Survival of Bodily Death
An Esalen Invitational Conference
May 2 to 7, 2004

Non-local Perception and Time-Reversed Experience
Dean Radin

For the sake of clarity, Radin started his presentation by briefly describing some common terms that are used by parapsychologists and consciousness researchers. The term telepathy signifies non-local (and non-physical) mind-to-mind communication or transfer of recognizable information or images. The term clairvoyance signifies the ability to perceive, or imagine accurately, objects that exist at far distances (sometimes called remote viewing). The term psychokinesis (called PK for short) signifies the ability of the human mind to influence physical objects at a distance without touching them (so-called mind over matter). And, lastly, the term pre-cognition is the ability to foresee the future (which often happens in the form of pre-cognitive dreams). Sometimes all of these terms are grouped together and called "psi phenomena"or "psi abilities."

Radin showed a striking and humorous video that demonstrates what is called "inattentional blindness." This means that the quality of our attention can focus our minds so completely in one direction or another that we can miss information that is literally right in front of our faces. After showing this short video, Radin used its larger message as a segue into describing his own research. As Radin knows all too well, there is well-researched and well-documented evidence for psi. He wrote a full-length book summarizing the data on these abilities called The Conscious Universe (Harper Collins, 1997). Yet, most mainstream scientists simply refuse to consider this data as authentic. In short, they suffer from a horrible case of inattentional blindness.

Radin and another IONS researcher, Marilyn Schlitz, have conducted several experiments to test psi abilities and effects. Radin has an extensive lab with a 2,000 lb. solid steel chamber that is shielded from electro-magnetic and acoustical waves. For the interested reader, there is a longer description about the history of this research in the 2003 conference summary for Evolutionary Theory, which can be accessed by clicking on Marilyn Schlitz's name here. Make sure to scroll down below Michael Murphy's presentation to find Schlitz's.

In his current research at IONS Radin is investigating the non-local properties of the human mind. In several recent experiments Radin has focused on skin conductance in the palms (where there are lots of sweat glands), EEG measurements, and the gut/belly. As Radin has learned, the gut functions sort-of like a second brain. Amazingly, it produces 90% of the serotonin in the body and is capable of producing all of the neuropeptides and neurochemicals that are present in the brain. Radin is testing such folk-wisdom notions as "gut feelings" to see if they can be substantiated experimentally.

Radin also described his studies of "retro-causal" or "time-reversed" human experience, in which research participants show the seemingly miraculous ability to "know" beforehand what is about to happen. This is qualitatively different from the more commonly accepted notion of "anticipation." For example, in experiments when subjects have been presented with a random sequence of shocking and non-shocking pictures, their autonomic nervous system shows clear signs of "anticipating" shocking pictures with heightened activity—even before a shocking picture is presented. No similar "anticipation" response has been observed when calm and innocuous pictures are presented. Radin said this research protocol is challenging gold-standard beliefs in research design, such as replicability, double-blind, and randomized procedures.

What is even more surprising is the fact that other researchers—without even knowing it—have been achieving the same results. Radin noted that the well-regarded neuroscientist Antonio Damasio has supervised similar skin conductance experiments for different reasons, but nonetheless his data has revealed the same "anticipation" response. For further information about this fascinating research, please see the conference summary for the 2000 Subtle Energies and Psi conference. It can be found under the "Previous Conferences" rubric at this website.

Radin closed his presentation with a brief story that bears upon the academic study of consciousness. In the 1890s a German man named Hans Berger fell off a rapidly moving horse and had a traumatic near-death-like experience. Miraculously, even though his sister was very far away, she simultaneously felt a dramatic surge of emotion indicating to her that her brother was in trouble. As a result of this experience, Berger spent the rest of his life trying to explain how his sister could have known immediately that he was in trouble. As it turned out, Berger went on to have a prominent career in neuroscience, during which time he coined the name for the electrocephalogram, or EKG, (which measures electrical activity in the human brain). The ironic moral to the story is that one of the key founders of neuroscience started out on his career path searching for an explanation to a telepathic experience.