Ingo Swann
20Jan96
* * *
A more expansive treatment of this topic will be rendered in a
forthcoming mini-essay entitled "Remote Viewing and Skeptics
of the Twentieth Century."
It should be stated that this topic is fairly complex. It involves
much more than the very tiny minority who opine that our sentient
species --does not-- possess superpowers of bio-mind --- such
as intuition, telepathy, remote viewing and various forms of creativity
and "higher-mind" functioning.
Earlier psychical researchers and parapsychologists have sometimes
inadequately addressed this topic in brief papers. But no lengthy
examination has ever appeared.
During the mid-1970s, however, one of the agencies of the intelligence
community requested a lengthy examination. I was involved with
a number of professional consultants in its preparation and the
report was duly produced under the working title "Social
Resistance to Psi."
* * *
Three of the major observations of the report established the
following:
Combining these three observations results in a fourth: that doubt
is relative to social enclaves and is thus only transitory against
larger issues that remain permanent within the direct experiential
thresholds of our species.
Reducing these four observations to a possibly crude level, skeptics
and debunkers come and go --- but the experiencing thresholds
of the species remain the same. The experiencing thresholds are
therefore perpetual. Skepticism that advocates doubt regarding
something perpetual is relevant only to the transitory intellectual
boundaries within which it has arisen.
* * *
As an apt illustration of the above, Albert Einstein introduced
his special theory of relativity in 1905 while he was still a
student and working in the patent office in Switzerland. The skeptical
responses regarding the theory, and him as a scientist and man,
were not only noisy but exceedingly --voluminous.--
By 1925, historians appraised that the Einstein "debate"
had accumulated the largest printed paper volume ever.
When the special theory was proven correct between 1927 and 1929,
it was shown that relativity was perpetual --- naturally existing
and true. The skeptical and debunking responses were shown as
transitory, however ardent and voluminous they had been. None
of the names of Einstein's skeptics are remembered. And this is
the ignominious fate of most skeptics --- because the times and
tides of discovery march on and forget they existed.
* * *
Some of you who chance to read this may wish to consider the existence
of our species superpowers of bio-mind merely as theoretical.
Fair enough.
But an equally fair appraisal shows that the superpowers in different
formats have manifested throughout our species from time immemorial,
regardless of culture.
What --has-- differed is how they have been intellectually and
socially treated and dealt with in terms of tolerance and intolerance,
in terms of acceptance or rejection. As will be discussed in a
later paper, the intolerance and rejection has ranged along a
spectrum from genocide, extermination, and anti-psychic mind-programming
to lesser forms of alienation such as media ridicule and Machiavellian
debunking.
* * *
The sciences and academe of the modern West have never moved full-force
behind researching the superpowers. It has even been stated in
the past, especially by many noted scientists, that the superpowers
are not worthy of scientific interest.
So when modern skeptics protest, it is not really possible to
isolate and identify what they are protesting about. That our
species --does-- possess superpowers of bio-mind can't really
be doubted. Even if only temporarily so, such superpowers often
appear in naive children for goodness' sake, and often spontaneously
appear and disappear in so-called "normal" adults.
The actual issue, then, is the real extent of human sentiency,
the actually existing rudiment faculties of the superpowers within
our genetic species.
If this is accepted as the virtual reality issue, then skepticism
and debunking regarding it become sub-issues attached not to the
virtual reality itself, but to varieties of antagonistic hearsay
that infect many intellectualisms. It is this antagonistic hearsay
which accounts for social resistance to our species' superpowers
of bio-mind.
* * *
Western skepticism of the modern period thus utilizes hearsay
before the facts of investigation and research. For example, "there
--must-- be some other normal explanation." And this falls
more within the range of emotional sentiments than logic and reason
based upon discovered fact.
I am also led to understand that this topic is of some interest
in the new discipline of the sociology of scientific knowledge
(SSK) which examines the treatment and engineering of knowledge
by social enclaves within science --and-- the social sub-set enclaves
appended to it as is the case with skeptics and debunkers.
* * *
What will serve as an objective and legitimate access point into
this complex topic is difficult to determine. In the first instance,
though, it appears that there are confusions regarding basic terminology.
The term "skeptic" is taken from a Greek word meaning
"thoughtful; to look, to consider in the context of having
a mind open enough to do so."
"Skepticism" is defined as the method of suspending
judgment, systematic doubt, or criticism until something can be
decided upon based upon identifiable facts. Any area which is
neither proven nor disproved falls into this category.
* * *
In their accepted academic sense, these definitions prevailed
until about 1890, at least in philosophy and science, and are
still given in most dictionaries.
During the early twentieth century, however, both terms in popular
usage took on meanings having to do with --opposition-- to something.
The contexts of having an open mind and suspending judgement until
facts are ascertained were therefore abrogated in popular usage.
A "skeptic" and his or her "skepticism" were
thereafter assumed to mean "opposed" or "opposition."
The phrase "I am a skeptic" was then taken to mean "I
don't believe it exists, or is true, or is possible."
* * *
The verb "debunk" means "to expose the sham of
falseness of something." Debunking is therefore a valuable
function and always has been --- in that certain specimens of
our species like to engineer sham and falseness in order to benefit
from them.
Implicit in the term, however, is the distinction between (1)
exposing --after the fact of examination, and (2) accusing --before
the fact. In this double sense, the term can take on Machiavellian
efficiency.
"Machiavellianism" refers to Machiavelli's political
theory that politics is amoral and that any means however unscrupulous
can justifiably be used in achieving political power or purposes.â
The introduction of Machiavellianism into skepticism and debunking
runs counter to their original ethical function and sets up lachrymose
contexts so labyrinthine that very few can negotiate them. Indeed,
Machiavellianism can only be effective provided the labyrinthine
contexts cannot be unravelled.
As but one example of Machiavellian debunking, though, I refer
the truly interested to the paper entitled "Science Versus
Showmanship: A History of the Randi Hoax" by Michael A. Thalbourne
just published in The Journal of the American Society for Psychical
Research (Oct. 1995, Vol.89, No. 4).
* * *
The largest possible background issue regarding skeptics and debunkers
of remote viewing is whether our species possesses superpowers
of mind --- of which remote viewing would be just one. Unless
consideration is elevated up and into the contexts of this larger
background issue no amount of lesser argumentation will suffice
to get anyone anywhere.
The second larger background issue concerns the fact that there
is nothing essentially wrong with researching the superpowers,
both to confirm their existence or not, and if confirmed to identify
their particular functions of mind.
--Resistance-- to such research --before-- the facts of the superpowers
can be ascertained is therefore puzzling.
The only possible explanation must involve not discoverable facts
which could speak for themselves but --motives and agendas.--
Most of us recognize that this is the usual case regarding most
human confusions --- assuming that mere stupidity or lack of knowledge
are not involved as the first instance. But the introduction of
motives and agendas further complicates this particular situation
already lamentably labyrinthine in its overall character.
* * *
The etymological history of the term "skepticism" shows
that it has undergone several definition formats and social applications
since it was first coined in ancient Greece --- down until today
when it is almost exclusively taken as referring to someone opposed
to the "paranormal" and anything resembling them.
During the Renaissance period, when the schism between science
and religion started up, skepticism was largely taken as referring
to "doubt concerning basic religious principles" such
as immortality, providence, revelation, the existence of the soul,
etc. This is to say that --skepticism-- was then used almost as
a synonym for anti-religion on behalf of sequestering the evolving
sciences from it.
During the nineteenth century, elements of early psychical research
did deal with spiritualism --- that enormous cultural phenomenon
having to do with scientifically analyzing communications between
the living and the dead. So-called "scientific skeptics"
objected to this type of research because they feared a reintroduction
of religious-type phenomena into science proper.
* * *
This fear has continued to overwhelm more accurate estimations
of what the whole of early psychical research involved. An analysis
of all published psychical research materials clearly shows that
spiritualistic-type research reports account for only about one-tenth
between 1880 and 1910. The remaining 90 per cent of the materials
was focussed on elements having to do with powers and superpowers
of the human biological mind.
At best, then, anti-religious skeptics who wish (as they still
do today) to insulate science from religion can object to only
about one-tenth of the whole of psychical research --- while --psychical--
research, by definition, came to an end during World War I.
* * *
When it became possible during the twentieth century to examine
elements and attributes of the human mind of and in themselves,
it would seem that this particular skeptical format was no longer
applicable regarding the mapping of the human powers of mind of
and in themselves. At least the principal and vividly stated goal
of the modern sciences was to map --everything-- of and in itself.
* * *
Discussing and arguing the pro and con --mapping-- of the powers
and superpowers of mind has been going on for over 140 years ---
even though most of the pro and con polemics are not only turgid
and redundant but are based in past concepts which have been obsolete
since at least the end of World War I.
It is much more fruitful to look at the social landscapes within
which the discussions and arguing took place. Some of those earlier
landscapes, especially science-centered ones, accepted as valid
the concept of "anti-psychic skepticism" --- even though
the term "psychic" has never achieved a stable or concrete
definition.
But if the basic definition of skepticism is accepted in its correct
meaning --- "open to consideration and examination"
--- then the phrase "anti-psychic skeptic" is an oxymoron.
The ethical, and even logical goal of the true skeptic is to resolve
doubt by identifying facts, not to reinforce doubt in the absence
of discovered facts --- and certainly not to underwrite Machiavellian
debunking tactics to prevent the needed research.
True skepticism does not --begin-- by being anti- anything. The
processes of open consideration and examination (i.e., research)
will ultimately establish whether something exists or not.
There is hardly no other way via which doubt, belief, or confusions
between them can be resolved on behalf of acquiring increases
in knowledge. And this is especially true as regards the true
extent of human sentiency --- for sentient beings have an inalienable
bio-mind right to know of the true extent of their sentiency.
* * *
To round out this position paper, even a cursory examination of
the "conflict" between the existence of our species
superpowers and the existence of skepticism regarding them shows
these two factors as different and separate issues.
In the first instance, if the superpowers didn't manifest throughout
our species then skeptical resistance to them --would not-- come
into existence either. Nothing becomes resisted unless it is there
to be resisted. It is because the superpowers do manifest that
resistance to them is engineered into visibility.
Whether the superpowers manifest in formats involving Siberian
shamans, Greek or Egyptian clairvoyants, Maya far-seeing, or contemporary
remote viewing as an espionage tool, none of the formats would
be possible if their fundamental faculties were not part of our
species "equipment," so to speak. Phenomena along these
lines that recur regardless of culture and down and through each
human generation ought to be accepted as existing.
Modern skeptics, however, defined these faculties as abnormal,
illusion, mental derangement, or psychopathological in origin.
Mis-identified and prejudiced as such, the faculties were then
open to the assumed legitimacy of debunking.
But are these --modern-- definitions correct ones? And if correct,
how was the correctness established?
Well, it is open knowledge that the mainstream sciences and philosophies,
--by their own admission,-- have --not-- researched the superpowers
of bio-mind.
* * *
Based, then, on a near complete absence of researched information
regarding the superpowers, it is --necessary-- to inquire into
the nature of the information data bits an "anti-psychic"
skeptic is using as his or her intellectual processing grids.
If such a skeptic is utilizing the conventional definitions of
the modern mainstream sciences and philosophies --which have neither
considered nor researched-- the superpowers, then such a skeptic
is utilizing nothing at all except hearsay or prejudice based
on it. Clearly those who --have-- attempted to research the superpowers
know more about them than those who never have made the attempt
--- just as conventional modern scientists and philosophers have
not.
* * *
It is quite easy to show that the --topic-- of our species superpowers
of bio-mind has been bowdlerized or "bleeped" from the
lexicons of the modern sciences and philosophies. This leaves
experiencers of some element of the superpowers without a leg
to stand on --- leaves them helpless --- for there is no help
to be found within the social precincts which have bleeped the
superpowers to begin with. There is no organized, supportive social
structure to which the experiencers can appeal --- even to protect
their full rights as sentient human beings.
* * *
Here is the basis for a pogrom. A "pogrom" is defined
as "an organized massacre of helpless people." Such
a pogrom regarding "sensitives" took place during the
Inquisitions of the Middle Ages. Some historians estimate the
high body count at 9 million over a 300-year period. Ridicule
and defamation during modern times of sensitives and researchers
of the superpowers is a kind of pogrom, especially when supported
in the mainstream media.
It is interesting indeed why in our scientific times there should
be such a pogrom that victimizes our species superpowers of bio-mind
with its marvelous spectrum of sentiency. It may be that someone
somewhere doesn't want that marvelous spectrum to be identified
and DEVELOPED.
Comments, anyone?
(End)