Toward a general theory of the paranormal
Dr. LeShan has written many popular books, including The Medium, The Mystic and the Physicist; Toward a general theory of the paranormal. This is an excellent book in many ways. He describes a method of psychic healing that he developed himself, and used successfully, though not on everyone. He has an intelligent and even handed discussion of the reasons for the irrational rejection of so many scientifically well established results in Psi research for more than a century. Evidence for some kinds of Psi phenomena is presented in the Appendices.
Many of my friends are very fond of this book, which states a popular thesis, that the worldview of the Medium, the Mystic and the Physicist are all the same. I believe this is wrong. It does not help in the advancement of Psychical Research, Mysticism or Physics as sciences, though it may be a useful point of view for psychic healing.
It is true that physicists have a different idea of reality than the one we encounter in everyday experience. Common sense reality is that we are at rest on a flat Earth, with all the heavens spinning around us. That is how it looks and feels. By the use of instruments like telescopes, and mathematical language, the physicists became convinced that common sense perception is an illusion if we are interested in the motion of the planets. A better approximation is the universe of Galileo and Newton, in which the Earth spins (giving us the day and night movements of the sun, moon, stars and planets) and revolves around the sun in one year. Because the Earth’s spin axis is tilted, this allowed a purely natural explanation of the seasons. At the end, as an appendix, I shall give another example.
Secondly, it is impossible to grasp the mystical experience by reading words. The words of our ordinary languages exist in the social activity of men and women engaged in physical activities, such as work, sex, recreation, house-keeping, pig-farming and so forth. Since mysticism is not a universal experience, it is impossible to describe a mystical state in ordinary language. One must use Jungian symbolism, poetry or Haiku, and still fall short. Perhaps music expresses the mystical state better than anything else, if it is grand and glorious music, that raises one into an exalted state. It is possible to look at the practical consequences of some of the things learned by the mystic. However, a non-mystic writing about mystics cannot even do that.
Psychical research has debunked numerous mediums; so much so that they don’t bother studying contemporary mediums. However, Eileen Garrett was an exception. She was very comfortable with scientists, and few Psi researchers would say she was a fraud, or anything less than a true psychic. And while I have no doubt that she enters an altered state of consciousness, as does the shaman or the mystic, there is little similarity between these altered states.
LeShan has come across the “All is ONE” philosophy that I myself hold. Yet we must immediately add that “All is different, and continually changing.” It is here that we get different approaches to spirituality. In the Word of One, the revelation that “all is ONE” is presented in the midst of descriptions of 22 purely symbolic pictures, each with a name. They are the major arcana of the new tarot. Each is the evolved form of one of the major arcana of the usual tarot deck. The source wasn’t interested in doing fortune telling; the silver dollar was telling us how to bring about a great reversal of civilization. Some of the pictures are symbolic revelations of mystical states, if they are drawn correctly, but John Starr Cooke did not draw them correctly. Some show us obstacles to a new age, such as the Thinker up a tree, or the Actor, hiding behind a mask on the stage of mass communications. Many of the cards describe roles that we can play in the Great Reversal. These include the Doer (Sun), the Changer (Mage), the Deliverer (a reference to the illumination of fire), and many others. There is every kind of thing in these 22 pictures, and I have described them on this web site as “The Revelations of the Nameless One.” So ONE becomes many; many things in action and in motion. This is how we learn about divinity, by taking up these roles, and pursuing these goals. It is not about sitting Zazen, or prayer. Both are perfectly useless. The doGs prayed to do not exist. There is only ONE.
If everything is continually changing and going into and out of existence, what exactly is this ALL that is ONE? We may each come to different conclusions about that. Do we include the passing shadows of Plato’s cave? I don’t think so. I think it all depends on our theories about mind, body and soul.
My theory of the mind is that it is a part of nature, but not part of physics. It is certainly not the brain, since Prof. Ian Stevenson has spent a lifetime proving the reality of reincarnation. BTW, he finds no evidence of karma, and no possibility that human spirits can reincarnate as cockroaches, let us say.
The mind is a part of nature, and has size, shape, colors, internal components, mass and conservation of energy. It differs from ordinary matter primarily in that it has absolutely no interaction with the EM force, which governs most properties of physical matter. It therefore is invisible to the eye or the instrument, and can freely pass through “solid” objects, just like the dark matter discovered by the astronomers. I do not say they are the same thing. But they might be.
Theory: The mind can only be perceived by those powers that are intrinsic to the mind itself. There are two, and they are normally turned off while in-the-body. Go out-of-body and they immediately turn on, but it takes some practice to develop them fully. They are the apparitional power and the HSP power, and they can be used simultaneously. For instance, in an NDE, the spirit typically hovers around the accident site, battlefield, or operating room. It hears what people are saying by the apparitional power that corresponds to hearing. It sees what everyone is doing by the power of HSP, which can absorb or send de Broglie waves. It is with this power that the mind-brain interaction takes place, on a deeply unconscious level.
BTW, mind, brain, and soul each have their own powers, their own role in perception and action. For instance, the ability to interpret the arbitrary shapes of letters into words and sentences and associate them with memories and actions—that is strictly a brain power. That is why it is useless to put a string of words or numbers on a high board in the ER, as a target for NDE spirits. The spirit can see, but it cannot read. On the other hand, the spirit can focus on successive inner layers of either a physical object like the body, or a psionic object, like the mind. Works just as well in complete darkness. It provides a 360 degree arc of vision.
If there is mind, body and soul, what is a spirit? It is the combination of mind and soul. Stevenson’s studies show this, since there is a continuity of consciousness, memories, and even bodily features. Each has its own powers.
The powers of the mind vastly exceed the possibilities of physics. We know this from our encounters with star-traveling humanoids around landed UFOs. We have reason to think they travel by levitation and teleportation, both powers of the mind. That is why their motion is completely silent, and why they jump hundreds of light-years in an instant. They can visit Earth and be home for tea. We wouldn’t know this if we didn’t know about UFOs.
Consciousness is exclusively the prerogative of the Soul. Mind and brain are merely pre-processors. Direct experience by the Soul is mystical experience. The mysteries of free will and synchronicity lie with the Soul. My own mystical experience, and the Revelation of the Nameless One provide the basis for this theory of the Soul.
What is the ALL? Everything real. That is everything eternal, though not unchanging. Our souls are like the droplets of spray at the sea-shore. From it we came, and to it we will return. That’s my theory. That is immortality. Bodies and even minds are not immortal, though the association of one soul with one mind may survive countless incarnations, for as long as the species Homo Sapiens lasts; maybe for as long as the universe lasts. I expect that one day, thousands of billions of years into the future, the universe will begin to contract. (I realize this is not the current theory). And instead of contracting to a singularity, it will contract to a Big Boing, and a new chapter of the universe will begin. In those extreme conditions, I think we will abandon our attachment to minds, and rejoin ONE as pure souls. But that is just my theory. It could be that the universe did not have a beginning and will not have a final ending.
My detailed theories about the mind are testable by physicists, and I wish someone would. A test of the sleep dynamo shouldn’t be too hard. Those details are in my books, so I will not repeat them here. I will end by pointing out that LeShan’s book leads to no scientific tests. Email me if I am wrong.
~~Dr.H
Appendix: Relativity: The mathematics of special relativity is very simple. Just algebraic equations that use a factor of sqr(1 – (v^2/C^2)). As v approaches C, this Lorentz factor approaches 0. C is the speed of light and v is the velocity of an object relative to the second system of coordinates. S. relativity is all about the velocity of one object relative to another. If this relative speed approaches the speed of light, the Lorentz factor approaches zero.
To transform from one of these coordinate systems to another, we divide mass by the L. F. We multiply time by the L. F.. Distances in the direction of travel are also multiplied by the L.F.. Thus, from the Earth, it would appear that the space ship is gaining ever more mass, while its clocks are slowing down, and its length is shrinking. Of course, things look very different inside the spaceship. The equations are easy to understand, but it takes time and contemplation to realize what this really means. Once again, we find that our ordinary conceptions of space and time are illusions, and behind that illusion is something more fundamental, known as space-time. Once we understand that, relativity is easy.
Special Relativity is the last great theory that leads to no logical paradox. Even General Relativity leads to singularities and to time travel, something logically impossible. The reason is that time is an imaginary dimension in two senses. It is part of the human myth, because we can remember regular cycles in the past, and evidence in nature of deeper cycles of time, and we have expectations of the future. The physical world has no real past or real future. There is only now, everywhere at once, in constant motion and change. I realize this is not compatible with the notion of space-time. Curiously, Special Relativity shows us that time is an imaginary number, i.e., some number X times the sqr(-1)=”i”. We know this from the calculation of the invariant distance beween two events. R = sqr(x^2+y^2+z^2 – (C^2*T^2)). Squaring an imaginary number produces a negative real number. The factor which converts time units to space units is C^2, a number that appears a lot in physics. It is 9*10^20. You cannot observe or travel back and forth on an imaginary dimension. Only in the astral planes are there real pasts and futures. This makes time perception rather different in the afterlife, the Bardo or “Between.” Google on “Rodonaia.”