Ghosts

by Hans Holzer

  Parapsychology is far more than it appears to be on first glance. In the most profound sense it is the study of the basic nature of man…. There is more to man, more to him and his relationship with the cosmos than we have accepted. Further, this ’more’ is of a different kind and order from the parts we know about. We have the data and they are strong and clear but they could not exist if man were only what we have believed him to be. If he were only flesh and bone, if he worked on the same type of principles as a machine, if he were really as separated from other men as we have thought, it would be impossible for him to do the things we know he sometimes does. The ’impossible facts’ of ESP tell us of a part of man long hidden in the mists of legend, art, dream, myth and mysticism, which our explorers of reality in the last ninety years have demonstrated to be scientifically valid, to be real.

  * * *

  While the bickering between those accepting the reality of ESP phenomena and those categorically rejecting it was still occurring in the United States, the Russians came up with a startling coup: They went into the field wholesale. At this time there are at least eight major universities in Eastern Europe with full-time, full-staffed research centers in parapsychology. What is more, there are no restrictions placed upon those working in this field, and they are free to publish anything they like. This came as rather a shock to the American scientific establishment. In her review of the amazing book by Sheila Ostrander and Lynn Schroeder, Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain, Dr. Thelma Moss said, “If the validity of their statements is proved, then the American scientist is faced with the magnificent irony that in 1970 Soviet materialistic science has pulled off a coup in the field of occult phenomena equal to that of Sputnik rising into space in 1957.”

  It would appear that the Russians are years ahead of us in applying techniques of ESP to practical use. Allegedly, they have learned to use hypnosis at a distance, they have shown us photographs of experiments in psychokinesis, the moving of objects by mental powers alone, and even in Kirilian photography, which shows the life-force fields around living things. Nat Freedland, reviewing the book for the Los Angeles Times, said:

  Scientists in Eastern Europe have been succeeding with astonishingly far-reaching parapsychology experiments for years. The scope of what countries like Russia, Czechoslovakia, and even little Bulgaria have accomplished in controlled scientific psychokinesis (PSI) experiments makes the western brand of ESP look namby-pamby indeed. Instead of piddling around endlessly with decks of cards and dice like Dr. J. B. Rhine of Duke University, Soviet scientists put one telepathically talented experimenter in Moscow and another in Siberia twelve hundred miles away.”

  Shortly afterward, the newspapers were filled with articles dealing with the Russians and their telepaths or experimenters. Word had it that in Russia there was a woman who was possessed of bioplasmic energy and who could move objects by mental concentration. This woman, Nina Kulagina, was photographed doing just that. William Rice, science writer for the Daily News, asked his readers, “Do you have ESP? It’s hard to prove, but hard to deny.” The piece itself is the usual hodgepodge of information and conjecture, but it shows how much the interest in ESP had grown in the United States. Of course, in going behind the Iron Curtain to explore the realms of parapsychology, Sheila Ostrander and Lynn Schroeder did not exactly tread on virgin territory. Those active in the field of parapsychology in the United States had long been familiar with the work of Professor L. Vasiliev. The Russian scientist’s books are standard fare in this field. Dr. I. M. Kogan, chairman of the Investigation Commission of Russian Scientists dealing with ESP, is quoted as saying that he believes “many people have the ability to receive and transmit telepathic information, but the faculty is undeveloped.”

  * * *

  And what was being done on the American side during the time the Russians were developing their parapsychology laboratories and their teams of observers? Mae West gave a magnificent party at her palatial estate in Hollywood during which her favorite psychic, “Dr.” Richard Ireland, the psychic from Phoenix, performed what the guests referred to as amazing feats. Make no mistake about it, Mae West is serious about her interest in parapsychology. She even lectured on the subject some time ago at a university. But predicting the future for invited guests and charming them at the same time is a far cry from setting up a sober institute for parapsychology where the subject can be dealt with objectively and around the clock.

  On a more practical level, controversial Dutchman Peter Hurkos, who fell off a ladder and discovered his telephatic abilities some years back, was called in to help the police to find clues when the Tate murder was in the headlines. Hurkos did describe one of the raiders as bearded and felt that there were overtones of witchcraft in the assault. About that time, also, Bishop James Pike told the world in headline-making news conferences that he had spoken to his dead son through various mediums. “There is enough scientific evidence to give plausible affirmation that the human personality survives the grave. It is the most plausible explanation of the phenomena that occurred,” Bishop Pike is quoted.

  Over in Britain, Rosemary Brown was getting messages from dead composers, including such kingpins as Beethoven, Chopin, Schubert, and Debussy. Her symphonies, attributed to her ESP capabilities, have even been recorded. When I first heard about the amazing Miss Brown, I was inclined to dismiss the matter unless some private, as yet unpublished, information about the personal lives of the dead composers was also brought out by the medium. Apparently, this is what happened in the course of time and continued investigations. I have never met Miss Brown, but one of the investigators sent to Britain to look into the case was a man whom I knew well, Stewart Robb, who had the advantage of being both a parapsychologist and a music expert. It is his opinion that the Rosemary Brown phenomenon is indeed genuine, but Miss Brown is by no means the only musical medium. According to the National Enquirer, British medium Leslie Flint, together with two friends, Sydney Woods and Mrs. Betty Greene, claimed to have captured on tape the voices of more than two hundred famous personalities, including Frédéric Chopin and Oscar Wilde.

  A RIFT EMERGES

  Gradually, however, the cleavage between an occult, or mystical, emotionally tinged form of inquiry into psychic phenomena, and the purely scientific, clinically oriented way becomes more apparent. That is not to say that both methods will not eventually merge into one single quest for truth.

  Only by using all avenues of approach to a problem can we truly accomplish its solution. However, it seems to me that at a time when so many people are becoming acquainted with the occult and parapsychology in general, that it is very necessary that one make a clear distinction between a tea-room reader and a professor of parapsychology, between a person who has studied psychical phenomena for twenty-five years and has all the necessary academic credits and a Johnny-come-lately who has crept out of the woodwork of opportunism to start his own “research” center or society.

  Those who sincerely seek information in this field should question the credentials of those who give answers; well-known names are always preferable to names one has never heard before. Researchers with academic credentials or affiliations are more likely to be trusted than those who offer merely paper doctorates fresh from the printing press. Lastly, psychic readers purporting to be great prophets must be examined at face value—on the basis of their accomplishments in each individual case, not upon their self-proclaimed reputation. With all that in mind and with due caution, it is still heartwarming to find so many sincere and serious people dedicating themselves more and more to the field parapsychology and making scientific inquiry into what seems to me one of the most fascinating areas of human endeavor. Ever since the late Sir Oliver Lodge proclaimed, “Psychic research is the most important field in the world today, by far the most important,” I have felt quite the same way.

  PSYCHIC PHOTOGRAPHY

  At Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri, a dedicated group of researchers with no funds to s
peak of has been trying to delve into the mystery of psychic photography. Following in the footsteps of Dr. Jules Eisenbud of the University of Colorado, and my own work Psychic Photography—Threshold of a New Science?, this group, under the aegis of the Department of Physics at the university, is attempting to “produce psychic photographs with some regularity under many kinds of situations.” The group feels that since Ted Serios discovered his ability in this field by accident, others might have similar abilities. “Only when we have found a good subject can the real work of investigating the nature of psychic photography begin,” they explain. The fact that people associated with a department of physics at a major American university even speak of investigating psychic photography scientifically is so much of a novelty, considering the slurs heaped upon this subject for so many years by the majority of establishment scientists, that one can only hope that a new age of unbiased science is indeed dawning upon us.

  MIND CONTROL & THE ALPHA STATE

  Stanley Korn of Maryland has a degree in physics and has done graduate work in mathematics, statistics, and psychology; he works in the Navy as an operations research analyst. Through newspaper advertisements he discovered the Silva Mind Control Course and took it, becoming acquainted with Silva’s approach, including the awareness of the alpha state of brain-wave activity, which is associated with increased problem-solving ability and, of course, ESP. “What induced me to take the course was the rather astonishing claim made by the lecturer that everyone taking the course would be able to function psychically to his own satisfaction or get his money back. This I had to see,” Mr. Korn explained. Describing the Silva Method, which incorporates some of the elements of diagnosis developed by the late Edgar Cayce but combines it with newer techniques and what, for want of a better term, we call traveling clairvoyance, Mr. Korn learned that psychic activities are not necessarily limited to diagnosing health cases, but can also be employed in psychometry, the location of missing objects and persons, even the location of malfunctions in automobiles. “After seeing convincing evidence for the existence of psi, and experiencing the phenomenon myself, I naturally wanted to know the underlying principles governing its operation. To date, I have been unable to account for the psychic transmission of information by any of the known forms of energy, such as radio waves. The phenomena can be demonstrated at will, making controlled experiments feasible.”

  THE APPARATUS

  But the mind-control approach is by no means the only new thing in the search for awareness and full use of ESP powers in man. People working in the field of physics are used to apparatus, to test equipment, to physical tools. Some of these people have become interested in the marginal areas of parapsychology and ESP research, and hope to contribute some new mechanical gadget to the field. According to the magazine Purchasing Week, new devices utilizing infrared light to pinpoint the location of an otherwise unseen intruder by the heat radiating from his body have been developed. On August 17, 1970, Time magazine, in its science section headlines, “Thermography: Coloring with Heat.” The magazine explained that

  [I]nfrared detectors are providing stunning images that were once totally invisible to the naked eye. The new medium is called color thermography, the technique of translating heat rays into color. Unlike ordinary color photographs, which depend on reflected visible light, thermograms or heat pictures respond only to the temperature of the subject. Thus the thermographic camera can work with equal facility in the dark or light. The camera’s extraordinary capability is built around a characteristic of all objects, living or inanimate. Because their atoms are constantly in motion, they give off some degree of heat or infrared radiation. If the temperature rises high enough, the radiation may become visible to the human eye, as in the red glow of a blast furnace. Ordinarily, the heat emissions remain locked in the invisible range of infrared light.

  It is clear that such equipment can be of great help in examining so-called haunted houses, psychically active areas, or psychometric objects; in other words, it can be called upon to step in where the naked eye cannot help, or where ordinary photography discloses nothing unusual. The magazine Electronics World of April 1970, in an article by L. George Lawrence entitled “Electronics and Parapsychology,” says,

  One of the most intriguing things to emerge in that area is the now famous Backster Effect. Since living plants seem to react bioelectrically to thought images directed to their over-all well-being, New Jersey cytologist Dr. H. Miller thinks that the phenomenon is based upon a type of cellular consciousness. These and related considerations lead to the idea that psi is but a part of a so-called paranormal matrix—a unique communications grid that binds all life together. Its phenomena apparently work on a multi-input basis which operates beyond the known physical laws.

  Lanston Monotype Company of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, manufactures photomechanical apparatus and has done some work in the ESP field. The company attempted to develop testing equipment of use to parapsychologists. Superior Vending Company of Brockton, Massachusetts, through its design engineer, R. K. Golka, offered me a look into the matter of a newly developed image intensifier tube developed for possible use in a portable television camera capable of picking up the fine imprints left behind in the atmosphere of haunted areas. “The basic function of this tube is to intensify and pick up weak images picked up by the television camera. These are images that would otherwise not be seen or that would go unnoticed,” the engineer explained. Two years later, Mr. Golka, who had by then set up his own company of electronic consultants, suggested experiments with spontaneous ionization. “If energy put into the atmosphere could be coupled properly with the surrounding medium, air, then huge amounts of ionization could result. If there were a combination of frequency and wave length that would remove many of the electron shells of the common elements of our atmosphere, that too would be of great scientific value. Of course, the electrons would fall back at random so there would be shells producing white light or fluorescence. This may be similar to the flashes of light seen by people in a so-called haunted house. In any event, if this could be done by the output of very small energies such as those coming from the human brain of microvolt and microamp range, it would be quite significant.” Mr. Golka responded to my suggestion that ionization of the air accompanied many of the psychic phenomena where visual manifestations had been observed. I have held that a change occurs in the atmosphere when psychic energies are present, and that the change includes ionization of the surrounding air or ether. “Some of the things you have mentioned over the years seem to fit into this puzzle. I don’t know if science has all the pieces yet, but I feel we have a good handful to work with,” Mr. Golka concluded in his suggestions to me. Since that time some progress has been made in the exploration of perception by plants, and the influence of human emotions on the growth of plants. Those seeking scientific data on these experiments may wish to examine Cleve Backster’s report “Evidence of a Primary Perception in Plant Life” in the International Journal of Parapsychology, Volume X, 1968. Backster maintains a research foundation at 165 West Forty-sixth Street in New York City.

  * * *

  Dr. Harry E. Stockman is head of Sercolab in Arlington, Massachusetts, specializing in apparatus in the fields of physics, electronics, and the medical profession. The company issues regular catalogues of their various devices, which range from simple classroom equipment to highly sophisticated research apparatus. The company, located at P.O. Box 78, Arlington, Massachusetts, has been in business for over twenty years. One prospectus of their laboratory states:

  In the case of mind-over-matter parapsychology psychokinetic apparatus, our guarantee applies only in that the apparatus will operate as stated in the hands of an accomplished sensitive. Sercolab would not gamble its scientific reputation for the good reason that mind-over-matter is a proven scientific fact. It is so today thanks to the amazing breakthrough by Georgia State University; this breakthrough does not merely consist of the stunning performance of some student
s to be able to move a magnetic needle at a distance. The breakthrough is far greater than that. It consists of Georgia State University having devised a systematic teaching technique, enabling some students in the class to operate a magnetic needle by psychokinesis force.