The Inquirer’s Sept. 6, 2014 issue carried a front page news that aroused my interest. It was about a first successful experiment in “brain-to-brain” contact, or telepathy.

It reported that “research experts at Harvard University show how technology can be used to transmit information from one person’s brain to another even if they are thousands of kilometers away.”

Not telepathy

I was at first very excited about this scientific confirmation of telepathy, which I had been teaching people to do since 1988, until I read exactly how they did the experiment.

“For the experiment,” continued story, “one person wearing a wireless, Internet-linked electroencephalogram would think a simple greeting like ‘hola’ or ‘ciao.’

“A computer translated the words into digital binary code. Then this message was e-mailed from India via robot to the receiver, who through non-invasive brain stimulation could see flashes of light in his peripheral vision.

“The subject receiving the message (in France) did not hear or see the words themselves, but was correctly able to report the flashes that corresponded to the message.”

This, to my mind, is not telepathy. It is the brain interpreting flashes of light being transmitted through an electronic machine.

Why didn’t the researchers simply ask the sender to relay a message mentally to a receiver from across the ocean and see whether he received such a message without using any machine or gadget? That would prove the existence of telepathy beyond any reasonable doubt.

Was there anything similar to this ever done? Yes, and it has been replicated in laboratories in the West.

First account

The first account of such successful long-distance telepathic experiment was by American scientist-astronaut, Dr. Edgar Mitchell, the sixth man who walked on the moon.

According to the story, Dr. Mitchell conducted a secret experiment which was unauthorized by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in the US. Before he left for the moon, Mitchell gave a sealed envelope to a trusted friend, with the instruction not to open it until he came back to earth.

The envelope contained a secret message that he had intended to send to three psychic individuals on earth while he was in outer space.

Upon his return to earth, Mitchell asked the three individuals what message they received. All three got it right. This was confirmed when the envelope was opened for the first time.

Among those who correctly received the message telepathically was the late Swedish psychic, Olof Jonsson, who at that time lived in Las Vegas, Nevada. I met him in Manila during the administration of President Corazon Aquino. He confirmed to me that such telepathy experiment was indeed conducted secretly by Mitchell.

When I asked Jonsson what the message was, he said it was the five symbols contained in the Zener cards (namely: a cross, three wavy lines, a square, a circle and a five-pointed star), which were used by Dr. J.B. Rhine in numerous experiments with Extrasensory perception (ESP) at Duke University in the early 1930s.

In my monthly ESP course, one of the psychic abilities I teach is telepathy, which I define as “the power to mentally transmit and/or receive thoughts from another without the use of one’s physical senses.”

During such an exercise, I ask every member of the class to choose a partner. Partner A is asked to draw anything on a piece of paper without partner B seeing it. In the alpha level of his brain waves, partner A will transmit the message to partner B with his eyes closed. Then they will exchange roles, and repeat the process.

In the several decades I have been teaching this course here and abroad, around 60 percent of the participants have been able to transmit or receive the drawn message.

Uri Geller

In 1994 in Dusseldorf, Germany, the well-known Israeli psychic Uri Geller did a similar telepathy experiment with me. I was the transmitter and Geller was the receiver.

He correctly drew the object I had drawn when his back was towards me and, therefore, could not have seen what I was drawing. He asked me to cover my small drawing with my hand as he faced me and I transmitted the drawing to him by visualizing it.

Within 20 seconds he drew exactly the same object I had drawn, down to its size and shape. I found out that Uri Geller has been doing this exercise many times since the mid-’70s.

One of those to whom Geller demonstrated his telepathic ability was Henry Kissinger, former executive secretary of US President John F. Kennedy, at a party organized by Caroline Kennedy.

According to the story, Kissinger was so worried that Geller might have picked up thoughts from his mind other than what he drew. Geller, with a wink in his eye, told Kissinger not to worry.

Did the Harvard researchers in the news really prove that telepathy exists?

Telepathy has been proven long ago by many other researchers without using any sophisticated machine. I am surprised these Harvard people didn’t know that.

My next seminar on Basic ESP and Intuition Development on Sept. 13-14 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Topics include telepathy, remote viewing, psychic diagnosis, psychic reading, chakras, human aura, use of pendulum, psychometry and telekinesis. Learn all these scientifically in only two days. For reservation and other details pls. call tel. 8107245 or 0908-3537885; or e-mail [email protected].