The Holographic Universe (20 page)

Jahn and Dunne think
their findings may explain the propensity some individuals seem to have for
jinxing machinery and causing equipment to malfunction. One such individual was
physicist Wolfgang Pauli, whose talents in this area are so legendary that
physicists have jokingly dubbed it the “Pauli effect” It is said that Pauli's
mere presence in a laboratory would cause a glass apparatus to explode, or a
sensitive measuring device to crack in half. In one particularly famous
incident a physicist wrote Pauli to say that at least he couldn't blame Pauli
for the recent and mysterious disintegration of a complicated piece of
equipment since Pauli had not been present only to find that Pauli had been
passing by the laboratory in a train at the precise moment of the mishap! Jahn
and Dunne think the famous “Gremlin effect,” the tendency of carefully tested
pieces of equipment to undergo inexplicable malfunctions at the most absurdly
inopportune moments, often reported by pilots, aircrew, and military operators,
may also be an example of unconscious PK activity.

If our minds can reach
out and alter the movement of a cascade of marbles or the operation of a machine,
what strange alchemy might account for such an ability? Jahn and Dunne believe
that since all known physical processes possess a wave/particle duality, it is
not unreasonable to assume that consciousness does as well. When it is
particlelike, consciousness would appear to be localized in our heads, but in
its wavelike aspect, consciousness, like all wave phenomena, could also produce
remote influence effects. They believe one of these remote influence effects is
PK.

But Jahn and Dunne do
not stop here. They believe that reality is itself the result of the interface
between the wavelike aspects of consciousness and the wave patterns of matter.
However, like Bohm, they do not believe that consciousness or the material
world can be productively represented in isolation, or even that PK can be
thought of as the transmission of some kind of force. “The message may be more
subtle than that,” says Jahn. “It may be that such concepts are simply
unviable, that we cannot talk profitably about an abstract environment or an
abstract consciousness. The only thing we can experience is the
interpenetration of the two in some way.”

If PK cannot be thought
of as the transmission of some kind of force, what terminology might better sum
up the interaction of mind and matter? In thinking that is again similar to
Bohm's, Jahn and Dunne propose that PK actually involves an exchange of
information between consciousness and physical reality, an exchange that should
be thought of less as a flow between the mental and the material, and more as a
resonance
between the two. The importance of resonance was even sensed
and commented on by the volunteers in the PK experiments, in that the most
frequently mentioned factor associated with a successful performance was the
attainment of a feeling of “resonance” with the machine. One volunteer
described the feeling as “a state of immersion in the process which leads to a
loss of awareness of myself. I don't feel any direct control over the device,
more like a marginal influence when I'm in resonance with the machine. It's
like being in a canoe; when it goes where I want, I flow with it. When it
doesn't I try to break the flow and give it a chance to get back to resonance
with me.”

Jahn and Dunne's ideas
are similar to Bohm's in several other key ways. Like Bohm, they believe that
the concepts we use to describe reality—electron, wavelength, consciousness,
time, frequency—are useful only as “information-organizing categories” and
possess no independent status. They also believe that all theories, including
their own, are only metaphors. Although they do not identify themselves with
the holographic model (and their theory does in fact differ from Bohm's
thinking in several significant ways), they do recognize the overlap. “To the
extent that we're talking about a rather basic reliance on wave mechanical
behavior, there is some commonality between what we're postulating and the
holographic idea,” says Jahn. “It gives to consciousness the capacity to
function in a wave mechanical sense and thereby to avail itself, one way or
another, of all of space and time.”

Dunne agrees: “In some
sense the holographic model could be perceived as addressing the mechanism
whereby the consciousness interacts with that wave mechanical, aboriginal,
sensible muchness, and somehow manages to convert it into usable information.
In another sense, if you imagine that the individual consciousness has its own
characteristic wave patterns, you could view it—metaphorically, of course—as
the laser of a particular frequency that intersects with a specific pattern in
the cosmic hologram.”

As might be expected,
Jahn and Dunne's work has been greeted with considerable resistance by the
scientific orthodox community, but it is gaining acceptance in some quarters. A
good deal of PEAR's funding comes from the McDonnell Foundation, created by
James S. McDonnell III, of the McDonnell Douglas Corporation, and the
New
York Times Magazine
recently devoted an article to Jahn and Dunne's work.
Jahn and Dunne themselves remain undaunted by the fact that they are devoting
so much time and effort to exploring the parameters of a phenomenon considered
nonexistent by most other scientists. As Jahn states, “My sense of the
importance of this topic is much higher than anything else I've ever worked
on.”

Psychokinesis on
a Grander Scale

So far, PK effects
produced in the lab have been limited to relatively small objects, but the
evidence suggests that some individuals at least can use PK to bring about even
greater changes in the physical world. Biologist Lyall Watson, author of the
bestselling book
Supernature
and a scientist who has studied paranormal
events all over the world, encountered one such individual while visiting the
Philippines. The man was one of the so-called Philippine psychic healers, but
instead of touching a patient, all he did was hold his hand about ten inches
over the person's body, point at his or her skin, and an incision would appear
instantaneously. Watson not only witnessed several displays of the man's
psychokinetic surgical skills, but once, when the man made a broader sweep with
his finger than usual, Watson received an incision on the back of his own hand.
He bears the scar to this day.

There is evidence that
PK abilities can also be used to heal bones. Several examples of such healings
have been reported by Dr. Rex Gardner, a physician at Sunderland District
General Hospital in England. One interesting aspect of a 1983 article in the
British
Medical Journal
is that Gardner, an avid investigator of miracles, presents
contemporary miraculous healings side by side with examples of virtually
identical healings collected by seventh-century English historian and
theologian the Venerable Bede.

The present-day healing
involved a group of Lutheran nuns living in Darmstadt, Germany. The nuns were
building a chapel when one of the sisters broke through a freshly cemented
floor and fell onto a wooden beam below. She was rushed to the hospital where X
rays revealed that she had a compound pelvic fracture. Instead of relying on
standard medical techniques, the nuns held an all-night prayer vigil. Despite
the doctors’ insistence that the sister should remain in traction for many
weeks, the nuns took her home two days later and continued to pray and perform
a laying on of hands. To their surprise, immediately following the laying on of
hands, the sister stood up from her bed, free of the excruciating pain of the
fracture and apparently healed. It took her only two weeks to achieve a full
recovery, whereupon she returned to the hospital and presented herself to her
astonished doctor.

Although Gardner does
not try to account for this or any of the other healings he discusses in his
article, PK seems a likely explanation. Given that the natural healing of a
fracture is a lengthy process, and even the miraculous regeneration of
Michelli's pelvis took several months, it is suggested that perhaps the
unconscious PK abilities of the nuns performing the laying on of hands
accomplished the task.

Gardner describes a
similar healing that occurred in the seventh century during the building of the
church at Hexham, England, and involving St. Wilfrid, then the bishop of
Hexham. During the construction of the church a mason named Bothelm fell from a
great height, breaking both his arms and legs. As he lay dying, Wilfrid prayed
over him and asked the other workmen to join him. They did, “the breath of life
returned” to Bothelm, and he healed rapidly. Since the healing apparently did
not take place until St Wilfred asked the other workmen to join him, one
wonders if St Wilfred was the catalyst or again if it was the combined
unconscious PK of the entire assemblage?

Dr. William Tuf Ls
Brigham, the curator of the Bishop Museum in Honolulu and a noted botanist who
devoted much of his private life to investigating the paranormal, recorded an
incident in which a broken bone was instantaneously healed by a native Hawaiian
shaman, or
kahuna.
The incident was witnessed by a friend of Brigham's
named J. A. K. Combs. Combs's grandmother-in-law was considered one of the most
powerful women kahunas in the islands, and once, while attending a party at the
woman's home, Combs observed her abilities firsthand.

On the occasion in
question, one of the guests slipped and fell in the beach sand, breaking his
leg so severely that the bone ends pressed visibly out against the skin.
Recognizing the seriousness of the break, Combs recommended that the man be
taken to a hospital immediately, but the elderly kahuna would hear none of it
Kneeling beside the man, she straightened his leg and pushed on the area where
the fractured bones pressed out against his skin. After praying and meditating
for several minutes she stood up and announced that the healing was finished.
The man rose wonderingly to his feet, took a step, and then another. He was
completely healed and his leg showed no indication of the break in any way.

Mass
Psychokinesis in Eighteenth-Century France

Such incidents
notwithstanding, one of the most astounding manifestations of psychokinesis,
and one of the most remarkable displays of miraculous events ever recorded,
took place in Paris in the first half of the eighteenth century. The events
centered around a puritanical sect of Dutch-influenced Catholics known as the
Jansenists, and were precipitated by the death of a saintly and revered Jansenist
deacon named Francois de Paris. Although few people living today have even
heard of the Jansenist miracles, they were one of the most talked about events
in Europe for the better part of a century.

To understand fully the
Jansenist miracles, it is necessary to know a little about the historical
events that preceded Francois de Paris's death. Jansenism was founded in the
early seventeenth century, and from the start it was at odds with both the
Roman Catholic Church and the French monarchy. Many of the beliefs diverged
sharply with standard church doctrine but it was a popular movement and quickly
gained followers among the French populace. Most damning of all, it was viewed
by both the papacy and King Louis XV, a devout Catholic, as Protestantism only
masquerading as Catholicism. As a result, both the church and the king were
constantly maneuvering to undermine the movement's power. One obstacle to these
maneuverings, and one of the factors that contributed to the movement's
popularity, was that Jansenist leaders seemed especially skilled at performing
miraculous healings. Nonetheless, the church and the monarchy persevered,
causing fierce debates to rage throughout France. It was on May 1, 1727, at the
height of this power struggle, that Francois de Paris died and was interred in
the parish cemetery of Saint-Medard, Paris.

Because of the abbe's
saintly reputation, worshipers began to gather at his tomb, and from the
beginning a host of miraculous healings were reported. The ailments thus cured
included cancerous tumors, paralysis, deafness, arthritis, rheumatism, ulcerous
sores, persistent fevers, prolonged hemorrhaging, and blindness. But this was
not all. The mourners also started to experience strange involuntary spasms or
convulsions and to undergo the most amazing contortions of their limbs. These
seizures quickly proved contagious, spreading like a brush fire until the
streets were packed with men, women, and children, all twisting and writhing as
if caught up in a surreal enchantment.

It was while they were
in this fitful and trancelike state that the “convulsionaires,” as they have
come to be called, displayed the most phenomenal of their talents. One was the
ability to endure without harm an almost unimaginable variety of physical
tortures. These included severe beatings, blows from both heavy and sharp
objects, and strangulation—
all with no sign of injury, or even the slightest
trace of wounds or bruises.

What makes these
miraculous events so unique is that they were witnessed by literally thousands
of observers. The frenzied gatherings around Abbe Paris's tomb were by no means
short-lived. The cemetery and the streets surrounding it were crowded day and
night for years, and even two decades later miracles were still being reported
(to give some idea of the enormity of the phenomena, in 1733 it was noted in
the public records that over 3,000 volunteers were needed simply to assist the
convulsionaires and make sure, for example, that the female participants did
not become immodestly exposed during their seizures). As a result, the
supernormal abilities of the convulsionaires became an international cause
celebre, and thousands flocked to see them, including individuals from all
social strata and officials from every educational, religious, and governmental
institution imaginable; numerous accounts, both official and unofficial, of the
miracles witnessed are recorded in the documents of the time.