The Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) laboratory, which ran from 1979 to 2007, was well-known as one of few centres in the world dedicated to studying parapsychological topics and the role of consciousness in ‘creating’ reality. Located at Princeton University’s School of Engineering and Applied Science, PEAR was run by Bob Jahn (Emeritus Professor of Aerospace Sciences and Dean Emeritus of the School of Engineering and Applied Science of Princeton University) and laboratory manager Brenda Dunne. Both Jahn and Dunne have continued the lab’s legacy in recent years as International Consciousness Research Laboratories (ICRL), a not-for-profit organization.
Many of PEAR’s experiments were designed around ‘human-machine’ interactions – “to study the potential vulnerability of engineering devices and information processing systems to the anomalous influence of the consciousness of their human operators” – and with PEAR’s closing, these machines are now very much part of the history of psi research. As such, Bob Jahn and Brenda Dunne are looking to preserve the PEAR laboratory into the future as a museum, and are seeking funds via Kickstarter to achieve that goal:
The purpose of this project is to create an archival museum to preserve, display, and demonstrate the unique and attractive experimental equipment that served as the nucleus of the studies conducted at the PrincetonEngineering Anomalies Research laboratory.
Each device combined rigorous scientific controls with aesthetically attractive feedback displays designed to appeal to their human operators, who attempted to shift the means of these distributions in alternating directions. Thus, each qualifies as an example of kinetic art as well as a scientific research tool.
ICRL encourages seriously motivated young scholars and others who are challenged to explore the role of consciousness in physical reality. To this end, it is our hope that the successful completion of this project will enable us to continue to stimulate new scientific initiatives and pragmatic applications of consciousness-related physical phenomena for generations to come.
Full details about the project, including the rewards for various pledge amounts, can be found at the Kickstarter website. If you’re interested in psi research, this one should be right up your alley.
