Additional Psi Training Programs

That modern ESP learning can take many forms is suggested by the numerous autobiographical, popular and clinical accounts published by various scholars. Even ancient magical techniques persist. The following paragraphs detail the variety of programs.

Art curator Frank Dorland describes unusual psychic experiences in the presence of an ancient carving of a skull in pure crystal (Garvin 1973).

In Lake Tahoe, California, Lawrence Kennedy claims to train psychokinetic metal-bending by equipping his students with special headgear shaped like the Great Pyramid. The Berkeley Gazette, (February 14, 1979) describes a Fresno man who took the training and learned the process which he then taught to his wife, who uses the technique for her occasional public performances as a professional dancer.

Dr. William Tiller, a professor of materials science at Stanford University, finds the use of dowsing rods and radionics instruments useful in developing ESP ability (Tiller 1971).

Dr. John Lilly, a neuropsychiatrist and dolphin researcher, is experimenting with the use of the sensory isolation tank for induction of ESP experiences (Lilly 1978).

Dr. Patricia Garfield, a clinical psychologist, in a delightful book titled Pathway to Ecstasy: The Way of the Dream Mandala (1979), describes the awakening of her own psi abilities, and concomitant ecstatic experiences of physical pleasure, through a process that combined Taoist yoga techniques from ancient China with her own methods of dream analysis.

Another program for psi development was founded by the noted scholar Dr. John G. Neihardt, author of Black Elk Speaks, as well as 26 other books. (Neihardt was named poet laureate of Nebraska in 1921 and thereafter became Plains States poet laureate.) Extraordinary examples of psychokinesis have been observed in the mediumistic circle founded in Missouri by Dr. Neihardt. These have been reportedly observed, measured, and photographed by W. E. Cox of the Institute of Parapsychology in Durham, North Carolina, during the past ten years. Some photographs and results are discussed in the June 1979 issue of Fate in an article by one of the mediums trained by Neihardt, John Thomas Richards, Ph.D. W. E. Cox, an authority on psychokinesis, has prepared reports on the PK data. None of the training methods were observed by Cox.

In San Francisco, Robert Hoffman, a former tailor, has developed a system of psychotherapy based on information that he claims to have received from the spirit of a deceased psychiatrist. The therapy is a three-month, intensive experience that involves mentally reliving one's relationships with one's parents. Hoffman also designed a psychic training program based on simple visualizations and meditations. This program is described in Psychic Development by Jean Porter ( 1974).

The Jack Schwarz training course in aura reading and medical diagnosis has been offered at the University of California Medical Center in San Francisco- sponsored by a student group. The course meets over a ten week period once or twice a week. The instructor, Jack Schwarz, is an individual with unusual abilities of autonomic self-control which have been laboratory tested and also widely publicized. He is rather famous for being able to push needles through his skin without bleeding or which to make distinctions among different programs, considerations of merit must be based on other criteria.

Garfield, P. Pathway to ecstasy: The way of the dream mandala. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1979.

Garvin, R. The crystal skull. New York: Doubleday, 1973.

Lilly, J. The deep self. New York: Berkeley, 1978.

Porter, J. Psychic development. New York: Random House, 1974.

Richards, J.T. The table walked and talked. Fate, June 1969, 82-91.

Tiller, W.A. Radionics, radiesthesia and physics. Academy of Parapsychology and Medicine Symposium, The Varieties of Healing Experience, October 1971.

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