Susan Blackmore
Susan Blackmore is a former researcher into the paranormal, with degrees in psychology and physiology from Oxford and parapsychology (!) from the University of Surrey. In 1970 or thereabouts, she had an "out of body" experience that convinced her of the reality of paranormal experiences. She spent years doing research to persuade "those close-minded .scientists that consciousness could reach beyond the body and that death was not the end." Since she is, and was, a real scientist she found, of course, that it was "only wishful thinking, self-deception, experimental error and, occasionally, fraud."
A few years ago, I read her book "Dying to Live," summarizing her research in near-death experiences. It was amazing reading, honest and true, and in the end the wishful thinking and self-deception was almost as interesting as the "real thing" might have been. The human imagination is a rich tool, and we use it often when we don't even know when we're using it; that's the self-deception she mentions.
Her site is a little skimpier than I'd hoped, but the articles make for good reading, especially the piece from The New Scientist on The Grand Illusion and Into the Unknown, on why she gave up parapsychology.
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