Susan Blackmore Ph.D.

About

Sue Blackmore, Ph.D., is a freelance writer, lecturer and broadcaster, and Visiting Professor at the University of the Plymouth. She has a degree in psychology and physiology from Oxford University (1973) and a PhD in parapsychology from the University of Surrey (1980). Her research interests include memes, evolutionary theory, consciousness, and meditation. She practices Zen and campaigns for drug legalization. Sue Blackmore no longer works on the paranormal.

She writes for several magazines and newspapers, a blog for the Guardian newspaper and is a frequent contributor and presenter on radio and television. She is author of over sixty academic articles, about fifty book contributions, many book reviews and a number of books.

Her books include:

Beyond the Body (1982),

Dying to Live (on near-death experiences, 1993)

In Search of the Light (autobiography, 1996)

Test Your Psychic Powers (with Adam Hart-Davis, 1997)

The Meme Machine (1999) has been translated into 13 other languages.

Her textbook Consciousness: An Introduction was first published in 2003 (Hodder UK, OUP New York), re-published as a 2nd Edition in 2010 and a 3rd Edition 2018.

A Very Short Introduction to Consciousness (OUP) 2005 and 2017

Conversations on Consciousness in 2005 (OUP Oxford).

Ten Zen Questions (OneWorld) in 2009. Re-published as Zen and the Art of Consciousness (OneWorld, Oxford) 2011.

Books by Susan Blackmore Ph.D.

Recent Posts

Letting Go Is Hard

The remote Welsh farmhouse where I learned to meditate 40 years ago, will have no more retreats. Saying goodbye was hard, but then much of what we learned was about letting go.

Illusions of Self and Consciousness Explored With DMT

DMT has the strangest, most variable, psychedelic effects. We should combine personal experiences with neuroscience to understand how it upends our illusions of self and the world.

Psychedelics and Consciousness

Are psychedelic experiences a fount of marvellous insights or nothing but the ramblings of a poisoned brain? I think they could be both.

Psychedelics and the Out-of-Body Experience

Can psychedelics induce a classical out-of-body experience, or OBE? A new film and online debate from the psychedelic society suggest they can, but what does the evidence tell us?

Was Boris Johnson Changed by a Brush with Death?

Coming close to death can make people more loving and compassionate. Could Boris Johnson have been transformed?

COVID-19, Near-Death Experiences, and Boris Johnson

After nearly dying from Covid-19, Boris Johnson is said to be a changed man. We know that close brushes with death can cause deep life changes, so could it be true?

Can You Predict Next Week?

The pandemic is changing our lives so fast that we can no longer rely on familiar assumptions. Writing down my predictions is fascinating — and teaching me a lot.

Attention, Attention, Attention

Do illusionist theories of consciousness find the same illusions as those discovered in Zen meditation? A new theory suggests they might.

In Praise of Psychedelics

Near-death experience researcher Ken Ring describes how an LSD trip changed his life and inspired his pioneering research.

One Famous Actor's Out-of-Body Experience

Actor Stephen Graham describes doing a monologue on stage, with his parents watching, only to find himself looking down and watching himself performing.