| "If people have the ability to sense the future, why | | | | grade-point averages did slightly worse than students |
| aren't they rich?" This is one of the most frequent | | | | making lower grades. |
| questions I've been asked by readers of my book The | | | | An interesting outcome of Dean and Mihalasky's work |
| Power of Premonitions. The fact is, some are very | | | | with CEOs was the high percentage of them -- |
| rich, and they attribute their wealth in part to their ability | | | | around 80 percent -- who acknowledged a private |
| to sense the future. As Bill Gates says, "Sometimes, | | | | belief in ESP. When questioned, they admitted their |
| you have to rely on intuition." Or as Oprah states, "My | | | | belief was not based on either a familiarity with the |
| business skills have come from being guided by my | | | | scientific literature or an acquaintance with psychics, |
| inner self -- my intuition." And as Donald Trump admits, | | | | but because they'd seen it work in their own lives. |
| "I've built a multi-billion empire by using my intuition." | | | | What happens when premonitions, acknowledged as |
| But what do these highly successful individuals mean | | | | such, are put to the test in a business context? |
| by intuition? Most people agree that intuition is a kind of | | | | In 1982 the St. Louis Business Journal pitted nineteen |
| instinctive knowing, without the support of logic, | | | | prominent stockbrokers against a St. Louis psychic, |
| analysis, inference, or actual evidence. When an | | | | Beverly Jaegers. Jaegers was a reluctant psychic -- |
| intuition involves a prediction or a sense of what will | | | | originally a skeptic and debunker of psi phenomena -- |
| happen in the future, the intuition becomes | | | | until her own experiences changed her mind. In the |
| indistinguishable from a premonition, a feeling or belief | | | | experiment, each participant was asked to select five |
| that something is going to happen. | | | | stocks whose value they believed would increase |
| Evidence suggests that the use of premonitions in | | | | over the next six months. Although Jaegers had no |
| business is widespread and is correlated with financial | | | | training in corporate analysis, she outperformed |
| success. The favored term for this ability is not | | | | eighteen of the nineteen financial experts. The Dow |
| premonitions, however, but "business intuition." There is | | | | Jones Industrial Average fell eight percent over the |
| a growth industry purporting to teach people how to | | | | six-month period, but the stocks picked by Jaegers |
| unleash their intuitive powers in the business world. | | | | increased in value by 17.2 percent. A single |
| Google specifies over a quarter million Web sites | | | | stockbroker did better -- barely -- at 17.4 percent. |
| devoted to "business intuition." | | | | Jaegers had attracted national attention in the 1970s |
| Businessmen invoke premonitions routinely. Examples | | | | when Pete Dixon, a commodities broker, decided to |
| include a sense of which direction business cycles are | | | | put her psychic skills to the test. He came to her with a |
| headed, the future strength of the stock market, what | | | | sealed envelope containing a prediction that coffee |
| actions the Fed will take, and what the level of | | | | prices would increase, and asked her to elaborate on |
| consumer confidence will be over the next year. | | | | its contents. In reporting the incident in a retrospective |
| Decisions about acquisitions, sell-offs, layoffs, and | | | | of Jaegers's career, journalist Stefene Russell says, |
| investments in capital equipment are often made on | | | | "[She] saw heavy rain and people carrying baskets |
| hunches and gut feelings, not logical inferences or | | | | with a few shriveled red berries in the bottom of |
| rational predictions. Investors often speak of "rolling the | | | | each." Dixon was excited. He promised to buy Jaegers |
| dice" in making a decision, implying that they're relying | | | | a new house if what she said proved true. "He bought |
| on something other than logic. Skeptics often say | | | | voluminous shares in coffee, just in time to watch the |
| these kinds of decisions are based on good market | | | | price shoot up after a freeze in Brazil decimated the |
| research or a deep intellectual understanding of the | | | | crop. He made millions and made good on his promise, |
| investment and financial worlds, and of course they | | | | giving Jaegers a check . . . which she used to buy a |
| frequently are. But something more appears to be | | | | new house . . . " |
| involved. | | | | If the situation with premonitions were as |
| In a classic study at the University of Texas at El | | | | straightforward as it seems in the Jaegers case, all |
| Paso in the 1980s, management professor Weston H. | | | | psychics would be wealthy and on the boards of large |
| Agor tested the intuition of 2,000 managers and found | | | | corporations commanding huge salaries. The fact that |
| that the top-level leaders scored higher on intuition than | | | | they are not attests to the imprecise, capricious, and |
| those ranking lower in the corporate hierarchy. These | | | | often invalid nature of premonitions. Other factors may |
| executives typically digested all the relevant | | | | limit the effectiveness of premonitions in the business |
| information first, but when the data was incomplete or | | | | world, such as greed and purity of purpose. |
| confusing they shifted to intuitive approaches in making | | | | The experiments I've mentioned, and many more that I |
| a decision. Interestingly, they were hesitant to disclose | | | | discuss in The Power of Premonitions, strongly |
| to their colleagues that they relied on intuition, preferring | | | | suggest that premonitions are extremely common and |
| instead to be thought of as cool intellectuals guided | | | | are perhaps present to some degree in everyone. Yet |
| solely by reason. | | | | they are often ignored, and they can be overridden |
| In the mid-1970s, parapsychology researcher Douglas | | | | and swamped by the lesser angels of our nature, such |
| Dean and professor of engineering John Mihalasky of | | | | as unbridled greed and avarice. Some experiments |
| Newark Institute of Technology performed a series of | | | | employing precognition to make money also suggest |
| experiments that shed light on this area. They spent | | | | that there may be an internal calculus whereby profits |
| ten years studying 385 chief executive officers of U. | | | | are linked to a "spiritual focus," as physicist Targ |
| S. corporations. These CEOs were asked to guess at | | | | suggests. No one ever accused Wall Street of being |
| a 100-digit number that did not exist at the time the | | | | spiritually focused. Is this one reason for its current |
| guesses were made. Then the number was produced | | | | calamity? |
| by a computer using random generating techniques. | | | | Many who inhabit the financial world are |
| The results were then correlated with the financial | | | | uncomfortable, of course, with anything resembling a |
| reports issued by the executives' corporations. Dean | | | | "spiritual focus." They need not be. "Spirituality" is simply |
| and Mihalasky found that 80 percent of executives | | | | a sense of connectedness with something greater |
| whose companies' profits had more than doubled in | | | | than the individual self or ego. Spirituality also involves a |
| the past five years had above-average precognitive | | | | sense of how one fits into the overall patterns of the |
| powers. "It was so definitive," writes remote-viewing | | | | greater world, and therefore brings with it a sense |
| researcher Stephan A. Schwartz in his review of | | | | harmony and connectedness. When we ignore our |
| these experiments, "that Dean was able to examine | | | | premonitions and those nudges from within, these |
| financial reports and predict in advance how a given | | | | patterns may remain obscure or they may break -- as |
| CEO would do in his experiment." | | | | we and Wall Street have unfortunately seen. |
| There is no way these CEOs could have used logic or | | | | Can premonitions be cultivated? Are there guidelines |
| inference in predicting a string of numbers before the | | | | for their use? Are there cautions about following |
| computer had even generated them. They were using | | | | premonitions? I believe the answer to all these |
| premonitions. | | | | questions is yes, as I discuss in The Power of |
| Since the Dean-Mihalasky number-guessing findings | | | | Premonitions. We have every reason to engage these |
| were published over thirty years ago, the test has | | | | questions, because they can lead us to honor one of |
| been administered to people of all ages and in various | | | | the most ancient and precious abilities we humans |
| walks of life. Results indicate that precognitive ability | | | | posses -- the ability to sense the future. |
| does not correlate with intelligence. In fact, Dean and | | | | ©2009 Larry Dossey, M.D. |
| Mihalasky found that engineering students with higher | | | | |