Entangled Minds

On January 16 I gave a talk at Google headquarters in Silicon Valley, which you can view here . The title was Science and the Psi Taboo. Abstract: Do telepathy, clairvoyance and other "psi" abilities exist? The majority of the general population believes that they do, and yet fewer than one percent of mainstream academic institutions have any faculty known for their interest in these frequently reported experiences. Why is a topic of enduring and widespread interest met with such resounding silence in academia? The answer is not due to a lack of scientific evidence, or even to a lack of scientific interest, but rather involves a taboo. I will discuss the nature of this taboo, some of the empirical evidence and critical responses, and speculate on the implications. On January 19 I gave a talk at a conference entitled "Investigations of Consciousness and the Unseen World: Proof of an Afterlife?" I talked about the implications of psi, specifically telepathy, for the p...

I often receive stories of psychic experiences. Occasionally I ask the poster if I may repost the story here. (I change names and identifying places upon request, as I did in this post.) I enjoyed reading Entangled Minds , and I've been perusing older posts on your blog. I just read the "Entangled Artists" entry from May 22, 2006 - the coincidental similarity of Teka Luttrell's art and the Shift cover, and I want to share a similar story with you. When I was around 18 (many years ago!), I discovered the music and lyrics of an artist who became a mentor of sorts to me, in that his music opened my mind to expanded consciousness and spirituality - and the beginning of psi experiences for me, which I'm certain is no coincidence! This person was then (still is) very spiritual, very creative, and living on the West Coast at the time. While I was in college, one night before I went to bed, I'd been focusing very intently on this mentor, meditating to his music with h...

No, not why I'm not skeptical , or critical-minded, because those traits are essential in science. Rather, I don't consider myself a "skeptic," as in a card-carrying member of a skeptical society, because most (not all) of the people I know who belong to such societies are loud, arrogant, angry, and cynical. I prefer to spend time with people who are quiet, humble, calm and hopeful. This came to mind after reading one of Steven Novella's blog s. In it he parrots skeptical mantras that are known to be wrong. I won't bother to address them here because they are addressed in detail in Entangled Minds. But I will respond to two comments. First: "There is no proposed mechanism for ESP that amounts to a reductionist model based upon established physics or biology." This is a peculiar complaint, because if we can only accept things in terms of what we already understand, then science is no longer an open system. It collapses into the worst sort of mindless ...