Psi Research Material Submitted on October 1, 2008
Belief Rises in Guardian Angels
More Americans than not believe they have received protection from a guardian angel. Fifty five percent of adults, including twenty percent of folks with no religion, make this claim, according to research conducted at Baylor University and reported in USA Today.
Broken down by religious categories, the results indicated that angelic protection was reported by sixty six per cent of evangelical Protestants, eighty one per cent of black Protestant, fifty five per cent of mainline Protestants, fifty seven per cent of Catholics, and ten per cent of Jewish respondents.\
Not everyone has the same criteria for believing that a guardian angel provided protection. Not everyone is envisioning a being with wings. Some feel it is a departed loved one watching over them, some claim to hear the voice of God, and some have an inner sense of protection.
Difficult financial times are motivating more people to turn to angels, according to a report in Britain’s Times Online. Sales of angel paraphernalia, angel books, and courses on contacting angels have increased dramatically.
Internet sources:
Touched by an angel? Most say they've been protected
By Cathy Lynn Grossman, USA TODAY
A new survey of the USA's religious beliefs and practices finds 55% of all adults — including one in five of those who say they have no religion — believe they have been protected from harm by a guardian angel.
"I would never have expected these numbers. It was the biggest surprise to me in our findings," says sociologist Christopher Bader of Baylor University in Waco, Texas. Baylor today will release results of its second national survey on religion.
HOW FAR IS HEAVEN? At least half will make it, Americans say
IDEA CLUB: Do you talk to God?
The survey, based on interviews with nearly 1,700 adults in fall 2007, updates Baylor's 2006 findings on religious affiliation and views of God by adding new questions on topics such as gender and politics, the environment and beliefs about evil.
DEEP DIVIDES: Are women suited for politics?
ENVIRONMENT: Evangelicals less worried about climate change
TRAGEDIES: Dealing with evil: Candidates disagree
Members of almost every major religious group sensed angels running heavenly interference: evangelical Protestant, 66%; black Protestant, 81%; mainline Protestant, 55%; Catholic, 57%; Jewish, 10%; other religions, 49%; no religion, 20%.
"People's sense of the divine is remarkably widespread and tangible, even if they don't call it God. Clearly, there's a sense of the sacred prevalent throughout society," says Matthew Gilbert of the Institute of Noetic Sciences in Petaluma, Calif., which studies subjective experiences using scientific techniques.
Just as people have many different images of God, so they have different ways of interpreting "guardian angels" or God's voice, says Kenneth Pargament, a psychology professor at Bowling Green (Ohio) State University who has written on spirituality and the psyche. When people think of being protected, "they may not be envisioning an angel with wings so much as a loved one who has gone before them and is looking after their well-being," Pargament says.
Many respondents said they have "heard the voice of God" or "felt God speaking to me." That too can be an internal spiritual sense, not literally words in their ear, says Pargament.
Internet source:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2008-09-18-baylor-angel_N.htm
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They won’t find out how many of them can dance on the head of a pin, but later this month 600 people will pay €90 each to attend a seminar in Dublin to find out more about angels.
It’s part of a new angelic trend, which includes shops opening across the country to meet the demand for paraphernalia, and angel books on top of the bestseller lists. As Ireland balances on the cusp of economic crisis, spiritualism and the promise of hope is selling like never before.
“A lot of Irish people have always had an interest, ever since we were taught about our guardian angels as children,” said Mildred Ryan, who styles herself as Ireland’s first “angel teacher”. “It’s only in the past couple of years that interest has really exploded. The world is going through so much turmoil and people are looking for help. They want to learn how to connect to angels.”
Ryan became a teacher in 2002, and claims she can teach people how to meditate and connect to their angels. She “trained” in Britain and then returned to Ireland to organise workshops; her one-day events cost about €80 per head.
“I was totally booked out straightaway,” she said. “There are so many people who have been deeply hurt, and they just haven’t moved on. Angels give people so much help and assistance.”
Ryan has since become a “master teacher”, which allows her to train more angel teachers. A teacher-training course, which runs over four weekends costs each participant €930. There are now 50 “qualified” teachers in Ireland.
Among these is Annita Keane, from Clarinbridge in Galway, who left her job as a biomedical scientist in the public health service to become an angel teacher. Charging €111 per person for her workshops, Keane has found no difficulty supporting herself in her new job.
“My science background helped me to understand them,” she said. “A lot of it is based on the laws of physics and the movement of energy. I explain this in my workshops. I was surprised by the level of interest. I think the move away from religion has led people to look for something else.”
Angels in My Hair, an auto-biography by Lorna Byrne, in which she claims to see angels, has been on top of the Irish bestseller charts for 12 weeks.
“We can’t get over the interest we’ve had in Lorna’s book,” said Jean Callanan, Byrne’s agent. “We’ve had nine print runs already, and the editors of The Da Vinci Code got into a bidding war to win the rights to sell it in America. I don’t think anyone expected this interest. But Lorna always said that the angels told her it would be a bestseller.”
Angel books are not the only merchandise flying off shelves. The growing demand for angel statues, bracelets and candles has resulted in the emergence of shops nationwide dedicated to angel products.
One of those to identify this market niche was Stephen Buckley, who owns Angels of Ireland, in Finglas, Dublin. Buckley’s wife Patricia claims to have seen angels since she was a child. Four years ago the couple made the decision to sell their grocery store and open an angel shop instead.
“It came about when I tried to buy some angel statues for Patricia and I couldn’t find them anywhere in Ireland,” said Buckley. “Business is going great now. We sell everything from €2 bracelets to €500 angel statues for your garden. It’s more profitable than selling groceries and the job is much more fulfilling.”
Business is also booming for Philip Newell, who is organising an angel seminar in Dublin this month. Costing €90 a head it will feature Diana Cooper, a British “angel expert”. Cooper will tell the audience about “angel orbs”, which she claims are visible manifestations of angels.
“In the past year Diana has been inundated with photographs from Irish people who have seen these orbs and taken pictures of them,” said Newell. “We’re expecting around 600 people, from all walks of life, all coming together to meditate and connect with angels. It will be a very powerful experience.”
Desmond Connell, the former Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, is an academic expert on angels, regarding them as messengers of God who are capable of intervening directly in human affairs.
Those who believe in angels describe it as a feeling or awareness of a good spirit. Some say they can see a light, while others claim to see angels in a traditional physical form.
Internet source:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/ireland/article4749548.ece
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Police Find Use for Psychic Detectives
"I look at psychics as tools, the same as I would a polygraph examiner. Psychics can only provide pieces of the puzzle. It's still up to the detective to put all of those pieces together." Thus explains retired chief police detective Dave Heater. Contrary to opinions expressed by some police officers, there are many examples of criminal cases being solved by the aid of psychic detectives, according to an article published in Law Officer Magazine. The article describes cases worked on by three American psychics, Noreen Renier, Nancy Weber, and Annette Martin. Each of these psychics have provided information on several police investigations that, according to statements by the police officers involved, helped solve the crime.
Internet source:
Investigators close cases—that's their job. Some cases, however, drift on for years, creating a burden an investigator may have to shoulder for their entire career, or even for the rest of their life. Cases like these often cause a dilemma for the law enforcement community, leading them to try unusual methods of investigation. One of those methods is using psychic detectives, a popular topic on cable and mainstream TV.
The interest in psychic detectives, though, isn't restricted to the general public. Their use by police agencies has been well documented for some time. The results, however, are open to endless debate.
In this article, sample cases from three of the nation's top psychics, along with the officials they worked with, are profiled. The psychics were selected based on their depth of experience working with law enforcement. All of them are women who have appeared on numerous TV shows, and one even had had her own radio show.
Psychic #1
Noreen Renier, 71, Virginia
Renier didn't
realize she was psychic until she was in her mid-30s, while working as a public
relations and advertising director at a large hotel in Orlando, Fla. At the
hotel, Renier attended a lecture given by a psychic, who helped her realize she
was also sensitive to paranormal activity. From that day forward, Renier began a
gradual transformation from skeptic to believer and to finally honing her own
psychic gifts.
In 1981, FBI Agent Robert K. Ressler, author of Whoever Fights Monsters , invited her to give a series of lectures at the FBI Academy. During one of those lectures, she predicted the attempted assassination of President Reagan several months before the shooting. Ressler speaks highly of Renier in his book, where he specifically references this prediction.
Norman Lewis—Missing
Person Case
Norman Lewis, 76,
and his pickup truck were missing from his hometown of Williston, Florida on
March 23, 1994. Two years later, Lewis was still missing, and Investigator Brian
Hewitt, along with Chief Olin Slaughter of the Williston Police Department, were
past frustration.
Williston is a small town. Slaughter and Hewitt would often bump into Lewis's brother and his sister-in-law once or twice a week and they would always ask, "Anything new on Norman?" The officers would offer them words of hope, the same words they had given them the week before. To Hewitt and Slaughter, those words seemed trite and hollow. Both knew they weren't giving up, they just wished they had something new to tell the Lewis family.
Lewis had often been seen driving around town with fishing rods poking out over the tailgate of his truck. Fishing was his passion, and he frequented many spots near Williston and the outlying areas of rural Levy County.
"The initial search for Lewis," recalled Slaughter, "included all of his favorite haunts; borrow pits, phosphate mines and sinkholes. There were more possibilities than you could probably count, including the fact that he sometimes drove over to fish the ponds and springs in the Ocala National Forest. The initial search was extensive and included ground personnel, K-9 and air. We also notified sheriffs in adjacent counties to keep a look out for Norman and his truck."
Two years later, Lewis was still missing, when Hewitt attended a seminar in Orlando, Fla., about 90 miles southeast of Williston. One of the speakers was Noreen Renier, a psychic, who gave a stunning demonstration of her skills to the audience. As Hewitt walked out of the room he thought, Maybe, just maybe, she can help find Norman.
Hewitt met with Slaughter and the Lewis family when he returned to Williston. It was agreed that if the family paid Renier's consultation fee of $650, the Williston Police Department would follow up on any information she provided.
Hewitt took a pair of shoes and a wallet owned by Lewis and drove back down to Orlando where he met Renier at her home. "On a missing person case," said Renier, "I don't want a photograph; I want a personal object like a shoe. A shoe has a lot of energy." Renier uses personal items to get her impressions through psychometry—the ability to pick up information through inanimate objects, a technique often used by other psychics.
Renier isn't sure how she does what she does; she can only describe what it feels like in her head. "I can often float in the air above where the person went missing," she said, "and see physical features that flash through my mind like the frames of an old movie film strip." As the images emerge, she describes them out loud for the detective, who can ask questions for clarification to help her hone in on what's relevant to the investigation.
Renier slipped into a trance with Hewitt present, recording what she said on tape. "As I held Lewis's shoe," said Renier, "I began seeing a series of images flashing through my mind. I could see Lewis falling off of a cliff; encapsulated inside his truck and surrounded by vegetation; that a pile of bricks, a bridge and an old railroad bed were nearby. And then I saw a series of numbers. First came 45, which I knew was connected to a road, then 21 and later the number 22. But the last two sets of numbers had no meaning to me." Renier then drew a map on plain notebook paper, penciling in the location of Lewis' home, with a line leading away from it, in the direction Lewis could be found. Renier had never been to Williston before.
Hewitt returned to Williston. Over the next couple of months, he sorted through the clues, driving the dirt roads around Williston, looking for the landmarks Renier had provided.
"I will admit," said Slaughter, "that after a couple of months, I was about ready to call it quits. Even though we were a small department, with 16 full time officers, we had other cases to work. But Brian really believed that Renier's clues would bear out, so I told him, 'I'll stick with you.'"
Several months passed, and Hewitt was still on the hunt for Norman Lewis. By now, though, Hewitt had zeroed in on an old phosphate pit with cliffs, a couple of miles from Lewis's home. He found a steel rail in a heavily wooded area near the pit, but no railroad bed. The pit was located in the general direction from Lewis's house that Renier's hand-drawn map had shown.
"One day, Brian's roaming around up there in the woods," said Slaughter, "and he finds a pile of red bricks. He went back to the rail he discovered earlier, started digging and found an old railroad bed underneath it. I called Levy County Sheriff's Department divers to come over and work the pit. But they came up empty. The pit had water in it 30 to 40 feet deep and was covered in vegetation.
"So I'm up there at the pit with Brian after this, wondering where we go next, and I happen to look just right through the woods and see an old Fairbanks Morris Scale. It was a wooden truck scale that could be confused for a bridge."
Slaughter's confidence grew, and he got some Navy demolition divers to dive the pit on their off time. On their second day, they got a hit while using a magnetometer.
"By that afternoon Norman's truck was winched out of the pit," said Slaughter, "and there was Norman, inside the cab, mummified from the limestone and encrusted."
Several different roads led into the pit. "On one road," said Slaughter, "You would come up over a rise, and the road turned right. If you were on the next level up, the road comes over a rise and it just goes off a shear drop. We're not sure how or why Norman ended up in the pit. But I think he probably got confused."
"Now Hewitt and I start working on the numbers. We have to complete the puzzle. Lewis's home was exactly 2.1 miles from the pit. The entrance to the mine is located on US 41, but if you look at the map carefully, you'll see it's also SR 45. Now we were left with the number 22 and couldn't do anything with it. That was until we had Norman's watch cleaned up before giving it back to his brother. It had stopped on the 22nd of the month."
He added, "I can only tell you what the facts are that led us to Norman. And I can also tell you that we wouldn't have found Norman Lewis without the help of Noreen."
Psychic #2
Nancy Weber, 64, NewJersey
Nancy Weber has
been a psychic since childhood. Her family and friends jokingly called her the
"Little Witch" when she was young. "I knew when family members died at the
moment of their death," said Weber.
Weber became a nurse at 19. By the age of 27, she was working in an experimental acute psychiatric unit in the South Bronx of New York. "I loved it," said Weber, "I was psychically attuned to ferreting out the root cause of people who exhibited major psychosis. I could take a catatonic locked away for decades and in 35 minutes, I'd have him chatting with me."
What Weber didn't like was the internal politics at the institution. She decided to strike out on her own as a psychic, and she never looked back.
Elizabeth
Cornish—Murder Case
In the pre-dawn
hours of Aug. 8, 1987, Elizabeth Cornish, 42, of Belvidere, N.J., was beaten to
death with a claw hammer as she lay in bed. "The attacker had repeatedly struck
her, leaving a 360-degree blood spatter pattern around the room," said Dave
Heater, then a lieutenant detective for the Warren County Prosecutors Office.
"We had a couple of guys we were looking at," said Heater, "and one of them was John Reese, 31, a farm worker, who lived on the upstairs floor above Cornish's apartment. We put him through a polygraph, and he passed. My partner thought he was still good for it, but I thought it might have been Cornish's boyfriend."
It was at about this time that Cornish's sister requested that a psychic get involved with the case. "When I found out it was Nancy Weber," said Heater, "I was comfortable with that because we had worked together in the past. In fact, I had an experience with another psychic in the '70's. She was so accurate it was scary. In that case, she picked the barrel out of 150 others that contained the murder victim. So I knew in some cases they could help."
Heater brought Weber to the crime scene during daytime hours, when he knew Reese was away working. Weber wasn't told before hand that Reese was a suspect. "As soon as she walked into the apartment," said Heater, "she insisted that the evil was upstairs, and whatever happened had come from upstairs. She later described a man with a scar on his face that wore a large belt buckle [western style] and had the initials J.R. When I told her that this man [with the initials J.R.] had passed a polygraph, she said, 'Go talk to him again.' My partner went back to talk to Reese again, and he did indeed have a scar on his face and a big belt buckle.
"Reese was eventually caught in several lies and ended up confessing. He told us he had tossed the hammer into a patch of woods, near a road on the sod farm where he worked. Nancy drew us a diagram of a road with a patch of woods and a watery area beyond the woods. Her diagram matched the location that Reese gave us. We did a shoulder-to-shoulder grid search back and forth through the woods, and we did find a hammer with human blood on it. But we were able to eliminate that hammer as the murder weapon based on the wound patterns.
"As we searched the woods, it was interesting to me that we did come up on a swampy area. If I were Reese, that's where I would have thrown the hammer. In some places, there was six feet of water and it was crawling with water moccasins. If he had thrown the hammer in there, it would have been very difficult to find.
"Nancy, my partner and I kept looking at Reese. Otherwise, he might have been dismissed as a suspect because of having passed the polygraph.
"Nancy's information is very accurate; it's just that it's so scattered you have to make sense of it. It's all a puzzle, and you have to put it together."
Psychic #3
Annette Martin, 70, California
Annette Martin has
known since she was seven that she possessed abilities other children didn't. It
started one day when she had a premonition of being hurt by a group of
playmates, and 10 minutes later they turned on her.
As a child, she was known as having a "big voice," which led to a career as an opera singer, where she traveled around the world performing in lead roles.
Always outgoing and effusive, Martin is a natural communicator. She has taught classes on the paranormal at the University of Hawaii and Stanford University and has been the host of her own psychic radio show in Hawaii.
In 2006, Martin testified in a murder trial where the defendant was a psychic. "I am the first psychic ever declared as an expert witness," says Martin. "The defendant's attorneys wanted me to prove that psychic detectives do exist."
Dennis Prado—Missing
Person
On May 1, 1997,
Dennis Prado, 71, a former paratrooper, went missing from his apartment complex
near San Pedro Valley County Park, Calif. A popular spot for hikers, its
formidable terrain is not to be taken lightly. Park advisories warn visitors to
avoid wandering off marked trails, as it may take days or weeks for a search and
rescue team to find them.
Two and a half months later, Prado was still missing, and his family contacted then-Sgt. Fernando Realyvasquez of the Pacifica Police Department. They had heard of Annette Martin and wanted to see if she could help. "As you can imagine," said Realyvasquez, "I rolled my eyes like most people would. But I ran the request by my chief who said, 'It won't hurt to try it if it will make the family feel better.'"
Realyvasquez met with Martin at her office. Martin never went to the park or visited Prado's apartment. "Sgt. Realyvasquez brought me an armload of maps," Martin said, "including a topographic map of the park and a picture of Prado. I took three deep breaths and went into a trance, while holding his photo. I became Prado and could see the trail he had taken as he walked away from the apartment complex and into the park. I could see where he had fallen down and died of a heart attack. I ran my right hand over the topographic map and felt a warm spot coming off of the map. I circled that spot and told Sgt. Realyvasquez that is where Prado would be found. I also drew a rough map on legal notebook paper, of where Prado's body would be found in some bushes, just off of a trail leading away from his apartment and into the park. I wrote the date July 15, 1997, at the top of this map."
"The size of the circle she had drawn on the topographic map," said Realyvasquez, "was a quarter of an inch, which on this map equaled about an eighth of a mile across. After this, I got together with a couple of other officers and went to look for him, but didn't find anything."
A couple of days later, Roberta Houser, a search and rescue volunteer came to Realyvasquez's office.
"She had heard about Martin," said Realyvasquez, "and wanted to listen to the tape recording of what she had said. I let her listen to the tape and showed her on the topographic map where Martin had circled it."
Houser was familiar with the area, because she and other volunteers had combed it once or twice already, looking for Prado during the initial search.
On the morning of July 19, 1997, Houser and another search and rescue worker, together with a cadaver dog, entered the park at 8 a.m. By 9:15 a.m., they found Prado's decomposed body 15 feet off of a trail in some brush, inside the area Martin had circled on the topographic map. "I'm just as skeptical as I was before," said Realyvasquez, "but the only reason we found Prado was because of the information Martin provided."
Conclusion
This article was
written with law officers in mind, knowing that they are fact-driven and
reality-based, and that they would put more stock in what their fellow officers
have to say about psychics.
Dave Heater, who retired as chief of detectives, sums it up this way: "I look at psychics as tools, the same as I would a polygraph examiner. Psychics can only provide pieces of the puzzle. It's still up to the detective to put all of those pieces together."
Bob Lee recently retired as a lieutenant with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission after 30 years. He has previously written articles for law enforcement and outdoor magazines. E-mail: bl_gamewarden@hotmail.com .
For More Information
All of the psychics
profiled in this article have had books published about their work. The books,
along with further background information, can be found on their Web sites
below.
Noreen Renier : A Mind for Murder by Noreen Renier and Naomi Lucks at www.noreenrenier.com
Nancy Weber : Psychic Detective: True Stories and Exercises for the Soul by Nancy Orlen Weber at www.nancyorlenweber.com
Annette Martin : Gift of White Light by James N. Frey at www.annette-martin.com and at www.closure4u.com
Internet Source:
http://www.lawofficer.com/news-and-articles/articles/lom/0408/psychic_detectives.html
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Army Developing Telepathic Helmets
Imagine an army officer simply thinking battlefield commands and having these orders broadcast as audible instructions to the helmets of the soldiers in the field. Army scientists are working on just such a “telepathic” helmet, according to a report in Time magazine.
Research using brain scans have made sufficient progress in identifying specific brain activity with specific events in consciousness to encourage the development of such helmets. The Army has contracted with researchers at University of California at Irvine, Carnegie Mellon University, and the University of Maryland to investigate the brain activities associated with various commands. The researchers claim that it is a matter of finding the appropriate brain signals within a complicated array of brain activity. It is also likely that because people vary in their brain response, the researchers may have to calibrate each officer’s helmet to recognize idiosyncratic activity patterns.
Internet source:
Army scientists want to cram this array of brain-wave reading sensors into a helmet.
Soldiers barking orders at each other is so 20th Century. That's why the U.S. Army has just awarded a $4 million contract to begin developing "thought helmets" that would harness silent brain waves for secure communication among troops. Ultimately, the Army hopes the project will "lead to direct mental control of military systems by thought alone."
If this sounds insane, it would have been as recently as a few years ago. But improvements in computing power and a better understanding of how the brain works have scientists busy hunting for the distinctive neural fingerprints that flash through a brain when a person is talking to himself. The Army's initial goal is to capture those brain waves with incredibly sophisticated software that then translates the waves into audible radio messages for other troops in the field. "It'd be radio without a microphone, " says Dr. Elmar Schmeisser, the Army neuroscientist overseeing the program. "Because soldiers are already trained to talk in clean, clear and formulaic ways, it would be a very small step to have them think that way."
B-movie buffs may recall that Clint Eastwood used similar "brain-computer interface" technology in 1982's Firefox, named for the Soviet fighter plane whose weapons were controlled by the pilot's thoughts. (Clint was sent to steal the plane, natch.) Yet it's not as far-fetched as you might think: video gamers are eagerly awaiting a crude commercial version of brain wave technology — a $299 headset from San Francisco-based Emotiv Systems — in summer 2009.
The Army doesn't move quite as fast as gamers though. The military's vastly more sophisticated system may be a decade or two away from reality, let alone implementation. The five-year contract it awarded last month to a coalition of scientists from the University of California at Irvine, Carnegie Mellon University, and the University of Maryland, seeks to "decode the activity in brain networks" so that a soldier could radio commands to one or many comrades by thinking of the message he wanted to relay and who should get it. Initially, the recipients would most likely hear transmissions rendered by a robotic voice via earphones. But scientists eventually hope to deliver a version in which commands are rendered in the speaker's voice and indicate the speaker's distance and direction from the listener.
"Having a soldier gain the ability to communicate without any overt movement would be invaluable both in the battlefield as well as in combat casualty care," the Army said in last year's contract solicitation. "It would provide a revolutionary technology for silent communication and orientation that is inherently immune to external environmental sound and light."
The key challenge will be to develop software able to pinpoint the speech-related brain waves picked up by the 128-sensor array that ultimately will be buried inside a helmet. Those sensors detect the minute electrical charges generated by nerve pathways in the brain when thinking occurs. The sensors will generate an electroencephalogram — a confusing pile of squiggles on a computer screen — that scientists will study to find those vital to communicating. "We think we can train a computer to understand those squiggles to the point that they can read off the commands that your brain is issuing to your mouth and lips," Schmeisser says. Unfortunately, it's not a matter of finding the single right squiggle. "There's no golden neuron that's talking," he says.
Dr. Mike D'Zmura of UC-Irvine, the lead scientist on the project, says his task is akin to finding the right strands on a plate full of pasta. "You need to pick out the relevant pieces of spaghetti," he says, "and sometimes they have to be torn apart and re-attached to others." But with ever-increasing computing power the task can be done in real time, he says. Users also will have to be trained to think loudly. "How do we get a person to think something to themselves in a way that leaves a very strong signal in EEGs that we can read off against the background noise?" D'Zmura asks. Finally, because every person's EEG is different, persons using "thought helmets" will have to be trained so that computers intercepting their unspoken commands recognize each user's unique mental pattern.
Both scientists pre-emptively deny expected charges that they're literally messing with soldiers' minds. "A lot of people interpret wires coming out of the head as some sort of mind reading," D'Zmura sighs. "But there's no way you can get there from here," Schmeisser insists. "Not only do you have to be willing, but since your brain is unique, you have to train the system to read your mind — so it's impossible to do it against someone's will and without their active and sustained cooperation."
And don't overlook potential civilian benefits. "How often have you been annoyed by people screaming into their cell phones?" Schmeisser asks. "What if instead of their Bluetooth earpiece it was a Bluetooth headpiece and their mouth is shut and there's blessed silence all around you?" Sounds like one of those rare slices of the U.S. military budget even pacifists might support
Internet source: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1841108,00.html
Also see: http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/08/15/mind.reading.ap/index.html?iref=mpstoryview
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Does Color Preference Reflect Career Potential?
Internet source:
By Rachel Zupek, CareerBuilder.com writer
Do you ever wish finding the perfect job could be as easy as one, two, three? According to new research, it might be as easy as red, yellow or blue.
That's right; by determining which primary, secondary and achromatic colors you prefer most and least, you can figure out a successful career path based on how you approach work, the types of workplaces where you work best and how you handle work tasks.
The Color Career Counselor (on CareerPath.com), powered by The Dewey Color System -- the world's only validated, non-language color-based career testing instrument -- uses color preferences to determine successful career paths. Dewey Sadka, author of "The Dewey Color System," says using colors instead of a questionnaire eliminates the chasm between self-perception and self-truth and reveals your core motivations.
"What if you misinterpret a [career assessment] question or the choices don't reflect your personality?" Sadka asks. "Color preference indicates your personality's best career fit. Preferred colors indicate passionate career pursuits; non-preferred choices establish workplace skills you least enjoy."
How it works
The Color Career Counselor is simple. First, you click your preferred primary color (red, yellow or blue). From there, you choose your preferred secondary (green, purple or orange) and achromatic (black, white or brown) colors.
"Your preferred colors determine how you attack each task. They indicate your talents -- what you prioritize first in order to be successful. They also highlight what you overdo, especially when you feel great," Sadka says.
For example, if you're partial to yellow, you're information-driven; blue preference people are idea-driven and people who prefer red are results-driven. If you favor green as your secondary color, you realistically evaluate situations; purple indicates you like fact-finding possibilities and orange signals that you scrutinize feasibility. Finally, if black is your choice from the achromatic colors, you consider value above all else; white shows that you like having options and brown confirms that you like implementation and accomplishing tasks.
On the other hand, your least preferred colors determine tasks and issues that you tend to forget.
For example, if your least favorite color is orange, sometimes you overcommit yourself by trying to do too much at once. If you dislike the color green, you try to fix everything for your colleagues rather than making them do it themselves. Or, if your least favorite is teal, you feel a deep need to prove you are competent.
In managing these areas head-on, Sadka says you won't miss the incidentals that could impede your success.
Put to the test
To see for myself if this "scientific" test was for real, I took the test three different times and got the same results each time, affirming that I am, in fact, in the right career.
I'm a "creator," says the Color Career Counselor. I'm "nonconforming, impulsive, expressive, romantic, intuitive, sensitive and emotional." It says I enjoy working independently, being creative, using my imagination and constantly learning something new.
For my suggested "creator occupations," I was given an extensive list of careers that included jobs I've considered (architect, interior decorator, English teacher), jobs people told me I should pursue (author, creative director, public relations) and jobs that I currently hold or aspire to in the future (reporter and editor).
What about you?
So are you a researcher, creator, social manager, persuader, doer or organizer? To find out what career path you should be following based on your preferred colors, here are a few examples of what certain choices say about you, and the careers and skills that complement them.
If you prefer yellow, purple and white: You're the communicator
You create profitable perspectives -- how to break into new accounts or be heard by other employees. By simply identifying a client's point of view, you develop strategies that open doors, even if they had already been shut. Your excellent communication skills can create problem-solving forums. Careers in corporate communications, marketing or religious occupations work best.
If you prefer red, green and black: You're the investor
You know the value of money and resources, as well as the intrinsic worth of each co-worker's contributions. Your supportive, yet analytical personality works best in finance, accounting, banking, manufacturing, property management, production analysis, investment, money management, consulting, product sales or teaching.
If you prefer blue, orange and brown: You're the activist
Your strong community beliefs and no-nonsense approach improve services for those around you. Occupations where you can improve existing specifications or impact social values work best for you. Consider careers in engineering, building, or developing new programs, companies or products. Also consider law enforcement, firefighting, social or government work.
These are only a few of hundreds of different color profiles. For your own free career evaluation, please visit: http://www.careerpath.com/career-tests/colorcareercounselor.aspx
Rachel Zupek is a writer and blogger for CareerBuilder.com. She researches and writes about job search strategy, career management, hiring trends and workplace issues.
Copyright 2008 CareerBuilder.com. All rights reserved. The information contained in this article may not be published, broadcast or otherwise distributed without prior written authority.
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Emails Used to Transmit Healing Energy
It seems to be possible to transmit healing energy over the internet, via emails, according to a study published in the journal Subtle Energies and Energy Medicine. In the study, conducted by Francesca McCartney, Ph.D. of Energy Medicine University, a trained intuitive healer meditated and “imprinted” three different CD-Roms with three different healing “intents.” A fourth CD-Rom was not treated. All four CD-Roms contained the same email text message instructing the recipient to detect any healing energy in the message. The recipients of the emails were students of an energy medicine training course, and had learned to work with specific healing intents. The question was, could the students accurately determine, for each of the email messages, whether or not they originated in a treated CD-Rom, and if so, which of the three different healing intents were imprinted upon that email message. The results indicated that the students were successful, at a level significantly beyond chance, at detecting the presence of healing energy and discerning which of the three healing intents was present in that text message.
Internet source: http://www.issseem.org/onlinedocs/journal/McCartney18-2.pdf
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Phantom Pain Treated with Mirror Therapy
Amputees often suffer from pain in the missing limb, a limb the amputee still experiences as being present. A new therapy that creates an illusion using mirrors is proving helpful to Iraq war veterans eliminate this pain, according to a report published in the New England Journal of Medicine and conducted at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
In the mirror therapy, a special arrangement of mirrors allows the patient to “see” the reflected image of the remaining limb as being actually the missing limb. When the patient moves both limbs, it appears that both limbs move. Often the phantom limb pain occurs because of the assumed position the missing limb is one associated with pain. When the patient “moves” the phantom limb into a position that is more comfortable, the pain goes away in most cases.
The researchers believe that the source of the pain is the brain’s confusion as to the existence and whereabouts of the phantom limb. The physical sensations and the visual sensations do not match up. The mirror illusion allows for an apparent alignment of physical sensation and visuals as the phantom limb is seen and felt to move into a more comfortable position.
Internet source:
Phantom Pain Treated with 'Mirror Therapy'
By Maia Szalavitz for MSN Health & Fitness
Brain & Body
It's bad enough to lose a limb, but some 90 percent of amputees are plagued by "phantom pain," an agonizing sensation that can feel like the missing body part is stuck in an awkward, uncomfortable position. Frequently, even the strongest painkillers don't offer much help. And it's a growing problem, with the rate of amputations suffered in Iraq and Afghanistan double that of previous wars.
In the late 90s, however, neuroscientist V. S. Ramachandran of the University of California, San Diego, reported an intriguing finding. By using mirrors to produce the illusion that the missing limb is present, and allowing the patient to "move" the healthy limb as though it was the missing one, the pain could be relieved. But does this work outside the lab—and if so, why?
A potentially life-changing treatment
Late last year, the New England Journal of Medicine published the first controlled trial of "mirror therapy" for leg amputees—showing that the results can be life-changing for some. Now, Walter Reed Army Medical Center has adopted this strategy as routine care for amputees.
Jack Tsao, M.D.,
D.Phil., Associate Professor of Neurology at the Uniformed Services
University of the Health Sciences, was the senior author. He says, "It's very
effective but it doesn't work for everyone. For those it [does help], it is
essentially curative." Around 78 percent of the 18 subjects reported some
benefit.
To ensure that it was really the mirrors that had the effect—not the motion of the other leg—the researchers had one group of veterans attempt to move their phantom limb and other leg while the mirror was covered. Another control group visualized moving only their missing limb. (All were ultimately offered the real treatment.)
Tsao describes one Iraq veteran who participated in the trial. I'll call him "Jim." Jim had been riding in a convoy when an IED detonated and the engine block of his vehicle tore off his right leg below the knee. He didn't believe that mirrors would help, but agreed to try the treatment.
He had severe phantom pain, and was in the covered-mirror control group for the first part of the research. He was taking strong prescription painkillers, but they couldn't really reach the pain. And the covered-mirror exercise actually made it somewhat worse.
But when the relevant mirrors were exposed and he could "see" and "move" his missing leg, he began to get better. He shifted the leg into a more comfortable position. The phantom pain began to fade. Soon, he was able to stop taking the painkillers entirely.
Although the initial study followed the veterans for only a month, Tsao has continued to track them. For those—like Jim—who were helped, the improvements seem to have lasted at least a year. "To be able to help by taking their pain away so they can move on has been really gratifying to see," he says.
A 'clash of the senses'
So why would something that is so simple and so strange have such a profound effect on serious pain? And why would it cure the problem for some people, while not working at all for others?
One theory is that phantom limb pain results from conflicting signals in the brain. When someone loses a limb, they don't lose the brain cells that represent that limb. These cells can still receive signals, and the damaged nerves of the limb may send distorted ones.
While the person's eyes tell them that the limb is no longer there, the nerves that signal where a limb is in space and how it moves still fire, giving the sense that the limb is in a particular position. This clash between the senses may be interpreted by the brain as pain.
Interestingly, the position amputees feel their legs are "stuck" in is often the last one that they remember being in before their injury. In Jim's case, his leg was straight out in front of him—a position that's not comfortable for long.
Says Tsao, "The visual feedback [from the image in the mirror] either dampens down mixed signals the brain is receiving, or clears the brain's memory of the limb. It allows them to move the phantom limb freely and dissipates the pain."
This could also explain why the covered mirror made the pain worse. It provided no new visual information about the missing limb—and this may have strengthened the clash between the brain signals that indicated it was still there in a certain position, and the visual evidence that proved it wasn't there.
Lorimer Moseley, Ph.D., a research fellow in pain imaging at Oxford University, has studied phantom limb pain and used mirror therapy. "I have definitely seen some patients do really, really well and others not respond at all. For some patients however, it is like a miracle—my fascination is, 'Why did it work for that patient?'"
Persevering with chronic phantom pain
One reason the treatment fails may be that the pain has permanently changed the brain's map of the body. The longer the pain sensation is maintained, the more it is "burned into" the brain's memory of how the body is, and the more persistent the changes are. "In my experience, the more chronic the phantom pain, the less likely it is to help," says Moseley. This suggests that early treatment will be more effective.
In cases where the phantom pain has not been addressed early, however, it might take a lot more repetition of the mirror treatment to provide enough input to erase the erroneous messages. If early repetition doesn't result in relief, patients might need to be encouraged to stick it out for longer. "My clinical experience is that it is difficult to get people to keep doing it if they don't see any effect," says Moseley.
However, even some long-term amputees can see a benefit. Tsao has heard from one correspondent who had e-mailed for advice to try to help his grandmother. She had suffered phantom pain for years—and the mirror treatment cured it.
Tsao is also adapting the technique for double amputees, using images of other people's limbs in motion to supply the visual feedback.
He is also working on a study that would image the brains of people with phantom pain. This could provide insight into which brain changes are involved in causing it and which changes are seen in those whom mirror therapy helps. That might lead to treatments to affect those regions in those for whom the mirrors don't work.
Right now, the best treatments available besides mirror therapy include medications and two other behavioral therapies. One, called "graded motor imagery," involves looking at pictures of limbs and visualizing moving them without pain. As with mirror therapy, the idea is to change the way the brain "sees" the limb.
The other, "sensory discrimination training," applies painless electrical stimulation to various regions of an amputee's stump, while teaching him or her how to tell them apart. This may help re-wire brain regions that have become "confused" about where the limb is and what it is "feeling."
Phantom pain forces you to think about where pain "really" is—and what it is. For amputees, the experience is all too real. But fortunately, for some anyway, mirror therapy turns "seeing" into believing and believing into relief.
Internet source: http://health.msn.com/health-topics/pain-management/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100215594>1=31035
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Lucid Dreamers Wanted for Kundalini Research
If you have had at least three lucid dreams a month over the past year, are between 21 and 64 years of age, and have taken no psychedelics or narcotics for the past three years, then you are eligible to participate in a study of kundalini in dreams. Conducted by Ted Esser, an East/West Psychology doctoral candidate, supervised by Daniel Deslauriers, Ph.D. and sponsored by the California Institute of Integral Studies, the study will ask participants to practice a special dream incubation procedure for lucid dreaming involving kundalini, to share their past and current dream experiences, andto explain how they were affected by them experiences.
For more information, email Ted at tviv@comcast.net
Internet source:
Call for Participants
Information for
Research Participants Considering Participating in a Study on Lucid Dreaming and
Kundalini:
If you (or someone
you know) would be interested in being a potential participant for a
dissertation study on lucid dreaming and kundalini please read or pass on this
notice.
Participants are
needed for a qualitative, narrative research study on Lucid Dreaming and
Kundalini involving the practice of dream incubation.
Participants will be
asked to do a lucid dreaming protocol involving kundalini, share their past and
current dream experiences, and explain how they were affected by them.
Potential research
participants must:
· have some knowledge of and interest in kundalini and have been lucid in the dreaming state on average of 3 times a month over the last year.
· be between 21 and 64 years of age be in good physical and psychological health have not taken any psychedelic or narcotic drugs for the past 3 years.
Potential participants do not have to reside in the Bay Area of California.
This study is being
conducted by Ted Esser, an East/West Psychology doctoral candidate, supervised
by Daniel Deslauriers, Ph.D. and sponsored by the California Institute of
Integral Studies. If you would like more details to decide if you want to
participate in this study, please send an email to:
tviv@comcast.net
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God Saves Lives, Survey Reveals
When the doctor says that there’s no more hope for the patient, most people believe that God can turn the tide and save the patient’s life, according to a recent survey conducted by the University of Connecticut and published in the journal Archives of Surgery.
In this study, participants were instructed to imagine that one of their family members was terminally ill or mortally wounded. They were then asked if they believed that God could intervene to reverse the situation. Fifty seven per cent of adults in the general population indicated a belief in God’s power in this situation. Twenty per cent of doctors and medical personnel also agreed.
The researchers concluded that doctors need to be aware of this prevailing attitude and to respond sensitively and not say, “that’s impossible.”
Internet source:
CHICAGO - When it comes to saving lives, God trumps doctors for many Americans.
An eye-opening survey reveals widespread belief that divine intervention can revive dying patients. And, researchers said, doctors "need to be prepared to deal with families who are waiting for a miracle."
More than half of randomly surveyed adults — 57 percent — said God's intervention could save a family member even if physicians declared treatment would be futile. And nearly three-quarters said patients have a right to demand such treatment.
When asked to imagine their own relatives being gravely ill or injured, nearly 20 percent of doctors and other medical workers said God could reverse a hopeless outcome.
"Sensitivity to this belief will promote development of a trusting relationship" with patients and their families, according to researchers. That trust, they said, is needed to help doctors explain objective, overwhelming scientific evidence showing that continued treatment would be worthless.
Pat Loder, a Milford, Mich., woman whose two young children were killed in a 1991 car crash, said she clung to a belief that God would intervene when things looked hopeless.
"When you're a parent and you're standing over the body of your child who you think is dying ... you have to have that" belief, Loder said.
While doctors should be prepared to deal with those beliefs, they also shouldn't "sugarcoat" the truth about a patient's condition, Loder said.
Being honest in a sensitive way helps family members make excruciating decisions about whether to let dying patients linger, or allow doctors to turn off life-prolonging equipment so that organs can be donated, Loder said.
Loder was driving when a speeding motorcycle slammed into the family's car. Both children were rushed unconscious to hospitals, and Loder says she believes doctors did everything they could. They were not able to revive her 5-year-old son; soon after her 8-year-old daughter was declared brain dead.
She said her beliefs about divine intervention have changed.
"I have become more of a realist," she said. "I know that none of us are immune from anything."
Loder was not involved in the survey, which appears in Monday's Archives of Surgery.
It involved 1,000 U.S. adults randomly selected to answer questions by telephone about their views on end-of-life medical care. They were surveyed in 2005, along with 774 doctors, nurses and other medical workers who responded to mailed questions.
Survey questions mostly dealt with untimely deaths from trauma such as accidents and violence. These deaths are often particularly tough on relatives because they are more unexpected than deaths from lingering illnesses such as cancer, and the patients tend to be younger.
Helping families come to terms
Dr. Lenworth
Jacobs, a
University of
Connecticut
surgery professor and trauma chief at
Hartford
Hospital,
was the lead author.
He said trauma treatment advances have allowed patients who previously would have died at the scene to survive longer. That shift means hospital trauma specialists "are much more heavily engaged in the death process," he said.
Jacobs said he frequently meets people who think God will save their dying loved one and who want medical procedures to continue.
"You can't say, 'That's nonsense.' You have to respect that" and try to show them X-rays, CAT scans and other medical evidence indicating death is imminent, he said.
Relatives need to know that "it's not that you don't want a miracle to happen, it's just that is not going to happen today with this patient," he said.
Families occasionally persist and hospitals have gone to court seeking to stop medical treatment doctors believe is futile, but such cases are quite rare.
Dr. Michael Sise, trauma medical director at Scripps Mercy Hospital in San Diego, called the study "a great contribution" to one of the most intense issues doctors face.
Sise, a Catholic doctor working in a Catholic hospital, said miracles don't happen when medical evidence shows death is near.
"That's just not a realistic situation," he said.
Looking for a miracle
Sise recalled a
teenager severely injured in a gang beating who died soon afterward at his
hospital.
The mother "absolutely did not want to withdraw" medical equipment despite the severity of her child's brain injuries, which ensured she would never wake up, Sise said. "The mom was playing religious tapes in the room, and obviously was very focused on looking for a miracle."
Claudia McCormick, a nurse and trauma program director at Duke University Hospital, said she also has never seen that kind of miracle. But her niece's recovery after being hit by a boat while inner-tubing earlier this year came close.
The boat backed into her and its propeller "caught her in the side of the head. She had no pulse when they pulled her out of the water," McCormick said.
Doctors at the hospital where she was airlifted said "it really doesn't look good." And while it never reached the point where withdrawing lifesaving equipment was discussed, McCormick recalled one of her doctors saying later: '"God has plans for this child. I never thought she'd be here.'"
Like many hospitals, Duke uses a team approach to help relatives deal with dying trauma victims, enlisting social workers, grief counselors and chaplains to work with doctors and nurses.
If the family still says, "We just can't shut that machine off, then, you know what, we can't shut that machine off," McCormick said.
"Sometimes," she said, "you might have a family that's having a hard time and it might take another day, and that's OK."
Weblink: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26272687
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People Can Dream about the Problems of Others
If you are given the photograph of a person who is suffering from an undisclosed problem, can you intentionally dream about this person’s problem? Very likely so, concludes a research study conducted at Trent University in Canada to test the efficacy of a dream healing procedure invented at A.R.E. camp, known as the “Dream Helper Ceremony.”
In this study, reported at the recent convention of the Association for the Study of Dreams, college student participants received a photograph of a woman who was (unknown to the participants and researchers) suffering from breast cancer which was spreading to her legs. The researchers asked the participants to dream about this woman’s problem and offered a reward for the most accurate dream.
The results indicated that there were more instances of body parts mentioned in these dreams than in the control dreams provided by the participants at the start of the study. Almost half of the dreams contained recognizable references to the woman’s problem, although some of the participants did not recognize the significance of their dreams.
Weblink: dream-guidance.com/dreamsforothers.ppt
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Psychiatrists Give Pills rather than Listening
The chances that a psychiatrist will encourage a patient to engage in talk therapy are declining significantly in favor of prescribing medication, according to a study conducted at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore and published in the Archives of General Psychiatry.
The results of this study, analyzing 14,000 visits to a psychiatrist, indicated that the percentage of patients’ visits to psychiatrists for talk therapy, fell from forty four per cent in 1996-97 to twenty nine percent in 2004-05. It was also determined that the average health insurance reimbursement paid to psychiatrists was weighted in favor of prescribing medication than engaging in talk therapy. Psychiatrists receive more money for completing three fifteen minute prescription visits than they do for a single forty-five minute talk therapy session. This imbalance exists even though research has indicated that some people do better with psychotherapy than with pills, and many do better with a combination of the two rather than with pills alone. The study indicated that a substantial portion of patients who receive talk therapy are paying for it out of their own pocket.
Internet source:
By CARLA K. JOHNSON,
AP
Posted: 2008-08-04 16:42:13
CHICAGO (AP)
CHICAGO - Cartoons about the psychiatrist’s couch were recently the subject of a museum exhibition. Now, the couch itself may be headed for a museum.
A new study finds a significant decline in psychotherapy practiced by U.S. psychiatrists.
The expanded use of pills and insurance policies that favor short office visits are among the reasons, said lead author Dr. Ramin Mojtabai of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore.
“The ’couch,’ or, more generally, long-term psychoanalytic psychotherapy, was for so long a hallmark of the practice of psychiatry. It no longer is,” Mojtabai said.
Today’s psychiatrists get reimbursed by insurance companies at a lower rate for a 45-minute psychotherapy visit than for three 15-minute medication visits, he explained.
His study found that the percentage of patients’ visits to psychiatrists for psychotherapy, or talk therapy, fell from 44 percent in 1996-97 to 29 percent in 2004-05. The percentage of psychiatrists using psychotherapy with all their patients also dropped, from about 19 percent to 11 percent.
Psychiatrists who provided talk therapy to everyone had more patients who paid out of pocket compared to those doctors who provided talk therapy less often. And they prescribed fewer pills.
'Aura
of invincibility' around meds
As talk therapy declined, TV ads contributed to an “aura of invincibility”
around drugs for depression and anxiety, said Charles Barber, a lecturer in
psychiatry at Yale University and author of “Comfortably Numb: How Psychiatry is
Medicating a Nation.”
“By contrast, there’s almost no marketing for psychotherapy, which has comparable if not better outcomes,” said Barber, who was not involved in the study.
The findings, published in Monday’s Archives of General Psychiatry, are based on an annual survey of office visits to U.S. doctors. Of more than 246,000 visits sampled during the 10 years, more than 14,000 were to psychiatrists. The researchers analyzed those psychiatrist visits.
The study did not survey visits to psychologists or other mental health counselors who are not medical doctors, but who also practice talk therapy.
Psychotherapy uses verbal methods to get patients to explore their emotional life, thoughts or behavior. The goal is to ease symptoms, sometimes through getting the patient to change behavior or mental habits.
Its benefits can be seen in brain imaging studies, said Dr. Eric Plakun, who leads an American Psychiatric Association committee working to restore interest in psychotherapy by psychiatrists.
“The couch is far from dead,” Plakun said. “The couch turns out to be an effective 21st century treatment.”
Talk therapy can be done by psychiatrists less expensively than split treatment, where a patient sees a doctor for pills and a counselor for talk therapy, Plakun said, citing two prior studies.
Talk
therapy better than meds for some
It also works better than drugs for some patients, such as those with chronic
major depression and a history of childhood trauma, he said.
Accreditation requirements for psychiatric residency programs are putting more emphasis on talk therapy, Plakun said. That may slow the decline of the couch.
The new study doesn’t answer an important question: whether other professionals are picking up the slack, said psychologist David Mohr of Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. Psychologists and social workers provide counseling but most cannot prescribe drugs, so it’s possible that for patients who require both talk and pills, some coordination in care may be lost, Mohr said.
Weblink: http://www.wtopnews.com/?nid=106&sid=1453582