In 1973, Susan Blackmore graduated from
St Hilda's College, Oxford, with a BA (Hons) degree in
psychology and
physiology. She received an
MSc in
environmental psychology in 1974 from the
University of Surrey. In 1980, she earned a PhD in
parapsychology from the same university; her doctoral thesis was titled "Extrasensory Perception as a Cognitive Process." Blackmore taught at the
University of the West of England in Bristol until 2001. In 1987, Blackmore wrote that she had an
out-of-body experience shortly after she began running the Oxford University Society for Psychical Research (OUSPR): Within a few weeks I had not only learned a lot about the occult and the paranormal, but I had an experience that was to have a lasting effect on me—an out-of-body experience (OBE). It happened while I was wide awake, sitting talking to friends. It lasted about three hours and included everything from a typical "astral projection," complete with a silver cord and duplicate body, to free-floating flying, and finally to a mystical experience. It was clear to me that the doctrine of astral projection, with its astral bodies floating about on astral planes, was intellectually unsatisfactory. But to dismiss the experience as "just imagination" would be impossible without being dishonest about how it had felt at the time. It had felt quite real. Everything looked clear and vivid, and I was able to think and speak quite clearly. In a
New Scientist article in 2000, she again wrote of this: It was just over thirty years ago that I had the dramatic out-of-body experience that convinced me of the reality of psychic phenomena and launched me on a crusade to show those closed-minded scientists that consciousness could reach beyond the body and that death was not the end. Just a few years of careful experiments changed all that. I found no psychic phenomena—only wishful thinking, self-deception, experimental error and, occasionally, fraud. I became a sceptic. She is a Fellow of the
Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (formerly CSICOP) and in 1991, was awarded the CSICOP Distinguished Skeptic Award. In an article in
The Observer on
sleep paralysis Barbara Rowland wrote that Blackmore, "carried out a large study between 1996 and 1999 of 'paranormal' experiences, most of which clearly fell within the definition of sleep paralysis." workshop in 2013 Blackmore has done research on
memes (which she wrote about in her popular book
The Meme Machine) and
evolutionary theory. Her book
Consciousness: An Introduction (2004), is a textbook that broadly covers the field of
consciousness studies. She was on the editorial board for the
Journal of Memetics (an
electronic journal) from 1997 to 2001, and has been a consulting editor of the
Skeptical Inquirer since 1998. She acted as one of the
psychologists who was featured on the British version of the television show
Big Brother, speaking about the psychological state of the contestants. She is a Patron of
Humanists UK. Blackmore debated
Christian apologist Alister McGrath in 2007, on the
existence of God. In 2018 she debated
Jordan Peterson on whether God is needed to make sense of life. In 2017, Blackmore appeared at the 17th
European Skeptics Congress (ESC) in Old Town Wrocław, Poland. This congress was organised by the
Klub Sceptyków Polskich (Polish Skeptics Club) and
Český klub skeptiků Sisyfos (Czech Skeptic's Club). At the congress she joined
Scott Lilienfeld, Zbyněk Vybíral and
Tomasz Witkowski on a panel on skeptical psychology which was chaired by Michael Heap. ==Memetics and religious culture==