The Indefinite Embrace
By John G. Kruth, Executive Director - Rhine Research Center

I was nervous.  So nervous that I didn’t even realize that I was stammering continuously to anybody who would come near to me, punctuated by brief moments spent shifting my weight from one foot to the other while surveying the room for the next wandering soul that I would alternatively want to avoid completely or latch onto so that I would feel the comfort of a life preserver in a sea of excitement, fear, and confusion that was the beginning of a new chapter in my life.  It was during one of these brief interludes of uncomfortable alone time that my eyes were quickly shifting from one point to another and my mind was racing with a thousand thoughts including whether I needed a haircut and was wearing the right clothes for my new role. 

Who was I to stand here and present myself as a leader when I was only a few months into this organization that had so many knowledgeable and important benefactors and supporters? 

The doubt was beginning to set in and I felt the urge to melt into a dark corner, when, below my line of sight, I noticed a small woman who was immediately in my personal space – just close enough to provide for a private and intimate conversation, but not so near as to make the interaction uncomfortable.

With a bubble in her voice she said, “I am SOO happy to meet you!”

I had heard this from many people that night since it was my first opportunity to address the Rhine community as the new Executive Director, but it was what she said next that caught my attention.  “I just LOVE your hair!  It is so long and beautiful, and it just makes your spirit shine through!”  And then slowly, “You.. are.. ABSOLUTELY.. GLOWING.. tonight!”

It caught me off guard, and I smiled.  Her amazingly sincere appreciation and joyful enthusiasm knocked me out of my thoughts and into the moment.

This was the first time I met Karen Baumer.

Over the next few years I came to recognize that Karen had this same joy in her voice with each and every person that she would meet because she truly was overwhelmingly happy to find a new soul and learn all about them.  And learn she did.  Within a few minutes of meeting Karen, nearly everyone would open up, come out of their thoughts, and share their lives with her.  And, of course, Karen would also share her thoughts.  Typically, her thoughts were about how amazing you were, how interesting your experiences were, how GLOWING you were, and how you truly had to spend more time at the Rhine and meet the incredible people there.

Karen was involved in nearly every event or activity that was presented or sponsored by the Rhine.  From the Psychic Experiences Group, to the Dream Studies Group, to the regular research meetings, events, and the fundraising team, Karen would not only attend these meetings, but she would greet each person with such beauty and enthusiasm that they would immediately feel like they were part of a family… and an IMPORTANT part of the group. 

That was the feeling that Karen left you with.  You are IMPORTANT and your thoughts and ideas matter.  You are a unique person and your special experiences need to be shared with the world.  You are, for those moments with Karen, the most interesting person in the world, and everyone needs to know.

When Karen stopped showing up at meetings at the Rhine in late September, 2016, she was clearly missed, and everyone noticed.  Her seat was empty, and the large bag filled with notebooks, pens, sometimes candy covered almonds, and always a large, metal water bottle was missing from the meeting.  But, more than this, missing was the quiet insight that brought clarity and precision and reminded all of us that our work and conversations were about people and their experiences.  That was what resonated so strongly about our time at the Rhine - the community that we built together and maintained through our personal connections.

Karen’s illness came quickly, and she left us within a few short weeks.  This didn’t stop Karen from reaching out to every person that she knew and letting them know how important they are and how much she appreciated them… “… more than you can ever know”.

In the last days, before she passed, Karen was in everyone’s thoughts, and her presence was palpable at the Rhine, at PEG, in the healing groups, and just around the library where we spent so much time together. 

People manage their response to loss in many different ways.  Personally, I miss the connection and interactions, but, more than this, I feel a true joy to know that Karen has moved on and is able to experience the world and her spirit in a whole new way.  Though there are many new things that will pull Karen’s attention and fascinate her spirit, it is my belief that, at least for a brief period, she will continue to spend time with us at the Rhine and share the loving and caring connections that she still has with so many of us.

I will cherish the thoughts and memories of Karen’s physical life, and in those moments when Karen decides to enter our hearts and share her joyful spirit with us, we will experience her bubbly appreciation all over again.  For that brief moment, we will each be special, important, and the most beautiful person in the world.

 

 

Important Science

People who study ESP in the remaining few small pockets of parapsychological research will tell you that this PSI ability is distributed within the population pretty  much like other traits.  As with musical or athletic skill, you probably have some ESP talent.  There is much evidence for ESP, you can look over our website , or the Journal of Parapsychology, or at some other resources such as Dean Radin's site. ( Links to these sites are at the end of this blog.  )  Though quite a popular topic in movies, television and on the web, you have probably not considered the far reaching potential ESP truly has.  While in this information age, technology is quickly giving us the ability to have constant, instant access to all information, that resource pales beside the ability to have access to all information, past and future, from everywhere.  Wrap your head around that for a minute, if you can.  The internet is a mere fortune cookie next to volitional PSI.

So why is it then, that research on a discovery of such world shattering importance is not supported more than it is?  Like I mentioned before, the Rhine Research Center is one of the few remaining research facilities exploring this science, most others have closed down due to lack of support.  The US Military did fund such research for 20+ years because they recognized its importance.   Other organizations around the world are funding its research, but here in the USA not a lot is happening, and that strikes me as strange.  Who do you want discovering a know-how that opens the door to all other abilities, and hidden things we haven't yet imagined?  Do you want these discoveries taking place in far away countries?  In hidden facilities of the military?  Who do you want making the greatest technological breakthrough in history, large corporations, the government, the military, a military on the other side of the world?  Or would you prefer to put this responsibility in the hands of conscientious scientists who have dedicated themselves to the science of ESP, not to its profitable application or weaponization.

When a clear and reliable picture of how this phenomenon functions is achieved, its secrets will be available for application by all of us, if we hear about it.  The amazing things uncovered in the continuing research at the Rhine Research Center show up in the press, and receive careful scrutiny in scientific journals.  The center remains a place of daily discovery, and it is making good and careful use of the funding it has.  But many brilliant and potentially fruitful areas of experimental exploration remain on the shelf because we are not growing to keep up with these possibilities.  While the goals of clear understanding of the mechanics of this proven phenomenon remain before us, we know progress is being made.  Like other big questions that have confounded science before, this one will be understood.  If you want to have access to that information, you need to invest in it.  The cost is small, but the inevitable payout is gigantic, world altering.   To turn your interest in quality research for a necessary subject, visit this helpful webpage, http://www.rhine.org/contribute/ways-to-give.html.


Rhine Research Center   (www.rhine.org)
Journal of Parapsychology (http://www.parapsych.org/section/17/journal_of_parapsychology.aspx)
Dean Radin's Selected Peer-Reviewed Psi Research Publications ( http://deanradin.com/evidence/evidence.htm )

An interesting case of macro-pk

As the editor of the Rhine Newsletter and a contributor to the Rhine blog, I enjoy reading and hearing the stories of psi events that come our way.  I am pleased to share a story sent to us by Anne Cooper about a profound experience she and her friends had back in 1962, one that prompted her to write to J.B. Rhine for advice. What follows is her description of the uncanny summer experience she and her friends had back in 1962 and, at the end of the blog post, a transcription of the correspondence with Dr. Rhine.
Enjoy!
- Jennifer Moore
Jennifer@rhine.org

Victoria, Texas

Ordinarily the bus ride would have seemed long and boring but I had my two girl friends by my side. Mary Louise would be in my high school senior class that fall at St Agnes Academy and her friend Donna lived down the street from her. Mary Louise was my age (16) and Donna a little younger. We were on an adventure. My grandmother lived in Victoria, 120 miles south of our homes in Houston. We were on summer break and were going to spend a week visiting her. It was June and the year was 1962.

On the bus ride south I prepared them for my grandmother’s house. This house was childhood fantasies come true. It was a Victorian mansion built at the end of the nineteenth century by my great grandfather, a wealthy banker in Victoria. The house had fallen into disrepair in the century since it was built. It had never been repainted, shutters hung precariously from their hinges on the upstairs windows. But still the house was imposing and fabulous. And it was huge. Upstairs there were 6 bedrooms and 2 baths; downstairs were 2 more bedrooms, bathroom, kitchen, breakfast room, dining room, sitting room and very large foyer that served as another sitting room. The elegance that once was surely there was still in evidence; tooled leather, although cracked and dried, on the banister going upstairs, the front door was cut leaded glass, the family name “Buhler” spelled out in tiles in the entryway. Three of the six bedrooms upstairs had their own private screened balconies overlooking the ample yard. Most of the bedrooms had fireplaces to provide heat. The mantles gracing each fireplace were ornate with scroll work and tile. Because of the heat in summer, the ceilings were 12 feet high, making for a comfortable house in the summer, but impossibly cold when the occasional winter storm came.

With access through one of the upstairs bathrooms was the attic.  Large and spacious it contained a centuries worth of clothes, toys, books, magazines, leather tooled steamer trunk, even an antique baby carriage. Over the years my siblings and I spent many long hours perusing the attic for its wealth of treasures.

I always imagined there to be secret rooms and chambers in the house. It was a magical space to me and still appears weekly in my dreams.

Although not on a hill, but in a grand old neighborhood, Grandma’s house had that ghostly image of the haunted house on the hill with lightening striking around it. Its façade was ornate with turrets and bric-a-brac. The house was surrounded on two sides by a large sitting porch. In the evenings in the summer when I was a child we used to sit outside and watch the bats fly out of all the chimneys (which were no longer used for fear of burning down the house), thus adding to the sense of spookiness.

We took a taxi from the bus station, and as we approached the house Mary Louise and Donna both sat silent staring in disbelief. It was even more impressive looking than I had been able to describe. On the way to Victoria I had told them that I knew for certain that my grandfather had died in the house, not sure if any of the other relatives that had inhabited the old house had expired there as well. We were going to have a séance, and for some reason death in the house seemed an important criterion.

We had an inordinate fascination with the paranormal. We were always playing mind games. Once, out of boredom we decided to see if we could get a card table to levitate. It was rainy and unpleasant outside so this seemed a fun parlor game to play. Donna dragged out the card table and we set it up in the living room of her parent’s house. The three of us set around the table and told jokes and giggled like the school girls we were. We decided that we’d each lightly place our finger tips on the table top and start making our demands of the table. We commanded the table to lift off the floor. Within seconds the table started to quiver and 3 of its legs levitated. We were not shocked or spooked. We thought that some tiny involuntary muscles in our fingers were tugging at the table and causing it to rise so startlingly. We could get that table 18 inches off the ground with 3 legs, but never could make it levitate completely. After that afternoon, we played this game often, secretly fascinated at our power. We also played mind reading games. One day Mary Louise was thinking of a movie and it was Donna’s turn to guess. Mary Louise later described her visualization. She pictured in her mind a black board and was writing the name Gone with the Wind out on the smooth black slate surface. As she moved from letter to letter Donna said the letters as Mary Louise wrote them. G-O-N-E ... Mary Louise was shocked as Donna spelled out the movie title in time with Mary Louise’s visualization.

There were many other mind games we played. All of them innocent and provided us with long afternoons of entertainment. Going to visit my grandmother was merely a continuation of these games. We also saw the trip as an adventure, an escape from our families. We were looking forward to this visit. So was my Grandmother.

Grandma was delighted to see us and put us up in my Mother’s old bedroom upstairs. It was one of the largest bedrooms and was comfortable for the 3 of us. We shared the upstairs with a tenant of my Grandmother’s, Ester Ethyl Edsyl.  Saying her name aloud would send the three of us into gales of giggles. She was a sweet middle aged woman who had rented a room from Grandma for years. Grandma slept alone downstairs and rarely made the long trip up to the second floor.

After several days of walking to downtown Victoria to the movies, sodas at the drugstore down the street, swimming at the local pool and secretly practicing smoking in the bathroom upstairs we decided to try the séance.

The dining room was gloomy. Its stained glass windows faced the street, but because of the dense dark green vegetation outside there was little light from them. At the opposite end of the room was a fireplace, with an ornate mantle. The dining table was a large oak table under a tiffany style light, with marbled stained glass in dark tones of blue, green and red. In the far corner was an antique secretary with shelves on one side and drawers the other. We decided it was the perfect place to have the séance and made ourselves comfortable around the table.

Joining hands I invoked the spirit of Grandpa, who had died a decade earlier. Our eyes closed as we sat silently waiting for a sign. At that point I heard my Grandmother in the kitchen, a room away. Not wanting her to know we were trying to conjure up her dead husband I went into the kitchen to distract her from coming into the dining room. We chatted briefly. Mary Louise suddenly appeared in the kitchen looking pale and startled. As not to alarm Grandma she said as calmly as she could that I should come back into the dining room.

In the dining room Mary Louise and Donna were staring at the antique secretary desk.  They silently pointed at the desk and much to my amazement the top drawer was pulling out. The desk was old, the dark wood dried and dusty and the drawer was struggling to come out, it was creaking ominously as it did so. We stood with mouths open, certain that it was Grandpa.

I was standing next to the dining room table, where I had my fingers resting lightly. All at once, I felt an inner vibration in the table, as though a train were passing nearby. At the same time the lamp over the table started to sway. I had my friends touch the table to feel its inner life.  Then I realized that we needed a way to communicate with my Grandfather.  We asked him to make the table move to the right. To our delight the table made a dramatic swing to the right, lifting the rug as it did so. Grandpa was surely with us.

I then told the table we would ask yes and no questions and that if the answer was “yes” to make the table swing to the right and if it was “no” to the left. I then asked “do you understand” and the table immediately swung to the right. We were on our way. We were still standing around the table, but at this point each of us was touching it as we had so many times touched the top of the card table.

For the rest of our visit we sat around that table asking many silly teenage girl questions. We wanted to know who we’d marry, or date. We also asked odd questions: was Hitler in hell? Unfortunately I can remember very few of our questions. They were mostly mundane, relating to our young lives, I imagine. To make sure it was not any one of us moving the table we would periodically stand far from the table with our hands in clear view and speak to the table. Without fail it would respond whether we were in contact with it or not.

The table in the beginning said that yes indeed it was Grandpa, but as time passed the identity changed to Jesus and then to the Holy Spirit. We had them all and we were delighted. My Grandmother must have wondered why we spent so much time in the dining room, but never questioned us. We brought cards, nail polish, mirrors, tweezers (for plucking eyebrows), and movie magazines with us to appear as though we were busy being teenage girls and just found this room the most comfortable. We laughed and joked among ourselves and would ask the power moving the table if it was laughing and always it agreed that it was indeed enjoying our silliness.

One day I noticed that a candle that was on the mantle was lying beside the candle holder and we asked if the present spirit had taken it out. It said it had. So we invented another game. We asked that each time we came into or left the room that the candle would be in or out depending on where it was when we were there last. Eerily it complied. Our only fear was seeing some object levitate so we asked that it not make things levitate while we were watching. It promised not to scare us. There was a large basket on the floor by the fireplace and we requested that it be moved from right to left side or vice versa as we came and left the room. Without fail it was always in its new position.  It was creepy to us knowing that sometime while we were not in the room the candle quietly floated up or down and the basket drifted, as though caught in a tide, from one side of the fireplace to the other. Now I wish we had witnessed those phenomenons.

Although not frightened in daylight, we did plead with the spirit not to come to our room at night. It agreed to stay away once the sun had set. Spookiness in the daylight was one thing, but night time shenanigans did not appeal to us. Nor did anything happen in our room in the night. We were grateful for that.

We thought for awhile that we were supposed to be teachers of God’s word, as the “spirit” made us believe we had a calling. That did not appeal to any of us. We were also instructed not to tell anyone about this experience and we promised. I do remember on our bus trip back to Houston discussing whether or not we should tell anyone about this profound encounter. The “spirits” told us not to, but we were adolescents with no ability to keep such an event contained.

In fact, as soon as I arrived home I told my father the whole story. I am still amazed that I chose to do that, but somehow I trusted that he would not ridicule me, or tell me that it was my imagination. He, from the very beginning, believed me. His first reaction was to warn me that we could conjure up “evil spirits”, ones that we should not be playing with. My father was a strict Catholic whose faith informed all his opinions and actions. I suppose somewhere in the Catholic religion there was an admonishment to not conjure up the “devil”. I felt certain that he was wrong, that we were not in touch with anything evil, if nothing else our “spirits” were benign.

After thinking about this for a few days he, being a practical man and interested in science, decided to look up telekinesis in our encyclopedia. Telekinesis is the power to move an object without touching it. I had told him about moving card tables, mind reading games etc. How we would often entertain ourselves with these activities. The article in the encyclopedia was written by JB Rhine at Duke University. Dr. Rhine had started the Parapsychology department there. My father suggested I contact Dr. Rhine and see if he could shed any light on this mystery. In the fall of that year I did just that. For several reasons Mary Louise and I decided that Donna was the one with the power. Many of the questions were answered the way Donna would have answered them and Donna had often shown more skill in mind reading games and other paranormal exercises. 

Dr. Rhine responded to my inquiry and over the course of 6 months we corresponded.  He sent me a set of his psi cards, his book and other information that was relevant to our experience. He was very interested in what transpired in Victoria and hoped to get his hands on Donna. He said that many young adolescents were gifted with paranormal powers, but because of their fear or ignorance chose to ignore them and the powers disappeared quickly. Of course Donna never would discuss the possibility that she was the perpetrator of the experience, nor today do I think she necessarily was.  Oddly we never played mind games again, nor did we move the card table. This may have been a function of circumstance, however. I finished my senior year and went on to college and Mary Louise got married. So our lives moved in different directions and we rarely saw one another after that year.

Dr. Rhine hoped to have Mary Louise’s account of our adventure, but her parents forbade her from corresponding with him and Donna’s parents would not ever discuss the event, although they too had been told. 

I do not have any idea what happened in Victoria that June, but it was a profound experience for me. It made we realize that “reality” has no organized, predictable or neat structure.

 It opened my mind to possibility. After that I never doubted out of hand anything that I heard that was extraordinary. It left me open to encounter the world as a place of great mystery.

I am now in my 60s.  I still have copies of all of Dr. Rhine’s letters, as well as articles about him and his wife, Louise. They were eventually forced to close the parapsychology department at Duke, but continued for the rest of their lives to research paranormal, or psi phenomenon. The letters were one sided as I did not have copies of my letters to him thus not hearing my voice in the conversation.  I looked Dr Rhine up on the internet and discovered the Rhine Research Center, which is run by his daughter, Sally. It is located just off the Duke University Campus in Durham, NC. I contacted Sally wondering if the Institute wanted his original letters for their archives. She was delighted to receive them. I asked if they by chance had my letters to her father. She said that Duke had an archival library where I could find my letters.  As it turned out we were going to North Carolina and I made arrangements to meet with Sally and also gain access to Dr. Rhine’s correspondence for the years 1962-1963.  Under close scrutiny by the staff, I perused the files and found all my letters. They kindly made me copies and I had a missing piece of the puzzle. Where my memories of this event accurate?  What had I left out? Did I talk about what our questions to the table were? Unfortunately there was little new information, but my memory was right on. I had neither embellished nor fabricated anything. It was a fascinating experience meeting myself as a 16 year old. My father had written to Dr. Rhine blessing our correspondence. Hearing his voice from the past was an added bonus I had not expected. (I had to laugh when I read where he tells Dr. Rhine that I am of “above average” intelligence. My parents were not ones to be effusive about their children’s gifts or accomplishments.) Sally was happy to have copies of my letters as well. She and a staff member sat fascinated as I related an abbreviated version of this story.

Off and on over the years Mary (Louise) and I have stayed in touch and we have exchanged our memories of this incident to make sure we have it right.  We do not know where Donna is today. My grandmother never had any idea what we were up to in her dining room and in a Victoria Advocate newspaper article about our visit that summer the byline under our photograph read: “Swimming and other activities have been included during their visit.”

If only they knew.

November 1, 1962

Dear Dr. Rhine,

I have heard of your experimental research in the field of Parapsychology at Duke University, and I was wondering if you could send me some information.

A friend of mine has the strange ability of moving objects without touching them. This is not my imagination or a trick for it has been witnessed by several people. This power seems to be sub-conscious because while these objects are moving she is not concentrating consciously. However we do know she has the power, (not one of us), for several reasons. It is necessary for her to be present before the object moves and also the object will move if she is alone in the room. There are other reasons for our belief it is her power but they require long explanations. It is very hard to put down in writing all the strange things she has accomplished.

Could this be some form of psychokinesis?

I’m sure you receive many letters of this sort, some true others hoaxs (sic). We sincerely believe that she has this strange power and would appreciate any information that you could send.

Thank you,

Anne Cooper

3226 Rochdale

Houston 25, Texas

Duke University

The Parapsychology Laboratory

November 24, 1962

Miss Anne Cooper

3226 Rochdale

Houston 25

Texas

Dear Miss Cooper:

I am very much interested in what you write about your friend. I wish you would tell me more about her and her ability. Especially would I appreciate a number of specific demonstrations, as far as you can recall them.

I will ask a number of questions just to help point up the kind of information needed for a judgment. First, what range of objects are involved; that is, how large and how varied? Or are they all of the same kind? Second, do the objects have to be in a certain position; let us say on a table in front of your friend. If so, does she have to touch the table? Third. Do the objects just move a little -  let us say a few inches? Do they tip over? Do they levitate? Do they ever break? If so, do they break by falling or break where they are set? Forth, do they move in good light or does there have to be darkness or dim illuminations? Fifth, how many of you are usually present, or what is the largest number of persons present?

I should like especially to know all about your friend, how long she has had this ability, and what other abilities or unusual character she may have. What kind of person is she? Is she married? Does she have children? What of her age, education, etc? Is this ability well known? Has it been given any publicity? Has there been any scientific study made by anyone?

From time to time I get to Houston, and it is approaching the time when I must make another visit. Would it be possible for me to visit you and your friend talk over these powers and possibly let something happen if it will?

I am grateful to you for writing me about this and will appreciate all further information you can give me. As I see more about the case I should be glad to make suggestions or recommendation or give whatever interpretation seems most reasonable through our scientific stall here.

Sincerely yours,

J.B. Rhine

19 Jan 63

Dear Dr. Rhine:

I thought it about time I wrote you and gave my approval to the dialogue that you and Anne have been carrying on concerning the strange phenomena Donna ----  has experienced.

To bring you up to date on all I know about these strange events, I think the first I heard about it was early last summer. I know Anne gave you the background of the experiences in Victoria, Texas.

The day that Anne and her friends came back from her grandmother’s house (my mother-in-law) she was visibly shaken. She told her story and I suppose that my wife and I were a little taken aback to say the least. Anne thought that spirits or something had been present. This was a natural thought for a person who had not heard of psi or Dr. Rhine. I believed Anne’s account so I dug out your article in the Encyclopedia Americans and had her read it. She decided to write you after reading the article. We have every confidence in her veracity. She is a fine, above average in intelligence, girl.

I might mention that I am a sales engineer for the Humble Oil & Refining Co. and we have two other children. Our son, who is 19, is a third classman at the Air Force Academy and our other daughter is a sophomore in high school. My wife teaches the fourth grade in a Catholic grade school. She is a graduate of Rice University and I graduated form Michigan State U. You have our complete approval and if we can help anyway call on us.

Sincerely,

Bromley F. Cooper

  

Cold War Correspondence - Eugene Kovalenko and J.B. Rhine

We have asked Eugene Kovalenko*, Ph.D., to be a guest author on the Rhine blog.  After a series of synchronistic email exchanges, he and Sally Rhine Feather, Ph.D., Executive Director Emeritus, realized they were uncovering a fascinating, untold story about J.B. Rhine and the history of the Foundation for Research on the Nature of Man.  Here, in Kovalenko's words, is his description of his first meeting with Professor J.B. Rhine:

In searching for "hard information" re the psi-war warning idea of June 1964, I became aware of the work of Professor J.B. Rhine at Duke University in Durham, N.C. Rhine was considered the "Father of Parapsychology" and was clearly the most credible researcher in this often confusing and suspect field. I wrote him a letter in October 1964, which he answered with an invitation to visit him at the university. As luck would have it, the trip to Durham was made possible by having been invited to present a scientific paper at an international conference on materials science being held at that time in Raleigh, N.C., just 25 miles away!After presenting my paper, I visited Rhine in an afternoon before catching a flight home to California later that evening. My purpose was simple. After telling him my idea I naively asked, "Am I crazy?" Rhine replied by showing me his private library and giving me from it a recent book published by Soviet scientist L.L. Vasiliev called Experiments in Mental Suggestion.  With obvious enthusiasm he then declared, "Not only are you not crazy, but your idea is urgent! We have been waiting years for a man with your background. Here's the phone, call your wife and tell her you are coming to work with me in our new Foundation for Research on the Nature of Man!"Flattered, but taken aback, I responded, "I can't make such a decision at such a moment. I've barely begun a new career.""All right", he replied, "but please stay the night at our expense and then attend a meeting at our laboratory in the morning." To that I agreed.Arriving at his laboratory apprehensive, I was greatly relieved to encounter the lab personnel had become excited by a visit of two unexpected celebrities: TV star Eddie Albert and his buddy, folk song singer and actor Burl Ives. I was to learn that this kind of surprise was not unusual for Rhine and he graciously invited the visitors to attend the meeting. I was pleased to have the pressure off and content to silently watch the proceedings from a corner in the back of the room. 

Editor's note: What happened next is best described in the e-mail exhange between Dr. Kovalenko and Dr. Feather.  Here it is, as delineated by Kovalenko:

Introduction

 Having discovered the existence of the Rhine Research Center in summer 2013, I subscribed to its monthly newsletter. In the December issue, an article titled The Science Behind Your Beliefs by Executive Director John Kruth caught my attention. On Monday, 12/30/2013, I wrote the following email: Dear John,
Is there anyone in your organization who would be interested in my story about meeting J.B. Rhine in late November 1964 and the project we agreed to work on together? Does your archival history contain any of our correspondence? If not, would you be interested in having a copy?

Is there any record of the unannounced and unexpected visit of actors Eddie Albert and Burl Ives, who were there at the same time? (A week or so before that meeting writer Pearl Buck had also been an unexpected visitor. J.B. told me back then that this was not an unusual happening at his laboratory.)

Eugene Kovalenko

The next day, Tuesday, December 31, 2013, I received the following letter from Sally Feather, Emeritus Executive Director:
Dear Eugene,I am taking the liberty of responding to your inquiry below as I am the person who deals with much of the archival matters of the Rhine Center. And in fact I recall that I just happened to be visiting at the Duke Parapsychology Lab during the visit from Burl Ives and Eddie Albert at the regular coffee hour that you note in 1964.  That is the kind of occurrence that stands out, as not too common although there were often other celebrities, but especially for me as I had always been a great fan of Burl Ives.  I recall my disappointment that he deferred a request to sing because there was a visiting young singer whom he encouraged to sing instead.  But yes I would be interested in the account of your meeting with JB, and your project.  As for finding an account of that visit here, one would have to check through JB’s correspondences that are preserved in the Special Collections of the Duke University Library on the Duke Campus several miles away.    From my downloaded index of the Parapsychology Lab Records,  I see that for the year 1964 there would  Boxes 264-273  alphabetically arranged- maybe Box 269 that is Ka-Mar (8 folders) would be the place to start for your correspondence.  I will be getting over to the Library in late January and could perhaps help with that limited search if you want to pursue that further. Thanks for your interest in this matter. Sally Feather Later on Tuesday 12/31/2013 I responded: Dear Sally,

What a surprisingly wonderful and synchronistic response!

I was that young singer! So, you were there in the lab audience at that time!  It shocked me to be asked by JB to sing the "Song of the Volga Boatmen." I didn't know he knew I sang, let alone that particular song!, but it was a never-to-be-forgotten experience.

I had come to see JB at his invitation to discuss an idea that I'd had the previous summer, which had nothing to do with my then career as a nuclear materials scientist. In fact, it had military implications and my question to him was, "Am I crazy?" During that first meeting he said something like, "Not only are you not crazy, but the issue you describe is urgent! Clearly you have a calling. We have been waiting years for someone with your background. Here is the phone, call your wife and tell her you are coming to work with me." And then he gave me two books by Russian authors: L.L. Vasiliev and Nikolai Khokhlov, both of which profoundly changed my life. When I told him I'd only just started my scientific career and couldn't make such an abrupt new decision, he invited me to stay overnight at his home and then attend his laboratory the next morning. When we arrived at his lab that following day I was relieved to see that the lab personnel were preoccupied with Ives and Albert and that the spotlight pressure was now off me. I could simply be an observer in the back of the room. Do you remember Burl's words after I'd sung and JB then asked him to sing? "Are you kidding? Not after that guy!"  I'll never forget how Burl helped me pull the boats while he bounced up and down, pretending tugging gestures as I sang….  :) Ives and Albert then took me to lunch for another memorable experience.

Although I could not make the decision JB wanted at the moment, I was afterwards so emotionally affected in ways I'd never before experienced that I discovered the process of writing poetry: a rational way of giving structure and expression to overpowering and unexpected emotions. The poem had made a decision before it became clear to me. I sent the words through "…plunge!" to JB and he replied with a congratulatory telegram [see attached] urging us to move forward.  He and I met again at his invitation the following January in Carmel, CA. [See: http://orthodoxodyssey.blogspot.com/2009/01/pilgrim-my-first-poem.html and http://orthodoxodyssey.blogspot.com/2009/01/challenge-on-carmel-beach.html.]
 I look forward to continuing this correspondence.
 Eugene Kovalenko
 Sally replied within minutes.
Dear Eugene,I’m delighted to get your response.  You know, I almost asked if you were that young singer---but thought that just too far out.  JB was appropriately non-disclosing about who you were or why you were there, but now I hope that the whole story can be told.  We look forward to hearing much more of it from you. Your poem is very moving and significant for me as mountain ranges were always meaningful to JB. Even the title of my mom’s last book Something Hidden came from Kipling’s poem about “something hidden beyond the ranges, go and find it” that as found among JB’s notes when he died.  Well, so glad that you opened this door---- Warm regards,Sally Feather
On New Year’s Day at 2:46 PM, I wrote to Sally:
Dear Sally,

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

I have a hunch our correspondence will be loaded with more interesting surprises!--and do not believe this mutual discovery is mere happenstance.

After JB sent his November '64 telegram, he sent me two Kipling poems, one of which you allude to below. I've always treasured that gesture. They were: "IF" and "The Explorer". In doing a Google search for your mother's book, I was surprised to learn that that title is claimed by Louisa E. Rhine!?? Is Louisa your mother and therefore JB your dad?!! Perhaps this could yet be the "GREAT DAY", JB referred to?

If you have opened the second blog link re the 'Carmel Beach Challenge' that I sent earlier, you will know that our project did not mature. There were at least two reasons for this. The most important was a "Mormon complication" [see attached 2nd poem Night + commentary for my oldest son]. The other was an impasse in JB's and my correspondence. He systematically sent me all his books so that I could be up to date on his background and latest thinking. I was willing to get this under my belt, but with misgivings. The most critical was his refusal to answer, let alone acknowledge, my specific question about the Zener Card approach to studying psy. JB insisted that I experiment with my young family (wife and 5 children) using the Zener Cards. But, I was reluctant to do this when I learned that this technique seemed lethal to above-chance performance. I asked several times if there was any evidence of talented persons recovering their statistically above-chance performance once they lost it. If there was no such evidence, I was unwilling to risk involving my family. One of my colleagues later explained that I'd focused on the Achilles Heel of that technique and Rhine could not risk losing my cooperation by answering it truthfully. I was never to learn the truth of this assertion.

My last contact with JB was in spring 1978, while working on a solicited USAF proposal with the Eyring Research Institute in Provo, Utah. I was asked to re-contact JB to refresh his memory of my original idea and to invite him on board the project. He didn't remember my name, but did ask "Are you the singer?"

Two last items before closing this message. It may not mean anything to you out of the larger context, but here is one more blog link that belongs between the two links sent earlier: http://orthodoxodyssey.blogspot.com/2009/01/23-dec-64-dream-from-todays-perspective.html. On the subject of dreams, I had only begun remembering and recording my dreams just two or so weeks before meeting JB in late November 1964. This was the result of reading Hugh Lynn Cayce's newly published "Venture Inward", which contained suggestions for recalling and processing dreams…. This was something JB and I never discussed.

The last item was a military experience I was not at liberty to explicitly mention to JB. This was my clandestine experience in Berlin less than a decade earlier. You may be interested my Amazon review of the print documentary by British historian David Stafford called Spies Beneath Berlin. This review soon flushed out others who contacted me personally. Instead of a second addition, which Prof. Stafford asked me to contribute to (since I was the first person he'd met that was actually at the Berlin site), it eventually morphed into a 2011 British TV film documentary by the same name. If this is of any interest to you, I would be pleased to send you a post-production copy of the complementary DVD.

Thank you for allowing me to walk through your door after so many years! I earnestly hope you will not regret it…

Eugene
PS. It occurs to tell you that one of the reasons why JB was eager for my participation at the FRNM was that I work with N. E. Khokhlov, who wanted to study under JB. However, because of my subsequent correspondence with Khokhlov, JB never allowed him to come to Duke or FRNM. (This is hinted at in the last stanza of "Pilgrim", which was written after JB's telegram.) Khokhlov eventually became a professor of psychology at a college in Southern California before his death in 2007. There is more to this story only if you are interested.

The "more" to the story will continue here on the Rhine blog. 
Stay tuned!

*Brief bio of Eugene N. Kovalenko, Ph.D.

Having been born in Los Angeles in 1933 and raised in the Phoenix, Arizona Mormon society and culture, Eugene's conscious life began in 1953 during the Korean War, when he joined the US Army to learn Russian, his Ukraine-born father's native tongue. For Eugene, that military experience began his life work in learning to become human: soldier, interpreter, singer, intelligence agent, student, engineer, scientist, seeker, poet, writer, inventor, manager, entrepreneur, teacher, husband, father, grandfather, great-grandfather, conversationalist, traveler, actor, visionary, wanderer, wonderer, believer, skeptic, philosopher, dreamer and dream worker. 

See: http://www.eugenenkovalenkophd.com/ [Lower RH corner] for facts concerning family, education and professional activities.

On Lucid Dreaming....

The unusual and powerful event of a lucid dream was brought much closer to me today.  I went to hear author Robert Waggoner discuss this topic, lucid dreaming, and it was absolutely amazing how much practical and inspiring information he provided us all.  Mr. Waggoner is helping us celebrate “Dreamy March”, a month chocked full of fun and fascinating events on the topic of dreams.  His book “Lucid Dreaming: A gateway to the inner self” continues to grow in popularity and with good reason, it is a must read if you are interested in the topic and especially if you want to experience a lucid dream regularly.  In the Friday night presentation, which Rhine members can access on our webpage, and in his Saturday workshop, he discussed the history and growth of the study of lucid dreams.  He noted significant scientific studies, and shared many accounts from lucid dreamers that gave us a good feel for the phenomenon, and really enticed us to have a lucid dream of our own.  That’s a good thing because he discussed techniques to encourage lucid dreaming, and ways to work within the lucid state.  Consciously examining the dreamscape is very different from passively recalling a dream the next day, so the dynamics of exploration are very important.   He did a thorough job of explaining what experienced lucid dreamers have discovered about the exploration process, and how a lucid dreamer can apply this knowledge to answer questions that they bring to the dream state.  The knowledge he brought us was entertaining and very useful. 

There are more great presentations to come this month, so check out our events page and make plans to attend.  Many of these events are free and all of them are fascinating.  If you are a human being, you are a dreamer, so all these events pertain to you.  Do yourself a favor and check them out.

Is this a good idea?

Is finding out how ESP works a good idea?  There continues to be mounting evidence that the phenomenon exists, that the human mind has access to non-local information, though the mechanics for the most part remain undiscovered.  You are welcome to scoff and write parapsychology off as nonsense, such dismissive behavior is natural and not-unprecedented.  It was Lord Kelvin, a respected engineer of his time, who said "Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible." so even the brightest people can make a bad call.  But evidence to the contrary showed him shortly the errors in his prediction.

If you want to see the growing body of evidence for the existence of PSI, check out Dean Radin's website here:  http://www.deanradin.com/evidence/evidence.htm.  We seem to have crossed the line as to whether it exists, and now we are facing the question of what to do about it. 

The applications for use of PSI are so incredible it’s hard to put your head around it.  Similar considerations are given to other burgeoning technologies such as nanotech, genome decoding, and AI where the good and bad applications demand great care as we move forward.  PSI mechanic applications seem to dwarf these other technologies in the far-reaching changes they would introduce, so I am drawn back to my original question, is this a good idea?

One of the things that fascinates me to no end is how people just shrug their shoulders to this question.  This would seem an explainable response if the evidence for PSI were dismissible, but that reason fades more each day.  When we learn how ESP works, and can apply it, and each and every person can apply it, then what do you imagine will become of our world?  I guess it’s just too much to even ponder, so we don't. 

But the US military and intelligence organizations cared enough to look into it, and ran the Stargate Program from the 1970s to the 1990s.  The same people we depend on to safeguard western civilization, they were working on ESP research.  Research around the world continues on these mysteries, and as sure as the human genome has been mapped, and the Higgs-Boson particle is created, and those impossible "heavier-than-air flying machines" are filling up our skies every second of every day, you can be sure that how PSI works will be discovered.

What happens then? 

I have to trust that the people working on these discoveries are good and conscientious people.  That doesn't mean it will make that technology  100% safe, and less-than-good people will one day access these technologies, too.  But I want to give the good guys a head start.  I want the good guys to be out in front of this.  That is one of the reasons I volunteer at the Rhine Research Center.  That is why I am a member there, and why I make donations to the Rhine Research Center.  They are an organization of good people, dedicated scientists and educators, who have been doing this for 80+ years, and are on the cutting edge of PSI research right now.

And this is more than a feel-good appeal for the RRC.  This question of what to do with these technologies, how to live in a world with them, needs to be addressed.  To stay alive in this changing environment, we must adapt, we must be responsible.  If you as an individual, or we as a species are to make it, we must change to work with the reality of possessing technologies that any person could use to end the species.   That shoulder shrug response we give to the question isn't an adequate adaptation to the new world growing up around us.  I don't  have any profound answers on this, but I do know I want the question answered by folks who have been working with these issues, both the scientific and the human side, for generations.

Whether or not learning how ESP works is a “good idea” won’t stop it from happening, just like we can’t stop any of the other developing technologies out there that hold unprecedented risk.  The best thing we can do is make sure responsible people are getting this done, and continue to work ourselves to make responsible decisions for all these new advancements.

The people part of Parapsychology

The human being is designed from millions of years of natural selection to be function as an interpersonal animal.  Two news stories caught my eye this week and point out the biological foundations of our spiritual and technological advancement.  One is the news that Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer's policy change for employees to be at work with each other, and the other is from Sheila M. Eldred's blog regarding love and the paranormal (http://news.discovery.com/human/life/love-telepathy-is-it-real-120212.htm).

Now you find yourself as an average person and you have probably experienced some ESP type of event, maybe deja vu, some synchronicity, seen a ghost, had a precognitive dream, the list could go on of events that mainstream science dismisses as some illusion or imagination.  And more than likely, these strange occurrences involved people close to you, a good friend, a family member.  They involved a relationship, someone important in your life. 

Many people debating Marissa Mayer's decision to change the Yahoo policy point out how valuable interpersonal interaction is to successful enterprises.  We have to agree that its a fact that human beings are interpersonal animals.  There is no human being alone, we evolved and currently flourish in a world that requires one-on-relationships, its a one-on-one universe we live in.  Our economy, our society exist because our subconscious minds are working on relationships.  The very definition of human, of economy, of society, is about relationships.  How you think, what you think about, how you measure yourself and your world, is done amidst an environment that requires relationships.  So your brain and your mind are designed for relationships, for one-in-one co-creation of civilization and your survival with it.  The human mind has evolved in the environment of relationships. 

So of course we can expect actual interaction to help creativity, work dynamics, and initiative.  All the cues, all the environmental variables that humans have adapted to, are put into action in the interpersonal event.  Even in our high tech, information age, most of the talk is about social media.  We reach out and try to find new tools to improve our surviving and thriving, but we still have to work with the full set of shared, human traits that brought us here, which is the face-to-face relationship. 

Access to PSI information is an evolved trait in animals, just as are the interpersonal social structures in the human subconscious.  Your mind is constantly searching for and utilizing subliminal information, some of which are PSI obtained.  Normally, your unconscious is picking up on sensory cues and sending out information unconsciously that benefit from and contribute to the interpersonal environment, and some of that information is PSI info. 

And of course we would expect love and romance and friendship to receive the bulk of PSI help, they are the primary interpersonal relationship that natural selection has to work with.  So if the human, interpersonal environment has evolved in humans, then we would expect PSI information would first show up to improve and involve those most instrumental to our survival.  The literature is chocked full of examples of the importance of relationships in PSI events.  The experimenter effect, sheep/goats effect, the decline of success in PSI testing, and many other phenomenon show the importance of the interpersonal in PSI events.  Even Dr. Bem's recent studies that found that sexual content of the targets had a strong effect on successful PSI make this clear.  This is just what you'd expect to see if PSI perception is about relationships, as sexual interaction is quite interpersonal and often factors strongly in the process of natural selection.

Both news stories bring us back to the recognition that we are not just social animals, but interpersonal, relationship animals, and that is how our minds work.  Whether we are running a successful organization, or working to scientifically understand the functioning of the unconscious mind processes that allow our human lives to exist, we are doing it with the strongly evolved traits of a human, relationship based creature.

Function and processing of ESP data in the brain

In an earlier blog I discussed the importance of carefully discerning the elements of "parapsychological" events so they can more clearly be understood and studied.  I have recently been using evolutionary psychology to take a new (for me anyway) perspective on parapsychological events, and it has been helpful in teasing out aspects of certain phenomena that could be accounted for as brain mechanics, so that the anomalous cognition parts can be more clearly described.  I do not see this new viewpoint as clearing up the mystery, nor is it necessarily superior to other perspectives, but to the extent Charles Darwin has some contribution to make to science, I think it can find some place in the study of parapsychology.

One of the many wonderful things about evolutionary parapsychology is that you are bound by the rules inherent in natural selection.  That means I cannot make up brain processes that make perfect sense and would work great, but aren't part of the available range of variables present in the current structure.  For example, wheels are great mechanical devices for locomotion but you just don't see any animals with them.  This is why we can run into such trouble when trying to develop a model for understanding PSI processes.  Like in other areas of reasoning, we are helped when we create a model that has some explaining power for our present mystery.  Parapsychology has tried to explain what is going on by saying it is like radio, or electromagnetism, or atomic rays, or quantum mechanics, and today we encouraged that we will soon discover that the brain is like a computer.  This comparison bothers people, and should to the extent the model overtakes the facts.  A computer is not a mind and a mind is not a computer. 

But... (and you knew there was going to be a "but") when it comes to information processing, in that regard both computers and minds are constrained by the rules of natural selection.  The act of "recognizing a thing" requires a process that is trying to achieve the same thing in the same environment, so you can expect convergent evolution with the animal brain and the computer brain.  This is wonderfully explored in the book I am currently reading, "How to Create a Mind" by Ray Kurzweil.  In this book he is describing how AI in machines and the human brain can be better understood by noting how they both go about their functions.  This book is talking about how information is processed, and along with Dr. Carpenter's recent book "First Sight" and an older book by Dr. Christine Hardy "Networks of Meaning", you start to get a pretty solid picture of how PSI data is processed.

Stir into that mix the ideas presented in earlier blogs here, that natural selection demands PSI not be consciously controlled, then you can start to see that the PSI dampening structures are probably built into the neural networks, and evolved by necessity as perception and memory was evolving in animals, long before homo sapiens came along.   The brain is processing PSI data, as Dr. Carpenter's book describes, though unconsciously.  It is probably the case that PSI data is processed at the level that  basic sensory input would be, but the input is by design shut off as soon as that data is moved to the next level of perceptual and functional processing (as Kurzweil describes so well).  We see this phenomenon in Remote Viewing, where the act of "naming" or "recognizing" breaks the flow of PSI data.  The basic sensory level of the data provided by PSI is well described by the telepathy drawing experiments done by Ingo Swann, Mary Craig Sinclair and Rene Warcollier.  It looks like PSI is feeding data into the perceptual process but at a level not accessible directly by consciousness.

Again, the laws of natural selection require that the PSI data, or any sensory data, is not too successful, it is only to give a slight advantage to the organism in the current environmental situation.  If the natural neural process is to shut off PSI data once a slight survival advantage is given, what would happen the little bit of PSI data does NOT fix the problem?  Along with PSI, the human mind has lots of processes to keep us safe.  These include memory, sensory data, reflexes, social mores, emotional attachments and others.  We are complex.  All those things work together, and evolved in our species, to keep us alive and reproduce our DNA.  We know in other processes, that when one survival mechanism breaks down, others usually on the back burner are  by necessity pushed to the fore.   So we would expect to see PSI phenomenon such as poltergeist activity in households where the social and interpersonal processes that are supposed create security are not working.  Likewise we see more PSI in folks who had rough family situations as kids, and we see more reports of PSI events in individuals who have dissociative episodes, again, the normal processes are not working, so PSI data keeps coming until the required result is reached.  And in cases where DNA survival seems unlikely, brain processes would throw out all the stops and PSI data would likewise be unchained, and this is what you see in a near death experience so well cataloged in the literature. 

Again, trends in parapsychology research are toward unconscious behaviors, and this makes sense when seen through the eyes of evolutionary parapsychology.  I am looking forward to seeing how research results reflect on the natural processes of which PSI data access is an evolved part.  I am finding as I read book after book on current research on the mind and other biological processes, how PSI events fit right in. 

The content of these blog entries I have been posting is not necessarily the view of the RRC, but instead that of a humble board member.  I am emphasizing the the important and impressive work done by the Rhine Research Center scientists and staff by noting where it fits into more widely publicized and less "controversial" science going on out there (as described by Kurzweil) or foundational as in the case of Darwin's ideas.  The website www.rhinecenter.org is chocked full of great information on the research they are doing, and I hope these few blog entries show how the phenomena studied by parapsychology are an integrated part of our evolving understanding of the human experience.

-Benton R. Bogle
2/1/13

PSI events and evolutionary psychology

In an earlier blog I asked the reader to consider the idea that we can better understand the PSI event by putting it in the context of natural selection.  I am not dismissing the research on PSI that looks at the phenomenon as it relates to question of physics, pharmacology, religion or psychology.  Those disciplines bring to the study  their individual tool bags of studied and documented structures and processes that can be applied to similar traits found in parapsychological events.  My point is that biological processes can also shine some new light on examples of PK, telepathy or precognition.  It would be very enlightening to thoughtfully apply an evolutionary psychology perspective to anomalous cognition events.

I believe anomalous cognition occurs, that ESP is happening.  I am not here to debunk or explain away parapsychological phenomenon.  I do want to understand it better,  and examining some of the strange events with the light of biological processes can be very helpful.  For example, when the mind disassociates, and local sensory and memory data is not longer getting the job done, PSI data becomes much more valuable and will be perceived.  Other mental processes also occur, these are evolved adaptations that occur along side the increased perception of PSI data, and because they are both unusual, and are occurring at the same time, they are commonly thought of as one thing.    Experientially, because the weird event has no other associations (that's why we say its weird) then in the mind all the stuff happening gets lumped together.  Unfortunately, when I go to examine the processes involved in the PSI perception it gets all mixed together with the dissociation processes of the brain, and that is a problem.  I want to see the PSI process more clearly, and to do that, I need to see the basic biological, natural selection processes of the human mind more clearly.

My overall goal is answer the big questions, but I am happy if I simply get some discussion going regarding what Natural Selection can tell us about how PSI works.  I am not a trained biologist so I am happy to hear from anyone if my ideas about Natural Selection are wrong.  The statements I make about biological processes are very simple and basic biology 101 stuff, not controversial.  The basic rules of Natural selection are simple.  The process of natural selection needs 1) Gene heritability, 2) Reproduction that passes on genes, and 3) Gene variability.

Your experiences are mediated by your physical parts, and those physical parts with their sensory structures got here via natural selection.  It is known that there are psychological processes that you are born with, that are built into your DNA such as the ability to use language or walking.  One such evolved trait in humans is a mental world where you create a virtual simulation of life.  This allows you to make plans, to remember events, to solve problems and practice real-world activities in a virtual setting.  The process of natural selection also takes place in this virtual world.  The mind is constantly taking in new pieces of information and testing them against problems that you can expect to encounter.  This seems to be the primary evolved function of dreaming.  Because we have these adapted structures, just like our physical adaptations, our mental adaptations also have a structure in place through learning.  Your mental landscape is not a tabula rasa when you enter it every time, there are default frameworks in place to work with, just as your hands and fingers are there when you wake up each day. 

Another built in brain trait is self-identification.  For obvious survival reasons, its useful to be able to identify what in your sensory environment is you and what is not you.  The brain is constantly filtering for this.  It mainly uses local incoming sensory data and compares it with stored identity info.  This is why you often hear people describe how sensory deprivation or drug induced brain changes also make them feel "expanded" or disassociated from their normal identification of self.  Strong self-identity is correlated to environmental stability. 

As humans have evolved a social environment along with their material one, many brain adaptations have developed along with it.  We seem to have built in mental processes for identifying other entities, such as our specialized brain functions for perceiving faces.  We have evolved a reflex to anthropomorphize, just like we evolved a reflex to self identify, its a built-in, default setting for our mind.  Its easy to see how adapting strong social skills would benefit an organism's reproductive potential.  Again, it makes sense that a basic perceptual structure exists in our minds, in our brains, to allow us to quickly identify a set of environmental stimuli as a person, and work from there.  As much as I dislike the use of the simplified model "human brain is like a computer", it does make sense that using basic frameworks, as is done in computer virtualization software, would make sense for mind processing as well.  It's a good example of convergent evolution.

These are just two mental processes that shed some light on some parapsychological phenomena.  There seems to be default experiential frameworks the mind uses to form experience, and they are in basic framework shared as humans, just as our environment that shapes them is shared, but are individualized by individual experience.  Jung's archetypes can be seen as evolved conceptual structures.  The "others" that Jacques Vallee discusses in his book Dimensions are probably basic mind frameworks, default settings for "other" that the normal waking mind use as a basic framework of perception.  This basic framework has evolved along with people's social environment.  As the range variety of what makes up "other entity" has expanded, the default setting in the brain has had to regress to include the new variety.  When some disassociating event occurs, when things can't "make sense", the mind defaults back to the most basic framework, and people see little gray people, or floating bodies, or religious icons.  Now these default perceptual entities may start providing PSI information, just like people in my dreams tell me how to fly, the default mental environment will take information and try it out.  Sometimes the information available to be worked into dreams or dissociated states is PSI information.

It is logical to assume that solutions to problems are more likely to be found if a basic framework is presented to consciousness, instead of no experience of anything.   We can say dreamers do better than non-dreamers just like we understand memory priming improves performance, so we would expect human minds with a basic virtual landscape to survive better than those without.  Priming exists.  Dreams exist. 

So by examining paranormal phenomenon within the constraints of biology/natural selection we can perhaps more clearly discern what is happening in some disassociative events.  My point here is that the experience of entities, such as aliens or ghosts or saints, can be separated from anomalous cognition for study.  And if you add in, from my previous blog, the requirement that PSI be capricious and unavailable for intentional use, then it may be true that PSI events are biologically programmed to be connected with associative events to make sure they stay out of reach of conscious application.  If that is the case, we would do well to look for PSI correlations in behaviors that are not consciously controlled such as autonomic events.  Fortunately, that is exactly the direction much of parapsychological research is going.