GWEN TATE MEMORIAL LECTURE - GROUNDS FOR BELIEF IN LIFE AFTER DEATH - FEARGUS O'CONNOR

In his lecture Feargus O’Connor will identify some of the main sources of evidence, empirical, philosophical and religious, that may inform and guide us in our long quest to make sense of that most perplexing and intriguing of questions, survival of bodily death. He will consider philosophical and religious arguments for and against life after death and evidence drawn from psychical research and the study of near-death experiences (NDEs) and its bearing on the hypothesis of post-mortem survival. He will evaluate the considerable body of evidence gained from the many cases of alleged psychic phenomena scientifically investigated in an objective and dispassionate spirit by the Society for Psychical Research since its foundation in 1882. Among the classic SPR cases considered will be the mediumship of Leonora Piper and Gladys Osborne Leonard and the so-called ‘Cross Correspondences’, all exhaustively investigated over many years by the SPR. He will conclude that these phenomena cannot be convincingly accounted for by the current materialistic scientific paradigm and will consider the philosophic and religious implications of life after death.