Paranormalia

Book Review: Damien Broderick, Outside the Gates of Science

Have just finished Outside the Gates of Science: Why It's Time for the Paranormal to Come in from the Cold, by Damien Broderick, an award-winning sci-fi writer. It left me enthused and intrigued (and also, as often happens, a bit bewildered, but I'll come back to that). Parapsychology is not especially blessed with good writers, so it's good to come across someone who, as well as having a good knowledge of aspects of it, has ideas of his own and can put together an entertaining read.

Broderick's curiosity seems to have been stimulated by a psi episode reported by his wife. While gardening one day, she experienced a sudden jolting image of a bloody body, and was convinced something terrible must have happened to her daughter. She found the girl was OK, but an hour later a police officer arrived to tell her a close relative had just been killed in a car accident.  Subsequently Broderick spent quite a bit of time boning up on the experimental research and talking to key figures in the field.

He starts by discussing the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR), by Robert Jahn and Brenda Dunne. But what really gets his attention is the remote viewing work begun by Russell Targ and Hal Puthoff working with Ingo Swann at the SRI, which evolved into the CIA-funded Stargate programme. He traces the ins and outs of this at some length, and is clearly impressed by the work of Joe McMoneagle and other stars in the field. He also describes the work of Stephan A Schwartz, a friend and former research director for the Rhine Research Center, who in November 2003 gave a class of remote viewing students the task of identifying the whereabouts of Saddam Hussein. Their consensus was that the ousted dictator would be found crouching in a subterranean room or cave reached by a tunnel, beneath an ordinary looking house on the outskirts of a small village near Tikrit, and looking like a homeless person, with dirty rough clothing and long ratty hair - these and other details proved to be spot on.

Broderick make it clear that he believes psi to be genuine, without identifying himself too obviously as a full-on believer.  From time to time he mentions the views of critics like Hyman and Alcock, but then quietly ignores them. He does seem to be shocked by some of the sceptics' behaviour, though.  For instance he describes the conversation in which hardline sceptic Peter Atkins rubbished Rupert Sheldrake's work to his face, and then, under Sheldrake's gentle pressure, conceded that he hadn't read any of it. He also describes at some length the National Geographic TV film in which McMoneagle and Edwin May unequivocally succeeded in passing a remote viewing test on camera, only to hear it dismissed by the programme makers as 'coincidence'.

If there is so much experimental evidence in favour of psi, why don't scientists take it seriously? Broderick thinks a main reason is that there is no theory that could explain it. Accordingly he spends much of the second half of the book discussing what can be said about this, much of it in terms of quantum theory. He praises Evan Harris Walker's attempt to blend psi and quantum physics as a landmark effort, and is similarly respectful of Dean Radin's belief that quantum nonlocality and entanglement are more than metaphors, and provide deep insights into the nature of psi. Personally he is cautious, siding more with May, who as a former nuclear physicist is somewhat dismissive of such approaches. At the same time he feels that the mere fact that psi can plausibly be discussed in these terms counters the sceptics' claim that it is outlawed by the laws of physics.

I was especially interested in Broderick's speculations about the possible evolutionary development of psi, which is something I've often felt is rather neglected. He starts with an idea put forward by lunar astronaut Edgar Mitchell, that psi is a primordial or 'first' sense, an intuitive or visceral knowing 'based upon a complex form of quantum correlation that was certainly present in nature long before the species evolved to their current stage, and even before the planetary environment evolved to produce the normal five senses.' Picking up some ideas of James Carpenter and Rupert Sheldrake, he sees the function of psi to

get us ready for what's coming at us, like a social guide muttering discreetly in our ear, tipping us off to the names and status of those we are about to meet, directing us to the correct dinner utensil or appropriate garment for the occasion. It anticipates our needs, provides a sort of anticipatory Google search on current and upcoming experiences, and usually brings the results to us in the form of "inadvertencies", apparently irrelevant events and experiences that nevertheless "implicitly express the action of the orienting activity". Jung would have called them synchronicities. Psychotherapists like to weasel them out as clues to what's going on in the unconscious of a client.

Broderick concludes it is extremely likely that psi is an evolved function of the human species, playing its contributory part in our survival and thriving. He is sceptical of the idea that it necessarily implies the existence of a non-material spooky source of consciousness, citing Ockham's razor. Mystical ideas of a Source, favoured by Jahn and Dunne for instance, he sees as quasi-religious flights of fancy. As for afterlife belief, he favours the notion that this is based on the 'real, confusing experience of half-remembered dreams'.

Unless mediums and parapsychologists can demonstrate unequivocally that such a domain is real and attainable, its adherents will regard afterlife as something to be hoped for in private faith, rather than by watertight public evidence, and that posture is antithetical to the spirit of science, even paranormal science.

Some readers will find this problematic.  Certainly my assumption has always been that that psi essentially contradicts physicalist explanations of consciousness and points instead to Cartesian or 'radical' dualism. It's hard to conceive of telepathic interactions over a large distance in terms of brains that evolved from single cells. At what point in evolutionary history did these lumps of jelly enclosed in skulls acquire the potential ability to be in telepathic contact with other similar lumps a couple of continents away? I don't contest that psi abilities may be subject to evolution, indeed I think we should follow this reasoning as far as it goes. But there's something a bit unsatisfactory about treating psi purely as a materialist phenomenon. 

The impression I get is that Broderick thinks that precisely because psi can be discussed in a scientific framework that materialist assumptions remain untouched. Admirably undogmatic, he allows a faint possibility that paranormal phenomena will 'remake our scientific models and certainties', offering a gateway to some spiritual truth surpassing scientific knowledge. But he clearly doubts it.

For me this is makes the book so fascinating, the way it illustrates a certain approach to the problem of how we relate to psi. Broderick is comfortable talking about it in a scientific milieu. The experimental evidence is persuasive: we should acknowledge that, and expect it to be accommodated within a larger scientific paradigm, perhaps 50 years hence.  But apart from the episode of his wife's he is not at all interested in its daily manifestations  - in, for instance, mediumistic communication, poltergeist episodes, apparitional incidents, and so on, or indeed phenomena such as near-death experiences and children's memories of a previous life - which can hardly be excluded from any serious discussion of its larger relevance, particularly with regard to postmortem survival of consciousness. 

Demanding watertight proof, if afterlife belief is to be anything more than faith, is surely just to establish his own boundaries, just as, in their muddled way, the makers of the National Geographic film revealed theirs when they first devised a stringent test of psi, and, when confronted with a successful fulfilment of it, still refused to believe it. I can't help feeling that it indicates a need for the doubting mind to be so entirely overwhelmed that no further resistance is possible. The fact is, there is an abundance of evidence suggestive of survival which is capable of various interpretations, and this needs to be sifted, examined and subjected to just the kind of nuanced discussion that Broderick gives the experimental research.

Having said all that, Broderick has shown how the debate is going to develop. If parapsychology is to win a wider audience it will be precisely in this way, by open-minded, scientifically literate observers being willing to acknowledge that there is something important going on and taking the trouble to inform themselves about it. Such people will be reluctant to stick their necks out it means having to change their fundamental worldview and start believing in afterlife, ghosts, God and whatever else.  So cultivating this space is perhaps what will ultimately help psi to become more accepted within the scientific and secular community.

Book Review: Chris Carter, Parapsychology and the Skeptics

I've always thought that if the existence of psi becomes generally recognised, the sceptics would indirectly have a lot to do with it. As the scientific case for it gradually builds, the angry agit-prop of old guard types like Martin Gardner and James Randi seems ever more irrelevant. Generalisations that parapsychology is a pseudo-science, there is no evidence, Hume's argument against miracles, etc, still have some force. But critics like Ray Hyman, Susan Blackmore and Richard Wiseman are also having to come up with specific objections to psi experiments, and  in a few cases doing experiments themselves.

So the time is ripe for giving these counter-arguments some close scrutiny. In fact I'm surprised it is not done more often, as many of them are so obviously specious. Of course researchers such as Dean Radin and Rupert Sheldrake have focused on this to some extent - Radin has a useful chapter on it in The Conscious Universe - but it's far from being their main focus. I think this has been a weakness for parapsychology as a whole, that the sceptics have managed to get away with too much for too long.

Chris Carter's Parapsychology and the Skeptics: A Scientific Argument for the Existence of ESP is arguably the first major attempt to place the sceptics' arguments in their proper context.  It's an important book, and should be on everyone's reading list who is serious about understanding the issues.

A brief look at some nineteenth century work with mediums sets the scene, with the examples of investigations of Henry Slade leading into more modern controversies. A description of CSICOP follows, and the disagreements over its early activities.  Carter goes on to discuss J B Rhine's work at Duke, PK experimentation, the Ganzfeld debate, and Sheldrake's research of a telepathic dog. Many notorious episodes are here, for instance the attempt by sceptical members of a National Research Council committee to stop a fellow member presenting evidence supporting the ganzfeld claims, and the failed attempt to get parapsychologists chucked out of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Also other dishonest shenanigans, like Randi pretending he had debunked doggy telepathy, when by his later admission he had nothing of the sort.

The book is chock full of quotes both from the sceptics and sympathetic scientists, which brings us closer to the debate, and often leaves one gasping with disbelief (the statement that there is nothing to argue about as there is 'no evidence of anything paranormal', here voiced by psychologist Nicolas Humphrey, is a particular head-scratcher).

I was expecting rather more space to be given to analysis of individual experiments: there is only a brief mention of the Stargate remote viewing programme, ditto on Sheldrake's highly suggestive work on the sense of being stared at and other of his research, the PK work by Jahn and Dunne at Yale, and so on. But I think Carter is right not to try to be comprehensive, and to leave plenty of space for dealing with the more general aspects of the critics' arguments.

For me this is actually where Carter is best, demolishing the scientific and philosophical objections to psi. As he points out, sceptics such as Blackmore like to say that it is incompatible with 'our scientific worldview', but this begs the question, which scientific worldview, the old one based on Newtonian mechanics and behaviourist psychology, or the emerging one based on quantum mechanics and cognitive psychology. Quantum non-locality and the view that consciousness, not measurement, is implicated in the collapse of the state vector both support the existence of psi and might even lead to predictions of it.  The conclusion, Carter argues, is that the term 'paranormal' is an anachronism and should be dropped, as psi does not operate outside nature.

I was particularly interested in his nuanced discussion of Benjamin Libet's finding that brain activity precedes a conscious decision, which is routinely presented by sceptics, in their dull way, as 'another nail in the coffin for dualism' (Blackmore, Dying to Live, p. 237), and which of course is open to contrary interpretations, as Libet himself pointed out. Wilder Penfield's experimental findings on the neurological basis of memory is also used by sceptics in an anti-dualist sense which Penfield himself did not endorse.

No book is perfect, and I did have a slight quibble with the way it was structured - it seemed to jump around a lot between historical periods, types of experiments, supporters and critics, and so on. Having said this, I know from my own experience of trying to write about parapsychology how  challenging it is to organise so much material. Nor does it detract from the book's value.  Carter explains that he originally tackled the subject in its entirety, but the result was so massive it had to be broken down into three parts: the next instalment will be on survival evidence and the sceptical objections. 

I suspect that in taking the debate directly to the sceptics Carter is first onto what may soon be a well-populated field. The enthusiasm for psi research in the 1960s and 70s led to a backlash over the next two decades with the founding of CSICOP, but there are signs that the sceptics may be running out of steam - the imminent suspension of Randi's prize being just one example. We may soon start to see the pendulum shifting the other way, and this time it is the nay-sayers who will be on the defensive.

No Short Cuts

Thinking a bit more about people who believe there is no evidence of psi or survival, and nothing to argue about. If someone said to me, 'OK, so I'm an ignorant disbeliever, educate me', what would I say? I suppose the first thing would be to direct him/her to some useful books. But which ones?

Kevin (comments, That Glass Screen, March 7), suggests Kelly et al's Irreducible Mind, an in-depth argument for a revised view of consciousness that embraces the empirical research.  It's a magnificent book and would certainly be on my list, although it might be a bit weighty for someone with limited time to spare. Perhaps also, as he says, Jenny Wade's Changes of Mind and Chris Carter's Parapsychology and the Skeptics, which I hope to review shortly. Dean Radin's The Conscious Universe and Entangled Minds, Rupert Sheldrake's The Sense of Being Stared At and Stephen Braude's The Limits of Influence  would all be indispensable, to name only a few.

If we are talking about survival, I might recommend Richard Almeder's Death and Personal Survival. That sets out the logic in a rigorous way, and has the virtue of being quite succinct. David Lorimer's excellent Survival? might also be good, as it pulls together a lot of the historical background about afterlife belief together with theories of consciousness and paranormal evidence.

So there's plenty of good stuff out there. Perhaps reading one or more of these books might at least encourage people to hesitate before making sweeping declarations about the lack of evidence.   

But I'm not convinced that on their own they would do much more than this. When I recall my own journey there wasn't any one book that did it for me. I read voraciously and indiscriminately, and it just got me into the most fantastic muddle.  I remember getting Brian Inglis's Natural and Supernatural from the library and, since it was sitting right next to it, Ruth Brandon's The Spiritualists, one a factual chronicle of nineteenth century psychical research, and the other a determined and highly speculative debunking. They wrote about the same mediums, investigations and controversies, but from entirely opposite viewpoints, which left me wondering what the hell was going on.

Eventually I realised that I would have to figure things out for myself by getting to grips with the primary sources. That's when it started to get interesting. Having just lost my job, and with no immediate prospect of getting another, I had the luxury of loads of time, and spent weeks and months in libraries. I ploughed through the anecdotal material and analysis of spontaneous phenomena in the various journals, also books like Phantasms of the Living and Myers' Human Personality, the work with Piper and Leonard, the cross correspondences, 'Patience Worth', investigations of poltergeists, the experimental work from Richet to Rhine, Jahn and Dunne, Honorton and others.  Then I read much of the literature on near-death experiences Ring, Sabom, Morse, Greyson, etc) and the equally extraordinary work on possession and children's memories of a previous life by Ian Stevenson and others.

I also thought a lot about the claims and tested the logic. Here I found the sceptics hugely useful: Kurtz's Transcendental Temptation and Skeptic's Handbook, Randi's Flim-Flam!, Hyman's The Elusive Quarry and many others. At first what they said seemed to make a lot of sense - it took quite a while to realise how limited their knowledge and understanding is. I think that's when light started to dawn.

My point is that you don't arrive at conviction on something as significant as this by reading one or two books. Perhaps some people do, but then I wonder how firm and lasting it is. Better to immerse yourself in the claims and experiences, weigh them up against your own experience, read the analyses of both investigators and sceptics, and see who you think is doing the best job. It's then that the gradual conviction comes over you that there's a huge area of human experience that has just been filtered out of your awareness, not through any fault of your own, just as an effect of being alive in the world at this particular time.

I suspect too that on some level it would have to jibe with personal experience, and surely even sceptics have at least once been confronted with an incident that forced them to ask questions, in their own lives or the lives of someone close to them.

So no short cuts. This isn't just information in libraries, it changes lives. It can't be a purely intellectual process. You'd have to bring a certain commitment to the subject, otherwise it would just be dabbling. You would actually have to respond, and who knows where that might lead. You might find yourself starting to sympathise with people you once despised, and find yourself despised in turn by people whose good opinion you once took for granted. Your friends would change. And I don't think there's a book that prepares you for that.