Lively Teleconferences at the Rhine!

This is to alert everyone all over the world that we are bringing you more and more opportunities to join us via teleconference for very little expense! On Wednesday from 12-1pm EST we had a lively discussion with Jeffrey Mishlove calling in from Nevada to discuss his fascinating book The PK Man with a local group of discussants and nonlocal listeners.

As one listener wrote afterwards, "This was really so much fun to sit at my kitchen counter in Wilmington and hear you, Peggie, Marie, and Christine, et al. sharing ideas and experiences. Made me homesick, actually. The teleconferencing works beautifully and I hope to enjoy many more meetings."

Next teleconferenced program: Friday, 11/20th from 7:30-9pm EST will be Circling the Cosmos on a Dream, with Judy B. Gardiner --see website for more details.

"HAUNTED PEOPLE" POTENTIALLY EXPLAINED:

A NEUROBIOLOGICAL BASIS FOR EXTRAORDINARY PERCEPTIONS

Vienna, Virginia (October 25, 2009) - There may be a genuine brain-body foundation for extraordinary perceptions, according to research presented in Science & Consciousness Review. The investigation suggests that reports of sensing a presence, seeing an apparition, or feeling energy around a person or place may be related to the workings of the limbic system - the "emotional brain" - as well as a personality type that rapidly registers feelings.

As surveys consistently show that half of all Americans say they've had an extra-sensory experience - with nearly one-quarter stating they've actually seen or felt a ghost - anomalous perceptions are nothing to shrug off, according to one of the researchers, Marc Micozzi, MD, PhD, a physician and medical anthropologist. "People have had these experiences down the ages and across cultures," he comments. "They're quite universal. What we've documented is that there's a certain type of person most likely to experience them."

That person is environmentally sensitive, according to Michael Jawer, an environmental consultant and associate of Micozzi's with specialization in the condition known as Sick Building Syndrome. "Our findings show that anomalous perception parallels other forms of environmental sensitivity, such as having pronounced or longstanding allergies, migraine headache, chronic fatigue, chronic pain, irritable bowel, even synesthesia (overlapping senses). Women make up the vast majority of this sensitive population but there are other markers: being ambidextrous, for instance, or recalling a traumatic childhood. The more we look at the people who claim they're psychic, the more it seems there's a mix of nature and nurture that predisposes them."

Drawing from ample evidence in the field of psychoneuroimmunology, the researchers posit that brain and body are effectively unified -- and that highly sensitive people react more strongly than others to what they're feeling as well as to incoming environmental stimuli. This raises the possibility, Jawer and Micozzi assert, that subliminal feelings and other environmental nuances could be picked up by individuals who are sufficiently sensitive. A reputedly "haunted" place, therefore, could exhibit stimuli that register more with certain people and less with others.

"The whole field is ripe for study," remarks Micozzi. "We have the technology today to study emotion as it's processed in the brain - why not widen the scope to study how feelings are felt, and perceptions registered, in the rest of the body." Jawer agrees. "This subject matter needn't be beyond the pale of science. What is needed is to take seriously what highly sensitive people are telling us, and investigate the brain-body basis of what they say they're feeling."

Journal reference: Jawer M. A Neurobiology of Sensitivity? Sentience as the Foundation for Unusual Conscious Perception. Science and Consciousness Review, January 17, 2007 DOI:

http://sciconrev.org/2007/01/a-neurobiology-of-sensitivity-sentience-as-the-foundation-for-unusual-conscious-perception/

Taking a scientific approach to spooky

Sally Rhine Feather, of the Rhine Research Center, and lecturer Christine Simmonds-Moore pose Tuesday at the Forest at Duke, during “Scientific Excursions & Diversions,” a class presented by the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.
By Monica Chen
DURHAM — A boy with a lost dog leads his mother to it through his visions. A woman who wants to commit suicide gets a timely call from a friend hundreds of miles away. A gambler who, when “in the zone,” can somehow make the dice turn up any way he wants.

With just a few days to go before Halloween, some 120 senior citizens were treated to a presentation from the Rhine Research Center on extrasensory perception, psychokinesis and other topics in parapsychology, the scientific study of psychic abilities or of Psi, the psyche.

In between explanations of scientific methods used in documenting and testing paranormal phenomena, the experts on hand offered the audience information from the newest research.

For instance, there have been found precognitive physiological responses to emotional stimuli. In Great Britain, where lecturer Christine Simmonds-Moore is from, there have been studies of dreams where a “sender” would watch a clip and a “receiver” in a chamber that induces a dream-like state would describe the images in their minds.

There have also been studies of the body’s physiological response to emotional stimuli, indicating that some people have a sort of precognitive anticipation of trauma.

“Whatever the Psi mechanism,” said Sally Rhine Feather, executive director of the Rhine Center, “it’s probably built in as a warning.”

Feather is the daughter of Joseph Rhine, founder of the Duke University parapsychology lab that eventually became the Rhine Center, located at 2741 Campus Walk Ave.

Feather has been involved in the research since she was young, helping her father out in the lab and overseeing experiments like with the Zener cards, in which one participant looks at the card and the other participant has to guess what’s on it.

“It indicates that there may be more consciousness to the brain than chemicals,” Feather said of parapsychology. “All the major religions believe there is something more than the body. All cultures have talked about these things, but we take a scientific approach to prove them.”

The lecture was held by the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, which was founded by Duke Continuing Education and the Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development to organize lectures, social events and other offerings for seniors.

Anthony Waraksa, host of the Symposia Program lectures, said they invited Feather and Simmonds-Moore because the talk would be timely and fun for Halloween. Waraksa said the scientific rigor of the studies was important.

“They go where humans don’t usually go,” Waraksa said. “They’re not afraid to say, ‘Let’s go check it out.’ ”

The most intriguing part of the lecture, to him, was precognition.

“Darwin has said we evolve to take advantage of our environment,” he said. “If some people have precognition, then it would be a great advantage.”