Cup of Nirvana subscribers:
I am now in the accelerated final phase of completing my book on postmortem survival, due February 16. I have just completed chapter 5 and will be rapidly completing the remaining five chapters in the next month. Below I have posted the CONTENTS for the first five chapters. If you’re interested in receiving chapter drafts, please let me know by email.
Michael Sudduth
CONTENTS
Series Editors’ Preface
Acknowledgements
1 Introduction: The Empirical Survival Debate 1
1.1 Psychical phenomena as ostensible evidence for survival
1.2 The classical empirical arguments for survival
1.3 Deficiencies in the existing literature
1.3.1. Deficiencies in evidence assessment
1.3.2 Three important conceptual issues
1.3.2. Deficiencies in the formulation of the survival hypothesis
1.4 Recalibrating the empirical survival debate
1.4.1 The auxiliary hypothesis requirement (AHR)
1.4.2 The problem of auxiliary hypotheses (PAH)
1.4.3 Resurrecting the prior probability and explanatory competitor challenges
1.5. Concluding remarks
2 Exploring the Hypothesis of Personal Survival 39
2.1 Personal survival: core conceptual issues
2.1.1 Personal identity: soul survival vs. embodied survival
2.1.2 Psychological survival
2.1.3 Religious and philosophical considerations
2.2 A strong personal survival hypothesis
2.2.1 The strong psychological survival hypothesis
2.2.2 The interactionist survival hypothesis
2.3 Conceptions of attenuated personal survival
2.3.1 The relevance of attenuated personal survival
2.3.2 Exploring attenuated forms of personal survival
2.4 Concluding remarks
3 Out-of-Body and Near-Death Experiences 74
3.1 The empirical approach to survival
3.1.1 Philosophical and religious grounds for belief in survival
3.1.2 Characterizing the empirical approach to survival
3.1.3 Empirical data that might confirm survival
3.2 Out-of-body experiences
3.2.1 The relevance of OBEs to survival
3.2.2 The Martha Johnson case
3.2.3 Experiments designed to confirm veridical OBEs
3.3 Near-death experiences: general features
3.4 Some widely discussed NDE cases
3.4.1 The “man with the dentures” case
3.4.2 The Pam Reynolds case
3.4.3 NDEs involving apparitions of the deceased
3.5 Analytical description of the salient data
3.5.1 Descriptions of the OBE data
3.5.2 Descriptions of NDE-specific data
4 Mediumistic Communications 113
4.1 Mediumship: types and general features
4.1.1 Basic types of mediumship
4.1.2 An “ideal case” of mediumship
4.2 The mediumship of Mrs. Leonora Piper
4.2.1 Background to Mrs. Leonora Piper
4.2.2 The George Pellew sittings
4.2.3 The Kakie Sutton sittings
4.3 Proxy sittings and the cross-correspondences
4.3.1 Proxy sittings and their relevance
4.3.2 Mrs. Gladys Osborne Leonard: the Bobbie Newlove case
4.3.3 The cross-correspondences
4.4 Drop-in communicators
4.4.1 A drop-in communicator in Iceland
4.4.2 The verification of Runki’s claims
4.4.3 Observations on the Runki drop-in
4.5 Rev. David Kennedy’s narrative
4.6 Analytical description of the salient data
5 Cases of the Reincarnation Type 163
5.1 Cases of the reincarnation type: general features
5.1.1 Core evidential features of CORTs
5.1.2 An ideal reincarnation case
5.2 The Bishen Chand case
5.2.1 Background to the Bishen Chand case
5.2.2 Bishen Chand’s claims
5.2.3 Bishen Chand’s behavior and skills
5.3 Three recent cases
5.3.1 The Kemal Atasoy case
5.3.2 The Purnima Ekanayake case
5.3.3 The Chatura Karunaratne case
5.4 CORTs and possession phenomena
5.4.1 The Sumitra-Shiva case
5.4.2 The Uttara-Sharada case
5.5 Analytical description of the salient data
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