writing for 'The Vikas'

[originally published in 1993 in 'The Vikas' ( the magazine of Government College of Men, Sector-11, Chandigarh) of which yours truly was the Editor]

PARAPSYCHOLOGY: DISCOVERING THE UNKNOWN

'Miracles occur in contradiction not to nature,

but what is known to us of nature'. - St Augustine

Curious things continue to happen in life which shake the solid pillars of science. A vivid dream coming true the next day, telephone call from the person just thought of. A sudden rememberence of past life. Such experiences however were rarely questioned in a country that gave the world the concept of reincarnation. Long before the term 'paranormal phenomena' was coined,ancient Indians had already discovered the 'Ultimate Conciousness'.

In the past threee decades, a band of investigators called 'Parapsychologists' have begun talking of what they claim as 'scientific peep into keyhole of eternity'.

Many universities are probing into their research, what is commonly called 'sixth sense' or technically the phenomena of 'Extra-Sensory Perception (ESP). ESP types are diferentiated for example TELEPATHY is awareness of thoughts of another person. CLAIRVOYANCE is the ability to know of events that have occured. PRECOGNITION is knowledge of the event before it happened. And PSYCHOKINESIS is the power to influence objects with just mind. The unknown factor underlying all these is 'Psi'. Parapsychology studies these 'Psi' abilities.

Real life examples are gripping. Srikant of a village in Garhwal mountains got up one night in fright for he dreamt his father lying in a field bleeding badly. The next day his mother called from Dehradun to give the same news. Srikant just had the clairvoyant experience. Sudhir is an employee of a Delhi restaurant. He got a visual flash that his friend Kapoor is lying on a road bleeding profusely. Sudhir warned Kapoor not to undertake a journey he was planning but he did not heed his advice. Sudhir got a call later in the day that Kapoor had met with an accident. This is an example of Precognition.

Examples of reincarnation are even more interesting where a casual remark triggered the memory. Ajit Sngh in Chandigarh remembered his previous life whwn his aunt remarked "It's so hot today,that even if I die, you don't have to cremate me,I'll just burn up". Ajit replied -- " Nothing happened to me when they burnt me after I died". He then began talking of his life as a magistrate in Rawalpindi.

Statistics are glaring - 82% of people like Ajit remembered their names and other details. In one NIMHANS (National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences,Bangalore) study of 250 cases, most people remembered past life at around the age of three and 77% of the cases were deceased persons whom those people claimed to be.

The research in this field is still very much in infantile state. AP University research found that people practicing Yoga and transcendental meditation had higher ESP scores than others. PU Chandigarh research concludes that extrovert students did well in ESP tests. Garhwal University research on traditional faith healers shows that they do exhibit some psychokinetic ability.

But parapsychologists are still to alter the concept of other scientists towards their research. Despite scientific inverstigations on ESP being conducted since 1927, the august American Association for Advancement of Science reluctantly admitted parapsychologists as members only in 1969.

The Editorial Team of 'The Vikas'.

Ist Row -Prof VK Devasher,Dr DR Gupta,Prof Bhupinder Singh,Dr K Tandon,Dr Attar Singh(Principal),Dr N Mittal,Dr Maghar Singh,Prof JP Garg.

IInd Row - Shyam Sunder,Biramjit Singh,Ashwani Saini(yours truly),Nishi Kant,Malkit Singh,Anil Sharma,Nirbhay Kumar,Anil Kumar,Francis Olalo

The magazine was released by Sh Y S Dadwal then IGP,UT (presently Commissioner, Delhi Police) who is also the aluminus of the college.