Second Sight (19 page)

The issue of when to tell someone about psychic information is always tricky. I am well aware of the ethical obligations of disclosure—that is, to tell a patient the truth as I understand it. But, even more essential, I am never going to intentionally do anything that harms the patient. Often I'm faced with hard choices. In the end, I am always guided by whether or not I believe it will serve a patient to know, and I'm careful never to present myself as an absolute authority or the psychic as infallible. For instance, if I'm working with someone who gives the psychic no credence, it is seldom useful to broach it with them. Rather, I rely on my impressions as backup material that helps me pose certain questions or fill in gaps. If a person is open, however, I may be more direct. In each case, this has to be a judgment call.

What I learned from the remote viewing altered my perspective as Cynthia's therapist. Making a subtle shift in attitude and emphasis, I encouraged her to give up hope of reigniting the old relationship. This enabled Cynthia to move on in a positive direction. A few months later, more self-assured, Cynthia said that she had heard her boyfriend was getting married and that his wife-to-be was pregnant. Flabbergasted, Cynthia reexperienced the old hurt, but she was now better able to confront it. Sensing that the moment was right, I told Cynthia about my vision, not to make a point of how prescient I was, but to validate the truth of what she had heard. When I explained why I had waited, she didn't feel I had wrongly withheld information. Rather, she was relieved that I hadn't told her before. It would only have added to her troubles. Cynthia's response was enormously important to me, confirming that I had made the right choice.

With practice, I also became able to read patients while I was with them in my office. I grew agile at shifting states of awareness at will without always having to set aside a special time to meditate: The psychic became a vital part of how I listened to someone. It was a gradual process, but I became adept at staying attuned to many different levels at once. Intuitive impressions would often spontaneously pop up in the middle of a session. Sometimes there would be only a single image, sometimes many. I discovered that it wasn't the number or complexity that mattered—simple, straightforward impressions can be the most potent.

Over the next few years, I grew comfortable with remote viewing and used it with many patients, realizing that it had something substantial to offer medicine. In part this was because of the impressive research being done by respected scientists in both the United States and the Soviet Union. (For a list of books on psychic research, see the Guide for Further Reading at the back of this book.) I was especially drawn to the work of physicists Russell Targ and Harold Putoff at the Stanford Research Institute in the 1970s. Funded by the U.S. government, they conducted remote-viewing experiments, and showed that in a controlled laboratory setting even novices could learn to be psychic. The import of this went well beyond academia: Targ and Putoff also taught subjects how to obtain material about the past, present, and future through remote viewing, and to incorporate this technique into their lives.

I was further impressed by Albert Einstein's introduction to Upton Sinclair's
Mental Radio
(1930), in which Sinclair documented his wife's psychic abilities and experiments, forerunners of remote viewing. As Einstein wrote, “The results of the telepathic experiments…set forth in this book stand surely far beyond those which a mature investigator holds to be thinkable.” I was particularly impressed that a genius like Einstein—whose theories ultimately had to be confirmed in the practical world—would go on record supporting inquiry into the nature of the psychic. I was moved by his vision that reality might extend beyond what science thought possible.

Through remote viewing, I found that I could get all kinds of information about my patients—their health, relationships, careers, childhood—to discern stumbling blocks that were not obvious on the surface but that became clear when looked at psychically. If a patient was stuck in her life, if therapy wasn't progressing, I could reevaluate the situation through remote viewing. Where the intellect could spin endlessly in circles formulating theories, the psychic could zero in like a laser, penetrating to the heart of the problem. It provided a powerful magnifying glass, illuminating a universe of information unavailable to me before. I blended the psychic with my clinical work, drawing on the best from both worlds.

An enormous energy boost and sense of freedom came from dissolving the barriers that had previously kept the psychic so walled off. Increasingly, I felt like the conductor of a magnificent orchestra, musicians and instruments finely tuned, utilizing their full range. The music I was creating, the harmony I felt inside, instilled faith that I'd chosen the right path. I had been searching for so long, and finally I was home.

As I became less divided, I began to change. For instance, for many years I had a fear of darkness. Not the darkness that comes from turning off the bedroom light at night, but the darkness that resides in the recesses of canyons, on the edge of cliffs, or deep in the woods. I never liked taking night hikes, even with friends when the moon was full. I was afraid that the power of the night in remote, shadowy places would somehow swallow me and make me invisible.

While I worked at Mobius, and as I allowed the psychic to filter slowly into my practice, my fear of dark places abruptly faded. I recall an evening when a friend had made a special request for his fortieth birthday that I take a walk with him in Topanga State Park. While sitting with him on a ridge overlooking a deep abyss, I noticed that my fear was gone. I had discovered in myself what Joseph Campbell called an “inner compass” that went with me everywhere. The night took on new dimensions; I no longer became lost in it. Instead, I now found that it had a special brilliance all its own.

About six months after returning from the
Seaview
expedition in 1987, I had a series of five consecutive dreams that I couldn't explain. In each one, a man in his early thirties with chin-length blond hair and glasses visited me. He closely resembled Terry, my old boyfriend, and we talked intimately in my living room. Like Terry, this was an enormously creative man with a career in the arts. The dreams were baffling: It had been over five years since I'd seen or heard from Terry.

Then Josh, a new patient, walked into my office, and the dreams stopped. When I first saw Josh in my waiting room, dressed in a smartly pressed white shift and rust-colored corduroy jacket, I did a double-take. He could have been Terry's identical twin. The dream had anticipated his coming.

Josh was a film producer and artist. He had come to me depressed, unsatisfied with the direction of his career. Trying to please his agent and family, wanting to be a dependable wage earner, he often took projects he didn't believe in. Josh had dreamed of excelling as a filmmaker, yet he felt he was doing only mediocre work. He lacked confidence in his choices, succumbing to outside pressure at the expense of listening to himself. He believed that he had sold out, lost track of his artistic vision, and, as a result, had paid a huge price both in his relationships and in his career. His intuition, which had once guided him, had grown distant, inaccessible. He wanted me to help him find it again.

Josh, was one of those people who, having decided to enter therapy, makes enormous strides in a very short time. Ripe for change, he was willing to look into his past, to reveal where he had lost track of his priorities and why. With his wife's support, he gave himself permission to turn down projects if they didn't feel right and to wait for ones that inspired him. He started listening to his body—the subtle headaches he got when a decision was wrong, the surge of energy he felt whenever he stuck to what he believed in. Over the next few months, Josh became more sensitive to his own needs. Finally, a script came along that he loved, and he agreed to produce the movie.

I hadn't shared my
Seaview
experiences with many of my patients, fearing that they wouldn't understand. But since Josh was clearly well grounded and wanted to cultivate his intuition, I decided to tell him. He was intrigued by my descriptions of remote viewing. His film was scheduled to begin shooting the following month in South Carolina. After interviewing a variety of directors, he still hadn't found the right one. Time was running out; he had to make up his mind. He wanted to see if, by focusing on the three final candidates' names, he could use remote viewing to narrow down the search.

This was a new twist. I had never taught a patient how to do a remote viewing. What did this have to do with psychiatry? And if I tried it, would it work? I didn't want to use my patients as guinea pigs. I knew caution was important, yet I also trusted the integrity of my experiences at Mobius. Catefully, I continued to evaluate the situation. If Josh had been the slightest bit unstable, I would have immediately refused his request. But he was a strong, emotionally balanced man, so I decided that we could test it out. We agreed to view our venture as an experiment, a joint effort to explore a new technique. If we failed, there would be no negative repercussions.

Josh was a quick study. As an artist, he was accustomed to picking up rich images, so remote viewing came naturally to him. Josh was open-minded, a seeker, attracted to the unusual. He wasn't afraid of the psychic as I had once been. In a single session, I taught him the basics of what Stephan had taught me.

“In any remote viewing,” I explained, “the first step is always to shift out of a thinking mode into a calm, meditative state, remaining receptive, allowing visual images, bodily sensations, or any other impressions to surface.”

To put Josh in touch with his intuition, I had already introduced him to meditation. Gradually, he found it easier to quiet his mind. Its constant dialogue was still distracting, but by concentrating on his breath he was paying less attention to it—a challenge not only for Josh but for everyone who embarks upon a meditation practice.

“The next step,” I went on, “is for you to succinctly formulate the question you want answered, so you can receive as direct a response as possible. Close your eyes, take a few deep breaths, and begin meditating.” He took his shoes off, sitting cross-legged in the chair and settling into a comfortable position. Continuing, I said, “When you're ready, let me know what your question is. Be as specific as you can. This helps to focus the remote viewing and put it in context.”

Josh was silent for a moment, then asked, “Which director would be best for this project?”

I told him to say the first name aloud and then notice whatever impressions he received, no matter how unusual. At first Josh found this difficult. Instead of picturing only one of the candidates, he saw them all grouped together on a stage.

“Is it okay if all three are there?” Josh asked.

“It would be much easier to look at each person separately,” I said. “As a general rule, it's better to have clear divisions between the people you're reading. Otherwise their characteristics may blend, which is confusing.”

After a long silence, Josh began. On his own, he isolated one candidate by visually graying out the two others, as if lights were dimmed on them on stage. I was fascinated by Josh's creative solution. Without any cueing, he instinctively used his artistic talents of daily life to solve this logistical problem, as the psychics had done in the
Seaview
project.

Josh then said, “Keith,” this director's name. I told him to spend no more than a few minutes on each person. If a time limit is set, images can be programmed to come quickly, and there is more of an immediacy to them.

“What should I expect?” Josh asked. “Will a picture just appear by itself? Do I have to do anything?”

“The most important thing is to relax and wait,” I said. He waited, but nothing came. Finally, he saw a small lake. Keith was standing onshore, afraid to go in the water—he couldn't swim.

“Wow!” Josh exclaimed. “I guess this doesn't bode well for us working together.”

“Try not to analyze the images right now. That will engage the analytical mind. Go on to the second person.”

Without pausing, Josh said, “Diana.” Immediately he smiled and sighed. He felt a warmth for her, an affinity. He sensed that she was creative, smart, an ideal partner for this film.

“Good,” I said. “Now let Diana go, shift gears, and read the final person.”

The third name was “Cheryl.” Josh liked her too, sensed they could get along. But as he focused more closely on her face, he saw an unsettling image of her whacking a man's head off with a sword. He laughed. “I guess I need to be more careful than I thought.”

Josh was thrilled. Like an excited schoolboy first learning to read, he had gone through each name, struck by how different each person felt, how distinct their characteristics were. He felt the intimacy that comes with remote viewing, the revitalizing energy of connecting with another person at this level. By the time we were finished, he knew his first choice was Diana.

The following week, Josh and a group of studio executives scheduled meetings with Keith, Diana, and Cheryl. He'd be able to see if his psychic impressions were confirmed. That day, Josh felt that Keith lacked confidence. Cheryl's résumé was impressive, but Josh sensed an angry edge beneath her personable facade. In the end, he chose Diana both because of her qualifications and because of the compatibility he had felt with her during the remote viewing.

A few weeks into the shoot, Josh phoned. “Hi, Judith,” he said. “I just wanted to thank you. The director I picked is a perfect match. Filming is right on schedule and the dailies look great. I thought you'd want to know our experiment worked.”

Once again, my instincts had proven right. Instead of being plagued by the usual onslaught of questions and confusion, I had received direct validation for what I believed. The feeling evoked a long road trip to Yosemite when I was nine. After hours in the car, my parents finally let me out next to a large, grassy field. Like a wild, unbroken horse, I galloped back and forth, exuberant in my freedom, until all the tension in my body was relieved.