The Cost of Not Diversifying Your Afterlife Investigation

How to avoid missing crucial connections and profound insights when examining afterlife evidence.

Bob Olson is the host of Afterlife TV, author of Answers About The Afterlife and The Magic Mala, and founder of BestPsychicDirectory.com (for top psychics & mediums).

Photo by Andres Siimon on Unsplash

After my first 15 years investigating life after death, I wrote a book of my findings and subsequent conclusions. It felt like writing a final report following a lengthy investigation. In that book, Answers About the Afterlife: A Private Investigator’s 15-Year Research Unlocks the Mysteries of Life after Death, I discovered that no single category of afterlife evidence was nearly as persuasive as viewing all the evidence as a whole.

Let me repeat that for emphasis: No single category of afterlife evidence was nearly as persuasive as viewing all the evidence as a whole.

Early in the writing of that book, while answering questions and using specific evidence to back up my claims, I wondered if I would write about different forms of evidence later in the book that contradicts what the early-book evidence suggested. There was no contradiction. Instead, there was agreement, even between very different forms of evidence like past-life regressions and spirit communication with mediums, OR out-of-body experiences and between-life regressions.

The Web of Parallels

I refer to this revelation as the “Web of Parallels,” which came to me when I completed the writing of that book and discovered that all the evidence discussed in my 70,000-word manuscript was in complete agreement with one another.

Let me explain the concept of the web. When two pieces of evidence provide parallel information, they create a connecting strand. When three or more pieces of evidence provide similar data, they create a web of parallels.

A spider’s web naturally comes to mind when we think of a web. When we look at a spider’s web, it’s easy to recognize why the web as a whole is infinitely more robust than any individual strand.

This analogy holds so much meaning. In the case of my book referencing multiple sources of evidence of an afterlife, it became clear to me that by considering all the evidence as a whole, the entire web of parallels (looking at all the evidence we have of an afterlife) is far more potent than any single strand between only two areas of evidence.

This simple yet profound insight exhilarated me. To explain it with a different illustration, let’s compare my afterlife investigation to a criminal investigation.

Comparing Afterlife Evidence to Criminal Evidence

When I used to investigate murders as a private eye, I would look at all the evidence that pointed toward a particular person as the alleged murderer. Let’s name this alleged criminal Harry.

Sometimes, there was only one piece of evidence. Perhaps his car GPS proved that Harry was in the vicinity of the murder scene around the time it occurred. That was never enough to convict. However, when there was the car GPS plus a fiber of Harry’s hair on the victim, the connection between the two pieces of evidence was more compelling. It would undoubtedly raise suspicion with a jury that Harry could have been the killer.

But as the trial continues and the prosecution presents more evidence, a web of parallels begins to form. The car GPS shows Harry was in the area. The strand of hair on the dead body indicates Harry had some contact with the deceased. It’s still not enough to convict, but it leans toward guilty. Yet when witness testimony is presented from a person who heard Harry say he was going to kill the victim, we now begin to form a web. And when the prosecutor brings Harry’s wife on the stand, saying she was having an affair with the murder victim, and she confessed to Harry about it the day of the murder, the web gets stronger.

Finally, to strengthen the web of evidence, the prosecutor saves the best evidence for last, which is a receipt for a knife purchased on the same day as the murder, the same type of knife found at the crime scene. And worse, Harry’s credit card was used for the purchase. We now have a web of evidence that is more compelling than any single piece of evidence or even two pieces alone.

This is the point in the trial where things aren’t looking very good for Harry, but now Harry’s defense lawyer gets to present evidence in defense of him being the murderer.

Suppose Harry’s attorney presents evidence that the knife he purchased that day was, in fact, still in the box—unopened!—in the trunk of his car. That seriously weakens the overall evidence for the prosecution. And if Harry’s lawyer has a security camera video showing Harry hugging his wife’s lover because the man agreed to stop seeing his wife, now the prosecution’s case is weakening, if not completely falling apart.

Harry’s criminal case exemplifies what happens when evidence is in contradiction. The prosecutor’s best evidence was the receipt for the knife Harry purchased because it implied that it was the same knife used in the murder. But when we learned that the knife Harry purchased was never opened and was still in his car, that eliminated the prosecutor’s evidence. And the security camera footage showing Harry hugging the murder victim explained why a strand of Harry’s hair was found on the victim. Suddenly, the two most compelling pieces of evidence lost all weight. This same scenario can happen with evidence of life after death as well.

The Evidence of an Afterlife Is Abundant

The evidence for an afterlife is vast. We have subjective evidence (someone’s testimony of an after-death communication) and objective evidence (a spirit artist’s portrait). We have personal experience evidence (your past-life regression) and vicarious experience evidence (someone else’s near-death experience). We also have mediumship, deathbed visions, shared-death experiences, past-life memories, dream visitations, spirit contact through hypnosis, deceased animal communication, and so much more.

When writing my book Answers, I was concerned in the early chapters that I might get halfway or three-quarters of the way through the writing and discover that what we learn from near-death experiences contradicts what we know from readings with mediums. Perhaps the evidence around past lives may oppose the evidence around out-of-body experiences. As I began writing my book, I waited to see if the early conclusions based on specific evidence would fall apart once I introduced new evidence—just like in Harry’s trial.

That was my concern, but it never happened. Instead, every area of afterlife evidence supported the next. Every conclusion based on a subject of evidence paralleled the findings based on all the other subjects. They were in alignment. Yet, what was exponentially more compelling than just being in alignment was that they were NOT in conflict. Because they were both in alignment and not in dispute, they created a spider’s web of parallels that could hold up to any scrutiny or skepticism I hoped to throw at them.

Final Thoughts

I have interviewed guests on Afterlife TV who had expertise in specific areas of afterlife evidence. One guest was an expert on near-death experiences, another was an expert on past-life memories, another on regressions, and still another on mediumship. What I found fascinating was that some experts thought that certain afterlife phenomena were specific to their area of expertise. Yet, similar, if not equal, phenomena were evident in other areas of expertise.

For example, one guest who had experienced dozens of out-of-body experiences thought that his awareness of nearby spirits while out of his body was specific to out-of-body experiences. Yet, people who have had near-death experiences recognize the presence of nearby spirits, too. Mediums have experienced this same phenomenon when communicating with a single spirit. They were communicating with one spirit but sensed other spirits nearby. Even people who have had deathbed visions said they saw their deceased spouse calling to them, but they were aware that other spirits were close as well.

Being an expert in a specific area is valuable, especially since experts can dive deep into the evidence. Still, it is more compelling to know that several other areas of evidence also support the conclusions surrounding their expertise. For example, not only do out-of-body experiencers feel the presence of deceased loved ones nearby, but so do mediums, near-death experiencers, and people having deathbed visions. Heck, a few people who have had dream visitations told me they were aware of the presence of nearby spirits during their dreams.

Maybe it’s just me, but I get excited when all these different areas of afterlife evidence point us toward the same conclusions. I’ll admit that I was both thrilled and relieved when I finished that 70,000-word manuscript and didn’t find any contradictions.

I call this the Web of Parallels, and it is the number one reason I recommend diversifying your investigation of life after death by focusing on as many areas of evidence of the afterlife as possible. As with so many truths about life, no single piece of evidence is more convincing than the whole of the evidence.

I send my love to you and yours,
Bob

PS, Just for fun, I’m sharing a video of our dog playing music with her toy carrot. She’ll often do this for ten to fifteen minutes. It would probably drive some people crazy, but Melissa and I love it because she seems so content. We often wonder if she’s mimicking the sounds chipmunks make (she loves watching chipmunks in the yard). Whatever she’s doing, it makes us happy.

Bob Olson is the host of Afterlife TV, author of Answers About The Afterlife and The Magic Mala, and creator of the reputable directory of psychics and mediums, BestPsychicDirectory.com. His latest venture is Bob Olson Connect, where you can read Bob’s articles before they become books.