Visionary Fiction and the Science of Consciousness Series
Dr. Gary Schwartz, Scientist and Parapsychologist
In March-April 2017, I wrote a three-part series for the Visionary Fiction Alliance website entitled “Visionary Fiction and the Science of Consciousness.” Given the audience there, it is tailored to authors and readers of the Visionary Fiction genre. However, it contains information, insights, and references for those more generally interested in paranormal phenomena and developments in science-based parapsychology.
Featured is the work of Dr. Gary Schwartz, an accomplished scientist with his Ph.D. from Harvard, who taught psychiatry and psychology at Yale, and is currently professor of psychology, medicine, neurology, psychiatry, and surgery at the University of Arizona. He has published more than 450 scientific papers, including six in the prestigious journal Science, co-edited 11 academic books, and authored 8 books for the general public. He also serves as the director of the U of A’s Laboratory for Advances in Consciousness and Health (LACH).
My initial encounter with Dr. Gary Schwartz’s work came back in 2002, when I read The Afterlife Experiments: Breakthrough Scientific Evidence of Life After Death. As a visionary fiction novelist who focused on the paranormal, it was rare to find a traditionally credentialed scientist/educator willing to put the words “scientific” and “life after death” in the same book much less in its title.
Fate, or synchronicity, would have it that I found myself in Tucson, where Dr. Schwartz lives and works. Our paths, seemingly inevitably, crossed as did our interest in the paranormal. After hearing him lecture on his two recent works, An Atheist in Heaven: The Ultimate Evidence for Life After Death? (April 2016) and Super Synchronicity: Where Science and Spirit Meet (February 2017), and some direct discussion between us, decided to write this series on the VFA site as my reflections on the chemistry that ensues when the two universes, Science and Spirituality, get into positive and interactive relationship. Things happen!
I invite you to jump to Part 1 of Visionary Fiction and the Science of Consciousness on the VFA site. Links to Parts 2 and 3 will be found at the end of each section. Enjoy and leave a comment should something strike you as of interest.