- Deep in the basement of a dusty university library in
Edinburgh lies a small black box, roughly the size of two cigarette packets
side by side, that churns out random numbers in an endless stream.
-
- At first glance it is an unremarkable piece of equipment.
Encased in metal, it contains at its heart a microchip no more complex
than the ones found in modern pocket calculators.
-
- But, according to a growing band of top scientists, this
box has quite extraordinary powers. It is, they claim, the 'eye' of a machine
that appears capable of peering into the future and predicting major world
events.
-
- The machine apparently sensed the September 11 attacks
on the World Trade Centre four hours before they happened - but in the
fevered mood of conspiracy theories of the time, the claims were swiftly
knocked back by sceptics. But last December, it also appeared to forewarn
of the Asian tsunami just before the deep sea earthquake that precipitated
the epic tragedy.
-
- Now, even the doubters are acknowledging that here is
a small box with apparently inexplicable powers.
-
- 'It's Earth-shattering stuff,' says Dr Roger Nelson,
emeritus researcher at Princeton University in the United States, who is
heading the research project behind the 'black box' phenomenon.
-
- 'We're very early on in the process of trying to figure
out what's going on here. At the moment we're stabbing in the dark.' Dr
Nelson's investigations, called the Global Consciousness Project, were
originally hosted by Princeton University and are centred on one of the
most extraordinary experiments of all time. Its aim is to detect whether
all of humanity shares a single subconscious mind that we can all tap into
without realising.
-
- And machines like the Edinburgh black box have thrown
up a tantalising possibility: that scientists may have unwittingly discovered
a way of predicting the future.
-
- Although many would consider the project's aims to be
little more than fools' gold, it has still attracted a roster of 75 respected
scientists from 41 different nations. Researchers from Princeton - where
Einstein spent much of his career - work alongside scientists from universities
in Britain, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Germany. The project is also
the most rigorous and longest-running investigation ever into the potential
powers of the paranormal.
-
- 'Very often paranormal phenomena evaporate if you study
them for long enough,' says physicist Dick Bierman of the University of
Amsterdam. 'But this is not happening with the Global Consciousness Project.
The effect is real. The only dispute is about what it means.' The project
has its roots in the extraordinary work of Professor Robert Jahn of Princeton
University during the late 1970s. He was one of the first modern scientists
to take paranormal phenomena seriously. Intrigued by such things as telepathy,
telekinesis - the supposed psychic power to move objects without the use
of physical force - and extrasensory perception, he was determined to study
the phenomena using the most up-to-date technology available.
-
- One of these new technologies was a humble-looking black
box known was a Random Event Generator (REG). This used computer technology
to generate two numbers - a one and a zero - in a totally random sequence,
rather like an electronic coin-flipper.
-
- The pattern of ones and noughts - 'heads' and 'tails'
as it were - could then be printed out as a graph. The laws of chance dictate
that the generators should churn out equal numbers of ones and zeros -
which would be represented by a nearly flat line on the graph. Any deviation
from this equal number shows up as a gently rising curve.
-
- During the late 1970s, Prof Jahn decided to investigate
whether the power of human thought alone could interfere in some way with
the machine's usual readings. He hauled strangers off the street and asked
them to concentrate their minds on his number generator. In effect, he
was asking them to try to make it flip more heads than tails.
-
- It was a preposterous idea at the time. The results,
however, were stunning and have never been satisfactorily explained.
-
- Again and again, entirely ordinary people proved that
their minds could influence the machine and produce significant fluctuations
on the graph, 'forcing it' to produce unequal numbers of 'heads' or 'tails'.
Loading AdDynamix...
-
- According to all of the known laws of science, this should
not have happened - but it did. And it kept on happening.
-
- Dr Nelson, also working at Princeton University, then
extended Prof Jahn's work by taking random number machines to group meditations,
which were very popular in America at the time. Again, the results were
eyepopping. The groups were collectively able to cause dramatic shifts
in the patterns of numbers.
-
- From then on, Dr Nelson was hooked.
-
- Using the internet, he connected up 40 random event generators
from all over the world to his laboratory computer in Princeton. These
ran constantly, day in day out, generating millions of different pieces
of data. Most of the time, the resulting graph on his computer looked more
or less like a flat line.
-
- But then on September 6, 1997, something quite extraordinary
happened: the graph shot upwards, recording a sudden and massive shift
in the number sequence as his machines around the world started reporting
huge deviations from the norm. The day was of historic importance for another
reason, too.
-
- For it was the same day that an estimated one billion
people around the world watched the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales
at Westminster Abbey.
-
- Dr Nelson was convinced that the two events must be related
in some way.
-
- Could he have detected a totally new phenomena? Could
the concentrated emotional outpouring of millions of people be able to
influence the output of his REGs. If so, how?
-
- Dr Nelson was at a loss to explain it.
-
- So, in 1998, he gathered together scientists from all
over the world to analyse his findings. They, too, were stumped and resolved
to extend and deepen the work of Prof Jahn and Dr Nelson. The Global Consciousness
Project was born.
-
- Since then, the project has expanded massively. A total
of 65 Eggs (as the generators have been named) in 41 countries have now
been recruited to act as the 'eyes' of the project.
-
- And the results have been startling and inexplicable
in equal measure.
-
- For during the course of the experiment, the Eggs have
'sensed' a whole series of major world events as they were happening, from
the Nato bombing of Yugoslavia to the Kursk submarine tragedy to America's
hung election of 2000.
-
- The Eggs also regularly detect huge global celebrations,
such as New Year's Eve.
-
- But the project threw up its greatest enigma on September
11, 2001.
-
- As the world stood still and watched the horror of the
terrorist attacks unfold across New York, something strange was happening
to the Eggs.
-
- Not only had they registered the attacks as they actually
happened, but the characteristic shift in the pattern of numbers had begun
four hours before the two planes even hit the Twin Towers.
-
- They had, it appeared, detected that an event of historic
importance was about to take place before the terrorists had even boarded
their fateful flights. The implications, not least for the West's security
services who constantly monitor electronic 'chatter', are clearly enormous.
-
- 'I knew then that we had a great deal of work ahead of
us,' says Dr Nelson.
-
- What could be happening? Was it a freak occurrence, perhaps?
-
- Apparently not. For in the closing weeks of December
last year, the machines went wild once more.
-
- Twenty-four hours later, an earthquake deep beneath the
Indian Ocean triggered the tsunami which devastated South-East Asia, and
claimed the lives of an estimated quarter of a million people.
-
- So could the Global Consciousness Project really be forecasting
the future?
-
- Cynics will quite rightly point out that there is always
some global event that could be used to 'explain' the times when the Egg
machines behaved erratically. After all, our world is full of wars, disasters
and terrorist outrages, as well as the occasional global celebration. Are
the scientists simply trying too hard to detect patterns in their raw data?
-
- The team behind the project insist not. They claim that
by using rigorous scientific techniques and powerful mathematics it is
possible to exclude any such random connections.
-
- 'We're perfectly willing to discover that we've made
mistakes,' says Dr Nelson. 'But we haven't been able to find any, and neither
has anyone else.
-
- Our data shows clearly that the chances of getting these
results by fluke are one million to one against.
-
- That's hugely significant.' But many remain sceptical.
-
- Professor Chris French, a psychologist and noted sceptic
at Goldsmiths College in London, says: 'The Global Consciousness Project
has generated some very intriguing results that cannot be readily dismissed.
I'm involved in similar work to see if we get the same results. We haven't
managed to do so yet but it's only an early experiment. The jury's still
out.' Strange as it may seem, though, there's nothing in the laws of physics
that precludes the possibility of foreseeing the future.
-
- It is possible - in theory - that time may not just move
forwards but backwards, too. And if time ebbs and flows like the tides
in the sea, it might just be possible to foretell major world events. We
would, in effect, be 'remembering' things that had taken place in our future.
-
- 'There's plenty of evidence that time may run backwards,'
says Prof Bierman at the University of Amsterdam.
-
- 'And if it's possible for it to happen in physics, then
it can happen in our minds, too.' In other words, Prof Bierman believes
that we are all capable of looking into the future, if only we could tap
into the hidden power of our minds. And there is a tantalising body of
evidence to support this theory.
-
- Dr John Hartwell, working at the University of Utrecht
in the Netherlands, was the first to uncover evidence that people could
sense the future. In the mid-1970s he hooked people up to hospital scanning
machines so that he could study their brainwave patterns.
-
- He began by showing them a sequence of provocative cartoon
drawings.
-
- When the pictures were shown, the machines registered
the subject's brainwaves as they reacted strongly to the images before
them. This was to be expected.
-
- Far less easy to explain was the fact that in many cases,
these dramatic patterns began to register a few seconds before each of
the pictures were even flashed up.
-
- It was as though Dr Hartwell's case studies were somehow
seeing into the future, and detecting when the next shocking image would
be shown next.
-
- It was extraordinary - and seemingly inexplicable.
-
- But it was to be another 15 years before anyone else
took Dr Hartwell's work further when Dean Radin, a researcher working in
America, connected people up to a machine that measured their skin's resistance
to electricity. This is known to fluctuate in tandem with our moods - indeed,
it's this principle that underlies many lie detectors.
-
- Radin repeated Dr Hartwell's 'image response' experiments
while measuring skin resistance. Again, people began reacting a few seconds
before they were shown the provocative pictures. This was clearly impossible,
or so he thought, so he kept on repeating the experiments. And he kept
getting the same results.
-
- 'I didn't believe it either,' says Prof Bierman. 'So
I also repeated the experiment myself and got the same results. I was shocked.
After this I started to think more deeply about the nature of time.' To
make matters even more intriguing, Prof Bierman says that other mainstream
labs have now produced similar results but are yet to go public.
-
- 'They don't want to be ridiculed so they won't release
their findings,' he says. 'So I'm trying to persuade all of them to release
their results at the same time. That would at least spread the ridicule
a little more thinly!' If Prof Bierman is right, though, then the experiments
are no laughing matter.
-
- They might help provide a solid scientific grounding
for such strange phenomena as 'deja vu', intuition and a host of other
curiosities that we have all experienced from time to time.
-
- They may also open up a far more interesting possibility
- that one day we might be able to enhance psychic powers using machines
that can 'tune in' to our subconscious mind, machines like the little black
box in Edinburgh.
-
- Just as we have built mechanical engines to replace muscle
power, could we one day build a device to enhance and interpret our hidden
psychic abilities?
-
- Dr Nelson is optimistic - but not for the short term.
'We may be able to predict that a major world event is going to happen.
But we won't know exactly what will happen or where it's going to happen,'
he says.
-
- 'Put it this way - we haven't yet got a machine we could
sell to the CIA.'
-
- But for Dr Nelson, talk of such psychic machines - with
the potential to detect global catastrophes or terrorist outrages - is
of far less importance than the implications of his work in terms of the
human race.
-
- For what his experiments appear to demonstrate is that
while we may all operate as individuals, we also appear to share something
far, far greater - a global consciousness. Some might call it the mind
of God.
-
- 'We're taught to be individualistic monsters,' he says.
'We're driven by society to separate ourselves from each other. That's
not right.
-
- We may be connected together far more intimately than
we realise.'
-
- © 2002-2004 RedNova.com. All rights reserved.
-
- http://www.rednova.com/news/display/?id=126649
-
-
- Comment
- From Victor Fletcher
- vpflet@hotmail.com
- Toronto Street News
- 2-14-5
-
- This story is simply reworking research done by Dean
Radin (former CIA contractor) who reported the Lady Di and Oscar Night
attentions made by a mass public.
-
- Dean holds a random number generator patent which he
obtained more than 6 years ago.
-
- (Note - Dean disclosed his stunning discoveries on national
radio during several interviews
- with Jeff back then. He is due the highest recognition
and accolades possible. -ed)
-
- It is pathetic that parapschology labs don't report these
findings -- it should be old stuff by now. There is nothing to fear from
skeptics who are shown to be the real idiots in many cases.
-
- As an astrologer who helps psychics to predict when their
best and most successful times willl occur -- I find this whole report
somewhat boring except that I am surprised at how timid they are.
-
- Do they really only want to sell these gizmos to the
CIA? The CIA already funds these researches so this story is in large part
disinformation as to where and how far real progress has been made in this
field.
-
- It is also worth noting that Radin alerted the world
to the fact that blackjack players beat the house (casinos) on the times
of the full moon -- not every full moon -- but only on the full moon --
astrology explains why they don't win every full moon.
-
- I predicted 911 in our weekly Toronto Street News August
20, 200, also predicted the exact day the bombing would end in Serbia -
- weeks ahead.
-
- So, these things are entirely possible. What's the big
deal guys?
-
- Victor Fletcher
- Toronto Street News
- vpflet@hotmail.com
- 416 694-7341
|
