Michael Persinger on No More Secrets

Does Time Slow Down During a Crisis?

David Eagleman, an Assistant Professor of neuroscience and psychology at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas recently reported on experiments of his team that showed that despite what folks commonly experience, time does not slow down during a crisis. Nor does brain processing speed up, so that time seems to slow down. What their research shows is that during a crisis, such as a NDE, often "the part of the brain called the amygdale becomes more active, and lays down extra sets of memories that go along with the actual events." So when you play the event back in your memory, you recall time slowing down, though that is not what happened.

Let’s consider another common part of a Near Death Experience, the life review. People having a NDE often report a replaying of their whole life as part of the experience. I do not want to take away from the spiritual aspect of the NDE, that is an essential part of my life. But I think a life review would be explained as a logical part of how consciousness works during a life threatening crisis, especially if we view consciousness as part of the DNA's adaptability. In an earlier blog I discussed how natural selection would need to limit PSI ability. The link is here http://rhineonline.blogspot.com/search/label/Evolutionary%20advantage.

My experiences and study of Remote Viewing, and other PSI events, has led me to believe that PSI is part of the normal processing of information that constitutes consciousness. Dr. Jim Carpenter's "First Sight" model of PSI, and Dr. Christine Hardy's exploration of Semantic Constellations both describe " pre-experiential mental processes by which the mind structures all its experiences and commences all its actions", as Dr. Carpenter notes. I noticed, as I look at the mind as an evolved tool of genes, shaped by and tailored for the process of natural selection, that we can see the process of consciousness conforming also to the process of natural selection. This process requires three things, genetic variation, inheritance, and differential fitness. Consciousness provides these three things. Your thoughts, beliefs, ideas and knowledge vary and change over time, the raw materials in your brain progress and grow. Likewise, these things remain inheritable from situation to situation you find yourself in over time, that is what memory is. But it is existence of differential fitness in mental process that shows just how great thinking is as a tool evolved over time. With mental processes, the range of adaptability is vastly increased in the individual. Also, the range of solutions to problems is beyond just conscious problem solving. Research shows that subliminally, the brain is gathering and processing information, and solutions to problems can spontaneously pop into your consciousness without conscious effort. As you experience, the vast majority of what you do is initiated and carried out without your considered effort, because your mind is processing multiple systems of information constantly, subconsciously.

But when you encounter a new situation, the brain scrambles to adapt to the novel environmental factor it needs to deal with. It does this by trying known solutions to similar events, and if that does not work, it goes into automatic, instinctual and "dis-associated" mode as it rapidly tries to find a way to process the new information. Getting back to NDEs, people who have had them commonly report they recall their minds experiencing multiple thought lines at once, like those reported by Albert Heim who recounted his own brush with death during a fall. It is also in these crisis moments that PSI events occur, as all available data from the mind is accessed to adapt to the potentially life ending event. If the material for thought and consciousness is being processed to insure survival, then could the "life review" be a memory data dump, a last chance attempt to access all the stored experiences of the individual, making it available for the conscious and especially the subconscious to use to come up with a last second save? Could the sense of "linear time" of the life review be, like the recalled experience of time slowing down during crisis, simply be the memory's way of organizing the entire life data file when it’s recalled later? Can you recall your life any other way?

Again, I am not saying that all of an NDE is just biological processes. But the life review fits right in with an understanding of how consciousness works. It is that same understanding of the mind processes that help explain where PSI fits in, and helps me understand the dynamics involved in Remote Viewing.
-- Benton Bogle

Mitch Horowitz Visits the Rhine Research Center

On Friday, April 8th, the Rhine Research Center was honored to host a presentation by renowned author, publisher, and speaker, Mitch Hororitz.

Mitch’s recent book, Occult America , is highly acclaimed and received the 2010 PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Award for literary excellence. Mitch is editor-in-chief at Tarcher/Penguin in New york, His credits include innumerable speaking engagements and interviews on such programs as CBS Sunday Morning and Dateline NBC. He has written articles in several well respected newspapers and magazines including the Washington Post and U.S. News and World Report.

Earlier in the day on Friday, Mitch was interviewed by Frank Stasio on NPR in Chapel Hill. During this time, several of us at the Rhine gathered at a local restaurant where we were to meet him for lunch after he finished..

Having never seen a picture of him, I expected an austere older man, who would be rather stuffy and standoffish. So you can imagine my surprise when Mitch arrived with a bounce in his step and a boyish smile on his face. He introduced himself to all of us in an engaging and particularly unassuming manner which immediately made us all feel comfortable.

This is not to say that he is not a serious or scholarly person, but he presents his ideas in such a way that they are not only understandable but fascinating. He briefly described some of the topics that he would be covering later that evening , everything from Ouija Boards and seances, to Abraham Lincoln, the Freemason Society, and recent Supreme Court decisions to uphold various religious practices.

The lunch hour went by quickly, and I was now really looking forward to the evening program. And Mitch did not disappoint. To a large group of people, he spoke for 90 minutes, nonstop, while the crowd sat mesmerized (pun intended) by his well-researched chronicle of how occult practices sprung up in America, and had an impact not only on religion and spirituality, but also on the social conscience and political movements of the times, right up to the present.

Mitch explained that the term “occult” often has negative connotations and is assumed to be associated either with some form of devil worship or else with ridiculous superstition. His definition, however, is more specifically used to describe the many religious and spiritual groups that came about during the Renaissance and had their roots in the ancient mysteries of Greece, Rome, and Egypt.

On the lighter side, he described how his interest in the occult was first sparked when he was a young child. While at a diner with his “grown-up” family members, he said he became bored., and wandered to the front of the restaurant where there was a variety of novelty and gum machines. One of them, dispensed horoscopes in small plastic tubes which fascinated him,. In purchasing one, he discovered that his horoscope said that he would receive a letter!

Now being only nine years old, and never receiving any mail whatsoever., he was intrigued. And the next day, he did get a letter! ----- No matter that it was only from the local library telling him he had an overdue book! And so began a lifelong passion.

Occult America is a fascinating read and is so detailed that it would be impossible to outline it in these few short paragraphs, but it tells of the way these various spiritual religions sprang up and were allowed to flourish in America as they would be no where else. It describes how they wound their way into our society and had vast influence on our culture and history;. It seems that people from time immemorial have searched for meaning in their lives, and wondered if there was not something greater than themselves that they personally could connect with.

Now, as I read this book , I recognize that these colonies of people were actually the forefathers of what we are doing today at the Rhine. Of course the Rhine is in no way a religious organization, but a rigorous scientific organization. Still, we too are working to discover if there is something bigger than ourselves, be it God, some energy field, or a collective unconscious, that we can access. We work on the premise that the mind is capable of far more than was originally believed, that mind over matter is a possibility. While we now have the advantage of science and technology that those before us did not, our goal is the same, to give to all men (and women!) the ability to have a greater understanding of their capabilities, and to demystify the unknown.


Mitch’s interview at NPR can be heard at http://wunc.org/tsot/archive/Occult_America.mp3/view
Mitch Horowitz website http://www.mitchhorowitz.com/