Predicting the future

Does humanity share a single subconscious mind that we can all tap into without realising?

Could we have predicted something as catastrophic and world-consuming as the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre?

Could we have been forewarned by our collective unconscious on Boxing Day, December 2004 that a deep sea earthquake would precipitate the Asian tsunami and the tragedy that followed?

A black box deep in the basement of a dusty university library in Edinburgh may have the answer.

Even the doubters are acknowledging it apparently has inexplicable powers.

"It's Earth-shattering stuff," says Dr Roger Nelson, emeritus researcher at Princeton University in the United States, who is heading the research project behind the 'black box' phenomenon.

"We're very early on in the process of trying to figure out what's going on here. At the moment we're stabbing in the dark." Dr Nelson's investigations, called the Global Consciousness Project, were originally hosted by Princeton University and are centred on one of the most extraordinary experiments of all time. MORE.

And on the EGG.