Resources
Research & Evidence
There is a growing number of big-brained researchers with PhDs and MDs using scientific methodology and/or well-documented qualitative research techniques to understand these metaphysical questions. Here are just a few of them:
Jeffrey Long, MD is a physician and radiation oncologist who researches and documents near-death experiences. His foundation has documented over 1600 of these. He writes, in "Near-Death Experiences Evidence for their Reality," published in Missouri Medicine, the journal of the Missouri State Medical Association, that
"While no two NDEs are the same, there are characteristic features that are commonly observed in NDEs. These characteristics include a perception of seeing and hearing apart from the physical body, passing into or through a tunnel, encountering a mystical light, intense and generally positive emotions, a review of art of all of their prior life experiences, encountering deceased loved ones, and a choice to return to their earthly life."
Raymond Moody, PhD, MD, is the Bigelow Chair in Consciousness Studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and a psychiatrist and researcher who has written multiple books on NDEs and what comes after the death of the physical body.
Jim Tucker, MD, is the director of the University of Virginia School of Medicine's Division of Perceptual Studies and the Bonner-Lowry Professor of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences. He specializes in research on the past-life memories of young children.
Brian L. Weiss, MD, is Chairman Emeritus of Pyschiatry at the Mount Sinai Medical Centre in Miami. His book Many Lives, Many Masters details his initial skepticism and gradual inability to disbelieve what was unfolding in front of his eyes as he treated a patient who, under hypnosis, gave detailed descriptions of historical conditions she had no way of knowing about, as well as descriptions of life between lives.
Judith Orloff, MD, is a psychiatrist, empath, intuitive healer, and faculty member with the University of California at Los Angeles' Department of Psychiatric and Biobehavioral Sciences. In her own words, "she synthesizes the pearls of traditional medicine with cutting edge knowledge of intuition, energy, and spirituality and passionately believes in the power of integrating this wisdom for total wellness."
Dr. Joe Dispenza is a chiropractor and researcher who partners with universities and scientists to document the effects that meditation can have on the body.
Michael Harner, PhD (1929-2018), was an anthropologist and former chair of the anthropology department at the New School. He set out to study shamanism and eventually became so persuaded by its powers that he began to practice instead. He developed the notion of core shamanism, which does not use the ceremonies of any particular group of practitioners but rather shamanism's core practices, which were a global phenomenon and used by peoples across the world. In this way, he has reintroduced shamanism to the "west" where it was once a commonly practiced. As Roger Walsh and Charles S. Grob wrote about him in their introduction to Higher Wisdom, "His combination of anthropological training, academic expertise, studies of shamanism in multiple cultures, and personal shamanic training, has produced a rare, perhaps unique, breadth and depth of expertise and influence."
Michael Newton, PhD (1931-2016) was a clinical psychologist who, much like Dr. Weiss, did not believe in past lives until faced with undeniable evidence of his patients, which he documented carefully and meticulously. His research was recorded in his two books, Journey of Souls and Destiny of Souls.
There are many books out there about mediumship. Here are a few:
One Last Time, by John Edward
Through the Darkness, and Where Two Worlds Meet, by Janet Nohavec
Born Knowing, and The Spirit Whisperer, by John Holland
The Evidential Medium, by Kay Reynolds
Intuitive Studies: A Complete Course in Mediumship, by Gordon Smith