Sam Knight

It seems like with every major disaster, there are people who claim to have had a premonition that something was going to happen. I enjoyed this historical account of a psychiatrist who joined forces with a journalist in a project to collect people's premonitions in order to see how many come true. The author does a good job discussing coincidence and other factors that can create a false impression that an actual premonition has come true. However, there are enough anecdotes about truly show more uncanny perceptions as to make one wonder. show less

A gem of a book.
The author hooks you in with the crazy but true story of a premonitions bureau, a place that collects premonitions and then watches to see if any come true.
He then proceeds to basically do a biography of a psychiatrist who came up with the idea. The psychiatrist also dabbled in aversion therapy and the idea of whether or not it is possible to be scared to death.
Meanwhile, the do tor’s partner in this somewhat kooky endeavor is a reporter who is one of the leading writers show more on NASA and the space race.
A bizarre but charming combination show less

In the late 1960s, British psychiatrist John Barker became fascinated by premonitions, and, with Peter Fairley, started a Premonitions Bureau - a sort of clearinghouse for prophecies and premonitions from around the country. He wondered if disasters - like the Aberfan coal tip, plane crashes, fires, train derailments - could be avoided with this early warning system. Over a few years, only about three percent of the predictions were accurate, and even then, they were not specific enough to show more avert any catastrophe, and could only be matched up after the fact. Sam Knight digs into the history of Barker and the hospital where he worked (Shelton, in Shrewsbury), the premonitions bureau and some of its best "percipients," various theories of time, and Barker's own early demise.

Unusual, interesting.

Quotes

It can be very difficult, even in the moment that something noticeable is happening, to separate an event from the meaning that we choose to give it. With time, once an unlikely occurrence is incorporated into the story of a life, or a death, it becomes almost impossible to see the alternative possibilities that once existed. (56)

Premonitions are impossible, and they come true all the time. (71)

When we stop seeing where things are going, we cease to be ourselves. It is human to think ahead. (76)

The difference between science and madness is correcting your explanation when it doesn't map on to the world. (102)

...Barker...gave credence and attention to men and women whose illusions had not been previously taken seriously. (134)

We see the world as our community sees it. We are drawn into each other's scheme of things. (143)

There was no vision without a disaster to see. (149)

The free energy principle drives our memories, intuition and expectations to generate the smoothest experience of reality as it hits us....seeing things before they happen is how we, as mortal souls, can seek to slow down time. (154)

Part of tragedy is the certainty by which it proceeds and how we interrogate our choices as it does so. (223)

Like Barker, [George] Engel wanted to expand the frontiers of psychiatry and to pay more attention to the physiological impact of our emotions. (234)

"Nocebo effect"

...A warning doesn't bring it about. The future is already there. (236) show less

A typical English book in that it goes into some fringe areas, but it does so with grace and sensitivity. An interesting subject in this day and age with the hard line sceptic view of the world and it was an enjoyable read.

By hard line sceptic, I mean that view that states that if we cannot prove it scientifically and reproduce it in a lab then it's charlatanism. Notwithstanding that the universe is apparently composed of dark matter, a substance that we can't find no matter how hard we show more look, reminds me of phlogiston somewhat. But don't get me started.

The title pretty much says it all and the thread is one of the possibility that our brains are far more sensitive in ways we can't fathom and are not encouraged to think about. It also brings into question our idea of Time and how that way of thinking trammels our beliefs and possibilities.

A few years back I remember someone commenting on our search for extra terrestrial life using telescopes and such like as being nothing more that electro-magnetic chauvinism.

There is an undercurrent of that way of looking at the world in this book, like I said, a very British book. show less