Book Review: “Shining Light on Transcendence: The Unconventional Journey of a Neuroscientist” by Peter Fenwick

A few weeks ago, I read this article “Can Consciousness Exist Outside of the Brain?” and was fascinated by the idea that a Neuropsychiatrist thought that consciousness exists independently and outside of the brain as an inherent property of the universe. So, I ordered the book. Dr. Peter Fenwick is a senior lecturer at King’s College, London. He is the president of the Horizon Research Foundation, an organization that supports research into end-of-life experiences and the British branch of the International Association for Near-Death Studies. He is part of the Human Consciousness Project and has collected and analyzed more than 300 examples of near-death experiences. He has studied the human brain, consciousness, and the phenomenon of near-death experience (NDE) for over 50 years.

Would I recommend this book? Not really. If you want to learn about Alain Forget’s ability to manifest light and share energy and how that can help a person develop higher consciousness, then this is the book for you. If you are interested in the research that supports the idea that consciousness exists after death, then this is not the place to start.

Pros: The research that was done sounds incredibly interesting. The fact that the advanced hyperscanning EEG study showed a connection between Forget’s brain and his student during the energy giving process is impressive. This research implies that it may be possible for one brain to communicate with another and can help support research into telepathy.

Cons: The bulk of the book is very philosophical and focused on Alain Forget’s process for energy giving and how to reach enlightenment. It took 138 pages to get to the research. The book is 174 pages and pages 153-174 are more philosophical then useful. The actual brain scans appear in the appendix and are so small that you can not exam the information.

Overall thoughts: Maybe I picked up the wrong book by Dr. Fenwick but I was very disappointed in this one. I had many moments when I asked out loud, “where is the science?” and almost put the thing aside as useless. I’m glad I did get to the brain scan section and the brain correlates are interesting in the EEG descriptions, I just want more information on that. It may be a minute before I read another one of his books due to my frustration with his lack of useful information.

You can find your own copy of this book here.

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