Remote Viewing and Science
by Courtney Brown, Director
No time is more momentous within the realm of science than the moment when paradigms fall. We scientists know how difficult it is to let go of old ideas that no longer fit the new data. Despite overwhelming evidence, false scientific ideologies persist, often for decades beyond their final usefulness. The problem is so severe that our philosophers sometimes declare that science makes its greatest advances when the older scientists die, finally freeing the younger generation of scientists to fully develop new ideas. Then when the young become the old, the cycle resumes. We have diagnosed our problem well. Why then are we still afflicted by it?
What causes this rigidity in our thoughts? When big paradigms are at stake, it is rarely a matter of acknowledging disagreement. Rather, the goal within science is too often the destruction of the intellectual opposition. The defense of the older paradigm becomes a moral crusade. Those from within the community of science who raise the specter of obsolescence with regard to the dominant ideas of the day are viewed not as contributors to a richer intellectual tapestry, but as infidels. If this is true of the history of prions and quarks, how more so will this characterize our behavior as scientists when the ideas involve proof of the existence of the human soul?
The challenge to the scientific paradigms of today dwarfs those challenges to virtually all previously held ideas. Indeed, we are entering a time in which the distinction between that which is spiritual and that which is scientific is no longer clear. We can no longer accept a status quo that dictates that the prayer that we whisper one day of the week remains on the level of a belief, while the experiments that we conduct Monday through Friday are somehow more real. When we consider how deeply all of this will affect everything we do and everything we believe, it is no wonder that there would be resistance to change. But should we, as scientists, allow ourselves to be so inflexible in our thoughts at a moment when the stakes to humanity are so great?
If the scientific community continues to deny the reality of remote viewing, then we are positioning ourselves to be instruments of humanity’s intellectual repression during its hour of greatest need. I am not suggesting that we abandon scientific rigor. On the contrary, remote viewing lends itself well to controlled experimentation. What I am suggesting is that science and scientists should not be inhibiting factors in human evolution. It is my suggestion that the time has come when all scientists need to reach beyond the defense of their intellectual boundaries and make sincere attempts to examine the new data that are emerging in the field of consciousness.
Humanity is crucially positioned at the current time in its evolutionary history. It could continue down the road of denial, eventually facing a set of terribly destabilizing events that might leave it dysfunctionally depressed. Or, humanity could reassess its current views with the assistance of intellectually flexible and enlightened scientists who would help people re-examine the earlier ways of thinking. The first route is easier to follow in the beginning, but disastrous in the end. The second route requires intellectual bravery at the outset, but it offers the greatest potential for a happy ultimate outcome.
I suggest that members of the scientific community begin seriously to examine the phenomenon of remote viewing. The science of remote viewing has developed to a point in which it can now be appraised more accurately.
