Infinite Awareness: The Awakening of a Scientific Mind

by Marjorie Hines Woollacott, Pim van Lommel (Foreword)

Book Award of the Parapsychological Association, 2017
Winner of the Eric Hoffer Book Awards 2017 (Spiritual)
First Place, Nautilus Book Awards 2017 (Science, Cosmology and Expanding Consciousness)
First Place, International Excellence Mind, Body Spirit Book Awards, 2017 (Human Consciousness)
Bronze Medal, Feathered Quill Book Awards, 2017 (Best Religious/Spiritual)
First Place, Great Northwest Book Festival, 2017 (Spiritual Books)
First Place, New England Book Festival, 2016 (Spiritual Books)

As a neuroscientist, Marjorie Woollacott had no doubts that the brain was a purely physical entity controlled by chemicals and electrical pulses. When she experimented with meditation for the first time, however, her entire world changed. Woollacott’s journey through years of meditation has made her question the reality she built her career upon and has forced her to ask what human consciousness really is. Infinite Awareness pairs Woollacott’s research as a neuroscientist with her self-revelations about the mind’s spiritual power. Between the scientific and spiritual worlds, she breaks open the definition of human consciousness to investigate the existence of a non-physical and infinitely powerful mind.

Genres: Nonfiction, Spirituality, Audiobook, Neuroscience, Science, Personal Development, Meditation

300 pages, Hardcover

First published October 8, 2015

Reviews

[James Allen · Rating 5 out of 5]

A materialistic neuroscientist comes to a realization of universal consciousness based on the evidence.

Marjorie Woollocott is a neuroscientist who teaches at the University of Oregon. She has done research and examined the research of others.

The book left a few lingering questions in my mind for further study:

The lucid memory at a time of brain inactivity associated with near-death experiences, the accurate memories of another lifetime in cases suggestive of reincarnation, the inexplicable power and suddenness of mystical experiences, and in psychic experiences, the implied interconnections between individuals with no physical links.

I read Anita Moorjani’s Dying to Be Me following this book and have several more on the same subject added to by to-read list.

[Victor Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Brilliant Step towards Understanding the Link between Science and Spirituality

For anyone intrigued by the fascinating and rapidly evolving connection between science and spirituality now under discussion on many fronts, Dr. Marjorie Hines Woollacott’s Infinite Awareness: The Awakening of a Scientific Mind is a feast for intellect and soul. To absorb this book—and it deserves that level of focus—is to meet a perceptive scientist and focused meditator, with enough years of personal experience in these seemingly-opposed disciplines that her melding of the two appears seamless. Whether speaking from the left brain or the right, she knows whereof she speaks.
Marjorie Hines Woollacott, a neuroscience professor at the University of Oregon for more than three decades and a meditator for four is one of those rare individuals whose entire life journey seems to have been customized so that she might participate and contribute maximally to the critical synchronization of science and spirituality, which is gaining recognition globally as the next major imperative in human evolution. How her transformations and epiphanies came to pass is best left to her words in her book.
Myself a visionary fiction author who specializes in reincarnation and the paranormal, I was privileged to attend a lecture and workshop Marjorie gave for the International Association for Near Death Studies (IANDS) in Tucson even before reading her book. As a practitioner in the arts and humanities, one who has skirted the discipline of the hard sciences perhaps to my detriment, I owe intense gratitude to scientists like Marjorie who have endured the grind of meticulous and repetitive experimentation, be it in the laboratory or meditation chair. Without the underpinnings of their research and their willingness to risk their academic credentials for the sake of the larger truth, the creative endeavors of writers like myself would be only so much speculation.
A book to be read, absorbed, and lived by.

[Chirag Patil · Rating 5 out of 5]

Few books explain 'Mind Over Matter' so elegantly and systematically. Author is an authority in neuroscience and a professor and yet unbound by any academic dogma. No subject is taboo, as she applies the theory of universal consciousness to physics, chemistry and biology of human consciousness. I'll recommend this book to any agnostic investigator ready to open their mind!

[Sandra]

Marjorie Woollacott, a now-retired neuroscience professor at the University of Oregon, has also been a lifelong meditator, and is very interested in the origins of consciousness (human and otherwise, but primarily human). It is, so far, impossible for science to explain consciousness; it may be able to explain that, for instance, "layer 5 cortical neurons in the visual cortex that fire rhythmically and that send their output to the front of the brain are the critical neural correlates of consciousness," but the ultimate question is then, "What is it about these cells that gives rise to awareness? How is [this] hypothesis different from Descartes' proposal that the pineal gland is the seat of the soul?" 240 It's that last bit that truly throws the neuroscientists.

Woollacott's account includes accounts of a number of serious, successful scientists, mostly neuroscience PhD.s, who come to a conclusion in conflict with purely materialist neuroscience (i.e. that consciousness arises from the brain and consists solely of neural processes that I could not begin to understand or describe). But when you get deeper and deeper into causes, the human mind cannot objectively examine the human mind to determine the origins of consciousness itself. We can figure out how thoughts travel in the brain, or even sometimes how they arise, but how is it that we know we are having thoughts?

One of the scientists, a biology professor at Cal Tech named Christof Koch,

now believes, as many philosophers have said over the last two thousand years,
that consciousness is a fundamental, an elementary property of living matter. It can’t be derived from anything else; it is a simple substance. 241

If you think about that a bit, Koch is claiming that consciousness is a substance, a fundamental property just as atoms or molecules are fundamental properties. That's rather startling, isn't it?

It must be said that this is a very heady book filled with scientific language. Just a taste:

[A sensory event] causes action potential leading into the brain and right up to the neuron in question. Once the neuron has been activated, an electrical charge moves along the neuron's membrane from the receiving end to its terminal, which has synapses to other neurons. Between these neurons is fluid full of calcium ions. The activation of the neuron opens up the tiny channels Eccles describes, and the calcium ions now move into these channels and enter our neuron. Once inside the neuron, the calcium finds and attaches itself to a tiny ball (the synaptic vesicle), which is filled with transmitter molecules--acetylcholine, dopamine, or serotonin, and so on. 65

Well, of course the calcium ions attach to synaptic vesicles! (That's assuming the reader has gotten that far.)

That said, there are many interesting discussions of NDEs (Near Death Experiences), in particular those of doctors or scientists who had previously been at best skeptical, if not dismissive unbelievers; consciousness after death; and even a section on unexplainable events where young children go into periods of speaking and acting like an adult, sometimes with such elaborate detail that the families and researchers are able to locate the individual the child seems to be channeling; there's apparently a lot of rigorous research in situations where there had been no previous contact whatsoever between families, and a child claims to be someone who had recently died.

What I like about Woollacott is that she is a brilliant and rigorously scrupulous scientist who has had a career in mainstream science, and so she insists on similar rigor when investigating paranormal occurrences that neuroscientists almost uniformly scoff at (or, at best, say that there's no way to prove or disprove something so they "don't find it interesting").

Many readers will avidly read the first several chapters, but then give up. (And I don't think there's anything wrong with skipping ultra-technical, scientific chapters.) Since Woollacott wants to provide details about processes and research it can be hard to follow. I found this to be increasingly the case from chapter to chapter, whereas I had hoped that there would be a few very academic chapters and then it would go in a more easily understandable direction. But I think it was necessary, in order for her work to be taken seriously.

[Steven T · Rating 4 out of 5]

Honestly, the this was a fascinating read. I enjoyed the scientific refutation of the Religion of Materialism. The author did a great job demonstrating the truth that Materialism is an actual religion, not merely a philosophy of the academy. I only removed a star because there were times where the author went off the rails on an eastern theological and philosophical tangent. While it fell short of proselytizing, she certainly didn’t make any effort to demonstrate how other faiths have similar mystic veins that would have common ground with her complicated and blended beliefs in Asian religions (reincarnation aside). All in, however, a very interesting book.

[CEGatling · Rating 4 out of 5]

That was interesting. I learned somethings. Some of what she said resonated, some didn't. I'm just returning to regular meditation so maybe I'll continue it.

[Juan Rivera · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been practicing meditation for many years, maybe more than 40 years (I was already a little old). I have practiced many techniques but the one I have used the most is based on the Chaivism of Chachemira. A teacher representative in Mexico of this thought is Gurumayi Chidvilasananda who is from the lineage of Siddha Yoga in Mexico.

Explanations about this type of philosophy and the results of this meditation can be given from the heart, but also from the point of view of science.

I found the book "Infinite Awareness: The Awakening of a Scientific Mind" by Marjorie Hines Woollacott great and enriching, which deals with these topics from science.

Marjorie is a scientist, neurologist, who because of her sister met Gurumayi's teacher and has followed his philosophy for many years.

Interesting his explanations on topics such as reincarnation, distant healing, placebos, hypnotism, God, the spiritual path and many others. But above all it is gratifying to see how spirituality can give us all peace and harmony, to live happier in this world and to become better human beings.

If you are interested in the spiritual path, but you do not want to believe in anything, this book is good, because it has very solid bases from the scientific point of view.

[David Randall · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read "The End of Upside Down Thinking" last year, which made me angry, but pulled together some evidence around parapsychology that was difficult to completely dismiss. This year I listened to "The Telepathy Tapes" podcast, which really blew me away. I still think there is a lot of daylight between the evidence and the conclusions that people who are into parapsychology make (that we are all one loving universal consciousness etc.), but there is something quite interesting here going on imo. I found Woollacott through The Telepathy Tapes so I decided to check this out. Some compelling evidence, but similar in a lot of ways to "The End of Upside Down Thinking."

[Kylie Abecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is full of so many aspects of the scientific methods behind topics such as reincarnation, near death experiences, out of body experiences and more.
The first part of the book seems to focus more on meditation, which is fine, but I expected more from the book and found my attention failing a bit. Once it got into the more in depth topics I was completely hooked and keen to know more. I’ll definitely be listening to this audiobook again, as I feel a lot of it went over my head the first time and I’d like to get a deeper understanding of the topics mentioned.

[Corina · Rating 5 out of 5]

WOW!!!! I cannot recommend this book enough to any one in the sciences or anyone interested in yoga/meditation, but most importantly to the people who are interested in both, like me!! Woollacott did an amazing job of integrating the two fields through her exploration of consciousness, what it is and where it comes from, and basically what reality is and what our role is within it. If you aren’t a neuro/quantum physicist person i would recommend you to not get bogged down by the technical neuroscience and physics language- don’t let that stop you from reading all her great ideas.

[Marla · Rating 5 out of 5]

Her awakening leads to my own exploration. Exciting possibilities.

[Tobias Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

C O N F I R M A T I O N
B I A S

[Petra Hermans · Rating 5 out of 5]

A difference should be recognized, by one spiritual energy
between one good experience or a hell of a question! Yes.

[Jordan · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's nice to be open minded about some of these things. Some of the papers referenced with results that founded the arguments were not reproducable in future studies.

[Michele Fister · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book with a scientific view.

[Brandon Barbery · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely thought provoking book. Some of the details do you get bogged down however there is a lot that makes you think in this book.

[Aubrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every once in a while a book comes around that will change your life. This is one of those books!