Review of Leo Ruickbie’s BICS Essay

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Rules of Evidence – Survival

Review of Jeffrey Mishlove’s BICS Essay

Review of Pim van Lommel’s BICS Essay

Review of Leo Ruickbie’s BICS Essay

Review of Runner up BICS Essays

My (unselected) BICS Entry: Case for the Survival Hypothesis

Ruickbie, Leo. “The Ghost in the Time Machine.” Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies. 2021.

Reviewed by Tom Butler

Brief

Robert T. Bigelow sponsored an essay writing contest asking, “What is the best available evidence for the Survival of Human Consciousness after Permanent Bodily Death?” Bigelow noted in Issue 3, 2021 of the “Magazine for the Society for Psychical Review” interview that:

“Proving whether the other side exists or not is actually just the first step. The research community going back to the 1800s has been dominated by the effort to prove the existence in one way or another, or another, or another… so it has been dominated by the necessity of trying to prove the other side exists and that has gone on for almost two centuries, so at some point here, I want to move on and go to the next level up, which is probably much more profound than simply whether or not some aspect of your consciousness is going to survive your bodily death.” (Page 7)

As co-director of the Association TransCommunication (ATransC), and to help provide guidance to the paranormalist community, my intention is to review the twenty-nine winning essays while asking if they further the educational efforts of the ATransC and if they meet Bigelow’s objective?

Full Disclosure – The BICS essay contest offers an important opportunity for the paranormalist community to learn how parapsychologists and learned laypeople approach the Survival Hypothesis. My intention in reviewing the winning essays is to keep the lay community’s focus on survival-related phenomena from the perspective of the study of Instrumental TransCommunication (ITC).

As you read this review, please be mindful that I was one of the 204 entries accepted for the BICS essay contest. Mine was not one of the 29 selected essays. While my intention is to focus on the evidence, the fact that I entered but was not selected should warn you of the possibility that I may be too critical. So please, read this with discernment. (My qualifications are at the end.)

Assessing the Leo Ruickbie Essay

The third-place essay is titled “The Ghost in the Time Machine.”

Here is how I rated the essay based on the six standard questions I proposed in the preamble to this review series:

Is the essay easily understood by a lay audience? A grade of 9

The Scrooge Paradox is a good way to explain both the ghost concept and the nature of nonphysical mind. However, the explanation in the essay of theory for how mind relates to brain is a little more difficult to follow. Describing survival from the perspective of haunt phenomena is a refreshing approach to which many people should relate.

Does essay account for alternative explanation? A grade of 6

The idea that all time is now is the dominant theme. As I read the essay, Alternative explanations were mostly ignored.

Does the essay include support for why the proof is evidential? A grade of 5

The emphasis of this essay is on haunt phenomena as evidence of survived personality. Much of that evidence has alternative explanation that needed to be addressed. The reliability of pioneer researchers and experiencers as witnesses remains a question that needs more attention.

Does the essay further the reader’s understanding of survival? A grade of 8

While the essay does make a strong case for survival, it presents something of a one-sided argument. It is in alternative explanations that we come to understand why evidence is evidential. Credit to the author in that he did address possible mechanism of survival at the end.

Does the essay meet Bigelow’s objective? A grade of 10

This essay provides a lot of information that will broaden the reader’s understanding of haunt phenomena and the possible nontemporal nature of reality. Proof of survival gathered via the contest is accumulative in that no single proof or perspective is likely to settle the question. The perspective explained in this essay is a strong addition to that accumulative proof. (I am impressed by the amount of time I have spent contemplating nontemporal and quantum effects because of this essay. Right or wrong, it is thought provoking.)

Overall value for the paranormalist community? A grade of 8

The essay includes a couple potential “rabbit holes” that may distract future survival theorists from alternative, potentially more useful models. While concepts like quantum entanglement and no time need to be discussed, their treatment would better serve the community if they were presented in terms of one of many alternatives.

Total Score 46 of a possible 60

Review

The Scrooge Paradox

In his third place BICS essay, “The Ghost in the Time Machine,” author Leo Ruickbie called on Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol to illustrate the idea of ghosts and how people tend to think about ghosts. He notes in the essay that belief in ghosts is widespread. However, he noted that, just as Scrooge insisted indigestion caused his ghostly encounter, it is common for experiencers to dismiss ghostly encounters as imagination. He refers to such rejection of evidence as the Scrooge Paradox.

Ruickbie noted:

”When considering what the best evidence for the continuation of the human personality after permanent physical death is or could be, the question of ‘ghosts’ must be the first one to examine because it is the most common and well-known experience across both human history and culture.” (Page 5)

Ghosts of the Past

One of the problems with ghost is that encounters are usually spontaneous, making it necessary to examine the forensics of an encounter to help evaluate the actual nature of a report. For instance, in The Ghost of the Past category Ruickbie included a reported chance encounter with marching Roman soldier. The witness indicated that the soldiers seemed to be walking with their feet underground until they came to a place where their feet became visible. As it turned out, the soldiers were walking along an old Roman road that had been only partially excavated. Part of the evidence, then, is that there was a difference in appearance between the men walking where the road had not been excavated and where it had.

Ruickbie discussed the difference between repetitive (aka recorder ghost) and interactive ghosts. He also considered the possibility that ghost sightings might be just in the witness’ mind. He discussed the possibility that information given by a ghost might be just the witness psychically accessing the information.

Does Consciousness Still Exist in the Past?

With his comments about Near-Death Experiences (NDE) and reincarnation, Ruickbie began making a case that:

“Not only is the past still there, but that things in or of the past can apparently remain conscious and interact with the present, which is, of course, the future for the thing apparently still in the past. This fundamentally contravenes and disrupts our everyday experience of the flow of time, but it is not just the ‘past’ that is disrupted.” (Page 22)

As I read this, Ruickbie is arguing that, when personality “A” reincarnates as personality “B,” whatever survived of personality “A” can be said to be coming from the past to influence the present of personality “B.”

Ghosts of the Present

Ruickbie explained that a personal crisis can be a trigger for people to experience an apparition. Such “crisis apparition” might include perceiving the apparition of a loved one who has just died, even though the experiencer was unaware of the death. He also discussed the kinds of after death communication often reported in relationship to transitioned loved ones.

Several forms of apparent projection of conscious awareness including reported projection of consciousness by still living people, shared deathbed encounters with apparitions and what has become known as remote viewing were discussed. The point he makes in the essay is that the conscious self is not necessarily constrained by physical limits of the body. That is, such abilities are probably only possible if mind was independent of body. This is an important point that would be predicted by the Survival Hypothesis.

Ghosts of the Future

For Scrooge’s “ghost of the future,” Ruickbie made the argument that conscious self exists independent of time. Many parapsychologists argue that the proposed Psi Field is both nonlocal, meaning there are no apparent constrains of distance for psychic information access, and nontemporal, meaning there are no apparent constraints of time for psychic information access. That is, conscious self is able to psychically access information from any where and any when.

Many accounts of precognition are described in the essay, some are anecdotal, and some represent carefully contrived tests to determine if precognition actually occurred. Ruickbie noted that a Premonitions Bureau was established in 1966, and that it collected impressive precognition accounts.

Appropriately so, Ruickbie addressed the question of reliable witnesses. He noted that, “Because of the Scrooge Paradox, credibility and reliability are not really the issue.” (Page 58) He compared the popular wisdom of “what you see is what you get” with “what you see is what you think you see.” He also noted that memory is not reliable.

About witnesses, Ruickbie concluded:

To sum up, we have had credible witnesses present reliable testimony. In many cases this has been corroborated by other witnesses, who have either experienced the phenomenon at other times or at the same time. In addition, we have strong supporting evidence from incidents in which information was relayed that could not, under the circumstances, have been known to the percipient. Beyond that we have statistical analyses and meta-analyses that show patterns in human experience that are indicative of a real effect. Not only is this convincing evidence, but it rules out the alternative explanations, such as deliberate fraud, misperception, psychopathological hallucination, telepathy between the living, and environmental recording as being able to account for all of the cases. (Page 62)

The Problem of Consciousness

As Ruickbie noted, “To be meaningful the survival of consciousness must mean the survival, not just of ‘awareness,’ but of the thing that is ‘aware.’” Leaning on the prior points in the essay, he goes on to make a good case for why mind is not a product of brain.

The Problem of Reality

The main question addressed here is the nature of time. Ruickbie noted that:

“We have see n examples where an observer in his present sees an apparition in its past, and even where an apparition sees the observer in its future, then this must logically lead to the premise that time exists in its entirety all of the time, that is, time is not just the movement of physical objects through space (change), but a thing in itself.” (Page 72)

He went on to argue that in a “block universe,” time exists all at once. See “The block universe theory, where time travel is possible but time passing is an illusion” for a discussion of the block universe concept.

Ruickbie appealed to quantum principles to help explain how mind interfaces with brain. He noted that the Orchestrated Objective Reduction (Orch-OR) theory of information can help explain the nonlocal-nontemporal nature of mind. As I understand his point, the microtubules in the brain may facilitate such trans-etheric exchange of information. See “‘Orch OR’ is the most complete, and most easily falsifiable theory of consciousness” for more information.

The Ghost in the Time Machine

To conclude his essay, Ruickbie went back to the beginning where he defined a ghost as an Immaterial Identity Format (IIF). In the essay, he argued that the IFF is part of the past, the present and the future as one entangled consciousness.

Interesting Quotes

“The term [NDE] is not accurate: although some cases do indeed involve experiences when the body is near death, others involve experiences when the body is actually dead; and when we say ‘experiences’ we mean consciousness because only something conscious can have experiences. It is not a near-death experience but post-mortem consciousness. If we more accurately reframe the terms like this, then it becomes immediately apparent that evidence of consciousness after clinical death is evidence of the survival of consciousness after the death of the physical body.” (Page 39)

“We have to take these [NDE] experiences seriously because they are consistent across time and culture: they are not fantasy constructs that somehow get lucky, they are real.” (Page 39)

“Kenneth Ring gathered thirty-one cases of blind people reporting seeing things during an NDE that were later verified as true. Current medical science says that this is impossible, yet it happened thirty-one times, at least.” (Page 40)

“This phenomenon is not restricted to so-called ‘near-death experiences,’ but covers a wide range of things variously called astral projection, travelling clairvoyance, out-of-body experiences – the exosomatic class – as well as remote viewing, and deathbed visions. The evidence comes from reliable and credible witnesses, with no prior motive in promoting the survival hypothesis.” (Page 42)

“Any theory that might support survival does not have to account for those things that appear not to support survival. … However, even if the mind is independent of the brain, we still know that for physical existence the brain is very necessary, or else we would not have it. A malfunctioning brain due to disease does not rule out the independence of the mind, but simply shows that the reception of consciousness can become impaired to the point where we seem to be dealing with a different person. …” (Page 66)

“Modern neuroscience often uses information technology analogies to explain the working of the mind–brain. We can do that, too, but we will need something different from what I call the ‘fleshbot’ model. If the brain is the receiver of mind, then mind can be thought of as ‘in the cloud,’ and consciousness is like cloud computing, allowing us to see a possible model for consciousness to be non-local and in two places at once (the here-and-now and the here-after). After the permanent failure of the receiving instrument, consciousness simply continues in the cloud. We could call this ‘cloud consciousness,’ but we could also call it the consciousness dimension – we are just grasping for the best metaphor to represent this possibility to ourselves. The problem is where is the cloud and how does it work? “ (Page 66)

Ruickbie pointed out that some of the early thinkers, such as Albert Einstein, described the fundamental element of field as:

“Physical objects are not in space,” said Einstein, “but these objects are spatially extended (as fields). In this way the concept ‘empty space’ loses its meaning […] the field thus becomes an irreducible element of physical description, irreducible in the same sense as the concept of matter (particles) in the theory of Newton.” But ‘the field’ changes our understanding of ‘matter.’” (Page 69)

“Special Theory of Immateriality The observations presented here allow two hypotheses: 1) that consciousness can exist independently of the physical body; and 2) that consciousness can seemingly operate in a state outside our everyday experience of space and time. The first does not violate any ‘laws’ because we have no laws of consciousness, although it does contradict our expectation that consciousness is dependent on the brain, but is explicable if we use the alternative “reducing valve” model. The second does not contradict any laws because physics has shown that our everyday experience of space and time is not an accurate one.” (Page 70)

“This four-dimensional “block universe” in which time exists all at once would allow an external observer (e.g., in the higher dimensional bulk) to see past, present and future, just like someone experiencing an NDE life review or life preview, or someone having a premonition. But how could this be possible?” (Page 72)

In the subsection titled “Timetanglement,” Ruickbie argued that time may be an emergent property of quantum entanglement. My note: Such timetanglement appears to be bounded by the definition of its inherent system.

“In quantum computing, bits of information (qubits) exist simultaneously in an ‘on’ and ‘off’ state called superposition (this is what Schrödinger’s Cat is all about: being dead and alive until observed (measured)) before being unified into a single ‘calculation’ or ‘decision.’ Penrose and Hameroff argue that this takes place in the neuronal microtubules as an ‘orchestrated’ spacetime modification or ‘objective reduction’ of superposition. Hence the theory is known as Orchestrated Objective Reduction (Orch-OR). Hameroff described it as being like an orchestra, by which he meant that coherent meaning (the sound of the music) is created by vibrating structures (the playing of the instruments), with the musicians’ decision to play/not play being the objective reduction. (Page 74)

“The quantum state represents an information process: both one thing and the other, in the way light can be both a particle and a wave, until measurement causes a collapse of the wavefunction and it becomes one or the other. By modulating electromagnetic waves (light, infrared, radio, etc.) we can encode information; Mother Nature seems to do this with quantum states. This is the ‘bridge’ between cloud consciousness and the physical body.” (Page 74)

“If time is an emergent property from quantum entanglement and consciousness is information expressed through a quantum process or bridging, then we have the grounds for consciousness surviving outside of its entanglement with the physical, and therefore outside of time itself. This must occur outside the four-dimensional spacetime block universe (both the brain and the brane), but physics has ample dimensions to accommodate it.” (Page 76)

Criticism

Layout wise, I am not a fan of placing references on the same page as footnotes. Even more confusing, Ruickbie often added footnote-like comments to some of the references. For me, if something needs to be said, it is best said in the body of the document. The distributed references style also makes it difficult to track what is being said in the body and makes it harder to use the essay as a reference for further studies.

Experience has shown me that sources become less academically useful and more historical over time. Compilations of anecdotal and academic opinions, by themselves, do not constitute evidence. This is especially true of very old material. One reason for this is that researchers simply know more today. Consider the limits of “Informed Perception.” Even smart, well-informed researcher will tend to experience phenomena in light of what is known at the time.

I like that Ruickbie recognized the need to establish a logical model relating the evidence of experiences and research to why the evidence is evidential. It is one thing to cite many evidential sources and another to provide a reasonable argument for why such material at least arguably proves the point.

Most of the essay is written from the nonphysical mind-centric point of view rather than the usual body-centric point of view. In that sense, much of his discussions about enabling principles are concerned with how mind interfaces with body and the nature of mind’s natural habitat. This is a positive choice on Ruickbie’s part, because from my experience, how something may be true helps us understand the concepts.

Time

This review took a lot longer to write than I expected because it forced me to reexamine my views on the idea that the Psi Field is nontemporal as well as nonlocal. (Making people want to argue, I think, is what these essays are all about.)

Here, I use nonlocal in the sense that there appears to be no distance in the etheric. Based on my study of ITC, the nonlocal concept seems to be a useful model.

Nontemporal is a rather different question. There are two kinds of time to be considered. One is duration of a process. Each state in a process represents a duration it exists and duration of interval between steps. For instance, presentiment is the delay between stimulus and bodily reaction verses stimulus and conscious awareness of the stimulus. Our body reacts to sensed danger before we become consciously aware of the danger. Duration or interval as concepts represent time as an aspect of the physical.

The aspect of time I think needs to be better understood concerns the “when” something exists. Ruickbie uses the idea that past, present and future exist at once. My sense is that people reporting precognitive information are actually sensing potential futures, rather than the future itself. Three corollaries of First Sight Theory have a bearing on psychic sensing of potential futures:

Integration Corollary: Other preconscious processes are processed together with psi in a rapid, holistic, efficient, unconscious manner to format experience and action.

Anticipation Corollary: The mind seeks to anticipate events.

Weighting and Signing Corollary: The importance of sensory and extrasensory information is weighted as being more or less important before it is acted upon.

First Sight Theory was proposed by James Carpenter based on his formal education and experience as a clinical psychologist and research into the nature of Psi functioning.

First Sight: a Model and a Theory of Psi by James Carpenter

First Sight: Part Two, Elaboration of a Model of Psi and the Mind by James Carpenter

A possible third characteristic of time in the etheric comes from the implications of nonlocality. A psychic in New York sensing what a person in San Francisco is experiencing as it is happening gives the witness the sense that there is no time. The psychic’s “travel” appears instantaneous. However, nonlocality indicates that “everywhere is here,” meaning there is no “distance” to “travel.” There is only a change in attention and time would not be a factor.

Another possible limiting factor for perception is the organizing principle I refer to as Perceptual Agreement: Personality must be in perceptual agreement with the aspect of reality with which it will associate. This is all about our worldview (personal map of reality). We are less apt to experience something that does not agree with our sense of what is real. If we do, what we sense is probably modified to better agree with our expectations.

Even if all time is now, if a person has no worldview references for a sensed future, it is possible the person will not consciously perceive the information. If the person does, it would probably be modified to agree with expectations.

This is back to my point of Informed Perception. Being informed is a characteristic of worldview. The usefulness of a person’s possible precognitive access of information would be limited by the person’s ability to differentiate information about the actual future from the likely story his or her mind tells.

Mind-Brain Interface

The last part of Ruickbie’s essay is concerned with how mind is able to interface with biological brain. Most of his focus is on quantum mechanics to help explain how thought might influence brain. I suspect future history will show that quantum mechanics is a blind alley. Using ITC again, we see evidence that intended order is able to influence random physical processes. One of the physical processes that might help explain this interface is stochastic resonance. In that, a small signal can be amplified when mixed with a much larger signal in nonlinear amplification.

The reason we looked at stochastic resonance is that ITC appears to be a direct mind-to-physical interface. The biological brain does not appear to be involved when an electronic device is used as the etheric-to-physical transformer. However, there are opportunities for stochastic amplification in the electrochemical processes of the brain. The only influence mind needs to have on the brain is to send movement commands. For all else, we seem to be looking for the organism’s “body-mind” managing morphogenesis and maintenance.

The real challenge seems to be finding how biologically sensed information is transmitted by the body to mind. My first consideration is to look at how a phased array antenna works. That would explain the way regions of the brain light up instead of individual cells. The quantum processes identified in microtubules might be the mechanism. Ruickbie seemed to be going in that direction of thought. I do not know, but my sense is that he is asking the right questions. I am just concerned that saying “quantum” stops people from looking further.

Closing Comments

I consider myself pro-survival. I am convinced by the evidence and have seen logical models that might explain how we survive. To be clear, I am not arguing against survival when I point out parts of these essay with which I disagree. Laypeople tend to suspend discernment when a researcher explains complex concepts under cloak of academic authority. That is how we end up with such poorly supported popular cultural truths as “mind is a quantum effect of brain” and “it must be true because a Ph.D. said so.”

In my opinion, Leo Ruickbie did a good job of presenting evidence and a rationale for his conclusions. I have disagreement with his conclusions about time and the brain-mind interface. Even so, he has opened the door to further discussion. At least, that seems to be the future intention of BICS.

Because of this essay, I have begun composing an essay to be titled “Rules of Evidence – Time and quantum.” To me, it is a gift when I encounter information that causes me to begin with “No way” but then to move on to “Well, maybe…. Let me see … maybe this.”

Tom Butler

My Qualifications

BS Electrical and Electronics Engineer
Ordained by the National Spiritualist Association of Churches (NSAC)
NSAC National Spiritualist Teacher
Trained in several psychic and mediumship modalities. Certified medium with the NSAC.
Trained in several healing modalities (healing intention) including Reiki Master and NSAC certification.
Co-director of the Association TransCommunication (ATransC) since 2000. (ATransC was formally known as the American Association Electronic Voice Phenomena (AA-EVP)).
Conducted several lay studies of ITC characteristics, including:

4Cell EVP Demonstration

EVP Online Listening Trials

EVP Online Phantom Voices

Information Gathering Using EVPmaker With Allophone: A Yearlong Trial

Perception of Visual ITC Images

Radio-Sweep: A Case Study

Using EVP to find a Missing Person Page 16, Winter 2007 ATransC NewsJournal

Sponsored: EVPmaker with Allophones: Where are We Now?

Sponsored: A Research Study into the Interpretation of EVP