From history's dawn, people of all cultures have found forceful, but entirely anecdotal, evidence of links between our minds and the material world--from the evil eye to ESP, from clairvoyance to poltergeists. Dean Radin and a few other pioneering scientists have at last amassed irrefutable data that support the anecdotes and place us on the edge of whay may well be the next scientific revolution.

This myth-shattering book explains the evidence for the veracity of psychic phenomena, uniting the teachings of mystics, the theories of quantum physics, and the latest in high-tech experiments. With painstaking research and deft, engaging prose, Radin dispels the misinformation and superstition that have clouded the understanding of scientists and laypeople alike concerning a host of fascinating oddities. Psychokinesis, remote viewing, prayer, jinx, and more--all are real, all have been scientifically proven, and the proof is in these pages.

Radin draws from his own work at Princeton, Stanford Research Institute, and Fortune 500 companies, as well as his research for the U.S. government, to demonstrate the surprising extent to which the truth of psi has already been tacitly acknowledged and exploited. As The Conscious Universe details, such no-nonsense entities as Sony, Contel, and the U.S. Army have delved into, and benefited from, psychic forces. He then examines why the scientific establishment still pooh-poohs psi for reasons that have nothing to do with the weight of new evidence and everything to do with the institutionalized prejudices of scientists themselves. The Conscious Universe also sifts the data for tantalizing hints of how mind and matter are linked. Though the link defies the laws of classical physics, it may heel closely to the basic precepts of quantum mechanics. Finally, Radin takes a bold look ahead, to the inevitable social, economic, academic, and spiritual consequence of the mass realization that mind and matter can influence each other without having physical contact.

 Telepathy is the capability of direct communication between two minds.

Early telepathy experiments involved special cards which were sent and received by human participants. Over four million test were conducted with collective results significantly more successful than chance, but it was difficult to separate out the effects from telepathy (mind-to-mind) and clairvoyance (perception at a distance).

450 dream-telepathy experiments were conducted between 1996 and 1973, testing the ability of a person to send target pictures which would enter the dreams of a second person. An overall hit rate of 63% (against 50% pure chance rate) was achieved with a small 95% confidence interval.

2549 ganzfeld telepathy experiments were conducted from 1975 to 1997, where the receiver of a picture or video was tested under sensory-deprivation conditions. A 33.2% hit rate was achieved (against 25% pure chance rate) with a very small 95% confidence interval.

These scientific tests indicate that some unknown mechanism permits the mind of one person to occasionally transmit information to another person, a phenomena often reported by individuals under uncontrolled conditions.

Remote viewing is the capability to perceive aspects of a remote scene.

From 1973 to 1993, over 160 remote viewing experiments were conducted in several research organizations and the correct remote target was selected at a rate greatly exceeding that of chance. Performance of talented remote viewers was much better than that of unselected volunteers. Results were generally independent of the distance involved. The U.S. Government spent about $20 million in remote viewing research and tasking, and many participants have reported spectacular individual results with important operational implications in viewing remote scenes.

These scientific and operational results indicate that some unknown mechanism allows the mind of one person to occasionally perceive details of a visual scene elsewhere on or beyond earth.

Precognition is the capability to perceive events before they occur.

An analysis was conducted of over 250 experiments conducted from 1935 to 1987 where a person would attempt to predict the next occurrence of a target object in a sequence, such as a random number. Selected participants who were told of the results after each trial did much better than those that were unselected and who received no feedback. In separate experiments where a random sequence of two different kinds of pictures were shown, and subject physiological measurements continuously taken, a clear anticipatory response was seen distinguishing between "calm" or "emotional" pictures before the picture was shown.

These scientific tests indicate that some unknown mechanism allows the mind of a person to occasionally predict future events.

 Psychokinesis is the capability of one mind to directly induce an observable effect on a physical object.

In a meta-analysis conducted in 1989, some 2.6 million dice-throws were analyzed, where a person was trying to will the dice to produce a given number. A hit rate of 52.1% was achieved, compared to a normalized 50% result. Though small, this difference represents odds against chance of more than a billion to one. A similar analysis was also performed in 1989 of a random noise generator which would produce a random series of "0's" and "1's" and the test subject would attempt to affect the relative ratio of this numbers. A hit rate of 51% (where 50% represented pure chance) was achieved.

These scientific tests indicate that some unknown mechanism allows the mind of a person to directly affect the actions of a physical object, although the amount of this induced behavior is small.

 A wide variety of evidence exists that one's mind can influence one's own body's biologic behavior. To study influencing someone else's, about 20 tests were analyzed in 1997 of subjects who were concentrating (on an "on-off" basis) on another person located at some distance away and attempting to modify their skin conductivity. A hit rate of about 53% was achieved, compared with 50% for chance, resulting in odds of 1.4 million to one that the effects observed were not due to chance. A similar study, only involving one person staring at another from time to time and using a one-way video system, resulted in a 63% hit rate of people feeling that they were being stared at, versus 50% for chance, and odds of 3.8 million to one against chance. This of course deals with a phenomena which is widely reported by individuals in social situations.

These scientific tests indicate that some unknown mechanism allows the mind of a person to occasionally induce physical changes or perceived effects on another person located remotely.

 Field consciousness is a hypothesis that a continuum of non-local intelligence, permeating space and time, is created by the focus of multiple minds on a single event.

Experiments have shown that changes in the output of a random noise generator can be correlated with group attention on such events as the Academy Awards, a comedy show, announcement of the O.J. Simpson trial results, and the superbowl game. This correlation is greater than chance by factors which can exceed 100 to one.

These scientific tests indicate that some unknown mechanism allows collective focus by many humans to induce changes in a physical object.

Establishing the reality of psychic phenomena does not establish the reality of the afterlife. Just the same, it is valuable to understand that scientific studies described in this book have proven that the physics of the 3-dimensional world in which we live are incomplete and cannot account for many ways in which human minds, singly and collectively, have been shown to transcend space and time. Central mechanisms of life in the spirit world, such as (1) communication between spirits and between spirits and humans by telepathy, (2) sensing environments instantaneously across great distances, and (3) ability to view past, present and future events simultaneously, are found to have their counterparts--albeit rudimentary--in the capabilities of the human mind shown in this work.