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THE LITERATURE

1.1 PARASENSORY EXPERIENCES
 
"Everything that relates, whether closely or more distantly to psychic phenomena and to the action of psychic forces in general should be studied just like any other science. There is nothing miraculous or supernatural in them, nothing that should engender or keep alive superstition. Psychic training rationally and scientifically conducted, can lead to desirable results. That is why the information gained about such ttraining . . constitutes useful documentary evidence worthy of our attention.
-Alexandra David-Neel (1971:xiii)


We are accustomed to think of the ego as being primarily attentive to the perceptual world of experience; indeed the conceptualizing of percepts furnished the brain through the five senses seems to be the main business of consciousness. So much so in fact, that the ego may well be thought of as the substantive of the verb to experience, and its good mental health measured by its reality-orienting aspects. Admittedly, this relationship is a complex one, but it is our task to show that it is not the only function of the ego, for there are some interesting examples of events in which the ego gains knowledge without the ordinary use of the senses.

A parasensory event is one leading to perception or knowledge not gained through the ordinary five senses; psychic or psychedelic events are therefore parasensory. We may then undertake to catalogue such events in a psychological taxonomy as a first attempt to understand their interrelationships. Parasensory events, while more noticeable when they are not otherwise commonly explainable, are really part and parcel of ordinary experience, not something divorced from it. We will start this analysis with the mention of a possible parasensory event so commonplace and trivial that one dares suggest that it has happened to all of us on many occasions.

Such an ordinary incident is the sudden appearance of an apparently absent person immediately subsequent to his name being mentioned in

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conversation. Obviously such an occurrence is not evidential for it is impossible to prove that our mention of the individual is connected with his appearance, but the phenomenon is widespread and may well be the most trivial and familiar example of a parasensory effect which will be called here a "psychic impression." For, if chance will not explain such occurrences, the theory here would be that in some way an anterior psychic impression is produced on the colloquitors by the imminent appearance or close proximity of the agent.

A much more serious and evidential example of a psychic impression is the phenomenon of telepathic transmission of information regarding serious injury or death from a projector (or agent) who stands in harm's way to a percipient (often a near relative or loved one).

We may define "psychic impression " more exactly as a parasensory event without sensory imagery occurring to an awake percipient who suddenly and for no apparent reason is overwhelmed by strong feelings, frequently resulting in action on behalf of an absent and distant agent or projector who is almost always in great danger of severe bodily injury or death. An example is quoted from Stevenson (1970:111):

 
My daughter was away at college... I started to write her as usual; when about finished, my right hand started to burn, so I could not hold the pen, and the pain was terrific. . . Less than an hour later, we received a telephone call telling us that our daughter's right hand had been severely burned in the laboratory with acid at the same time I felt the burn. . .
 
Such phenomena are much more often connected with the death rather than the injury of the projector, as the following typical account will indicate (Stevenson: 1970:172).
 
In 1963 my best friend's brother-in-law, whom I only met twice, but liked very much, was found dead late in the afternoon. I had a dream about him and when I woke between 7:00 and 7:30 AM (that morning) I knew he was dead. . .


The percipient told her husband of her dream in the morning and then called her friend to ask how her brother-in-law was. The friend said he was fine, but when he did not pick up his wife later in the afternoon, they broke into his house and found him dead in bed. Another good account of a psychic impression is also found in Stevenson (1970:3) quoting James Carroll in Phantasms of the Living. The experience occurred in 1878 on the death of his twin brother in a different part of England:
 

On the morning of the date given, I experienced a strange sadness, and depression. Unable to account for it, I turned to my desk, thinking of my brother. I looked at his last letter to
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see the date, and tried to detect if there was anything unusual about it, but failed. I wrote my brother, closed the desk and felt compelled to exclaim "my brother or I will break down." This, I afterwards found, was the first day of his fatal illness.
 
and another Stevenson (1970:60):
 
1 returned to the dinner dishes still unwashed in the kitchen sink. Quite suddenly while I held a plate in my hand, an awesome feeling came over me. I dropped the plate, turned my eyes to heaven and prayed aloud, "Oh God, don't let her get killed." For some unexplainable reason, I knew Joicey had been hit by a car. . . I went to the telephone and dialed the theater. "My little girl was on the way to the theater. She has had an accident. Was she badly hurt?". . .
Joicey remembers that at the time she was hit, she called, "Mama." She remembers sitting on the curb and crying and calling "Mama, I want my Mama."


Stevenson (1970:2) in an examination of nearly ten thousand such extrasensory experiences, found that about fifty-five percent were dreams, about twenty-five percent were waking psychic impressions (as above), and about twenty percent were waking sensory images. He gives summaries (p. 6) of 160 authenticated cases of such impressions, and later in the same book, examines thirty-five new cases, personally investigated. Of the one hundred sixty cases, males are more often agents (projectors) by sixty-one percent; (p. 15), sixty-two percent concern an agent-percipient in close family relationship (p. 16); the agent is either dying or in serious danger in eighty-two percent (p. 19); the percipient is awake ninety percent of the time (p. 23). Myers (1961:267-76) has many accounts of psychic impressions.

A similar, but somewhat different kind of experience is also associated with the death of the projector. Instead of having a psychic or telepathic impression of the projector, the percipient "sees" him; in other words, there is an apparition or phantasm. We are not concerned here with whether this "double" is "real" or an hallucination; hopefully, we have said enough about "reality" previously so that it is recognized as a more complex matter than might be supposed. This type of activity associated with death is also remarkably common. The modal experience is the transitory appearance of the dying individual to a distant friend or relation. More rarely there is auditory experience, and sometimes the phenomena takes place when the percipient is dreaming. While more spectacular, this experience is closely akin to the former psychic impression except that for some reason whatever stages such phenomena has been able to bring in one

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of the five senses. A characteristic example follows which has been selected because of the eminence of the personnel (Prince, 1963:88). The historian, Trevelyan, tells the story briefly (about Garibaldi):
 

(At the age of 46) he was visited by a strange dream - of the women of Nice bearing his mother to the grave - which he declares came to him on the very day when she died far off on the other side of the world of water (he was then on a vessel in the ocean).
 
Prince also gives another account (1963:164), this time vouched for by no less than Victor Hugo, in which an old lady and her daughter were talking about an elderly friend:
 
"I shall go and see her today," (said the daughter, Mme. Guerard).

"It will do no good. she has been dead for an hour," (said the mother, Mme Guerin).

"What are you saying? . . . Are you dreaming?" (said Mme. Guerard).

"No, I am wide awake, and I have not slept all night; as it struck four o'clock, I saw Mme. Lanne pass, and she said to me 'I am going; are you coming?'

The daughter went to see Mme. Lanne, but the woman had died in the night. . . Mme. Guerin died the next day at noon.


Prince gives thirty of these cases alone, some involving very famous persons (1963:16, 20, 32 Linneaus, 34 Maxim, 38, 41, 44, 60, 66, 72, 75, 77, 88 Garibaldi, 95 Oberegon, 98, 110, 116 Tallmadge, 131, 151, Belasco, 161, 163 Victor Hugo, 187, 203, 2059 231, 248, 262 Bizet, 265 Rubenstein, and 278). Other cites include Osborn (1966:65:SPR XIX), and Myers (1961:202-60) where many instances are given.

The rationale for this kind of experience is well given by EvansWentz (1967:166) in his discussion of the joining of the individual spirit with "the Clear Light of the Void." Similar to the hypnogogic state just preceding sleep, this juncture of the individual and the general mind allows the individual's last desires to be projected over the general network, and thus to be manifested at a distance. As Russell Noyes of Iowa University put it in an examination of dying persons' feelings (Time, Dec. 4, 1972, p. 64), this kind of experience is not unlike mystical states of consciousness. Noyes also found the oft-reported syndrome of "the past flashing before the eyes of the dying person." (See also Crookall 1970:115).
White (1972:458ff), quotes Roll as follows:
 

If the psi field and other fields making up our environment are experienced as part of the self, we may define such an experience as one of field consciousness (FC). Such experiences
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have been reported near the moment of death, during psychedelic drug trips, as a result of meditation, and in other altered states of consciousness.


Osis in "Deathbed Observations by Physicians and Nurses," International Journal of Parapsychology (4:2:27-56, Spring 1962) has eight hundred reports that patients at death have visionary experiences of light or luminous figures. Myers (1961-267-76) gives many examples.

If all men are yogis, uniting the individual with the general mind at the moment of death, there appear to be some men who by accident or study learn the knack on other occasions. This phenomenon, related to the former, but possible of further confirmation because the projector remains alive, is known as the out-of-body experience. OOB's may be distinguished from psychic impressions by the shift in attention from the percipient to the projector, although all are of different degrees on the same continuum. OOB's also have their gradations; we start with one very near to the death-bed activity last noticed.

The unconscious out-of-body experience. This experience occurs when the projector is alive but asleep. He is unaware that he has projected until later it is confirmed to him by a percipient of the projection. We append a famous example (Wilson 1971:54) involving John Cooper Powys as projector, and Theodore Dreiser as percipient:
 

One evening after a long after-dinner conversation, Powys looked at his watch, and said he would have to go at once or miss his train. Dreiser helped him on with his overcoat, and Powys, on his way to the door said - "I'll appear before you right here later this evening. You'll see me."

"Are you going to turn yourself into a ghost, or do you have a key to the door?" Dreiser laughed, for he did not believe that Powys meant to be taken seriously.

"I don't know," said Powys, "I may return as a spirit or in some other astral form."

Dreiser said there had been no discussion during the evening of ghosts, spirits, or visions. .. . He gave no further thought to Powys' promise to reappear, but he sat up reading for about two hours, all alone. Then he looked up from his book and saw Powys standing in the doorway. . . Dreiser rose at once and strode toward whatever it was, saying "Well, you've kept your word, John, you're here. Come on in and tell me how you did it." The apparition did not reply, and it vanished when Dreiser was within three feet from it.

As soon as he had recovered somewhat from his astonishment, Dreiser picked up the phone and called Powys' home in

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the country. Powys came to the phone and Dreiser recognized his voice. When he heard the story, Powys said: "I told you I'd be there; you oughtn't to be astonished." Dreiser told me he was never able to get any explanation from Powys, who refused to discuss the matter from any standpoint."
 
Wilson (1971:55) points out, "For what we are concerned with is the fundamental question of the conscious control of the subconscious mind." He believes that Powys would not discuss the incident because he did not know how he did it.

Despite the spectacular nature of such phenomena, and despite their relative rarity as contrasted to the earlier-noted experiences, these phantasms of the living are quite well documented in psychic research. One of the best evidential examples are the so-called "Elsie projections" (Fox 1962:56-63), wherein a young man while asleep appears to his inamorata, Elsie, in her bedroom. Prince (1963:30-1) tells of a similar projection vouched for by none other than William James, and another case (1963:166) in which Gilbert Parker is the guarantor. Much of the psychic material of Castaneda (1972) in the "Don Juan" protocols, can be explained along these lines. F. W. H. Myers (1961) in Personality and Its Survival After Death, represents (1903) the earliest accounts of the British investigators. Other sources for similar phenomena are Sylvan Muldoon (1970), The Projection of The Astral Body, and G. N. M. Tyrrell, Science and Psychical Phenomena and Apparatus (1961).

We believe that in some way, either through accident, illness, or learned knack, the projector, while in the hypnogogic state just preceding deep sleep, and having a desire to appear, connects somehow with the generalized preconscious, and is able to affect the sensorium of the percipient - sometime (and this is more difficult to explain), even the sensoriums of several percipients at the same time. The projector is always asleep at these times and is not aware of the projection until it is later confirmed, and the projection itself does not speak or show other signs of consciousness.

We now come to the last in the continuum of related phenomena, which can be called the conscious out-of-body experience. This episode, the rarest and yet the most spectacular of the series occurs when the percipient is alive and awake (or at least not asleep) and is conscious that he is projected, (that is, he has consciousness of being in another place than that where his body is); he can describe this location, so that frequently it can afterwards be identified evidentially, and very often he can communicate with and show other conscious awareness of the percipient. In some (perhaps advanced?) cases, the projector can consciously will and affect his projection. At other times, the projector is also the percipient; in these, there seems to

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be clear and distinct differences between such experiments and the purely subjective revery of imagining oneself at a distant spot.

This conscious legerdemain is known as "astral projection;" the projected consciousness, often being known as the "astral body," the "Etheric body," or simply as "the double." In all cases of such projection it appears to be connected to the physical body by an infinitely extensible "silver cord." There also appears to be momentary unconsciousness when the projector leaves the physical body, and a "click phenomenon" upon his return.

The most authoritative writer on this subject is Crookall (1964, 1966, 1970), an investigator who has amassed a great deal of corroboratory evidence. He believes (1970) that the etheric double is released in two stages: the first stage involves quitting the physical body with the vehicle of vitality. Doubles of this type (1970-127) are never seen by the projector, who does not have consciousness, but only by others. The projector is usually mediumistic, in a dreamy, slightly dissociated condition, and the double, which is not an instrument of consciousness is perceived as solid and lifelike, not luminous, subtle, or tenuous. The conscious vehicle is the product of a second unveiling, quitting the vehicle of vitality, in which case there is a click, pop, or repercussion when the double re-enters the physical (1970:125).

Crookall records comments by other investigators on the subject. He quotes Myers (1970:19) as saying "Astral projection is the most significant of all psychical phenomena." Crookall (1966:81) describes the OOB experience of Mrs. Garrett (a famous medium) and alleges that it "proves" that the "psychical body is an object and not as some orthodox investigators believe, no more than a mental image of the physical."

Garrett (1949:26) says: "I can project a part of myself into distant places and into the presence of people I know." She also says (p171) "Paranormal faculties are of general distribution throughout the human race, requiring only to be developed to become more active and positive."

Crookall (1966:19) points out that persons who experience OOB "May lack the vitality to keep physical and psychical bodies in gear." This "half-dead" condition "as well as prolonged fasting" tend to physical collapse "with the exterioration of the psychical body." Crookall believes this is because the physical body is vibrating too slowly for their coincidence. But Crookall is quick to point out that mystics in good health may suffer from the opposite condition, "that the psychical body is vibrating too rapidly for the physical" and this may cause an OOB experience also.

Crookall is not the only witness for these strange activities. Lady David-Neel, after extensive investigations in Tibet, found that the monks there had very realistic explanations of the "double" (1971-28).

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During life in the normal state this "double" is closely united with the material body. Nevertheless, certain circumstances may cause their separation. The double can then leave the material body and show itself in different places, or being itself invisible, it can accomplish various peregrinations. With some people this separation of the double from the body happens involuntarily, but the Tibetans say that those who have trained themselves for the purpose can effect it at will. The separation is not complete for a strand subsists connecting the two forms. She concludes that this silver cord is only severed sometime after death.


Monroe, R. A. in Journeys out of the Body (1971:171), says that the psychical body "has weight as we understand it. It is subject to gravitational attraction, although much less than the physical body."

(p. 178) "The relationship between the second body and electricity and electromagnetic fields is quite significant."
(p. 171) "The early penetration into the second state thought and action are dominated almost entirely by the unconscious subjective mind."
(p. 222) He notes the "click phenomenon" upon rejoining the physical body.


Muldoon and Carrington in The Phenomena of Astral Projection (1970) discuss this subject thoroughly. A section of their introduction reads as follows. (1951:x):
 

Many times in talking to people about the psychic phenomena and the nature of phantoms especially, we have been surprised to find that they confuse in their minds such entirely different manifestations as apparitions and materializations, and will say: "I saw a materialization" when what they really mean is that they saw an apparition. Of course this is a great mistake. One is a semi-solid or solid form, while the other is usually subjective, having no space-occupying quality. . . We have tried to show in several places in this book, how it is that phantom forms may vary greatly in the degree of their objectivity, and that the degree of this objectivity may even vary from moment to moment. That is why a phantom may be visible one moment and vanish the next... . The evanescent and fluidic character of all these manifestations should ever be kept in mind; and if this were done, much of the controversy regarding the degree of objectivity of phantasms would be done away with.


The authors (1951,18) recount the famous case of the Monk Liguori, who on the morning of 21 September 1774at Arienzo, four days journey from Rome, fell into a cataleptic sleep and upon

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awakening stated that he had been present at the death of the Pope. He was seen at the deathbed, where he led prayers for the dying Pontiff.

In discussing two evidential cases (1951:112-3) they point out the "great importance of suppressed desire" and also (1951:114) note the "click" phenomenon, upon return.

Muldoon was himself capable of astral projection, and his books are enlivened by personal accounts. Carrington, as a topflight psychic investigator, made an admirable co-author. In an earlier book (1929:65) they laid down the fundamental law of astral projection:
 

If the subconscious will becomes possessed of the idea to move the body, and the physical counterpart is incapacitated, the subconscious will move the astral body independent of the physical.


Muldoon identifies the connecting link between the conscious and the preconscious as "passive will," He says with respect to projections (1929:239):
 

You can never force the passive will successfully, for the instant you try to force passive will, it becomes active will. You must just have the desire to project so strongly within you that it produces passive will, which in turn builds up the stress of the desire, and convinces the subconscious mind that the visions you imagine concerning projection are perfectly reasonable and possible.


This section is quoted because this is a clear statement of the manner in which the union between the individual consciousness and the generalized preconscious is established, and therefore is of more universal application than astral projection alone.

The force and reach of the generalized preconscious is also understood by these authors, as witness the following remarkable passages (1929:250-1):
 

The crypto-conscious mind is the intelligence which elevates the astral body, throws it under and frees it from the spell of catalepsy, turns the body in the air. . . and performs various maneuvers. The crypto-conscious mind can execute an endless number of the most dextrous and clever capers with the astral body, controlling it as a hypnotist might control his subject; yet the curious part is that one can be conscious all the time he is under the influence of the crypto-conscious will. . .
With many mediums the crypto-conscious mind operating this hidden force does curious things, such as producing physical manifestations. The power is in the medium, and is directed by the crypto-conscious mind, while "spirits" are credited with producing the phenomena. Even the medium himself does not
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realize that the intelligence behind the manifestations is the crypto-conscious mind.

Earthly beings can haunt a house in which they live - they can hear and see physical manifestations which they attribute to spirits, but which are produced by their own crypto-conscious minds operating upon this hidden force...
 

Battersby (1969:89) quotes Yram on facilitating OOB experiences:
 
The essential points for study are
1) the power to concentrate one's thoughts on a single object without being distracted by outside stimuli;
2) the practice of rhythmic breathing;
3) nervous and muscular relaxation, and
4) the ability to suspend thought completely.


Critique and Comment

We have reviewed the substantial evidence for a number of psychic or parasensory events catalogued in an ascending taxonomy of consciousness and objectivity, and a descending continuum of credence, frequency, and triviality. These categories have been respectively

a) the appearance of a mentioned person,
b) the psychic impression,
c) telepathic death- bed activity,
d) unconscious out-of-body experience, and
e) conscious. out-of-body experience.


We have heard the testimony of different investigators to the effect that it is the union of the conscious will with the generalized preconscious mind which creates such unusual manifestations. While the strong emotions connected with death often produce such effects "naturally" these powers can be "developed" by the coincidence of the individual's passive will with the generalized preconscious, often occurring as one enters sleep. While it is impossible to review all the accumulated evidence, we have quoted from some of the most evidential material, especially connected with famous personages who would have little to gain and much to lose by deceit. This particular type of psychic experience was selected because we agree with Myers that it is the most significant. Indeed, the concepts developed to explain it go far in explaining such other diverse psychic phenomena as:
 

a) Ghosts and Apparitions
Following Tyrrell's definitive study of Apparitions in a book of the same title (1961:33), they may be divided into four classes:

1) crisis-cases (our death-bed phantasm, discussed above)
2) experimental cases (our OOB experiences, conscious or unconscious)
3) post-mortem cases (rare, and not here considered)

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4) ghosts (which haunt places, whereas apparitions haunt people).


Tyrrell (1961:35) notes that in the OOB type "intense concentration by the agent before going to sleep is mentioned" in many cases. He also cites numerous examples of OOB activity (1961:130) in some cases where the self is the percipient. He also looks at some cases of OOB activity at the supposed moment of death, where revival took place (1961:149). He also (1961:76) discusses cases of death-bed activity, in one instance where a dog was the agent (proving that the power is not confined to human beings).

Tyrrell (1961:70) notes another fairly frequent characteristic of apparitions is that the percipient experiences a feeling of cold. He comments: "One can see no reason for these cold feelings." It is very surprising that a man of Tyrrell's scientific background could have missed the significance of this effect. Something is obviously drawing energy from the immediate environment, and this energy (heat) loss is immediately felt as cold.

Tyrrell (1953:101) glimpses the role of the generalized preconscious in staging the apparitional drama in the following passage:

 
The agent at a moment of crisis certainly does not think of the percipient except in general terms. Probably he does no more than wish to be within him. . . His part is only to give direction and impetus to the drama and to supply in very general terms the motif. The work of constructing the drama is done at certain regions of the personality which lie below the conscious level; and there the agent's general and simple idea, is worked out in complex detail. . .


These are low types of psychic experiences where the will of the deceased has apparently engraved a permanent, not a transitory, trace on the generalized preconscious, the motivation for which often comes from murder or other foul deed. The phenomena, if weak, may consist of rapping or lights, if stronger, an apparition. The apparition is rarely menacing, seldom if ever speaks, and seems in some way to be degenerate and pitiful. See Prince (1963:14, 64, 79, 125, 138, 165, 171); see Osborn (1966:55).

b) Poltergeist Phenomena, see Osborn (1966:68); Foder (1964:168-9)

Closely allied to the former, these consist of rappings, knocks, occasional apports or stones, and sometimes mischievous tricks. In this case, the generalized preconscious seems to be stirred up by the growing pains of a somewhat abnormal preadolescent child, just on the throes of adolescence. (The Periodic Developmental Stage Column I possibilities of psychic manifestations should be noted.) The onset of adolescent sexual function usually ends such activities.

Garrett (1949:147-155) regards poltergeist phenomena as a crude

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type of haunting, where the dissociated phantasm tries to get the attention of an adolescent through knocking and other psychic manifestations to bring his suit to the attention of the living. Often some long forgotten fancied wrong produces the phenomena, and the passage noted is eloquent on the necessity of gentle forgiveness and release (instead of horror and fright) on the part of the human participant. (It is a little like giving alms to a beggar). When Garrett questioned a phantasm as to why it manifested to an adolescent, the phantasm replied that the adolescent was nicer than other members of the family, and more likely to pay attention to the phenomena. Garrett (1949:156), after commenting sagely on the pitiable state of phantasm she "exorcised," sums up the "not-me" or dissociated aspects of the situation:
 

Dissociation has been considered an abnormality and a destructive condition in the lives and personalities of many sensitive individuals. But it would be well to remember that every normal person has his moments of dissociation in fantasy and daydream. Is it possible that such dissociation can continue after death? And if this is so, would it not help to clear up some of the mystery attached to the phantom and to hauntings?


Gaddis (1967:203) after a thorough canvas of poltergeist phenomena quotes Bayless as saying that "the poltergeist force is almost always indicative of a psychological rather than a spiritualistic origin," and himself concludes in regard to poltergeist phenomena:
 

Such stresses within the subconscious mind, if unrelieved and sufficiently intense, can result in a psychological state known as dissociation. . . When these conditions exist, a person can commit acts, including destructive acts representing his repressed frustrations and desires, and then return to his normal self with no conscious memory of what has been done. In poltergeist phenomena we are witnessing the projection and dramatization of subconscious repressed tensions and conflicts. . .


Another researcher who believed in the "poltergeist psychosis" was Fodor (1948), (1959) who "cured" many such cases by offering love and understanding to the adolescent agent (Gaddis, 1967:205).

c) Telepathy, Clairvoyance, Precognition, and Psychometry

These experiences have in common the conveying of knowledge across space or time. They are grouped together because in an Einsteinian world, space-time is a continuum, and whatever explanations suffice for spatial translations, also suffice for temporal. Again, the mechanism is an impression on the generalized preconscious which exists throughout spacetime:

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1. Telepathy
See Prince 1963:13 (Burbank) 55 (Swedenborg); 119 (John Hay) (Myers 1961:261ff). Telepathy is a kind of intuition, a "direct knowledge of distant facts." "Telepathy produces full and clear impressions in a way that clairvoyance does not." "It is a swift process of knowing through being" (empathy). (Garrett 1949:133) Sinclair (1971:128) explains the methodology of telepathy as follows:
 

If you succeed in doing this, you will find it hard not to drop asleep. But you must distinguish between this and the state you are to maintain. . . After you have learned to induce it, you will be able to concentrate on the idea instead of the rose, and to carry this idea into sleep with you, as the idea to dominate the subconscious while you are asleep. This idea taken into sleep in this way, will often act in the subconscious with the same power as the idea suggested by the hypnotist. . . You can learn to carry an idea of the restoration of health into this auto-hypnotic sleep, to act powerfully during sleep. . . But this is another matter, and not the state for telepathy - in which you must avoid dropping into a sleep. After you have practiced the exercise of concentrating on a flower - and avoiding sleep - you will be able to concentrate on holding the peculiar blank state of mind which must be achieved if you are to make successful experiments in telepathy.


W. E. Thompson (letter to New York Times, 10 May 1971) says:
 

Imaginative artists like Blake can understand the collective condition of society because the imagination is itself the opening to the collective unconscious, and precisely because this consciousness is collective, imaginative people can think the same thought at the same time, even though they are separated by ordinary space.


Commenting on this Weil (1972:187) remarks:
 

Telepathy is nothing other than thinking the same thoughts at the same time others are thinking them - something all of us are doing all the time at a level of our unconscious experience most of us are not aware of. Become aware of it and you become telepathic. . .


Myers (1961:265) says of telepathy: "Telepathy is surely a step in evolution."

2. Clairvoyance
Probably the most famous example of clairvoyance is the incident in which Swedenborg, while in Gothenburg, clairvoyantly saw and

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described the progress of the great Stockholm fire. The account (Prince 1963:48) goes on:
 

About six o'clock Swedenborg went out and returned to the company pale and alarmed. He said that a dangerous fire had just broken out in Stockholm... and was spreading very fast. He was restless and went out often. He said that the home of one of his friends, whom he named, was in ashes, and that his own was in danger. At eight o'clock after he had been out again, he joyfully exclaimed, "Thank God, the fire is extinguished, the third door from my house."
 
There was, of course, in those times, no direct contact between the two cities, but subsequent news confirmed Swedenborg's vision in every detail, It is interesting that Swedenborg went outdoors to experience these continuing clairvoyant visions. Prince (1963:104) also describes the clairvoyant visions of Lord Balfour when looking into a crystal ball. These were confirmed by witnesses.

3. Precognition: Knowledge of the Future
See Prince 1963:68 (James Otis), 70, 73, 98, 101, 106 (Chauncey Depew) 110, 114 (Carl Shurtz), 121 (Susan B. Anthony), 134-6, (Goethe) 190, 201, 202, 216 (Fulton Oursler), 255 (Saint Saens), 251 (Schumann), Fodor (1964:21). Because we are "clutched into" time, precognition, of all the powers, seems the most mysterious. But the collective preconscious does not exist in our time, but in the eternal now and consequently, it has access to future as well as past.

Prince (1963:136) tells the famous story of Goethe's predictive vision of himself in later life. Riding a horse when about twenty, he saw himself on horseback on the path coming toward him dressed "in a suit such as I had never worn." He did wear the suit later when riding over the same route.

Premonitions figure strongly in precognition, especially premonitions of death, such as the dream Lincoln had before his assassination. A similar premonition (Prince, 1963:256) caused Schumann to change the title of a composition to "The Funeral Fantasy." Premonitions are often about imminent events, and as such bear a striking relationship to psychic impressions, for they are about an event about to occur in a different time, while the psychic event is about an event to occur in a different space. Stanford and Lovin (1970) suspect a connection between the generation of alpha waves and ESP. They found that the tendency for alpha frequency to increase from pretest to test was associated with ESP as measured by the ability to call cards.

4. Psychometry (telling about an object's past)

Prince (1963:132) tells the historical account of the poet, Robert

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Browning who, when in Florence, met for the first time Count Giunasi, reputed to have such powers. The count asked the poet if he had any memento he would like to hear the history of. Browning produced some gold wrist studs which he had never worn in Florence before. The count held them awhile and then said, impressed, "There is something here which cries out 'Murder'." The studs were in fact the property of Browning's great uncle who wore them when he was murdered.

Of course, telepathy between Browning and the count would explain this experience, but Krippner (p. 87) cites Hilprecht on a case where the information was not known to anyone living. A similar example of the secret drawer is attributed to Swedenborg. The occultists call this sort of collective memory the "Akashic records," which can, of course, be accounted for by the concept of the "collective preconscious."



The relationship between the psychical OOB experience and the mystical experience of being "rapt out of the body" is apparently close. Myers (1961:349) defines ecstasy as "psychical excursion from the organism." This is the mystical significance of OOB experience. Crookall (1966:146-7) tells us:
 
While some hold that psychical and mystical experiences are essentially distinct from each other, others hold that they are basically similar, depending on the exterioration of the soul from the body.


He adds concerning mystical experiences:
 

They seem to be OOB experiences which typically occur at relatively high levels, that is because consciousness in these cases is operating through bodies of relatively subtle nature. There seems in fact to be three fairly well-defined levels of OOB experiences in general, 1) those with subnormal or dream consciousness when the body-veil is outermost; 2) those with supernormal consciousness, when the psychical body is outermost; and 3) those with mystical, cosmic, or spiritual consciousness when the spiritual (higher mental or causal) body is employed.


Crookall (1966:140) also points out that those who die naturally, awake in "paradise" conditions, feeling alive, peaceful, and happy, while those killed violently awake in a "Hades" condition of feeling confused or bewildered. The same differences are found between those OOB experiences that are natural, versus those that are enforced.

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In a similar vein Crookall (1966:91) says:
 

Mental harmony is an important prerequisite to experimenting, since in projecting one is stepping out of the physical into the next world conditions where thoughts are things. A man who enters such conditions with harmonious thoughts and feelings contacts a happy and helpful environment, but one who does so with discordant thoughts and feelings contacts an injurious environment.
 
Crookall (1966:228) regards OOB experiences when enforced by drugs and anesthesis as producing a low type of consciousness which is obscured by the body veil, and which is much like the dream state in finding itself in a locale approximating limbo. Such a view suggests that psychedelic drugs might be expected to produce similar conditions.

We should remember after all that OOB experience and other psychic powers may be all right in their way, but they are side-tracks on the line of life. The greatest glory of being in the physical body is that "de profoundis " one is able to demonstrate a cognitive understanding of the overlying realm of reality, unobscured by all the veils which matter uses to obfusticate the Clear Light of the Void.



 

We have now completed a summary of various types of psychic or parasensory events, arranged in a taxonomy which allows for more understanding of their rationale. In nearly every case, a consensus of psychic investigators places the responsibility for such events not in a miraculous supernatural pantheon completely outside man, but in the generalized preconscious which is part and parcel of each of us. Superstition projects psychic matters outside of man, instead of within; while psychology should attempt to understand these inner workings of the minds of men. Since the generalized preconscious is the common ocean in which all these currents and eddies exist, our next search of the literature is on the generalized preconscious, and the many other names and appellations by which it is known.
 

1.2 THE COLLECTIVE PRECONSCIOUS

"The center that I cannot find is
known to my unconscious mind. "
-Auden

That which we call the preconscious has as many names as characteristics: the Spirit of Man, the collective unconscious, the

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crypto-conscious mind, the subjective mind, the universal mind, the generalized mind, the impersonal mind, the collective intelligence, the collective consciousness, the general operator, the Sullivanian "not-me," and many others.

This construct, like a mathematical limit such as infinity, embraces apparently mutually exclusive opposites, such as all characteristics or none at all. Like water in its fluidity, and like the "Smoking-Mirror" of the Aztec Pantheon, it reflects whatever characteristic is impressed upon it by the human will.

Because this concept either seems to lack any characteristics, or alternatively, takes on any and all characteristics (especially those which appear divine), it is extremely difficult to define and describe. In addition, it appears as Sullivan's "not-me" to the developing child in the third (initiative) stage, and usually thoroughly frightens him. This "uncanniness" or "hair-raising" quality of the "not-me" is therefore one reason why many adults do not like to think of it. But there is a further difficulty. In Sullivan's terminology (1953:xv) the concept is parataxic; in Van Rhijn's terminology (1960) it is "presentational." Both constructs signify that it is being apprehended by most individuals at less than the full symbolic level, and hence abounds in dreams as an archetype and in mythology and fairy tales as genie, demi-god, and in other nature forms. Its amorphous quality makes it difficult to fixate in language equally clear from one cultural or religious background to another. These are some reasons why it is so difficult to explicate. In the next chapter our own theories about it are discussed, but here we defer to the ideas of others.

Troward (1909), among the earliest writers, has the clearest picture of the preconscious mind or "The Spirit of Man," which he terms the "subjective mind." He notes that it has powers far transcending those of the conscious mind, including what we would now call psychedelic. He also declares it to be the builder and protector of the body and states (1909:26), "In other words it is the creative power in the individual." He says further (1909:29), "The hypnotic state is the normal state of the subjective mind," mentioning that, "wherever we find creative power at work, we are in its presence" (p. 30). He concludes with this remarkable declaration (1909:31):

 
The subjective mind in ourselves is the same subjective mind at work in the universe giving rise to the infinitude of natural forms with which we are surrounded, and in like manner giving rise to ourselves also.


Despite the power of the subjective mind, its natural state of hypnosis makes it infinitely suggestible to the will of the conscious mind when properly impressed, Troward tells us, and consequently, it (like a genie) places all its power at the disposal of our conscious

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mind provided we think of the condition we wish to produce "as already in existence" (p. 34) in the realm of the ideal. The remarkable advance of Troward's thought is that he places the limitation of suggestibility on an entity formerly regarded as either the Deity or some tutelary manifestation. Consider the following:
 

Your object is not to run the whole cosmos, but to draw particular benefits, physical, mental, moral, or financial into your own or someone else's life. From this individual point of view, the universal creative power has no mind of its own, and therefore, you can make up its mind for it. When its mind is thus made up for it, it never abrogates its place as the creative power, but at once sets to work to carry out the purpose for which it has thus been concentrated and unless this concentration is dissipated by the same agency (yourself) which first produced it, it will work on by the law of growth to complete manifestation on the outward plane. (Troward 1909:60)


Troward (1909:85) tells us exactly how this is to be done:

 
1. There is some emotion, which gives rise to
2. A desire,
3. Judgment determines if we shall externalize this desire, if approved,
4. The will directs the imagination to form the necessary spiritual prototype,
5. The imagination thus centered creates the spiritual nucleus,
6. This prototype acts as a center around which the forces of attraction begin to work, and continue until
7. The concrete result is manifested and becomes perceptible.


Troward, however, is not the only writer who understands the importance of the preconscious. Wilson (1971:445) speculates on a hypothesis:
 

The subconscious mind is not merely a kind of deep seat repository of sunken memories and atavistic desires, but of forces which can, under special circumstances, manifest themselves in the physical world with a force which goes beyond anything which the conscious mind could command.
 
Jacobi gives the following notable explication of the nature of the generalized preconscious (1959: 59-60):
 
The collective unconscious as superpersonal matrix, as the unlimited sum of fundamental psychic conditions accumulated over millions of years is a realm of immeasurable breadth and
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depth. From the very beginning of its development, it is the inner equivalent of Creation, an inner cosmos as infinite as the cosmos outside us. The widely accepted idea of the collective unconscious as a "stratum" situated below the conscious mind is therefore unfounded and misleading. This widespread tendency. . . to identify the unconscious with something negative, unclean, or immoral, and hence, to assign it to the lowest level of the psyche stems from the failure to distinguish between the personal and the collective unconscious; in line with Freudian theory, the whole unconscious is taken as a mere reservoir of repression. But the collective unconscious is not made up of individual experience; it is an inner correspondence to the world as a whole. What is overlooked is that the collective unconscious is of an entirely different nature, comprising all the contents of the psychic experience of mankind, the most precious along with the most worthless... and it is also overlooked that the collective unconscious is neutral, that its contents acquire their value and position only through confrontation with the conscious.
 
Evans-Wentz (1911:60) suggested that the doctrine of rebirth is in accordance with the findings of psychology that the subconscious mind is the storehouse of all latent memories, and that these are not limited to one lifetime. Thus the Karma of an individual becomes his psychic heredity built up through myriads of previous existences. Thompson (1971:73) puts it this way:
 
Events that are too large to be perceived in the immediate history, register in the unconscious in the collective form of myths.

Imaginative artists like Blake could understand the collective conditions of society because the imagination is the opening of what Jung called "the collective unconscious." Precisely because the unconscious is collective, people can think the same thought at the same time, even though they are separated by ordinary space.
 

and again he notes (1971:74):
 
The unconscious is not personal, but in order not to be swamped by infinite information, the brain functions as what Aldous Huxley called "a reducing valve." It shuts out the universe so that the individual can see what is in front of him. . . But the intuition and imagination maintain an opening to the unconscious, which contains all the information that could not register in immediate consciousness. . . In the space-time of the unconscious, past and future mysteriously interpenetrate.
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The mythical messages from the collective unconscious must travel through the distorting medium of culture and the individual personality before it reaches the received. A mixture of the myth and noise from the distorting medium is what reaches the received; so in order to be sure that he has the message right, the listener has to hear several different versions until he grasps the structure.
 
Roberts (1970:216) speaking of what we have called the collective preconscious and Tyrrell has called the "scenery setter" says:
 
These inner senses belong to the whole selves of which we are a part. . . there is after the operating ego, a layer of personal subconscious material. Beneath this is racial material dealing with the species as a whole. Beneath this, undistorted and yours for the asking, is the knowledge inherent in the inner self, pertaining to reality as a whole. . .


Seth, Mrs. Robert's control, calls this entity All That Is, and says that each of us is an individual portion of All That Is (1970:245).
Brunton (1972:17) declares:
 

Who am I? was a question which. . . presupposed that the ultimate "I" . . . would prove to be a personal being, whereas "What am I" rationally lifts the issue to scientific impersonal inquiry.


1.21 Cognitive Modes of Experiencing

Germinal thinkers, such as Bruner and Sullivan, have advanced theories that there are several levels to the cognitive representation of experience. Bruner (1966:11) speaks about enactive representation (when the learning is in the muscles), iconic representation (when it concerns signs), and symbolic representation (which is our normal full cognition). Sullivan (1953:xiv) also speaking from a developmental standpoint, defines three similar modes as prototaxic (experience occurring before symbols), parataxic (experience using symbols in a private or autistic way), and syntaxic (experience which can be communicated). Sullivan coined the phrase "consensual validation" to characterize the consequent validation of symbolic representation which he pointed out led to healthy development.

Van Rhijn's theory (1960) is that the subconscious receives a mixed input of stimulus, memory, and libido loadings which is then fed to the higher areas of the cortex. Using Sullivan's terminology, it may percolate through the symbolic level into conscious thought - the most desirable result. If rejected there, it may still find expression through parataxic representation as a presentational sign which includes gesture, body language, myth, ritual, and art. If rejected

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there, it may still find a lower outlet through prototaxic representation which includes the symptom formation of psychosomatic illness manifestations. Thus the mental health potentiality of full cognition and the mental illness potential of less than full cognition is reinforced. Less than full symbolic cognition of experience results at best in parataxic and presentational images of art and archetype, which is the organism's way of working off the excess energy unused in full cognition, and at worst in neurosis and psychosomatic externalization of the misspent energy onto the psyche, body, and immediate environment.

Speaking of the Van Rhijn hypothesis, Caldwell (1968:282) says:
 

The levels of symbolic translation are laid out in a hierarchy of sophistication. At the top. . . is direct verbal symbolization. Below it are presentational symbolizations, which include gesture, myth, ritual, and art. Below this are the more primitive "symptom formations," the term psychoanalysis uses for the psychosomatic and physiological manifestations of neurosis such as headaches, eczema, colitis, and the like.

Van Rhijn suggested that unrepressed stimuli emerging from the subconscious pass directly through verbal symbolization into the conscious mind, but that any material unacceptable to the conscious ego is blocked from entering the usual channels of verbal symbolization, and forced to seek expression through other channels. Minor repression would displace it into a presentational form, such as a dream, fantasy, or artistic expression. Massive repression would block even this, and the content would find expression in symptom formations and psychosomatic forms.



It seems likely that each level of symbolization represents an optimal style for a certain age, which has become less preferred as new levels of symbolic maturity have been achieved...
 
In other words, there is a developmental hierarchy involved. In a longer passage, not quoted, Caldwell also suggests (1968:283) that the presentational forms can be divided into two parts, an earlier and more primitive physiological-gestural (enactive), and a more advanced (iconic or parataxic) level which includes myth, ritual, and art. The correspondence with Bruner's enactive, iconic, and symbolic representation of experience, and Sullivan's prototaxic, parataxic, and syntaxic modes is compelling.

Metzner (1971:143) tells us:

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Just as insufficient assimilation or elimination of physical food can clog up the biochemical-physiological energy exchange process vital to health, so unassimilated experiences can becloud perception and awareness. What psychiatry calls a complex is essentially an undigested perceptual, emotional, or mental experience; one that "couldn't be stomached." It is rejected by the individual and thus separated off from awareness, though still active on other levels of consciousness. . .


Surprisingly, the concept of collective intelligence is posited by even a hard-headed scientist such as Wechsler (1971). He first points out Jung's concept of the "collective unconscious."

 
The impersonal unconscious, by contrast, is in no way derived from the individual's own experience, but consists of inborn attitudes and modes of perception assimilated from the experience of the group. The collective unconscious is the same. It is the impersonal unconscious and is defined by Jung as a separate psychic system "consisting of pre-existing forms of non-personal character" that does not develop individually, but is inherited.


Concerned with whether such forms of intelligence as problem-solving and creativity are enhanced in group performance over that of individuals, Wechsler goes on to say:
 

One is impressed by the fact that there are many situations and areas of activity where the efforts of a group produce effective solutions that could not have been arrived at by individual effort.
 
Mentioning the atomic bomb Manhattan Project as an example, he continues:
 
From this interaction, something new in the creative sense, emerges. . . When this occurs, I think one is justified in speaking of it as a manifestation of collective intelligence. . . If one equates intelligence as many do, with adaptive capacity, one must allow that the capacity for collective intelligence is inherited, since much of human behavior described as adaptive is biologically transmitted.


McKellar and Simpson (1954) investigated hypnogogic imagery in subjects falling asleep, and found that the subjects described images that seemed to differ from dreams in that they were more vivid, more realistic, came and went in a flash, resemble lantern slides, and contained detail which the subject didn't know. The four main characteristics of the images were vividness, independence of conscious control, originality and changefulness.

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In commenting on this matter, Green et al. (1971a) say:
 

From these experiments it appears that there is a relationship or link between alpha and theta rhythms, reverie, and hypnagogic-like imagery. That there is also a link between (them) and creativity is revealed by the many true creative or intuitive creative ideas and solutions (in contradistinction to logical problem-solving solutions) that have come to consciousness out of or during reverie and dreamlike states.
 
After a discussion of this type of creative experiences of Cocteau, Stevenson, Kekule, Loewi, and others, they go on:
 
There are literally hundreds of anecdotes that show in some way not yet clearly understood, hypnagogic imagery. . . dreaming, and creativity are associated. The terminology used to describe the state we have called reverie is extremely varied, as for instance the "fringe" of consciousness (James 1959), the "Preconscious" (Kubie 1958), the off-conscious and the transliminal mind - (Rugg, 1963), and the "transliminal experience" MacKinnon (1964).


Of course contact with the generalized preconscious can be had in other ways as we now see from an ancient Chinese source (Huxley, 1945:117):
 

A drunken man who falls out of a cart, though he may suffer does not die. His bones are the same as other people's but he meets his accident in a different way. His spirit is in a condition of security. He is not conscious of riding in the cart; neither is he conscious of falling out of it. Ideas of life, death, fear, and the like cannot penetrate his breast; and so he does not suffer from contact with objective existence. If such security is to be got from wine; how much more is it to be got from God?


1.22 Archetypes of the Collective Preconscious

We have mentioned the fluidic character of the generalized preconscious which enables it to take on whatever characteristics are impressed upon it by passive will. Imagine this medium as a great ocean of water. Since spirit has a tendency to form, the interface or surface of this ocean will develop waves. These waves are as apersonal as the medium in which they are formed. They are also nearly as enduring, and almost as hard to conceptualize. Jung discovered them and called them the archetypes of the collective unconscious. Others have called them "generating entities," for they behave like

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a mathematical function which generates other more discrete functions or values. Blofeld (1970) calls them "gods of the mandala," and if one is religious they can be regarded as tutelary deities, but that is not necessary. We will use Jung's word "archetype"; as such they represent the first effort toward distinguishing form in an otherwise formless substance. Being "presentational" (in Van Rhijn's sense - that is cognized at less than the full symbolic level), such archetypes are most commonly seen during waking hours in art, which is also a creative legacy from the collective preconscious. Art is especially rich in dealing with the myth and folklore in a culture, and hence, with the archetype, is a symbol of the collective unconscious of a culture. Archetypes are also revealed in dreams, mandalas, tarot cards, ideographs, and glyphs, and indeed wherever the presentational form outweighs the idiographic.

Roberts (1970:x) states that her control "mentions the existence of symbolic figures which assume identifiable forms within the unconscious in order to communicate more effectively. . . The great Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung noted the existence of what he called archetypal figures in the unconscious who often communicate to the conscious mind through the symbolic garb of mythical, religious, or great historical figures."
Jacobi quotes Jung (Jacobi 1959:31) writing in "The Psychology of the Child Archetype" (Works, 9:1:267):
 

Archetypes are factors and motifs that arrange the psychic elements into certain images, but in such a way that they can be recognized only by the effects they produce. They exist preconsciously, and presumably they form the structural dominants of the psyche in general."

Jacobi continues (1959:32) that from the study of archetypes we:

.....gain insight into the psyche of the archaic man who still lives within us, and whose ego as in mythical times is present only in germ, without fixed boundaries and still interwoven wholly with the world and nature.

And again (1959:37) Jacobi quotes Jung (Works10:118):

Archetypes may be considered the fundamental elements of the conscious mind, hidden in the depths of the psyche. . . they are systems of readiness for action, and at the same time, images and emotions. They are inherited with the brain structure - indeed they are its psychic aspect.


Another authority, Neumann (1959:82) writing on Art and the Creative Unconscious has this to say:

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The archetypes of the collective unconscious are intrinsically formless psychic structures which become visible in art. The archetypes are varied by the media through which they pass.

And again (p. 98) we know that the creative power of the unconscious seizes upon the individual with the autonomous force of an instinctual drive and takes possession of him without the least consideration for the individual, his life, his happiness, or his health. The creative impulse springs from the collective; like every instinct, it serves the will of the species and not of the individual. Thus the creative man is the instrument of the transpersonal.

Finally (p. 99):

And because of the predominance of the transpersonal in the psychic substratum of creative men, their psychic field is integral. For although creative men usually live unknown to one another, without influence on one another, a common force seems to drive all those men. . . They are all moved in the same direction, though they follow an unknown impulse in themselves rather than any new road charted in advance. This phenomenon is simply called Zeitgeist.
 

Myers (1961:78) quotes M. Ribot as follows:
 
It is the unconscious which produces what is vulgarly called inspiration. This condition is a positive fact, accompanied with physical and psychical characteristics peculiar to itself. Above all, it is impersonal and involuntary; it acts like an instinct, when and how it chooses; it may be wooed but cannot be compelled.


Blofeld (1970:95-99) devotes four pages to a discussion of whether archetypes, (or gods of the mandala) are symbolic or real. Speaking of these tutelary deities, he states:
 

Before going further, it is necessary to explain why these beings (whether real or not) who resemble gods and goddesses, should be discussed in a chapter on symbols. . . The deities of the mandala are, so to speak, instruments for communication between those levels and the normal or every-day consciousness. . . One tries bridging the gap between the concept of symbols created for meditation purposes and that of actual gods and goddesses by ascribing the deities of the mandala to the category of what Jung calls archetypes, . . . Jungian psychologists know their habitat to be what they call the collective unconscious. . .


Regarding these mythic figures, Masters and Houston (1966:214) say:

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The psychedelic drug "world" of myth and ritual, which is also a world of legendary and fairy tale themes and figures, of archetypes and of other timeless symbols and essences, is of a more profound and meaningful order than that of the historical and evolutionary sequences. Here, where the symbolic dramas unfold, the individual finds facets of his own existence revealed in the person of Prometheus or Parsifal, Lucifer or Oedipus, Faust or Don Juan, and plays out his personal drama on these allegorical and analogic terms. Or he finds the means of attaining to new levels of maturity through his participation in rites of passage and other ceremonies and initiations.

In the case of the analogic mythical and ritual dramas, these very often are shaped of the stuff of the raw personal historic data and insights now seemingly viable and plastic to the un- or pre-conscious myth-making process as a result of the subject's evocation and examination of them on the recollective-analytic level. Now, on the level of the symbolic, these memory and psychodynamic materials may emerge restructured in a purposive pattern of undisguised symbols cast in a flowing dramatic form that illumines the subject's life and may even transform it.

and conclude (p. 224):

One constant of these mythological systems, in both their universal and particular aspects, is that as they emerge in the psychedelic session what they express is something that never was but is always happening. They usually relate to occurrences that cannot be specified in space and time but which nevertheless exert a powerful influence in culture and consciousness. The frequency with which they spontaneously appear in the experiences of the psychedelic subjects attests to their continuing potency and relevance to the human condition.


It has been suggested that cognitive and affective aspects of the psyche typify the masculine and feminine genders. Jung (Wilhelm, 1962:116) for example, states "Careful investigation has shown that the affective character in a man has feminine traits." One may also recall the Bardo visions of the deities in peaceful (feminine-affective) and in wrathful (masculine-cognitive) aspect, Jung's name for the affective aspect in man is anima (which corresponds to the Chinese "p'o"(Wilhelm 1962:65). Man also has an animus (Chinese correspondence is hun), consisting of the cognitive aspect. Jung's reversal of these aspects in the case of women is more difficult to understand, and perhaps we should leave this delicate exploration to some future feminine writer. According to Wilhelm (1962:65) the anima degenerates upon death into a ghostly shell which gradually decays, while the

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animus gives rise to a "shen" spirit which ascents to Tao. The "secret of the golden flower" is that it is also possible by means of yogic-type meditation to produce from the union of the animus and anima while in the flesh "the golden flower" or immortal spirit body.

In the following chapters much more will be said about the importance of the preconscious and of its development and humanization in the life cycle of the individual. Indeed, we can look upon the whole process of our existence as an opportunity for this development to take place. Here, however, it is enough to show that the idea of a collective unconscious, or generalized preconscious, or whatever else one wishes to call it, is a viable though difficult concept. It reminds one a bit of entropy in physics, or "e" in mathematics - a hidden, but absolutely central concept for the understanding of the discipline. Having established this fact, we move on to a consideration of the literature of psychedelia as the next step in our quest for understanding in this difficult but fascinating domain.
 


1.3 PSYCHEDELIA

"We seem to be born with a drive to experience
episodes of altered consciousness. "
-Andrew Weil (1972:23)

Natural Psychedelic Experiences (non-drug induced)

Webster's 1971 addendum defines psychedelic(from psyche = soul, and delos = reveal) (for its first meaning) as follows: "Relating to or causing an exposure of normally repressed psychic elements." We shall use this meaning, rather than employing "psychedelia" as a synonym for drug use. Watts (1972:354) uses "psychedelic" to mean 'mind manifesting.'

Natural psychedelic experiences occur in a wide number of differing situations, involving certain common elements:

1) The attention of the subject is gripped, and his perception narrowed or focused on a single event or sensation;
2) which appears to be an experience of surpassing beauty or worth;
3) in which values or relationships never before realized are instantaneously or very suddenly emphasized;
4) resulting in the sudden emergence of great joy and an orgiastic experience of ecstasy;
5) in which individual barriers separating the self from others or nature are broken down;
6) resulting in a release of love, confidence, or power; and
7) some kind of change in the subsequent personality, behavior, or artistic product after the rapture is over.


The experience may be group or individual; spontaneous

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(peak-experience), or cultivated (as in satori); out-of-doors (the nature experience), or indoors (the meditative rapture); full of fire and brimstone (Pascal, see Bucke 1929:272), or fragrance of flowers (case below) may result in a book or other creative product (Prince 1963:174 - Harriet Beecher Stowe), or simply worthwhile for its own sake (case below). Bucke (1929) feels they are most likely to occur to those between twenty-five to forty (in our seventh or psychedelic stage), in good mental health, and superior intellect and in the spring of the year. Bucke (1929:79) gives the marks of illumination as:
 

a) the subjective light
b) the moral elevation
c) the intellectual illumination
d) the sense of immortality
e) the loss of fear of death
f) the loss of sense of sin
g) the suddenness of the awakening
h) the previous intellectual, moral, and physical character of the man
i) the age of illumination
j) the added charm of personality so that others are strongly attracted
k) the transfiguration of the subject


Prince and Savage (White 1972:127ff) list characteristics of the mystic state:
 

1. the renunciation of worldly interests
2. ineffability
3. the noetic quality (intuition of direct truth)
4. ecstasy
5. the experience of fusion


One of the most famous peak-experiences of all time is described authoritatively as follows (Acts II):
 

And when the day of Pentecost was come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues, like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.


Berenson (1949:18) describes a nature peak-experience thus:
 

It was a morning in early summer. A silver haze shimmered and hung over the lime trees. The air was laden with their
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fragrance. The temperature was like a caress. I remember - I need not recall - that I climbed up a tree stump and suddenly felt immersed in Itness. I did not call it by that name. I had no need for words. It and I were one.


Another typical nature experience is given by Bucke (1929:328):
 

One day for a moment my eyes were opened. It was in the morning in the early summer of 1894, 1 went out in a happy, tranquil mood to look at the flowers... The pleasure I felt deepened into rapture; I was thrilled through and through, and was just beginning to wonder at it when deep within me a veil or curtain suddenly parted and I became aware that the flowers were alive and conscious. They were in commotion. They were emitting electric sparks. What a revelation it was. The feeling that came over me with the vision is indescribable - I turned and went into the house filled with unspeakable awe.


Does not Wordsworth tell us (1806) in Intimations of Immortality?
 

There was a time when meadow grove and stream,
The Earth and every common sight
To me did seem Apparelled in celestial light


Brunton (1972:59) analyzes this experience perfectly as follows:
 

A man who is fond of yielding himself to the impressions received through such channels as fine art and grand nature will one day spontaneously experience a sensation of being lost to himself, as when listening to beautiful bars of sound or contemplating the superb prospects of snowy peaks. . . This gentle feeling bubbles softly like a brook from he knows not where, and carries his self-centered thoughts along with it. All argument by care and all resistance by self are washed clean away. The feeling may grow imperceptibly into an unforgettable ecstasy. . . A supreme quiescence enthralls his heart.
 
Maslow's term for this phenomenon is "peak experience," which it seems is often experienced in group encounter. (From our point of view, a peak experience is an artificial acceleration into the next higher stage brought about by temporarily unusual environmental stimulation). Maslow also tells us (1964)
 
Any person whose character structure or way of life forces him to be extremely rational, or materialistic, or mechanistic tends to become a non-peaker.


This naturally induced psychedelic experience differs from the

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drug-induced psychedelic experience because the ego is more openly and overtly in control. Some "good trips" on drugs may result in affective elevation similar to the natural psychedelic experience, but "bad trips" on drugs seem to have no counterpart in the natural state, probably because natural psychedelia does not occur until one is ready for it. In the same way, the natural psychedelic experience may be distinguished from the out-of-body (OOB) psychic experience in that momentary loss of consciousness does not seem to occur. The natural state is also distinguished from the hypnotic state in that the rational mind of the individual, rather than that of the hypnotist, is in control. Those interested in natural psychedelia instances should consult Bucke (1929) which is devoted entirely to such case histories.
 


1.4 DEVELOPMENT TOWARD SELF- ACTUALIZATION

"The Seer can draw in his senses. I call him illumined."
-Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita

Our previous book The Development of the Creative Individual and this one enunciate the idea that life is a developmental process of discrete stages, each having characteristic properties. This idea, of course, is not original with us; it has been promulgated by both psychological developmentalists and esoteric writers for a number of years. We shall not here retrace the search of the literature of the psychological developmental writers carried out on pages 20-25 of the previous book; suffice it to say that it includes such writers as Concordet, Bolk, Bucke, Emerson, Kelly, Neugarten, Buhler, Anderson, Beggs, Sullivan, Sears, Maier, Maslow, and Sinott. Attempted here is a brief search of the literature of more esoteric writers particularly on the self-actualized stages of psychedelia and illumination. Although these authors do not have the psychological jargon of the developmentalists, their inspiration clarifies the common meaning. Let us hear from a few witnesses:
De Ropp (1968:21) speaking about human development, says:
 

The aim of the game is true awakening, full development of powers latent in man. The game can be played only by people whose observations of themselves and others have led to a certain conclusion, namely that man's ordinary state of consciousness, his so-called waking state, is not the highest level of consciousness of which he is capable.


De Ropp calls this game the practice of Creative Psychology (p. 24),

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and says "it involves the highest form of creativity of which man is capable." He identifies (p. 51) five levels of consciousness:

1) deep sleep
without dreams,
2) dreaming sleep,
3) our ordinary state,
4) self transcendence or the peak experiences of Maslow, and
5) cosmic consciousness.
We may identify the fourth state with our psychedelic stage, and the fifth state with our illuminative stage.

De Ropp (1968:68) lays down the same principle we have stated:
 

The normal course of development demands that man must learn to enter and live in the fourth room before he can safely ascend to the fifth.


Aldous Huxley in the Perennial Philosophy (1945:vii-ix) tells us plainly:
 

Similarly, nothing in our everyday experience gives us much reason for supposing that the mind of the average sensual man has as one of its constituents, something resembling or identical with the reality substantial to the manifold world; and yet when the mind is subjected to certain rather drastic treatments, the divine element, of which it is in part at least composed, becomes manifest, not only to the mind itself, but also by its
reflection in external behavior to other minds. . . In the ordinary circumstances of average sensual life, these potentialities of the mind remain latent and unmanifested. If we would realize them we must fulfill certain conditions and obey certain rules. . .


And again Huxley (1945:49) tells us:
 

The biography of a saint is valuable only insofar as it throws light on the means by which the "I" was purged away so as to make room for the divine "not-I."


Meher, God to Man and Man to God (1955) points out,
 

Human consciousness would be no more than a repository of the accumulated imprints of varied experiences did it not also contain the principles of ego-centered integration in the attempt to organize and understand experience. The process implies capacity to hold different experiences together as parts of a unity and the capacity to evaluate them by mutual relation. The integration of the opposites of experience is a condition of emancipating consciousness.


Wilson in The Occult (1971) points out that:
 

(p. ii) Man's consciousness is as powerful as a microscope; it can grasp and analyze experience. . . but microscopic vision is narrow vision. We need to develop another kind of
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consciousness (Faculty X) that is the equivalent of the telescope. This is Faculty X, and the paradox is that we already possess it to a large degree, but are unconscious of possessing it. . .
(p. 62) Faculty X is the key to the whole future evolution of the human race.
(p. 55) We are now concerned with the fundamental question of the conscious control of the subconscious mind.
(p. 135) Modern man has the possibility of understanding the mechanism of consciousness and marching directly toward his objective with the will flexed toward its maximum efficiency.
(p. 139) This explains the attraction of drugs - particularly psychedelics - for intelligent people. They have an intuition that if a peak experience could be summoned at will, or maintained for half an hour, it would be possible to learn to recreate it without drugs. There is a fallacy here. Most drugs work by reducing the efficiency of the nervous system, inducing unusual states of consciousness at the expense of the mind's power to concentrate and learn.


Gerald Heard (Weil 1971:8-9) quotes Penelope on Gates of Ivory and Horn:
 

There are two categories of subconscious insight; one coming through the Gate of Horn of things that may be borne out in our actual lives and the other through the Gate of Ivory, of apparently the sheerist fantasy. (Disassociated experiences produce precognition and also "print dump").


Evans-Wentz, writing in Tibetian Yoga (1967:23) describes the objectives and procedures as follows:
 

The (devotee's) first objective in this science of practically applied religion is to attain such indomitable command of the lower self as will enable him to direct by means of willing all the mental processes. A master of yoga must possess control over his body as complete as that of an expert driver over a motor car in order to direct all of its. . . processes. . . or to inhibit any of them at will, including the beating of the heart. He must be able to make his body immune to each of the elements including fire as suggested by the fire-walking ceremony, to the law of gravitation as in levitation, and with all the activities of the human mentality stilled, he must be able to direct his higher consciousness to realms of which man in the normal. . . state has no knowledge.


Speaking of "The Clear Light" he states (1967:166):
 

The Clear Light is momentarily experienced by all human
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beings at the moment of death; by masters of yoga it is experienced in the highest states of samadhi at will, and unceasingly by Buddhas.


And again he says:
 

The recognizing of the Clear Light is achieved in the interval between the cessation of the waking state experiences and the beginning of the sleeping state experiences.
 
According to Evans-Wentz (1960:31) the Tibetian belief is that as the human being dies and the individual psyche is reabsorbed into the Spirit of Man, there is a review or recessional of the periodic stages in inverse order. First comes the vision of the Clear Light of the Void (our ninth stage), then the Clear Light somewhat obscured (the eighth stage), then the vision of seven peaceful (affective) deities (aspects) and then the vision of seven wrathful (cognitive) aspects.

Evans-Wentz (1960:31) tells us:
 

Definite psychological significance attaches to each of the deities appearing in the Bardo Thodol; but in order to grasp it, the student must bear in mind that. . . the apparitional visions seen by the deceased. . . are not visions of reality, but nothing more than the hallucinatory embodiments of the thought-forms born of the mental content of the percipient; or in other words, they are the intellectual impulses which have assumed personified form in the after-death dream state.


He goes on to distinguish between the two orders of deities:
 

The peaceful deities are the personified forms of the sublimest human sentiments which proceed from the psychic-heart center. . . Whereas the peaceful deities are the personification of the feelings, the wrathful deities are the personification of the reasonings, and proceed from the psychic brain center. (In psychological language - the affective and the cognitive).


After the final appearance of the wrathful deities the deceased is frightened into wishing for rebirth, and is driven to seek a conceiving womb. Thus starts the cycle over again. The fit between the life processional or development through the stages, and the after-death recessional back through them in reverse order to rebirth (if the Clear Light is not grasped) is a remarkable example of the goodness of fit between ancient Eastern mysticism, and modern western psychology, confirming the validity of both. Evans-Wentz describes the Bardo apparitions which appear after death; first come the peaceful (affective deities).

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1. devas............7 generativity spreading forth of the seed (EW105)
2. asuras...........6 intimacy (The father) embraced by the mother (EW 108)
3. humans.........5 identity power of egotism (EW 111)
4. brutes............4 industry
5. pretas............3 initiative avoid jealousy (EW 117)
6. hell................2 autonomy
7.......................1 trust

Then come the wrathful (cognitive) deities. In comparing this Bardo vision with the inverse of the developmental stages in life, one should note several remarkable correspondences:
 

1) The Bardo Thodol defines two orders of deities and states that both are hallucinations of the mind, one being sprung from the sentiments and emotions (affective) and the second being sprung from the intellect (cognitive).
2) There are seven visions in each corresponding to the stages one to seven in reverse.
3) In the peaceful deities, some actual correspondences with stage characteristics can be noted (see above).


Finally Evans-Wentz (1960:li), quotes Jung:

 
Myself and the Giver of all data are one and the same. The world of gods and spirits is nothing but the collective unconscious inside me.


Evans-Wentz in the Tibetian Book of the Dead (1960:lxxvi) then describes the four vehicles (or bodies of man):
 

1. The physical
2. The astral or etheric double Nirmana Kaya (Changed body)
3. The subtle or mental body Sambhoga Kaya (adorned body)
4. The spiritual (essential) or Dharma Kaya (law body)


He concludes:
 

(p. 9) The psychic attribute of the ether element is that of the subconsciousness; and the subconsciousness, as a transcendental consciousness higher than the normal consciousness in mankind and as yet normally undeveloped is believed destined to become the active consciousness of humanity in the fifth round.
 
Evans-Wentz (1960:102) further describes the Tibetian view:
 
There are six states of Bardo, namely:
1) the natural state while in the womb,
2) the bardo of the dream state,
3) the bardo of ecstasy while in meditation,
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4) the bardo of the moment of death,
5) the bardo during the experiencing of reality, and
6) the bardo of the inverse process of sangsaric worldly existence.


The eastern writers seem agreed that we open up the channel between the conscious mind and the collective preconscious by gaining control of the autonomic nervous system. Weil (1972:161) has the following comment:

 
Texts on yoga are often vague about the techniques of achieving this kind of control but from any survey of Eastern literature, three clues stand out. The first is that all of these accomplishments require relaxation, concentration, and practice. The second is that control of breathing is the key to the whole system. The third is that the first step to acquiring control of the autonomic response is to become aware of it.


David-Neel (1970:83) states:
 

The mystics of Tibet consider that gods and demons, paradise and hell, exist only for those who believe in them. Although existing in a latent state, the god created and kept alive by the imagination of the masses has power only over the man who comes in contact with him.


Crookall (1966:188) quotes Diona Fortune as saying:
 

The etheric double (the psychical body) is primarily a body of magnetic stresses in the framework of whose meshes every cell and fiber of the physical body is held as in a rack. But intermediate between this and the physical body, there is what may be called raw matter (the body veil out of which dense matter is condensed.)
The psychical body not only has the outlines of the physical body, it reproduces it cell for cell. It is, in fact, the basis, and mold of the physical body. It vibrates much more rapidly than the physical body and, consequently, is invisible to mortal eyes.
 
Crookall (1966:189) also tells us:
 
According to communicators, man. . . clothes himself in a series of progressively denser bodies (the physical being the densest) for the purposes of experience, expression, development, and unfoldment. . . So long as man is incarnate, the vibratory rate of consciousness is slowed down to the physical rate.


Crookall (1966:170) summates:
 

Everything tends to support the statement. . . that man is
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provided with a series of progressively subtler 'bodies' that are derived from and therefore can be used as media of consciousness in a corresponding series of progressively subtler environments, - 'worlds', 'spheres,' 'realms,' 'planes' - the many mansions mentioned by Jesus (John 14:2).


In a brief survey of development toward self-actualization according to mystic and occult writers, our desire is to do no more than acquaint the reader with the compatibility of these constructs with the psychological theories which will be developed later in this book. These constructs are necessarily clothed in religious language because at the time they were written, there was no psychological literature on the subject. While not endorsing the religious cults or beliefs enunciated, we do feel that some of these ideas foreshadow the more psychologically-oriented theses with which this volume is concerned, albeit they focus on an external God-head outside of man and not the generalized preconscious within him. Such a survey of past thought, with its admitted imperfections, is useful as a prelude to and as background data for our own theories which are soon to follow.

In this chapter we have made a selective search of the literature focusing on four salient and interrelated aspects of our quest:
 

1. parasensory events
2. the generalized preconscious (or collective unconscious)
3. psychedelia
4. development toward self-actualization.


We have seen that these are related as follows: Parasensory events, however spectacular, can be explained by the universal action of the generalized preconscious, whose opening and development is the chief aspect of psychedelic experience whether natural or drug-induced. The humanization and control of the collective preconscious by the rational mind is simply another name for development toward self-actualization, in which process creativity is an early dividend and by-product.

It is, however, desirable to connect all this together in an even more cognitive type of theory, and this is the task of Periodic Developmental Stage Analysis, to which we turn in the next chapter.