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Crossing the Threshold: Nonlocal
Consciousness and the Burden of Proof
Stephan A. Schwartz
After decades in which the research
into the nature of consciousness
has been dismissed as “The Ghost
in the Machine,” a fundamental
change is going on in science. Still a minor-
ity position, it is nonetheless coming to the
fore in a wide range of disciplines, from
medicine to biology to physics. Whole new
subdisciplines have emerged, driven by the
results of this experimentation.
One such is quantum biology, which
posits: Life is a molecular process; molec-
ular processes operate under quantum
rules. Thus, life must be a quantum pro-
cess. Experimental evidence is beginning
to accumulate that this quantum view of
life processes is correct. Gregory S. Engel,
a UC Berkeley chemist, led a team that
ingeniously found a way to directly detect
and observe quantum-level processes
within a cell by using high-speed lasers.
1
In mind⫺body research particularly,
the issue of consciousness has attained a
new prominence, as evidenced by the
growing number of placebo studies, re-
search on meditation mindfulness and its
effects on the brain, and its practical use in
things like posttraumatic stress disorder
(PTSD); studies on the role of psycho-
physical self-regulation in healing; pro-
spective research on near-death experi-
ences (NDE); studies suggesting the reality
of reincarnation; and research into the re-
lationship of genius and spirituality.
In the neurosciences, what used to be
identified as spirituality, allocated to the-
ologists and not considered a proper area
for science, has become a matter of impor-
tance. A search of the peer reviewed data-
base PubMed on the terms “Spirituality,
Health” returns 3,615 papers in the peer-
reviewed literature. Samueli researchers
are responsible for some of those papers.
Prestigious academic publishers design
major books that explicitly address con-
sciousness. The Oxford Handbook of Psychol-
ogy and Spirituality, edited by Yale’s Lisa
Miller, is one such example. (In the inter-
est of full-disclosure, Larry Dossey, Ex-
plore’s Executive Editor, and I have a chap-
ter in this book.
2
)
Another of the new subdisciplines to
emerge in this transition is neurotheology.
By using standard imaging technologies,
radiologist Andrew Newburg at the Uni-
versity of Pennsylvania has focused on
monitoring the brain activity of spiritual
practitioners as they engage in their prac-
tice. In addition, research data show col-
lective effects as well. Johanna Sänger,
leading a team at the Max Planck Institute
for Human Development in Berlin, re-
ports that when musicians play duets,
their brains synchronize. The detail in the
data is so fine that they can distinguish
which musician is playing lead and which
is playing backup. “When people coordi-
nate actions with one another, small net-
works within the brain and, remarkably,
between the brains are formed, especially
when the activities need to be precisely
aligned in time, for example at the joint
play onset of a piece,” says Sänger.
3
Threaded through all of this work is a
growing awareness, either explicitly or by
implication, that there exists an aspect of
consciousness not limited by space time
or originating entirely within an organ-
ism’s neuroanatomy — nonlocal con-
sciousness.
As Max Planck, the father of Quantum
Mechanics, framed it an interview with
the respected English newspaper, The Ob-
server, January 25, 1931 edition, said: “I
regard consciousness as fundamental. I re-
gard matter as derivative from conscious-
ness. We cannot get behind conscious-
ness. Everything that we talk about,
everything that we regard as existing, pos-
tulates consciousness.”
The validation of Planck’s truth pro-
ceeds on two fronts: One group of disci-
plines focuses on the local mind, the neu-
roscience, the mechanics of an organism’s
consciousness. Yet even here, nonlocal
awareness projects itself into the physiol-
ogy of consciousness. The insight studies
of Mark Jung-Beeman illustrate this. Be-
ginning in 2003, and continuing with a
shifting list of collaborators, he has
steadily sought to understand the neuro-
biological process of insight, ie, that aspect
of consciousness that solves problems that
cannot be worked with the intellect
alone.
4
This work has yielded many in-
sights, most notably: “We observed two
objective neural correlates of insight.
Functional magnetic resonance imaging
revealed increased activity in the right
hemisphere anterior superior temporal
gyrus for insight relative to non-insight so-
lutions.”
5
Contemporaneously, Jeanne Achter-
berg’s studies show changes in the brain of
the recipients towards whom a healer has
expressed therapeutic intention. “Each
healer selected a person with whom they
felt a special connection as a recipient for
Therapeutic Intention. Each recipient was
placed in the MRI scanner and isolated
from all forms of sensory contact from the
healer. The healers sent forms of (TI) that
related to their own healing practices at
random 2-minute intervals that were un-
known to the recipient. Significant differ-
The SchwartzReport tracks emerging trends that will
affect the world, particularly the United States. For
EXPLORE it focuses on matters of health in the
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77
SchwartzReport EXPLORE March/April 2013, Vol. 9, No. 2
SCHWARTZREPORT
ences between experimental (send) and
control (no send) procedures were found
(p ⫽.000 127). Areas activated during the
experimental procedures included the an-
terior and middle cingulate area, precu-
neus, and frontal area. It was concluded
that instructions to a healer to make an
intentional connection with a sensory iso-
lated person can be correlated to changes
in brain function of that individual.”
6
The other front is work that explicitly
studies nonlocal consciousness through
experimentation. This vector of research
explores the nonlocality of consciousness
with studies that fall basically into two cat-
egories: nonlocal perception, the acquisi-
tion of information that could not be
known through psychological sense per-
ception, and nonlocal perturbation, in-
cluding therapeutic intention–healing.
WHAT IS THE STANDARD OF
PROOF?
Two papers from the European Organiza-
tion for Nuclear Research, one of the
world’s largest and most respected centers
for scientific research, have just been pub-
lished. Each is roughly 30 pages in length.
Nineteen of those pages are the single-
spaced list of approximately 6,000 names
— the researchers who support the findings
of the European Organization for Nuclear
Research experiments. The papers con-
clude there is a 1-in-300-million chance
that the Higgs Boson does not exist,
thereby validating the theory on why ele-
mentary particles have mass. It is by this
collective assessment that the elusive God
particle has been recognized as real.
Today there are six stabilized parapsy-
chological protocols used in laboratories
around the world. Each of these six has
independently produced six sigma results.
Six sigma is 1 in 1,009,976,678, or the
99.9999990699 percentile.
Those that have been analyzed in detail
are:
●RV, ie, remote viewing;
●REG, ie, random event generator;
●Ganzfeld;
●GCP, ie, global consciousness project;
●presentiment; and
●Retrocognition/precognition.
Two more have also achieved this level,
although their results, at this stage, are still
subject to differing interpretations:
●staring and
●precognition
Because these protocols have the same
fundamental methodology and collec-
tively seek to study nonlocal conscious-
ness, I believe they cannot be considered
independent. The figure taken as a single
effort is 10
54
against chance — a galactic
number.
In addition to these laboratory proto-
cols, recent well-conducted studies reveal
that 4.2% of the American public has re-
ported an NDE.
7
The population in the United States is a
bit more than 315 million. Therefore,
4.2% is 13 million people in the reported
NDE population, which is equivalent to
all the Jewish people, all the Mormons,
and Muslims as well, and most of the Bud-
dhists.
The NDE population is almost cer-
tainly much larger, however, than 13 mil-
lion because research has also revealed
many people do not immediately report
experiences. Often they don’t speak of it
until years later, which is a problem for
researchers because it makes it hard to do
prospective studies, as Dutch cardiologist
Pim Van Lommel reported in his 2001
landmark study published in the Lancet,
which was a prospective study.
8
Like the
six-sigma protocols, this research has with-
stood repeated assault.
9
Given this level of evidence, how is this
disparity possible between the reception
of the Higgs Boson discovery compared
with the studies of nonlocal consciousness
research? The short answer, I think, is that
we are seeing a demonstration of how cul-
turally mediated science is. The Higgs
Boson discovery is far less than a six sigma
result yet, because it confirms a theoretical
prediction and pretty seamlessly fits into
established physics, it is accepted. In con-
trast, the nonlocal consciousness research,
where six-sigma results confirm phenom-
ena because we do not yet have a satisfac-
tory explanation as to how they happen.
The objection is fundamentally cultural,
not scientific. It is driven by paradigm.
The compact science has with society is
the promise to explain. Nonlocal con-
sciousness events are, perhaps, the most
broadly experienced mystery for which
the culture seeks an explanation because,
at sometime in their lives, almost everyone
has experienced deja vu, had a precognitive
dream, or a premonition that came true. It
is this larger cultural context which gives
these issues an importance extending deep
into society.
If you consider all the religious services
across human history, they have certain
elements in common. There is a desig-
nated place to gather; appointed times for
gathering; a statement of shared belief and
intention; a period for music, dance,
chant, or choir; and, then, a time when
some but not all of the group will have a
nonlocal experience, whether speaking in
tongues, or Voodoo possession. The mys-
teries of subatomic particles are of great
interest to scientists and of enormous im-
portance, but average men and women are
not confronted with them in their normal
lives as they are with altered states of con-
sciousness and the froward phenomena of
nonlocal consciousness.
Kuhn and Paradigm
To understand the resistance of denierism,
I think, requires some consideration as to
what science is and is about. There is no
better authority in this than physicist
Thomas Kuhn, generally acknowledged to
be the most influential historian and phi-
losopher of science in the twentieth cen-
tury. In 1962, Kuhn published his master-
work, the classic text, The Structure of
Scientific Revolutions. In it Kuhn argues that
the popular notion that science, through
the gradual accumulation of information
over centuries, consciously and purpose-
fully moves toward the basic “truth” about
the universe and everything in it is a myth.
Kuhn describes the process thus:
The developmental process has been
an evolution from primitive begin-
nings — a process whose successive
stages are characterized by an increas-
ingly detailed and refined under-
standing of nature. But nothing . . .
makes it a process of evolution to-
ward anything. Does it really help to
imagine that there is some one full,
objective, true account of nature and
that the proper measure of scientific
achievement is the extent to which it
brings us closer to that ultimate goal?
. . . The entire process may have oc-
curred as we now suppose biological
evolution did without benefit of a set
goal, a permanent fixed scientific
truth of which each stage in the de-
velopment of scientific knowledge is
[an improved] exemplar.
10
78 EXPLORE March/April 2013, Vol. 9, No. 2 SchwartzReport
As Kuhn explains it, scientists are a special
self-selected community dedicated to
solving certain very restricted and self-de-
fined problems whose relevance is defined
by a worldview or paradigm. Kuhn, who is
the father of the concept, explains it thus:
“universally recognized scientific achieve-
ments [in a given field] that for a time pro-
vide model problems and solutions to a
community of practitioners” [emphasis
added].
4
For scientists who are immersed
in it, a paradigm is their worldview. Its
boundaries outline for them both what
the universe contains and, equally impor-
tant, what it does not contain. Its theories
explain how this universe operates.
Paradigms are absolutely essential to sci-
ence, although ultimately they become self-
limiting. Without the set boundaries pro-
vided by the paradigm, no observation has
any greater importance or weight than any
other. Without this differentiation, western
science is impossible. The benefit it confers
is that with boundaries comes depth, and
with depth comes detail. The narrowness of
this definition increases as a science matures,
and manifests itself in increased subspecial-
ization; one is not simply a chemist but an
organic chemist. It should be obvious then,
to quote Kuhn again, that “one of the rea-
sons why normal science seems to progress
so rapidly is that its practitioners concentrate
on problems that only their own lack of in-
genuity should keep them from solving. . .
intrinsic value is no criterion for a puzzle,
the assured existence of a solution is.”
4
This
efficiency in puzzle solving collectively is
“normal science.” Obviously, this normal
science is accumulative, but does it also seek
the Copernican leaps, the insights that will
change the course of history? No, it specifi-
cally does not. Normal science, in fact, is
specifically not interested in the very thing it
is popularly supposed to be obsessed with
doing. It is this which is the source of den-
ierism. It threatens the paradigm.
Paradigm Problems
“The scientific enterprise as a whole does
from time to time produce anomalies that
open new territory, and test long-accepted
beliefs. But the individual engaged on a
normal research problem is almost never
doing any one of these things [emphasis
Kuhn].”
2
He finds himself instead work-
ing from a different motivation, the desire
to demonstrate that he is capable of solv-
ing a problem within the paradigm that no
one has ever solved before, or has not
solved as elegantly. “On most occasions
any particular field of specialization offers
nothing else to do, a fact that makes it no
less fascinating to the proper sort of ad-
dict. . . Scientists normally [do not] aim to
invent new theories, and they are often
intolerant of those invented by others.”
2
In fact, most deniers of nonlocal con-
sciousness are nearly illiterate concerning
the actual research. It’s outside of the par-
adigm; it can’t be any good. QED.
The great irony is from where does an
Einstein, a Newton, a Planck, a Ramanu-
jan, a Jung, a Salk come? The answer, as
each of them has said quite clearly, is that
their great insight came in a special state of
consciousness, when all things seemed in-
terconnected and interdependent and out
of space and time.
11,12
Science is by nature narrow and rigid —
and this should not be construed as a pejo-
rative description because the vast bulk of
research could be practiced in no other way
— normal science always produces anoma-
lies in the course of its work, and as it pro-
ceeds inevitably to reach its boundaries the
encounters with anomalies increase. The
reason is simple: Before paradigm is
achieved, clearly nothing can be anoma-
lous; after paradigm, a great deal will be; and
as the limits of paradigm are reached, what
lies beyond is that much closer.
Normal science, however, abhors anoma-
lies because they are not tailored to the
scheme by which it defines the universe. At
first, then, anomalies are ignored on the as-
sumption that subsequent normal science
research will deal with them when either in-
strumentation or theory articulation or both
are improved. If this does not happen, an
attempt is made to extend the endangered
theory in the hope that an extension of the
paradigm’s accepted propositions will bring
the anomalies back into the fold.
In the beginning of a paradigm’s lifes-
pan, better instrumentation or theory ex-
tension does eliminate most of the anom-
alies by making them conform; some,
though, will not conform, no matter how
artful the experiment or ingenious the de-
velopment of the original premise. Most
scientists are happy to leave these anoma-
lies in a state of limbo, which is why para-
psychology is both science and non-
science at one and the same time.
Everyone knows anomalies are out there,
lurking on the edges of the paradigm like
hungry beasts around a campfire. But sci-
entists assume, mostly correctly, that the
majority of problems can still be con-
tained within the paradigm, and so for a
time at least normal science continues,
and the paradigm provides a reasonably
secure framework.
However, as normal-science research
continues to get closer to the edge of the
“known” it pushes so intensely and with
such specific focus that its explorations
produce just the opposite effect from that
desired. Not only does such research fail
to strengthen the paradigm, which was its
original purpose, but it produces still more
anomalies. Ironically, at the end of the
paradigm’s lifespan, the better the instru-
mentation the more intractable the chal-
lenge presented by anomalies. These begin
to cluster until so many exist that not only
theory but the paradigm itself is called
into question. When this happens, the sci-
ence enters a state of crisis from which
there is no turning back. This is the phase
we are now entering.
Extraordinary Resistance
There is extraordinary resistance in the sci-
entific trenches to this final phase — in an
individual it might be called denial. Scien-
tists hate crisis even more than anomalies.
Researchers delay retooling as long as they
can, because it is expensive, involves
much aggravation, and threatens careers
and hard-won status. Paradigm crisis is the
last stage in a process of scientific death.
When it becomes irresistible, and the lim-
its of the paradigm’s lifespan are acknowl-
edged by a critical consensus of its practi-
tioners, several significant events take
place. This is what is happening now.
The assumptions of normal science in-
clude (1) the researcher and the experi-
ment can be isolated from affecting each
other except in controlled and understood
ways; and, (2) because the experiment ex-
ists in a time-space continuum, the condi-
tions under which it is carried out can be
duplicated and the experiment replicated
by any other researcher if it is valid.
All of this, the common techniques, the
various levels of the collective fundamen-
tal assumptions that often go unspoken,
seem to irresistibly argue for the concep-
tion with which I began this paper, the
Myth of Gradualism. Yet both that myth,
and the materialism its supports are re-
futed by the undeniable reality of scien-
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SchwartzReport EXPLORE March/April 2013, Vol. 9, No. 2
tific change, and how it actually comes
about. Those individuals who produce ex-
traordinary research do so not by force of
intellect or will alone, although these are
important, but because they have had
nonlocal intuitional insights at the same
time that there was a crisis.
It is on this point, that most commenta-
tors describing the development of scientific
breakthroughs are uncomfortably silent.
John Mihalasky invokes intuition as an
overt explanation, but tentatively,
13
and
Kuhn notes only that it represents a change
in gestalt, a change in “beingness.” “Normal
science,” he says, “ultimately leads only to
the recognition of anomalies and to crises.
And these are terminated not by delibera-
tion and interpretation, but by a relatively
sudden and unstructured event like a gestalt
switch. Scientists then often speak of the
“scales falling from the eyes” or of the “light-
ning flash” that “inundates” a previously ob-
scure puzzle, enabling its components to be
seen in a new way that for the first time
permits its solution.”
7
To someone inter-
ested in the field of nonlocal informational
interactions this wording is virtually identi-
cal to used by healers, remote viewers, spiri-
tual pilgrims, and great artists.
12
Anomalous and Congruent
Kuhn is willing — because the evidence is so
great that it cannot be denied — to invoke
the inspiration of dreams, although how this
actually works he does not venture to say.
He makes one speculation on the nonintel-
lectual aspect of puzzle solving. He notes,
“No ordinary sense of the term ‘interpreta-
tion’ fits these flashes of intuition through
which a new paradigm is born. Though such
intuitions depend upon the experience, both
anomalous and congruent, gained with the old
paradigm, they are not logically or piecemeal
linked to particular items of that experience as an
interpretation would be [emphasis added]”
7
What makes these key figures revolutionar-
ies, then, is not just the quality of their work.
They are also revolutionaries because of the
source, mechanism unknown, from which
their information derives. At the deepest
level the process by which the information is
obtained is as revolutionary as the informa-
tion itself.
Intellectual excellence and intuitive in-
sight, however, are not the only criteria for
success as a “paradigm shifter.” A careful
analysis of the process also suggests that
some kind of interconnectedness between
breakthrough researchers and their peer
communities is involved; a kind of inter-
active collective awareness must coalesce
that comprises a critical consensus.
As Gunther Stent demonstrates, if an
intuitive researcher is premature, no mat-
ter how great the insight, the response of
peers is indifference at best, and martyr-
dom at worst.
14
We all know the story of
Galileo. Not as well known is that Leon-
ardo figured out what fossils were while
excavating the St. Marcos Canal, but no
one could absorb what he was saying.
Only when intuition and crisis are cor-
rectly juxtaposed can the necessary change
in gestalt occur. Genius is an individual
experience, but its acceptance is a social
phenomenon. We are getting there.
On the basis research being carried out
across the spectrum of the sciences, I be-
lieve there are four relevant descriptors
helping to define what the new paradigm
might look like. They are: (1) Only certain
aspects of the mind are the result of phys-
iologic processes. (2) Consciousness is
causal, and physical reality is its manifes-
tation. (3) All consciousnesses, regardless
of their physical manifestations, are part
of a network of life which they both in-
form and influence and are informed and
influenced by; there is a passage back and
forth between the individual and the col-
lective. (4) Some aspects of consciousness
are not limited by the time/space contin-
uum and do not originate entirely within
an organism’s neuroanatomy.
The research is pushing us toward this
new paradigm. One sign of this is that most
scientists tend to cite in their papers only
work within their discipline, or a related one.
Physicists rarely cite medical journals, and
physicians rarely cite physicists. As a result
separate literatures dealing with conscious-
ness, both local and nonlocal, are develop-
ing independent of one another. It is only
when they are seen collectively that the full
impact of this research can be compre-
hended. It becomes obvious that it is time to
fearlessly examine the state of the science in
this area. There are also are several major
seemingly unrelated trends at work in Amer-
ican society today whose confluence makes
this a good time to start.
CLIMATE CHANGE
Climate change — will compel us to see
that we are part of earth’s network of life,
not a special exception. Science and tech-
nology will increasingly be focused on this
because recognizing the interdependence
and interconnection of life will become
essential to our survival in the climate of
the future.
DNA AND GENETIC RESEARCH
DNA and genetic research — will be pow-
erful drivers affecting consciousness re-
search. Discipline subspecialties within
the neuroscience, quantum mechanical,
and biological communities, will explore
how consciousness and matter interact.
PTSD
PTSD — The enormous number of service
personnel suffering from PTSD has brought
meditation, mindfulness, and psychophysi-
cal self-regulation techniques and research
to the forefront in rehabilitation medicine.
Good results have been achieved through
these approaches, and the reports of prac-
titioners experiencing a “timeless time,
spaceless space” have excited a new inter-
est in the nature of consciousness and the
mind⫺body linkage.
NDE
NDE — Two things have happened in
medicine to make it clear this area of
research is going to grow. First, clinical
practice in hospitals around the world
has been sensitized to NDE so more are
being recorded. Second, the already re-
corded 13 million near-death experienc-
ers will increase in number thanks to in-
creasingly sophisticated acute care
medicine and cardiopulmonary resusci-
tation.
We are moving into a new world.
ENDNOTES
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2. Schwartz S, Dossey L. Nonlocality, inten-
tion, and observer effects in healing stud-
ies: laying a foundation for the future. In:
Miller L (ed).The Oxford Handbook of Psychol-
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3. Making music together connects brains.
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4. Bowden EM, Jung-Beeman M. Aha! In-
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Stephan A. Schwartz
is the editor of the daily
web publication The SchwartzReport (http://
www.schwartzreport.net), which concentrates
on trends that will shape the future, an area of
research he has been working in since the mid-
1960s. He is also the Senior Samueli Fellow in
Brain, Mind and Healing at the Samueli In-
stitute. For over 35 years Schwartz has also
been an active experimentalist doing research
on the nature of consciousness, particularly Re-
mote Viewing, healing, creativity, religious ec-
stasy, and meditation. He is the author of sev-
eral books and numerous papers, technical
reports, and general audience articles on these
topics.
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