The Immortal Mind

1. Near-Death Experiences provide evidence of consciousness beyond brain function.

NDEs tell us that conscious experience is possible during the time the brain is temporarily dysfunctional.

Consciousness anomaly. Near-Death Experiences (NDEs) occur when individuals have conscious experiences while their brain is clinically dead, challenging the materialist view that consciousness is solely a product of brain function. These experiences are reported with significant frequency and often include veridical perceptions.

Common traits. NDEs share core features across diverse accounts, including out-of-body experiences, tunnel visions, encounters with deceased loved ones or beings of light, and panoramic life reviews. Historical accounts, like Plato's story of Er, show these experiences are not new.

Documented cases. Studies by researchers like Pim van Lommel and Michael Sabom, and cases like Pam Reynolds's operation, provide clinical evidence of complex conscious experience occurring during periods of zero measurable brain activity, suggesting consciousness can exist independently.

2. Apparitions and After-Death Communication suggest consciousness persists after death.

It appears that phenomena of visions and apparitions are not exceptional.

Contact with the departed. Reports of apparitions and After-Death Communication (ADC) describe spontaneous or induced contact with individuals who are no longer living. These encounters are widespread across cultures and history.

Veridical information. Many cases involve the communication of factual information unknown to the living witness at the time, later verified. Examples include deathbed visions of recently deceased relatives unknown to the dying person, or details about circumstances of death.

Systematic study. Organizations like the Society for Psychical Research and projects like the ADC Project have collected thousands of accounts, providing a basis for studying these phenomena, which suggest a form of consciousness can manifest and communicate after physical death.

3. Medium-Transmitted Communication offers contact with discarnate entities.

It appears that the contacted entity is a quasi-living consciousness that is not the consciousness of a presently living person.

Channeling messages. Communication with deceased persons can occur through a medium, typically in a trance state, who channels messages to living sitters. This differs from spontaneous contact as it involves a third party facilitating the communication.

Evidence of authenticity. Credible cases minimize the possibility of fraud or telepathy from living persons by providing information unknown to the medium or sitter, sometimes involving obscure knowledge or languages. The cross-correspondences experiments are a notable example.

Intentional communication. Some channeled entities display intentionality, providing specific, verifiable details (like the R101 airship crash details or the Roden Noel puzzle) or engaging in complex interactions (like the chess game with Geza Maroczy), suggesting they are distinct, conscious personalities.

4. Instrumental Transcommunication enables electronic contact with the deceased.

Consciousness, it seems, can exist in a form where it gives rise to signals that electronic devices can convert into sound as well as image.

Electronic voices. Instrumental Transcommunication (ITC), particularly Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP), involves recording anomalous voices or images through electronic devices like radios, TVs, or computers, purportedly from deceased individuals.

Pioneering research. Early researchers like Konstantin Raudive and Friedrich Jürgenson reported capturing thousands of voices, often containing identifiable words and personal messages. Later work by Hans Otto König and Anabela Cardoso used specialized equipment and controlled conditions.

Verifiable details. Some ITC cases include verifiable information, such as specific names, events, or technical details unknown to the experimenters, suggesting the source is external and intelligent. The Marcello Bacci radio voices are a compelling example witnessed by many.

5. Past-Life Recollections reveal memories not from the current lifetime.

Whether or not the memories that surface in the consciousness of people are memories of their own previous lives, or are fragments from the life of others, memories do surface that are not memories from the present lifetime of the individual.

Regression analysis. Psychotherapeutic regression, often using hypnosis, can elicit memories that appear to be from previous lives, sometimes involving speaking unknown languages or describing historical details later verified.

Historical accounts. Researchers like Albert de Rochas documented cases where individuals in trance described lives and events that matched historical records, suggesting access to information beyond their current knowledge.

Beyond personal memory. Regardless of whether these are true personal past lives or access to a broader pool of consciousness, the phenomenon demonstrates that detailed memories and experiences not belonging to the individual's current life can surface in altered states.

6. Reincarnation-type experiences indicate consciousness reappearing in new bodies.

It is beyond all reasonable doubt that a deceased person can be reexperienced, and seemingly relived, by a living person.

Childhood phenomena. Experiences suggestive of reincarnation are most common in children aged two to six, often involving vivid recollections of a previous life, sometimes accompanied by corresponding behaviors or phobias.

Verifiable details. Pioneering research by Ian Stevenson and later by Jim Tucker documented thousands of cases where children provided specific details about a deceased person's life, family, and death that were later corroborated by independent witnesses and records.

Physical correlates. Some cases include birthmarks or birth defects on the child that correspond to wounds or features of the previous personality, offering a physical link between the two lives and strengthening the evidence for a connection.

7. Contemporary science is rediscovering a fundamental, non-material dimension.

In the new paradigm we discuss here, the matrix is the cosmic deep dimension: “the Akasha.”

Beyond spacetime. Cutting-edge physics, particularly quantum field theory and cosmology, suggests the observable universe is not the ultimate reality but a manifestation of an underlying, intrinsically unobservable matrix or field.

Information as primary. This emerging paradigm views information, rather than matter, as the basic reality. Entities in spacetime are seen as excitations or projections within this deeper dimension, which exists prior to and beyond space and time.

Scientific concepts. Discoveries like the FQH state, string-net theories, and the amplituhedron point towards a fundamental, interconnected substrate underlying the physical world, echoing ancient concepts of a cosmic ground of being.

8. This deep dimension, the Akasha, is the basis of reality and consciousness.

The Akasha paradigm views events in spacetime as manifestations of fundamental relations in the Akashic deep-dimension.

Cosmic consciousness. The Akasha is proposed as the integral consciousness of the cosmos, not merely an information field. Our individual consciousness is seen as a localized manifestation or holographic projection of this unitary cosmic consciousness.

Explaining the "hard problem". This perspective resolves the puzzle of how the material brain produces immaterial consciousness by positing that consciousness is not produced by the brain but exists independently within the Akasha.

Intrinsic connection. Our individual consciousness is intrinsically linked with the Akasha, meaning everything in our consciousness is integrated with this cosmic dimension, allowing for potential access to information beyond our personal experience.

9. Consciousness is a cosmic phenomenon, transmitted and displayed by the brain.

The brain does not produce consciousness; it transmits and displays it.

Transmission, not production. Analogous to a radio transmitting a symphony, the brain is viewed as an instrument that receives and displays consciousness, which exists independently in the cosmic Akasha. When the brain ceases function, the transmission stops, but consciousness persists.

Beyond observation. We experience our consciousness subjectively; we don't observe it as a physical object. Similarly, the Akasha is not observed but its effects are experienced, suggesting it operates on a different plane of reality than the physical brain.

Quantum link. Theories like Penrose and Hameroff's Orch OR propose mechanisms by which consciousness from the deep dimension could interact with the physical world at the quantum level within the brain's subneuronal structures.

10. Death is the return of localized consciousness to the cosmic Akasha.

Dying is not the end of existence; it is a return of the consciousness localized in the individual to the cosmos.

Conservation of information. Every thought, feeling, and experience of an individual consciousness is intrinsically linked with and conserved within the Akasha. This is not a transfer, but a continuous integration.

Unbroken connection. At death, the physical body ceases to function, but the connection between the individual consciousness and the cosmic consciousness remains unbroken. The totality of the individual's consciousness is already part of the Akasha.

Trajectory beyond the body. While the body's components follow their physical paths, the consciousness that informed the whole body does not vanish but continues its existence as an intrinsic part of the cosmic consciousness.

11. Experiences beyond death vary, influencing the path of consciousness.

Human consciousness, it seems, can take more than one path when it leaves the body.

Diverse experiences. Near-death experiences are often characterized by peace, light, and joy, making individuals reluctant to return. However, intermission memories in reincarnation cases can describe periods of discomfort or suffering.

Spiritual perspectives. Religious and spiritual traditions, like Tibetan Buddhism's bardo states or Western concepts of heaven and hell, describe varying post-mortem journeys influenced by the individual's life and actions (karma).

Paths of return or progression. Consciousness may return to earthly existence through reincarnation for further development or rectification of past actions. Alternatively, it may progress to higher realms, ultimately converging back into the integral consciousness of the Akasha.

12. Recognizing conscious immortality can usher in a new era for humanity.

Realizing that our consciousness is immortal would give us the assurance we need to experience joy in living and tranquility in dying.

Transcending conscious mortality. Humanity has transitioned from unconscious to intuitive to the current era of conscious mortality, where death is seen as the end of existence, often leading to fear and a focus on immediate gratification.

A new vision. Scientific evidence supporting the persistence of consciousness beyond the brain offers a foundation for a new era: conscious immortality. This is not just belief, but a credible possibility.

Transformative impact. Awareness of an immortal mind could fundamentally change human values and behaviors, fostering greater responsibility towards others and the environment, reducing the fear of death, and providing a deeper sense of purpose and continuity.

Last updated: June 28, 2025