Month: August 2007

On the Latest Study of ESP and OBEs

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Yet another article by Brian regarding a study of ESP and OBE. On the Latest Study of ESP & OBEs The most recent study that examines the possibility of OBE in relation to ESP performance was reported by two Italian researchers, Guido Del Prete _and _Patrizio Tressoldi (2005), in the latest issue of the Journal of Parapsychology. Their study, inspired in part by the successful ESP/OBE study by Palmer and Lieberman (1975) described in my review post, in particular focused on the possibility of enhancing ESP performance through an altered state of consciousness, specifically the hypnagogic state (the state between wakefulness and sleep). Simon Sherwood (2002) of the University College Northampton has done extensive research over the past few years on the possible relation between hypnogogic states and the experience of ostensibly anomalous phenomena (to include hallucinations of a sense of presence related to apparitions, sensations of body paralysis or weightlessness that may given the impression of OBE, and the experience of ESP-like dream imagery), finding that, although many natural hypnagogic experiences may be misinterpreted as being anomalous, some may also be influenced by ESP and other psi processes. The study by Del Prete and Tressoldi explores that possibility further in a lab setting by attempting to artificially induce a hypnagogic-like state in their study participants through hypnosis (this hypnagogic-like state was characterized by deep muscle relaxation, slow and...

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Buddha boy in Nepal speaks to crowd

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This story started back in the end 2005, when I started to follow it. It’s about a 15-year old boy(at that time), Ram Bahadur Bomjom , who according to news, was already meditating for 6 months straight at that time. My original report of him appeared in article: A boy in Nepal has been meditating for 6 months. The boy was, supposedly, meditating for all that time without eating or drinking. He was called The Buddha boy by the locals, since he was sitting meditating under a pipal tree for such a long time in around the same geographical region. Thousands of people visited his meditation site at that time. Then, around February 2006, after 9 months of meditation the Buddha boy disappeared. There were some speculations that he was kidnapped but it turned out to be false. In December 2006, now 16-year old boy reappeared. Now, there seems to be some renewed interest in him, after he appeared before a crowd and preached. Source writes that his message was: “The only way we can save this nation (Nepal) is through religion.” Well, I waited for more a man meditating for such a long period of time. It’s interesting how his story will continue from...

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Do Some Psychics “Read the Eyes?”

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Another good article by Brian about ESP and psychic research. Do Some Psychics “Read the Eyes?” A popular misconception about ESP that has existed from time immemorial is that it involves some form of “mind reading.” Telepathy has been popularly conceived as two people “reading each other’s minds,” and when a person appears to perform a feat of clairvoyance in correctly guessing something about another person’s life, that other person often exclaims, “Wow! Are you reading my thoughts?” An examination of subjective reports from spontaneous cases as well as from the lab (Rhine, 1967) suggests that the experience of ESP can often be much more complex than this, but the mind reading concept still holds even today in the minds of some people, including some mainstream scientists and skeptics who are not familiar with parapsychological research. It is likely that a great many instances of apparent ESP that look like “mind reading” can be chalked up to sensory cues that we often give off, whether we are aware of it or not. It is often claimed by skeptics that, rather being highly adept in ESP, many mental mediums and commercial psychics who give readings are more skilled in picking up on these cues in the expressions of the people consulting them, and use this in tandem with cold reading and other mentalist tricks to produce false psychic information. One...

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Sharon Neill blind psychic medium from UK helps police and others

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I came upon an interesting story of a Sharon Neill, aged 42, from UK. She’s blind from birth and appears to be one of the more known psychic mediums in the UK. An article in Daily Mail describes her amazing story of discovering her psychic abilities in the childhood and their later development. Her talent seems to be mediumship, contact with the dead. Apparently she’s been helping the UK police on several occasions of missing persons. She could see and experience what the victims saw, where and how they were killed. She would then inform the police, often helping them to discover the body or the murderer. She tells several interesting cases from her “career”, including this first one: …Her name was Marie Payne and it was thought she had been abducted. As I listened to the reporter’s voice I felt as if a scene from a film was being projected on to a screen in my mind. As I watched, the image of a silver car appeared, followed by outhouses and derelict buildings, a forest area and a lorry or van. The little girl’s fear swept over me as if I were in her mind sharing her emotions, and the sensation of being in unfamiliar and hostile surroundings filled me with her dread. Visualising a place I had never been to was a shock, but to be so...

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On Studies of the Human Aura

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The below is another article by Bryan, this time telling about the research of the human aura. On Studies of the Human Aura The alleged human aura has long been associated with the spiritual, mystical, and occult traditions, and opinions have been mixed as to whether or not it can be classified as a psi phenomenon by any means. Taken at face value, it often seems that, in some respects, the aura is not a purely mental phenomenon, but is more based on emanations from the body. This would be an argument for it not being classified as a psi phenomenon. On the other hand, given that some psychics have supposedly been able to perceive the auras of people, the possibility that ESP may be involved offers a supportive argument on the boundaries of what may constitute a psi phenomenon. A related and interesting example comes from the memoirs of psychic and medium Eileen J. Garrett (1949), who reported seeing bands of colored light enveloping both animate and inanimate objects that she called “the surround.” Mrs. Garrett’s descriptions of the surround sound very similar to the concept of the aura. It also seems that there have been various types of the aura that have surfaced over the years, and Dr. Charles Tart (1972), then of the University of California, Davis, noted that it is important to make a distinction...

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