Abstract

The noted Cambridge philosopher, who has twice served as President of the British Society for Psychical Research, discusses a representative summary of the most impressive cases of experience which seem to refute some of the generally conceived limits of possible personal existence and experience. The subject matter is divided into experiments in card-guessing, cases of veridical but paranormal quasi-perception, and mediumship. Painstaking distinctions in the interpretations and estimates of credibility occasionally make for tedious reading, though they amply prove their advisability as a corrective the tempting imaginative leaps and careless inferences with which some people react to the trans-commonsensical. Occasional flashes of Broad's ironic humor, delightfully testy, lighten the reading considerably. The focus of interest is on the relevance of this material to the question of human survival after death. For someone interested in knowing the current state of psychic science on this question, the book is invaluable. Mr. Broad is not concerned with building a case for any one position. Though he believes that paranormal phenomena strongly suggest some sort of persistence of personality in some cases, he concludes that "one can only wait and see, or alternately wait and not see."--E. W.