The concept of an incorporeal reality (i.e., lacking material form and physical substance) may become science’s next enigma after quantum-entanglement. Pagan gods of the ancient world often were personifications of nature or forces for good or evil. So the idea of “incorporeal” distinguished God in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Obviously, academic science disavows any reality other than the physical one. So the lay public dismisses the validity of such single-person metaphysical claims as near-death experiences. But those survivors felt themselves separating from their “dead” bodies as “incorporeal” beings—not knowing what was happening, yet totally invisible to everyone else. Still, they were able to accurately describe “watching” medical teams and instruments below or even “visiting Heaven.”

But you can learn how “incorporeal” feels from inside a near-death experience by reading the story of the orthopedic surgeon who recalled every detail! He also recalled his “incorporeal” surroundings, “Once outside, I was immersed in a bluish white light that had a shimmering appearance as if I were swimming underwater in a crystal clear stream. I had fallen into a pure positive flow of energy. I could see it flow through the fabric of everything.” See: http://www.omagdigital.com/article/getting+comfortable+with+near-death+experiences/1783389/0/article.html

Also, academic science evidently has some in its ranks who disagree with it. So the long-standing scientific paradigm of materialism is now being challenged openly. The Manifesto for a Post-Materialist Science has organized support for an open study of consciousness. (http://opensciences.org/about/manifesto-for-a-post-materialist-science).

Yet, a century ago—the eminent William James claimed, “Our normal waking consciousness … is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different.” There is reason to believe that some of these could be incorporeal.

So Elizabeth Grosz’s new book The Incorporeal: Ontology, Ethics, and the Limits of Materialism seems very timely. It is a scholarly book, of particular interest to academic scientists and philosophers.

Moreover, as Robert Renehan, Professor of Classics at UCLA Santa Barbara, concludes in his definitive paper, “On the greek origins of the concepts of incorporeality and immateriality,” “For almost two thousand years, the concepts of incorporeality and immateriality were central in much western philosophical and theological speculation on such problems as the nature of God, soul, [and] intellect.”

Furthermore, two recent non-fiction books also address incorporeality and its role in surprising new revelations from research advances about God, Heaven, and souls: What Near-Death Experiences Taught Us All and Why Is God’s Greatest Gift Ignored? If you will review either book on your blog or otherwise online, or in traditional news media, please send your request with your name and address to the email address below for a complimentary copy by Priority mail.