Citation

A phenomenological approach is taken, and the model that is developed is psychological, teleological, and not physically reductionistic. This model assumes that each organism, by its nature, extends beyond itself into the larger pre-sensory surround. Psi is assumed to be neither knowledge nor action, but to belong to the outermost temporal edge of those normal pre-experiential mental processes by which the mind structures all its experiences and commences all its actions. Psi processes are posited to function normally as the unconscious leading edge of the development of all consciousness and all intention. This unconscious functioning is normal and continuous, and is a constituent element of all experience. Like subliminal apprehensions, presensory apprehensions sometimes can be seen by the anticipatory arousal of networks of meaning and affective activation that they evoke, and that function normally to help our minds select and understand the contents of our experience and initiate our actions. These anticipatory, orienting networks are ordinarily experienced as inadvertencies, events (both “inner” and “outer”) that seem to have no particular meaning but that implicitly express the action of the orienting activity. Such inadvertencies are marginal to consciousness, and ordinarily may be noticed only when the mind is not occupied with conscious work. By sensitively consulting the implications of inadvertencies, traces of the psi effect may be noticed. It is assumed that unconscious mental processes, including psi processes, are motivated by personal intentions and needs, also largely unconscious. The problems of psi-hitting, psi missing, and directional switching are addressed. Implications of the model for understanding psi-conducive states are developed, and a relationship between psi and states of dissociation or prolonged confusion or uncertainty is proposed. Persons who are relatively “psychic” are either more prone to intentions and states of mind that facilitate production of such marginal material, or have developed more interest and skills in the introspective examination with which they can be understood, or both. The roots of the model and its relation to some other conceptual contributions in parapsychology are examined.