New perspectives on the notion of collective unconscious

Dear all,

I am re-wrapping my head around the Zeitoun case, but here is something new.

Thank you for your patience.

 

The sociologist Susan Greenwood (1990) noted twenty years ago that Émile Durkheim’s concept of “collective consciousness” and Carl Jung’s notion of “collective unconscious” are very similar in their explanatory structure, and draw from a common origin in the writings of the early 20^th century French anthropologist Lévy-Bruhl. The psychologist Harry Hunt (2012) came to the same conclusion in a recently published article (without referencing Greenwood’s paper in any shape or form).

What makes Hunt’s paper particularly interesting is that his paper was based on the recently discovered Jung’s Red Book, a journal where Jung wrote his most inner thought about various aspects of his research and therapeutic practice. This additional confirmation that the notions of collective consciousness and collective unconscious are closely related constitutes an important argument in support of the parasociological project.

Most parapsychologists agree that psi-related phenomena are somehow linked to unconscious processes. By extension, a fundamental premise of parasociology is that social psi phenomena should be linked to collective unconscious processes. For this reason, Jung’s research on what he termed the “collective unconscious” is of primary interest in parasociology. Yet, Jung was less than clear on what he meant by collective unconscious. This was, in many ways, because he was addressing a topic that could easily be turned into ridicule by the scientific establishment of his time. Having now the benefit of his inner thoughts from the Red Book, many ambiguities in his writings can be resolved.

 

The first ambiguities that Hunt attacks is whether the collective unconscious is something based in our biology (genetically hard wired) or something based in common human experience (and thus being collectively shared through culture and language). Jung tended to propose a biological explanation but it was mainly because biological reductionism was very much the dominant flavor in academic circles in his days, but he could see also a cultural version of it too. In light of modern advances in neuroscience, it appears that it is a bit of both, and Jung’s ambivalence was actually warranted. The human brain is hard wired to grasp the surrounding environment by using some fundamental mental structures. As Hunt notes, “in cognitive psychology, Lakoff and Johnson (1999) have similarly identified cross-modal ‘image schemas’ (container, path, centre, force, etc.) that not only underlie all thought, but seem necessary as the inner form of fully adult feeling – as differentiated senses of anger as ‘heated’, ‘streamed’, ‘boiling’, ‘exploding’ (see also Knox, 2004). These metaphors, already exteriorized in nature, will also be broadly cross-cultural, but independent of any specifically phylogenetic or ancestral mind” (2012, 79). And later he adds that “Jung’s collective unconscious most directly defines a kind of symbolic cognition” (Hunt 2012, 80).

 

In other words, the collective unconscious is collective because, on one hand the human brain is wired to think in certain ways, while on the other hand there a number basic common human experience (hot and cold, wet and dry, male and female, etc.) that provide fundamental metaphors for our thinking. Culture, then, builds on those basic wiring and common experience to deal with the particular situation of a given community (hence explaining the great degree of variation between cultures).

As Hunt underlines, “in socio-cultural terms it is comparable to Durkheim’s (1912) concept of ‘collective consciousness’, which he understands as most apparent in the ‘collective representations’ of myth, ritual, and religion. This idea of a ‘collective consciousness’ takes on a cross-cultural component once we add in the largely unconscious roots of archetypical imagination in Lakoff and Johnson’s ‘image schemas’ – as also embedded within the expressive patterns of physical and animate nature, and so continuously available as exteriorized sources of metaphor” (2012, 80).

 

The sociological concept of collective consciousness can be easily re-defined as the external (or observable) dimension of the collective unconscious. For instance, in most cultures major aspects of reality are gendered, but not in the same way—in patriarchal societies the moon is oftentimes construed as feminine because it is the reflection of the sun (the male principle), yet in a few societies the moon is represented as a male concept because it is at night that warriors get ready for battle and having moonlight is critical. Either way, the moon is assigned a gender, as a common and deeply wired way of relating to reality.

This brings us to the Jungian notion of archetype, the fundamental building blocks of the collective unconscious, according to Jung. Archetypes are deeply internalized in the unconscious, and they are “idea-and-feeling forms” (i.e. ways of thinking with an emotional value) that become strongly associated with a natural form or object; e.g. light is good because this allows us to live; we tend to have special positive rituals about the sun and sunlight--like going in vacation to sunny places in the middle of winter...). To put it differently, archetypes are special nodes of the human mind that we all share in way or another, thus making the collective unconscious that will be seen in various myths and social practices. To take another example, one well-known archetype is the magician (also known as the wise man). It is this idea-feeling we have when we meet someone more knowledgeable than us. It is based on our brain wiring of quantity thinking (i.e. more or less knowledge) and on a common childhood experience of meeting an adult who by definition is more knowledgeable (well, one hopes so!).

 

One can see the direct link between archetypes and common recurrent themes found in collective representations such as myths and rituals (e.g. god is often represented as an older man in the Western world). Once again, the psychologist Jung and the sociologist Durkheim are treading on the same waters. As Hunt put it, “as with Jung, fully developed mythological thinking is not a simple handover from childhood animism, but is itself metacognitive. It is an expressive cognition of underlying cognitive processes, but here on the grounds of cognitive psychology and sociology” (2012, 84). In other words, our collective imagination and representations are the visible expressions of our collective notions deeply buried in the unconscious.  

Archetypes, even if they are lived at the individual level, are in fact showing us that we tend to thinking and feel in very similar ways at the unconscious level. As Hunt wrote, “in the modern West, with our extreme individualism, inevitably shared by Jung himself, we tend to miss the socially collective nature of ostensibly individual states of high imaginative absorption and numinous imagery” (2012, 88). As an interesting empirical support for this notion, Hunt (2012, 90) notes Beradt research on ordinary German night dreams during the mid-1930, which were pointing towards impending disasters on Nazism and the Second World War. One could go further and say that the entire field of anthropology is based on the notion of understanding how myths are constructed, shared, and how the regulate the life of pre-modern societies. Similarly, research in marketing is very much based on seeking the archetype that would support the sales of a particular product. The empirical evidence to support the collective nature of archetypes is overwhelming, and one could say that without the collective unconscious and archetypes, society and especially large complex modern societies would simply not be possible.

This brings us to the interesting notion that archetypes can be activated also at the collective level, not just at the individual one. For Jung, when an archetype is activated (it becomes present in our consciousness through dreams, visions, or just ideas popping-up in one’s mind) , it means that something unconscious is bothering us and the archetype can be used as a clue for the clinical psychologist to help the patient.

But Jung ventured a bit further, and this where his research become particularly useful for the parasociological project, in stating that in some situation an archetype can activated in an externalized way through synchronicities (meaningful coincidences) or paranormal phenomena. This essentially means that one’s unconscious is using external means to get attention about a problem. This was explored by parapsychologists at the individual level (and it is one of the main explanations proposed for poltergeists events or RSPKs). With respect to the usefulness of Jung’s notions, now better understood through his insights described in the Red Book, there is no logical reason to reject the possibility of collectively activated archetypes being also exteriorized through collective synchronicities and paranormal phenomena.

One important dimension of collective archetypal activation is the issue of time. For spontaneous paranormal (or psi) cases, the same unconscious problem would require to bother many people at the same time. In this regard, I found an interesting article by Tim Edensor (2006) that speaks to both deeply held and shared beliefs (archetypes) and time. Here is a somewhat long quote that sums up well the gist of his argument.

 

“Part of the way in which rituals and habits cited above ‘enable the nation to be thinkable, inhabitable, communicable and therefore governable’ (Mercer, 1992: 27), is through synchronization, the simultaneous participation of millions of people in timetabled routines. Zeruvabel (1981) asserts that synchronization is a fundamental principle of social organization which usually eludes analysis, overlooked because of its familiarity. Repetition is surely essential to identity, for without recurrent experiences there would be no consistency given to experience, no temporal framework within which to make sense of the world. As I have already mentioned, the state synchronizes much nation-wide practices, regulating the time spent at school, work and the release of exam results, governing drinking hours, and so on. But in addition to this official temporal framework for everyday living, national synchronicity is achieved through temporal customs about when and where specific social practices should occur.” (Edensor 2006, 534)

As well, if modern societies are more complex than pre-modern ones, this does not mean that they not have means to share myths at the same time, and thus allow archetypes to be activated. As Edensor notes from other researchers: “Moores describes this mediatized timetabling as the ‘domestication of national standard time (1988: 67), and Silverstone highlights how television schedules organize household routines through which time ‘is felt, lived and secured’, producing repetitive viewing experiences embedded in the times of biography and the life-cycle, and in the time of institutions and societies themselves’ (1994:20). In this way, television links ‘the national public into the private lives of its citizens, through the creation of both sacred and quotidian moments of national communion’ (Morley, 2000: 107)” (Edensor 2006, 535).

Now, with the advent of the Internet and satellite television, time is spent in a less homogeneous way, as a greater amount of content can be viewed on a wider timeframe. But standard time routines have not changed that much (Edensor 2006, 541-542). This idea supports my argument that the UFO phenomenon might be in declined because we are less synchronized as societies (post-modern) than during the "television era", mostly occurring in North American from the late 1940s to late 1990s.

Nevertheless, this issue of temporality of collective action, combined with the greater similarity of thought and feeling found in what has been termed the collective unconscious create the necessary conditions for social psi to be possible.

 

References

Edensor, Tim. (2006). “Reconsidering national temporalities: Institutional times, everyday routines, serial spaces and synchronicities”. European Journal of Social Theory 9(4): 525-545.

Greenwood, Susan F. (1990). “Émile Durkheim and C.G. Jung: Structuring a transpersonal sociology of religion.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 29(4): 482-495.

Hunt, Harry T. (2012). “A collective unconscious reconsidered: Jung’s archetypal imagination in the light of contemporary psychology and social science”. Journal of Analytical Psychology 57(1): 76-98.

Jung, Carl G. (2009). The Red Book. (Edited by S. Shamdasani). New York: W.W. Norton.

Owen, Iris M. and M. Sparrow. (1976). Conjuring up Philip: An Adventure In Psychokinesis. Harper & Row.

Storm, Lance. (1999). “Synchronicity, causality, and acausality”. Journal of Parapsychology 63(3): 247-269.

Parasociological methodology – a first approximation

After investigating at length the parapsychological literature (particularly the one about spontaneous macro psi effects like poltergeist phenomenon (RSPK)) and explored in detail a number of UFO wave cases, I found a few methodological criteria that appear particularly useful to explore parasociological hypothesis.  These criteria still remain, of course, wide and allow competing analyses to emerge without being able to determine firmly which one is the most accurate. However, it should be seen as a step forward in that it provides some rigor and discipline to parasociological analysis, and can open the way to find additional criteria that would narrow down the number of possible competing analyses to explore the genesis of UFO events.

It is important to remember that these criteria for investigating possible parasociological effects (or social psi effects), are all attempting to circumvent the significant problem of absence of observable causal relationships between the social and the physical realm. They are:

1.       The observation system is social.

This means that the UFO phenomenon received enough attention from the general public to be noted. This is usually done through the mass media, but it can also be done through governmental agencies collecting data about UFOs, in which case the observation system would be the state. This criterion is based on a number of findings and theories emerging from parapsychology, where a psi phenomenon is considered to be the outcome of an emotional intent, which are making psi activities meaningful events. The key question is meaningful for whom? The range of visibility of psi phenomenon can be a good indicator to assess to whom is destined the psi effect, i.e. to whom the information is destined. Hence, a social psi event should be destined to society at large, or its governance if the state is the observation system.

2.       Chronological proximity

This means that a UFO event or series of UFO events should occur around the same time as a meaningful social event. It can be a few days before or after a particularly meaningful action or event that would carry an important emotional charge. But such event is usually not known publically at the time. Chronological proximity can only be found out after the fact. This criterion is based on a number of findings and theories emerging from parapsychology where psi effects are believe to be emerging from the unconscious, which is by definition not observable; like the feeling of “something will happen” but not knowing what it is. At the social level, there are individual actions that will have a significant social impact, but their scope and nature cannot be known yet, but can be “felt”.

3.       Geographical proximity

This means that a UFO event or series of UFO events should occur in a geographical area that is around a particularly meaningful action or event that would carry an important emotional charge. Like in the case of Chronological proximity and for the same reasons, such event is usually not known publically at the time. This criterion is based on the same notion that psi effects are information destined to “someone”, and that “someone’s” attention needs to be grabbed.

4. Symbolic relationship

The UFO event or series of events carry symbolism that can be related to particularly meaningful action or event that would carry an important emotional charge. Such symbolism, however, is the one of the unconscious and can be quite subtle in nature, oftentimes only comprehensible through lateral forms of thinking, and usually much after the fact. This criterion is based on a number of findings and theories emerging from parapsychology where psi effects are the outcome of unconscious processes, and that the language of the unconscious is fundamentally symbolic.

5. Internal validity through mutually reinforcing criteria

These four criteria should reinforce each other. The yet unknown meaningful action or event that would carry an important emotional charge should be considered as being such (i.e. meaningful and emotional) by the people who are part of the social observation system. The symbolism found in the event can also be found in the geography (e.g., name of the place where observations are made) and the chronology (e.g., a particular anniversary in the same timeframe). The “message” carried through symbolism is meaningful for the observation system if it can decipher it. Etc.

The key hypotheses in ufology

This post proposes a discussion on the various hypotheses in ufology, to clarify where parasociology stands on the issue. It is motivated by the writings of some people on the web who wrote some time ago that parasociology is a bizarre approach to UFOs. Well, I think these statements are made from a position of ignorance. Such ignorance, in turn, is probably enabled by the fact that most comprehensive overviews of what is going on in the field of UFO research are so misleading than one is likely to remain ignorant. For me, a key contributor to such a lack of clarity is the very unsatisfactory nature of typologies about ufological hypotheses. Most of the existing typologies do not go to the bottom of those ufological hypotheses, and they exclude a number of them. Ultimately, they depict a very warped and incomplete portrait of what is going on in ufology. The typology proposed under the label “Ufology” in Wikipedia is a prominent example of this.

The notions of hypothesis and typology

A hypothesis is essentially a temporary answer to a research question, which one tries to prove or disprove through reasoned investigation. In the case of UFOs, the main research question exists in various forms, but all versions of it are about the nature and origin of the phenomenon, which remain uncertain to this day. Hence, any hypothesis about UFOs is about ontology; to provide a temporary answer about what these things are to guide research and investigation. A typology, on the other hand, is a classification system that is based on the fundamental underpinnings of what is being classified. It is not a serendipity listing of what exists on a particular topic, which would be incomplete by definition as there are always new items to add to the list. Hence, a typology of ufological hypotheses requires looking into the fundamental underpinnings of these hypotheses.

The fundamental underpinnings

All hypotheses about UFOs, (i.e., statements by those who consider that phenomenon remains unexplained) are based on two sets of fundamental underpinnings. The first one is about the objective versus subjective nature of the phenomenon. Are UFOs real objects or are they real only in the mind of people? The second set, which is closely related to first one, is whether the phenomenon is the product of non-human entities or human sources. In this light, the key hypotheses in ufology can be regrouped in 4 generic hypotheses, although they should be seen as being part of spectrum rather than air-tight categories.

Extra-Terrestrial Hypothesis (ETH)

The first one, the best known and most popular, and yet the one with least amount of evidence to support itself is the Extra-terrestrial Hypothesis (ETH). Put on a spectrum, it is the hypothesis that implies the highest degree of objectivity in the phenomenon (the “nuts and bolt” approach being its most extreme version). Older ETH ufology tends to be at the extreme, where there is little room for anything else but the “nuts and bolt”. Newer ETH authors admit (grudgingly) that there might be something a bit more subjective as the phenomenon might have also a paranormal aspect. Paranormal events being always unclear, fuzzy and on the borderline of normal perception are by definition more subjective than a physical “flying saucer”. Stanton Friedman is a good example of this position. A little bit further away from the extreme is the “ETH at the 2nd degree”, a concept developed by European ufologists who consider that UFOs are still physical spaceship, but the aliens can only connect to us through paranormal means given that there is so much psychological and cultural differences between us and them.

Paranormal Hypothesis (PNH)

Then, moving further away from the objective extreme is the Paranormal Hypothesis (PNH). The PNH implies that UFOs and aliens are paranormal manifestations produced by non-human entities (but not aliens from outer space). Given that UFOs are considered paranormal manifestation by the PNH, and that paranormal perceptions are always mixed up with the psychological and cultural frames of reference of the witnesses, the PNH accepts that the phenomenon requires to be understood also as something subjective. Authors like Jacques Vallée, John Keel, and Mac Tonnies are representative of this approach. The nature of the non-human entities can vary considerably from intra-terrestrial, inter-dimensional, to time-traveller and mythical intelligence.

Parapsychological Hypothesis (PPH)

Then, getting closer to the subjective end of the spectrum by explaining the phenomenon mostly through interactions between psi effects and psycho-social factors is what I call the Parapsychological Hypothesis (PPH). The PPH does not reject the notion that there is a material reality to UFOs, but it hypothesized that it is the product of the human mind, unconsciously using its psi capabilities. In this case, we cross the threshold human/non-human, as the PPH is defined by excluding the notion of non-human entities to explain the phenomenon. This is my approach, and the one of people like Bertrand Méheust, John Spencer and Hilary Evans.

Psycho-social Hypothesis (PSH)

Finally, there is the psycho-social hypothesis (PSH), which implies that there is no objective reality behind the phenomenon, but only subjective psychological and sociological constructions based on misperceptions and make-beliefs. This is the approach used by the more sophisticated debunkers.

Graphically, the typology can be represented as follow:



Typology as a useful tool

Typologies in science are not only created to provide comprehensive descriptions; they are also useful tools to assess research and establish priorities. The selection of the PPH as my approach to the UFO phenomenon is not only a matter of preference; it is actually a reasoned choice, because out of the four primary hypotheses, the PPH is the most promising one.

The ETH is, in theory, a verifiable hypothesis in that if a piece of material or organic tissue is found to be not from this world, then it can be validated. The problem, of course, is that the ETH ufologists have been banging their respective head against a wall of failure for over 60 years. They are literally waiting that the proof “fall from the sky” (or from a brown envelop...). Such attitude is not a scientific one. When a hypothesis fails to deliver after ongoing testing it means that it is not a valid approach and something else needs to be tried. To continue in such circumstances becomes a matter of faith and belief and no more of reasoned investigation.

The PNH is an interesting one, and it has the merit of highlighting the well-documented and central role of the paranormal dimension of the UFO experience, which is mostly ignored by representatives of the ETH, and by the PSH. The fatal flaw of the PNH is that it cannot be tested as it implies the existence of non-human entities that would call all the shots on how, where and when they can be seen. This is not testable from the point of view of the natural sciences, as the object requires a degree control and repeatability, and it cannot be tested from the point of view of the social sciences because we cannot use what we know about humans to understand the intents and motivations of the alleged non-human entities, given that they are not human. A non-testable hypothesis is not a hypothesis, it is speculation.

The PSH highlights important psycho-social dynamics that are clearly part of the overall phenomenon, but its representatives blatantly ignore the well-documented material evidence about UFOs. This fact alone fully undermines the validity of the overall hypothesis. The PSH, very much like the ETH, is closer to a belief system than reasoned investigations.

The PPH, on the other hand, is respectful of both the material and paranormal dimensions of the phenomenon by integrating them into the analysis. Furthermore, the parasociological version of the PPH is also able to integrate the psycho-social dynamics identified by the PSH, yet without ignoring the material reality of the phenomenon. Finally, contrary to the ETH and PNH, the PPH offers the possibility of being testable by using our knowledge of human beings from a variety of disciplines like (parapsychology, psychology, sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, etc.). All in all, the PPH is from rational standpoint the best bet for improving our understanding of UFOs.

In light of a clearer understanding of what is going in UFO research I return the question: who is bizarre here?

Eric Ouellet © 2010

Reading Notes – Holographic Paradigm

This post is renewing with presenting my reading notes about books or articles that might be useful to the advancement of the parasociological hypothesis. These reading notes are, once again, about an older book but still part of many contemporary debates: the holographic “revolution”. The book is an edited collection that re-groups the key texts (mostly from the philosophy journal ReVision) from the early discussions about the holographic universe.

In the 1970s, two scientists developed separately the idea that the universe might be a hologram. The first one is the neurologist Karl Pribram, who discovered that the brain is organized in a non-linear way when it comes to storing information. His research, in many ways, fuelled the idea of virtual database that is now a current way of storing information in computer programming. What it means is that brain cells are not only carrying information, but also contain information about how information storing is actually structured. To take a simple example, if one finds a datum he/she may also find elements or traces of its “address”, and thus it gives him/her an idea about the size and how many dimension the entire information has. For instance, “x4x, xxx, 9x9” does not tell us where the datum fits exactly, but it can tell us that it is a three-dimension construct and each dimension has up to one thousand possible spots. Holograms that we can see in movie theatres are constructed that way. Not only there are elements of images, but each element has a “tag” so that the full image can be re-constructed to become meaningful. Hence, the “tag” itself carries also precious information about information structuring.

The second scientist is David Bohm, a theoretical physicist, who explained the paradoxes of non-locality in quantum physics by showing mathematically the possibility of a 5th dimension. This additional dimension is more than just one more layer to the matrix of reality. Like in the case of the brain, objects and other realities of our ordinary 4 dimensional world also carry information about how information is structured in the higher degree matrix with 5 dimensions. In both cases, by sampling enough brain cells or objects, one can gather some useful information about how these fit in the greater scheme of thing. This is the holographic paradigm: any reality is contingent to a higher degree of information organization. This notion, without surprise, has also attracted the attention of those mystically minded, as it implies that there is a higher realm of reality “managing” reality at a lower level. The full notice is:

Wilber, Ken (Ed.). (1985). The Holographic Paradigm: Exploring the leading edge of science. Boston: Shambala.

The Holographic Paradigm and social sciences

The book provides input from various people (including one social scientist) but without making any references to the knowledge produced by the social sciences. Once more we have a “leading edge science” book where psychology, physics and philosophy are used to support the argument for a new look at the world, but without using sociology and its sister sciences. It is very regrettable because the holographic paradigm has been part of the social sciences since day one, although described under a different vocabulary. People are not just people. They belong to higher orders of information structuring by their gender, ethnic origin, language, social class, level of education, etc. This is so obvious to any social scientist that one is wondering where the big fuss is.

For instance, qualitative social scientists, and for that matter any good management consultant, know that you do not need to interview everyone in a community or an organization to get a good understanding of what is going on. Only a few well selected people usually will do. Why? Because people also carry information about how life is structured in a community or organization (who is the boss, who holds the power, the key histories or narratives one needs to know to be part of the group, what’s in and what’s out, etc, etc , etc). Human communities are holographic. Sociologists know quite well that the social realm is a higher degree of structuring information that can be accessed by sampling enough individual about it. The Holographic Paradigm is actually old news for the social scientists. Maybe that’s why they were ignored, as they would remove the “edge” to the news. To be fair, however, there was a “fad” in the 1980s and 1990s in the social sciences about studying the social realm through the vocabulary of the holographic paradigm. For what I can assess, this has not gain much traction, probably because, in the end, it is old wine in a new bottle.

The Holographic Paradigm and parapsychology

In the book, there is, unfortunately, only one and very short text from Stanley Krippner dealing directly with the impact of the Holographic Paradigm on parapsychology. It would have been good to get a more extensive reaction from Krippner and the parapsychological community. In any event, the notion that the universe is holographic is certainly a useful one for parapsychologists. This notion is very much in tune with the Jungian concept of “Absolute Knowledge” and the Laszlo’s notion of Akashic field, speculating that knowledge exists in other forms, free of time and physical constraints, which can be access through ESP. Similarly, the introduction of a notion of higher order of information structuring can help to explain various time paradoxes found in parapsychological experiments, especially for retro-psychokinesis. But as parapsychology depends very much on positivist recognition from the institutional scientific community, the holographic paradigm remains very difficult to verify empirically. If it is possible to make a sound argument about the holographic nature of the brain, quantum physics, and the social realm that does not mean that the rest of the universe is holographic. That is where parapsychology stands on this issue for the time being; an interesting but hard to test idea.

The Holographic Paradigm and parasociology

Parasociology, as an attempt to fuse parapsychology and sociology together, is in mixed position with regards to the Holographic Paradigm. Societies can be easily described as hologram, as discussed above, but to really use the holographic approach to its fullest extent, one has to stipulate some sort of meta-social hologram. According to the theory, this meta-social hologram would be one degree (or dimension) higher in terms of abstraction, away from the empirically observable social realm, that describes another level of information structuring. To me, this sounds very much as a re-description of the notion of social unconscious. The main difference, however, would be that by borrowing from parapsychology the social unconscious would become information also freed (or at least partially freed) from time and geographical constraints. This is an interesting idea, but yet again this not that new. The parasociological notion of social unconscious is partly built on Jung’s concept of collective unconscious, which is explicitly described by Jung as timeless and unconcerned with geography. All in all, it is still old wine in a new bottle. Furthermore, the possibility of empirical verification is not improved by using the holographic approach. Ultimately, the holographic paradigm adds weight to the possibility that such an approach may explain many aspects of reality because it is found in different realms (biology, physics, social sciences), but it is still quite far from becoming a theory of everything.

Concluding remarks

Brain cells, and photons going through a splitter, are relatively simple carriers of information, and using a holographic approach to reconstruct how they fit in a larger scheme is certainly an effective approach. But what about complex datum, like a single human being, who has so many possible “tags” to so many possible larger psycho-social constructs? This is simply not very effective, and ultimately (strangely) it is a very reductionist approach – something the Holographic Paradigm claims to steer away from.

From a parasociological perspective, UFO events are like any other human events: they are composite events. The symbolic, psychical, emotional, social and physical forces at play to create such events are difficult to distinguish from each other. Furthermore, it may not be useful to distinguish them in a detailed way because we may loose from sight the “tag” that links qualitatively different realities together (e.g., the social unconscious and balls of light). Holographic thinking, in the end, is very much an expression of mathematical thinking where everything can be reduced to numbers (qualitative unification). Unfortunately, reality cannot be unified this way as qualitatively different realities cannot be subsumed into each other. All those who tried such qualitative unification have failed, and the Holographic Paradigm is very likely to face the same end if it does not steer away from mathematical thinking.

Eric Ouellet © 2010

The psi circuit: A tentative model (part 3)

This post, the third and last part of the tentative model presentation, describes the key elements of the model. It is in many ways a synthesis of many ideas found in a number of previous posts. The tentative model will be tested in the near future through another case study about the 1966-1967 UFO wave, especially emphasizing the Canadian portion.

Social memory
The concept of social (or collective) memory is not a new one in the social sciences. The French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs was one of the first to use it to study the working class of the 1920s and 1930s. He looked into the shared memories of people in the labor movement, especially about major events such as major strikes, and how such memories were transmitted over time and how certain elements of their collective history are kept while others are forgotten (in other words, collective memory is also selective, and such a selection is also a sociological process in itself). He used multiple methodologies, both qualitative and quantitative to assess the content of memories and evaluate how much they are spread across a given population.

This concept is critical for the proposed model because it offers ways of establishing a baseline to distinguish between the conscious and unconscious elements of social psyche. For instance, the older science fiction stories that Bertrand Méheust[1] identified as providing the basic narrative for UFO reports and experiences were not part of the collective memories anymore in the 1940s and 1950s. Yet, those stories were not so old that no one would be aware of them; they were in the collective unconscious. Methodologically speaking, a number of empirical methods can be used to assess the content of social memory, but the main ones remain focus groups and text analysis.

Social unconscious
As discussed in numerous posts, the content of the social unconscious[2] provides both the content for social psi events (fairies and demons in the past, good and bad aliens today; airships yesterday, spaceships today). But if psychoanalytical parapsychology[3] is right, it is also the source of the tensions or desires leading to a social psi effect. I just found an interesting author that looks into the social dimension of the unconscious, Clotaire Rapaille, who runs a major marketing business build on uncovering collective archetypes. He wrote a book on Culture Code and I will review it in the near future. His methodology is very similar to the one used by Ginach[4] and by those practicing group analytics[5], discussed in previous posts, using focus group to “extract” the content of the commonly shared unconscious, as well as text analysis.

The challenge in investigating spontaneous psi effects, as Batcheldor and other parapsychologists [6] have found, however, is that consciousness needs to be bypassed. Hence, the very fact of studying the unconscious can bring elements to the consciousness and preventing psi effects to occur, or reducing substantially its potency. The outcome of this is that the unconscious in the case of UFO studies might be only researchable post-facto by looking into how new representations are created.

It is interesting to note that those who study collective creativity in business organization underline that creativity is an emergent phenomenon and occurs when people from different parts of an organization meet and discuss. In the normal non-psi realm, the problem becomes part of the collective consciousness of the organization and a creative solution is negotiated.[7] Yet, the seeds of the solution were already present unconsciously, spread across various components of the organization.

In the case of spontaneous psi effects, people do not talk to negotiate a solution so there are no directly observable emergent effects. Yet, a “psi solution” (so to speak) emerges through creating something that will surprise everyone, and yet it is their collective creation. It is in those terms that psi effects can be construed as acts of creation.[8] In the case of UFOs, at least in the early days of the phenomenon, this non-local (in the sense of quantum physics) type of “solution” implies odd symbiotic relationships between various groups like the civil servants and the military in the 1952 Washington case. Similar strange symbiotic relationship seemed to have occurred between the Roswell believers and elements of the national security apparatus, as described at length by Gregg Bishop [9]. The same might have occurred between the Catholic believers and the rationalist republicans of Portugal during the Fatima events of 1917 [10].

Could it be that the decline in the social interest in UFOs, intimately linked to a lack of major UFO events for many years, be symptomatic of a degradation of a basic symbiotic unconscious social relationship at the centre of the UFO phenomenon? To be more specific, on one hand the authorities are more open than ever before about UFOs (France, UK, Canada, Russia and others declassifying and making available lots of UFO documents), and on the other hand the excesses of the Roswell ufological hysteria just turned off so many people interested in UFO and conspiracies theories that the “biggest story of our time” is no more. Could the symbiotic relationship simply collapsed due to the power of indifference? Difficult to say, but it is a hypothesis generated by the model.

Social consciousness
This concept is as old as sociology itself, and has been described extensively by the classical French sociologist Émile Durkheim. The importance of this portion of the model is once again to distinguish what remains below the threshold of the observable. The tension or desires found in the social unconscious should not be found in the discussions and debates of a community in any great extent. The relative absence of a thorny issue in the public realm, but possibly found in the margins, is thus a key indicator for potential social psi effects. It is also important to note that the content of the social unconscious can be about a future event having strong emotional power, like in the case investigated by John Keel in the Mothman Prophecy [11]. In such case, it cannot be known publically as it has not occurred yet.

The key methodological outcomes of this is that once the investigator has found something in the social unconscious that could be at the source of social psi effects, then he or she has to confirm that it is not present in the social consciousness of the concerned community.

Social representations
The concept of social representations has been developed by yet another French social scientist, Serge Moscovici. Social representations are more focused elements of the social unconscious, and are outcomes of social creativity. Moscovici’s main interest was to study how certain views and ideas move from being the purview of a few to be held by the many (for instance the language of psychoanalysis became part of everyday conversations through the 1950s and 1960s), and the associated translation process of jargon becoming everyday concepts (what he calls common sense). One of the key issues is that if some ideas and views resonate with already existing socially shared but unconscious views, they are more likely to be adopted. Moscivici and his followers use both focus group and text analysis as a key method to uncover social representations and the translation processes.

Once again, for spontaneous social psi effects, the new social representation (i.e., the specific solution or creation) remains below the threshold of the unconscious and coagulates in what I call the social psi pathway. The production of psi effects, even in a spontaneous context, remains something rare and probably difficult to do. However, once some forms are created it is easier for psi effects to repeat themselves through the established forms. In other words, once the notion of flying saucers has been established, it provided a common form-pathway that can ease the production of psi effects. The key for the tentative model is that social representations do not get translated into what it is, but it is translated into something else (like a UFO). This notion is very similar to the notion of displacement, so central to understand poltergeists [12].

The same can be said for ghosts, Marian apparitions, but also of the séance setting of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The pathways are collectively shared social representations (or idiosyncracies) that can be used as “platforms” for social as well as individual psi creativity for various types of unconscious tensions or desires. Hence, investigating the internal symbolism of a social psi effect is likely to be only useful at the early stages, when a new form emerges. Once the pathway is established, it can serve a variety of underlying tensions or desire in producing psi effects. The concept of morphic field developed by Rupert Sheldrake [13] is here quite useful to describe the pathway development process, and Sheldrake as shown that psi can behave as a morphic field. The more something is used the stronger and established in its form it will be; hence the enduring forms found in UFO reports.

Social behavior
This is the most ostentatious part of any sociological study. Yet, in the case of studying social psi effects, the behavior that would lead to resolving the unconscious tensions or desires tends to not occur right away. Even if the psi effect has a comprehensible symbolic meaning, it is usually ignored or completely misunderstood. Once a pathway is established, then the symbolic meaning becomes extremely hard to decipher as the form used becomes institutionalized (like Barney Hill’s challenges with racist America being at the source of his experience eventually becomes the prototype of the Greys, which has nothing to do with racism in later psi events).

Should the social behavior resolves, even only partially, the underlying social tensions or desires leading then the psi effect should ceased immediately. This is seen in poltergeist cases when people realize that it is their inter-personal issues that are at the source of the phenomenon. In the 1952 Washington UFO incidents, the military got involved and interested (too much would say some people), and the UFO story was even able to displace from the headlines the coverage of the Democratic Convention for a day; this was the beginning of the end for that UFO wave.

In general, spontaneous social psi event tend to be an alternative channel for social communications that is rather symptomatic of a collective inability to communicate about difficult underlying social issues or tensions.

Notes
[1] Méheust, Bertrand. (1978). Science-fiction et soucoupes volantes. Paris: Mercure de France.
[2] Studied by people like Leledakis, Kanakis. (1995). Society and Psyche: Social theory and the unconscious dimension of the social. Oxford: Berg; Main, Roderick. (2006). “The Social Significance of Synchronicity”. Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society 11: 36-53; Machotka, Otakar. (1964). The Unconscious in Social Relations: An analysis of unconscious processes in personality, society, and culture. New York: Philosophical Library.
[3] In particular, Eisenbud, Jule. (1983). Parapsychology and the Unconscious. Berkeley: North Atlantic Book; Fodor, Nandor. (1959). The Haunted Mind: A psychoanalytical look at the supernatural. New York: Garrett.
[4] Ginach, Michal. (2004) “War Against or For Terrorism?: The underlying fantasy behind the Israeli pattern encounter with the Palestinian”. Discourse of Sociological Practice 6: 1-12
[5] For instance, Dalal, Farhad. (2001). “The social unconscious: A post-Foulkesian perspective”. Group Analysis 34(4): 539-555; Powell, Andrew. (1991). “Matrix, mind and matter: From the internal to the eternal”. Group Analysis 24(3): 299-322; Zeddies, Timothy J. (2002). “Unconscious experience in social and historical context”. Group Analysis 35(3): 381-389.
[6] Batcheldor, Kenneth J. (1984). “Contributions to the theory of PK induction from sitter-group work”. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 78(2): 105-122; Heath, Pamela Rae. (2003). The PK Zone: A cross-cultural review of psychokinesis. Lincoln: iUniverse; Owen, Iris M. and M. Sparrow. (1976). Conjuring up Philip: An Adventure In Psychokinesis. Harper & Row; Reihart, Philip B. (1994). “PK induction: An extension of Batcheldor approach”. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 88: 137-145.
[7] For a good overview of this literature, please see Watson, Elizabeth. (2007). “Who or What Creates? A conceptual framework for social creativity”. Human Resources Development Review 6(4): 419-441.
[8] See in particular, Favre, François. (1978). “Caractère généraux des apparitions”. Revue de Parapsychologie 6 (July). [Available on Internet at http://gerp.free.fr/cargenapp.htm]; (2004). "Psi et intentionalité". Unpublished text available on Internet at http://www.sciencesphilo.fr/uploads/doc/psi_et_intentionnalite.pdf; Viéroudy, Pierre. (1978a). “Vagues d'Ovnis et psi collectif”. Revue de Parapsychologie 6 (July). [Available on Internet at http://gerp.free.fr/PA06_VAGUEOVNIS.htm]; (1978b). “Les témoins d'Ovnis sont-ils des sujets psi ?” Revue de Parapsychologie 6 (July). [Available on Internet at http://gerp.free.fr/PA06_TEMOINSOVNIS.htm]; (1983). “Signification archétypique des apparitions OVNI”. Revue de Parapsychologie 15 (August). [Available on Internet at http://gerp.free.fr/PA15_VieroudyOVNIS.htm].
[9] Bishop, Greg. (2005). Project Beta: The story of Paul Bennewitz, national security, and the creation of a modern UFO myth. New York: Paraview.
[10] Fernandes, Joaquim and F. D’Armada. (2005). Heavenly Lights: The apparition of Fatima and the UFO phenomenon. San Antonio: Anomalist.
[11] Keel, John. (1975). The Mothman Prophecies. New York: Tor.
[12] Lucadou, Walter von. (1995). “The Model of Pragmatic Information (MPI).” European Journal of Parapsychology 11: 58-75; Lucadou, Walter von and F. Zahradnik. (2004). “Predictions of the Model of Pragmatic Information about RSPK”. Proceedings of the Parapsychological Association Convention 2004.
[13]Sheldrake, Rupert. (1981). A New Science of Life. London: Victoria Works; (1987) The Presence of the Past. New York: Bantam; (1991). The Rebirth of Nature: The greening of science and god. New York: Bantam; (2006). "Morphic Fields". World Futures 62: 31-41.

Eric Ouellet © 2010

Re-thinking social representations in UFO events

One of the key outcomes of the 1952 Washington D.C. UFO incidents case study is that should UFO waves be akin to Recurrent Spontaneous Psychokinesis (RSPK) events, the notion of “focus person” needs to be revisited. The concept of RSPK, used to replace the too “loaded” notion of poltergeist, has emerged from parapsychology which itself is intimately linked to psychology; the net result is a focus on individuals and small groups of individuals in the explanatory structure. The notion that psi effects could be explained, in part, as an outcome of macro social dynamics is foreign to parapsychology.

This key outcome is certainly a call for firming up some key underpinnings of parasociology, but doing so however, requires taking some distances from a number of assumptions in parapsychology. In this context of taking some critical distances with parapsychology the concept of social representation can become quite handy, as shown below.

Individual psi as a reporting bias

In spite of the notable exception of the parapsychological Global Consciousness Project, which is looking into planetary-wide statistical deviations on inter-connected Random Number Generator, social psi has no room in the discipline. The Project had interesting findings so far, like the night before 9/11. Such observable effects can be construed as social objects because they cannot be explained solely by direct individual interactions. Yet, a global reaction to events like 9/11 is in many ways within the realm of the individual reactions because it is not specific to a particular sense of community, culture, or social class. The fundamental assumption of the Project, unsurprisingly, still resides on the notion that individual unconscious processes somehow aggregate and create an observable psi effect.

The real issue, however, is not whether psi effects are on individual-based or not, but was there any attempt to measure anything else than individual-based psi effect? Parapsychology only found individual-based psi effect because it set up itself only to study the individual-based ones (Global Consciousness Project included), and it is an outcome of its psychology-based ontological preference. In other words, the notion that psi effects are an individual issue is a matter of reporting and not necessarily a matter of empirical finding.

It could also be noted that not only psi can have a sociological dimension, but it can also have socio-physical one. One can particularly think about the ill-defined notion of “haunting”, where psi effects appear to be linked to a location rather than to particular individuals. Although people appear to activate the phenomenon by their presence, the activation is somewhat independent from who is there. Given that it is not individually specific, and yet re-occurring, “haunting” is more akin to a sociological reality than a psychological one. I think this explains why parapsychologists had a historical tendency to ignore such phenomena: they do not have the right approach and tools to look into them.

Sociological analysis and physical reality

One of the arguments proposed by parapsychology to explain its uniqueness as a discipline is that it is at the threshold of psychology and physical sciences. Yet, it is not that unique. Social sciences do use at times physically measurable data to explain social dynamics. For instance, the average size and number of people living in a dwelling are used to evaluate certain hypotheses about family and social class structure. Measurement of urbanization and encroachment of agricultural land play a similar role in the sub-field called “environmental sociology”.[1] The idea here is not only human activities have an impact on the physical environment, but social realities such as class structure or culture will have a direct impact as to how the physical environment is modified (e.g. high grounds for the rich, land divided and cultivated according to either individualist or collectivist schemes, etc.).

Given the above, there are no theoretical reasons as to why psi effects could not be studied from a sociological standpoint, and it is not the unique preserve of parapsychology. And let’s be clear: I do not mean studying how some belief systems influence the perception and acceptance of paranormal phenomenon (which they do). I mean how sociological realities actually shape the psi effects themselves. The UFO phenomenon is probably the most serious case in support of this perspective, and Bertrand Méheust brilliantly opened such possibility 30 years ago. I also mean that social dynamics and conditions activate psi effects: this is the harder part of the project.


Taking it where Méheust left it

Méheust, in his analysis of the older science fiction literature and the UFO phenomenon, looked essentially at what sociologists call “social representations”. His approach looks at how prior plausibility structures were established to provide a particular content to the experience. But social representations are more than that. Bauer & Gaskell (1999) propose that formally, a representation can be characterised as the relation between three elements: subjects, or carriers of the representation; an object, activity, or idea that is represented; and a project of a social group within which the representation makes sense.[2] In the case of UFOs and beyond the prior plausibility structures identified by Méheust, it is (1) the ETH ufologists and their various media (books, articles, Internet websites, Twitter, etc), (2) the strange objects reported to be in the sky, and (3) the ET and conspiracy fans, respectively. What is crucially important, however, is that the objects represented are not something without a referent: the presence of strange objects in the sky is an objective reality. This is a key caveat to avoid falling into the postmodern trap that considers all social representations as simply “language games” or substratum of a larger “meta-narrative”.

The object in a social representation, however, does not solely define the content. It is a combination of social interactions that stabilizes the content. For example, in the case of perception of non-human entities in UFO-related events, the social representation has more or less stabilized towards the “Greys”. This stabilization is not solely a matter of the object. If one looks at the data, even today, there is still a great variety of “alien” shapes. The ufologists emphasizing some events over others (the Barney and Betty Hill case in particular) and assigning such events to UFOs (which is much more presumed than actually perceived, even by the witnesses themselves), and their fans asking for more of it had much more impact than the actual contact with the “object”. In sociology, it is described as anchoring and objectifying the phenomena in trying to transform something unfamiliar into something familiar, and then institutionalizing the “new familiar”. Some might say that it is simply a repeat of the psycho-social hypothesis (PSH), but such idea is incorrect.

Even if people who have apparitional experiences still report a variety of forms and shapes, the Grey form is somewhat more common, sometimes at a great level of details in terms of content. Individualist-based explanations (hence, derived from psychology) cannot account for this important empirical data. Each individual has a different personal history, and therefore a commonality in detailed content cannot be accounted for through a psychological explanation. On the other hand, the spread of social representations is milieu specific. What it means is that the Grey image might be circulating in mass media, but that does not mean it is a meaningful representation for everyone. It is certainly meaningful for science fiction fans and UFO buffs, but it is of little interest for everyone else. The fact that many percipients of Grey events are not science fiction fans or UFO buffs can be construed as an outcome of two separate processes.

The first one is based on what they perceived, and some particular details that they remember; while the second is based on making sense of their experience after the fact. The details are often the most resilient part of the experience, while the overall description of the event tends to change over time, especially when the percipients come into contact with the ETH ufological community (i.e., what was not making any sense is re-interpreted after the fact as meeting the ETs). The second process is one that has been emphasized by the defenders of the PSH, while shrugging at the “detail” issue. Conversely, the defenders of the ETH have emphasized the “detail” issue and carefully ignored their role in the “making sense” process. Once again, they are both right and wrong.

The sociological “making sense” process does occur. There is no doubt about it and it has been documented by a number of people.[3] Yet, the annoying details remain. However, the key question that is never asked is: what are those “details”? For one, there is no physical corroboration found, to this day, which could confirm the physical reality of such details. These details, therefore, are essentially visual pieces of information acquired through non-normal means. And, information acquired through non-normal means is the precise definition of ESP (Extra Sensory Perception). What this all means is that social representations are complex and multi-layered constructs, and that they can also have a paranormal dimension to it; social representations and paranormal effects are not mutually exclusive categories. That’s the mistake of defenders of both the PSH and the ETH.

The concept of social representation has therefore some serious potential to develop a true sociological understanding of psi effects. The key appears to be in layering the concept, which is flexible enough to carry through non-conventional explanations of fringe and odd empirical data. In a way, this is reinforcing the parallel made many posts ago about an “Einsteinian” sociology, which like in physics it is mostly useful to deal with data outside mundane life, as Newtonian physics (or sociology) is good enough for it.

Post specific references

[1] For more please see Mehta, Michael and Eric Ouellet (Eds). (1995). Environmental Sociology: Theory and practice. Toronto: Captus Press.

[2] From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_representations.

[3] For a good overview of this issue, see Schnabel, Jim. (1994). Dark White: Aliens, abductions, and the UFO obsession. London: Hamish Hamilton.

Eric Ouellet © 2010

Deep disturbances in morphic fields

This post is looking into a particular application of Rupert Sheldrake’s concepts of morphic field and resonance that may have significant value for parasociology. Sheldrake’s concepts have been developed to help describing at least three fundamental characteristics found in nature. The first one is about how new forms and behaviours become the norm within a specie, an issue that Sheldrake calls “formative causation.” The second is linked to the first one, is that new forms and behaviour emerge out of habits, and such habits accumulate through a collective memory not resident in the biological forms themselves. In other words, with time, a form or behaviour becomes a permanent fixture, and this is what he calls a “morphic field” (morphic meaning “something becoming into being”). The implication is that such form or behaviour is not pre-determined by mechanistic laws of nature, but rather emerges in ways that cannot be predicted, and looking in the brain or genes of specie will not lead to finding the memory repository. The last characteristic is that such habits spread within specie in “normal” ways, but also through “non-normal” ways that cannot be explained through mechanistic science. That is what he calls “resonance” and this is the part of his theory that got much of the criticism from the scientific establishment. Sheldrake also extended his theory to other notions outside biology, like how ideas spread among humans, and this led him into research about telepathy and ESP (i.e. examples of “non-normal” resonance).

There are a number of researches that certainly point in the same direction as Sheldrake’s theory. One of the most applicable of such researches for parasociology is the one conducted on monkey colonies in Japan by Lyall Watson. He observed the monkeys developing a new technique (i.e. animal showing capability for innovation) of washing food that was given to them. The findings are even more astonishing as the new learning spread to other islands (where the monkey colonies had no contact with each others), when a certain threshold is met. As stated by Watson:

“But the addition of the hundredth monkey apparently carried the number across some sort of threshold, pushing it through a kind of critical mass, because by that evening almost everyone in the colony was doing it [washing sweet potatoes]. Not only that, but the habit seems to have jumped natural barriers and to have appeared spontaneously, like glycerine crystals in sealed laboratory jars, in colonies on other islands and on the mainland in a troop at Takasakiyama.” (Watson 1979, 148).

Deep disturbances in morphic fields

One of the issues that Sheldrake’s theory is not well positioned to explain is how new fields come about. The explanations he offers are actually closer to a mystic discussion about a “super and primordial morphic field” that can be easily equated to the notion of divinity. Given that such notion implies a fundamental belief as the key assumption, it is clearly outside the bounds of the scientific realm. Yet, if we keep in mind Watson’s research, for the monkeys the arrival of sweet potatoes given by humans appeared to be god-given, yet is was not.

I think there is a better explanation and it could reconcile traditional science and Sheldrake’s perspective. New fields emerge when old fields are deeply disturbed. Such disturbances are caused by the surrounding environment of a given field, which environment is made of many fields (many of which are probably not even known). The interactions between these different fields are so numerous, complex and with fields that we are not even aware of, that it is impossible to predict in a mechanistic way what would come out of such interactions. Hence, given the human limited capacity to grasp highly complex systems, to consider them as random would just as good. If one prefers to call this randomness the “mysterious ways of God,” so be it, as it would not change the explanatory structure anyway.

In private correspondence with Rupert Sheldrake, he agreed with me that this notion of deep disturbances is congruent with his theories. The key here, is not trying to predict in a mechanistic way when disturbances will occur, as we cannot do so given the high degree of complexity, but rather to identify which kind of disturbances leads to particular field breakdowns. To use an analogy, one could think of a group of people playing poker at a table. The field (i.e. the game) has rules and the players, with time, known other players’ ways of hiding their nervousness. The group of players have an accumulated memory, and sometimes non-normal resonance might occur when the players guess correctly (through telepathy?) the real hand of another player.

Then the table is suddenly push up in the air from the bottom, all the cards and chips go up in the air, and fall down on the ground. This creates a liminal moment, the collective memory is temporary lost, and the game is suspended. Some time is spent to pick up the cards and chips, and the table is reset based on the players’ individual memory, which is likely not to be 100% what the collective memory had it before. During this liminal moment, it is very likely that some players might use the time to cheat (steal chips, lie about their hand, etc), as the power of the field is momentarily stopped, and anything can happen. Could, then, UFO waves, Marian apparitions or RSPKs be one of those liminal moment where anything can happen because some fields have been deeply disturbed?

Insights from a concrete example

In order to see what would be the fit of morphic resonance to understand some of the most difficult to explain paranormal phenomena, a concrete and mundane example is propose here. This is a bit of digression towards something else, but the insight for UFO and paranormal research is important.

I am using the example of Hurricane Katrina that hit New Orleans towards the end of August 2005. It is clearly a sudden and deep disturbance to a series of fields. But not all fields were actually disturbed, and not the ones that people usually tend to think of.

What happened with Katrina was a major physical event (i.e., a hurricane) that caused very deep disturbances to at least two physical fields, namely the “biological ecosystem to ensure survival “(access to food and drinkable water, dry places to rest, elimination of infectious material, etc.), and “physical communication infrastructures” (roads, phone lines, cellular towers, Internet cables, radio and TV stations antennas, etc.).

Several symbolic fields (i.e. human fields) were not disturbed after all, in spite of what the media were reporting at the time. The chaos and lawlessness on the ground was actually vastly exaggerated, although people’s suffering remained quite acute and real. A symbolic field that could be called “local solidarity” (people were helping each other according to many witnesses, many heroic acts) remained strong, and this was observed directly by anthropologists who came to help (Ethridge 2006) and by a series of subsequent surveys (Scott & Howitt 2006; Rodriguez, Trainor, & Quarantelli 2006). In other words, social order on the ground did not collapse.

Even the field of criminality remained what it is, even if it had expanded opportunity because the police was not functional due to the extensive damages to infrastructures. The looting occurred mostly in the few days after the storm when people’s situation became seriously desperate as there were no signs that help was coming (Lavelle & Feagin 2006; Sims 2007). This was survival, not criminality.

Finally, the ugliest part of it was that field of racism, which has a long history in Louisiana, that remained very strong as poor blacks were overwhelmingly affected by the events (before as they could not afford to evacuate, during as they were stuck there and the media portraying them as bad and ruthless, and after as they remain the least able to restore their life) (Lavelle & Feagin 2006; Sommers et al. 2006).

The symbolic field that was really affected was the one related to the power of those who have political authority: the government or the state (in its general meaning). The police, without its physical infrastructure could not function; the municipal, State and Federal governments were completely overwhelmed and seemed paralyzed in spite of having put in place a series of measures in the days prior to the hurricane. The general paralysis was so extensive that it is hard to explain without introducing the notion of “non-normal” morphic resonance.

The real interesting issue is that governmental auhtority (at all levels, and including the police and the military) has its power based in the capacity of using physical strength to impose its will; what we call order. Anyone having any education in political science will know that the state is best described by Max Weber’s classical definition: “a state is a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory.” (Gerth & Mills 1946, 78). As well, the modern state has very much developed as a morphic field through habits. As brilliantly described by Charles Tilly,

"[…] transition to direct rule gave rulers access to citizens and the resources they controlled through household taxation, mass conscription, censuses, police systems, and many other invasions of small-scale social life. But it did so at the cost of widespread resistance, extensive bargaining, and the creation of rights and perquisites for citizens. Both the penetration and bargaining laid down new state structures, inflating the government’s budgets, personnel, and organizational diagrams. The omnivorous state of our own time took shape." (Tilly 1992, 25).

It was very telling that the sense of “order” was re-established in New Orleans , not when people were actually safe but when people started “to see so many uniformed men bearing machine guns, patrolling expressways and major intersections” (Scott & Howitt 2006, 29). These soldiers did not have any legal capacities to play a police role, nor were they helping with the delivery of aid and evacuation of stranded people. They real effect was to re-establish state authority, a symbolic field fundamentally based on the potential use of physical violence.

What all this means is that (1) some symbolic fields are directly dependent on physical fields (i.e. state authority is dependent on physical force to coerce), (2) that resonance occurs between fields that are akin, or more closely dependent, and (3) resonance occurs also when there are deep disturbances, not only when there are new habits created.

Prospective findings

If Sheldrake is right, then his theory should also work the other way around, and this has a very direct consequence for parasociology: UFO waves, RSPKs, and Marian apparitions (to name a few) would be disturbances in the symbolic realm (national identity and psycho-social field of the family), which resonates directly in physical fields dependent on the disturbed symbolic fields (as there are strange physical manifestations that can be observed). In other words, a UFO wave or RSPK would be physical disturbances created through resonance by “symbolic hurricanes”. The key question, then, is: what are those physical fields that are directly dependent on symbolic fields? This puts a very interesting twist to the notions morphic fields and resonance.

Post-specific bibliography

Ethridge, Robbie. (2006). “Bearing Witness: Assumptions, realities and the otherizing of Katrina”. American Anthropologist 108(4): 799-813.

Gerth, H.H. and C.W. Mills. (1946). From Max Weber: Essays in sociology. New York: Galaxy Books.

Lavelle, Kristen and Joe Feagin. (2006). “Hurricane Katrina: The race and class debate”. Monthly Review 58(3): 52-67.

Littlefield, Robert S. and Andrea Quenette. (2007). “Crisis Leadership and Hurricane Katrina: The portrayal of authority by the media in natural disasters”. Journal of Applied Communication Research 35(1): 26-ff.

Rodriguez, Havidan, Joseph Trainor, and Enrico L. Quarantelli. (2006). “Rising to the Challenges of a Catastrophe: The emergent and prosocial behavior following Hurricane Katrina”. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 604: 82-ff.

Scott, Esther and Arnold Howitt. (2006). “Hurricane Katrina: Responding to an ‘ultra-catastrophy’ in New Orleans”. Harvard University, Kennedy School of Government Case Program, Case no. C15-06-1844.0.

Sims, Benjamin. (2007). “’The Day After the Hurricane’: Infrastructure, order, and the New Orleans Police Department’s response to Hurricane Katrina”. Social Studies of Science 37(1): 111-118.

Sommers, Samuel R. et al. (2006). “Race and Media Coverage of Hurricane Katrina: Analysis, implications and future research questions”. Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy 6(1): 39-55.

Tilly, Charles. (1992). Coercion, Capital and European States: AD 990-1992. Cambridge: Blackwell.

Watson, Lyall. (1979). Lifetide. New York: Simon and Schuster.

Eric Ouellet © 2009

UFOs, Synchronicity and Morphic Fields

This post examines the notions of synchronicity and morphic field in the context of UFO sightings. If the UFO phenomenon is essentially a psi-related reality, then synchronistic events should be associated with it. Such association, then, should be investigated seriously. What it means is that witnesses may actually have misperceived a mundane object and interpreted it as an ET spaceship. In such circumstances, the ETH ufologist would typically discard such sighting, and ignored any data coming out of it. ETH ufologists (and sceptics) would simply call this a mere coincidence.

But does it really matter if the UFO is actually a misperception or a truly unexplainable aerial phenomenon? I would propose that it does not matter much as long as the experience can be understood as a synchronistic event. One needs to look if the perception of a UFO at that very time could have been a meaningful event that relates to other part of the witnesses’ life. Why, because one should be aware that it is how many psi events start. Meaningful but mundane acausal events can lead to PK effects because ultimately they originate from the same unconscious processes. A single misperceived mundane object might not be a relevant point of data, but when it is put in perspective with several other data points, it might become very relevant. From a methodological standpoint, this implies significant changes as to how UFO events should be investigated. Not only UFO frauds or hoaxes (as discussed a few posts ago) should be included in any serious research but also UFO synchronistic (yet mundane) events.

The idea that synchronistic events surround the UFO phenomenon is not new, however. Raymond Fowler, famous for having investigated the Andreasson affair , wrote a book on how synchronicity was occurring in his life and he his UFO research (Fowler, Raymond. 2004. Synchrofile. Lincoln: iUniverse). John Keel, when investigating for the Mothman Prophecy also noted many synchronistic events around him. Scott Rogo, while researching for Haunted Universe had a few very troubling synchronistic events. Bertrand Méheust started his classic book on UFOs out of a synchronistic event.

To get a better sense as to how synchronicity can be integrated into parasociology in general, and the study of UFOs in particular, a closer look at synchronicity is required. Today’s post is inspired by a short but interesting book on the notion of synchronicity. I certainly recommend it for anyone who wants to have a good and clear introduction to this notion. The full notice is:

Combs, Allan and Mark Holland. (1996). Synchronicity: Through the eyes of science, myth and the trickster. New York: Marlow.

Synchronicity as a matter of perspective

The notion of synchronicity has been used in modern physics to describe the famous Bell’s inequalities. John Bell found that when two particles in the same quantum state are pushed through a splitter, their spin (quantum self-rotation) varies in the same way even if they are in a different position and have a different velocity. They appear to be linked by a non-causal property that is call in physics synchronicity or non-locality. In other words, what is perceived at the local level (the particles) can be only understood by a nonlocal understanding of reality (pp. 14-15). The physicist David Bohm proposed that synchronicity is a matter of perspective. If one transposes the splitter experiment from a four dimension construct into a six dimension universe, then the two particles become two different views of the same particle, which explains the paradox discovered by Bell. The key here is to understand that a six dimension universe cannot be imagined by the human mind. It is only a mathematical abstraction, but it is also an acceptance that there are other forces at play in the universe and that it requires a different approach to take stock of them.

If this general principle is extracted out of physics and applied to human life, this raises many interesting issues. One of them is that synchronistic events can be seen as outcomes of a morphic field (as discussed in a previous post, see also Sheldrake 1981; 2006). The morphic field becomes a descriptor for those additional dimensions beyond the usual four. There is also some empirical evidence to show that the notion of morphic field can be used that way. Combs and Holland mentioned some interesting experiments that involved mice, which at every generation they became more effective at finding their way out of a maze (p. 25). Another set of experiments was a hidden picture that was easier to recognize by people outside Europe after it was shown on British television. Somehow the knowledge was integrated into a morphic field (p. 27). Arthur Koestler, the well-known author and parapsychologists, also proposed that all ESP events were forms of synchronicity, in a way congenial Jung’s notion of Absolute Knowledge, which itself can be considered as super-morphic field.

The issue of psychokinesis (PK), however, is more complex. Combs and Holland underlined an approach proposed by Suzanne Padfield, who “ believes that the influence of thought upon material events is actually based on physical brain processes—that patterns of brain activity occurring at the molecular or atomic level tend to bring about similar patterns of external world activity. Such patterns ‘ are connected in a similarity space in which distances are defined by degree of similarity and where time and space do not automatically appear at all” (p. 35). This idea is not new. It is actually a very old one akin to the belief in the power of prayer, and more recently discussed in the book and movie The Secret. Human will can both tap into and influence morphic fields. In this context, the distinction in parapsychology between ESP and PK could be based on the notion of information exchange. ESP is mostly characterized by taking information out of a morphic field, while PK is rather characterized by inputting information in a morphic field.

Multi-level synchronicity as morphic field information exchange

By following the same logic, one could construe UFO events as an exchange of information. A substantial emotional upset in a community inputs information in a morphic field which eventually leads to a PK event (i.e. UFO sighting) while at the same time the individuals (who may have nothing to do with the original emotional outburst) “catch” information from the morphic field, and thus explaining the paranormal events linked to UFO sightings (e.g., premonition and dreams of UFOs, be there at right place and right time, synchronistic events before UFO sightings, and UFO repeaters who could be seen as more “in touch” with this type of morphic field).

This way of looking at the UFO experience goes much beyond what Combs and Holland discussed. But it can help to resolve an apparent paradox illustrated by the 30 year-old debate between Bertrand Méheust and François Favre. As discussed in previous posts, Méheust considers that people who see UFOs are truly witnesses of an event for which they have no impact on. This view is supported by the fact that many key symbolic elements in UFO sightings appear to have no meaning for the individual witnesses, but do have a meaning for their community or society. On the other hand, as François Favre underlined, the UFO experience is very often surrounded by paranormal events (premonition, telepathy, synchronicity, Oz factor, etc) directly linked to the witnesses. It is Favre's contention, therefore, that people who see UFOs have something to do with it (or in his terminology, they are psi-subjects). The notion of information exchange between a society and individuals through a morphic field would resolve this paradox. And quite frankly, it could be a foundational concept for parasociology applicable to other macro psi effects such as hauntings, RSPK (poltergeist), Bigfoot sightings, etc.

Archetypes versus morphic fields

The question would then shift to how societies “connect” to a morphic field. One of the usual answers is linked to the notion of an archetype being activated, as proposed by Carl Jung. As discussed in a previous post, the use of archetype can be highly problematic when it is situated at the sociological level. But if the notion that societies tend to input more into a morphic field than extracting from it, while it tends to be the reverse for individuals is correct, then maybe the Jungian “mistake” makes more sense. A major collective emotional discharge is not activating a social archetype it rather creates the conditions of archetypes at the individual level to be activated along the same line of resonance within a given morphic field. This is in line with what I wrote in the last post: “A symbol’s potential strength within a specific society, at a specific time of its history, is the key to interpretation rather than its presumed universal and timeless meaning”. In other words, the concept of archetype is a useful one at the individual level, but should be abandoned for the sociological level. The more plastic and dynamic notion of morphic field is definitely more effective at the sociological level. This perspective is certainly more coherent with what is known from the social sciences. However, the hard question as to why a few collective emotional discharges give rise to macro psi effects, while most of them do not remains to be answered.

How individuals connect to a morphic field is better understood, given the extensive research done in parapsychology. Just to name a few, one can underline the unconscious belief, facility to dissociate or suspend the intellect, exposure to electro-magnetic fields, strong and unresolved unconscious conflicts, etc. Yet, like for the sociological level, the hard question as to why some individual produce psi effects while others do not in similar circumstances remains unanswered as well.

The presence of synchronistic events, however, should be retained as a key indicator for future research.

Eric Ouellet ©2009