LEAST OF ALL EVILS

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33775, 22 February 1975, Page 10

LEAST OF ALL EVILS

Life iWthout Death. By Nils O. Jacobson. Turnstone Books. 339 pp. N.Z. price: $8.75. i All of us have to come to terms J with death. The author of “Life Without Death” is a Swedish ' psychiatrist who argues that preparation for a life after death might make that life a richer and more pleasurable experience should ■ it eventuate.

In the meantime, belief in such a life might give value and meaning to our experience of life here and now. Belief in a life after death might make life richer, make sorrow more easily borne and might provide an inducement to behave towards our fellows with greater humanity. Far from being escapist, Dr Jacobson argues, a mature conviction that consciousness continues after death might bring a wider perspective to our present responsibilites and increase our capacity to fulfil some of them. Dr Jacobson examines first the findings of parapsychology, a field which deals experimentally with certain phenomena which do not fit tidily in the picture of how we normally receive information from the outside world. Next to be considered is the range <>t 'morobable experiences which are difficult to study under experimental conditions, but which are. in the author's view, of crucial significance in understanding the question of what happens after death. These include spontaneous experiences such as aoparitions, possession and memories of “previous incarnations.” Assessing the relevance of the experimental findings and the records of spontaneous psychic experiences for the problems of survival after death, Dr Jacobson believes that the whole body of evidence is consistent with the Survival hypothesis and that part of it is explained more satisfactorily by this hvnothesis than by any other. Dr Jacobson is articulate and knowledgeable and his claims are r dest. "Life Without Death” has eady been translated into eight Nevertheless it is difficult to know what to make,of this study. The experimental etWence is too remote and the aneJSotal evidence too

difficult to assess — except where it is clearly fraudulent. Dr Jacobson may well be right but those who seek for certainty in such evidence are likely to be disappointed.