New Books and Media

From the publisher's website: The author summarizes the conclusions of dozens of unexplained experiences, such as visions people have reported when they are about to die, near-death experiences, and patients who have recovered suddenly and completely from illnesses after a religious intervention. Nurses have also often had their own experiences in the hospital context, such as seeing apparitions, noting significant “coincidences,” seeing energy fields, lights, or “electric shocks” around or even emitted from a hospitalized patient. Other such experiences include observing anomalous behavior in animals, noticing the anomalous functioning of equipment or medical instruments, intuitively “knowing” the nature of a patient’s illness, or when he or she will die, and having unexpected experiences in intensive care units, neonatology areas, or pediatric or neuropsychiatric services.

Other nurses, who may not have had such experiences of their own, have heard about them from reliable sources who have told them about these events. Clearly, there are a large number of unusual experiences as reported by doctors, caregivers, and nurses, sometimes in relation to hospitalized patients. Although many professionals have themselves been witness to inexplicable events, very few efforts have been made to organize the narrations of these events in a rigorous and detailed manner. It is important that nurses, as well as physicians, be informed about how to respond to patients who have such experiences. This work, therefore, serves as a guide in the exploration of these impressive stories and extraordinary experiences that have come to light.

From the publisher's website: When Paul Marshall began to pay attention to his dreams, he could not have anticipated the transformative experience that would follow. A tremendous expansion of consciousness exposed the insignificance of his everyday self but also revealed unsuspected depths of mind and hinted at a deeper self that holds the universe within. In The Shape of the Soul, Marshall—now a mysticism scholar—draws on personal experiences, along with a wealth of religious, philosophical, and scientific ideas, to explore this deeper self, sometimes experienced in mystical and near-death states as spherical in form. Drawing inspiration from the philosophers Plotinus and Leibniz, Marshall takes mind to be more fundamental than matter and views the basic units of nature as perceptual beings. We ourselves are such beings, striving for fulfilment in a long evolutionary journey of soul-making. Bringing together mysticism, philosophy, biology, and even some physics, The Shape of the Soul offers a deeply integrated vision of the self and the universe. Addressing the mind–body problem, the origin of the world, evolution, reincarnation, suffering, and the nature of God, Marshall delivers what will surely prove an intellectual classic.

From the publisher's website: Star Gate is the largest funded program in the history of psi research receiving about $19.933 million in funding from 1972 to 1995. Researchers from SRI International, and later at Science Applications International Corporation, in association with various U.S. intelligence agencies participated in this program.

From the publisher's website: O paulista Carmine Mirabelli, certamente ocupa um lugar de destaque na lista dos maiores médiuns de efeitos físicos da História Moderna (ou, segundo seus detratores, na lista dos maiores mistificadores). Também figura como um dos médiuns mais perseguidos pela imprensa, no Brasil. A coleção Mirabelli vol. 3, encerrando a restauração histórica da vida e obra desse médium ímpar, reedita as seguintes obras:

- O Médium Mirabelli – O Resultado de um Inquérito, de Rodolpho Mikulasch.
- O Espiritismo Científico e as extraordinárias mediunidades do Sr. Mirabelli, do Dr. Carlos de Castro.
- O Médium Mirabelli Mistifica?, de Miguel Karl.
- Martírio e Glória do Professor Mirabelli, de J. F. Schimidt e Olavo Leite.

No apêndice, apresentamos a Campanha Anti Mirabelli, a maior perseguição movida pela imprensa contra um médium brasileiro. A fase final da vida de Mirabelli é reconstituída através das publicações de Revistas e Jornais pelo país. Philippe Piet van Putten, pesquisador científico espiritualista, em entrevista exclusiva, relata suas pesquisas sobre o médium e abre seu acervo particular de fotos e documentos. E para encerrar, o neto de Mirabelli, Luiz Mirabelli Jr, relata diversas histórias inéditas sobre seu avô, incluindo depoimento importante sobre a famosa foto da levitação, sessão na qual seu pai esteve presente, e apresenta fotos de seu álbum particular de família e atas de fenômenos físicos que aconteceram dentro da prisão, quando o médium cumpria pena nos seus derradeiros anos. A História, agora está recontada!

The publisher's website: Casa do Caminho Santana.

From the publisher's website: This is not Donald Trump's anti-science. Science itself is fine, and has rightfully earned the highest status in our culture. But the high status of science has created a problem: Scientists are believed and taken seriously, whatever they say, whether it was determined by the scientific method or not. In particular, they are trying to tell us that there is no reality beyond the physical. This has not been proved scientifically, so it is defended and forced upon the academic community with unscientific methods such as authoritarian pronouncements, ridicule, and power politics, and accepted universally as absolute truth at American colleges and universities. Academic people who express an interest in precognition, telepathy, clairvoyance, remote viewing, psychokinesis, energy medicine, spirit entities, the power of prayer, reincarnation, or intelligent design are treated as if they were mentally incompetent, shunned by their colleagues, and denied publication, funding, and employment. Even psychologists have been steered away from the study of the mind by the insistence on physical evidence. Our accredited institutions are being blocked from whole dimensions of knowledge, the mental and the spiritual. At the same time, there is a growing body of evidence supporting all the subjects in the list above. Gallup polls over the years have shown that more than 90% of Americans believe in God or a spiritual reality. Recent surveys have found that up to 91% of people in advanced Western countries have had psychic experiences. And yet a majority of elite scientists do not believe in these things. They claim that the general public has the bias. They say that we are uninformed, unintelligent, superstitious, and/or delusional. This is simply gross class prejudice. Dirty Science exposes the unscientific, illegitimate, and irrational arguments that are used in the name of "science" by people with high scientific credentials, corrupting our cultural knowledge. This is not "science bashing," but is an accurate and responsible book, written with compassion for the people who are caught up in the system. It is not seeking the approval of establishment scientists as "authority" figures, but is appealing to the intelligent reading public (which includes all academic people) to recognize the unscientific methods and cause the people who use those methods to lose credibility. As a start, every undergraduate student of critical thinking needs to read this book.