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NO HOCUS POCUS / 'MAGIC BOILS DOWN TO ATTENTION AND INTENTION'

Is Kabbalah real? One scientist sees no trick in

humanity’s esoteric traditions
In his charmingly written ‘Real Magic,’ parapsychologist Dean Radin conjures up an argument that paranormal
activity may indeed exist
By JEN MAIDENBERG | 5 August 2018, 5:22 am

Detail from 'The Witch of Endor Raising The Spirit of Samuel,' by William Blake, circa 1800. Pen and watercolor on paper, 283 x 423 mm (Public domain, via wikipedia commons)

Psychologist and author Dean Radin often faces a dilemma when he speaks publicly: Which hat should he wear? For
Radin, the answer to this gurative question depends on the audience.

“If I’m in a group of academics I’ll say I’m a psychologist. That’s what my PhD is in,” Radin shares in a recent
interview with The Times of Israel.

“The reason I wouldn’t say a parapsychologist is because that word conjures up magazines at the grocery store. And
it’s so pervasive, how people think about parapsychology and paranormal as ‘woo woo,’ that it’s just easier to not to
go into it,” he says.

For the last four decades, 66-year-old Radin has studied and engaged in consciousness research, including “psi
phenomena,” such as telepathy, remote viewing, precognition, and the effect of intention on global events.

His career has included positions at Bell Labs, Princeton University, several hi-tech think tanks, and a top-secret
government program for “psychic espionage.”
‘Real Magic’ author Dean Radin. (Courtesy)

Semi-retired now as chief scientist of the Institute of Noetic Sciences in California, Radin recently authored “Real
Magic: Ancient Wisdom, Modern Science, and a Guide to the Secret Power of the Universe” (Harmony Books, 2018).

The book is geared toward a popular audience, but this doesn’t make it uff. Radin begins with a brief history of
magic and magical practices over the centuries, but moves into the scienti c by making a convincing case for the
existence of “magic” in modern life.

Some chapters include results of laboratory experiments Radin and others

have conducted over the years, as well as thought-provoking explorations on
the evidence of the power of prayer, faith, and intention.

“Real Magic,” Radin says, was in part a response to the research he did for his
previous book, “Supernormal: Science, Yoga, and the Evidence for
Extraordinary Psychic Abilities.”

“In ‘Supernormal,’ I was looking at Eastern esoteric traditions and this book
looks at the Western esoteric traditions. I wanted to round it out,” Radin
says.

“The reason why the esoteric traditions are so interesting is because within
that cosmology, the notion of magic and psychic phenomena are completely
taken for granted. They aren’t anomalous at all,” he says.

According to Radin, what he refers to as magic in his book is a natural aspect

of reality that each of us is actually able to tap into.
‘Real Magic’ by Dean Radin. (Courtesy)
“The essence of magic boils down to the application of two ordinary mental
skills: attention and intention. The strength of the magical outcome is modulated by four factors: belief, imagination,
emotion, and clarity. That’s basically it,” he writes.

In researching his book, Radin decided to put his head into both today’s indigenous world, but also the ancient world.

“I wanted to see how they would have considered these phenomena. When you do this exercise, you get deep into
Pythagorean thought, Plato, Hermeticism, Kabbalah, as well as today’s positive psychology movement and
af rmations, which can be traced back to the esoteric traditions,” he says.

“Science has certainly given us a more accurate view of reality in some respects, but it also creates blinders,” says
Radin, who has come up against much criticism over the years in response to his studies and articles supporting the
existence of paranormal phenomena.

Radin is persistent, however, and believes we are overdue for a serious questioning of the standard scienti c
perspective.

Meditation and Extraordinary Experiences ~ Dean Radin

“Can we change our scienti c worldview so it leaves textbooks intact, but expands them so these phenomena are no
longer regarded as impossible?” he asks.

“If we simply add consciousness as a new layer to the bottom of our hierarchy of disciplines,” Radin suggests, “all the
textbooks stay the same. Yet, suddenly, we open up a new realm of knowledge and all kinds of things end up as
plausible.”

Scientist or layperson, it shouldn’t be too much of a stretch for the average individual to believe in such “magic.”

In a survey Radin’s team conducted — focusing on the 25 different experiences that people would typically call
psychic—upwards of 94% of the general population claimed to have personally experienced at least 8 out of the 25
phenomena. Even scientists and engineers, whose “blinders” are likely the strongest, claimed to have experienced
personally 7 out of the 25.

“
In psychology where you would expect these things to be studied, it is
completely forbidden to do so unless you are studying ‘belief’ …but in parentheses,
‘of stupid uneducated people’”

And yet, Radin says, “in psychology where you would expect these things to be studied, it is completely forbidden to
do so unless you are studying ‘belief’ …but in parentheses, ‘of stupid uneducated people.’”

“This is a classic de nition of a taboo, a social prohibition against talking about certain things which everybody
knows exist, but you’re not allowed to talk about… In the academic world, we are supposed to have academic
freedom. But it’s clearly not the case,” he says.
“Luckily, there are plenty of academics who believe in aspirations of science and scholarship,” Radin claims.
“Privately, there is the exact same level of interest in this as anything else.”

When asked how he’s courageous enough to take on research subject to such taboos, Radin laughs, “I guess it was
growing up in sort of Bohemian family.”

Illustrative: A page from the Agrippa book of occult philosophy, published in 1651. (Wikimedia commons/ Wellcome Library, London)

Radin’s father was a commercial artist and a portrait sculptor. His mother was into yoga long before it became
popular. The two were both members of the Great Books Foundation, so Radin and his brother were constantly
surrounded by “education and art.”

While his parents were both Jewish, orthodoxy played no role in his home growing up, Radin recalls.

“The sense I got from my parents is religion is not something that an intellectual would nd appealing. We didn’t go
to Hebrew school. No bar mitzvah. No Jewish holidays. Though my parents would host a secular seder on occasion.
Like, ‘We’re having a party now… with tzimmes.’”

Radin did grow up hearing Yiddish spoken by both his parents and grandparents, but the prevailing insight for him
was that both sets of grandparents left where they lived because if they didn’t, they would have been killed.

“
My parents would host a secular seder on occasion. Like, ‘We’re having a party
now… with tzimmes’”

“So there was a link between expressing who you are and danger,” he recalls. “So you don’t talk about religion. You
assimilate so much that religion is no longer an issue.”

However, he says, “anyone who does art is constantly criticized. I saw that really early on. My dad would do portrait
sculpture and some people would love it and others hated it, and no one would be shy about their opinion. I saw that
constantly. What I learned from that is you have to do what you think is right because if you don’t, why bother doing
anything? What? Just follow what other people do all the time? It would be a waste of creativity. My dad said, ‘being
creative is probably the most important thing we can do.’”

The easily accessible language in “Real Magic,” combined with Radin’s sense of humor, makes it easily appealing to
this growing market of occult enthusiasts. However, infused with scienti c data and experiment results, it also will
attract those laypeople with interest in the cutting-edge elds of quantum mechanics and consciousness.
“Part of the fun of being a scientist is discovering new things on the edge. What I am doing is not that different,” he
says. “It’s not primary motivation, though.”

Instead, a primary motivation for Radin was producing a book not already in existence.

“I write a book,” he explains, “because I am interested in a topic and if I can’t nd a book to explain it to me, I have to
write it.”