Psi and spirituality

1
Psi and spirituality

• An expanded view of the paranormal

2
What is spirituality?

• Religion or not? More individual than organised?
  A life-style choice?
• Phenomenologically? Usually involves emphasis on
  connectedness, losing sense of self in isolation
• Metaphors of spirit? Inspire, respire, perspire?

3
Engaging the subtle

• What do we mean by spirit?
• We talk of people having spirit
• Athletes talk of being in the zone
• Maslow talked of Peak experiences
• Meditation centred, focused, concentration,
  absorption
• ESP is about connection

4
Cognitive and affective elements of spiritual
experience (from Hardy, 1979)

• Sense of security, protection, peace
• Sense of joy, happiness, well-being
• Sense of guidance, vocation, inspiration
• Awe, reverence , wonder
• Sense of certainty, clarity, enlightenment
• Sense of purpose behind events
• Sense of presence (not human)

5
Supposed extra-sensory perception (Hardy, 1979)

• Telepathy (36.7 per thousand)
• Precognition (69.3)
• Clairvoyance (15.3)
• Supposed contact with dead (79.7)
• Apparitions (34)

6
Psi as optimum/progress

• Personal development (yoga leads to
  Siddhis/magical powers such as psi)
• Channelling (modern equivalent of mediumship)
  often indicates personal/planetary
  progression/transformation
• The idea of the transpersonal, from individuality
  to plurality

7
Psi as connection

• Ganzfeld, DMILS all seem to suggests that humans
  interact nonlocally
• Not only humans, but all intentional organisms,
  fish, maybe even plants!!
• In humans we see this in notions of friends,
  twins, outperforming strangers on ESP tasks
• Spontaneous cases, I knew my sister had an
  accident.

8
Life after death

• Near death experiences
• Psychomanteum
• Tibetan buddhist dream yoga practices
• Similarity of death to sleep, to hallucinations
  (halucinatio to wander)