In the following videos I discuss useful principles for discerning whether a video demonstration of telekinesis is real or fake. I expose some popular YouTube videos (particularly those of godspeed09) that are wrongly believed to be examples of advanced telekinesis.
Part 1 of 2:
Part 2 of 2:
Yesterday evening I watched the recently released remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still. If you’ve seen it, do you recall noticing a huge McDonald’s advertisement being thrust in your face partway through? If you spotted it, good for you, because you weren’t supposed to. It’s what’s known as a subliminal, which means “below threshold” – something that’s designed to get into your head by bypassing the critical faculty of normal conscious awareness. Most people have heard of subliminal messages, and the example that probably comes to mind is a lightning-quick message flashed across a screen – gone before you’ve time to read it. That certainly is a subliminal, but subliminals are also much more crafty than this. There’s a scene in The Day the Earth Stood Still where Jennifer Connelly and Keanu Reeves pull into a parking lot at night. The camera is positioned in front of their car, looking in through the windshield. As the car grinds to a halt, the reflection of a huge letter “M” crawls up the glass, a yellow “M” with very familiar curved peaks. At this point, the attention of most viewers is on Jennifer and Keanu and the conversation they are having, not on the McDonald’s logo. Typically, we look through the glass, not directly at it. Someone may ask, “What’s the value in an advertisement, if no one pays attention to it?” It’s a sensible enough question, if you’ve never researched how the human mind works. But when you understand something of the nature of the mind, then it becomes clear that it’s precisely your lack of attention that the advertisers are counting on!
Our minds have a tendency to build associations between things that are placed together. I’ll explain what I mean by that by illustrating how a phobia – an irrational fear – operates. I know a young woman who finds it extremely uncomfortable to be photographed. At first I thought her reaction to cameras was based on insecurity about her appearance, but I later learned from her that the origin of her fear was much deeper. As a young child, her parents hired a professional photographer each year for her birthday party. It was always the same bearded man, the physical appearance of whom frightened the child. As the photographer, he was never without his camera. And so the negative emotions that the girl felt in response to the man became associated with the camera, too. When this was reinforced over a few years, the same emotions occurred when the camera alone was pointed at the girl, regardless of who was holding it. As an adult, she is completely aware that her fear of cameras is irrational, but the feelings persist regardless of what her conscious mind knows. You might imagine that all we would need to do to cure a phobia is to realise how irrational it is, but it’s not that simple. The mind creates links that bypass conscious awareness, and these links take time and effort to break.
This tendency of the mind to create unconscious associations may give the impression that our minds are somewhat faulty, or less optimal than they should be. But that’s not the case. The tendency of the unconscious to make associations is vital to us being able to function effectively in the physical world. The fact that I can sit here and tap this computer keyboard rapidly without consciously thinking about each key-press is due to my subconscious having established links. I simply think about what words I want to appear, give the okay to my fingers, and off they go. This is in stark contrast to when I was ten years old, playing with my first computer, gradually learning where each letter was located by roving my index finger across the keyboard. Little did I know back then that I was beginning the process of creating a bridge between intention and action that would allow my conscious mind to be bypassed, turning me into a rapid typist. If you’re not a heavy computer user, a better example of this is driving a car. Remember what it was like when you first learned? All the careful thinking you had to do, between watching the road, steering, changing gears while correctly operating the clutch and accelerator, not to mention the safety aspects of paying attention to the mirrors and being able to find the brake instantly. Now, if you’ve been driving for a few years, you’ll know that the car feels just like an extension of your body, and you don’t even have to think about those things at all. They happen on automatic, because your mind has built the necessary subconscious connections that give your conscious mind the freedom to be elsewhere, such as talking on a mobile phone (not!).
In the case of the woman with the phobia, the very same principle is operating. Her mind has created an unconscious association through repetition of experience. A camera appears, and the subconscious says, “Oh! There’s a camera pointed at you. I know what I’m supposed to make you feel: fear!” The conscious mind says, “Stop it. This is irrational. There’s no reason I’m supposed to feel this.” And the subconscious replies, “Sorry, but I already know what I’m supposed to be doing.” The purpose of the bridge-building tendency is to allow the bypassing of conscious awareness, and that’s why the subconscious isn’t listening to the conscious mind, even when the conscious mind attempts to correct it. The way to cure an irrational phobia is to re-train the unconscious mind to feel something different, by confronting the fear head-on and persistently attempting to create a new experience, until a different association is built through repetition.
So you see, the tendency of the mind to build unconscious connections is both necessary but, given particular circumstances, is prone to veering off in a direction that is less than helpful for our lives. This tendency also makes the mind prone to deliberate abuse by those who know how the mind works. And have no doubt, advertisers are very much in the know.
Picture this: you’re sitting at home, warm and snug in your living room, tucking into a snack, while The Day the Earth Stood Still is pouring out of the TV across the room and into your eyes. While you’re in this feel-good state, a big McDonald’s logo is staring you in the face, but you don’t even see it. Or to state that more accurately, your conscious mind doesn’t see it; your subconscious, on the other hand, takes it all in. You’re not aware of it, but a feel-good emotional connection with the McDonald’s logo is covertly building itself in your subconscious. Later, when you drive your car past the local McDonald’s “restaurant” and you spot that big letter “M” on the building, you start to feel good, and you have no idea why. The effect is so subtle that you don’t even ask yourself why you feel good. Of course, one subliminal message in one movie isn’t going to have much of an effect. A cumulative effect is created by the constant repetition of the same theme, again and again, in other movies and during commercial breaks. Ask yourself, how many television advertisements are designed to inform you, whereas how many are designed to make you feel something? With this is mind, you can start to appreciate the importance of a company having a distinct, simple, identifiable symbol on their products or services. In time, your subconscious learns a clear message from the experiences you feed it, and it starts to tell you: “McDonald’s makes me feel good.” And unless you’ve educated yourself with the likes of Morgan Spurlock’s excellent documentary Supersize Me, exposing the horrors of the fast food industry, then you have no reason not to follow what makes you feel good. Ka-ching! “Big Mac and fries, please.”
Some time ago in the UK there was a television advertisement for the cervical cancer vaccine that was being introduced for teenage girls. Did this advert inform the public of the medical facts about cervical cancer and the vaccine? No. Instead, it staged a little feel-good play, where a schoolgirl sang a song with words like “Had the jab we need; girls feeling safe,” combined with images of her playing netball in the school playground with her friends. This was designed to make the viewer feel the positive emotions associated with fun school activities and associate those emotions with the cervical cancer vaccine, regardless of what the viewer does or doesn’t know about the vaccine. The only useful information in the advertisement was a web-link at the tail end, where you could go and get the facts. I mean, really, who keeps a notepad by their armchair to take down websites while they watch TV? The web-link was there because it covers the NHS’s legal asses. Based on the content of the advert itself, it was essentially saying, “You don’t need to think. Information is irrelevant. Just feel how we want you to feel.” How about instead using those thirty seconds to properly inform me about the risks of developing cervical cancer and the side-effects of the vaccine? Then I can make an informed choice about whether to have my daughter vaccinated. But no, the National Health Service prefers to subject schoolgirls to mind control, to lull them into feeling positive emotions instead of presenting impartial freedom of choice. At the risk of sounding paranoid, I suspect the real reason why the vaccine is advertised in this manner is because it is a product, just like a Big Mac is a product, and they want as many people as possible to “consume” this product, so that they can make as much money as possible at the expense of the tax payers who have no choice but to fund them. “But we care!” says the NHS. I’ll believe that when you stop trying to control my mind. Here’s the advertisement; judge what I’m saying for yourself. See how many different things you can spot that are designed to evoke positive feelings in teenage girls – things which have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with cervical cancer or the vaccine …
A few days ago I spotted another alarming TV advertisement. This time it was a recruiting drive by the armed forces. The advert dramatised a combat scenario in the style of a first-person shooter videogame, placing the television screen as the eyes of the soldier. It was clearly designed to appeal to the young gaming generation. The viewer is reminded of the good feelings associated with playing games – the adrenaline rush of full-on virtual combat, the pleasure of outwitting an enemy with superior tactics. The subconscious is then encouraged to link the real-life combat shown on the advertisement with the good feelings of videogames. The message is clear: “You like videogames? Well, if you want the ultimate adrenaline rush, sign up for the armed forces!” No useful information. No critical thinking encouraged. It’s all feel, feel, feel. “Feel what we want you to feel. You’re the donkey; just follow the carrot we’re holding in front of your nose. No need to think.” Remember, this isn’t an advert that’s trying to make you change your brand of fabric softener. It’s using the feeling you get from killing videogame characters and attempting to associate it with the killing of real people in real war. Here’s the ad …
These are not sinister exceptions in an otherwise clean and safe world of advertising. This is how the whole advertising game is played. It’s the straightforward and informative adverts that are the exception. Emotional manipulation is the norm. Ever watch a television advert and you thought it was completely daft? Doesn’t matter. Did it make you laugh? That’s what mattered. Can you even remember what the product was? No? Doesn’t matter. Your subconscious took note of that brand logo, and rest assured you’ll feel good when you see it again. Why would a company pay thousands of pounds to parade a celebrity in front of your nose for thirty seconds when a second-rate actor would do just as well? You won’t feel the same way about John Smith as you do about Bruce Willis, Ewen McGregor, Samuel L. Jackson – take your pick. We’ve all had experiences with celebrities before, because we’ve enjoyed their movies, appreciated their recipes, tapped our feet to their music, or whatever. Their presence in an advertisement is not to inform you; it’s to make you feel good and manipulate your subconscious to link that feeling to the product or service, regardless of what you do or don’t know.
This is how the wool is pulled over our eyes. This is how we are treated like sheep every day. This is how we make decisions without any awareness that a great part of the decision-making process is being done for us – below threshold. I encourage everyone to start watching their televisions in a very different manner. In movies and dramas, keep an eye out for those product placement logos. In advertisements, always ask, “What am I being encouraged to feel right now and why?” When a subliminal is spotted, all its power over you is gone. And if you want to go as extreme as tossing your television in the dumpster, it’s further than I’ve gone, but kudos to you. The world may laugh, but I won’t be joining in.
In the 1970s film Dawn of the Dead (a splatter movie with a profound subtext), four humans take refuge in a shopping mall from the undead hoards ravaging the world. Gazing at the zombie-infested parking lot from the safety of the roof, Fran asks Stephen, “What are they doing? Why do they come here?” Stephen replies, “Some kind of instinct. Memory, of what they used to do. This was an important place in their lives.” In another scene, another survivor, Peter, says, “They’re after the place. They don’t know why, they just remember. Remember that they want to be in here.” Fran asks, “What the hell are they?” Peter: “They’re us, that’s all, when there’s no more room in hell.” In other words, when Peter looked at the brain-dead behaviour of the zombies, there was no significant difference to the behaviour of a typical human being.
We’re zombies! To one extent or another, we’ve been lulled into becoming mind-controlled non-thinking zombies by a black box that sits in the corner of the living room. We think we have free will, unaware of how much we’re actually reacting to craftily constructed emotional stimuli. The mind control of advertising can only be described as genius, since it can manipulate you to do something whilst you feel it was entirely your free choice. Time to be informed and take back your mind.
Let me hear you make decisions
Without your television.
- “Stripped” by Depeche Mode
There is something that lies behind your outward ego – a mysterious thing called the unconscious/subconscious mind, and it’s this part of us that provides the best rational clue to the underlying essence of what we are. First of all, it’s clear that we have an unconscious mind. There are many expressions of it in life, if we only look.
It’s possible to drive a car whilst daydreaming (although I don’t recommend it). One day, shortly after moving house, I accidentally drove home from work to my previous house; I was right at the driveway before I realised, “I don’t live here anymore!” What happened was my unconscious mind followed a pattern that had been imprinted by habit, while my conscious mind was busy thinking about something else. When I type on this keyboard, I don’t think about what my fingers are doing. Words flow out automatically, from my thoughts onto the screen. I’ve been typing for so many years that I don’t have to consciously concern myself with my fingers any more; my unconscious takes care of it for me. The unconscious is also what regulates our bodies; we don’t have to consciously think to take each next breath; we don’t have to consciously control our own heart-rate to keep the blood circulating. The unconscious also plays a huge role in emotions; phobias happen when the unconscious mind associates a negative feeling with a particular experience. It’s possible to be afraid of something in a completely irrational way, simply because of something that happened in the past. And the unconscious is responsible for a lot more than just these issues.
Here’s my favourite example of how amazing the unconscious is: When a person has a hemispherectomy (the complete removal one side of the brain), this paralyses one side of his body, because the side of the brain controlling that side of the body is gone. However, it’s possible to re-train the paralysed limbs to function again, simply by trying to move them. At first, nothing happens. But eventually, the limbs start to work on their own. The brain starts to rewire itself to reconnect with the paralysed limbs. It almost seems like magic, because you don’t have to consciously do anything except wish it to happen. But under the surface, the unconscious mind is listening to the conscious mind, and the unconscious mind is able to do what needs to be done. It’s like you have your very own qualified brain surgeon inside yourself! The unconscious mind seems to be immensely knowledgeable and powerful.
It almost feels like there’s another person inside you, a mysterious hidden servant who is vastly more intelligent than you. But I think it’s more true to say that the unconscious mind is the deeper you, while the conscious mind is an aspect of you that is existing in a state of amnesia from the full magnitude of who you are under the surface. But what is the purpose of this amnesia? Why don’t I know consciously how to rewire my brain, since there’s a part of me under the surface that does know how to do it? I have a speculative answer to that, which fits perfectly …
Imagine the only thing that exists is one single eternal consciousness that never had a beginning and will never have an end. “God” is the word that jumps into most people’s minds at this point. I hate using that word, because right off the bat your mind may start to attach all sorts of religious ideas to the concept: worship, original sin, judgement, redemption, etc. Ideas that are nothing to do with the concept itself, but are adds-ons that come later through holy writings and such. Leave all that stuff at the door for now and concentrate on the core idea. Instead of God, we might call this being The Source, The Whole, or Infinite Consciousness. The name doesn’t really matter. Right now, I’m using “God” for convenience. Imagine that God created the universe, then put himself into a human body to experience it. There are certain problems with this scenario. Imagine yourself standing at an ice-cream counter, trying to decide whether to buy vanilla or chocolate. Now imagine yourself as God doing the same thing. The trouble is, if you’re God, you already knew what choice you were going to make before you made it. In other words, there could be no experience of free will. “I knew I was going to choose chocolate, so I’ll just pick vanilla just to thwart my foreknowledge!” This cannot be because your foreknowledge would have let you know you were going to thwart your foreknowledge. Get it? In order for God to experience free will, he has to forget the totality of what he is. In other words he has to manufacture an amnesic barrier between his eternal all-knowing awareness and what he wishes to experience. I think this is the underlying truth of what is going on with human experience. And I think the edge between the conscious and unconscious mind is where we find the clues to this speculative scenario.
If we delve into the realm of the apparently paranormal in relation to the mind, the clues become even stronger. I’ve spent the past nine months experimenting with telekinesis, and my results suggest that there is a powerful unconscious “me” doing my bidding, a me that may not be entirely brain-based by virtue of its ability to affect objects at a distance. I’ve also made a start to telepathy, attempting to “mind read” drawings that have been placed in envelopes. It’s early days for this one, but the results I’m getting suggest more than accidental likenesses. How is telepathy possible if we are all individuals, completely distinct from each other? Upton Sinclair, in his excellent book Mental Radio (see my review), offers this hypothesis: “It seems to indicate a common substratum of mind, underlying our individual minds, and which we can learn to tap.” A strong pointer to the notion that beyond the physical realm, there is a single unified consciousness. Aldous Huxley, his his book The Doors of Perception (see my review) talks of his experience with the drug mescaline, and how it made him aware of what he termed “mind” and “mind at large.” He saw these two things as being joined by a conduit. Mescaline allowed him to widen the conduit for a period, temporarily squeezing more of “mind at large” into “mind” and providing a unique experience.
There is no you, me and everybody. We only think there is because we have forgotten our totality. There is only one. Your mind is the thing that makes you believe you are separate from everyone else, but the self-awareness inside you is the same self-awareness inside me. We just have different personalities possessing different memories, each one closed off from the other, experiencing its individual perceptions. Imagine two people dying at the same time, and suddenly they become aware that they have two sets of memories. After death, it will not be a case of two sets of personalities fighting for control of a single consciousness. Infinite Consciousness has no personality because it is everything that was, is, and ever will be.
Ultimately, I can’t connect enough dots with this material to prove my view to someone who lives exclusively by reductionist, evidence-based thinking. I believe we are all one consciousness through intuition, and I think there is more to intuition than imagination and wishful thinking. Assuming these egos of ours are limited expressions of a God-like Infinite Consciousness that knows everything, intuition may very well be a means of obtaining reliable information from that Infinite Consciousness via the unconscious mind. I’m doing a complete rational bypass here, which I understand is abhorrent to many people. But whatever you may think about the “one consciousness” viewpoint, it’s clear on purely rational grounds that our conscious minds are connected to something very powerful outside our awareness, and this lends value to intuition. I intuitively believed that there was only one consciousness long before I put all the rational building blocks together. I don’t consider these building blocks as proof, because they’re incomplete, but they provide the most coherent picture for me of what’s really going on with life.
Atheists will say, “Of course you’re just a brain in a body, because we can show it scientifically,” and there’s a sense in which that is true because mind is physical. Religion says, “Of course you’ve got an immortal soul, otherwise life is without purpose,” and that also is true. Yet these belief systems are opposed to each other. The truth is not found in one archetype or the other, but in rejecting hand-me-down belief systems and figuring it out for yourself.
A couple of days ago I finally cracked the barrier of doing telekinesis in a sealed environment – under a glass bowl. The psi wheel was perfectly still for many minutes, then I achieved multiple spins for the best part of a minute. I am now nine months into my training. It’s a great feeling to finally put to rest a nagging sliver of scepticism that I’ve felt for so long. Whatever is behind telekinesis, it’s weirder than the sceptics claim, without a doubt.
For me, the real excitement behind telekinesis lies in the gathering of evidence that there’s more to a human being than western science has yet fathomed.
I didn’t record the breakthrough moment. However, I produced the following video earlier this evening. Not quite as dramatic, but the real deal nevertheless …
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