Mental Radio by Upton Sinclair

Mental Radio
(Classics in Consciousness Edition)
by Upton Sinclair

Opening the book you cannot fail to be impressed by the name and words of Albert Einstein who wrote the preface.

Prior to reading this book, Pulitzer prize winner Upton Sinclair
was unknown to me, further emphasising my ignorance of early twentieth
century literary and political movements.
This is not a scientific monologue, but is rather an almost homely
account of amateurs making very careful exploration of telepathic and
clairvoyant ability - with very impressive results.
Sinclair uses his significant literary skills to make this book an
interesting description of his wife's experimentation with her
telepathic abilities.

Mary Craig Sinclair and her husband Upton Sinclair used a basic
protocol requiring that the two sat in separate rooms, When Upton was
ready to start creating a target line drawing he would call "all
right". When his wife had finished her drawings of what she perceived,
she would call "All right". Usually the result was a pair of drawings,
the target, and the attempted reproduction using telepathy. The attempt
was then judged in its likeness to the target. What resulted where 290
trials, consisting of 65 (23%) successes, 155 (53%) partial successes
and 70 (24%) failures.

The book contains 16 chapters describing the the motivation from
which the experiment arose, and giving a number of examples of
successes, partial successes, and other interesting anomalies. A
summary of the receptive technique is given, with some closing
comments. Originally published in 1930 this work is of such historical
significance that it has recently (2001) been re-published as a part of
Hampton Roads series Classics in Conciousness, edited by Russell Targ.
This edition has an addendum containing a rather dry analysis of the
raw experiment documentation by Dr Walter Franklin Prince of the Boston
Society for Psychic Research.

Having previously been generally ignorant of psychical research
prior to the 1960's, I see in the Sinclair experiments valid
descriptions of how we experience the Psi capability, and the seeds of
the remote viewing protocol. I also understand they were a primary
motivation for the establishment of the Duke University Parapsychology
Laboratory, a predecessor of the Rhine Research Centre.

As a whole the book has the following values:

1) It stands in independent of other psychical research as strong evidence for telepathic and clairvoyant functioning.
2) It documents the technique used by Mary Craig Sinclair in in her telepathic functioning.
3) it records a number of phenomena familiar with Remote Viewers and others using such skills.
a) The ability is not 100% reliable
b) Sometimes there is a remarkable contact with the target
c) Sometimes only conceptual elements of the target shape are identified
d) Some targets (in her case, targets with smoke) are perceived better than others
e) Often picks up the shape (form) rather than the function (being able to correctly name the target).
f) Target displacement (anticipation of future targets).
g) Sometimes picked up related mental thoughts of the targeter.
h) Attraction to bigger issues (eg health).
i) Works equally well from the next room or 40 miles away.
j) Variability - Sometimes you get a great run, sometimes you to get a run of bad sessions.

Although I yearned for a more mathematical treatment of the results
(being permanently twisted and damaged from majoring in maths), I came away with a deeper understanding of Psi functioning and its history. A worthwhile
read, particularly for those interested in understanding Telepathic
ability and the historic foundations of remote viewing.

Ralph,

Great review, this is one I must get a hold of and read.
Just picked up Dale Graff's River Dreams.

Someone else has first dibs on this though !



regards

Rick