The Uninhabitable Earth

Can consciousness really reach across space and time? That’s the provocative question physicist Russell Targ asks in The Reality of ESP: A Physicist’s Proof of Psychic Abilities. Drawing from decades of experiments at Stanford Research Institute (SRI) and government-backed projects, Targ argues that extrasensory perception—ESP—is not a fluke, not pseudo-science, but an empirically supported, scientifically verifiable phenomenon. Seen through his laser-physicist lens, ESP represents not a break from physics but its expansion: a testament to the interconnectedness of all things in space-time.

Targ contends that humans possess the ability to access information hidden from ordinary perception—events at great distances and even moments in the future. His central claim is bold: based on hundreds of controlled experiments and decades of data, it is logically and empirically incoherent to deny the existence of ESP. Building on evidence from researchers at SRI, Princeton’s PEAR Lab, and other institutions, he demonstrates that what most dismiss as paranormal actually reveals that consciousness itself is nonlocal, untethered by space or time.

From Laser Physics to Consciousness

Targ’s scientific roots lie in laser engineering; his early career focused on measuring atmospheric patterns and pioneering optical communication. Yet his curiosity about human awareness led him from laser light to the light of the mind. He cofounded SRI’s remote-viewing program in the 1970s—a venture secretly funded by NASA, the CIA, and the Defense Intelligence Agency. Here, science collided with mystery: physicists, artists, and ordinary people were asked to describe distant locations and future events with no sensory contact. As improbable as it sounds, many succeeded.

Proof Beyond Probability

The heart of Targ’s assertion is statistical proof. He defines scientific proof not as perfect certainty but as overwhelming evidence—a level so strong that it would be unreasonable to deny. Across years of experiments, odds against random success often reached one in a million or better. When famous subjects like Ingo Swann described undiscovered rings around Jupiter or when psychic policeman Pat Price located secret Soviet facilities, the results were not lucky guesses—they were verifiable, later confirmed facts. For Targ, these were empirical demonstrations of nonlocal consciousness.

A New Paradigm Beyond Materialism

The book calls for a paradigm shift similar to the upheavals caused by relativity and quantum mechanics. Drawing on the ideas of Max Planck, Schrödinger, and David Bohm, Targ argues that consciousness is fundamental—not a byproduct of brain chemistry but the underlying causal agent of physical reality itself. His concept of nonlocal awareness parallels quantum nonlocality, where two photons remain entangled over vast distances. In ESP, our minds behave similarly: when we quiet mental noise, we can perceive remote or future events because, at the deepest level, everything is connected.

Why It Matters

Targ frames ESP not as supernatural but as natural. Understanding psychic abilities, he suggests, expands physics to encompass consciousness—he even proposes a mathematical model describing how awareness operates in complex eight-space geometry, uniting time and space through zero-distance paths. But the implications are more human: recognizing that our minds are interconnected could inspire compassion and unity, dissolving the illusion of separation that causes suffering. ESP isn’t just about extraordinary powers; it’s about realizing the vast potential of awareness itself.

By the end of the book, Targ weaves together government research, Buddhist philosophy, physics, and personal stories to make one cohesive claim: reality is not confined to matter, and mind is timeless. From CIA archives to meditation halls, The Reality of ESP invites you to consider that what you experience as intuition may be nothing less than your connection to the infinite field of consciousness. And that realization, Targ insists, can change your life and your understanding of what it means to know.

At the heart of Russell Targ’s work lies remote viewing, a skill anyone can learn to look beyond physical sight and perceive distant targets or future events. Developed at Stanford Research Institute with fellow physicist Harold Puthoff, remote viewing became the cornerstone of the U.S. government’s psychic intelligence programs. It’s not mystical, Targ argues—it’s empirical training that reveals how awareness can transcend sensory limits.

How It Works

The process is surprisingly simple. A viewer is asked to describe or sketch what they perceive at a target location, sometimes designated only by geographic coordinates. The viewer quiets mental chatter, focuses attention, and lets images emerge. Success doesn’t depend on belief but on learning to separate the psychic signal from mental noise—the analytical overlay of memory and imagination. Artists and intuitive thinkers often perform better than engineers because they can let go of analysis and open to perception.

The Experiments

In the early 1970s, Targ and Puthoff tested psychics such as Ingo Swann, a New York artist, and later Pat Price, a retired police commissioner. Swann described a secret National Security Agency (NSA) facility in Virginia with uncanny accuracy and later the rings around Jupiter—verified by NASA six years later. Price named Soviet sites, drew detailed maps of Siberian factories, and even read code names on files thousands of miles away. Another unlikely participant, Hella Hammid, a Life magazine photographer with no prior psychic experience, became SRI’s most consistent remote viewer after a decade of tests.

Training the Mind

Targ emphasizes that remote viewing is not a gift for a chosen few—it’s a natural capacity shaped by focus and practice. He compares it to a musical skill: everyone can learn the basics, but talent and dedication determine mastery. At SRI, even Army Intelligence officers were trained to see distant targets, achieving success rates far beyond chance. As Targ puts it, the mind is a mirror; when the dust of thought settles, it reflects distant reality clearly.

Nonlocal Vision

Remote viewing reveals that perception isn’t bound by geography or time. At Princeton, engineer Robert Jahn replicated SRI’s findings: students described hidden locations with billion-to-one accuracy against chance. Across all data, distance made no difference—the mind seemed to operate in a nonlocal field. This suggests our consciousness is part of an infinite continuum, echoing Targ’s Buddhist insight that “separation is an illusion.” Remote viewing therefore isn’t magic—it’s a scientific doorway into the physics of consciousness.

As a physicist, Targ refuses to see psychic phenomena as supernatural. In The Reality of ESP, he offers a fascinating attempt to explain ESP through the language of modern physics. Building on David Bohm’s idea of quantum interconnectedness and John Bell’s theorem of nonlocality, he argues that consciousness operates in a nonlocal space-time continuum—a field where distance and time are irrelevant. ESP, in his view, is consciousness interacting with this multidimensional geometry.

From Quantum Nonlocality to Conscious Awareness

In quantum physics, entangled particles remain connected, instantly affecting each other no matter the distance. Targ draws a parallel: when you perceive a distant event or future occurrence, your awareness connects nonlocally through consciousness itself. He calls this the physics of miracles—not divine violations of natural law but extensions of it. As physicist Erwin Schrödinger wrote, “Consciousness is a singular of which the plural is unknown.” For Targ, this means consciousness isn’t confined to individuals; it’s a unified field that links all minds and matter.

The Eight-Space Model

Together with theoretical physicist Elizabeth Rauscher, Targ developed a mathematical model to describe how psychic phenomena might occur. They envisioned an eight-dimensional complex Minkowski space—three real dimensions of space, one of time, and their imaginary counterparts. Within this hyper-dimensional geometry, any two points can connect at zero distance, allowing awareness to bypass ordinary space-time limits. Remote viewers, in effect, travel along these zero-distance paths of consciousness.

Science and Spirituality Converge

Targ finds harmony between physics and ancient wisdom. Quantum interconnectedness mirrors Buddhist and Hindu teachings that “all is one” and that separation is illusion. Modern science confirms what mystics have long claimed: that mind and matter are complementary, not distinct. Physicist Henry Stapp echoes this by saying thoughts are “efficacious” in nature—they do something; they shape reality. Targ’s conclusion is radical yet elegant: understanding ESP means expanding physics to include awareness as a fundamental component of the universe.

What This Means for You

You don’t have to memorize equations to appreciate Targ’s physics of miracles. It invites you to see yourself not as a passive observer but as part of an infinite web of consciousness, influencing and being influenced beyond time and distance. Whether you’re meditating, sensing intuition, or experiencing synchronicity, you’re engaging with the same nonlocal field. ESP, then, is simply physics experienced personally—a reminder that reality is far “queerer than we suppose,” as physicist J.B. Haldane once said.

One of the most gripping sections of Targ’s book explores evidence for consciousness surviving bodily death. The idea isn’t wishful thinking; it’s based on credible research and firsthand accounts investigated by scientists and philosophers for more than a century. For Targ, the existence of ESP and nonlocal awareness naturally implies that consciousness itself can persist beyond the physical body.

Scientific Case Studies

Targ highlights psychiatrist Ian Stevenson from the University of Virginia, who documented over 2,000 cases where children recalled previous lives, often identifying families, homes, and skills from another existence. Matching scars or physical marks to wounds described in past lives, Stevenson’s research showed empirical consistency that challenged conventional explanations. Similarly, William James and Frederic Myers studied mediums like Leonora Piper, whose communications revealed verifiable facts unknown to anyone alive.

Modern Encounters

Targ recounts contemporary examples—a lost child saved by a ghost, a psychic nurse channeling messages in foreign languages, and the celebrated “Maroczy-Korchnoi” chess game where a deceased grandmaster allegedly played fifty high-level moves through a living medium. Such cases, he argues, cannot be dismissed merely as coincidence or subconscious fabrication; they resonate with the same nonlocal principles found in ESP experiments.

Super-Psi and the Continuum of Mind

Critics propose the super-psi hypothesis—the idea that mediums don’t contact spirits but use extraordinary clairvoyance to access all information. Targ acknowledges this but finds it unsatisfying. If consciousness is fundamentally nonlocal, both explanations imply the same larger truth: the mind’s reach extends beyond time and death. Philosopher Robert Almeder concludes similarly—that scientific evidence now makes belief in personal survival after death not just possible but rational.

For Targ, these stories aren’t about proving the supernatural; they’re about understanding the physics of immortality. If awareness exists outside space-time, why should it vanish when the body falls away? ESP research, reincarnation data, and mediumship all whisper the same message: consciousness doesn’t end—it continues, interconnected, timeless, and infinite.

What if the future can influence the past? Targ’s chapter on precognition introduces one of science’s most unsettling ideas: time may not flow strictly forward. Building on physicist Daryl Bem’s Cornell studies, Targ describes experiments showing that people consistently respond to future stimuli before they occur—a phenomenon known as retrocausality.

Precognitive Experiments

At Cornell, Bem’s students successfully predicted which erotic or negative images would appear on a screen—even though the pictures were randomly selected after their choices. Across nine studies, statistical significance exceeded six sigma, meaning odds of less than one in a billion against chance. Targ reports similar laboratory outcomes at SRI, where psychics forecasted silver market changes for nine weeks straight—earning $120,000 based entirely on psychic predictions later verified by market data.

Feeling the Future

These results suggest that consciousness doesn’t just react—it anticipates. Physiological studies by Dean Radin show that heart rate and skin resistance change seconds before subjects see disturbing images. Targ calls such moments presentiment: the body’s intuitive foreknowledge of coming events. He even notes that all four planes hijacked on 9/11 were only one-third full, implying collective intuition may have deterred travelers from boarding.

Understanding Retrocausality

In physics terms, retrocausality doesn’t rewrite history—it broadens causality itself. Future events can influence present awareness without violating classical laws. Time may function like a tapestry, interwoven with causal threads that run both forward and backward. For mystics and quantum theorists alike, this supports the notion of a timeless consciousness—the “spacious awareness” Targ links to Buddhist and Hindu philosophy.

As an everyday takeaway, Targ encourages you to trust intuitive warnings and dreams. They may be glimpses of your expanded consciousness sampling future conditions. Precognition isn’t merely psychic prediction—it’s consciousness revealing that time, like space, is a dimension to be experienced, not obeyed.

ESP isn’t limited to seeing—it can also change reality. In distant mental influence experiments, Targ and others found that thoughts can affect physiology across space. From hypnosis trials in early Soviet labs to modern healing research funded by the NIH, the evidence reveals that intention can alter matter and even health outcomes.

Early Foundations

Leonid Vasiliev’s long-distance hypnosis studies in Russia showed subjects entering sleep or waking exactly when instructed, even inside lead-sealed rooms. Decades later, William Braud replicated such effects in California: “influencers” could calm or excite distant people, fish, and even red blood cells. These results, repeated across laboratories, confirmed that biological systems respond to conscious attention, regardless of distance or shielding.

Healing Experiments

Targ’s daughter, psychiatrist Elisabeth Targ, conducted one of the most convincing medical studies on distant healing. Working with AIDS patients, she found that those prayed for by experienced healers had significantly fewer hospitalizations, fewer illnesses, and better emotional well-being. Her double-blind trials published in the Western Journal of Medicine became landmark evidence that compassionate intention can measurably influence health.

Mind Over Matter

Targ distinguishes genuine healing from placebo: in experiments with blood samples, healers slowed cell deterioration in test tubes—no psychology involved. For him, healing is another expression of nonlocal mind, where consciousness interacts directly with biological systems. He cites physicist Henry Stapp to emphasize that thoughts are “efficacious,” shaping the physical world through informational linkages.

Ultimately, these findings redefine medicine. Healing is not confined to touch or drugs; it’s an act of consciousness. When you focus loving intention—even remotely—you tap into a field of awareness that connects all life. In that sense, ESP is less about extraordinary powers and more about rediscovering humanity’s inherent capacity for compassion through mind itself.

Targ concludes that ESP is both scientific and spiritual. Drawing from Buddhist and Hindu notions of naked awareness, he frames psychic abilities as expressions of consciousness free from ego and conditioning. Far from forbidden or mystical, psi mirrors ancient practices that cultivate insight and compassion.

Awareness Beyond Separation

In meditation, you learn to quiet the “chattering mind,” precisely what remote viewers do to separate the psychic signal from mental noise. Buddhists call this moving from conditioned awareness to “spacious mind.” The Hindu Yoga Sutras of Patanjali teach that psychic powers arise naturally from mental stillness but warn against attachment. For both traditions, ESP symbolizes nonduality—the realization that all consciousness is one field.

Ethical and Sacred Use

Targ encourages students to treat psychic abilities as sacred yet practical. He cites Rachel Naomi Remen’s view that psi is an expanded, not exalted, human function—like hearing or touch that can become sacred through use. The ethical call is to employ ESP for compassion and understanding, not manipulation or power. When mind-to-mind communication is guided by love, it reveals humanity’s shared consciousness rather than its divisions.

Integrating Science and Spirit

Ultimately, Targ bridges the laboratory with the meditation hall. Remote viewing demonstrates what Buddhists and physicists alike proclaim: we live in a nonlocal universe of interconnected awareness. ESP is not an exception to science but its expansion into the study of mind. When you understand this, meditation, compassion, and psychic perception converge as facets of the same truth—the infinite reach of consciousness.