ParaSpy.com

Reviewed by Hannah Jenkins, PhD

Baby boomer parapsychologists are starting to retire. Fortunately for us, instead of working on their golf swing, some of them are jotting down memories. Do You See What I See?: Memoirs of a Blind Biker, another recent personal account of a life involved with psi research, is by Russell Targ, the physicist legend of remote viewing, co-author (with Harold Putoff) of the influential Mind Reach and, we discover, an avid motorcyclist despite being legally blind.

The book starts with a description of a quintessential post-war, European-influenced Chicago/New York childhood. It then goes on to tell us about his studies, early career, marriage, fatherhood, move to California, divorce, motorcycle riding and other loves. There’s much to keep us interested on both personal and professional fronts: Bobby Fisher (the eccentric chess player) was his brother-in-law, and at work during breaks at NASA conferences he had quiet talks about ESP with the likes of Werner von Braun, Edgar Mitchell and Arthur C. Clarke. But Targ is no mere name dropper. The stories are informed by his thoughtful philosophical approach to life, namely, that ‘yes, things happen, but we give them all the meaning they have for us.’ All the major milestones of a life, the negatives and positives, are presented with great candor in very readable, engaging prose.

There is also an absorbing account of the ups and downs of his professional life as both an engineer for Lockheed and scientist specializing in ESP. His professional life was a delicate balance between mainstream and psi research. Many of those involved in the latter will identify with the problems he manages to overcome: he was successful at both. It’s an edifying story, especially when you consider he had serious health issues to contend with for most of his life. Remarkably there’s never a hint of self pity in the writing, even when he relates the tragic death of his daughter Elizabeth Targ.

He’s apparently undaunted by life challenges that would throw many off course. And though his tone does sometimes have a suggestion of ‘look what I did!’ he’s reflective enough to acknowledge this and aware that his upbringing as an only child and early illnesses have had a profound, and mostly positive, impact on his confident and resilient approach to life.

For those engaged with psi research, the book becomes especially interesting when he expands on his contributions to ESP experiments. Russell Targ was involved in some of the seminal moments of psi research over the last four decades and was close to many other psi researchers who have also profoundly influenced the field. One of them is Charles T. Tart who wrote the forward to The Blind Biker. He describes Russell Targ’s contribution to psi research as the ‘battery development pioneer’ and lauds him for bringing elusive real life psi into a more moderate, but reliable, scientifically useful form.

Although there is much that is already on the public record, it is fascinating to get the personal inside story of the developments which have informed current psi research. Some have attained legendary status, for instance the activities of the Delphi Group. But did you know that the documentary describing the silver commodities stock prediction experiments has disappeared from the archives of the production company who made it? Or that the group once received a $320,000 contract with Atari to design and build an ESP video game? And he outlines the development of remote viewing. I won’t repeat the details here as it’s worth reading from his perspective, especially the theories about Pat Price. The stories reveal an innovative approach to the development of practical applications for psi and one wonders if we need to up the stakes of current research to match the efforts of researchers from his era.

I highly recommend Do You See What I See?: Memoirs of a Blind Biker as an inspiring story which will be of interest to those outside psi research as much as those in it.

Hannah Jenkins, PhD

A new parapsychological research center is soon to open in a popular virtual arena called Second Life. The Alvarado Zingrone Institute for Research and Education (The AZIRE) was founded to provide resources for researchers, clinical psychologists and psychiatrists, therapists and counselors, and teachers and students interested in seemingly psychic phenomena. A project of Alvarado Consulting, The AZIRE is located in Charlottesville, Virginia and in the online virtual world, Second Life (http://www.secondlife.com).

Dr. Carlos S. Alvarado and Dr. Nancy L. Zingrone, the folks behind The AZIRE, have enjoyed careers in parapsychology since the late 1970s. Focusing mainly on the psychology of experience — especially on the out-of-body experience — they have been lucky enough to have worked at some of the premiere institutions in the field, such as the Rhine Research Center in Durham, North Carolina, the Koestler Parapsychology Unit in the Department of Psychology at the University of Edinburgh, the Parapsychology Foundation in New York City and Greenport, New York, and at the Division of Perceptual Studies in the Department of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences at the University of Virginia, where they now hold part-time grant-based research faculty appointments.

The AZIRE website — http://www.theazire.org — includes links to blogs on various aspects of their field of study including parapsychology as a profession, parapsychology’s contribution to science, and biographies in parapsychology, as well as links to personal blogs such as those written by Dr. Charles Tart and Dr. Dean Radin. The AZIRE website also includes links to many universities, institutes, and organizations all over the world as well as to those few opportunities for accredited and/or high quality online learning in parapsychology. Links are also provided to web-based freely available articles by Alvarado and Zingrone and to recommended books in the field.

In addition to developing online courses, a “Virtual College Fair” is in the planning stages. So far Dr. Charles Tart, Dr. Caroline Watt of the University of Edinburgh, and Dr. Ian Hume of Coventry University have committed to being interviewed about the online programs and courses their institutions offer. To be notified when the interviews are scheduled, email nancy@theazire.org.

The AZIRE has committed to Second Life as a particularly vibrant media for education. To exploit that potential, The AZIRE Learning Center presents similar resources to those provided by The AZIRE website but using some of the interactive media available inworld such as continuously running slideshows, “notecards,” a YouTube viewer and click-throughs to buy books and download articles. Still in development in Second Life are The AZIRE Library that will include an expanded selection of articles and books to download or buy, and The AZIRE Classroom Building, a cosy space where discussions and classes will be hosted.

If you’re experienced in Second Life, Alvarado and Zingrone want to remind you that The AZIRE’s first open house is on Sunday, September 20^th, 2009 from 2:00 to 4:00 pm PST. Once inworld, IM Maggie Larimore (Zingrone’s Second Life alter ego) and she will send you the landmark. For those who’d like to give Second Life a try, once inworld IM Maggie Larimore and/or Rodolfo Mirabella (Alvarado’s SL alter ego) for a warm welcome!

The principal international scientific organization studying the nature of consciousness, the Parapsychological Association (PA), is holding a logo competition in anticipation of the relaunch of its website, www.parapsych.org. An affiliate of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science, the PA is engaged in the study of psi (or ‘psychic’) experiences, such as telepathy, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, psychic healing, and precognition.

The competition, which is open to the public, encourages amateurs, artists and graphic designers to draw on the 52 year history of this well-established organization to create a logo that will serve the PA’s website as well as its printed materials. The winner of the logo competition will receive a prize of $100.

The deadline for submissions is October 5, 2009. Contest rules can be found at Logo Competition Rules Contact the business manager at business@parapsych.org with inquiries.

About the Parapsychological Association:

The Parapsychological Association is the international professional organization of scientists and scholars engaged in the study of ‘psi’’ (or ‘psychic’) experiences. Their primary objective is to achieve a scientific understanding of these experiences. The PA was first established in 1957, and has been an affiliated organization of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) since 1969. There are approximately 300 PA members around the world.

The PA provides an international forum for scholarly exchange through annual conferences, generally held in North America or in Europe, and through publication of the proceedings from these conferences. The PA is a non-adjudicating organization and endorses no ideologies or beliefs other than the value of rigorous scientific and scholarly inquiry. It is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization.

This is an excellent video talk on quantum mechanics and consciousness, by astrophysicist Bernard Haisch, given at the Society for Scientific Exploration meeting in July 2009 .

This is the cover of a reprint of The Conscious Universe, to be published in the UK soon. I wrote a new Preface for this book, which is aimed to ride the wave of interest in noetic science as a result of Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol.

Publishers often look for books that accommodate the public’s request for more information on certain topics, and that’s what happened here. I approved the publisher’s recommendation for the revised title and new book jacket (which I like much more than the original jacket with the silly floating spoon!).

Dan Brown’s (author of The DaVinci Code) new book, The Lost Symbol, was published yesterday. It immediately leapt to the top of the bestselling charts and will undoubtedly stay there a while.

Unbeknownst to us, or to practically anyone else because of the tight embargo on the plot, the heroine Katherine Solomon in the book is a “noetic scientist,” and the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) is cited along with a fair bit of that character’s view of noetic science. The fictional Katherine appears to be a composite of several real-life noetic scientists.

I am Senior Scientist at the actual Institute of Noetic Sciences. We’ve added a few pages to the IONS web site to provide more information about what noetic science actually is, along with our current research portfolio, some of our journal publications, and audio and video interviews. You can find that information by going to our homepage and clicking on the “In the spotlight” image.

Exploratory Evidence for Correlations Between Entrained Mental Coherence and Random Physical Systems

Journal of Scientific Exploration , Vol 23 (3), 2009

DEAN RADIN
Institute of Noetic Sciences

F. HOLMES ATWATER
The Monroe Institute

Abstract – An experiment tested whether mental coherence entrained in groups would affect sequences of data generated by truly random number generators (RNGs) in the vicinity of those groups. Coherence was entrained by having groups listen to a prescribed series of binaural-beat rhythms during a 6-day workshop. Two RNGs based on electronic noise and one on radioactive decay latencies were located in the building where the workshops took place. Random data were continually collected from these RNGs during 14 workshops. As controls, the same RNGs generated data in the same locations and times but during 8 weeks when no workshops took place. Other RNGs in two distant locations were run as additional controls.

An exploratory hypothesis predicted that fluctuations in entrained mental coherence associated with the workshop activities would modulate the random data recorded during the workshops. This was predicted to result in positive correlations between random data streams collected from one workshop to the next. Results showed that during the workshops the overall correlation was positive, as predicted (p = .008); during control periods the same RNGs produced chance results (p = .74). Random data generated in distant locations also produced results consistent with chance.”

Overall, this study involved collection and analysis of 143 billion random bits from different kinds of random number generators.

My latest presentiment study, published in Explore, coauthored with Ana Borges.

Title: Intuition Through Time: What Does the Seer See?

Conclusions

These studies, which replicate conceptually* similar experiments, suggest that sometimes seers do see the future. This implies that developing comprehensive models of anticipatory behavior, from understanding the nature of intuition to the placebo effect, may require consideration of transtemporal and teleological factors.

* The paper has the word “conceptual,” which is a typo.

This is a trailer for a new movie on psi. I’m one of the people interviewed. It has a good clip showing the eyetracking presentiment study that I blogged about earlier.

Because I’ve written about a psi-GMF link, a reader sent me this a pointer to this interesting paper from Anna Krivelyova and Cesare Robotti of the Federal Reserve Board of Atlanta:

Playing the Field: Geomagnetic Storms and the Stock Market

Explaining movements in daily stock prices is one of the most difficult tasks in modern finance. This paper contributes to the existing literature by documenting the impact of geomagnetic storms on daily stock market returns. A large body of psychological research has shown that geomagnetic storms have a profound effect on people’s moods, and, in turn, people’s moods have been found to be related to human behavior, judgments and decisions about risk. An important finding of this literature is that people often attribute their feelings and emotions to the wrong source, leading to incorrect judgments. Specifically, people affected by geomagnetic storms may be more inclined to sell stocks on stormy days because they incorrectly attribute their bad mood to negative economic prospects rather than bad environmental conditions. Misattribution of mood and pessimistic choices can translate into a relatively higher demand for riskless assets, causing the price of risky assets to fall or to rise less quickly than otherwise.

The authors find strong empirical support in favor of a geomagnetic-storm effect in stock returns after controlling for market seasonals and other environmental and behavioral factors. Unusually high levels of geomagnetic activity have a negative, statistically and economically significant effect on the following week’s stock returns for all U.S. stock market indices. Finally, this paper provides evidence of substantially higher returns around the world during periods of quiet geomagnetic activity.

Download the paper:

http://www.frbatlanta.org/filelegacydocs/wp0305b.pdf