Many animalists assert the following propositions: (1) We are human organisms. (2) For any organism O1 at a time, t1, and for any organism O2 at a time, t2, O1 and O2 are identical if and only if the simples that compose O1 and the simples that compose O2 are constituents of the same life. (3) We will die. Christians assert the following proposition: (4) We will exist (after our deaths) on the Last Day. Propositions (1)-(4) are rendered logically inconsistent if the following two propositions are true: (A) Necessarily, the life of an organism, O1, at one time, t1, is identical with the life of an organism, O2, at another time, t2, if and only if, the simples that compose O1 and the simples that compose O2 are immanent-causally connected, and, (B) Necessarily, when we die the simples that last composed us will cease to bear any immanent-causal connection to any organism. If (A) is true, then for us (human organisms) to exist on the Last Day (proposition (4)) the simples that compose us at the moment of our deaths need to bear some immanent-causal connection to an organism that exists on the Last Day. If (B) is true, however, then when we die (proposition (3)) the simples that compose us cease to bear any immanent-causal connection to any organism. Both (A) and (B) are, it is argued, true on animalism. In consequence, it is argued that necessarily, for any human organism, O, if O has died then O can never exist again. It is also argued, therefore, that it is unreasonable to believe (1)-(4) and, therefore, it is unreasonable to be both an animalist and a Christian. Christian animalists (and their sympathisers) have recently responded to arguments of this kind by arguing that (A) and (B) are false; in particular, they have described possible scenarios at which (A) or (B) are false but at which human organisms survive their death. That is, they not only demonstrate that (A) and (B) are false but also that (1)-(4) are not logically inconsistent. In this thesis, my overall argument is that, while animalists may have demonstrated that it is possible for an organism that has died to exist again on the Last Day by demonstrating that (A) and (B) are false, they have not demonstrated that it is reasonable to believe that an organism that has died can exist again on the Last Day. This is because the worlds at which (A) or (B) are false may be possibilities, but they are not possibilities that it is reasonable to believe may be actual. I carry out this project as follows. In Part I, I state what I take animalism to be, what animalists take our persistence conditions to be, what animalists take death to be and what Christians take (minimally) life after death to be. In Part II, I state what I call the 'problem of life after death' and the, more specific, 'logical problem of life after death'. Put simply, the 'logical problem of life after death' states that, given that (A) and (B) are true, propositions (1)-(4) are logically inconsistent and it is, in consequence, unreasonable to believe in life after death, given animalism. I then respond to the logical problem of life after death on behalf of the animalist; I argue that it is unsound because (A) and (B) are false. In Part III, among other things, I argue that while animalists may have responded to the logical problem of life after death, and assuming that modal scepticism (the view that we should be sceptical about our justifiably asserting certain exotic modal claims) is false, the more general problem of life after death remains. Put simply, the more general problem of life after death states that, while (1)-(4) are not logically inconsistent, it is still not reasonable to believe (1)-(4) simultaneously.

This thesis develops the concept of a field of fascination to denote the importance of curiosity in the processes of making in fine art practice. Through an exploration of the methods used in the production of my own artwork, including the appropriation of archival and found material pertaining to the history of women in the fields of magick and mediumship, it offers a way of expressing the material experimentation and selection that occurs in the development of an artwork. Additionally it references the practical exploration of how an atmosphere conducive to fascination could be established through employing techniques of theatrical staging, directly considered in my own exhibition Escamotage (2014). The core material of this thesis established from an interest in the shared language of ‘channeling’ within the fields of mediumship and fine art practice in which the body is positioned as a conduit. In particular, this thesis argues that the centrality of the female body as a ‘channel’ in the practice of mediumship offers a unique and unexplored nuance for the discussion of the materiality of the body in new materialist feminist theory. Through a theoretical framework employing the writing of Elisabeth Grosz, Karen Barad, Judith Butler and Susan Hekman the double-edged power dynamic of the female body as a ‘channel’ is interrogated and repositioned within the context of artistic production. This takes account of the recent re-engagement with the work of Hilma af Klint (1862 – 1944) and Georgiana Houghton (1814 – 1884) two female practitioners who produced astoundingly important abstract painting under the guise of spiritualist mediumship. Contemporarily, it critically addresses Susan Hiller’s practice as one that continues to interpret the periphery of the occult and interrogates the emergence of ‘not knowing’ as a descriptor of artistic methodology in the writing of Rachel Jones and Rebecca Fortnum. The original contribution of this thesis is the positioning of the term ‘claircognizance’ ‘clear-knowing’ within the field of artistic practice as a replacement for the concept of ‘not knowing’ as defined by Jones and Fortnum. Borrowing from the language of clairvoyant mediumship ‘claircognizance’ sidesteps the negative connotations of the lay meaning of ‘not knowing’ to describe the clarity of thought that emerges through studio experimentation as a form of ‘clear knowing’. Finally, the negotiation of critical discourses from fields including feminist theory, philosophy, the history of art and contemporary artistic practice provides a unique interweaving of approaches that is useful for future interdisciplinary research.

This thesis provides an intellectual context for my work in computational scientific visualization for large-scale public outreach in venues such as digitaldome planetarium shows and high-definition public television documentaries. In my associated practicum, a DVD that provides video excerpts, 1 focus especially on work I have created with my Advanced Visualization Laboratory team at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (Champaign, Illinois) from 2002-2007. 1 make three main contributions to knowledge within the field of computational scientific visualization. Firstly, I share the unique process 1 have pioneered for collaboratively producing and exhibiting this data-driven art when aimed at popular science education. The message of the art complements its means of production: Renaissance Team collaborations enact a cooperative paradigm of evolutionary sympathetic adaptation and co-creation. Secondly, 1 open up a positive, new space within computational scientific visualization's practice for artistic expression—especially in providing a theory of digi-epistemology that accounts for how this is possible given the limitations imposed by the demands of mapping numerical data and the computational models derived from them onto visual forms. I am concerned not only with liberating artists to enrich audience's aesthetic experiences of scientific visualization, to contribute their own vision, but also with conceiving of audiences as co-creators of the aesthetic significance of the work, to re-envision and re-circulate what they encounter there. Even more commonly than in the age of traditional media, on-line social computing and digital tools have empowered the public to capture and repurpose visual metaphors, circulating them within new contexts and telling new stories with them. Thirdly, I demonstrate the creative power of visaphors (see footnote, p. 1) to provide novel embodied experiences through my practicum as well as my thesis discussion. Specifically, I describe how the visaphors my Renaissance Teams and I create enrich the Environmentalist Story of Science, essentially promoting a counter-narrative to the Enlightenment Story of Science through articulating how humanity participates in an evolving universal consciousness through our embodied interaction and cooperative interdependence within nested, self-producing (autopoetic) systems, from the micro- to the macroscopic. This contemporary account of the natural world, its inter-related systems, and their dynamics may be understood as expressing a creative and generative energy—a kind of consciousness-that transcends the human yet also encompasses it.

This thesis seeks to recast the body/mind problem and some of its associated questions in light of a historical diagnosis of the underlying metaphysical premises of the current debate and through a contrastive examination of two aternative metaphysical frameworks. Despite a proliferation of reductive and non-reductive perspectives in contemporary debates about mind/body interaction, a growing consensus recognizes that the dominant philosophical alternatives fall short of accounting for the complexity of human nature. Rather than simply adding another voice to this debate, this thesis argies that the present philosophical alternatives are only perceived as exhaustive in the first place because they share a certain philosophical 'framework' or set of assumptions - about matter, causation, mentality, reality, and the self - one that is distinctly Western and modern, and that provides the terms of the debate itself, framing and limiting the scope of questions and responses alike. Offering a historical diagnosis of what it calls the 'Cartesian framework', the thesis shows that despite functioning as a taken-for-granted background, this framework is in fact not a universal 'given' evacuated from historical circumstances. The thesis then examines two examples of pre-Cartesian and non-Western metaphysics, namely Thomism and Buddhist philosophy - neither of which encounter any body/mind problem in theor accounts of human nature because they do not share the assumptions of the Cartesian framework. Finally, it suggests that more than simply revealing the limitations of the Cartesian framework underpinning contemporary philosophical debates, drawing on these two case studies might offer ways of sidestepping the current philosophical dead-end, as well as having practical implications for any discipline concerned with human nature - our bodies, behavior and 'inner' life - beyond mere philosophical speculation.

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This thesis examines an aspect of embodied relationship that is recognised in colloquial figures of speech but is not theorised, nor even much acknowledged in the psychotherapeutic literature. It argues that when we experience subtle sensations of extending towards another person, as we might when our "heart goes out" to them, and of pulling away, as we might when we "draw back", this seemingly internal experience is snesed by the other. Using a phenomenological-hermeneutic methodology underpinning by Merleau-Ponty, van Manen and Todres, exercised were used to bring such experiences to the awareness of several cohorts of experienced and inexperienced therapists attending a training course. Verbal and written accounts of what was felt during the exercised, and of similar experiences from more naturalistic settings, were collected along with the researchers' own accounts. These accounts are discussed within the framework of a Gadamerian Conversation with a view to making explicit the implication for Person-centred therapy with regard to practice, supervision and training. The conversation speaks of the the impact of these experiences upon whether or not clients perceive therapists as authentic, unconditionally accepting and empathic. Assumptions are uncovered and challenged and an alternative narrative emerges from a consideration of multiple contexts. The conversation also speaks of an unseen dance of closeness and distance that arises as each moves towards and away from the other. Conversation (and silence) is inevitably accompanied and impacted by this dance, which happens in the background of every interaction. The unseen dance impacts not only the relationship, but also each person's organismic state.