Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies Winning Essays 2023: Proof of Survival of Human Consciousness Beyond Permanent Death ed. by Robert Rosenberg (review)

Reviewed by: Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies Winning Essays 2023: Proof of Survival of Human Consciousness Beyond Permanent Death ed. by Robert Rosenberg Benjamin D. Crace Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies Winning Essays 2023: Proof of Survival of Human Consciousness Beyond Permanent Death. Edited by Robert Rosenberg. 5 vols. Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies, 2023. Hardcover sent free to educational and research institutions, libraries, and individuals interested in survival of human consciousness after death; PDFs of individual essays are available from the BICS website. Founded by Las Vegas real estate and aerospace billionaire Robert Bigelow in 2020, the Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies (BICS) seeks "to support research into the survival of human consciousness after physical death and, following from that, the nature of 'the afterlife'" (https: //www. bigelowinstitute. org/). To that end, the BICS held an essay competition that began in January 2021 that asked, "What is the best evidence for the survival of human consciousness beyond permanent bodily death? " Restricted to 25, 000 words, essay-ists were also required to present "proof beyond a reasonable doubt. " Cash prizes of 500, 000 for first, 300, 000 for second, and 150, 000 for third place—as well as additional cash awards for all twenty-nine finalists—were announced in November 2021. The essays were then collected and published in the five volumes reviewed here. Contest judges were Christopher C. Green, a forensic neurologist; Jeffrey Kripal, Associate Dean of Faculty at Rice University; Leslie Kean, journalist and End Page 131 researcher; Brain Weiss, Chairman Emeritus of Psychiatry at Mount Sinai Medical Center Miami; Jessica Utts, Professor Emerita of Statistics at University of California, Irvine; and Harold Puthoff, President and CEO of Earth Tech International. Robert Bigelow himself is an intriguing figure. Part of the motivation for establishing the BICS and the subsequent launching of the competition was his wife Diane's passing. According to Bigelow's Dedication that prefaces each volume, she had reached out to him from beyond in undeniable ways: "She gave to me and others several physical demonstrations that were specifically identifiable to her and proved that she strongly survived. " She was, literally, the spirit behind BICS and "The Contest. " But even before his wife's death, Bigelow had funded many paranormal research projects, including owning (for a time) the infamous paranormal property known as Skinwalker Ranch. First place, for the half-million-dollar purse, went to American parapsychologist Jeffrey Mishlove. "Beyond the Brain: The Survival of Human Consciousness after Permanent Bodily Death" is dense with historical and contemporary information, and sets the tone and approach of the other essays. Mishlove throws everything, as well as the proverbial kitchen sink, into his essay—including a full color reproduction of his PhD degree. He also covers a wide territory, from near-death experiences (NDEs), after-death communications (ADCs), and reincarnation to possession cases, xenoglossy, mental and physical mediumship, and much, much more. Mishlove's entry establishes a pattern or typology that gets repeated throughout the volumes, albeit unintentionally. I will call this emergent pattern the Mishlove typology. It consists of four main elements: 1) questioning the philosophical assumptions of the materialist worldview where survival is impossible; 2) using a similar but limited set of sources, anecdotes, and studies beginning with William James and the Society for Psychical Research; 3) making an argument based on the collective strength of many seemingly ambiguous reports; and 4) repeatedly asserting that proving psi phenomena—paranormal and/or anomalous events—is the way to prove postmortem survival. While the Mishlove typology offers a kind of rhetorical punch for the first few essays, five volumes of it begins to wear thin. The second-place essay titled "The Continuity of Consciousness: A Concept Based on Scientific Research on Near-Death Experiences during Cardiac Arrest, " by Pim van Lommel, takes more of a medical approach, drawing upon years of van Lommel's own research as a Dutch cardiologist. Van Lommel mainly focuses on NDEs with substantial attention given to the nature of consciousness, concluding that "our consciousness cannot be localised in a certain time or space" (38). This non-localized consciousness opens the door for a host of other phenomena like ADCs, reincarnation, savantism, mediumship, terminal. . .