New Dawn Special Issue V7 N2

PARANORMAL REALITIES & THE UNEXPLAINED
NEW DAWN SPECIAL ISSUE Vol 7 No 2
ESP: You Can’t

How to Develop Live Without It
Your Unseen
Powers Why Do Christians Shun
the Supernatural?
The Pioneers Who
Opened a Channel Dream
to the Other Side Hacking
Streetlamp Interference: Cthulhu Calling:
A Modern Day Mystery H.P. Lovecraft’s
Psychic Nightmares
Twin Telepathy
Is there a Ritual Magic in
‘Special Connection’? Theory & Practice
ISSN 1839-7085 Real Ghosts, Restless

Spirits & Haunted Places
02
9 771839 708023
An Interview with Brad Steiger
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A Special Issue of New Dawn Magazine

Twin
Telepathy
Is there a
‘Special Hypnotic State of Mind
Connection’?... The Untapped Power Within...
page 3 page 37
Dream Hacking...
page 45
Cthulhu Calling...
page 57
contents
Twin Telepathy Hypnotic State of Mind
3 Is There a ‘Special Connection’?
By Guy Lyon Playfair
37 The Untapped Power Within
By Daniel Neiman
Speaking to the Dead Dream Hacking

9 The Pioneers Who Opened a
Channel to the Other Side 45
The Vibrating ‘Spider’ Fields &
Giant ‘Moths’ That Visit Me
By Len Kasten at Night
By David Icke
Real Ghosts, Restless
Spirits & Haunted Places Why Christians Shun
15 the Supernatural
An Interview With Brad Steiger
By Jeffery Pritchett 51 Alex Tsakiris Speaks to
Dr. Michael Heiser
Streetlamp Interference
23 A Modern Day Paranormal Cthulhu Calling
Mystery
By Louis Proud
57 The Psychic Nightmares of
H.P. Lovecraft
By Micah Hanks
Developing Your
Ritual Magic in
27 Unseen Powers
A Practical Guide 63 Theory & Practice
By Richard Smoley
By Brendan D. Murphy
ESP Seven Questions

33 You Can’t Live Without It
By Serge Kahili King
69 What Science Has to Say
About the Paranormal
By James D. Stein Ph.D.
Paranormal Realities
& the Unexplained
www.newdawnmagazine.com
NEW DAWN
Special Issue Vol.7 No.2 ■
NEW DAWN 1
SPECIAL ISSU E Vol.7 No2
New Dawn Special Issue Vol.7 No.2
NEW DAWN ancient wisdom, new thinking
SPECIAL ISSUE
VOL.7 NO.2
editorial
Paranormal Realities & the Unexplained
PublisheR
I
Robert George t makes no sense to me that someone could be familiar with the vast body
of evidence in support of the paranormal – ESP, hauntings, mediumship, etc.
EDITOR
– and yet consider it all a load of rubbish. Sure, there is an elusive quality to
David Jones
the paranormal, in the sense that ghosts and telepathy don’t lend themselves
CONTRIBUTING EDITOR to scientific study as easily as igneous rocks and mud crabs. But then neither do
Louis Proud photons, those minute energy packets of electromagnetic radiation which, to the
total bafflement of physicists, display characteristics of both waves and particles,
Production TEAM manifesting as either one or the other depending on whether or not they’re being
David Jones observed.
Jason Jeffrey I’ve always respected scientists and the scientific method, and I’m grateful
for the knowledge that science has given us. What worries me, however, is the
ContributORS
fact that for many people science has taken on the form of a religion. Followers
Guy Lyon Playfair, Len Kasten, Jeffery
Pritchett, Louis Proud, Brendan D. of “scientism,” as it is called, have “an uncritical belief in science as an absolute
Murphy, Serge Kahili King, Daniel authority or as a panacea for all human ills.” These days it’s common for people
Neiman, David Icke, Alex Tsakiris, to say “I believe only in science,” seemingly ignorant of the fact that science, in its
Micah Hanks, Richard Smoley, purest form, has nothing to do with belief, but is wholly concerned with unbiased
James D. Stein observation and experimentation.
Scientism and narrow-mindedness go hand in hand; thus, often the most
COVER devoted adherents to scientism are sceptical of the paranormal to the point of
© rolffimages - Fotolia.com
derision and outright hostility. To them, anything that challenges scientific ortho-
BACK COVER
doxy is without question bogus and must be whacked immediately with the trusty
© Chrisharvey - Fotolia.com debunking hammer. Some followers of scientism dedicate their lives to debunking
the paranormal, their commitment to the cause reminiscent of a Bible-bashing
PrintEr missionary travelling from village to village in remotest Africa.
Beaudesert Times Richard Wiseman, a professor of psychology at the University of Hertfordshire,
England, and a member of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), does a fine
DISTRIBUTOR job of upholding the dogma of scientism. Recently, at a local bookshop, I came
Network Services across by chance a copy of his book Paranormality: Why We See What Isn’t There. My
attention was immediately drawn to a Richard Dawkins endorsement on the back
Disclaimer
All articles are published on the basis cover, the venomous nature of which almost knocked me off my feet: “Wiseman
that they are not to be regarded as shows us a higher joy as he deftly skewers the paranormal charlatans, blows away
expressing the opinion of the pub- the psychic fog and lets in the clear light of reason.”
lisher or its servants or agents. Views Of course, Wiseman and Dawkins are entitled to their opinion. That they feel
expressed are not necessarily those of the need to skewer “paranormal charlatans” and blow away “psychic fog” is fine by
the publisher. me. I hope they have a blast while doing so. At times, though, I feel a great deal of
pity for them and their kind, because they clearly haven’t found the rabbit hole, let
CONTACT alone entered it. Rather than seeing “what isn’t there,” they fail to see what is. Like
Australia and international office: horses fitted with blinkers, their reality consists only of the dusty road in front of
New Dawn magazine them.
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Melbourne VIC 3001 Australia
Tel: (03) 90055782
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2 NEW DAWN ■
Special Issue Vol.7 No.2 www.newdawnmagazine.com
Twin Telepathy
Is there a
‘Special Connection’?
— B y G u y Ly o n P l a y f a i r — twins I can tell you for a fact that twins don’t have
I
telepathy. Any that say they do are either pulling your
s there a special bond between twins? Can they leg or attention seeking. I’d appreciate it as a twin and
read each other’s minds? Are they telepathic? If a human being if you stopped spreading lies.” As many
you have been hearing questions like these being other messages on this interesting site show, not all
asked regularly but have never found an answer, twins would agree with that and might well accuse him
look no further. The short answer is – yes, and no. Let of spreading lies.
me explain. True, I have met twins who are not particularly
As Orwell famously observed in Animal Farm, “All close, and are not at all telepathy-prone. One told me
animals are equal, but some animals are more equal that he sends his brother a Christmas card, but that’s
than others.” So it is with twins – about the only communication they
some them are indeed more identi- ever have. Another admits that she is
cal than others. In fact, the term not even on speaking terms with her
‘identical’ is misleading. The medical Is there a sister and has no contact with her,
word is ‘monozygotic’ (MZ) for twins
originating from a single zygote or
special bond telepathic or otherwise. Yet I have also
met the father of twenty-something-
fertilised egg which then splits into between twins? year-old daughters who, he assured
two (or more), those originating from me, had never been apart for more
separate zygotes being termed dizy- Can they read than two hours throughout their lives.
gotic (DZ) or fraternal (non-identical).
Yet although MZ twins are commonly
each other’s And an item in a London newspaper
not so long ago described the lives of a
referred to as identical, there can be minds? Are they pair of twins in their forties who still
wide differences among them. Prob- sleep in the same bed. Clearly we have
ably the most important one has to telepathic? a very broad spectrum here.
do with just when that original egg Interviewed in 2002, one of the
divides. Usually this takes place a day Californian supermodel Barbi twins
or two after fertilisation, but division commented: “We have that twin thing
can take place up to twelve days later, or in the rare case going on. Wherever we are in the world, we kind of
of conjoined (‘Siamese’) twins, not at all. know what the other one’s doing.”
Although the study of twin telepathy must be one “That’s right,” her sister chimed in. “It’s instinctive.
of the most under-researched subjects in the whole of It’s a twin thing.”1
science, it now seems likely that the later the division, I have not yet been able to interview the Barbis, alas,
the closer the bond. Researchers at the University of but I have met and interviewed dozens of twins of all
Indiana have studied thousands of twins and have no- ages, also mothers of twins as young as three days, and
ticed that the later they divided, the closer they become the evidence that there is indeed a twin thing is volumi-
after birth. So it seems likely that this is the group most nous, although I seem to have been the first to produce
likely to experience telepathy. a volume devoted to it, first published in 2002 and now
There are twins who have never had any experience reissued in a much enlarged and updated third edition.2
of it, as described by ‘Alex’ on the multiples.about.com How this came about is quite a story in itself.
web site: “As an identical twin who knows many other
www.newdawnmagazine.com Special Issue Vol.7 No.2 ■

NEW DAWN 3
Interviewed in 2002, one of the Californian supermodel Barbi twins into this long neglected subject. Later, one member
commented: “We have that twin thing going on. Wherever we are in the
world, we kind of know what the other one’s doing.” Photo courtesy of
– and only one – said he would be glad to do some ex-
barbitwins.com. periments with twins if he could raise the funds. That
was Adrian Parker, now professor of psychology at the
University of Gothenburg, Sweden. More about him
later.
When Telepathy was Taboo The previous year I had been hired as consultant
It began in 1975 when Ross McWhirter, editor of for a TV series hosted by hypnotist Paul McKenna and
The Guinness Book of Records, political activist and one of asked to come up with suggestions for material to be
the highest-profile twins in Britain, was shot dead on included in it. My first suggestion was for a live dem-
his doorstep by IRA terrorists. When I heard the news onstration of twin telepathy in the studio. I had no
on the radio I immediately thought that if twins re- idea how this could be done, but luckily Paul liked the
ally were telepathic, Ross’s brother Norris should have idea and just said “Yes, we’ll do it.” Thanks to his pro-
reacted in some way to this tragic event. I knew that ducer Mike Johnstone, an Oxford science graduate who
telepathy seemed to work best when the message was wanted things done properly, we did it and were able to
some kind of bad news – pain, depression, sickness, show what I believe is the first live demonstration of
death – and what could be worse for a twin than the telepathy of any kind as it happened, and with a poly-
murder of his brother? graph chart to prove it. 3
A few years later I met a man who worked for Nor- At about the same time, I happened to meet Norris
ris and knew him well enough to ask if he had reacted. McWhirter’s son Alasdair, and was very intrigued to
The answer was no – he hadn’t. So that seemed to be hear that he had been with his father at the moment
that. However, I kept noticing items in the press about Ross was killed, and yes, Norris had indeed reacted, and
what looked very much like twin telepathy in action, quite dramatically, but had wiped the incident from
and luckily I kept them in what soon became quite a his mind and genuinely could no longer remember it.
thick file. This prompted me to give a short talk at the I immediately wrote down his account and asked him
1998 conference of the Society for Psychical Research to approve it, which he kindly did, and I duly published
in which I appealed to members to do some research it with his consent. It was then that I decided that this
4 NEW DAWN ■
subject needed thorough investigation. Nobody seemed edly and publicly proclaimed that there just isn’t any
to have done it before. convincing scientific evidence for it, which may have
I began in the draughty basement of the Royal Soci- been true in 1979 but as we shall see is no longer true
ety of Medicine beneath their library, where they have today.
a whole shelf of books about twins, at least a hundred The other reason is that her opinion was of course
of them. I spent the best part of a day looking at all based on her study of separated twins, whom I would
of them and finding that almost none of them even not expect to have much experience of it, if any, because
mentioned telepathy, while those that did either dis- telepathy seems closely related to strength of bond, as
missed it out of hand or pointed out, quite reasonably, between mothers and babies or dogs and their owners.
that while anecdotal reports of seemingly telepathic You can hardly develop a bond with your twin if you are
experiences were quite common, there had never been separated at birth, and sometimes do not even know
any proper research into the subject, so it was too early that you have one.
to draw any conclusions. None of the authors con- The Minnesota programme received wide publicity,
cerned seemed interested in actually doing any research and somehow Dr. Segal’s repeated denials of the exist-
themselves. It soon became clear to me
that telepathy was taboo, something you
just don’t talk about in scientific circles.
Sadly, it still is.
To give just one recent example, in
2000 the Nobel prizewinner (phys-
ics, 1973) Brian Josephson attracted a
storm of protest from his fellow scien-
tists when he declared that there might
be a connection between quantum
theory and telepathy. Then in 2010 he
was invited to speak at a workshop in
Italy on ‘Foundations of Physics’. At least
he thought he was, until he got a mes-
sage from organiser Anthony Valentini
informing him that: “It has come to
my attention that one of your principal
research interests is the paranormal. In
my view it would not be appropriate for
someone with such research interests to
attend a scientific conference.”
What can one say?
Experiments and Studies Ross McWhirter and his twin brother Norris. Although unaware that Ross had been
Involving Twins shot dead, Norris reacted due to their telepathic connection, but he later wiped
the incident from his mind.
In 1979, a major twin research pro-
gramme got under way at the University
of Minnesota, aimed at studying twins who had been ence of telepathy have given the general public the im-
separated at birth and reunited later – sometimes much pression that it doesn’t exist. I had a taste of this taboo
later. This made it possible to assess the differences be- response myself when I went along to King’s College,
tween genetics and upbringing, or ‘nature and nurture’ London, to visit their twin research unit, one of the
as it is often known. What the researchers found was largest in the world with about 10,000 twins on their
that there were often remarkable similarities between register. I wondered if I could get access to their mailing
the twins’ personalities, likes and dislikes, skills, hob- list and send out a questionnaire?
bies, etc. – indications of what is known as concordance. “What about?,” the lady at the desk wanted to know.
They never found any evidence of telepathy, however. I muttered something about “biological correlates of
There were two reasons for this. One is that they empathy,” knowing what to expect if I mentioned the
never asked for it. I have interviewed a British twin who taboo T word.
spent a couple of weeks at the university being ques- “What’s that, then?” she asked. I explained that it
tioned by a battery of psychologists and studied from was what some people call telepathy, to which she im-
head to toenail. The only thing they never asked her mediately replied that the unit was not interested in
about, she told me, was telepathy. One member of the “spooky stuff.”
original Minnesota team, Dr. Nancy Segal, has repeat- Luckily, she was wrong. A couple of years later, in

NEW DAWN 5
2004, the unit polled all its twins in its annual newslet- in the other room was then asked to mark his chart at
ter and asked them if they had ever felt “the ability to the times when there was what looked like an unusual
know what was happening to your twin?” fluctuation. A second polygrapher, who was not present
The results were surprising. Nine thousand twins at the time and had no idea what the experiment was all
were polled, and the unit received 5,513 replies. Of about, was asked to do the same. Both picked the right
these, a minority of 45 percent said no, but 15 percent spots twice as often as they could have been expected to
said yes, and a further 39 percent thought it was at least do by chance or guesswork.
a possibility. This was probably the largest survey of its The experiment was repeated, this time in London
kind ever, and it was encouraging, although clearly a at the King’s unit, funded by the ABC News Nightline
more detailed questionnaire was needed. I only heard programme, and results were similar. Parker and his
about it five years later, and in 2009 suddenly every- Danish colleague Christian Jensen duly wrote up their
thing seemed to happen all at once. two experiments and submitted them to the journal
It began with a story in the Manchester Evening News Explore, which published them in 2012 and 2013. They
on 23 March which described how a fifteen-year old were the first of their kind ever to appear in a peer-
twin was having a bath when her sister, downstairs reviewed scientific journal.4
listening to music, suddenly
had the feeling that, as she Twin Telepathy:
put it, “it was like a voice ...one of her girls was The Evidence
telling me that your sister Mounts
needs you.” She did indeed, bouncing around on a
because she was having an This was more than 230
epileptic attack and was in
trampoline when another years after the publication of
the first reference that I have
the process of drowning. child landed on top of her and been able to find to twin te-
According to the paramedic
who arrived just in time to bashed her in the eye, lepathy, when John Wesley,
the founder of Methodism,
save her, if her sister had not raising a large dark bruise. At wrote in his Journal for 2
rushed upstairs to her aid,
she would have died. the same time her sister, who April 1781 about a woman
who had a twin sister “be-
The story was picked was not on the trampoline, tween whom and her there
up a couple of days later by
The Times, which included a suddenly developed a bruise in is so strange a sympathy
quote from Dr. Lynn Cher- that if either of them is ill,
kas from the King’s College
exactly the same place. or particularly affected at
unit, who had been respon- any time, the other is so
sible for the survey men- likewise.” Yet although there
tioned above. She proved to be quite open to the idea were occasional references
of ‘spooky stuff’ and had already come across instances to this strange sympathy over the following century,
of apparent telepathy. I managed to get her in touch most notably in Alexandre Dumas’ novel The Corsican
with Adrian Parker, who was promptly granted visiting Brothers (1844) and by scientist Francis Galton, who
scientist status and given access to the unit’s material. made a rather half-hearted attempt to study twins in
He was also invited to its annual garden party, where he the 1870s, it was not until the publication in 1886 of
was able to do some informal testing and undertake a Phantasms of the Living, a massive tome by three founder
more detailed questionnaire with many of the 200 or so members of the Society for Psychical Research, Edmund
twins who attended. Suddenly, twin telepathy research Gurney, Frederic Myers and Frank Podmore, that any
had become academically acceptable. Yet sympathetic case histories were written up in detail and checked for
as they were, the King’s people didn’t have any spare accuracy.
funds. Parker was welcome to use their premises and Even so, it was to be several more decades before any
their twins, but he would have find his own financing. psychologist found the subject of twin telepathy worthy
More good luck just when it was needed – Parker was of attention, with the exception of Chicago zoologist
able to find it from a Danish TV company and arrange a (and twin) Horatio H. Newman, who included a chapter
controlled experiment at the University of Copenhagen, on it, believed to be based on his own experience, in
again using a polygraph to record the reactions, if any, his Twins and Super-Twins (1942). From that day to this
of a twin in another room who was subjected to vari- I have only been to track down sixteen papers on twin
ous surprises such as an electric shock, a pile of plates telepathy from peer-reviewed journals, nearly half of
being dropped behind their chairs, or best of all, being which were by Adrian Parker and his colleagues. Of the
asked to plunge an arm into a bucket of ice-cold water. rest, only three were of any lasting value.
The polygrapher, who had no idea what was going on The first (1961) by three psychologists based in
6 NEW DAWN ■
Toronto was useful although for
various personal reasons they
never actually got down to doing
any experiments. They did how-
ever do some original research,
questioning a total of 35 twins
on their experience of telepathy
and finding that twelve had had
some. 5 This figure of around
30-35 percent has shown up in
all surveys of this kind to date,
including those done recently at
King’s College by Parker.
The second (1963), by a
pair of ophthalmologists from
Philadelphia was very short, but
attracted some attention since
it appeared in Science, one of the
world’s leading scientific jour-
nals. They claimed that when al-
pha brain rhythm was artificially
induced in one twin, the brain-
wave chart (EEG) of the other
one showed the same rhythm at
exactly the same time.6 Despite
their plea for further research
in this area, the only people who
seemed to hear it were a team
from Rockland State Hospital in
Orangeburg, NY who reported
successful results in 1967 using
a plethysmograph to measure
blood volume, and were able to
conclude that “in a physically
©iStockphoto.com/hartphotography1
isolated subject, we have ob-
served physiological reactions
at the precise moment at which
another [twin] was stimulated.”7
Both of these teams pub-
lished print-outs of their chart
recordings that, as one of them
put it, “show how obvious the
reactions are,” yet once again research Guy Lyon Playfair has collected enough evidence, much of it at first hand, to show
ground to a halt, and more than forty that communication at a distance takes place between twins and can be seen to
take place under controlled laboratory conditions. But this remains one of the
years later we find the serial psi-debunker most under-researched subjects in all of science.
Professor Richard Wiseman declaring
glibly that “twin telepathy is due to the
highly similar ways in which they think and behave, A very different incident that was not predictable
and not to extra-sensory perception.” He was confus-
8 was described to me by another twin-mother in which
ing, perhaps deliberately, telepathy with concordance. one of her girls was bouncing around on a trampoline
An example of this was given me by a mother who when another child landed on top of her and bashed her
noted that her twins’ baby teeth both fell out at the in the eye, raising a large dark bruise. At the same time
same time, which she thought was amazing proof of her sister, who was not on the trampoline, suddenly de-
telepathy. I assured her it wasn’t. They were both eating veloped a bruise in exactly the same place. It was slight-
the same food at the time, and since they were geneti- ly smaller and lighter, but it was unmistakably there.
cally identical, it was quite natural and predictable that The mother had the presence of mind to take photos
this would happen. of the two together right after the incident, which she

NEW DAWN 7
kindly sent me. They were later shown on ABC’s Night- by ‘stress’ and showed, after infecting himself with
line programme, on which the second twin clearly stated Helicobacter pylori germs, that this is what caused most
that she hadn’t felt anything at the time of her sister’s of them, and that they could be cured with a week or
accident. I could give many more examples of incidents so of antibiotics. No Nobel prize has ever been better
like this for which concordance is no explanation. This deserved.
is the kind of evidence that critics such as Nancy Segal “The concept of a germ causing ulcers was like saying
and Richard Wiseman simply ignore. the earth is flat,” Marshall recalled later. So, to some,
It is also a particularly well witnessed and recorded is the idea of thoughts, let alone actual physical symp-
example of what makes twin telepathy different from toms, travelling across space. And with attitudes such
ordinary telepathy, which is sometimes referred to as as were shown in Brian Josephson’s notorious ‘disinvi-
‘mental’ telepathy, since it only involves impressions, tation’ still prevalent in the world of scientific research
images or perhaps words in the ear. Twins go further funding, it may take some time to prove that they do,
– they receive physical sensations such as pain, which and to force us to rethink what we know of biology,
can even leave visible marks on the body, as in the case psychology and physics. Whoever manages to do that,
mentioned above. as now seems quite possible, will also deserve a Nobel
It can get even more mysterious, as when one twin prize.
has the pain but it is the other one who has the medi-
cal problem or has had the accident. A mother has told Are you a twin that has a telepathic connection to your twin
me how one of her boys complained of a severe pain in sister or brother? Then author Guy L. Playfair would like to
his kidney, yet after an x-ray doctors could see no sign hear from you. He can be contacted via email at
of anything wrong with it. Fortunately she took his [email protected].
brother along although he had not mentioned having
any pain, and it was found that he did have quite a seri- Guy L. Playfair’s classic book Twin Telepathy was first pub-
ous kidney problem that needed immediate treatment. lished in 2002. It was enlarged and updated into a 3rd edition
It was, she told me, not the first time something like in 2012, and can be purchased in paperback or ebook via
this had happened. www.amazon.com or www.amazon.co.uk.
Clearly, we have a lot to learn from twins. I have col-
lected quite enough evidence, much of it at first hand, to
show that communication at a distance can take place Footnotes
and can be seen to take place under controlled labora-
1. Sunday Telegraph Magazine, 9 June 2002, 25
tory conditions. Yet, as I said earlier, this remains one
of the most under-researched subjects in all of science. 2. G.L. Playfair, Twin Telepathy, 3rd ed. White Crow Books, 2012
The reason I usually hear is that telepathy is obviously 3. The Paranormal World of Paul McKenna, Carlton TV, 24 June
1997
impossible since there is no known mechanism that
could explain it. 4. Explore 8 (6) 2012, 339-47; 9 (1) 2013, 26-31
There was a time when the idea of the earth orbit- 5. International Journal of Parapsychology 3 (4) 1961, 55-73
ing the sun was out of the question, as were claims that 6. Science, 15 October 1965, 367
meteorites fell from the sky or continents drifted apart. 7. International Journal of Parapsychology 9 (1) 1967, 53-6
Such attitudes are still with us – it is barely twenty 8. R. Wiseman, Paranormality, Macmillan, 2011, 84
years since the heroic Australian doctor Barry Marshall
disproved the dogma that stomach ulcers were caused
GUY LYON PLAYFAIR began his writing career in Brazil, contributing to The Econ-
omist, Time, Business Week and the Associated Press, also spending four years in
the press section of the US Agency for International Development (USAID). He then
joined the research institute founded by Brazil’s leading parapsychologist, Hernani
Guimarães Andrade, and began to explore the “other side” of Brazilian life as he de-
scribed in his first book The Flying Cow, which became an international bestseller.
Since his return to London, where he now lives, he has published eleven books on
a variety of subjects, including poltergeists (This House is Haunted) and hypnosis (If
This Be Magic). His most recent book is Twin Telepathy (3rd edition, 2012) in which he
summarises 15 years of research into this hitherto neglected subject. He is a council
member of the Society for Psychical Research and frequent contributor to its Journal.
8 NEW DAWN ■
Speaking to
the Dead
The Pioneers Who Opened
a Channel to the Other Side
— By Len K asten — tional headlines. Certain individuals claimed to be “me-
diums” capable of communicating with the deceased.
It is entirely possible that behind the perception of our They brought messages of hope and comfort from the
senses, worlds are hidden of which we are unaware. other world to grieving relatives in sessions known as
– Albert Einstein “seances.”
T
Such famous and unimpeachable mediums as Gladys
he age-old human desire to solve the riddle Osborne Leonard, Arthur Ford, Leonore Piper, Daniel
of death remains with us even in this age of Douglas Home, Helen Duncan, the Eddy Brothers, and
sophisticated science and high technology. more recently, John Edward (Crossing Over) and Theresa
Since the dawn of time, it seems, humans Caputo (The Long Island Medium) have served to con-
have puzzled and agonised over the vince even the most hardened sceptics
abrupt termination of life, sensing that the dead do truly survive, and
that something as complex and unfin- that communications with the other
ished as a human life could not pos- Virtually every world is possible.
sibly end in an instant, and be thereaf- important scientist While mediumship has provided
ter wiped clean from the chronicles of involved with some rather incredible and verifiable
time, commemorated only by a line on communications over the years, it
a tombstone and the dim memories of electronics innovation tends to be inconsistent and sporadic,
surviving friends and family. believed that some and messages are frequently coloured
It is easily the single most impor- form of reliable by the medium’s own psyche. After his
tant concern that drives religious affil- death, well-known psychic investiga-
iation, and the differing views thereof communication tor Frederick F.W. Myers described it
basically distinguish one religion from with the dead was from the other side, through a medi-
another. And this may possibly be the possible. um, as being like “...standing behind a
reason that, until the 19th century, sheet of frosted glass which blurs sight
scientists had not really tackled the and deadens sound dictating feebly
problem. They had taken the position to a reluctant and somewhat obtuse
that the answers lie in the realm of belief and religion, secretary.”
and it is not a subject of concern to science. Virtually every important scientist involved with
But that all began to change with the advent of the electronics innovation believed that some form of
Metaphysical movement in the late 19th century. Not reliable communication with the dead was possible.
content with vague reassurances of heaven and para- Thomas Alva Edison experimented with devices for con-
dise, and not intimidated by the terrible threats of lim- tacting the departed. He believed there could be a radio
bo and hell, bold pioneers, both scientists and laymen, frequency somewhere between short wave and the long
began to objectively probe the boundaries between the wave spectrum that could be used to communicate with
living and the dead. spirits. Sir Oliver Lodge was a radio pioneer and the
first person to transmit a wireless message in 1894. A
Seances & Scientists professor of physics at 30, he was knighted and made a
In the late 19 century, Spiritualism burst upon the
th Fellow of the Royal Society in 1902. Lodge, understand-
world scene and quickly became the subject of sensa- ing that radio waves were propagated through the ether,

NEW DAWN 9
concluded that the dead perhaps populated this invis- He never doubted that the voices were from the
ible etheric world. Guglielmo Marconi, who is credited dead. He and his wife Zenta eventually wrote a book
with the invention of the wireless, was reportedly work- titled From the Inaudible to the Audible, also in German,
ing on a way to communicate with the dead at the time containing 170 pages of voice samples taken from his
of his own death in 1937. claimed collection of 72,000 voices, all carefully cata-
logued. The rest of the book, nearly 200 pages, consists
Bird Calls From Beyond of letters, testimonies and comments from scientists,
Despite their belief in the possibility of communi- technicians, psychologists and theologians who de-
cating with the dead, none of these eminent scientists scribe in detail the recording sessions they had attended
was able to demonstrate a way of accomplishing the with Dr. Raudive. An English language version of the
connection other than through a medium. Then, on book was re-titled Breakthrough: An Amazing Experi-
12 June 1959, a breakthrough event occurred acci- ment in Electronic Communication with the Dead and was
dentally through a man with absolutely no scientific published by Taplinger in 1971. This was the pioneer-
credentials. ing work that began the movement that has come to be
Friedrich Juergen- known as EVP, or Electronic Voice Phenomena. Raudive
son, a Swedish por- died in 1974, well before Juergenson, at the age of 65,
trait painter, docu- but his wife continued his work.
mentary filmmaker,
and bird-watcher,
Beauty
had set up a tape re- In the mid-1970s, Sarah Wilson Estep read the
corder and a micro- book Handbook of Psi Discoveries (Berkeley Publishing,
phone in his garden 1975) by Ostrander and Schroeder and was intrigued
in an attempt to by the two chapters in the book on EVP. This launched
record the sound of her on a career as a psychic investigator and she set
a chaffinch. When about trying to record voices with “an old tape record-
he listened to the er, a microphone that whistled at inconvenient times,
real life . playback he was and headphones in which the right earpiece was dead.”
Friedrich Juergenson in
startled to hear a She devoted four hours a day to recording sessions,
masculine voice determined to stick it out for seven days. If she had no
interrupting the chaffinch, speaking in Norwegian, results after that, she would give it up. On the sixth
and talking about “nightly bird voices” accompanied by day, utterly bored with asking the same tired questions
a chorus of different bird noises. This event launched and getting nothing, she impulsively asked “What is
Juergenson on continued experiments and soon he was your world like?” When she played the tape back she
getting longer communications, some of them mention- was startled to hear a clear voice say, “Beauty.” That
ing his name and discussing his work. On one recording was all the incentive she needed to continue her inves-
he heard the voice of his own deceased mother calling tigations.
him “Kostulit,” her affectionate name for him. In 1967, Her book, Voices of Eternity (Ballantine Books, 1988),
he published, in German, his book about the phenom- is the entire record of her EVP research and leaves abso-
ena, titled Speech-radio with the Deceased. Practical Estab- lutely no doubt that she communicated with the dead.
lishment of Contact with the Beyond. Unfortunately, the She says, “Now, twelve years and twenty-four thousand
book never made it into an English edition. Juergenson messages later I am convinced that I am in communica-
remained fascinated with the phenomenon and contin- tion with entities from other dimensions.” This book
ued his investigations for another twenty years until has become the American classic on the subject, and
his death in 1987. still functions as a textbook for other researchers. Sarah
Dr. Konstantin Raudive became acquainted with
Juergenson’s work while studying philosophy and
psychology in Uppsala, Sweden. Raudive, the same
age as Juergenson, was born in Latvia, but studied all
over Europe. He was already well known for his liter-
ary and philosophical works when he met Juergenson
in 1965. He, too, became so fascinated with the Voice
Phenomena that he made it his life’s work. He basically
used Juergenson’s technique and obtained very similar
results. His recordings, like Juergenson’s, were filled
with disturbing background noise, but his messages
were shorter and came in seven different languages,
sometimes several on the same recording.
10 NEW DAWN ■
Estep also founded Instrumental
the American Associa- Transcommunication (ITC)
tion of Electronic Voice
Phenomena, or AA-EVP, Recognising these severe limitations, some EVP
which acts as an infor- researchers knew there had to be a better way – a way
mational clearinghouse to improve, or even perfect, electronic communication
for EVP investigators. with the world of the dead. They began using other
In the first “NewsJour- types of electronic equipment including radios, televi-
nal” of the Association, sions, telephones, telephone answering machines, and
stein that is computers directly.
she says, “Established in The image of Albert Ein
d to hav e com e thr ough from In 1985 German EVP researcher Claus Schreiber
1982 to provide objective claime
Cla us Sch reib er's TV.
the afterlife to made a fantastic discovery! Upon advice from his other-
evidence that we survive
death in an individual worldly contact via EVP, he aimed his video camera at a
conscious state.” black and white television set and fed the output of the
Typically, the messages obtained using EVP are camera back into the input of the television. A “churn-
short, sometimes grammatically incorrect, and fre- ing mist” appeared on the screen, and out of the mist
quently off the subject. They are very similar to the spirit pictures gradually formed. He was astounded to
types of messages received through the Ouija Board, see images of deceased family members, and Austrian
and are not nearly up to the quality of the communi- notables like Albert Einstein, King Ludwig II, and movie
star Romy Schneider. Schneider had died three years
earlier at the age of 43. An image of his own daughter
Karin, who had died at a young age, came on the screen
dressed in a dark blouse and a white skirt. Schreiber
began consulting with researchers Jules and Maggy
Harsch-Fischbach in Luxembourg and comparing notes
and results. The Harsch-Fischbachs had set up a receiv-
ing complex incorporating computers and fax machines
that became known as the CETL lab. In January 1988
Schreiber died of a heart attack and almost immedi-
ately started sending messages and pictures back to the
CETL lab. He sent back clear pictures of himself, his
new home, and others including his newfound friend on
the other side, Romy Schneider!
Romy Schneider in real life (left) and her image on In 1979 George and Jeannette Meek from Frank-
Claus Schreiber's TV, supposedly from the afterlife. lin, North Carolina, working with gifted psychic/
scientist Bill O’Neill, developed an apparatus they
cations received through good mediums (see Myers’ called the Spiricom, to communicate with the other
message above). It has been found that some sort of side. Meek and O’Neill achieved remarkable results
background noise increases the quality of the record- with this device
ing. Most researchers now turn on a fan, or they tune after months of
a radio between stations to static, keeping the volume experimentation.
on low. Some use recordings of “crowd babble” prefer- They contacted a
ably in a foreign language. This is referred to as “white scientist named
noise.” The astral person speaking then uses the white Dr. George Jef-
noise and shapes the sounds into words. This is nec- fries Mueller, who
essary because the spirit has no larynx or voicebox. had died in 1967.
Headphones are highly recommended for playback, to Mueller’s voice
clearly distinguish the voices from the noise. Newer came through the
techniques involve computers. The sounds are re- Bill O’Ne ill and the Spiri com Spiricom in 1981.
corded through the tape device directly into computer He had decided to
files, either WAV or MP3. Then they can be “cleaned help them with their
up” using editing software. The most popular editing technical problems in the further development of the
package is “Cool Edit” which permits functions such as Spiricom. While alive, Mueller had been a Ph.D. elec-
amplification and filtering, and eliminates the white tronics specialist who had taught at Cornell University
noise. in the thirties, and had worked at NASA. O’Neill and
Mueller collaborated in over twenty hours of dialogue
through 1982, resulting in significant improvement

NEW DAWN 11
Actual Phone Call From
the Spirit World
On 27 January 1994, the telephone rang
in George Meek’s office in North Carolina.
The caller identified himself as Konstantin
Raudive, who died in 1974. In a world first,
top: The image sent back George Meek recorded the conversation and
from the spirit world by you can listen to it at this Internet address:
Jeannette Meek in 1992 of
herself, her young daughter, www.worlditc.org/sou_f_5_gmkr.mp3
and a man identified as
American film producer
Hal Roach.
ful appearance after death has been noted by many
left: Hal Roach in real life. afterlife researchers.
Then on 27 January 1994, the telephone rang in
George Meek’s office in North Carolina. The caller
identified himself as Konstantin Raudive! Raudive said,
“George, my friend, at last we succeeded in contacting
in the Spiricom, before Mueller moved on to a higher you. Jeannette is beside me, and she wants to give you
realm. all her love. This is the first contact you get from us. I
In 1990, Jeannette Meek died and shortly thereaf- suppose that you can hear me?” Meek responded, “I can
ter set about communicating with her husband via the hear you very well - very plainly.” Then Raudive said,
CETL Lab. On 21 February 1991, the Harsch-Fisch- “Fine! So, this is the beginning of a new story, a new
bachs came home to find their computer turned on and chapter, George. You are a very good friend of ours, even
a long letter from Jeannette Meek to her husband on if we haven’t met. We will continue this. This is the first
the hard disk. In the letter, she included insignificant bridge we have succeeded to build to the States. Mark
details of their life together that only he would know, was contacted, and I must interrupt now.”
in order to prove conclusively that it was she who had
written the letter. On 21 November 1992, she sent Group Timestream
back a perfectly clear picture of herself through the & “Technician”
CETL computer, which she claimed was from the “fifth The “Mark” referred to in that conversation was
level.” Also in the picture was her young daughter Nan- Mark Macy, an American ITC researcher (see New Dawn
cy Carol who had died as an infant, and a man who she Special Issue 14 & Atlantis Rising 13). One week earlier,
on 21 January, an event occurred that made Alexander
Graham Bell’s first phone call pale by comparison. Macy
had also received a phone call from Raudive. When he
picked up the phone he heard a man with a deep voice,
and a thick European accent. He said, “Good morning,
Mark. This is Konstantin Raudive. We have succeeded in
building a new bridge to the States. You are the first to
be contacted by this means.” Macy was ecstatic over this
achievement.
In the next several weeks, three other American
researchers received phone calls from Raudive: Sarah
Estep, Dr. Walter Uphoff, President of New Frontiers
Center, and Hans Heckmann, a colleague of George
Konstantin Raudive in real life and an image he sent
back of himself from the ‘other side’.
Meek. Raudive, it seems, still dedicated to this project
in death as in life, had joined an R&D operation on the
other side intended specifically to link up to the pri-
identified as having been American film producer Hal mary EVP and ITC researchers in the physical world!
Roach. Roach had died only nineteen days previously This is referred to as “Group Timestream.” Macy says
at the age of 100. He was clearly much younger in the this organisation is “a group of more than a thousand
photo. This phenomenon of reverting back to a youth- spirit beings dedicated to the task of opening the veil
12 NEW DAWN ■
© zhuda - shutterstock.com
by improving communications between our world and sciences. He is multilingual and has great knowledge of
theirs.” the past and the future. He was never incarnated, is not
It turned out that Group Timestream had been op- human and is assigned to planet Earth. A sort of unself-
erating since the mid-1980s in Europe, and had already ish love seems to emanate from him.”
channelled some incredible transmissions from the Some of the pictures that had been sent back to the
world of spirit to ITC European researchers. Timestream CETL lab through Timestream were truly extraordinary.
was being directed and supervised by a spirit being who Still shots of easily identifiable famous departed people
preferred to be known looking much younger,
simply as “Techni- beautiful landscapes,
cian.” He provided the temples, animals and
guidance and spir- houses were all sharp
itual protection for the and clear (see illustra-
project. Protection, he tions overpage).
explained, was defi-
nitely necessary since Dissonance
low-level astral be- By the year 2000
ings were continually “dissonance” had
trying to sabotage the arisen within the
operation, and had, on ranks of ITC research-
at least one occasion, EVP researchers Adolf Homes and Friedrich Malkhoff study the spirit
ers due primarily to
image of Dr. George Jeffries Mueller, who died in 1967.
succeeded in shutting the scepticism of scien-
it down. tists. Mark Macy says,
According to Swiss parapsychologist Dr. Theo “As a result of the dissonance, the contact field became
Locher, author of Breakthroughs in Technical Spirit Com- cloudy, our spirit friends were unable to come through
munication (Continuing Life Research, 1997), Technician into our world and work with our equipment, and the
spoke in a high-pitched, computer-like monotone voice miracles of ITC virtually dried up. Phone calls, faxes,
and displayed “extraordinary knowledge of physics, detailed computer images and texts from spirit friends
mathematics, astronomy, electronics and the natural with messages of great depth and import have not been

NEW DAWN 13
researchers in Rivenich, Germany, between 1988 and
Homes’s death in 1997, from a group of thirty spirit
Some of the pictures entities called “The Centrale.” This group, primarily
purportedly sent to utilising telephone answering machines, included such
the CETL lab through famous postmortem figures as Carl Jung and Wernher
Timestream.
von Braun. Another message from The Centrale said:
“Direct contacts from your side are decreasing because
the earthly man feels himself more and more drawn to
negative powers. Due to increasing [negativity] by the
human created negative energy fields, it is becoming
more and more difficult from your side to make con-
tacts with other subtle-matter forms of existence.”
And so ended a fifteen year period of incredible pro-
gress in human understanding of death and the after-
life. Fortunately, the record of those communications
between worlds still exist for our study. Perhaps, after
a time of incorporating the miracles of that era into
reported from any researchers since the year 2000, to the mass consciousness, we will be ready for the next
the best of my knowledge.” great leap to a time when the rickety trestle put in place
One of the entities on the other side explained it by these pioneers will become a six-lane “Golden Gate”
this way: “We regret that we cannot reach all men with bridge between the two worlds.
electric appliances. Instrumental The movie White Noise, starring
contacts remain dependent on the Michael Keaton, released by Univer-
general mental/spiritual basis of ex- sal on 7 January 2005, was the first
istence of the experimenter on your film about EVP. Characterised as a
side. Before our information reaches “paranormal thriller,” it was the story
your appliances, it passes through of a man who is drawn into a strange
the whole receiver [person], and this and dangerous world when he begins
makes things complicated in many to get EVP messages from his dead
cases. A permanent [inner] connec- wife. Produced by Paul Brooks (Gold
tion to us is the building element. Circle Films), executive producer of
All communications made by us via My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and based
instruments have been thoroughly on consultation with Tom and Lisa
thought-out and filtered before they Butler, the co-directors of AA-EVP,
reach you. They have been designed/ the movie introduced the concept
made-up by us in a way that you can and the promise of EVP and ITC to
understand them, at least with the the public. For more information on
help of others.” EVP, go to aaevp.com, and for ITC,
This message was a part of one see www.worlditc.org.
of three-hundred received by Adolf
Homes and Friedrich Malkhoff, EVP
Len Kasten has been involved in metaphysical and UFO/ET studies, re-
search and writing for over thirty years. A graduate of Cornell University, he
is a former member of NICAP and MUFON. He has written over fifty pub-
lished articles for Atlantis Rising magazine. His book, The Secret History of
Extraterrestrials, published by Inner Traditions, went to number sixteen on
the publisher’s Top Fifty list, in four months. His next book, to be released
in April, is titled Secret Journey to Planet Serpo: A True Story of Interplan-
etary Travel.
14 NEW DAWN ■
Real Ghosts,
Restless Spirits &
Haunted Places
An Interview with Brad Steiger
— By Jeffery Pritchet t — JEFFERY PRITCHETT (JP): Tell us about the second
edition of Real Ghosts, Restless Spirits, and Haunted
R
Places.
eaders of New Dawn are sure to be famil-
iar with Brad Steiger. Born in Fort Dodge, BRAD STEIGER (BS): Since the book was first pub-
Iowa, in 1936, one newspaper described lished by Visible Ink Press in 2003, I have received
dozens of emails and letters from men and women who
him as “probably the most popular author ever on
recounted their own encounters with real ghosts and
the subject of unexplained phenomena.” Amazingly restless spirits, and from individuals who expressed
prolific, since the mid-1960s he’s penned in excess mixed emotions when they found themselves residing
of 170 titles – some of them written in collaboration in haunted places. Although numerous readers com-
with his wife, Sherry Hansen Steiger – on all manner mented on the enormous size of the first edition and
of strange and fascinating topics, from vampires to joked about how they could use the book to do bicep
Star People to astral projection to UFO conspiracies. curls, this new edition, in addition to retaining the
accounts of the earlier edition, contains many new ac-
His output also includes biographies, books on true counts of hauntings and first-hand interactions with
crime, a number of supernatural-themed novels, paranormal manifestations that can only be identified
and thousands of articles. as ghosts, as well as many new and compelling illustra-
Like many of the best minds in the field of para- tions.
normal research – such as Guy Lyon Playfair and the
late John Keel – his is a journalistic background. A JP: Why do some ghosts appear dressed in the attire of
an earlier time period? For example, once I saw, in spirit
first-rate journalist is intelligent, discerning yet open-
form, Native Americans dressed in the attire typical of
minded, communicates with the utmost clarity, and that culture. For that matter, what is a ghost?
is good at recognising patterns and connections –
all qualities with which Steiger is endowed. If there BS: You may well have glimpsed a glimmer from the
are any specific beliefs to which he subscribes, one of past or a combination of phenomena. To answer your
them is that “humankind is part of a larger commu- second question, I offer the following theories:
nity of intelligences, a complex hierarchy of powers Spirit Residue
and principalities, a potentially rich kingdom of
After sixty years of research, I have found that the
interrelated species, both physical and nonphysical.” majority of haunted house cases are due to what I term
In this interview conducted by the host of The “spirit residue.” This is when a powerful human emotion
Church of Mabus radio show Jeffery Pritchett, he – fear, jealousy, hate, pain – has been somehow im-
discusses his book Real Ghosts, Restless Spirits, pressed into the environment of the house or place. It is
and Haunted Places, delving into haunted locales my contention that the sounds and sights of the haunt-
ing may be perceived by the psyche of the sensitive as if
around the world and knowledge regarding the
they were images on a strip of motion picture that keeps
spirit realm. being fed through a projector. The percipients of these

NEW DAWN 15
ing some kind of stress, psychic upheaval, or severe and
dramatic psychological adjustment. Such an individual
(most often an adolescent) expresses unconscious ag-
gression toward others through dramatic manifesta-
tions of psychokinetic power (mind over matter). In
some cases I have investigated, poltergeist phenomena
have interacted with the haunting manifestations that
already existed in the home, thereby producing intense-
ly negative and disruptive energy.
Spirit Parasites
I used to be dogmatically opposed to the concept
of demonic possession. Many years of research and
encounters with entities that are unabashedly evil
have convinced me that homes in which murders or
other violent physical deeds have been committed may
become repositories for nonphysical leeches of the soul
that I call “spirit parasites.” These beings are hideous
and grotesque in appearance, often manifesting as
reptilian-like entities.
Spirit Masqueraders
I believe this class of pseudo-hauntings to be the
machinations of another order of beings that in the
past we may have called fairies, elves, or nature spir-
its. These beings are more nonphysical than they are
Brad Steiger (photo courtesy of Nick Redfern) physical. Indeed, they may be para-physical interlopers
from other dimensions. They are “in-between” beings,
posing from time to time as ordinary humans, disguis-
ing the fact that they are really phantoms, creatures
kinds of hauntings cannot interact with the ghosts any that have materialised from some haunted dominion
more than one can speak with the images on a motion unknown to us. In some benign instances, they may be
picture or television screen and have the pre-filmed im- angels in disguise that have come to give comfort, aid
ages of the actors respond. and inspiration. In some of the more frightening cases,
Spirits of the Dead they may be fallen angels that aim to deceive, lie and
enslave. Theoretical physicists now speak freely about
For many years I held stubbornly to the hypothesis parallel universes; perhaps from time to time these
that all ghosts were bits of psychic residue. I strictly entities intrude into our world from a universe that may
separated evidence of survival of the spirit after death almost be a mirror image of our own. Or perhaps, as the
from accounts of ghosts. As my onsite investigations in- ancient philosophers suggested, the appearance of spir-
creased in number, I encountered spirit manifestations its is evidence that we are part of a larger community of
that clearly seemed to be the result of identifiable intel- intelligences, a complex hierarchy of powers and princi-
ligences that wished to communicate messages from the palities, a universe of interrelated species, both physical
Other Side to loved ones or to interested parties. Other and nonphysical.
haunting phenomena appeared to be caused by earth-
bound spirits of deceased humans that were unable to JP: The Ohio State Reformatory, in Mansfield, Ohio –
detach themselves from the people, places, and things which served as the Shawshank State Penitentiary in
of the physical world and had not progressed to the light the 1994 movie The Shawshank Redemption – has earned
of a higher dimension. a reputation for being haunted. Please explain.
Poltergeists BS: The Reformatory, made famous by the movie based
In common parlance, any violent and disruptive on Stephen King’s novella Rita Hayworth and the Shaw-
haunting is said to be caused by poltergeists – raucous shank Redemption, is said to be haunted by the ghosts of
entities that toss objects about the room. In the view of inmates and guards alike, all of whom seem to be seek-
many psychical researchers, such phenomena is borne ing some kind of spiritual redemption and peace.
not in the machinations of a ghost or spirit entity but When the Reformatory was constructed in 1886,
rather in the psyche of a living being who is undergo- the architect Levi T. Scofield intended that his prison
16 NEW DAWN ■
right
Old postcard of the haunted
Ohio State Reformatory,
Mansfield, Ohio – which
served as the Shawshank State
Penitentiary in the 1994 movie
The Shawshank Redemption.
would fulfil the ideals of

the mid-19th century:
to teach the incarcer-
ated individuals a skill,
instil within them a fear
of God, and return them
to society as contribu-
tive citizens. Also known
as Mansfield Reforma-
tory, it has the largest
ing… Most unnerving of all, people say they’ve been
freestanding steel cell block in the United States, with
touched: a flick to the ear, a finger poke in the shoulder,
cells stacked six tiers high, 593 cells designed for 1,200
a push from behind, an ankle grabbed on the stairwell.
inmates.
And… they were utterly alone. Or were they?”
The state of Ohio abandoned the old Reformatory in
1990. In 1995, the Mansfield Reformatory Preservation
JP: I am curious about the story of Abraham Lincoln
Society convinced the state to rehabilitate the sprawl-
consulting mediums.
ing, castle-like prison. In 1999 the Society was permit-
ted to purchase the Reformatory, together with 17
BS: Lincoln was constantly chided by the newspapers of
acres, for only one dollar.
his time for his consulta-
After The Shawshank
tions with the spirit world.
Redemption was released
The Cleveland Plain Dealer
in 1994, the Reformatory
lashed at him shortly
became popular both with
after his election to the
movie fans and with ghost
presidency for “consulting
hunters. The following are
spooks.” The president-
just a few of the restless
elect’s candid reply was:
spirits reported there:
“The only falsehood in the
«« The inmate in cell statement is that the half
17, who committed sui- of it has not been told. The
cide by dousing himself article does not begin to
with lighter fluid and tell the wonderful things I
setting fire to his body. have witnessed.”
«« The wife of warden Openly and admittedly,
Arthur Glattke, who Lincoln consulted the
died under suspicious mediums and spiritualists
circumstances in 1950. of his day. Historians and
«« Arthur Glattke him- biographers have recorded
Arthur Glattke, his wife and children. The spirit of Arthur
self, whose spirit has and his wife are believed to haunt the Reformatory. that he had a strong
been seen in numerous spiritual heritage from his
spots in the Reformatory. mother and her family. His
«« Urban Wilford, a guard who was killed during a consultations varied from those received from “granny
prison break attempt in 1926. women” (backwoods fortune tellers) when he was in his
youth to sittings with the most famous mediums of the
In my book, I quote the 13 October 2002 issue of
day during his tenure as president. Reared in an atmos-
the Detroit Free Press, in which travel writer and author
phere where people hearkened to advice from the spirit
Gerry Volgenau described the spirit manifestations of
world, he was never a sceptic.
the Reformatory: “Ghostly images appear. Faces emerge
In times of great crisis, the president’s wife, Mary
in the shadows… Visitors hear voices, sometimes sing-
Todd Lincoln, would arrange séances to calm her hus-

NEW DAWN 17
left
Restless spirits haunt this castle-like prison. Abandoned in 1990, the
Mansfield Reformatory has the largest freestanding steel cell block in
the United States, with cells stacked six tiers high, 593 cells designed
for 1,200 inmates.
family had so often heard the sound of heavy objects

being dragged across the dusty floor. As we opened the
door, we caught sight of a wispy something retreating to
a darkened corner of the cluttered storage area.
The late and famous medium Irene Hughes gave
many psychic impressions as we walked from room to
room. As we toured the house, we were treated to an oc-
casional object that suddenly became airborne without
any apparent physical cause. These were small objects,
mostly children’s toys, such as an alphabet block, a
plastic dish, and a little doll that had been made from a
stocking.
The phenomena seemed to be centred in the second
floor and the attic, and the family reported that they of-
ten heard the sounds of something heavy being dragged
across the floor. Although the house was quite large,
the entire family circle, which was composed of father,
mother and three children aged nineteen to six, slept in
two rooms downstairs. No one slept upstairs.
According to family members, the aspect of the
haunting that terrified them the most was the ma-
terialisation of four skeletons in one of the upstairs
bedrooms. After appearing in startling blood-red, the
skeletal figures would slowly take the shape of what
band. Some of the gatherings took place in the White appeared to be solid, three-dimensional representations
House itself. Nettie Colburn, a favourite medium of of a man, two women, and a little girl. Each of the im-
Lincoln and Mary, as well as other Spiritualist channels, ages appeared in period dress, their clothing of the kind
would relay information from the spirit world which presumably in vogue around the 1890s.
the thoughtful president would consider with all the Once the entities had fully materialised, a bizarre
intensity of his serious nature. Lincoln admitted that ethereal drama would unfold before anyone who might
the messages he received from the spirit world enabled be present to observe the phenomenon. As the ghost
him to come through crisis after crisis. His influence of a lovely, long-haired blonde girl sat playing idly with
extended to other figures of the time, and even the her dolls, the man in the spectral re-enactment stran-
hard-nosed Union General and future president Ulysses gled one of the women while the other stood by with
S. Grant later turned to Spiritualism. an expression of immense satisfaction. Over the years,
various prior inhabitants of the house and other indi-
JP: Is there a story from your book you can share with viduals who had witnessed the grim spirit portrayal had
us that you personally found to be the most perturbing? assumed that the haunting might very well have been
set into motion by a tragic playing out of the eternal
BS: The old lumber baron’s home in Wisconsin con- triangle. The ghastly re-enactment seemed to be telling
tained elements of the paranormal that continue to witnesses that at some time in the past the man of the
haunt my dreams. The manifestations in that home house had strangled his wife to please his mistress.
constituted a persistent living nightmare for its occu-
pants, such that the lady of the house appeared almost JP: How about a positive story involving ghosts, like a
to be suffering from psychic battle fatigue. We explored spirit appearing and bidding farewell to a loved one?
the basement, wherein she had so often heard heavy
footsteps, thuddings and scrapings. BS: I have so many in the book that it is difficult to se-
We visited each of the upstairs rooms and discovered lect just one; however, here is one that is quite moving:
two additional “cold spots” to the ones we had discov- Feeling sad and depressed, Ken Lehmann left the
ered elsewhere. We ventured up to the attic where the bedside of his mother, who was dying of cancer. The
18 NEW DAWN ■
right
Openly and admittedly, the sixteenth President of the United States,
Abraham Lincoln, consulted the mediums and spiritualists of his day.
In times of great crisis, the president’s wife, Mary Todd Lincoln
(bottom), would arrange séances to calm her husband. Some of the
gatherings took place in the White House itself.
ordeal had been a long and painful one for her, as well
as an emotionally exhausting one for him. Ken’s father
had passed away four years before, and his mother had
been in ill health since that time. His mother told him
to go home and get some rest. She said he must not stay
here another night worrying over her. She pleaded with
him to go home to see his wife Audrey and their chil-
dren.
Ken said he would go home and look in on his wife
and kids, but then he would come back to the hospital
in a few hours to be at her side. When he arrived home,
he saw that the kids were already tucked into their beds,
so he sat and talked with Audrey and told her he was
certain that his mother was soon to pass. “I really didn’t
want to leave her alone,” he said softly, trying to hold
back the tears.
Audrey urged him to get a little rest before he
returned to his vigil at the hospital. She told him she
had a sales presentation to finish before she went to
bed, so she would be up if the phone rang. Ken checked
his watch and decided he would nap for a bit before he
returned to his mother’s bedside.
“I couldn’t have slept more than thirty minutes when
I felt what I knew to be the touch of my mother’s lips
on my cheek,” Ken said. “It was a kiss of such sweetness
and love that it could only have come from my mother.
I opened my eyes and sat up. I had left a small lamp on
in the room, and there, in the dim light, I could distin-
guish a kind of mist that had assumed human shape.
Although I could not make out any distinct features, I
knew that it was Mum. I felt the strongest emanations
of pure love flowing to me from that vaporous form.
Then it floated out of sight through the ceiling.” When
Ken called the hospital a few moments later, he was not
surprised to learn that his mother had just died. The
night nurse said that she had been about to call him.
“The kind nurse spoke a few words to console me,”
Ken said. “But I had just received the greatest sort of
consolation from my mother, who had come to show me
that there is life beyond physical death. And no one will
ever be able to convince me that it was not my mother
who gave me that wonderful goodbye kiss!”
JP: Let’s get into shadow beings, poltergeists, spirit

parasites and things of the negative persuasion. How
does one protect oneself from malevolent entities of
this kind?
BS: My wife Sherry and I try always to remember that

NEW DAWN 19
negative entities and spirit parasites cannot achieve very much aware that many of the inhabitants of other
power over anyone unless they are somehow invited dimensions of reality have never been human. While
into someone’s private space or unless they are at- some of these discarnates envy human flesh and the
tracted to an individual by his or her negative thoughts experiences thereof, other such beings hold the human
and actions. A person will become especially vulnerable species in the greatest contempt and will seek devious
to such spirit invasion if he or she should abuse alcohol ways to humiliate and destroy their victims. The best
or drugs or exploit someone mentally, physically, or way to avoid a negative encounter with a spirit parasite
emotionally. is to seek always to elevate one’s thoughts, works and
Evil or negativity is an imbalanced, chaotic and deeds to the highest level.
destructive energy, the opposite of growth and produc-
tivity. When an individual is negative, depressed and JP: What is your perspective on the orb phenomenon?
discordant, he or she opens their psyche to invasion
from a parasite of the lower frequencies of the spirit BS: I pretty much agree with George Michael who
world. states in his e-book Colors of the Soul & Colors of the Web
One should be wary that when people come
of an indiscriminate into contact with true
exploration of the occult Experienced psychical orbs, they are viewing
or of “ghost hunting” real interdimensional
in haunted houses and
other places. Without the
researchers understand that vehicles, known to the
Egyptians as “sun boats”
proper discipline, study the physical world is closer to and referred to in the
and discernment, the ill Bible as “Merkabah.”
prepared will be liable to the realm of the lower, more In the Kabbalah and in
interact only with those certain schools of Jewish
entities who will seek to negative spiritual frequencies of mysticism, the Merkabah
deceive and entrap them. (Merkavah) is the Divine
Experienced psychical the spirit world than it is to Throne-Chariot described
researchers understand in the prophet Ezekiel’s
that the physical world is the dimension of higher beings. mystical experience
closer to the realm of the and is associated with
lower, more negative spir- the heavenly realms. In
itual frequencies of the Michael’s view, the orb
spirit world than it is to the dimension of higher beings. or Merkabah is how the soul gets around in the earthly
Because we exist in a material world, our psyches will dimension after its physical, material life has ended.
always contain more aspects that are similar to those of Real orbs, Michael says, can be sensed or heard. The
the lower vibratory realm than of the higher spiritual sound they make is a super-high tone, chiefly heard in-
planes. side the head, beyond normal hearing. Many individu-
If you should have an encounter with a negative als who have encountered true orbs have experienced
being from the more chaotic regions of the spirit world, the orb speaking telepathically to them.
you will quite likely experience a prickling sensation According to Michael, orbs have many appearances,
that will seem to crawl over your entire body. You will including globes, globules, balls of light, and hovering
instantly be filled with an awareness that you have en- round balls, and they range in degrees of illumination
tered into a very dangerous liaison. If you continue the from bright and glowing to faded and barely visible.
contact, you will experience a mounting sense of terror There is great diversity among the erratic, fast moving
or a distinct sensation of unease, depending upon the objects, Michael states, because there are many differ-
strength of the discordant vibrations emanating from ent types of orb phenomena. Some may even be sepa-
the spirit parasite. If you should find yourself seemingly rate life forms or nature spirits. The human spirit or
locked into such an encounter, utter prayers of love ghost type, he says, are usually seen at about eye level to
and harmony and ask that higher spiritual guidance be about ceiling height and are often filmed in graveyards
manifested around you. and haunted locations. The human spirit type may ap-
Those who have accumulated many years of experi- pear larger than some of the other types of orbs.
ence researching and exploring the unseen world have Hardly a week goes by that Sherry and I do not
come to understand that the spirit world is populated receive photos taken by sincere individuals who believe
by all manner of discordant entities as well as more that the dust motes, water droplets, and insects are true
benevolent and benign beings. Those psychic investiga- orbs they have captured on film.
tors who have spent many years perfecting their knowl-
edge regarding the unseen world have also become JP: Can you describe Azhran’s story of the Minotaur of
20 NEW DAWN ■
Clearwater, Florida? I live in Florida and saw the story for my friend Jack, who, for whatever reason, charged the
and thought it would be an interesting way to conclude Minotaur; and the scene faded.
this interview. Azhran describes a harrowing time as he and his
friends recover Jack and make their way out of the
BS: I have corresponded with Azhran for quite some cemetery. Azhran and his five friends part, and it is
time and find his explorations into the unknown con- several days before they make contact. He finds that
tain both mystical and psychic elements. The frighten- most of them refuse to discuss the frightening encoun-
ing encounter with the Minotaur seems an example of ter. Three weeks later, he finds that Jack has been taken
what he terms a “blend of harmonic inharmonies” that to the emergency room. Later, Jack’s family fly him to
somehow manifest to form an image of a monster from his native home in Connecticut. Two days later, Azhran
the darker levels of the collective unconscious. receives a call telling him that Jack has crossed over. He
Quoting from his account: died at the age of twenty-three, surrounded by his fam-
Across the bridge [in the cemetery] the energies are ily.
both very enticing and heavy, lingering with the essence
of damnation. It is here the Minotaur reigns. Once you JP: What can we expect book-wise from you and Sherry
come back from this area you feel “safe” again, even though in the future?
consciously (most times) you never felt you were in danger
to begin with. BS: In February we released Four-Legged Miracles:
I will never completely cross the bridge on the nights of Heartwarming Tales of Lost Dogs’ Journeys Home. Sherry
the eerie fog because of what happened one night I took five and I are currently completing Real Encounters, Different
friends who were intrigued by my descriptions and wanted Dimensions, and Otherworldly Beings.
to explore. I still occasionally awaken screaming out of terror
and guilt. JP: Thanks, Brad.
The night happened to be very foggy. Once we spanned
the bridge we could see the sidewalk. Close to the ground
Real Ghosts, Restless Spirits, and Haunted Places (680 pag-
was the eerie fog, a kind not seen too often in the humid
es) can be purchased through the publisher Visible Ink Press
climate of the summer in Florida. (www.visibleinkpress.com) or all good bookstores. Brad and
Around a bend in the sidewalk we all saw the ghostly Sherry Steiger’s website is www.bradandsherry.com.
image of a man hanging from a branch at the top of one of
the strangest-looking trees I have ever encountered. We
froze. The fog moved away from the tree as several spirits
emerged… and then from behind [the tree] the Minotaur
emerged. The spirits were herded into a strange quasi-circle
as they moved around the tree and behind this creature.
I hadn’t encountered anything like this before; this was
uncharted territory for me, and I was bothered because I
had friends with me. I felt responsible for their safety, and
wasn’t sure what to do. A passing train blew its horn, which
snapped us out of it, and we screamed and bolted down the
sidewalk. Our only destination in mind was “away” – except
Jeffery Pritchett, radio show host for The Church Of Mabus at www.
ChurchOfMabusRadio.com, has a Bachelors in Science Communications.
The radio show has often been termed Heavy Metal meets Paranormal. An
interest in the High Strange since his youth with paranormal experiences to
boot ranging from UFOs to odd being sightings and ghosts and more. Con-
tact Jeffery at [email protected].

NEW DAWN 21
©iStockphoto.com/jokerproproduction
22 NEW DAWN ■
Streetlamp
Interference
A Modern-day
Paranormal Mystery
— By Louis Proud — These are the words of the British paranormal
L
scholar Hilary Evans, who, prior to his death in 2011,
et’s say there’s a row of streetlamps you pass was the foremost authority on SLI. (“SLIder” is the term
every day while going to and from work. They he coined to refer to someone who reports a SLI expe-
are, being typical, modern streetlamps, of the rience.) In addition to being a pictorial archivist and
low-pressure sodium-vapour variety, emitting author of numerous books on the Fortean, he helped
a red glow at start up and, once they’re operating fully, found, in 1981, the Association for the Scientific Study
a steady monochrome yellow. The lamps automatically of Anomalous Phenomena (ASSAP). After receiving nu-
switch on at sundown, via the activation of a light-sen- merous reports from people claiming that streetlamps
sitive cell, or photocell. The cell is triggered again when respond to their presence in an inexplicable fashion,
sunlight returns at dawn, switching Evans decided to take on the mystery,
the lamps off. Generally, rather than collecting hundreds of accounts of SLI
each lamp having its own photocell, through his Street Lamp Interference
a single photocell is used to control a I came to Data Exchange (SLIDE). The culmina-
whole group of streetlamps. the unavoidable tion of this research – what turned out
You’re returning home from work to be his final book – is the brief yet
on what has so far been a completely conclusion that highly impressive SLIDERS: The Enigma
typical evening, the streetlamps illumi- we’re dealing with of Street Light Interference (2010).
nating your way as you stroll down the “SLI… can reasonably be regarded as
footpath. No one else is around. Oddly,
a genuine mystery a phenomenon in its own right,” he
the streetlamp nearest you suddenly – and, what’s more, argued.2
blinks out, turning on again as soon as an important and Frankly, when I first heard of SLI I
you’ve passed it. A level-headed person, considered it largely insignificant and
you attribute the event to coincidence fascinating one. boring, regardless of whether or not
and think no more of it. Three evenings the phenomenon had a paranormal
later, however, while passing the same basis. I hastily concluded that most,
row of lamps, the phenomenon oc- if not all, SLI experiences could be ac-
curs again. On this occasion, three successive lamps are counted for as a result of people perceiving connections
affected, each one blinking out as you approach, only to that have no basis in reality. For, as everybody knows,
suddenly blink on again the moment you step away. streetlamps can and do malfunction from time to time,
What on earth just happened? Did you influence the and people are bound to walk past them at the moment
lamps with the power of your mind? Or is there a mun- these malfunctions occur. After taking a deeper look at
dane explanation for these events? the phenomenon, however, I came to the unavoidable
Known as Streetlamp Interference (SLI), experiences conclusion that we’re dealing with a genuine mystery –
of this nature are common, with people in many differ- and, what’s more, an important and fascinating one. I
ent parts of the world claiming, “that they involuntar- agree with Evans when he says: “If true… claims [of SLI]
ily, and usually spontaneously, cause streetlamps to go carry profound and exciting implications for science
out. Generally the effect is intermittent, infrequent and and for our knowledge of human potential.”3
without an immediately discernible sequence of cause It’s time we examined some of those claims. Richard
and effect.”1 M, a professional magician in his thirties who lives in

NEW DAWN 23
parapsychology, our everyday state of consciousness is
virtually useless when it comes to psychic functioning.
How interesting, then, that the two SLI experiences
described by Richard occurred while he was stressed.
That a stressed or aroused state of mind encourages
SLI ability is suggested by the testimony of a man from
Yorkshire, England, referred to as Dan C.
It was early one morning in 1991, when he was
nineteen, that Dan’s history of SLI began. He was head-
ing home from his girlfriend’s house, where the two
of them had engaged in a steamy “smooching session,”
when a streetlamp went out as he approached it. At first
he attributed the incident to a “dodgy bulb.” However,
the lamp did the same thing the following night. When
the incident happened a third time, he “started to think
something was up.” Further strange incidents with the
streetlamp followed. Explains Dan: “Over the months,
as I returned home from my girlfriend’s house, the light
would always do the opposite as to its original state,
i.e. if it was off it would turn on and vice versa. After
I’d passed the light-post, it would usually revert to its
original state…”5
As was found to be the case for Richard, Dan dis-
covered that the phenomenon behaved according to
its own set of rules, largely resisting his attempts to
control it. On one occasion, for example, keen to dem-
onstrate his SLI ability to doubting friends, he made
them watch while he approached the streetlamp, only
to make himself look a fool by failing to duplicate the
©iStockphoto.com/Elenat
hewise effect. A number of SLI experiences later, involving not
just the one streetlamp but several different lamps, Dan
London, England, recalls the moment he became aware became aware of a pattern: the phenomenon generally
of his SLI ability. A teenager at the time, he was taking coincided with his being in a particular state of mind.
his dog for a walk when he noticed “that lights were go- He describes this as “quite tired, on edge, nervous of my
ing out when we walked under them and then flickering surroundings… and I reckon my adrenaline levels must
back on when we had passed.” He continues: have been up.” He concludes: “This sort of explains why
I couldn’t ‘perform’ in front of my friends, having been
It didn’t frighten me but I became conscious of it. in a relaxed situation. I have since shut my friends up as
I remember walking under them trying to make I have shown my ability on more than one occasion.”6
them go out but I couldn’t. The moment I stopped There is clearly a connection between sex and SLI.
willing it to happen, it would start again – like This connection deepens when examined in light of
someone catching me out. I sort of anticipated it William G. Roll’s recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis
for a while and didn’t really tell anyone about it. A (RSPK) interpretation of poltergeist disturbances. Ac-
few years ago, I noticed it happening again – the cording to the RSPK model, these amazing demonstra-
first time for a long time. Again, I was with my dog tions of mind-over-matter – of objects flying around
and this time we turned out a number of lights in a houses and electrical equipment going haywire – occur
car park across the road. I told a close friend when as a result of sexual and emotional tension on the part
I got home and he came out to watch from the of the “focus,” who more often than not is a troubled
other side of the road. As we walked around the teenager undergoing puberty. Are the mechanisms
park, they all went out as we passed under them, at work in poltergeist disturbances the same as those
and then came back on when we had moved away… involved in SLI?
I seem to recall that both periods coincided with That the state of arousal produced by sexual activ-
stress, some of it quite intense.4 ity plays a role in SLI is nowhere more evident than in
If SLI involves psychokinesis – or some other form the case of Bob Lovely, from Montana, USA. Bob says
of psi – it figures that the ability would be more inclined his SLI ability became especially apparent when, at
to manifest while one is in an abnormal mood or state one point in his life, he was dating a woman who lived
of consciousness. For, as shown by experiments in across the other side of town from him, to whom he
24 NEW DAWN ■
paid frequent evening visits. It was while making these
nightly trips that Bob occasionally saw rows of street-
lamps switch off as he passed them in his car, so that
“each lamp I passed would go out as I was passing it.”
Most interesting of all, however, is that the phenom-
enon always occurred on those evenings when he and
his girlfriend had had intercourse. “On other evenings
some lamps would go out but not like on the ones when
our passions had been aroused.”7
Whereas some SLIders say they affect only street-
lamps, other say their ability extends to a whole
range of electrical devices, from battery-operated
wrist watches to railroad crossings to aircraft navi-
gation equipment. Diana B, an office worker from
Texas, USA, belongs to the latter category. Not only
do streetlamps dim and go out when she approaches
them at night, sometimes they also turn on when she
approaches them during the day. Regular light bulbs
and fluorescent lights also behave oddly in her pres-
ence, such as when she goes to a restaurant or enters
the home of a friend. There have been occasions, too,
when automatic garage doors have suddenly gone
haywire on her, opening and closing quickly “in a
crazy way.”
According to Diana, her ability to affect electri-
cal devices becomes heightened whenever she’s in
a state of excitement or high energy. During these
times, she can hold a compass in her hands and the
needle will start to spin wildly, coming to a rest the
©iStockphoto.com/andre
moment she puts the compass down. Handheld tape aroad
recorders pose a special problem for Diana, either refus-

ing to record when she wants them to or breaking down had never heard of the phenomenon until coming across
altogether. “I went through about 10 of them over a his research, previously considering their ability unique
period of a couple of months,” she says. “Once it was so or doubting their own sanity. To quote one SLIder: “I
bad it even wiped out what was on the tape.”8 couldn’t believe this was a phenomenon that others
Interestingly, countless instances of malfunction- shared with me. I just thought I was nuts…”9
ing electrical equipment, involving recording devices There are indications that SLI has a physical, meas-
especially, have been observed in relation to psychics urable component, and that even the run-of-the-mill
like Uri Geller and Matthew Manning, as well as in physicist or biologist would be able to make some head-
connection with poltergeist disturbances, UFO sight- way into penetrating the mystery. For instance, some
ings and even crop circles. Who isn’t familiar with the SLIders, including Diana, have a tendency to accumu-
scenario whereby an enthusiastic investigator attempts late (or perhaps generate within the body itself) a high
to record some form of paranormal activity on film or static charge. She explains: “I… can get very charged
cassette, only to find that his equipment has suddenly with static electricity, so much so that sparks actually
and inexplicably broken down, or, more frustrating fly around me and if anyone else is close by the sparks
still, that the tape came out blank? Much to the gratifi- will connect with them.” Similar comments from other
cation of sceptics – who fail to comprehend that para- SLIders include, “I build up static electricity like crazy,”
normal events are, by their very nature, as slippery as and “I seem to get more static shocks than other peo-
subatomic particles, resisting all attempts to be pinned ple.”10
down – such occurrences are a matter of course. Of course, not all SLIders have issues with static
In terms of what’s known about the human body by electricity, and while it’s true that someone with a high
contemporary, orthodox science, Diana’s strange talent static charge has the potential to interfere with electri-
shouldn’t exist, and therefore she must be either lying cal equipment, they cannot do so from a distance; only
or deluded. But if such is the case, why have so many by means of contact. That a statically charged person
others come forward with similar claims, most of them would be able to influence a streetlamp mounted high
perfectly normal human beings? Many of those who above them is therefore extremely unlikely. And let us
contacted Evans to inform him of their SLI experiences not forget that some incidents of SLI occur while the

NEW DAWN 25
individual is seated in their car, a car being a crude form scenario occurs when the voltage drops below a certain
of Faraday cage, blocking static and non-static electric level. Evans puts forward an intriguing theory: that the
fields. One needn’t be a scientist to realise that the phe- “force” at work in SLI operates by affecting the voltage
nomenon is hard to account for in terms of electromag- of the current, most likely by causing a surge in voltage
netism alone, and must therefore involve some other that triggers the lamp’s internal cut off switch.
form of energy – perhaps what the Taoists call “chi,” or “To perform this feat,” he speculates, “SLI would
what Wilhelm Reich dubbed “orgone.” have to be an electro-dynamic force, somehow generat-
Speculation aside, we mustn’t lose sight of the fact ed within or through the human biological system, and
that at least some incidents of SLI can be attributed to somehow externalised into the neighbouring environ-
entirely mundane causes, a combination of mechani- ment, where it will act on any appliance which happens
cal and psychological factors. Sceptics of SLI are keen to be vulnerable.”12
to point out that when the bulbs in sodium-vapour
streetlamps reach the end of their life they undergo If you’ve undergone experiences similar to the ones described in
a phenomenon known as “cycling,” switching on and this article, or have ever been targeted by lightning, the author
off every few minutes until a technician comes along would like to hear from you via [email protected].
and replaces the bulb. It can also happen that the bulb
becomes slightly dislodged from its socket, so that even
a minor vibration – such as that caused by a passing car Footnotes
or a person – is enough to make the lamp blink out for a 1. Hilary Evans, The SLI Effect: Street Lamp Interference – A Provi-
moment. sional Assessment, Association for the Scientific Study of Anoma-
lous Phenomena, 1993.
Richard Wiseman, a professor of psychology at the
University of Hertfordshire, England, was asked to give 2. Hilary Evans, “SLIders: The Mystery of Street Lamp Interfer-
ence,” Fortean Times, April 2011.
his opinion on SLI for the Daily Mail newspaper. A dedi-
3. Ibid.
cated member of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry
(CSI), he cited “observer bias” as the culprit, stating that 4. Ibid.
“street lamps are going on and off all the time… People 5. Ibid.
only have to walk under a couple of lamps going off to 6. Ibid.
think that they might be the cause.”11 7. Hilary Evans, The SLI Effect.
Had Wiseman looked at the evidence properly, he’d 8. Hilary Evans, “SLIders: The Mystery of Street Lamp Interfer-
realise that observer bias is not the whole story. When ence.”
we eliminate this and other obvious explanations for 9. Hilary Evans, The SLI Effect.
SLI, we’re left with an exciting possibility: that the 10. Ibid.
phenomenon is due to psychokinesis. Evans discusses 11. David Derbyshire, “‘Electricity Woman with Amazing Pow-
this notion in his book, suggesting that some kind of ers’ Causes Lights to Flicker When She Gets Stressed,” Mail
“force” is at work when a SLIder influences a streetlamp. Online, 2 February 2008.
He explains that streetlamps are designed in such a way 12. Hilary Evans, The SLI Effect.
as to be protected from operating at too high a voltage,
whereby a cut off switch is triggered the moment the
voltage reaches a certain level. The lamp will remain
off until reactivated the following evening. A similar
Louis Proud, who lives in Darwin, Australia, is an avid writer and re-
searcher specialising in paranormal and occult phenomena, conspiracism,
and fringe science. Described by Colin Wilson as “one of the most acute
commentators on the paranormal to appear in recent years,” his work has
been published in Fate, Paranormal, Nexus and New Dawn magazines. He
has written two books: Dark Intrusions: An Investigation into the Paranormal
Nature of Sleep Paralysis Experiences (Anomalist Books, 2009), and The
Secret Influence of the Moon (due to be released in late-2013 by Inner Tra-
ditions). His blog is http://louisproud.net.
26 NEW DAWN ■
Developing Your
Unseen Powers
A PractiCal guide
— By Brendan D. Murphy — likely to “fail,” thus “proving” the CMS right (at least
in his own narrow reality tunnel). It is merely a case of
Repeated ignorant or stubborn denial of the existence of self-fulfilling prophecy. Thus, regarding your own psi
certain powers does not keep them from existing – except abilities what you believe is true, to a large extent – and
for us! unfortunately the presence of non-believers nearby or
– Harold M. Sherman, psychic within the experimental setup can be detrimental.
E
Dr. Valerie Hunt’s research in Infinite Mind showed
veryone has some level of innate intuitive a correlation between electromagnetic auric frequen-
capability, as has been demonstrated repeat- cies and the “level” of consciousness occupied by the
edly over several decades of experiments by individual. Healers, mediums and mystics show higher
the parapsychological community through frequencies in their electromagnetic
tens of thousands of trials utilising fields than others not of those catego-
thousands of regular people with no ries, illustrating that those possessed
known or presupposed psychic gifts. of “higher” consciousness are, in some
(That is to say nothing, of course, of In this article sense, literally “on a higher frequency.”
those many successful experiments we will look at some Those fixated on or believing solely
carried out with people having well in “material reality” exhibited lower
established reputations for perform-
guidelines and
dominant frequencies and were bereft
ing “paranormal” feats.) relevant principles of the higher.
While some people are born with for unblocking and In fact, gamma frequencies in the
obvious psychic talents, most of us brain of 40-100 Hertz – the highest
have to invest time and effort over the developing your of the better known bands of brain-
long-term in order to develop them innate intuitive wave frequencies (the higher band
from their latent state. In this article being Lambda, reaching up to about
we will look at some guidelines and abilities. 200 Hz1) – have been linked to the
relevant principles for unblocking and ability to manifest intention in the
developing your innate intuitive abili- world. Gamma states represent the
ties. brain in hyperdrive, working at its
most intensity. “This oscillation is conducive to creat-
Open Your Mind & ing links across many parts of the brain,”2 facilitating an
Eliminate Closed Ones integrated whole-brain state. Paradoxically, the extreme
Have you ever noticed how closed-minded sceptics high and low ends of the brainwave spectrum have the
(CMS) rarely if ever have any experiences with the sid- same states of consciousness associated with them, and
dhis (psychic faculties) or “the paranormal” in general? different oscillations can be present at once in different
Soviet research into psychokinesis involving Nina Ku- parts of the same brain. 3
lagina demonstrated qualitatively that a sceptic's mere To illustrate, Russian psychokinetic (PK) psi star
presence has an effect on a psychic’s ability to function Nina Kulagina (1926–1990) – who, under controlled
properly. Hence, with a CMS (or several) in the room or experimental conditions, could (among other things)
otherwise involved in the experiment, a psychic is more separate an egg yoke from the white from a distance of
6 feet while it floated in a saline solution using only her

NEW DAWN 27
left
Russian super psychic Nina Kulagina demonstrating her psychokinetic
ability. Photo taken in 1960 by Soviet scientists under controlled
laboratory conditions.
positivity, gratitude, or love – heart-based emotions

– cause coherence, beauty and order – just look at the
instances of saints and yogis whose dead bodies have
remained impervious to decay for weeks, months, and
even years!6 This is worth considering before any psi
endeavour where you intend to act as a receiver of infor-
mation. Firstly, open-mindedness is a bare minimum
requirement (confidence and trust in the process is even
better). Additionally, being in a state of peaceful heart-
based coherence is likely to enhance receptive abilities.
In combination with deliberate intention, this has been
shown to also be enough to wind and unwind DNA
samples at will in laboratory conditions, with powerful
implications for self-healing possibilities (see TGI).
In 1942 psychologist and parapsychologist Gertrude
Schmeidler initiated her infamous “sheep-goat” ex-
periments, designed to test whether belief and open-
intention – exhibited low frequency theta brainwaves of
mindedness would enhance psi function in contrast
4 Hz – normally associated with a deeply relaxed trance
to scepticism. Two groups, “sheep” who believed in or
– whilst simultaneously showing extreme physiological
were simply open to psi, and “goats” who did not believe
agitation/arousal, including a pulse rate of 240 bpm.
it could happen for them under test conditions (but
These strenuous efforts left her absolutely exhausted,
were not hostile to the possibility of it happening to or
and temporarily blind on that particular occasion.4
for other people), were put through identical standard
Perhaps all of the above explains why Kulagina’s PK
controlled Extrasensory Perception (ESP) tests. The
abilities “worked better in an atmosphere of friendly
outcome indicated that believers in the possibility of
mutual trust and belief” – PK, as we know, generally re-
ESP scored better than those who did not: the disbeliev-
quires intense states of physiological arousal and higher
frequency brainwave activity, all of which drains large
reserves of bioenergy. PK is a higher brain function.
Kulagina experienced less stress when working alone
and it was said that her PK ability was mood-dependent
(both her own mood and that of the observers) and
expended more energy in a hostile or sceptical atmos-
phere5 (where the local consciousness fields would have
been less coherent). Hostile sceptics have something of
an innate psi- or consciousness-damping effect; they
literally operate at a lower frequency, their mind fields
interfering with those of the test subject (and even the
target). The fact that separate minds interact via meas-
urable electromagnetic fields (and some not-so-measur-
able fields) has been proven by Hunt and others, and I
detail much of this research in The Grand Illusion (TGI).
Negativity causes chaos and/or entropy in the
personal and local ambient energy fields, whereas
right
American psychic Harold Sherman perceptively noted that telling
yourself with certitude there is no such thing as psi is tantamount to
instructing your subconscious mind to shut down the psi faculties
so they do not operate for you.
28 NEW DAWN ■
ers scored lower, ergo belief is a
legitimate variable mediating psi
functions.7 “A meta-analysis by
[psychologist Tony Lawrence],
covering 73 experiments by 37
different researchers, clearly con-
firms that subjects who believe in
psi obtain, on the average, higher
results than those who do not
believe in it.”8
American psychic and author
Harold Sherman (1898–1987)
had noted in the early 1940s © timur1970 - Fotolia.com
that while it is possible to receive

thought impressions from a
sceptic, it is extremely difficult for
someone of that mindset to act
as receiver. 9 Sherman, who was
ahead of his time, explained that
as Cleve Backster’s plants could detect the death of
telling yourself with certitude there is no such thing
bacteria and brine shrimp nearby, our human telepathic
as psi is tantamount to instructing your subconscious
connections must – even if only subliminally – serve a
mind to shut down the psi faculties so they do not oper-
biological imperative, helping us survive and propagate
ate for you.10 In a dream-like reality such as ours, it pays
as a species by sensing and avoiding danger.
to be open-minded – especially if you want to be more
The limbic system, which includes the amygdala and
intuitive.
hippocampus, is considered today to be the emotional
Meaning, Emotion, Need, Novelty & centre in the brain, as well as the seat of our survival
instinct. We might therefore suppose that life-threat-
Other Factors in Psi ening events, usually being highly emotionally charged,
Need, novelty, and emotion have long been known to might ignite the temporal lobe and related structures
play a part in psi phenomena. Carl Jung (1875–1961) – in the brain into downloading nonlocal psi information
the originator of the theory of psychological archetypes from the vacuum/aether. Dr. Melvin Morse believes hu-
– noted with interest that the English medium Eileen mans have a sixth sensory ability located “within” the
Garrett fared poorly in parapsychologist J.B. Rhine’s right temporal lobe, hippocampus, and related limbic
card-guessing experiments because she was unable to structures. According to him, this region “interprets
conjure any feelings for Rhine’s “soulless” test-cards.11 information obtained through communication with an
Much experimentation has also shown that psi effects interactive universe,” and allows for telepathic commu-
have a tendency to start out higher in the initial stages nication with other people through their right temporal
of testing and then drop off as the participants lose lobes. “It involves perception of other realities.” He
interest and boredom sets in (the “decline effect”). states that we perceive the operation of the right tem-
Charles Tart actually went so far as stating that poral lobe as “intuition.”15
card-guessing experiments are, ironically, “a technique In 1889 a committee of psychical researchers be-
for extinguishing [psi] in the laboratory,” that is, they gan a five-year project of compiling what they named a
bore the subjects into a decline effect.12 Rhetorically, Report on the Census of Hallucinations – the first major
Sherman asked how he could possibly be expected to get research effort of the English Society for Psychical
excited over five abstract symbols that had nothing to Research, featuring 410 data collectors. The committee
do with his emotional system or that of the sender (they included Henry and Eleanor Sidgwick, Alice Johnson,
lacked meaning/personal significance or relevance).13 arch-sceptic Frank Podmore, and the esteemed Freder-
Biologist and author Lyall Watson notes in Superna- ick Myers. Out of the 17,000 responses, 2,273 people
ture that the most effective telepathic messages general- reported having had “hallucinations” (psi experiences).
ly are bound up in trauma and crisis – and we see plenty Tellingly, most occurred in a crisis, usually a death
of evidence to that effect in The Grand Illusion Vol. 1. He crisis, signifying the importance of emotion, need, and
continues to explain that it makes sense biologically, above all, meaning in paranormal events.16 These were
since states of well-being and pleasure produce no sense some of the earliest scientific results illustrating nonlo-
of urgency – such information can be leisurely conveyed cal correlations between well-acquainted (meaningfully
by the “normal” channels. However, for alarm signals connected) people.
to be of real use, they have to travel the fastest way pos- Aside from raw emotion, biological threats to loved
sible.14 That “way” is superluminally/nonlocally. Much ones (or oneself), and so on, another factor conducive to

NEW DAWN 29
psi is simply novelty. Russell Targ and Harold Puthoff Hypnosis
in their scientific remote viewing research in the 1970s
Hypnosis can aid our ability to peer into these
found that the more difficult and challenging a re-
“future” events and timelines. The young actress Irene
mote viewing (RV) task they devised for test subjects,
Muza was in a hypnotic trance when she was asked if
the more likely the results were to be good. They, too,
she could see what awaited her in her future. She wrote
observed a need-serving theme in their RV research at
that her career would be short and her death would be
Stanford (see Chapter 12 of TGI). As a result of consist-
“terrible,” though she dared not specify how she would
ently challenging and interesting tests and protocols
die. The experimenters erased what Muza had written
(with the added benefits of feedback and encourage-
before bringing her out of the trance so she would not
ment), they found that their subjects actually improved
see it. She therefore had no conscious knowledge of
their psi performance over time, in contrast to Rhine’s
what she had written. Some months later, however, in
and others’ results with card-guessing and other repeti-
1909, her prediction of a short career and terrible death
tious and dull forms of testing, where decline effects
was unexpectedly fulfilled when her hairdresser allowed
were often observed.
some drops of an antiseptic lotion made of mineral
In Sherman’s view, the absence of a
essences to fall on a lighted stove,
strong or even an ordinary emotional
instantly enveloping Muza in flames.
factor is the greatest handicap in any
Her hair and clothing set alight, she
psychic endeavour. Since his pioneer-
ing long-distance telepathy experi-
It is well known was severely burned and tragically
ment with Sir Hubert Wilkins decades by occultists that died in hospital a few hours later.17
Hypnosis has been successfully
ago (detailed in New Dawn 136 and emotionally charged employed for psychokinetic purposes
Chapter 11 of TGI), much data has
accumulated indicating there is a great events are more as well. Take American Ted Serios, the
“thoughtographer” born in 1918 who
deal of truth in this. The stronger likely to impress could create colour pictures on unex-
the emotional charge, the greater the
likelihood that psi data will penetrate themselves, posed film simply through sheer will
and intention while he stared into the
from the “subconscious” to the con- inadvertently or lens of a Polaroid camera. His talent
scious mind.
It is well known by occultists
otherwise... grew out of a DIY hypnosis experi-
ment with a friend (a fellow bellhop at
that emotionally charged events are
the Chicago Conrad Hilton Hotel) who
more likely to impress themselves,
instructed Serios under hypnosis that
inadvertently or otherwise, on the
he could take photos of the contents of his mind. And
mind of another than are events with little emotional
thereafter, so he could – somewhat erratically, mind
content. In occult terms, this interaction beyond the
you. (Serios was tested extensively under controlled
standard space-time realm is occurring via the astral
conditions.)
plane/octave – the home of emotion. The more strongly
Interestingly, Serios had to work himself virtually
the plasma-like astral body/field (or mind-field) can be
into a state of rage to be effective during these experi-
made to vibrate in response to emotional content, the
ments. Notably, Israeli “paranormalist” Uri Geller has
more likely the relevant data penetrates through from
been able to achieve similar feats, taking photos of him-
the subconscious to the conscious level of awareness.
self on high-speed black and white film through a solid
When sleep is involved, the conditions seem to be even
black lens cap. Dr. Chris Humphrey explains this is due
more conducive to accidental telepathic contact, as it
to quantum tunnelling: if the quantum de Broglie prob-
is an altered state of consciousness (theta and delta
ability wave exists on both sides of a barrier, then its
brainwave states) that opens us up to the frequencies of
particle (photons in this case) can sometimes be on one
the astral or even mental planes while simultaneously
side, and sometimes on the other, without ever passing
eliminating most data/noise from the physical senses.
through the barrier.18
Undoubtedly, much “paranormal phenomena”
(including poltergeist phenomena, PK, and telepathy) PK: Set Your Intent,
can be linked to strong emotional content. There are
indications that what we experience as presentiment or
Let Go & “Let God”
precognition may be, in some sense, the strong emo- During his first stay at the Stanford Research In-
tional content of a probable “future” event (which is stitute (SRI – now Stanford Research Institute Inter-
actually occurring in a parallel universe in present time, national), Ingo Swann worked on experiments with
along with all our “past” and “future” lives) then filter- physicist Hal Puthoff, who was making forays into
ing “back” through time into our subconscious or even researching psi ability. This example demonstrates
conscious awareness. (See Chapter 12 of TGI.) that we can and do interact with matter via our minds,
whether we intend to consciously or not (and even
30 NEW DAWN ■
under pressure and in the presence of sceptics in this the realm of remote viewing than PK), effects often fail
case). to appear until the subject has their attention diverted.20
On the evening of the 6th of June 1972, Swann was This is something that astral traveller Sylvan Muldoon
asked to try to influence a magnetometer located in the wrote of some 80 years ago, explaining that charging
basement, which he was duly escorted down to, with the mind with desire or intent creates “stress” for which
one catch: the magnetometer – inside a quark detector, the mind seeks an outlet or release via a part of the
in actual fact – was buried under five feet of concrete subconscious he called the cryptoconscious Will: “Then
underneath his feet, and thus invisible to him. What [it] gets a chance to work on the ‘stress,’ and that which
was visible to the extremely chagrined Swann (who was you had given up trying to attain ‘materialises’!”21
not forewarned by Puthoff of the na-
ture of the experiment) was a chart
recorder with its pen slowly trac-
ing out a graceful wavy line. It was
“monitoring the magnetic stability
of the magnetometer and had been
doing so for some weeks without
any change in the rhythmic fluctua-
tions,” Swann recalls. “The whole of
this contraption was encased in an
aluminium container and insulating
copper canister. As well, it was in a
supercooled, hence superconduct-
ing shield.” The Josephson junction
inside the detector would detect
any variation of magnetic flux in
the supercooled equipment and the
effect would show up as a change in
the steady sine wave recording on
the chart which they could all see.
Swann started “probing” men-
tally to see if he could identify the
expensive underground device,
and when he sensed some “metallic
differences” he tried to affect them,
stating so as he went along. With all
eyes glued on the sine wave, Swann
attempted several times to perturb
the well-shielded system, but to
no avail. Insisting that he could see something, Swann Tips for Development
proposed that sketching it out might assist the process.
When no paper could be found to draw on, Puthoff «« Open your mind to the possibility that psi can
suggested he draw directly onto the chart paper. “So I work for you
sketched a this, and then a that: ‘Is this the Josephson «« Believe in yourself
junction?’ I asked. ‘If so, I think I can see it quite well’.” «« Operate in a peaceful state of heart-based coher-
With that comment, the ink pen gave a tiny jerk, ence for receptive psi (such as receiving a telepathic
and then stopped momentarily. Then it lifted up above signal)
its previous pattern, and “somewhat above this it wob- «« Remove yourself from distractions and hostile
bled along for no less than about TEN SECONDS – long or sceptical parties whose chaotic energy fields may
enough for two wavy line intervals to have occurred.”19 negatively influence your own
The point here is that when the distortion in the
«« Meditate for psi development (the more the bet-
sine wave took place Swann was not trying to affect the
ter). If you can participate in a group of people with
equipment – he was simply trying to sketch what he
a mutual interest in their perceptual development,
could see with his mind’s eye. In those moments where
then all the better. I used to attend a trance medi-
his volitional mind was distracted and his goal momen-
umship group – not necessarily because I wanted
tarily suspended, the desired outcome occurred effort-
to “channel,” but it did accelerate my clairvoyant
lessly. In laboratory tests with PK in ordinary people
development. The coherent group energy will height-
(Swann is known to be a gifted psychic, though more in

NEW DAWN 31
en and refine your own through a “quantum addi- Footnotes
tive” effect, accelerating your development. When I
1. Extraordinary States, www.bethcoleman.net/gamma.html.
stopped attending the group my nascent clairvoyant
2. D. Church, The Genie in Your Genes, Energy Psychology Press,
faculties unfortunately regressed back to square one. 2009, 99.
«« For PK, a less passive, more aroused state of 3. Extraordinary States.
heightened emotion may be desirable. If you want to 4. L. Watson, Supernature, Coronet Books, Hodder Paperbacks
bend spoons or change the weather it might help to Ltd, 1974, 139-40.
get fired up! 5. J.D. LaMoth & L.F. Maire III (Defence Intelligence Agency),
«« Eliminate psi-negative beliefs at the conscious Soviet and Czechoslovakian Parapsychology Research, 1975.
level by being well informed on the reality of the 6. See B.D. Murphy, The Grand Illusion: A Synthesis of Science &
psi faculties (reading my book TGI 1 will definitely Spirituality Vol. 1, Balboa Press, 2013.
achieve that goal). 7. I. Swann, Dr. Gertrude Schmeidler, www.biomindsuperpowers.
com/Pages/RealStoryCh9.html
«« Eliminate subconscious negative (psi-blocking)
8. Who is Mario Varvoglis?, www.parapsych.org/members/m_var-
beliefs through techniques such as Psyche-K and
voglis.html.
perhaps also EFT.
9. H. Wilkins & Harold Sherman, Thoughts Through Space, Hamp-
«« Try letting go and “getting out of the way.” Some- ton Roads, 2004, xx.
times your intention has a way of manifesting when 10. Thoughts Through Space, xxi.
you direct your attention on to something else, or, as 11. C.G. Jung, Synchronicity, First Princeton/Bollingen Paper-
some have put it, when you “let go and let God.” Try back Edition, 1973, 18.
setting your intention, letting the thought go, and 12. Russell Targ & Harold Puthoff, Mind-Reach, Hampton Roads,
trusting that the deed will be done. 2005, 11.
«« A slightly different tactic: be grateful in advance 13. Thoughts Through Space, 129.
that your attempt has already been successful. “All 14. Supernature, 260.
great masters know in advance that the deed has 15. P.M.H. Atwater, The Big Book of Near-Death Experiences,
been done.” The aether/vacuum doesn’t “do” linear Hampton Roads, 2007, 340.
time. It only “knows” the present moment. Thus, 16. M. Grosso, Experiencing the Next World Now, Paraview Pocket
what is true for you in the present is what will Books, 2004, 27-8.
continually present itself to you until that truth 17. C. Wilson, The Occult, Watkins Publishing, 2004, 127-8.
changes. 18. C. Humphrey, UFOs, Psi and Spiritual Evolution, Adventures
«« If you want to design experiments or tests for Unlimited Press, 2004.
receptive/perceptual psi, find ways to make it novel, 19. I. Swann, The Varian Hall of Physics, www.biomindsuperpow-
interesting, and meaningful to you personally. Avoid ers.com/Pages/RealStoryCh37.html.
boredom at all costs! 20. Supernature, op. cit., 151-2.
«« Practise some form of pranayama (yogic breath- 21. S. Muldoon & Hereward Carrington, The Projection of the
Astral Body, Rider Books, 1992.
ing) on a daily basis for maximal development of
your health and psychic faculties.
You can read more about this subject matter in Brendan Mur-
phy's new book The Grand Illusion: A Synthesis Of Science
And Spirituality – Book 1, available for purchase at www.
brendandmurphy.net.
Brendan D. Murphy is the author of the critically acclaimed epic The

Grand Illusion: A Synthesis of Science and Spirituality, Vol. 1, and a contribut-
ing writer for several popular magazines and websites. If you like this article,
then “like” “The Grand Illusion (TGI)” fan page on Facebook for more articles,
information, book excerpts, and general developments. Hailed as a “master-
piece” by fellow leading-edge author Sol Luckman (Potentiate Your DNA),
Volume 1 of TGI is now available for purchase at www.brendandmurphy.net.
32 NEW DAWN ■
ESP
You Can’t Live Without It
— By Serge K ahili King —
W
hen we are dealing with ideas
related to the subjective world,
the acronym ESP is often used
to describe the abilities associ-
ated with it. Usually, the letters ESP are taken
to stand for the words, extra-sensory perception.
This is based on an objective-world assump-
tion that the abilities used, such as telepathy,
clairvoyance, and psychokinesis, are somehow
beyond or outside of our so-called “physical”
senses. I strongly disagree with this. For that
reason, I prefer to interpret ESP as meaning “ex-
tended sensory perception/projection.” And to
describe the people who use their senses in this
way with conscious intent, I will borrow a term
from science fiction and call them “espers.”
If you believe that espers are unique indi-
viduals who were born with or have somehow
received a special gift that sets them apart from
© rolffimages - Fotolia.com
other human beings; or that esper abilities are
a sort of reward for moral purity (whatever that
means); or that years of intense and arduous
effort and practice are necessary before esper
abilities will ever appear, then you and millions
like you have been victims of some of the great- among them. Finally, the esper trusts these feelings and
est hoaxes ever suffered by the human race. sensations and believes in the actuality of what is being
The truth is that every man, woman, and child on done, and he or she practices accordingly.
this planet is an esper, in the sense of having the abili- I know what I am talking about for two reasons:
ties to perform all the feats associated with metaphysi- first, I was trained by my father and others, and I
cal talents. These are not even primitive abilities that trained myself as well to demonstrate almost every
have been lost or atrophied as man has become more form of esper ability; second, I have trained thousands
civilised (whatever that means). These abilities are alive of others to do the same. The people I trained were just
and well and kicking inside you at this moment. ordinary humans like you who were reasonably scepti-
The only differences between you and a conscious es- cal in the beginning, but in all my courses on esper
per are these: The esper pays more attention to feelings development, every one of my students demonstrated
and sensations that you ignore. The esper has learned, the esper abilities being taught to some degree. Con-
through trial and error or by training, how to stimulate trary to common thinking, most of these abilities can
such feelings and sensations and how to discriminate be experienced after only a half-hour or less of train-

NEW DAWN 33
ing. It takes more time to convince someone that it can «« Stared at someone consciously or unconsciously
be done than to show them how to do it. And natural- and had them turn around to look at you?
ly, it takes time on the part of the student to become «« Been the recipient of such a stare and turned
skilled. You can learn how to hold a golf club and hit a around yourself?
ball in a few minutes, but it takes practice to become
«« Avoided a trip of any kind during which there
good at it. And one other thing: just as you can learn
was an accident?
golf from a golf expert without the need for a special,
secret ritual to open up your “golf centre,” so can you «« Driven your car while your mind was occupied
learn esper abilities from an esper expert without the and failed to remember having driven as far as you
need for secret rituals. did?
The biggest problem facing people interested in «« Had a sudden feeling or anxiety about a child
developing their natural esper talents is that they don’t who turned out to need your presence?
know what the experience is supposed to feel like. In «« Felt uncomfortable in a given place for no appar-
our culture, esper powers are generally considered to be ent reason?
so alien to the normal way of doing things that people «« Walked on fire with no harm?
tend to expect sensations totally different from what
The above list could be extended a great deal, but
they are used to. In reality, most of the sensations are so
Have you ever: Had a hunch that turned out right?

if you have ever experienced anything similar to the
much the same as normal experiences that people may
above, you definitely have esper talent. Even if you
have a tough time accepting that what they already do
haven’t experienced any of these things, I still claim
differs only slightly from what the experienced espers
that you are inherently esper just because you are hu-
do.
man, but you’ll have to prove that for yourself.
You still have doubts as to whether you might be an
esper? Let’s see whether any of your experiences fit into SIXTH SENSE NONSENSE
the following categories of obvious and not so obvious
esper experiences. Have you ever: Researchers who are looking for a “sixth sense” or
more to explain esper phenomena are wasting their
«« Had a hunch that turned out right?
time. “Extrasensory Perception” is a misnomer, a term
«« Had an intuitive feeling about something that that is highly misleading. Esper abilities are merely
turned out to be accurate? extensions of your common, everyday, garden-variety
«« Had a dream that came true, even in part? type of senses. That’s why I use the term “Extended Sen-
«« Thought of someone and, shortly after, received a sory Perception/ Projection.” Whether it is realised or
telephone call from them? not, a skilled esper is just a person who has refined his
«« Called someone who told you they had just regular sensory awareness to the point where he notices
thought of you? what others don’t; he has learned to correctly interpret
what his senses are telling him.
«« Picked up the phone to call someone only to find Curiously, there are many respectable professions
them already on the line? in which this type of ability is used, only we don’t call
«« Thought of someone and received a letter from it esper. As an example, suppose someone offers you
them within a few days? a glass of vintage wine. Most likely you will take a sip
«« Shared the same dream with someone else? and pronounce it good or bad. If you fancy yourself a
«« Seen a vision or apparition of a close friend or connoisseur, you might sniff it first, make a statement
relative who was in trouble, near death, or already about its “bouquet,” or roll some of it on your tongue
passed on? and declare it “smooth,” “dry,” or “young.” And that’s
about it. A professional wine taster, on the other hand,
«« Had a daydream that came true?
after sniffing, looking, tasting, and swallowing, can tell
«« Experienced déja vu, the feeling that you had you what kind of grape was used, whether or not it is a
been in a place or experienced a situation before? blend, possibly where and when it was grown and what
«« Said the same thing at the same time as someone kind of soil it was grown in, maybe even the amount of
else? rainfall the grapes received, and what it will taste like in
«« Wished hard that someone would do a certain five, ten, or twenty years from now. In short, the taster
thing and then they did it? has demonstrated the esper abilities of psychometry,
34 NEW DAWN ■
clairvoyance, and prophesy. But unless he went on to skin, the temperature and smell of the air, and sundry
describe your wine rack at home and state whether or other things that your body mind is making available to
not you would buy a bottle, we wouldn’t ordinarily call you through your senses.
him an esper. And yet, the difference is only the area When developing ESP, it is convenient to think
toward which the abilities are directed. of your body mind as an employee, the supervisor in
direct charge of your physical body, your sense organs,
Body Mind & Focus Mind and your energy level. As the focus mind, you are the
In order to help you develop your esper abilities to manager of the whole operation. Some people even like
the utmost, I am going to give you a concept that comes to give the body mind a nickname as a means of estab-
from Huna. Whether it is scientifically acceptable or not lishing closer rapport and communication. In terms
doesn’t matter. The point is that it works. of ESP, we will be most concerned with the senses. The
According to this idea, you have two minds. One we whole of your sensory system can be effectively thought
can call the body mind, and it is in charge of all the in- of as a radio-television receiver/transmitter run by
voluntary processes of your body, including the receiv- the body mind. The ordinary sensory signals – like the
ing and storing of all information that comes through sights, sounds, tastes, touches, and smells that clearly
your senses. In a way, you can compare it to the sub- have a physical source – can be compared to AM radio
Called someone who told you they had just thought of you?
conscious or the right side of your brain, but it is really and broadcast television channels, and the ESP part of
more than either of those. So just think of it as the body your equipment can be compared to FM radio and UHF
mind. The other mind we will call the focus mind. This channels on TV. In reality, the differences aren’t so clear
is “you,” the part of you that is aware of being conscious cut, but this model will serve to get you started.
(which means “aware of being aware”). I call it the focus
mind because, like an adjustable flashlight, it focuses on This material was reproduced by permission of Quest Books,
only a part of what the senses are telling it at any given the imprint of the Theosophical Publishing House (www.
time, even though that focus can be widened or nar- questbooks.net) from Changing Reality: Huna Practices to
rowed. Create the Life You Want by Serge Kahili King. © 2013 by
For example, if you are watching a movie, your at- Serge Kahili King. In a user-friendly, conversational style,
King explains the four worlds of a shaman and basic Huna
tention may be focused on the film and nothing else.
principles. Then, citing case studies, he guides us in how to
But you could expand your focus to include the taste of change reality in each of the four worlds, bringing in ESP,
popcorn in your mouth, the feel of your companion’s telepathy, the perception of auras, telekinesis, dreaming,
hand in yours, and the heavy breathing of the guy next magical flight, and, finally, soul retrieval and the great power
to you. If you expanded your focus further to include of healing. Changing Reality is available from all good book-
the people in the seats in front of you, the curtains by stores or online book retailers.
the side of the screen, the various grunts and coughs
and sniffles of the audience, and the discomfort of your
chair, you would probably begin to lose your focus on
the movie. And you would probably not be paying any
attention to the sensations of your clothing on your
Serge Kahili King, Ph.D., holds a doctorate in psychology from California

Western University. He has studied with master shamans from Africa to Hawaii and
has trained thousands in his popular seminars. He is the president of Aloha Inter-
national, a nonprofit organisation dedicated to spreading the aloha spirit of peace
through blessing. He is also the founder of Order of Huna International. King is
regarded as a kahuna kupua or master practitioner of the Hawaiian shaman way.
He is the author of the world’s largest selection of books on Huna, the Polynesian
philosophy and practice of effective living, and on the spirit of Aloha, the attitude
of love and peace for which the Hawaiian Islands are so famous. King resides in
Volcano, Hawaii.

NEW DAWN 35
©iStockphoto.com/GatorDawg
36 NEW DAWN ■
Hypnotic
State of Mind
The Untapped Power Within
— By Daniel Neiman — Hypnosis has been associated throughout history with
W
all sorts of paranormal powers from healing physi-
e all go through multiple states of cal diseases to increasing intelligence, to clairvoyance
consciousness each day, from the buzz and telepathy. Hypnotic suggestion has been used to
we get in the morning from a cup of achieve everything from relieving someone of the desire
coffee to our daydreaming reverie in to smoke cigarettes to increasing a woman’s bust size.
the afternoon board meeting; not to mention one of the Hypnosis and trance have even been associated with
most profound states of consciousness we enter each immunity to burning. Someone in a hypnotic state, un-
night – dreaming. der the right suggestion, can be subject to direct contact
All of these states can be beneficial and serve a use- with lit matches or burning cigarette tips and experi-
ful purpose. The morning coffee buzz helps us focus and ence no pain and even no blistering afterwards.1
concentrate on tasks that require high mental acuity.
The daydream helps take us away from Hypnosis & Pain
boring situations and makes those The surgeon James Esdaile was
times fly. The famous psychiatrist reported to have carried out over 300
Carl Jung told us dreaming was a time
when we could connect with the collec- Hypnosis has major surgical operations using a form
of hypnotism as his method of inhib-
tive unconscious and receive symbols been associated iting pain during surgery, including
and messages that are relevant to our a patient who had his leg amputated
everyday life. throughout history at the thigh.2 I personally knew a
We all go through states such as
these daily, but one useful state of with all sorts hypnotist who shocked his dentist by
refusing Novocain pain relief before a
consciousness few people ever venture of paranormal tooth extraction. He told his dentist
into willingly is hypnosis or trance. to give him five minutes wherein he
Now, of course, there are minor powers... self-hypnotised himself. The doctor
trances we enter into such as when performed the operation and he felt
driving on a lonely stretch of highway no pain. Nowadays with the advent of
for miles at a time or when we are various anaesthetics and pain relief
involved with some other monotonous medications this may be unnecessary,
drawn-out activity. Shamans are famous for entering but it is still a safe and effective way for many people to
trances through drumming or chanting. If done for long undergo surgical procedures without pain, not to men-
enough, these monotonous activities can take our con- tion fewer side effects. Of course, your doctor may not
scious minds away from the world to be replaced with like the idea.
an unconscious ‘subliminal self’ which can take over Hypnosis has been found useful in the healing of
and guide our actions. physical diseases as well. The most famous case be-
There’s actually no need to get out that dusty drum ing that of a patient named John who had a rare skin
in your garage. Trained hypnotists are able to put people disease called congenital ichthyosis. This is a painful
in a trance state called hypnosis through some sort condition where a thick, inelastic black substance cov-
of hypnotic induction. You can even learn to hypno- ers the body. After unsuccessful conventional medi-
tise yourself. “Why would you ever do this?” you ask. cal treatments were attempted to relieve John of the

NEW DAWN 37
disease, a young Dr. Albert Mason had an idea. He had hypnosis: the impossible becomes possible. It’s as if the
been successful in getting rid of warts through hypnotic mind underlies and controls reality. If not the physical
suggestion and thought what John suffered from looked universe, the mind definitely controls your reality and
like a bad case of multiple warts. So, with full confi- your experience of reality.
dence he put John under hypnosis and instructed him
that the skin on his arm would heal and become healthy The Invisible Woman
skin. Within ten days the black horny casing on his arm An intriguing example comes from Michael Talbot’s
fell off revealing healthy normal skin. famous book The Holographic Universe. Talbot’s father
The only problem for Mason was that he was soon to invited a hypnotist over to entertain a gathering of
friends. Tom, a friend of his
father’s, was chosen as a suitable
subject who could be hypnotised
easily. While under hypnosis,
Tom was instructed “that when
he came out of trance, his teen-
age daughter, Laura, would be
completely invisible to him.”4
The hypnotist then had his
daughter stand directly in front
of the chair where he was sitting
and brought Tom back to a nor-
mal state of consciousness. Upon
being asked by the hypnotist if
he could see his daughter, Tom
looked around the room, his gaze
appearing to pass right through
his daughter, and exclaimed that
he did not see her in the room.
The hypnotist proceeded to go
behind Tom’s daughter and take
an object out of his pocket, care-
fully concealing it in his hand so
that no one in the room could see
what it was. Placing the object
on the small of Laura’s back he
asked Tom if he could identify
the object held in his hand. Tom
leaned forward, his vision ap-
© ollyy - shutterstock.com
pearing to pass right through his

daughter’s stomach, and in-
formed him that it was a watch.
He was then asked to read the in-
scription on the watch which he
successfully did. The watch was
then passed around the room so
find out that what he had accomplished is supposed to that everyone could see that he had correctly identified
be impossible. Mason was soon to find out from other the watch and its inscription, consisting of the name of
doctors and his own research that John’s skin, due to the watch’s owner and a message.
the nature of the disease, had no oil-forming glands Talbot, amazed at this demonstration, questioned
that would enable fresh healthy skin to form under- Tom afterwards. Tom informed him that he really could
neath the black casing. Faced with this new informa- not see his daughter and only saw the hypnotist stand-
tion, Mason subsequently began to doubt his abilities, ing in front of him cupping the watch in the palm of
his confidence went down, and he was unsuccessful in his hand. He remarked that if the hypnotist hadn’t told
future attempts to cure the disease via hypnosis. 3 him what was going on, “he would never have known he
Nevertheless, the case of curing a genetic disease via wasn’t perceiving normal consensus reality.”
hypnosis presents us with a theme you will find if you In another humorous case of changing the way
look into the research on what’s been accomplished via someone experiences reality through hypnotic sug-
38 NEW DAWN ■
gestion, a woman was told under hypnosis that “when a person under hypnosis can be told that they should
she awoke, she would find that her black hat had been take a certain course of action at a specified time and
transformed into a red one.”5 Upon awakening she was date. After coming out of the hypnotic state the subject
convinced they were playing a trick on her and had sub- will not remember these instructions, but will never-
stituted another hat for hers. She ended up having to theless feel compelled to execute the instruction at the
be put back under hypnosis and told that her hat would specified time and date. Many hypnotic subjects will
be black when she awoke. There have even been docu- obey these instructions even if it is inconvenient to do
mented cases of making people see (hallucinate) that so. One hypnotist, for instance, gave instructions to a
someone is present who is not really there. 6 woman under hypnosis to come to his house later in
It is important to note that not all suggestions given the day. Later that day the woman, “felt compelled to
to someone under hypnosis will be obeyed. It is com- leave a dinner party, though she could give no explana-
monly assumed that if a suggestion is morally offensive tion for her action except that she just could not help
to the subject they will disobey, and there may be some herself.”10 Another hypnotist told a subject who was
truth to this but it is not the full story. There is the in a deep trance to come back wearing a certain outfit
famous case in this regard of a hypnotist who asked an hour later. The subject didn’t consciously remember
his subject to take her clothes off, whereupon she came these instructions after being awakened, but neverthe-
out of her trance and slapped him in the face.7 How- less obeyed and showed up one hour later wearing the
ever, there are other cases where people in trance were specified clothes.11 All kinds of experiments like these
willing to kill others or do things they would absolutely have been performed. It can be any sort of action: pull-
not entertain doing under normal ing someone’s nose, drawing a certain
circumstances. What makes a subject
8
symbol, you name it.12 The person
spontaneously come out of trance, or who has been given these instructions
simply disobey a command given to
There is the under hypnosis will feel an impulse
their subconscious mind, is not easy to famous case... of to perform the action at the specified
pin down. a hypnotist who time.
One hypnotic subject described the
state as like a splitting of conscious-
asked his subject Hypnosis & Alien
ness, whereby the conscious mind is to take her clothes Abduction
split off and stands aside watching off, whereupon she Now we can make a very interesting
the actions being undertaken by the
subconscious. 9 If the hypnotist were
came out of her connection between hypnotic control
and alien abduction. The events sur-
to make an inappropriate suggestion, trance and slapped rounding a UFO encounter or alien
it is assumed that the conscious mind him in the face. abduction often include some sort of
could come back and take over thereby unusual compulsion. The psychiatrist
breaking the trance. and abduction researcher John Mack
A co-worker of mine described the had a client who “had driven, as if
state a little bit differently. She said that during the under some sort of compulsion, to a wooded area in the
hypnotic state her conscious mind went on something town of Saugus, north of Boston.”13 She said she went
akin to a psychedelic trip or an out-of-body experience. on roads that she had never driven on before. It was like
However, she would occasionally become consciously she went on a joy ride just for the hell of it instead of go-
aware of the hypnotist’s words. So, if the hypnotist ing home, but now feels that this trip was “forced upon
started suggesting or saying something inappropriate, her and ‘they made me think I was doing it for other
her conscious mind would become aware of this and she reasons’.”14 Under hypnosis she recalled her body going
would pull herself out of trance. numb and her car stopping somewhere in the wooded
The depth of trance and the rapport, or trust, the area, after which alien beings showed up and took her
subject holds with the hypnotist may also be important up a beam (of light?) to a waiting ship (UFO). Another
factors. The hypnotist’s own level of confidence plays abduction experiencer, Tim Watts, also felt compelled
a definite role in whether or not a suggestion is acted to go to places he wouldn’t normally visit without know-
upon, too, as seen with Dr. Mason and the curing of ing why. He says:
ichthyosis. When he thought the disease was just a bad
case of warts and his confidence level in effecting a cure I found myself regularly visiting the most remote
was high, he was able to easily relieve John of his afflic- places and feeling a desire to be far away from
tion. Later, when he learned that the disease was sup- crowds, from being visible. This was strange be-
posed to be incurable and began to doubt, his success haviour even for a natural loner because it wasn’t
rate plummeted. the kind of privacy I normally chose. In fact, going
In any event, the level of control that has been re- to these places didn’t feel like a compulsion of my
ported over hypnotic subjects is startling. For example, own. I would find myself standing in the middle

NEW DAWN 39
of a field afterwards wondering why.15 (Emphasis wouldn’t ordinarily choose to do, they also report pe-
added) riods of “missing time.” This occurs when the abductee
is engaged in an activity, such as driving, and all of the
Particularly, he remembers being attracted to the
sudden finds themselves miles ahead of where they last
most isolated areas of a park where very few visitors
remember being with no memory of what happened.
would be expected to go to, and going at sunset or night
A look at the clock shows that it is hours later than it
time when very few people were in the park anyway. Al-
should be. What should be a thirty minute drive ends
though not being able to remember what went on in the
up taking 5 hours. Under hypnosis they may recall
park, he later had a flashback upon seeing a lava lamp
the intervening time, which often enough includes a
in a store window. Specifically, its colour and mutating
strange encounter with a UFO and alien beings.
effect reminded him of a UFO that he had seen in the
Sometimes a peculiar sound can be heard, such as
park. This was a memory that was apparently hidden in
a beep before and after the abduction. The beep is all
that is remembered, but this
beep can clue us into what’s
going on – induced hypnosis.
For example, after Betty and
Barney Hill spotted a UFO
while driving, they reported
a strange electronic-sounding
beeping noise that seemed to
emanate from behind their
car. Then, “they each began to
feel an odd tingling drowsiness
come over them. From that mo-
ment a sort of haze came over
them.”17 Subsequently, they
didn’t consciously remember
what happened until another
set of beeps was heard where-
upon they slowly came back to
awareness and continued driv-
ing to their destination.
In another case, an abductee
saw a UFO coming towards her
car. Not just that, but her car
came to a stop all on its own
and a blue light engulfed it. She
then spoke of a brief intermit-
tent beeping sound followed by
silence and darkness. Suddenly,
the UFO was gone, the car’s
headlights came on, and she
started the car and drove away
unaware that anything else had
happened. However, she was
soon to realise that something
strange must have happened
because almost three hours had passed since she saw
the depths of his subconscious which was jogged and
the UFO.18 It seems her last conscious memory was of
brought to conscious awareness by the similarity to the
the beeping sound.
lava lamp. He remembers seeing a craft that changed
In each case we just reviewed, after the beeping
shape and colour. It eventually pulsated a brilliant white
was heard the abductee dropped into unconsciousness.
light that he said had a hypnotic effect on him. He re-
Betty and Barney Hill are very explicit, saying how they
membered being drawn up into the bottom of the craft
felt a sudden tingling drowsiness overcome them. It is
feeling that his body had become very light, like it could
easy to assume that they went into some kind of trance.
be blown away by a breeze.16
This relates very well to experiments done with hypno-
Not only are abductees compelled to do things they
sis which show that someone can be trained to go into
40 NEW DAWN ■
a hypnotic state via a simple signal, like a sound, word, last time he saw someone drop off like that, it was an
or gesture. At one institution they used a gong which abductee.
would immediately induce hypnosis in the subject. The Late UFO researcher John Keel also brings out this
parapsychological historian Brian Inglis remarks that connection between UFOs and trance. Noting that
once a woman was frozen midway into reaching into a UFOs are often seen to pulsate different coloured lights,
drawer, having gone into a trance at the sound of the Keel writes:
gong.19
When the object’s pulsations are synchronised
In a similar instance, author Guy Lyon Playfair tells
with the percipient’s frequency, a medical phenom-
of a woman who was standing up looking at a test-tube
enon occurs. The witness lapses into a hypnotic-
when the hypnotist mentally hypnotised her by unspo-
like trance and hallucinates. If the percipient is
ken command. This is a very fascinating concept – that
psychic, the trance can seem like an extension of
one can be hypnotised mentally. Playfair gives a couple
reality, and the hallucination will seem like a very
of examples whereby the hypnotist forms a mental im-
real experience. In most cases, the witness will
age of what they want the subject to do, such as enter
later note a great time discrepancy; the experience
a trance, and concentrates intensely on that image.
will seem to have taken more time, or less time,
Getting back to our example, after being put into hyp-
than actually expired. Witnesses without psychic
nosis via mental command she was then brought out of
ability will not become entranced. They simply fall
trance. Playfair reports:
over unconscious.22
When she came round, she went on
Trance would obviously be a useful
looking at the tube, unaware that
Trance would state for aliens to put someone in since
she had been hypnotised, as in the
case with deep-trance subjects. In obviously be a we’ve learned that people can be more
easily controlled from such a state.
fact, she never did know what was useful state for aliens Even if the abduction is not physical,
going on, and kept asking when
the experiments she had been told
to put someone in but out of body or in another dimen-
since we’ve learned sion, trance would be useful to inacti-
about were going to begin.20
vate the person so their consciousness
There is a striking similarity here that people can could be freed up to enter another
to alien abductions and missing time. be more easily dimension. There are many examples
This subject, who had been hypno- where the abductee is compelled to go
controlled from
tised, had temporarily lost conscious to sleep, suddenly feeling really tired
awareness due to being put in a trance. such a state. for no apparent reason. They subse-
Then, when she was brought out of quently are pulled out of their body
trance, we assume by another mental into another dimension, or otherwise
command, she went right on doing awaken in a new environment with
what she was doing before she entered the trance with alien entities. In essence, their body falls asleep while
no knowledge that she had been entranced at all. It is their mind enters another dimension.
like her reality just picked up seamlessly from before We’ve seen many examples of the power of hypnosis
the trance to after, with no knowledge of what hap- and hypnotic suggestion to change people’s realities
pened in between. If this would have been an abduction and compel them to do unordinary actions. Abductions
encounter she would have eventually looked at the clock seem to follow the same pattern, with abductees ap-
and realised it was hours later than it should have been. parently being entranced during abductions or feeling
This connection between hypnosis and alien abduc- compelled to go to secluded places to facilitate abduc-
tion would be an interesting area of further research. tions. These alien intelligences work from a higher level
I was recently reading Andrew Colvin’s book The Moth- of mind to control people.
man Speaks.21 Colvin grew up in the Pt. Pleasant area, in
the nearby town of Charleston West Virginia, around Mind Underlies Reality
where the famous Mothman was seen for a period of Our conscious minds are only the tip of the iceberg.
time in the late 1960s before a bridge collapsed. His Lying submerged underneath are deeper layers of mind
friend Harriet actually saw Mothman. In the book he with vast resources and ability to affect our experi-
presents letters written to him by his friend. In one of ence. Our ego consciousness may be compared to a
the letters she described how a hypnotist came to her game character. The game character is controlled by its
junior high school to give a demonstration. She recalls “higher self,” the human who presses its buttons – par-
that the hypnotist chose her to be his subject and that don the pun. We can also get our buttons pressed, being
she was able to be hypnotised “in no time flat.” The hyp- compelled into action by a subconscious desire or a
notist was surprised at the ease with which she could thought that suddenly illuminates our mind. Are we re-
enter a trance and explained to her afterwards that the ally in control or are we controlled from intelligences in

NEW DAWN 41
There may in fact be multiple levels of mind which can be accessed
via hypnosis or other mind-altering techniques. You may consider
them higher-dimensional aspects of self with access to greater
awareness and other dimensions of reality. Each of us may be
influenced to a great extent by these deeper levels of mind.
higher dimensions acting upon the deeper structures of be accessed via hypnosis or other mind-altering tech-
our minds? Does our unconscious, higher, or subliminal niques. You may consider them higher-dimensional as-
self guide our conscious mind with its own desires and pects of self with access to greater awareness and other
yearnings or are our conscious ego minds in full con- dimensions of reality. Each of us may be influenced to a
trol? I think that we do have limited conscious control great extent by these deeper levels of mind. Our great-
but mostly we are driven subconsciously like characters est ideas and inspirations may be what Meyers referred
in a game, yet not that extreme. to as subliminal uprushes; material formed within and
What hypnosis shows us is that mind underlies emerging from deeper levels of mind.23
reality and controls it. It is not our conscious ego minds I strongly feel that more exploration of these deeper
that have the most control, but a deeper level of mind. reaches of mind is necessary. The knowledge of a multi-
Some people refer to this deeper layer of mind as the dimensional universe has spawned new and untapped
unconscious, but I prefer the term put forth by para- possibilities. We now have numerous individuals who’ve
psychological researcher Frederick Myers. He talked experienced a near-death experience or alien abduction
about a subliminal self. This subliminal self is imbued and interacted in a higher dimension. We now know
with great intelligence and can present material to one’s that we are not just physical bodies and brains living
conscious awareness in the form of ideas, intuitions, in a physical universe. Just beyond the veil there are
dreams or even hallucinations. It is a deeper, higher higher aspects of self and higher realities with much
level of self beyond the threshold of conscious aware- potential to affect us here in the physical.
ness. But, under hypnosis we can access this deeper Many UFO abductees and near-death experiencers
intelligence which controls and coordinates reality and (NDErs) have experienced profound changes in con-
by communicating with it can alter our own realities. sciousness due to their experiences. Dr. Jeffrey Long,
There may in fact be multiple levels of mind which can in his research survey of NDErs, found that 45% said
42 NEW DAWN ■
they had psychic, paranormal or some other special gift of Hypnotism, White Crow Books, 2011 (originally published in
following their experience.24 These kinds of changes are 1985), 11-16
also reported by UFO abductees. 4. Michael Talbot, The Holographic Universe, Harper Perennial,
Science has steadily progressed in its understand- 1991, 141
ing and manipulation of the physical world which has 5. Inglis, Trance, 105
brought us many great things. However, consciousness 6. Ibid., 79
has mostly been ignored. Scientists have mostly treated 7. Ibid., 173
the mind as an unimportant epiphenomenon of the 8. For examples, see: Playfair, If This Be Magic, 42-43; Inglis,
brain. What’s important, they think, is the physical Trance, 74
world because, after all, that’s what’s real. What needs 9. Inglis, Trance, 85
to be desperately understood is that mind underlies 10. Brian Inglis, Natural & Supernatural: A History of the
reality and directs it. Mind, then, becomes even more Paranormal From the Earliest Times to 1914, White Crow Books,
important than the physical world. With the great 2012 (originally published in 1977), 174
benefits and exceptional abilities that can be conferred 11. Inglis, Trance, 52
by accessing deeper dimensions of the mind, there is 12. Inglis, Trance, 78-79
great reason to explore consciousness and treat it with 13. John E. Mack, Abduction, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1994,
great respect; not as something that is unimportant and 158-159
needs explaining away. The mind and deeper levels of 14. Mack, Abduction, 161
reality are where our potential lies hidden, ready for a 15. Tim Watts, The Otherness: A Personal Interaction, Author-
quick awakening when we are ready to explore. House, 2004, 30-31
16. Ibid., 73-75
Daniel Neiman is the author of the book Enter The Light (346 17. John G. Fuller, The Interrupted Journey, The Dial Press, 1966, 17
pages), that covers the groundbreaking science in intelligent 18. Karla Turner, Taken: Inside the Alien-Human Agenda, Rose
design and the placebo effect, as well as paranormal phe- Printing Company, 1994, 96
nomena that suggest our reality is grounded in a supreme 19. Inglis, Trance, 82
conscious intelligence which we are all part of and co-create 20. Playfair, If This Be Magic, 142
with. It can be ordered at www.amazon.com.
21. Andrew Colvin, The Mothman Speaks: Candid Conversations
Concerning Cosmic Conundrums – Cryptic Creatures, Chimeras, Con-
tactees, and the Cleverly Coded Coincidences and Correspondences
Footnotes of the Collective Unconscious, Metadisc Books and The Seattle
Conceptual Art Museum, 2010.
1. For an overview of what can be done using hypnosis, I recom- 22. John A. Keel, The Cosmic Question, Granada, 1978, 33-34
mend: Brian Inglis, Trance: A Natural History of Altered States of
Mind, Grafton Books, 1989. 23. Inglis, Trance, 121
2. Ibid., 58 24. Jeffrey Long, Evidence of the Afterlife, HarperOne, 2010, 189
3. For information about this case, see: Mario Beauregard, Brain
Wars, HarperOne, 2012, 109-111; Bruce H. Lipton, The Biology
of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter & Mira-
cles, Hay House, 14th edn, 2011 (originally published in 2005),
93-94; Guy Lyon Playfair, If This Be Magic: The Forgotten Power
Daniel Neiman is a paranormal researcher, author, and teacher. He has a bach-

elor’s degree in psychology from the University of Nebraska. In college he became
interested in abnormal psychology and wanted to be a clinical psychologist. How-
ever, his interest then took a turn towards the paranormal aspects of reality and he
devoted his life to studying and writing about the paranormal and what it teaches us
about reality. Although interested in all areas of the paranormal, his focus is on other-
dimensional experiences and altered states of mind. He has written articles for the
Near-Death Experience Research Foundation (www.nderf.org) and blogs at www.
world-mysteries.com. His recently published book about the paranormal and reality
is entitled Enter The Light. He also has his own website www.anomalousexperience.
com where he invites people to submit their own paranormal experiences.

NEW DAWN 43
© Rosario Rizzo - Fotolia.com
44 NEW DAWN ■
Dream Hacking
The Vibrating ‘Spider’ Fields
& Giant ‘Moths’ that
Visit Me at Night
— By David Ic ke —
E
vents in my bedroom have become really crazy
on a pretty much nightly basis. No, no, before
you take that route, I have lived alone for
nearly five years, for which I am very grateful,
and it is nothing to do with that kinda stuff.
Well, I say I live alone, but ‘human alone’ would be
more accurate. Several nights a week I am joined by
‘spiders’ and occasionally ‘moths’ and ‘butterflies’ flying
around my bedroom. Not real ones, but electromagnetic
fields that have a ‘spidery’ feel about them in the way
they vibrate; and perhaps projections of some kind that
can appear as butterflies or giant moths.
Once again they have a metallic feel about them.
The most memorable moth was bright orange with blue
spots and looked like a cross between a moth and an air This all began quite suddenly maybe two years ago
force jet. It must have been a foot long. The moths and when I woke up in the darkness – or semi-darkness
butterflies are rare – the norm is the black, vibrating because of the street lights – and saw a giant, metal-
spider fields. lic spider on the wall. In those early days they looked a
I am often aware of a strong electromagnetic field metallic colour, but they are usually black now.
when this is happening most intensely, and that is As I watched, the spider scuttled away in among my
emphasised on nights when it doesn’t happen, with the clothes on the rail along the wall as if it were trying to
atmosphere in the room being very much quieter and hide. No, I’m not kidding. It was so ridiculous it made
calmer. me laugh. The spider’s method of movement was for the
‘legs’ at the front to stretch out and ‘pull’ the rest of it
forward – a bit like pulling an oar.
By that time I was sitting up in bed saying, “What
the..?” Well, what the..?
I found the above image in an internet search and if
you imagine it to be black or metallic and more spider-
like in shape, it gives a feel for what appears in my
bedroom. There might be six or seven of them at a time
and they vibrate, or pulse, very fast.
© Vladimir Zadvinskii - shutterstock.com
It has been pretty constant since then, occurring

several nights a week, apart from one period of a cou-
ple of months when it stopped. These ‘visits’ started
happening in hotel rooms during my world speaking
tour this year [in 2011], yet previously had only oc-

NEW DAWN 45
They also coincide with incredibly vivid dreams. This
has happened from the start. The dreams take the form
of long and often complicated stories. When I wake
up and go back to sleep at these times the dream story
will pick up where it left off. This can even happen over
several nights.
It has long reached the point where in the very act of
opening my eyes from a vivid dream I am scanning the
room for the spiders and they are always there vibrating
around the bed. Some are small, no bigger than a watch
face, while others are the size of a hand or two.
I am writing about this today, [in December of 2011],
because one night this week it was particularly intense.
It began as usual with the vivid dream (an old television
presenter friend of mine named Selina Scott was doing
a bank robbery – bizarre) and I woke up a couple of
times to see the spiders vibrating around me. I usually
give them the finger and turn over.
curred when I was at home for a long time. They must I have got so used to it that it doesn’t bother me, and
like me. even when I am having these dreams I am often aware
One night about two years ago when I was still get- that I am observing the dream rather than being part of
ting used to what was happening, the ‘bombardment’ it – a bit like watching a movie.
became so intense that I got up and went into my lounge But this week I experienced a phenomenon that hap-
to sleep on the sofa with the light on. I was only asleep pens once in a while when I wake up from one of these
a short time when I woke up to see a massive, spinning, dreams and my heart is pumping like crazy and pulses
metallic energy field – like a Catherine wheel firework, are beating strongly in my head. Yet these expressions
though devoid of colour. of anxiety and fear, an adrenalin rush or physical activ-
It was about six feet away in front of my television ity, happen without my feeling any anxiety or fear and
and it had a spider-like image in the centre. I watched it while I lie still in bed without so much as a toe twitch-
for what must have been a minute or so, and then got up ing.
to walk towards it. With that, it dispersed. I wondered for a few moments if something was try-
This is a consistent theme. When I get out of bed and ing to stop my heart or cause a heart attack, so fast was
walk towards these spider phenomena they dissolve it pumping; but who knows? While this was happening
before my eyes very quickly, and the same thing hap- I saw a butterfly, almost real in appearance but still
pens when I just focus on them without moving. The clearly metallic, fly across the room and disperse. That
other thing is that they can’t be seen (except for that gave me a chuckle at least. It was all so surreal.
one ‘Catherine wheel’) when the light is on – only in Weird or what?
darkness or rather semi-darkness.
The dreams take the

form of long and often
complicated stories. When I
wake up and go back to sleep
at these times the dream
story will pick up where it left
off. This can even happen
over several nights.
– David Icke
46 NEW DAWN ■
Psychic Assassination & United States using ‘black budget’ funds, mostly through
Directed-Energy Weapons the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DAR-
PA), the research and development arm of the Pentagon.
The experience reminded me of a conversation I It is not only happening in America, either. China,
had at an Expo in San Francisco many years ago, about Russia and others are also well advanced with this
1996, with a woman who told me that her late husband technology and my information is that China is even
had been a member of what she called the US military further ahead than the United States.
‘Psychic Assassination Squad’. Goodness knows what these technologies can do
She said that military recruits are given question- given that the secret programmes are light years ahead
naires to identify those with especially strong psychic of anything available in the public arena and even that
powers and the best of them are deployed to this squad. technology is getting ever more sophisticated in its abil-
ity to manipulate the human energy field.
So my bedroom experiences could be
As the radiation connected to something of this nature,
n A large passes through
A microwave oven has bee percentage of the but it is not the only possibility.
with sequential walls,
converted to a weapon radiation reaches the power level will
of
an output of 800 Watts
microwave energy.
the secondary drop but can remain
at dangerous health
Mysteries of the
room.
levels.
Dream State
There could be other explanations,
because who knows where we go during
sleep and that in-between world as sleep
becomes conscious awareness? So little
Even if the levels have is known about sleep – it remains one of
been reduced by passing
through 3 walls, people the great mysteries of science.
still can be negatively
affec ted by continuous Certainly the brain passes through
radiation over long
periods of exposure.
a series of ‘wavelength’ changes dur-
ing the time that we are in the ‘land
of nod’ and the deeper levels of this
are still little understood by mainstream
research.
One of her late husband’s jobs, she said, was to sit
Nathaniel Kleitman (1895-1999), the Russian-born
around a table with others and collectively focus on the
Professor of Physiology at Chicago University, is known
picture of a target, seeking to stop his or her heart.
as the ‘father of sleep research’ and is credited with
This way the target would suffer what appeared to be
discovering rapid eye movement (REM) in sleep experi-
a natural heart attack and no questions would be asked.
ments he conducted with his students Eugene Aserin-
I was told all this long before the release of the 2009
sky and Bill Dement.
movie The Men Who Stare at Goats, which was based on
Kleitman wanted to study the rolling movements of
fact and the same theme.
the eyes that only occur during sleep. When the sub-
In many ways the concept of psychic assassination
ject’s rolling eyes became still in the first experiment,
is similar to the negative use of voodoo. Voodoo ‘spells’
Kleitman thought that was it – experiment over; but he
are electromagnetic information projections into the
had a big surprise.
energy field of the target. The focus of the practitioners
and the symbols they use generate the field at a particu-
lar frequency and make an electromagnetic connection
with the target.
Psychic assassins often use a picture to ‘tune in’ to
the target’s frequency – that is, electromagnetically
invade their energy field – and then focus on stopping
the electrical activity of the heart or distort the energy
field in other ways that lead to fatal illness.
Lovely people.
Today, however, it is more likely to be done techno-
logically. Many of these covert killers come under the
collective title of ‘directed-energy weapons’ and their
assassination role involves triggering heart attacks,
strokes, cancer and so on.
The technology has been covertly developed in the

NEW DAWN 47
About an hour after the subject went to sleep and professionally again. Talk me through that little lot.
the eye rolling ended, suddenly their eyes began to I still have no idea what happened in those sleeping
move very rapidly. Subsequent experiments pointed to hours, but it redirected my life in a fundamental way
this happening about every 90 minutes during sleep that led eventually to what I am doing now.
and this coincided with changes in brainwave activity It could be extremely relevant to this apparently in-
as the long, slow wavelengths of ‘normal’ sleep were explicable experience that the reticular formation in the
replaced by fast frequency patterns which were close to reptilian brain sends signals to the muscles involved in
what happens in an awakened state. breathing and swallowing; it is a vehicle through which
Electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings of neural ac- pain signals from the lower body reach the cerebral
tivity confirm that the brain is very active during REM cortex, the ‘grey matter’ in the mammalian brain; and
sleep and yet this is the period when people are most it has a central effect on states of consciousness includ-
difficult to wake. Thus, it is also known as ‘paradoxical ing sleep. Severe damage to the reticular formation can
sleep’. induce a coma.
Our Multidimensional Reality

Like I say, we know so little about what happens in
Cortex
the deeper levels of sleep and in non-conscious and sub-
conscious states in general. Yet I contend that these are
Thalamus the realms of awareness that drive ‘conscious’ human
perception and behaviour.
These non-conscious and subconscious levels are also
where humans are ‘accessed’ by the multidimensional
Control System and we should remember that these
levels are actually conscious – everything is. They are
just not conscious to what we call the conscious mind,
the one that we are aware of during awakened states.
I am sure that the dream state is key to this ‘access’.
Brainstem Subjects were found to be far more likely to be having
Reticular Formation
a vivid dream when awakened during a period of REM
sleep than they were during other stages of sleep.
Experiments also established that people would
experience the effects of sleep deprivation far more the
The body does not respond with movement dur-
next day if they were awakened during REM sleep than
ing this brain activity because signals from part of the
at other times during the night.
brain stem basically paralyse the muscles. This region of
the brain stem is known as the ‘reticular formation’ and
it triggers signals which ‘make the system conscious’.
Interestingly, the reticular formation is part of the
reptilian brain. The reptilian brain, as I’ve explained
in some of my books, is used to ‘hack’ into humanity’s
perception of reality. It is a key part of the Reptilian-
human control programme.
Reading about how the reticular formation paralyses
muscles during REM sleep reminded me of a strange ex-
perience I had when I was a twenty-one-year-old profes-
sional footballer in the 1970s.
I had been playing football with rheumatoid arthritis
and I was asleep at home in the summer break. I awoke
to realise that I couldn’t breathe and my whole body was
paralysed – nothing would move including my lungs.
REM sleep has been found to occur in animals, too.
My then wife Linda was laying beside me and I tried
What, then, are they dreaming about? Does the kind of
and failed to move my hand to wake her up. I thought
dream experienced by a dog involve burying a bone or
I was going to die, but then at last I gasped a breath.
something similar? Or do animals experience deeper
As I did so, I realised that every joint in my lower body
levels of reality, just as humans do? For sure, I would
was agony – like someone was pushing a knife through
say.
them. For days I could barely even limp.
So many questions remain unanswered and we
I went to sleep a footballer and awoke never to play
are only going to break through these barriers to the
48 NEW DAWN ■
knowledge that they ‘firewall’ when we research from As someone brilliantly observed... to say the Universe
the understanding that the ‘conscious mind’ or ‘awake was created by accident is to say that a hurricane blew
mind’ is only one level of the multidimensional self. through a scrap yard and assembled a 747. The same is
We operate across multiple levels of reality and we true of the body or, as I call it, the ‘body-computer’.
are conscious in all of them. Do we dream in sleep or The human form has been created by design and
do we dream when we are awake? I would say both. It is later had its perceptions suppressed by a force in the
just that this dream is more vivid and ‘real’ to us at the shadows which, at least on one level, has scaly skin.
level of the perception experience known as the con- This allows for the manipulation of our sense of
scious mind. reality, in both conscious and sleeping states, while we
So am I dreaming a bird in the sky, or is the bird are imprisoned in what I call ‘body-mind’ – basically the
dreaming me? Do these metallic butterflies and moths five sense level of awareness and just beyond.
exist in the frequency range of my conscious mind, or To break this suppression and covert control of our
are they something that I decode in another dimension perception of self and reality we need to open the body-
of reality which bleed through in my sleep state decod- mind to connect with levels of consciousness outside of
ing process into this reality for a few seconds before the box that people are systematically herded into from
they dissolve as my conscious mind kicks in and locks cradle to grave.
fully into ‘awake’ reality? This means putting aside all preconceived ideas and
I have often experienced a loud ‘bang’ at the end of rigid beliefs and starting with a blank sheet of paper
a dream and then another loud bang a second later as I – symbolic of all-possibility in an infinite reality. No
open my eyes in this reality. I have the feeling of cross- more no-go areas, no more self-censorship to fit a pre-
ing through something when this happens. programmed belief.
The human body-mind is a potential interface or It doesn’t mean that you believe everything; only
gateway between many dimensions of reality and can that everything is possible and is not dismissed by re-
bring through phenomena from one reality to another. flex action. As the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates is
It is also the case that electromagnetic projections from reported to have said: ‘Wisdom is knowing how little we
another reality into the realm of the conscious mind know’.
can do the same. Is it really crazy that I should see metallic moths
So much of what we term ‘paranormal activity’ and butterflies flying around my bedroom, or vibrating
involves effects on electrical equipment because of elec- spider fields?
tromagnetic interaction between the technology and The chair you are sitting on now cannot be solid,
another level of reality. I have experienced this myself. so why don’t you fall on the floor? Well, if you did you
When people expand their consciousness – open would fall through that as well, because the floor is no
their conscious minds to a greater awareness – do the more solid than the chair or the walls. Or rather you
distinctions between conscious reality and non-con- wouldn’t fall, because ‘falling’, as in movement, is also
scious reality start to blur? Yes, I think so. an illusion.
Actually, I know so, because I have experienced that, Given that, what is ‘crazy’ anymore? Certainly not a
too, and this must be the case when ultimately every- metallic moth. The rabbit hole is so, so deep; but then,
thing is One. within all possibility, how could it be any other way?
The biggest error made by mainstream science in its
often lip service approach to understanding human real- Reprinted with permission from the David Icke Newsletter,
ity is the belief – in line with the largely nonsense ped- 25 December 2011. To subscribe, go to www.davidicke.com/
alled by Charles Darwin and the cabal behind him – that amember/signup.php. For a range of products by David Icke,
the human body somehow ‘evolved’ by random accident. including books & DVDs, go to www.davidickebooks.co.uk.
British author David Icke (pronounced ike) has written 16 books and travelled to
over 40 countries since 1990. His research exposes the Big Brother fascist dictator-
ship predicted by George Orwell in his book, 1984, and charts the history of the Il-
luminati with its connections to unseen forces in other dimensions of reality that some
call ‘extraterrestrials’. Icke refers to this as the ‘Reptilian Agenda’. His books reveal
how a Hidden Hand is behind world-changing events like the attacks of 9/11 and the
manufactured wars in the Middle East, as part of a mass mind manipulation technique
he has dubbed problem, reaction, solution. David Icke is recognised as the leader in
his field and is an inspiration to a new generation of conspiracy theory researchers
around the world. His latest book is Remember Who You Are: Remember 'Where' You
Are and Where You 'Come' From. His website is www.davidicke.com.

NEW DAWN 49
© argus - shutterstock.com
50 NEW DAWN ■
Why Christians Shun
the Supernatural
Alex Tsakiris Speaks to
Dr. Michael Heiser
A
in what nowadays we would loosely term “spiritual”
biblical scholar and author, Dr. Michael things. It was actually through a neighbour that I was
Heiser holds a Masters and PhD in Hebrew directed providentially toward my faith, and it didn’t
Bible and Semitic Languages from the conflict in any way with, again, my interest in the old
University of Wisconsin and a Masters in Ancient and the weird. It’s like, man, the Bible is full of old and
weird stuff. So I just became fascinated with it.
History from the University of Pennsylvania. Not
By the time I got out of high school I knew I was
afraid to enter territory that most academics avoid, going to pursue some sort of academic track. I wound
he regularly appears on radio programs like Coast to up taking courses both in biblical studies and history,
Coast AM to discuss such controversial topics as the and eventually at some point you’ve got to focus on
“ancient alien” theory and the Roswell UFO incident. something. So to me the most attractive was Old Testa-
ment and ancient Near East – again, probably because
His popular paranormal thriller The Facade blends
that was the oldest and the weirdest. I figured, hey, if
UFO conspiracies and Christian theology. I go into that I’ll get into all sorts of other things like
To what extent, if at all, is Christianity able to Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. And of course I did,
accommodate the paranormal? Are the two miles because that’s just standard fare for the field.
apart or closer together than we think? Heiser, who There’s a significant overlap here between the whole
is himself a Christian, sheds some much needed light paranormal thing, because people who are into the
paranormal are really just asking the same sorts of
on these issues in the following interview with Alex questions that your basic religions are. Why am I here?
Tsakiris, host of the website Skeptiko. How did I get here? Is there anybody else out there? Is
there a God? Is there a spiritual world that’s populated
with intelligences? And that just really dovetails with
Alex Tsakiris (AT): Please tell us a bit about your- the whole issue of consciousness.
self and your history in terms of how you got interested So all these things, to me, are sort of concentric
in the field that you’re in, particularly in ancient lan- circles. They’re a natural set of concentric circles that I
guages, and also how that kind of morphed into pull- don’t see any conflict with. But on the religious side I do
ing you into a lot of these other discussions about the run into people who are very religious, either tradition-
paranormal. al Jewish or conservative Christian, who get a little bit
disturbed about the whole paranormal thing, because
Dr. MiCHAEL Heiser (MH): Well, my field is Hebrew from my perspective they’re looking at the Bible much
and Semitic languages. I can remember way back in jun- too narrowly, as though it’s some sort of exhaustive
ior high sitting in an ancient history class thinking to grocery list of things that are real. So if I can’t find it on a
myself, “This is what I want to do.” Because I was always page of the Bible it must not be real.
interested in anything weird and old, and ancient his- Well, the Bible never claims to be that; it’s by nature
tory was sort of right in that. very selective. It’s a Mediterranean-centred document.
I didn’t have a particularly religious background What’s in there is pertinent to a goal that both the Di-
or orientation. My mum tells me I was baptised as an vine and the human author had to having people think
infant. But we didn’t really have any sort of church bent. about a certain set of things.
When I became a teenager I started getting interested

NEW DAWN 51
dismissed. There are a lot of people who basically go
through life thinking, “Unless my pastor or my priest
brought it up it’s either not true or it can’t be reported.”
So we just tend to think poorly in those regards.
I’ve had preachers and pastors tell me personally or
by email that “I was doing this funeral or I was at a fu-
neral and I saw, or somebody I have known and trusted
all my life saw, the deceased person standing there for a
moment. Then I looked back and he wasn’t there.” Well,
you start saying things like that and right away our
propensity is: “Well, maybe you were overcome by grief.
Maybe you didn’t take your meds that day.”
We tend to think like moderns in that we are very
hesitant to accept anything that’s outside the material
reality that we don’t question. We tend to just reject
anything that’s outside that material reality unless it’s
the only remaining possibility. We go through all these
other layers of inquiry. That’s not necessarily bad but it
seems to be gravitating there immediately as opposed
to sort of ranking it among three or four given coherent
possibilities upfront.
Dr. Michael Heiser
AT: Okay, I’m right there with you, Mike. But what do
we do with the deathbed visions, the near-death experi-
ences, and the ghostly encounters? How do we approach
these sorts of experiences? And what possible role
AT: The following is a quote of yours, from a presenta- would the Bible play in our understanding of that if, as
tion you gave a few years ago, that I really like: you explained, many Christians take it too literally by
“The Bible’s description of the other-worldly conflict saying, “Hey, if I can’t find this particular passage that
raging all around us has been lost to view because of a would direct me how to interpret this experience, then
veil of familiarity we’ve draped around it. Most Chris- I have to just file it away under this category or that
tians have not dumped their belief in miracles or the category.”
spiritual world and yet something inside us as moderns
compels us not to believe in an invisible, animate world MH: Well, I tend to think that these sorts of things
or universe. We aren’t as open to the supernatural as we are not either/or. I think there are a number of things
think we are. Many Christians are supernaturalists who that ought to be given equal weight. I do believe in the
think like sceptics.” supernatural. I don’t really like that term, but basically
What did you mean by the last part, “We” – as in what I mean by it is a non-human world.
Christians – “aren’t as open to the supernatural as we I’m willing to consider the possibility that seeing a
think we are”? person’s ghost at their funeral or whatever represents a
point of intersection between our world and that other
MH: Well, it goes back to this whole mentality of I need reality plane. For me that is one of the most likely possi-
a black and white chapter and verse with painfully explicit bilities to consider as opposed to being the last resort or
detail in the Bible to describe a certain issue – like ghosts, just not even getting on the table at all because I don’t
for example – in order for me to believe it. And so there’s find it in a creed or my minister never talked about it.
this notion that unless I can just blindly pull it out of So I think we ought to be open.
the Bible it isn’t real. This is an odd way to approach not Biblically we are driven – we ought to be driven – to
only the Bible but a lot of other things. be open to that extent because you do have episodes
When I talk about being sceptical, it’s like every in both Testaments that give you a little glimpse that
Christian intuitively knows there are certain ideas with- this was part of the biblical writer’s world view. Not
out which they pretty much don’t have Christianity. So just a generic ancient worldview but the biblical writer’s
they’re perfectly willing to accept things like a virgin worldview.
birth or a Trinity, things that require by definition the I think the classic example in the Old Testament is
sort of supernatural eyes or the interjection of a super- when Saul visits the medium at Endor and tells her he
natural hand into the world. wants to talk to Samuel, so he asks her to bring Samuel
Those things get spelled out to a certain extent and up. The narrative tells us that Samuel shows up. Samu-
they’re indispensable. But things that aren’t tend to get el’s called an elohim, which is a generic term in Hebrew
52 NEW DAWN ■
for “a resident of the non-human world.” I call it “a place to bless you or direct you in some way, the message will
of residence” term. be consistent. It won’t be contradictory and confusing
He’s there and it’s him because he knows things to you.”
that only Samuel said elsewhere in the Old Testament.
He knows what God’s up to with the House of Eli and AT: This is the tricky part because I’m with you as far
the House of Saul and all this kind of stuff. So it’s him. as the historical launching point on a text that’s highly
There’s an indication that this kind of intersection can revered and very carefully studied being a grounding
happen. I would say, “Look, it’s up to God. If God is re- for our supernatural origins. I’m just not quite sure I
ally in control, it’s up to Him to allow this communica- can make the connection as a modern who’s trying to
tive event to occur. If He allowed it in this scene right figure out these questions to the last part of it, which is
here, it’s completely possible that God could allow it to now I have to bring it into the present day but my point
have happened to you at grandma’s funeral. You want to of reference has to still be this old book. I mean, is the
at least consider that a possibility.” I think at the very Bible special? What about other religious texts?
least we need to have this as an open category.
I think we actually get into more issues, at least MH: In one sense that question doesn’t matter and in
for Christians, when it gets to the point of messag- another sense it does. It does matter in terms of mes-
ing – when an entity or some sort of experience comes saging because then you’re getting into the content of
with a message either verbally or mentally conveyed. I the message and then you can evaluate the content of
tell people, “Now look, this is not our turf. This is not that message in a number of ways. Then that takes you
the normal human experience. This is not the normal into the whole religious realm. Then you’re “doing theol-
human realm. So whatever this event or this episode, ogy.”
you need to measure that against what is revealed in the If we believe that as the Bible states – and I’m almost
Bible because if this is truly something that God is al- willing to say that every other sacred text supports this
lowing to happen in your life, maybe to comfort you or very basic idea – humanity lives in one realm and there’s
‘Saul and the Witch of Endor’, painting by William Sidney Mount, 1828

NEW DAWN 53
Supernatural
this other realm over here, then the question really
Feats of Jesus doesn’t matter because one book isn’t going to say “A”
and the other “B” in terms of the experience or the pos-
sibility of the validity of the experience.
Even something like your Buddhist texts aren’t go-
ing to assume that all such experiences are good. There
can be good and evil. You can be deceived. You can be
affirmed. There’s this sense of uncertainty about the
experience and especially when it comes to what the ex-
perience prompts a person to think or do. They all have
some sort of need to evaluate something in the experi-
ence.
But if you’re just talking about the experiences
themselves, I don’t think the question is the issue; but
when it comes to messaging, sure it would be. If I’m
talking to a Christian about this then they want to
process that experience according to their theology,
according to what they believe, their doctrine. So there
are ways to do that.
And I think that’s equally true with somebody else
in another religious camp. They’re not going to be very
open to the experience if they have an experience that
is utterly contrary to what they think. They’re going
And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and
to have some sort of need to process the experience in
preaching the Gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of some way that’s consistent with where they are at that
sickness and all manner of disease among the people. And his fame point, up to that moment.
went throughout all Syria: and they brought unto him all sick people
that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which
were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatic, and those AT: I think the most current, cutting edge conscious-
that had the palsy; - and he healed them. ness research would lean towards a more expansive
– Matthew iv, 23-24 worldview that should be in synch certainly with Chris-
tianity, with the Abrahamic traditions, with, as you
said, just about every wisdom tradition we can think of.
And I think that’s part of the reason why there’s such
a systematic, institutionalised resistance to anything
that steps on those toes. But the contradiction is that
there’s also this other kind of pushback, particularly
from Conservative Christians, when some of that
research which would get us a little bit closer to that
commonality, that big tent understanding of God, when
it does step on somebody’s toes.
MH: To me the resistance you describe is really counter-

productive and odd. Let’s take Evangelism as an um-
brella topic here. Many pastors or evangelists will say
things like, “Hey, you need to build common bridges
with people to be able to talk with them.”
And when he had sent them away, he departed into a mountain to
Well, no kidding. What better common bridge than
pray. And when, even was come, the ship was in the midst of the sea,
and he alone on the land. And he saw them toiling in rowing; for the if we were to both agree there’s some reality beyond the
wind was contrary unto them: and about the fourths watch of the one we’re experiencing with our senses. If we were sit-
night he cometh unto them, walking upon the sea, and would have ting at an Evangelism class in church and you said that
passed: by them. But when they saw him walking upon the sea, they
supposed it had been a spirit, and cried out: for they all saw him, and everybody would be nodding their heads and “Yeah,
were troubled. And immediately he talked with them, and said unto that’s great. That’s great.” But then when you give this
them, Be of good cheer: it is I; be not afraid. And he went up unto as an example, the reflex among many would be some-
them into the ship; and the wind ceased: and they were sore amazed
in themselves beyond measure, and wondered. For they considered thing like, “I don’t want to go there.” My question is why
not the miracle of the loaves; for their heart was hardened. don’t you want to go there?
– Mark vi, 46-52
Art by Gustave Dore AT: Mike, I’m with you. But I have to push this a little
54 NEW DAWN ■
bit further. What do we do when the research, the best is going to lump all the religions under the common
we can put together, conflicts with doctrine? Let me grace of God and the resurrection is due to what hap-
offer an example. pened at Easter. So no matter what faith you have in
We could make a hypothesis that Christians are this life, if you respond the way God wants you to, to
more likely to encounter the all-loving God in Heaven the truth that you had up to that point and the reason
or Christians only are supposed to. Or we could make you are resurrected, you have an afterlife, is Christ.
any number of hypotheses and they would all, if you’re Again in some supernatural way that’s why you’re there
familiar with the data, fall short. There doesn’t seem to and that’s why it feels good. There are all sorts of ways
be any of those limitations associated with any religious Christian theology can accommodate this.
belief whatsoever, or lack of religious belief, that cor-
relates with what we would all admit sounds like God, AT: Why not postulate the big tent? Why can’t God
sounds like Heaven. So what do we do with that? What perfectly reflect Christianity to those who are so in-
do we do with our assumptions not being met or tests clined and at the same time perfectly reflect Buddhism,
not being met? The big tent is still there but can we let Hinduism, Sufism, and every other religion? Why is this
go of some of the doctrine? such a difficult concept?
MH: To be really honest with you, I think we’d have to MH: For the Christian it’s a difficult concept because of
know more information because I don’t know how we very specific faith claims and faith assertions that focus
could get more, which is the depressing part. Let me put on the life and work of Jesus Christ.
it this way: it would be very easy if someone was theo- I think there are reasons to be in one tradition and
logically bent out of shape over this. It would be very not other ones. There are real theological points on
easy, let’s say, for Joe Christian Evangelist to hear that which they don’t agree. There are diametric oppositions.
question and say something like this. “A” can’t be “B” and “B” can’t be “A,” and so on. But the
Okay, we have a Buddhist over here who had this ultimate issue is we assume that these parsings we do
near-death experience of being in the presence of God. here on Earth in this life are the correct ones when
It’s all positive and loving, and so on. It would be very in God’s mind He might, dare I say, have a little more
easy for Joe Christian Evangelist to say something like, tolerance to making theological errors and is judging a
“Well, we don’t really know what that person’s spiritual person’s heart response to some key point of the faith.
state was because at some point in their childhood they In other words, you may not understand Christ; you
might have accepted Christ. They could have done this, may not accept Christ precisely the way the New Testa-
that, and the other thing. That’s why their experience ment would like you to, but you’re not rejecting Him,
works out that way.” either.
Now that’s sort of cheating as far as an answer; but
the reality is we don’t know. It’s part cheating but it’s The above has been edited for space and appears here
also part unintentional honesty that we don’t really with permission. For the full interview, go to www.skeptiko.
know why this person is having XYZ experience in com/169-michael-heiser-why-christians-are-skeptical-of-
terms of its details. supernatural. You can find out more about the work of Dr.
If I were a Catholic I would say, “Look, it doesn’t real- Michael Heiser through his website: www.michaelsheiser.com
ly matter what religion a person follows because anyone
who dies and gets to the presence of God in a positive
way gets there because of Christ.” A Catholic theologian
Alex Tsakiris, host of Skeptiko – Science at the Tipping Point, is a success-

ful entrepreneur turned science philanthropist and podcaster. In May of 2007
he founded OpenSourceScience.net, a non-profit project for funding controver-
sial science experiments. The effort has earned praise from a wide spectrum of
scientists including sceptic Dr. Michael Shermer, and noted parapsychology re-
searcher Dr. Dean Radin. He’s appeared on syndicated radio talk shows both in
the US and the UK. The name Skeptiko comes from the ancient Greek philoso-
phy of Skeptikos, and refers to the teachings and the traits of a school of philos-
ophers of whom it was said “asserted nothing but only opined.” You can access
hundreds of cutting edge Skeptiko interviews at the website www.skeptiko.com.

NEW DAWN 55
© innovari - Fotolia.com
56 NEW DAWN ■
Cthulhu Calling
The Psychic Nightmares
of H.P. Lovecraft
— By Micah Hanks — he largely credited with the expansion of his world

view later in life. It is believed that the prolific author
Non-Euclidean calculus and quantum physics are enough to had shared in close to 30,000 such correspondences
stretch any brain; and when one mixes them with folklore, with others around the world, ranking him, in terms of
and tries to trace a strange background of multi-dimensional prolificacy, second only to French Enlightenment phi-
reality behind the ghoulish hints of the Gothic tales and the losopher Voltaire. “I found myself opened up to dozens
wild whispers of the chimney-corner, one can hardly expect of points of view which would otherwise never have oc-
to be wholly free from mental tension. curred to me,” the author wrote of his correspondences.
– H.P. Lovecraft, The Dreams in the Witch House, 1932 “My understanding and sympathies were enlarged, and
H
many of my social, political, and economic views were
oward Phillips Lovecraft (1890-1937), modified as a consequence of increased knowledge.”1
widely accepted as one of the greatest Despite his meticulous habits when it came to ac-
gothic authors and epistolarians of the cumulating knowledge, Lovecraft’s visions of a cosmi-
20th century, is perhaps best known for cally dystopian state of humanity, in which the realms
his profound influence on the genre of the living were influenced by external
known as “weird fiction,” a form of intelligences and the underworkings of
darkly themed science fiction that ...Lovecraft their prescribed mystery cults, seemed to
heralded characters and deities strike a chord with many of his readers.
managed to
from places and realms of thought A pervasive element of ancient history
far beyond those innate to hu- disseminate an entire was blended within his tales of strange,
manity. In his short life Lovecraft mythos surrounding aqueous fish-people, “Rot from the
managed to disseminate an entire Stars,”2 and Elder Gods capable of tug-
mythos surrounding the influence the influence of ging the strings of individuals like some
of extraterrestrial and quasi-dimen- extraterrestrial and great puppeteer in the sky. Indeed, for
sional beings on our physical world. many who have read Lovecraft’s work
Intricately woven around characters quasi-dimensional over the years, the mythos he created,
within a fictional series of New beings on our physical which surrounded the characters in his
England locales, his brand of writ- sordid tales, may have seemed all too
world.
ing remains as profound as it ever real.
was dark. At times it also manages But why, precisely, is this the case? Has
to carry essences of the sublime and Lovecraft’s influence over the realms of
mysterious with its meanderings, as well as subversive, fiction, even posthumously, been so great that genera-
inculcating, and even insidious aspects with far greater tion upon generation of wild and fanciful minds have
influence than many are aware. barely staved off the urge to guess that, just perhaps,
An educated man for his day, Lovecraft was a vora- there could have been some element of truth to the
cious reader, with interests that spanned the realms of madness that comprised the volumes of his work? Had
science, technology, quantum physics, ancient history, the author actually tapped into clandestine bits of
politics, and the occult. Often, these influences made information about ancient humanity and the origins of
their way into his fiction; more often, perhaps, they modern civilisation, as well as modern mysteries of the
were filtered into his letters and correspondences, which natural world that still elude us?

NEW DAWN 57
themes in nonfiction – specifically those which dealt in
paleo-contact with extraterrestrials that gifted human-
ity with knowledge of the sciences – had been drawn
directly from his subtle, though highly pervasive, influ-
ence.
Despite the obvious impact he had on the mythol-
ogy comprising modern “ancient alien” theories and
alternative history, there may yet be things far more
curious about Lovecraft and his works, especially when
viewed carefully in hindsight. “My reason for writing
stories,” he said of his art, “is to give myself the satis-
faction of visualising more clearly and detailedly and
stably the vague, elusive fragmentary impressions of
wonder, beauty, and adventurous expectancy which are
conveyed to me by certain sights, ideas, occurrences,
and images encountered in art and literature.”5 And
yet, despite the plausible influences he presents here,
it is known that Lovecraft was often directly inspired
by vivid, nightmarish dreams he had throughout his
lifetime, commenting: “Once or twice I have literally
written out a dream.”6 This was later reflected themati-
cally in such tales as his 1932 short story The Dreams in
the Witch House.
Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890-1937)
The protagonist in the story, Walter Gilman, is a
student of mathematics and folklore at Lovecraft’s fic-
tional Miskatonic University, who has taken a room in
an accursed house, composed of an odd and unearthly
geometry. Gilman begins having disturbing nightmares
With little question, the idea of there being alien in which he visits realms populated by beings known
beings that visited the Earth in ancient times – a theory throughout Lovecraft’s work as the “Elder Things.”
proliferated over the last several decades by the likes of Though relegated at first to being mere dreams, even-
Erich von Däniken – was a prevalent theme in Love- tually Gilman begins to succumb to the belief that his
craft’s fiction. The author was, of course, fully aware of nightly sojourns had actually been taking place in the
the effect this mythos had on his readers, noting that, real world as well.
“the events of an interplanetary story are best laid in The events in this story are significant, especially to
the present, or represented as having occurred secretly or any esoteric study of Lovecraft and his work, primarily
prehistorically in the past”3 (emphasis added). This was for because they may reveal aspects underlying his real-life
no purpose greater, perhaps, than helping ensure sus- thought processes, though perhaps of a variety which
pension of disbelief; though, remarkably, it was almost the author himself may not have been entirely aware.
as though Lovecraft had managed to sense that the To put it succinctly, the occasional inspiration Love-
issuance of a sort of fictional prototype for what, ulti- craft was known to have drawn from his nightmares
mately, would become the heralded “ancient astronaut” may have contained elements that were far more real
theory would best serve such purposes. Paired with this, than he ever imagined; just as poor Gilman had come
Lovecraft’s own feelings toward futuristic science fiction to sense about his maddening dreamscapes, there are
were that the perils of believably detailing future events a number of circumstances where Lovecraft’s fiction
and far-off realms were sure traps for the careless author. seemed to reflect happenings in the real world… and
“The future is a ticklish period to deal with,” he wrote, with almost frightening detail.
“since it is virtually impossible to escape grotesqueness
and absurdity in depicting its mode of life, while there is
From Beyond: The Psychedelic Pineal
always an immense emotional loss in representing char- Gland & Ultraterrestrials
acters as familiar with the marvels depicted.”4 Many of Lovecraft’s stories tend to relate curiously
And thus, Lovecraft went about depicting his own specific circumstances which, in retrospect, seem to
marvels, and to an esurient readership that was in every bear aspects about nature and the sciences that were
way both emotionally and intellectually embracing of perhaps largely unknown at the time of authorship. One
the fantasies being portrayed. Some would argue that classic example, in this instance having to do with the
Lovecraft managed to convey his imaginary micro- inner workings of the human body, appears in his short
cosm so well that the later appearance of certain occult story From Beyond.
58 NEW DAWN ■
A few of the published titles by H.P. Lovecraft.
In it, the story of Crawford Tillinghast unfolds, a more, that a device capable of producing strong electri-
madman who has invented an electronic device that uti- cal fields could enact, through resonance, the ability to
lises resonance to stimulate the pineal gland of people perceive non-terrestrial dimensional states – and all as
nearby. The narrator in the story, as is often the case a result of activating latent abilities within the pineal
in Lovecraftian fiction, plays the role of a near-helpless gland itself – is almost beyond coincidence.
onlooker – a disconcerted associate of Tillinghast – who The reason for significance behind this startling con-
begins to perceive an alien environment, populated by nection involves a mysterious psychedelic compound
strange and frightening creatures, overlapping with our known as dimethyltryptamine or, more commonly,
visible world. Tillinghast warns that in the same way DMT. DMT had been synthesised in laboratories by as
his device allows humans to perceive the denizens of early as 1931, by chemist Richard Helmuth Frederick
this alternate dimension, so are the Manske, predating Lovecraft’s author-
creatures rendered capable of seeing ship of From Beyond by at least three
humans just as easily. The story ends It is curious years.7 It was not known at the time,
just as one of these foul monsters be- however, that DMT could be found in a
gins to loom over the narrator’s shoul- indeed that variety of different kinds of living or-
der, at which point he reaches for a Lovecraft would ganisms. From this taxonomical com-
revolver and fires, destroying both the posite, of course, human beings aren’t
machine and, as though by some act of
seek to include to be excluded. The question, however,
cosmic retribution, the vile Crawford such a clandestine has long had to do with where in the
Tillinghast as well. element of the human body DMT originates.
In the moments before his demise, In the mid-1990s, researcher Dr.
Tillinghast reveals the function of the endocrine system as Rick Strassman hypothesised that
machine and its relation to that most an anomalous key to DMT’s home in the human body may
curious of all bodily areas known as very well be the pineal gland, which
the pineal gland: other worlds. is already known to produce chemi-
cal cousins to DMT such as serotonin
You have heard of the pineal gland?
and, more importantly, melatonin, the
I laugh at the shallow endocrinolo-
latter of which governs aspects of both sleep cycles and
gist, fellow-dupe and fellow-parvenu of the Freud-
some sexual activity in humans. 8 Strassman initially
ian. That gland is the great sense organ of organs
considered whether certain mystical experiences, as
– I have found out. It is like sight in the end, and
well as near-death experiences and euphoric visions
transmits visual pictures to the brain. If you are
that are often described by individuals just prior to
normal, that is the way you ought to get most of
death, could have some pharmacological basis in the
it... I mean get most of the evidence from beyond.
body’s production of melatonin. Tests showed, however,
It is curious indeed that Lovecraft would seek to that melatonin administered even in large, controlled
include such a clandestine element of the endocrine amounts seemed incapable of the kinds of hallucina-
system as an anomalous key to other worlds. Further- tions reported by many practitioners of mystic arts

NEW DAWN 59
such as meditation. DMT, on the other hand, proved might still be triggered endogenously – that is, from
quite useful as an instigator of visionary hallucinations, within. One possibility suggested by Strassman is
many of which were described as profound or revelatory some sort of external stimuli, and one capable of caus-
in nature by participants in Strassman’s own DEA- ing abnormal fluctuations in the known and accepted
approved studies with the substance. metabolic processes occurring within the body. During
But perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the DMT an interview with Strassman in 2010, he surmised that
experience has to do with the ways that many who have strong EM fields produced by high-output electrical
used it describe the hallucinatory state as being far equipment might exist among the instigators for an
more real, at times, than the sorts of experiences other endogenous release of DMT within the body:
drugs can elicit. In fact, a number of those who partici-
The spontaneous DMT release ideas, and the pine-
pated in Strassman’s studies likened their DMT expe-
al-DMT ideas, are only theoretical. We do not have
data concerning either issue. We do know DMT is
made in the body – lungs, brain, red blood cells;
but we don’t know its dynamics (that is, when it
goes up and down, and under what circumstances),
and we don’t know if it’s made in the pineal…
There are some electromagnetic field data stud-
ies on the pineal, but I am out of the loop when it
comes to current pineal research, having left the
field in the late-1980s when I began pursuing the
DMT research. At that time anyway, it seems as if
the data were suggesting the EMFs reduce pineal
melatonin production. This being the case, it’s
possible to speculate that other pineal metabolic
pathways that are latent become more active, and
the hypothetical formation of DMT by the pineal
could be one of these latent pathways.10
All things considered, it is strange indeed – if not
uncanny – that in his story From Beyond Lovecraft would
cast the pineal gland as his corporeal doorway to per-
ceiving other dimensional states.
Furthest From Land & Down:

Dead Cthulhu Waits Dreaming
As we have examined to some extent already, Love-
craft was, without contest, renowned for his creative use
of ancient lore spun amidst his tales of Elder Things and
Rot from the Stars. We find such names as “Dagon” used
Under the influence of ingested DMT, individuals liken their in conjunction with gruesome man-fish hybrids that
experiences to “entering an environment” which seems populated appear in such stories as The Shadow Over Innsmouth. The
by strange, sentient beings. The above is a drawing of one historical Dagon, of course, was originally a fertility god
such being encountered on a DMT trip.
in the Assyro-babylonian traditions of the early Amor-
ites, and one that resembled a scaly man-fish, no less. But
riences to “entering an environment,” and one which despite the clever insidiousness that prevailed in Love-
seemed to be populated by strange, sentient beings craft’s blending of things both old and imagined, few
that, while differing greatly from humans, seemed to would argue that his own creations were the most memo-
possess a sort of sapient quality from which the partici- rable. Among these, no semi-aquatic and slimy monstros-
pants would often learn or be helped to grow spiritu- ity could rise in the minds of the Lovecraft adherent
ally. Among the descriptions of these beings, common greater than that offensive octopoid whose eternal sleep
varieties included stick figures, clowns, humanoids succeeds in killing even death itself: the mighty Cthulhu.
composed of light energy, and even grotesque-looking The Call of Cthulhu is perhaps the best known of
reptilian beings. 9 Lovecraft’s major works, despite the fact that its deriva-
While a variety of literature espouses the effects of tives have yet to include decent treatment in a well-
DMT on the mind, we are left to question the specific budgeted film adaptation. It might be argued that the
manner in which DMT, in the event that one does not sheer and terrific allure of the Cthulhu character alone
introduce it into the body for recreational purposes, has succeeded in forever etching his name among the
60 NEW DAWN ■
Cthulhu is a fictional cosmic entity who first appeared in H.P. Lovecraft’s short story The Call of Cthulhu. Lovecraft describes Cthulhu as,
“A monster of vaguely anthropoid outline, but with an octopus-like head whose face was a mass of feelers, a scaly,
rubbery-looking body, prodigious claws on hind and fore feet, and long, narrow wings behind.”
ranks of frightening monsters and demigods of the The best known, and arguably the most enigmatic
written page. And yet, often it has been said that truth among these noises to date, was dubbed “Bloop” in
is the only mystery that could seek to rival the impos- somewhat onomatopoeic fashion, resembling the sound
sibilities that fiction presents. Indeed, the parallels be- of an air bubble as it passes through liquid on its way
tween various real happenings throughout the last few to meet the surface. While the noise is accessible as an
decades, when compared alongside Lovecraft’s famous audio file at the NOAA website, it is underwhelming at
tale of mystery cults and the awakening of an ancient best, especially when afforded only a cursory review.
horror, are no less mind-numbing in their coincidence. And yet, this curious and bubbly little “Bloop” managed
In 1997, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric to baffle NOAA researchers once further examination
Administration (NOAA) utilised a series of Cold War era ensued.
hydrophones, moored along the bottom of the Pacific The sound, as described on the NOAA website, “rises
Ocean at a depth known as the “deep sound channel,” rapidly in frequency over about one minute and was of
for purposes of monitoring various acoustic phenom- sufficient amplitude to be heard on multiple sensors,
ena. Throughout the summer of that year, a variety of at a range of over 5,000 km.” Though it is difficult to
different odd noises were recorded. Some were believed ascertain much about its origins from such informa-
to have emanated from tectonic activity below the tion, there are a few interesting tidbits that have been
Earth, while others were the likely by-product of activ- discerned. For instance, so far as the physical location
ity that was human in origin (boat motors, etc.) There of the sound itself, Bloop seems to have originated from
were, however, a few instances where far more unusual an area near what is called the Oceanic Pole of Inacces-
sounds were recorded, some of which remain of unde- sibility. This denotes the point furthest from any single
termined origin. land mass amidst the entirety of Earth’s oceans. It is

NEW DAWN 61
also an area quite familiar to Lovecraft’s readership, internal knowledge? Are they merely coincidence?
for this was the location the author cast for none other Had the macabre master’s dreams and visions actually
than R’lyeh, the submerged tomb of great Cthulhu. Of been inspired by real happenings which, nonetheless,
this curious parallel, blogger Sean Ragan notes: involved scientific mysteries that remained largely
unknown for several more decades? Or was it merely a
The approximate origin of the sound has been
case where his consumption of scientific literature had
identified as 50 S x 100 W, which is almost exactly
fitted his thoughts with the rudiments of scenarios that
the same latitude as Lovecraft’s fictitious sunken
were more plausible than even he may have realised?
city of R’lyeh, at 48 S x 123 W, although it is 1,000
Whatever the case, we can be certain that humankind
miles distant in terms of longitude.11
would find itself in great peril indeed should there ever
Bloop’s point of origin isn’t the only oddity present prove to be a definite trend in the culmination of such
within this strange set of circumstances, for there are Lovecraftian madness in the physical world. Let’s hope,
the equally perplexing estimates regarding the actual for now, that the apparent posthumous psychic streak
source of the sound. Coinciding with the release of the of Howard Phillips Lovecraft has ended.
information about Bloop by the NOAA in 2002, Dr.
Christopher Fox, one of the scientists who worked on
the project that captured the sound, noted famously
that, “While it bears the varying frequency hallmark of Footnotes
marine animals, it is far more powerful than the calls 1. S.T. Joshi and David E. Schultz, An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia,
made by any creature known on Earth.”12 The final icing Greenwood Publishing Group, 2001.
on the cake was added by Boston University marine bi- 2. The term used here is borrowed from one translation of the
ologist Dr. Phil Lobel, who concluded that the sound “is medieval Welch expression pwdre sêr, which pertains to anoma-
most likely to be biological in origin.”13 Thus, the grand lous jellies believed to have travelled to Earth within shooting
stars, and later found in grassy fields in the summer months.
and unsettling myth of some enormous and secretive
Despite its intentional misuse here, the term nonetheless seems
beast – and one that existed amidst the sunken abode appropriate in describing some of Lovecraft’s more endearing
of Lovecraft’s own fictional creation – had been born. extraterrestrial monstrosities.
Bloop now had its name forcibly etched along a host of 3. H.P. Lovecraft, Marginalia, “Some Notes on Interplanetary Fic-
curiosities that persist throughout a variety of subcul- tion,” Arkham House, 1941, 143.
tures, which include cryptozoology and the search for 4. Ibid.
unknown animal species, as well as the occult sciences, 5. H.P. Lovecraft, Marginalia, “Notes on the Writing of Weird Fic-
conspiracy circles – and, yes, even certain aspects of the tion,” Arkham House, 1941, 135.
ongoing UFO mystery. 6. H.P. Lovecraft, Marginalia, “Notes on the Writing of Weird Fic-
Granted, the true nature of this particular beast, tion,” Arkham House, 1941, 136.
while remaining unexplained, may or may not literally 7. R.H.F. Manske, “A Synthesis of the Methyltryptamines and
have to do with a gigantic octopoid drifting around in Some Derivatives,” Canadian Journal of Research, 1931.
the darkest depths of the Pacific Ocean. What cannot 8. Rick Strassman, DMT: The Spirit Molecule, Park Street Press, 2000.
be denied, however, are the incredible parallels between 9. Ibid.
the Bloop incident and Lovecraft’s own dark and dismal 10. Micah Hanks, Magic, Mysticism and the Molecule, CreateSpace,
tale of an Elder God who, upon being awakened from 2010.
his eternal slumber, escaped into “black seas of infin- 11. Sean Ragan, “The Bloop of Cthulhu?” Accessed 18 May 2012.
ity,” and is now waiting for an opportunity to unleash http://blog.makezine.com/2009/11/16/the-bloop-of-cthulhu/
his immortal terror on humankind. 12. “Tuning in to a deep sea monster,” CNN.com, 13 June 2002.
And here, as we near our present study’s denoue- Accessed 18 May 2012. http://archives.cnn.com/2002/TECH/
ment, what are we to make of these curious instances science/06/13/bloop/
within Lovecraft’s fiction where the meanderings of 13. Ibid.
his mind seemed capable of surpassing even its own
Micah Hanks is a full-time journalist, radio personality, author and in-

vestigator of the unexplained. He has been a guest on many televi-
sion and radio programs, including History Channel’s Guts and Bolts,
Travel Channel’s Weird Travels, CNN Radio, and The Jeff Rense Pro-
gram. He is also a staff writer for UFO Magazine, Mysterious Uni-
verse, and regular contributor to Intrepid Magazine and several other
publications. His first book Magic, Mysticism and the Molecule: The Search
for Sentient Intelligence from Other Worlds is available from www.amazon.
com. For more information, you can visit his website The Gralien Report
(www.gralienreport.com).
62 NEW DAWN ■
Ritual Magic in
Theory & Practice
— B y R i c h a r d Sm o l e y — passed the pouch around, each of us taking a lit-
S
tle bit of tobacco in our hands. RT then led us in
everal years ago I decided to do an evening-long a prayer, starting out with Father Sun, Mother
introduction to ritual magic at the New York Earth, Grandmother Moon, and All Our Relations.
Open Center, one of the city’s best-known gath- He would include “the East where the Sun rises, to
ering places for mind, body, and spirit activities. the South where the heat comes from, to the North
Soon before it was about to start I told myself, with where the cold comes from, and to the West where
some surprise, “My God! I’m about to do ritual magic the sun sets.” RT would vary the order and the
with a bunch of people who have walked in off the wording from time to time, just to maintain our
streets of New York!” attention.1
Despite my apprehensions, the
This is somewhat simpler than a
evening went off well. Power was
lengthy invocation and visualisation
raised, channelled in a certain direc-
tion, and then the ritual was closed.
In ritual magic, of archangels. The version I used in the
ritual in New York was simpler still; at
The only negative result was a com- it is essential to the outset I simply asked the partici-
ment I got back on a feedback sheet
create a sacred pants to visualise a pillar of light in
from a participant, who said she was
shocked that I did not begin the ritual space to work in. But each corner of the room.
This anecdote illustrates two basic
by invoking the holy archangels of it is not essential to concepts of ritual magic: (1) it is
the four directions (usually given as
Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel). do this by invoking important to create a sacred space in
which to work; and (2) there are many
The person who complained was the four archangels methods for accomplishing the same
both right and wrong. In ritual magic,
it is essential to create a sacred space
specifically. purpose. While many people associate
the word “ritual” with something rigid
to work in. But it is not essential to do
and formalised, ritual magic, practiced
this by invoking the four archangels
at its best, is neither. Rather it’s a flex-
specifically. In fact there are many
ible system, with enough structure to give form to one’s
ways to do it. Invoking the archangels is part of the
intention, and with enough pliability to give the practi-
Western tradition of high magic, particularly as handed
tioner a great deal of leeway in actual practice.
down by the extremely influential Victorian occult soci-
In my brief description of the New York ritual, I
ety known as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.
mentioned another important part about ritual magic
Here is another, quite different way to create a sacred
– raising power. No one knows what power is (used in
space, from the Native American medicine man Rolling
this sense), and at the same time everyone knows what
Thunder (known as “RT” to his friends), as described by
it is. We cannot say whether it is a form of electromag-
one of his students:
netic energy, the life force known as chi, or something
We started a fire in the fire pit and formed a circle quite different from either of these. But all of us have
around it, warming ourselves in the chilly weather. experienced its effects, and, moreover, all of us have
RT pulled out a pouch of Five Brothers Tobacco, raised it ourselves, usually without knowing what we
pure tobacco with no artificial ingredients. He are doing.

NEW DAWN 63
© gebphotography - Fotolia.com
Remember the last time you entered a room in which feature we have seen in ritual magic – the creation of
an argument was about to break out. Although probably a sacred space of some kind. It can be done, as we have
nothing was different about the air or the lighting or seen, by marking out the four directions; traditional
any of the physical aspects of the room, you undoubt- magicians have also done it by drawing a geometric
edly noticed a feeling of tension and perhaps danger figure, such as a circle or a pentagram, with the point of
in the atmosphere. This tension becomes even more a wand or a sword in the space around them. The actual
palpable if the room is silent, and the pressure that you shape does not matter as much as building an invisible
feel to dispel it becomes extremely intense. One way of sanctuary where certain forces are kept in and stray
dispelling it is to express it somehow, and if the tension influences are kept out.
is not too strong, it can be broken when someone simply I’ve said that the magician raises power for specific
speaks. At other times, it erupts in an argument or even intention, and in this context it’s important to note
a physical fight. that power in this sense, like the Force in the Star Wars
Another example is the classic situation of the teen- films, is morally neutral. It can be used for good or evil
age dance. At the outset the boys are ranged at one of or for that matter mixed ends. Using it for good purpos-
the hall, the girls at the other. Everybody is too shy to es – such as healing or blessing or cleansing – is known
begin dancing, and again an extreme amount of tension as white magic. Using it for harmful purposes, such
accumulates in the room. Finally one courageous couple as cursing or coercion, is black magic. These terms are
breaks the tension and begins to dance. The energy well-known; a less familiar one is grey magic, which is
starts to flow. It is expressed through dancing (and done for mixed motives. In all likelihood few magicians
perhaps later on, sexually). probably practice grey magic intentionally, although
Most of the time this raising of power is completely most have probably done so without entirely realising it.
unintentional and undesired. Its presence causes a great I personally would characterise doing a magical ritual to
deal of discomfort, and depending upon an individual’s find a lover as grey magic; doing a ritual to make a spe-
personality type, he may try to get rid of it by giving in, cific person fall in love with you would be closer to black
arguing, or simply leaving. The magician, by contrast, magic, since it intentionally interferes with the free will
wants to raise this power. But he (or she) chooses to do of another person.
it only in certain circumstances and for specific results. All these reflections lead to some questions: Does
The raising of power partially explains another ritual magic work? If so, how? And since practicing
64 NEW DAWN ■
magic for selfish ends is at best morally ambiguous, why these images as neurochemical events; we experience
do it at all? them subjectively as images and forms. In this latter
form, they can be said to be made up of astral light.
The Astral Light A more topical analogy comes from the world of
To look at how magic works, it’s helpful to under- computers. Hardware, software, and networks together
stand a concept that has fallen into disuse in recent form cyberspace, a dimension that, while in no way
years but still occupies a central place in Western magic: separate from the workings of computers, seems to obey
the astral light. Esoteric texts from the Renaissance and its own laws and possess its own reality. This resem-
early modern era often refer to it as the anima mundi, or blance between the apparently outmoded world of the
“the soul of the world.” occult and the sophisti-
“God is light,” the cated ideas of cutting-edge
Bible tells us (1 John 1:5). science has not gone un-
Esotericism regards this noticed: Silicon Valley is a
image as a specific and hotbed of interest in the
accurate picture of reality. esoteric, and computer afi-
This light pervades the cionados sometimes speak
universe; there is nowhere of cyberspace as a kind of
and nothing it is not, but bardo – a term used in The
it is modified, its purity Tibetan Book of the Dead to
and intensity are filtered designate the astral plane.
and diluted, as it proceeds The fine matter of the
through various levels of astral light is also believed
manifestation. Esoteric to form the subtle or
theory holds that this “astral body” of humans,
light reaches us on earth giving literal force to the
only after passing through words of Shakespeare’s
the zones of the stars and Prospero: we are indeed
planets, whose influences “such stuff as dreams are
it absorbs; hence its name. made on.” Shakespeare
Astral light must not probably meant these
be confused with physi- words metaphorically; he
cal starlight. It is a subtle was saying that we are
matter, imperceptible to frail, transitory, ephemer-
the five senses and to the al. But then so are dreams
implements of science. “It and mental images.
is the common mirror of This is not to say that
all thoughts and forms,” © Štěpán Kápl - Fotolia.com the astral light is itself a
writes the nineteenth- frail substance; occultists
century French magus consider it indestructible.
Éliphas Lévi, “the images of all that has been are But this subtle matter does not hold shapes well. Dream
preserved therein and sketches of things to come, for figures constantly shift form, and even before our wak-
which reason it is the instrument of thaumaturgy and ing eyes mental images rise and fall like waves. For this
divination.”2 reason some esoteric teachings figuratively refer to this
To form a more or less accurate picture of this light, substance as “water.” Under most circumstances, practi-
one need only ask, what is the substance of a thought? cally none of the thoughts or images formed in this “wa-
Neurochemical responses, a scientist may say. While ter” ever come into physical manifestation; there is not
that may be true up to a point, we don’t experience enough force behind them to make that happen. Hence,
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NEW DAWN 65
the central aspects of occult magic has to do with form- will achieve their end. The act of constantly bringing
ing, holding, and energising a shape composed of astral the mind back to the object, despite boredom or frustra-
light. If enough power and skill are used in its creation, tion, begins to form a small core around which the will
the image will sooner or later manifest in the physical can constellate. And the will is the magician’s principal
world. tool.
So far this procedure resembles the “creative visuali-
Manifestation sation” described in many books. Creative visualisation,
In theory the process sounds simple enough, and however, generally doesn’t go past this point. Nothing
in a way it is, but it is not so easy to accomplish. To more may be needed: sometimes the greatest hurdle lies
begin with, in order to manifest in the physical world, in simply formulating a clear goal. But often the enter-
an image must have a steady, consistent form in the prise requires some sacrifice: an additional investment
mind’s eye. In practice, however, few things are more of vital energy to literally give life to the desired image.
difficult to achieve, since it is notoriously hard to hold This brings us back to the need to raise power. For
an image in one’s mind for all but the briefest time. This a process of ritual magic to be complete, it must have a
may be partly due to a lack of mental discipline, but clear and specific form in the mind of the practitioner
it also reflects the nature of the astral light itself. It is – and enough power must be directed toward it to en-
fluid and slippery; trying to hold it is like trying to grab sure it manifests.
water with one’s bare hands. Much of This does not always happen. To cite
magical practice consists of moulding another personal experience, about
this elusive substance. Hence magical Look at some fifteen years ago I was on a retreat
training emphasises, above all else, with a group holed up in a country
mental concentration and will. object near you. house in Derbyshire, England, learn-
Look at some object near you. Now Now close your eyes ing to practice magical techniques.
close your eyes and try to visualise it. One of the chief things taught was
Then open your eyes again, and com-
and try to visualise it. raising power, which was done by
pare your mental picture of the object Then open your eyes having the group (of about a dozen
with the object itself. people) channel mental energy in a
again, and compare certain direction. Throughout most of
If you’re like most people, you’ll
find some discrepancy between the your mental picture the retreat this power was directed to
object and your picture of it. You may of the object with the an actual sink – a drain in the floor of
find that you were able to imagine one of the utility rooms. The reason
some parts of it better than others, or object itself. for doing this was quite clear. We were
that you could imagine it as seen from learning to raise power, but this power
one angle but not from another. You’ll could not be allowed to float around
probably find not only that it’s hard to keep your mind in the atmosphere. It would create enormous tension
on the same picture, but that it’s difficult to create an (and there was tension enough anyway); given enough
entirely accurate image even of an everyday object right momentum, it would start to cause mayhem. So for
in front of you. training purposes the power was directed to the ground
One part of magical training is intended to hone the – it was literally “earthed.”
skill of visualisation. The magician may begin by taking Such was the practice for most of the retreat, but to-
extremely simple objects or forms – geometric shapes, ward the end each of us was allowed to raise power and
for example, like triangles and circles – and attempting direct it toward whatever we wished. We all took turns:
to visualise them. Later on, the aspirant may be able to we sat in a room on our own while the other members
proceed to more complicated things like three-dimen- of the group directed power toward us. When it came
sional objects. A piece of fruit, an orange, for example, to be my turn, I decided to channel this power toward
is a good thing to use, since one can imagine not only its realising a particular project I had in mind at the time.
appearance, but also its taste, smell, and texture. But it was no good. I could not focus the power in
Visualisation and imagination form only one aspect the direction I wanted; it felt as if it kept slipping and
of the discipline. The second and equally important part sliding away from me. I tried to recoup my efforts more
is the conditioning of the will. The mind is not likely to than once, but soon the time was up. The whole experi-
enjoy concentrated imagination at first; it will probably ence had the depressing quality of a premature ejacula-
rebel and drift on to its ordinary worries and fantasies. tion.
The only way to train it is to constantly bring it back to Where did the failure lie? I certainly felt power being
the object. sent in my direction; that was not the problem. And the
Such work is often tedious, and the beginner may be project I was developing was clear enough in purpose
able to practice for only a few minutes a day before con- and intent. Rather the failure came from my own will.
centration gives out. Gradually, however, these practices Although I did my best to work with the power through
66 NEW DAWN ■
© frenta - Fotolia.com
the exercise, there was some level at which I was not The Importance of Ritual
interested enough in this project to make it manifest.
Ritual magic, as practiced in the West, is an elabo-
It was, as a matter of fact, a book project, and it came
rate and somewhat cumbersome discipline. Fully devot-
as no surprise to me a few weeks later when I learned
ed practitioners devote an enormous amount of effort
that all the publishers to whom my agent had submit-
to making and obtaining robes, wands, swords, cups,
ted the project rejected it. None of this was especially
talismans, incense, and other appurtenances of the
tragic; all writers have projects that they come up with
magician’s craft. Are these necessary? They are – nearly
and never manage to materialise; in fact, these gener-
every ritual of any kind requires some kind of parapher-
ally far outnumber the successful ones. But the whole
nalia – but the complexity and elaborateness of these
experience taught me something about the nature of
things can vary greatly. Purists among magicians tend
will.
to say that tools that the practitioner makes himself,
Will, as I’ve said, is a chief characteristic of the ritual
from scratch, are the ones that have most power. And
magician, and from my experience, I would say that the
from what we’ve already seen in this article, we can un-
will is in many ways as subtle and elusive as the astral
derstand why. Power follows attention. And something
light itself. Where exactly is my will? In my superficial
that has had a great deal of effort and attention directed
wishes and desires? In my gut? In the deep and inacces-
toward it, even if it is crudely executed, is likely to have
sible reaches of my heart? I would say that for the will
more power than a more polished object that has been
to be truly effective, it must lie in, and encompass, all
manufactured.
these parts of one’s being; if one is conflicted or ambiva-
Is ritual necessary in order to make one’s will mani-
lent, the results will be nil.
fest? After all, if it’s simply a matter of raising power
All this helps to answer a question that was posed
and focusing it on an image, what need is there for a
earlier: Does ritual magic work? It does work, but it is a
ritual at all? Can’t it be done by thought power alone?
subtle and difficult process that requires a great deal of
In fact, it can; and that is the theory behind creative
training and mastery – and especially self-knowledge
visualisation and what some portions of the New Age
– in order to succeed.

NEW DAWN 67
world call “manifesting.” In these techniques it’s enough forgotten it. In light of this idea, we can see how ritual
to work exclusively through thought power – if the will magic can be valuable and effective in its own right,
is strong enough. These practices differ from prayer in quite apart from whatever apparent results it might
that they don’t necessarily invoke the favour of God achieve. It enables the magician to serve as a conduit
or a god in order to operate; between the higher and lower
rather it is a matter of simply worlds, and to assist in the
using certain universal (though work of unifying them.
little-known) occult laws. They There is a great deal about
differ from ritual magic in that ritual magic that I haven’t been
no physical operation is neces- able to discuss in an article of
sary. this length – divination, for ex-
Given all this, the reason ample, which in its many forms
for practicing ritual magic attempts to take a kind of
is twofold: in the first place, reading of the patterns in the
ritual magicians are drawn to astral light in order to find out
this kind of activity. For them what is likely to happen in the
the more inward and sedentary physical world. (The Tarot and
acts of prayer and meditation the I Ching are two common
may seem a little bloodless. methods used by magicians
There is a certain satisfaction today to do this.) Nor have I
to be gained from making and been able to explore the issue
wielding magical implements of raising and interacting with
in a way that’s perhaps not spirits – invisible entities that,
very different from the rea- under the right circumstances,
sons people sometimes prefer can communicate with us and
to build their own bookcases can also have an effect in the
or brew their own beer. This physical world. These are large
may seem fairly obvious, but and important subjects in their
it is not trivial. There is a part own right, and serve to indi-
of the mind that will not take cate that ritual magic, prac-
anything seriously that it can- Magical Instruments – Lamp, Sword, Rod & Dagger ticed in the West for centuries,
– according to Éliphas Lévi, Transcendental Magic.
not see or touch, and ritual retains its fascination and its
magic is meant to address power.
– and involve – this part of the mind.
The second reason is both grander and more ab-
stract. Man, it is said, is a bridge between worlds. He is Footnotes
the only creature that we know of who is capable both 1. Sidian Morning Star Jones and Stanley Krippner, Ph.D., The
of extending his mind to sublime and mystical levels of Voice of Rolling Thunder: A Medicine Man’s Wisdom for Walking the
experience and of doing and acting in physical reality. Red Road, Bear & Co., 2012, 6.
Some esoteric teachings would go so far as to say that 2. Éliphas Lévi, Transcendental Magic: Its Doctrine and Ritual,
this is our function as human beings, and that many of trans. A.E. Waite, 1896; repr., Bracken Books, 1995, 15.
our sufferings and discontents occur because we have
Richard Smoley has over thirty-five years of experience of studying and

practicing esoteric spirituality. He is the author of Inner Christianity: A Guide to
the Esoteric Tradition; The Dice Game of Shiva: How Consciousness Creates
the Universe; Conscious Love: Insights from Mystical Christianity; The Essential
Nostradamus; and Forbidden Faith: The Secret History of Gnosticism. This article
is adapted in part from his Hidden Wisdom: A Guide to the Western Inner Tradi-
tions (coauthored with Jay Kinney). Smoley is also the former editor of Gnosis: A
Journal of the Western Inner Traditions. Currently he is editor of Quest: Journal
of the Theosophical Society in America and of Quest Books. His new book is
Supernatural: Writings on an Unknown History, which contains many articles that
originally appeared in New Dawn.
68 NEW DAWN ■
Seven Questions
What Science Has To Say
About the Paranormal
— By James D. Stein Ph.D. — community – you won’t find any discussion of paranor-
I
mal phenomena in any of the mainstream scientific
’ve always been a fan of science fiction. Good sci- textbooks that are used for primary and secondary
ence fiction combines the best features of what education.
makes fiction great with ideas that come from As against this, there was a survey taken of col-
man’s most monumental intellectual achieve- lege professors in the 1990s in which more than 50%
ment – science. of science professors believed that ESP was either an
I grew up during the 1940s and 1950s, when there established reality or very likely to be true. Addition-
was some great science fiction being written. One of ally, there are a number of scientists who are sufficiently
the first books I read in this genre was convinced of the reality of paranormal
Slan, by A.E. van Vogt. It describes phenomena that they have devoted
the struggles of a young girl who has ...there are their lives to its investigation. The
telepathic powers in a society that poster child for this group would prob-
hunted down telepaths as enemies of a number of ably be Brian Josephson, who won a
the state. I think if I were to read Slan scientists who Nobel Prize in Physics in 1973 for his
again, I might see it as socio-political are sufficiently insights into quantum mechanics.
commentary, much like Orwell’s clas- Josephson believes there is a connec-
sic novel 1984.
convinced of the
tion between quantum mechanics
Slan was a memorable book – and reality of paranormal and paranormal phenomena, and has
not just because I, as an impressiona- phenomena that written a number of articles on this
ble young boy, fell in love with its her- they have devoted subject.
oine. It raised a fascinating question:
could human beings develop powers
their lives to its 2) Does quantum
beyond those we currently possess? investigation. mechanics support the
Whether you are a dyed-in-the-wool existence of paranormal
believer in paranormal phenomena or
phenomena?
a complete sceptic, I think you have to admit that it is a
fascinating question. That leads to the first of the seven Not yet – and maybe never. If there is one red flag
questions. that those who venture into the realm of paranormal
phenomena should heed, it is a statement such as “re-
1) Where does science currently cent developments in quantum mechanics support the
stand with regard to the existence existence of paranormal phenomena.”
of paranormal phenomena? My guess is that even Brian Josephson would not go
so far as to make such a statement, and there’s a pretty
It’s a mixed bag. There is some evidence of the exist- straightforward reason for it. Quantum mechanics
ence of such phenomena, but it does not convince the deals mostly with atomic and subatomic phenomena –
scientific community as a whole the way the discovery and even at that level of complexity there are an awful
of the Higgs boson last July convinced them. Because lot of details that haven’t been satisfactorily ironed out
the evidence is not overwhelming – or at least not suf- yet. Quantum mechanics is an amazing intellectual
ficiently convincing to the majority of the scientific accomplishment that is responsible for much of today’s

NEW DAWN 69
electronic technology – but the largest ensemble that 4) Did Albert Einstein have anything
quantum mechanics has successfully analysed consists to say about paranormal phenomena?
of relatively small numbers of atoms. As far as I know,
quantum mechanics has not yet been applied to the Of course, Einstein was probably the greatest scien-
biology of the single cell, or collections of single cells, tist of the twentieth century, and was a person of such
or organs in bodies, or entire bodies, or collections of overriding influence that Time magazine named him
bodies. It will be a long time before quantum mechanics “Man of the Century.” So anything he had to say on
ventures into this realm. the subject of paranormal phenomena is worth serious
consideration.
3) Why doesn’t science spend more At one time, Einstein was approached by Jan Ehren-
time investigating the paranormal? wald, a psychologist who had spent a number of years
investigating telepathy. Wondering if he were “drawing
I think there are several reasons – and they all play
dead,” Ehrenwald asked Einstein if the physics that Ein-
a role. First of all, science is a funded enterprise. Like
stein knew had anything specific to say about telepathy.
everyone else, scientists need to eat and put a roof
Einstein responded by saying, “It seems to me, at any
over their heads, and unlike everyone else, they often
rate, that we have no right from a physical standpoint,
need expensive equipment to pursue their research.
to deny a priori the possibility of telepathy. For that sort
That means they need money, and there are generally
of denial the foundations of our science are too unsure
only two sources available – governments and private
and too incomplete.” Einstein made that statement
corporations. Both of these entities want a bottom-line
about 80 years ago. Although I am extremely hesitant
payoff. Governments want to convince the people, who
to put words in Einstein’s mouth, I’m guessing that
keep them in office that they’re spending money intel-
if he were to come back today and be asked the same
ligently, and so money invested in health care research
question, he would say that even though physics has
or developing cheaper sources of energy can accomplish
made remarkable strides since his death, his position
this. Corporations want something they can sell to jus-
with regard to telepathy had not changed. It has taken
tify their investment in research – and a cure for cancer
evolution more than three billion years to produce the
or a cheaper source of energy is eminently saleable.
human brain, and the human brain has only been seri-
Although there are possible ways to gain value from
ously studying physics for about three hundred and fifty
telepathy (among others), it’s nowhere near the finan-
years, since Isaac Newton first began his investigations.
cial slam dunk that a breakthrough in cancer research
The foundations of the science are still incomplete.
or energy research would be.
On another occasion, Einstein was asked by his
Another reason is that there’s a long history of re-
good friend Upton Sinclair to write an introduction to
search with not much to show for it – and a lot of fraud
Sinclair’s book Mental Radio. Sinclair had previously
associated with it. If you’re a researcher, you don’t want
written The Jungle, a Pulitzer Prize winning exposé of
to put in a lot of time and effort investigating some-
the Chicago stockyards; this book was a major factor in
thing and have nothing to show for it. That’s not likely
the reason that you can now happily chow down on a
to advance your career – or attract further funding.
cheeseburger without worrying that you will contract
Additionally, if you’re a researcher, the one thing you
some hideous disease. Sinclair believed his wife to have
absolutely do not want to do is be associated with fraud.
psychic capabilities, and had made a detailed study of
Society as a whole is a lot more forgiving of fraud – or
these, which he outlined in Mental Radio.
other crimes – than the scientific community. Commit
Einstein wanted to help his friend, but was dubious
scientific fraud, and you’re going to be voted off the
about some of the claims that Sinclair believed he had
island and never allowed to come back.
established. Above all – even above friendship – Ein-
Finally, the scientific establishment is currently
stein wanted to be intellectually honest. In his Preface
extremely dubious (that’s an understatement) about the
to Sinclair’s book, Einstein stated that “The results of
reality of paranormal phenomena. So if you decide to
the telepathic experiments carefully and plainly set
undertake such investigations, you’re risking the disap-
forth in this book stand surely far beyond those which
proval (or condemnation) of your fellow scientists. This
a Nature investigator holds to be thinkable….” He then
doesn’t figure to advance your career a whole lot – so
went on to state that even though he was dubious about
you’d better be right. Of course, the history of science
the results from a physical standpoint, he found them
is one of discarded erroneous views – but it generally
to be quite interesting from a psychological one.
requires courage for a junior member of the fraternity
Why was Einstein so sceptical about these results?
to buck prevailing wisdom. As a result, I’d be willing to
One of the reasons was probably that if the results could
guess that most scientists who are willing to go against
be explained by some underlying mental force, such as
prevailing wisdom in this area are those who feel that
the psi force that has been postulated by some inves-
they have little to lose by doing so.
tigators, it was different from the four forces which
make up the physical world and with which Einstein
70 NEW DAWN ■
was familiar. The four forces of physics are gravity, 6) What about the remote-viewing
electromagnetism, and the weak and strong nuclear projects conducted by the military?
forces – and all four of these forces are characterised
by the fact that the strength of the force weakens as I can’t speak with authority here, as I wasn’t con-
you get further away from the origin of the force. Most nected with any of them. However, I have communicat-
investigators claim that the psi force is independent of ed with a few of the individuals who were involved, and
distance – and if so, it must behave according to a set they say that positive results were obtained which were
of principles totally different from the ones with which of significant benefit to intelligence agencies.
Einstein was familiar. As against that, these projects, collectively known
as the Stargate Project, were originally undertaken
5) What are some of the problems, because our intelligence agencies learned that the Rus-
from a scientific standpoint, with sians and the Chinese were conducting remote-viewing
anecdotal reports of paranormal projects of their own. We didn’t want to lose the arms
race, or the space race, to the Russians, and we didn’t
phenomena? want to lose the remote-viewing race, either. These
Of course, one of the major problems is that they projects were eventually defunded. They didn’t cost a
are anecdotal. Science does not deny the existence of whole lot – certainly nowhere near the cost of a single
subjective reality – what a particular observer believes high-tech aircraft – and when the government pulls
to be reality – but science deals primarily, and most ef- the plug on funding, there’s a pretty good presumption
fectively, with objective reality, especially those aspects that future investigations will not deliver anything of
of reality which can be measured. If a thermometer substantial value.
records a temperature of 72 degrees, that is a measure- On the other hand, here’s a really good conspiracy
ment on which all observers can agree, and assuming theory – and possibly the plot of a future thriller, if it
that the thermometer has been correctly calibrated, isn’t one already. The government claims it has defunded
accurately records some aspect of objective reality. the Stargate Project – but that’s just to throw everybody
However, if someone believes that they have undergone off the track. In reality, top-secret discoveries were
an out-of-body experience, even though that experience made that were too dangerous for the public to know
may be undeniably real to the person involved, it’s hard about. If that thriller hasn’t already been written, I hope
to credit it, as there are no objective measurements. somebody writes it – I’d enjoy reading it.
The argument can be made here that there are
people who have flatlined in hospital rooms and are 7) What can be done to convince the
declared clinically dead, but have had these experiences. scientific establishment of the reality
When they later describe these experiences, there is a of paranormal phenomena?
degree of commonality about them. However, there is a
Of course, a question such as this presupposes the
possible rational explanation for these experiences – it
reality of paranormal phenomena. However, if paranor-
might be some program embedded in the brain that is
mal phenomena are a reality AND one wishes to con-
triggered in extreme situations. The fact that the people
vince the scientific establishment, there are two things
have been recorded as clinically dead merely speaks
that must be done.
to the inadequacy of our measuring devices. When we
First, money is needed for legitimate tests. Having a
declare someone to be clinically dead, they may not be
bunch of amateurish ghostbusters go into a presumed
dead in the literal sense.
haunted house with random monitoring equipment
Another problem is what is known as the file-drawer
isn’t a scientific experiment, it’s reality TV – or pseudo-
effect. This refers to the fact that studies which do not
reality TV. I don’t know where the money would come
obtain positive results are never published, and are
from, but if someone has a rich Aunt Emily who intends
merely placed in a file drawer somewhere. This often ap-
to leave her money to indigent cats, go talk to her. It’s
pears in reference to something most of us experience:
possible funding might come from interested parties, or
we wake up in the middle of the night with a sense that
from crowdfunding endeavours, but I can’t see it com-
something terrible has happened to someone we know.
ing from either the government or private corporations
We make a phone call, and most of the time that person
for the reasons I’ve already stated.
is perfectly fine – and the experience is never reported.
Second, it’s necessary for those who believe in the re-
It is the rare occurrence in which the sense of forebod-
ality of paranormal phenomena to stop preaching to the
ing is tragically accurate that makes the headlines. Of
choir. I don’t know what it would take to convince the
course, the same phenomenon appears in connection
scientific establishment – but the best way to determine
with the lost dog who remarkably finds his or her way
that is to ask the scientific establishment.
home – we never hear about the numerous lost dogs
What’s the best way to make a believer out of a scep-
who remain forever lost.
tic? Ask the sceptic what it would take to convince him

NEW DAWN 71
– or her. I’m convinced that science genuinely wants to
James D. Stein Ph.D. is the author of the new book The
know the truth about paranormal phenomena; it just
Paranormal Equation: A New Scientific Perspective on Re-
doesn’t have the time, the manpower, or the resources mote Viewing, Clairvoyance, and Other Inexplicable Phe-
to investigate it. Also, if you’re a believer in paranormal nomena (New Page Books, 2012). The book presents an
phenomena, I would think that if you are intellectually argument for the existence of supernatural phenomena
honest, you would be willing to accept the truth as well. based on the mathematics and science discovered during the
As they said in the X-Files, the truth is out there – some- last century. It also explains why supernatural phenomena
where. It will take the combined efforts of sceptics and must exist if the universe satisfies certain conditions – con-
ditions which are accepted by many working scientists. The
believers to determine it. I hope I’m around when this
Paranormal Equation is available from all good bookstores or
takes place, and I get to see the answer. go to www.amazon.com.
Dr. James D. Stein graduated from Yale in 1962 with a BA in mathematics,

and received his PhD from the University of California at Berkeley in 1967. He is
the author of more than 30 research articles on mathematics and the coauthor of
textbooks on mathematics and strategic management, as well as several books
on mathematics and science for the general public. He has served on state and
nationwide panels on mathematics education, blogged for Psychology Today and
the Huffington Post, and won regional and national championships at contract
bridge. Dr. Stein lives in Redondo Beach, California.
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“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those
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“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the

mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.”
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oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.”
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New Dawn Special Issue V7 N2

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PARANORMAL REALITIES & THE UNEXPLAINED

NEW DAWN SPECIAL ISSUE Vol 7 No 2

ESP: You Can’t

ISSN 1839-7085 Real Ghosts, Restless

A Special Issue of New Dawn Magazine

Speaking to the Dead Dream Hacking

ESP Seven Questions

NEW DAWN ancient wisdom, new thinking

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would fulfil the ideals of

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family had so often heard the sound of heavy objects

JP: Let’s get into shadow beings, poltergeists, spirit

BS: My wife Sherry and I try always to remember that

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recorders pose a special problem for Diana, either refus-

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positivity, gratitude, or love – heart-based emotions

that while it is possible to receive

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Brendan D. Murphy is the author of the critically acclaimed epic The

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Have you ever: Had a hunch that turned out right?

Serge Kahili King, Ph.D., holds a doctorate in psychology from California

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— By Daniel Neiman — Hypnosis has been associated throughout history with

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pearing to pass right through his

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Daniel Neiman is a paranormal researcher, author, and teacher. He has a bach-

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It has been pretty constant since then, occurring

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The dreams take the

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Our Multidimensional Reality

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MH: To me the resistance you describe is really counter-

Alex Tsakiris, host of Skeptiko – Science at the Tipping Point, is a success-

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— By Micah Hanks — he largely credited with the expansion of his world

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Furthest From Land & Down:

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Micah Hanks is a full-time journalist, radio personality, author and in-

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Richard Smoley has over thirty-five years of experience of studying and