THE CONSCIOUS UNIVERSE…
THE SCIENTIFIC TRUTH OF PSYCHIC PHENOMENA
DEAN RADIN Ph.D-AUTHOR
*’Sweeps’ NOTE: Dean Radin is also a graduate of MIT/Enjoy
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Excerpt from Chapter One:
In science, the acceptance of new ideas follows a predictable, four-stage sequence. In Stage 1, skeptics confidently proclaim that the idea is impossible because it violates the Laws of Science. This stage can last from years to centuries, depending on how much the idea challenges conventional wisdom. In Stage 2, skeptics reluctantly concede that the idea is possible, but it is not very interesting and the claimed effects are extremely weak. Stage 3 begins when the mainstream realizes that the idea is not only important, but its effects are much stronger and more pervasive than previously imagined. Stage 4 is achieved when the same critics who used to disavow any interest in the idea begin to proclaim that they thought of it first. Eventually, no one remembers that the idea was once considered a dangerous heresy.
The idea discussed in this book is in the midst of the most important and the most difficult of the four transitions – from Stage 1 into Stage 2. While the idea itself is ancient, it has taken more than a century to conclusively demonstrate it in accordance with rigorous, scientific standards. This demonstration has accelerated Stage 2 acceptance, and Stage 3 can already be glimpsed on the horizon.
The idea is that those compelling, perplexing and sometimes profound human experiences known as "psychic phenomena" are real.
This will come as no surprise to most of the world’s population, because the majority already believes in psychic phenomena. But over the past few years, something new has propelled us beyond old debates over personal beliefs. The reality of psychic phenomena is now no longer based solely upon faith, or wishful thinking, or absorbing anecdotes. It is not even based upon the results of a few scientific experiments. Instead, we know that these phenomena exist because of new ways of evaluating massive amounts of scientific evidence collected over a century by scores of researchers.
Psychic, or "psi" phenomena fall into two general categories. The first is perception of objects or events beyond the range of the ordinary senses. The second is mentally causing action at a distance. In both categories, it seems that intention, the mind’s will, can do things that – according to prevailing scientific theories – it isn’t supposed to be able to do. We wish to know what is happening to loved ones, and somehow, sometimes, that information is available even over large distances. We wish to speed the recovery of a loved one’s illness, and somehow they get better quicker, even at a distance. Mind willing, many interesting things appear to be possible.
Understanding such experiences requires an expanded view of human consciousness. Is the mind merely a mechanistic, information-processing bundle of neurons? Is it a "computer made of meat" as some cognitive scientists and neuroscientists believe? Or is it something more? The evidence suggests that while many aspects of mental functioning are undoubtedly related to brain structure and electrochemical activity, there is also something else happening, something very interesting.
This is for real?
When discussing the reality of psi phenomena, especially from the scientific perspective, one question always hovers in the background: You mean this is for real? In the midst of all the nonsense and excessive silliness proclaimed in the name of psychic phenomena, the misinformed use of the term parapsychology by self-proclaimed "paranormal investigators," the perennial laughing stock of magicians and conjurers … this is for real?
The short answer is, Yes.
A more elaborate answer is, psi has been shown to exist in thousands of experiments. There are disagreements over to how to interpret the evidence, but the fact is that virtually all scientists who have studied the evidence, including the hard-nosed skeptics, now agree that there is something interesting going on that merits serious scientific attention.
REVIEWERS COMMENTS:
This is the best survey of real evidence for the existence of psychic phenomena ever compiled. Clear, comprehensive, engaging, and convincing, it provides hard facts, not hazy opinions. It is a bastion of substance in a sea of credulous psi publications that separates the real science of parapsychology from the morass of channelers, telephone hot-line psychics, side-show telepathics and metaphysical healers that most of the population associates with psychic phenomena, and who have unfairly caused parapsychologists to become pariahs to their colleagues in the more conventional sciences.
*Michael Epstein, Ph.D., Research Chemist, National Institute for Standards and Technologies, and former President, National Capitol Area Skeptics, reviewed in Journal of Scientific Exploration
The materialist worldview predicts that telepathy, psychokinesis and clairvoyance are impossible. Using modern statistical methods Dean Radin examines half a century of mind-matter research and concludes that these 'impossible' phenomena certainly exist--on the basis of robust, reliable, and repeatable evidence. More than just another science book, The Conscious Universe is a revolutionary act!
Nick Herbert, Ph.D., physicist, author of Elemental Mind, Quantum Reality, and Faster Than Light.
Radin makes the most powerful case for the reality of parapsychological phenomena that I have yet encountered. He shows how recent research gives overwhelming evidence for the existence of forms of influence and communication at present unexplained. He writes clearly, powerfully and persuasively, and this book shows that we are at a turning point in our scientific understanding of our minds and of nature.
Rupert Sheldrake, Ph.D., biologist, author of A New Science of Life and Seven Experiments That Could Change the World.
*'Sweeps' NOTE: