"Science as a Spiritual Practice" is in three parts. In the first part the author argues that there are problems with materialism and that self-transformation could lead individual scientists to more comprehensive ways of understanding reality. In the second part he takes on the contentious notion of inner knowledge and shows how access to inner knowledge could be possible in some altered states of consciousness. The third part is an analysis of the philosophy of Franklin Wolff, who claimed that the transcendent states of consciousness which occurred for him resulted from his mathematical approach to spirituality.

Are there Buddhist conceptions of the unconscious? If so, are they more Freudian, Jungian, or something else? If not, can Buddhist conceptions be reconciled with the Freudian, Jungian, or other models? These are some of the questions that have motivated modern scholarship to approach alayavijnana, the storehouse consciousness, formulated in Yogacara Buddhism as a subliminal reservoir of tendencies, habits, and future possibilities. Tao Jiang argues convincingly that such questions are inherently problematic because they frame their interpretations of the Buddhist notion largely in terms of responses to modern psychology. He proposes that, if we are to understand alayavijnana properly and compare it with the unconscious responsibly, we need to change the way the questions are posed so that alayavijnana and the unconscious can first be understood within their own contexts and then recontextualized within a dialogical setting. In so doing, certain paradigmatic assumptions embedded in the original frameworks of Buddhist and modern psychological theories are exposed. Jiang brings together Xuan Zang's alayavijnana and Freud's and Jung's unconscious to focus on what the differences are in the thematic concerns of the three theories, why such differences exist in terms of their objectives, and how their methods of theorization contribute to these differences. ""Contexts and Dialogue"" puts forth a fascinating, erudite, and carefully argued presentation of the subliminal mind. It proposes a new paradigm in comparative philosophy that examines the what, why, and how in navigating the similarities and differences of philosophical systems through contextualization and recontextualization.

2004 Gradiva Award Winner. Joseph Newirth contends that locating subjectivity in the unconscious frees us from the nineteenth-century bias that privileged consciousness and rational thought, and suggests that the analytic enterprise is not to make the unconscious conscious, but rather to make the conscious unconscious.

One of the greatest classics on hypnotism, first published in 1846. The author lists at the outset 73 painless surgical operations (including the removal of an 80-pound scrotal tumor) performed in the previous eight months while patients were in mesmeric trances, and cites eighteen cases of cures brought about by animal magnetic passes. He describes many of his surgical procedures, the null mortality rate he effected, and the modes in which Mesmeric fluid may be transmitted. Although this work, along with Elliotson's Numerous Cases of Surgical Operations Without Pain was briefly influential, experimentation of the kind Esdaile carried out was cut short by the discovery of an effective chemical anaesthesia the very year Mesmerism in India was published James Esdaile (1808-1859), a Scottish surgeon who was appointed Surgeon to Government of India, performed at least 291 painless operations in India using hypnotism. Aroused by his success, the Indian government soon established a mesmeric hospital for him. Esdaile performed a variety of surgical operations on Hindus, upon many of whom he appears successfully to have induced hypnotic anaesthesia. However, his similar attempts with Europeans were not so successful.

CONTENTSThe Significance of SleepChanges Occurring in the Body during SleepCriticism of Various Theories of SleepPavlov on SleepPavlov on HypnosisDreams, Their Causes and NatureDifferent States of Sleep and Conditions Conducive to SleepTherapy by Prolonged SleepDisorders of Sleep. Morbid SleepHygiene of Sleep

A Nobel Prize-winning scientist and a leading brain researcher show how the brain creates conscious experience. In A Universe of Consciousness, Gerald Edelman builds on the radical ideas he introduced in his monumental trilogy - Neural Darwinism, Topobiology, and The Remembered Present - to present for the first time an empirically supported full-scale theory of consciousness. He and the neurobiolgist Giulio Tononi show how they use ingenious technology to detect the most minute brain currents and to identify the specific brain waves that correlate with particular conscious experiences. The results of this pioneering work challenge the conventional wisdom about consciousness.

What altered states of consciousness-the dissolution of feelings of time and self-can tell us about the mystery of consciousness. During extraordinary moments of consciousness-shock, meditative states and sudden mystical revelations, out-of-body experiences, or drug intoxication-our senses of time and self are altered; we may even feel time and self dissolving. These experiences have long been ignored by mainstream science, or considered crazy fantasies. Recent research, however, has located the neural underpinnings of these altered states of mind. In this book, neuropsychologist Marc Wittmann shows how experiences that disturb or widen our everyday understanding of the self can help solve the mystery of consciousness. Wittmann explains that the relationship between consciousness of time and consciousness of self is close; in extreme circumstances, the experiences of space and self intensify and weaken together. He considers the emergence of the self in waking life and dreams; how our sense of time is distorted by extreme situations ranging from terror to mystical enlightenment; the experience of the moment; and the loss of time and self in such disorders as depression, schizophrenia, and epilepsy. Dostoyevsky reported godly bliss during epileptic seizures; neurologists are now investigating the phenomenon of the epileptic aura. Wittmann describes new studies of psychedelics that show how the brain builds consciousness of self and time, and discusses pilot programs that use hallucinogens to treat severe depression, anxiety, and addiction. If we want to understand our consciousness, our subjectivity, Wittmann argues, we must not be afraid to break new ground. Studying altered states of consciousness leads us directly to the heart of the matter: time and self, the foundations of consciousness.

Fundamental issues of transference and countertransference are dealt with in reference to subjects such as dreams, eating disorders, sexual acting out, and borderline conditions.

Claudio Naranjo's psychedelic autobiography with previously unpublished interviews and research papers * Explores Dr. Naranjo's pioneering work with MDMA, ayahuasca, cannabis, iboga, and psilocybin * Shares his personal accounts of psychedelic sessions and experimentation, including his work with Alexander "Sasha" Shulgin and Leo Zeff * Includes the author's reflections on the spiritual aspects of psychedelics and his recommended techniques for controlled induction of altered states In the time of the psychedelic pioneers, there were psychopharmacologists like Alexander "Sasha" Shulgin, psychonauts like Aldous Huxley, and psychiatrists like Humphrey Osmond. Claudio Naranjo was all three at once. He was the first to study the psychotherapeutic applications of ayahuasca, the first to publish on the effects of ibogaine, and a long-time collaborator with Sasha Shulgin in the research behind Shulgin's famous books. A Fulbright scholar and Guggenheim fellow, he worked with Leo Zeff on LSD-assisted therapy and Fritz Perls on Gestalt therapy. He was a presenter at the 1967 University of California LSD Conference and, 47 years later, gave the inaugural speech at the First International Conference on Ayahuasca in 2014. Across his career, Dr. Naranjo gathered more clinical experience in individual and group psychedelic treatment than any other psychotherapist to date. In this book, his final work, Dr. Naranjo shares his psychedelic autobiography along with previously unpublished interviews, session accounts, and research papers on the therapeutic effects of psychedelics, including MDMA, ayahuasca, cannabis, iboga, and psilocybin. The book includes Naranjo's reflections on the spiritual aspects of psychedelics and the healing transformations they bring, his philosophical explorations of how psychedelics act as agents of deeper consciousness, and his recommended techniques for controlled induction of altered states using different visionary substances. Naranjo's work shows that psychedelics have the strongest potential for transforming and healing people over all therapeutic methods currently in use.

Can computers be conscious?
Is our universe real of a simulation?
Is the mind a unique quality of human beings?

As technological breakthroughs in AI continue to advance, topics like this have become part of the daily news cycle. But what does it all mean and what is at stake for the human race?

When Tim Parks came across a radical new theory of consciousness he set off on a quest to discover more about this fascinating topic and also let him to observe his own experience with immense attention.

Out of My Head tells the gripping, highly personal, often surprisingly funny, story of a paradigm shift. It frames complex metaphysical considerations and technical laboratory experiments in terms we can all understand. Above all, it invites us to see space, time, colour and smell, sounds and sensations in an entirely new way. The world will feel more real after reading it.

On average, a quarter of a million children in the United States enter foster care every year. Most of these children are placed in non-kinship homes; that is, with people who are complete strangers. In The Neglected Transition, child welfare researcher Monique B. Mitchell explores children's experiences of loss and ambiguity as they transition into foster care, as well as the questions children ask during this critical life transition. Specifically, the author uses child-centered research, practical examples, and healing suggestions to create a foundation from which a relational home can be built. Drawing from the compelling stories of children, Mitchell invites readers to join children on their journey as they transition into the foster care system and courageously share their experiences of loss, ambiguity, fear, and hope.

Our understanding of the nature and applications of meditation, especially mindfulness meditation, has been expanding almost as rapidly as the empirical evidence from neuroscience and intervention studies that have become available in the research literature. Meditation is centuries old and prevalent in almost all ancient cultures in one form or another. Initially, people in the West were enamoured by its spiritual promise of personal transformation, but now a larger portion is attracted to mindfulness meditation (Vipassana or insight meditation) because of the promise of enhanced physical and mental well-being. Indeed, research shows that engaging in a daily practice of meditation for 20 to 30 minutes a day over 8 weeks produces new neural networks in the brain, attesting to observable calmness and clarity of perception. This book brings together a diverse group of experts who collectively provide a nuanced view of meditation from a variety of perspectives. This book offers a single-source authoritative guide to an ancient practice that is coming into its own in the Western world.

Conversations on Consciousness is just that - a series of twenty lively and challenging conversations between Sue Blackmore and some of the world's leading philosophers and scientists. Written in a colloquial and engaging style, the book records the conversations Sue had when she met these influential thinkers, whether at conferences in Arizona or Antwerp, or in their labs or homes in Oxford or San Diego. The conversations bring out their very different personalities and styles and reveal a wealth of fascinating detail about their theories and beliefs. Why is consciousness such a special and difficult issue for twenty-first century science? Sue, herself a researcher into this controversial and difficult topic, begins by asking each of her colleagues this simple question and is immediately plunged into the depths of the debate: how do the subjective experiences we call consciousness arise from the physical brain? Is this even the right question to ask? Can zombies - people who behave outwardly just like others but have no inner mental life - exist? What can dreams tell us about consciousness? Should we all be learning to meditate?Do we have free will, and if not is it possible to live without it? With an introduction setting out the broad structure of the debate on consciousness, and an extensive glossary, this book provides an engaging and accessible account of the most challenging problem of all, through the words of some of the leading figures involved in seeking to solve it.

Have you ever seen something that wasn't really there? Heard someone call your name in an empty house? Sensed someone following you and turned around to find nothing? Hallucinations don't belong wholly to the insane. Much more commonly, they are linked to sensory deprivation, intoxication, illness, or injury. In some conditions, hallucinations can lead to religious epiphanies or even the feeling of leaving one's own body. Humans have always sought such life-changing visions, and for thousands of years have used hallucinogenic compounds to achieve them. In Hallucinations, with his usual elegance, curiosity, and compassion, Dr Oliver Sacks weaves together stories of his patients and of his own mind-altering experiences to illuminate what hallucinations tell us about the organization and structure of our brains, how they have influenced every culture's folklore and art, and why the potential for hallucination is present in us all, a vital part of the human condition.

Dry whiskey, Divine herb, Devil's root, Medicine of God, Peyote: for some people, to use it is to hear colors and see sounds. For many Native Americans, it brings an ability to reach out of their physical lives, to communicate with the spirits, and to become complete. For chemists, pharmacologists, and psychiatrists, the plant is fascinating in its complexity and in the ways its chemicals work upon the human mind.What is it in peyote that causes such unusual effects? Can modern medical science learn anything from Native Americans' use of peyote in curing a wide variety of ailments? What is the Native American Church, and how do its members use peyote? Does anyone have the legal right to use drugs or controlled substances in religious ceremonies?Within this volume are answers to these and dozens of other questions surrounding the controversial and remarkable cactus. Greatly expanded and brought up-to-date from the 1980 edition, these pages describe peyote ceremonies and the users' experiences, and also cover the many scientific and legal aspects of using the plant. Well written, informative, comprehensive, and enlightening, the book will be welcomed by counselors, anthropologists, historians, physicians, chemists, lawyers, and observers of the contemporary drug scene, as well as by interested general readers.

In which a scientist searches for an empirical explanation for phenomenal experience, spurred by his instinctual belief that life is meaningful. What links conscious experience of pain, joy, color, and smell to bioelectrical activity in the brain? How can anything physical give rise to nonphysical, subjective, conscious states? Christof Koch has devoted much of his career to bridging the seemingly unbridgeable gap between the physics of the brain and phenomenal experience. This engaging book-part scientific overview, part memoir, part futurist speculation-describes Koch's search for an empirical explanation for consciousness. Koch recounts not only the birth of the modern science of consciousness but also the subterranean motivation for his quest-his instinctual (if "romantic") belief that life is meaningful. Koch describes his own groundbreaking work with Francis Crick in the 1990s and 2000s and the gradual emergence of consciousness (once considered a "fringy" subject) as a legitimate topic for scientific investigation. Present at this paradigm shift were Koch and a handful of colleagues, including Ned Block, David Chalmers, Stanislas Dehaene, Giulio Tononi, Wolf Singer, and others. Aiding and abetting it were new techniques to listen in on the activity of individual nerve cells, clinical studies, and brain-imaging technologies that allowed safe and noninvasive study of the human brain in action. Koch gives us stories from the front lines of modern research into the neurobiology of consciousness as well as his own reflections on a variety of topics, including the distinction between attention and awareness, the unconscious, how neurons respond to Homer Simpson, the physics and biology of free will, dogs, Der Ring des Nibelungen, sentient machines, the loss of his belief in a personal God, and sadness. All of them are signposts in the pursuit of his life's work-to uncover the roots of consciousness.