.

BRB Rating: Read It.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book features some fascinating descriptions of unsolved mysteries, including claims of past-life memories and out-of-body experiences. However, I felt particularly skeptical while reading the sections on mediumship for multiple reasons: this field has been historically rife with predators seeking to take financial advantage of grieving people, the author demonstrates strong confirmation bias by focusing on the mediums’ accurate claims (the “hits”) in great detail while minimizing the inaccurate claims (the “misses”), and many excuses are given as to why mediumship has to be tested by its own set of rules that differs from the way you would test any other scientific hypothesis or natural phenomenon and that gives mediums more control over the results. The author was prone to extrapolating very detailed information from the mediums’ vague, non-specific claims; for example, when a medium said that the deceased person whom the author was trying to contact thanked her for keeping his secret, the medium didn’t specify what the secret entailed, and the author determined by herself that it was in reference to a specific secret the deceased person had shared with her, but how many of us don’t have secrets with the people we are closest to? At times, the author also made some extraordinary claims without providing any evidence to support them—such as that a person gained the ability to move objects with his mind (psychokinesis)—and took for granted that the existence of paranormal and psychic phenomena had been sufficiently established and was commonly accepted.

I feel like the book ultimately reinforced the viewpoint I had going in that you can’t really prove or disprove the existence of an afterlife and that whether you give credence to the idea that souls continue to survive in some way after death is a matter of personal faith.

[The Ghost's Library · Rating 5 out of 5]

While a fantastic and persuasive overview of the current literature on survivalist theory, the book ends with enthusiastic support of physical mediumship.

Unfortunately, everything I’ve ever read in the past makes ectoplasm, hovering spirit trumpets, and other effects clearly the work of fraud, skilled magicians and an easily duped sitting circle. Kean’s support for these makes me wonder whether the earlier chapters are filled with just as many logical gaps ... or maybe something really is happening in these rooms that require absolute darkness and a variety of other measures that make trickery easy.

All in all, an excellent oeuvre of the field, whatever my concerns.

[Lauren Keys · Rating 3 out of 5]

Organized and well written and thoughtful, and if it is your first read on reincarnation and NDE's then this is a great read. I have read similar by some of the same experts and when I picked up this book I was looking for new insight, but again it is great to have a single organized body of work which includes some powerful testimony from Kean on her personal experiences while validating mediums.

[David Soto Grijalva · Rating 4 out of 5]

La portada no es la del libro que leí (pero no pude encontrar el que sí leí), "Le pedí tiempo a la muerte" de Mónica Hammeken.
Una novela sobre la muerte curiosa, entretenida y coloquial.

[Dimitris Hall · Rating 5 out of 5]

So, let the journey begin. Going forward, we must remember the famous words of William James: “If you wish to upset the law that all crows are black, you mustn’t seek to show that all crows are black; it is enough if you prove one single crow to be white.” Maybe you will find your white crow in the following pages, upsetting the law that death is final. In any case, I hope you enjoy the ride.

Surviving Death is one of the best books about the evidence of the survival of human consciousness past physical death I have ever read.

I first discovered this book's existence through the interview Leslie Kean gave to Alex Tsakiris on the Skeptiko podcast. Featuring segments by many prominent figures and authors in the field of paranormal investigation alternated by commentary by Mrs. Kean herself, the book presents a convincing case about the existence of at least something lurking beyond the Great Divide that is death.

I say "convincing" but I have to say that I came into this book as a believer already. Having said that, the evidence and stories presented, backed by rich notes and bibliography, make me think that even the stoutest skeptics would have trouble explaining some of these stories away without succumbing to grasping at phantom straws.

The James Leininger case is one of a handful of solved American cases on file at the leading research institute for this subject, the Division of Perceptual Studies (DOPS) at the University of Virginia. Researchers there have investigated cases of young children who report memories of previous lives for over fifty years. Psychiatrist Ian Stevenson, the pioneer of this work, published numerous scholarly articles and lengthy books about cases from all over the world.

That is not to say that some of the content here isn't fantastical and admittedly hard to believe. The second and third parts of the book, which involve mediumship and séances, make for harder reading than the NDE stories and those of children remembering their past lives in their sheer otherworldliness.

I wrote about a number of American cases, including those of James and Ryan, in my latest book, Return to Life. Adding them to the strongest ones from around the world that Stevenson and other researchers have studied, I am now ready to say we have good evidence that some young children have memories of a life from the past.

However, all anecdotes, stories, research and the author's personal experiences are well documented -- meanwhile, the author provides us with useful insights about what makes some stories harder to debunk than others. She did deliver this kind of story, and the feeling I got throughout this book was that Mrs. Kean took the appropriate care this extraordinary material called for. Really, if spirits, disembodied consciousness and the afterlife do exist, how can we draw this arbitrary line and say that mediumship and channeling are taking it too far?

It is clear for all to see that, like with all too many aspects of human life, most people do not form their beliefs on evidence but make sense of life by shutting out the anomalies that threaten that worldview. Materialist science will never accept the possibility of disembodied consciousness if the underlying mechanism remains unexplained - even if it has all the immaculately recorded anecdotes and unshakeable stories in the world in its disposal.

This book will not win over many hardcore materialists; few things may - even extraordinary experiences of personal significance all too often end up sadly, sheepishly, explained away. Still, I found it a very pleasurable read that defies common belief of what is really possible.

I will continue to recommend it to curious spirits in my life as a worthy contribution to the rising tide of anomalous science that challenges scientific dogma disguised as skepticism, a creaking paradigm that has long overstayed its welcome - and usefulness.

The human mystery is incredibly demeaned by scientific reductionism, with its claim in promissory materialism, to account eventually for all of the spiritual world in terms of patterns of neuronal activity. This belief must be classed as a superstition. We have to recognize that we are spiritual beings with souls existing in a spiritual world as well as material beings with bodies and brains existing in a material world.

[Paul B · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very worthwhile read for a number of reasons.

First of all, this is a serious book which tries to cover the more obvious examples of the many different types of survival post death. Although I've been reading books on the genre for 40+ years (even going into the adult library when I was a boy to read the books in there - in those days there were so many books available to read on the subject - I especially enjoyed Konstantin Raudive's Breakthrough - google it), I long ago stopped reading the more sensationalist and populist writings on the subject. With age and probably because of my career (software test management), I now lean very heavily toward analysis of events and assessing flaws in the process that would affect the probability of accepting something paranormal as real. Not cynical. Just open minded with an extreme reluctance to jump to conclusions. If you take a similar approach then Surviving Death will be a worthwhile read.

Leslie Kean seems eager to approach things in a journalistic, investigatory vein and many of the examples chosen appear (on face value) to be genuine, lacking in possible fraud and with analysis of potential weaknesses in theory. That said, it would be easy to fall into a trap of over-belief and I feel the author does at times. It's clear from her extensive research and experiences that she has become a believer in the subject. That belief does affect her judgement at times and in some examples she too easily overlooks the possibility of either fraud or of other less paranormal reasons for the event. Whilst such examples may indeed be evidence of survival beyond death, it's important to take every single example on every single topic on its own individual merit and judge it in isolation. I feel Leslie doesnt do this all the time.

However, the above are in the minority and there are many more situations that defy logic. The possiblity of living agent psi and PK are considered extensively and a conclusion would be that once the reader accepts the possibility of survival.....that possibility seems more possible than the very high degree of complexity and unlikeliness of psi or PK in those cases.

Ironically, I dont think this book would please or be enjoyed by those used to reading more popular books on the subject or the many flimsy (potentially dishonest) offerings by mediums. That is also borne out from scanning some of the other reviews of this book on goodreads. Read this book if you prefer a more professional approach to the topic than throwaway sensational events totally lacking in realistic possibility.

Topics covered in the book include past life memories of extremely young children, out of body post death experiences, actual and near death experiences, non-local consciousness, life between lives, end of life experiences, communications from non local minds (mental mediumship, trance mediumship/drop-in communicators, after death communications and interactive apparitions), materialised hands, object movements, full form materialisations and communications.

The book contains chapters by the author giving some of the more strong examples and interspersed are chapters written by eg doctors, university professors, others who may specialise their interest on particular aspects of the phenomenon of post-life survival.

Another reason for enjoying the book is if you are a fan of the band Christian Death. In my youth I toured round the country going to every gig, sleeping rough after each gig and finding ways to get to the next one (hitching etc). One of life's great experiences. The cover for their "Ashes" album contains a picture of clasped hands. I had never considered its origin or even that it may have been an old picture (silly of me really considering their production of free accompanying booklets containing classic or artistic photos during that Rozz Williams era). Anyway, I'm reading Surviving Death and there are 2 sections of plated photos in the book. There, as I turned the page, is the same photo as the Ashes cover (!) which turns out to be a cast made of hands that materialised during early 20th century seances involving Gustav Geley (1868-1924) that were dipped in wax upon generation.
There are quite a few pages on the subject which were a delight to read.

Having read this book, if you are new to the subject, I'm not sure whether it will sway your opinion either way but it will definitely make you question the established notions of death.

[Devin Stevenson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent and captivating work. I previously gravitated to NY times journalist, Leslie Kean, because of her coverage of UFOs. With this book, I followed her interest into the afterlife. With objective, scientific clarity, Kean explores past life memories, near death and after death experiences, mental mediumships, after death communications and physical mediumships. All with various types of evidence.

This puts forward various hypotheses that all challenge our understanding of our own existence. The first thought-provoking concept explored was "non-local consciousness." An idea also explored by the CIA. The idea is that our "mind" is immaterial. Our physical body and brain act more like receivers for our consciousness. What is remarkable about vivid after death experiences before a person is resuscitated, is not just the information the survivor is able to convey, but also that hallucination should not be possible when the brain has shut off.

An interesting connection occurred to me while reading Michael Pollan's book 'How to Change Your Mind' exploring the effects of psylocibin. Pollan narrated how neurological researchers had postulated an increase of brain activity while "tripping." However brain scans actually showed a sharp drop off during periods of individuals at peak experiencing. These expanded experiences with little brain activity lend support to me of the "non-local" concept of our consciousness.
This further implies the possibility of "surviving death." A consciousness continuing after their body has died.

This wildly fantastical concept is often left to the realm of mystics. As a rational, ambitious professional, I'm often mistaken for a "skeptic" and people are often surprised of my interest in "woo woo" concepts like UFOs. I have seen a common mantra of so-called skeptics is to repeat Carl Sagan's famous quote that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

I see a massive fallacy in this concept. Skeptics use this quote to dismiss and disregard all concepts that cannot be readily explained. Imagining a bland fully explained world. I'm reminded of that dumb shithead, Fukuyama's neoliberal notion that we have reached the "end of history." Self-described "rational" idiots like to insist on a limited world of narrow dimension, free from wonder. I think folks who monopolize titles of "skeptics" and describe themselves as "logical" are utter buffoons. Of course I'm with Kean that there are clear wonders like afterlife, ghosts and reincarnation, and what fun!

I facilitate a couple grief groups with homeless folks in recovery. Healing and growth happens within a context. For example, healing from trauma is hard to imagine without first achieving safety. In my grief groups, there is sometimes bitterness at life and anger, that feeds demoralization, addiction and hopelessness. Kean describes seances as powerful and healing. Indeed, I wonder if our reality is not what we assume, then the context of healing in that new reality is quite different. How potentially healing and reassuring to offer many who have unjustly lost loved ones, a chance to momentarily be reunited and offered beautiful insight into an eternal nature.