Videos

The famous biologist and parapsychologist Rupert Sheldrake gave a talk at Schumacher college in the UK. In this talk he presented his various research projects about telepathy, in animals and in people.

He presented his “Dogs that know when their owners are coming home” experiment with the dog Jaytee and showed an experiment video that was done for Austrian television on that. This is a very famous experiment and I’d like to hear if any of you know of a similar behavior with your pets.

He also talked about phone telepathy and showed another video of an experiment between 5 sisters which had a hit rate of 50% instead of the expected 25%. Sheldrake told that the overall hit in over 1000 trials of telephone telepathy is 42%, which is highly statistically significant. Do you sometimes know who calls you?

Sheldrake performs simple and low-cost experiments for testing telepathy, mostly because the established science hold these subjects as taboo and doesn’t provide funds. Dr. Sheldrake talks a little about this as well, in his introduction to the lecture.

There’s also a discussion of this video on our forum at: http://forum.mind-energy.net/skeptiko-podcast/1429-new-video-rupert-sheldrake.html

A link to the page on Schumacher college website or watch in below.

http://www.schumachercollege.org.uk/community/mind-and-cosmos-an-open-evening-with-rupert-sheldrake

There’s a documentary movie, released in 2009, called “The Living Matrix ”. As some other movies in the field before, it is a mix of documentary, interviews and computer graphics. The movie’s focus is what’s called energy or alternative medicine.

The movie interviews a list of notable guests, some of whom appeared in other movies, such as What the Bleep!? and my recently reviewed Something Unknown. The list of guests include:

• Lynne McTaggart – author of “The Field: The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe ”
• Dr. Bruce Lipton, PhD, MD – a cell biologists, author of “The Biology of Belief ”
• Peter Frasier – expert in traditional Chinese medicine and author of “Decoding the Human Body-Field ”
• Dr. Eric Pearl, DC – healer and author of “The Reconnection ”
• Edgar Mitchell, PhD – scientist, Apollo 14 astronaut and the founder of Institute of Noetic Sciences
• Marilyn Schlitz, PhD – President of the Institute of Noetic Science
• Rupert Sheldrake, PhD – Professor and Cambridge biologist, and author of “The Presence of the Past: Morphic Resonance and the Habits of Nature ”, “Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home: And Other Unexplained Powers of Animals ”
• Dean Radin, PhD – Author of “The Conscious Universe: The Scientific Truth of Psychic Phenomena ,” senior researcher at the Institute of Noetic Sciences, international speaker and cofounder of the Boundary Institute
• Fritz-Albert Popp, PhD – Biophysicist, professor, researcher, founder of the Institute of International Biophysics, and author of “About the Coherence of Biophotons”
• 8 more guests from the field of alternative medicine

The movie also includes numerous stories told by people who recovered from difficult diseases using alternative medicine and the power of intention.

The movie presents of picture where the human is body is described not only being controlled by chemicals and DNA but also by our intentions, intra-cellular communication in the form of biophotons and other effects that are on the fringe of science. It does not speak about parapsychology, or psi as "Something Unknown" movie by Renée Scheltema does.

If you are interested in the alternative medicine, especially in finding scientific explanations to some of its possible explanations of effectiveness, I can recommend “The Living Matrix ”.

I’ve recently published my review of a documentary called “Something Unknown is doing we don’t know what”. The film researches the evidence behind the “Big Five” psi phenomena and I liked it greatly. Take a peek at my review for some more info. Today I’m glad to present you my interview with Renée Scheltema, the filmmaker and producer of Something Unknown (link to my review of the movie). Despite this being my 15th interview that I publish here on the site, this is the first one that I did live, using Skype. Please excuse our accents and non-professionalism. Also, I’d like to remind you that Renée and I opened a forum to discuss "Something Unknown" and its topics. Renée is going to be there as well to discuss it with you. In fact, she had already posted a short welcome message there. So come over and join us at forum.mind-energy.net. It’s right near the Skeptiko podcast forum, which you should also participate in, in my opinion. We had a very conversational tone with Renée and the interview starts right in the middle of a sentence.

You can read the redacted transcript below or listen to the audio using the player below or download the MP3 directly.

Renée Sceltema: …I hear what you’re saying because Professor Tart, he told me there’s actually – you could call it the “Big Seven.” But then there are two in the “maybe” category. And one is mediums, you know, talking to dead people which – that’s scientifically you can’t prove that. I investigated it but somehow there’s a reasoning that goes in circles. So I didn’t complete it. And then the other in the “maybe” category is near-death experiences.

Jacob: I actually wanted to ask you about these, as well.

Renée Sceltema: I researched it a little bit and then because Professor Tart said it’s in the “maybe” category I decided not to include these – the film was already very full as it was with information. Couldn’t get that in, as well.

Jacob: I see. Could you tell us a bit more about yourself and why you decided to make this film?

Renée Sceltema: Okay, that’s in the film. I had those psychic experiences and I wanted to know whether I was deluding myself. I sort of knew that parapsychologists were doing research on this kind of stuff, but I hadn’t kept up. I’m not a “woo-woo” kind of person who believes all this stuff. Actually I don’t believe a lot of it.

But on the other hand, the first experience with my father was very strong. I guess in scientific terms you call it “crisis telepathy.” It happened when I was studying at the University of California, Berkeley, during the day. I would call my parents every three months. I had just phoned my parents a few days before. While I was with my nose in the books, there was this strong force that told me that I had to get up and phone them again. I remember walking down the street thinking: ‘This is weird. Why am I walking to the phone booth? There’s no reason for this. It’s the wrong time of the day.’

Then when I phoned, my brother picked up the phone, which is very unusual because he had left home and would never even pick up the phone. Then he told me my father had had a stroke and was fighting for his life at the intensive care. So that seared into my mind because I just picked up something there that was real and I guess it’s part of our survival instinct, no?

In Christianity, all these psychic experiences they call it “from the Devil” and it’s not been too long since they burned witches. And so according to this belief system all these psychic things are all thrown into one corner together with the witches and the weird soothsayers.

Long before that time, when we were living as Bushmen or Aboriginals, there would always be the Shaman who was capable of reaching beyond our minds; capable of doing these kinds of things. For them it was normal. So it’s only been in the past couple of centuries that psychic experiences have been suppressed.

I read a book long ago about Mutant Message Down Under, a beautiful book about an American woman who lives with the Aboriginals. She notes down what they experienced. They could heal; see remote view kangaroos, etc, just because it was just the only way to go.

So I guess it’s part of our survival instinct. So I didn’t regard it as abnormal when I had this experience with my sick father. I just thought, ‘Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.’

Also I guess, I’m at a certain age where I felt confident enough to tackle this kind of subject. I don’t think I would dare to make this film 25 years ago.

Jacob: Okay, it is also written there that you started to work on the film about 10 years ago. Why did it take so long?

Recently I have had the pleasure of seeing the DVD of a new movie called Something Unknown is doing we don’t know what…. This is an indie documentary filmed by Renée Scheltema that explores the science behind psychic phenomena. The award-winning movie, which was released in late 2009, is the best documentary that I’ve seen to date on this subject. Stay with me for a more detailed review of the film.

There are several things to like about Something Unknown, if you’re serious about learning more about ESP and psychic phenomena. First, the movie mostly focuses on interviewing and showing the work of the leading scientists in parapsychology, such as Dr. Dean Radin (Chief scientist of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, showing presentiment experiment), Dr. Rupert Sheldrake (biologist, talks about telepathic dogs, and telephony telepathy) and Professor Charles Tart, who guided Renée through the film and many more. Other names include Professor Gary Schwartz, Dr. Roger Nelson, Dr. Hall Puthoff, Dr. Edgar Mitchell, Dr. David Dosa and more. In short, the “casting” couldn’t be better.

Secondly, it shows these scientists in their homes or working environments, which is much more interesting than seeing them talking in “sterile” studios, which is what other movies that I’ve seen do. This adds an additional personal dimension to the experience of watching it.

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It took Renée almost 10 years to shoot and edit this film, funding it from her own money, which says a lot about her determination and serious approach to this endeavor. She decided to go on this journey after having a couple of unexplainable experiences herself. I liked the movie so much that I asked Renée to let me interview her for Mind-Energy. I’m glad to tell that I’ve recorded the interview and will post it in a couple of days. So stay tuned.

What else is in the film? She met with Dr. Jack Houck, the organizer of PK parties and she also accompanied him to one of them. These are the famous PK parties which he holds in the US, where people bend spoons. Spoon bending is a thread throughout the film, being used to connect the various parts of it, although it’s not a scientific subject by itself.

There’s footage from Brazil of psychic surgeries, there are shots from other healing events and places. You see introductions about such projects such as Global Consciousness Project and Remote Viewing from the first hands, from the scientists themselves.

The film is 105 minutes long and is available on DVD in NTSC and PAL format. You can learn more about the film and purchase it on its official site.

With collaboration with Renée we've added a dedicated discussion forum for Something Unknown and its topics at Mind-Energy forums. Please join us in discussing it with Renée and other viewers.

There's a series of enrichment lectures at Google (the company) and they make them available for public viewing on YouTube. The lectures are not strictly technical and encompass a wide variety of topics with guest speakers.

The below video is of a lecture describing the basics of Oriental medicine practices, especially acupuncture and acupressure. There's also specific attention to stress in traditional western medicine and in eastern. 

In the second part, after the description, an eastern medicine doctor applies short acupunture treratment to some of the listeners and guides through a short relaxation meditation.

There’s a new video on You-Tube which shows the exam for a 3rd-level Nei-kung by the first westerner student of John Chang, the Magus of Java, who is teaching the Mo Pai school of kung-fu. To pass 3rd level a student must demonstrate certain telekinetic abilities by using his yin chi.

You can read more about Nei-Kung, John Chang, his amazing abilities and his school in the book The Magus of Java: Teachings of an Authentic Taoist Immortal by Kosta Danaos, another student of his. I’ve read it and highly recommend getting it, if you’d like to read first hand account with this rare man.

The description to the following video on Youtube.com site tells the following:

It was just last year I found this person. He is the first Westerner to ever be admitted into the ancient school of Mo Pai. About four or five other Westerners have become students, but all have failed for one reason or another. There has never been another Westerner to have ever reached the 3rd level.

This person is currently in training to go on to the 4th level of nei-kung which is different from chi gong, despite what other alleged, pseudo authorities say.

The short segment is his testing for the 3rd level when he passed in 2000.

Notice that the boxes are against a wall, and they fall forward and not backward as if there was something blowing them backward from the front. There are two methods of either pulling them forward or pushing them backward. The distance between his hand and the boxes is over 9 feet; a tape measure is seen on the floor.

As you can see in the video, along with the Wester student is the world famous master/teacher, John Chang and his son.

I think the video speaks for itself, although the quality is quite poor, since for some reason the put the camera against a bright window, which washed out much of the detail. What do you think of this video?

On 3 March 2008, Sanal Edamaruku, who is the president of an organization called Rationalist International, challenged India’s tantrik (a black magician). The tantrik is thought to be the most powerful in India. Sanal has challenged the tantrik to kill him using black magic during a live TV program. The tantrik, Pandit Surinder Sharma, agreed. Sharma claimed during an earlier TV discussion that he could kill any person within 3 minutes using black magic. This has started because one of India’s former politicians, Uma Bharati, accused her opponents of using tantrik magic to hurt her, following a series of negative events in her life.

During the challenged, the tantrik chanted his mantras for a lot more than 3 minutes but it had no ill effect on Sanal whatsoever. In fact, Sanal Edamaruku only laughed all the time. The tantrik moved onto more “powerful” techniques and started to wave a knife and touch Sanal with it.

Only after two hours of this show, which overrun all other programs at that time on the channel, did the anchor declare the failure of the tantrik. The latter tried to explain it away with the thought that a very powerful god was guarding Sanal, to which he replied being an atheist.

The tantrik then said that his most powerful magic works only at night. Sanal has challenged him again. Under an open might sky several hours later they gathered for the ritual. The tantrik warned that once it is started there’s no way back and Sanal would get crazy and then scram in pain and die. Sanal laughed and they started.

Alex Tsakiris, the host of the Skeptiko podcast, selected replication of the "Dogs that know when their owners are coming home" experiment of Rupert Sheldrake, as the first one of his OpenSourceScience initiative.

Today, the project posted the first video, describing the experiment and some preliminary result. Our forums section now also added a new forum to discuss the replication, alongside the active Skeptiko podcast forum. After seeing the video, go to the new DogsThatKnow experiment discussion forum.

He also released show #41 of the Skeptiko podcast about the experiment.

Dr. Dean Radin (of the Institute of Noetic Sciences) posted on his blog a note about two recent speeches that he’s done. The first speech was on January 16th in the Google headquarters (Telepathic search engine, anyone ?).

The good thing about the speech is that the video is available on Youtube with the full speech (over 90 minutes), which is really great. The video is edited, showing the slides well and with good sound quality. The abstract of the speech is as follow:

Do telepathy, clairvoyance and other “psi” abilities exist? The majority of the general population believes that they do, and yet fewer than one percent of mainstream academic institutions have any faculty known for their interest in these frequently reported experiences. Why is a topic of enduring and widespread interest met with such resounding silence in academia? The answer is not due to a lack of scientific evidence, or even to a lack of scientific interest, but rather involves a taboo. I will discuss the nature of this taboo, some of the empirical evidence and critical responses, and speculate on the implications.

On January 19th, Dr. Radin talked in a conference entitled “Investigations of Consciousness and the Unseen World: Proof of an Afterlife?” where he talked about the possible implications of Psi on the possibility of afterlife.

Daniel Tammet

The story of Daniel Tammet is a rare story. And although it is not about psychic abilities, it is still a story of extreme, paranormal mental ability. Daniel Tammet is what is called a Savant. A savant, while literally means a learned person, and comes into English from the French, usually means a “polymath”, or a person of exceptional genius, like Leonardo da Vinci. But there’s also the kind of people who are called Autisic savants, and these people are more special. Daniel Tammet is one of them and he’s more valuable to the scientific world that most of them, for reasons to be disclosed below.

Autistic Savants are usually people who have really extraordinary mental abilities in some areas but are usually so at the expense of social skills and they are all autistic by definition, which makes contact with them harder. One of the more famous living savants is Kim Peek, who was the inspiration for Dustin Huffman’s role in the movie “The Rainman”. Daniel (born 1979), on the hands, is almost normal and can express himself very well, including how his mind seems to work. Daniel has the following extraordinary abilities:

I came upon the name of Miroslav Magnetic when looking for information about Dr. Alexander Imich, which has (by error, I guess) called me. When I saw what I saw about this man (on his personal pages) I was totally amazed. A rare skill like his, displayed on high quality video. Rare sights indeed.

Miroslav Magola, the Magnetic Man, seems to possess strong psychokinetic powers as he can attach to himself quite heavy objects. He can attach them to his hands or to his forehead. Perhaps he can more than that, but that’s what I’ve seen in the videos. Moreover, he can hold this way not only metallic objects but also ceramic or plastic, thus eliminating real magnetic force as the source of his ability.

There are lots of videos of him displaying his ability in good quality (see two videos embedded below). Apparently he was also verified by lots of scientists and skeptics, including the Lord of the Skeptics – Mr. James Randi, who did not agree to test his powers scientifically (maybe he was too afraid to lose his $1M. Need more reference on that). On of his websites the following information is written:

I’ve written before about my first qigong lesson. Nowadays, I still go the classes and am much more knowledgable on the subject.

But first, what is Qigong, anyway? Qigong (pronounced like chee-kong) is an ancient Chinese system of working with the Qi (Chi) energy. The translation from Chinese is something in the lines of “energy cultivation” or “Working with energy”. It is a system of exercises involving postures, movement, breathing, meditation and mind body interaction. Qigong was the basis both for the Chinese healing and to martial arts. As such there are many variations to qigong and some are more relevant to combat while others to healing.

I’ve learned that the specific form of qigong that I study is called YiQuan qigong (pronounced e-chuan). This specific form of qigong was founded in the 1920ies by master Wang Xiangzhai, who developed it out of another martial arts system, xingyiquan. Although it started as a form of martial arts qigong it is now studied mostly for health benefits. In many places it still learned as a martial arts qigong, similarly to kungfu. At the end of the post I attached two videos of master Yao Zongxun (1917-1985), who was the formal successor of Wang Xiangzhai. In these videos one can see the exercises.

As I wrote before, there are several types of exercises in the Yiquan. One type is call Shi li and they are motion exercises. The motion is usually slow and has many aspects to mastering it, including body control, relaxed and diaphragmic breathing, synchronous movements of various joints and energy control. You can see many Shi Li performed in the first video of Yao Zongxun starting with around 2:43 minutes.