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Media Watch for November 2006 (Issue 60)
Scientists to Research Effects of Spirituality: The Philadelphia-based Metanexus Institute has awarded $4.6 million to fund eleven research teams seeking to further the scientific understanding of religion and spirituality. One of the research projects will see David Sloan Wilson of Binghamton University and William Scott Green of the University of Miami leading a two-year study of the Religious Conceptions of the Afterlife from a cultural evolutionary perspective. Dr. Wilson says the project will “study the diversity of conceptions of the afterlife in the same way that evolutionists study the diversity of biological life forms.” He adds that the project is designed to accelerate “evolutionary religious studies as a general field of enquiry.”
If a person suffering acute leukemia performs spiritual meditation does it help? Brenda Cole of the University of Pittsburgh will lead a three-year study of the “Health Effects of Spiritually Focused Meditation for People with Acute Leukemia.” Dr. Cole says the spiritual aspect of meditation in clinical treatments of cancer has not been considered, yet and there are many questions. “For example, do clients experience meditation as spiritual even if it is taught only as a stress management technique? Does it matter if they experience it as spiritual or not, in terms of their emotional, physical, or spiritual well-being?” Dr. Cole says the study hopes to answer these questions by comparing the benefits of spiritually focused and secularly focused meditation programs for people hospitalized for leukemia.
No Affiliations in Near Death Experience: A survey done by psychiatrist, Peter Fenwick of Kings College in London, found that religious affiliation did not factor into those who claimed to glimpse eternity with even non-believers reporting rising from their body and seeing a great light. Some atheist who had experienced a Near Death Experience (NDE) found it quite difficult to incorporate the experience into their lives. Of those surveyed, seventy-six percent described beautiful pastoral landscapes and thirty-eight percent encountered deceased relatives and friends. Fenwick says the dead tend to be seen in the prime of life even when they died ill, damaged by accidents or at a ripe old age. Of those having a NDE, seventy-two percent report being more spiritual and having less fear of death and Fenwick says that they appear to be more psychologically balanced than the average person. From: “Near-death survivors recall ‘the other side’,” UPI Religion and Spirituality Forum, June 30, 2006 (other source) Brain-waves different after NDE: A study at the University of Arizona has found that people who have undergone a Near-Death Experience (NDE) have abnormal brain waves. This is the first confirmation that something is going on in the brains of people who die and report leaving their bodies and moving toward a loving, peaceful light or presence before being resuscitated and returned to life. The finding does not prove or disprove that NDE are actual encounters with an afterlife but it may help explain why lives and attitudes are often dramatically changed by such experiences.
The study by Willoughby B. Britton, published in the Journal of Psychological Science, recorded the brain waves of twenty-three people who had NDE and twenty-three people who had not. Twenty-two percent on the NDE participants showed a rare brain-wave known as “synchronized brain activity” in the left temporal lobe. The NDE group also took a longer time to reach the REM stage of sleep. What the study does not reveal is whether the NDE participants had abnormal brain activity and unusual sleep patterns prior to the life changing experience or whether the NDE caused the unusual brain and sleep patterns. From: “Near-death survivors show brain-wave abnormality, study finds,” Carla McClain, Arizona Daily Star 6/1/2004.
Perrott-Warrick Award: Dr. Rupert Sheldrake has received a Perrott-Warrick award and will receive support for his research over the next three years. You will remember Rubert for his online telepathy experiments as well as his sense of being stared at experiments. Sheldrake may be best known for his research on the telepathic abilities of the parrot, N’kisi.The Perrott-Warrick Fund is administered by Trinity College, Cambridge. Apart from the Koestler Chair at Edinburgh University, it is the largest source of financial support for psychical research and parapsychology in Britain.
In 1937, as a memorial to F.W.H.Myers, who had been a Fellow of Trinity College, Frank Duerdin Perrott made a bequest to the Masters and Fellows of the college “absolutely for the purpose of psychical research.” He defined psychical research as, “The investigation of mental or physical phenomena which seem prima facie to suggest (a) the existence of supernormal powers of cognition or action in human beings in their present life, or (b) the persistence of the human mind after bodily death.” In 1956, the fund was increased by a further bequest from Frederic Walmsley Warrick. Dreams about Murder Victim: Five years ago, Rod Spraggins made national headlines in an Alabama political debate when he publicly accused his opponent, Barry Waites of murder. The two were running for Lanett City Council when Spraggins stunned a crowd of one hundred with his accusation that Waites had murdered his wife, daring him to sue for slander if he was wrong. Waites never responded and never sued. The Police now say Spraggins was right and have arrested Waites for the 1998 slaying of his wife, Charlotte, who was found dead in the couple’s home.
Spraggins disclosed after the arrest that he never had any hard evidence but that his accusation had been based on Mrs. Waites’ appearing to him in a series of dreams. “She started appearing to me within the first weeks of her death,” said Spraggins who entered the City Council race for the sole purpose of publicly pointing the finger at Waites. Neither man won the City Council seat amid the controversy but Spraggins said he got what he wanted in the end. www.whas11.com/topstories/stories/WHAS11_TOP_AlabamPoliticians.13fa952b.htmlBurial Alternatives: With funerals averaging $6,500 and the funeral industry generating over $11 Billion in revenue every year, it is no wonder that entrepreneurs are looking at alternatives to a typical resting place for our bodies. You may have heard of Space Service, Inc. They offer a space burial in which seven grams of a person’s cremated remains are placed inside a lipstick-size capsule and launched into orbit. Eternal Reefs, a Georgia based company mixes the departed person’s ashes with environmentally friendly concrete and makes “reef balls” that are placed along the coast. And of course who doesn’t like Diamonds. For some time now, LifeGem has been using carbon from the loved one’s ashes to render a diamond that can be worn in a ring or necklace. The company estimates 2006 sales will reach 7.5 million. Online Obituaries: There is a new social networking web site for Americans aged fifty-plus. Jeff Taylor, founder of Internet job site Monster.com, launched the new site called Eons.com in July. Eons sports interactive games to build brain strength, and news on entertainment and hobbies for older people. The site also contains something more unusual. It is an online obituary database dating back to the 1930s to which people can add photos and comments. Members can even sign up to receive an alert when someone from a particular area dies or in response to pre-defined keywords such as a company or school name
Taylor says that the death business is growing and rose to 2.4 million in 2005 from 2.2 million in 2000. Deaths are projected to rise to 4.1 million by 2040. Taylor sees online obituaries replacing the traditional announcements in newspapers and feels that baby boomers, the seventy-seven million Americans born between 1946 and 1964, want to have a greater input into their own funerals. So Eons is looking into a do-it-yourself funeral service.
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