Zener ESP cards were designed in the early 1930s by Karl Zener (1903-1963), an associate of J. B. Rhine, for use in ESP experiments (Randi 1995).

Levitation is the act of ascending into the air and floating in apparent defiance of gravity. Spiritual masters and fakirs are often depicted as levitating. Some take the ability to levitate as a sign of blessedness. Others see levitation as a conjurer's trick. No one really levitates; they just appear to do so. Clever people can use illusion, "invisible" string, magnets, and other trickery to make things or people appear to levitate.

There are people in Transcendental Meditation who will sit cross-legged and hop up and down on their butts, claiming that they are flying. Perhaps they are: for a fraction of a second, a few inches off the ground, until gravity brings them back to earth.

The Necronomicon of Alhazred, (literally: "Book of Dead Names") is not, as is popularly believed, a grimoire, or sorcerer's spell-book. It was conceived as a history, and hence "a book of things now dead and gone". An alternative derivation of the word Necronomicon gives as its meaning "the book of the customs of the dead", but again this is consistent with the book's original conception as a history, not as a work of necromancy.

The author of the book shared with Madame Blavatsky a magpie-like tendency to garner and stitch together fact, rumour, speculation, and complete balderdash, and the result is a vast and almost unreadable compendium of near-nonsense which bears more than a superficial resemblance to Blavatsky's The Secret Doctrine.

A new experiment looking for evidence that telepathy occurs in the brain, has been published in the International Journal of Yoga, by a group at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, in Bangalore, India.

The experimenters used an fMRI scanner to measure brain activity during the experiment. It measures the haemodynamic response related to neural activity in the brain or spinal cord of humans or other animals. It is one of the most recently developed forms of neuroimaging.

In the experiment the Indian investigation team examined a famous “mentalist” while he was performing a telepathic task in the scanner. A matched control subject without this special ability was also examined under similar conditions.

The mentalist, Mr. Gerard Senehi, demonstrated “significant activation of the right parahippocampal gyrus after successful performance of a telepathic task”, the experimenters’ stated.

“The comparison subject, who did not show any telepathic ability, demonstrated significant activation of the left inferior frontal gyrus.”

The report continued:

“To our knowledge, this is the first fMRI study to examine the brain correlates of telepathy. Previous studies have employed other functional brain mapping techniques. In our study, telepathy was associated with significant activation of the right parahippocampal gyrus; whereas the control subject without telepathic ability, activated the left inferior frontal gyrus under similar task conditions.”

A brief introduction

Paganism is a spiritual way of life which has its roots in the ancient nature religions of the world. It is principally rooted in the old religions of Europe, though some adherents also find great worth in the indigenous beliefs of other countries. Such belief in the sacredness of all things can be found world-wide. Pagans see this as their heritage, and retain the beliefs and values of their ancestors in forms adapted to suit modern life. We celebrate the sanctity of Nature, revering the Divine in all things; the vast, unknowable spirit that runs through the universe, both seen and unseen.

Pagans honour the Divine in all its aspects, whether male or female, as parts of the sacred whole. Every man and woman is, to a Pagan, a beautiful and unique being. Children are loved and honoured and there is a strong sense of community. The woods and open spaces of the land, home to wild animals and birds, are cherished. Paganism stresses personal spiritual experience, and Pagans often find that experience through their relationship with the natural world that they love. We seek spiritual union with Divinity by attuning with the tides of Nature and by exploring our inner selves, seeing each reflected in the other. We believe that we should meet the Divine face to face, within our own experience, rather than through an intermediary. Although some paths do have leaders and teachers, these people act as facilitators, using their own wisdom and experience to help guide those in their care towards discovering their own sense and interpretation of the Divine. Our rites help us harmonise with the natural cycles, and so they are often held at the turning points of the seasons, at the phases of the moon and sun, and at times of transition in our lives.