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Expanding Reality: The Emergence of Postmaterialist Science Kindle Edition

by Mario Beauregard (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 18 ratings
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'In Expanding Reality, neuroscientist Mario Beauregard presents the impressive body of scientific evidence that our familiar materialistic model of the world is locked into a sadly outdated 19th-century philosophy. Whether or not you agree with all his conclusions, this courageous book will challenge you to rethink how we see ourselves and our world--and may help usher in a new scientific revolution.' Bruce Greyson, M.D., Carlson Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry & Neurobehavioral Sciences Division of Perceptual Studies, University of Virginia Health System

Reality is much more than the physical world before us. In Expanding Reality, Mario Beauregard examines a variety of phenomena investigated by the most open-minded and visionary scientists. These phenomena provide the evidence that mind, consciousness, and spirit cannot be simply reduced to electrical and chemical activity in the brain.

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    192 pages
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    Iff Books
  5. Publication date
    November 26, 2021
  6. File size
    1308 KB
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Dr. Mario Beauregard, PhD., is a neuroscientist currently affiliated with the Department of Psychology, University of Arizona. He has received a bachelor degree in psychology, and a doctorate degree in neuroscience from the University of Montreal. He also underwent postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Texas Medical School (Houston) and the Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI), McGill University. He is the author of more than 100 publications (articles, essays, book chapters) in neuroscience, psychology, and psychiatry, and was the first neuroscientist to use neuroimaging to investigate the neural underpinnings of voluntary control in relation to emotion. He lives in Quebec, Canada.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B09QMM5LQ3
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Iff Books (November 26, 2021)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ November 26, 2021
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 1308 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 192 pages
  • Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 1789047250
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 18 ratings

About the author

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Mario Beauregard

Mario Beauregard

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Dr. Mario Beauregard, PhD., is Associate Research Professor at the Departments of Psychology and Radiology, and the Neuroscience Research Center, Université de Montréal. He is the co-author of The Spiritual Brain and more than 100 publications in neuroscience, psychology and psychiatry.

Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5 stars
4.2 out of 5
18 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars A must read on the nature of reality and consciousness!
Reviewed in the United States on December 7, 2021
In Expanding Reality, Dr. Mario Beauregard lays the foundation for the next great scientific revolution, the revolution beyond scientific materialism. The reader is guided through the comprehensive scientific evidence for postmaterialism in a clear and digestible way, emerging enlightened by the science of consciousness. Expanding Reality breaks the chains of an outdated paradigm to usher in a new world in which we understand our interconnection and embrace our divine nature. A must-read for anyone yearning for an evolution in human consciousness.
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Avory Faucette
4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting account of the possibilities, if a little varied in rigor
Reviewed in the United States on May 30, 2022
As a non-scientist, it’s admittedly difficult to fully evaluate the conclusions neuroscientist Mario Beauregard comes to in this review of the evidence suggesting that it’s time for science to transition more fully to a postmaterialist paradigm. But as a lay reader, I found the claims Beauregard makes about the nature of reality, and many of the studies he uses to support those claims, quite fascinating. Perhaps with some degree of cautious optimism, I would recommend this book to those who are curious what science has to say about topics such as intuition, mindfulness, and extra-sensory perception. If nothing else you’ll find the possibilities intriguing.

I personally found myself traveling along quite the arc with this book! It’s worth noting my own perspective as a reviewer: my background is not in science, and while I have sufficient training to read study details and evaluate their design at a basic level, I would have to do a lot of research to fully evaluate Beauregard’s sources and possible criticisms. I’m also an intuitive, and so I do have some direct experience with the subject matter, but as my intuition tends to operate more as a “knowing,” sometimes channeling words or images but in a hazier fashion than many describe, I don’t have absolute certainty around any specific modality. My mindset is generally open, and my worldview is that we are all energetically connected, that there is something beyond mortal experience to which we return. But I don’t generally try to describe it beyond that. I tend to think of past lives, for example, as a real phenomenon but not necessarily the transfer of one single “soul” entity into a new body, and I don’t imagine my consciousness existing in some realm like a heaven or hell after I die.

With this worldview I found some of the research easy to accept, but other claims still feel spurious and present a greater challenge. I resonate with the overall argument that science needs to expand its view when paradigms are challenged, but I also wonder about the author’s own possible biases, particularly when it comes to topics around the afterlife.

Beauregard opens by introducing the reader to the dogma of a materialist view of science and to some of the challenges he and his colleagues face as postmaterialists (those who challenge the assumption that all reality is made up of matter). This puts the research in context, with an emphasis on interdisciplinary collaboration that I wholeheartedly support. The basic ideas are easy to understand—while postmaterialist science may seem a little out there, if the aim of science is discovery then there’s no reason not to explore. The heliocentric model of the universe seemed inconceivable once, as did quantum mechanics. Beauregard suggests that we’re on the verge of another such massive leap forward, and that materialist scientists are stubbornly holding us back from that surge of progress. I found that conceptual argument convincing, as I personally don’t make much of a distinction between science and magic, and it’s easy to see how the materialist worldview may be overly limiting. There’s no real reason to assume, for example, that electrical activity in the brain causes consciousness rather than the other way around.

The research surveyed that supports this paradigm shift is organized by topic / phenomenon studied, and there’s quite a range here. Reading through the details of study after study is a bit dry, but this is somewhat unavoidable—if you’re not that interested in the details of study design, you may want to just skip ahead to the final few sentences of each description, as the structure is fortunately consistent and you’ll find a summary of the results as well as the probability of those results being mere chance. Where available, meta-analyses (studies of multiple studies) are also included in a similar format.

In general I found most of these results compelling, particularly those where rigorous controls are described and the results are highly statistically significant. For example, it’s clear that we have the ability to control much more about our physiology than we might assume, and that mindfulness practices have a pretty amazing power to “clear the way” for these abilities. Our perspective on what we can do may limit what we actually try, and this could have important implications for healing and preventive care.

The research on what I’d lump together as “psychic” phenomena is also at least at a fascinating starting point. I found it especially interesting that many of the studies included didn’t test specialists with proclaimed abilities but instead used average people. This suggests that some of these abilities, while possible to develop through practice, may simply be inherent to humanity and accessible to anyone. It’s also notable that the results tend to be consistent irrespective of any religious affiliation, faith, or lack thereof.

Where Beauregard lost me comes in the final few chapters, where we move from these rigorous studies to less-provable phenomena. The inclusion of anecdotal evidence, especially when there is consistency across accounts, does make sense in a broad survey of the subject. But given the controversial nature of the subject matter and the aim of proving a need for a major scientific paradigm shift, I did find my own trust for the author getting shaky when I got to these sections. As an example, Michael Newton’s work on past life regression hypnosis is included with a fairly lengthy summary of commonly reported client experiences. Having read a bit about Newton’s technique, I’m surprised that none of the common criticisms of his method were included here, and that made me wonder about other flaws that the author might have dismissed.

More generally, some readers may go from reading the rigorous scientific studies to these anecdotal accounts and assume a similar level of credibility. While I’m not personally skeptical of all the experiences reported, and I particularly tend to find children’s accurate reporting of past life details compelling, I do think it’s important to emphasize that the human mind may frame experiences according to prior belief and that we cannot know exactly what’s occurring even if we do presume the origin to be “non-material.” Beauregard mentions this in some places, but not as much as he might have. I think it’s important for the integrity of the research that does strongly suggest specifics not to muddy the waters too much with retellings of specific anecdotes that may be fun to read but also potentially misleading. I also happen to feel that some experiences, such as shamanic journeying, are perhaps best experienced rather than studied from the outside.

Ultimately, I finished this book feeling curious and interested to see what comes next. I think Beauregard makes a convincing argument against absolutist dogma in science and assuming that every single phenomenon has a physical explanation, but at the same time it’s important not to stretch the research results into the realm of subjective opinion. I can’t help but wonder whether his own subjective experience of a “postmaterialist” encounter, as described in the book, has influenced his interpretation of these phenomena.

(ARC provided through NetGalley.)
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Francine Boissonnault
5.0 out of 5 stars Important and courageous work
Reviewed in the United States on December 7, 2021
This book is proof that materialist science is a thing of the past. Unfortunately, it is still the dominant model and a shift of paradigm is essential if humanity is to survive as a species. Dr. Beauregard gives any sincere and open-minded person reasons to be optimistic about the future in a book that reads like a thriller.
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SB
2.0 out of 5 stars DISAPPOINTING!
Reviewed in the United States on January 2, 2022
Verified Purchase
I had hoped to find "an impressive body of scientific evidence" convincingly demonstrating there is more to the world - and the human person - than we perceive with our senses. Instead, the author ends up undermining his own claims.

Expanding Reality begins with presenting scientific evidence on various topics including Near Death Experiences and the implications of Quantum Mechanics. Nothing particularly new, but the author does a reasonable job of discussing some of the implications. However, the book progresses to ever greater esoteric "spiritual experiences" with incredibly limited scientific validation. This culminates in the chapter: Journeys to the Source. Here the author places psychedelic drug induced altered consciousness in a category "like" Near Death Experiences. Indeed, the longest "case studies" are reserved for such experiences - complete with bouts of vomiting! I do not doubt that psychedelic drugs can induce states of altered consciousness. However, we know exactly what causes them - altered brain chemistry from a material substance intentionally ingested. Unfortunately, this is precisely what the critics claim regarding all spiritual experiences - that they simply result from brain damage or altered brain chemistry. By presenting these drug induced "spiritual experiences" as "like" other experiences (such as NDE), the author undermines his own claims.

I do not doubt that there is a Consciousness that transcends our material world. Further, I believe the findings of modern science, from neuroscience to cosmology to biology to sociology, are on the verge of helping us to better grasp and perceive this Reality. I look forward to the book that helps integrate all of these scientific findings together. Unfortunately, Expanding Reality isn't it.
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Alex Tsakiris
5.0 out of 5 stars Nice summary of overwhelming evidence
Reviewed in the United States on February 1, 2022
The author does a great job of walking us through the science that has led to the post-materialist worldview. It's it's well-written, clear and convincing. The book also provides a nice summary of how science's understanding of consciousness has evolved.
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Top reviews from other countries

Daniela I. Norris
5.0 out of 5 stars Great read for open-minded skeptics
Reviewed in Canada on April 24, 2022
Verified Purchase
Dr Beauregard brings a scientific flavour to the topic of the survival of consciousness, with a writing-style that is both appealing and thought-provoking. Not only for a niche-audience but a fascinating read for anyone open-minded enough to delve into the topic of 'expanding reality' and the question of whether there is something beyond this reality as we perceive it. Full of scientific snippets and historical evidence from researchers and explorers of the mind - I enjoyed this book and highly recommend it to other open-minded skeptics.
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