Leslie Kean is an independent investigative journalist and author. Her new book, Surviving Death: A Journalist Investigates Evidence for an Afterlife, is an important vehicle for the parapsychological community in reaching out to the general public. She takes the most evidential case studies and subjects them to journalistic scrutiny, and throughout she explores the super-psi hypothesis as well as the survival hypothesis (and other explanations for the data) with objectivity and clarity. She makes no claims of “proof.” She also includes her personal experiences testing mediumship and grappling with what seemed like after-death communications, giving the book even more weight since these are set within a research context. She includes reports on scientific studies throughout, and the book has thirty-three pages of meticulous end notes.

Surviving Death includes original chapters written by PhDs, medical doctors, psychologists, and others who have spent decades researching their specialties. It is both a scholarly book and one that is extremely readable and aimed towards reaching an intelligent, middle-of-the-road skeptical mainstream audience. It will certainly provide a challenge to the pseudo-skeptics! Leslie Kean deserves recognition for bringing the work of this field to a wider audience, by working with a major publisher without sacrificing the rigor that is demanded for a proper presentation. She shows that the research is interconnected and she presents a clear picture as to why the scientific community should take it seriously. She shows that data from parapsychology is important for everyone, and that it reveals interesting perspectives on the nature of consciousness, which is something we still do not understand. She does all of us a great service in this regard.  

The Parapsychological Association Book Award was established in 2015 to recognize books in the field of parapsychology that make significant contributions to science and to the cultural conversation about the implications of parapsychology. Visit the PA Book Award Page to learn more about the award and previous winners.