One of the most recent and comprehensive investigations into survival is that which was undertaken during the 1990s, mainly at Scole in Norfolk, and which has been called The Scole Report. The research involved three groups of individuals: 1. The Scole group, a mediumistic group the core of which consisted of four individuals, Robin and Sandra Foy and another husband and wife team, around which all the reported phenomena were associated; 2. The investigators, three senior and experienced members of the Society for Psychical Research, Montague Keen, Arthur Ellison and David Fontana; and 3. The spirit team, a group of discarnate spirit guides who communicated through the entranced mediums. Under carefully controlled conditions a variety of phenomena, often of a remarkable nature, were recorded. Among these were: displays of moving lights; the production of spirit forms and shapes; the imposition of a wide variety of images on sealed films; apports; and electronic voice phenomena. All this material has been methodically recorded by the investigators in more than 300 pages of the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, thus:

Keen, Montague, Ellison, Arthur and Fontana, David (1999). The Scole Report. An Account of an Investigation into the Genuineness of a Range of Physical Phenomena associated with a Mediumistic Group in Norfolk, England. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, Vol. 58, Part 220, November 1999.

The report is very heavy going, being a detailed scientific review and assessment of very complex phenomena. The Abstract, in a typically scientifically-objective way, summarises the project as follows:

"This report is the outcome of a three-year investigation of a Group claiming to receive both messages and materialised or physical objects from a number of collaborative spirit communicators. It has been conducted principally by three senior members of the Society for Psychical Research. In the course of over 20 sittings the investigators were unable to detect any direct indication of fraud or deception, and encountered evidence favouring the hypothesis of intelligent forces, whether originating in the human psyche or from discarnate sources, able to influence material objects, and to convey associated meaningful messages, both visual and aural."

(N.B. This abstract summarises the conclusions of the three individual authors; the Society for Psychical Research does not necessarily endorse these findings. See the disclaimer printed in the Acknowledgements, page 61).

On the other hand the Scole phenomena have also been written up in a much more readable form as:

Solomon, Grant & Jane (1999). The Scole Experiment. Scientific Evidence for Life After Death. Judy Piatkus (Publishers) Ltd., London. ISBN 0-7499-2032-7.
Paperback edition published 2000, ISBN 0-7499-2105-6.

This book describes the experiments undertaken at Scole in a more down-to-earth and ‘popular’ way. The authors are writers who view the experiments from the point of view of interested outsiders.

The best assessment of the Scole phenomena is probably obtained by reading and comparing both accounts. In spite of the reticence of the S.P.R. report it is clear that a remarkable range of phenomena were witnessed over many experimental sessions and that the most likely explanation for the observations was that they were generated by a cooperative effort between the Scole group and a team of discarnate spirit entities.

A very interesting and enlightening summary of what happened during and after the Scole experiment is contained in two reports published in the journal of the Scientific and Medical Network. The Network is an informal, international group of scientists, doctors and others who question "... the assumptions of contemporary scientific and medical thinking, so often limited by exclusively materialistic reasoning". In the first of these reports Montague Keen, one of the original investigators, gives his own personal analysis of what occurred. His conclusions are that the phenomena were real and not subject to fraud, and were the result of actual interactions between the Scole group and a team of spirit communicators:

Keen, Montague (2000). The Scole Event. The Scientific & Medical Network Review, No. 73, August 2000, pp. 11-14.
ISSN 1362-1211.

In the second report, Crawford Knox analyses the responses of many critics of the Scole experiment - not least some members of the Society for Psychical Research. Knox is particularly critical of the sceptics who are unable open-mindedly to look at any evidence for survival but adhere rigidly to the materialist explanation for everything in the universe. As Knox states: " ... the assumption that the world is entirely material and everything can be explained within a closed materialist framework has passed its sell-by date. It is difficult to reconcile with quantum physics and it involves ignoring or explaining away an entire range of mental and spiritual experiences, including the very consciousness from which the materialist picture is built".

Knox, Crawford (2000). The Scole Report. Some implications for Parapsychology. The Scientific & Medical Network Review, No. 73, August 2000, pp. 14-17. ISSN 1362-1211.

On to section 3, Indirect Research.