Do We Possess Psychic Powers That We Are Not Aware Of?

- Is It Just A Matter Of Locating Them?
- To Rowling goes the credit for bringing into popular English lexicon the word "Muggle". Over time, this word has filled the vacuum of an apt, single-word antonym for someone who does not possess the skill of wizardry, someone who cannot perform magic, and by magic I do not mean the illusionary trick of bringing out the bunny from the hat that we see on stage during children's parties.


Rowling has invested in her most famous mascot, the child prodigy wizard Harry Potter, talents that he is not aware of himself. One skill that Harry did not possess innately, and which he was himself not aware of until the right circumstance presented itself, was his understanding of "Parsel-tongue", which came to him because he had unknowingly become a "Horcrux"... What this Rowling-speak means is that Harry could converse with forked-tongued beings such as boa constrictors resting in zoos. And this skill he came to acquire because Lord Voldemort, a Parsel-mouth himself, had deposited a fragment of his own soul into Harry's. So when Lord Voldemort withdrew the fragment back from Harry, the skill too was withdrawn from him... whew, let's come away from the great author's world before we get sucked into its sinister plots.

_*
* Harry Potter converses with a boa constrictor in the zoo using Parsel-tongue, in the 2001 movie "Philosopher's Stone". harrypotter.wikia.com. The powerful mind dwelling inside Harry's diminutive form holds some very rich treasure that Harry himself is not aware of. He requires the guidance and mentoring of the experienced teachers of Hogwarts to locate the treasure. Unfortunately, we don't have access to Hogwarts' teaching, so we are left to our own devices to conduct the search for our own hidden treasure.
Harry acquires psychic skills and talents thanks to his lineage. He is also fortunate enough to get admission to Hogwarts, where they unlock the wizard in him. Contrast this against salmons that swim back to the exact same spot where they had been born, to undertake the all-important task of spawning. They do not get any education from anybody for the knowledge of this ritual; the feat is performed seemingly effortlessly. Equally remarkable is the eager beaver and its legendary building talent. This rodent doesn't have to attend any course in architecture or engineering to build those fantastic dams and canals and lodges. Comes so fluidly easy to them, and we wonder why our kid had to struggle with the CAD program. Take another instance, this time of the goose and the perfect geometrical V-shape that the gaggle acquires in flight. As the last goose in the gaggle automatically positions itself in the V-formation, off the skein lifts. Where do these talents come from in these beings? We have no answer, apart from conjecturing that it is all a consequence of the native hardwiring that their respective brains are constructed with. It's like they are merely executing a genetic mission statement, like a pre-programmed robot.

_*
'Geese flying in formation', drawing by Charles Livingston Bull (published between 1890 and 1932), wiki. The skein is a classic example of the perfect harmony between the innate talents of these beings and Nature.
We label the stereotype of "Psychological nativism" to the respective genetic mission statement of the salmon and the beaver and the goose and their ilk. Despite the marvel of their feats, we take these phenomena for granted because they occur in nature all the time. And - depending on how ballooned our intellectual arrogance is - we even build elaborate and convoluted rationale to explain and justify the phenomena. Ask the people who have spent their lifetime studying the animal kingdom from a scientific point of view, and they will spew forth a litany of technical mumbo-jumbo which only serves to impress us muggles about how science is on top of things.

_*
* 'The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial Of Human Nature', by Steven Pinker, Amazon.com. The book takes the view that we are not born with a blank slate equivalent of the mind. There are certain innate traits that we inherit as a result of our identity in the animal form - the "yoni", as ancient Hindu philosophy puts it - that we have acquired. The 'tabula rasa' is a myth, according to the author.
So let's move beyond the wonder of the obvious talents that biology bestows upon us through the chemicals and the DNA framework, and focus on those mysterious powers that the likes of Harry Potter seem to possess. Just what is it that we can do that is beyond the obvious, in order to come to own such powers? The five senses of sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch are the obvious gifts that we possess by virtue of owning an organic body. What about the gifts that ought to be ours by virtue of owning a mind? Wouldn't it be fantastic if you could read minds? Wouldn't it be marvelous if you could defy gravity? Wouldn't it be simply great if you could peer into the future as well as the past? How would it feel to be able to converse with people who have transited to the other worlds?


* Spring Pouchong tea leaves that may be used for tasseography divination, wiki.
Our perception about these powers is colored by the popular media. Creative artists, hired by entertainment companies, churn out fantastic and even more fantastic icons that seemingly possess the most superhuman powers. They obviously want to hold the readers, the audience and the viewers in thrall - the more enthralled and excited their customers, the better the raking in is for the company's stakeholders. So these artists naturally go into hyperbolic overdrive when weaving fantasia into their very intricate story plots.

_*
* Cover of a Marvel comic book, wiki. For years, the creative department of Marvel Entertainment Inc encashed for its masters the craze of the public in the superhuman and the psychic. After feeding the fodder of fantasy to entire generations all these decades, the company was recently acquired by The Walt Disney Company for USD 4 billion. Look forward now to Mickey Mouse characters pitting their psychic prowess with the likes of Spiderman.
The resulting entertainment of course gives us the thrill and value for money, but there also are two outcomes of this sort of entertainment. One is that our own naive expectations of the psychic powers that can be possessed by human beings - go high. We unknowingly raise the bar of what can be done. And two, in order to smoothly segue between the human and the superhuman, the fantasy plots have to perforce label the supreme skills of the protagonist as "abnormal", "bizarre" and a "consequence of mutation". Watch any movie and you will see the unpleasantly aghast expressions on the faces of the onlookers as the protagonists go about their job. The impression that is formed is that psychic powers are indeed "abnormal", "bizarre", meant only for "mutants", therefore not socially-acceptable and therefore best left alone. Such people should come out of thin air, save the world from the evil-doers, and vanish back into the thin air to wherever they came from. The stigma of social-non-acceptability pays put to whatever interest we might harbor to develop the skills of the mind. (Come to think of it, even the word "psychic" is pregnant with notions of the bizarre and abnormal, hence its negative usage as label to ascribe to people who don't fit in.)

_*
* Clip from the 1995 movie "Powder", performed by Sean Patrick Flanery, YouTube.

The protagonist possesses the extraordinary powers of understanding the emotions and thoughts of animals, such as the deer lying on the ground, mortally wounded. Powder - the boy wearing the hat - becomes the bridge between the dying deer and its killer, passing on the feelings of suffering and pain from the hunted to the hunter. The hunter needed somebody like Powder in order to feel the pain and the suffering of the deer. Actually, the hunter could have felt it on his own steam, without any third-party assistance. The first step towards discovering this power is to believe that it is always there, within reach. Everything follows automatically from this belief.

The way things are, such powers are considered "freaky" by society. People are scared of even thinking of the possibility that they might be the proud owners of similar powers, for them to reach within and tap into. Isn't it the scare why Powder is ostracized all through the story? Instead of focusing on the ostracization, maybe we should decide to not conform to popular perception and begin by formulating the hypothesis that special powers of the mind just might exist? And then proactively look out for this treasure?


As if the distortion by the media of our ideas about the powers of the mind is not enough, we are overawed by stories and reports of people who claim to connect with the netherworld for answers to questions for which there are no straightforward or easy answers. The reading of the tea leaves that have formed some mysterious pattern in the base of the cup after the liquid has been rinsed away, the gazing into the crystal ball searching for images that will reveal whatever it is that the customer is after, the shaking of the body and the rolling up of the eyes as some spirit occupies the body of the medium to talk to people of this world --- are all imagery that convince us that these are powers that can only be "gifted"; they are neither discoverable nor learnable.

_*
* 'The Crystal Ball' by John William Waterhouse (1902, oil on canvas), wiki. The elaborate ritual of obtaining answers by gazing into the translucent stone creates an aura of mystique around the whole process which we find difficult to penetrate.
There is a degree of romanticism and glamor around these entrenched and established professions of tasseomantists (tea-leaf readers), scryers (crystal-ball gazers) and mediums (spirit-contacts), along with the rest. On the other hand, there are certain mental powers which are not glamorous and which do not attract the limelight as much as they deserve. This is perhaps because science has either brutally scoffed at them as superstitions - brutal to the extent that the educated public trashes them outright unthinkingly... Or because science has no rational explanation for them and therefore dismisses them as aberrations.


One instance of a power that has been scoffed at as superstition and is worth mentioning here is dowsing, also known as doodlebugging. This is the skill of locating hidden reservoirs of water under the ground. The sudden, erratic movement of the divining rod in the hands of the practitioner when it comes near some underground water-body, is sought to be explained away by research papers and articles in popular science magazines, their rationale ranging from the physics of telluric currents to the psychology of ideomotor effect. Both supporters and critics of dowsing-as-mental-power are equally vehement in their opinions, and dowsing literature is replete with mutually-contradicting results and views. And yet, in some countries and communities, the services of a dowser are still requisitioned, water still springs forth from under the ground at the spot pointed by them, and people get their quota of Nature's boon that they can call their own. For such cultures, dowsing has been a taken-for-granted part of community-living for centuries. Talk of eclecticism in the universe! May be it will take someone of the stature of Rowling to bring some glamor to this profession, perhaps she can introduce a dowser as a principal character in one of her forthcoming works. Oh, then the educated public will hoist dowsing on a pedestal!

_*
* A dowser is busy finding underground water bodies with the help of some Y-shaped or L-shaped stick made of wood or other material, from an 18th century French book about superstitions, wiki. How does the stick begin to animate when it is directly above an underground water body? Ask some physicist or psychologist and they will hide behind a huge vocabulary of arcane mumbo-jumbo whose meanings only they know. Does their professional pride prevent them from acknowledging before the ordinary junta the plain fact that science simply does not have a straightforward answer?

The developed world treats dowsing with disdain and would rather rely on the education obtained by qualified hydrologists and hydrogeologists from reputed institutions and who use the most sophisticated of GPS systems and the most complex of algorithms and charts to locate water under the ground, and who charge hefty fees that run into hundreds and thousands of dollars, for their admirable efforts.

But, come to the hinterland of some countries, where perennial water shortage is a way of life, and where trudging for miles to reach the nearest source of water is part of daily routine. Not for the hinterland the services of the slick, sophisticated professionals. Hydrology? Hydrogeology? GPS? These are terms unheard of. Instead, they rely on the services of the humble dowser - usually male - who is summoned by the village head or the government official whenever funds become available for bore wells to be dug. This unassuming, usually-uneducated-if-not-illiterate soul snaps a twig from the nearby tree and ambles to the sites earmarked for water-exploration. Without any fanfare, the dowser goes about his job, head bent, eyes focused on the ground before him, twig in hand. Walking slowly, he is concentration personified. Somewhere along the way, the twig begins to dance hysterically between his fingers, and he triumphantly raises his head to point to the precise location. On the nod of the village head or the government official, the digging machinery is set in motion. In a few minutes to few hours, depending on how deep the table is, water is struck. As the life-giving liquid gushes out in the air, onlookers applaud. Work done, the dowser is paid his "bakshish" (reward) which amounts to less than the equivalent of five-to-ten US dollars, depending on the intensity of magnanimity of the bakshish-giver. And the dowser retreats, to melt in the crowd to become just another face.

Dowsing is usually not a full-time profession, but is carried out to generate occasional income while tending to the livestock or the fields, which is where their regular income comes from. Anybody skeptical of this technique may come and have a chat with the dowser; you will most probably find him negotiating with the ration-shop proprietor for further line of credit to run the household. Ask him how he does it, and he will simply say it is a god-given gift. How the ordinary twig transforms into a wizard's wand is mystery to him, too.


And one instance of a power which science dismisses as aberration and is worth mentioning here is Blindsight (one word, no gap). This unique ability to "see" things that they are not supposed to be seeing comes very "naturally" to some blind people and has defied conventional explanation. Due to some strange reason, there appears to be reluctance amongst the intellectual establishment to catalog this phenomenon under the psychic skill domain. For all practical purposes, this ability is nothing but a manifestation of the power of the ethereal mind; the organic body and its organic senses have no role to play in it. The only reason behind this reluctance that I can fathom is that it has still not become fashionable to acknowledge that the psychic prowess domain is not a motley collection of superstitions but a serious body of knowledge waiting to be explored.


* 'Blindsight: A Case Study and its Implications', Lawrence Weiskrantz, Oxford Psychology Series, Amazon.com. The author's discovery of blindsight has given philosophy and neuroscience a common point of interaction, for this special gift of certain blind people has implications for both these disciplines.

Blindsight is the name given to a special ability possessed by some blind people. Blindness normally occurs because of damage to the occipital lobe of the striate cortex of the brain - the seat of visual faculty. These individuals are technically, legally, blind per this definition. The entire blind population has this common trait.

Yet there is a small subset of this population, comprising people who defy this definition. For, despite the damage, they are always aware of objects in their "normal" field of vision, as if they actually "see" these objects. How can this happen? Neuroscience, the field that discovered this trait, does not have any answer. This is where philosophy steps in. The hermeneutic posited by philosophers makes use of the mind's architecture as designed by psychotherapists such as Freud. According to the hermeneutic, while the perception of these objects may not pass into these people's "consciousness", the sensation is "captured" by their subconscious.

But ask them about this ability. Ask them how they came to possess it. They will simply shrug and say they thought they were simply guessing, and that their guesses were coincidentally turning out to be true. Talk of people not being aware of the special skills they themselves possess!

It is not as if science has remained aloof and averse to the idea of existence of the powers of the mind. But there is certain grudge in its approach, almost bordering on the sneaky. Let's take an example. There is a disability called Asperger Syndrome, which renders the affected incapable of conducting normal social interaction. In order to establish this disability in a patient with greater confidence, psycho-sociologists devised a 36-item questionnaire called "Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test" (RMET). The questionnaire has been christened grandly eloquently: did the person have their tongue firmly in cheek when the name was being coined? Anyway, the questionnaire essentially measures one's ability to infer the internal state of one's interlocutor by reading the expression on their face, especially around the region of the eyes. You know, if you are sad, your eyes and the surrounding skin will take on a texture that will be different from when you are excited. Can the other party accurately sense your mood and your feelings - your true feelings and never mind what you are mouthing and what you are formally posturing - just by looking at your eyes and the surrounding area of the eyes? This is what the questionnaire purports to measure.

_*
* A close shot of the photographer's girlfriend, image by psik0, sxc.hu. Can you fathom her mood from her eye? For somebody who is tuned into the other person's soul, it is not difficult at all. For others, it needs some practice.
The questionnaire was deployed in an experiment conducted on a group of thirty healthy male volunteers to detect whether their capability of judging their interlocutor's internal state could be enhanced with a mammalian hormone known as Oxytocin. The hormone was administered intra-nasally. A neurohypophyseal peptide, Oxytocin is usually talked about in the context of parturition and lactation. However, the chemical is also said to increase one's sensitivity towards the social cues that people give away during social conversations, making us more adept in interpreting what is being covertly conveyed beyond what is being overtly said, so we can judge with sharper precision where the other party stands on the issue under discussion. (Of late, this hormone is generating excitement as some more of its hidden properties are coming to light.) Oxytocin was found to significantly improve mind-reading in 20 out of the 30 volunteers in the experiment. The research paper offers an elaborate hypothesis on how the increased level of Oxytocin might be doing the job, using conjectures peppered with may-be's and perhaps, of the "face perception network" in the brain's neural circuitry "somehow" getting activated. The hypothesis stops short of conjecturing whether some element "outside the conscious", outside the brain's cortical map, might be playing some role.

_*
* A model engaged in a photoshoot session, image by trublueboy, sxc.hu. Now that you have the knowledge of Oxytocin's capability to enhance your power to read minds, imagine for a moment that you have sprayed some of this stuff in your nostrils. Now gaze into those eyes. Can you now discern the model's internal state? Can you sense the mood she is in, behind the veneer of that professional posture?

Given the growing popularity of this chemical, a time will come, I am sure, when Oxytocin nasal drops will become a must-have component in one's personal kit along with the perfume and other paraphernalia.
The truth about psychic powers lies not in the fantasia created by the gifted storywriters hired by the entertainment companies. The truth - at least for us muggles - also may not lie in either the established and well-entrenched professions or the unglamorous and relatively obscure vocations that we talked about just now. The truth also does not lie in the "face perception network" of the organic lump of the brain that the present version of science would like us to believe. We need to search for our own version of truth, and this search has to be conducted not outside in the wide world, but deep within.


Emboldening ourselves that some or the other psychic powers might, just might, exist within us - just like they do in these other fellow human beings - leads us to two questions: where in the landscape of the mind might they exist? And how do we get to them? We will seek to address these questions in a subsequent article.