or stainless-steel scalpels. In my opinion, the most important
　　　　  research activity in the entire field will be the investigation of
　　　　  nonlocal manifestations of consciousness."
　　　　  Nonlocal manifestations of consciousness? Have we fallen off the
　　　　  edge of the map? The panel's report explains that "studies in mental
　　　　  and spiritual healing show that the mind can somehow bring about
　　　　  changes in far-away physical bodies, even when the distant person is
　　　　  shielded from all known sensory and electromagnetic influences.
　　　　  These events, replicated by careful observers under laboratory
　　　　  conditions, strongly suggest that there is some aspect of the psyche
　　　　  that is unconfinable to points in space, such as brain or body, or
　　　　  to points in time, as in the present moment."
　　　　  The eye comes to a screeching halt seeing such phrases laid out,
　　　　  neat as you please, in an official document of the United States
　　　　  government. These are not the florid, metaphysical ramblings of a
　　　　  19th-century occultist, but the words whispered in the side
　　　　  corridors of the highest citadel of American rationalism: The mind,
　　　　  it is rumored, has escaped the brain.
　　　　  "These ideas do have a pretty high Boggle Factor," Dossey admits,
　　　　  but he claims the evidence is mounting. He points to the work of
　　　　  William G. Braud, Ph.D., senior research associate at San Antonio's
　　　　  Mind Science Foundation: In a typical experiment, one person--called
　　　　  the "influencer"--was placed in one room, while in a different part
　　　　  of the building a "subject," fingers hooked up to electrodes to
　　　　  measure galvanic skin response, settled into a chair. At randomly
　　　　  selected times, the influencer tried to affect the subject's
　　　　  electrodermal response by, for example, visualizing the subject
　　　　  while repeating, "Relax...relax...." Later analysis showed that the
　　　　  subject's electrodermal responses had varied at the same time as the
　　　　  influencer's thoughts, at a rate 43,000 to one against chance.
　　　　  Another of Braud's recent studies posed the question of whether
　　　　  people could affect the rate of decay of human blood cells in test
　　　　  tubes by thought alone. Red cells drawn from volunteers were placed
　　　　  in a solution with low salt content, which normally would cause them
　　　　  to rupture. The volunteers were told to try to mentally "protect"
　　　　  their own distant blood cells from harm. Astonishingly, measurements
　　　　  made with a computer-linked spectrophotometer revealed that nearly a
　　　　  third of the participants had succeeded, seemingly, in mentally