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The ɹrst siddhi described by Patanjali is the ability to simultaneously perceive the past, present, and future. Perceiving the present is not surprising; we call it awareness. Recalling the past is also not surprising; we call it memory. While perceiving the present is not especially remarkable, explaining it is not so easy. Awareness is self-evident to everyone except for neuroscientists who are trying to explain how it is possible for the brain—a three-pound lump of tissue—to be aware of itself. This remains a major scientiɹc mystery. It is almost as mysterious as the hard-core neuroscientists who have convinced themselves that their sense of awareness, and yours, is an illusion.171 (An illusion to whom, they don’t say.) Perceiving the future, however, is a whole new ball game. Some philosophers think it is logically incoherent to gain information about the future, so for them precognition—perceiving the future—is literally impossible. Scientists, especially those with little knowledge of physics, tend to agree with the philosophers. But not all are so certain, as physicist Henry Margenau explained: Strangely, it does not seem possible to ɹnd the scientiɹc laws or principles violated by the existence of [psi phenomena like precognition].
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More often one ɹnds euphemisms such as “exceptional situational awareness,”214
referring to the performance of jet ɹghter pilots who respond faster in combat situations
than they ought to be able to; “anticipatory systems,”215 a phrase used to describe how
organisms plan and carry out future behavior; and terms like “postdiction,”216
“subjective antedating,”217 “tape delay,”218 and “referral backwards in time.”219 All
these concepts are brain processes proposed to explain eʃects that look an awful lot like
retrocausal (backward in time) eʃects. The underlying idea assumes that the brain has
some sort of delay mechanism that fools us into consciously perceiving now what
actually occurs at a later time.
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