A Travelogue from the Twilight Zone
One April evening in 1865, President Abraham Lincoln was sitting in the Red Room of the White House, along with a few of his closest friends. One of them was W.H. Lamon who had previously been Lincoln’s partner in a law firm and now worked as his bodyguard. In Lamon’s autobiographical notes, we read that Lincoln told the following story that evening:
About 10 days ago, I retired very late. I had been up waiting for important dispatches from the front. 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 death-like stillness about me. Then I 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. I saw light in all the rooms; 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 be the meaning of all this? Determined to find the cause of a state of things so mysterious and so shocking, I kept on until I arrived at 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, 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.’ Then 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.
Lincoln’s unrest was hardly surprising, as this dream definitely has ‘something’ about it that almost inevitably gives one goose bumps. And for us, a grim extra dimension is added by the fact that Lincoln related this story on April 11—three days before he went to the theater, where he was shot by an assassin and died from his injuries the following day. But how, then, are we to interpret this dream? Powerful people are frequently targets of attacks, and there had been an attempt to assassinate Lincoln a few years earlier. So maybe it was just his fear of such an eventuality that was expressed in the dream, and by pure coincidence the dream occurred shortly before the murder? Or maybe Lincoln’s old and intimate friend had a desire to build myths around the president, and therefore compromised with the truth in his retelling? Or maybe it actually was the case, in line with how Lamon presents it, that Lincoln had a precognitive dream, i.e. that during sleep he got a glimpse of the future?
Now, this we can never know for sure. However, what is certain is that Lincoln, who was a very intuitive man, often consulted his dreams. Among other things, he believed that on several occasions his dreams had given him information regarding the outcome of key battles in the ongoing Civil War. And Lincoln is by no means the only person who has claimed to have had such experiences: many cultures, for example, Indian, Chinese, Greek, Roman, Jewish, Muslim, Viking, Indigenous Africans, Americans and Australians, are replete with accounts of precognition in dreams—tales which, of course, may be nonsense. But there are reputable scientists who think that some of these stories could be about real experiences of precognition i.e. paranormal foresight.
And there are also scholars who have argued that dreams allow for telepathic communication! In 1922, Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, wrote that it is ‘an indisputable fact that sleep creates favorable conditions for telepathy.’ During sleep, we are more relaxed than when awake, and our mental filters are on a little vacation. We are therefore more open, more receptive. Could it be that this lowered threshold enables us to receive information that we usually filter out? For more than a decade during the 1960s and 1970s, the possible relationship between dreams and telepathy was researched in the Dream Research Laboratory at the Maimonides Medical Center in New York. The leaders of these experiments were Professors Stanley Krippner, psychologist and parapsychologist, and Montague Ullman, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, and they, in fact, came a long way toward reaching the same conclusions as Freud! Such ideas are obviously outside of the mainstream, but since reputable scientists are prepared to devote their energies to researching them they cannot simply be dismissed as delusional.
Experiences of telepathy, precognition and related phenomena seem a poor fit with the typical modern, rational Western worldview. But statistics show not the least regard for this, and impertinently insist that more than half of us will have experiences of this kind during our lifetime—experiences of something beside the normal, namely something paranormal (para = beside). So statistics would suggest that paranormal experiences are, in fact, quite normal!
These phenomena could be said to belong to the twilight zone, the borderland of consciousness—a sphere that we may have a vague notion about, but that most of us are not really familiar with. Seventeen years ago the American Psychological Association launched a mapping project in the exciting book, Varieties of Anomalous Experience (E. Cardeña, S.J. Lynn and S. Krippner, eds.). Here a number of psychologists write about quirky themes such as lucid dreams, out-of-body experiences, telepathy, precognition, healing and other strange experiences that are not in harmony with our usual perception of reality. However, it becomes evident from the case studies in the book that such experiences do not have to be confusing or intimidating, but in fact can also be deeply meaningful. For example, many people experience a new and more serene relationship with both life and death after so-called near-death experiences, where one typically has a feeling of leaving the body, being enclosed by a great light, meeting deceased family members, angels or other spiritual beings, and the like.
The authors of Varieties of Anomalous Experience emphasize the experience, and especially the aspects connected with personal meaning, and largely refrain from telling us how these phenomena are to be objectively understood. Psychologists and psychiatrists will typically explain (or explain away) such experiences, resorting to pathological descriptions: hallucination, psychosis, dissociation, trauma, etc. But, interestingly enough, two of the three editors of Varieties of Anomalous Experience (Krippner and Cardeña) have said elsewhere that they think at least some of these strange phenomena are likely to be objectively real—i.e. that beyond people’s feelings of having telepathic contact there may also occur genuine telepathy (a direct transfer of thoughts, feelings and sensations from one person to another).
A similar stance has been taken by a number of talented physicists, including Nobel Prize winners, who have argued that these kinds of phenomena, rightly understood, need not be contrary to the Laws of Nature. For example, Cambridge Professor Brian Josephson, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1973, claims that both telepathy and psychokinesis (direct impact on the physical world by the power of mind) are ‘objectively occurring phenomena’ (not just hallucinations, etc.).
Throughout the book we will therefore consider the possibility that paranormal phenomena, or at least some of them, may be objectively real. This is not something I set out to prove; rather it is something I hope to probe. The reader is thus not asked to ‘believe’ in anything but simply to keep an open mind. I’ll tell some quite unusual stories I feel deserve to be told, and the reader will (of course) draw his/her own conclusions as to how to interpret them. Personally, I don’t think all the stories related in the book are best explained as being just chimeras. But if the reader disagrees with me that’s fine—I hope he/she will still be entertained!
Unlike UFOs, aliens, ghosts and the like, some paranormal phenomena seem to be a direct result of the human will and abilities, e.g. clairvoyance and healing. There are even professionals—psychics, healers—who make their living from their claimed abilities in this field. This type of paranormal phenomena is often called ‘psi,’ after the first letter of the Greek word psyche. The term ‘psi’ was introduced by psychologist Robert Thouless in the British Journal of Psychology in 1942. He introduced the word, coined by his collaborator Bertold Wiesner, to be able to discuss these phenomena in a neutral manner, without reference to religion or belief. For some readers the word ‘psi’ might perhaps sound a little strange, but it is well established in parapsychological literature, and the term is—just as Robert Thouless intended—quite neutral, and therefore very handy.
The main forms of psi, often referred to as the ‘Big Five,’ are:
1. Telepathy: direct transference of thoughts and/or feelings
2. Clairvoyance: psychic sight, remote viewing, mental television
3. Precognition: paranormal foreknowledge, premonition
4. Telekinesis: direct mental influence on physical objects
5. Healing: direct mental interactions with living systems
The first three phenomena are about transmitting information, and are often called ESP (Extra Sensory Perception). Traditionally they are seen as an expression of ‘the sixth sense,’ and constitute the main focus of this book. The last two phenomena are about transfer of energy, and are often called PK (Psychokinesis), and we will most certainly say a thing or two about them, also.
The majority of the considerations in this book are based on strange incidents reported by scientists of one kind or another—archaeologists, anthropologists, psychologists, physicists and philosophers. Such people are more often than not very resourceful with well-developed skills in observation as well as in thinking. It therefore seems reasonable to take their reports seriously, even when—or especially when—they dare to speak against the consensus and vouch for the paranormal. It is not unusual to think that those scientists who report having experienced paranormal phenomena are misinterpreting their experiences at best or are fraudulent at worst. I suggest we take ‘the road less traveled’ and regard ‘the defendants innocent until proven guilty’ and seriously listen to their stories. They were there—we were not.
We shall also pay a visit to the parapsychologist’s laboratory, where such strange phenomena are being researched with rigorous scientific methods. However, the present book is by no means a textbook in parapsychology. Rather it is a peacock’s tail of paranormal perspectives, presenting many a quaint and curious idea of forgotten lore, as well as trailblazing projects from present-day research. This is mixed with a cornucopia of entertaining stories collected during forays (both my own and those of others) into the unknown regions of the mind.
The book can thus be seen as a travelogue from the twilight zone, the exotic borderland of consciousness. Some of the researchers who have dealt with this field have made suggestions as to how such events can be scientifically understood. An explanatory model that everyone can agree upon has not yet crystallized, but one idea persists: that consciousness is something completely different and far more extensive than we usually imagine it to be. By routine thinking inside the box, we tend to take for granted that consciousness merely exists inside our own head, and that ‘the brain is alone with the brain,’ to quote the Norwegian pop band deLillos. But perhaps the brain is not that alone after all? For it has been suggested from several quarters that our own consciousness may be understood as being a part of a greater Consciousness, a Mind at Large.
Based on this idea, we launch a quite simple model, called the ‘Mental Internet.’ The basic metaphor here is that somewhat in the way our computers are linked together via the internet, the ‘consciousnesses’ of all humans, and perhaps all living beings, are linked together via some sort of Mental Internet. Consciousness, like the internet, is—on some level—something that we are all doing together; it is networking. And telepathy is the communication that drives this network. I am of course aware that such a model is a gross simplification. But as the great statistician George E.P. Box once put it: ‘Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful!’
Early psychic researchers found wireless telegraph and radio to be helpful metaphors when trying to grasp how telepathy could be possible, as these technologies demonstrated that information could be transmitted instantly across vast distances. If a crude apparatus could perform such a miraculous feat then our highly advanced minds might also be able to accomplish such operations in ways yet to be discovered. Today, however, the internet will probably make for an even better analogy. There are two reasons for this: The internet is intrinsically a web, thus collective, connective and more reciprocal than the radio. (A friend of mine related that when he was a small boy, he found it utterly frustrating that the man in the radio was speaking all the time and never showed the faintest interest in listening!) And also, the internet is not only a medium for the transmission of information but also for storing.
Some people seem to be quite allergic to such models, saying: ‘We know how radio and the internet works, but telepathy—if real—must surely be a totally different matter, thus these models are useless.’ With this I don’t agree; on the contrary, I feel such simple models may help to stretch the imagination, making it a little more flexible, perhaps opening us up to new possibilities. So once more in the wise words of George E.P. Box: ‘Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful!’
I therefore invite the reader to engage in a little thought experiment throughout the book: namely that an Internet Model of consciousness may have some relevance. Galileo once invited the Inquisition to look through his telescope in order to see what he himself had seen. But, as we know, the inquisitors were not very keen on having their horizons expanded and instead muttered murkily of ‘the work of the Devil.’ However, I take it for granted that the reader has a radically more open attitude than those darkened souls, and I am therefore confident that my invitation will be well received.
Chapter 7 is entirely dedicated to skepticism related to the paranormal, which will help raise awareness about some common mind traps. And instead of either drowning in a swamp of naive acceptance, or crouching in the trenches of dogmatic skepticism, we will with poise and deliberation walk down the golden road of sober openness! In this respect it is interesting to note that not all skeptics are dismissive of the paranormal per se. For example, Sam Harris, the philosopher, neuroscientist and high-profile skeptic, author of The End of Faith, has stated:
My position on the paranormal is this: Although many frauds have been perpetrated in the history of parapsychology, I believe that this field of study has been unfairly stigmatized. If some experimental psychologists want to spend their days studying telepathy, or the effects of prayer, I will be interested to know what they find out. And if it is true that toddlers occasionally start speaking in ancient languages (as Ian Stevenson alleged), I would like to know about it.
But even so, Harris does not think this field to be so interesting as to deserve much time and attention. Here I part ways with him, because I find it intriguing to think that our everyday perception of Space and Time may, in some respects, be merely a mental frame, a habit. And therefore it might be possible to think outside the box in a more radical way. The proposed thought experiment about a Mental Internet allows for this, and telepathy can then be considered as the ‘emails’ sent and the ‘downloads’ made via this mental network. Many phenomena that otherwise would appear inexplicable will in light of this model fall quite nicely into place. More (much more) about this later!
Based on the model of the Mental Internet—the thought experiment that I hope the reader will sign up for while reading this book—a psychic is simply a person who has an active relation to this network. Basically, that’s it! But of course, competence will vary greatly, much like musical ability: most people can learn to play for their own pleasure, but not all are gifted enough to be musicians. And very few will be a Mozart, a John Coltrane or a Jimi Hendrix.
In addition to literature, the bibliography contains many links to valuable articles and reports that can be downloaded from the internet (i.e. the physical internet!). These will enrich and deepen your reading experience along the way.
Then it only remains for me to say: Welcome, dear reader, to the following journey in the Borderland of Consciousness—a fairytale kingdom which more often lies bathed in moonlight than in sunshine, where telepathy is the prevailing language, where Space doesn’t limit our view, and where the Past, the Present and the Future are one!