This is a fun science book for when you want to be convinced of less accepted theories about reality. I am not enough of a scientist to speak to the validity of it and I remain skeptical, but I enjoyed the trip.

As a non-scientist, it’s admittedly difficult to fully evaluate the conclusions neuroscientist Mario Beauregard comes to in this review of the evidence suggesting that it’s time for science to transition more fully to a postmaterialist paradigm. But as a lay reader, I found the claims Beauregard makes about the nature of reality, and many of the studies he uses to support those claims, quite fascinating. Perhaps with some degree of cautious optimism, I would recommend this book to those who are curious what science has to say about topics such as intuition, mindfulness, and extra-sensory perception. If nothing else you’ll find the possibilities intriguing.

I personally found myself traveling along quite the arc with this book! It’s worth noting my own perspective as a reviewer: my background is not in science, and while I have sufficient training to read study details and evaluate their design at a basic level, I would have to do a lot of research to fully evaluate Beauregard’s sources and possible criticisms. I’m also an intuitive, and so I do have some direct experience with the subject matter, but as my intuition tends to operate more as a “knowing,” sometimes channeling words or images but in a hazier fashion than many describe, I don’t have absolute certainty around any specific modality. My mindset is generally open, and my worldview is that we are all energetically connected, that there is something beyond mortal experience to which we return. But I don’t generally try to describe it beyond that. I tend to think of past lives, for example, as a real phenomenon but not necessarily the transfer of one single “soul” entity into a new body, and I don’t imagine my consciousness existing in some realm like a heaven or hell after I die.

With this worldview I found some of the research easy to accept, but other claims still feel spurious and present a greater challenge. I resonate with the overall argument that science needs to expand its view when paradigms are challenged, but I also wonder about the author’s own possible biases, particularly when it comes to topics around the afterlife.

Beauregard opens by introducing the reader to the dogma of a materialist view of science and to some of the challenges he and his colleagues face as postmaterialists (those who challenge the assumption that all reality is made up of matter). This puts the research in context, with an emphasis on interdisciplinary collaboration that I wholeheartedly support. The basic ideas are easy to understand—while postmaterialist science may seem a little out there, if the aim of science is discovery then there’s no reason not to explore. The heliocentric model of the universe seemed inconceivable once, as did quantum mechanics. Beauregard suggests that we’re on the verge of another such massive leap forward, and that materialist scientists are stubbornly holding us back from that surge of progress. I found that conceptual argument convincing, as I personally don’t make much of a distinction between science and magic, and it’s easy to see how the materialist worldview may be overly limiting. There’s no real reason to assume, for example, that electrical activity in the brain causes consciousness rather than the other way around.

The research surveyed that supports this paradigm shift is organized by topic / phenomenon studied, and there’s quite a range here. Reading through the details of study after study is a bit dry, but this is somewhat unavoidable—if you’re not that interested in the details of study design, you may want to just skip ahead to the final few sentences of each description, as the structure is fortunately consistent and you’ll find a summary of the results as well as the probability of those results being mere chance. Where available, meta-analyses (studies of multiple studies) are also included in a similar format.

In general I found most of these results compelling, particularly those where rigorous controls are described and the results are highly statistically significant. For example, it’s clear that we have the ability to control much more about our physiology than we might assume, and that mindfulness practices have a pretty amazing power to “clear the way” for these abilities. Our perspective on what we can do may limit what we actually try, and this could have important implications for healing and preventive care.

The research on what I’d lump together as “psychic” phenomena is also at least at a fascinating starting point. I found it especially interesting that many of the studies included didn’t test specialists with proclaimed abilities but instead used average people. This suggests that some of these abilities, while possible to develop through practice, may simply be inherent to humanity and accessible to anyone. It’s also notable that the results tend to be consistent irrespective of any religious affiliation, faith, or lack thereof.

Where Beauregard lost me comes in the final few chapters, where we move from these rigorous studies to less-provable phenomena. The inclusion of anecdotal evidence, especially when there is consistency across accounts, does make sense in a broad survey of the subject. But given the controversial nature of the subject matter and the aim of proving a need for a major scientific paradigm shift, I did find my own trust for the author getting shaky when I got to these sections. As an example, Michael Newton’s work on past life regression hypnosis is included with a fairly lengthy summary of commonly reported client experiences. Having read a bit about Newton’s technique, I’m surprised that none of the common criticisms of his method were included here, and that made me wonder about other flaws that the author might have dismissed.

More generally, some readers may go from reading the rigorous scientific studies to these anecdotal accounts and assume a similar level of credibility. While I’m not personally skeptical of all the experiences reported, and I particularly tend to find children’s accurate reporting of past life details compelling, I do think it’s important to emphasize that the human mind may frame experiences according to prior belief and that we cannot know exactly what’s occurring even if we do presume the origin to be “non-material.” Beauregard mentions this in some places, but not as much as he might have. I think it’s important for the integrity of the research that does strongly suggest specifics not to muddy the waters too much with retellings of specific anecdotes that may be fun to read but also potentially misleading. I also happen to feel that some experiences, such as shamanic journeying, are perhaps best experienced rather than studied from the outside.

Ultimately, I finished this book feeling curious and interested to see what comes next. I think Beauregard makes a convincing argument against absolutist dogma in science and assuming that every single phenomenon has a physical explanation, but at the same time it’s important not to stretch the research results into the realm of subjective opinion. I can’t help but wonder whether his own subjective experience of a “postmaterialist” encounter, as described in the book, has influenced his interpretation of these phenomena.

Mario Beauregard’s book is an engaging dive into questions about the nature of reality. It provides a
broad explanation of the prevailing opinions in the scientific community and issues a challenge to the materialist view. Mario’s book offers wide ranging information in consciousness research and shared personal experiences which he uses to convincingly assert that the predominant model of reality needs to be expanded.

I found this to be an informative and thought provoking read. The exploration of various psi phenomena included is fascinating. I will be thinking about the contents and implications of this book for some time.

This review is based on a NetGalley ARC provided in exchange for an honest, unbiased opinion.

Beauregard aims to persuade readers that the materialist view of consciousness is irredeemably irreconcilable with observed reality. In this objective, he fails. (He’s not alone. There are too many unknowns for the rational skeptic to take a firm stance on the nature of consciousness.) What Beauregard succeeds in doing is cataloguing research findings that could be interpreted as suggesting there is more to consciousness than materialists can account for.

Cleverly, Beauregard begins with the most compelling evidence and concludes with the most audacious, controversial, and unvalidated findings. That most compelling evidence is the role of mental attitude and beliefs upon health outcomes. It’s firmly established that mind state has a huge impact on health and health outcomes. From the placebo effect to a health outcome premium to those who pray (and believe there is a god that takes requests,) thought matters. Unfortunately for Beauregard, it’s a huge leap to say this means there is some sort of spirit force that acts on the material world. If one begins from the realization that the human body (and those of other animals) is really good at self-repair within certain limits and given certain conditions (and that among those conditions is the ability to dampen the stress response and trip the rest & digest mode,) then one needn’t call on anything supernormal / supernatural to explain the influence of thoughts on healing.

I don’t have the time or inclination to systematically go through the strengths and weaknesses of all the arguments, but the one I mentioned stands as an example of what is good and bad about the book. On the positive side, I think Beauregard accurately reports on some interesting findings, but then he uses them to bootstrap the position that materialism can’t work ineffectively. I found myself thinking “that does not follow” a great deal. Either there wasn’t enough known to draw a conclusion, or – as in the case of healing – there are competing hypotheses that work as well but without the need to appeal to anything so complicated or unproven as a web of consciousness.

Beyond healing, the book goes through findings that suggest the possibilities of extrasensory perception, telekinesis, and an afterlife for consciousness (e.g. near death experiences [NDE.]) In some cases, this evidence is strong but quite limited (usually limited both in the degree of effect and in understanding of what causes said effect,) but in a few cases the evidence is anecdotal and / or completely unvalidated. The same variation exists when Beauregard takes on competing hypotheses. In a few cases, I found myself thinking his refutations had compelling elements or bases, but in other cases the refutations seemed to be – at best – big stretches. [I expected an extensive refutation of the finding that OBEs (out-of-body-experiences, a common feature in NDEs) have been found to be triggerable at will using physical processes (electrical stimulation) to material (brain tissue,) but did not get it. To my mind, this finding is a challenging – though not damning – counter to postmaterialist arguments.]

If you’re interested in a cataloging of findings that suggest the possibility that there is more to consciousness than materialists propose, this is a fine book to check out. However, don’t expect a persuasive holy grail of persuasion, but rather a mixed bag that ultimately shows no more than the fact that there is a massive amount that we don’t know about how consciousness works.

I was really hoping this book wouldn't be patent nonsense.

In true science books, the author says, "Here's the data, and here are some possible interpretations, along with the strengths, weaknesses, and implications."

This book cherry-picks the data, then says, "Here's the data, here's what it means, and all other interpretations are wrong."

DNF