Science & Psychic Tarot

[Teheuti]

I'm doing some research and writing on psychic and intuitive tarot readings and trying to come up with a simple but concrete experiment for testing tarot predictions. In my research I came across this informative video of a talk by Dean Radin at the Institute of Noetic Sciences:

"Science and the Taboo of Psi"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qw_O9Qiwqew

Here's a bit from a description of the talk:
"Do telepathy, clairvoyance and other "psi" abilities exist? The majority of the general population believes that they do, and yet fewer than one percent of mainstream academic institutions have any faculty known for their interest in these frequently reported experiences."

In the talk Radin surveys (with powerpoint presentations) a lot of the research that's been done over the years of which most people are unaware. This is a good place to catch up on the science.

Mary

 

[Scion]

Radin also has some useful books (Conscious Universe & Entangled Minds) that have been making themselves felt, however slightly... and he has a website that tracks his research projects on the fly: http://www.deanradin.com/NewWeb/deanradin.html

For more in this vein, and especially if you want to move from the philosophical to actual research... I'd highly recommend the work and writings of Dr. Bill Tiller, a hardcore scientist (and professor emeritus of Materials Science and Engineering at Stanford University) who's doing really surprising things with experimental protocols in "magical" contexts. Some Science Adventures with Real Magic and Conscious Acts of Creation are genuinely eye-opening and backed up with hard data from someone who knows how the academia game is played. Fantastic!

http://www.tillerfoundation.com/

 

[MoonLitCrystal]

This sounds really cool. I'd watch it now if it weren't for the homework I have to do

I think that the faculty at academic institutions have a fear of being seen as "silly," and that's why they don't want to act like they are interested in PSI. Even as more and more people accept it and believe in it, sadly it still seems like a taboo topic. What are they afraid of, being burned at the stake?

 

[RufusJ]

What are they afraid of? Ridicule, which is much worse than being burned at the stake.

rufus

 

[Umbrae]

Thanks for this!

Really good stuff here.

And you know, they don’t really know about consciousness yet…

 

[Teheuti]

For more in this vein

Scion - thanks for all the great references.

Mary

 

[The Dreamer]

Hooray! More visibility for this!

I happen to also have been posting about Dean Radin recently, here and elsewhere- the post which I made here is buried in the middle of a thread, though: http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=92436

These sorts of explorations (into where scientific method and consciousness can meet, and inform one another) are so laden with possibility, yet can be so frustrating due to the social trends involved.

 

[The Dreamer]

Charles Tart is another who has gone into the science-consciousness borderlands with effectiveness (though from the orientation of a psychologist).

This Charles Tart interview -

-part 1

-part 2

-part 3

-part 4

-part 5

And this transcript of a talk -

"Parapsychology and transpersonal psychology: 'anomalies' to be explained away or spirit to manifest?" -Charles Tart

are also interesting as related to these subjects, though not as technically research oriented.

 

[Teheuti]

Charles Tart is another who has gone into the science-consciousness borderlands with effectiveness (though from the orientation of a psychologist).

In the transcript of his talk (see link in previous post), Tart offers this description of "Transpersonal Psychology":

"Transpersonal psychology is ............ based on people's experiences
of temporarily transcending our usual identification with our
limited biological, historical, cultural and personal self and, at the
deepest and most profound levels of experience possible,
recognizing/being "something" of vast intelligence and compassion
that encompasses/is the entire universe. From this perspective our
ordinary, "normal" biological, historical, cultural and personal self
is seen as an important, but quite partial (and often pathologically
distorted) manifestation or expression of this much greater
"something" that is our deeper origin and destination."

It seems to me that a great number of Tarotists might define themselves as "Transpersonal Tarotists" - or is that redundant? Are these concepts integral to, and never or rarely separate from, who we are as tarot practitioners?

 

[Teheuti]

Another interesting point in Tart's paper:

"Isn't it interesting than that a lot of psi data can be interpreted to show that *meaning* produces results, but mechanism doesn't? . . . in almost all cases the agent has no understanding whatsoever of the mechanics of the electronic circuits controlling the outcome - but nevertheless produces a shift toward the meaningful outcome of complying with the experimenter's request. . . .

"Again, the meaningfulness of complying with the experimenter's request produces results. So we have data that suggest that *meaning* may be a fundamental factor in the universe, rather than a desperate, purely subjective phenomena produced by electrochemical processes and brains."

Might this suggest that the looking for (or expectation of) meaning in the cards is, in part, why they are so meaningful - that they so often function outside of a purely random universe?

Mary