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.

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’ve had an interest in parapsychology for a good long time. For a little while, I even tried to justify it as a career choice. (That, obviously, did not happen.) My interest in parapsychology is one of the things that lead me into the metaphysical world and my current spiritual path. It’s also one of the things that constantly rubs up against my spiritual nature and keeps me walking a more balanced line between science and faith.

Between the parapsychology literature (both in print and on the web) that I’ve read and the science fiction/fantasy and just plain odd bits of fiction that have made their way through my hands and into my world view, the term “ESPer” has kind of resonated with me.

In a very basic way, an ESPer is pretty much just a psychic. But it’s a term that doesn’t carry with it the baggage that the more common one does. Using the term “psychic” conjures images of charlatans, Gypsies and carnival performers just out to fool you and take your money. While some more current press and entertainment presentations are beginning to erode that negative image, it is still very much there and gets in the way of most taking a serious look at the people who possess certain gifts.

To be more accurate, it’s a term I prefer to use to refer to people who make use of the gifts we all have (to one extent or another).

Those gifts include things like telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance, ESP and out of body experience projection (astral travel). As a general rule, I don’t use it to refer to those that exhibit more physically interactive psi abilities such as psychokinesis.

We all have the ability to reach beyond the normal senses we routinely talk about–taste, smell, sight, hearing and touch–and use other forms of sensing. Most people ignore the times they experience such things. They write them off as coincidence or just a “gut feeling” or “hunch” about something. Growing up, we’re told some things just can’t be–and when we encounter them, we try our darndest to pretend they aren’t.

Some people, though, embrace those extra levels of information and learn to use them to their advantage. As with anything, some people are more “gifted” with these abilities than others. But just like regularly lifting weights can improve your physical strength, regularly working with psi abilities can make them stronger and make you more aware of the information they perceive.

How does it work? We’re not exactly sure. There a good number of theories and even some recent scientific evidence to back up some of the commonly known things an ESPer can do.

My personal theory is that all psi abilities interact with an as-yet undefined energy–perhaps the same energy that mystics and magick users seemingly manipulate, perhaps related to that as electricity and magnetism are related to one another. ESPers are very sensitive to the fluctuations in this energy and can pick up on the “ripples” and “waves” we all make as we go about things.

If all goes as planned, the next few weeks will be a discussion of how to best deal with some of that energy when it comes your way and how to better “tune in” to it yourself.

Sound good to you?

The brain seems to have networks that are specialized to produce an explicit, magical explanation in some circumstances, said Pascal Boyer, a professor of psychology and anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis. In an e-mail message, he said such thinking was “only one domain where a relevant interpretation that connects all the dots, so to speak, is preferred to a rational one.”

Children exhibit a form of magical thinking by about 18 months, when they begin to create imaginary worlds while playing. By age 3, most know the difference between fantasy and reality, though they usually still believe (with adult encouragement) in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. By age 8, and sometimes earlier, they have mostly pruned away these beliefs, and the line between magic and reality is about as clear to them as it is for adults.

It is no coincidence, some social scientists believe, that youngsters begin learning about faith around the time they begin to give up on wishing. “The point at which the culture withdraws support for belief in Santa and the Tooth Fairy is about the same time it introduces children to prayer,” said Jacqueline Woolley, a professor of psychology at the University of Texas. “The mechanism is already there, kids have already spent time believing that wishing can make things come true, and they’re just losing faith in the efficacy of that.”

If the tendency to think magically were no more than self-defeating superstition, then over the pitiless history of human evolution it should have all but disappeared in intellectually mature adults.

Yet in a series of experiments published last summer, psychologists at Princeton and Harvard showed how easy it was to elicit magical thinking in well-educated young adults. In one instance, the researchers had participants watch a blindfolded person play an arcade basketball game, and visualize success for the player. The game, unknown to the subjects, was rigged: the shooter could see through the blindfold, had practiced extensively and made most of the shots.

Interesting stuff.

Sure, by typical measuring techniques it doesn’t appear that we have an effect on things. But some quantum physics experiments have shown at least a slight tendency for just observation leading to effect. Who’s to say we don’t influence the events around us by our actions?

Science is constantly evolving and discovering new things. Perhaps, some day in the future after a new form of energy or two are discovered and some new measuring techniques are invented, scientists will look back at the above mentioned psychology experiments and be able to tell us why we’re predisposed to think in those ways. Maybe they’ll be able to tell us that it’s not all just in our heads.

But even if it is all just in our heads, does that make it any less real to the individual experiencing it? And if it actually helps, is it a bad thing to use as a tool for success?