Chris Carter on parapsychology and the skeptics

I'm halfway through Chris Carter's Parapsychology and the Skeptics, and I'm getting a lot out of it. His discussion of the ganzfeld experiments and the resultant controversy is the clearest I've read. By the time he arrives at his conclusion - "Hyman and the other skeptics have lost the ganzfeld debate" - few readers will disagree.

His treatment of Susan Blackmore's "many years" of experiments - which turn out to be only two years of hastily prepared experiments conducted as part of her PhD thesis - is equally devastating.

For some unaccountable reason, Amazon isn't offering this book anymore, and Barnesandnoble.com is out of stock. The publisher sells it, though. Chris Carter's Web site is here.

Comments

[Filip]

yeah I was looking for the book cause amazon indeed doesn't have it in stock.
Looking forward to read it

[Tony M]

I ordered it on Amazon and got an email today saying it will be unavailable until March. I assume they have sold out the edition? See the power of a plug on Michael Prescott's Blog!

[Kevin]

Michael's right about the availability through the publisher, as I just ordered a copy minutes ago. Follow the link he provides. Hope you're registered with PayPal. Curious that Amazon so grossly understocked the book, but that does underscore the power of blogs. Thanks to Michael for the heads-up.

[Michael Prescott]

Even when Amazon was selling it, it took them 4-6 weeks to ship it, so I suspect that they didn't have any in stock and were ordering them from the publisher as needed. I don't know why they would do this. It does serve to introduce Chris Carter to the wonderful world of book publishing, where your fate is entirely in the hands of distributors and retailers who, in most cases, really don't care if your book sells or not.

[drew hempel]

I got an email reply from Brian Josephson stating he did not know enough about music to comment on my music model explaining paranormal phenomenon. This is similar to the debate Josephson had with Humphreys and Randi, discussed in Carter's introduction.

Josephson does have an essay on music as being fundamental in understanding quantum biology and paranormal phenomenon. But what he stated is true. I've found the same problem for other scientists who end up trying to use music in their analysis: Neuropsychologist William H. Calvin; Quantum geometry mathematician Alain Connes; Rupert Sheldrake.

The problem is a philosophical issue about the connection between music, logic and math. Math professor Ian Stewart wanted my analysis published in the most read math journal -- American Mathemathical Association -- but he asked me to add my personal comments. I started tying in the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle with harmonic oscillators of the body.

http://mothershiplanding.blogspot.com. -- the "Secret of the Greek Miracle", chapter four, for details on how music explains paranormal phenomenon.

[Leo]

Hi Michael I found this article saying that John Eccles had strong religious views and that is was bias http://www.dana.org/news/cerebrum/detail.aspx?id=1248

[Larry Boy]

Drew, can you please elaborate? Why is Josephsons comments about music similiar to the debate he had with Randi and Humpreys?

[Larry Boy]

Leo said: "I found this article saying John Eccles had strong religious views and that is was bias"

Yes he was religious. Carl Sagan was an atheist. Everybody has metaphysical assumptions. What's your point?
The article you linked to is severely biased. Just listen to this:

"As a rule, scientists try to keep their experimental work separate from whatever religious beliefs they hold."

Well, they may be trying, but they certainly don't succeed in doing that very well. (Okay, materialism may not be a religion, but it's a mateaphysics, and as such it definitely influences mainstream opinion.)

The article goes on to claim:

"Eccles was a great scientist, but his most fundamental views of the world were rooted in faith, and, as a consequence, he ignored discoveries in neuroscience that challenged dualism."

Well what the author mentions is basically evidence that shows that brain and consciousness is *correlated*, but he ignores or is not aware of the alternative interpretation that brain is filter or receiver. Just look at this ridiculous statement:

"Taken together, these discoveries, accumulating over several decades, constituted virtually inescapable evidence that consciousness is an intrinsic function of the brain and inseparable from it."

And how's this for bias? "We know that Eccles believed in psychokinesis and, as a practicing Roman Catholic, certainly believed in mystery and miracles."

[Tim]

I just ran into this same kind of dismissive thinking in an otherwise excellent interview with Steven Pinker and Rebecca Goldstein on Salon. They seem to be very open to the idea that the mind could be independent of the brain and that science does not hold all the answers to subjective experience. Then Pinker, who has a truly irritating tendency to make rather arrogant blanket statements of certitude, dismisses William James and Mrs. Piper as James' wishful thinking to believe his dead child still existing in some way. As if that invalidates the vast amount of rigorous, skeptical documentation of Piper's mediumship by James and other investigators.

This is the same kind of dismissal. Believing in PK becomes shorthand for "He was a credulous twirp who we should pity," because of course it can't be true. This just shows the strength of bias. There are clearly predisposed ways of seeing the world that are virtually impossible to overcome. Some people see the Piper evidence and the Ganzfeld experiments and say, "Well, that proves it. Psi and survival are real." Others see the same material and say, "Not enough." For many, no evidence short of the ghost of their mother making them Thanksgiving dinner will suffice. That's why so few skeptics become pro-paranormal. It costs too much in terms of personal worldview.

[Tim]

By the way, I'm reading Steven Braude's "The Gold Leaf Lady." Very enlightening as to how much good field and observational evidence there is for PK, and why anecdotal and observational evidence should not be dismissed as easily as the pseudoskeptics would like.

[Tony M]

This is not really the right place to post this, but since the appropriate post has been closed for comments, I’ll post it here…

I’m reading Gary Taubes Good Calories, Bad Calories. I’m finding it fascinating on several levels. First and foremost, I buy the argument about the consequences of refined carbohydrates and the weakness of the anti-dietary fat analysis. But that’s a discussion for another time.

What is most appropriate for discussion here is the analysis of the failure of science that lead to the massive public health experiment embodied in the anti-fat position. It is a story of selective data mining, dismissal of contrary analysis and opinion, a shouting down of anyone questioning the conclusions. It’s really astonishing, with proponents all but admitting that their studies didn’t confirm their expectations – yet deciding that there expectations MUST be right anyway. Ultimately, some researchers suppress their own doubts because they feel as if they are letting their side down in some on going war for the greater good.

The parallels are obvious with paranormal research and even the Authorship Controversy.

[Alex]

"That's why so few skeptics become pro-paranormal. It costs too much in terms of personal worldview."

True, but you also have to realize that scientists like Pinker have an economic stake in this worldview. Pop culture has embraced a pro-scientism/reductionist agenda and the publication industry simply tempts these scientists to write these pop science trade books. The general public is rather naive about how the contemporary scientific establishment actually works so the average person ends up believing that the problem is almost solved and the present paradigm is correct. People like Pinker, Dawkins, Dennett, etc. make tons of money as a result of the general public's gullibility and desire for simplifying narratives.

[drew hempel]

Well my blogbook IS the elaboration. You can google my name or read my three articles on http://mind-energy.net -- the latest on Yan Xin, who states that paranormal abilities are from: "synchronous resonance." My masters thesis, "epicenters of justice," proved that nonwestern resonance, i.e. yin and yang, are the same as Pythagorean ratios 2:3 and 3:4 which rely on asymmetric complimentary opposites.

In contrast Western science exclusively relies on symmetrical math, as per Professor Ian Stewart's new book: "Why Beauty is Truth: A history of symmetry" (2007). Stewart and I corresponded about this very issue which may have spurred his book topic!!

Math professor Joe Mazur wanted chapter four of my blogbook: "secrets of the Greek Freemasonic Miracle" published in the most widely read math journal, for the AMA, but then he asked me to add my personal comments to my research! Oops!

Luckily quantum physicist Henry C. Stapp's latest book on parapsychology is based on the same logical paradox as the music model (only I provide a solution while he details the problem). As you can read online Stapp has an article on his site stating that the crux of the issue is:

Number versus Order or specifically the transfer of asymmetric matrices in the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle back into logarithmic-based symmetric geometry.

[drew hempel]

Sorry it's Henry P. Stapp -- "The Mindful Universe" (2007) http://www.amazon.com/dp/3540724133?tag=perssite05-20&camp=14573&creative=327641&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=3540724133&adid=0BZH548BY7KD5T4ZEJ64&

[drew hempel]

I realize that my blogbook is quite unreadable but this is a discovery that is still crystallizing. Math professor Joe Mazur stated it's "very important" information.

Now let me clarify:

Babylonian math did not use zero but used a continued proportion for music -- the Tetrachord from the 60-base number system.

6:8::9:12 -- we can see how this is just 3:4 with two and three as the multiplier while 6:9 and 8:12 are 3:4 -- so this is the Tetrad of Pythagoras or China -- 2:3 is Yang and 3:4 is Yin -- converted into logarithmic or "divide and average" analysis in Babylon.

Babylon did not use zero and therefore had not phonetic cipher to convert letters into equalling infinity (with the I-thought as One). This was the addition of Brahmin math to the Greek Freemasonic Miracle.

How so? 5:4 is the Major Third harmonic but it's also the cube root of two.

Archytas, the buddy of Plato, extended the octave 1:2 into 1:4 so that he could convert arithmetic mean (divide and average) into geometric mean (magnitude) as an INFINITE symbol.

Previously the Brahmins had only approximated the square root of two -- probably because they didn't use logarithmic algebra as extensively as the Babylonians, relying more on geometry (like Egypt).

So the Tetrad of Pythagoras was supposedly extended from 1:2:3:4 into 4:5 which had to be converted into 5:4 for a ratio beyond the octave (which is either 1:2 or 2 with the interval of the 11th as the "vanishing mediator" of Orthodox Pythagorean harmonics) and then applied for Archytas' geometric mean equation (discussed further in my blogbook -- http://mothershiplanding.blogspot.com.

chapter 4.

Now 9:8 cubed is the square root of two (approximated) but through geometric mean logic -- it's a precise conversion of "contained infinity."

Another way to think of this is that the octave was made into a smaller frequency from 1:2 to 1:4 so that the frequency of 4:5 could be converted to amplitude of 5:4 as the cube root of two. This is from the Golden Ratio whereby 5:8 of the Fibonacci continued proportions was converted into 8:5 as a geometric mean because 5:8 is the minor sixth as the complimentary opposite of the major third 4:5.

In fact, as I emphasized 1:2:3:4 are not logarithmic measurements but asymmetric resonance of male and female complimentary opposites with infinity as FORMLESS AWARENESS -- not to be contained through a visual or material measurement.

This is also the inference of the I-thought -- as taught in Brahmin jnana logic of Advaita Vedanta or vichara.

So science is based on the repressed emotions (desire as music ratios) projected as logarithmic power (amplitude converted into magnitude) but what is lost is logical truth of the Logos.

Technology is the right-hand projection of the repressed emotions through left-brain mathematics and syntax -- which, as it increases in logarithmic power, causes a further structural intensity of ecological destruction.

This is why conspiracy literally means "spiral unity" as F.W. Schelling understood.

[drwe hempel]

I'm glad to see a learning curve on this blog post! haha.

Yes serotonin can cross the blood-brain barrier IF it is ionized -- as I discovered from reading "The Tangled Wing" by a Harvard physiologist who was the mentor to Stanford's Robert Sapolsky, with whom I've corresponded.

Sapolsky, btw, is developing the next line of psychotropics -- utilizing the PHA axis -- Pituitary-Hypothalamus-Adrenal Axis (sometimes the order is switched around and the Pineal is thrown in for good measure).

Amazingly my research is fuelled by finding out what the hell I've discovered through full-lotus yoga, the most intense training being in 2000, while taking classes from qigong master Chunyi Lin.

Chunyi Lin teaches Mayo Clinic doctors who refer patients to Chunyi Lin since he heals late-term cancer, paralysis, deafness, and a rare lung disease that the Mayo Clinic corroborated with x-rays. http://springforestqigong.com.

Now then what causes the serotonin to be ionized -- the ultrasound -- which, contrary to popular belief -- can be heard by humans -- but, as the biophysics book "Magic of the Senses" by V. Droscher, details, ONLY WITHIN THE HEAD.

Hence the "inner ear" method of listening to the source of the I-thought.

No belief is necessary, just repeat I-I-I as an experiment of logical inquiry. In deep sleep there's no sense of spacetime nor of the body -- yet we awake the same person. Logically there must be subjective consciousness that is maintained beyond the sense of spacetime or the physical body.

When we awake the first thought is the I-thought. Dan Zahavi has a book: Self and Alterity. Only the I-thought has no signifier and all other thoughts and images and perceptions are based on this logical sense of I -- even when we dream.

So plunge into the mind to find out who is the "I" that exists beyond deep dreamless sleep.

Or you can wait for Dr. Roldolfo's microchip, detailed in his neuroscience book "I of the Vortex." Yes, just like the Jnanas, you too can have your heart-mind controlled so that your brain can be used as a quantum computer -- without you having any awareness of it (permanent deep sleep state).

The concept of I is based on the verb of "to be" which is not found in many languages! In fact the definition of God as "I Am that I Am" refers to the 4 states of reality.

I is the waking state while AM is AUM or OHM, refering to the dream and deep sleep state.

The 4th state is called Turiya and is represented by "that" because when formless awareness is resonated that it reflects back into the other three states:

I Am that I Am.

OK where's my spinach!

"that" is neither an image nor a word yet it creates all energy and matter and spacetime. It's pure consciousness or formless awareness.

So light goes into formless awareness. Ionization is a process not dependent on any one chemical -- DMT or Salvia or allicin or magnesium as a photoreceptor. All these things help -- peat moss is the original mercury. When birds sing in the morning the true purpose is that their song is mainly composed of ultrasound. The ultrasound heats up and ionizes the plants' stomata or cellular walls. The stomata are then able to take in nutrients from the morning dew, created by the sun-moon-earth dynamics.

That's alchemy my friends. There's harmonics of the body -- the mind itself is weak so will power comes from the kidney energy which transduces the sex hormones into neurochemicals -- this works via the vagus nerve.

Amazingly the trick for males (since most of Nature is female, and the male is unnecessary) is to learn how to have a female orgasm.

Recent research on female parapalgeics discovered that climax and orgasm is still achieved -- through the vagus nerve connection with the reproductive organs. This vagus nerve goes through the stomach, up the right side of the head, just behind the ear, and then into the right side of the brain.

Or you can repeat I-I-I which activates the left brain vagus nerve and then goes straight to the heart.

People can see my right-brain vagus nerve pulsates as I shoot out "yang" energy through the pineal gland -- through the forehead and the eyes. As the "yang" energy shoots into yin energy around me then there is space in my brain so the yin energy of the lower half of my body is sucked up into the brain, causing an INTERNAL orgasm.

This is how a person can sit in full-lotus. Now it's great to do external healing but for the natural resonance to feedback into the body the trick is to point the forehead toward the palms which are held in front of the stomach.

So the yang energy of the forehead shoots down to the yin energy of the palms, (you just lower your chin a bit and hold your palms at an angle a bit) then the yang energy reflects off the palms back into the yin energy of the body.

This is what I meant when I stated that the full-lotus is the original Klein Bottle as the "Yan Xin Secret" since this forehead-palms-stomach free energy feedback is a very ancient Tantra practice, also found in India.

As the energy builds up then it's focused in the central channel of the body -- the original renal system that goes all the way back to bioluminescent deep ocean worms!!

When this happens then the brain fills with light and the dead spirits or dissonant electrochemicals that had previously been feeding off your body are now exorcised -- transformed into harmonized light, as sent out of the white hole in your brain.

An Oxford Biology, JWS Pringle, argued that since memory is a function of time it's not stored in the brain but rather as a holographic wave-function. Because of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle the location of the information is inversely proportional to the momentum of the information.

So, ironically, to increase the powers of paranormal reality a person has to tune themselves to a deeper level of formless awareness -- which is contrary to living a life based on intentional language and technology.

As Kurt Godel states in his interview with Rudy Rucker, in Rucker's book "Infinity and the Mind" --

TIME TRAVEL IS POSSIBLE BECAUSE THE PERSON WOULD NOT DESIRE TO CHANGE THEIR FUTURE.

This is because the natural resonance process is based on transforming the electrochemicals which are the emotions of the body -- so anger is liver, sadness is lungs, worry is pancreas, overexcitement is heart, fear is kidney.

This are all transformed and harmonized. Of course nutrition makes a huge difference -- so bananas and figs and fish all have high levels of serotonin.

Fasting is the quickest approach but requires a strong mind. Chemistry professor Rustom Roy held a "bigu" conference about Yan Xin. The results are published in peer-reviewed, Western journals. People have gone months without losing any weight -- yet eat no food.

You can even go without water and sleep. I once went 8 to 9 days on only a half glass of water, needing only 5 hours of sleep a night. At the end I healed my mom of a very strong case of smoker's legs -- she no longer needs surgical stockings, nor has to keep her legs elevated, nor has to sit after an hour of standing. Strong electromagnetic fields not only shot out of my hands but also the third eye.

Telepathy is just the direct conversion of electromagnetic fields from the brains of other people back into the 3rd Eye.

The Tangled Wing: Biological Constraints on the Human Spirit by Melvin Konner (Paperback - Feb 1, 2003)