Is There An Afterlife?: A Comprehensive Overview of the Evidence | David Fontana

Is There An Afterlife?: A Comprehensive Overview of the Evidence | David Fontana | Overwhelming and Comprehensive

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Is There An Afterl...

	Is There An Afterlife?: A Comprehensive Overview of the Evidence David Fontana O Books, 2005 - 496 pages average customer review:based on 10 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

This book presents the most complete survey to date of the evidence, both historical and contemporary, for survival of physical death.

the best evidence avalible

This is far and away the best evidence given for this subject I have yet seen. The author also offers irrefutable arguments against the skeptics. Highly reccommended.

Overwhelming and Comprehensive

David Fontana provides an enormous amount of information concerning research conducted into understanding life after death. The content covers research conducted going all the way back through the early research from members of the SPR, includes research conducted at Duke and Cambridge Universities (among others) through to the present day. The author covers all angles of arguments against an afterlife as much as could possibly done, presenting as a result an overwhelmingly strong case for survival after death. The thoroughness of the data is astonishing and very compelling. I consider this a textbook (without being dry as textbooks often are) for any parapsychology or psychical research student or individuals interested in the paranormal.

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Very interesting!

I'm not an author so I don't know exactly what goes in to creating a book. I can only imagine the hours that David Fontana spent doing the research for this book. It's not a quick read, but absolutely not a boring one. If your on the fence and your still not quite sure that there is an afterlife, you really should take the time and read this book. I've been on a mission the past 6 years, learning about all the different types of religion, so I also began looking at the subject from a scientific point of view. After reading this book, I Am so sure that there is an afterlife, I am no longer afraid to die. Thank you David for all your time writing this Great book!

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Good book, poorly copyedited

David Fontana provides a very good overview of the evidence for survival of human consciousness/personality of the physical death of the body. He musters a considerable body of evidence from various areas of parapsychology to suggest, very strongly, that we don't die with our bodies. The literature on this subject is immense, and Fontana does a good job of surveying most of the important works. A notable and admirable feature of the book is that Fontana does not hesitate to point out weaknesses in certain arguments, though in the final analysis he clearly believes (with good reason) that the scientific evidence supports the idea of survival. The implications of survival are enormous and would likely change much about how we lived our lives if it were to be widely accepted.

For me a major flaw in the book is the poor copyediting. The same name is spelled two or three different ways on the same page or within a few pages (for example, at the top of p. 167, Fontana mentions "Australian-born medium Aviva Neumann." Three lines later the first name is spelled Avival, and two pages later it's spelled Avuva), there are lots of typos, the margins go from fully justified to left justified for a few paragraphs toward the end, etc. The biggest flaw in this regard is that almost none of the in-text citations in Chapters 15 and 16 have corresponding references in the bibliography. This makes it virtually impossible to track down the works cited if one wants to read them (as I do). This sloppiness in organizing the book and poor copyediting is not only very distracting and frustrating (since I'm the type of person that would like to read other works, and the missing references happen to be on topics that interest me most in this whole area), but it could provide skeptics with an avenue for criticizing the soundness of the scholarship. In general, these kinds of omissions make me wonder about the scholarship of a particular book, but in this case I don't think it undermines Fontana's argument. But still, they are very disappointing.

Perhaps some people might think three stars is a little harsh for the issues cited, but they are important to me and detract from the book's readability.

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If you are a skeptic you will probably remain a skeptic

I felt very far removed when reading this book. What I mean about that is it is mainly based off of someones existing research from the late 1800's and early 1900's (there is some recent research also but the most compelling research seems to be based off of the past researched) with very little of the Author's own individual first hand research. Not only that, the old research is based on anecdotes of people who probably already believed in the paranormal. Not only that, most of the research presented did not really have counter rebuttals from that era, probably because back then it was more than likely accepted at face value and not truly scrutinized. Granted, the old researchers did do their best with their line of questioning but mainly we only know what the authors tells us. We really never get to know the full entire aspects of the research itself, like if there are any potential flaws or not, and this is what I mean by feeling so far removed because I am getting something from someone who got it from someone who got it from someone. I did also notice in this book that the author often builds up strawman arguments that would refute the paranormal and then tears it down. What that means is the author presents some arguments of rebuttal (not all) and tears them down, but often leaves out other valid arguments against the paranormal unmentioned.

However I do feel the strongest part of the book is the research presented of NDE's where he accurately states all the NDE's rebuttals and their research to replicate an NDE/OBE, and then proceeds to refute them quite effectively.

I went into this book very neutral on the belief in an afterlife, with hope that there is one but not entirely sure. I have left this book almost in the same place, with a slight nod to my hope being slightly more justified.

If you believe, you will continue to believe after reading this. If you are a true skeptic I do not think this book is convincing enough to sway that skepticism. If you are neutral on the matter it may make you lean towards belief. Overall a good book with decent research but can beg a lot of questions within the anecdotes/conclusions themselves.

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reviews: page 1, 2

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