Q and A

Answers to some commonly asked questions

There are the answers to some of the questions I'm often asked. They can be copied and used by the Media. I may change these over time. To skip to the specific question that interests you, you can click the link on the table below:

1. Why did you become a parapsychologist?
2. What kind of training have you had?
3. What is your area of expertise?
4. What are your views on mind-matter interaction?
5. What are the biggest misconceptions about parapsychology?
6. What are your views on precognition and precognitive dreams? Is the future fixed?
7. Do you believe that the episodes of clairvoyance about deaths are telepathically sent out by the person in distress?
8. What is your view on clairvoyance?
9. Why do psychics have such a hard time getting names or dates or predicting exactly when something will occur?
10. Do you feel that all people are born with the potential for psychic ability or do you think that it is a talented few that are "gifted"?
11. Do you believe that emotions play any part in triggering spontaneous PK events? If so, which emotions do you feel are the strongest at causing such events?
12. What would you tell people who don't believe in psychic abilities?
13. Why did you write a book on suicide?
14. Do you ever work as a psychic? 
15. What do you do in your spare time to relax?
16. What's the best advice you were ever given as a psychic?
17. If you could sum up the most important things you've learned about psi, what would they be?

Why did you become a parapsychologist? 

Enlightened self-interest. I probably started having psychic experiences as a child, but I didn't recognize them for what they were. I certainly wasn't the kind of kid who had imaginary friends, but I used to meditate a lot without knowing what I was doing, especially in third grade. And I had visions of things that eventually came true. It wasn't until I reached my 30s that I started having the kind of experiences I couldn't ignore any longer--like answering peoples questions in detail before they had asked them, and knowing what kind of emergency cases I was going to do at what hour of the night -- a very handy talent for an Anesthesiologist to have. Once I accepted that what I was doing was indeed real, and not my imagination or a sign of insanity, I wanted to understand why I could do these things that science claimed were impossible. I suppose what interested me the most, being a Doctor, was that I could do anomalous healing consistently. What should have taken days to heal would take hours. And I wasn't some guru living on a distant mountaintop! I was an ordinary person. So why? Why could I do it? And how did it all work? Because if I could do it, anyone could.

What kind of training have you had?

I received a BA in Psychology, Summa Cum Laude from the University of Missouri at Columbia before going out of state to medical school at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. I did my internship in Pediatrics followed by an Anesthesia residency, and became Board Certified in Anesthesia. I spent a number of years in private practice, including serving as Chief of Anesthesia at two different hospitals and as faculty for both surgery and anesthesia residency programs. After my psychic abilities got where I had to admit to myself what was going on, I spend six months training under a spiritualist healer, Reverend Mary Smiley, at Casadaga. I later went on to get my actual doctorate in psychology (Psy.D.) specializing in parapsychology and became certified as a Master Hypnotherapist.  I also started working with the Office of Paranormal Investigations in 1996 and learned the ghostbusting trade from Loyd Auerbach.

What is your area of expertise?

I'm expert in mind-matter interaction, experiential research, place memory, and the channeled messages of suicides. I've also had experience doing haunting investigations.

What are your views on mind-matter interaction?  I think of PK as a natural part of our existence, which probably occurs a great deal more often than most people realize or would want to know. The problem is that it implies we are responsible for the world around us. This is a very scary idea for most people, as our lawsuit-happy culture tends to like to dump responsibility for events upon others. If we look at what age groups do PK we tend to see a couple peaks. One in children and another in adults. My own thinking is that this may not be due to age per se, but the psyche. Children tend to be more open to accepting reality as they find it -- a bit less blocked into one way of thinking. Many studies indicate that these gifts may disappear some time around puberty. But I suspect that's a cultural phenomena, not a true or inherent feature of psychokinesis. That's the age most people adopt a fixed world view and self-image. It is interesting, then, that you see another increase in psychic development with people in their 30s and 40s -- another time of re-evaluating who you are, the so-called midlife crisis. However, I see these gifts appear at any age. They are like any other human ability -- they appear when needed, as a survival skill or for some other rewarding purpose.

What are the biggest misconceptions about parapsychology?  There are several! Let's see ... where to start. I could make a list! Few people seem to realize that parapsychology only studies ESP, PK, and survival research. It isn't anything that is weird, anomalous, or unknown. You may find we know a bit about these topics (learned if only in self-defense), but we don't study Bigfoot, UFOs, vampires, witchcraft and sorcery, or crop circles. Another huge misconception is WHO is a parapsychologist. I am frequently amazed at how many amateur psychics and ghost hunters will called themselves "parapsychologists" when they know nothing of the parapsychological research. Probably the simplest way to figure out if someone is truly a parapsychologist, is to see if they belong to the Parapsychological Association (PA), which lists its members (including some dead ones) on the web here. If they are a parapsychologist who doesn't belong to the PA (and there are a few), odds are they well known to someone who is a member of the PA. True parapsychologists are a rare breed. There are maybe 400 of us in the world today, about 50 of whom are in the US. So, most of us know each other.

The last misconception is whether parapsychologists are themselves psychic. I think everyone has at least a little psychic ability, but most parapsychologists are not particularly psychic, and some seem to completely  block or deny what little talent they have. That's not to say none of us are gifted, but I could easily list the number of parapsychologists who have professional-grade psychic abilities on one hand. Alan Vaughan was one. Unfortunately, he has passed on. So, that leaves me, and Angela Thompson Smith is another. I'm sure there are a others, but I can't think of any off hand. I was in the closet for a lot of years about my gift, which may well be the case with others.

What are your views on precognition and precognitive dreams? Is the future fixed?

I've had some interesting precognitive dreams. You can usually tell they aren't the ordinary ones because they are a bit more vivid, more detailed. So, these things happen. But I don't believe the future is fixed. We have choices. We can changed things. The way I feel the future when I scan it is as a web of probabilities, of varying thickness or likelihood, which can be influenced by free will. Some events are very probable and tough to change. But there's always that possibility. Precognition allows you to see a possible future. Because dreaming is an altered state of consciousness that allows psi to show up more easily -- possibly because the unconscious mind, which filters what psychic information you receive has more input then.

What is your view on clairvoyance?

It happens. Seriously, though, you have to remember two things. As with any other form of psi, the unconscious mind acts as a filter for the information. What kind of information you get and whether it is accurate is determined by what you're interested in (or is meaningful to you) and your own personal issues. Remote viewing is probably the more trendy term for clairvoyance, although it was originally coined to refer to a very specific type of clairvoyance.

Do you believe that the episodes of clairvoyance about deaths are telepathically sent out by the person in distress?

Louisa Rhine probably looked at this as much as anyone, and it was unclear whether the information was sent out by the person dying, actively acquired by the receiver who cared about the person in danger, or a combination of the two at the same time. If I have to guess, I'd say it may vary from situation to situation, and sometimes be a combination.

8. Why do psychics have such a hard time getting names or dates or predicting exactly when something will occur?

There is no time in the spirit realm. Spirit guides and ghosts have no real awareness of time. Usually if you ask them a question, the best you'll pin them down to is "soon" or "not soon." Time appears to be a feature of our reality or dimension of existence. Often the medium who channels the information can hazard a better guess time-wise than their source -- and often you have to use visual cues, like Holiday decorations in a vision to figure that out. To be honest, my own precognitive events tend to be 2-3 months ahead, and I've had accurate psychic readings that foresaw 10-15 years ahead. I'd guess from your question that you think the time lapse would let you change things, but I don't believe that's true. I suspect it's more a nature of what you're dealing with.

Do you feel that all people are born with the potential for psychic ability or do you think that it is a talented few that are "gifted"?

Psi is truly a universal human ability. Everyone can do it. In every culture from around the globe since the earliest recorded literature. The only question is, do you need to develop it. There a lots of reasons why people "need" ESP and mind-matter interactions. Sometimes your family encourages it in a positive way, it lets you vent your feelings when there's no other way to do so, it helps you to survive (firemen, policemen, soldiers, or people in "dangerous" families--whether of physical or emotional abuse), you have a near-death experience that brings you closer to the spirit realm, or something else.

Do you believe that emotions play any part in triggering spontaneous PK events? If so, which emotions do you feel are the strongest at causing such events?

Sure. It's very clear the peak levels of emotion, whether positive or negative and including boredom (with the sole exception of self-frustration) are associated with spontaneous PK events and recording place memory. Of course, you don't have to have emotion for PK or ESP to occur. An altered state of consciousness -- whether meditation, dreaming, or something else -- may work ever better for most forms of intentional psi.  Of course, poltergeist phenomena and other psi triggered by frustration and negative emotions get more play in the media. It's more dramatic. But that doesn't mean that love and joy aren't equally capable of causing PK.

What would you tell people who don't believe in psychic abilities?

I have two reactions to skeptics: intellectual and emotional.

As a parapsychologist I feel that, within reason, skeptics can serve a purpose. They help us to design better studies and scrutinize our own work more closely.

As a psychic, I have no interest in wasting my time on them. My reaction to them is to say, "Believe what you like. I don't really care."

Either way, there's no reason to argue with a psi-disbeliever (since a true skeptic would have an open mind). It all has to do with paradigms (explained in the forward to The PK Zone). I'm far more interested in devoting my time to those who know these things exist and need help dealing with them.

Why did you write a book on suicide?

Jon Klimo, my co-author of Suicide: What Really Happens in the Afterlife, was my faculty advisor in grad school. He often spoke of a woman he'd been assigned to work with, to gather channeled messages of suicides as a form of bibliotherapy to help her understand that suicide is really not a solution. And I couldn't help thinking, "What a great idea! Something like this could really save lives." Moreover, it was a way that the field of parapsychology could give back to society. For a long time I kept thinking Jon should do it, but he had lost the collection of quotes, and didn't really want to go through all the material again, so I volunteered. And it was really interesting. I must have read about 400-500 books and magazines with channeled messages that spoke about the afterlife, about a quarter of which included the experiences of suicides. I decided not to limit myself to traditional suicides, but to include material on two other topics society is struggling to deal with today: assisted suicide and suicide bombers. So the information is really relevant and  fascinating -- it's not always what you'd expect.

Do you ever work as a psychic?

Although I still do psychic reads, mediumship work, and anomalous healing for friends, I pretty much limit my psi to when I'm doing ghost investigations as a parapsychologist. I found doing professional reads with strangers too much work and not enough fun to be worth the money.

What do you do in your spare time to relax?

What spare time? LOL. I'm into all kinds of things for fun. Let's see, the big ones are:

• Read fiction  -- all genres except horror
• Meditate
• Cook
• Take photographs.
• Paint in oils - mostly portraits, landscapes and the occasional still life
• Cartoon
• Sculpt.
• Watching my salt-water fish tank
• Play with my cat
• Do volunteer work on the USS Hornet Museum (a ship that is haunted by many friendly ghosts)
• Watch New Zealand rugby (Mediazone.com)
• Work out daily at the gym
• Ballroom dance

I have to admit that I seldom watch TV, and never watch "reality" shows. I have enough reality in my own life. I do like "Bones" and "Burn Notice," though.

What's the best advice you were ever given as a psychic?

One of the first psychics I ever met was an ex-cop, who hadn't believed in this stuff until he had a near-death experience from a ruptured appendix. We met at an art show. I was selling my oil paintings and sculptures, and he had Native American peace pipes that his spirit guide told him how to make. What he said was very simple. if you pick up something standing in line at the grocery store and feel tempted to say something, DON'T!  And he was right. It tends to be too much for the safe of your own ego, is seldom helpful and generally freaks people out.

If you could sum up the most important things you've learned about psi, what would they be?

Intention is everything in psi. Also, what you can do is more a reflection of what you care about (at least on an unconscious level) than what your potential is. People can do that which is important to them. And the reverse is also true. If you couldn't care less about something (like doing PK to prove to a skeptic that you can), odds are that you won't be able to do it. You have to care. And an example of that was when I was in a study run by Alan Vaughan. I got the best results I ever have. But I knew it was because the experimenter, Alan Vaughan, was dying of cancer, and I really wanted to do something for him. My gift to him was to do well on his test.

If you want to be accurate as a psychic, you need to work on your psychological baggage. We all have it, and if you don't deal with your stuff, it winds up distorting information--both psychic and otherwise. But it's certainly worst for psi. Your unconscious mind is an intermediary for psychic input and output. It acts as a filter, which can color and distort what gets delivered to the conscious mind. You need to keep it clean.

I'd also encourage every psychic to exercise regularly. It helps you stay grounded and improves what you can do by fine-tuning the body, which acts as something of an energy transformer when you do work, especially anomalous healing.