Citation

The two-stage model of receptive psi is a reasonable starting point for understanding how ESP enters consciousness and affects behaviour. Whereas Stage 1—how ESP “gets into the system”—remains a mystery, Stage 2 is thought to involve normal cognitive processes. If evolution has conferred upon humans the ability to make use of anomalous information then it is likely to follow the pattern in which existing brain systems are adapted and enhanced to confer new advantages. Roll and Irwin have proposed memory as a candidate for one such brain system co-opted for service with ESP. This paper proposes that the emotional system also plays a role in receptive psi, perhaps an even more fundamental one than memory. Recent research suggests that the emotional system is involved in selecting the memory images that comprise dreams, as well as influencing the attention we devote to the memory images that parade across waking consciousness. Damasio’s work has highlighted the role of the emotional system, especially subtle bodily feelings, in decision-making, thus providing a link with behavioural responses that might be psi-influenced in Stanford’s PMIR model, as well as providing insight into intuitive spontaneous cases. Evolution has already designed the emotional system’s operation to be automatic, unconscious, and not easily subject to intentional control, characteristics traditionally attributed to receptive psi, so it is conceivable that this system has been adapted by evolution to serve as a “pathway” for anomalous information. The rapidly advancing understanding of the emotional system calls for new and imaginative experiments to examine the joint roles of memory and emotion in the effective use of anomalous information.