This Life, Next Life:
Evidence for the Afterlife (2009) by Keith Parsons
It may seem odd reviewing a
film that cannot be seen by the public.*
Keith Parsons’s documentary is currently in limbo because of copyright
issues; it contains quite a few archive photos and downloaded clips which have
not been cleared because of the expense. But in case the DVD acquires a kind of samizdat
existence, passed round aficionados for private study until such times as the
intellectual property difficulties are resolved, it is worth outlining its
content and evaluating it.
Keith is a retired BBC radio producer
who has single-handedly put together a well-structured and informative
54-minute documentary presenting the arguments for life after death. He is unashamedly pro-survival which may
grate with those who expect their documentaries to present a balanced view. The reason for this partisan approach is
because Keith sees a bias against the survival hypothesis in media
presentations and wants to cover aspects that are less frequently aired; apart
from occasionally in religious programming, the subject is generally treated as
entertainment and not taken seriously.
An engaging and sincere host,
Keith’s stated aim to present the scientific case for the afterlife, which as
far as he is concerned is too strong to be discounted. He begins his investigation with an anecdote
which had a great deal of significance for him.
When he visited a medium he was given messages from his deceased father
and sister (whose names were supplied to him by the medium), and as far as he
was concerned the choice was between the messages being genuine spirit
communication, and the medium reading his mind.
His thesis is that an examination of the evidence leads to the
conclusion that the former is far more likely than the latter. Other possibilities, cold reading for
instance, are not explored.
That experience was of course
convincing on a personal level, but not necessarily to others, and Keith focuses
on a number of areas, some historical, some contemporary, which he feels should
convince the impartial viewer. The first
of these is the cross-correspondences, scripts independently recorded by a
number of mediums, separated geographically, in the first third of the
twentieth century. He gives some simple
examples of how these correspondences worked, fragments that by themselves were
obscure and only made sense when combined.
The next stop is a brief look
at Tom Oliver Whitlock, who died in action in 1916 and came through at séances
in the 1950s. This was one of Alan
Gauld’s ‘drop-in communicators’, recorded in the literature with the pseudonym Harry
Stockbridge. ‘Tom’ supplied items of
information which turned out to be correct but had to be verified by reference
to a variety of sources, making fraud and super-psi less likely explanations
than spirit communication.
For The Scole experiment Keith
is fortunate to have been able to interview both Robin Foy, who was the main
organiser of the séances, and David Fontana, a primary investigator. They run through some of the phenomena
recorded there and Keith exhibits the book written by Jane and Grant Solomon,
but does not mention the SPR Proceedings which
examined the phenomena in much greater depth, nor does he mention the critical
comments Scole has attracted, apart from the locked box in which test films
were kept during sittings. Foy mentions
that the sitters were never searched by the investigators, though he says that
they would have complied had they been asked, but the investigators did search
the séance room before and after each sitting.
Fontana vouches for the honesty of the sitters and stresses the
implementation of controls to eliminate the possibility of fraud, though there is
no mention that séances took place in complete darkness and the spirits refused
to allow the use of infra-red cameras.
Fontana points out that the investigators had challenged conjurors to
duplicate the phenomena under the same conditions but had not had any
takers. Overall, despite flaws, Parsons
seems convinced of the genuineness of the bulk of the evidence gathered during
the Scole sittings.
A description of an
electrical device through which the Scole group received a twenty-minute
message leads into a discussion of Electronic Voice Phenomena and Instrumental
Transcommunication. Beginning with Frs Ernetti and Gemelli and their contact
with the latter’s deceased father when the wire on the recorder they were using
kept breaking, Keith moves on to Friedrich Jurgenson, Konstantin Raudive, and
George Meek’s Spiricom. He also visits Anabela Cardoso in Spain to
see her experimental set-up. Keith acknowledges
that sounds can be open to interpretation, the background noise rendering it
difficult to understand what is being said, but again considers this approach
valuable in demonstrating survival.
The mediumship of Leonora
Piper is covered, including the investigation mounted by Richard Hodgson,
previously a sceptic and scourge of Madame Blavatsky, who changed his mind
about survival as a result of his contact with Mrs Piper. The final part of the documentary comprises a
discussion of the relationship between brain and mind. Bruce Greyson is interviewed saying that current
discussions of how the brain relates to mental function are inadequate. If the mind is not dependent on brain, then
survival becomes more tenable. To
illustrate this point we are shown a clip from the BBC programme The Day I Died featuring the
well-rehearsed Pam Reynolds case in which she had an aneurism and the blood was
drained from her brain to repair it, yet she had an NDE. It would be ironic if this is one of the items
causing publication difficulties as the entire documentary is freely available
(at least at the time of writing) on YouTube.
In addition to these strands,
Keith lists a number of well-known researchers into life after death such as
Sir William Crookes, Henry Sidgwick, Frederic Myers, Alfred Russel Wallace, Sir
Oliver Lodge, Thomas Edison, John Logie Baird, William Barrett, William James, James
Hyslop, Lord Rayleigh, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (illustrated with the portrait
from the National Portrait Gallery implicated in the Scole Polaroid of Conan Doyle
– see Fortean Times Issue 261, April 2010, pp.64-65) and Arthur
Balfour. This is certainly an impressive
list, and is intended to reassure the doubter that if such eminent men were
convinced, there must be something in it.
Of course as reassurance for the doubter goes this is of limited value,
though it is always worth being reminded of the range of talented individuals with
an interest in survival.
While the presentation is
generally sound, there are some issues with which it is possible to quibble. For example Keith makes assumptions about the
narrow extent of Mrs Piper’s knowledge (she is often portrayed as a woman of
limited education), something about which I have always thought it pays to be
cautious; and he repeats the myth that Edison invented the light bulb (Joseph
Swan). More significantly, he characterises
Colin Brookes-Smith’s conclusion after studying the cross-correspondences to be
that survival was the only conclusion to be drawn by any reasonable person, and
that the SPR should announce this breakthrough to the world. Keith believes that the SPR did not make such
an announcement only because it has sceptics among its membership, individuals
who present a major obstacle to the acceptance of survival.
However, this is not actually
what Brookes-Smith said. He talked (in
the June 1963 issue of the SPR’s Journal)
in weaker terms: “There must now be in existence a very large amount
of script material from which, after making due allowance, it can be inferred
that discarnate intelligences have at least partly contributed to the subject
matter”. He also talks about the
scientific arguments for survival being presented to the public
by “a team”, not as an official announcement by the SPR. Making such an announcement would contravene the
Society’s principle of not holding corporate views, so would not be possible. This misrepresentation (or more likely
misunderstanding) seems to have come from Victor Zammit’s book A Lawyer Presents the Case for the Afterlife,
which is featured in the documentary.
Later Keith discusses
Hodgson’s attack on Madame Blavatsky and says that in 1986 the SPR “officially
retracted its verdict on her”. The SPR
did no such thing because it had no verdict to retract. Keith is referring to an article by Vernon
Harrison in the April 1986 issue of the SPR Journal
which was critical of Richard Hodgson’s role in the original investigation of
Blavatsky. Harrison’s article was
prefaced by an editorial note which says in part:
“Although, as it has been repeatedly pointed out,
The S.P.R. holds no corporate opinions, it has widely been regarded as
responsible for endorsing the 'Hodgson Report' (as we shall hereafter refer to
the report as a whole) and hence as being on record as condemning Mme.
Blavatsky.”
Critics of the original
report have long, as indicated in the quotation, assumed that the Hodgson
Report represented an official SPR ‘line’, but from the beginning of the SPR’s
existence it has held that its publications are the responsibility of the
authors, and do not represent an official view by the Society. Harrison’s opinions were his alone, as would
have been apparent from reading the editorial note accompanying his article.
Clearly Keith is impressed by
much of the research he presents, and sees an increasing feeling among
scientists that a theory of everything needs to incorporate consciousness. He predicts a paradigm shift in which spirit and
other dimensions are considered essential components in an understanding of
reality. As he rightly concludes, if we
accept survival, that acceptance causes a change in our view both of ourselves
and of the world.
There is a limit to what can
be achieved in under an hour, and the resulting briskness could be confusing
for the newcomer, but seeing it might encourage viewers to seek out a wider
range of resources. Unfortunately having
produced the documentary at his own expense and in his own time, Keith has not been
able to find a broadcaster willing to take it on. It would be a shame if nobody heard about
Keith Parson‘s project, and it joined those films which for one reason or
another cannot be shown.
It would also be a pity to
lose the interviews he conducted with a number of eminent researchers in the
field: Archie Roy, David Fontana, Victor Zammit, Robin Foy, Anabela Cardoso,
Bruce Greyson and Peter Fenwick. In
commercial terms its lack of balance is bound to harm its prospects so it seems
unlikely that it will be picked up for national broadcast. The alternative approach would be to strip
out the elements for which copyright permission has not been granted and post
it online. Whatever one’s view of the
individual topics covered, it is still good to see them aired in an accessible
way, even though the overall feel is one of preaching to the converted.
I would like to thank Keith
Parsons for his kindness in supplying a copy of the documentary.
*Update 21 June 2015
On 20 June 2015 a copy of the
film was uploaded to YouTube. I don’t
know if Keith was involved in this or if it was done solely by other hands: the upload
credit is to the cleverly named iDigitalMedium,
part of whose aims is ‘To share all aspects of spirituality and creativity as
they relate to our everyday lives in this age of technology, on the cusp of the
re-enlightenment of the consciousness of mankind’. It may have been carried out without Keith’s
knowledge – Tim Coleman, for example, has long been fighting pirates who have
illegally uploaded his film The Afterlife
Investigations, but that is commercially available, whereas This Life, Next Life never has been. iDigitalMedium seems a reputable organisation
judging by its website so it is likely that Keith gave his permission. The YouTube film is the same length as the
DVD Keith sent me in 2010, so either copyright issues have been resolved, or
simply ignored. The film may disappear
as suddenly as it appeared, but for the moment it can be found at:
Update 25 August 2015
Keith wrote to me to tell me
about the film’s availability (24 August 2015).
I hadn’t been sure if he was aware that it is now on YouTube, but it was
indeed done with his consent; a copy had been seen by someone in the US who
asked Keith if he could upload it. To
date it has been viewed almost 15, 500 times and Keith was pleased with its
reception, which has been largely positive.
As to copyright, the start of the online video has a
declaration: ‘Produced for free, educational viewing only. THIS IS NOT A COMMERCIAL VIDEO PRODUCT.
Copyright – Keith Parsons – 2009. Unlicensed
materials are included under applicable Fair Use provisions.’ The first and last statements have been added
to the beginning for the YouTube presentation (the middle two were on the
original DVD). Perhaps the copyright
owners will be content to acknowledge fair use, or alternatively waive fees
on the grounds that Keith is not making any money out of it, or they may not
even notice his incorporation of their material. It is certainly gratifying for Keith that
after being in limbo for so long his labour of love is finally reaching an enthusiastic
audience.
