The scientific case for psychic phenomena

Diane Hennacy Powell is a practicing psychiatrist and researcher. She is currently studying autistic savants, who have abilities similar to psychic phenomena. Both savants and psychics experience patterns of anomalous knowing that cannot be explained by the modern paradigm that consciousness is simply the result of brain activity.

She writes: “I find joy in integrating information across these scientific disciplines, both in search of solutions for patients, and to build evidence-based theories to explain conundrums that mystify us. While in San Diego I co-created and directed The McCandless Center for Women, a program treating survivors of sexual assault, and was the first psychiatrist for Survivors of Torture, International.”* 

Powell does not claim to have had an NDE, but in The ESP Enigma she does include the following observation and memory: “Time perception also is altered when we come close to death. I directly observed this when I almost drowned at the age of thirteen in a canoe accident. The passage of time seemed to slow down shortly after I stopped struggling against the river’s current and resigned myself to dying. At the same time my entire life passed rapidly through my mind.” Certainly, this experience shares some of the characteristics that NDE survivors report.

Powell begins her book, The ESP Enigma, with another memory at the age of thirteen: “From twenty feet across the room, the magician read, word for word, the contents of any book that I randomly chose from among hundreds on the bookshelves. There were no mirrors behind me, and I knew that these books belonged to my friend, not the magician. Even if he had memorized all of the books, he would also have needed exceptional luck to guess which pages I chose. There was no rational explanation at the time for what I observed, but it fostered a deep, abiding curiosity.”

“My interest,” she writes, “led me to study neuroscience in college and specialize in neuropsychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. While on the faculty at Harvard Medical School, I encountered a patient who claimed to be psychic. She then told me several accurate details about my life and made specific predictions about my future, all of which eventually came true. So, I decided to systematically investigate psychic phenomena. And over the past twenty years I have gained invaluable insight from patients who shared details of their psychic experiences.”

* “Meet Dr. Powell,” http://dianehennacypowell.com/meet-dr-powell/

Diane Hennacy Powell, The ESP Enigma: The Scientific Case for Psychic Phenomena (Walker Publishing Company, 2009).