June 20, 2004: Psi Research - Dean Radin

Art Bell welcomes Dean Radin, senior scientist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences and author of The Conscious Universe. Dean holds degrees in electrical engineering and a Ph.D. in psychology, and spent a decade at AT&T Bell Labs before dedicating twenty years to investigating psychic phenomena in academic and government settings, including a classified program at SRI International.

Dean explains his approach to convincing skeptics, noting that roughly 60 percent of the population remains genuinely open-minded while the remaining 40 percent holds fixed positions on either extreme. He describes laboratory experiments using quantum-level random event generators, where focused mental intention appears to shift statistical outcomes in measurable ways. Art asks whether this represents a weak force that could someday be amplified, and Dean compares psychic talent to Olympic-level athletic ability found in perhaps one thousandth of one percent of the population.

The conversation turns to Dean's personal experience at a psychokinesis metal-bending party, where he inadvertently bent the bowl of a heavy soup spoon while watching someone else attempt the same feat. He also discusses his former CIA colleague who investigated cattle mutilations as a genuine unexplained phenomenon. Art and Dean explore the concept of an imaginal world existing between subjective and objective reality, where collective consciousness may physically manifest in ways science is only beginning to measure.