Consciousness Studies: Cross-Cultural Perspectives

Journal of Parapsychology, The, Fall, 2003 by Rex G. Stanford

CONSCIOUSNESS STUDIES: CROSS-CULTURAL PERSPECTIVES by K. Ramakrishna Rao. Jefferson, NC and London: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2002. Pp. vii + 367 $65.00 (illustrated case binding). ISBN 0-7864-1382-4

This remarkable volume is notable because of: (a) the breadth and depth of its coverage of topics related to consciousness, both from Western and Eastern perspectives, (b) its serious, scholarly character, and (c) its generally clear, straightforward writing about some complex, abstract, and difficult topics. It is subdivided into "Part I--Western Tradition" (Chapters 1-7) and "Part II--Eastern Tradition" (Chapters 812).

In Chapter 1, "What It is Like to Be Conscious," the multiple connotations or meanings of the term consciousness, both commonplace and scholarly, are described. The author makes particular note of the subjectivity of consciousness, the factor that makes it intrinsically inaccessible to other individuals--at least, in any direct sense--and makes it difficult to study and measure.

Several varieties of awareness are catalogued and briefly discussed in this chapter: awareness of awareness, self-awareness, dreaming as an altered state, daydreaming and hypnagogic imagery, pathological awareness, unconsciousness, implicit awareness (response to information not in conscious focus or inaccessible to consciousness), special natural (e.g., nondreaming sleep) and induced (e.g., meditation or biofeedback) states, anomalous awareness (ESP), and what is termed awareness-as-such or pure consciousness (e.g., a blissful state that lacks awareness of objects, situations, or even self as an object). Also discussed are: criteria for inferring consciousness; the functional significance of consciousness; special charts or diagrams to organize Rao's concepts regarding awareness or conscious experience; and, finally, "The Four P's of Awareness" (pp. 2829). The latter are: (a) primary awareness, which is everyday consciousness and involves specific content of which one is subjectively aware; (b) paradoxical awareness, which is the implicit awareness noted earlier; (c) pathological awareness, which involves maladaptive processing (e.g., schizophrenic hallucinations); and (d) paranormal awareness, which is construed to include ESP and pure consciousness.

Rao asserts that "In states of paranormal awareness, the relationship between the knower and the known is one of identity" (p. 29). Given that he does not confine this statement to pure consciousness, he seemingly presumes that it applies to ESP. Inadequately supported conclusions or generalizations on fundamental conceptual issues such as this are rare in this volume, and this one seems surprising.

Chapter 2, "Primary Awareness," is built in considerable part around the writings of William James. It emphasizes the subjectivity and private character of consciousness, the fluid character of mental states and the constant flux of ideation, the therefore paradoxical sense of perceived continuity in experience, the intentionality of consciousness (which provides the sense of knowing about something in particular), and the selective activity of consciousness (or attention), called here volition. What may receive insufficient emphasis here is the capacity of certain events to preempt controlled attentional selection, plus the possibility that some acts of ostensibly volitional attention might really have been subtly primed by unattended information. Much of human mental life, including even goal-oriented behavior, may be less truly volitional and more unconscious than is often supposed. This is demonstrated in studies by John Bargh, a cognitive-social psychologist (see Bargh & Chartrand, 1999, a review). Rao's volume would have been far better balanced had it included some discussion of that important work and of parallel developments regarding extrasensory function.

Chapter 3, "Paradoxical Awareness and Pathological Awareness," includes brief descriptions of a number of experiments, some of them classics in so-called subliminal perception. Rao sketches some important illustrative research examples on this topic, which is a domain now likely to be called by some other names, such as subception. He discusses studies that effectively address major criticisms of subception work, criticisms that sometimes have imposed arbitrary and unfair criteria on the demonstration of such effects. Rao's treatment of this difficult and complex area is reasonably well-rounded, considering its brevity.

This chapter also discusses what Rao somewhat oddly and even confusingly introduces as subliminal memory, but which cognitive psychologists usually call implicit memory. Implicit memory involves evidence of the retention of information, as inferred from its influences on behavior (usually in a priming paradigm), whether or not one can consciously access that information. Rao does bring up the traditional term, though, at some point in his discourse. His discussion of implicit memory pinpoints some of the most important findings in that domain.