Freud’s closed system model and closed-system neurobiological models of psyche are still lingering to cognitive sciences. There has been constant intellectual battle between the adherents of reductionist and non-reductionist ideologies. In the 20th century the brain was bestowed more importance than the mind. From the perspectives of reductionists, consciousness is nothing more than a causally ineffectual by-product of the grinding of our neural machinery and nobody is in charge of such brain activities. Reductionists surmise that humans are electrical animals with a transient existence. Neuroscientists have been criticised for diminishing the mind to a scientific nullity making consciousness to a subjective illusion. A reductionist, mechanistic and materialistic model of the mind is wholly inadequate to explain the whole subjective human experience. Mystical experiences and findings of survival research have started questioning reductionist philosophies and suggest the view that mind is irreducible. Quantum consciousness may be a bridge between brain and higher consciousness-there may be consciousness upon consciousness. We may require a new model of brain-mind-consciousness complex and a multipart model could accommodate the varied subjective experiences of humans. Theories of mind have been like fashions in architecture, a new fashion to be replaced by an old one with modifications. Human evolution might be taking place in two parallel biological and spiritual streams. The material body is ultimately composed of star dust, but blended with it is the nonmaterial Divine dust, and this paper is an attempt to verify whether “the whole is greater than the sum of the parts”.

discarnate survival, mysticism, reductionism, non-reductionism, multipart model