Cosmic Soul
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Post by Cosmic Soul on Mar 25, 2006 7:44:07 GMT 10
This paper was written by a friend of mine ' White Feather ' There are a series of pages that I will have to post as seperate parts below, it is worth reading, giving a clear definition of what pyschic actually means. The second page goes into a little more detail on where pyschic phenomenon is present. ;D Trinity
Part 1 of White Feather's paper
The adjective “psychic” is defined as “of or pertaining to the human soul or mind, mental (as opposed to physical).” In psychology the word pertains to “mental phenomena that cannot be explained otherwise than as originating outside of or independent of normal psychological processes.” The Random House Dictionary adds a pertinent definition: “of, pertaining to, associated with, attributed to, or caused by some nonphysical force or agency: psychic research; psychic phenomena.” The psychic world, then, is the world of the mind.
A psychic is therefore “a person who is especially sensitive to psychic influences or forces.” After extrasensory perception (ESP) and psycho kinesis (PK), the two subdivisions of parapsychology discussed later on, have been brought into the limelight by the early researchers at Duke University during the 1930’s, an English psychologist, Dr. Robert H. Thouless, felt the need for a single label to apply to both of them. Dr. B.O. Wiesner, his collaborator, proposed the Greek letter psi has been used in parapsychology whenever it is desirable to speak of the phenomena of the entire field. It is thus a more general term than either ESP or PK alone.
The word “phenomenon” (plural: “phenomena”) is defined as “something that impresses the observer as extraordinary, a marvel.” Certainly these adventures in the realm of the mind can, to say the least, are considered extraordinary.
What is psychic power and how does it operate in individuals possessed of it in one way or another of its various forms? Psychic occurrences are not new. In ancient times-and even today in primitive societies-oracles, prophets, and soothsayers, using a practice called divination, foretold the future through omens and the interpretations of dreams. Necromancers conjured up the spirits of the dead for the purpose of magically revealing the future or influencing the course of events (sorcery). The mysteries of the mind were not unraveled for many centuries-indeed, they have yet to be fully explained-and superstition thrived. It is still prevalent even in our more enlightened times.
Twentieth-century research has investigated how individuals discover that they possess psi power and how it is used. It originates in the unconscious mind, and because it appears suddenly, that is, spontaneously, it may both appall and confuse the individual. Children are more apt than adults to have frequent psychic experiences. If they recount their impressions, however, they may be branded as different or strange, or they may be scolded for their “imaginings.”
Scientific researchers have investigated within the twentieth century the whys and wherefores of these powers, but the lay reader must be aware of the many frauds and hoaxes that have been perpetrated on an innocent and unsuspecting public, causing a general feeling of disbelief and suspicion.
In addition, many people consider as psychic experiences events that are purely coincidental. For example, when the illness of a family member has been labeled terminal, a relative already has it fixed in his mind that death is certain and inevitable. The only unknown question is when it will take place. An involved person cannot help but think about the approaching end of a life. When he is told of the actual fact, it is all too easy for him to claim that he "knew" or "felt" it had come. We suspect that this knowledge is psychic only if the time of death corresponds exactly with the time of the thought.
Knowledge of an event can be considered psychic only when it is immediately recorded and later checked, for memory can be tricky and confusing, with "experiences" taking on an element of fantasy and pure imagination, so much so that a person "remembers" something that he only imagined in the first place.
True psychic incidents, covered by the term "extrasensory perception", need to be distinguished from the popular concepts that are often confused or associated with them.
The development of parapsychology has been characterized by laboratory experimentation, the results of which have been continuously attacked by scientists. Scores of pseudo-scientific books and articles have been written on ESP, and lessons are even available on the "development" of psychic powers.
The general public rarely questions the validity of many phases of the occult, accepting them as psychic. At a time when parapsychology is increasingly gaining respectability, the widespread antiscientific occult activity in the United States poses a threat to its recognition as a science.
Before serious experimental study began in the psychic area began in the 1930’s, the principal attention of investigators had been paid to spiritualism, or the activities of mediums in supposed communication with the spirits of the dead. This included séances, table rapping, spirit photography, ghosts, and poltergeists (noisy spirits). Astral projection, reincarnation, and telepathy also attracted much attention in the nineteenth century.
Twentieth-century incidents of clairvoyance and precognition (foretelling the future) were received with both natural curiosity and outright disbelief. Persons gifted with such powers were thought to be “unusual,” and something about them evoked a deep suspicion. Family members and acquaintances dismissed them as, to put it mildly, “odd,” almost freakish. If an individual appeared to possess these powers, he or she frequently concealed the fact for the fear of being misunderstood and even considered a mental case.
But with the upcoming of serious study of ESP in all its phases, belief in the existence of the psychic world became more respectable, and those possessing such powers were often envied. Beginning in the 1930’s, interest in psi began vie with the occult. The steady output of books written by investigators at Duke University brought the new science of parapsychology widespread national and international attention.
‘Books in Print’ lists over two hundred publications on various aspects of the subject in hardcover editions and over three hundred in original and reprint paperbacks, most of them written by journalistic authors who are expert at making technical topics interesting to the general reader. The best-seller lists of the past decade have rarely been without a title dealing with some aspect of ESP. Whatever one might think of the phenomena these books describe, there can be no doubting that the interest they are responding to is itself nothing short of unprecedented.
Popular periodicals have considered the subject interesting to their readers. Readers Digest has published several chapters of selected books. Indeed, while the occult continues to interest millions, the psychic world is a runner-up that threatens to overcome its lead.
Why this interest? The subject is both new and intriguing. The human mind has always had a peculiar interest for us, and although in the past this appeal was mainly to students of psychology and human behavior, people in general are now suddenly realizing its vast complexity. These new revelations are closely related to their own experiences and to those of their kinfolk and friends.
Human experiences and happenings that are known to be psychic exert a tremendous appeal, and they awaken interest in all who learn about them. On the one hand, the average layman, though strangely puzzled, feels a sense of awe at these evidences of the mental world, and since he lacks the knowledge that might help him to analyze the phenomena, he will probably not question their validity. On the other hand, those who possess a scientific and analytic turn of mind tend to doubt seriously the authenticity of such experiences. Such persons may comment, “They are certainly very interesting and colorful. But did they really happen? What about the possibility and that the experience and the information revealed through it was only a figment of the imagination, that it never actually took place?”
In spite of their other world character, however, psychic phenomena will continue to have an increasing claim on the attention of serious investigators.
From ancient times through the Middle Ages until the beginnings of science, all mental experiences have been linked with superstition because they defied explanation on any human level. Life was regulated by signs received from the gods or from unearthly, mysterious, and therefore mystic sources.....To be continued
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Cosmic Soul
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OPEN YOUR EYES AND SEE.....THE WORLD THAT WAITS FOR THEE
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Post by Cosmic Soul on Mar 25, 2006 7:52:16 GMT 10
Part 2 of White feather's paper
The Old Testament is filled with what now can be recognized as accounts of psychic experiences, and the prophets used clairvoyance and precognition in their guidance of the Israelite nation. Dreams, whether they foreboded ill or predicted reassuring, far reaching changes, were recognized as a means for seeing into the future.
Compare the Biblical prophets with modern psychics in these words: “They had psychic experiences during altered states of consciousness. They had visions and dreamed dreams. They heard voices. They went into trance, induced by music and in a measure by the mystery of the desert through which they often traveled.”
These experiences continued in the New Testament. For example, the apostle Paul recounts his visions and dreams. Jesus, of course, particularly in his miracle healings, proved to be the outstanding psychic in the Bible; in addition, the scores of his prophecies came true.
The Greeks and Romans relied upon oracles for advice to govern their actions. The priests and priestesses revealing the oracles accompanied their revelations with ritual, and great reliance was placed on signs and omens. Prophecy was definitely related to magic. The powers’ of the oracles was said by some to come from the gods and goddesses, and no important undertaking was planned without consulting Delphi or some other prophetic shrine. In Rome the most noted oracles were the ten female sibyls, whose predictions for the future of the empire had been collected in a series of books, to which a special body of priests referred in times of national emergency.
The Dark and Middle Ages were periods in Western European history that followed ancient times. Mysticism flourished, and saintly men and women often had visions, which were considered visitations from God.
With the advent of modern history and the development of the sciences and the increase in education, people began to question any experience that seemed out of this world. By the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries they were beginning to have doubts about any accounts of supernatural activities.
During the nineteenth century in England, however, spiritualism enjoyed enormous popularity. The activities of mediums were widely publicized and séances, table rapping, levitation, automatic spirit writing, and spirit photography were all the rage.. Many of the stately ancestral homes suddenly and inexplicably became haunted by ghosts.
The vogue for spiritualism was taken up by all social classes, with the poor embracing it as devotedly as the aristocracy, among whom séances had become fashionable. Nevertheless, few of the mediumistic exhibitions were genuine.
The aim of the society was “to approach the problems presented by alleged phenomena scientifically and without prejudice or predisposition [advance opinions] of any kind.” The objectives were “an examination of the nature and extent of any influence which may be exerted by one mind upon another, hypnotism, clairvoyance, inquiry into apparitions and haunted houses, and spiritualism.”
The society, the oldest of such organizations, is still active today. It has validated or disproved literally thousands of cases of psychic power other than spiritualism: clairvoyance, precognition, telepathy, and the like. Emphasis was focused on ESP and its branches when research on the subject came to the fore in the United States during the 1930’s. When the society receives reports of ESP experiences, it thoroughly investigates them, and its negative conclusions have often resulted in heated acrimonious controversy.
The term “parapsychology” was introduced by Dr. Rhine to replace the older English term “psychical research.” It is defined as “the study and investigation of phenomena that are not explainable by known natural laws.” Such occurrences are described as “paranormal.”
Parapsychology, then, is the study of psychic abilities. Parapsychologists prefer the Greek letter psi to the popular word “psychic,” but the two terms have the same meaning.
It must be emphasized again that parapsychology does ‘not’ deal in general with astrology, magic, palmistry, fortune telling, witchcraft, or any other occult practices. The psychic abilities that are covered in this relatively new branch of study can now be clearly described. They are those that enable a person to make contact with the world around him without the aid of his senses or muscles. Parapsychology deals entirely with mental phenomena.
The main divisions of parapsychology are derived from the two broad types of observed phenomena with which it deals: extrasensory perception (ESP) and psycho kinesis (PK). These two main types of psi interaction make up almost the entire field covered by parapsychology thus far. The general types of ESP phenomena are telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition. Investigation into other psychic fields began in the 1960’s.
Scientists operate under definite sets of rules and investigative procedures which in most cases are long established. The mysteries with which parapsychology deals were-and are- completely new in that they cannot be explained in terms of accepted scientific laws. Since ordinary testing techniques could not be applied to the facets of ESP, entirely new methods had to be devised. Since these research techniques were unfamiliar, scientists tended to judge them on the basis of their own patterns to which, quite naturally, they did not conform. The scientific method appeared not to have been followed.
*Attacks began with the publication in 1934 of Dr. Rhine’s book ‘Extra-Sensory Perception’, in which he revealed the results of his early research on ESP with Duke University students. He became the target of a great deal of criticism, particularly from psychologists. Much of it was ill-founded and some highly abusive and most considerable emotionalism was evident among his supporters as well as his detractors.
The principal criticism was that Rhine’s statistical calculations were invalid. He was dismissed as a dedicated missionary rather than a dispassionate scientist weighing facts impersonally. Commenting on the ESP tests, H.L. Mencken, the unsparing critic of all things American at the time, wrote, “In plain language, Professor Rhine segregates all those persons who, in guessing the cards, enjoy noteworthy runs of luck as proof that they must possess mysterious powers.”
Dr. Rhine responded to these challenges by improving and perfecting his testing techniques, and further confirmed the existence of ESP in ‘New Frontiers of the Mind’ (1937) and “The Reach of the Mind’ (1947).
The disagreement and hostility of scientists erupted again during the 1950’s, with a seemingly endless barrage of criticism. The position of scientists was summoned up bluntly, with no holds barred, in a 1955 article in ‘Science” magazine by Dr. George R. Price, a British chemist then at the University of Minnesota, titled “Science and the Supernatural.” Dr. Price contended that proof of ESP was conclusive only if one were to assume that the experimenters, working in collaboration with their witnesses, had intentionally faked the results.
After examining in detail many of the principal tests, Dr. Price, in conclusion, made the following observation: “My opinion concerning parapsychologists is that many or their conclusions are based on clerical and statistical errors, so that the results are dependent on deliberate fraud or mildly abnormal mental conditions.” Since ‘Science’ was the official organ of the influential American Association for the Advancement of Science, this critique reached an extensive specialized audience.
(Dr. Price’s article admittedly made parapsychology suspect, but in a complete reversal seventeen years later, early in 1972, he apologized in ‘Science’ for his attack on Dr. Rhine, writing, “During the past year I have had some correspondence with J.B. Rhine which has convinced me that I was highly unfair to him in what I said in my 1955 article.”)
Rebuttals by the leading parapsychologists at Duke University and elsewhere were printed in subsequent issues and the controversy was discussed in general news magazines as well. Bergen Evans, who was expert in debunking false beliefs and superstitions at the time, wrote one of the most devastating criticisms of parapsychologists in an essay titled “Psi’ing in the Carolinas,” ending it with this statement: “Their claims are so contrary to the view of the world worked out with the painstaking care by scientists over the past 300 years that to accept them would mean rejecting almost everything upon which modern thought depends.” Perhaps without realizing it, Dr. Evans had put his finger on the crux of the controversy.
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Cosmic Soul
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OPEN YOUR EYES AND SEE.....THE WORLD THAT WAITS FOR THEE
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Post by Cosmic Soul on Mar 25, 2006 7:55:10 GMT 10
Part 3 of White Feather's paper
The most active opponent of parapsychology during the past decade has been Professor C.E.M. Hansel of the University of Wales. He visited Duke University in 1959 to investigate some of its experiments and wrote two separate criticisms, which were published in the ‘Journal of Parapsychology’ along with replies from the experiments under attack.
For a while Hansel’s criticisms appeared to have been effectively answered, and he was silent. Then, in 1966, he published a popular book entitled ‘ESP: A Scientific Evaluation,’ in which he attacked the entire field of parapsychology. He not only repeated his previously published criticisms against such investigations, he also widened the scope of his attack. He took apart in detail all the major experiments in both the United States and England, the result being his opinion that ‘all’ psi research past and present was “a form of cheating, trickery, deceit, conspiracy, and a complete fraud.”
Dr. Hansel’s criticisms were so scathing and all-inclusive that the readers of his book who were not already well informed about parapsychology tended to accept them without question, and temporary damage resulted. But, wrote Dr. J. Gaither Pratt later, “parapsychology will survive Hansel’s disruptive efforts just as a great city survives a riot.”
George Kreskin, currently one of the most prominent psychic performers, has characterized Hansel’s critique in these words: “In the name of science, a remarkably biased debunking of all Para psychological research.” His opinion is shared by many professionals.
The attitude of scientists to the “fringe science” (note the limiting adjective) of parapsychology has changed steadily decade by decade. Two polls of six hundred members of the American Psychological Association made in 1938 and 1952 showed that the attitude of psychologists toward the study of ESP had become significantly more favorable in spite of the current attacks.
Using the same multiple-choice questionnaire late in 1972, the editors of ‘New Scientist’ an English scientific magazine, received 1,500 replies from readers, most of them scientists. Twenty-five percent of the respondents believed ESP to be “an established fact,” with a further 42 percent declaring it to be a “likely possibility.” Only 19 percent to be a “remote possibility,” while 12 percent considered it merely an unknown, with a 3 percent considering it an impossibility.
To determine the acceptance of parapsychology, the question “Do you consider the investigation of extrasensory perception a legitimate scientific undertaking?” was included. A huge 88 percent replied “yes,” and 20 percent answered that the study should be regarded as a form of psychology. More than half, however, considered that parapsychology was making “little, if any, progress.” Since the majority of respondents were working scientists and technologists, these opinions on such a controversial topic cannot be lightly dismissed. As the editors commented, “Clearly, a large number of serious scientists consider it to be highly interesting and potentially immensely significant branch of science. At the same time it is fair to comment that the ranks of those who support parapsychology appear to be sharply critical of the slow progress it is making.” The final comment pinpointed the crux of the continuing problem: “In sum, it seems that cool, fresh winds may be needed to blow prejudices away on both sides.”
The field of parapsychology has had more than its share of frauds, charlatans, and opportunists. But even those critics who were openly skeptical about the phenomena reported by Dr. Rhine and his staff seldom questioned Rhine’s personal integrity.
Through the years the testing techniques at the Parapsychology Laboratory conformed to precisely defined research conditions, and thousands of subjects have been used. A “subject” is a person who is experimented on. He or she is also called a “percipient,” or “receiver.” The person who administers a test is termed the “agent” or “sender,” and it is his mental state that is to be conveyed to the percipient. This relationship is crucial in all testing.
The first work at Duke covered both clairvoyance and telepathy, but the former soon took precedence. The clairvoyance tests at Duke during the 1930’s were of a very simple design and have undergone little change since.
The identification of concealed cards proved to be the best method of testing, and a simplified card deck, larger than ordinary playing cards, was devised. The deck consisted of 25 cards, 5 each of the following symbols printed in heavy black ink: a star, a rectangle, a cross, a circle, and 3 wavy lines. Slight modifications were made in these symbols from time to time. Eventually the deck became known as Zener cards, after Dr. Karl Zener, the staff member who invented them. They have been published and can be purchased from many sources today.
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Cosmic Soul
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OPEN YOUR EYES AND SEE.....THE WORLD THAT WAITS FOR THEE
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Post by Cosmic Soul on Mar 25, 2006 7:56:20 GMT 10
Part 4 of White Feather's paper
The role of dreams in ESP phenomena is a comparatively recent development in parapsychology. New knowledge of dreams has opened the way for researchers to determine the emotional background of such experiences. According to Sigmund Freud, a subconscious part of the brain is just as alert during sleep as it is during waking hours and accepts any image, which it presents in great vividness to the dreamer. Thus dreams often seem larger than life, more convincing and brilliant, and even more real than life.
Parapsychologists have special reasons to be interested in dreams. Collections and accounts of ESP experiences from daily life show that the majority of these experiences occur as dreams. This fact suggests that the dream state may be especially favorable for the dream state of ESP abilities. Recent studies connected with what happens in sleep have revealed the course of sleeping and dreaming; that is, scientists can tell when the sleeper begins to dream, how long the dream lasts, and when it ends. They have also discovered that if a sleeper is awakened as soon as a dream has ended he is almost always able to remember what it was about.
Many of the studies are based on the use of famous paintings, a method developed by Dr. Montague Ullman, head of the hospital’s Psychiatry Department. In one such study, an agent sits in a room in another building and attempts to convey his thoughts about a certain objective painting to a subject sleeping in the soundproof room in the Dream Laboratory. The sleeper is hooked up to an electroencephalograph, which records his brain patterns on graph paper. When the machine shows that the sleeper is dreaming the experimenter wakes him up over the intercom and asks him to describe his dream, and words are tape recorded. Later the dreams are compared with the painting for evidence of ESP.
The subjects’ accounts of their dreams have fitted the target painting with amazing accuracy. Since chance in ESP accounts for only 50 percent hits, scores such as 64 or 91 percent, for example, are dramatic. Other experiences at Maimonides have involved clairvoyance and precognition, again with valid positive results.
Other centers are also investigating dreams. The Menninger Foundation has set up a laboratory in Topeka, Kansas, and a Sleep and Dream Laboratory is now in operation at the University of Virginia.
The question of whether drugs play a part in bringing about psi experiences has been the subject of much study. The attitude of most parapsychologists is that the psi function that may seem to be released through drugs is invalid and ineffectual. The Duke experiments determined that in tests for both ESP and psycho kinesis (PK) the effect of narcotic drugs, when used in heavy dosage, has been to interfere with positive scoring and to produce “chance” results that are completely unreliable. The same is true with alcohol.
Therefore, instead of revealing true psi ability, drugs retard its discovery. A drug user only imagines that he possesses psychic power. However a person who has psychic abilities prior to drug usage can severely alter the outcome of the interpretation.
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Cosmic Soul
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OPEN YOUR EYES AND SEE.....THE WORLD THAT WAITS FOR THEE
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Post by Cosmic Soul on Mar 25, 2006 7:59:43 GMT 10
Part 5 of White Feather's paper
Do animals possess ESP powers? The dunk parapsychologists have answered this with a guarded “yes.” Experiments with cats, dogs, and horses in the 1950’s indicated that their behavior is often influenced by psi power. A complication, however, is that clever animals, generally dogs or horses, can be taught to respond to verbal questioning (or hand signals) by tapping or pawing the correct number of times, or selecting by nose or mouth lettered blocks from a tray to spell out words and sentences. Such tricks have always been part of animal acts on the stage.
More convincing are the performances of domesticated animals who find their way home over long distances, sometimes after having been taken away in closed vehicles by an indirect route. Examples of animals traveling of animals traveling many hundreds of miles have been reported and such reports involve many different species.
Even more baffling are the incidents, fewer in number but still numerous enough to be impressive, in which a pet animal-dog, cat, or bird-left behind when its human companion departed for a new location, escaped later and followed him. After some weeks or months such animals arrive at the new destination, sometimes hundreds of miles away, where it has never been before.
Those unfamiliar with ESP maintain that such travels are due to instinct and smell, sight, and sound, but there is a growing belief that these animals are psychic.
Regarding both animal and bird migrations, Miss Renee Haynes claims that some form of paranormal cognition is involved in animal direction finding.
Additional research will be necessary, however, before we can comprehend these phenomena with scientific evidence.
Simply defined, telepathy means “sending or receiving messages without using any of the five senses (hearing, sight, smell, taste, touch).” It is commonly referred to as “thought transference,” that is, the ability to know what another person is thinking. Since the advent of parapsychology, however, it has come to be known as “direct awareness of the mental state of another person.”
Interest in telepathy developed from the personal experiences in thought transference that have been reported as common occurrences in every land and throughout recorded history. In such cases two people, such as close friends or relatives, might have the same dream on the same night, or they might try to get into contact with each other, simultaneously, by telephone or mail, with some common thought or purpose in mind that could not have been conveyed by the senses.
During the heyday of interest in telepathy in England, during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, numerous experiments were conducted. These investigations were linked with the great interest of the British in spiritualism and thought transference through mediums.
Many persons unfamiliar with the field of parapsychology fail to distinguish between telepathy and clairvoyance, the most familiar subdivisions of ESP. These terms were in general use long before the term “extrasensory perception” was introduced and became accepted.
Telepathy involves communication between the minds of two individuals, the sender or agent and the receiver or percipient. The latter must learn what the former is thinking about. This means that the thoughts of the agent become known to the percipient, whether the receiver wishes it or not and without his making any effort at communication.
Clairvoyance differs from telepathy in that only one person is involved. The percipient can become aware of an event or the characteristics of an object without the involvement of a second person acting as a transmitter (in telepathy, the agent).
The term “mind reading,” a synonym for telepathy, has little more than historical interest today because of changing ideas about the concept of mind. However, something should be said about mind reading as it is done on the stage. Performers who can mystify the public with demonstrations of so-called telepathy do not on that account have any claim to psychic ability. Even though they often make a show of waiting for “impressions,” their demonstrations have nothing in common with ESP experiments. No magician could produce his results under the controlled conditions of the standard ESP tests, but on the stage he can dictate his own conditions and devise his own routines.
In the most elementary telepathy tricks the performer walks among the audience asking people to hold up articles like wallets and watches, while on the stage a blindfolded assistant calls out the names of the objects selected. This is usually done by means of a code. The performer gives his partner innocent-sounding encouragements, such as “Come on,” “Hurry up,” “Surely you know what this is.” The words he uses, even the inflection of his voice, can convey the information to his partner. Sometimes, when blindfold is not used, a silent code is employed, depending on bodily postures and slight gesture, but long practice is needed for that. Simpler and just as mystifying to the audience is the use of a small concealed radio transmitter.
Some telepathy tricks depend upon what magicians call “forcing.” A member of the audience picks a card or number, thinking he has made a free choice, and immediately the assistant calls out correctly what he has chosen. The simplest methods of forcing depend upon sleight of hand. The victim cuts a pack and picks off the top card from the bottom cut. In between the two actions there is a momentary pause in which the performer, while asking the victim if he is satisfied with the cut, places a prearranged card on top of the pile.
The performer also knows by experience that in certain arrangements of cards one or two particular cards are nearly always selected in preference to the rest. These predictions are not certain, but a few failures add to the impression of genuineness.
Milbourne Christopher, the famous illusionist, makes this comment: “The professional thought reader is actually aware of the changes in breathing, tensions and relaxations, and varying positions of the fingers, hands, and feet of his subjects when he works without contact.” Almost all so-called thought readers work without touching their subjects.
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Cosmic Soul
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Post by Cosmic Soul on Mar 25, 2006 8:01:09 GMT 10
Part 6 of White Feather's paper
People who are close to one another will naturally be “attuned” to each other, and the receiver will more readily pick up a telepathic thought. For example, when a family member, relative, or close friend is seriously ill, a person’s thoughts will be focused upon him or her, and a telepathic exchange may take place.
A difficulty in recognizing and experimenting in telepathy is that science still does not have a clear-cut answer as to whether the transmission of mental images without known means of communication is possible. Skeptics maintain that telepathy smacks of the supernatural. They say it reminds them of spiritualism with mediums receiving messages in a “spooky” atmosphere. Certainly it is still one of the most mysterious of the ESP phenomena.
The word “clairvoyance” derives from two French words, the adjective clair (“clear”) and the present participle voyant, (“seeing”) - in other words “clear seeing.” Definitions in dictionaries vary in explanatory information. In the American Heritage Dictionary clairvoyance is defined as “the supposed power to perceive things that are out of the natural range of human senses, attributed to certain individuals.” The Merriam-Webster Third International Dictionary defines it more precisely: “the act or power professed by certain persons of discerning objects hidden from sight or at a great distance.” A simpler definition, however, might be “’seeing’ objects or events that cannot be perceived normally.”
Though the term literally means “clear seeing,” in reality it has nothing to do with vision. As Dr. Rhine points out, “clairvoyant impressions may be in the form of visual imagery, but they may also be of other types as well….Any direct apprehension of external objects is clairvoyance if the senses are not involved.”
The relation of clairvoyance to telepathy has been discussed earlier, but it is also closely related to precognition, particularly when it involves a foreknowledge of objects or events such as disasters.
Like telepathy, clairvoyance was first thought to be dependent on hypnosis. Many hypnotists reported that they were able to direct a hypnotized subject to project himself mentally to a distant scene and bring back a reliable account of specific happenings or other items of information, which tallied with later verification. But eventually both telepathy and clairvoyance were proved without recourse to hypnosis.
Experiences suggesting that mind can go beyond space are abundant. Clairvoyant occurrences, and those of precognition, almost stretch the bounds of human credulity, and many persons still refuse to believe and accept them.
A unique form of clairvoyance is object reading or psychometry. Some psychic persons, when given an object to hold, are able to describe events and persons connected with the object. For example, while holding a piece of jewelry which has been worn regularly by another person, a psychic can receive pictures in his mind. Psychometry can also be used to perceive events in the past, as a form of retro cognition.
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Cosmic Soul
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Post by Cosmic Soul on Mar 25, 2006 8:02:09 GMT 10
Part 7 of White Feather's paper
Dowsing, the search for underground water or minerals by the use of a rod, appears to be an example of the mind’s clairvoyant faculty in action. It is sometimes called divining, and the object used is termed a divining rod. The agent is now called a dowser, as the person performing, although the origin of this term is unknown. The device used is usually a forked twig, though in modern times it may be a metal rod or a pendulum.
Dowsing is of very ancient origin, but the first authenticated evidence of the practice, with a forked stick, comes from medieval Germany, and is related in ‘De re metallica’, a guide for locating minerals and ores.
Differences of opinion have always existed as to whether dowsing is accomplished by physical or mental means. If the former is correct, some sort of ray or electric or magnetic power reacts to the rod and the material being sought. Nineteenth-century investigators of this phenomenon believed that the movement of the twig or rod was due to unconscious muscular action on the part of the dowser. They found, however, that the rod frequently exerted a tremendous force beyond the will or control of the dowser and frequently in direct opposition to his will or belief. Psychical researchers are familiar with this kind of involuntary muscular action, which is the same type of motion that causes the table to tip in séances or the pointer (or planchette, a triangular piece of wood mounted on a base) to move across the face of a Ouija board to spell out a message sent by a spirit. However, it was established that none of the dowsers studied were able to produce the phenomenon by such muscular action alone.
The latter fact indicated that the finding of water or mineral deposits could be attributed to some form of clairvoyance, and the question became “How did the knowledge of when to probe a certain area with the object in hand enter the dowser’s mind?”
To parapsychologists, dowsing is a combination of movement with some extrasensory guidance in the discovery of the location of water or mineral being sought. In the most familiar type of practice the dowser is asked to find a suitable location for a well. He takes a forked twig by the two small ends and, holding it in such a way it swings easily and with slight pressure; he walks over the ground until the rod swings downward. A dowser usually believes he is exerting no influence on the twig and that it is responding to forces given off from the underground material he is seeking.
In spite of the widespread and still active practice of dowsing, the operation of the clairvoyant function has not yet been thoroughly and satisfactorily explained within the scientific community. Controlled experiments have been undertaken with some success when the dowser involved had confidence and was aware of the possibility of using clairvoyant power. Some of the exploratory experiments in dowsing have been carried out in laboratories using hidden coins, parallel to locating mineral deposits.
Nonetheless, from whatever mental, physical, or psychic force, effective dowsing is a fact of contemporary life. Prospectors working for petroleum companies use metal rods in determining where to drill for oil reserves and locating and location previously laid pipelines, and mining companies attempt to locate veins of the newer radioactive metals such as uranium through dowsing methods. When maps are unavailable, city sanitation department workers frequently use dowsing methods to locate previously laid sewer pipes, as do public utility companies in locating electric and telephone wire conduits, in order to plan their work.
There have been usual types of dowsing throughout history; one in particular was used by United States Marine engineers in Vietnam in 1967, where they used coat hangers as rods to locate land mines, buried weapons, and enemy tunnels. The rods, bent into L shapes, were held in each hand pointing forward as the dowser walked. When over a mine or other buried object, they swung apart forming a straight line. This method was taught at the Marine training school at Quantico, Virginia.
The specific role of clairvoyance in dowsing, however, remains to be determined.
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Cosmic Soul
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Post by Cosmic Soul on Mar 25, 2006 8:04:34 GMT 10
Part 8 of White Feather's paper
Precognition is defined as “knowledge of something in advance of it occurrence.” In its psychic sense, it is “knowledge of a future event or situation through extrasensory means.” In parapsychology, as used by Dr. Rhine, precognition is “cognition of a future event which could not be known through rational inference,” In less technical terms, it is simply the perception of a future event by ESP.
True psychic precognition involves a premonition, a forewarning in advance of an occurrence, a presentiment of the future in which there is often an element of anxiety over coming events.
What is now termed precognition has been familiarly known throughout history as prophecy. In all ages, men have been awestruck by the power of the prophet to dip into the future and to announce what is going to happen. People looked upon this ability as not of this world, but divine and supernatural, even frightening.
Prophecy has always been considered both uncanny and unreal, and the prophets in the Bible used it as a threat. Doom was inescapable to those who did not accept the omens and signs that forecast the future.
The principal element in precognition is time. In such experiences the ordinary barriers are apparently broken down. All spontaneous psi occurrences go beyond the boundaries of time as well as space. A person who has such an experience often does not know whether or not the event that has come to his consciousness has happened yet. This is especially likely to be the case where distant events are involved.
How do these precognitive experiences unfold? They crop up out of nowhere in the lives of ordinary men and women. “They just come to me suddenly” is the usual explanation. They simply seize the mind in a mysterious, unaccountable way. ESP research is still being conducted on this factor.
Precognition most often operates in dreams. The Maimonides Medical Center Dream Laboratory has recognized the psi factor in scores of controlled sleep experiments, and the director, Dr. Stanley Krippner, feels that precognition in dreams is a scientifically proved phenomenon.
Individuals possessing the faculty of precognition often make predictions that involve themselves, family, or acquaintances. According to Hans Holzer: “Personal predictions are made by people in all walks of life. Some of these impressions of future events come while the psychic subject is awake, some while he is in the dream state when the bonds between conscious and unconscious mind are looser and the door to perception ajar.”
One of the most frequent types of precognition concerns death. The psychic person sees the event as it will actually happen (or is happening) and can predict it precisely. History abounds in such occurrences, one of which being from President Abraham Lincoln.
Despite his famous sense of humor and fondness for jokes, Lincoln has always been characterized by his many biographers as basically a melancholy man. His perpetual look of sadness was his most prominent feature, and his frequent dreams were invariably of unhappy events, for he had a foreboding of disaster. A very good friend from Illinois days, Ward Lamon, recounted a conversation between Lincoln and his wife in the White House shortly before his assassination. They were talking of dreams, and he told her of one he had had:
“About ten days ago,” [Lincoln] said, “I began to dream. There seemed to be a death-like stillness about me. Then I heard subdued sobs, as if a number of people were weeping. I thought I left my bed and wandered downstairs. I went from room to room; no living person was in sight, but the same mournful sounds of distress met me as I passed along.
“I was puzzled and alarmed. What could be the meaning of all this? Determined to find the cause of a state of things so mysterious and shocking, I kept on until I arrived at the East Room, which I entered. Before me was a catafalque on which rested a corpse wrapped in funeral vestments, the face covered. Around it were stationed soldiers who were acting as guards. A throng of people were weeping pitifully.
“’Who is dead in the White House?’ I demanded of one of the soldiers. ‘The President,’ was his answer. ‘He was killed by an assassin!’ Then came a loud burst of grief from the crowd, which awoke me from my dream. I slept no more that night, and although is was only a dream I have been strangely annoyed by it ever since.”
After the murder of her husband beside her in the Ford Theater box, the first words Mary Lincoln spoke were, “His dream was prophetic.”
Many dreams prove accurate down to the smallest detail. Strangely enough, an estimated one half to three quarters of death predictions prove to be true.
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Cosmic Soul
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Post by Cosmic Soul on Mar 25, 2006 8:06:03 GMT 10
Part 9 of White Feather's paper
Not all predictions concern private persons. Both amateur and professional psychics’ foresee catastrophes of all types-local, national, and worldwide. They may concern the fates of prominent men and women or, increasingly more often, natural disasters and events.
Many of these forecasts are arrived at through seeing vision while crystal gazing, technically characterized as “scrying,” “a method of receiving psychic information of the past, present, and future through images in a reflecting surface.” The psychic gazes into the ball until the pictures are received. Traditionally a device of gypsies, its use has spread.
Differences of opinion exist as to whether the technique is an occult or a psychic one. As a result, the predictions of many crystal gazers are inaccurate, and often the scryers themselves are charlatans, Even so, every year, scores of psychics and occultists from all over the world publish their forecasts of events that can be anticipated during the coming year. Few of the predictions are happy, and prophecies of natural and personal disasters abound. By theory of probability, some are certain to be exact, but the percentage of error, even among trained and conscientious psychics, is often high.
The opposite of precognition, advance knowledge of future events, is retrocognition, defined as “direct knowledge of the past without normal means.” The term was invented by the pioneer British psychical researcher, F.W.H. Myers, who was also the first to use the word “telepathy.” He defined retrocognition as “knowledge of the past supernormally acquired, that is, not gained through the senses from records or from the memory of living persons.” The term generally refers to be consciously or physically present in a bygone scene, perceiving it by sight and/ or hearing, occasionally even by smell or touch.
The term cannot be found in dictionaries, and in the few psychic encyclopedias the word is usually defined as “the extrasensory perception of the past.” A mere half dozen of the books examined by the author included the subject. However, retrocognition has been studied by a few investigators who have reported their findings in the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research (England) and the Journal and Proceedings of the American Society for Psychical Research.
In the third type, extraordinary knowledge of the past is associated with objects, and is a type of backward-looking psychometry or object reading. (As a form of clairvoyance, psychometry deals with current situations.) A psychically gifted person or sensitive will take an object with a rich history, perhaps holding it to his forehead. Information about the pasts of people who have touched it may come to him or he may see visions.
The question of historical collaboration is a very important one. Retrocognition can never be established as solidly as precognition, since the latter can be proved if and when the event involved takes place. The possibility always exists that a person once heard or saw an account which, thought he forgot it, remained in his unconscious.
The evidence for retrocognition is scanty, primarily due to the difficulty in ruling out telepathy or clairvoyance as alternative sources of information. This fascinating subject will undoubtedly continue to attract psychic investigators.
Often erroneously associated with retrocognition is deja-vu (“already seen”), which is defined as “the illusion of having experienced something actually being encountered for the first time.” Within the past few decades, as ESP has been increasingly studied, however, parapsychologists have eliminated the psi factor in such experiences. Psychiatrists explain this phenomenon as a matter of “opening a false memory door,” usually in dreams, wherein reality becomes vague and undefined. Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, termed it “a repudiation of reality.”
Deja-vu may be a reincarnation memory. According to Hans Holzer, it is “a feeling of having heard certain words spoken before in exactly the same manner as one now hears, or having been to a place before, where consciously and logically one knows one has never been.”
Therefore, deja-vu is currently regarded as grounds for psychological rather than parapsychological study, and not generally included in books on ESP.
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Cosmic Soul
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Post by Cosmic Soul on Mar 25, 2006 8:08:38 GMT 10
Part 10 of White Feather's paper
Therefore, deja-vu is currently regarded as grounds for psychological rather than parapsychological study, and not generally included in books on ESP.
Were you to have consulted a dictionary for this word or sought information on it in an encyclopedia before 1940, you would not have found it. The dictionary, however, would have listed its two component parts: “psycho,” mind, and “kinesis,” movement or motion, both originating from Greek words. Their combination into a single new word introduced the world to a subdivision of parapsychology.
Current dictionary definitions of psychokinesis indicate its meaning. “The production of motion, especially in inanimate and remote objects, by the exercise of psychic powers” is one. “The mental power that moves objects or alters matter without physical contact” is another.
The Duke University parapsychologists defined it as “direct mental operation on a material body which produces a physical effect.” They identified it simply as PK, and noted that it was the same as the familiar concept of mind over matter.
The idea of “mind over matter” is not new. Mediums, for instance, have often claimed an ability to influence objects in some unknown way, and have impressed the credulous by making tables and other articles rise in the air. Unfortunately such efforts can easily be faked.
Psychokinesis differs from extrasensory perception, and the relation between them is still only partially understood. The view that has gained widest acceptance is that the two operations do involve essentially the same sort of interaction between the mind and the physical world.
Experimentation in psychokinesis at Duke University began in 1934. It came after the successes in telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition, and was a logical follow-up to the ESP work. Dr. Rhine explained the link between them: “In the clairvoyant perception of objects there has to be some operation between the mind and the material objects. Each must have an effect on the other…. The mind, therefore, does something to the object even though that something is too slight to be observed. The clairvoyance test was not designed to discover any such effect; what was needed was a means of measurement sensitive enough to register any such mental effect on the physical object.”
Moving targets seemed to be the best place to start. After all, plenty of people think they can influence rolling dice or an arrow in flight by a direct action of the will, even if they don’t believe they can make a stationary body move. Already the experimenters were conducting a kind of contest with chance by using guessing cards in the ESP test.
In the new tests dice served as the moving physical object. The various ESP controls were adapted to go with the new experiments. The recording of throw scores was simple, and the average for chance proved to be the same as for the cards.
After hundreds of tests with different objectives- throwing for each of the six faces and for specific combinations of the faces – the presence of psi was established. Since then, individual researchers elsewhere have made follow-up studies.
So-called spontaneous (nonlaboratory) cases of psychokinesis are practically unknown. Before PK became a study at Duke, a few cases had been reported to the various physical research organizations but had been dismissed as being explained only in terms of “some unknown psychic power.” At that time they could hardly be typed as psychokinesis, because the term had not yet been invented.
The poltergeist has been accepted as a form of psychokinesis. Though many spontaneous cases have been documented and published, there has been a general unwillingness to believe such accounts.
The word “poltergeist” has a German origin. The Germans were the first to record such cases, starting as far back as 1858. It means a noise-making or rattling (poltern) spirit (Geist).
A poltergeist causes a series of physical disturbances, such as noises (raps, scratching and sawing sounds, etc.) and movements of objects (kitchenware, tableware, furniture). The movements vary in kind and force. An object, may fall to the floor, or may be hurled some distance. Fragile items, of course, are broken, but no one is ever hit or hurt.
The disturbances take place most frequently in homes, but they may occur indoors in almost any building. They start unexpectedly and continue for an indefinite period of time, varying in duration from a few hours to weeks or months. The events tend to center around a particular person, usually someone who is young. The presence of this so-called “focal” person seems necessary for the disturbances to take place; strangely enough, this person must be awake.
Poltergeists are sometimes confused with hauntings. The word “haunt” comes from the same root as “home” and implies the belief that a spirit of a deceased person has remained at or returned to his earthly habitat. As a rule, hauntings do not seem to depend upon any particular living person but take place in a special locality such as a “haunted house.”
Physical disturbances never occur in hauntings. Ghosts or spirits are silent, and they involve hallucinations, like “seeing-ghosts” and “hearing footsteps,” which are always in the mind of the person being haunted. Hauntings tend to last longer than poltergeist cases. It is not unusual to hear of a house that has been “haunted” for several years, but poltergeist disturbance is usually of short duration and rarely lasts more than two months and often less.
As the name suggests, poltergeists were once considered to be evil or unhappy spirits. But because they usually occur in close proximity to a living (“focal”) person, parapsychologists tend to regard them as instances of psychokinesis. From this standpoint, according to Dr. Joseph Pratt, the main question for investigation is: Did the focal person produce the events by trickery, either consciously or unconsciously? If not, an investigation may be directed toward a parapsychological explanation via PK.
Many people feel that the poltergeist phenomenon is one that scientists should not consider. To them the study of spirits and ghosts seems to be ridiculous. Yet, as Dr. Pratt explains, “here we are once again with yet another kind of unexplained natural occurrence that appears to signal an event in some corners of the universe on which men has only recently turned his powerful searchlight of…inquiry….We must admit that among the difficult questions encountered in parapsychology, the poltergeist is one of the hardest of all.”
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Cosmic Soul
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Post by Cosmic Soul on Mar 25, 2006 8:10:17 GMT 10
Part 11 of White Feather's paper
form of psychokinesis which is currently attracting considerable attention is psychic photography, or the ability to imprint mental images on photography, or the ability to imprint mental images on photographic film by no normal means. This is called Kirlian photography after its discoverer; a Russian electrician named Semyon Kirlian, and shows an aura which changes according to good or bad health.
Mental healing is as old as man. In primitive tribes there was often a medicine man or witch doctor with the ability to heal. This power was thought to be magic. Characterized as faith healing, it later became related to religion, and bodily ills were treated not with medicines but through some spiritual attitude on the part of the sufferer. The priest became the medium through which healing was accomplished.
In his “miracle” healings, Jesus relied on the power of suggestion. “Take up your bed and walk,” he said. He declared that God provided the healing force and that a sick person could tap it through him or his disciples: “Thy faith hath made thee whole.”
Psychic healing involves the “laying of hands” by a person acting as a medium between the ailing individual and his mind. This ability to stop or reverse the progress of disease is recognized by many doctors, who realize how much thought and attitude affect the condition of their patients. Religious healers continuously exhibit their power with what Newsweek has termed “doses of faith and hope, with a mystery ingredient.” The latter phrase indicates the parapsychological element; it is “psychic energy.”
One of the things that greatly spurred research in this phenomenon was the sudden interest in acupuncture that arose when distinguished American doctors visited China in the early 1970’s. Acupuncture theory stresses that there is an energy system interpenetrating the body, through which the energy, ch’i, flows. The acupuncturists believe that this energy system, even though invisible, is just as important to the body as the circulatory or nervous system.
Many psychic healers are operating today, but they are not recognized, of course, by the American Medical Association. Therefore, psychic healing is illegal in the United States except when money does not change hands.
A type of healing related to the psychic but not recognized as a part of it is “divine healing.” In such cases, the healing is believed to be supernatural, and the medium acts only as an agent between the patient and God.
Research in psychic healing has recently stimulated enormous interest in a technique called Kirlian photography. In this process, named after the Russian husband-and-wife team who developed it in 1939, the object to be photographed, usually the human finger, is placed on photographic film, while a faint electric current passes between the finger and the film. When the film is developed it shows colorful, wavy patterns surrounding the tip of the finger, much as an X-ray would reveal the inner structure. Tests show that the patterns vary with the subject’s emotional and physical state and could be used to diagnose disease.
Kirlian photography has led to numerous energy-related theories for explaining the whole range of psychic phenomena. The Russians have labeled the energy field bio-plasma, but except for an account in Ostrander and Schroeder’s ‘Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain’ few details of their work have been released. Dr. Douglas Dean, an electrochemist who conducts experiments at the Newark (New Jersey) College of Engineering, speculates that the energy waves are of very low frequency and travel faster than light, a feat some physicists claim is possible.
Both Dr. Dean and Dr. Thelma Moss of the University of California at Los Angeles’ Neuropsychiatric Institute have claimed that Kirlian photographs show psychic healers to have a smaller glow after healing than before, while their patients emit brighter glows.
Dr. Moss, who has taken more Kirlian photographs and done more experimental work than anyone outside of Russia, believes that Kirlian photography clearly demonstrates the existence of a human aura. “We at UCLA have done work with acupuncturists and psychic healers,” she says, “and we find that the corona of the healer becomes intense before healing and then afterward is more relaxed and less strong. We think we’re looking at a transfer of energy from the healer to the injured person.”
Many experiments have indicated that plants, like human beings, have emotions. For example, Clyde Backster, a New York City lie- detector specialist, wanted to determine whether a plant, a philodendron in the experiment, reacts to being watered. In various books and articles, he has told how his experiment was carried out. Pair of electrodes connected to a recording instrument was attached to a leaf with a rubber band. Backster had expected to see a steady downward like on the chart as the plant absorbed moisture. Instead the line gradually upward, making occasional jumps just the way a human heart does when short emotional action is being measured.
That made Backster wonder what would happen if he made a threat to the plants, similar to the loaded-question technique of triggering emotional responses in people on lie-detector tests. He decided to light a match to the hooked-up leaf. The moment he made this conscious decision- before he even touched the plant or made a move to get a match- the stress line on the polygraph zoomed upward. The philodendron had seemingly read his mind!
The Kirlian photography process has produced some very strange pictures of plants. Multicolored lights shine from them like a “luminous coat of arms,” identifying each species. In experiments in both Russia and Los Angeles leaves have been cut in half and photographed. The pictures miraculously show the “aura” or outline of the whole leaf. One can see what seem like rays of energy shooting out of the plants.
Russian scientists photographed a lilac stem with two buds. In the first picture they saw plumes of light pouring out of the buds and small spikes of light like a luminous crown. Then they cut each bud in half. The radiant spikes still showed, this time even clearer. They lopped off the buds completely, and great beams of energy shot from the end of the stem like a Roman candle.
Though these experiences may be difficult to accept, they definitely indicate that psi exists in plants.
The new study of parapsychology began with the accumulated interest that was aroused by an increasing number of reports of human experiences and events known as psychic. These puzzling phenomena had never been claimed or accepted by any of the established branches of science, and until the 1930’s all but a few scientists had ignored their existence. Parapsychology was the result of a desire on the part of nineteenth-century scholars to find out whether all nature was purely physical. The question was: “Are there mental processes that are not part of the material world?” In their search for an answer to this question the founders of parapsychology were looking for nonphysical (mental) phenomena in nature that might be scientifically observed and described.
As noted before, many scientists and laymen are still antagonistic toward the new study. Their criticisms, of course, have been based on the validity of the tests. All of the techniques used had to be specifically designed, and the critics have wondered whether the interpretations and evaluations of the results have been statistically sound.
All the same, parapsychology has withstood all attacks and is gaining approval and recognition. As interest in the subject increases, ever-new aspects of it are being investigated, with the hope that we can expand out knowledge of psi power.
However, many people still confuse parapsychology with occultism, and authors persist in including the latter in their writings, as if by adding them to the parapsychology bandwagon, they will give credence to such activities.
One of the characteristics of this study of the mind has been the readiness of researchers to widen the scope of their investigations. This extension in fields of interest has been particularly evident since 1960. Initial work has begun in the following fields of inquiry in the United States: survival after death, the validity of mediums, reincarnation, and astral projection.
Survival after death is being studied by the Psychical Research Foundation, established in 1960 at Durham, North Carolina. Under the terms of the charter, its research must be directed specifically toward “investigations bearing upon the question of whether any part or aspect of human personality survives after death.” Under the direction of William G. Roll, who had worked with Rhine and Pratt at Duke University, special phases of spiritualism are beginning to be examined for evidences of psi power.
During the second half of the nineteenth century and into the present one, before parapsychology appeared on the scene, psychic researchers investigated a great many mediums, exposing charlatans and frauds. It is difficult to determine whether a medium in a trance produces information telepathically from the sitter or gets it from other sources by means of clairvoyance. This and the role of automatic writing in séances as a form of spirit manifestation have yet to be explained.
Reincarnation is the belief that each individual person possesses an element, independent of his physical being, which after his death can be reborn into another body. The idea of reincarnation is probably as old as religion itself, for it has been around since the beginning of civilization. One of the problems in proving reincarnation is that very few people are able (or report to the scientific community), under normal circumstances, to remember their previous lives.
Dr. Ian Stevenson, who has become a leader in the revival of interest in survival, has spent several years investigating man’s dream of immortality through reincarnation. He studied hundreds of reports from people all over the world who claim to recall a previous life. His ‘Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation,’ published by the American Society for Psychical Research in 1966, examined twenty cases in detail. Though he has continued his studies, the evidence is still in question, but reincarnation remains a legitimate subject for parapsychological study.
Out-of-body projection, formerly called astral projecting or astral travel, is the experience of leaving the body and traveling in the atmosphere. Generally, the astral body rises horizontally about three feet above the physical body before beginning its journey. The traveler is able to give an accurate account of his experience later.
The various phases of psychic phenomena continue to have a fascination for the public and for those who do research in this comparatively new field of study. Prospects for further additions to present knowledge in many areas are boundless.
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