The ESP Enigma

Book excerpt: Dr. Diane Powell, a nationally prominent Johns Hopkins-trained neuropsychiatrist and former clinical instructor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, examines the evidence for many types of psychic phenomena, from telepathy and precognition to psychokinesis, and finds several well-designed and rigorously supervised studies that prove the existence of some psychic phenomena. This raises the important question: how is this possible? Proven psychic phenomena don't fit into science's old model for the brain. Dr. Powell proposes a revolutionary model of the brain and the mind. Consciousness may have properties similar to those of an energy field in physics. A field is defined as "a disturbance or condition in space that has the potential of producing a force," much the way a magnetic field polarizes iron filings into a predictable pattern around it. That and other aspects of her new paradigm for consciousness would explain how the mind of a mystic or psychic could have an organizational effect on the physical world. Tests have shown that basically everyone has certain measurable psychic abilities-such as experiencing a psychic connection with a loved one-but the fact that psychic abilities are stronger among prodigies, autistic savants, some people who are bipolar or have suffered certain brain injuries has led to brain-imaging and other research that can explain which parts of the brain are dominant in psychics and mystics. The ESP Enigma is grounded in decades of reliable scientific research, establishing a common ground among psi believers and skeptics.