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IMMORTAL REMAINS: THE EVIDENCE OF LIFE AFTER DEATH by Stephen E. Braude. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003. Pp. xvi + 328. $24.95 (paperback). ISBN 0-74251472-2.
This book is impressive. The author is a respected philosopher and parapsychologist whose works on psi, multiple personality, and other subjects are exemplars of scholarship. His claim is that the case for personal survival is stronger than the case for its non-survivalist super-psi alternative. As a philosopher he takes brief looks at issues of personal identity and whether a surviving self needs some sort of sustaining substance.
Superlatives are in order. This is the best book on survival that I have read, certainly superior to the recent books of Almeder (1992) and Griffin (1997), which claim that the evidence for personal survival is conclusive, much stronger than it is. Braude's conclusions are much more tentative. I will not attempt to evaluate the individual conclusions he reaches when evaluating specific avenues of evidence and individual cases, but I compliment the thoroughness of his examination of the evidence and critiques of other survivalists. I will summarize his conclusions about personal survival, request a follow-up book from him, and offer some critical comments about what he chose not to do but should have, a reviewer's privilege.
His conclusions on evidence are found in the preface, at the end of his seven evaluative chapters on evidence, and in the final six pages of his concluding chapter. After defining personal survival, he defends the view that it persists as superior to the super-psi alternative.
Many of Braude's readers think that he is strongly opposed to personal survival and has favored the antisurvivalist super-psi alternative instead. He assures us that this is not the case. Braude, some think irritatingly so, often critiques other survivalists when he thinks that their studies are weak, and does so in this book. Although he believes that defenders of survival have successfully counteracted the standard skeptical dismissals...