Review of Pim van Lommel’s BICS Essay

Logo: Sharing – composite from pixabay.com/images/search/user:geralt/

Also see:

BICS 2021 Essay Contest – Proof of Survival

Rules of Evidence – Survival

Review of Jeffrey Mishlove’s BICS Essay

Review of Pim van Lommel’s BICS Essay

Review of Leo Ruickbie’s BICS Essay

Review of Runner up BICS Essays

My (unselected) BICS Entry: Case for the Survival Hypothesis

van Lommel, Pim. “The Continuity of Consciousness: A concept based on scientific research on near-death experiences during cardiac arrest.” Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies. 2021.

Reviewed by Tom Butler

Brief

Robert T. Bigelow sponsored an essay writing contest asking, “What is the best available evidence for the Survival of Human Consciousness after Permanent Bodily Death?” Bigelow noted in Issue 3, 2021 of the “Magazine for the Society for Psychical Review” interview that:

“Proving whether the other side exists or not is actually just the first step. The research community going back to the 1800s has been dominated by the effort to prove the existence in one way or another, or another, or another… so it has been dominated by the necessity of trying to prove the other side exists and that has gone on for almost two centuries, so at some point here, I want to move on and go to the next level up, which is probably much more profound than simply whether or not some aspect of your consciousness is going to survive your bodily death.” (Page 7)

As co-director of the Association TransCommunication (ATransC), and to help provide guidance to the paranormalist community, my intention is to review the twenty-nine winning essays while asking if they further the educational efforts of the ATransC and if they meet Bigelow’s objective?

Full Disclosure – The BICS essay contest offers an important opportunity for the paranormalist community to learn how parapsychologists and learned laypeople approach the Survival Hypothesis. My intention in reviewing the winning essays is to keep the lay community’s focus on survival-related phenomena from the perspective of the study of Instrumental TransCommunication (ITC).

As you read this review, please be mindful that I was one of the 204 entries accepted for the BICS essay contest. Mine was not one of the 29 selected essays. While my intention is to focus on the evidence, the fact that I entered but was not selected should warn you of the possibility that I may be too critical. So please, read this with discernment. (My qualifications are at the end.)

Assessing the Pim van Lommel Essay

The second-place essay is titled “The Continuity of Consciousness: A concept based on scientific research on near-death experiences during cardiac arrest.”

Here is how I rated the essay based on the six standard questions I proposed in the preamble to this review series:

Is the essay easily understood by a lay audience? A grade of 9

The essay is well written with terminology anyone familiar with the Psi and Survival Hypotheses will understand. Understanding how “inside baseball” medical terminology can be, it seems evident the author made an effort to have his points understood by a lay audience.

Does essay account for alternative explanation? A grade of 6

Presented evidence is primarily in the form of studies conducted of resuscitated cardiac arrest patients who reported experiencing an NDE while clinically dead. Rather than specifically addressing survival, NDEs were explained as evidence of mind-body duality (nonlocal mind) and continuity of conscious, meaning that consciousness exists before, during and after a lifetime. Other forms of mental phenomena that also seem to be evidence of continuity of consciousness were briefly mentioned. Contending explanations for the evidence were not well addressed.

Does the essay include support for why the proof is evidential? A grade of 5

The author does make a strong case that mind exists independent of brain. One of the proofs of this is anomalous access to information while the biological brain is effectively turned off. The author argues that some anomalously accessed information appears to be from discarnate minds. However, little acknowledgment is made for why the Psi Hypothesis cannot account for the same information access.

Does the essay further the reader’s understanding of survival? A grade of 6

The essay is an excellent tutorial on the NDE phenomenon and the idea of continuity of consciousness. However, without a contextual model and a discussion of alternative theories, it will likely leave the reader with a false sense of “proof.”

Does the essay meet Bigelow’s objective? A grade of 8

The well-written explanation of the NDE phenomenon and strong argument for the existence of mind independent of brain should do much to further learned discussion of parapsychological phenomena. The author’s approach to the continuity of mind concept should turn discussions of Survival Hypothesis versus Psi Hypothesis more toward a discussion of trans-etheric influences.

Overall value for the paranormalist community? A grade of 10

The author appears to have a different point of view about mind than parapsychologists with more experience with haunt phenomena or the study of darkroom seances. The strength of this essay should further efforts to develop a more responsive parapsychology.

Total Score 44 of a possible 60

Review

Pim van Lommel is a cardiologist who has become well-known for his study of Near-Neath-Experiences (NDE). He defines the NDE as:

“… the reported memory of a range of impressions during a special state of consciousness, including several elements such as an out-of-body experience, pleasant feelings, seeing a tunnel, a light, deceased relatives or a life review, or a conscious return into the body.” (Page 2)

Van Lommel explained in the essay that:

“The content of an NDE and the effects on patients appear to be similar worldwide, across all cultures and all times. However, the subjective nature and absence of a frame of reference for this experience lead to individual, cultural, and religious factors determining the vocabulary used to describe and interpret this experience: children and adults, believers and atheists, they all use different words from their own religion, culture, and tradition.” (Page 2)

NDEs have been reported by a small percentage of the people who have apparently died and then were resuscitated. Van Lommel pointed out that more NDEs are being reported in recent times because of improved medical treatment.

Nonlocal Consciousness

Von Lommel characterized consciousness as being nonlocal:

The general conclusion of scientific research on NDE is indeed that our enhanced consciousness does not reside in our brain and is not limited to our brain. Our consciousness seems to be nonlocal, and our brain facilitates rather than produces the experience of that consciousness. (Page 1)

He explained his view of nonlocality as being independent of the brain and:

“ … a dimension without our conventional body-linked concept of time and space (nonlocality), where all past, present and future events exist and are available, and the possibility of having a clear and enhanced consciousness with persistent and unaltered ‘sense of self’, with memories, cognition, emotion, the possibility of perception outside and above the lifeless body, and even with the experience of the conscious return into the body.” (Page 19)

“Nonlocality” is a term typically used in parapsychology as a characteristic of a hypothetical Psi Field. In that model, psychically accessed information can exist anywhere in a manner similar to how the whole can be reproduced from a part of a holographic plate. In a manner of speaking, nonlocal means the influence of information is everywhere at once (ubiquitous).

By saying that mind is nonlocal, I think von Lommel is saying that mind is not in our biological brain. As I understand parapsychological modeling, “nonlocal” is a little different way to describe mind, but it seems in agreement with the Psi Hypothesis and ubiquity of the Psi Field.

Continuity of Consciousness

Continuity of consciousness is used in this essay to describe the strict version of the Survival Hypothesis. In what I refer to as Physical Dualism, mind is said to be a nonphysical characteristic of biological brain. That is, mind emerges from the brain’s electrochemical processes and only continues after biological death as residual memory.

In what I refer to as Strict Dualism, mind exists prior to this lifetime and will continue to exist after death of the body in a self-aware, sentient form. Von Lommel describes that as the continuity of consciousness. Thus, Continuity of Consciousness is a valid part of the Survival Hypothesis. From the essay:

Experiences of an enhanced consciousness just before, during, or after death also support the assumption that there must be a continuity of consciousness after the death of the body. (Page 31)

The proof of survival in this essay is primarily based on NDE research. As a cardiologist, von Lommel has been able to conduct studies in which patients have been rendered “dead” for the duration of a medical procedure and then “brought back to life” afterwards. Thus, he has had unprecedented access to “clinically dead” patients.

Inattentional Blindness

One of the tests for the validity of NDE is if a person can report a secret message placed on the top of a cabinet in the operating room. The message is not visible unless one is elevated above the body. Von Lommer noted that:

But until now there has been no published case where patients during CPR have ‘seen’ this hidden sign despite perceiving veridical details of their resuscitation previously unknown to them. (Page 23)

And:

This lack of ‘objective proof’ could be caused by so-called ‘inattentional blindness,’ also known as ‘perceptual blindness.’ This is the phenomenon of not being able to perceive things that are in plain sight. It can be a result of having no internal frame of reference to perceive the unseen object, or of the lack of mental focus or attention caused by distractions. This inattentional blindness is the failure to notice a fully visible, but unexpected object because attention was focused on another task, event, or object, because humans have a limited capacity for attention and intention which thus limits the amount of information processed at any time. (Page 24)

Based on my studies, on average, a Class A Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP) example will be correctly understood only about 25% of the time by uncoached witness. From experience, I have come to look for what I refer to as “Incredulity Blindness.” Our perception is moderated by our worldview. It is less likely we will notice environmental signals that do not agree with our worldview. This is another form of perceptual blindness.

Based on the EVP studies we have conducted, von Lommel’s explanation for why people projecting in the room during an NDE is credible.

Examples of Experiences of Nonlocal Consciousness Beyond the Brain

A Non-functioning Brain

During cardiac arrest:
1. A. Out-of-body experience (OBE)

Veridical perceptions from a position outside and above the body. (Page 22)

1. B. Life review

Experience every act and thought from the lifetime. (Page 24)

1. C. Preview

A preview of the person’s future. (Page 24)

1. D. Conscious return into the body

Some patients can describe how they consciously returned into their body, mostly through the top of the head, after they had come to understand that “it wasn’t their time yet” or that “they still had a task to fulfil.” (Page 24)

During Coma

Repots of perception by patients in a deep coma. (Page 25)

During general anesthesia

Perception is sometime reported by patients while under general anesthesia when there is a functional loss of nearly all major brain tissue. (Page 25)

Terminal lucidity

These patients suddenly become lucid again, recognize family members and children, call them by name, thank them, and die. (Page 26)

Other Experiences of Nonlocal Consciousness

Von Lommel addressed other forms of nonlocal information exchange:

Nonlocal information exchange:

Interconnectedness with the informative fields of nonlocal consciousness also explains enhanced intuition, like clairvoyance, clairaudience, prognostic dreams, premonitions, and visions. As mentioned before, following an NDE most people, often to their own amazement and confusion, may experience such an enhanced intuitive sensibility, which means having access to nonlocal information that is not received by our senses nor by our body. (Page 26)

Nonlocal perception:

Nonlocal entanglement seems to be demonstrated in nonlocal perception (remote viewing), which is the ability of an individual to acquire perceptive and nonlocally sourced information that should not be accessible because of shielding from space and time by our sensory organs, and that can be objectively assessed by science. The key to high performance is the ability to attain and sustain intentioned focused awareness, and meditation is the best way for most people to do this. (Page 27)

Genius insight:

In the same way, an NDE can give people the feeling of having been in contact with a tremendous source of wisdom and knowledge, like a new insight in quantum physics, or understanding the meaning of life, although they usually have no recollection of this later when they are back in their body. (Page 27)

Savants:

Many clinicians have reported savants to be capable of nonlocal information exchange, like precognition, telepathy, or clairaudience. To understand the quite amazing capabilities of savants we must reconsider the relationship between consciousness and memories with the brain as an interface with nonlocal consciousness, and not a producer of consciousness. In savants the ‘threshold of consciousness’ seems to be permanently lowered. (Page 28)

Nonlocal perturbation or Healing at a distance:

This is the effect of nonlocal consciousness on matter. (Page 28)

(5 A) Nonlocal healing, or healing at a distance.

To their surprise and dismay many people who have had an NDE often find themselves to be able to heal other people, as Jane Katra and Joyce Hawks describe extensively in their books. They now have, like many others with an NDE, the inner feeling that their body has become a receiver of, and transmitter for, universal (nonlocal) healing energy. (Page 28)

(5 B) Neuroplasticity: the mind can change the brain, which means ‘mind over matter’.

Many studies have shown that the human mind can change the function and the structure of the brain: under the influence of mindfulness, emotions, expectations, active thought processes as well as physical activities, the neural networks and electromagnetic activity of the brain undergo constant change. How could this change be scientifically explained if, as is widely assumed, consciousness is only a side effect of a functioning brain, or when consciousness is defined as only an ‘illusion’? (Page 28)

5 B 1: Placebo:

Several scientific studies have shown that the mind can influence or determine brain function, and even brain structure, to a considerable degree. (Page 29)

5 B 2: Mindfulness and cognitive therapy:

Cognitive behavioral therapy can have the same effect as a placebo. (Page 30)

5 B 3: Meditation:

During meditation people can experience a transcendent, transpersonal level of awareness, which can be seen as an aspect of nonlocal consciousness, and meditation also produces temporary and permanent changes in brain function. (Page 30)

(5 C) Nonlocal effect on ‘dead’ matter:

But is there also any scientific evidence that consciousness has an effect on ‘dead’ matter by nonlocal processes? (Page 30)

Examples of (mostly unexpected) contact with the consciousness of deceased relatives

1.A. Meeting unknown deceased relatives during an NDE

1.B. An experience of meeting people unknown to be dead

2. End-of-Life Experiences, ELE, or Deathbed Visions

3. A shared-death experience

4. A Peri-Mortal Experience

5. After-Death Communication, ADC

5 A. ADC with information exchange

5 B. Shared ADC

6. Mediums claim to be in contact with the consciousness of deceased relatives

7. Reincarnation

Interesting Quotes from the Essay

But, as I have explained before, it has indeed been scientifically proven that during NDE in cardiac arrest enhanced consciousness was experienced independently of brain function. Without a body we can still have conscious experiences. Recently someone with an NDE wrote to me: ‘I can live without my body, but apparently my body cannot live without me’. (Page 21)

Death is a transition

The conclusion seems compelling that endless or nonlocal consciousness has and always will exist independently from the body. For this reason, we should seriously consider the possibility that death, like birth, is a transition to another state of consciousness, and that during life the body functions as an interface or place of resonance. (Page 21)

Consciousness is fundamental

Based on recent research about the nonlocality of consciousness I am now convinced that consciousness is fundamental and that everything originates from consciousness. Consciousness creates our subjective reality. There is no beginning nor will there ever be an end to consciousness. Death is only the end of our physical body, but not the end of our consciousness. (Page 36)

Unlikely that consciousness is a product of brain

Based on the scientific research about NDE in survivors of cardiac arrest, with the uniform conclusions about the continuity and the nonlocality of consciousness, and based on conclusions from recent consciousness research, today more and more cognitive scientists, neuroscientists, and philosophers are coming to the inevitable conclusion that it is extremely unlikely that consciousness is a product of brain function, and that consciousness must be primary and fundamental. (Page 35)

Lack of oxygen does not explain NDE

A hallucination is an observation that is not rooted in reality, which is not consistent with descriptions of out-of-body experiences during cardiac arrest that are open to verification and corroboration by witnesses. Moreover, an NDE is accompanied by an enhanced and lucid consciousness, and NDE-like experiences can also be experienced under circumstances such as an imminent traffic accident (a ‘fear-death’ experience), during a severe depression, during an existential crisis, meditation, or isolation, or as a ‘shared-death’ experience, none of which involve oxygen deficiency. As was mentioned before, in the recently published four prospective studies on NDE in survivors of cardiac arrest the lack of oxygen by itself could not explain the cause and content of the NDE. (Page 15)

Experiences induced by psychedelics are usually not identical to NDE

Also, a perception of sound, light, or flashes of recollections from the past are sometimes mentioned. These recollections, however, consist of fragmented and random memories unlike the aforementioned panoramic life-review during NDE. Furthermore, transformation is rarely reported after induced experiences. Perhaps these drugs influence the threshold of consciousness in the brain to give access to some higher aspects of consciousness, but such experiences induced by psychedelics are usually not identical to NDE. (Page 16)

Nonlocal consciousness can explain all reported elements of an NDE

However, the physical aspect of consciousness, which originates from the wave aspect of our consciousness through collapse of the wave function (“objective reduction”) can be measured by means of neuro-imaging techniques like EEG, fMRI, and PET scan. One cannot avoid the conclusion that endless or nonlocal consciousness has always existed and will always exist independently from the body, because there is no beginning nor will there ever be an end to our consciousness. Our nonlocal consciousness resides not in our brain and is not limited to our brain. Our brain seems to have a facilitating, and not a producing role in experiencing consciousness. One can even compare the function of our brain with a filter: the brain permits just a small part of the large amount of information from our nonlocal consciousness into our daily waking consciousness. This concept of nonlocal consciousness can explain all reported elements of an NDE during cardiac arrest. (Page 20)

Criticism

This essay is organized as a readable, logical exploration of the NDE experience. For many readers, this will be their first introduction to some of the concepts. I think von Lommel understood this while writing the essay and made a conscious effort to assure terms are understood and concepts are adequately defined.

Need to address the Psi Hypothesis

Von Lommel made a solid case that mind is not the biological organism, both in the sense of nonlocal mind and in the sense of the continuity of consciousness. However, while the evidence seems strong, those two characteristics do not assure that sentient mind continues. The usual argument against survival is that virtually all of the evidence cited in the essay for survival can be explained with the Psi Hypothesis.

Which is true—survival or psychically accessed memory—is a matter for more research. But to show how the evidence of continuous consciousness is evidence of survival, it seems necessary to discuss why such influences as rapport, mental storytelling and nonlocality of information do not provide viable alternative explanations.

Information field

Some of the concepts referenced in the essay need more explanation. For instance, “Interconnectedness with the informative fields of nonlocal consciousness also explains enhanced intuition, like clairvoyance, clairaudience, prognostic dreams, premonitions, and visions.” (Page 26) “Informative fields of nonlocal consciousness” can be a different way of referring to the ubiquitous, residual memory fields required by the Super-Psi Hypothesis. Is that the reference? If so, the concept was initially used to counter the Survival Hypothesis.

Quantum-like Model for Consciousness

Von Lommel does make an effort to model nonlocal consciousness:

“… I have written that based on prospective studies on NDE and recent findings in neurophysiological research, and in analogy with concepts from quantum physics, our consciousness cannot be localised in a certain time or space. This is called nonlocal consciousness, because almost all the reported aspects of consciousness during cardiac arrest seem to behave as quantum-like phenomena, like nonlocal interconnectedness (entanglement), beyond time and space. In this concept our endless or nonlocal consciousness with declarative memories finds its origin and is stored in a nonlocal realm as wave-fields of information, and the brain only serves as a relay station for parts of these wave-fields of consciousness to be received into or as our waking consciousness. The function of the brain can therefore be compared to a transceiver, a transmitter/receiver, or interface, exactly like a computer.” (Page 19)

I think I understand the logic, it is just that the application of concepts seems a bit of a stretch. As I understand the concept, quantum entanglement means two or more “entangled” particles respond the same to an external stimulus applied to just one, even though they may be separated. The mind-brain relationship behaves as an entangled pair, but “entangled” means more like shared functions. I discuss that in the Comments section below.

Nonlocal

Nonlocality is a characteristic addressed in the Psi Field Hypothesis. The idea is that a psi influence in one part of the world can be simultaneously experienced in any art of the world by multiple people. There is no apparent distance in the nonphysical aspect of reality that propagates the influence of thought. By extension, the Psi Field is mind’s natural habitat. There is some reference to a nontemporal aspect of the field, but that concept seems to be poorly supported. I cannot recall good evidence for precognitive EVP.

Von Lommel mostly uses the nonlocal concept to describe how mind is not in the brain or a product of brain. As I understand his essay, he has extended it to nonlocal access of information in the sense of the Psi Field Hypothesis, but the emphasis seems always on using nonlocal in a similar sense as Dualism.

Continuity of consciousness

As I have noted elsewhere, “continuity of consciousness” is a different way of saying survival of consciousness after bodily death. I like the term, but the subject is “Survival of Human Consciousness after Permanent Bodily Death.” One of the lay community’s burdens is trying to keep up with scientists using “inside baseball’ terms with no apparent regard for how well they are communicating.

Closing Comments

With a little adjusting of terminology, I mostly agree with von Lommel’s argument for survival. By “continuity of consciousness, I think he is saying that mind existed before this lifetime and will exist after in a self-aware, sentient form. By “nonlocal, I think he sees the brain as a transmitter of physically sensed information to mind and receiver of movement commands from mind.

By “entanglement,” I think he is saying that the biological brain and the nonphysical mind are entangled in the sense that a person has the sense that conscious self is in the scull, but also that a person is able to extend awareness beyond the scull.

It is necessary to make more assumptions about von Lommel’s intent to speculate further. For instance, I did not notice anywhere in his essay that he addressed the nature of the body’s mental capacity. Is it capable of existence should we, as primary self, leave? Assuming it is self-aware to the extent dictated by its instincts and biological imperatives and recognizing that immortal self is influenced by its human’s instincts, entanglement would seem to be at the level of worldview and the functions that use worldview to develop perception and expression. In effect, two minds joined by their merged decision-making ability.

A two-mind model would potentially help explain such experiences as the tunnel sometimes encountered in NDEs. For the first time since birth, when body-mind and immortal self are no longer entangled at the moment of death, the person would be free of human instincts. Is the tunnel initiated by such a drastic change?

For the same reason, terminal lucidity might become possible as the body-mind begins to retreat.

Such questions are part of defining a coherent survival cosmology. In my view, a coherent model is necessary to show why evidence is evidential.

I should point out that Dr. Pim van Lommel is basing his essay on research he and colleagues has conducted. This essay is by no means a metanalysis-like compilation or regurgitation of old stories. He is adding to the body of knowledge. His work is not the final solution, but it certainly adds important elements.

Tom Butler

My Qualifications

BS Electrical and Electronics Engineer
Ordained by the National Spiritualist Association of Churches (NSAC)
NSAC National Spiritualist Teacher
Trained in several psychic and mediumship modalities. Certified medium with the NSAC.
Trained in several healing modalities (healing intention) including Reiki Master and NSAC certification.
Co-director of the Association TransCommunication (ATransC) since 2000. (ATransC was formally known as the American Association Electronic Voice Phenomena (AA-EVP)).
Conducted several lay studies of ITC characteristics, including:

4Cell EVP Demonstration

EVP Online Listening Trials

EVP Online Phantom Voices

Information Gathering Using EVPmaker With Allophone: A Yearlong Trial

Perception of Visual ITC Images

Radio-Sweep: A Case Study

Using EVP to find a Missing Person Page 16, Winter 2007 ATransC NewsJournal

Sponsored: EVPmaker with Allophones: Where are We Now?

Sponsored: A Research Study into the Interpretation of EVP