Extraordinary Knowing: Science, Skepticism, and the Inexplicable Powers of the Human Mind

Abstract

EXTRAORDINARY KNOWING: SCIENCE, SKEPTICISM, AND THE INEXPLICABLE POWERS OF THE HUMAN MIND by Elizabeth Lloyd Mayer. New York, NY: Bantam Dell, 2007. Pp. xiii + 302. $17.16 (hardcover). ISBN 978-0-553-80335-8. Elizabeth Mayer, who died shortly after completing this book, was an internationally known psychoanalyst and professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. Her book is essentially personal account of her journey of discovery as she attempts to make sense of an anomalous personal experience: the accurate location of stolen harp by dowser. It is mostly written in first-person autobiographical style, with ideas and evidence presented in the order in which she discovered them. Some readers will no doubt enjoy this style; others will find that it interferes with the presentation, as she repeatedly describes her confusion and dismay, seemingly circling, searching for something to help her understand her experience until sort of revelation near the end of the book. That being said, the book contains much useful information and is an excellent example of first-person account of psychologist's 14-year journey from dogmatic skepticism to cautious acceptance. The story starts in 1991, when her daughter's rare, hand-carved harp was stolen. After the police failed to turn up any leads, friend suggested she call dowser--a man who specialized in finding lost objects. With nothing to lose and almost as joke, she called the man, and without leaving his Arkansas home, he accurately located the California house where the harp was found. This, she tells us, irrevocably changed my familiar of and rational thinking. It changed the way I go about living in that world (p. 1). After several months filled with a lot of sleepless nights and conflicted ranting with her friends, she began to examine the scientific evidence for dowsing and was impressed by what she found. As word of her new interest spread, her medical and colleagues began to inundate her with accounts of their own anomalous experiences, personal and clinical (several of which make fascinating reading). Many of these men and women feared speaking openly about their experiences and were relieved to finally have someone they could discuss them with. She also learned that her intellectual hero Sigmund Freud was convinced that telepathy was real but thought it should be kept closely guarded psychoanalytic secret, because, as Mayer tells us, To acknowledge such capacities officially might be to link psychoanalysis permanently to the occult and sever its already tenuous ties to science (p. 81). However, despite her own experience, the numerous first-person accounts from credible sources, and the high quality of the research she uncovers, she still refused to believe in the reality of these powers. Several successful sessions with clairvoyant woman increased her cognitive dissonance still further, but she managed to hold to her disbelief with this rationalization: She wasn't always right. Sometimes she'd report an image and it wouldn't ring true; I'd tell her so with an irritation I promptly regretted.... I wanted certainty. I wanted Deb to be consistently wrong--or right. No half measures. I recalled how, in my first phone call to Harold about the missing harp, he'd started off with cheerful warning: pretty good, maybe ninety percent, but I gotta tell you I'm not hundred percent. (p. 46) Of course, few human abilities are perfectly replicable demand. Home runs cannot be produced demand, but that does not mean home runs do not exist. A psychotherapist such as Mayer with 90% success rate in treating patients would certainly be considered exceptional, but without hint of irony Mayer dismisses the apparent clairvoyant abilities of Deb and Harold with this remark: much for replication. So much for the reliability and predictability I like to count on (p. …