April / May 2005

REVIEWS

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THE WORLD OF THE PARANORMAL PARANORMAL: The Next Frontier
BY LAWRENCE LESHAN
Helios Press, 2004, 1984, $16.95, 207 pp., ISBN 1-58115-267-360-0.
Reviewed by Richard A. Blasband

If I were asked to name three books that I thought were crucial to understanding current research and thinking in parapsychology, this slim volume by Lawrence Leshan would be one of them ( Margins of Reality: The Role of Consciousness in the Physical World by R. G. Jahn and B. G. Dunne, Harper, 1988, and The Conscious Universe by Dean Radin, HarperEdge, 1997, are the others). Serious thought and convocations focusing on the nature of consciousness and the reality of paranormal phenomena has occupied contemporary scholars for several decades, and despite a plethora of experimental studies that should have satisfied even the most rigid, mechanistically oriented scientist, there has been little progress in the understanding of these subjects. We may be indebted to Lawrence Leshan for helping us break through the blocks to this understanding.

Leshan, who has written several books on consciousness and its relationship to reality and worked with the celebrated medium Eileen Garrett, deplores contemporary parapsychology’s

. . . turning away from the big, meaningful paranormal events that had initially interested us in this field, and concentrated on the small quantifiable ones. . . . Psychical research, which had started as a theory in search of facts, turned into parapsychology, a collection of facts in search of a theory.”

(While I understand LeShan’s complaint here, he is too dismissive of the gains of those engaged in “micro-psi.” For example, the work done by Robert Jahn and Brenda Dunne at the Princeton University Engineering Anomalies Research Laboratory (PEAR lab) have provided remarkably significant data about remote viewing and the ability of ordinary people to affect random event generators locally, non-locally, and “off-time.” This has resulted in the M5 model for understanding these phenomena and others of a similar nature. See “A Modular Model of Mind/Matter Mani-festations (M5),” Journal of Scientific Exploration 15:3, 2001. )

As the British and American societies for psychical research began to die, the soul and its survival were given up as serious objects for scientific research.

Having set the table with a brief, informative historical review in Chapter 1, Leshan moves on to challenge typical beliefs that stand in the way of a deeper understanding of the phenomena. In his introduction, Leshan had informed us that the central point of the book is that one of the implications of the contemporary view of modern science is that there is, “no such thing as a paranormal phenomenon, although some phenomena are less normal than others.” LeShan maintains that while normal perception (“Type A” perception) and paranormal perception (“Type B” perception) involve the five senses and no physical senses, respectively, there are surprisingly few differences between them. In Chapter 2, he reiterates this fundamental point and provides scholarly testimony that the conditions that permit and foster one type of perception do the same for the other.

However, In each type of information there is a tremendous gap in the knowledge of how we acquired the information.

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In fact, we know no more about how a sensory excitation in a peripheral nerve causes conscious experience than we do about how a telepathic “image” is transported hundreds of miles from a “sender” to a “recipient.” Having defined Type A and Type B experiences and following a review of new developments in science, Leshan goes on to make a point which is at the crux of his argument: There is not just one valid way to under-stand the universe, as mainstream science maintains, but there can be as many valid ways as there are realms of nature:

. . . each realm of experience needs a different metaphysical system (italics Leshan’s) to make the data from it coherent, to make our observations meaningful.

To Leshan, and I agree with him, it makes no sense to try to understand so-called paranormal phenomena from the viewpoint of the physicalness of the “normal.” They function in different realms of nature! For example, telepathic communication is only a problem from the point of view of the mechanistic, physical realm of functioning, but not of the realm wherein consciousness functions. If the mind occupies no space, which most thinkers agree on, there is no position in space to which information can be transferred! Leshan’s central point is that:

. . . psychological phenomena defy all laws of the sensory realm. Nothing is quantifiable, no mechanical models can be made, there are no laws of conservation of energy, there is no such thing as spatial separation, and no such things as objects. . . .The great error of parapsychology has been to try to solve its problems as if they were physical problems from the sensory realm.

Having well made this point, Leshan reasonably introduces us to the view that entirely different kinds of science must be utilized in understanding the observables in the realm of consciousness versus the observables in the sensory realm. These kinds are called ideographic versus nomographic science, the science of singular events versus the science of universal laws, respectively. In the former, in principle, one cannot predict events, while in the latter, given sufficient information, prediction is the science. Also of great importance, LeShan maintains, is the proper ordering of phenomena in designing a useful model and methodology for the development of parapsychology. In a relatively fruitless effort to be “scientific,” psi investigators have bent over backward to order their observations with respect to their properties, while what is really appropriate in the study of psi is to understand its phenomena in terms of their history ( Margins of Reality).

Leshan opens Chapter 7, “Are Paranormal Occurrences Possible?”, by forcefully insisting that we differentiate theory from fact in our understanding of reality. Our definition of reality is a theory, experiments demonstrating paranormal events are a fact. If the latter are considered impossible, as many in the scientific community would have it, then we must change our theory to accommodate the facts and therefore render them possible. Unfortunately, Leshan argues, parapsychologists, in their need to be accepted by the scientific community, have adopted the establishment’s theory of reality, and because of this always run aground. They are constantly trying to demonstrate that the impossible is really possible within the constraints of a theory of reality that insists that parapsychological events must be impossible.

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In setting out criteria for a model of a research program, Leshan points out the importance of relationships in psi phenomenon: According to him there always has to be some “need” involved for psitype communications and/or a flaw in the normal perceptual apparatus at the time of the psi event so that the information can slip through the normally present filter that ordinarily keeps such information from perception. The implication of the latter is that if we didn’t have such a filter we would be able to perceive psi communications. LeShan presents no evidence for this. My personal belief, based on much experience with my mentor in healing, the physicist and healer Nicolai Levashov, is that psi phenomena, including healing, come about because the individual can, consciously or unconsciously, operate in a different state of consciousness (Levashov, The Final Appeal to Mankind, 1 & 2, 1994, 1997).

In anticipating his presentation of a research project in psychic healing, LeShan reiterates a critical theme that he had discussed in some detail in previous books. It is that we do not just perceive the outside world, but we organize it into coherent and consistent patterns. And, in doing this we use definite organizing systems to put the sensed world together into the perceived world. In addition to our commonly perceived sensory-based mode of perceiving reality, there are several altered states. Whatever reality the individual is in he accepts the rules of that reality, accepts that reality as the “real one.” Further, these different states of consciousness deal with the same phenomena, albeit with differing definitions of space, time, how things work, and what they are.

Using psychic healing as an example of how one could scientifically approach parapsychological phenomena, LeShan, on the basis of his personal investigations and experience as a teacher of healing, maintains that through all the modes of healing there is only one practice that all healers share: They change from a sensory mode to a unitary or clairvoyant mode of structuring and organizing reality with the healee as the focus of attention. What healers seem to do, he finds, is to assist the healee to obtain results that are similar to those found in spontaneous remissions, i.e. results that are identical to what the body could have achieved on its own, but no more than that. They do this, he maintains, by providing an energetic “nutrition” to a depleted organism.

We are not given much data on how well the patients heal nor for how long the healing lasts. Based on my own experience as a healer, I suspect that the extent of success in both these parameters is a function of two things: the ability (or lack thereof) of the healer to make changes in the pathological structure of the patient’s organ systems (so the client can properly utilize their own energy potentials) and the sensitivity of the patient to the healer’s interventions.

In concluding, LeShan begins by reminding us of the deplorable lack of interest that there is in the scientific mainstream in Type B perceptions, especially since such perceptions and their attendant functions are so intrinsically a part of man. We do not know ourselves. “What does it mean to be human? What is the human condition?” he justifiably asks.

“Parapsychologists have no need to be apologetic about their field,” writes LeShan. After all, as mentioned earlier, mainstream investigators know no more about how information or excitations present in the nervous system “jump” into consciousness than we know about how information “travels” telepathically from one person to another. Our task as investigators of this more subtle domain is to understand its scope, limitations, observables, and how they interact with each other, just as one would do in studying Type A observables, only with the recogninition that the rules will be different in the two realms. This does not mean that this cannot be done using scientific formalities, only that we must utilize the fundamental ten-ets of science within the con-straints of the Type B realm. Here we must keep in mind the observables, “purpose,” and a functional rather than mechanistic ordering of data. The latter must be conducted not on the basis of properties but on the basis of history. Our model will be ideographic, not monothetic science. We may not be able to predict the future, but we will, after the fact, be able to say how a certain event had to come about.

RICHARD A. BLASBAND, M.D., is Research Director, Center for Functional Research, Sausalito, CA. RABlasband@aol.com

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BECOMING PSYCHIC: Spiritual Lessons for Focusing Your Hidden Abilities
By STEPHEN KIERULFF AND STANLEY KRIPPNER
New Page Books, 2004, $14.95, 256 pp., ISBN: 1-56414-X.
Reviewed by Carolyn Godschild Miller

Becoming Psychic will appeal to readers of widely disparate backgrounds and levels of expertise. It offers an entertaining introduction to the study of psychic phenomena for those who are merely curious, and I believe it will also satisfy tough-minded readers seeking cogent evaluations of current research. Add to that its experiential exercises for individuals interested in exploring their own latent psychic potential, and I think it covers all the bases.

Dr. Kierulff’s informal, reader friendly writing style places the subject of psychic awareness within a human context. I believe he will prompt many readers to realize that they may have had psychic experiences of their own without having known it. Kierulff shares fascinating stories from his own struggle to integrate his spiritual beliefs with his devotion to modern science, and he offers valuable tips to help readers explore their own psychic and spiritual awareness.

Dr. Krippner is, of course, one of the best known and most respected figures in parapsychological research. Widely recognized for his ingenious, rigorously controlled experiments, he is uniquely situated to educate the rest of us about the current scientific status of precognition, remote viewing, intentional healing, etc. Because he has also personally worked with many of the major figures in the field, Krippner’s discussions are spiced with fascinating stories, such as the one where he got the famous stage illusionist and debunker of the paranormal, James Randi, to vet a series of experiments he was about to do on psychic Uri Geller. When Randi concluded that Geller would not be able to find any way to fake paranormal powers under the conditions Krippner had set up, he predicted that Geller would not show up. Sure enough, Geller came up with a series of reasons to break appointments and never submitted his alleged powers to Krippner’s scrutiny.

Becoming Psychic is a highly entertaining and informative volume.

CAROLYN GODSCHILD MILLER, Ph.D., is an experimental and a clinical psychologist in West Los Angeles. She taught graduate psychology for 20 years. Her book Creating Miracles: Understanding the Experience of Divine Intervention, which explored miracles in life-or-death situations, was translated into 3 languages. Her latest book, Soulmates: Following Inner Guidance to the Relationship of Your Dreams, analyzes the way people who have achieved satisfying soulmate relationships believe they did so.

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HEALING RAGE: Women Making Inner Peace Possible
BY RUTH KING
Sacred Spaces Press, 2004, pp., $17., ISBN 0975425803.
Reviewed by Marilee Niehoff

Unlike most authors writing on inner peace, Ruth King does not consider rage something to be eliminated,

but rather as a medium through which to experience “wild awakenings, and deep beauty.” In Healing Rage: Women Making Inner Peace Possible, she seeks to harness enraging and even shame-provoking experiences to awaken sacred power and wisdom.

King moves from analysis of the causes of rage, to different types of responses to the issues, and the behavioral patterns that emerge in the process. She helps the reader examine these traits in her examples of short stories, and guides them into charting their own reactions in the given contexts to produce a thorough self-assessment.

While I remain dubious about the healing power of these negative emotions, and am somewhat skeptical in general about the net benefit of aggression/anger/rage and the antidotal effects she attributes to these emotions, I do appreciate some of the methodology she employs in recognizing these emotions and charting their levels throughout one’s lifetime.

One of these is the lifeline that she has readers draw to assess critical points in their development. In my own experience as an international organizational manager consultant and counselor, I have seen these to be helpful for people learning how to assess situations under different levels of stress, and how to recognize their own patterns, which results in a process of growth and improvement.

To someone who has worked in this area and is investigating different methods of approaching rage in the clinical arena, I would recommend this book as an interesting contrast to mainline methods, and as an original approach offering some fresh insights.

Her closing statements on the issue are revealing, as she hopes that: “We are able to look at one another’s rage, recognize ourselves, and fall in love with what we see.” Although I agree with her in hoping for compassion, and recognition of one another’s brokenness, I disagree that this compassion and love would allow us to remain contented with this state of brokenness: Rather, it is my hope that love would spur us to seek healing and growth beyond what we now are.

It is from this hope that I draw my own strength, day by day.

MARILEE NIEHOFF, Ph.D., has spent her career as an Organizational Psychologist helping people relieve stress, and she is a licensed water therapist, who specializes in Watsu, a form of Shiatsu exercise.