Carlos S. Alvarado, PhD, Research Fellow, Parapsychology Foundation
Over the years I have seen Dr. Roger Nelson at various conventions of the Parapsychological Association and of the Society for Scientific Exploration, and had the pleasure of publishing an interview with him in this blog in 2014. During that period he worked at the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research laboratory and presented many papers reporting experiments about psychokinesis.
Roger Nelson
Roger held the position of Coordinator of Research at the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Laboratory located at Princeton University (1980-2002). Since 1997 he has been the director of one of the most exciting research programs in parapsychology, the Global Consciousness Project, which is the topic of the book discussed here.
The book, Connected: The Emergence of Global Consciousness (Princeton, NJ: ICRL Press, 2019; available via Amazon), is about the development and results of The Global Consciousness Project (see also a shorter article, a slide presentation, and a video), which postulates the possibility that human consciousness can interact with physical systems at a global level, when we respond synchronously to specific events, negative and positive.
As Roger has stated elsewhere: “The Global Consciousness Project . . . is an international collaboration of scientists and engineers that tests the claim, insisted on by sages throughout history, that there exists a unified field of human consciousness. The project looks for evidence that thoughts, emotions and perceptions may potentially cohere in response to major world events, producing detectable effects. Data collected from a worldwide network of random output devices has been found to show small but statistically significant deviations that suggest this is indeed the case.”
The book has 28 chapters that appear in four parts: Part 1 The Egg Story (chapters such as: Starting Points, Interconnections, Development, Encouraging Results); Part 2 The Instrument (Chapters such as: Intention Affect RNGs [Randon number generators], The FiedREG Experiment, The Egg Network, Suitable Measures); Part 3 The Results (Chapters such as: Terror Attacks and Wars, Natural Disasters, Compassion and Empathy, Modelling and Theory); and Part 4 Interpretation and Meaning (Chapters such as: Extracting Meaning, Implications of the Evidence, What We Can Do, Love to Earth).
Interview
Can you give a brief summary of the book?
Connected documents the Global Consciousness Project (GCP) in depth, including its history and sources, descriptions of technology and examples of results. More than enough technical and analytical detail, some discussion of notional explanations, and finally some chapters on interpretation and implications. It builds on research showing that human intention can change random number generator (RNG) behavior, and that group consciousness, when it is coherent and resonant, can change random sequences. A network of RNGs around the world was designed to ask whether we can see effects of a global consciousness responding to great events in the world. The answer suggests that when large numbers of people share emotions stimulated by major tragedies or great celebrations there is a small but meaningful effect on the GCP network. The implication that we are interconnected at an unconscious level poses the next question — what might happen if we work consciously to understand and strengthen these connections?
What is your background in parapsychology, and with the topic of the book specifically?
I’m a cognitive psychologist with long interest in “alternative” psychologies. I came to Princeton in 1980 to join the PEAR research group, to develop experiments in remote perception (RV) and mind-matter interaction (MMI). My interest in broader applications of the MMI technology led to “fieldREG” experiments studying group consciousness, and to the next level of integrated or shared consciousness effects in the Global Consciousness Project, which I created in 1997.
What motivated you to write this book?
The GCP is a major research project that I wanted to document in an accessible, relatively linear fashion. Its findings and implications offer insight into the extraordinary reach of human consciousness, and suggest that we are not only capable of but responsible for conscious evolution.
Why do you think your book is important and what do you hope to accomplish with it?
We are at a time in history when collaboration and cooperation are essential to address global issues. Millions of us understand that we must come together as one, and this book speaks of a potential to become a noosphere — a sheath of intelligence for the earth. Consciousness, as I wrote in the book. “is not just a secondary emanation from the brain, but instead is both part of and independent of the physical substrate of neurons and synapses protected by the skull. Mind has a real and participatory role in the world” (p. 12).
Parapsychology 
This scientific study of the ancient belief of global consciousness will come as a great relief to many forward thinkers who suspect we have been unwittingly poisoning ourselves through our own mass media. There is also another potential menace to consider: the intentionally unscrupulous use of mechanisms by vested interests of one form or another to deliberately affect mass consciousness in ways which are detrimental to other people and life as a whole. And one wonders if the romans, when feeding Christians to the lions and forcing gladiators to battle to the death in front of large crowds, might have been driven by something more sinister than simple base cruelty. Might there be modern analogues to such pathological stratagems? Interestingly the New Age community of conspiracy investigators, if I may call them that, are not unknowing of such possibilities.