[1] It attempts to bridge contemporary cognitive psychology and mainstream neuroscience with "rogue phenomena", which the authors argue exist in near-death experiences, psychophysiological influence, automatism, memory, genius, and mystical states.

Kelly argues that modern psychology has continued, contrary to the advice by Myers and James, to ignore phenomena from psychical research and religious experience simply because they don't fit into the prevalent views of mind.

Sommer argued that "the book has the potential to serve as an invaluable guide for psychologists and other scholars who are aware of the increasing crisis and lack of orientation within modern academic psychology.

"[7] The critics, in their rejoinder, found an irony in Kelly's justification for the shortcomings that they perceived in the historical background of the work considering the authors' inclusion of a CD-ROM copy of the Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death by F.W.H.

He wrote that the authors of Irreducible Mind took reports of paranormal phenomena and wild claims at face value, utilized "quantum babble", and formed an ignorant "soul of the gaps" argument.

[9] Alexander Moreira-Almeida, reviewing the book in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, praised the authors "for their courage and scholarship in dealing with such a controversial topic" and presenting thought-provoking ideas for the mind-body problem while stating that a wider transcultural scope and views by experts in philosophy of science would have been also useful.