One theory with a seemingly good scientific basis is that of reincarnation. Under hypnosis, subjects have been taken back to revisualise memories of their early childhood; further regression of this kind to before the date of their birth has resulted in memories of past lives. Moreover, unlike other so-called evidence of the paranormal, the results can be replicated - "in this regard the phenomenon has the satisfaction of something genuinely scientific in the sense that if certain guidelines are followed it can be repeated and demonstrated by people who have never tried it before."
However, closer scrutiny of the phenomenon of regression reveals various problems. If a man is regressed by hypnosis to childhood and asked to write, he will do so in a childish scrawl - yet that has been found not to correspond to the actual handwriting of childhood!. In other words, under hypnosis, the person will produce a simulation of their childhood handwriting, not the actual handwriting. It would appear, therefore, that the hypnotised subject is "going through an act, just like he will if told he is a typewriter or a chimpanzee, because he has effectively allowed himself to become a puppet for whatever strings the hypnotist may pull." This hypothesis is corroborated by the fact that the person's understanding of reincarnation mirrors that of the hypnotist - if the hypnotist believes a person to begin a new life on death, the past lives reflect this, but if the hypnotist expects a gap between past lives, this too is revealed!
Another area of Investigation into life after death is mediumship. Ian Wilson looks at the record of the most famous medium of recent times - Doris Stokes. Initially, the conversations produced by her supposed contact with the dead seemed startlingly accurate, but further scrutiny revealed that Doris Stokes was most accurate when giving messages to people she knew well, and this accuracy deteriorated markedly with strangers. What is even more suspicious is that her demonstration of powers at large auditoriums, such as the London Palladium and the Sydney Opera House appear to have been "rigged". Her success was spectacular with a number of members of the audience, but "not only had these key individuals been known to Doris beforehand; each had been specially invited to the show by none other than Doris herself."
A more critical experiment in spiritualism has been the sealed packet test. Here a packet is sealed up with a message known only to one person. After the person's death, the medium - supposedly in contact with him - should be able to reveal the message. The packet can then be opened, and the messages compared. As Wilson points out, where deception can be proven not to have taken place, the results of the type of experiment have usually thrown up incorrect messages from the medium; one example is a message which was "If I could revisit any place on earth, I would visit Hampshire" being revealed by the medium as "a passage from Plato on the eternal nature of love"! However, such a disparity is often overcome by ad hoc explanations, such as "he used to read Plato when in Hampshire"!' A better test was devised by one scientist, who prepared a coded message of a passage in a book. The key to decipherment was known only to him. After his death, mediums attempting to contact him, reported that he told them that his memory was not as good as it had been and therefore he was unable to reveal the key to his coded message, which sounds suspiciously like a convenient excuse. The simplest explanation is that he could reveal the code, because the medium was not, in fact, in contact with his dead persona, but only believes themselves to be.
Another exceedingly odd phenomena explored by Wilson is the out of the body experiences perceived by people close to death, usually on the operating table while undergoing some major surgery. These people feel that they are floating above the operating theatre, and looking down at the surgeons operating on them The experience is so vivid that it appears to be real, I.e. quite unlike a dream. Moreover, it is retained as a memory of a real event, rather than fading quickly like a dream. Wilson thinks this provides at least some evidence of the continued existence of consciousness outside the body and possibly after death. I think he has failed to consider the possibility that under the peculiar states of consciousness involved, it may be possible for dream and reality to become confused, so that an artificial (but plausible) construct is taken as real, like an hallucination.
This is a fascinating book, which covers a wide variety of "after death experiences". and provides some intriguing and controversial conclusions.