For the oi vey files
Here is an example of a presumably well-meaning but in reality a horrendously ironic example of how mainstream academia regards psi research. Horrendous because it is aimed at science educators and students, so one would hope that the information is correct (it isn't), and ironic because it does indeed reveal how science really works, as their tag line proclaims, but probably not in the way that they intended.
The website "was produced by the UC Museum of Paleontology of the University of California at Berkeley, in collaboration with a diverse group of scientists and teachers, and was funded by the National Science Foundation." It is not simply that the information is at least a half-century out of date, but to add insult to injury it cites a single article which is known to be flawed in support of its conclusion!
The unintended educational point is that the way science aspires to work is not the way it actually works, but unfortunately anyone visiting that website and just accepting the information at face value would never learn that valuable lesson.
Comments
I wonder if even when they find evidence themselves they are going to deny it too.
This article clearly shows us the obliviousness of mainstream academia towards psi research.
The effect would probably be attributed to a large draft or something.
I have no idea why people hate things that do not fit on their narrow world-view and even start a capaign against those ideas. For example, you can enter the JREF forum and it says they discuss paranormal phenomena rasonably and on a gently manner, but the only thing that I see there is ridicule, insults and bullying with an obssession with Randi. They have the same problem as the christian fundamentalists who said pokemon was satanic and even presented "evidence" that some names were demon names on another language. Come on... some people are very prejudiced and when they are confronted with it they negate it and sometimes create false evidence to back their claims. I have no idea when people are going to mature and start being truly scientific and open minded. I consider myself a buddhist-hermetist, and I think the worst mistake we have made on the west is to separate things into good and bad, true and false, black and white. David Bhom has talked about such mistakes and I think they play a great role on our suffering in our culture. Extremes are bad, stay away from too much black, and from too much white, because when someone comes to you with a little of the other you will suffer and create conflict. Always try to follow the gray path, the middle way, and you will be happier than the narrow- minded people. I feel very happy that my dad follows the same philosophy as me, but sometimes the black and white mind 'controls' him and he acts different. Always keep this in mind, most of the greatest discoveries were laughed at and ridicules as psi is today, but later they were proven correct.
Berkeley has treated some of its own scientists, no matter their prestige, dreadfully as soon as they questioned the status quo in their own respective fields. I know of a recent despicable (to Berkeley that is) case that I'm not going to bring up here..
The pendulum swings, Berkeley defines the new dogmatic and rigid orthodoxies across the board.
Of course Berkeley's and American academia's opposition to psi is nothing new, yet this psi whitewash by one of its science faculties is further evidence for its dogmatic rigidity.
This may not be the bast place to ask you for this but I'll give it a shot anyway.
About the website "noetic(d0t)org"
Will it be possible to download teleseminars directly from itunes?
And will it be possible to make the free publications be available as ebooks, kindle and iphone formats?
Tiny minded group think funded by the government and/or big pharma works to ensure that the status quo worldview remains intact.
Sometimes our modern science seems downright medieval.
Maybe they'll bring back the rack? If the accused screams loudly his findings are False.
Is it a desperate reaction to the extent of the evidence for psi's existence which someone can't bear?
Whether warning or smear campaign, a counter-punch or expose could be mounted on the internet and through media sources.
At this point it looks like a marketing war, not a scientific merit dispute.
The more of this stuff I read, and the more inaccuracies I find within it, the less seriously I am able to take the mainline skeptical position.
File with the Creationists under "Ignore".
Yes. History has taught to us that we have the same human feelings, prejudices no matter which kind of clothing or technology we have. The old catholic church hated witches and people who questioned de status quo of the time, just as science is doing now and we can clearly see the same attitudes. They used to invent stories about the witches protraying them in a very disgusting manner saying that they killed kids and offered their organs to satan, which it was only the case for black magicians, but the white magic pagans wanted the good of others. The church did not care if they were nice just because "they did not follow what the church said". We can see the same attitudes today from the mainstream academia, the same invented story and the same biases, the same gross portraying of what does not fall on their beliefs, the same everything . All this happens because of the majority of people's feelings, because we as the western culture have not learned the lesson, and that lesson is that we are part of a whole, and everything we do to any living thing might affect another. We have to mature and leave all our prejudices and feelings of separateness alone. I have read some articles on the Noetic Sciences website and they touch very good points on this issue.
I just hope we learn the lesson soon because Nature does not care if we are nice but destroy what she gives to all of us.
please help me
ashley.patrie@yahoo.com
What we know through laboratory studies is that in principle it is possible to gain information from the future.
Science is not about proving, it's about developing increasing confidence in repeatably demonstrable effects. In that sense, yes I believe that the ganzfeld studies do provide high confidence for a phenomenon that is virtually identical to the essence of what is called telepathy. This is a long-winded but more accurate way of saying "yes" to your question.
> do you think the KGB files from Russia prove some kind of pk?
I'm not sure what you are referring to, but in general I tend to put more confidence in studies that have been published in the public domain.
I sent this to the email address you posted but there may be other readers who are also interested in this information so I am posting here too:
You might find the following books about precognition to be of interest:
"The G.O.D. Experiments" by Gary Schwartz
"An Experiment with Time" by J.W. Dunne
You might be interested in reading these blogs:
Paranormalia
http://monkeywah.typepad.com/paranormalia
Subversive Thinking
http://subversivethinking.blogspot.com
Michael Prescott's blog
http://michaelprescott.typepad.com/michael_prescotts_blog/
Michael Tymn's blog
http://whitecrowbooks.com/michaeltymn/
I have had some weird experiences (but not too much with precognition) which I describe on my web site:
Adventures of a Student Medium
http://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/psi_experience
Further Adventures of a Student Medium: The Dark Side
http://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/dark_side
Adventures of a Student Healer
http://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/student_healer
Varieties of Mystical Experiences
http://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/mystical_experiences
I also have a web page discussing evidence for the afterlife:
Evidence for the Afterlife
http://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/summary_of_evidence
Recommended reading (lots of them are ebooks you can get for free on line)
http://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/bibliography
I found that going to a Spiritualist church is a good way to meet people who are psychic. Spiritualist services include demonstrations of mediumship and spiritual healing. Many people who feel different because they are psychic find it helpful to meet other psychics at Spiritualist churches and also find meaning in their talents by helping others through mediumship and spiritual healing which are taught at Spiritualist churches.
I'd like to expand on this point a bit...
If you follow Dean's blog and investigate parapsychology you will get one perspective on psi - the perspective of scientists who are studying it. I think this is important work and over the years they have accumulated a lot of good results.
However if you want to learn to develop your psychic abilities you should find a psychic who teaches (and who is genuine and responsible). You will get a different perspective from this approach than you will get from parapsycholoy but in my opinion it is an important part of the subject.
Over a hundred years ago, Sir. William Crookes, who studied paranormal phenomena, argued against making a religion out of psychic phenomena because he believed it was better to approach the subject from the scientific point of view. In the intervening century mainstream science has continually rejected psychic phenomena as impossible. Those scientists who try to study psychic phenomena have been continually dealt unfair and unscientific criticism by mainstream scientist.
However many people who are not scientists and who, like you, have had psychic experiences know these phenomena are real. During the time mainstream science has been denying the existence of psychic phenomena, real psychics, many of them Spiritualists who wisely disregarded Crooks' warning about making a religion out of psi, have maintained folk knowledge about psychic phenomena and have developed methods for teaching people to use their psychic abilities.
Many people have developed their psychic abilities from by classes at Spiritualist churches. Very few people have developed their psychic abilities by reading papers on parapsychology.
If you want to learn more about psi, I recommend you approach it from both perspectives, from the scientific perspective and from the perspective taught by practicing psychics.
I would also give similar advice to parapsychologists - to learn more about psi by taking classes from practicing psychics.
I also think that Spiritualists could benefit from what scientists have learned about psi and I wish they would work with scientists it to develop teaching methods along the lines of what was done by remote viewers. Remote viewing is probably one of the biggest successes of the scientific approach to psi, they have good experimental results and a practical method of training.
By the way, Dean, I am reading the book "The holographic universe" and I find it a very great resource on psi research except some parts related to Sai Baba and the philipine psychic surgery. Do you think materializations are possible?
I haven't conducted systematic experiments, but I did have a personal experience that convinced me that some claims of anomalous metal bending are probably genuine. Exactly how it happens no one knows. But I am fairly sure in my own case that it was not a trick (I'm familiar with conjuring methods used to bend spoons and with misdirection techniques used to make it appear that a spoon bent), nor was it dissociation or any of the other usual explanations. I described this on the following page: http://www.deanradin.com/spoon.htm
> Do you think materializations are possible?
I've heard many stories about this sort of thing, but I'd have to reserve judgment because even for me such a thing stretches the boggle threshold.
I have been reading on some websites about the placebo effect and drugs. It seems like almost all drugs are just placebos, except vitamins. I think that is because vitamins come from nature and are not some crazy mixture of chemicals that just poison us. It is very pleasant to see how the medical world is beggining to grasp the potential our minds have when we believe in something, and I wonder what this little research they do on the placebo and the nocebo affects might bring on the future.
But many drugs will work even when people are unaware that they've been drugged...
We're always interested in encouraging constructive dialog. Only some of our work involves topics as controversial as psi.
Absolutely, Constructive dialog is of course essential, it was just interesting to see Susan Blackmore featured, I will be listening with keen interest
http://tacoseasoning.blogspot.com/2011/03/frustrated-by-careless-scientists.html
Well many of them work better than a placebo, but what I wanted to tell is that we can cure many of our illnesses with faith on the medicine. If all or just some drugs are placebos does not matter so much if you find out how faith plays a great role on healing. maybe it is not just faith what helps but it sure helps along with other things.
Sometimes I come across a little "direct," so please pardon me if I sound impolite; it's not my intention.
Is Intentional Chocolate for real? My wife wants to spend quite a bit of money on it to give as gifts to her employees (as part of employee appreciation gift baskets), and I told her it sounded like a bunch of hooey, but that I'd try to keep an open mind and likewise try to check out whether it's really a serious product.
Some Googling revealed that your institution IONS is connected with it.
I was wondering if you could point me to some peer-reviewed research or something on Intentional Chocolate specifically, or this whole notion of "infusing" generally.
Thanks for any info. And it's not my intention to be disrespectful. Just attempting to perform due-dilligence before my wife writes a big old check.
Regards,
Walter in Virginia, USA
Go to www.pubmed.com, the online bibliography administered by the National Institutes of Health. Search for "Radin chocolate." You'll find the citation and abstract for the double-blind experiment that tested the intentional chocolate concept.
I do not know exactly how the concept has been turned into practice at the Intentional Chocolate company, but I do know that there is a sizable empirical foundation supporting the claim that focused intentions can alter measurable properties of physical systems.
Note: I am now co-editor-in-chief of the peer-reviewed journal that this article appeared in, but at the time I submitted the paper I was not affiliated with it in any way.
If you want to see a copy of the full article send an email to me as dean at noetic dot org.
Dean, I have some questions about that experiment, has it been replicated?, were environmental issues addressed?, and, how were all critiques like filedrawer problem and chance addressed?
I tried to affect a videogame performance with intention and it seems like it worked, but I need to try more times to see if this was not my lucky day hahah. Have you done intention experiments with videogames, Dean?
I haven't heard of anyone trying to replicate it, although a similar study is presently underway involving tea rather than chocolate.
> were environmental issues addressed?
To minimize obvious environmental factors all but one of the participants were located in the Northern California area, and the test was conducted during one week.
> how were all critiques like filedrawer problem and chance addressed?
The filedrawer problem is not an issue because all data were reported and the study was published. Likewise, the possibility of chance was addressed through the statistical analysis, and the results were not in accordance with the null hypothesis.
Dean,
I think this video may just show a guy that has managed to utilize the presentiment effect to do some amazing feats. I strongly doubt this comes down to fast (normal) reflexes alone.
It is a great shame that this is the way the world works at the moment, hopefully the world will change its outlook
I have another question, do you include magicians on your studies? I was reading a paper from Jessica Utts and she said some magicians examined the experiment and said they found no way that the subject could decieve the experimenter.
Short term fluctuations in effect size are to be expected, but the long-term, cumulative effect has stabilized. I haven't studied trends over time in a while, so I don't know if there's been a significant change over time.
> Do you include magicians on your studies?
In some, yes. But after studying conjuring techniques it is not difficult to prevent trickery when an experiment is conducted under controlled conditions. However, effects that are claimed to be psi but demonstrated without pre-planned controls are much more difficult to detect as real vs. fraud, so such demonstrations might be fun to watch, but they do not count as evidence.
Christopher
Properly conducted psi experiments not only cover these factors, but also potential experimental design flaws, statistical loopholes, guessing strategies, unconscious biases and delusions, the precise means by which targets are selected, potential cues about targets, and etc.
Because they receive far more scrutiny, well designed psi experiments tend to be far more rigorous than experiments investigating conventional topics.
Do you know if the presentiment meta-analysis, submitted to Science, has been accepted.
The would add to the bandwagon of mainstream Psi publications and is very important.
Because if they didn't receive the right thing, then they would be guessing - and guessing/chance alone would result in a hit rate of 25%. Yet, the overall success rate in dozens of studies is 32%.
These are two different questions. First, RV isn't like a GPS tracking system. It works reasonably well for describing what a location looks like, but if OBL keeps moving from one cave or house to another, which is likely, then RV will just keep describing caves and houses. That is not useful for pinpointing a map location. In any case, the existence of RV is independent of whether it is reliably useful for practical applications.
And even if RVers had viable information that might assist in finding OBL, I am not aware of any official route by which that information can be vetted in a timely manner. Sending information to your local police or FBI office will accomplish little because they don't know what to do with it, other than perhaps adding your name to the suspicious persons file.
Second, as the years go by, I find it increasingly difficult to believe that the US government cannot locate one person. Then again, "the government" is a massive enterprise consisting of millions of people, and who knows what really goes on in such a huge organization.
Good question. Short answer: Don't know.
But failure to find Bin Laden is nor evidence against remote viewing. I could ask a similar question: If conventional allopathic medicine works, then why haven't doctors found a cure for cancer or Alzheimer's?
It may be that one person's psi effects can cancel out the other person's psi effects. If so, then one remote viewer may not be able to get through the blockade set up by thousands of terrorists and their supporters. Of course, that's just speculation and requires demonstrating that other (non-remote viewing) psi effects exist, although I think that psychical researchers (including Dean) have shown that they do exist.
>> I have tried to answer that question to myself and I cannot think of a good answer besides that he moves too much to be caught by a psychic. <<
And that may be the case. Maybe he changes locations every week.
One might encounter statements like, "My computer is under the illusion that I've plugged in some speakers" (or whatever), but this is just a joke/metaphor.
Also, (for the third time!) do you know if the presentiment MA has been accepted in Science?
Thanks again.
History is replete with genuine conspiracies, so that is not out of the question. I'm just noting how odd it is that an enterprise with practically unlimited resources is unable to find one individual. This suggests that the pressure to find OBL may not as strong as we think it is, in which case there may be other reasons why it is useful politically and economically for some to keep "the enemy" out there. I hope this is not the case, but the more I read about the history of war, peace, and politics, the less I am inclined to believe "official government stories." That said, I am a rank amateur when it comes to such matters, so this is just my impression.
> Also, (for the third time!) do you know if the presentiment MA has been accepted in Science?
Thanks again.
I haven't heard.
( I start feeling the "bubble's" surface a few inches away from the toy)
Sounds like static electricity.
http://richarddawkins.net/articles/3315-does-religion-make-you-nice/comments?page=70
There is another ridiculous comment about SSE by some CSICOP guy. It shows me that anti-psi people want to imagine all serious investigators as if they had some agenda against rationality. I think those insults are a reflection of what CSICOP wants to do. In other words, CSICOP is the enemy of rationality.
one would think they'd be delighted that there is evidence of PSI, suggestive evidence of survival of conciousness, but seeing as the evidence threatens their narrow minded materialist attitude, but I guess it's like the church and Galileo when he demonstrated the earth wasn't the centre of the universe
Also, what do you think of the McDonnell laboratory ridicule by Randi with the Alpha Project?
This principle applies even in cases where people are given a physical demonstration of something. If they cannot expand their world view to accommodate what they have witnessed, they won't process the sensory input (or will reconfigure it into a form that fits their beliefs). I've often seen people go to great lengths to reject or discount information that threatens their fundamental beliefs, and to dismiss unusual phenomena with "rational" explanations that defy logic. This is what happened in this case, apparently. To a more open-minded observer, it can be crazy-making!