Re: virus: Group Telepathy

Wade T. Smith (wade_smith@harvard.edu)
Thu, 22 Aug 1996 21:51:39 -0400


>This reminds me very much of the Australian Aborigines' concept of Dreamtime.
>It is not (necessarily) drug-induced; any time you are dreaming you are in
>another reality which they regard as superior (i.e. more real) that this
>waking reality. The things you do in the Dreamtime have more meaning, in
>some cosmic, absolute way, than the things you do while awake. Certainly
>(they believe), conversations between two+ persons' "true selves" can take
>place in the Dreamtime.
>John Porter

And revived (or romanticized if you will) on the short-lived TV show 'Earth 2.'
In that show a group of aliens _did_ live in this dreamtime, and certain
humans were capable of getting there also.

While, as a skeptic and a materialist, I categorically reject any and all
'telepathy' explanations, there are enough parallels in any number of
animal species where behavior is both identical and expected to contiguous
stimuli.
Reed mentioned the wolf pack; school of fish is just as apt. Aren't we all
surprised when we do something at the same time as another- there's even
the familiar 'owe me a Coke' game to respond to this.

Reactions on an autonomic level will surprise the conscious mind, and any
psychedelic drug will distance the conscious perception from the autonomic
systems. Fatigue and sense-deprivation have produced amazing scenarios very
vivid in the imagination.

Side-bar: 'Altered States' dealt with the 'DNA-chain' perception,
mentioned also by Timothy Leary in many of his writings. Paddy Chayevsky
was a reader of Leary, and I think he may have met him. A related movie is
the British 'The Mind-Benders', from the late 50's or early 60's, written
when the deprivation tanks were seen as an interrogation technique. It also
dealt with the dissolution of the experimenter, and his intoxication with
the experience.

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Wade T. Smith | "There ain't nuthin' you
morbius@us1.channel1.com | shouldn't do to a god."
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