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A Remembrance by Edie Fisher
Our hearts are filled with bittersweet feelings while remembering our friend, colleague and mentor, Bill. Bitter, because he is no longer with us and we miss him. But sweet (and a little jealous) because he is now (hopefully) experiencing the incredible lightness of being on the other side.
Bill had a remarkable, long life. You can read all about it in the San Jose Mercury News Obituary. He was a scientist with a keen mind, and sincerely wanting to understand ALL of nature, not just what the Physical Sciences have to offer. It is said that if you earnestly seek something, the universe will always answer, albeit not necessarily in the form you are expecting.
In Bill's case, the answer came in the form of an ad in the paper about an antic Persian rug for sale. The seller, Virginia Cates, was a creative interior decorator by trade, and a talented psychic who was bewildered by her otherworldly gifts and was looking toward science to explain what was happening to her. Out of this chance encounter the Foundation for Mind-Being Research (FMBR) was born; a nonprofit organization dedicated to the study of the body-mind connection from both the scientific and psychic point of view. And yes, Bill purchased the rug. While Virginia was an active partner at the beginning, her life path soon moved into a different direction, leaving Bill solely responsible for FMBR. He was president for about 25 years, then active president emeritus for the rest of his life. Through all this, his beloved wife Marion was by his side.
Our friendship goes back to the fall of 1980. I was a NASA scientist and a newlywed. My husband was Dr. Robert (Bob) Shacklet, a newly retired physics professor. We were looking for some groups interested in parapsychology from the scientific point of view. We heard that scientist Bill Gough was in the process of putting together such a group, so we showed up at their next meeting, which was held around Virginia's kitchen table. There was an instant rapport between Bill, Marion, Bob and I. We worked together on FMBR. Bob was vice president until his death in 2000. Marion was the secretary and a board member, and I am still on the board. We also became lifelong friends.
Bill had a wide-ranging web of connections among scientists who were also studying and becoming experts in some fields of parapsychology. We also got acquainted with a number of healers, psychics, seers, etc. Our vision for FMBR was rather selfish; we wanted to be in the front seat and the cutting edge of new sciences. We wanted to learn from the very best, and to that end we created monthly lectures that were (and still are) open to FMBR members and to the public. During his presidency, Bill was virtually the sole provider of speakers; an enormous feat all by itself. He also wrote and published papers, sometimes by himself, other times together with his colleagues. He often turned these papers into lectures and seminars, both for FMBR and for other organizations. While Bill was a modest man, he was the true leader of a group of dedicated board members and other core members he surrounded himself with.
The 70s and 80s were a hotbed of groups forming around metaphysical and paraphysical concepts. Most new groups were single-focused, i.e. healing, or ESP, or dowsing, etc. Bill envisioned FMBR as an all-inclusive place to explore any and all manifestations of non-physical phenomena in our life. He invited speakers from the fields of physics and mathematics, and from other sciences. These speakers were working on developing new theories that would include and explain psychic phenomena. He himself was among this group. Many of the speakers were scientists, lay people, psychics, etc. who were practitioners or students of some of the psychic arts.
Over the last 45 years, lecture topics of FMBR were wide ranging: quantum physics, biofeedback, remote viewing, channeling (Challenger astronauts), UFO and crop circles, dowsing, telekinesis (spoon bending), healing in many forms, etc., etc., etc. You can browse FMBR archives for all speakers and topics. While most of the organizations of the 70s and 80s are long gone, FMBR is still going strong, and now also has a healthy web presence. Perhaps Bill's foresight of making FMBR all-inclusive contributed to its longevity.
Bill was not only a global thinker, teacher and scientist, but also a loving husband and father, and a warm, caring friend. Many deep, meaningful conversations took place in informal social settings. Sitting in a bubbling redwood hot tub under the starry sky with friends sometimes opened up ideas that were solutions to long debated issues. The jugs of red wine around the tub probably didn't hurt either.
On one of these occasions the group in the tub was listening to an audio tape sent to Bill by George Meek, a Florida industrialist and psychic researcher. On the tape two engineers employed by George Meek were working on a project from two locations, trying to improve the communication channel between them. There was a lot of engineering lingo flying back and forth, such as "capacitors", "resistors", "picofarads" and such, as the two men were tweaking their system from the two terminals. There was nothing unusual or interesting in it for me, as I was around engineers and physicists all my adult life, until we found out that one of the engineers was working in George Meek's lab in Florida, and the other was Meek's ex-employee who has been dead for ten years. The conversation lasted well into the night, the jug was empty, we were like prunes in the water, but the excitement about the possible implication still ran high. Could it be possible in the future to just call up the dead?
And this, dear Bill, is FMBR in a nutshell. The insatiable curiosity, the daring to explore, staying open minded without giving up rational thinking, sharing our findings with others, growing in our understanding and helping others do the same. You started and carried all of this, it is your legacy. Thank you for affecting many of our lives in a positive way.
May your continuing journey be as fruitful as this one was.
Love,
Edie
some featured work from Bill Gough for FMBR
+ More papers from Bill Gough here
Gough, W.C. Sep., 2008., 7 pages.
PAPER
The root structural cause underlying the global environment and security problems is the fact that ecology has become a subsystem of the economy. This occurred because the world is operating an open cycle economic system in which resources are extracted from the earth to enter the cycle and exit as wastes.
W.C. Gough and R.L. Shacklett | This is the first of a series of three articles that outline a proposed scientific model with the goal of stimulating a new vision toward resolving the Mind-matter question and acknowledging an underlying connectiveness in the universe. The model proposed assumes that everyday reality is not simply “out there” nor is it “within.” Rather, it is suggested that everyday reality is a “perception” we construct from aspects of the “unity” within which we are immersed.
W.C. Gough and R.L. Shacklett | Part II, Mapping Beyond Space-Time, discusses a process of interfacing between Mind and matter consistent with the concepts of quantum physics. Emphasis is placed upon the quantum feature of non-locality and upon twistor theory. The issues of causality and reproducibility in science are discussed. The article concludes with a description of the dynamics of the process — how the interplay takes place and works. This includes an outline of other symbolic tools of mathematics such as chaos theory that permit extending our three dimensional thinking.
W.C. Gough and R.L. Shacklett | This is the third of a series of three articles that will outline a proposed scientific model with the goal of stimulating a new vision toward resolving the Mind-matter question and acknowledging an underlying connectiveness in the universe. Scientific is defined to mean that the ‘parts’ or links already exist as useful concepts in the scientific community. The model being proposed assumes that everyday reality is not simply “out there” nor is it “within.” Rather, it is suggested that everyday reality is a “perception” we construct from aspects of the “unity” within which we are immersed.