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.

Journal of Transpersonal Psychology

In organizing this work, psychologist Kelly and independent researcher Marshall have solicited chapters from ten scholars to assess "physicalism," the proposition that physical facts alone ultimately determine all valid descriptions of reality. Drawing on everyday experience as well as what William James called "wild facts" from anomalies studies, Eastern philosophy, Jungian psychology, parapsychology, psychedelics, quantum theory, and the neurosciences, the various chapter authors reach an opposite conclusion. In one way or another, they assert that consciousness is "unbound," that is, not "bound" by the brain because, e.g., "consciousness came first." This self-realizing nature of consciousness is argued to be the basis of free will, choice, and love but has no place in the current physicalistic world view, one that is devastating to the humanities and to spiritual perspectives.... [The] case is well made that phenomena of conscious thought rest at the foundation of existence and that humans are linked with these phenomena at the very depths of their being. Recommended.

Choice

This is undoubtedly one of the most important books of the year and deserves the widest possible readership.

Paradigm Explorer, Journal of the Scientific and Medical Network

Properly advanced science and spirituality serve to strengthen each other, and this magnum opus leads the way! This third book in a trilogy (so far!) offers a well-supported consolidation of empirical data and theoretical frameworks to help usher our world from the bleak and paltry fiction of physicalism into a far better supported model of the universe in which mind is primordial, and human will influences the universe-at-large. This masterpiece illuminates a rational path forward that will favorably support the best of human potential.

Eben Alexander III, MD, Neurosurgeon and author of Proof of Heaven and The Map of Heaven

In this lucid and thought-provoking text (the third volume of a series initiated under the auspices of Esalen’s Center for Theory and Research) a stellar group of scholars from a multitude of different fields not only offer compelling empirical data that underscore the urgent need to radically re-envision the taken-for-granted metaphysical stance of physicalism/materialism that currently undergirds most scientific work, but also provide a series of interrelated, and theoretically satisfying, metaphysical alternatives to “the tyranny of materialism.” Read this book if you want to discover an intellectually rigorous middle ground between the fundamentalisms of both religion and science, and believe that it is not only possible, but important, to reconcile science and spirituality in a way that is thoughtful and empirically grounded.

G. William Barnard, Southern Methodist University

Consciousness Unbound is an ambitious and bold sequel to the pioneering volumes, Irreducible Mind and Beyond Physicalism. It both complements and successfully extends the earlier works’ assault on empirically and conceptually myopic physicalist efforts to account for the role of mind in nature. Acknowledging sensibly that no science is thoroughly empirical, it offers an intriguing buffet of alternative worldviews or metaphysical approaches. And it presents a thoughtful and multifaceted case for adopting some form of idealism. This book should be mandatory reading for those wrestling with these venerable issues.

Stephen Braude, professor emeritus of philosophy, University of Maryland Baltimore County, and author of Immortal Remains: Evidence of Life after Death