Archive / Cultural Intelligence / MF-17
MF-17 · Psi research, consciousness, and belief, limited to published research and primary sources
The Unseen Mind
What does published research actually show about psi, consciousness, and extraordinary experience, how do scientists and faith traditions respond, and why do these beliefs persist?
Surface level
What can be counted: published studies, replications, meta-analyses, declassified records, and official surveys of belief.
— headlines in the past 72 hours
Deeper level
What moves people: belief in the soul and the afterlife, how faith traditions treat divination, and why extraordinary experiences persist in the face of mixed evidence.
— headlines in the past 72 hours
Research map Reviewed Oct 30, 2026
Each question, the main published study, what it found, and where it stands. Entries are attributed to the researchers; none is a ruling on psi.
| Question | Key research | What it found | Status or dispute | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Can people sense the future? | Bem, 2011, then the Transparent Psi Project, 2023 | Bem's original paper (J. Pers. Soc. Psychol.) was challenged by failed replications; the preregistered 2023 test found 49.89% correct in 2,115 participants against 50% chance, and Bem's first experiment reported 53.07%. | Replication failures since 2012; the 2023 project was co-designed by proponents and opponents. | Royal Society Open Science · PLOS ONE replication |
| Can minds communicate at a distance? | Ganzfeld meta-analysis, 2010 | A mean effect size of 0.142 across 29 studies, 1997 to 2008. | Contested: Hyman argues the meta-analysis conceals more than it reveals and that replication is lacking. | Storm et al. · Hyman |
| Did governments find it useful? | CIA and DIA remote-viewing program, 1972 to 1995 | An independent 1995 review found some accurate results but too little reliability for intelligence use. | CIA did not restore the program. | CIA, Ask Molly |
| What happens to awareness near death? | AWARE II, 2023 | 11 of 28 interviewed cardiac-arrest survivors reported memories suggestive of consciousness; six described a recalled experience of death. | Small number of survivors; recall is reported, and interpretations differ. | PubMed |
| Does prayer change medical outcomes? | STEP trial, 2006 | No effect on recovery in 1,802 bypass patients. | Tests one narrow claim; does not address prayer's other roles. | PubMed |
| Do children remember past lives? | Stevenson's case volumes, 1975 to 1983; University of Virginia program, 2025 to 2027 | Stevenson documented cases in India, Sri Lanka, Lebanon, Turkey, Thailand and Burma. The new program is under way with no results yet. | Case reports, not experiments; most come from cultures where rebirth is assumed. Watch for results in 2027. | Wellcome catalogue · UVA |
| Who holds these beliefs? | Pew surveys, 2023 and 2025 | 83% believe in a soul or spirit; 30% consult astrology, tarot or fortune tellers at least yearly. | Belief is stable and widespread; surveys measure belief, not accuracy. | Pew, 2023 · Pew, 2025 |
| What does meditation do to the brain? | Lutz et al., PNAS 2004, and the Mind & Life research program | Long-term Buddhist practitioners showed sustained high-amplitude gamma activity during meditation. | Contemplative neuroscience, not psi; later reviews note small samples and mixed replication. | PNAS (PMC) · Mind & Life Institute |
| What do faith traditions say? | Deuteronomy 18; Quran 27:65; Catechism 2116; Maimonides; Pali canon DN 2; Yoga Sutras 3.37; UNDRIP Art. 12 | Jewish, Christian and Islamic texts forbid divination and reserve the unseen to God, with prophecy as the exception; Maimonides adds that it does not work. Buddhist and Yogic texts treat knowing other minds and past lives as fruits of concentration, ranked below liberation. Many Indigenous knowledge systems hold dreams and visions as sources of knowledge. | Attributed positions, none ruled on. Traditions are not monoliths; dissent within each exists. | Sefaria · Quran.com · Vatican · SuttaCentral · UNDRIP |
Inclusion standard Public standard
What goes in, what stays out, and what a grade means on this tracker.
| Rule | What it means | In practice |
|---|---|---|
| Counted as evidence | Peer-reviewed journal articles and registered reports; university, government and intergovernmental records; official surveys from bodies such as Pew; declassified government documents. | Each entry links to the paper, record or survey itself. |
| Not counted | Tabloids, forums, social media, paranormal media and self-published claims. Reddit and similar sources can be leads, never verification. | These are excluded from the ledger and from the live wire. |
| What the news wire shows | Only stories that report on this kind of material: a new study, a declassified file, an official survey. A story needs both a psi or consciousness topic and a research signal. | Horoscope, entertainment and ghost-hunting stories are filtered out. |
| What Verified means here | That the paper, document or survey exists and says what we report. It never means a psi effect is real or unreal. | Scientific claims are graded on the evidence; beliefs are analyzed as forces that move people. |
Coverage over the past 72 hours 6-hour blocks
Tracker-tagged headlines from 255 public news feeds, grouped by publication time.
Who is covering it
Latest headlines Unreviewed signal
Social Pulse
Top public threads
Institutional desk 14 days
Official bodies, election organizations, research institutes, and fact-checkers.
Channel watch 72 hours
Public Telegram channels from governments, state media, newsrooms, and commentators on each side. These are records of what was said, not verification.
Video 72 hours
Uploads from 19 news channels on YouTube, including C-SPAN, PBS, CNN, Fox News, BBC, Al Jazeera, and WION.
Public attention
Indicators being built
- Peer-reviewed studies and preregistered replications on psi claims
- Meta-analyses and the published critiques that answer them
- Declassified government records on psychic research
- Consciousness and near-death research in hospital settings
- Contemplative neuroscience, labeled as meditation research rather than psi
- University research programs, with funders disclosed
- Survey data on belief in the soul, the afterlife, astrology and psychic experience
- Religious and classical teaching on these powers, East and West, graded as attributed text
Planned data sources
- Peer-reviewed journals: Psychological Bulletin, Royal Society Open Science, Resuscitation, Frontiers in Psychology, PLOS ONE
- Pew Research Center
- CIA and other government and declassified records
- University research units, with funders disclosed
- Primary religious texts: the Hebrew Bible, the Quran and hadith, the Catechism, Maimonides, the Pali canon, the Yoga Sutras, and Indigenous scholarship with UNDRIP
Social layer focus
Not collected by design: this tracker follows published research and primary sources only
Belief systems are analyzed as forces that move people, never as claims ruled true or false. Scientific claims are graded on the evidence in the published study; Verified means the paper or record exists, not that a psi effect is real.
Evidence ledger 21 reviewed · 2026-10-30
Compiled and graded by The Cultured Scholar on the Memento Fati scale, where Verified requires a primary document. Only peer-reviewed journals, university, government and intergovernmental records, and official surveys are used. A Verified grade means the paper, document or survey exists and says what we report. It never means that a psi effect is real or unreal. Newest first. Entries dated before this month are tagged.
Pattern read. The strongest, best-documented result so far is about method, not about psi. The Transparent Psi Project, designed by 15 proponents and 14 opponents, found chance-level results where Bem had reported an effect, and an earlier ganzfeld meta-analysis drew a formal rebuttal in the same journal issue. The government record is similarly split: the CIA says an independent 1995 review found some accurate remote-viewing results but too little reliability to use. Meanwhile the belief side is large and stable (Pew counts 83% of Americans believing in a soul or spirit), and the Abrahamic texts (Torah, Quran, Catechism) all reject divination while reserving the unseen to God. The tests to watch: whether the University of Virginia's past-life memory program reports by early 2027, whether any preregistered replication departs from chance, and whether journals keep publishing both sides. The oldest entries matter too: Buddhist and Yogic texts described knowing other minds and past lives long before Western laboratories tested them, and Stevenson's reincarnation cases were gathered mostly in Asia. This ledger is analysis support, not a ruling on any belief. This is analysis, not a graded claim.
| Date | Claim | Made by | Grade | Basis and sources |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jun 4, 2026 | A Frontiers in Psychology study of 1,430 UK adults found paranormal belief sat at the periphery of the psychological wellbeing network. | Dagnall and colleagues | Verified | Peer-reviewed and open access. A single correlational survey, so it cannot say belief causes any outcome. Frontiers in Psychology (PMC) |
| Jul 2026 | An exploratory study of 102 adults with self-reported psychic experiences linked 212 genetic variants to higher experience scores, the strongest in the ARHGEF18 gene. | Wahbeh, Delorme, Cannard, Rossner, Yount, Radin; Explore journal | Claimed | Published in Explore, 2026;22(4). The authors call it preliminary and say larger, more diverse samples are needed. It is a small exploratory sample and has not been replicated. PubMed |
| Mar 6, 2026 | A Frontiers in Psychology study of 300 adults found that paranormal belief and belief in science tracked opposite thinking styles: intuitive-experiential for paranormal belief, analytical-rational for science. About 55% fell in the higher evidence-based group. | Dagnall and colleagues | Verified | Peer-reviewed. It describes how groups of people think, not whether any belief is right. Frontiers in Psychology (PMC) |
| May 21, 2025 May 2025 | Pew found 30% of U.S. adults consult astrology, tarot or a fortune teller at least once a year, and 27% believe astrology; most do it for fun, and 10% say for helpful insights. | Pew Research Center | Verified | Survey of 9,593 U.S. adults, Oct 21 to 27, 2024. The 27% figure is not significantly different from the 29% Pew found in 2017. Pew Research Center |
| Jan 9, 2025 January 2025 | The University of Virginia's Division of Perceptual Studies launched a $750,000 research program on children's reports of past-life memories, running through early 2027. | University of Virginia School of Medicine | Verified | Announced by the university, with funding from foundations including BIAL. No results have been published yet. UVA School of Medicine |
| Dec 7, 2023 December 2023 | Pew found 83% of U.S. adults believe people have a soul or spirit, 81% believe something spiritual exists beyond the natural world, and 42% say the dead can probably or definitely communicate with the living. | Pew Research Center | Verified | Official survey. It measures belief, not whether the belief is accurate. Pew Research Center |
| Jul 2023 July 2023 | In AWARE II, 53 of 567 in-hospital cardiac arrest patients survived, 28 were interviewed, and 11 of those reported memories or perceptions suggestive of consciousness during the arrest; six described a transcendent recalled experience of death. | Parnia and colleagues, 25 hospitals; Resuscitation journal | Verified | Peer-reviewed multi-site prospective study. Small numbers of survivors, and recall is not itself evidence about what consciousness is. PubMed Elsevier press release |
| Feb 1, 2023 February 2023 | In a preregistered replication of Bem's precognition experiment, 2,115 participants at 10 labs in nine countries guessed correctly 49.89% of the time, against 50% chance and Bem's reported 53.07%. | Kekecs and colleagues, the Transparent Psi Project; Royal Society Open Science | Verified | A registered report designed by 29 experts, 15 proponents and 14 opponents of the ESP interpretation. All four primary tests favored the chance-level model. Royal Society Open Science (PMC) |
| Oct 27, 2021 October 2021 | The CIA says it began its own psychic research in 1972, handed the program to the Defense Intelligence Agency in 1977 (where it became STARGATE), and declined to restore it after a September 1995 independent review. | Central Intelligence Agency | Verified | From the CIA's own web page. It says the American Institutes for Research reviewers found enough accurate remote-viewing results to defy randomness, but too unreliable and sporadic for intelligence use. CIA, Ask Molly |
| Mar 14, 2012 March 2012 | Three attempts to replicate Bem's retroactive-recall effect found no evidence for it. | Ritchie, Wiseman and French; PLOS ONE | Verified | Peer-reviewed replication failure. It is a published challenge to Bem's 2011 paper. FLoRA Replication Atlas |
| Jul 2010 July 2010 | A meta-analysis of 29 ganzfeld studies from 1997 to 2008 reported a mean effect size of 0.142; a published critique by Ray Hyman said the meta-analysis conceals more than it reveals and that reliable replication is lacking. | Storm, Tressoldi and Di Risio, with a critique by Ray Hyman; Psychological Bulletin | Contested | Both papers appeared in the same journal issue, and the original authors published a reply to Hyman. The dispute is over how to combine studies, not over whether the numbers exist. Storm et al., 2010 (ERIC) Hyman critique (PDF) Storm et al. reply (ERIC) |
| Sep 13, 2007 2007 text | The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples affirms the right to practice and teach spiritual traditions and ceremonies (Article 12); peer-reviewed Indigenous scholarship describes dreams and visions as recognized sources of knowledge within many of those traditions. | UN General Assembly; Shawanda and Manitowabi, Turtle Island Journal of Indigenous Health, 2023 | Verified | The UN text and a peer-reviewed article on Anishinaabe dream protocols. Indigenous nations are many and not a monolith; this entry records that dreams and visions hold a formal place in specific knowledge systems, which Western psi research has rarely engaged on its own terms. Specific nations' teachings are added only when sourced to that nation or to peer-reviewed work. UNDRIP text (UN PDF) Turtle Island Journal of Indigenous Health |
| Apr 2006 2006 | A randomized trial of 1,802 heart-bypass patients found no effect of intercessory prayer on recovery, and a higher complication rate (59% vs. 52%) among patients who were told they would be prayed for. | Benson and colleagues, the STEP trial; American Heart Journal | Verified | Peer-reviewed multicenter trial. It tests one narrow, measurable claim and says nothing about prayer's other meanings. PubMed |
| Nov 2004 2004 | Long-term Tibetan Buddhist practitioners, with 10,000 to 50,000 hours of training, self-induced sustained high-amplitude gamma-band EEG activity during meditation, a pattern also stronger in their resting baseline than in novices. | Lutz, Greischar, Rawlings, Ricard and Davidson; PNAS | Verified | Peer-reviewed and widely cited. This is contemplative neuroscience, not psi: it measures brain activity during practice and makes no claim about extraordinary perception. The Dalai Lama, who helped found the Mind & Life Institute behind this line of work, wrote that the goal is not to prove Buddhism right or wrong. PNAS (PMC) Dalai Lama, 2005 statement |
| 1992 1992 text | The Catechism of the Catholic Church says “All forms of divination are to be rejected,” a teaching that covers horoscopes, astrology, clairvoyance and recourse to mediums. | Catholic Church, Catechism, paragraph 2116 | Verified | Church teaching on divination. We record the official text; we do not rule on it. Compare the Jewish and Islamic prohibitions and the Buddhist and Yogic texts below. Vatican, Catechism |
| 1975–83 archive volumes | Ian Stevenson's four-volume Cases of the Reincarnation Type, published by the University Press of Virginia, documented children's past-life claims in India, Sri Lanka, Lebanon and Turkey, and Thailand and Burma. | Ian Stevenson, University of Virginia | Verified | The volumes exist and are catalogued by the university and by the Wellcome Collection. All four are set in cultures where rebirth is a common belief, which is a sampling consideration for the ongoing UVA program above. The cases are investigated reports, not controlled experiments. UVA Division of Perceptual Studies Wellcome Collection catalogue |
| 12th century classical text | Maimonides' Mishneh Torah rules that divination, omens and sorcery are all falsehood, that the wise know by clear proof they are nonsense, and that the Torah forbids them for that reason. | Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Avodah Zarah 11:16 | Verified | A foundational code of Jewish law in a standard translation. Notable because it forbids these practices and denies they work, where the Torah text itself only forbids them; other rabbinic authorities disagreed with Maimonides on whether such powers are real. Sefaria, Mishneh Torah |
| Quran and hadith classical text | The Quran states that none in the heavens and the earth knows the unseen except God (27:65), and a hadith in Sahih Muslim says the prayers of one who consults a fortune teller and believes him are not accepted for forty days. | Quran, Surah An-Naml 27:65; Riyad as-Salihin 1669, citing Muslim | Verified | Primary scripture and a canonical hadith collection. Islamic teaching reserves knowledge of the unseen (al-ghayb) to God, with revelation to prophets as the exception; Islamic dream interpretation is a separate, accepted tradition not covered here. Quran.com, 27:65 Sunnah.com, Riyad as-Salihin 1669 |
| Torah classical text | Deuteronomy 18:10 to 12 forbids augury, soothsaying, divination, sorcery, casting spells, consulting ghosts or familiar spirits, and inquiring of the dead, calling those who do so abhorrent to God. | Hebrew Bible, Deuteronomy 18 | Verified | Primary scripture in the JPS translation on Sefaria. The passage frames prophecy, not divination, as the sanctioned channel (18:15). It is also the root text behind the Catholic teaching above. Sefaria, Deuteronomy 18 |
| Yoga Sutras classical text | Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, book 3, describe powers (siddhis) said to arise from deep concentration, including knowledge of past and future and of other minds, and sutra 3.37 calls them obstacles to samadhi. | Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, Vibhuti Pada | Verified | The Sanskrit reads te samadhav upasarga vyutthane siddhayah. Edwin Bryant's academic translation: accomplishments for the outgoing mind but obstacles to samadhi. Recorded as a text that treats such abilities as real yet secondary; dating of the text is debated among scholars. Sutra 3.37 with Bryant and Satchidananda translations Wisdom Library study text |
| Pali canon classical text | The Pali canon's Samannaphala Sutta (DN 2) lists higher knowledges available to the concentrated mind, including understanding the minds of other beings and recollecting many past lives, alongside the knowledge that ends suffering. | Digha Nikaya 2, Bhikkhu Bodhi translation | Verified | A primary scripture in a scholarly translation. In the canon these are framed as fruits of practice; the liberating knowledge, not the powers, is the goal. Scholarly treatment: Clough, Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies. SuttaCentral, DN 2 JIABS article (PDF) |
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