author : Nicholas Humphrey

In Consciousness Regained Nicholas Humphrey brings together a selection of his penetrating essays about the human condition, adding an introductory chapter and a substantial new section on self-knowledge. In particular he examines the phenomenon of consciousness and helps to regain for serious study this most basic if most perplexing of subjects.

The Inner Eye provides new answers. It is both a captivating account of a scientist’s search for meaning in human affairs and a work of considerable importance to philosophy and psychology. Nicholas Humphrey presented the Channel 4 television series of the same title first shown in 1986. His research at Oxford and Cambridge has been in the area of perception and animal behaviour.

Using a novel approach, ‘The Argument from Unwarranted Design’, Humphrey mounts a devastating critique of the existing evidence for paranormal phenomena, ranging from miracles to the laboratory experiments for extra-sensory perception. He asks why so many sensible people refuse to give up the search, and especially why certain exceptional individuals – from Jesus of Nazareth to Uri Geller – may become convinced they do have supernatural powers. He discusses the emergence of ‘paranormal fundamentalism’, the unshakeable conviction that no matter what the evidence, ‘there must be something there’, and traces this to our deep-seated attachment to mind-body dualism. Yet, in the end, it is not only the facts of science but the laws of logic that rule out the truth of most paranormal claims.

Does this leave us without hope of consolation? Far from it. In a surprising twist, Humphrey concludes that the world as it is, governed by natural laws without the possibility of psychic powers or supernatural intervention, has been and is the best cradle for human development. Witty, philosophical, sometimes shocking, always absorbing, Soul Searching throws light – welcome of unwelcome – on many coveted ideas about our relationships with God, with each other, and with nature.