Life After Death

Is the afterlife really just your brain lying to you?

Academic psychiatrist, Ian Stevenson (1918-2007) was one of the most controversial researchers of the twentieth century. He travelled the globe, for four decades, investigating reincarnation, apparitions, possessions and near-death experiences. While his peers were sceptical, his findings were extraordinary as he pursued one of life's biggest questions: is there life after death?

Jesse Bering is a psychologist who built his career on the opposite assumption – that belief in the afterlife is just our living brains giving credence to the absurd. Then he went looking into Stevenson's work. What he found forced him to rethink everything.

Set against the rise and fall of parapsychology, from Victorian séances to modern media spectacles, Bering will take you on an existential reckoning. Confront some of the oldest and most dangerous questions a scientist can ask: what if we've been wrong? What if death isn't the end? And what does it mean to be human?

Jesse Bering [USA]: science writer, research psychologist, and head of the Science Communication program at the University of Otago in New Zealand. Author of The Belief Instinct, Perv, and A Very Human Ending. His latest book is The Incredible Afterlives of Dr. Stevenson.

Chaired by Fenella Kernebone: content strategist and professional conversation starter, former Head of Programming for SXSW Sydney's Conference, TEDxSydney and Sydney Ideas.