ESP, ANYONE?

[Andrew]

I DO NOT THINK, as Satanists, we need to believe in ESP. The fact of the matter is, a number of trite New Age religions depend on ESP to justify their absurd tenets, and thus have a vested interest in ESP being true (the Edgar Cayce Foundation springs to mind). Satanism, by contrast, works just fine without the possibility of the human animal being able to transmit its thoughts sans the standard avenues of communication. As psychodrama, Ritual Magic defends itself without the need for what I like to call "mumbo jumbo."

Having said this, I think it would be equally wrong for Satanists to shut themselves off from the possibility of ESP. While I strongly feel the Satanist needs to be more Scully than Mulder, we all need to keep our minds open to the concept of extreme possibilities. While indeed half the scientific community denounces ESP, we have to bear in mind they deny Global Warming as well. So it was in such a spirit that last weekend I underwent some experiments with an old friend and fellow Church of Satan member who works in the psychology department of a well-known American university. She was visiting Japan, and it gave us a chance to catch up. Over drinks, she discussed some of her work and proposed we try the experiment the next evening. The results were intriguing.

It went like this;

We are all familiar, I am sure, with Zener Cards. They are a pack of 25 cards with five curious patterns, a Circle, Square, Star, Cross, and Wavy Lines. One person looks at the card and attempts to "beam" the image into the other person's mind. That person tries to "read" which card the transmitter is looking at. Statistically, one should get 5 cards out of 25 right.

We made ten initial trials with her sending and me receiving. My record was unimpressive; 2, 4, 3, 6, 4, 3, 5, 6, 2, and 4. Apparently, I was as psychic as a turnip.

Then she suggested we enter the ritual chamber, an go through the entire "intellectual decompression" business. We dressed for ritual, light the candles, cued the music, charged the atmosphere (I have a pretty swank ritual room set aside with light effects, machines that ionize the atmosphere, and such), and went through the primary steps laid out in the Satanic Bible. Having done so, we tried the same experiment again.

My first few were slightly better...5, 6, and 6. Then, something "clicked." The following seven trials resulted in 8, 12, 9, 7, 17 (!), 11, and 9. In short, my average jumped from 3.9 correct to 9.0 correct. Still less than half, but a dramatic improvement.

According to my friend, anything which restrains the conscious mind--a glass of alcohol, physical exertion, hypnosis--produces much the same gains.

Naturally this was only a pseudo-scientific experiment, but I must admit is was both thought provoking and entertaining. Why not give it a whirl, and share your results?

[Eric T. Schuetz]

The idea of ESP is popular with poeple because of the idea that so much of our brain is "untapped". However, when you take into consideration the amount of processing that is required by the brain to cater to the senses, you can see why. Over half of our brain is dedicated to sight alone. Our eyes decipher very little, to none, of what is seen. The brain interpruts the signals and creates the image we see. Those with epilepsy have this illness because the brain can not decipher those signals quickly enough and puts itself into a "buffer overrun", much like a computer will do when overloaded with to much information.

In contrast to this all, the idea to ESP would simply mean our brains are receptive to electrical signals passed over a "wifi" network. That would require the individual to have a keen ability to not just block white noise, which would be what we normally do, and be able to immediately detect the "proper signal" being transmitted, not unlike Bluetooth technology.

We all know that electricity can carry information. How else would we all be able to interact in the way we are now? To imagine for a moment the brain being able to do such a feat isn't completely "out there". Granted, putting into this perspect demistifies the event greatly, and makes it much more "complicated", from a "Gift from god" to an ability everyone should theoretically be capable of.

The major issue here would be determining the section of the human brain that is the transciever/reciever. It would also mean that it would be a "tappable" form of communication, as clear and understandable as listening to a conversation through a wall with a simple drinking glass. Additionally opening the doors to suggestive thought provocation, which is believed to already exist, i.e. Mind Control.

Being able to "listen" to another persons thoughts would at this stage of human evolution would require a great deal of concentration and lack of outside distractions. Going through a mental decompression, meditation, and followed with ritual to open the mind makes for understandalbe and perhaps perplexing results. Again, this process leads one to believe it being "mystical", rather than truely scientific.

[Eric T. Schuetz]

Either I posted a reply that immediately killed the topic because it was "that good", which I don't honestly think covers "Everything". Or everyone is THAT turned off of ESP.

[Etvart]

Everything we capable of experiencing either is, or comes to us through, vibrations.
Cymatics may eventually cover the science behind what we currently call ESP.

I doubt very much that it is beyond "senses" at all.

[riffpimp]

as i know it, there five types of esp ,firts if the reading of anothers mind , second thers is "showing"of images to another person , third is "seeing" into the future by seconds or further, fourth is "remote viewing " the seeing of another person or place,and finaly the fifth , stoping another from reading your own mind,there some who believe in the draining of anothers energy but i dont think it would fall into ESP but with modern tech we have something else, we can now interact with computers ,there have been a few changes with our technolagy and people who have no motor skils can comunicate by way of interacting with a computer , there for it only makes me wonder where science and the mystical come togeather and how the future looks , will we all be able to sit at home and not have any need for a phone ?will we be hard wired into a small computer and be able to surf the net while our friends can see what we are looking at and being able to talk to them ? i know i might be going off topic a little bit here but if you concider what we have and what we might have in the future it looks to me like we could all have a little bit of ESP in us maybe not natural ESP but something like it ...

[Andrew]

For me it is not a question of "magic" versus "science," or any form of belief system. The only thing that matters in the end are results. Science that does not consistently produce results is quackery, and so too is any magic which fails to do so. In my opinion, ESP sits on that fence. Repeated attempts vary from successful to unsuccessful, and this suggests statistics rather than evidence. But I am willing to keep an open mind.