About this book

• First book ever on the intersection of neuroscience, spirituality and consciousness studies.
• Provides both overviews of new academic fields and theoretical advances on the integration of spirituality, neuroscience and consciousness studies.
• Major authors in this area join together to elucidate this field from theoretical and empirical perspectives.
• Reflects the coming of age of a new and truly interdisciplinary field of research.

Neuroscience, Consciousness and Spirituality presents a variety of perspectives by leading thinkers on contemporary research into the brain, the mind and the spirit. This volumes aims at combining knowledge from neuroscience with approaches from the experiential perspective of the first person singular in order to arrive at an integrated understanding of consciousness. Individual chapters discuss new areas of research, such as near death studies and neuroscience research into spiritual experiences, and report on significant new theoretical advances.

From Harald Walach’s introductory essay, “Neuroscience, Consciousness, Spirituality – Questions, Problems and Potential Solutions,” to the concluding chapter by Robert K. C. Foreman entitled “An Emerging New Model for Consciousness: The Consciousness Field Model,” this book represents a milestone in the progress towards an integrated understanding of spirituality, neuroscience and consciousness.

It is the first in a series of books that are dedicated to this topic.

Table of contents

Neuroscience, Consciousness, Spirituality – Questions, Problems and Potential Solutions: An Introductory Essay, H. Walach

Mindfulness in East and West – is it the Same? S. Schmidt

Setting our own Terms: How we used Ritual to Become Human, M.J. Rossano

Neuroscience and Spirituality – Findings and Consequences, M. Beauregard

Consciousness: a Riddle and a Key in Neuroscience and Spirituality, D. Jeanmonod

Generalized Entanglement - A Nonreductive Option for a Phenomenologically Dualist and Ontologically Monist View, H. Walach, H. Römer

Complementarity of Phenomenal and Physiological Observables: A Primer on Generalised Quantum Theory and its Scope for Neuroscience and Consciousness Studies, H. Römer, H. Walach

Hard problems in philosophy of mind and physics: Do they point to spirituality as a solution? N. von Stillfried

Brain Structure and Meditation. How Spiritual Practice Shapes the Brain, U. Ott, B.K. Hölzel and D. Vaitl

Neurophysiological correlates to psychological trait variables in experienced meditative practitioners, T. Hinterberger, et. al.

Reconsidering the Metaphysics of Science from the Inside Out, J.W. Schooler, J.N. Schooler

Mindfulness meditation: deconditioning and changing view, H. Barendregt

Endless Consciousness. A concept based on scientific studies on Near-Death Experience, P. van Lommel

The hard problem revisited: from cognitive neuroscience to Kabbalah and back again, B.L. Lancaster

Towards a Neuroscience of Spirituality, W.B. Jonas

Sufism and Rapid Wound Healing, H. Hall

An Emerging New Model for Consciousness: The Consciousness Field Model, R.K.C. Forman