9 Spooky Experiments People Attempted To Solve The Mystery Of Afterlife

Life after death, in my opinion, is the mother of all mysteries. Imagine if solving this mystery gave results you actually hoped for? Wouldn’t that be really interesting, and also spooky. Although I don’t believe in the theory of afterlife, I sure was bewildered reading about certain experiments people found sense in conducting, to learn about the afterlife.

Experiments like:

1. God Helmet: Apparently gives you mystical experiences

God Helmet is a controversial invention by Stanley Koren and neuroscientist Michael Persinger. The purpose behind it was to help Persinger in his research in Neurotheology: defined as a study of the neural correlations of religion and spirituality.

Persinger claimed that most of his subjects experienced “mystical experiences and altered states” after wearing the magnetic-field generating helmet.

His claims, however, were countered by the scientist Richard Dawkins, who on a BBC science documentary series Horizon, said he didn’t experience any communion with the universe with the God Helmet on.

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2. EVP- Electronic Voice Phenomenon that records mysterious voices

This bizarre phenomenon has little scientific explanation backing it, but this is what it is: Certain voices, apparently that of a recently departed human heard on a recording tape. Interestingly enough, the voices can’t be heard while you record, but only when you play back the audio. The technique is used in horror movies, such as White Noise, in which the main character tries to contact his deceased wife through EVP.

So what does it mean? Do the souls really float around? Bah!

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3. Duncan MacDougall’s Experiment: A trial to prove that soul has mass

MacDougall placed 6 patients dying from tuberculosis in some sort of special beds, sporting scales recording their weight before and after death. It was observed that right at the time of death, the weight of the subject dropped by 21 g, suggesting it was the weight of the soul that just left the body.

He conducted the same experiment on 15 dogs and observed no change whatsoever in their body weight after death. Also, it was alleged that he didn’t use dying dogs for his experiment, but sacrificed experimental animals.

Now, how was that fair? And all this to prove that human souls have weight and dogs don’t have souls whatsoever.

Bloody bow!

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4. The Philip Experiment: Created a fictitious historical character and talked to him

This starts as nonsense, becomes a little spooky in the middle, and ends funny!

Conducted by a group from The Toronto Society of Psychical Research in the early 1970s, the purpose of this parapsychology experiment was to see if a fictitious historical character could be brought to life. The group not only gave the character a name (Philip) but a complete personality and backstory.

The séances didn’t show any results for months until 1973 when Philip first marked its appearance with a solid hit on the table. Unexplained echos could be heard and table vibrations could be felt. Such paranormal happenings were seen as answers to questions that the group raised to the fictional ghost about his previous life.

They say that the experiment came to a bizarrely funny end when one of the group members, annoyed, screamed at poor Philip saying, “we only made you up, you know.” 

Despite the claims, though, nothing has been proven so far.

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5. Houdini’s Afterlife Experiment: Gave wife a secret code so she could contact him

Houdini, through his unparalleled talent in magic, helped in busting many frauds that easily fooled even the great minds. Fearing that the spiritualists would try contacting him after his death and misuse his legacy, he devised a secret code whereby he put together certain words, picked at random from a letter written by Conan Doyle, and left it with his wife, as something he could contact her with after death.

After his death, it seems, Conan’s friend tried contacting Houdini at a séance and claimed that Houdini responded with the code he had left behind. Later on, though, it was revealed that the claim was baseless.

Also, it is strange considering the fact that Houdini’s wife tried contacting her husband for 10 years straight using the same code through yearly séances on Halloween, but the magician never appeared.

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6. The Scole Experiment

From 1993 onwards, in Norfolk village of Scole, a group of four psychic researchers and observers conducted 500 experiments over a span of 5 years. The experiments showed results like the appearance of some solid beings, dancing lights, and luminous spheres that floated around in a room in what is described as ‘intelligent’ manner.

The experiments were eventually carried out in Ireland, Spain, and the USA. In the US, the experiments saw participation from the scientists at NASA, the Institute of Noetic Sciences and the University of Stanford.

What might leave you here a little perplexed is the comment made by James Webster, the man possessing 40 years of experience investigating paranormal phenomena. He said, “I was unable to discover any sign of fraud, and it seems to me that fraud couldn’t have been possible, both because of the type of phenomena observed and by the conditions in which they came about”.

 

7. Reincarnation Experiments

A 1983 documentary named ‘Reincarnation Experiments’ documented experiences of people who gave evidence of reincarnation being a real thing. One of the people featured in the documentary was a woman who claimed herself to have lived during French Revolution in her last birth. When she was put in a trance, the woman not only spoke fluent French but also gave details from the area she lived in her past life; details they say wouldn’t have been possible for her to know if it weren’t a matter for reincarnation.

You can watch the clip here.

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8. Sir William Crookes Experiments

The inventor of Crookes Tube, he became interested in spiritualism allegedly after the untimely death of his younger brother. He even tried getting in touch with his brother by attending a séance. He studied certain ‘mediums’ (those who possess psychic abilities) and in his investigations, concluded that ‘mediums’ could really create paranormal phenomena and talk to spirits.

In a series of experiments held at his home, a ‘medium’ Anna Eva Fay succeeded at fooling Crookes into believing she actually possessed psychic abilities. Eventually, though, she herself confessed tricking and making a fool out of the former inventor.

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9. Afterlife Experiments

It is a book that records experiments conducted by the author, Gary Schwartz ( also a psychology professor at the University of Arizona). It talks about ‘mediums’- those who claim they can communicate with the dead through their psychic powers, and ‘sitters’- people who were extremely close with the departed. The experiments show that the ‘mediums’ succeeded at providing facts about the departed, thus ruling out the possibility of fraud.

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If life after death was actually a true thing, don’t you think a solid evidence proving this fact would have appeared already. Not the one with allegations, and probabilities, but with hard facts. The human brain has evolved big time over the centuries, after all.

I feel that when you are dead, you are dead. Gone with a bam! Forever. What do you think?

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