RELIGION AND THE LIFE HEREAFTER

existence of life after death at a purely observational level. What is most interesting is that such research does not establish mere survival; rather it establishes the survival of exactly the same personality—the entity that was known to us before death. Man has possessed many other analyzable traits right from the very beginning, but it is only comparatively recently that they have been analyzed scientifically. For instance, dreaming is one of the oldest known activities of man. But ancient man was unaware of the psychological relevance of dreams, the facts of which have come to light only after recent scientific research. Even more interesting are quite other manifestations of the human spirit, the recent facts and figures of which give strong indications of the existence of extra-sensory perception and of the objects of this perception. The first institution to conduct research in this field was established in England in 1882. It still exists today under the name of “Society for Psychical Research.” It began its work on a large scale in 1889 by contacting 17,000 people who were asked whether—when they believed themselves completely awake—they had ever had a vivid impression of seeing, or being touched by a living being (who was not actually there) or inanimate object which moved apparently of its own volition or of hearing a voice which, so far as they could discover, was not due to any external physical cause. Many other institutions from other countries conducted similar research and, by means of various experiments and demonstrations, it was shown that even after bodily death, the human personality survives in some mysterious form. C. J. Ducasse (d. 1969), Professor of Philosophy at the Brown University, made a philosophical and psychological scrutiny of this concept. He did not believe in it in the sense in which it is presented by religion, yet he held that apart from the dogmas of religion, such evidence does exist that compels us to accept the survival of life after death. In his book A Philosophical Scrutiny of Religion, he observes: Psychical research establishes the existence of life after death at a purely observational level. What is most interesting is that such research does not establish mere survival; rather it establishes the survival of exactly the same personality— the entity that was known to us before death.