similar way that information carried by electromagnetic waves functions through the TV set, but is not produced by it. He draws on famous neuro-scientists such as Charles Sherrington, John Eccles, and Wilder Penfield, all of whom had non reductive understanding of consciousness. The well known comparison of the brain with a computer raised the following question: if the brain is the hardware, where does the software come from. In the near death experience the hard-ware , the neurones, have stopped all functioning. The non-material information which corresponds to the soft-ware of consciousness nevertheless continues to exist, and is not destroyed by the “death” of the hardware. Chapter ten gives a detailed description of a near death experience, and its deep effects on the person, written by Monique Hennequin, who not only had a heart-failure at the age of 37, but a near-collapse of many major organs, including the kidneys and the liver. Her case seemed hopeless, but she was re-animated, and survived to write up her experiences during the intense somatic crisis. In the eleventh chapter Lommel turns to quantum physics, to look more deeply into the roots of matter, and beyond. He shows how the particles of matter, at the micro-level of sub atomic particles, are complementary to non-physical information waves of “probability”. They are coupled to eachother. Local energetic events are accompanied by waves of non-local information which are outside of normal time and space. Here he draws on the founders of quantum physics, such as Heisenberg, and Schrödinger, and later quantum scientists, such as David Bohm, to show the similarities between non-local events at the atomic level, and non local states of consciousness, which are complementary to the local states of neuronal energy in the brain, but not derived from them. In the twelfth chapter Lommel looks at the description by the philosopher David Chalmers of six theories of consciousness. Three of these are reductionistic and materialistic, and three of which lie beyond materialism. He then goes more deeply into a model of how the brain can function like a transformer between the non-physical and the physical. Lommel quotes the well known research of Jacob Grinberg-Zyllerbaum who studied the interaction between the brains of two people who were able to communicate telepathically. The two subjects were widely separated in space. The brain of one person was stimulated electomagnetically by a flashing light, which created a specific pattern of brain waves. The brain of the second person was also measured at the same time, and showed an identical pattern of response. The “evoked potential” in the first person has produced a “transferred potential” in the second. However, both persons were situated within Faraday cages, which block all transmission of electromagnetic nature. No energy passed between the two persons: a non local transfer of the local energy state in one brain had passed to the local state in the second brain. Lommel looks on this as a non-energetic resonance state. Consciousness, unlike energy, is not trapped behind the boundaries of locality. In the twelfth chapter he looks into the work of FritzAlbert Popp and his international team of collaborators, and their thirty five years of research into bio-photons. Lommel’s focus here is more on the body as a whole, rather than on the brain as a part of the body. He looks at the role of real physical ultra-weak light, and also of virtual light, as carriers of information linking all the cells of the body with each other. He discusses this in relation to the normal scientific understanding of DNA within the body and suggests that DNA is also a transmitter of underlying non-local information which is the basis of bio-communication. In the fourteenth chapter Lommel looks more widely at other special states of consciousness, including transpersonal states and telepathic states, and builds a bridge between classical paranormal research, and the empirical scientific work on “remote viewing” by Hal Putoff and Russel Targ, two quantum physicist working at the Stanford Research Institute. He also includes the important work of Jahn and Dunne at the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Centre, in the USA, who could demonstrate, in hundreds of experiments, the effects of consciousness on otherwise random electronic devices. The fifteenth chapter, which is called “Nothing new under the sun” takes a rest from the scientific perspective, and looks at the historical roots of the understanding of consciousness in philosophy, going back as far as Pythagoras and Socrates, and in the world religions: christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and Bon. He shows how these cultural understandings are complementary to and supportive of the natural-scientific understanding that the rest of the book is devoted to. The sixteen chapter discusses ethical aspects of whether or not a doctor has the right to terminate the life of a long-term coma patient. It also looks issues related to organ-donation, such as heart transplants, and the feeling that many receivers of such donations describe, that the implanted organ brings with it states of feeling or states of “mind” which are quite new and foreign to the one who receives them. Some aspects of the consciousness of the donor of the transplanted organ seem to be transferred to the receiver, for better or for worse. The final chapter offers practical advice to those who are accompanying a person in a dying process. Good care in a hospital or hospice not only involves physical and social care, but the empathic support for the person at a psycho-spiritual level, in ways that can help to reduce the fear of death, and prepare for the transition of what has been called “Life beyond life”. The book is supported by over 450 detailed footnotes, and 360 major references to neurological, biological, quantum-physical, psycho-energetic and philosophical sources. Lommel’s detailed but panoramic survey of the field of consciousness beyond the brain and the body, is a masterpiece of clinical, scientific and cultural research. Until now it has appeared only in Dutch, so I look forward to an English or German edition which can be more widely available. energy & character vol.37 may 2009 65
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