TCI - SP5 - Phillips Actualizes Discussion On Parapsychology

First, my thanks to Eric for joining TCI and for taking on the first designated `seed post' - (one of Eric's choices BTW in our writers poll) - excellent job at bringing us all up to speed on this very important terminology and area of the paranormal. And, in this post, I will respond to what struck me about Eric's thoughts on the issue.

Most agree that the founders of modern parapsychology are Joseph Bank Rhine (1895-1980) and his wife Louisa Ella Rhine (1891-1983). Joseph Rhine had a Ph.D. in botany and started to work as a professor at Duke University in 1927.

First, as I said in my post about my influences:
and a telekinesis event (which we beckoned) (again with J.S. Flower) in about 2004 which I’ve described to Sally Rhine of the Rhine Institute.
So, I have talked with Sally (daughter of I assume) and literally get the Rhine Institute Newsletter - indeed, on my Barf Stew blog I had one of my most famous pictures of what happens in some of these group settings.

Indeed, does the above person look like a hoaxer?

So, just based on my own experiences, I can say that extremely weird things can happen based on emotions and intentionality's as I ascribe the event that J.S. and I had occur to be based on those characteristics.

There are some debates in parapsychology as to whether ESP and PK are actually different forms of psi, as affecting matter can also be construed as affecting the information about matter.

I especially like this Eric - as `information' keeps coming out indeed, IMO, as some sort of third leg of Phenomenology.

As Dean Radin have eloquently showed in last decade, the existence of psi is beyond any rational doubt

Agreed - Radin and the Noosphere project at Princeton are beyond a doubt the leading edge of this type of data collection.

The most important question, however, is about the central notion of “psi” used to describe paranormal event. What is “psi”? Some proposed it is some sort of energy, but the empirical proof is lacking to support this view. The implicit consensus seems to edge towards: it is “something” having to do with emotions and intentions. The most interesting proposal is that it is actually information, understood in its broadest meaning (including both the cognitive and the affective components).

I will look forward to your opinions and development of the above as TCI goes onward.

The ramifications of this approach to psi can be staggering. It implies that notions like time and space are plastic, and can be modified at will if we know how to go about. Such enthusiasm, however, should be tempered because it is not the human experience to have reality modified at will. Rupert Sheldrake, in my opinion, provides the answer to this paradox with his notion of morphic field. Once something is put in place and it is use or effected over and over, it becomes very difficult to change it.

The above struck me hard ---- as I am of the thoughts that `objects' -- ie:spaces ---- have EXACTLY that characteristic - and that `it is learned' by the common consensus we call reality.

Collective psi effects have been studied by a few, and they have shown that a small group of people can produce more ostentatious effects, the Philip Experiment being the best known of those studies.

Tell us more of this Philip Experiment please.

Could we, collectively, through our shared unconscious intents make certain social events occur in a certain way rather than another by playing on the margins? An example of what I mean here is the number of male birth higher than the normal statistical probability in France and Germany after WWI. Were the French and German, as politicized nations, unconscious looking for being ready for another fight? They certainly got their second fight.

On this one (above) I liked your question and think it has real merit - however, the `answer' I don't buy.
Are reality and the universe simply a mega-synchronicity born out of someone’s will? Out of this question another one even more mystical in nature can be asked: if time and space are just “ordinary” variables in this vast equation, could it be possible that we, the humans, somewhere in time, are the ones who intended such mega-synchronicity?
To me, the above reminds me of my favorite book - by Edmund Husserl - The Phenomenology of Internal Time-Consciousness - as I - as a Phenomenologist (if such a thing exists) - feel the very `definitions' of time and space - ARE reality.

Great Post Eric - tantalizing bits of esoteric thought with some excellent speculation.
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Then, as you know, Duensing took on the challenge of responding to your seed - and I will briefly respond to that too.
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One of the motifs that appear in this book is one that Eric is focused upon and one that also in the light of Biocentrism is the potential energy of coherence in the human species entrained to PSI and the nature of quantum physics
As usual Bruce - you target the exact correct `thing'.
an intentional codex that can be read if one has enough reference material at hand to see cross references to the same concept in various mythologies
Like most of us - with enough exposure to esoteric thought - we see the same concepts over and over. That said, I am not a strong believer in Mythologies.
One need only explore the complex atomic theories of the Hindu cosmology as an analog to tie this into Gurdjieff's identification of India and other bases for the reestablishment of civilization after a catastrophism.
I'm intrigued - and not aware of Gurdjieff saying this or the Hindu cosmology tying into atomic theories. More please.
I immediately thought of The Fifty, a number that crops up across the millennial epochs from Gurdjieff to The Search For The Golden Fleece, that fifty individuals could transform reality in the terms and methodologies that Eric postulates.
Interestingly, I thought I had read somewhere the number was 12 - I'd like to know more about this 50.
When Eric wrote: "Rupert Sheldrake, in my opinion, provides the answer to this paradox with his notion of morphic field. Once something is put in place and it is use or effected over and over, it becomes very difficult to change it." Again, it rang a tone in relation to implicate order, and something that I have written about as well which is the entrapment of language as it is applied to experiential sentience
Again, interesting that you and I have focused on these words. Bruce, I don't know how much of Sartre you have read - but - when he gets into `having' and `doing' and that `one makes ones own phenomenology' (such as writing an essay like this) - and that THAT `event' has oneself as the source of `things' - blows me away.
This stance implies that under no circumstances whatsoever can we allow ourselves to give up certain things or change them."
I too believe that `objects' and spaces that we KNOW - thru repetition - are indeed an anchor we cling to.
By the reflected attributes of one to the other, as it were as the universe expands based on the complexities of exchanges that require more timespace as differentiated by parallel processing or parallel worlds where the past now and present are infinitely transforming to perpetuate cross pollination as it were. Neither selfish or selfless, as it relates to the original speculation that began this blog which is the "non existance of now"
Without getting into the whole `Be Here Nowish' of The Heavy Stuff - let me say that I too view it all as an exchange between the `definition' of time and the `definition' of space.
"The new paradigm, or idea that informs our understanding and relationships and attitudes and so on, is of one absolute and all-inclusive reality in which we mankind have a definite and unique role to play, and that this role is to be found in the context of the total. This is service to Life and to Existence, both as the absolute reality and as all the living things that are its relative expression.
Just to go on record - I do NOT believe humans to be the be all end all in any way shape or form. Indeed, in my theories - a rock is almost as `alive' as a human.
But it is here that the idea is faulty, because what is known through the being of the animal is not the same as what the idea understands from it. Even though the animal is a limited form, it knows through its being its connection with the absolute; precisely through its relativity and creaturiality it knows its origin.
One thing that has always interested me is how `animals' (perhaps via DNA?) seem to be BORN with nearly all the information it will need to survive.
I certainly relate to Eric's concise targeting of this nexus as I think the same thing in regard to the material becoming spiritualized while the spiritualized becomes material on Jacob's Ladder.
Heavy Duty stuff Bruce. And, thanks for the seed thoughts - Eric.