Is the material all there is?

Tao Lin, a novelist and essayist, recently came out with a lengthy post on his Substack recounting different people’s perspectives and experiences of the supernatural and paranormal. In the opening paragraph, Lin talks about the mindset of materialism and its inability to account for supernatural encounters. He writes,

Today, materialism is (1) a foundational assumption in mainstream science globally, and (2) the dominant ontology (the study of what exists) in public school and academia in Westernized nations, including those in East Asia. Under materialism, the following phenomena — viewed as normal and real in non-materialist, spiritual ontologies — are labeled paranormal (“beyond normal”). –Paranormal Phenomena – Tao Lin

Since materialism and its inherent biases against non-material entities or existence form the “foundational assumption in mainstream science,” how can we account for people’s “paranormal” experiences? Lin notes that scientists and online outlets like Wikipedia, entrenched in a materialistic perspective, tend to simply dismiss them. People who report these experiences are lying, stupid, or hallucinating. However intense or concrete the experience, there must be a material explanation, so the dogma dictates. Wikipedia, writes Lin, showcases the popular scientific view of people who report on the paranormal.

Research and Experience Suggest Differently

However, Wikipedia doesn’t have the final say. (The teachers are right: Don’t cite Wikipedia as an authoritative source, folks!) Lin goes on to cite a ton of research contradicting materialistic assumptions and indicating the validity of paranormal experience. In addition to the paranormal, we can also look at the many “near-death experiences” (NDEs) from people who have momentarily died and then returned to report on the experience. Lin talks about NDEs in the preface to his piece as well, putting them in the camp of paranormal phenomena. He writes,

People who leave their bodies during NDEs perceive things near and far away from their unconscious or clinically dead body which are later confirmed to be true. Often, these details couldn’t have been seen or heard even if the person’s body was conscious and alert during their NDE. (See the book The Self Does Not Die: Verified Paranormal Phenomena from Near-Death Experiences for 128 such cases.)

The book Minding the Brain, which came out in 2023 through Discovery Institute Press, also demonstrates the overwhelming evidence of NDEs. Gary Habermas writes,

Evidence for human consciousness during near-death situations may constitute evidence for the thesis that human consciousness is not entirely dependent on brain or bodily states. For instance, corroborated data may indicate the presence of human consciousness during times where neither the heart nor brain registered any observable measurements. Further, such experiences apparently took place during NDEs that involved substantiated observations that almost certainly could not have been made from the person’s bodily location, even if they had been fully conscious, healthy, and observing their surroundings at that time. –Prof: There’s a Growing Number of Verified Near-Death Experiences | Mind Matters

Seeing the Soul

Walter Kirn, a fellow novelist of Lin’s who contributed to the Substack post, said on X that he had too many paranormal experiences to count and had to “pick one at random.” Kirn’s own related experience is fascinating. He describes listening to a man in his sixties, Mark, tell a story only to suddenly see him represented over time as a young man, middle-aged man, and older man all at once. He compared the vision to something like the apostles witnessed when they saw Christ’s glowing in radiance during the transfiguration (Mark 9:1-12), reflecting the total glory of his true nature. He writes,

The intellectual sensation, if one could call it that, was of knowing that I was at last perceiving reality. I was convinced that my ordinary way of perceiving human beings was absurdly, pathetically superficial, as if until now I’d been seeing them only as photographs, as time-bound snapshots of their current forms, not as complete and ageless creatures.

C.S. Lewis, the great Irish writer and Oxford tutor, wrote about this kind of “luminescence” in his novel The Great Divorce in which the souls who have entered Heaven shine and yet bear concrete bodies. Their souls are on full display.

Lin’s article raises a lot of thoughtful questions about the prevailing materialistic consensus and challenges readers to consider the complexity and breadth of the human person and experience. There is more to the world than we know.