Avenues of the Human Spirit - an interview with Graham Nicholls

Avenues of the Human Spirit - an interview with Graham Nicholls

18 October, 2011
by: Tom Jeffreys

Tom Jeffreys talks telepathy, religion and Richard Dawkins with “expert on out-of-body experiences” Graham Nicholls.

At a lecture given at the ICA back in 2009, Terry Eagleton argued that the world today is “suddenly divided between those who believe too little and those who believe too much”. It's an analysis of the kind of ideological polarisation that postmodernity was supposed to have done away with. And it's an analysis that springs to mind over lunch at a Turkish café in Dalston with artist, author and self-proclaimed “expert on out-of-body experiences” Graham Nicholls.
 
In July, Nicholls published his first book – entitled Avenues of the Human Spirit – in which he details some of the hundreds of out-of-body experiences (OOBEs) that he claims to have had since the age of twelve. The book is a fascinating read, and details some truly extraordinary experiences – including an intensely real premonition of the 1999 Soho nail bomb, as well as accounts of experiences that, as he puts it in the book, “obviously challenge the idea that OOBEs are no more than hallucinations”. One involves seeing the list of the day's specials outside a restaurant. A later waking visit found the sign exactly as he'd seen it in the OOBE, “down to the colour of the paint and position in the street”.

Understandably, Nicholls' assertions have been controversial. Ignoring the crazies, the quacks and the ill-informed, opinions largely divide into two camps: the sceptics, led by the likes of Richard Wiseman, Susan Blackmore, James Randi and, of course, Richard Dawkins; and those of a more open mind – including scientists like Dean Radin, Michael Persinger, Nobel Prize laureate Brian Josephson, and Rupert Sheldrake. This polarisation is something I can certainly relate to. The first time I wrote about Rupert Sheldrake (after taking part in one of his telepathy experiments) the vehemence with which commenters expressed their opinions was astounding.
 
I wonder where the strength of this division originated. “I have an idea,” Nicholls suggests, “that it stems from the Enlightenment, and the division between science on the one hand, and religion on the other. So anything that’s psychic or connected to 'superstition' is associated with religion and therefore deemed unscientific. That’s where the divide took place, and since then, if you want to align yourself to something rational you’re likely to dismiss the psychic as mere superstition.”
 
“Therefore scientists who are looking at these things,” continues Nicholls, “have to re-bridge that gap in a way.” And, contrary to mainstream media reporting, there are scientists out there, working against the grain of prejudice to get at some further understanding of these issues. Persinger, for example, a cognitive neuroscientist, has published studies that seem to provide evidence for both telepathy and remote viewing. In Sheldrake's words, these things are “natural, not supernatural.”
 
Despite its controversial subject matter, Avenues is written in a refreshingly clear and straightforward style throughout – one that emphasises the normal, not the paranormal. It frequently blends elements of autobiography with accounts of these OOBEs – the aim being, he tells me, “to show that these things can come from any context, not just idyllic scenery in some exotic land”.
 
Nicholls was born in Paddington to a working class family and, in his own view, faced a future of petty crime and relentless negativity, until his first out-of-body experience caused him to question much about the way we understand the world. These days, Nicholls lives in Tallinn, and is best known as an author (he has two more books in the pipeline) and artist whose work explores ideas around sensory deprivation, hypnosis and psi – Londoners may recall his virtual reality installation at the Science Museum back in 2004.
 
From descriptions of Nicholl's experiences, the book branches out into discussions of a wide range of spiritual questions. The book adroitly conveys the life-changing powers of his experience – probably the more forcefully for the lack of bombast. “I wanted to show how you could arrive at quite a spiritual outlook,” Nicholls explains. “Some of the most important things are the human values that come out of those experiences – like compassion, like seeing yourself as part of the process of life rather than seeing humans as elite and better than everything else.”
 
“But,” he continues, “it doesn't have to come from any particular belief system; it can come from direct experience. I suppose that's what I really value – some kind of practice or exploration is the only way to get some deeper sense of what these things are about, or really open up to them.”
 
The implications of such experiences are clearly wide-ranging – not only for Nicholls, who is now a vegan and lives in a spiritual community in Tallinn – but for all of us. For, if he is right, almost everything we take for granted about the nature of consciousness is thrown into question. Because if out-of-body experiences are a real phenomenon – and nothing Nicholls has written or said causes me to doubt the veracity of his claims – then consciousness is not simply a product of the individual brain. It must be something larger.
 
“There are ideas,” Nicholls tells me, “that consciousness may be extended through some type of quantum entanglement. Scientists like Dean Radin and Brian Josephson have both put something similar across.” There’s also the possibility that, as Nicholls puts it, “consciousness is some kind of fundamental thing that affects the whole make-up of reality”. Which would go some way to explaining the Copenhagen Interpretation (the observer effect in quantum physics).
 
But with the repercussions so profound, it’s hardly surprising that this kind of research is met with such concerted resistance, particularly by the big shots of scepticism – Dawkins, Wiseman, Randi etc – most of whom refuse to actually address the science head-on. “There's such a tide opinion against it,” Nicholls tells me, “that people can't look at it rationally and ask what the data actually says.” The experiences of Sheldrake in this area are particularly instructive, with both Wiseman and Dawkins queueing up to shoot him down. Despite Wiseman's own admission that, “by the standards of any other area of science [ESP] is proven” he still refuses to believe it. And when the world’s arch-rationalists lose their commitment to reason, you know something extraordinary must be happening.
 
Avenues of the Human Spirit is available on Amazon.

Graham Nicholls is holding out-of-body experience workshops. Click the link for more information.

Some links:
www.sheldrake.org
www.skepticalinvestigations.org
www.skeptic.com

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Tom Jeffreys