Michael Cremo - Human Devolution - A Vedic Alternative To Darwin's Theory

On february 2, 1974, Taylor performed carefully supervised tests with Geller in a laboratory. The results were mixed. Geller tried unsuccessfully to bend a metal rod that he was not allowed to touch. Some metal strips, to be used in the experiments, were lying nearby on a tray. “It was then observed,” said Taylor (1975, p. 51), “that one of the aluminum strips lying on the tray was now bent, without, as far as could be seen, having been touched either by Geller or by anyone else in the room.” Taylor then tested Geller’s famous spoon-bending abilities, using one of his own spoons as the test object. Taylor (1975, p. 51) reported: “I held the bowl end while Geller stroked it gently with one hand. After about twenty seconds the thinnest part of the stem suddenly became soft for a length of approximately half a centimeter and then the spoon broke in two. The ends very rapidly hardened up again—in less than a second . . . Here, under laboratory conditions, we had been able to repeat this remarkable experiment. Geller could simply not have surreptitiously applied enough pressure to have brought this about, not to mention the pre-breakage softening of the metal. Nor could the teaspoon have been tampered with—it had been in my own possession for the past year.”

Later in this series of experiments, Geller bent an aluminum strip without touching it. The strip was inside a wire mesh tube. In another experiment, Taylor found that Geller was able to bend a brass strip by ten degrees simply by touching it. He applied a pressure of half an ounce to the strip, but the strip bent in a direction opposite to that of the pressure. Taylor also noticed that the needle of the pressure scale was also bent in the course of the experiment. In another experiment, Geller attempted to bend a copper strip without touching it. He was also attempting to influence a thin wire. nothing happened at first. “We broke off in order to start measuring his electrical output,” said Taylor (1975, p. 160), “but turning round a few moments later I saw that the strip had been bent and the thin wire was broken. Almost simultaneously I noticed that a strip of brass on the other side of the laboratory had also become bent . . . I pointed out to Geller what had happened, only to hear a metallic crash from the far end of the laboratory, twenty feet away. There, on the floor by the far door, was the bent piece of brass. Again I turned back, whereupon there was another crash. A small piece of copper which had earlier been lying near the bent brass strip on the table had followed its companion to the far door. Before I knew what had happened I was struck on the back of the legs by a Perspex tube in which had been sealed an iron rod. The tube had also been lying on the table. It was now lying at my feet with the rod bent as much as the container would allow.” In the course of his experiments, Taylor observed other strange happenings, such as pieces of metal scooting across the lab floor, from one wall to another, and a compass needle rotating. Taylor (1975, p. 163) said, “These events seemed impossible to comprehend; I should certainly have dismissed reports of them as nonsense if I had not seen them happen for myself. I could always take the safe line that Geller must have been cheating, possibly by putting me into a trance . . . Yet I was perfectly well able at the time to monitor various pieces of scientific equipment while these objects were ‘in flight.’ I certainly did not feel as if I was in an altered state of consciousness.”

Taylor also went on to conduct experiments with a number of children who claimed to have metal-bending powers like those of Geller. He found that they were able to bend metal under laboratory conditions (Taylor 1975, p. 79). In one set of experiments, Taylor put straightened paper clips in a box. Two boys were able to make the straightened clips fold into s-shaped curves. Straightened clips were also folded without contact in other experiments. The children were also able to deflect compass needles and rotate metal rods. Taylor (1975, p. 89) thought that electromagnetism offered the best possible explanation, although he was not able to demonstrate it conclusively. He proposed that the mind was an electromagnetic entity that occupied not only the neural circuitry of the brain but an electromagnetic aura that extended outside the skull (Taylor 1975, p. 155).

In his next book, Science and the Supernatural (1980), Taylor underwent a strange transformation. Reviewing various paranormal phenomena, he summarily dismissed most of them, except for remote viewing and telepathy. Acknowledging that the evidence for them seemed strong, he said that this evidence nevertheless contradicted “modern scientific understanding.” How could this contradiction be resolved? Taylor (1980, p.

69) proposed that most likely the evidence was defective. It was therefore necessary to carry out further investigations to find out exactly what the defects were. Regarding well documented cases of psychokinesis in connection with poltergeists, Taylor (1980, p. 108) said, “The only possible explanation left open to us in this whole poltergeist phenomenon is that of a mixture of expectation, hallucination and trickery . . . Such an explanation is the only one which seems to fit in with a scientific view of the world.”

So what happened to Taylor between 1975 and 1980? In 1975, Taylor had accepted the paranormal events he witnessed during his own carefully controlled experiments with Uri Geller and a number of British children. He had hoped to explain these by one of the four fundamental forces accepted by modern physics, namely electromagnetism (the other three being the atomic strong force, the atomic weak force, and gravity). Philosopher david Ray Griffin (1997, p. 32) said, “Taylor soon learned, however, that this issue had been discussed for several decades by parapsychologists . . . In particular some Russian parapsychologists, given their Marxian materialistic orthodoxy, had devised experiments explicitly designed to show ESP and PK [psychokinesis] to be electromagnetic phenomena. Their experiments suggested otherwise.” So when Taylor found he could not explain the paranormal phenomena he witnessed in terms of one of the forces accepted by modern physics, he developed an apparent case of amnesia about his own experiments and dismissed the experiments performed by others as the result of trickery, hallucination, and credulity. He did not offer any explanation as to exactly how Geller and the many children he tested had tricked him.

Edgar mitchell (astronaut)

Edgar Mitchell is an American astronaut who became interested in psychical research. during his trip to the moon he had a transcendental vision, giving him “new insight” (Mitchell 1996, p. 68). After returning to earth, he tried to gain understanding of his vision by studying mystical literature. He concluded (1996, p. 69): “What the ancients, who wrote in the Sanskrit of India, described as a classic savikalpa samadhi was essentially what I believe I experienced . . . this phenomenon is a moment in which an individual still recognizes the separateness of all things yet understands that the separateness is but an illusion. An essential unity is the benchmark reality, which is what the individual suddenly comes to comprehend.” This also resembles the vedic concept of acintyabhedabhedatattva, inconceivable simultaneous oneness and difference. This generally refers to the relationship between God and God’s energies. According to the teachings of chaitanya Mahaprabhu all living beings have souls, and together these souls comprise an energy of God. The souls are simultaneously one with and different from God. They are one in spiritual substance and power but possess this spiritual substance and power in different quantities (Bhaktivinoda Thakura 1987, pp. 46–48).