“We hide from our own deepest identity when we postulate that consciousness is extinguished with the death of the body- resulting in a severe gap in our capacity for self-knowledge.” —Jefferey Mishlove, psychologist and parapsychologist As an admirer of science and constantly intrigued by its many achievements, I am also a being with my own…

The paranormal has its place in American courtrooms, in police stations, and even in business strategies. Lawyers sometimes use psychics to select favorable juries, for example, or may consider supernatural phenomena in their clients’ defense. Proprietors of  supposedly haunted historic sites, restaurants, and other venues weigh how their ghosts factor into business plans. Consultant Loyd…

Meditation is becoming more common in the West. When Transcendental Meditation gained popularity in the ’60s and ’70s, it was still a little “out there” for mainstream America. But nowadays even many hospitals offer meditation as a treatment option for some patients, because the research shows it is beneficial. But the long tradition of meditation…

Perhaps science will never be capable of proving without a shadow of a doubt whether or not the afterlife exists. But science is at least capable of determining how many people have reported experiences of the afterlife. Studies also show that many of the experiencers were not previously spiritual or religious people. Though these experiences…

Henry P. Stapp is a theoretical physicist at the University of California–Berkeley who worked with some of the founding fathers of quantum mechanics. He does not seek to prove that the soul exists, but he does say that the existence of the soul fits within the laws of physics. It is not true to say…

Near-death experiences (NDEs) are reported by an estimated 200,000 Americans a year, and studies around the world suggest NDEs are a common human experience. They have been recorded in the folklore of many cultures, and reported by people from diverse backgrounds and in widely varying circumstances. Whatever the explanations behind them, NDEs have a significant…

Materialism and psychical research are often viewed as antithetical. But psychic phenomena and the occult have been with us all throughout our development of science, and—like it or not—they have their place in modern science, according to Andreas Sommer. Sommer is a junior research fellow in the department of history and philosophy of science at…

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif.—When people report having profound out-of-body experiences during close brushes with death, skeptics often attribute it to physiological and psychological factors. Robert Mays, who has studied near-death experiences (NDEs) for some 30 years, looked at some of these factors during a talk at the International Association for Near-Death Studies (IANDS) 2014 Conference in Newport…

Tienke Klein’s health remained poor after she was released from a Nazi concentration camp. After a long recovery from the trauma she’d endured, she finally reached the point of not needing to visit her doctor regularly. Then she was hit by a car while bicycling. The experience would release her from the prison camp she’d…