New Books and Media

From the publisher’s website: This book is a multi-faceted exploration and critique of the human condition as it is presently manifested. It addresses science and philosophy, explores the underlying nature of reality, the state of our society and culture, the influence of the mainstream media, the nature of free will and a number of other topics. Each of these examinations contributes an angle to an emerging idea gestalt that challenges present mainstream views and behaviors and offers a sane alternative. The book is organized as a series of short and self-contained essays, most of which can be read in under one hour.

Bernardo Kastrup has a Ph.D. in computer engineering with specializations in artificial intelligence and reconfigurable computing. He has worked as a scientist in some of the world's foremost research laboratories, including the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) and the Philips Research Laboratories (where the "Casimir Effect" of Quantum Field Theory was discovered). Bernardo has authored many scientific papers and five philosophy books: Rationalist Spirituality, Dreamed up Reality, Meaning in Absurdity, Why Materialism Is Baloney, and Brief Peeks Beyond. He has also been an entrepreneur and founder of a successful high-tech start-up. Next to a managerial position in the high-tech industry, Bernardo maintains a philosophy blog, an audio/video podcast, and continues to develop his ideas about the nature of reality. He has lived and worked in four different countries across continents, currently residing in the Netherlands.

Further information about the book, including the contents list, can be found here.

From the publisher’s website: An uplifting study of the scientific evidence for the afterlife from an experienced anesthesiologist/intensive care physician

• Details meticulously recorded and hospital-verified cases of near-death experiences

• Cites scientific research on NDEs to refute the standard objections of doubters and materialists point by point

• Explores out-of-body experiences, sessions with mediums, electronic communication with the deceased, and other signs from the afterlife

Over the course of his 25-year career as an anesthesiologist and intensive care physician, Jean Jacques Charbonier, M.D., gathered hundreds of accounts of patients who returned from clinical death. Across all of these accounts--from patients with vastly different backgrounds--Dr. Charbonier found striking similarities as well as indisputable proof that these experiences were more than hallucinations. He surveyed other physicians, nurses, and professional caregivers and discovered that their patients described the same experiences as well as exhibited the same positive life transformations afterward. Igniting a scientific quest to learn more, he collected more accounts of near-death experiences as well as out-of-body experiences, attended dozens of sessions with mediums, experimented successfully with electronic communication with the deceased (EVP), interviewed hundreds of people who have cared for the dying, and gathered countless inexplicable stories of “signs” from the afterlife. With each experience he studied, he found himself more firmly believing in the survival of consciousness beyond death.

Dr. Charbonier distills his findings into 7 reasons to believe in the afterlife, beginning with the more than 60 million people worldwide who have reported a transcendent afterlife experience. He refutes the standard objections of doubters and materialists point by point, citing scientific research on NDEs and the work of pioneers in the field of consciousness studies such as Raymond Moody and Pim van Lommel.

Drawing on meticulously recorded and hospital-verified cases, Dr. Charbonier explains that we should not fear death for ourselves or our loved ones. By releasing our fear of death, we can properly prepare for “the final journey.” As those who have returned from death reveal, death is simply a transition and its lessons enable us to live more fully, peacefully, and happily in the now.

From the publisher’s website: In Cosmic DNA at the Origin, systems scientist Chris H. Hardy, Ph.D., lays the foundations for a universe in which consciousness is the driving force of creation that we experience in our lives, and yet a hyperdimension of collective intelligence...all the way to the origin. This is a thought-provoking theory of the origin of the universe, called The Infinite Spiral Staircase Theory.

In a witty and well-informed style, Hardy takes us on a grand tour of the 5th dimension, black holes, the Zero Point and vacuum, and the hottest cosmologies, to show that adding this ISS hyperdimension of consciousness (interlaced with hyperspace and hypertime) not only is very consistent with most physics discoveries, but also explains why we are endowed with consciousness. Moving beyond the materialistic or random frameworks, Hardy weaves a new cosmological paradigm in which consciousness and matter evolve in synchrony, and a part of our being is hyperdimensional.

From the point of origin, an immense time before the first quantum, before particles and matter, space and time are born, this hyperdimension unfolds as a golden spiral driven by the phi ratio-an Infinite Spiral Staircase. It bears on its innumerable spires a boundless field of information issued from parent universes, that contains the imprint of all beings and worlds of many past experiments; and yet, this 'Cosmic DNA' is a field of potentials that is neither deterministic nor limiting for our own universe. Rather, it is a collective consciousness that will grow and choose its innumerable paths; it is the true dimension of our Selfs and individual consciousnesses. Readers aspiring at moving beyond the materialistic paradigm and willing to understand how the universe is a coherent whole, endowed with consciousness, will find this book extremely challenging.

Chris H. Hardy, Ph.D., is a ground-breaking theorist on consciousness and the new paradigm in physics. A cognitive systems scientist and former researcher at Princeton's Psychophysical Research laboratories, she has investigated nonlocal consciousness through systems theory, chaos theory, and her own Semantic Fields Theory. Author of many research papers and published books, including DNA of the Gods, The Sacred Network, she presents at international scientific conferences worldwide.

From the publisher’s website: This volume offers a sample of reflections from scholars and practitioners on the theme of death and dying from scholars and practitioners, ranging from the Christian tradition to Hinduism, Lacanian psychoanalysis, while also touching on the themes of the afterlife and near-death experiences.

Contributors: Lucy Bregman, Temple University, USA Callum E. Cooper, University of Northampton, UK Chris A. Roe, University of Northampton, UK June-Ann Greeley, Sacred Heart University, USA Candy Gunther Brown, Indiana University, USA Cynthia Hogan, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA Martin Hoondert, Tilburg School of Humanities, The Netherlands Stuart Jesson, York St. John's University, USA Jin Sook Kim, Graduate Theological Union, USA June McDaniel, College of Charleston, USA Jordan Paper, York University in Toronto, Canada Lloyd W. Pflueger, Truman State University, USA Darleen Pryds, Franciscan School of Theology, USA Robert Michael Ruehl, Syracuse University, USA Juanita Ruys, University of Sydney, Australia Lee Irwin, College of Charleston, USA Graham Mitchell, University of Northampton, UK.

From the publisher’s website: Many moons ago, in the high Victorian era, Mrs. Guppy, the famous medium, was enjoying a sparkling success. Over the rooftops of Bloomsbury she sailed, was infused through lathe and plaster, and clambered on to tables in the darkness, magicking down showers of apports. Night after night, once the lights were extinguished, and the damped fires had died in the grates, the séance could begin in plush and mahogany drawing-rooms. The O of her mouth in speaking trances was a portal to the spirit world. Her lidded eyes were flickering sensors. The floating paper trumpets were channels to catch the direct voices of the departed. Curtained cabinets were entrances to the unknown land. There, in the thrilling, breathing gloom, decked out in merging black gown, portly, not ethereal, Mrs Guppy, silently, deftly, tripped her own fantastic dance in little, pointy, soft, boots. Definitely invisible, for none ever spotted her, and very nearly noiseless – once, she set a chandelier a-tinkling – she glided behind the bowed heads of her awestruck sitters, and dispensed upon the table a cornucopia of gifts and symbols, apports, from the spirits; animal, vegetable and mineral. Wings swooped and birds burbled; doves were released. Lights darted and twinkled. Auditory effects, tactile feelings, stroking, prickling, oriental smells, made temporary schizophrenics of solid citizens.

She was a sensation. Sadly, though, she was a fake medium, or a cheat, as they called it then, deliberately and in full consciousness employing techniques and devices in order to deceive others that she was in contact with the dead. She was lucky, or exceptionally talented: no lurking sceptic ever managed to expose her, to put up the light prematurely, snatch off a veil, or disclose a mask or waxen body part, as was happening to her rivals.

In her palmy days, at the beginnings of the British craze for spiritualism she was a maker of miracles, and her name is still remembered. Her private life, obscured to those who believed in her, was curious, and based on fundamental lies. This is her story, finally brilliantly exposed and researched by criminologist Molly Whittington-Egan. It is the story of a brilliant lifelong conwoman and prestidigitateur.

Review by Tom Ruffles

From the publisher’s website: Franek Kluski produced what might justifiably be described as the widest and most striking range of phenomena in the history of physical mediumship. A Pole whose professions included banking and journalism, his involvement with psychical research lasted for a brief period between 1918 and 1925. During that time he took part in meticulously documented séances devised and attended by eminent researchers.  Much of the information about him has until now been available only in Polish, and today references to him in English tend to be restricted to the famous ‘Kluski hands’, the paraffin wax moulds casts of which were intended to become the ultimate Permanent Paranormal Object. Theories as to how such moulds might have been produced continue to cause controversy, yet this was just one aspect of the phenomena surrounding this remarkable man. Based on original Polish sources, by painting a detailed portrait of the man in the context of his times this book aims to rectify the omission of Kluski from the gallery of important mediums.

Zofia Weaver is a past editor of the Journal and Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research. One of her main areas of interest in psychical research is the investigation of famous Polish psychics.  Together with Mary Rose Barrington and the late Professor Ian Stevenson she has written a comprehensive study of the Polish clairvoyant Stefan Ossowiecki, published in 2005.

Review by Tom Ruffles

From the author’s website: In December of 1982, when Tom Ross was thirteen years old, he took a week’s vacation to Mammoth Lakes in California with his aunt, uncle, and cousin. Almost from the moment they arrived at their condo, they experienced a near-constant barrage of bizarre phenomena that escalated over their stay, and seemed to follow them after they left. Items moved around by themselves, shades flew open when no one was near them, bloody tissues appeared out of nowhere, words appeared on windows in empty rooms, a blue haze seemed to hover near the ceiling, a door chain was broken from the inside by what appeared to be a clawed hand, and disembodied voices emerged from corners. The family was simultaneously terrified and amazed. Thirty-two years later, the four witnesses decided to tell their story.

Review by Tom Ruffles

From the publisher’s website: Because every single one of us will die, most of us would like to know what—if anything—awaits us afterward, not to mention the fate of lost loved ones. Given the nearly universal vested interest in deciding this question in favour of an afterlife, it is no surprise that the vast majority of books on the topic affirm the reality of life after death without a backward glance. But the evidence of our senses and the ever-gaining strength of scientific evidence strongly suggest otherwise.

In The Myth of an Afterlife: The Case against Life after Death, Michael Martin and Keith Augustine collect a series of contributions that redress this imbalance in the literature by providing a strong, comprehensive, and up-to-date casebook of the chief arguments against an afterlife. Divided into four separate sections, this collection opens with a broad overview of the issues, as contributors consider the strongest evidence of whether or not we survive death—in particular the biological basis of all mental states and their grounding in brain activity that ceases to function at death. Next, contributors consider a host of conceptual and empirical difficulties that confront the various ways of “surviving” death—from bodiless minds to bodily resurrection to any form of posthumous survival. Then essayists turn to internal inconsistencies between traditional theological conceptions of an afterlife—heaven, hell, karmic rebirth—and widely held ethical principles central to the belief systems supporting those notions. In the final section, authors offer critical evaluations of the main types of evidence for an afterlife.

Fully interdisciplinary, The Myth of an Afterlife: The Case against Life after Death brings together a variety of fields of research to make that case, including cognitive neuroscience, philosophy of mind, personal identity, philosophy of religion, moral philosophy, psychical research, and anomalistic psychology. As the definitive casebook of arguments against life after death, this collection is required reading for any instructor, researcher, and student of philosophy, religious studies, or theology. It is sure to raise provocative issues new to readers, regardless of background, from those who believe fervently in the reality of an afterlife to those who do not or are undecided on the matter.

Review by Robert McLuhan

From the publisher’s website: The rise of modern science has brought with it increasing acceptance among intellectual elites of a worldview that conflicts sharply both with everyday human experience and with beliefs widely shared among the world’s great cultural traditions. Most contemporary scientists and philosophers believe that reality is at bottom purely physical, and that human beings are nothing more than extremely complicated biological machines. On such views our everyday experiences of conscious decision-making, free will, and the self are illusory by-products of the grinding of our neural machinery. It follows that mind and personality are necessarily extinguished at death, and that there exists no deeper transpersonal or spiritual reality of any sort.

Beyond Physicalism is the product of an unusual fellowship of scientists and humanities scholars who dispute these views. In their previous publication, Irreducible Mind, they argued that physicalism cannot accommodate various well-evidenced empirical phenomena including paranormal or psi phenomena, postmortem survival, and mystical experiences. In this new theory-oriented companion volume they go further by attempting to understand how the world must be constituted in order that these “rogue” phenomena can occur. Drawing upon empirical science, metaphysical philosophy, and the mystical traditions, the authors work toward an improved ‘big picture’ of the general character of reality, one which strongly overlaps territory traditionally occupied by the world’s institutional religions, and which attempts to reconcile science and spirituality by finding a middle path between the polarised fundamentalisms, religious and scientific, that have dominated recent public discourse.

Contributions by: Harald Atmanspacher, Loriliai Biernacki, Bernard Carr, Wolfgang Fach, Michael Grosso, Michael Murphy, David E. Presti, Gregory Shaw, Henry P. Stapp, Eric M. Weiss, and Ian Whicher.

From the publisher’s website: The 57 articles that form this book are individual, stand-alone pieces that can be read in isolation. However, they also belong to a greater, coherent and consistent scheme and logical framework. Psychical research provides compelling evidence for the facts that mind is related to but independent from the physical brain and significant aspects of human personality survive the death of the body. These subjects - the mind/brain relationship and the survival hypothesis - provide the substance for most of these writings, but they are not dealt with as a matter of simple intellectual curiosity. The underlying angle, the common thread linking all of this work, is that these subjects are crucially important for the bereaved and the dying. When it is understood - rationally understood - that death does not equate with disappearance/annihilation, a considerable part of the fear of death and some of the pain of bereavement can be avoided.

From Prof. Krippner: Stanley Krippner: A Life of Dreams, Myths and Visionsexplores the intellectual contributions and personal influence of a pioneering psychologist and prolific writer whose work has yielded a major impact on illuminating frontiers of original knowledge, generating innovative research and scholarship, and guiding a new generation of cutting-edge thinkers. Contributors explore Krippner's early life and development, key areas of his groundbreaking research and collaborations in consciousness, shamanism, parapsychology, dreams, hypnosis, mythology, and trauma. This edited volume also offers personal reflections that further reveal the breadth of Krippner's inspired professional influence.

Stanley Kripper’s website

From the publisher’s website: Why is it that incredibly unlikely phenomena actually happen quite regularly and why should we, in fact, expect such things to happen? Here, in this highly original book – aimed squarely at anyone with an interest in coincidences, probability or gambling – eminent statistician David Hand answers this question by weaving together various strands of probability into a unified explanation, which he calls the improbability principle. This is a book that will appeal not only to those who love stories about startling coincidences and extraordinarily rare events, but also to those who are interested in how a single bold idea links areas as diverse as gambling, the weather, airline disasters and creative writing as well as the origin of life and even the universe. The Improbability Principle will change your perspective on how the world works – and tell you what the Bible code and Shakespeare have in common, how to win the lottery, why Apple's song shuffling was made less random to seem more random. Oh and why lightning does in fact strike twice...

Review by Robert A. Charman.