Psychic Phenomena and the Relational Mind

1. Psychic Phenomena and the Relational Mind Isabel Clarke Consultant Clinical Psychologist.

2. Being Porous • our capacity to communicate and participate in ways that defy ordinary logic and have always teased science. • Some people are more open to this type of experience than others – cf. Schizotypy • I will argue that psychic phenomena such as: • Thought transference • channelling • “past life experiences” etc. are accessible in a certain state of mind/way of experiencing, which I call the relational. This gives us a way of fitting such experiences into a scientific framework while doing justice to their veracity.

3. Introducing Interacting Cognitive Subsystems (Teasdale & Barnard 1993). • Interacting Cognitive Subsystems provides • An information processing model of cognition • Developed through extensive research into memory and limitations on processing. • A way into understanding the “Head/Heart split in people. • This gives us two ways of knowing/experiencing

4. Interacting Cognitive Subsystems. Body State subsystem Implicational subsystem Auditory ss. Implicational Memory Visual ss. Verbal ss. Propositional subsystem Propositional Memory

5. Important Features of this model • Our subjective experience is the result of two overall meaning making systems interacting – neither is in control. • Each has a different character, corresponding to “head” and “heart”. • The IMPLICATIONAL Subsystem (which I will call RELATIONAL) manages emotion – and therefore relationship. • The verbal, logical, PROPOSITIONAL ss. gives us our sense of individual self.

6. Two Ways of Knowing • Good everyday functioning = good communication between implicational/relational and propositional • At high and at low arousal, the relational ss becomes dominant • This gives us a different quality of experience – one that is both sought and shunned – and, I will argue, one that gives access to psychic phenomena.

7. Relational Subsystem concerns • Meaning and meaningfulness • The self; threat and value • Intense, extreme feelings (all or nothing) • Loss of fine discrimination and boundaries (domain of the propositional subsystem) • This gives us the quality of experience I will call the “transliminal” • Loss of boundaries perhaps = openness to other minds

8. A Challenging Model of the mind • The mind is simultaneously individual, and reaches beyond the individual, when the relational ss. is dominant. • There is a constant balancing act between logic and emotion – human fallibility • The self sufficient, atomistic, mind is an illusion • In our relational mode we are a part of the whole, and so open to the whole.

9. Relationship and the self • We are defined by our relationships • First by relationship with our caregivers, and those close to us • Moving out to relationship with our group, nation, other peoples, humanity, ancestors, earth, animals etc. • Relationship with that which is deepest and furthest – which is beyond our naming capacity, but is sometimes called God, Goddess, Spirit etc. • Relationship is something we experience – so it can be beyond propositional knowledge – we can feel more than we know.

10. Web of Relationships In Rel. with earth: non humans etc. In Rel. with wider group etc. primary care-giver Self as experienced in relationship with primary caregiver Sense of value comes from rel. with the spiritual

11. A “Two ways of knowing” Explanation • Conceptualisation and the propositional falters at this point. There are things we can experience but not precisely know. • This is because conceptualisation belongs to the propositional system • Experience is co-ordinated by the relational ss.

12. When the relational ss. is dominant and interchange of psychic contents becomes possible – the propositional subsystem is temporarily out of reach • Human beings always strive to make sense of things – whether they have the necessary data or not! • Propositional attempts to make sense of relational/transliminal experiences are retrospective. • In the case of religious experience, they are usually culturally determined. • In the case of delusions – they can be bizarre on the surface, but make sense in terms of the person’s history. • Science attempts to make such phenomena conform to its propositional framework – to predict the unpredictable!

13. Two dangers re.psychic phenomena • Reject the phenomenon – the traditional scientific response. • Believe the explanation – easy to argue that the experience verifies the explanation. - the transliminal adds a gloss of significance to everything! It is therefore important to bear in mind “both – and” We need explanations – but in this sphere, should sit lightly to them.

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