Miracles of Mind: Exploring Non-Local Consciousness and Spiritual Healing (Full Text PDF)

Miracles of Mind: Exploring Non-Local Consciousness and Spiritual Healing by Russell Targ and Jane Katra, Ph.D. Foreword by Larry Dossey, M.D. 325 pages. Illustrations and photographs. Bibliographical references and index. (New World Library: New York, 1998). ISBN: 1-57731-070-5. $24.95 hardcover.

Review by Stephan A. Schwartz
Research Associate Cognitive Sciences Laboratory

“This book is about connecting to the universe and to each other through the use of our psychic abilities.” Russell Targ and Jane Katra conveniently tell us in the first sentence of their first book together exactly what they intend.

All of Targ’s books have been collaborations but, with this one, he seems to have found a truly congenial co-author. Although he is well-known in parapsychological circles, Dr. Katra may not be. She describes herself in her jacket bio as holding “a doctorate in public health education and has been a spiritual healer for more than 20 years. She has taught nutrition and health classes at the University of Oregon, and Therapeutic Touch at Lane Community College.”

They lay the groundwork for their presentation by spending the first half of the book presenting a good overview of the entire remote sensing field and its history, including references to the obscure Upton Sinclair work, described in Mental Radio. Principally, though, the focus is on the government sponsored studies at the SRI parapsychology lab, conducted when Targ was a part of that team, and private work he has conducted subsequently.

With the Tongues of Men and Angels: A Study of Channeling PDF

With the Tongues of Men and Angels: A Study of Channeling. Arthur Hastings. (Holt, Rinehart and Winston: San Francisco, London, Montreal, et al, 1991) 227 pp. Illustrations and photographs. References. Index. Appendix.

By Stephan A. Schwartz

Sometimes it is important to go back and re-examine a book that has been overlooked. This is a review of such a book: With the Tongues of Men and Angeles. Arthur Hastings, its author, sets himself two tasks, and does very well at answering them: What is the nature of channeling? What is the significance of channeling for us? These are questions worth attention, not least because the phenomena of channeling has been around for thousands of years, and defies all attempts to explain it away. It is so compelling that even the exposure of occasional frauds has not slowed the public?s interest. Perhaps this is because, as Hastings states, fully 15 per cent of the population — in the U.S. today that would be approximately 41 million people — report hearing voices and receiving guidance. I don?t know where Hastings got that astounding — at least to me — figure, but it conjures an arresting reality.

Hastings approaches his subject with an open mind — a surprisingly rare attitude, as anyone who takes the trouble to look at the literature of channeling quickly discovers. Whether it is called channeling, mediumship, automatic writing, guidance, prophecy, or anyone of several other names, as a rule it excites more passion than insight. Hastings also writes with a light touch which, for anyone doing research in this area, will be much appreciated. With the notable exception of Jon Klimo?s recent and excellent Channeling[i], much of the modern literature on this subject is famously insubstantial, and the more serious studies, dating mostly from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, is so turgid and self-important, whether espousing or denigrating the subject, that reading it becomes an act of penance.