Technology explores life after death
Friendship Center speaker will discuss a ‘breakthrough’ in communication with the dead
SARASOTA — Has technology finally managed to bridge the communication gap between the material world and the so-called afterlife?
On Thursday evening at Sarasota’s Senior Friendship Center, a key member of a research team pursuing those connections will provide details of what he calls the “Wright Brothers moment” that occurred within the past year. And he will argue that that a rapidly evolving prototype could someday become as accessible as a smartphone app.
Clinical psychologist and author Mark Pitstick is on the ground floor of a project hoping to produce a SoulPhone, which he claims has unambiguously documented the phenomenon of life after death. “In light of the compelling evidence and rationale for such technologies,” he writes in a book called “Greater Reality Living,” along with Dr. Gary Schwartz of the University of Arizona, “the question is no longer ‘Is spirit communication possible?’
“The question is now, ‘What will it take to engineer a technology to make spirit communication extremely reliable, practical, and affordable?’”
Pitstick’s appearance, set for 6-8:30 p.m. Thursday at 1888 Brother Geenen Way, is co-sponsored by ITN SunCoast, the Sarasota Group of the International Association for Near Death Studies, and the C.G. Jung Society of Sarasota. The discussion will also feature a group of panelists who will share their near-death experiences (NDE), led by Jung Society executive director Lisa Cedrone.
Confounded by an NDE during a suicide attempt in 2002, and hooked on the phenomenon after it happened again in a 2007 auto wreck, Cedrone began rigorously pursuing the personal transformation triggered in the aftermath of her “dark night of the soul.” The journey would lead her to Pitstick’s research, and the SoulPhone.
“When I heard about (the SoulPhone), my first thought was, it’s about time,” Cedrone says. “Everything we know operates on vibrational patterns, and I believe my receptive abilities to receive these transmissions changed after my near-death experiences. Now that I know our brains are capable of this, I’m certain we can produce the technology that can mimic these abilities.”
Working on $2 million in contributions from largely anonymous donors, Schwartz — a neuroscientist with more than 450 scientific-paper presentations to his credit — is partnering with several dozen other investigators boasting eclectic academic credentials, from electrical engineers to optical physicists to software programmers. SoulPhone experiments have been underway at the University of Arizona’s Laboratory for Advances in Consciousness and Health (LACH) for more than a decade, according to Pitstick, who joined the effort several years ago.
“I call our proof of concept the Wright Brothers moment, after the first flight at Kitty Hawk,” Pitstick says. “They were only in the air for 12 seconds, but for the five or so people who were there observing it, they knew flight was possible.”
Researchers want the SoulPhone to include four modes: a SoulSwitch that allows the user to pose yes/no answers to spirits on the other side; a keyboard for more precise communication; an audio application for verbal dialogue; and a video component for capturing literal images of those who’ve passed on.
Experiments are being conducted inside the equivalent of a Faraday cage, an enclosure that blocks out electromagnetic and all other forms of interference. Its hardware includes environmental instrumentation sensitive enough to “measure single photons of light,” says Pitstick. Among the team’s innovations is a high-speed camera that can record up to 60,000 frames per second.
“We have people who say, ‘I thought I saw somebody in my peripheral vision, but when I turned around they were gone,’” says Pitstick. “Well, that’s the analytical brain taking over and sensing what it’s been trained to sense, not the other 99.9 percent of reality that’s intangible to the five senses generally.”
An analogy might be a canine whistle, the ultrasonic range that dogs can hear but humans cannot. Or the fact that bees perceive colors five times faster than humans, plus they can see in the ultraviolet spectrum, beyond the natural capabilities of humans.
By reviewing single frames recorded at super-high speeds, Pitstick says, the LACH team has discovered “anomalous frames that aren’t like the others.
“In the beginning, they were just blurs, shadows of light, certainly no recognizable image of anyone in particular, but they weren’t going for that — they were just wondering if any frames showed up that were different from the controlled studies.”
In fact, Pitstick says, not only did more recognizable images begin to materialize, they also appeared to respond to requests, such as moving from right to left or left to right. Those “anomalous frames” didn’t appear consecutively, “but when you put them all together,” he says, “what you’ve got is a rudimentary video.”
Schwartz and the LACH team intend to publish results in peer-reviewed journals before releasing them to the public. When that happens, Pitstick says the next major challenge may be one of language. The long-range goal is to create an international network of inquiring minds pursuing the mystery through a “Greater Reality Living” organization.
“One of the things we’re doing is upgrading language for all this, because it’s so inadequate, terms like spirit,” says Pitstick. “Who knows how words like spirit and soul will translate in other languages? We want to start referring to ‘post-material persons’, because they’re very much alive and well, they’d just dropped the physical body.”
If SoulPhone technology works, what might the broader implications be?
“Some people will say ‘Oh my god, this is going to validate what various religions have been teaching for millennia, that there is life after death.’ Others will say, ‘Well, you’re going to put religion out of business, who will need it?’” Pitstick says.
“There are many points of view, but ours is that any religions that are service-oriented and exist to help others, that provide a place where people can meet and remind each other that we’re not alone, that death is not the end of life — I think those are all positive possibilities.”
For more information on the SoulPhone, visit thesoulphonefoundation.org.
Friendship Center speaker will discuss a ‘breakthrough’ in communication with the dead
SARASOTA — Has technology finally managed to bridge the communication gap between the material world and the so-called afterlife?
On Thursday evening at Sarasota’s Senior Friendship Center, a key member of a research team pursuing those connections will provide details of what he calls the “Wright Brothers moment” that occurred within the past year. And he will argue that that a rapidly evolving prototype could someday become as accessible as a smartphone app.
Clinical psychologist and author Mark Pitstick is on the ground floor of a project hoping to produce a SoulPhone, which he claims has unambiguously documented the phenomenon of life after death. “In light of the compelling evidence and rationale for such technologies,” he writes in a book called “Greater Reality Living,” along with Dr. Gary Schwartz of the University of Arizona, “the question is no longer ‘Is spirit communication possible?’
“The question is now, ‘What will it take to engineer a technology to make spirit communication extremely reliable, practical, and affordable?’”
Pitstick’s appearance, set for 6-8:30 p.m. Thursday at 1888 Brother Geenen Way, is co-sponsored by ITN SunCoast, the Sarasota Group of the International Association for Near Death Studies, and the C.G. Jung Society of Sarasota. The discussion will also feature a group of panelists who will share their near-death experiences (NDE), led by Jung Society executive director Lisa Cedrone.
Confounded by an NDE during a suicide attempt in 2002, and hooked on the phenomenon after it happened again in a 2007 auto wreck, Cedrone began rigorously pursuing the personal transformation triggered in the aftermath of her “dark night of the soul.” The journey would lead her to Pitstick’s research, and the SoulPhone.
“When I heard about (the SoulPhone), my first thought was, it’s about time,” Cedrone says. “Everything we know operates on vibrational patterns, and I believe my receptive abilities to receive these transmissions changed after my near-death experiences. Now that I know our brains are capable of this, I’m certain we can produce the technology that can mimic these abilities.”
Working on $2 million in contributions from largely anonymous donors, Schwartz — a neuroscientist with more than 450 scientific-paper presentations to his credit — is partnering with several dozen other investigators boasting eclectic academic credentials, from electrical engineers to optical physicists to software programmers. SoulPhone experiments have been underway at the University of Arizona’s Laboratory for Advances in Consciousness and Health (LACH) for more than a decade, according to Pitstick, who joined the effort several years ago.
“I call our proof of concept the Wright Brothers moment, after the first flight at Kitty Hawk,” Pitstick says. “They were only in the air for 12 seconds, but for the five or so people who were there observing it, they knew flight was possible.”
Researchers want the SoulPhone to include four modes: a SoulSwitch that allows the user to pose yes/no answers to spirits on the other side; a keyboard for more precise communication; an audio application for verbal dialogue; and a video component for capturing literal images of those who’ve passed on.
Experiments are being conducted inside the equivalent of a Faraday cage, an enclosure that blocks out electromagnetic and all other forms of interference. Its hardware includes environmental instrumentation sensitive enough to “measure single photons of light,” says Pitstick. Among the team’s innovations is a high-speed camera that can record up to 60,000 frames per second.
“We have people who say, ‘I thought I saw somebody in my peripheral vision, but when I turned around they were gone,’” says Pitstick. “Well, that’s the analytical brain taking over and sensing what it’s been trained to sense, not the other 99.9 percent of reality that’s intangible to the five senses generally.”
An analogy might be a canine whistle, the ultrasonic range that dogs can hear but humans cannot. Or the fact that bees perceive colors five times faster than humans, plus they can see in the ultraviolet spectrum, beyond the natural capabilities of humans.
By reviewing single frames recorded at super-high speeds, Pitstick says, the LACH team has discovered “anomalous frames that aren’t like the others.
“In the beginning, they were just blurs, shadows of light, certainly no recognizable image of anyone in particular, but they weren’t going for that — they were just wondering if any frames showed up that were different from the controlled studies.”
In fact, Pitstick says, not only did more recognizable images begin to materialize, they also appeared to respond to requests, such as moving from right to left or left to right. Those “anomalous frames” didn’t appear consecutively, “but when you put them all together,” he says, “what you’ve got is a rudimentary video.”
Schwartz and the LACH team intend to publish results in peer-reviewed journals before releasing them to the public. When that happens, Pitstick says the next major challenge may be one of language. The long-range goal is to create an international network of inquiring minds pursuing the mystery through a “Greater Reality Living” organization.
“One of the things we’re doing is upgrading language for all this, because it’s so inadequate, terms like spirit,” says Pitstick. “Who knows how words like spirit and soul will translate in other languages? We want to start referring to ‘post-material persons’, because they’re very much alive and well, they’d just dropped the physical body.”
If SoulPhone technology works, what might the broader implications be?
“Some people will say ‘Oh my god, this is going to validate what various religions have been teaching for millennia, that there is life after death.’ Others will say, ‘Well, you’re going to put religion out of business, who will need it?’” Pitstick says.
“There are many points of view, but ours is that any religions that are service-oriented and exist to help others, that provide a place where people can meet and remind each other that we’re not alone, that death is not the end of life — I think those are all positive possibilities.”
For more information on the SoulPhone, visit thesoulphonefoundation.org.
