Why The Amazing Randi Is Not A True Skeptic

Sgerbic [CC BY-SA]

This past week the man who is the self-described skeptic of all things paranormal died. James Randi has made his stock in trade seeking to debunk psychics and anyone who made claims of psychic abilities. Unfortunately, there are those who have sought to hoodwink the public for just such reasons in the field of the paranormal. However, this itself does not mean that the field of psychical research is somehow invalid or that psi ability does not exist. To say that someone who sought to defraud the public in this arena means that the whole field is itself suspect is a broad leap in the wrong direction. Just a few weeks ago there was a flap about a scientific researcher who, as it turned out, had falsified his data in a study. This though didn’t suddenly shake our confidence in science as a whole or put an end to our inquiry into how the world works.

Randi, though, has gone one further in his quest; he has used language that shows that he finds any notion or mention of the paranormal to be hogwash. This is very different than saying that you think it is unlikely but that you remain open to anything being possible. The difference between these two approaches is the difference between honest inquiry and bias. One seeks the facts and the other isn’t really interested in knowing them.

I first saw Randi during my college days when he came to speak at my college in the 1980’s. While on the one hand he has been able to uncover hoaxes in the past, something very interesting took hold in the man that drove him on a crusade to paint the world with a broad brush of skepticism. He took his debunking to a whole new level through his work with CSICOP (Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal) and later with his foundation JREF (James Randi Educational Foundation). I will note that CSICOP untethered itself from Randi after a time because of his level of zeal in seeking to debunk instead of honestly inquiring.

Randi famously set up a million dollar prize for anyone who could provide proof of the paranormal. This became a skeptics rallying cry of sorts where Randi was able to say how no one to date had ever been able to claim the prize. It seems reasonable on the surface, but what most people don’t know is how unscientific his prize was. The prize and its particulars denied important scientific principles that are regularly employed in the study of any phenomenon, be they atomic structures in physics or how glutamine is processed in the body of deer in winter habitats near the arctic ranges in North America. The prize was disingenuous from the start, it turns out. More on this in a moment.

What Randi did was to use his prize as a way of bolstering his belief in the absence of psi phenomenon and to forward his own agenda about the field as a whole. Randi was able, in his own mind, to lay the issue to rest because, after all, no one who had sought to claim his prize had ever been able to do so. Randi used this fact to great advantage, but he did us all a great disservice in the process.

The protocols that every individual seeking to prove their abilities to his august board of inquisitors required that each participant had to agree to a test that required 100% accuracy in results. Randi, who has been questioned about this fact in the past, has explained that he has every right to require this as part of efforts at claiming the prize money. He has explained that what he was after was undeniable proof, and his requirement would require every person coming to him to provide that level of proof.

In science, in any effort to create tests which are repeated many times in the process of gathering data about any kind of phenomenon, it is universally understood that in our world we have something that we know commonly as variability. This is a principle that is a cornerstone element in science and in the gathering of data.

A simple illumination of this principle of the scientific method is contained within a talk that my high school Chemistry teacher gave to us when we began our study in his class.

My teacher explained to us that when studying anything in the world, we gather data and then we examine and study that data for clues that often help us to understand the phenomenon being studied. He described an example of a canon placed before a flat plain of grass with no rocks and carefully tilled ground in order to make the ground consistent in density throughout so the falling canon balls would land in a more or less consistent way, a level playing field if you will.

This canon would have both canon balls and charges to propel a hundred carefully milled balls forward onto the grassy flat plain in front of it. Great care was taken to make sure that every ball was precisely the same size and weight. Further, the charges would have been carefully weighed out and made from a single batch of gunpowder. Every charge was packed in precisely the same manner as the one before it and the canon balls were shot from the canon and where the balls landed were noted as the way that they rolled or did not roll.

Our Chemistry teacher went on to explain that the researchers would then measure where each ball landed, noting their location by placing their location on a graph to better see or relate to the data collected.

Our teacher said that what normally happens is there would be a trend line that would show that most canon balls would have landed within a few feet of one another. Others would be further away from this trend line, and a few would appear to be errant because of how far they would fall away from the norm. All of the results were considered important because even the errant canon balls had something to say about the use of a canon and the process employed.

Our instructor on that day made a graph on the chalk board and showed how these canon balls and their placement would appear on that graph. This graph looked a bit like a shotgun blast aimed at a large paper target. You would see a center where most of the pellets from the shotgun landed, but there would always be a kind of “scattershot” effect that would happen too. In fact, he said, this was expected. The important thing, he went on to explain, were the trend lines and what those trends revealed. There would always be variability in results.

Most students in science and math fields are required to study statistics in order to be better at gathering and studying data sets. What we know is that some things that we study fall precisely on the average or median but we also know that there are those data points that do not. This is a common issue in every branch of science. What Randi has required in seeking to challenge all comers is the equivalent of expecting all of the canon balls shot across our field to all land one atop the other in a neat pile, the neater the better. I think you can see the problem here. While Randi could require this of his participants, after all it is his money, it still does not make what he did scientific.

It bears mentioning that Randi is a magician who used his knowledge of illusion to crack how some people may have been duping the public with fraudulent displays of paranormal ability using illusions in order to appear psychic in some way. Randi has taken this avocation to an extreme with his prize and has done something that has corrupted the very meaning of honest scientific inquiry. Most people, however, don’t know how his prize has little to do with science and has everything to do with propaganda. While those who remain in the skeptical camp will feel bolstered by what Randi has done, it does all of us here a great disservice in the interest of science. What Randi has done was to push an agenda that many others of like mind and belief glom onto and call their own. Truth dies in such places, however.

While Randi has been involved in examining claims of the paranormal, he actually has no scientific credentials, and while some might forgive him for how he has set up his prize, Randi in his life was on a crusade to deny the existence of phenomenon that some scientists have sought to study in a scientifically efficacious manner in order to better understand the world that we live in.

There is a lot on offer here in such honest and open study because it could help us to understand the very nature of consciousness as well as reality and how our universe works. If we can prove with a reasonable degree of certainty that something like nonlocality in consciousness exists, for example, it could help us to revise the notion that materialistic science has had where, in the words of James Alfred Whitehead, “the atoms blindly run.” Such a discovery would have far reaching implications in our understanding of a host of issues having everything to do with how our world works. We wont get there as long as there is this staunch resistance to such a possibility, however. We must forever remain open and ready to explore what today might appear as unlikely, as it often does occur.

I will remind my readers that it was as recently as 1920 that astronomers considered that the Milky Way was the only structure like it in the cosmos. At that time, we had no proof that there were any galaxies beyond our own. Since scientists remained open to the idea that there might be more to our cosmos than what their current experiments and observations revealed to them at the time, they went on to develop more powerful methods for peering into the cosmos. A direct result of this openness and curiosity was that they found that the universe was in fact littered with structures just like our own Milky Way. What appeared to be stars one moment became gallaxies which were composed of billions of stars.

Well before the 1920’s, for example, there were people who believed that the earth was flat. We know now that this is not true and the reason why we know that they are not is because scientists pushed beyond the limits of technology and belief in order to test and observe what could be new possibilities.

Like Randi, there are those who still believe that the earth is flat and that we never went to the moon. In fact, these people will go to extraordinary lengths to try and dismiss any evidence to the contrary. While we might chuckle at people who still believe that the world is flat, if you have enough of these people, their presence and influence in the world can have a powerful dampening effect on true scientific inquiry.

I will add my own observations here for your consideration. During my life I have had numerous instances of precognition which happened under very specific circumstances and were repeated many times over four decades. I was able to see how dreams that I had on a semiregular basis had an uncanny habit of coming true. These were not vague scenarios but were filled with very specific sets of details. The result of these regular experiences was that it piqued my curiosity about how it might be that we could be able under certain circumstances know events before they happened. I also had later in life experiences related to what is commonly called remote viewing in which I was able to view a target that was located 1500 miles from my location, one in which I knew nothing about, and had never visited nor was told anything about. In this particular case, I began getting vivid impressions of the home of someone that was part of an online forum that I was a member of some years ago. When I decided to approach the person if she would like to participate in a little experiment to see how accurate my impressions were, she was willing to engage with me. What I found was that of the 24 distinct details that I saw, I got all but two correct. The remaining two were partially correct. I went on to do several more experiments of this same type with other people whose homes I knew nothing about and had never been there in person (and neither did these people talk about their homes online—I wanted to do this blind). In those cases, I had between an 80 and 90 percent accuracy rate of details described.

To let you know the level of detail that was involved in the case of my first remote viewing experience, I was able to see that I had to turn left out of an elevator into a hallway with charcoal grey carpet which had small strands of red, blue, gold, and green in it. I was able to see that the hallway had sconces on the wall with no overhead lighting and that the sconces were “V” shaped. I saw the color of paint on the walls of the hallway. I was able to determine which door in the hallway led to this person’s apartment. I described the layout of the apartment accurately including the size of windows and the type of window (an old casement style) which were painted black along the frame. I was able to see where the bedrooms were located, including the bathroom as well as which bedroom was being used and a bedroom that looked like it had been used in the past but was now being used as an office (it had a bedframe still in the bedroom). These were not vague details, but very specific ones.

This level of detail was emblematic of my remote viewing experiments at the time, and I think that what I was able to see was that whatever this was that I was able to do, it did not involve my five senses. It hinted also at the nonlocal nature of consciousness as well, which points also to the possibility that what we think of as consciousness is not dependent on the physical body and it’s five senses.

Where skeptics come in at this point is that they will often say, “Perhaps you had read of descriptions that these people published in the online community that you forgot about but still retained in memory and used as the substance of your remote viewing exercises.” The truth in all cases was that I knew nothing about the homes of each of the three people who I attempted to remote view. The first person was herself very private and had not said anything about her home. In the case of one person, I didn’t know where this person even lived in the country. I in fact chose targets after the first initial experience that I knew nothing about. It was, to my mind, worth the investigation. Results like these become statistically significant when they are being done blind without any access to prior information.

I will add that for many skeptics that I have known, they often report that they haven’t had any paranormal things happen to them. When further questioned, they will most often deny that their lack of personal experience has anything to do with this at all. This I think is telling and may be at the very root of their skepticism. While this is understandable as a human trait, it doesn’t exactly get us to where we need to be when it comes to understanding something more fully.

This isn’t really skepticism in this case, it is instead a belief based on limited experience that is taken up as a truth and then acts as a lens through which many skeptics view the world. Even when faced with proof to the contrary, they are just unable to go there: “I see that the world looks flat, basically, and even though others have taken photos from space, I do not believe those photos to be true or even real….they must have been faked somehow.” Thus the skeptic folds his or her arms and rests easy in what they believe to be the truth.

I will note that there are people today who still believe that the earth is flat when this has been proven demonstrably false. For my part, I have sought to conduct my own investigations with at least something resembling the scientific method. Sadly, this is where Randi has fallen down in his quest for all things skeptical.

Skepticism is important, however, because without it you can fall for an unacknowledged belief that something is a certain way when it may in fact not be. In the case of Randi and others like him, it is belief masquerading as skepticism. This is what is termed cynical skepticism, and whenever you see this in operation you will find denial and hurdle after hurdle built into the belief systems of people who remain unmoved. For myself, I do not care whether a person is cynically skeptical. I do, however, care when that cynical view is pressed onto the world stage in a manner where it is used to breed more believers instead of investigating the subject honestly and with integrity.

The difference for me is that I didn’t grow up believing in precognition or remote viewing. I came to it through direct experience and explored it in an open minded way. These were things that happened to me and I had no idea what was behind them at the time. Only after decades of these experiences did I begin to form the idea that there might be something to all of this. Am I believer? I don’t have that luxury, and I now know the pitfalls that exist in such a way of conducting my life. I am open, however, but this is not the same as holding a belief in an unconscious way. I have always asked since I was young why believe when you can know? One option involves no real inquiry while the other demands it.

To put a finer point on what Randi has done, take this quote from Skeptical About Skeptics site which you can find HERE:

“Randi is not afraid to attack scientists who take an interest in subjects such as telepathy; for instance, Brian Josephson, a Professor of Physics at Cambridge University. In 2001, on a BBC Radio program about Josephson’s interest in possible connections between quantum physics and consciousness, Randi said, “I think it is the refuge of scoundrels in many aspects for them to turn to something like quantum physics.” Josephson has a Nobel Prize in quantum physics. Randi has no scientific credentials.”

On his own website, Randi, through his foundation called JREF (James Randi Educational Foundation), he describes and explains the process required when seeking to be tested for his million dollar prize. This is taken from Michael Prescott’s Blog because the details of the prize have, after Randi’s death, been taken down. What this one section does, though, is to provide the reader with the flavor of much of the document (emphasis added). In section 2.3…

“There are some claims that are far too implausible to warrant any serious examination, such as the “Breatharian” claims in which the applicant states that he can survive without food or water. Science conclusively tells us all we need to know about such matters, and the JREF feels no obligation to engage applicants in such delusions….“

Later, in his own FAQ Randi says this about something that I have just mentioned (emphasis added):

“Of course, when confronted with a particularly incredible claim like “remote viewing” (the current version of “clairvoyance”) we can easily stop short and ask ourselves just why we are involved with such obvious nonsense.“

Obvious indeed. That is itself not a good enough reason to dismiss something out of hand. There is a lot that was out of hand when it came to Randi and his views, sadly. And yet, many will tout him as the defender of skeptics everywhere. His belief is surrounded by a mote of bluff and bluster which only looks on the surface as common sense. I ask: whose sense are we talking about?

Finally, and perhaps most damning is Rupert Sheldrake’s own experience with Randi:

It is obvious that I do not seek to praise Randi, but to bury him. Let’s let his story rest in the dust as we take up eager and open minds with an adherence to results and statistical analysis as the way forward.

Lastly, I leave you with a TED talk by Russel Targ, a noted psi researcher who did work with the C.I.A. in remote viewing programs over many years. It bears mentioning that the board members of TED chose to censure Targ’s talk by banning his video from their platform. We soldier on.

Advertisement

Beyond The Brain

 

Modern materialistic science, which encompasses a sense that all things come about because of matter alone, holds the idea that consciousness is formed as a result of what the brain does in the dynamic system (meaning a give and take between body and brain) with the body.  This is so because so much has been studied about the brain as being a perceived organ where memory resides.  While this body of information is certainly correct, it also misses some important points which most materialists often turn a blind eye to.

One observation made in various healing modalities that involve eastern practices of movement and energy medicine (such as Qi Gung, Reiki, and acupuncture as well as deep tissue massage) is that the physical body is seen as a repository for memory.  To understand how this is so, we look to these methods of healing to observe their effects.  I have direct experience with these releases of stored material even as I did not understand or even believe at first that they could even happen, but they did.  It is explained in such disciplines as Qi Gung and acupuncture that through movement of the body in certain key ways (qi gong)  and using needles (acupuncture), the stored material in the body, not the brain, is released through a manipulation of the energy body itself, what the Chinese describe as the energy lines that go to make up the “map” of so-called subtle energy currents in the body.   As a needle is placed into the skin, it serves to conduct electrical and electromagnetic energy through the needle and helps the energy in that meridian or line of energy in the body to flow.  The suggestion here is that stored trauma or memory that serves to inhibit the flow of this energy in the body, is now released or at least bridged in order to allow the energy to flow.  All you have to do to know what this energy flow feels like is to have a good basic acupuncture session, or practice qi gung for a month or two.  Another method that also releases stored trauma and memory in the body is a more modern practice developed by Ida Rolf, known as rolfing, a system of intense body work where a massage therapist messages deeply into the body tissue.  The goal of this method is to release stored memory that corresponds with an awareness that the material is now gone.  It does not return for any of those who have experienced such releases.  It is akin to erasing some piece of magnetic material in the body that appears to have a corresponding feedback into our memory, except it is triggered and perhaps even stored in the body itself.  I have some examples that point to this as being the case, so before you poo-poo this as crazy, read on.  Sometimes life is stranger than fiction!

Not to muddy the water any, but hopefully to clarify it some, think of these issues as having an electromagnetic quality to them.  When something has a quality like this, it means that if you know how to erase that particular piece of data in the magnetic field, you can erase it forever and whatever limiting effects it has had on the flow of conscious energy is also freed up.  I say this because this is how I have observed it through my work resolving these blocks.  I have in the last seven years resolved literally hundred, perhaps thousands of them in my own field alone.  Yes, I was helped a great deal with the flow of greater energy in my body as a result of the stirring effect of kundalini, but kundalini is merely life force energy in abundance. We can all do this.  And doing it is not unlike erasing any sort of magnetic media like magnetic tape or a hard drive.  You essentially are, at an energetic level of your being, erasing something and leaving it open and neutral so energy may flow.  To get there, you have to change how you feel about something that is serving to block that energy in the energy field.  An idea, belief, or notion will itself have a very specific energetic signature and it will thus be recorded on your field where it will either help or hamper with the flow of energy.  I have said before that as a result, beliefs or feelings (and a feeling of frustration is at its core based on a belief about something that gives rise to a feeling) act as switches in your energy field.  They can control the flow of energy for good or ill, and when you can begin to deal with these, you can being to set up your field for a more harmonious flow of energy.  While it might seem entirely beyond your ability to know what the block/limiting belief is or where it exists, you in fact do have the means to feel into it and know, on an intuitive level, what it is, how it feels, or where it may have even come from.  Having said that, you don’t have to have this level of specificity or clarity, either, because you can simply feel the slight feeling of blocked energy or lack of ease and then ask yourself how to resolve it (and surprise surprise; it most often comes when given a little time).  In fact, you sometimes only need to feel the spot as an impediment and put your attention on the spot, which then most often has the effect of stirring and clearing that spot.  My purpose here is not to go into the mechanics of healing the energy field, but only to illustrate that it exists and to give you some examples of how it operates.  It is not some amorphous field like water.  it in fact has structure and constancy, and this is all defined by your thoughts and feelings.  I hope the examples I am about to provide you will help you to begin to relate to this field of energy.

I have described here how my own experience has shown me that my energy body consists of a series of switches, gateways, all corresponding to feeling and thought and that the universe is all essentially like this. It is a vast energetic system that those who awaken or reach peak states often describe as the pervading “Tao” or “Nirvana”, etc.  By allowing myself to feel differently or to think differently about a given kind of situation or event or person, I found that I could often clear the blocks of energy in my own field of energy.  It was this process of clearing that also resulted in clearing up memes that I was just a moment before vulnerable to (“I am not loved,” or “the world is out to get me” or other notions like this)  This can also be done through movement of the body through shaking as well as the Chinese discipline called Qi Gung. This, too, I have written about extensively here.   These have all served to release old stored blocks in the body. When they release, you can actually feel them.  Once the stored material is released, you feel different.  A difficult emotion is now no longer present.  One feels clearer, and freer.  It is very much like erasing an old magnetic tape and being empty, something else flows in that is not meme based but is experience based. Increasingly, I contend, you are more and more free to experience what this larger realm of energy is all about. The energy body beyond the energy body.

Now all of this flies in the face of modern medicine, which sees the body as a machine with the brain as being the main repository for memory.  If this is so, then why would someone like myself experience old memories when one of these energy blocks are released?  If the brain is involved as the chief storage unit for memory, why does deep tissue massage, acupuncture, Reiki and Qi Gung result in these effects?  The answer, I observe, is that all memory is itself both locally stored in the brain and body as well as in the energy field of a person.  We aren’t used to speaking about energy because we haven’t been able to measure it very well, but sensitives like myself have been seeing this energy for ages.  It is known as the human aura.  I know, and have known for years, that I can observe all levels of the human condition within the energy field of a person I am reading.  I can see what is happening to them physically, emotionally, and spiritually with just a glance.  This all sounds like woo-woo to a lot of people, but I have been able to use observation and data to help confirm for me that I am indeed seeing what I am picking up on.  For close to a year after I began seeing auras, I had a friend who also saw auras and I used my friend as a kind of control for what it was I was picking up on.  Anytime I observed an unusual aura, I would turn to her and say “what about that guy over there in the hat” as I motioned up ahead of us.  She would then go on to describe the rather unusual aura in the same terms as I had experienced it myself.  Now bear in mind, at no point did I ever lead her or tell her what it was I was seeing.  This same action was repeated many times through the first year of my new perceptual ability.  For myself, I was able to obtain important third-party confirmation of my own perceptions.  Since that time, I do not shrink from verifying my senses along these lines because I know that what I am picking up on is accurate.  What I experience in seeing auras is the sense that our thoughts do express themselves all through the body of the aura, through the energy that is being put out and is expressed as a matrix of mind, emotion and physical energy within the structure of the aura.  While I had observed this phenomenon for years, I never fully appreciated how a feeling might well be stored or moved through all parts of the body.  I didn’t appreciate this because I myself had not experienced it.  It really is just that simple.  As humans, we tend to dismiss or even ridicule what has not been a part of our own direct experience.  the greatest innoculation against this type of ignorance is to simply learn how to develop these senses yourself and then decide on your own what it is that you think this might be all about.

More recently the Biologist Rupert Sheldrake has developed a theory about the nature of matter that is called his “resonance’ theory, which posits that all things, both sentient and nonsentient, exhibit nonlocal effects as it relates to their composition and behavior.  In the case of nonsentient matter, there are observed phenomenon that suggests that there is a kind of non-local “repository” of information that helps to govern the behavior and composition of a given compound or element.  Sheldrake uses the explanation for how it has been observed that when scientists discover a new element, they like to do all sorts of tests on it to understand how it behaves.  One very curious effect is that when scientists seek to get an element to take on its crystalline form, they have to repeat the conditions for doing so a large number of times.  With all of the conditions just right for crystal formation, the new material seems to “refuse” to do so!  Then, after a given number of tries, the substance suddenly begins to crystallize and will do so, dependably, from there on out.  The tendency for many is to assume that the conditions were not right, that the lab technicians were simply off their mark in some way.  But add to this a second wrinkle and you can begin to appreciate what Sheldrake is pointing to in all of this as it relates to nonlocality, which is that labs all over the world can perform the same crystal-inducing methods, all without any luck….at first.  But once, say, the hundredth attempt is achieved, suddenly the crystal form emerges.  It also emerges without any problem at ALL of the other locations.  Next, a lab that has done this experiment in New York City, for example, and has finally gotten the compound to move into its crystalline form, can then expect a lab with no connection to the New York City lab, in say, Switzerland, to perform the technique without having to make the, say, hundred tries to get it to form.

This theory is something that applies to living forms as well, and Sheldrake has begun to observe that consciousness appears to be more a field phenomenon than merely something located in the brain.  he shows examples of this type of behavior as seen in flocks of birds and fish, for example.  Some researchers want to say that this is merely fast signal processing in the brains of each bird, which results in its observing the slight changes in its neighbor resulting in a flock that flies in a carefully choreographed sense of movement.  The problem with this, Sheldrake explains, is that most of the movements that are observed are simply too fast for the known response times for the given species of fish or bird.  There has to be a different explanation for this phenomenon, he explains.  What is so interesting is that what Sheldrake is suggesting is what anyone who has awakened often observes, which is that the energy in ones own body is awake and alive and aware.  It is not merely in the brain.  If this is just a seeming, however, a kind of trick that the brain plays in perception, then why is it that memory is experienced when a spot in the body, not the brain, is massaged or needled, or moved in some way as described earlier with Qi Gung or acupuncture, for example?

By now people are aware of the rather curious effect that organ donors have often reported having as it relates to the changes that take place after having received an organ donation.   After reading up on this topic I found that this is not an entirely universal phenomenon and that this most often is experienced by people who receive heart transplants as opposed to liver or kidneys (although some effects from those organs have been noted).  Some of the experiences that the donors have experienced go well beyond mere chance and enter into what materialists would want to call supernormal.  I suggest to you that there is nothing paranormal about it, but that it is instead an understandable phenomenon if you view it through the lens of the body containing memory and feeling.  It is important to know that in the case of organ donations, the identity of the donor is kept from the recipient.  Certain protocols are followed which serve to protect the families and to keep the donation system anonymous and free from entangling issues.  Studying over 70 heart transplants, Dr. Paul Pearsall, a researcher and physician, has published his findings, and I am including some of them below.  These cases are  emblematic of the stories that he uncovered as it relates to organ donation

Case 1: Claire Sylvia develops desire for chicken nuggets and green peppers

On May 29, 1988, an American woman named Claire Sylvia received a heart transplant at a hospital in Yale, Connecticut. She was told that her donor was an eighteen year-old male from Maine, USA who had just died in a motorcycle accident. Soon after the operation, Sylvia declared that she felt like drinking beer, something she hadn’t particularly been fond of. Later, she observed an uncontrollable urge to eat chicken nuggets and found herself drawn to visiting the popular chicken restaurant chain, KFC. She also began craving green peppers which she hadn’t particularly liked before. Sylvia also began having recurring dreams about a mystery man named Tim L., whom she felt was the organ donor. On a cue from someone, she searched for obituaries in newspapers published from Maine and was able to identify the young man whose heart she had received. His name had indeed been Tim. After visiting Tim’s family, she discovered that he used to love chicken nuggets, green peppers and beer. These experiences are documented in the book, A Change of Heart.

Case 2: a foundry worker develops a taste for classical music

A 47 year-old white male foundry worker, who received the heart of a 17 year-old black male student, discovered after the operation that he had developed a fascination for classical music. He reasoned that since his donor would have preferred ‘rap’ music, his newfound love for classical music could not possibly have anything to do with his new heart. As it turned out, the donor actually loved classical music, and died “hugging his violin case” on the way to his violin class.

Case 3: murder mystery involving donor is solved by an organ recipient

An eight year-old girl, who received the heart of a murdered ten year-old girl, began having recurring vivid nightmares about the murder. Her mother arranged a consultation with a psychiatrist who after several sessions concluded that she was witnessing actual physical incidents. They decided to call the police who used the detailed descriptions of the murder (the time, the weapon, the place, the clothes he wore, what the little girl he killed had said to him) given by the little girl to find and convict the man in question.

Case 4: the gender transplant

The donor was a 19 year-old woman killed in an automobile accident. The recipient was a 29 year-old woman diagnosed with cardiomyopathy secondary to endocarditis.

The donor’s mother reported:

“My Sara was the most loving girl. She owned and operated her own health food restaurant and scolded me constantly about not being a vegetarian. She was a great kid — wild, but great. She was into the free-love thing and had a different man in her life every few months. She was man-crazy when she was a little girl and it never stopped. She was able to write some notes to me when she was dying. She was so out of it, but she kept saying how she could feel the impact of the car hitting them. She said she could feel it going through her body.”

The recipient reported:

“You can tell people about this if you want to, but it will make you sound crazy. When I got my new heart, two things happened to me. First, almost every night, and still sometimes now, I actually feel the accident my donor had. I can feel the impact in my chest. It slams into me, but my doctor said everything looks fine. Also, I hate meat now. I can’t stand it. I was McDonald’s biggest money-maker, and now meat makes me throw up. Actually, whenever I smell it, my heart starts to race. But that’s not the big deal. My doctor said that’s just due to my medicines. I couldn’t tell him, but what really bothers me is that I’m engaged to be married now. He’s a great guy and we love each other. The sex is terrific. The problem is, I’m gay. At least, I thought I was. After my transplant, I’m not… I don’t think, anyway…I’m sort of semi- or confused gay. Women still seem attractive to me, but my boyfriend turns me on; women don’t. I have absolutely no desire to be with a woman. I think I got a gender transplant.”

The recipient’s brother reported:

“Susie’s straight now. I mean it seriously. She was gay and now her new heart made her straight. She threw out all her books and stuff about gay politics and never talks about it anymore. She was really militant about it before. She holds hands and cuddles with Steven just like my girlfriend does with me. She talks girl-talk with my girlfriend, where before she would be lecturing about the evils of sexist men. And my sister, the queen of the ‘Big Mac‘, hates meat. She won’t even have it in the house.

Case 5: a catering manager develops artistic talent.

This story comes from the British tabloid, The Daily Mail. William Sheridan, a retired catering manager with poor drawing skills, suddenly developed artistic talents after a heart transplant operation. He was amazed to discover that the man who donated his new heart had been a keen artist.

Case 6: the living heart transplant

Among the strangest case Paul Pearsall encountered was that of two men who shared the same heart.

Jim (original names withheld), who was dying of bad lungs, received a heart and lung transplant from a young woman who had just died. Since Jim’s old heart was still robust, it was transplanted into another man named Fred. After this domino transplant, Fred who was formerly laid-back began exhibiting the Type A aggressive behavior of Jim. During intimate moments, Fred would call his wife “Sandy”, much to the consternation of his wife Karen. Jim’s wife’s name was Sandra. On the other hand, Jim became morose and sullen after the transplant and died a few years later. It was discovered that Jim’s donor had been a shy, soft-spoken young woman who had worked part-time in a flower shop, and had committed suicide in despair over a lost love.

There are a number of different theories that have emerged that seek to explain this phenomenon.  One of them is the “little heart brain” theory that comes from  Dr Armour who, in 1994, observed that the heart had its own kind of nervous system made up of 40,000 neurons called sensory neurites. Further, what was discovered was that The heart acts independently of the brain, sending and receiving meaningful messages of its own through the autonomic nervous system. In fact, it has been recently discovered that more information flows FROM the heart muscle and to the brain than comes from the brain itself.  Is the heart acting as a center of information transfer from the body to the brain?  Is the heart telling the brain how we feel? I think that on a biological level, it is indeed possible.

In NAMAH, the journal of alternative medicine, the theory that links neuropeptides (which was recently discussed in the last post) to memory.

Pharmacologist Candace Pert proposed that neuropeptides which are stored in every cell act as a sort of biochemical correlate of emotion. It was previously thought that emotions resided in the limbic system in the brain. According to Pert, neuropeptides are protein-like messenger molecules released by the brain neurons which flow through the body communicating among the nervous, immune, endocrine, muscle, and skeletal systems via blood, interstitial fluids and the central nervous system, which are all body fluids. At present, about 100 different peptides are known to be released by various populations of neurons in the mammalian brain. Neuropeptides have also been found in the heart, which could explain some forms of cellular memories reported by heart transplant recipients

Another theory is that there is an electromagnetic field that surrounds all organs and has the capacity to maintain memory and feeling within it.   To be honest with you, My sense has been that all of these theories are expressing an aspect of the larger experience in some way.  While I have observed that there is indeed an electromagnetic field that surround the body that is the result of iron rich blood being circulated in the body and creating low currents and a low electromagnetic field (think of how the earth does this with iron rich magma circulating in its core to create the magnetosphere), the body needs more than merely the carrier of the information via energy, but will rely on the tissues to conduct this energy and thus the information (which I experience as nonlocal and beyond the body while being within it all at once) as well as the other forms of information transfer, which are seen in the utilization of neuropeptides in the body and brain to express feeling and thoughts.

I think that our understanding of how the body works, and how consciousness is one agent within it, is changing.  The old ways of explaining all of this has served to ignore a whole range of experience and phenomenon.  All that I have shared with you supports what I also experienced early on in awakening, and I hope that this view into the world of ourselves gives you food for thought.

During the course of looking into this issue I found discovered a theory about transfer of information on not only the cellular level but the atomic, which suggests the same thing I experienced the first year of my awakening when I went down into the “atomic level” of the universe and was shown how all matter has consciousness and has information locked up within it.  This experience has been described on this blog recently.  In his own words, he states, “Moreover, the recent integration of systems theory with the concept of energy (termed dynamical energy systems theory) provides compelling logic that leads to the prediction that all dynamical systems store information and energy to various degrees.5,6,7 The systemic memory mechanism provides a plausible explanation for the evolution of emergent (novel) systemic properties through recurrent feedback interactions (i.e., the nonlinear circulation of information and energy that reflects the ongoing interactions of the components in a complex, dynamic network).

Recurrent feedback loops exist in all atomic, molecular and cellular systems. Hence, evidence for atomic systemic memory, molecular systemic memory and cellular systemic memory should be found in these systems.”

My sense has been that the energy field that surrounds the body itself is capable of coupling to a larger body of energy which is experienced as cosmic consciousness and which the ancients described as being the Tao, which is in all things.  It is a supportive “grid” of energy that we ourselves have access to on a moment by moment basis and is how all things both living and sentient are ordered.  To be aware of its presence in consciousness is like being aware of being a cell in a larger body.  It is a real and ever=present sensation or experience.  It does not go away.  It is persistent.  Far from being merely a world of random effects that have given rise to life on our planet, I suggest, that it is rather that there is an intelligent energy which pervades all things and supports all things because it is part of those things, from rock, flower, to human.  We are as much a part of the universe as the universe is in us from physical matter all the way to the energy that binds and supports all matter and hence also all life.  Some of the examples I have noted in this entry I think help to support that notion.  It is my hope that we can as a result of findings like this, begin to gain a non-dogmatic understanding of how the universe works, not strictly through a materialistic view of science, but with minds willing and capable of exploring new ideas, new possibilities and not simply cleaving to old notions that merely feel comfortable to us.  What I do feel lies ahead of us in such an attitude is a much more interesting and amazing view of our world and of our place within it.

For my money, though, is how this all can make us feel and experience.  A lot of this kind of research quite frankly bores me to tears, but I also understand that if we are ever to change or shift perception and awareness in the western world, it will be by presenting information that appeals to our western mindset and helps to move us beyond it.  What is beyond it is a great sea or ocean of wonderment. It is what we are.  Touching this great mystery has been one of the single most rewarding experiences of my time here in this life.  It is also what inspires me to realize that at any moment I can find myself in a new place within myself and that healing these old wounds, these old old traumas from the past (that sounds severe, doesn’t it?  And yet, if you look at our history through time perhaps you can get an appreciation for how hard of a slog it has been for all of us from lifetime to lifetime).  And what lies beyond that?

Sources:

http://www.namahjournal.com/doc/Actual/Memory-transference-in-organ-transplant-recipients-vol-19-iss-1.html

http://www.paulpearsall.com/info/press/3.html