Entangled Minds

DISTANT HEALING OF SURGICAL WOUNDS: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY Marilyn Schlitz, Harriet W. Hopf, Loren Eskenazi, Cassandra Vieten, and  Dean Radin,  Explore , 2012; 8: 223-230 Background : Distant healing intention (DHI) is one of the  most common complementary and alternative medicine (CAM)  healing modalities, but clinical trials to date have provided ambivalent  support for its efficacy. One possible reason is that DHI  effects may involve variables that are sensitive to unknown, uncontrolled,  or uncontrollable factors. Objective : To examine 2 of those potential variables— expectation  and belief—we explored the effects of DHI on objective and  psychosocial measures associated with surgical wounds in 72  women undergoing plastic surgery. Design : Participants were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 groups:  blinded and receiving DHI (DH), blinded and not receiving  DHI (control), and knowing that they were receiving DHI (expe...

Okay already! Enough with the god particle! (For those of you who aren't movie fans, this photo is from a famous scene in the movie Pulp Fiction .) The combined 4.9 sigma result reported for the Higgs boson is hailed as a stunning achievement that took trillions of recorded events, billions of dollars, and thousands of scientists. By contrast, several classes of combined psi effects already provide empirical results that are much, much greater than 5 sigma, with hardly any funding and a few handfuls of scientists working the problem. Some future day when physical theories tackle the mysterious boundary between objective and subjective realities, they'll start to predict psi effects (I believe that day is inevitable). When that happens psi data will suddenly make sense. Then I'll have to change the image caption to "Say psi particle one more goddamn time."