Readers should take note of a new section in Chapter 6 entitled “Psi Phenomena.” We have discussed parapsychology in previous editions but have been very critical of the research and skeptical of the claims made in the field. And although we still have strong reservations about most of the research in parapsychology, we find the recent work on telepathy worthy of careful consideration.

(From the Preface to Introduction to Psychology by Richard L. Atkinson – 1990: quoted in The Spiritual Brain, page 169) 

In science, the acceptance of new ideas follows a predictable, four-stage sequence. In Stage 1, skeptics confidently proclaim that the idea is impossible because it violates the Laws of Science. This stage can last from years to centuries, depending on how much the idea challenges conventional wisdom. In Stage 2, skeptics reluctantly concede that the idea is possible, but it is not very interesting and the claimed effects are extremely weak. Stage 3 begins when the mainstream realizes that the idea is not only important, but its effects are much stronger and more pervasive than previously imagined. Stage 4 is achieved when the same critics who used to disavow any interest in the idea begin to proclaim that they thought of it first. Eventually, no one remembers that the idea was once considered a dangerous heresy.

(Dean Radin: The Conscious Universe – page 1)  

In 2002 I read a fascinating book on parapsychology by H.J. Irwin. My recent reading of another intriguing book, The Spiritual Brain, triggered a memory of that experience.

Irwin’s book is a rigorous examination of the work done up to that point in the field of parapsychology. I was still working in the NHS at the time and swimming against all the powerful reductionist currents of thought flowing along the broad estuary of mental health work.  Reading this book was yet another attempt to find a sound empirical basis for my scepticism about materialism.

That sounds like a futile ambition, you may think. But I am not alone in cherishing that hope. Beauregard and O’Leary quote Eccles and Robinson with approval in The Spiritual Brain as saying (page 125):

We regard promissory materialism as superstition without a rational foundation. The more we discover about the brain, the more clearly do we distinguish between the brain events and the mental phenomena, and the more wonderful do both the brain events and the mental phenomena become. Promissory materialism is simply a religious belief held by dogmatic materialists . . . who often confuse their religion with their science.

So that makes five of us at least.

Where a nonmaterialist explanation works well

What reactivated my interest of more than decade ago was Beauregard and O’Leary’s list of things that a nonmaterialist perspective can explain better than a materialist one (ibid.)

For example, a nonmaterialist view can account for the neuroimaging studies that show human subjects in the very act of self-regulating their emotions by concentrating on them. It can account for the placebo effect (the sugar pill that cures, provided the patient is convinced that it is a potent remedy). A nonmaterialist view can also offer science-based explanations of puzzling phenomena that are currently shelved by materialist views. One of these is psi, the apparent ability of some humans to consistently score above chance in controlled studies of mental influences on events. Another is the claim, encountered surprisingly often among patients who have undergone trauma or major surgery, that they experienced a life-changing mystical awareness while unconscious.

My clearest memory of Irwin’s book concerned precisely the massive amount of meticulously generated evidence in favour of psi, especially in terms of subjects’ accurately predicting random numbers at a level slightly but consistently above chance over thousands of carefully controlled trials.  Not a dramatic finding, perhaps, not like apparently successful mediumship or seemingly bending spoons on television, but in an important way more compelling and significant than any of those because all possibility of fakery had been eliminated to leave it beyond all reasonable doubt that something materialists couldn’t explain was going on.

Rear-guard materialism

Most materialists, little to their credit or credibility, resolutely refused to look carefully at the evidence as they knew in advance that such findings were impossible and must be the result of fraud or sloppy methodology. So much for science’s supposed openness to all evidence. In fact, it has always been blinded by its current paradigms, so there is really no surprise here either.

Beauregard and O’Leary quote a particularly startling example of materialistic zealotry. Grossman tells of his encounters with materialists about NDEs. He recalls one snatch of dialogue which they quote (page 166)

Exasperated, I asked, “What will it take, short of having a near-death experience yourself, to convince you that it’s real?” Very nonchalantly, without batting an eye, the response was: “Even if I were to have a near-death experience myself, I would conclude that I was hallucinating, rather than believe that my mind can exist independently of my brain.”

There’s no arguing with such intransigent dogmatism – in the face of the evidence that I am convinced exists but which it refuses to examine, such an attitude is bordering on the delusional. What makes it all the more bizarre is that the evidence for psi has been conducted with a rigour and extensive sample size that would be the envy of many a mainstream researcher. Beauregard and O’Leary summarise the findings as follows (pages 170-171):

Psi is not a form of magic. It is a low-level effect demonstrated in many laboratory studies—one that materialism does not account for. . . . Generally, the studies show that people sometimes get small amounts of specific information from a distance that do not depend on the ordinary senses. . . The experimental subject is asked to influence the [Random Number Generator’s] output by “wishing” for 1’s or 0’s. A small but stable effect has been shown over sixty years of tossing dice and RNGs that is reliable irrespective of the subject or the experimenter and remains when independent or skeptical investigators participate.

Not many experimental findings survive, for example, their attempted replication by sceptical experimenters. That in itself argues for something valid as well as seriously strange going on. Sadly we meet the same kind of scientistic dogmatism once again. They quote (pages 171-172) from Dean Radin‘s The Conscious Universe – which I read so long ago I’d completely forgotten it:

Skeptics who continue to repeat the same old assertions that parapsychology is a pseudoscience, or that there are no repeatable experiments, are uninformed not only about the state of parapsychology but also about the current state of skepticism!

For source website see link

A Blinding Double-bind

Radin also points out the resulting double bind with blistering clarity (quoted on page 173):

If serious scientists are prevented from investigating claims of psi out of fear for their reputations, then who is left to conduct these investigations? Extreme skeptics? No, because the fact is that most extremists do not conduct research; they specialize in criticism. Extreme believers? No, because they are usually not interested in conducting rigorous scientific studies.

I have taken his book down off my shelves and placed it on my desk to read again.

Beauregard and O’Leary conclude (ibid.):

Psi must find its place within an evidence-based paradigm of physics, psychology, and neuroscience. However, working out and testing a hypothesis for psi faces some obstacles in a materialist environment. . . .

They are clear that the effect is small (page 167):

The stubborn problem turns out to be a small statistical effect from controlled laboratory studies, the psi effect, a general term for telepathic and psychokinetic phenomena.

And they are suitably cautious about the hypotheses we can build upon this robust but tiny effect (page 177):

Regarding psi, we can assume one of two things: (1) every single instance of psi is a direct interference in nature, presumably by a divine power from outside the universe; or (2) the universe permits more entanglement than the materialist paradigm does.

They favour the second idea. I would be delighted if this were to be more seriously investigated by mainstream researchers and the findings were then to be integrated into a more spiritual model of reality. The days of materialist domination are numbered, I feel: I’m just not sure how many more there are – whether it will be millions or merely thousands.

An update on the UK Bahá’í News website was posted earlier this week. See link for full article.

LONDON, 14 May — Fifty leaders of faith communities in the United Kingdom have signed an open letter, addressed to the Rt Hon William Hague MP, the Foreign Secretary, calling on him to renew the UK Government’s support for the seven imprisoned leaders of the long-suffering Bahá’í community in Iran, the country’s largest religious minority. May 14th marks the day that these seven innocent Bahá’í leaders have been behind bars for five years, imprisoned solely because of their religious beliefs. The letter was received on the Foreign Secretary’s behalf, at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, by Alistair Burt MP, Minister for the Middle East and North Africa.

“I am happy to accept this open letter calling for the release of seven Bahá’í leaders currently in prison in Iran,” he said. “It is a fine example of interfaith co-operation from across the many faith groups in the UK.” Mr Burt renewed the UK government’s call for the immediate release of the seven Bahá’í leaders – and he condemned Iran’s wider human rights record. “The continued persecution of the Baha’i is but one example of the intolerance that many religious minorities face in Iran. I urge Iran to release the seven Baha’i leaders and to take immediate steps to stop the systematic persecution of the Baha’i community. Iran should stop the repression of any group on the grounds of their religion or belief, should respect the human rights of all its citizens, and engage seriously with the international community on improving its human rights record,” he said.

The faith leaders, representing the Bahá’í, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jain, Jewish, Muslim, and Sikh communities; and including Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury, Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi, Barry Morgan, the Archbishop of Wales; and Shaykh Ibrahim Mogra, said: “Iran has abandoned every legal, moral, spiritual and humanitarian standard, routinely violating the human rights of its citizens. The government’s shocking treatment of its religious minorities is of particular concern to us as people of faith.”

The following  piece was posted on the UN News Centre website on 13th May: for the full article see link.

13 May 2013 – A group of independent United Nations experts today reiterated its call on Iranian authorities for the immediate release of seven Baha’i community leaders imprisoned five years ago this month with 20-year sentences – the longest of any current prisoners of conscience.

“The Iranian Government should demonstrate its commitment to freedom of religion by immediately and unconditionally releasing these prisoners of conscience,” the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran, Ahmed Shaheed, said in a news release that also urged the international community, including faith leaders worldwide, to join in the appeal.

“These cases are apparently characterized by failures to safeguard fair trial standards and jeopardizes overall religious freedom in Iran” which does not officially recognize Baha’i.

For the period of the campaign announced earlier this month by the Baha’i International Community, I felt that it would be more fitting, rather than using my own, to post poems taken from Mahvash Sabet’s powerful collection – ‘Prison Poems.’ For the latest update on the campaign’s progress see link.

Four days ago there was an excellent piece on the National Post on the situation of the seven Baha’i former leaders currently imprisoned in Iran. Better late than never to share it: see link for full post.

May 14th marks the third anniversary of the imprisonment of seven leaders of Iran’s Baha’i community. After an illegal 30-month detention in Tehran’s Evin Prison, the seven were tried and sentenced in August 2010. They had been members of a group permitted by the government up until their May 2008 arrest to attend to the minimal needs of the Baha’i community.

According to the prisoners’ lawyer, Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi, the court proceedings were a farce, producing no evidence of any crime. After an appeal, the 20-year sentences were reduced to ten years. Two months ago the court reinstated the 20-year sentences despite the fact that an appeal court had revoked three of the most egregious charges. To date, none of the court decisions, the original verdict or the ruling on appeal, have been given in writing to the prisoners or their attorneys.

Reports this past week indicate that the two women prisoners, Fariba Kamalabadi, a psychologist and mother of three, and Mahvash Sabet, a school principal, have been transferred to Qarchak prison, 60 km from Tehran.

“We understand that they are incarcerated with up to 400 other prisoners in a large warehouse-type room with minimal facilities,” said Bani Dugal, the principal representative of the Baha’i International Community to the United Nations.

Roxana Saberi, the American journalist who spent several months in prison in Iran in 2009, has often spoken about the compassion that Kamalabadi and Sabet showed her when they were cellmates in Evin Prsion.

“They lifted our spirits, gave us hope, and took care of me when I was on a hunger strike,” wrote Saberi in a March 2011 Wall Street Journal article. “The seven men and women were accused of crimes such as insulting religious sanctities, spying for Israel — charges that were never proven.”

For the period of the campaign announced earlier this month by the Baha’i International Community, I felt that it would be more fitting, rather than using my own, to post poems taken from Mahvash Sabet’s powerful collection – ‘Prison Poems.’ For the latest update on the campaign’s progress see link.

A new post on UK Bahai’ News relates another positive development in the campaign on behalf of the seven former Baha’i leaders in Iran, in prison now for five years. See this link for more.

LONDON, 9 May 2013 – Issues of due legal process and access to justice in Iran came under scrutiny at a high-level seminar, organised to mark the fifth anniversary of the arrest of Iran’s seven former Bahá’í leaders.

Held at the Law Society of England and Wales – and co-hosted by the Bar Human Rights Committee – the seminar on Thursday 9 May attracted more than 50 practising barristers, solicitors and human rights lawyers.

The seminar heard how the trial and sentencing of the seven Bahá’ís to 20 years in prison each, was conducted under proceedings that violated international and national Iranian laws. The case can be seen as a major example of wide scale abuses in the Iranian justice system, used as a tool of oppression against religious and ethnic minorities, human rights lawyers, activists and others.

During the period of the campaign for the seven Baha’i leaders still in prison in Iran after five years, it is also important  to reflect upon the positive progress of the Faith in many parts of the world. The Baha’i World website offers a film that captures the spirit of this progress in an uplifting portrayal of the work Baha’is are doing world-wide (see link). Below is a quote from the website.

Young and old, in cities and villages around the world, are taking part in a process of community building based on concepts enshrined in the Bahá’í Teachings.

This uplifting film captures the insights and experiences of children, junior youth, youth, and adults—in Canada, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and India—whose efforts to build vibrant communities are at the frontiers of learning.

A letter from  prominent jurists in the UK has been published on page 17 of today’s edition of the Daily Telegraph and also appears online at this link.

Iran’s Baha’i prisoners

SIR – Five years ago this month, seven former leaders of the Baha’i community in Iran were imprisoned for their beliefs. This violated national and international laws as well as shariah norms.

The seven – Mrs Mahvash Sabet, Mr Behrouz Tavakkoli, Mr Vahid Tizfahm, Mrs Fariba Kamalabadi, Mr Jamaloddin Khanjani, Mr Afif Naeimi and Mr Saeid Rezaie – were arrested following coordinated raids on their homes in 2008. The fatuous nature of their alleged crimes, which included “spreading corruption on earth” and collaboration with the “tyrannical Quds-occupying regime” (Israel), is self-evident.

The charges against them were first heard in the media rather than in court, nine months after their detention. An arrest warrant was issued 10 months after they were arrested. To this day, they have not been presented with formal charges or a judgment in writing, in clear violation of the Iranian constitution.

The seven Baha’is were purportedly “tried” in 2010 in proceedings that can be barely described as a “trial”, and were each sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Lawyers brave enough to represent Baha’is – including the Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi – have themselves become victims of the Iranian regime and been forced into exile. Others, such as Nasrin Sotoudeh and Abdolfattah Soltani, are now serving prison sentences on similarly spurious allegations.

Iranian authorities often claim to be champions of justice, equality and fairness. It is time for them to honour these principles, release the seven Baha’i leaders and restore the rule of law in Iran.

Sir Desmond de Silva QC
Michael Birnbaum QC
Cherie Booth CBE QC
Kirsty Brimelow QC
Professor John Cooper QC
Edward Fitzgerald QC
Dr Nazila Ghanea
Lord Gifford QC
Lord Lester of Herne Hill QC
Lord Macdonald of River Glaven QC
Michael Mansfield QC
Professor Rachel Murray
Sir Geoffrey Nice QC
Professor Michael O’Flaherty
Professor Javaid Rehman
Geoffrey Robertson QC
Professor Philippe Sands QC
Professor Dan Sarooshi

For the period of the campaign announced earlier this month by the Baha’i International Community, I felt that it would be more fitting, rather than using my own, to post poems taken from Mahvash Sabet’s powerful collection – ‘Prison Poems.’ For the latest update on the campaign’s progress see link.