Is The SPR Serious About Being Even Handed?

Professor Bernard Carr, to his credit, seems to be doing his best to maintain a balance between conflicting factions of the Society for Psychical Research. The scepticism of some members is so strong as to be totally obstructive and has to be set against that of members looking for explanations of psi as real phenomena. However, he makes one statement in his reply in PN dated March 17 which needs a response: it shows some proof is needed that the SPR really is attempting to be even-handed. Action speaks louder than words.

He states that the journal of the SPR (of which he is President) is not appropriate for cosmological issues "even if they do have implications for psi". This seems to indicate his intention of keeping quantum physics and psychic matters in separate boxes so that they cannot influence one another. This has been the attitude of mainline physicists all along and is an anathema to us.

Most physicists fear the paranormal. The very prominent physicist, Professor Stephen Weinberg, for example, said on TV that if Professor Jahn of Princeton University proved psychokinesis true, by the experiments he was doing, it would discredit all science from Newton onwards. He then used this to justify Jahn's demotion from Dean to Associate. This illustrates the prevailing attitude: one which will discredit science right across the board if no change appears very soon.

Theorists are searching for a 'Theory of Everything' and yet deliberately ignore the major factor: that psi phenomena suggest that something else must exist behind the universe of matter. The paper which is our main bone of contention, one that the SPR refused to consider, showed that solutions to two outstanding problems in cosmology appeared in a manner which brought psi phenomena within the compass of physics. It also showed consciousness could be immortal since mind appeared as part of a background structure.

Mainline physicists insist that mind is mere brain function and dies with the brain.

Since then the SPR has published its exciting and comprehensive 'Scole Report'. This provides scientifically validated evidence that consciousness survives death. The SPR therefore needs to back this up by looking for a quantum compatible theoretical explanation.

I submit, therefore, that for progress to be ensured it is essential that cosmology be integrated with the research the SPR is already pursuing. The SPR refused my paper on grounds that it needed to first appear in a scientific journal because the expertise needed for its assessment did not exist within the SPR. This condition is now satisfied since the paper has been fully peer reviewed and published in the Spring/Summer 1997 issue of 'Frontier Perspectives' under the title, 'Consciousness as a Sub-Quantum Phenomenon'. Is the SPR now prepared to prove its claim of having no corporate policy by publication of this approach ?

Related material on this site:

SPR President Responds - Letter from Bernard Carr, written on March 17, 2001, on the subject of censorship and the Society for Psychical Research.

"Consciousness as a Sub-quantum Phenomenon" - Ronald Pearson's paper

Published in the journal Frontier Perspectives, Temple University, Philadelphia, USA. Volume 6. No. 2, Spring/Summer 1997 (pp70-78). ISSN: 1062-4767

Why the World Needs Physical Mediumship Right Now! - Letter from Ronald Pearson to Psychic News (November 6, 2002)