Trained Transliminals: Exploring Anomalous Experiences and Psi in Magical Practitioners

Ritual magic practitioners who combine meditation, visualization, and related mental exercises report more invoked and spontaneously-occurring anomalous phenomena, and this relationship is linked to transliminality, a personality trait reflecting loose mental boundaries. However, on a computerized psi test, these practitioners scored significantly below chance, especially when testing ESP openly or using ritual to influence the test. The findings suggest that magical practice may involve techniques that could remediate a transliminal dis-ease model, but the psi test results indicate a reversal of expected effects.

Study at a glance

Abstract

This study examines a body of engaged “ritual magic practitioners” to understand their methods and techniques for facilitating putative parapsychological outcomes in everyday life, as well as outcomes on a computerized test of putative psi. We hypothesized that the combination of meditation, visualization, and related mental exercises at the core of magical practice relates to both invoked anomalous phenomena and spontaneously-occurring anomalous phenomena, and further that the perceptual-personality variable of transliminality (i.e., loose mental boundary functioning) is integral to this process. Likewise, we also anticipated that these associations would enable ritual magicians to score significantly above-chance on the psi test. A split-sample analysis found a positive and statistically significant series of relationships between transliminality and the majority of measured variables within the sample, and notably those involving questionnaire measures of subjective and objective anomalies as well as daily mental exercises. The ritual magicians also performed significantly below-chance (p < .01 for several conditions) on the psi test, as a function of open testing of ESP or using ritual to influence the test. We discuss these results in terms of significant predictions of trait and practice variables on ESP scoring, as well as the evidence that magical practice may represent techniques in which a transliminal dis-ease model might be better remediated.