Daily Archives: March 29, 2022

03/23/2022, 1:10 p.m.2 minutes reading time

Leah Thomas wins historic victory as swimmer at the American College Championships in Atlanta. But no one wanted to recognize her.

Leah Thomas victory at the American College Championships in Atlanta is currently the subject of controversy. The reason: Thomas is a transgender, thus becoming the first transgender athlete to win the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) title in the highest category in the 500-yard freestyle. But this victory should not be recognized by a US government.

Florida Gov. Ron Desantis has signed a statement recognizing the success of another woman from his home state. This was reported by Der Spiegel, among others. DeSantis accused the NCAA of destroying opportunities for women: Now the NCAA is trying to destroy the game of women, they are trying to undermine the integrity of the competition, and they are crowning someone else the womens champion, and we think its wrong.

Florida Athlete Fastest Woman

Several media outlets reported that Desantis had denied Leah Thomas success. Instead, Governor Sarasota conferred the title on Emma Wyand of Florida, who was defeated by Leah Thomas in 1.75 seconds in the same match. According to him, the winner of the event is a newcomer to the University of Virginia and an Olympic silver medalist.

She had the fastest time of any woman in college athletics, Desantis said of Wyandot at a news conference. Ron DeSantis, considered a close ally of former President Donald Trump, is still being touted as the 2024 presidential candidate.

Gender debate in the United States

Three years ago, Leah Thomas still competed as a man in swimming competitions. The University of Pennsylvania team questioned his eligibility, saying they had an unfair physiological advantage over Thomas. Prior to the match, a small group of protesters with banners complained about transgender swimming participation. After his victory, Thomas received only a round of applause.

Gender X

Transgender in Pakistan

A transgender man begs for money during a traffic jam in Lahore, Pakistans second largest city. Every night she was sent by her guru to raise money for the Hijra community where she lived. Many Hijras live in well-defined and organized life and economic communities under the leadership of Guru-Thai. He must take care of the material and spiritual needs of his students, i.e. transgender people, in return for the right to faith and a portion of his income.

Further

In February 2022, the US Swimming Association issued new guidelines for USA Swimming. In the future, testosterone limits should also be offered here, but it is not yet used.

Source: Glass

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USA: Wins Trance Girl Swimming Tournament - Recognized as US Governor - Socialpost

Lisette Coly and Anastasia Damalas are at a crossroads.

But, on a recent late-winter morning, they were also in the book-filled storefront of their foundation in the Greenport section of Long Island, when someone knocked at the door.

Ms. Coly, 71, and her daughter, Ms. Damalas, 32, were leery. Their family nonprofit is appointment-only, and no appointments were scheduled.

In walked a woman who said she had driven from Eatons Neck because she was interested in buying the building. She requested a tour, but Ms. Coly told her the foundation was closed for the day.

Still, the woman made her way into the quiet and pristine space, toward the back archive where Ms. Coly had just unveiled 90-year-old photos of her grandmother that had never been shown to the public. The photos feature Eileen J. Garrett, the celebrity medium of the 20th century, deep in trance.

The uninvited visitor surveyed the room and left in a huff.

That was highly irregular, Ms. Coly said afterward. But it was not the only bizarre occurrence that day: lights flicked on when their switches were in the off position, and loud, electrical buzz sounds intermittently came on and off.

Could such events be paranormal related to the appearance of the rare photos? Some might think so. Others might correlate them to the ordinary problems of this mundane world: an aging, 87-year-old building and a cutthroat real estate market.

Because after 17 years in this location, and with a business thats a little over 70 years old, the mother-daughter proprietors of the Parapsychology Foundation are about to lose their lease.

At risk is the enormous, one-of-a-kind Eileen J. Garrett Library, a staggering archive of books, scholarly papers, photographs, letters and some 600 videos documenting the broad and complicated field of parapsychology in the 20th century.

My grandmother used to say, Monday, Wednesday and Friday I believe in the paranormal. Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday I dont. And Sunday I dont give a damn, Ms. Coly said, relating to the weariness that comes with steering a precarious nonprofit. After all these years, I feel the same way.

Ms. Coly and Ms. Damalass financial predicament their landlord is selling the building in Greenport and they cannot afford to buy it highlights a fork both in their livelihood and the cultural trajectory of the discipline itself.

Parapsychology, a term coined in 1889 by the German psychologist and philosopher Max Dessoir for the scientific investigation of psychic or paranormal phenomena, often refers to the experimental approach to the field. It pursued many of the questions now studied by hard sciences like physics and neuroscience, yet today is wildly misunderstood by the general public. New science and research are either lost in academic echo chambers or reduced to haunted house explorations on TV.

But Ms. Coly and Ms. Damalas believe the foundation and its library can still help people if the study of the paranormal can be reframed in a contemporary light.

Ive been a good soldier. Ive played within the rules of academia. But everything is morphing. We need to move with the times, Ms. Coly said. She wants to save, grow and digitize the library and find a good home for it. I refuse to see it broken up.

Eileen J. Garrett did not have an easy start. She was born in Meath, Ireland, in 1893 and was orphaned over the next couple of months when both parents died by suicide. She was then adopted and raised in Meath by her aunt and uncle.

As a young girl, Ms. Garrett said she started seeing apparitions, hearing voices and predicting future events. When she moved to London at age 15, she found a mentor, the spiritualist James Hewat McKenzie, and attended the school he founded the British College of Psychic Studies in London in the 1920s.

She and Mr. McKenzie determined that she was a trance medium as opposed to a more run-of-the-mill psychic when she began channeling an entity named Uvani, whom she called her control. From that point forward, Uvani performed the role of communications director between the entranced Ms. Garrett and the various entities who wanted to speak through her.

Ms. Garrett and Uvani fit in with the religious trend of the day: Spiritualism. But Ms. Garrett did not subscribe to the Spiritualist doctrine, openly admitting her own disbelief in survival of consciousness.

A skeptic herself, she worried that her psychic sensitivities, as theyre called, were early signs of madness. But after multiple visits to psychiatrists who gave odd diagnoses that her behavior was a stress response to her husbands sexual inadequacy, for example (she was married three times total) she committed to managing her experiences and finding answers on her own.

My grandmother refused to think everything mysterious was a ghost, Ms. Coly said. She thought just as likely that she had multiple personalities, or was using telepathy, or some other phenomenon that wasnt yet understood.

Voice hearing exists on a continuum, said Philip Corlett, a clinical researcher who is leading an N.I.M.H.-funded study of clinical and nonclinical voice hearers with James Gold at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center and Connecticut Mental Health Center in New Haven. So clairaudience or receiving auditory messages in ones head is not necessarily a sign of mental illness.

In a previous study in Connecticut, Dr. Corlett and his colleagues found, after testing patients and nonclinical voice hearers, that psychics did not meet diagnostic criteria for a psychotic illness. The psychics in the study were in fact hearing voices, but well have to agree to disagree on the provenance of those experiences meaning the data doesnt show they have mental illness, but he also doesnt believe they are talking to the dead.

Ms. Garretts own skepticism about her psychic abilities captivated Harry Price, a Spiritualist debunker and psychical researcher known today as the first ghost hunter. In 1930, Mr. Price arranged a sance of Ms. Garretts in which she was asked to contact Arthur Conan Doyle, the recently deceased creator of Sherlock Holmes.

Instead, Uvani brought through the deceased pilot of a crashed blimp, the R-101, that had fallen in France two days earlier. The seemingly sensitive information she channeled that the engines were too heavy; it was flying at too low of an altitude; an oil pipe was plugged caught the attention of reporters in attendance.

Though dismayed by her sudden fame, Ms. Garrett moved to the United States the next year and went on a lecture tour for the American Society for Psychical Research.

In New York, Ms. Garrett worked as a 9 to 5 psychic, as she herself put it, establishing offices at 29 West 57th Street, and attracting high-profile clients and friends, including Aldous Huxley, Salvador Dal, Henry Miller and Anais Nin.

As a teenager, Ms. Coly started helping out around her grandmothers office, getting dispatched to do things like tell Mr. Dal that Ms. Garrett was busy when he came though the door: Hes such a bore, Ms. Coly recalled her grandmother saying.

Ms. Garrett was not your conventional granny: At one point she implored her young granddaughter to take LSD with her and Mr. Huxley. Ms. Coly refused. She didnt exactly say I was a wuss, Ms. Coly said, but she tried to persuade me, saying, Whats the worst that can happen? We cant guarantee you an easy time, but we can certainly get you out of it eventually.

But Ms. Garrett attracted plenty of willing acolytes. Her young administrative assistant, Edward Everett Tanner III, wrote the novel Auntie Mame under the pseudonym Patrick Dennis, and told Ms. Garrett he had based his title character partly on her.

The Parapsychology Foundation, which today is the largest collection of parapsychological research in the United States and one of the largest in the world, was started in 1951 by Ms. Garrett and her close friend Frances P. Bolton, a Republican congresswoman from Ohio.

Their mission was to widely fund the study of consciousness, particularly the aspects known as paranormal or psi. The two women supported decades of scientific and academic research with Ms. Boltons inherited oil money (her uncle was a partner of John D. Rockefeller).

They funded research internationally, including Joseph Banks Rhines early ESP studies and Ian Stevensons examination of reincarnation; the exploration of religious miracles at Lourdes, France; and the United States governments early interest in remote viewing, the now famous declassified psychic spy program.

The foundation has been strictly matrilineal: Ms. Colys mother, Eileen Coly the only survivor of Ms. Garretts three children; two sons had died young assumed the role of president of the foundation upon Ms. Garretts death in 1970. Lisette Coly took over the presidency in 2012.

Over the course of Ms. Colys tenure, she has maintained the library, continued providing grants, brought back the Helix Press imprint and served as the editor in chief of the International Journal of Parapsychology. She has also published proceedings of all of the foundations 41 international conferences, many of which she helped coordinate over the years, featuring experts in neurobiology, dream research, ceremonial magic and areas of pharmacology that included psychedelics.

My grandmother always wanted to bring together various disciplines to look at the phenomena, Ms. Coly said. She didnt want parapsychology talking to itself as a field.

These days, without Ms. Boltons generous check writing, which ended with her death in 1977, the foundation leads a quieter existence for a few dozen visitors a month: students, researchers and laypeople who seek answers to what they think may be paranormal questions. Since 1977, the foundation has subsisted from a modest endowment left by Ms. Bolton and the occasional bequest, but those are few and far between.

The library, perhaps the foundations most valuable physical asset, is a gold mine. Its really an information clearinghouse of vetted, peer-reviewed, quality information and rare primary source materials, Ms. Coly said. You wont find any books on werewolves.

The foundation has moved two times before: First, in 1984, from the 57th street address to a brownstone on East 71st street between Second and Third Avenues Ms. Colys home a move that lasted until 2004, when the collection went into storage. In 2005, the storefront rental in sleepy Greenport came along.

People who are searching in this realm, no matter what level, should have a physical place to go, Ms. Coly said. You dont have to be a card-carrying believer to be curious. The phenomena should be discussed in normal parlance, and information should be available.

Ms. Coly and Ms. Damalas are re-evaluating how to best guide the foundation into the future. The old model was only sustainable with a rainmaker like Ms. Bolton. Conferences and research require money and dont bring in enough revenue alone.

For reasons of quality and reputation, Ms. Coly and Ms. Damalas are reluctant to use the flashier, income-driving models from the spiritual marketplace, like recreational ghost hunting or expensive sessions with mediums.

I dont want to play games with the phenomena on the foundations time, Ms. Coly said. This is not about seeing if there are ghosts in an old building.

Ms. Damalas is busy digitizing materials, building a social media presence, creating YouTube videos and listening in on daily calls about the librarys future location. The foundation has always aimed to serve two audiences: academia and the general public.

Ms. Coly remembered some of the calls she has handled.

Parents call wanting to help their children who they worry might be possessed. Or after 9/11, someone called wanting to know if souls could be trapped on a plane. People need help getting through the experience, whether or not it is paranormal. And that does not mean sending them to a random psychic on the street.

Ms. Damalas, perhaps because of her proximity to the family vocation, has had difficulty handling paranormal questions in her own life. While a new area of research is exploring psychic sensitivity as a genetic inheritance, Ms. Damalas hesitates to embrace trance mediumship, even though shes had incidents her whole life.

When I asked for an example, an amused Ms. Damalas shared a series of stories, one about her childhood realization that a restaurant her family frequented on Long Island didnt actually have a haunted theme.

Upon understanding that no one else saw the macabre atmosphere, Ms. Damalas became perpetually guarded. Like her great-grandmother, she sleeps with the lights on.

In general, I think our materials can really help people find comfort. I could imagine a building in the city, with membership, and a Soho House-like atmosphere, she said of the business model shed like to follow. But do I want spirits in my face? No. I do not.

Link:

The Parapsychology Foundation Fights for Its Future - The New York Times

The Beatles had a tight-knit group that rarely wavered during their decade-long recording process. The four members were joined in the studio by George Martin, along with a small number of engineers, including Norman Smith, Glyn Johns, and Ken Scott at different times. But for most of their most iconic work, Geoff Emerick was the man behind the tape machine and faders.

When Smith was promoted to the role of producer in 1966, the 20-year-old Emerick became The Beatles new engineer. Emericks first album with the band was Revolver, and he remained with them through their most psychedelic phase, including on the albums Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band and Magical Mystery Tour. However, by 1968s The White Album, Emerick began to dislike the tense atmosphere of the studio.

I lost interest in the White Album because they were really arguing among themselves and swearing at each other, Emerick recalled in Mark Lewisohns The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions. The expletives were really flying I said to George [Martin], Look, Ive had enough. I want to leave. I dont want to know any more. George said, Well, leave at the end of the week I think it was a Monday or Tuesday but I said, No, I want to leave now, this very minute. And that was it.

That was during the July 16th session when the band were working on John Lennons Cry Baby Cry. According to Lennon, he had come up with the original idea for the song much in the same way that he conceived of Good Morning Good Morning: through an advertisement.

Ive got another one here, a few words, I think I got them from an advert Cry baby cry, make your mother buy, Lennon recalled in Hunter Davies 1968 book The Beatles. Ive been playing it over on the piano. Ive let it go now. Itll come back if I really want it. I do get up from the piano as if I have been in a trance. Sometimes I know Ive let a few things slip away, which I could have caught if Id been wanting something.

Emerick would later return to work as an engineer on the album Abbey Road, for which he won a Grammy for Best Engineered Album. After The Beatles disbanded, Emerick continued to engineer albums for Paul McCartney and Wings, including the LPs Band on the Run and Tug of War.

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The Beatles song that caused their engineer to quit - Far Out Magazine

Soren Lorenson - who says tattoos put him in a "trance like state" - has been getting work done since he was 18. The 28-year-old from Florida, says he will get more work done

A man who has his eyeballs tattooed has been ostracised from his family who make "no effort" to talk to him since he started getting inked.

Soren Lorenson - who says tattoos put him in a "trance like state" - has been getting work done since he was 18.

The 28-year-old from Florida, has been told by his family to "pray for God's help".

The body modification enthusiast - also known as Neon Demon - said his jawline and ribs were most painful tattoos to sit through, the Daily Star reports.

He now has more than 200 tattoos.

He said: When I first started, I hated the pain and it was more of an obstacle to get past in order to earn the design that I wanted.

I've always been very inspired by art and creative expression from across the world. Once I got started I just kept going and I didn't want to stop.

More recently though after getting much bigger work and enduring much longer sessions I discovered that I was starting to enjoy the process and feeling and I'm developing the ability to focus my mind into a somewhat trance-like state.

Its been an interesting process that I'm still continuing to explore.

But to answer the question, each body part is different in terms of pain levels. My stomach, being my first tattoo ever, felt like the worst pain I had ever endured.

It was as if the needle was penetrating into my abdomen.

And he added: My jawline and ribs were similar in a different way.

But despite feeling more like himself now hes heavily inked, his family remain perplexed by it.

He explained: My entire extended family hates my tattoos and makes no effort to ever talk to me or reach out ever since I first got the face done.

My parents love me and support me but have told me numerous times that I need to pray for God's help and that they will never understand me.

I am the oldest out of 10 siblings though and I love all my brothers and sisters more than anything.

I'm open to covering almost the entire surface area of my body with the exception of my genitals - but I'm also not in a rush at the moment," he added.

Although he may look intimidating to some, Neon Demon said his favourite tattoo was a little kitty cat on his arm because of his love of felines.

The body modification fan also compared the process of getting tattooed to a ritual.

Sacred rituals have been around since the beginning of time and they take many forms but for me what makes it so special is the partnership you can form with pain.

Also using pain to achieve something greater and through submitting yourself to it you gain a sense of freedom and strength.

Tattooing to me is an important act of creative expression that allows me to feel like myself and through the years has also helped me learn to better love myself for who I am.

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Man with 200 tattoos including on his EYEBALLS urged to ask God for help by his mum - The Mirror

THESE identical twins claim to have had FOUR UFO encounters including being abducted by aliens.

Philip and Ronald Kinsella, 52, from Kempston, Beds., said their first sighting was of a silver orb at the age of 13.

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Philip, a writer, also claimed he was abducted byaliens in 1989.

He said: I remember sitting in my home and the atmosphere changed and it became static.

The hairs on my back went up and Ronnie went into a trance he froze and raised his head up to the ceiling."

He claimed he was then examined by reptilian aliens on board a spaceship.

The pair also allegedly saw a hovering pyramid-shaped object in June 1998.

Philip said: There must be a reason why this has been happening to both my brother and I.

I think the authorities know about the aliens but dont want to scare people.

The twins shared footage of their fourth encounter in 2016.

Philip said there were three white objects hovering 90 to 100ft up.

He told Daily Star: They were huge and we were amazed.

Ronald added: The sound was muffled like it had snowed heavily.

"We arent gullible and know what we have witnessed.

It is a taboo subject the deeper you dig, the murkier the water gets.

It comes following an incomplete UFO report published by the US Department of Defense.

The report should have clarified the question of the existence of extraterrestrial UFOs.

The nine-page documentwas less than satisfactoryfor many people as it listed phenomena that were already widely known.

However, the document was apparently a shortened version of the report meant for public publication. There was allegedly a secret briefing between Congress members to remove information from public record.

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Twins say theyve had FOUR UFO encounters including being abducted by aliens and seeing a pyramid-s... - The US Sun

"Gamblers describe this as entering the zone, which really just means that they dissociate completely from reality from what's going on around them," says Associate Professor Maria Bellringer, director of Auckland University of Technology's Gambling & Addiction Research Centre.

Prof Bellringer says pokies are designed by psychologists to keep people playing and addicts completely lose track of time.

"[They are] in this trance-like state and forget what's going on around them."

This includes their children, she says, something that concerns her.

Since January 2019, 48 people have been trespassed from SkyCity Casino for leaving a child unattended while they gamble. Police were called in 27 of the incidents

Children have been left alone in cars, hotel rooms, the lobby, or on streets near the casino.

"I suspect it's higher. Parents will be leaving children at home as well," Prof Bellringer says.

Children of problem gamblers suffer from attachment issues and are more prone to substance abuse, eating disorders and gambling themselves - with evidence it can start with just informal schoolyard bets.

"In fact, children as young as nine years old in the country have reported gambling for money," Prof Bellringer says.

SkyCity must report all incidents of children being found alone to Internal Affairs. In the most recent audit - finalised in May last year - it was the one compliance area out of 10 where the regulator was satisfied the operator was meeting its obligations.

SkyCity told Newshub it has a zero-tolerance policy to the issue. It says there are:

"regular sweeps" of car parks and high-risk areas carried out by security

increased staffing at casino entrances during peak times

"enhanced" signage warning of the legal age

regular public address announcements in the car park and lobby stating children shouldn't be left alone.

Last year, 16 underage people gained access to the casino floor.

Internal Affairs says there are "ongoing discussions" with the casino to ensure it's meeting its host responsibility requirements.

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Auckland's SkyCity Casino trespassed 48 people in past three years for leaving children alone in cars, on the street while they gambled - Newshub