Parapsychology and transpersonal psychology: "Anomalies" to be explained away or spirit to manifest?

Is it not interesting then that a lot of psi data can be interpreted to show that meaning produces results, but mechanism does not? When an agent is asked to psychokinetically affect the output of an electronic random number generator, for example, to make more of one color light come on more than another, in almost all cases the agent has no understanding whatsoever of the mechanics of the electronic circuits controlling the outcome--but nevertheless produces a shift toward the meaningful-outcome of complying with the experimenter's request. Even with the old dice studies, where you might imagine a mechanical explanation of the agent psychokinetically exerting a push on a falling die at just the right moment to make it come up with the desired face, if you really think about this, the linear and angular momentum and trajectory information needed to be obtained by the senses and/or clairvoyance, the precise timing of the PK push, the precise angle and exact force to push with, make the PK dice results clearly beyond what a human brain can process in the allotted time. Again, the meaningfulness of complying with the experimenter's request produces results. So we have data that suggest that meaning may be a fundamental factor in the universe, rather than a desperate, purely subjective phenomena produced by electrochemical processes and brains.

Love

A fourth specific: the nature of love. In the spiritual/transpersonal view, love is a fundamental factor of the universe: "that the foundation principal of the world is what we call love." For the scientistic/materialistic view, love is a psychological phenomenon based on biochemical actions, a kind of sublimated biological lust, or perhaps the mere chemical reactions leading to behavioral reactions that maximize the effects of "selfish genes" trying to propagate themselves.

I have also been impressed by William Braud's analysis, in his chapter in my book Body Mind Spirit (Tart, 1997), that three general factors that facilitate psi performance are faith, hope, and love: factors that are central virtues in all religions.

I must add, parenthetically, that my Body Mind Spirit: Exploring the Parapsychology of Spirituality anthology (Tart, 1997) may well be my most important work in parapsychology, but while it has received good reviews, it is not at all clear that it is having any effect on the field. For those of you who do not know it, the book is an anthology in which I asked a number of our colleagues to come out from behind the laboratory bench and talk about the spiritual implications of psi data, rather than hiding behind sterile statements about "anomalies."

Death

A fifth specific: the nature of death. The spiritual/transpersonal view sees death as some kind of transition, not as a final end: "that the soul of man is immortal." The scientistic/materialistic view, in contrast, sees death as the ultimate end. Russell put it succinctly (and depressingly) that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought or feeling, can preserve a life beyond the grave." With consciousness being nothing but neurochemical reaction within the brain and nervous system, obviously when that system breaks down, there is no further consciousness.