Murray (psychology, Lancaster U., UK) brings together contributions from researchers in the fields of medicine, neuropsychology and neuroscience, parapsychology, psychology, and sociology that present various perspectives on the phenomena of out-of-body and near-death experiences. Topics addressed by the 14 included chapters include a review of psychological approaches to the phenomena, neuroscientific explanations for out-of-body experiences, phemenonological investigation of how people attribute meaning to out-of-body experiences, cultural variation in near-death experience reports, and out-of-body experiences as evidence for the survival of the consciousness outside the functioning of the brain. Annotation ©2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)