John Cleese Is Paying Scientists to Research the Afterlife

One of the biggest unanswered mysteries of human existence is the question of whether or not there is life after death. Is there a heaven? A hell? Is reincarnation real? If you played professional baseball when you were alive, does that mean that you’re doomed to spend eternity haunting some random guy’s corn crops?

Well, The New York Times recently published an article all about the Division of Perceptual Studies at the University of Virginia School of Medicine. As the university’s website explains, “DOPS is investigating the mind’s relationship to the body and the possibility of consciousness surviving physical death.”

The department has faced some pushback from academics wary of studies concerning the “paranormal.” So, as The Times notes, DOPS is “financed entirely by private donations.” And one of those private donors just so happens to be this guy:

While he’s more well-known for his pioneering work in the fields of silly walking and social media bickering, John Cleese has been sending money to the group researching the afterlife, possibly because, as the 85-year-old Monty Python star has repeatedly stated, he’s probably “going to die soon.”

“These people are behaving like good scientists,” Cleese told The Times. “Good scientists are after the truth: they don’t just want to be right. I think it is absolutely astonishing and quite disgraceful, the way that orthodox contemporary, materialistic reductionist theory treats all the things — and there are so many of them — that they can’t begin to explain.”

It may seem somewhat surprising that Cleese is funding this research, but it really shouldn’t be. He’s even given interviews with DOPS scientists for their YouTube page. In one video, Cleese argues that “there’s no question that is more important than ‘is there an afterlife?’”

And he moderated a panel discussion on the topic in 2018.

Cleese’s curiosity about the afterlife can also arguably be found in a number of Monty Python sketches. Most obviously, in a Season Three episode of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, Cleese plays a TV host examining the question of life after death by interviewing “three dead people.”

And, of course, The Meaning of Life ends with the Grim Reaper (played by Cleese) ushering a group of recently deceased dinner guests to the afterlife, which it turns out is just a tacky chain hotel where it’s Christmas every single day.

Come to think of it, even the iconic “Dead Parrot” sketch mirrors this pursuit to some extent, considering that it’s a debate over whether or not an “expired” pet bird should be classified as living or dead.

If its consciousness has transcended to a new plane of existence, maybe it’s just “resting.”