WHAT LIES BEYOND

Matt has a background in biology and cognitive science, and in this well-informed and well-argued book, he calls for an expansion of the science of consciousness beyond its existing materialistic limitations, very much in tune with the Network and the Galileo Commission. Most readers will support his argument that paranormal, mystical, and psychic human experiences need to be taken seriously and incorporated into our overall understanding of reality. Resistance is as much philosophical as empirical, as highlighted in my recent discussion with Titus Rivas and Rudolf Smit about their book on the significance of veridical OBEs in near-death experiences. For Anil Seth, we are just beast-machines, and consciousness will eventually be understood in mechanistic, materialistic terms – this is precisely what Sir Karl Popper and Sir John Eccles called promissory materialism. Matt asks what lies beyond this functional conception and why it matters for the future.

He begins by setting out various views about the nature of consciousness, both philosophical and scientific, highlighting the strengths and weaknesses and the progress made in addressing ‘easy problems’ involving neural correlates. In this respect, he rightly argues that an experience is not a belief. He provides a historical context for resistance to phenomena ‘beyond the enchanted boundary’ and a good account of modernity and its relation to disenchantment. The Society for Psychical Research provided a cultural counterweight embraced by many leading scientists and academics, and Matt notes that dismissal of a significant body of human experience by ridicule is a social and political strategy.

He goes on to outline the significance of paranormal phenomena with examples that bely accusations of cognitive error due to the details and the rigour of the investigations. He then describes experimental approaches, also reporting on the CIA Stargate project. There is a very good chapter on scepticism, rational and irrational; the first approach is informed critique, while the second, more common, is outright dismissal and even ridicule. Matt points out the co-ordinated bias on parapsychology topics in Wikipedia, which amounts to a form of censorship in the name of ‘science and reason.’ He looks at differing attitudes to psychedelic experiences, commenting on Huxley’s reducing valve model in relation to the dissolution of the ego and experiences of the ground of reality. He critically examines three possibilities for the incorporation of psi into an expanded scientific theory of the world, arguing in favour of the proposition that ‘exceptional human experiences starting with consciousness need a radical new world picture and a radical new theory to be understood’ – exactly, in my view.

An original feature of the book is its consideration of two possible trajectories, one dysfunctional, and the other transpersonal. The first is based on technocratic scientism and full-spectrum dominance of humans and human society (the term originates in the Pentagon). Matt quotes the work of Douglas Rushkoff, who characterises this ideological view as mechanomorphism leading to an impoverished view of the human and an existential vacuum, exacerbated by anxieties about ecological breakdown. He rightly sees transhumanism as rooted in the idea of the brain as an information processing machine. More widely, this overall mechanistic and materialistic approach corresponds to an extractive and colonial attitude to nature and people.

Matt’s starting point for a transpersonal future is Huxley’s novel, Island, much less well-known than his dystopian works. He argues that ‘the simple split between a ‘real’ objective, publicly observable world and an ‘unreal’, subjective, private, inner world is fatally undermined’ (p. 165) by the findings of parapsychology and the reality of mystical and spiritual experiences. Here, one could add synchronicity as an experience where inner is mirrored in outer, Jung’s Unus Mundus. The way Matt puts it to highlight the absence of relational consciousness in modern society, exacerbated by our attachment to screens. Leading thinkers like Iain McGilchrist, Jem Bendell, Rupert Read and Jeremy Lent provide their own avenues for cultural liberation, while Matt himself conclusions with a bold claim that ‘the healthy recovery, access, and expression of primary spiritual awareness might be essential in order to realise a benign tomorrow’ – and, one could add, meaningful. This is a significant contribution to understanding the interfaces between philosophy, psychology, psychology, spirituality and mysticism.