Psychokinesis

Psychokinesis in Orange: needoptic / Aurimas

Also called PK, psychokinesis is a form of psi in which a person’s thoughts allegedly affect objects in an observable manner.

This includes moving or transforming objects in space. One of the most famous exponents of transforming objects is Uri Geller, who has bent spoons in public, apparently with the power of his mind.

Detractors such as James Randi suggest that Geller is a fraud, using trickery without the revealing the integrity to call himself a conjurer.

Since many PK performances are on TV or seen on the internet as video clips, it’s virtually impossible for the ordinary person to ascertain their authenticity. A movie editor with even the simplest video editing software could produce the illusion of, say, spoon-bending.

The scientific community generally agrees that there’s no conclusive proof for psychokinesis. However, many have reported spontaneous instances of objects moving (or appliances switching on or off) in relation to severe emotions of anger or fear. For instance, someone gets angry and all the stove elements turn on.

As a volunteer working in the paranormal section at allexperts.com, I have received countless reports of psychokineses-like phenomena. Whether or not all are authentic or the result of wannabe fantasy writers cannot be determined. But from a sheer statistics perspective, it would seem that at least some of the fantastic accounts I’ve read and replied to are authentic.

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Extrasensory perception (ESP)

Example of a subject in a Ganzfeld experiment. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Extrasensory perception (ESP) is a type of alleged psi phenomena. ESP is sometimes used as an umbrella term for many types of alleged paranormal phenomena but it properly refers to the ideas of telepathy (reading another’s thoughts) and clairvoyance (‘seeing’ without the eyes).

Some Fundamentalist, Protestant and Catholic Christians have a knee-jerk reaction to this idea, saying ESP is the workings of Satan, a delusion or evidence of mental illness. However, in Catholicism some of the more advanced saints claim to have been given similar gifts, usually called the reading of hearts. Indeed, some Catholic mystics claim to know another’s thoughts and/or feel their emotions near or at a distance with no observable cues.

Reading of Hearts. The knowledge of the secret thoughts of others or of their internal state without communication is known as reading of hearts. The certain knowledge of the secret thoughts of others is truly super-natural, since the devil has no access to the spiritual faculties of men and no human being can know the mind of another unless it is in some way communicated. But knowledge of the secrets of another’s heart may be conjectured by the devil and transmitted to a person, or they may be surmised by a deluded individual who takes his conjectures to be supernatural illuminations.¹

From the above it should be clear that Catholics – or, at least, sane Catholics – are cautious when it comes to mysticism. Central to Catholic mysticism is the idea of discernment or “the discernment of spirits.” Discernment is said to be a gift and acquired ability that enables one to differentiate supernatural experiences and abilities that come from God from those that do not.

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¹ AUMANN, J. “Mystical Phenomena.” New Catholic Encyclopedia. 2nd ed. Vol. 10. Detroit: Gale, 2003. 105-109. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 29 Apr. 2012.

Relates Posts » Alien Possession Theory, Paranormal, Randi (James), Psychokinesis, Remote Viewing, Sheldrake (Rupert)

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Psi

Psychic World: Roadsidepictures / Allen

Psi (Ψ, ψ) is a letter from the Greek alphabet, which in the 20th century came to refer to so-called paranormal phenomena.

The term was coined by Bertold P. Wiesner and was first appropriated in 1942 by Drs. Robert Thouless to designate ESP.¹ It later became something of an umbrella concept for a wide range of alleged abilities, to include psychokinesis.

Psi was also popularized in a Canadian TV program, Psi Factor (1996-2000), hosted by Dan Aykroyd, that dramatized the pros and cons of alleged psi abilities.

The status of psi remains controversial. Skeptics argue that no hard scientific evidence supports the idea. By way of contrast, enthusiasts say that psi is not amenable to science as currently understood and practiced.

Meanwhile, middle ground theorists like C. G. Jung claim, rightly or wrongly, that some published experiments yielded significant results.²

More recently, depth psychologists and cutting edge thinkers are calling for a new type of science that (a) would include diverse accounts of personal spiritual and paranormal experience as legitimate data for scientific study and (b) redefine what we mean by science to enable more holistic schemas, which would be considered scientific and not just examples of scientism.

In addition, some religious thinkers rightly question the ethical aspects of psi. While psi may exist, they argue, we’d do well to ask whether or not these abilities are in line with the Good, and more precisely, God’s will. This question opens the door to the possibility that evil agencies may endow individuals (or appear to endow them) with psi.

With regard to the idea that individuals may be deluded about their belief in psi abilities, psychiatry tends to view the issue in terms of mental health and illness. While not absolutely negating the possibility of psi, contemporary psychiatry would also consider whether the brain is creating some kind of hallucination which could give patients the false belief that they had special psychic powers.

Interestingly, in the Catholic fold there’s a curious presence of traditional religious and modern psychiatric perspectives. Exorcism prayers are still read over those deemed possessed or obsessed by an evil spirit. But at the same time, afflicted individuals may be screened beforehand to ensure that the issue is a spiritual and not a psychological one.

While this approach is not without merit, it seems to reflect the same kind of compartmentalized and, perhaps, politically expedient thinking and practice that the Catholic Church has exhibited over the centuries.

Instead of an either/or situation, it seems reasonable to suggest that spiritual deception could result from some combination of both psychological and spiritual issues. And effective treatments may require both religious and psychological procedures.

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¹ Thouless, R. H. (1942) cited at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psi_%28parapsychology%29, “Experiments on paranormal guessing”. British Journal of Psychology, 33, 15-27.

² Clark, Michael. Synchronicity and poststructuralism: C. G. Jung’s secularization of the supramundane, 1997: pp. 72, 119-122, 130, 156-157, 177-179.

» Akashic Records, Aliens and Extraterrestrials (ETs) , Clairvoyance, Psi Spies, Pyramids, Talbot (Michael), UFO

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Randi, James

James Randi by Napolean_70

Randi, James (1928-)

Canadian born American citizen known for his skepticism, apparent critical thinking and zealous debunking of paranormal truth claims.

While Randi certainly does have something important to offer, especially when exposing actual frauds, he seems to emphasize only the naturalistic side of spiritual and paranormal issues.

Moreover, Randi demands scientific evidence of ESP and spiritual powers using science as he defines it, as evident in his rather circumscribed “$1,000,000 Paranormal Challenge.”

But there are alternate ways of viewing science, its meaning and appropriate methods. In fact, some postmodern thinkers, philosophers of science and theologians say that science is a kind of religion or myth–i.e. that these conceptual distinctions are not mutually exclusive.

» Psychokinesis, Seer

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