[net.origins] psychic ability, and throwing down the gauntlet

sunny@hoptoad.uucp (Sunny Kirsten) (05/07/86)

Regarding the Berkeley Psychic Institute, I have never been there, have
paid them no money, have no affiliation with them, and likely never
will.  Why did I refer net.readers to BPI?  Because they are used to
dealing with abusive people.  Personally, I would never go there,
because, of the nice practicing psychics I know, most indicate they
personally don't like the vibes at BPI.  And I wouldn't wish upon them
the vibes of most of the net.readers who have responded to my
articles.  Some of them are graduates of BPI.  Regardless of what BPI
is like, how nice it is, or what they actually are or do, the graduates
I've encountered have all been very nice and effective.  But then I
approach them as a "novice" or "student" in my manner of relating to
them, with an open mind interested in learning more, and without a
"prove it to me" attitude.  I suspect that, they, as I, aren't
interested in wasting their breath talking with someone to "prove" psi
to them, when they could instead be genuinely helping or healing or
teaching someone who approaches with an open mind.

Regarding proof, I will waste these words:  "Stanford" has done
research on psychic phenomena, specifically "remote viewing".  They put
a psychic whose name was Pat and whose otherwise occupation was
policeman, into a faraday shielded room, with an observer or two, while
other "scientists" working on the experiment got into their car and
randomly drove around the San Francisco Bay Area.  At a prearranged
time, Pat would describe where the roving experimenters were, usually
not by saying:" They're in Milpitas" (NOBODY would go to milpitas), but
by describing the surroundings... " I see a building what looks thusly,
and this and that".  After enough of these experiments the statistical
correlations between what Pat saw and described, and what observable
things really were around the roving experimenters, it was pretty
obvious that he was indeed performing rmote viewing.  This is one of
the Department of Offense's prime interests in PSI, and why they hire
so many Psychics...  Why waste thousands of dollars on spy satellites
which can't see into rooms, or sending spies to sneak across the border
and try to infiltrate a secure installation when you can sit-down a
psychic and ask him to psychically wander around Russian military
installations and research facilities and describe what blueprints s/he
finds in the safe?  I would give you more details of this experiment,
but I can't remember whether it was done by Stanford University or
Stanford Research International, Inc, whom are no longer affilitated
with the university, if I had them, but my knowledge of them comes from
having viewed a television program aired (at least) in the S.F. bay
area, probably a year or so ago.  The program covered other scientific
research of PSI phenomena, but in their belief, and therefore in their
presentation, this was the most "proofy" experiment they were able to
get information on and reveal publicly.  Somebody said, if PSI worked,
there would be headlines.  Does this program count?  Different media,
same idea...

Regarding references to psychics other than BPI, I shall only refer you
to those psychics willing to take public exposure (and therefore
harrassment from the likes of some of our net.readers), and turn you
onto a publication wherein psychics advertise their services:

(This is Your) Psychic Life (The ONLY Magazine BY Psychics FOR Psychics)
Published by Deja Vu Publishing Company
1339 Lincoln Ave
San Rafael, CA 94901
(415)459-3551

"This Is Your Psychic Life" does not prescribe.  The spiritual healings
and spiritual techniques explained here are for educational use only.
It is recommended that those seeking medical service see a physician."

Most psychics are known by the title of "Reverend mumble", and claim
only to read you, not heal you.  The reason for these standard
disclaimers in all psychic work is the way THE LAW ESTABLISHMENT
supports the MEDICAL ESTABLISHMENT (represented by the A.M.A.), in
prosecution of anyone who "practices medicine without a license".

About that, let me say this.  Midwifes are also so threatened...
despite the fact that modern medical research has proven that the
modern hospital birth is the most traumatic possible for both mother
and child.

Accupuncture used to be in the same category.  It has been used
successfully as medicine by the Chinese for THOUSANDS of years, yet
only recently in our western "civilization" has it been proved
effective and valid in "scientific laboratories", and therefore finally
"approved" by the AMA and the ABA as other than practicing medicine
without a license to claim that it "heals".  The "scientific" community
is so closed minded and self serving it makes me want to log out and
cease attempting to communicate with so many "scientific" closed
minds.  In case you haven't figured it out by now I have given up the
agnostic / atheistic / scientific religion with which I was raised, and
which cult I was a follower of for over 30 years.  Not that I've given
up the application of the scientific method in my evaluation of incoming
data, but that I no longer restrict my "belief" to only the plane of
manifestation, the physical world, "the Universe" as scientists call it.

I can't help but allegorize... as I sit here at a very advanced Sun
Workstation, enjoying the benefits of electronic mail and electronic
bulletin boards (NEWS), it's hard for me to want to exert much effort
trying to convince a disbeliever that electronics exist or are useful.
It doesn't matter how it works even... there's a whole bunch of silicon
chips working in the closet for the utility company is a good enough
explanation for me at this point.  I'm more interested in "what can it
do for my life here and now."  And so it is with psychic phenomena...
I think I shall go meditate now rather than pressing plastic keys to
control the switching of electrons to try to convey to some closed
minded computer hackers or university students (the majority of the
USENET audience) that to the best of my knowledge and application of
the principles I learned as a scientist and engineer and 16year
veteran of the computer industry and the religion of consciousness,
that there's far more to life, the "mind", and the universe, than what
you can perceive with your conscious mind in a scientific laboratory.
It's only through the subconscious that you can perceive of the rest
of the universe, and you can only hear what it has to say to you when
you shut off your conscious mind, stop thinking, and listening to you
conscious "voice", and become one with the "nothingness", that there
is enough silence to hear the subtle voice of your spirit calling you.
Or you can just sleep, and try to remember your dreams.  While your
spirit is out on the astral planes exploring, you learn things... and
when it reenters the body in a gentle way it brings that knowledge with
it, and if you've been on the lower planes, that may be translatable
into physical world concepts enough that you have a meaningful dream.
If your dreams are too nebulous to understand, it's probably that you
were travelling on a higher astral plane, and the knowledge is difficult
to translate into "english".

			May the Love of Light
			Always fill your life

				Sunny
-- 
		Sunny Kirsten
U.P.S.:		10329 Hilltop Rd.
U.S. Mail:	P.O.B. 2025
		Loch Lomond, CA 95426-2025
Voice Phone:	(707) 928-5546, 987-2477
USENET:	...!{sun,ptsfa,well,lll-crg,ihnp4,ucsfcgl,nsc,frog}!hoptoad!sunny

weemba@brahms.BERKELEY.EDU (Matthew P. Wiener) (05/08/86)

I'm directing followups to net.sci.  This sort of stuff does *not*
belong in net.origins.

In article <499@magic.DEC.COM> thain@magic.DEC.COM (Glenn Thain) writes:
>     The vaugness of the language is also present in quantum mechanics. I'm no
>authority on either linquistics or quantum mechanics, yet I'm willing to admit
>bozons, quarks, and the like exist.

The language of quantum mechanics--mathematics--is *extremely* precise,
not vague.  Please don't insult QM and mathematics by calling them
"vague" just because you don't know the ropes.

>                                    Most fields of science 'grey' out for the 
>layman, so why should the language of metephysics be any different.

Right.  But nobody *knows* what Sunny is talking about, however.  Not even
roughly what she is talking about.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>[on initial disbelief]
>     In the early days of science, alchemists had the same problem.

Alchemists?  They still encounter opposition.

>                                                                    Freud 
>encountered the same disbelief.

And Freud is still considered garbage by the scientific community.

>                                Most recently, all of what science knew about
>Saturn and Uranus just changed. So science isn't without it's blind sides.

Huh?  This is a perfect example of science looking out there and changing
its mind.  The exact *opposite* of a blind side.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
>     When Freud opened the door to psychoanalysis, there were no guidelines,
>and it failed every known test that the scientific community put to it at that 
>time. Again I cite that the testing might not be up to an accurate account of
>what's been present. Yet the overwhelming data turned out by proffessional
>psychic researchers can't be ignored either.

Funny how you like to compare psi with Freudian garbage, which still fails
every known test that the scientific community throws at it.

ucbvax!brahms!weemba	Matthew P Wiener/UCB Math Dept/Berkeley CA 94720

ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis) (05/17/86)

>Sunny

>Regarding proof, I will waste these words:  "Stanford" has done
>research on psychic phenomena, specifically "remote viewing".  They put
>a psychic whose name was Pat and whose otherwise occupation was
>policeman, into a faraday shielded room, with an observer or two, while
>other "scientists" working on the experiment got into their car and
>randomly drove around the San Francisco Bay Area.  At a prearranged
>time, Pat would describe where the roving experimenters were, usually
>not by saying:" They're in Milpitas" (NOBODY would go to milpitas..

    Just what do you mean by that?

    I've been planning to spend my vacation in Milpitas for several
    years now. I hear the salt evaporators are perfectly marvelous 
    under the midsummer sun.

-michael

    The more vicious the society, the more vicious the individual

-Peter Grimes