Michael Prescott's Blog

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s … super-psi!

Most people who look at mediumship and related phenomena in depth and with an open mind eventually reach the conclusion that non-paranormal explanations simply don’t cover all the evidence. Fraud and mistaken observation do account for some of the cases, but not for the strongest ones. 

 Nevertheless, the hypothesis of survival after death is not the only one that has been put forward to explain the data. A rival hypothesis is that of so-called “super-psi,” the idea that the medium’s unconscious mind is able to extract information from a variety of sources, integrate it into a consistent whole, and present it in the guise of the appropriate discarnate personality. The idea has been dubbed super-psi because, while relatively straightforward instances of telepathy and clairvoyance have been demonstrated repeatedly in the laboratory, nothing so elaborate and far-reaching has been proven to exist. 

If the super-psi hypothesis is correct, then the unconscious minds of at least certain gifted individuals have extraordinary capabilities; and there is probably no reason to think that the same capabilities are not latent or dormant in the rest of us. Our unconscious, then, would have the ability (actually or potentially) to reach at will into other minds, regardless of how widely scattered they might be, and even if the minds in question belong to total strangers, people of whose existence we were and are consciously unaware. Moreover, our unconscious would have the ability to perceive, through clairvoyance, information unknown to any living person, peeking into hidden places without restriction and virtually instantaneously, on demand. It has even been hypothesized that the unconscious could peer back in time—retrocognition—or gaze into the future—precognition—in order to obtain additional information. And all of this extraordinary power would be deployed in the service of a charade–the illusion of communication with a specific deceased personality that has, in reality, ceased to exist. Even the medium herself would have not the slightest idea that her unconscious mind was carrying on this amazing deception on a colossal scale. 

What would be the motivation of the unconscious to undertake such a feat? It has been argued that the natural, all-too-human fear of death is so deep-seated that the unconscious will go to any lengths to suppress it, even to the extent of conducting a remarkably elaborate ruse. 

Now, if all this is true, then the unconscious mind is an almost infinitely greater thing than the conscious mind. Unlike the conscious mind, the unconscious would not be bound by material limits and would be able to interact with all other unconscious minds, as well as with the material world, deriving nuggets of information from a vast array of sources, past, present, and future. In effect, all the unconscious minds of the living would function very much like one giant unconscious that is constantly interacting with itself—a global mind spanning the species, which our ordinary waking minds would remain completely unaware of. 

Yet, if this were the case, it’s hard to understand why the deception would continue, or would ever have been necessary in the first place. Yes, apparent conversations with the deceased may provide some comfort and allay the fear of death—but wouldn’t it be far more comforting, persuasive, and useful for the unconscious simply to reveal the full range of its powers? Not only would this be of immense practical value in our earthly life, assisting us with all sorts ofd mundane difficulties and vastly enhancing our survival chances, but it would seem to hold out a reasonable probability of some kind of afterlife. As has often been observed, if the mind has such phenomenal power and scope, and is not subject to material constraints, then there seems to be no good reason why it could not survive the death of the body. The nearly limitless potential of the unconscious hypothesized by the super-psi idea—a mind that transcends time and space—ought to be far more reassuring and empowering than merely exchanging reminiscences, often of a trivial nature, with the shades of our departed loved ones. 

Why, then, would this global mind of ours be so secretive and duplicitous? Why would it use its enormous powers to dupe us into believing a childish lie? Why would it keep our own potential concealed from us, babying us with fantasies when the truth is so much greater?

Frankly, I just don’t see it. To me, the super-psi theory is fatally flawed. 

But if we accept the best mediumistic evidence and reject super-psi, we seem to be left with postmortem survival as the only alternative. At least, I can’t think of another option. Survival appears to be the only explanation that accounts for all the known facts; and it has the additional advantages of being the most parsimonious theory and the one that mediums themselves—who after all might be expected to have some idea of what they are doing—are most prone to believe. 

Psi at the beach

Atlantic University asked me to pass along news of an upcoming event, the Parapsychology and Consciousness Conference, to be held in Virginia Beach, Virginia, on October 14 through 16. 

Speakers include Dean Radin, author of Entangled Minds; Julie Beischel, director of the Windbridge Institute; Edwin May, physicist and parapsychologist; and Roger Nelson, director of the Global Consciousness Project. There are many other scheduled speakers, as well.

More information can be found on Atlantic U's website. Check it out. 

Turning the tables

In an email, frequent commenter Roger Knights mentioned several areas in which psi has arguably been shown to be of pratical benefit (archaeology, police work, investment, finding oil deposits). Then he added: 

Another way to help prove psi would be to issue Anti-Randi Prizes to skeptics who could match the performance of Joe McMoneagle, who annually (roughly) is videoed by Japanese TV correctly guessing the location of people who've been sent to random spots around NYC. Or who could match the performance of other psychic guessers in different challenges, in venues under the control of a team containing representatives of both sides, plus a couple of neutrals acceptable to both sides.

That's kind of a neat idea, isn't it?

Could a mentalist match the performance of a medium tested by Gary Schwartz or Julie Beischel under tightly controlled conditions? According to Schwartz, mentalists have turned down the opportunity to be tested in his lab, and one of them explicitly said he could not perform his act if restricted by Schwartz's protocols. 

Could a skeptic, relying on general knowledge and lucky guesses, have the same success in guiding archaeological digs as Stephan A. Schwartz has had with his team of psychics? 

The TV show The Mentalist depicts a fake psychic who solves crimes. Could a real-life mentalist be as helpful to a police investigation as psychic Noreen Renier, who has assisted on many cases and has been endorsed by the nation's leading expert in homicide investigation, Vernon Geberth?

The possibilities are endless. This could be a way to turn the tables on skeptics who are always using Randi's challenge (even with all its problems) as their trump card. 

Calling all sitters!

Julie Beischel of the Windbridge Institute asked me to pass along this information about an upcoming study. Maybe some of you will be able to volunteer!

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Are you interested in receiving a psychic reading as a volunteer in a scientific research study?

The Windbridge Institute ( www.windbridge.org) is currently seeking volunteers to act as psychic research reading recipients (PRRRs or "P triple Rs") who will receive and score psychic readings about themselves.  PRRRs must be 18 years or older, reside in the US, and have NOT experienced the death of any family members, romantic interests, or close friends during their lives.  Individuals who have not lost anyone close to them are being specifically recruited in order to attempt to prevent deceased "drop-ins" during psychic readings for living participants.

Psychics are not being recruited for this study.

For more information and to complete an online pre-screening questionnaire, please visit: www.windbridge.org/prrr.html

Book review: Debating Psychic Experience

Not long ago, the publisher of the new book Debating Psychic Experience kindly sent me a review copy. I found the book very interesting, but also so densely packed with arguments and counter-arguments that a brief review would not do it justice. For that reason, in this post I'm largely focusing on just one portion of the book: a lively and sometimes acrimonious exchange of views between Ray Hyman and Chris Carter. Even though I've narrowed the scope of this review, I still can't cover all the points made by each of these writers. What follows are only some of the highlights.

First, an overview. Debating Psychic Experience, published in 2010, is is a serious give-and-take between skeptics and parapsychologists (or those sympathetic to parapsychology) aimed at an academic audience. It is edited by Stanley Krippner and Harris L. Friedman. The contributors are Dean Radin, James E. Alcock, Ray Hyman, Christopher C. French, Michael Shermer, Chris Carter, Richard S. Wiseman, Stephan A. Schwartz, Damien Broderick, and Elizabeth Loftus. 

Ray Hyman contributed two essays to the book. The second one, titled "What's Wrong with Materialism?", is his rebuttal of Chris Carter's earlier chapter "Persistent Denial: A Century of Denying the Evidence" -- surely a title calculated to raise the hackles of any committed skeptic! 

Hyman's hackles are clearly up. He writes, 

Unfortunately, I have to conclude that Carter's chapter comes close to consisting of an ad hominem attack against critics of parapsychology. His emphasis is on the alleged worldview that compels the critics to go to any lengths -- including deliberate suppression of data. Indeed, there are, and there have been, vocal skeptics who have behaved in ways that might justify some of Carter's concerns. On the other hand it is a logical fallacy to dismiss a person's criticisms on the basis of their alleged motivations and mindsets. Worse, attributing motivations and worldviews to critics on the basis of flimsy gossip makes for misleading and irrelevant arguments.

He goes on to characterize Carter's essay as a "diatribe," and makes it clear that he feels personally maligned by it. 

Here I think Hyman, in his prickly defensiveness, simply misreads the entire thrust of Carter's argument. Carter is not saying that the skeptics of psi are wrong because they are materialists. He is saying that skeptics of psi are wrong because they have not come to grips with the evidence. Having made this point, he goes on (as a related, but separate, issue) to ponder the question of why intelligent, knowledgeable people would be resistant to the evidence. His hypothesis is that they find the evidence upsetting because it threatens their deeply held beliefs, which can be labeled "materialism."

And indeed, the publicly stated attitudes of some prominent skeptics, notably those associated with CSI (fomerly CSICOP), seem to substantiate this reading of the facts. CSI has been explicit in saying that any widespread acceptance of psi by the scientific community would undermine the foundations of science and threaten civilization with a descent into a new dark ages. In any case, Carter is not launching a crude ad hominem attack, as Hyman believes; he is merely trying to understand the motivations of people whose continuing obstinacy in regard to a growing body of evidence is, as Yul Brynner would say, "a puzzlement." 

Hyman also seems to misinterpret what Carter means by materialism. It is clear from the context that Carter is referring to the Newtonian worldview of a clockwork universe. It is this paradigm that, he says, has been exploded by developments in quantum physics and other fields. He is certainly correct; the Newtonian clockwork universe is passé. Yet, in objecting to the idea of psi, some critics often tacitly assume that the Newtonian world-picture remains intact. When they say that psi is impossible in terms of the laws of physics, they must mean Newtonian physics; they cannot mean quantum physics, since, as Carter points out, prominent quantum physicists have endorsed the possibility or even the reality of psi.

When Hyman argues for methodological naturalism (a term he does not use, but which is clearly meant), he is on reasonably firm ground; but when he conflates methodological naturalism with Newtonian physics, he has overreached. The two are by no means identical. Methodological naturalism is entirely consistent with quantum physics, the most thoroughly tested and empirically validated theory in the history of science. And when Hyman suggests that the only alternative to materialism is some "brand of supernaturalism," he is again overreaching; it is possible to reject Newtonianism without embracing the supernatural. Psi need not be supernatural, and few contemporary parapsychologists would say that it is. Psi is not consistent with Newtonian physics, but it may well be consistent with quantum physics; or to put it another way, psi may not be consistent with materialism, narrowly defined, but it may be consistent with naturalism, broadly defined.

In general, Hyman seems to adopt the weakest and most uncharitable reading of Carter's positions, possibly so he can mount a straw-man argument in response, or possibly because he simply cannot read criticism of his own position in a fair-minded way. Indeed, what struck me the most about Hyman's response to Carter's essay was how personally he took Carter's remarks. Even if he did feel personally slighted, it might have been a better debating strategy to conceal this reaction, which only makes him look petty and vain.

Perhaps the major point of contention between the two involves Hyman's work for a government committee that produced an official statement -- the National Research Council Report -- essentially denying any and all evidence for psi. The chairman of the committee, John Swets, told the press, "Perhaps our strongest conclusions are in the area of parapsychology. The committee finds no scientific justification from research conducted over a period of one hundred thirty years for the existence of parapsychological phenomena." Hyman chaired the subcommittee on parapsychology, and selected James Alcock to provide a second opinion. Both Hyman and Alcock were members of CSICOP at the time and were known for their criticisms of parapsychology. Incidentally, Alcock contributed two skeptical essays to Debating Psychic Experience, one of which is rather tellingly titled "Attributions about Impossible Things." 

With both Hyman and Alcock apparently convinced in advance that psi phenomena are "impossible things," the conclusion of the report was inevitable. Carter, in presenting the whole thing as little better than a put-up job, relies heavily on US Army Colonel John Alexander, who investigated many of these subjects himself as part of his military duties. In 1989 Alexander wrote: 

... the only person assigned to the committee who had had any previous familiarity with the parapsychological research literature was Ray Hyman -- who was known from the outset to have his mind already made up.... Thus, I questioned from the beginning the issues of "bias" and "objectivity" as they related to the committee's constitution. For it seems clear that [Dr. George] Lawrence, and then Hyman and James Alcock ... proceeded on an intentional path to discredit the work in parapsychology.... Throughout the parapsychology section of the EHP Report, the committee referred only to those published articles that supported its position and ignored material that did not. 

Clearly stung by Carter's attack on the committee's work, Hyman mounts a lengthy defense. He decries Carter's version of events as an "urban legend" and insists that the committee behaved responsibly. Some of his points are well taken, but on the whole Hyman makes too many questionable assertions to be really persuasive. For instance, he claims he selected Alcock simply because Alcock was well-versed in the subject matter, and for no ulterior motive. But clearly this is disingenuous; there were other people equally well-versed in these controversies who could have brought a more neutral or disinterested perspective to the investigation than Alcock, who has been vociferously and intransigently hostile to psi research for decades. Hyman obviously chose Alcock, at least in part, because he knew that Alcock would agree with his own preconceived conclusions.

Hyman also says he allowed parapsychologists to review his and Alcock's findings. This, he implies, ought to clear him of any charge of bias. But letting parapsychologists comment on the report after it was already finalized amounts to very little. As far as I know, no parapsychologists' comments were included in the official report. The only dissenting view that ever saw daylight belonged to Robert Rosenthal -- a psychologist, not a parapsychologist, who found himself impressed with the psi data. Carter observes that committee chairman John Swets actually took the extraordinary step of attempting to suppress Rosenthal's contribution to the report. Despite going into tedious detail on other aspects of the committee's work, Hyman does not even comment on this point. 

The exchange about the NRC Report dominates the debate between Carter and Hyman, but there are other issues, as well. In particular, Hyman has many criticisms of the ganzfeld and autoganzfeld experiments, which are generally viewed as the strongest laboratory evidence for psi. He claims that the "autoganzfeld experiments failed to replicate the original ganzfeld data base. In the original data base the average effect size was derived from studies that all used static targets. The autoganzfeld experiments used both static and dynamic (action video clips) targets. Only the dynamic targets produced a significant effect. The results on the static targets were consistent with chance and differed significantly from the results on the static targets in the original data base."

Carter responds that this version of events is nearly the opposite of the truth. He writes,

The original ganzfeld experiments used quasi-dynamic targets (ViewMaster "slide" reels) in addition to completely static targets. Studies using the ViewMaster reels produced significantly higher hit rates than did studies using single-image targets (50% versus 34%). Meta-analysis of the original data led to the prediction that dynamic targets would show greater results than static targets. This prediction was in fact strongly corroborated.

In other words, the fact that psi was shown to be more effective in perceiving dynamic targets had been predicted on the basis of the original studies, and the prediction was vindicated by the subsequent, more stringent studies. 

Hyman goes on to complain that some experimenters were not able to replicate the ganzfeld results. On page 159 Carter includes a table listing all autoganzfeld experiments conducted from 1991 to 2003. The initial autoganzfeld experiments were carried out at Princeton; later experiments took place in North Carolina, the Netherlands, Scotland, and Sweden -- in short, at laboratory facilities around the world. These subsequent trials produced reasonably consistent hit rates, with outlying results of 27% (close to chance) in one study and 47% in another (involving artistically gifted subjects), but with the remaining six results clustered around 34%. In other words, the Princeton autoganzfeld results were not a fluke; they were repeatedly duplicated by independent researchers at other labs. 

Perhaps showing a touch of desperation, Hyman further argues that there has been a "decline effect" in the autoganzfeld studies. This often-repeated claim has been exploded as a canard so many times, it's amazing to see it still appear in print. The only "decline" that occurred was in new exploratory studies that tested different, previously unanalyzed aspects of psi. For instance, there was an attempt to test for auditory psi by seeing if subjects could psychically perceive musical passages; results were no better than chance. This is entirely different from testing for psychic perception of visual images, and conflating the two sets of data only serves to confuse the issue.

Carter concludes bluntly, "It seems clear that Hyman and the other counteradvocates have lost the ganzfeld debate." 

Naturally I approach this subject with a strong bias in favor of psi -- a bias that I like to think is supported by my extensive reading on the subject. From my (hardly neutral) perspective, Carter comes across as serious, knowledgeable, and persuasive, while Hyman comes across as thin-skinned, overly emotional, and less than reliable in his presentation of the facts. Will the average reader come away with this impression? I'm not sure. Though the book is intended to be a balanced presentation of both sides of the issue, the skeptics dominate in terms of page count. I count ten essays critical of parapsychology versus five essays sympathetic to parapsychology (with three more-or-less neutral essays contributed by Damien Broderick and the editors). 

Some of the skeptics do a pretty good job of concealing what I believe to be their agenda. Richard Wiseman, in his essay "Heads I Win, Tails You Lose," claims that the preceding "collection of essays makes me very concerned." Shedding crocodile tears, he declares he is worried "because after over one hundred years of parapsychological research there exists no real consensus on the most fundamental question facing the field -- does psi exist? Worse still, time is running out... Indeed, I believe that if parapsychology continues on its current trajectory, university-based psi research has only another few years to run." Those who are familiar with Wiseman's history of questionable conduct and dubious assertions will take his claims with more than a pinch of salt, but the uninformed reader just may be taken in.

Meanwhile, some of the pro-psi arguments are problematic in their own right. In his essay "The Antique Roadshow," Stephan A. Schwartz, who has done yeoman's work in applying psi to archaeology, tries to discredit the critics of psi by comparing them to other "denier" movements, namely creationism and "climate change deniers." As something of a climate change denier myself, I'm not overly impressed with this approach. It seems to me that the highly pejorative term "denier" ought to be reserved for people who are denying facts that are almost universally uncontroversial among educated people, such as the Holocaust or the moon landings. Applying this term to anthropogenic global warming or to parapsychology strikes me as premature and unfair. (As far as creationism is concerned, I have no sympathy for young-earth creationism, but I do think there may be merit to the arguments of Intelligent Design theorists like William Dembski, who apply information theory to evolution. Psi itself may possibly play a role in evolution.) 

Although I wish the pro-parapsychology side had been given equal space with the skeptics, I still found Debating Psychic Experience to be a worthwhile , illuminating -- and often surprisingly entertaining -- read. Perhaps the best thing about the book is that it is clearly aimed at an academic audience, incidentally giving the lie to Wiseman's lament that university-based parapsychology is on the verge of extinction. While the book could have been bolder, I applaud the effort to bring a serious debate about psi into the classroom. I hope it finds the intelligent and open-minded audience it deserves.

Mind at Large

Lately I’ve been reading Michael Grosso’s 1986 book The Final Choice: Playing the Survival Game. It’s an interesting overview of psi phenomena, afterlife evidence, and millenarian predictions. Grosso makes an effort to tie together several different strands of thought and ends up with an intriguing holistic interpretation. 

One section that I found particularly worthwhile was Chapter 3, “Sketch of a Science of Transcendence,” in which Grosso makes the case for what has been called Mind at Large.

He begins by suggesting that psi exists mainly to help us navigate a nonphysical realm, and not to navigate the space-time universe:  

If the function of psi is essentially otherworldly, then we need not be surprised how transient and marginal an effect we find it to be in this world. In this world, we normally rely upon the sensory-motor system for engaging the environment. Despite some evidence that occasionally psi serves the needs of the organism -- sometimes without conscious awareness -- its day-to-day survival value in the terrestrial struggle for existence seems to be slight by comparison with our bodily senses....

Gardner Murphy, the great American psychologist, wondered why, on Darwinian principles, living organisms did not develop increasing psi ability, which would obviously be of great survival value. For instance, an animal could escape a predator. If psi ability were genetically coded, moreover, we would expect natural selection to work toward a growing incidence of psi function, at least among some favored species. But there is no evidence of psi becoming a biologically stronger function....

Murphy suggests that there are two modes in which an organism is capable of functioning: one, the sensory mode, in space and time; another, the psi mode, independently of time of space and time. In the deeper psi mode, the paranormal is the normal, but this could only be a mode in which the sensory mode were suspended or, as in death, superseded. The psi that appears fitfully and elusively in the terrestrial environment would be the essential mediator of the transcendent environment.

In other words, psi comes into its own in the postmortem phase of existence. It is therefore a pre-adaptive function with limited utility during the stage of biological life. A little later, Grosso expands on the idea of pre-adaptation, defined as: 

... the emergence of structures before they are used.... Consider, for instance, the mesosaurs which apparently never left the water, showing that the development of the amniote egg was not an adaptation for living on land but emerged before there was any need for it.... [Other examples are cited.] Indeed, as one of the great experts on the biology of amphibians, G. Kingsley Noble, says: "A detailed analysis of the many 'marvelous adaptations' in the Amphibia will reveal ... that in most cases the modification arose before the function."

If such pre-adaptations are genuine, we could hardly account for them by natural selection. They look rather like expressions of a plan, as if they were produced for the sake of future use. Now our problem has been to account for psi ability in terms of evolution. What I wish to propose is that we think of psi ability as a pre-adaptive "structure" or "organ." Of course, these latter terms cannot be taken literally, since there is no evidence that psi functioning is anatomically based; thus only by analogy may we speak of psychic structures or organs. 

As a side note, I would point out that many biologists argue that these modifications do serve a function when they are introduced, even if it is not the function they later acquire. For instance, the feathers of the archaeopteryx, not used for flying, may have been used to sweep up insects as food. The idea of pre-adaptation is controversial and may be invalid; the jury is still out. 

In any case, pre-adaptation is not the only challenge to the natural selection theory as a comprehensive explanation of biological development. Grosso writes: 

The English biologist, John Randall, has made several bold and comprehensive hypotheses concerning the parapsychology of life. Randall's overall strategy is as follows: first, he reviews problems in biological theory which Darwinian orthodoxy cannot handle. Second, experimental evidence is cited for the influence of psi on living systems. Third, a transcendent side factor -- Randall calls it Mind at Large -- is advanced as a hypothesis to account for aspects of life neglected by the orthodox view.

The possible role of psi in evolution is indicated when we consider that mutations may arise from single microphysical events. In the words of von Bertalanffy: "As can be shown by mathematical analysis of the experiments, one single hit into the sensitive zone of the gene suffices to cause a mutation. Therefore, the induction of mutations is subject to the statistical law of microphysics." This increases the theoretical plausibility of psi-induced mutation; psi might act on the "sensitive zones" in a gene.

Grosso, following Randall, summarizes the intractable problems in biology as the origin of life (abiogenesis) and the origin of species (macroevolution). Abiogenesis is simply not understood; so far, all attempts at formulating a theory have failed. (See Robert Shapiro’s book Origins.) Macroevolution arguably is not explained by neo-Darwinism, which accounts for relatively minor variations (microevolution) but not for wholesale changes requiring a large number of favorable mutations that occur almost simultaneously. 

Grosso goes on:

Given the gaps in mechanistic biology and the experimental evidence that psi influences living systems, Randall states: "There is at least a possibility that parapsychology has discovered the missing factor needed to construct a general theory of life." Randall outlines several postulates for a general theory of life. The most fundamental and radical is that of a psi-factor he calls Mind at Large. Mind at Large is the transpersonal aspect of mind; it is distinct from but able to interact with matter. Although our individual minds are constantly interacting with their own bodies, Mind at Large does not normally interact with matter. Normally, matter behaves in accord with the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Though living organisms are self-regulating on a routine basis, Mind at Large intervenes a critical junctures: for instance, the origin of life, the development of new and higher species, instances of "paranormal" healing and in other circumstances where we observe psi at work. For Randall, this hypothesis is a kind of neo-vitalism empirically backed by the data of parapsychology ...

Randall ... makes it clear that Mind that Large is not identical with the traditional Western idea of God, which implies perfection. Randall's transcendent mind is more like an experimental artist-God who makes mistakes and scratches them out, discovering what it creates as it goes along. At least we can say that Mind that Large is mind; and minds are the kinds of process said to be conscious and to have purpose and intelligence. While it would no doubt be a mistake to anthropomorphize this Mind Factor and suppose that its mode of consciousness, purpose and intelligence were merely an enlarged replica of our own, we may take some comfort in the thought that being mental, it may be possible to engage Mind at Large in some type of meaningful dialogue.

Coming back to psi’s biological utility (or lack thereof), Grosso asks, 

... if psi is a reality, why is it not exploited in the struggle for existence? If Randall is right, the answer is that organisms, though originally expressive of psi-mediated information, normally work like self-regulating machines. Psi may indeed come into play in the struggle for existence under special circumstances. But its overall function, if I understand Randall, is to direct and oversee the upward thrust of the evolutionary process and to maintain the total balance and ecology of life....

The function of psi may be to mediate the origin, evolution and regulation of life, though the sheer maintenance of life, the conservative mechanisms, would be governed by the laws of chemistry and physics. Since the mass of observable life processes is conservative, mechanists can suppose they hold the key to all of life, as long as they ignore the discontinuities, the puzzles of creativity and the paranormal.

From here, Grosso transitions to the issue of life after death. 

Puzzling survival data complement puzzling data about the origin and evolution of life. Mechanism fails to account for certain features of the terminal phase of biological existence, just as it fails to account for certain features of the originating phases of biological existence. Psi-oriented theories of life concur in referring to an overall plan, template, original impetus and directedness of life. The survival hypothesis calls attention to the farthermost reach of an overall plan and directedness: the struggle of life to become radically independent of the physical environment as such.

This struggle reaches its climax when the organism dies. In the survival hypothesis, death is simply a transition to a new nonphysical environment, and it is this environment in which psi will come into its own. In this sense, psi is a pre-adaptive function, one that comes pre-installed but achieves its full utility only after death. Grosso: 

My guess is that psi ability is oriented toward adaptation of a new ecological environment, an environment that Telhard de Chardin christened the Noosphere.... 

At the ... postmortem layer of the Noosphere, the purely noogenetic component of organisms, now extricated from the machinery of the physical world, would rely wholly on psi, the pre-adaptive "organ" or function now essential for a new mind-dependent ecology. This particular view of the role of psi in nature is compatible with the pre-adaptive nature of psi in our ordinary terrestrial existence, the fact that we don't need it to survive as biological organisms. It would also account for survival data now understood as reflecting interactions with the postmortem "layer" of the Noosphere. The present hypothesis might also explain why certain types of behavior are psi-conducive, that is, the inverse of behaviors oriented toward survival in the biosphere....

Living organisms are normally self-regulating and have efficient sensory-motor equipment for coping with the terrestrial environment. An unusual increase of psi capacity would disrupt routine performance. It is easy to imagine how a sudden influx of psi would disoriented organism. Too much information can be as confusing as too little.

The confusion would extend further than the individual. If there is a master plan or cosmic intelligence acting upon the biosphere, it probably wouldn't permit the untrammeled use of psi among living organisms. Untrammeled psi would wreak havoc on the ecological system. For instance, if large numbers of animals could use psi to escape their predators, the great food chain of natural being would be broken.... The suggestion, then, is that restraints upon psi ability are built into the ecological system, which explains the elusive, marginal, unharnessable and doggedly unlearnable character of psi. Yet psi does erupt into terrestrial experience. But under what conditions? If there is anything to our hypothesis, those conditions are apt to be transbiological. Conditions disruptive of normal biological functioning that reduced attention to life might tend to release restraints on side ability. The most dramatic instance of this discerption from biological functioning is being near death.

Hence the reports of near-death experiences, and the efforts of mystical ascetics to overcome the body’s natural demands for food, sex, and pleasure in order to bring on a kind of voluntary near-death state. Grosso oberves that:

... the compulsion to survive as a bodily organism apparently blocks our inlets to transcendent psi. Most researchers agree that excessive striving and egocentric effort tighten the filter and squeeze off access to our psi-potential. We have heard similar things from spiritual teachers: he who struggles to save his life will lose it; he who is willing to give it up for the sake of God or the Higher Cause may save it.

The author sums up: 

The creative psi factor, Mind at Large, the transcendent field we postulate would (1) account for the origin and evolution of life and (2) explain, in a peculiar sense, the data of spiritual experiences.... 

The hypothesis of transcendence will also (3) cover data indicative of postmortem survival. We would now assume that some survival data -- hauntings and apparitions, mediumistic phenomena, reincarnation memories -- express genuine interactions with inhabitants of Minded Large. Finally, psi would (4) make sense as a pre-adaptive function destined to unfold truly in the postmortem Noosphere.

There can be no single argument or crucial experiment to decide if this synoptic view is correct. I recommend it as a way of looking at several sets of problematic phenomena and as an incentive to further survival research.

Book review: Randi's Prize

There are thousands of books about the paranormal, but few of them approach the subject as judiciously as Randi's Prize, by Robert McLuhan. 

Though the title suggests that the main focus will be James Randi's Million Dollar Challenge, the book actually ranges much more widely, as McLuhan examines skeptical responses to such reported phenomena as poltergeists, apparitions, telepathy, mediumship, near-death experiences, and children's memories of past lives. In each case he shows that the skeptical explanation, while superficially persuasive, falls short when subjected to close analysis. His conclusion is that most skeptics do not really engage with the material they are critiquing; in their rush to explain it away, they tend to fasten on the first non-paranormal interpretation they can think of, even if it does not fit all the facts or is grossly implausible in its own right. McLuhan describes this tendency as "rational gravity" - the pull exerted by the "rational," mechanistic worldview that instinctively rejects anomalous phenomena. 

What I appreciated above all about Randi's Prize was the care shown by McLuhan in approaching these controversial claims. This is not one of those books that take all paranormal accounts at face value. Quite the opposite. Throughout the book, McLuhan details his struggle to determine the truth about cases that have been subject to starkly different interpretations by skeptics on one hand and parapsychologists on the other. In this respect, the book reminded me of Sittings with Eusapia Palladino, by Everard Feilding, which documented the gradual change in attitude on the part of Feilding and other investigators at the famous Naples séances. Fittingly, the first item that McLuhan has made available in his new archive of original paranormal literature is Feilding's report on the Naples investigation.

A good example of McLuhan's cautious approach is found in his treatment of the celebrated Tina Resch poltergeist case early in the book. First he provides a brief summary similar to what we would read in any standard skeptical account:

[Paul] Kurtz mentions an episode that occurred in Columbus, Ohio in 1984. In March of that year stories started appearing in the local press about strange goings on in the home of the Resch family, which some speculated were caused by a poltergeist. Eventually a press photographer snapped the spook in action, and the photo was syndicated around the world -- causing a sensation. In reality, Kurtz says, the effects were being caused by the family's fourteen-year-old foster child, Tina, as James Randi discovered when he went to investigate. 

A few pages later he returns to the case and presents the skeptical side in more detail, pointing out that when Randi appeared in Columbus, the Resch family would not let him into their house. To debunk the story, Randi examined the famous newspaper photo and some unpublished frames, concluding that Tina could have faked the effect captured on film. He also viewed a videotape that clearly showed Tina simulating some of the subsequent "phenomena." Unaware that the camera was still running, Tina, in Randi's words, "reached up and pulled a table-lamp toward herself, simultaneously jumping away, letting out a series of bleating noises, and feigning, quite effectively, a reaction of stark terror." Furthermore, Randi found that the reporters covering the case were unimpressed with it, and he cast doubt on the capabilities of the parapsychologist, William Roll, who investigated and vouched for the claims.

McLuhan observes, "All this struck me as effective debunking. It didn't demonstrate beyond doubt that the Columbus affair was a hoax, but it did weaken any sense I might have had that the incident was paranormal." 

But he doesn't end there. As he read many other accounts of poltergeist incidents, McLuhan couldn't help noticing repetitive patterns. The Columbus case was not an isolated episode; it fit into a larger framework, an ongoing series of similar events reported throughout history. He notes:

Despite their decidedly odd character, the claims are quite uniform. When Gauld and Cornell analyzed their five hundred cases [in their 1979 book Poltergeists] they found that nearly half began with noises that were described as raps or 'knockings' or sometimes as loud thumps or thuds or 'bangings'. The descriptions suggested that they often occurred after dark, often close to someone who was sleeping, although they were sometimes also heard in daylight hours.

He gives specific examples, one from the mid-19th century and three from the mid- to late-20th century, noting that "these examples make up only about three per cent of Gauld and Cornell's data." 

Then there was the psychological context. McLuhan writes:

If you read the literature on the subject you'll find that poltergeist incidents tend to be extraordinarily fraught. The people involved are overcome with panic and confusion, not just for a few hours but four days and weeks on end. This isn't an effect one expects to result from your children's pranks. And ... I often wondered how these children managed to create such convincing illusions and remain undetected.... When it comes to the anomalous movement of objects, it's striking how insistent witnesses are that no one present was responsible. They could see no link between the disturbance and any human action -- and it completely spooked them.

Again he gives specific examples. 

Returning to the Columbus case, he tells us, "There is a quantity of suggestive detail in the investigators' accounts that creates a rather different picture from the one provided by skeptics.... Immediately prior to the incidents Tina had been in growing conflict with her adoptive parents, particularly with her father John." Strange incidents with digital clock radios soon followed. Although Tina's parents initially suspected her of tricking them, they eventually found that the phenomena continued even when Tina could not possibly be at fault.

McLuhan writes:

The accumulated effect of reading [various poltergeist accounts] was to create in my mind the sense of a very distinct natural phenomenon, one which is widely (if infrequently) reported and quite unlike any other feature of human experience, yet which can be identified by the same group of curious features.

It was with this thought in mind that I started to review Randi's debunking in a different light. I realized that his article didn't get to grips with the goings on in Columbus in any depth; his approach was mostly centred on a single detail -- that is the photograph.... If you think about it, an image that claims to show psychokinesis in action is a moot object: there is nothing it could depict that could not easily be faked.... 

So Randi was simply adding substance to what many people would suspect anyway. But by doing so, and in such detail, he created the illusion that he had penetrated the whole mystery, despite the fact that he had not observed any of the claimed effects at first hand or interviewed any of the main witnesses....

Then there's Randi's off-repeated insistence that witnesses jump to conclusions: I did not feel this was really confirmed in the research literature. People who experience these disturbances, I found, tend to react exactly as one might expect -- and probably as you or I would. They don't instantly imagine that something paranormal is occurring; on the contrary, they start by assuming that a trick is being played, and, if a child seems to have something to do with it, treat him or her as the likely culprit.

Professional investigators also do the obvious things -- like taking up the floorboards to see if the noises have some concealed source, or setting traps that might reveal hoaxing by family members. As I say, in some cases they decide that trickery is probably the whole cause; in others they suspect it has a genuine basis, but subsequent trickery by the child makes that conclusion difficult to insist on. In other cases, the force of repeated observations at close quarters compels them to drop the idea of trickery altogether and look for something else. In short, they show what most people would consider to be proper judiciousness, discrimination and caution....

My impression is that the sceptics are not particularly concerned by [the psychological dimensions of the cases]. Nor do they seem bothered about the level of conjuring skill that their scenarios require -- something which I have to say has left me more than somewhat sceptical. I don't mean just the skill needed to achieve the effects that witnesses describe, but also the fact that the children seem to acquire such skills without ever giving anything away. I could accept that an emotionally confused girl like Tina Resch might want to attract attention, but it was a stretch to imagine that a person in her state of mind could spend months clandestinely preparing for her venture by learning how to make furniture come alive, let alone put this into effect without being detected.

He goes on to observe that the professional skeptics, in approaching poltergeist cases, generally cite only "a single contemporary investigator -- William Roll" and mostly refer to a handful of popularized incidents -- "Amityville and Borley, neither of which parapsychologists take very seriously, and which in any case are not really typical; Columbus and Seaford, which were dealt with respectively by Randi and [Milbourne] Christopher but ineffectually, as neither of them gained access to the houses involved, or interviewed the main witnesses, or observed any of the phenomena in question; and various incidents in Christopher's clutch of press cuttings, which give too little information to draw any reliable conclusions from." He writes:

The skeptics say they can't be expected to check out the truth of every claim.... Most people would consider this to be a perfectly fair argument. But they will be less impressed when they discover that debunking skeptics have made little attempt to investigate any such incidents. The implications the critics artfully convey is false: there is no independent body of cases that they have examined at first hand and satisfactorily explained in non-paranormal terms.

I might add that one argument sometimes made by skeptics to discredit Tina is that, later on, as a young adult, she got into trouble with the law. The implication they draw is that she was never trustworthy to begin with. But it would be at least equally valid to point out that the focal figures in most poltergeist cases are troubled adolescents, who of course are not unlikely to grow into troubled adults.

Coverage of poltergeists takes up only a small part of Randi's Prize. The book is crowded with specific cases in a variety of areas, examined in detail. For instance, in the second chapter, McLuhan looks at an argument made by British skeptic Richard Wiseman, who has claimed that Eusapia Palladino could have been assisted by an accomplice who entered the locked seance room through a trapdoor. McLuhan writes:

Much later, when I had spent some time reading and thinking about Palladino, I returned for another look [at the skeptical argument], and it was only then that I grasped how cheeky Wiseman was being. As his critics pointed out, Palladino was tested many times in many different situations and [Wiseman's suggested] modus operandi could not apply to all of them (in the south of France she was tested successfully in the open air). One would think that a method that involves clambering through a hole in the wall a few feet away from three investigators on the look-out for tricks, concealed merely by a flimsy curtain, is hard to sustain. In any case, the report [of Palladino's sittings in Naples] mentions three occasions when the investigators looked behind the curtain, which would at once have given the game away.... On one occasion the phenomena continued after the sitting had ended, when they had turned up the lights and pulled back the curtain.

Here, looking at the case in detail doesn't merely weaken the skeptical explanation; it demolishes it. But skeptics like Wiseman seem to count on the fact that most of their readers are unfamiliar with the details, leaving them free to offer facile interpretations that reassure their audience, even while ignoring bothersome facts that they themselves must be aware of. 

All told, Randi's Prize is a brisk, bracing look at this continuing controversy, exhaustively researched and offering 48 pages of endnotes and a 28-page bibliography. It's a must-read for anyone with a serious interest in parapsychology and its critics. 

What's more, the author is currently giving away free copies of the e-book to anyone who asks! I don't know how long this promotion will last, so if you're interested in the book, you'll never have a better time to get a copy. And I think readers of this blog will find it highly worthwhile.

Just don't expect a detailed treatment of the Million Dollar Challenge. Robert McLuhan has bigger fish to fry.  

A review of a book I haven't read (yet)

Today I received a copy of Robert McLuhan's newly published book Randi's Prize: What Sceptics Say About the Paranormal, Why They Are Wrong, and Why It Matters. The book is available from Amazon UK and (via third-party sellers) Amazon.com . Robert tells me that an ebook version will be offered soon.

I haven't had time to do more than look over the book, but I still wanted to post something about it, because what I've seen has left me very impressed. For one thing, this is no fly-by-night venture; it's a serious work of research, as evidenced by its 48 pages of endnotes (in small print) and its 28-page bibliography listing a large number of original sources. There's also a detailed index.

Though the title might suggest that the book is primarily about James Randi, it's actually a general overview of psychical research and skeptical responses to it. Robert examines a vast amount of material, and from what I've seen in the sections I've read (and from many entries on his blog Paranormalia), his approach is cautious, thorough, and wise. In his coverage of Gary Schwartz's investigations of mediums (pp. 144-156), he covers all the major skeptical criticisms and acknowledges their strengths while probing their weaknesses. He tackles some of my favorite cases, including Eusapia Palladino and Leonora Piper, and includes all major areas of research - mental and physical mediumship, ESP, apparitions, reincarnation, and NDEs. He's also kind enough to include this humble blog in his "Suggestions for Further Reading"!

So while it may seem premature, given that I haven't read more than a few pages of the book, I still want to recommend Randi's Prize. Even at first sight, it gives every impression of being a very important contribution to the literature of this field. Of course I'll post an actual review once I've had time to read the whole thing.

By the way, Robert has created a companion blog for the book, which includes some excerpts from the text.

Two famous people

Here are two brief stories about famous people with a perhaps unexpected connection to the world of paranormal phenomena.

The first comes from the recently published book Glimpses of Eternity, by Raymond Moody and Paul Perry. Glimpses concerns what Moody calls "shared death experiences," episodes in which an NDE or deathbed vision is shared by a hospital worker or loved one. I didn't find the book quite as compelling as some people do, but I have no doubt that such events do take place, and they have been documented in the literature of psychical research as far back as the 19th century (as Moody and Perry freely acknowledge). 

Anyway, the story from Glimpses of Eternity has nothing to do with shared death experiences. It's about channeling -- and a most unlikely medium. The authors write:

Dr. Jonas Salk, inventor of the polio vaccine, ... shocked the world when he revealed that he sat up late at night, receiving messages from another realm. The New York Times Magazine published an article about Salk in November 1990 in which it said that Salk fell into a "trancelike state, filling page after page in an almost indecipherable hand." He collected more than twelve thousand handwritten pages of notes that were later published in three books: Man Unfolding, The Survival of the Wisest and Anatomy of Reality. [pp. 172-173]

Jonas Salk practiced automatic writing? Who knew? (The Times article can be read here.) 

The second story is from Michael Grosso's 2004 book Experiencing the Next World Now, a literate and well-researched overview of afterlife evidence. This story concerns Mark Twain. I knew Twain had an interest in the paranormal; he was convinced of the existence of what he called "mental telegraphy," and made reference to some telepathic episodes in his own life when requesting membership in the Society for Psychical Research in 1884. But I didn't know that his interest in parapsychology extended beyond ESP.

Grosso tells us:

For over forty years Mark Twain had a recurring dream. He always dreamed of the same fifteen-year-old girl; he would meet her in India, in England, in Hawaii, in Athens, and in America. Her name would change, her face and voice would change, but he always knew her to be the same girl whom he loved with a chaste and reverent heart. One night he dreamed of her in Hawaii, and she died. He was stricken beyond any grief of his waking hours.

Later he dreamed of a temple in Athens in which she appeared to him again, and he realized she had never really died. "It may be that she had often died before, and knew that there was nothing lasting about it," he wrote. Mark Twain was faithful to his platonic sweetheart. "In our dreams -- I know it! -- we do make the journeys we seem to make; we do see the things we seem to see; the people, the horses, the cats ... are real, not chimeras; they are living spirits, not shadows; and they are immortal and indestructible. My Dreamland sweetheart is a real person, not a fiction."

And what's more, the dream is more real than the everyday world: "more deep and strong and sharp." Mark Twain holds this up against our waking "artificial selves" and the "dull-tinted artificial world" and finds the waking world wanting. To the author of Huck Finn, this dream world is what we step into when we die. "When we die we shall slough off this cheap intellect, and go abroad into Dreamland clothed in our real selves." *[pp. 181-182]

This information is taken from Twain's short story "My Platonic Sweetheart," published posthumously in the December 1912 issue of Harper's Magazine and readable online. Grosso describes it as "an autobiographical story." The Harper's editor, perhaps wishing to protect Twain's reputation, plays down any autobiographical content, labeling the story "a delicate fancy." More recently, a writer for the Smithsonian Magazine argued that the dream figure was most likely Laura Wright, an early love interest of Twain's. If so, the story has been fictionalized to some extent, but it seems likely to reflect a genuine series of recurring dreams.

===

*The actual line is "When we die we shall slough off this cheap intellect, perhaps, and go abroad into Dreamland clothed in our real selves ..." The word perhaps was omitted in Grosso's book. Also, the description of Twain's reaction to the dream-girl's death is a bit exaggerated; Twain says it "transcended many sufferings that I have known in waking life," not that it was worse than any waking grief. 

Signs

Recently I read Robert Perry's book Signs: A New Approach to Coincidence, Synchronicity, Guidance, Life Purpose, and God's Plan. As the title indicates, the book concerns synchronicities -- those mysterious cases in which two or more events come together in a way that seems to defy chance coincidence. A classic example of a synchronicity is given by Carl Jung, who was discussing a patient's dream about a golden scarab when the session was interrupted by a tapping noise. It turned out that a rare scarab beetle was tapping at the window of Jung's office. The improbability of this event helped the patient achieved a breakthrough.

The trouble with synchronicities is that they seem to be inherently subjective. What strikes one person as a remarkably unlikely coincidence may strike another person as easily within the bounds of chance. What's needed, argues Robert Perry (who has taught and written extensively about A Course in Miracles, or ACIM), is a more objective way of assessing synchronicities in order to separate genuine signs from chance.

Perry's criteria are pretty stringent. In fact, as Perry points out, Jung's famous synchronicity wouldn't even qualify! In order to be considered a full-fledged sign in Perry's terms, four criteria must be met:

1. There must be at least two "strikingly similar" events occurring no more than twelve hours apart.
2. There must be multiple parallels between the two events (eight parallels on average).
3. The conjunction of events must "comment" on our personal situation in some way.
4. The interpretation must be "rule-based," not arbitrary or subjective.

This is, of course, only a brief overview of an interpretive system that is fleshed out in detail, with specific examples, over the course of the book. It makes an interesting and provocative read. I was particularly struck by chapter 8, "Can Signs Predict the Future?", and chapter 9 "The Depth of Their Insight." Chapter 8 includes a lengthy summary of a series of signs involving an ACIM copyright controversy in which the signs -- as they were interpreted at the time -- seemed to correctly predict future developments in the dispute, even when these developments were unexpected and unwanted. Chapter 9 shows how several signs offered unusual insight into a certain person's psychological problems at a key point in his life.

Actually, Perry doesn't really like the word signs all that much. He prefers an acronym he coined: CMPE, which stands for Conjunction of Meaningfully Parallel Events. His main point is to distinguish CMPEs from other, more subjective signs and to encourage readers to look more deeply at possible CMPEs in their own lives.

After reading the book, I tried doing just that with a minor synchronicity of my own. I was a bit skeptical, in part because the synchronicity in question did not seem very impressive at first glance. Still, by forcing myself to examine the conjunction of events in as much detail as possible, I did come up with a "message" that was relevant to my personal situation in a meaningful way. It's possible that I merely used the events as a kind of Rorschach test -- an ambiguous inkblot pattern into which I read my own (conscious or unconscious) concerns. Even if this is true, it was still a useful exercise. After all, Rorschach tests can be highly revealing, and anything that provides us with greater access to our unconscious conflicts and unresolved issues can serve a valuable therapeutic purpose.

But wait. Reading our own subjective meaning into the events is precisely what Robert Perry doesn't want us to do! His whole focus is on making these events more objective, and identifying a meaning and a message that come from outside the self. Some of the examples given in his book do seem to fit this description, while others arguably are closer to the Rorschach test model. In some cases I wondered if the apparent synchronicities were the result of the natural confluence of interests on the part of the small circle of people involved in teaching and studying ACIM.

Basically I would say that more research has to be done if CMPEs are to be categorized as objective phenomena. Perry himself is doing some research along those lines, with initially promising results.

For me, the bottom line is that even if your own "signs" are more like ink blots than objective messages, they can still be valuable and meaningful. And if they do prove to have objective qualities, then they will only be even more meaningful and powerful. Either way, you can't lose.

Not only is Signs inherently interesting, but also it opens up what may turn out to be a promising new line of research. I appreciated the author's caution and candor, and his sheer persistence -- he's been documenting CMPEs (his own and others') for thirty years! These decades of experience and observation have been distilled into a highly readable book with a unique perspective on an intriguing phenomenon. Give it a try.