• Details the author's scientific experiments with psychics on telepathic powers and psychic phenomena
• Explores how shamanism, yoga, and Indigenous spiritual traditions provide the means to consciously cultivate psychic abilities
• Analyzes the biological, physiological, and psychological conditions and stresses that lead to the development and control of telepathic and paranormal experiences
Neurologist Andrija Puharich pioneered research in psi phenomena in the 1950s and '60s. This classic edition of that research provides profound examples of telepathy, clairvoyance, and mind powers that he recorded in labs and clinical settings. Puharich also draws on ancient spiritual practices to show how one might activate these abilities.
Connecting psychic phenomena to human physiology, Puharich recounts experiments he conducted with psychics in which observable activation of the parasympathetic nervous system resulted in measurable improvements in telepathic reception. He details his experiments on transmissive telepathy and how ESP and telepathy manifest in groups, and he hypothesizes that the ability to transmit thoughts and information is connected to adrenalin and related compounds.
Puharich examines what he terms a "mobile center of consciousness"-how the mind is separate from the body-and how this center of consciousness can access psychic powers and nonlocal knowledge. Beyond the lab, Puharich explored how shamanism, yoga, and Indigenous spiritual traditions provide the biological and physical means to consciously cultivate psychic phenomena and ecstatic states that enable extraordinary abilities.
Bringing these psi phenomena ideas into contemporary context is a new introduction by Mitch Horowitz, award-winning author of numerous books and host of the podcast Extraordinary Evidence: ESP Is Real. Andrija Puharich, M.D. (1918–1995), was a neurologist and prominent investigator of the paranormal. After completing his studies at Northwestern University medical school, he set up his own laboratory in Maine for the study of extrasensory perception (ESP). The author of The Sacred Mushroom, he was also a central figure in the early study of entheogenic mushrooms. INTRODUCTION TO THE NEW EDITION
Psioneer
Reintroducing Andrija Puharich's
Beyond Telepathy
By Mitch Horowitz
Few parapsychologists have pursued field work with the dedication of Andrija Puharich (1918–1995). Born to Yugoslav immigrants, the Chicagoan was among the most innovative-and controversial-scientists in an already-controversial field. Not because his work lacked depth, but because it pressed boundaries, even among his colleagues.
In 1959, Puharich experimented with an entheogenic "Mushroom X" native to southern Mexico. His testing found that ingestion of the mysterious species, Amanita muscaria, appeared to heighten psi abilities. The iconic researcher showcased some of his results in 1961 with host-producer John Newland on the television series One Step Beyond. To accommodate Puharich, the paranormal anthology show, which premiered a year earlier than The Twilight Zone, made an unprecedented break in its fictional format. More still, Puharich's effort, explored in his 1959 book, The Sacred Mushroom, quietly foreshadowed the psychedelic sixties and psychonaut adventures of LSD guru Timothy Leary (likewise interested in the psi effects of entheogens) and memoirist Carlos Castaneda whose tales of psyche-expanding mushrooms are challenged for veracity but never, among thoughtful readers, for poignancy and insight.
Among Puharich's further innovations, highlighted in this book, are telepathy trials that study the sender versus receiver (the latter is the field's more common focus). In decades immediately following the 1962 publication of Beyond Telepathy, a long-running series of telepathy trials-dubbed the ganzfeld experiments (German for "whole field") pioneered by younger parapsychologist Cha
