Psychic research, also known as parapsychology or “PSI” deals with phenomena such as remote viewing, telepathy, clairvoyance, distant healing, and much more.
Over the years, despite the fact that many of these techniques were being studied, taught, and used heavily for intelligence gathering purposes with great success, such phenomenon has been ridiculed and brushed off as not real. But why?
The answer is simple, despite how valid, how repeatable, or how much evidence is presented or published, if something threatens the accepted framework of reality, or is controversial due to its paradigm shifting implications, the mind simply has a hard time accepting it. In many cases, the scientific study of such phenomena has resulted in a large case of cognitive dissonance among some of the academic community, although this is changing, and has been changing year after year simply due to the fact that strong and statistically significant results are being observed, there is still much work to be done.
“There seems to be a deep concern that the whole field will be tarnished by studying a phenomenon that is tainted by its association with superstition, spiritualism and magic. Protecting against this possibility sometimes seems more important than encouraging scientific exploration or protecting academic freedom. But this may be changing.” – Cassandra Vieten, PhD and President/CEO at the Institute of Noetic Sciences (source)
Dr. Carl Jung once stated, “I shall not commit the fashionable stupidity of regarding everything I cannot explain as a fraud.” This is something we should all hold in our minds as we examine this or other claims that are not part of our current perception.
How strong is the evidence? Dr. Jessica Utts, the Chair of the Department of Statistics at the University of California, Irvine and a professor there since 2008 explains,
What convinced me was just the evidence, the accumulating evidence as I worked in this field and I got to see more and more of the evidence. I visited the laboratories, even beyond where I was working to see what they were doing and I could see that they had really tight controls…and so I got convinced by the good science that I saw being done. And in fact I will say as a statistician I’ve consulted in a lot of different areas of science: the methodology and the controls on these experiments are tighter than any other area of science where I’ve worked. (source)
Here’s another great point she made:
“For many years I have worked with researchers doing very careful work [in parapsychology], including a year that I spent full-time working on a classified project for the United States government, to see if we could use these abilities for intelligence gathering during the Cold War… At the end of that project I wrote a report for Congress, stating what I still think is true. The data in support of precognition and possibly other related phenomena are quite strong statistically, and would be widely accepted if it pertained to something more mundane. Yet, most scientists reject the possible reality of these abilities without ever looking at data! And on the other extreme, there are true believers who base their beliefs solely on anecdotes and personal experience. I have asked debunkers if there is any amount of data that would convince them, and they generally have responded by saying, “probably not.” I ask them what original research they have read, and they mostly admit that they haven’t read any. Now there is a definition of pseudo-science-basing conclusions on belief rather than data!” – Utts, Chair of the Statistics Department, UC Irvine (From Dean Radin’s Book, “Real Magic“)
The Six Conclusions
Dean Radin PhD, is Chief Scientist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences and Distinguished Professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies. He’s published a number of books, one of them titled “Real Magic” (endorsed by multiple Nobel Laureates). In it, he writes:
Based on thousands of PSI experiments published over the last century by researchers around the world, many properties of psychic phenomena have been discovered. In order of scientific confidence, meaning the degree to which the evidence has been successfully and independently repeated six conclusions may be drawn:
1. We have the capacity to gain information unbound by the everyday limitations of space or time, and without the use of the ordinary senses. In the vernacular, psi is a genuine “sixth sense.” Based on the available scientific evidence, this is a virtual certainty.
2. Psi capacities are widely distributed among the general population. Extreme levels of psi talent are rare, but laboratory tests indicate that most people have some discernible ability, whether they’re aware of it or not.
3. These effects arise from the unconscious. Psi abilities can be observed during conscious awareness, but more reliable effects can be detected below the level of awareness via physiological measurements and other techniques used to study “implicit” and unconscious responses.
4. Psi effects are stronger during non-ordinary states of consciousness, such as during meditation, while dreaming, or while under the influence of psychedelic compounds.
5. We have the capacity to mentally influence the physical world, probably not through the application of the four known physical forces, but perhaps through as yet unidentified principles that either affect the probabilities of events or ‘warp” the fabric of space-time.
6. We can gain information from sources purported to be non-physical entities.
A Real World Example
One example comes from people with special abilities reported on in a declassified US Air Force report on teleportation, which was made available through the Federation of American Scientists.
The document touches upon China’s psychic children, mentioning, in this case, the ones that were able to teleport full objects from one location to another without touching them.
Another one, titled “Research into Paranormal Ability To Break Through Spatial Barriers” touches upon the same thing, and also provides multiple examples of children and people being video tapped and documented, under double blind conditions, being able to do the same thing. This particular document, which was declassified through a Freedom of Information Act request (FOIA), outlines specific people with very special abilities and how they’ve been studied by thousands of scientists and governments around the world for a very long time.
There are many examples, these are a select few.
The Takeaway
How much do we really know about the nature of reality? If one thing is constant about what we know, it’s that what we know always seems to change, and when it comes to for that change, it usually takes a lot of time. Right now we are experiencing a scientific revolution where non-material science seems to be emerging as the next great leap, away and beyond our mechanical view of the universe. We are starting to realize just how diverse and non physical human consciousness is.
One day, we will acknowledge and really realize just how big of an impact our thoughts, feelings, emotions, and other factors of consciousness have on shaping our physical material world. We are much more than we’ve been made to believe, and reality is much more mysterious and exciting than we’ve been taught.
Watch a recent interview we did with a scientist deeply into non material science here.