|
|
|
| |
Information Board
|
Review of Susan Blackmore's book In Search of
|
This was a marvellous autobiographical account of an intelligent woman's search to understand alleged paranormal experiences. Aside from the scientific struggle she describes and emotional personal life journey. Susan Blackmore is one of the country’s few professional parapsychologist. She teaches and lectures in psychology and parapsychology and is a Doctor of Parapsychology. Blackmore begins by relating her own early experiences of psi phenomena, notably a description of a profound out of body experience. She contends thorough the book that there must be psi, there must be poltergeists and ESP and psychokinesis because there are so many accounts of such phenomena and she embarks on a quest to evidence Psi in a scientific way with a series of experiments which she details brilliantly. Blackmore is clearly passionate about the subject and keen to replicate the successful outcomes of psi experimentation delivered by some of her peers. Not for want of trying she fails to evidence psi and in fact finds serious flaws in research undertaken by those who claim they have good evidence for psi. She goes on to write about and research out of body experiences instead, again finding this subject elusive and poorly documented and arrives at a debate about consciousness, memory and perception. The author’s enthusiasm for research is knitted with a candid life story and beautifully expressed shifts in thought as a result of her professional and personal experiences. This book left me with a really genuine reflection of the elusiveness of the paranormal. A thought provoking and absorbing read
|
|
|
|
|