Introduction
Preface and Acknowledgments
1. A View from the Mainstream: Contemporary Cognitive Neuroscience
and the Consciousness Debates
2. F. W. H. Myers and the Empirical Study of the Mind-Body
Problem
3. Psychophysiological Influence
4. Memory
5. Automatism and Secondary Centers of Consciousness
6. Unusual Experiences Near Death and Related Phenomena
7. Genius
8. Mystical Experience
9. Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century
About the Authors
References
Appendix: An Annotated Introductory Bibliography of Psychical
Research
Edward F. Kelly is currently research professor in the Department of Psychiatric Medicine at the University of Virginia. He is author of Computer Recognition of English Word Senses and Altered States of Consciousness and Psi: An Historical Survey and Research Prospectus. His central long term interests revolve around mind-brain relations and functional neuroimaging studies of unusual states of consciousness and associated cognitive phenomena. Emily Williams Kelly is currently research assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatric Medicine at the University of Virginia. Adam Crabtree is currently on the faculty of the Centre for Training in Psychotherapy, Toronto. Alan Gauld is a retired reader in psychology, School of Psychology, University of Nottingham, as well as past president of the Society for Psychical Research. Bruce Greyson is the Chester F. Carlson Professor of Psychiatry and director of the Division of Perceptual Studies at the University of Virginia. Michael Grosso, though nominally retired, is currently teaching at the University of Virginia's School of Continuing Education. He is currently a director of the American Philosophical Practitioner's Association and Review Editor of the Journal of Philosophical Practice.
pp. 153 of Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the
Afterlife, Simon & Schuster, 2012
For those still stuck in the trap of scientific skepticism, I
recommend the book Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the
21st Century, published in 2007. The evidence for out-of-body
consciousness is well presented in this rigorous scientific
analysis. Irreducible Mind is a landmark opus from a highly
reputable group, the Division of Perceptual Studies, based at the
University of Virginia. The authors provide an exhaustive review of
the relevant data, and the conclusion is inescapable: these
phenomena are real, and we must try to understand their nature if
we want to comprehend the reality of our existence.
*Eben Alexander III, MD, Neurosurgeon and author of Proof of Heaven
and The Map of Heaven*
The authors have not only plausibly argued that the empirical and
conceptual horizon of science, particularly the science of the
human mind, is both capable and in dire need of expansion, but—and
I use this strong term deliberately—they have proven it.
*Journal Of Mind and Behavior*
[A] comprehensive review of empirical evidence that questions the
assumption that 'properties of minds will ultimately be fully
explained by those of brains.'. . . Kelly et al. deserve to be
praised for their courage and scholarship in dealing with such a
controversial topic.
*Journal Of Nervous and Mental Disease*
Thoroughly scientific, systematically reasoned and courageous. . .
as exciting and enjoyable as it is provocative and profound!
*David J. Hufford, Professor Emeritus of Humanities and Psychiatry,
Penn State College of Medicine*
Irreducible Mind is an enormous and daring enterprise. Its
scholarship is impressive. . . and made me think long and hard
about many issues.
*PsycCRITIQUES*
[A] must-read for anyone working in consciousness studies,
psychology and the history of science.
*Jonathan Edelman, Oxford University*
[A] monumental work. . . . Only a very resistant observer will
remain unpersuaded that a proportion, as least, of all this
carefully evaluated data presents a significant challenge to
conventional views.
*Journal of Consciousness Studies*
[A] sustained, sophisticated, and empirically based critique of
contemporary cognitive psychology and mainstream neuroscience. . .
the implications for the study of mind, consciousness, and religion
border on the unspeakable.
*Religious Studies Review*
[B]rilliant, heroic and astonishing . . . a scientifically rigorous
and philosophically informed critique of various contemporary
orthodoxies in mainstream psychology, especially the idea that the
human mind (including consciousness and our sense of free will and
personal agency) is nothing more than a material entity and can be
fully explained in terms of brain processes.
*Richard A. Shweder, Harold Higgins Swift Distinguished Service
Professor, Department of Comparative Human Development, University
of Chicago*
Irreducible Mind [is] yet another book on the mind-body problem.
However, this book is different, very different, from all the
rest... In the future history of the science of mind, Irreducible
Mind may well prove a book of landmark significance, one that
helped spark a revolution in the scientific investigation of the
nature of consciousness... In the arena of neuroscience of mind, it
is the most exciting reading to have crossed my path in years.
*David E. Presti, Professor of Neurobiology, University of
California-Berkeley, Professor of Neurobiology, University of
California-Berkeley*
Irreducible Mind is well written, detailed, and passionately
argued, and should be central to parapyschology for some years to
come.
Its great value is that it helps to close the gap between the
conventional view of mind on the one hand, and on the other,
responsible research into phenomena which are utterly antithetical
to that view. In that sense, it greatly advances the process that
Myers began more than a century ago, but was so rudely interrupted
by behaviourism and the virtual outlawing of consciousness as a
scientific entity.
*Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, July 2009*
The author's sincerity and the extent of their labors are beyond
question.
*American Journal of Psychology, Summer 2010*
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