6

Psychic Phenomena

When we have a new understanding of time, we will understand ESP. All the pieces will fall into place.

—Dr. Gardner Murphy, former president of the
American Society for Psychical Research1

 

These kinds of things cannot happen: telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition—yet millions of people have experienced them. Psychokinesis, poltergeists, apparitions, and healings should be just as impossible. Yet millions have witnessed them. Any one such phenomenon pokes a hole in our standard worldview of space, time, and consciousness. Together, they make a shambles of it. These things cannot happen in the world as we know it, but in an extra-dimensional world, they must happen.

 

All psychic phenomena derive from the same source—the higher faculty that apprehends an extra dimension. Bucke sensed this but said he lacked the “time and necessary ability”² to include it in his book. Gopi Krishna was explicit about it. He repeatedly emphasized that the same consciousness that could “look beyond [our] space and time”³ was responsible for all psychic phenomena; and that various kinds of it were often included in the mystical experience. “The moment transcendence occurs…other windows in the mind open…[which] can bring to him knowledge of events occurring at a distance, as also visions of the past and future. His utterances may become prophetic and he may acquire the healing touch.”4

In other words, the different kinds of psychic phenomena are just different facets of higher (extra-dimensional) consciousness, just as language, mathematics, depth perception, and the use of tools are different applications of our three-dimensional self-consciousness. What this means is that if you had full possession of the higher faculty, you would have the full complement of psychic powers, which of course no human being has ever had. Even the best of us get only partial possession of them, which is likely to yield a part of the spectrum at a time. The Apostle Paul said:

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit…To one through the spirit is given the utterance of wisdom; and to another the utterance of knowledge…to another faith…to another the gift of healing…to another the working of miracles…to another prophecy…to another the distinguishing of spirits…But all these things are the work of one and the same Spirit.⁵

Still, virtually all psychic phenomena happen without any possession of the higher faculty, per se. Here's how. We know that as consciousness has evolved in the human race, a few individuals have leaped over the threshold to a higher type of consciousness, i.e., extra-dimensional. But not just individuals evolve, whole species do; many more of us must be close to that threshold, and in fact have been for thousands of years. Millions of people, though still under-qualified for a full-fledged taste of the higher faculty and a mystical experience, are capable of having smaller pieces of it, fragments of extra-dimensional consciousness that filter down into our normal state, fragments we know as telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, psychokinesis, and the experience of poltergeists.

Telepathy

Telepathy is the process by which someone gets information directly from the mind of another. It's a bit of the higher, more sweeping faculty that Mohammed says “embraceth all things in his knowledge,”6 a piece of that facet of higher consciousness that is naturally telepathic. For example, Jesus “needed no evidence from others about a man, for he himself could tell what was in a man.”⁷ It is an isolated fragment of the extra-dimensional “consciousness of consciousness.” Such a fragment, in the form of a spontaneous telepathic intuition, often involves a person feeling or just knowing what is at that time happening to someone else, usually someone they are close to. For instance:

 

We had just moved to Kansas, and my mother was visiting in Colorado. At 3:15 A.M., October 11th, I wakened suddenly with a terrible choking sensation, as though I could be dying. My breath was coming in dry sobs; I looked out the window, and noted the town clock was chiming 3:15.

I rushed into my daughter's room, wringing my hands crying, “Your Grandma is dead.” My daughter ridiculed my crazy dream as she called it. It was no dream. I had not been dreaming at all.

In a few minutes I fell asleep, exhausted. In the morning my daughter asked, “What was wrong with you last night?” I declared I knew something was wrong with Mother and I was going to be prepared for a call. I unpacked a trunk to get out my winter clothing; then I called Western Union to let them know where to find me when the message came. The family meanwhile teased me about my nightmare. The telegram came at 4:15 P.M. from Colorado: “Bury Mother 3 P.M. Friday 13th, Auburn”⁸

 

Louisa E. Rhine offered this and other accounts of telepathy in her ESP in Life and Lab. Another example is that of a farmer who went into a deserted barn near his property and stumbled upon a large rattlesnake, coiled and ready to spring. At first stunned by the suddenness of the encounter, he recovered in time to kill the snake with a stone and iron bar. At the very time this was going on, his daughter back at the house was seized by a great fear that something was happening to him. Searching desperately but unable to find him, she prayed and waited, until all at once she felt at ease as the fear lifted. When he later returned, they would compare notes on the timing.9

Clairvoyance

Clairvoyance is the direct perception of objects or events with no other sending person needed. It is just a different part of the same extra-dimensional consciousness, as described here by Christian mystic St. John of the Cross: “The Holy Spirit illumines in…other present or future matters and about many events, even distant ones.”¹⁰ It's a trace of the higher sense the Bhagavad-Gita calls “Open vision, Direct and instant”¹¹ a fragment of the extra-dimensional consciousness that can perceive every object in our world, as that extra dimension connects every point of our three-dimensional space.

Here is such a perception of an object: A young woman was thought to have taken a watch from a bathroom in the boarding house where she was staying. Though innocent, she was upset because the other boarders blamed her. After a week of praying for a way out of this dilemma, she had a dream that the watch was still in the bathroom wedged between the tub's leg and the wall. When she awoke, she went to the bathroom and it was indeed just where she had “seen” it.¹²

Here is another example, this time of an event: “I lived 14 miles from Memphis, Tennessee. One day I went to town to see a movie. I had an uneasy feeling as I entered the movie that something was on fire at home. This feeling grew until I could endure it no longer. I left the movie with an overpowering pull that drew me homeward. Within a mile of home I saw the fields all black and smoking. A boy hunting rabbits had thrown a lighted match in a field and started a fire. It took the fire department and fifty volunteers to save my home.”¹³

Precognition

Precognition is seeing a glimpse of the future. Of all psychic phenomena, it is the most flagrant violation of our laws of nature. It shatters the old notions of cause and effect, of linear time flowing from past to future. It's the most impossible phenomenon of all, yet its explanation is the simplest.

Precognition, like telepathy and clairvoyance, comes from the expanded consciousness that apprehends an extra dimension, with our past and future laid out along it. But here the glimpse is of what lies ahead for us in that extra dimension. It's a peek into “the hidden knowledge of past, present, and future that is always carried within itself by the eternal spirit,”14 a glimpse of one small point in “the beginning and the end and the midpoint of times.”¹⁵ (This also accounts for another phenomenon, psychic glimpses of the past, or postcognition.)

Many precognitive visions occur in dreams. Here's a famous one: Shortly before his assassination, President Abraham Lincoln had a precognitive dream—of his own death. This account of it was recorded by Ward Hill Lamon, U.S. Marshal for the District of Columbia, who was at the White House when Lincoln related the dream at the prompting of Mrs. Lincoln.

About ten days ago, I retired very late. I could not have been long in bed when I fell into a slumber; for I was weary. I soon began to dream. There seemed to be a deathlike stillness about me. Then I suddenly heard subdued sobs, as if a number of people were weeping. I thought I left my bed and wandered downstairs.

There the silence was broken by the same pitiful sobbing, but the mourners were invisible. I went from room to room; no living person was in sight, but the same mournful sounds of distress met me as I passed along; every object was familiar to me, but where were all the people who were grieving as if their hearts would break?

I was puzzled and alarmed. What could the meaning of all this be? Determined to find the cause of a state of affairs so mysterious and so shocking, I kept on until I arrived in the East Room, which I entered. There I met with a sickening surprise. Before me was a catafalque, on which rested a corpse wrapped in funeral vestments. Around it were stationed soldiers who were acting as guards; and there was a throng of people, some gazing mournfully upon the corpse, whose face was covered, others weeping pitifully.

“Who is dead in the White House?” I demanded of one of the soldiers.

“The president,” was his answer. “He was killed by an assassin.” There came a loud burst of grief from the crowd, which woke me from my dream. I slept no more that night, and although it was only a dream, I have been strangely annoyed by it ever since.16 (Lincoln was assassinated a few days later.)

Louisa Rhine also gives several accounts of precognitive dreams in her book. In one, a woman dreamed that her brother-in-law had died and his wife called her long-distance to tell her. When the woman told her husband upon waking, he just laughed. But later that same day, her sister-in-law called to say her husband had been killed that morning while topping a tree, and she was “screaming and crying” exactly as the woman remembered in the dream.¹⁷

Spontaneous intuitions like these have been reported by people of all ages, cultures, and religions. The majority occur in sane, healthy individuals, and then only once or twice in a lifetime. They are not the stuff of delusions or mental disorders. Nor are they paranormal, at least not in an extra-dimensional world. They must happen. They are exactly what we should expect, inklings of the higher consciousness we as a race are subconsciously struggling to acquire.

The connection between telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition, now known collectively as ESP, and the mystical experience, its parent consciousness, is unmistakable. How could it be otherwise, for ESP is a natural part of that extra-dimensional consciousness. In fact, reports of ESP can be found in all mystical literature and religious scriptures based on the mystical experience. The difference is that the mystical experience is broader, deeper, more complete with ESP accompanying it, while intuition by itself is but an isolated fragment of the whole.

As with the mystical experience, those who have such intuitions are stunned by them. They are likewise completely unexpected; they “come unawares,” or as Paul says, “like a thief in the night.”¹⁸ Also, those who have had these apprehensions immediately realize how far removed they are from any normal conception, and it is just this strangeness that makes the strongest impression. This must be so.

Higher transfinite knowledge cannot be grasped or understood by the self-conscious mind. For with ESP, fragments gleaned from the vaster extra-dimensional ground make their way to the threshold of self-consciousness and are there recognized as a sensation, impression, feeling, or intuition. As such, the intellectual conception of it is ineffable; one can only say, “I just know.” It is beyond the scope of the self-conscious mind to realize what is being directly apprehended. As the Tao Te Ching says: “[an] image without an image,/ subtle, beyond all conception.”19

What these intuitions most resemble is an emotional feeling. They are almost always about people and events important to the experiencer, where there is already an emotional attachment. This suggests that it is the emotional closeness, or “oneness,” not the actual distance of space or time that allows for the apprehension. Not that this is the only type of information available with the consciousness of an extra dimension; it's just that with a race capable of only the feeblest traces of higher consciousness, these simply come first.

With these spontaneous intuitions, the perception comes through because it is important to the individual. But how about in the laboratory? Can subjects intuit extra-dimensional information about emotionally meaningless targets on demand in cold, clinical settings? Apparently, to some degree, they can.

In the 1930s, J. B. (Joseph Banks) Rhine and his wife, Louisa, applied scientific methodology to psi research in their landmark Duke University study. From early on, they got significant results with card guessing tests for telepathy and clairvoyance, even when carried out over great distances. It seemed this mysterious sense was not bound by (our) space. The Rhines wondered if psi could transcend (our) time as well. It did. Tests for precognition were likewise significant, but the Rhines were so concerned with the implications of this (e.g., that ESP could violate the law of cause and effect) that they delayed publication of their results for years.

The Rhines knew that ESP was real. They also knew it was “impossible” under the laws of the standing worldview. J. B. Rhine, in Extra-Sensory Perception, wrote:

…it may be that quite new principles of reality will have to be found before these new phenomena can be explained. In any case one must be guided by the new facts, of course, and not by the present limits of knowledge…It is difficult to think of physics as probably very far from complete in its grasp of world processes. Yet that is the very point that is indicated or strongly suggested by the facts.20

Louisa Rhine went further:

Now it is clear that it is not the phenomena that are questionable, rather the theory that the universe is such that phenomena like these cannot occur is incorrect…Its answer as far as one can see now must lie in a fundamental rethinking about the structure of the universe; a rethinking that will take account of all the questions raised by the phenomena that show the direct contact of mind and matter.²¹

The Rhines' most profound realization was that it seemed that another part, an extension, of our normal self-consciousness could operate outside of our normal space and time. Louisa Rhine wrote in Mind over Matter: “Accordingly, since space and time are the main criteria of physicality, it was a breakthrough to find a mental ability that was not bound by them. It meant that the operations of mental life are at least in some degree free from the restrictions of the physical world. This was to demonstrate that mind has a nonphysical element; that it includes an aspect that seems profoundly different from that of the physical world, even while it is all part of a single universe.”²²

J. B. Rhine, in a lecture at London's Guildhall in 1965 sponsored by the British Association for the Advancement of Science, summed it up: “We know now, at least in parapsychology (the field of psi research), that space-time as generally known does not comprehend the whole of the universe…man therefore belongs to a bigger universe than he has known hitherto.”²³

In other words, a bigger universe of which our space, time, and consciousness are just a part. Sound familiar? The famous psychologist Carl Jung, who was strongly impressed by the Rhines' experiments, picked up on this connotation, saying that it showed “space and time…were dependent on psychic conditions and did not exist in themselves but were only ‘postulated’ by the conscious mind”24 (Shades of Kant and extra-dimensional theory.) Jung then tried to tie this in with his own quest for a theory of synchronicity, a force of nature he felt transcended the law of cause and effect. In The Interpretation of Nature and the Psyche, he said: “It seems more likely that scientific explanation will have to begin with a criticism of space and time on the one hand, and with the unconsciousness on the other.”²⁵

Jung was definitely on the right track, but unfortunately, he never got past these basic assumptions. Now for the other side of it. Skeptics who reasoned that since “ESP can't be, it isn't” attacked the Rhines' results for everything from statistical and procedural errors to outright fraud. Most of the claims were either unfounded or exaggerated, but this attitude would nevertheless set the tone for a half-century of more of the same. Researchers tighten up their experiments to eliminate any possible alternative explanation, as pointed out by skeptics; they get more significant results then skeptics attack them again, with a seemingly endless array of “normal” explanations for the results, many more bizarre than the existence of ESP itself. Yet, this is predictable.

In every case where the prevailing worldview is threatened, it is fiercely protected right to the very end. Thomas S. Kühn, in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, says:

Normal science, the activity in which most scientists inevitably spend almost all their time, is predicated on the assumption that the scientific community knows what the world is like. Much of the success of the enterprise derives from the community's willingness to defend that assumption, if necessary at considerable cost. Normal science, for example, often suppresses fundamental novelties because they are necessarily subversive of its basic commitments.²⁶

For example, only parapsychology requires an extra experimenter present to avoid charges of cheating by a sole experimenter, and results are not considered to be statistically significant unless the odds against them being due to chance are at least fifty or one hundred to one; in other, less controversial, sciences, a result is considered significant if it is twenty to one against chance.

Despite all restrictions, researchers were still getting significant results, and in the process wearing down resistance in the mainstream scientific community. In 1969, the Parapsychological Association, an international organization of professional psi researchers, was granted affiliation with the American Association for the Advancement of Science—a major step in the emergence of parapsychology as a legitimate scientific endeavor.

Still, one obstacle remains. Through the years there have been many successful ESP tests, enough to convince most reasonable people that ESP does exist, but these tests are notoriously difficult to duplicate. Established standards of scientific proof demand that at some point an experiment must be duplicated with predictable results. Such an experiment is the Holy Grail of parapsychology and would establish psi as scientific fact. The problem is that even with repeating the same test there are differences in methodology, scoring technique, size of the test, and types of subjects, and all these factors have been known to influence results.

But slowly, these factors are being sorted out, and the influence of each determined; slowly, because the manpower and resources involved in psi research are incredibly small compared to other scientific disciplines. Dr. Richard Broughton, Director of Research at the Institute for Parapsychology (North Carolina) and former president of the Parapsychological Association, estimated in his 1991 book, Parapsychology: The Controversial Science, that:

There are probably fewer than fifty scientists in the English-speaking world and in Europe who conduct parapsychological research on a more or less full time basis. When you realize that there are probably more people involved in this research than ever before, you can see why progress in this field is slow.27

Yet it is inevitable. There will be a repeatable psi test, perhaps soon. Dr. Broughton says: “We are now—finally—on the verge of a breakthrough.”26 The breakthrough, because when this happens, there will be nothing left for critics to criticize. It will be irrefutable proof. Mainstream science must accept ESP. But then another problem arises: How to explain it? It is, after al, impossible in the world as we know it. ESP cannot be carried by any physical energy. It is unhindered by great distances of space and all known forms of energy get weaker over distance, and no known energy can transcend time.

We need a larger framework of space-time, right? No; we need a larger framework of space, time, and consciousness, a consciousness beyond our normal way of knowing. This is what ESP hints at, for even in the lab, flashes of higher consciousness that result in “hits” elude the detection of the senses and self-conscious mind. When subjects try to say when their ESP is operating during testing, as checked by their correct guesses at precisely those times, they have generally scored no better than when they felt it was not.

The subject is oblivious to the real “sense” at work. The real sense is the higher consciousness that can perceive an extra dimension, and those who have temporarily acquired this—mystics—have always maintained it is beyond the senses and intellect. The Upanishads: “There the eye goes not, I Speech goes not, nor the mind.”²⁹ The Tao Te Ching: “Look, and it can't be seen I Listen, and it can't be heard I Reach, and it can't be grasped.”³⁰ Jesus: “Seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, neither do they understand.”³¹

J. B. Rhine speculated that ESP was “a later evolutionary acquisition”³² in the human race, that it was connected with the “analogies of ESP found in religions and mystic lore.”³³ Rhine flirted with the truth but missed the larger picture. It is the higher faculty unveiled in mystical experiences that is the later evolutionary acquisition, of which ESP is a lesser manifestation. The experimental evidence for ESP reflects this. These lesser manifestations of extra-dimensional consciousness are as feeble and incomplete in the lab as they are in real life. Good results are just a little bit better than chance and even the best do not yield perfect scores. Also, the evidence for telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition is about the same, just as it should be if they are all by products of the one real sense at work, the higher, extra-dimensional faculty.

Everything in our world has extension in an extra dimension. I earlier postulated that indications of this would show up in the investigation of the “very small”: we see it here, in the consistent but weak positive results from psi tests. Psi is the extension of consciousness.

Psychokinesis

In the 1970s and '80s, some television documentaries on psychic phenomena featured this strange sight: a stout, middle-aged Russian woman standing in front of a wooden table, concentrating intensely, then gesturing and grimacing: her objective, to try to get some ordinary matches sealed inside a glass case (on the table) to move, using only the power of her mind. If you've seen it, you know what happened next—they indeed moved about.

The woman in the film was Nina Kulagina, a Russian housewife, and the best known PK subject of modern times. Kulagina could move small objects such as matches, cards, and cigarettes, even when they were sealed inside lead-impregnated glass enclosures; she could also deflect compass needles and affect living material, for example slowing down and stopping a frog's heart.

This is psychokinesis, or PK, the ability to move matter and influence objects without touching or affecting them in any normal way. PK first gained wide attention in the nineteenth century with tales of mediums who could levitate tables and move objects about rooms, tales that are difficult to evaluate because of mediumship's long association with fraud. However early researchers compiled lengthy documentation, and the performances of some mediums were impressive.

But there's little doubt about Kulagina. She has been studied extensively in Russia by researchers, committees, and impartial scientific institutes, and there has never been any basis to suspect fraud. In addition, she led a modest life and at no time attempted to profit from her PK abilities.

One might think that such well-documented and oft-repeated performances would prove the existence of PK, but not so. Skeptics, who deny its existence because “it's just not possible” still claim fraud, even when exhaustive measures are taken to eliminate any possibility of it. They maintain that the subject must be cheating but in a way that has not yet been detected. Kulagina has been accused of this by some in the West. But when a Soviet journal (Man and Law) alleged trickery, she brought legal action against it. Two members of the Soviet Academy of Science testified on her behalf, and in 1988 the court ordered the journal to publish a retraction.

Kulagina's PK was real. But despite all the testing, researchers were never able to explain how it works, or even offer a “conventional” hypothesis for it. They only know that her performances were very taxing physically, as if she had expended a tremendous amount of energy; she lost weight, her blood sugar increased, and her heartbeat rose dramatically. (As she grew older, the experiments became too much of a strain on her; she retired from laboratory testing and died in 1990.)

Here's how PK such as Kulagina's can be understood. Remember these two things: Physical maneuvers that are impossible in any world of space-time are easily accomplished by the use of an extra dimension; and, everybody and everything in our world has extension in an extra dimension. Now, here's how it actually works. The subject moves an object by applying force with her extra-dimensional extension, or “body” to the extra-dimensional body of the target, all of which takes place outside of our normal space and goes unseen (made easier by the fact that all three-dimensional objects are connected in extra-dimensional space).

Figure 11

This is just how it is about to happen in figure 11. Here, the Star, Ms. K, is a PK subject, and she will attempt to perform a feat that is impossible on her plane world: move an object that is completely sealed inside a glass case. To observe the experiment, and make sure she doesn't cheat, are our old friends the Square, Triangle, and Circle. The Star is a typical PK subject; she herself doesn't know how her PK works. All she knows is that she can somehow “do it.”

K concentrates, stares intently at the target, then begins to gesticulate wildly, whatever feels right at the moment to try to coax her strange motive force into action. Sometimes these efforts seem to help. But other times, and this is one of them, the effect just happens when she has stopped trying. The target moves. It moves because, as shown in the illustration, the Star's extra-dimensional extension (here somewhat arbitrarily portrayed as limbs) touches and moves the target's extra-dimensional extension, moving the target itself. But what the observers and even K herself fail to realize is that it isn't just a case of mind over matter. There's more to it.

PK works the same way in our world. The impetus comes from the self-conscious mind, but the real work is done in extra-dimensional space. This is why it is extremely difficult, almost impossible, for PK subjects to initiate or control it. The person is in fact completely unaware of the higher ground; the smaller, three-dimensional cross-section, the physical body and self-conscious mind, must summon up the strength to move the larger extra-dimensional essence. This is why it takes such a tremendous physical effort to initiate PK, and also why it is so rare an ability.

Physically moving an object on cue, as Kulagina could, is quite a feat. Yet it pales in comparison to the PK more recently produced in China by the mysterious Zhang Baosheng. Zhang, now in his fifties, established himself as the country's top psi subject in the early 1980s. Since then he and his family have enjoyed a luxurious life, with a twelve-room suite complete with chef, nurse, and servants, all courtesy of the State, on condition that he never leave the country.

Accounts of Zhang's abilities are largely based on papers published before 1984. Since then, most research has been kept quiet by the authorities and only sporadic reports have reached the West. But what is known is that Zhang has a special talent for moving small objects and even live insects in and out of sealed containers, i.e., right through them—the phenomenon of teleportation. Reports like these have been heard before in psi circles but never with the documentation accompanying those of Zhang. Films and freeze photos show objects such as a pill in the process of exiting a sealed bottle.

This is of course completely “impossible” in our normal world of space, time, and consciousness, but not in an extra-dimensional one. I'll demonstrate, by another plane world analogy.

 

Figure 12

In figure 12, a teleportation experiment is ready to begin. The target object, a small rectangle, is sealed inside a transparent container. The subject, a different Star, Mr. Z, will attempt to move the target out of the container, presumably through solid, two-dimensional space. Again to observe are the Square, Triangle, and Circle.

 

Figure 13

As shown in figure 13, the Star, by utilizing his extension in extra-dimensional space (height), could move the target outside of the container just by lifting it up and over and depositing it outside. This is how we might expect it to be done. However, this wouldn't allow the observers to film the target as it exits through the container. But there is another simpler way of doing it that would.

Z could pull or drag the target into extra- (three-) dimensional space and over the boundary of the container, which would take significantly less force than to lift and carry it. After all, if we must move a heavy object, it is easier to do so by pulling it along the floor than by lifting it up in the third dimension (height) and carrying it. It is a more economical use of energy, and PK subjects expend prodigious amounts of energy. Moreover, PK may have its own natural tendency to take the path of least resistance.

 

Figure 14

Now in the plane world, this pulling maneuver in three-dimensional space would appear, to the observers, just as in figure 14. Here, as that part of the target closest to the boundary of the container is lifted into an extra dimension, it seems to disappear from the plane world only to appear again on the outside as it is lowered down and continues forward. (Remember that even though the plane beings may build structures such as the container, and it must have extension in a third dimension to exist, they are completely unaware of that part of any structure, or even that part of themselves.) Now as the target is pulled over the edge of the container, more and more of it appears on the outside, and less and less remains on the inside, until it is completely outside.

Zhang's PK with the bottle is identical to this analogy, except it's done at high speed. The target (pill) appears to be in the bottle one moment, then suddenly outside. But at a film speed of 400 frames per second, it can be seen exiting the bottle, like the target in the analogy exiting the container. The accelerated speed is due to the fact that motion in higher space is seen by us as motion in time. This extraordinary feat of PK by Zhang is an extra-dimensional one.

Here is another—the clincher. The target was chemically treated pieces of paper, placed in the bottom part of a test tube, which was then constricted in half. In the top compartment of the tube were cotton wads treated with a different chemical that would react on contact with the one in the target. The top of the tube was then irreversibly sealed. Zhang was able to move the target papers outside of the tube, and the cotton revealed traces of a chemical reaction, suggesting that the papers had passed through the cotton.

In teleportation cases such as this, or with the pill, the only explanation ever offered is that the target is “somehow” broken down at the molecular level, into particles that can pass through those of the barrier, then instantaneously reassembled again into the original object as it exits. But this cannot be the case here. For if the target were broken down molecularly and passed through the cotton, the chemical on the target would exist at that point in a broken down, constituent state where it could not possibly react with the other chemical in the cotton. It can't be done this way; but it can be in another, an extra-dimensional way.

Let's assume that Zhang's PK operates as in the last example with the bottle, lifting the target papers into extra-dimensional space and pulling them past the cotton in the top compartment, and finally outside of the container. As before, the movement is through extra-dimensional space and at accelerated speed.

Now for the important part. As the papers are pulled along the edge of extra-dimensional space, they come into contact with the cotton. The two chemicals will leave traces of their reaction, traces that with a porous substance like cotton will be visible in three-dimensional space. But this contact is not on the surface of the cotton; it goes much deeper than that. It occurs on the threshold of our space and extra-dimensional space, and that threshold, which shows evidence of the contact, is every point in three-dimensional space, as the papers pass through in an inside-out direction.

That is how Zhang's, or anyone else's, teleportation works. All extra dimensions lie in an inside-out direction. That is, all movement or physical manipulations in extra-dimensional space must be evidenced by those in lower space as in an inside-out direction. Remember how in chapter 2 we turned the skeptical Square inside-out by rotating him in an extra, third dimension? In Lifetide, distinguished biologist Lyall Watson gives a firsthand account of such a manipulation. When in Venice, Italy, he was introduced to Claudia, a five-year-old with a unique skill (she would later lose it as she matured): turning a tennis ball inside-out. In Watson's words:

She held it to her cheek, affectionately, and then balanced the ball on her left hand while she stroked it gently with her right as though it were a small furry animal, a dormouse to be aroused from untimely hibernation.

One moment there was a tennis ball—the familiar off-white carpeted sphere marred only by its usual meandering seam. Then it was no longer so. There was a short implosive sound, very soft, like a cork being drawn in the dark, and Claudia held in her hand something completely different: a smooth, dark, rubbery globe with only a suggestion of the same pattern on its surface—a sort of negative, through-the-looking-glass impression of a tennis ball.

It was something I had never seen before, but recognized instantly despite the unfamiliar point of view. It wasn't a bald tennis ball, deprived somehow of its hair, but an everted tennis ball, one turned inside out yet still containing a volume of air under pressure. I squeezed it and it held. I dropped it and it bounced. I picked up a knife from the dinner table and, with some difficulty, pierced the rubber and let the air hiss out. Then I cut right around the circumference and there it was, lining the interior where it had no business being, the usual furry pile apparently none the worse for the wear.

It still disturbs me. I know enough of physics to appreciate that you cannot turn an unbroken sphere inside out like a glove. Not in this reality.34

Not in this reality is right. But in an extra-dimensional one, inside-out is how it must be. It is not supernatural, but perfectly natural. We see it in PK and teleportation; we'll see it in UFO and near-death phenomena. It's the way it works there. Mystics have acknowledged this as well. The Patanjali Sutras, for example, describe the path as an “involution of a part of Itself”.³⁵ and German mystic Hugh of St. Victor is unequivocal on this: “…to ascend to God is to enter into oneself, and not only to enter into oneself, but, in some unsayable manner, in the inmost parts to pass beyond oneself…going deeper and deeper…we must pass through ourselves.”³⁶

In other words, inside-out!

PK in the Lab

Experimental PK research in this country had, until the 1970s, mainly consisted of dice-tossing experiments, where the object was to will a certain number to come up more often than chance. This is obviously a different kind of PK from what we have been looking at, in that the effect is invisible; it is a statistical one, by which the presence of PK is inferred. The overall results, however, were positive and tended to parallel the success rate of tests for telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition. This is of course as it should be, for PK, like telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition, is just another natural facet of the one higher faculty, and so they should be roughly equal in strength.

In the 1970s, PK research was transformed by the advent of random number generators (RNGs) and other similar subatomic devices. This type of testing, known as micro-PK, now dominates PK research because it is completely automatic and can be easily administered, monitored, and evaluated; this device can also be used to test for precognition. Results with both micro-PK and micro-precognition have also been positive, and to the same degree as other kinds of psi tests. Not surprising. Consciousness can affect matter at the subatomic level, and here some parapsychologists actually offer an explanation of how this, but only this, may be done in our normal world of three dimensions of space plus time. But as to how it's really done, and where, and what kind of consciousness actually does it, I'll show you in chapter 9, Extra-Dimensional Theory and the New Physics.

Poltergeists

It seems a tranquil family setting. A quiet evening at home, parents watching television, teenage daughter on the phone, younger brother doing homework in the next room. All's pleasant, peaceful, but not for long. Suddenly a loud bang comes from somewhere in the house, and the mood changes, darkens. The parents look at each other but say nothing; the girl quickly ends her conversation, and the boy enters the family room, no longer wishing to be alone. Some minutes go by, but nothing further happens. Maybe tonight will be a normal one after all, one of too few in the month since it all started. But no such luck.

The lights dim and flicker, then a barrage of explosive sounds comes from the kitchen. Before the father can get up to investigate, a picture flies off the wall and across the room, landing at his feet. The young boy and girl cling to their parents in fear, praying the commotion will end. Thankfully, it does; and soon, in a few more days, it will be over for good, stopping just as suddenly and mysteriously as it started. The family is relieved. Yet a question will haunt them: What was it?

This family was plagued by a poltergeist, an old German name for noisy ghost. But a poltergeist is not really a ghost, or even a thing; it's more of a phenomenon, a range of disturbances that erupt in a home, usually in a family setting. The disturbances vary from case to case and include loud noises such as raps and blows, objects hurled or moved about, stones falling from within or pelting the outside of the house, objects disappearing and reappearing elsewhere or teleported through walls, electrical disturbances, and to a lesser extent, spontaneous fires, physical attacks (such as biting or pinching), and communication.

Accounts of poltergeists go back thousands of years. In 530 A.D. it was reported that Deacon Helpidium, physician to Theodoric, king of what is now Germany, suffered from a diabolic infestation that caused showers of stones to fall in his house. Jacob Grimm, in his Teutonic Mythologie, recorded a case in 856 A.D. in Kembden where the house of a priest was plagued by rapping noises and bombarded by stones.

Such occurrences seem to be orchestrated by an intelligence who is rather mischievous, and they were at first blamed on a malicious spirit. Often the local clergyman was called in to banish the demon, and since poltergeist activity normally fades anyway within a period of weeks to a few months, the exorcism might appear to work.

But it's now dear that poltergeist activity centers on a living person, called the agent, rather than a place. When the agent is removed from the setting, the activity ceases (this is how to find out who the agent is); but the phenomena may follow that person to a new location. Researchers believe that the agent subconsciously and unknowingly produces the effects by PK, which researchers refer to as “recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis,” or RSPK.

Modern investigations have revealed that the apparent agent is usually an adolescent (sometimes a child) who is going through a period of psychological stress. It is assumed that this stress, combined with the inherent strain of adolescence and puberty, causes feelings of frustration and hostility. If these feelings are repressed, they can become mentally damaging. Thus the youth needs a release or way to let off steam—the poltergeist. In fact, in several instances when some of the more obvious stress-inducing conditions were removed, the poltergeist phenomena quickly subsided. According to this view, the poltergeist is a psychological safety valve, and its destructive acts are actually the cure rather than the problem.

It is difficult to accept however, that repressed anxiety alone causes poltergeist outbreaks. If this were all there were to it, we might expect to find one in every home, instead of it being a rare phenomenon. Another problem is how does RSPK work, seeing as no one has offered a “normal” hypothesis for how PK works? Also, how can these agents wield such formidable PK, the likes of which put virtuosos like Kulagina and Zhang to shame, without any signs of the traditional energy depletion?

We need another approach, an extra-dimensional one. Here, the agent gains use of a facet of the higher faculty and conducts the PK in extra-dimensional space. A clue to this is contained in a 1978 survey of 92 cases conducted by William Roll, who has been one of parapsychology's most experienced poltergeist researchers. He found that almost 25 percent of the apparent agents had exhibited some form of dissociative state ranging from trance and mild seizure to diagnosed epilepsy. The significance of this is that these states can make perhaps an isolated facet of the higher faculty more accessible, simply by removing the distractions of normal consciousness, much as meditation may do. But even so, this still leaves the other 75 percent of cases without a dissociative state for access to higher consciousness.

We need another mode of access. We'll find it in the “moral sense” or the way the moral sense is added to one's self-consciousness.

The faculty of self-consciousness is acquired at about age three. But the moral nature, with all its facets comprising one sense, may be thought of as a faculty in its own right, in fact, a higher one. It is acquired later in life, and though the time can vary considerably, it probably averages to be in the early teens, the age of most poltergeist agents.

The root of self-consciousness is the realization of distinction, of a separate I, and the awareness of otherness, or “not I.” The moral sense has many parts, such as conscience, right and wrong, compassion, and responsibility, but its root, from which all these branches spring, is the ability to see the other side of it, to have empathy for others. After all, what is morality but the capacity to empathize with the consciousness of others, and accordingly treat them as you would have them treat you, a la the golden rule. The moral sense brings a person closer to higher, extra-dimensional consciousness; it is an abstraction and reflection of that living union of subject and object, of oneness.

The development and onset of the moral sense take place in the subconscious, as do all emergent faculties, and it's probably met with anxiety because at first it must seem contradictory. That is, the root of self-consciousness is the realization of distinction, while the root of the moral sense is oneness, to sense others' feelings. So one is separate and one at once; it is paradoxical, and the subconscious mind trying to reconcile these opposites may experience a moral upheaval, or stress at the deepest layer of the psyche. The youth will have trouble adjusting; in fact, this stage of life is traditionally described as being about learning to cope with new feelings.

Let's now also assume that in a few cases, the acquisition of the moral sense is unusually stressful. As the moral sense is an abstracted “feel” of the higher faculty, in rare cases it may open a doorway by which one ability of the higher faculty, PK, can be used. Dissociative states provide the same access to higher consciousness, and either of these combined with severe psychological stress in the normal state unleashes the agent's subconscious—extra-dimensional PK lashing out like an angry child. As an angry child, when frustrated, bangs on walls, throws things, slams doors, steals, even bites and scratches, so the agent does the same, under safe cover of the poltergeist.

But how does the agent produce such extraordinary PK, especially when we've already seen how even weak PK causes a physical drain on a subject? The impetus does not come from the self-conscious mind, fettered, as it were, to a world of three dimensions of space plus time. It comes from the subconscious, closer to the threshold of extra-dimensional space where PK is a natural force.

I'm sure you've heard stories of clocks stopping, objects falling, or inexplicable noises just at the moment of someone's death, cases where it's presumed that a person near the clock senses the death and reacts with subconscious PK. No physical drain there, and pretty fair PK to boot. This is why poltergeist agents show no signs of depletion, and also why they can effect such spectacular PK that cannot be explained in a framework of three dimensions of space plus time, but can be with an extra-dimensional one.

Raps, Blows, and Detonations

In a poltergeist outbreak, loud sounds are often heard from the walls or floor, and on occasion from furniture such as tables or chests. The sounds have a percussive aspect, more like detonations than raps or knocks. Often they are signs of more dynamic activity to come, and this is the key to understanding them. An angry child first stomps on the floor and pounds walls before throwing things or stealing. The PK agent does likewise, using his extra-dimensional extension.

A four-dimensional object pounding on our three-dimensional space is like a three-dimensional object (a stone) pounding or traveling through a two-dimensional surface such as water. As the stone creates certain physical effects upon contacting the surface, so a four-dimensional body does when contacting our world. These effects are described by John D. Ralphs in Exploring the Fourth Dimension.

It (a four-dimensional body entering our world) will displace a volume of air, and may also cause local heating of the displaced air by friction. In either case the effect will be to create a pressure wave radiating outwards, rather in the manner of a small explosion or a balloon bursting. (Such a “step wave” or “impulse” is one of the simplest and most fundamental of sounds.) Any large resonant surface, such as a wooden floor or a large piece of furniture, will “drum” to the impact of the air wave, and the sound will be further modified by the acoustics of the room so that what is heard in an adjoining room will be a hollow bang or thump.37

These are sounds typical of the poltergeist, and it is not surprising that they accompany other extra-dimensional activities. (Remember how when Claudia turned a tennis ball inside-out, there was an “implosive sound”?) Here is an account by William Roll, from his The Poltergeist:

Suddenly a small glass vase from the kitchen table flew through the open door and fell to the rug at my feet. The vase did not break; nevertheless there was a loud explosive sound. I was facing Mrs. Beck but not looking directly at her. It was possible, therefore, that she might have thrown the vase. However, this would not explain the sound, which was as loud as a pistol shot. I at once examined the vase. There was no sign of foreign substances on it or on the floor.…Unusually loud sounds are often reported in connection with poltergeist incidents.³⁸

Movement of Objects

Movement is the most common feature in poltergeist cases. Sometimes objects will fall off shelves or slide over counter surfaces, but more often they are seen flying across the room. Some objects behave normally while in flight but others execute seemingly impossible maneuvers, such as floating in mid-air, changing speed or trajectory, making turns at sharp angles, and striking surfaces with an unusually weak impact.

This kind of manipulative prowess suggests constant control of the objects, and since this is clearly impossible in three-dimensional space, it must be maintained elsewhere—in extra-dimensional space. The agent moves the extensions of these objects in higher space and the three-dimensional cross sections show the effects. More complex movements, which require more control, become more common as the poltergeist phenomenon continues and the agent becomes more adept with his “skill.”

Many of these movements are accompanied by disproportionately loud sounds, as should be expected with extra-dimensional activity. This explains, for example, how an object can strike a wall with an explosive sound, yet fall to the ground unbroken, leaving the impression of a weaker impact than expected. At other times, bottles explode by themselves. This implies a force from within and an extra dimension in an inside-out direction.

Objects thrown about are usually found to be warm to the touch when handled immediately after. This should also be expected when force from an extra dimension is brought to bear on it. There is local heating produced by friction, as already explained. In spite of all the flying objects and broken glass in poltergeist outbursts, though, there has never been a case of a serious injury. In fact, objects hurtling towards the agent or family members often stop or change direction at the last moment. It is hard to attribute this restraint to the agents themselves, embroiled as they are in psychological trauma, and diverse in temperament and character.

It's more probable that the PK which operates in extra-dimensional space is subject to the laws that govern it. In a framework where all is alive and subject and object are one, some of these may be moral laws, ruling there to the same extent that physical laws do in our world. Thus objects in motion may have a natural tendency to avoid or minimize a forced collision.

Teleportation

In some poltergeist outbreaks, household objects will mysteriously disappear and then reappear elsewhere, sometimes suddenly dropping from the ceiling. They have been known to penetrate walls or other physical objects without causing any damage, even to vanish from locked containers, as in this incident, investigated by Hans Bender, Germany's leading poltergeist researcher, and reported by D. Scott Rogo in The Poltergeist Experience.

The oddest phenomenon reported during the case was the inexplicable teleportation of objects. At one time the mistress collected all the poltergeist-teleported items, which had been scattered helter-skelter during a previous bombardment, and placed them in a toolbox. Then she sat on the box in defiance of the poltergeist. Yet, even as she did so, the same items that she had carefully locked away started dropping down from the ceiling, in front of her. They were soon scattered all over the floor. The witness thereupon opened the toolbox, only to find it empty.39

I've already shown how PK can teleport objects by using an extra dimension, like Zhang with the pill and bottle. But here the maneuvers are more accomplished and increasingly so as the agent's subconscious gains control of its newfound ability.

Teleportation is an unmistakable sign of an extra dimension. In fact, physicist Ernst Mach, who strongly influenced Einstein, wrote that the sudden appearances of objects in our space would be the best possible evidence for the reality of higher spatial dimensions, unperceived by us. This best possible evidence is the poltergeist phenomenon (and the UFO and abduction phenomena, as we'll see in the following chapter).

As with objects moved by the poltergeist through three-dimensional space, teleported objects are found to be warm to the touch, due to the local heating effect when objects enter our space from an extra dimension. Rogo gives this account from another case: “At the moment that a priest blessed the house, Bender reported, a stone fell from the ceiling and came to rest on a board without any bouncing almost as if it were fastened to a magnet. The priest picked it up and it gave the sensation of being warm.”40

Stone Throwing

Another tactic of the poltergeist is to bombard the outside walls or roof of a home with stones or pebbles, although sometimes, as in the case above, they may mysteriously fall or be thrown about inside the house. They appear from out of nowhere before falling, and at times pass through solid matter—they are teleported. Stone-throwing is one of the poltergeist's most common tricks, and often it is the only one manifested. The poltergeist agent probably chooses rocks because they appeal to the angry child within. Also, deep psychological stress may provoke a primal expression of hostility, and rocks are Man's most primitive weapon.

Like other objects manipulated by the agent through extra-dimensional space, the stones exhibit weird patterns of flight, are usually warm when handled afterwards, arrive accompanied by pops or other percussive sounds, hit with much less force than expected, and in instances where someone is actually struck, produce no injury. Here is an account of a stone-throwing poltergeist in the jungles of Sumatra, reported by W. G. Grottendieck, a Dutch traveler.⁴¹ The outburst lasted only one night:

After retiring for the night in the house where he was staying, he half awoke to the sound of something falling near him. More noise completely roused him, and he found a cascade of smallish black stones falling to the floor by his bed. When he turned up the lamp, he could see the stones coming right through the roof. He awoke a laborer in the next room and had him go outside to examine the nearby jungle, while he lit up the area with an electric lantern. Nothing was found yet the stones continued to fall. While the laborer searched the other section of the house, Grottendieck went back inside his room to observe the falling stones and try to catch them. But he could not.

It seemed to him they actually “changed their direction in the air as he tried to get hold of them.” He managed to climb up a partition-wall of the room to examine the area of roof where the stones were entering. There were no holes in it, but the stones kept coming through; and he was unable to catch them there either. Grottendieck noted the stones fell abnormally slowly, hit the ground with a loud bang, and were warm to the touch—classic poltergeist and extra-dimensional characteristics.

Electromagnetic Disturbances

Electrical disturbances are common m poltergeist outbreaks. Lights inexplicably go on and off, appliances start by themselves. This suggests the presence of electromagnetic energy. But from where?

Electromagnetism is one of four elementary forces in our normal world (the others are the strong and weak nuclear force and gravity). To us they appear as separate forces, but physicists now suspect they are unified in an extra-dimensional framework. Likewise, in extra-dimensional theory that which is separate to us is unified and part of one phenomenon in higher space. Thus, from that broader vantage point, these four basic forces are one “normal” force of nature.

Granting this, it is likely that any time this one extra-dimensional force is applied through our space, there are residual by-products, or waste products, from this force (similar to the energy loss with our entropy). Since the everyday workings of our world are predominately electromagnetic, this is where we'd most likely see any such waste products as electromagnetic disturbances. We'll see this same effect, and more, with UFOs.

Fire-Lighting

In a poltergeist outbreak mysterious fires may spontaneously ignite about the home and premises. It is an extremely rare phenomenon, and in such a case, no normal cause is ever found for the blazes. Fire is also electromagnetic energy, and it is probable that as the PK agent learns to control his extra-dimensional force, he can learn to focus its electromagnetic discharge, or waste product, to produce an electrical spark, which then ignites objects into flames. The manipulation of electromagnetic energy seems reasonable inasmuch as we have already seen that Nina Kulagina could deflect compass needles, and in chapter 9, we'll see how extra-dimensional PK can manipulate the weak nuclear force in the lab.

Communication and Intelligence

At times the poltergeist may communicate with people, usually by responding to questions with raps, and display what appears to be a personality. It is these incidents that most often convince witnesses that a spirit entity or demon is responsible.

The apparent independence of the poltergeist comes from the normal subconscious mind's capacity to create another distinct personality to relieve the stress and guilt common to all poltergeist agents. The Three Faces of Eve and Sybil are books that present well documented cases in which multiple personalities were consciously displayed; multiple personality disorder (MPD) has become a recognized phenomenon. There is no reason to assume that potentially independent personalities cannot exist in the subconscious of all of us. Therefore, within the poltergeist agent, an aspect of his personality can function independently at the subconscious level where PK is more easily generated.

What tends to support this, as opposed to possession theory, is that this aspect, or alter ego, incomplete in itself, is very sensitive to and actually conforms to the expectations and beliefs of its observers. Treat it as an intelligent entity, and it raps out answers to questions. Confront it as a demon and it starts to behave as one, realizing how it is supposed to act. In fact, in reports of confrontations between demons and exorcists in Western and Eastern cases, the entities always conformed to local customs and expectations. In short, no otherworldly or even extra-dimensional interpretation is necessary to explain this part of the phenomenon.

Physical Attacks

This is another rare phenomenon that may consist of bites, scratches, or pinches which can leave marks on the body, usually that of the PK agent. Most of these agents, however, have a tendency to self-abuse. Thus the marks could be attributed to autosuggestion, inasmuch as similar effects can be produced on volunteer subjects by the use of hypnotic suggestion; both are subtle applications of PK. Attacks on family members, and the agent in some cases, can be carried out by the agent's alternate personality, with the wounds similarly inflicted by PK. Remember that Kulagina could affect living tissue in animals.

In conclusion, the poltergeist is another by-product, though an unwelcome one, of extra-dimensional consciousness. It's a natural consequence of tapping into a force we have in our present state little or no control over. Many mystics have been known to be plagued by poltergeist disturbances, and later we'll see the same ramification in other contacts with that consciousness, such as in UFO abductions and near death experiences.

Healings

I have a tough time with this subject. There is too much fraud in it, and most of it is virtually impossible to establish as paranormal healing, as opposed to normal healing. Still, I must touch upon it because under extra-dimensional theory, it is possible in three ways and, therefore, must on occasion happen.

First, when one has a mystical experience, that person is galvanized by the higher, extra-dimensional faculty in every conceivable way: morally, spiritually, intellectually, and physically. St. Teresa says, “Even the sick come forth from ecstasy healthy and with new strength; for something great is then given to the soul.”42 An energizing of the body's physical processes is a natural consequence of illumination; in fact, the mystical experience itself is in part a biochemical reaction. Now, given this, we've seen that those who have had the mystical experience gain, more or less, the capacity to affect those around them in the same ways that they were originally affected, one of which is physically. So, secondhand exposure to the higher faculty may vitalize or heal people in this way.

Second, one who has had a mystical experience, and thus has the potential capacity to energize and heal, may try to heal someone. The problem is it's virtually impossible. This healing capacity, yet another by-product or facet of the extra-dimensional faculty, must be just as unpredictable, that is as rare, as telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, and PK are on command—with one possible exception.

That is Jesus, the human who almost assuredly had the greatest acquaintance with the higher faculty. Jesus not only had an unusually deep experience, but returned to it often (also highly unusual), and may even have, for a time, acquired constant use of the faculty, which would make him the only human being ever to do so. Thus he would naturally have had more success in using any facet of it, such as healing, to the point of maybe being able to do it. At any rate, Jesus certainly thought himself capable of such healings; in fact, he could sound cocky about it, boasting of being able to make “the blind recover their sight, the lepers made clean, the lame walk, the deaf hear.”43 Of course with Jesus' unique grasp of the higher faculty, the unintentional rubbing-off effect would be stronger as well, and could have been the thing that did the trick.

Third, a paranormal or extra-dimensional healing could occur as a spontaneous self-healing. In rare cases, a terminally-ill patient's disease will inexplicably go into remission, never to return. Could the person have gleaned a fragment of the higher faculty, in the same fashion as one gleans a fragment of ESP, but just the one needed at the time? Unfortunately, the chances of summoning this extra-dimensional fragment, when needed, are as slim as summoning up any other on demand—a one-in-a-million shot. (Still, could there be any more practical benefit to the cultivation of the higher faculty?)

Apparitions

Imagine you're a real estate agent, and one morning you're sent by a client to appraise an old Victorian house for sale. After examining the grounds and interior, you're impressed: A very distinctive property, you think; it will sell quickly at the right price. But then as you approach the staircase to the second floor, you're startled to see an elderly gentleman in a robe coming down that staircase. Strange, you think. I thought this place was vacant; after all this is an estate sale. And just as you are about to speak to this man, he disappears.

It's spooky; you don't know what to make of it, until you later speak to the owner, informing him you saw someone there, and you ask if anyone else had been at the house that day. You describe the man. The owner has a knowing look. “You're not the first” he says. “The man you've just seen is my father. Four months ago, despairing over the death of his wife, my mother, he took his own life. God, how he loved that house.”

This is a typical ghost story. Was it the sprit of the bereaved man you saw, a hallucination, or something else? Actually, it's a combination of two things, both of which are acknowledged by modern researchers, but neither of which can be explained in our normal framework of space, time, and consciousness.

Most apparitions are linked with a death and a place the deceased had a strong emotional attachment to. Researchers have speculated that the emotions and events surrounding the death are somehow encoded in the materials of the building, just as the information of sight and sound can be encoded on a videotape. Then, when atmospheric conditions are right, or the observer's mind is tuned to the correct wavelength, he picks up images of these past events. The more powerful the emotions involved, the stronger the resonance, and the more likely they will be picked up by an observer.

This hypothesis is basically correct; the problem is it doesn't work in our world, but it does in an extra-dimensional one. Here the information of the emotions and events is naturally encoded in each part of the house, as in an extra-dimensional reality, and from that higher point of view, each part of our world contains information of the whole. But how does an observer access that view?

One may glean a fragment of this extra-dimensional information with ESP, made easier by the strong emotional content encoded in the house; remember, it is emotional strength that facilitates an ESP intuition. Also remember the Apostle Paul's description of one part of the higher faculty as “the distinguishing of Spirits.” The fact that an apparition is essentially a psi apprehension, that is, dependent on someone being able to intuit it, explains another nuance of the phenomenon—when several people are present, not everyone sees it.

Psychic phenomena are hints and dues that we live in a larger reality, of which our world of three dimensions of space plus time is but a part. On rare occasions we see small parts of that larger world. Now let's meet a race that actually lives in it.