Evidence of the Soul

“The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence.” - Nikola Tesla 

Before I start this section I want you to know that I am not trying to change anyone’s religious views. I’m just trying to present some fascinating evidence that we are more than our minds. That we are spiritual beings. And the reason I am presenting this information is because we know that a spiritual connection is scientifically proven to improve our mental health. In fact, current research proves that it could be the single most important factor in our overall mental wellbeing. But if you have strong views, are already convinced that you have a soul, and reading about things like reincarnation are just going to close you off, feel free to skip this section.

While I believe what I have written is compelling and carefully gathered evidence, there is still an enormous amount we do not know. In fact, the nature of consciousness and what happens after death remain among the greatest unsolved mysteries in human history. I am not here to wrap it all up in a tidy bow, but I am here to point toward the overwhelming evidence that we are spiritual beings. I also realize that I am taking an intellectual approach to something that can only truly be known from the heart.

At the same time, I think we all need to be aware that there is significant evidence that consciousness survives death, and that is what I present here. The proof does not present as one single study or a flashy headline, but as unrelated groups finding the same patterns again and again. When evidence piles up to that degree, from independent researchers across different cultures and decades all arriving at similar conclusions, the burden of proof starts to shift and completely denying a spiritual existence starts to look irrational. I think that is where we are now in this debate.

For many years I’ve been deeply curious about the question of the soul. Do we really have one? And if so, where do we go when we die? Do we reincarnate (some estimates show that 50% of the world believes in reincarnation), and if so, why? These aren’t just abstract ideas to me. They feel like some of the most important questions a human being can ask. My curiosity eventually turned into somewhat of an obsession: if the soul is real, I wanted to find the most legitimate evidence for it. That search led me to the top researchers in near-death experiences, past lives, and past-life regression.

When I first began this journey, I had no opinion on reincarnation. I just knew a large share of the world believed in it so I tried to remain open minded. I expected to find little more than speculation, but instead I was stunned to discover carefully collected data by serious scientists at respected institutions. The work of the University of Virginia’s Division of Perceptual Studies (DOPS) is especially remarkable. Over the past 60 years, Dr. Ian Stevenson and Dr. Jim Tucker have investigated thousands of children who recall past lives. In parallel, Dr. Bruce Greyson, also at UVA, has spent more than 40 years studying near-death experiences, publishing over 100 peer-reviewed papers. Here is a link to what all they do at DOPS. And beyond UVA, Dr. Michael Newton, a counseling psychologist, spent decades exploring “life between lives” through hypnosis.

Although I have read many books on these subjects, my recommended sources for this writing are below.  I highly recommend checking these out if you are curious.

• Life Before Life and Return to Life (Jim Tucker, M.D., UVA psychiatrist).

• After (Bruce Greyson, M.D., UVA psychiatrist).

• Journey of Souls (Michael Newton, Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology).

• Tim Ferriss’ 2024 podcast with Bruce Greyson.

Taken together, these works make an astonishing case. We are spiritual beings, consciousness survives death, and our souls evolve across lifetimes. I realize these are bold claims, but I urge you to keep an open mind. One thing I find helpful is to think of some of the things that seemed unbelievable to our ancestors but now seem so obvious. For example, just over 100 years ago we thought human flight was impossible, even years after it had been proven. The Wright Brothers achieved sustained flight in 1903, but by 1907 many in the world thought they were frauds because major newspapers continued to openly mock them. Everything changed in 1908 when the Wrights finally agreed to public flights so the world could see it with their own eyes. Two weeks ago I flew over 14 hours non-stop to Dubai from Dallas while having access to the internet. My how things can change!

Paradigm shifts don’t happen overnight, and I believe we are in the middle of one with consciousness. I feel confident that my grandkids will look back on this materialistic era with disbelief that such a large percentage of the population believed consciousness was solely created by the brain, despite the fact that this has never been proven and that there has long been evidence pointing beyond such a narrow view.

Reincarnation Evidence

UVA's Division of Perceptual Studies (DOPS) has collected over 2,500 cases of reincarnation with roughly 70% verified as "solved." A case is only marked solved when the details are verified, and thousands have been. These are typically 2- to 6-year-olds who suddenly begin speaking about another life. They give names, describe family members, identify where they lived, and how they died. Investigators (Stevenson and Tucker) then verify the data from the family and friends of the "previous personality." They are contacted often as this is more common than you might think but only choose to investigate the most compelling cases. They have travelled all over the world to investigate these cases, and it’s important that they are able to find the family members of the person who the child is convinced they once were so they can verify details. Many of the stories are incredibly convincing.

I find it fascinating that 70% of the children they met with describe a violent or unexpected death, which suggests that trauma might provide access to remembering a past life. They also report a median time between death and rebirth to be approximately 16 months. And approximately 30–35% of cases involve birthmarks or birth defects corresponding to wounds on the previous personality. In a subset of these cases, researchers obtained medical records or postmortem reports documenting the original injuries.

One of the most striking contributions of Dr. Ian Stevenson was his monumental two-volume, 2,200-page book Reincarnation and Biology, which documents 225 cases with photographs of birthmarks and birth defects that match wounds on previous personalities. In many cases, autopsy or medical records were consulted. This remains the most comprehensive published body of physical evidence for reincarnation.

Some examples from the research:

• Gunshot wound birthmarks. In 18 cases, children were born with pairs of birthmarks corresponding to entry and exit wounds of gunshots on the previous personality.

• Patrick Christenson (U.S.). Born with a birthmark on his neck, a nodule above his right ear, and an opacity in his left eye causing blindness, which all corresponded to lesions on his deceased half-brother Kevin, who died of cancer. Patrick also walked with a limp, as Kevin had, despite no medical explanation.

• Chanai Choomalaiwong (Thailand). Born with two birthmarks on his head: a small, round mark on the back and a larger, irregular one on his forehead. At age 3, he said he had been a schoolteacher named Bua Kai who was shot while bicycling to school. He named the village where "his" parents lived and led his grandmother there, where he identified Bua Kai's parents. Bua Kai's widow confirmed the doctor said her husband was shot from behind, with a small entry wound in back and a larger exit wound on his forehead. Chanai's birthmarks matched exactly.

One or two anecdotes can be brushed aside, but when thousands of children across cultures and decades give verifiable details, anecdotes become data. The point here is not to convince you of reincarnation. The point is to present evidence that we appear to be more than our physical body. I also recently listened to a Telepathy Tapes podcast discussing this subject, which is here, and I highly recommend it. I believe the entirety of Season 3 will be on the subject of reincarnation.

Near-Death Experiences

If reincarnation cases suggest that souls return, near-death experiences (NDEs) suggest where we go when we die. For over 40 years, Dr. Bruce Greyson, also at UVA DOPS, has been the leading scientific investigator of NDEs, publishing more than 100 peer-reviewed papers and creating the Greyson NDE Scale, the world's most widely used tool to study them.

NDEs are no longer rare. Due to advances in modern medicine and resuscitation technology, millions of people worldwide have now reported them. One large-scale NYU study of 567 cardiac arrest patients found that 4 in 10 survivors recalled some degree of conscious awareness during the event. Given how many people each year experience clinical death and are revived, this equates to millions of cases globally.

I find it fascinating how consistent the reports are. Experiencers often tell the same kinds of stories across cultures, ages, genders, and religions. They describe leaving their body, encountering overwhelming love, seeing deceased loved ones, undergoing a life review, and being told it was "not their time." I read Dr. Greyson's book After, which I highly recommend. Over decades of research he found the consistent patterns across thousands of cases, some of which I describe below.

A significant percentage of those experiencing NDEs report leaving their bodies. They often observe their own resuscitation from above with a level of accuracy that is difficult to explain through conventional neuroscience. Professor Janice Miner Holden found in a review of 93 out-of-body cases that 92% of the perceptions were completely accurate and only 1% were completely wrong. These patients were not only unconscious, they were in many cases clinically dead, yet they were able to describe medical procedures, instruments, and even conversations in the operating room with uncanny accuracy.

Here are two examples I found interesting from Greyson’s book. In one, a patient described watching her surgeon flap his arms like a bird before operating on her. Greyson followed up later and the surgeon confirmed this was how he dried his hands to keep them sterile before surgery. In another example, a woman named Maria in a Seattle hospital in 1977, during her NDE, insisted she had floated outside the building and seen a dark blue tennis shoe sitting on a third floor window ledge. Social worker Kimberly Clark Sharp went to check and found the shoe exactly where Maria described, in a spot that would have been extremely difficult to see from inside the building. The case has been studied and debated for decades, but no one has offered a convincing explanation for how a patient lying unconscious in the ER could have known it was there.

Greyson also reports that encounters with deceased loved ones or beings of overwhelming light and love can be common during an NDE. Greyson reports a few cases where the experiencers encountered people whose deaths they could not have known about at the time. One man described meeting his sister during his NDE. She told him it was not his time yet. When he recovered, he learned she had passed away unexpectedly just hours before his cardiac arrest. In another example, a young mother reported being greeted by her grandmother, only to discover afterward that her grandmother had died that very day while she was still in the hospital. In over a thousand NDE cases, Greyson reports that there is not a single example of someone erroneously meeting a person who turned out to still be alive.

Another common trait we see in NDEs is a life review. The experiencers relive events from their lives from both their own perspective, but also the perspectives of others. They often report feeling the exact emotional impact their actions had on the people they affected. The vast majority describe their NDE as more real than ordinary waking life. In fact, it’s common to hear the phrase that their NDE was “realer than real.”

We also often see long-term behavioral changes in those who experience an NDE. It’s common for experiencers to report a loss of fear of death, increased compassion, improved relationships, and a reduced focus on material success.

But Dr. Greyson is a legitimate scientist so he remains cautious. He does not declare NDEs proof of life after death. He presents the evidence and leaves it up to the reader, which I really appreciate. However, I find the consistency, prevalence, and accuracy of these accounts impossible to ignore. As Greyson has noted, whatever NDEs are, they change people's lives faster, more profoundly, and more permanently than psychotherapy or medication. When I add it all up, from Greyson’s books and all the NDEs I have studied (and there have been many) it suggests that consciousness probably does not end at death. It appears that at the time of physical death our consciousness actually expands, encounters love and deceased loved ones, reviews its life, and often comes back transformed.

If you are curious to learn more, and to hear directly from people who have experienced profound near-death experiences, I recommend exploring the Coming Home Channel on YouTube. They also have a great Instagram page. They present dozens of high quality, first-person NDE accounts, many of which echo the same themes described in the scientific research.

Journey of Souls: Life Between Lives

While UVA's work focuses on verifiable external evidence, Dr. Michael Newton contributed another perspective in his books Journey of Souls and Destiny of Souls, which are both absolutely fascinating. Newton held a doctorate in Counseling Psychology, was a certified Master Hypnotherapist, and a member of the American Counseling Association. He eventually became the founder of the Newton Institute for Life Between Lives. Newton was a serious medical professional who was skeptical of anything metaphysical. He accidentally encountered a case where a client under hypnosis described not a past life, but the spiritual world between lives. He became curious and began to use hypnosis on other clients to access this spiritual dimension. Over decades he collected reports from more than 7,000 clients.

His clients consistently reported the following (notice some of the overlap with NDEs):

• Deceased loved ones greeting them after death.

• Being greeted by spirit guides, which appear to be wise beings assigned to each soul. According to Newton’s work, these guides appear to remain with us throughout all of our incarnations, and they provide guidance during our lives on earth and in the spiritual realm.

• Life reviews with wise beings or councils.

• Healing stations of light to restore energy after difficult lives.

• Soul groups, which are clusters of like-minded souls who reincarnate together as family or friends.

• The soul plans new lifetimes in order to revisit unresolved lessons or to accelerate spiritual growth.

Newton also discusses at length what he calls The Hierarchy of Souls. He developed a framework of spiritual development based on patterns he observed in his client sessions. From these reports he proposed levels ranging from I to VI, which map the soul's growth over many lifetimes:

• Level I–II: These are beginner souls who are often struggling with fear, selfishness, and immaturity.

• Level III–IV: These represent intermediate souls who are learning compassion, balance, and responsibility.

• Level V–VI: These are advanced and master souls, often serving as guides for others. He reports finding very few of these, but the advanced cases he does report on are absolutely fascinating.

Each spiritual level seems to reflect greater wisdom, vibrational energy, and a capacity to love. And interestingly, each level appears to present as a different color. Beginner souls are white and the most advanced appear to be a deep purple. Souls seem to advance through persistent growth across many lifetimes. Newton's conclusions echo what many spiritual thought leaders like Gary Zukav have said, which is that the purpose of reincarnation is the evolution of the soul. Life is a school, and we are here to learn and to master love and compassion.

I know how “out there” some of this can seem, and it did to me too at first. So let's address the skepticism that most likely comes up for all of us. Here is my thought process after reading his books and researching Newton’s background. Could Michael Newton have just made this up for personal gain and notoriety? Almost how a writer can use his imagination to create a novel. It’s of course possible, but I found this unlikely as there are no documented fraud allegations against Newton personally. I also try and keep in mind that he held a doctorate in Counseling Psychology, as well as his decades as a therapist, and his membership in professional associations. These all make this unlikely.

But maybe the majority of his 7,000 clients all unconsciously created similar stories under hypnosis. Critics of hypnosis often and rightly raise this possibility, noting that descriptions provided by clients under hypnosis can be influenced by their preconceptions, cultural beliefs, or even the therapist's suggestions. So this is definitely possible, but Newton himself began as a skeptic, and he was surprised when clients started describing the same kinds of "between lives" experiences without prompting.

Across decades of work, people from different cultures, religions, and backgrounds consistently reported remarkably similar themes: guides, soul groups, life reviews, and planning future incarnations. While his findings cannot be "proven" in the same way UVA's reincarnation and some NDE cases can, the consistency of his clients' reports makes them compelling. Just like in NDEs, the anecdotes and consistency start to look like evidence.

A Theory of Everything

I recently came across a podcast episode that I want to share because its conclusions align so closely with the evidence I had already found through my own research. The Mighty Pursuit podcast spent eight years studying eleven separate scientific fields spanning 134 years of evidence, and this podcast synthesizes it all into nine conclusions. I highly recommend listening to the full episode titled How Science Finally Proved the Afterlife, and you can find it here. What follows is an AI-assisted summary of those nine conclusions based on the podcast transcript.

1. The mind and the brain are not the same thing. The evidence suggests that consciousness is not produced by the brain. It is actually more likely that it is filtered through it. This is supported by near-death experiences, where people accurately describe events far outside the reach of their physical senses. Terminal lucidity evidence provides additional evidence, which is when patients with severe neurological decline suddenly regain full mental clarity shortly before death.

2. Once consciousness leaves the body, it appears to enter a highly structured and consistent realm. We see similar patterns and evidence across near-death experiences, psychedelic research, and leading theories about unexplained phenomena.

3. This other dimension operates under different rules. Time is not linear but experienced as a single, expansive moment. Communication does not happen through language. It happens telepathically through an immediate and direct transfer of meaning.

4. There is an intelligent, loving, and relational presence. Across near-death experiences, controlled psychedelic trials, and studies of genuine spirituality, people consistently report encountering an overwhelming, intelligent presence defined by unconditional love.

5. Deceased loved ones persist beyond death. People routinely describe reunions with recognizable deceased relatives who retain their distinct identities and memories. This pattern appears in near-death experiences, end-of-life visions in hospice care, and verified after-death communications.

6. Human consciousness is not the only intelligence interacting with reality. Encounters with guides or others in near-death experiences strongly imply that human cognition is not the only intelligence that exists.

7. Reality has a moral structure. During the life review phase of near-death experiences, people do not simply replay their lives. They feel the exact emotional impact their actions had on others. Psychological science echoes this, showing that anxiety and inner conflict grow when our external actions violate our internal values. We are wired for moral coherence.

8. The purpose of life is love and connection. Data from near-death experience life reviews and decades of happiness research converge on the same conclusion: true meaning comes from self-giving love, service, and belonging, not from accumulation or status.

9. A genuine spiritual life significantly improves wellbeing. Even setting aside the extraordinary claims, the data shows that an internally lived orientation toward the transcendent buffers against despair and correlates with better mental and physical health. The most important aspect of spirituality, they conclude, is not the spectacular. It is the ordinary, day-to-day growth in character and love.

The episode closes with a metaphor from a documented near-death experience that I found quite profound. Living in the physical world is like navigating an enormous dark warehouse with a flashlight. You only see what the beam hits. Dying and entering the next dimension is like someone finally turning on the lights, which allows you to see the vast and interconnected tapestry of reality in full clarity for the first time.

The strictly materialist model of reality, which is the belief that the physical world is all there is, appears to be incomplete. Intellectual honesty requires us to adjust our worldview in light of converging evidence.

This is really good news…

When I add up all of the research and reading I have done over many years…Stevenson and Tucker’s 2,500 reincarnation cases, Greyson’s decades of NDE studies, Newton’s 7,000 life-between-lives sessions, and the Mighty Pursuit podcast research across multiple disciplines, the conclusion is profound:

1. We are much more than our bodies and brains. We are spiritual beings.

2. Consciousness appears to survive death.

3. Our lives are part of a larger curriculum of growth and love.

This is really good news! Life is not random and death does not appear to be the end. Moreover, unconditional, Divine love, which is the overwhelming force described by near-death experiencers and by souls in Newton’s sessions, appears to be a fundamental part of the fabric of reality. Saints and mystics have been saying this for thousands of years, and parts of the scientific research community are finally catching up.

Pause for a moment and let the weight of this sink in. The awareness that I am an eternal being and unconditionally loved by the Creator of All has completely reshaped my outlook on life. I now see myself as a participant in the "earth school," here to grow, to face fears, and to evolve, which means working to become a more loving, kind, and patient human being.

We all have a spiritual core, and we have access to it right now. Not after years of practice or some distant awakening, but now. We just need to quiet down and remember it. As Peter Crone puts it, "The essence of where we are looking from is what we are looking for." The connection you seek is not somewhere out there. It is the very thing doing the seeking. What an amazing time to be alive, when science is beginning to confirm what the soul has always known.

I know all of this may sound a little far-fetched at first, but when I reflect on the vastness and mystery of our material universe, it actually feels quite reasonable. Think about it. The universe has existed for nearly 14 billion years, with perhaps 2 trillion total galaxies, many containing hundreds of billions of stars. Scientists believe we have between 100 and 400 billion stars just in our own galaxy. We still don’t know how many, and this is our own galaxy! And physicists admit that dark energy, which makes up roughly 70% of the cosmos, is something we don't really understand. If reality itself is filled with such scale and mystery, is it really such an intellectual leap to imagine a complex spiritual dimension? Whatever force or intelligence created this universe surely has the creativity and capacity to craft a complex and beautiful spiritual realm as well. And just as the biological world evolves, it makes sense to me that our souls would evolve too.

But what if none of this is true and the materialists are right? What if the lights simply go out, and there is no soul and no greater meaning to our lives? Even then, because of my spiritual worldview, I will have spent my life striving to be more loving, compassionate, and grateful. My relationships with family and friends will have been deeper with my days richer in joy. And that is the true upside of spirituality…more love, more gratitude, more joy, with almost nothing to lose. Contrast this with the alternative, which is living as if everything is random, meaningless, and often rooted in fear. Which path creates a more beautiful life?

It is in this spirit that I return to Gary Zukav’s timeless reminder from Seat of the Soul, a book I will discuss at length later. “If you desire to know your soul, the first step is to recognize that you have a soul. The next step is to allow yourself to consider, ‘If I have a soul, what is my soul? What does my soul want? What is the relationship between my soul and me? How does my soul affect my life?’ When the energy of the soul is recognized, acknowledged, and valued, it begins to infuse with the personality.” The sections that follow will present information and practices on how to access your soul while navigating this beautiful human existence.

And here is a beautiful tribute to the soul’s enduring light and one of my favorite songs. Soul Sweet Song by Tedeschi Trucks Band.