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Anthony Peake
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Anthony Peake (1954–) is a British author who has claimed he has scientific evidence for life after death.
Biography
Peake has no education or qualifications in science (he has a bachelor's in sociology and a master's in economics)[1] and admitted his interest in life after death started when he began to research déjà vu after he began thinking on what to write a book on. He later studied near death experiences.[2][3]
Hypothesis
Peake began to study near death experiences, the nature of time, déjà vu and other parapsychology topics. He also claims he was influenced by the film Groundhog Day. He has attempted to merge parapsychological topics with quantum physics, with the predictable result of quantum woo. He is the author of the book Is There Life After Death?: The Extraordinary Science of What Happens When We Die (2009).
His hypothesis takes the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics as a literal truth and merges this idea with a rather obscure and extreme time theory of John William Dunne (1875–1949) which says that the past, present and future all exist simultaneously with the outcome being that people can enter the future in dreams or the past by déjà vu. Peake claims that human beings are actually living their lives over and over, a version of eternal return similar to what is depicted in the film Groundhog Day.
According to Peake, he has scientific evidence that at the point of death, the dying person is presented with a literal minute-by-minute recreation of their life in 'real time' from their subjective viewpoint and that the inwardly generated 'reality' is virtually indistinguishable from the real thing.[4]
Peake also talks about a "daemon", a spiritual self he says which exists from people's past lives. According to Peake "conscious beings consist of not one but two semi-independent entities — one of which knows what will happen in the future". Peake is a dualist.[5]
Peake and science
Peake's "scientific evidence" is based on personal reports of precognition and déjà vu and none of Peake's claims have been repeated or tested.
Peake has described his ideas as a hypothesis, yet in articles has also described his ideas as a "theory" and "scientific".[6]
He has also contradicted himself on many other occasions. In early interviews he described himself as a materialist and an atheist, yet in more recent interviews he has embraced philosophical idealism, the view that nothing exists outside of a mind. He has also embraced a version of intelligent design and supports the pandeism of Bernard Haisch.[7]
In 2012 Peake was interviewed by a paranormal website called skeptiko where he criticised conventional science and also finally admitted that he can actually never prove or test his overall hypothesis (i.e., it is unfalsifiable). He also admitted in the interview that he believes in God in the form of pantheism.[1]
Publications
- Is There Life After Death? The Extraordinary Science Of What Happens When We Die (2006)
- The Daemon: A Guide To Your Extraordinary Secret Self (2008)
- The Out-of-Body Experience: The History and Science of Astral Travel (2011)
- The Labyrinth of Time: Revealing the True Nature of Reality (2012)