More Than Meets the Eye: A Journey into the Mysteries of Psychic Phenomena

By Hanna Zacks

In the book, More than Meets the Eye; A Journey into the Mysteries of Psychic Phenomena, I invite the reader to join me in a fascinating trip to the field known as parapsychology. Parapsychology, or psi phenomena, are psychic events which do not lend themselves to regular explanation based on evidence provided by the senses; they are said to be extrasensory. These phenomena are: telepathy, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, and precognition. Our communication is based ordinarily on hearing or reading the others words, but in telepathic communication we are said to know the others thoughts directly, without the mediation of the senses. In clairvoyance, known also as remote viewing, we are said to see remote places without using the eyes. In psychokinesis we are said to be able to bend, push, or break objects without touching them, and in precognition we have direct glimpses of the future. Are telepathy, clairvoyance and other kinds of psychic phenomena real, or are they figments of an overly active imagination? And what about phenomena such as out-of-body experiences, apparitions of dead people, and reincarnation? Are such phenomena real? On the basis of my own experience, of the experiences of people I had interviewed, and of information I had gleaned from books by credible authors, I reach certain interesting conclusions which I share with the reader.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Apr 12, 2011
• ISBN: 9781462004935

Hanna Zacks

HANNA ZACKS, originally from Israel, received a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Columbia University, and later an MSW and a Ph.D. in Applied Social Sciences, from Case Western Reserve University. She taught philosophy and worked as a psychotherapist for many years. She authored two poetry books, Poems that Happened and Common Encounters. Presently she is retired, and lives with her husband in Binghamton, New York.

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Copyright © 2011 by Hanna Zacks

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ISBN: 978-1-4620-0494-2 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-4620-0493-5 (ebk)

Printed in the United States of America

iUniverse rev. date: 4/7/11

for Shelley

with love and gratitude

Contents

Preface

Chapter 1

SCIENCE OR PSEUDOSCIENCE?

1.1 Parapsychology and its Components

1.2 Believers and Nonbelievers

1.3 Historical Overview

1.4 Government Involvement

1.5 Controversy

1.6 The Replicability Problem

Chapter 2

TELEPATHY

2.1 Reading Another’s Mind

2.2 No More Guessing

2.3 A Response to a Telepathic Call

2.4 Telepathic Commands

2.5 Geographical Distance

2.6 Telepathy and Dreams

2.7 Death Messages

2.8 Unexpected Encounters

2.9 Messages of Feelings

2.10 Messages of Pain

2.11 Messages of Other Physical Conditions

2.12 Messages of Images

2.13 Hearing the Thought

2.14 The Body as a Conduit of Telepathic Messages

2.15 The Sensitizing Effect of Telepathic Messages

Chapter 3

DIRECT, INDIRECT, AND CONFUSING MESSAGES

3.1 Identifying Telepathic Messages

3.2 Wrong Interpretations and Mix-ups

3.3 Messages in Symbolic Form

3.4 Vicarious Use of Messages

Chapter 4

THE UNIVERSALITY OF TELEPATHY

4.1 The Meaning of Coincidence

4.2 Telepathy, the Foundation of Language

Chapter 5

CLAIRVOYANCE (REMOTE VIEWING)

5.1 Letters, Cards and Stamps

5.2 Sealed Envelopes and Their Secrets

5.3 Clairvoyance and Books

5.4 Seek and You Will Find

5.5 Telepathy, Clairvoyance, and the Media

5.6 Messages Produced at Will

5.7 Clairvoyant Mix-ups

5.8 Clairaudience

Chapter 6

PSYCHOKINESIS

6.1 Two Types of Psychokinesis

6.2 Do I Have Psychokinetic Power?

6.3 Other Forms of Change through Non-physical Means

Chapter 7

PRECOGNITION AND RETROCOGNITON

7.1 Precognitive Dreams and Other Precognitive Experiences

7.2 Famous Dreams of Future Events

7.3 Subconscious Belief in Determinism

7.4 Dreams as Warnings

7.5 A Sense of Familiarity

7.6 Seeing the Past

Chapter 8

SEPARATION FROM THE BODY

8.1 Out-of-Body Experience (OBE)

8.2 OBE in Waking and in Sleep

8.3 Near-Death Experience (NDE)

Chapter 9

REINCARNATION

9.1 Different Interpretations of Reincarnation

9.2 Dr. Stevenson’s Research

9.3 Reincarnation and Healing

9.4 Strange Experiences

9.5 Radiating Light

Chapter 10

A GLIMPSE INTO THE BEYOND

10.1 Ghosts

10.2 Last Minute Goodbyes

10.3 Messages of Love Sent after Death

10.4 Haunted Houses

10.5 Accepting the Discarnate

10.6 Daring to Argue with the Discarnate

10.7 A Romance with a Ghost

10.8 Just a Presence

10.9 Children Know Best

10.10 Summoning a Spirit

10.11 The Third Man Factor

10.12 Not an Uncommon Experience

10.13 Who is the Third Person (or Persons)?

10.14 Third persons and guardian angels

Chapter 11

LESSONS LEARNED ALONG THE WAY

11.1 Are Psi Phenomena Real?

11.2 The Explanatory Power of Psi

11.3 Training for Psi Power

11.4 Be Careful What you Wish for

11.5 The Energy Theory

11.6 Receiving-and-Transmitting Stations

11.7 Energy in Different Contexts

11.8 A New Physics

11.9 The Limits of Knowledge

11.10 Parapsychology – a Legitimate Science

References

Acknowledgements

Preface

In the book, More than Meets the Eye; A Journey into the Mysteries of Psychic Phenomena, I invite the reader to join me in a fascinating trip to the field known as parapsychology. It all began when I was listening to a program about the famous psychic, Edgar Cacey, who had special powers of diagnosing and healing the sick, as well as telling the future and seeing the past. The stories about Mr. Cacey’s astonishing feats intrigued me, and I started reading articles and books on what, I discovered, was called parapsychology, or psi phenomena, namely, psychic events which do not lend themselves to regular explanations.

Regular explanations are considered to be ones based on common sense or scientific reasoning which, for their part, are founded in the last analysis on evidence provided by the known senses: hearing, seeing, touching, etc. Psi phenomena differ from regular phenomena in that they cannot be explained by recourse to such evidence; rather, they occur by means other than the senses, which suggests the possibility that they are caused by some kind of mental powers.

The main extrasensory phenomena are: telepathy, clairvoyance, also known as remote viewing, psychokinesis, and precognition. Also included in the realm of parapsychology are unusual mind-body relations such as out-of-body experiences, as well as phenomena related to certain aspects concerning life after death, such as reincarnation, and apparitions of ghosts and spirits. The esoteric terms mentioned here, some of which I myself had hardly come upon before I found out about the field of parapsychology, I define in Chapter 1. Once I got acquainted with all these types of phenomena, a new world opened up in front of me, and I was eager to explore it.

Since psi phenomena were so different from our ordinary experiences, I tried to keep an open mind about them. In the books I had read I found that authors describing them often copied from one another reports of the same cases. I doubted the accuracy of some of these reports, and wondered if they were not manipulated in order to make a point or just arouse excitement. I also realized that many people dismissed psychic phenomena as mere fantasies, or even outright lies. I wanted to find out whether psi phenomena were real, that is, events which had an objective existence, or whether they were products of an overly active imagination.

I maintained that an answer to this question should be based on empirical data I myself have collected. I decided, therefore, to carefully and accurately document pertinent experiences which I, my husband, Sheldon, and my children, Joshua and Abner, have had singly or in interacting with each other. I have faithfully recorded these experiences in a diary for many years, and I used them mainly in my investigation of telepathy and clairvoyance, and to some extent of psychokinesis and precognition. But examination of psi phenomena would be incomplete without investigating out-of-body occurrences and mind-body connections, about which the experiences of my own and my close family members were limited. In order to supplement material about these areas, I have therefore interviewed friends, acquaintances, and people whom I considered credible, and explored their psi experiences.

In reporting cases based on interviews, I used almost always accounts related to me by people who personally experienced the events described. In the one or two occasions on which I reported cases of a more remote source, I made it a special point to indicate this fact. I interviewed altogether abut 60 people. In addition to self-reports and facts obtained through interviews, I used in my investigation also material taken from books authored by reputable writers. In reporting data obtained through interviews, I invariably changed the names and usually also the identifying features of the interviewees. I even changed the names of my husband and my sons. Although those who know me usually also know who my husband and my sons are, altering their names, I believe, preserves, if only minimally, their privacy.

My purpose in the following pages is not to convert people to a particular point of view; it is, as I said above, a personal journey of self-enlightenment in which I invite the reader to join me. While my account is rich in first hand fascinating testimonies of the different kinds of psychic experiences, I also venture to offer, what I regard as interesting hypotheses, like the idea that telepathy is the basis of language, that living beings are transmitting-and-receiving stations of energy, and that certain customs and popular beliefs which appear to be based on superstitions, actually spring from psychic experiences. I touch, as well, on some philosophical issues, such as the one regarding determinism and free will. Do the reported cases of astonishingly accurate precognitions suggest that everything is determined, and that we must give up our deeply held belief in free will? These profound problems are thought provoking, and contemplating them is not only important but also thrilling.

Chapter 1

SCIENCE OR PSEUDOSCIENCE?

1.1 Parapsychology and its Components

The word Parapsychology was coined by the German philosopher Max Dessoir in 1889. The prefix para- is of Greek origin meaning beside, or beyond. Parapsychology is beside- or beyond psychology, it deals with what are supposed to be mental phenomena beyond the scope of psychology as we know it today. Psi is a letter of the Greek alphabet, ψ, an abbreviation of psychic or mental, and it, too, means beyond psychology.

Parapsychology, or psi, consists of several kinds of phenomena, which do not lend themselves to what we consider to be a regular explanation. Such explanation is achieved by the use of common sense or scientific reasoning which, for its part, is founded on evidence provided by the senses. For example: one knows what the other person thinks by hearing or reading his or her thoughts. Parapsychology deals with the kind of phenomena in which a person knows what the other thinks without hearing what s/he says or seeing what s/he writes, but in some other unknown way. The fact that parapsychological phenomena cannot be explained by recourse to the mediation of the known senses, suggests the possibility that they are caused by mental processes. Testimonies believed to be authentic, of encounters with these kinds of phenomena, have been in existence since the very beginning of history and have been found across all cultures.

The most widely known kind of psi phenomena appears to be telepathy. It is defined as communication between two or more minds without the mediation of the known senses. Closely related to it is clairvoyance, which differs from telepathy in that the transfer of information occurs not from one mind to another, but from an inanimate object to a mind, without the mediation of the known senses. This kind of transfer of information is also called remote viewing, a term the use of which is often preferred when the location of the object in question is especially distant.

Psychokinesis, or PK, also known as telekinesis, is the ability to move physical objects without the intervention of physical forces. Precognition, still another kind of psi phenomena, has to do with information about events which did not as yet occur, and therefore could not be founded on evidence offered by the senses. The reverse of precognition is retrocognition, or postcognition, the object of which is information about past events obtained, again, without the mediation of the senses. Telepathy, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, precognition, and retrocognition, all types of phenomena which occur by means other than the senses, are known as types of ESP, namely, Extra Sensory Perception phenomena.

In the realm of parapsychology are included, in addition, phenomena which have to do with certain mind-body relations and with life after death. Among these are out-of-body experiences (OBE), that is, experiences in which the subject has a sense of looking at his- or herself from the outside, reincarnation, namely, the re-occupation, or rebirth of a soul, after the death of the host body, in a new physical body, and apparitions of ghosts or spirits encountered mainly in places known to have been frequented by deceased people.

1.2 Believers and Nonbelievers

Since psi phenomena are so unlike our ordinary experiences, different people interpret them differently. In discussions I had with various people about the psi phenomena issue, the reactions I encountered ranged from the highly positive to the absolutely negative, including the different shades in between. A few people were unabashed in their support of the idea that psi phenomena were real. Some were staunch deniers, claiming that the idea of parapsychological phenomena was complete nonsense. With the arrogance of the know-it-all they rejected from the outset any suggestion to consider examples which could mitigate their opinions. The idea that certain aspects of reality were not explicable in a manner they were accustomed to, was to some scientifically oriented individuals very disturbing. They preferred, therefore, to speak dismissively of the believers and promoters of such a concept, and were ready to question these people’s sanity rather than accept the idea as worthy of consideration. A classic example of punishing the messenger!

Some, initially noncommittal, were ready to change their minds after pondering for a while, when remembering a puzzling event from the past which made them think, and stated that perhaps there was something to it.

Some indicated that the subject was interesting, but they had decided to stay away from it, fearing it might draw them to the twilight zone, seduce them to get involved in the occult and lose touch with reality.

Sadly, a number of highly educated people, among them prominent academicians, told me they believed psi phenomena were real, but kept their beliefs secret, afraid of being stigmatized by colleagues, regarded as superstitious, credulous, perhaps even weird. A few of the secret believers, who based their beliefs on personal experience, accepted, at the same time, the view that such experiences were a sign of mental instability, and were, therefore, especially careful to keep quiet.

Finally, some of those who, usually because of personal experiences, believed in the reality of psi phenomena, but also felt the need to explain the origins of these experiences, called God to the rescue. Information received telepathically or precognitively, they claimed, was of supernatural origin; it was a divine message. This explanation is good enough for the religiously inclined, but for others, including me, substituting one mystery for another will not do; a rational account of these interesting phenomena is needed, and if in principle it cannot be provided, this, too, should be rationally accounted for.

1.3 Historical Overview

Modern attempts at exploring psi phenomena started with the establishment, in 1882, of the Society of Psychical Research (SPR) in London. The objective of the society’s founders was to separate mental phenomena from spiritualism, a movement which was at that time gaining popularity, and from all kinds of superstitions, and to explore psi phenomena by using scientifically reliable methods. The result of the British society’s work was the publication, in 1886, of a collection of well investigated cases in the book Phantasms of the Living, authored by Edward Gurney, Frederic Myers, and Frank Pedmore. The cases reported in that book had to do with information about death received telepathically, or sometimes precognitively, as well as with apparitions.

Following the British model similar societies were later founded in Europe and in 1985 in the USA. The prime mover of the American Society of Psychical Research, and for many years its main spokesman, was James Harvey Hyslop, at one time a logic and ethics professor at Columbia University. A co-founder of the organization was William James, the world- renowned philosopher and professor of psychiatry at Harvard University.

An important development took place in the early 1920s, with the establishment of the parapsycological laboratory at Duke University, NC, and the starting of the Journal of Parapsychology. Previous research had been of a qualitative nature; it had focused on seeking evidence for psi phenomena by collecting and examining case studies. The Duke laboratory, on the other hand, took an experimental approach; it looked for quantitative evidence by applying statistical methods. The goal in applying these methods was to make parapsychology a branch of science.

The chief researchers at Duke were the psychologists Joseph B. Rhine, his wife, Louisa E. Rhine, and Karl Zener. They enlisted students and volunteers to participate in controlled experiments, using dice as well as a special deck of cards developed by Zener and known as the Zener Cards. In order to establish whether telepathy for example, was real, they divided the participants at random into two groups, senders and receivers. The senders were asked to choose cards and mentally transmit the information about the cards (or the number on which a die fell) to the receivers.

The purpose of the experiment was to find the number of matches and mismatches between the mentally sent information and the information received. By using a statistical method they were then able to determine whether the number of matches was not simply a matter of chance; in other words, that it was significant. The significance was an indication that there was a connection between the sending and