Discussing parapsychology with UNLV scientist Dean Radin begins with his explanation of what the term doesn't mean.
It doesn't have anything to do with astrology, UFOs, vampires, alchemy, witchcraft or searching for Bigfoot.
And Radin can't heal or counsel people who think they have extrasensory perception or psychic powers.
As director of the Consciousness Research Lab at UNLV's Harry Reid Center for Environmental Studies, the engineer and psychologist is searching for the connections between mind and matter, something most scientists chalk up as a mystery.
Radin, 44, is one of about 40 academic parapsychologists in the world, and he leads the pack with 165 papers published, 44 in peer-reviewed journals, 16 more under way, a book contract with Harper-Collins and a recent feature in the New York Times Magazine.
Certainly, Radin is on the cutting edge of a field always at the outer limits of scientific inquiry.
But he's a serious scientist nonetheless.
Donald Baepler, director of the Harry Reid Center, said he researched Radin's credentials before hiring him. "He's solid," Baepler said.
Radin recently received the Outstanding Contributions Award for 1996 from the Parapsychological Association during its annual meeting in San Diego.
Psi research
Before coming to Las Vegas, Radin worked with contractors who, for more than 20 years, had conducted experiments in clairvoyance -- or in today's terminology, "remote viewing" -- for the military.
In the $20 million "Star Gate" project, for example, about 1,200 psychic tasks were carried out. Two consultants hired by the CIA to evaluate the project reached separate conclusions.
That is a typical result of today's psi research, Radin said.
Everybody can have psychic experiences. Most of the time, we're largely unconscious of this sensitivity or faculty that can appear or disappear based on influences ranging from temperature and geomagnetic activity to beliefs and personality.
But what about masses of people experiencing the same thing? Is there a connection between a public event and the minds of millions of people?
Radin thinks so.
To test mass consciousness, Radin and his assistant, Jannine Rebman, have zeroed in on several events watched by millions, even billions, of people to see if their reactions can affect physical systems.
Radin and Rebman have observed how people acted during emotion-packed moments during a Las Vegas comedy show in September 1995 and broadcasts of the Academy Awards, the Super Bowl and the O.J. Simpson verdict.
By focusing attention on a worldwide event, Radin suspected a coherence among many minds. Something happens to the human nervous system because the same general results for heightened attention occurred in every experiment.
For example, Radin's research suggests that the reading of the Simpson verdict caused masses of people to focus their attention like a laser beam on the event.
"It was simply the act of focusing your mind," he said. "You've created a coherence of mind, an EEG."
By viewing mind and matter emerging from the same unity (focused on the same event), one indeed seems to affect the other.
"There is quality in the numbers," Radin said, noting a similarity in the minds of monks who meditate and basketball fans glued to a televised game.
They repeated the experiment during the Olympics when an estimated 3 billion people tuned into Atlanta through their TV screens. "That gave the biggest effect," Radin said.
Now Radin has evidence that mind-matter interactions occur not only on a small scale in the laboratory, but in the world at large.
"We are beginning to glimpse that past assumptions about rigid separations between mind and matter may have been wrong, so perhaps our future explorations will be more enlightening," Radin and Rebman concluded in their study.
Just a feeling
Radin also has studied people who have a sudden urge to slow down before the driver ahead crashes or those who cancel a seat on the plane that crashes.
"We don't know the mechanism," he said. "Is some information from the future coming back in time on a hunch?" It gives a whole new meaning to the concept of affecting future events in the "Back to the Future" films.
Radin's advice: "If a hunch comes out of nowhere and you have no reason to believe it -- believe it!"
By looking at larger patterns in life and luck, Radin discovered a definite effect of the full moon on gambling.
The moon has been a mythical symbol to planters and paranormal experts for centuries. When Radin got an invitation from the Continental hotel-casino to study gaming trends, he jumped at the chance.
During his study, he discovered that more slot machine payoffs come during full moons. "They're not necessarily large jackpots, but the buzzers and bells go off all the time during full moon phases," he said.
And four of the last seven Megabucks winners have hit the top jackpot during full moons.
"The question naturally is, how come casinos are not going broke?" he said. The answer is in the overwhelming odds in favor of the casino.
Radin found that gamblers have a 2 percent better chance to win during a full moon. "That means you lose slower," he said.
His only regret? That more casinos won't allow him to research the information they have on winning and losing patterns.
Other experiments in which Radin has been involved:
* REMOTE HEALING: Subjects constructed clay dolls of themselves. His research showed that the subjects' blood flow and nerve activity increased when a "healer" 100 yards away massaged the dolls.
* ROBOTICS: Subjects attempt to manipulate a robotic arm to pick up an M&M. Unobserved, the robotic arm can complete the job in 25 steps. With a human's mental attention to the task, the job can be done in as few as two steps.
* PSYCHICS: "The best psychic averages about 3 in 10, like the best baseball hitters batting .300," he said. "The rest of us bat about 1 or 2 in 10."
Radin can't necessarily explain why these psychic phenomena occur, "which means we aren't smart enough yet."
"We have not found the mechanism to explain these phenomena yet," he said. But he expects the science to come through in the next century.
Prodigy to paranormal
Born in New York City, Radin spent his early childhood years in Atlanta. A violin student, by age 8 he was something of a prodigy when the family moved to Springfield, Mass., where he played with the youth symphony.
He received his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1973. He got his master's in 1975 and Ph.D. in 1979 from the University of Illinois in electrical engineering and psychology.
Over the years the fine strains of violin music gave way to the fiddle and bluegrass tunes.
Music was a sidelight to Radin's research.
Radin gravitated to firms that are known as hotbeds of parapsychological research. He worked at AT&T Bell Labs in Columbus, Ohio, then at Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) in New Jersey and on government projects at the S.R.I. International in Menlo Park, Calif.
A parapsychology fellowship at the University of Edinburgh preceded his life in Las Vegas, which began in 1993.
"I like it here," Radin said. "It's warm and drier, but I never expected to come here." His typical summer attire includes Bermuda shorts and a T-shirt.
Does Radin trust in psychic experiences? Well, first, he is a scientist and a practical man.
For example, he's not willing to risk life and limb in Las Vegas traffic. "I drive a Volvo," he said, shaking his head at the speeding, careening drivers on local streets.
Still, he has a touch of whimsy. Plastic dinosaur figures parade across his office shelves.
"They were on sale in the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Natural History," he said. "You can't beat 50 cents apiece."
This article contains copyrighted material that has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. MCF is offering this article available to our readers for the general purpose of criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching and/or research. We believe that our use of this material falls under the "fair use" provision of Title 17, Section 107 of the United States Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes other than that provided by law, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
| Back to MFC Index | Back to Hambones Index |