WHITEMANX

MANY LEVELS,
MANY WORLDS AND PSI:

A GUIDE TO THE WORK OF
MICHAEL WHITEMAN 1
by John Poynton
ABSTRACT
The late Professor Michael Whiteman produced a large body of literature
relating to psychical research. This guide aims to help the reader to access
this complex and often conceptually difficult material; it involves thinking
about many levels of causation, and the possibility of many different worlds
of experience. Whitemans aim was to provide a rationally coherent and
illuminating account of the inner constitution of physical and non-physical
worlds. Building mainly on concepts of potentiality and actualisation
derived from quantum theory and classical sources, he developed a multilevel account of potentiality and resulting actualisation in physical and
non-physical worlds. Telepathy, clairvoyance and precognition were held to
be explicable in these terms. A multi-world view was developed out of an
exploration of how different worlds of experience are constituted. He rejected
the materialistic view that reality subsists only in objects located in the one
physical world; he recognised an inexhaustible variety of non-physical
worlds of experience. He accepted that ordinary experiencing and ordinary
understanding will not directly disclose the inner constitution of physical
and non-physical worlds; some degree of separation or release from ordinary
life is required. Among several states which could favour this condition,
special attention was given to out-of-body experience. The literature generally
assumes that the separated body is located in the same space as the physical
body, namely physical space, supposedly the only real space. Whiteman
argued for the separated body being located in non-physical space, even
when this mimicked physical space, and devised his own index of reality
which excluded physical reference. Fixation on physical data was seen
This article is based on a paper presented at the Esalen Center for Theory and Research
Conference, 25th May 2009. It has benefited from discussion at the conference and in
subsequent correspondence.
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to devalue the internal evidence of a recorded experience, and so limit

comprehension and effectiveness in research.
Whiteman aligned himself with Husserls phenomenology, which sought
to penetrate behind appearances. He aimed to identify primordial concepts,
such as axioms leading logically from potentiality to the actualities of psi
phenomena, and structures of creativity underlying psychology and physics
(or subjective and objective worlds), thereby unifying them. Much importance
was given to number systems and cycles, recognised in ancient testimonies
and by several modern writers, especially 16-fold cycles formulated in the
Upanishads and quantum theory. He showed that analysis of an individuals
functioning, and the major field laws of physics, could be derived from
properties of the 16-fold creative cycle, the outcome of universal reason.
Personality structure was analysed in terms of a core identity and
non-physical contributory minds in the personality, based on his
own observations, classical Indian literature and some recent authors.
Reincarnation was treated with circumspection; many cases of apparent
recall of a previous life cannot be attributed to reincarnation (such as
retrocognition), and a distinction was held between loose reincarnation
where memories of contributory minds combine with an individuals
memory store, and strict reincarnation which may include memories
carried through a continuing line of consciousness. His multi-level and
multi-world insights were based on a wealth of direct experience. Development of his ideas of non-physical substructure behind the physical world
and the physical personality can to an extent be traced in successive
episodes in his life.
INTRODUCTION
The Journal of the SPR has carried short reviews of the work of the
late Michael Whiteman, an emeritus professor of applied mathematics
at the University of Cape Town, who had extensive psychical and mystical experience, along with an expert knowledge of classical mystical
texts (Poynton, 1994, 1996, 2007a, 2007b). His death at the age of 100
in 2007 calls for fuller exploration of his work. This review focuses on
aspects that have particular relevance to phenomena studied in psychical
research; it is conceived as a guide to this area of his complex work, using
extracts and references to his extensive publications.
In conventional scientific theorising, any explanation for psi is
presumed to be discoverable in physical realities. As attempts to
explain psi in physical terms fail, the conventional conclusion is that
data purporting to demonstrate psi must be faulty in some way. This
conclusion disregards a fundamental understanding, especially evident
in some areas of physics, that what is observed cannot be explained at
the level of the events themselvesexplanation requires seeking another
level of causation beyond ordinary sense perception. This multi-level view
is a keystone of Whitemans work, which emphasises the fruitlessness of
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Many Levels, Many Worlds and Psi
looking for the causes and processes of psi at a physical level, and instead
provides some guidance as to where understanding may be found. It is
an exploration into how worlds of experience are constituted, and how
we may comprehend something of their working. This involves thinking
about many levels of causation, and the possibility of many different
worlds of experience.
These ideas were not the result of speculative theorising but of direct
observation combined with conceptual analysis. A cornerstone of Whitemans writing was to provide evidence of direct experience, as declared
in his first book, The Mystical Life (Whiteman, 1961), whose subtitle is:
An Outline of its Nature and Teachings from the Evidence of Direct
Experience. The term evidence also appears in the title of his series,
Old and New Evidence on the Meaning of Life (Whiteman, 1986, 2000,
2006). Contracting the title of these volumes to The Meaning of Life and
ignoring the first part of the title, Old and New Evidence on . . . , is to
misjudge the thrust of Whitemans work.
THE FAILURE OF THE RULING WORLD-VIEW
Whitemans multi-level view may be approached through his criticism
of what is currently the ruling world-view, discussed by him as classical
ontology or one-level naturalism (Whiteman, 1967, pp.374375, 1973,
pp.348349, 1986, p.140). This view, which had become established by
the seventeenth century, is firstly, there is just one real space and time
. . . secondly, the only realities are point-particles and fields . . . thirdly,
there exists a complete set of mathematical laws by means of which the
measures for particles and fields are exactly determined for all future
time (Whiteman, 1975a, p.124). Despite the astonishing successes
achieved in some cases, a total reduction to mechanism proves to be
irrational or unworkable, owing principally to the theory of relativity
(which shows there is nothing absolute about mathematical measures
of space and time) and quantum theory (which shows that waves, or
other structures controlling probability, are beyond the scope of physical
observation, and cannot be physically located ) (Whiteman, 1975a,
pp.125127). The standard one-level naturalism also fails to account for
what he listed as consciousness, the self, free will, meaning, knowledge,
and moralityin other words, the essentials of being human. And it fails
especially to account for the more exceptional features of human being,
such as psi phenomena, out-of-body experiences and mystical states.
Whiteman saw a parallel between the problems raised in physics and
in parapsychology: in each case there is a crisis in that the results of
experiment are incompatible with the classical ontology; there is the
problem of reality in that the causes of what is observed physically
cannot themselves be observed physically; and there is a problem of
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completeness in that a set of physical laws alone is insufficient to

determine the observed results (Whiteman, 1975a, p.128).2
LEVELS AND REALITY
The failures in current thinking, Whiteman maintained, come about
through an inadequate grasp of the inner constitution of nature, as it
was termed in the subtitle of his Philosophy of Space and Time (1967).
His understanding of the inner constitution of nature, and how it may
help to make sense of psi and related phenomena, is complex and so an
introduction to his approach and way of thinking is necessary.
A starting-point could be his endorsement of Galileos two-level
distinction between, on the one hand, primary qualities (which describe
the ideal structuring in space and time for every occasion), and on the
other hand, secondary qualities (actual sensing and measurements
in the space and time of some observer) (Whiteman, 2006, p.19). He
saw Galileos two-level distinction to be confirmed in quantum theory,
which builds reasonably into physics a recognition of the unbridgeable
difference between the a priori exactness of conceptual systems and
the empirical character of any actual measurement (Whiteman, 1967,
pp.413414). The first of these two levels, catered for by mathematics,
he termed the level of intelligible structure, the second, the level of
sense experience (pp.145148).
Also, a third level was recognised to accommodate a subjects state of
mind , termed the level of memory and imagination (Whiteman, 1967,
p.145). Whiteman believed that, in any perception, close analysis reveals
a co-operation of these three levels: the level of sense experience is the
level of actual experience and action, while the level of memory and
imagination has a function to fill out the little that we can discern of
the given and to enable us to direct voluntary operations (analysis,
conceptual construction, measurement) at the higher levels (p.148).
The level of intelligible structure relates to a continuing structure
of causes (p. 140), the intelligible structure behind any particular
observation . . . to be understood as transcending space and time
(p.148). Here we approach the inner constitution of nature, which
accounts for the spatio-temporal phenomena of physics in terms of a
system of causation beyond the limits of physical experience (Whiteman, 1986, p. 222), and accounts for psi phenomena also in these terms.
Proceeding from special relativity, the rational structure of space and
time and of physical laws expressible in those terms cannot be comprised
in a material world but belongs to a realm of universal reason (or general
logic for all possible observers and points of view) (Whiteman, 1977a,
2
Emphasis in the original, as is the case for all subsequent quotations.
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p.732). The level of intelligible structure was regarded as being of

greater reality than the other levels (Whiteman, 1967, p.148).
It makes sense to accord lesser reality to the level of memory and
imagination, since this level is causally dependent on the other levels,
and checking by measurement is not possible, the fluidity being too
great (Whiteman, 1967, p.148). But conventional thinking is inclined to
accord greater reality, or sole reality, to the level of sense experience,
not to any level of intelligible structure. Whiteman held that this is an
error, one which arises from inability to see that externality, however
real it may seem to us, comes into evidence only with actualization . . .
and previously did not exist as such (p.148). This accords with the
quantum-theory principle of manifestation upon occasion, to be considered
later. Whiteman attributed the conventional error to, among other
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failings, the trick of creation expounded in the doctrine of ma
classical Indian literature (p.149). By the powers of outward projection
and individual enclosure we infer a meaningless, detached container of
non-mental objects (p.150).
Whiteman saw this as the cramping error of standard science,
which takes objects of observation in the physical state as primary
causes (Whiteman, 2000, p.96). The error is especially cramping when
it surfaces in psychical research. This is the materialistic view, which
holds that reality subsists only in objects located in the physical world
(Whiteman, 1986, p.140). His own understanding of an object restores
the significance of Galileos primary qualities: the essential object is not
located at the level of physical actuality. He wrote, when we think of a
physical object such as a table, we are apt to visualise some particular
appearance of it from a particular point of view, and then we think of
that appearance as really the table (p.140). Yet, what is actually
observed by anyone, however, will be a little different, according to the
observing subjects state of mind, sensory powers and psychology in
other ways, along with possible effects of the medium (air, water, etc)
between (Whiteman, 2006, p.xxvii). So, the real object, accessible
somehow to all people suitably placed, is not just one of its possible
appearances. In the background there must be a continuing structure
of causes which result in a particular appearance being determined
when some particular conditions of observation are specified. In other
words, there is a continuing logical and creative structure which can
count as the origin of all appearances from all viewpoints and which
is thus itself not contained in physical space as a single appearance
seems to be. Only this transcending logical structure merits the term
reality, as opposed to appearance (Whiteman, 1986, p.140).
This is what he meant by the statement quoted earlier that greater
reality attaches to a realm of universal reason (or general logic for all
possible observers and points of view) (Whiteman, 1977a, p.732).
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UNIVERSAL REASON, INTELLIGIBLE STRUCTURE

Whitemans comprehension of many levels, many worlds and psi
hinges on this line of thinking. To follow it, his idea of the archetypal or
universal has to be examined more closely. He discussed a triangle to
illustrate the primary nature of general ideas or universals, not themselves located physically. When we see a triangle, what is physically
sensed is an inexact representation of local Euclidean theorems on
projection which lie beyond ordinary sense perception, just as in quantum
theory there is the unbridgeable difference between the a priori exactness of conceptual systems and the empirical character of any actual
measurement (Whiteman, 1967, pp.413414). Our sensing of a triangle
may produce workable results in practice, but we can access the exact
theorem only through abstraction which allows an understanding of the
underlying geometry, not through physical presentations. In the case of
geometry, he noted, it is clear that nature provides the opportunity for
us to copy the concepts by a process of successive approximation. The
concepts [Galileos primary qualities] take actual physical form [secondary qualities] by virtue of additional small-bias potentialities which
convert the a priori exact into the empirical uncertain. Nevertheless the
overall effect is according to reason (Whiteman, 1977b, p.294). So, whenever we look at a right-angle, we should realise that such [geometric]
properties are inherent in our full understanding of it; or as we may say,
they are potentially in it (Whiteman, 2006, p.xxvii). This potentiality
is causally responsible even when that logic is quite hidden from us
(p.xxvii). Thus the intelligible structure is operative in and analysable
out of the total experience (subconscious potentialities included) (Whiteman, 1967, p. 149); the logic is real, yet it is not bound in any actual
sensing and measurements in the space and time of some observer
(Whiteman, 2006, p. 19). An object, then, cannot be reasonably thought
of as more than a potentiality to be observed in all possible perspectives
and in all possible states of mind serving to determine its character for
us. That potentiality also produces objects in other-world states such
as dream, lucid dream, memory, precognitive scenes, psychical states
(e.g. apparitions), and the various kinds of out-of-body or other-body
states (here called separations) more real than dream or what is
pathological (p.237).
POTENTIALITY, ACTUALISATION AND PSI
The multi-level idea of potentiality is fundamental to Whitemans
treatment of psi. It has a long history. It involves what Heisenberg
(1959, p.156) called a level of objective tendency or possibility, a
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potentia in the sense of Aristotelian philosophy. Whiteman followed

this line of thinking: we have to admit a sphere of potentiality, not
physically observable or even physically located . Then, when an
observation is made, all the potentialities on that occasion are integrated to produce what we can call a physical actualisation. This gives
rise to the principle of manifestation upon occasion. That is to say,
something observable appears only according to the total circumstances
in potentiality on that occasion (Whiteman, 1975a, p.128). It is a complex process: nothing specific can be actualised without an integration
of subjective and objective factors, not in succession, but on an instant
of actualisation (Whiteman, 1986, p.240).
His understanding of potentialityactualisation relationships does not
imply a static situation: objects and individuals . . . have distinguishable
potentialities, which continually develop. Such development is not in
physical time, but in what may be called a conceptual or quasi time
(Whiteman, 1973, p.355). He saw that the development of potentialities
and their integration, as necessary in any actualization, take place by
various kinds of resonance [which] may be conceived of as a mutual
adaptation of developing potentialities to each other (p.356). The idea
of developing potentialities was essential to his understanding of
precognition, in that it involves alterable provisional potentiality
affecting the outcome of events in future physical time. This will be
considered later.
These quotes are largely from his analysis of ordinary sensory experiences, which are actualisations that constitute the familiar physical world
from a prior potentiality-sphere (p.355). The principle of potentiality
and actualisation was seen also to operate in the mental sphere of every
individual, where thought and images are actualisations in consciousness
of an individuals thought-image sphere (Whiteman, 1973, p.355, 1975a,
p.129), including the level of memory and imagination. Subconscious
elements are part of the potentialities involved. The principle of
potentiality and actualisation was also seen to operate in psi phenomena
and other-world experience, typically involving complex interactions as
when mental associations or influences in one direction might cause an
actualisation in thought-image space, but in another direction in physical
space (Whiteman, 1975a, p.129).
Therefore he saw telepathy between individuals to be explicable
when, since their potentialities include both physical and thoughtimage ones indivisibly, it seems clear that thought-image potentialities
of different individuals must be in principle capable of integration with
each other. Such integration could be described, alternatively, as an
interaction of one thought-image sphere on the other (p.129). This
interaction has nothing directly to do with physical distance, which
is not actualized at that level (Whiteman, 1977b, p.304). Clairvoyance
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arises with the possibility of interaction between the impersonal potentialities of a physical event and the thought-image potentialities of an
individual, resulting in the production of impressions in the individuals
thought-image sphere (Whiteman, 1975a, p.130). Psychokinesis could
be called a reverse clairvoyant interaction, because it is an interaction
between a thought-image sphere as cause, and a physical body as a
subject of the action (p.130). Factors controlling interaction were seen
principally to be resonance analogous with the synchronising of
vibration frequencies in quantum theory together with moderating
factors of intensity, such as emotional intensity, and openness of mind.
Precognition will be considered later.
These ideas were presented at a conference held in Johannesburg
in 1973 (Poynton, 1975a); at a Parapsychology Foundation conference
held in Geneva a year later (Oteri, 1975), he similarly treated these psi
phenomena in a recorded discussion, where he emphasised that, for
the deduction of all parapsychological phenomena we need first of all to
distinguish various levels of spatio-temporal phenomena, not only at
the one physical level (Whiteman, 1975b, p.197). Thus in clairvoyance
what we have is a non-physical spatio-temporal manifestation in the
mind of the seer, but it is out of step with the physical potentiality being
actualized at that time . . . The shift in space or time gives us the phenomena of clairvoyance, precognition, retrocognition, and even memory
(p.198). What I would say is that the clairvoyant or paragnost has
become practiced at focusing on the non-physical level from which
physical actualizations spring. There can be actualization at the physical
level, and there can be actualization of the same potentialities, along
with others, at the thought-image level . . . he can shift his attention
to another place, or to the future or the past, and the picture changes
accordingly (p.200).
Structures of potentiality, whether subconscious or influencing external manifestation, were held by him not to be beyond comprehension.
They are open to essential insight and transcendent comprehension,
by which details of intelligible structure in any experience may be held
changelessly in view (Whiteman, 1967, p.395). As will now be discussed,
the structures of potentiality, even though outside the sensory world,
are not, as Locke and Kant believed, closed to direct acquaintance.
COMPREHENSION OF INTELLIGIBLE STRUCTURE
AND STATES WHERE THIS MAY HAPPEN
Whiteman was in agreement with Kant that ordinary practical
experiencing (Erfahrung) and ordinary understanding (Verstand) will
not directly disclose the level of intelligible structure, but unlike Kant
he maintained that there is a third sphere of experience where this can
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succeed. He pointed out that this third intelligible sphere is recognised

in Platonic and Eastern traditions (Whiteman, 1967, p.394). As with
Whiteman himself, these traditions are based on direct experience, not
mere speculative theory-spinning. Even when logical structure may be
hidden from us, it is in principle discoverable, so he maintained: it is
knowable, either as a structure of possibilities in reason, or ( in the case
of motivation) as a necessary supplement in reason, without which our
observations do not make sense (Whiteman, 1977b, p.292). He described
such disclosure in the third sphere of experience as intellectual or
perceptual knowledge which transcends in a certain clear and unmistakable way the onward urge of time, the rigid apartness of spatial objects,
and the apparent isolation of the individual mind in its state of fixation
on bodily impressions. It is a state of release. Fixation being overcome,
the mind opens out into universality (Whiteman, 1967, p.395).
The third sphere of experience is not likely to be directly encountered
in ordinary physical life, but requires some degree of separation or
release from it. Conditions which could favour experience of the third
sphere were included under five chief types of stabilised non-physical
state (Whiteman, 1986, p.9), some of which may facilitate experience of
the third kind. To follow his distinction between ordinary physical life
and a separated non-physical state, the meaning he gave to the terms
physical and non-physical needs examination.
PHYSICAL AND NON- PHYSICAL: MANY WORLDS
In understanding his distinction between physical and non-physical,
Whiteman strove to ground his views on first-hand evidence as far as
possible, not on speculative theorising. This brought him in line with
Husserls phenomenology (e.g. 1931), which insists on the importance of
direct experiencing free from the cloak of ideas that invests current
theory-bound science. The word phenomenology confusingly has two
quite distinct meanings, only the second of which applies to Husserl.
Whiteman (1977a, pp.733734) wrote, physicists and most of the AngloSaxon philosophical world have come to use this word for looking into
details of appearance, instead of penetrating behind appearances to
the structure of ideas which gives them meaning and substance. Thus
insight tends to be pushed aside in favour of theories which merely
impose new formal devices on a background of classical conception.
Pushing insight aside in favour of theories tends to be the position
presently ruling parapsychology as well as other branches of science. In
keeping with the phenomenological method, his definition of physical
and nonphysical had to be done ostensively in terms of actual observation (Whiteman, 1986, p.4).
At the root of the matter is how to characterise or define a multiplicity
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of different states and different perceived worlds; but in practice the

main division he drew was between physical and nonphysical. A simple
physicalnon-physical duality was not intended, but evidently he saw
it as important in the first place to separate his field of study from the
standard limitations of mechanistic laws in a one-level container-world
of physical appearances by offering reasonably clear definitions of the
physical and non-physical, and thus hopefully to discover how a scientific
method (reasonably so called) may be applied to the latter (p.4).
Following his requirement of ostensive definition, the term physical
is applied only to kinds of observation, objects of attention or states of
consciousness when the senses of the physical body are being normally
used (Whiteman, 2000, p.12). Consistently, conceptual structures of
physics (elementary particles, wave-functions, quanta) were not regarded
as physical, for none of these can be observed directly. Yet neither
were they non-physical; they were auxiliary mental creations in a
physical state the term non-physical was reserved for objects of
attention in a stabilised non-physical state (p.12). This might seem
merely tautologous, yet if it is further specified that the term nonphysical applies to those kinds of observation, objects of attention or
states of consciousness when the senses of the physical body are not
being used, then the term becomes reasonably operational.
The distinction between physical and non-physical phenomena was
seen by him to be in principle absolute: nothing non-physical is located
physically ( i.e. observable by physical apparatus which so locates it)
(Whiteman, 1986, p.7). This was held to be so even if physical and nonphysical presentations could occur simultaneously, as in one of the
stabilised non-physical states termed opening, where non-physical
phenomena such as visions are perceived focally as if from the physical
body while simultaneously physical phenomena are also perceived, but
not focally (p.13). So in the case of apparitions, the physical world can
be as if duplicated for us, gradually or suddenly, so that certain features
of an inner world (or the whole of it) can be manifested along with what
seems normally physical at the time (Whiteman, 2006, p.185).
EXPERIENCE OF NON - PHYSICAL STATES:
OUT- OF- BODY EXPERIENCE
A stabilised non-physical state that dramatically calls for attention
is out-of-body experience ( including near-death experience), which
has a tendency to facilitate the third sphere of intelligible experience.
Whiteman stressed the great variety and complexity of out-of-body or
separative experiences (e.g. 2006, p.257ff), but he grouped them into
three main kinds, one in which the physical body is out of action and
there is no sense of being within it, and two which involve double
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consciousness in both physical and decoupled bodies ( primary,

secondary and tertiary separation respectively; Whiteman, 1986,
p.13). For simplicity I will consider primary separation, the most
commonly discussed kind of experience. In the literature it seems
generally assumed that a perceiving separated body is somehow located
in the same space as the physical body, namely physical space, because
the perceived scene is generally similar to a physical scene. Yet since
the perceptions are being made while physical sensation is out of action,
the scene (according to the above physicalnon-physical definitions) is
not of a physical kind, and the sensing body cannot be in some physically
located position; the experience is not of a physical state. Apart from any
theoretical view, Whiteman recorded finding a sharp and unmistakable
distinction between experience as from the physical body and experience
when having fully entered a non-physical sphere of existence (Whiteman,
1975c, p.100).
This distinction may not be clearly observed. Whiteman wrote, if one
is taken into a psychic space when not familiar with such states, or
with fixed ideas about them, and if the phenomena resemble physical
ones closely ( in technical language, the phenomena are duplicate ones),
there may be a strong persuasion to think that the objects are being
observed physically; and this applies even to possible duplicate presentations of the observers physical body in its actual situation (Whiteman,
1986, p.11). It need not be surprising that the most commonly reported
out-of-body experience usually contains descriptions of physical-like
scenes; most people assume that there is only one real world that
can be manifested, namely the physical world, and this fixed idea will
contribute to the potentialities governing the out-of-body experience,
leading to the actualisation of a physical-like duplicate scene. The
result is that an out-of-body state generally fails to facilitate the third
sphere of intelligible experience, being dominated by ordinary practical
experiencing and ordinary understanding, which will not directly
disclose intelligible structure. But when the third sphere of experience
is achieved, the life-transforming superiority it can have over normal
physical experience is well attested (p.40). The higher states of
separation, as anyone who knows separation must believe, are logically
prior to the physical state, and consequently not to be interpreted in
terms of physical phenomena posterior to them. Everything in such
states, spatial characteristics included, is known as if in archetypal
unchanging form, and is therefore startlingly more real (rationallyobjective, ever-present) than the derivative and shifting forms of the
physical world (p. 143).
A sensing of space dimensions in various worlds was, however,
common to all types of experience. He wrote, let no-one suppose that
the term space is wrongly applied to the non-physical; for in all kinds of
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non-physical sensing, objects have extension, position, direction and

shape, all rationally structured as in physical space, and capable of being
moved about in that space relative to other objects there (Whiteman,
1986, p.6). They are subject to the same geometrical laws as hold in the
physical world (Whiteman, 1977b, p.302). He observed, The fact that
each non-physical space has other characteristics also, beyond certain
limitations of physical space, does not justify a ban on use of the word
space for the extensive basis of rationally ordered positioning and movements when observed in a non-physical worldas if no such observation
could be made (Whiteman, 1986, pp.67). The term non-local does not
arise in this context; instead Whiteman pays attention to located nonphysical objects and their sensory characteristics (p.7). At a time when
some authors seem to conflate the terms nonlocal and nonphysical,
Whitemans views need careful consideration.
Nevertheless, this still leaves a question of how accurate and truthful
the accounts of separation can be taken to be. There remains an issue of
veridicality.
VERIDICALITY IN THE CONTEXT OF
MULTI- LEVEL ONTOLOGY
We may consider a case cited by Kelly et al. (2007). Here a physicallike scene was vividly experienced, including a presentation of moonlight. But on physical examination it was found that there was no moonlight. I have records of similar cases where the observed scene differs
from what would be presented physically (Poynton, 1975b, 2001). Kelly
et al. conclude (p.400) that cases of this sort provide no evidence that
they are anything more than unusually vivid subjective experiences.
Presumably the experience is termed subjective because physical
corroboration is lacking, or there is actual physical confutation. Therefore it is seen to lack veridicality or reality, a judgement made on the
tacit and unwarranted assumption that the event was physically located.
This judgement is made despite the frequent declaration that the
experience had a special quality that made it feel even more real and
life-changing than ordinary physical experience (e.g. Whiteman, 1986,
p.39). Following his own extensive experience, Whiteman held that this
special quality has to be given due importance, and he developed his own
criteria to distinguish between what is deceptive or illusory and what
has the quality of face-to-face objectivity and truth which we describe by
saying that a thing is real (p.33). He did not make the simple distinction
between a phenomenon being real or being not real; what he sought
was a reasonably precise evaluation of its degree of reality (p.34),
taking into account the observation that all types of non-physical
experience may range in reality impression and intensity from what is
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imaginative in character, to what is judged to be more real and meaningful than physical phenomena (p.9).
To give precision to this evaluation he developed what he termed a
General Index of Reality (Whiteman, 1986, p.41f, 2006, p.7f). This gave
numerical ratings for a number of factors, including the degree of control
or reflection, sense of significance, ability to make rational comparisons
with the physical state, communication with other minds, and continuity
of memory between different states. This index flies against conventional
ideas in several ways, notably in admitting degrees of reality, and in
excluding any physical reference.
As regards degrees of reality, his index covers a range from
uncontrolled dreaming (low rating) to noetically releasing and unitively
fulfilling objectivity with a high degree of reality (Whiteman, 1986,
p.34), which he termed mystical experience (high rating). The term
mystical is often taken in a derogatory sense of suggesting vagueness
and mystification, not a state of noetically releasing and unitively
fulfilling objectivity. The inclusion of dreaming alongside mysticism in
his classification of non-physical states might seem to cater to this idea.
Yet this is not so in the light of what he termed scientific mysticism,
aimed to provide a treatment of physical and non-physical states and
happenings that was scientific in the best sense of the word openminded, rigorously tested, rationally coherent, and illuminating (p.vii).
Dreaming is conventionally supposed to be located somehow in the brain,
yet a moments reflection should make one realise that, whatever is
thought to be the cause of dreaming, the experience is firmly in a space
that cannot be equated to the physical space in which the dreamers
physical body is located; it is in a different world. Whiteman therefore
wrote (p.213), a world, when understood in reference to separative
experience, is the continuous and continuing manifestation of objects
in a stabilised non-physical space-time, which we can enter in a nonphysical body manifestly located in such world. Thus a dream-state,
however unreal it may seem, can be said to take us into a non-physical
world. Dreaming is clearly a fit subject for ontological investigation
(e.g. Whiteman, 2000, pp.127139), even if transience and lack of control
give it only low reality rating.
As to his exclusion of physical evidence in assessing the reality of outof-body experience, he saw the usual assumption that the physical state
should be given prime importance in choosing what we call reality to be
unthinkingly based on outdated one-level, one-space prejudice and to be
without any evidential warrant (Whiteman, 1986, p.38). Fixation on
physical data was seen to devalue the internal evidence of a recorded
experience, and so limit comprehension. Any apparent physical supporting data merely had chiefly propaganda value for the uninformed or
sceptical, who do not realise that separation is not established by them,
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but who may thereby be induced to accept the interior testimony as

having some bearing on scientific fact (p.49).
He was cautions even of cases such as that of the Wilmots, cited by
Kelly et al. (2007, p.395), which reported a consciously projected
apparition being observed in an apparently physical scene. Sighting of
apparitions was treated as occurring in the state of opening (Whiteman, 1986, p. 9ff), where both non-physical and physical phenomena are
perceived as from the physical body and there is no sense of separation
from the body. On this interpretation, the Wilmot apparition was located
in a perceived non-physical space which was confused with physical
space. Other claimed evidence for separative experience based on
physical observation or performance could, he maintained, be explained
by a theory of ESP or PK, a view commonly held, and supported recently
by Kelly et al.
JUSTIFICATION OF MULTI - LEVEL ONTOLOGY
IN DISCUSSING OUT- OF- BODY EXPERIENCE
Whiteman granted that in out-of-body research there is a groundwork of physical evidence in all investigations of this kind, but that an
attempt to reduce the explanation of such evidence to causes also at the
physical level (as if a cause could really be physical in its rational and
universal nature) is unwarranted (Whiteman, 1986, p.50). This focuses
on a core question of why he preferred multi-level ontology to a one-level
or one-space theory of out-of-body experience in purely physical terms.
From a general viewpoint he was critical of any attempt to reduce
causation or explanation to the physical level, or to any other level of
actualisation. This returns us to the consideration of potentiality and
actualisation, and the need to look at the wholeness of an occasion of
observation. He maintained that wholeness at any level of manifestation
or world can be grasped and analysed only as a multi-level system
involving potentiality, actualisation, and individual conscious and
unconscious functioning jointly the levels of intelligible structure,
sense experience, and memory and imagination. It does not make sense
in his view to consider the causal background of out-of-body experience
on the basis of a solely one-level model. He observed that few people
are ever aware, outside dream, of a thought-image body from which they
see the non-physical objects. But, if the bodily-subjective functions at
the inner level are sufficiently developed, the thought-image body (or
perceiving organism at that level, whatever it may be) will no longer
escape observation in its own sphere of life. . . . Thus the possibility of
out of the body experience presents itself as necessarily involved in our
new scientific world view (Whiteman, 1977b, p.301).
Besides the more theoretical considerations favouring multi-level
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ontology, Whiteman also recorded observational evidence. As noted

earlier, he wrote, I have always found a sharp and unmistakable
distinction between experience as from the physical body and experience
when having fully entered a non-physical sphere of existence (Whiteman, 1975c, p. 100). Non-physical states were considered by Whiteman to
be in inexhaustible variety and to differ from one another not only in
the character of the sense-observations provided in them but also in the
manner of operation of the auxiliary mental activities having those senseobservations as basis (Whiteman, 1986, p.8). The variety of manifested
states correlates with the variety of states of consciousness, and, as
noted earlier, in most out-of-body experience the usual physically-based
state of mind will combine with the array of potentialities to actualise a
physical-like scene. Yet there are likely to be some aspects of any out-ofbody actualisation that will depart from a strictly physical scene, on
account of differing sets of potentialities from those underlying a physical
scene. This leads to a problem: owing to our pervading physicalistic
beliefs, any differences from a physical scene are assumed to indicate
hallucination, rather than that a different state will result in a different
actualisation.
Failure to recognise this ontological background has disastrous
consequences for out-of-body research, for the experient is inclined
to leave out details of an experience which conflict with an expected
physical scene, thereby removing key data about actualisation in
non-physical states. Investigators tend to fall into the same error
by encouraging only physical-like reports, which then supports the
gratuitous conclusion that experience which departs from what is
physical was hallucinatory or merely subjective.
In recapitulation, the title of this guide may be recalled: many levels,
many worlds and psi. Physical and non-physical worlds of experience
are, according to Whiteman and other reporters, manifested as space
and time dimension systems. If the term multi-dimensional is used in
this context, it can be taken to mean that human mentality is capable
of experience in an inexhaustible variety of different worlds or space
time presentations. The multi-dimensional constructs developed in
physics cannot be directly experienced, since these are theoretical. The
term multi-level applies to levels of potentiality, actualisation and
mental functioning, which are operative in the manifestation of any
world. Their analysis allows understanding how various worlds of
experience are constituted and how we may comprehend something
of their working. Analysis of potentiality nevertheless leads to great
complexity, including finding that time is multi-dimensional in the
sense of comprising different kinds of time-like functioning, as
Whiteman described them.
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TIME AND PSI

The awareness of time, especially precognitive experience, has been of
major concern in psi research, and Whitemans ontology reaches far into
this topic. His treatment centred partly on the ability to become detached
from the onward flow of physical clock-time. This is an experience
familiar particularly to musicians; Whiteman cites several examples,
such as Mozarts statement where a composition, though it be long,
stands almost complete and finished in my mind, so that I can survey it,
like a fine picture or a beautiful statue, at a glance (Whiteman, 2000,
pp.8687). Generally this ability to engage another time-dimension
tends to be poorly recognised, despite the fact that reflective thought
itself is not possible without at least some degree of detachment from
the flow of physical time: without reflection there can be no intelligent
control, in fact no continuing recognition of objects and events; for
reflection implies the ability to go back in time (p.88). Whiteman
termed this process time-release, yet he emphasised that there are
different degrees of release, from ordinary detached reflection to a state
that is without boundaries, either in space or time (p.90). This was
nas, explorations of
discussed under the Buddhist teaching of the jha
the intelligible (Whiteman, 1967, p.109, 2006, p.86).
nas were summarised as stages, (1) investigation, with hypoThe jha
theses and reasoning; (2) bodily and mental ease through phenomenological analysis (revealing underlying intelligible structure directly,
without reasoning); (3) Active Recollection focusing on pure (timeless)
ideas, while releasing the whole body; and (4) Continuous Recollection
(steady, holistic, effortless), in which wholes and parts are known as if
at once, with a perfection of recollective overlooking . . . It can be described as a voluntary release from time-flow (Whiteman, 2006, p.86).
More complex is Whitemans recognition of the role of three very
different kinds of time-like functioning (Whiteman, 2000, p.95),
involved in three causal steps in the actualising of potentiality (2000,
p.98). These causal steps were described as 1. Purpose and energy.
2. Intelligible structure and means. 3. Actualisation or manifestation
in space-time objectivity (not necessarily physical) (Whiteman, 2000,
p.97). These steps are those of the Upanishadic Great Stride of Vishnu
the Omnipresent, the three-stage structure of reality or three stages
in creativity, namely activated, constituted, manifested (Whiteman, 1986,
p.199, 1993, p.106, 2000, p.97, 2006, pp.154155). They were given the
symbols T, , and t respectively. Time T was seen to be involved
in the interior causation of [a potentiality] field, corresponding to an
impulsion which either sets up the field or changes it by some kind of
interference (as by gravitational force . . . or psychokinesis) (Whiteman,
1986, p.228). For example, there is the intelligible structuring of the
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future (as in composing a musical work), signified by T; there is the

process leading to physical actualisation of the intelligible pattern
decided on, symbolised by ; and there is the instant in measurable
physical time, denoted t (Whiteman, 2000, p.95). Times T and lead
to actualisations in time t, but as with other kinds of potentiality they
are not readily discernible at the actuality level of clock time t. Nevertheless time T can be discerned as time-ordered structures in physical
potentiality (p.94) and can have space-like properties as in his reported
experience, time had become like space (p.318).
These time dimensions are perceived, and not merely the product of
theorising. Time T can be accessed by an individual in a state which is
suitably distanced in some degree from ordinary preoccupations, as in
Mozarts description of being as it were completely myself, entirely
alone and of good cheer (Whiteman, 2000, p.86). Any backward or
forward scanning of space-like potentiality must, Whiteman wrote,
come in an altered state of consciousness (p.82), or dissociation,
in which the whole field of consciousness is not normally physical
(p.84). This state may be unintended or be gained by various kinds of
checking or stoppage . . . of the automatic time-flow (p.85). Such
nas, develop the power to grasp time-structures as
time-releases, jha
intelligible wholes, to analyse such structures into their time-stopped
components, and to move backwards and forwards in intelligible time to
related time-structures, quasi-physical or entirely non-physical (p.89).
This view also accords with the phenomenological approach of Husserl,
where stoppage of physical time provides the unique form of consciousnas (Whiteman, 2006, p.332).
ness as was described in the jha
Precognition and retrocognition were considered in this light.
Retrocognition was seen to be distinct from ordinary memory, in which
the current of time continues in memory-images (Whiteman, 2000,
p.88). Instead, in retrocognition a past detail could be still potentially
present in its original form, possibly clouded over or distorted according
to our subjective limitations when observed at a later time, but essentially
observable as it was (and really is) by a mind that is released from
domination by the time-flow. . . . We must sense the fact that it is the
same percept revisited (non-physically) (p.89). Precognition was seen as
actualisation in an individuals thought-image sphere of potentialities
which may be called provisional, and have a future-colouring. . . . Any
provisional potentiality for a physical event may be integrated with an
individuals subjective potentialities so as to produce an actualisation in
his individual thought-image sphere (Whiteman, 1975a, p.133).
These potentialities were seen to be provisional because they were
alterable, which allows for the intervention paradox, where we can
sometimes prevent a precognised event from happening (p.133). The
provisional potentialities of time T bearing on some physical future
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happening may be integrated with thoughts and actions emanating

from an individual which, if sufficiently powerful, may alter the totality
of potentialities that would otherwise determine some physical actualisation. Whiteman distinguished between overall potentialities and
small-bias potentialities; it is in small-bias, fine working out of overall
potentialities that individual intervention seems most likely to be
effective.
Free will was also seen to be accommodated by time T: there is
freedom (within limits) to initiate purposive change; and that can be
done with judgement, because every change has expected consequences
(according to strict laws of reason) which have to be weighed up, bearing
the future in mind (Whiteman, 2000, p.98).
TIME, SPACE AND CREATIVITY
When the three time-like variables, T, , t, are suitably combined
with the three space-like variables, length, breadth and height, Whiteman (1977a) maintained that everything actualised at the physical level
can be accounted for. His concepts are applicable also to non-physical
actuality levels. The combination of time and space variables involves
taking them two at a time to produce a 16-fold objective cycle (Whiteman, 1977a, p.745, 2006, p.70). In addition to the objective cycle, a
subjective 16-fold cycle was derived from a life or creative cycle of
four functions, marking stages in volition and striving which were
described in ancient systems, and rediscovered by Poincar, Freud, Jung
and learning theory (Whiteman, 1986, p.193, 2000, pp.6567, 2006, p.68f).
The four life functions correspond with the ancient system of four stages
of the sun (as seen in the northern hemisphere): East ( illumination,
intention, drive), South (response, valuation, means), West (application,
action) and North ( incubation, latent in the start of a new cycle) (Whiteman, 1986, p. 201f, 2006, pp.6872, 314316). This east-to-north subjective function cycle was seen to be composed of psychological subfunctions: examples of subfunctions taken successively from quarters of
the fourfold cycle would be enthusiasm (East), judgement (South), application (West), non-attachment (North) (Whiteman, 1986, p.204, 2006,
p.68f). These could be seen as particular building blocks of an individuals
functioning in any world, particulars which arise from the general structures of reason which seem to be primordially involved in psychology
(Whiteman, 1977b, p. 297). His intention here was to provide a clear-cut
explanatory system . . . as, for instance, the basic laws of mechanics are
exhibited before any problems are tackled (Whiteman, 2000, p.xix).
This area of Whitemans work is likely to seem especially complex
and obscure, partly because his analysis of how causal processes are
detected is the reverse of what is conventionally believed. His aim was
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to find structures of creativity in the manifestation of subjective and

objective worlds, and so exhibit a system of archetypal ideas as in
the basic laws of mechanics, since, if we can find concepts which are
primordial enough, all natural law could be developed from them by a
kind of deduction (Whiteman, 1977b, p.295). This is what he termed
the analyticdeductive method, which may be seen in his use of axioms
in his 1973 and 1975b papers on quantum theory and parapsychology.
The 1973 exposition of axioms starts with archetypal ideas of potentiality and actualisation; the 1975b treatment starts with universals or
essential ideas, timeless and beyond change, from which combinations
of essential ideas are made into objectivised existences a broader way
of viewing potentiality and actualisation. These attempts at exhibiting
logical coherence, he believed, need to be presented as a development
from what is most general to what is successively more particular or
specific in its application (Whiteman, 1975b, p.187). End particulars
included his interpretations of telepathy, clairvoyance and precognition
in terms of potentiality-actualisation, discussed above in the section,
Potentiality, Actualisation and Psi , and the section, Time and Psi.
At a broader level he showed that the major field laws of physics
could be derived from properties of the 16-fold creative cycle combined
with the transformation processes by which different perspectives of an
object (discussed earlier) are integrated (Whiteman, 1977a, p.742, 1986,
pp.228239, 2006, pp.319332). Essentially this was an investigation
into many-levelled and many-sided potentiality, but the mathematical
complexity that developed is beyond the scope of this guide. Outcomes
were the discerning of the origin of physical laws (Whiteman, 2006,
pp.320ff), and a charting and analysis of psychological subfunctions
(Whiteman, 1977a, pp. 745746, 1986, pp.194, 202204, 210211, 2000,
pp.6769, 2006, pp.xxx, 191192, 314316). The subfunctions may be
broadened to consider personality structure as a whole.
PERSONALITY STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION
FROM A MANY- LEVEL VIEW
The various subfunctions identified in the psychological cycle form, as
was suggested, the building blocks of an individuals psychology; but how
they are shaped into a fluctuating personality also occupied much of
Whitemans attention. Consistent with his phenomenological approach,
he was concerned with penetrating behind appearances to detect
causal substructure. Following his emphasis on the importance of direct
experience, one may start with his observation that we can have
thoughts and desires of which we very strongly disapprove. Entire
systems of thought and intention, in a strict sense foreign to us, are thus
continually flowing in so that we can make a choice according to our
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unseen core identity (Whiteman, 2000, p.xxiv). The core identity is

what we experience latently when we say, I am, I perceive, I choose,
and so on, (Whiteman, 2000, p.xxiv); it is our lasting disposition
(Whiteman, 2006, p.xxxii), yet which cannot be actually experienced till
something of a mystical transformation reveals it (p.34). The inflowing
of foreign thoughts can, in suitably released states, be objectified in
a non-physical space. They may be seen as non-physical living beings,
having for us the character of contributory minds (co-minds, or CMs for
short), in relation to which our core identity is an individual in charge
(Whiteman, 2000, p.xxiv). As the individual in charge is subject to
habitually identifying with a body and desires that cannot belong
permanently (Whiteman, 2006, p.xxxii), it is presented as a fluctuating
personality with a ruling identity (pp.xxxii, 34, 82) compounded with
co-minds. The individual in charge seems in Whitemans writing to
be identified with atta or self of Buddhist teaching, so anatta means
worldly selflessness, not no-soul as is commonly (and misleadingly)
translated (Whiteman, 1993, p.43). In the mystical Final Disclosure
and Release . . . self (atta) gives place to the underlying core identity
(Whiteman, 2006, p. 89).
There is involvement here both with many levels (the hierarchical
structure behind personality) and with many worlds (the existence of
non-physical minds). This is a complex conception out of line with ruling
contemporary ideas, but support for this corporate structure of personality was cited from classical Indian literature, and from Swedenborg,
Freud, McDougall and Balfour among others (see Whiteman, 1986,
pp.25ff, p.103, 2000, p.xxiv, 2006, p.34). It might be noted that
Whiteman could also have cited support from the recently-formed and
medically-based Spirit Release Foundation in the UK, which promotes
the understanding of spirit attachment and its effects, and fosters the
practice of spirit release. (www.spiritrelease.com). This could stand as a
summary of what Whiteman saw as a necessary part of development of
the individual, namely the purifying of the individual line of consciousness to the point where the core identity is what is revealed in the
mystical transformation, bringing the divine I AM and Divine Source to
consciousness (Whiteman, 2006, p.x). Therefore much emphasis was
placed on honing skills for release of the core-identity, as in the four
Buddhist paths, from morality (higher values) to ultimate realisation of
the core identity (Whiteman, 2000, pp.141, 146155).
An individual core identity carried by the line of consciousness
(Whiteman, 2006, p.x) was seen necessarily to extend before and after
any particular physical lifespan, and while essentially it is characterised
by a particular gender, male or female in core disposition, it could
manifest as either male or female in different physical lives. The idea
that it could come to an end at physical death seems to rest largely on
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ignorance or rejection of the evidence for other worlds and of processes

of separation (from the physical body), as well as any logical purpose in
regard to the continuing life of individuals (as in precognition) (p.75).
This leads to the matter of reincarnation, which he treated with great
circumspection. Phenomena were discussed in several publications (e.g.
Whiteman, 1986, p. 122f, 2000, p.33, 2006, pp.x, 113114), but mainly in
his translation of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali (Whiteman, 1993). Taking
the compound, highly shifting structure of a physical personality into
account ( a profusion of loosely linked tendencies Whiteman, 1986,
p.121), he maintained that it is wrong then to say that we, as personalities in this world, might be reincarnated (Whiteman, 2006, p.x). Yet
in accepting the existence of a continuing line of consciousness he
accepted that it could at intervals return to the physical world as a new
individual in charge of a transient personality. This was seen as strict
incarnation of an individual in charge, who becomes conscious in
a certain steadily growing physical body during most of its lifetime
(Whiteman, 1993, p.32). On the other hand, co-minds may contribute
their own independent memories to a personality when temporarily
united, and so, they can also be said to undergo a loose reincarnation in
us (p. 32). He showed the distinction between strict and loose reincarnation to be well understood in classical Indian literature (pp.32, 43,
53, 74, 95, 123), as in his translation of the Kat.ha Upanishad: Some
[spiritually] embodied beings enter a womb for [physical] embodiment.
Others assemble successively on a stock according to their deedattachment (karma), and according to inner instruction (Whiteman,
1993, p.32). An understanding of this distinction between loose and
strict reincarnation seems badly needed in Western treatments of the
subject (see Appendix).
Whiteman was careful not to attribute all apparent past-life recall
events to a form of reincarnation, either strict or loose. Some presentations of past scenes can be better explained by retrocognition, as with
cases relating to two different people living at the same time (Whiteman, 2006, p.113), and by mediate identification (p.274f) of episodes
in the past or present, where there is utilising of a personal life and
memory quite different from the life and memory of ones physical
personality, for the purposes of self-fulfilment through a new and
instructive identification (Whiteman, 1986, p.116ff). He cited the
) of the Buddhist teaching,
important fourth over-knowledge (abhia
in which each of a series of past-lives (not necessarily ones own in any
way) is briefly entered, and one acts out certain scenes or otherwise
makes observations there. . . . Reincarnation is not implied (Whiteman, 2006, p.87). Bearing in mind the intrusion of memories of cominds, of retrocognition and cases such as overshadowing and mediate
identification, possession of a memory by no means indicates that one
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personally experienced, in the physical world, an original of the events

remembered (Whiteman, 1986, pp.1245.) The Buddhas pointed
dismissal of questions such as Did I live in time gone by ? was cited
(Whiteman, 2006, p. 169).
LEVELS OF INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPMENT
With indications of retrocognition, memory transference and other
complexities of mind events in which our physical personality presents
itself as nothing very definite, but, rather, as a shifting ground of
localized identifications (Whiteman, 1967, p.217), it is hardly surprising
that Whiteman wrote that we should expect the most secret truths
concerning personality to be largely if not altogether beyond normal
comprehension (Whiteman, 1986, p.116). A state of detachment from
the normal physical world was seen to be essential for any truly
significant discoveries of personality structure and the underlying
levels of potentiality, this being a state of liberation from the fixated
identification of oneself with ones personality (Whiteman, 2000, p.141).
A distinction between oneself and ones personality could seem selfcontradictory in contemporary psychology, but Whitemans fundamental
distinction between the level of an individuals underlying, intelligible
core identity and the level of superficial, contingent personality-phases
needs to be understood as part of his broad two-level conception.
His writings show concern about the development of ability in
an individual to engage constructively with psi phenomena in their
broadest sense. Development of a phenomenological approach was seen
to be essential, as were the skills for release from time or modes of
nas (Whiteman, 1967, p.109,
insight contained in the four Buddhist jha
1993, p.77, 2000, pp.8992, 2006, p.86). Also essential to individual progress was entering into inner contests, in which outward tendencies
to attachment, fixation, discomfort and awkwardness, automaticity, or
anxiety-provoking stress are countered by higher motivations that are
secretly working for the development in us of corresponding powers of
release and control . . . all development, mental or spiritual, depends
on our subjection to contests (Whiteman, 2000, p.159). The extreme
importance given to such contests for inner growth the only way in
which our development can be initiated and secured (Whiteman, 2006,
p.63) is emphasised by the subtitle of all volumes of Old and New
Evidence on the Meaning of Life, which is The Mystical World-View and
Inner Contest. Individual progress hopefully would result in insight
gradually developing in us because, instead of rigidly fencing off mind
from matter, we seek always for participation and the Higher Reality
in a hierarchical universe. This is the conclusion of his Philosophy of
Space and Time (1967).
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At the most universal level of individual functioning and realisation,

Whiteman wrote that what we have to consider here, then, is the
experience of the divine Reason (Logos), in everything of life, always
working for the advancement of the good (Whiteman, 2006, p.vii).
Consistent with his phenomenological approch, his universal theology
is not based on doctrine or theory, neither are these developed. Theology
simply meant the application of the phenomenological method to our
awareness of the Divine, in the wholeness and detail of its meaning,
omnipresent in our lives if only we adopt the right releasing and
uplifting attitude in life (p.vii). So, the word God (Theos) must be
taken to stand for the Archetypal Reason in all, including the I AM
and consciousness, if the ancient testimonies are to be understood
(p.64). This allowed a universal theology to connect Minoan, Vedic,
Upanishadic, Buddhist, Hebrew, Pauline and Johannine mysticism as
one coherent tradition. Later literature was considered to be largely
corrupted by dogma and theorising. His presentation, based on his own
translations and mystical experience, frequently differs radically from
standard translations and interpretations. It could be said that his
universal theology seems prone to even greater misunderstanding and
opposition from Western theology than does his scientific mysticism
from standard science.
OVERVIEW:
SOME ESSENTIALS OF WHITEMAN S THINKING
In assessing Whitemans contribution to making sense of psi phenomena, it may be noted that, despite his frequent reference to quantum
theory, the theory was not used to explain psi phenomena. These
phenomena are reasonably held to be not physical and thus not within
the province of quantum theory (Whiteman, 1973, p.357). The special
epistemological relevance of quantum theory to psi phenomena had to
do with a multi-level hierarchical world-view (p.357). This was not
theorising but the result of conceptual analysis combined with direct
observation. Likewise the admission of other spaces was a matter of
direct experience and logical necessity. He avoided as far as he could the
usual practice in science of speculative theory-building; in fact he was
critical of it. Those who are wedded to the scientific method called
hypotheticaldeductive, admitting no other, can become emotionally
upset if that is questioned, even to an extent describable as frenzy (of
which I have had experience) (Whiteman, 2006, p.21). Instead, he placed
importance on analyticdeductive or phenomenological penetration
behind appearances, on which the foundations of relativity and
quantum theory rest (Whiteman, 1975b, p.181). The phenomenological
view sees what we normally experience by our physical senses as an
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end-result, while the intelligible meaning is provided by timeless ideas

proceeding from a system of archetypal ideas, or discernible first causes
giving meaning to what is particular and composite, whether in a world
or in unlocated contemplation (Whiteman, 2006, p.93).
The level of actuality and of sense experience is not downgraded in its
importance his insistence on clear-headed experience-based evaluation
is a constant theme in his work but it is placed in a greater whole of
comprehension by attempting to discern intelligible substructure and
primordial concepts, leading to full understanding at the actuality level.
Whiteman emphasised the role of consciousness, will, and choice as
substructure in governing the direction and knowability of manifestations
in any world (Whiteman, 1975b, p.188, 1977b, p.298, 2006, p.331).
Quantum theory does accommodate this idea, even if it still lies at the
periphery of mainstream conceptions. Whiteman took a step further,
however; in the conclusion of his final book, he emphasised that such
substructure can be lived only if the individual . . . passes into another
world . Comprehending this many-level, many-world complex requires
the phenomenological approach of Husserl, in which the physicalistic
hypotheses are bracketed off , and through a suspension of attachments, and a stoppage (epoch), we come to a unique form of consciousness which provides the unshakable because self-evidencing
conviction of truth (Whiteman, 2006, p.332). The axioms originated
from this self-evidencing conviction of truth.
As a result, if one is looking for a theory in speculative terms which
attempts to make sense of psi phenomena, then Whitemans contribution has little direct relevance. His contribution is on the scale of a
world-view. Central to this was the multi-level insight that the reason
for things and for happenings is not to be found among the things and
happenings themselves, whether physical or non-physical. Levels of
potentiality have to be clearly distinguished from resulting actuality
levels, thereby allowing insight into the inner constitution of nature
and universal reason. Against the standard view that reality is a
property of actualities in the substance of this world, he maintained
that reality lay in causal structures and processes not contained in the
same level as the resulting actualisations. Applying this thinking to psi
phenomena, it would seem fruitless to look for the causes and processes
of the phenomena at the level of physical actualisation itself.
According to Whitemans thinking, this fruitlessness will continue
until it is generally accepted that a physicalistic, one-level context is
wholly inadequate, and that the explanation for the phenomena that
are studied in psychical research lies within a much broader context.
It remains to be seen whether Whitemans work will prove to add
substance to this broader context. Among its features is its emphatic
acceptance of universal reason and a resulting intelligible structure
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discernible in existence, leading to full understanding at any actuality

level, since the intelligible world is the pattern for everything (Whiteman, 1967, p. 218). Also, it strove to be free of speculation and theory
as far as possible, and to rest on direct experience and a system of
archetypal ideas. But in our present materialistic and theory-bound
state, these features are not particularly helpful for the reception of his
thinking, since they tend to lie outside commonly accepted experience
and approaches. At least it should be recognised that Whitemans
thinking was based on a wealth of direct experience, a point that may be
made by examining the interlinking of experience and world-view in his
work.
THE FIRST- HAND SOURCE OF WHITEMANS WORLD-VIEW
As noted in the Introduction, Whitemans world-view was not the
result of speculative theorising but of direct observation combined with
conceptual analysis. A cornerstone of his writing was to provide evidence
of direct experience, as declared in an important autobiographical
source, The Mystical Life (1961), subtitled An Outline of its Nature and
Teachings from the Evidence of Direct Experience. The term evidence
also appears in the title of the other major source of autobiographical
material, Volume 2 of his Old and New Evidence on the Meaning of Life
(2000). In contracting the title of the first volume (1986) to The Meaning
of Life and ignoring the first part of the title, Old and New Evidence
on . . . , Frenchs (1995) resulting allegation of hubris shows a possibly
widespread tendency to misjudge the source of Whitemans world-view.
He recorded that as early as aged 56, at night I used to lie, quietly
watchful, while the walls of the room receded and dissolved . . . incipiently
separated in another kind of space (Whiteman, 1961, p.41). He was not
engaged in thinking; but . . . perceived and understood intuitively the
character of the situation and phenomena. Thinking suggests a discursive faculty which must cease its operation in that quiet recollection
which is the aim of every spiritual person (St John of the Cross) (Whiteman, 2000, p.43). His capacity for essential insight and Husserlian
phenomenological penetration was evidently being developed at an early
age, as was a capacity for obedience [to] a higher power that kept me
free of fear, trustfully watchful, and open also to strange indications of
non-physical beings watching me (p.209). The capacity for Obedience
(not servility) was seen as a major spiritual skill , along with
Recollection (comparable with Buddhist mindfulness) which began
development around the age of 20. A great discovery came when in
following some music in the score I suddenly realised that there was
a way of voluntarily holding some chosen sound conceptually in mind,
so that a deeper, precisely characterised and liberating essence was
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revealed in it (Whiteman, 2000, p.315). Following this discovery of

essential insight , my chief aim became at once to liberate every kind
of sensation in that way. The study and practice of music, it may be
noted, was hugely influential in his thinking.
Development of insight was helped at the age of 20 by a course in
Pelmanism; in one exercise one goes for a walk of about 15 minutes
duration, having resolved to stop time on detail after detail, just as
they happen to present themselves, and to do this in such a way that
one can be sure of being able to reproduce each detail afterwards in the
memory with its timeless conceptualperceptual character (p.315).
This developed a power of timeless recall of particular sensations,
which he came to call Recollection. As a student at Cambridge University,
the dormant faculty of Recollection having been stirred, all that up to
now had been wrapped in confusion instantly passed away, and a new
space burst forth in vivid presence and utter reality, with perception
free and pin-pointed as never before; the darkness itself seemed alive.
The thought that was then borne in upon me with inescapable conviction
was this: I have never been awake before (Whiteman, 1961, p.57,
2000, p.316). This was before he had become familiar with separative
states or out-of-body experience, but he was aware of being vividly
located in a non-physical space. After reading Muldoon & Carringtons
(1929) The Projection of the Astral Body, a series of duplicate-state
separations (physical-like out-of-body experiences) were experienced,
initially with no bodily characteristics; I was just a substance located
in a non-physical space, separating from another substance somehow
identified with the physical body (Whiteman, 2000, p.317). Meanwhile
the practice of Active Recollection continued, endeavouring to make
the state effortless and continuous. Then came the momentous discovery, essential for later spiritual development, that such a continuous
and effortless kind of Recollection (Continuous Recollection) could be
voluntarily induced. [The discovery] expanded into the awareness of a
boundless whole whose details were known simultaneously, being open
to exploration as on a map without losing primary contemplation of the
whole. Time had become like space (p.318). This would have fed into
his idea of non-physical substructure, especially of time-dimensions.
Having consolidated two of the spiritual skills, Active and Continuous Recollection, the skill of Obedience was consolidated with the
discovery of the Divine Source: while walking, something induced me
to look up at the sun . . . and suddenly, but without abruptness, I saw in
it the One Only Principle of Loving Wisdom, the Source of All. In a flash,
I knew henceforth I had only to obey that Loving Power, and I could
not go wrong (p.319). There remained the question of how the inner
revelation and outer physical life could be reconciled, but a complete
and absolute Obedience carried with it the faith or, rather, the
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conviction of assured knowledge that whatever happened would be

right and good (p.321). Inner episodes were described in Whiteman
(1961, p.14f) following the discovery of the Divine Source. Some were
stressful. In another astonishing and indescribable process there was
an absolute cessation of all, I was merged successively (to outward
view) in the Idea of the One, the Idea of Very Self, and then the utterly
all-sufficing Idea of the Good, nothing whatever existing then ( if such
inadequate words can be permitted) except those unchanging and
timeless Ideas in God . His handling of terms such as archetypal and
universal evidently had a source in this kind of experience. Such
experiences are not likely to convey very much to the reader (although
na,
parallels exist in various sources, as in the fourth Buddhist jha
and Patanjalis kaivalya or oneness), but they do give some idea of an
experience of universality that would flow into Whitemans ontology,
and his idea of core identity. Difficulties of conveying anything in
mystical description were discussed in Whiteman (1986, p.135ff).
Around the age of 25 inner events were accompanied by physical
disturbances such as dissociated states and blackouts, ordeals which
would be more comfortably resolved if I could follow the practice of
Indian seers and some Christian mystics and retire to a forest or
desert. The outcome was a brief period in a mental institution in a
deeply dissociated or separative state, dealing with spirits or receiving
instruction (Whiteman, 2000, p.344). Instruction concerned unfamiliar
spiritual phenomena and skills, but at other times there was the
obscure but deeply troublesome presence and activities of adverse
entities (p.336). In all this there is a detailed account of what may be
associated with shamanic initiation, although it took place without an
initiator or guru. On recovering, I knew that the former stabilised
contest-dissociation was over, and that a healthful higher dissociation,
able to interfuse the physical state with perfect harmony, was in full
control (p. 338). The remainder of his long life showed completely
normal behaviour and competence, although aware of being in the
world but not of the world , facilitated by a great variety of out-of-body
(separative) states. His diaries contain accounts of over 7000 psychic,
out-of-body and mystical experiences. He did not cultivate psychic
ability, but he did have spontaneous precognitive experiences (pp.81
82) which had an important influence on the recognition of different
time dimensions.
He reported being aware, from an early age, of an inner femininity,
which became established in separative states. It was not that I
observed a femaleness, but simply that I and femaleness were revealed
as the same thing, while maleness was something that I could think and
even feel, but which did not belong in the same absolute and perpetual
way (p.321). In separation, his spiritual-body form was normally
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[ Vol. 59, Part 222
female, only rarely male; the keen awareness of having a female

principal sex and a male auxiliary sex has remained with me ever since,
even in a physical life which, to most people, may seem to manifest
maleness exclusively (p.323). This awareness was presumably an
important source in developing his conception of the structure of
individuality; yet to consider him bisexual at a physical level would be
a radically mistaken conflation, since what he describes is existence in
wholly different worlds of being and function, either male or female.
Existing in different and contrasting spheres of manifestation must
have reinforced his understanding of the distinction between physical
and non-physical, and the primacy of the non-physical. A comprehension
of his world-view is hardly possible without recognising the multi-level
and multi-world insights that flowed from his own direct experience,
together with confirming sources ranging from ancient classics to modern
physics and Husserlian philosophy.
14 Mordern House
Harewood Avenue
London NW1 6NR
REFERENCES
French, C. C. (1995) A further reply to Whiteman. JASPR 89, 98101.
Heisenberg, W. (1959) Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science.
London: George Allen & Unwin.
Husserl E. (1931) Ideas: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology (trans. W. R.
Boyce Gibson). London: Allen & Unwin.
Kelly, E. F., Kelly E. W., Crabtree, A., Gauld, A., Grosso, M. and Greyson, B. (2007)
Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century. Lanham: Rowman
& Littlefield.
Muldoon, S. and Carrington, H. (1929) The Projection of the Astral Body. New
Eltham: Gilbert Whitehead & Co.
Oteri, L. (ed.) (1975)
New York:
Quantum Physics and Parapsychology.
Parapsychology Foundation.
Poynton, J. C. (ed.) (1975a) Parapsychology in South Africa. Johannesburg: South
African Society for Psychical Research.
Poynton, J. C. (1975b) Results of an out-of-the-body survey. In Poynton, J. C. (ed.)
Parapsychology in South Africa, 109123. Johannesburg: South African Society
for Psychical Research. On-line Library, Society for Psychical Research.
Poynton, J. C. (1994) Making sense of psi: Whitemans multilevel ontology. JSPR
59, 401412.
Poynton, J. C. (1996) Michael Whiteman at ninety. JSPR 61, 251255.
Poynton, J. C. (2001) Challenges of out-of-body experience: does psychical research
fully meet them ? JSPR 65, 194206.
Poynton, J. C. (2007a) Michael Whiteman at one hundred. JSPR 71, 4344.
Poynton, J. C. (2007b) Obituary. Michael Whiteman. JSPR 71, 126127.
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Whiteman, J. H. M. (1961) The Mystical Life: An Outline of its Nature and

Teachings from the Evidence of Direct Experience. London: Faber & Faber.
Whiteman, J. H. M. (1967) Philosophy of Space and Time and the Inner
Constitution of Nature: A Phenomenological Study. London: George Allen &
Unwin; New York: Humanities Press.
Whiteman, J. H. M. (1973) Quantum theory and parapsychology. JASPR 67, 341
360.
Whiteman, J. H. M. (1975a) A three-tier ontology for parapsychology and modern
physics. In Poynton, J. C. (ed.) Parapsychology in South Africa, 124134.
Johannesburg: South African Society for Psychical Research. On-line Library,
Society for Psychical Research.
Whiteman, J. H. M. (1975b) Parapsychology as an analyticdeductive science. In
Oteri, L. (ed.) Quantum Physics and Parapsychology, 181204. New York:
Parapsychology Foundation.
Whiteman, J. H. M. (1975c) The scientific evaluation of out-of-the-body experience.
In Poynton, J. C. (ed.) Parapsychology in South Africa, 95108. Johannesburg:
South African Society for Psychical Research. On-line Library, Society for
Psychical Research.
Whiteman, J. H. M. (1977a) Parapsychology and physics. In Wolman, B. B. (ed.)
Handbook of Parapsychology, 730756. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.
Whiteman, J. H. M. (1977b) The convergence of physics and psychology. In White,
E. and Krippner, S. (eds.) Future Science, 289308. New York: Doubleday.
Whiteman, J. H. M. (1986) Old and New Evidence on the Meaning of Life. Volume 1.
An Introduction to Scientific Mysticism. Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe.
Whiteman, J. H. M. (1993) Aphorisms of Spiritual Method: the Yoga Sutras of
Patanjali in the Light of Mystical Experience. Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe.
The Dynamics of Spiritual Development. Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe.
Universal Theology and Life in Other Worlds. Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe.
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APPENDIX
WhitemanStevenson Correspondence on Reincarnation
The SPR has received a large quantity of archive material pertaining to Professor
Whiteman. The contents of the archives include correspondence with many notable
scientists, and contain exchanges with the late Professor Ian Stevenson, a principal
writer on reincarnation. The exchanges give further insight into Whitemans thinking
on reincarnation, and Stevensons contrasting ideas.
In what appears to be missing correspondence, Whiteman evidently raised the
idea that physical personality is composite, and that on dissolution after physical
death only a fraction of one personality may carry memories into the composition of
a new physical personality (discussed above under strict and loose reincarnation).
Stevensons comment in April 1963 was, so far as the empirical evidence available to
me goes, the evidence seems rather to support the beads on a string idea of the theosophists. He evidently saw an earthly personality to be a discrete unit, connected
by a discrete link between one incarnation and the next. Stevensons conception
was linear; in contrast, Whitemans conception was reticular, a network of entities
connecting lives. Yet Stevenson added, I admit, however, that there are few cases
which are not also open to the other idea of a partial incarnation of members of a
group. The cases which, it seems to me, can only be explained by strict reincarnation
are those in which birthmarks occur . . . In these birthmark and deformity cases, the
link between one personality and another seems quite clear, assuming authenticity
for the cases.
In April 1987, this view was repeated when he wrote that a loosestrict distinction may account for occasional cases (of the type I have studied), but certainly
not all of them; it does not adequately explain the occurrence of birthmarks and birth
defects corresponding to specific wounds in a deceased person. Whitemans reply to
this in April 1987 is full of the complexities that he saw in personality structure and
continuity. He wrote, according to Swedenborg and the Buddha (and in my own
experience) a personality does not exist without co-minds ceaselessly coming and
going ( no man is an island). He believed that the occurrence of birthmarks did not
rule out the possibility of the influence of a co-mind being potentially as powerful in
an infant as is the core individuality. He wrote, if one accepts that co-minds (still
attached to experiences in the life they have recently led) will necessarily help to
make up the personality of a baby just born ( in fact may constitute it almost entirely
if the individual in charge is not fully awake, so to speak), then naturally one would
expect traumatic events in the life of those co-minds to be manifested in the physical
body of the baby.
In this letter, Whitemans comments on strict reincarnation expanded on
what appears in his published works, evidently allowing himself some degree of
speculation. Strict reincarnation was taken to occur when the individual in charge
and the co-minds more or less permanently associated with him/her in physical life
have become more or less disunited after death (because in a separated state there
is not the same bondage to the physical body). If the break up of the personality is
very considerable, and the individual in charge comes back to the physical world (as
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April 2011 ]
a co-mind or as a new individual in charge) for the sake of obtaining more lessons
from life, one could not expect the old physical memories to survive (the personality
having been destroyed). But if the return is quick, so that the personality ( individual
plus co-minds) are little changed, then one would expect the memories to survive.
In this 1987 letter, Whiteman acknowledged that his picture of the personality,
though it is really nothing but a summary of a multitude of different kinds of direct
experience, meets with enormous resistance from the average person in the West.
There are no letters in the collection beyond this one, and it seems that Stevenson
himself remained unconvinced by this multiple picture of the personality and all it
entailed. At the end of his final magnum opus, Stevenson (1997) seemed still to have
adhered to a string of beads idea by proposing the theoretical entity, a psychophore,
a vehicle for memories between lives. The existing correspondence sadly does not
contain reference to any debate on this issue.
In the January 1987 letter, Whiteman wrote of one of the greatest difficulties in
this field of research, which was distinguishing between the entering into a retrocognitive scene, and the plausible identifying of details in the scene with memories in
the same line of consciousness as the presently-living percipient . Stevenson replied
in April that he had little of value to say about the matter. This interpretation
may account for occasional cases (of the type I have studied), but certainly not for all
of them.
The correspondence between Stevenson and Whiteman shows great cordiality but,
in view of differences in experience and approach, the minimal impact of Whitemans
ideas on Stevensons final work on reincarnation need not seem surprising. The
simplicity of a beads on a string idea of reincarnation, and some imaginative
theorising, evidently seemed to Stevenson to be the best he could aspire to. No doubt
he must have felt he had enough complexity to deal with as it was.
It is worth noting that Stevenson and Whiteman showed agreement regarding a
multi-world conception. Stevenson (December 1986 letter) wrote of becoming more
and more convinced that a further understanding of the existence of two spaces, or
perhaps multiple spaces, is necessary for our understanding of the relationship
between minds and brains and also for the solution of many problems in parapsychology. Whiteman (January 1987 letter) stated that everything hinges for me
on the admission of other spaces, which I classify along with other kinds of mental
control by which one can become open to them or enter them. I was delighted to
read that you are coming to a view of this kind . But it seems that Whiteman was
only partly correct in this assessment: Stevenson evidently had reservations about
an individual being able consciously to enter non-physical spaces, even though
Whiteman believed that the out-of-body experience is exactly this.
REFERENCE
Stevenson, I. (1997) Reincarnation and Biology: A Contribution to the Etiology of
Birthmarks and Birth Defects (2 vols.). New York: Praeger.
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MANY LEVELS,

MANY WORLDS AND PSI:

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to devalue the internal evidence of a recorded experience, and so limit

Many Levels, Many Worlds and Psi

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completeness in that a set of physical laws alone is insufficient to

Emphasis in the original, as is the case for all subsequent quotations.

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p.732). The level of intelligible structure was regarded as being of

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UNIVERSAL REASON, INTELLIGIBLE STRUCTURE

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potentia in the sense of Aristotelian philosophy. Whiteman followed

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Many Levels, Many Worlds and Psi

succeed. He pointed out that this third intelligible sphere is recognised

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of different states and different perceived worlds; but in practice the

Many Levels, Many Worlds and Psi

consciousness in both physical and decoupled bodies ( primary,

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non-physical sensing, objects have extension, position, direction and

Many Levels, Many Worlds and Psi

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but who may thereby be induced to accept the interior testimony as

Many Levels, Many Worlds and Psi

ontology, Whiteman also recorded observational evidence. As noted

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TIME AND PSI

Many Levels, Many Worlds and Psi

future (as in composing a musical work), signified by T; there is the

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happening may be integrated with thoughts and actions emanating

Many Levels, Many Worlds and Psi

to find structures of creativity in the manifestation of subjective and

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unseen core identity (Whiteman, 2000, p.xxiv). The core identity is

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ignorance or rejection of the evidence for other worlds and of processes

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personally experienced, in the physical world, an original of the events

Many Levels, Many Worlds and Psi

At the most universal level of individual functioning and realisation,

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end-result, while the intelligible meaning is provided by timeless ideas

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discernible in existence, leading to full understanding at any actuality

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revealed in it (Whiteman, 2000, p.315). Following this discovery of

Many Levels, Many Worlds and Psi