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THE NATIONAL OBSERVER
Weck Ending October 20, 1973
Science and Psychic Powe.
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By John Peterson
FROM LOS ALTOS, CALIF.
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(HIS Is not the tame stuff of science fiction.
It is, Instead, the realm of the psychic, the
mystical world of the supernatural and the
paranormal that, its adherents say, may change
your life markedly in the next 5, possibly 10
years.
Some highly reputable scientists and philoso-
phers, undaunted by the scorn and skepticism
that such thoughts evoke, see ordinary folks
doing soine amazing things as a profound psychic
revolution Imbues them with
extraordinary
Powers:
. It is the middle of the afternoon. Rather
than telephone your wife, you ease back in your
chair, compose your thoughts, and beam a tele-
pathetic message to her. That evening your fa-
vorite dinner is waiting.
. When some disease or allment strikes, you
head for the nearest spiritualist, acupuncture
practitioner, or faith healer. We will all realize,
of course, that our minds control our bodies and
that iliness is merely the result of a disturbed
psyche. This peace of mind will also mean the
near-eradication of mental illness.
. Those who really work at it will be able to
read books still on the shelf In the next room,
partake of astrotravel iwhere the soul leaves the
body and flits through the universe, or commu-
nicate with deceased loved ones and our spiritual
guides. We may even learn of our previous re-
incarnations.
One Hazard: Insanity
Inevitably there will be broader, more signin-
cant implications to society because of these ex-
panded powers of our minds, but their definition
must wait until the nature of these now-inexplic-
able occurrences becomes clear. Former astro-
naut Edgar Mitchell centends we are now on the
verge of man's most important scientific break-
through, which will show these phenomena to he
"natural events that can be as casily explained
as sunlight bending around the moon." He adds,
"Anyone who Is still doubtful of psychde phenoin-
en: is simply ignorant."
Mitchell Jy hardly a voice In the wilderness,
for Interest in psychic research is booming.
Physicists at major universities and research
centers are attempting to measure the mind's
waves or energy levels that produce these phe-
nomena. Philosophers are trying to develop
theories that cinbrace and explain the inexplic-
able. No one yet has a true glimmering of the
answer -- if indeed there is an answer.
But even while learned men try to unravel
the mystery, thousands of persons are flocking
to institutes, classes, and week-end sessions that
hold forth promise of psychic knowledge and in-
sight. Some are finding it. And what's more,
drug-abuse experts are learning that the ex-
panded consciousness that comes with spiritual-
istic or psychic experiences Is the best alterna-
tive to wean the young away from drugs. It Is,
perhaps, the greatest movement among young
people sluce the psychedelic revolution began
10 years ago.
Alan Vaughan, coeditor of the San Francisco-
published Psychic magazine, says the news in
psychic ph.nomehin today is that selence may
have the tools to finally analyze these powers of
the milud. Indeed, literally scores of organiza-
tions are Involved in Jesearching and teaching
the psychic. This work is not without his dangers.
Mitchell, founder of the Institute for Nnetles in
Menlo Park, Caht., ah organization he hopes
will be the catalyst and focal point for the study
Into the science of the consciousness, say's Tud-
fully, "Insanity is the occupational hasard of this
business."
Scientists Try to Detect,
Measure the Existence
Of Psyelic Phenomena
The Quest for Insight
Explains Allen Cohen, a clinical psychologist
in Berkeley who is also director of a drug-abuse
institute at the John F. Kennedy University in
Martinez: "We're going to see some profoundly
disturbing events. I've scen more than 100 psy-
chic eruptions in people who have gotten in over
their heads. By the late 1970s we'll have the
same need for discrimination in these exotic
: alternatives to drugs as we now have with drugs
. themselves."
The problem, he says, comes as people work
at altering their consciousness and opening their
minds to new forces. "Through improper medita-
tion, serious illness, or attempts to astrotravel,
these people see mystical visions that they can't
Integrate properly into their view of life. There is
a great and building problem today with the
huge numbers who are becoming obsessed and
possessed. When you treat their mental disturb-
ance in a normal way they simply aren't
helped."
Eleanor Criswell, an educator-psychologist in
Sausalito, agrees with Cohen that psychic dis-
turbances may account for as much as 80 per
cent of all mental illness. "I want people. to
know that they are normal when they hear
volces, when they experience visions," she says.
"We need a psychic liberation, an understanding
and acceptance that psychic experience is not
unnatural aixl Is not an illness."
Most people who are excited about the psychic
yet involved through such methods and practices
as Transcendental meditation, hypnosis, yoga,
diruys, scientolo.y, and several different mind-
contrul programs. By altering their conscious-
ness they hope to open their minds to deeper
lusight Into the meaning of life.
Types of Phenomena
Most experts agree that most programs or
movements that end up with a cultish devotion
to the lender, trapping devotees to a dependence
upon the group, are harmful. "Ideally a person
should sample the techniques used to open the
mind by each of these organizations, and then
muve on to another," says Mitchell. Adds Cohen:
"Some groups have learned how to open a per-
son's mind up, but then they simply don't have
the spiritual direction or depth to give the person
direction. Some end up hurting a lot of people."
Elmer and Alyce Green, noted blofeedback:
researchels at the Meuninger Foundation in
Tope ka, bon. see the mind-ruining courses as
Ins: d .h .rums. In a report witten for the
Acad 'iny of Terap yrhology and Medicine, they i
contest the courses induce in some persons
"a fu.m ti : pekt neurosis or nerchosis, often -!
fested to (: : . asien or. if.osscasion."" They cuu-
tion that unless there practitioners regulate
themselves, the Government "may summarily
bon miany research and training programs that
otherwise, if carriully developed, miant become
valu: ide tagunds 13 our education and health
systems.""
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Cohen says there are three traditional types
of psychile phenomena: mind-to-mind, mind-to-
matter, and matter-to-mind. "There really are
seven distinct phenomena," he says. "A person
usually only has one of them, though some rare
psychics have combinations of them."
His classifications: mind reading, or the abil-
Ity to receive telepathic messages; clairvoyance
of the past, future, and present; vibrational em-
pathy, the most complex, includes the ability to
heal, read another person's aura, and perceive
I others' spiritual guides; psychometry, the ability
to know the past of a person or object through
touching; and mind-force control, the most dan-
gerous ability, which includes both the projecting
of thoughts into another person's mind-as in
voodoo-and the rare psychokinetic power to
bend or alter metals and to make objects dema-
terialize and rematerialize.
These psychic powers have been chronicled
in literature for decades. But the same problem
exists today as always: The charlatan is still-
difficult to disprove. As a result, most truly
gifted psychics and some not-so-gifted seers
spend much time proving their powers In scien-
tifically controlled tests, which also allow scien-
tists to seek the origin and nature of their power.
Audiences Gasp in Amazement
Such tests at the Stanford Research Institute
(BRI) in Palo Alto have created unusual interest
because of the stature of the scientists involved.
But SRI, after spending wecks with two renowned
psychics, Uri Geller and Ingo Swann, carefully
guarda its words. "We do not claim that either
of these men has psychic powers," say Hurold
E. Puthoff and Russel Targ. "We have observed
certain phenomena with the subjects for which
we have no scientific explanation. All we con
say at this point is that further investigation is
clearly warranted."
Geller, a 26-year-old Israell now living in
Ossining, N.Y., apparently possesses unusuni
powers, though his detractors, Including Time
magazine, contend he does nothing a magician
cannot duplicate .- During a perforinance before
1,500 persons at Stanford University he per-
formed feats of telepathy and psychokinetic
power. "This is not a scientific laboratory," he
told the audience, "but I have done the same
kind of things at SRI."
He appeared twice at Stanford, each time
apparently exhibiting that he can receive others'
thoughts and that he can bend keys and start
up watches that had been stopped for years
merely by passing his hand over them. People
would gasp In amaremeni as a ring or key that
they clutched tightly in their hand began bending
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and kept on bending for nunutes after deller
had passed his hand over it.
"I first discovered that I hnd this power when
I was 7 years old," Geller says. "I could move
the hands on my watch. But no one and no device
can measure my energies. I violate physical
Jaws that scientists say cannot be violated. Many
thousands of scientists still don't believe, so the
major thing I'm doing now at SRI and other
universities In the United States is proving to
them that my powers exist.
"America Is the country where we can lift
our foot for the giant step that will let us under-
stand this. People are ready here and nowhere
cise. But Callfornia Is more upen than New
York."
'What Can a Bent Key Help?'
.
Ne says he does not believe that his power to
snap spoons in two, bend keys, read minds, and
fix watches comes from his inind. "I believe it
Is generated through ine by an intelligent power
in the uilverse. I believe In God, but I do not
beheve this is coming from God. The parapsy-
chologists want to hear that my powers come
from my inind because they want to believe
that. But I don't want to discredit people, and
I don't want in fiet Into those heavier things.
I want to keep winst I have pare. After all, what
can a bent key help?"
-Lise Glodasen
Geller holds a just-bent key.
"The important thing today is to learn to make
psychle powers work for us," says Robert Matt-
son of the Academy of Parapsychology and Med-
icine here. "Our goal is to convince medicine
that these powers exist and are helpful and
must be used. We've been gaining a lot of sup-
port lately." Mattson says some of the scad- .
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emy's presentations on acupuncture and faith
healing have drawn more inun 1,000 persons.
Another psychic, Bob Hoftman in Oakland,
is working with 40 psychologists and psychia-
trists on psychotherapy. He says he has devel-
oped u psychic counseling method for the emo-
tionally disturbed that "brings these people and
the people around them to peace with them-
selves."
The activity in this burgeoning, exploding
field has received little support yet from Estab-
lishment Institutions and from government.
"There is still little recognition from our Intel-
lectual community of the tremendous importance
of this work," suys Jeffrey Smith, emeritus pro-
fessor of humanities and philosophy at Stanford.
"We all have latent powers, and we all need to
wake up to what is happening around us."
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Underlying nearly all psychic investigation
and all attempts at improving man's spiritual
state is the attempt to further intuitive knowl-
edge. Psychics, humanistic psychologists, and
spiritualists agree that man can receive much
knowledge and can become much more creative
through his intuition. "I am not psychic," says
Cohen, "but I belleve that through developing
my intuliive powers 1 can achieve more knowl-
edge and understanding than a psychic, who is
really only using another sense or two beyond
the five we all already employ. I think man has
to establish a balance between his rational and
nonrational thought processes.
"We're in one of the few erns in one of the
few places in the world that this kind of phenom-
enon is not taken for granted. There are a lot
of people looking for meaning and direction
today. It's really & terribly healthy thing."
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