How is that possible? Spooks. Rocks.
Bem made his mark as a psychologist four decades ago by proposing the then radical idea that people adjust their emotions after observing their own behavior–that we sometimes develop our attitudes about our actions only after the fact. The proposition challenged the prevailing wisdom of the 1960s that things worked the other way around, that attitude was the engine from which behavior emerged. Though counterintuitive, Bem’s theory has held up to scientific scrutiny in dozens of studies and is now enshrined in psychology textbooks.
Over the years, Bem cemented his reputation as a rebel by floating other controversial theories on topics such as personality and sexual orientation. His own personal life was also decidedly unconventional. Despite being married to a woman, Bem never hid from his family the fact that he is gay. A few years ago, he explained this conjugal conundrum in an Internet posting distinguishing between romantic love and sexual attraction, arguing that many individuals—like himself—fall in love with a person of the “wrong” gender.
Even in the context of a career of irreverence, there was little to suggest that Bem would end up defending the possibility of extrasensory perception, or ESP, which most mainstream scientists consider unworthy of serious inquiry. […]
By the end of the 1990s, Bem had changed his focus from clairvoyance to precognition, the most mind- boggling of psi phenomena. “It has the biggest wow factor,” he says. Although telepathy, or straightforward mind reading, is hard to believe, at least it seems remotely scientifically possible. Electromagnetic waves travel over vast distances, so perhaps there is some way the electrical impulses that generate thoughts could be transmitted from one person to another. Precognition is different. Sensing events that have not yet occurred requires that information move backward in time. “I thought, my god, that is fascinating,” Bem says, “because it means that our classical view of the physical world is wrong.”
