Siegmar Gerken in conversation with Stanley Krippner: Human Possibilities Beyond Our Ordinary Appearances? 14 June 2023

Stanley Krippner describes his lifelong awareness of our interconnected consciousness and contribution to energy field research. This informative evening combines a 45-minute pre-recorded interview with Siegmar Gerken, and a question and answer session on Zoom. Krippner and Gerken became friends in the 1970s, brought together by a shared interest in Kirlian photography.

The British Society for Psychical Research started gathering anecdotal reports of significant dreams and shared communications in the late 19th century and, in 1930s America, Joseph Banks Rhine began systematic experimental investigations in psychical research. When Krippner invited Rhine to speak at a conference, it caused a stir among his colleagues, but Rhine’s talk was brilliant and well attended. This early work paved the way for later experiments using more rigorous controls to investigate ESP, telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, psychokinesis, imaging and energetics of dreams.

Culture affects our reactions to experiments. For example, an Indian need not fight the sceptical stereotypes that hamper psychical research in Western minds. Love resonates with the flow of life and the field of consciousness, and a mystical sense of wonder has continued to flourish in some Western Arts, if not in philosophy. We should encourage our children to respond to intuition, follow hunches, and listen to feelings, as well as teaching them to reason and think logically, so that right and left hemispheres operate together.

Krippner is witnessing a resurgence of survival research. If consciousness is primary, it would make sense for consciousness to be eternal and this is crucially important work.

Report by Sue Lewis