In the Netflix original movie The Discovery, a researcher, Thomas Harper (Robert Redford), claims to have stumbled upon the titular event in the form of proof of an afterlife. This finding, which is never quite explained, sets off an epidemic of suicide, with people attempting to cross over into the promise of an alternate plane of existence.
While the film is underwhelming at best, it surfaces some of humanity’s grandest philosophical questions: What happens when we die? Does death mean the end of existence or simply a continuation in a cycle of existences? And is there any way to prove it?
Many scientists, of course, dismiss the afterlife as a superstitious fantasy. Still, there have been few scientists that have investigated this mystical concept; at least one has argued for it.
One of the most prominent was American psychologist and physician Raymond Moody, who coined the term “near-death experience” in his 1975 bestselling book, Life After Life. Moody collected thousands of testimonials of people who had had out of body experiences, all sharing in common incidences that allegedly occurred in the space of time when a patient was considered medically dead. In an undated interview, Moody says the testimonials provide irrefutable proof of the afterlife:
I don’t mind saying that after talking with over a thousand people who have had these experiences, and having experienced many times some of the really baffling and unusual features of these experiences, it has given me great confidence that there is a life after death. As a matter of fact, I must confess to you in all honesty, I have absolutely no doubt, on the basis of what my patients have told me, that they did get a glimpse of the beyond.
