Books by DOPS faculty

Before is a fully updated 2-in-1 edition, combining Dr. Jim B. Tucker’s bestselling books about children who remember past lives—Return to Life and Life Before Life.

These two books contain first-person accounts of Jim B. Tucker’s experiences with a number of extraordinary children with memories of past lives, and expands on the international work started by Tucker’s mentor and colleague at University of Virginia: Dr. Ian Stevenson.

In each case, Jim Tucker’s goal is to determine what happened—what the child has said, how the parents have reacted, whether the child’s statements match the life of a particular deceased person, and whether the child could have learned such information through normal means. Tucker has found case studies that provide persuasive evidence that some children do, in fact, possess memories of previous lives.

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Dr. Bruce Greyson, leading expert on near-death experiences, reveals his journey toward rethinking the nature of death, life, and the continuity of consciousness.

What happens when we die? Approximately 10% of people whose hearts stop report near-death experiences (NDEs). Stories of lights, tunnels and loved ones have been relayed — and dismissed — since ancient times. But when Dr. Bruce Greyson’s patients started describing events that he could not just dismiss, he began to investigate.

In After, Dr. Greyson shares the transformative lessons he has learned over four decades of research.  In this book, Bruce Greyson challenges us to consider what NDEs can teach us about the relationship between our brain and our mind, expanding our understanding of consciousness, and of what it means to be human.

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The Parapsychological Association Book Award was established in 2015 to recognize books in the field of parapsychology that make significant contributions to science and to the cultural conversation about the implications of parapsychology. The 2021 Parapsychology Book Award was awarded to three important scholarly books edited by Edward Kelly, PhD.

This trilogy of books, edited by Edward F. Kelly and his co-authors, document the results of a series of scholarly seminars held at Esalen’s Center for Theory and Research. The trilogy is useful to anyone interested in understanding the challenges to materialistic and physicalistic assumptions about consciousness. This collection places psi research in a historical and philosophical context, and it reviews in detail empirical data from a wealth of sources. The result, over 1500 pages across the three books, demands a radical revision regarding the nature of consciousness.

• Irreducible Mind: Toward a psychology for the 21st century

• Beyond Physicalism: Toward reconciliation of science and spirituality

• Consciousness Unbound: Liberating mind from the tyranny of materialism

Congratulations Ed Kelly and co-authors for this important book award from the Parapsychological Association!