... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 138: NOV-DEC 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Unconsciousness And Its "Zombie Agents"We all harbor so-called "zombie agents" that rapidly and automatically perform actions without our conscious mind being aware of the stimulus and physical response. Normal people experience this in dancing, fencing, etc. Extreme examples include sleepwalkers who can even drive cars and carry out other complex actions without remembering what they have done! Of course, sleepwalking is not a normal condition; nevertheless, rigorous experiments demonstrate that normal people will respond to scary pictures of snakes and spiders even though they are not consciously aware of them. The zombie agent is acting autonomously. Zombie agents are characterized as on-line systems that act at speeds that far outpace conscious reactions. Since the zombie agents incorporated in our unconsciousness work so well, why did consciousness ever evolve? Conscious actions take milliseconds longer to calculate and activate. Consciousness would, therefore, seem to be a bad evolutionary gambit. But, C. Koch and F. Crick may have an answer. They speculate that: It may be because consciousness allows the system to plan future actions, opening up a potentially infinite behavioural repertoire and making explicit memory possible. (Koch, Christof, and Crick, Francis; "The Zombie Within," Nature, 411:893, 2001.) Questions. Could our zombie agents, primitive though they may be, be the source of those flashes of genius that appear out of nowhere, or perhaps ...

... format. These do not have the alphanumerical labels. PB DISSOCIATIVE BEHAVIOR PBA AUTOMATIC COMMUNICATION Automatic Writing Automatic Drawing Glossalalia or "Speaking in Tongues" Planchette and Ouija-Board Phenomena Channeling Table-Tilting Xenoglossy [PHR] PBD COMMUNICATED HYSTERIA AND DELUSIONS Mass Hysteria and Psychogenic Illnesses Folie a Deux: Communication of Abnormal Mental States Self-Induced Delusions "Jumping" and Other Triggered Explosive Activities Abnormal Mass Delusions The Latah Phenomenon PBH HYPNOTIC BEHAVIOR (GENERAL FEATURES) General Features of So-Called "Hypnotic Behavior" Supposed Hypnosis by Telepathy Fascination by Inert Objects (" Spontaneous Hypnosis") Posthypnotic Behavior Effects of Magnetism on Hypnotically Induced Images Self-Hypnosis Drum Phenomena [BHB7, BHH8] Collective Hypnosis PBJ DEJA VU Deja Vu PBM MULTIPLE PERSONALITY Multiple-Personality Phenomena Hypnotic Probing of Secondary Personalities Possible Duality of Consciousness under Anesthesia PBP POSSESSION Going Berserk and Running Amok Spirit Possession Possession by Devils and Demons Vampirism The Windigo Psychosis Animal Possession (Lycanthropy) Witchcraft PBS ALTERED STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS The Ultraconscious Transcendental/Mystical Phenomena Sensory Deprivation Break-off Phenomenon Peak Experiences, Ecstasy Trances (Mediumship) Conversion (Religious, Political) Meditation Spiritualism PBZ ANOMALOUS DREAM BEHAVIOR AND DREAM CONTENT Hypnotically Induced Dreams The Need to Dream Somnabulism Lucid Dreaming Dreams and Biological States Dream Inventions Group Dreaming Recurring Dreams Precognitive Dreams [PHP] Telepathic Dreams [PHT] Dreaming Consciousness PH HIDDEN KNOWLEDGE PHD DIVINING HIDDEN MATERIALS AND OBJECTS Locating Concealed, But Known, Objects Locating Concealed, But Known, People Locating Water, Oil, and Other Minerals Sensing the Presence and/or Attention (Staring) of Other People Divining the Identity and/or Nature ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 104: Mar-Apr 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects An invisible information superhighway?The eclectic nature of anomaly research occasionally uncovers connections between diverse areas of research. We recount one such instance here. On one hand is the neurological research of M.A . Persinger, at the Laurentian University, inquiring into the claimed effects of minute electromagnetic signals, such as those observed in the geomagnetic field, upon human consciousness and perception. On the other hand, we have R.G . Jahn's work in the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) program, which looks into the anomalous information transfer between humans and the environment, as claimed to be seen in psychokinesis and remote viewing experiments. The research goals and methodologies differ, and the resulting reports couched in different terminologies, but the similarities are what is really important. Both scientists are exploring unconventional information pathways connecting the human brain (consciousness) and the environment. The pathways are open in both directions. First, we quote the summary from a recent Persinger paper. The jargon may be technical, but one can readily visualize the human brain immersed in a sea of signals -- nominally electromagnetic but possibly of other sorts. "Contemporary neuroscience suggests the existence of fundamental algorithms by which all sensory transduction is translated into an intrinsic, brain-specific code. Direct stimulation of these codes within the human temporal or limbic cortices by applied electromagnetic patterns may require energy levels which are within the range of both geomagnetic activity and contemporary ...

... Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects And The Machines Wept For Man Philosophers have always wondered if humans and life in general are really completely detached from the material world of non-life. Might there be unrecognized influences humans (and possibly other animals) exert knowingly or unknowingly upon inert matter? Many have been the experiments in which humans attempt to affect the swinging of a pendulum, the throws of dice, or the output of a random-number generator. The parapsychologists declare that, YES, humans can exert tiny but statistically significant influences on such devices. But other scientists and the man-in-the-street would really like to see a robust physical effect, not just a bunch of statistics. An ambitious endeavor called the Global Consciousness Project just might be able to produce a more satisfying mind-over-matter effect. This Project is conducted by a group of scientists who maintain a dispersed network of random-number generators (RNGs). A total of 38 RNG stations are presently "listening" for global perturbations in whatever medium carries the supposed human-to-matter influences. The analogy to global weather and seismological stations is appropriate here. On September 9, 2001, the Global Consciousness Project network of RNGs did indeed detect a sort of groaning in the consciousness of the planet's human cargo. The dispersed RNGs produced strings of numbers that were rather far from random, as indicated on the accompanying graph. For three days the RNGs defied probability, with stark non-randomness obvious at 10:12 ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 43: Jan-Feb 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Voice Of God Back in 1976, Julian Jaynes promulgated a novel hypothesis about ancient man in his book, The Origin of Consciousness and the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. "According to Jaynes, consciousness, as we know it today, is a relatively new faculty, one that did not exist until as recently as 2000 B.C . He holds that a basic difference between contemporary and ancient man is the process of decision-making. When faced with a novel situation today, man considers alternatives, thinks about future consequences, makes a decision, ruminates over it, and finally acts. He then reconsiders his action, evaluates it, worries about it, feels good or bad about it, makes resolves about future decisions, and so forth. The cerebral activity that precedes and follows an action response is consciousness. Jaynes believes that man of antiquity had no consciousness -- that when faced with a novel situation, he simply reacted. He reacted without hesitation by following the directions of a personal voice that told him exactly what to do. Ancient man called this voice God; today it is called an auditory hallucination. To ancient man, God was not a mental image or a deified thought but an actual voice heard when one was presented with a situation requiring decisive action." You must really read Jaynes' book to appreciate the evidence he has collected in support of his hypothesis. In the present article, ...

... he rely in part upon a mathematical construct: the famous Golden Section or Golden Ratio? The Golden Section is a mathematical formula for dividing into two parts: a geometrical line, a musical composition, or anything else possessing the property of length. The ratio of the two divided parts is the Golden Section, which equals 0.618.* For some artists, musicians, architects, the Golden Section is the most esthetic way of dividing the length of anything. For humans, the history of the Golden Section goes back at least as far as Euclid in 300 BC. For nature, it began eons ago: The shapes of pine cones, starfish geometry, and other dimensions of living things incorporate the Golden Section. The questions we address here are: (1 ) Did Mozart consciously make use of this ratio, 0.618, in his music? (2 ) Why is the Golden Section esthetically pleasing? It is not well known that Mozart was fascinated by mathematics as well as music. He even jotted down equations in the margins of some of his compositions. Chances are excellent that he knew of the Golden Section and its reputation for conferring elegance on structures -- even musical compositions. J.F . Putz, a mathematician, has measured some of Mozart's works. Mozart's piano sonatas were convenient targets, because in Mozart's time they were customarily divided into two parts: (1 ) Exposition; and (2 ) Development and Recapitulation. Sure enough, the first movement of Mozart's Sonata No. 1 in C ...

... abstract. "The Exceptional Human Experience Network has a different approach to anomalous, out-of-the-ordinary Exceptional Experiences (EEs). By taking the emphasis off proof, or artificially trying to "cause" or stage events in the laboratory, or passively collecting case reports, we are actively trying to understand what these types of experiences and the experiencers are telling us as a whole. Inspection of the data indicates that there is a distinctive, recognizable patterning or clustering of inner and outer events: triggers, concommitants, and aftereffects which are similar across experiencer reports from over 100 different types of EEs. Preliminary study shows that those individuals who begin to explore their EEs and question conventional answers may undergo a series of similar developmental, predictable, humanizing, and transformative stages of expanding conscious awareness, which we call the Exceptional Human Experience Process (EHE Process). When EEers begin to comprehend and realize that their experiences are more than external phenomena happening "outside" of them and instead signify a whole inner and outer personally meaningful experience, the EE becomes potentiated into an EHE. EHEers report greater numbers of EHEs including meaningful insights, heightened creativity, and "lucky coincidences." Over time, or additional EEs/EHEs, or with a tremendous burst of insight, a subjective threshold is crossed. The experiencer's lifeview and whole worldview changes, and a new perspective (i .e ., double vision) is forged. Fresh transpersonal connections with a new vision of self and the world become established. In hindsight, advanced EHEers report that the whole process ...

... gold medal against the vastly more talented and experienced, virtually professional Russian and Finnish teams. These occurrences, although unusual, are much more frequent in American business than is commonly suspected."* Assuming that FGE is a real phenomenon, can it be measured objectively? Yes, says W.D . Rowe, and he tells how it has been done. The Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research group has developed a random number generator that produces an unbiased series of bits such that a large sample will average 50% 1s and 50% 0s. PEAR normally uses this machine in psychokinesis experiments in which an individual mentally attempts to skew the statistically expected 50:50 outcome. But that's a different story. Here, the thought is that the PEAR random number generator is also a "consciousness detector." Since FGE seems to involve a group's collective consciousness, perhaps this random number generator will respond with a skewed train of 1s and 0s -- even when the group in unaware of its presence. Rowe reports that eleven group experiments have been carried out in which FGE seemed to be present according to participants. During these periods of group resonance, often hours long, the random number generator produced results that were two, sometime three standard deviations from the mean. Rowe concluded that FGE is a real and robust phenomenon that can be measured. It is "an extra sense above the five common senses." (Rowe, William D.; "Physical Measurement of Episodes of Focused Group Energy," Journal of Scientific Exploration, 12:569, 1998. ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 122: Mar-Apr 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Few Potential Ehes R.A . White, Founder/Director of the Exceptional Human Experience Network (EHEN), has spread out a fascinating smorgasbord of some 200 potential EHEs. We have room for only a quick snack: Accelerating thinking Aesthetic experience Conversion Ecstasy Enlightenment Gaia consciousness Guru/holy-person encounter Hyperacuity Inspiration Intuition Lucid dreaming Lucky hunches Meaningful coincidences Peace beyond understanding Peak performance Serendipity Soulmate experience Synchronicity World-Wide Web experience (White, Rhea A.; "List of Potential Exceptional Human Experiences," Exceptional Human Experience , 15:41, no. 1, June 1997.) Comment. Hard-core reductionists may complain that the listed experiences are "fuzzy." But are they fuzzier than those "ghost universes" or the newly predicted "sterile" neutrinos? From Science Frontiers #122, MAR-APR 1999 . 1999-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... particularly physics) is firmly committed to reductionism and objectivism. Translation: this faction wants no part of parapsychology. In the first letter, A.A . Berezin bravely proclaimed that science needs more rather than less research in parapsychology, citing specifically the work of H. Schmidt and R. Jahn. Further, he maintains that the major science journals should be open to high quality research in parapsychology. He wrote: "One cannot exorcise unorthodox claims by repeating mantras that they are 'pseudoscience.'" A second letter from S. Malin begins by noting that physics has undergone two major paradigm shifts during its history: (1 ) Aristotelian to Newtonian physics; and (2 ) Newtonian to contemporary physics. Additional shifts are likely, and the next one might well involve the relation of consciousness to the physical world. In support of his intuition, he quoted from E. Schroedinger's 1958 book Mind and Matter on the "principle of objectivation." "By this I mean what is also frequently called the 'hypothesis of the real world' around us. I maintain that it amounts to a certain simplification which we adopt in order to master the infinitely intricate problem of nature. Without being aware of it and without being rigorously systematic about it, we exclude the Subject of Cognizance from the domain of nature that we endeavor to understand. We step with our own person back into the part of an onlooker who does not belong to the world, which by this very procedure becomes an objective world. [Our] science... is based on objectivation, ...

... Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Aggressive Ball Lightning August 17, 1978. Caucasian Mountains, Russia. Victor Kavunenko and four other mountaineers were camped for the night at an altitude of 3900 meters. He reported as follows: "I woke up with the strange feeling that a stranger had made his way into our tent. Thrusting my head out of the sleeping bag, I froze. A bright yellow blob was floating about one metre from the floor. It disappeared into Korovin's sleeping bag. The man screamed in pain. The ball jumped out and proceeded to circle over the other bags now hiding in one, now in another. When it burned a hole in mine I felt an unbearable pain, as if I were being burned by a welding machine, and blacked out. Regaining consciousness after a while, I saw the same yellow ball which, methodically observing a pattern that was known to it alone, kept diving into the bags, evoking desperate, heart-rendering (sic) howls from the victims. This indescribable horror repeated itself several times. When I came back to my senses for the fifth or sixth time, the ball was gone. I could not move my arms or legs and my body was burning as if it had turned into a ball of fire itself. In the hospital, where we were flown by helicopter, seven wounds were discovered on my body. They were worse than burns. Pieces of muscle were found to be torn out to the bone. The same happened to Shigin, Kaprov and Bashkirov. Oleg Korovin had been killed by ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 133: JAN-FEB 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects New Proteins Rewrite Memories A presumptuous article in the New York Times relates how scientists are trying to explain why two people who have viewed the same event recall it very differently years later. One theory goes like this. It seems that every time an old memory is pulled into consciousness, the brain takes it apart, updates it and then makes new proteins in the process of putting the memory back into long-term storage. The fact that new proteins are made means that the memory has been transformed permanently to reflect each person's life experiences---not the memory itself. (Blakesley, Sandra; "Brain-Updating Machinery May Explain False Memories," New York Times, September 19, 2000. Cr. D. Phelps) Ruminations. This all sounds reasonable, but it assumes that memory is stored in a protein medium of some sort. It is hard to imagine how, say, the multiplication table, can be recorded on a protein "hard drive." Are the bits representing the multiplication table encoded in a line of proteins of different types or in their sequence or, perhaps, their three-dimensional configurations? Does anyone really know what our brain's hard drive looks like? Maybe memory is hologrammic. And when a memory is pulled off the mind's hard drive, how is the information conveyed to the central processing unit, assuming there is one? Is it all ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 17: Fall 1981 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects How Ndes Differ From Obes NDEs (Near-Death Experiences) and OBEs (Out-of-the-Body Experiences) are rather common altered states of consciousness that are now the subject of considerable psychological research and public interest. OBEs, where one feels detached from his body and may even view it from afar, occur to many people who are not near death. Yet, the two phenomena have many features in common; so many that some psychologists have claimed that NDEs have no unique features at all. Gabbard et al have examined hundreds of experiences of both kinds and support the contention that none of the curious features of the NDE are the exclusive province of the NDE. They go a step further, however, by trying to separate NDEs and OBEs statistically. The following experiences occur significantly more often in NDEs: (1 ) Noises are heard early in the scenario; (2 ) The sensation of travelling through a tunnel; (3 ) The physical body is seen from a distance; (4 ) Other beings in nonphysical form are sensed, especially deceased people emotionally tied to the percipient; and (5 ) Encounters with communicative entities of a luminous nature. (Gabbard, Glen O., et al; Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 169:374, 1981.) From Science Frontiers #17, Fall 1981 . 1981-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... bore severe scrutiny. Objections and arguments against directed mutation arose, but the original research was never shown to be faulty. New experiments along this line, by B. Hall at the University of Rochester, have supported the original Harvard work and refuted some of the objections that had been leveled. Working with a special strain of Escherichia coli , Hall starved the bacteria of a certain amino acid, (tryptophan) that they usually got from the environment and could not synthesize. In the days that followed, many of the bacteria mutated so that they could synthesize their own tryptophan. Hall concluded: "Mutations that occur more when they're useful than when they're not: That I can document any day, every day, in the laboratory." Rather than assign any "conscious" goal-seeking attributes to the bacteria, Hall prefers to think that the environmental stress induced a state of "hypermutation." In this state all sorts of mu-tations occurred in abundance. Only those that synthesized tryptophan survived the starvation program; even potentially favorable mutations died quickly. (Stolzenburg, W.; "Hypermutation: Evolutionary Fast Track," Science News, 137:391, 1990.) Comment. Besides the implication that environmental stresses have initiated the mutations that gave us today's fauna and flora, we see that the idea of hypermutation is merely an acceleration of standard evolutionary processes. But how do environmental stresses turn on the biological switch that starts the mutation machine going? What sort of environmental stresses would cause humans to mutate? What would we turn ...

... photographic memories cannot perform such mental feats using known methods for identifying primes. What do the calculating prodigies know that the rest of us do not? Better algorithms; that is, calculating methods? Margolis expands on this: "All this suggests some relatively simple, subconscious algorithms which have not, as yet, been explicitly formulated. Research in this direction might well result in new mathematical insights. "It need not be surprising that mathematical insight is more fundamental than language. Even a primitive animal brain is 'wired" to perform exceedingly complex computations essential for survival in an unpredictable environment. The latest 'smart' weapons are rudimentary compared with a humble gnat. Mathematics could be a by-product of these functions. Language is a comparatively recent evolutionary innovation and it is quite possible that conscious manipulation of abstract symbols has not caught up with an innate ability to perceive quantitative relationships." (Margolis, Joel; "What Gnats Know," New Scientist, p. 58, January 30, 1993.) From Science Frontiers #87, MAY-JUN 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 113: Sep-Oct 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The View From Within A hypnotized individual can sometimes be coaxed to hallucinate his or her body image as seen by the unconscious mind. The hallucinated body image may be radically different from that conceived by the conscious mind. In cases of mental illness, the hallucinated unconscious body image may not even be a human figure but rather a bird, a fish, or an inanimate object or geometric figure. The nature of the unconscious body image seems to depend upon the nature of the emotional pathology and may even be useful in diagnosis and treatment. (Freytag, Fredericka; "The Hallucinated Unconscious Body Image," American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis, 7:209, 1965.) From Science Frontiers #113, SEP-OCT 1997 . 1997-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... of the whole business. In formulating their web of logic, mathematicians make many more or less "artistic" decisions that are colored by reality and their expectations of reality. To illustrate, "symmetry" is a human passion that reality may disdain. In other words, because mathematicians are prejudiced by their experience in the real world and are an integral part of that world, it is not surprising that their artistic renditions mirror reality to some extent. (Little, John; "The Uncertain Craft of Mathematics," New Scientist, 88:626, 1980.) Comment. It might also be that mathematics predicts unknown realities because of the human mind's subconscious knowledge or appreciation of them -- a sort of innate appreciation of that portion of the universe still unknown to the conscious mind. From Science Frontiers #14, Winter 1981 . 1981-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... Applicable studies of animals have been reported recently. For example, rats under stress are found to have less easily stimulated immune systems. (Science, 221:568, 1983.) Also, men who have recently lost their wives to breast cancer have immune systems less responsive to mitogens. (Journal of the American Medical Association, 250:374, 1984.) (Maddox, John; "Psychoimmunology Before Its Time," Nature, 309:400, 1984.) Comment. This is an appropriate time to suggest that "psychoevolution" may be physiologically possible. If the brain can fight disease and even control cell growth, why not a role for the mind in stimulating the development of new spe cies, perhaps in response to extreme environmental pressures, and perhaps not on the conscious level? The body's sensory system would detect great external stresses, the brain would process the information, and direct some astute genetic shuffling. The genetic inheritance of an organism is not sacrosanct. Radiation, chemicals, and various others mutagens are recognized. There seems to be no a priori reason why the brainbody combination cannot generate mutagens -- possibly not randomly but intelligently! (We ignore here selfish DNA and Sheldrake's morphogenic fields.) Does this mean that if we wish to mutate, we can? Well, it's probably not as simple as wishing warts away, but Maddox's editorial underscores the complexity and subtlety of the brain-body combination. From Science Frontiers #35, SEP-OCT 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... Jahn, who work only a few hundred meters apart at Princeton but are light years apart on the matter of parapsychology. The letter writing commenced after Anderson wrote a column in the December 1990 issue of Physics Today entitled "On the Nature of Physical Law." Here he recommended the categorical dismissal of all anomalous observations that might tear apart the fabric of science. Although Anderson did not name Jahn specifically, it was obvious to Jahn that his work was the primary target. Jahn's response was a long letter summarizing the stupendous quantity of data he and his colleagues have amassed on psi effects. "We have in hand several prodigious data bases, acquired over 12 years of continuous, intensive experimentation, that clearly establish the existence, scale and primary correlates of certain anomalous influences of human consciousness on a variety of physical systems and processes. In our Microelectronic Random Binary Generators experiment, 95 selected human operators attempted to shift the output distribution means to either higher or lower values than the chance mean, in accordance with their prerecorded intentions. In 3 850 000 experimental sequences of 200 binary samples, the overall results were that means in high intensity runs exceeded means in low intensity runs by 4.38 sigma. (The probability of chance occurrence of this outcome is less than 6 x 10-6 .) Jahn also reviewed the results of other types of psi experiments which also produced positive results. Replying to Jahn, Anderson admitted that he indeed had Jahn in mind when he wrote his original article. "What my piece actually said was within my competence as a theorist, ...

... genetic entities that manipulate their "host" [as in "us'] so as to promote their own spread, usually at a cost to other genes within the genome." You may not sense it, but your genes are struggling with each other, and you and/or your progeny will carry out the dictates of the victors of the "gene wars." (Hurst, Laurence D., et al; "Genetic Conflicts," Quarterly Review of Biology , 71:317, 1996.) Comment. Given the power that these "selfish genetic elements" can exert on our bodies, it is but a short step to imagining that they can also direct the course of evolution in ways favorable to their agendas. In this interpretation, humans have evolved and are conscious and intelligent because these things are favorable to those genes that have conquered in the "gene wars." Natural selection seems to work at many levels in biology! From Science Frontiers #114, NOV-DEC 1997 . 1997-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 51: May-Jun 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Glossolalia: possible origins N.P . Spanos et al begin their article with a neat encapsulation of the status of psychological research into glossolalia: "Glossolalia (i .e ., speaking in tongues) is vocalization that sounds languagelike but is devoid of semantic meaning or syntax. In the Christian tradition this vocalization pattern is associated with the ideas of possession by the Holy Spirit and communication with God through prayer or prophecy. Some scientific investigators conceptualize glossolalia as the product of an altered or dissociated state of consciousness, whereas others view it as symptomatic of psychopathology. "The available empirical data fail to support either of these hypotheses. For example, both ethnographic observations and experimental findings indicate that glossolalia can occur in the absence of kinetic activity, disorientation, and other purported indexes of trance, and that experienced glossolalics do not differ from nonglossolalic controls on measures of absorption in subjective experience and hypnotic susceptibility. Relatedly, the available empirical data fail to support the hypothesis that glossolalics suffer higher levels of psychopathology than nonglossolalics." Spanos et al then go on to detail their own research, in which they tried to teach glossolalia as a learnable skill. First, 60 subjects listened to a 60-second sample of genuine glossolalia. All subjects then tried to speak in tongues for 30 seconds. Some 20% spoke in tongues immediately without further training. The subjects were then divided into a control group and a group that received various kinds of ...

... ] BHT UNUSUAL SENSES AND FACULTIES BHT1 Telescopic Vision BHT2 Moonblindness BHT3 Blindsight BHT4 A TV-Snow Visual Phenomenon BHT5 Color-Vision Deficiency of Ancient Peoples BHT6 Color Sensitivity Correlated with Lunar Phase BHT7 Anomalies in the Evolution of Color Vision BHT8 Dermo-Optical Perception [PHD] BHT9 Visual Phenomena from the Passage of High-Energy Particles through the Eyes BHT10 Facial Vision or Human Echo Ranging BHT11 Our Sound-Suppression Faculty BHT12 Electromagnetic Radiation Perceived as Sound BHT13 Hearing under Anesthesia BHT14 Variability and Sophistication of Human Tone Perception BHT15 Anomalous Communication in Children BHT16 Discontinuity in the Evolution of Communication BHT17 The Ability to Sense and/or Detect Magnetic Fields BHT18 Human-Navigation Senses BHT19 Exposure to Low-Frequency Electromagnetic Field Lengthens Reaction Time BHT20 Human Drowning Proneness BHT21 Human Diving Reflex Unique among Primates BHT22 The Paradoxes of Consciousness [PIK] BHT23 Anomalous Skin Adhesive Power BHT24 Chicken-Sexing Faculty BHT25 The Ability to Perceive Established Information Perception of Human Auras! Human Detection of Earthquake Precursors Communication via Body Odor (Pheromones) [BHA] Remarkable Adaptations to High ALtitudes Neanderthal Music BHU UNRECOGNIZED HOMINIDS BHU1 North American Hominids (Bigfoot/Sasquatch) BHU2 Giant Arctic Hominids BHU3 Recent Survival of American Pygmies BHU4 Hairy "Submen" in South America BHU5 The Almasti: Asian Subhumans? BHU6 The Chuchunaa of Siberia BHU7 The Yeti or "Abominable Snowman" BHU8 The Yeren or Chinese Wildmen BHU9 The Nittaewo: Sri Lanka Dwarf Hominids? BHU10 The Orang Pendek or Sedapa of Sumatra BHU11 Australia's Yowie or Yahoo BHU12 The Agogwe: Africa's Little Furry Men BHU13 Hominid Corpses of Unknown Provenance BHX HUMAN INTERFACE PHENOEMENA BHX1 Anomalous ...