What If the Supernatural Is Real? A Princeton Historian and the Uncomfortable Data

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Near-death experiences. Levitation. Clairvoyance. Reincarnation. Glowing saints. Most of us instinctively file these things under "nonsense." Understandable. But what if a sober Princeton historian says: All of this is well documented — by secular scientists, at renowned universities — and it does not fit into the materialist worldview?

Dale Allison is not a mystic. He is a New Testament scholar, a historian of antiquity, and one of the most respected biblical scholars of his generation. In his book Encountering Mystery, he has systematically surveyed the empirical evidence for supernatural phenomena. His conclusion is uncomfortable for all sides — for atheists just as much as for religious traditions.

Patients Who See What They Cannot See

The strongest entry point: veridical near-death experiences. Patients who are unconscious during surgery wake up and report details they could not possibly have known. One patient described the surgeon's red sneakers. A woman described not only her own operation but also what happened in the adjacent operating room — a leg amputation, placed in a yellow bag. The surgeon knew nothing about it and checked: it was true.

There is now an entire book — The Self Does Not Die — that exclusively collects such cases confirmed by doctors or nurses. Allison's argument against chance: if patients were simply guessing, doctors would hear false stories every day. "You were wearing pink shoes." — "No, I wasn't." That does not happen. The doctors are baffled because there are no failed attempts.

Terminal Lucidity: When the Broken Brain Suddenly Works

Even more disturbing for materialists: terminal lucidity. People with advanced Alzheimer's or brain cancer who have not communicated for months wake up shortly before death — clear, oriented, with complete memories. They hold normal conversations, recognize their family, and then die.

Estimates of how often this happens vary widely — depending on the study and definition, anywhere from a few percent to over ten percent of dying patients. If consciousness arises purely from brain activity, this should not be possible. A brain ravaged by cancer cannot suddenly function perfectly again — at least not according to materialist logic.

The Antenna Model: What If the Brain Only Receives?

Allison picks up an idea from William James: What if the brain does not generate consciousness but only receives it? Like a television that does not produce the program but merely picks up the waves. Smash the TV and the picture is gone — but the program still exists.

This would explain why states of reduced brain activity — meditation, psychedelics, near-death experiences — are often accompanied by more intense consciousness, not less. Materialism would predict the opposite: less brain, less consciousness.

ESP Experiments: The Data Nobody Wants to See

In the 1930s, J.B. Rhine conducted ESP experiments with cards at Duke University. The results were statistically overwhelming — far above chance. Nobody disputes that. The skeptics' answer? "They must have cheated." Without any evidence.

Allison recalls reading a critic's book as a student that devoted an entire chapter to constructing a fraud scenario — without any evidence. "If the only explanation is fraud for which there is no evidence, then the critic has a problem, not the experiment."

The meta-analyses from the 1990s are contested: Bem and Honorton (1994) found statistical significance, while Milton and Wiseman (1999) failed to replicate it. Which side is right depends on which selection of studies you favour. But it was published in parapsychological journals, and prejudice is stronger than data.

Materialism as Dogma

Allison's sharpest thesis: Materialism is often no less dogmatic than religious fundamentalism. Data that does not fit is ignored or explained away. Not because the evidence is weak, but because the worldview is too strong.

"You have a worldview that is very robust, and it simply steamrolls everything in its way."

This hits both sides: atheists ignore the data because it threatens the materialist worldview. The religious ignore it because the phenomena are not confined to a single tradition — levitation exists in Christianity, Buddhism, and Sufism alike.

The Mystical Experience That Changed Everything

At 16, Allison was sitting in his parents' backyard under a Kansas night sky. Without warning, he had an experience he describes as "ineffable" — a presence, loving, unlike anything before. "This is reality. This is what is real."

He then sought people who wanted to talk about God and ended up with evangelicals who immediately interpreted his experience: "You got saved." Years later he rejected that interpretation — but the experience itself remained. It was the reason he became a scholar of religion.

"Thin" and "Thick" People

Allison distinguishes between "thin" and "thick" people — those to whom unexplainable things constantly happen, and those to whom nothing strange ever occurs. His entire family belongs to the "thin" category: his son saw a Tibetan master glowing (and first looked for a rational explanation — light reflection, snow?). All four people present saw it.

His daughter dreamed she would enter church through a side door and a woman named Johanna would say: "There is no electricity today." A week later, exactly that happened — side entrance, darkness, Johanna, those exact words.

Is it genetic? Sociological? Allison does not know. But he knows that many people have such experiences and stay silent — out of fear of being thought crazy.

Testing Miracles? Rather Not.

Jonathan Bi, the interviewer, tells of an Orthodox church in Pennsylvania where he watched a Mary icon ooze oil for ten minutes straight. Could you not simply put it on a scale and film it?

Allison's answer is sobering: religious authorities do not want to send their holy objects to a laboratory. And even if scientists confirmed it was inexplicable — other scientists would simply say: "They are wrong."

The Shroud of Turin was tested. The result did not match expectations. Since then, nobody has been allowed near it.

No Tradition Has a Monopoly on the Supernatural

Perhaps the most important insight: The supernatural knows no denominational boundaries. Levitation exists among Catholic saints, Tibetan Buddhists, and Sufis. Near-death experiences happen to Christians, Hindus, and atheists. Glowing saints appear in nearly every tradition.

Allison refuses to turn this into proof for any particular religion: "I am not going to say Teresa levitated, therefore Roman Catholicism is true. Just as I am not going to say a Tibetan Buddhist levitated, therefore Buddhism is true."

Asked whether reincarnation — a central concept in Buddhism, not in Christianity — undermines Christianity, he answers pragmatically: "Knowledge is knowledge. If your tradition contradicts knowledge, you correct your tradition."

The Most Honest Answer

At the end of the interview, Allison confesses: "Talking to you makes me feel guilty. I will go home and think: I should not have done that. Because what do I know?"

The world is a great buzzing confusion, he says. Religion is not a safe space where everything makes sense — the confusion actually accelerates there. But one thing seems clear to him: there is an experience of transcendent love that appears in all traditions. And if anything contains an ethical imperative, it is that.

Dale Allison is Professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary and author of Encountering Mystery. The interview was conducted by Jonathan Bi on his YouTube channel.

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