Transcendent Mind

It is encouraging that such a radical book has been published by the American Psychological Association as it goes way beyond conventional psychological thinking, as is apparent in the first sentence: 'we are in the midst of a sea change. Receding from view is materialism, whereby physical phenomena are assumed to be primary and consciousness is regarded as secondary. Approaching our sites is a complete reversal of perspective: according to this alternative view, consciousness is primary and secondary. '(p. 1) Imants Baruss is Professor of Psychology at King's University College at Western University Canada, where he has been teaching undergraduate courses about consciousness for nearly 30 years. Julia Mossbridge is an experimental psychologist and cognitive neuroscientist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences and a visiting scholar at Northwestern University. The reversal of perspective referred to will be familiar to many readers, although they might find the confident tone overoptimistic in view of the evident strength of resistance and the social psychology of confirmation bias.

With over 35 pages of references, the authors draw widely on research and consider the full range of parapsychological phenomena implying a shared mind, rethinking time, separation of mind from brain, direct mental influence and openness to the transcendent mind of the title. There is no doubt in my mind that if one applies William James's principle of radical empiricism there is ample evidence to justify a fundamental reversal in our understanding of consciousness, but very little of this literature is read by mainstream neuroscientists, whose working hypothesis remains that brain produces mind. Such is the general prejudice that member and Nobel laureate Brian Josephson received a note from a conference organiser that due to his research interest in the paranormal, his presence would not be appropriate at a scientific conference. He subsequently learned, incredibly, that it was feared that his presence might damage the career prospects of students attending.

The authors give a brief history of materialism, which they show has been transcended by physics itself. They take considerable trouble to define various meanings of consciousness as referring to subjective events suffused with existential qualia that occur privately for a person (p. 15). They detail not only evidence for phenomena anomalous in terms of materialism, but also strategies for approaching the area, which they subject to critical scrutiny. They feel that materialism as a philosophy is like a dyke holding back the water of knowledge. They rightly point out the close correlation between beliefs about consciousness and reality in terms of worldviews. The overall approach nicely balances open-mindedness with rigour.

In looking at shared mind, they review evidence for remote viewing, telepathy and psychokinesis. Some readers may be familiar with the CIA parapsychology programme at Stanford Research Institute, which lasted from 1973 to 1995. During this period, 1,215 remote viewing trials were performed, and already in 1996 statistician Jessica Utts concluded that 'using the standards applied to any other area of science, it is concluded that psychic functioning has been well-established.' Yet, more than 20 years later, sceptics still claim that there is no evidence for psi - in this respect they are little like Galileo's cardinals who refused to look through his telescope. In discussing the theoretical basis of shared mind, the authors could have referred to the extensive work of Ervin Laszlo on the Akashic field, and, historically, New Thought ideas about a universal mind, for instance in the work of Thomas Troward.

Moving on to their treatment of time, the authors discuss its centrality to consciousness and experience as well as evidence for pre-sentiment, precognitive dreaming and precognitive remote viewing. Interestingly, they consider the implication of the life review for our understanding of time, as this seems to compress a lifetime into a few seconds. Then we can also experience timeless states, which I would not personally interpret as time 'coming apart'. This leads them to postulate a deep time distinguished from subjective apparent time. The next chapter looks at evidence for contact with the dead, including spontaneous cases and mediumship, and they consideration the relative merits of superpsi versus survival as a plausible explanation. In their treatment of near death experiences, the authors point out the paradox that 'the less the brain is able to function properly, the more vivid the experiences that are occurring' and in this respect they could have cited the Auckland Geddes case as an argument in their favour. Of course, mental functioning in the afterlife implies mind without any brain, not just mind separable from the brain.

Various forms of direct mental influence are investigated, including random event generators, remote healing, poltergeist activity, macro-PK and the extraordinary case involving the rapid disappearance of Anita Moorjani's terminal cancer following her NDE. They also discuss the 'fictitious ghost' Philip, ostensibly created by a group of Canadian researchers, but I have always wondered if someone on the other side was in fact having a joke at their expense. The next issue is reintegrating subjectivity into consciousness research, where the authors point out that first person observation is in fact at the core of science, and that careful observation is a skill to be learned, to which they devote a separate section. They also cover phenomenology, psychophysics and psychophysiology as well as arguing for self-development in consciousness researchers.

Finally, we come to the title of transcendent mind from a post-materialist perspective. One of their core contentions is that conditioned ways of thinking have displaced empirical evidence, hence the need for this book to define a new scientific footing for consciousness research. In considering a possible explanatory model, they quote the filter theory advanced by Aldous Huxley, whom they wrongly call an American writer, but, oddly, they make no mention of William James's seminal lecture on immortality where he discusses in detail the philosophy of a filter model, some of which he derives from the much less well-known work of Oxford philosophy don FCS Schiller, whose 1891 book Riddles of the Sphinx is perhaps the most comprehensive statement. They themselves advance what they call a flicker- filter model based on the sequence of nows where a more permeable filter would open up access to material in deep consciousness. Finally, the authors suggest ten guidelines for future research in consciousness based on a deeper questioning and a more open yet systematic and rigorous approach, which also has clinical implications. Interestingly, they recommend self-development as necessary for deepening one's understanding of the nature of consciousness and reality: we ourselves need to open up and evolve. This book is a very thorough investigation of consciousness research that should appeal to rigorous yet open-minded scientists who are prepared to engage fully with the evidence and think through its implications for the nature of reality.