Mind Beyond Brain

This collection of essays focuses on things like near-death experiences, reincarnation, astral projection, psychics, etc. - with each author focusing on a particular event type. Many of the writers are academics and researchers at or affiliated with the University of Virginia Division of Perceptual Studies - a sub department of Psychology; the editor, David Presti, is at UC Berkley. The purports to link contemporary and innovative science with events typically accepted as part of the Buddhist tradition; however, the explicit connection between the difficult to explain events listed above and Buddhism is tenuous, at best. Essentially this connection boils down to: Buddhists say these things happen, and so do we. Additionally, the bulk of the evidence presented in this book comes from a "take our word for it" context. There is very little sharing of actual data and result - most likely this is due to the popular nature of the book. However, given the current state of academic publishing, simply saying "our results were published in peer-reviewed journals" doesn't carry much water. Thus, there is no demonstrated rigor in the information presented. With all this being said - science is science and it is prone to just as much dogmatism as anything else. If the phenomena which is described in this book is actually happening, and the researchers can provide demonstrable rigor in not only proving it happens, but how and why it happen, the results could shake the very foundation of biological and social science as we know it. But this is a big "if", the phenomena they are describing in this book are of a nature that skepticism will be tremendous and as a result their science must be flawless and their writing must be overwhelmingly persuasive. Unfortunately, this book, is not a good entry point. This book is written to either support confirmation bias or be easily dismissable by skeptics.

Until recently, the bricks-and-mortar way of understanding the world with its atoms and scientific laws seemed to be enough. But then the atom was split even further and then physics starts to get weird. Consciousness at a quantum level can actually determine things.
Psychologists and physicists may be specialists at understanding consciousness at an objective level, whilst Buddhism specialises at understading the deeper layers of subjective consciousness. The hope expressed in this book is that one day, the approaches of each will merge, then a new way of understanding reality will emerge.
Chapters here bring together the fruit of old and new research into parapsychological research first founded by William James. Empirical research carried out over a hundred years ago into such matters as the NDE (near-death experience), mediumship and children who claim to remember earlier lives. More recently, there has been the work on the latter by Ian Stephenson, for example. This kind of research, the book argues, is where the merging of Buddhism and Science will be most fruitful.
This is quite a slim volume of chapters, but sometimes more can be less. The research here is certainly being encouraged by no less that the Dalai Rama himself.
You do not need to be a Buddhist however, to enjoy this, perhaps just to have an interest in where science and mysticism - or non-dog stick spirituality - overlap. Perhaps what is most interesting is that with James, there was already a lively interest in these areas, and that somehow, this easier painstaking research was forgotten.

Without imposing his ideas to the reader, David explains the three subjects with a neutral pace; Buddhism, Science, and the Paranormal. This approach provide the reader the chance to triangulate the three subjects and correlate their own conclusions. I liked this balanced approach compared to other book where sciences or mysticism are the key or the explanations of everything.


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Enjoyed this read, though I had to be in the mental mood to read it, as it took a bit of effort to get through and grasp the subject at hand. A tad fun, a bunch of science and decent enlightenment are held within the cover. Would recommend for those looking to expand their knowledge base.