Many of the physico-chemical processes occurring at the time of death
are known. These changes proceed in linear
fashion with the gradual process of destruction and decomposition.
The Gas Discharge Visualisation technique,
however, goes beyond the classical biochemical approach, to reveal
some aspect of energy-and-information and its
distribution in the living body. This being so, it became of great
interest to find out how this changes after death. In this
way we might gain information on how the transition from dying state
to death takes place. The experiment was
organised as follows.
A special group of doctors and assistants took part in every
experiment. The selected body was transported to the
experimental room and was placed in a definite position. The left
hand was installed in a definite position on the
electrode and was fixed by a special device that ensured a
stationary position of the hand and the fingers during the
experimental session. The discharge Kirlian photos of four fingers
(excluding thumb) of the left hand were taken every
hour day and night. Then the photos were processed in controlled
conditions, scanned to the computer and from the
every image a set of parameters (area, average intensity,
fractality, etc.) was calculated. Then graphs of these parameters
versus time were created. As a result of this process we got for
every experiment the curves of glow intensity changes in
time during 3-6 days and was able to compare these curves.
To evaluate the meaning of the submitted data it was necessary first
of all to make a scheme of classification of
individual deaths into groups. After examining the results it was
immediately observed that most of the curves did not
decline in monotone fashion but tended to oscillate - sometimes
markedly. Thus the most natural classification seemed
to be according to the amplitude of this oscillation. The data were
divided into three groups (fig.1):
Curves with relatively weak oscillation amplitude (area curve
oscillations range not more than 600 units);
Curves with relatively weak oscillation amplitude but with one
pronounced peak;
Large amplitude curves (area curve oscillation range is more than
600 units) with oscillations of long-duration.
Now we could see a very interesting feature: each of these groups is
characterised by a particular type of death:
group I: calm, "natural" death caused by degeneration of body
tissues.
group II: "violent" death as a result of a traffic accident with
skull injury.
group III: "unexpected" death as a result of some tragic
circumstances which in more favourable conditions could have
been avoided. For example suicide and murder.
In all cases the intensity declined eventually to a steady "basal"
level, with very little oscillation - such as might be
expected from a non-living object of the same electrical
characteristics. In more detail the main features of curves
belonging to each group were as follows:
group I. These curves began with a period varying from 16-55h with
small but significant oscillations, before falling to
become steady at basal level.
group II. These show a pronounced peak: in one case during the first
8 hours after death, in the other during the first
day. Oscillations come to basal level approximately two days after
death.
group III. This group showed several features distinguishing them
from the other groups (fig 2):
- higher amplitude and duration of oscillations;
- progressive reduction in amplitude from beginning to end of the
experiment;
- peaks at night, from 9 p.m., varying in height and duration;
- sharp drops in amplitude at the end of the first day and
especially at the end of the second day.
Throughout the period of experiments weather and atmosphere
conditions were monitored. Although they varied over a
wide range, no correlation with discharge characteristics was found.
Thus we can confidently assert that the results we
obtained were not due to changes in environmental temperature,
pressure or humidity.
On the basis of these results we conclude that energy-information
does not comes to zero at clinical death. In some
cases it continues to be present even as much as 4 days after death
- a time when all biochemical processes
characteristic of life will have ceased and been replaced with
autolytic and putrefactive processes. It was particularly
significant that course of decline in energy-information depended on
the cause and nature of death. These few results
need to be confirmed and extended. Naturally, we see a large amount
of work ahead. In some years these experiments
had been reproduced both in our laboratory, and in some others. The
result was in principle the same.
It seems, then, that traditional spiritual teachings are right in
their insistence that something of a person survives after
death. These results raise not only biological and practical
questions, but also philosophical ones. Our common-sense
view of life and death may need to change. We have a feeling that we
are standing at a threshold of a big new country,
the exploration of which will give us some quite new perspectives.