Psi phenomena are nothing new and for over 2000 years there have been two camps of thought.
One camp maintains a firm belief in the phenomena and the other does not.
Scientists and skeptics support the ‘no’ view and experimenters and believers favor the ‘yes’.
So in the very clever 21st-century the two camps are irreconcilably split and their diametrically opposed viewpoints have only resulted in public confusion.
Yet, along the way, the new knowledge has been acquired.
Psi research
Even though it faces a materialistic belief system, and a hostile scientific authority that wields great power, research into extrasensory phenomena continues around the globe.
JB Rhine got the show on the road in 1930, but there were others – before and after him.
In 1891 the Russian society for experimental psychology was established.
Its aim was to monitor and research cases of psychic phenomena.
In 1924 it set up a department at the Institute for Brain Research to investigate telepathy and other related phenomena.
In the mid-1970s Chuck Honorton at the Psychophysical Research Laboratories in New Jersey attempted to make ESP tests fool proof by devising the ‘ganzfield test’.
It required that the test subject lie flat beneath a thin red light in a state of normal sound and visual deprivation in a ganzfield.
It had a 40% success rate but materialistic science was unimpressed and claimed his methodology was wrong.
In 1977 Stephan A Schwartz set up the Mobius Group to research genuine psi phenomena and to discover what practical use psychic abilities have in the modern world.
His position was: ‘Psychic ability is not a cure all, but neither is it a fraud. Rather it is a little understood new tool, to be used with, not in replacement of, traditional scientific research. The contribution it makes ultimately will be determined by how honestly it is explored, unencumbered by preconception and fake perspective.’
But in March 1986 David Marks, a New Zealand scientist, wrote in Nature magazine: ‘Parascience has all the qualities of a magical system while wearing the mantle of science. Until any significant discoveries area made, science can justifiably ignore it. Why? Parascience is a pseudo-scientific system of untenable beliefs steeped in illusion, error and fraud.’
And Roy Stemman, an American writer and psychic researcher, in Spirits and Spirit World wrote: ‘These (physical changes to the brain) cast serious doubt on extrasensory perception, which is now a well-established phenomenon.
If people can gain information that bypasses the normal sensory media, then there must be something in the brain – subtler than any process yet detected – capable of transmitting or receiving such information.
The capacities of the human mind – particularly the subconscious mind – seem greater than we can account for by today’s scientific knowledge.’
Stemman turned the focus on the subconscious mind.
And Alan Gauld, a British parapsychologist summed the situation up perfectly: ‘We are confronted with a great range of unsolved problems and unexplained phenomena, all of which are potentially of great psychological and philosophical interest. They are also important to anyone who thinks about the human situation.’
New Age science proclaims that ‘Psi research must accurately describe a large class of observations on the basis of a model...and it must make definite predictions about the results of future observations.’
JB Rhine’s work has guided psychical research for over 50 years.
He tried to introduce a new understanding to the concept of reality but he was stonewalled by a scientific establishment that had theirs and who weren’t prepared to entertain any other.
To him all observed phenomenon, be they paranormal or normal, is connected to consciousness, but what is consciousness?
The challenge
Parapsychology has the challenge of showing that information can be gained through extrasensory perception and if it succeeds it will rewrite the chapter in the book of life that has the heading: The nature of consciousness.
The impact that the current materialistic-atheistic-scientific worldview is having on people and their thinking and behavior has not been researched, but it’s easy to see in the money madness, possession obsession and gene worship that engulfs the civilized world.
But the scientific validation of extrasensory perception would destroy materialistic science and force the overhaul of its totally erroneous worldview.
And that would be a good thing for humanity.
Astrology for Aquarius – sharing our knowledge
