MIND AND SCIENCE: THE IMPACT OF
THE NEW PHYSICS ON PSYCHOLOGY
AND THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

Psychological theory presumes the Newtonian reality, a worldview rendered obsolete by an emergent paradigm in the physical sciences. The new paradigm could account for anomalous data and consciousness, heretofore an ontological problem in the old paradigm. Changing to a new paradigm would potentially have great impact on all the behavioral sciences. Using psychology as an example, adopting the new paradigm would redefine two essentials of psychology--personhood and the life span during which it evolves. New evidence from the extremes of the life span supports such a theoretical stance by showing that personal agency exists even when the cellular bases for consciousness, especially the central nervous system, are nonfunctional. These potentially radical changes for psychology are extended as issues for exploration in the behavioral sciences generally.

Until recently, the Western scientific tradition assumed one reality, the Cartesian-Newtonian world of materialism and mechanical causality. This model from classical physics has become a "given", the unexamined standard against which human behavior is judged and evaluated. An outgrowth of this worldview is the assumption that subjective experience is representational, involving comparisons between a fixed, material, "outside" world and whatever internalized images we have built up over the years regarding that world (e.g., Gregory, 1987; Restak, 1979). Post-positivist approaches to inquiry have been seeking ways to break down some of the barriers created by postulating a separate, objective reality in the social sciences for a number of years (e.g., Reason & Rowan, 1981), but the theoretical ramifications of new-paradigm thought would not only introduce new methods of research. Instead, they would legitimate certain kinds of phenomena heretofore considered anomalous, unreal, or insane (see for example, Krippner, 1995; Wade, 1994) by acknowledging the reality of some subjective experiences in a paradigm based primarily on consciousness rather than materialism.

The extent to which reality is socially constructed (e.g., Schutz, 1962, 1970) renders any new metaphysical paradigm relevant to the social and behavioral fields. This paper addresses psychology as an example of the potential ramifications of adopting a new paradigm for the social and behavioral sciences.

Although the new physics paradigm is still immature, it may be a better fit for psychology than the Cartesian-Newtonian one for several reasons. For one thing, the history of unresolved differences within psychology indicates that a paradigmatic reconfiguration is due (Kuhn, 1970; Miller, 1983). In fact, psychology's internecine conflicts reveal a long-standing struggle between two different paradigms, one that recognizes supraphenomenal realities and the other, classical Newtonianism, which does not. Theories with frankly mystical assumptions, such as those pioneered by James (1890, 1985), Janet (May, 1952), Jung (1985) and Assagioli (1965), date back to the origins of psychology as a "science." Indeed a non-Newtonian paradigm has maintained a respected tradition in Western intellectual thought going back to the earliest forerunners of psychology, even though it has not always predominated. The Platonic school, for instance, and the work of other idealist philosophers and phenomenologists continues in modern mind-brain arguments in psychological theory (e.g., Popper & Eccles, 1977). Contemporary transpersonal theorists, such as Maslow (1971), Wilber (1977, 1985, 1990), and Washburn (1988, 1994) extend the assumption of a non-Newtonian paradigm, although the implications of their work have yet to be recognized by the psychological establishment (as represented by the American Psychological Association, for instance). Finally, the possibility exists that psychology per se has never fit the Newtonian paradigm owing to the irreducible nature of consciousness and its suspect ontological status when conceived empirically. Few would deny that we are conscious--that we are the subjects of experience, that we perceive, that we have sensations, that we form intentions and ideas. But empirical science cannot prove that these subjective phenomena exist.

Recasting psychology in the post-Newtonian paradigm could potentially resolve all these difficulties. And furthermore, it could account for a considerable body of anomalous data that have eluded explanation in the Newtonian paradigm, such as "para-normal" experiences that point to the existence of mind independent of brain, or consciousness operating outside the space-time conventions of classical physics. Anomalous data have always existed, but increasingly now veridical findings are emerging that the traditional paradigm cannot explain.

In keeping with the laws of the Cartesian-Newtonian model, psychological evaluation is predicated on dimensions clinical practitioners call the "three spheres of reality": space, time, and personal agency (the sense of self). Clinicians assess mental health against the bounded, three-dimensional representation of independently existing, separate objects in empty space as the "normal" experience of spatialization. Spatial perception is thought to be reliant on persistence in historical time, the second sphere of reality. Healthy, mature people are presumed to experience time as a linear continuum of past, present, and future. As for personhood, clinicians focus primarily on spatial boundaries and causal relationships. Personhood is identified with the physical body. Clinicians ask patients to identify themselves and other people, and when fine distinctions need to be drawn, to indicate the extent to which others are seen to have the same kind of individual agency as the self. The ability to form all kinds of causal relationships in a linear space-time continuum--such as Piaget's Formal Operations (e.g., Piaget, 1929, 1930, 1976/1972)--is fundamental to psychological evaluation (e.g., American Psychiatric Association, 1994). In the contemporary version of the Cartesian-Newtonian model, materialism is primary, even for the mind. Not only is the mind thought to be shaped by, and compared with, external events in the physical world, it is also believed to derive from a finite material substrate (narrowly defined as the central nervous system, especially the brain, but more broadly, all of the cellular body) (cf., Dennett, 1991; Maturana & Varela, 1992; Ornstein, 1991).

In the new paradigm models, none of these assumptions holds. Physicist David Bohm's version of the new paradigm (1980) provides a useful model for illustration in this context since his theory is comprehensive, has been adapted to the macro level from quantum physics, and accords well with the metaphysics of mystical and transpersonal developmental theory, idealist philosophy and phenomenology. A new-paradigm formulation such as Bohm's would resolve many of the problems identified in the current philosophy of psychology.

Bohm postulates that the ultimate nature of physical reality is an undivided whole in perpetual flux (1980): space is full rather than empty, a plenum of energy in constant motion called the holomovement. Every portion of the flow contains the entire flow, just as each bit of a hologram contains information about the entire image. The holomovement comprises two coexisting, interpenetrating orders of reality: the physical manifestation of energy in bounded time and space (the material world as we perceive it through the central nervous system), and a physically transcendent order of pure energy which is infinite and Absolute. The material order derives from the Absolute order. His construct resembles very closely the Emanent and Transcendent realities of mystical cosmologies (Wade, 1996). Bohm calls the Absolute order the implicate order from the Latin root meaning to enfold, because it enfolds the manifest order. Whereas Newtonianism presumes the manifest order to be the fundamental reality, Bohm maintains that the hidden, implicate order is basic, primary and independent. The manifest order is derivative, and it is appropriate to treat it separately only in certain limited contexts.

The holomovement represents the shifting interrelationships of co-present realities (Bohm, 1980). But this is not movement in the way we usually think of causality since nothing passes out of being; rather it is a relationship of "certain phases of what is to other phases of what is that are in different stages of enfoldment" (p. 203). The implicate order is a single, self-organizing Matrix whose character is nondualistic, infinitely indeterminate and Absolute: it subsumes all time and no time, all space and no space, all matter and no matter, all mind and no mind. From the standpoint of this unitive reality, the assumptions of conventional psychology only account for the material level. They are not reflective of the whole.

According to this new paradigm--and again congruent with mystical metaphysics--everything in the physical order has a double nature, at once implicate and material (Bohm, 1980). Patterns existing in the material realm may appear to have their own logic, but in fact they arise from the implicate reality whose order must be inferred (if it can be discovered at all). Thus, what appears to be causal at the material level is really created by a hidden order, which may be quite different.

As a result, the premise of the holonomic paradigm redefines the concept of development. The apparent evolution of an individual is no longer governed by some incremental progression over time in the material reality. Instead human development is understood to be an enfolded heterarchy in which the implicate order for the individual coexists with, but may not appear to be actualized in, the material order. The process of personal growth, therefore, is realized to be an illusory pattern limited to the material realm because time really is absolute, not linear. The apparent forward movement of human development is only a derivative reflection of the ever-present, Absolute, and Eternal reality.

Furthermore, the new paradigm also redefines the human being as a unit. Bohm conceives of the person as a body-mind form that is a lower-order, relatively temporary manifestation in the material reality (1980). Personhood in a form that is neither mind nor body exists in the Absolute order, giving rise to the human being. The eternal Self in the implicate order gives rise to all forms the person will ever take, from embryo to corpse. All these forms of self at some level co-exist in Absolute time with whatever momentary form the individual possesses in the material order. (This eternal Self should not be confused with any form of consciousness as we know it. Non-material forms of personhood may seem more like mind or consciousness, which we are accustomed to conceptualizing without three-dimensional representation, but all the forms of mind we know are conditioned by material reality.)

In summary, the concept of human consciousness developing over time and that of equating human beings with their embodied forms--in other words, the fundamental assumptions of psychology--are drastically changed in the new paradigm. Although these concepts are "realities" at the material level, they are only imperfect reflections of the Absolute order.

Furthermore, in Bohm's model as well as in mystical metaphysics, the consciousness of living beings has a place (1980). Both new and esoteric paradigms maintain that matter is the precipitate of a deeper field of consciousness co-created by the consciousness that perceives it (Wade, 1996). At some level, the Absolute order is translated by living beings into the space-time conventions of the manifest order, creating the familiar physical reality. Our perception of the manifest, constantly reinforced and emphasized in our thought and language, is maintained by the way memory shapes consciousness. Memory, whose content is recurrent, stable, and separable, forms the background against which the transitory, unbroken flow of experience is compared (Ornstein, 1991; Pribram, 1971, 1991). By focusing our attention on the manifest, memory sustains the illusion of a material reality, and this reification of the explicate order is learned as a part of psychological development (Bohm, 1980).

Thus the adoption of a new paradigm such as Bohm's would not only account for consciousness and potentially enfold and parsimoniously unify a diverse body of psychological theory, but it would also account for the growing body of anomalies challenging the current philosophy of psychology. In fact, most of these anomalous data tend to support the new paradigm through evidence that personhood can exist without a physical body. Previously phenomenological data of non-Newtonian realities were dismissed as invalid. For instance, infancy and early childhood are characterized by fluid spatiotemporal boundaries and proximal relationships (called magical or primary process thinking) (e.g., Piaget, 1929, 1930). These experiences are traditionally dismissed as unreal, immature forms of awareness, before the world is "correctly perceived." Likewise, adult non-Newtonian states have been discounted as the delusions of dysfunctional brains, an interpretation that has been indiscriminately applied to runner's high, drunkenness and other states induced by psychotropic drugs, states resulting from organic brain disease or trauma, trance, religious ecstasy, and advanced stages of meditation (e.g., Siegel, 1977; Wilson, 1982). While some of these states arguably represent pathology, others do not. Advanced meditators, for example, who have systematically deconstructed Newtonian perceptions, demonstrate higher than normal levels of interpersonal and intrapsychic development as well as post-Formal Operations cognition (cf., Goleman, 1988; Koplowitz, 1984a, 1984b, 1990; Maslow, 1971; Tart, 1972, 1983; Wilber, 1977, 1985). Their developmental sophistication is supported by physiological measures showing deliberate and progressively more orderly EEGs than those characteristic of "normal" consciousness (Brown, 1986; Kasamatsu & Hirai, 1969; Murphy & Donovan, 1988). Established Western authorities, however, dismiss all these states as false representations of a fixed, external reality (e.g., APA, 1994).

But a growing body of empirical research supports the idea that human consciousness may not be tied to a material body in historical time. Evidence for a source of human consciousness independent of a cellular substrate comes from a number of sources. Taking the most conservative stance (that is, eliminating research of psi phenomena, such as knowledge of remote events), two independent groups of veridical data point to the existence of a source of consciousness that transcends the known limits of the body to function outside Newtonian space-time conventions. Both seem to operate when brain function is demonstrably compromised: 1) verified accounts of prenatal activities before the brain is considered fully operational (or even exists at all); and 2) near-death records revealing a remote source of awareness in the here-and-now when most metabolic processes (including brain activity) have ceased.

The prenatal data consist of the spontaneous accounts of small children and regression histories of older subjects gathered by independent researchers using a variety of techniques (e.g., Cheek, 1986, 1992; Chamberlain, 1988a). Verified reports cover incidents as far back as the first and second trimesters, long before the brain is well developed. Some validated records even describe the events surrounding conception before the zygotic body exists. Accounts typically describe memories of life as a fetus in the womb. Events likely to be recalled are highly emotional, such as attempted abortions, traumatic events for the mother, etc. (Chamberlain, 1990; Grof & Bennett, 1990). The information has been separately verified by third parties (family members, medical staff, et al.). The following two examples are typical:

Ingrid remembered her mother and father making love on a couch in Germany, before they were married. The doorbell rang to announce that Grandmother and aunt had come back from shopping when they weren't supposed to. The encounter sent shockwaves through all present. Ingrid says, "Mother was beside herself. She knew she got pregnant. She was ashamed. She didn't want to do it in the first place . . . She blamed me for her trouble" . . . . (Chamberlain, 1990, p. 181)

I was hardly formed and my mom is using some kind of remedy to wash me away. It feels real hot. . . I know she is trying to get me out of there. I'm just a little blob. I don't know how I know, but I know. My aunt seems to be giving my mom directions. I can hear her voice and another woman in the background. She is not supposed to get pregnant. She doesn't know me. . . . It didn't work either. It had a strong harsh smell, almost a disinfectant smell, like ammonia . . . . I can see where I was too; I was way up there, just teeny. (Chamberlain, 1990, p. 179) Pre- and perinatal accounts contain accurate reports of abstruse medical conditions few lay people know about (Chamberlain, 1990; Grof, 1985; Laing, 1982). In one experiment, early memories were dated by having naive subjects describe their relative head-to-shoulders size as an index of fetal age (Van Husen, 1988). Given the immature state of the brain at these times--measurable EEG activity does not even start until late in the second trimester--such data are difficult to account for if the central nervous system or any other known form of cellular memory is presumed to be the substrate of awareness.

Even more material comes from veridical descriptions of events during the third trimester and birth. In one study of separately interviewed mother-and-child pairs, the children's birth stories matched the mothers' in every significant detail, exceeded their recollection in some areas, and where minor discrepancies existed, were proved to be more accurate than the mothers', according to the medical verification (Chamberlain, 1988a). Birth reports contain detailed information about medical procedures, visual images impossible to obtain from inside the mother's body or process given the immature state of fetal and neonatal visual neurology, and an accurate, telepathic awareness of the unspoken thoughts of those present (e.g., Chamberlain, 1987, 1988a, 1988b). Moreover, the regression records evince an advanced state of self-awareness at the time and a non-egoic, compassionate view of the events going forward.

The same kinds of veridical data come from the phase of near-death records demonstrating an alert, out-of-body source of consciousness when subjects are, to all appearances, clinically dead. People exhibiting no discernible vital signs for a considerable period of time--including EEGs--have, upon resuscitation, described in detail the medical procedures used to revive them and the people present during the rescue attempt. Veridical details have included readings on the monitors and dials of resuscitation equipment and visual images of remote objects impossible to see from the body's vantage point (e.g., Ring & Lawrence, 1993; Sabom, 1982). In one study 32 naive survivors of near-death cardiac arrests were compared to a control group of 25 medically sophisticated people who had not had a near-death experience (Sabom, 1982). Both groups were asked to describe what they thought occurred when a medical team attempted to restart a heart. All of the naive subjects gave correct descriptions of the procedure; only two out of the 25 knowledgeable subjects did so.

Moreover, people who have been considered clinically dead have demonstrated paranormal abilities, such as non-sensory based perception and foreknowledge of loved ones who preceded them in death (e.g., Moody & Perry, 1988). To illustrate the first example of non-sensory perception, a soldier had been severely injured by an explosion (Sabom, 1982). The blast burned his eyes, blinding him for weeks, yet this man described detailed visual images of the battlefield and operating table. He later identified the surgeon's voice from having heard it during surgery, even though both the soldier's eardrums had been perforated by the explosion. To show the accurate, paranormal knowledge of events, in one instance a woman with a heart condition was dying at the same time that her sister was in a diabetic coma in another part of the same hospital (Moody & Perry, 1988). The subject reported having a conversation with her sister as both of them hovered near the ceiling watching the medical team work on her body below. When the woman awoke, she told the doctor that her sister had died while her own resuscitation was taking place. The doctor denied it, but when she insisted, he had a nurse check on it. The sister had, in fact, died during the time in question.

Although numerous arguments concerning the effects of drugs, psychological dissociation, and neurological decay have been advanced by reductionists to explain various aspects of the near-death phenomena as hallucinations (e.g., Broughton, 1991; Carr, 1982; Milbourn, 1979; Rodabough, 1985; Siegel, 1977, 1980), none of these satisfactorily account for the data, especially the veridical knowledge demonstrated during the out-of-body phase discussed here (e.g., Morse & Perry, 1990, 1992; Sabom, 1982; Wade, 1996).

Not only do pre-natal and post-death narratives exhibit many phenomenological similarities, published accounts from both literatures reflect a level of consciousness far more mature than the subject's at the time of the incident reported and at the time the data was gathered (Wade, 1996). The research suggests that a physically transcendent source of individual consciousness predates physical life at the moment of conception and survives it after death. It also suggests that the maturity of this form of consciousness is not directly reflective of the level of central nervous system functioning in the body, nor are its "sensory" inputs reliant on any known sensory mechanisms associated with the body.

These data support the holonomic premise that consciousness may not be spatiotemporally confined to, and derived from, the body; rather it may be enfolded and coexistent. Such findings are congruent with the notion that the whole, perfectly realized person coexists with the partially evolved and evolving self in the material order. Shifting to a new paradigm would bring elegance and parsimony to psychology, but it will clearly represent a drastic change in the philosophy presently governing the field. The ramifications suggest that current psychological models may be correct only insofar as they describe a derivative reality limited in certain dimensions. Traditional theories, therefore, would useful for studying what comes within their scope, but they must be acknowledged as addressing only a certain band of phenomena.

New paradigm formulations are likely to account more satisfactorily for data that has historically been difficult to explain, and they should open new horizons, especially the legitimating of mystical developmental models and non-Newtonian phenomenological states as serious fields of inquiry. Expanding this view to the broader behavioral sciences would obviously give a different status and meaning to alternative world views, many of them now marginalized by mainstream Western scientific thought. For instance, belief systems considered "magical" and "primitive" in nonindustrialized societies might actually be more representative of reality than "science." The connectedness and interdependence of people with each other and their contexts found in feminism and in many Eastern and tribal cultures may be a more adequate model than the positivist one previously dominating the behavioral sciences. Paranormal or psi phenomena might be legitimate. Post-modern methods of inquiry are likely to reveal much more of this subject matter than was previously investigated, but the new paradigm in all likelihood means that the content itself needs to be re-envisioned to allow for a different relationship between subject and object, matter and mind.

American Psychiatric Association. (1994). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th ed.). Washington, DC: Author.

Assagioli, R. (1965). Psychosynthesis: A collection of basic writings. New York: Viking.

Bohm, D. (1980). Wholeness and the implicate order. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Broughton, R. S. (1991). Parapsychology: The controversial science. New York: Ballantine.

Brown, J. A. (1986). Relationships between phenomena of consciousness and inter hemispheric brainwave patterns during nonordinary states of consciousness. Ph. D. diss., Saybrook Institute, San Francisco, CA.

Carr, D. (1982). Pathophysiology of stress-induced limbic lobe dysfunction: A hypothesis for NDEs. Anabiosis, 2, 65-76.

Chamberlain, D. B. (1987). Consciousness at birth: The range of empirical evidence. In T. R. Verny (Ed.), Pre- and perinatal psychology: An introduction (pp. 69-90). New York: Human Sciences.

Chamberlain, D. B. (1988a). Babies remember birth: And other extraordinary scientific discoveries about the mind and personality of your newborn. Los Angeles: Tarcher.

Chamberlain, D. B. (1988b). The mind of the newborn: Increasing evidence of competence. In P. Fedor-Freybergh and M. L. V. Vogel (Eds.), Prenatal and perinatal psychology and medicine: Encounter with the unborn, a comprehensive survey of research and practice (pp. 5-22). Park Ridge, NJ: Parthenon.

Chamberlain, D. B. (1990). The expanding boundaries of memory. Pre- and Peri-Natal Psychology Journal, 4 (3), 171-189.

Cheek, D. B. (1986). Prenatal and perinatal imprints: Apparent prenatal consciousness as revealed by hypnosis. Pre- and Peri-Natal Psychology Journal, 1(2), 97-110.

Cheek, D. B. (1992). Are telepathy, clairvoyance and "hearing" possible in utero? Suggestive evidence as revealed during hypnotic age-regression studies of prenatal memory. Pre- and Peri-Natal Psychology Journal, 7(2), 125-137.

Dennett, D. C. (1991). Consciousness explained. Boston: Little Brown.

Goleman, D. (1988). The meditative mind: The varieties of meditative experience. Los Angeles: Tarcher.

Gregory, R. L. (Ed.). (1987). The Oxford companion to the mind. New York: Oxford University Press.

Grof, S. (1985). Beyond the brain: Birth, death and transcendence in psychotherapy. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Grof, S. & Bennett, H. Z. (1990). The holotropic mind; The three levels of human consciousness and how they shape our lives. San Francisco: Harper.

James, W. (1890). Principles of psychology (Vol. 1). New York: Holt.

James, W. (1985). The varieties of religious experience. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Jung, C. G. (1985). The transcendent function. In J. Campbell (Ed.), The portable Jung (pp. 273-322). New York: Penguin Books. (Reprinted from The structure and dynamics of the psyche. In R. F. C. Hull [Ed. and Trans.], The collected works of Carl Jung, [vol. 8]. Bollingen Series XX. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Original work published in 1921).

Kasamatsu, A., & Hirai, T. (1969). An electroencephalographic study on the Zen meditation. In C. T. Tart (Ed.), Altered States of Consciousness (pp. 501-514). Garden City, NY: Anchor Doubleday.

Koplowitz, H. (1984a). Post-logical thinking. Paper presented at the Symposium on Thinking, Cambridge, MA.

Koplowitz, H. (1984b). A projection beyond Piaget's formal-operations stage. In M. L. Commons, F. A. Richard's & C. Armon (Eds.), Beyond formal operations: Late adolescent and adult cognitive development (pp. 272-296). New York: Praeger.

Koplowitz, H. (1990). Unitary consciousness and the highest development of mind: The relation between spiritual development and cognitive development. In M. L. Commons, C. Armon, L. Kohlberg, F. A. Richards, T. A. Grotzer & J. D. Sinnott (Eds.), Adult development, Vol. 2: Models and methods in the study of adolescent and adult thought. New York: Praeger.

Krippner, S. (1995). Psychical research in the postmodern world. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 89(1), 3-18.

Kuhn, T. (1970). The structure of scientific revolution (2nd ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Laing, R. D. (1982). The voice of experience. New York: Pantheon Books.

Maslow, A. H. (1971). The farther reaches of human nature. New York: Penguin.

Maturana, H. R., & Varela, F. J. (1992). The tree of knowledge: The biological roots of human understanding (rev. ed.) (R. Paolucci, Trans.). Boston: Shambhala.

May, E. (1952). The psychology of Pierre Janet. London: Routledge.

Milbourne, C. (1979). Search for the soul: An insider's report on the continuing quest by psychics and scientists for evidence of life after death. New York: Crowell.

Miller, P. H. (1983). Theories of developmental psychology. New York: Freeman.

Moody, R. A. & Perry, P. (1988). The light beyond. New York: Bantam.

Morse, M. & Perry, P. (1990). Closer to the light: Learning from the near-death experiences of children. New York: Ivy.

Morse, M. & Perry, P. (1992). Transformed by the light: The powerful effect of near-death experiences on people's lives. New York: Villard.

Murphy, M. & Donovan, S. (1988). The physical and psychological effects of meditation: A review of contemporary meditation research with a comprehensive bibliography 1931-1988. San Rafael: Esalen Institute, Study of Exceptional Functioning.

Ornstein, R. E. (1991). The evolution of consciousness: Of Darwin, Freud and cranial fire--The origins of the way we think. New York: Prentice Hall.

Piaget, J. (1929). The child's conception of the world. New York: Harcourt, Brace.

Piaget, J. (1930). The child's conception of physical causality. London: Kegan Paul.

Piaget, J. (1976). The child and reality. New York: Penguin. (Original work published 1972).

Popper, K. R., & Eccles, J. C. (1977). The self and its brain. New York: Springer-Verlag.

Pribram, K. H. (1971). Languages of the brain: Experimental paradoxes and principles in neuropsychology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Pribram, K. H. (1991). Brain and perception: Holonomy and structure and figural processing. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Reason, P. & Rowan, J. (1981). Human inquiry, a sourcebook of new paradigm research. Chichester, England: Wiley.

Restak, R. M. (1979). The brain: The last frontier. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.

Ring, K. & Lawrence, M. (1993). Further evidence for veridical perception during near-death experiences. Journal of Near-Death Studies, 11, 223-230.

Rodabough, T. (1985) NDEs: Examination of the supporting data and alternative explanations. Death Studies 9, 95-113.

Sabom, M. (1982). Recollections of death. New York Harper & Row.

Schutz, A. (1962). Collected papers: The problem of social reality (M. Natanson, Ed.). The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.

Schutz, A. (1970). On phenomenology and social relations (H. R. Wagner, Ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Siegel, R. K. (1977, October). Hallucinations. Scientific American: 53-78.

Siegel, R. K. (1980). The psychology of life after death. American Psychologist 35(10): 911-931.

Tart, C. T. (Ed.). (1972). Altered states of consciousness. Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor

Tart, C. T. (1983). States of consciousness. El Cerrito, CA: Psychological Processes.

Van Husen, J. E. (1988). The development of fears, phobias, and restrictive patterns of adaptation following attempted abortions. Pre- and Perinatal Psychology Journal 2(3), pp. 179-185.

Wade, J. (1994). Science and sanity: The impact of the Newtonian paradigm on cultural definitions of mental health. Paper presented at the Institute for Liberal Studies 6th Annual Interdisciplinary Conference on Science and Culture, Frankfort, KY.

Wade, J. (1996). Changes of mind: A holonomic theory of the evolution of consciousness. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

Washburn, M. (1988). The ego and the dynamic ground: A transpersonal theory of human development. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Washburn, M. (1994). Transpersonal psychology in psychoanalytic perspective. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Wilber, K. (1977). The spectrum of consciousness. Wheaton, IL: The Theosophical Publishing House.

Wilber, K. (1985). No boundary: Eastern and western approaches to personal growth. Boulder: Shambhala.

Wilber, K. (1990). Eye to eye: The quest for the new paradigm. Boston: Shambhala.

Wilson, I. (1982). All in the mind: Reincarnation, hypnotic regression, stigmata, multiple personality, and other little understood powers of the mind. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.