1Meta-research directions

1.1About this document

We have enough evidences of anomalies; it's time to explain them with a testable theory.

This document discusses souls and the phenomenons associated with them, such as anomalous cognition, reincarnation, afterlife, out-of-body experience, near-death experience, subjective experience (first-person point of view), and so on.

1.2Directions

Whenever we feel lost in our paranormal research, answering these meta-questions will give us some directions:

  • How does evidence constrain (narrow down) the space of hypotheses that attempt to explain paranormal phenomenons?
  • What key question should we ask next in order to formulate a crucial experiment whose result would most strongly constrain the hypothesis space?
  • How can mathematics help, if it can help at all?

We research souls indirectly as we research stars, because it is difficult to experiment with souls as it is with stars. Thus we mostly observe and theorize.

Astronomers cannot hold stars in their hands and geologists cannot go back in time, but both scientists can learn a great deal about the universe through observation and comparison.1

We also research souls as we do chemistry. The object of study is complex and we do not know what it actually is; we only know some of its properties and some phenomenons associated with it. Our current knowledge of souls is similar to our past knowledge of phlogistons. We need a psychic "Lavoisier" to discover the psychic "oxygen" and replace the psychic "phlogiston combustion" theory with psychic "oxygen combustion" theory. We do not know what a soul is as we did not know what a phlogiston is. We merely posit their existence and assume that they cause the phenomenons that interest us, and then we set out to find their properties.

The primary method of reasoning in this research is abductive: Find the simplest theory that explains all known evidence.

We should consider non-American parapsychologists, such as Russian and Japanese ones. In 2015, Edwin C. May said that Russia was more open to parapsychology than America is.2

https://www.parapsych.org/blogs/jmishlove/entry/1285/2019/6/parapsychology_in_russia_with_loyd.aspx

https://www.newdawnmagazine.com/articles/the-changing-face-of-russian-psi-research

Targ's 2012 book [5]

It seems Targ has an "ESP Trainer" mobile app3, but it seems to be iPhone-only.

2My experiments and drafts?

2.1On the word "energy"

If energy is the ability to do work, then psychic energy is the ability to do psychic work.

Psychic energy gradient?

Psychic energy conservation?

2.2Materials

Targ 2012 book [5].

Conscientology and projectiology4

Carl Sagan thinks that there is considerable preliminary evidence for some paranormal phenomenons.5

CIA collection of news articles of police testimonies for psychics6

35% of reincarnated children has birth marks that correspond to the mode of death7

The gold leaf lady.89 It seems that people with difficult marriages or emotional disturbances experience more psychokinetic phenomenons.

James Randi's reputation is not perfect.10

The difference between apport and materialization is that apport is the anomalous movement of existing object whereas materialization is the creation of a new object.11

Why does a grounded Faraday cage enhances ESP if ESP is not an electromagnetic phenomenon?12 Where is the paper?

3Grouping evidence for hypothesis formation

An anomaly is a strangeness, an unexpected phenomenon, something that goes against common sense.

Anomalies lead to truth. Anomalies enable us to revise our belief.

What evidence do we have, what hypothesis does it raise, and what question should we ask to test that hypothesis?

By this grouping, I hope to formulate the next crucial experiments.

The theory must parsimoniously explain all evidence in the previous section, namely: past-life carry over, anomalous cognition.

We should not be too eager to invoke quantum physics. Parapsychology itself already makes people think we're lunatics. Invoking quantum physics will make people think we're deranged lunatics.

Perhaps everyone is psychic but their conscious mind blocks their subconscious mind.

3.1On the ontology of paranormal things

Telepathy, Clairvoyance, and Precognition are instances of Psychic Ability.

Anomalous Perception is my synonym for Extra-Sensory Perception, because Perception is the act of interpreting sensory inputs, and thus perception implies sensors, by definition; it is just that we don't know the sensor, in the same way we can use the skin to feel pressure without knowing how the skin transduces pressure into sensory inputs for the brain.

Sensing is the transduction of a phenomenon into a signal.

Ghost is a subclass of Spirit.

Poltergeist is an instance of Paranormal Phenomenon.

Kruth13: "Parapsychology is the scientific study of five specific phenomena."

https://rsbakker.wordpress.com/2014/03/18/the-ontology-of-ghosts/

Materialism is false? What are these trying to say? 2016 article "Why Materialism Is False, and Why It Has Nothing To Do with the Mind"14

Are materialism and subjective experience compatible? Problem of other minds?

Evidence of survival after bodily death: Apparently dead people can play chess and answer questions.15

Applied precognition research in 201616

There are several remote viewing protocols.

Anomalous cognitive information transfer is not limited by the speed of light. The remote viewing of the moons of Jupiter by Edwin C. May et al.17 He also knows a remote-viewing disbeliever who does remote viewing well.18

Evidence of macropsychokinetic physiology, materialization, apports, "permanent paranormal object"1920

Reincarnation: Stevenson seems to be quite rigorous.21

Joseph Gallenberger used Las Vegas casinos as his parapsychology laboratory.22

Can we get better at remote viewing by exercise/training, or is it special talent by birth?

"Remote viewing" is a misnomer; "remote perception" is more appropriate. "Remote sensing" has already been used to mean something else.

3.2On multi-location and teleportation

bi-location/multi-location (being at several places simultaneously)

Body doubles (look-alikes) are not psychic.

An Indonesian bus got into the middle of a jungle without leaving any trails (such as tire marks or broken woods)?

Keywords: afterlife, super-survival, near-death experience, reincarnation, xenoglossy, past-life memory, past-life carry-over, instrumental transcommunication, mediumship, possession, thanatology.

I define "afterlife" as all subjective experience after bodily death.

Apparently, bodily death is not eternal oblivion.

There are several studies and accounts of near-death experience (NDE).

There are studies23: Pim van Lommel's study of consciousness after clinical death2425, Sam Parnia's AWARE study [4]2627.

There are individual accounts: Elizabeth Krohn2829.

Dying, near-death experiences, thanatology:

Can we explain these phenomenons without resorting to souls? Reincarnation (past-life carry-over), super-survival (life after clinical death), instrumental transcommunication (telephone calls from the dead, etc.).

Xenoglossy is the anomalous acquisition of language.

Semkiw3031

Here I sloppily use "soul" and "spirit" as synonyms, and I use them to mean the non-material part of living beings. Our biggest problem is not this sloppiness, but our not knowing what souls are.3233

I define "reincarnation" as any phenomenon that a layman would likely suspect to be past-life carry-over. It is not Buddhist reincarnation. My definition is more general than Buddhist reincarnation. My definition does not imply souls.

TODO Mishlove's interviewing Semkiw (at least four parts).

I want to test the locality and non-linearity of reincarnation.

It would be nice if we could extract the testable parts out of Tan Kheng Khoo's speculations about Buddhist reincarnation.34

Afterlife experiments?3536 The Future Life Institute proposes an experiment purported to prove reincarnation by 2050.37

Stafford Betty's instrumental transcommunication.

Reincarnation patterns38

3.3.1On its non-linearity

A reincarnation (past-life carry-over) is either single or multiple.

A multiple reincarnation is either overlapping or non-overlapping.

Is there evidence for multiple reincarnation?

Is there evidence for multiple-and-overlapping reincarnation?

Is there evidence for non-linear reincarnation?

http://nhne-pulse.org/past-life-research/

Anyone can corroborate this Mira Kelley's client John?39

3.3.2On its locality

The reincarnation locality hypothesis states that a person is born near where he died in his previous life.4041

It can be tested with the records of Stevenson & Tucker.

I have not verified the records myself; I am presuming their honesty.

Perhaps there is a spacetime distance limit between the birthplace of a person and the deathplace of his previous life. By "birthplace", we mean the point in spacetime, not only the spatial aspect of the point.

Soul theory explanation: Perhaps souls conserve energy and thus tries to stay still unless there is a reason to move, just like humans.

The most compelling evidence of memory of past life is the thousands of records meticulously collected, verified, and corroborated by Ian Stevenson and Jim Tucker. Some children can tell some facts about a specific deceased person that, according to our common sense, can only be known by the deceased person alone because he has never told those facts to anyone else. By "facts", we mean assertions whose truth can be corroborated with historical records or living relatives. The facts are so specific that an impostor is astronomically unlikely to guess them correctly. The facts are also not written, recorded, or told, so it does not use known communication channels. There is a lot of evidence of memory of past lives.424344454647

Past-life memory seems to fade as one grows into adulthood. [3]

By "memory of past life", I mean memory of subjective experience of past life.

Thus it should also be possible to experience life from other people's point of view; it should be possible to experience other people's qualia (subjective experience); it should be possible to swap souls, be it temporary or permanent.

That evidence shows that our common sense is wrong, that our understanding of life and death is wrong, and that, when a man dies, he does not go to heaven, but neither does he disappear into oblivion.

Come to think of it, our common sense (Western rationality common sense) is not so common, and is rather exceptional than common.

Can one soul reincarnate into two bodies? Can two people have memory of one deceased person? If yes, then soul is ideal (software) because it can be copied but not moved. If no, then soul is material (hardware) because it can be moved but not copied. I propose that we search for two people who recall the same deceased person. I hypothesize that we will not find any such pair.

Is it important to ask why the subjects are mostly children between 2 and 5 years old? Adults may censor themselves to conform to social norms.

A dying soul may be like a dying star: They explode, reverberating through spacetime.

Now that we have established the existence of the phenomenon, we ask: How do they remember their past lives? How does it work? What is the mechanism?

Why does the old soul get diluted as the new person grows into adulthood?

Does the old person has to be willing to reincarnate?

Hypothesis: Past-life regression may happen due to a mixing of souls. Memory may exist without soul. Memory may infect souls as prions infect cow brains.

Memory can persist outside brains. For example, a hard disk has memory. A capacitor has memory. Every stateful system has memory.

Souls may broadcast signals that reverberate in the Universe, and the reverberation may later be picked up by another soul?

Something else?

More interestingly, Stevenson found some patterns in reincarnation.48

3.3.3On super-survival

Super-survival is mental survival of bodily death.

Keywords: life after death, afterlife.

Elisabeth Targ (daughter of Russell Targ)49

What happens after we die?

Compare:

3.3.4On mental property transference in organ donations

There are some claims and disclaims that some mental properties are transferred from organ donors to recipients. Lowth 2016: Positive https://listverse.com/2016/05/14/10-organ-recipients-who-took-on-the-traits-of-their-donors/ Bunzel et al. 1992: Negative or inconclusive. Does changing the heart mean changing personality? A retrospective inquiry on 47 heart transplant patients. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1299456

3.4On psychic abilities

Especially on its nature-versus-nurture issue.

3.4.1On its inheritance

Why is Stevenson's psychic children mostly male, but adult psychics are mostly female? I hypothesize that it is because our society expects men to be rational and materialistic, because our society forces men to numb their feelings. I call this "arrogant Western rationality". It includes gender binarism.

We need to combine Western thinking and Eastern feeling. The most rational solution is to kill every human.

If psychic ability is the phenotype, what is the underlying genotype?

Where is Radin & Wahbeh's results?50 Is it inherited via the father or the mother or both? What is the ratio of psychic offsprings to non-psychic offsprings? Is the inheritance Mendelian?

It seems that the children with past-life memory in Stevenson's records have parents without psychic abilities.

Is there a genetic basis of psychic ability? Is it inherited via normal genetics?

What?515253

On the genetic basis of psychic abilities?

It seems that psychic abilities run in families.5455

Does it have genetic basis? Hereditary? Inherited trait?

https://noetic.org/research/genetics-of-psychic-ability/

If psychic abilities are inherited, then they may have genetic basis. If there does not seem to be any genetic basis, then dualism may be true and there may be mental genetics we don't yet know.

Is the non-psychic person doomed? Is being non-psychic like being a lactose-intolerant, in the sense that you just can't produce the enzyme because you were born without the necessary machinery (unless you underwent some gene therapy perhaps)?

3.4.2On its prevalence in people with unusual brains

Is psychic ability more prevalent in people with unusual brains such as those with synesthesia, autism, epilepsy, and so on?

Head trauma, autism, psychic http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1868287,00.html

Edwin C. May hypothesizes that people with synesthesia are more likely to have precognition ability, and that there is a psychic organ or a psychic sensor (he uses the analogy "psychic retina").56

But this seems to conflict with super-survival. If psychic ability does not require a brain (some dead people have psychic ability), why is psychic more prevalent in people with unusual brains?

3.4.3On the learnability of psychic abilities

Can one learn to be psychic? Conflicting opinions:

  • Angela Moore: "Psychic ability can not be learned. You're either born with the gift or you aren't"57
  • Carpenter 2004 psi theory/model

It disheartens me to hear people say that psychics are born and not made.

3.4.4On the effects of the mother's emotional state while conceiving her baby

It seems that stressing the pregnant mother may affect the epigenetics of the unborn baby.

Dutch famine experiment.

What if the mother is physically unstressed but mentally stressed? That is, what if we give the mother the perfect nutrition, but we mentally torture the mother? What will happen to the unborn baby? What will the baby become?

https://www.jashow.org/articles/hereditary-coherence-and-other-forms-of-transference/

3.4.5On using babies and animals as sensors

If babies are more sensitive to paranormal phenomenons, then we can use babies as paranormal sensors!

3.4.6On psi-favorable and psi-antagonistic conditions

Terms: psi-favorable and psi-antagonistic. [1] Also: psi-conducive.

Hypothesis: Strong emotions promote psychokinesis. Anger? Fear?

3.5On the mainstream aspects of anomalous cognition

From physics and neuroscience point of view.

Related topics: presentiment.

There are reports of anomalous cognition in which some people see dead people and know some details about those dead people. For example, Brian Weiss had a patient named Catherine who anomalously told him details about his dead relatives.58

The "precognition" subreddit59.

Does precognition imply retrocausation?

I hypothesize that all forms of anomalous cognition is caused by the same mechanism. Anomalous cognition includes recalling past-life memory, telepathy, precognition, possession, and mediumship.

To know whether it is really cognition (that is, whether the subject actually knows something), we select the subject's anomalous claims that we are sure the subject could not have known conventionally, and then we verify them.

Presentiment is an anomalous cognition. People reacts to a scary stimulus before they get the stimulus itself.

"sweaty palm detector"60

Edwin C. May61

What is implied by the absence of a stable correlation between neural activity pattern and anomalous cognition? Does it mean that anomalous cognition does not require the brain? Or does it mean that there is a non-material part of brain that we don't know? Or does it mean that our understanding of materialism is incomplete? For example, we know the existence of dark energy and dark matter, but we don't know what they actually are.

On remote viewing's working better with large entropy changes

From Edwin C. May.6263

It is easier to remote-view events in which there is a large entropy change, such as nuclear bomb detonation.

"Entropy gradient".

"Entropy bombs" are analogous to flashlights. Senses are better at sensing changes in input than sensing constant input. Perhaps psi-sensor senses entropy.

On the decision augmentation theory of May, Utts, & Spottiswoode.

What does the theory predict? How do we test it?

Does anomalous cognition require a sensor in the brain? Does it have neural correlate?

We usually assume that, in order for a man to ken something, he has to perceive an image of it with his senses.

3.6On magnetism

Spottiswoode's sidereal correlation research; presence of magnetite in the brain; human magnetoreception? We know pigeons do.64

It may sound crazy, but it seems that the effect strength of psi depends on the position of the Earth relative to the stars.

3.7On poltergeists, psychokinesis, mediumship, healing, seances, and materialization

Anomalous actuation.

Anomalous sensor and anomalous motor/actuator.

Brains have sensors and actuators.

Keywords: psychokinesis, telekinesis, mind-over-matter.

PK Man (Ted Owens)'s predictions and claims.656667

If Ted Owens's goal was to spread his knowledge, why didn't he use his powers to get rich first to make it easier?

Dani Caputi has a psychokinetic weather manipulation experiment6869.

Apparently psychokinesis lingers. It's called the linger effect.

what aspects of poltergeists should we scrutinize next?

Lyn Buchanan could drop a rock through a thin metal plate without making a hole in the plate.70

Besides remote viewing, there is also remote influencing.

Materialization is a very big claim. There are some questionable reports. Leslie Kean's account71. Stewart Alexander? Franek Kluski's reputation was not perfect.72 Gustav Geley's reputation was not perfect. Eusapia Palladino's reputation was not perfect.7374 Charles Richet and Gustav Geley's research of Franek Kluski? However, everyone was holding each other's hands.75

Uri Geller76?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Richet

4Haunting vs poltergeist

This is taken from Stephen E. Braude77, who studies macropsychokinetic phenomenons.

Both haunting and poltergeist are macropsychokinetic phenomenons. However, haunting is centered on a place, whereas poltergeist is centered on a person.

Examples of poltergeists: Eleonore Zugun78, Enfield poltergeist, Matthew Manning79.

It seems that the detail of the poltergeist reflects the underlying psychological explanation of the subject's problem.

It also seems that apporting objects heat them up: Apparently bigger apported objects feel warmer.

A "schlimazel" is a consistently unlucky person, more unlucky than a "schlemiel".

5Questions that may be elaborated into experiments

This section aims to sharpen some questions into experiment candidates.

Ideally, this section is empty.

5.1Questions on souls or spirits

On the movement of spirits

How do spirits move? Do they require energy to move? Where do they get that energy from? How do we measure it?

Do ghosts prefer to haunt some places? What kind of places do ghosts prefer to haunt? Why?

Questions on souls that fight each other

Are there instances of souls fighting each other to control a body?

Questions on the creation of souls

How are souls created? How are souls destroyed? Is the number of souls constant over time?

5.2On experiencing the subjective experience of others

https://www.reddit.com/r/precognition/comments/bhbxzb/seeing_through_the_eyes_of_another_person/

5.3Hypotheses about the properties of souls

What is the weight of a soul? Has anyone repeated Duncan MacDougall's soul-weighing experiment more rigorously? It would be the parapsychology analog of the Michelson–Morley experiment? I think some of the weight difference is because some air leaves the lungs and intestines as muscles relax. Each liter of air weighs 1.23 gram at room condition.80 A weight difference of 21 grams would mean that a man expels 17 liters of air when he dies. I don't think there is that much air in the body. Even an adult man's pair of lungs only contains 6 liters of air, and not all of it is expelled when his muscles relax completely. I don't think anyone can fart 11 liters of air at once; otherwise coroners would routinely see dead people's bellies implode.

Gasser 2014 says what?81 How do we test his "psychon theory"?

https://www.neuroquantology.com/index.php/journal/article/view/389

https://www.lionsroar.com/do-you-only-live-once/ https://www.lionsroar.com/reincarnation-research-buddhism/ https://reincarnationafterdeath.com/theory/

2 people 1 soul? https://www.quora.com/Can-two-people-share-the-same-soul-1 https://www.reddit.com/r/spirituality/comments/9qbzla/one_soul_in_two_bodies_or_two_souls_in_one_does/ ??? http://weeklyworldnews.com/headlines/15170/how-to-tell-if-youre-double-souled/

Are souls recycled in the same way nutrients are recycled in the biogeochemical cycle?

What happens in a mass death, such as in the 2004 Aceh tsunami that killed more than 100,000 people?82 Where do all those souls go?

5.4Pastward future signal theory

Future objects may emit signals pastwards (towards the past).

If the signal is a wave, what reflects it, what diffracts it?

5.5On spirits, ghosts, possessions, and mediums

What places do ghosts prefer to haunt, and why? How do ghosts decide what places to haunt?

The folk theory is that spirits can possess bodies.

Auerbach 2018 claims that ghosts cannot physically harm people.83

5.6On near-death experiences and impossible recovery from brain damage

not cold reading https://goop.com/wellness/mindfulness/a-research-scientist-on-what-happens-to-the-brains-of-mediums-when-they-talk-to-the-other-side/

https://goop.com/wellness/spirituality/the-other-side/

https://goop.com/wellness/spirituality/dr-eben-alexander-near-death-experience-hes-learned-consciousness/

"The best clinical examples are terminal lucidity, acquired savant syndromes, and hallucinogenic substance studies." But this conflicts with functional areas?

5.7On embodied consciousness or possessed body?

Is each of us a consciousness that gets trapped in a body, or a body that gets possessed by a consciousness?

Are we mostly ideal/mental or mostly material/physical?

Is poltergeist a body that gets possessed by a consciousness?

Hypothesis: Both a human and a poltergeist are a combination of mind and body. But a human is more body than mental whereas a poltergeist is more mental than body.

5.8Where should we look next?

Exorcists in stigmatized property market, especially in Japan? Or people just looking for cheap properties?

Tanishi Matsubara is trying to live in stigmatized properties for his comedy material.84 I guess he won't be sharing it with us. Even if he does, I guess it won't be in English.

6Claims that require corroboration before they are admissible as evidence

6.1Claims that may be practical enough to test

Joseph McMoneagle's remote viewing of Mars can be tested. I think we'll begin exploring Mars in the 21st century.

Joseph (Joe) McMoneagle got a Legion of Merit8586.

Joe McMoneagle claims that the best remote viewers have about 50%–60% accuracy; he also suggests that it is unrealistic to expect more than that.87

Lyn Buchanan has remote viewing exercises.88. First: Every time you change room, notice the change in ambiance. Second: Learn vocabulary to describe what you feel.

Ingo Swann89

Joe McMoneagle remote-viewed Japan for a six-year archeology project from his dining room in Central Virginia.90 His sponsors were looking for artifacts related to Empress Himiko.91 If it can be used for archeology, then perhaps it can also be used for geology, and for prospecting, for finding resources?

Joe McMoneagle found two missing people in Japan.9293

6.2Claims that may be hard to test

Immanuel Kant's account of Emanuel Swedenborg, 18th century.

Evidence captured by 21st century equipments.

Witnesses are often reliable.

Most evidence was anecdotal until J.B. Rhine began using statistics.94

We assume that the records are not manipulated?

EVP?

Camera?

Are these experiments trustworthy? https://www.consciouslifestylemag.com/mind-over-matter-experiments/

Most convincing unexplained recordings for me:

Are there double-blind parapsychological experiments?

What does the oil industry say about dowsers? How much money are they betting on it? If it were big, there had to be something? https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-practical-applications-of-parapsychology

Oil dowsing: Either it does not work or it is a heavily guarded secret.

What do the archeologists say about psychics?

6.3What does the police have to say about the best remote viewers?

What does the police have to say about their collaboration with Joe McMoneagle? What does the police have to say about his statistics?

Joe McMoneagle is the number one American remote viewer.

Elena Klimova is the number one Russian remote viewer.98 Edwin C. May claims that he once worked with her and she was a very good remote viewer.99

What do Russians call a remote viewer? Some related Russian terms according to Google Translate on <2019-09-10>: военного применения экстрасенсорики (voyennogo primeneniya ekstrasensoriki) = military use of extrasensory perception

6.4Questions on psychokinesis

If psychokinesis is real and moving objects requires energy, where does the energy come from? The body's energy storage? Any point in the Universe where there is abundant energy? Then, how does that amount of energy move?

We should measure the psychic's body mass or energy storage content (the count of ATP molecules in his body) while he is psychokinetizing. That is, we should research the physiology of psychokinesis.

But what about changing the weather as Ted Owens claimed? How much energy is required to change the weather?

Of course it is possible that energy is not conserved, that the law of conservation of energy is wrong; indeed it is wrong in time scale; Heisenberg uncertainty principle; virtual particles popping into and out of existence; but this violation is only likely to happen in extremely short time span.

6.5How do we know whether our ancestor spirits enjoy our offerings?

6.6Oil dowsing

From Ault 2014100: "The petroleum industry has used dowsing to locate oil wells."

https://canadiandowsers.org/military-government-and-big-business-use-dowsing/

One of the most successful dowsers was Paul Clement Brown of California, an MIT graduate and electrical engineer, who used dowsing to successfully dowse oil wells for Standard Oil, Signal Oil, Getty Oil, Mobil Oil, and others. For years, he advised one of America’s most successful petroleum “wildcatters,” J.K. Wadley, on whether or not his proposed oil-drilling sites would be productive and how deep the oil would lie. His ability to dowse for oil was tested by an initially skeptical senior petroleum engineer. Chet Davis, on 35 proposed well sites. “He was right on all 35 wells,” says Davis. “I don’t think anyone in the oil business would believe it if they didn’t see it. I wouldn’t have.”

6.7China's psychic children

CIA Project Stargate archive "China's psychic children"101

6.8On interviewing people with skin in the game

Anecdotes not from psychics themselves, but from the people who have benefited from psychics.

First, seek for-profit industries that have put their money in psychics. They have their skin in the game. Oil, water, drilling, etc. Dowsing, pendulum.

Cops.

7Apparently dead ends

7.1What we perceive is not the object itself

I think philosophers have known this for a long time.

What we see is not the object itself, but an image of the object. We see the light that is reflected or emitted by the object.

What I think I am is only my perception of me and not what I actually am, in the same way that, when I see a tree, I am seeing the image of the tree, the light that reaches my eyes, not the tree itself. By "I see a tree", I mean that the light reflected by the tree has arrived at my eyes.

7.2On testing folk theories and folk hypotheses

We need a falsifiable theory that makes some testable predictions.

The theory has to be to explain paranormal phenomenons such as precognition, spiritual possession, poltergeist, and haunting.

Utts 2001 [6]102 claims that "Using the standards applied to any other area of science, it is concluded that psychic functioning has been well established." Ray Hyman was a co-researcher but did not share the conclusion.

"Senders do not appear to be necessary at all; feedback of the correct answer may or may not be necessary. Distance in time and space do not seem to be an impediment." [6]:

https://tunsasays.wordpress.com/

Kruth 2015103 proposed a theory of psi.

Angela Moore started Psychic Review Online104 to keep track of real and fake psychics. Interesting: A company named "Psychic Source" has skin in the game with money-back guarantee.

Can we corroborate with Debra Chalmers's previous employer? https://www.psychicreviewonline.com/blog/in-the-news/725/

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317784136_What_is_Psi_From_Anti-Parapsychology_to_Psi_as_a_Next_Scientific_Revolution_Theoretical_Reviews_and_Hypothesized_Vision

BDJ https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328968105_The_Physics_of_Mind_and_Thought

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328968105_The_Physics_of_Mind_and_Thought

7.3On testing psychic abilities

Briggs 2006 [2] is a 200-page book of tests for some psychic abilities, with a healthy dose of true skepticism.

Bob Olsen won't let people scrutinize his "15-point test"105, so I don't trust him.

7.4Astral travel, remote viewing, out-of-body experience?

What is non-local consciousness? Are these legit or kook?

7.5On spontaneous remission

I would not be surprised if someday we found a purely biological explanation for spontaneous remission106 (the unexpected disappearance of cancer from a person) because biology is complex: We don't even understand the biology of mundane things like acnes and dandruffs.

8Bibliography

[1] Braud, W. 2002. Psi-favorable conditions. New frontiers of human science: A Festschrift for K. Ramakrishna Rao. (2002), 95–118. url: <https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/8eb9/840e0293c6e0e97cd1ecdfb6a2eb69fff436.pdf>.

[2] Briggs, W. 2006. So, you think you’re psychic? url: <https://wmbriggs.com/public/briggs_so_think_you_are_psychic.pdf>.

[3] Haraldsson, E. and Abu-Izzedin, M. 2012. Persistence of “past-life” memories in adults who, in their childhood, claimed memories of a past life. The Journal of nervous and mental disease. 200, 11 (2012), 985–989. url: <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23124184>.

[4] Parnia, S. et al. 2014. AWARE—awareness during resuscitation—a prospective study. Resuscitation. 85, 12 (2014), 1799–1805. url: <http://www.neardeathexperience.us/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Journal_Resuscitation_AWARE.pdf>.

[5] Targ, R. 2012. The reality of esp: A physicist’s proof of psychic abilities. Quest Books.

[6] Utts, J. 2001. An assessment of the evidence for psychic functioning. Basic research in parapsychology. (2001), 110–141. url: <http://www.deanradin.com/evidence/Utts1996.pdf>.

  1. <2019-09-11> https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/misconceptions_faq.php#e1↩

  2. 7:30 <2019-09-10> An Interview with Edwin C May, Ph.D. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZwZKpsgMow↩

  3. http://www.espresearch.com/iphone/↩

  4. <2019-09-08> https://www.iacworld.org/what-is-conscientiology-projectiology/↩

  5. <2019-09-08> https://www.iacworld.org/top-3-psychic-anomalies-according-to-carl-sagan/↩

  6. <2019-09-13> https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00788r002000240037-5↩

  7. <2019-09-15> Video Nugget: A Neuroscientist Looks at Reincarnation with Marjorie Woollacott https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nB_KdB-zzSE↩

  8. https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/articles/gold-leaf-lady↩

  9. <2019-09-15> Video Nugget: A Most Unusual Psychic Gift with Stephen E. Braude https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLt7F00WOk8↩

  10. <2019-09-15> https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmXoypizjW3WknFiJnKLwHCnL72vedxjQkDDP1mXWo6uco/wiki/Jaime_Licauco.html↩

  11. <2019-09-15> https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/articles/gold-leaf-lady↩

  12. <2019-09-19> Video Nugget: A Faraday Cage for Amplifying ESP with Charles Tart https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kJuUtPJsqI↩

  13. <2019-09-07> https://tunsasays.wordpress.com/about-this-site/↩

  14. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/philosophy/article/why-materialism-is-false-and-why-it-has-nothing-to-do-with-the-mind/5DC675B901E2F68E82643B88EE468EAE↩

  15. <2019-09-14> The Chess Game from Beyond the Grave https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1S6y1-Pz_w↩

  16. <2019-09-14> The Practical Applications of Precognition, Part Two: Ongoing Research, with Marty Rosenblatt https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YszAl5_il4c↩

  17. <2019-09-14> 10:19 in Researching Anomalous Cognition with Edwin C. May https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ybMdxvMSbI↩

  18. <2019-09-14> 21:54 in the same video↩

  19. <2019-09-14> The Apports of Amyr Amiden with Stanley Krippner https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUTzjK_GvdA↩

  20. <2019-09-14> https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/articles/amyr-amiden↩

  21. <2019-09-14> How Researchers Approach Reincarnation with James G. Matlock https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ds10X_vVEpI↩

  22. <2019-09-14> Cultivating Psychokinesis, Part One: A Personal Journey, with Joseph Gallenberger https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tx3nCQMKHfM↩

  23. http://www.nderf.org/↩

  24. <2019-09-12> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pim_van_Lommel↩

  25. <2019-09-12> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-death_experience↩

  26. <2019-09-12> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Parnia↩

  27. <2019-09-12> AWARE study initial results are published! https://iands.org/news/news/front-page-news/1060-aware-study-initial-results-are-published.html↩

  28. <2019-09-12> The Power of the Near-Death Experience, Part 1 with Elizabeth Krohn https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_Yomwcod3E↩

  29. <2019-09-12> The Power of the Near-Death Experience, Part 2 with Jeffrey Kripal https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qsLltCUetc↩

  30. <2019-09-13> https://reincarnationresearch.com/walter-semkiw/↩

  31. <2019-09-13> Reincarnation, Part Two: Cases of Xenoglossy, with Walter Semkiw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2mmEYEzwjo↩

  32. https://www.etymonline.com/word/soul#etymonline_v_23918↩

  33. https://www.etymonline.com/word/spirit#etymonline_v_24031↩

  34. <2019-09-11> http://www.kktanhp.com/reincarnation_htm.htm↩

  35. https://listverse.com/2009/01/29/top-10-bizarre-afterlife-experiments/↩

  36. http://www.theoccultmuseum.com/5-chilling-experiments-attempted-prove-existence-afterlife/↩

  37. <2019-09-08> http://www.futurelifeinstitute.org/2013/psd/Experiment-Web.pdf↩

  38. <2019-09-19> Patterns Found in Reincarnation Cases with James G. Matlock https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKBgiuqzj04↩

  39. https://mirakelley.com/meet-mira/praise/mira-kelleys-beyond-past-lives/↩

  40. Tongren Yuye 2008 calls this the "principle of the locality of the soul" in the English translation; <2019-09-08> https://www.fyears.org/2010/06/how-to-prove-reincarnation-with-statistical-experiment.html↩

  41. original in Mandarin Chinese <2019-09-08> https://www.geekonomics10000.com/178↩

  42. <2019-09-08> https://upliftconnect.com/past-lives/↩

  43. <2019-09-08> https://www.gaia.com/article/incredible-evidence-for-remembering-past-lives↩

  44. <2019-09-08> https://www.consciouslifestylemag.com/reincarnation-stories-proof-past-life/↩

  45. <2019-09-08> https://www.rd.com/true-stories/chilling-reincarnation-stories/↩

  46. <2019-09-08> https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/feeling-too-much/201412/children-who-seemingly-remember-past-lives%3famp↩

  47. <2019-09-08> https://uvamagazine.org/articles/the_science_of_reincarnation↩

  48. <2019-09-08> https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/articles/patterns-reincarnation-cases↩

  49. <2019-09-12> The Life, Death, and Afterlife of Elisabeth Targ with Russell Targ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_c-V472wl0↩

  50. https://noetic.org/research/genetics-of-psychic-ability/↩

  51. http://www.globalpsychics.com/family-genetics-and-being-psychic/↩

  52. https://noetic.org/blog/the-genetics-of-psychic-ability-take-our-newest-survey/↩

  53. https://psychicelements.com/blog/are-psychic-abilities-hereditary/↩

  54. https://psychicelements.com/blog/are-psychic-abilities-hereditary/↩

  55. https://www.anthonstmaarten.com/blog/psychic-dna-nature-or-nurture↩

  56. <2019-09-09> How Precognition Works with Edwin C. May https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37tPK3iwcZ4↩

  57. https://www.psychicreviewonline.com↩

  58. Dr. Brian Weiss: Past-Life Skeptic to Past-Life Expert | SuperSoul Sunday | Oprah Winfrey Network https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQAgiP8zQ6M↩

  59. https://www.reddit.com/r/precognition/↩

  60. <2019-09-10> Correlates of Anomalous Cognition with Edwin C. May https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5X4_DXGX60↩

  61. <2019-09-10> Correlates of Anomalous Cognition with Edwin C. May https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5X4_DXGX60↩

  62. 6:08 <2019-09-10> An Interview with Edwin C May, Ph.D. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZwZKpsgMow↩

  63. <2019-09-11> Entropy and the Nature of Time with Edwin C. May https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yC9EPkeEwvY↩

  64. <2019-09-10> Correlates of Anomalous Cognition with Edwin C. May https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5X4_DXGX60↩

  65. <2019-09-12> The Case of the PK Man with Stephen E. Braude https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZXNccfg6uc↩

  66. <2019-09-12> Reflections on The PK Man with Debra Lynne Katz https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kv6ARS5Hl9U↩

  67. <2019-09-12> "Most of the information in this article is drawn from a biography of Owens by Jeffrey Mishlove: 'The PK Man: A True Story of Mind Over Matter'." https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/articles/ted-owens↩

  68. <2019-09-12> Psychokinetic Weather Influence with Dani Caputi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYinq45nS4g↩

  69. <2019-09-13> https://deltaaware.org/weather/↩

  70. <2019-09-11> The Poltergeist Experience with Lyn Buchanan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52AqGmw_TYY↩

  71. https://goop.com/wellness/spirituality/surviving-death-overview-evidence-support-afterlife/↩

  72. <2019-09-11> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franek_Kluski↩

  73. opinions damning her <2019-09-11> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eusapia_Palladino↩

  74. opinions defending her <2019-09-12> http://davidpratt.info/psychic.htm↩

  75. https://www.metapsychique.org/the-kluski-hands-moulds/↩

  76. opinions defending him <2019-09-12> http://davidpratt.info/psychic.htm↩

  77. <2019-09-16> Poltergeist Phenomena with Stephen E. Braude https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nwG7p9MJ0U↩

  78. <2019-09-16> https://parapsychologie.info/zugun.htm↩

  79. <2019-09-16> https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/articles/matthew-manning↩

  80. <2019-09-08> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Density_of_air↩

  81. http://www.pandualism.com/d/reincarnation.html↩

  82. <2019-09-08> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake_and_tsunami↩

  83. <2019-09-07> https://www.reddit.com/r/Paranormal/comments/9g3ero/hi_reddit_im_loyd_auerbach_parapsychologist_ask/e61agrg/↩

  84. <2019-09-12> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hd_m2RevjPA↩

  85. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legion_of_Merit↩

  86. Joe McMoneagle; <2019-09-07> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recipients_of_the_Legion_of_Merit↩

  87. <2019-09-10> Guidelines for Future Remote Viewing with Joseph McMoneagle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2-iGRkW9AU↩

  88. <2019-09-11> Exercises to Cultivate Remote Viewing with Lyn Buchanan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDO8CdJV_kc↩

  89. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingo_Swann↩

  90. <2019-09-11> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-8puX-83o4↩

  91. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himiko↩

  92. <2019-09-11> http://web.archive.org/web/20061215094642/http://www.rense.com/general20/joemcmoneagle.htm↩

  93. <2019-09-11> https://www.reddit.com/r/remoteviewing/comments/7kp8un/request_jo_mcmoneagle_finding_people_on_tv/↩

  94. Remote Viewing and the Reality of Psychic Phenomena | Waking Cosmos | Garret Moddel Ph.D. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IC1kTVe61yc↩

  95. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DL_bIhVJi-k↩

  96. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1sv39b/serious_what_in_your_opinion_is_the_most/ce25ska/↩

  97. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92jFdzNC228&t=2m28s↩

  98. <2019-09-10> http://davidpratt.info/psi.htm↩

  99. <2019-09-10> 17:33, Edwin C. May https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L811nO601sg↩

  100. https://jimmyjoeault.wixsite.com/adventures/single-post/2014/06/19/Dowsing-For-Oil↩

  101. https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00792r000300420017-1↩

  102. Also on CIA website https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00791r000200070001-9↩

  103. <2019-09-06> https://tunsasays.wordpress.com/2015/05/04/the-nature-of-psi-the-first-sight-model-and-theory-of-psi/↩

  104. https://www.psychicreviewonline.com↩

  105. "famous, although secret, 15-point test" https://bestpsychicdirectory.com/Tested-Legitimate-List↩

  106. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_remission↩