6

Anomalous Moments in Psychotherapy

James W. Lomax

152-73

"as Bernard Beitman indicated in a 2009 special issue of Psychiatric Annals dedicated to the topics of 'synchronicity; and 'weird coincidences', weird coincidences do commonly occur. Furthermore, when such weird coincidences possess high ... value for the persons involved, they are often brought to 'healers' of various sorts. ... Such experiences will be told and constructed {construed} within the relationship with different healers in different ways : as paranormal, as sacred, as weird or as anomalous, depending on the way in which the healer or therapist ... helps the person {client} to consider and construct {construe} what has happened."

"In ... expressive psychotherapy, it is the 'intersubjective construct' ... that often has the most profound outcome implications. From my perspective, the goal of the therapist is to be open to listening ..., responsive to individual needs ..., and helpful in ... healing ... in a meaningful way. A 'good enough' therapeutic response is ... one that re-establishes human connections ... to ... interpersonal relationships".

p. 155

"Patient : 'Well, ... I have these paranormal experiences. I remember ... The phone rang, and it was this man's {apparently, a man-spirit's} voice saying, "I

p. 156

can see you ... ." ... Then I walked ... back to the room ..., but the light was {apparently, praeternaturally} turned off and the TV channel had been {likewise, apparently praeternaturally} changed. ...

Less than two weeks later, ...

p. 157

close to the time I later learned that Dr C. was dying ..., ... I ... heard something like his voice inside me saying : "Yes, I've died ... . ..." ... The next day, I called my mother. ... She confirmed Dr C. died, right before I had that experience."

p. 162

[A woman came for being consoled concerning her mourning in] "what gets called 'grief work' ... what George Vaillant describes as 'recovering lost loves' in his books Aging Well and Evolution of Spirituality. ...

p. 163

She went on to describe new details about the {funebrial} service that had been held ... in Africa ... a Masai ritual ... . ... In the early part of the service, a small brown bird came and sat in the middle of the ceremony. It stayed throughout

p. 164

the exuberant service, absolutely unperturbed by the ... humans immersed in a song and dance memorial ritual. ... The bird even lingered for a while as those in attendance said their goodbyes and dispersed. ... the Masai leaders ... observed ... positive ... sign that ... {person's whose funeral was being celebrated} spirit had been in attendance to witness and to provide solace.

Six months later, ... in Africa ... A similar brown bird,

a mourning dove,

{This species's name "mourning dove" is thus quite apposite, inasmuch as it doth indeed wontedly come to funerals in order to mourn the human dead.}

in fact, came into the tent where they slept. The bird actually lit on her friend's chest to awaken her."

p. 165

"Like the Masai elders, historian of religions Jeff Kripal was not so surprised [when informed, by word-of-mouth (at a "presentation ... on paranormal phenomena" [supra, p. 163]) spoken by the author (J.W.L.) concerning the foregoing avian events]. He told me a very similar story of a large, usually fearless seabird that landed on the porch amidst a grieving family after the funeral of his brother-in-law -- they all sensed that it was the dead loved one.

He also commented on the widely distributed cultural belief {experience, understanding, knowledge} that birds can manifest the soul or spirit".

{Although a dreamer (especially a dreaming shaman) may occupy a bird's (or other animal's) bodily form in a dream, yet nevertheless a bird coming to a funeral in the waking-world is more likely under spiritual control by the dead person's guardian-angel or spirit-guide (instead of being directly occupied the the actual soul of the dead person).}

"Sexual experiences, some ... spiritual types of religious experiences, and the post-mortem paranormal experiences ... tend to occur in private settings shared only with the 'other' of the experience, or in complete solitude. ... Unfortunately, the person who has the experience begins to anticipate that such sharing will invariably lead to

responses that make him or her feel {be regarded by conventional persons as} inappropriate ... or even evil.

{Very much more pertinently, the official response (in the United States and in Europe) will be for the govermental "authorities" to commit involuntarily, any such person to the state-operated "insane asylum", perhaps for the duration of life.}

Thus, in many social settings, talking about sexuality, anomalous experiences or certain types of spirituality become 'taboo' subjects. ... .

{The standard poinalty for violation of such state-enforced "taboo" is being officiously committed, involuntarily, to the state insane-asylum.}

... specific social contexts, however, may allow such communications to take place in ways that are acceptable, ranging from scientific forums to theatre and art."

{It may be added that there are, in India and adjacent nations (not to mention amongst many tribal peoples), there are also, for sexuality etc., such alternative (tantrik) ways-of-life as Kaula and Vajra-yana.}

There are also numerous more traditional settings in which private religious experiences are communicated verbally and non-verbally, such as Pentacostal Churches or the S[.]ufi".

{Besides "Pentacostal" Societies, there are also (at least in Catholic, Orthodox, and Coptic countries) koinobitic monasteries and nunneries.}

"the ... cardiologist in the first story [pp. 155-7]. ... what 'really happened' in her ... experience. ... I take the position that it was ... 'illusion'... . ..

{The Upa-nis.ad-s, however, take the position that its is the material universe that is the illusion, whereas the praeternatural world is the actual reality, upheld by very real deities.}

... illusions have ties to reality, but ... They are 'creative illusion formations', in Meissner's terms."

{On the contrary, the only created illusion-formation is atheistic-capitalism-engendred materialism (together with it offshoots)."

7

Parapsychology and Yoga

Koneru Ramakrishna Rao

174-207

p. 174

"I would like to see future efforts made to include :

(a) a strategic shift in the techniques and technologies, based on the assumption that psi is neither an anomaly nor an aberration but a genuine, inherent principle embedded in reality and accessible to human experience;

(b) an empathic appreciation of the relevance of the reality of psi to an interdisciplinary understanding of who

p. 175

we are and where our destiny lies; and

(c) judicious application of psi for personal transformation with an an altruistic slant and for enchancing human potentials for common good."

"By operationalizing the twin principles of yoga practice, that is,

practice (abhyasa)

{/abhi-asa/ 'prospect, expected result or consequence'}

of concentration and cultivating the attitude of

'dispassionate detachment' (vairagya)

{/vai-ragya/ 'freedom from all worldly desires, indifference to worldly objects'}

in a psi-testing situation, it may be possible to produce

replicable findings that will have macro-results that may not be disputed."

{In this connection, how-be-it, it must be remembred that so long as the material plane be dominated and controlled by greed-maddened materialist ploutokrats, those ploutokrats (along with their hirelings) will continue forevermore to dispute (in a thoroughly dishonest fashion) all experimental results which tend to refute materialists's claims to the superiority of their favored scheme of grossly materialistic reductive scientism.}

p. 176

"Scientific investigation of psychic phenomena is more than a century old.

{But only if a methodology ignoring the majority of evidence can be termed "scientific"! As anthropologists are well-aware, all shamans, worldwide, insist that their psychic/spiritual powers were acquired in-and-through their dreaming; but nevertheless so-called "scientific" investigations of psychic/spiritual abilities by the universities have tended to ignore shamanic power-dreaming altogether.}

It began with great promise and excitement, ... pursued with some vigor and visibility at some outstanding universities, such as Stanford, Harvard, Duke and Princeton in the [United] States, Utrecht in the Netherlands, and Edinburgh in the United Kingdom.

This [fact that "It has not emerged as a viable academic discipline"] is somewhat surprising in light of the fact that the majority of people around the world not only believe in the reality of

{This praedicament-situation is similar to the status of the movement for socialism/communism throughout the world : approved and agreed upon by the vast majority of the population everywhere, it is nevertheless kept forcibly suppressed everywhere.}

p. 177

psychic phenomena but report that they have had in their lives some form of paranormal experience."

p. 177

"psi research has accumulated a massive database that collectively and convincingly points to the existence of a number of cognitive anomalies, even though they make little sense within the prevailing materialistic and mechanistic world of science. ... On the whole, the available data ... may be seen to have profound implications for our understanding of who we are."

p. 178

"Methodologically, as measured by the criteria of normal science practiced in disciplines like psychology, ESP research is highly sophisicated. The best in parapsychology can be compared favourably to the best in any ... behavioural research.

However, it is a different matter whether the methods themselves are appropriate for understanding the nature of psi in any meaingful way."

{Methods which neglect to investigate, mainly and primarily, the shamanic method for dreaming, are worse than useless : being as shamans are the most powerful of psykhic-pneumatic (as contrasted with hylic) personalities, and always consistently explicate their acquisition of their powers in terms of their dreaming. "They seem to receive this gift of divination through visions which they see in their dreams." (GC:DW, p. 246 sq -- "AHSD")}

p. 178

"'In trying to prove the truth of auguries,' Cicero countered Quintus, 'you are overturning the whole system of physics.' [Inglis 1977, p. 61] ...

{A so-called "science of physics" which cannot explain such phainomena as auguries cannot be true, and is, as matter of course, in extreme need of being being overthrown and of being supplanted by something more capable of rendring adequate explanations.}

p. 179

'A miracle,' argued Hume, 'is a violation of the laws of nature ... . ...

{The litteral meaning of /MIRacle/ is (from the Latin) 'anything worthy of being adMIRed'; or (from the Russian /MIR/ 'peace') 'anything that is peaceable'. How can Hume assume that everything admirable or peaceable must necessarily be in "violation of the laws of nature"? Is Hume's "Nature" (alike unto Darwin's) necessarily detestible and bellicose? Is that because Hume himself is personally destestible and violently cantankerous?}

I have shown elsewhere [Rao 1981, pp.] the basic fallacy in Hume's reasoning.

{Hume's most basic fallacy would be, however, his deliberate misdefinition of terms (in this case, of the term /miracle/.}

It is logically inappropriate to refute an empirical claim on metaphysical grounds. That is what Hume does in attempting to demolish the claims of paranormal phenomena."

{The empeirical claim is that miracles have commonly been observed by credible and reliable witnesses (a fact not denied by Hume, but simply ignored by him); the metaphysical ground (irrationally insisted on by Hume) is the allegation that no non-materialistic "law of nature" could possibly exist.}

p. 179

"I published with John Palmer [1987] a target article in Behavioural and Brain Sciences entitled 'The Anomaly Called Psi : Recent Research and Criticism'. ... There was open-peer commentary on these articles by ... scientists. They were about equally divided on the question ... .

p. 180

This event illustrates the fact that the same results look differently depending on one's prior beliefs. ... as D. C. Donderi [1987] ... points out, ... 'parapsychological phenomena profoundly disturb the preexisting "scientific worldview"."

"Brian Mackenzie, commenting ..., writes : 'There is no doubt that the record outlined by Rao and Palmer ... of ... solid achievement in research, would be enough to ensure the scientific credibility of any field other than parapsychology. ...'"

"Parapsychologists are reluctant to speculatively draw the implications of their results ... .

Their critics, on the other hand, speculate freely ... .

If indeed parapsychoological findings do suggest some non-ordinary forms of knowing, which in turn imply some non-physical aspects of being such as primacy of consciousness and its irreducible nature, this ... should be taken as

a profound challenge for science itself."

{an invitation to develop a science of consciousness compatible with material sciences : praesumably by altering the theoretical foundations of the material sciences in order to rendre them thus compatible with the science of consciousness.}

"With the emergence of Rhine and the establishment of the Parapsychology Laboratory at Duke University, ... a standard testing procedure for studying ESP ... found promising subjects in A. J. Linzmayer and Hubert Pearce, among others."

"research programmes ... at other centres of psi research ... each ... started with new research strategies, with new researchers, and with good results and much promise."

"Those of us who have had first-hand familiarity with the field, the people working in it and the database do not generally believe that the results are ... biased in any significant ways. I have no doubt that the data provide solid evidence for the existence of an anomaly.

Beyond that, I am of the opinion that what we see in parapsychology is a series of conjectures, at best suggestive hypotheses, without ... substantial evidence to support them."

{There will be no better than mere wild speculation on the part of "researchers", so long as they decline to inquire from their psychic-pneumatic "promising subjects" personal accounts of just praecisely how they attain and maintain their extra-ordinary capabilities -- in inquiry, it would rapidly be found that all such powers originate, and are maintained, in and through dreams, where a divine entity, or entities, continuously and regularly assigneth to them personal rites to perform (in the waking-world) in order to maintain channel-connections with transcendental power-sources located in divine worlds.}

p. 183

"A variety post hoc and ad hoc explanations are available to suggest that psi is intrinsically elusive."

{The most pragmatic, and therefore credible, reason for any such elusiveness, could be that the divine entities reponsible for the psi-effects become very much annoyed by refusal (on the part of "researchers") to consider their existence-and-ro^le in such effects, and are therefore deliberately making wished-for experimental results non-available to the self-styled mortal human "researchers".}

p. 184

Since the subject's ESP does not work always, you would expect the subject to succeed better in the first {i.e., the simpler} experiement rather than the second, which is more complex. On the hypothesis of goal- directedness, however, the subject is expected to succeed equally in both instances since the goal is the same. ... It is for this reason that the complexity of the task is not significantly related to psi outcome. ...

{Due to practical considerations, such "goal-directedness" would be possible if and only if facilitated by non-material entities in control of elaborate technical equipment capable of dealing with complex problems as readily as with simple ones.}

Kennedy [1995] argues that there are different types of goals and possible sources of psi."

{In all practicality, the types of goals would depend on the agenda of the categories of elemental spirits who are rendring assistance via contacts in the subjects' dreams; and the possible sources of psi would depend on the types of technical equipment controlled by such categories of elementals.}

p. 184

"there is suggestive evidence for enhancing psi performance by sensory noise reduction. That psi is facilitated under conditions of sensory relaxation ... points to ... another source of knowing in which there is ... no sensory engagement. ...

{It is implied that because sensory contact with the material world can only interfere, and that therefore the material world can only be an obstruction; suggesting that the psi-effects must be transmitted and enabled through subtle, transcendent (non-material) channels of communication.}

p. 185

The confidence that this may be really the case is considerably bolstered by ... yoga practice."

p. 185

"parapsychological data do not fit into the categories of ... epistemology we {not "we", but rather, our adversary the materialists} subscribe to; they are not merely unusual, but are compellingly contrary ... to the accustomed {i.e., materialistic} scientific outlook. Thus, ... a few scientists ... challenged enough to commit their time to

p. 186

investigate the issues involved ... to solve the riddle ... are ... lost in the wilderness of the weird ... . ...

{Those who do not become "lost" are seriously authentic practitioners who employ traditional methods of OUIJA boards or of table-tilting so as to obtain clear and cogent message from the elemental spirits, which spirits are found to be only too glad to communicate in abundant detail.}

For those fortunate to get the results they are hoping for, there is excitement ... until the reality of the elusiveness of psi ... strike back. ...

{The elementals involved in producing the psi-effects, however, would not "strike back" if inquired of politely through OUIJA boards or other coded communicatory device.}

All we seem to share in the end is a sense of excitement and awe that we are travelling in some weird wonderland of the unknown."

{If no more than this is shared, it is because of obstinate refusal on the part of so-called "researchers" to open any line of communication with the the elemental spirits themselves.}

"Parasychologists ... If the results do ... lead them to discover the soul, ... should not fight shy of drawing the conclusion warranted by the evidence. This could be the single most important discovery ever made by science."