INTRODUCTION

Some ideas have been milling round in my head for a long, long time. If I had a Ph.D type mind and the time, perhaps I would have done things that-a-way.

It always seemed to me that what we regard as orthodox or acceptable ways of examining or explaining human behaviour don't actually do the job too well. They can be good hypotheses but isn't there something else? I thought so 30 years ago with my new psychology degree, and I think so now with many more books under my belt and Internet access besides.

I used to fancy being a hacker getting into libraries and books all over the place but thankfully don't have to - it's much easier to find all-sorts now and so much good stuff and hard work 'up there'. So where does one start in this welter of information, word-processing for anyone with a computer, and instant publishing available for free?

In the early 80's I wondered whether photography would be able to show the same sorts of phenomena that clairvoyants describe. I wasn't sure whether clairvoyants tended to see roughly the same sort of things in the same setting, or what. Somehow I came into contact via letter with Cyril Permutt who wrote 'Photographing the Spirit World' and 'Beyond the Spectrum'. I passed his letter with a rather fine signature at the bottom to a friend called Leslie who saw extra things in people's photos which they felt were significant. Many many times he did this.

Leslie took one look at Cyril Permutt's signature and 'saw things' which he described to me. I forwarded his comments on and received an enthusiastic reply from Mr Permutt, who exchanged correspondence with Leslie for quite a while, often sending him photos for comments and insights. I remember writing a puzzled letter to Mr Permutt saying I didn't know how Leslie's gifts worked although he did seem to need time to tune in to people and take things from there. There's a thing called cold reading which is effective but not the same phenomenon - that is more like reading body language, watching pupils of the eyes and so on.

Mr Permutt replied along the lines that clairvoyance was as much due to 'association of ideas' as it was to do with actually seeing pictures in the mind. That comment has come to my mind over the years in a number of settings. Psychoanalysis apparently works on free association and linking things, whatever else may (or may not) be involved. I can't help feeling that when we get an intuition about someone we are with, it's often along the lines of association of ideas in some form.

There's something called a Meissner field which apparently has implications for hypnosis in that the person undergoing hypnosis may pick up what is expected within the mental framework or belief system of the hypnotist. My view is that this happens more than just in that setting. Some people naturally seem to project outwards towards other people. Some may aim for it deliberately. How much individuals pick up of that probably depends on their susceptibility and/or how firm their own beliefs or needs are.

I came across a book by Ormond McGill called 'Secrets of Stage Mindreading' which really is worth a read! He outlines what seems to be a form of self-hypnosis by which he persuaded himself he could read other people's minds (rather than cues or trickery in stage magic), and also 'noisy telepathy' or Yogi mental broadcasting. He says 'A group or crowd with similar interest/purpose is very susceptible to telepathy'.

And then there came a book called 'Hungry Ghosts' by Joe Fisher, a psychic researcher who feels he got his fingers burned by his beliefs.