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Consciousness and the Paranormal

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ok, i looked around a bit myself online and did discover that the trail of breadcrumbs suggests that the military in fact has long used RV up until the mid-90's as i could find no other references past then - and with some interesting quotes supposedly verifying actual successes in some cases. however, in their scenarios, there is a specific team of talented individuals who are the sensitives, not to discount the rest of us psychic slouches, but perhaps these more convincing high percentage skill sets only exist in selective folk making the idea of experiments using the masses something that will always produce mediocre results.

Perhaps. It's obviously the case that some people are naturally skilled as remote viewers (SRI found a number of them and employed them in their research for a number of government agencies). But the fact that remote viewing skills can be taught and developed in people who have not previously demonstrated psychic abilities supports Swann's theory that such skills are latent in all humans and generally repressed in our time. Swann theorizes that this might not have been the case early in our species' history, i.e., that at an earlier time humans were considerably more open to subliminal information. It's worth noting that the NDE research has reported a frequent manifestation of psychic abilities in people following their NDE experiences. This is one of many areas of consciousness research that calls for increased attention.

i could not find reference to thousands, but hundreds of events sponsored by the CIA and DIA. No one is speaking about success rates, percentages or global impact. Most spoke of its use for threat assessment as in, what are the chances of other foreign powers remote viewing us? My favourite reference on one site was the eight martini RV'ing event - where the success was so spectacular that observers who witnessed the results had to go out for eight martinis to allow it to better settle in the system...

I don’t remember which event led to the coining of the term ‘eight martinis’ (it might have been Swann’s remote viewing of the structure of an immense magnetometer buried and shielded beneath the building in which SRI was located and his additional ability to interfere with the operation of the magnetometer), but there were many events in remote viewing experiments at SRI that were designated as ‘eight martini’ events, not just one.

Remote viewing is in itself an enormous subject, and much information about experiments and results so far is contained in published articles and books by Puthoff and Targ (the physicists who directed the program at SRI) and by Swann, McMoneagle, and other remote viewers at SRI and in military RV programs. Many remote viewers were trained in the military programs and are bound by secrecy oaths not to discuss specific findings and cases, and that is also true for Puthoff, Targ, and other scientists involved in RV research. Swann and other civilian RVers employed in the SRI research have also been bound by nondisclosure agreements concerning some cases, events, and results. But there is a great deal that can be learned by reading the major RV literature.
 
. . .no theories and no definitions of "associative" provided (except contextual) and no connections between consciousness and the internet -

I was too tired at the time to spell this out, so just posted what I had as Burnt State had listened to the episode; let me see if I can expand it a little now: Vallee wrote this book in the 70s before computers were an everyday thing, Red Pill Junkie made the comment that no one understood the book then but now that we live in this internet world (he says) it makes sense, (his use of the phrase "it does not violate the laws of physics" is telling . . . .

I looked up that book by Vallee and it appears that in the section quoted he was discussing the possibilities of mind control technologies devised by the alphabet agencies and military. Vallee also wrote online in the last year or two about his theory that crop circles might have been caused by high tech military satellite technologies for some purpose. He is right, of course, to be concerned about mind control technologies being developed by governments and militaries. I doubt very much, however, that the existence of such contemporary technologies has undermined his conviction that the history of anomalous (paranormal) events, ufo sightings, information reception, and psychic capabilities over millenia is real and significant both externally [potential intrusion of off-planet probes or craft] and internally [involving over a longer history native capacities of human consciousness].

. . . - because he doesn't reference any theories, I got more the sense that this was kind of a popular understanding or analogy running like this: because my computer runs this way and everybody is talking about things in terms of computers, then I can get how the universe would be this way) . . . now, I don't know how literally he believes all this (and there was a language issue, English is not RPJ's native tongue - so my thought is how, like in the industrial revolution we had a mechanical universe, then we had a computational universe and now we have this "associative" universe analogized to the web . . . so with QM (and I've not had time to catch up on your links) with this shift in science you are discussing, if it comes down to the popular mindset as the examples I just gave . . . I am trying to see how in the future we might live in a universe where some Psi phenomena are mainstream, where we would have a hard time imagining it could have ever been otherwise.

It's significant that our still-dominant materialist science was forced to begin to study consciousness in response to computer science and its interest in reproducing consciousness in computerized artificial intelligence. The AI debates involving the full range of consciousness researchers have generated a great degree of higher-level thinking about what consciousness is and whether it can be reproduced in machines. That debate alone is another extensive field of discourse that contributes to the perennial philosophical discourse concerning the mind-matter problem. Your observation above, Steve, that popular conceptions of how the universe is structured trickle down from developments in technology that sweep through our civilization, is valid and significant.

. . .in the industrial revolution we had a mechanical universe, then we had a computational universe and now we have this "associative" universe analogized to the web. . . .

But how deep do these popular conceptions go in approaching the nature of reality, both in nature and in our understanding of the interconnections of consciousness evolved in nature? I would say 'not very far', and that we need to be aware of the changes in scientific thinking and experimentation concerning the deep structure of nature itself and the connections of consciousness with and through that structure, and that is why I post the links I've been posting.
 
... in this way they were referencing Vallee and his own experiences of the universe as information relationships, synchronicities and chance meetings.

I have to agree with Vallée's comments on the nature of time, but it's another comment he made that is coincidentally ( or otherwise ) relevant to the point I had made recently on the possibility of third parties being responsible for Ψ phenomena, and suggested the possibility that aliens may be one such party:

At 12:36 in the video

"At the time there was research going on at Stanford research institute on parapsychology. I was part of that program; a program of remote viewing. Uri Geller was there. Uri Geller thought that he could communicate with extraterrestrials onboard a platform called Hoova, and that he was getting communications from them that enabled him to do what he was performing in our laboratory. I thought, well this seems to be the same kind of communication. Something is communicating with me."

So above ( bolded part mine ), we have a claim that aliens are responsible for seemingly imparting psychic abilities upon a well known psychic. I'm not saying I personally believe this is actually the case, nevertheless it is an example of one such claim that is directly relevant to issues covered recently in this discussion ( academic studies involving psychic ability ). I also cross referenced Vallee's TED report on this with some other information on the Internet. What he says is corroborated elsewhere: Peter Fotis Kapnistos - Uri Geller - a psychic spy ? - Unexplained Mysteries
 
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I looked up that book by Vallee and it appears that in the section quoted he was discussing the possibilities of mind control technologies devised by the alphabet agencies and military. Vallee also wrote online in the last year or two about his theory that crop circles might have been caused by high tech military satellite technologies for some purpose. He is right, of course, to be concerned about mind control technologies being developed by governments and militaries. I doubt very much, however, that the existence of such contemporary technologies has undermined his conviction that the history of anomalous (paranormal) events, ufo sightings, information reception, and psychic capabilities over millenia is real and significant both externally [potential intrusion of off-planet probes or craft] and internally [involving over a longer history native capacities of human consciousness].

It's significant that our still-dominant materialist science was forced to begin to study consciousness in response to computer science and its interest in reproducing consciousness in computerized artificial intelligence. The AI debates involving the full range of consciousness researchers have generated a great degree of higher-level thinking about what consciousness is and whether it can be reproduced in machines. That debate alone is another extensive field of discourse that contributes to the perennial philosophical discourse concerning the mind-matter problem. Your observation above, Steve, that popular conceptions of how the universe is structured trickle down from developments in technology that sweep through our civilization, is valid and significant.

But how deep do these popular conceptions go in approaching the nature of reality, both in nature and in our understanding of the interconnections of consciousness evolved in nature? I would say 'not very far', and that we need to be aware of the changes in scientific thinking and experimentation concerning the deep structure of nature itself and the connections of consciousness with and through that structure, and that is why I post the links I've been posting.

It's significant that our still-dominant materialist science was forced to begin to study consciousness in response to computer science and its interest in reproducing consciousness in computerized artificial intelligence. The AI debates involving the full range of consciousness researchers have generated a great degree of higher-level thinking about what consciousness is and whether it can be reproduced in machines. That debate alone is another extensive field of discourse that contributes to the perennial philosophical discourse concerning the mind-matter problem. Your observation above, Steve, that popular conceptions of how the universe is structured trickle down from developments in technology that sweep through our civilization, is valid and significant.

That's an interesting connection. It lights up my mind with all sorts of associations - from the early, hyper-confident days Hans Moravec, Hubert Dreyfuss What Computers Can't Do, Rodney Brooks and subsumption architecture, I even played around with some hobby level robotics and was fascinated with the aesthetics of the machinery . . . there is a lot of fetishization here (much like with fire-arms: sleek, bright, black or silver, shiny - phallic imagery is common) I wonder how much of this comes from masculine energy? How much does masculine energy play a role in the continuing materialization of our culture?

Hansen talks a lot about the rationalization theory of Weber

In sociology, rationalization refers to the replacement of traditions, values, and emotions as motivators for behavior in society with rational, calculated ones.

- this seems like a pre-dominantly masculine and (under McGilchrist's scheme) left-hemisphere drive . . . but is that fair? I'm not strictly identifying masculine with male but that seems to be where the culture generally locates it . . . which I've never thought was very fair to males. There are some indications that we are at least flirting with the androgynous (fashion maybe) which might be a very good thing.

What forces do you see that have brought materialism to the fore, what keeps them in place and what forces do you see that may be breaking the dominant materialist view up? Even in some of the articles and things you've posted (and I haven't caught up by any means) I see the same underlying forces - what's to stop quantum science from taking us to the next level technologically without changing our culture, our goals and direction, the continuing rationalization (mechanization) of humanity -is there something inherent in this paradigm shift that offers something else?

Let's say QM does bring a science of telepathy, I shudder to think what ends it would be put to use - based on how we use surveillance technology today. For examples, Google (or duckduckgo) "millitary telepathy helmet" - to see where we are now.

But how deep do these popular conceptions go in approaching the nature of reality, both in nature and in our understanding of the interconnections of consciousness evolved in nature? I would say 'not very far', and that we need to be aware of the changes in scientific thinking and experimentation concerning the deep structure of nature itself and the connections of consciousness with and through that structure, and that is why I post the links I've been posting.

I agree. I found a good youtube of Atamspacher I converted to .mp3 to listen to and will search for any interviews, podcast appearances in addition to the reading.
 
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@Constance

Quantum Approaches to Consciousness (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

It is widely accepted that consciousness or, more generally, mental activity is in some way correlated to the behavior of the material brain. Since quantum theory is the most fundamental theory of matter that is currently available, it is a legitimate question to ask whether quantum theory can help us to understand consciousness. Several programmatic approaches answering this question affirmatively, proposed in recent decades, will be surveyed. It will be pointed out that they make different epistemological assumptions, refer to different neurophysiological levels of description, and use quantum theory in different ways. For each of the approaches discussed, problematic and promising features will be equally highlighted.
 
if dreams are simply the brain's way of helping us to learn new skills,

I doubt dreams are "simply" anything simple - it's good to remember that we have no detailed explanation of the processes you describe below:

"respond to whatever is worrying us by searching through the memory filing cabinet and flinging surreal imagery back at us to help us out based on past experience and knowledge"

in order to know if this is how things are - we have to untangle what it means to say the brain responds to us (is the brain us or is we the brain or . . . ?), we have explain worry (emotion), memory, surreal imagery (which means we have to explain the imagination in general) in the context of past experience (time, what is time?) and knowledge . . . we have our work cut out for us!

But since we don't know any of that in detail, how much perfect sense is in the below (including now the need to explain a general processing of information "crunches"):

then the words on your lips when you wake makes perfect sense as your own brain crunches through what is obviously a rather diverse and detailed personal memory cabinet. maybe not synchronicity so much as just the way our brains work?

So my point is that we often try to explain and explain away something in terms of something that is at least as mysterious as the thing we're trying to explain . . . a "just so" story . . .
A ways back I heard a detailed interview with one of the experimenters running the tetris dreams experiment. It struck me so hard that it has since become my most pragmatic approach to teaching me how to understand my dreams, not be traumatized by my more 'complicated' dreams and to ride the waves the next day emotionally a little easier after dreams about the dead in my life. I've spent a good portion of my waking life working through and debating dreams. This theory makes the most sense to me by far and it's the one I've set up my tent to dream in ever since.

Here's a minor reference to their experiments and conclusions that dreams are about learning. It makes good sense. It also speaks to one of our ongoing processes as a human beast with a brain - we should be always leaning, as it's something we do naturally, even in our sleep. If I find a more detailed article about Strickgold's work I will post it. I think it's a nice streamlining of the role of dreams and explains us as social, emotional, athletic, academic etc. learners.

Tetris Dreams: Scientific American

How the brain turns reality into dreams - Technology & science - Science - Mysteries of the Universe | NBC News

P.S. btw having the word pop up right in the middle of the day is pretty weird, but then again, it could just be the brain relaying/reminding you about that which you are preoccupied with.

Dream Coda: I remember once I dreamt that I had met god and that the secret of the universe was contained inside a specific book I had to find in my waking life. It was one of those ultra intense dreams where you wake up carrying over the feeling like you have pierced through the wall between this life and the realm beyond. The title of the book was all I came out of the dream with, the letters were not quite in order but i was almost positive it said, "IBSEN." Now, 30 years later I teach Ibsen, and very few of life's answers are there. I'm starting to think the second word I thought it might have said on the title was really what I dreamt, ISBN. Lots more reading & learning to do.
 
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RV & Ingo - Swann's name keeps getting referenced in this thread. Can I assume everyone's read Penetration, his tour de force about his RV work with the secret underground mistrust twins, his RVing of humanoid creatures on the moon that were looking at him as he was seeing them remotely, and then later on in the text he describes a sequence in a grocery store where he telepathically senses the buxom woman squeezing the fruit is not entiry human, and then like a scene from MIB the movie, the buff twins are there again, but they're in suits instead of the usual bodybuilding oil, and they tell Ingo she's an alien.

Ingo's right up there with the contactee-maybe something weirdly anomalous happened previously but now the signal is not coming through anymore, so it's just all invention? Either way, he kind of throws a minor wrench in things regarding how we are to believe these former military RVers. How is this to be reconciled and how are we to believe the supposed stories of successful RV events? Or do we see Swann simply as a playful sprite, a mischievous military disinformation agent?

What's interesting about both Ingo and the contactees that while entirely surreal messages come through, they perhaps still retain a touch of the inexplicable and the profound. They are ideal candidates for being receivers of Ufology's third party broadcasters.
 
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RV & Ingo - Swann's name keeps getting referenced in this thread. Can I assume everyone's read Penetration, his tour de force about his RV work with the secret underground mistrust twins, his RVing of humanoid creatures on the moon that were looking at him as he was seeing them remotely, and then later on in the text he describes a sequence in a grocery store where he telepathically senses the buxom woman squeezing the fruit is not entiry human, and then like a scene from MIB the movie, the buff twins are there again, but they're in suits instead of the usual bodybuilding oil, and they tell Ingo she's an alien.

Ingo's right up there with the contactee-maybe something Ana int happened but now the signal is not coming through anymore so it's just all invention? Either way, he kind of throws a minor wrench in things regarding how we are to believe these former military RVers. How is this to be reconciled and how are we to believe the supposed stories of successful RV events? Or do we see Swann simply as a playful sprite, a mischievous military disinformation agent?

What's interesting about both Ingo and the contactees that while entirely surreal messages come through, they perhaps still retain a touch of the inexplicable and the profound. They are ideal candidates for being receivers of Ufology's third party broadcasters.

I haven't read it . . . but it's available free here (or you can pay outrageous sums on Amazon):

Penetration: The Question of Extraterrestrial and Human Telepathy : Ingo Swann : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive

Or do we see Swann simply as a playful sprite, a mischievous military disinformation agent?

Sounds like the Trickster again to me *sigh* (or is that *psi*) . . . again, Hansen explores in depth how deception goes hand in hand with the paranormal. I think he even discusses Ingo Swann in this section of his book.

key words: trickster, deception and the paranormal
 
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... I am not in close touch with what actually goes on, but I share your skepticism about teaching critical thinking in the abstract. It doesn't work because thinking never proceeds in a vacuum. So to be effective, thinking must adapt and be faithful to the context in which it works. My skepticism here ties in with my earlier skepticism about method in general. We always know more than we know how we know it, so we get farther b y attending to the "what" than to the "how". The trouble with trying to work out a method for knowing is that it will rule out resources that don't conform to it. Every method is, in ways, a straitjacket, a Procrustean bed. True, we all do have methods, and when we run into problems, it might be well to try to spot and revise if need be the course that brought us to the problem. But to put method first is putting the cart before the horse.

- Huston Smith

key words: critical thinking, scientific methods
 
Your logic is sound, however I would propose that if humans had any substantial psychic abilities they would have manifested themselves unambiguously by now. Instead all we have are interesting anecdotes and vague statistical interpretations that don't take into account a possible third party influence. So in this case, absence of evidence can be fairly considered evidence of absence. Yet despite this hard line rational approach, I personally still feel that there is something more to it than that. What limited psychic phenomena I seem to experience on a regular basis feels inherent rather than imparted. So I'm certainly not closed to that possibility. I'm mentioning these alternatives only because they are seldom considered, and they provide some interesting ( IMO ) food for thought.

What limited psychic phenomena I seem to experience on a regular basis feels inherent rather than imparted.

Meaning it feels as if it comes from "inside" of you instead of outside?

My experiences seem to mostly be from the inside - but have had some experiences that seem to come from the outside. Words, images popping into my head or intense feelings that don't seem linked to what is going on at the moment - dreams that don't feel like they are mine.

Part of the ability of a third party to do this sort of thing clandestinely could of course involve making it seem to originate within. Very fine discrimination might be required then to tell the difference . . .

For some reason I think of Mac Tonnies Cryptoterresterials - maybe it was Mac's method of looking at things differently - also I think he discussed similar possibilities as you mention above. It seems that something very much like a kind of "psychic camouflage" would be required for a whole race to be present and undetected on the planet . . . dunno.

Of course, if the aliens wanted to hide among a group of philosophers, they would need to use psychic camusflage.
 
I have to agree with Vallée's comments on the nature of time, but it's another comment he made that is coincidentally ( or otherwise ) relevant to the point I had made recently on the possibility of third parties being responsible for Ψ phenomena, and suggested the possibility that aliens may be one such party:

At 12:36 in the video

"At the time there was research going on at Stanford research institute on parapsychology. I was part of that program; a program of remote viewing. Uri Geller was there. Uri Geller thought that he could communicate with extraterrestrials onboard a platform called Hoova, and that he was getting communications from them that enabled him to do what he was performing in our laboratory. I thought, well this seems to be the same kind of communication. Something is communicating with me."
So above ( bolded part mine ), we have a claim that aliens are responsible for seemingly imparting psychic abilities upon a well known psychic. I'm not saying I personally believe this is actually the case, nevertheless it is an example of one such claim that is directly relevant to issues covered recently in this discussion ( academic studies involving psychic ability ). I also cross referenced Vallee's TED report on this with some other information on the Internet. What he says is corroborated elsewhere: Peter Fotis Kapnistos - Uri Geller - a psychic spy ? - Unexplained Mysteries

If psi is naturally evolved and developed in consciousness, it would not be surprising if intelligences more evolved than ours could communicate information to us mind to mind. That random humans encountering landed ets as well as humans with developed psi abilities could alike receive such communications mentally would not be surprising. It would bear out the theory that psi aptitudes are latent in all of us that even children in the Zimbabwe case experienced and reported receiving mind to mind communication. In other words, we might all have the latent ability to receive mental communications and realize that they are mind to mind communications before we develop the ability to generate them.

It's also possible that an advanced alien species could attempt to influence or manipulate what happens on this planet by influencing human consciousness. And even possible that that species could be manipulating the development of mind control technologies by those in our society who themselves desire to manipulate us and our behavior by mind control for their own local purposes.

We are still left with the questions of a) whether human mind-control experiments in our time are inspired or even guided by an alien intelligence, or on the other hand arose out of information and motivation obtained through terrestrial paranormal and psychic research, and, more deeply, b) whether what seems to us in our current culture to be a possibly valid conspiracy theory involving an alien species could reasonably account for the deep history of psi abilities in our species and its evolutionary predecessors over vast extents of time.
 
It's also possible that an advanced alien species could attempt to influence or manipulate what happens on this planet by influencing human consciousness. And even possible that that species could be manipulating the development of mind control technologies by those in our society who themselves desire to manipulate us and our behavior by mind control for their own local purposes.
THMNDPRSTS1977.jpg

I was sensing this idea emerging earlier in the thread as I was starting to think about Colin Wilson's book on a number of occasions in the course of reading through the forum recently, specifcally this thread. The third party broadcaster/manipulator that is from within or internalized just coalesced for me here in the above passage from Constance.

The Mind Parasites is a wonderful look at human history as under control by the alien Mind Parasites that control humanity & stop us from living in our natural state, loaded with natural psi power. Below is a sequence from the book where five humans have managed to dismiss the alien parasitic control over their own brains:
Now there were five of us, we were almost impregnable as far as casual recognition went. With our minds 'in series', we were able to form a kind of wall to divert the attention of anyone who happened to look at us. People could 'see' us, of course, but they could not look at us. The faculty of understanding or grasping follows that of perception (as you can see if you read something with your mind elsewhere). Most objects we look at are not properly registered, because they are not worth noticing. We merely had to prevent the 'attention' of any onlooker from 'closing' on us - the same principle as jamming a stick in a dog's mouth to prevent him from biting. We were virtually invisible as we walked through Paris.

There are free ebooks available online. If you haven't read it yet then please do as it's a lovely complement to this discussion, and a fine analogy for much of this discussion. It's a page turner written by a smart writer.

http://selfdefinition.org/colin-wilson/Colin Wilson - The Mind Parasites.pdf
 
And now for something completely different ~~~

One cool autumn evening in 1919, a crowd of prominent New Yorkers jammed the parlor of an East Side town house to meet a writing prodigy named Patience Worth. A prolific charmer who was known for her flashy verbal stunts and quick wit, Patience dictated two original poems—about Russia and the Red Cross—in rapid succession, followed by a lyrical tribute to an editor friend. Though she seemed to compose the works on the spot, her words flowed with the quality of messages punched out by teletype. Poet Edgar Lee Masters was among the astonished guests. “There is no doubt...she is producing remarkable literature,” the author of Spoon River Anthology told a reporter, though “how she does it I cannot say.” Nor could he say how Patience looked, though she was thought to be young and pretty, with wavy red hair and large brown eyes. No one, however, actually saw her. She wasn’t real. She was an ambitious, hard-working spirit.

Speaking through a Ouija board operated by Pearl Lenore Curran, a St. Louis housewife of limited education, Patience Worth was nothing short of a national phenomenon in the early years of the 20th century. Though her works are virtually forgotten today, the prestigious Braithwaite anthology listed five of her poems among the nation’s best published in 1917, and the New York Times hailed her first novel as a “feat of literary composition.” Her output was stunning. In addition to seven books, she produced voluminous poetry, short stories, plays and reams of sparkling conversation—nearly four million words between 1913 and 1937. Some evenings she worked on a novel, a poem and a play simultaneously, alternating her dictation from one to another without missing a beat. “What is extraordinary about this case is the fluidity, versatility, virtuosity and literary quality of Patience’s writings, which are unprecedented in the history of automatic writing by mediums,” says Stephen Braude, a professor of philosophy at the University of Maryland Baltimore County and a past president of the American Parapsychological Association, who has written widely on paranormal phenomena. . . .


Read more: Patience Worth: Author From the Great Beyond | Arts & Culture | Smithsonian
 
I doubt dreams are "simply" anything simple
You hit the nail right on the head there, smcder.

Warning: rant ahead.

Isn't it funny how sometimes things get dismissed as being "just" something which, if you look closely, isn't nearly as well explained and researched as the person dismissing them would probably admit?

Dreams: just indigestion of the brain, processing real life events and experiences. Sometimes people dream of upcoming events, often as some kind of warning from danger? Or they say they dreamt of a deceased loved one who conveyed something important? Nah, forget it, those are just dreams.

Ye olde hag (often appears as ye bug-eyed greye or ye olde shadow person, too): just your imagination running wild from fear because your body has already entered (or not yet left) sleep paralysis but your consciosness thinks that something terriible is going on. What, you've had many sleep paralysis events, but never one featuring a menacing figure? Doesn't mean anything, it's just sleep paralysis.

The placebo effect: people allegedly getting better from homeopathy, spirit healers and other obvious charlatanery? That's just the placebo effect. How your belief should be able to affect actual healing processes and how we can effectively convince our subconscious so that the healing effect could be used reliably? Well, dunno, maybe someone should research that.

Rant over.
 
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The placebo effect: people allegedly getting better from homeopathy, spirit healers and other obvious charlatanery? That's just the placebo effect. How your belief should be able to affect actual healing processes and how we can effectively convince our subconscious so that the healing effect could be used reliably? Well, dunno, maybe someone should research that.

I don't believe your list includes 'obvious charlatanery'. That we are able to heal ourselves, however - that the mind has that level of impact on the body - as in the belief system of Christian Science - is what is of interest, for sure.
 
I was mimicking the standpoint of the hard-nosed skeptic in that sentence about obvious charlatanery. I don't dismiss spirit healers, for example, because if your own mind can do it, why shouldn't another one be able to. Homeopathy, on the other hand, I have a harder time with. But I'm always amazed when they show dogs or horses etc. that have gotten better after homeopathic treatment.
 
Skeptico interview with Dr. Stephen Braude on the reasons why he has pursued nonexperimental (out of the lab, nonstatistical) research.

http://www.skeptiko.com/upload/skeptiko-111-stephen-braude.mp3
{note, the interview begins at about :10 into the tape following a lengthy series of announcements by Alex Tsakiris}

Here is the transcript of the interview:

111. Parapsychology Researcher Dr. Stephen Braude Battles Against “Sleazy Arguments” | Skeptiko - Science at the Tipping Point

Braude devoted a chapter in his book Immortal Remains to the Patience Worth case, described in the Smithsonian article I linked yesterday. Like other cases analyzed in that book, the Patience Worth case is a daunting case against which to measure the possibilities of the Super-Psi hypothesis against the survival of consciousness (in some form) hypothesis.
 
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