Overview

Grosso’s work as a critical reviewer spans several decades and multiple venues, including the Journal of Near-Death Studies and the Journal of Scientific Exploration. His reviews are not dismissive but rather engage substantively with the arguments and evidence presented in major works on near-death experiences, consciousness survival, and related phenomena. He brings both scholarly sympathy for the research domain and philosophical precision to bear on evaluating claims that often venture beyond what empirical evidence can reasonably support.

His approach reflects a commitment to what might be called “critical appreciation”, taking the phenomena and research seriously while maintaining rigorous standards for inference and terminology. This stance positions him as a thoughtful interlocutor within the parapsychology and near-death studies communities, willing to praise solid work while pointing out conceptual and methodological shortcomings.

Evaluating Near-Death Research

Grosso has reviewed foundational works in near-death research with consistent attention to both their contributions and their limitations. When reviewing Kenneth Ring‘s Heading Toward Omega, Grosso acknowledged Ring’s pioneering role in placing the near-death experience under scientific scrutiny, yet raised questions about some of Ring’s broader claims. For instance, Grosso questioned Ring’s assertion that “much of the Western world has come to look at death with open eyes unclouded by fear” as a result of near-death research, noting this seemed an overstatement despite the media attention NDEs had received.²

In his review of Michael Sabom’s Recollections of Death, Grosso praised the work as “a sober and objective investigation of near-death phenomena” that brought a medical perspective to the field, contrasting it favorably with more sermonic approaches to the subject.⁴ Grosso found value in Sabom’s distinction between autoscopic (out-of-body) and transcendental components of near-death experiences, noting that the autoscopic component could potentially be verified while the transcendental apparently could not.⁴

Later, reviewing Ring and Elsaesser Valarino’s Lessons from the Light, Grosso engaged with Ring’s claim that learning about near-death experiences could produce transformative effects similar to those reported by near-death experiencers themselves. He found this idea “reasonable enough,” suggesting that the stunning potentials of near-death transformation might be latent within all people and could be evoked through reading and reflection.³

Consciousness and Survival Claims

One of Grosso’s most sustained critical concerns involves the language and logic used to discuss consciousness survival. When reviewing Ervin Laszlo’s The Immortal Mind: Science and the Continuity of Consciousness Beyond the Brain, Grosso offered a careful critique of terminology. He found Laszlo’s approach “expansive, perhaps visionary, but sometimes less critical than I believe to be warranted.”¹

Grosso’s central objection concerned Laszlo’s use of the term “immortal mind.” He argued that if one bases a scientific quest to know what happens after death on empirical reports, “the most one can ever say is that so and so survived death for some time; to say that this person is now proven to be immortal (which implies inherent deathlessness) is mere philosophical speculation.”¹ This distinction between survival and immortality became a recurring theme in Grosso’s critical work, reflecting his commitment to maintaining the boundary between what empirical evidence can establish and what remains speculative.

Grosso applied this same critical lens to cases involving apparitions and mediumship. While acknowledging that some accounts might suggest a deceased person’s mind survived extinction, he emphasized the uncertainty about manner and duration of survival.¹ Similarly, regarding near-death experiences that appear to occur when the brain could not produce conscious experience, Grosso noted that such cases “do seem to show that conscious experience may be possible without a body. But again, for how long? Suppose the experiencer proceeds to die and be cremated. How can it be known that his consciousness didn’t fizzle out in the meantime?”¹

Philosophical Precision in Terminology

Grosso’s reviews consistently emphasize the importance of precise language in discussing consciousness and survival. His critique of Laszlo extended to the treatment of mediumship and electronic instrumental transcommunication (ITC) evidence. While Laszlo provided rich treatment of ITC phenomena, including his own encounter with Italian ITC medium Signor Bacci, Grosso maintained that such cases provide “signs of survival but scarcely proof of immortality.”¹

This insistence on terminological precision reflects a broader philosophical commitment. Grosso recognized that scientific researchers on life after death typically speak more modestly of “survival” rather than “immortality,” and he advocated for maintaining this distinction in scholarly discourse. The difference is not merely semantic: it reflects the actual epistemic status of the evidence and prevents overreach that could undermine the credibility of legitimate research.

Methodological Concerns and Gaps

Beyond terminology, Grosso identified substantive methodological issues in survival literature. In his review of Laszlo’s work, he noted that the author “glossed over the difficulties or obvious shortcomings in drawing such conclusions.” Grosso pointed to a specific example: Laszlo cited a book titled “Hello from Heaven” in which the sole criterion for contact with the afterlife was the “feeling” or “belief” that such contact had occurred.¹

More fundamentally, Grosso emphasized that cases suggestive of survival might easily be explained by recourse to the psychic abilities of living people, a possibility he felt Laszlo “gave short shrift” to in his analysis.¹ This concern reflects a sophisticated understanding of parapsychological methodology: distinguishing between evidence for survival and evidence for living-agent psi is a persistent challenge in the field, and Grosso held authors accountable for adequately addressing this alternative explanation.

Integration and Significance

Despite his critical reservations, Grosso’s reviews demonstrate genuine appreciation for the research domain and its potential significance. His review of Ring’s Waiting to Die, written when Ring was in his 83rd year, reflected on Ring’s four decades of professional life researching near-death experiences. Grosso noted that Ring “was one of the pioneers of modern near-death research, which, together with others, has produced a body of knowledge that points toward the real possibility of an afterlife.”⁵

Grosso recognized that Ring’s personal reflections on mortality, informed by decades of studying near-death accounts, revealed “an overall confidence that his endgame may be moving toward a sanguine outcome.”⁵ This acknowledgment of the existential and spiritual dimensions of near-death research, alongside his insistence on methodological rigor, characterizes Grosso’s balanced approach to the field.

His engagement with the broader literature on consciousness and extraordinary phenomena also reflects this integrative stance. In collaborative essay reviews examining historical and contemporary work on psychic phenomena and consciousness, Grosso contributed to discussions that situated parapsychological research within longer intellectual traditions while maintaining critical standards.⁶⁷⁸⁹