TOPICS DISCUSSED IN PART ONE:
1. INTRODUCTORY
2. CAN IT BE TRAINED?
3. THE NEW SCIENTIFIC DEVELOPMENT
4. WORD TRAPS
5. THE CONVENTIONAL TERM “TELEPATHY” DISSECTED
AND EXAMINED
6. MOVING TELEPATHY BEYOND ITS OLD CONCEPTS
7. MIND?
8. THOUGHT – THE NATURE OF?
9. THE CONCEPT OF TELE – PATHY ENLARGED
10. THE TELEPATHIC-EMPATHIC “BOBO” EVENT
11. INTELLECTUAL vs ORGANIC TELEPATHY
1. INTRODUCTORY
The bulk of this essay was in draft form during 1999,
at which time I hesitated to introduce it into this Website.
There were three or four reasons for this hesitation back then – one
of which was that there had been no significant advance or development
about telepathy in more than sixty years.
In the absence of such advances anyone might make suggestions this
way or that. But without some new development that might give new
meaning or importance,
one might only be talking in circles based in old, outworn concepts.
*
However, a major scientific development has recently
taken place, a development that already has triggered renewed interest
in the
bigger picture possibilities
of, shall we say, applied telepathy.
Before discussing that particular development, however, it needs
to be established that telepathy has had a bigger picture all along,
one that is, if nothing
else, quite amusing.
Almost everyone is at least somewhat familiar with popularized
concepts of telepathy, and perhaps also knowledgeable about very
many parapsychological
experiments conducted here and there to see if telepathy actually
exists, and
if so, to what degree it does.
Evidence garnered from such decades long experiments more or less
confirms that telepathy does exist, but does not robustly manifest
itself too well in
formal laboratory test conditions and situations.
Instead, the best examples of its robust existence come from informal
real-life situations, and then usually reported (if at all) in
anecdotal form.
So the mixture of formal experiments and anecdotal reports have
long represented the scenario with respect to what is known and
not known
about telepathy – well,
let us say instead, the scenario that is publicly available.
*
But there is ANOTHER element at work within this scenario,
an element that became clear piece by piece during this author’s long participation in
remote viewing research at Stanford Research Institute – research sponsored
and funded for about twenty years by our nation’s most important
intelligence agencies.
To briefly and bluntly sum up this element, it is generally understood
that if too much efficient telepathy would be developed, then SECRECY
of all kinds
would be extremely difficult to maintain.
Large sectors of human activity depend on the functional value
of secrecy, and no one wants the minds of those who design and
maintain
it to be accessible
via telepathy.
There are many types of secrecy, of course: military, diplomatic,
governmental, industrial, economic, social, and criminal - down
to and including
individual shysters, scammers, liars, misleaders, scumbags, hoodwinkers,
and fakers
who would rather not have their thoughts and intentions easily “read” by
telepathic means.
So, from times biblical onward, THIS reluctance has constituted
the bigger picture of what we call telepathy – a.k.a. mind reading.
*
While telepathy may engage mere research interests,
and serve as inspiration for science fictions, it is possible to
think that
actual and potentially efficient
telepathy is feared, detested, hated in the real world of human
activities, and must not be allowed to be developed as such.
One might like to have telepathy for oneself, but would rather
OTHERS not similarly have it.
For clarity, one might like to read the minds of others; but one
might not like to have one’s own mind equally available to others.
Right? Right!
*
Of course, authorities cannot squash telepathy when
it spontaneously manifests among Earth’s populations. But organized activities designed to research
and possibly develop various forms of its functioning CAN be squashed via various
subtle ways and intrigues – and, to this author’s knowledge,
ARE squashed.
With its sporadic and often minimal funding, parapsychology research
included various kinds of so-called “paranormal” phenomena
that sometimes included telepathy.
But behind the scenes of such research were narrowed eyes always
alert on behalf of ensuring that telepathy research did not, in
any long-term sense, benefit
from funding, including funding from private sources.
Behind these already covert scenes, such narrow eyes also covertly
and carefully scrutinized ALL literature about telepathy, having,
if nothing else, access
to media means to debunk and ridicule whatever and whoever was
involved.
Secrecy MUST be maintainable – even in the face of the fact that
some developed forms of it might be HELPFUL in detecting, preventing,
and defeating
certain dismal and egregious activities.
*
About the only instances in which telepathy is minimally
tolerated involve “psychic
detectives” some of whom DO assist in helping police to solve
crimes, often in astonishing ways.
To avoid the telepathic issues involved, the psychic detectives
are referred to merely as “psychics,” “seers,” or “clairvoyants,” even
though such clairvoyants often detect the thoughts, intentions, and
motives of the criminals involved.
You see, clairvoyants are supposed to “see” things, as contrasted
to “reading thoughts, intentions, and motives,” these four
words constituting the official parapsychological definition of TELEPATHY
*
As mentioned above, important developments with respect
to telepathy have recently taken place.
After so many decades during which telepathy was socio-scientifically
homeless, these developments more than suggest that telepathic
research is now here to
stay, albeit most probably in highly secret circumstances.
For a bit of necessary background, a full part of scientific objections
to telepathy was (1) that there were no mind-brain mechanisms that
could account
for direct, mental mind-to-mind exchanges of information, especially
of the long-distance kind; and (2) that no known medium existed
through which the
mental information could directly be transmitted.
Doubly damned in this way, it was thus scientifically held that
telepathy was impossible, even though early psychical and parapsychological
researchers had
provided carefully controlled cumulative evidence that it was not
impossible.
However, it WAS possible for the materialist sciences to dismiss
such evidence, because science dismissed the whole of psychical
and parapsychological research
anyway.
*
There things stood (as they had stood for many decades),
backed up by the official conviction - plus more than a little bit
of
desperate
hope, that such mechanisms
would never be discovered.
For clarity, minds should not be able directly to “read” each
other especially concerning secrets. And (as this author was sometimes
asked) if
one could not be confident of such then what COULD one be confident
of. The secrecy games would never be the same.
2. CAN “IT” BE
TRAINED?
Through the years this author listened to people expressing
the usual conventional objections to telepathy as the ruination of
secrecy,
one was quite surprised
that numbers of them wondered, with worried eyes and in lowered
voices, if “IT” could
ever be trained.
Almost everyone of course assumed that IT could not be trained,
on the evidence that IT never had demonstrated itself amenable
to training.
But there was (and still is) the worrisome possibility that someone
(another nation, for example) would somehow engineer such a breakthrough – placing
other non-telepathic nations at some serious disadvantage.
“IT” was always referred to as an “it,” mostly,
it seems, because few dared verbally to link telepathy with training,
this possibility
a greater horror than the mere existence of telepathy itself.
In the sense of this wonderment, “training” implied
elevating IT to a higher predictable functional workability than
what was visible
as a result
of carefully controlled experiments whose results did NOT imply
much of anything along such lines.
*
It is of course possible to assume that one can’t train IT if one doesn’t
know what IT is, and which assumption is a great relief when it comes
to imagining what might happen if IT was somehow amenable to training.
Such assumptions are even eager to overlook (ignore) how ANYTHING
gets trained.
Briefly speaking, anything that involves perceptions and motor
cortex responses is trainable because the associated perceptions
and motor
cortex responses
CAN be trained (i.e., developed, activated, enhanced, expanded,
etc.).
After all, perceptions and motor cortex responses ARE known to
support various kinds of ITs – sports, piano playing, etc., and if such
are expanded via training then the IT-thing has more to work with,
so to speak.
Indeed, even natural “gifts” benefit from the training
of their associated perceptions and motor responsiveness.
In other words, one does not directly train an IT itself, but whatever
perceptions and motor responses are involved can undergo training.
*
It might be necessary, of course, to find out WHAT
perceptions and motor responses are ACTUALLY involved – and there is usually
a great deal of confusion in this respect.
One source of such confusions is that most tend to like the IDEAS
about something they have managed to come in possession of – and when
an idea IS liked, there is usually some reluctance to discover, for
example,
that it is not entirely
workable, or is not consistent with certain facts.
Generally speaking, ideas are liked much more than are facts, and
many ideas can get along quite well without them, thank you very
much.
So what usually happens along these lines is that people try to
train their IDEAS about something – especially when the IT involved remains, as it
is often said, “elusive.”
And telepathy is among the most elusive of the elusive – so much
so that even whatever perceptions and motor responses are involved
are also elusive.
*
However, it has recently turned out that the IT is
now not as elusive as it has been, because hard scientific evidence
for the actual
existence of IT is
now in hand, more or less anyway.
3. THE NEW SCIENTIFIC DEVELOPMENT
In an effort to try to keep up with what is going
on in science, this author subscribes to a few science magazines
that review
and synopsize new scientific
activities and events.
One of these sources is SCIENCE NEWS: THE WEEKLY NEWSMAGAZINE
OF SCIENCE.
In its April 30, 2005 issue (Vol. 167, No. 18) appeared an article
entitled “Goal-Oriented
Brain Cells – Neurons may track action as a prelude to empathy.”
The first paragraph reads: “Neuroscientists in Italy listened in on monkeys’ brain
cells that they say may lie at the root of empathy, the ability to discern
others’ thoughts and intentions.”
This author’s eyes bugged out upon scanning this first paragraph – because “sensing
the thoughts and intentions of others” is the formal definition
not of EMPATHY but of TELEPATHY.
*
Back in 1996 or thereabouts, some neuroscientists
inadvertently came across a curious cluster of cells while examining
the premotor
cortex
of one or
more Macaque monkeys. Said premotor cortex is thought to be the
brain area involved
with “planning movements.”
It was observed that the cluster of cells fired not only when the
monkey performed an action, but also fired when the monkey merely
saw another monkey perform
the same action.
The cells were named MIRROR NEURONS because they “reflect” the
actions that monkeys observe in other monkeys.
The Italian scientists built on this earlier work “by examining
how certain mirror cells respond to the intention behind the action.”
The SCIENCE NEWS article closed with “Whether people have the same kinds
of mirror neurons as monkeys do … remains unknown.”
Even so, humans and monkeys are closely related genetically. Some
say that humans descended from them, or at least point up that
such are
our “cousins” not
yet come down from trees.
*
It’s worth pointing up here that no one seems to know exactly what kinds
of neurons the human brain actually has. For example, on the cover of the April
2004 issue of America’s premier science journal, the venerable SCIENTIFIC
AMERICAN, drew attention to that issue’s lead write-up by asking: “HAS
SCIENCE MISSED HALF THE BRAIN? NEGLECTED CELLS HOLD KEYS TO THOUGHT
AND LEARNING.”
“
Neglected brain cells?” It would seem that no cells of the brain, as
important as it is, should be “neglected.” Presumably, possibly,
certainly, human mirror neurons are (were) among the neglected cells – cells
that were not looked for because science had thought, even boasted,
that telepathy was impossible? (Do remember, as earlier noted, that
macaque
mirror neurons
were discovered by some incidental chance.)
Anyhow, we don’t know what half of our brains do, but the neglected
half might hold some surprises when it ceases to be neglected.
*
As a brief aside, during his twenty-plus years in
parapsychology and etc., this author discovered, with some few exceptions,
that
most parapsychologists
and etc. were not interested in brains, much less their cells.
They WERE interested in “paranormal” phenomena, but only
if such phenomena were amenable to experiment-testing of the kinds
that yielded
statistical
evidence.
For example, testing for telepathy by transmitting intellectual “targets” composed
of graphic images, colors, numbers, Zener card images, kooky surrealistic
assemblages, etc.
The same intellectual targets were also used to test for clairvoyance,
so if a given subject was successful it could not conclusively
be stated whether
success occurred via telepathy or clairvoyance, both conveyances
usually yielding low statistical averages anyhow.
*
It could have been wondered if one’s telepathic neurons or faculties,
powers or whatever, were interested in Zener card images, or colors, or target
assemblages that were worse than the worst surrealistic art, so much so that
they didn’t make sense.
It could have been noticed that dynamic telepathic occurrences
among the raw public mostly involved something IMPORTANT, something
that
transcended mere
intellectual targets, something often consisting of life or death
events.
This was sometimes acknowledged in some parapsychology labs. But
no one knew how to introduce a real life or death situation into
experimental testing.
It might not be too much to think (hypothetically, of course) that
dynamic telepathy, when it spontaneously occurs amongst the raw
public, might belong
to, well, something like a life force – rather than to intellectualizing
reality boxes whose mental workings might be somewhat questionable.
In any event, it seems that telepathy is not interested in Zener
cards, etc.
So, if the modern sciences have missed 50 percent of the brain,
parapsychology might have missed 95 percent of telepathy.
*
Returning to mirror neurons, from other earlier not
entirely dependable sources involving research elsewhere, it seems
that scientists
(other than the Italian
ones) have discovered that the cells in the premotor cortex fired
up not only with respect to actions in others, but, as a “great surprise,” also
duplicated “sensations and emotions.”
Paraphrasing a little, it was soon said (by a neuroscientist at
the University of California) that via the special premotor cortex
neurons
we are “practically
in another person’s mind.”
As already mentioned, these special premotor cortex cells are now
referred to as MIRROR NEURONS, because they seem to “reflect” not
only physical actions, but also less tangible stuff such as sensations,
emotions,
and thoughts.
But there remains one outstanding, unresolved issue.
It seems that one’s mirror neurons are doing their thing all
of the time, whether one is conscious of it or not. On average, most
people are
not consciously
aware of what is going on in their mirror neurons.
So, outstanding is the issue of where, when, if, and how conscious
awareness “kicks
in.”
Be pleased to remember this “kicks in” thing, because it
seems to play a major role with respect to all forms of consciousness.
If one wants to examine more information about this topic, the
Google search engine is carrying some thousands references under
the heading
of MIRROR NEURONS.
*
The familiar term TELEPATHY is of course totally forbidden
in science and even mostly so in academia.
But this new mirror neuron scientific discovery opens up new potentials
that are at least the equivalent of telepathy.
Even so, naming the premotor neurons as MIRROR NEURONS is perhaps
not a bad idea - because, as will be elaborated ahead, the term
TELEPATHY is almost totally
useless anyway.
*
In any event, one can wonder if various kinds of research
are already underway with respect to discovering more of the capacities
of
mirror neurons, and perhaps
developing knowledge and enhancement of them.
One might bet one’s bottom dollar on this – because it
is conceivable that at least eight known intelligence agencies throughout
the world would
like (away from public awareness) to possess these capacities for their
own use - to say nothing of economic and industrial concerns, various
(secret or
otherwise) organizations, clubs, cults, cells, and numerous other Machiavellian
whatnots.
*
There is a very specific reason for this anticipation,
one that might not be understood unless it is pointed up.
With the increasing scientific discovery of various kinds of mirror
neurons, telepathy has, as it were, “gone” scientific – and
is thus now elevated from its former ignominious non-scientific status.
Once something has gone scientific, various worries appear with
respect to who is going to develop its possible developments, and
who is
going competitively
to use them for what?
So WE better look into this before someone else does – and gets
ahead of us, to our disadvantage.
To be clear, no one is now going to treat telepathy as “unproven” and “hopefully,
impossible.”
IT is here to stay. So, under the concept of mirror neurons, telepathy
is finally opened up – because science itself can no longer ignore it. So-called “skeptics,” dwelling
in the idea that telepathy is impossible, must be slightly red-faced
in the light of this development.
4. WORD TRAPS
Basically speaking,
the discovery so
far of mirror neurons tells us only two things – that telepathy IS possible,
because specific neural receptors in the premotor cortex provide a physical “explanation” for
it.
However, mere physical evidence of something doesn’t tell
us all that much about how it works, or about what is further involved
beyond
or in addition
to its physical-ness.
*
Stuff and things must of course be assigned some sort
of a name-identity.
So a word for that identity comes into existence, more or less
quickly followed by a definition(s) for it.
The word + definitions thus convey the IDEA of the identity so
named and defined.
Thereafter, when the word is utilized we feel we have a grip
on the idea – and
thus assume we know what we are talking about.
If the idea-word-definitions fall into popular appeal, they thus
become cast in intellectualizing cement.
*
This is all well and good, even sometimes exciting – because
when, via words + definitions, one feels that one is participating
in and sharing
ideas,
one might experience a sense of certainty about whatever is involved.
On average, specimens of the human species like a sense of certainty
more than they do uncertainty.
So it sometimes doesn’t matter if the IDEA was, shall we say,
founded on something less than facts, but more on a nomenclature selection
that
seemed fashionably exciting at the time the idea first got underway.
*
There is, of course, always the bothersome problem
of new facts that don’t
quite fit into the assumed certainty of the original idea – problems
bothersome because they chip away at the assumed certainty involved.
Everyone probably has at least a little familiarity with what
is done with such bothersome problems.
The assumed certainty of an idea-word-definition tends intellectually
to be “protected,” if
only by virtue of being cast in socio-intellectual cement, because
if not, there is always the threat of inundations of uncertainty.
Once a word has achieved the status of vast socio-intellectual
consensus “reality,” any
challenges to its assumed authenticity are simply sidelined.
Via all of this sometimes palpable nonsense, many words become
unknowing intellectual traps – in that if we do not use such and such an
idea + definitions + word, it then might seem that we do not know what
we are
talking about.
One such word-trap is the term TELEPATHY - the idea + definitions
+ word of which will now be dissected.
5. THE CONCEPT-WORD “TELEPATHY”
DISSECTED AND EXAMINED
One of the early reasons (in 1999) for postponing
this essay on telepathy was the absence of mainstream scientifically
accepted
evidence for
it.
Against this absence, just about anything written about telepathy
could be considered as just so much vaporous hooey, at least
in those “minds” wanting
to consider themselves as being scientifically proper.
*
But coupled to the absence of some kind of scientific
evidence, there was also a second reason.
As some few researchers had noted as early as sixty years ago,
any in-depth research and consideration of the assumed basic
concepts upon which ideas of
telepathy are founded reveals that neither the concepts nor the
ideas
actually fit together.
In that people, on average, do not like to have their assumptions
and ideas eroded or popped by the introduction of something contrary
to
them, it
seemed (as of 1999) that dragging through the misfitted “telepathy” situation
was more or less like pissing into the wind.
*
However, “telepathy” IS a word, and words are attached
to conceptual ideas, and it is via words that we think and exchange
information about
those concepts.
In a certain sense, words connected to words are something like
a road map via which places and things are connected together
so that
one
can both find
one’s way and arrive at a specific place or location.
If the road map is incorrect, one might end up who knows where.
If words stimulate ideas and concepts, and if the ideas and concepts
are not precise, or are somewhat fictitious, who knows what one’s
thinking will end up as.
Well, if one is in possession of even slightly non-applicable
assumptions and concepts about “telepathy,” one might end up NOT manifesting
too much of it.
In other words, “telepathy” is a word, but it is ONLY a
word, while the ideas and concepts upon which the word is based may
be slightly
or even
mostly non-applicable to the phenomenon itself.
The word is only a term intellectually assigned to the phenomenon,
but is NOT the thing itself.
Furthermore, the assigned term only reflects the versions of
the ideas and concepts (i.e., the different realities) that the
definitions
identify in print
and in dictionaries.
When the definitions become socially concretized, and because
they are found in dictionaries, we then feel we know what we
are talking
about.
The only remaining problem, usually invisible, is that ALL of
the facts about something are seldom known.
*
In any event, once a word has become socially concretized,
it then governs the way the thing or phenomenon is intellectually
to be
thought about.
In other words, how the term is intellectually to be thought
about is packaged in a certain way, and so people don’t like to think
about it in another way.
In the face of this certitude, anyone suggesting that understanding
of “telepathy,” for
example, might benefit by moving in the direction of “a road less traveled” is
likely to be confronted by a lot of blank stares, rolling eyeballs, and snide
commentary about one’s position just around the bend, heading
in the direction of Loony Town.
*
The term TELEPATHY belongs to a collection of other
words that are likewise used with the general conviction that we
know what
we are
talking about.
Although this may be the case in a general superficial sense,
words like “telepathy” have
some rather tattered and incomplete conceptual packaging.
The following six examples are taken from the Oxford Dictionary
of the English Language that traces words from their earliest
usages in English, with definitions
that at least approximate the original meanings involved.
Most words undergo evolutions of meanings. As will be seen, however,
the original definitions of the following six terms have not
changed all that much and are
almost the same as our modernist definitions.
At about 1626, SECOND SIGHT is found in English having the definition
of “A
supposed power by which occurrences in the future or things at a distance
are perceived as though they were actually present.”
Some 300 years later, at about 1837 - SIXTH SENSE came into English
usage, defined as “A supposed faculty by which a person or creature perceives
facts and regulates action without the direct use of any of the five senses.” (Please
bear in mind this particular definition.)
1847 - CLAIRVOYANCE came into English usage taken directly from
French. But in French the term was used in the context of “Keenness of mental perception,
clearness of insight; insight into things beyond the range of ordinary perception.” This
French definition seems more or less hinged to the basic concept of
wisdom.
However, in English usage, the term was given the definition
of “A
supposed faculty attributed to certain persons, or to persons under
certain mesmeric
conditions [i.e., trance conditions] consisting in the mental perception
of objects at a distance or concealed from sight.”
1855 - THOUGHT READING came into English usage, while THOUGHT
TRANSFERENCE had appeared a bit earlier in 1822. Both concepts
had the definition
of “The
reading of another person’s thoughts; direct perception by one
mind of what is passing in another, independent of ordinary means of
expression
or
communication.”
1882 – TELEPATHY came into English usage, definitions of which
will be discussed just below.
*
Before doing so, however, it is worth noting that
the six terms indicated above supposedly identify six DIFFERENT “supposed” powers
or faculties, the supposition of which generated about a hundred years
of
research and experimentation
attempting to discover the why and how of the supposed differences.
The general idea behind this was that if the facts of the differences
could be established, then each of the supposed powers or faculties
might be cultivated
into more efficiency.
Well, when this writer entered as a subject into parapsychology
labs in 1970, parapsychologists still could not be certain if
a successful
experiment was
a case of telepathy, clairvoyance, sixth-sense, second-sight,
or, possibly, out-of-body perception.
As a partial explanation for this, it is quite easy to ascertain
that people, including parapsychologists, love differences more
than they do samenesses,
possibly because differences are more amenable to gossip, arguments,
diatribes, combats, philosophical conflicts, and other odd human
whatnots.
*
One of the results of this Search for Supposed Differences
was that it went completely unnoticed that the definitions of the
six terms
above reveal
that
all of them have at least one thing in common – acquisition of
INFORMATION by means, faculties, or powers UNKNOWN.
Such powers or faculties were not too much unknown because they
were so notably known that they had at least acquired names for
themselves.
In fact, it should be noted that each of the six terms discussed
above have numerous synonyms. It is interesting to note that
some of the
synonyms for
each of the terms are interactive among all of the six terms
discussed above – as
if one synonym can stand in for others of them.
*
The principle and standard idea of TELEPATHY consists
of conceptualizing it in terms of “mind-to-mind,” or, somewhat redundantly, as “mental
telepathy.”
So when one sees a graphic illustration of it, one is usually
looking at a visual-aid set-up of two heads separated by a distance
whose “minds” are
supposed to be in process of interacting in unknown ways that transfer
information from one to the other.
The mind sending the information is usually described as the “sender,” the
one receiving the information is the “receiver.” Quite imaginative,
don’t you think?
*
In any event, in experiments designed to demonstrate
telepathy, the two subjects involved are asked to use their “mental telepathy,” the general
idea being that the sender’s mind is supposed to try sending
something to the receiver whose mind is to try receiving what is being
sent.
With some few exceptions during the last 100 or so years, this
ostensible methodology has not worked very well, if at all, but
it is still
the on-going standard
parapsychological research concept and model.
The bottom line here is that we use the concept-term TELEPATHY
defined as mind-to-mind, and thereby assume we know what we are
talking about.
But what if telepathy was not exactly mind-to-mind, but rather
consisted of stuff and things we don’t know about?
6. MOVING TELEPATHY BEYOND
THE OLD MEANINGS OF THE WORD “TELEPATHY”
Most of the following discussions will depart from
the rather simplistic and fruitless “mind-to-mind” rationale, so basic reasons
for doing so need to be established.
This author was born in the southern part of the High Rocky
Mountains in a small mining town that was left over from what
at one time
had been a big mining
town basically with respect to discovering loads of gold and
silver.
Left in impecunious circumstances after the early death of
her husband, one of my grandmothers had converted her home
so as
to give, sometimes
advancing
credit, room-and-board to itinerant miners of all sorts who
came to work in the left-over mine processing metals of lesser
values
- or independent prospectors
still hoping to find golden motherloads somewhere among the
local high mountain peaks.
*
This Granma had been born into extreme poverty, but
nonetheless had matured into rather tough and sturdy rolling stock
characteristic
of most early mountaineering
women who could express their declamations in both genteel and/or
hard-boiled, straight-forward ways.
Physically and in manner, Granma somewhat resembled the once
famous actress Marie Dressler (1869-1934) who was toughly featured
in
the movies “Tugboat
Annie” (1932) and, a little more, but not quite, genteely in the famous “Dinner
at Eight” (1933).
Granma also had a large potion of the legendary Green-Thumb thing,
and a fair share of future-seeing especially when danger was
forthcoming.
*
When this author was about seven or eight, two ostensible
miners knocked at the door seeking room and board.
Granma took one look at them and said that the house was full
up. The two retreated looking a little forlorn.
These two resembled most other mining itinerants who came and
went, and the house did have beds available. So this author inquired
of Granma why she had
sent them on their way.
“
Honey,” she replied, “types like those try to act as if
they are big shits on silver platters, but they are only small turds
on tin
plates.
They always cheat and make trouble, and always disappear before paying
up what is owed.”
“
But how do you know that in advance?” I asked.
“
You can feel it crawling on your skin, and smell it in your nose – it’s
not a smell-smell, of course, but it’s a smell anyway.”
This author has remembered this small but rather stunning discussion
ever since.
About a month or so, the town’s sheriff escorted the two guys
out of town for running up bills of credit. Delicious town gossop that
that
certain
Red Light Ladies had been advancing their services on credit and the
two guys could not pay up. THIS, apparently, was too much, for it was
alleged
that the
sheriff got a kick-back from these affairs.
*
Did Granma’s perception consist of “telepathy,” a term coined
in 1882, but which had not yet wended its way up into the high peaks and deep
valleys of the High Rocky Mountains during this author’s childhood. Neither
had the term “intuition.”
“
Gut-feeling” yes, perhaps with a smattering of “second
sight.”
This author never heard the term “telepathy” until sometime after
World War II, and then only in the context of “psychological
impossibility.”
*
So, WAS it telepathy? Was it the “mind-to-mind” thing?
During the course of the 1960s and 1970s, an astonishing array
of bio-receptors were scientifically discovered in various
laboratories here and there.
All of these receptors were somewhat akin to those being called “mirror
neurons” lodged in the premotor cortex.
Two enterprising authors (Robert Rivlin and Karen Gravelle)
pulled together all of this receptor research, and, supported
by a stunning
bibliography of
scientific papers, melded them in an organized fashion in their
book entitled DECIPHERING THE SENSES; THE EXPANDING WORLD OF
HUMAN PERCEPTION
(1984).
Among the scads of receptors discussed are those lodged in
the skin described as “receptors that feel the temperament of others;
receptors that feel bonding or antagonism; receptors that trigger alarm
and apprehension
before
their sources are directly sensed.”
Does not this resemble the creepy-crawly skin thing, that vast
numbers of human specimens sometimes experience?
Lodged in the nose are receptors that detect “pheromones, sexual receptivity,
fear, love, admiration, pain in others” that “trigger sensations/perceptions
of intentions, motives, and thoughts.”
Is this not the smell thing, which is not a smell-smell, but
a smell anyway - an affect that many also experience, although
they
know
not how, why, or
wherefrom?
*
“
Telepathic experiences” are discussed on pages 196 and 211
of DECIPHERING THE SENSES, but elements of such litter almost the
entire
book.
However, telepathy is exclusively thought of as the “mind-to-mind” thing,
against which skin-to-mind and nose-to-mind seem to have no relevance – at
any rate, relevance as to how whatever is involved might be
drawing information from.
Additionally, as with the outstanding problem relating to mirror
neuron receptors, something depends on when, or if, “consciousness
kicks in.”
In other words, various kinds of one’s receptors might
be firing away all of the time, or at least quite often.
But if the so-called consciousness of the so-called mind-thing
doesn’t
kick in, then one is no wiser about what receptors are firing
away at than if the firing up did not take place at all.
*
As a depressing postlude to the DECIPHERING THE SENSES
book, the astonishing information in it seems to have resulted in
an absence
of astonishing impact.
The book came and went without too much ado.
One reason for this lack of popular appeal is that the book’s
title seems inappropriate and even boring - because what are
discussed in the
book are
OUR SEVENTEEN SENSES - senses additional to our ordinary famous
five.
But some additional small part of the reason for the book’s
disappearance might be that neuroscientists are primarily interested
in brains, not
skin or noses, while parapsychologists (who might collectively
have benefited
something from the book) are not even too much interested in
brains, much less noses
and skins.
You see, parapsychologists tend to be psychologists, or, lately,
some kind of physicists – most of whom don’t know what brains are doing or
are up to. With some marvelous exceptions, generally speaking, brains are outside
of their fields – hence outside their reality boxes,
too.
Also to be noted is that many proclaimed “psychics” feel that whatever
is going on doesn’t even have a physical explanation.
After all, if psychic perceptions are derived from some other
affair transcending
material physicality,
then why should anyone be interested in physical factors.
(As will be commented upon later in the forthcoming Parts Two
or Three, it should be granted, however, that there IS that
possibility to be
considered – i.e.,
that there are factors involved in addition to physical ones.)
*
In any event, mirror neuron receptors have now been
discovered in brains - perhaps to the delight of the brain people
-but
perhaps not so much to those
fomenting and guarding SECRETS that could now be vulnerable
via mirroring
thoughts, intentions, and motives of others.
So one of the first essential problems about telepathy has
now been at least partially answered – i.e., that the actual existence of “telepathy” has
actually been confirmed in more than just argumentative theory – as
well as scads of other bio-receptors distributed throughout
the ORGANIC electro-chemical
physical body.
See that term ORGANIC? Be pleased, if possible, to retain it
in it your memory banks.
*
Now, it is necessary to dissect the past definitions
of TELEPATHY.
The EOP, i.e., THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF OCCULTISM AND PARAPSYCHOLOGY
(1978), has a quite long essay under the heading of TELEPATHY – from
which certain sections will now be quoted below and ahead.
“ Of the various branches of psychic phenomena there is none which engages
more serious attention at the present day [i.e, at about 1900] than
telepathy or
thought transference.
“ The idea of intercommunication between BRAIN AND BRAIN [emphasis added],
by other means other than the ordinary sense channels, is a theory
deserving of
the most careful consideration, not only in its simple aspect
as a claimant for recognition as an important scientific fact, but also because
there
is practically no department of psychic phenomena on which it does
not have bearing.”
*
This definition is somewhat of an embellishment over
what seems to be the original one proposed by Frederick William Henry
Myers (1843-1901),
one
of the principal founders (in 1882) of the Psychical Research Society
in London,
His definition reads: “The communication of impressions of any
kind FROM ONE MIND TO ANOTHER [emphasis again added] independently
of recognized
[the
five physical] channels of sense.”
Via these two definitions of TELEPATHY, we can perceive
that mind-to-mind and brain-to-brain began to be linked
at some
point between 1882
and 1900, and
are still so linked today.
7. MIND?
To proceed further, it is important to somewhat comprehend
what is meant by MIND, and seeking to achieve that comprehension
is
something
of a challenge.
One can read numerous books on psychology, of course,
but all one will end
up with is more understanding about psychology within
whose contexts “mind” is
not very well understood as such.
So it is more interesting simply to trace the dictionary
definitions of MIND.
To begin with, the Oxford Dictionary presents some twenty-eight
definitions of the term, each definition being accompanied
by three to five distinctive
nuances – more or less making up a total of eighty-four
plus definitions or partial ones.
MYND (probably taken from some early Indo-European source)
is found in English at about 1000 at which time it principally
referred
to “memory,
remembrance, recollection, commemoration, commemorative.”
In a lesser, secondary sense, it also referred to “The state or action
of thinking about something, as in thought of an object; to have in mind, to
give heed to.” For obscure reasons, this early definition
was declared Obsolete.
At about 1200, however, MIND was being referred to as “The
cognitive or intellectual powers, as distinguished from will
and emotions.”
1297 – “Purpose or intention; desire or wish.” Also
declared Obsolete for reasons unstated.
1340 – “Mental or psychical being, or faculties
thereof.”
1400 – “That which a person thinks about any subject or question;
one’s view, judgment, or opinion.”
*
With one principal exception, combinations of these
early definitions, including the Obsolete ones, still mostly
constitute the gist
of how MIND is defined
today.
The exception has to do with the introduction of the term
CONSCIOUSNESS into the mix, a term that was not in English
much before 1681,
and then with the
principal definition of “the recognition by the thinking
subject of its own acts or affections; the faculty of being
conscious, as a
condition and
concomitant of all thought, feeling, and volition.”
The reference to “being conscious” refers, in general,
to being conscious OF whatever one is in the awake state or
condition, possibly
including being conscious OF dreams, etc., while in the sleep
or in a trance condition.
So, the correct appellation here would not refer to consciousness
per se, but of conscious-of-ness in the awake condition.
*
The reason for this slight correction is that the “State of Consciousness” was
proposed and generally accepted after about 1805 - after which
the State of Consciousness was increasingly described as the whole,
innate
existence
of
consciousness within which many separate forms based on conscious-of-ness
can arise, disappear, shift, change, modulate, etc., and do
so whether one is awake
or not.
As many observed, “we know not” what the innate State of Consciousness
is. Such is more or less STILL being said of it as this essay is being composed
now in 2005. (See, for example: SHADOWS OF THE MIND: A SEARCH FOR THE MISSING
SCIENCE OF CONSCIOUSNESS (1994), by Roger Penrose.)Back in 1866, the then renowned
British biologist Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895) also pointed up “that
what consciousness is, we know not; and how it is that anything
so remarkable as a state of consciousness comes about as the
result of
irritating nervous
tissue, is just as unaccountable as the appearance of the Djin
when Aladdin rubbed his lamp, or as is any other ultimate fact
of nature.”
Going back a few years earlier than Huxley, the still famous
British economist John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) had noted
(in his A SYSTEM
OF LOGIC (1843),
that “Mind
is the mysterious something that thinks and feels.”
Between Huxley’s and Mill’s comments, we today really don’t
know much more about consciousness and mind, excepting a few transient details
the importance of which is vague – although a great deal
is now known about the brain and sensory receptors.
*
In any event, at some point after the term “consciousness” had
become present in English, the Oxford offered up the following
definitions of MIND.
(1) The Seat of a person’s consciousness;
(2) Memory;
(3) Thoughts, volitions, and feelings;
(4) The system of cognitive and emotional phenomena and powers
that constitutes the subjective being of a person;
(5) Also, the incorporeal subject of the psychical faculties,
(6) The spiritual part of a human being; the soul as distinguished
from the body.
To these definitions (or descriptions) it would now be
necessary to add:
(7) The discovered existence of thousands of kinds of cellular
receptors, now including mirror neurons lodged in the premotor
cortex;
(8) The subliminal systems constituting the subconscious;
(9) The superliminal systems constituting the lesser
known superconscious;
(10) And a selection among the historical eighty plus definitions
of MIND, including those that imply transcendental elements.
If these ten brief definitions do partially establish what
MIND consists of, the next question is how, or whether,
the ten elements
work harmoniously
together
to produce what is fondly referred to as “mental clarity” – which
is something one would like to have possession of when telepathically
attempting to connect up to thoughts and intentions of others.
There are occasions when some few of the specimens of the
human species cannot even telepathically connect up to
their own
thoughts and intentions.
This is
at least one basis for considering, hypothetically of course,
that MIND might not have mental clarity all of the time,
but could at
least partially exist
as a confusion of rather entangled neural networks.
*
Now, to get back to TELEPATHY itself, defined as mind-to-mind
thought transference. Well, it does take two minds or two
brains to “interact” so as
to communicate “impressions of any kind from or between
one mind to another independently of recognized [the five physical]
channels
of sense.”
So, in this sense we have TWO interacting minds, let us
say Mind A and Mind B, both being thought of as independent
of
each other.
Might we not think that Mind A is in possession of its
versions of the ten elements laboriously listed above?
Might we not think that Mind B is in possession of its
own versions of same?
If so, might we not might dare to think that the Mind A
and the Mind B versions might be different, differently
arranged,
ordered,
or
disordered, differently
constituted, differently founded upon different intellectual
and awareness thresholds, and other such whatnots?
One doesn’t want to consider that these A and B versions
of minds might be quite messy, because such is often all to
obvious anyway.
And, as earlier mentioned, there is the issue of whether
or not consciousness “kicks
in” relevant to any telepathic interaction – meaning that although
the brains involved might interact with this or that telepathic thing, mind-consciousness
itself might not “kick in” – this in turn
implying that brains and their associated receptors might be
doing their thing,
but consciousness
is out to lunch.
In general, it CAN sometimes be observed that lots of consciousnesses
are out to lunch most of the time – including those consciousnesses
that opined that telepathy is solely, exclusively, and specifically
a mind-to-mind
affair.
8.
THOUGHT - THE NATURE OF?
Although few take note of it, the concept of TELEPATHY
as the mind-to-mind thing carries within it the earlier
concept
of
thought transference
- in that it is thought that thoughts are manufactured
in the mind-thing.
This is taken so much for granted that any other ideas
about it can seem alien. and welcome doormats for such
ideas might
be replaced
by no trespassing advisories.
*
In any event, discussions about the nature of THOUGHT
are almost totally absent in the parapsychological literature
about telepathy.
So the EOD does not have a special entry for it, although
there are entries for Thought-Reading, Thought-Transference,
Thought
Vibrations
- Theory of,
Thoughtforms, and Thoughtography otherwise known as Psychic
Photographs.
*
The term THOUGHT was in Old English very early at
about 839, and, according to the Oxford dictionary, carried the
various
definitions
of:
“ The action or process of thinking;
“ Mental action or activity in general, especially that of the intellect:;
“ Exercise of the mental faculty;
“ Formation or arrangement of ideas in the mind.”
Twentieth-century definitions of the noun were briefly given as:
(1) The action or process of thinking - cogitation;
(2) Serious consideration;
(3) Recollection;
(4) Reasoning power;
(5) The power to imagine, conceptualize;
(6) Something that is thought;
(7) An individual act or product of thinking;
(8) Intention, plan;
(9) Opinion, belief;
(10) The intellectual product or the organized views and principles of a period,
place, group, or individual;
(11) A slight amount of.
Only one synonym is given: IDEA
*
The early 839 and the later twentieth-century definitions
more or less resemble each other, although the modern definition
is slightly
more
detailed – with
the result that both sets of definitions give the idea that
one knows what one is talking about, right?
The New Columbia Encyclopedia (1975) has apparently not
found it necessary or useful to have an entry for THOUGHT,
although
it does
have one for
THOUGHT READING whereby one is directed to SEE TELEPATHY – which is briefly defined
as “apparent communication [of information] between two
persons without recourse to the [physical] senses.”
“
Two persons?” Presumably this refers to two persons each
having MIND and THOUGHT without which the persons probably would
not be enabled
to
thought-recognize themselves, much less others.
*
Anyhow, referring back to the eleven modernist definitions
of THOUGHT, the contexts of the mind-to-mind thing presuppose
that
thoughts,
such as intentions,
in one’s MIND are
(1) pristine and crystal clear enough that they
(2) can be transferred to
(3) another mind and
(4) arrive in such other mind in a condition pristine
and crystal clear
(5) which other mind itself must be in a condition of pristine
and crystal clarity
(6) in order for this whole thing to be conducted in circumstances
that are pristine and crystal clear from the start-up.
This seems to be asking for a whole lot, in that at least
some minds are not, in the first place, characterized by
too much
pristine and
crystal
clarity
of thoughts - even to the thinker who is thinking them
in what passes for such thinker’s mind morass.
*
Most modern dictionaries give about twenty-one distinct
qualitative definitions for THINK.
If one reads through them, it becomes possible to wonder
how thoughts of one kind can be distinguished from other
kinds – except thoughts concerning
the most mundane matters, such as disposing of the garbage – which
some few are not very good at, anyway.
In any event, it seems that certain kinds of thinking result
in “forms” in
the mind; other kinds result in mental image pictures; yet other kinds result
in reflecting, in TRYING to center one’s thoughts; other
kinds result in devising opinions, judgments, ideas, plans
via deduction,
inference,
and imagination.
Thus, if one chances to telepathically recognize a thought-intention,
there remains the difficulty of determining whether it
merely consists of an
opinion, judgment, idea, plan, deduction, inference, or
imagination. Is this not a mess?
9.
TELE – PATHY EXAMINED
After sort of summarizing the mind-to-mind, thought-to-thought
comedy (or fiasco?), it is finally appropriate to mention
that the term “telepathy” CANNOT
be translated into any language as “mind-to-mind.”
Whether Frederick Myers understood this or not when he
coined the term back about 1882 cannot be determined now.
But in constructing the term he certainly knew he was loosely
attaching together two Greek words – TELE meaning “distance; at a distance; over a
distance,” and SYM-PATHY.
*
Back in 1882, there may have been a slightly socio-scientific
context involved, in that the phenomena under discussion
had for a longish
time been known
as “thought-transference
over distance,” during which “thought” had
been assumed to be the principal activity of the mind morass.
Behind this socio-scientific context, Alexander Graham
Bell’s
version of the telephone had been patented and demonstrated
in 1876.
The term “telephone” is drawn from the term PHONIC defined as “of,
or related to, or producing sound; of, or relating to, the
sounds of speech.”
So TELE-PHONE was defined as “an instrument for reproducing
sounds (speech) at a distance.”
In this sense, TELE was entirely scientific, and so it
quickly became a sort of scientific rage that inspired
quite a number
of TELE-prefixed
words.
*
In the sense that TELEPATHY was first used, TELE was
prefixed to another Greek term, PATHY, itself drawn from the Greek
PASCHEIN that translates
into English
as PATHOS, and refers to “undergoing experiencing, to
undergo suffering emotions and feeling.”
In this context, however, “undergo” did not, in the negative sense,
exclusively refer to “suffering,” but instead “to partake
of; “to pass through experiencing” of something.
The negative contexts of PATHY are drawn from another Greek
term, PATHES, which DOES refer to suffering as painfully
suffering.
*
The English term SYMPATHY was derived from the Greek
SYMPATHEIA and the later Latin SYMPATHIA, both derived from SYN +
PATHOS.
SYN- (or SYM-) is the GREEK prefix for “with, together with,” which,
in English, refers to “with; along with; together with;
at the same time with; to bring or experience together with.”
In English, however, SYMPATHY seems mostly to have been
thought of as something vocalized or expressed at funerals
or wakes,
even if
only sent via mail in
the form of somber greeting cards.
But even this English connotation does have an earlier,
and more informative, history.
*
SYMPATHY entered English at about 1579 and which had
the rather remarkable definition of “A (real or supposed) affinity
between certain things, by virtue of which they are similarly
or correspondingly affected
by the
same influence or affect, or influence each other (especially
in some occult way),
or attract or tend toward each other.”
By 1596, another definition has formed up: “Conformity
of feelings, inclinations, or temperament which makes persons
agreeable to each
other; community of feeling;
harmony of disposition.”
This seems to reflect “birds of a similar feather flock
together.”
It was not until about 1600 that the term took on the familiar
definition of “The
quality or state of being affected by the sorrow or suffering
of another.”
*
However, at about 1662, SYMPATHY was defined as “The quality
or state of being affected by the condition of another with
a feeling similar or
corresponding to that of the other; the fact or capacity of
entering into or sharing the
feelings of another or others. Also, a feeling or frame of
mind evoked by and responsive to some external influence.”
As of about the 1980s, modern definitions for SYMPATHY were
being given as:
(1) Feelings, emotions, experience – more at PATHOS.
(2) An affinity, association, or relationship between persons
or things wherein whatever affects one similarly affects
the other;
(3) Mutual or parallel susceptibility or condition brought
about by it;
(4) Unity or harmony in action or effect;
(5) Inclination to think or feel alike – intellectual or
emotional accord;
(6) The act or capacity of entering into or sharing the feelings
or interests of another – the feeling or mental state
brought about by such sensitivity;
(7) The correlation existing between two bodies capable
of communicating their VIBRATIONAL ENERGY [emphasis added]
to
one another through
some medium.
*
Before dissecting and examining the above, we should
take the time to note the following dictionary (not occult)
definitions for:
SYMPATHETIC VIBRATIONS: A vibration produced in one body
by the vibrations of exactly the same period in a neighboring
body.
SYMPATHETIC NERVOUS SYSTEM: Autonomic nervous system; a
part of the vertebrate nervous system that governs involuntary
actions.
AUTONOMIC: Acting independently of volition.
*
Please now redirect your attention to the seventh
modernist definition of SYMPATHY noted above, i.e., “The correlation
existing between two bodies capable of communicating their
vibrational energy to one
another through some medium.”
In this respect it might be pointed out, if only hypothetically,
that if capacities for such kind of “communicating” did
not innately exist in the human species, then such communicating
would
never be experienced
in any way,
and thus would never become a topic of wonderment or debate,
much less one of direct experiencing.
The EOP does not have an entry for SYMPATHY. Neither do
the following major sources summing up parapsychological
research:
PARAPSYCHOLOGY: SOURCES OF INFORMATION (1973), Compiled
under the auspices of the American Society for Psychical
Research
(1973).
ESP RESEARCH TODAY: A STUDY OF DEVELOPMENTS IN PARAPSYCHOLOGY
SINCE 1960, by J. Gaither Pratt. (1973).
PARAPSYCHOLOGY: NEW SOURCES OF INFORMATION, 1973-1989,
compiled by Rhea A. White (1990).
It therefore seems that sympathy, apparently a major ingredient
in all kinds of sensitivities (certainly telepathic sensitivities),
has not been considered
very deeply in psychical or parapsychological research.
*
The sixth definition of SYMPATHY quoted above is given
as “The act or
capacity of entering into or sharing the feelings or interests
of another – the
feeling or mental state brought about by such sensitivity.”
*
The term EMPATHY entered English via German after
it was coined, in German, in 1912, EINFUHLUNG (in + FUHLUNG) -
(which literally
translates
into English
as “in + feeling”) – the German term defined as “The
power of entering into the feeling-experiences of or understanding
of objects or emotions outside ourselves.”
A German by the name of Lipps leaned on this definition
to describe “The
theory that the appreciation of a work of art depends upon
the capacity of the spectator to project his personality into
it.”
*
As already mentioned, it is interesting to note that
the EOP, and other parapsychology sources, does NOT have an
entry for
EMPATHY.
EOP likewise does NOT have an entry for FEELING – although
it does have an entry for SENSITIVE, but only in relation to
MEDIUMS,
some of which,
as
is admitted in psychical and parapsychological research, have
been quite good at TELEPATHY.
If, in desperation, one consults the authoritative NEW
COLUMBIA ENCYCLOPEDIA (1975), one’s desperation will
remain desperate – for
there is no entry for EMPATHY therein.
*
can drive one to
consult little known and unpopular sources (even among
parapsychologists), among
which
is HANDBOOK
OF PARA-PSYCHOLOGY
(1977), edited by Benjamin B. Wolman.
Therein, on page 875, we can finally find an entry for
EMPATHY, described as:
“The ability to perceive the mood and feelings of another person and the
understanding of the feelings, sufferings, and situation of another
person without those feelings being communicated by words.
“ Moreover, empathy encompasses communication across large distances: thus
it borders on and often transgresses the borders of ESP.”
On page 878 appears the added comment that “Both empathy and
telepathy are instances of TRANSFER of psychological elements such
as emotional
states, perceptions, thoughts and so on, but such a transfer is facilitated
by
the particular somatopsychic or psychosomatic nature of the
individual concerned.”
*
SOMATO-SOMATIC CELL refers to “one of the cells of the body
that compose the tissues, organs, nervous system, neural networks,
and parts
of the individual
other than the germ cells.”
As earlier discussed, mirror neurons have been discovered
in the premotor cortex, which is just one of the organs,
or parts,
of
the individual other than germ
cells. Unless other reasons are to be discovered, it is
fair to speculate that mirror neurons respond via some
kind of
empathic contact with
others.
So also, it seems, do skin cell receptors, nose receptors,
and quite a number of receptor cells throughout the whole
body discussed
in
DECIPHERING THE SENSES
referred to earlier.
Alas! No one knows what empathy is or consists of, at least
insofar as discovering its technological mechanisms, much
less why consciousness
sometimes
does or
does not “kick in” about it.
However, those who sense vibrations, better known as “vibes,” probably
do realize that they are in something like a condition or state
of IN + FUHLUNG with what they are sensing.
In English, this “something” might be defined as
IN + WITH + PARTICIPATION with what they are sensing.
*
This may be one reason as to why empathy is not too
popular – because
some vibes as well as some minds can be quite yucky, etc.,
and so forth.
Simply put, people don’t like to experience those empathic-feelings that
they don’t like – which might bring about a lot
of closure with respect to empathic experiencing.
The only exceptions seem to be those stalwart types (most
often women) who successfully become empathic-clairvoyant-ESP-telepathic-time-traveling
psychic
detectives - which they of course could not become if they
wilted at the first skin-crawl of the usually ugly events
they
are invited
to empathically inspect
and sort out.
(NOTE: As this essay was finally being sorted out during
2005, there was a short-lived production about psychic
detectives recently at
work with
police
detectives – on cable, but five amazing episodes were
on prime time. Utterly fascinating, and worth tracking down
if possible. During
the 1970s,
the very impressive Dorothy Allison gained much media attention
for helping police solve difficult cases, and, as well, the
remarkable
Robyn Jameison,
Jeanne Borgen, and Joe Morgan who did likewise. Among others,
more recent PSI detectives are the astonishing Nancy Myers
and Noreen Renier.
Check
the Internet
for these names; also See: A MIND FOR MURDER: THE REAL-LIFE
FILES OF A PSYCHIC INVESTIGATOR by Noreen Renier (Berkeley
Books, 2005). The
deeper
empathic-telepathic
implications of this PSI detective situation will be considered
more deeply in Parts Two and Three.)
*
Meanwhile, there is no entry for EMPATHY in the official
1987 DIAGNOSTIC AND STATISTICAL MANUAL OF MENTAL DISORDERS
(DSM-III-R)
published
by the American
Psychiatric Association, and no entry for TELEPATHY either.
But there is an entry for EMPATHY in the PSYCHIATRIC DICTIONARY
(Fifth Edition, 1981), edited by Robert J. Campbell, M.D.
“
EMPATHY: Putting oneself into the psychological frame of reference of another,
so that the other person’s thinking, feeling, and acting
are understood and, to some extent, predictable.”
Also, “the ability to accompany another to wherever the other person’s
feelings lead him, no matter how strong, deep, destructive,
or abnormal they may seem.”
There is also a brief reference to EMPATHIC – “the organism’s
primary feeling-motivation and response.” (Please note that here we finally
encounter FEELING + MOTIVATION, this latter term appearing, along with “thinking,” in
association with the definition of telepathy – i.e., thoughts, motivation.”
10.
THE TELEPATHIC-EMPATHIC “BOBO” EVENT
In the context of empathy, reference is now made to “strong, deep, destructive,
or abnormal” in connection with “empathic participation.”
To get into this rather yucky type of thing, it can be
told that back in the mid-1970s this author was acquainted
with
a quite
wealthy Wall Street type
whose wonderful wife was deeply into parapsychology stuff.
They entertained lavishly, and among their numerous dinner
guests were writers, scientists, politicos, etc., including
various
police commissioners
and noted
detectives with whom the use of “psychics” to
help solve crimes was often discussed.
*
At the time there was a certain individual who seemed
to have tested well in some simple, even silly, clairvoyant
experiments,
and it
had somehow been decided
to see if he might be able to give clairvoyant tips about
crimes.
Because by then I knew a lot about how experiments should
be designed and conducted, I was called upon to witness
(and oversee)
a few
meetings between three police
detectives and the individual who had tested well in the
clairvoyance experiments.
The whole affair was to be strictly off the records, and,
in any event, the clairvoyant individual involved refuses
to have
his
name mentioned, so we will
give him the alias of BoBo.
I would not narrate the following because it is anecdotal
and there are no records to support it. But what is narrated
is
quite consistent
with what most
other psychic detectives report experiencing, and which
reports today do have police verification.
*
The drill with BoBo was this: The detectives (identified
by fake names) were interested in gaining information about
unsolved
or difficult crimes.
It was agreed that the detectives should bring photographs
(only five) of possible suspects, present them face down
on a table,
whereupon BoBo the clairvoyant,
without touching the photos, would say whatever he would
say.
BoBo would be given no other information, and the detectives
were to be seated, told to not move, and to keep their
mouths shut in
case they inadvertently
gave some kind of clue.
Of course, BoBo understood that some kind of crime was
at issue, or the detectives would not be interested.
*
In the first session, the cops carefully laid out
five photos face down, then sat and kept their mouths shut.
BoBo was seated in a chair placed at a distance from the
photos so that he could not touch them, or wave his hands
over them.
He did
not close
his eyes,
and almost immediately indicated that “Crime is somehow involved here,
but there is no crime, so what are you’al doing here?”
The five photos were of five cops, including one commissioner,
none of whom seemed covertly involved in any kind of crime.
This, of course, was an unscheduled test, one that had
not been agreed upon. BoBo was a little pissed, but the
detectives
seemed
pleased.
*
At the next session, some days later, the same detectives
again put five face-down photos on the table.
BoBo surveyed them from the same distance, but this time
took a little longer before he commented.
Then: “Well, the thoughts here are complicated . . . “ A few moments
passed. Then: “But this involves a bank robbery in broad
daylight where someone withdrew a large amount of money that
was handed to him
in a paper
bag, went outside, took a taxi to Brooklyn where the cab was
held up while waiting at a red light. The only thing taken
was the paper bag
with the
money in it.”
Everyone looked quite bewildered, including myself. The
whole story in practically one or two breaths!
BoBo continued: “The photos are not of the robbers involved, nor of the
man who was robbed. The fourth photo from the left is of one of the bank’s
employees, a male, who arranged the job, so it was basically
an inside piece of work.”
*
This time, the detectives, their faces rather flushed,
didn’t seem too
pleased, and one of them complained that “Because of the amount of money
involved, we have checked out all of the bank’s employees.”
BoBo didn’t wilt, merely saying “Well, you better
check again.”
We never learned the outcome of this, but the detectives
did come back for more. They wouldn’t have done so if they
had thought BoBo was delivering nonsense.
*
So, about two or three weeks later, the detectives
were back again, this time with six face-down photos.
BoBo sat and began his scrutiny with his usual calm indifference,
but took a little longer before he said anything, sort
of shifting this way and that
in his chair.
“ This is about a missing person, the second card from the right (pause).
Can I see him?”
So he was shown – but still did not touch the card. “Yes,” BoBo
said, “that’s him. He seems to have been an important
police informant about some important investigation underway.”
One of the detectives: “…seems to HAVE BEEN?”
“
Oh, yes, he’s already dead, about a week or ten days ago, I’d
say. . . . it was over in New Jersey, outside of Trenton to
the north a little.
“
They beat the shit out of him, but he wouldn’t talk, they
took a hacksaw and sawed off his left foot. He fainted.
“ They then strangled him with a piece of narrow wire that cut through.
“ His face turned blue.
“ They threw him and his severed foot in the trunk of an old green car
and drove him away.”
Silence.
Then: “Where did they go?”
“
Oh, that,” BoBo responded with tears in his eyes. “The
green car is left abandoned in the parking lot of (deleted)
raceway.
It’ll be discovered soon, because the body has already
begun to stink.”
About a week later, we were told that the stinking car
had been found, and that the detectives, now thoroughly
impressed,
had
another “task.”
*
BoBo, however, was a somewhat hysterical wreck. “I can’t get the
bloody brutal thoughts of the killers and pictures out of my head - especially
the sawing off part, the smell of the bone, blood, the agony of the guy, my
skin again and again crawls with his fear and pain. God Damn! I can hardly
sleep, every time I close my eyes there’s that FOOT dangling. Even drink
doesn’t help. I’ve had to get pills.”
About two weeks later, “Well, I’m a bit better
now, but let the cops train their own clairvoyants, and let
them be forensic
specialists
who
are used to this kind of shit.”
So, that was the end of BoBo’s clairvoyant detecting – after
only three tries at it.
*
Clairvoyance? Or was it telepathic, or, perhaps empathic?
Whatever it was, it was clearly WITH IT + PARTICIPATORY – completely in keeping with,
to paraphrase a little, “Putting oneself into a empathic-telepathic-somatic-psychological
frame of reference so as to participate in (i.e., “mirror”) another
person’s feelings, no matter how strong, deep, destructive,
or abnormal they may be.”
*
Poor BoBo. At the time, neither he nor I knew that
his empathic-clairvoyance was “wide open.” Myself, I had to find out about
this kind of thing some years later, albeit in an entirely
different way.
But this led to the understanding that telepathic-empathic
connectivity can be closed, can be partially open, be lukewarm,
or openly “hot” upon
special occasions – especially in the contexts of sensing
threatening dangers whether their sources are consciously perceived
or not perceived.
If one reads enough of the literature about experienced
instinct, gut-feeling, intuition, and insight, it might
dawn that these
phenomena are mostly
characterized by some kind of vibrational empathy, more
so than by conscious intellectual
deduction – which is not a bad thing if it correctly
accompanies the vibrational empathy.
But most experiencers of instinct, gut-feeling, intuition,
and insight usually say that they have no intellectual
idea of what
is involved,
or how any of
this comes about.
So the presence of conscious intellectual deduction usually
does not accompany those forms of vibrational empathy.
*
This is perhaps why such real experiences have been
excluded from versions of telepathy focused only in the mind-to-mind
scenario in which thoughts, intentions,
and motives ARE considered as intellectually conscious
constructions formatted within the contexts of the swampy
mind-thing, and
within whatever a given mind-thing
is utilizing as its reality box.
In any event, mind-to-mind telepathy can also be closed,
or be lukewarm, or, on some occasions, be “hot.”
The lukewarm versions of telepathy are what usually show
up under parapsychological testing, usually with lukewarm
results
that
measure in the 0.5 to 1.5 percent
ratio.
These have been, and still are, interpreted as “suggestive” of
telepathy, not as complete evidence of it – much to the
relief of those having minimal or major secrets to conceal.
11.
INTELLECTUAL
VS ORGANIC
TELEPATHY
As already tiresomely emphasized, TELEPATHY is a term
intellectually and vividly associated with “mind-to-mind thought-transference” – and
that is the beginning and end of that concept.
The “mind-thought” thing has long been established
as a conscious intellectual affair that emanated from the elusive
Seat of
intelligence
located somewhere in the brain-mind thing, (although no one
seems to have located that
Seat for sure).
It is additionally thought that INTELLECT produces thinking,
meaning that if Intellect were absent in our species, there
would be no
thinking of thoughts.
It is from INTELLECT that the term INTELLECTUAL is derived,
one of the definitions of which is given as “Developed or chiefly guided by the intellect rather
than by EMOTION or EXPERIENCE.” (Emphasis added.)
Thus, intellectual thinking and affairs can take place
in the absence of emotions or experience, so many vistas
of
this and
that can
be intellectually-mind-established
that are completely out of touch with experience that might
significantly modify those non-experienced vistas.
Furthermore, the intellectualized vista of TELEPATHY incorporates
only four, largely superficial, basic factors, i.e., the
two thought-minds involved, the
intervening distance between them, and the transference
of thoughts over or through that distance.
Thus, if something transmitted across the intervening distance
cannot be recognized as a mind-thought thing, it is then
not thought of
as telepathy.
This is not to say that such cannot occur, because it sometimes
(rarely, it seems) does.
*
As a shift in conceptual venue, EMOTION is defined
as “Feeling – the
affective aspect of consciousness; a psychic and physical reaction
subjectively experienced as a strong feeling and physiologically
involving changes that
prepare the body for immediate vigorous action.”
As indicated in the definition of INTELLECTUAL, intellectual
affairs can proceed in the absence of experience or EMOTION,
the implication
being
that intellectuality
doesn’t particularly need to feel anything or have a
basis of experiential understanding.
Thus, intellectual telepathy is expected to proceed without
experiential and emotional stuff mucking up the process.
The transmission
of thought alone will
do – IF the sender and receiver are up to snuff in recognizing
thoughts coming and going from one mind morass to another.
*
As will extensively be discussed in Part Two forthcoming
(one of these days), it is quite well understood (in the
advancing
brain
studies area) that unless
something is somehow FELT, it will not register in consciousness
or in the so-called mind.
But meanwhile, attention is drawn to that part of the definition
that refers to “changes that prepare the BODY for immediate
vigorous action.”
The principle definition of BODY is given as “The organized
physical substance of an animal or plant whether living or
dead; the living
or dead organism.”
ORGANISM is defined as “A complex structure of interdependent
and subordinate elements whose relations and properties are
largely determined
by their function
in the whole; an individual constituted to carry on the activities
of life by means of organs separate in function but mutually
interdependent.”
The term ORGANIC refers to anything “of, relating to,
or arising in a bodily organ.”
It is now to be noted that an organic bodily organ cannot
feel anything unless it is somehow organically stimulated
to do
so – and in order to be organically
stimulated it has to possess some kind of organic “equipment” that
organically recognizes, responds, or reacts to such organic
stimulating.
This “organic equipment” has historically been
referred to as the physical senses, which were thought to consist
of five, and
only
five.
But with the increasing discovery of vast numbers of cellular
receptors throughout the human bio-body, it is more apparent
than ever that
we have more organic
senses than just the obvious physical five.
This can be phrased in a different way. We have more organic
MICRO-senses than just the traditional MACRO-five, and
it has become clear that
various micro-senses
detect kinds of information that the macro-five do not.
It is also somewhat understood that information, acquired
via the macro-five, more or less feed directly into appropriate
parts of
the brain organs - at
least when one is in a clearly awake, hopefully conscious,
condition, during which what is perceived via the macro-five
can intellectually
be thought about.
This is all more or less straightforward and understandable.
But it is also apparent that if our organic systems had
to wait until
something
could
intellectually
be thought about in the awake condition, then the organic
systems would be much stressed – or, perhaps, wouldn’t
work at all.
*
The foregoing is probably difficult to grasp – unless it
is put into some kind of order, even if only hypothetically so.
1. Organic systems exist;
2. Organic systems continue to exist only because they are
systems whose elements work together to form the whole
of them;
3. To exist, organic systems must have numerous sensory receptors
that are stimulated by various kinds of information;
4. To continue to exist, organic systems must have organic
ways and means of processing information incoming from
a possibly wide variety
of its sensory
receptors;
5. The most natural, and logical, basis for this is development
of a central nervous systems that collects receptor information
and
forwards it to what
passes as its brain;
6. The developed brain is usually sectioned into various
groups of synapses and neurons each of which are dedicated
to dealing
with
certain categories
or types of information;
7. The whole of the foregoing so far must work automatically,
so central nervous systems must have functioning counterparts
we refer
to as non-conscious, non-volitional
autonomic response systems.
*
AUTONOMIC is defined as “Acting independently of volition,
i.e., reflexive; acting spontaneously without depending on volitional
thought.”
VOLITION is defined as “The [conscious] act of making
a choice or decision; the power of choosing or determining.”
Volitional activity requires some kind of conscious thinking,
and which is the putative chief function of mind, those
two morasses that have laboriously
been detailed earlier.
The way one’s life is intellectually lived might depend
on volitional activity based on whatever is being filtered
through what passes for
efficiency within the two morasses.
But one’s very physical existence depends on the efficiency of one’s
organic autonomic nervous system, that very system that does whatever it does “independently
of volition” - which is to say, in the absence of being
volitionally conscious of it intellectually..
It is usually assumed that it is the intellectual thinking
mind that telepathically detects thoughts, emotions, and
intentions of others.
It is quite possible
that the mind sometimes actually succeeds in doing this,
but the average hit rate is also acknowledged as being
quite low.
On the other hand, as but two examples, the organ referred
to as the skin has receptors that organically feel emotions
and
intentions
of others; the organic
nose has organic receptors that smell emotions and intentions
of others.
But this is neither acknowledged nor referred to as telepathy,
and won’t
ever be - unless the existence of intellectual telepathy AND
organic telepathy is acknowledged.
It seems that the only two real differences between the
two are:
(1) that organic telepathy that is somatically felt via
the impulses of the autonomic nervous system is more likely
to “kick
in;”
(2) while intellectual telepathy is less involved with
autonomic impulses, but more involved with what is being
mentally calculated
within the mind-morass.
More simply put, here is the important distinction between “felt” and “thought.”
In the larger picture of all things, it is quite well known
that specimens of the human species can undergo various
kinds of mental
calculations without
feeling too much of anything.
Based upon a lot of evidence
voiced by numerous telepathic experiencers, “Mental
calculation alone does not a telepath make.
”TO BE
CONTINUED AS PART TWO UNDER THE
GENERAL HEADING OF
“ THE PROBLEM OF CONSCIOUSNESS KICKING-IN”
**