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THE PARANORMAL Stan Gooch In his Total Man trilogy (recently completed with the publication of The Neanderthal Question) Stan Gooch has made many significant contributions to our understand¬ ing of the paranormal. Now, in his major new book, he reveals himself as a powerful psychic and medium. Drawing on his own varied psychic experiences and those of other psychics known personally to him, the author argues strongly for an ‘alternative universe’ lying beyond the reach of science. Unlike many psychics, Stan Gooch is himself a trained scientist. Carrying the argument into the enemy’s camp he demonstrates the inadequacy of statistics in coping with the paranormal — establish¬ ing a ‘chance barrier’ beyond which chance can never reach, but meaning can. In all this, Stan Gooch is no less firm with the fraudulent and the naively enthusiastic. This major book marks a decisive turning point in the history of para¬ normal studies. ISBN 0 7045 0307 7 £5.95 net The Paranormal STAN GOOCH WILDWOOD HOUSE LONDON For BILL DUFFY First published 1978 © Stan Gooch 1978 Wildwood House Limited 29 King Street London WC2E 8JD ISBN 0 7045 0307 7 Typeset by Supreme Litho Typesetting, Romford, Essex Printed and bound in Great Britain by Redwood Burn, Trowbridge and Esher Contents Introduction vn Part I 1 Mysterious Midlands 3 2 Footprints in the Sand 19 3 The Psychic Universe — Minor Key 29 Part II Matters Arising Conspiracy 45 Psychic Healing 107 Going Ga-Ga and Flieing 46 Astrology, Palmistry, Dreams 63 Graphology 118 Ghosts and Hallucinations 72 Synchronicity and Coincidence 128 Trance States 76 ESP in Animals 136 Reincarnation 82 Physical Phenomena 142 Survival after Death 94 How to Get Rid of Statistics 151 Raudive Voices 98 Bye-Bye Science 167 Kirlian Aura 103 Part III 4 Dimensions 175 Part IV 5 The Physiology of ESP 195 6 The Knowledge that is not Science 223 7 The Psychic Universe 251 Appendices I Ready-Money Karma 279 II The Conceptual Powers of Animals 289 III Arthur M. Young and ‘The Reflexive Universe’ 295 Brief Glossary 298 Bibliography 300 Index 307 by the same author TOTAL MAN Notes Towards an Evolutionary Theory of Personality PERSONALITY AND EVOLUTION The Biology of the Divided Self THE NEANDERTHAL QUESTION (with M. L. Kellmer Pringle) FOUR YEARS ON A Follow-Up Study at School Leaving Age of Children Formerly Attending a Progressive and a Traditional Junior School Note Occasionally the names of people and locales have been changed in the interests of those not wishing for publicity. Introduction A book about the paranormal should open with a sense of wonder and delight. Therefore I am deliberately leaving my more critical comments for later in the book. Chapter 1 takes us without preamble straight into the astonishments of the ‘alternative universe’ — that breathtaking world which somehow exists in complete contradiction to the universe our normal senses discern around us. The alter¬ native universe is in fact not part of this objective universe. It is somewhere else. The notion of ‘somewhere else’ is very hard for us to grasp, let alone to define. Still more difficult is the fact that while we are very definitely in and part of this present objective universe, we are also, fitfully, in touch with that other universe. So in some sense, apart from being here, we are also simultaneously there as well. Nevertheless, it is not the case that the alternative universe is mysterious in itself. It is mysterious only to us. For our nervous system is poorly equipped to understand the para¬ normal. As I sometimes remark, it is not that god is inexpressible, it is only that we are incapable of expressing him. The alternative universe — I should really say universes — of the paranormal do have their own laws and their own coherent existence. It is the case, however, that these in no way resemble those of the objective universe. They simply bear no relation to the rules of every day. This, in brief, is why the application of science and the scientific method to the paranormal not only produces no results, but rather literally causes the phenomena to disappear. In a dark room the face of a luminous watch glows at me in mid-air. I switch on the light — and the watch face disappears as does the watch itself in a jumble of objects. The watch face is the paranormal and science is the light. Just one look at this point at my harder comments in later parts of the book. Years ago as a very young child I saw a gardener at work in a garden. He was pruning a large rose bush in the centre. He went on snipping and cutting and snipping. After a while I realized he was trying to kill the rose bush, but I VI THE PARANORMAL wondered why he just did not dig the whole thing up. In the end all that was left was a mutilated stump. The next summer a glorious bush, filled with roses, appeared on that spot. What the gardener did for the rose bush I hope to do for the paranormal in this book. My image of the rose bush is a metaphor. But perhaps I need also to spell out my intention in plainer language. Part II of this book, then, does contain some rather severe criticism of paranormalist beliefs and attitudes. This section does not contain only criticism, by any means, but it is the criticism which may initially predominate in the eye of the sensitive believer. So it is most important for me to emphasize that I am not engaged there in any task of destruction, but in a work of reconstruction. I indicate the shakiness of some paranormal¬ ist thinking simply in order to build more surely from a stable base in Parts III and IV. I believe the edifice I con¬ struct there will satisfy the largest appetites for creative vision — but importantly, with the added knowledge that we build on a sure and certain foundation. It is no longer the question whether science will recognize the paranormal. It is rather a question of allowing science to apologize with as little loss of face as possible. But still there is a last price for the paranormalist to pay for his victory — and that is the price of putting his own house in order. The paranormalist and the psychic must demonstrate to the scientist that they too are willing to act responsibly and as adults, not expecting all that glitters to be gold, nor to be right always, all of the time. I cannot too strongly state my belief that paranormalists gain absolutely nothing by extravagance or by adopting standards in respect of the paranormal that they would never for a moment tolerate in their social and economic lives. They not only do not gain — they lose. Why on earth (or in heaven) should we trade this priceless possession, the paranormal, for the momentary, spurious gains of extra¬ vagance, euphoria and wishful thinking? The paranormal is the most glorious gift that life has to offer. This book is in affirmation of that fact.
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