Karlis Osis

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Karlis Osis
Born Kārlis Osis
Riga, Russian Empire
Died USA
Nationality Latvian
Fields Parapsychology

Karlis Osis (26 December 1917 – 26 December 1997) was a Latvian-born parapsychologist who specialised in exploring deathbed phenomena and life after death.[1]

Biography

Karlis' first research, conducted in the 1940s, was inspired by the work of William Fletcher Barrett, specifically his book, Death Bed Visions.[2] In an attempt to build on Barrett's research, he and Erlendur Haraldsson conducted a four year study whereby they sent out hundreds of questionnaires to doctors and nurses in both the US and northern India, asking them about their observations regarding dying patients.[3] The results, covering 50,000 patients, showed that a large proportion reported their adult patients seeing visions just before death.[2]

Their research highlighted differences between cultural experiences near death.[4] They found that a person's religion greatly influenced what was seen and that this was most apparent when observing the differences between Indian and American experience where Indian patients were far more likely to see a personification of death than Americans.[4]

He repeated this experiment again in 1976, this time investigating the effects high fevers, painkillers and diseases which specifically affect the brain, had on a patients reported experiences at the time of death.[5] Despite the far smaller pool of data (the newer study involved just 877 doctors in the USA alone), Osis concluded to his satisfaction that what he called the "sick brain hypothesis" – that the decrease of brain activity was causally linked to near death experiences – did not stand up to scrutiny.[5]

On being asked about the practical applications of his theories, Osis remarked that "One definite finding of the research is the diminishing fear of death".[6]

In 1957, Osis became the director of the Parapsychology Foundation in New York, being elected as president in 1961.[1] In 1962, he began working with the American Society for Psychical Research, work which continued for many years.[7] In 1971, he and Haraldsson co-authored the book At the Hour of Death, describing the results of their research.[8]

Reception

The method Osis and Haraldsson used to collect data has drawn criticism from the skeptical community.[9] According to Terence Hines:

Osis and Haraldsson’s (1977) study was based on replies received from ten thousand questionnaires sent to doctors and nurses in the United States and India. Only 6.4 percent were returned. Since it was the doctors and nurses who were giving the reports, not the patients who had, presumably, actually had the experience, the reports were secondhand. This means they had passed through two highly fallible and constructive human memory systems (the doctor’s or nurse’s and the actual patient’s) before reaching Osis and Haraldsson.[10]

The psychologist James Alcock criticized the study as it was anecdotal and described their results as "unreliable and unintepretable."[11] Paul Kurtz also criticized the study, saying all of the data was second-hand and influenced by cultural expectations.[12]

Books

  • Haraldsson, Erlendur; Osis, Karlis. (2006). At the Hour of Death. Hastings House / Daytrips Publishers; 3RD edition. ISBN 0-8038-9386-8

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  7. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  8. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  9. ↑ Hövelmann, Gerd. (1985). Evidence for Survival from Near-Death Experiences? A Critical Appraisal. In Paul Kurtz. A Skeptic's Handbook of Parapsychology. Prometheus Books. pp. 645-684. ISBN 0-87975-300-5
  10. ↑ Hines, Terence (2003). Pseudoscience and the Paranormal. Prometheus Books. p. 102. ISBN 1-57392-979-4
  11. ↑ Alcock, James. (1981). Psychology and Near-Death Experiences. In Kendrick Frazier. Paranormal Borderlands of Science. Prometheus Books. pp. 153-169. ISBN 0-87975-148-7
  12. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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