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""The Afterlife Experiments" by Gary Schwartz is a decent book to read inasmuch as it's the first to examine the issue of consciousness after death in under strict scientific protocols."

a must read

"A Critique of Schwartz et al.'s After-Death Communication Studies"

http://www.csicop.org/si/2001-11/mediums.html

Schwartz, Russek, Nelson, and Barentsen (2001) recently reported two studies in which mediums appeared to be able to produce accurate information about the deceased under conditions that the authors believed "eliminate the factors of fraud, error, and statistical coincidence." Their studies were widely reported in the media as scientific proof of life after death (e.g., Matthews 2001; Chapman 2001). This paper describes some of the methodological problems associated with the Schwartz et al. studies and outlines how these problems can be overcome in future research.

(excepted, link above for full article)

I read the article you linked, and it was okay, but there were some factual errors. For instance, one of the three problems with Schwartz' experiments was inadequate guarding of sensory leakage from the sitter to the medium. This quote appeared:

"In the first part of the readings in the second experiment, the sitter was asked not to answer yes or no to any of the medium's statements. However, the experimental set-up still employed insufficient safeguards against potential sensory leakage. The medium sat facing a video camera and the sitter sat six feet behind the medium without any form of screen separating the two of them."

The article's author either wasn't aware of, or purposefully omitted the entire third experiment, which was designed by the skeptics and cold readers to eliminate most of the problems. During the third one, the medium and the sitter were not even in the same building, had no communication whatsoever, and the judging was double-blind. Schwartz also mentioned how Michael Shermer (Scientific American fans should know him as the author of the 'Skeptic' byline) was blatantly unethical in his treatment of the first two experiments.

Sometimes it's frustrating when those who claim to have an open mind to hard evidence are hypocritical when it is shown to them. (Shermer)