Before reading this book, almost everyone will already have some kind of idea about what the term PSYCHIC means.
Such ideas can be exceedingly different among individuals. But it is quite likely that a large proportion of them hinge on the general concept of PARANORMAL mental activity and which is distinguished from normal mental activity.
This is a psychological distinction which began to flourish rather late in the history we have been reviewing. It appeared during the late 1920s, and only during the 1940s did it take on broad usage.
It arose not in parapsychology, but in psychology proper when, during the 1920s psychologists and sociologists sought to identify and establish the characteristics of normal and abnormal behavior.
One of the widely stated motives behind this effort had to do with the idea that if normal behavior was identified and socially reinforced then more perfect societies could be constructed. In a certain sense, this also called for the elimination, or at least the exclusion, of the abnormal.
This, of course, was a rather simplified and naive utopian concept within the then trendy Modern Progressive Era, and as such was supported in its early stages with extraordinary enthusiasm in science, sociology, and psychology.
As it eventually turned out, however, the idea was quietly retired during the late 1950s. The reason is rather amusing and ironic. While it seemed easy enough to identify the abnormal, and then to condemn it as socially undesirable, it proved increasingly difficult to establish what the normal consisted of.
With this psycho-sociological development, parapsychologists of the time became concerned that their topics of study and research would be lumped into the abnormal category, and which indeed was soon the mainstream case.
In seeking to escape this danger, they countered by indicating that psychic activity and phenomena were not abnormal, but PARAnormal—simply and innocently meaning beyond, above or outside of the normal.
One of the important factors that got covered over in all of this was that the original psychic concept had nothing to do with things mental, psychological or behavioristic.
This original concept now needs to be firmly recovered, not only for the purposes of this book, but on behalf of human energetics as a whole.
THE ORIGINAL CONCEPT OF PSYCHIC FORCE AS AFFLUENT SUBSTANCE
As we have seen in chapter 9, during the 1870s, Edward William Cox introduced the potent term PSYCHIC into the languages of the world. But he introduced the term not as the noun it later became, but as an adjective specifying a particular type of force among all kinds of forces.
The term AFFLUENT doesn’t seem to be used very much anymore. It has two principal definitions, the second of which has to do with being financially wealthy.
Otherwise, it is taken from the Latin AFFLUERE (to flow), and in English came to mean “to flow abundantly,” and hence was associated with anything that did so.
Cox, a lawyer, took great care and pains in describing psychic force, and published his descriptions in his 1871 book SPIRITUALISM ANSWERED BY SCIENCE. This is a wonderful book and remains one of the most cogent descriptions not only of the Renaissance concept of vital energies, but has direct relationship to the traditional Chinese concept of CH’I energy.
THE AFFLUENT SUBSTANCE
Cox enumerates a number of factors that need to be considered in order to comprehend the nature of psychic force.
He first points up that in Spiritualism it is held that everyone possesses an “amount of animal magnetism,” and that animating magnetism is what he, Cox, has renamed “psychic force.”
However, whether called animal magnetism or psychic force, “it” is a “magnetic material” and/or an “affluent substance” that “proceeds from” some kind of human body-matter.
Whatever the affluent substance is and whatever kind of body-matter is involved, it is “projected from the whole or part of the body structure, and, like other forces of nature, is perceptible to our senses only when it meets with some obstacle. All possess it, more or less.”
Cox stipulated that the medium who produces physical phenomena “has it more, and thus attracts it from those with whom he [or she] is in communication”—the extended assumption being that those possessing more affluent magnetic substance of whatever kind, stimulate and attract corresponding responses in those who have lesser amounts of it.
The only real problem with the whole of this is that the modern sciences do NOT admit that this kind of magnetism or force exists—even though its existence is continuously experienced by people everywhere.
MAJOR CHARACTERISTICS OF THE AFFLUENT SUBSTANCE
Perhaps on an assumption that Science would come to its senses later on, in his 1871 book, Cox gives a very cogent outline of “The Scientific Theory of Psychic Force.”
He itemizes the major characteristics of the force—which I’ll try briefly to clarify in order to escape from the complications of Victorian English syntax.
1. There is a Force proceeding, from, or directly associated with, the human organization (read organism, or body structure plus its animating energies.)
2. In certain persons and under certain conditions, this Force “can cause vibrations or motion in heavy bodies (such as furniture, other bodies, etc.) external to the person. The Force can also produce audible and palpable sounds in such bodies.
3. The Force does this “without muscular contact or any material connection between” any person present.
4. This Force appears to be frequently directed by some intelligence.”
5. “For reasons to be specified, we conclude that this Force is generated in certain persons of peculiar nervous organization in sufficient power to operate beyond bodily contact.”
6. “There can be little doubt that the Force is possessed by every human being—that it is a NECESSARY [emphasis added] condition of the living nerve, if, indeed, it be not the vital force itself.”
7. “In ordinary persons, it ceases to operate at or near the extremities of the nerves; in Psychics it flows beyond them in waves of varying volume and power.” At this point in his phenomenological line-up, Cox refers to a Dr. Richardson who also had been examining psychic force, and who had presented his findings in the POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW.
8. “He [another researcher named Richardson] contends that there is a nerve fluid (or ether), with which the nerves are enveloped, and by whose help it is that the motion of their molecules communicates sensations and transmits the commands of the will.
9. “This nerve ether is, he thinks, no other than the vital force. It extends with all of us somewhat beyond the extremities of the nerve structure, and even beyond the surface of the body—encompassing us wholly with an envelope of nerve atmosphere, and which varies in its depth and intensity in various persons.
10. “This [Richardson] contends, will solve many difficult problems in Physiology and throw a new light on many obscurities in Psychology and Mental Philosophy.” It might be noted here that the “many obscurities” remain still obscured.
11. “The Force exhibits itself in pulsations or undulations. It is never steadily continuous.” However, the tremors caused by the Force in a table, chair, floor, or in organic bodies, are likened to the waves of light or sound.
12. “The differences of the sensation between the operation of the Psychic Force and of muscular force are so manifest as to be palpable instantly to everybody who witnesses [experiences] it.”
13. The strength, or power, of the Force is conditional upon the mental and emotional status of the individual and individuals involved. The Force is “sometimes, but rarely, exhibited when the Psychic is alone. As a rule, the presence of other persons promotes the operations of the Force.”
14. The Force “is materially influenced by the electric and magnetic conditions of the atmosphere and of surrounding bodies, by heat and cold, by moisture and dryness, and still more by the nervous conditions of the persons present.”
15. As will be examined in the following chapter, characteristics of the Force can be perceived by a variety of clairvoyant means. But if the manifestations of the Force are powerful enough, they can be witnessed by normal perceptions. Exposure to the manifestations sometimes temporarily increases the clairvoyant faculties of individual’s in their proximity; faculties which otherwise lay dormant.
16. “The attention of the Psychic” regarding manifestations of the Force is not necessary. This is suggestive that the manifestations of the Force arise from “an UNCONSCIOUS action of the brain, the ganglion, or the nerves.”
UNCONSCIOUS CEREBRATION
Cox stated that the manner in which this unconscious action is effected “is undiscovered because it has not been examined scientifically.” Then, or now, it might be added. But Cox refers to the matter of “unconscious cerebration.”
In order to illuminate the Force as being “frequently directed by some intelligence,” Cox next refers to Carpenter’s theory of “unconscious cerebration, or, in less learned language, the capacity of the brain, under certain conditions, to work, not only without the will, but without the consciousness of the individual.”
“Unconscious cerebration” is identified as “hitherto mysterious mental states which scientific men, unable to explain, have contented themselves with denying or ignoring, [while] unreflecting persons have attributed [the mysterious mental states] to supernatural influences.”
In more contemporary terms, unconscious cerebration is probably equivalent to preconscious processes that take place in the subconscious before emerging into consciousness or mental perception.
Indeed, in some fashion, sensory systems ORGANIZE data BEFORE it is forwarded to the conscious intellect. In this sense, then, unconscious cerebration can be thought of as a type of Intelligence functioning beneath conscious awareness.
This matter is not as complicated as it might first sound. Although Cox utilizes sleep-walking and trance states as examples of unconscious cerebration, riding a bicycle or driving a car without consciously thinking about doing so are other examples.
IS PSYCHIC FORCE A FORCE?
After Cox had identified the major characteristics of “the Force,” he then goes on to mention: “The term PSYCHIC FORCE has been employed to describe the power or influence that either proceeds from or is intimately associated with the human organization.” The term is used “for want of a fitter one, but we call it a FORCE because many of the phenomena present the results of a force.”
He compares psychic force to the forces of heat, light, magnetism, electricity, and galvanism as consisting of energetic “particles in motion, making themselves perceptible to our senses when they strike against some opposing matter.
“But it does not follow in this particular [regarding particles in motion] that Psychic Force should resemble those other forces. We call it a force for convenience, but it is doubtful if, strictly speaking, it be a FORCE—but having more the nature of an INFLUENCE than of motion of particles projected and impinging on other bodies.”
The term INFLUENCE has several definitions, all associated with “flow” or “flowing.” The definition Cox apparently was using is “the act or power of producing an effect without apparent exertion of force or direct exercise of command.”
A very early definition of INFLUENCE, however, referred to “an ethereal fluid thought to flow from the stars,” or inherent in the universe, “and to affect the actions of men.”
THE DIRECT SIMILARITY OF PSYCHIC FORCE TO THE CHINESE CH’I ENERGY
One of the major, but subtle, situations regarding the forms of research we are discussing in this book is the rather broad failure of the modernist West to compare the phenomena of their research with the phenomena of the ancient Chinese Ch’i Gong [sometimes given as Qigong].
The literature is quite large regarding Ch’i energies, and many of the most important, and remarkable, disciplines that download from knowledge of them can be found described in detail.
Anyone wishing to discover sources to extend their knowledge beyond the scope of this book can easily obtain a most competent book entitled THE WAY OF QIGONG—THE ART AND SCIENCE OF CHINESE ENERGY HEALING, by Kenneth S. Cohen, and published in 1997.
In that book, QI or CH’I or chi is defined as “Life energy, vital energy, breath of life force, power, air.”
Cohen’s book is basically about Chinese energy healing by modulations of Qi energy, and which, with some sense of legitimacy, can be referred to as vital fluids.
But for the purposes of this book having to do with sexualizing energies, his Index reveals a category identified as Sexual Qigong. Itemized under that heading one can discover the topics of Deer Exercise, ejaculation control, ejaculation frequency, exchanging sexual energies, and so forth.
For this, it is clear that CH’I energetics have sexualizing ramifications. It is through those particular ramifications that we can recognize the similarity to CH’I energies of animal magnetism, odic force, psychic force, and orgone energies.
In this regard, one might even be brave enough to suggest that Mesmer, Reichenbach, Cox, and Reich (and even the photographers of energies) had encountered the phenomena traditionally associated with the ancient Chinese CH’I.
As another immediately available source of information about the existence and uses of CH’I energy, one might refer to the recent, and decidedly rather surprising, 1997 book entitled CHINA’S SUPER PSYCHICS, authored by the CH’I master, Paul Dong, and his associate, Thomas E. Raffihl.
In this book, the development of Chinese “super psychic” abilities is directly attributed to the utilization of CH’I energies. The development, via CH’I, includes influencing at a distance, and enhanced forms of clairvoyance, as will be described beginning in the next chapter.
The authors give a description of “chi” (on page 131). They indicate that chi gong has a history of 3,000 years, and so the Chinese have developed many interpretations of it.
In its most widespread definition, in everyday life chi refers to the air we breathe (this a metaphor for “breathing energies.”) In terms of the body, it refers to energy. In terms of life it refers to vitality. When talking of activity, it refers to abilities.
In other words, as the authors say, its meaning depends on the context.
The term CHI GONG in itself means training the body’s energetic abilities, and bringing them to their optimal level.
Dong and Rafifil also point up (again on page 131) that in addition to its medical value, Chinese researchers had discovered, by 1979, that chi gong is a catalyst via which “many people had developed psychic powers.” The book gives numerous examples of those developed, and quite impressive, psychics.