This is not just an interesting book, it is an important one. Radin has brought together evidence and concepts that bridge the fields of quantum physics and consciousness in a way that should be comprehensible to experts in both fields.

Entanglement is the interlinking of particles in quantum physics in ways that are as yet unexplained, but which demonstrate in a variety of experiments that the separation of space between particles does not hinder their interactions. Entanglement is also another way of stating the fact that minds interact across space and time, as has been amply confirmed by parapsychologists in highly significant studies of telepathy, clairsentience, precognition and psychokinesis.

Radin’s presentation of the evidence on both sides is, for the most part, clear and cogent. His summary of the spectrum of theories in quantum physics that propose to explain entanglement is one of the clearest I have seen. Likewise, his summary of parapsychology research – updated from his earlier major work (Radin, 1997) – is equally well done. I particularly like the following metaphoric description that links both lines of discussion:

At a level of reality deeper than the ordinary senses can grasp, our brains and minds are in intimate communion with the universe. It’s as though we lived in a gigantic bowl of clear jello. Every wiggle-every movement, event, and thought-within that medium is felt through the entire bowl. Except that this particular form of jello is a rather peculiar medium, in that it’s not localized in the usual way, nor is it squishy like ordinary Jell-O. It extends beyond the bounds of ordinary spacetime, and it’s not even a substance in the usual sense of that word.

Because of this “nonlocal Jell-O” in which we are embedded, we can get glimpses of information about other people’s minds, distant objects, or the future or past. We get this not through the ordinary senses and not because signals from those other minds and objects travel to our brain. But because at some level our mind/brain is already coexistent with other people’s minds, distant objects, and everything else. To navigate through this space, we use attention and intention. From this perspective, psychic experiences are reframed not as mysterious “powers of the mind” but as momentary glimpses of the entangled fabric of reality.

Particles that are quantum entangled do not imply that signals pass between them. Entanglement means that separated systems are correlated. Psi, on the other hand, seems to involve information transfer, like signal passing. At first glance, that seems to eliminate quantum correlations as an explanation of psi. However, the pseudo-telepathy paradigm discussed in the previous chapter shows that joint tasks would require classical signals can take place without any information transfer. This suggests an alternative understanding of psi. Maybe it doesn’t involve information transfer at all. Maybe it’s purely relational and manifests only as correlations.
(p. 263).

This book provides the research evidence and theories to convince anyone open to being convinced that a collective consciousness is alive and well in our world, and that we are active participants in it.

Reference: Radin, Dean. The Conscious Universe, New York: HarperCollins 1997.

Review by Daniel J Benor, MD, ABHM, IJHC Editor

We hope you enjoyed the article and welcome your comments and feedback in our new Forum.

If this article has spoken to you and has been helpful, we would appreciate your support by:

1. Making a donation to the IJHC
2. Forwarding this article to others who might be interested

The IJHC is supported through donations.

Thank you for your help in making it possible to publish the healing articles in the International Journal of Healing and Caring on line.

Blessings

Dan