Consciousness Unbound

Edward F. Kelly is a research professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences at the University of Virginia, with interests in psychical research and functional neuroimaging. He is lead author of three previous books: Computer Recognition of English Word Senses; Altered States of Consciousness and Psi: An Historical Survey and Research Prospectus; and Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century.Paul Marshall is an independent researcher with interests in mysticism, philosophy and psychology of religion, science-religion relations, and consciousness studies. He is author of three previous books, The Living Mirror: Images of Reality in Science and Mysticism; Mystical Encounters with the Natural World: Experiences and Explanations; and The Shape of the Soul: What Mystical Experience Tells Us about Ourselves and Reality.

Consciousness Unbound makes it clear that the broad principles of post-materialist approaches – e.g., that mind or consciousness is a fundamental universal principle, that the human mind cannot be reduced to the brain, that anomalous phenomena such as psi and NDEs are real and there is compelling evidence for the survival of consciousness after physical death – are so well-founded both evidentially and theoretically that it is justifiable, and even essential, for us to include them in our worldview.