Cynthia Sue Larson Interviews Pamela Heath

Pamela Heath

I had the distinct pleasure to chat this month with the author of one of the most comprehensive books on the topic of how mind influences the material world, and I’m honored to share our conversation with you. Pamela Heath, M.D. is the author of Mind-Matter Interaction: A Review of Historical Reports, Theory and Research, a book that is a real gem to anyone seriously interested in exploring everything ESP and PSI related.

CYNTHIA: While reading your wonderful book, Mind-Matter Interaction, I was impressed with the breadth and depth of the subject material covered. Not only do you delve into the history of such things as poltergeists and metal-bending, but some things I’ve seldom seen mentioned before are also included, such as Deliberately Caused Bodily Damage Phenomenon. The amount of research you put into this book is truly extraordinary. When did you first start this book, and what was your primary motivation for writing it?

PAMELA: One of the things you have to do in a doctorate program is decide on a dissertation topic. The program chairman (Jon Klimo, with whom I later wrote 2 books) advised me to pick something no one else had done. That way it helps fill in gaps in our knowledge and has the secondary benefit of giving one a unique area of expertise. Since I was a medical doctor I was interested in anomalous healing. Unfortunately there were already a great many published high quality studies—I didn’t feel I could really add anything meaningful to the literature. However, no one had ever done a rigorous phenomenological study on mind-matter interaction. So, I tackled that. When I asked one of my faculty, Jerry Solfvin (who was originally on my board but left before I defended my dissertation) what he wanted me to do for the literature review he said “Everything since the dawn of man from every culture around the world.” After I got my breath back, I set to work. And he was right. Such a review was really needed. There hadn’t been a decent summary of the mind-matter interaction research since 1976. It was a stunning amount of work. After I graduated in 1999 I turned the thesis into “The PK Zone” and turned my attention to other books for a while. However, I swore I wouldn’t let the material get more than 10 years out of date (a promise I now know better than to make again). So, every time new research came out, I added it to what would become “Mind-Matter Interaction.” This multiplied when the online parapsychology library database became available with every journal article since the 1880s. I worked to fill in earlier gaps for material I’d had no earlier access to as well as adding newer research. In addition, I developed friendships with other researchers who were kind enough to share their insights with me and improve my understanding of the experimental findings. One of the many new friends I made was Dr. Hussein in Jordan, a researcher on Deliberately Caused Bodily Damage Phenomena. It was wonderful to get his insights (since this is seen more in the Middle East than the West) and published data so I could add it in. You’ll also see some other new topics. So, the end book took 12 years of work.

CYNTHIA: Wow–Twelve years of work is quite an investment of time, effort, and energy! What motivates you to so thoroughly dedicate yourself to this area of research?

PAMELA: Part of it was I wanted answers for myself—why I could do things my scientific training told me were impossible. Part of it was probably just my personality. When I do things, I like to do them right, to be as complete and accurate as I can be. However, I learned my lesson! I don’t plan on updating the book again.

CYNTHIA: I love the fact that you’re a medical doctor with an interest in psychokinetic phenomena, since your training suggests you bring a solid scientific background and comprehensive awareness of the “body” component in mind-body-spirit dynamics. What Mind-Matter Interaction research would you most like to see medical schools include in their standard curriculum?

PAMELA: I would like to see medical students trained in basic healing techniques as well as greater awareness of the statistical effectiveness of prayer. Even talking about prayer is somewhat taboo in the medical profession unless you live in the South. However, prayer needn’t be religious. Focused well-wishing of others can have an impact. In addition, I’ve only known a few doctors who were aware of the usefulness of medical intuitives when conventional diagnostic methods fail.

CYNTHIA: One of the things I especially love about your book, Mind-Matter Interaction is the way you describe fourteen constituents to the Mind-Matter Interaction. I’ve noticed when I experience psi phenomena such as psychokinetic effects, reality shifts and/or ESP that several of these factors are present, such as: openness to the experience, playfulness, trust in the process, focused awareness, ego detachment, suspension of intellect and a sense of energy. I especially love your statement that,

“To affect something in this way, an individual must first become a part of a greater whole. This involves being open and able (or willing) to connect.”

While our world would clearly benefit from encouraging people to adopt these attributes that are so conducive to mind-matter interaction, few western cultures seem supportive of encouraging mind-matter interaction. Have you visited cultures who are supportive of psi-positive qualities?

PAMELA: I spent two years with the Navajo and felt they were a very psi-conducive culture.

There’s more acceptance of certain aspects of mind-matter interaction such as prayer healing in the West than you might think. What isn’t accepted are parapsychological terms—an issue you see even among paranormal investigators. A lot of it comes down to language. Talking to another doc I might refer to “gut feelings” whereas with someone else I could talk about something my subconscious mind picked up on (which includes psychic input), a tickle in the hind brain, hunches, dreams, intuition, precognition, “blue sense” (cops), visions, clairsentience, or some other term. Each subculture (whether by profession, location, or religion) has its own language of what is acceptable. When one becomes fluid in translating terms from those acceptable in one subculture to that of another, many (though not all) of the differences fade away. However, there’s not a lot of advantage for anyone in admitting they are psychic. It only draws attacks from disbelievers.

CYNTHIA: Something I learned from attending the “Language of Spirit” conference with indigenous elders, linguists and physicists is that our language can influence our thinking much more than most of us realize. For example, Cheyenne Indians have a word that means both “duck” and also “snake” when an extra word referring to “going down a hole in the ground” is added, because the shared word describes the motion those two animals make as they sway from left to right. I wonder whether we might glean insights from contemplating such action-based similarities between ESP and psychokinesis, for example. What are your thoughts on the significance of terminology for helping us better grasp what’s going on with mind-matter interaction?

PAMELA: Names have a lot of power. They can make us feel in control, reflect what we know about something, offer possible insights, or even limit our potential understanding about the thing named. Most of the time having different words for things (such as the numerous terms Eskimos have for different types of snow) expands our ways of thinking of things. However, in research it can be problematic to treat the same thing as if it is two different things. Many parapsychologists (myself included) feel it’s misleading to talk about ESP as separate from mind-matter interaction because they may be the same thing called by two different names. That’s part of why many of us are shifting to the more general term of psi.

CYNTHIA: With so many types of MMI experiences described in your book, I can’t help but wondering which types of experiences you’ve had. Would you please share one of your especially memorable mind-matter interactions?

PAMELA: My first MMI experiences were with anomalous healing. I trained with a Spiritualist healer in Casadaga, Florida for six months and had some wonderful experiences with séances and chasing a table around a room there, too. Early on I blew light bulbs when angry. For a while, I had to keep a lot of spares around! However, I learned not to do that. I’ve also bent spoons and spun energy wheels, but can’t really say any single experience has stood out more than the others. I’ve tucked it into my life so there’s an everyday baseline of psi that I seldom think about, I just use. A lot of the healing work I do now is for spirits. You would think they didn’t need it, but some do and not many folks do that kind of work because there’s no payment or recognition, just the feeling of knowing you’ve helped and the silent gratitude of the dead.

CYNTHIA: I see you’ve written a couple of fascinating looking books, Handbook to the Afterlife, and Suicide: What Really Happens in the Afterlife, which definitely look like the kinds of coffee table books that would stimulate some pretty lively dinner conversations. Clearly both of these books deal with the afterlife–could you tell us why you devoted an entire book to the subject of suicide in particular?

PAMELA: In many ways I felt it was—or should have been—Jon’s book, but it morphed into my doing most of the work and writing. As to how it came about, anyone who has been a graduate student knows you spend a lot of hours in your chairman’s office hearing them talk about things. One of the topics Jon spoke of was how he was once asked by a psychologist to gather the channeled messages of suicides and talk about them with a suicidal client. Jon put together something like twenty pages of material, which, in the case of taking the life of a healthy body pretty consistently says “You won’t burn in Hell if you do it, but it’s really not a good idea. Don’t do it.” The doctor part of me loved this. It’s like informed consent—know what you’re getting into before you burn your bridges. Then, even if you choose to proceed, you will at least be better able to navigate the situation. I told him he should do a book on it, that it would save lives. After about four years of the same back and forth, Jon admitted he didn’t have those twenty pages anymore and really didn’t want to regather them. So, I offered to do it. Many of the books we pulled the material from came from Jon’s library. He’s got one of the best collections of channeled material in the world, as he’s an expert on the field. Many volumes are very rare and hard to find. Unfortunately, they aren’t very organized! I read about five hundred channeled books and articles, noting which ones had even remotely credible information. I say remotely credible because not every medium who channels is getting the info from outside themselves. When it sounded like they were making stuff up (like the one claiming to channel Shakespeare complaining about the women actresses he had to work with, when those who know history realize men played all the roles) then I did not include it. Otherwise, I tried to collect as much from as many different cultures and eras as I could. Jon and I felt that it would give us our best shot at finding what the spirits really say, rather than what mediums claim they say. I gave it all to Jon but nothing happened. So, I organized the material for him. Nothing happened again. Next, I began writing the book. At this point he joined in, adding his more experienced writer’s voice, particularly in the introduction and conclusion. We spent months tracking down permissions and paid thousands of dollars in copyright fees so that readers can see firsthand for themselves what channels say. It was very important to us that they realize we weren’t making up our conclusions, and could draw their own. Unfortunately, because those copyright permissions were so difficult to obtain and were limited to small print runs, the book will never be released in electronic format.

Handbook to the Afterlife was something that grew out of my going to paranormal conventions. It bothered me that some folks saw the dead as things to experiment on, not understanding the dead’s needs and humanity, while other genuinely cared but were clueless about what was going on or how to help. A lot of good information was already in the Suicide book, but the topic was so polarizing that folks refused to read it. So, I asked Jon whether he’d like to work with me again on something that took out the suicide emphasis and organized the material on more of a “what happens?” basis and keep it short and concise, like a Cliff notes version of the afterlife. Jon felt it was not worth doing unless we could be different from other books about the afterlife. We decided what would distinguish us from others would be an emphasis of the stages of the afterlife as a kind of continuation of lifespan development. Most books talk about the afterlife as a place. They describe it as a setting. But the setting doesn’t really matter—they vary by culture, self-generated by spirits. However, there is common ground in another way—an underlying core process all beings who die must move through. The tricky part was figuring out how to organize the stages of the afterlife. There is a certain amount of arbitrariness to whether you lump some things together or make them separate. However, we did our best to find the common ground, drawing not only on the earlier sources I had read for the Suicide book, but also new ones as well. The last third of the book was also something of me coming out of the closet as a psychic who spends a lot of time working with the dead. We were mostly finished when my parents were killed in a natural gas explosion that burned their house to the ground. I don’t talk much about my personal experiences during that time, but the result was a pretty complete rewrite of the last third of the book and a change in the book’s dedication. To be honest, I’m very proud of this book. We tried to make it not only useful but readable—a tough task for two academics!

CYNTHIA: One thing I didn’t ask you about after reading your book, but thought about after seeing your website is the fascinating topic of table tipping. I can’t help but wonder how this activity came into your life, and what you find most interesting about it.

PAMELA: People tend to react to physical phenomena in one of three ways: denial, fear, or thinking it’s fun. It probably helped me that the first time I was exposed to these things that it was by folks at a Spiritualist camp who were completely comfortable with them. When I started taking anomalous healing lessons from Reverend Mary Smiley it opened a number of doors for me. One of them was that as her student I got invited to old fashioned physical séances that the camp mediums did for fun. No outsiders were allowed. It wasn’t for pay. So, I was the only nonprofessional medium present, and had a complete blast. One of the highlights of those séances was chasing a very heavy wood table around a room, all of us in short sleeves (Florida can get hot) with fingers on top of the table. That table was really moving fast! It was hard to keep up with it. That experience was really important to me because it cemented in my mind that these things can be real, not all of them are fraud. That shaped my mindset when I went through the parapsychology program, because if you talk to the folks trained in Edinburgh (which is responsible for the majority of what few doctorates there are in parapsychology) most of them are extremely skeptical if not disbelieving of psi. I don’t tend to think of these things as interesting so much as delightful—that the world is more than one might think. Watching flashlights move on the USS Hornet or turn on and off without being touched to answer questions elicits the same response in me. I don’t treat it in a Spock-like way of something fascinating to analyze. I simply enjoy it. And that attitude actually makes events more likely to occur. I don’t go into analytical mode unless trying to help someone solve activity that is interfering with their life—whether a haunting or physical phenomena.

CYNTHIA: Thank you so very much for making time to answer some questions–I feel deeply grateful that you’ve shared so many fascinating ideas about mind-matter interaction. Would you please let us know where we can learn more about you, your books, your events, and your activities?

PAMELA: The best place to go to is my website www.pamelaheath.com. I have tried to make it a helpful resource for folks. Everything there is free. You’ll find FAQ pages, video, journal articles, and other goodies.

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Thank you for reading my interview with Pamela Heath! Chances are good that if you read and enjoyed this interview, you’ll also enjoy my books, especially the one I wrote about mind-matter interaction: Reality Shifts: When Consciousness Changes the Physical World

Self Hypnosis Q and A with Eldon Taylor

A few years back, I was delighted to come across the work of New York Times best selling author, Eldon Taylor. I was delighted to see the way Taylor so generously shared the most powerful insights from his years of experience in corporate marketing, such as what’s really going on in subliminal marketing all around us today. There are hidden messages in many of the magazine, billboard, TV and radio advertisements that most of us are never fully aware of, and this mysterious realm of subconscious conversations piqued my curiosity.

I’m so grateful to be able to share some questions and answers today with Eldon Taylor, who is here to talk with us about his brand new book, Self-Hypnosis and Subliminal Technology: A How-to Guide for Personal-Empowerment Tools You Can Use Anywhere.

You have been called the “Master of the Mind” and “one of the world’s foremost experts in preconscious processing.” How did you became interested in hypnosis and subliminal communication?
I think I have always been interested in the power of the mind; early on I read a lot of books on the subject and attended numerous school specializing in hypnosis. However, my interest really took off in the 80s. I was a practicing criminalist at the time and I frequently ran lie-detection examinations. One of the problems in lie-detection tests is in eliminating the inconclusives—some people are so nervous about the procedure itself that, even though they are innocent, they can give readings that would indicate deception. On the other hand, some people are very experienced at taking lie-detection tests and they use counter-measures. I was looking for a way to make the innocent person more relaxed and the guilty person, more tense.
I came across some research regarding law enforcement using subliminal audio programs in a hostage situation, and although I could never verify this, it did give me the incentive to explore this area a whole lot more.  I contacted numerous companies who were producing subliminal self-help programs and I discovered that the whole field was rife with mis-information. Quite frankly, many of these companies simply did not understand the process themselves, and as a result they were producing products with no retrievable subliminal content, poorly designed affirmations, or affirmations presented in such a way that the subconscious mind could only perceive it as being gibberish.
To cut a long story short, I did my own research and created my own subliminal program for use in my lie detection practice. The results were phenomenal! My inconclusives pretty much disappeared and I found myself launching a whole new career. If subliminal communication could be so effective in this scenario, what else could we achieve with it? I created more subliminal audio programs and allowed them to be tested by numerous independent institutions and researchers (such as scientists at Stanford University). The results were all positive.
My fascination with hypnosis followed a very similar path. Initially I used hypnosis  for forensic applications, but as I learned more and more about the power of the mind, I started using hypnosis as a tool for personal growth.
As my reputation grew, I was called in as an expert court witness with regards to both hypnosis and subliminal communication.

How do address concerns that subliminal communication has been proven to be ineffective, and that laws now exist, banning it’s use?
Now that is an interesting question! Why would you need laws banning their use if they have been proven ineffective. And if there were laws banning their use, how come they are being used so much today—in music, entertainment, movies and even during election cycles.
The fact is, there has been a concerted effort, by those who use these methods the most, to prevent laws from being created that would ban the use of subliminals. This is something I experienced first hand when we tried to introduce a bill in Utah to allow subliminals to be used only with informed consent. I was amazed at the number of major advertising companies who sent representatives to fight against this bill.
The closest thing we have today is a codification by the FCC that says subliminals should not be used. However, where the station may lose their broadcast license if they ‘knowingly’ air material containing subliminal information, there is no other punishment attached to this.  As a result, even when George Bush’s campaign was discovered using a subliminal ad against Al Gore, nothing could be done about it—the stations broadcasting the commercial did not ‘know’ about the subliminal content, and there was no punishment that could be levied against Bush’s team for having included it.  What is more interesting here is, subsequent research done at Adelphi University clearly showed that this ad would have influenced the voter!
If you do a quick search at youtube for  subliminal ads, you will be amazed at how many there are and how frequently they are still being used. By turning the whole field into a joke, the mind manipulators are allowed to carry on using these techniques unhindered!

Some people assert that hypnosis is just a sci-fi myth. Is it really possible that people can be made to do someone else’s bidding?
Hypnosis is very real and has been researched extensively by the U.S. government.  By slowing down brain wave activity it is possible to access memories you thought you had forgotten, change your feelings about an experience and prime yourself to act in a way of your choosing at some future event.
The fact is, everyone (except the very young and those with some cognitive deficiency that does not allow them to concentrate) can be hypnotized.  However, you cannot be made to do something that would go against your own inner standards/values. If you were pushed in this way during a hypnosis session, you would simply come out of hypnosis!

What is the relationship between hypnosis and subliminal communication, and why do you think they are vital tools for self-improvement?
Both hypnosis and subliminal technology deal directly with the subconscious mind, which is the repository of all of your experiences, feelings and reaction.  These subconscious beliefs play a definite role in your ability to achieve goals. For example, if you were brought up to believe that ‘money is the source of all evil,’ and then you had the conscious desire to be rich and successful, this subconscious belief would keep finding ways to sabotage you.  Or maybe your outer goal is to lose weight, but somewhere in your past you were hurt by a significant other, so you put on extra weight in order to avoid attracting unwanted attention. Until you deal with some of these subconscioius beliefs, until your inner goals are in line with your outer goals, success will always elude you.
Hypnosis works by slowing down brainwave activity, which makes it easier to recover memories, to access your own subconscious beliefs and also to reprogram yourself for success.  Subliminal communication works by bypassing conscious awareness and all of its defense mechanisms.  It changes your self-talk (the beliefs held by your subconscious) from the inside out. As your self-talk changes, so does your life experience. It’s important to note, the current data suggests that approx. 90% of your choices are actually made by the nucleus accumbens, the area of the brain that is in our subconscious domain.

Can you share some of your greatest success stories using hypnosis?
I think my most amazing experience with hypnosis was when I was doing this for a client who needed to learn pain management. One day, after a normal session, she suddenly began to channel a Chinese entity! It seems he had some information specifically for me, but I had to send the audio recording off to the language department at the University of Utah before I could learn what he was saying!
However, that really is an anomalous kind of event! I think, not counting that one, I have used forensic hypnosis to assist a victim in providing identifying information after he was robbed at gun-point. Out of hypnosis, all he could remember was the size of the gun, but under hypnosis he even managed to remember the car and a partial license plate.
I have also used hypnosis for child birth, when a friend of mine asked for help as she wanted to minimize the use of drugs for pain.

What else is hypnosis good for?
There are so many areas in which hypnosis has been used successfully. These range from weight loss and smoking, to pain management and stress, from enhancing sports performance to enhancing learning abilities, from self-healing to sex enhancement, and from meditation to past life regression.

I’d love to know if you have any amazing success stories as a result of using subliminal communication–are there any stories you care to share?
All success stories are amazing, simply because they have improved the quality of that person’s life. However, some of the most fascinating stories would have to include the individual who credited using a program for Prosperity and Abundance for finding a winning lottery ticket, or the person who trades on the stock exchange and always does better when working with this same program.  And I have received a number of letters from people in remission from cancer, who attribute this to using the Spiritual Healing for Cancer program that I offer.

What else can you use subliminal programs for?
Again, this list is as wide as those for hypnosis. Basically, if you do not believe you can succeed, then this belief will prevent you from becoming the best that you can be.  The best part of my job is the many letters I receive, on a daily basis, telling me how much their lives have improved using my InnerTalk subliminal programs. I love hearing from the mother who is happy that her child is no longer afraid of school, or the student who has just passed their law school Bar exam, or the Olympic athlete who just won a medal. I have received letters regarding relationship, health, spirituality, better life, business and addictions. All of these are areas users have reported improvements in, which have resulted in an increased quality of life.

You say in your book that self-hypnosis and subliminal communication are the best self-help tools. Do you use them yourself, and if so, how?
Yes, I use them myself virtually every day! The subliminal programs are easy to use as they can just be played in the background as you go about your day. Sometimes I will be working on something specific, say avoiding catching a cold that is going around. In this instance I use the Accelerated Healing and Well-Being program. When I am not working on something specific, then I like to keep myself ‘tuned up’ and will use a program such as Optimism Plus or Quantum Younging. I actually have a number of programs that I have put on my i-phone, which of course has built in speakers. This way I can keep my phone in its holster and benefit from the subliminal programs whatever I am doing.
I generally use self-hypnosis twice a day. I try to take time out to meditate every day and self-hypnosis can really speed this process up. I can achieve in a 10 minute session what would take me half an hour if I did not use self-hypnosis. I also use self-hypnosis last thing at night. It is a great way to go to sleep and also for keeping myself focused on my goals while I am sleeping.

In your book, Self-Hypnosis and Subliminal Technology, you provide step-by-step instructions for learning self-hypnosis and for creating your own subliminal program.  Is this really all you need, or is this just an introduction to more courses and classes the reader needs to go through before they can achieve any practical benefits?
No, I have tried to make the course as complete as possible. I explain the theory behind both processes, provide detailed information on how to do it all yourself, and give you examples of how you can take these techniques even further. The book comes with an audio CD so that you can experience all of this as well, so there can be no confusion about whether or not you are doing it correctly. Once you have been through this course, you will know:
•    The 5 different steps for putting yourself into a hypnotic state;
•    Several visualization, induction and deepening techniques, including deepening to eliminate distraction;
•    All about post-hypnotic cues, affirmations, self-suggestions, how to uncover information and find the positive in negative experiences;
•    How hypnosis can be used to create new habits, uncover hidden conflicts that often cause self-destructive patterns and discover new solutions to old problems; and
•    Even how to use hypnosis for expanding conscious awareness, out of body awareness, regression-therapy, and automatic-writing/drawing!
You will also know:
•    How subliminal communication works;
•    Why it is so much more powerful than simply using affirmations;
•    How to write effective affirmations for subliminal delivery;
•    The importance of choosing the right soundtrack; and
•    How you can create your own custom subliminal program, for whatever goal you seek to achieve!
I also provide plenty of examples of how to use these two techniques in your own self-improvement program.

Can you tell us a little about your special book launch event?
My publicist has really gone to town on this book launch. She has enlisted the support from a large number of my friends and colleagues and they are all offering additional bonus gifts when you get your copy during the book launch event. We also have numerous drawings for some other fabulous gifts from personalities such as Linda Evans (Emmy nominated and award winning actress and author), Dee Wallace (award winning actress, author, healer and teacher), Norm Shealy (M.D., researcher and teacher), Crystal Andrus (best-selling author and women’s advocate), Alex Loyd (author and teacher of The Healing Codes), Caroline Sutherland (author and renowned medical intuitive), Shazzie (author, teacher and raw food expert) and Steven Halpern (award winning composer and recording artist). There is also a drawing to win 2 tickets, airfare and hotel to a Hay House I Can Do It Conference, where you will have the chance to see Wayne Dyer, Louise Hay, myself and many other prominent self-help authors. To learn more about this book launch, please click here. ( http://www.progressiveawarenesspromotions.com/it/12j/indexJ.html )

Love always,
Cynthia Sue Larson
email Cynthia at cynthia@realityshifters.com

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