THOSE STRANGE, STRANGE, STRANGE PEOPLE...

Paranormal phenomena have always attracted attention of fantasy and science fiction writers. As a matter of fact, those phenomena as well as their carriers are one of the eternal topics of fantastic tales, successfully competing with robots, spaceships, alternative history and strangers from space. But the classic authors of the genre - Wells, Jules Verne and Alexander Belyaev - practically did not write about paranormal phenomena leaning towards rational knowledge, but in our times telepathists, pyrokinetics and extrasensors have taken double revenge - both on the pages of books and in films ( to say nothing about magicians' rooms where they take off magic spells and fill chakras in with useful ether ).

Notwithstanding the active interest expressed by readers, viewers and writers for the topic, I should mention that our ideas about paranormal phenomena are chaotic, vague and unclear because, with rare exceptions, there is not either a generally accepted classification or terminology. Certainly I mean fantastic classification and not the one used by practicing magicians and contactors with the Orion constellation; everything has already been noted down by them, and a professional wizard definitely knows whom he has to deal with - either the elemental, or astroidea, or egregor, or criminally sexual larva. What are we worse in, I am asking you? We, the lovers of fantastic tales?

You are right, not in anything. And because of that let us try to work the classification of PP or paranormal phenomena out. First of all I would like to mention that one should not confuse them with the heavenly, the magical or the anomalous. The heavenly is the prerogative of religion, as for magic, i.e. the connection with the world of spirits and other tricks of this kind, wizards are engaged in it; both the heavenly and the magical are transdental phenomena, in other words, otherwordly, lying in their essence beyond the limits of experience and knowledge. As for the anomalous phenomena ( the Greek "a" means "non", it is a negative particle ), in the wide sense they are phenomena yet unknown to science ( and then PP are their part ), and in a more narrow sense - phenomena connected with UFO and visitors from space. The PP as themselves are near-normal phenomena ( "para" - "near", "by", Greek ) under which we understand mysterious and yet unknown abilities of a man. It is in this sense that I shall use the terms "paranormal phenomenon" or "paraphenomenon" in my article.

It is evident after the most superficial review that the PP class is not uniform, that phenomena of various power get into it, capable to cause the most wide spectre of feelings in us, from light surprise to deep shock. It is really impossible to compare the ability of quick reading with foretelling of events which will take place in a year or in a thousand years! But both of them refer to PP because mysterious abilities of a man, his body and psyche reveal themselves in these phenomena. Such an "anisotropy" of paraphenomena hints at the necessity of their classification in which we shall engage now.

I divided PP into four classes or categories which I shall mention in the order of progression of "unreality": exotic phenomena, extrasensoric, extramental, exceptional. Besides, I had to think out a number of new fantastic terms because numerous phenomena are defined only descriptively; in any case, I do not know their medical or any other names.

Such PP that exist really and truthfully and are partly explained by physicians and psychologists refer to the category of the e x o t i c. Their list follows.

Ultrareading - the phenomenon of extra quick reading and counting, the gift to take in any visual or acoustic information quickly.

Mnemotaxis - the phenomenon of absolute memory, visual and acoustic; quoting from memory of long texts, ability for desribing events that took place many years ago in detail. One of special cases of mnemotaxis is the ability of quick mastering of foreign languages.

Hypnofading - fading of sleep; ability to do without sleep for a long time ( months or years ) or sleep an hour or two per day without any damage to one's health or mental abilities.

Chronosensing - feeling of time; a carrier of this ability listens to his "inner watch" and knows the time up to a minute.

Orthodromy - word for word: "the right way"; intuitive feeling of direction helping to find the right way in the mountains, in the sea, in the forests, deserts and big cities.

Hide - based on the English word meaning "to conceal", "to keep from someone"; the gift to stay unnoticed, one of the talents intelligence workers, spies and Zinja must have.

Sympathy - an unexplainable talent to win sympathy and confidence; absolutely necessary for presidents and travelling salesmen.

Endowiation - "inner way"; conscious or unconscious ability to manage the body and internal organs inherent to endowiates. Endowiation unites such paraphenomena like insensitivity to pain, seeing in the dark, skin vision, transformation of sounds and smells into visual succession, the gift to heal one's wounds and to resist illnesses, thermal and electrochemical regulation of vital processes. Special cases of endowiation of various degree are demonstrated by yoga, autotraining and religious ecstasy.

Pscychotransformation - a gift of psychical transformation into a different type of person, including - into a vampire, ghoul and werewolf. The carriers of this ability are transformers. One should not mix them up with robots-transformers, as well as mix psychotransformation up with transformation-teleconversion.

E x t r a s e n s o r i c phenomena lie on the border between the real and the unreal; we cannot state for sure that they exist, but their negation would be a step too hasty. I divide them into two categories:

Supersensing - supersensing in relation to the surrounding world: to smells, sounds, changes in temperature, moisture, pressure, sun radiation, magnetic field, etc. The typical carriers of this ability are water diviners capable to trace the flow of underground waters and deposits of minerals, find out leaks in gas pipes and electrical cables as well as lost objects.

Extrasensing is an analogy of supersensing directed to man's body. Healers-extrasensors have this ability. They are capable to diagnose and heal illnesses, to mobilize the inner resources of a patient's body, to influence an alien body - it is an alien body in contrast to the mentioned above endowiates. But the talents of endowiation, super- and extrasensing may be found in one and the same person.

The e x t r a m e n t a l is a phenomenon of a higher degree than those mentioned above; it is that phenomenon that first of all attracts the attention of fantastic tales writers. Below I shall give references to respective books in brackets. The idea of the extramental includes telepathy and telekinesis but these phenomena are subject to hierarchy classification, that is they could be described in a certain order, from the lowest forms to the highest. I singled out the following subclasses below:

1. Telepathy - the lowest form.

Homeo-telepathy - similar to telepathy; it is a gift to guess thoughts from facial expression, voice, behaviour. A carrier is supposed to have developed logical thinking and power of observation ( Conan Doyle, the series of stories about Sherlock Holmes ).

Endo- and exo-empathy - receipt of feelings of alien creature or projection of one's own feelings to a man, animal or plant. If both gifts are present, they could then be called bi-empathy. Special cases: "speakers" having the gift to speak to animals ( Harrison "Deathworld" ); "farmers" - people with a "green hand" ( the gift to speak to plants ).

Pre-telepathy - receipt of separate thoughts or intentions from a great number of people thinking about one and the same - i.e. receipt of mental information in case of a powerful signal and relative simplicity of communication - for example, receipt of certain figures. I would call the carriers of this ability "listeners".

2. Telepathy itself.

Endo- and exo-telepathy - receipt of thoughts and mental images from another person or their transfer to another person. A telepathist can have only one of the said qualities.

Bi-telepathy - two-way mental exchange ( TME ) between people. Most telepathists described in the fantastic tales are bi-telepathists ( see, for example, Bester "The Demolished Man")

3. The highest forms of telepathy.

Ultra-telepathy - TME both with a man and any other creature up to insects, plants and creatures from other planets. The highest form of bi-telepathy.

Super-telepathy - a long-range telepathy; TME with any creature on space distances ( figuratively speaking, listening to stars' voices ).

Telepathic control - mental hypnotic suggestion to another person when the suggested thoughts are taken by him for his own.

Telepathic contamination or mixing up - ability to unite several minds as a single one ( supermind ) with the purpose to increase the power of mental processes. It is the highest form of telepathy and one should suppose that it is accompanied by such phenomena as telekinesis, teleportation and ability for telepathic control.

4. Telekinesis itself.

Telekinesis is a gift allowing to manipulate objects without touching them.

5. Highest forms of telekinesis.

Teletaxis - control over the characteristics of the surrounding world including gravitation and electromagnetic field. Special cases of teletaxis are the following: electrotaxis - generation of powerful protective fields, electrical discharges and ball lightnings as well as radio interferences; advection - transfer of heat, moisture etc. and as a result possibility to influence the weather ( carriers of this gift are "weather forecasters", rain charmers ); levitation - flight without any technical means; pyrokinesis - starting a fire and management of fire ( Stephen King "Firestarter" ).

Teleportation - an ability to transfer oneself and any objects from one point in space to another, with the transfer being carried out either immediately or at a great speed.

Teledestruction - destroyal of any atom or molecular structures without technical means. A special case is telecavitation or making holes in walls or any other obstacles.

Teleconversion - or transformation - directed changing of any atom or molecular structures. A special case is changing of one's own body; according to Silverberg ( "Lord Valentine's Castle" ) and other authors, the carriers of this ability could be called metamorphers. The metamorphism reminds of endowiation but is an incomparably more powerful phenomenon.

6. Mixed telepathic and telekinetic phenomena.

Perception - passive connecting up to mind and sense organs of another creature ( man, animal, plant ); long-distance seeing, long-range hearing and clairvoyance come from it.

Full control - complete submission of another creature to one's will, telepathic and telekinetic control over it or him.

Perception and telepathic control are described by Sterling Lanier in "Hiero's Journey".

I would like to make some remarks on extramental phenomena. If we take reality but not fantasy, we still do not know for sure if the telepathic phenomenon exists. Why? Here is a probable explanation. If we suppose that telepathy is an inborn quality of a child, such a child will inevitably grow up an imbecile because he will be unable to protect ( screen ) his mind from the others' thoughts in childhood ( if only such screening is not an inborn ability either ). Only in case the telepathic gift is revealed in a much maturer age and its carrier masters protective procedures, he will become a real telepathist of value.

In contrast to telepathy the inborn gift of telekinesis does not make a child go mad and I think that there are a lot of telekinetics. Some of them ( possibly - the prevailing number ) do not realize their capabilities which wake up only at the moments of great excitement and stress; and then they, not knowing it themselves, start manipulating objects and energy fields chaotically. This could explain poltergeist.

Finally I would like to mention that a telepathist always knows about his gift if he is not a small child; it is absolutely clear to a telepathist that he percepts thoughts of people surrounding him, and it is easy for him to check this fact up. But the abilities of telekinesis, teletaxis and teledestruction could be unconscious though very strong - especially in case they reveal themselves from time to time; it is much more difficult then to establish the cause and effect than in case of telepathy. One should suppose then that a whole number of catastrophes and natural calamities are caused by some advect-telekinetic who often quarrels with his wife. It is possible that this gift is hereditary in certain families like the talents of Kuttner's Hogbens. Is it possible that all members of this family are very irritable? It is possible that they live somewhere in the vicinity of the Bermuda Triangle which сould be called poltergeist on giant scale?

Now, after I made my remarks let us pass to the e x c e p t i o n a l phenomena i.e. the most unusual PP. I refer the following to them:

Intuitivism - ability to come to the right conclusions and decisions immediately independent of professional knowledge and bypassing the chain of ratiocinations ( Isaac Asimov "The Gods Themselves" and "Foundation Edge" ). In special cases the following persons could be referred to the carriers of this gift: "mechanics" - people intuitively understanding the purpose of any mechanism, capable to find faults in it and to repair it; "financiers" - people having the talent for multiplication of wealth; dangerers - people able to anticipate danger ( Akhmanov "The Scythians Feast at Sunset", Gromov "The Year of the Lemming" ).

Psycho-amphibology - doubleness; location of two or several minds in one brain or dividing one's own process of thinking into several parallels ( the cybernetic analogue are multiprocessor systems ). Such a case is described in Sheckley's "The Humours".

Precognition - foreseeing and foretelling of the future. I would like to add that in this case the future appears like connected with each other pictures of events but not forebodings like with the inuitivists.

Longevity - in this case I mean active life during several centuries or even eternal life ( Heinlein's novels about Lazarus Long, Van Vogt "The Weapon Makers" ).

Accidention - conscious or unconscious gift to control accidents in the result of which a person becomes especially lucky. The carriers of this gift could be called "the lucky" ( Niven "Ringworld" ).

Heterochrony - multitimeness or control over the time. A special case is countermotion or life in a backward time flow ( Strugatskys "Monday Starts on Saturday" ).

The classification offered by me is certainly not full and exact but at least it brings some semblance of order to the world of chaos. In the end I would like to attract the attention of the readers to the fact that I have not used the terms "skill" or "craft" even once - for example, I did not say, "the craft of quick calculation". Skill and craftsmanship are the things one can master but paranormal qualities cannot be acquired either at school or University. They cannot be acquired yet - and that may never happen. It is an inborn talent, God's Gift.

Or, if you want it, God's Punishment.