THE LAST LAUGH

As reported elsewhere in the issue, Raymond Moody gave a series of talks in London recently, and this was the first chance I have had to make the acquaintance of this book, although I do remember ordering it for review from the publishers some years ago. Readers will probably not be aware that Raymond had hoped to insert some caveats into an appendix of Life after Life, but his publishers felt that it would dilute the message. Here he gives the larger context of his understanding of NDEs and the paranormal.

His basic thesis, somewhat laboured in the organisation of the book, is that the debate about the validity of the paranormal is stifled by three groups with fixed positions who are conducting what the French call 'un dialogue de sourds' (a dialogue of the deaf). These are parapsychologists, who equate evidence with proof but who are reluctant to give much credence to the more popular anecdotal testimony that was the stuff of earlier psychical research. Then there are professional pseudo-sceptics who pour scorn on the whole field and are well organised into sceptical groups such as CSICOP (Raymond uses withering scorn himself on all three groups, calling this group 'sigh cops' who are the hecklers at parapsychology meetings). Finally there are what he calls the Funda-Christians (one of whose spokesman is caricatured as 'Dr. Ravings') who regard NDEs and paranormal phenomena as the work of the devil. Many Network members will find themselves in the parapsychologist camp, but that does not mean that they are closed off to the significance of testimony from individual experiences. And I do think, contra Raymond, that certain aspects of parapsychology are susceptible to scientific investigation.

As was clear from his London talks, Raymond is very interested in epistemology and language. He says some interesting things about how each of his groups uses language to describe the field. Briefly, parapsychologists talk about the paranormal (in fact they more frequently use the term psi); sceptics tend to use the word superstition (also applied to religion) and fundamentalists the dreaded term 'occult', which is designed to send a shiver down the spine and in which one is said to 'dabble'! Sceptics are also characterised as 'dysbelievers' in that they believe in disbelief. They use a variety of dismissive terms, and it is amusingly impressive to see them all in a list, as Raymond does when referring to that part of philosophy that studies nonsense: for example, humbug, claptrap, bunk, mumbo-jumbo etc.

Raymond elaborates his own approach, which he characterises as 'playful paranormalism'. He makes a number of links between the paranormal and entertainment, a few of which stretch the meaning of the word but there are strong enough associations for the thesis to hold some water in my view. Furthermore, the tradition of wonder and intrigue goes at least as far back as the Ancient Greeks, as Raymond shows. He encourages us to lighten up in our treatment of the field, as well as asking what it would take to make it a legitimate academic research domain. There are many anomalies that need reframing, as readers of this review will know, but this presupposes a philosophical framework that goes beyond the materialism prevalent in the academy. Raymond suggests that these could be brought within the rubric of The Abnormal and the Paranormal instead of collapsing one domain into the other.

More broadly, Raymond is a champion of the ordinary person against the various categories of 'expert' in his three groups and is reluctant to be called an expert himself on the basis of his PhD in philosophy and his MD degree (though these both appear on the front cover, probably at the publisher's insistence!). He has also conducted some interesting experiments in facilitating reunions with deceased loved ones through a psychomanteon (use of reflecting surfaces), a tradition that also goes back to Ancient Greece. These have been remarkably successful and deserve wider replication, or as Raymond would say, as recreation (in both senses of the term). In the last few pages he reaches what I consider to be an essential aspect of the NDE, namely what it tells us about love, which Raymond takes to be 'the essence of the entertainment appeal of most near-death experiences'. Here I feel the word 'entertainment' is overstretched. Surely we are inspired and uplifted rather than entertained. Moreover, there is another essential aspect to the NDE, the insights that it gives into the human condition and the nature of gnostic wisdom.

In an age dominated by scientific materialism but when many people are seeking to forge their own spiritual paths, near-death and other profound experiences can offer some indications of other dimensions of reality, suggesting that there may be limits to a science of consciousness as currently constituted. This is a stimulating and witty book that challenges received views but which could have benefited from tighter editing to cut out some unnecessary repetition.