Schlitz describes her own remote viewing experiment between Detroit and Rome that produced six direct hits out of ten trials, with odds against chance of four in a million. She details her laboratory studies showing that one person can measurably influence another person's physiology at a distance under double-blind conditions.
The conversation covers groundbreaking clinical studies where distant healing intentions improved health outcomes for AIDS patients regardless of the healer's religious tradition. Schlitz also discusses her staring detection experiments, online psi tests at the IONS website, and the relationship between belief and psychic performance in research settings.
Key Moments
Detroit-to-Rome remote viewing experiment, 6 of 10 hits: Schlitz describes her landmark 1980 SRI-era experiment running between Detroit and Rome. Over ten randomized days she sat in Michigan and described her partner's location as he visited targets selected from a 40-site pool. Five blind judges scored her impressions and produced six direct hits, with odds of about four in a million, including a now-famous trial where she said 'airport' and named clandestine diggings on the Rome runway field.
Distant-healing study with Elizabeth Targ on AIDS patients: Schlitz outlines the double-blind AIDS distant-healing trial she helped run with Dr. Elizabeth Targ at California Pacific Medical Center, using Carmelite nuns, Buddhist monks, shamans, Wiccans and fundamentalist Christians as healers. Both a pilot and confirmation study showed the treated group had better immune markers, fewer hospital days, and fewer secondary infections than controls.
Duke MANTRA cardiac prayer trial: Schlitz cites the Mitch Krucoff MANTRA study at Duke, which randomized cardiac-emergency patients into standard care or standard care plus one of three noetic interventions: therapeutic touch, guided imagery, or distant prayer. The prayed-for arm came out with the strongest outcomes, paralleling the earlier San Francisco cardiology prayer study.
Schlitz versus Wiseman: experimenter-effect replication: Schlitz tells the story of teaming with skeptic and magician Richard Wiseman to run identical remote-staring experiments in his lab and hers. Both experimenters again replicated their original results: Schlitz found a significant autonomic-nervous-system effect, Wiseman found nothing. The only varying factor was the experimenter, suggesting the experimenter's orientation may shape psi outcomes.
Stevenson's biological markers of reincarnation: Schlitz points to Dr. Ian Stevenson at the University of Virginia and his cataloged cases of children whose past-life memories correspond to physical birthmarks at the precise location of the prior personality's fatal trauma, including gunshot wounds. She frames it as one of the most systematic data sets pointing toward survival of consciousness.