Michael Krieger

What happens when a psychiatrist, trained to view mind and matter through the lens of materialism, begins to experience events that defy that worldview? In this presentation, Dr. Michael Krieger traces his evolution from skeptic to seeker — a journey catalyzed by spontaneous psychic phenomena, precognitive dreams, synchronistic encounters, and verifiable after-death communications. Drawing from over three decades in clinical psychiatry and psychoanalysis, Dr. Krieger reflects on how these anomalous experiences transformed not only his understanding of consciousness but also his clinical practice. He explores the convergence of quantum theories of mind, psychoanalytic “play space,” and direct experiential evidence that suggests consciousness transcends the brain. This deeply personal yet rigorously self-examined narrative invites a broader dialogue between science and spirituality, skepticism and wonder. Ultimately, the presentation proposes that psychiatry—and by extension, medicine—may be most complete when it allows for mystery, humility, and the possibility that consciousness is fundamental, not emergent.

From Materialism to Mysticism: A Psychiatrist's Psychic Odyssey

Born and raised in New Jersey, Dr. Krieger has a BA from Rutgers College, where he majored in physics and psychology. He then earned his MD at The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences. He completed his internship in internal medicine at the George Washington University Hospital and psychiatry residency at the Boston University Medical Center. He is also a graduate and academic member of the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute.

Board Certified in General Adult, Addictions, and Geriatric Psychiatry, Dr. Krieger served for 29 years as staff psychiatrist at the outpatient mental health clinic of the VA Hospital in Bedford, Massachusetts. There, he taught personality disorders to Boston University medial students, served as medical staff president, chaired the Ethics Advisory Committee, and gave grand rounds on Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.

Since his retirement from the VA in 2021, he has continued to maintain his solo private practice from his home in Bedford, Massachusetts, where he resides with his wife and 2 children.

When not at work, he is a competitive tennis player. He also enjoys the piano and studying chess.

In 2016, Dr. Krieger had an anomalous experience known as “spontaneous mediumship”, which challenged his physicalist worldview and prompted his interest in consciousness, altered states, parapsychology, and ontological shock and set him on a new path.

In 2023, Dr. Krieger wrote an account of his spontaneous mediumship for a book entitled “The Playful Universe” that was published by the Scientific and Medical Network and the Academy for the Advancement of Postmaterialist Science. He has subsequently given presentations on his journey “From Materialism to Mysticism: A Psychiatrist’s Psychic Odyssey” for the Scientific and Medical Network in 2025 and “From Couch to Cosmos: A Psychiatrist’s Leap Beyond Materialism” at the second annual A.C.O.R.N. Symposium in Richmond, Virginia in February of 2026.

Currently, Dr. Krieger is writing a book entitled “Ghost Stories and Other Tales of Nonfiction: The Memoirs of a Small Medium at Large”, which documents his anomalous experiences, the ontological shock that ensued from them, and his attempt to process these experiences along his journey from closed-minded skeptic to open-minded experiencer.