Contents.- Introduction.- 1.-Extrasensory Perception (ESP).- 2.-Other Mental Phenomena.- 3.-Paranormal Mind-Matter Influence.- 4.-Precognition.

Reality of paranormal phenomena is controversial. Scientists investigate them, and other scientists reject the veracity of their occurrence. That conflict may be attributed in part to the absence of accepted explanations of these phenomena. Explanations are to be logical and consistent. However, being unavoidably metaphysical, they cannot be verified. Object of the present paper is to propose explanations of some of the paranormal phenomena, independently of whether they are real or imaginary. For the sake of simplicity of the exposition, they will be referred to in what follows as real.

Explanation of phenomena considered below as examples is based on the (hypothetical) conception of what exists (i.e. of cosmos), described in my essay “Integrated Cosmos.” According to it, organism of every living being is linked to a biological (ontogenetic) mind-memory complex and every brain to a psychological. Psychological complexes of conscious beings are linked each to an ego. These unions are mental selves of persons, which probably survive death and decomposition of the organism. Human mental selves proceed from the mental self of the humanity. Mental entities interact between themselves and with material entities (with organisms of living beings and other material objects also) by transference of energy.

Mental paranormal phenomena of extrasensory perception, such as non-random guesses visions, premonitory dreams and sensations, do not differ much in their quality from ordinary dreams, sensations, hallucinations or random guesses. [i] What distinguishes them in first place is corroboration that they have been neither sensory nor inferential apprehension of the past, present or future events in the external world (clairvoyance) or of phenomena in somebody’s mind (telepathy).

Telepathy.- Normally communication between mental selves of individuals occurs through a chain of material objects. Telepathy is direct communication within immaterial world, between the psychological complex of the agent (of mental self of a living or defunct person) and that of the percipient. In case of laboratory experiments, the agent transmits emotionally indifferent information to the recipient, who expects it and approximately knows what it would be. That paranormal communication is less efficient than the normal, by processes in the material world. Indeed, the degree of coincidence between the transmitted and the received cognitive information depends on the state of mind of participants and on the degree of previous knowledge of alternatives by the percipient. Spectacular spontaneous phenomena use to be unintentional and of intensely emotional character for the agent. The emitted information processed by the psychological complex of percipient may be perceived by ego of the mental self as a specific state of mind induced by it, or in a dream or a vision.

Telepathy is not only phenomenon of the ESP. It explains some other paranormal mental phenomena too.

Clairvoyance.- According to a treatise on ESP, phenomena of paranormal perception of the past occur spontaneously and in laboratory, but it is practically impossible to classify them as retrocognition, i.e. direct knowledge of the past [ii]. Indeed, if there remains no vestige of a past phenomenon, it cannot be ascertained that the pretended case of its retrocognition is true. If exists some vestige, it is difficult to eliminate the possibility of indirect knowledge through it, be it paranormal or not (memory of mental selves subsistent after death may also become a telepathic source of information about the past).In the same treatise simulcognition, i.e. direct paranormal perception of some occurring event is considered also difficult to ascertain. Indeed paranormally apprehended events generally involve people or are witnessed by somebody. Then a simpler explanation than simulcognition for paranormal perception of such an event is telepathy. If the event is remaining unknown normally and there remains no vestige of it, then there are again no means to ascertain that the pretended simulcognition was a direct perception of a real event.

Existence of precognition is established scientifically, according e.g. to the just mentioned treatise. However, it is paradoxical and therefore not easily accepted. To this problem is dedicated the last part of the paper.

Suggestion.- Suggestion is extrasensory influence of one’s will on the mind of other person. It implies telepathic connection between the respective mental selves. Persuasiveness of certain individuals is due to this extrasensory influence, which enhances sensory expressions of desires or will (though success depends also on the receptivity of the person object of action).Hypnosis is more intense phenomenon of the same kind. It is used in medicine (for pain control and for certain therapies) and for entertainment. A person is hypnotized and receives instructions by way of sense organs. However, acceptance of instructions interfering with the normal functioning of the psychological complex and of organism cannot be attributed to anything else but to the subjugating mental suggestion by the hypnotizer (direct or, may be, by enhancing the receptiveness of hypnotized person).

Phenomena like walking barefoot upon red-hot charcoal are of somewhat other kind. They seem to be due to intense conviction that one can do it unharmed, i.e. to autosuggestion by mental self that influences the organism through the ontogenetic complex. Similar is the “miraculous” recovery of some willful patient seriously ill or injured.

“Out of body” perception.- There are more phenomena that can be attributed to telepathy[iii] Reports about persons that were in coma, anesthetized or even clinically dead inform that, when they have been awaked or revived, they remembered that they were observing, from some point in space outside own inert body, what was occurring to and around it. This means that while they were unconscious, their psychological complex was fed with sensory information about that activity, which was stored in the memory like a dream. However, this sensory input evidently could not have been via their sense organs and brain. Then the only possible explanation is a telepathic experience, in which the subject’s psychological complex apprehended the sensory input to the psychological complex of some witness and transformed it to look as if it were one’s own. The own body is seen as all other objects of the scene: from outside it.

Remembrances of the “reincarnated”.- Telepathic communication may provide also an alternative explanation for the phenomena of apparent remembrance of the past lives, attributed to reincarnation. It may be presumed that mental self of a living individual becomes communicated more or less permanently with the mental self of a defunct one, interacting at the same time normally with own brain. It can be supposed that remembered own memories are more vivid than those of a dead stranger are. The latter then seem less recent, are placed behind the continuum of one’s own memories and are attributed therefore to a former incarnation. After all no one can believe, e.g. that in the very same life one has been an adult before becoming a child. Small children have short own memory and may become confounded and pretend that their present family is not the right one. Fading away of these “remembrances from the former life” can be attributed either to vanishing of the deceased person’s memory or to loss with the advancing age of the paranormal sensibility [iv].

In course of certain paranormal phenomena, even heavy objects are moved against the force of gravity. Existence of interaction between immaterial and material entities was mentioned in the Introduction. The question is from where comes sometimes relatively considerable quantity of energy to be consumed in the process. The answer may be that energy is transferred from some source in the material world (e.g. from static electricity of clouds, energy of wind or temperature of air). No idea how it could occur, but science too has no idea about e.g. how occurs transformation of energy into fields and quanta of matter. Another answer is that energy comes from some unknown source in the cosmos.

Telekinesis and poltergeists.- The common way to manipulate a thing begins with transmission of a volitive impulse to the brain, which operates muscles so as to move the object by contact and application of force, i.e. by supplying the energy for doing the work. In case of telekinesis movement of a material object cannot be attributed to direct or indirect application of force to it. It means that work is done apparently without consumption of energy provided by a material source. Therefore, physicists are not inclined to accept the reality of telekinesis [v] .

Other examples of paranormal mind-matter influence.- Inexplicable noises are effect of generation of acoustic waves in the air; cold (if not a hallucination) is due to reduced vibration of molecules of air. luminescence is product of elevation to higher energetic levels of electrons, descent from which liberates energy in form of photons, A similar phenomenon (emission of light of different colors) perhaps may explain apparitions (true “materialization” is physically impossible because it would require too much energy) [vi] . All these phenomena may be attributed to action of immaterial entities and provision of energy from the sources mentioned above. However, sometimes such phenomena possibly may be hallucinations due to medium’s hypnotic influence.

Paranormal precognition cannot be experience of a phenomenon that did not occur yet. It can be experience of premonitory sensations or dreams, attributed to a fitting future event when it occurs, if it does occur. That is the spontaneous precognition, experienced by common people. There is also experimental precognition: coincidence of the occurring event with the predicted one from a group of known alternatives. According to one of the procedures, an experiment is repeated many times and precognition is confirmed if the number of hits exceeds sufficiently the limit of casualty. Experimental precognition is accomplishment of the sensitives: (persons experiencing paranormal phenomena).

A simple example of common premonition is of the imminence of a disease. It can be deduced from its initial symptoms. They appear in the biological complex linked with the organism. They may be noticed there by the psychological complex of mental self, elaborated subconsciously and presented to ego in form of a premonitory sensation or dream (similar example is panic of animals preceding an earthquake). The described process has three steps in the psychological complex: becoming aware of some abnormality, deduce the consequences and inform the ego.

The following example is a simple experiment of laboratory. In a serial experiment of simulcognition a sensitive had to guess a card from the five alternative, viewed in that moment, in fortuitous order, by an agent. The hits remained occasional. However, later was discovered that cards named by the sensitive as being the viewed in that moment by the agent in reality corresponded to the viewed next. In other words, the sensitive predicted the future. The number of hits was far beyond the limit of fortuitous. The explanation may be that the sensitive suggested to the agent telepathically and unconsciously for the next selection the card he was naming at that moment..

The described examples were explained with help of some of the known mental aptitudes. However, there are kinds of precognition inexplicable in that way, e.g. premonition of accidents and of natural catastrophes. In the considered examples, a definite event initiates the first step of the process culminating in the foreboding, while an accident or catastrophe are consequence of some unforeseen intersection in the same place at the same time of a number of causal sequences. Which were the sequences generally becomes known only after the calamity did occur already. Rational explanation of the premonition of such events with help of capacities attributed to mind becomes impossible due to the complexity of the problems. However, premonition of accidents and natural catastrophes does exist and can be explained rationally.

Nowadays deductive precognition of accidents and natural catastrophes is a commonplace. Engineers foresee accidents in order to prevent them; meteorologists prognosticate meteorological conditions and scientists predict earthquakes and eruptions of volcanoes (though, as in case of paranormal precognition, time remains unknown). Instruments that made possible these achievements are powerful computers.

According to the essay about cosmos mentioned above, mind-memory complexes of living beings are mental analogs of material computers. Then, why not suppose that in the mental world exist also analogs of the just mentioned powerful computers? Premonition would be the effect of telepathic contact of a sensitive person with such mind-memory complex.

2006 – Nov..2007.