The Conscious Universe: The Scientific Truth of Psychic Phenomena

by Dean Radin

Profiled in the NY Times Magazine, Dean Radin is perhaps the most respected parapsychologist in the country. An articulate, engaging communicator, he wields impeccable credentials, a healthy skepticism & a meticulous scientific method to put psi phenomona like telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition & psychokinesis to hard scientific tests. His manifesto makes a persuasive case for the truth of psychic phenomena & places us on the cusp of what may well be the next great paradigm shift. Uniting the latest in high-tech experiments, including irrefutable data from his own groundbreaking research, with teachings of mystics & theories of quantum physics, he explores myriad phenomena from ESP to ghosts to psychokinesis. He reveals the remarkable extent to which psi is already tacitly acknowledged & exploited by Fortune 500 corporations & government, then analyzes how the inevitable mass acceptance of the mind-matter link will affect social, economic, academic, health & spiritual issues. At once visionary & pragmatic, The Conscious Universe recalls Godel, Escher, Bach & The Holographic Universe, yet transcends mere experiments to offer a bold vision.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Paranormal, Psychology, Spirituality, Metaphysics, Philosophy

384 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Dean Radin is Chief Scientist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS), Associated Distinguished Professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies, and cofounder and chairman of the neuroengineering company, Cognigenics. He earned a BS and MS in electrical engineering and a PhD in psychology from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. In 2022 he was awarded an Honorary DSc from the Swami Vivekananda University in Bangalore, India.

Before joining the IONS research staff in 2001, Radin worked at AT&T Bell Labs, Princeton University, University of Edinburgh, and SRI International. He has given over 830 talks and interviews worldwide, is co-inventor on 12 patents, and is author or coauthor of 350+ scientific and popular articles, book chapters, and five books, all of which have been translated into foreign languages, 15 so far: The Conscious Universe (1997), Entangled Minds (2006), Supernormal (2013), Real Magic (2018), and The Science of Magic (2025).

Reviews

[Cooper Cooper · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brief Review
Physicist-turned-parapsychologist Dean Radin demonstrates in almost painful detail that based on a combination of rigorous laboratory testing and equally rigorous meta-analysis, the existence of psi phenomena (telepathy, precogniton, psychokinetics, etc.) is indisputable. The only question is: how does psi work? Radin also explains in detail why he thinks conventional scientists have so vigorously resisted (usually by refusing to examine it) the evidence. Highly recommended for the skeptical.

Expanded Review
A few years ago I was looking for a book that summarizes the current state-of-the-field in psi research, written by someone with a well-trained and rigorous left brain. This is that book. Radin is a theoretical physicist who did conventional physics at Bell Labs and got interested in psi not because of some metanoic experience but because he thought that if there's any truth to psi, it might become the most exciting area in physics, expanding the discipline's models-of-the-world much as quantum physics did earlier in the century. While still at Bell Labs Radin started investigating psi, and continued his work at think tank SRI International, which did psi studies for companies and also for various government agencies including the CIA. Radin now has his own psi lab at University of Nevada.
Although he throws in a few interesting anecdotal cases, Radin devotes most of his time to: 1) presenting the overwhelming, lab-based scientific evidence for psi, and 2) discussing the reasons that mainstream scientists have studiously ignored this evidence in particular and the field in general.
Two factors combine to make Radin's evidence persuasive. First, there have been a great many under-publicized lab studies of psi over the past thirty years or so, and these have 1) been rigorously designed as double blind studies that take into account criticisms of earlier, less rigorous work, and 2) employed new computer and video technology, completely automated to exclude the possibility of contamination by the experimenters or subjects. Second, during roughly the same period, there have been numerous statistically rigorous meta-analyses of all prior recorded studies of each of the major psi phenomena (clairvoyance or remote viewing, telepathy, precognition, telekinesis or action-at-a-distance). The evidential standards applied to these lab studies and meta-analyses were more rigorous than those applied to most experiments in conventional physics.
Result: virtually all of the rigorous lab experiments, and every one of the meta-analyses, indicated psi effects far beyond what would be expected by chance—with the odds against ranging from twenty-to-one (the border of “statistical significance") to trillions to one. Collectively, the odds-against are astronomical.
Radin makes it clear that though we know definitively that psi perception exists, we don't know how it works. He briefly discusses some of the theories, none of which is demonstrated or even thoroughly persuasive. But this is true of many well-tested scientific theories that we take for granted: they describe accurately, but do not adequately explain.
Radin thinks that psi ability has a bell-shaped distribution in the population much like any other talent such as music, athletics or conceptual intelligence, with virtually everyone having some talent for psi and a small percentage of folks with extraordinary talent. Radin has worked with some of the latter—for instance, a retired police chief who was able to "remote view" the exact contents of a Soviet facility spotted by (but impenetrable to) U.S. spy satellites. Unfortunately, conventional U.S. education not only does not promote and develop psi talent, but actually militates against it by some combination of ignoring it and belittling it.
This may be changing. Radin uses the 4-phase Paradigm for Scientific Change to position the scientific culture's current view of psi. The 4 phases:

1-"Impossible!" (Violates Laws of Science)
2-"Hm. May be something to it." (Evidence hard to ignore, but phenomenon not important)
3-"Hey—this is something! " (Evidence strong, and phenomenon looks important)
4-"I knew it all along."


Radin feels that psi, long stuck in phase 1, has now entered phase 2. Can phase 3 be far behind?

[Gregory · Rating 5 out of 5]

So far ,,, about 50 pages into this, reads like soft butter. Really well written., The Scientific studies are really well constructed, gives you an idea what Ideas/concepts go through and the conceived/preconceived notions they face to become somesort of working knowledge. When reading a great deal of philosophical studies over the years this book is very refreshing ,,, But in away it proves the rhetoric/sophists' still maintain a great power over ideas or if not them we haven't been very opened minded and honest about accepting new ideas/things/people/concepts unless they seem to be "pop" related.

More later.

finished yesterday, Great book, would read last to chapters first if i was to read again or for the first time. Actually ,,, going to let it sit and reread the last two chapters again. Scope is similar to 'Manifesting Michaelangelo' J. P. Ferrell, and Dean Radin are on parrellel thoughts but also on parrellel lines aiming toward the same type of concept but from different starting points.

Again more later when done with Ferrell book.

[Maarten Koller · Rating 1 out of 5]

Most of the information in this book is wrong, wrongly interpreted or misleading. The rest is bullshit.

Addendum because of the question Remco asked:
For a thorough review see:
http://www.skepticreport.com/sr/?p=537

And for a very extensive 13-part review see:
http://www.skepticreport.com/sr/?p=537

I have always been draw to anything paranormal. I believed everything. Well, at least until I learned how to think and how to read scientific articles. During my studies to become a psychologist I had the opportunity to take a course on paranormality where this book was used as study material. The course itself was bad and the book likewise. If you are truly interested to see why this book is as bad as I found it, please see the links I provided. They are much more extensive than I could ever be.

[Irene Soldatos · Rating 5 out of 5]

If statistics bore you, don't read this. But keep in mind that practically all scientific experimentation relies on statistics, and almost all current theories of the fundamental functions of the universe are probabilistic. All pharmaceutical testing also relies on statistics. Does aspirin help to reduce coronary disease and strokes? The analysis of the results of the tests, and the answer itself, are in terms of statistics.
On the bright side, Radin does a marvellous job of explaining statistics and the meaning thereof so that even people who have never before heard of the words 'standard deviation' can understand what statistics do and how they are used.

Not despite this, but because of it, this is one of the best books I've ever read. Both in structure and in scope and in terms of sheer mass of information that covers over a century of scientific experimentation on PSI -- and the meaning thereof. And it is scientific. Anyone with a basic understanding of scientific method, statistics, and how empirical experimentation - e.g. in psychology - is done, can see this. Unless one's preconceived world-view prevents one from doing so. This too is a well-known and well-studied effect in conventional Psychology. Presented with evidence that contradicts one's established world-view leads to what is called cognitive dissonance -- which often leads to frustration and anger -- and furious accusations of fraud when the presented evidence cannot reasonably be dismissed in any other way. Which, frankly, explains a lot about the world in general.

[Erik Graff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Of all the books I've read about parapsychology, this is the best to date. Radin, degreed in engineering and educational psychology, adduces powerful arguments in favor of ESP and offers suggestions as to how to interpret the data. New to me at the time of reading was the how data collected in various independent studies can be compiled to produce evidentially powerful results.

[Coltan Parker · Rating 4 out of 5]

I never thought i would read 300 pages from an individual hell bent on convincing me that psychic phenomena are real, empirically proven, and wide-reaching. And i NEVER thought he would win me over (or, at least, leave me more agnostic on the topic). Best read as a case study in the practice and customs of science and burdens of proof.

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

AN INTERESTING “SUPPORTIVE” EXAMINATION OF PSYCHIC PHENOMENA

Dean Radin is a parapsychologist who has been Senior Scientist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences. He wrote in the Preface to the 2009 edition of this 1997 book, “For those who experience [psychic] phenomena, the naysayers are blind to the obvious. For those who don’t, stories about psychic experiences… sound crazy. Until recently, this argument seemed destined to persist forever. But an important new element is now poised to resolve the debate---a substantial body of scientific evidence… over a hundred years of accumulated data has essentially proven that some psychic experiences are real, using the … well-accepted methods familiar to scientists in many disciplines… Noetic science … is a branch of science that uses rigorous scientific methods… to study these ‘direct inner knowing’ experiences and the boundaries between the subjective and the objective… One class of … psychic phenomena---involves human experiences documented through history and readily accepted across all cultures and educational levels. In this book we will explore how noetic science has investigated these phenomena, and what we have discovered so far.”

In the Introduction, he explains, “The idea is that these compelling, perplexing, and sometimes profound human experiences known as ‘psychic phenomena are real… over the past few years, something new has propelled us beyond old debates over personal beliefs. The reality of psychic phenomena is now no longer based solely upon faith, or wishful thinking… we know that these phenomena exist, because of new ways of evaluating massive amounts of scientific evidence collected over a century by scores of researchers… Psi has been shown to exist in thousands of experiments. There are disagreements over how to interpret the evidence, but the fact that virtually all scientists who have studied the evidence, including the hard-nosed skeptics, now agree that something interesting is going on that merits serious scientific attention.” (Pg. xiii-xv)

He acknowledges, “While the anecdotes in … the following chapters are intriguing… they are not sufficiently persuasive to convince most scientists that psi is real… because psychologists have shown that memory is much more fallible than most people think, and because eyewitness testimony is easily distorted, simply collecting more anecdotal stories will not settle the scientific question about psi.” (Pg. 24) Later, he adds, “Is it possible that such episodes can be explained as educated guesses, or as misinterpreted coincidences? Yes. In many cases what appears to be telepathy probably is due to psychological factors such as selective memory, wishful thinking, misremembered events, or subliminal cues… we know that evidence relying solely on eyewitness testimony or memory is notoriously inaccurate, and there are simply too many normal explanations for such experiences. So, to provide a scientifically valid answer … we cannot rely entirely on anecdotal reports.” (Pg. 59-60)

He observes, “Some skeptics argue that even if psi effects observed in current experiments turn out to be replicable, and are not due to any known design problems, they are still too small to be of either theoretical or practical interest. This … is a red herring… because any valid demonstration of a genuine psi effect is of outstanding importance. Just because the effect appears weak now says nothing about what it may become after improvements in experimental procedures and theoretically understanding.” (Pg. 85)

He quotes the ‘archskeptic’ Ray Hyman, and observes, “the archskeptic agreed that the results were not due to chance, or selective reporting, or statistical problems, or even to any plausible design flaws. He is then left with only one remaining refuge, which is to imply that there must be something wrong, because the alternative---genuine psi---is too remarkable to consider. To Hyman’s credit, he goes on to suggest… that ‘[i]t might be worthwhile to allocate some resources towards seeing whether these findings can be independently replicated.’” (Pg. 107) Later, he adds, “the late Carl Sagan agreed that some of the scientific evidence provided by psi experiments is persuasive enough to take these phenomena very seriously.” (Pg. 114)

He points out, “beliefs strongly affect the perceived success or failure of replications. The lesson is that just as we should be skeptical of strong proponents of psychic phenomena who claim to get consistently positive results, we should also be skeptical of those opponents who claim that they consistently see only negative results.” (Pg. 41)

He admits, “While the idea that the mind can affect the physical body is becoming more acceptable, it is also true that the mechanisms underlying this link are still a complete mystery… we have almost no idea about the limits of mental influence. In particular, if the mind interacts not only with its own body but also with distant physical systems… then there should be evidence for what we will call ‘distant mental interactions’ with living organisms. And there is.” (Pg. 161) Later, he says, “we’ve speculated that field-consciousness effects are pervasive but normally invisible unless we know where, when, and how to look for them.” (Pg. 191)

He notes, “The development of quantum mechanics … expanded the classical notion of fields… This gives the quantum field a peculiar NONLOCAL character, meaning the field is not located in a given region of space and time… nonlocality has been dramatically and convincingly revealed in modern physics experiments.” (Pg. 172-173)

He states, “critical thinking is a double-edged sword: it must be applied to any claim, including the claims of skeptics… many of the skeptical arguments commonly leveled at psi experiments have been motivated by nonscientific factors, such as arrogance, advocacy, and ideology. The fact is that much of what scientists … think they know… about psi has been confused with arguments promoted by uncritical enthusiasts on the one hand and uncritical skeptics on the other. History shows that extremists… are rarely correct. So, are all scientists who report positive evidence for psi naïve or sloppy? No. Are all skeptics intolerant naysayers? No.” (Pg. 227)

He argues, “Today, informed skeptics no longer claim that the outcomes of psi experiments are due to mere chance because we know that some parapsychological effects are, to use skeptical psychologist Ray Hyman’s words, ‘astronomically significant.’ This is a key concession because it shifts the focus of the debate away from the mere EXISTENCE of interesting effects to their proper INTERPRETATION.” (Pg. 231)

He explains, “One of the most shocking events in twentieth-century science---an event so outrageous that its repercussions are still barely understood---was quantum theory’s prediction and subsequent verification of NONLOCALITY… why was nonlocality accepted on the basis of a few studies, but psi is not? The answer is that quantum theory had PREDICTED nonlocality, and so far, hardly anything predicts psi.” (Pg. 309)

He comments, “As some of the stranger aspects of quantum mechanics are clarified and tested, we’re finding that our understanding of the physical world is becoming more compatible with psi… Quantum theory says nothing about higher-level concepts such as ‘meaning’ and ‘purpose,’ yet real-world, ‘raw’ psi phenomena seem to be intimately related to these concepts. Quantum interconnectedness does tell us that perfectly ordinary ‘dead matter’ operated in remarkable ways that violate our commonsense notions of how the world works… If something is real, it can be put to use even if we don’t understand it very well.” (Pg. 320-321)

He concludes, “Future generations will undoubtedly … shake their heads with disbelief over the arrogance we displayed in our meager understanding of nature… imaginative scientists were slowly becoming aware of radical new theories on the horizon about space, time, matter, and energy. Some sensed, correctly, that developments such as relativity and quantum theory would radically alter our understanding of reality itself… the impact of those discoveries is still reverberating throughout science, technology, and society.” (Pg. 339-340)

This book will be of keen interest to those studying psychic phenomena.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Who would have thought a book about pyschic phenomena -- an otherwise fascinating topic -- could be so boring and tedious? As a compelling argument for the indisputable evidence proving the existence of psi, this book succeeds. As an engaging, evenly-paced book, it fails pretty solidly. Overall, Radin probably could have achieved his stated goal using 50-100 less pages.

The middle chapters, where Radin describes all of the different experiments and their results, bog down starting around the Mind-Affecting-Living-Organisms chapter. It's strange, but he manages to sap just about all of the drama out of the proceedings by his mechanical account of the same statistics in each experiment, the same criticisms raised by skeptics, and yet another reminder of how these experiments too controvert the crticisms. After the first several instances these experiments could have been summarized in a much more efficient way, allowing for a more interesting discussion of the implications of each solitary phenomenon. The chapters on Random Number Generators seemed interminable.

The last few chapters are uninteresting for another reason: they appear out of place in the context of the rest of the book. Radin suddenly attempts an in-depth theoretical discussion of quantum physics and the possible implications of psi on different areas of study. Most of these implications appeared half-baked and not very well considered, which left me wondering why he even needed to include it, or at least so much of it. . .

The other major issue I had with Radin's book is that his use of statistics is convoluted and poorly explained. To be sure, the meta-analyses he cites sure sound impressive, but I still don't really understand what they mean. We are essentially expected to take his word that this is the best way to determine clinical significance (However, in reading some criticisms of his book I have found that this is apparently not the case. See, for example, the very thorough Carroll review).

There are other choices he made in analysis, especially with respect to the RNGs, that were just mystifying, and it struck me as strange that he would spend so much time on the minutiae of each experiment but neglect to explain basic reasoning behind his analysis. For example, the confidence intervals he used ranged from 99% to 65% in some of the later RNG studies, without adequate explanation as to why he was changing the level of confidence (I presume it was to make his data look better, which makes his argument appear weak). I suppose that the evidence he presented was mostly convincing, but it left me somewhat suspicious.

Overall, the positives of the book (providing solid evidence for psychic phenomena, explaining why more people aren't aware of this evidence) overcome the negatives, but not by much. These basic ideas are what the book should have focused on, because those are the main concerns of lay people, for whom the book -- with its rudimentary and overindulgent explanations -- was obviously intended.

Not Bad Reviews

@pointblaek

[Carlos Garcia · Rating 5 out of 5]

El hecho de que estos experimentos no sean cultura general nos debería hacer entender que la ideología no solo está presente en la religión, sino también en la ciencia.

[Shawn · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is an academic book that straight forwardly addresses the occurrence of psychic phenomena (psi) and is very effective in demonstrating it as reality. Psi is defined as the ability to perceive objects or events beyond the range of the ordinary senses or causing action at a distance by use of the minds will or intention. The experiments or cases mentioned in this book include:

-people affecting random number generators with merely their thoughts
-people receiving thoughts or images projected at them by others
-telepathy (information mentally exchanged between two or more people)
-clairvoyance (information received from a distance)
-precognition (information perceived about future events)
-remote viewing
-ESP (extra sensory perception)
-the feeling of being stared at
-the effectiveness of prayer
-how expectations affect the outcome of experiments
-the problems of cognitive dissonance
-the observer and observed in quantum theory (knowing God is watching you)
-dream visitations from the dead
-hypnosis
-the relationship of psi and other occurrences to positions of the lunar cycle

The author cites the statistical results from experiments which reveal that psi demonstrations are much more than mere chance. The author relates the occurrence of psi to exceptional mental accomplishments that we already recognize such as photographic memory, lightning calculation, and extraordinary musical aptitude.

Can anyone really say they’ve never heard voices, experienced deja vu, dreamed events before they happened, received advice from deceased relatives, etc. If we stop to think about it, and avoid suppressing it into our unconsciousness, we will likely realize that we’ve had some sort of psi experience ourselves.

Observation and Intention

Modern quantum theory reveals that the simple act of observation can change the nature of a physical system. Modern quantum theory now questions the idea that the world is made up of objects whose existence is independent of human consciousness.

One experiment explained in this book reveals that people actually can feel it when they are being stared at. It seems clear that the human nervous system responds to unseen influences. And it seems clear that consciousness permeates more than just the perceptive tissue locked inside the skull.

The author discusses experiments in which the fall of dice seem to be influenced by human will and intention. A believer in statistics, the author reveals that physical laws are really just tendencies of events, not certainties, and that mental intention is associated with the behavior of physical systems. Further, consciousness injects order into systems and becomes more powerful as it becomes collective. The group mind has power to organize and so, as the mind moves, so moves matter.

We have to be conscious of what we think or else whatever we think may influence our existence. This book confirms what Jesus emphasized, essentially that we all affect one another in ways that are much more profound than any of us realize, and that our well being is much improved when we love one another.

Science is coming to better understand that we mentally affect one another’s nervous systems, not only by what we say, but through prayer, energy, love, compassion, peace and other forms of mental intention towards one another. The author quotes Gandhi: “Prayer is not an old woman’s idle amusement. Properly understood and applied, it is the most potent instrument of action.” An experiment discussed in this book revealed that prayed-for patients were less likely to require antibiotics, develop additional complications, or die.

In juxtaposition, stressed individuals create an atmosphere of stress that affects all of society in the form of crime, drug abuse, war, etc. It is revolutionizing when individuals come to realize how much their personal activities and thoughts affect everyone else. Jesus’ dictum to “love one another” is of much more importance than anyone realizes.

The Impact of Emotions

The impact of emotions seems instrumental in the occurrence of certain psi events, particularly fear. One of the most often repeated phrases in the Bible is “Fear not”. Fear may emit energies conducive to the appearance of apparitions or the movement of objects. Hope may influence healings. Confidence may influence ESP readings.

The challenge of corralling our emotions is perplexing. Sometimes our emotions take over and dictate our actions. There are obviously sense perceptions that have devolved because we haven’t used them much since primitive times when we needed them more to avoid predatory animals, bad weather, and other hazards.

To reactivate latent sense perceptions, we may need to return the laboratory to the forest where we become more keen to our surroundings, where our senses become greatly heightened, and where we are more acclimated to sensing the future. I realized this when I first accomplished a multi-day backpacking trip alone. When alone in the forest, you notice every sound and immediately sense even the slightest surrounding movement. Something like a sixth sense becomes activated that alerts us in advance to the impending presence of another hiker, the proximity of a stream to resupply our water, or an advancing storm. The author discusses this as a function of our unconscious nervous system known as “presentment”, which is a vague sense or feeling about something that is about to occur before it arises into conscious awareness.

External Communications

Clearly external suggestions can become an internal expectation and that internal expectation can manifest in the physical body. This has been demonstrated effectively via the placebo effect. The mind interacts not only with its own body but also with external and distant physical systems, particularly other living organisms.

Agitated people often complain to psychologists that they’re being inundated by thoughts of one or more distant persons or that their minds are being invaded by others. Minds can be controlled to a certain extent by exposure to external things, such as what people say to us, advertisements, and the unfolding of circumstances around us. What is to say that such influences cannot affect us beyond the immediate realm of visibility? The fact is that we are constantly processing enormous amounts of information most of which does not reach our conscious awareness. Psychologists recognize that much of this information is stored within our unconsciousness. Psychic phenomena suggests that such information may indeed arise from what others are thinking about us, what those demised into alternative dimensions are projecting to us, or what is wirelessly transmitted to our brains from unknown sources.

Conclusion

Copernicus’s heliocentric theory of planetary motion dethroned the church’s stance that the earth was at the center of the universe. Descartes’s subsequent distinctions between matter and mind (dualism) further shattered the unified worldview. Galileo added that objects have primary (weight, motion, size) and secondary (color, taste, heat) qualities, the latter of which exist only in the mind of the beholder. This distinction gave rise to the idea that primary qualities are more real and reliable.

Thence comes Newton’s ideas of determinism and materialism: that the universe operates according to a uniform set of impersonal rules of cause and effect resulting upon material objects. This was followed by reductionism: the idea that all physical systems and objects could be understood in terms of their parts. The subsequent science that emerged was to reduce objects to their elemental parts to discover the cause-and-effect rules that governed them.

Positivism emerged, which suggests that what is real must be measurable. Also, the idea of a real and objective universe totally separate from the independent observer (realism) developed. The church lost most all of its previous authority to state what is true about nature and science. This reshaped how people thought about themselves, society, government, art, music, and just about everything else. This is why Nietzsche so famously proclaimed that God is dead.

The long-held worldview of the earth as an organic, personal, holistic place of belonging and meaning was fractured into a new worldview that was inorganic, impersonal, isolated and without spiritual meaning. This led to the horrors of the Industrial Revolution, rising technologies, unbridled competition, pathological accumulation, environmental degradation, existentialism, and other consequences of our attempts to force nature into an inflexible box. Idea’s and occurrences which wouldn’t fit into the box, such as psi, were just ignored, discounted as meaningless, or not seen at all.

It is only in recent history that we have begun to see the elimination of these dualisms, which have plagued Western thought for so many centuries. We see in quantum mechanics that reductionism doesn’t hold true when we get closer to the ultimate constituents of matter. We are realizing that scientific laws are not invariant, and it seems more plausible that they too evolve. Some observer effect seems inevitable to all our observations. More and more, we are seeing that our understanding seems to come less from detachment, objectivity, and analysis, and more from identifying more closely with the observed and, so to speak, becoming one with it.

We are seeing more clearly that our encounter with reality is not limited to our physical senses, but also involves aesthetic, spiritual, and mystical perceptions. We must reconsider the Cartesian assumptions of strict separation between mind and matter. Psi represents our experiences of the mysterious interconnections that bind the mind and matter (and thus the universe) together.

This book provides clear confirmation that an observer can mentally alter the physical probabilities of events, which is evident not only in psi experiments, but in contemporary quantum mechanics. And so, the fundamentalists of the world must quickly come to see that if we insist upon envisioning an end-times war of conflicts, such as Armageddon, so it may surely come to pass.

-End-

[Gordon Gatiss · Rating 2 out of 5]

You will need to read this book with an open mind. Radin explains things in detail, and often to the point of overkill. It is a heavy read, if not a little boring in places, and many will not see the journey out. Shame really because this subject fascinates just about everyone. I felt the book was too long-winded and the author took long to get to the point, and when he did it seemed to lose something because I got tired on the journey. A fantastic subject, some really worthwhile moments in the book, which do cause you to reflect and wonder ... “What if?” ... “What does that mean in real life?” ... “Can people really do this stuff?” ... “Could I learn?”. Get the book and dip in and out of it ... read it like you would eat an elephant ... a bit at a time.

[Leanne Curtis-Muñoz · Rating 3 out of 5]

The topics and research studies are very interesting but there is way too much unuseful information for the average person. Because I am interested in paranormal matters I am fighting my way through reading this but my mind keeps wandering off.

[yamiyoghurt · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's nothing wrong with this book, just a little too dry for my liking.

[Lucy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Let me preface this by saying that, I already believe in psi because I am christian. Clearly prayer falls into this category. And similarly, miraculous prophecies and clairvoyance.

Nonetheless, I went into this book with some skepticism, because social science experiments have such a poor track record with respect to fraud and reproducibility. In the end, I was pleasantly surprised. The book is obviously written by an academic not a layman. And there has been a huge volume of psychic research, with increasingly good experimental design quality thanks to skeptics.

Unfortunately, it is a bit out of date, as it dates to ca. 1995 and there has probably been a lot of research since then.

The book covers a lot of different topics so I will review each one.

The preface - incredibly cringe and shouldn't have been included. Quotes from arch-losers, Woody Allen and Nietzsche, also should not have been included.

An intro section which talks about experimental design, statistics, sources of bias, and meta-analysis, which is incredibly boring but I suppose necessary. I have to say, some of the P values quoted later on seem astronomically small to me, but I don't know enough about meta analysis to judge how they're done.

I like how they consider this "file drawer" publication problem and estimate how many unpublished studies would be needed to change results.

They discuss the issue with doing an underpowered replication and then saying the replication failed. But it failed because it was underpowered, not necessarily because there is no effect.

The evidence section, which summarises the research in different psi areas (telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, mind effects on matter, mind effects on living things such as healing, field consciousness, and casinos). This is by far the best section. You could probably read this and skip the rest of the book.

The 1995 Utts/Hyman review very intriguing since Hyman was a big skeptic. Although I suppose he got paid for it.

I'm curious why a couple of the illustrating examples had paintings of Christ as the target image? Were these matches more stand-out than others?

They made the point that it is basically not possible to test for pure telepathy, so you can't distinguish between telepathy and clairvoyance. You can't typically distinguish between mediums and clairvoyance. And also you often can't distinguish between clairvoyance and precognition.

Small section on applications, not that groundbreaking.

Section critiquing skeptics. Not too interesting.

Section on the psychology of belief and perception. Not that interesting because of how popular and over exposed psychology is these days. Hadn't heard the term "reaction formation" before.

Long section on the metaphysics of science/modern society and a section on implications. The metaphysics stuff was decent. I liked the critique of the old metaphysics of science which haven't really worked out, the discussion of mysticism, and I particularly liked the discussion of hierarchies in nature, even positing hierarchies of intangible values. This reminded me of St. Dionysius the Areopagite. I liked the field consciousness implications part which reminded me of st. Seraphim of Sarov.

He pulls decent quotes from other scholars e.g.

"It is mysticism, not science, which pursues the Grand Unified Theory with ruthless logic—the one that includes the questioner within its answer. Although the scientist wants to unify everything in one ultimate equation, he does not want to unify consistently, since he wants to leave himself outside that equation." (Renee Weber)

Some unfortunate issues:
Suggesting there is nothing of interest in people who think they have thoughts put into their mind, and they are simply crazy.
Using similar performance to "hard science" particle physics to back up social science research reliability. Come on, we should be extremely skeptical of this stuff because there is only ONE lab. Hopefully the Chinese build their own particle accelerator one day.
References to evolution.

Conclusion
I think the book could have been much condensed and just included the "evidence" section. A lot of it won't hold much interest for people. But I get that the author wanted to say his piece and discuss all these things.

[John A · Rating 3 out of 5]

I believe in ESP, I have had a number of experiences and one massive one that had led me into spirituality, psychology, and philosophy. Having these experiences facilitated me into introspection, trying to understand the deeper layers of reality, and knowing myself.

As for this book, I believe that if you learn about the psyche and the collective human unconscious, you'd have a much easier time piecing together psychic experiencing than with experiments and relying on statistics. But that is because I have a lack of taste in understand stats.

I have insane nonverbal communication skills, so I subliminally pick on up on tons of information. ADHD also helps me navigate the environment with ease, as I essentially vacuum up all of the information out there. Then my mind snaps it all into place, I begin making psychological connections; such as associations, how past experiences relate with how I am witnessing something, and its relation to what they experience as the outer shell of myself. This is all done at a snap of a finger... I can easily understand what is going on with the processes of another person and their intentions; to the point where human interaction is painful and boring because it is like I am actively faking all the time, when I already know everything.

As for inner experiencing; I'll have random voices pop into my head leading me to ideas of a shared experience (say if I share experience online; either my mind contemplating it outside of my ego or it could be someone actually telepathing me information; since I typically post on psychological/spiritual forums). Sometimes I can feel as if someone is thinking about a post of mine and I can hear their opinions in my head and see a post of later on with those opinions. I generally have a feeling when someone who I've had relations with, are thinking about me or looking around on my profiles. I also have the same feeling when someone is about to go live or post a video online (YouTubers) and either the same day or next day they upload something (sometimes they have schedules so it is unfair to say, but other times they just pop up out of nowhere with random vids). These are just my commonplace experiences; my grandiose ones would take 2-3 pages.

[Anthony O'Connor · Rating 5 out of 5]

excellent

The overall account is thorough, detailed, systematic and convincing. To begin with we are shown that there is in fact already substantial evidence for psi effects - in the form of controlled repeatable experiments and meta-analysis of these experiments. Not just Anecdotes and wishful thinking. Try it yourself after developing the necessary expertise in statistics and experimental design. Secondly there is a detailed account of why the ‘mainstream’ still!! refuses to take any of it seriously to the extant of just rejecting it out of hand. (I would add to his account not yet easily monetisable because if it was acceptance would follow very quickly … ). Thirdly there are some speculations on what kind of theory of reality would account for and explain these phenomena. This is not as strong as the first two parts but seems to cover all the currently known bases. There is a fourth and final part discussing future applications and entailed societal transformations. Fairly briefly for such an immense topic.
The strength of the book lies in parts one and two. Like I said thorough and convincing.
Psi effects ( primarily the non-locality) go deeply beyond the bounds of any current theory of reality, any physical model. And that includes quantum theory. I can’t not point out that all talk of the role of the conscious observer in quantum theory is basically nonsense. A brief fad which didn’t last except in the popular imagination. Also It is now well understood that although quantum teleportation is considered to teleport quantum state instantaneously ( in which reference frame/frames … that’s where it gets a bit confusing ... ) this cannot be used to transmit (classical) information at speeds greater than c. So NOT instantaneously in any reference frame. Quantum theory is certainly weird and non locality is implicit, ubiquitous and intriguing though quite subtle. But it is in its current form nowhere near ‘weird’ enough to provide any explanation of psi effects. It would be wise not to conflate the two.

[May Ling · Rating 3 out of 5]

Summary: This book did not speak to me as it tried too hard to go through the scientific proof via the worst formulated most boring studies you will ever read through.

Why is the writing so bad among those that are attempting to prove a psi phenomenon??? I mean it shouldn't be that hard. The convoluted way in which these studies are written is mind-boggling.

I like though that in p. 18-23 they go through definitions, including what Science knowledge is vs. mysticism, and etc. Sets the tone for the idea that the need to prove Psi is b/c there is a strong current belief in science. If they would have stuck to this idea, I think it would have been great. But that was not the organizational format of the chapters.

Instead, he makes this argument about studies being difficult to replicate (incomplete knowledge) and some idea that you can compile lots of studies together to make one larger study... well, kind of, not really. It depends on the study. It also depends on whether the study was worth anything, to begin with.

Also, I hate, hate, hate when people write things like, as more tests were done, people showed lower psi because they were bored. NO NO NO!!! That is exactly the wrong finding. Actually, if people show psi for up until 5 or 10 mins, then you need to test it only 5 to 10 min. Otherwise, all you're proving is that with large numbers, the study mean-reverts and you end up with 50/50 odds. It kills me. He does it all over the book. And what's worse is that he writes the study descriptions up in ways that are so convoluted!! This is very common that people do it, but mostly when they are turning in a terrible paper, not when they are writing a book.

There was just too much of this and I'm in a bad mood after reading more than one of these. So no niceties this time. The entire field has to get better. 3 stars b/c it's Christmas. Otherwise, I'm not happy that this book makes the field look bad if you're actually a scientist/research reading it.

[Mangoo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Confronted with a large number (even only at the time of writing, which is 1997) of meta-analyses, not to say thousands of repeated experiments, that state statistical significance of positive results in precognition, psychokinesis, clairvoyance and other psi phenomena, how should a sensible reader react?
Radin first describes the experiments, the results and the statistical analyses, then tries to address the possible reactions of believers and skeptics with arguments that straddle between history and philosophy of science, psychology (cognitive biases particularly) and the metaphysics of science that seems in need of revision as it is being fronted by such evidence.
The book is therefore rather complete, clearly structured and exposed, with minimal bias from the author, who firsthand conducts experiments, the only pity being that is it not updated even in the 2009 version - Radin published another book in 2006 instead.
For those interested, or even wandering what one should make of all millenary traditions about psi, this is a recommended read.

[Michael Finberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

"As acceptance grows, the implications of psi will become more apparent."

I've met Dean Radin a few times at his mind lab in Marin, where he explores the concepts of telepathy, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, precognition, ESP, PSI, OBES (out-of-body experiences), NDES (near-death experiences), reincarnation, hauntings, and poltergeists.

This book attempts to examine these concepts using statistical models within a scientific framework. How accurate they are remains to be seen, but it's a project worth tackling.

One fascinating project involved placing random number generators in different parts of the world. Shortly before 9/11. These machines all stopped behaving randomly, and exhibited a certain and identical order for a few minutes.

If science and the ancient wisdom about human consciousness are ever to come together, more measurements of subtle phenomena need to be made.

Radin had decided to take the plunge.

[Mike Lisanke · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author clearly believes in his work (now life's work) And has written a serious but impassioned book on this alternative field of science which remains unaccepted by a majority of the same people who are proposing Dark Everything theory to explain everything which has empirical data that disagrees with their Modelled theories... they have so many theories stacked on top of each other that when one Clearly Fails it'll rip down all others like Nicolaus Copernicus ripped down Claudius Ptolemy epicycles! But, we're not even close to there yet. And there's still so much reticence to enter study, that this will be left to generations who follow (IMO).
I recommend reading this book if only for the skeptical science reader to become acquainted with the very well documented history of the field... And also, to explore further fringe topics like microtubules of Dr. Stuart Hameroff causing our Conscious minds.

[Paula · Rating 2 out of 5]

It is understandable why someone who has made a career researching psychic phenomena would be anxious to have people, particularly other scientists, take their work seriously. However, reading a book that is primarily interested in explaining why you should be taken seriously does not make for good reading. There are a few good anecdotal stories about extreme psi experiences, and a few more interesting experimental results discussed. The rest of the book is statistics, trying to prove the validity of the research, and explanations of why scientists have not taken the research seriously yet, and why they should. The worst part is that I am ready to believe, having had some unusual experiences myself. Yet, this book did not leave me feeling that he had made his point.

[Ανδρέας Μιχαηλίδης · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book tries very hard to use psychology, sociology, statistics and meta-analysis to establish and legitimize a method to look at the paranormal differently.

It is misleading on an academic level and tries to give excuses for all paranormal debunking by using long-winded explanations that make one lose their train of thought. It is basically saying "you are not looking at it right and they don't want you to." Essentially, it uses the same methods of politicians and communication experts to twist the truth using mountainloads of "data".

It bears passing interest when it comes to the things it discusses, but on the whole, it is an attack on skeptics, in order to legitimize what are broadly called "psi phenomena".

[JL Mars · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is full of fascinating data, in fact a little too heavy on the data. As someone who is passively interested in this topic at a hobbyist level, I wish the book had better communicated its points to a wider audience instead of focusing on those already much deeper in the game than me. Your mileage on this book will vary based on what you're expecting to get from it; this is meant for scientists or those interested in the science deeply, not for broad scientifically-minded general audiences.

[Christian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good introduction, though dated. You gain a good understanding and horizon for the involved parameters of the discussion and typical arguments. However, since this is from more than twenty years ago, I wouldn't call the book and whole thing a "closed case" but rather something extremely worthy of consideration and investigation which calls for a deeper update and comparision with the current debate.

[Graham Bear · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting.

A book a PSI isn't something I would normally buy. However Dean Radin is a very intelligent , diligent scientist and an engaging writer. Science has brought him to the analysis PSI and such is the evidence that he presents that I can not doubt it's veracity.

[Brenda Asterino]

This is wonderful book whether you are interested in Science, Consciousness, or the Paranormal/Parapychology. Perhaps, you are interested in an intersection of all three? Check out Dean Radin in general and this book specifically.

[Justin]

I like some of the more scientific sections where he deals with statistics but in other sections I have a hard time seeing that something that occurs 51% of the time rather than expected 50% even if that likelihood is a million to one it doesn't seem that significant

[Reggie Fils-Dayne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I appreciated Radin’s thorough, engaging dive into psi research, but I couldn’t shake the sense that sometimes his enthusiasm outweighed his objectivity. But he wrote it well, and his thoughts are clear, if not complex.

[Ahmed Al-Emadi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mind openning

Provided a new view of how "mainstream scientific truths" are their relation to psi and parapsychology. A very interesting read.

[Saimon Sanchez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Warning, your materialist worldview may be shattered or at the very least severely threatened by this book