The American Psychological Association, the APA, is the premier group for American psychologists. The APA publishes their journal, American Psychologist, which is topical, peer-reviewed and well-cited (Journal Impact Factor of 6.7).
In Volume 73, Volume 4 (May-June 2018) of American Psychologist published on 24 May 2018, Dr. Etzel Cardeña, the Director of the Centre for Research on Consciousness and Anomalous Psychology at Lund University, published a single author review entitled “The experimental evidence for parapsychological phenomena: A review.” Cardeña’s review, which is available as a PDF for $11.95, has the following abstract republished here in full:
“This article presents a comprehensive integration of current experimental evidence and theories about so-called parapsychological (psi) phenomena. Throughout history, people have reported events that seem to violate the common sense view of space and time. Some psychologists have been at the forefront of investigating these phenomena with sophisticated research protocols and theory, while others have devoted much of their careers to criticizing the field. Both stances can be explained by psychologists’ expertise on relevant processes such as perception, memory, belief, and conscious and nonconscious processes. This article clarifies the domain of psi, summarizes recent theories from physics and psychology that present psi phenomena as at least plausible, and then provides an overview of recent/updated meta-analyses. The evidence provides cumulative support for the reality of psi, which cannot be readily explained away by the quality of the studies, fraud, selective reporting, experimental or analytical incompetence, or other frequent criticisms. The evidence for psi is comparable to that for established phenomena in psychology and other disciplines, although there is no consensual understanding of them. The article concludes with recommendations for further progress in the field including the use of project and data repositories, conducting multidisciplinary studies with enough power, developing further nonconscious measures of psi and falsifiable theories, analyzing the characteristics of successful sessions and participants, improving the ecological validity of studies, testing how to increase effect sizes, recruiting more researchers at least open to the possibility of psi, and situating psi phenomena within larger domains such as the study of consciousness.”
The paper is certainly worth reading if you are scientifically minded. The article PDF can be purchased from the APA by clicking here.
If you are not willing to pay money for the article and you do not have access to this database, there was a wonderful synopsis on this article published on 02July2018 by Alex Fradera via the British Psychological Society Research Digest entitled Parapsychology Has Been Unfairly Sidelined, Claims a New Review of the Field.
This article distills the salient facts surrounding the academic research of parapsychology that are laid out by Dr. Cardeña in the original American Psychologist review and finishes with the question of whether parapsychology should be viewed as a positive psychological discipline for study.
In the review, Dr. Cardeña points out that “anomalous cognition” studies he has conducted has shown a .02 deviation towards positive significance when subjects were asked to guess a concealed card similar to Zener Cards. A .02 deviation was enough for Dr. Cardeña to note that there was a scientific significance beyond guessing, but it does fall short of accepted scientific significance of .05.
The Zener Card experiments were created by doctors J.B. Rhine and his wife, Louisa Rhine, at the Duke Parapsychology Laboratory (1919-1984) and consisted of 5 suits of cards. The Rhine’s funded research on several persons over the years and there were some real significant results; most notably the Pearce-Pratt experiments where Dr. Joseph Gaither Pratt conducted experiments with Divinity student Hubert Pearce over 37 sittings between August 1933 and March 1934. There were 1850 trials where Pratt set-up in the Physics Building and Pearce was positioned in the library. Pratt shuffled the cards and laid them facedown on a table Every minute, synchronized to a clock, Pratt would grab the top card and lay it facedown on a book; at the end of each minute, the card would be moved to a table and the next card laid on the same book in the same manner. In the library, Pearce would write down each card. When all 25 cards were run through, there would be a short break and the experiment would repeat with a new deck of shuffled cards. Over the 1850 trials with 5 suits, one would expect a 20% accuracy from guesses alone, or 370 correct guesses. Pearce was able to accurately guess 558 cards over the course of the trials. The chances of 558 accurate guesses is less than 1:100,000,000.
Dr. Cardeña also reviewed a fascinating new experiment based upon the Ganzfield Parapsychology Experiments that took place at the Koestler Parapsychology Unit at the University of Edinburg in the 1990’s. During these experiments in the 1990’s, a sender attempted to send a visual image to a receiver who was in a different location and blindfolded. This is very similar to the Ingo Swann method of Remote Viewing that was in used during the CIA’s Project Stargate. Dr. Cardeña’s review was of a new Ganzfield procedure where a receiver is blindfolded in a sound proof room and has to describe a movie clip which may be played in the future or simultaneously in a different location. The receivers were able to successfully view the clip without use of their senses with a remarkable statistical significance of .15.
The review also went into several other forms of statistically significant parapsychological experimentation, including measuring skin response before being shown an image, psychokinesis altering the outcome of dice rolls (another classic Rhine experiment), non-contact healing and other psi research.
Dr. Cardeña concludes that “overall the meta-analyses have been supportive of the psi hypothesis.” This echoes the work of Dr. Dean Radin who has been researching several disciplines of psi phenomena for over forty years and has published dozens of papers and six books over the course of his career. In his most recent book released in 2018, Real Magic: Ancient Wisdom, Modern Science, and a Guide to the Secret Power of the Universe, Radin writes how in a 2016 presidential address to over six thousand statisticians by the President of the American Statistical Association, the speech contained the line: “The data and support of precognition and possibly other related phenomena are quite strong statistically and would be widely accepted if it pertained to something more mundane.” Radin also writes how an overall meta-analysis of six classes of psi experimentation have achieved a Six Sigma level for the reliability of the experimentation results. Six Sigma qualification means that an effect has a 99.99966%degree of accuracy. It is one of the highest levels of accuracy and the chance of an error is roughly a 1,000,000,000:1. As a comparison, in Physics, if you can demonstrate a degree lower, Five Sigma, that is enough to win the Nobel Prize for evidence of a discovery.
The scientific evidence for psi is astounding. Unfortunately, most of the experimentation has been done on a bootstrap budget. Clinical parapsychology is a mere shadow of what it used to be with few universities willing to take on research fellows. This is why Dr. Cardeña’s paper is so important. Hopefully it will move some psychologists to realize that there is a lot of groundwork already established in the field of parapsychology and there should be more research dedicated to the field due to the high level of statistical significance of several psi experiments ranging over the last one hundred years.
June 2018 was an active month in paranormal news. Here are some of the articles and videos that have we have come across this last month which may be of use for your paranormal studies. We included material on Consciousness, NDE’s, Lucid Dreaming, Mediumship, Occultism, Reincarnation, ITC, UFO’s, Crop Circles and much, much more. You can see prior monthly news roundups by clicking here.
Read more, always.
Historical and Cross-Cultural Experiences (The Formula): This link provides a collection of reference books and videos that examines the characteristics of Near Death Experiences from both historical and cross-cultural viewpoints. Each reference has a brief summation of what is contained within the volume and is usually followed by an excerpt. If you are looking to explore NDE’s, this reference page is a handy link to review.
Electromagnetic Phenomena Reported by Near Death Experiencers (University of Virginia, PDF): This is a journal article that has Dr. Bruce Greyson as a primary author. Dr. Greyson is an Emeritus psychology professor at the University of Virginia who has studied and published in-depth upon the topics of reincarnation, consciousness and near death experiences. In this journal publication, Dr. Greyson examines those who have had near death experiences and finds that a significant number of them have electromagnetic issues that cause interference with modern devices. This study mirrors the results of prior studies on this same topic.
The Essence of Near-Death Experiences In 8.5 Minutes (The Formula): This web page incorporates the very essence of near death experiences in less than nine minutes. These first-hand accounts provide great insight into the experience of NDE’s and the lasting impact that they have on the experiencer.
Are Coincidences After a Loved One Has Died Messages From the Afterlife? (The Epoch Times): This article examines meaningful coincidences as they are presented to bereaved individuals. These coincidences are enough for the bereaved to accept that they are messages from the other side. You will also find information on how psychotherapists are using these reports of coincidences to treat grieving patients.
Boy, 4, Who ‘channels the dead’ Told Teachers His Father Had Drowned (Metro): An interesting look into a toddler who apparently is recalling his past-lives as he recounts events about his previous-life mother and father. Not heavy on evidence, but an interesting story that should be investigated properly. It is also worthy to note that reincarnation stories can still attract major media coverage.
Belmez Faces: Mystery of the People in the Floor (Historic Mysteries): This article discusses the anomalous faces and figures that appeared, disappeared, and reappeared on a family’s concrete kitchen floor in Bélmez, Spain (1971). Apparently this is a world-famous case that still attracts a great deal of attention today.
Project Star Gate (CIA, PDF): If you study the fortean fields, you’ve likely heard of remote viewing. This CIA document outlines the protocols and methodologies used for government sanctioned remote viewing via Project Star Gate. If you ever wanted to dig deeper into remote viewing, this government manual is one of the best resources you can read.
Ingo Swann Interview (Psychic Magazine): Ingo Swann is known as the father of remote viewing. as he laid out the techniques for remote viewing. In this rare interview from 1973, Swann is interviewed about remote viewing which he labels as an OBE, out-of-body experience, and psychokinesis. The great part about this interview is he discusses experimenting with Dr. Hal Puthoff at the Stanford Research Institute. It was under the rigorous scientific discipline of Dr. Puthoff that the CIA’s Project Stargate was founded shortly after this interview was published.
The Lucid Dreaming Playbook: How to Take Charge of Your Dreams (Aeon): This article recounts a psychologists method of triggering a lucid dream. The basic instruction for what is known as the MILD method of lucid dreaming have been successfully repeated in several laboratory experiments and remains to this day the most effective way of initiating a lucid dreaming experience.
Are Plants Conscious? (Gizmodo): The question of whether plants are conscious or not is examined in this article. Various scientists of different life sciences, biological disciplines and a philosopher offer a cogent take upon their views as to what qualifies consciousness and whether plants demonstrate this capability.
Human Single Neuron Activity Precedes Emergence of Conscious Perception (Nature): Scientific researchers at Tel Aviv University have worked with epileptic patients who have intracranial depth electrodes implanted in their brains to measure debilitating seizures. The researchers then used a specialized viewing technique called binocular rivalry on these patients which utilizes a way of showing distinct images to the left and right eye so the brain cannot blur the two together. When the brain is focusing on one image, light from both images continuously stimulates the visual cortex. The researchers were able to find a precise area of the medial-frontal lobe that activates a full two seconds before the image is formulated in the patient’s head. This led the researchers to posit that conscious experience may be brain driven and is formulated moments before we experience it.
Strange Rituals: The Occult Truth Behind Weddings (Medium): June is wedding month in Western society. Occult researcher Mitch Horowitz digs into classic wedding traditions that are practiced today and traces them back to their origins which can be quite surprising.
Occult America (YouTube): Mitch Horowitz speaks at the University of Philosophical Research in Los Angeles. The UPR was founded in 1934 by Manley P. Hall, the author of the oft-cited and acclaimed work of research The Secret Teachings of All Ages, a book that examines Masonic, Hermetic, Rosicrucian and Qabbalistic ritual and symbolism. In this lecture, Horowitz examines current culture in the digital age and how it has affected our expressions to each other. This has occult power as we yield en-masse to a horde mindset creating very deep divisions amongst ourselves. Yet, we still enjoy the protection of the individual search for meaning. Horowitz leans of the history of occultism and talks about how occultist philosophy can raise us up as individuals from this division.
Robin Foy and Kai Muegge ‘Secrets of Physical Mediumship’ (YouTube): This video contains a great discussion upon physical mediumship with physical medium Kai Muegge and Robin Foy who is best known for his participation in and the documentation of the Scole Experiment. Robin goes into depth upon what he has witnessed and offers a hypothesis on how physical mediumship transpires.
The Scole Mediums Give Reasons for Going Beyond the Scole Experiment to the Norfolk Experiment (The Scole Experiment): An introduction to the Crystal Photographic Experiments (CPE) that have been carried out since early 2005 by the two Scole Experiment mediums – Alan and Diana Bennett. In early 2006, Grant and Jane Solomon joined Alan and Diana as collaborators in conducting these groundbreaking Instrumental Trans-Communication (ITC) experiments. In this article you’ll learn about the experiment setup of the Norfolk Experimental Group. You’ll also be treated to some of the astonishing images that have formed within crystals during their experiments.
The Afterlife Investigations: The Scole Experiment (YouTube): Narrated by Britain’s leading investigative journalist Donal MacIntyre and directed by Tim Coleman, this award-winning film presents the most compelling scientific evidence for life after death ever presented in any documentary. Full of never-before-seen material, it explores four intriguing afterlife investigations: The Scole Experiment; Marcello Bacci; Allison DuBois and Electronic Voice Phenomenon.
Spirit Hand on Television Set (The Paranormal Guide): A brief article discussing one of the earliest known and, at the time, most talked about cases of potential visual Instrumental Trans-Communication (ITC) in relation to televisions. This occurred in 1968. A woman in Minnesota was watching her husband wrap presents on Christmas Eve when she noticed an outstretched hand appear, palm towards her, on the television set. She grabbed her camera and took a photo the hand faded away. The television was reportedly unplugged during the manifestation.
Case Report: The USS Nimitz 2004 (UAP Info): The now infamous USS Nimitz “Tic-Tac” UFO incident in 2004 may wind up in the history books as the case that brought UFO disclosure to light. This article contains all relevant information on the incident, including the Department of Defense report and interviews with radar operators and pilots who tracked this incident over several days. There were several objects that had the capability of traveling at 48,000 mph. The interviews are astounding and shine a new light on the very brief portion of the videos which have been declassified.
Crop Circles: Crossovers From Another Dimension (YouTube): The video description states it best: “Discover the hidden secrets of a timeless mystery in this award-winning film about the greatest crop circle formations ever created. The creators of these paranormal formations still remain a mystery. After years of painstaking research, scientific evidence still points to alien influences that are responsible for this phenomena. One thing is certain, what you are about to see in this amazing film can only be described as miraculous evidence of a secret art form that continues to defy explanation.”
May 2018 was an active month in paranormal news. Here are some of the articles which may be of use for your paranormal studies.
Read more, always.
The Top Five Regrets of the Dying (Guardian, UK): This is an older, short article making the rounds again. An Australian palliative care nurse who has seen many people die in her line of work records the regrets of those ready to die. A morbid article indeed, but it can help to shine a light on things we often overlook in our daily lives.
Near Death Experiences and the Afterlife (Magus): A great primer on the phenomenon of Near Death Experiences (NDE’s). This six part series of short articles examines four published case studies on NDE’s so correlations can be drawn. Highly recommended reading.
Experiences of Light in Gay and Lesbian Near-Death Experiences (Liz Dale): Another brief article that highlights some quotes about the light and NDE’s. This article serves to articulate that “The near-death experiences that gays and lesbians report are powerful reminders that all human beings share a common truth: We will have near-death experiences when we die …. Gay or straight, brown skin or white skin, or rich and poor alike, we will all have one when we die.” This is often overlooked by subsets of our society who believe that all gay persons are going to “hell” or arriving at some other nefarious ending. The light is a universal truth and Liz Dale does a great job reminding all of us of this.
Sensory Deprivation and Out of Body Experiences (Graham Nicholls): Fortean researcher Graham Nicholls recounts his out-of-body experiences (OBE’s) in this article. He found that while immersed in a flotation tank, achieving an OBE was much easier. The article then touches upon a fascinating psi experiment he conducted with the Morphogenesis theory of consciousness founder, Rupert Sheldrake.
Viruses, ET and the Octopus from Space: The Return of Panspermia (Cosmos Magazine): Making more than a few waves in May, this article reviewed a paper that claimed that the Octopus may actually have arrived on earth via their eggs being cryo-preserved fertilized eggs. That’s right, panspermia is back in style! After a lot of background on the authors, and basic immunology, the article goes into how bacteria, viruses and other “life” from space is hitting our planet daily. The evidence for the octopus? Well, apparently there has yet to be an ancestor of everyone’s favorite cephalopod to be found. On top of that, the octopus’ DNA changed radically in a short period of time thereby granting it biological abilities that are unlike every other family tree on earth. The journal that this article was written in, Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology, has a 3.18 impact factor (a scientific classification scale based upon how many publications a journal has that are referenced in other journal publications); as a comparison, Nature, has a 40+ impact factor and The Lancet has a 47+.
Scientists Say They Have Transferred ‘Memories’ Between Snails (Smithsonian): We found this article fascinating. Considering that consciousness is a bedrock of paranormal studies, the ability to transfer memories could add a new understanding to just where consciousness exists. In this experiment, scientists applied shock to marine snail tails until the snails recognized the shock and had a prolonged withdrawal of the their siphons and gills. For this to happen, snails needed to be conditioned to react to the pain of the shock so they built up a reaction to it. The reaction was a retraction of siphons and gills for 50 seconds. Next, scientists transferred RNA from the conditioned snails to non-conditioned snails and guess what? You’ll have to read the article to find out. It’s worth it.
What is Consciousness? (Scientific American): There is well researched materialist groundwork in this article on how various areas of the brain can produce reactions, memories and visualizations when stimulated. There is also a study referenced of minimally conscious and vegetative patients which shows that consciousness can exist in those who we consider in a non-retractable vegetative state. Fundamentally, this article gets to the point that Dr. David Chalmers (not referenced) coined “The hard problem of consciousness.” That is to say, consciousness is wholly experiential and unique to the individual. At the moment, there is no base understanding nor theory as to why that is.
Mysterious Universe Podcast Dean Radin Interview (MU): Dean Radin is arguably the most influential parapsychologist today. Dr. Radin is the chief science officer at the Institute of Noetic Sciences and has held both business and university positions during his career. He recently released a book called Real Magic: Ancient Wisdom, Modern Science, and a Guide to the Secret Power of the Universe. This book goes into detail about the power behind magic, and how we practice magic everyday without knowing it. We’ve heard several of Dr. Radin’s podcasts on this newly released book and the Mysterious Universe interview is fantastic. You will get a lot of insight into the book, Dr. Radin’s research and where the research is leading.
William Addams Welch – Talks With the Dead (YouTube): Welch was a famous screenplay writer who communicated from the other side a mere 13 days after passing. Welch was an ardent EVP researcher who amassed over 25,000 voices during his research. You will hear Class A EVP’s in this video, some of which were recorded using the classic white noise background technique. Welch is one of the unsung heroes of EVP and his bookTalks With the Deadwas printed once in 1975 and is a book that belongs in every ITC collection.
This Physicist’s Idea of Time Will Blow Your Mind (Quartz): Time doesn’t exist in quantum physics. Strange as this sounds, time is relative to the observer. There is also no space. But there are physical transformations that occur and we observe them. The change is what we call time. Time becomes a story we tell ourselves. This article is about that story and it breaks time down into digestible pieces. Well worth the read if you have the time.
The Birth of the Illuminati Conspiracy (Daily Grail): Who doesn’t love a good conspiracy? You can wrap your mind around them, find logical fallacies, or embrace them and add to the conspiracy through research. One of the premier conspiracies of the last 200+ years has been the Illuminati. You have definitely heard of them, the Illuminati has become a pop-culture mainstay. This article tackles the Illuminati’s history, tracing it back to its continental origins. Think you know a lot about this topic? Maybe that is what the Illuminati wants you to believe…
To state that John Dee was a genius is underestimate his impact upon both the physical and metaphysical world.
Dee was a scholar who advised Elizabeth I. At one point, he had the largest library in England with the number of collected volumes surpassing that of both Cambridge and Oxford. He created the mathematical symbols we use for simple equations. He also created the idea of a British Empire, an idea that still has ramifications to this very day.
He is still recognized in modern culture as well. Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond, used Dee’s official letter signature as Bond’s identification: 007. Dee served as an envoy and spy for Elizabeth I!
Dee put his efforts towards understanding the nature of all things. When he eventually grew tired of not figuring out every secret, he turned to esotericism. Prior to his turn, he was a noted astrologer and alchemist who had worked up horoscopes for both Queen Mary I and her daughter, Elizabeth I.
To understand the metaphysical world, he brought in the services of a coin forger and known alcoholic, Edward “Ned” Kelley. Kelley was blessed with the ability to commune with spirits via scrying. Kelley would receive the visions in his head from using a Shew-Stone and soon something amazing unfolded: communing with angels. Over the course of seven years, Kelley output information to Dee who laboriously copied it all down for permanent reference. The angels conveyed a magical language to Kelley that is still used today in many esoteric traditions, the language of angels also known as Enochian.
He published his methods and Enochian transcripts and laid the bedrock for Enochian Magick.
Few people have heard of remote viewing. Even fewer people know that remote viewing was the result of a military project. This document is a training manual written for military personnel who conducted remote viewing sessions under Ingo Swann.
Ingo Swann
Swann was a master remote viewer who helped develop and perfect the remote viewing process at the Stanford Research Labs. Over two decades Swann worked with Hal Puthoff who has recently been in the news for his work with TTSA. Swann’s research caught the attention of the Central Intelligence Agency. The CIA ultimately funded the project in order to observe the Soviet Union during the Cold War among other things.
Remote Viewing is a way to obtain impressions about a distant target through the use of Extra Sensory Perception (ESP). Due to remote viewing, a Soviet Sub manufacturing plant was discovered. There are also unconfirmed reports of the CIA utilizing Swann and other remote viewers to examine both Mars and our moon for signs of life; ultimately they discovered colonies on the moon and this was verified by more than one viewer.
To put it mildly, remote viewing is fascinating. There are persons in the United States today who were a part of the military research project who train lay persons how to remote view. The success rate shows that most anyone can learn to remote view.
Enter the new document in our library.
This document was written by Paul Smith in 1986. Smith was a member of the CIA’s remote viewing team. He wrote the entire process of remote viewing from terminology, to concept through to conducting a session. When writing this document, Smith encapsulated the whole of Swann’s technique. Consequently, Swann approved the content of this document.
And now you can learn the Swann method by reading this military intelligence manual on Coordinate Remote Viewing. The manual takes you through all six stages of remote viewing and what to expect from each stage as your abilities progress. You will learn the key terms used by viewers which will make you more prepared for further study.
If remote viewing doesn’t interest you, Paranormal Study has a library. Our library contains several free PDF’s on other paranormal topics. Hopefully you will find something to your liking.
This white paper on Instrumental Transcommunication (ITC) gives a great overview on the path ITC has followed toward our modern-day studies. From the beginning of ITC right up to contemporary researchers, Dr. Cardoso outlines several luminaries in the field and examines their various ITC techniques. If you have ever participated in Time Stream experiments, chances are that your work has been influenced directly or indirectly by Dr. Cardoso’s work.
Cardoso was a member of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) until her consciousness studies led her down the path of ITC research as a means to contact the other side.
In addition to ITC research, Dr. Cardoso is a career diplomat and was the first woman to hold a diplomatic position outside of her home country of Portugal.
If you have any interest in Instrumental Transcommunication, or if you are generally unfamiliar with the history ITC, then ITC Voices: Contact With Another Reality is a must-read white paper. If ITC isn’t your preference, feel free to check out the other resources we have in our library.
There is a new lecture on EVP that is ready for you to view at our school that you do not want to miss. Tim Woolworth has created a lecture Electronic Voice Phenomenon that is bound to inform and enlighten. This course, EVP: Electronic Voice Phenomenon; Voices From the Other Side – A Historical Perspective, is a course that all paranormal investigators and paranormal enthusiasts need to view.
In this lecture, Tim lays out a linear history of EVP that ends with modern-day techniques and current ideas upon how it is formulated. This course, and others, are available from the Paranormal Study School.
WHAT WILL I LEARN?
What an EVP consists of
The history of electronic voice phenomenon
What the earliest EVP’s sounded like
Techniques historically used to record electronic voice phenomenon
Famous practitioners and what they have added to the discussion of EVP
Modern electronic voice phenomenon recording techniques
Various ideas upon EVP formulation
REQUIREMENTS
There are no requirements for this class other than an open mind.
There are no tests nor quizzes for this lecture.
DESCRIPTION
For several decades, paranormal investigators have relied heavily upon one method to communicate with the other side: EVP, also known as electronic voice phenomenon.
This video lecture will walk you through the history of electronic voice phenomenon from its first accidental discovery through to the modern-day over eight distinct modules. You will learn how recording techniques have changed over the years. You will learn how EVP once went from an obscure methodology to one practiced by tens of thousands around the world.
In this lecture, Tim provides EVP’s from some of the biggest names ever to record them. He also provides some of his own EVP’s to help you understand the classification system. Finally, this lecture series finishes with various theories that explore how EVP is created.
After this lecture, you will be exceptionally well versed in the history of EVP and be up-to-date on both theory and techniques. This lecture will make you a better investigator of the paranormal.
WHO IS THE TARGET AUDIENCE
Everyone. Paranormal researchers and lay persons practice EVP. Whether you are on a ghost hunt or you are attempting to contact a loved one at home, this course on electric voice phenomenon will be of great use to you.
Paranormal researchers, ghost hunters and mediums will find this course to be of exceptional interest. Furthermore, this series of lectures explores electronic voice phenomenon and its influence on paranormal work. As a result, this course will further educate those who practice electronic voice phenomenon. S
The Fox Sisters lived in Hydesville, New York, a small hamlet of glacial hills north of the Finger Lakes and south of Lake Ontario. Hydesville is now part of the Town of Arcadia. This nondescript town gave birth to the spiritualist renaissance in the United States and ultimately created the modern spiritualism movement.
Modern spiritualism can be traced back to a single day, March 31, 1848 when an entity first made contact with the young sisters Fox, Maggie (14) and Kate (11). Unknown sounds plagued the Fox household. The house emanated unknown booming sounds, there were cracks and bangs, even the floorboards would reverberate. Doors would thud, bed frames would shudder. Because of these event, it was a frightening time in the Fox household for there was no known source for this invisible force. As a result. their parents took notice that the sounds and vibrations seemed to follow the Kate and Maggie wherever they moved in the cottage as if being pursued by this dominating, invisible entity. Their father, John, scoffed it off as loose floorboards but their mother, Margaret, believed the house to be genuinely haunted.
Their mother crept into the girls’ bedroom after hearing these sounds and addressed the entity as Mr. Split-Foot in reference to the devil; hauntings were not of a Christian nature therefore they must be the result of evil. She demanded that Mr. Split-foot do as she did, and she snapped her fingers in cadence. Mr. Split-foot repeated the cadence by rapping in the same cadence. She then clapped her hands four times and Mr. Split-foot followed with four raps.
Mrs. Fox continued her line of questioning. She demanded that the ghost count to ten and ten raps followed. She then asked about how many children she had given birth to and how many were still alive, the proper numbers of raps came back, seven and six respectively. Mrs. Fox asked how old each of her children were and their ages were rapped out appropriately. Later that night, she asked if the spirit was injured and if so, make two raps and two raps resounded.
Through a continuing series of raps, a portrait of what was causing the disturbance began to emerge. A previous tenant murdered and relieved a thirty-one-year old male door-to-door peddler of five hundred dollars. The resident buried the peddler under the Fox household. Later on, residents would vaguely recall a peddler that came through. David would eventually dig under the home and purportedly found bones, strands of hand and human teeth. These bones, and the Fox cottage, were moved to Lily Dale, New York, the home of the oldest spiritualist encampment in the United States.
Mrs. Fox asked if Mr. Split-foot would make himself known to the neighbors should she bring them by. Mr. Split-foot agreed. Over the next few nights, the house was over-run by neighbors who wanted to witness this phenomenon. Mr. Split-foot would only communicate when the sisters were present, and the neighbors were able to hear first-hand the story of the murdered peddler. The problem was that raps were a very clumsy means of communication. Their eldest brother, David, who lived in a nearby home, hit upon a novel means of communication with the spirit – he ran through the alphabet and the spirit would rap on a letter to ultimately spell words and sentences. By this means, the spirit was able to communicate with those in the room. To the awestruck group of neighbors in the tiny bedroom of the Fox sisters, this was nothing short of a miracle.
Their Reputation Grew Beyond Hydesville
In short order, word spread quickly through both newspaper and conversation. The sisters’ eldest sister, Leah, was a teacher in nearby Rochester, New York, and she heard about the events through a student. Consequently, Leah rushed home and saw that there was a group of people milling about the family cottage hoping to hear the raps of the spirit. The family wasn’t there though, they had moved into David’s place to keep away from the crowd. When Leah witnessed what was going on, she happened upon a plan and whisked the sisters away to a home in Rochester, New York. There, she charged visitors a dollar to communicate with the spirit realm.
From that point onward, the Fox Sisters reputation grew. Eventually, they went on tours demonstrating their abilities and became celebrities. By the 1850, rapping had become the new spiritual craze and there were no less than forty families in the state of New York that claimed to be experiencing the same rapping phenomenon. The Fox Sisters were the foremost spiritualist mediums in the United States. In 1851, a writer at Spiritual World tallied over 100 spiritualist mediums in New York City alone. The Fox Sisters also brought their means of spiritual communication to England during a tour and demonstrated communication by rapping.
There were hardships for the sisters as they fought, separated and each wound up poor. They relied upon the kinship of friends to keep a roof over their heads in their elder years.
By the time of their death (they all died between 1890-1893), there were millions of spiritualists around the globe. It was a movement that they had started in that little cottage in Hydesville.
Modern paranormal investigators owe a lot to the machinations of the Fox Sisters. If you watch any ghost-related television, or attend ghost hunting investigations, you’ve undoubtedly heard someone ask a spirit to “make themselves known” by knocking “once for yes, twice for no.” This same technique is the same as the modern and oft maligned “flashlight technique.” The light flashes once for yes and twice for no. All of these methodologies have their roots in the work of the Fox Sisters.
Maggie Reveals Their Trickery
If the Fox Sisters were ever genuinely in contact with spirit is a big question in spiritualist circles. In 1888, Maggie was destitute and offered a tell-all for $1,500 which was a sizeable sum. At a public event at the New York Academy of Music, Maggie sat on stage with her sisters in the audience nodding along, and outlined how they had accomplished their feats.
The sisters, forty years prior, had schemed to trick their parents for fun. In addition, she admitted to creating thuds by rolling apples down the stairs to sound like footsteps. They banged on the walls at night. More importantly, they had learned to contort muscles and joints to crack and pop. It all came to head that night when their mother entered their bedroom and asked questions of Mr. Split-foot. Kate tried to explain away the sounds by saying that the next morning was April Fools’ Day and someone was just trying to prank them. The neighbors arrived in and the sisters continued their charade. then they had committed to the lie and felt they had to continue it rather than dishonor the family in a small community.
Several doctors and scientists examined this over the course of their careers. Several doctors found them to be fraudulent which ultimately hurt their credibility and ultimately led to their poverty. During a show in Buffalo, New York, examination found that if the sisters were seated with cushions under their feet, then there would be no communication from the spirit realm. This helped to prove Maggie’s tell-all that most of their communications were achieved by popping their toe joints against wooden floorboards. This popping caused the resulting noise to resound with echo throughout the room.
Despite the chicanery of the Fox Sisters, their machinations changed the notion of spirit communication around the world. People began trying to communicate with spirits in earnest and developed many means of doing so over the last 170 years. EVP, ghost boxes, planchettes, dowsing rods and other means of communication closely related field of ghost hunting are all firmly rooted in the actions of the Fox Sisters. On this anniversary, we reflect upon how the spiritualist movement began.
We ran through our first course beta phase with a few people both in the paranormal field and outside the paranormal field. We got some very valuable feedback, but we need more to make Paranormal Study the best education tool in the field.
So, we will be launching the course we had in beta very, very soon at a steeply discounted price. We cut the normal course price in half so we can get as many people to take the course as possible in the hopes that we will get more valuable feedback and testimonials from both you and your peers.
The first course is from Tim Woolworth and it is on Electronic Voice Phenomenon. In this course, Tim gives you insight on the history of EVP from the very first EVP’s ever recorded to modern-day techniques. He examines several EVP luminaries and what they brought to the field of EVP over the course of eight lecture modules. You be able to hear, and download, some of the rarest EVP’s ever recorded. Finally, he leaves you with current ideas on how EVP is formulated.
We think this course is a great course to lead off Paranormal Study. Once we get your feedback, other lecturers will organize their courses in the way that works best for everyone. We can’t wait to share with you the lecturers who we will be working with!
So keep a close eye on this site and our social media pages as that is how you will find out first about our preliminary course launch and save money on the course for a very, very limited time. Whenever you purchase a standard course, you will have lifetime access to the content – even if you buy it at a discounted price or by utilizing a coupon.
As a quick reminder, those who buy our t-shirts will be given a 50% coupon that is usable on any course, even this first course at its temporarily reduced price!
The US Government and UFO’s – A Disclosure of Sorts
Have you ever heard the term “disclosure” used in ufology? It is a term that relates to the United States government releasing information regarding UAP’s (unidentified aerial phenomena; commonly called UFO) and EBE (extraterrestrial biological entities; commonly called aliens). Disclosure is the ultimate goal of ufologists. For the government to disclose information on UAP means that we, as a human species, can ultimately realize that there is something more than just us out there, that everyone on this planet, regardless of country, religion, race – we are all a singular species when viewed from a cosmic perspective. UAP disclosure will force that cosmic perspective upon us.
Believe it or not, a disclosure of sorts has been happening over the last three months.
This new movement towards disclosure is much like the lauded disclosure press conference that took place in May, 2001, at the National Press Club. At this event, several retired government officials, scientists, and military personnel came forward to testify publicly about their knowledge regarding UAP’s and EBE’s in an attempt to force the US government towards transparency on these topics. While this was a great event to see, it never ultimately resulted in any form of disclosure by the US government.
If you have never seen National Press Club event, you can watch it here:
Fast forward to December 16, 2017.
Just a couple short months ago a bombshell article was publishedby noted ufologist Leslie Keane and others in the New York Times. This article unveiled that there was a Pentagon program called AATIP (Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program) to examine UAP’s from 2007 through 2012. In a recent interview with the former Department of Defense military intelligence official who was charged with oversight on this project, Luis Elizondo, we find out that the program did not end in 2012 but was rather cleverly hidden in the budget and is still ongoing to this day. During the years that this program existed publicly in the Defense Department budget, it received 22 million dollars a year which is a rather insignificant portion the 600 billion dollar Defense Department budget. Insignificant or not, it was very telling: the United States government knows that UAP’s exist and is allocating monies to researching them. It was also telling in a different way: the US government labeled them as a threat because they were unknowns.
To the Stars and Beyond….
So how did this disclosure come out and what exactly did it entail?
It all starts with Blink 182. Yes, that Blink 182, the pop-punk band that was seemingly on every radio station in the 1990’s and early 2000’s. The frontman of Blink 182 is Tom DeLonge. DeLonge is an avid ufologist who has studied the phenomenon for decades. When Wikileaks published some communications about UFO’s from the likes of John Podesta and other government officials, DeLonge used his means and public status to arrange official meetings with various officials mentioned in the Wikileaks UFO documents.
Eventually, through meetings and networking, DeLonge had enough information to move forward with a business, To The Stars Academy(TTSA) that was announced through Leslie Keane in October, 2017. TTSA is a venture that incorporates former government officials, scientists of various disciplines, artists, and Robert Bigelow – the billionaire owner of Bigelow Aerospace, a private aerospace business that flies payloads to the International Space Station, embarks on NASA missions, and helps put satellites in orbit. Those who are attuned to the paranormal side of things may be aware of a location in Utah call Skinwalker Ranch which has had several UFO events as well as EBE sightings and several other paranormal events. Bigelow is the man who bought the property and turned it into a private research station. The Federal aviation Administration has referred reports of UAP’s and other phenomenon to Bigelow for several years. So when pressed on the topic of UFO’s in May, 2017, on the television news program 60 Minutes, it was very telling when Bigelow had the following to say:
Lara Logan: Do you believe in aliens?
Robert Bigelow: I’m absolutely convinced. That’s all there is to it.
Lara Logan: Do you also believe that UFOs have come to Earth?
Robert Bigelow: There has been and is an existing presence, an ET presence. And I spent millions and millions and millions — I probably spent more as an individual than anybody else in the United States has ever spent on this subject.
Lara Logan: Is it risky for you to say in public that you believe in UFOs and aliens?
Robert Bigelow: I don’t give a damn. I don’t care.
Lara Logan: You don’t worry that some people will say, “Did you hear that guy, he sounds like he’s crazy”?
Robert Bigelow: I don’t care.
Lara Logan: Why not?
Robert Bigelow: It’s not gonna make a difference. It’s not gonna change reality of what I know.
Lara Logan: Do you imagine that in our space travels we will encounter other forms of intelligent life?
Robert Bigelow: You don’t have to go anywhere.
Lara Logan: You can find it here? Where exactly?
Robert Bigelow: It’s just like right under people’s noses. Oh my gosh. Wow.
Luis Elizondo
DeLonge brought in another heavy hitter in To The Stars Academy, Luis Elizondo. As mentioned earlier, Elizondo was the military intelligence officer in charge of AATIP and has since retired from military service. Elizondo speaks about how he was, and still is, bound by confidentiality agreements. Over the course of his career, Elizondo recognized that there was a phenomenon that needed examination. He also realized that the government was not moving forward with any form of disclosure. Once he retired, Elizondo knew that was in a unique place to start an international conversation on UAPs. To do so, he put his considerable military service and pension at stake. But, he did not, and still has not, violated any government confidentiality on UAP’s. An important note – all of the information released to TTSA is unclassified. It is only due to this material becoming unclassified, for the purposes of training, that the videos released ever made it to the public sphere.
On the subject of the videos, Elizondo also points out that the videos are just that, videos. The audio and video that was released is unedited. What still remains classified is what happened before the video, afterwards, and the context by which these encounters with UAP occurred. Currently, as of the writing of this summary, 03 March 2018, three videos of UAP’s have been released through TTSA.
It is these videos, US government videos, that really helped to drive home that there was a phenomenon that needed to be examined. These videos brought a new paradigm to the American public; a paradigm that showed that the government recognized UAP’s as existing.
You can watch the videos here:
2004 FLIR Video From USS Nimitz
The GIMBAL Video
The GO FAST Video Footage
Recovered Materials?
One of the most important sentences that was overlooked by most of the analysis of the New York Times articles was this single statement:
“Under Mr. Bigelow’s direction, the company (Bigelow Aerospace) modified buildings in Las Vegas for the storage of metal alloys and other materials that Mr. Elizondo and other program contractors said had been removed by unidentified aerial phenomena. Researchers also studied people who said they had experienced physical effects from encounters with the objects and examined them for physiological changes.”
This statement says quite a lot. It states that we have recovered materials from UAP’s. People have encountered these materials and have reported physical effects as a result. It states that the materials we have recovered are metallic. Most importantly, it states that buildings have been modified to house these materials.
These are all bombshells. At face value, these statements alone show that UAP’s are not only an aerial phenomenon, but that sometimes they crash and materials are recovered as a result. When you look at this under the lens of the fact that the FAA has been sending Bigelow reports of UAP’s for years for site examination and that Bigelow Aerospace has a team of physicists, chemists and other scientists on staff for Aerospace research, then these revelations are outstanding.
TTSA co-founder and VP of the Science and Technology Department, Dr. Hal Puthoff, a leading expert in zero-point propulsion and formerly of the CIA remote viewing program, clarified the alloy statement on Coast-to-Coast with George Knapp on 28 January 2018. He confirmed that the metals were recovered, but they were not alloys. They were rather metals classified as meta-materials that had been layered by methods currently unknown to material science. This was also later confirmed in the Luis Elizondo interview.
Luis Elizondo Interview
The following interview is a result of the work of Alejandro Rojas of Open Minds. This interview was revealed at the IUFOC International UFO Congree) of which Rojas is an organizer. Elizondo was supposed to be at the IUFOC for a seminar, but had to cancel due to a medical procedure. The questions that were answered were sent in by Rojas’ followers and the interview was recorded by TTSA.
The interview can be watched here:
So What Does This All Mean?
It means a lot.
Broken down, it means that the United States government has had a sizable stake in trying to ascertain the nature of UAP’s which are viewed as a potential threat. There are recovered manufactured materials that are not of this planet and they are being examined by top minds at a leading aerospace company that has space contracts with NASA. There is a group of influential persons who have brought this information forward to make this a topic of national conversation with the goal of building a starship.
As Elizondo stated in the interview, we as a species, “…have the courage to ask the hard questions and pursue doggedly the things that we don’t understand. In fact, I think that is one of our sacred missions as mankind – to pursue those deep, dark recesses that we have a hard time understanding and a hard time reaching. I think it’s in our nature, I think it’s in our spirit, and I think it’s in our DNA.”
