INSTRUMENTAL  TRANSCOMMUNICATION
by Ernst Senkowski

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C      TRANSCOMMUNICATION AND SCIENCE 

C-13   PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE

Science is not more than sound human understanding and rational judgement.
Leszczynski,  King of Poland, 1763
 

With some rare exceptions, the ‘modern’ philosophers (positivists, nihilists, existentialists) have hardly ever included in their cogitations the existence of paranormal phenomena and mediumistic transcommunication, despite of the fact that the problem of death is tightly linked with the unavoidable question about the sense of life, and that these phenomena - same as the philosophia perennis troughout all cultures and times – contain perceptions of the world which attribute constitutive importance to the spiritual side. On the congress ‘Geist und Natur’ (mind and nature), held in Hannover in May 1988, for example, all themes related to the spiritual were avoided. The honest statement ‘In principle, philosophy is too difficult for us humans’ equals a declaration of bankruptcy. On the other hand, KREJCI, for instance, hopes for a junction of science, religion, physics, philosophy and art (POLKINGHORNE, too), and these tendencies are winning ground, especially in the USA (see, e.g., HARMAN/DE QUNINCEY: ‘The scientific exploration of consciousness’ within the scope of research programs of the Institute of Noetic Sciences). ITC may yet be too young to find consideration and valuation in philosophical circles. 

As an exception A. HOFFMANN be mentioned here, who, on the occasion of the Basler Psi Congress in 1989, demonstrated in a short lecture to what extent the modern time’s frame of mind, closed to trancendency, has been determined, among others, by KANT’s epistemology (“Critique by Pure Reason”). Contrary to his knowing, KANT, in his anger about SWEDENBORG’s demeanour, in 1766, wrote the ‘Traeume eines Geistersehers’ (dreams of a ghostseer) as a ‘warning example of uncritical, phantastic metaphysics’. HOFFMANN holds that, since then, the dogma ‘all knowledge is obtained solely by mediation of the known sense organs’ has validity, a dogma that should be superseded by a new epistemology.  

The attempt to bring light into the relations between transcommunication and ‘science’ in general, and its special fields of work, unavoidably leads to criticism of the work done by certain groups of persons whose findings are for the believers a substitute religion rarely object of questions; these findings offer unscrupulous men of business and militaries new possibilites for profit maximation, strengthening their positions of power, and destroying our environment. ‘Science however is neither free of pre-requisites, nor is it neutral as to its value’, and ‘natural sciences shun death, they are unable to state anything measurable about it’ (CHARGAFF). 

KUHN has shown how, in the process of history each and every progress is fought for under strained, critical conditions between the predominant theories represented by mighty authoritarian conservatives and the ‘inappropriate experiences’ made by some isolated powerless persons with new ideas. According to STENT, ‘new discoveries are often made too early, and they unavoidably leave an intricate, confusing impression of incompleteness’. BOHR: ‘They are ignored or suppressed till the time when they can be brought in association with results that are already known’. PLANCK: ‘In the end, when the old ones have died out, the new ideas gain ground universally, and become accepted. The retardation is a question of generations, it may easily amount to 50 years or more’. 

Now, since science is nothing else but a theory, a ‘display’ of a delimited part of the whole of reality, and ‘as such can either be described as a state of comprehension, a state of consciousness, or a collection of hypotheses about the reality, which are judged according to their technical efficiency. This realization is the most upsetting one, and the one having met with the least understanding in modern science’ (Le SHAN). 

The historical background of the refusal of paranormological phenomena shows already, for instance, with HUME: 

‘He delivered his interpretation of the laws according to which the world functions as a fact, although it was pure theory. In view of philosophy’s and science’s belief in the steadfastness of reality, it was – as far as it referred to a fact – absolutey impossible to disprove it by any other (paranormal) appearance, and consequently the paranormal event ultimately just could not have happened, its observers were either victims of an error or liers’ (LeSHAN).

The term ‘natural law’, infelicitously chosen on the model of ‘godly’ laws of religious moral and jurisprudence, directed evolution into a fatal direction [125]. 

ELLISON declares in respect of the statement ‘there exist certain natural laws which we could discover or, in fact have discovered already, and everything what allegedly comes into conflict with it, cannot be correct’, to be the language of a second-class scientist. ‘Laws of nature’ are nothing but temporarily serviceable mental constructions’ (LeSHAN).

TALBOT denominates ‘the tendency to believe that a rule or a limit must be valid in all cases, because it is true for a big number of cases’ a boundary syndrome. ‘But human experience has priority, and if ‘impossible’ events occur nevertheless, then the respective definition of the ‘impossible’ and the underlying theory of reality are wrong’ (LeSHAN) [126].

NEFFE: ‘In the confusion of causality and correlation, the natural scientits’ weak point becomes bare in their very own domain, in logic. Specialists show very poor tolerance in respect of poetry and ambiguity, and frequently enough, their inveterate search for order makes escape to their mind a much more interesting form of order existent on a higher level of being.’ (‘Alle Macht den Genen’ (full potency to the genes) in “Der Spiegel” (the mirror – German magazine) no. 51, 20.12.1993, page 170). On this subject deceased M. BODEN answers in a radio dialogue to HOMES’ question: Ist das nicht Wahnsinn? (Isn’t it all a madness?) Gibt keinen Wahnsinn, nur Ordnung! (There is no madness, there is order only!)

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[125] Classroom question: ‘How did things know how to fall before the law of gravity was enacted?’

[126] MARGENAU and LeSHAN addressed a letter to the ‘scientific’ periodical ‘Science’ in which among others they asked which scientific laws were violated by the appearance of ESP. And that it was in no ways sure that the transmission of information had to be equated with energy or mass. After three further inquiries they still did not even receive an acknowledgement of receipt. Editor of this periodical: “American Association for the Promotion of Science”. What is known are statements made to SHELDRAKE’s morphogenetic fields: ‘This infuriating treat … is the best candidate for burning there has been for many years’, (“Nature”), see C-17 and [163].

[163] The neutral publication in the periodical TransKommunikation of the essentially identical transtexts that had spontaneously appeard on June 19th, 1991 at HOMES in Rivenich and at CETL in Luxemburg were - without any further reference - commented (March 1992) in a circular of the Freiburger Institut fuer Psychologie und Grenzgebiete and Psychohygiene (institute for psychology and border domains and psychohygienics) with the following sentence: ‘Hans BENDER was no concealed spiritist as the already beginning transcommunicative creation of legends wants to make believe’. The author’s protestation against the implicit insinuations was replied to on April 30th, 1992: ‘We may come to the following agreement: if you abstain from publishing so-called ‘passings of messages’ from Hans BENDER, there will be no more reason for me to speak of a creation of legends’. After a pause of 32 months Hans BENDER made contact again via radio and asked to transmit his greetings to two ‘Freiburger’ gentlemen. One of them did not react at all, the other one, in a letter dated March, 17th, 1994, joined the “Zeitschrift fuer Spiritismus und verwandte Gebiete” (periodical for spiritism and related subjects) of the year 1987 in which was to read: ‘The editorship does not assume any responsibility for messages from the realm of spirits’. Even less understandable is the one-sided presentation of the person BENDER who had not at all continuously maintained the officially represented animistic mode of thought (see the results of examination of VOT and their evaluation in B-12.1, and GRUBER in 1993; regarding identification and the STEINER case, see F-38.12.

One could let such episodes rest; they are cited - unfortunately not only in the FRG - as examples of the usual modes of reaction of academical parapsychologists whose minds are closed to transcendency, whom one can see as ‘unpolitely called second-class scientists’ like an English physicist did.

As if these internals would not be enough, some years ago the German speaking intelligentzia was confronted with the following ‘scientific’ evaluation of VOT phenomena (“Fokus” 13/1994, p. 158/9): ‘Keine Chance fuer Spuk im Laendle’ (No chance for spook in the county):

‘(The parapsychological service center) frequently receives calls from people having heard voices from the Beyond. In Austria even exists the Verein fuer Tonbandstimmenforschung (association for research on VOT). Hobby researchers believe recognizing secrete messages in the welter of broadcastings on the medium-wave range. Then the cassette serving as proof is full of thrilling messages such as ‘Babanzel’ or ‘Auf Wiederkontakt’ (till a next contact). Among German ghosts, too, re-unification seems to have taken place. In Saxon dialect a voice said with a nasal twang: ‘Nu blitz nochmal’ (Now flash again). – Using phantasy, it is possible to interprete almost everything from the pretended messages, says LUCADOU. He smiles at the zestful voice collectors: ‘I rather pity the tape freaks. Therefore, I am very kind with them.’ One has to read the last sentence – apparently cited word by word – twice to believe the disdainful arrogance lacking any differentiation of facts, which delivered it. Those who have not yet had enough of it may study the ‘First Report on Field Examinations’, patched up with the cooperation of the named gentleman after a visit made to Martin WENZEL (published under BERGER et.al. in JSPR). Similarly to the way in which the phenomenon of VOT was dismissed subsequent to the inglorious publication by ELLIS, the gentlemen now have polished off the transimages.

Finally (without claiming completeness!) be mentioned that in this same periodical JSPR was published a review on Ken WEBSTER’s book “The Vertical Plane” in which the reviewer, untroubled from any knowledge of the subject, disqualified the whole as Science Fiction.

With regard to the reaction to ‘anomalies’  has to be kept in mind that, in the feeling of general society, collectives possess an (inadequate) pseudoexistence. Fact is that not any organization or institution, state, government, party, administration, economy, church, nor the military, nor – last not least – ‘science’ are capable of performing any action. They all consist of acting individuals who know to harbour, consciously or unconsciously, their, on different levels partly contradictory, (group) interests, their modes of acting, their fear of responsibility, and their lack of assuming such, behind institutional sign-boards.  

So the essential question has always to be put to the individual scientist [127] who represents a special field with more or less competence and in accord with his colleagues. Sufficiently often, an extreme specialization and a kind of schizophrenic oscillation between ‘official’ comment and private opinion hinder honest statements to take place. Of course, it is less committing to own up to the existence of irrelevant ‘black holes’ [128] than to that of ‘anomalous’ phenomena, which call the system in question, possibly subvert personal convictions one has become fond of, and indirectly jeopardize the academic career. Yet, ‘by the irrevocable law of honourableness, science is bound to fearlessly adopt every problem that can fairly be submitted to it’ (LORD KELVIN according to FINDLAY). 

[127] CHARGAFF: ‘The new class of knowledge producers (produces) 40 000 periodicals on natural sciences that contain 1 million articles per year.’

[128] A ‘professor’ was originally a person who ‘professed’ (Christianity).

Here a frequently observable repressing effect begins, which is psychologically understandable but hinders development, and subordinates the individual’s own perception of real phenomena to permanently stored prejudices, like, for instance, the silly wording: ‘Even if I would see it, I would not believe it’ (LAVOISIER with reference to meteorites as ‘messengers from outer space’ [129]). GALILEI’s moons of Jupiter and EDISON’s phonograph [26] are well known examples for EINSTEIN’s sentence: ‘Theory determines what is perceived’. 

[26] Laughing scornfully, the dignified gentlemen of the French Academy of Science left the hall while the demonstration of the phonograph was going on, and later declared: ‘We have checked and found that it is a matter of ventriloquous hoax, for it is impossible to have a human voice speak from a roller.’

[129] This argument was as logical as that of the gentlemen of the French Academy in respect of the Phonograph [26 – Laughing scornfully, the dignified gentlemen of the French Academy of Science left the hall while the demonstration of the phonograph was going on, and later declared: ‘We have checked and found that it is a matter of ventriloquous hoax, for it is impossible to have a human voice speak from a roller.’]; in this instance, ‘stones cannot fall from the sky because there are no stones up there.’

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The refusal (of even the possibility) of purposeful parapsychological research is often justified with ‘lack of reproducibility’ (LEM). This calls for the reply that in natural science and technique, within certain error margins, ‘reproducible’ results are ensured only and as far as relatively simple arrangements are concerned, which can be described by a small number of parameters, ‘constant’ (or, at least, in every case known) initial conditions, and by linear equations [130]. When complex systems are involved, fails the methodology, ‘sanctioned’ since the times of Galilei, which – contrary to the originally imposed self-limitation to the research of inanimate nature only – was inadmissibly extended to the fields of bios, thus reducing these fields [131].This methodology furnishes unreliable probability information already in single cases, for instance when dealing with physical and technical systems of higher complexity, as e.g., elementary structures, computers, rockets. In the field of biological research, humane medicine included, all measurement results are available as distributions of data irrelevant for a specific case. The degree of unreliability increases where psychosomatic combinations are involved, and it reaches a maximum when paranormal phenomena are concerned. These latter are intimately connected with (at least) the psyche of the experimenter and the (infinite) environment. The essential variables of a parapsychological system cannot be isolated [132], for its ‘openness’ is all-embracing. Since, ‘unfortunately’, the effects reach into the real surroundings – and this is also valid for ITC -, where they are objectifiable, the only possibility that in the end remains is a fundamental re-vision and expansion of exactly that picture or conception of the world from which they were excluded a priori. 

[130] – The term ‚exact’ is an idealized one. In fact, in physics and technique/engineering never exists exactness in the mathematical sense. All measurement results are incorrect. At the micro-level applies HEISENBERG’s uncertainty principle. 

[131] – CHARGAFF speaks of ‘reductionism gone mad, which characterizes modern information theory in particular, and fails to take sense and meaning into account’, see also STEINBUCH in A-2. 

[132] – ‘isolate’ derives from ‘isola = island’.

The ‘end of the era of natural science’ (PIETSCHMANN) has been ‘invented’ not as late as during the last decades, but has been rung in by leading physicists since the beginning of the 20th century. Parallel with the recognition of the unsustainability of the foundations of ‘classical physics’ developed the interest in paranormal or spiritualistic phenomena – unfortunatey the compendiums (the German text includes a pun: compendium=Lehrbuch which is phonetically identical with Leerbuch= empty book)  do not convey anything thereof to the academical youth. In the following alphabetical listing – which does not claim to be complete – we find the names of outstanding personalities: 

BOHM; BOYLE; COMPTON; CROOKES; CURIES; EDISON; EDDINGTON; EINSTEIN; FECHNER; FEYNMAN; HEISENBERG; HEITLER; JAMES; JORDAN; JOSEPHSON; JUNG; LODGE; MARCONI; PAULI; M. PLANCK; RAYLEIGH; RICHET; SCHOPENHAUER; SCHROEDINGER; TESLA; J.J. THOMPSON; WEBER; ZOELLNER.

ZUKAV:  ‘Proceeding from reason, the physicists have proved that our rational vista of the world in which we live is highly insufficient. We will perhaps arrive at the end of science, the limits of reductional methods – but solely direct experience is able to provide the impression of a non-localizable universe, the kingdom of union and affection. Passing beyond the verge of our logic on to total awareness…..’.

VOT:  Eine logische Grenze Forschungsphilosophie. (A logic border research philosophy.)

Le SHAN has characterized, with four aspects each, the old (a) world view and the new one we are embarking upon. In (a), psi is impossible, in (n) psi is quite possible because of the non-existence of the space-time limits we are accustomed to.

1a

accentuation of individuality and uniqueness of things

  3a

direct sensory experience is the only means for acquiring reliable information about the world
 

1n

accentuation of unity and relationship between all ‘things’

  3n

there exist forms/kinds of communication and knowledge beyond sensory and motional experiences
 

2a

concept and experiencing of time as a very real flow oriented in one single direction
 

  4a

the good and the bad exist and are important concepts
 

2n

time is an illusion, and each individual’s own time concept changes

  4n

the good and the bad are illusionary ideas and experiences

  

But the actual concern is the human being: ‘The modern scene lacks the courage to face the huge scope of our ignorance about man; the human is a larva, not the final form of evolution. A dangerous combination of a highly developed intelligence, and a comparatively undeveloped pattern of emotions and wishes working towards the culmination point (a catastrophe)’ (ROTHSTEIN/MUSES).

It is deplorable that – after more than 70 (!) years – neither ‘the science’ nor the general public have become aware of the situation TYRELL clearly recognized in 1927: 

‘KOPERNIKUS designed a new, upending image of the cosmos. A similar situation is impending today. It is not the planet earth whose central position is called in question, but the entire material universe. It is dethroned of its central position and, so to speak, is reduced to the status of a province.’

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In the actual situation one will have to cling to FEYERABEND, I suppose: 

‘So, there are many, many different ways to put one’s own research in the way for its break-through, provided one has made up one’s mind as to what one wishes (to realize), i.e., first of all, if one has reduced the respect for the general talking about scientific nature and methods to its due size, namely to nothing’ (DUNCAN). 

In a certain way, this reduction has been worked for in modern constructivism, which joins the consequences of the physical theories evolved in the twentieth century’s second decade by underlining – contrary to naïve realism - the human’s co-participation in the construction of reality, or which, in its radical form, maintains that reality is generated by man (FOERSTER, WATZLAWICK). The ‘world’ appears to be a mental-spiritual construction of subjective experiences by the individual’s consciousness, and as the total of the world pictures overlying one the other. The ‘objectivity’ consists in more or (mostly) less precise intersubjective agreements conditioned by language. The usual separation of outer and inner world is not feasible with exactness, since the outer world’s ‘objects’ have a mere topical existence as long as they are ‘realized/made real’ in the individual’s interior through the consciousness attentively directed to them. So, in fact, ‘material objects’ that in a certain moment are not perceived by the sense organs, become ‘virtual’ contents of the memory which, with a certain probability, can be ‘found again’ in similar form in the outer space. The thus apparent solidity of the outer world is a construct of our brain’s consciousness.  

Under the aspect of constructivism reduces the importance of the question about the nature or the provability of the existence of the TEs we encounter in TC. The experimenters are at least ‘co-producers’, perhaps even ‘creators’; in any case the TEs have actual existence only during the trans-contacts – what however does not forcedly exclude their autonomy (see C-20). In a certain manner we meet in them hidden parts of our own being. 

Ideas from constructivism are also able to promote the understanding of the – not easily comprehensible – TI about the TEs’ environments. It is not only the communication partners from the ‘illusionary level’, but also the ‘higher-level entities’ who stress the direct, abrupt realization of their ideas/conceptions or intentions in their fields of consciousness. There, thinking is identical with acting; in contrast with the earthly conditions, the manipulation of reality is neither hindered by the ‘inertia of matter’, nor does it need physical energy expenditure (see chapter C-20). With this view, paranormological events can be interpreted as an anticipation of future modes of experience in the Beyond when, in this earthly world, they temporarily ‘invalidate’ the laws reputed to be nature’s [133]. Furthermore the transpartners declare that earthly men would form their ‘world’ mainly by their uncontrolled, irrational emotions – what in view of the many thousands of years of ‘world history’ and of the behaviour of the individuals, can only be confirmed (and regretted).

[133] – The contents of the following sections base upon the material to which the author had access. No claims are made regarding the completeness and/or competence in the special branches! Overmore, the term ‘science’ is intended to comprise the whole complex of natural and intellectual sciences, liberal arts, and parascience.

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