Consciousness and the Paranormal

[stephen haldane]

I know I keep banging on about Dr.RAM!!!!!!....but he said that he knew Geller and that he was genuine but as you mentioned he could not turn it "on" when required so resorted to lower magic ( sleight of hand/misdirection)cheating if you will(higher majick is also cheating in some sense in my humble opinion!)...when asked to perform for all and sundry!!!.......does this piece of anecdotal evidence indicate that to achieve results(physical/empirical evidence of phenomena that does not have a scientific explanation yet!) synchronicity has its part to play and also as phenomenological psychology indicates that being in "the moment" and the ability to go through the conscious/subconscious "gears" to achieve the results the observer desires is KEY??????....

 

[stephen haldane]

note to self (lower self as I am currently in a stream of consciousness!!! or somewhere in the middle for all my Buddhist friends out there!!)....its New Years Day and I am of the Scottish persuasion so therefore as my bonnie countries belief system requires of me... I will be intoxicated from many mind altering substances and practices from 2pm onwards (GMT)....so to all my fellow path followers around this small globe and BEYOND!!!!!!!.....HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[smcder]

note to self (lower self as I am currently in a stream of consciousness!!! or somewhere in the middle for all my Buddhist friends out there!!)....its New Years Day and I am of the Scottish persuasion so therefore as my bonnie countries belief system requires of me... I will be intoxicated from many mind altering substances and practices from 2pm onwards (GMT)....so to all my fellow path followers around this small globe and BEYOND!!!!!!!.....HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy New Year!

 

[stephen haldane]

Happy New Year to you too!!!!!!!!!!......Let the festivities beginim 20 mins late as I had to shave my head and take a bath!!!!!!(ritualistic or obsessive compulsive behaviour or just good hygiene???? you say potato I say potato.....CHEERS.... (sorry EGO is running riot!!!! oh oh here comes SUPER EGO!!!!!!!!!!)....

 

[smcder]

Sure. That makes sense. I think @Christopher O'Brien would also agree that the above is one way the Trickster manifests itself.

OK. Thanks for that. I will.

. . .

1) The part of the interview Afterlife FM - George P. Hansen : Afterlife FM : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive concerning Radin begins at 23:35, and the interviewer reads from this blog post by Radin:

Entangled Minds: Trickster, or failure of imagination? Aug 14, 2007

Radin's main argument is below and then Hansen responds on the podcast (apparently also on his blog, haven't found that yet)

Here is Hansen's post from Aug 5, 2007:
The Paranormal Trickster Blog: August 2007

And here is Hansen's response to Radin's post Sept 17, 2007
The Paranormal Trickster Blog: September 2007

The reason I don't agree is because similar pessimistic complaints have been voiced throughout history whenever we've been faced with seemingly incomprehensible effects in medicine, physics, astronomy, chemistry, biology, etc. In other words, whenever imagination fails, someone will invariably assert that we'll never be able to understand [fill in the blank], and so they come up with trickster-like theories to allow us to place our ignorance into a mysterious netherworld lying somewhere beyond our understanding. Failures of imagination are common, but promoting theories based on those failures is tantamount to glorifying an anti-scientific position.

2) so one of the things I'm poking at now is whether and what differences exist between a Psi experiment and a "mainstream" Psychology experiment, in terms of calling them science - in other words, why do we like Psychology more than Parapsychology when the same criticisms (including critique of statistical methods) may apply to both? -

Now, the only experience I have in research is at the undergraduate level in psychology. (Now that I think of it, I did have something published in a professor's compendium of his student's research if that counts for much! but seriously, I do remember the same kind of difficulties with theory and removing alternate explanations for results as seem to occur in Psi experiments.

Controlling variables in research with people is notoriously difficult, experimenter bias, deception from subjects, the observer effect, subjects anticipating the desired outcome of experiments - (not to mention the decline effect seen in many areas of science, even "harder" science) - any research with people involved including clinical trials for medicine/pharmacology. In other words, could the same criticisms be applied to Psychology as are applied to Psi?

So let's broaden this a bit. I read an article by the President of a psychiatric association in Arkansas, within the last two years I believe, in which this was exactly what was done. She basically said Psychology is not a science. (I think we can find many people who would throw in Anthropology, Sociology, Economics, etc etc - in fact, one of the most commonly thrown academic insults is that what one is doing, one's whole field isn't scientific). So again, Trickster theory says this will happen to the degree that a field is marginal and liminal, so now we have a continuum along which paranormal studies are the far end, but we see the effects starting to crop up earlier in the social sciences and other areas. This leaves actually a very small area that by all consensus is truly science - we label this "hard science" and even there I understand things are squishy in places, with the decline effect, experimenter bias and experimenter anticipation coming in, etc. -

But with Psychology/Parapsychology we have two points close on the spectrum where we can see the exact same criticisms can be applied and so the reasonable thing to do, at first glance, is either pull Parapsychology up to the same legitimacy as some areas of Psychology and acknowledge it OR we have to downgrade our estimation of Psychology as a science . . . except if the Trickster is a kind of event horizon, then Parapsychology, no matter how close on the continuum to Psychology (and recognition as legitimate science) will never be so acknowledged . . . or so the Theory goes, I am tentative on all of this.

 

[stephen haldane]

I worked in a psychiatric institution for 8 years(acute admissions and the intensive psychiatric care unit...for people who were considered a danger to themselves or others) and I never met two people alike!!!!!!!.... So anecdotally does that rule out psychology being a science as it immediately rules out the mathematical model being applied??????...1+1 does not equal two as one is unique????????/

 

[smcder]

I worked in a psychiatric institution for 8 years(acute admissions and the intensive psychiatric care unit...for people who were considered a danger to themselves or others) and I never met two people alike!!!!!!!.... So anecdotally does that rule out psychology being a science as it immediately rules out the mathematical model being applied??????...1+1 does not equal two as one is unique????????/

What I was trying to get at above is why research in psychology, although subject to many of the same critiques as research in parapsychology, is generally considered a science, whereas parapsychology generally isn't. Or is it that there is a critical, objective difference - something or things we can clearly point to that differentiates every psi experiment from every experiment in psychology? Can we clearly put psychology on one side of the science line and parapsychology on the other? If not, then I think George P. Hansen's Trickster theory explains why not . . .

I don't know if it's even possible to do some kind of blind test, so that apart from subject matter - critics could reliably determine which was a peer reviewed published paper in psychology and which was a paper in parapsychology? I'm wondering if someone has done this . . . clearly, such an experiment would be subjected to the exact same criticisms!

 

[Burnt State]

Controlling variables in research with people is notoriously difficult, experimenter bias, deception from subjects, the observer effect, subjects anticipating the desired outcome of experiments - (not to mention the decline effect seen in many areas of science, even "harder" science) - any research with people involved including clinical trials for medicine/pharmacology. In other words, could the same criticisms be applied to Psychology as are applied to Psi?
...
But with Psychology/Parapsychology we have two points close on the spectrum where we can see the exact same criticisms can be applied and so the reasonable thing to do, at first glance, is either pull Parapsychology up to the same legitimacy as some areas of Psychology and acknowledge it OR we have to downgrade our estimation of Psychology as a science . . . except if the Trickster is a kind of event horizon, then Parapsychology, no matter how close on the continuum to Psychology (and recognition as legitimate science) will never be so acknowledged . . . or so the Theory goes, I am tentative on all of this.

It's quite interesting that as a society we really have become addicted to 'facts' and feel more enlightened and rational because we 'know' these facts. We no longer believe in the old wives tales, myths and stories from he shaman - metaphor gets replaced with explanation.

Ufology works the exact same way. Ironically, it was Hansen, in his role as the grand inquisitor, the seeker of facts, that he deeply ruffled the feathers of Hopkins and Jerome Clark over the Cortile Abduction Tale. In this instance it was the two old Shawmen of Ufology who were keeping the 'truth' to themselves and highlighting themselves as the keepers of the myth. For me this was my low point estimation of Clark and chalk up his involvement in all of his defense of Hopkins as a last favour for an old friend. Truth be damned; let the myths fly, unless you actually believe that the UFO secret rises all the way up to the level of the U.N., which I can't believe he tried to sell - pretty bizarre stuff.

Now Hansen says that there are important roles for hoaxing to play in helping to understand the liminal world, but I have not read his full ideas on this point, nor did the cropcircle maker fully elucidate his own role and effects, though it is quite intriguing.

From what I read from some of the material of his that you've posted, the issue with psi as science is the random and destructuring nature of it in the first place. Attempting to measure the margins, or expecting the liminal zone to be replicable in a consistent nature seems to work entirely against its own tricky, random ways.

The decline effect, the inability to replicate science experiments consistently as well as the very poor levels of predictability that experts offer all seem to suggest that the 'real' world is just as random and akin to magical, paranormality than science. But those are the old ways, the old religions, rituals from days in the tribe and not the stuff of modernity at all. We like to think of our reality as the incandescent light - predictable and responsive as soon as the switch is thrown, unlike lability, and the flickering candle of Hansen's psi experiments that belong to the unpredictable world of shadows.

As he describes in his text - it's all bricolage. This is great stuff for artists, for those who like to live in the imaginary realm, or see the world through a liminal lens, but in a world addicted to their facts it's just a hodgepodge of ramblings, a loose assemblage of art, magic, literature, anthropology, and many pieces of paranormal lore and research.

For me there is great value in speaking more clearly about the borderlands, the inbetween spaces and occasional dances with the trickster. There's a kind of tangibility about the magic of the world when we can speak of it out in the open. But shunning soon follows, and too much time seeking in this realm is in fact bad for your health and personal relationships. Perhaps....

 

[smcder]

It's quite interesting that as a society we really have become addicted to 'facts' and feel more enlightened and rational because we 'know' these facts. We no longer believe in the old wives tales, myths and stories from he shaman - metaphor gets replaced with explanation.

Ufology works the exact same way. Ironically, it was Hansen, in his role as the grand inquisitor, the seeker of facts, that he deeply ruffled the feathers of Hopkins and Jerome Clark over the Cortile Abduction Tale. In this instance it was the two old Shawmen of Ufology who were keeping the 'truth' to themselves and highlighting themselves as the keepers of the myth. For me this was my low point estimation of Clark and chalk up his involvement in all of his defense of Hopkins as a last favour for an old friend. Truth be damned; let the myths fly, unless you actually believe that the UFO secret rises all the way up to the level of the U.N., which I can't believe he tried to sell - pretty bizarre stuff.

Now Hansen says that there are important roles for hoaxing to play in helping to understand the liminal world, but I have not read his full ideas on this point, nor did the cropcircle maker fully elucidate his own role and effects, though it is quite intriguing.

From what I read from some of the material of his that you've posted, the issue with psi as science is the random and destructuring nature of it in the first place. Attempting to measure the margins, or expecting the liminal zone to be replicable in a consistent nature seems to work entirely against its own tricky, random ways.

The decline effect, the inability to replicate science experiments consistently as well as the very poor levels of predictability that experts offer all seem to suggest that the 'real' world is just as random and akin to magical, paranormality than science. But those are the old ways, the old religions, rituals from days in the tribe and not the stuff of modernity at all. We like to think of our reality as the incandescent light - predictable and responsive as soon as the switch is thrown, unlike lability, and the flickering candle of Hansen's psi experiments that belong to the unpredictable world of shadows.

As he describes in his text - it's all bricolage. This is great stuff for artists, for those who like to live in the imaginary realm, or see the world through a liminal lens, but in a world addicted to their facts it's just a hodgepodge of ramblings, a loose assemblage of art, magic, literature, anthropology, and many pieces of paranormal lore and research.

For me there is great value in speaking more clearly about the borderlands, the inbetween spaces and occasional dances with the trickster. There's a kind of tangibility about the magic of the world when we can speak of it out in the open. But shunning soon follows, and too much time seeking in this realm is in fact bad for your health and personal relationships. Perhaps....

You can guess the effectiveness of trying to warn someone about the Trickster.

Read his book if you have time, it's worth it and addresses these things. In the interview I posted above, Hansen talks about how he takes precautions when engaging the paranormal (not getting married or having personal relationships for example) and talks about repulsion following fascination.

 

[smcder]

So far, of the mind-mapping software I have tried . . . yeah, the old paper and pencil works best:

Low cost and I have graphic capabilities limited only by my imagination, I can erase and re-draw with the touch of a "stylus" - I can easily delete files. I'm not limited to a pre-selected alphabet of symbols and I can connect ideas as many ways as I want, limited only by physical (analogue) constraints - or I can always get a bigger piece of paper . . .

 

[Burnt State]

So far, of the mind-mapping software I have tried . . . yeah, the old paper and pencil works best:

Low cost and I have graphic capabilities limited only by my imagination, I can erase and re-draw with the touch of a "stylus" - I can easily delete files. I'm not limited to a pre-selected alphabet of symbols and I can connect ideas as many ways as I want, limited only by physical (analogue) constraints - or I can always get a bigger piece of paper . . .

Have you tried Prezi? You can't really draw in it but you could always import previous sketches saved on the machine. What I like about that softwhere is that when I want to tackle or teach something I can import a myriad of image, audio, video from anywhere online or my hard drive memory zone; anywhere I click can be a new text; it works in three dimensions; collecting groups of ideas and objects is easy and reorganizing paths and finding an order doesn't have to happen till the end. It's my favourite thinking place. And it's free.

 

[Burnt State]

You can guess the effectiveness of trying to warn someone about the Trickster.

Read his book if you have time, it's worth it and addresses these things. In the interview I posted above, Hansen talks about how he takes precautions when engaging the paranormal (not getting married or having personal relationships for example) and talks about repulsion following fascination.

I am highly fascinated by the Hansen material I have read so far. Thank you very much for posting these resources. I have found that since having children, I am compelled to be grounded fairly closely to the predictable world of clarity and simple math. By keeping my dips into the liminal pool infrequent I've managed to keep life very 'sane' with limited magic. Children offer pretty creative spaces to inhabit anyway, and there's always the dog to get telepathic with. Cooking is my main creative outlet.

To live any more closely, instead of just studying it from a distance, recognizing its daily practical nature, and opting for mindfulness as a guiding motion for most human interactions, I feel safe, content and much less on edge. I figure this way, if anything, really really strange happens, my partner will provide me an ample cushion and return me back to the world we co-created. I feel like my time of being immersed in the liminal world ended long ago, and now I just read about it, think about learning how to play guitar etc.. Thanks though, for providing all the excellent reading on the subject matter. It's kept a little flicker of magic still glowing in my eyes.

Do you actually inhabit this space? And if so, how do you manage?

 

[stephen haldane]

all science is bogus.... the trickster if you like..(but in a court of law he/she adheres to the rules only because you swear on the bible ..invoking god the observer)...... time is a reality (because its a measure of consciousness that resides in an entity) so therefore measureable(if your watch is accurate).....synchronicity dictates the results(if your timings are spiritual in nature...Shit Happens.....alluding to the fact (truth) that WE have been here before!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!................HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!P.S. watching David Blaine....magic is the set up.....science is the result..........going to bed now.......sweet dreams!!!!!!!!!!!.....Freud and Jung working in perfect harmony. I have just disappeared up my own rabbit hole!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[smcder]

I am highly fascinated by the Hansen material I have read so far. Thank you very much for posting these resources. I have found that since having children, I am compelled to be grounded fairly closely to the predictable world of clarity and simple math. By keeping my dips into the liminal pool infrequent I've managed to keep life very 'sane' with limited magic. Children offer pretty creative spaces to inhabit anyway, and there's always the dog to get telepathic with. Cooking is my main creative outlet.

To live any more closely, instead of just studying it from a distance, recognizing its daily practical nature, and opting for mindfulness as a guiding motion for most human interactions, I feel safe, content and much less on edge. I figure this way, if anything, really really strange happens, my partner will provide me an ample cushion and return me back to the world we co-created. I feel like my time of being immersed in the liminal world ended long ago, and now I just read about it, think about learning how to play guitar etc.. Thanks though, for providing all the excellent reading on the subject matter. It's kept a little flicker of magic still glowing in my eyes.

Do you actually inhabit this space? And if so, how do you manage?

By keeping my dips into the liminal pool infrequent I've managed to keep life very 'sane' with limited magic. Children offer pretty creative spaces to inhabit anyway, and there's always the dog to get telepathic with. Cooking is my main creative outlet.

You must not have any teenagers yet . . . ;-)
s α 1/m (where s = sanity and m = magic)

I have five dogs - all telepathic. I also cook! Do you have a favorite type of food?

To live any more closely, instead of just studying it from a distance, recognizing its daily practical nature, and opting for mindfulness as a guiding motion for most human interactions, I feel safe, content and much less on edge.

How in the world do you manage?? ;-)

I figure this way, if anything, really really strange happens, my partner will provide me an ample cushion and return me back to the world we co-created. I feel like my time of being immersed in the liminal world ended long ago, and now I just read about it, think about learning how to play guitar etc.. Thanks though, for providing all the excellent reading on the subject matter. It's kept a little flicker of magic still glowing in my eyes

Sounds like you miss it?

Do you actually inhabit this space? And if so, how do you manage?

Probably by never having known any different.

 

[Randall]

... so one of the things I'm poking at now is whether and what differences exist between a Psi experiment and a "mainstream" Psychology experiment, in terms of calling them science - in other words, why do we like Psychology more than Parapsychology when the same criticisms (including critique of statistical methods) may apply to both?

Psychology deals with phenomena that we can be virtually certain are real and based on a wealth of experience and repetition. This isn't to say that with respect to any specific individual we can be certain about every specific claim, only that people in general experience a spectrum of emotional, perceptual, and intellectual states that have been experienced and expressed and studied with such frequency and repeatability that we accept that they exist either within ourselves, or in other people out there someplace. In comparison, Ψ phenomena is either not experienced by most people, or is so subtle that we cannot be certain that it is Ψ, and it is far more transient and much less reproducible. Add the evidence against those who promote psychic abilities and there is every reason that we should be cautious about who and what we believe when it comes to Ψ claims.

Controlling variables in research with people is notoriously difficult, experimenter bias, deception from subjects, the observer effect, subjects anticipating the desired outcome of experiments - (not to mention the decline effect seen in many areas of science, even "harder" science) - any research with people involved including clinical trials for medicine/pharmacology. In other words, could the same criticisms be applied to Psychology as are applied to Psi?

As suggested in previous posts, the control of variables could be done with extreme precision. However the results would most likely end up consistently negative, and that isn't conducive to further experimentation or funding. However applying variables that are open to statistical interpretation allow for the processing of data in ways that can be used to bolster a case for further study.

In some instances criticism may apply; in other cases it may not. I think each case needs to evaluated individually. We should not write off all Ψ simply because some people believe in and promote nonsense.

So let's broaden this a bit. I read an article by the President of a psychiatric association in Arkansas, within the last two years I believe, in which this was exactly what was done. She basically said Psychology is not a science. (I think we can find many people who would throw in Anthropology, Sociology, Economics, etc etc - in fact, one of the most commonly thrown academic insults is that what one is doing, one's whole field isn't scientific). So again, Trickster theory says this will happen to the degree that a field is marginal and liminal, so now we have a continuum along which paranormal studies are the far end, but we see the effects starting to crop up earlier in the social sciences and other areas. This leaves actually a very small area that by all consensus is truly science - we label this "hard science" and even there I understand things are squishy in places, with the decline effect, experimenter bias and experimenter anticipation coming in, etc. -

Yes. I've run across other similar opinions about psychology, and I tend to think they are justified to some extent. As I had attempted to point out at the start of this discussion, it's a mistake to label something scientific when it's not. The scientific community has a set of standards that they believe need to be met in order for something to qualify as valid science, and the two primary ingredients are empirical evidence and consistency of predictions based on experimentation. In psychology, there is a large amount of subjectivity that cannot be empirically verified.

There also seems to be a tendency to assume that science is infallible and should be held as the highest standard by which decisions are made, and therefore when a field wants academic recognition, it seems that there is also a tendency to want it to be as accepted as science. So we suddenly see it ( the word ) getting bolted onto subject matter as if by doing so it imparts an air of respectability. I think this is a mistake. I think that academic validity shouldn't be dependent on acceptance by the scientific community. Critical thinking is an excellent tool for establishing the truth of things, especially when the evidence isn't sufficient for a scientific analysis, and it should be considered to be a perfectly valid measure of academic acceptance.

But with Psychology/Parapsychology we have two points close on the spectrum where we can see the exact same criticisms can be applied and so the reasonable thing to do, at first glance, is either pull Parapsychology up to the same legitimacy as some areas of Psychology and acknowledge it OR we have to downgrade our estimation of Psychology as a science . . . except if the Trickster is a kind of event horizon, then Parapsychology, no matter how close on the continuum to Psychology (and recognition as legitimate science) will never be so acknowledged . . . or so the Theory goes, I am tentative on all of this.

I don't think that studying Ψ using the process of critical thinking is a "downgrade". If anything, it's an upgrade, if not for the simple reason that it does not preclude science where and when it's applicable. Science should not be considered the be-all and end-all of our criteria for acceptance of truth. Science is an excellent tool, but it's not the only one in our toolbox. Science should be employed when valid scientific methods can be applied. But apart from that, trying to gain acceptance by jamming everything into a purely scientific paradigm is faulty thinking. It simply cannot be done, nor should it be required in order for something to be considered a legitimate academic field of study.

 

[smcder]

Psychology deals with phenomena that we can be virtually certain are real and based on a wealth of experience and repetition. This isn't to say that with respect to any specific individual we can be certain about every specific claim, only that people in general experience a spectrum of emotional, perceptual, and intellectual states that have been experienced and expressed and studied with such frequency and repeatability that we accept that they exist either within ourselves, or in other people out there someplace. In comparison, Ψ phenomena is either not experienced by most people, or is so subtle that we cannot be certain that it is Ψ, and it is far more transient and much less reproducible. Add the evidence against those who promote psychic abilities and there is every reason that we should be cautious about who and what we believe when it comes to Ψ claims.

As suggested in previous posts, the control of variables could be done with extreme precision. However the results would most likely end up consistently negative, and that isn't conducive to further experimentation or funding. However applying variables that are open to statistical interpretation allow for the processing of data in ways that can be used to bolster a case for further study.

In some instances criticism may apply; in other cases it may not. I think each case needs to evaluated individually. We should not write off all Ψ simply because some people believe in and promote nonsense.

Yes. I've run across other similar opinions about psychology, and I tend to think they are justified to some extent. As I had attempted to point out at the start of this discussion, it's a mistake to label something scientific when it's not. The scientific community has a set of standards that they believe need to be met in order for something to qualify as valid science, and the two primary ingredients are empirical evidence and consistency of predictions based on experimentation. In psychology, there is a large amount of subjectivity that cannot be empirically verified.

There also seems to be a tendency to assume that science is infallible and should be held as the highest standard by which decisions are made, and therefore when a field wants academic recognition, it seems that there is also a tendency to want it to be as accepted as science. So we suddenly see it ( the word ) getting bolted onto subject matter as if by doing so it imparts an air of respectability. I think this is a mistake. I think that academic validity shouldn't be dependent on acceptance by the scientific community. Critical thinking is an excellent tool for establishing the truth of things, especially when the evidence isn't sufficient for a scientific analysis, and it should be considered to be a perfectly valid measure of academic acceptance.

I don't think that studying Ψ using the process of critical thinking is a "downgrade". If anything, it's an upgrade, if not for the simple reason that it does not preclude science where and when it's applicable. Science should not be considered the be-all and end-all of our criteria for acceptance of truth. Science is an excellent tool, but it's not the only one in our toolbox. Science should be employed when valid scientific methods can be applied. But apart from that, trying to gain acceptance by jamming everything into a purely scientific paradigm is faulty thinking. It simply cannot be done, nor should it be required in order for something to be considered a legitimate academic field of study.

I understand and don't disagree with most of what you have been saying in terms of the big picture - nor do I take any of the hard stances above. I'm pursuing a narrow set of questions that I now want to tie to specific studies.

The comparison to psychology is whether the variables in psychology are no more controlled than those in parapsychology (reference above the Harvard studies of methodology - purporting to show that parapsychology experiments exceed standards in comparison to other fields, I want to see this in more detail).

Are there consistently applied standards that allow us to delineate what is and isn't science? I don't think so - many studies in psychology suffer from even a lack of theory - science is a big, messy social project (that's what Kuhn was partially about) - so do we accept psychology (generally) as "science" for social reasons and reject parapsychology per the Trickster (Hansen) or does Radin's critique have merit and parapsychology is in the pre-paradigm stage (also Kuhn)?

Cognitive closure and limits to knowledge as taboos in academia. The fact that Colin McGinn with his New Mysterianism (not his idea but rather a sobriquet applied by critics lost his tenure over a sex scandal (less than clear-cut case) . . . I believe Hansen would say "there is Trickster". Consciousness studies are clearly at this boundary/fringe area - yet there are established academic programs.

OR we have to downgrade our estimation of Psychology as a science - here I'm just referring to downgrade only in terms of Psychology as a science, not referring to critical thinking (which I have not investigated) at all.

 

[Constance]

Happy New Year to All.

I'm catching up on recent posts and have a few responses.

I'm in agreement with Radin's take on the trickster 'meme' as it's propagated in contemporary culture and pop culture:

“While I think the trickster concept and lore are interesting, and that Hansen's own book on the trickster is an excellent exposition on that topic, I disagree that psi is forever doomed to a marginal existence.

The reason I don't agree is because similar pessimistic complaints have been voiced throughout history whenever we've been faced with seemingly incomprehensible effects in medicine, physics, astronomy, chemistry, biology, etc. In other words, whenever imagination fails, someone will invariably assert that we'll never be able to understand [fill in the blank], and so they come up with trickster-like theories to allow us to place our ignorance into a mysterious netherworld lying somewhere beyond our understanding. Failures of imagination are common, but promoting theories based on those failures is tantamount to glorifying an anti-scientific position.”

Entangled Minds: Trickster, or failure of imagination?

Burnt State observed:

Now Hansen says that there are important roles for hoaxing to play in helping to understand the liminal world, but I have not read his full ideas on this point, nor did the cropcircle maker fully elucidate his own role and effects, though it is quite intriguing.

Matt Williams, the hoaxer we've heard from at length, is a popular spokesman for the current crop of cc hoaxers rather than a theorist. A trickster theory was adopted and entangled with social constructionism, Dada, performance art, actor network theory, ritual, religion, and other cultural phenomena by the authors of The Field Guide to Crop Circles (two still extant members of the original TeamSatan/CCmakers who have long been suspected of employment as disinformation agents focused on the ufo and cc subjects). This mixed bag of 'theories' continued to be talked up in the CCmakers website (Circlemakers.org), the now-defunct CropCircleConnector Forum, and elsewhere as a way to erase the persistent question of the origins of crop circles and simultaneously to justify cc hoaxing {indeed to demand the adulation of cc hoaxers who were bringing the 'truth' to all crop circle researchers and other reality seekers). The point to be absorbed by those who would accept it was the essence of anti-reason -- that the possibility of nonhuman agency/ies in the production of crop circles didn't matter and need not be investigated, that one should simply have one's individual experience in crop circles and be content with one's 'personal reality' since that was to be understood as the only sense of reality possible for humans.

I saw the ideology being preached by these people as essentially nihilistic, and still do. It denied the value of scientific investigation of physical anomalies manifested in crop circles and discouraged the attempts of people from a variety of other disciplines to combine the resources of their insights and explorations toward a more comprehensive study of cc in terms of information expressed in them. Mediums as well as scientists were blown off and scoffed at. Prosaic explanations were casually suggested for every kind of biological, mineralogical, and energetic anomaly found in crop circles. And there was no possibly valid core understanding that might be reached in common by mediums, mystics, meditators, intuitives, and experts in ancient sacred geometry. In a world dominated by the trickster, no perceptions -- scientific or mental -- could be trusted to be valid paths to understanding the nature of reality. Hoaxing became the means by which ordinary people could gradually come to accept reality as inscrutable -- made inscrutable by the ever-present trickster, a viewpoint promoted as intellectual progress.

My problem with the trickster notion, even before that exploitation of it, has been that it's fraught with the reification fallacy. What was originally a Jungian archetype {an insubstantial theoretical concept unknown to consciousness that in itself still requires definition even in depth psychology}, readily became many things for many people (even concrete living things or agents, forces, explanatory powers), and employed by those people in disciplines seeking deeper explanations for the subject matters they interpreted. So the archetypes in general, and the trickster in particular, became 'structures of thought' and even 'structures of reality' for academics in the humanities and social sciences -- in large part, in my opinion, a decision to hang both one's hat and one's thinking on a hook that might not hold up (being simply assumed to exist). We're still asking here whether the 'trickster' resides in the subconscious mind or in nature -- or maybe in both. Obviously we don't have any idea where or indeed what the trickster is.

A scholar like Hansen accumulates large files of data from various fields that seem to confirm the 'reality' of something he identifies as the 'trickster' as busily at work in all aspects of human life laying down pools of quick-sand in the ground upon which we walk and the ground -- a wide and partially undisclosed terrain -- upon which we perceive and experience existence and think about what our perceptions, experiences, and thinking mean about the nature of reality, of being. Can we make progress in understanding the nature of reality? It seems to me that we unquestionably have, and that we've done so by multiplying and combining our perspectives on what we encounter in the physical world. For too long, though, our disciplines of knowledge have failed to work together on the ground of our thinking based as it is in our experience in the world, which must include our anomalous experiences in order to be complete. Nor does it enable progress in this endeavor to assume that the full range of human experience is radically and hopelessly disunified by our existing in different 'zones' of reality, or in a world in which every kind of progress is ultimately vulnerable to confusion by a zone ruled by the 'trickster'. For we have, after all, evolved in a universe that contemporary physics recognizes to be unified and totally interconnected at the quantum level of reality.[/quote]

 

[Burnt State]

A lovely post, Constance, that makes a wonderful argument on behalf of wholeness and unification. There has been too long a history of the segregation and polarization of thought, that has left us huddled up against a wall separating the sane from the irrational. Destructuring & restructuring reality is good for the mind, body and spirit.

 

[Burnt State]

By keeping my dips into the liminal pool infrequent I've managed to keep life very 'sane' with limited magic. Children offer pretty creative spaces to inhabit anyway, and there's always the dog to get telepathic with. Cooking is my main creative outlet.

You must not have any teenagers yet . . . ;-)

It's true, my daughter's just starting to tween and provide us with ample bursts of irrational decisions and emotions. We're taking up guitar playing together. I'm hoping for more effective communication and processing of emotion through this vehicle of song.

I have five dogs - all telepathic. I also cook! Do you have a favorite type of food?

Everyone in my house wants more dogs. I cook everything and keep dancing in and out of cultures. I really get into flavours: lemon, coriander (fresh and ground seeds), cumin lime & chili, things with hints of cardamom like Persian Jewelled Rice and some Middle Eastern and North African Flavours turn my culinary crank a lot these days. Cooking is like my daily meditation and I would do it all day long if it would pay well. I have fantasies of retiring as an eclectic chef (trained by TV chefs, the Internet, my family and good cookbooks).

To live any more closely, instead of just studying it from a distance, recognizing its daily practical nature, and opting for mindfulness as a guiding motion for most human interactions, I feel safe, content and much less on edge.

How in the world do you manage?? ;-)

Haha...I was thinking more about total immersion into liminal spaces and all its rich dark pageantry - the daily intense rhythms and manias that lead to undiscovered countries. I prefer things more on an even keel these days, walking the dog etc..

Sounds like you miss it?

Do you actually inhabit this space? And if so, how do you manage?

Probably by never having known any different.

I miss smoking, hallucinogens, being irresponsible, dabbling in magic, exploring people, making art, playing music, just thinking, and dwelling in reckless spaces. I blame marriage, kids and employment for these losses. Joy transforms over time.

 

[Constance]

A lovely post, Constance, that makes a wonderful argument on behalf of wholeness and unification. There has been too long a history of the segregation and polarization of thought, that has left us huddled up against a wall separating the sane from the irrational. Destructuring & restructuring reality is good for the mind, body and spirit.

Thanks, Burnt State. I like the way you put it: "Destructuring & restructuring reality is good for the mind, body and spirit." We need to resist system builders in the world of ideas who ignore or dismiss persistent categories of human experience and thought. It requires interdisciplinary work and thinking, a maintenance of the dialectic as our species learns more, and above all the vigorous investigation of anomalous experiences for which we have not yet discovered appropriate methodologies.


Re your next post: Adolescence is a very rough road, moreso for girls in my experience. Taking guitar lessons together is a great idea. Your kitchen also sounds like a very good place to be.