Barry L Beyerstein (May 19, 1947 – June 25, 2007) was a scientific skeptic and professor of psychology at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia.

According to long-time friend James Alcock, Beyerstein once addressed the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health during discussions leading up to the passage of the Controlled Substances Act".

[1] Raised on magazines Fate and Popular Science as well as many paranormal TV shows, Beyerstein felt that this "enchantment... inclined me toward an eventual career in the study of consciousness".

Intrigued throughout high school with séances, handwriting analysis, hypnosis and other paranormal beliefs, Beyerstein with the help of his friends, conducted many experiments.

In 1968, Beyerstein moved to the San Francisco area to attend UC Berkeley, where "party chit-chat could accept a guest's description of his latest out-of-body experience or the need to have her chakras realigned as casually as one might receive the morning's weather forecast.

I frequently found myself the odd man out... (they thought) I was a nice guy, but hopelessly 'linear' and 'left-brained', despite my de rigueur shoulder-length hair, tie-dye T-shirt, bell bottoms and cowboy boots.

The physical-brain viewpoint, "is supported by evolution, by the development of the individual human being, by pharmacological experiments, and by research on the effects of accidents affecting the brain.

I think the work that they do in the skeptical arena is often underappreciated in academic circles because many specialists fail to grasp the potential consequences of the strong antirational and antisciencific trends in modern society.

"Near death experiences are generated by brain function and they don't prove there is an afterlife... these are complex hallucinations that are taking place in the theater of one's own mind.

"[10] In an article for Skeptical Inquirer magazine, titled "Why Bogus Therapies Seem to Work", Beyerstein outlined ten errors and biases that can lead people to incorrectly perceive medical benefits from ineffective treatments.

Here Beyerstein lays out his views on drug advertising, political lobbying, patent creep, alternative medicine, and research being funded by pharmaceutical companies at many universities worldwide which have the cumulative effect of causing suffering for the poor and elderly while underserving the common and treatable ailments of the citizens of third world countries.

[18] Beyerstein was a critic of Scientology, writing for the International Journal of Mental Health: "The areas of science that enjoy the greatest prestige at any moment are the most tempting targets for appropriation by pseudoscientists.

Capitalizing on dramatic progress in the neurosciences, the merchants of personal success were quick to commandeer neurological jargon to provide a patina of authority.

"[19] [O]n balance, psychotherapies founded on ill-conceived assumptions may still prove beneficial if they furnish needed reassurance in an atmosphere where clients can mull over solutions to their dissatisfactions about life.

... All told, these victims could have been helped much more ethically, effectively and cheaply by scientifically trained counselors who would target specific, tractable problems in their lives.

In several interviews Loxton talked about attending a science fiction conference in British Columbia in 1991 and hearing Beyerstein speak on behalf of the BC Skeptics Society.

He was a do-it-yourself kind of man; he and his wife Suzi built their home from the ground up together, and when he accidentally cut off the tip of his finger, "he sewed it back on.