SCHWARTZREPORT

Kuhn, Consciousness, and Paradigms

| Stephan A. Schwartz |
The Schwartzreport tracks emerging beliefs, although it is incorporated saying that those who are drawn to
trends that will affect the world, anthropologically as Shamanism has science and who become scientists are
particularly the United States. For been in the West. a special community dedicated to sol-
EXPLORE it focuses on matters of I have been involved with this transi- ving certain very restricted and self-
health in the broadest sense of that
tion for almost half a century, smiling defined problems whose relevance is
term, including medical issues, changes
in the biosphere, technology, and policy and leaning toward a world view that defined by a world view or paradigm.
considerations, all of which will shape incorporates consciousness. As the pro- Paradigms are, as Kuhn argues, abso-
our culture and our lives. cess has gone along what I have found lutely essential to science, although ulti-
most interesting, yet least noted in much mately they become self-limiting.

S
omething very profound is hap- of the academic discussion is that the Without the set boundaries provided
pening in science, something transition, is as much a cultural move- by the paradigm, no observation has
not seen in more than a century ment as a scientific one. any greater importance or weight than
is occurring: the paradigm of No one understands this better than any other. Without this differentiation
science is changing. Consciousness, par- the late Thomas Kuhn, M.Taylor Pyne western science is impossible. The ben-
ticularly nonlocal non-physiological Professor of Philosophy and History of efit it confers is that with boundaries
consciousness, is becoming mainstream. Science of the Princeton University comes depth, and with depth comes
The world view of materialism is increas- and, later, Laurence S. Rockefeller Pro- detail.
ingly inconsistent with the reported fessor of Philosophy at MIT. His 1962 The narrowness of this definition
experimental data in a spectrum of dis- exegesis, The Structure of Scientific Revolu- increases as a science matures and man-
ciplines, as any search of PubMed, Aca- tions, is arguably the most important ifests itself in increased subspecializa-
demia.edu, or Researchgate will quickly book about the history and philosophy tion; one is not simply a chemist but
reveal. I think it is time to retire the of science ever written. an organic chemist. It should be obvious
limitation and go where the data goes. Today there is hardly a college offer- then, to quote Kuhn again, that “one of
I believe materialism did not arise ing a course in the history and philoso- the reasons why normal science seems to
from scientific findings but was the phy of science that does not cover his progress so rapidly is that its practi-
result of a science culture that formed book. In it he lays out the nature of the tioners concentrate on problems that
as a result of the pronouncements of the interactive relationship between science only their own lack of ingenuity should
Council of Trent (1545–1563), the prin- and culture very clearly, and the role this keep them from solving… intrinsic value
cipal one being a prohibition against interaction has in the development of is no criterion for a puzzle, the assured
science studying “spirit,” which is to say scientific understanding. existence of a solution is”.4
consciousness, on pain of death. It is a Kuhn begins by saying, “The develop- This efficiency in puzzle solving col-
taboo that lasted for centuries, and for mental process [of science] has been an lectively is “normal science.” Obviously,
more than three centuries it tortured and evolution from primitive beginnings—a this normal science is accumulative, but
killed. An unknown but large number of process whose successive stages are char- does it also seek the Copernican leaps,
doctors, scientists, herbalists, particularly acterized by an increasingly detailed and the insights that will change the course
village herbal women, philosophers, refined understanding of nature. But of history? No, it specifically does not.
alchemists and others were tortured nothing… makes it a process of evolu- Normal science, in fact, is specifically
and killed, often by being burnt alive. I tion toward anything. Does it really help not interested in the very thing it is
have described this elsewhere in these to imagine that there is some one full, popularly supposed to be obsessed with
pages.1 Materialism is a self-imposed objective, true account of nature and that doing.
limitation not a scientific absolute. the proper measure of scientific achieve- The reality is that the efficient solu-
There is nothing in science that ment is the extent to which it brings us tion of problems requires an agreed-
precludes consciousness being studied closer to that ultimate goal?… The entire upon limit to what is attempted. To
like anything else, and there is much to process may have occurred as we now reach such an agreement—the paradigm
urge that it should be studied. In non- suppose biological evolution did without —demands a special kind of education,
Christian countries like China, benefit of a set goal, a permanent fixed one that does not so much teach the
consciousness has always been and scientific truth of which each stage in the student about “truth” as condition the
remains a part of science. In China development of scientific knowledge is aspirant, through the academic degree
religion has been stripped of any power [an improved] exemplar”.2 stages of initiation, into a commonly
in government, and so the study of He then goes on to describe, accu- shared body of experience. Anthropolo-
consciousness is not burdened by its rately, I think, the culture of science, gically, socially, it is not much different

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from initiation through man or woman- of nonscientist. Even the most promi- of original work, the form has other
hood shamanic ceremonies into an nent can be destroyed when a critical tasks. Textbooks are currently the main
Amazonian healing cult. Like their collegial consensus emerges against processing mechanism used to condi-
non-technological Amazonian cousins, them. While they may be performing tion aspiring scientists. It is essentially
fledgling scientists conclude such an scientifically such tasks as measuring pedagogical propaganda, and for this
education only after demonstrating their accurately or experimenting and record- reason textbooks are molded to a very
competence, in this case through exam- ing results carefully, if their basic pre- specific pattern. They report only the
inations and papers, showing that they mise lies outside of the paradigm, what research that supports the paradigm and
have learned what enterprise, and only they are doing is not science. The critical its normal science techniques; rarely are
what enterprise, is supported by their difference is paradigm, and history is alternative explanations of reality and
group's world view. replete with researchers and clinicians the research that produced those expla-
But achieving this acceptance always whose careers were ruined or stunted nations presented.
and everywhere comes at a cost. For the when they threatened the prevailing The findings concerning alternative
modern scientist it requires the accep- worldview. Revolutionary advances and medicine or even nutrition, for example,
tance of some fundamental compro- normal science are often socially incom- until recently had almost no place in
mises, not the least of which is a patible, and to pursue radical lines modern medical training and were trea-
highly selective presentation of the past. requires real professional bravery. ted only slightingly, if at all, in medical
For example, few young PhDs in physics How a scientist communicates his text books.
today would know of Newton's interest research to others is also worth consider- Textbooks fail to address the full
in alchemy. Yet it was from that interest ing. Until well into the twentieth cen- complex of developments which led to
and context that much of modern tury scientists usually presented their present understanding. Textbooks also
mathematics and physics sprang, and it major findings in books issued to the help in another aspect of initiation. As
was the perspective from which Newton public, lay and scientist alike, and it is a the paradigm-achieved sciences have
viewed his work. popular myth that they still do so. The matured, one sign of their maturity has
Western science has very little relevant fact is, however, that the days of Dar- been the development of a jargon
past, excepting the careers of the tea- win's The Origin of the Species, or New- which, anthropologically, functions
chers of those now practicing and per- ton's Philosophiae Naturalis and Principia much like a sacred language. Like sacred
haps their teachers, except for those Mathematica are over. One development languages everywhere, it is often incom-
specifically interested the history and which characterized twentieth century prehensible to anyone outside the para-
philosophies of science. If a science's science was that ideas and propositions digm, even though the material itself might
paradigm has changed, past research, were communicated to peers not by not be. It is a point which is not lessened,
particularly if it operated under the ear- books but through papers, seminars, even as one acknowledges the impor-
lier rules, is unscience by definition. professional journals and, increasingly, tance of jargon in stopping incorrect
Under the terms of the present para- internet discussion groups and electro- theory building, and respects the signifi-
digms of science alchemy, Newton's nic journals. cance of compressed notation in scien-
sovereign fascination is nonsense. The If one must publish to survive, papers tific communications.
only thing the past has to offer are the which vary from the paradigm stand How does the paradigm-achievement
laws or rules that have crossed the little or no chance of being published, process occur? After a period in which a
borders separating one world view from and professional survival becomes pro- variety of points-of-view compete, cer-
another; and these can be expressed in blematic. In recent years this has meant tain theories begin to draw adherents
their most condensed form since the that those interested in nonlocal infor- and schools (of thought) are formed.
context in which the researcher who mational interactions, as well as other Gradually, this phase gives way to a next
formulated them lived, or the philoso- fields such as chaos physics, or for many stage of development where one school
phy that motivated him, is of no interest years discussions of Bell's Theorem, “gains status” by being more successful
or help to a present-day investigator. either circulated never-to-be-published in solving what the discipline has set up
Also, because a paradigm is a world-view “pre-publications” or wrote a non-para- as its most acutely pressing tasks. This
specific to a discipline, anyone outside digm book which, by its form, was does not mean that this school’s theory
of that paradigm-attained discipline is a suspect. Practically, this meant either and techniques are more “truthful” or
layman. An MD is no more a member limited circulation, or the risk of loss that they can solve all problems. It only
than is a plumber of the paradigm of standing. The fact that in the social means that the school is more efficient
community of astrophysicists. sciences, books debating philosophy and successful at solving the critical
To seek the discovery of new phe- and publicly proposing new theories problems in question. Indeed, since by
nomena unaccounted for by the para- are still being written is an indication definition a paradigm is a set of bound-
digm, or to attempt the theoretical that here the paradigm-achieving process aries, the victorious school and its the-
ground its discovery leads to, threatens continues. ories are only designed to solve a
the paradigm, functionally a synonym All this does not mean that books selected, and limited, list of puzzles.
for science. A researcher engaged in have no place in science, for they most Once a view has proved successful,
threatening activities is practicing anti- definitely do. If the book is no longer the school it represents draws adherents
science and is soon isolated to the status the primary vehicle for the presentation from the other schools until a kind of

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critical mass is achieved. At this point It made a strong impression on me teacher named Cayetano Ripoli, who
one set of theories predominates and and from that day forward I have pre- was garroted for teaching Deism to his
becomes the entire discipline’s para- ferred instead, nonlocal consciousness, class in Spain in 1826. But change was
digm. Obviously, though, not all mem- that aspect of consciousness that is non- coming.
bers of a discipline accept the dictates of physiologically based. The term was Just 56 years later the interest in what
the dominant school; some have a coined in 1981 by physician and today we would call nonlocal conscious-
vested interest in their alternative the- researcher Larry Dossey, and I think it ness had reached a sufficient critical
ories. What happens to them? If they is descriptively accurate. Also useful I mass that in the UK, a group of physi-
persist in clinging to their now “unscien- think are, nonlocal awareness, nonlocal cists, philosophers, psychologists, and
tific” views, they are drummed out of a perception and perturbation. clerics decided that science could and
community increasingly uninterested in And these terms are gaining currency. should study consciousness and the
what they have to say. Why? Perhaps because Planck’s dictum experiential phenomena so universally
Having achieved paradigm, a disci- that “consciousness is the fundamental” reported across the span of human
pline becomes a science and begins to is gaining ever widening acceptance in a history. In 1882 the Society for Psychical
practice what Kuhn calls “normal spectrum of sciences from biology to Research was formed for that explicit
science.” At this plateau, as he points medicine to physics. purpose. Two years, later in 1884, the
out rather harshly in my view, “The An interdisciplinary collegiality of American Society for Psychical
scientific enterprise as a whole does from men and women interested in what has Research. In France, Germany, and other
time to time prove useful, opens up new come to be called Postmaterial Science is countries over the last years of the nine-
territory, displays order, and tests long- taking form; the founding of the Acad- teenth, and the early years of the 20th
accepted belief. Nevertheless, the indivi- emy for the Advancement of Postma- century, similar societies were founded.
dual engaged on a normal research pro- terialist Sciences, announced in this And all of this paralleled the develop-
blem is almost never doing any one of journal, and the Society for Conscious- ment of psychology and psychiatry. Two
these things [emphasis Kuhn]”.2 He ness Studies, in both of which, in full streams of consciousness research and
finds himself instead working from a disclosure I am involved, constitute the clinical practice emerged. One centered
different motivation, the desire to latest manifestations of this emergence. on mental and emotional processes the
demonstrate that he is capable of The impulse behind the trend is not other focused on what today we would
solving a problem within the paradigm to replace the insights of materialism, or call non-local consciousness. This
that no one has ever solved before, or the rigor of protocol and analysis, sim- schism occurred, I think, because mate-
has not solved as elegantly. Kuhn ply to include consciousness as funda- rialism was still the dominant paradigm.
says, “On most occasions any particular mental. A seed crystal has formed From the beginning, though, there has
field of specialization offers nothing around which a community holding a been a lot of cross-over between these
else to do, a fact that makes it no less more comprehensive view can coalesce. communities. Psychologist and philoso-
fascinating to the proper sort of addict…. Of course there have always been pher Williams James, whose book Vari-
Scientists normally [do not] aim to individuals in science who considered eties of Religious Experience, first published
invent new theories, and they are often consciousness appropriate for scientific in 1902 and still read and respected
intolerant of those invented by others”.3 inquiry. In the 17th century the French today, comes to mind from those early
In the late 1970s, after interviewing Academy of Science tested the dowsing years. As does Adolf Bastian’s theory
Kuhn several times on the phone, I skills of uber-peasant Jacques Aymar.4 Elementargedanke, which morphed into
drove up to Princeton and spent an Newton was as interested in alchemy as Carl Jung’s Collective Unconscious,
afternoon with him. As we talked about he was gravity. Benjamin Franklin and then into Joseph Campbell’s
what blocked consciousness research was the first person in the modern Mono-myth. But it has not been the
from greater acceptance, Kuhn surprised sense to explicitly study a non-local dominant paradigm for either psychol-
me by saying he felt the sociology of task, the healing power of Mesmer's ogy or psychiatry. the Council of Trent
science was closely akin to a priesthood, “animal magnetism.” In designing his Taboo against science studying con-
and growing more so as the materialist methodology he also invented the sciousness still obtains.
paradigm was threatened. He advised me blind protocol, and became the first Kuhn makes an important distinction
to consider the language of parapsychol- parapsychologist.5 between a science and a discipline that is
ogy as a limitation not a strength, But these individuals however famous also relevant here. A group may call
because he felt technical terms were some of them became are still outliers. themselves by a name and society may
one of the ways a scientist demonstrated Because of the Council of Trent (1545- come to acknowledge both their name
(s)he was a member of the tribe, or 1563) which resulted in the Roman and their mission, but this acceptance
revealed s(he) was not. Structure goes Catholic Church taking for itself all does not make their practice a science.
into this at some length. He felt the matters involving "spirit," read con- To become a discipline is a social
terms of parapsychology, psi, psychic, sciousness, upon risk of death the social phenomenon, not a scientific one. The
anomalous, telepathy, etc. all tended to reality up until the 19th century was to thing that differentiates a discipline
make the field a pariah, because no one abjure the study of consciousness. How from a science is paradigm. A discipline
outside of parapsychology used such powerful was this interdiction? The last is either paradigm-aspiring or paradigm-
terms. man killed by the Inquisition was a achieved—at which point it attains the

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status of a science. The difference three others began the interdisciplinary religion, and superficially it would seem
between these states is not trivial, and International Society for the Study of that nonlocal consciousness events
one of the central obstacles against the Subtle Energies and Energy Medicine should be of pre-eminent interest. They
acceptance of consciousness research is (ISSEEM). Based on a single mailing of constitute the most broadly experienced
that in Kuhnian terms, consciousness approximately 8500 names in the mystery for which the culture seeks an
research as a field is more discipline research community, within 12 weeks explanation, because at sometime in
than science. approximately 1200 scientists and clin- their lives almost everyone has experi-
In 1969, after an impassioned chal- icians from a wide range of disciplines, enced deja vu, had a precognitive dream,
lenge issued to the mainstream by 55% of whom held PhDs or MDs, or a premonition that came true. It is
anthropologist Margaret Meade, that responded with an application for mem- this larger cultural context which gives
the American Association for the bership. All of these organizations, with these issues an importance extending
Advancement of Science admitted the the exception of ISSEEM, today are beyond the boundaries of the science
Parapsychology Association as a section, thriving with robust memberships, news- or any one discipline. Conversely, it is
and parapsychology could be truly said letters, websites, journals, and regular this universality and social context
to have entered the greater community conferences. which gives these phenomena their
of science. At the same time researchers, includ- unique place in the culture. The mys-
In the early 1970s anthropology was ing Professors Jessica Utts of the Uni- teries of subatomic particles are of great
riven with controversy over the disserta- versity of California—Irvine, Richard interest to scientists, and of enormous
tion of a young anthropologist at the Bierman of the University of Amster- importance, but average men and
University of California—Berkeley, dam, Dean Radin at the Institute of women are not confronted with them
Carlos Castenada. The orthodoxy of Noetic Sciences, Patrizio Tressoldi of in their normal lives as they are with
the day saw shamanism as a tribal form the Università di Padova, Roger Nelson altered states of consciousness and the
in which some individuals, or families of Princeton, Edwin May for many years froward phenomena called psi.
became powerful through the manipula- head of the SRI/SAIC laboratory, and Where, then, does an Einstein, a
tion of tribal rituals and beliefs. Caste- James Spottiswoode, have essentially Newton, and, in a slightly different
nada offered a radically different view: created a sub-specialty in mathematics way, a Jung come from? And how does
that shamans were people who through carrying out post-experiment analyses an extraordinary researcher's work,
the rituals—read protocols—of the sha- of studies, seeking to understand the which is genuinely radical and not sim-
manic path entered genuine altered nature and functioning of nonlocal ply an extension of normal science, get
states of consciousness where therapeu- consciousness. into the mainstream? The answer is that
tic intention and nonlocal perception Across the world it has become stan- the seed of innovation lies within the
were possible. It was a view supported in dard for laboratories doing this research dynamic of normal science. There is a
psychology by Charles Tart who in 1972 to have Institutional Review Boards to kind of Metamorphosis Mechanism
published in Science, a now classic paper assure methodological rigor. Several stu- contained within the very being of a
arguing much the same thesis.6 dies have also shown that double and paradigm.
Over the last half century that view triple blind protocols are used more Since it is by nature narrow and rigid
has substantively altered anthropology’s often in parapsychology than any other —and this should not be construed as a
worldview. This dispute was what led a branch of science.7,8 pejorative description because the vast
medical anthropologist, Joseph Long There are also now more than a dozen bulk of research could be practiced in no
and myself to apply for and receive working ad hoc computer network other way—normal science always pro-
approval from the American Anthropo- groups and discussion groups of scien- duces anomalies in the course of its
logical Association to hold the Rhine- tists and clinicians exploring topics from work, and as it proceeds inevitably to
Swanton Symposium on Parapsychol- meta-analysis to the psychotherapeutics reach its boundaries the encounters with
ogy and Anthropology at that year's of experienced anomalous trauma. Indis- anomalies increase. The reason is simple:
annual meetings. While we were in putably there is interest among a broad before paradigm is achieved, clearly
Mexico City, helped by Norman Emer- base of well-trained men and women nothing can be anomalous; after para-
son, father of Canadian Archeology, and who are willing to devote at least some digm, a great deal will be. As the limits
chairman of the Department of Anthro- of their professional time to these efforts of paradigm are reached, what lies
pology at the University of Toronto we and the networks which have evolved to beyond is that much closer.
created what 45 years later has became serve this commitment. By any calibra- Normal science, however, abhors
The Society for the Anthropology of tion, although materialism is still the anomalies since they are not tailored to
Consciousness, a section of the Amer- dominant paradigm the social evidence the scheme by which it defines the
ican Anthropological Association. suggests that the materialist paradigm is universe. At first, then, anomalies are
In 1982, an interdisciplinary group going into crisis, exactly as Kuhn ignored on the assumption that later
organized largely by physicists, but described. normal science research will deal
including researchers from other disci- The idealized compact science has with them when either instrumentation
plines started the independent Society with society is the promise to explain or theory articulation, or both, are
for Scientific Exploration. In 1989, I and without bias, politics, ideology, or improved. If this does not happen,

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an attempt is made to extend the happens the rigid restrictions that have scientific merit but also (and this is
endangered theory in the hope that an dominated normal science go slack almost never admitted even when it is
extension of the paradigm's accepted because researchers in the community recognized) on faith in a particular
propositions will bring the anomalies become less dogmatic and secure in senior.
back into the fold. what dogmatism does remain. This inse- One other source can produce revolu-
In the beginning of a paradigm's life- curity is reflected in the papers and tionary innovators. Occasionally,
span better instrumentation or theory seminars that normally reinforce the researchers from one paradigm group
extension does eliminate most of the community's perception of itself and find themselves attracted to puzzles that
anomalies by making them conform; what it can and cannot do. Books appear have primary significance for another
some, though, will not conform, no again as major vectors of communica- group. Because they are not fully condi-
matter how artful the experiment or tion. Debates on the philosophic foun- tioned to the paradigm of this field and
ingenious the development of the origi- dation of the community take place—an have less vested interest in its mainte-
nal premise. Most scientists are happy to activity that is almost nonexistent in nance, these investigators function very
leave these anomalies in a state of limbo. the normal science period, since a much like juniors; but they have a great
Everyone knows they are out there, steady-state philosophy is taken to be a mastery of research skills. Extraordinary
lurking on the edges of the paradigm given. advances are often the result of this
like hungry beasts around a campfire, Most of all, crisis allows the reexami- interdisciplinary contact. Consider the
but scientists assume, mostly correctly, nation of problems that were formerly impact on archeology and anthropology
that most problems can still be con- assumed to be either unsolved or that resulted from the development, by
tained within the paradigm, and so for a unscientific. To do this, what Kuhn calls two researchers from outside of those
time at least normal science continues, “extraordinary research” is begun. This fields, of Carbon-14 dating by Frank
and the paradigm provides a reasonably research, as in the pre-paradigm period, Libby, a professor of chemistry, who
secure framework. begins to cause fragmentation and then won the Noble Prize in 1960 for his
However, as normal-science research a reassertion of schools. discovery, and the dendrochronological
continues to get closer to the edge of the When this stage is reached, two seg- correction, developed by Charles Fergu-
“known” it pushes so intensely, and with ments of the community become its son, which followed.
such specific focus, that its explorations critical practitioners: the most senior Regardless of whether the innovators
produce just the opposite effect from and the most junior. The latter are are juniors or investigators from other
that desired. Not only does such important because they will probably paradigms, however, the final result is
research fail to strengthen the paradigm, be the ones to engage in the extraordin- the same. Gradually, as in the prepar-
which was its original purpose, but it ary, indeed, revolutionary, research that adigm days, one school emerges
produces still more anomalies. Ironi- will relieve crisis. They have been in the supreme, the world is redefined, a new
cally, at the end of the paradigm's life- community the shortest length of time, paradigm is established, extraordinary
span the better the instrumentation the have the smallest vested interest in the research is suppressed as “unscientific,”
more intractable the challenge presented past way of doing business, and are most and normal science can begin “the mop-
by anomalies. These begin to cluster open to alternate perceptions. As Max ping up operations [that] are what
until so many exist that not only theory Planck so famously put it, “A new engage most scientists throughout their
but the paradigm itself is called into scientific truth does not triumph by careers”.2 Revolution is over and the
question. When this happens, the convincing its opponents and making cycle begins again. And although to an
science enters a state of crisis from which them see the light, but rather because its outsider it may appear that things are
there is no turning back. opponents die and a new generation much the same (and they are in the sense
There is extraordinary resistance in the grows up that is familiar with it”.9 that the same words in most cases are still
scientific trenches to this final phase—in The seniors are important for another used and many of the old solutions are
an individual it might be called denial. different reason. The fact that extraor- still valid), there has been the most
Scientists hate crisis even more than dinary research can articulate a new fundamental change possible. The world
anomalies. Researchers delay retooling paradigm does not mean that it has of that scientific community has
as long as they can, since it is expensive, solved all the puzzles that its formula- profoundly altered; its universe, and how
involves much aggravation, and threa- tion represents. By definition it cannot, that universe operates, is radically different.
tens careers and hard-won status. Para- since that more mundane task lies within The change is not without price,
digm crisis is the last stage in a process of the domain of normal, not extraordinary, however, because one of the first orders
scientific death. When it becomes irre- science. Consequently, although juniors of business under the new paradigm is
sistible, and the limits of the paradigm’s may make the breakthroughs, it is the the rewriting of all the textbooks, and
lifespan are acknowledged by a critical graybeards around whom the emerging the obliteration of much of the past and
consensus of its practitioners, several crisis schools will form. Because there many reputations; revolutions are there-
significant events take place. are few answers and only new puzzles, fore invisible except as highly distorted
First, the perception of the universe practitioners within the community hero-worshiping of a select few past
espoused and represented by the para- align themselves with new theories not researchers—many of whom are the very
digm begins to go out of focus. As this only on the basis of intellectual people who caused the paradigm

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change. Ironically, they are presented To achieve these three goals certain the past had not recorded the exact date
not as revolutionaries, men and women strategies seem required as well as certain and time at which they carried out their
who tore an earlier world apart, but tactics flowing from those strategies. experiments—even though, at the time,
simply as evolutionary practitioners The first strategy is identifying and the information was of only marginal
whose vision made science's knowledge acknowledging anticipated criticism; significance to them.
move more rapidly forward—but still in rather than shying from criticism we Second, include a careful description
the same channel. It may be pleasant should see it as a guide to the potholes of the people who are associated with
and good for morale that paleontolo- on our road. the occurrence of these phenomena, as
gists, for instance, trace their profes- The second strategy is the incorpora- well as those who may be affected by
sional genealogy back through the 20th tion of critical considerations into pro- them. Who are they? What do they
century Kenya-born Englishman Louis tocol design, and discussion through think is happening? How do they
S.B. Leakey, to the 18th century French- peer-review of what those critical con- explain what they are subjectively experi-
man Georges Cuvier, to the 15th cen- siderations are. Interdisciplinary peer- encing? If they see themselves as active
tury Italian Leonardo da Vinci, to the assistance, prior to a study’s execution, agents of the phenomenon, from which
sixth-century B.C. Greek, Archelaus, I believe, is the key to developing tradition, if any, do they come; in what
assuming an unbroken continuum of experimental protocols and hypotheses context do they place themselves? To
research. But this is a fiction made that will withstand all but the most the degree that one can do so, a com-
possible only by distorted hindsight. In ideologically based criticism leveled at plete picture of all human factors ought
truth, these men operated either under researchers working in the area of anom- to be a standard procedure in this kind
no paradigm or under radically different alous phenomena of research. We must also recognize and
paradigms. The only valid continuum is If we incorporate and work within the report everything we can concerning the
that they each represent an attempt to dynamic tension that exists not only full spectrum of researcher/participant
solve similar puzzles in the context of among our disciplines and sciences, the interactions, because we know now that
their own age. synthesis coming out of such research observer and latency effects play a
With this as background, how do we, will give us levels of insight that might powerful role.10 We are only at the
as parapsychological experimentalists otherwise be unattainable. The great test threshold of understanding the full
and theorists interested in these anom- that we, as parapsychologists, will face, is nature of these exchanges, and we must
alous regions of science chart our the successful resolution of our dynamic always be conscious of the possibility
course? First, we must recognize that tension. What happens if it is not that there may be operative channels of
we are in the paradigm-attaining phase. successfully resolved? Organizations informational and energetic interaction
This is not a time for delusions of schism. We have an opportunity here of which we are not now aware. The
certainty. Our principal challenge is the to learn from past experiences, to offer development of the DAT argument by
issue of mechanism. We can measure and incorporate those strategies that lead Edwin May, Jessica Utts, and James
effects but we cannot explain how they to really excellent experimental work. If I Spottiswoode illustrates this very
are achieved. We do not even know were asked to advise the kind of inter- clearly.11 One can never know, in the
whether there is one mechanism or disciplinary research team I envisage, my beginning, when one first enters terra
several. Second, there is no universally principal suggestions beyond those incognita, what will prove to be
accepted theory about what we are try- points I have already made would be: significant in the end.
ing to do; third, we do not all agree on First, pay attention to all possible The only way we can meet the
what constitutes the significant facts. variables, even those that seem irrelevant demands of those who will come after
To complete the process of establish- or seem to be assumed. It cannot be us is to give them the gift of accurate
ing a new paradigm, here are the tasks I over-stressed in looking at nonlocal con- and comprehensive reportage, even
see that lie before us: sciousness phenomena, that you record when it does not seem to make any
everything you can quantify. For sense or to be relevant. It is amazing if
• Determination of what the significant instance, recent insights into the effect you go back through the literature in
facts are. The reality is that we do not of geomagnetic field strength on human this field, how difficult it is to figure out
know what all the significant facts are, performance, beginning with the work exactly what people did when they
in some cases we may not know any of of Laurentia University's Michael Per- carried out their research. What was that
the significant facts. singer, and carried on by Dean Radin, piece of equipment they used? Exactly
• Development of competent working James Spottiswoode, Edwin May, and what model, with what modifications?
theories that can be tested through others, suggest a massive confounding Who was in the room?
competent experimentation. variable may not be properly accounted Third, as soon as—but not before—
• Matching facts with theory. If there is for not only in parapsychological experi- an avenue of research has proven its
common acceptance here, we can ments, but in all experiments affected by worth, I would urge the development
move out over our agreed upon play- psychophysical variations. And the of common procedures, consistent pro-
ing ground. If facts are not acknowl- Local Sideral Time (LST) effect pro- cedures, something which is common in
edged as matching theory, then the posed by Spottiswoode after meticulous more mainstream arenas of science, but
cycle of searching for the match must examination of past data sets would not as prevalent in the anomalous world
begin again. have been impossible if researchers in we study. One of the most significant

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tools in anomalous research to emerge communication is possible except puzzle, enabling its components to be
recently is the retrospective meta-analy- through the defined five senses; and seen in a new way that for the first time
sis: the capacity to look across many (4) consciousness dwells entirely within permits its solution.”13 To someone
laboratories, many clinics working in a the time/space continuum. interested in the field of non-local
worthwhile, that is, theory enlightening Western science in its present form informational interactions this wording
avenue of research and say, “overall, this can be practiced because it accepts these is virtually identical to the reports they
is what this line of experimentation has world perceptions; without them, it have received from percipients such as
produced.” We are deeply indebted to could still be science, but not as most healers or remote viewers.14
few in our field, notably Roger Nelson, scientists accept it today. Essentially, all Kuhn is also willing—since the evi-
Dean Radin, Jessica Utts, and the late sciences which accept the limitation of a dence is so great that it cannot be denied
Chuck Honorton, for their pioneering metaparadigm are, in aggregate, that —to invoke the inspiration of dreams,
work in this arena. Such analyses as they metaparadigm's normal science. Under although how this actually works
carried out are immeasurably more diffi- the rules, then, by which the metapar- he does not venture to say. In fact, he
cult, with less confidence in the end adigm's normal science is practiced, seems so uncomfortable with the
product, when consistent and common although specific techniques may vary moment of genius that he makes only
procedures are not present. from discipline to discipline, it is always one speculation on the nonintellectual
Finally, let me touch on a critical presumed that: (1) the researcher and the aspect of puzzle solving. He notes, “No
consensus so pervasive and powerful experiment can be isolated from affect- ordinary sense of the term ‘interpreta-
that for most of us it is taken as a given; ing each other except in controlled and tion’ fits these flashes of intuition
the tacit understanding which lies at the understood ways; and (2) since the through which a new paradigm is born.
core of all sciences—for by now it experiment exists in a time-space con- Though such intuitions depend upon the
should be clear that science is not one tinuum, the conditions under which it is experience, both anomalous and congruent,
thing, but many—as well as the culture carried out can be duplicated and the gained with the old paradigm, they are not
which is their collective context. While experiment replicated by any other logically or piecemeal linked to particular
each discipline which has achieved the researcher if it is valid. items of that experience as an interpretation
status of science has a world view dis- All of this, the common techniques, would be [emphasis added].”1
tinctly its own, chemists varying slightly the various levels of the collective, the What makes these key figures revolu-
from biologists and so forth, there is also fundamental assumptions which often tionaries, then, is not just the quality of
what might be called the Metaparadigm. go unspoken, seem to irresistibly argue their work. They are also revolutionaries
For although each science has apartness, for what I will call the myth of gradual- because of the source, mechanism
it also shares certain primary assump- ism; the idea of gradual incremental unknown, from which their information
tions with all the other disciplines that change. Yet both that myth and the derives. At the deepest level the process
recognize one another as having attained materialism its supports are refuted by by which the information is obtained is
paradigm level. the undeniable reality of scientific as revolutionary as the information
There is an entire hierarchy of science, change, and how it actually comes itself.
one that begins with the individual about. Those individuals who produce However, it would be a mistake to see
researcher; goes on to the school (some- extraordinary research do so not by force intellectual excellence and intuitive
times literally the institution with which of intellect or will alone, although these insight as the only criteria for success
the researcher is affiliated); then to a are important, but because they have as a “paradigm shifter.” A careful analysis
discipline; then a paradigm-achieved had, as they explicitly report, insights of the process also suggests that some
discipline (or science); finally, a multi- arising from nonlocal consciousness at kind of inter-connectedness between
science community made up of the the same time that there was a crisis. breakthrough researchers and their peer
disciplines that have achieved paradigm It is on this point that most commen- communities is involved, a kind of
and share in a metaparadigm. tators describing the development of interactive collective awareness that
Each level of membership in the scientific breakthroughs are uncomforta- comprises the critical consensus. When
greater whole implies agreement on sev- bly silent. John Mihalasky invokes intui- this consensus is absent even brilliance
eral critical assumptions, and like the tion as an overt explanation, but can be ignored. Nowhere is this more
Mobius strip, the paradoxical twist is tentatively,12 and Kuhn notes only that clearly illustrated than in the work of
that the metaparadigm is at once the it represents a change in gestalt, a change geneticist Barbara McClintock who
pinnacle and the base of this consensus. in “beingness.” “Normal science,” he showed us how part of evolution worked
In the case of the current metaparadigm says, “ultimately leads only to the but it took three decades before every-
—which, because it is the scientific recognition of anomalies and to crises. body else could understood what she
expression of materialism, I will call And these are terminated not by had seen, and why it was so important,
the Grand Material Metaparadigm—there deliberation and interpretation, but by resulting in her belatedly being awarded
are at least four of these critical assump- a relatively sudden and unstructured the Nobel Prize.15
tions relevant to this analysis. They are: event like a gestalt switch. Scientists As Gunther Stent demonstrates, if an
(1) the mind is solely the result of then often speak of the ‘scales falling intuitive researcher is premature, no
physiological processes; (2) each con- from the eyes’ or of the “lightning flash” matter how great the insight, the
sciousness is a discreet entity; (3) no that “inundates” a previously obscure response of peers is indifference at best,

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and martyrdom at worst.16 Only when How we respond to the task of prov- 10. Schwartz S, Dossey L. Nonlocality, inten-
intuition and crisis are correctly ing—or disproving—these ideas will tion, and observer effects in healing
juxtaposed can the necessary change in determine whether this area of science studies. Explore 2010 Sep-Oct;6(5):295-
gestalt occur. I believe we are seeing the is, in fact, on its cutting edge or its 307. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.explore.
2010.06.011.
first stages of this process at the fringe. Being cognizant of the process of
11. May E, Utts J, Spottiswoode SJ.
metaparadigm level. If I am correct, scientific development as we do so will Decision augmentation theory: appli-
how might this new metaparadigm be help us make insightful choices, and a cations to the random number generator
defined? What kind of world view will it new paradigm will emerge. database. J Sci Explor. 1995;9:453–488.
represent? What contributions can we 12. American Society of Mechanical Engi-
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