Maria Coffey > Quotes

“From an evolutionary perspective, he says, it is safest to err on the side of gullibility. “If you miss the tiger hiding in the grass, you’re dead. If you’re always seeing tigers, you’re running away a lot, but you’re not dead.”
― Maria Coffey, Explorers of the Infinite: The Secret Spiritual Lives of Extreme Athletes-and What They Reveal About Near-Death Experiences, Psychic Communication, and Touching the Beyond

“And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far into the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer. RAINER MARIA RILKE , Letters to a Young Poet”
― Maria Coffey, Explorers of the Infinite: The Secret Spiritual Lives of Extreme Athletes-and What They Reveal About Near-Death Experiences, Psychic Communication, and Touching the Beyond

“Behavioral psychologists class intuitive thinkers as creative, alert, confident, informal, spontaneous and independent. Such people are not afraid of their experiences and are open to new challenges. They can live with doubt and uncertainty. This is also a comprehensive profile of extreme risk-takers, in both business and adventure.”
― Maria Coffey, Explorers of the Infinite: The Secret Spiritual Lives of Extreme Athletes--and What They Reveal About Near-Death Experiences, Psychic Communication, and Touching the Beyond

“Had MacIntyre sensed the approach of his own death? Were Porter’s dreams a foretelling of the accident? Porter has an open mind on these questions. “I think the starting point for any sort of weirdness is life itself,” he says. “If we’re here, then it seems to me that anything is possible.”
― Maria Coffey, Explorers of the Infinite: The Secret Spiritual Lives of Extreme Athletes-and What They Reveal About Near-Death Experiences, Psychic Communication, and Touching the Beyond

“At the Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience in Lausanne, Switzerland, scientists have been studying the link between mystical experiences and cognitive neuroscience. They point out that the fundamental revelations to the founders of the three monotheistic religions—Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed—occurred on mountains, and included such components as feeling a presence, seeing a figure, hearing voices, and seeing lights. These similarities of experience suggest to the scientists that exposure to altitude might affect functions relying on brain areas such as the temporoparietal junction and the prefrontal cortex. Prolonged stays at high altitude, especially when linked to social deprivation, can lead to prefrontal lobe dysfunctions, which are commonly found during ecstatic experiences. Also, the physical and emotional stresses of climbing at altitude release endorphins, which are known to lower the threshold for temporal lobe epilepsy, which in turn might evoke such experiences. All such phenomena, then, might relate to “abnormal body processing.”
― Maria Coffey, Explorers of the Infinite: The Secret Spiritual Lives of Extreme Athletes-and What They Reveal About Near-Death Experiences, Psychic Communication, and Touching the Beyond