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"Mr. Koestler's main concern is with demonstrating that, contrary to what one might expect- namely, that...paranormal events are most disturbing because they seem to break what most of us think are the laws of the real world- it is precisely modern physics that offers a "rapprochement" between the real world and parapsychology, even if the rapprochement is "negative in the sense that the unthinkable phenomena of ESP appear somewhat less preposterous in the light of the unthinkable propositions of physics." As Mr. Koestler so lucidly and wittily demonstrates, modern physics depicts a world of noncausational paradoxes- a wonderland of Heisenbergian Principles of Uncertainty, of mysterious elementary particles, of psi-fields, anti-electrons, multi-dimensionality, and time running forward and backward. And unlike Newton's clockwork universe, this new world is not at all uncongenial to the dice-shooter convinced that he has a "hot" hand or the sensitive who insists that his dreams are premonitory" -- by Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, New York Times, August 11, 1972.… (more)
User reviews
I don't think Koestler overstates the case for the existence of these phenomena, but the case does appear quite strong. The sort of thing that seems to be reproducible, under controlled conditions, might not actually be as exciting as the imagination could conceive. Some people have been shown to be able to guess the identity of random cards at over 10% above the rate of chance, over tens or hundreds of thousands of attempts. This is statistically significant, with the chance of it happening randomly in the orders of millions or billions to one. The evidence for this sort of thing seems quite good, and does demand some kind of explanation, other than chance.
Koestler thinks that most people who refuse to believe in these phenomena do so due to mechanistic (Newtonian) world views. He presents the strangeness of modern quantum mechanics and relativity, and it makes the objections to parapsychological phenomena seem a lot more tenuous. Of course, we don't know the mechanisms of action for these parapsychological phenomena, but if they exist then they probably rely on quantum events. The physics and neuroscience coverage seems quite well done, and it is interesting that Koestler knew personally several scientists, such as Pauli.
In truth it does all seem quite far-fetched, but it should be possible for the reader to rationally suspend disbelief in these things after reading this book.
Koestler seems to have a knack for making his readers realise that they are interested in things that they previously weren't interested in. Perhaps this is because he only writes about interesting things, or maybe it is becaus he writes well about them. Before reading this book I was a lot more skeptical about these phenomena than I am now, and I suspect that advances in science will allow us to get nearer to the bottom of these things, and to find out if there is a sensible explanation for them.