Paranormal Puzzles
Paranormal phenomena display a multitude of very puzzling characteristics that appear to defy reason and known physical laws. While there are real mysteries here to solve, some of the confusion is brought about by misconceptions, especially involving the kind of paranormal events associated with hauntings.
When research into occurrences such as apparitions, levitated objects, and disembodied voices and sounds began in earnest in the 19th century, the dominant conceptual premise was founded in spiritualism. The paranormal investigative field has never completely shaken off this influence so that even today, discussions over observed occurrences often center around what kind of spiritual entity or deceased person might be initiating the event and for what reason.
While spiritual considerations are important, a viewpoint rooted in spirit-centric concepts tends to obscure and avert the focus away from what is actually happening physically to cause these phenomena. Admittedly, since there’s been no comprehensive understanding of how the ethereal realm really works (what I call paranormal mechanics), the acceptance of a certain level of unfathomable mystery is almost required in dealing with the paranormal. Unfortunately, acceptance of this incomprehensibility bleeds over into analysis of the physical properties of these manifestations, which has led to the embracement of some prevailing opinions in this field that simply do not hold up to scientific scrutiny.
I’ve long maintained that paranormal research cannot simply ignore the laws of physics in its reasoning. There are real puzzles to solve here, and yet we can’t find our way to the foundation of these puzzles if we can’t first eliminate that which is currently explainable by known physics. For example, how often is a phrase like “spirit energy” used in discussions about the paranormal? In fact, the term “energy” is spoken of quite frequently, but unfortunately with little regard as to what this actually means scientifically. Energy is something physical—spiritual things are not. From a scientific viewpoint, spirit energy is a conflict in terms. The common belief that spirits draw energy from the surrounding area to manifest (another misinterpretation that’s clarified in Behind the Cosmic Veil) is in itself an acknowledgement that spirits on their own do not possess such energy! This is the problem with focusing on a spirit-centric overview—the basic physics is often overlooked.
Because energy is a physical thing, the concept of spirit “energy” steers our thinking toward looking to the physical as the cause for these strange events. If we were to adjust this concept to something like spiritual presence instead of energy, we can then more clearly see that the observed energy phenomena associated with paranormal events are actually an effect of this activity and not the cause. We can then isolate and describe the physical effects properly in terms of established physics, leaving us free to dedicate our entire focus on what remains, which of course would be the cause behind these kinds of events.
Behind the Cosmic Veil presents a number of these vital scientific clarifications that really help to cut through some of the confusion that has traditionally plagued this very important field of study, and in doing so, bring to it a greater reconciliation with mainstream scientific thought. One of these clarifications from the book concerns the phenomenon that often goes by the name of levitation. This is when an object is moved, propelled or otherwise deflected by no detectable physical means. This kind of event is most often associated with hauntings and poltergeist activity, but other phenomena like telekinesis (mind-over-matter) also display the exact same characteristics.
First, let’s take a look at the effect itself. Say we have the stereotypical levitation at a haunted site of a book coming off a shelf and flying across the room. The usual explanation is that some form of energy is responsible for the physical force necessary to make this happen. But a careful, scientific examination reveals this cannot be the case. For example, we have no means to re-create this effect technologically by employing an energy field. This is why we use cranes to lift girders and other heavy building materials into place at a construction site rather than using some sort of energy beam-projecting device to lift them into place like in Star Wars. The amount of pure energy needed to launch something even as small as a book off a shelf is staggering.
Now one might judge this assertion to be ridiculous by making a mental comparison to the relatively small amount of force he or she would apply in picking up the book by hand and tossing it across the room. That would be the same kind of loose “scientific” thinking that has led to so many mistaken assumptions in the field of paranormal study. Think about it—if we were to look at this according to the laws of physics, it becomes clear that there’s far more to consider than just the force applied to the book. We have to also take into account the human body that generated that force electrochemically, that provided the arm to apply that force to the book, and provided both the weight and the foundation of legs and feet anchored to the floor so that the moving arm could leverage the necessary force against the book. Not all that simple, is it?
Let’s pick this apart. We first need to estimate the amount of biomass needed to generate the energy required to move the book, lift the arm, provide a sufficiently sturdy platform or “body” to which the arm is attached (most likely having at least two supports or “legs”), and enable that body to remain upright by overcoming the force of gravity while maintaining its balance, and then stabilizing itself by compensating for the force applied against the book by the attached arm. And we’ve just scratched the surface! How about the energy required to move that body to the proper location in proximity of the bookshelf? How about the energy needed to manufacture the fuel (think food) to not only operate that body, but to have constructed it in the first place (think birth and growth)?
Now before you get your calculator out, we’ve only considered half of the equation. Getting clever by imagining an artificial device much lighter than flesh and blood, and more specialized for the task to limit the total amount of energy needed to move the book, is not going to help you. Remember, no material object is present to paranormally cause the book to fly, so that if we’re going to attribute its movement to energy, we have to be talking about a field of pure energy. Forget about all that additional energy to move, fuel, and stabilize the body, etc. What about the body itself? How do we convert that into an equation showing the total pure energy needed to walk up to a bookshelf and flip a book off it? If you asked Einstein, he’d tell you e=mc2. Only thirteen pounds of highly volatile plutonium (that fissions easily) were required to destroy Nagasaki. And remember—only a percentage of this material was actually consumed to produce that huge explosion of pure energy. How much energy is stored in a 150-lb. flesh-and-blood material human body? To give us a visual on this, work Einstein’s equation in reverse. The entire energy output of the sun would not convert into enough matter to fill a juice glass. Really.
So, if we were to convert the entire process (i.e., everything we’ve so far discussed) of a 150-lb. person walking up to a bookshelf and tossing a book from it to an expression of pure energy that includes the total amount of energy pent up in the material flesh of that person’s body, how much pure energy are we talking about? I know…who really thinks about such things to this level? Physicists do. And so must we if we’re going to make real progress with paranormal inquiry. We cannot ignore fundamental physics.
Now one might press further, “Can’t the energy needed to move the book manifest separately without the need for a physical body?” How? Energy is a function of particles that propagate waves. What particles? Where did they come from, and where did they go after they did their work on the book? Since neither matter nor energy can be created or destroyed (remember, basic physics!), this hypothetical energy field that would be responsible for moving the book has to be generated by something, and that something must be material. It can’t simply appear out of nowhere and disappear back again. So, unless one argues for materialization followed by immediate dematerialization, there’s no viable answer here either.
If the levitation of our imaginary book is physically impossible, where does that leave us? For this, I believe Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s most famous and sound principle of logic delivered through his character Sherlock Holmes can be applied: “Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” Therefore, since in a strict scientific sense, the paranormal movement of the book is physically impossible, the only remaining solution is that it’s being moved non-physically.
As strange as this sounds, such non-physical causation is a long established scientific principle in quantum mechanics, the system of laws that govern the subatomic realm. It’s called non-local causality, which is a fancy name for an effect that has no physical cause in contact with, or “local” to that effect. The trouble is that there are only two known naturally occurring examples of non-local causality in the superatomic world at large—gravity, and paranormal phenomena (for a more detailed description of the bizarre nature of gravity, see the article The End of Materialism and a Return to God).
This leads us to one of the four principles that serve as a foundation for the new model of paranormal phenomena introduced in Behind The Cosmic Veil called paranormal mechanics, which is part of the complete re-organization and re-definition of the field of paranormal studies that is presented in the book. The principle states that physical matter and energy can be deflected, dislocated or otherwise manipulated by non-physical means. All such phenomena have been gathered in the book under the new classification heading of translocation. Levitation and telekinesis are two examples of translocational phenomena.
This may be all well and good for levitation, but what about other paranormal activity such as apparitions or disembodied sounds? It just so happens that a close examination of these phenomena with a keen scientific eye yields some startling revelations.
What is an apparition? I don’t mean spiritually or visually, but what is an apparition physically? Two characteristics give us a clue. First, they are seen to float or hover, change shapes, appear and disappear, and pass through solid walls without any effect—all the things that normal matter and enough energy to be visible cannot do. Although the book presents a much more detailed explanation of this, suffice it for now to say that all evidence points to apparitions being similar to levitation in that they are also an effect with no physical cause.
But how do we define the effect? To answer this, we must consider the physics of vision. Folks often overlook the fact (no pun intended) that our eyes really can’t see any object directly. All we can see is the available ambient light reflected by objects. Photons propagating as light waves reflect off an object and enter our eyes. Now if you look carefully at the photographic evidence of apparitions, you’ll notice a characteristic they all have in common—they look exactly like a similarly configured physical object in that location. In other words, an apparition in dim ambient light will appear dim as do other objects in that scene, while one in greater ambient light appears brighter. We don’t get photos of apparitions in a pitch-black room unless there is some night vision equipment being used to capture other spectrums of radiation reflecting off objects in the camera’s field of view. A shadow apparition absorbs the entire spectrum of ambient light in the same manner as a hard object painted black. It may sometimes appear instead as partially transparent and wispy, but so would black, gray or white smoke under the identical lighting conditions.
The point here is that with extremely rare exception, the appearance of a partial- or full-body apparition varies in intensity according to the available ambient light, just like all physical objects in the same vicinity. This means that a visible apparition is a reflective phenomenon rather than one that generates its own luminous energy (luminous phenomena have a different explanation in the book that is also scientifically consistent). So all that we can say for certain physically is that an apparition is visible because it presents a surface that reflects the available ambient light or other radiation both into our eyes and into optical recording devices. What is light? Light is photons propagating as waves, both of which are material or physical. Therefore, an apparition presents a surface that is caused non-physically and that deflects photons and light waves into our eyes. By the new classification system in Behind The Cosmic Veil (called the revised system), that’s a paranormal translocation, just as is the book flying off the shelf!
What about disembodied voices and footsteps? Well…what is the scientific description of sound? I think you can see where this is leading. By their very definition, disembodied voices and footsteps are effects with no physical source. Sound is propagated through material mediums like air in the form of waves. And just as the frequency and amplitude of light waves determines what we see, the frequency of sound waves determines what we hear. Therefore, audible phenomena are the deflection by a non-physical source of the physical air molecules, thereby producing a wave pattern that’s carried to our ears in the same way as a physically caused sound. Therefore, as strange as it may seem to someone immersed in the traditional, spirit-centric interpretations of these kinds of events, an audible phenomenon is a paranormal translocation of air molecules, just as an apparition is a translocation of photons, and levitation a translocation of a larger physical object. They’re all the same phenomenon, differing only in scale and in the effected physical medium.
Some researchers have long suspected that the root causes behind numerous paranormal phenomena may actually be identical. What’s been presented here for the first time is the conceptual proof of this supposition, derived by setting aside spiritualistic considerations and focusing instead on the phenomena themselves with a strict adherence to established physical laws.
This article presents just one of many new, cutting-edge concepts on paranormal phenomena described in Behind The Cosmic Veil. I guarantee that you too will feel as a veil has been lifted, and you will never look at the paranormal in the same way again.
P.S.—The Atlantic Paranormal Society caught some very unusual footage at Eastern State Penitentiary that was shown on the 2004 season of Ghost Hunters on the SciFi channel. This footage has mystified everyone who has viewed it either on TV or at the many sites where it’s posted on the internet. The supergeometric mechanics set forth in the book perfectly describe the characteristics displayed in this odd footage, including two anomalies about which I’ve never seen any commentator mention. If anyone from the team wishes to contact me, I’d be happy to share it with you. I think your eyes will pop open when you see what I’m referring to (reading the book first will no doubt be helpful).
Paranormal phenomena display a multitude of very puzzling characteristics that appear to defy reason and known physical laws. While there are real mysteries here to solve, some of the confusion is brought about by misconceptions, especially involving the kind of paranormal events associated with hauntings.
When research into occurrences such as apparitions, levitated objects, and disembodied voices and sounds began in earnest in the 19th century, the dominant conceptual premise was founded in spiritualism. The paranormal investigative field has never completely shaken off this influence so that even today, discussions over observed occurrences often center around what kind of spiritual entity or deceased person might be initiating the event and for what reason.
While spiritual considerations are important, a viewpoint rooted in spirit-centric concepts tends to obscure and avert the focus away from what is actually happening physically to cause these phenomena. Admittedly, since there’s been no comprehensive understanding of how the ethereal realm really works (what I call paranormal mechanics), the acceptance of a certain level of unfathomable mystery is almost required in dealing with the paranormal. Unfortunately, acceptance of this incomprehensibility bleeds over into analysis of the physical properties of these manifestations, which has led to the embracement of some prevailing opinions in this field that simply do not hold up to scientific scrutiny.
I’ve long maintained that paranormal research cannot simply ignore the laws of physics in its reasoning. There are real puzzles to solve here, and yet we can’t find our way to the foundation of these puzzles if we can’t first eliminate that which is currently explainable by known physics. For example, how often is a phrase like “spirit energy” used in discussions about the paranormal? In fact, the term “energy” is spoken of quite frequently, but unfortunately with little regard as to what this actually means scientifically. Energy is something physical—spiritual things are not. From a scientific viewpoint, spirit energy is a conflict in terms. The common belief that spirits draw energy from the surrounding area to manifest (another misinterpretation that’s clarified in Behind the Cosmic Veil) is in itself an acknowledgement that spirits on their own do not possess such energy! This is the problem with focusing on a spirit-centric overview—the basic physics is often overlooked.
Because energy is a physical thing, the concept of spirit “energy” steers our thinking toward looking to the physical as the cause for these strange events. If we were to adjust this concept to something like spiritual presence instead of energy, we can then more clearly see that the observed energy phenomena associated with paranormal events are actually an effect of this activity and not the cause. We can then isolate and describe the physical effects properly in terms of established physics, leaving us free to dedicate our entire focus on what remains, which of course would be the cause behind these kinds of events.
Behind the Cosmic Veil presents a number of these vital scientific clarifications that really help to cut through some of the confusion that has traditionally plagued this very important field of study, and in doing so, bring to it a greater reconciliation with mainstream scientific thought. One of these clarifications from the book concerns the phenomenon that often goes by the name of levitation. This is when an object is moved, propelled or otherwise deflected by no detectable physical means. This kind of event is most often associated with hauntings and poltergeist activity, but other phenomena like telekinesis (mind-over-matter) also display the exact same characteristics.
First, let’s take a look at the effect itself. Say we have the stereotypical levitation at a haunted site of a book coming off a shelf and flying across the room. The usual explanation is that some form of energy is responsible for the physical force necessary to make this happen. But a careful, scientific examination reveals this cannot be the case. For example, we have no means to re-create this effect technologically by employing an energy field. This is why we use cranes to lift girders and other heavy building materials into place at a construction site rather than using some sort of energy beam-projecting device to lift them into place like in Star Wars. The amount of pure energy needed to launch something even as small as a book off a shelf is staggering.
Now one might judge this assertion to be ridiculous by making a mental comparison to the relatively small amount of force he or she would apply in picking up the book by hand and tossing it across the room. That would be the same kind of loose “scientific” thinking that has led to so many mistaken assumptions in the field of paranormal study. Think about it—if we were to look at this according to the laws of physics, it becomes clear that there’s far more to consider than just the force applied to the book. We have to also take into account the human body that generated that force electrochemically, that provided the arm to apply that force to the book, and provided both the weight and the foundation of legs and feet anchored to the floor so that the moving arm could leverage the necessary force against the book. Not all that simple, is it?
Let’s pick this apart. We first need to estimate the amount of biomass needed to generate the energy required to move the book, lift the arm, provide a sufficiently sturdy platform or “body” to which the arm is attached (most likely having at least two supports or “legs”), and enable that body to remain upright by overcoming the force of gravity while maintaining its balance, and then stabilizing itself by compensating for the force applied against the book by the attached arm. And we’ve just scratched the surface! How about the energy required to move that body to the proper location in proximity of the bookshelf? How about the energy needed to manufacture the fuel (think food) to not only operate that body, but to have constructed it in the first place (think birth and growth)?
Now before you get your calculator out, we’ve only considered half of the equation. Getting clever by imagining an artificial device much lighter than flesh and blood, and more specialized for the task to limit the total amount of energy needed to move the book, is not going to help you. Remember, no material object is present to paranormally cause the book to fly, so that if we’re going to attribute its movement to energy, we have to be talking about a field of pure energy. Forget about all that additional energy to move, fuel, and stabilize the body, etc. What about the body itself? How do we convert that into an equation showing the total pure energy needed to walk up to a bookshelf and flip a book off it? If you asked Einstein, he’d tell you e=mc2. Only thirteen pounds of highly volatile plutonium (that fissions easily) were required to destroy Nagasaki. And remember—only a percentage of this material was actually consumed to produce that huge explosion of pure energy. How much energy is stored in a 150-lb. flesh-and-blood material human body? To give us a visual on this, work Einstein’s equation in reverse. The entire energy output of the sun would not convert into enough matter to fill a juice glass. Really.
So, if we were to convert the entire process (i.e., everything we’ve so far discussed) of a 150-lb. person walking up to a bookshelf and tossing a book from it to an expression of pure energy that includes the total amount of energy pent up in the material flesh of that person’s body, how much pure energy are we talking about? I know…who really thinks about such things to this level? Physicists do. And so must we if we’re going to make real progress with paranormal inquiry. We cannot ignore fundamental physics.
Now one might press further, “Can’t the energy needed to move the book manifest separately without the need for a physical body?” How? Energy is a function of particles that propagate waves. What particles? Where did they come from, and where did they go after they did their work on the book? Since neither matter nor energy can be created or destroyed (remember, basic physics!), this hypothetical energy field that would be responsible for moving the book has to be generated by something, and that something must be material. It can’t simply appear out of nowhere and disappear back again. So, unless one argues for materialization followed by immediate dematerialization, there’s no viable answer here either.
If the levitation of our imaginary book is physically impossible, where does that leave us? For this, I believe Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s most famous and sound principle of logic delivered through his character Sherlock Holmes can be applied: “Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” Therefore, since in a strict scientific sense, the paranormal movement of the book is physically impossible, the only remaining solution is that it’s being moved non-physically.
As strange as this sounds, such non-physical causation is a long established scientific principle in quantum mechanics, the system of laws that govern the subatomic realm. It’s called non-local causality, which is a fancy name for an effect that has no physical cause in contact with, or “local” to that effect. The trouble is that there are only two known naturally occurring examples of non-local causality in the superatomic world at large—gravity, and paranormal phenomena (for a more detailed description of the bizarre nature of gravity, see the article The End of Materialism and a Return to God).
This leads us to one of the four principles that serve as a foundation for the new model of paranormal phenomena introduced in Behind The Cosmic Veil called paranormal mechanics, which is part of the complete re-organization and re-definition of the field of paranormal studies that is presented in the book. The principle states that physical matter and energy can be deflected, dislocated or otherwise manipulated by non-physical means. All such phenomena have been gathered in the book under the new classification heading of translocation. Levitation and telekinesis are two examples of translocational phenomena.
This may be all well and good for levitation, but what about other paranormal activity such as apparitions or disembodied sounds? It just so happens that a close examination of these phenomena with a keen scientific eye yields some startling revelations.
What is an apparition? I don’t mean spiritually or visually, but what is an apparition physically? Two characteristics give us a clue. First, they are seen to float or hover, change shapes, appear and disappear, and pass through solid walls without any effect—all the things that normal matter and enough energy to be visible cannot do. Although the book presents a much more detailed explanation of this, suffice it for now to say that all evidence points to apparitions being similar to levitation in that they are also an effect with no physical cause.
But how do we define the effect? To answer this, we must consider the physics of vision. Folks often overlook the fact (no pun intended) that our eyes really can’t see any object directly. All we can see is the available ambient light reflected by objects. Photons propagating as light waves reflect off an object and enter our eyes. Now if you look carefully at the photographic evidence of apparitions, you’ll notice a characteristic they all have in common—they look exactly like a similarly configured physical object in that location. In other words, an apparition in dim ambient light will appear dim as do other objects in that scene, while one in greater ambient light appears brighter. We don’t get photos of apparitions in a pitch-black room unless there is some night vision equipment being used to capture other spectrums of radiation reflecting off objects in the camera’s field of view. A shadow apparition absorbs the entire spectrum of ambient light in the same manner as a hard object painted black. It may sometimes appear instead as partially transparent and wispy, but so would black, gray or white smoke under the identical lighting conditions.
The point here is that with extremely rare exception, the appearance of a partial- or full-body apparition varies in intensity according to the available ambient light, just like all physical objects in the same vicinity. This means that a visible apparition is a reflective phenomenon rather than one that generates its own luminous energy (luminous phenomena have a different explanation in the book that is also scientifically consistent). So all that we can say for certain physically is that an apparition is visible because it presents a surface that reflects the available ambient light or other radiation both into our eyes and into optical recording devices. What is light? Light is photons propagating as waves, both of which are material or physical. Therefore, an apparition presents a surface that is caused non-physically and that deflects photons and light waves into our eyes. By the new classification system in Behind The Cosmic Veil (called the revised system), that’s a paranormal translocation, just as is the book flying off the shelf!
What about disembodied voices and footsteps? Well…what is the scientific description of sound? I think you can see where this is leading. By their very definition, disembodied voices and footsteps are effects with no physical source. Sound is propagated through material mediums like air in the form of waves. And just as the frequency and amplitude of light waves determines what we see, the frequency of sound waves determines what we hear. Therefore, audible phenomena are the deflection by a non-physical source of the physical air molecules, thereby producing a wave pattern that’s carried to our ears in the same way as a physically caused sound. Therefore, as strange as it may seem to someone immersed in the traditional, spirit-centric interpretations of these kinds of events, an audible phenomenon is a paranormal translocation of air molecules, just as an apparition is a translocation of photons, and levitation a translocation of a larger physical object. They’re all the same phenomenon, differing only in scale and in the effected physical medium.
Some researchers have long suspected that the root causes behind numerous paranormal phenomena may actually be identical. What’s been presented here for the first time is the conceptual proof of this supposition, derived by setting aside spiritualistic considerations and focusing instead on the phenomena themselves with a strict adherence to established physical laws.
This article presents just one of many new, cutting-edge concepts on paranormal phenomena described in Behind The Cosmic Veil. I guarantee that you too will feel as a veil has been lifted, and you will never look at the paranormal in the same way again.
P.S.—The Atlantic Paranormal Society caught some very unusual footage at Eastern State Penitentiary that was shown on the 2004 season of Ghost Hunters on the SciFi channel. This footage has mystified everyone who has viewed it either on TV or at the many sites where it’s posted on the internet. The supergeometric mechanics set forth in the book perfectly describe the characteristics displayed in this odd footage, including two anomalies about which I’ve never seen any commentator mention. If anyone from the team wishes to contact me, I’d be happy to share it with you. I think your eyes will pop open when you see what I’m referring to (reading the book first will no doubt be helpful).