"For the materialist, the tiny pool of energy constituting the atom is everlasting and indestructible.  But the tiny pool of consciousness that has conceived of the atom, determined its constituents and lent everlasting life to it, that forms his own individuality is for him perishable and evanescent.  The very terms "everlasting" and "real" are but formulations of the mind.  How could it coin these terms unless it knew what they signify?  And how could this knowledge arise unless there is something in it that partakes of both?

"In general, the agnostic or materialistc writers of recent times have omitted any discussion of the paranormal faculties of the mind.  They either ignore this important branch of study altogether or dismiss the phenomena as the result of faulty observation, in the case of laboratory experiments, or to imposture or fraud.  That many eminent men and women of science, after meticulous observation of the phenomena, have borne witness to their authenticity does not weigh with them at all.

"That a large proportion of scientists, now said to be over 50 percent, believe in the possibility of psychic occurences has no importance for them.  They continue to air their opinions, unappreciative that mind as a phenomenon still has to be studied with the methods appropriate for this research.  They know that knowledge of the brain is still extremely limited.  They know they have no idea what kind of energy feeds the activity of thought, or how this energy is produced and what the actual relationship is between the brain and the mind.

"But this essential lack of knowledge does not deter them from expressing dogmatic views, in the same way as the absence of appropriate instruments did not prevent the star gazers of the past from inventing fantastic stories about the firmament that excite our laughter at present.  If even a fraction of the voluminous evidence of extrasensory perception gathered during the past century is accepted as genuine, it would suffice to force a complete revision of the views held about the mind and consciousness." (4)