The Psi Mind in Action

This book follows up on the author’s Telepathy, Clairvoyance and Precognition, also reviewed in these pages. The Psi Mind of the title is a model proposing a differentiation from the everyday mind – it is a more relaxed condition with both an active and receptive function; here the focus is on the active, and the idea challenges the conventional view that brain is mind, drawing on a wide range of empirical evidence. Chapters consider documented research on psi healing, synchronisation of brainwaves between healers and patients, the Maharishi effect, verified out of body observations, disappearance and reappearance of personal possessions, conjuring up a ‘ghost’ through group mind, and a comprehensive consideration of the research of Lisby Mayer, whose posthumous book Extraordinary Knowing was awarded the Network Book Prize in 2007. Bob’s treatment is fair and thorough.

It was very interesting to read about the Mind Mirror of Maxwell Cade, who was an early member of the Network. He found that brainwaves of healer and healee synchronised at around 7.8 Hz – Bob reports a public demonstration of this synchronisation and an interesting follow-up with Dr Alec Forbes, also a Network Member. I was not convinced by his explanation of OBEs requiring a brief surge brain activity, as we seem to be dealing with a different form of perception altogether, which is also the case with evidence for consciousness beyond death. There is an excellent chapter on Lisby’s work, including the remarkable case of her daughter’s stolen harp located through map dowsing. This leads on to a discussion of psi and its scientific acceptance, where perceived peer pressure often creates a divergence between public statements and private experiences. There are nevertheless viable models proposed (see chart on p. 211) for this kind of direct knowing.

The book closes with a more general discussion recalling the thinking of Jeff Kripal on so-called impossible experiences. Bob comments that ‘refusing to admit that these phenomena occur…does not alter the fact that they do.’ He does not offer his two-mind hypothesis as an explanation, but rather as a postulate with explanatory power, and he quotes the view of Freeman Dyson from Lisby’s book that the barrier to acceptance is the idea that the scope of materialist science is unlimited, when Dyson himself (he was an Honorary Member) believes that it is limited and that ESP can be regarded as real but belonging to a mental universe. Bob is right that mainstream acceptance of psi will require a new theory of mind. In this respect, see the leading article in this issue on the work of Federico Faggin.