The Knowable Future: A Psychology of Forecasting and Prophecy

Loye makes a useful contribution to the discussion of futuristics and the competing methodologies of forecasting 'the shape of things to come'. In brief, he is convinced that the human brain has an innate capacity for precognition, and he feels that this capacity is trainable. The early part of the book is taken up with a description of the growth of future studies, commencing with Jouvenel and proceeding to the California school and the Club of Rome and M.I.T. groups. To initiates, this survey will bring few surprises. The book's 'meat and potatoes' commences with Chapter 4, Left-Brain Forecasting, where he sets forth the thesis that 'the left hemisphere is specialized for analysis, the right hemisphere.. .for holistic mentation'. He takes the reader rather rapidly through the genesis of experimental psychology, with bows to Wilhelm Mundt, William James et al., and then becomes rather exciting with his deft quotations from Auguste Comte, who stated that 'The aim of every science is foresight'. With the establishment of the Institut Auguste Comte barely two years ago in the hallowed precincts of the Ecole Polytechnique, Parisians can take a wry pleasure in the increasingly fashionable rediscovery of Comte, and David Loye is quite right to place him 'front and center' in this first effort, by a reputable psychologist, to come to grips with the psychological issues-thus far too generally ignored-in assessing the methods and assumptions of the burgeoning field of future studies. On page 142, Loye sums up his argument: '...our capacity for foreknowledge derives from pooling and processing by the forebrain of rational left-brain information and intuitive rightbrain information.' Examples of anticipating the future are cited, such as Abraham Lincoln's dream of assassination a bare four or five days before the actual tragic event. One can surely argue with the thesis of the reality of precognition, but, regardless of one's position or one's doubts, one must be grateful to have so many sources cited in such a logical and ordered manner, so that the curious may pursue matters further, with the help of his categories of 'researchable directions'.