In a new-ish study published in March of 2024 in the journal Cortex, an open-access journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behavior, scientists temporarily suppressed the left medial middle frontal lobe and then ran tests for psychic ability on the test subjects. Subjects that had this area suppressed did better on psychic testing than control subjects.

This might seem an oddly specific area to target, and one has to wonder how they came to pick this spot to focus on. In their paper they explain that they were building on two previous research papers they did on people with frontal brain lesions. And their paper from 2003 builds on previous research from the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Lab, known as PEAR (referenced in various paranormal TV shows), which used people with frontal lobe damage to test a theory that reduced self awareness helped in facilitating psi ability.

Brain Damage and Psychic Ability

In 2018 the researchers conducted an experiment using two people with specific brain damage to try and narrow down the part of the brain that was suppressing psychic functioning.

The experimental task was to influence output of a Random Event Generator translated into movement of an arrow on a computer screen to the right or left. Compared to a well-designed control condition, both individuals demonstrated a significant effect in moving the arrow on the screen contralateral to the side of their primary lesion overlap, i.e., to the right.

This allowed them to narrow down the part of the brain responsible for suppression to the left medial middle frontal lobe. (Responsible for mediating self awareness.)

The study is of a very respectable size and composition, comprised of 108 participants of varying ages, sex and background with 500 trials in the first go around. The task was the same as previous testing.

They were asked to concentrate on moving the arrow in the direction that it was pointing. The arrow tip started at the midline for each block of trials and moved to the right or left on the screen in small steps according to the cumulative deviation from 100. If the arrow tip was to the right of midline, this represented a cumulative deviation greater than 100. If the tip was to the left of midline, the deviation was less than 100. The order of direction was counterbalanced across participants, i.e., four sets of trials in the order Left Intention, Right Intention, Left Control, Right Control or Right Intention, Left Intention, Right Control, Left Control.

A Very Good Study

In examining the quality of the study, here’s what we find:

• No data fishing: The purpose of the study was stated beforehand
• It builds on previous research
• It is sufficiently large and the participants are varied in age and sex (108 participants, two sets of 500 trials.)
• There is a sufficiently large control group
• The positive results are well beyond chance. (roughly 100 to 1)

In other words, this is a pretty solid experiment. We can believe the results.

Here’s where it gets REALLY interesting: Research into psychic ability has included several different approaches over many years in order to trigger the ability more consistently. It’s often easier for people to miss a target than for them to succeed. It’s been obvious to psi researchers for decades that some sort of suppression is taking place. Suppression is an important concept here because it’s different from our normal assumptions about how the brain works.

We would normally expect heightened and more vivid experiences to correlate one to one with increased brain activity. The greater the intensity of the experience, the more brain activity we should be able to see. In fact, when we look at the experiences with perhaps the greatest intensity of all, near death experiencs, the brain is hardly functioning, if at all. And it’s been demonstrated that psychedelics work by suppressing part of the brain.

It’s Not a Super Power, it’s an Ability

We now know that psychic ability isn’t some special power that people have, it’s the result of decreased activity in the brain. Awareness expands as brain functions decrease. No materialistic model of the brain can account for this. It only makes sense if you see the brain as filter, not a generator of consciousness.

It also points the way for the development of psi experiments that produce more consistent results. If we have a better understanding of how psychic ability activates in the brain, then this can be used to create more reliable experiments that exhibit stronger psi responses. One of the outcomes of this will be that it takes fewer experiments and less money to produce statistically significant results and another outcome is that experiments will be more robust and harder to explain away. This is excellent news, and it points the way for the holy grail of psi research: the easily replicated experiment. It’s an exciting time for parapsychology!