The Sense Of Being Stared At

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY 20/01/2003

Extending the line of thought propounded in his Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home, Sheldrake continues his investigations of perceptions that don't seem to correlate to our known senses. It's a project that carries risks of which he is well aware ("o go against this taboo involves a serious loss of intellectual standing, a relegation to the ranks of the uneducated"), and is careful to base his arguments on sustained research. Using a database of more than 4,500 case histories of "apparently unexplained perceptiveness by people and by nonhuman animals," Sheldrake investigates a wide range of psychic phenomena, organizing his inquiries by specific media. One chapter covers "Telephone Telepathy," whereby one can be thinking of a person who then calls or can "actively induce" someone to call. He also covers cats who rush to the phone when it is their owner on the line, but of particular interest are the studies and anecdotes presenting evidence of other sorts of telepathic or psychic communication between children and parents, as well as the tales of dreams and visions that seem to have predicted the tragic events of September 11. Some of the material fails to convince (such as the woman who says her husband can sense the correct Trivial Pursuit answer if she thinks about it), and some readers may wish that Sheldrake had more fully dealt with selective memory and retrospective narration where details are unconsciously embellished. Nevertheless, the title chapter is extremely convincing, dealing with those moments in which we "know" someone is looking at us, and turn around to find it to be so: Sheldrake has data on response rates that differ as to place, gender and type of gaze (curiosity, sexual desire, anger, etc.), and goes on to devote a whole chapter to "Surveillance and Wariness." A nine-city author tour and a radio campaign amy further sway skeptics.