Brains can't explain NDEs and medium research

"Other evidence challenging the materialistic assumption of mind-as-brain," physicist Dean Radin writes, "comes from studies of near-death experience (NDE) and mediums,. In the first case, most orthodox interpretations of NDEs are explained as side effects of a failing brain (Greyson et al., 2012).

"Those explanations are countered by the remarkable vividness and long-lasting memories associated with NDEs, as opposed to the vague memories and dulled cognition associated with brains starved for oxygen (Greyson, 2013). In addition, NDEs can result in dramatic and positive personality changes; this is not the case for those afflicted with hallucinations caused by brain damage (Greyson, 1993).

"When all of the pro versus con arguments are judged, the preponderance of the evidence suggests that the NDE represents an unusual state of awareness that transcends current models of brain functioning (Khanna & Greyson, 2014).

"In the case of mediums, double and triple-blind controlled experiments have shown that mediums can obtain verifiably correct information about their clients (Beischel et al., 2015; Kelly & Arcangel, 2011; Delorme et al., 2013). Such experiments are designed to eliminate all known biases and information leakage paths, including any form of direct or indirect contact between the mediums and the clients. Mediums interpret the information they receive as from coming from the deceased, which may or may not be so, but the fact that the information is correct beyond chance expectation raises a problem for brain-based explanations.

The accumulated evidence in favor of the existence of psychic abilities was already persuasive to many academics in the 1950s. But by the second decade of the 21st century, the weight of evidence has become overwhelming to all but the most entrenched skeptics.

Dean Radin, “Reductive Materialism Explains Everything, Except for Two Small Clouds,” Beauregard, Mario; Dyer, Natalie; Woollacott, Marjorie, editors. Expanding Science: Visions of a Postmaterialist Paradigm, (p. 327-341). AAPS. Kindle Edition.

Beischel, J., Boccuzzi, M., Biuso, M., & Rock, A. J. (2015). “Anomalous information reception by research mediums under blinded conditions II: Replication and extension.” Explore (NY), 11 (2), 136-142.

Delorme, A. Beischel, J., Michel, L., Boccuzzi, M., Radin, D., & Mills, P. J. (2013). “Electrocortical activity associated with subjective communication with the deceased.” Frontiers in Psychology, 4, 834.

Greyson, B., Holden, J. M. & van Lommel, P. (2012).  “There is nothing paranormal about near- death experiences.” Trends in Cognitive Science, 16 (9), 445; author reply 446.

Greyson, B. (2013). Greyson, B. (2013). “Getting comfortable with near death experiences: An overview of near-death experiences.” Missouri Med, 110 (6), 475-481.

Greyson, B. (1993). “Varieties of near-death experience.” Psychiatry, 56 (4), 390-399.

Kelly, E. W., & Arcangel, D. (2011). “An investigation of mediums who claim to give information about deceased persons.” J Nerv Ment Dis, 199 (1), 11-17.

Khanna, S. & Greyson, B. (2014). “Near-death experiences and spiritual well-being.” J Relig Health, 53 (6), 1605-1615.

Conscious awareness is fundamental

Physicist Dean Radin writes: "If the paradigm of reductive materialism does not easily accommodate the multiple challenges of consciousness, then what paradigm would? We need a structure of knowledge that does little to no violence to reductive materialism, and yet does allow for, and even predicts, the various consciousness anomalies. I believe there is such a structure, and surprisingly it only requires an adjustment to a single assumption—from consciousness as an epiphenomenon of brain activity to fundamental.

"To illustrate why this relatively simple shift in assumption is compatible with the existing scientific paradigm, imagine knowledge as a pyramid. The bottom layer of the pyramid is, in accordance with a materialistic doctrine, physics. Above that is chemistry, then biology, neuroscience, and psychology at the top. Somewhere in the upper tier of this pyramid conscious awareness is said to magically appear. Reductive materialism assumes that phenomena that naturally fall within each layer of the pyramid permeate all layers above it, but often by being absorbed into and emerging into new forms. Thus, electrons are of central importance in physics, but they also exist in new, more complex structures in chemistry, biology, neuroscience, and so on. Within this paradigm, understanding how conscious awareness can be anything other than brain activity is nearly impossible.

"While quantum physics, which is located at the very bottom of the physics layer, allows for nonlocal connections and events that take place outside of spacetime, that that layer is relevant to brain processing is currently a highly contentious idea. As quantum biology matures, perhaps processes that support a “quantum brain” will be found, and that will open a crack toward the idea of nonlocal forms of consciousness. In turn, nonlocal consciousness will lessen the anomalous status of the consciousness clouds.

"But a quantum brain still has a problem: it fails to account for qualia. This is why an increasing number of scientists and scholars are beginning to embrace ideas like panpsychism, neutral monism, or idealism. Within those frameworks, conscious awareness does not arise or emerge from lower levels; it just is.

"And in that spirit, imagine our existing knowledge pyramid placed on a new bottom layer. Let us call that layer awareness. This is imagined to be a primordial “substance” that is prior to—i.e. it transcends—spacetime, energy and matter. Physics as we know it, including quantum physics, emerges from this awareness layer, so the power of reductionist explanations remains intact. And just as electrons permeate all layers above physics, consciousness would permeate all levels about itself.

"From this perspective, genius, savants, and survival and psychic phenomena all begin to make sense because the one feature they all share is a means by which consciousness transcends spacetime. The way that consciousness manifests at each layer in the pyramid differs depending on how it is included in ever-increasing complexity and structures, just like electrons. But its essential nature—awareness unbound by spacetime constraints—remains.

"An important feature of this revised knowledge pyramid is that all existing scientific disciplines remain intact. There is no need to throw away any textbooks because within each layer all previously vetted information is still completely valid. We have a new underlying metaphysical assumption upon which everything sits, but for most practical purposes existing disciplinary knowledge will not need to radically change. Indeed, the primary change would be the accommodation of effects that are otherwise excluded because of the assumption that physics, rather than awareness, is the foundation on which science rests. This model is compatible with all mystical and esoteric traditions (Huxley, 1972). It provides a path for bridging science and spirituality."

Dean Radin, “Reductive Materialism Explains Everything, Except for Two Small Clouds,” Beauregard, Mario; Dyer, Natalie; Woollacott, Marjorie, editors. Expanding Science: Visions of a Postmaterialist Paradigm, (p. 327-341). AAPS. Kindle Edition.

Huxley, A. (1972). The perennial philosophy. Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries Press.

Minds that materialism cannot explain

Physicist Dean Radin writes: No one who studies the lives and works of Mozart, da Vinci, Copernicus, Shakespeare, Einstein, or Ramanujan can doubt that genius is real, if rare. Of the estimated 100 billion humans who have ever lived, every now and then someone comes along whose talent is so prodigious that it literally reshapes the course of civilization. The challenge presented by genius is to imagine how the mind, viewed solely as an aspect of brain processing, could generate world-changing mathematical theorems, breakthrough scientific ideas, hypercreative inventions, masterwork books and musical compositions, etc., apparently arising out of the blue, often unbidden, and fully formed (Schwartz, 2010b; Heilman, 2016). If such ideas arose once in a person’s lifetime, perhaps we might dismiss them as a fluke. But true genius is a persistent fount of paradigm-shattering creativity, and that is not easily accommodated by current views of the mind as identical to the operations of a brain that is strictly limited to ideas it has already absorbed (Lingg & Frank, 1973; Pandey, 2001)." 

"Autistic savants have little to no social skills and very low IQs, and yet they display supernormal capacities of memory, musical talent, artistic talent, or lightning fast mathematical or calendar calculations (Dossey, 2012; Cowan & Frith, 2009; Welling, 1994). The Academy Award-winning 1988 movie Rain Man was based partially on the life of savant Kim Peek, who among other things could correctly and instantly recall every word of the estimated 12,000 books he had read. Psychiatrist Darold Treffert, discussing autistic savants, wrote that 'Kim Peek possesses one of the most extraordinary memories ever recorded. Until we can explain his abilities, we cannot pretend to understand human cognition.'  

"Treffert described the case of Leslie Lemke, who 'is blind, severely cognitively impaired and has cerebral palsy. Yet he played back Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 flawlessly after hearing it for the first time at age 14.' (Treffert, 2010, p. 288) If one were to test normally healthy pianists who had not previously heard this concerto, it is safe to say that precisely none of them would be able to do this.

"Treffert also described the even stranger phenomenon of what he termed 'acquired savants,' in which, as the result of an accident, a normal person suddenly gains savant skills. As an example, he offered the following case: ‘A 54-year-old surgeon gets struck by lightning, which he survives. After several weeks of mild memory impairment, he develops an obsessive interest in classical music, which was not present pre-incident. He learns to play the piano but has a recurrent, intrusive, unrelenting tune in his head, which he subsequently transcribes into a major sonata; he now performs professionally. His medical skills remain unaffected’ (Treffert, 2010, p. 330)."

"One theory about autistic savants has been proposed by Allan Snyder (Gobet et al., 2014). He proposes that the brain is essentially a filter that actively reduces the 'blooming, buzzing, confusion' of the external world into a few understandable concepts and objects based on one’s prior experience (James, 1890, p. 462)."

Dean Radin, “Reductive Materialism Explains Everything, Except for Two Small Clouds,” Beauregard, Mario; Dyer, Natalie; Woollacott, Marjorie, editors. Expanding Science: Visions of a Postmaterialist Paradigm, (p. 327-341). AAPS. Kindle Edition. 

Cowan, R. & Frith, C. (2009). Do calendrical savants use calculation to answer date questions? A functional magnetic resonance imaging study. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci, 364 (1522), 1417-1424.

Delorme, A. Beischel, J., Michel, L., Boccuzzi, M., Radin, D., & Mills, P. J. (2013). “Electrocortical activity associated with subjective communication with the deceased.” Frontiers in Psychology, 4, 834.

Dossey, L. (2012). Fractals and the mind. Explore (NY) 8 (4), 213-217.

Gobet, F., Snyder, A., Bossomaier, T. &. Harre, M. (2014).  Designing a “better” brain: insights from experts and savants. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 470.

Heilman, K. M. (2016). Jews, creativity and the genius of disobedience. J Relig Health,  55, pages 341–349.

James, W. (1890). The principles of psychology. New York City: Henry Holt and Company.

Lingg, A. M. & Frank, H.  (1973). Mozart, genius of harmony. Port Washington, N.Y: Kennikat Press.

Pandey, S. N. (2001). Millennium perspectives on A.K. Ramanujan. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers & Distributors.

Schwartz, S. (2010). Nonlocality and exceptional experiences: a study of genius, religious epiphany, and the psychic. Explore, 6, 227-236.

Treffert, D. A. (2010). Islands of genius: The bountiful mind of the autistic, acquired, and sudden savant. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

Welling, H. (1994). Prime number identification in idiots savants: Can they calculate them? J Autism Dev Disord, 24 (2), 199-207.

A river of intelligence supports mind and body

Deepak Chopra in Quantum Healing: Exploring the Frontiers of Mind/Body Medicine asserts as facts verified by current scientific research that:

“Mind comes before matter. Mental choices originate the messages that change organs, tissues, and cells.”

“The body is fluid and dynamic, not fixed and determined. Genes express whatever a person desires. They operate through switches that the mind can access.”

“The mind-body system is a feedback loop where input and output have many determinants, including lifestyle, environment, behavior, beliefs, and past conditioning. Through self-care, a higher state of wellbeing is attainable. Self-care makes daily use of the mind-body feedback loop.”

Chopra reminds us that the materials that make up our body are constantly changing.

“Ninety-eight percent of the atoms in your body were not there a year ago. The skeleton that seems so solid was not there three months ago.”

“The skin is new every month. You have a new stomach lining every four days, with the actual surface cells that contact food being renewed every five minutes.”

“Even within the brain, whose cells are not replaced once they die, the content of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and so on is totally different today from a year ago.”

Chopra also reminds us that our eyes are not cameras. What we see is actually the result of our mind-brain activity. Photons that transmit light are colorless and invisible. We create the color and intensity of our world.

“Light’s brightness and color, along with everything else we perceive, come from ‘conscious agents,’ a term coined by the farseeing cognitive scientist Donald Hoffmann of the University of California, Irvine. He proposes that the only reality we can know is the reality created by consciousness. If there is anything that is real but beyond the human mind, then it won’t be accessible.”

Life, Chopra says, “is intelligence riding everywhere on chemicals.” And despite appearing to be different, “mind and body are both soaked through with intelligence. The material body is a river of atoms, the mind is a river of thought, and what holds them together is a river of intelligence.”

“With thousands of chemicals on its shelf, a cell has not only to choose some, mix them together, and analyze the results. It has to make the chemicals in the first place, finding thousands of ways to create new molecules out of basically a handful of elements—carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen. To do that requires a mind.”

Deepak Chopra, Quantum Healing: Exploring the Frontiers of Mind/Body Medicine, revised and updated (Bantam Books, 1989 and 2015), 47-48, 77-79, 100, 121-123.

Consciousness transcends materiality and death

Dutch cardiologist Pim van Lommel writes: “It is quite interesting to mention that the assumption that our brain acts as a transceiver and not as a producer of consciousness is in striking concurrence with the view that was expressed over one century ago. Already in 1898, the psychologist William James wrote that the brain’s role in the experience of consciousness is not a productive, but a permissive or transmissive role; that is, it admits or transmits information.

“In his view, consciousness does not originate in this physical world, but already exists in another, transcendental sphere; access to aspects of consciousness depends on the personal ‘threshold of consciousness,’ which for some people is lower than for others, and which allows them to experience various aspects of enhanced consciousness.

“James draws on abnormal experiences of consciousness to support his theory: ‘The whole drift of my education goes to persuade me that the world of our present consciousness is only one out of many worlds of consciousness that exist, and that those other worlds must contain experiences which have a meaning for our life also.’

“James also stated: ‘The total expression of human experience, as I view it objectively, invincibly urges me beyond the narrow scientific bounds,” and he also writes about ‘the continuity of consciousness’ after physical death."

Van Lommel quotes Sir James H. Jeans (1877-1946), English physicist, astronomist, and mathematician, as affirming: “I incline to the idealistic theory that consciousness is fundamental, and that the material universe is derivative from consciousness, not consciousness from the material universe."

And van Lommel notes that Henri Bergson (1859-1941), French philosopher and Nobel prize winner for literature in 1927, asserted: “The more we become accustomed to this idea of a consciousness which overflows the organ we call the brain, then the more natural and probable we find the hypothesis that the soul survives the body.”

Pim Van Lommel, “Near-Death Experience and the Loss of Brain Function During Cardiac Arrest: A Strong Indication for Non-Local Consciousness,” in Beauregard, Mario; Dyer, Natalie; Woollacott, Marjorie, editors, Expanding Science: Visions of a Postmaterialist Paradigm. AAPS. Kindle Edition. (p. 254). AAPS. Kindle Edition.

Bergson, H. (1914, September 27). Quote from interview in The New York Times.

James, W. (1898) Human Immortality. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.

Healing only by intent and at any distance

Physician Larry Dossey reports in “The Telecebo Response: Toward a Postmaterial Concept of Healing” on the following experiment:  

“In 2009, Tsubono, Thomlinson, and Shealy conducted a randomized controlled trial that assessed the ability of a healer to relieve chronic pain. The researchers concluded, ‘The results showed that the treatment group was significantly improved compared to the control group even though both groups were kept blind to their group assignment. Moreover, many subjects in the treatment group were relieved of chronic pain after only two months of healing. This suggests that healing can take place even from a distance, and distant healing can be a very effective treatment for chronic pain’ (Tsubono et al., 2009).

Dossey describes this “healing with intent” as the “telecebo response,” which has “both kinship with, and difference from, the placebo response—kinship, in that both telecebo and placebo effects arise from intentions, thoughts, and emotions; difference, in that placebo responses arise from a patient, while telecebo effects originate from a clinician” or someone else trying to heal by focusing an intention.

“In addition to studies in humans, telecebo effects are further supported by a body of research known as DMILS—distant mental interactions with living systems. These experiments involve a wide variety of entities such as organs, tissues, microbes, plants, and animals. In these studies, individuals have used their intentions to influence the growth rates of bacteria and fungi in test tubes and Petri dishes, the rate of wound healing in mice, the healing of transplanted cancers in mice, the function of cells in tissue cultures, the germination rates of seeds, the growth rates of seedlings, and many other phenomena.

“In 10 controlled experiments, Bengston tested the effect of ‘healing with intent’ on laboratory mice. In eight of these experiments, mice were injected with mammary adenocarcinoma (breast cancer) cells. In two experiments, mice with methylcholanthrene-induced sarcomas were used. The fatality rate for both cancers in mice, if untreated, is 100%.

“The healers were faculty and student volunteers. Although they had no previous experience or belief in healing with intent and were often skeptical of such, they were drilled extensively in the healing technique. Treatment length was from 30 to 60 minutes, delivered daily to weekly until the mice were cured or died. They were successful in producing full cures in approximately 90% of the mice.

“When mammary adenocarcinoma cells were re-injected into cured mice, the cancer would not take, suggesting that an immune response had been stimulated during treatment. The proximity of the volunteer healers to the cages of the mice varied from on site to approximately 600 miles.

“Thus, Bengston notes, ‘These effects were at times brought about from a distance that defies conventional understanding,’ suggesting that a nonlocal process was at work. “This series of studies, conducted at several academic centers, suggests that healing through intent can be predictable, reliable, and replicable (Bengston, 2010, 2012; Bengston & Krinsley, 2000; Bengtson & Moga, 2007).

Telecebo effects “are examples of nonlocal phenomena because they demonstrate the three essential features that characterize all nonlocal happenings: they are unmediated (by any known form of energy), unmitigated (their strength does not diminish with increasing distance), and immediate (instantaneous) (Herbert, 1987; Markoff, 2015).

 

Larry Dossey, “The Telecebo Response: Toward a Postmaterial Concept of Healing,” in Beauregard, Mario; Dyer, Natalie; Woollacott, Marjorie, editors, Expanding Science: Visions of a Postmaterialist Paradigm, (p. 248). AAPS. Kindle Edition. The Academy for the Advancement of Postmaterialist Sciences (AAPS), Tucson, AZ, 2020), 221-228.

Bengston, W. (2010). The Energy Cure: Unraveling the Mystery of Hands-on Healing. Louisville, CO: Sounds True Publishing. 

Bengston, W. F. (2012). "Spirituality, connection, and healing with intent: reflections on cancer experiments on laboratory mice." In Miller, L. J. (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Psychology and Spirituality. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, pp. 548-577. 

Bengston, W. F., & Krinsley, D. (2000). "The effect of the laying-on of hands on transplanted breast cancer in mice." Journal of Scientific Exploration. 14(3), 353-364. 

Bengston, W. F., & Moga, M. (2007). "Resonance, placebo effects, and type II errors: some implications from healing research for experimental methods." Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, 13(3), 317-327.

Herbert, N. (1987). Quantum Reality. Garden City, NY: Anchor/Doubleday, p. 214.

Markoff, J. (2015). "Sorry, Einstein. Quantum study suggests ‘spooky action’ is real." Retrieved from: NYtimes.com.http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/22/science/quantum-theory-experiment-said-to-prove-spooky-interactions.html?emc=eta1. Accessed 22 October, 2015.

Tsubono, K., Thomlinson, P., & Shealy, N. (2009). "The effects of distant healing performed by a spiritual healer on chronic pain: A randomized controlled trial." Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine, 15 (3), 30-34.

Extraordinary Experiences: On Our Way Home

I begin my book by relating life-transforming experiences of scientists. After struck by lightning, surgeon Tony Cicoria heard music “from Heaven” and became a pianist to play it. Biophysicist Joyce Hawkes, after her near-death experience, heard a voice calling her to be a healer, studied with indigenous teachers, and became a cell-level healer. No longer agnostic, Cicoria and Hawkes now trust in the Source of life many call God. Some scientists, such as Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, and Steve Jobs, acknowledge extraordinary intuitive experiences revealing the secrets of nature. Other scientists report life-transforming healings, visions, and dreams. 
 
Stars, water, and life are natural phenomena but remain fundamental mysteries that may generate extraordinary human experiences. I explain why in chapters on Consciousness and Subjectivity, the Origin and Evolution of Life, a Creative Universe, Purpose and Meaning, Ethics and Ecology, and Nature and God.
 
These wondrous experiences offer evidence that we have come from and will return to an eternal dimension of reality, as unbounded by time and space as quantum reality. Some call it Heaven, the Other Side, or Cosmic Consciousness. Knowing this truth makes everyday life on earth extraordinary. And whether we know it or not, we are on our way home.
 
This is why I end the book by recognizing that the first line of the Lord’s Prayer is as compelling now as it was two millennia ago. Abba, may your kingdom come, may your will be done, on earth as in heaven. Abba is the Aramaic word for father that Jesus used, and Paul in his New Testament letters also refers to Abba. Source of all life and forgiving love, may we open our hearts to You during our extraordinary lives on earth. Amen.

 

Available in paperback ($8) and Kindle ($1) editions at https://www.amazon.com/Extraordinary-Experiences-Our-Way-Home/dp/B09JDX8ZLV/.