Fascinating article.
I've heard about this before; back in the late 70's, Professor Jahn worked for several years with Yuri Gellar, who demonstrated telekinetic powers. He could move small objects across a table without physical contact, bend spoons with his mind, and claimed he could induce astral projection at will. The results of Jahn's experiments were astounding, to say the least, and his work with Gellar defies any logical or scientific explanation to this day. In addition to his other talents, Gellar was able to think about an object and then project the image onto photographic paper.
It was around this same period that Jahn postulated his theories on his black box experiments but, of course, the scientific community was somewhat more than skeptical. Jahn was attacked in scientific publications as being an eccentric who loved the spotlight. Fortunately, there were enough closet supporters to continue his work in this area, and from what I read in the article, this technology might be available in our lifetime.
Edgar Cayce was another man who believed in a collective subconscious. Known as "The Sleeping Prophet," he created several millionaires during the Depression by analyzing investors' dreams and then telling them what stocks they should buy or sell, according to the interpretation of the dream. Thousands of his "readings" were recorded on paper. They are stored at the Association for Research and Enlightenment (ARE) in Virginia Beach, VA, where Cayce made his home. A friend and I visited frequently while we were stationed there, and we had the opportunity to peruse many of those documents. It's mind-boggling to realize that he could put himself to sleep and then travel to any place in the world.
For example, a young boy once wrote to him from Kentucky, making it clear in his letter that Cayce was his last hope. The boy, about 11 years old, had a disease which was causing him to go blind. His parents had shuffled him around the country visiting one specialist after another, but their prognoses were always very dire; he was going to lose his sight, and they should stop wasting time visiting doctors and prepare for the inevitable. After doing a reading on him (remember, the kid lives in Kentucky, and Cayce is in Virginia Beach), Cayce wrote back with specific instructions: He was to go to a certain drug store in his town and ask the pharmacist for a bottle of "Oil of Smoke." He was to put the drops in his eyes several times per day until the medicine was gone and his infection was eradicated.
The boy ran to the drug store and asked the pharmacist for the prescribed potion. The druggist, however, told the poor kid that no such product existed; he didn't have any. The boy wrote back to Cayce, telling him he must have made a mistake, and again made his desperate plea for help. Cayce was crushed. He had never been wrong before, and so decided then and there to do another reading for the boy.
He wrote back after the second reading, again with very specific instructions. The boy went back to the druggist and told him to look in the stockroom. He was to clear off the third shelf toward the back wall, and there, behind a panel in the wall behind the shelf, he would find some Oil of Smoke. The pharmacist was skeptical, but said later he could see the desperation on the boy's face, and felt he had to indulge him. He did as the boy asked and returned several minutes later with his mouth open and three bottles of Oil of Smoke in his hands. The kid recovered and dventually became one of Cayce's most staunch supporters. He donated thousands of dollars to the ARE (Cayce never charged for his readings) during his lifetime and also provided for a small endowment in his will.
There are many things in this world we don't understand. We tend to discredit what we cannot see and touch, dismissing what could be paranormal phenomena as nothing more than coincidence. The odds of one of us being struck by lightning are approximately 1 in 600,000 (depending on the source), yet several people have been struck three or more times, and one man has been hit an incredible seven times (so far) during his lifetime. According to the National Weather Service, the odds of surviving one lightning strike are 1 in 10, so the chances of surviving being hit on seven different occasions must approach those of winning the PowerBall jackpot. On one of those occasions, the man was sitting in his recliner in his living room when lightning came through the window and knocked him out of his chair, melting a small hole in the glass. Does this man possess a chemical makeup which is exclusive only to him? His unfortunate experiences would seem to indicate that something about him is different from the rest of us, but doctors and scientists have been unable to find anything unique in his physiology; he's no different than anyone else, at least physically.
The Earth itself is a lifeform unlike any other which lives on its surface. The planet eats, breathes and suffers self-healing injuries in the forms of man-made and natural disasters. We don't think of Earth as being alive, because it doesn't fit into the popular definition of carbon-based lifeforms with lungs or gills. Consequently, we tend to think of our planet as being largely inanimate. While I have never seen an extraterrestrial alien, I do believe that life can exist in forms of which we have no concept. Likewise, I believe Man has an undiscovered mental capacity and abilities beyond his comprehension. However, we must be cautious. Given Man's self-destructive and violent nature, it could be a very dark day for our species when these abilities are finally harnessed.
