Psi is Blasphemy

use the fork, luke
Originally uploaded by mixtapegirl.

Just finished listening to Dean Radin's interview over at Integral Naked (membership required, first month FREE.):

Documenting the Improbable: Science, Psi, and the Integral Map -- Dean and Stuart waste no time in jumping into the heart of this extraordinary conversation. As Stuart shares from Dean’s book The Conscious Universe, psychic phenomena (or “psi”) are so well-documented that the majority of researchers are no longer engaged with proving that they exist—the data clearly show that they do, so researchers are now focusing more on the details of how psi functions. This statement quickly leads to a series of very interesting questions, including: Just what is “psi” anyway? And, if psi has been scientifically demonstrated to be “real,” why on earth haven’t I heard about it?

The interview reminded me of my lazy afternoons reading the The Conscious Universe while watching Oprah and Dr. Phil. Good stuff. I meant the book. In it Mr. Radin used meta-analysis to demonstrate the anomalous yet undeniable existence of psi. Alas, psi is still blasphemy in the dogmatic scientific circle. I wish them well. But what I'm really interested in is how psi and the exponential technological acceleration will converge -- ripping, mixing, and burning the "neural energy transfers" of the collective in bringing about the coming Singularity. Sometimes I sound so geeky I even scare myself. Anyway...

I have a soft spot for psi and the paranormal. My early journey into the endless realm of self-discovery was fueled by my interest with the unexplained: telepathy, clairvoyance, telekinesis, precognition, UFOs, aliens, ghosts, mysticism, the whole enchilada of "weird" stuff. During that time I read as much as I can. I daydreamed of different worlds. I played Dungeons & Dragons. I never dated.

When you're young and impressionable and you had the bad luck of reading Easy Journeys to Other Planets and The Celestine Prophecy, your self-developmental line is almost guaranteed to get you screwed up into a tangent. In order to make sense of all the weirdness you have three choices: to suppress and deny the weirdness, to embrace and be the weirdness, to transclude the weirdness.

For a while I embraced the weirdness while putting up a facade of coolness among my peers. Instead of denying those weird stuff I engaged them and tried to learn as much as I can from them. I attended Inner Mind Development seminars, read the works of Charles Tart, looked up to Russell Targ, watched The X-files (even wrote Mulder's Prayer). Still not dated.

But there was a point in my life when all those weird stuff just got too damn boring. Bending spoons? Big deal. Use the Fork, Luke! Walking on water? Jesus, been there, done that. Mind reading? Even my dog can do that to me. Ghosts? Go get a freakin' life. Aliens and UFOs? They can probe and kiss my sweet earthly ass good night. Mysticism? I'm already "one with my foot," thank you. Who am I? Who is it that wants to believe in all these weird stuff? Ahh... now that's a dead end. Long distance sucks.