This article was originally published at the defunct Skepticblog.org on June 7, 2011. An archived version is available here.

Skeptical pioneer Isaac Asimov (a founder of CSICOP, now called CSI) produced such a staggering library of books (over 500!) that his multiple autobiographies were merely punctuation. I have three Asimov autobiographies in the Junior Skeptic library. Sometimes, just for fun, I pull one down at random, flip it open, and read the first two pages my eye happens to fall upon. Each time I do this, I inevitably

1. read something funny;

2. learn something interesting;

3. and, feel a blog post spring ready-made to mind.

This certainly happened when I read Asimov’s tale of his personal experience of psychic premonition or divine intervention — in the form of a literal poke on the shoulder.¹

As told in I.Asimov, the story unfolds one afternoon in 1990. Asimov was lying asleep in a private hospital room (where he was being treated for serious heart problems). His wife Janet had returned home to take care of chores, leaving Asimov alone in his locked room.

Then something strange occurred. Asimov recalled, “I was sleeping, and a finger jabbed at me. I woke, of course, and looked blearily about to see who had awakened me and for what purpose.”

He inspected the bright, sunlit room. It was empty. The door was locked and chained. The bathroom was empty. There was no one in the closet. It was a genuine, spine-tingling, locked room mystery, much like the ones he often wrote. His mind leapt of its own accord to a solution:

Rationalist though I am, there was no way in which I could refrain from thinking that some supernatural influence had interfered to tell me that something had happened to Janet (naturally, my ultimate fear). I hesitated for a moment, trying to fight it off, and for anyone but Janet I would have. So I phoned her at home.

Thankfully, his wife answered right away. She was fine.

Relieved, I hung up the phone and settled down to consider the problem of who or what had poked me. Was it simply a sensory dream, a hallucination? Perhaps, but it had seemed absolutely real.

Eventually he worked out what had happened: wrapped in his own arms, Asimov had managed to jab himself in the shoulder. Mystery solved.

But suppose, he reflected, that things had gone a little differently.

Now suppose that at the precise moment I had poked myself, Janet, through some utterly meaningless coincidence, had tripped and skinned her knee. And suppose I had called and she had groaned and said, “I just hurt myself.”

Would I have been able to resist the thought of supernatural interference? I hope so. However, I can’t be sure. It’s the world we live in. It would corrupt the strongest, and I don’t imagine I’m the strongest.

Persuasiveness of Personal Experience

It’s easy to see how Asimov’s viscerally compelling experience of the supernatural could have persuaded him, and Asimov was honest enough to admit it. After all, it happened during a life-threatening illness, close to the end of his life, at a time when he was obsessed with death. (On a related but lighter note, Asimov had a dream around this time in which he arrived, bewildered, in Heaven. After grilling the angel who greeted him about whether there was some mistake in granting admission to an old atheist, Asimov “pondered for a moment, and then turned to the recording angel and asked, ‘Is there a typewriter here that I can use?’”²⁾

Events like Asimov’s premonition are a perfect storm for supernatural belief: humans are easily confused, and leap easily to supernatural explanations; experiences of this sort feel immensely powerful; and, the implications of supernatural beliefs can make them deeply, deeply seductive. That’s a lot to resist.

As Asimov asked in the Skeptical Inquirer in 1986,

Do you enjoy the thought of dying, or of having someone you love die? Can you blame anyone for convincing himself that there is such a thing as life-everlasting and that he will see all those he loves in a state of perpetual bliss?

Do you feel comfortable with the daily uncertainties of life; with never knowing what the next moment will bring? Can you blame anyone for convincing himself he can forewarn and forearm himself against these uncertainties by seeing the future clearly through the configuration of planetary positions, or the fall of cards, or the pattern of tea-leaves, or the events in dreams?³

Isaac Asimov was a skeptic, a rationalist, and a trained scientist (not to mention “the master science educator of our time, and perhaps of all time,” as he was hailed by Skeptical Inquirer Editor Kendrick Frazier⁴). All the same, a trivial misunderstanding brought him teetering to the edge of supernatural belief — so close that he acted on it. Just in case.

Nor is Asimov’s story unusual, even among skeptics. For example, James Randi (another CSICOP founder) once woke to find himself floating at his ceiling, staring down at his body where it lay sleeping on his bed. This experience left Randi not only shaken, but convinced. It was, he said, “a very strong experience for me. I really believed, from the evidence presented to me, that I had an out-of-body experience that matches the description that we’ve all heard about so many times.” However, he was then shown clear evidence that his astral flight could not have literally occurred, but must instead have been a dream or hallucination.⁵ Without the fortunate happenstance that the physical facts did not match his perceived experience, “I would now have to say to you that, to the best of my knowledge, I had an out-of-body experience.” But what of those who have such an episode without benefit of Randi’s investigative background — or his lucky break? “If they don’t have some convincing evidence to the contrary,” Randi reflected, “what’s to stop them from saying, ‘I’m absolutely certain I’ve had an out-of-body experience?’ … Please consider that carefully, and don’t forget it, because it’s a good example of how even the arch-skeptic could possibly have been taken in.”

Much of my own work emphasizes this same point: it’s understandable that so many good, smart people come to believe weird things. In fact, it’s more than understandable; it’s very often reasonable. For many people in many situations, the paranormal is the best explanation they have for the facts before them.

And when those facts include direct, personal experience with the seemingly inexplicable…. Well, Asimov’s words apply to me as well:

“It would corrupt the strongest, and I don’t imagine I’m the strongest.”

Not by a long shot.

References:

1. Asimov, Isaac. I. Asimov. (Bantam: New York, 1994.) p. 14
2. ibid. p. 337 – 338
3. Asimov, Isaac. “The Perennial Fringe.” Skeptical Inquirer. Vol. 10. Spring, 1986. p. 212
4. Frazier, Kendrick. “A Celebration of Isaac Asimov: A Man for the Universe.” Skeptical Inquirer. Vol. 17. Fall 1992. p. 30
5. During the OBE, Randi interacted with his cat Alice as she lay on his chartreuse bedspread. He was subsequently shown that the cat had been locked outside, and the chartreuse bedspread was in the wash — not on his bed. Randi, James. “A Report from the Paranormal Trenches.” Skeptic magazine. Vol. 1, No. 1. 1992. p. 25. Transcribed from a speech given at Caltech on April 12, 1992.