Evidence for Psi

“Psi” is the term used by researchers for a variety of demonstrable but elusive psychic phenomena. This collection of essays provides a detailed survey of the evidence for psi at the level of scientific examination. Key features of apparent psi phenomena are reviewed, including precognition and remote perception (knowledge of future or distant events that cannot be inferred from present information), presentiment (physiological responses to stimuli that have not yet occurred), the effects of human emotions on globally dispersed machines, the possible impact of local sidereal time on psi performance, and the familiar feeling of knowing who is calling on the phone. Special attention is given to those phenomena that make it difficult for scientists to get a clear understanding of psi. The body of psi research, while complex and frustrating, is shown to contain sufficiently compelling positive evidence to convince the rational open-minded observer that psi is real, and that one or more physical processes probably underlie observed psi phenomena.

Damien Broderick is an Australian writer, editor and critical theorist, living in San Antonio, Texas.

Ben Goertzel is Chief Science Officer of Hong Kong financial prediction firm Aidyia Holdings, Chairman of Novamente LLC, a privately held software company, Vice Chairman of Humanity+, and Chairman of the OpenCog Foundation. He lives in Hong Kong.

Edited by Damien Broderick and Ben Goertzel

Format: softcover (7 x 10)
Pages: 332
Bibliographic Info: notes, bibliographies, index
Copyright Date: 2015
pISBN: 978-0-7864-7828-6
eISBN: 978-1-4766-1794-7
Imprint: McFarland

Preface 1
Introduction 3
The Significance of Statistics in ­Mind-Matter Research (Jessica Utts) 31
Physiological Activity That Seems to Anticipate Future Events (Julia A. Mossbridge) 52
Anomalous Anticipatory Skin Conductance Response to Acoustic Stimuli: Experimental Results and Speculation About a Mechanism (Edwin C. May, Tamás Paulinyi and Zoltán Vassy) 64
Revisiting the Ganzfeld ESP Debate: A Basic Review and Assessment (Bryan J. Williams) 77
Telepathy in Connection with Telephone Calls, Text Messages and E-Mails (Rupert Sheldrake) 93
Empirical Examinations of the Reported Abilities of a Psychic Claimant: A Review of Experiments and Explorations with Sean Harribance (Bryan J. Williams) 102
Assessing Psi Ability Via the Ball Selection Test: A Challenge for Psychometrics (Suitbert Ertel) 138
Through Time and Space: The Evidence for Remote Viewing (Stephan A. Schwartz) 168
The PEAR Laboratory: Explorations and Observations (York Dobyns) 213
The Global Consciousness Project: Subtle Interconnections and Correlations in Random Data (Roger D. Nelson) 237
An Analysis of the Global Consciousness Project (Peter A. Bancel) 255
Psi and the Environment: Local Sidereal Time and Geomagnetic Effects (S. James P. Spottiswoode) 278
Skeptical Responses to Psi Research (Ted Goertzel and Ben Goertzel) 291
The Future of Psi Research (Damien Broderick and Ben Goertzel) 302
About the Contributors 319
Index 321

• “the contributions in the book, moreover, are selected from among the best…and it shows…as I had many worthwhile insights while reading it. If someone asks me, therefore, to scientifically justify my ‘hobby’ in psi research, I would feel confident lending them a copy of Evidence for Psi, in the knowledge that it will represent me…and my reasons for taking psi seriously…better than I ever could”—Journal of Parapsychology
• “it deserves to be on the bookshelf of every parapsychologist…essential…strongly recommended”—Journal of the Society for Psychical Research
• “As science advances, the lines between fantasy and fact can bend and sometimes break. Pay attention while a line is bending and you can gain startling glimpses into whole new realms of discovery. Broderick and Goertzel have been paying attention.”— Dean Radin, Chief Scientist, Institute of Noetic Sciences