Parapsychology, Spirituality, and the Battle Against Scientific Materialism — Part 6
This follows on from an introduction, where I outlined the reasons why I think an acceptance of parapsychology is so important in modern times, part 1 where I described my personal experiences of ESP, part 2 where I gave a history of parapsychology research since the 1880s, part 3 where I discussed the question of why we as adults do not experience ESP more frequently, part 4 where I discussed the possibility of ESP in animals, and part 5 where I discussed plants in relation to parapsychology.
We now move on from plants to the apparently inanimate world. In the world of quantum physics we have the phenomenon of action at a distance. Pairs of particles respond to each other instantaneously no matter how great the distance. The two explanations offered are either faster-than-light communication, which might suggest some form of direct telepathy. This is considered to be impossible, so that the alternative is offered of a hidden interconnection, something along the lines of individual ants responding to a group mind (as discussed in part 4). We might reasonably assume that such a connection between particles would be unconscious.
Continuing the idea of unconscious telepathy, I’ll now move on to the phenomenon of synchronicity, a term coined by Carl Jung. One manifestation of this can be found in bird divination, and the general notion of omens. One of Jung’s examples is of a flight of birds landing on a particular roof, which a woman correctly interpreted as an omen of death in the family, as it had happened before.
This is by no means an isolated example, which is not surprising, since birds are a well-known mythological symbol of the soul. And, as the physicist Danah Zohar says: “Throughout the literature some of the most graphic and seemingly impressive accounts of alleged precognition and other ESP abilities relate to the behaviour of mammals, birds and insects, and the widely held view that such creatures are often gifted with ‘second sight’ is as old as the history of our race”. She provides similar examples. And Peter Kingsley, in a book called Catafalque, says that “those who knew how to hear as well as see the messages contained in the sounds of the wind and the movement of birds were once considered the closest of people to the divine”.
I have one outstanding example of synchronicity involving a bird in my own life, and another powerful one, the meaning of which would be less obvious to an outsider, although I believe that it was nevertheless synchronistic.
It’s reasonable to assume that the birds in Jung’s example were not aware that they were omens of death, but they were somehow unconsciously drawn to land on the roof; they received some kind of instruction. The same would be true of his well known example of the scarab beetle. There is presumably some form of transcendental mind organising the behaviour of these creatures without their knowledge. However, if that is the case, the message is still getting through to them somehow.
The idea can be extended even further, beyond birds and insects. In relation to synchronistic events, Jung asks the question: “how does it come that even inanimate objects are capable of behaving as if they were acquainted with my thoughts?”. The answer is perhaps that they are not truly inanimate, that they are all interconnected within a universal mind, like subatomic particles acting at a distance, or like ants responding to the instructions of a group mind.
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In the next article, the conclusion to this series, I mention some of those who are sceptical about parapsychology, despite the overwhelming evidence.
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