WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE DIE? Nothing? Complete bliss - 'eternal life'? Or a vague, insubstantial something?

Materialists and atheists would answer 'nothing'. For them life is a purely biological process, when the body dies the personality dies with it, just as electricity stops being generated when a battery fails. To such people life cannot 'go somewhere else'.

These rationalists frequently point out that the age-old belief in an afterlife is merely a reflection of Man's terror of death, of personal oblivion. Throughout history he has either avoided the unthinkable or surrounded it with ritual and a childish optimism. The materialist believes this to be craven and intellectually dishonest - we ought to face 'the facts' - after all, it is true to say that the one fact of life is death.

What of the concept of 'eternal life'? Nearly all religionists have preached that we survive.bodily death - in one form or another. It is probably true to say that the more sophisticated the religion, the more certainly it envisages some form of 'life everlasting' for some deathless element of the individual, whether in a kind of paradise or amid the torments of hell.

If the materialist is correct, no further enquiry need be made. If the religionists are correct, then it surely behoves each individual to look to his or her salvation. But in the context of religion, belief in the afterlife must remain a matter of faith, and only the experience of our own death can prove us right or wrong.

	Far left: a reconstruction of the Fox family's historic home in Hydesville, New York, where the modern Spiritualist movement was born
	Left: the Fox sisters, Margaretta, Catherine and Leah, from a daguerreotype taken in 1852. The strange rappings and table turnings in their home were taken by many to be the long-awaited proof of communications from the dead

But what if neither of these rigid concepts is correct? What if something - some lifespark, vestige of the human personality -survives and enters a new kind of existence, not as a form of reward or punishment, but merely obeying a natural law? Today many psychical researchers feel that the balance of evidence suggests that 'something' does survive, not neccessarily for very long after death, nor necessarily the whole personality. According to them, parts of an individual's memory-system and personality traits sometimes seem to survive for a time, enabling his disembodied self to be recognised by the living who knew him, but later perhaps to disintegrate forever.

The objective analysis of purported evidence for human survival is a major concern of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR), founded in London in 1882. But the foundmg of the SPR would probably never have happened but for events of a generation earlier, which themselves might never have happened but for the emancipation of Man's thought that began in the Renaissance.

Closed minds, closed ranks
As the horizons of knowledge expanded, the materialist position strengthened and by the mid 19th century a 'thinker' was generally reckoned to be someone who had freed himself from the trammels of 'superstition'. Religionists, feeling themselves under attack, tended to close their minds to facts that undermined their position, ironically adopting much the same attitude that some scientists take today when confronted with overwhelming evidence for certain paranormal events ('We don't believe in it, therefore it isn't true').

In the light of such hard rationalism, a faith with results that could be demonstrated was sought after. So when poltergeist activity occurred at the Fox family home in Hydesville, New York, in 1848 (see page 293) the public was tremendously excited. Here at last was 'proof' of the survival of the spirit; an antidote to the bleakness of materialism. Spiritualism was born and has become a significant movement in the western world.

Right: burial of the dead is not universal. Here a Red Indian brave visits the rotting corpses of members of his tribe. They have been exposed to the elements and birds of prey, on a hill set apart for the purpose. Their spirits were believed to spend eternity in the Happy Hunting Ground

Spiritualists believe that their faith demonstrates incontrovertibly the existence of a life after death. They point to seances where, it is said, spirits move heavy tables, play musical instruments and introduce apports; where dead relatives and friends speak recognisably in their own voices of events known only to themselves and one or more of the sitters, and sometimes even materialise in their own appearances before them.

But scientists refused to investivate seance-room phenomena, while Spiritualists - and fundamentalist Christians - took refuge though not as allies) in simple faith that regarded scientific discoveries as due to Devil-inspired cleverness.

It was in this climate of extremes that the SPR was founded. The founder members were a group of British intellectuals who objected to the entrenched positions of 'believers' and 'sceptics' and who felt that the objective assessment of unusual phenomena was long overdue. The material collected by the British SPR and similar societies in other countries provides the strongest clues for the serious enquirer into the question 'What happens when we die?'

The huge body of material collected since 1882 may be categorised as follows: phantasms; communications through mediums; cross-correspondences; 'drop-in' communicators; 'welcoming' phantasms seen by the dying; experiences of patients during 'clinical death'; out-of-the-body experiences; cipher and combination lock tests; appearance pacts; evidence for reincarnation; electronic voice phenomena.

Above: The treasures of Satan by the late-19th-century French symbolist Jean Delville. Satan, flame-coloured as a sign of lust and of his fiery destruction of souls through degradations of the flesh, crushes his victims beneath him. Monstrous 'wings' of serpents flail about the tormented sinners

Phantasms
The SPR's first great achievement was a census of hallucinations. Seventeen thousand replies to a questionnaire about the prevalence of hallucinatory experiences were collected, and of these - after all possible explanations were exhausted -about 8 per cent remained as apparently genuine experiences of phantasms. These were critically examined by the leading members of the SPR and upon the findings were based two volumes, Apparitions of the living and Human personality and its survival of physical death. Listed in the former were several apparitions of people said to have appeared up to 12 hours after their deaths. At the time the researchers felt that these might be due to thought transference from the newly dead individual to his living contacts, delayed perhaps until conditions were right for it to appear. Even so, a number of these cases would now still be classified as evidence of - at least temporary - survival.

Most parapsychologists who accept the evidence of phantasms at all agree that thought transference - which includes thoughts, feelings, and images both visual and auditory, and would today be classified as extra-sensory perception (ESP) - is a faculty of some human minds and could be used to explain phantasms of the living. It also seems to be confirmed by some individuals' claims that they 'think' themselves into paying 'astral visits' - travelling while out-of-the-body - to acquaintances. The claimants not only 'see' the rooms into which they project themselves mentally but report accurately such features as changes of furniture, of which their conscious selves were ignorant. Furthermore, they are often seen by the friends thev 'visit' and are sometimes also accurately described by strangers.

However, some 6 or 7 per cent of the apparitions recorded in the SPR survey appeared too long after death for them to be explained as delayed telepathic communications. This small number of cases remained after all other explanations - hoaxing, exaggeration, mistaken identity, dreaming and so on - had been examined and found inadequate.

The cases that were classified as genuine apparitions or phantasms of the dead showed certain common features. In some, the apparition conveyed information previously unknown to the percipient. In others it showed a clearly defined purpose. In yet others it resembled a dead person unknown to the percipient who later recognised him from a portrait or photograph, or from some characteristic of the deceased unknown to him at the time. Sometimes different people at different times - independently of each other - saw the same apparition.

Some psychical researchers think that only those cases in which the apparitions indicate a specific purpose for their manifestation can be taken as significant evidence of survival and even then perhaps only as evidence of temporary survival. It could well be that, as a memory survives the event remembered, so a thought or anxiety to communicate something urgently to the living might continue to exist after the thinker's death until its purpose was fulfilled; then it, too, might die.

Since the early days of the SPR many astute  minds have studied and recorded evidence of survival provided by such apparitions. Some have believed that we live on, others not. It is safe to say that none of the researchers involved has been convinced of survival on the evidence of apparitions alone.

Right: the 'Viking' galley is burned at the climax of the annual Up Helly A festival at Lerwick in the Shetland Isles, Scotland, The ancient Viking funerals combined cremation with dramatic spectacle, the dead being placed in a burial ship, which was set alight as it was pushed out to sea. It must have seemed to the mourners on the shore that the journey to Valhalla (the Viking heaven) was a very real one

Communications through mediums
While phantasms were being investigated by the SPR so, too, were the activities of mediums - or, as they are better named, sensitives. These are people (more often women than men) who have unusual psychic talents, which they display in various ways. According to their specific gifts they are generally classified into 'mental' and 'physical' sensitives.

A 'mental' sensitive may go into a trance, in which a 'control' ('controlling spirit' or 'spirit guide') speaks through her, frequently in a voice entirely different from her own, and occasionally even giving her a different appearance, so that a European woman may temporarily take on the likeness and voice of say, a Chinese man.

Through the sensitive the control may introduce other alleged spirits, recognisable by voice, gesture, or the nature of the private information they give to one of the sitters at the seance. Such so-called spirits may seem extremely convincing, though it must he said that those who want to believe will believe anyway. However, sensitives often have striking gifts of clairaudience, clairvoyance and other qualities of ESP. Sometimes they will communicate through the planchette board, like 'Patience Worth' (see page 406), or through automatic script (see page 438), or draw in the style of recognised masters (see page 390) or compose in the manner of famous musicians (see page 350).

Another type of sensitive is the 'direct voice' medium, who does not, as a rule, go into a trance and from whose vicinity voices of both sexes and different kinds speak in various accents, and sometimes other identifiable languages.

Above: Peruvian Incas bury a chief, preparing him for an afterlife just as stylish and prosperous as his earthly life. Like many other pagan peoples, they buried food, treasure and weapons with their dead, believing the artefacts to be necessary for the dead to survive in the next world in the manner to which they were accustomed

Communications from these sources vary enormously in quality. Much of it is trivial and curiously materialistic. It was a frequent gibe in the early days of Spiritualism that spirits seemed to spend their afterlife smoking cigars and drinking whisky. Yet this, and other similar 'materialistic' evidence would support the teachings of some Eastern religions that an early stage after death involves passing through a realm of illusion where the ego may indulge in anything and everything it wants.

Very popular at Edwardian seances was the moulding of 'spirit' hands in paraffin wax (right); they were believed to dematerialise, leaving the moulds unbroken. But Harry Houdini, the great escape artist and scourge of fraudulent mediums, proved that it was a relatively easy trick to learn (above)

Other communications, however, are of high ethical and literary standard. Yet frequently when challenged to give an unequivocal description of what awaits us on the other side of life, communicators reply perhap not unreasonably that the spirit existence is indescribable. But some rare spirits are more forthcoming, and an uncannily consistent picture of the afterlife emerges through their communications.

Top right: an elaborate, pagoda-like cremation tower on the island of Bali

'Physical' mediums are those in whose presence, whether they go into trances or not, physical phenomena occur. These may include loud raps from the seance table or from various points around the room; sometimes they seem to be in an intelligent code as if trying to convey some message. Also common are telekinetic phenomena (solid objects moving as if handled by an invisible person); levitation, of the sensitive and of objects; the playing of musical instruments by unseen hands, and actual materialisation of spirit forms.

Sadly, in the short history of Spiritualism, many of these phenomena have been faked, but there still remain many cases of genuine physical mediumship that defy 'rational' explanation. Many tests have been set up to try to trap the frauds, and, to a lesser extent, to determine the extent of the phenomena. One such was the provision of a dish of warm wax at a physical seance; the materialised 'spirit' hand dipped itself into the wax, which rapidly set. The hand dematerialised, leaving the mould unbroken.

But even such demonstrations of paranormal effects do not prove survival of death in themselves. The material accumulated by the SPR contains, so many researchers believe, far stronger evidence.

Is it true that nobody has ever come back from the afterlife? See page 730