INTRODUCTORY DISCUSSION

(21Jan97)

The materials in the following twelve essays will help introduce a category of topics that need to be considered as preventing or defeating understanding that would lead toward the activation of at least some of the superpower faculties.

All of the topics discussed in this category were discovered to be structurally important within the psychoenergetics project at Stanford Research Institute which endured from 1972 through 1985 -- and I have worked toward fleshing them out since then.

Most of the topics were brought together as early as 1979 in a rather extensive paper requested by the principal leadership of one of the agencies that funded the project.

The identification of the topics that resulted in the extensive report was provided to answer a two-part question posed by the funding agencies, but which never before had been addressed.

• Are there any factors that PREVENT the development and realization of the superpowers?

• And if so, what are they?

These questions had come about because of earlier efforts at various institutions to test advertised developmental (or enhancing) methodologies, but which efforts had ended up with insignificant results.

The urge to enhance or learn or discover is always very strong, especially within the cultures of the modern West, since these are learning cultures whose basic premises regarding progress are based in organized educational methodologies. This is the "you can do it if you learn how" kind of thing.

However, various areas of potential learning don't respond very well to this positivistic approach. And in general, learning how to "become psychic" constitutes one of these non-responsive areas.

This statement needs quickly to be quickly qualified, however.

The existence of "natural psychics," as it were, can be documented quite easily, as can occasional Psi experiencing among the broad populations in general.

However, how and why, and what internal factors result in natural Psi capabilities within given individuals have not been isolated or comprehended, even though a tremendous effort to do so has been attempted several times in at least five major nations, and several minor ones.

Thus, the general idea circulated in the public that such attempts have never taken place is not true -- and in fact never will be true, since it is acknowledged behind the scenes that such "powers" exist in our species, although latently so.

Thus, the existence of natural psychics, some of them very good at what they do, is not an issue in these database documents, and nothing in this database should be misconstrued as prejudicial to them.

However, social issues that arise because of their existence can be an issue, at least in terms of social tolerance or intolerance toward them and what they are representative of because of their natural abilities.

In any event, if a positivistic approach toward "learning how to" yields little in the way of progress, then it is quite justifiable to begin considering the possibility that unidentified deterrents may be present, and be stronger than expected.

The theory here is that once the preventing factors are identified and, well, "removed," it should become possible to better isolate and work with the key structural elements of the superpowers themselves.

To be clear here, the idea is this: OK, if we can't get it to work, let's shift focus to what's keeping it from working.

It was found that a very large portion of the preventing factors were social or sociological in origin. And as such, the preventing factors were embedded in the consensus realities that characterized the social or sociological environments to which individuals had adapted.

Most of the preventing factors could be equated with information processing viruses that became cloned in members of a given society or social sub-grouping, and which thereafter distort or negate mental information processing grids at the individual level.

It can be thought, then, that natural psychics somehow escape such negating factors, whatever they may consist of, and so presumably early in life -- or perhaps undergo a Metanoia shift later on (Metanoia being a topic of one of the essays ahead.)

As the preventing factors were isolated and took on visibility and understanding, a number of unexpected developmental fall-outs resulted.

Major among these fall-outs was that the superpower faculties apparently, and automatically, commence better functioning to the degree that the preventing factors are identified and understood.

The evidence regarding this more than suggested that once the mental information processing viruses, and their origins, are understood as such, they cease their deterrent functioning within the entire sensorium systems.

It would appear, then, that the entire sensorium systems undergo MICRO-CHANGES OF STATE once the information viruses are deactivated.

The change-of-state phenomena are consistent with the ancient Greek concept of METANOIA -- translated into English as when the brain-mind suddenly shifts from a lower to a higher condition of functioning.

In any event, it is quite logical and rational to assume that when information viruses are deactivated within given information processing systems, then something IS going to happen along the lines of enhancing those systems. In this sense, "enhancing" would imply restoration of processes which had been depressed or distorted by the viruses.

The human biomind almost certainly IS an information processing system -- rather, is an interlocking, interdependent series of them.

The most expedient and direct way to deactivate information processing viruses is simply to beat them to death.

This seems to be the case for two basic reasons:

• that the viruses, once transmitted and cloned into individuals, are highly resistant to change of any kind; and

• that to begin with they are invisible within cognitive systems that contain them, and so it is difficult to spot them via of cognitive introspection and "self-discovery."

One very expeditious way to beat an information processing virus to death is to cease processing information through it, or to construct new pathways around it.

Now, to move expeditiously on and to begin the beating-to-death process, in this database the phrase "How can I learn to become more psychic," is permanently replaced by the more effective concept of "ACTIVATING the superpower FACULTIES of the human biomind."

The term PSYCHIC will be utilized only with regard to dipping back into those consensus realities which have adapted to that term.

Gradually, all other psychic or parapsychological nomenclature that has any viral-like nature will be ejected -- and replaced with concept-nomenclature more appropriate to the superpower processes themselves.

In all cases, evidence and rationales will be fully and openly presented and discussed, even though there is the possibility of putting some readers to sleep.

Some of the evidence and rationales opened up in the essays ahead are complex. I'll do my best to make it generally accessible, but will not simplify or over-simplify it -- because over-simplification can easily act as an information processing virus.

As has been noted in other essays, the superpowers can be thought of as existing not because of psychics per se, but because a variety of the faculties spontaneously function in a very large number of people who don't believe they are "psychic." The manifestations might be temporary, as they usually are within the species populations in general.

Statistically speaking, the information processing grids of only an extremely small percentage of the human population are structured and organized in such a way as to permit more or less continuous performance of this or that superpower faculty.

And even in the case of most natural psychics, they are limited regarding the larger spectrum that the sum of the superpower faculties seem to represent -- while many faculties along this spectrum have not been conceptualized or discovered.

Naturally psychic people are called psychics, seers, shamans, clairvoyants, and etc., and they are treated according to the social environments in which they dwell.

But about 90 per cent of all human populations occasionally experience a superpower manifestation of some kind, and then usually within some kind of emergency necessity or as a result of deep, concerted thinking about something that has taken on extraordinary meaning or importance for them.

Theoretically speaking, then, it can be assumed that the superpower faculties exist within our species since their spontaneous manifestations occur far and wide, in all cultures, and throughout our species history.

It is because of the continuous historical presence of the manifesting faculties that we can conclude justifiably that the superpowers are as old as is our species.

Their existence, then, pre-dates any subsequent social treatment of them, and pre-dates as well the very many conceptual treatments of them that have come and gone through the centuries and the many social enclaves that also have come and gone.

This may explain one consistent phenomenon regarding the appearance of superpower functioning among children before they have become fully adapted to their social environment programming and the transmission of information processing viruses within that programming.

Accordingly, and if only for purposes of theoretical speculating, it can be postulated that the most effective way of activating one's own faculties is to study the actual nature of the faculties at the species level, not at the individual or within the socio-cultural levels.

The functional reason for this SHIFT OF FOCUS is that the superpowers are treated and thought of in different ways with regard to individuals, social groups and sub-groups, cultures, nations, educational adaptations, and so forth.

Few of these ways are consistent with another.

In any event, the different ways are constituted more of sociological parameters, most of which divert (or can destroy) direct cognitive approach to the faculties.

At this point, it is somewhat mandatory to introduce the conundrum of social tolerance versus intolerance toward the superpowers.

Archaeological, historical and anthropological evidence is very strong regarding the high tolerance of the superpowers among ancient cultures.

This tolerance must have been based on knowledge of the superpowers, a knowledge via which the superpowers were EXPECTED to emerge at least within a certain percentage of people.

This knowledge, whatever it consisted of, has become lost, distorted, degraded, mythologized, or over-simplified.

Lost also are the consensus reality structures which encompassed the knowledge and must have in fact stimulated it into existence.

It is highly improbably that the lost knowledge can be reconstructed or reconstituted within the constraints of modern consensus realities.

We, therefore, are largely on our own -- with the exception of discovering contemporary concepts which correspond to the ancient ones. The difficulty here is that the nomenclature utilized will probably be radically different.

In any event, in earlier cultures the expected activation of the superpowers (at least in some form) was accepted when it did occur, and the high frequency of the occurring often needed institutional formats to manage it -- such as the seer systems of ancient Egypt, Greece, India, Persia, China, the Amerindian cultures, etc.

Thus, the ancient cultures of our species are particularly littered with evidence that if tolerance for the superpower exists, then they do manifest on a higher rate of frequency.

On the other hand, social parameters that are intolerant of the superpowers would not only suppress the frequency of superpower emergence, but would confuse the important issues involved so that cognitive functioning of the faculties would become difficult, or not possible.

But even so, such social parameters of intolerance could not erase the faculties themselves, since these appear to be a continuous endowment of the species rather than of any given social or psychological parameters.

Thus, various of the superpowers continue to emerge spontaneously even within social vectors that are intolerant of them.

Persons who for some reason have acquired various types of cognitive interaction with THEIR superpower faculties can be called "a psychic," as they are in English. But in other cultures they are, and have been called by a number of other identifiers, meaning that they have been conceptualized differently.

And it is here that we can meet with a staggering problem most are unaware of, but which is one of the most important problems regarding ever achieving any real understanding not only of the species superpower faculties, but of all our species faculties including those which produce "creativity."

In explaining the nature of this great problem, the blunt fact of the matter is that different conceptualizations lead to and yield different results -- while some conceptualizations don't yield any results if they are off the mark regarding what is being conceptualized.

Different conceptualizations also lead to different expectations, and to different predictions not only regarding results, but regarding what is or is not needed, or required to obtain the results.

A conceptualization is a MODEL which people utilize as a basis for their think-functioning, and also use to interpret or judge the same regarding others.

It then must follow that a number of different specimens of our species who are adapted to a variety of different conceptualizations will comprehend, interpret or judge a given superpower phenomenon in a variety of different ways.

It will also be found that the different concepts extruding from the different models will be exceedingly hard to correlate.

Thus, if we attempt to look at the superpower faculties through our models and concepts, we will achieve only what our concepts permit. And whatever THAT is probably will not correlate with conceptualizations of others.

What is being emphasized via the above is that individual and social conceptualizations govern the mental lenses THROUGH WHICH the most visible of the superpower phenomena are judged in turn.

It is very important here to emphasize that hardly anyone ever "sees" the superphenomena directly and purely, so to speak.
What IS actually seen are,

(1) the phenomena, PLUS

(2) the concepts through which they have been filtered, with the sum being 3, the combined result of 1 + 2.

In this sense, then, 1 + 2 = 3 whatever that may be. And 3 is more likely to be composed more of 2 than of 1.

It is almost certain that the phenomena will be reduced or altered to fit the conceptual lenses through which they are being viewed, judged or "understood." And direct experimental evidence accumulated over a long period of time shows that FUNCTIONING will correspond more with 2 than 1.

As will be discussed (rather endlessly) in this series of essays, the English identifier "a psychic" is a difficult and usually foggy conceptualization because those utilizing it are usually doing so as a label or a stereotype -- without understanding that the label itself will not reveal much about the functions behind it, save perhaps to say that THOSE functions are "psychic" ones, too.

The same was and is also true of the labels of seer, shaman, soothsayer, oracle, clairvoyant and so forth.

In other words, the way we refer to an individual who has achieved some kind of cognitive contact with THEIR arrangement of the superpower faculties, well, the referent itself tells us nothing about the functioning processes involved.

Throughout my years, it has been my good fortune to have met a fairly large number of "natural psychics," and I developed long-term associations with some of them. I was very impressed with their "products," and I tend to hold "natural psychic talent" in high esteem.

But, and as in my own case, all but three of them resented being called "a psychic," and usually for one or both of two reasons.

It denied them their individuality, i.e., depersonalized them by lumping them together with all "psychics" -- whether real, questionable, idiotic, stupid, money-grubbing or ego-mongering.

The other general reason was that everyone has their own idea of what "a psychic" is, must or should be -- and so each person has different expectations, values, and judgments about "a psychic."

There is nothing worse than being caused, as a discrete individual, to disappear behind a stereotyping label -- and for no other reason than its widespread social usage as a pidgin-hole identifier.

Now, there is always a real person behind such a label, and so I can tell you that all of the "psychics" I had the good fortune to meet were exceedingly different from one another.

The individuals I've met and who did claim the identity of "a psychic" did so because they gave "readings" to public clients who paid for the readings.

Generally speaking, the public expect psychics to be, well, PSYCHIC, and will not pay anyone for a reading who is not identified as one. But this involves entrepreneurial economics, a topic which is not relevant to this database. However, I HAVE encountered some rather good "psychic readers," for example, a tea-cup reader in a sleazy club but who blew me away.

Now, a CONCEPT which has achieved broad stereotype usage usually acts as a pidgin-hole identifier, even though it applies to something other than a person. What's behind the label-concept can disappear, even if we know what we think we have identified by utilizing the label-concept.

"Ah, yes," I've often heard it said, "that [phenomenon or experience] MUST be psychic."

People do say this, you know. But if you ask them the details of what they are talking about, things usually drift off into a cloying ambiguity.

The fact that different people, cultural groupings, nations, etc., assign an identifier to individuals who demonstrate this or that type of superpower functioning, well this is a reductionist SOCIAL function, not an investigative one.

But the actual process-functions of the superpower faculties can ALSO disappear behind concepts that have merely become social stereotype concepts.

One of the more informative things about the superpower faculties being a species thing is that people who spontaneously experience and report them tend, in their "raw" narratives, to describe them in nearly identical ways, no matter what their cultural or environmental backgrounds might be.

However, WHAT they say they have experienced is then subjected to social conceptualizing patterns. The concepts and nomenclature used by the social process are assigned to the raw reports of the experiencers.

I like to use the term "digested" here -- in that the raw narratives of the experiencers are digested by social processes. In this digesting, identifiers typically used in those processes are assigned, and thus everyone who uses the identifiers think they know what happened to the original experiencer.

Accounts or interpretations of the raw experience are then based on the digested outputs, written up for others to read -- meaning that readers read the pre-digested forms.

And since the readers, too, utilize the concept-identifiers, they end up thinking they understand what the original experiencer experienced.

Then, some few readers think they would like to "develop" the same experiential capacities, and so they utilize the pre-digested versions as their guidelines -- and tend to be a little disappointed when the "guidelines" don't produce much of anything.

And which is to say, more or less, that nothing or little gets ACTIVATED in the way of superpower faculties which people nonetheless experience species-wide.

In Part Four ahead, under the topic of Information Theory, we will encounter an observation of one of the principal founders of the theory first published in 1948. This observation establishes that NONE OF US are free from entrapment in consensus realities of one kind or another.

Although probably shocking at first take, this conclusion is firmly supported by semantic studies, linguistics and nomenclature analysis.

The conclusion is this:

"...about half of the elements in writing or speaking are freely chosen, and the rest are required by the structure of the language."

Those working in the discipline of semantic studies sometimes opine that the required elements constitute more than 50 per cent.

In any event, a large portion of the "required" elements, if not the whole of them, can be found to correspond with concept-nomenclature itself utilized as the basis for achieving consensus realities.

If this concept-nomenclature is NOT utilized, then one might just as well be speaking the language of planet alpha-X in star system NYKD40.

The implication here is quite clear. If the concept-nomenclature of the "required elements" contains misconceptions no one realizes are misconceived, then these misconceptions will probably be cloned into all who utilize the required elements.

And information mentally processed through or via those misconceptions surely results in some form of distortion no one realizes is a distortion.

The concept of ACTIVATING [something] is a particular challenge, especially when it is known to exist, but stubbornly refuses to get up and do its stuff -- because the wrong concepts are being used in the attempt to bring about activation.

Expert problem solvers know there are two major routes to take: to learn how to activate it on the one hand, and to find out what's preventing it from activating on the other.

You see, problems can be solved by learning how to solve them. This may or may not work. But problems can also be solved by finding out what's preventing their solution.

For reasons never made entirely clear to me, the majority put faith and trust in the learning-how-to method -- and where the superpower faculties are concerned, they have my best wishes.

On the other hand, spontaneous manifestations of the faculties have been around for a about six millennia. And very many ideas and concepts regarding how to "develop" them by learning-how-to methods have been tried down through the centuries.

The major result here is that our species, although possessed of the faculties, is today not yet swarming with those faculties in activated forms.

So, the better part of valor is:

• if Plan A (learning-how-to-activate) doesn't seem to work all that well,

• let's move to Plan B (learning-what-prevents-the-activation.)

Organized psychical research was first established and undertaken in 1882, but was displaced during the 1930s by the emergence of parapsychology. While these two entities are generally considered the same or similar, they are distinct because their central theories and methodologies differed.

But both established concept-nomenclature that became utilized in general, and which contributed what turned into the consensus-reality nomenclature utilized almost worldwide. Thus, when anyone speaks or writes about "paranormal phenomena," so-called, the concept-nomenclature of the two fields falls into the category of "required elements."

In other words, we are obliged to utilize the concept-nomenclature of those two fields, or no one will know what we are talking about.

A full part of the resulting problems is that both psychical research and parapsychology evolved as rejected sciences, with the result that they were ghettoized within the much larger scenarios of the other developing sciences.

Any collective that is ghettoized usually introverts into its own ways and means, into its own concepts and understanding -- and this usually reinforces and solidifies the contours of the ghettoization rather than ameliorating them.

Once the contours have become solidified, a two-way exchange of information and concepts between the ghetto and the larger scenarios is usually unlikely.

This is to say that conceptual information, developments and discoveries in the ghetto and in the larger scenarios are not likely to be exchanged or correlated.

The basic reason is that if the exchange, if it took place, would tend to dissolve the ghetto contours resulting in some kind of integration. This integration is usually desired by the ghettoized populations, but is also usually rejected by the larger scenarios which brought about the ghettoization.

The overall result ends up as some kind of a stand-off. But this is not the end of the story.

All intrusions from the ghetto into the larger scenarios are defensively repulsed by forces within the latter, since those intrusions are seen within the larger scenarios as virus-like in nature.

This is to say that the intrusions will be interpreted as undermining the consensus realities of the larger scenarios that brought about the ghettoizing in the first place.

Collective Psi research has produced the concepts and nomenclature utilized by the public and media, and various generalized consensus realities have been formatted around them.

The public of course realizes there is an on-going fracas between Psi research and science proper. But what is not generally visible is how the on-going fracas is maintained and kept ongoing.

On the part of science proper, the fracas is maintained by sanitizing proper science of all concepts and nomenclature emanating from ghettoized Psi research.

That this sanitizing is possible, much less enforced, may seem unreal to the public. But then the public usually does not consume hundreds of scientific papers. And it is only by doing so that one can realize the complete absence of Psi nomenclature in them.

Further, although some of those aspiring to find a place in proper science might wish to consider the contents and implications of Psi research, they can do so only privately and quietly. Any open consideration will end up in some kind of career disaster for them.

The dimensions of the fracas are maintained on the part of ghettoized Psi research for reasons that are a little more complicated. But the complexities can be summarized as the tendency to introvert into one's own basic operating realities, and which are maintained within the intra-ghettoized system because they seem meaningful and appropriate to the core work of that system.

The basic operating realities of the core work are rooted in concepts and nomenclature appropriate to them, and thus constitute the consensus realities within the ghetto.

Via these mutual defensive methods on both sides, an information exchange barrier takes shape between the two parties of the stand-off. Psi research will not "go away," largely because aspects or elements of it are experienced on a worldwide basis.

Yet Psi research cannot be admitted into science proper -- without the cost of dis-establishing some of its own fundamental, conceptual constructs.

And it is this "complaint" I, personally, have been directly apprised of by a number of eminent scientists who have dared to talk with me. The same complaint, however, has often been seen in print.

Now, there has been a significant point in reviewing these certain aspects of the stand-off, a point that has required the format and contexts of the foregoing descriptions.

This important point has to do with the information-exchange barrier between science proper and the bad-child ghettoized in its scientifically isolated playpen.

The organized ghettoization of Psi research was in effect as early as the 1890s, and has been maintained ever since, along with the information-exchange barrier.

Psi research and science proper have thus evolved along their own pathways, and have remained divided with respect to the information-exchange barrier.

In other words, we are talking about a barrier that, if wobbly at times, has endured for at least a hundred years.

And this, in my sardonic opinion, is one of the silliest things ever, especially in Western democratic cultures where freedom of information is considered a fundamental, inalienable right.

In any event, the maintenance of the information-exchange barrier has worked to make it nearly impossible to correlate advances in science proper with advances in Psi research -- and which advances are applicable to each other.

And these advances remain divided because in the two sides of the stand-off they have been arrived at via different theoretical and conceptual approaches -- and which are identified by nomenclature so radically different that it is extremely difficult to see any relationship between them.

As but one example of many, information theory and the basic concepts of information transfer (which ushered in the overwhelmingly powerful Age of Information) became available in 1948, nearly forty years ago.

Yet, the fact that so-called "clairvoyance," "telepathy," and "remote viewing" are, at base, problems of information transfer seems to have dawned neither on Psi researcher nor proper scientists.

And so Psi researchers in general have not adapted to information theory precepts, while science proper never has adapted to precepts of clairvoyance, etc., no matter the gargantuan, well-documented evidence for it.

And the public in general is totally unaware of anything in this regard.

In the essays now to follow, I will discuss WHY activation of any of the superpowers is unlikely UNLESS they are first and foremost conceptualized as INFORMATION TRANSFER situations.

It will also be discussed that the superpowers are matters of PERCEPTION only in some secondary or third sense -- in that in proper science it is now understood without question or challenge that perception itself is a matter of information flow and transfer.

It then must follow that any conceptualization and nomenclature for it that is not based in the now-understood nature of information and its transfer processes will act as mental processing virus deterrents.

But there are numerous other deterrents as well, and it is the most notable, and most easily identifiable of these which now constitute the topics of all of the following essays.

Back to Contents