EHE Book Reviews

Skeptical/Critical Approaches Record Type: Review ID: 1157
Science and the Supernatural: An Investigation of Paranormal Phenomena Including Psychic Healing, Clairvoyance, Telepathy and Precognition by a Distinguished Physicist and Mathematician Taylor, John
His curiosity piqued by Uri Geller, John Taylor, a physicist and professor of mathematics at Kings College, undertook the investigation of spoon-bending, hoping it would provide a clue to an explanation of psi in general. However, he was not able to obtain significant results under strict experimental conditions. He reviews the evidence for psychic healing, clairvoyance, telepathy, precognition, psychokinesis, and survival and concludes that certain results have normal explanations (e.g., an electrical explanation of some seeming PK phenomena), or could be explained by "mischief, fraud, credulity, fantasy, memory, cues and fear of death. With this evidence and the fact that all of these phenomena disagreed completely with scientific results, we have to conclude that the paranormal has `disappeared'" (p. 164). He admits that a few psychic phenomena are hard to explain, namely, psychic burns, faith healing, and spontaneous human combustion, but avers "their character is almost certainly not paranormal" (p. 164).
Publisher Information:	New York: Dutton, 1980. 180p. Index: 175-180; Suggested reading list: 171-174

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Science and the Supernatural: An Investigation of Paranormal Phenomena Including Psychic Healing, Clairvoyance, Telepathy and Precognition by a Distinguished Physicist and Mathematician