America’s Psychic Challenge (a.k.a Psychic Survivor) PART 2

The most attractive thing about America’s Psychic Challenge on Lifetime is without a doubt the competitors. When their abilities are tuned in its like the power chords in a sick ass rock riff. They look like superheros. Its truly mind blowing.

My favorites on this shows first season are Michelle Whitedove, Lynn Miller , Joseph Tittel, Jeff Baker, and Jackie Barrett.

I feel a strong connection with Lynn Miller… a physical connection because she freakin’ hot. She’s got this radiant glow about her that is very charming. Lynn was sensitive, open, caring, and powerful.. just a real woman. She comes across as a very sweet lady. She was passive aggressively nice toward her arch nemesis Jackie the Voodoo priest who was like a poison tipped, barbed dagger. Lynn did a great job the whole time she was on the show. She didn’t back down from Jackie and was very honorable in every situation. Her and Jeff Baker were eliminated in the second to last episode of season 1. Michelle & Jackie took over. (Lynn, where is your website? If you’re out there and single, comment here, please)

Michelle Whitedove was just really impressive. She was just raw talent. She got some stuff really wrong but when she was on, she was like the Chicago Bull’s 27 year old Mike Jordan going in for the slam dunk. Unstoppable and all business.

Jackie Barrett is a member of the Voodoo Spiritual Temple in New Orleans. When I first heard this I thought it was just a BS Hollywood spin. A joke. Jackie is no joke. On the show she is depicted as a sort of Sith Lord. Like Darth Jackie, or something. Although I suspect some of this is a show and great editing, she does manage to successfully psych out some of the others. I have to admit her attitude is intimidating and not at all what I’d expect from psychics. Her mind games works because the other psychics are visibly shaken by her. Is this because she is working with demons on the otherside? You’d think that was the case by the way the other psychics react to her and talk about her in the interviews. The fact of the matter is that during every challenge she is in your face like a fuckin’ rottweiler.

She has been the most consistent of all the others on the crime scenes. I think she’ll win mainly because of her MANY years of experience working cases. Each episode ends with a sort of grand finale that includes a real crime scene. This last challenge gives a lot of points to the competitor. She nails these every time and because of that I think the $100K is hers. Another guy was really good at crime scenes, Joseph Tittel, but he would misinterpret some of signals from the smaller challenges. He would consistently get stuff right but consistently change his answers which was a real shame. I really wanted him to get it.

Another psychic (Zenobia) predicted that Jackie would come out of America’s Psychic Challenge with her own show…we’ll see.

America’s Psychic Challenge (a.k.a Psychic Survivor) PART 1

I’ve been watching a show called America’s Psychic Challenge on Lifetime. It is a “reality” show where professional psychics compete on some very difficult challenges. Its a damn good show and I can’t stop watching it.

It give great insight into what the range of non-local consciousness (psychic ability) is. Some of these people are very gifted to the point where the whole show seem rigged. Although they fumble sometimes (like a train wreck) more often they focus in on a non-local signal: an emotion, an image, a sound, a smell or an event that is spatially/temporally separate from them. One consistent pattern is that they’ll get it dead on immediately, then start second guessing and mis-interpreting the signal.. the ego gets in the way.

For any serious look into non-local consciousness phenomenon, one should NOT look to America’s Psychic Challenge. It is entertainment. For serious scrutiny and fine tuning of our understanding of this amazing phenomenon, much more thought would have to be put into each “challenge” with hopes of isolating the finer points of each ability. Though the psychics are grouped together, they all have very different skill-sets and sensitivities. That detail is not explored on the show, but I think it is really important to understanding what is going on.

Transcranial Magnetic Stimulations God Helmet Meets a Psychic

At the 2006 International Remote Viewing Associations conference, in a rare speech by remote viewing phenomenon, Ingo Swann responded to an audience member’s blurt about Dr. Persinger’s research on the Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation machine known as the “God Helmet”. Unfortunately, the IRVA took the video down. They are now selling it. In the video, Ingo mentions something that lingers on in my mind. He says the Persinger is locked out of his lab because of certain discoveries. As the father of “remote viewing” and a onery, straight shooter, Ingo is a bit of champion for me, but I couldn’t help but be skeptical. I started to research his statement.

A bit more about the God Helmet. This is a device that allows 80% of its participants to have “spiritual” experiences. They feel a presence, hear voices, have visions etc. Some have taken this to mean that all such phenomenon are artificial.

I have been very much interested in the God Helmet and Persinger’s research so when Ingo Swann talked about being apart of Dr. Persinger’s experienment, I had to search it. What I found was a very interesting set of comments from Marcos Ferreira and others regarding Dr. Persinger’s perspective on paranormal phenomenon on the blog of author Micheal Prescott.

Comments from Michael Prescott’s Blog:

I came across this 2001 paper by famed neuroscientist Michael Persinger (he of the notorious “God Helmet”, and cited approvingly by Dawkins, Blackmore, and the JREF crowd).

The paper is about neural correlates of paranormal experiences. Under the section “Special Cases”, he tests a psychic (Sean Harribance) and a remote viewer (Ingo Swann). Both tests give statistically significant results under double-blind conditions. Persinger casually ignores the implications of this (”The neural mechanism … remains to be identified”) in order to spend time discussing the EEG readings…

Did this generate a controversy which I’ve missed, or has this just been quietly ignored? I can find plenty of squabbling about the supposed experimental failings of Gary Schwartz and the SRI researchers, but no real mention anywhere of this replication by “one of their own”. Is anyone aware of any responses or discussion of these results?

Posted by: marcos ferreira | September 17, 2007 at 01:13 PM

No surprise on the Persinger data: once a science becomes attached to a particular theory, data which contradicts that theory tends to disappear without effect. Has anyone ever been able to reproduce Persinger’s reported results with magnetic stimulation of certain brain areas, especially the temporal lobe? His widely trumpeted claims that temporal lobe epilepsy was responsible for NDEs and OBEs hasn’t, to my knowledge, been corroberated. I know that changes in temporal lobe functioning have been found in NDExperiencers, but it isn’t known whether the changes produced the experiences or vice versa. I’m looking forward to Carter’s book. It promises to be a good follow-on after “Irreducible Mind”.

Posted by: Kevin | September 17, 2007 at 05:22 PM

I corresponded with Persinger a few years ago about Dr. Andrija Puharich’s book “Beyond Telepathy” — a must-read!! Puharich emphasizes the magnetic momentum of the proton-electron resonance being altered through increased potassium and decreased sodium intake. Puharich then ties this physiological transformation to his “psi-plasma vortex” model for bending spacetime.

Persinger knew Puharich fairly well and Persinger told me that he thought very highly of Puharich’s psi-plasma model. When I asked Persinger about Puharich’s CIA work I received no response. haha.

The Persinger’s paper only talks about the phenomenon in the Special Cases section of the paper. It sounds like he does not doubt that such abilities exist. The data indicated that these “remote viewers” and “psychics” are more sensitive to the TMS device.

Interesting cutting edge stuff.. to say the VERY least, but I am still not sure what Ingo was talking about.

Psycho-energetic Powers of the Human Species: Intro

I have read a few accounts of people with amazing abilities. Abilities such as being two places at once (bilocation), telepathy, healing and other incredible phenomenon. Now since the majority of these “miracles” are hearsay, science and the more credible brain trusts of Western culture, tends to marginalize or even ridicule the mere mention of such claims.

But it seems ignorant to discount ALL these things when they are reported all over the world in almost every language, culture and religion. Like the UFO phenomenon, I would think that the shear volume of credible witnesses with such claims would peak more interest. Both science and religion are proper to their respective forms. Science from the beginning denies anything and everything until the bitter end. Religion no longer kills people for being heretics but they have a trump card that defeats followers every time. If they disagree with something that is taking convert away than “its evil”.

I believe that both science and religion are wrong about these powers that the human species seem to possess. Orthodoxy mainstream science is wrong in discounting the phenomenon and some major religions are wrong in claiming exclusive rights to the phenomenon and/or condemn it as “evil”.

Now I don’t want to generalize. Not all credible scientist discount all supernatural phenomenon and not all religions condemn and/or claim exclusive rights.

Perhaps these things are not “supernatural” at all, but a natural part of normally dormant abilities. We call them supernatural and magical because we don’t understand the true “nature” of reality. I hope that one day we will have an understanding that will place phenomenon such as bilocation on the same level as rational thinking and talking. These are also amazing abilities we have but we don’t call them supernatural