_Varieties of Anomalous Experience: Examining the Scientific Evidence_, first published in 2000 by the American Psychological Association, and edited by psychologists Etzel Cardena, Steven Jay Lynn, and Stanley Krippner is a collection of various essays examining experiences which may be classified as "anomalous" from the perspective of psychological science. The title for this book is derived from a similar book written by the famous psychologist and philosopher William James entitled _The Varieties of Religious Experience_ which examined varieties of religious experience from the perspective of a psychologist. This book considers anomalous experience to be defined as "an uncommon experience (e.g. synesthesia) or one that, although it may be experienced by a substantial amount of the population (e.g., experiences interpreted as telepathic), is believed to deviate from ordinary experience or from the usually accepted explanations of reality." Anomalous experiences are thus considered in light of "unusual people", parapsychological phenomena, altered states of consciousness, and psychopathology or abnormal psychology, and in terms of various cultural factors. In the current culture, there is widespread mention of such experiences (through for example such television programs as _The X-Files_) and in the past science has frequently taken a hostile view to such experiences, arguing for skepticism. This book however is unique in that all viewpoints including non-skeptical ones are given a full hearing. Also, many of the articles that appear in this book take a sympathetic approach to non-skeptical interpretations of anomalous experiences.
This first article to appear in this book is entitled "Introduction: Anomalous Experiences in Perspective" by the editors Etzel Cardena, Steven Jay Lynn, and Stanley Krippner. This article defines the terms "anomalous" and "anomalous experience" and provides an understanding of what is meant by such experiences. It then provides a history of the study of anomalous experiences and provides some detailed critique of investigations into such topics as parapsychology. Then appears the outline for the chapters in the book and finally the purpose of the book mentioning reasons why one might study anomalous experiences and concluding that a psychology that takes the challenge of William James to build a comprehensive study of human experience must also examine those experiences which may be considered anomalous.
Section I of this book is entitled "Conceptual and Methodological Issues". The first article in this section is entitled "Anomalous Experiences, Peculiarity, and Psychopathology" by Howard Berenbaum, John Kerns, and Chitra Raghavan and considers the role of peculiarity and psychopathology and their possible relationships to those who have anomalous experiences. The second article is entitled "Methodological Issues in the Study of Altered States of Consciousness and Anomalous Experiences" by Ronald J. Pekala and Etzel Cardena and provides an examination of some methodological issues in the study of altered states of consciousness and anomalous experiences including phenomenological and psychophenomenological approaches to these issues. The authors conclude this article with some recommendations for researchers.
Section II of this book is entitled "Anomalous Experiences". Each of the articles in this section consider a different type of anomalous experience. They consider these experiences in terms of human differences, cultural factors, and psychopathology. They also provide various explanations and theories of these experiences considering both skeptical and non-skeptical interpretations and offering reasons that support each of these theories. This section contains several useful and interesting articles that offer a truly open-minded approach to anomalous experiences that takes these experiences seriously (while in the past they may have been taken less than seriously by prior researchers). The articles included in this section are:
"Hallucinatory Experiences" by Richard P. Bentall,
"Synesthesia" by Lawrence E. Marks,
"Lucid Dreaming" by Stephen LaBerge and Jayne Gackenbach,
"Out-of-Body Experiences" by Carlos S. Alvarado,
"Psi-Related Experiences" by Elisabeth Targ, Marilyn Schlitz, and Harvey J. Irwin,
"Alien Abduction Experiences" by Stuart Appelle, Steven Jay Lynn, and Leonard Newman,
"Past-Life Experiences" by Antonia Mills and Steven Jay Lynn,
"Near-Death Experiences" by Bruce Greyson,
"Anomalous Healing Experiences" by Stanley Krippner and Jeanne Achterberg,
"Mystical Experience" by David M. Wulff.
These articles provide interesting studies of various anomalous experiences that may not fit into previous scientific or religious understandings of reality. In particular, for example psi-related phenomena challenge current scientific understandings and near-death experiences offer the possibility of the survival of human personality after death. As such, these experiences prove highly interesting and this book offers a truly open-minded approach from the perspective of psychology that examines such experiences. For too long, modern science has conveniently ignored or tried to deny such experiences and it is precisely for this reason that this book serves as such a valuable contribution. This book offers one of the unique studies on such experiences from the perspective of mainstream modern psychology and is published by the APA, the main organ of mainstream psychology. As such, this book gives some legitimacy to experiences and theories that have previously been ignored or denied. As the editors maintain however, if one is to offer a comprehensive psychology as William James suggested, then one must provide a study of all human experience including those experiences which are deemed anomalous. This book offers exactly such a study.
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Varieties of Anomalous Experience: Examining the Scientific Evidence (Dissociation, Trauma, Memory, and Hypnosis)
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