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One of the downsides to obtaining a Pretty Heavy Diploma (apart from the student loans) is that the process indoctrinates you into a society where thought processes are driven by simple logic and rationality. This can have a stifling effect on the creative mind. Thinking outside the box is permitted, just don't try and leave the dusty crate all the boxes are stored in. In his new book The Way back to Paradise, Professor Felser describes his battle between the mental limitations imposed on him by the education system, and his heart-felt belief that there is more to the universe around us than that which can be easily observed and tested. Railing against pressure from his peers and his mentors, and placing his career on the line, he breaks out from the box, pries the lid of the crate and yells down the attic stairs to anyone that will listen that there are more things in Heaven and Earth than are spoken of in the Journals of Science and Nature.

Felser elegantly describes his experiences with students, teachers and the world around him as he walks the line between Magic and Reason, finding deep truths and gaping holes in both of them. The book is intelligently written, and empathic in many ways, for the moment the text starts to become bogged down the author switches to a more upbeat and interesting style. I would recommend this book for anyone who wishes to feel better about the nature of being or who has spent their life having experiences that cannot be explained away by the image of Venus reflecting off of marsh gas...

We spoke with the Professor about this book, The Way back to Paradise, and his future projects.

[PNN] What made you decide to write this book?

[JF] Actually, I originally set out to write a very different kind of book. It dealt with the same major themes--the future of what we call religion, and the place of psychic experience in the transformation of human consciousness--but from a very detached, dry, academic point of view. Then I found that I just could not write that book. I felt I had to share something of my own journey, my own experience, to authenticate my argument. So the book became a very personal statement. But it wasn't planned that way. It just happened.

Joseph M. Felser Ph.D

[PNN] So you tell about your own experiences in the book? [JF] The book is intensely personal and revealing. I had these experiences from a very early age. But it doesn't have to be a big mystical revelation. A few years ago, a hummingbird flew out of the sky and landed on my foot. He sat there, content and peeping, for maybe fifteen minutes. That was awesome!

[PNN]The title of this book is The Way Back to Paradise: Restoring the Balance between Magic and Reason. Are we out of balance today?

[JF] Since the seventeenth century, science has sought to control nature--including our own nature. We've been tremendously successful with this project. We have computers, cell phones, I-Pods; we're decoding the genome. But in standing apart from nature, we've forgotten that we're a part of nature. We're cut off from our own roots, our own direct experience of life. We feel aimless, bored, alienated, angry, and disenchanted. We're suffering from what the poet Robert Bly terms "the sickness of the rational thing."

[PNN]And magic is the cure for this sickness? What is "magic"?

[JF] By "magic" I mean all those "unofficial "experiences we're taught to ignore or denigrate: dreams, intuitions, psychic perceptions, synchronicities, visions, feelings of oneness with nature, a sense of wonder, and so forth. These experiences are not irrational, but they are non-rational; they can't be quantified or objectively measured, or, in many cases, even explained. Yet, they are real. They tell us something true and important about the world and about ourselves: Everything is more than it seems. Reality is mysterious!

[PNN]Have you been a victim of this "rational sickness?"

[JF] In my first few months graduate school, I realized that I had climbed to the top of the ladder, but it had been placed against the wrong wall. All of my intense intellectual training had put the magical, intuitive side of me to sleep. Then I had a dream in which a talking rabbit basically told me just that-though I didn't understand the dream at the time. It took years. Like Alice in Wonderland, I've been following that rabbit ever since.

[PNN]Einstein believed that the fingerprint of God could be found in the Universe if we knew how to find it. Occam's razor, so popular with scientists, was originally used as an argument for God. The more mysteries science uncovers, the more we seem to find, and the magical simplicity of the universe seems, in this generation, to be expanding before our eyes. Do you think we are moving in a direction that may actually demonstrate divine intervention in the creation of the Universe, or is it likely that will always remain a matter of faith?

[JF] I think science has reached the point where it can no longer avoid the problem of consciousness, and where the old reductionist approach that equates mind with brain is increasingly untenable, even to many scientists. The "fortunate accident" view of the universe seems to be one more just-so story. That said, I also think that the old concept of faith is equally outmoded. The notion that there are certain beliefs that are simply beyond questioning, beyond rational criticism, just isn't satisfying to increasing numbers of people. That's why I've argued in the book that the new religious consciousness is an experientially-based form of metaphysical inquiry that accepts and incorporates self-criticism. So I would not look to science to "prove" religious faith. That's the same old (Christian) apologetics. Faith and reason as we have known them have both run their course. We can no longer abide a rationality that ignores the real experience of "magic," and we can't tolerate a faith that tries to run reason out of town every time it raises an objection or a point that diverges from the requirements of dogma.

[PNN]So reason and magic are in conflict?

[JF] Reason wants answers, but magic opens us to the wonder of things. Magic leads us to ask the questions that reason aims to investigate. There's no real conflict. Reason and magic are partners. The sickness is that reason is trying to do the whole job by himself. He's forgotten that he has a partner. He's an answer addict, a control freak who's afraid of deep questions, of letting go and sharing power.

[PNN]Isn't it the job of religion to provide magical experiences?

[JF] Religion is fearful of any ideas and experiences that challenge its beliefs. Eve got into trouble for asking too many questions (and for looking to snakes and trees for wisdom). Like science, religion is also at war with nature. The Bible tells us we have dominion over the planet, that we're supposed to subdue Mother Earth. Our own human nature is deemed untrustworthy: greedy, animalistic, evil, sinful. So we must subdue ourselves, too. The truth, we're told, is "out there," in some god, enlightened guru, or holy book--anywhere but inside of us. We're discouraged from trusting our spontaneity.

[PNN]Speaking of religion, at the same time as new scientific discoveries are bringing us a greater understanding of the nature of being, it seems that individual religions are becoming more polarized and opposed to one another. Any thoughts on why this is happening?

[JF] I'd say it is a reaction, both conscious and unconscious, to the sense of an ending. The great world religions are "stonewalling" (to borrow a phrase from the political sphere) because they fear the radical changes that they know, on some level, are coming. They feel vulnerable and threatened. It's not just a war on each other, or on modernity. The writer John Gardner once said, "All systems fail." I think all these old religious systems are failing, and they are terrified of death. So they are lashing out and hunkering down. It's a very dangerous period we're in right now.

[PNN]So what's your solution? What do you think we need to do?

[JF] We just need to pay attention to our own actual daily experience. The magic is already there. Everyone dreams. Everyone has psychic perceptions. Everyone has an experience of oneness with something or someone. Everyone is gifted with uncanny coincidences. You don't have to create magic out of thin air. You just have to learn to recognize and read the signs. We're getting hints all the time. We're just not used to listening.

[PNN]How would you summarize your message?

[JF] Embrace your freedom, immerse yourself in the great quest, and trust your own experience and reasoning. Explore the mystery. Judge for yourself.

[PNN]Do you have any other projects on the horizon?

[JF] I'm presently writing a book on people who had premonitions of the 9/11 attacks. It will be published by Moment Point Press in 2006.