Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century

833 Pages·2009·7.15 MB·English

by  Edward Kelly

Irreducible
Mind
TOWARD A
PSYCHOLOGY FOR
THE 21st CENTURY
EDWARD E KELLX
EMILY WILLIAMS KELLY,
ADAM CRABTREE, ALAN GAULD,
MICHAEL GROSSO & BRUCE GREYSON
ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.
LANHAM • BOULDER • NEW YORK • TORONTO • PLYMOUTH, UK
Published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
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Copyright © 2007 by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
First paperback edition 2010
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any
electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems,
without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote
passages in a review.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kelly, Edward F.
Irreducible mind: toward a psychology for the 21s t century I Edward F. Kelly, Emily
Williams Kelly, and Adam Crabtree.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
\. Psychology. I. Kelly, Emily Williams, 1949-II. Crabtree, Adam. III. Title.
BF12\.K382006
150--dc22 2006023474
ISBN: 978-0-7425-4792-6 (cloth: alk. paper)
ISBN: 978-1-4422-0206-1 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN: 978-1-4422-0207-8 (electronic)
en<
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American
National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library
Materials, ANSUNISO Z39.48-1992.
Printed in the United States of America
Dedicated to
F. W. H. Myers
a neglected genius of scientific psychology
and to
Ian Stevenson
and
Michael Murphy
two modern bearers of his intellectual legacy
"I had. .. often a sense of great solitude,
and of an effort beyond my strength"
(Myers, 1893/1961, p. 40)

Contents
Preface and Acknowledgments Xlll
Introduction
(Edward F Kelly) XVll
Chapter 1: A View from the Mainstream: Contemporary Cognitive
Neuroscience and the Consciousness Debates
(Edward F Kelly) 1
The History of Cognitive Psychology: A Thumbnail Sketch 2
From James B. Watson to the Cognitive Revolution 2
Problems in Classic Cognitivism 11
The Second Cognitive Revolution: Connectionism and
Dynamic Systems 16
John Searle's Critique of Computational Theories of the Mind 21
Biological Naturalism: The Final Frontier 24
Problems with Biological Naturalism 25
Psi Phenomena 29
Extreme Psychophysical Influence 31
Informational Capacity, Precision, and Depth 32
Memory 34
Psychological Automatisms and Secondary Centers
of Consciousness 35
The Unity of Conscious Experience 37
Genius-Level Creativity 41
Mystical Experience 41
The Heart of the Mind 42
Conclusion 45
Chapter 2: F. W. H. Myers and the Empirical Study of the Mind-Body
Problem
(Emily Williams Kelly) 47
The Historical Context 47
The Roots of Scientific Psychology: Dualism, Mechanistic
Determinism, and the Continuity of Nature 48
Psychology as Science: A Fundamental Conflict 50
The Naturalization of Mind: Limiting Psychology 51
The Unresolved Dilemmas of Psychology 54
An Attempted Solution: Methodological Parallelism 56
F. W. H. Myers: Purposes and Principles 59
Tertium Quid 62
Continuity 63
Empiricism 63
Expanding Psychology 64
Psychophysiological Concomitance 65
v
vi-Table of Contents
The Study of Subliminal Phenomena 66
The New Physics 68
Mind and Matter 69
An Expanded Naturalism 70
Myers's Theory of Human Personality 72
The Unity-Multiplicity Problem: "Unitary" versus "Colonial"
Views of Mind 74
An Expanded View of Consciousness 75
A Jacksonian Model of Mind 76
An Evolutionary View of Mind 78
The Subliminal Self: A "Tertium Quid" Theory of
Consciousness 80
The Permeable Boundary: A Psychological Mechanism 83
Evolutive and Dissolutive Phenomena 84
Automatisms and the Expression of Subliminal Functioning 87
A Law of Mental Causality 89
Methods for Psychology 90
Empirical Phenomena for the Study of Mind: An Introduction
to Human Personality 95
Chapters 2 and 3: Hysteria and Genius 97
Chapter 4: Sleep 101
Chapter 5: Hypnotism 104
Chapters 6 and 7: Hallucinations-Sensory Automatisms and
Phantasms of the Dead 108
Chapters 8, 9, and the Epilogue: Motor Automatisms, Trance,
Possession, and Ecstasy 111
Conclusion 114
Chapter 3: Psychophysiological Influence
(Emily Williams Kelly) 117
Psychosomatic Medicine 119
Psychoneuroimmunology 122
Mind and Disease 123
Bereavement and Mortality 124
Sudden and "Voodoo" Death 124
Possible Mechanisms Behind Psychological Factors
in Mortality 128
Mind and Health 129
Postponement of Death 129
Religion and Health 130
Meditation and Healing 131
Faith Healing 132
Placebo and Nocebo 139
Specific Physiological Changes Appearing Spontaneously 148
Sudden Whitening of Hair or Skin 148
False Pregnancy 149
Stigmata 152
Table of Contents-vii
Phenomena Related to Stigmata 156
Specificity of the Wounds 159
Predisposing Characteristics 160
Hysteria 162
Multiple Personality and Dissociative Disorders 167
Specific Physiological Effects Induced Deliberately 175
Yogis 177
Specific Physiological Changes Induced by Hypnosis 179
Autonomic Effects 181
Sensory Effects 183
Hypnotic Analgesia 185
Skin Conditions: Healing 190
Allergies 190
Bleeding 191
Burns 192
Warts 193
Other Skin Diseases 196
Skin Conditions: Induction of Bleeding, Blisters,
and Markings 199
Attempted Explanations of Hypnotic Skin Marking
and Related Phenomena 209
Changes in Another Person's Body 218
Spontaneously Occurring Phenomena 219
Sympathetic Symptoms 219
Maternal Impressions 221
Distant Mental Influence on Living Systems 225
Community of Sensation 225
Suggestion at a Distance 226
Distant Intentionality Studies: Clinical 227
Distant Intentionality Studies: Experimental 230
Birthmarks and Birth Defects in Cases of the
Reincarnation Type 232
Conclusion 236
Chapter 4: Memory
(Alan Gauld) 241
Memory and the Brain 242
Trace Theories: General Issues 242
Modern Approaches: Cognitive 248
Modern Approaches: Neuroscientific 260
The Problem of Survival 281
Myers's Approach to the Problem of Survival 284
Problems of Personal Identity 286
Myers's "Broad Canvas" Revisited 293
Myers, Memory, and the Evidence for Survival 295
Conclusion 299
viii-Table of Contents
Chapter 5: Automatism and Secondary Centers of Consciousness
(Adam Crabtree) 301
Historical Background 302
The Views of F. W. H. Myers 305
Related Views of Some Major Contemporaries 309
Pierre Janet 309
William James 312
Morton Prince 317
T. W. Mitchell 319
William McDougall 322
Sigmund Freud 327
Carl Jung 332
Psychological Automatism: More Recent Work 334
Ernest Hilgard 334
Stephen Braude 337
Unconscious Cerebration Revisited 340
Sociocognitive Theorists 341
The Cognitive Unconscious 345
Neurobiological Research 348
Automatism and Supernormal Phenomena 353
Automatism and Creativity 354
Sensory and Motor Automatisms and Mediumship 354
Automatism and Experimental Psi Research 361
Conclusion 363
Chapter 6: Unusual Experiences Near Death and Related Phenomena
(Emily Williams Kelly, Bruce Greyson, and Edward F Kelly) 367
Near-Death Experiences: An Introduction 369
Explanatory Models of Near-Death Experiences 374
Psychological and Cultural Theories 374
Expectation 374
Birth Models 376
Depersonalization 377
Personality Factors 377
Physiological Theories 378
Blood Gases 379
Neurochemical Theories 380
Neuroanatomical Models 381
"Transcendent" Aspects 385
Enhanced Mentation 386
Veridical Out-of-Body Perceptions 387
Visions of Deceased Acquaintances 390
Converging Lines of Evidence 391
The Larger Context 394
Out-of-Body Experiences 394
Autoscopy 403
Table of Contents-ix
Lucid Dreams 404
Apparitions 405
Veridical Apparitions 406
Collective Apparitions 407
Deathbed Visions 408
Mystical and Conversion Experiences 411
A Psychological Theory? 413
The Challenge of Near-Death Experiences 415
General Anesthesia 416
Cardiac Arrest 417
Conclusion 421
Chapter 7: Genius
(Edward F Kelly and Michael Grosso) 423
Myers's Theory of Genius: General Features and Scope 425
The Creative Process: A Descriptive Model 427
Myers's Psychology of Creative Inspiration 429
Continuity 430
Automatism 432
Calculating Prodigies 432
"Organic" Senses 433
Hallucinatory Syndromes 435
Automatisms in Genius 440
Genius in Automatists 447
Incommensurability 451
Non-Linguistic Symbolisms 451
Associationism and Its Limits 452
Coleridge and the Theory of Imagination 454
Psychoanalytic Theory: Primary and Secondary Process 457
The Crucial Role of Analogy and Metaphor 459
The Failure of Computational Theories of Analogy 460
Implications for Cognitive Theory 466
Summary 469
The Creative Personality 470
Genius and Mental Illness 470
Genius as Personality in Transformation 476
The Creative Nisus: A Drive Toward Wholeness 477
Art as Transformative 481
Transpersonal Roots of Genius 482
Creativity and Psi 483
Genius and Mysticism 484
Conclusion 492
Chapter 8: Mystical Experience
(Edward F Kelly and Michael Grosso) 495
Phenomenology of Mystical Experience: An Introduction 497