A Slightly Different Take on "How PSI Works"

I am re-reading Rene Warcollier’s “Mind to Mind” as published by Hampton Roads, with a preface by Ingo Swann, no less. It’s a wonderful book I would recommend to anyone interested in parapsychology and the early studies of PSI. My point here is not to critique the book but instead to point out how frontier science forces its participants to be uncomfortably adaptable in their evolving understanding of what they are observing. There is certainly a great deal of data showing the phenomenon exists, and certainly variables that can be tweaked to improve or degrade PSI events in a lab setting, there is not a model that describes how it works that is accepted by the field, and can be used to explain why changes in variables cause changes in PSI performance.

Mr. Swann in his preface points out how Mr. Warcollier’s contemporaries in the Institute Métapsychique International explored with a model for how PSI worked that was different from their British or American counterparts. This American model was looking for some sort of communication between the conscious minds of the participants as though they were physically connected through some faint communications channel. The French model was looking for the transfer of information to occur between non-conscious aspects of the subjects. Its this idea that lead to the use of the term “Extra-sensory” perception in that there are sensory modalities other than the 5 we are familiar with.

Of course this idea of multiple consciousnesses is not new either, Freud made the idea famous generations ago. From my own experiences it appears that there exists in each of us other consciousnesses that are processing information too, as our waking ego-consciousness does, though perhaps not limited to the single focus our ego’s have to work with. This other consciousness seems to use some of our five senses to get information and may process that information through our brains using the same brain areas our conscious ego-mind does. The other consciousness(s) seem also to have other senses, modalities to process information, than our ego-minds do, and this is where the PSI information comes in.

Perhaps, as we go through our day, sensory information is coming in and utilized by our ego-mind and our other consciousness, and they both are processing that information for whatever function they use it for. As they are perhaps sharing brain areas to process information, it is here that some PSI data “leaks” over into our conscious minds. It may be that the data passing through the neurons are in a pattern that is utilized one way for the ego-mind and another way for the other consciousness. Its may be similar to the way some machines process numbers in hexadecimal and some in decimal, and there are parts of the hexadecimal that are recognizable by a decimal number reader but not all of it, so the decimal processer is getting only part of the data.

Since there would be more “leakage” if the two minds are processing the same data at the same time, that is why it helps in PSI testing to use “intent” to draw the attention of both consciousnesses to the same event. That is why PK and ESP data shows up more when the event is important, because both consciousnesses are attending to it and processing the event.

If you are curious about what things interest the other consciousness, just take a look at anecdotes about PSI events to figure that out. Go back and read Stacy Horn's recent book "Unbelievable" and examine the stories about what was effective in ESP research back in the early days of PSI lab work. It seems that the “other consciousness” is interested in emotion, relationship, novelty and life-changing events. I would suspect that adding more of these qualities to PSI research would be beneficial in increasing the occurrence of PSI. Re-reading Warcollier’s book and looking at other studies of paranormal events while keeping this other consciousness in consideration really shines a new light on one’s understanding of the PSI process. This slightly different take on “how PSI works” has evolved for me as I read over current studies, and reflect on the great wealth of research done in the past, such as those of Warcollier.
--Benton Bogle

Annual Convention of Parapsychologists was held in Paris in July 2010

The principal international scientific organization studying the nature of consciousness, the Parapsychological Association (PA), held its 53rd annual convention in Paris, France on July 22-25, 2010. Members of the PA who are engaged in the study of psychic (psi) experiences, including extrasensory perception (ESP) , psychokinesis (PK), psychic healing, precognition and survival of bodily death. Leading scientists and scholars from universities and laboratories around the world gathered to present and discuss their latest research findings on these sometimes controversial, but always fascinating, aspects of human consciousness.

Sally Rhine Feather, John Palmer, Sandra Shelton and Annette LePoris attended the conference. The event featured over 30 presentations on a variety of parapsychological topics. Sally Rhine Feather presented the results of a survey on psychokinesis conducted at the the Rhine Research Center by Dr. Feather and Dr. Christine Simmonds-Moore, a Research Associate at the Rhine Research Center.

Other presentations included historical and case studies of mediums, including a neuroimaging study of mediumistic trance, the effects of geomagnetic activity on psi, meditation and psychic functioning, anomalous mental phenomena studied in South America and Tibet, telephone telepathy, psychokinetic experiences, and the application of psi in archeology.
The convention’s keynote speaker was Paul Devereux, managing editor and co-founder of the peer-reviewed publication, Time & Mind - The Journal of Archaeology, Consciousness and Culture. A research associate at the Royal College of Art and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Devereux was a Senior Research Fellow with the International Consciousness Research Laboratories (ICRL) in Princeton for twelve years. He has written 27 books since 1979. His latest work, Sacred Geography, a look at ancient and traditional mindscapes, is due out in October 2010.
Other notable speakers included Russell Targ, a physicist and author who was a pioneer in the development of the laser and laser applications, and is best known in parapsychology for his pioneering research on "remote viewing," a form of ESP, sponsored by U.S. government intelligence agencies in the 1970s and 1980s. The winner of PA’s 2009 Career Award, Targ’s invited address was titled, Why I am absolutely convinced of the reality of psychic abilities, and why you should be, too. Stanley Krippner, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at Saybrook University, fellow of the American Psychological Association, and author of numerous articles and books on dreams, hypnosis, altered states of consciousness, led a workshop on psi and creativity. Sally Rhine Feather was the recipient of the PA's 2010 Outstanding Career Award.

The conference was hosted by the Institut Métapsychique International and held at Enclos Rey in Paris.

About the Parapsychological Association:

The Parapsychological Association is the international professional organization of scientists and scholars engaged in the study of consciousness-related experiences and phenomena known as 'psi'’ (or 'psychic') experiences. The primary objective of such studies is to achieve a scientific understanding of these experiences. The PA was first established in 1957, and has been an affiliated organization of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) since 1969. It provides an international forum for scholarly exchange through annual conferences, generally held in North America or in Europe, and through the publication of its Mindfield bulletin. There are approximately 300 PA members around the world.

Photos courtesy of Sandra Shelton

New Issue of Rhine Online!

We are excited about this summer 2010 issue of our Psi News Magazine. Our general focus is on complementary and alternative healing techniques. Psi and healing is a topic that arises frequently in discussions, talks, and workshops at the Rhine, and one of great interest to the community at large. In fact, one of our current research projects started by the late Dr. Steve Baumann, and continued by Dr. Bill Joines is a study of photon emission in bio-energy healers.

Alternative healing is directly linked to psi. In a 2001 paper, Daniel Benor, MD, uses the term “psi healing,” in fact, to describe various healing techniques. He says:This paper accepts the existence of psi healing (also called spiritual, mental and paranormal healing) to be an established fact. The author has found 152 published studies of healing (Benor 1990; Benor in press). More than half of these demonstrate significant effects. There is thus more research on healing than on all the other complementary therapies combined, with the exception of hypnosis and psychoneuroimmunology. Psi healing demonstrates that the mind of a healer can alter the conditions of organisms, including cells in vitro, bacteria, yeasts, plants, animals and humans. In addition, there is evidence that healers may influence water, crystallization of salt solutions and enzymes. Some of these studies show significant effects of healing at a distance.

In terms of popularity in the mainstream world, what Benor calls “psi healing” may be one of the rare examples where the believers are coming close to balancing out the skeptics. For example, according to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, approximately 38 percent of adults and approximately 12 percent of children in the United States were using some form of complementary or alternative medicine (CAM) as of 2007, and the figure is steadily rising. These therapies include yoga, tai chi, massage, meditation, Reiki, acupuncture, shamanism, etc.

In this issue, we hope to illuminate some of these healing techniques. Dr. Katherine MacDowell, respected author and the founder of Ocean Seminary College, gives an overview of shamanic practice and techniques, especially as related to her personal tradition. Additionally, Dagmar Ehling, licensed doctor of Oriental Medicine, gives an extensive overview of acupuncture, Chinese medicine, and their guiding principles. Reiki, an energy healing technique that originated in Japan, works with the same conceptual understanding as acupuncture, and from my experience as a Reiki Master Teacher, I give a brief introduction to Reiki in an interview.
Jane Katra, PhD a renowned healer from the northwest United States, shares two powerful stories with us. In one, she describes a distant healing experience with Russell Targ, one of our recent speakers and the founder of remote viewing in the United States. In the other, she describes an extraordinary afterlife visit from Dr. Elisabeth Targ, associated with healing and comforting at a distance. You will have to read for yourself to understand the uniqueness of these interactions.

Some of our most common therapeutic experiences are the healing interactions we have with animals. We include two powerful examples in this issue. Sally Rhine Feather, Executive Director of the Rhine Center, shares with us a miraculous story of a human, Anthony Swaney, healing a small kitten through an energy healing technique. In the reverse, my article titled “The Healing Power of Dolphins” discusses the powerful ways in which an animal species heals us.

Jack Hunter, the editor of Paranthropology: Journal of Anthropological Approaches to the Paranormal, shares with us a powerful commentary on anthropologists and their experiences during field work. If an anthropologist is fully immersed in a ritual, the intended results of that ritual are typically undeniably experienced. In this way, anthropologists may sometimes be our closest scientific link between the worlds of mainstream science and ancient practices (such as shamanism, energy healing, and the like).

Finally, we want to bring you closer to the current personalities and activities at the Rhine Research Center through a number of interviews:

Christine Simmonds-Moore, PhD, our visiting researcher, sheds light on her research, her interests, and her entrance into the world of parapsychology at a young age. Bob Gebelein, our featured volunteer this quarter, describes the work he does at the Rhine Center, his decision to move here to be closer to the Center, and his viewpoint about parapsychology and Harvard University.

Last but not least, we give an overview of the Rhine events from this spring and summer with an in-depth sample of two programs as experienced by Dave Roberts, managing editor of the Journal of Parapsychology, and an extensive interview with Joe McMoneagle, a recent popular speaker and workshop leader renowned for his acumen in remote viewing.

We hope you enjoy the issue. Please e-mail me at Jennifer@Rhine.org or my co-editor, Mark A. Schroll, PhD, at Mark@Rhine.org with any comments or suggestions for future issues, and do drop by the Rhine Center whenever you are in Durham, North Carolina.