The Elephant in the Room-The Denial of the Unconscious Mind

Book excerpt: “The deep psychodynamic digging of ALPER reaches to celebrated experiments, death in the afterlife, the mind, the interface of science and religion, and cosmos-centric issues. Readers are enriched greatly by the intellectual treasures unearthed toilsomely by the spade of psychodynamic excavator ALPER.” —LEO UZYCH, JD, MPH “ALPER never writes dull books. He has one of the most creative analytic minds of his generation.” —DR. JEROME DAVID LEVIN, author of The Clinton Syndrome Within these pages GERALD ALPER explores the pervasive propensity among leading scientists in their quests for quantification and reductionism to overlook completely the presence of the “Elephant in the Room”—the dynamic unconscious—and the very real consequences that result when science minimizes the human equation. Offering a holistic, contextual view of the mind and its manifestations that neither excludes nor privileges the methods of science, ALPER examines the conclusions drawn by the experimentalist by taking the laboratory and putting it back into the real world. In the process he illuminates the fallacies inherent in some of the most celebrated scientific experiments in modern times while convincingly asserting that the experiential and existential aspects of our everyday lives are no less relevant.