research organization that was well regarded in its day, publishing a series of books and pamphlets between 1925 and 1941.
The society was created as a result of internal strife within the American Society for Psychical Research. When spiritualist Frederick Edwards became president in 1923 and introduced more popularist policies, Walter Franklin Prince, the ASPR’s well-respected research officer, left to start a rival society in Boston with an academic focus. The Boston Society was officially set up in 1925 ‘in order to conduct psychic research according to strictly scientific principles’.
Prince was the backbone of the society, and it faded away after his death in 1934. During its brief existence the society did not actively seek members and always favoured quality over quantity in research and publication. Among its most important bulletins was a report in the 1920s on ESP experiments conducted at Harvard University, and a paper entitled ‘Toward a Method of Evaluating Mediumistic Material’, published in 1936. The society also published a number of groundbreaking books on mediumship, including Beyond Normal Cognition by John Thomas (1937). The Boston Society also published J B Rhine’s work Extra Sensory Perception (1934), which described laboratory experiments carried out at Duke University.
BRAIN/BRAIN WAVES
Although it’s possible that psychic power is a bridge that connects your brain to a higher mind or spiritual force, some experts believe that psychic ability should be treated as another aspect of brain function. They regard psi as an additional sense that is somehow located in our brains, and believe that understanding psi can help explain how we perceive and process information.
One of the most amazing discoveries in medicine was made by Roger Sperry in the 1960s, when he revealed that the right hemisphere of the brain, responsible for intuition and creativity, makes an equally valuable contribution as the left hemisphere of the brain, responsible for reason and logic and previously thought to reign supreme. Opinions differ on what part of the brain psi function exists in, but many believe that the ability to connect to intuitive information is housed in the right side of the brain and that for optimal brain function both the right and left sides of the brain need to work together.
Some scientists suggest as well that brain waves need to work together. Brain waves are electrical impulses our brains constantly release, and they are measured in hertz, or cycles per second. There are four major stages of brainwave activity, beginning with beta, the shortest and fastest waves, and moving through to delta, the strongest and slowest.
When the brain is emitting beta waves, the individual is active, awake and conscious, with his or her eyes open. Alpha brain waves operate just below waking consciousness, a state that is attained in meditation and relaxation. The average person can maintain awareness in this state. Typically, eyes are closed and the body is relaxed, but alpha waves are also produced during daydreaming with eyes open. The alpha state is not essential to achieve success in psi testing results, but studies show that it is conducive to psi. Theta brain waves are achieved during deep relaxation. The average person cannot maintain awareness in this state, but some meditators claim that they can. The final state, delta, is one of sleep or unconsciousness.
Some scientists maintain that the blending of all four brain waves creates a brandnew brain wave. Some followers of Eastern philosophy propose that the awakened mind, which occurs when a person is more aware of their spiritual existence, is a state that combines all four brain waves at once.
BREATH
The first and last thing you do in life is to breathe. Breathing is the essence of life. And so it is not surprising that breathing and breath are often identified with the soul. In Roman times a close relative would inhale the last breath of someone who was dying, because it was thought that the soul had to enter into another body or it would be lost. In Hinduism the breath or life energy is seen as the force that controls the mind; healthy breathing is healthy thinking and healthy being, which is why yoga always teaches breathing exercises.
In the past half century or so many Westerners have tried to learn the techniques for breathing, meditation and mind control that Eastern yogis have studied for millennia. In recent years psychiatrist Stanislav Grof developed a method that combines breathing and meditation and called it Holotropic Breathwork; it helps individuals enter an unordinary state of consciousness for psychic healing by using evocative music, accelerated breathing, energy work and mantra drawing. Aspects of this meditation involve exploration of the inner self and spiritual opening.
BRIDGE OF SOULS
The Bridge of Souls in mythology and folklore is the heavenly road souls of the dead must travel in order to get to the afterlife. The most common motif used for the Bridge of Souls is that of the rainbow.
In Hawaii, Polynesia, Austria, Japan and among some Native American
Breathing exercises
Simple breathing exercises are thought to help give you quick access to psychic states of mind. One Eastern technique is to visualize, with each inbreath, drawing in coloured light – pink light for harmony and quiet contemplation and white or gold light for spiritual energy – and slowly breathing out black mist or smoke as all the negative energies leave the body.
A yoga breathing exercise that is thought to be wonderfully effective for saturating your aura and your body with energy is alternate nostril breathing.
Using your right thumb, close your right nostril and inhale slowly through your left nostril for a count of four. Then keeping the right nostril closed, use your fingers to close the left nostril, so both nostrils are closed for a count of eight. Then, keeping your left nostril closed, remove your thumb from your right nostril and exhale for a slow count of four. Switch nostrils, closing the left nostril and inhaling through the right nostril for a count of four. Close both nostrils again for a count of eight, and exhale slowly for a count of four through the left nostril. Repeat the whole exercise four or five times.
tribes, the rainbow is thought to be the path souls take on their way to heaven, and has been called a bridge or ladder to higher or other worlds. The Russians call the rainbow the ‘Gate to Heaven’. In New Zealand dead Maori chiefs are believed to travel up the rainbow to their new home. In parts of Germany and Austria, folklore suggests that children’s souls are led up the rainbow to heaven, and in some parts of England it is considered unlucky to point at a rainbow.
People all over the world have different ways of looking at and understanding rainbows. For some they suggest magical possibilities, for others a rainbow indicates that a project is going to fail – ‘building rainbows in the sky’ – but whenever a rainbow appears, and however rationally it can be explained as a natural phenomenon, even the most hardened sceptic cannot help but be struck by its magic and its beauty.
BROOM
The broom is intimately connected with witches and witchcraft. It was commonly believed that witches anointed their bodies with a salve given to them by the devil that enabled them to fly through the air upon a variety of sticks or stems, including broomsticks. The choice of the broom or besom as a likely means of transport is probably due to the association between brooms and female domesticity, though male witches were thought to ride in this way as well as women.
In Eastern European folklore a broom may be used in exorcism ceremonies to sweep evil spirits out the door. It is also thought that stepping over a broomstick, placing it under your pillow or
