The payoff of the prototaxic mode, and the reason why individuals and societies in all times and cultures have so universally endured the privations and discomfort of trance must lie, of course, in the enormously voluminous and varied paranormal effects. To call the roll of alleged powers is so impressive as to be stupefying to the rational mind: curing the body, healing the mind, telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, psychometry, mastery over pain, mastery over fire, control of breathing, psychic heat, out-of-body experience, materializations and the production of apparitions, psychokinesis, glossolalia (or speaking with tongues), automatic writing, psychedelic experiences, access to hidden knowledge, access to the dead, access to creativity, are but some of the better known ones, and there are probably others, of which it may be wisest not even to speak.

We shall discuss the particulars and examine the evidence in short order, but before doing so it may be instructive to note a) the global aspects of these alleged powers, b) the fact that they do not appear confined to a single type of trance, to a single locus in space or time, to a single article of belief, religious doctrine, or school of psychology, to a single method of procedure, to a single state of age, sex, class, or intelligence in the operator or operand; they appear to have universal elements characteristic of a new vivency. The only

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common characteristics appear to be a state of trance involving excursion of the ego consciousness and extreme focusing of attention and high suggestibility. Such considerations suggest that whenever these requirements for juncture with the numinous element are met, that psychedelic powers result. And since these results are seen only with this union of the individual human mind and the general numinous element, there must be something peculiarly special and powerful about this union.

As we inspect the range and effect of the paranormal properties of trance, it is suggestive that they also cluster around "the three illusions" as if by their very presence to indicate that ultimate reality does not reside in the physical universe, in time, or in personality. To take a brief list of the psychic powers, telepathy and psychokinesis testify to the fact that there is more to ultimate reality than the physical universe: they are essentially denials of the laws of physics and the ultimacy of space. Psychometry, precognition, and accelerated mental process indicate the same for time, and suggest to us that "the Eternal Now" is outside of time. (Indeed, precognition is the principal tip-off). Finally, clairvoyance, OOB experience, healing, and the mastery of the body over various media (such as fire) suggest the interconnection between what we call individuals in the first instance, and from this following the contact between the individual and the general mind in which the former is a part of the latter as a grain of sand is of the beach.

Since it is incontestable that psychic powers are seen in much greater profusion in prototaxic mode (trance) than in either the parataxic (where they are almost altogether absent), or in the syntaxic mode (where while equally useful, they generally tend to be much less spectacular), one is justified in asking why this should be true. One answer, of course, is that the more complete excursion of the ego during prototaxic trance allows more chance for the special laws of OSC (the laws of physics) to be superseded by the larger laws of non-ordinary reality. In this connection, it is interesting that the excursion of even a single ego (of the entranced person) allows this alteration to take place, not only for his own percepts, but in some cases even for others around him. Since one might from ignorance equally well suppose that the OSC laws would not be superseded by the NOR laws unless all persons in the situation were in ASC trance, the evidence suggests that the hold of the OSC laws of physics (the hold of physical reality) is somewhat less "tight" than one might expect; the facts also suggest that even one person in contact with the numinous element represents a very powerful situation.

While we must postpone discussion of the similarities and differences

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of the three modes until later in the book, it is only fair to point out that perhaps some of the reason for the less spectacular aspects of psychic powers in the syntaxic mode, is not that the powers do not exist, but that because there are fewer adepts at that level or that the adepts who are there are mindful of the injunction against display of "siddhis," one sees much less of it.

In fact, so universal an accompaniment of trance are psychic phenomena, that one might well be justified in stating their occurrence as a defining characteristic of a state which is otherwise somewhat hard to characterize. While it is true that psychic phenomena occur during other states of consciousness, (with the exception of "Psychic contagion" to which we shall later devote attention), the only other states with significant evidences of psychic manifestations are dreams and satori. The former is very similar to trance in many of its manifestations, and the latter is so incompletely researched by western psychologists that we know very little about it.

In comparing trance with dreams in their characteristics which may give encouragement to psychic manifestations, we note the altered state of consciousness, in which the ego is excursed or changed very significantly, the complete suggestibility, the increased possibility of the fulfillment of otherwise-denied wishes.
Tauber and Green (1959:106) state:
 

The way in which extrasensory perception, mental telepathy, clairvoyance, and other occult processes operate strongly suggest that they reflect subthreshold perceptual phenomena.
 

It may be useful before ending this section to give the views of others which support the close association between trance and paranormal powers.

Moss (1967:57) quotes Fenichel on the ease with which the schizophrenic deals with dream symbols: "The schizophrenic shows an intuitive understanding of symbolism. Interpretation of symbols, for instance, which neurotics find so difficult to accept in analysis are made spontaneously by the schizophrenic." Moss concludes that dreaming is a safety valve whose failure results in hallucination.

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"Because the unconscious has become the conscious the psychotic is dominated by archaic modes of thinking."

It has long been noticed that subjects under hypnosis appear to develop extrasensory powers, such as clairvoyance or telepathy. As Moss (1967:30) tells us:
 

In the early nineteenth century, hypnotic subjects were believed to have remarkable powers of clairvoyance, and it was not uncommon to employ trance subjects to diagnose ailments.

A more psychological orientation of this linkage was the collaboration of Kubie and Erikson in two studies, demonstrating, in Moss' words (1967:13) "the exceptional ability of hypnotic subjects to understand and interpret symbolic modes of thought."

Erikson and Kubie (Moss 1967:101ff) also showed that hypnotized subjects showed impressive ability to intuit the meaning of unconscious and symbolic modes of expression. Telepathy between such subjects has also been noted, suggesting the hypothesis that in this state the subjects have closer contact with the collective preconscious.

Van Over (1972:65) notes the close relationship between hypnotism and psychic phenomena seen in altered states of consciousness:
 

In the hypnotic state, the subject abrogates his conscious, critical faculties, and exists in a profound altered state of consciousness. ... Research has also established that the condition most likely to produce phenomena such as ESP is an altered state of consciousness. . . . Numerous reports of telepathy, clairvoyance, and spontaneous healings in the early records come as no surprise. Just about everyone who practiced "mesmerism" in those days observed some form of psychic phenomena connected with trance techniques. Mesmer himself wrote: "Sometimes the somnambulist may perceive the past and the future through an inner sense. ... Man is in contact through this inner sense with the whole of nature."

Levinson (1969:PA14949) investigated the hypothesis that "hypnosis is a catalyst for unlocking latent psi faculties" using four male and one female, aged sixteen to thirty-five years, over a nine-year period. Results indicate that: (1) degree of rapport between the hypnotist and S, (2) waking hypnosis technique, and (3) achievement of deep trance were important in the achievement of psi faculties.

Moss and others (1971:PA0024) with teams of transmitter and receiver (in isolated rooms) used "emotional episodes" as stimulus material for the transmitter to "send" the receiver in order to learn if hypnosis would facilitate telepathic rapport. Eight teams of fourteen

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"hypnotized" and nine "nonhypnotized" teams completed the required six sessions of twenty-four trials; the four teams achieving statistical significance all belonged to the "hypnotized" group.

Honorton (1969:PA0881) gave suggestions for high scoring during hypnosis to affect magnitude of ESP deviation, and a paper-and-pencil test was used to predict scoring direction. For two combined experiments, the hypnosis condition yielded a difference between predicted high-and low- scoring Ss significant at the .0005 level. An additional series is reported in which the same procedure was used with waking rather than hypnotic suggestions, with marginal results.

Krippner (1968:PA13763) reported various studies concerning the use of hypnosis and hallucinatory drugs and creativity. Psychotherapy, academic proficiency, susceptibility, and time distortions are treated in relation to hypnotic manipulation of creativity. Studies concerning and personal opinions of users of mescaline, psilocybin, and LSD are cited indicating a feeling of greater sensitivity to creativity after use. As both drugs and hypnosis alter the state of the conscious, they may foster creative activity since it is basically preverbal and unconscious in origin, and may allow transcendence of inhibitory societal conditioning.

Ullman, Krippner, and Honorton (1969:PA13498) investigated telepatbic effects in REM sleep. A single S spent eight nights in the laboratory. On each night, a target (art print) was randomly selected by a staff member (agent) after S was in bed. The agent spent the night in a distant (93 feet) room, attempting to telepathically influence S's dreams, when the monitoring Es signalled that a REMP had begun. At the end of each REMP, S was awakened by the Es and a dream report was elicited and tape-recorded. Only the agent was aware of the target content and he remained in his room throughout the night. Transcripts of the eight dream protocols and copies of the eight targets were given to three independent judges who assessed correspondences ("blind") on a 1-100 scale. Results were significant at p = .001.

Fitzherbert (1971:07943) tried integrating an explanation of the phenomena described in works by W. Sargant, S. Blac, and N. Miller. Hypnosis is described as somewhat analogous to fetal life: the trance as regression to an infantile state, and the hypnotist as a mother figure. The hypothesis suggesting intimate mother-child communication prior to two years of age, which may be confused for ESP communication with God, is cited. In a deep trance, ESP abilities, freed from repression, increase telekinetic power. The interaction of telekinetic mental energy with another mental energy field may affect all matter. Therefore, visualizing physical healing by suggestion in deep hypnotic trances becomes the resultant produced by telekinetic

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activity. Similar mechanisms are described for autonomic learning and divine healing.

Krippner (1971:PA01235 and 17333) compared hypnosis and psychedelia, showing that they are not discrete entities, and that the latter can be reproduced by hypnotic induction. Von Castle (1970:PA13573) reviewed studies connecting hypnosis with ESP, and advanced the hypothesis that under proper conditions successful ESP scoring will be demonstrated under hypnosis.

We again feel it necessary to caution the reader that there is an important difference between a scientific discussion of psychological material and the (implied) advocacy of such behavior. One can discuss alcoholism or drug-abuse without the implication that one favors such behavior. Similarly, our discussion of various paranormal effects of trance (shortly to follow), does not imply our advocacy that readers attempt such behavior or experience. In our earlier effort (Gowan, 1974) we strongly advocated that the only proper path to psychedelia is through creative performance, and that only mature individuals in good mental health should attempt psychedelic adventures. We now wish to add that such experiments should be in the syntaxic, not the prototaxic mode. One should no more attempt contact with the numinous element in the prototaxic mode than one should fool around with high voltage electricity without suitable precautions and insulation. The fact that people have done so and lived to tell the tale is no guarantee of safety in either case.

To show that we are not alone in this attitude, we quote from an interview by Psychology Today(Oct. 1973:116) with Dr. Stanley Krippner:
 

People often ask me how they can learn to do telepathy or PK. My response is that I would first want to make sure that they had developed the capacity to love, to show compassion to other human beings, to have worthwhile human relationships. They should also engage in some sort of creative, fulfilling work. Next I would like to see them develop some sort of social consciousness, some way in which they can make a contribution toward making this a more humane world. Then if they want to develop their paranormal abilities, fine. But that goal ought to be pretty far down the list.

The remainder of this section will attempt a categorization of various paranormal aspects of trance. These are as follows:
 

1. (general introduction)
2. ESP, telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, psychometry
3. Hallucinations

4. Anesthesia of pain and healing
5. Fire-walking and other mastery over fire
6. Psychokinesis and Poltergeist Phenomena
7. Out-of-body (OOB) experience (magical flight)
8. Mob Contagion
9. Miscellaneous effects

We may observe this hierarchy by a "factor analysis" of "miracles" and "supernatural" events. Invariably it will be found that the principal factor relates to the invulnerability of the body by fire, wounds, disease, etc. A second factor has to do with the ability of the body to defy more prosaic physical laws (levitation, appearances at distances.) A third factor relates to the ability of the mind to gain knowledge not through sensory channels via telepathy, clairvoyance, psychic impression, etc. A fourth factor relates to curing of loved or valued individuals, a fifth to substance, the conservation of real wealth, and the provisions for feeding, clothing, and the general sustance of the individual, a sixth has to do with things (apports). There may be others.

2.42 ESP Effects

In the entire area of parapsychology nothing is clearer than that under trance conditions human beings can sometimes exercise extrasensory perceptions (ESP). These effects fall under three headings: telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition. The evidence for the former, alone, is absolutely overwhelming. Interestingly enough, while the trance state seems to be sufficient for ESP effects, they do occur in other situations where there is some relaxation of the cognitive hold, such as the hypnopompic and hypnagogic states between wakefulness and sleep, in dreams, in revery, fantasy, or other relaxed states, and occasionally even in the normal state. The most obvious explanation for all this is that extra-sensory perception is a rudimentary ability possessed by some persons, but apparently inhibited by some type of insulator in most. When this inhibitor is removed, as in the relaxed states described above, the ability if present is able to work freely.

It is the theme of this section that whenever the collective preconscious is encountered whether in trance or otherwise, numinous effects such as ESP will take place automatically. Such adventitious epiphenomena are commonly noticed in hypnotic, drug, and mediumistic and possession trances, and are also found in psychoanalysis. Eisenbud (1970) has presented a scholarly analysis of psi correspondences found in psychoanalytic sessions, mostly in cross-correspondences in the dreams of different patients of the same analyst. If in trance, dream, and creativity we all dip into the common well of the preconscious, it is not surprising that the water has the same taste.

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Fig. 2 Method of Telepathic Transmission

For those graphically-minded, Figure 2, which utilizes the generalized preconscious as a common substratum for telepathic transmission, may be consulted. In this figure, this generalized substratum, with complete impersonal intelligence and memory (somewhat like a giant computer) underlies all of human kind, and each of our individualized lives represents a projection of it into consciousness, much like a gigantic iceberg might push up spikes above the water. In order for us to experience free will, cognition, personality, and privacy, we are insulated from this preconscious mind by some kind of medium which gives us our sense of individual will and consciousness. This medium, however, is under some conditions permeable. In the transmission of telepathic messages for example, good visualization and strong motivation are very helpful. Ability to get into a state of revery may also be. When this juncture occurs the impulse is transmitted via this generalized substratum to the receiver, who appears to need some kind of "sensitivity" under most situations. Such an explanation for telepathy, also explains most other psychic powers as well. In conclusion, it should be emphasized that our individual minds are much like radio sending and receiving sets, and very slight adjustments (or tunings) are apparently all that is necessary to complete the circuit from sender to receiver. Naturally, such a diagram is somewhat an oversimplification of the process which differs slightly

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between telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition, and to which explication we now turn.

Masters and Houston (1966:114) point out the close relationship between various psychoactive drugs and various ESP effects:
 

Since very remote times there has existed a lore associating psychedelic and hallucinogenic drugs with a broad range of ESP and occult phenomena. Some of this lore undoubtedly refers to actual occurrences, but ones which may be understood without appealing to ESP. For example, the use of various Solanaceae derivatives by witches appears to make intelligible to us on a scientific level many phenomena formerly seen as involving elements of the supernatural.

On the other hand, there are legends and writings by old historians describing events that do not easily lend themselves to explanations acceptable to most present-day scientists. To take a very early example, it often has been suggested that the priestesses of some of the Greek oracles made use of hallucinogenic drugs to activate clairvoyant and other paranormal faculties. Descriptions of the behavior of the pythian priestesses of the oracle at Delphi lead the authors of this book to conclude that again one or more plants containing the Solanaceae drugs was employed.

Some of the most impressive of the more recent reports of "telepathic" (or clairvoyant) phenomena associated with psychedelic drugs involve a psychochemical found in the western Amazon region and first discovered in 1850. The narcotic derivative or group of closely related derivatives is known variously as ayahuasea, caapi, yage and telepathine. The principal alkaloid producing the psychedelic effects is probably harmine, but some other chemicals also seem to be involved in the production. Despite various studies over the years, caapi, etc., remains but poorly understood.

In 1927, Dr. William McGovern, assistant curator of South American Ethnology, Field Museum of Natural History, provided one of a number of reports attributing apparent "telepathic" powers to the individual ingesting a drink prepared from the Banisteriopsis caapi.⁴

Describing some of the effects of caapi, which he took with the natives of an Amazon village, McGovern wrote:

"Curiously enough, certain of the Indians fell into a particularly deep state of trance, in which they possessed what appeared to be telepathic powers. Two or three of the men described in great

detail what was going on in malokas hundreds of miles away, many of which they had never visited, and the inhabitants of which they had never seen, but which seemed to tally exactly with what I knew of the places.

The theory often underlying such use of the psycho-chemicals is that ESP is a natural faculty of mind that is inhibited or kept inoperative by the production of body chemicals developed in the course of human evolution to serve just that inhibitory purpose. The inhibiting chemicals, that is, served to prevent man from perceiving a "larger reality" that would be too distracting and so interfere with his survival and progress in the world. The "medium" or "sensitive," then, is a person whose body does not produce these chemicals in the normal amount and whose mind, therefore, is not normally inhibited. If, as has been argued, psychedelic drugs "inhibit the inhibitors," then the drug subject might be able to experience what the medium experiences.

Telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition have in common the conveying knowledge across space or time. They are grouped together because in an Einsteinian world, space-time is a continuum, and whatever explanations suffice for spatial translations, also suffice for temporal. Again, the mechanism is an impression on the generalized preconscious which exists throughout space-time:

Telepathy is a kind of intuition, a "direct knowledge of distant facts." "Telepathy produces full and clear impressions in a way that clairvoyance does not." "It is a swift process of knowing through being" (empathy) (Garrett, 1949:133).

Sinclair (1971:128) explains the methodology of telepathy as follows:
 

If you succeed in doing this, you will find it hard not to drop asleep. But you must distinguish between this and the state you are to maintain.... After you have learned to induce it, you will be able to concentrate on the idea instead of the rose, and to carry this idea into sleep with you, as the idea to dominate the subconscious while you are asleep. This idea taken into sleep in this way, will often act in the subconscious with the same power as the idea suggested by the hypnotist ... You can learn to carry an idea of the restoration of health into this auto-hypnotic sleep, to act powerfully during sleep.... But this is another matter, and not the state for telepathy - in which you must avoid dropping into a sleep. After you have practiced the exercise of concentrating on holding the peculiar blank state of mind which

must be achieved if you are to make successful experiments in telepathy.

Puharich (1961:1-14) believes that telepathic reception is facilitated by a state of "cholinergia" of "parasympathetic activation" in which there is an increase in the amount of acetylocholine released into the system (p. 5). He is also of the opinion (Ibid:15ff) that facilitation of the telepathic sending of the message is accomplished by "adrenergia" or an increase in the amount of adrenelin in the system. It is to the author's credit that throughout his book he attempts to explain paranormal phenomena by natural and physical laws or their extension, rather than by supernatural means.

Garrett (1968:10-12) distinguishes between telepathy and clairvoyance in that clairvoyance involves imagery and telepathy does not.

Trance states seem to facilitate but are not always necessary for an ESP effect of telepathy called a "psychic impression." These appear to he impressed by very strong motivation (in the part of the sender (often a death crisis) which seems to give the signal a strength which can be picked up by a receiver even in the normal state of consciousness. Stevenson (1970:2) in an examination of nearly ten thousand such extrasensory experiences, found that about fifty-five percent were dreams, about twenty-five percent were waking psychic impressions, and about twenty percent were waking sensory images. He gives summaries (p. 6) of 160 authenticated cases of such impressions, and later in the same book, examines thirty-five new cases, personally investigated. Of the 160 cases, males are more often agents (projectors) by sixty-one percent (p. 15); sixty-two percent concern an agentpercipient in close family relationship (p. 16); the agent is either dying or in serious danger in eighty-two percent (p. 19); the percipient is awake ninety percent of the time (p. 23). Myers (1961:267-76) has many accounts of psychic impressions.

An example, Stevenson (1970:60):

 
I returned to the dinner dishes still unwashed in the kitchen sink. Quite suddenly while I held a plate in my hand, an awesome feeling came over me. I dropped the plate, turned my eyes to heaven and prayed aloud, "Oh God, don't let her get killed." For some unexplainable reason, I knew Joicey had been hit by a car. . . . I went to the telephone and dialed the theater. "My little girl was on the way to the theater. She has had an accident. Was she badly hurt?". . .

Joicey remembers that at the time she was hit, she called, "Mama." She remembers sitting on the curb and crying and calling "Mama, I want my Mama."

Moss and Gengerelli (1969) attempted to replicate a study in which telepathy seemed to occur between two people isolated from each other, when "transmitter" (T) was emotionally aroused and "receiver" (R) was relaxed. In this study, seventy-two T-R teams were divided into three groups: "ESP",  "ESP?", and "non-ESP." Significant results were obtained with the ESP group. Post hoc regrouping of teams into "artists" and "nonartists" gave highly significant results for "artists."

While telepathy occurs in mediumship and under the use of psychoactive drugs, the most common trance inducer for experimental work in telepathy is hypnosis. Tart (1968) investigated ESP experiences in mutual hypnosis. Granone (1968) found all states of hypnosis facilitated ESP. RyzI and Balounova (1969) found that in 8,000 trials the level of hits on IBM cards was about as high during the waking state as during hypnotic trance for a high scoring ESP subject (p = .01). Krippner (1969) in an experimental study of hypnosis and telepathy, found that hypnosis facilitated telepathy. It must be admitted that the hypnotic enhancement of telepathy is not strong; this may be due to the fact that telepathy (such as the calling of the Zener cards) seems more a function of the developed paranormal powers of a given individual than it seems to be facilitated by a trance state.
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Clairvoyance is much like telepathy, but appears to consist of a picture where telepathy consists of a message. Some psychics believe that the two ESP effects operate very differently. For example, mediums who are often clairvoyant, report traveling clairvoyance in which they purport while out of the body to visit distant places and return with mental pictures of situations and events there taking place. While this is a striking phenomenon, it is well authenticated, both for trance mediums, and in some rarer cases, in the waking state.

Probably the most famous example of clairvoyance is the incident in which Swedenborg, while in Gothenburg, clairvoyantly saw and described the progress of the great Stockholm fire. The account (Prince, 1963:48) goes on:
 

About six o'clock Swedenborg went out and returned to the company pale and alarmed. He said that a dangerous fire had just broken out in Stockholm ... and was spreading very fast. He was restless and went out often. He said that the home of one of his friends, whom he named, was in ashes, and that his

own was in danger. At eight o'clock after he had been out again, he joyfully exclaimed, "Thank God, the fire is extinguished, the third door from my house."

Clairvoyance is less easy to deal with experimentally than some other ESP aspects, and there has been less research. Casler (1967) found a slight elevation in clairvoyance hits in hypnosis, and a slight depression in waking scores. Krippner (1971) in two clairvoyant perception of art figure targets in ASC states got two critical ratios lower than p = .05. Parker and Beloff (1971), attempting to replicate an earlier study by Honorton and Stump on hypnotically-induced clairvoyant dreams, were partly successful. Again, here the evidence while generally confirmatory is neither strong nor profuse.
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Because we are "clutched into" time, precognition, of all the powers, seems the most mysterious. But the collective preconscious does not exist in our time but in the eternal now, and, consequently, it has access to future as well as past. Prince (1963:136) tells the famous story of Goethe's predictive vision of himself in later life. Riding a horse when about twenty, he saw himself on horseback on the path coming toward him dressed "in a suit such as I had never worn." He did wear the suit later when riding over the same route.

Premonitions of death, such as the dream Lincoln had before his assassination. A similar premonition (Prince, 1963:256) caused Schumann to change the title of a composition to "The Funeral Fantasy." Premonitions are often about imminent events,¹⁸ and as such bear a striking relationship to psychic impressions, for they are about an event about to occur in a different time, while the psychic event is about an event about to occur in a different space.

There has been very little research on precognition in the psychological laboratory. Indeed it must be admitted that in general, the trance states do not give easy clinical evidence of ESP. This may well be due to the fact that a conscious ego is necessary for the memorability involved. It is notable in this argument that telepathy seems to occur much more often in dreams and in some of the higher ASC's than in trance.

2.43 Hallucinations
2.431 General

The term "hallucination" has unfortunately become a pejorative word, suggesting that through ill mental health or for other untoward

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reasons the individual saw "things" which were not there. Notice, for example, the difference in affective loading with regard to the word "visions," which is, at least, neutral with regard to the versimilitude of the theophany offered to a saint. In this book, in keeping with an attempt at scientific inquiry, we shall use the term "hallucination" without this associated stigma, making no judgment as to the external reality. To those who may reply that this vitiates the definition of a hallucination as a sensory impression for which there is no physical medium, we would reply that consistent with our theories it is possible that the individual is apprehending an object in non-ordinary reality. It is also possible that the aura of some entity can under trance-conditions act directly on the temporal lobe. None of this is of course proved; it is merely mentioned to show that since we do not know all the possible mechanisms involved in this situation, we are bound, as Laplace said, to investigate all the associated phenomena with increasing care, and we might add, without preconceived bias.

Solomon and Mendelson (West, 1962:141) define a hallucination as:
 

a sensory experience without basis in reality." It differs from an analogy which is an experience reported with the preface "it feels like." It differs from a daydream which is "a voluntary thought concerning events in the past or anticipated in the future." If differs from fantasy which reports an experience with recognition of its unreality. It differs from pseudosomatic delusions which are "a feeling of altered body sensations preceded by "as if." Finally, it differs from an illusion which is a "misperception of an actual perceptual experience."

Solomon and Mendelson (West, 1962:142) say further that a hallucination is a "sense perception without external basis," which implies "lack of insight into the false sensory impression." It is furthermore spontaneous and unwilled, and is experienced "as arising outside the self." They believe (lbid:143) that the reason hallucinations occur in sensory deprivation is that the maintenance of optimum conscious awareness "depends on a necessary state of alertness, which in turn is dependent on a constant stream of changing stimuli."

A vision is a hallucinatory-type experience, which differs from a hallucination, however, in the following ways:

 
1. whereas a hallucination occurs under conditions of trance, schizophrenia, dissociation, delirium, hypnopompic, or other similar altered states of consciousness, a vision occurs under a normal (or higher) state of consciousness;

2. whereas it is considered that a person having a hallucination under an altered state of consciousness would not have it if in the normal state, no such assumption can be made in the case of a vision, or stated another way, whereas there is presupposition that the stimuli causing hallucinations are not externally real and are due to disorder in the brain, no similar presupposition is entertained in the case of visions.
 

Hallucinations according to Arieti (1967:281) have three characteristics:
 

1. perceptualization of the concept
2. projection of inner experience to the external world
3. extreme difficulty in correcting the erroneous experience.

Arieti (1967:300) points out that Sullivan's "parataxic distortion" occurs when past reaction patterns are applied to present situations (such as confusing the doctor with one's father).

Will (West, 1962:177) points out that dissociated thinking and ideation including hallucinations may occur in perfectly normal people in circumstances not requiring a completely sane mood by reason of security, such as:

(1) unguarded behavior in the presence of close friends;
(2) in impermanent situations when one does "not care" as in brief encounters with strangers while traveling;
(3) in the presence of those who do not require conventional behavior (as an infant, or an animal);
(4) drug-induced cortical activity alteration;
(5) in sleep;
(6) fatigue;
(7) in prolonged isolation.

West (1962:279) points out that in normal consciousness the scanning of sensory input inhibits hallucinatory activity. But when this sensory input is much diminished "its organizing effect upon the screening and scanning mechanism then decreases" with a consequent breakthrough of former perceptual traces and memories stored in the brain. This can give rise to fantasy, daydreams, or in some cases to hallucinations. He believes (Ibid:289) that the same mechanisms which make dreams and hallucinations possible in light sleep may also apply under certain conditions as outlined above to the waking state. In hypnosis, monotony, or trance, attention can be sufficiently withdrawn to permit the occurence of hallucinations.

Reef (1972:58) reports that experimental studies of hallucination fall into three main categories (a) the elicitation of responses to hallucinatory stimuli, (b) hallucinations as the effects of an experimental situation, and (c) personality characteristics of hallucinators. Type (a) involves set or expectancy, and are probably not hallucinatory at all. Type (b) particularly noted with sensory deprivation and drugs

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are probably of the hypnagogic variety. Type (c), the study of the personality of hallucinators has been more productive. Reed observes that "people who readily experience imagery find (no) difficulty in discriminating between their images and perceptions of external reality." (P. 63) Field- dependence which involves the "weakening of ego boundaries" (commonly found in schizophrenics) seems to be characteristic of hallucinators.

Reed (1972:66) also discriminated between imagery, illusion, and hallucination. The first "involves the perceptual reconstruction of stored material." The second "the misinterpretation of input in terms of its synthesis with stored material" and the third "the perceptual reconstruction of stored material and its misinterpretation in terms of input."

Modell (West, 1962:172) speculates that auditory hallucinations may reflect a stage in the development of the super-ego from the ego in which the super-ego is externalized and heard as a voice. He points out that Freud implied such a situation (Ibid:166).

Stoyva (Miller and others 1973:491-501) in an update of West's views points out (ibid:498) that muscle relaxation and "passive volition" are critical in the induction of the hypnagogic revery state in which vivid imagery and hallucinations are likely to occur. This receptive mode of consciousness is necessary for both creativity and meditation; in this connection Stoyva refers to the research of Gellhorn on trophotropic muscle relaxation (ibid:488) which appears to make possible openings to the preconscious (see section 4.42).

Hallucination is an old word, from Latin allucinatio, which means a wandering of the mind. It has been used in English since the Middle Ages for the medical phenomenon of seeing or hearing percepts which did not occur in nature, hence a delusion of the senses. By adjunction and prejudice, the word early grew to include perception of psychic events which did not occur in physical space and time. There developed, hence, a presupposition that anyone who reported such a percept was ipso facto mentally unbalanced. Naturally this perjorative view kept a good deal of the experience of psychic phenomena the secret of the individual to whom it occurred, often with anxiety which may well have produced the very mental ill health with which society had branded the hallucinatory experience in the first place.

As Fischer (1974:30-1) notes, prior to the Renaissance, people did not hallucinate, they had visions, which society accepted as disclosures from on high. We have retained some of this double standard, so that even today we are more likely to speak of a schizophrenic as hallucinating, and St. Teresa as having visions. It is seen also in the fact that despite the evidences of hallucinations in the schizo-

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phrenic, the drunkard, and the delirious invalid, when Edmund Gurney undertook his famous study of psychic events in 1882 for the English Society for Psychical Research, he called it "the census of hallucinations." Fischer (1974:31) reports:
 

Today the clinical concept of hallucinations is based on the definition of Lhermitte: "perceptions without an object" or a grin without the (Cheshire) cat. Unfortunately Lhermitte's definition is as meaningless as "perceptions without a subject" since both statements deny that perceptions result from an interaction between observer and observed. It is easy to see today that Lhermitte's definition was conceived in the true spirit of a mechanized hard-working austere, scientific-the puritan-protestant, and end-of-the-19th Century ethic which denies the reality of imagery if that imagery is not elicited "mechanically," i.e., in response to outside, or "real," that is "material," stimuli.

Perception may be described in Plato's words as "that which is always becoming and never is," an optimization of information out of which invariants and identity emerge as permanence within change.^1-3 It should be emphasized, however, that perceptions occur at normal levels of arousal, i.e., those connected with daily routine activities. But when the level of (subcortical) arousal rises - as it does during dreaming or the rapid-eye-movement sleep (REM - whether such an arousal was induced naturally or, for instance, through hallucinogenic drugs, perceptions become transformed into what we moderns call 'hallucinations'.⁴ It is well to remember that with rising levels of arousal man's ability to verify with his hands and feet an experience as "real" is gradually diminished and ultimately blocked. Evidently the experience of "reality" is a touchy subject in that the proof of the sensory pudding is in the motor eating.

Hence in perception "appearances of things are transformed into things that appear" - a mixture of thoughts and images whereas in hallucinations "things that appeared are represented as appearances of things." ⁵ What are these appearances? They are vivid visuo-spatial or audio-spatial images and they can be accounted for by recent research findings which indicate that during hyper-arousal (as well as hypo- or, in the terminology of Hess, trophotropic arousal) information processing is gradually shifted toward the non-verbal, visuo-spatial, symbol-laden, or "minor" brain hemisphere.^6-8 [his footnotes]

de Morsier (1970) in a review of hallucinatory activity discusses (a) physiological and psychological explanations for hallucinations; (b) hallucinations due to localized cerebral lesions; (c) hallucinations due to diencephalic crises allied to somatic problems, called the "Charles Bonnet syndrome"; and (d) the relationships between hallucinations and psychedelic drugs.

We should note in passing the considerable similarity of hallucinations to dream material. Indeed hallucinations can be considered the intrusion of dreaming into the ordinary waking state. It is possible that whatever else stimulates the cortex in dreaming may also sometimes stimulate it in waking, and one then experiences a hallucination. It is also possible that there is an inhibitor of such internal stimuli systems in normal waking state, but that under unusual conditions the "inhibitor is itself inhibited" and the hallucination results.

Obviously all kinds of psychic and psychedelic experience can be considered as hallucinations, including the out-of-body experience of shamanistic and other trance, the psychedelic sensations of the psychoactive drug taker, the adventures of the patient under hypnosis, the visions of delirium, the voices of possession, and many of the effects of mediumship, to name but a few. We shall notice a few of the various types, others having been considered under their respective headings.

2.432 Auditory Hallucinations

Hearing voices has been a traditional symptom of schizophrenia. There are however, numerous accounts of hearing a voice under conditions of higher ecstasy (see section 4.72), and very few of these percipients could be called schizophrenic. Disturbances of the inner ear may also account for the phenomenon, and it seems to occur in many otherwise normal persons in the hypnopompic state. Such individual will report being awakened by a gong, bell, or buzzer when in fact there was no such external sound. Plain suggestibility should not be ruled out. Spanos and Barber (1969) found that half of a hundred student nurses reported hearing a suggested auditory hallucination.

West (1960) distinguished between visionary and hallucinatory experience, that is between the hallucinations of mentally sound persons and psychotics as follows: hallucinations of the mentally sound appeared to be unique experiences, of a visual nature and strongly remembered; whereas those of psychotics appeared to be chronic and recurring experiences, of auditory nature, and only vaguely remembered.

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2.433 Visual Hallucinations

Visual hallucinations appear to occur under a great variety of circumstances, but they are especially found as a result of drug ingestion. These bizarre experiences have been given so much attention in the drug-related literature, that we will simply refer the reader to popular available sources, such as Tart (1969 and 1971), Masters and Houston (1966), A. Weil (1972), G. Weil and others (1971), and Huxley (1963).

Out-of-body experiences can also be considered as visual hallucinations. There is a very considerable literature on this subject also: Myers (1903), Muldoon (1929, 1970), Tyrrell (1961), Casteneda (1972), Crookall (1964), 1966,1970), Monroe (1971), and Gowan (1974:16-21). Another type of visual hallucination is the apparition. Again, the literature is replete with such material of which we mention Tyrrell (1961) and Myers (1903) as classics.

We return, however, to a discussion of hallucinations under trance states.

Malitz and others (West, 1962:60-1) believe it unlikely that visual hallucinations require the retina; instead they appear formed by the stimulation of the temporal lobe of the cortex. Some psychoactive drugs may have this effect, as do some of the acute organic psychoses, for example delirium tremens, as well as schizophrenia, which, however, is more likely to produce auditory hallucinations.

Feinberg (West, 1962:65) points out that the visual hallucinations produced by mescaline and LSD appear identical, certain visual figures such as lattice-work, tunnels, and spirals being constantly reported.

Baldwin (West, 1962:81) quotes Penfield and Jaspers as saying: "Psychical hallucinations bear the same relationship to the superior and lateral surfaces of the temporal lobes that sensory seizures do to the sensory areas of the cortex." One might conclude from this that any agency capable of stimulating the proper area of the temporal cortex of an individual, can produce any type of hallucination in that individual. If we admit the possibility of such stimulation by other than material means, we at once explain many types of psychic events.

Shurley (West, 1962:89) tells us that Boismont in 1859 described three types of hallucinations, (1) normal occurring in healthy individuals, (2) those occurring in the insane, and (3) those reported by the blind. Galton also studied hallucinations, and noted that "the mere act of fasting, want of sleep, and of solitary musing are usually conducive to visions."

2.434 Hypnagogic Hallucinations

There are various theories as to why the hypnagogic and hypnopompic states are so rich in reported hallucinations. One is

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that since waking occurs shortly afterwards, it is easier to remember them. Another is that the ego is particularly open to psychic impressions during this period. A third is that dream material is essentially hallucinatory, and its persistence into the hypnopompic state may result in remembered hallucinations. Viscott (1970) believes that some drugs such as chlordiazepoxide may encourage this persistence of hallucinatory material into the waking state. Fischer and others (1970) after using hallucinogenic drugs of volunteers believe that hallucinations may be better described as "sensations without action" instead of as "perceptions without an object." Tauber and Green (1959:42) report on Silberer's classic experiments in hypnagogic imagery:
 

In analyzing this experience, Silberer states that it consisted really of two conditions - drowsiness and an effort to think. The drowsiness is a passive condition, not subject to the will; the effort to think is an active condition, manipulatory by the will. It is thus the struggle between these two antagonistic conditions that elicits what Silberer calls the autosymbolic phenomenon. He describes it as an hallucinatory experience which puts forth automatically as it were, an adequate symbol for what is thought or felt at a given instant.

This occurs only in the transitory state known as the hypnagogic. Tauber and Green continue (1959:45):
 

What Silberer describes as the autosymbolic experience corresponds closely to what has often been described as the work of intuitive insight or creative insight. The individual reaches a period of drowsiness, stagnation, or difficulty in thinking and then, as though coming to him, outside his command of it, a vivid image or half - formed idea at the kernel of the insight presents itself to him. From there on he begins to take command and to elaborate the half-formed notions or images into fully formed thought.

In dreams ... (involving) autosymbolic hallucinations ... the symbol appears as a substitute for something which one could under normal circumstances clearly grasp ... a thought which in daytime would be entirely clear presents itself in dreams, etc., symbolically.

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of sensory deprivation appear to be a type of hypnagogic imagery.

The psychedelic experience whether that of the dying, those in OOB excursions, or peak experiences is often accompanied by the hearing of celestial music, apparently played at a distance, and sweeter than any mortal music according to the hundred cases assembled by Rogo (1970).

2.435 Hallucinations under Sensory Deprivation¹⁹

The phenomena reported by subjects in sensory deprivation studies have been termed "hallucinations", "images," and "reported sensations." The term "hallucinations" may be further broken down into either visual hallucinations or auditory hallucinations. Due to the lack of agreement on terminology used to describe phenomena experienced in sensory deprivation, Murphy, Myers, and Smith (1965) coined the phrases "reported visual sensation" or "reported auditory sensation" (RVS, or RAS) as a generic term for all the phenomena. Distinction between "real" or "imagined" phenomena in a darkness-silence experiment is relatively easy. In the perceptual deprivation experiments, however, a distinction between illusion and hallucination must be made. In this case illusion defines the distortion of a real object. Distinctions between waking hallucinations, hypnagogic hallucinations, dreams, fantasies, day-dreams, and images are somewhat more difficult. The distinction between the first three types of phenomena depend upon the subject's degree of wakefulness. All three types may occur during different levels of consciousness; therefore the only reliable method of determining the level of arousal is by electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings. Evidence states that SD phenomena are most likely to occur during states of high or medium arousal. Distinctions between hallucinations, fantasies, daydreams, and images are difficult and must be made by the subject's reported quality of the phenomena and his reactions to them. Distinctions, however, made according to subject verbalizations must depend upon introspective criteria.

Leiderman (1962) developed a questionnaire which offers a systematized method for interpreting verbal reports.

Murphy, Myers, and Smith (1963) developed a reliable system for scoring reported visual stimuli or RVSs from verbal reports. Those phrases which contain the verb "see" or a synonym of the verb may be considered statements of RVSs. Other verbs such as "imagine" or "think" do not qualify as RVSs.

Visual hallucinations are distinguished from RVSs by Suefeld and Vernon (1961). To be considered an hallucination Suefeld and Vernon state that the RVS must possess:

(1) uncontrollability of onset, content, and termination;
(2) "out thereness";
(3) scanability; and
(4) apparent reality (Zubek, 1969, p. 94).

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Hallucinations may be further classified as Type A, unstructured, uninterpreted, vague, diffuse light, and geometric forms; and Type B, meaningful interpreted objects and forms, animate objects, complex structured images (see Zuckerman and Cohen, 1964a).

Auditory sensations have also been categorized into two feasible types. Type A includes "all kinds of interpretations of noise"; and Type B which is "restricted to the sounds of human voices, human presence, or music."

Research has shown sensory deprivation hallucinations to be similar to drug-induced hallucinations (see Malitz, Wilkens, and Escover, 1962; Cohen, Silverman, and Shamavonian, 1962a; Kluver, 1942; and Feinberg, 1962), notably those hallucinations caused by d-lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD). This similarity is due to the fact that both SD and LSD impair normal sensory transmission while increasing the level or arousal.

The types of hallucinations experienced during sensory deprivation and LSD experiences are also similar. Subjective reports of phenomena content for both SD and LSD are somewhat alike (e.g., abstract and geometrical forms, lattice work, flashes, and human, animal, and familiar forms).

Malitz, Wilkens, and Esecover (1962) found that the percentage of subjects reporting Type B RVSs under drugs was within the percentage range of the Type B RVSs reported by sensory deprivation subjects. It has been found, however, that drug-induced hallucinations were more vivid in color and contained more detailed visual imagery than sensory deprivation-induced hallucinations.

Feinberg (1962) noted that both drug-induced and SD hallucinations "are more readily seen with eyes closed or in darkened surroundings. This fact is interesting in that it suggests that both drug and sensory deprivation phenomena may depend upon or result from reduced perceptual input" (Zubek, 1969, p. 122). In later research (see Vernon, 1961) it was found that SD had a facilitation effect on learning which was strongest after 24 hours of sensory deprivation.

In contrast to the findings discussed above, Manitoba studies (see Zubek, Sansom, and Prysiazniuk, 1960; Zubek, et al, 1963; Zubek and MacNeill, 1966) found that the performance of control groups was "significantly further in the direction of improvement than that in the performance of the experimental group" (Zubek, 1969, p. 425).

Psychoanalytic personality theory as applied to sensory deprivation (see Azima, Lemieux, and Cramer-Azima, 1962; Goldberger and Holt, 1958; Goldfried, 1960; Kubie, 1961; and Miller, 1962) has found that
 

Sensory deprivation cuts the ego off from reality resulting in

an increase in primary-process thinking (alogical, hallucinatory), an upsurge of influence from the id (aggressive and sexual impulses), and regression, in prolonged SD.
 

Loss of reality orienting cues, change in body image, and the loss of sensimotor and sensorideational integration may all contribute to an over-all decrease in ego integration and control, and to an externalization of inner psychic activity to the extent that it becomes reality.

2.436 Hallucinations Associated with Death of Agent

There is a considerable literature (Prince, 1963; Stevenson, 1970) showing that psychic impressions can be conveyed from an agent to a receiver (see Figure II, and Gowan 1974:12). Sometimes such experiences are more than mere impressions, and become auditory or visual hallucinations. Instead of having a psychic or telepathic impression of the projector, the percipient "sees" him; in other words, there is an apparition or phantasm. We are not concerned here with whether this "double" is "real" or an hallucination; hopefully, we have said enough about "reality" previously so that it is recognized as a more complex matter than might be supposed. This type of activity associated with death is also remarkably common. The modal experience is the transitory appearance of the dying individual to a distant friend or relation. More rarely there is auditory experience, and sometimes the phenomena takes place when the percipient is dreaming. While more spectacular, this experience is closely akin to the former psychic impression except that for some reason whatever stages such phenomena has been able to bring in one of the five senses.

Prince gives an account (1963:164), this time vouched for by no less than Victor Hugo, in which an old lady and her daughter were talking about an elderly friend:

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"I shall go and see her today," (said the daughter, Mme. Guerard).
"It will do no good ... she has been dead for an hour," (said the mother, Mme Guerin).
"What are you saying? ... Are you dreaming?" (said Mme. Guerard).
"No, I am wide awake, and I have not slept all night; as it struck four o'clock, I saw Mme. Lanne pass, and she said to me:
'I am going; are you coming?'
The daughter went to see Mme. Lanne, but the woman had died in the night ...
Mme. Guerin died the next day at noon.

Prince gives thirty of these cases alone, some involving very famous persons (1968:16, 30, 32 Linneaus, 34 Maxium, 38, 41, 44, 60, 66, 72, 75, 77, 88 Garibaldi, 95 Oberegon, 98, 100, 116 Tallmadge, 131, 151, Belasco, 161, 163 Victor Hugo, 187, 203, 205, 231, 248, 262 Bizet, 265 Rubenstein, and 278). Other cites include Osborn (1966:65:SPR XIX), and Myers (1961:202-60) where many instances are given.

The rationale for this kind of experience is well given by EvansWentz (1967:166) in his discussion of the joining of the individual spirit with "the Clear Light of the Void." Similar to the hypnagogic state just preceding sleep, this juncture of the individual and the general mind allows the individual's last desires to be projected over the general network, and thus to be manifested at a distance. As Russell Noyes of Iowa University put it in an examination of dying persons' feelings (Time, Dec. 4, 1972, p. 64), this kind of experience is not unlike mystical states of consciousness. Noyes also found the oft-reported syndrome of "the past flashing before the eyes of the dying person." (See also Crookall 1970:115).

Edwards (1969:124) tells a fascinating story about an historic visual hallucination. The Bishop of Grosswarden could not sleep on the night of June 27, 1914, so he went to his study to read. He noticed there a small note, edged in black by the lamp; reading it he recognized the coat-of-arms of the Archduke who had studied with him years before. The note was dated Sarajevo, June 28, and said that the Archduke and his wife has been the victims of a political crime. Greatly agitated the Bishop called his servant to demand where the note had come from. When the servant came, the note was nowhere to be seen; it had vanished without trace. Admitting that he may have experienced a strange hallucination, and agitated still, the Bishop wrote down the contents of the note from memory on the spot. Ten hours later the Archduke was assassinated, starting World War 1.

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2.437 Critique and Conclusions

Hallucinations appear to occur under all types of trance experience, spirit possession, mediumship, shamanism, hypnosis, psychoactive drugs, and sensory deprivation. They also appear to occur rather uniquely outside of trance to "normal" persons when there is sufficient psychic pressure (such as the death of a friend or relative). Whether one is dealing with the voices of spirit possession, and mediumship, the magical flights and other out-of-body experiences of the shaman, the induced hallucinators of the hypnotist, the psychedelic colors of the drug-user, or similar visual imagery in sensory deprivation, the diversity and universality of such imagery is evident.

Nash (1972) in a review with seventy-one cites, covers the considerable evidence for relationships between medical or psychiatric practice and parapsychology, including faith healing, death bed hallucinations, psychopathology, telepathy, and drugs. He notes West's (1960) distinction between the hallucinations of psychotics and those in good mental health. Psychotics' hallucinations are generally auditory, occur often, are vague, and reflect illness, while the others are visual, unique, remembered, and received in health. He notes that Duane and Behrendt (1965) found that when alpha was induced in one identical twin it was found in the other who was in another room. He quotes Bendit (1943) on psychic behavior of schizophrenics, and quotes Fodor that dissociation is the basis of poltergeist phenomena.

L. Rhine (1967) has offered an ingenious explanation of 137 cases of hallucinatory pain in which the experiencing person had a physiological effect which corresponded with one suffered by a target person who was concurrently undergoing a crisis unknown to the experiencing person. The process which produces the hallucinatory pain seemed similar to other types of hallucination, and also connected with sympathetic psi experiences.

And no less a researcher than Cyril Burt (1967) in a review of paranormal and hallucinatory experience concludes:
 

Quantitative experiments on the nature and frequency of hallucinatory experiences and the phenomena of mediumship revealed that:

(1) hallucinations of normal Ss differed markedly from those of neurotic and psychotic Ss,
(2) the state of mediumship greatly resembled those of autohypnosis and dissociated personality, and
(3) evidence of telepathy is quite strong, for clairvoyance nearly as strong, for precognition somewhat weaker, and for survival positive but inconclusive.

Doubts about the validity of the results are based chiefly on their antecedent improbability and are largely removed if thought of in terms of quantum physics and recent neurological discoveries. The processes involved are likely to be psychological rather than physical, and normal and natural rather than paranormal or supernatural.
 

Fischer (1974:32) connects hallucinations with the image-making of the right hemisphere in stating:
 

Information processing during hallucinatory or inner experiences is predominantly shifted to the non-rational, intuitive, symbolic, Platonic spaces of the "minor" hemisphere. A very similar situation prevails during dreaming, i.e., mainly during the REM-state of sleep. We have to wake up to ascertain that the experience has been "only" an inner experience. During both hallucinations and dreaming the sustained high level of (subcortical) arousal that is bound to culminate in "over-inclusion" may be the result of an inability to separate symbolization from rational thinking, or in other words, to distinguish the analog from the digital.

The right hemisphere's image-making ability (see sections 4.14 and 4.5) may be connected with the parataxic image explicated in dreams, myth, and particularly art (sections 3.3, 3.4, and 3.6).
Fischer (1974:32) concludes:
 

It has to be emphasized that hallucinatory and dream experiences may have strong symbolic significance for the individual in relation to his unresolved (and sometimes unresolvable) problems. Such problems closely resemble certain mythical patterns, that is they center around unresolved (and sometimes unresolvable) "archetypal" problems of the human condition.

If one believes in the primacy of sense experience, then hallucinations must be regarded as a psychotic-type irregularity, and the person who reports them suspect of mental illness. On the other hand if we remember that the physical sensorium is dependent upon the normal state of consciousness, then it becomes possible to believe that hallucinations are percepts for which there may be no physical data, but possibly data appropriate to those states. We shall find there is more to say on this wider view in the subsequent chapters.

While hallucinations occur most often to schizophrenics, and those in trance, it is incontestable that visions occur to normal persons both in the ordinary state of consciousness, and under parataxic and particularly syntaxic conditions. The peak experience, for example, the "illuminations" described in Bucke (1923), the visions of the saints, even the inspiration of creative imagination, are all so near to auditory or visual hallucinations as to force us to realize that the explanation for these experiences lies outside the prototaxic characteristics of

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trance. The most likely explanation, it seems to us, is that any contact with the numinous element involves the possibility of hallucination, and that the type of hallucination will depend upon the mode of contact, and the mental mechanism of the individual involved. We shall, of course, defer the exploration of these "higher" visions until later in the book, but simple truth requires that mention here be made of the total extent and range.

2.44 Healing and the Conquest of Pain²⁰

2.441 General

One of the substantial public benefits of the prototaxic contact with the numinous element lies in its by-product of the conquest of pain and the consequent aspects of healing. We find this aspect well-high universal in trance states in various cultures. Whether it is the primitive savage who by means of an orgiastic dance makes "hot medicine" and then can touch and heal, or the possessed medium who may do the same or offer advice on how healing can be accomplished, or the shaman who often performs healing at his touch, or in our own culture the hypnotist with his ability to control pain, or the drug-curing sessions of South America, the uniform result appears to be that having undergone a great deal of discomfort, the trancer is enabled to cure himself or somebody else.

The difference between prototaxic healing, parataxic healing, and syntaxic healing lies in the different ways each mode approaches the numinous element. In the prototaxic mode the approach is through trance, in the parataxic mode the approach is through ritual, and in the syntaxic mode it is through celebration (i.e. orthocognition). In each case the healing is occasioned by the juncture with the numinous. Remembering the relationship of these several forms, let us now investigate prototaxic healing effects. Since healing is of such practical importance, one could devote a book to such aspects of healing as the miracles at Lourdes, Guadalupe, etc., or the examples of prototaxic healing seen in savage group trance dances. But we shall confine our discussions of it to three areas:

(1) Folk healing in America using drugs, etc.,
(2) the work of shamans, especially in psychic surgery, and
(3) the alleviation of pain by hypnotic intervention.²¹
 

Before getting at the literature in this area, it is important to notice that there has been a considerable change in our attitude toward illness in the last hundred years due primarily to the development of western medicine, so that we do not recall that the point of view of our rural ancestors a couple of centuries ago was similar to that

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obtaining in many other cultures today - namely that illness has a psychic origin.

Frank (1963:38) describes how the primitive feels about illness:

 
Illnesses tend to be viewed as symbolic expressions of internal conflicts or of disturbed relationships to others, or both. Thus they may be attributed to soul loss, possession by an evil spirit, the magical insertion of a harmful body by a sorcerer, or the machinations of offended or malicious ancestral ghosts. It is usually assumed that the patient laid himself open to these calamities through some witting or unwitting transgression against the supernatural world, or through incurring the enmity of a sorcerer or someone who has employed a sorcerer to wreak revenge. . . .

Dobkin (now de Rios) (1970,1971a, 1971b, 1972) has done extensive research on the healing in South America by curandos with the aid of the psychedelic drug ayahuasca (which contains harmaline). The drug is not the curative agent, but gives the healer entry into the psychic world and hence an understanding of the cause of the disease, enabling him to neutralize the magic responsible for the disease. The actual curing includes singing, whistling, and other ceremonies. The main locus of the usage of this essence of the liana vine is in the upper Amazon and Orinoco rivers, where it is taken for oracular and predictive aid, as well as for disease.

2.443 Shamanistic Psychic Surgery

One of the most spectacular manifestations of the shaman's art (and one of the most controversial) is psychic surgery. According to claims by some shamans and reports by onlookers, the shaman using only his hands, opens up the body of the afflicted person, and extracts "something" from it. He then closes up the wound in a similar way and the patient quickly heals and is cured. Shamans have been claiming this feat for a long time, but recent attention has been focused on the subject by reports of psychic surgery in South America and the Philippines.

Eliade (1964:256-7) describes psychic surgery:
 

Often they undertake an "operation" that preserves all its shamanic character. With a ritual knife duly "heated" by certain magical exercises, the shaman professes to open the patient's body to examine his internal organs and remove the cause of illness. Bogoras even witnesses an "operation" of this kind. A boy of fourteen lay naked on the ground and his mother, a celebrated shamaness, opened his abdomen, the blood and gaping

flesh were visible; the shamaness thrust her hand deep into the wound. During all the time the shamaness felt as though she were on fire, and constantly drank water. A few moments later the wound had closed, and Bogoras could detect no trace of it. Another shaman, after drumming for a long time to "heat" his body and his knife to a point at which, he said, the cut would not be felt, opened his own abdomen. Such feats are frequent through North Asia and they are connected with the "mastery over fire," for the same shamans who gash their bodies are able to swallow burning coals and to touch white hot iron.
 

After a careful on-site investigation of Agpaoa, the spiritualist healer of the Philippines, and his alleged feats of psychic surgery without use of instruments, anesthesia, or pain, Valentine (1973:122) comes to the conclusion that while there may sometimes be fraud in such surgery, there are also cases which cannot be explained by western medicine. Valentine feels that such healing is akin to acupuncture and adjusts the flow of pranic energy through the chakra centers of the vital (etheric) body. In this sense it is akin to Kirlian photography of aura in faith healers' fingertips.

Commenting upon Agpaoa's ability to do surgery without sepsis, Valentine (1973:125) states that he "cannot doubt that their powers kill germs in some fashion." He points to similar experiments conducted by Sister Justa of Rosary Hills College which have shown that healers' hands can indeed affect enzyme activity.

2.444 Hypnotic Control of Pain

More understandable to western minds is the increasing literature on hypnotic control of pain. A sampling from this literature will be useful. Kienle (1968) noted that hypnotic pain management involved a shift from subjective body awareness to an object-to-object relationship. Sacerdote (1970) studied pain control in malignancy through hypnosis. Schenck (1967) noted the ability of hypnotherapy to deal with cataract. Duensing (1968) found parallels between surgical leukotomy and hypnosis in managing pain. Von Bekesy (1971) discussed the physiology of pain anesthesia. Bachet (1970) investigated the use of hypnotherapy with phantom limb pain. Ferguson (1973) devotes chapter 5 to the inner control of pain.

Hilgard (1973), with his usual scholarship has produced a "neodissociative interpretation" of pain reduction in hypnosis, which extends

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some of the dissociative aspects of the "gate theory" of Melzack and Wall (1965). While a short reprise cannot do justice to the nuances of the full article which should be studied in its entirety, Hilgard believes that:
(1) there are two receptor processes for pain;
(2) the central process can modify pain perception;
(3) the most modifiable aspect of pain is the suffering;
(4) the least modifiable aspect is the information.

While hypnotic intervention seems quite effective for the eradication of symptoms of physical pain, it also appears to have benefits in the disappearance of mental anxieties and phobias, and other distressing symptoms, ranging from obesity to the improvement of sight and reading ability. Hypnotherapy apparently involves the control of dissociation, which according to Webster is "the separation of an idea or desire from the mainstream of consciousness." Hypnotism seems sometimes to alleviate this condition.

There are also a variety of psychosomatic difficulties which Brenman and Gill (1947:55) point out are amenable to hypnosis. These include warts, menstrual disorders, psoriasis, asthma, rheumatism, migraine, constipation, sea-sickness, and insomnia. Sanders (1969:PA 44:14849) described the effects of hypnosis on visual imagery. Vingoe (1968 PA:42:14864) presented an alert-trance induction procedure to engage the mind in mental activity during the trance state, and Donk (1970 PA 44:13721) showed that this method could be used to increase reading efficiency. Reid and Curtsinger (1968) (PA 42:14863) showed that under certain conditions hypnosis produced increases in oral and body temperature. Ulett and others (1973) (PA 49:03835) demonstrated significant EEG changes during hypnosis. Bashkirov (1966) (PA 41:00008) discusses experiments in "hypnopedia" or "sleep-learning."

But while these other effects are additional benefits, the major use of hypnosis appears to be in the control of pain.

Houston (1973) in discussing the mind's ability to control the body's reaction to pain says:
 

States of consciousness research makes it increasingly clear that all sense perception as it becomes conscious is more or less altered by brain processing and the subjectivity of the individual perceiver. In the area of pain and pleasure especially, subjective factors play a very large part in determining the content of conscious experience. Different individuals may react with considerable variation to the same stimulus. We find that it is readily possible in the laboratory using altered states of consciousness and accompanying suggestions to considerably alter pleasure, pain, and other sensory responses.

It is possible, for example, using these to decrease both the intensity and the experiential duration of pain.

In another recent book (1973) Professor Melzack examines the various facets of pain from a well-defined theoretical framework. He offers the Melzack-Wall "gate-control" theory as an up-to-date basis for understanding pain mechanisms and suggesting new forms of treatment. In the first half of his book he describes the psychological, clinical, and physiological aspects of pain; in the second he looks at the major theories of pain in terms of their ability to explain pain phenomena and their implications for the control of pain. Dr. Melzack's new theory also sheds light on the theory of acupuncture.

The essence of psychical healing is a speed-up in time. Healing which would naturally be accomplished in a given number of days under ordinary conditions is somehow accelerated to be accomplished in a given number of seconds. What we are really witnessing then is the acceleration of chemical reactions in clock time. Such accelerations, as every high school chemistry student knows, are accomplished by the presence of catalysts. So psychical healing reduces to the introduction of some kind of catalyst into a situation in which ordinary healing will occur.

It is intriguing that psychical healing involves time acceleration, for time, as we have seen in section 1.32 is one of the three illusions that form our natural prison. If ultimate reality exists outside of time, the distortion of clock time through orthocognition (see section 4.5) and the consequent psychical healing is not too difficult to understand. Such a view also explains psychic endothermic (cold-producing) and exothermic (heat-producing) chemical reactions, as natural chemical reactions in some way speeded up time through the presence of a psychical catalyst. For example, spontaneous combustion is merely rapid oxidation. If normal oxidation processes were vastly increased through psychical catalysts, one would have instantaneous fires breaking out, an effect often seen in poltergeist phenomena.

Harding (1964:213-4) gives four conditions for spiritual healing:
 

1. the individual must be conscious of his need;
2. he must have done all he possibly can, and be utterly unable to resolve the difficulty;
3. the symbols arising from the unconscious must be realized as truly belonging to his own condition;
4. unless he shows himself to be moved by the happening, and unless he experiences the full affect connected with it, he will not be radically changed.

We now leave the subject of pain and healing with the intent to return to it later in the parataxic and syntaxic modes, at which times the rationale for the effects will become more obvious. But even with this incomplete explication in the prototaxic mode, it can be seen that psychic healing is more than "faith cure." It is the contact with the numinous which accomplishes the healing, and the importance of faith is merely to keep the attention of the patient solidly on the numinous experience. Thus arises the usual necessity for trance which operates to short-out the conscious mind with its wavering attention to multifarious percepts and stream of consciousness concepts. When the mind at higher stages is steady and tranquil enough to be capable of directed attention to the numinous, these crude prototaxic measures are no longer necessary.

2.445 Accelerated Mental Process

While not directly a part of healing, accelerated mental process (AMP) is connected to it by the speeding-up of reaction time. Only in this case it is a mental rather than a physical speed-up that is involved. AMP is another example of the fact that our sense of time is part of the OSC and that in an ASC something peculiar seems to happen to it.

Cooper and Erickson (1959:157-8) in their definitive study, note that time distortion can be demonstrated in a majority of subjects under hypnosis:
 

The experiences are continuous. Thought under time distortion can take place with extreme rapidity ... recovery of materials from the unconscious (and) ... creative thought can be facilitated.

Other experiments have shown that a slowing down of time can also occur. Both distortions can have therapeutic applications.

Aaronson (1968) describes a study done with six males in which time distortion under hypnosis was observed.

Accelerated mental process is not only interesting for the remarkable effects it produces, and the light it throws on the prodigious activities of certain creative geniuses, but also for the implications it has regarding the relativistic nature of clock time. It is one thing to try to understand Einstein's relativity theories; it is much more immediate that time distortion can occur in an ASC as well as at very high speeds. It suggests that the speed of light is a boundary not only for our physical universe but for the OSC upon which our knowledge of it depends.

Readers wishing more information on AMP should consult Cooper and Erickson (1954), Krippner (1972, quoted in Gowan 1974) and

(page 137)

McCord and Sherrill (1961). The most recent summary of AMP is that of Jean Houston, who (1973:265-6) says:
 

we found that it is possible to greatly increase the rate of thought or amount of subjective experience beyond what is ordinarily possible within a unit of clock-measured time. That is to say, under certain conditions of altered consciousness a person might experience within a few minutes, as measured by the clock, such a wealth of ideas or images that it will seem that hours, days, or even longer must have passed for him to have experienced so much. Only a few minutes of objective (clock) time have elapsed; the change has been on the level of subjective experiential time and the explanation lies in the phenomenon of accelerated mental process (AMP).

It has long been known that AMP occurs spontaneously under conditions of dreaming sleep (the "hours long" dream that takes only a few seconds or minutes of clock time). Then there are the cases related to great emotional stress. A man falling from a bridge, and expecting to die, but who by some chance is saved from death, may later recount that during the fall his whole lifetime flashed (as images) before his eyes, or that he relived his entire lifetime or at least relived all significant events, so that it seemed his whole lifetime was lived through, and lived through without any haste, events all seeming to happen at the same rate as they happen during everyday working experience. This last-mentioned kind of experience is also an experience of images, but it is an experience in which the person participates fully, as a dreamer may participate in some of his dreams. The Swiss Alpine Club has recorded hundreds of such experiences reported by mountain climbers who have fallen, expecting to die, but who survived.

Persons who have taken psychedelic drugs sometimes experience the accelerated mind phenomena, only to discover that all of the mental experience occurred within just a minute or two of time as measured by the clock.

It is important to note that in all of the above mentioned experiences of AMP, imagery plays a predominant role. This would seem to be in part because imagistic thinking does not seem to be bound by the time-inhibited mechanisms which retard the flow of verbal thought. Related to this is the fact that most thinking is geared to speech and the movements of the body in work or play, and this is an additional causative factor to the slowness of most thinking. It is evident that thinking need not be limited

by the slow pace of our physiological being, or by the linear inhibitions of our verbal thought. When we look at the phenomenology of high level creativity, we note that the mind races over many alternatives, picking, choosing, discarding, synthesizing, sometimes doing the work of several months in a few minutes.
 

One of the best documented paranormal properties of the trance state is imperviousness of the human body (especially the hands and feet) to fire. It appears to occur in every society of the world, and in all ages and cultures from the most ancient to modern times. Since the documentation is large and impressive, and the firm establishment of one paranormal property of trance or ASC makes more believable others less frequent and well documented, we devote a detailed analysis to this phenomenon. If we are to remain scientific, such analysis suggests that our present laws of physics are but special cases of more general laws, and that we can begin to define the conditions (such as trance) under which the larger laws take over from the special laws of the ordinary state.

Unlike some other paranormal effects, mastery over fire, especially as seen in fire-walking, has been vouched for by the most impeccable witnesses - in many cases western men of science, who often were not only eye-witnesses to the phenomenon, but in some cases were even temporarily granted the power to participate themselves.²² The list includes bishops, medical doctors, scholars like Joseph Campbell, and Gilbert Grosvenor of the National Geographic Society. Certainly an effect so well documented, and so much at variance with our usual concepts of physical reality, deserves careful consideration.

Probably the best Western material on fire-walking are the bulletins by Price (1936) and Brown (1938) from the University of London on fire-walking conducted in England under scientific auspices in 1935 and 1937. These reports contain extensive bibliographies, besides thorough accounts of the firewalks supported by pictures. McDougall himself, witnessed the 1935 tests where Kuda Bux walked a twenty-foot trench four times without any hurt or blistering. Reports of this feat appeared in Nature(September 21, 28, 1935) and The Lancet (September 28, 1935). In the 1937 tests, Ahmed Hussain did the fire walk and conferred his immunity on five volunteers, who, however, were slightly burned. Brown's report (1938) concludes that "fasting is not necessary" and that "there is no evidence that immunity can be conferred." Brown was unable to advance a scientific theory to account for the phenomenon.

It is interesting that Rawcliffe (1959:292), certainly a hostile witness

(page139)

for psychic phenomena, devotes a whole chapter to fire-walking, which he admits occurs. In considerable contrast to his other "exposes" of paranormal effects he makes no effort to explain what he plainly regards as an anomaly, equally well documented with dowsing.

He says:
 

In general the fire-walk is confined to walking over glowing embers. Virgil, Strabo, and Pliny give accounts of such emberwalks in Cappadocia two thousand years ago. Until well into the nineteenth century ember-walks took place as far west as Bulgaria. In the past ember-walking was common in China and Japan, and it is still practiced in many parts of India today. . . .

In a lengthy article quoting many Germanic sources, Benz (1969) describes Ordeal by Fire used throughout the ancient and medieval Indo-European world, and sanctioned in the Middle Ages by the Church. References to such are found in the Bible; for example, God says (Isaiah 43:2) "When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned."

There were also at least six places in the Bible where accounts of fire miracles are noted:
 

a . The rescue of Abraham from the fire of the Chaldees (Genesis 11)
b. The Burning Bush of Moses (Exodus 3)
c . The rescue of three youths from the fiery furnace (Daniel 3)
d. The rescue of Lot from the fire at Sodom (Genesis 19)
e. The deliverance of Israel from Egypt by the pillar of fire (Exodus 14)
f. The Pentacostal tongues of fire (Acts 2)

With this authority it is not surprising that the early church gave its sanction. The Christian rite was elaborate, containing a mass of purification, and ending with the adjuration to the probandus that he must be free from blame to be unharmed, but that if he is innocent, he may safely traverse the flames. There is elaborate ritual connected with the rite, much like that described in the Hindu fire walking, with purification, fasting, abstinence, and the induction of trance. Various forms of the ordeal were used:

(a) walking over a firey pit;
(b) walking through a fire or being ignited wearing a shirt soaked with wax;
(c) walking over nine red hot plowshares;
(d) carrying a red hot ball of iron, or pitching it into a pot;
(e) walking between two burning pyres.

 
1. Bishop Poppo of Hamburg walked through a bonfire dressed

in a sheet of wax to prove to the heathen Danes of the power of God;
2. Copres, an Egyptian Christian monk, was unharmed by fire, while his adversary, a Manichean was burned;
3. St. Francis of Assisi offered to undergo ordeal by fire before the Sultan of Egypt to prove Christianity superior to Mohammadism;
4. Petrus Igneus (Florence 1067) walked between burning pyres;
5. Petrus Bartholomeus (1098) did the same;
6. Queen Emma walked across nine red hot plowshares in Winchester cathedral in 1043;
7. Empress Kunegunde in a trance did the same in Bamberg in 1007.

Godwin (1968:169-170) gives excellent accounts of fire-walking with pictures. Godwin (1968:165) states: "There is no doubt fire-walking began as a religious rite."

Fire-walking occurs not only in widely diverse spots such as India, Micronesia, but also in the U.S.A. In 1935, Kuda Bux performed this feat at Rockefeller Center, New York. The only explanation for this mystifying phenomenon is that fire-walkers are either in religious trance, or have been able to achieve a mind concentration of "onepointedness" during which extraordinary control over the environment can be achieved.

Eliade (1964:372) notes that in Fiji, shamanistic powers such as walking on hot coals are transmitted by heredity in families. There are numerous western observations of this rite which on occasion includes other members of the tribe and even outsiders. Insensibility to fire has been documented in numerous Polynesian prophets.

One of the earliest reliable accounts of fire-walking is given by Lang (1901:270ff) who devotes a chapter full of references to it in various localities in the Pacific. So does Gaddis (1967), (see p. 142).

Houston (1973) says:
 

Scientific observation would appear to have validated the fire walking phenomenon. This leads us to ask how necessarily susceptible to damage is the human body anyhow? No one seems to know the answer, but these examples and many others that could be cited seem to suggest the possibility of a very high degree of mental control over a wide range of body responses to even the most extreme stresses.

Pearce (1971) believes that at some ancient time someone appointed for a fiery sacrifice survived this kind of thing, and became an instant deity. "Fire walking is an autistic venture."

Puharich (1962:88) describes the fire walking experience of the

(page 141)

eminent Western scholar, Joseph Campbell, who, observing the ceremony in Kyoto, was conducted over the coals by a monk without any injury. He also refers to the extensive investigations of M. R. Coe (True Magazine August, 1957) into the same subject.

Fire walking in Ceylon has been the subject of magazine articles (Feinberg, L. Atlantic Monthly, May, 1959) and (Gilbert Grosvenor National Geographic, April, 1966). Each of these accounts is well authenticated by Westerners, with illustrations.

We should not conclude the examination of fire walking without noting the existence of the reverse phenomenon - that of raising burn blisters by hypnotic suggestion. J.A. Hadfield (The Lancet, 1917:ii:678) was able to produce burn blisters in a hypnotized subject by touching him with his finger while telling him that his arm was being touched by a red hot iron. A blister formed within nine hours identical to the usual burn blister.

The production and absorption of heat in a paranormal manner (which amounts to a psychic transfer of energy) appears to be closely connected with juncture with the numinous. We have investigated and authenticated fire-walking, but we should also look at a rarer converse phenomenon, tumo or the production of psychic heat. We have seen this effect in the prototaxic mode (sections 2.35), but it is also found as a siddhi in the syntaxic mode (see section 4.15). While this sort of thing is confined mainly to Eastern monks who are reputed to dry wet coverings in the icy cold of winter, one finds it mentioned by Richard Rolle (cf 4.155), George Fox (cf 2.62), and others. And as we can all remember from Good King Wenceslas:
 

Mark my footsteps my good page
Tread thou in them boldly
Thou shalt find the winter rage
Treats thy limbs less coldly.

Page and monarch forth they went
Where the snow lay dinted
Heat was in the very sod
Which the saint had printed.

What shall we conclude from this amazing anomaly, which lays bare the inadequacy of present laws of physics to explain the universe? We are here in the presence of the same kind of "discrepancy" which led Einstein to discover the theory of relativity; in short, present theories of the reactive nature of mankind as a creature are no more adequate to explain ultimate reality than was the ether theory of light able to explain the constancy of its speed. In the case of relativity, the difference between Einsteinian relativity and Newtonian physics

(page 142 - 143)

Table III "Gaddis" Documentation of Mastery Over Fire

(page 144)

was not great from a practical standpoint, but enormous from a theoretical one. In the same way, we must not expect the new orthocognition to enable us to roast potatoes for supper or to dwell on the Sun's surface, for the effect is as uncertain and fleeting as it is phenomenal. But the theoretical consequences are likewise enormous. For they indicate that the human being is not merely a reactive creature in a world of nature, but he is under certain special conditions able to become part of the noumenon, and as such he partakes of the more general laws of meta-physics which apply to the noumenon. And a corollary of one of these laws specifies that by this juncture he has power to effect psychic transformation of energy, namely in the production and absorption of heat and other electromagnetic waves. And this understanding is far more important in the long run than the quaint prototaxic antics of playing with fire.²⁶

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2.46 Psychokinesis and Poltergeist Phenomena

Psychokinesis has to do with the movement of physical bodies by the direct application of psychic energy. The affected bodies are usually small, though this is not always so. They are then known as "apports."

A low form of psychokinesis is poltergeist phenomena. This age old psychic nuisance consists of noisy disturbances, the breaking of dishes and the throwing of apports (usually inside a house), and occasionally the spontaneous combustion of fire. The word "poltergeist" means "noisy spirit," and the phenomenon which is universally reported often centers on the presence of a young adolescent with emotional problems. Since there is already a very extensive literature on this subject, we shall concentrate on explanations.

Gaddis (1967:203) after a thorough canvas of poltergeist phenomena, quotes Bayless as saying that "the poltergeist-force is almost always indicative of a psychological rather than a spiritistic origin," and himself concludes in regard to poltergeist phenomena:

(page 145)

Such stresses within the subconscious mind, if unrelieved and sufficiently intense, can result in a psychological state known as dissociation.... When these conditions exist, a person can commit acts, including destructive acts representing his repressed frustrations and desires, and then return to his normal self with no conscious memory of what has been done. In poltergeist phenomena we are witnessing the projection and dramatization of subconscious repressed tensions and conflicts . . . .