Surviving Death: A Journalist Investigates Evidence for an Afterlife

Ms. Kean has done a remarkable job of reporting on the afterlife experiences and evidence of survival that are so rashly “poo-poo’d” by the scientific community. If my 74 years on this planet are an accurate representation of most humans, we pass by multiple incidents of contacts, ranging from glimpses to full-blown apparitions, all the while keeping silent and even doubting our own sanity and senses, in a failed attempt to believe that “death” is final and for too many, that nothing exists beyond this mortal and all-too-short lifespan. I have experienced several such experiences but this review is not the appropriate place to list them.Ms. Kean, once again you have proven your professionalism and skill as an investigative journalist, presenting fact and perhaps less factual (e.g.: unprovable) evidence in a wide-eyed but unbiased manner. You are one of the last remaining honest and unbiased journalists in our country today. Thank you.

This is a great book. I’d be hard pressed to find a better one for a general audience on the reasons we need to take survival research and its findings seriously. In fact, it’s so good, so clear and well-organized, that I’ve read it three times, recommended it to friends and family, and will continue to give it as a special gift to those I think might appreciate its worth. To paraphrase a spiritual teacher I know who read it upon my recommendation and loved it: it has the capacity to change lives and how we view death and the likelihood of an afterlife. It can also change the very nature of spiritual practice, for those engaged in it, once we begin to understand that indeed, we survive death as individuals who live, love, learn, and grow and deeply wish to continue to do so—apparently, in a process that cycles and evolves through a mysterious marriage of both biological and spiritual realms.It’s not just that Ms. Kean has done her homework exceedingly well, examining a broad range of survival evidence—from field research into verified reincarnation cases, to near-death/after-death experiences, to mental and physical mediumship, and to apparition cases where spirits are clearly interacting with the living—but that her own integrity and sincere personal engagement continually shine through. Her skepticism, from the start, has been open to being changed by the evidence, unlike those who are victims of the will-to-disbelieve it. As she takes us on her investigative journey, while inviting long-time researchers to weigh in with their own excellent chapters, the strong evidence for an afterlife is triangulated in the radar. If that weren’t enough, she shares her personal evidential sessions with mental and physical mediums, including exchanges with her friend, the dead ufologist Budd Hopkins, and direct encounters with her beloved dead brother.As she wrestles sincerely with the wily dog guarding the door to the afterlife—the super-psi hypothesis that would reduce much of the evidence of mediumship, whether mental or physical, to the psychic (psi) abilities of the living—I think she and her fellow researchers show (even when she cannot quite bring herself to say it) the strength of the evidence against that argument. But that’s not all. More radically—as long-time afterlife researcher Dan Drasin puts it near the end of the book—I think she winds up showing that the various phenomena examined by afterlife research are only explicable in a hyper-dimensional view of reality—where the sources of life and consciousness, in opposition to scientific materialism, have their true home. In the end, the psi abilities shown by psychics and mediums—whether they’re focused on living psi or survival psi—are only possible because the mind, consciousness, individuality, and indeed, life itself, have their roots in higher dimensions.Ms. Kean doesn’t quite fully move onto the higher ground of hyper-dimensional model-building by the end of the book, nor does she discuss the first-hand findings of conscious out-of-body experience practitioners—which I think are highly relevant to exploring the relationship of such things as “ectoplasm,” “etheric” or “astral bodies,” and the mind and consciousness itself, to the physical brain and body and the material domain. Once we’re convinced the afterlife exists and that we can interact with it and the people within it, we need to explore scientifically how it’s all structured, its various constituents, and what makes it all work so elegantly together. Moreover, since Leslie is a UFO researcher as well (see her UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record)—what are the implications of a non-materialist view of reality for ufology?I’ll be eagerly awaiting Ms. Kean’s next books, where I hope she’ll take up some of these topics. In the meantime, I can highly recommend Surviving Death. It’s one of the best books out there for the general public on the evidence for the afterlife. Surviving Death: A Journalist Investigates Evidence for an Afterlife

Author Leslie Kean has a new book out entitled Surviving Death. It deals with the evidence that human beings have an afterlife……..after they die. The book covers several aspects of afterlife evidence. From Near Death Experiences (NDEs) to reincarnation to odd manifestations (smells, unexplained noises or events) and even contacting deceased loved one's… Kean investigates several paths to this mystery.One of the first stories which I read literally blew me away. It is about the past life of a young child who told his parents he was a WWII aviator. The amount of detail this young boy gave his parents on his past life is incredible. The story has made media headlines in the past……. Kean has included it in her book since it has been very well documented. There was also the story of another young child who claimed that in his prior life he was a Hollywood B actor in the 1930s. Once again the information this child gives his parents of that other life is absolutely fascinating. There is no way these kids could fabricate a story like this. There are just too many details involved. It will make you wonder!The book also delves into Near Death Experiences or NDEs and also Outer Body Experiences OBEs. These accounts have become more common in our world today. One of the stories in the book is about a woman that had a cardiac arrest in Harborview hospital in Seattle in the late 70s. She told her nurse that she floated above her body and saw everything the doctors were doing. She also said she went outside of the hospital and saw a tennis shoe on a ledge which couldn’t be seen unless you were outside looking down. The patient’s story was verified by her doctors on what they were doing to her and so was the tennis shoe which they later found. How to account for that is the mystery. This is a fascinating book covering the many aspects of the possibility of an existence after death. The one area that Kean’s book may have lost me a bit was dealing with mediums, séances and people who can possibly communicate with the dead. Here my interest somewhat waned since I have never really looked into that avenue of thought.Kean also brought into the book her personal experiences which are quite interesting. I will leave that for the reader to explore. Suffice to say that many of us have had similar types of experiences which we can’t just explain away as coincidence. Overall I enjoyed reading this book quite a bit.Kean is known for delving into the unknown mysteries of our world. Her previous book was about UFOs/UAPs and garnered much attention for its thorough research and validity. She had many former military, government and civilian professionals come forward to discuss the phenomenon in that book. This new book she has treated in the same way. She brings together experts on the after death subject from around the world. This book looks to also break barriers on this age old mystery which we all have to confront someday.

Following-up on her 2011 book ‘UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials go on the Record’, the independent NYC-based investigative journalist Leslie Kean here examines the evidence for our survival of physical death. As with her previous work, the primary target audience is less those already committed to any religious doctrine/faith or the new-ager steeped in the lore of this subject, but rather those who inhabit the everyday, ‘level-headed’ scientific mainstream and may be unacquainted with the evidence of the survival-after-death of human consciousness – which, as we discover in this book, is substantial.In the Introduction, the author writes: “An investigation of such evidence has rarely been systematically consolidated and subjected to in-depth, rigorous scrutiny by a journalist…my intention is to present some of the most interesting evidence from diverse sources and show how it interconnects, making it accessible for the intelligent and curious reader encountering the material for the first time. Strict journalistic protocols can be applied to any topic for which there is data, no matter how unusual or even indeterminate”.The book is very well planned and organized, and divides into four sections which each examine this subject from a different side of the prism:1. Is there ‘Life’ before Birth? – examining some compelling cases of apparent reincarnation, where small children persistently report complex and precise details of a previous life later verified; two American cases form the bedrock of this section, chosen because the cultural and religious landscape in the US does not offer a natural framework for the parents of the children concerned to accept their children’s reports of their previous lives2. To Death and Back Again – examining the best-documented stories of NDEs/OBEs3. Communications from Nonlocal Minds – examining evidence for nonlocal consciousness and ‘mental mediumship’; this section contains some of the author’s most personal experiences of communications from departed family members and loved ones4. The Impossible Made Real – examining instances of physical mediumship where the author takes part in experiments where full-form materialisations manifest in séance sessions; especially important here is the work of the British medium Stewart Alexander to whom the author made several research visitsAs with Ms Kean’s ‘UFOs…’ book, several chapters are penned by other contributors like Jim Tucker MD, Pim van Lommel MD, Peter Fenwick MD, Julie Beischel PhD and others which endows the work with a more collegiate scientific dynamic and elevates the book beyond the purely personal – though for my money, the author’s reported personal experiences with different mediums are the most compelling and moving sections (those who know the work of the author’s close friend the late Budd Hopkins, and especially those who knew him personally, may be amused and delighted by the communications reported on pp156-167).‘Surviving Death’ is a very high-quality piece of work with a logical structure founded on intelligent, evidence-based arguments. The writing from not only Ms Kean but from all subsidiary contributors is literate and straightforward with exemplary proofreading completely free of typos; there are two 8-page sections of (mainly colour) photographs of the people written about in the text and an accurate and comprehensive index. The white-themed hardcover and dust-jacket are also very striking and appropriate to the subject.In summary, Ms Kean’s new book is an absorbing read containing nothing extraneous and concerned only with factual evidence which will likely become the definitive ‘serious’ work on this most important subject. Five stars.

This is a weak attempt at investigating the paranormal and the possibility of an afterlife. I hasten to add that I’m not a skeptic and am definitely convinced that these things exist. But I pride myself on being a ‘believer’ skeptic the extent to which this author accepts everything served up to her is laughable. A much, much better investigator is Ian Wilson who has begun to be a forgotten voice but is soberly critical yet interested at all times. Kean throws in the mandatory claim to being the type who won’t have the wool pulled over her eyes, but her accepting manner suggests otherwise. It’s obvious to any educated person for instance that Ian Stevenson’s work on children who claim to be reincarnated is largely hogwash because these claims are 95% in poor countries and from children who come from poor families. Invariably they claim that they belonged to some rich family living locally in the hope that this family will provide for their long lost relative. Kean also has an unhealthy belief in Edwardian charlatans who she claims were the real thing but further research from me found that they were all caught pursuing underhand and fake practices. Don’t waste your money on this, look out for a second hand copy of any of Ian Wilson’s several books on the same topic as well as a brilliant book on ghosts.

I haven’t finished yet, but wow! I’ve always believed there’s far more to each and every one of us so maybe I have too biased a view. The imbalances of this bodily/earthly existence must level somehow. We all get dealt a particular hand at birth and by God or whoever you do or don’t believe in some of us get a hand of junk. I’ve read the UFO book by this author and the amount of research plus quotes and examples from many doctors, scientists, military and academic people she gets to go on the record is truly exceptional. A great lady in my humble opinion. Really it has to be worth a read. I promise it won’t waste your time. Unless truly there is nothing else. But I’m sure after reading this at least some will change their viewpoint. Thanks for reading my review.

With a lifetime of involvement and author of many articles on the subject of survival evidence, I can thoroughly recommend this book. Leslie has spoken to the right experts in each field of inquiry, which is not always the case by any means in journalism. Amongst those she has interviewed are: specialist academics; the conveyors of evidence (usually mediums); those who have witnessed evidence; those who have directly received personal evidence. Plus, she has reported on her own remarkable personal evidence. Given the vastness of data available, Leslie has condensed into one book a very fair overall assessment of evidence for and against consciousness survival beyond the grave.Often journalists present, through ignorance or desire, very biased accounts of survival evidence rendering such accounts as worthless to the rational mind. Either far too sceptical giving little emphasis to, or worst still, ignoring the best evidence. Or, on the other hand, enthusiastically presenting woolly evidence that fails to impress on close examination. In the case of blatant bias in presenting survival evidence, it is not just the prerogative of the written word. So called ‘impartial’ or ‘scientifically based’ TV programmes excel in this sphere. Oh, how transparent are their clandestine agendas to those knowledgeable of the subject matter.Although for the last three decades I have written on scientific research into all aspects of survival evidence, I have considerable personally experience of the phenomena described in Chapter 25 of Stewart Alexander’s mediumship, which Leslie Keen described as “life changing”. My detailed examination of his seances appeared in Issue 51 of Paranormal Review published July 2009 by the SPR (see below). My report also appears in Stewart Alexander’s autobiography: An Extraordinary Journey: The Memoirs of a Physical Medium, published 2010.Given the vastness of the data that has been collected over the last two centuries, Leslie Keen’s book can only give a taster to wet the appetite of readers who wish to investigate further. For the serious researcher, there is the USA based American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR), or the original Society for Psychical Research (SPR) based in the UK – but only two years older than the ASPR!

I have a fairly extensive library on this all important subject. Not all my books are that good but this one is without doubt absolutely brilliant. Ms Kean is a first class investigative journalist and she takes nothing for granted but probes the data for more 'down to earth' possibilities but after all the alternatives are explored and rejected she comes down heavily on the side of we all survive death irrespective of any religious beliefs. Written in an easy to read yet intelligent style I recommend this book 100%.