"These percipient twenty essays are like detonating explosives, profoundly disturbing to various intellectual universes, and highly appropriate to be published by an institution famed for pushing frontiers in science and technology. They connect the dots between the seen and unseen worlds. They require Kierkegaardian leaps of faith. They stretch referential meaning in order to understand human powers of wordless communication that we share with other animals. The essayists have playfully created a new Metaphysical Club open to all with courage to explore."
—Wilton S. Dillon, Senior Scholar Emeritus, Smithsonian Institution

"This collection provides a rich tableau of research on the nature of consciousness by twenty internationally recognized scholars and researchers who draw on perspectives from archaic traditions in religion and culture to contemporary neuroscience to the testimony of personal experience. Masterfully edited by Helmut Wautischer, Ontology of Consciousness answers questions such as: what kind of being is the being to which we refer as consciousness? How long have humans been perplexed by the awareness of being? Are the questions of being and consciousness one and the same?"
—Alan M. Olson, Professor, Philosophy of Religion, Boston University

"An essential source book for the study of consciousness and foundations of experience. This book provides comprehensive analyses of diverse philosophical, religious, anthropological, and scientific approaches to human experience. Scholars who study consciousness, whether they be behavioral, social or biological scientists, or just educated readers, will find in this volume a store of data necessary for the pursuit of this subject."
—Douglass Price-Williams, Professor Emeritus, Departments of Psychiatry and Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles

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