The Mystery

'Consciousness Unbound' provides a thoughtful and thorough examination of modern theories about the non-material nature of the universe that are alternatives to the reductive nature of scientific materialism. This volume is the third major output of a series of Esalen Institute Research seminars discussing empirical evidence regarding the question of postmortem survival. The creation of the three volumes was spearheaded by Edward Kelly of the University of Virginia, in collaboration with other editors, and Kelly brings some of the best minds in this field together to discuss issues that makes the volumes compelling. The first two volumes, 'Irreducible Mind' and 'Beyond Physicalism' (Kelly et al., 2007, 2015), provide helpful additional resources that lay important groundwork for this volume, as well as providing research from neuroscience and philosophy that support the proposition that consciousness is a fundamental aspect of nature. As you read through 'Co

Building on the groundbreaking research of 'Irreducible Mind' and 'Beyond Physicalism', Edward Kelly and Paul Marshall gather a cohort of leading scholars to consider the significance of extraordinary experiences for our understanding of reality. Currently emerging as a middle ground between warring fundamentalisms of religion and science, an expanded science-based understanding of nature finally accommodates empirical realities of spiritual sorts while also rejecting rationally untenable over beliefs. The vision sketched here provides an antidote to the prevailing postmodern disenchantment of the world and demeaning of human possibilities. It not only more accurately and fully reflects our human condition but engenders hope and encourages ego-surpassing forms of human flourishing. It offers reasons for us to believe that freedom is real, that our human choices matter, and that we have barely scratched the surface of our human potentials. It also addresses the urgent ne

Phenomenology is a philosophy of experience. For phenomenology the ultimate source of all meaning and value is the lived experience of human beings. All philosophical systems, scientific theories, or aesthetic judgments have the status of abstractions from the ebb and flow of the lived world. The task of the philosopher, according to phenomenology, is to describe the structures of experience, in particular consciousness, the imagination, relations with other persons, and the situatedness of the human subject in society and history. Phenomenological theories of literature regard works of art as mediators between the consciousnesses of the author and the reader or as attempts to disclose aspects of the being of humans and their worlds. The modern founder of phenomenology is the German philosopher Edmund Husserl (1859–1938), who sought to make philosophy 'a rigorous science' by returning its attention 'to the things themselves'. He does not mean by this that philosophy sho

Let's suppose that you were able every night to dream any dream that you wanted to dream. And that you could, for example, have the power within one night to dream 75 years of time. Or any length of time you wanted to have. And you would, naturally as you began on this adventure of dreams, you would fulfill all your wishes. You would have every kind of pleasure you could conceive. And after several nights of 75 years of total pleasure each, you would say "Well, that was pretty great." But now let's have a surprise. Let's have a dream which isn't under control. Where something is gonna happen to me that I don't know what it's going to be. And you would dig that and come out of that and say "Wow, that was a close shave, wasn't it?" And then you would get more and more adventurous, and you would make further and further out gambles as to what you would dream. And finally, you would dream ... where you are now. You would dream the dream of li