Documentation of psychic and paranormal experiences

Walk into any bookstore and spend a few minutes nosing through the metaphysical or alternative religions sections.  Books that line the shelves are chock-full of personal accounts of spiritual experiences from the frightening to the enlightening.  Television documentaries about paranormal experiences abound.  Are you interested in hearing about personal experiences of the unexplained from people just like you?  Or are you more stimulated by the efforts of ghost hunters seeking to prove the existence of ghosts and other spirit beings?  Regardless of your field of interest, modern day electronic media – including the internet – offers up an unending supply of research. 
There are so many ways that pure energy beings make us aware of their presence it is virtually impossible to provide a blanket explanation either for or against their existence.  Such is also the case for proving or disproving paranormal ability.  Energy healing, ESP, telekinesis, telepathy … hundreds of thousands have come forward in every culture for generations relating personal experiences of the unexplained.  Sometimes the experience is a single occurrence and the receiver never taps into the psychic realm again.  For others not a day goes by without some eye-opening event that cannot be explained by traditional means. 

The US Government began testing individuals for paranormal skill in the mid-1900s in an effort to develop new psychological weaponry.  Substantial amounts of money were invested in public and private studies until the mid-1980s when funds were cut.  Since that time many independent groups have formed their own study groups and their published reports are readily available on the internet. 
Were you under the impression that paranormal events are a creation of modern times?  Not so!  Ancient Greek philosophers and even Julius Caesar were said to have gained wisdom, insight and prophetic warnings from the dream realm.  Read on for a few more examples of the application of psychism throughout the ages.

Jesus of Nazareth was said to have performed many miracles, among them the multiplying of fishes and loaves to feed his hungry followers.  Some interpret this miracle as the application of psychokinesis to create a multitude out of a meager offering of food. 
Joan of Arc is a well documented example of someone who connected with the spirit realm through visions, clairaudience and related psychic experience.  Born in the early 1400’s, she experienced her first vision at the age of 12.  She was inspired by the saints and God to lead France to victory over the English and return the Dauphins to power.  In a highly magnified version of the derision practitioners of parapsychology experience today, she was burned at the stake by the English for heresy due to her claim to have conversed with God and the saints. 

One paranormal urban legend involves the cryptid creature The Mothman.  This frightening man-like creature with huge wings flew into the region surrounding Point Pleasant, West Virginia in November of 1966.  He was said to be the harbinger of disasters, culminating in the collapse of the Silver Bridge over the Ohio River in December of 1967. 
Two highly contested examples of governmental experimentation with parapsychology are the Philadelphia Experiment and the later Montauk Project.  Both events were declared by participants and observers to have achieved time travel, invisibility, teleportation and access to a parallel dimension.  The first event remains undocumented, but is purported to have taken place in 1943.  Its goal was to render the USS Eldridge invisible.  The exact date of the second is uncertain, but was first reported in the early 1980s.  In 1952-53 scientists who had participated in the Philadelphia experiment are said to have reunited with the goal of advancing the effect applied to make the Eldridge disappear. 

State leaders have long relied upon precognitive dreams and visions: 

• Napoleon foresaw his defeat at Waterloo:  In his dream a black cat paced the line between the advancing Prussian and Anglo-Allied forces and his own.  After some time the cat settled among his own troops, which he interpreted as defeat.
• Abraham Lincoln foresaw his assassination:  Lincoln related a dream vision in which mourners were gathered at the White House.  He asked one of the soldiers in the color guard “Who is in the casket?” and received the reply “The assassinated President.”  He moved to the casket and saw himself lying in state.
• Adolph Hitler was spared certain death in World War I:  While sleeping in a foxhole with other troops he awoke from a dream in which he couldn’t breathe due to a mouthful of dirt.  He crawled from the foxhole to shake off the dream and the foxhole was destroyed by a direct hit from an artillery shell.  Hitler was the only survivor.
• Throughout Ronald Reagan’s two-term Presidency, his wife, Nancy, routinely sought guidance from psychics, including the late Jeane Dixon.  These visionaries influenced world events including the execution of the US-Soviet Treaty to eliminate medium range nuclear missiles.

Modern reports of paranormal events are available every day in virtually every country around the world.  While many are eventually discounted as hoaxes, some may never be defined outside the realm of the unexplained.