Friday, September 19, 2008

Paranormal Viewpoint

I know I have an unusual viewpoint on the paranormal. I believe at times almost all of the types of psychic gifts can be granted to an individual. For a short time you may get one gift in spades. But I don't want this "gift" again. I have spent most of my life trying to turn it off and ignoring those occasional snippets of conversations that still slip into my consciousness during that vulnerable time when I am waking up. When I am asked to advise someone on how to increase their psychic ability I always take the position that they should first seriously question if they really want what they are asking for. I had it once and I don't want it again.

There are two main reasons I do not want this gift and they both come from my personal experiences which may not be typical. When you read the story in OPERATION BLUE LIGHT: My Secret Life among Psychic Spies my reasons for not wanting psychic ability should be obvious. First of all psychic ability disrupts your thoughts and your life. The more accurate it is the more disruptive it is and the more addictive.

When I had this gift it was so detailed and so accurate that I could not live with it. If it was spotty and questionable like most psychic ability I might have been able to live with it. I found I can only live without it. Also I understand how addicting that ability can be. The more perfect the ability is the more you want it. What I don't understand is the group of people who do not believe in telepathy. And it seems to actually be growing.

Which brings me to the second reason I do not want this gift again. The 2005 Gallup poll on the paranormal reported "Three in Four Americans Believe in Paranormal" The poll let the respondent check entries on a list of ten types of paranormal beliefs they might have held. They could check all that applied and they could check either "believe in", " not sure about" or "don't believe". The poll revealed that 73% checked one or more of the list of paranormal beliefs. This got the headline, but for a week in the summer of 1966 I had near perfect telepathic ability, (I could not get names, but I got about anything else from those who were also gifted at that time). So I am interested in the telepathic ability. The Gallup pollsters found that 31% believed in telepathy, 27% were not sure and 42% did not believe in it. Even more disturbing is that in spite of the growing amount of press that psychics get. The same Gallup organization in 1990 found that 36% believed in telepathy, so there are even fewer believers now than 18 years ago.
Our culture today has not found a place for psychics. We do not fit in anyplace. For most of my life I have not talked about the troubled 6 years after high school that gave birth to my near perfect psychic ability that summer in 1966. I made a life for myself where no one knows I even had psychic ability. It is a very comfortable life and I am lucky to have my bills paid and a State of California pension check coming in. If my life were not so comfortable I probably would not have published that book. I would have just gone on not talking about that 6 years. My friends and relatives have always allowed me not to talk about it. But I am glad that my situation allows me the privilege of putting my story out to the public.

I wrote the book for various reasons. Mostly I felt I owed it to "the casualties of the cold war's psychic battlefields" as I called them in the dedication of the book. Then also I have avoided talking about it for so long that I still find it difficult. So now I can just point you to the book or the videos and i will not need to tell it. I have gotten to a place where I don't care how unbelievable people find it. Also it needs to be told because it is unlike any other. The accuracy and details of my "spoken telepathy" I had that summer was not like any published experience. So my story needs to be put on the record. Finally I chose to publish it because it is just a good story and I believe you will enjoy reading it even if you are among 42% that do not believe in telepathy.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/16915/Three-Four-Americans-Believe-Paranormal.aspx#1

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Psychics and Stability

In spite of the fact that psychics enjoy confusion, both inside and outside themselves, they are stable. Or maybe they are stable because they enjoy confusion. Perhaps "stability" should be defined here. There seems to be some misunderstanding about that personality trait. An emotionally stable person can take a great deal of pressure before showing any sign of emotional illness, but that is not to say he never will. By comparison and emotionally unstable type is the "typical juvenile delinquent type." The emotionally unstable person gets angry at little slights, and will get violent as a result of seemingly minor annoyances. To a degree, being emotionally stable as much in common with having low irritability.

An early paper by Gertrude Schneider said that, "All other things being equal, well-adjusted subjects will do better at ESP than will poorly adjusted subjects." For long time individual psychics were observed to be emotionally stable. To return to the Nicol-Humphrey tests reported in 1953 and 1955 they said, "Another striking correlation was found to exist between ESP and the factor of emotional stability (from Cattell's personality inventory.)" The correlation with the total runs was P= .003 level. As they said, "For the correlation of total ESP score with emotional stability, we have coefficient of +.37, a result that would occur by chance about once in 350 investigations of the size."

People who think of psychics as "emotionally unstable" are wrong. Shortly after these results were released Dr. Nicol was speaking at a number of conventions. At one conference for a parapsychologists he told them of an event that had happened at another meeting where he spoke. He recalled, "At that conference there were a fair number of psychiatrists experienced in psychical research. They pounced on this finding that emotional stability was favorable to psychic impressions, saying this was contrary to their experience." But they reply was that they only see emotionally unstable people. Dr. Nicol had said earlier, "With only a mild play on words we may wonder whether instability is associated with 'fear of the (ESP) unknown signal." Even normally emotionally stable people have their "breaking point." So most people who have experienced psi phenomena of some kind are probably stable. We can even add those occasional ones who couldn't take it from the psi Unknown and so began to exhibit degrees will "mental illness."

In the mind of the psychic there is desire for improving himself yet there is a natural stability and ease in tough situations. These things may seem contradictory, but motivations for any behavior in a psychic will spring from great depths and travel many complicated and pathways. Most importantly, the person himself likes this way, he feels perfectly comfortable with the situation.

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Nicol, E., and Humphrey, B.M. 1953. The exploration of ESP and human personality. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 47:133-178.


Nicol, J. F., Humphrey, B.W. 1955. The repeatability problem in ESP personality research. The Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 49: 125-156.

Schmeidler, G. R. 1949. Personality correlates of ESP as shown by Rorschach studies. Journal of Parapsychology 13: 23-31