The Physics of Nonlocality
The Eight-Dimensional Model of Psi Phenomena
“One of the common objections to the existence of psychic abilities is that they appear to be in conflict with the laws of physics. In what follows, we demonstrate the compatibility of psychic phenomena with the laws and content of physics.”1
Assuming you’re not already familiar with them, I’d like to introduce you to two scientists who have made valuable contributions to the study of the science of subtle energy and, in particular, the physics of nonlocality.
Dr. Elizabeth A. Rauscher
The first is Elizabeth A. Rauscher, born on March 18, 1937, in Berkeley, California. From her earliest years it was was obvious that she loved science.
Wonder-struck and driven to explore the world, she even built her own telescopes.
After earning a B.S. in physics and chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, she got an M.S. in nuclear physics in 1965 and later earned a doctoral degree in 1978 for her work on nuclear decay theory.
Rauscher later worked at some of the top research labs in the country, including Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
She was a consultant at Stanford Research Institute, and also worked with NASA from 1983 to 1985. She was also a professor at John F. Kennedy University (1978–1984) and the University of Nevada, Reno (1990–1998).
Rauscher made huge contributions to physics and parapsychology by writing over 275 scientific papers and six books as well as holding five U.S. patents.
She co-founded the Berkeley Fundamental Fysiks Group in 1975, which explored quantum physics and consciousness.
She studied psychic phenomena like remote viewing with Russell Targ at SRI and developed a model called complex eight-dimensional Minkowski space to explain psi phenomena.
Rauscher died on July 3, 2019, from respiratory failure.
Russell Targ
The other scientist I’m referring to, Russell Targ, was born in 1934. He grew up with a passion for science and invention, which eventually led him to study physics at Queens College in New York.
He worked as a physicist at Stanford Research Institute (SRI) in the 1970s and 1980s and became a pioneer in the development of laser technology.
He later focused on psychic research, including remote viewing experiments funded by the CIA, after co-founding the SRI program on psychic abilities with Harold Puthoff.
A New Model of Psi
“The fact that the future can come into our awareness at an earlier time indicates that we misapprehend both everyday causality and the nature of the very space and time which we take so much for granted.”2
In 2001, Targ co-authored a key paper with Elizabeth Rauscher, proposing a complex eight-dimensional Minkowski space to explain psychic phenomena (often called "psi").3
This model suggested that consciousness could connect subjects across space and time.
Together, they proposed a special model called a “complex eight-dimensional Minkowski space,” which is just a fancy way of saying they imagined space and time as having extra dimensions, eight instead of the usual four (three for space, one for time).
Each dimension in this model has a “real” and “imaginary” part, making it possible for human minds to connect across great distances or even large spans of time.
In this model, psychic abilities work because our consciousness, liberated from normal waking perception, can ignore the illusion of distance and time.
For example, in remote viewing (seeing something far away in distance without being there), it’s as if there’s no actual separation between you and the thing you’re seeing.
For precognition, you’re somehow linked to a future event. As they explain:
“This ability to nonlocally access information blocked from ordinary perception could be described as the result of an apparent zero separation between the subject and the target.”4
Beyond Spacetime
The basic idea here is that what we perceive as separation in distance and time is only an illusion.
“Now in the twenty-first century, the evidence has become overwhelming that our thoughts and bodies can be directly affected and influenced by the thoughts of another person or by events and activities at a distant location blocked from ordinary perception.”5
While the evidence for ESP is strong, science does not yet understand exactly how it happens. Rauscher and Targ hoped to change that by proposing their scientific model.
They see psychic abilities as integral to an understanding of the nature consciousness.
“Although this paper deals principally with the physics underlying psychic abilities, we think it is evident that these abilities are fundamental to our understanding of consciousness itself.”6
Their model throws a wrench in the typical view of time and causality. Normally, we think the past causes the future, but psi suggests the future can influence the past.
This fits with their eight-space idea, where time isn’t so linear.
A Long History of Study
Scientists have been investigating psychic phenomena, or ESP, for over a century.
The Society for Psychical Research, started in 1882 by Cambridge scholars, was the first group to study these abilities scientifically. Their goal was to figure out if claims of perceiving things beyond normal senses were true.
Although the scientific establishment at large still does not officially support psi phenomena, the evidence for ESP is now overwhelming.
Countless experiments in labs worldwide show that people can sense thoughts or events far away, even when blocked from normal perception.
While the evidence for ESP is strong, there isn’t yet a widely accepted theory as to how it happens.
Time and Causality in Reverse
Rauscher and Targ argued that psi, especially precognition, contradict our common perceptions of time and causality. Normally, we assume causes come before effects, but precognition suggests the future can influence the past.
Precognitive dreams, in which you dream about something that happens later, are one of the most common psychic experiences documented in scientific research.
These dreams often have a vivid, clear quality, unlike normal dreams associated with worries and wishes. Their occurrence can be interpreted as being “caused” by the very future they predict.
However, while precognition lets you see the future, you can’t necessarily change what’s already happened. This avoids paradoxes, like the famous “grandfather paradox” where killing your grandfather in the past would mean you were never born.
“What cannot happen, we believe, is a future event changing the past… there is no evidence of the occurrence.”7
This is called a “closed time-like loop” in physics, and it’s forbidden, meaning that while you can gain information about the past or future, you cannot physically interact with it.
Key Experiments Supporting Psi
Rauscher and Targ have discussed several experiments that provide strong evidence for psi abilities.
SRI Remote Viewing Experiment8
Over the course of 10 days while in Detroit in 1979, clinical research scientist Marilyn Schlitz attempted to describe places in Rome where her fellow researcher, Elmar Gruber, was located 2000 miles away.
Schlitz described each day’s target, one of 40 locations chosen by Grubar (e.g., parks, churches, Rome International Airport), without feedback.
Five judges matched six of Schlitz’s ten descriptions to the correct targets, with a chance probability of less than 6 in 10,000.
This experiment was notable enough to be featured in K. Ramakrishna Rao’s book, The Basic Experiments in Parapsychology.9
Princeton Precognition Studies10
During the 1980s, Robert Jahn, Brenda Dunne and Roger Nelson conducted 27 remote viewing experiments in which viewers described future locations of a researcher.
Surprisingly, accuracy was the same whether looking hours, days, or weeks ahead. The combined experiments showed strong statistical significance.
Historical Precognition Data11
Charles Honorton and Diane Ferrari analyzed 399 experiments from 1935 to 1989, involving over 50,000 participants and 2 million trials.
30% of these studies showed significant results for describing future events, far above the 5% expected by chance.
“This gave overall significance of greater than 10 to one.”12
This huge dataset confirms people can know about future events.
Presentiment Experiments13
Dean Radin showed that people’s bodies react (e.g., changes in blood pressure, heart rate) before seeing scary images, but not before calm ones like flower gardens.
This suggests the future event (seeing the image) causes a physical reaction before it happens.
Train Crash Study14
William Cox studied 28 train wrecks from the 1900s to 1950s and found fewer people rode trains that crashed compared to similar trains that didn’t.
This was true even after accounting for weather or other factors, with odds greater than 100 to 1. This suggests that we might be hardwired to receive information from the future for survival.
The Eight-Space Metric
The complex eight-space is an extension of the usual four-dimensional space-time (three space dimensions plus time).15
It adds “imaginary” versions of each dimension, making eight total: three real spatial dimensions, three imaginary spatial dimensions, one real time dimension, and one imaginary time dimension.
The imaginary dimensions are real quantities multiplied by i=−1 i = \sqrt{-1} i=−1, which makes their squares negative.
This creates a complex space where distances and times work differently, allowing psi phenomena to bypass normal limits.
This model is purely geometrical, based on space and time coordinates, not energy or physical signals.
“It has been mathematically demonstrated that the equations of Newton, Maxwell, Einstein, and Schrödinger are consistent with the eight-dimensional complex space described here.”16
Nonlocality and Zero Distance
In this eight-space model, points that seem far apart in normal space-time can be connected with “zero distance.” This helps explain how remote viewing and precognition are possible.
“This ability to nonlocally access information blocked from ordinary perception could be described as the result of an apparent zero separation between the subject and the target.”17
For example, in remote viewing, your mind connects to a faraway place as if it’s right there. In precognition, you connect to a future event with no time gap.
“The complex eight space described here can always provide a path, or world line in space and time, which connects the viewer to a remote target, so that his awareness experiences zero spatial and/or temporal distance in the metric.”18
Introducing Four Logic
To explain psi, Rauscher and Targ turn to a different system called four logic, inspired by Buddhist philosophy, particularly the second-century teacher Nagarjuna.
Unlike two-valued logic, four logic allows for more possibilities.
“In the second century AD, the Buddhist master teacher Nagarjuna introduced a four-logic system… in which statements about the world can be (1) true, (2) not true, (3) both true and not true, and (4) neither true nor not true which Nagarjuna believed was the usual case.”19
Four Logic Possibilities:
True: Something definitely is.
Not true: Something definitely isn’t.
Both true and not true: Something can be both at once, like a quantum particle.
Neither true nor not true: Things don’t always fit neatly into true or false categories.
This opens up a new way of thinking, where reality isn’t so rigid, and psi phenomena make more sense.
How It Explains Psi
The eight-space model allows consciousness to connect points that seem far apart in normal space-time by using imaginary dimensions.
This metric can create “zero distance” paths between events to enable remote viewing and precognition.
“By using this complex path, the physical spatial separation between P1 P_1 P1 and P2 P_2 P2, becomes equal to zero, allowing direct awareness of distant spatial locations, as we observe in remote viewing of distant locations.”20
For precognition, the imaginary time component lets consciousness access future events.
Avoiding Superluminal Problems
In normal four-dimensional space, connecting events instantly might suggest faster-than-light signals, which could cause paradoxes (like time loops).
The eight-space model avoids this by working in a higher-dimensional framework where these connections aren’t superluminal.
Non-Energetic Nature of Psi
Rauscher and Targ believed psi had nothing to do with energy/signal transmission but instead was about consciousness accessing a nonlocal reality.
“We believe that remote perception and awareness are manifestations of a non-energetic phenomenon, and arise from our nonlocal nature, rather than as information ‘sent’ from one location to another.”21
This suggests psi is a natural feature of how our minds interact with a deeper, interconnected universe.
Information Requires an Energy Vehicle
I believe the eight-space model’s extra-dimensional support for nonlocality has merit, though the Russian torsion research strongly suggests an energetic component in addition to an informational system.
My own experimental research over the last 15 years convinces me that nonlocality most definitely involves an energetic component, with the distinction being that this energy is incredibly subtle and can be very difficult to directly detect and measure.
Information requires energy as a vehicle for its transmission, and that transmission involves an incredibly subtle energy called torsion,22 which comes in two complementary polarities:
Left-Hand Torsion: Associated with gravity, psi phenomena (according to the Russian torsion research), and backward-in-time propagation.
Right-Hand Torsion: Associated with anti-gravity and forward-in-time propagation.
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Rauscher, E. A., & Targ, R. (2001). The speed of thought: Investigation of a complex space-time metric to describe psychic phenomena. Journal of Scientific Exploration, 15(3), 331–354.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Schlitz, M., & Gruber, E. (1980). Transcontinental remote viewing. Journal of Parapsychology, 44, 305–317.
Rao, K. R. (1984). The Basic Experiments in Parapsychology. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.
Jahn, R. G., & Dunne, B. (1987). Margins of Reality: The Role of Consciousness in the Physical World. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich.
Honorton, C., & Ferari, D. C. (1989). Future-telling: A meta-analysis of forced-choice precognition experiments. Journal of Parapsychology, 53, 281–209
Ibid.
Radin, D. (1997). The Conscious Universe. New York: Harper Collins.
Cox, W. E. (1956). Precognition: An analysis II, Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, 30, 99–109.
Rauscher, E. A., & Targ, R. (2001). The speed of thought: Investigation of a complex space-time metric to describe psychic phenomena. Journal of Scientific Exploration, 15(3), 331–354.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Swanson, C. (2009). Life force, the scientific basis: Breakthrough physics of energy medicine, healing, chi and quantum consciousness. Tucson, AZ: Poseidia Press.
To connect to psi energy information.. I choose a target, theme and then follow the energy threads which takes me to exact points. Without a target, there is no possible path.