My guest for this episode is Sharon Hewitt Rawlette.

Sharon is a philosopher who writes for both popular and scholarly audiences on the topics of consciousness, anomalous experience, ethics, and spirituality. She has a PhD in philosophy from New York University and taught at Brandeis University before launching her career as an independent writer and researcher. She is also the founder and director of the Mind & Meaning Institute, which brings together world-class researchers to explore new philosophical and empirical approaches to the deepest questions raised by human experience.

Soon after leaving academia for a career as an independent writer and researcher, Sharon became interested in the phenomenon of “coincidence” or “synchronicity”: strange, enigmatic experiences that aren’t blatantly paranormal but that seem so improbably meaningful that they make us wonder whether something more than chance lies behind them. Her May 2019 book, The Source and Significance of Coincidences, presents a wealth of evidence concerning the statistical importance of coincidences, their range of possible causes, and how we can best interpret their implications for our lives.

In November 2021, Sharon was named a runner-up in the Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies essay contest for her essay “Beyond Death.” This essay summarises and analyses the best evidence for life after death collected over the last 150 years.

I begin the interview by talking about what first interested her in anomalous and strange experiences and how that developed as a student, into academia, and becoming an independent researcher. We then discuss her work on coincidences, before focusing on her essay Beyond Death, exploring some of the Third Person and First Person evidence that she collected for that and how scientific research might progress when it comes to investigating the survival of human consciousness.

Further information on Sharon and her research can be found at https://sharonrawlette.com/.

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