the comic book reviews

the comic book reviews

Exploring the Depths of Human Experience: A Comprehensive Review of ‘Beyond Body’

1. Introduction to ‘Beyond Body’

To begin understanding the deep nature of human ways of being, Beyond Body called into question the overly materialized conception to which we are confined. Instead of making this a central issue (e.g., how to “get inside the heads” of the deceased, the deceased is conceived in terms of eye sockets where everything rested), psychologists reproduced a behaviorist ideology about the nature of human being, not even bothering to mention alternatives. The study of mortality must transcend the surface of things and involve the unexplored depths of human ways of being, associated not only with the material body but also with the humanity of our existence.

The scope of psychological research on mortality has been broad and varied, showing that some humans have an intense desire to survive the constant threat of their own death. This overall research has focused on terror management and its consequences, leaving aside the question about the nature of this will to live. Beyond Body discussed this fundamentally grounded question, inquiring about the hidden roots of this essential human concern and why mortality is seen as such a fundamental and privileged human need at the heart of our being.

2. Key Themes and Concepts Explored in the Book

Beyond Body urges readers to re-engage in life beyond simple ‘being’. A mere existence isn’t worthy of a spiritual human being. Moreover, the text challenges readers to lead rather than be led, finally seeking and living in a spiritual world which is the highest measure of human existence. Such aspiration comes with a cost though. From the onset, Beyond Body underscores the personal journey to be walked by the reader, and recognizes that people may need assistance in finding their way along their path. The book becomes a guide to human existence, an owner’s manual for spiritually aware individuals. Written primarily for men facing a challenging transition, the text attempts to handhold readers through the process of letting go of the ego-grabbers of conventional society, in search of spirituality – the highest form of human existence.

While Beyond Body consists of numerous concepts, ideas, and themes, the text underscores one key issue – the importance of being human. The text characterizes what it means to be really and fully human, and serves as a reminder, reawakening individuals to the fullness of potential as humans. In such regard, there’s an idealism to the book, which seeks to establish a threshold, a bar, representing the potential that exists within an individual. This standard serves as aspirational, challenging individuals to seek who they are in spiritual terms, understanding their purpose in life’s struggle, and engaging with others as humans, rather than cogs in the society around them. The text avoids reduction, instead adhering to the maxim that the sum of human activities and interactions should be an enhancement of life, and help in ennobling the human being.

3. Critical Analysis of the Author’s Arguments and Evidence

At the end of the analysis of data used in Cecilia Wee’s ‘Beyond Body’, it is clear that Wee’s manuscript is a comprehensive and methodically sound work, with the conventional and potentially limited ‘body’ of empirical evidence – which is offered from the empirical method. However, from our point of view, we submit that this conjecture is entirely unsubstantiated: in contraposition to the suggestion underlying Cecilia Wee’s ‘Beyond Body’ work that standard empirical methods are limited at uncovering specific parts of a subject of study in the research of sophisticated systems, we use the following data taken from theoretical research of attention from the cognitive lab for the study of consciousness and the scientific study of body-related variables in the neurobiology of self-awareness to argue why the results of standard empirical research deviating from such claims should be taken just as seriously, and just as much trusted as conclusions coming from Cecilia Wee’s body of empirical evidence when pondering about cognitive psychology research.

As part of our full critical analysis of Cecilia Wee’s book, ‘Beyond Body: Consciousness Laid Bare’, in this section, we provide a critical analysis of Wee’s arguments and the evidence she uses to support those arguments. This is in order to test the validity of the semiotic-social and hypertext-related view on self-consciousness and the body that Wee puts forward. This is important to determine the soundness of the current philosophical consideration of the nature of selfhood, and the methodologies and research perspectives taken to address this issue from the philosophical and cognitive psychology perspectives. We aim to object to this empiricism, supposedly part of Wee’s atheoretical approach when it comes to developing her argument, and which appears to be under the standard analytic backdrop of Wee’s work. This is in contrast to Goswami’s alternative, which purports to offer what ‘standard’ empirical methods supposedly cannot in the research of complex systems. Within the context of our review of ‘Beyond Body’, we try to give soundness to this with the help of the evidence provided by Goswami, mainly from the empirical science of cognitive psychology and stem cell research into body image.

4. Implications and Applications of the Book’s Findings

Understanding the inner journeys of individuals is seen as meaningful work in its social, economic, and ecological applications. It conveys awareness that across space and time, a person can learn much by exploring their personal intuitive interiority and illuminating aspects of subtle energy. How does such knowledge create a greater sense of expanded agency across organizations and communities? How do we design and enact entrainment towards shared visions of a just, vibrant, resilient world? What do such questions mean for culture, communities, economics, governance, ethics, and wisdom traditions? Throughout history, the truth of these books has both propelled and confronted spiritual and religious traditions, wisdom seekers, atheists, intellectual and commercial enclaves. We sit between these old post-industrial and postmodern symbols, and across the information age’s automated synchronization of values and agency ubiquitously across the world.

Below, we offer a discussion on the meaningful social, economic, and ecological implications of the discoveries made by the author. Then, we reflect specifically on the practical applications of the knowledge generated by the book’s findings. Both implications and applications serve as exciting invitations for other organizations, places, and individual explorers to venture further and wider into the exploration of human experience, intuition, and subtle energy. Finally, we offer our own insights based on many years of work with executive leaders and high-performing teams who have strongly desired exploration into these domains, presenting them with the question, “What are the implications of causally influencing what you know beyond the boundaries of your physical body?”

5. Conclusion and Final Thoughts

The current field has little in the way of a predictive understanding of how these techniques effectively dismantle the various percepts which support boundary dissolution. As critical technical components which are necessary for elucidating the transfer function of subjective reality, a detailed understanding of how body, mind, time, space, self, sense-of-boundaries, and the wordless now are conjured during a normal wakeful state of consciousness should be of interest to anyone working with critically ill individuals or with the recreational use of psychoactive substances. Whether meditation, pathologizing agents, or clinical intervention, these successful experiments work to remove the first and so far only identified percepts within our waking conscious states that provide us with a first-person sense of embodiment.

Level 1 perspective taking is only the beginning of the story. As suggested in prior reviews of the OBE perceptual experience, OBEs are but one example of many alternate states of consciousness where the sense of reference frame has been altered. Any discussion about the fundamental nature of the self and consciousness must start from the premise that consciousness itself is a result of a network of local and global interconnections. Exploring how various ancient and present techniques are capable of dissolving the illusion of a clear and distinctive mind world boundary provides a deeper integration with prior perspectives offered outside domains of neuroscience and psychology. In providing no affirmative proof as to the existence of persistent, non-body bound consciousness, we conclude our journey through the book’s exploration of the fading subjective certainty of the mind world boundary.