Published Articles

The number of publications on the Global Consciousness Project is increasing, and this page gives an annotated list of the ones I have available for download or online reading. There are several papers in refereed journals, and a number of lighter pieces for magazines or books intended for a broader audience.

Scientific and Technical Papers

• A 2011 article called Effects of Mass Consciousness, published in Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing, gives an overview based on 13 years of data and more than 300 formal replications of the basic hypothesis test.
• An article in the Journal of Scientific Exploration, 22(4), gives a complete summary of the formal hypothesis testing aspect of the project. The GCP Event Experiment: Design, Analytical Methods, Results looks at 9 years and about 250 replications of the basic test, and is intended as a foundation for further work digging into the details.
• A paper on the role of Emotions in the GCP was presented at the 7th Seminar of the Bial Foundation, March 2008. This is the prepress version of the proceedings paper.
• An invited talk, Anomalous Anticipatory Responses in Networked Random Data, at the AAAS Western Division meeting in San Diego in June 2006 was published in Frontiers of Time: Retrocausation — Experiment and Theory, Ed. Daniel P. Sheehan, AIP Conference Proceedings, Vol 863, 2006. The authors are Roger D. Nelson and Peter A. Bancel, and while specialized, it gives a summary of recent results from the GCP.
• Eschewing interpretation and discussing only the scientific findings for a mainstream audience in an article for a major physics journal is R. D. Nelson, D. I. Radin, R. Shoup, P. A. Bancel, Correlations of Continuous Random Data with Major World Events (page proof), Foundations of Physics Letters, Vol. 15, No. 6, December 2002, pp. 537–550.
• The Journal of Scientific Exploration (JSE) also has a technically sophisticated readership, and has a mandate to be open to difficult topics at the frontiers of current scientific knowledge. The December 2002 issue has two papers on the GCP, one by Roger Nelson and one by Dean Radin, plus a commentary by a skeptic, Jeff Scargle. (Encourage your university library to subscribe to JSE, published by the Society for Scientific Exploration.)
• The first technical article on the GCP was presented in a specialist journal for scientific research in anomalies published by the Parapsychological Association: Roger Nelson, Correlation of Global Events with REG Data: An Internet-Based, Nonlocal Anomalies Experiment, The Journal of Parapsychology, Vol. 65, September 2001, pp. 247–271.

Chapters, Articles

A number of lighter, more descriptive pieces have been published. These usually include an introductory treatment of the technical issues, and some examples of the kind of results we see. In addition, some of these provide a more aesthetic and speculative interpretative stance, and an attempt to connect the esoteric findings to human interests.

• One of the nicest presentations of the GCP, how it works, and what the results might mean is by Dean Radin. He tells the story in Asking For Whom The Bell Tolls (Radin, D. I., 2003, For whom the bell tolls: A question of global consciousness, IONS Noetic Sciences Review, 63, 8-13 & 44-45, March-May, 2003); (See also, Exploring Relationships Between Random Physical Events and Mass Human Attention: Asking for Whom the Bell Tolls, Radin, D., Journal of Scientific Exploration, 16(4), pp. 533- 547, 2002.)
• An invited chapter for Brain, Mind & Consciousness, University Press, California, and a lay-oriented article for the International Journal of Parapsychology are both drawn from an introductory article on the GCP website called The EGG Story. The most refined version is available as Gathering of Global Mind.
• A pleasing presentation of the GCP was made in a series of articles in The Golden Thread, a magazine that sought to bring science and spirituality together. Three published intallments and the draft of a fourth, are available as PDF files.
• I was invited to contribute an autobiographical sketch to a collection of essays by scientists engaged in psi research, assembled by the Parapsychology Foundation Lyceum. The article touches on the nature and requirements for research at the edges of what we know.

Interviews

Interviews provide a different perspective on the project, and allow me to be responsive to questions and concerns that don’t necessarily get any attention in articles and technical papers.

• Gina LoSasso did an interview for an electronic journal published by the Mega Foundation. The questions touch on issues of broad interest, and especially the philosophical implications of the GCP findings. Still no answers to the theoretical conundrums, but some suggestions for deeper consideration.
• A live radio interview in the Fall of 2003 provides yet another perspective, this time shaped by the questions and the mood of the moment. It covers lots of territory, especially the effort to be careful in the scientific sense, while also respecting the spiritual dimensions of the project. The interviewer is Chris Cardell, and the website is PlanetEarthRadio.com, and the interview is in the Future Channel section. It is a subscription site, but they have a free 14-day trial offer. While you’re there, check out the interview with Frank Ogden, Futurist. He hosts an egg on his houseboat in Vancouver harbor.
• Some other news and media interviews and specials:
  • Dimension 5: Mind Over Matter, a 2005 film produced by Thomas Zintl
  • CBS News 2 asked Can you measure the emotional outpouring in a worldwide crisis?, CBS 2 News program May 13 2005
  • Michael D. Lemonick, Science on the Fringe, Time Magazine, May 30 2005. (700 KB pdf)
  • Discovery Canada, Daily Planet Show June 2004 (RealMedia video stream)
  • Mind over matter, The Age (Australia), April 28, 2007, (Journalist view, newspaper website; archive of the original also available).

Presentations

Presentations often provide instructive perspectives on the GCP results. Some are very general, and others look at particular aspects or questions based on the long term database.

• At the 2004 meeting of the Society for Scientific Exploration, Nelson gave a Powerpoint presentation of the topic Questions and Explorations Probing the GCP database: What matters, What doesn’t, What questions we can ask.
• If your organization is interested in hosting a presentation, contact the Project Director, Roger Nelson.