Jonathan Bricklin            ​​​​​​

"Advances James on consciousness farther than anyone" --Eugene Taylor

​A mystical experience in 1989 on a 9 day Vipassana meditation retreat undermined my common-sense understanding of reality, and sent me on a quest to explore the nature of consciousness.  I began with William James's classic text, The Principles of Psychology.  Reading this text and other works of James's for the past 3 decades has been like falling down Lewis Carroll's rabbit hole.  I believe I have landed where James persistently suggested the descent was leading--consciousness is "already there, waiting to be uncovered"--even as he tried to steer himself elsewhere.  In addition to my 2 books, Sciousness and The Illusion of Will, Self, and Time: William James's Reluctant Guide to Enlightenment,  I have published a dozen articles on James in various academic journals.  In the anthology The Volitional Brain: Towards a neuroscience of free will, I am the dissenting voice.  From 2007 to 2015 I had the great privilege of being a Program Director for the New York Open Center, and am currently a Program Consultant for Eastover.  My live engagements with so many teachers who, like James, tilt toward the transpersonal, has been critical to the evolution of my thought.   I am also a Founding Board Member of the Society for Consciousness Studies.