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Dear Editor,
I was bemused, to say the least, to find Betsy Chasse holding forth in the pages of your magazine ["A ‘Bleep' Heard 'Round the World," October/November 2005]. As anyone with a little time to do the research can discover, not a single individual who appears in her film What the #$*! Do We (K)now!? can be considered a "leading scientific expert" as she opines. None of the findings and often absurd assertions made in her film are supported by any peer-reviewed process whatsoever, a step required by any "leading scientist" to accept a hypothesis. John Hagelin, for example, as Director of the Institute of Science at the Maharishi Institute, is no doubt an earnest and well-meaning individual, but he is not within a light-year of being considered a proper scientist by anyone in any field.
Science is about forming hypotheses, producing verifiable and testable results to support them, and publishing the process and results for review by other scientists to affirm or deny that support and the methodology used to obtain the data. I challenge Ms. Chasse to produce even one of the "thousands" of "well-documented scientific stud[ies]" that show, as she claims, that "one human being's thoughts can be subconsciously felt and received by another person at another location.." She will have a difficult time producing proper scientific studies, involving double blind testing, with controls - all standard issue amongst "the world's leading scientific experts," I assure you - as there is not one, I repeat, not one such scientifically verifiable study in all the annals of scientific literature.
The individual who could produce such a study and verifiable, repeatable data, would, in fact, stand to profit greatly from their scientific wisdom. The James Randi Foundation (www.jref.org) has had a long-standing offer of one million dollars to any individual or institution that can produce evidence of such a claim. I invite Ms. Chasse to contact them at her earliest convenience to help Mr. Randi find some of these thousands of successful studies. I am sure that such a sum would keep Ms. Chasse's associate J.Z. Knight, who "channels" ancient Atlantean Ramtha for a princely sum, in meditation cushions and apparently much needed Ricola drops for some time to come. But then, at the obscene rates Knight charges to dispense Ramtha's flaccid wisdom, I am sure she has no need of the loot. No doubt a fitting charity, such as one of the Maharishi's "non-profit organizations" would be pleased to accept the lucre on their behalf?
I am sure Ms. Chasse will respond with "shock" that a non-scientist like me would question "the world's greatest scientists." Ms. Chasse, alas, does not include even one of these august individuals in her film. I'm sorry, but proponents of "yogic flying" and half-baked "unified field theories" that are based on nothing more than supposition - in short, general fruit-bats like John Hagelin - don't count, and including him in the same sentence with Einstein is an insult to Einstein, to science. To anyone who loves science and would see the world freed of tyrannical and baseless superstition (Intelligent Design, anyone?) and those who prey upon the superstitious to enrich themselves (listening, Ms. Knight?): Shame on the lot of you. Believe what you like; it is your right. But don't come back to me calling it science until you have some data that will withstand a moment's scrutiny.
Cordially,
Michael Sheehan
Long Beach, CA
Dear Michael,
First, I'd like to thank you for asking questions. An important theme in our film is that it's time to think for ourselves. As one of the scientists says at the end of the film, "Don't take our word for it; try it out yourself."
I see you tried it out and proved the concept that "you are the observer and creator of your reality" quite handsomely when you did your research on the science presented in the film; that is, you saw only what you wanted to see. Many respected universities and organizations have done consciousness and psi studies, such as the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research program, which studied the effect of human operators over machinery and found evidence of a mind-over-machinery connection. Then there is the study at the University of Wisconsin which concluded that "a short program in mindfulness meditation produces demonstrable effects on brain and immune function..." Many universities worldwide have consciousness studies programs. A simple Google search reveals a staggering amount of investigation into these fields.
Actually, if you check out just one book, Dr. Dean Radin's The Conscious Universe: The Scientific Truth of Psychic Phenomena, you will find hundreds of credible consciousness and psi research studies extensively quoted and examined. In his introduction alone you find references to studies published in scientific journals like Foundations of Physics, American Psychologist and Statistical Science favorably reviewing the scientific evidence for psychic phenomena. An article presenting a theoretical model for precognition appeared in 1994 in the Physical Review, a prominent physics journal. In the 1990s, seminars on psi research were part of the regular programs of the annual conferences of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Psychological Association and the American Statistical Association. Reports prepared for the Congressional Research Service, the U.S. Army Research Institute, the National Research Council, the Office of Technology Assessment and the American Institutes for Research have all resulted in reviews concluding that the experimental evidence for certain forms of psychic phenomena merited serious scientific study. Every reference just cited is listed in just three paragraphs in Radin's introduction. The rest of the book delves deeply into case analysis, methods analysis and statistical methodologies in the over 500 case studies quoted. As for your comments regarding the credentials of the scientists interviewed in our film, perhaps you were unable to review their bios on our website. Bill Tiller, Ph.D., is Professor Emeritus at Stanford University in the Department of Materials Science; John Hagelin, Ph.D., conducted pioneering research at CERN (the European Center for Particle Physics) and SLAC (the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center) and is responsible for the development of a highly successful grand unified field theory based on the Superstring; Candace Pert, Ph. D., is a professor at Georgetown as well as a being an internationally recognized pharmacologist who has published more than 250 scientific articles on peptides and their receptors and the role of these neuropeptides in the immune system. She has an international reputation in the field of neuropeptide and receptor pharmacology, and chemical neuroanatomy. The rest are equally credentialed. While you may not agree with their scientific findings, I find it sad that you are reduced to insults and name calling to try and prove your point.
As for Ramtha - well, to each their own. Although you attacked the messenger, you were unable to discount anything the messenger said; and much of what Ramtha said in the film is the same as what many respected scientists are saying today. Perennial knowledge is truth that stands the test of time, truth that can be arrived at from multiple pathways and disciplines. Much of what was covered in What the BLEEP!? is not new. The knowledge has been around for centuries. Now that science is able and willing to tackle the really hard questions, it's no coincidence researchers are coming up with some of the same answers as mystics throughout the ages. I am pleased and excited to see it happening.
The overwhelming international response we've received about the film, and the willingness of many respected scientists and universities to begin to take a real look into the field of consciousness, shows that the paradigm of close-minded, insular thinking is shifting and expanding to include broad and exciting precepts and vision. For this we should all be thoroughly grateful. Betsy Chasse
Cate Montana PS: "There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true." - Soren Kierkegaard |
