Theos-Talk Archives (September 1996 Message tl00192)

John,
Uh, one teensy little problem.  I have never seen a fossil angel, have you?
Maybe when we can translate what goes on in the brain to videotape we may get
a clearer picture of what is really going on.  Until then, we have to judge
by the available evidence and I fear from reading Hodson's journals that his
was often flawed.
But this is an imperfect study with lots of variables that we don't
understand.  Still, I cannot in conscience consider Hodson's work scientific
in any way until it has been repeated by others.  It would have been far
better if he had merely published his technique and said, "Here's what you
do, see for yourself what you find," and then see how many folks get similar
results, rather than jump off into LCC-laced dogmatism.
In that regard Hodson was merely being a man of his time.
But his Master Pollidentus What's-His-Name business seems to have been just
plain nuts.
Much as I hate to make Eldon happy, there is a lot of genuine psychic stuff
that goes on in mental hospitals, some of it quite interesting physical
phenomena, such as the patient in a hospital near Chicago who levitated about
7 years ago and it took fifteen staff members to bring him back to the floor.
 I remember the night one of the nurses told me about it.  She was genuinely
flummoxed by the whole thing and I was genuinely shocked.  There seems to be
no question but that when the activity of the brain is disturbed it takes
many forms, such as the possible relationship between clairvoyance and
temporal lobe epilepsy.  One of the real problems we have had in trying to
solve the controlled PK problem with the psionic helmet has been making sure
that we don't destroy the operator along with the priceless ming vase we
intend to use for a target (along with the stained glass windows in several
large churches and a few other choice things that I've always wanted to
break).  You are of course aware of the question posed to Russel Targ when he
went to Russia to meet with the Soviet researchers and the first thing they
asked him was how his team at SRI prevented their psychics from going crazy.
There is no question in my mind from looking at the published Hodson material
that he suffered from a mental illness and delusions of grandeur was
certainly one of the symptoms.  I find it impossible to read his journals
without coming to that conclusion.  But it may have been that very illness
that gave him those abilities that can be proven.
The problem is that it makes determining the genuineness of anything he saw
very hard to believe and the conclusions he drew from them impossible to
accept.
But then it may also be that everyone, including myself, who does serious
work in this area is a little mad.  We may just control it better.
At least I've never been visited by a Master who named himself after
false-teeth cleaner.  But then I've never seen the Virgin Mary in the
bathroom either.

Chuck the Heretic