Susan J. Blackmore

Dr. Susan Blackmore is Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of the West of England, Bristol, where she teaches courses on parapsychology and consciousness. She has a degree in psychology and physiology from Oxford (St Hilda's College, 1973) and gained one of the first PhDs in parapsychology in the country (Surrey University,1980). Her research interests include belief in the paranormal, astrology and divination, near-death experiences, the effects of meditation, evolutionary psychology and the theory of memetics. She is the current Perrott-Warrick Researcher studying psychic phenomena in borderline states of consciousness. She has been awarded prizes by both the Society for Psychical Research and CSICOP (Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal). Her books include Beyond the Body (1982), Dying to Live: Science and the near-death experience (1993), (with Adam Hart-Davis) Test your Psychic Powers (1995) and an autobiography In Search of the Light (1996). She has been training in Zen for many years. She writes for several magazines, has an occasional column in the Independent and is a frequent contributor and presenter on radio and television.