Men who stare at goats; parents who gaze at children

I recently saw the film Men Who Stare at Goats and although it was pleasant enough, it was ultimately disappointing.  One of the chief problems with the film, in my view, was its tone:  it strives for “whacky” but ends up forced.  I suspect that the reason for this discordant tone was the subject matter—army experiments with telepathy.  One can just imagine studio execs wanting to be really clear that they think this is all crazy while at the same time half-heartedly making some sort of anti-war statement and managing to please everybody at the same time.

The film casts all characters with any sort of telepathic ability as complete misfits, ranging from bizarre to outright cruel.  In zeitgeist terms I would take this as evidence that telepathic notions are on the collective conscience (as evidenced by George Clooney stepping up to play an “earth warrior”), however the general view of the sixth sense has moved little beyond Bewitched circa 60’s television except that the psychics are now “men” (quotes because they are all seen as less than sane, much less truly manly).

As a parent, I hold the non-scientific position that kids are generally born psychic, or at least psychically wide open and more intuitive than the typical grown-up who has been socialized away from cultivating or paying attention to intuition.  Beyond my own intuition on the subject, however, I have struggled to figure out how to make the case for this, much less encourage parents to endorse a reasoned playfulness in deliberately trying to connect with our kids at a telepathic level.  Many parents would say that they feel connected with their children at a deep level; fewer would openly admit trying to vibe messages back and forth.

A couple of summers ago I was exploring information on a chapter for my parenting book that focuses on psychic parenting but found little solid work to turn to.  Sitting in Paris with some friends who lived on a barge, and who had recently been in North Africa researching trance music, told me about a book I’d not heard of— Extraordinary Knowing:  Science, Skepticism, and the Inexplicable Powers of the Human Mind by Elizabeth Lloyd Mayer.  Leave it to artists to sniff out the really pertinent psychological text.  I could find it in no bookstores in France, London and Ireland nor back in LA and finally ordered it on line. 

While I’d like to post more about telepathy and parenting in future posts, for now suffice it to say that Lisby Mayer was a true skeptic who looked into the evidence and research on so-called psi phenomena and found consistent and compelling evidence to support the possibility of telepathy, remote viewing and non-local, conventionally unexplainable communications.  Of note here was the frequent reluctance of rational scientists to believe the data they received.  It was as if this “truth” deconstructed the world they’d lived by and invested so much in that they had no choice but a sort of conscious denial in which they say, “I know it seems to be real, but I still don’t believe it.”

Another key finding was that researchers who expected telepathy to be possible had positive results while researchers running an otherwise identical experiment who did not believe telepathy possible got a negative result—the very thing they expected.  Even the skeptics could only conclude that the evidence suggests that expectation appeared to be the key variable influencing the outcome on telepathy.  This tracks with quantum physics research where if one looks for a particle one gets a particle, but if one looks for a wave that’s exactly what one perceives—suggesting that at the sub-atomic level the observer and object of observation are essentially one unified field.

In turning back to parenting, I posit that we can be telepathically connected to our children if we believe that we can.  This has numerous parenting implications, but for now consider playing with the following idea:  think of something, a thought or feeling that you would like to transmit to your child, but which you cannot for some reason (ranging from her being too young to understand language to him being too angry to let us talk with them) directly communicate.  Contemplate your message (i.e. “I know you are having trouble hearing or understanding my words, but I love you, I am with you, I do not and will not give up on you, I see you are struggling and I am connected with you in your pain”).  Modify your message as you see fit, but work on simply thinking it several times per day for a few days.

Skeptics could easily argue that if you merely think positive and loving thoughts then your body will soften and non-verbal cues will be read by your child and have an effect on them, and to this I say, “Great!”  In parenting and love, being right is of little consequence.  If changing our energy by deluding ourselves into thinking we’re telepathically linked with our children ends in a good result, what’s the harm in that? 

Now I do say that if you want a spoon bent, just use your fingers, and anything that you could say with regular words go ahead and say with words.  Reserve telepathy for matters too delicate for words.  If you try this with your kid and are willing to report back, I’d love to hear whether it was a bust or it seemed to make a difference.  After all, if science (however buried from public consumption) supports telepathy as possible, who better to be psychically linked with than our children with whom we are molecularly linked to begin with?

In the meantime, let’s dedicate today to sending good energy, via actions if we can, and via thoughts for the rest, to all our collective children.

Namaste, Bruce

p.s. When it comes to third-eye contact it’s best not to stare:  look and then look away.