This Great Book has just been republished and so you can now get it at a much more reasonable price, than at $100’s of dollars.
In this incredibly important book, you get the opportunity to follow along with the author, Robert McLuhan, as he examines much of the evidence in a number of areas of the paranormal.
Some the paranormal events he looks are Ghosts/hauntings, visits from apparitions, Mediums, seances, OBEs, NDEs, reincarnation, children remembering past lives, remote viewing, Card guessing experiments, the sense of being stared at, Psychic animals and more.
If you, like I, have been reading lots of the information about various paranormal events, You find that this book help to bring lots of it together and puts forward many thought provoking ideas to Consider. In This book as well as looking at some of the evidence you get a great overview of some of the different paranormal events happing on the planet, that when all taken together becomes a huge pile of evidence that is hard to ignore if you are willing to look at it.
Robert call himself an agnostic and that he does not want to be convinced that the paranormal is true, particularly reincarnation.
“I saw myself more as a free-thinking agnostic than a committed atheist, as I believe many scientists themselves do.”
– Quote from Page 1 of Randi’s Prize
” I’d have to add that the idea of reincarnation, more than some other things we have been looking at, fills me with apprehension, as I think it does to many people, and I’d be relieved if I thought Stevenson’s claims could be adequately explained away.”
– Quote from Page 281 of Randi’s Prize
This book is for someone who has an open mind and is willing to look at all the different angles, because most sceptics will not be convinced this book is not for them.
“Mayer cites the case of an individual who peer-reviewed an article on remote viewing that had been submitted to an engineering journal, stating that it was methodologically impeccable and that he could find no reason to reject it, but still recommending that it not be published, as it was the kind of thing he would personally not believe in even if it existed.”
– Quote from Page 239 of Randi’s Prize
I found this book particularly useful, I have read, or heard about many of the examples in the book, and had my own sceptical reaction. In following along with the Author as he first finds the material unbelievable but with further study becomes convinced that there is something to all of the evidence accumulated over the years.
One often cited reason why the sceptics don’t have to believe the evidence is that they claim that there is a large number of unpublished reports, the so called bottom drawer problem, when the experiments failed.
“Critics might counter that it would be neutralized if all the data were included, on the assumption that studies with negative results were never published. But Dean Radin calculates that for this to happen there would have to be twenty-three such studies for every known one, requiring continuous activity for thirty-six years – an utterly implausible idea.”
– Quote from Page 200 of Randi’s Prize
Most sceptic don’t even read the evidence, maybe part of them knows that if they want to hold onto their martial world view that they don’t dare read any of it but need to be thoroughly scathing in there response to any presentation of anything slightly paranormal.
As Robert points out if someone manages to convince a sceptic, all the other sceptics treat them as though they have gone over to the other side. If, for example some convinced Randi of the reality of the paranormal he may hand over the Million bucks, but then all the sceptics would consider him a fool.
” … consider what would have happened if Randi had observed at first hand the events at the Resch household, and come out bewildered by what he had seen. No question, he might have said, I was wrong – there really are psychic forces of which I had no conception. Tina, my child, here’s the cheque. Spend it wisely. Even if this fanciful scenario were one day to be played out, nothing would change. It would make headlines briefly but would not convert sceptics all over the world into believers. Its only lasting effect would be to end Randi’s career as a debunker: he would be written off as an elderly man who has finally succumbed to the madness of paranormal belief.”
– Quote from Page 58 of Randi’s Prize
For me this book helped me to understand why the sceptics are not convinced.
I grew up with a materialist view of the world and when I started to read about NDE and other stuff I was always wondering what the sceptic saw/knew which kept them as unbelievers. Was there more information that I was missing, was I being fooled, but I now know it is the sceptic who are missing information because they won’t even look at any of the evidence.
If you have a world view, and don’t want to change it it behooves you to NOT look at anything that might convince you to change.
I could say if you want to keep you world view “Don’t Read this book” but I don’t think you need to be concerned as if you want to keep not believing in the paranormal you would have already left this page, and probably never came here in the 1st place.
As the Robert says on Page 6
“On a matter such as this, one is not – and perhaps should not be – persuaded by a single book. Until you achieve a solid foundation any conviction I leave you with will be temporary, easily undone by the next article or review you come across that blandly reaffirms the paranormal to be a lot of nonsense. As I’ll suggest, orthodoxy exerts a gravitational pull in this respect, although we may not recognize it as such.”– Quote from Page 6 of Randi’s Prize
I Highly Recommend this book, and I give it 7 stars.
Finished reading 14 March 2019
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