Let’s recap – ‘Cellular Memory’ – the alleged ability for 
every cell to retain some sort of energy memory about us that can get passed on through organ transplants to the recipients. We saw how Dr Gary Schwartz was showing off his latest art prodigy who had acquired the ability to crayon-in after a heart transplant from an artist.
Then we saw that these theories were being backed-up by the forgetful Hawaiian, polymath Dr Paul Pearsall. After being prompted to look into Dr Paul Pearsall a little more, I came to understand that his theories of ‘cellular memory’ in transplant patients have indeed been published.
Two places appear to have the privilege of his thoughts, Nexus magazine and the Journal of Near Death Experiences.
A peer reviewed journal? Maybe this theory has been peer-reviewed after all? Maybe it is me who is bonkers? So, I Iook this journal up.
Picking a random paper published in the journal, I go for: “Cheating the Ferryman: A New Paradigm of Existence? ” by Anthony A. Peake.
Let’s run this paper through the quackometer. We get:
Lots of postmodern and pseudoscientific jargon, apparently.
Forgive me for quoting the whole Abstract, but it is worth it…
Survival after death of the body is arguably the most fundamental question facing sentient beings. I present a rationalistic argument for what occurs subjectively at the moment of death, using insights from quantum physics, neurology, perceptual science, psychiatry, and Gnosticism. At the point of death, three events are brought about by neurotransmitters flooding the temporal lobes. First, the dying person “falls out of time” as the speed by which stimuli are processed by the brain is altered. Second, the person’s consciousness splits into two independent entities, the Eidolon (“I”) and the Daemon (“higher self”). Third, the brain starts a “real time” recreation of the subject’s life projected into consciousness of the Eidolon as a reality indistinguishable from the real thing. The Eidolon lives its life again as if it was the first time, but now with a higher self (Daemon) taking the role of a guide. This second life runs in an alternative universe within the consciousness of the perceiver and takes place in the microsecond before the perceiver is seen to die in the universe of any observers. In the observers’ universe, the perceiver dies; but for the dying person, time expands to make that last microsecond last a lifetime. At the end of the second “lifetime,” the same process occurs again in an even smaller segment of time, a literal version of the “Eternal Return.”
I’m not quite sure what this is, but it ain’t science.
So who is this Anthony A. Peake, the author of this insight into a ‘quantum theory of death’?
It turns out that Mr Peake is a “Divisional Human Resources Manager for North of England and Scotland for Nuffield Hospitals in the United Kingdom”. He has a degree in history and sociology.
It would look like the Journal of Near Death Experiences is happy to print the ramblings of bored Hospital HR managers. Now I understand what my private health insurance is paying for.
I wonder if I can get a spoof article published in that Journal? That would be wonderfully funny.
Good Day,
Thanks for picking up my article at random – and on my birthday as well!
I am genuinely pleased that you picked my article although I am sad that you failed to apply the usual scientific process of actually looking further into what I actually have to say.
Indeed I am probably far closer to your point of view than you think. My all time intellectual heroes are James Randi, Martin Gardner and Richard Dawkins.
My book (in which the article is but a very general precis) is due to be published in late July. You may be surprised to discover that approach I take to Near Death Experience is purely science based attempt to explain the phenomenon. I apply the latest theories of neuroscience, quantum physics, consciousness studies and psychiatry. Each cited experiment is cross-referenced to the original source paper/monograph and I have consulted with various scientists as to the validity of my conclusions (Professor Karl Pribram, and Dr. Steven Schachter for example). The forword to the book is written by Dr.Bruce Greyson, professor of Psychaitry from the University of Virgina.
I am fascinated as to how you can say that “I’m not quite sure what this is but it ain’t science” a somewhat confusing statement. If you do not know what something is how can you logically know what it isn’t?
All I can request is that you read my book then by all means be critical – I personally have no problem with that.
Oh, and by the way, what qualifies you to dismiss my work and by sarcastic about my qualifications and career? (oh, and by the way Nuffield Hospitals, for what it’s worth, are not part of the NHS).
Best Wishes
@Acheron Traveller
> If you do not know what something is how can you logically know what it isn’t?
I may not know what the correct name is for the dinosaur in the drawing I’ve just been given, but I’m pretty sure it’s not an elephant.
Thanks for further demonstrating your level of thinking. I am now a little more comfortable in having rejected the ideas quoted from your abstract.
Hrmm hold on a second here.
What postmodern and pseudo scientific terminology was Anthony peake espousing in the abstract? It seems to me that AP is trying to describe in the abstract, in layman terms, the actual experience of what happens when we die according to his theory.
For you to conclude from that abstract that anything he has to say is unscientific, is itself unscientific. Do you know what a non sequitur is?
If you are going to criticize something at least have the decency to investigate that which you are criticising…theres a good chap.
The guy has already made his mind up by reading an extract, that says all we need to know about his idea of ‘science’.
For there to be such a thing as a ‘near death experience’ death has to be regarded as a process, when in fact it is surely an event – a terminal event.Suppose someone was in seriously poor health and expected by medical experts to die at any second and they had a ‘near death experience’ but miraculously survived against all odds and went on to live for a further thirty years – how ‘near-death’ would that have been?