When the Impossible Happens (26 page)

PART 5: ESP AND BEYOND: Exploring the World of the Paranormal

The stories in this section of the book describe events and experiences that involve phenomena known as paranormal, psychic, or psi. Systematic scientific research of psychic phenomena has been conducted primarily by parapsychologists, although various forms of such research have also been described in the literature of other disciplines, such as anthropology and comparative religion. Throughout the twentieth century, parapsychology was the subject of heated controversy because it specializes in the research of extrasensory perception (ESP) and other abilities, events, and processes that cannot be explained by existing scientific theories.

Traditional scientists consider psychic phenomena impossible because they imply transfer of information or even influence on material processes without the mediation of known channels and energies. The common denominator of the experiences and events that belong to this category is that they transcend the usual limitations of space and time. Psychic phenomena can manifest under ordinary circumstances and do not necessarily require a change in consciousness. However, holotropic states greatly increase their incidence.

To create a context for the narratives of this section, I will briefly describe and define psychic occurrences that have in the past attracted the interest and received the attention of parapsychologists.
Telepathy
is direct access to the thought processes of another person without using words, nonverbal clues, signs, or other conventional means of communication.
Out-of-body experiences
are episodes during which disembodied consciousness is capable of moving in space and accurately perceiving the environment. When such perception involves remote locations, it is referred to as
astral projection.

Precognition
is accurate anticipation of future events without any objective clues.
Clairvoyance
is the capacity to access information about the past, present, and future without using the ordinary channels; it involves transcendence of spatial barriers, temporal barriers, or both.
Psychometry
is a process of obtaining information about the history of an object or facts and impressions about a person to whom this object belonged by extended tactile contact with that object. The term
psychokinesis
refers to situations in which material objects or processes are influenced by psychological means.

Another problem that has fascinated parapsychologists since 1882, when two Cambridge dons founded the Society for Psychic Research and parapsychology became an independent discipline, is the possibility of
survival of consciousness after death.
The belief in continuation of existence beyond the point of biological demise had been shared by all the ancient cultures, preindustrial societies, and spiritual traditions of the world. In the past, the efforts of parapsychologists to amass supportive evidence for survival were pooh-poohed and ridiculed by the scientific community and academic circles. However, in the second half of the twentieth century, consciousness research amassed a large body of observations suggesting that this idea is not as preposterous as it might appear to somebody brought up in the intellectual climate shaped by materialistic science. While these new data cannot be considered a “proof” of survival of individual consciousness after death, they certainly represent a major conceptual challenge for traditional science. They also help us understand why this belief is so universal and persistent.

The idea that consciousness can survive death is not really a belief, a completely unfounded wishful fantasy of ignorant people who cannot accept impermanence and their own death. It is based on a variety of extraordinary experiences and observations that resist the rational explanation of materialistic science. We have already explored earlier in this book the observations and scientific research related to past-life memories and to the question of reincarnation. Another important source of scientific information relevant for the question of survival of consciousness after death is thanatological research of near-death experiences (NDEs). These fascinating experiences occur in about one-third of the people who encounter various forms of life threatening situations, such as car accidents, near-drowning, heart attacks, or cardiac arrests during operations.

Raymond Moody, Kenneth Ring, Michael Sabom, Bruce Greyson, and many others (Moody 1975, Ring 1982, Sabom 1982, Greyson and Bush 1992) have done extensive research of this phenomenon and described a characteristic experiential pattern of NDEs. In its full form, it includes an out-of-body experience (OOBE), life-review, and passage through a dark tunnel. It culminates in an en counter with a radiant Being of Light, divine judgment with ethical evaluation of one’s life, and visits to various transcendental realms. Less frequent are painful, anxiety-provoking, and infernal types of NDEs. In the late 1990s, the research conducted by Ken Ring added an interesting dimension to these observations. Ring has been able to show that people who are congenitally blind for organic reasons can, during near-death experiences, experience visions, including those the veracity of which can be confirmed by consensual validation (“veridical out-of-body experiences”) (Ring and Cooper 1999).

Veridical OOBEs are not limited to near-death situations and episodes of clinical death. They can also emerge during spiritual practice and in sessions of powerful experiential psychotherapy, such as primal therapy, rebirthing, or Holotropic Breathwork. Administration of psychedelic substances—particularly the dissociative anaesthetic ketamine—can greatly facilitate their occurrence. OOBEs can also emerge spontaneously, in the middle of everyday life, either as isolated episodes, or repeatedly as part of a crisis of psychic opening or some other type of spiritual emergency.

Veridical OOBEs are of special importance for the question of survival of consciousness after death because they demonstrate that consciousness is capable of operating independently of the body. They are of special interest for thanatologists and other consciousness researchers, because they represent a phenomenon that lends itself to scientific study and objective verification. The usual objection against seeing this research as supportive evidence for survival of consciousness after death is that people who have had OOBEs came close to death, but they did not really die. However, it seems reasonable to infer that if consciousness can function independently of the body when we are alive, it could be able to do the same after death.

Another area of interest for parapsychologists that is closely related to the question of survival of consciousness after death involves encounter and communication with deceased people. Apparitions of dead people, usually relatives and friends, appear frequently in connection with NDEs and as part of deathbed visions. The deceased seem to welcome the individual approaching death and try to ease his or her transition to the next world (the “welcoming committee”). The supportive evidence in this regard must be evaluated particularly carefully and critically. The vision of a dead person or persons does not really amount to very much. It can easily be dismissed as a wishful fantasy or hallucination that the brain constructs from memories. Some important additional factors must be present before such experiences constitute interesting research material.

For this reason, psychic researchers have paid much attention to the fact that the “welcoming committee” always consists exclusively of deceased people, including those about whose death the dying individual does not know. Such instances have been referred to as “peak in Darien” cases (Cobbe 1877). Specific communications that can be objectively verified also represent important research material. Of special interest is the quasi-experimental evidence suggestive of survival of consciousness after death that comes from the highly charged and controversial area of spiritistic seances and mental or trance mediumship. The best mediums have been able to accurately reproduce in their performance voice, speech patterns, gestures, mannerisms, and other characteristic features of the deceased previously unknown to them.

More recently, a worldwide network of researchers, including Ernest Senkowski, George Meek, Mark Macy, Scott Rogo, and others (Senkowski 1994, Fuller 1951, Macy 2001 and 2005, Rogo and Bayless 1979), have been involved in a group effort to establish “interdimensional transcommunication.” They claim to have received many paranormal verbal communications and pictures from the deceased through electronic media, including tape recorders, telephones, FAX machines, computers, and TV screens. Another interesting innovation in the area of connecting with the deceased is the procedure described in Raymond Moody’s book
Reunions: Visionary Encounters with Departed Loved Ones
(Moody 1993). In the preparatory phase of his research, Moody conducted a systematic review of literature on crystal-gazing, scrying (focusing on an object with a reflective or translucent surface), and similar processes. Using a large mirror and black velvet drapes, he then created a special environment (psychomanteum) that, according to him, can facilitate visionary encounters with the deceased loved ones.

One more phenomenon that should be mentioned in this context is
channeling.
It is a contemporary term for a situation in which an individual transmits through automatic writing, speech, or action messages from a source external to his or her everyday personality. The source often identifies itself as a being from a nonphysical reality; the hierarchical rank of this entity varies from an archetypal figure (deity or angel) or spiritually advanced superhuman being to a discarnate or even living human. The quality of the transmission also varies widely from trivial chatter to profound and remarkable psychological or spiritual communications.

The rich material amassed by modern consciousness research has strangely ambiguous implications for parapsychology. On the one hand, it brings strong supportive evidence for many of the phenomena traditionally studied by parapsychologists. On the other hand, it threatens the existence of parapsychology as an independent discipline. Once we accept the existence of transpersonal experiences, we realize that all or most of them can mediate access to new in formation through channels unknown to present science, whether they involve other people, other life forms, archetypal figures and realms, or various episodes from human history. Once the ability of the human psyche to access new information without the mediation of senses is generally accepted, there will be no need for a discipline specializing in the study of a relatively narrow selection of specific psychic phenomena. What in the past was considered “paranormal” will be seen as a normal capacity of the human psyche.

SEEING WITHOUT THE EYES (MINDSIGHT): The Story of Ted

An interesting example of a veridical out-of-body experience in a near death situation involves Ted, a twenty-six-year-old African American teacher suffering from inoperable cancer. In the course of his disease, Ted had three high-dose LSD sessions that he found very useful in helping him to cope with his cancer and his fear of death. Later, his condition deteriorated, and one of the metastatic tumors obstructed his ureter. This caused dangerous stagnation of urine in the calyx of his kidney, resulting in accumulation of toxic metabolic products in his blood.

After Ted had spent eight days in progressively worsening uremia, we received an urgent telephone call from his wife, Lilly. Ted asked to see me and Joan, who was my wife and cotherapist at the time, to discuss an issue that he considered to be of utmost importance. By the time we arrived at the intensive care unit of Sinai Hospital, Ted’s condition had deteriorated considerably, and he appeared to be in a coma. He was surrounded by several of his relatives, who tried to communicate with him. Ted did not respond, except for occasional quite incomprehensible mumbling. It was apparent that his death was imminent.

While I was comforting Lilly and the other family members, trying to help them accept the situation, Joan sat down by Ted’s side and talked to him gently, using her own Westernized version of the instructions from the
Bardo Thödol.
In essence, she was suggesting that he move toward light and merge with it, unafraid of its brilliance. At the time when everybody in the room seemed to have accepted Ted’s imminent death, a very unexpected thing happened. In the last moment, the surgical team decided to operate after all. Without forewarning, two male attendants suddenly entered the room, transferred Ted to a gurney, and took him to the operating room. All the people in the room were shocked by what appeared to be a brutal intrusion into an intimate and special situation. We later found out that, during the operation, Ted had two cardiac arrests resulting in clinical death and was resuscitated on both occasions.

We went home to take a shower and change our clothes because we had plans to go out that evening. On the way to the downtown area, we decided to stop by the hospital once more to see how Ted was doing. When we arrived, he was in the intensive care unit recovering from anesthesia. This time, he was conscious and able to talk. “Hi. Thank you for stopping by twice in a single day,” he greeted us. He looked at Joan and surprised her with an unexpected, yet accurate, comment: “You changed your clothes; are you going somewhere tonight?” He then proceeded to tell us that he saw us come earlier that day, but was unable to communicate with us because his consciousness was high up at the ceiling, and he could not connect with his body.

This was several years before thanatological research established veridical out-of-body experiences as a clinical fact. Unwilling to believe that some body who was in a coma could have correctly observed the environment and remembered such a subtlety, we started inquiring about the nature of Ted’s experiences earlier that day. He proceeded to describe in great detail what we were wearing during our earlier visit. It became obvious that he had correctly perceived the people present in the room, although his eyes were closed all the time. At one point, he had even noticed that tears rolled down Joan’s cheeks. While fully aware of his environment, he also had had a number of unusual experiences.