{"id":103632,"date":"2024-01-30T12:56:57","date_gmt":"2024-01-30T19:56:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=103632"},"modified":"2024-01-30T13:29:34","modified_gmt":"2024-01-30T20:29:34","slug":"psychic-functioning-has-been-well-established","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2024\/01\/psychic-functioning-has-been-well-established.html","title":{"rendered":"“Psychic functioning has been well established”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/a>
NASA public domain photograph, published with the following caption:
This landscape of \u201cmountains\u201d and \u201cvalleys\u201d speckled with glittering stars is actually the edge of a nearby, young, star-forming region called NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula. Captured in infrared light by NASA\u2019s new James Webb Space Telescope, this image reveals for the first time previously invisible areas of star birth.
Called the Cosmic Cliffs, Webb\u2019s seemingly three-dimensional picture looks like craggy mountains on a moonlit evening. In reality, it is the edge of the giant, gaseous cavity within NGC 3324, and the tallest \u201cpeaks\u201d in this image are about 7 light-years high. The cavernous area has been carved from the nebula by the intense ultraviolet radiation and stellar winds from extremely massive, hot, young stars located in the center of the bubble, above the area shown in this image.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
A few days ago, I posted some quotations from an interesting paper that I had just read \u2014 Stephan A. Schwartz, \u201cNonlocality and Exceptional Experiences: A Study of Genius, Religious Epiphany, and the Psychic,\u201d Explore<\/em> 6\/4 (July\/August 2010): 227-236. \u00a0My doing so gave such extraordinary joy to the denizens of the Peterson Obsession Board \u2014 far over and above any value in the quoted passages \u2014 that I think I\u2019ll do so again. \u00a0(Making others happy makes me<\/em> happy.) \u00a0 So here are a few more quotations from the article:<\/p>\n
First, Schwartz quotes Jessica Utts<\/a>, a professor of statistics at the University of California, Irvine, who had been asked to review a series of studies of the phenomenon often called \u201cremote viewing,\u201d which is in the same general neighborhood with, if not altogether identical to, the alleged phenomenon that has been called clairvoyance:<\/p>\n
Using the standards applied to any other area of science, it <\/span>is concluded that psychic functioning has been well estab<\/span>lished. The statistical results of the studies examined are far\u00a0<\/span>beyond what is expected by chance. Arguments that these <\/span><\/span>results could be due to methodological \ufb02aws in the experi<\/span>ments are soundly refuted. Effects of similar magnitude <\/span>have been replicated at a number of laboratories across the <\/span>world. Such consistency cannot be readily explained by <\/span>claims of \ufb02aws or fraud.<\/span><\/p>\n
The magnitude of psychic functioning exhibited appears to <\/span>be in the range between what social scientists call a small <\/span>and medium effect. That means that it is reliable enough to <\/span>be replicated in properly conducted experiments, with suf<\/span>\ufb01cient trials to achiev<\/span><\/span><\/span>e<\/a><\/span>\u00a0the long-run statistical results <\/span><\/span><\/span>needed for replicability. \u00a0(cited on 228)<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Another passage that intrigued me mentions the work of a team led by the chemist Gregory S. Engel<\/a>, who was then at the University of California at Berkeley but who is currently at the University of Chicago:<\/p>\n
\n
Using femtosecond lasers to follow the movement of light <\/span>energy through a photosynthetic bacterial cell, Engel et al, <\/span><\/span><\/span>quoted in Gar\ufb01eld, \u201cobserved the energy traveling along every <\/span>possible direction at the same time. Instead of following a single <\/span>trajectory like the electrons on a silicon chip, the energy in <\/span>photosynthesis explores all of its options and collapses the quan<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>tum process only after the fact, retroactively \u2018deciding\u2019 upon the <\/span>most ef\ufb01cient pathway.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
Thi*
** s mea
** ns the basic processes of li
** fe rely ultimately on quantum <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>
** tra
** nsf
** ers of inform
** ation backward in time, which looks remarkably <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>
** li
** ke ret
** rocausal experi
** ments to be found in physics <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>
** or medi
** cine<\/span><\/span>
** ; <\/span>
** all of which suggest the primacy of consciousness. \u00a0(229)<\/span><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
** *The article casts a wide net. \u00a0Here is something with which, I think, many people might be able to report experience:<\/p>\n"\n
Natural sleep also plays a role. Psychologist Stanley Krippner\u00a0<\/span>who, together with Montague Ullman, headed the dream labora<\/span>tory at Maimonides Medical Center in New York City in the late <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>1960s, and into the 70s, assisted by Alan Vaughan and Charles <\/span><\/span>Honorton, took the \ufb01ndings of Kleitman, Dement, and Aserin<\/span>sky and carried out a pioneering series of experiments exploring <\/span>the connection between nonlocal awareness\u2014they called it telep<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>athy\u2014and dreaming. When the sleeper\u2019s brain pattern indicated <\/span>they were dreaming, and their eyes were moving behind their\u00a0<\/span>closed lids, the wakeful partner would open an envelope, which <\/span>contained a picture, and attempt to link with the dreamer while <\/span>looking at this image. After a few minutes, or when REM <\/span>stopped, the dreamer would be awakened and asked to describe <\/span>their dream. The results produced a signi\ufb01cant correlation be<\/span>tween the image held by the wakeful partner and the imagery in <\/span>the dream.<\/span><\/div>\n
\n
This research line has now progressed to a point where remote <\/span>viewing, the most concrete of the nonlocal perception proto<\/span>cols, has shown that when a sleeper trained in the skillset re<\/span>quired to induce lucid dreaming attempts to remote view from <\/span>within a dream, it can be accomplished (<\/span>Figures 1<\/a><\/span>\u00a0and<\/span>\u00a02)<\/a><\/span>.<\/span><\/span>Once again it strikes me as signi\ufb01cant that this laboratory <\/span>research so closely parallels the ethnohistorical record of genius. <\/span>Lloyd Osborne, who wrote <\/span>The Ebb Tide<\/em><\/span>with Robert Louis <\/span>Stevenson, author of\u00a0<\/span>Treasure Island<\/em><\/span> and\u00a0<\/span>The Strange Case of Dr <\/span><\/em>\u00a0Jekyll and Mr. Hyde<\/em>, <\/span>quoted Stevenson as saying that he went to <\/span><\/span>sleep asking \u201cthe gremlins of my mind to write a story while I <\/span>slept.\u201d \u00a0<\/span>Physician and researcher Dr Jonas Salk said something <\/span>similar: \u201cIntuition is something we don\u2019t understand the biology <\/span><\/span><\/span>of yet, but it is always with excitement that I wake up in the <\/span>morning wondering what my intuition will toss up to me, like <\/span>gifts from the sea. I work with it, and rely upon it. It\u2019s my <\/span><\/span>partner.\u201d \u00a0<\/span>Salk was reported by <\/span>Fortune<\/em><\/span> magazine editor Roy\u00a0<\/span>Rowan as crediting this technique in guiding him to make the <\/span>correct leap that led to the discovery of the polio vaccine.<\/span><\/p>\n
Perhaps the most ironic example of dreams as a part of this <\/span>*
** pattern is the account of Ren\u00e9 Descartes. \u00a0On Saint Martin\u2019s eve <\/span>
** (November 10th) 1619, in Neuberg, Germany, he had an expe-<\/span>
** rie
** nce that led to what he cal
** led \u201ca wonderful discovery.\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span>
** From <\/span>
** it he formulated \u201ca marvelous science,\u201d a worldview whose hall<\/span>
** mark was its commitment to the primacy of the intellect, a view <\/span>
** that has dominated how technological cultures have thought <\/span>
** about the world ever since. What was this wondrous experience? \u00a0<\/span>
** It was that most nonintellec
** tual of events: a dream. \u00a0(232-233)<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
** Now, will all of survive scrutiny in the long run? \u00a0Who knows? \u00a0But I rule nothing out in advance. \u00a0I\u2019m dogmatic that way.<\/p>\n
** \u00a0<\/p>\n
** \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
** *\u00a0 A few days ago, I posted some quotations from an interesting paper that I had just read \u2014 Stephan A. Schwartz, \u201cNonlocality and Exceptional Experiences: A Study of Genius, Religious Epiphany, and the Psychic,\u201d Explore 6\/4 (July\/August 2010): 227-236. \u00a0My doing so gave such extraordinary joy to the denizens of the Peterson Obsession Board […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":95709,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[37173,8898,28214,37134,37170,9210],"class_list":["post-103632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-clairvoyance","tag-dream","tag-esp","tag-extrasensory-perception","tag-remote-viewing","tag-sleep"],"yoast_head":"\n"Psychic functioning has been well established"<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\" A few days ago, I posted some quotations from an interesting paper that I had just read \u2014 Stephan A. 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