The Searcher Journal

According to a recent article in Wired Magazine, the Pentagon is once again throwing money at paranormal sounding research.

Unlike some previous attempts at battlefield psi ops, there is actual technology involved this time:

The project has three major goals, according to Darpa. First, try to map a person’s EEG patterns to his or her individual words. Then, see if those patterns are generalizable — if everyone has similar patterns. Last, “construct a fieldable pre-prototype that would decode the signal and transmit over a limited range.”

Neat stuff, for sure, and at least slightly more likely to be taken seriously than the well-known and much ridiculed Stargate remote viewing project that went on for years.

The success of Stargate is heavily disputed by many but its alumni spawned a private company or two shortly after the “official” project was discontinued.

The Farsite Instiute, the better known of the spin-offs, hasn’t done a whole lot to bolster confidence in remote viewing–or the people who offer training in such things. It’s been riddled with a bit of controvercy and in-fighting for years and some of it’s more public predictions (like the insitance that aliens would make themselves known “soon”–it’s been a decade or so since).

Psi Tech is a few years older than Farsite, but it’s history sounds no less like some fantasy spy novel. Their website does nothing to erase or dilute that “psi-fi” image.

Both organizations, though, do put forward an interesting set of theories and experimental control schems that should, eventually, allow some sort of independent verification of their claims.

The problem is, as is often the case with psychic phenomenon, no matter how tight your controls, repeatablility is always a problem. In a very soft science like remote viewing–which often requires heavy intrpretation of quick sketches and anecdotal descriptions of what the viewer is seeing–two outsiders looking at the same set of raw data can (and do) see very different things.

But, the new military “psychic” devices appear to be much  more centered on the indisputable biological and electrical activity in the brain, so maybe we’re finally on the right track.

Of course, as much as I applaud the fringe research, I can’t help but think our money right now would be better spent in other areas of research. Save the government funded fringe research for when our coffers are full. Leave this stuff up to the eccentric private sector folks (like those mentioned above) and then, when the economic climate is a bit better, actually make use of their research and build upon it.

Just a quick set of questions, spawned by a conversation had this weekend…

Lucid dreaming is something that I do on a semi-regular basis–either planned or unplanned.

Do you lucid dream?

Have you ever found yourself in a recursive dream, lucid or otherwise? (One where you “wake up” and then realize that, no, you’re still dreaming.)

Have you ever felt trapped in a dream, lucid or otherwise? (Where you know you have to escape but can’t.)

Tell me about these dreams.

Every now and then, I run into an interesting problem: I don’t see people as they appear to everyone else.

Or, perhaps more specifically, I don’t perceive them the same way and that perception difference manifests in my mind processing the visual data differently.

This becomes most apparent when going through photos. I’ll see someone, recognize them and then get a solid *whack* of dissonance in my head as the mental image doesn’t at all match the picture I’m looking at. In face-to-face situations, the dissonance can be even more unnerving as my mind flips back and forth between the actual visual data and the interpreted appearance.

Thankfully, it doesn’t happen all that often… nor does it happen consistently with certain people. It seems to mostly be situational or related to the mood of the person or myself. It’s more prone to come up with those I’ve met in metaphysical situations, which, really, isn’t that surprising. Sometimes it’s infinitely more intense than others.

Yes, there have been people I have not at all recognized in person after meeting them numerous times in various situations.

So what, exactly is going on with that?

Physiologically, I’m sure there’s some sort of explanation–we all know there are numerous things that go on in the process of memory creation and visual interpretation that can get fouled up by any number of different things. It may just all be in my head… as is the case with most things that fall under the purview of this blog.

Metaphysically speaking, it seems that these secondary images–these Second Looks that people have–are connected to a few different things.

The first and most easily acceptable for me is some sort of past life connection. The most intense (and confusing) time I had this happen was with a young woman I met at a pagan workshop. We clicked pretty quickly and ended up going on a cross country trip together. The problem was, whenever I looked at her or thought about her she didn’ t look at all like the person that showed up in the pictures I had. It wasn’t until some things played out in a dream–where I recognized the setting as the location of one of my past lives–that things fell into place. I was seeing her as she had been in that life, not in the current one the camera was able to a capture.

A second explanation is connected to the masks we wear in our interactions and the different energies we project when playing those parts. This is a very context-oriented thing for most people. “When I’m out at the club, this is who I am. When I’m at the office, this is who I am.” We all do this to one extent or another and we’ve all seen what it’s like to run into that person from a specific venue when they’re “out of costume”–no makeup, no fancy clothes, in a hurry to get somewhere else. We all have trouble recognizing them. What I’m talking about is one step beyond that–the projection takes on a metaphysical aspect that can leave it looking like a double-exposure at times. Not as vague as an aura, almost as real as good special effects makeup.

Of those two explanations, I’ve run into the past life one the most. The second is (thankfully) rare in most normal social situations (and can be downright creepy if you don’t know what it is). Both speak volumes to me about the inner workings of the person and my interaction with them.

Both explanations leave me wondering if I have some Second Look that others see.

Do you see people differently from as they are? Are you aware when you are working with an altered visual reference? What cause to you normally attribute these Second Looks to?

I’m a big fan of the idea of serendipity.

In fact, I kind of count on it to keep my life interesting.

So far, I haven’t been disappointed.

I’ve stumbled into most of the great things in my life–my relationships, my jobs, my most interesting ideas and experiences–almost always while looking for something that, at best, was only vaguely related.

Being able to accept the kinds of happy accidents that serendipity provides is a key part of being a Searcher. If you are too focused on the goal you have set out after, you miss out on the added benefits of the journey. Very often it is those side discoveries that provide what is really needed… even if you don’t know you need it before it is found.

Serendipity sometimes has odd sense of humor about it, leading you to find something quite the opposite of what you were expecting. That kind of whiplash can lead to a whole cascade of realizations all its own. Sometimes it can even change you (often for the better) to the core of your being.

You can open yourself up to serendipitous experiences by being observant in your daily life. It’s the signs and portents around us that let the subconscious play and connect random dots into strange pictures. You also have to be secure enough in your ability to adapt to deep changes in your situation–otherwise your natural psychological defense mechanisms kick in and suppress the realization of the new information added, potentially prolonging your arriving at both your intended destination and the (potentially more important) one serendipity has placed along your path.

A second way to open yourself up to serendipity is to be slightly vague in your stated goals from time to time. Doing so allows both your mind and the Universe to be flexible with how ultimate solutions are reached. It may take a little longer–but, again, the journey is a learning experience all its own and may be more important than the destination.

For those needing a third way to encourage serendipitous happenings, I offer this simple idea: Chase the White Rabbit. It worked for Alice. Something odd caught her eye and, diverging from the path she had been on, she followed it. Her adventures are something we’re all familiar with and, if nothing else, a study in stumbling along into interesting things. If we put the energy into exploring the tangents that appear around us, we become accustom to shifting our focus and accepting new ideas and directions.

Our mundane day to day lives can be tedious and boring. They can sap us of our creativity and active energy. Even worse, they can strip from us the vitality we need to thrive and live the life we deserve. Being open to the serendipitous, being flexible and aware enough to notice is and being brave enough to follow bits of it, can revive our joy in life.

Or, at least, keep us distracted and entertained until enlightenment kicks in.

What kinds of serendipitous experiences have you had? How open are you to randomness in your life?

Back in June, Newsweek published an article about Laura Day, a psychic consultant.

Needless to say, that piqued my interest. Partially because she was pulling in $10,000 a month per client, but mostly because it was reported straight, fair and prominently by Newsweek.

That kind of coverage doesn’t happen all that often in the metaphysical arena. Articles from mainstream media sources are usually tongue-in-cheek, snide, “fluffy” or downright discrediting. But here was an article that laid it all out pretty plainly: respectable businesses and psychic can and do work together.

Just the other day in USA Today, another article talks about how there’s a boom in patronage of psychics and intuitives. As is to be expected, it’s not the deepest or most informative bit of writing, but the cenral fact echoes sentiments that have been showing up in numerous places for months now. Wired had an article about psychic business back in November about it that put it like this:

The boom in superstition is a predicable response to troubling times, says Columbia Business School professor Gita Johar, who’s studied the phenomenon. “If the future is uncertain, people turn to psychics,” Johar says. Consumers tend to embrace the supernatural when confronted by stress, combined with uncertainty. “You have an illusion then that you can then control the outcome. People want the illusion of control.”

Even The New Scientist agrees that when times get tough, people take to things they would otherwise avoid… like psychics.

“Uncertain times” may be a bit of an understatement at this point. With the Wall Street numbers bouncing around like jumping beans on speed and numerous other social and political things going on around the nation (and world), there’s no telling what’s going to be important tomorrow morning. Our interconnected system is being laid bare by a shared global uncertainty the likes of which we haven’t seen.

And so, it’s no surprise that there’s an uptick in the schedules of pshycics and intuitives all around. This, of course, raises the question: Is now the time for those of us with an intutive, psychic and/or metaphysical bend to make a puch for more recognized legitimacy?

The time would seem to be ripe, with the current media coverage and businesses apparently finally willing to talk about their use of non-standard consultants. The market is there if already established practioners are being swamped, there’s space for new growth.

Perhaps more importantly, there may be a moral impertive for thow with talent and solid eithics to actively pursue exposure over the charlatans and cheats that will undoubtedly rush to fill the growing demand from a public who knows most of their psychic lore from popular TV shows and couldn’t spot a fake if their life depended on it.

I know I’ve held off for years on “going pro” with my ideas for becoming a professional Tarot reader and intuitive consultant. (Though I have floated them around a little before–like on this rough draft of a site.) Why? Because I remain concerned about credibility and acceptance. I worry that stepping fully into the role of “professional psychic” would get in the way of my other professional interests.

Now… I’m becoming less sure one would be a detriment to the other.

I’m interested in hearing what you out there think about that credibility line. Is “Intuitive Business” coming into its own now? Should the psychic community push for better recognition and more obvious standards for those who go into business? And, even if you don’t think there’s such a thing as a “real” psychic, does applying the intuitive process to an unpredictable situation really hurt anyone in the long run (especially since we seem to be wired for irrationality in some situations)?