Intuition & Science

[devin]

@Joan Marie

Sounds like a fascinating book!

Yeah, I agree, practical mysticisms of all kinds have always served to help people to live better. This is true of the hunter-gatherer consulting the spirits to find game as well as the modern cosmopolitan going to a card-reader to find out if there spouse is cheating on them. And that, you're right, is very practical. But still, unless you reduce the occult to nothing more than camp navel gazing, then it still rather forcefully clashes with the philosophical establishment and would thus probably count as woo.

Also, you can study and measure this stuff: There are a number of physicists/psychiatrists/medical researchers/etc. (a few fairly eminent) engaged in the study of psychic phenomena. But, unlike in the 1800s, they tend to stay away from psychics/mediums/etc. and rely heavily on the statistical analysis of results obtained from ordinary test subjects. The results are rigorous and impressive.

But they do also sometimes reveal the strange irrationality (as in contradicting ideas on cause and effect) inherent in such things.

Here's something I posted on another forum last year:

Here's one of my favourite experiments (it was conducted by a German physicist a few decades back):

OK, the researcher asked participants to try and influence the speed of clicks generated by a random number generator. The results where statistically very significant: The clicks sped up.

The next step was to prerecord randomly generated clicks, chop them in half, randomly select a control batch, hand the rest out, and once again ask participants to speed up the clicks. The results were significant - the randomly selected control tapes came in at chance levels of click distribution..... the tapes handed to the participants came out faster!

Next, a photoelectric device was used to monitor people walking into a supermarket. Each time someone passed the device, a click was recorded. The recordings where then randomly chopped up into controls, with the rest handed out randomly to the participants to influence.

Guess what? Same result as before.

It's also worth noting that a few years back the head statistician of the US decided to do a case study on parapsychology research as an example of bad statistical practice. She found their methods and interpretations to be statistically very sound.... she also became a believer.

Yours in woo,
Devin.

[katrinka]

BlueStar is onto something with that time and space comment. I think that what's finally going to crack the mystery (of predictive reading, at least) is a better understanding of time.
Time is profoundly strange, and it's flexible. Einstein knew this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativit ... multaneity
And Hawking once said that time is spherical - asking what's before the beginning of time is like asking what's north of the north pole. So maybe we're sliding around on this bubble, so to speak, that contains everything that was and is. We normally experience it sequentially, but it's possible that the cards help us break that rule just a little. We just need to figure out the whys and hows.

[BlueStar]

Just another train of thought - both the US and Russian governments explored, and are reported to have used (well there are actual documents from the CIA viewable online), 'psychic' phenomena, e.g. remote viewing and other stuff. If it was all stuff and nonsense I'm not sure they would have had seriously ventured into these areas...

[katrinka]

Yes. The CIA and the military were both experimenting with it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stargate_Project

There's a book about that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Men_W ... e_at_Goats
The title refers to attempts to kill goats by staring at them(!) It didn't work. They spent a lot of money and had little or no success. Our tax dollars at work, once again. It would have been better spent on commuter rails, environmental cleanup, or health care.

They didn't use cards. Maybe if they had done that (instead of staring at goats, or studying a known sleight-of-hand performer like Uri Geller), they would have gotten results.

In the end, I don't think any of it disproves psychism. It only proves that it's not on tap for random crzy projects like this one.

[BlueStar]

It was more than staring at goats...

For example, this document discusses and sets out a remote viewing procedure:
https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom ... 0001-8.pdf

Interestingly in one paragraph on page 21 it says:

As shown in detail in another report 3 of the 4 viewers independently record statistically significant in that 6 session series...This result suggests that, at least for certain individuals, the viewing ability can be learned. Whether these particular viewers learned successfully as a result of practice, motivation, latent ability, CI's "technology", or a combination of all four elements is at this time unlcear. Considerable future experimentation will be required to begin to determine the relative importance of each element.

I'm personally suspicious of the claim that they found no useful application for it, or the data was eroneous. Remote viewing is a real thing. Perhaps it's just disinformation? I mean you wouldn't want foreign powers to think you were actively doing it...

Records of individual remote viewing sessions are here: https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom ... e%20viewer

[devin]

It was more than staring at goats...

For example, this document discusses and sets out a remote viewing procedure:
https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom ... 0001-8.pdf

Interestingly in one paragraph on page 21 it says:

As shown in detail in another report 3 of the 4 viewers independently record statistically significant in that 6 session series...This result suggests that, at least for certain individuals, the viewing ability can be learned. Whether these particular viewers learned successfully as a result of practice, motivation, latent ability, CI's "technology", or a combination of all four elements is at this time unlcear. Considerable future experimentation will be required to begin to determine the relative importance of each element.

I'm personally suspicious of the claim that they found no useful application for it, or the data was eroneous. Remote viewing is a real thing. Perhaps it's just disinformation? I mean you wouldn't want foreign powers to think you were actively doing it...

Records of individual remote viewing sessions are here: https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom ... e%20viewer

Hey BlueStar,

I don't think anyone in this thread has completely denied the existence of spooky action at a distance (psychic stuff ).... I'm certainly a firm believer. But, at the same time, I think Katrinka may have a point: I've heard some of the 'psychic spy' alumni give more current viewings and throw up some, IMO, unlikely scenarios (extensive bases on Jupiter, as an invented example). So, it seems to be a somewhat patchy business. Another example being Edgar Cayce: He apparently had a very good one on one record, but his future/global predictions absolutely tanked. Over the years researchers have noticed that even genuine and talented psychics sometimes rely on cold-reading to get them through off days.

So maybe a spy satellite is a safer bet.

Interestingly, I've heard one of those aforementioned alumni claim that your first intuitive impression is usually the most accurate.

Anyway.

You also make a good point on physics and the nature of time.... but even if a model is useful and makes good predictions.... it still doesn't necessarily represent reality!

[inomminate]

I believe that there were also some Russian experiments with psi. Does anyone know about these?

[BlueStar]

I don't think anyone in this thread has completely denied the existence of spooky action at a distance (psychic stuff )....

Oh I wasn't trying to imply that, apologies if that's how my posts came across.

The whole subject of intuition/clairvoyance and the like is fascinating. I agree it can seem like a 'patchy business' in some areas.

[BlueStar]

I believe that there were also some Russian experiments with psi. Does anyone know about these?

I've certainly read about them and see documentaries mentioning it in the past. From what I remember I got the impression they were more into it than the Americans were.

[katrinka]

From the evidence I've seen, it works sometimes - just not enough to be anything near reliable.

Even the Dalai Lama takes the Nechung Oracle's prophecies with a grain of salt, and has a "wait and see" attitude about the whole thing. And the Nechung Oracle is chosen carefully, put through rigorous tests, and goes through extensive training. Additionally, he is not consulted frivolously, as an "experiment." As a result, he has a much more impressive hit rate than these remote viewing guys. He's made some astounding and famous predictions. But even he is not infallible, there have been times that he failed. You can never be sure about these things until they have had time to play out or be otherwise verified.

If we are going to get into the subject of disinformation, that could be literally anything. There is equal motive for deceiving people by claiming that the remote viewers are more powerful than they actually are. That could certainly shake an enemy up, if he believed it! And there's really no reason for foreign powers not to know you're doing it, as long as they don't know the location or names of your remote viewers - it's not something they could do anything to stop.

Yes, psychism is real. But no, as I said earlier, there is no substantial evidence that it's available on tap, any time and for any reason people want it. Even if you are the Nechung Oracle or Edgar Cayce.

[_R_]

I believe that there were also some Russian experiments with psi. Does anyone know about these?

Yes, I recall reading a number of articles (and not of the talboid variety) some 15 years ago or so, about how tongues had loosened up a little after 1989, and word had gotten out that there had been more than few experiments based on techniques learned or adapted (to be polite) from Siberian/Mongolian shamanic practice.

I recall that one of the articles was by an American (?) musiclogist researching folk music or something, who stumbled onto a semi-abandoned facility, where they used to do all sorts of sonic experiments, which could induce telepathy, out of body experiences, and the like.

Again, this is all rather vague now, but it seems plausible. For what it's worth, this idea that KGB spooks were engaged in grotesque research involving unethical experimental surgery and scientific experiments mixed with shamanism has appeared in a number of contemporary Russian horror/conspiracy thrillers.

[devin]

I believe that there were also some Russian experiments with psi. Does anyone know about these?

Yes, I recall reading a number of articles (and not of the talboid variety) some 15 years ago or so, about how tongues had loosened up a little after 1989, and word had gotten out that there had been more than few experiments based on techniques learned or adapted (to be polite) from Siberian/Mongolian shamanic practice.

I recall that one of the articles was by an American (?) musiclogist researching folk music or something, who stumbled onto a semi-abandoned facility, where they used to do all sorts of sonic experiments, which could induce telepathy, out of body experiences, and the like.

Again, this is all rather vague now, but it seems plausible. For what it's worth, this idea that KGB spooks were engaged in grotesque research involving unethical experimental surgery and scientific experiments mixed with shamanism has appeared in a number of contemporary Russian horror/conspiracy thrillers.

On Russian psi experiments: I can't remember if the first video is any good and haven't watched the second, but here we go....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ew7HVQ77T4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8HLypIxEl8