"The continuity of life has been proved and as well established as any other fact of nature."
– Edward C. Randall

Survival Milestones and Turning-Points

Developed from an original document compiled by Michael E. Tymn, this is an on-going project that aims to include all key occurrences and activities pertaining to the discernment of evidence for Survival. Suggestions for inclusions should be sent to aeces@mail.com.

1st Century
Paul of Tarsus urges fellow Christians to "test the spirits" when communing with dead souls during their meetings.
11th Century
Catholic Church sets down formal guidelines for the investigation of miracles necessary for sainthood.
1741
Swedish scientist Emanuel Swedenborg begins personal investigation of afterlife realms by means of clairvoyance and out-of-body travel, writes numerous essays on his explorations.
1778
Mesmerism is introduced by Franz Anton Mesmer, an Austrian physician. While slow to catch on, it was an important precursor of psychical research and parapsychology.
1848
On March 31st of this year, loud raps from a mysterious source give intelligent responses to questions at the home of the Fox family in Hydesville, New York. Thus begins a mediumship "epidemic" in the United States and Europe.
1851
John W. Edmonds, Chief Justice of the New York State Supreme Court, begins a two-year personal investigation of mediumship. Intending to debunk the phenomena, he instead becomes a dedicated Spiritualist.
1851
The Ghost Society is formed at Cambridge in England. One of the founders is Edward White Benson, later Archbishop of Canterbury. In 1853, Henry Sidgwick, Benson's cousin and later a founder of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR), joins the group.
1852
A Harvard University delegation, including poet William Cullen Bryant and Messrs. B.K. Bliss, William Edwards, and David Wells studies the physical mediumship of Daniel Dunglas Home, concluding that he is "a modern wonder."
1853
Dr. Robert Hare, a retired University of Pennsylvania Chemistry professor and renowned inventor, begins investigating mediumship intent on showing it is all to be fraud. He comes to accept it as real and then becomes a medium himself. In 1855, he writes a book, Experimental Investigation of the Spirit Manifestations.
1853
French author Victor Hugo is exiled to the island of Jersey and begins an informal investigation of mediumship.
1854
French educator Hippolyte Leon Denizarth Rivail (known as Allan Kardec) begins an investigation of mediumship. In 1857, he publishes The Spirits' Book, which sets forth profound messages from the spirit world.
1860
American editor and statesman Robert Dale Owen writes Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World, discussing various psychic phenomena. Psychical researchers in the decades following would say that this book significantly influenced them in their decisions to investigate similar phenomena.
1866
Alfred Russel Wallace, co-originator with Charles Darwin of the natural selection theory of evolution, issues his first writing on Spiritualism, The Scientific Aspect of the Supernatural.
1869
The Dialectical Society of London appoints a committee, including biologist Alfred Russel Wallace, to investigate mediumship. The committee returns a report that the phenomena exist.
1870
William Crookes (later, Sir William), a renowned chemist, decides to investigate mediums. On April 21, 1870, he has the first of many sittings with medium Daniel Dunglas Home. In 1872, he begins an investigation of medium Florence Cook. He reports that both Home and Cook are genuine mediums.
1872
Rev. William Stainton Moses, an Anglican minister and English Master at University College, begins investigating mediumship, assuming it to be all trickery and fraud. He soon becomes a medium himself, receiving profound messages from a high spirit calling himself Imperator.
1874
Two Cambridge scholars, Frederic W. H. Myers and Edmund Gurney, visit Rev. William Stainton Moses to observe his mediumship. They are fascinated and are encouraged to further explore the subject.
1875
Serjeant Cox, a lawyer who often sat with W. Stainton Moses, organizes the Psychological Society of Great Britain.
1876
William Barrett (later Sir William), professor of physics in the Royal College of Science at Dublin, submits a paper to the British Association for the Advancement of Science on the subject of mental telepathy, then called thought-transference. The Association rejects it. When Alfred Russel Wallace protests the rejection, Barrett is allowed to deliver his paper but not publish it.
1879
The Cambridge Society for Psychical Research is formed to conduct investigation of mediums. It is a forerunner of the Society for Psychical Research.
1882
The Society for Psychical Research (SPR) is organized in London by eminent scholars and scientists, including William Barrett, Henry Sidgwick, Frederic W. H. Myers, and Edmund Gurney. Sidgwick becomes its first president.
1884
Dr. Richard Hodgson, who had been teaching philosophy at Cambridge and law at University extension, is sent to India by the SPR to investigate Madame H. P. Blavatsky and the Theosophical Society. Hodgson submits a very controversial report that Blavatsky is a charlatan.
1885
Professor William James of Harvard University begins an investigation of the mediumship of Leonora Piper of Boston, Mass., concluding that she is not a charlatan.
1886
A 1,300-page book titled Phantasms of the Living, authored by Edmund Gurney, Frederic W. H. Myers, and Frank Podmore, is published. It strongly supports the telepathy hypothesis. It is Myers who gives the name "telepathy" to what was previously referred to as thought-transference.
1887
The American branch of the Society for Psychical Research (ASPR) is formed with Richard Hodgson accepting the position as its first executive secretary. William James turns over the investigation of Leonora Piper to Hodgson. Hodgson will dedicate himself to observing and studying her mediumship until his death in 1905.
1889
The SPR arranges for Leonora Piper to travel to England, where she is studied and tested by Frederic W. H. Myers and Professor Oliver Lodge. During the sittings with Lodge, Edmund Gurney, co-founder of the SPR who had died in 1888, communicates. Lodge and Myers begin to accept the spirit/survival hypothesis.
1891
The American Psychical Society of Boston is formed by disgruntled ASPR members who feel that Richard Hodgson is devoting too much time to Leonora Piper and not delegating research projects involving other mediums to qualified researchers. Unitarian minister Minot J. Savage and B. O. Flower, an editor, are the founders, while Professor Amos Dolbear of Tufts University and author Hamlin Garland become the chief investigators.
1892
George Pellew, an associate of the ASPR, is killed in an accident, and on March 22, 1892 begins to communicate with Richard Hodgson through Leonora Piper. Pellew (given the pseudonym "George Pelham") gradually takes over as Piper's primary control. Hodgson abandons the secondary-personality hypothesis as well as teleoteropathy (telepathy at a distance) and the cosmic reservoir theories, and adopts the spirit hypothesis based on Pellew's very distinct personality coming through at the sittings. Other researchers follow.
1894
Professor Oliver Lodge, Frederic W. H. Myers, and Dr. Charles Richet of France, investigate the mediumship of Eusapia Palladino of Italy, concluding that she is a "mixed" medium, producing some real phenomena but occasionally cheating, although it is pointed out that much, if not all, of the cheating is "unconscious fraud."
1898
Frederic W. H. Myers has the first of over 150 sittings with British trance medium Rosalie Thompson. Myers becomes fully convinced of the spirit hypothesis.
1901
Frederic W. H. Myers dies and soon begins communicating with Professor Oliver Lodge through medium Rosalie Thompson. Over the next several years, Myers communicates through other mediums and offers what come to be known as the cross-correspondences.
1903
Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death, a 1,426-page book begun but not completely finished by Frederic W. H. Myers before his death, is completed by others and is published. It becomes the seminal work in the field.
1904
Dr. J.L. Matla and Dr. G. J. Zaalbert van Zelst of Holland begin research into the ability of spirit entities to manipulate devices. In their book, The Mystery of Death, they state that there is no normal explanation for the consistent results they received and that they are convinced that unseen entities were the cause of the phenomena.
1905
Richard Hodgson dies and soon begins communicating through Leonora Piper, the medium he had studied for 18 years.
1906
Because of Richard Hodgson's death, the ASPR is reorganized and becomes the American Institute for Scientific Research under the direction of Dr. James H. Hyslop, formerly a professor of logic and ethics at Columbia University. The ASPR becomes a branch of the Institute. After Hyslop's death in 1920, it becomes the Boston Society for Psychic Research. In 1941, it is reintegrated into the ASPR with headquarters in New York.
1907
Dr. James H. Hyslop begins investigating the mediumship of Minerva Soule ("Mrs. Chenoweth")
1909
The Survival of Man by Sir Oliver Lodge is published, creating a stir in the scientific world.
1910
Newspapers most everywhere report strange stories of a young man named Edgar Cayce who, it is said, can enter a trance and accurately diagnose medical conditions. Later, Cayce does thousands of "life readings" reviving great interest in reincarnation.
1911
Stanford University establishes the first ESP lab under John Edgar Coover.
1914
The mediumship of Pearl Curran, a St. Louis, Missouri housewife through whom an entity known as Patience Worth communicates volumes of wisdom, begins. She is investigated by numerous scientists and scholars.
1915
David Wilson, a London amateur wireless operator, reports that he has apparently received messages from the spirit world by means of Morse Code.
1915
Sir Oliver Lodge begins receiving messages from his son, Raymond, killed on the battlefield in France. Many of the messages come through Gladys Osborne Leonard, a trance medium. In 1916, Sir Oliver's book, Raymond or Life and Death, is published and becomes a best-seller, influencing many but inviting scorn from various scientists.
1917
The Rev. Charles Drayton Thomas, an SPR member, begins sitting with Gladys Osborne Leonard, receiving many evidential messages from his deceased father and sister. The book and newspaper tests are developed providing evidence that the information communicated does not come by means of telepathy.
1921
F. R. Melton of England reports that he has invented a "psychic telephone" in which many paranormal voices are received.
1925
The "Margery" case, involving medium Mina Crandon, creates conflict and division among psychical researchers and a defection of key researchers from the ASPR, which never fully recovers.
1925
Sir William Barrett, last of the SPR founders, dies. His unfinished book, Death-bed Visions, is published the following year.
1928
Medium Arthur Ford's fame spreads beyond the Spiritualist community when Houdini's wife, Beatrice, confirms that he has broken the secret code indicating that the magician survives the grave.
1930
Focus turns from survival research to ESP with Dr. Joseph B. Rhine, one of the dissenters in the "Margery" case, establishing the parapsychology lab at Duke University under Professor William McDougall.
1931
The Association for Research & Enlightenment is established in Virginia Beach, Virginia, USA, to promote the work of psychic/medium Edgar Cayce, called "the father of holistic medicine." This gives much impetus to a belief in reincarnation.
1937
New Frontiers of the Mind, by Dr. Joseph N. Rhine brings ESP and PK to the public and popularizes the term parapsychology. The Journal of Parapsychology is founded.
1937
The Betty Book, the first of several books by Stewart Edward White detailing the features of the afterlife as communicated through a medium, is published.
1956
The Search for Bridey Murphy, authored by Morey Bernstein, is a best-seller and creates further interest in reincarnation.
1959
Raymond Bayless and Attila von Szalay report on their discovery of tape-recorded spirit voices in the January issue of The Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research. A few months later, Friedrich Jürgenson announces a similar discovery in Sweden
1961
Based upon a wide collection of mediumistic reports, Dr. Robert Crookall produces the first comprehensive book summarizing the afterlife environment. It is titled The Supreme Adventure.
1963
Jane Roberts and her husband begin experiments that result in more than 20 books of "the Seth material," which explores the nature of reality and mankind's role within it.
1966
Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation, authored by Dr. Ian Stevenson, is published, popularizing earlier articles by Stevenson on the subject.
1968
Bishop James Pike publishes The Other Side, his controversial, best-selling account of events that led him to believe in the reality of communications with the spirit of his dead son.
1970
Although not directly concerned with Survival, publication of the book Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain goes a long way towards legitimizing interest in paranormal phenomena in general.
1971
Konstantin Raudive writes a book about EVP, Breakthrough: An Amazing Experiment in Electronic Communication with the Dead, which popularizes the phenomenon.
1971
The Monroe Institute is established to study and explore consciousness and out-of-body experiences.
1975
Dr. Raymond Moody gives a name to and popularizes the "near-death experience" with his bestseller, Life After Life.
1978
The International Association of Near-Death Studies (IANDS) is founded to encourage further study of the NDE.
1982
Sarah Estep founds the American Association of Electronic Voice Phenomena.
1988
Publication of Many Lives, Many Masters by Brian L. Weiss, M.D. adds even more interest to reincarnation studies and past-life therapy.
1991
Michael Talbot writes The Holographic Universe, one of the most popular, and readable, attempts to explain paranormal phenomena in terms of modern advances in science and technology.
1993
The Scole Experiments in mediumship begin in England.
1994
Dr. Michael Newton's seminal book, Journey of Souls, reveals what heaven was like for 29 people regressed to the time they spent between lives. Unbeknownst to one another, they report remarkably similar yet unexpected experiences.
1996
Conversations with God, catapults an out-of-work radio announcer into the national spotlight. Along with its sequels, this book offers clear and succinct explanations of the meaning and purpose of life here and hereafter.
2002
The Afterlife Experiments by Dr. Gary Schwartz, an American researcher, is published, reporting on Schwartz's experiments with a number of mediums. He reports that the phenomena are real.
2005
In his book, Induced After Death Communication, Dr. Allan Botkin, an American clinical psychologist, reports on a new therapy involving eye movements which seem to put grieving people in touch with deceased loved ones.
2010
Perhaps the most evidential case for reincarnation ever presented is published in a book titled Soul Survivor detailing James Leininger's recollections of the death of a WWII pilot. James was 2 years old when the memories surfaced.

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