Marilyn Schlitz is an anthropologist and director of research for the Institute of Noetic Sciences, where she develops and oversees research in three areas: emerging worldviews, inner mechanisms of the healing response, and extended human abilities. Before working for the Institute of Noetic Sciences, she was director of the Esalen Center for the Theory and Research Working Group on Direct Mental and Healing Interactions on Living Systems; a research associate in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Trinity University in Texas; an assistant research scientist at the Agricultural Research Station and Department of Rural Sociology at Texas A & M University; and a research associate and project director for the Mind Science Foundation. Dr Schlitz also has worked as a research consultant for the Stanford Research Institute and as a research fellow for the Foundation for Research on the Nature of Man at the Institute for Parapsychology. She has taught at many universities and colleges, including work as a lecturer in the Department of Psychology at Stanford, and as an instructor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Trinity University. In 1994 she received the Thomas Welton Stanford Psychical Research Fellowship. She received her doctoral degree in anthropology from the University of Texas in 1992 and her master's degree in behavioral and social sciences in 1986, also from the University of Texas. Dr Schlitz has published numerous papers and book chapters on the topic of parapsychology. She speaks nationally and is involved with many research projects exploring the relationship between consciousness and the outer world.

On consciousness, causation, and evolution. Interview by Bonnie Horrigan