Human Devolution: A Vedic Alternative To Darwin's Theory

Margaret Mead (1901–1978), a prominent American anthropologist, endorsed research into the paranormal. In 1942, she was elected as one of the trustees of the American Society for Psychical Research and was appointed to the Society’s research committee in 1946. In 1969, she was influential in getting the American Association for the Advancement of Science to accept the Parapsychological Association as an affiliated organization. She herself was a former president of the AAAS.

Mead believed her own interest in psychical research might be connected with her family history. Mead’s longtime friend Patricia Grinager wrote (1999, p. 195): “Two relatives in the family of her father’s mother possessed psychic abilities: her great-grandmother Priscilla Rees Ramsay and her great-aunt Louisiana Priscilla Ramsay Sanders. Residents who lived around the Winchester, Ohio area a century ago spread word that this mother-daughter team diagnosed illnesses, read people’s thoughts, and levitated tables. Margaret herself had been what her Ramsay kin called ‘a psychic child.’” Mead thought she might be a reincarnated representative of her pair of psychic ancestors (Grinager 1999, p. 195).

Throughout her life, Mead consulted various mediums, psychics, and healers. for example, before she married Gregory Bateson in 1936, she consulted a Harlem medium about him. The medium approved (Howard 1984, p. 187). Toward the end of her life, Mead spent a lot of time with famous psychic Jean Houston and a chilean healer named carmen de Barraza. The first time Mead, accompanied by Houston, met de Barraza, she asked, “do you see more people in the room than we do?” de Barraza said she could. Mead continued, “do you see the tall one and the short one with me?” de Barraza said yes. Mead explained that these were her spirit guides, and that seers in all the tribes she had ever studied had noticed them (Howard 1984, p. 412).

At a conference on holistic medicine in Los Angeles, held shortly before her death, Margaret Mead said: “When I went away to college, I discovered that organized established science objected to the exploration of psychic abilities. Our culture suppresses them. It’s just the opposite in Bali. The Balinese indulge every form of psychic activity: trance, prophecy, finding lost objects, identifying thieves, the whole range from trivial to important” (Grinager 1999, p. 252). Mead went on to say that we should study these capabilities and perhaps find ways to apply them in modern society.

John G. taylor (mathematical Physicist)

In 1974, dr. John G. Taylor, a mathematical physicist at the University of London, appeared with Uri Geller on a BBc television show. Geller had become famous for his ability to bend and move metal in ways that seemed impossible in light of ordinary physics. Taylor’s initial encounter with Geller was deeply upsetting. In his book Superminds, Taylor (1975, p. 49) said: “One clear observation of Geller in action had an overpowering effect on me. I felt as if the whole framework with which I viewed the world had suddenly been destroyed. I seemed very naked and vulnerable, surrounded by a hostile, incomprehensible universe. It was many days before I was able to come to terms with this sensation. Some of my colleagues have even declined to face up to the problem by refusing to attend the demonstrations of such strange phenomena. That is a perfectly understandable position, but one which does not augur well for the future of science.” faced with the challenge of the Geller phenomena, Taylor decided to confront the challenge directly.

On february 2, 1974, Taylor performed carefully supervised tests with Geller in a laboratory. The results were mixed. Geller tried unsuccessfully to bend a metal rod that he was not allowed to touch. Some metal strips, to be used in the experiments, were lying nearby on a tray. “It was then observed,” said Taylor (1975, p. 51), “that one of the aluminum strips lying on the tray was now bent, without, as far as could be seen, having been touched either by Geller or by anyone else in the room.” Taylor then tested Geller’s famous spoon-bending abilities, using one of his own spoons as the test object. Taylor (1975, p. 51) reported: “I held the bowl end while Geller stroked it gently with one hand. After about twenty seconds the thinnest part of the stem suddenly became soft for a length of approximately half a centimeter and then the spoon broke in two. The ends very rapidly hardened up again—in less than a second . . . Here, under laboratory conditions, we had been able to repeat this remarkable experiment. Geller could simply not have surreptitiously applied enough pressure to have brought this about, not to mention the pre-breakage softening of the metal. Nor could the teaspoon have been tampered with—it had been in my own possession for the past year.”

Later in this series of experiments, Geller bent an aluminum strip without touching it. The strip was inside a wire mesh tube. In another experiment, Taylor found that Geller was able to bend a brass strip by ten degrees simply by touching it. He applied a pressure of half an ounce to the strip, but the strip bent in a direction opposite to that of the pressure. Taylor also noticed that the needle of the pressure scale was also bent in the course of the experiment. In another experiment, Geller attempted to bend a copper strip without touching it. He was also attempting to influence a thin wire. nothing happened at first. “We broke off in order to start measuring his electrical output,” said Taylor (1975, p. 160), “but turning round a few moments later I saw that the strip had been bent and the thin wire was broken. Almost simultaneously I noticed that a strip of brass on the other side of the laboratory had also become bent . . . I pointed out to Geller what had happened, only to hear a metallic crash from the far end of the laboratory, twenty feet away. There, on the floor by the far door, was the bent piece of brass. Again I turned back, whereupon there was another crash. A small piece of copper which had earlier been lying near the bent brass strip on the table had followed its companion to the far door. Before I knew what had happened I was struck on the back of the legs by a Perspex tube in which had been sealed an iron rod. The tube had also been lying on the table. It was now lying at my feet with the rod bent as much as the container would allow.” In the course of his experiments, Taylor observed other strange happenings, such as pieces of metal scooting across the lab floor, from one wall to another, and a compass needle rotating. Taylor (1975, p. 163) said, “These events seemed impossible to comprehend; I should certainly have dismissed reports of them as nonsense if I had not seen them happen for myself. I could always take the safe line that Geller must have been cheating, possibly by putting me into a trance . . . Yet I was perfectly well able at the time to monitor various pieces of scientific equipment while these objects were ‘in flight.’ I certainly did not feel as if I was in an altered state of consciousness.”

Taylor also went on to conduct experiments with a number of children who claimed to have metal-bending powers like those of Geller. He found that they were able to bend metal under laboratory conditions (Taylor 1975, p. 79). In one set of experiments, Taylor put straightened paper clips in a box. Two boys were able to make the straightened clips fold into s-shaped curves. Straightened clips were also folded without contact in other experiments. The children were also able to deflect compass needles and rotate metal rods. Taylor (1975, p. 89) thought that electromagnetism offered the best possible explanation, although he was not able to demonstrate it conclusively. He proposed that the mind was an electromagnetic entity that occupied not only the neural circuitry of the brain but an electromagnetic aura that extended outside the skull (Taylor 1975, p. 155).

In his next book, Science and the Supernatural (1980), Taylor underwent a strange transformation. Reviewing various paranormal phenomena, he summarily dismissed most of them, except for remote viewing and telepathy. Acknowledging that the evidence for them seemed strong, he said that this evidence nevertheless contradicted “modern scientific understanding.” How could this contradiction be resolved? Taylor (1980, p.

69) proposed that most likely the evidence was defective. It was therefore necessary to carry out further investigations to find out exactly what the defects were. Regarding well documented cases of psychokinesis in connection with poltergeists, Taylor (1980, p. 108) said, “The only possible explanation left open to us in this whole poltergeist phenomenon is that of a mixture of expectation, hallucination and trickery . . . Such an explanation is the only one which seems to fit in with a scientific view of the world.”

So what happened to Taylor between 1975 and 1980? In 1975, Taylor had accepted the paranormal events he witnessed during his own carefully controlled experiments with Uri Geller and a number of British children. He had hoped to explain these by one of the four fundamental forces accepted by modern physics, namely electromagnetism (the other three being the atomic strong force, the atomic weak force, and gravity). Philosopher david Ray Griffin (1997, p. 32) said, “Taylor soon learned, however, that this issue had been discussed for several decades by parapsychologists . . . In particular some Russian parapsychologists, given their Marxian materialistic orthodoxy, had devised experiments explicitly designed to show ESP and PK [psychokinesis] to be electromagnetic phenomena. Their experiments suggested otherwise.” So when Taylor found he could not explain the paranormal phenomena he witnessed in terms of one of the forces accepted by modern physics, he developed an apparent case of amnesia about his own experiments and dismissed the experiments performed by others as the result of trickery, hallucination, and credulity. He did not offer any explanation as to exactly how Geller and the many children he tested had tricked him.

Edgar mitchell (astronaut)

Edgar Mitchell is an American astronaut who became interested in psychical research. during his trip to the moon he had a transcendental vision, giving him “new insight” (Mitchell 1996, p. 68). After returning to earth, he tried to gain understanding of his vision by studying mystical literature. He concluded (1996, p. 69): “What the ancients, who wrote in the Sanskrit of India, described as a classic savikalpa samadhi was essentially what I believe I experienced . . . this phenomenon is a moment in which an individual still recognizes the separateness of all things yet understands that the separateness is but an illusion. An essential unity is the benchmark reality, which is what the individual suddenly comes to comprehend.” This also resembles the vedic concept of acintyabhedabhedatattva, inconceivable simultaneous oneness and difference. This generally refers to the relationship between God and God’s energies. According to the teachings of chaitanya Mahaprabhu all living beings have souls, and together these souls comprise an energy of God. The souls are simultaneously one with and different from God. They are one in spiritual substance and power but possess this spiritual substance and power in different quantities (Bhaktivinoda Thakura 1987, pp. 46–48).

In 1972, Mitchell left nASA and completely dedicated himself to the study of consciousness, which he believed bridged the gap between science and religion. “Mystical traditions assume, implicitly or explicitly, that consciousness is fundamental. Scientific tradition (epiphenomenalism) explicitly assumes it is secondary. It seemed to me that the study of consciousness provided the only unified approach to the questions of who we humans really are, how we got here, where we are going, and why” (Mitchell 1996, p. 72). To further his own studies and those of others, he organized the Institute for noetic Sciences.

Edgar Mitchell participated in some spoon-bending experiments with psychic Uri Geller at the Stanford Research Institute. The normal procedure was for Geller to grasp the spoon in his hand, and lightly stroke the shaft of the spoon, at its narrowest point, with one finger. The shaft would then twist or bend. Skeptics claimed he could do the bending because he had unusually strong fingers. Others suggested he applied a solvent that caused the metal to soften. But Mitchell stated (1996, p. 86), “no one was aware of any such solvent that could be used in this way; the physicists in the group couldn’t explain how he could be capable of twisting the metal so adroitly into such a neat little coil by merely touching it with a single finger.” The experimenters found that he could not bend a spoon simply by mental effort. This was tested by placing a spoon under a glass cover.

When it became known that Mitchell was investigating Geller and his spoon bending, he received phone calls from parents of children who, after seeing Geller on television shows, were also bending spoons. Mitchell began investigating these children and, like Taylor in England, found them even more convincing than Geller. Mitchell (1996, p. 87) said: “I went to a number of homes around the country, sometimes with my own spoons in my pocket, or I would select one at random from the family kitchen. Typically it was a boy under ten years of age who would lightly stroke the metal object at the narrow point of the handle while I held it between thumb and forefinger at the end of the handle. The spoon would soon slowly bend, creating two 360-degree twists in the handle, perfectly emulating what Geller demonstrated on television. no tricks, no magic potions, just innocent children (with normal children’s fingers) who had not yet learned that it could not be done.”

Mitchell noted that during the six weeks of investigations of Geller at SRI, a number of unusual things occurred: “video equipment that he had no access to would suddenly lose a pulley, which would later be found in an adjoining room. Jewelry would suddenly be missing, only to be found locked in a safe with a combination Uri could not have known” (Mitchell 1996, p. 87). In one psychokinetic experiment, Mitchell and the SRI researchers put a big ball bearing under a glass jar on a table. In Geller’s presence, Mitchell says the ball bearing “began to jiggle, then roll this way and that” (Mitchell 1996, p. 88). The movement was recorded on videotape. But when the film was shown to SRI researchers outside the group that was investigating Geller, the reaction was hostile. Mitchell stated, “They became red in the face, and some left, refusing ever to return to the lab. They accused Uri of being a fraud and the rest of us of being chumps in an elaborate charade. But their accusations flew in the face of the solid scientific work that had been done, and I believe they knew it” (Mitchell 1996, p. 88).

Modern Research into Paranormal Phenomena

In addition to isolated studies with single subjects like Geller, there is a great deal of experimental evidence for paranormal effects associated with mental intention. The experiments mostly involve micro-psychokinetic effects and remote viewing. This type of research became prominent in the middle part of the twentieth century, and has continued up to the present day. A good review can be found in the Conscious universe: the Scientific truth of Psychic Phenomena (1997), by dean Radin of the consciousness Research Laboratory at the University of nevada, Las vegas. Let us first look at the remote viewing experiments.

Remote viewing

The simplest kind of remote viewing experiment involves card guessing. The nobel-prize-winning scientist charles Richet carried out some card guessing experiments, and published a report in 1889. He hypnotized his subjects and asked them to guess what cards were sealed in opaque envelopes (Radin 1997, p. 93). Later, in the mid-twentieth century, more systematic work was carried out by dr. J. B. Rhine at duke University and dr. S. G. Soal in England. These researchers conducted careful remote viewing experiments in which “receiver” subjects were able to correctly name images of cards viewed by isolated “transmitter” subjects. The number of correct identifications exceeded what could be expected by chance. Results like this from Rhine and others prompted Professor H. J. Eysenck, chairman of the Psychology department, University of London, to say: “Unless there is a gigantic conspiracy involving some thirty University departments all over the world, and several hundred highly respected scientists in various fields, many of these originally hostile to the claims of the psychical researchers, the only conclusion the unbiased observer can come to must be that there does exist a small number of people who obtain knowledge existing either in other people’s minds, or in the outer world, by means as yet unknown to science” (Radin 1997, pp. 96–97).

But not everyone was convinced. In 1955, dr. George Price of the department of Medicine at the University of Minnesota published in Science an article highly critical of the card guessing experiments. Price relied on david Hume’s famous statement that it was more reasonable to believe that witnesses of miracles were deceived or lying than to accept violations of the well established laws of physics. On this basis, Price (1955) argued that Rhine and Soal’s results, because they violated the laws of physics, must be the result of undetected fraudulent behavior. But some years later Price (1972) wrote a letter to Science about his 1955 article, saying, “during the past year I have had some correspondence with J. B. Rhine which has convinced me that I was highly unfair to him in what I said.” He regretted his accusations of fraud. It is possible, of course, that cheating or inadvertent cueing of the subjects may have been involved. But Rhine and Soal had gone to great lengths to prevent such things.

Typical card tests made use of a deck of 25 cards. The cards were each marked with one of five symbols (star, wavy line, square, circle, or cross) so that each symbol was represented by five cards. In the earliest tests, experimenters gave a subject a shuffled deck of cards and asked the subject to guess the top card. After guessing, the subject turned over the top card, checking to see if the identification was correct, and then guessed the next card. critics suggested that printing presses may have left impressions on the backs of the cards. The subjects could have detected these impressions by touch, and used this information to correctly guess the cards. To rule out this possibility, the cards were put into opaque envelopes. critics suggested that the subjects could mark the cards with their fingernails, and feel the marks through the envelopes. Experimenters arranged things so that the subject no longer handled the envelopes. critics suggested the experimenters might be giving subtle cues to the subjects. To prevent this, the subjects were separated from the experimenters and cards by opaque screens. Experimenters were later placed in remote rooms or buildings. critics suggested that in recording the experimental results the experimenters often made errors, errors in favor of paranormal explanations. To solve this problem, experimental designs incorporated duplicate recording of results and doubleblind checking. Monitors were employed to insure that experimenters followed procedures and did not engage in fraud. critics suggested that experimenters sometimes stopped recording data when the results looked good. To solve this problem, experiments were run with a fixed number of trials (Radin 1997, pp. 94–95).

In 1997, dean Radin published the results of his study of 34 card guessing experiments carried out with high levels of security. The experiments were conducted by two dozen researchers during the years 1934–1939, and involved 907,000 separate trials. The chance expectation would be correct guesses in one out of five trials, for a hit rate of twenty percent. Radin (1997, p. 96) arranged the studies in four groups, according to the kinds of security measures employed, and found that the hit rates were significantly above chance for all four groups. critics propose that these hit rates might be the result of selective reporting. In other words, for every published report with favorable results, there might have been other studies with unfavorable results that the experimenters did not publish but kept in their file drawers. This is called “the file drawer problem.” But in order to eliminate the positive results from the 34 published reports, there would have had to have been at least 29,000 unpublished studies, a ratio of 861 to 1 (Radin 1997, p. 97). Such a massive number of unpublished studies is exceedingly unlikely. Radin further noted: “If we consider all the ESP card tests conducted from 1882 to 1939, reported in 186 publications by dozens of investigators around the world, the combined results of this four-million trial database translate into tremendous odds against chance—more than a billion trillion to one.” To eliminate this positive result, the number of unpublished studies in the “file drawer” would have to have been 626,000, for a ratio of more than 3,300 unpublished reports for every published report (Radin 1997, p. 97).

In 1974, nature, the world’s foremost scientific publication, printed a paper by physicists Harold Puthoff and Dr. Russell Targ, about paranormal experiments carried out at the Electronics and Bioengineering Laboratory of the Stanford Research Institute, associated with Stanford University. Targ and Puthoff sought to test the ability of a subject to give information about drawings of objects or scenes shielded from ordinary sense perception. The subjects included Uri Geller, whose psychic achievements were surrounded by accusations of fraud. Whatever one may think about those accusations, one should still be prepared to independently judge particular experiments as to whether or not adequate precautions were taken to prevent deception. Targ and Puthoff stated (1974, p. 602): “We conducted our experiments with sufficient control, utilising visual, acoustic and electrical shielding, to ensure that all conventional paths of sensory input were blocked. At all times we took measures to prevent sensory leakage and to prevent deception, whether intentional or unintentional.” Thirteen remote perception experiments were carried out with Uri Geller. In the first ten, either Geller or the researchers were placed in a shielded room. In the majority of cases, Geller was in the acoustically and visually isolated room, which had double steel walls with double locking doors. Only after this isolation procedure was carried out were target drawings made by the researchers and selected for Geller to identify. Geller did not know the identity of the researcher selecting the target or the method by which targets were selected. In most cases, the target drawings were made by SRI scientists who were not part of the experimental group. The target drawings were kept in a variety of locations, ranging from 4 meters to 7 miles away from the viewing site. Experimenters provided Geller with a pen and paper, and asked him to reproduce the target drawing, giving him the option to pass if he felt he could not detect the target. If he did produce a drawing, the researchers collected it before Geller was allowed to see the target drawing. In an additional three cases, drawings were made by computer. In one case the drawing was visually displayed on a computer screen. In another case it was kept in computer memory but not displayed on the screen. In the final case the target drawing was displayed on the screen but the contrast was adjusted so that the image was not actually visible to the human eye. during these three computer-screen tests, Geller was kept isolated in a faraday cage, designed to weaken electrical signals. Geller gave responses to ten of the thirteen tests. To evaluate how well Geller’s drawings matched the targets, they were submitted to two SRI scientists not part of the research team. The judges were asked to match subject drawings with target drawings. Targ and Puthoff (1974, p. 604) said, “The two judges each matched the target data to the response data with no error. for either judge such a correspondence has an a priori probability, under the null hypothesis of no information channel, of P = (10!)-1 = 3 × 10-7.” In other words, in each case he submitted a drawing, or set of drawings, Geller was able to match the target.

In another set of remote viewing experiments, an SRI scientist made 100 target drawings, which were placed in double envelopes with black cardboard. Each day, twenty target drawings were selected for the experiment. Geller again had to try to make drawings that corresponded with the targets. The experiment was run once a day for three days. Targ and Puthoff (1974, p. 604) said, “The drawings resulting from this experiment do not depart significantly from what would be expected by chance.” In a final set of ten experiments, Geller was presented with a closed metal box containing a die. Before presentation to Geller, the box was vigorously shaken. In each trial, Geller would write down which surface of the die was facing up. In two of the trials, Geller declined to write an answer. Targ and Puthoff reported (1974, p. 604): “In the eight times in which he gave a response, he was correct each time. The distribution of responses consisted of three 2’s, one 4, two 5’s, and two 6’s. The probability of this occurring by chance is approximately one in 106 [1 in 1,000,000].”

In another set of experiments with a new subject, Targ and Puthoff attempted to determine whether the subject, Pat Price (a former city councilman and police commissioner in california), could identify geographical features several miles distant. Twelve locations within 30 minutes driving time of SRI were chosen by the director of the SRI Information Science and Engineering division. The director also prepared travel directions for each of the selected locations. The set of locations and directions was not known to the experimenters and was kept under the director’s control. for each trial, the director would give one of the sets of travel directions to a team of two to four experimenters, who would then proceed to the site. Price and another experimenter remained behind at SRI, and Price would provide a description of the target site to the experimenter. The descriptions were recorded on audio tape. Price took part in nine such trials. Targ and Puthoff (1974, p.605) stated: “Several descriptions yielded significantly correct data pertaining to and descriptive of the target location . . . Price’s ability to describe correctly buildings, docks, roads, gardens and so on, including structural materials, colour, ambience and activity, sometimes in great detail, indicated the functioning of a remote perceptual ability.” five independent judges from SRI visited the sites and examined transcripts of Price’s descriptions. They then attempted to match the descriptions to the target sites they had visited. Targ and Puthoff (1974, p. 606) reported: “By plurality vote, six of the nine descriptions and locations were correctly matched.” The probability of this occurring by chance was P =5.6 × 10-4.

In a final set of experiments, subjects (receivers) were tested to see if their brain wave activity could be correlated with that of persons (senders) being subjected to flashing lights at remote locations. In each trial, the sender would be subjected to ten seconds of flashing lights (at six or sixteen flashes per second) or ten seconds of no flashing lights. The receiver, in a visually and electrically isolated room, would hear a tone, indicating that a trial had begun. But the receiver would not know whether the trial involved flashing lights or not. The sequence of flashing or not flashing trials was random. The degree of correlation between the brain of the sender and the brain of the receiver was judged by measuring alpha waves in the brain of the receiver. Under normal circumstances, persons subjected to flashing lights show a decrease in the amplitude of alpha brain waves. So if the sender was exposed to flashing lights, the brain of the receiver should also show a decrease in the amplitude of alpha waves. One receiver’s brain did show alpha waves that decreased in amplitude each time the sender was exposed to flashing lights. This subject was then selected for further testing, with the same result. The average power and peak power of alpha waves was consistently less in this receiver when the sender was being exposed to lights flashing sixteen times per second (Targ and Puthoff 1974, p. 607).

from all of these experiments, Targ and Puthoff (1974, p. 607) concluded: “A channel exists whereby information about a remote location can be obtained by means of an as yet unidentified perceptual modality.” They also suggested that “remote perceptual ability is widely distributed in the general population, but because the perception is generally below an individual’s level of awareness, it is repressed or not noticed.” finally, they stated, “Our observation of the phenomena leads us to conclude that experiments in the area of so-called paranormal phenomena can be scientifically conducted, and it is our hope that other laboratories will initiate additional research to attempt to replicate these findings.” Nature (1974, pp. 559–560) published an editorial along with the article by Targ and Puthoff. According to the referees who reviewed the article before publication, the descriptions about the precise manner in which experiments were carried out, including precautions taken to prevent unconscious or conscious leakage of information to the subjects, were “vague.” I did not find this to be so, but readers can judge for themselves. The referees also thought that more care could have been taken in the target selection process. Again, I found the methods, as described, to be adequate. favoring publication of the paper, said nature, was the fact that the authors were “two qualified scientists, writing from a major research establishment.” nature found the phenomena worthy of investigation, even if many scientists were skeptical about their reality. As nature put it, “If scientists dispute and debate the reality of extra-sensory perception, then the subject is clearly a matter for scientific study and reportage.” nature also recognized that failure to publish the article might add fuel to rumours circulating among scientists that “the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) was engaged in a major research programme into parapsychological matters and had even been the scene of a remarkable breakthrough in this field.” It was felt that “publication of this paper, with its muted claims, suggestions of a limited research programme, and modest data, is . . . likely to put the whole matter in more reasonable perspective.” The editorial concluded (1974, p. 560): “nature, although seen by some as one of the world’s most respected journals cannot afford to live on respectability. We believe that our readers expect us to be a home for the occasional ‘high-risk’ type of paper . . . Publishing in a scientific journal is not a process of receiving a seal of approval from the establishment; rather it is the serving of notice on the community that there is something worthy of their attention and scrutiny.”

But much more was happening at SRI than the experiments reported in nature. The SRI experimenters were not only carrying out basic research establishing the reality of remote viewing but were actually carrying out remote viewing missions on behalf of the intelligence gathering agencies of the United States government and military. These programs involved substantial recruiting efforts. during screenings of large numbers of candidates, it turned out that about one percent possessed good remote viewing abilities (Radin 1997, p. 101).

On July 10, 1974, a physicist working for the cIA came to SRI with a test assignment. Analysts at the cIA were interested in a certain building complex in the Soviet Union. The physicist gave Targ the coordinates of a location in the Soviet Union, about ten thousand miles away from the SRI in Menlo Park, california. Targ and one of SRI’s remote viewers, Pat Price, went into one of the electrically shielded rooms they used for their experiments. Price focused on the coordinates and began describing a site with buildings and a gantry moving back and forth on a track with one rail. He sketched the layout of the buildings and crane. He later drew a detailed picture of the crane. Over the next few days, additional details were added. “We were astonished,” said Targ, “when we were told [later] that the site was the super-secret Soviet atomic bomb laboratory at Semiplatinsk, where they were also testing particle beam weapons . . . The accuracy of Price’s drawing is the sort of thing that I, as a physicist, would never have believed, if I had not seen it for myself” (Targ 1996, pp. 81–82; in Radin 1997, p. 26).

The remote viewing program at the Stanford Research Institute operated as part of Stanford University throughout the early 1970s, after which it became an independent organization, called Stanford Research International. The remote viewing program was founded by Harold Puthoff, who was joined early on by Targ and a few years later by physicist Edwin May. Puthoff left SRI in 1985, and May took over the leadership of the organization. In 1990, the remote viewing program moved to Science Applications International corporation (SAIc), a big defense contractor. In 1994, the program ended (so we are told, anyway), after 24 years and $20 million from the cIA, defense Intelligence Agency, Army intelligence, navy intelligence, and nASA. Radin (1997, p. 98) noted: “The agencies continued to show interest in remote viewing for more than twenty years because the SRI and SAIc programs occasionally provided useful mission-oriented information at high levels of detail.”

In one test case in the intelligence-gathering program, supervisors gave a remote viewer only the barest amount of information about a target—that it was “a technical device somewhere in the United States.” According to Radin the target was actually “a high-energy microwave generator in the Southwest.” Unaware of this, the viewer made drawings and gave verbal descriptions of an object the same size and shape as the microwave generator. He correctly stated that its beam divergence angle was 30 degrees (May 1995, p. 204; in Radin 1997, p. 99).

In another case from the late 1970s, supervisors gave a remote viewer the map coordinates of a location in the United States. The remote viewer gave an accurate description of a super secret military installation. The very existence of this installation, located in virginia, was at the time extremely confidential. Radin (Puthoff 1996; in Radin 1997, p. 99) said the viewer “was able to describe accurately the facility’s interior and was even able to correctly sense the names of secret code words written on folders inside locked file cabinets.” In 1977, a reporter, who had learned about the remote viewer’s report, went to the spot to verify the existence of the military installation. The reporter saw just a hillside with sheep and concluded the report was not true. But the installation actually was at that spot—not on the surface, but underground (Radin 1997, p. 99).

In September of 1979, the national Security council of the United States became interested in knowing what the Soviet Union was doing inside a large building in northern Russia. Spy satellite photos of activities around the building indicated some kind of heavy construction, but the nSc wanted to know exactly what was happening inside. A remote viewer working for the army, chief Warrant Officer Joe McMoneagle, was assigned to the task (McMoneagle 1993, Schnabel 1997; in Radin 1997, pp. 194–195). The officers in charge of the project did not at first show McMoneagle the satellite photos or tell him anything about their content. They gave him only a set of map coordinates and asked what he could see at that location. He described large buildings and smokestacks in a cold location near a large body of water. After receiving this essentially accurate report, the officers showed McMoneagle the satellite photos of the building in which they were especially interested, and asked him to see what was going on inside. McMoneagle reported that a submarine was being constructed inside the building.

McMoneagle sketched a large vessel, much larger than any submarine in existence, with a long flat deck and tubes for eighteen or twenty missiles. The nSc officials were doubtful. The vessel was too big for a submarine, and the building was about a hundred yards from the water. Also, none of the intelligence services had picked up any reports of such a submarine under construction in the Soviet Union. Looking into the future, McMoneagle predicted that in four months time the Soviets would dig a canal from the building to the water to launch the submarine. In January of 1980, satellite photos revealed the submarine, the largest in the world, moving through a new artificial channel from the building to the harbor. The submarine had a flat deck and twenty missile tubes. It was the first typhoon class submarine. Radin (1997, p. 195) said, “Scientists who had worked on these highly classified programs, including myself, were frustrated to know firsthand the reality of high-performance psi phenomena and yet we had no way of publicly responding to skeptics. nothing could be said about the fact that the U.S. Army had supported a secret team of remote viewers, that those viewers had participated in hundreds of remote-viewing missions, and that the dIA, cIA, customs Service, drug Enforcement Agency, fBI, and Secret Service had all relied on the remote-viewing team for more than a decade, sometimes with startling results.”

In 1988, Edwin May, director of Stanford Research International, reviewed the results of all psychical research tests carried out at SRI from 1973 to 1988, involving over 26,000 trials in the course of 154 experiments. The odds that the success rate in these trials could have been the result of chance guesses were 1020 to one, more than a billion to one (Radin 1997, p. 101). In 1995, the congress of the United States asked the American Institutes for Research to review the cIA-sponsored remote viewing work carried out at Science Applications International corporation (SAIc) during the years 1989–1993. The two chief reviewers were dr. Jessica Utts, a statistics professor at the University of california at davis, favorable to psychical research, and dr. Ray Hyman, a long time critic of psychical research. Radin (1997, p. 101) noted, “The SAIc studies provided a rigorously controlled set of experiments that had been supervised by a distinguished oversight committee of experts from a variety of scientific disciplines. The committee included a nobel laureate physicist, internationally known experts in statistics, psychology, neuroscience, and astronomy, and a retired U. S. Army major general who was also a physician.”

In her evaluation, Jessica Utts concluded: “It is clear to this author that anomalous cognition is possible and has been demonstrated” (Utts 1996; in Radin 1997, p. 102). Utts also said: “The statistical results of the studies examined are far beyond what is expected by chance. Arguments that these results could be due to methodological flaws in the experiments are soundly refuted. Effects of similar magnitude to those found in government-sponsored research . . . have been replicated at a number of laboratories across the world. Such consistency cannot be readily explained by claims of flaws or fraud” (Utts 1996, p. 3; in Radin 1997, pp.4–5).

Even Ray Hyman found little to criticize: “I agree with Jessica Utts that the effect sizes reported in the SAIc experiments . . . probably cannot be dismissed as due to chance. nor do they appear to be accounted for by multiple testing, filedrawer distortions, inappropriate statistical testing or other misuse of statistical inference. . . . So, I accept Professor Utts’ assertion that the statistical results of the SAIc, and other parapsychological experiments, ‘are far beyond what is expected by chance.’ The SAIc experiments are well-designed and the investigators have taken pains to eliminate the known weaknesses in previous parapsychological research. In addition, I cannot provide suitable candidates for what flaws, if any, might be present” (Hyman 1996, p. 55; in Radin 1997 p. 103). nevertheless, he still was not prepared to admit that the tests confirmed psychical abilities. He proposed that although he was not able to identify any flaws, or even propose any possible flaws, that some flaws might be there. He therefore insisted on more “independent replication” of the results, although the results, in the course of twenty years, had already been independently repeated by different researchers at SRI and elsewhere.

Among the labs that had already independently replicated SRI’s remote viewing work was the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) Laboratory, at Princeton University. Remote viewing experiments started there in 1978. The published experiments involved

334 trials between 1978 and 1987. “The final odds against chance for the PEAR researchers’ overall database were 100 billion to one,” said Radin (1997 p. 105).

Ganzfeld experiments

In recent years, psychical researchers have been conducting telepathic experiments with a technique called the ganzfeld (Radin 1997, pp. 69–72). The ganzfeld technique grew out of dream telepathy experiments carried out by psychiatrist Montague Ullman and psychologist Stanley Krippner at the Maimonides Medical center in Brooklyn, new York, during the years 1966–1972. It appeared that if a waking person

194 Human Devolution: a vedic alternative to Darwin’s theory

sent mental images to a dreaming person, the dreaming person would see those images in dreams. The dreamer would go to sleep in a closed room that was soundproofed and shielded from external electromagnetic waves. EEG monitoring of the sleeper’s brain waves would signal the beginning of REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, during which dreaming occurs. during the REM period, a sender isolated at a different location would try to send to the dreamer an image, randomly selected from a group of images, in most cases eight. Experimental protocols kept contacts between the experimenters and the sender to an absolute minimum. The sender would simply hear a buzzer at the onset of the dreamer’s REM sleep, and at this signal would begin sending the target image. At the end of the REM period, the sleeper would be awakened, and an experimenter would ask the sleeper to describe the dominant dream image. In some cases, the dreamer would go back to sleep and the process would be repeated. Afterwards, independent judges would compare the dream descriptions to the entire set of eight images from which the actual target image had been selected. The images would be ranked according to how well they matched the dreamer’s description. The best match was assigned first place, the second best match second place, and so on. If it turned out that the actual target image sent by the sender was one of the four best matches, this was counted as a hit. If we assume there was nothing significant in the dream descriptions, and that the judges had no knowledge of the actual target image, then the matchings of the eight images to a particular dream description would be random. In that case we would expect that the actual target image would show up in the best four matches from the whole set of eight images only fifty percent of the time. Radin (1997, p. 70) noted: “In journal articles published between 1966 and

1973, a total of 450 dream telepathy sessions were reported . . . the overall hit rate is seen to be about 63 percent . . . the odds against chance of getting a 63 percent hit rate in 450 sessions, where chance is 50 percent and the confidence interval is . . . small [plus or minus 4 percent], is seventy-five million to one.”

The dream experiments were based on the premise that psychical effects would operate more strongly on a receiver’s mind when ordinary sensory inputs were lessened. charles Honorton, a parapsychologist involved with the Maimonides dream experiments, sought to develop a method for putting subjects into an artificial state of dreamlike sensory deprivation. Researchers would thus have more control over the experimental process, as it no longer depended on waiting for the subject to fall asleep and enter the REM state. William Braud, a psychologist at the University of Houston, and Adrian Parker, a psychologist at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, joined Honorton in producing what came to be called the ganzfeld method.

In their development of this method, the researchers were inspired by states of altered consciousness reported in ancient wisdom traditions. Radin (1997, p. 73) stated: “Honorton, Braud, and Parker had noticed that descriptions of mystical, meditative, and religious states often included anecdotes about psi experiences, and that the association between reduced mental noise and the spontaneous emergence of psi was noted long ago in the ancient religious texts of India, the vedas. for example, in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, one of the first textbooks on yoga dating back at least thirty-five hundred years, it is taken for granted that prolonged practice with deep meditation leads to a variety of siddhis, or psychic abilities.” Statements to this effect are found throughout the vedic literatures. In the Shrimad Bhagavatam (11.15.1), we read: “The Supreme Personality of Godhead said: My dear Uddhava, the mystic perfections of yoga are acquired by a yogi who has conquered his senses, steadied his mind, conquered the breathing process and fixed his mind on Me.” In the vedic conception, God is known as Yogesvara, the master of all mystic powers, and the yogi who stills the mind by focusing it on God within attains siddhis. One of these siddhis is named in the Bhagavat Purana (11.15.6) as dura-shravana-darshanam, the ability to see and hear things at a distance. The entire fifteenth chapter of the Eleventh canto of the Shrimad Bhagavatam deals with the yogic siddhis and how they may be attained. Interestingly enough, the siddhis are actually considered obstacles for those on the path of complete spiritual perfection, because one who gets them tends to get absorbed in using them for selfish goals.

In the ganzfeld technique, the person who is to receive a psychic communication is placed in a soundproof room on a comfortable reclining chair. Halves of translucent white ping-pong balls are taped over the eyes, and a light is directed upon them, producing a uniform featureless visual field. Headphones, through which white noise is played, are placed over the ears. The receiver is also guided through some relaxation exercises to reduce inner tensions. The combined effect is a homogeneous state of reduced sensory input called in German the Ganzfeld, or “total field.” When the receiver is in the ganzfeld state, a sender at another location looks at a randomly selected target image (a photograph or video tape clip) and mentally sends the image to the receiver. The session lasts for 30 minutes, during which the receiver continuously reports aloud all mental impressions, emotions, and thoughts. At the end of the session, four images are shown to the receiver, who is asked to select from among them the target. The receiver does this by judging which of the four images best matches the receiver’s own stream of consciousness report. By chance, the hit rate should be 25 percent, but studies have shown that the receivers are able to correctly select the target image at a rate significantly greater than 25 percent. Psychologist d. J. Bem of cornell University reported in 1996 (pp. 163–164): “More than 60 ganzfeld experiments have now been conducted, and a 1985 meta-analysis of 42 ganzfeld studies conducted in 10 independent laboratories up to that time found that receivers achieved an average hit rate of 35 percent—a result that could have occurred by chance with a probability of less than one in a billion. Supplementary analyses have demonstrated that this overall result could not have resulted from selective reporting of positive results or from flawed procedures that might have permitted the receiver to obtain the target information in normal sensory fashion.”

The 1985 meta-analysis cited by Bem was conducted by Honorton (1985). A second study of the same cases was conducted by the skeptic Ray Hyman (1985a, 1985b). Even Hyman was forced to conclude that the results were not the result of improper use of statistics, sensory leakage, or cheating (Radin 1997, p. 82). He suggested that improper randomization techniques might have been responsible, although Honorton had given arguments against this. Radin (1997, p. 83) noted, “In this case, ten psychologists and statisticians supplied commentaries alongside the Honorton-Hyman published debate . . . everyone [including Honorton and Hyman] agreed that the ganzfeld results were not due to chance, nor to selective reporting, nor to sensory leakage. And everyone, except one confirmed skeptic [Hyman], also agreed that the results were not plausibly due to flaws in randomization procedures.” nevertheless, Honorton, in a joint communiqué with Hyman, did agree to modify the ganzfeld protocols to take into account Hyman’s concerns (Hyman and Honorton 1986; in Radin 1997, p. 84). This had the good effect of getting Hyman to give his conditions in writing, so that he could not in the future simply raise vague possible objections to the ganzfeld results.

It turned out that Honorton had been conducting ganzfeld studies that complied with Hyman’s stringent conditions since 1983, when the process of image selection had been taken out of the hands of human experimenters and given over to computers. The entire procedure of data recording was automated. Measures were taken to isolate the receiver more effectively, and the whole physical set-up and experimental protocol were reviewed by two professional magicians, who attested the experiments were not vulnerable to cheating (Radin 1997, pp. 85–86). Between 1983 and 1989, 240 persons participated in 354 automated ganzfeld experiments (Honorton and Schechter, 1987; Honorton et al. 1990). In these sessions, the hit rate was 37 percent. The odds against chance were 45,000 to one (Radin 1997, p. 86).

Hyman (1991), ever the skeptic, asked for independent replication. The Honorton experiments at the Psychological Research Laboratories were in fact later replicated by several researchers: Kathy dalton and her coworkers at the Koestler chair of Parapsychology, department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh; Professor dick Bierman, department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam; Professor daryl Bem, cornell University department of Psychology; dr. Richard Broughton and coworkers at the Rhine Research center, durham, north carolina; Professor Adrian Parker and coworkers at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden; and doctoral candidate Rens Wezelman, Institute of Parapsychology, Utrecht, netherlands (Radin 1997, pp. 87–88). When combined with the experiments documented in the 1985 meta-analysis and the 1983–1989 series of Honorton, the total number of sessions was 2,549. “The overall hit rate of 33.2 percent is unlikely with odds against chance beyond a million billion to one,” said Radin (1997, p. 88).

More recently, Bem was coauthor, with Honorton, of an important report on ganzfeld studies of telepathy. Science news said of the report, “new evidence supporting the existence of what most folks refer to as telepathy . . . boasts a rare distinction: It passed muster among skeptical peer reviewers and gained publication in a major, mainstream psychology journal” (Bower 1994). In the Science news article, Bem said, “I used to be a skeptic, but we met strict research guidelines and the results are statistically significant. We hope the findings prompt others to try replicating this effect.” The actual report was published in the January 1994 issue of Psychological Bulletin. Bem and Honorton, using statistical meta-analysis, combined the results of 11 studies involving 240 subjects. The hit rate was one in three, compared to the chance expectation of one in four. In one study, 29 dance, drama, and music students got a hit rate of one in two. One of the reviewers of the article for Psychological Bulletin was Robert Rosenthal, a psychologist at Harvard. He said, “Bem and Honorton’s article is very sophisticated statistically and you can’t dismiss their findings” (Bower 1994).

not everyone was convinced. At a lecture on parapsychology at the Royal Institution, which I attended on february 5, 2000, psychologist Richard Wiseman of the University of Hertfordshire claimed that his own meta-analysis of the post 1987 ganzfeld studies gave a combined hit rate of 27 percent, which, according to him, does not exceed chance expectation. But he also admitted a subsequent study by one of his coworkers of the most recent studies, 1997–1999, yielded a hit rate of 37 percent. Altogether, it seems that there is a genuine paranormal effect in the ganzfeld experiments.

Modern Research into Psychokinetics

Having considered some of the recent scientific work in remote viewing and telepathy, let us now look at psychokinetics (pk), which according to my proposal involves the action of a subtle mind element on ordinary matter. In the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century, prominent scientists reported singular macro-psychokinetic effects such as floating tables. Later researchers have concentrated on reproducible micro-psychokinetic effects.

dice tossing experiments, in which subjects attempt to mentally influence the results, are one example. In 1989, psychologist diane ferrari and dean Radin, then at Princeton, did a meta-analysis of all such experiments in English-language journals up to that time (Radin and ferrari 1991). They found 73 reports, from 52 different investigators, published between the years 1935 and 1987. These reports recorded the results of 2.6 million dice throws by 2,569 subjects in 148 experiments. The reports also recorded control studies, in which the subjects did not try to mentally influence the outcome of the dice throws. The hit rate for the control studies was 50.02 percent, about what would be expected by chance, while the hit rate for the experiments was 51.2 percent. Radin (1997, p. 134) noted: “This does not look like much, but statistically it results in odds against chance of more than a billion to one.”

Radin and ferrari tested their statistical results against various criticisms. Were most of the positive results concentrated in only a few of the many studies? After removing from the database the studies with the most positive results, the remaining studies still indicated a positive result with odds against chance of more than three million to one. Were positive results concentrated in a large number of studies done by a few researchers? Radin and ferrari found that when they removed from their database the researchers who had done the most studies, the remaining results were still positive, with odds against chance of a billion to one. Were the positive results caused by selective reporting? It would have taken 17,974 unpublished studies with negative results to eliminate the positive results. This would amount to 121 unpublished studies for every published study (Radin 1997, 134–135).

One problem recognized by early researchers was the tendency of high numbers, like six, to turn up more often than lower numbers. The face of a die with six on it is made by scooping out six small depressions. This face is therefore lighter than the opposite faces with lower numbers and is more likely to turn up when the dice are thrown. So if the throwers were trying to get sixes, they would be likely to get a result higher than chance, not because of any paranormal mental influence but because of the natural tendency of sixes to come up more than lower numbers. Researchers established experimental protocols to control for this by varying the target numbers in a way that was carefully balanced. Of the 148 studies in the total sample analyzed by Radin and ferrari, 69 were performed with this balanced protocol. They reported that for these studies “there was still highly significant evidence for mind-matter interactions, with odds against chance of greater than a trillion to one” (Radin

1997, p. 137).

In more recent times, random number generator (RnG) tests have replaced dice tossing tests. Random number generators incorporate an element that either emits particles from random radioactive decay or produces random electronic noise. Either of these will produce in the RnG circuitry random surges (spikes) in the signal. These spikes interrupt a special digital clock, which is emitting a stream of alternating ones and zeros (1010101010101 . . .), with the alternations occurring millions of times per second. The RnG circuitry is designed so that the apparatus records the state of the clock (one or zero) at the times the spikes interrupt the stream of alternating ones and zeros. If the spikes are coming randomly at a rate of ten thousand times per second, the RnG will therefore record a random sequence of ten thousand ones and zeros per second (for example, 10001101000111101010. . . .). The modern RnG machines are tamper-resistant and record data automatically. The percentage of ones from an RnG generating a random series of ones and zeros should, over a sufficiently large number of trials, be 50 percent. But when subjects are asked to will more ones than zeros, the percentage climbs to a level beyond what could be expected by chance.

Modern RnG studies began with the work of Helmut Schmidt, a physicist at Boeing Laboratories. Robert Jahn, dean of Princeton’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, initiated his own program of RnG studies, and these studies have continued up to the present at PEAR, Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research. In 1987 dean Radin and Roger nelson, a Princeton psychologist, did a meta-analysis of all RnG experiments up to that time. Their report appeared in the prestigious mainstream science journal Foundations of Physics. Examining data from 597 experimental studies, carried out from 1959 to 1987, they found that the overall hit rate was about 51 percent. This might not sound like much, but the odds against this occurring by chance in the number of reported trials was over a trillion to one (Radin and nelson, 1989, p. 140). Was selective reporting responsible for the results? To eliminate the evidence for a psychical effect would require 54,000 unpublished reports, or about ninety unpublished reports with negative results for each published report (Radin and nelson 1989, p. 142). Another set of 1,262 experimental studies from PEAR, carried out from 1989 to 1996, was analyzed by York dobyns, a mathematician at Princeton University. His analysis confirmed the previous studies (dobyns 1996).

Analyzing the whole RnG research program, nelson and Radin (1996) reported: “The primary overall findings, considering all available data, are that (a) nearly 40 years of experiments continue to show small but statistically unequivocal mental interaction effects, (b) the effect has been independently replicated by researchers at dozens of universities around the world, and (c) the effect has been replicated using a new experimental design involving skeptical third-party observers . . . A wide variety of theoretical models have been proposed for the interaction effect, ranging from observer effects in quantum mechanics to precognition.”

Evaluations of modern laboratory Based Psychical Research

Several studies commissioned by various agencies of the United States government have given support to psychical research. A study by the congressional Research Service, published in 1981, said, “Recent experi-ments in remote viewing and other studies in parapsychology suggest that there exists an ‘interconnectedness’ of the human mind with other minds and with matter” (U.S. Library of congress 1983; in Radin

1997, p. 4). A few years later, the Army Research Institute commissioned a report on the status of parapsychology. Published in 1985, the report stated that the data reviewed in the report were “genuine scientific anomalies for which no one has an adequate explanation or set of explanations” (Palmer 1985; in Radin 1997, p. 4).

The U.S. Army in 1987 asked the national Research council to review the state of parapsychological research. The nRc committee advised the Army to monitor parapsychological research in the United States and in the Soviet Union and to spend money in support of parapsychological research. The committee also admitted that for some categories of parapsychological experiments it could not provide alternatives to explanations involving paranormal influence. One of the committee members was the skeptical dr. Ray Hyman, a psychology professor at the University of Oregon, who later said: “Parapsychologists should be rejoicing. This was the first government committee that said their work should be taken seriously” (Chronicle of Higher education, September 14, 1988, p. A5; in Radin 1997, p. 4).

Macro Psychokinetic effects

Although much of the recent work in parapsychology has focused on micro-psychokinetic effects and remote viewing, some experimental work in macro-psychokinetic phenomena, like that conducted in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, has continued. Richard Broughton has discussed some of these cases in his book Parapsychology: the Controversial Science (1991), from which I will take two examples, one from Russia and the other from china. Both of these cases involve experiments conducted and reported by professional scientists. I shall also include here a particularly well documented poltergeist case, involving movements of objects by a variety of witnesses.

In Moscow, in June 1968, Soviet bloc scientists such as dr. Zdenek Rejdak from czechoslovakia, showed films of experiments with the Russian medium nina Kulagina, giving Western scientists their first look at her abilities. Broughton (1991, p. 144) stated: “One film excerpt shows her moving a cigar tube standing upright on a playing card inside a closed, clear plastic case . . . Other film excerpts show Kulagina selectively moving one or two matchsticks among several scattered on a table as well as moving several objects simultaneously in different directions. Soviet investigations of Kulagina were extensive. Besides studies by Soviet scientists openly interested in psychic phenomena, Kulagina was also investigated by committees and individuals from impartial scientific and medical institutes. The investigations appear to be quite competent regarding the elimination of fraud. Typically Kulagina was searched for magnets, strings, and other paraphernalia that might be used to simulate PK. for one series of filmed investigations she was examined by a physician and X-rayed for hidden magnets or traces of shrapnel from a war wound that could possibly act as a magnet. Often she was required to move nonmagnetic objects in sealed containers to eliminate magnetism or concealed threads as explanations.”

In October of 1970, Kulagina was tested in St. Petersburg, Russia, by Gaither Pratt, who at the time was with the division of Parapsychology at the University of virginia at charlottesville in the United States. He was accompanied by an associate, champe Ransom. Also present were Kulagina’s husband, a marine engineer, and two scientists, Genady Sergeyev, a physiologist who had been studying Kulagina, and Konstantin Ivanenko, a mathematician (Broughton 1991, p. 141). The meeting took place in a hotel room. Pratt and Ransom had with them some objects that could be used for tests, including a compass and a box of matches. Sergeyev placed them on a table in front of Kulagina, and then asked the group to step away from the table for a few minutes while Kulagina got herself into the proper mood. from a short distance, Pratt watched as Kulagina stretched her hands out over the objects. The matchbox moved towards her several inches. She put it back to its original position in the center of the table, and repeated the performance. The matchbox again moved toward her. She then declared herself ready to begin (Broughton1991, p. 142).

One of the experiments involved a small nonmagnetic cylinder. Pratt filmed it with a home movie camera. Broughton (1991, pp. 142–143) wrote: “As Pratt set up the camera, Ransom spread a patch of aquarium gravel in the center of the table, placed the nonmagnetic cylinder upright in the midst of the gravel, and inverted a tall glass over it. Kulagina concentrated, Pratt filmed, and within moments the cylinder began tracing a path through the gravel. When the perimeter of the glass seemed to restrict the cylinder’s movement, Ransom lifted it and Kulagina again concentrated. Again the upright cylinder plowed a path through the gravel as the camera rolled.”

In April 1973, Benson Herbert, a British physicist, and his colleague Manfred cassirer performed experiments with Kulagina in a temporary laboratory, set up in his room in a St. Petersburg hotel. Broughton (1991, p. 145) stated: “The centerpiece of this impromptu lab was a hydrometer, a glass-bulb-and-tube device used for measuring specific gravity, that floated upright in a saline solution. The entire system was surrounded by an electrically grounded screen. Herbert had hoped Kulagina might be able to depress the hydrometer, thus giving him a means of measuring the amount of psychic ‘force’ being used.” Kulagina was somewhat ill at the time, and did not feel like making any attempts. Still, she was able to induce some small movements of the hydrometer. Exhausted from this effort, she sat down in a chair about three or four feet from the apparatus. from the chair, she focused her attention on the hydrometer. Broughton (1991, p. 145) stated: “Slowly she raised her arms in the direction of the apparatus.Within moments the previously motionless hydrometer floated in a straight line to the far side of the vessel. After resting there for about two minutes, it then retraced its path and continued to the near side. All of this took place under the close watch of the two British investigators, who were able to confirm there were no strings or hidden wires between Kulagina and the device several feet away.” In the same session, Kulagina tried to rotate the needle of a compass, with some slight success. Herbert then saw the entire compass rotate counterclockwise about 45 degrees. “Over the next minute,” said Broughton (1991, p. 145), “as Herbert ran his fingers over and under the table looking for threads and Kulagina sat motionless, the compass case did a zigzag dance about the table.”

Between 1978 and 1984, Kulagina was investigated by physicists and other scientists in St. Petersburg at the Institute of Precise Mechanics and Optics and in Moscow at the Research Institute of Radio Engineering and Electronics as well as at the Baumann Higher School of Technology. The purpose of the research was not to verify her psychokinetic abilities (as these were taken as demonstrated), but to discover a biophysical force capable of explaining them. “In other experiments,” said Broughton (1991, p. 145), “Kulagina reportedly decreased the intensity of a laser beam by affecting the physical properties of the gas through which it passed.”

Zhang Baosheng was born in Bengxi city, in Liaoning province on china’s northern coast. Local researchers learned of his paranormal abilities in 1976. chinese scientists had for some time been studying paranormal phenomena under the name of “exceptional functions of the human body” (Broughton 1991, p. 166). Interest in this research became very strong in the late 1970s, causing a negative reaction from some scientists and communist Party officials. In April 1982, the Party’s national committee of Science decided to resolve the dispute by inviting supporters of exceptional functions of the human body (EfHB) research and their critics to conduct joint experiments with leading psychics. Zhang was brought to Beijing and produced good results during these tests, which many other psychics failed (Broughton 1991, p. 166). for the next couple of years, Zhang was studied by researchers in several Beijing laboratories. during this period, much of the work with Zhang was done by Lin Shuhuang, a professor in the physics department of Beijing Teachers’ college, who had also been involved in the April 1982 tests. nineteen researchers conducted experiments under Lin in the period from december 1982 to May 1983.

Broughton (1991, p. 167) said, “In one experiment specially marked pieces of paper were chemically treated and placed in a glass test tube. The tube was melted to constrict it roughly at the midpoint. Into the top part were placed cotton wads that had been treated with a different chemical that would react if it came into contact with the chemical on the target papers. The top of the test tube was then irreversibly sealed with special paper. With four experimenters watching from different angles, the tube was placed in front of Zhang. five minutes later the target papers were lying beside the empty tube. The seal on the tube was undamaged. . . . In another experiment of that series a live insect was marked and placed inside a tube. The tube was sealed so that any attempt to open it would break a fine hair glued inside. With two experimenters watching, the tube was placed on a table in front of Zhang. Several minutes later the insect, still alive, was outside the tube.”

In 1984, research with Zhang came under the control of the Institute for Space-Medico Engineering (ISME), an agency connected with the chinese military. This marked the end of regular publication of the results. But there were some occasional leaks. Broughton (1991, pp. 167–168) stated: “In 1987 the chinese scientific community received a shock when the Spaceflight department awarded its Scientific Research Achievement Prize (second class) to the ISME team for a film of one of Zhang’s experiments. Articles in the press and a chinese science magazine reported that the ISME scientists filmed the movement of a medicine pill through an irreversibly sealed glass vial. The film was made in color using a high-speed (400 frames per second) Japanese camera. The reports say that three frames of the film clearly show the pill passing through the glass (entering the glass, halfway through, and exiting). Although no scientists outside of china seem to have seen the film, in late

1990 researchers both in and outside of china were surprised by the arrival of a new chinese journal, the Chinese Journal of Somatic Science. In it was a report of new experiments with Zhang by the ISME team. Accompanying the report was a series of photos, reportedly from a 400frame-per-second camera, showing a pill exiting from the bottom of a bottle held by Zhang. The report does not indicate whether the photos are from the prize-winning film.”

Part one Conclusion: there is a mind element

The experimental evidence accumulated by scientists of the past two centuries in the areas of telepathy, clairvoyance, and psychokinesis cannot be easily dismissed. Among the experimenters reporting positive results were several nobel laureates, including the curies, Richet, and crookes. In later years, other scientists of lesser fame have conducted careful reproducible studies of a variety of paranormal phenomena. The phenomena were judged so reliable that governments and militaries invested considerable sums of money in practical applications of remote viewing. This body of paranormal evidence points to the existence of a mind element associated with the human organism. This mind element appears to be endowed with sensory abilities that enable it to perceive things at a distance and manipulate objects composed of ordinary matter in ways not explained by our current laws of physics.

PART TWO:

EVIDENCE FOR A CONSCIOUS SELF

THAT CAN EXIST APART

FROM THE BODY AND MIND

The mind is a subtle material element, which can, among other things, gather impressions of objects beyond the normal range of perception and manipulate ordinary matter in paranormal ways. But mind does not itself provide the human organism with conscious experience. consciousness has another source, called, in Sanskrit, the atma, or self. The self, according to the Sanskrit vedic literature, is a small particle of spirit that illuminates the body and mind with consciousness. Although we cannot see the atma directly, we can detect its presence through its symptom, consciousness. This conscious self can exist apart from the body and mind. We will now review scientific evidence for the existence of such a conscious self. As in the case of the mind element, I shall confine myself to evidence from the time period paralleling that of the modern evolution science, i.e., from the middle of the nineteenth century up to the present. I shall also confine myself to evidence suggesting that there is at this moment within the body a conscious self that is not a product of mind or matter. I shall consider evidence for the survival of this self after the death of the body in chapter 8.

William James on Consciousness

William James noted that “arrests of brain development occasion imbecility, that blows on the head abolish memory or consciousness, and that brain-stimulants and poisons change the quality of our ideas” (Murphy and Ballou 1960, p. 284). The totality of such observations led many scientists of his day to conclude that consciousness was produced by the brain and continually dependent upon the brain for its existence. When the brain ceased to function, the individual consciousness associated with it ceased to exist.

There was, however, no generally accepted explanation of exactly how consciousness is produced by the brain (and neither is there one today). furthermore, any such theory of consciousness production would have to account for the production of millions of episodes of consciousness in an individual’s daily life. This caused James to say, “The theory of production is therefore not a jot more simple or credible in itself than any other conceivable theory. It is only a little more popular” (Murphy and Ballou 1960, p. 294).

James (Murphy and Ballou 1960, p. 290) thought the brain might have a transmissive rather than productive relationship to consciousness. A prism has a transmissive function relative to light. It does not produce light. When light passes through a prism, the prism modifies it. According to this conception, the brain would transmit or obstruct consciousness to various degrees. James said: “According to the state in which the brain finds itself, the barrier of its obstructiveness may also be supposed to rise or fall. It sinks so low, when the brain is in full activity, that a comparative flood of spiritual energy pours over. At other times, only such occassional waves of thought as heavy sleep permits get by. And when finally a brain stops acting altogether, or decays, that special stream of consciousness which it subserved will vanish entirely from this natural world. But the sphere of being that supplied the consciousness would still be intact; and in that more real world with which, even whilst here, it was continuous, the consciousness might, in ways unknown to us, continue still” (Murphy and Ballou 1960, p. 292). James seems to prefer the image of a living stream of consciousness to that of a particulate conscious soul, but either way, consciousness exists apart from matter.

In connection with the idea that the brain simply transmits preexisting consciousness, James cited the following statement by British philosopher f. c. S. Schiller (1891):“Matter is an admirably calculated machinery for regulating, limiting, and restraining the consciousness which it encases. . . . If the material encasement be coarse and simple, as in the lower organisms, it permits only a little intelligence to permeate through; if it is delicate and complex, it leaves more pores and exists, as it were, for the manifestations of consciousness” (Murphy and Ballou 1960, p. 300).

Out-of-Body experiences

Near death and out-of-body experiences (variously abbreviated as ndEs, OBEs, OOBEs) provide evidence demonstrating that consciousness may have an existence entirely apart from gross matter (the body) and subtle matter (the mind). Throughout history, people around the world have reported these experiences. In a cross-cultural study, dean Sheils (1978, p. 697) stated: “data from nearly 70 non-Western cultures were used to explore beliefs in out-of-the-body experiences (OOBEs).The data reveal that OOBE beliefs appear in about 95 per cent of the world’s cultures and that they are striking in their uniformity even though the cultures are diverse in structure and location. Three conventional explanations of OOBE beliefs—social control, crisis, and the dream theories—were tested and found to be inadequate as explanations. Hence, it is possible that the specificity and generality of OOBE beliefs is simply a response to a genuine event; i.e., the actual occurrence of OOBE.” By demonstrating that there is a conscious self that can experience sensations apart from the gross physical body, the OBE provides a foundation for the further conclusion that there is a conscious self that survives the death of the gross physical body. As Sheils himself says (1978, p. 700), “Before we can consider the issue of survival we are forced to establish that there is in fact ‘something’ that can survive.” Apart from anecdotal cross-cultural evidence, there is medical and scientific research that supports the idea that there is a conscious self that can exist apart from the mind and body.

Some of the most systematic investigations into the near death experience (ndE) were carried out by Kenneth Ring. The popular books of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and Raymond Moody on ndEs attracted the attention of Ring. Although he agreed with their conclusions, he felt the topic required a more scientific approach (Ring 1980, p. 19).

Ring assembled subjects, at least eighteen years old, who had been close to death either through illness, accident, or attempted suicide. Some subjects were enlisted through referrals from hospitals and psychiatrists, some responded to newspaper ads, and others, who had through various means learned of the survey, offered themselves as volunteers. In none of the attempts to enlist subjects was the topic of out-of-body experiences mentioned and none of the subjects were paid. A total of 102 subjects were enlisted. Subjects were first encouraged to give a “free narrative” of their near death episode. Then they were carefully questioned in order to determine “the presence or absence of the various components of the core experience as described by Moody” (Ring 1980, p. 28).

The subjects were told their identities would not be given in the final report. They were allowed to question the purpose of the study, but only after completing their interviews. The interviews were conducted between May 1977 and May 1978. Ring (1980, p. 29) stated: “A total of 102 persons recounting 104 near-death incidents were interviewed. Of these, 52 nearly died as a result of a serious illness; 26 from a serious accident; and 24 as a result of a suicide attempt.” About half were male, half female, and all except 7 were white. Almost all were religious. The median age at the time of the reported near death incidents was about 38 years. One third of the subjects were interviewed within a year after their experience, sixty percent within two years.

Ring analyzed the interview reports in terms of a weighted list of features of the core near death experience derived from Moody’s book life after life. The features and relative weights were (Ring 1980, pp. 32–33): a sense of being dead (1 point); feelings of pleasant peacefulness (2 or 4 points, depending on the strength of the feeling); a sense of separating from one’s body (2 or 4 points, depending on the distinctness of the description); entrance into a dark region (2 or 4 points, depending on the presence of movement); hearing a voice or feeling the presence of someone (3 points); reviewing one’s life (3 points); seeing light (2 points); seeing beautiful colors (1 point); entering the light (4 points); encountering visible spirit beings (3 points). Scores could thus range from 0 to 29 points. Three judges had to agree on a subject’s score for each item. Subjects with scores of less than six were deemed not to have had a Moody type ndE. Scores of from 6 to 9 points indicated a moderate ndE, and scores of 10 and over indicated a deep ndE. Ring found that 49 of his subjects (48 percent) reported experiences corresponding to Moody’s description of the “core experience” (Ring 1980, p. 32). Of these, 27 persons (26 percent) had a deep ndE, and 22 (22 percent) had a moderate ndE.

Some of the narrative descriptions by Ring’s subjects are of interest. One subject’s sister worked as a nurse in the hospital in which the subject had an ndE during treatment for a heart attack. during the ndE, the subject saw a vision of her sister coming to the hospital. “She walked in shortly after the alert was sounded and got to the emergency room where she worked and someone told her what was going on and she came ripping upstairs. I could see her doing it, I could see her coming up the elevator.” The subject’s sister later confirmed to her that her vision represented exactly what had happened (Ring 1980, p. 51).

Ring also included in his book a case originally reported by British psychical researcher f. W. H. Myers in his classic book Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death. The subject, dr. A. S. Wiltse, was a medical doctor. In 1889, he came down with typhoid fever and almost died. As he entered a coma, he recalled feeling drowsy and then losing consciousness. dr. S. H. Raynes, the doctor who was attending Wiltse, said that for four hours he showed no pulse or heart beat. It was during that time that Wiltse had the following experience: “I came again into a state of conscious existence and discovered that I was still in the body, but the body and I had no longer any interests in common.” He felt that he, the living soul, was “interwoven” with the bodily tissues. But then the connections with the bodily tissues began to break, and he came out of the body through the head. “I seemed to be translucent, of a bluish cast and perfectly naked,” said Wiltse. “As I turned, my left elbow came in contact with the arm of one of two gentlemen, who were standing at the door. To my surprise, his arm passed through mine without apparent resistance, the severed parts closing again without pain, as air reunites.” Wiltse then gazed upon his own dead body. But then the body’s eyes opened and Wiltse found himself once more inside that body and said to himself, “What in the world has happened to me? Must I die again?” (Ring 1980, p. 230)

Ring (1980, p. 232) said that the near death experience is best explained as an out-of-body experience. Something separates from this body, but he prefers not to use the word soul, which for him does not function well as a scientific term because of all the different meanings attached to it by various religions. This could be avoided by giving a good definition for the term soul. But I have no objection to Ring’s solution. He says (1980, p. 233): “I would content myself with saying that out-of-body experiences provide us with an empirical referent for the possible origin of the concept of soul. As such, I favor restricting its use to religious contexts. On the basis of the separation hypothesis, however, I do endorse the proposition that consciousness (with or without a second body) may function independently of the physical body.”

In Heading toward omega (1984), Ring documented the results of further research. The results yielded more confirmation of his interpretation of the ndE as an out-of-body experience. Ring gave more accounts of ndEs, including ones in which the subjects entered into the light as “pure consciousness” and found themselves communicating telepathically with friendly spiritual beings who gave them messages of enlightenment. A subject identified as Mr. dippong said that the last thing he remembered before entering into the ndE was praying to God. Then he found himself entering another state of consciousness. “I was in a heavenly pasture with flowers. It was another place, another time, and perhaps it was even another universe.” His ears filled with otherworldly music. Everything that happened was beyond anything he had previously experienced, and yet was somehow familiar. Like many other subjects, he said the experience was really beyond words. In the midst of beautifully colored light he encountered a radiantly beautiful being that he felt could have been his creator. The golden-hued creature, who seemed strangely familiar to dippong, was emanating light and love. He also became aware of other living beings. He felt that all living things were part of the light, and the light was part of them (Ring 1984, p. 61–66).

A subject named Ann described an ndE that occurred during the delivery of her second child in 1954. during a medical crisis, she felt herself being taken up swiftly toward a distant light. She left her pain behind and entered into feelings of peace and love. In this state, she felt that a being would soon approach her. When the being came, she felt she had met her dearmost friend. The being telepathically communicated that he had come for her child. Ann was happy, but soon became dejected when she realized she did not have a child. “He patted my hand in sympathy and reassured me that I was a mother, and I did have a child, but the child must have been delayed somehow,” recalled Ann in a letter to Ring. “Then he waved his hand across the space in front of us and the haze cleared. I could see the nurses and doctor, and my baby, back in the delivery room.” The being communicated to Ann that her child would live only four days. When Ann learned there was nothing she could do to prevent this, she said she did not want to go back. The being told her that she must go back. It was not time for her to go. He had come for her child, and would return for the baby in four days. Hearing this Ann was pleased, and willingly returned. She awoke to find a nurse slapping her face and calling her name. She learned she had given birth to a daughter, whom she called Tari. She felt there was something she wanted to tell the staff, but she could not quite remember what it was. On the second day, Ann’s doctor learned that Tari was suffering from cerebral hemorrhaging and would most probably soon die. On the fourth day, the child did die. The physician told the nurses not to tell Ann, because he wished to break the news to her himself. But somehow this did not happen quickly enough. It came time for Ann to be discharged from the hospital, and at this time a nurse said, “Oh, God! Your doctor should have been here by now! I’m not supposed to tell you, but I can’t let you go on believing Tari is alive. She died early this morning.” At that time, Ann remembered her ndE (Ring 1984, pp. 77–84).

Ring used the Greek word omega for his study because it is the last letter of the Greek alphabet, and can be taken to mean the end of life, or, more positively, the goal of life. Ring (1984, p. 252) took this goal to be the evolution of consciousness. Ring (1984, p. 255) considered the ndE to be “only one of a family of related transcendental experiences” that were contributing to this evolution, characterized by “unlocking spiritual potentials previously dormant.”

Another prominent researcher into ndEs and OBEs is Michael B. Sabom. When he was in his first year of cardiology practice at the University of florida in Gainesville, he heard psychiatric social worker Sarah Kreutziger give a talk about dr. Raymond Moody’s book life after life. Sabom (1982, p. 3) recalled, “My indoctrinated scientific mind just couldn’t relate seriously to these ‘far-out’ descriptions of afterlife spirits and such.”

nevertheless, Sabom, along with Kreutziger, decided to do a little research into the matter. Sabom chose patients that had been close to physical death, which he defined as “any bodily state resulting from an extreme physiological catastrophe, accidental or otherwise, that would reasonably be expected to result in irreversible biological death in the majority of instances and would demand urgent medical attention, if available” (Sabom 1982, p. 9). These states included severe injury, heart attacks, and deep comas. In interviewing subjects, Sabom and Kreutziger agreed they would at first avoid mentioning any interest in “near death experiences.” They would simply ask subjects to tell their remembrances of what happened before they lost consciousness. Then they would ask if they could recall anything that happened during their unconscious state. Some subjects simply said they could remember nothing, except that they were unconscious. But other subjects would hesitate, and ask, “Why do you want to know?” At that point, Sabom or Kreutziger would explain that some patients had experienced things while they should have been unconscious and that as researchers they were sincerely interested in gathering more information about such experiences. The subjects would then usually share their experiences, first saying things like, “You won’t believe this, but . . .” (Sabom 1982, pp. 9–10).

In his book, Sabom described many aspects of the ndE. I found most interesting the “autoscopic” experiences, in which the subjects found themselves observing their own bodies. for example, a fifty-sevenyear-old construction worker found himself floating four feet above his body during an operation. He could see the doctors and nurses operating. At a certain point, he noticed one of the nurses looking in the direction of his floating face. It was obvious to him that she could not see anything (Sabom 1982, p. 10).

In another case, an American soldier in vietnam was severely wounded in a mine explosion, losing two legs and one arm. While he was being transported away from the battlefield in a helicopter, in an unconscious state, he had an out-of-body experience. He remained close to his body and could see it. His body was taken to a field hospital. There he saw doctors operating on his body, but he wanted them to stop. In his interview he said, “I actually remember grabbing the doctor. . . . I grabbed and he wasn’t there or either I just went through him or whatever” (Sabom 1982, p. 33). The same soldier reported traveling from the operating room back to the battlefield, where he witnessed other soldiers putting the dead into body bags and collecting the wounded. After trying to get one of the soldiers to stop, he found himself suddenly back in the hospital. He recalled, “It was almost like you materialize there and all of a sudden the next instant you were over here. It was just like you blinked your eyes” (Sabom 1982, p. 33). Other subjects also reported such “thought travel” experiences. A night watchman who had an autoscopic ndE during cardiac arrest reported traveling to locations near the operating room where he was being treated. These movements occurred according to his own desires. He recalled: “It was just like I said, ‘Okay, what’s going on in the parking lot?’ and my brain would go over and take a look at what’s going on over there and come back and report to me” (Sabom 1982, p. 34).

Sabom (1982, p. 34) stated, “All the people interviewed remarked that during the autoscopic ndE, they felt as if they had been truly ‘separated’ from their physical body.” The autoscopic ndEs would usually end with the subject reporting reentering the body at the same time as some key event in their treatment. One of Sabom’s subjects, a cardiac arrest patient, reported floating above his body. He could see the medical team putting pads (defibrillators) on his chest. He could not feel the first shock. Just before the second shock, he remembered his family, and thought he should reenter his body. He reported, “It was just as if I went back and got into my body” (Sabom 1982, p. 35).

Many of Sabom’s subjects reported what Sabom (1982, p. 39) called “transcendental near-death experiences.” The autoscopic experiences described above involve perception of the subject’s own body and the surrounding environment, including other people, as they would be perceived by an observer in normal consciousness. The transcendental ndE’s involve perceptions of being transported to realms beyond that of our normal experience, and perhaps also encountering deceased friends or relatives or personalities who seemed angelic or godlike. forty-one of Sabom’s subjects reported transcendental ndEs (Sabom 1982, p. 41). One of Sabom’s heart attack patients recalled how he blacked out while being taken into a hospital for treatment. He saw his life flashing before him, including his acceptance of Jesus christ. Then he entered a black tunnel, seeing at the other end an orange-colored light. Seeing this he entered into a peaceful state of consciousness. He could hear voices. He saw steps, which he took to be the steps leading up to the gates of heaven (Sabom 1982, p. 40). Some of Sabom’s subjects reported experiences with both autoscopic and transcendental elements.

The most interesting of Sabom’s subjects, from the scientific point of view, were those who gave detailed reports of their surgical procedures, observed during out-of-body experiences. In the beginning Sabom was skeptical of such reports. He thought it would be very easy for him to explain them. Sabom, a veteran of over a hundred resuscitations of cardiac arrest patients, said (1982, p. 7): “In essence, I would pit my experience as a trained cardiologist against the professed visual recollections of lay individuals. In so doing, I was convinced that obvious inconsistencies would appear which would reduce these purported visual observations to no more than an ‘educated guess’ on the part of the patient.” But at the end of his study, Sabom came to a different conclusion.

Here is one of the cases that helped change Sabom’s mind. The subject was a night watchman, 52 years old. He had undergone two heart attacks previous to the interview. He told Sabom about an OBE that occurred during his first heart attack, but hesitated to tell him about another experience he had undergone during his second heart attack, suggesting Sabom would probably not believe it. Upon further prompting from Sabom, the man went on to describe things he witnessed during his second heart attack (Sabom 1982, pp. 64–67). In his interview, he jumped back and forth in time, so in the following summary I have sorted out his observations in what appears to me to be the correct order. first he was administered an anesthetic intravenously, which caused him to become unconscious. But then he recalled, “All of a sudden I became aware of it . . . like I was in the room a couple of feet or so above my head, like I was another person in the room.” He saw himself being draped with several layers of cloth. He saw his chest opened, and the chest cavity being held apart by a metal apparatus. He observed his heart, and saw that part of it was colored differently than the rest. He saw the doctors insert an apparatus into a vein. He heard them discussing a bypass procedure. He saw the doctors remove a piece of his heart. during the operation he saw the surgeons “injecting a syringe of something into my heart on two occasions.” After the operation, he saw two doctors stitching him up. They worked first on the inside, and then the outside.

The subject’s testimony matched very closely the surgeon’s report, which the subject had never seen (Sabom 1982, p. 68; bracketed interpolations by Sabom): “A satisfactory general anesthesia [halothan] was introduced with the patient in the supine position. . . . He was prepped from the chin to below the ankles and draped in the customary sterile fashion. . . A long midline incision was made. . . . The sternum was sawed open in the midline, a self-retaining retractor was utilized . . . [After the heart had been exposed] Two 32 Argyle venous lines were placed through stab wounds in the right atrium [heart chamber]. . . . One of these tubes extended into the inferior vena cava and one into the superior vena cava [large veins which feed blood to venous side of heart]. . . . The patient was placed on cardiopulmonary bypass. . . . The ventricular aneurysm [large scarred area of heart which represented area of previous heart attack and would have appeared to be of a different color than the normal heart muscle that remained] was dissected free. . . . The left ventricle was then closed. . . . Air was evacuated from the left ventricle with a needle and syringe . . . The wound was closed in layers.”

The subject’s account contained many other details not mentioned in the surgeon’s report, such as the insertion of sponges into the chest cavity to absorb blood. These details, too minor to be mentioned in the report itself, were, however, consistent with the report. Sabom gave other examples of very detailed accounts of perceptions of the details of surgical treatment, details not likely to be known by a patient. To Sabom, these detailed reports by subjects, matching the records kept by doctors about the exact surgical procedures, were good confirmation of the reality of the reported out-of-body experiences.

Thirty-two of Sabom’s subjects reported details of their medical treatment (1982, p. 83). In order to judge the extent to which these reports could have been the result of educated guesses, Sabom interviewed a control group of twenty-five cardiac patients, with backgrounds similar to those reporting ndEs (1982, p. 84). They were familiar in a general way with hospital treatment of cardiac arrest and many admitted to having seen hospital dramas on television. Sabom asked the control subjects to imagine they were in an operating room watching doctors resuscitate a heart attack victim and to report to him in detail what they thought would be happening. Two of the control subjects could not come up with any description at all. Of the twenty-three who did supply descriptions, twenty made major errors. The most common error was including mouth-tomouth breathing in the account. In hospitals, other methods are used to give oxygen to a patient. Three of those giving descriptions gave very limited ones without obvious error (Sabom 1982, p. 85). By way of contrast, of the 32 subjects reporting some recollection of their treatment during ndEs, 26 gave general descriptions that did not include any major errors. According to Sabom (1982, p.87), these descriptions “did correspond in a general way to the known facts of the near-death crisis event.” According to these sub-jects, they were focusing more on the experience itself than on what the doctors were doing, and were thus not able to recall details (Sabom 1982, p. 86). furthermore, six subjects gave remarkably detailed accounts that matched their medical treatment records. So, in the control group, 20 out of 23 subjects who gave reports made major errors, while in the ndE group of 32 subjects none made any mistakes and six gave very detailed reports that exactly matched their medical records, unseen by them. This led Sabom (1982, p. 87) to conclude that “these ndE accounts most likely are not subtle fabrications based on prior general knowledge.” He said that further research was desirable, in order to strengthen the basis for this conclusion. At the end of his study, Sabom (1982, p. 183) asked, “could the mind which splits apart from the physical brain be, in essence, the ‘soul,’ which continues to exist after final bodily death, according to some religious doctrines?”

Sabom has his critics. One is Susan Blackmore. Once inclined to accept the reality of out-of-body experiences, Blackmore now believes that the out-of-body experience does not actually involve any conscious entity going out of the body. There are thus two interpretations of the OBE. The extrasomatic interpretation holds that there is a self which actually leaves the body. The intrasomatic interpretation holds that there is merely an internal impression of being out of the body. Most supporters of the intrasomatic interpretation would also deny that there is any kind of substantial conscious self at all, what to speak of one that could leave the body. Blackmore, who holds the intrasomatic view, stated (1982, p. 251): “nothing leaves the body in an OBE and so there is nothing to survive.” Under this intrasomatic view, the OBE is simply a dreamlike hallucination manufactured by the brain.

In his book Parapsychology, Philosophy, and Spirituality: a Postmodern exploration, philosopher david Ray Griffin (1997, pp. 232–242) discussed objections to the intrasomatic hypothesis, the most significant of which I outline in the next few paragraphs. The most obvious objection is the intensity of the subject’s feeling and perception of being out of the body. Most of those reporting OBEs are resolute in their conviction that they experienced something real, something distinct from a dream or hallucination.

Some subjects, not under anesthesia, reported a cessation of pain during their OBEs. This could possibly be explained by the action of the body’s natural painkillers, such as endorphins. But the subjects reported that the pain returned as soon as they reentered their bodies. This should not happen if the pain relief was caused by endorphins. The most fitting explanation appears to be that the conscious self actually leaves the body and becomes temporarily detached from the sensations of the body.

The primarily visual nature of OBEs is also a problem for advocates of intrasomatic theories. When a person approaching death gradually becomes unconscious, normally the visual sensations cease before the auditory sensations. It would thus seem that subjects on the brink of death should be recalling sounds rather than sights. In this connection, it should also be noted that schizophrenic hallucinations are primarily auditory, not visual.

That the visual impressions of subjects, who should have been unconscious, correspond to their actual surroundings tends to rule out the theory that the subjects are making up their OBE reports as a defense against fear of death, to gain social approval, or to support a personal religious belief. It seems strange that such hallucinations should be limited to reconstructions of the actual surroundings.

The correspondence between the visual impressions and the actual surroundings also tends to rule out the hypothesis that the visions are hallucinations caused by anoxia (lack of oxygen in the brain) and hypercarbia (too much carbon dioxide). According to Sabom (1982, pp. 175–176), lack of oxygen produces a confused state of mind, contrasting with the mental clarity experienced by OBE subjects. Too much carbon dioxide can bring about flashes of light and other effects, but apparently not the perception of one’s immediate surroundings. furthermore, in one of Sabom’s cases, the physicians actually took a blood sample for blood-gas analysis during cardiac treatment. The oxygen level was above average, and the carbon dioxide level was below average (Sabom 1982, p. 178).

Some have proposed that temporal lobe seizures account for the OBEs, but according to Sabom (1982, pp. 173–174) perception of the immediate environment is quite distorted during such seizures.

To account for the accuracy of the visual impressions reported in OBEs, Blackmore and others have proposed that the mind of a person losing consciousness uses touch and sound sensations to manufacture accurate visual imagery without actually leaving the body and seeing things from that perspective. But in many cases the visual perceptions extend to things the subject could not easily have learned about through touch or sound. One of Sabom’s OBE subjects reported seeing gauge needles moving in an appropriately real fashion on a piece of medical equipment (a defibrillator). Blackmore (1993, pp. 118–119) suggested that the information could have been obtained after the operation (perhaps from a television program) and then incorporated into the subject’s report. Of course, one can suggest anything, but according to the subject, he had not seen any television programs in which defibrillators were used (Griffin1997, p. 246).

One of Sabom’s patients reported seeing himself getting a shot in his right groin. Actually, it was not a shot. The doctors were withdrawing blood for a test. Sabom said this confusion would be natural for the subject, if he were actually viewing the action from outside his body, as a shot and blood withdrawal would look the same—the insertion of a needle. If the subject had manufactured an image of this from overheard words, it is unlikely that a withdrawal of blood would have been confused for a shot, because the doctors would clearly have been calling for a withdrawal of blood for testing. Blackmore replied that an image could have been reconstructed not from sound but from touch sensations. But here is an important detail: the medical reports said that the blood withdrawal was made from the left groin but the patient reported that incident, which he interpreted as a shot, had taken place in the right groin. If the subject had manufactured an image of what was happening from touch sensations, there should not have been any confusion. He should have felt the pricking on his left groin. But Sabom pointed out that if the subject had been looking down at his body from the foot of the bed, he would have seen, from his perspective, that the needle was going into the right groin. Blackmore chose to characterize the subject’s entire report as uncorroborated, but neglects to mention that Sabom had interviewed the man’s wife, who said that her husband had told her and her daughter the story soon after the event and had later repeated it several times, without any change. This tends to rule out the suggestion that the story was manufactured and gradually elaborated with newly acquired information about medical procedures (Sabom 1982, 109–111; Griffin, 1997, p. 248).

In view of Blackmore’s objections, OBE accounts of events beyond the immediate area of subject would be important. In 1976, one of Sabom’s subjects had a heart attack during a stay in a hospital. during his resuscitation he reported seeing his relatives. “I couldn’t hear anything. not one peep . . . And I remember seeing them down the hall just as plain as could be. The three of them were standing there—my wife, my oldest son and my oldest daughter and the doctor . . . I knew damn well they were there.” from accounts of the man’s resuscitation, it does not seem he would have been able to see his relatives or receive any information about them. The man was not expecting any visits from relatives that day, because he was due to be discharged. Even if he had been expecting a visit, it would have been hard for him to know who would be coming. He had six grown children and they had been taking turns coming to see him with their mother. On this particular day, the man’s wife, eldest son, and eldest daughter had met and on the spur of the moment had decided to come visit him. They arrived at the hospital just as he was being taken out of his room back up to the operating rooms. The family members were stopped in the hallway, ten doors away from where their father, lying on a bed, was being worked on by doctors and nurses. The man’s face was pointed away from his relatives. His wife recalled that she could only see the back of his head at a distance. He was immediately taken away to the emergency room without passing his relatives. The man’s wife said, “He couldn’t have seen us.” Blackmore does not comment on this case (Sabom 1982, pp. 111–113; Griffin 1997, pp. 249–250).

dr. Kimberley clark, a professor of medicine at the University of Washington and a social worker at Harborview Medical center, reported another case that is difficult to account for in terms of hallucinations formed from sound and touch impressions entering the mind of a person approaching complete unconsciousness. A migrant worker named Maria underwent treatment for cardiac arrest at Harborview. Afterwards, she told clark she had experienced an OBE. She had been floating above her body and looking down at the doctors and nurses. clark figured she could have imagined the scene, drawing upon things she saw and heard before she lost consciousness. Maria then told how she had found herself floating outside by the emergency room driveway. clark concluded that she could have seen the driveway during her stay and incorporated it into her OBE. Maria further explained how she had noticed something sitting on the ledge of the third floor of the hospital building. She found herself floating right up next to the object, which turned out to be a tennis shoe. She described little details, such as a worn place in the spot where the little toe would have been, and a shoelace looped under the heel. clark went to check, and at first saw nothing. She went up to the third floor, and after looking through many windows finally found one where she could see the shoe. The ledge was not easily visible from the window. One had to press one’s face against the glass, and angle the eyes down. And from there she still could not see the details described by Maria. clark stated: “The only way she would have had such a perspective was if she had been floating right outside and at very close range to the tennis shoe.” When the shoe was retrieved it matched the description given by Maria (clark 1982, p. 243; Griffin 1997, pp. 250–251). Blackmore (1993, p. 128) dismisses this case, calling it “fascinating but unsubstantiated.” But Griffin (1997, p. 251) points out that “she does not make clear, however, what further substantiation, beyond the written testimony of a health-care professional, would be needed.”

Kathy Kilne, a nurse at Hartford Hospital in connecticut, told of a female cardiac arrest patient who had an OBE. The event took place in 1985. Recalling the patient’s testimony, Kilne said: “She told me how she floated up over her body, viewed the resuscitation effort for a short time and then felt herself being pulled up through several floors of the hospital. She then found herself above the roof and realized she was looking at the skyline of Hartford . . . out of the corner of her eye she saw a red object. It turned out to be a shoe.” Kilne told the story to a doctor who was doing his residency at the hospital. He mockingly dismissed the story. But later that day, he had a janitor take him up on the roof, where he saw a red shoe. He took the shoe and showed it to Kilne, who said by then he had become a believer (Griffin 1997, p. 251; Ring and Lawrence

1993, pp. 226–227).

These kinds of experiences are not uncommon. In 1954, Hornell Hart published a summary study of out-of-body experiences during which the subject reported information that required some kind of paranormal knowledge. Hart (1954) found 288 cases mentioned in various publications and determined that in 99 of these cases the information reported by the subject was later confirmed. This indicated that the reports were genuine. furthermore, in 55 cases, witnesses reported seeing an apparition of the subject at a location different from the subject’s body (Griffin 1997, p. 254). In some cases the subjects voluntarily induced their OBEs, and in some cases the OBEs were spontaneous.

Ian Stevenson and coworker Pasricha Satwant have reported some interesting near death experiences from India (Satwant and Stevenson, 1986). Stevenson was a psychiatrist from the University of virginia Medical School, and Satwant was clinical psychologist with the national Institute of Mental Health and neurosciences at Bangalore, India. Satwant and Stevenson encountered the ndE stories as they were interviewing subjects in the course of their research into past life memories. All the sixteen subjects reporting ndEs were Hindus from northern India. The typical Indian ndE involved a subject being taken to the court of Yamaraja, the Hindu god of death, by messengers called Yamadutas, servants of Yamaraja. At the court of Yamaraja the subject encountered someone with a book or papers, corresponding to chitragupta, who keeps a record of everyone’s actions during life. This record is used to determine a person’s next birth. In the ndE cases reported by Satwant and Stevenson, it would happen that the subject had been taken by mistake and had to be sent back to life on earth.

Here are some typical cases. vasudeva Pandey, interviewed in 1975 and 1976, told of an experience that happened when he was about ten years old, around the year 1931. He had nearly died of a typhoid disease, the symptoms of death being so convincing that his body was taken for cremation. When signs of life were observed, he was taken to a hospital, where he remained unconscious for three days. In recollecting his ndE, he said he had been taken away by two persons, who eventually dragged him to Yamaraja, who said to his servants, “I had asked you to bring vasudev the gardener . . . You have brought vasudev the student.” The same two servants then brought vasudev back to the world of the living. When vasudev regained consciousness at the hospital he saw vasudev the gardener among a group of friends and family who had come to see him. He looked healthy, but he died that night (Satwant and Stevenson 1986, p. 166).

durga Jatav was fifty years old when he told his story in 1979. When he was about twenty years old, he was suffering from typhoid and at one point his family thought he was dead. He told his family that he had been taken away by ten persons. When he tried to escape, they cut his legs off at the knees. He arrived at a place where many people were sitting at tables. One of them said that Jatav’s name was not on the list of people to be taken, and that he should be sent back. Jatav asked how he could go back with no legs. His lower legs were again attached to his knees, and he was told not to bend his knees for some time. Satwant and Stevenson (1986, p. 167) reported: “durga’s sister and a neighbor noticed, a few days after he revived, that marks had appeared on his knees; there had previously been no such marks there. These folds, or deep fissures, in the skin on the front of durga’s knees were still visible in 1979 . . . One informant for this case (the headman of the village where durga lived) said that at the time of durga’s experience another person by the same name had died in Agra (about 30 km away).”

chajju Bania reported that during his ndE four black messengers took him to the court of Yamaraja, where he saw an old woman with a pen and several clerks. Yamaraja was sitting on a high chair. He had a white beard and was wearing yellow cloth. “We don’t need chajju Bania,” said one of the clerks. “We had asked for chajju Kumbar. Push him back and bring the other man.” chajju Bania did not want to go back. He asked Yamaraja for permission to stay, but was pushed down, at which point he regained consciousness. Satwant and Stevenson (1986, p. 167) reported: “chajju told us that he later learned that a person called chajju Kumhar had died at about the same time that he (chajju Bania) revived.”

The cultural heritage of such accounts goes back a long time. The Shrimad Bhagavatam, one of India’s ancient Sanskrit histories, tells the story of Ajamila (canto 6, chpts. 1–3). As a boy, he was a saintly brahmana, but once he happened to see a debauched man embracing a prostitute in a public place. The vision stayed in his mind. He gave up his religious principles, and he in turn began consorting with a prostitute, by whom he had many children. He supported his family by gambling and robbery. He lived in this degraded way until the very end of his life. At the time of death, the servants of Yamaraja came to fetch him. Seeing them, Ajamila cried out the name of his youngest child, narayana, who was standing nearby. The servants of Yamaraja nevertheless continued dragging Ajamila to the court of Yamaraja. Suddenly, some servants of vishnu appeared and stopped the servants of Yamaraja from taking Ajamila to Yamaraja’s court of judgement. The servants of vishnu told the servants of Yamaraja that they had made a mistake. It seems that by chanting his son’s name, narayana, which happened to be one of the names of vishnu, Ajamila had unwittingly become freed from the results of his sins. Ajamila, released by the servants of Yamaraja, returned to life, and gave up his sinful activities. Thus purified, he eventually died and was taken by the servants of vishnu to the spiritual world to reside there eternally with God.

In another case reported by Satwant and Stevenson, an elderly man, Mangal Singh, was lying on a cot. Two people came and took him away. They came to a gate, where a man said, “Why have you brought the wrong person?” Mangal Singh saw two pots of water, which were boiling although there was no fire visible. The man, saying “Mangal must go back,” pushed Mangal with his hand, which felt extremely hot. Mangal found himself awake, with a burning sensation in his left arm. Satwant and Stevenson (1986, p. 167) reported: “The area developed the appearance of a boil. Mangal showed it to a doctor, who applied some ointment. The area healed within 3 days but left a residual mark on the left arm, which we examined . . . Another person had died in the locality at or about the time he revived, but Mangal and his family made no inquiries about the suddenness of this person’s death and did not even learn his name.”

The Indian ndE reports differ from the Western ones. In most cases the Indian subjects did not report seeing their own physical body from a different perspective. In most cases, Western subjects did not report being taken away by messengers. Westerners who journey to other worlds might report seeing christ or angels instead of Yamaraja or his messengers. On the basis of these and other differences, skeptics might conclude that all ndE reports are culturally influenced mental productions, and do not reflect real events. To this suggestion Satwant and Stevenson (1986, p. 169) replied: “If we survive death and live in an afterdeath realm, we should expect to find variations in that world, just as we find them in the different parts of the familiar world of the living. A traveler to delhi encounters dark-skinned immigration officials, who in many respects behave differently from the lighter skinned immigration officials another traveler may meet when arriving in London or new York. Yet we do not say that the descriptions of the first traveler are ‘real’ and those of the second ‘unreal.’ In the same way, there may be different receptionists and different modes of reception in the ‘next world’ after death. They may differ for persons of different cultures.”

As of this writing, medical professionals continue to document ndEs of the kind reported by Sabom and Ring. In february 2001, a team from the University of Southampton, in the United Kingdom, published a favorable study on ndEs in cardiac arrest patients in the journal Resuscitation (Parnia et al. 2001). The team was headed by dr. Sam Parnia, a senior research fellow at the university. On february 16, 2001, the university published on its web site a report on the team’s work (d’Arcy

2001): “University of Southampton researchers have just published a paper detailing their pioneering study into near death experiences (or ndEs) that suggests consciousness and the mind may continue to exist after the brain has ceased to function and the body is clinically dead. The team spent a year studying people resuscitated in the city’s General Hospital after suffering a heart attack. The patients brought back to life were all, for varying lengths of time, clinically dead with no pulse, no respiration and fixed dilated pupils. Independent EEG studies have confirmed that the brain’s electrical activity, and hence brain function, ceases at that time. But seven out of 63 (11 per cent) of the Southampton patients who survived their cardiac arrest recalled emotions and visions during unconsciousness. . . . This raises the question of how such lucid thought processes can occur when the brain is dead.” dr. Parnia stated: “during cardiac arrest brainstem activity is rapidly lost. It should not be able to sustain such lucid processes or allow the formation of lasting memories.” The University of Southampton study took into account two common explanations for ndEs. The first is that the visions are produced by lack of oxygen or unusual drug treatments. But oxygen levels were carefully monitored in the study, and none of the survivors reporting ndEs had low oxygen levels. neither did they have any unusual combinations of drugs. Another explanation is that the visions are an attempt by the mind to avoid confronting the uncomfortable fact of death. But dr. Parnia observed, “The features of the ndEs in this study were dissimilar to those of confusional hallucinations as they were highly structured, narrative, easily recalled and clear.” dr. Parnia added: “The main significance of the ndE lies in the understanding of the relationship between mind and brain which has remained a topic of debate in contemporary philosophy, psychology and neuroscience. . . . Our findings need to be investigated with a much larger study. But if the results are replicated it would imply that the mind may continue to exist after the death of the body, or an afterlife.”

Reincarnation memories

The phenomenon of reincarnation memories lends strength to the idea that the OBE should be interpreted as a journey out of the body by a conscious self. Ian Stevenson and his associates have published numerous cases of young children spontaneously announcing a previous human existence. The published reports document evidence confirming the identity of the person the child claims to have been in a previous life. This evidence is not likely to have been known to the child by normal means. The evidence has been verified by thorough cross examination of the child and persons professing to have knowledge of past life personalities and events named by the child. Stevenson has published 64 extensively documented case studies from all over the world, and has another 2,600 cases (investigated by himself and others) that appear genuine. Let us now consider two cases.

Sukla Gupta was born in 1954 in the village of Kampa, in West Bengal, India. from the time she was eighteen months old, her parents would see her playing with a block of wood. She wrapped it in a cloth, and treated it like an infant, calling it Minu. As she got older, she revealed that Minu was her daughter. She also spoke of having a husband. In a fashion typical of a married woman in India, she did not refer to her husband by name. She expressed a memory of having gone with her unnamed husband to a movie. She did mention by name two other men, Khetu and Karuna, indicating they were the younger brothers of her husband. She said they all lived in a neighborhood called Rathtala in Bhatpara, a village eleven miles south of Kampa, on the road to calcutta. Stevenson (1974, p. 53) noted: “The Gupta family knew Bhatpara slightly; however, they had never heard of a district called Rathtala in Bhatpara nor of people with the names given by Sukla.”

When she was about four years old, Sukla asked to be taken to Bhatpara, threatening that if her family did not take her, she would go herself. She said that if she were taken to Bhatpara, she could lead the way to the house of her husband’s father. In the traditional Indian extended family, a young husband and wife would often stay in the household of the husband’s father.

Sukla’s father, K. n. Sen Gupta, a railway employee, mentioned his daughter’s statements and recollections to another railway employee, S. c. Pal, who lived near Bhatpara. Through relatives, Pal learned that a man named Khetu did live in Bhatapara, in a neighborhood called Rathtala. Stevenson (1974, p. 53) stated, “Pal found further that the man called Khetu had a sister-in-law, one Mana, who had died some years back (in January, 1948) leaving an infant girl called Minu. When Sri Pal reported these facts to Sukla’s father he became more interested in a visit by Sukla to Bhatpara; this was then arranged with the consent of the other family, of which Sri Amritalal chakravarty was the head.”

In the summer of 1959, Sukla and some of her family members went to Bhatapara. S. c. Pal either came with them or joined them in Bhatpara. At that time, Sukla led the group to the house of Amritlal chakravarty, the father of Mana’s husband. Stevenson (1974, p. 58) commented: “Although the route available was straight, not curved, there were many houses and lanes into which Sukla could have turned if ignorant of the correct way. There is one main crossroad also. Sukla was ahead of the others. Only . . . Pal knew the way, and he was behind the girl.”

Having arrived at the correct house, Sukla had some difficulty finding the main entrance door. Stevenson (1974, p. 58) commented: “Since the death of Mana, a former entrance to the house had been closed, and the main entrance moved to the side off the street and down an alley. Sukla’s confusion was thus appropriate to the changes.” While Sukla and the party were still in front of the house, Amritlal chakravarty by chance came into the street. Immediately upon seeing him, Sukla gave a sign of recognition, dropping her eyes downward, as Indian women customarily do in the presence of an older male relative. Inside the house were between twenty and thirty people. Sukla was asked if she could pick out her husband. She correctly identified Haridhan chakravarty as “Minu’s father” (Stevenson 1974, p. 59). At the same time, she also pointed out Khetu, identifying him as “the uncle of Minu” (Stevenson 1974, p. 60). At another point during the visit, a man entered the room and a few minutes later asked Sukla, “Who am I?” (Stevenson 1974, p. 60) Sukla said, “Karuna,” and also identified him as her younger brother-in-law. Most of those present did not know him by his given name Karuna, but by his nickname Kuti. When she saw Minu, Sukla began to shed tears and manifested other signs of intense affection for the girl, who was at the time twelve or thirteen years old (Stevenson 1974, p. 59). Sukla had just turned five years old. Sukla’s grandmother, part of the party who had accompanied her, asked Sukla to point out her mother-in-law. Sukla correctly picked out the woman in the group of people present (Stevenson 1974, p. 60).

A week after Sukla visited Bhatpara, Haridhan chakravarty (Mana’s husband), Reba nani Pathak (Mana’s maternal aunt), and Minu visited Sukla at her home in Kampa. Reba nani Pathak asked, “With whom did you leave Minu when you died?” Sukla replied,“With you.” Stevenson (1974, p. 61) stated: “In fact, just before Mana died, her last words asked this aunt who would look after Minu, and the aunt had replied that she would do so.” On this same occasion, Sukla had insisted that her family prepare a certain dish for Haridhan chakrvarty, and it turned out to be his favorite dish. Reba Pathat recalled that during the visit, Sukla had been asked if she had any children besides Minu. Sukla correctly recalled having had a son who died as an infant, before Minu’s birth. Sukla was asked, “Have you lived anywhere else besides Bhatpara?” She correctly replied that she had lived in Kharagpur. Haridhan chakravarty and his wife Mana had in fact lived there for just over a year. Reba Pathak and Haridhan chakravarty questioned Sukla about her clothes. She stated correctly that Mana had three saris, two of them being fine silk saris from Benares. On a later visit to Bhatpara, two weeks after her first visit, Sukla picked out Mana’s saris from among a large quantity of clothing that had not belonged to Mana (Stevenson 1974, p. 63). during this same visit, Sukla mentioned that the chakravarty family had two cows and a parrot. The cows had died and the parrot had flown away after Mana’s death. Sukla also mentioned that she had a brass pitcher in a certain room of the chakravarty house. Stevenson (1974, p. 63) stated, “Sukla went to this room in the house and found the pitcher still there. She had not been to this room on her first visit. The room in question had been Mana’s bedroom.” Sukla correctly specified the former location of Minu’s cot in her bedroom. On seeing a sewing machine, often used by Mana, Sukla began to shed tears.

Sukla developed a strong attraction for Haridhan chakravarty, the husband of Mana. He confirmed Sukla’s story about going to a movie. To some readers, accustomed to going to many movies a year, this might seem trivial. But Stevenson (1974, p. 58) states: “The occasion was memorable because it was the only time Mana ever went to a movie in her life, and she and her husband were afterwards reproached by her stepmother-in-law.” Sukla looked forward to visits from Haridhan chakravarty (he came several times). Whenever Sukla met Minu, she always showed extreme affection and always adopted the role of mother, even though Sukla was smaller and younger than Minu (Stevenson 1974, p. 57). Once, a member of the Pathak family who was visiting Sukla in Kampa told her, falsely, that Minu was very ill. Sukla wept until she was assured that Minu was not really sick. “On another occasion,” stated Stevenson (1974, p. 57) “when Minu really was ill and news of this reached Sukla, she became extremely distressed, wept, and demanded to be taken to Bhatpara to see Minu. Her family could not quiet her until they actually took her the next day to see Minu, who was by then better.”

Stevenson carefully considered the possibility that the two families could have been in communication with each other, thus providing a normal explanation for the knowledge displayed by Sukla. Stevenson stated (1984, p. 54): “The members of the two principal families concerned in the case denied that they ever had any knowledge of the other family prior to the attempts to verify Sukla’s statements.” The Guptas came to Kampa only in 1951, from East Bengal. Sukla’s father had visited Bhatpara only once, to give a magic show at a school. The chakravarty and Pathak families were long time residents of Bhatpara. Their denial of any contact with the Guptas is reinforced by the caste difference between the families. The chakravartys and Pathaks were of the brahmana caste while the Guptas were of one of the mercantile castes, the Banias. Sukla did not like to eat with the other children in her family. When she was three years old, she would say to them, “Why should I eat with you? I am a Brahmin” (Stevenson 1974, p. 57).

S. c. Pal, K. n. Sen Gupta’s railway coworker, lived near Bhatpara, but he did not know anything about the charkravarty and Pathak families until Gupta told him the story of his daughter’s recollections of having lived in Bhatpara. At this time, Pal had known Gupta for only one month, and had never visited the Gupta house. So he could not possibly have been the source of the knowledge Sukla had been demonstrating for years prior to this (Stevenson 1974, p. 55). Another possible channel of information was Atul dhar, another coworker of Sukla’s father, who did have some slight contact with the chakravarty family in Bhatpara. But Stevenson (1974, p. 55) noted that “Sri Atul dhar never discussed the chakravarty family with Sri Sen Gupta.”

Here is another of Stevenson’s cases. Imad Elawar was born in 1958, in the village of Kornayel, Lebanon. His family belonged to the druse, an Islamic sect that accepts reincarnation. from the time he was two years old, Imad began telling of a previous life in the village of Khriby, in a family of the name Bouhamzy. He often spoke of someone with the first name Mahmoud. Other male persons he spoke of were Amin, Adil, Talil (or Talal), Said, Toufic, Salim, and Kemal. Imad also mentioned a female name, Mehibeh. Imad’s father did not like these revelations and scolded his son for telling lies. But Imad’s mother and grandparents were sympathetic. When Imad was still two years old, Salim el Aschkar happened to visit Kornayel. He was a resident of Khriby. Imad’s grandmother testified that when Imad saw Salim, he rushed up to him and put his arms around him. “do you know who I am?” asked Salim. Imad replied, “Yes, you were my neighbor” (Stevenson 1974, p. 276). Salim el Aschkar had in fact been a neighbor of a deceased member of the Bouhamzy family. Shortly thereafter, Imad’s parents met a woman who lived in a village near Khriby. She confirmed that people with the same names as those mentioned by Imad did live there (Stevenson 1974, p. 276). In december of 1963, Imad’s father attended a funeral in Khriby, and some of the people he met pointed out to him two men with names mentioned by Imad. This was his first visit to Khriby, and he did not at that time speak to any member of the Bouhamzy family. Imad displayed unusual behaviors. As a child, the very first word that Imad uttered was Jamileh, the name of a woman, apparently known to him from his previous life. He described her beauty and her taste for Western clothes. In many ways, he made known his attraction for this beautiful woman, showing an interest far beyond his young age of two or three years. Imad avoided children of his own age, and had a liking for strong tea and coffee, just like the village men. He would often ask his father to take him hunting. He indicated that in his previous life, he had a double barreled shotgun and a rifle. He said he had hidden his rifle in his house. In school, he was unusually quick in learning french. When a sister was born, he asked that she be named Huda. He also had a phobia of buses and trucks. He spoke repeatedly of two accidents. In one, a man driving a truck got into a wreck and lost his legs. There had been a quarrel between the man who lost his legs and the driver. In the second accident, Imad was the driver of a bus that got into an accident when for some reason he was not driving it. He also described the house in which he had lived. As a child, Imad often said he was very happy that he could walk. From all of these things, Imad’s parents concluded he had once lived in Khriby and that his name in his past life was Mahmoud Bouhamzy, who had a beautiful wife named Jamileh. The man had died after a truck hit him, causing him to lose both his legs. This had happened as a result of a quarrel with the truck driver. They also concluded that some of the names he mentioned were those of his sons, brothers, and other relatives. for example, they concluded he had a brother named Amin who lived in Tripoli and worked at the Tripoli courthouse. He had another brother Said. He had two sons, Adil and Talil (or Talal). He had another two sons, Kemal and Salim. He had a friend called Yousef el Halibi, and another called Ahmed el Halibi. He had a sister named Huda.

In 1962, Stevenson learned of the case from an informant, and in 1964 went to Lebanon to meet the Elawars. In March 1964, when Imad was five and a half years old, Stevenson took him and his father from their home in Kornayel to Khriby. Kornayel is in the mountains fifteen miles east of Beirut. Khriby lies 25 miles south from Kornayel. A distant relative of the Elawar family knew the Bouhamzy family. But Imad’s father told Stevenson that this relative had never mentioned anything about the Bouhamzys.

When Stevenson, Imad, and his father got to Khriby on March 17, 1964, Stevenson interviewed a limited number of informants. Two residents said that in June 1943 a member of the Bouhamzy family died after having been run over by a truck. It was, however, not Mahmoud but Said Bouhamzy. As far as Jamileh was concerned, she was, they said, not the wife of Said Bouhamzy. On this visit, Stevenson managed to locate Yousef el Halibi, who was by this time quite old and ill. He said he had been a friend of Said Bouhamzy. Stevenson (1974, p. 279) stated: “On this occasion Imad pointed correctly in the direction of the house he claimed to have lived in, and made a couple of other statements suggesting paranormal knowledge of the village, but did not meet any members of the Bouhamzy family.”

The next day Stevenson returned to Khriby, but without Imad and his father. He received additional confirmation that Said Bouhamzy had no connection with Jamileh. He also learned that the descriptions Imad had given of the house he had lived in did not match the house of Said Bouhamzy. furthermore, there was already a man who claimed to have been Said Bouhamzy in a previous life.

Thus far the information obtained by Stevenson was confusing, and appeared to call into question Imad’s story, as presented to him by his relatives. But then Stevenson learned about another member of the Bouhamzy family, a man named Ibrahim, a cousin of Said. Ibrahim did in fact have a relationship with a woman called Jamileh. She was his mistress. Ibrahim had died on September 18, 1949, suffering from tuberculosis. The disease had infected his spine, which caused him much pain in walking. Stevenson also learned that Ibrahim had an uncle named Mahmoud.

Upon further questioning of Imad and his relatives, Stevenson learned that Imad had never actually claimed to be Mahmoud. nor had he ever actually claimed to have been the person who died in the incident with the truck. These were simply suppositions made by his parents, who had tried to put together all the names and places and events mentioned by Imad in a way that seemed most logical to them. Their interpretative errors tend to rule out the theory that they manufactured Imad’s past life story, using information acquired by normal means from persons in Khriby.

Stevenson then began operating on the theory that Imad had been Ibrahim in his past life. Things began to fall together. Ibrahim’s mistress Jamileh was locally famous for her beauty and did in fact dress in Western clothes—a red dress and high heels, for example—which would have been unusual for a village woman in Lebanon during the 1940s. Ibrahim was fluent in french, having learned it during his service in the army. Ibrahim did have a close relative named Amin who lived in Tripoli. Amin, a government employee, did have an office in the Tripoli courthouse building, as stated by Imad. Amin was not, however, Imad’s brother, as originally supposed by Imad’s parents when they heard Imad talk of him. It is common, however, for Lebanese males to call close friends and relatives “brother.” Ibrahim had a female cousin, Mehibeh. Imad’s parents had thought she was Imad’s daughter in his previous existence. Ibrahim also had one male cousin called Adil and another called Khalil. Stevenson proposed that the name Imad gave, Talil, was a mispronunciation of Khalil. Both Talil and Adil were originally mistakenly identified by Imad’s parents as sons of Imad in his previous life. Among the other names mentioned by Imad, Toufic, originally identified by Imad’s parents as a brother, and Kemal, originally identified as a son, turned out to be additional cousins of Ibrahim. Salim, originally identified as a son, turned out to be an uncle of Ibrahim, with whom he lived. Ibrahim Bouhamzy did in fact have a sister Huda. Yousef el Halibi, named by Imad as a friend, was in fact a friend of the Bouhamzy family. Ahmed el Halibi, mentioned by Imad, was the brother of Yousef. Ibrahim Bouhamzy was in fact involved in an accident with a bus, of which he was the driver. The accident occurred, however, at a time when Ibrahim had pulled the bus to the side of the road and stopped. He had gotten out of the bus momentarily, when it began to roll and went off the road, injuring some of the passengers. Imad’s statement that the bus accident occurred when he was not actually driving was thus confirmed. Ibrahim had indeed liked hunting and had owned a double-barreled shotgun, like the one mentioned by Imad. He also owned a rifle, which he kept hidden. It was illegal for a civilian to own such a gun (Stevenson 1974, pp. 286–290).

Imad had described his house as having been in the center of Khriby, near a slope. These details were correct for Ibrahim’s house. The house, according to Imad, had two wells, one dry and one full. In this regard, Stevenson (1974, p. 293) reported: “during the life of Ibrahim there had been two ‘wells’ whose sites were pointed out to us. The ‘wells’ had been closed up since the death of Ibrahim. They were not spring wells, but rather concrete cavities or vats used for storing grape juice. The wells would be used alternately. during the rainy season one of these vats became filled with water, but the shallower one did not, because the water evaporated from it. Thus one would be empty while the other was full.” Imad had talked about a new garden. Ibrahim’s brother fuad confirmed that at the time of Ibrahim’s death, a new garden was in fact being built. Imad said, correctly, that it had cherry and apple trees. Stevenson saw the trees during his visit to the house. Imad had reported owning a small yellow car, a bus, and a truck. The members of the Bouhamzy family with whom Ibrahim lived did in fact own such vehicles.

On March 19, 1964, Stevenson made his third visit to Khriby, this time accompanied by Imad and his parents. They went to the house of Ibrahim Bouhamzy, where Imad made fourteen correct recognitions and statements (Stevenson 1974, p. 299). for example, he pointed out the place where Ibrahim had hidden his rifle. The place was confirmed by Ibrahim’s mother, who said the place, in the back of a closet, was known only to her and Ibrahim. While at the house, Imad was shown a photograph of a man. Those showing the photograph to him suggested the man was Ibrahim’s brother or uncle. But when asked to say who it was, Imad correctly said, “Me” (Ibrahim). One of the persons present in the house during the visit was Huda Bouhamzy, Ibrahim’s sister. She asked Imad, “do you know who I am?” Imad replied, “Huda” (Stevenson 1974, p. 301). Later Huda asked him: “You said something just before you died. What was it?” Imad replied, “Huda, call fuad.” Stevenson (1974, p. 301) stated: “This was correct because fuad had left shortly before and Ibrahim wanted to see him again, but died immediately.” Out of two beds in a bedroom of the house, Imad picked the one in which Ibrahim had died. He also correctly told where it had been in the room at the time of his death, a position different than at the time of Imad’s visit. When asked how he had talked to his friends during his final illness, Imad pointed to a window in the room. Stevenson (1974, p. 300) noted, “during his infectious illness, his friends could not enter Ibrahim’s room, so they talked with him through a window, the bed being arranged so that he could see and talk with his friends through the window.”

Imad also told Stevenson and others of an intermediate life, between the death of Ibrahim in 1949 and his own birth in 1958. He said he had passed this brief life at a place called dahr el Ahmar, but he could not remember enough details for Stevenson to conduct an investigation (Stevenson 1974, p. 318).

According to philosophy professor david W. Griffin (1997, pp. 193–194), several factors contribute to the authenticity of the past life memory cases reported by Stevenson: (1) The reports come spontaneously from young children, between two and four years old, and reports of such memories cease when they become older, usually disappearing when they are between five and eight years old. In fraudulent cases, the memories come much later in life. (2) There is usually a short time between the birth of the reporting child and the death of the reported past incarnation. Manufactured cases usually go back centuries. (3) The remembered person usually comes from the same culture and geographical area. In false cases this is not usually so. (4) Statements about the past life that are potentially verifiable turn out between 80 and 90 percent correct. (5) Persons other than the child’s parents testify to the child’s statements and behavioral patterns related to the previous existence. (6) neither the reporting children nor the relatives have anything to gain in terms of money or status. (7) Memories of the past life are sometimes corroborated by behavioral patterns, talents and abilities, languages, and birthmarks or birth defects that can be associated with the previous existence.

Another interesting reincarnation case is that of William George, a Tlingit Indian from Alaska. He was known among his people for being a good fisherman. The Tlingits had a belief in reincarnation. George told his son Reginald and his son’s wife, “If there is anything to this rebirth business, I will come back and be your son. And you will recognize me because I will have birthmarks like the ones I now have.” He had one mole on his left shoulder and another mole on his left forearm. Later, he gave Reginald his gold watch, indicating that it should be kept for him in his next life. Reginald gave the watch to his wife and told her what his father had said. She put the watch in a jewelry box. A few weeks later, William George was lost at sea. not long afterwards, Reginald’s wife became pregnant. during her labor, she saw William George in a dream. He told her that he was waiting to see her son. The child, named William George, Jr., had two moles in the same places as his deceased grandfather’s moles. William George had injured his right ankle while playing basketball as a youth and had throughout his life walked with a limp, with the right foot turned outwards. The child, when old enough to walk, walked with the same kind of limp. Once, when young William was almost five years old, his mother was looking through her jewelry box. The child saw the gold watch, grabbed it, and said, “That’s my watch” (Griffin 1997, pp. 197–198; Stevenson 1974, pp. 232–34, 240). I will discuss more birthmark cases in chapter 8, which is concerned with evidence for paranormal modification of biological form.

Some have proposed alternative paranormal explanations for announcing dreams and birthmarks. Seeking to avoid the idea of a surviving conscious entity sending the announcing dream, Griffin (1997, p. 200) proposes that a person, Tom, while still living, could communicate to another person, Mary, his intention to return in another life. After Tom dies, the mother in whose womb he will take birth gets knowledge of his intention telepathically from Mary, who is still living. Alternatively, the mother could acquire such knowledge from Tom’s own disembodied mind content, floating out in the ether. Again, this idea, of mind content existing after death, like some ethereal computer file, is meant to avoid the concept of a surviving conscious element, or soul. In any case, with the knowledge acquired from Mary or Tom’s disembodied mind content, the mother subconsciously manufactures an announcing dream. In some cases, the knowledge is also communicated by the mother to the child in the womb, who after taking birth might announce he had intentionally taken birth after a previous existence, when in fact he had not existed before. His past life memories are not his at all. As for birthmarks, knowledge of them, obtained by telepathy, could be impressed on the fetal child by the mother through paranormal psychokinetic powers. Such explanations seem quite strained. Why, Griffin (1997, pp. 201–202) asks, would the mother herself not report a past life memory? Why would she communicate information to the child?

If past life memories are nothing more than living people accessing the mental impressions of dead persons, preserved somehow in some ethereal element, then there should be no memories extending beyond the death of the departed person. But Stevenson and others have recorded past life memory cases which contain events occurring after the death of the deceased. These “intermission memories” point towards reincarnation as the best explanation for the past life memories. Apparently, such memories are common. Out of Stevenson’s 230 past life memory cases from Burma, 52 involved intermission memories. Out of 38 cases from Thailand, 21 involved intermission memories (Griffin 1997, pp. 202–203). An example of such a memory would be seeing one’s own funeral, or observing one’s new family before taking birth in it.

Many intermission memories are not verifiable, but some are. A four-year-old boy in India, veer Singh, reported that he had in a previous life been a person named Som dutt Sharma. Sharma had died eleven years before. Singh spoke about many events that had taken place in the Sharma family during those eleven years, including lawsuits and the birth of one male and two female children. Singh, upon first meeting these persons, immediately recognized and identified them (Griffin 1997, p.

203). A Burmese subject, Maung Yin Maung, said that after he died he was seen by someone at a particular place before he took his present birth (Griffin 1997, pp. 202–203).

furthermore, if past life memories are created simply by reading the surviving mental content of a dead person, then it would seem that the subject should be reporting multiple existences, or existences containing mixed material, whereas subjects very consistently speak of only a single past life. After all, there should be a lot of mental content out there waiting to be accessed and incorporated into past life memories (Griffin 1997, pp. 206–207). All in all, the existence of a conscious self that survives one physical embodiment and moves into another physical embodiment seems the best explanation of reincarnation memories, and the associated phenomena of announcing dreams and birthmarks.

Fetal memories

In her book Changes of mind, published by the State University of new York Press, developmental psychologist Jenny Wade states that consciousness has been neglected in developmental psychology, and in science generally. But, according to Wade (1996, p. 2), recent developments in science are “introducing a new concept of reality more congruent with the Eastern and ancient mystical worldviews.” She also believes that “a cosmology that accounts for the phenomena of consciousness may be the rightful paradigm of psychology” (1996, p. 4).

According to currently dominant ideas in psychology and the neurosciences, consciousness exists only in association with a pattern of neurons in the brain. But Wade says there is a body of evidence that challenges this assumption. “It comprises,” says Wade, “empirically validated data of human consciousness functioning independent of a physical substrate” (1996, p. 18, her italics).

Included in this body of evidence are the ndE accounts and past life memories we’ve already discussed, but Wade, drawing on the research of d. B. chamberlain, Helen Wambach, S. Grof, and others, brings to our attention a new category of evidence—fetal memories. About research in all of these areas, Wade (1996, p. 19) says, “These results are very new, and their implications are not fully understood; nevertheless they present a consistent pattern in the aggregate, suggesting that an individual’s mature consciousness predates birth—in some cases, even conception— and survives death.”

According to mainstream developmental studies, the pattern of neuronal development supporting conscious awareness appears rather late in the human fetus. Brain waves normally associated with the conscious state occur only in the seventh month of pregnancy, at 28–32 weeks (Spehlman 1981; in Wade 1996, p. 28). Even at that time, brain activity would be quite limited, because the neuronal connections between the brain cells develop mostly after birth. But there is, says Wade, compelling testimony for prenatal memories, memories indicating that conscious awareness is present in the fetus before the brain is properly organized.

Wade (1996, pp. 42–43) proposes that there are two kinds of fetal consciousness. The first is a limited consciousness, facilitated by the state of neuronal development in the fetal brain. The second is a more complete consciousness, experienced by a transcendent self associated with the fetus but not limited by its state of sensory and brain development. The two kinds of consciousness are related. As Wade (1996, p. 44) puts it, “These two sources of consciousness are clearly experienced as a continuity of the same self.” One might therefore propose that consciousness is primarily a property of the transcendent self, and that it is sometimes channeled through the brain of the fetus, child, or adult, expressing itself according to the biological limitations of each stage of development. According to Wade (1996, pp. 13–14), the transcendent self associated with a fetus is an aspect of a larger conscious self. This would reflect the vedic view that the individual atma is a permanently existing particle of the permanently existing param atma, or supreme self.

S. Grof (1985) and d. B. chamberlain (1990) have reported prenatal memories, recovered by hypnotic regression, extending as far back as conception. These memories, according to Wade (1996, p. 44), have been verified by “information provided by the mother, relatives, obstetricians, and medical records.” In addition to conception events, memories include attempted abortions. In most cases, it is unlikely that the subjects would have learned about the reported abortion attempts after birth, because, quite understandably, mothers and fathers would generally not wish to inform their children of such things. But in many cases parents would confirm the subjects’ reports after they were recovered during hypnotic regressions. Here is one such report (chamberlain 1990, p. 179): “I was hardly formed and my mom is using some kind of remedy to wash me away. It feels real hot . . . I know she is trying to get me out of there. I’m just a little blob. I don’t know how I know, but I know. My aunt seems to be giving my mom directions. I can hear her voice and another woman in the background. She is not supposed to get pregnant. She doesn’t know me . . . It didn’t work either. It had a strong harsh smell, almost a disinfectant smell, like ammonia, strong, a vile strong smell. I can see where I was too; I was way up there, just teeny. I knew nobody really wanted me then. . . but I was determined. I was a fighter even then. Poor mom would die if she knew I knew all this stuff!”

Another category of memory is visual memory of the actual birth process. According to Wade (1996, p. 47), such accounts provide “one of the strongest arguments for a materially transcendent source of awareness.” Physiologically, such accounts should not be possible because the infant should be unconscious. furthermore, the fetal eyes are normally shut, and even when open an infant’s eyes, right after birth, are not capable of normal sight.

Some birth memories come from hypnotic regressions, but others come spontaneously from very young children. Most of the spontaneous accounts come from children between two and three years old. Jason, at age three and a half, gave a birth account to his mother. He said he heard his mother crying and recalled trying hard to come out of the birth canal, in the midst of sensations of tightness and wetness. He felt something wrapped around his neck. Something hurt his head, and he said there were scratches on his face (chamberlain 1988, p. 103; in Wade 1996, p. 48). chamberlain (1988, p. 103) noted: “Jason’s mother said she had ‘never talked to him about the birth, never,’ but the facts were correct. The umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck, he was monitored via an electrode on his scalp, and was pulled out by forceps. The photo taken by the hospital shows scratches on his face.”

In evaluating reports of birth memories obtained by hypnosis, chamberlain compared reports of children to those of their mothers, and found they matched. Before hypnosis, the children, averaging sixteen years old, could produce no birth memories. Regarding the reported memories obtained during hypnosis, Wade (1996, p. 49) said, “narratives included accurate reportage of the time of day, locale, persons present, instruments used, position of delivery, and the medical personnel during the birth. Reports extended over the next several days, including correct feeding sequences (water, formula, and breast feedings), room layouts, details of discharge and arrival at home.” chamberlain found some disagreements between the reports of mothers and children, but they were of a minor nature, with no serious contradictions. could the recollections of children have been derived from information passed on by mothers and later forgotten? chamberlain thought not, because the children often gave details not known to the mothers.

Here is one set of memories (Wade 1996, p. 50). The mother recalled: “They sort of put her on my stomach but they’re still holding onto her. . . lots of blood and white stuff. She’s crying. I can see the umbilical cord. My hands are fastened down because I can’t reach out and touch her. I would like them to move her, wrap her up. I’m talking to the doctors. . . . I think they had a white cap over my hair. They finally undo my hands and the nurse brings her over on my left side. But she doesn’t hold her close enough so I can touch her. I really feel frustrated. I do say ‘Hi!’ to her. . . . I talk to the doctor about her weight.”

The child recalled: “They put me on her stomach, sort of dumped me on her. He’s talking to my mom. Everything seems to be okay and she’s all right. . . . I feel bigger and heavier. I can see her but I’m not by her. Her hair is wrapped up, like in curlers or something. She looks tired, sweaty, nobody’s talking to me. They’re talking about me, I think, but not to me. They act like they know I’m there but like i don’t know I’m there. . . . The nurse kind of wiped me. Then they brought me over next to my mother. She wasn’t crying but something like that. She’s the first one that talked to me. She said ‘Hi!’ nobody else seemed to think that I was really there. Then she talked to the doctor a little bit and they took me away again.”

In another account, the subject, deborah, tells how at birth she at first felt she was existing consciously apart from her infant body and then soon thereafter experienced her consciousness identifying with the body: “Then all of a sudden there was this yellow room and these people.

That’s when I was beginning to figure out what was going on. not very happy about it. . . . I didn’t realize right off that I could make noises [cry]—that seemed to just kind of happen. . . . Starting to breathe was pretty strange, too. I had never done anything like that before. . . . I thought I was an intelligent mind. And so when the situation [of being born] was forced on me, I didn’t like it too much. I saw all these people acting real crazy. That’s when I thought I really had a more intelligent mind, because I knew what the situation was with me, and they didn’t seem to. They seemed to ignore me. They were doing things to me—to the outside of me. But they acted like that’s all there was” (chamberlain 1988, pp. 155–157).

Helen Wambach (1981) hypnotically regressed over 750 subjects, and their reports of fetal life and birth are consistent with Wade’s hypothesis of two sources of consciousness. Wade (1996, p. 52) says of Wambach’s subjects: “They did not identify with the growing fetus or its stream of consciousness, although they accepted that the fetus was ‘theirs.’ Instead, they identified themselves with the physically transcendent source of consciousness, and tended not to become involved with ‘their fetus’ until six months after conception. In fact, many were extremely reluctant to join ‘their consciousness’ with the body-bound awareness of the fetus. Wambach’s subjects characterized themselves as disembodied minds hovering around the fetus and mother, being ‘in and out’ of the fetus and having a telepathic knowledge of the mother’s emotions throughout the pregnancy and birth. . . . Subjects ascribed their reluctance to join with the fetus to negative feelings about being born. Approximately 68 percent expressed antipathy and anxiety about being embodied. Their attitude was resigned toward physical life as an unpleasant duty they must perform in response to an unidentified imperative.”

Taking into consideration reports of past life memories, the complete sequence of conscious development posited by Wade includes events consistent with the existence of a transcendent self before and after the present embodiment. According to some researchers, says Wade, the transcendent conscious self, during the process of conception and birth, comes to identify with subtle energy fields surrounding the gross physical body and finally with the body itself. “Broadly speaking,” says Wade (1996, p. 243), “the theory emerging from this group seems to be that the individual’s essence—his enduring consciousness as a form of life energy

—including his karmic accumulation, ‘steps down’ from the outermost layer of the energy field surrounding the body to the one closest to the body and then into the body itself through cellular structures, when translated into incarnate life. . . . If karmic patterns are not resolved, more energy builds up during life to sustain the source of consciousness with highly charged material. Since it is not dissipated, this energy aggregate persists in time and incarnations.” Wade’s formulation mirrors the devolution concept, whereby a conscious self is gradually covered first with mind and then matter.

Summary of Chapter 6

Any scientific explanation must begin with certain axioms or assumptions that are not proven. If we demand proof of initial assumptions, then we fall into an endless regress of proofs of assumptions, and proofs of proofs of assumptions, and proofs of proofs of proofs of assumptions. So it is generally taken that initial assumptions should simply be reasonable on the basis of available evidence. Today, most scientific explanations of human origins begin with the assumption that human beings are composed solely of ordinary matter, the commonly known chemical elements. And this assumption, although not proved, is considered reasonable in terms of the available evidence. But in making this assumption scientists are not confronting all of the available evidence. I am, of course, speaking of the kinds of evidence described in this chapter. Even the highly skeptical carl Sagan, who in his book the Demon-Haunted World attacked many claims for the paranormal, said therein, “At the time of this writing there are three claims in the ESP field which, in my opinion, deserve serious study: (1) that by thought alone humans can (barely) affect random number generators in computers, (2) that people under mild sensory deprivation can receive thoughts or images ‘projected’ at them; and (3) that young children sometimes report the details of a previous life, which upon checking turn out to be accurate and which they could not have known about in any other way than reincarnation” (Sagan 1995, p. 302). There are, I am convinced, other categories of such evidence worthy of study. And when all of this evidence is considered, the assumption that humans are composed of three substances—matter, mind, and consciousness, as I have defined them—becomes reasonable enough to serve as the foundation for an alternative research program for explaining human origins.

Such an alternative research program should be welcomed. Those who hold that mind and consciousness are produced, as emergent properties, from the matter in the neuronal circuitry of the brain are faced with major difficulties. They have not been able to explain in any detailed and convincing way how molecules interacting with each other according to known physical laws produce consciousness. This has led some researchers (Griffin 1997, p. 132) to propose that material atoms have, among other intrinsic properties, some slight degree of consciousness. When combined together these slight bits of consciousness can, some suggest, combine to form the intense and highly concentrated consciousness that we all experience. This idea is called panexperientialism. But if each atom possesses only a dim awareness, of what would it be aware? Most likely, an atom would only be aware of the atoms in its immediate neighborhood. Exactly how this local dim awareness of other atoms could transform into a concentrated, individualized, global awareness is not specified in any convincing way.

Griffin (1997, p. 133), following the philosophy of Alfred north Whitehead, and the earlier philosophy of Leibniz, suggests that “a multiplicity of individuals at one level can be subordinated to a ‘dominant’ individual with a higher level of experience and greater power.” The idea seems to be that among all the individual atoms in the human body, each with its own little bit of awareness, there is one dominant atom with a much higher level of awareness, to which the others are subordinated. This takes one beyond the normal panexperientialism, and introduces something very akin to the atma, the unit of individual consciousness in the vedic model. By introducing a quite radical distinction between the properties of different kinds of material particles, Griffin inadvertently reintroduces the matter/consciousness dualism he sought to avoid by his panexperientialist idea.

A “dualistic” atomic panexperientialism of this kind is potentially compatible with the vedic model. According to Mantra 35 of the Brahma Samhita, a Sanskrit hymn to the universal creator, the Supersoul or paramatma enters into each atom. In a conversation with his disciples in London (August 17, 1971), my guru A. c. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada explained that an individual soul or atma is also present in the atom along with the paramatma (conversations 1988, v. 2, p. 351). The bodies of living things would thus contain many atoms, each with soul and Supersoul. But the expression of the soul’s consciousness is heavily covered in this condition. The bodies of living things would also contain a dominant soul-Supersoul pair that would be the soul and Supersoul not of a single atom but of the complete organism, giving the organism as a whole a developed individual consciousness connected to the global consciousness of God.

Some scientists suppose that consciousness may be a quantum mechanical effect. These scientists include physicist david Bohm, physiologist Karl Pribram, nobel-prize-winning physicist Brian Josephson, mathematician Sir Roger Penrose, and neuroscientist Benjamin Libet. Stuart Hameroff, an anesthesiologist at the University of Arizona, has called attention to tiny structures called microtubules in brain cells as possible centers of quantum effects related to the generation of consciousness (Radin 1997, pp. 284–285). But there is no proof that consciousness is associated with microtubules in brain cells. furthermore, left unexplained is why consciousness, of all things, should emerge as a result of a quantum mechanical effect in structures composed of ordinary molecules. At present, quantum mechanics says nothing about the origin of consciousness. Radin (1997, p. 287) points out: “An adequate theory of psi . . . will almost certainly not be quantum theory as it is presently understood. Instead, existing quantum theory will ultimately be seen as a special case of how nonliving matter behaves under certain circumstances. Living systems may require an altogether new theory.”

Physicist Helmut Schmidt did some of the original psi experiments with random number generators. As we have seen, RnGs use radioactive decay to interrupt streams of alternating ones and zeros. These radioactive decays are the result of quantum jumps in the states of atoms, causing the emission of electrons. Because these emissions are, according to quantum theory, random, the sequence of ones and zeros picked out by the emissions should also be random. This means that over time there should be fifty percent ones and fifty percent zeros. But in his experiments Schmidt found that by mental efforts subjects could cause an increase in either ones or zeros, beyond what could be expected by chance. Schmidt said (1993, p. 367): “The outcome of quantum jumps, which quantum theory attributes to nothing but chance, can be influenced by a person’s mental effort. This implies that quantum theory is wrong when experimentally applied to systems that include human subjects.” In other words, quantum theory is in this case wrong, because its predictions do not apply to the random number generator experiments. Schmidt added, “It remains to be seen whether the quantum formalism can be modified to include psi effects.” It is doubtful that this can ever be achieved. This suggests the incompleteness of quantum mechanics as a description of reality. Accordingly, it may never be possible to give some simple set of equations that explains everything in the universe. Quantum mechanics may have its applications for a certain subset of reality, but it is not all encompassing. The goal of a mathematical theory of everything may therefore be forever beyond reach.

Any material explanation of consciousness, as an emergent property of neurons or as a quantum mechanical effect connected with microtubules in neurons, must confront the changeability of these brain components. The brain contains about 10 billion neurons. Each of these has about ten thousand connections with other neurons. Each day, a human loses an average of one thousand neurons in the brain (Radin 1997, p.

259). That consciousness and its mental contents can maintain their integrity in the face of such massive random disruptions in the brain circuitry that supposedly creates consciousness requires quite a leap of faith. It is more reasonable to suppose that the unitary consciousness of a living entity is an irreducible feature of reality and that it simply uses the brain as an instrument.

The interactions of matter, mind, and consciousness appear to sometimes violate the kind of bottom-up causation now generally favored by reductionist science. According to reductionist science, we start with molecules, and from molecules come mind and consciousness. Radin (1997, p. 260) and other researchers propose that living systems participate in a system with both upward and downward causation, in which states of matter can influence the states of mind and consciousness and vice versa. Radin (1997, p. 261) proposes that a comprehensive model of this causal system “might place quantum or subquantum physics at the bottom and a ‘spirit’ or ‘superspirit’ at the top.” This echos the vedic model, which does indeed place a “superspirit” at the top of the model (i.e. the paramatma, or Supersoul).

Radin gives this characterization of an adequate physical theory of living systems: “The theory will have to explain how information can be obtained at great distances unbound by the usual limitations of space or time . . . Such a theory must also explain not only how one can get information from a distance in space or time, but also how one can get particular information . . . The theory must account for why we are not overwhelmed with information all the time . . . The theory must also explain how random processes can be tweaked by mental intention . . . The theory of psi should explain phenomena associated with evidence suggesting that something may survive bodily death. These phenomena include apparitions, hauntings, out-of-body experiences (OBE), and near-death experiences (ndE) . . . The theory may need to account for poltergeist phenomena, which provide the primary evidence for large-scale mindmatter interaction effects” (Radin 1997, pp. 278–280).

A theory based on the vedic model of the cosmos could account for all of the above. Matter, mind, and individual spirits emanate from God. God enters into each atom and accompanies each individual spirit as the Supersoul, or Paramatma. The Supersoul, by definition, is present in all phases of time and space, and is simultaneously beyond time and space. The Supersoul is also all knowing. Therefore, through the medium of the Supersoul, knowledge can be transmitted from one spirit to another beyond the usual limits of time and space. There are many examples of this in the vedic literature. The Bhagavad Gita (15.15) says that it is from the Supersoul that each individual souls gets memory, knowledge, and forgetfulness. The Supersoul can therefore control the kind and amount of information that comes to each individual soul, whether through normal or paranormal means. Since the Supersoul is present in each atom of matter and is at the same time aware of conscious intentions, it is possible for the Supersoul to produce the effects associated with random number generators. Responding to the desires of experimenters and the intentions of subjects, the Supersoul could cause more ones or zeros to come up in the course of the experiments. The vedic model, which posits the existence of an eternal conscious self (atma), would explain evidence for survival of bodily death. According to the vedic model, the eternal conscious self, if it does not return to the spiritual level of reality, remains in the material world covered by a subtle mental body. This mental body is composed of a subtle material element (mind) that can, by the agency of Supersoul, affect ordinary matter. This would explain poltergeist effects and apparitions. The mental body also includes a subtle sensory apparatus, capable of operating without the assistance of the ordinary bodily sense organs. This would explain the visual perceptions that subjects report during out-of-body experiences. The vedic model has considerable explanatory power.

This model overcomes the classic objection to the cartesian duality of mind and matter. descartes’s terminology identifies mind with consciousness. A popular, but incorrect view, is that descartes thought that the pineal gland in the brain mediated an interaction between mind (consciousness) and matter. This organ was, according to this account, sensitive to both mind and matter and could link them. Modern philosophers now believe that descartes simply suggested that the pineal gland was the place where an interaction between mind and matter took place. As to how the interaction actually took place, descartes could not say (Griffin 1997, p. 105). nicolas Malebranche and Arnold Geulincx, two of the principal followers of cartesian philosophy, accepted descartes’s formulation that mind and matter were distinct entities and concluded that they could not interact. They proposed to explain, however, their apparent interaction through the philosophical doctrine of occasionalism. Griffin (1997, p. 105) explains: “According to this doctrine, on the occasion of my hand’s being on a hot stove, God causes my mind to feel pain, which leads me to decide to move my hand. My mind, unfortunately, cannot cause my body to move any more than my body could cause my mind to feel pain. On the occasion of my deciding to move my hand, accordingly, God obliges, moving it for me. All apparent interaction between mind and body is said to require this constant supernatural intervention.”

The vedic model of the relationships between matter, mind, and consciousness resembles occasionalism. In the vedic model, mind (a subtle kind of matter) is placed along with ordinary matter on one side of the cartesian divide. The soul, a unit of pure consciousness, is placed on the other side. The question still arises, how can any connection between the soul (consciousness) and matter in its two forms (ordinary matter and the subtle material mind) be established? The key is the Supersoul. The Supersoul is the ultimate source of the souls of living beings as well as the mind element and ordinary matter. The Supersoul monitors the desires and intentions of the souls of living beings and causes mind and matter to transform in response to those desires. The vedic model also incorporates the property dualism of Spinoza, who proposed that there is actually only one substance, spirit, that is perceived differently according to its application, just as electricity can be used to heat or cool. The Supersoul possesses a spiritual potency which it can deploy in different ways. The spiritual potency when deployed to cover the original spiritual consciousness of the individual soul is known as matter. But the same potency can be changed back to its original spiritual form by the Supersoul.

Supersoul may explain a puzzling anomaly in consciousness studies. Benjamin Libet, a neuroscientist, has reported the results of experiments about intention and brain state. He asked his subjects to bend a finger at the exact time they made a decision to do so. Study of brain waves revealed that there was a gap of about one-fifth of a second between the time the subject decided to move their fingers and the time the muscles in the finger actually moved. But the same study also revealed that the brains of the subjects displayed activity a third of a second before the subjects consciously reported making a decision to move their finger. Libet took this to mean that our conscious free will is not really free, but is reflecting some unconscious brain action that precedes the decision’s entry into our conscious awareness. Accordingly, free will is largely an illusion (Libet 1994; in Radin 1997, pp. 283–284). But this is not necessarily so. According to the vedic model, the Supersoul, on a deep level, is monitoring the soul, the actual conscious self. Anticipating the desire of the soul to move the finger, the Supersoul could set the process in motion before the desire is manifested as a mental intention.

In their book margins of Reality (1987), Robert G. Jahn and Brenda J. dunne gave a theory that makes use of analogies from quantum mechanics and at the same time accounts for the action of consciousness in a way that is compatible with the vedic model. Like the vedic model, their model appears to accept unit consciousness as a feature of reality. Jahn and dunne proposed that consciousness has a dual particle/wave nature, much like the atom or photon in quantum mechanics. They proposed that our normal individual embodied consciousness might be likened to “probability of experience waves” that are “confined to some sort of ‘container,’ or ‘potential well,’ representative of the environment in which that consciousness is immersed” (Jahn and dunne 1987, p. 242). Ordinary conscious relations would be defined by the interactions of the confined waves, according to the conditions imposed by the physical body and environment. But just as in quantum mechanics there are tunneling effects, whereby the consciousness wave in a particular potential well can influence the consciousness wave in another potential well in ways not normally allowed. This might, according to Jahn and dunne (1987, p. 243), “represent various types of anomalous information acquisition, including remote perception and remote PK effects.” Jahn and dunne added (1987, p. 243), “If any of the standing wave systems acquires sufficient energy to be elevated from cavity-bound to free-wave status, it may gain access to all consciousness space-time and interact with any other center in the configuration via that mode. Thus, this route could accommodate a variety of anomalies, including remote perception and remote man/machine interactions, as well as more extreme and controversial phenomena such as mystical union, out-of-body experiences, mediumship, and spiritual survival.” The question is: how does a “standing wave system” (atma, or soul, in the vedic model) acquire the “sufficient energy” to get out of an energy well? Here the Supersoul could play a role. Only the Supersoul would possess enough energy not to be bound in any way by any of the energies. But it could contribute enough energy to individual units of consciousness to break out of their limitations. But such units of consciousness could never achieve the same degree of freedom as the Supersoul and would require constant connection with the Supersoul to remain in the free state.