Learning to Use Extrasensory Perception

Preface to the First Edition (1981)

Psi Development Systems is a revised version of the dissertation for which I received my doctorate in parapsychology in June 1980 from the University of California at Berkeley. The degree was awarded through an individual, interdisciplinary program that was supervised by the following scholars of widely varying backgrounds: Michael Scriven, parapsychology, philosophy and educational evaluation; C. West Churchman, systems theory; Charles T. Tart, psychology and parapsychology; Diane S. Clemens, history and historical methodology; and James Harder-UFO field investigation.

The greatest strength of an interdisciplinary approach is that it permits, and even encourages, the development of new syntheses. Indeed, it has been my personal goal as a student of parapsychology, to foster a new synthesis through my work that would integrate both subjective and objective approaches to the understanding of psi phenomena.

As the present work admittedly concludes, such a synthesis is still premature. The efforts toward genuine synthesis of scientific and mystical disciplines remain in the stage of courtship which precedes consummation. In the jargon of Pitirim A. Sorokin, we are still in the cultural stage of "chaotic syncretism" from which the eventual synthesis may emerge.

Preface to the Second Edition (1987)

As a culture, we are faced with the most awesome technologies for destruction that humanity has ever known; torn by religious and political differences; searching for a deeper synthesis of knowledge than that attained by earlier generations. As a culture, we are looking for a balance, a unity and harmony of spiritual and material values. I feel-even more strongly than when I wrote the original version of this book in 1979 - that we are very close to a higher equilibrium and that, perhaps, we stand at the brink of a new era. It is within this context that I wish to place psi research and the questions surrounding the training of psi abilities.

Almost inevitably, when I or other parapsychologists speak in public, people want to know about the personal experiences we have had that led us to pursue a career in this most intriguing Of disciplines. This, to me, is a very relevant question, and one that invariably leads to interesting, answers.

My own Midwestern upbringing was conventional enough. Naturally, as a college student in the 1960s the crust of conventionality was blown apart by the well-publicized experiences of my generation in the areas of social protest and experimentation with altered states of consciousness.

In 1972, 1 had two very profound psi experiences that changed the direction of my life. These have led me to hypothesize that psi, by its very nature, is a manifestation of our pure free will and thus appears in our lives at "seed moments" when we are exercising our free will to the limit.

The first of these experiences is what parapsychologists call a "crisis apparition." (in fact, surveys conducted during the nineteenth century by the Society for Psychical Research in London indicate that this was the most common of all reported psychic experiences.)

I had a dream in which my great Uncle Harry appeared to me. It was a very powerful dream in which he questioned me about some of the deeper attitudes in my life. I awoke in tears, singing an old Jewish melody, Avinu Malkehnu. I was also struck with the inexplicable memory that Uncle Harry's communication with me had involved Chinese I Ching trigram symbols.

That day I wrote home and asked my parents for any news of Uncle Harry, with whom I had had no contact for many years. I mentioned that I had had a dream involving him. Several days later, upon receiving my letter, my parents phoned me in astonishment, telling me that Uncle Harry had just died.

I asked if my mother could arrange for some objects belonging to Uncle Harry to be sent to me. Several weeks later, I received a small volume in Hebrew, along with the message that it had been Uncle Harry's favorite book. It was about the deeds of Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov, the "master of the holy name," a great mystic with renowned psychic powers who was the founder of the Hassidic Jewish movement in Eastern Europe.

Ironically, like most American Jews, I was raised without any understanding of the Hassidic tradition, the kabala, the prophetic tradition, or any part of Jewish mysticism whatsoever. And yet, my Uncle Harry had been born in the small Russian village of Lubovitch, considered the holiest of the Jewish Hassidic communities. All I ever understood during his lifetime was that he was a pious, orthodox Jewish man.

As a teenager, conventional Judaism had been very unsatisfying to me, and I became an agnostic, with no interest in Uncle Harry's piety. Yet, in accordance with the Chinese philosophy of the yin-yang, everything contains within it the seed of its own opposite. Shortly after the Uncle Harry experience, another event led me to further decisive action.

That same year, 1972, 1 was a conscientious objector seeking alternative service work, which I believed I needed to satisfy the requirements of my draft board back in Wisconsin. I was also a graduate student in the School of Criminology at the University of California at Berkeley. My interest in criminology at the time reflected my fascination with human deviance, as does the present book. However, I was feeling very uncomfortable studying negative forms of deviance. In fact, I was feeling very unhappy with my life. I felt like garbage floating on the water without direction or purpose, without a place for myself in the universe.

I also knew that I wanted to study psychic phenomena and consciousness. I tried to discuss the Uncle Harry dream, and other psychic dreams, with my professors at Berkeley. They made it clear, within moments, that they had nothing intelligent to say about the matter. I had no idea of how or where to begin. There were no obvious opportunities. I was becoming very frustrated with the apparent futility of ever being able to inquire seriously into these experiences.

One evening in the fall of 1972, out of desperation, I told myself that I would have a dream and that, like Joseph in the Bible, I would find an answer to my career dilemma in my dream. I was possessed with a certainty that this would happen.

I dreamt that evening that I went across town to the apartment of some close friends in Berkeley. They were not at home. However, I knew where they hid their key. In my dream, I took the key and let myself into their living room. Lying in the middle of the living room floor was a magazine called Eye (a popular magazine at that time), and I picked it up and began paging through it. While I was dreaming, I had a distinct "Aha" or "Eureka" feeling. I knew that somehow the answer I was seeking existed in that magazine.

I awoke early in the morning, put on my tennis shoes, and ran four miles across Berkeley to the home of these friends. They were not in, but I did, in fact, know where they kept the key. So, breaking the bounds of conventionality, I let myself into their living room. To my delight, there was a single magazine in the middle of their living room floor. It was not called Eye (which was a dream distortion); it was called Focus. And this magazine literally brought focus to my entire life. It was the magazine of the listener-sponsored KQED television and FM radio station in San Francisco.

As I sat there paging through Focus magazine, I was struck with the idea that I could find alternative service work for myself in non-profit, listener-sponsored media. Since I lived in Berkeley, I applied to become a volunteer at KPFA-FM radio, the oldest listener-sponsored station in the United States. I was accepted as a receptionist and began to receive training in production. Within three weeks, I was asked to produce and host a program called "The Mind's Ear," every Tuesday and Thursday over the lunch hour.

Suddenly, I found that my life was transformed. Twice a week I had the opportunity to hold intimate, hour-long, uninterrupted conversations with leaders of the human potential movement, yogis, scientists, psychics, psychologists, visionaries, humorists, etc., with an estimated listening audience of over ten thousand people. I felt as though I had found my home in the universe. Fifteen years later, a major part of my life is devoted to a continuation of this work in the production of Thinking Allowed, an interview series for public television.

It was this experience that gave me the confidence to create a unique, interdisciplinary, individual doctoral major in parapsychology at the University of California, Berkeley, to write my first book, The Roots of Consciousness: Psychic Liberation Through History, Science and Experience (1975), and to write my doctoral dissertation on the topic of training psychic abilities-which is the basis for the present book.

It would be misleading, however, to leave the impression that my work in parapsychology has been a smooth path. To the contrary, as I moved closer to completing my doctoral work, the obstacles placed in my path became more challenging.

One severe test I faced was dealing with an obstinate academic committee member who insisted that my experimental use of statistics was hopelessly and irredeemably incompetent. So incompetent, in fact, that this person felt that there was no need to point out a single error in my work. So incompetent, that when other members of my academic committee with experimental and statistical backgrounds suggested that my work was quite adequate, it merely proved to this person that they themselves were incompetent.

This oppressive situation continued for several years-with the apparent support of the university administration- in spite of the fact that I was an "A" student in my graduate statistics classes. For some time it actually appeared as if this individual would be successful in blocking my doctoral degree.

Under this pressure, I also developed seizure-like symptoms, which proved inexplainable even after extensive medical and neurological testing. ‘Me experiences were actually extremely pleasant to me, much along the lines of the "near-death" experiences that have been studied extensively in recent years. However, they sometimes occurred involuntarily and were quite frightening to my wife.

The Dean of the Graduate Division at Berkeley eventually removed this obstinate faculty member from my academic committee when he absolutely refused to comply with the Graduate Division's requirement that he put his specific criticisms of my work into writing.

However, after my receipt in June 1980 of the first doctoral diploma in "parapsychology" ever awarded by an accredited, American university, documents written by this same individual were leaked to the press repeating his original, unsubstantiated allegations of my incompetence. Pressure against the university mounted to such an extent that the Dean of the Graduate Division looked into the possibility of revoking my degree because, as he stated to one faculty member, "major universities do not award degrees in parapsychology."

Fortunately, this type of reasoning led nowhere and, of course, I still have my degree. However, several publications (particularly Psychology Today, October 1980) wrote stories about my academic work from the perspective of this dissident former committee member. They all conveniently failed to mention that this individual had been removed from my committee for his refusal to document a single example of my alleged incompetency. My reputation as a scholar was damaged; and my seizure-like episodes (now called "syncopes," a meaningless label, by the medical profession) continued.

I filed a libel suit. But I also found myself succumbing to real and imagined social pressures. My self-esteem was at a low Point, but a self-healing process was also beginning. Determined not to be forced to rely on drugs, such as dilantin, to control my syncope experiences, I taught myself, through introspection, to gain conscious mastery over this process. While I am still vulnerable, and can induce such an experience almost at will, I have chosen not to have one for over six years now. Then, in 1985, after a legal paper war that lasted many years, I received a favorable settlement in my libel suit against the 1980 publisher of Psychology Today.

During this five-year period of self-healing and fighting to preserve my reputation, I tended to withdraw from public activities and focus on my own personal development. The State of California Board of Medical Quality Control's Psychology Examining Committee reviewed my doctoral program and ruled that my degree was actually equivalent to a Ph.D. in psychology. I then entered a program of supervision and training in psychotherapy and in 1987 became fully licensed as a clinical psychologist.

As a psychotherapist, I tend to deal with clients who are having experiences they believe to be psychic. Some of these clients are individuals who might easily be labeled psychotic by conventional psychiatric diagnosis. They seem to take great comfort in the fact that I refrain, at all times, from using labels related to mental illness, insanity, craziness, psychosis, or neurosis.

While I often refrain from endorsing their occult or psychic suppositions, I treat such ideas with dignity. Most importantly, I encourage my clients-as I wish to encourage the readers of this book-to develop a tolerance for a great deal of ambiguity and complexity, rather than rush to judge or interpret their own experiences.

In most cases, I encourage my clients -- as I also wish to encourage readers of this book -- to adopt a perspective in which they view their particular life situations, with all their symptoms, complaints, anxieties, and existential burdens, as opportunities to initiate psychic growth and healing and to break beyond the boundaries of previously self-imposed limitations.

I envision all this inner work leading to a time when psi abilities will be well integrated in our culture, a time when they will even serve as a recognized link between Western society and the other peoples of this planet.