For a few years I've had a book sitting on my shelf called If This Be Magic: The Forgotten Power of Hypnotism, by Guy Lyon Playfair. Originally published in 1985, it was reissued by White Crow Books in 2011, and I probably bought it around that time. But somehow I never quite got around to reading it, possibly because I was a little put off by the prospect of plowing through a fairly long, rather dense book on hypnotism.
Recently, however, I did pick up the book at last, and I found it to be one of the more intriguing items in my parapsychological library. The subtitle notwithstanding, it's not really all about hypnotism. Perhaps a more accurate subtitle would be "The Forgotten Power of the Unconscious Mind." The book concerns itself with the still-unknown extent of psi abilities and their mediation by the right hemisphere of the brain — or, more accurately, the mental states loosely associated with the right cerebral hemisphere.
If This Be Magic does begin with a discussion of hypnotism and the related practice of mesmerism, tracing work in this area from its beginnings to modern times. Along the way, we learn that the (logical) left hemisphere of the brain seems to inhibit hypnotism, while the (intuitive) right hemisphere readily accepts it. Dr. David Pederson, president of the British Society of Medical and Dental Hypnosis, puts it succinctly: “When we hypnotize a patient, what we are doing is altering their mode of consciousness to the right hemisphere by inhibition of the left.”
Many examples of remarkable experiments and even medical cures are provided, including remission of supposedly untreatable cancers and significant improvement in a case of ichthyosis, a disfiguring skin disease that had resisted all conventional treatment. And there were other experiments, such as one carried out in 1975 by Dr. Léon Chertok, a French psychiatrist. Playfair writes*:
Chertok showed that wounds can not only be healed by suggestion, but also caused by it. He managed to produce a handsome blister on the arm of patient by placing a coin on it and suggesting that it was very hot, which it was not. An intriguing detail was that the patient reported feeling no sensation of heat at all, and yet her skin reacted as if something extremely hot had indeed come into contact with it – on the exact spot where the coin had been placed.… Chertok saw this as “irrefutable proof of the influence of the mind on physiological processes,” and wondered why this was still not fully acknowledged “in spite of the accumulation of data.” [p. 18]
One reason, among others, why the establishment has resisted this conclusion is that the results obtained by experimenters have been inconsistent and unpredictable. The technique may work brilliantly on one occasion and fail utterly on another occasion, for no obvious reason. How can this be? Here we get to the core of the book – the nature of the mental attitude necessary for positive results. The attitude is essentially one of faith, though this word is not quite adequate and has some misleading connotations:
If we believe something, the effect on us is the same whether it is really true or not. As Paracelsus put it in the 16th century: “It is all one whether you believe in something real or something false. They will have the same effect on you. It is always the faith that works the miracle, and whether the faith is aroused by something real or something false, its miraculous power is the same.”
Faith has been cynically defined as a belief in something you know to be untrue. This is only a slight exaggeration; William Sargant defines it as “a profound and non-rational conviction of the truth of propositions to which the unaided intellect can at best accord only a temperate allegiance.” We need another word for this feeling, but until we have one Sargant’s “profound and non-rational conviction” will serve as a description of it; and it is a very good description of what seems to be one of the crucial factors of successful hypnosis.
In all the cases I have mentioned so far, the one common feature is a total and uncritical acceptance by the subject of the hypnotist’s suggestion. This in turn was given with conviction, and whether the conviction was rational or non-rational did not matter. [pp. 43–44]
What appears to happen in the successful cases is that the sheer conviction felt by the hypnotist, and sometimes also by his subject, is enough to bring about extraordinary results. But if the hypnotist's conviction falters for any reason, or if there is some other mitigating factor creating an atmosphere of doubt or disbelief, then positive results are much less likely.
As you might expect, this situation creates a serious problem in the scientific investigation of hypnotism.
The hypnotist, [Ronald] Shor says, faces a … dilemma. A good scientist, in the generally accepted sense, will be careful, well disciplined, methodical and objective, or what I would call highly left-minded. Unfortunately these are not the qualities that make a successful hypnotist, who needs to be adventurous, risk-taking, and above all subjective. Shor defines the [twin pitfalls] of hypnotism as “insufficient caution” and “insufficient conviction.” “The more the scientist-hypnotist tries to avoid one of the two dangers,” he says, “the more likely it becomes that he will succumb to the other.” [pp. 54—55]
The line dividing hypnosis from psi phenomena is pretty thin. Consider experiments performed in the Soviet Union in which a test subject was hypnotically put to sleep by hypnotic suggestions telepathically communicated over a distance of more than 1,000 miles.
Ivanova [the subject, in a laboratory in Leningrad] was kept under observation by a man who did not know what kind of experiment was being carried out. [Ivanova also did not know the purpose of the experiment.] Alone on the promenade at Sebastopol, Tomashevsky began transmitting at 10:10 PM. Ivanova was seen to enter a hypnotic trance one minute later. At 10:40, Tomashevksy sent the “wake” signal, and at precisely that time according to the observer whose watch, like Tomashevky’s, had been synchronized with Radio Moscow she woke up. [p. 145]
Having made the case that hypnosis overlaps psi, and that mental attitude is critical to each, Playfair sums up:
It must be clear by now that what made the Russians so successful in this kind of experiment (and, in my opinion, still does) was their intuitive understanding of the experimenter effect, whereby experimenters [become] part of the experiment, the outcome of which largely depends on how they play their part in it. This applies to all experiments in which a human mind is involved, from sending people to sleep and transmitting images to curing diseases like ichthyosis by suggestion. An experimenter who is not totally committed to success will probably not succeed. This is hard for scientists trained in objective step-by-step procedures to accept, but as I see it, spontaneous phenomena of any kind should be studied with a view to finding out under what circumstances they happen naturally. Expecting them to happen to order under conditions imposed by the “objective” experimenter is a complete waste of time. [p. 143]
For me, the most the richest part of the book is an interview conducted by Playfair with longtime PK investigator Kenneth Batcheldor. Batchelder's observations are so important, they are worth quoting at length. I can't quote everything, though, and I encourage you to buy the book and get the whole story.
“There is an awkward antagonism between the scientific, skeptical state of mind, and the state required for the production of PK,” [Batcheldor] told me. “To achieve a PK effect, you have got to believe one hundred per cent that it’s going to happen, whereas the characteristic attitude of the scientist is to doubt, and to say 'Let’s test this thing and see if it really is what it claims to be.' But for PK, you must not think 'Is it?' You have to think 'It is.' You’ve got to suspend your scientific attitude if you want it to occur. You can be as critical as you like after you’ve got it, but not while you’re doing it.”
This was not easy for scientists to accept, he admitted, but it was the approach he had found to work, and to make sense. “If the phenomena are shaped by thought,” he said, “then doubtful thoughts will obviously create only doubtful phenomena, or maybe none at all.” [p. 181]
But how to produce the necessary attitude of faith? It's not something that can just be willed into existence. There is, however, a backdoor approach that works remarkably well – something that has long been known to shamans and has been re-learned by modern investigators.
“It is almost impossible to acquire sufficient faith by deliberate mental effort,” [Batcheldor said]. “For instance, it would be useless to place your hands on the table and say to yourself 'I believe this table is going to levitate.' However hard you tried, you wouldn’t succeed because you’d be bound to experience an element of doubt. An adept might succeed, but most people aren’t adepts.
“Fortunately,” he went on, “there’s something about table-tipping that enables a group of ordinary people to succeed in generating PK without even trying, provided they are reasonably open-minded. It is this: in most cases, the table will start to move due to UMA [unconscious muscular action]. This can give an amazing illusion that the table is moving of its own accord as if animated by some mysterious force. You get the impression you are already succeeding in generating paranormal movements.
“This has precisely the same impact on you as real success would have. It sweeps your doubts aside and produces total faith or at least moments of total faith. This happens automatically, involuntarily and without any mental effort on your part. So you get moments of total faith in which you are able to generate real PK. For a while, these are superimposed on the UMA movements, but later they can occur without them. The table movements gradually become stronger and more varied, and in time may lead to movement without contact and levitation.” [p. 182]
In other words, it may be necessary to help the process along with some initial trickery – whether intentional or unconscious – in order to wear down the left brain's resistance to the very idea of PK. Batcheldor calls this technique "induction by artifact."
“All you need [Batchelder said] is for some set of normal events artifacts to be mistaken for paranormal events. This creates sufficiently intense faith to enable you to generate the real thing. Such artifacts can be either accidental or deliberate. In table-tipping, for instance, movements due to UMA arise quite accidentally. But if somebody gives the table a deliberate push, and keeps quiet about it, this will probably have the same effect.
“You mean that cheating can lead to real PK?” I asked. I felt he was adding yet another booby-trap to an already overcrowded minefield.
“Well,” he replied, “deliberate artifact-induction is equivalent to cheating, yes. But the development of PK in a group can and should take place entirely on the basis of artifacts of the accidental kind. Cheating would only lead to confusion even if theoretically it should work. And of course shamans have known for centuries that it does work.” [pp. 182–183]
This isn't just armchair theorizing. The hypothesis has been tested.
[Colin] Brookes-Smith designed and built a number of special tables … wired up in such a way that any normal mechanical force exerted by sitters’ hands could be recorded and printed out on chart paper. He then had his sitters draw lots before session to see who would be “joker”. The joker was allowed to cheat now and then, and the study of the recording would later reveal exactly when he had….
“The interesting thing [wrote Allan Barham, a participant in the experiments] was that this method of deliberately stimulating an upward force did help to induce a genuine paranormal effect.” The chart recording, he said, showed when the joker had done his joking, and it also showed the table continued to levitate after he had stopped it. “Our unjustified belief that something paranormal might be taking place released the PK force, which always tended to be repressed by our conscious or unconscious doubts.”…
Batcheldor reckons that almost anybody can produce PK who really believes and decides that it is possible. Anybody can also inhibited by believing consciously or subconsciously that it is not possible. [p. 185]
The role of the unconscious mind may also account, at least in part, for phenomena associated with what I've called the dark side of the paranormal. The Ouija board, for instance, is often noted for seemingly malicious and destructive communications.
“As soon as it spells something a bit strange, you get frightened, and then you’re in trouble,” Batcheldor explained. “The main danger of dabbling with psychic forces is that if you get frightened of them, you shape them into some frightening event – you create what you’re frightened of. If you know this, and exercise some control over not getting unduly frightened, by constantly reminding yourself that you’re creating this stuff by PK, and it’s going to do what you believe, you can keep things under control. I don’t allow my sitters to talk about apparitions of the devil or anything like that. We don’t know what we might create if we start thinking along those lines.”
As for poltergeist cases, he believes that in some cases the incidents that start them off can be seen as artifacts that arise accidentally. “I don’t go along with the idea that poltergeist outbreaks are the expression of repressed tension and aggression. Mental hospitals are full of people who have tremendous repressed aggression, but they don’t explode into poltergeist phenomena. It’s a bit naïve to think that aggression gets so strong when it’s repressed that it bursts out by throwing cups by PK. I prefer to think that if you have a tense family that interprets an accidental event like a cup falling off the shelf by accident as ghostly, then they can use it for the expression of some of their psychological needs. If you believe there’s going to be hostility, then you probably create it.” [p. 183]
What about the well-known difficulty of getting macro-PK effects recorded on video? Even passive infrared systems that operate in darkness rarely obtain results. Playfair notes that "audio tape, however, has no inhibiting effect at all."
This has reinforced Batcheldor’s belief that it is not light that inhibits PK, but sight, or the full awareness of the observer.…
“In darkness,” he told me, “the mind can be calm, because you are not witnessing paranormality in a clear-cut form. Also, certain kinds of spontaneous artifacts needed to stimulate belief tend to be prevented in light.” He believes that at some deep level we need a “loophole” in the evidence, to reassure ourselves that PK might not be taking place after all. An audio tape provides such a loophole, because it only contains part of the record – the sound. A videotape contains a more complete record, and while seeing may be believing, hearing without seeing is not.
“PK seems to cover its tracks whenever it can,” he added, “even to the extent of sabotaging cameras or video recorders to destroy the evidence, or of making sure that there is a scapegoat on hand to whom apparently paranormal activity can be attributed.” [p. 186]
In short, Batcheldor has come up with a sophisticated, meticulously thought-out explanatory system that covers much of the phenomena associated with PK and, by extension, hypnosis, mesmerism, and ESP.
And what of life after death? Playfair recounts a case of apparent spirit communication in response to spoken questions, and writes:
It is very tempting on such occasions to assume that you are in the presence of the spirits … The impression of an independent intelligence at work is very strong … And it has led me to feel justified in regarding PK-agents as independent entities. Some would call these spirits, and assume that they are driven by the intelligence of somebody who has died.
However, there is excellent evidence against the traditional spirit hypothesis. The Philip group in Toronto certainly conjured up a spirit, but it was one they had invented themselves, complete with portrait and detailed curriculum vitae. Philip had a life of his own, but it was a wholly imaginary one. The fact that this made it no less real in some respects has led some to speculate that reality as we perceive it may to some extent be the result of our imaginations. [pp. 200–201]
The Philip experiments are among the most interesting ever carried out in parapsychology, and they certainly show that it is possible for a group of sitters to "conjure up" a ghost with a distinctive personality and an apparently independent existence, who is nevertheless completely fictitious. How far we should carry the implications of these experiments is an open question, one that I've considered elsewhere.
Then there's the experience of the Rev. C. Hare Townsend, who performed many experiments in mesmerism. As quoted in If This Be Magic, Townsend wrote:
When I first began to mesmerize, I used to consult my sleepwalkers on dark and dubious points, with something of the blind faith of a novice in a new and wondrous science. Their answers to such inquiries were calculated to bewilder me by the pure influence of astonishment; for the simple had become theorists; the uneducated were turned into philosophers. At length I was awakened from my dream of somnambulic knowledge by finding that my patients’ ideas shifted so visibly with my own, and were so plainly the echo of my own thoughts, that not to have perceived the source whence they originated, would had been pertinacious blindness indeed. I was but taking back my own, and receiving coin issued from my own treasury. [p. 211]
There are possible implications here for the work of hypnotherapists who engage in so-called past-life regressions and between-lives regressions. Even if the hypnotist is not intentionally or overtly leading his entranced patient, it is conceivable that hypnosis itself allows the patient to read the hypnotist's mind and tell him what he expects to hear.
Incidentally, very young children are known to be more susceptible to suggestion than adults, and probably find it easier to exercise psi, a fact that perhaps should be taken into consideration when evaluating accounts of spontaneous and veridical past-life memories in children.
Playfair concludes his book by zeroing in on the fundamental attitude that underlies successful production of a variety of hypnotic, mesmeric, and paranormal phenomena:
The only hypothesis that seems to fit all the facts is that somebody must have faith in something. It can be the patient, the healer or hypnotist, or even a third party. The faith can be in God, Jesus, the Great Spirit – almost anything imaginable. It can even be simply in the doctor and his pills and nothing else. Miracles, it seems, can be worked by nothing more than a firm belief in their imminent occurrence. When such a belief is implanted in the right mind of a patient, by whatever method, even by deception, outright lying, or as in Dr. Mason’s classic case [of curing ichthyosis], by mistake, the suggested miracle fulfills itself automatically.
It begins to seem, in fact, that the mere act of acknowledging the existence of some power greater than ourselves, or even just assuming this, is enough to activate it. [p. 255]
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*All quotations from If This Be Magic have had their spelling and punctuation altered from British to American standards. The reason is simple: I used a voice-recognition program to dictate this material to my computer, and the program recognized it as American English.
You know, reading all this over, the thought occurred to me that perhaps it's a good thing that manifesting PK abilities is so hard to do for the majority of people. If it was easy to do them, imagine what it would be like if gangsters decided to do a drive-by on a rival gang, but with psychic powers instead of Uzis, or entire armies trying to telepathically crush each other's heads in.
Maybe it's for the best that our physical dimension has pretty steady, ironclad rules about how things work, and that the supernatural/PK abilities should only show up once in a blue moon, until the day comes that we as a species can manage to overcome all our lesser instincts.
With regards to spirits being the manifestation of PK abilities, such as Phillip, there exists enough stories and communications between people and spirits that produces information previously not known (verdical, I believe), that proves to me that spirits do exist. I'm inclined to believe that spirits like Phillip might be mischievous pranksters who are only pretending to be who they say they are to have some fun at our expense (which would also explain why there are so many different personalities when it comes to all the supposed Jesus changelings out there).
Posted by: Ian | January 22, 2017 at 10:58 PM
My issue with the notion of blind faith allowing for real paranormal events to happen comes down to one thing: children. Many children have very vivid imaginations and like to think they have all sorts of magical powers, yet we adults don't see that manifest in reality.
I don't discount all paranormal activity, but belief creating paranormal events should be pretty easy for some kids to do prior to being told they cannot do such things.
The closest I think any of us ever get to real psi abilities happens at life threatening/ending events where mind and body seem to separate. Intuition of friends or family being in trouble or dying. NDE reports. Brief after death communications. These are probably as close as we can get to psi, but since testing requirements are so harsh (death) its not likely to ever be truly studied.
Posted by: frith | January 23, 2017 at 01:13 PM
The priming effect of initial success on a group of participants in a PK experiment is likely at work in Jack Hock's PK parties. He strongly encourages participants to shout "bend!" (thus inhibiting their inhibitory attitudes) and to report any success to the group (usually involving over a dozen members), by shouting "it's bending!" and later by holding up their bent spoons.
Here is a report by "Lucianarchy" on the International Skeptics Forum (ISF) in 2004 on the success of her skeptical friends at one such party. http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=26188
Michael Shermer succeeded in bending the bowl of a spoon at one party, but later explained it away by saying that it must have been due to an excess of adrenalin. (But it's humanly impossible to bend such bowls with maximum force--which he didn't apply at the party, just mildish pressure.)
Here's my Google search page for spoon bending Houck :
https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=spoon+bending+houck&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
Posted by: Roger Knights | January 23, 2017 at 01:19 PM
Regarding the inhibitory effect of left-brained participants, here's a quote from a January 19 WaPo story, "That time the CIA was convinced a self-proclaimed psychic had paranormal abilities," by Sarah Larimer, at https://getpocket.com/redirect?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwapo.st%2F2iWOshK&formCheck=43daa9f905ef489cde4af2f119000d6b
Posted by: Roger Knights | January 23, 2017 at 01:46 PM
"You know, reading all this over, the thought occurred to me that perhaps it's a good thing that manifesting PK abilities is so hard to do for the majority of people." Scary, the world would be in even more chaos than it is now (hardly imaginable!).
Speaking of PK, some might find this interesting. A few weeks ago, I had a dream of a deceased loved one. It was a lovely dream - kind of corny, I guess in that there were yellow daffodils, but also the most beautiful emerald-green grass I'd ever seen, just perfect in every way.
The next evening, I was reading, and thinking of that dream and the loved one. All of a sudden a photo of that loved one that's situated on a high dresser crashed to the floor. Amazingly, it survived unscathed, the glass wasn't even chipped, much less broken.
I fiddled around with that photo - which was with other photos that didn't fall - and it seemed unusual that it fell, as it's not hung on a wall, but is propped up by a placard in the back and I'm sure it wasn't near the edge. If it wasn't situated securely, it should have fallen over backwards.
Maybe it's all just a coincidence, but I've read several times of photos of deceased loves suddenly falling - which is interpreted as some sort of sign. Sign or not, it was quite startling, since I was thinking quite strongly of this loved one when the photo crashed to the floor.
Posted by: Kathleen | January 23, 2017 at 07:29 PM
Great and informative post, Michael!
I am rather convinced that, well... Look at the title: "magic." Magic is real. Magic is simply ritualized intention.
The placebo effect is an example of magic that science recognizes--its existence, at least. There is no, *zero* reason for the placebo effect to exist under the materialist paradigm, yet it is so prominent that drug research is required to take it into consideration. The placebo effect arises from the ritual of the medical intervention and the personal ritual of taking the drug, in combination with the "faith" mentioned in the post.
Actually, recent studies have shown that the placebo effect works *even when* people *know* that it's a placebo! If that doesn't prove magic, I'm not sure what does.
Posted by: Matt Rouge | January 23, 2017 at 08:23 PM
Michael Talbot wrote about this same kind of stuff in his book The Holographic Universe, some of the amazing things that happened to people, like stigmata and other skin lesions appearing or disappearing. Talbot attributed it to the idea that our Universe is just a holographic projection, an illusion, and can be affected by consciousness.
Posted by: Art | January 24, 2017 at 12:07 AM
Another interesting book on the history of hypnotism is "From Mesmer to Freud" by Adam Crabtree. It contains many accounts of paranormal phenomenon. Crabtree was also a contributor to "Irreducible Mind".
Posted by: North | January 24, 2017 at 09:26 AM
"Actually, recent studies have shown that the placebo effect works *even when* people *know* that it's a placebo! If that doesn't prove magic, I'm not sure what does."
It proves the power of the mind that we under estimate.. Lyn x.
Posted by: Lynn | January 25, 2017 at 12:25 AM
To effect change in "matter", I might add.
Lyn x.
Posted by: Lynn | January 25, 2017 at 12:27 AM
frith wrote,
||My issue with the notion of blind faith allowing for real paranormal events to happen comes down to one thing: children. Many children have very vivid imaginations and like to think they have all sorts of magical powers, yet we adults don't see that manifest in reality.||
That's a really great point. I happened to be thinking about this issue not too long ago and came up with something similar:
Have you ever turned on a vacuum cleaner or mixer or some other appliance in the home, thinking that it was plugged in and winding up a bit surprised when it doesn't come on? If PK were a matter of sheer belief, total conviction, then I think, from time to time, such devices *would* turn on. And we could come up with a range of analogous physical situations.
All told, the rules of physicality are pretty darn strong. I am personally convinced that they get bent or broken on occasion, but I have experienced fewer than say five things in my life in which *physical* systems behaved outside of what may be termed "plausible deniability." Informational system, on the other hand, that happens all the time, since the excuse of a lucky guess or something like that is always present.
Thus, for the type of table-tipping and PK mentioned in the post, I think it's more a matter of what may be termed "resonant will" than a matter of belief or conviction. The participants must be *trying* to violate the rules, and they have to find a kind of "sweet spot" or resonance in which they allow themselves to do so. I think belief in the possibility is one very important aspect of such resonance but not a sufficient condition and perhaps not even a necessary conviction. For example, it may have been the case that levitation was "believed in" by everyone in certain cultures, yet I've never heard of a culture in which levitation was considered easy. Further, certain people might even scoff at the possibilities for phenomena yet nevertheless find themselves more able than average to perform them or become involved with them.
Posted by: Matt Rouge | January 25, 2017 at 12:55 AM
Hats off, Micheal! You perform a great service by alerting us to good info. I bought the book.
Posted by: James Oeming | January 25, 2017 at 11:18 AM
I always found Colin Wilson's take on the Phillips case interesting - one that, ironically enough, he based on Playfairs take on poltergeist phenomena. He suggested that the experimenters didn't create the effects. They just kept holding their seance until a bored poltergeist wondered by and decided to have some fun.
Posted by: Tony M | January 25, 2017 at 02:53 PM
Perhaps this resonance has something to do with the limits of commonality betwixt the timelike and the spacelike.
Perhaps cognitive gravimetric information can coax some of the warpage to trade places in non mechanical ways.
Of course, one would never quite know the where or when of that; absent precognitive prompting.
For the spacelike to accept instruction from the timelike would probably involve some agreement of will.
Posted by: neal | January 25, 2017 at 03:27 PM
This is too juicy a post and topic to stay away from. IMO, it gets to the heart of just about everything we talk about here.
I have most definitely witnessed the laws of physics being broken in astonishing ways more than once. Most recently, and most numerously, in the months following my father's passing in 2012 (some of which I commented about here at the time). But also on other occasions and circumstances over the past 36 years or so.
There are probably many ways to cause these events to happen and no one way works for everyone or even every time for those that it does work for.
IMO, the most basic common denominator is that something has caused a person's focus to shift to a new point where these things are possible.
By focus I don't mean what you're staring at or paying attention in the normal sense; e.g. I'm reading a book in the living room and not focused on what is happening in the kitchen. Nor is it really a matter of what one is thinking about. Rather, it is more a matter of shifting of energetic consciousness from the world as normally constructed by intent - a world that is for us based on material physics - to a different world where the laws of materialist physics do not apply; or at least do not apply so rigidly.
But first one has to accept that the world we live in is a somewhat arbitrary formulation that is maintained by general agreement; i.e. a consensus reality. I believe this is the case.
Second, that awareness itself is magical and magnetic.
Then, it's like something has to tease the immortal energetic soul (one's essential awareness) out of its sleepy hidey hole and get it operational. Once operational, it is capable of assembling new world orders (ha ha). **When one is experiencing psi, moving objects, etc., one is no longer inhabiting the same world as most other people and that one had previously inhabited**. Usually it is a world that is only slightly shifted from the old one, so there remains much that is familiar, yet it is indeed a separate world.
So what can cause the shift of energetic focus? Could be outside influences, non-human psychic forces, human psychic forces, maybe deep blind faith, certain dreams, just plain spacing out, subconscious needs, meditation, drugs.....really anything that causes the internal dialogue that keeps the energy stuck on the world we know assembled, to stop. Once that has stopped and another world emerges, then anything is possible.
Another to put all of this is that, IMO, life is just a dream, only we have become so caught up I the dream that we have forgotten that it is so. We maintain the dream by focusing on it and it's apparent rules. Once something causes that focus to break down, then the dream becomes malleable, as dreams should be. With the power of our soul, anything is possible, if we can only remember that.
Nuts and bolts - the hypnotist is 1. shutting down the subject's internal dialogue and obsessive focus. 2. Combining psychic energies to create a new consensus reality, The hypnotist knows other realities are possible - that is his "conviction" (one of the greatest forces opposing shifting to new realities is the power of the intent and attention of all of the others who not only have not shifted, but do not want to - the inverse is getting caught up in those who know, are and want to). 3. As a result, new worlds appear in which things not previously possible are now possible.
The point about children is a good one, IMO. I think that children have not developed sufficient intent or energy or power to cause a shift. OTOH, many children recall past lives, talk to "ghosts" all kinds of things that get written off as being imaginary, but might not be.
Posted by: Eric Newhill | January 25, 2017 at 05:15 PM
Here's a post from someone trained in psychotherapy which may be relevant: http://siderea.livejournal.com/526936.html
"That's the other way that the Law of Attraction is like the Neiman Marcus Cookie Recipe. Yeah, it's false... But it actually comes with a reasonably good cookie recipe."
Posted by: chel | January 25, 2017 at 07:26 PM
I should have included "trickery" in my last as a valid means of getting awareness to shift to new realities.
A medium can set the stage, make the sitter's awareness susceptible to a move from its habitual fixation by using tricks that strongly suggest that awareness has already shifted. When the sitter has come to believe that the tricks are real and that she has entered a realm where spirits talk, tables move, etc. the sitter then takes over from there and the phenomena become "real".
This doesn't happen during stage magic shows because everyone knows it's all a bunch of tricks. So "belief" is a factor. You have to believe the tricks that prime the atmosphere are actual paranormal events.
There is always "gaminess" to the whole thing. The séance or hypnosis session has to be an enticing game in order to entrap the awareness. Once the awareness is entrapped and playing along, real phenomena can emerge. However, it is not an intellectual acceptance of the game. Rather a complete emersion of all of the faculties of awareness. As Matt said, "intent" must get involved.
Maybe someone can pick up on this theme and run with it. I am realizing how difficult it is to describe.
Posted by: Eric Newhill | January 26, 2017 at 09:16 AM
I had a related experience a few weeks ago - although somewhat contradictory to the ideas outlined in Michael's post above.
I've noticed that since my sister died a few years ago, whenever I'm in a doubting or anxious frame of mind about some issue or other I'm debating mentally, a white feather will appear on the ground - right in front of my eyes. It's a very reassuring experience. This, more often than not, happens when I'm outside with the horses - perhaps because the repetitive nature of stable work is ideal for inducing a reflective state of mind.
This phenomenon happens so regularly - and always perfectly on cue - that it always makes me smile.
Then one morning, before going out onto the yard, I stood for a minute or two in front of the window gazing absentmindedly outside. I was thinking how absurd it is to imagine that the appearance of white feathers could have any kind of spiritual/paranormal component. Then, right out of the blue, a single white feather drifted slowly to the ground outside the window, right in front of my eyes. :)
Posted by: Julie Baxter | January 26, 2017 at 04:08 PM
@Kathleen I find that story fascinating because I've sometimes wondered about it, the whole motif of relevant pictures falling off the wall is embedded in the culture through endless movies and TV shows as a sign - real or perceived - of communication. And i've always wanted to know how often it occurs/is reported in real life.
Posted by: Lawrence B | January 26, 2017 at 05:35 PM
"The Philip group in Toronto certainly conjured up a spirit, but it was one they had invented themselves, complete with portrait and detailed curriculum vitae."
The Phillip's case is not evidence against the survivalist hypothesis because generalizing from a single case is not valid. But could not all other cases of supposed postmortem communications be like this? Not likely, because there are important differences between them. Some of the mediums were in a trance, which was not Phillip's case. Some cases of mediumship involve intrusions of individuals that no one knew or called, the so-called drop-in communications. And there is also convergent evidence that there is a personal afterlife through phenomena that have nothing to do with poltergeists, such as NDEs, apparitions of the deceased and people that remember their past lives.
That is why the most plausible is that there are natural spirits and artificial spirits, even though it may go against Ockam's razor, but the differences are there and the Ockam's razor is a criterion of simplicity and not of truth.
"Mental hospitals are full of people who have tremendous repressed aggression, but they don’t explode into poltergeist phenomena."
But tremendous repressed aggression may be a factor present in most cases of poltergeists, along with the physiological ability to generate certain energy during the adolescence.
"I have most definitely witnessed the laws of physics being broken in astonishing ways more than once."
But why consider that psychic phenomena suppose a rupture of physical laws? Quantum phenomena barely impact our daily lives and follow their own natural laws. My speculation is that some of psychic phenomena reside in a subcuantic realm that hardly reach the realm of our daily life, hence its fickle character.
Posted by: Juan | January 27, 2017 at 12:00 PM
"But why consider that psychic phenomena suppose a rupture of physical laws? "-Juan
Good point, Juan. Einstein said that all matter is, at bottom, energy; just energy at different vibrational levels. If matter is really energy and awareness is energy based, then it should not be a violation of any laws that energy can effect energy and objects can be moved, transported, altered and so on.
My point was more around the idea that we construct and expend energy maintaining a world where the physical is very solid and object have a permanence. It is this deep fixation that creates the world as we know it and that must be broken down or stopped via various techniques, for a new world (to us) to emerge. To your point, the new world always existed as a possibility and is therefore in violation of nothing. We just weren't aligned to it and thus were not conscious of it prior to our habitual focus being disengaged.
Phillip may have been a new entity created from the energies and karma of the sitters. It's a little disturbing, but we may all be nothing more than the same kind of creation. Once having taken on "life" we continue on as unique entities. The source of our beginning being some mind or minds out in the greater universe.
Posted by: Erich Newhill | January 28, 2017 at 10:58 AM
"Quantum phenomena barely impact our daily lives and follow their own natural laws. My speculation is that some of psychic phenomena reside in a subcuantic realm that hardly reach the realm of our daily life, hence its fickle character.2
And I think you're spot on there, Juan! :)
Posted by: Julie Baxter | January 28, 2017 at 11:18 AM
Posted by: Lynn | January 30, 2017 at 01:03 AM
Quantum phenomena barely impacts our daily lives? We live in a quantum universe. How can that be when everything that happens happens because of what goes on in the quantum world? We are made out of quantum particles and as a unified whole how they act and behave is what makes us what we are, how we think, consciousness, etc.?
There is a much deeper hidden reality that we aren't privy to and everything that happens here arises or is unfolded from the quantum world.
Posted by: Art | January 30, 2017 at 12:27 PM
Love it Art. We are inherently part of the universe, made from old stars, and the same quantum particles. That's why ignoring consciousness or seeing it as fickle, is so absurd. Lyn x.
Posted by: Lynn | January 30, 2017 at 09:39 PM
"Quantum phenomena barely impacts our daily lives? We live in a quantum universe."
The we live in a quantum universe does not mean that quantum phenomena impact our daily lives continuously. Have breakfast, work, sleep, not show quantum phenomena. When was the last time you saw a quantum superposition? Most of our actions are under the Newtonian mechanics.
Posted by: Juan | January 31, 2017 at 03:08 AM
As a Past Life and Life Between Life hypnotherapist, I can say that I don't put expectations or ideas into client's heads, as I have none. Its none of my business, and frankly I dont care. I'm just there to help process whatever comes up.
Having said that, I do believe that I am able to effect some manner of psychic change in clients that are there for programming purposes, and some other areas.
There is a fascinating story in the Holographic Universe, about a hypno who puts a father into deep trance, and then induces a negative hallucination on him. He is unable to see his daughter, standing before him. The hypno stands behind the girl with a watch asking what time it is. He is able to tell the proper time. Either that was a case of the hypno-client mind meld or else reality is moldable. -Cheers
Posted by: Travis | January 31, 2017 at 10:59 PM
I tend to disagree Juan, we are so caught up in what we can visually see. What we don't see is that quantum matter forms the basis of all matter in the universe. Cheers Lyn.
Posted by: Lynn | February 01, 2017 at 02:54 AM
We tend to think we are of importance in the universe I might add. Having read articles written by astronauts, they often realize how insignificant we are when they view earth as a dot on the horizon, and the rest of the universe looms large.
I think we are all one and the same, made from, and come from the universe like everything else out there. Lyn x.
Posted by: Lynn | February 01, 2017 at 03:03 AM
"I tend to disagree Juan, we are so caught up in what we can visually see. What we don't see is that quantum matter forms the basis of all matter in the universe."
That is why quantum phenomena hardly have an impact on our daily lives, because it is at the base, not in the observable effects; I think something similar happens with psychic phenomena.
Posted by: Juan | February 03, 2017 at 09:43 AM
Due to my blood clotting condition, I can't sit at my computer for long periods of time and so frequently fall behind on your interesting blog. I was just reading your post about Guy Playfair's book and took notice of your comment about the Philip case. You appear to accept it as proof that Philip was a fictitious spirit, as do all parapsychologists. No one seems to consider the possibility that Alan Kardec knew what he was talking about when he wrote the quoted material below:
Philip the Imaginary Ghost
Much has been written about Philip the imaginary ghost created by a group of Canadian researchers during the 1970s. Many parapsychologists have concluded from this and other similar experiments that such spirit manifestations are no more than manifestations of the human mind.
Allan Kardec, the pioneering French psychical researcher, discussed this a hundred years earlier in his 1874 book, The Book of Mediums (published after his death). Kardec wrote: "Frivolous communications emanate from light, mocking, mischievious spirits, more roguish than wicked, and attach no importance to what they say...These light spirits multiply around us and seize every occasion to mingle in the communication; truth is the least of their care; this is why they take a roguish pleasure in mystifying those who are weak, and who sometimes presume to believe their word. Persons who take pleasure in such communications naturally give access to light and deceiving spirits.
Kardec added: "Just the same if you invoke a myth, or an allegorical personage, it will answer; that is, it will be answered for, and the spirit who would present himself would take its character and appearance. One day, a person took a fancy to invoke Tartufe, and Tartufe came immediately; still more, he talked of Orgon, of Elmire, of Damis, and of Valire, of whom he gave news; as to himself, he counterfeited the hypocrite with as much art as if Tartufe had been a real personage. Afterward, he said he was the spirit of an actor who had played that character. – MET
I don't know what evidence Kardec had that this was the case, but Kardec had more experience in studying mediums than anybody today, I am fairly certain. I assume that nobody recognizes it because it means we need to call upon spirits to confirm spirits. It's a Catch 22 situation.
Also, I have yet to find a parapsychologist who believes in secondary personalities, super psi, etc., who will address the question of why all these other personalities, i.e., the spirit controls, were intent upon identifying themselves as spirits of the dead. How did they all collaborate in this great scheme aimed at duping everyone into believing that they were spirits of the dead? To what end? The same may be said of the "thought form" idea, although I tie that in with the group soul idea and see it as beyond human comprehension. I think it lends itself to the spirit hypothesis, but it is all very abstract.
Keep up the good work.
Posted by: Michael Tymn | February 04, 2017 at 08:15 PM
Michael Tymn,
I think what Kardec says is probably coorect. That said, it's a little unnerving. How do we know if any spirit we communicate with is who they say they are. True, spirits often go to great lengths to provide details of personal information that only the sitter and the spirit would know (have had that happen quite convincingly myself, when sitting with a talented medium), but I worry that maybe the imposter spirits could picked up that info somehow and use it themselves.
Posted by: Eric Newhill | February 05, 2017 at 07:38 AM
Eric,
I guess it is a matter of "testing the spirits" and "proper discernment" as we are advised in the New Testament. But you might want to check out "The Road I Know" by Stewart Edward White, especially Chapter 2, to read how Betty White dealt with this. As you may know, the book is something of a classic, but you can find it on Kindle for 99 cents or $1.99
Posted by: Michael Tymn | February 06, 2017 at 10:06 PM