A note from the author: Sources are listed in order of appearance within each chapter. In instances where the source is found online, I listed the most recent date that I accessed the site in question. Personal interviews conducted by the author are simply listed as “interview.”
INTRODUCTION
Richard Dawkins, “Time to Stand Up,” A Devil’s Chaplain, (Mariner Books, 2003): 156–161.
Interview, Christopher Hitchens, Martin Amis, with Jeffrey Goldberg, accessed October 24, 2010, http://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2010/08/hitchens-talks-to-goldberg-about-cancer-and-god/61072/
Rodney King, May 1, 1992, accessed October 24, 2010, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgiR04ey7-M
Author’s note: The Lou Gentile material comes from reporting I did in June–July 2006.
“Ghost Sightings Highest in 25 years,” no author given, Telegraph, April 26, 2010, accessed October 25, 2010, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/7631387/Ghost-sightings-highest-in-25-years.html
Michael Sheridan, “Winston Churchill, Dwight Eisenhower Covered Up UFO Sighting in England, Letter Claims,” New York Daily News, August 5, 2010, accessed October 25, 2010, http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2010/08/05/2010–08–05_winston_churchill_dwight_d_eisenhower_covered_up_ufo_sighting_in_england_letter_.html
Nigel Watson, “ ‘UFO Hacker’ Tells What He Found,” Wired, June 21, 2006, accessed August 6, 2010, http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/news/2006/06/71182
Joy Basi, “Taxi Drivers and Ghost,” Solomon Times, October 14, 2008.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/supernatural
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/paranormal
http://www.merriam-webster.com/medical/paranormal
http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/unabridged?va=paranormal&x=15&y=4
Irving Kirsch, “Specifying Nonspecifics: Psychological Mechanisms of Placebo Effects,” in The Placebo Effect: An Interdisciplinary Exploration (Harvard Univ. Press, 1997): 166–80.
Margaret Kemeny et al., “Placebo Response in Asthma: A Robust and Objective Phenomenon,” Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology 119, no. 6 (June 2007): 1375–81.
Steve Silberman, “Placebos Are Getting More Effective. Drugmakers Are Desperate to Know Why,” Wired, August 24, 2009, accessed October 25, 2010, http://www.wired.com/medtech/drugs/magazine/17–09/ff_placebo_effect
Robert Carroll, “hypnosis,” The Skeptic’s Dictionary, accessed October 25, 2010, http://www.skepdic.com/hypnosis.html
Laurence Armand French, “The False Memory Syndrome: Clinical/Legal Issues for the Prosecution,” Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology 11, no. 2 (1996): 38–41. (For anyone who is interested, this French article is a brief, solid, and far more balanced primer than The Skeptic’s Dictionary on the difficulties in assessing recovered memories.)
A. M. Cyna, “Hypnosis for Pain Relief in Labour and Childbirth: A Systematic Review,” British Journal of Anaesthesia 93, no. 4 (2004): 505–11.
Steven Gurgevich, “Clinical Hypnosis and Surgery,” Alternative Medicine Alert 6, no. 10 (October 2003): 109–20.
Guy H. Montgomery et al., “The Effectiveness of Adjunctive Hypnosis with Surgical Patients: A Meta-Analysis,” Anesthesia and Analgesia 94, no. 6 (June 2002): 1639–45.
Jeff Hughes, “Occultism and the Atom: The Curious Story of Isotopes,” Physics World (September 2003): 31–35.
David Millett, “Hans Berger: From Psychic Energy to the EEG,” Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 44, no. 4 (Fall 2001): 522–42.
I recommend a couple of articles I found on the incredible skepticism leveled at the inventions of the lightbulb and the airplane—both of which in their day were treated almost as harshly as paranormal claims.
A. Gelyi, “A Short History of Incandescence Lamps,” Telegraphic Journal and Electrical Review (February 14, 1885): 139–40.
Simon Newcomb, “Is the Airship Coming?” McClure’s 17, no. 5 (September 1901): 432–35.
Plato, The Republic, ed. C. D. C. Reeve (Hackett, 2005): 297–326.
Ward Hill Lamon, Recollections of Abraham Lincoln, 1847–1865, ed. Dorothy Lamon Teillard (Univ. of Nebraska Press, 1911): 114–18.
Author’s note: For a skeptical take on Lincoln’s seeing it coming, see Joe Nickell, “Paranormal Lincoln,” Skeptical Inquirer 23, no. 3 (May/June 1999), accessed August 7, 2010, http://www.csicop.org/si/show/paranormal_lincoln/
Colin Ross et al., “Paranormal Experiences in the General Population,” Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 180, no. 11 (1992): 357–61.
Angela Joiner, “Possible UFO Sighting,” Stephenville Empire-Tribune, January 10, 2008, p. 1.
Skip Hollandsworth, “The Searcher,” Texas Monthly (April 2008), accessed October 26, 2010, http://www.texasmonthly.com/preview/2008–04–01/letterfromstephenville
John Horgan, The End of Science: Facing the Limits of Knowledge in the Twilight of the Scientific Age (Broadway Books, 1997).
“What Is the Universe Made Of?” Universe 101, Our Universe, NASA web site, accessed October 26, 2010, http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/uni_matter.html
Avshalom Elitzur, ed., Quo Vadis Quantum Mechanics (Springer, 2005): 73–82.
Karl Pribram, Languages of the Brain (Brooks/Cole, 1977).
Author’s note: Pribram has focused on the hologram as an explanation for human consciousness, particularly memory storage.
David Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order (Routledge Classics, 1980).
Albert Einstein, personal letter, quoted by Freeman Dyson in Disturbing the Universe (Basic Books, 1981), 187–93.
Brian Greene, Fabric of the Cosmos (Vintage, 2004), 127–42.
Zeeya Merali, “Back from the Future,” Discover, accessed October 26, 2010, http://discovermagazine.com/2010/apr/01-back-from-the-future
For further reading: A full selection of Tollaksen’s work is available online, accessed September 1, 2010, http://arxiv.org/find/all/1/all:+tollaksen/0/1/0/all/0/1
Author’s note: The following selection of articles and book references is intended to provide readers with a fairly comprehensive overview of the roles the amygdala and other brain structures play in the automatic processing of information and also in the construction and defense of our beliefs. I incorporated interview material with Dr. Andrew Newberg (covered in chapter 7).
M. P. Ewbank, “The Interaction Between Gaze and Facial Expression in the Amygdala and Extended Amygdala Is Modulated by Anxiety,” Frontiers in Human Neuroscience (July 7, 2010), accessed October 26, 2010, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P.M.C2906373/
H. J. van Marle et al., “Enhanced Resting-State Connectivity of Amygdala in the Immediate Aftermath of Acute Psychological Stress,” Neuroimage 53, no. 1 (October 2010): 348–54.
L. M. Shin, “The Neurocircuitry of Fear, Stress, and Anxiety Disorders,” Neuropsychopharmacology 35, no. 1 (January 2010): 169–91.
M. Browning et al., “The Modification of Attentional Bias to Emotional Information: A Review of the Techniques, Mechanisms, and Relevance to Emotional Disorders,” Cognitive Affective Behavioral Neuroscience 10, no. 1 (2010): 8–20.
T. Lidaka, “Forming a Negative Impression of Another Person Correlates with Activation in Medial Prefrontal Cortex and Amygdala,” Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience (August. 6, 2010): DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsq0722010.
S. Wiethoff, “Response and Habituation of the Amygdala During Processing of Emotional Prosody,” Neuroreport 20, no. 15 (October 7, 2009): 1356–60.
D. Wildgruber et al., “Cerebral Processing of Linguistic and Emotional Prosody: fMRI Studies,” Progress in Brain Research 156 (2006): 249–68.
A. Marchewka et al., “Grey-Matter Differences Related to True and False Recognition of Emotionally Charged Stimuli—A Voxel Based Morphometry Study,” Neurobiology of Learning and Memory 92, no. 1 (July 2009): 99–105.
A. J. Calder et al., “Neuropsychology of Fear and Loathing,” Nature Reviews Neuroscience 2 (May 2001): 352–63.
N. O. Rule et al., “Voting Behavior Is Reflected in Amygdala Response Across Cultures,” Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 5, nos. 2–3 (June 2010): 349–55.
J. B. Freeman et al., “The Neural Origins of Superficial and Individuated Judgments About Ingroup and Outgroup Members,” Human Brain Mapping 31, no. 1 (January 2010): 150–59.
M. Deppe et al., “Evidence for a Neural Correlate of a Framing Effect: Bias-Specific Activity in the Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex During Credibility Judgments,” Brain Research Bulletin 67, no. 5 (November 15, 2005): 413–21.
C. M. Funk et al., “The Functional Brain Architecture of Human Morality,” Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 19, no. 6 (2009): 678–81.
H. Takahashi et al., “Neural Correlates of Human Virtue Judgment,” Cerebral Cortex 18, no. 8 (August 2008): 1886–91.
L. Young et al., “Investigating Emotion in Moral Cognition: A Review of Evidence from Functional Neuroimaging and Neuropsychology,” British Medical Bulletin 84 (2007): 69–79.
J. B. Peterson et al., “Complexity Management Theory: Motivation for Ideological Rigidity and Social Conflict,” Cortex 38, no. 3 (June 2002): 429–58.
C. K. De Dreu et al., “Mental Set and Creative Thought in Social Conflict: Threat Rigidity Versus Motivated Focus,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 95, no. 3 (September 2008): 648–61.
T. A. Hare et al., “Contributions of Amygdala and Striatal Activity in Emotion Regulation,” Biological Psychiatry 57, no. 6 (March 15, 2005): 624–32.
David H. Zald et al., “The Human Amygdala and the Emotional Evaluation of Sensory Stimuli,” Brain Research Reviews 41, no. 1 (January 2003): 88–123.
W. C. Drevets, “Reciprocal Suppression of Regional Cerebral Blood Flow During Emotional Versus Higher Cognitive Processes: Implications for Interactions Between Emotion and Cognition,” Cognition and Emotion 12 (1998): 353–85.
Alok Jha, “Where Belief Is Born,” Guardian, June 30, 2005, accessed http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2005/jun/30/psychology.neuroscience
Kathleen Taylor, The Science of Thought Control (Oxford Univ. Press, 1996), 127–45.
These last two books are excellent primers:
Milton Rokeach, The Open and Closed Mind (Basic Books, 1960).
Charles Hampden-Turner, Maps of the Mind (Collier, 1982).
The Impact of Emotion in the American Public’s Assessments of and Reactions to Terrorism, research brief published by the Institute for Homeland Security Solutions, June 2010, accessed October 26, 2010, https://www.ihssnc.org/portals/0/ . . . /IHSS_Research%20Brief_Singer.pdf
Ara Norenzayan et al., “Mortality Salience and Religion: Divergent Effects on the Defense of Cultural Worldviews for the Religious and the Non-Religious,” European Journal of Social Psychology 39 (2009): 101–13.
Jean Faber, “Information Processing in Brain Microtubules,” presented at Quantum Mind Conference (2003), accessed October 26, 2010, qubit.lncc.br/files/jfaber_InfProc.MT.pdf
Shi Chunhua, “Quantum Information Processing in the Wall of Cytoskeletal Microtubules,” Journal of Biological Physics 32, no. 5 (November 2006): 413–20.
T. J. Craddock, “Information Processing Mechanisms in Microtubules at Physiological Temperature: Model Predictions for Experimental Tests,” Biosystems 97, no. 1 (July 2009): 28–34.
Karl Pribram, Rethinking Neural Networks (Lawrence Erlbaum, 1993): 216, 324–26.
T. J. Kaptchuk et al., “Components of Placebo Effect: Randomized Controlled Trial in Patients with Irritable Bowel Syndrome,” British Medical Journal 336 (2008): 999–1003.
Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 3rd ed. (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1996). Author’s note: Seminal and eminently readable.
Tener Edis, “Quantum Magic,” Secular Outpost, accessed October 26, 2010, http://secularoutpost.infidels.org/2007/11/quantum-magic.html
Michel Shermer, “Quantum Quackery,” Scientific American (January 2005), accessed October 26, 2010, http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=quantum-quackery
Mark Buchanan, “Do Birds See with Quantum Eyes?” New Scientist (May 2008), accessed October 26, 2010, http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19826544.000-do-birds-see-with-quantum-eyes.html
“Quantum Biology Has Come In from the Cold,” editorial, New Scientist (February 2010), accessed October 26, 2010, http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20527462.500-quantum-biology-has-come-in-from-the-cold.html
Gregory S. Engel et al., “Evidence for Wavelike Energy Transfer Through Quantum Coherence in Photosynthetic Systems,” Nature 446 (April 12, 2007): 782–86.
A. Zeilinger et al., “Quantum Interference Experiments with Large Molecules,” American Journal of Physics 71, no. 4 (2003): 319–25.
Blake Wilson, “Stray Questions for David Eagleman,” Paper Cuts, New York Times blog, July 10, 2009, accessed October 26, 2010, http://papercuts.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/10/stray-questions-for-david-eagleman/
Hal Arkowitz, “Why Science Tells Us Not to Rely on Eyewitness Accounts,” Scientific American (January 2010), accessed October 26, 2010, http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=do-the-eyes-have-it
The following sources provide a good overview of some of the more contentious, even strident claims of the New Atheists, including Dawkins’s support of the idea that atheists be dubbed “brights.” This list, however, is not even close to comprehensive. The Eagleman lecture is provided for contrast.
Richard Dawkins, Atheism and Faith, http://videosift.com/video/Richard-Dawkins-Atheism-and-Faith and http://wn.com/I%27m_an_atheist,_BUT____by_Richard_Dawkins_1_of_6
“Richard Holloway in Conversation with Richard Dawkins” accessed October 26, 2010 (April 2008) http://www.stcuthbertscolinton.org.uk/wordweb/conversation.htm
David Eagleman, “On Uncertainty,” accessed October 26, 2010, http://www.vimeo.com/12543623
Richard Dawkins, “The Future Looks Bright,” Guardian, June 21, 2003, accessed October 26, 2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2003/jun/21/society.richarddawkins. Author’s note: The New Atheists do not all agree with Dawkins’s endorsement of the “brights” idea. Christopher Hitchens has taken very public exception to it.
Christopher Hitchens, Letters to a Young Contrarian (Basic Books, 2001): 55.
Sam Harris, “Is Religion Built Upon Lies?” online dialogue between Harris and Andrew Sullivan, accessed October 21, 2010, http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Secular-Philosophies/Is-Religion-Built-Upon-Lies.aspx?p=3
Author’s note: These books provide a firm grounding in attempts to integrate science and spirituality.
Jean Gebser, The Ever-Present Origin (Ohio State Univ. Press, 1986).
Ken Wilber, Up from Eden (Quest Books, 1996).
Ken Wilber, A Brief History of Everything (Shambhala, 2001).
CHAPTER 1: ON DEATH AND NOT DYING
Ernest Hemingway, “A Clean Well-Lighted Place,” The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway: The Finca Vigia Edition (Scribner, 1998), 288–91.
Nick Cave, “Dig, Lazarus, Dig!” CD (Mute, 2009).
Fern Welch, Interview, March 2009.
Christopher Reed, “Psychiatrist Who Identified Five Stages of Dying—Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance,” Guardian, August 31, 2004.
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, On Death and Dying (Scribner Classics, 1997), 35–36 (story of her beginning work in death studies at Chicago hospital), 172–74 (story of farmer).
Russell Friedman, “Broken Hearts,” Psychology Today (September 21, 2009), accessed October 21, 2010, http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/broken-hearts/200909/no-stages-grief
“The Myth of the Stages of Dying, Death, and Grief,” Skeptic 14, no. 2 (2008), accessed October 26, 2010, grief.net/Myth%20of%20Stages.pdf
Author’s note: It may appear a contradiction that her five stages are often critiqued, yet ODAD remains required reading. In the end, academics now take a less dogmatic view of Kübler-Ross’s stages—seeing them less as gospel and more as a rough guide. But for a primer on just what’s happening inside one of those darkened hospital rooms, she remains tough to beat.
Raymond Moody, Life after Life (HarperOne, 2001).
Author’s note: The cadre of people gathered around Kübler-Ross’s memory act, in metaphorical terms, not altogether unlike soldiers manning a barricade. The people I interviewed for this story, particularly Dianne Gray, all say they encounter a wide variety of people who see Kübler-Ross in diametrically opposed ways—both positive and negative. That Kübler-Ross herself felt personally wounded by the criticism of her that mounted over the years is not surprising; that the people who knew her best are still dealing with and responding to that criticism seems something else entirely and speaks to our desire to build up or tear down people depending mostly on whether or not they seem to symbolize our own worldviews.
Holcomb B. Noble, “Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, 78, Dies; Psychiatrist Revolutionized Care of the Terminally Ill,” New York Times, August 26, 2004.
Ken Ross, Interviews, March, April, June, and August 2009.
The following nine articles provide a strong overview of the role cognitive dissonance plays in the way we develop and defend our worldviews.
Vincent van Veen, “Neural Activity Predicts Attitude Change in Cognitive Dissonance,” Nature Neuroscience 12, no. 11 (2009): 1469–74.
C. S. Carter, “Anterior Cingulate Cortex and Conflict Detection: An Update of Theory and Data,” Cognitive, Affective, and Behavioral Neuroscience 7, no. 4 (2007): 367–79.
V. van Veen, “Conflict and Cognitive Control in the Brain,” Current Directions in Psychological Science 15, no. 5 (2006): 237–40.
Joshua Gowin, “Why It’s Hard to Stop Believing in Santa Claus,” Psychology Today, (November 17, 2009), accessed October 26, 2010. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/you-illuminated/200911/why-it-s-hard-stop-believing-in-santa-claus
Daniel Levine, “Cognitive Dissonance, Halo Effects, and the Self-Esteem Trap,” Psychline 2, no. 3 (1998): 25–26.
Daniel Levine, “Negotiating Cognitive Dissonance,” Explorations in Common Sense and Common Nonsense, 123–50, accessed October 26, 2010, http://www.uta.edu/psychology/faculty/levine/EBOOK/
Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson, Mistakes Were Made, but Not by Me (Houghton Mifflin, 2007).
J. A. Bargh et al., “The Unbearable Automaticity of Being,” American Psychologist 54, (1999): 462–79.
Rose Winters, Interviews, January, February, March, and May 2009.
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, The Wheel of Life (Touchstone, 1997): 22–25 (parents, early childhood), 35–36 (early inclination to act as protector of those weaker than herself), 41–42 (early history with religion), 47–48 (conflict with father over career), 110 (discriminated against for gender), 114–17 (Manhattan State Hospital), 129–34 (her first lecture on death and dying), 176–78 (Mrs. Schwartz), 188 (claims to interview 20,000 people), 201–8 (history with Barham, whom she refers to as “B”). Author’s note: Like ODAD, this book is referenced often. Required reading for anyone interested in Kübler-Ross.
Mwalimu Imara, Interviews, October, November 2009, January, February 2010. Author’s note: Imara’s name when he first worked with Kübler-Ross was Renford Gaines. He subsequently changed his name to reflect his African heritage. For clarity’s sake, I refer to him by his current name throughout this book.
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, The Tunnel and the Light (Marlowe, 1999): 86–87.
Loudon Wainright, “A Profound Lesson for the Living,” Life, November 21, 1969: 36–43.
Author’s note: One of the great, confusing aspects of Kübler-Ross’s career arises from her flair for exaggeration. She found skeptics such a drag that she sought to quell their objections by claiming to study twenty thousand people who had died and come back. The math alone suggests these figures were impossible. If she had, for instance, run across one person a day, every day of the week, with an NDE story, it would have taken her fifty-five years to reach twenty thousand. Imara puts this down to “Elisabeth’s way of saying she had accumulated plenty of evidence. This wasn’t a handful of stories.” His claim is that he and Kübler-Ross filled two deep filing cabinet drawers with such stories. In short, Kübler-Ross accumulated enough stories to qualify as “plenty,” but far less than twenty thousand.
For the 20,000 reference, see Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, “Living and Dying,” On Life After Death, (1991), chapter 2.
American Heart Association, “History of CPR,” accessed October 26, 2010, http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=3012990
G. R. S. Mead, The Vision of Aridaeus (Kessinger, 2010): 17–25.
Thomas De Quincey, Confessions of an English Opium-Eater: 70, accessed October 21, 2010, www2.hn.psu.edu/faculty/jmanis/tdquincey/Opium-Eater.pdf
Carol Zaleski, The Life of the World to Come (Oxford Univ. Press, 1996): 70.
Pim van Lommel, “Near Death Experience in Survivors of Cardiac Arrest: A Prospective Study in the Netherlands,” Lancet 358 (2001): 2039–42.
Sam Parnia et al., “A Qualitative and Quantitative Study of The Incidence, Features and Aetiology of Near Death Experiences in Cardiac Arrest Survivors,” Resuscitation 48, no. 2 (February 2001): 149–56.
Bruce Greyson, “Incidence and Correlates of Near-Death Experiences in a Cardiac Care Unit,” General Hospital Psychiatry 25, no. 4, (July–August 2003): 269–76.
Jeffrey Long, Evidence of the Afterlife (HarperOne, 2010): 5–19.
Alex Tsakiris, “Christian Theologian Claims Near Death Experience Not Communications with Divine,” Skeptiko, July 7, 2010, accessed October 26, 2010, http://www.skeptiko.com/christian-theologian-claims-near-death-experience-not-devine/
Russel Noyes Jr., “Aftereffects of Pleasurable Western Adult Near Death Experiences,” Handbook of Near Death Experiences (Praeger, 2009): 41–62.
Diane Corcoran, Interview, October 2009.
Glen Brimer, Interview, October 2009.
Mary Roach, Spook (Norton, 2006).
Alex Tsakiris, “Dr. Jeffrey Long Takes on Critics of Evidence of the Afterlife”, Skeptiko, accessed October 26, 2010, http://www.skeptiko.com/jeffrey_long_takes_on_critics_of_evidence_of_the_afterlife/#more–649
Sam Parnia, Interview, January 2010.
D. Luke, “Lecture report: Inducing Near-Death States Through the Use of Chemicals—Dr. Ornella Corazza,” Paranormal Review 43 (2007): 28–29.
Peter Fenwick, “Science and Spirituality: A Challenge for the 21st Century,” talk delivered at the Bruce Greyson Lecture from the International Association for Near-Death Studies 2004 Annual Conference, accessed October 26, 2010, www.larslanke.nl/download/Science%20and%20Spirituality.pdf
Christopher C. French, “Near-Death Experiences in Cardiac Arrest Survivors,” S. Laureys, ed., Progress in Brain Research 150 (2005): 356–57.
Karl Jansen, Ketamine: Dreams and Realities (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, 2004): 134–35, 137–164.
B. B. Collier, “Ketamine and the Conscious Mind,” Anaesthesia 27 (1972): 120–34.
A. Bianchi, “Comments on ‘The Ketamine Model of the Near-Death Experience: A Central Role for the N-Methyl-D-Aspartate Receptor,’ ” Journal of Near-Death Studies 16, no. 1 (1997): 71–78.
D. K. Kim, “Ketamine Associated Psychedelic Effects and Dependence,” Singapore Medical Journal 44, no. 1 (2003): 31–34.
R. E. Johnstone, “A Ketamine Trip,” Anesthesiology 39 (1973): 460–61.
Rick Strassman, “Endogenous Ketamine-Like Compounds and the NDE,” Journal of Near-Death Studies 16 (1997): 27–42.
Gerald Woerlee, The Unholy Legacy of Abraham (booklocker.com, 2008): 136–138, 282–289. Accessed October 26, 2010, www.unholylegacy.woerlee.org/images/unholy-legacy.pdf
Susan Blackmore, Dying to Live, ebook (Prometheus Books, 1993): Loc. 87–89, 616–57, 736–38, 1217–20, 1309–57, 2536–80.
Susan Blackmore, “Experiences of Anoxia: Do Reflex Anoxic Seizures Resemble NDEs?” Journal of Near-Death Studies 17 (1998): 111–120.
Bruce Greyson et al., “Explanatory Models for Near Death Experiences,” Handbook of Near Death Experiences (Praeger, 2009): 219–20.
Sam Parnia, What Happens When We Die? (Hay House, 2006): 21. Author’s note: I interviewed Parnia in February 2009.
Alex Tsakiris, “EEG Expert Can’t Explain Near Death Experience Data,” accessed October 26, 2010, http://www.skeptiko.com/eeg-expert-on-near-death-experience/
Janice Miner Holden, “Veridical Perceptions in Near-Death Experiences,” and “Explanatory Models for Near Death Experiences,” Handbook of Near Death Experiences (Praeger, 2009): 193–203, 30–231. Author’s note: In this latter reference, Sabom constructed a particularly interesting experiment, in which experienced cardiac arrest patients were asked to describe their resuscitations and failed, inexperienced subjects who underwent NDEs proved accurate.
A quick quote from French:
“Challenges facing those proposing purely organic theories include not only producing direct evidence in support of their accounts, but also satisfactorily accounting for those NDEs that are known to occur in the complete absence of physical threat, such as those that occur when individuals are not actually close to death but only think they are.”
Further, for a strong skeptical take, I highly recommend: Keith Augistine, “Hallucinatory Near-Death Experiences” (2003/Updated 2008) accessed October 21, 2010, at http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/keith_augustine/HNDEs.html
Erik Davis, “Terence McKenna’s Last Trip,” Wired (May 2000), accessed October 21, 2010, http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.05/mckenna.html
Author’s note: Susan Blackmore reveals herself rather fully in Barbara Bradley Hagerty’s Fingerprints of God, saying “The idea of life after death is daft.” So I guess Blackmore thinks she knows (Riverhead Books, 2009): 308.
Willoughby Britton et al., “Near-Death Experiences and the Temporal Lobe,” Psychological Science 15, no. 4 (2004): 254–58.
Mario Beauregard and Denyse O’Leary, The Spiritual Brain (HarperOne, 2007): 68–76.
Willoughby Britton, Interview, January 2009.
Anahad O’Connor, “Following a Bright Light to a Calmer Tomorrow,” New York Times, April 13, 2004.
Steven Kottler, “Extreme States,” Discover (July 2005), accessed October 26, 2010, http://discovermagazine.com/2005/jul/extreme-states
David Paul Kuhn, “Both Parties Have Their Fanatics,” Real Clear Politics, August 3, 2009, accessed October 21, 2010, http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/08/03/each_party_has_its_fanatics_97748.html
Jim Geraghty, “55 Percent of Likely Voters Find ‘Socialist’ an Accurate Label of Obama,” National Review, July 9, 2010, accessed, October 21, 2010, http://www.nationalreview.com/campaign-spot/230874/55-percent-likely-voters-find-socialist-accurate-label-obama
Nick Wing, “Poll: 35% of Republicans Want to Impeach Obama,” Huffington Post, December 10, 2009, accessed October 21, 2010, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/10/poll–35-of-republicans-wa_n_387093.html
Z. Klemenc-Ketis, “The Effect of Carbon Dioxide on Near-Death Experiences in Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest Survivors,” Critical Care 14, no. 2 (2010), accessed October 21, 2010, http://ccforum.com/content/14/2/R56
“Learn About Arterial Blood Gases,” Education for Nurses, accessed October 21, 2010, http://www.the-abg-site.com/about.htm
John Lippman, “How Deep is TOO Deep?” Divers Alert Network, accessed October 21, 2010, at http://www.diversalertnetwork.org/medical/articles/article.asp?articleid=29
Jeff Wise, “Go Toward the Light,” Psychology Today, April 16, 2010, Accessed on-line October 21, 2010, http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/extreme-fear/201004/go-toward-the-light-the-science-near-death-experiences
Alex Tsakiris, “Do Science Journalists Get It Wrong,” and Dr. Bruce Greyson, email to Alex Tsakaris, accessed October 21, 2010, http://www.skeptiko.com/near-death-experience-research-do-science-journalists-get-it-wrong/
Pim van Lommel, Consciousness Beyond Life (HarperOne, 2010): 116–17.
M. Morse, “Near Death Experiences: A Neurophysiological Explanatory Model,” Journal of Near-Death Studies 8, (1989): 45–53.
Sam Parnia et al., “A Qualitative and Quantitative Study of the Incidence, Features and Aetiology of Near Death Experiences in Cardiac Arrest Survivors,” Resuscitation 48, (2001): 149–56.
Michael Sabom, Recollections of Death (HarperCollins, 1982): 178.
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, “Bio,” accessed October 21, 2010, http://www.ekrfoundation.org/honorary-degrees
Facing Death: Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, directed by Stefan Haupt, DVD (First Run Features, 2007).
“Behavior: The Conversion of K,” Time, November 12, 1979, accessed on October 21, 2010, at http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,946362–1,00.html
Karen G. Jackovich, “Sex, Visitors from the Grave, Psychic Healing: Kübler-Ross Is a Public Storm Center Again,” People, October 29, 1979, accessed on October 21, 2010, http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20074920,00.html
Ron Rosenbaum, “Turn On, Tune In, Drop Dead,” Harpers (September 1982). Also available in Rosenbaum’s book, The Secret Parts of Fortune (Perennial, 2000): 253–67.
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, AIDS: The Ultimate Challenge (Scribner, 1997).
CHAPTER 2: DO YOU SEE WHAT I SEE?
Brian Josephson, “Physics and the Nobel Prizes,” Royal Mail special stamps booklet, October 2, 2001, accessed October 22, 2010, http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~bdj10/stamps/text.html
Robin McKie, “Royal Mail’s Nobel Guru in Telepathy Row,” Observer, September 30, 2001, accessed October 22, 2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2001/sep/30/robinmckie.theobserver
Herodotus, The History, trans. David Grene (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1987): 53–54.
B. Josephson, “The Discovery of Tunnelling Supercurrents,” Review of Modern Physics 46, no. 2 (1974): 251–54.
Edward Edelson, “Mammoth Magnets to Microchips from Superconductors,” Popular Science 152 (May 1981): 73–79.
Robert McDermott et al., “Microtesla MRI with a Superconducting Quantum Interference Device,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 101, no. 21 (May 25, 2004): 7857–61.
BBC Radio Interview, October 2, 2001, accessed on October 22, 2010, http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/BIG/bdj10/audio/stamps.mp3
Danny Penman, “Is this Proof We’re all Psychic,” Daily Mail, January 28, 2008, accessed on October 22, 2010, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article–510762/Could-proof-theory-ALL-psychic.html
podblack, PodBlack Cat, blog, “Dr. Richard Wiseman on Remote Viewing in the Daily Mail—Clarification,” September 28, 2009, http://podblack.com/2009/09/dr-richard-wiseman-on-remote-viewing-in-the-daily-mail-clarification/
Christopher French, Interviews, January, February 2010.
Parapsychological Association Convention, Thursday August 6, 2009–Sunday August 9, 2009. Material gathered at the conference is identified as such within the text.
Paul H. Smith, Interview, August 2010.
Dean Radin, The Conscious Universe (HarperOne, 1997): 13–24.
psi definition, in physics, taken from an online collection of academic dictionaries: http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/238149
Paul D. Allison, “Experimental Parapsychology as a Rejected Science,” On the Margins of Science: The Social Construction of Rejected Knowledge. The Sociological Review Monograph, 27 (1979): 271–91.
Author’s note: My own survey yielded a far lower response rate than Allison’s. His was 90 percent, mine was around 25 percent. I’ll make no scientific claims for the worthiness of my study, but my own experience at the parapsychology conference so closely mirrored Allison’s original findings, and my survey results were so similar to his, I feel extremely confident in the accuracy of what I’ve reported here. That said, readers should feel free to accept or reject my analysis purely on the basis of their own preconceived biases. (That last line is a joke.)
James H. Lee, “Remote Viewing as Applied to Futures Studies,” Technological Forecasting and Social Change 75, no. 1 (2008): 142.
Ken Kress, “Parapsychology in Intelligence,” Journal of Scientific Explanation 13, no. 1, (1999): 68–85.
Author’s note: Kress, a CIA analyst, evaluates the evidence for psi and takes a mixed view of Price. Though most skeptics might like to focus on the negative, the most important line is buried toward the end of Kress’s report: “There are observations, such as the original magnetic experiments at Stanford University, the OSI remote viewing, the OTS-coderoom experiments, and others done for the Department of Defense, that defy explanation. Coincidence is not likely, and fraud has not been discovered. The implication of these data cannot be determined until the assessment is done. If the above is true, how is it that the phenomenon remains controversial and receives so little official government support? . . . This state of affairs occurs because of the elementary understanding of parapsychology and because of the peculiarities of the intelligence and military organizations which have attempted the assessments. There is no fundamental understanding of the mechanisms of paranormal functioning, and the reproducibility remains poor.”
Paul H. Smith, Reading the Enemy’s Mind (Forge, 2005): 128–29.
Ray Hyman, “Evaluation of a Program on Anomalous Mental Phenomena,” Journal of Scientific Exploration 10, no. 1 (1996): 31–58.
Dean Radin, Entangled Minds (Pocket Books, 2006): 120–21.
What follows is a short selection of papers on psi research I found most compelling during my research:
Joel B. Greenhouse, “Comment: Parapsychology—On the Margins of Science,” Statistical Science 6, no. 4 (1991), accessed October 26, 2010, http://www.stat.ucdavis.edu/~utts/91rmp-c4.html
Jessica Utts and Brian Josephson, “The Paranormal: The Evidence and Its Implications for Consciousness,” 1996, accessed October 26, 2010, http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~bdj10/psi/tucson.html
George P. Hansen, “The Elusive Agenda: Dissuading as Debunking in Ray Hyman’s The Elusive Quarry,” Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 85 (April 1991): 193–203, accessed October 26, 2010, http://www.tricksterbook.com/ArticlesOnline/HymanReview.htm
Jessica Utts, “Replication and Meta-Analysis in Parapsychology,” Statistical Science 6, no. 4 (1991): 363–403.
Bernard Carr, “Rational Perspective on the Paranormal,” Conference Report, Journal of Scientific Exploration, 16, no. 4 (2002): 635–50.
Richard Wiseman and Marilyn Schlitz, “Experimenter Effects and the Remote Detection of Staring,” Journal of Parapsychology 61, no. 3 (1998): 197–208.
Daryl Bem and Charles Honorton, “Does Psi Exist? Replicable Evidence for an Anomalous Process of Information Transfer,” Psychological Bulletin 115, no. 1 (1994): 4–18.
J. Milton and R. Wiseman, “Does Psi Exist? Lack of Replication of an Anomalous Process of Information Transfer,” Psychological Bulletin 125, no. 4 (1999): 387–91.
L. Storm and S. Ertel, “Does Psi Exist? Comments on Milton and Wiseman’s Meta-Analysis of Ganzfeld Research,” Psychological Bulletin 127, no. 3 (2001): 424–33.
Daryl Bem et al., “Updating the Ganzfeld Database: A Victim of Its Own Success?” Journal of Parapsychology 65 (2001): 207–18.
L. Storm et al., “Meta-Analysis of Free-Response Studies, 1992–2008: Assessing the Noise Reduction Model in Parapsychology,” Psychological Bulletin 136, no. 4 (July 2010): 471–85.
Guy Lyon Playfair, “Twin Telepathy,” Fortean Times Paranormal Handbook (2009): 70–75.
See Radin, Entangled Minds, 136–41, and papers Radin collected and analyzed at http://deanradin.blogspot.com/ for brain correlation experiments, listed here.
C. Tart, ”Possible Physiological Correlates of psi Cognition,” International Journal of Parapsychology 5 (1963): 375–86.
T. D. Duane et al., “Extrasensory Electroencephalographic Induction Between Identical Twins,” Science 150 (1965): 367.
D. H. Lloyd et al., “Objective Events in the Brain Correlating with Psychic Phenomena,” New Horizons 1 (1973): 69–75.
C. S. Rebert et al., “EEG Spectrum Analysis Techniques Applied to the Problem of psi Phenomena,” Behavioral Neuropsychiatry 6 (1974): 18–24.
Russell Targ and Hal Puthoff, “Information Transmission Under Conditions of Sensory Shielding,” Nature 252 (1974): 602–7.
B. Millar et al., “An Attempted Validation of the ‘Lloyd Effect,’ ” Multidimensional Mind: Remote Viewing in Hyperspace (Scarecrow Press, 1999): 25–27.
E. F. Kelly, “EEG Changes Correlated with a Remote Stroboscopic Stimulus: A Preliminary Study,” Research in Parapsychology (Scarecrow Press, 1975): 58–63.
K. Hearne, “Visually Evoked Responses and ESP,” Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 49 (1977): 648–57.
Z. Vassy, “Method for Measuring the Probability of 1 Bit Extrasensory Information Transfer Between Living Organisms,” Journal of Parapsychology 42 (1978): 158–60.
K. Hearne, “Visually Evoked Responses and ESP: Failure to Replicate Previous Findings,” Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 51 (1981): 145–47.
D. W. Orme-Johnson et al., “Intersubject EEG Coherence: Is Consciousness a Field?” International Journal of Neuroscience 16 (1982): 203–9.
J. Grinberg-Zylberbaum et al., “Patterns of Interhemispheric Correlation During Human Communication,” International Journal of Neuroscience 36 (1987): 41–53.
J. Grinberg-Zylberbaum et al., “The Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Paradox in the Brain: The Transferred Potential,” Physics Essays 7 (1994): 422–28.
H. Sugano et al., “A New Approach to the Study of Subtle Energies,” Subtle Energies 5, no. 2 (1994): 143–65.
C. N. Shealy et al., “EEG Alterations During Absent ‘Healing,’ ” Subtle Energies 11, no. 3 (2000): 241–48.
A. Sabell et al., “Inter-Subject EEG Correlations at a Distance—The Transferred Potential,” Proceedings of the 44th Annual Convention of the Parapsychological Association (2001): 419–22.
H. Walach et al., “Transferred Potentials—Fact or Artifact? Results of a Pilot Study. In Bridging Worlds and Filling Gaps in the Science of Healing,” Samueli Institute for Information Biology (2001): 303–25.
E. C. May et al., “EEG Correlates to Remote Light Flashes Under Conditions of Sensory Shielding,” Mind at Large: IEEE Symposia on the Nature of Extrasensory Perception (Hampton Roads, 2002).
S. Kalitzin et al., “Comments on ‘Correlations Between Brain Electrical Activities of Two Spatially Separated Human Subjects,’ ” Neuroscience Letters 350, no. 3 (October 30, 2003): 193–94.
L. Standish et al., “Evidence of Correlated Functional MRI Signals Between Distant Human Brains,” Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine 9 (2003): 122–28.
J. Wackermann et al., “Correlations Between Brain Electrical Activities of Two Spatially Separated Human Subjects. Reply to the Commentary by S. Kalitzin and P. Suffczynski,” Neuroscience Letters 350, no. 3 (2003): 193–94.
J. Wackerman, et al., “Correlations Between Brain Electrical Activities of Two Spatially Separated Human Subjects,” Neuroscience Letters 336 no. 1 (2003): 60–64.
U. Hasson, “Intersubject Synchronization of Cortical Activity During Natural Vision,” Science 303 (2004): 1634–40.
M. Kittenis et al., “Distant Psychophysiological Interaction Effects Between Related and Unrelated Participants,” Proceedings of the Parapsychological Association Convention (Vienna, Austria, August 5–8, 2004): 67–76.
Dean Radin, “Event-Related Electroencephalographic Correlations Between Isolated Human Subjects,” Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine 10 no. 2 (2004): 315–23.
L. Standish et al. “Electroencephalographic Evidence of Correlated Event-Related Signals Between the Brains of Spatially and Sensory Isolated Human Subjects,” Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine 10, no. 2 (2004): 307–14.
S. Schmidt, “Distant Intentionality and the Feeling of Being Stared At: Two Meta-Analyses,” British Journal of Psychology 95 (2004): 235–47.
J. Wackerman, “Dyadic Correlations Between Brain Functional States: Present Facts and Future Perspectives,” Mind and Matter 2, no.1 (2004): 105–22.
J. Achterberg et al., “Evidence for Correlations Between Distant Intentionality and Brain Function in Recipients: a Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Analysis,” Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine 11, no. 6 (2005): 965–71.
T. L. Richards et al., “Replicable Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Evidence of Correlated Brain Signals Between Physically and Sensory Isolated Subjects,” Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine 11, no. 6 (2005): 955–63.
S. T. Moulton et al., “Using Neuro-Imaging to Resolve the psi Debate,” Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 20, no. 1 (2008): 182–92.
Michael Persinger et al., “Enhanced Power Within a Predicted Narrow Band of Theta Activity During Stimulation of Another by Circumcerebral Weak Magnetic Fields After Weekly Spatial Proximity: Evidence for Macroscopic Quantum Entanglement?” NeuroQuantology 6, no. 1 (2008): 7–21.
B. T. Dotta, “Evidence of Macroscopic Quantum Entanglement During Double Quantitative Electroencephalographic Measurements of Friends vs Strangers,” NeuroQuantology 7, no. 4 (2009): 548–51.
Sam Harris, The End of Faith (Norton, 2004): 41.
Michael Persinger, Interview, June 2009.
Michael Persinger, “The Harribance Effect as Pervasive Out-of-Body Experiences: NeuroQuantal Evidence with More Precise Measurements,” 8, no. 4 (2010): 444–465.
Jessica Utts, Interview, August 2009. Author’s note: Utts believes the PK tests reflect precognition—not the mental manipulation of matter, as PK enthusiasts claim.
Jessica Utts, Seeing Through Statistics (Brooks/Cole, 1999).
Marcello Truzzi, “On Some Unfair Practices Towards Claims of the Paranormal,” Oxymoron: Annual Thematic Anthology of the Arts and Sciences, Vol. 2: The Fringe (Oxymoron Media, 1998). Accessed October 26, 2010, http://www.skepticalinvestigations.org/Anomali/practices.html
David Hume, “Of Miracles,” An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (Filiquarian Publishing, 2007): 104.
Ray Hyman, “The Evidence for Psychic Functioning: Claims vs. Reality,” Skeptical Inquirer 20, no. 2 (March/April, 1996), accessed October 26, 2010, http://www.csicop.org/si/show/evidence_for_psychic_functioning_claims_vs._reality/
Trevor Pinch, Interview, September 2009.
Trevor J. Pinch, “Normal Explanations of the Paranormal,” Social Studies of Science 9 (1979): 329–48.
Trevor Pinch, “Private Science and Public Knowledge: The Committee for the Scientific Investigation of the Claims of the Paranormal and Its Use of the Literature,” Social Studies of Science 14, (1984): 521.
H. M. Collins and Trevor Pinch, Frames of Meaning: The Social Construction of Extraordinary Science (Routledge, 1982).
Elizabeth Mayer, Extraordinary Knowing (Bantam, 2007): 69–70, 93.
Marie-Catherine Mousseau, “Parapsychology: Science or Pseudo-Science?” Journal of Scientific Exploration 17, no. 2 (2003): 271–82.
Chris Carter, Parapsychology and the Skeptics (Paja Books, 2007): 8–15, 73–82. Author’s note: Carter’s book on the battle between skeptics and psi proponents is, for my money, one of the best books ever written about the paranormal. My citation here is for the Rawlins and Wiseman material, but Carter’s entire book is worth reading and was an incredible resource for me in the research for this chapter. A further chapter of Carter’s book, available online, is cited later.
George P. Hansen, “CSICOP and the Skeptics: An Overview,” Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 86, no. 1 (January 1992): 19–63.
Guy Lyon Playfair, “Has CSICOP Lost the Thirty Years’ War?” Skeptical Investigations, accessed October 26, 2010, http://www.skepticalinvestigations.org/New/Observeskeptics/CSICOP/30yearswar1.html
Paul Kurtz et al., “Objections to Astrology,” Humanist (September/October 1975): 4–6.
Dennis Rawlins, “Starbaby,” Fate 34, no. 10 (October 1981): 67–98. Accessed October 26, 2010, http://cura.free.fr/xv/14starbb.html
Michel and Francoise Gauquelin, “The Truth About the Mars Effect on Sports Champions,” Humanist 36, no. 4 (July/August 1976): 44–55.
G. O. Abell et al., “A Test of the Gauquelin Mars Effect,” Humanist 36, no. 5 (September/October 1976): 40.
Michel and Francoise Gauquelin, “The Zelen Test of the Mars Effect,” Humanist 37, no. 6 (November/December 1977): 30–35.
Richard Kammann, “The True Disbelievers: Mars Effect Drives Skeptics to Irrationality,” Zetetic Scholar 10 (1982): 50–65.
Patrick Curry, “Research on the Mars Effect,” Zetetic Scholar 9 (February/March 1982): 34–52.
R. Targ and H. Puthoff, “Information Transmission Under Conditions of Sensory Shielding,” Nature 251, no. 18 (October 1974): 602–7.
James Randi, Flim-Flam! (Prometheus Books, 1982): 133 (lying claim), 143–45 (Geller tests, Pressman controversy).
Guy Lyon Playfair, “The Witch Hunters,” Geller Effect, 1988, Accessed October 26, 2010, http://www.urigeller.com/geller-effect/tge14.htm
Jonathan Margolis, Uri Geller: Magician or Mystic? (Orion, 1999).
Geller has posted the entire book for free at http://www.uri-geller.com/books/magician-or-mystic/index.htm, but the relevant chapter was accessed October 26, 2010, http://www.uri-geller.com/books/magician-or-mystic/chapter11.htm.
Paul H. Smith, Reading the Enemy’s Mind (Forge, 2005): 66–67.
Susan Blackmore, In Search of the Light: Adventures of a Parapsychologist (Prometheus Books, 1986): 163.
Susan Blackmore, “The Elusive Open Mind: Ten Years of Negative Research in Parapsychology,” Skeptical Inquirer, 11, (1987): 244–55. Author’s note: Some might complain that I subject Blackmore to a particularly critical examination. In that context, I congratulate her on the following article she published in 2010, in which she reveals that she no longer considers religion a “virus of the mind.” In it, she cites some new research that has come to her attention demonstrating that religious people seem happier, perhaps even healthier, and have more children than “secularists.” I’m not sure why she is shocked by this new data when plenty of old data contained similar findings, but I congratulate her on being willing to revise her opinion on such a hot button issue. Susan Blackmore, “Why I No Longer Believe Religion is a Virus of the Mind,” Guardian, September 16, 2010, accessed October 30, 2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/sep/16/why-no-longer-believe-religion-virus-mind/print.
Rick E. Berger, “A Critical Examination of the Blackmore Psi Experiments,” Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 83 (1989): 123–44.
Chris Carter, “The Research of the Skeptics,” Skeptical Investigations. Also Parapsychology and the Skeptics, 70–71, accessed October 26, 2010, http://www.skepticalinvestigations.org/Anomali/skeptic_research.html
Susan Blackmore, “A CRITICAL RESPONSE to Rick Berger,” Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 83 (1989): 145–54.
Sheila Jones, “One Hot-Button Issue Can Rile a Roomful of Skeptics,” Globe and Mail, July 10, 2010, p. F-4.
Susan Blackmore, “Which Skeptical Position?” Skeptical Inquirer 19, no. 3 (May/June 1995): 26.
Alex Tsakiris, “Rupert Sheldrake and Richard Wiseman Clash Over Parapsychology Experiments,” Skeptiko, March 8, 2010, http://www.skeptiko.com/rupert-sheldrake-and-richard-wiseman-clash/. Accessed October 26, 2010.
Also see, Carter, ”Research.”
Kendrick Frazier, “It’s CSI Now, Not CSICOP,” December 4, 2006. Accessed October 26, 2010. http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/its_csi_now_not_csicop/
Brian Josephson, “Scientists’ Unethical Use of Media for Propaganda Purposes,” Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge University, Fall 2004, accessed October 26, 2010, http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~bdj10/propaganda/
Guy Lyon Playfair, “The Girl with X-Ray Eyes,” Skeptical Investigations, accessed October 26, 2010, http://skepticalinvestigations.org/Demkinafile/X-Ray.html
Rupert Sheldrake, “James Randi—A Conjurer Attempts to Debunk Research on Psychic Animals,” accessed October 26, 2010, http://www.sheldrake.org/D&C/controversies/randi.html
Brandon K. Thorp, “The Sheldrake Kerfuffle,” Swift, blog of the James Randi Educational foundation, accessed October 26, 2010, http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/795-the-sheldrake-kerfluffle.html
James Randi, “Nessie Innocent, Sheldrake Lecture, Hand Acupressure, More Santa Stuff, and a Good Christian’s Dilemma,” Swift, January 17, 2003, accessed October 26, 2010, http://www.randi.org/jr/011703.html
Author’s note: The following selections, with some notes from me, contain some of the back-and-forth between Schwartz and Randi.
James Randi, “How Long Do We Wait,” Swift, April 8, 2005. Author’s note: Here, Randi lists Krippner, in a March 27, 2001 (author’s emphasis) letter to Schwartz’s university, as having “already agreed” to analyze Schwartz’s data, Accessed October 26, 2010, http://www.randi.org/jr/040805how.html
Gary Schwartz, “A Reply to Randi,” Daily Grail, April 15, 2005, accessed October 26, 2010, http://www.dailygrail.com/Guest-Articles/2005/4/Reply-Randi-Dr-Gary-Schwartz Two months after the letter listing Krippner, Randi says Krippner didn’t agree to participate and this was only his proposed panel.
James Randi, “ . . . More Schwartz!” Swift, May 18, 2001. Accessed January 11, 2011. http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/swift-archives.html
Michael Schmicker, Best Evidence (Writers Club Press, 2002): 287–88.
Ridolfo H. Baxter et al., “Social Influences on Paranormal Belief,” Current Research in Social Psychology 15, no. 3 (2010) 33-41. Author’s note: Also includes polling data.
Frank Newport et al., “Americans’ Belief in Psychic and Paranormal Phenomena Is up Over Last Decade,” Gallup News Service, June 8, 2001.
David W. Moore, “Three in Four Americans Believe in Paranormal,” Gallup News Service, June 16, 2005.
Daryl J. Bem, et al., “Does Psi Exist? Replicable Evidence for an Anomalous Process of Information Transfer,” Psychological Bulletin 115, no. , (1994): 4–18.
Dean Radin, The Conscious Universe (HarperOne, 1997): 55–56.
Doreen Molloy, Personal reading, January 2010.
Windbridge Certified Research Mediums, accessed October 26, 2010, http://www.windbridge.org/mediums.htm
Julie Beischel et al., “Anomalous Information Reception by Research Mediums Demonstrated Using a Novel Triple-Blind Protocol,” EXPLORE: The Journal of Science and Healing 3, no. 1 (2007): 23–27.
M. Mumford et al., “An Evaluation of Remote Viewing: Research and Applications,” American Institutes for Research, September 29, 1995.
Patrick Huyghe, “Closing the Dream Factory: Sony Proves That Psychic Powers Are Real,” Fortean Times, October 1998.
Chapter 3: OUT OF THEIR HEADS? OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!
Roger Penrose, The Emperor’s New Mind, (1989, Oxford Univ. Press): 4 (initial quote), 75–84 (Turing machines, beginning of Gödel’s theorem argument), 138–46 (full Godel’s theorem argument), 516–17 (QM in the brain, photon experiment), 521 (need for a new physics to explain consciousness), 523–581 (the physics of the mind—a brilliant summation of his position).
Stuart Hameroff, Interview, March 12–14 2009.
Beyond Belief: Science, Reason, Religion & Survival, conference, November 5, 2006; Hameroff’s presentation can be seen at http://thesciencenetwork.org/programs/beyond-belief-science-religion-reason-and-survival/session–4–1
Stuart H. Hameroff, “The Entwined Mysteries of Anesthesia and Consciousness: Is There a Common Underlying Mechanism?” Anesthesiology 105 (2006): 400–412.
G. A. Mashour, “Integrating the Science of Consciousness and Anesthesia,” Anesthesia and Analgesia 103 (2006): 975–82.
G. A. Mashour, “The Cognitive Binding Problem: From Kant to Quantum Neurodynamics,” NeuroQuantology 1 (2004): 29–38.
Stuart Hameroff, Ultimate Computing (Elsevier Science, 1987) can be downloaded for free: http://www.quantumconsciousness.org/ultimatecomputing.html
Jordan Goodman and Vivien Walsh, The Story of Taxol: Nature and Politics in the pursuit of an anti-cancer drug, (2001): 90.
P. Drabik et Al., “Microtubule Stability Studied by Three-Dimensional Molecular Theory of Solvation,” Biophysical Journal 92, 2 (2007): 394–403.
J. Fabera et al., “Information Processing in Brain Microtubules,” BioSystems 83 (2006): 1–9.
Stuart Hameroff and Richard C. Watt, “Information Processing in Microtubules,” Journal of Theoretical Biology 98 (1982): 549–61. Author’s note: This is where references to The Emperor’s New Mind are most prevalent—see earlier note for Penrose, Emperor’s.
David H. Freedman, “Quantum Consciousness,” Discover (June 1994): 89–98.
Thanks to physicists Jack Tuszynski and Jim Trolinger for vetting my write-up of the (very) basics of quantum physics.
H. Schmidt et al., “Channeling Evidence for a PK Effect to Independent Observers,” Journal of Parapsychology 50 (March 1986): 1–15. Author’s note: Schmidt claims his tests suggest the role of a conscious observer—a human being—are necessary to collapse the quantum wave function.
A. Aspect, “Experiments on Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen-type Correlations with Pairs of Visible Photons,” Quantum Concepts in Space and Time (1986).
Vincent Jacques, E. Wu, Frdric Grosshans, Franois Treussart, Philippe Grangier, Alain Aspect, Jean-Franois Roch, “Experimental Realization of Wheeler’s Delayed-Choice Experiment,” Science 315 (2007): 5814.
“Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Author’s note: I found this relatively brief account particularly clear. It can be found at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-copenhagen/.
“Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-manyworlds/#6.4.
Peter Byrne, “The Many Worlds of Hugh Everett,” Scientific American (December 2007), accessed October 26, 2010, http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=hugh-everett-biography
Max Tegmark, “The Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, Many Worlds or Many Words,” Fortschritte der Physik 46 (1998): 855–62.
Tim Radford, “David Deutsch’s Multi-Verse Carries Us Beyond the Realms of Imagination,” Guardian, June 11, 2010.
R. Courtland, “Infinite Doppelgängers May Explain Quantum Probabilities,” New Scientist, August 26, 2010.
Jim Elvidge, The Universe—Solved! (AT Press, 2008): 35–36.
Frank J. Tipler, The Physics of Immortality (Anchor Books, 1995): 170–71.
Author’s note: The references located immediately above contain further information on the Raub poll, but to ascertain the depth of Hawking’s commitment to a many-worlds or multiverse theory (I write a because there are variations), one need look no further than his recent book, The Grand Design (Bantam, 2010).
Richard Feynman, QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter (Princeton Univ. Press, 1988): 5.
Einstein, in a letter to physicist Max Born, 1924, in F. Shapiro and J. Epstein, Yale Book of Quotations (Yale Univ. Press, 2006): 228.
Max Born and Albert Einstein, The Born-Einstein Letters 1916–1955 (Macmillan, 2004): 80.
Victor Stenger, “Quantum Quackery,” Skeptical Inquirer 21, no. 1 (January/February 1997), accessed October 30, 2010, http://www.csicop.org/si/show/quantum_quackery
Stuart Hameroff, “Naughty Quantum Robot,” http://www.quantumconsciousness.org/interviews/objectmonkey.html
Stuart Hameroff and Roger Penrose, “Orchestrated Reduction of Quantum Coherence in Brain Microtubules: A Model for Consciousness?” Toward a Science of Consciousness—The First Tucson Discussions and Debates (MIT Press, 1996): 507–40.
Max Tegmark, “Importance of Quantum Coherence in Brain Processes,” Physical Review E 61 (2000): 4194–206.
S. Hagan et al., “Quantum Computation in Brain Microtubules: Decoherence and Biological Feasibility,” Physical Review E 65 (2002): DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevE.65.061901.
Rick Grush and Patricia Churchland, “Gaps in Penrose’s Toilings,” Journal of Consciousness Studies 2, no. 1 (1995): 10–29.
Patricia Churchland, “Brainshy: Nonneural Theories of Conscious Experience,” Toward a Science of Consciousness II: The Second Tucson Discussions and Debates (MIT Press, 1998): 109–24.
Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff, “Gaps, What Gaps? Reply to Grush and Churchland,” Journal of Consciousness Studies 2, no. 2 (1995): 99–112.
Stuart Hameroff, “More Neural Than Thou (A Reply to Patricia Churchland),” Toward a Science of Consciousness II: The Second Tucson Discussions and Debates (MIT Press, 1998): 197–213.
Author’s note: I am well aware that there are more papers than the ones mentioned that discuss the Penrose-Hameroff model for consciousness. But reading over the back-and-forth between Hameroff and his opponents, it seems the matter remains open. My own take is that when Penrose himself turns back to this theory and reviews all that has happened since he put it forward, some real action will commence.
Brian Greene, Fabric of the Cosmos (Vintage, 2004): 351.
Lisa Randall and Art Bell, Interview, Coast to Coast A.M., February 25, 2006.
Mark Buchanan, “Do Birds See with Quantum Eyes?” New Scientist (May, 3, 2008), accessed October 30, 2010, http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19826544.000-do-birds-see-with-quantum-eyes.html
“Quantum Biology Has Come In from the Cold,” editorial, New Scientist (February 2010), accessed October 30, 2010, http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20527462.500-quantum-biology-has-come-in-from-the-cold.html
Gregory S. Engel et al., “Evidence for Wavelike Energy Transfer Through Quantum Coherence in Photosynthetic Systems,” Nature 446 (April 2007): 782–86.
A. Zeilinger, “Quantum Interference Experiments with Large Molecules,” American Journal of Physics 71, no. 4, (2003): 319–25.
M. Arndt et al., “Quantum Physics Meets Biology,” HFSP Journal, 3, no. 6 (December 2009): 386–400.
J. C. Brookes et al., “Could Humans Recognize Odor by Phonon Assisted Tunneling?” Physical Review Letters (2007): 98.
Geoff Brumfiel, “Scientists Supersize Quantum Mechanics: Largest Ever Object Put into Quantum State,” Nature (March 2010), accessed October 30, 2010, http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100317/full/news.2010.130.html
J. R. Minkel, “Is Sense of Smell Powered by Quantum Vibrations? Controversial theory Gets Green Light from Physicists,” Scientific American (December 15, 2006), accessed October 30, 2010, http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=is-sense-of-smell-powered
Elio Conte et al., “On the Existence of Quantum Wave Function and Quantum Interference Effects in Mental States: An Experimental Confirmation during Perception and Cognition in Humans,” NeuroQuantology 7, no 2. (2009), accessed October 26, 2010, arxiv.org/pdf/0807.4547.
E. Conte, “Mental States Follow Quantum Mechanics During Perception and Cognition of Ambiguous Figures,” Open Systems and Information Dynamics 16, no. 1 (2009): 85–100.
F. Beck, “Quantum Aspects of Brain Activity and the Role of Consciousness,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 89 (1992):11357–361.
F. T. Arechhi, “Chaotic Neuron Dynamics, Synchronization, and Feature Binding: Quantum Aspects,” Mind and Matter 1, no. 1 (2004): 15–43.
Mario Livio, “The Golden Ratio and Aesthetics,” Plus 22 (November 2002), October 26, 2010. http://plus.maths.org/issue22/features/golden/
R. Coldea, “Quantum Criticality in an Ising Chain: Experimental Evidence for Emergent E8 Symmetry,” Science 327, no. 5962 (January 8, 2010): 177–80.
“Golden Ratio Discovered in Quantum World: Hidden Symmetry Observed for the First Time in Solid State Matter,” Science Daily, January 7, 2010, accessed October 26, 2010, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100107143909.htm
D. A. Baylor, “Responses of Retinal Rods to Single Photons,” Journal of Physiology 288, (1979): 613–34.
S. Hecht, “Energy, Quanta and Vision,” Journal of General Physiology 25 (1942): 891–940.
J. Roebke, “The Reality Tests,” Seed (June 2008): 50–59.
“Spooky Action and Beyond,” Sign and Sight, February 16, 2006, accessed October 30, 2010, http://www.signandsight.com/features/614.html
“Talking Physics with the Dalai Lama,” Physics World, August 7, 1998, accessed October 30, 2010, http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/3186
A. Zajonc, ed. The New Physics and Cosmology, Dialogues with the Dalai Lama (Oxford Univ. Press, 2004): 11–30.
Thomas Campbell, My Big Toe (Lightning Strike Books, 2003).
B. Rosenblum and F. Kuttner, Quantum Enigma (Oxford Univ. Press, 2006): 6–7, 156–57, 183–208.
Hans Peter Dürr, “Matter Is Not Made Out of Matter,” Endogenous Development and Biocultural Diversity (Compas, 2007): 45–55. Author’s note: The depth of disagreement among physicists—never mind mystics—is perhaps best realized by perusing this talk, given by German physicist Hans Peter Dürr, a student of Werner Heisenbrg, and former executive director at the prestigious Max Planck Institute. Dürr, like Zeilinger, believes quantum mechanics might ultimately force us to a completely new understanding of reality; to him, that answer lies beyond materialism.
Roger Penrose, Email, December 2009.
“Professor Sir Roger Penrose,” British Humanist Association, accessed October 26, 2010, http://www.humanism.org.uk/about/people/distinguished-supporters/roger-penrose-frs
David Chalmers, “Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness,” Toward a Science of Consciousness (MIT Press, 1996): 5–28.
D. D. Hoffman, “Conscious Realism and the Mind-Body Problem,” Mind & Matter 6, no. 1 (2008): 87–121.
David Chalmers, Interview, November 2009.
A. Marshall Stoneham, Email, March 2009.
Arnaud Delorme, Interview, March 2010.
Daniel Dennett, Consciousness Explained (Little Brown, 1991).
Susan Blackmore, Conversations on Consciousness (Oxford Univ. Press, 2005): 79–82, 116–17.
Nancy Woolf, Interview, February 2010.
Jack Tuszynski, Interview, February 2010.
CHAPTER 4: BLAZING SADDLES
Jewel, “Stephenville, TX,” Goodbye Alice in Wonderland, CD (Atlantic, 2009).
Lee Roy Gaitan, Interview, September 2009.
Tarleton State Univ., accessed October 27, 2010, http://www.tarleton.edu/about/Stephenville.html
Angelia Joiner, “Japan Interested in U.F.O. Sighting,” Stephenville Empire-Tribune, January 25, 2008. Author’s note: The Empire-Tribune’s articles are available behind a pay wall at http://www.empiretribune.com/.
Following is a selection of videos that attest to the media attention Stephen-ville received, accessed October 27, 2010.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqdX-iwk5Mc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPBmeX6pBgI&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBhjmf2JSuA&feature=related
Denise Gellene, “How UFOs Took Over a Town,” Los Angeles Times, June 14, 2008, accessed October 30, 2010, http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jun/14/science/sci-ufo14
Sara Vanden Berge, Interview, April 2009.
Steve Allen, Interviews, September 2009, August 2010.
Weather data (hourly) obtained from Weather Warehouse, an online historical weather site, accessed October 30, 2010, http://weather-warehouse.com/
Angelia Joiner, Interview, August, September, and November 2009.
Glen Schulze and Robert Powell, “Special Research Report, Stephenville, Texas,” MUFON, (July 2008): 6–7, 33–34.
Angelia Joiner, “Possible U.F.O Sighting,” Stephenville Empire-Tribune, January 10, 2008.
Rick Sorrells, Interview, September 2009.
Angelia Joiner, “Dozens in Texas Town Report Seeing U.F.O.,” Stephenville Empire-Tribune, January 14, 2008.
Angelia Joiner, “Three Erath County Lawmen Observe ‘One Big Craft,’ ” The Stephenville Lights, March 30, 2008, accessed November 1 2010, http://stephenvillelights.com/slnews_article005.html
Angelia Joiner, “Stephenville UFO Is Viewed by Former Protector of Texas Governors,” The Stephenville Lights, February 28, 2008, http://stephenvillelights.com/slnews_article004.html
Angelia Joiner, “All Eyes on the Skies,” Stephenville Empire-Tribune, January 13, 2008.
Alejandro Rojas, Former Director of Public Education, MUFON, Interview, July 2009.
Robert Powell, Director of Research, MUFON, Interviews, July, August, and October 2009.
Jane Pratt, “UFO Reports Bring a Few Good-Natured Laughs,” Abilene Reporter-News, January 16, 2008, accessed November 1, 2010, http://www.reporternews.com/news/2008/Jan/16/ufo-reports-bring-a-few-good-natured-laughs/
Bill Radke, “A Sighting in Stephenville,” American Public Radio, January 26, 2008, November 1, 2010. http://weekendamerica.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/01/25/ufo/
July Danley, President/CEO Stephenville Chamber of Commerce, Interview, September 2009.
Treva Thompson, then-Marketing and Tourism Dir., Stephenville Chamber of Commerce, Interview, September 2009.
Craig Shelburne, “Jewel, Ty Murray, Live the Small Town Life,” CMT News, May 30, 2006.
Matt Copeland, Co-owner, Barefoot Athletics, Interview, September 2009.
Katy Copeland, Barefoot Athletics, Interview, September 2009.
Christopher O’Brien, Secrets of the Mysterious Valley (Adventures Unlimited Press, 2007): 322–38.
Jean Edwards, Interview, December 2009.
George Edwards, Interview, December 2009.
Bruce Maccabee, Interview, November 2009.
Brian Dunning, “The Rendlesham Forest UFO,” Skeptoid, January 6, 2009, accessed November 1, 2010, http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4135
Michael Shermer, How We Believe (Henry Holt, 2000): 172–73, 202–6.
Philip J. Klass, “Plasma Theory May Explain Many UFOs,” Aviation Week and Space Technology (August 22, 1966): 48.
Philip J. Klass, “Many UFOs Are Identified as Plasmas,” Aviation Week and Space Technology (October 3, 1966): 54.
Philip J. Klass, UFOs Identified (Random House, 1968).
Martin Shough, “A Social History of Ball Lightning,” Magonia (May 2003), accessed November 1, 2010, http://magonia.haaan.com/2010/balllightning/
M. Stenhoff, Ball Lightning: An Unsolved Problem in Atmospheric Physics (Springer, 1999).
Brian Dunning, “Ball Lightning,” Skeptoid, February 9, 2010, accessed November 1, 2010, http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4192
Philip J. Klass, “Spaceships or Mirages over Washington National Airport, 1952?” The Klass Files, The Skeptics UFO Newsletter, Skeptical Inquirer, July 1, 1998, accessed November 1, 2010, http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/klass_files_volume_52/
James E. McDonald, “Comments of a Researcher: Case 5. Washington National Airport,” July 19 and 26, 1952, accessed November 1, 2010, http://www.nicap.org/wnsmcd.htm
J. McDonald, “UFOs—An International Scientific Problem, Paper Presented at the Canadian Aeronautics and Space Institute Astronautics Symposium, Montreal, Canada,” March 12, 1968, accessed November 1, 2010, http://www.ufologie.net/htm/mcdonaldca.htm
Jerome Clark, The UFO Book: Encyclopedia of the Extraterrestrial (Visible Ink Press, 2007): 660–62.
J. Moseley, ed., “More About the Late Phil Klass,” Saucer Smear 52, no. 9, October 20, 2005.
James Randi, Flim-Flam! (Prometheus Books, 1982):72–73.
Ronald D. Story, The Encyclopedia of Extraterrestrial Encounters (New American Library, 2001): 444–46, 624–26.
Larry King clip, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSkXYmExOnA
Edward de Bono, I Am Right, You Are Wrong (Penguin, 1991): 22–30.
I. J. Good, The Scientist Speculates (Basic Books, 1963): 15.
David Jones, “Thoughts That Go Pop in the Night,” The Age, January 13, 1986.
W. Platt, “The Relation of the Scientific ‘Hunch’ to Research,” Journal of Chemical Education (October 1931): 1969–2002.
Peter Hessler, Oracle Bones (HarperCollins, 2006): 138–47.
Michio Kaku, “Prof Michio Kaku on the Science Behind UFOs and Time Travel,” Telegraph U.K., March 20, 2008, accessed November 1, 2010, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/3337049/Prof-Michio-Kaku-on-the-science-behind-UFOs-and-time-travel.html
GERM books, UFO Awareness Day, Philadelphia, PA, July 2009.
Wade Goodwyn, “Air Force Alters Texas UFO Explanation,” National Public Radio, January 24, 2008, accessed October 26, 2010. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18375952
Jeffrey Weiss, “Texas UFO Mystery Solved?” Dallas Morning News, January 24, 2008, accessed October 26, 2010, http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/DN-ifos_24met.ART.North.Edition1.3787cf0.html
Angela Brown, “F–16s Were in Area Where UFO Reported,” January 23, 2008.
M. Jones, “Report Fuels Spy Plane Theories,” BBC News, June 14, 2006, accessed November 1, 2010, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/5079044.stm
D. Thompson, “What Do the UFO Files Reveal?” Telegraph U.K., August 5, 2010, accessed November 1, 2010, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/ufo/7927676/What-do-the-UFO-files-reveal.html
J. Grimston, “Is That a Flying Saucer? No, It’s a Stealth Bomber,” Sunday Times, March 22, 2009, accessed November 1, 2010, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article5950460.ece
Wade Goodwyn, “Dozens Claim They Spotted UFO in Texas,” National Public Radio, January 16, 2008, accessed November 1, 2010, http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=18146244&m=18159586
Author’s note: See Gellene, “How UFOs” for Kinsel quote and Times quotes.
J. Gibson, “Dennis Kucinich’s UFO Comments Prove He’s Nuts,” Fox News, October 31, 2007, accessed November 1, 2010, http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,307117,00.html
M. M. Phillips, “What Kucinich Saw,” Wall Street Journal, January 2, 2008.
Dave Gilson, “Kucinich’s UFO Sighting, What He Really Saw,” Mother Jones, January 4, 2008, accessed November 1, 2010, http://motherjones.com/mojo/2008/01/kucinichs-ufo-sighting-what-he-really-saw
Merrill Goozner, “Send the Editor into Space,” Huffington Post, January 2, 2008, accessed November 1, 2010, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/merrill-goozner/answer-send-the-editor-in_b_79224.html
Frank Burke, Interview September 2009.
Phil Patton, “UFO Myths: A Special Investigation into Stephenville and Other Major Sightings,” Popular Mechanics (March 2009), accessed November 2010, http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/aviation/ufo/4304170
Glen Schulze, Interview, October 2009.
“The Stephenville Lights: What Actually Happened,” Skeptical Inquirer 33, no. 1 (January/February 2009), accessed October 26, 2010, http://www.csicop.org/si/show/stephenville_lights_what_actually_happened/
Billy Cox, “Multiple Sources Never Hurt,” De Void, blog, Sarasota Herald-Tribune, February 11, 2008, accessed October 26, 2010, http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20080211/BLOG32/76223561
Mark Murphy, Interview, September 2009.
CHAPTER 5: WAS THERE A GHOST IN MY HOUSE?
James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (Penguin Classics, 1979): 239.
Laura Spinney, “We Can Implant Entirely False Memories,” Guardian, December 4, 2003, accessed November 1, 2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2003/dec/04/science.research1
S. J. Ceci, “Repeatedly Thinking About a Non-Event,” Consciousness and Cognition 2 (1994): 388–407.
K. A. Braun, “Make My Memory: How Advertising Can Change Our Memories of the Past,” Psychology and Marketing 19, no. 1 (January 2002): 23.
E. F. Loftus, “Planting a 30-Year Investigation of the Malleability of Memory,” Learning and Memory 12 (2005): 361–66.
K. A. Wade, “A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Lies: Using False Photographs to create False Childhood Memories,” Psychonomic Bulletin and Review 9 (2002): 597–603.
Jean Piaget, Play, Dreams and Imitation in Childhood (Norton, 1962): 188.
Author’s note: There are a number of resources, including some complicated technical papers, describing typical plumbing problems that can lead people to believe their house is haunted. Here is a short selection of more reader-friendly items and some YouTube videos that capture some common, plumbing-related noises. An aside: I sent these to my father, sister, and oldest brother, who are the living people with the greatest recall of the noises. They all thought the examples here were ridiculously unlike the noise in our house. All the online videos and resources here were accessed on October 26, 2010.
Plumbing Noises: http://www.factsfacts.com/MyHomeRepair/PipeNoises.htm
Waterhammer: A complex phenomenon with a simple solution, http://www.omega.com/techref/waterhammer.html
“Peculiar Pipes: Why That Clanging Noise May Have More to do With Porcelain than Poltergeists,” http://eisenmanagementgroup.wordpress.com/2009/05/26/peculiar-pipes-why-that-clanging-noise-may-have-more-to-do-with-porcelain-than-poltergeists/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sdiEdwUO7A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HCv1YRB-dk&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XchGnLiH_o&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Snp6CkA0eYA&feature=related
R. T. Carroll, “infrasound,” Skeptic’s Dictionary, accessed October 26, 2010, http://www.skepdic.com/infrasound.html6.
Chris Arnot, “Ghost Buster,” Guardian, July 11 2000, accessed November 1, 2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2000/jul/11/highereducation.chrisarnot
V. Tandy and T. Lawrence, “The Ghost in the Machine,” Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 62, no. 851 (April 1998): 360–64. Accessed November 1, 2010. http://www.psy.herts.ac.uk/ghost/ghost-in-machine.pdf
V. Tandy, “Something in the Cellar,” Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 64.3, no. 860 (July 2000), accessed November 1, 2010, http://www.psy.herts.ac.uk/ghost/Something-in-the-Cellar.pdf
Mary Roach, Spook (Norton, 2005): 227–40.
J. J. Braithwaite and M. Townsend, “Good Vibrations: The Case for a Specific Effect of Infrasound in Instances of Anomalous Experience Has Yet to Be Empirically Demonstrated,” Journal for the Society of Psychical Research 70, no. 885 (2006): 211–24.
“Infrasound Linked to Spooky Effects,” Associated Press, September 7, 2003, accessed October 26, 2010, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3077192/
C. C. French et al., “The ‘Haunt’ Project: An Attempt to Build a ‘Haunted’ Room by Manipulating Complex Electromagnetic Fields and Infrasound,” Cortex 45, no. 5 (2009): 619–29.
Hazel Muir, “Where Do Ghosts Come From?” New Scientist (October 2009), accessed October 26, 2010, http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427321.200-where-do-ghosts-come-from.html
Sheryl C. Wilson and Theodore X. Barber, “The Fantasy-Prone Personality: Implications for Understanding Imagery, Hypnosis, and Parapsychological Phenomena,” Imagery, Current Theory, Research and Application (1983): 340–90.
Steven Novella, “The Fantasy Prone Personality,” Neurologica Blog, April 3, 2007, accessed October 26, 2010 http://theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=84
Joe Nickell, “A Study of Fantasy Proneness in the Thirteen Cases of Alleged Encounters in John Mack’s Abduction,” Skeptical Inquirer 20 no. 3 (May/June 1996), accessed November 1, 2010, http://www.csicop.org/si/show/study_of_fantasy_proneness_in_the_thirteen_cases_of_alleged_encounters_in_j/
Susan Clancy, Abducted (Harvard Univ. Press, 2005): 132–53.
Peter Hough, “Alien Abductions Revisited: Study Suggests Alien Abduction Experiences Not Simply Products of Fantasy-Proneness,” Fortean Times (February 2010), accessed November 1, 2010, http://www.forteantimes.com/features/fbi/2929/alien_abductions_revisited.html
P. Hough and P. Rogers, “Individuals Who Report Being Abducted by Aliens: Investigating the Differences in Fantasy-Proneness, Emotional Intelligence and the Big Five Personality Factors,” Imagination, Cognition and Personality 27, no. 2 (2007): 139–61.
M. Rodeghier et al., “Psychosocial Characteristics of Abductees,” Journal of UFO Studies 3 (1991): 59–90.
N. P. Spanos et al., “Close Encounters: An Examination of UFO Experiences,” Journal of Abnormal Psychology 102, no. 4 (1993): 624–32.
M. Eckblad, “Magical Ideation as an Indicator of Schizotypy,” Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 51, no. 2 (1983): 215–25.
Joel Fischer, Measures for Clinical Practice: Adults (Free Press, 1987): 335–36.
S. J. Lynn and J. W. Rhue, “The Fantasy-Prone Person: Hypnosis, Imagination, and Creativity,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 51, no. 2 (August 1986): 404–8.
Chris French, Interview, February 2010.
B. Colvin, “The Acoustic Properties of Unexplained Rapping Sounds,” Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 73.2, no. 899 (2010): 65–93.
Society for Psychical Research’s announcement, accessed October 26, 2010, http://www.spr.ac.uk/main/news/colvin-acoustic-properties-poltergeist-rapping
Steve Volk, “The Lou Gentile Experience,” Philadelphia Weekly, September 27, 2006, November 1, 2010, http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/news-and-opinion/cover-story/the_lou_gentile_experience–38419469.html
Chapter 6: TO INFINITY AND BEYOND
K. Lorenz, On Aggression (Harvest, 1963): 273.
G. Easterbrook, “Why We Shouldn’t Go to Mars,” Time, January 26, 2004, accessed November 1, 2010, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,993172,00.html
Edgar Mitchell, Interview, February 2009.
Edgar Mitchell, The Way of the Explorer (New Page Books, 2008): 15–16 (short description of epiphany), 24–25 (childhood material, early education), 30 (naval career), 42 (space flight as evolutionary step), 73–77 (longer description of space flight and his epiphany), 102–105 (Norbu Chen story), 197–204 (dyadic model).
Author’s note: The material cited here is woven throughout the chapter. For anyone interested in reading more about Mitchell’s conception of “dyadic model of the universe, see Mitchell, “Dyadic Model.”
W. David Woods, How Apollo Flew to the Moon (Praxis, 2008): 176.
B. W. Sibrel, “Astronauts Gone Wild,” DVD (AFTH, 2004), accessed November 1, 2010, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZYpfKf3tCc
“Edgar Mitchell’s Strange Voyage,” People 1, no. 6 (1974), accessed October 26, 2010, http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20063934,00.html
M. Nizza, “When an Astronaut Believes in Aliens,” The Lede blog, New York Times, July 24, 2008, accessed November 1, 2010, http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/24/when-an-astronaut-believes-in-aliens/
Brian Dunning, “The Astronauts and the Aliens,” Skeptoid, August 10, 2010, accessed November 1, 2010, http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4218
D. Morrison, “UFOs and Aliens in Space,” Skeptical Inquirer 33, no. 1 (January/February 2009), accessed November 1, 2010, http://www.csicop.org/si/show/ufos_and_aliens_in_space
Dan Brown, The Lost Symbol (Anchor, 2009): 208.
Institute of Noetic Sciences, “IONS Overview,” accessed November 1, 2010. http://www.noetic.org/about/overview/
“Secrets of the Lost Symbol,” Dateline NBC, October 15, 2009.
“Hunting the Lost Symbol,” Discovery channel, October 25, 2009.
Barbara Bradley Hagerty, “Woman Reads Dan Brown Novel, Discovers Herself,” All Things Considered. October 12, 2009, accessed November 1, 2010, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113676181
Rose Welch, executive assistant to the president/board, IONS, Interview, October 2009. (Also Radin, Schlitz.)
Frank White, The Overview Effect (American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 1998): 11–12 (Schweickart’s description of space flight), 35–37 (“sensing element” material), 183–85 (interview with Cernan), 187 (Michael Collins quote), 190–91 (Schweickart on the transformative aspects of space flight), 215 (quote from Allen), 247–48 (Garn’s experience).
Michael Collins, Carrying the Fire (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1974): 470.
Association of Space Explorers, accessed November 1, 2010, http://www.space-explorers.org/membership.html
Frank White, Interview, February 2010.
Author’s note: Andrew Newberg has agreed to conduct neurological studies of the overview effect.
Uri Geller, Interview, August 2009.
R. Targ and H. Puthoff, “Information Transmission Under Conditions of Sensory Shielding,” Nature 251, no. 18 (October 1974): 602–7.
A. Harrington, ed., The Placebo Effect (Harvard Univ. Press, 1999): 40–54 (good overview of placebo effect), 66 (“voodoo” or negative placebo effect in asthma), 211–16. Author’s note: Great discussion among experts, with discussion of placebo effect’s limits.
R. Kradin, The Placebo Response and the Power of Unconscious Healing (Routledge, 2008): 169–97.
Andrew Newberg and Mark Robert Waldman, Born to Believe (Free Press, 2006): 3–4.
B. Klopfer, “Psychological Variables in Human Cancer,” Journal of Projective Techniques (1957): 21.
B. O’Regan and C. Hirshberg, Spontaneous Remission of Cancer: Epidemiological and Psychosocial Aspects (Institute of Noetic Sciences, 1993).
Dean Radin, The Conscious Universe (HarperOne, 1997): 117–33.
Dean Radin, Entangled Minds (Paraview Pocket Books, 2006): 161–80.
Jessica Utts, Interview, August 2009.
Edgar Mitchell, “A Dyadic Model of Consciousness,” World Futures 46, no. 2 (1996): 69–78.
The Overview Institute, accessed October 26, 2010, http://www.overviewinstitute.org/
Virgin Galactic promotional information, accessed October 26, 2010, http://www.virgingalactic.com/overview/experience/
C. B. Thomas, “The Space Cowboys,” Time, February 22, 2007, accessed November 1, 2010, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1592834,00.html
D. Freedman, “The Future of NASA,” Discover (September 2006), accessed November 1, 2010, http://discovermagazine.com/2006/sep/cover
Elizabeth Landau, “When Being Turned On Is a Turnoff,” CNN, April 17, 2010, accessed November 1, 2010, http://articles.cnn.com/2010–04–17/health/sexual.arousal.disorder_1_arousal-disorder-orgasm-selective-serotonin-reuptake-inhibitors?_s=P.M.:HEALTH
“Diseases from Space and the Giggle Factor,” Biot Report, 456, August 25, 2007.
Suburban Emergency Management Project, accessed October 26, 2010, http://www.semp.us/publications/biot_reader.php?BiotID=456
E. J. Lyman, “ ‘Giggle Factor’ Is No Laughing Matter to Scientists,” USA Today, March 11, 2003.
J. Johnson Jr., “His Inn Will Be Way Out,” Los Angeles Times, August 30, 2006, accessed November 1, 2010, http://articles.latimes.com/2006/aug/30/science/sci-bigelow30
Eliza Strickland, “Scratch a Space Nut, Find a Starry-Eyed Hippie,” Wired, July 20, 2007, accessed November 1, 2010, http://www.wired.com/science/space/news/2007/07/overview
L. David, “Space Colonization Efforts Quietly Pick Up Steam,” USA Today, February 23, 2005.
Marilyn Schlitz, Interview, November 2009.
CHAPTER 7: THE OPEN MIND
Barack Obama, Tucson Memorial, January 12, 2011, accessed January 13, 2011, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/01/12/remarks-president-barack-obama-memorial-service-victims-shooting-tucson
Joe Henry, “Flag,” Tiny Voices (Anti, 2003).
Andrew Newberg, Interviews, class lectures conducted through the fall of 2009.
Andrew Newberg has since joined the Myrna Brind Center of Integrative Medicine at Thomas Jefferson University and Hospital, where he can devote more time to research and writing in the area of neurotheology and medicine. He remains affiliated with Penn as an adjunct professor and still teaches a class on Neurotheology.
Andrew Newberg, Principles of Neurotheology (Ashgate, 2010).
Andrew Newberg, Michael Persinger, and Vilayanur Ramachandran, God on the Brain: A Neurological Basis for the Religious Impulse, DVD featuring Richard Dawkins, (BBC, 2003).
Andrew Newberg et al., Why God Won’t Go Away (Ballantine, 2001): 1–10.
Andrew Newberg et al., “The Measurement of Regional Cerebral Blood Flow During the Complex Cognitive Task of Meditation: A Preliminary SPECT study.” Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging 106 (2001): 113–22.
Andrew Newberg et al., “The Neurophysiological Correlates of Meditation: Implications for Neuroimaging,” Journal of the Indian Academy of Clinical Medicine 3 (1998): 13–18.
“Robertson’s True Story,” January 13, 2010, The 700 Club (via Media Matters for America), accessed October 26, 2010, http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201001130024
Laurie Goodstein, “Vatican Declined to Defrock U.S. Priest Who Abused Boys,” New York Times, March 24, 2010, accessed November 1, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/world/europe/25vatican.html
N. Kulish and K. Bennhold, “Memo to Pope Described Transfer of Pedophile Priest,” New York Times, March 25, 2010, accessed November 1, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/world/europe/26church.html
Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great (Twelve, 2007): 53, 56.
Daniel Dennett, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea (Simon and Schuster, 1995): 18.
Richard Dawkins, “Has the World Changed?” Guardian, October 11, 2001, accessed October 26, 2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/oct/11/afghanistan.terrorism2
Andrew Newberg, How God Changes Your Brain (Ballantine, 2009): 24–31 (meditation study, memory, plasticity), 137–41 (prejudice, us and them thinking, fundamentalism), also 131–46 (clash of worldviews), 244–48 (Newberg’s own feelings on God).
Andrew Newberg et al., “The Measurement of Regional Cerebral Blood Flow During Glossolalia: A Preliminary SPECT Study,” Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging (2006): 67–71.
Gospel According to Al Green, R. Mugge, dir., DVD (Acorn Media, 2009).
J. T. Richardson, “Psychological Interpretations of Glossolalia: A Reexamination of Research,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 12, no. 2 (1973): 199–207. Author’s note: This study argues that “maladjustment” should remain a consideration in further studies of glossolalia.
N. Spanos and E .C. Hewitt, “Glossolalia: A Test of the ‘Trance’ and Psychopathology Hypotheses,” Journal of Abnormal Psychology 88, no. 4 (August 1979): 427–34.
L. J. Francis et al., “Personality and Glossolalia: A Study Among Male Evangelical Clergy,” Pastoral Psychology, 51, no. 5 (2003): 391–96.
Religulous, DVD (Lion’s Gate, 2009).
S. Harris et al., “The Neural Correlates of Religious and Nonreligious Belief,” Plos One (2009), accessed November 1, 2010, http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0007272 Author’s note: Though some, including me, occasionally accuse Harris of being too strident by a factor of 72, I find this paper remarkably even-handed in assessing the way our most cherished religious and nonreligious beliefs become a part of us.
Dinesh D’Souza, “Atheism, Not Religion, Is the Real Force Behind the Mass Murders of History,” Christian Science Monitor, November 21, 2006, accessed October 26, 2010, http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1121/p09s01-coop.html
Robert A. Pape, Dying to Win (Random House, 2005): 208–16.
The Reality Club. Author’s note: Atran’s critique of his fellow atheists can be read, in full, at the Reality Club web site, accessed October 26, 2010,http://www.edge.org/discourse/bb.html
A. Newberg and M. Waldman, Born to Believe (Free Press, 2006): 45–65 (human perception), 75–76 (belief formation), 90–95 (limits and benefits of reductionistic thinking).
Author’s note: These papers, about the philosophical questions raised by the nature of human perception, are well worth a look. While from an operational perspective, it simply doesn’t work to go around behaving like our every perception might be in error, the lessons here are worth keeping in mind when we are approaching each other or trying to make our minds up about the nature of reality and human experience.
B. Bennett, “Perception and Evolution,” Perception and the Physical World: Psychological and Philosophical Issues in Perception, DOI: 10.1002/0470013427, 2002: 229–45.
T. Davies et al., “Visual Worlds: Construction or Reconstruction?” Journal of Consciousness Studies 9 (2002): 72–87.
T. Crane, “The Problem of Perception,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2005), http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/perception-problem/
Author’s note: These observations about brain function, belief, and how we evaluate information are supported by my interviews with Newberg and his lectures. Please also see Notes and Sources for chapter 1 for a full selection of papers demonstrating the kinds of automatic brain processes (by no means restricted to the functioning of the amygdala) that influence our cognition and predispose us to emerge from every conversation with our belief system intact. The following papers help prove the point.
J. G. Gunnell, “Are We Losing Our Minds? Cognitive Science and the Study of Politics,” Political Theory 35, no. 6 (December 2007): 704–31.
E. A. Phelps, “Emotion and Cognition: Insights from Studies of the Human Amygdala,” Annual Review of Psychology 57 (2006): 27–53.
T. Landis, “Emotional Words: What’s So Different from Just Words?” Cortex 42, no. 6 (2006): 823–30.
S. Hamman, “Positive and Negative Emotional Verbal Stimuli Elicit Activity in the Left Amygdala,” Neuroreport 13, no. 1 (2002): 15–19.
T. Frodl et al., “Larger Amygdala Volumes in First Depressive Episode as Compared to Recurrent Major Depression and Healthy Control Subjects,” Biological Psychiatry 53, no. 4 (February 2003): 338–44.
Y. Matsuoka, “A Volumetric Study of Amygdala in Cancer Survivors with Intrusive Recollections,” Biological Psychiatry 54, no. 7 (October 2003): 736–43.
E. Yoshikawa, “Prefrontal Cortex and Amygdala Volume in First Minor or Major Depressive Episode After Cancer Diagnosis,” Biological Psychiatry 59, 8 (April 2006): 707–12.
Ara Norenzayan et al., “Mortality Salience and Religion: Divergent Effects on the Defense of Cultural Worldviews for the Religious and the Non-Religious,” European Journal of Social Psychology 39 (2009): 101–13.
Author’s note: Here is a further selection of studies that illustrate the way human beings, regardless of belief systems, seek to ally themselves with preferred groups and reject members of out groups without analysis.
A. Olsson et al., “The Role of Social Groups in the Persistence of Learned Fear,” Science 309, no. 5735 (July 2005): 785–87.
N. T. Feather, “Acceptance and Rejection of Arguments in Relation to Attitude Strength, Critical Ability and Intolerance of Inconsistency,” Journal Abnormal and Social Psychology 69, (1964): 127–36.
A. Miller, ed., The Social Psychology of Good and Evil (Guilford Press, 2004).
C. A. Insio et al., “Conformity and Group Size: The Concern with Being Right and the Concern with Being Liked,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 11, no. 1 (March 1985): 41–50.
Mark Robert Waldman, Interviews, January, February, and March, 2009. Like Newberg, Waldman was generous with his time.
Waldman is an Associate Fellow at Newberg’s Center for Spirituality and the Mind at the University of Pennsylvania, and he is now adjunct faculty in the Executive MBA Program at Loyola Marymount University, where he teaches communication strategies based on their collaborative experiments.
“Father Thomas Keating—Centering Prayer: Its History and Importance,” April 13, 2009, from Ken Wilber’s Integral Options Café, accessed August 22, 2010, http://integral-options.blogspot.com/2009/04/father-thomas-keating-centering-prayer_13.html
J. R. Carey et al., “Neuroplasticity Promoted by Task Complexity,” Exercise and Sport Sciences Reviews 33, no. 1 (January 2005): 24–31.
Chris McDougall, Born to Run (Knopf, 2009): 145–46.
C. Trageser, “Transcendental Steps (or How I Learned to Love Running Without an iPod),” Runner’s World (May 2010).
T. Wright, “The Spirit of the Running People: Three Cultures You Should Know,” Vagabondish, accessed October 26, 2010, http://www.vagabondish.com/running-cultures/
Dean Radin, Interview, October 2009.
R. J. Davidson, “Buddha’s Brain: Neuroplasticity and Meditation,” IEEE Signal Processing Magazine 176 (September 2007).
A. Lutz, “Long-Term Meditators Self-Induce High-Amplitude Gamma Synchrony During Mental Practice,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, no. 46 (2004): 16369–373.
R. J. Davidson, “Empirical Explorations of Mindfulness: Conceptual and Methodological Conundrums,” Emotion 10, no. 1 (2010): 8–11.
Author’s note: The material describing how science might teach us what kind of God is most beneficial to us, neurologically, is found in chapter 7 of Newberg, How God Changes Your Brain. It’s also something I discussed with Mark Robert Waldman and Andrew Newberg.
“1000 Rabbis Warn: Open Homosexuality in the Military Is a Disaster and May Cause Further Natural Disasters,” Christian Newswire, Contact listed as Rabbi Yehuda Levin, Spokesman, Rabbinical Alliance of America.
J. F. Harris, “God Gave U.S. ‘What We Deserve,’ Falwell Says,” Washington Post, September 14, 2001.
J. A. Dusek et al., “Genomic Counter-Stress Changes Induced by the Relaxation Response,” Plos One 3, no. 7 (2008), accessed November 1, 2010, http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0002576.
R. Chari et al., “Effect of Active Smoking on the Human Bronchial Epithelium Transcriptome,” BMC Genomics (2007), accessed November 1, 2010, http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471–2164/8/297
Author’s note: Smalley’s site (http://www.suesmalley.com/topics/mindfulness/) provides a good introduction to her work. Also see her collection of mindfulness meditation research at: http://www.mindfulexperience.org/publications.php)
S. L. Smalley, Fully Present: The Science, Art, and Practice of Mindfulness (Da Capo, Lifelong Books, 2010).
Patricia Fitzgerald, “What Inspired A Scientist to Open a Meditation Center at UCLA?” Huffington Post, July 15, 2009, accessed November 1, 2010, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-patricia-fitzgerald/what-inspired-a-scientist_b_228356.html
Author’s note: I find Hitchens’s comments on Buddhism particularly instructive in illustrating the degree to which the New Atheism can lead to throwing the baby out with the bathwater—dismissing spirituality along with dogmatic religion. Hitchens, in fact, said this of Buddhism in his own God Is Not Great: “Those who become bored by conventional ‘Bible’ religions, and seek ‘enlightenment’ by way of the dissolution of their own critical faculties into nirvana in any form, had better take a warning. They may think they are leaving the realm of despised materialism, but they are still being asked to put their reason to sleep, and to discard their minds along with their sandals” (p. 204).
David Adam, “Plan for Dalai Lama Lecture Angers Neuroscientists,” Guardian, July 27, 2005, accessed November 1, 2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/jul/27/research.highereducation
Gardiner Harris, “For N.I.H. Chief, Issues of Identity and Culture,” New York Times, October 5, 2009, accessed November 1, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/06/health/06nih.html
Andrew Brown, “Sam Harris and Francis Collins,” Andrew Brown’s blog, Guardian, August 2, 2009, accessed November 1, 2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/andrewbrown/2009/jul/31/religion-atheism-harris-collins-witchcraft
Jon Hamilton, “The Links Between the Dalai Lama and Neuroscience,” November 11, 2005, accessed November 1, 2010, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5008565
Marc Kaufman, “Dalai Lama Gives Talk on Science,” Washington Post, November 13, 2005, accessed November 1, 2010, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/12/AR2005111201080.html
CHAPTER 8: THE IMPOSSIBLE DREAM
T. E. Lawrence, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom (Wordsworth Editions, 1997): 7.
Most of the material here was gathered at the Lucidity Institute’s March 2010 workshop on the big island of Hilo, Hawaii.
J. Horgan, “Inception Is a Clunker, but Lucid Dreaming Is Cool,” Cross Check blog, Scientific American (August 2, 2010), accessed November 1, 2010, http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=inception-is-a-clunker-but-lucid-dr–2010–08–02
Stephanie Rosenbloom, “Living Your Dreams, in a Manner of Speaking,” New York Times, September 23, 2007, accessed November 1, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/16/fashion/16lucid.html
T. W. Rinpoche, The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep (Snow Lion Publications, 1998).
Aristotle, On Dreams, Part III, accessed November 1, 2010, http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/dreams.html
H. Saint-Denys, Dreams and How to Guide Them (trans., Duckworth, 1982).
C. M. Den Blanken, “An Historical View of Dreams and the Ways to Direct Them . . . ,” Lucidity Letter 7 (December 1988), accessed November 1, 2010, http://www.spiritwatch.ca/anhis.htm.
F. van Eeden, “A Study of Dreams,” Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 26 (1913), 431–61, accessed October 26, 2010, http://www.lucidity.com/vanEeden.html.
Stephen LaBerge and Howard Rheingold, Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming (Ballantine, 1990): 13–15 (lucid dreaming and waking life), 23–24 (effort to scientifically verify lucid dreaming), 27 (machines malfunction), 39 (unusual things in real life), 40 (reading as a state test, digital watch), 61–64 (testing the dream/waking states).
Jeff Warren, The Head Trip (Random House, 2007): 121–23, 213–15 (visualization studies, neuroplasticity).
S. LaBerge et al., “Lucid Dreaming Verified by Volitional Communication,” Perceptual and Motor Skills 52 (1981): 727–32.
Author’s note: LaBerge’s story of academic disinterest, or active suppression, was shared in Hawaii. I checked the PubMed database for myself in August 2010 and indeed, page after page of the 1981 issue in which LaBerge published his findings is available—but not his article.
Also, the informed reader should know that in the 1970s British researcher Keith Hearne was concurrently working with lucid dreamer Alan Worsley to establish the validity of the lucid dream.
R. Stephenson et al., “Prolonged Deprivation of Sleep-Like Rest Raises Metabolic Rate in the Pacific Beetle Cockroach,” Journal of Experimental Biology 210 (2007): 2540–47.
T. Yokogawa et al., “Characterization of Sleep in Zebrafish and Insomnia in Hypocretin Receptor Mutants,” PLoS Biol 5, no. 10 (October 2007).
T. L. Lee-Chiong, Sleep (Wiley-Liss, 2005): 13–16.
J. D. Payne, “Sleep, Dreams, and Memory Consolidation,” Learning and Memory, 11 (2004) 671–78.
R. D. Cartwright, “The Role of Sleep in Changing Our Minds: A Psychologist’s Discussion of Papers on Memory Reactivation and Consolidation in Sleep,” Learning and Memory 11 (November 2004): 660–63.
F. Crick, “The Function of Dream Sleep,” Nature Publishing Group 304, 5922, (1983): 111–14.
Daniel Williams, “While You Were Sleeping,” Time, April 5, 2007, accessed November 1, 2010, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1606872,00.html
Hara Estroff Marano, “Why We Dream,” Psychology Today (March 1, 2005), accessed October 26, 2010, http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200504/why-we-dream
Jim Horne, Sleepfaring (Oxford Univ. Press, 2007): 66–67, 182.
A. Revonuso, “The Reinterpretation of Dreams: An Evolutionary Hypothesis of the Function of Dreaming,” Behavioral and Brian Sciences 23,(2000): 677-901.
O. B. Ramsay and A. Rocke, “Kekulé’s Dreams: Separating the Fiction from the Fact,” Chemistry in Britain 20 (1984): 1093–94.
D. M. Locke, “The Putative Purity of Science,” Science as Writing (Yale Univ. Press, 1992): 133–66.
Paul Strathern, Mendeleyev’s Dream: The Quest for the Elements (Thomas Dunne Books, 2000): 285–92.
U. Weiss, R.A. Brown, “An Overlooked Parallel to Kekule’s Dream: The Discovery of the Chemical Transmission Of Nerve Impulses by Otto Loewi,” Journal of Chemical Education 64, no. 9 (1987): 770.
J. van Gijin, “Book Review: The Chemical Languages of the Nervous System: History of Scientists and Substances,” New England Journal of Medicine 355 (November 2006): 2266–67.
George K. York III, “Otto Loewi: Dream Inspires a Nobel-Winning Experiment on Neurotransmission,” Neurology Today 4, no. 12 (December 2004): 54–55.
S. Krippner et al., Extraordinary Dreams and How to Work with Them (State Univ. of New York Press, 2002): 24.
Mark Blagrove, “Scripts and the Structuralist Analysis of Dreams,” Dreaming: Journal of the Association for the Study of Dreams 2, no. 1 (March 1992): 23–38.
D. Barrett, “The ‘Committee of Sleep,’ ” Dreaming: Journal of the Association for the Study of Dreams 3, no. 2 (1993), accessed November 1, 2010, http://www.asdreams.org/journal/articles/barrett3–2.htm
D. Pick and L. Roper, Dreams and History (Routledge, 2004): 159–71.
D. Drabelle, “In Dreams Begin Discoveries,” Pennsylvania Gazette (January/February 2009), accessed November 1, 2010, http://www.upenn.edu/gazette/0109/feature3_1.html
Author’s note: Artists and writers and filmmakers long inspired by their dreams include auteurs like David Lynch and more mainstream, popular figures like Stephanie Meyer, who divined the story for Twilight from a dream. Paul McCartney dreamt the music that became “Yesterday,” and Keith Richards woke up with “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” in his head. Novels like The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde and Frankenstein also sprang directly from dreams.
CHAPTER 9: AFTER-DEATH COMMUNICATION?
William James, The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (Dover, 1956): 29–30.
Tom Lareau, Interview, January 2005.
Allan Botkin, Interviews, February 2005, August 2010.
“About Induced ADCs,” from Botkin’s own web site, makes the claim of providing IADCs to thousands, http://induced-adc.com/
Allan Botkin, Interview with George Noory, Coast to Coast A.M., October 27, 2004, http://www.coasttocoastam.com/show/2004/10/27. Accessed November 1, 2010.
F. Shapiro, EMDR (Basic Books, 1997): 8–10 (discovery), 26–28 (no understood mechanism), 5 (too good to be true), 91–92, 135–36 (information processing).
F. Shapiro, “Eye Movement Desensitization: A New Treatment for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder,” Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry 20, no. 3 (1989): 211–17.
R. T. Carroll, “Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR),” Skeptic’s Dictionary, accessed October 27, 2010, http://www.skepdic.com/emdr.html
F. Shapiro, “Efficacy of the Eye Movement Desensitization Procedure in the Treatment of Traumatic Memories,” Journal of Traumatic Stress Studies 2 (1989): 199–223.
A. Ehlers et al., “Do All Psychological Treatments Really Work the Same in Post-traumatic Stress Disorder?” Clinical Psychology Review 30, no. 2 (2010): 269–76.
Author’s note: Here is a by no means complete listing of studies attesting to EMDR’s effectiveness.
B. van der Kolk, “The Psychobiology and Psychopharmacology of PTSD,” Human Psychopharmacology: Clinical and Experimental 16 (2001): 49–64.
G. H. Seidler, “Comparing the Efficacy of EMDR and Trauma-Focused Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy in the Treatment of PTSD: A Meta-Analytic Study,” Psychological Medicine 36, no. 11 (2006): 1515–22.
R. Rodenburg, “Efficacy of EMDR in Children: A Meta-Analysis,” Clinical Psychology Review 29, no. 7 (November 2009): 599–606.
M. L. Van Etten, “Comparative Efficacy of Treatments for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: A Meta-Analysis,” Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy 5 (1998): 126–44.
C. M. Chemtob et al., “Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing,” Effective Treatments for PTSD: Practice Guidelines from the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (Guilford, 2009): 283–301.
“Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) Treatment for Psychologically Traumatized Individuals,” Effective Treatments for PTSD: Practice Guidelines from the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (Guilford, 2000): 333–35.
S. A. Wilson et al., “Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing,” Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 63 (1995): 928–37.
S. A. Wilson et al., “15-Month Follow-Up of Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) Treatment for Psychological Trauma,” Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 65, no. 6 (1997): 1047–56.
J. G. Carlson, “Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) Treatment for Combat-Related Posttraumatic Stress Disorder,” Journal of Traumatic Stress 11, no. 1 (January 2008): 3–24.
Robbie Dunton, EMDR Institute, Interview, November 2010.
A fuller listing of EMDR’s laurels can be obtained at the EMDR International Association web site: http://www.emdria.org/
Allan Botkin and R. Craig Hogan, Induced After-Death Communication (Hampton Roads, 2005): 10–15.
R. Stickgold, “EMDR: A Putative Neurobiological Mechanism of Action,” Journal of Clinical Psychology 58, no. 1 (2002): 61–75.
C. T. Smith, “Posttraining Increases in REM Sleep Intensity Implicate REM Sleep in Memory Processing and Provide a Biological Marker of Learning Potential,” Learning and Memory 6 (2004): 714–19.
Thomas Mellman, “REM Sleep and the Early Development of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder,” American Journal of Psychiatry 159 (October 2002): 1696–1701.
K. Lansing, et. al, “High-Resolution Brain SPECT Imaging and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing in Police Officers With PTSD,” Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences, 17, no. 4, (2005): 526–532.
P. Levin, P., et. al, “What psychological testing and neuroimaging tell us about the treatment of posttraumataic stress disorder by eye movement desensitization and reprocessing,” Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 13, no. 1–2 (1999): 159–172
B. van der Kolk, “The psychobiology of traumatic memory: Clinical implications of neuroimaging studies,” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 821 (1997): 99–113.
I interviewed six soldiers in one group and had individual interviews with three more. One soldier declined to have his last name published. Thanks to Jimmy Rivers, Pete Reed, Wendell Marks, Ramone Calderon, George, Mike Sylvia, Mike Dick, Paul Thomas, and Tom Lareau.
Induced After-Death Communications, under “Trained Therapists Available Today” at http://induced-adc.com/
The IADC therapists I interviewed included Katelynn Daniles, Greg Rimoldi, and Hania Stromberg, Ph.D.
Bessel van der Kolk, Interview, March 2005.
As I was finishing this book, Botkin said he has found a researcher who is interested in conducting a study on the effectiveness of IADC therapy.
Chapter 11: OUR TIME IN HELL
William James, “The Energies of Men,” first published in Science, no. 635 (1907): 321–32, accessed October 27, 2010, http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/James/energies.htm
Lucid Dreaming Workshop, March 2010.
Stephen LaBerge, Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming (Ballantine, 2004): 87.
Robert Waggoner, Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the Inner Self (Moment Point Press, 2009): 51–75, 158–59 (Keelin story).
“Conversation Between Stephen LaBerge and Paul Tholey in July of 1989.” Author’s note: This interview took place at the 1989 Association for the Study of Dreams (ASD) conference in London. This interview, available online, nicely illustrates LaBerge’s position that the other dream figures are in fact our own mental constructs (or at least there is no proof of their independence). Accessed October 27, 2010, http://www.futurehi.net/docs/Laberge_Tholey.html
Sam Harris, The End of Faith (Norton, 2004): 40–41.