Month: May 2018

Crop circles are a cultural phenomenon that has taken over areas of Europe by storm at several different times throughout recent history, though they take form in many areas of the world, with visual effects ranging from irregular shapes to amazing geometric patterns.  The source of their formation and origin is surrounded by controversy, some say they are the product of UFO propulsion interference, others lay claim to the idea that they are naturally created phenomena, at the mercy of magnetic fault lines deep beneath the earths crust, but, as sure as there are many reasons for unexplained crop circles, there are some out there that have much more humane origins.  Here’s a simple how to list for creating your own crop circle, and of course, adding to the mystery of strange patterns appearing in farmers fields overnight.

Steps

1- Use your head! In both Canada and the United States, it’s illegal to even enter a cultivated field, let alone to damage the crops.  If you plan to make a crop circle, you best get permission from whomever owns the land first, lest you be enjoying the after glow from an 8×6 cell.  An ideal choice is a field with a sloped hill that rises from a public vantage point (i.e. a road).

To ensure your circle can be seen from public areas (and has any chance of being noticed), plan your design according to the local gradient using a large scale elevation map.

2- Plot your straight-line or circular design. Mark on the map the directions you will be flattening, to avoid visible signs of passage (inexperienced circle makers can spoil a design by leaving stripes like a lawnmower would).

Initial access is normally found through existing farm tracks and trails, so note the position of them before you start.  The basic gist is to avoid leaving any mark or evidence of your comings and goings from the site.  Google Earth is an effective utility for scoping out the right location, and for understanding the run of any trails or traffic paths in the area.

3- It’s a smart idea to create your design entirely on computer, make amendments until you have the design you can be proud of and plan out the event according to that design.  You will only have one shot at this, so put extra effort into planning and design. Unfortunately, practicing your design in the real world will ruin the surprise.

Start simple: consider making your first crop circle from an arrangement of discs in a geometric formation. More advanced curved lines can be created by overlapping partial circular arcs.

4- Equip each member with the equipment listed under Things You’ll Need.

5- Once in the field, use measurements to place markers exactly. Your friends can help you place markers, make line-of-sight calculations, and lay the rope to mark areas for flattening.

6- Make construction lines by laying rope outlines to shapes. Then flatten circles at the intersection points. To make the shown example formation, create a rope outline of an equilateral triangle, and create flattened circles at the triangle corners. Avoid flattening over the rope, to create an implied triangle.

7- There are two methods commonly used to flatten:

• Plank Flattening – use a roped plank to flatten by holding the rope or looping it over your shoulders. Press forwards and down by keeping one foot on the plank. Advance using a shuffling gait.
• Using a roller – some circle makers prefer using a light lawn roller (available from garden centers) to speed up flattening.

8- Keep on flattening until you have completed your design and have a really nice, well-made complex formation.

9- Wait for the media to spot the new formation. This may take several days, or you can speed the process by making an anonymous call. A good design will provide local newspapers with many column-inches of speculation.

Tips

• For best results you should probably spend more time planning the crop circle than actually making it. By carefully planning the design, working out what equipment is needed and discarding ideas that will be difficult or impossible to achieve, you can reduce the opportunity for embarrassing errors.
• Flatten during a dry period, to avoid churning up mud.
• Try to use the cover of night. Remember that ideally you should be finished by dawn, when you can take a picture of the pristine design before swarms of “croppies” come and trample all over it.
• To leave a ‘weird’ crop circle of cosmic origins:
  • Bend some stalks around by exposing them to a blue light source for a few hours. Applying small amounts of natural gum or plaster will lock their new shape. Sadly this approach may not satisfy a detailed or scientific inspection
  • Create swirled nests in the flattened areas by your clever weaving of stalks.Also, melt some iron filings into droplets on site and sprinkle them around the flattened area to leave ‘meteorite particles’ and magnetized stalks.

Warnings

• We are not suggesting, nor requesting or advocating in any way, that anyone should trespass on private property for the purposes of creating crop circles or for any other reason.  Should you undertake to create a crop circle on property that is not your own, or for which you do not have permission to access, you do so of your own accord and consequence.
• Crop circle art is like graffiti for ‘cerealogists’, often undertaken without permission. Be careful, as not surprisingly, farmers do NOT want damage done to their property. Always operate within the law.
• The amount of crop flattened need not be excessive to make a strong impression of shape and form. In fact, you should not plan to flatten a larger area destructively, and it had better be beautiful or you can expect criticism and opposition.
• Remember to take away everything you brought to the site, including the soft drink bottles which are so easy to discard in the outlying field. These are a good way to distract onlookers from the beauty of your otherwise mysterious formation.

Things You’ll Need

1. A light plank (4-6 feet in length) with a rope (10-12 feet) knotted through holes in each end. Alternatively, you may prefer to buy a light garden roller from a garden centre.
2. A big ball of rope or nylon string (pre-stretched)
3. Marking pole
4. Protractor for measuring angles
5. Measuring tape (100 ft)
6. Night-vision goggles (optional)
7. Laser-pointer to assist placing markers (optional)

Stephen King has done well to ignite the imaginations of people the world over, his books and movies have become the stuff of nightmares for so many people, and one of his most popular titles brings undue credibility to a potentially dangerous phenomenon; Firestarter introduced pyrokinesis to popular culture.

The term pyrokinesis had never been used prior to the release of his film, though there were antecedents to Drew Barrymore’s character, none had been as glamorous and believable as the pretty young Charlie McGee.

In spite of what may seem possible with the special effects of Hollywood’s great film makers, mainstream science has declared pyrokinesis to be a physical impossibility.  Even well respected parapsychologists (who might be prone to believe in some fairly weird stuff) have claimed the mental manipulation of fuels sources to create ignition, flame and/or explosion is far fetched at best.

Nevertheless, many people hold a steadfast belief in their own ability to create flame with the power of their mind.  As with any other subject, doing a quick internet search, one can find simple meditative instructions for pyrokinetic abilities.  These instructions are eerily similar to one another, and typically call for one to learn the art of dousing flame with one’s mind prior to learning to ignite (a safe bet to be sure).

Below we will dissect these instructions, and try to provide either a basis for continued study, or sufficient reason to call pyrokinesis a “debunked myth”.

Pyrokinesis has been accused of being responsible for many reported cases of spontaneous human combustion(SHC), though, as with so many other unexplained phenomenon, the truth is often much more bland and believable, which is why so many continue to believe in both pyrokinesis and SHC.

Essentially what we’re talking about in pyrokinesis, is the excitement of molecules within the matter of whatever object we intend to ignite, through the use of mental intention only.  No other fuel sources, dousing sources or ignition sources are used to create heat, spark and flame, and subsequently to extinguish the flame.  Unfortunately, any purported Pyrokinetic (a person with this ability), must be able to prove that it is in fact their mental ability causing a reaction, and not some ancillary resource or element.

A.W. Underwood, a 19^th century African-American who achieved some fame for his alleged pyrokinetic abilities and the only person with this ability to submit to scientific testing (which was admittedly low in standard at the time), was eventually discredited, as it was believed he used a small amount of phosphorus to ignite the objects he focused on. (Phosphorus ignites at a much lower temperature than other material, approximately 30◦ Celsius or just above normal body temperature)

In spite of this kind of scrutiny, the practise continues within pagan and Wiccan circles, as well as in other mystical religious sects, and is usually associated with some form of ritual meditation.

The ability to control flame is considered an advanced mental ability in the category of psiosis, and those who are interested in learning pyrokinesis techniques are urged to do so in stages, beginning with flame dancing and dousing.  As mentioned, here are the instructions for testing your own pyrokinetic abilities:

Copied from Wingmakers.co.nz (atrocious spelling and all)

“Pyrokinesis The Ability Over Fire Pyrokinesis is one of my favorite abilities. It is the ablity over fire. This is an advanced skill, and can be dangerouse to others around you if you don’t have controll over it. The key to Pyrokinesis is focusing on what you want the flame or fire to do, and willing it to happen. Here I have listed a few ways to develope and increase you pyrokinesis skills.

The best way to develope and train your Pyrokinesis skills is a technique called the dancing flame. Get in a relaxed position, and grab a match. Light the match on fire and focus on the flame. Create a “tunnel” between you and the flame. Now visualize the flame going out. You must be focusing on only the flame. With enough will power, and hard concentration, the flame will go out. Putting a flame or fire out is the easiest part of Pyrokinesis. Making the flame or fire relight is the hard part. Once you can make the flame burn out, Focus on the flame relighting. After a few weeks of doing this, you will notice that once the flame is out, you will be able to see the ember start to turn red again as though it wanted to relight. Once you practice enough, it will relight. This is the easiest way to develope and train Pyrokinesis. This techique DOES WORK!! I started out a year ago by practicing the dancing flame, and now I can make a decent sized fire dim down and go out just by a wave of the hand. Then I can relight small parts of it.”

It doesn’t take an expert in statement analysis to recognise that there is a slight bit of information lacking in this instruction.  I have yet to try this, and likely never will, but I invite anyone who has tried it, whether successfully or not, to contact me.  I’d very much like to know if anyone has had any verifiable success in creating, controlling or dousing a flame with their mind.

I suspect I will be waiting a while.

In any event, the lack of credibility that so often goes along with this sort of meditative exercise in quackery, does so much damage to the mainstream scientific investigation of real psychokinetic or PK phenomenon; and even if that weren’t true, the potential danger involved in this one warrants telling anyone who might try it, to go find something better to do.

Despite my obvious slant toward the sceptical side of this argument, I do believe there are mental abilities available to us, as a species, that we haven’t yet accessed on any large scale, though I doubt pyrokinesis is one of them.

Now please excuse me while I take a moment to check my smoke detectors and fire extinguishers…just in case.

There has been some controversy in the world of paranormal investigation in recent years.  With the advent of the reality TV show, up have popped more paranormal investigation shows than you can shake an ectoplasm covered stick at; and with this rise in popular acceptance, has also come a rise in the number of amateur ghost hunters and groups.

 One thing is inevitable within this diverse subculture, and that is disagreement. Ghost hunters and paranormal investigators disagree on pretty much everything. From observation techniques, to technology, to ghost theories, and even to locations for investigations; but one thing that polarizes the paranormal community right down the middle, is the concept of charging for investigation services.

 Coming from a private sector investigative background myself, I’m more than familiar with the idea of making a living off of other people’s misfortune, and immoral as it is, I can easily draw an convincing argument for its necessity within our society and culture.  Though for the most part, the things I investigate are the product of human-to-human wrong doing.

 In the case of a paranormal incident or haunting (as is the usual name for the cause of an investigation), there is no easily marked path between one person to the next, and the unfortunate families involved in these scenarios are typically at the mercy of their experience.  Not to mention, there is no “we have a poltergeist” insurance that I’m aware of.

 Many paranormal investigators and teams see their task as one of exploration and adventure.  They pursue the unknown as a means unto itself and in doing so are happy and often enthusiastic at the idea of learning more about their quarry, in the form of a new haunting.  These types of investigators wouldn’t likely dream of charging any type of fee for their services, they are driven by a thirst for knowledge and understanding, and payment comes to them in the form of interesting bits of data and potential evidence.

 At odds with the above, is the investigator who sees their service as akin to that of an exterminator; they are driven by a desire to earn financial reward for a job, often, not done.  These types of so-called investigators, often hold no affinity for the science and history of the paranormal, nor any other subject for that matter, and typically seek reward for their adventures before anything else.

 It should be said that often there is a distinction between the second type of paranormal investigator and the valuable Medium (often wrongly called a psychic), who’s services can be contracted to assist in allaying the potential dangers involved in more serious hauntings.  Though that distinction is less visible where the Medium charges amounts that are obviously in excess of their expenses.

 The gaping hole of a problem that arises in the case of the paranormal investigator or Medium who charges for their services, comes in the form of prestidigitation. Slight of hand is so easily used to convince the victim of a traumatic haunting that further measures need be taken to quell the “spirits”, where no justification truly exists; and as a result, an entire sector of academic pursuit is tainted by the reputation of a relatively small number of old school flim-flam artists.

 As mentioned previously, there are two opposing camps of though on this issue, but I suggest that anyone who enters the world of paranormal investigation with an eye toward making a living on ghosts hunts alone, is chasing the wrong dream.  As with any other scientific pursuit, paranormal investigation should be, and for the most part is, an academic exercise in increased understanding.  The two underlying goals of any investigation should be, forever, first and foremost, to increase your individual knowledge of the paranormal, and to obtain credible evidence of the event or experience.

 We are not treasure hunters, carnival side shows, or back alley deal makers.  We are a maverick breed of scientist and it’s time for the spotlight to be taken off of those who believe otherwise.

 If there were any doubt, my vote would be cast in the “To Not [charge” category, though I suspect there may be more in opposition to me than I realise; and in that spirit, let this serve as a callout to the paranormal world, speak your mind and form ranks, lets put this issue to bed, once and for all.

Just prior to July 23, 2008, four young East Hampton (NY) women, Jenna Hewitt and three friends, happened upon what must have seemed a completely alien scene.

A local news paper, The Independent, ran a story about their experience, citing that the “Hound of Bonacville” had been found, and its lifeless carcass had washed up on the shores of Montauk beach.

 What they found that summer day has confounded scientists the nation over.

 Identification theories abound, some say this creature is merely a racoon, in an advanced state of decomposition caused by extended exposure to the water.  Others claim it to be a dog or other small canine, and others yet claim it to be a rodent of some kind.

 Eye witness reports, few as they are, suggest that the creature was approximately the size of a house cat, but seemed like nothing they had ever seen before.  Initial photographs of the creature were run by the newspaper in conjunction with the story, but this scoop was soon to find syndication and was quickly being covered by media giants like CNN.

 Additional pictures became available soon after and did little to shed more light on the creatures identity, and as a result of the media coverage, experts in zoology, anthropology and veterinary medicine were called in to make an identification of the remains.

  

 Some such efforts concluded (prematurely some might say) and reinforced the idea that the creature was simply an unfortunate racoon.  Jeff Corwin of Fox News concluded and maintains (via his blog) the same theory.

 Nay Sayers have made their voices heard however, and they declare with confidence that this must be either an extraterrestrial corpse, or the body of some as yet unidentified sea creature.  Though most reputable sources attribute a wholly earthly origin and allow little credibility to the missing link theories.

 It is interesting to note that the actual remains were never recovered, and this itself is the cause of some speculative conspiracy theorising.  One of the women who was thoughtful enough to snap the first pictures of the creature is widely accused of knowing precisely where the remains currently lay, though she denies any involvement in the conspiracy.

 Once the media furor began to build, the four women were reported to have returned to the site, though accounts of what they found vary greatly.  Some say they found only a badly decomposed skeleton, which would seem fairly logical, but for the amount of time that had passed between initial reports and their supposed date of their return.  Other’s suggest that they returned to find the creature as originally reported, but decided to bury the remains in an undisclosed location, in an effort to fuel the controversy for financial gain.

 Whatever their motives or actual involvement, the photographs are typically accepted as real (or unaltered), and most people who view the images will attest to the apparent authenticity of the creature, though none so far have been able to positively identify the creature.

 To this day, no one has come forward with an explanation, and the case remains officially unsolved.

The study of animal graveyards?  A fancy word for fake zoo’s?  Maybe a made up pseudo-science, used by wanna-be UFOlogists to legitimize the study of weird things?

How about none of the above…

Officially, Cryptozoology is the study of make believe animals, which could put the definition squarely in the pseudo-science category, but that dictionary definition does little credit to the scope of study.  The word, taken from the Greek word kryptos, meaning “hidden” and the modern word zoology, literally means the study of hidden animals; and through this definition opens minds to the possible existence of some very weird creatures.

In paranormal circles, Cryptozoology is a growing scientific pursuit, akin to mainstream zoology and even anthropology.  Much work is being done to identify, catalogue and classify strange creatures from around the globe.  But we aren’t just talking about Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster.

Mainstream scientists have long believed that our vast oceans conceal a near complete branch of Darwin’s tree of life.  Every year new species of large fish and even sea faring mammal are added to the lists of known animals, and there is no reason to think that these discoveries will stop any time soon.

Cryptozoologists take on the sometimes undesirable task of hunting for mythical creatures, only believed to exist by some few laymen.  They often have little choice but to rely on anecdotal evidence and folk lore, though in spite of their short comings, they typically provide us with detailed and usually accurate characterizations of some of the strangest things on our planet.

Where Cryptozoology falls short, is often the very place where it meets with popular culture.  Since certain mysterious megafauna cryptids, such as Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster are technically hidden species of animal life, they quite nicely fall into the scientific purview of Cryptozoology, though the many logic barriers which stand in the way of standard scientific study of such creatures, tends to drain away the credibility of any who pursue them.

Most Cryptozoology supporters deny the possibility of the existence of such megafauna cryptids, citing that it is extremely unlikely that these animals could remain unexposed without holding population numbers large enough to support their continued survival.

Nonetheless, the popularity of the overall subject in mainstream and sub-stream media is largely due to public attraction to such fantastic stories as the many hundreds of Bigfoot sightings across North America each year.  It seems these scientists must suffer a love-hate relationship with their so-called megafauna cryptids.

With the rapid expansion of technological capabilities, such as high resolution satellite photography, ultra-sensitive sonar and radar, and advances in normal zoological understanding, Cryptozoology is poised to become a burgeoning field of study, potentially backed by Hollywood and dot com funding sources.

Weird science is good business, and as the sudden influx of paranormal blogs, video sites and investigation teams in the US and Canada would suggest, the average persons is willing to get in on the chase.  There is an informal race to find the next great and strange creature, to obtain concrete proof of existence for some beast of folk lore and to capture a story worth shouting from the heights of the popular media outlets.

Cryptozoology is everyman’s science, it is a field of stud that remains open to anyone willing to learn and to look; to look beyond what is accepted as real and to find new answers for what seems too incredible to exist.

Here’s an easy and amusing way to have a conversation with your inner self, or depending on what you believe, the spirits around you with a gift of the gab and a penchant for literary influence.

Automatic writing, also known as free association writing, is the process or production of written material that does not come from the conscious mind of the writer. While not exactly like Thing from the Adam’s Family, it is a little like your hand having a mind of its own.

The practise gained popularity through the Surrealist movement of the early 20^th century, though its true origins are cloaked in 18^th and 19^thcentury occultism and witchcraft. It likely holds some relationship with scrying techniques known throughout the Earth’s long standing mystic cultures.

Sigmund Freud did his share to legitimise the practise, renaming is as Free Association writing, as he began using the technique in conjunction with other psychotherapy measures. Freud believed, as do most psychologists, that automatic writing provides an outlet for subconscious thought streams to be released and heard. Much like dream states are believed to be our subconscious minds attempt to reconcile the vast amounts of information that our brains process in the course of a day, free association writing is believed a physical manifestation of that process.

Successful automatic writing sessions are said to induce a meditative or trance like state in the writer, though many believe that results can be achieved in varying states of cognition. One needn’t be a meditative guru in order to achieve measurable results; it is enough, apparently, to simply not pay attention to your writing hand while you write (much like I’m doing now ;))

As with any other subject connected to paranormal circles, this one has people forming camps of belief. There are two specific thoughts regarding where the written words come from; the first being, as Freud and his contemporaries suggest, that the subconscious mind is speaking through the pen, much like in a dream-state; and the second, being favoured by occultists, Wiccan practitioners and paranormal enthusiasts, is that the words are those of ghosts or spirits who channel their will through the writer and onto the paper.

Many in the second camp purport that the disjointed and often incoherent ramblings achieved through automatic writing are the result of the difficulties experienced by the spirits in manipulating the energies of the living; though a similar argument could be made for the subconscious dream-state position as well.

Regardless of the origin of the information, the practise is fairly easy to master, and the results can be more than a little unnerving. But as the experts will attest, this is one of those mystical endeavours that can’t come back to bite you…in other words, feel free to try free association writing as much as you want.

Below are instructions and some tips for learning the art of automatic writing and becoming reasonably proficient at tuning into the other side, where ever that other side might be.

Here’s How:

1. Find a quiet spot that will allow you to concentrate without distractions
2. Sit at a table or desk where you’ll be comfortable with paper and pen (or pencil)
3. Take a few moments to clear your mind
4. Touch the pen or pencil to the paper
5. Try not to consciously write anything
6. While keeping your mind as clear as possible, let your hand write whatever comes across
7. Avoid looking at the paper; you might even keep your eyes closed
8. Give it time to happen (nothing might happen for quite a while)
9. When it seems to be done, if and when automatic writing does occur, look over what your hand has produced carefully; the writing may appear to be nonsense or just scribbling, but try to decipher it as best as possible
10. In addition to letters and numbers, look for pictures or symbols in the writing as well
11. Keep trying; you may not experience results on your first few attempts
12. If you start to achieve success, you can try asking questions to see if you can receive responses

Tips:

• There is no guarantee that automatic writing will work for you, but don’t give up if it doesn’t work the first few times; give it a chance
• Be aware of psychological dangers: some messages that come across might be disturbing

White light meditation is a visualisation technique that’s been used for centuries, for the protection of persons and places against spirits, ghosts and so-called demons.

Typically this is done by an experienced Psychic or Medium, as their meditative skills tend to be more developed, but the practise can be used by anyone.

The idea behind is it quite simple; so simple some may find it silly or difficult to believe in, but those who use the technique proclaim consistent and effective results.  Visualisation, as has long been touted by the metaphysical science community, as an effective way to manipulate the energies and flows of energies around us, by (and some argument can be found on this) adjusting the frequencies of your aura.

We needn’t get into a metaphysical debate over the dynamics of auras and energy flow, as I’m neither qualified nor interested at the moment.  The important thing to remember is that through visualisation you can achieve a protected state and remain safe from potentially harmful energies.

I realise how that sounds, and trust me, I no more like sounding like an incense burning guru than you like reading about it, so lets get down to the nitty gritty.

While we try to ignore how it works, let’s focus on a step-by-step guide to getting it done.  This too can be the source for some argument, but generally, the following guided meditation will help you to find your minds eye and to use White Light Meditation to avoid conflicts with spirits and/or ghosts in your surroundings.

Use the following White Light Meditation Script to build a barrier of protection around yourself and your family:

• Find a comfortable position, preferably lying down, in a quiet room with no distraction.
• Lay flat on your back, relax and close your eyes (I would suggest reading the rest of the meditation script first though)
• While you lay there, use your imagination (your minds eye) to look around the room; be aware of the space, the air, the sounds and the smells in the room
• Slowly bring your awareness inward, envision yourself laying on the bed (or wherever you are), see the position you’re lying in, see your face and hair, and body, and begin to focus on your own image
• Now let your awareness explore your arms, hands, legs and feet, be aware of where they are and what position they’re in
• Bring your focus inside now, become aware of your breathing and your heart rate, and move your focus up into your head

Now that you are relaxed and in a meditative state, you will begin using white light.

• Using your minds eye, visualise bright flowing white light streaming from the centre of your forehead, slowly at first
• As you gain control over the light, where it goes and how quickly, you will begin to wrap the light around your body.  Let it envelope you and cover you like a warm blanket
• Let the light flow and surround you for a few moments, enjoy the peaceful feeling and using your inner voice, declare that your white light is a barrier that cannot be crossed by anything or anyone who is not welcome
• Make your declaration with confidence and strength, you control the light and you control your mind
• As you lay there, wrapped in your protective white light, visualise the light expanding away from your body, filling the room.  Every corner, and crevice, let it expand to leave no empty space in the area
• Push beyond the boundaries of the room and allow your white light to spill into the rest of your home, let it encompass your family and your property; providing a protective blanket over your entire life
• Maintain your expanded white light blanket for several minutes and make your declaration a few more times.  Always be confident and strong in your declaration, believe what you are saying and mean it

Now that you’ve achieved a protective white light blanket, it’s time to set it in place and bring your focus back to yourself.

• Slowly pull your focus back toward your body, consciously visualising the white light blanket remaining in place
• Visualise your body, lying on the bed, where you arms, hands, legs and feet are
• Draw in a deep breath through your nose, and slowly let it out through your mouth
• Open your eyes and rest a moment, and enjoy the calm

That’s it, you just completed your first white light meditation, and you’ve provided an effective spiritual protection barrier around you and your family.

Get into the habit of doing this on a regular basis, maybe once every month or so, and you’ll find it easier and easier to visualise.  You may also find that you’re able to enter a deeper state of meditation after a while, which is a good opportunity for you to begin some more advanced meditative techniques.  Do a Google search for meditative scripts for many different functions.

Of the various forms of psiosis out there, clairvoyant prophet seems to be one of the worst, at least looking back through history it looks that way; those famous for their prophetic visions have suffered greatly for their gifts.

Nostradamus, born Michel de Nostradame (December 14 or 21, 1503 – June 2, 1556, records of his birth are difficult to validate) and Edgar Cayce (March 18, 1877 – January 3, 1945) to name two.

Though their experiences were drastically different, both men suffered in their own way, seemingly at the weight of their own prophecies.  Nostradamus lived in difficult times; religious turmoil surrounded him, as it was as much a part of life then, as taxes and pop music are for us.  Edgar Cayce’s life was more comfortable than Nostradamus; he had the comforts of the industrial revolution, not to mention the benefits of advanced germ theory medicine to protect him from disease.

While Nostradamus worked feverishly to hide his gifts, concealing his predictions into more than 1000 quatrain poems, the contents of which are so difficult to translate that they cannot be agreed upon by the best linguists in the world to this day, Cayce propped his gift up under stage lights and on séance tables.

Edgar Cayce

Both men were infamous for their austere eccentricities, and both men were criticized for their apparently misplaced loyalties.  One thing runs true for most psychics, and that is the call of the sceptic.  To be called a fraud, to be criticized for simply revealing your thoughts, that is a prison from which a person cannot escape.  Cayce found refuge in glorifying everything that was wrong with the Surrealist movement of the late 19^th and early 20^thcenturies, he no doubt swindled a great many widows of their last few pennies, all for the service of allowing them to commune with their late husbands.

Nostradamus, however, internalised his struggle, he hid away from the world and made every effort to keep his ability a secret; though a man who makes accurate predictions of the unknown future, scarcely remains on the sidelines.  By the time Nostradamus lost his family to the black plague, he had already been accused of heresy by the church and was facing a threat to his life by religious fundamentalists (though who in those days wasn’t a fundamentalist).  His surviving the plague, even though he stood beside as his family passed on, fed fuel to the already kindled holy fire, and he sought to remove the witches mark from his forehead.

It might seem that these two men wore completely different cloaks, but below the surface they suffered the same affliction, to know the future, and to be ill-equipped to interpret their visions in the terms of the historical world in which they lived.

Imagine for a moment, that you are a 14^th century doctor turned spiritual healer, you live in a time of technological infancy, electricity is unheard of, indoor plumbing is a luxury for the super-wealthy and superstition, based on religious dogma is the single motivator for nearly all public and private behaviour.  Now imagine that, in that environment, you’re plagued with visions of a time when buildings grow as tall as mountains – shining mountains of steel and glass (a material used mainly in the windows of churches in your time), mountains that sparkle with a million candle lights across their face – a time when wars and famine and disease run rampant across half the globe.  A time when religious persecution has reached its pinnacle of malevolence and the atrocities committed in the name of the one true God are brutal and completely bereft of mercy.

Consider the contrast between those two worlds, between that antiquated era of Victorian principle and simplicity, and the complex, subjective and alien profile of the modern global culture.  If you were that 14^th century faith healer, struck by images and visions of a world so drastically different than anything your wildest dreams could have concocted, how would you interpret what lay before your minds eye?

Would you see apocalypse?  Would you see Armageddon? Would you see a technological utopia for some and a hellish nightmare of existence for others?  Or do you think that your pre-industrial revolution mind could comprehend the strangeness that is our world, compared to that of Nostradamus?

The mere fact that this man was able to translate even a portion of what his gift showed him, is a testament to his advanced cognitive abilities, and the fact that his quatrains were encrypted suggests that even though he feared persecution from the superstitious mobs, he did understand the meaning behind the visions.

Edgar Cayce was no stranger to superstitious persecution either, though his Hollywood-esque spotlight gave him the unlikely cover of popularity to shield him from accusation (for the most part).  His time was much closer to the ecumenical melting pot of today, the industrial revolution was at hand, and the daily trials of his time were more like our alien lives than that of Nostradamus.

Cayce though, suffered for his gifts in a more physical manner. Some have suggested that his act was pure prestidigitation and nothing more than the snake oil of a travelling quack.  Cayce’s global popularity didn’t reach acceptance until after his death, but through his “readings, he was known to suffer serious headaches and what could be described as neural trauma.  He became known as the “Sleeping Prophet” as his readings became so draining that he began to adopt a trance-like state, and would dictate his prophecies to a personal assistant / secretary while he lay prostrate on a nearby couch.

So the question is begged, was the hardship of each man the fruit of their psychic labour, or were they victim to their place in history and their own eccentricities?

Both men are now renowned in paranormal circles, each is revered by his respective camp of fans and followers, some believing so forcefully as to create political pressure in Western Governments over the nature and detail of their predictions.

Edgar Cayce and Michel de Nostradame were pioneers, each in their own right, and none since made such an impact on popular culture. Each man held his own demons and eventually succumbed to the one event that needs no prediction.  It still seems to me that both were prisoners of their gifts, and I’ll declare that, given the choice, I would rather do without their particular gift.

Drifting off to sleep, your mind wanders away from the stresses of your day, your body relaxes and your mind begins moving toward the deep recesses of REM sleep. Look out Alice, Wonderland is going bye-bye!

 Dreams are one of the ultimate mysteries; if you’re able to remember your dreams you’re one step ahead of many people, though in some cases you might be better off in the dark.  Esoteric fantasies, wet dreams, nightmares, fright-mares, night terrors and just plain weirdness invade your mind when you fall asleep.  It all begs one question…what the hell did that dream mean?  Though, before we can really explore the meaning behind dream imagery, we need to first identify what dreams are.

 Psychologists and other doctors and scientists believe that dreams serve several purposes, not the least of which is essentially a decompiling of the information, emotions, stresses and happenings of our conscious world, by our subconscious supercomputer of a brain.  Think of your personal computer’s defragmentation process, moving segmented bits of information around on the hard drive, arranging them in a more logical manner, scanning for errors and bits of missing information, resolving computing conflicts and making things just a little more efficient.  For the most part that’s what’s happening inside your head when you slumber, though, like a young child watching a complicated horror-suspense film, it’s hard to comprehend the flashing images, intense smells (and sometimes sounds) and just plain strange situations we find ourselves in throughout the dreamscape that is our subconscious mind.

 While the purpose of dreams can be answered easily through a little well directed research and a whole lot of reading, deciphering the meaning behind the highly variant and subjective symbolism in dreams is a very different story; a story with only one character and many different sub-plots.

 The first thing to remember when interpreting dream imagery is that virtually all dreams are representations of some part or several parts of your own personality.  This means that the horrible dream you refuse to admit you’ve had, the one that had you fornicating with a person or persons whom you find completely unattractive or even repulsive in real life, is not what you think it is.

 The purpose here is not to provide yet another dictionary of dream imagery; rather, it is to provide some basic interpretive tools that can be used to shine some context or perspective on the dark places of the mind, and ultimately to better understand ourselves in the process.

 A dream dictionary is only as useful as the understanding we have of why we dream what we do.  Specific definitions for dream imagery are not possible due to the entirely subjective and personal meanings that various events hold for each of us, though in many cases those definitions can be used, together with a broader understanding of our moods, stresses and motivators, to gain a relatively accurate idea of what a dream means to the dreamer.

 Let’s think for a minute, about how our subconscious mind works.  Most scientists believe that the subconscious mind is a sort of filing system, or a bank of memory circuits that store our memories, experiences and essentially house the instructions for responding to various stimuli in our environment.  It operates in much the same way as the memory of a computer.  It holds no context, no sense of self and no reason.  It cannot operate without the conscious mind any more than a desktop computer can operate without a user.  The subconscious mind exists in the “now” only; its basic save-and-store functionality demands that it work as a symbiotic with our conscious mind, which is where reason and context are applied to give objectivity to raw information.  It is the cooperative work of these two parts of our mind that allow us to experience, remember and choose within our environment.

 Every minute of every day, we are bombarded with new information, some of it contradictory to what we already “know”, some of it easily reconciled, and other bits are totally irrelevant to our life circumstances.  None-the-less, we collect and store all of this information through sensory input, all the time.  What we see, hear, smell, touch and “sense” is all contributing to the second-by-second choices we make in our daily lives, all of it interacting with information we gathered previously, and only a fraction of it actually being considered by our conscious though processes.  Herein lies the dilemma.

 If we continually fill our subconscious with essential and superfluous information, and only actually deal with a small part of that information consciously…what happens to the rest of it?

 The simple answer is that it is saved, to be called into to consciousness at a later date, to reconcile or refute some new information that becomes important to our life circumstances.  But, there must be a process to it.  Enter the vast dreamscape of the human mind.

 Quite often when we remember a dream images are blended together, the context of the various events we experience in the dream are blurred and make little sense, and ultimately we have difficulty assigning any real value to the meaning behind the overall dream.  While there are ways to improve dream cognition and retention, we’ll leave that subject to another article.  What we’re interested in here is the ever elusive context of the details.

 Many of us, when remembering a dream, get stuck on a particular item, or event, or person and through that process inevitably lose sight of the bigger picture.  Though often that bigger picture holds the key to understanding what your subconscious mind was trying to tell you or better yet, the conflict in information it was trying to resolve.

 As mentioned previously, the ultimate credo of dream analysis is that everything you experience in your dreams is a representation of a specific segment of your own personality.  Now, to give Dr. Freud his due, sometimes a cigar really is just a cigar; but it would be a valuable endeavour to test each cigar, just to be certain.  This can be a difficult concept to wrap ones head around, the idea that when I dream of my mother, my child or my spouse, they are not my mother, my child or my spouse, but actually a part of myself, which I identify through a particular characteristic that I see, or rather, sense, in my mother, my child or my spouse.  This generally applies to people, places, objects and even actions in the dream world. 

 It’s safe to say, though not always correct, that the peripheral importance of an item in your dream signifies the relative meaning (or the importance of the meaning) of that object in the interpretation.  If an item was only peripherally noticed in the grand scheme of the dream, then it most likely holds very little meaning for the overall interpretation

 The reason we can rely, somewhat loosely, on the general or relative meaning of dream dictionary definitions, is because of social context.  Generally speaking, all of the people within a specific society will experience and/or assimilate the same relative social context for various objects, events and actions.  We may not all agree on the specific meaning of a thing, but often times we can agree on broader contexts, i.e. the historical reference to the moon as “Luna”, inferring a female, mothering connotation to the moon in a general social context.  We might not even realise our own awareness of that social context, but it is prevalent enough to be considered a likely possibility for the meaning of that imagery in our dreams.  This means that one of the more likely interpretations of seeing the moon in your dreams is that you are processing subconscious information that relates to a mother figure in your life.  This of course depends on cultural relevance, personal beliefs and exposure to various other elements of your own environment.

 Perhaps with a righteous purpose, dreams engender a certain level of introspection in order to fully understand their meaning.  Especially under the consideration that the same dream can hold multiple meanings.  As humans, living in ever expanding and overlapping communities and not in our own little bubbles, our minds tackle many issues and reconcile unfathomable amounts of information against so much previous experience that we must assume a layered duplicity to our dream imagery.

 A step-by-step instructional on dream interpretation might begin with the notion that you must weigh each element (dominant element anyway), against the events, conflicts and relationships in your life at the time of the dream, and with those ideas in mind, only then compare the dream to the subjective definitions found in dream dictionaries.

 It is vitally important to recognise the potential in better understanding the voice of our subconscious mind, if only for the reason that it has access to far more information than our conscious mind does.   There’s benefit to understanding that the subconscious mind is not only free from context, reason and self-awareness, but it’s also free from the crippling boundaries of ego.  Dreams can present us with options, scenarios and dilemmas that we hadn’t consciously considered for problems or situations we may not have even realised were relevant to our circumstances.

 In the very least, understanding the meaning behind our dreams, be they frightening, emotional or just plain weird, can be a very cathartic and therapeutic experience, and is worth the introspection needed to gain that understanding.

Electronic Voice Phenomena, abbreviated as E.V.P., is one of the most popular forms of paranormal evidence presented in circles of research and investigation.  In spite of many mainstream explanations and sceptic arguments, believers are passionate in their defence of this marvel of modern technology and ghostly influence.

Popular reality TV shows, such as Paranormal State and Ghost Hunters, have brought EVP back into the spotlight with mainstream culture; and for such a complicated technological process, it is widely accepted as the standard of evidence for a successful encounter with a spirit or ghost.

This sought after Holy Grail of paranormal evidence is given so much weight, for possibly the wrong reasons, though individually, it is difficult to hear any such recording and not sympathise on the side of belief.  On the whole, however, there are much more scientific explanations for electronic voice phenomenon.

The idea of EVP was a natural evolution of the explosively popular spirit photography of the late 19^th and early 20^th century.  This was a time when séances, complete with lurching tables and self lighting candles, were to blame for the vast majority of socialite hysteria.  In the time of the industrial revolutions infancy, people were still prone to believing in supernatural causes for completely natural events, including flim-flam artists out to make a buck on the misplaced awe of a gullible and newly wealthy upper crust.

Notably, a Latvian photographer and self-proclaimed medium, Attila von Szalay, was one of the first documented paranormal investigators to attempt to record the sounds of the dead, during his life long pursuit of ghosts and zombies.  His first attempts, in 1941, involved the use of a 78rpm record, though failing to find success he quickly moved to the use of a reel-to-reel tape recorder and believed he found what he was looking for.

Swedes, Friedrich Jürgenson and his later partner/collaborator Konstantin Raudive dove into the “science” of EVP and accumulated more than 100,000 so-called recordings of the dead.  Some of their recordings were conducted in an RF-screened laboratory, so as to eliminate the chance of radio interference on their early recording devices, and to their credit, most, if not all, of their experiments were conducted within the scientific method, as was accepted as the standard at the time.

Jürgenson and Raudive invited listeners to scrutinize their recordings in an attempt to confirm their findings, as they believed that their recordings were clear enough to be interpreted by anyone.  Raudive eventually went on to write his first book, Breakthrough – An Amazing Experiment in Electronic Communication with the Dead, in 1968, which was later translated to English in 1971.

Through the ages, the lure of EVP has remained strong, and despite the many scientific arguments against it, has remained the staple of nearly every paranormal investigator and ghost hunter since the turn of the century.

Recording EVP is perhaps the simplest part of a paranormal investigation yet.  Simply set a sensitive audio recording device to record for an indefinite period of time, undisturbed, in an area where ghostly activity is said to occur, and later, examine the recording for voices in the static.

It really is that simple, though in that simplicity might lay the problem.  The first question that jumps to mind when one is excitedly presented with EVP evidence, is based in traditional psychology.  Are you/we hearing, what we think we’re hearing?

Auditory pareidolia, a psychological phenomenon involving a vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) being perceived as significant, combined with apophenia, the experience of seeing patterns or connections in random or meaningless data, are the front running explanations for, not only EVP, but also for other paranormal phenomena as well.

The two camps of belief, obviously separated by a collective suspension of, or adoption of scientific reasoning, respectively account for both the paranormal culture and the mainstream scientific culture.  As easy as it is to find patterns in white noise and attribute those completely random results to an unseen intelligence, it is far more difficult to support your analysis without the influence of belief.

In those rare cases where verifiable audio results are recorded and collective agreement can be made that the above is not responsible for a false positive in analysis, the physical realities of audio recording must also be taken into account.

As noted earlier, the early Swiss experiments in EVP, were often conducted within the cover of an RF-screened laboratory.  This wasn’t just a way to steal mainstream credibility, Jürgenson and Raudive knew that even in the mid 20^thcentury, there were enough random and specific radio frequency waves flashing about the environment that interference was not only possible, it was likely.  Fast forward to today’s technology, with the addition of cellular signals, high and low frequency radio signals, direct satellite signals, and who knows what else; we’ve got a veritable interference hodge-podge floating above our heads at any given moment.

It would be naïve to suggest that any EVP recording was completely free of RF, electrical or any other type of interference.  One trick many ghost hunters use, is to adjust the gain of the recording devices (microphone sensitivity), in order to enhance the background noise and/or white noise in the environment.  Not only does this increase the possibility of picking up man-made interference, but it also sets listeners up to be fooled by their own brains, into thinking there actually is a voice on the recording.

Some readers may be shaking their heads and fists by this point, and it should be said that each case of EVP should always be judged independently, as ever changing environmental conditions, and recording techniques leave too wide a field for interpretation.  No one can, and certainly no one should, say that all EVP evidence is either the result of interference or misinterpretation.  Clearly, there is a mounting pile of convincing EVP evidence that deserves much closer scrutiny.

In recent discussions on the topic, experiments have been suggested that could test and provide statistics for EVP evidence based on signal frequency and volume, as well as directionality.  Suffice it to say that there is much work to be done in finding the right way to not only record EVP, but also to interpret what so many steadfastly believe to be the voices of the dead.