A Short History of (Nearly) Everything Paranormal by Simonsen, Terje G. -- Read -- Imperial Library of Trantor

Index

Front Cover Half-Title Page Title Page Copyright Page Dedication About the Author Table of Contents Introduction

A Travelogue from the Twilight Zone

A Great Man’s Dream The Paranormal Psi ‘The Mental Internet’

Chapter 1 Opening the Vaults of Time—Archaeology and Parapsychology

There are More Things in Heaven and Earth… Mysticism in Mexico A Modern Merlin in the Kingdom of Arthur

What Goes Around Comes Around The Loretto Chapel An Open Mind—the Brain Still in Place

Psychic Pathfinders on Indian Lands Indiana Schwartz and the Lost Treasures of Alexandria Hunger for Mysteries in Christiania

Chapter 2 Military Mysticism—a Clairvoyant View of the Cold War

Paranormal Paranoia—or Perhaps Not

The Weird Ways of War

Clairvoyance—Spy Camera of the Future? Project Stargate

The Stargate Opens The Taurus Experiment—Clairvoyance from the Deep Shaken and Stirred, and the Need for Martinis The Stargate Closes Some Thoughts in Retrospect

Glimpses From Behind the Iron Curtain

The Red Square—Not Square At All

Two Wise Men from the East: Milan Ryzl and Giorgi Lozanov From Czechoslovakia With Love—Milan Ryzl ‘The Limitlessness of Mind’—Giorgi Lozanov

Baba Vanga—Lozanov’s Primary Medium Meeting with a Master

A Chapter Closes—or Maybe Not?

Chapter 3 Anthropological Astonishments and Peculiar Perspectives

On Safari in Outer and Inner Landscapes—Considerations Upon Embarking Anecdotes and the ‘Emperor’s Wrath’ Enigmatic Episodes—Different Districts, Common Kernel

Charles Darwin Peter Freuchen Sven Hedin Henri Trilles Adolphus Peter Elkin Stories from Sami Ednan—the Land of the Sami

Three Anthropological P(s)ioneers

Clarence W. Weiant Margaret Mead John Reed Swanton

Zombie Time!—Joseph K. and the Coffin Anthropology, Trance, Psi, Reason, and Stuff—Historical Perspectives An Anthropologist Goes Native—Michael Harner

Spirits—an Unknown Species More About Spirits—Edith Turner, Eileen Garrett

Modern Myths from Mexico: Carlos Castenada—Shaman or Sham-man Daskalos—the Cypriot Sage Bushmen—Pioneers in Web-Based Education Back From the Expedition—Epilogue

Chapter 4 From the History of Psychology: Igniting Ideas and Paranormal Ponderings

William James Throws Down the Gauntlet in America Psychoanalytical Perspectives I—Sigmund Freud, the Secret Mud Bath

Psychoanalysis and Occultism—Brothers-in-Arms?

Psychoanalytical Perspectives II—Carl Gustav Jung, the Abdicated Crown Prince

Breaking Free from Freud The Collective Aspect of the Psyche The Archetypes and Synchronicity—Patterns, Coincidences, Themes and Meaning Support from ‘The Conscience of Science’

Transpersonal Psychology

The Opening Toward ‘the More’ Stan Grof—Spirituality and Therapy Becoming Born Again…with Care Whispers on the Way

Chapter 5 Scenes from a Marriage—Historical Glimpses from the Relationship Between Occultism and Parapsychology

Introduction—the Paranormal Tango French Opening Toward the Occult—Three Personalities in Paris

1. Magical Magnetism—Franz Anton Mesmer 2. Indian Intermezzo—Abbé Faria 3. In the Sibyl’s Boudoir—Marie-Anne Lenormand

Hymns to the Night—Occultism and Science in German Romanticism

Bewitched by the Moon Johann Wolfgang von Goethe—the Paranormal Poet Paranormal Philosophers The Doctors Arrive

Mysticism in Many Dimensions The Lights Are Lit by the Thames The Society for Psychical Research—The Paranormal Detective Bureau A Glimpse of Early Research on Psi Three Approaches to Psi—Laboratory, Nature, Spirituality Snapshots from Paranormal Norway Research and the Paranormal Scholarly Mavericks

Harald K. Schjederup: Jack of Many Trades—Master of All! Arvid Aas: The Psychic Psychologist Georg Hygen: Biologist of Mystical Habitats

Three Cases from the Field

The Snåsa Man The Paranormal Lawyer (or Liar?) Poltergeist—No Child’s Game…

Chapter 6 Consciousness—The Enigmatic Key to the Enigmas

Consciousness—Urine of the Brain? Irreducible Mind

The Brain as a Filter Unexplainable Phenomena

Other Models Eastern Perspectives Eastern Wisdom and Western Science—Flux and Consciousness as Common Denominators

The Tao of Physics The World as Flux Consciousness in Charge Vedanta—Wisdom from Ancient India The Perennial Philosophy

From the Himalayas to Hallingdal, from Shambala to Snåsa—Space Has No Limits Immanuel Kant and Emmanuel Swedenborg—Occultism at the Heart of Philosophy

Space and Time—the Way We See the World

A Swashbuckling Swede Magic and Modernity Which is Further Away: York or New York?— Entanglement and Non-Locality Postwar Physics—from Philosophy to Engineering

The Fundamental Fysiks Group

From Twin Photons to Twin Sisters Summary: Perspectives—‘Kantum’ Physics and Quantum Physics

Chapter 7 About Skepticism—Private, Scientific, Dogmatic

Skepticism and Thought Patterns

The Texas Sharpshooter Littlewood’s Law of Miracles Selective Memory Apophenia and Pareidolia—the Need for Patterns

Between Science and Dogma—CSI, the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry

CSI: Celebrity Skeptics International—Preconditions and Beginning Is Truth to be Found Only in the Laboratory? A (Gentle)men’s Club? Pseudo-skepticism Important Issues, but How to Handle? (S)tarbaby—Defending Truth at the Expense of Truth? ‘It’s Not the Crime, It’s the Cover-Up’

Why No One Wanted a Million Dollars—James Randi and His Prize

The Lurid Lure There’s No Business Like Show Business…

Perspectives From Serious Skepticism

The Treacherous File Drawer… I Want It To Be, Therefore It Is—Confirmation Bias Gentlemen Ought to Shave! No Paradigm

Skepticism and Evidence The Big Picture Alternative Skeptical Approaches

The Humble Physicist The Religious Skeptic

Skepticism—a Summary

Chapter 8 A Visit to the Parapsychologist’s Laboratory

Introduction and Recommendations Historical Prerequisites and Obstacles

Bragging Behaviorism Boulders in the Stream

First We Take the Campus, Then We Take the World—J.B. Rhine

Rhine’s Experiments with ESP—Basic Methods and Results Laurels, Roses, and Some Thorns… Considerations in Hindsight A Norwegian Apropos to Rhine’s Experiments

Dream Telepathy—Our Nocturnal Communications

From the Dream Lab Assessment by Others

The Ganzfeld—the Lab’s Monastic Cell Prescient Soldiers and Civilians More About Precognition—What Students Can Predict…

Feeling the Future Precognitive Detection of Erotic Stimuli Mulling Over the Method The Confusing Relationship Between Cause and Effect Bayesian Brawl The White Queen, Alice and Us

Some Time-Out Thoughts on Time

Time—Real or Not? Eternalism—All Things Always Already There The Solution of No Solution

Mind Over Matter—Some Experiments With Psychokinesis

Matter and Mind—Different Sides of the Same Reality

Macro PK

Uri Geller and the Spoonbenders

Micro PK—the Devil is in the Details

The Global Consciousness Project

Thoughts on Healing

Healing at a Distance—Remotely Plausible or Plain Placebo? A Trip to Hawaii Problematic Prayers

Leaving the Lab—a Summary

Chapter 9 Our Paranormal Daily Life

Introduction: Pearls or Plastic Special Experiences and Special People Intuition—the Synthesis of Normal and Paranormal Abilities?

Intuition from Logical and Artistic Perspectives Intuition from an Occult Perspective

DIY

Becoming a Real Psychic?

Costly Truths?—Professional Psychics One Heretic, Two Books, Four Legs and Six Senses—Rupert Sheldrake and His Ideas

Telepathy—a Shared Language Between All Living Beings Heretical Core Ideas A Book for Burning? Revenged by the People Jay-T—the Telepathic Terrier Telephone Telepathy Other Ideas

Continue Blogging With a New Computer When the Old One Breaks?

Historical Perspectives and Early Research on Reincarnation

Ian Stevenson: Reincarnation, Again, and Again and Again…

Reception of Stevenson’s Work Reincarnation and Birthmarks Objections Taking Over the Baton

The Grand Narrative: Worlds are Fading, the Field is Upgrading—a Basis for Cosmic Optimism?

The Myths We Live By Thinking Big with Ervin Laszlo

Farewell and Blessings

Bibliography Acknowledgements

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