Head Light: Taking the Psychology Out of Parapsychology

Head Light: Taking the Psychology Out of Parapsychology
2012 12 17

The existence or otherwise of psi, ESP or whatever you want to call it, is one of those key controversies at the centre of the great consciousness debate concerning whether mind somehow exists beyond the confines of the brain. Hardened materialists say such a notion is nonsense, that psi phenomena such as telepathy simply do not exist and that parapsychology is a sham.

A classic example of this attitude is pinpointed in David Metcalfe’s Psi News 4 here on RS where he links to an Alex Tsakiris interview with arch-sceptic Victor Stenger, author of the recent God and the Folly of Faith: The Incompatibility of Science and Religion. In the interview, Stenger manages to call parapsychologists charlatans, even including venerable researchers like Stanley Krippner in that charge. Apart from displaying such gall, "New Atheist" Stenger goes on to effectively equate psi research with beliefs about god and religion - something the likes of Richard Dawkins is guilty of too. But this linkage is false, a non-sequitur: the existence of psi phenomena does not necessarily need there to be a god.

This inappropriate free-association of ideas is typical of the muddled thinking in this whole area - even among some non-sceptics. But the nub of the matter remains - are critics like Stenger correct in their dismissal of psi? Well, this bleak midwinter I bring you the glad tidings that ongoing, remarkable experimental evidence not only indicates such scepticism to be misplaced, but that the whole nature of the debate is about to be superseded.

Parapsychology generally provides its evidence in the form of statistics, and so is all too readily subject to the charge of "lies, damned lies and statistics" - how reliable is monitoring lots of subjective responses to laboratory tests, and why isn’t psi robustly repeatable in experimental conditions? When it comes to actual, real-life psi experiences - telepathic or precognitive events, apparitions and so forth - critics tend to level accusations of misperception or dishonesty against the claimants, and point out that in any case such reports are merely anecdotal, and not acceptable as scientific evidence. Mainstream scientists demand "hard" evidence (whether or not their idea of that is applicable to the mercurial nature of psi phenomena). But now, research by the redoubtable Michael Persinger, with Blake Dotta and their team at Laurentian University, Ontario, makes it look as if the hard-nosed sceptics can at last be confronted on their own ground. To do so, the Laurentian researchers have taken a different track to standard parapsychology - and it is all to do with light.

Persinger is famous (or infamous) for his so-called "God helmet", a helmet that holds electrodes in place on the wearer’s temples that generate programmed patterns of weak magnetic fields which massage the temporal cortex producing sensations of unseen "presences" and other strange perceptions. (In fact, Persinger had developed this procedure to explore the neurological use of magnetism in therapy in place of pharmaceutical products.) But on the heels of this device, he and his co-workers developed a further instrument, nicknamed "the octopus" on account of all the wires involved. More properly known as a circumcerebral magnetic stimulation (CMS) device, this basically is comprised of solenoids (coils) set at intervals on a headband fitted around a person’s cranium. The solenoids are controlled by a computer program that enables them to rotate precisely configured weak magnetic pulses around the head. This magnetic stimulation can affect the brain in certain ways, including partially disrupting the 40 Hz so-called "binding factor" of the brain which normally seems to help pull all our sensory inputs together into a smooth, seamless perception of the world. Put in non-technical language, this disruption allows normally curtailed or masked information from "Mind-at-Large" to reach awareness. Some of this information can seemingly possess psi properties, whatever they turn out to be.

[...]

Read the full article at: dailygrail.com
Top image from DailyGrail.com

Tune into Red Ice Radio:

Carol de la Herran - Robert Monroe & Altered States of Consciousness

Bob Frissell - Hour 1 - Transitioning Into The 4th Dimension

Nassim Haramein - The Schwarzschild Proton

Peter Russell - The Primacy of Consciousness

Anthony Peake - Hour 1 - The Nature of Reality & Twilight Zones of Consciousness

Anthony Peake & Tom Campbell - Consciousness Creates Reality

Johan Oldenkamp - Hour 1 - Wholly Science

Share |

Latest News from our Front Page

"Policy of multiculturalism in Europe has failed"
2013 05 22
The UK is experiencing a deficit of Caucasian people in the regions where the majority of the population is made up of immigrants and ethnic minorities. In the last 10 years more than 620 thousand white Brits left the capital of the UK, where Caucasians are now a minority making up only 45% of London’s population. The policy of multiculturalism in ...

Stockholm braced for further rioting by young immigrants
2013 05 21
Main article from FT.com follows below this comment: Well, all of this is hardly unexpected, since there now is pretty much annual riots in Sweden. Disgruntled immigrants who are burning cars, schools and other buildings is now turning into the norm in Sweden ...as it seems to be throughout the rest of Europe. Stones are flying and you can smell the ...

Dzhokhar’s boat ‘confession’ the most unbelievable part yet of Boston psyop
2013 05 21
Remember the notes that accompanied the anthrax deliveries right after 9/11? They said things like, “Allah is great!” “Death to Israel,” “Death to America!” and “9-11-01: This is next.” In other words, THE MUSLIMS DID IT: the same ones who had so handily defeated the world’s greatest military machine on Sept. 11, 2001. And they did it because they hate us ...

The Mystery of the ’Immaculately Conceived’ Baby Anteater
2013 05 21
[...]Staffers at a zoological conservation center in Greenwich, Conn., are very confused — as are the rest of us — because their female giant anteater, Armani, has managed to conceive a baby, apparently without the presence of a male anteater. What? It all started in August, writes Lisa Chamoff for Greenwich Time. Armani, an anteater at the LEO Zoological Conservation Center, ...

The US Government Might Be the Biggest Hacker in the World
2013 05 21
Cyber crime is big business in the US. It’s used to spy, steal, harass competition, political opponents, or to stage an attack and blamed it on a foreign enemy. Is the government in on this crime industry? Yes, and in bigger ways than you can imagine… This trend is enabled domestically by an institutionally corrupt US legal system and a police state ...

More News »