Psychic Criminology, Second Edition: A Guide For Using Psychics In Investigations
By Whitney S. Hibbard, Raymond W. Worring, Richard Brennan
Charles C. Thomas PUBLISHER LTD, Springfield, Illinois, 2002 Click here to purchase this book!
The first edition of this book, described as a “practical operations manual,” was published in 1982. Author Raymond W. Worring died in 1998 and Richard Brennan replaced him for the second edition, contributing sections on remote viewing and adding a new chapter titled “PSI Case Files.” In the Preface To The Second Edition, Whitney Hibbard writes: “The intent of this book is not to be a critical appraisal; that has been done comprehensively elsewhere, most notably in the highly recommended The Blue Sense: Psychic Detectives and Crime, which also is a careful and well-documented look at the many pitfalls of working with psychic sleuths. The first edition was criticized in some quarters for being overly sympathetic and uncritical about the role of psychics in investigations. This criticism has been addressed in this edition … However, the book remains unapologetically supportive of the use of psychics as investigative aides, as long as they are used in a disciplined, efficient, and professional manner.” For better understanding of Psychic Criminology as a manual for law enforcement officers (while the book will also be of value for everyone with interest), The Blue Sense, a 1991 publication by Arthur Lyons and Marcello Truzzi, Ph.D, will prove a helpful companion study. The Blue Sense is referenced several times in Psychic Criminology and it offers such a thorough treatment of its subject it could be used as a “foundation course” for the entire field of psychic detection.
From a careful reading of these two books alone it becomes clear that what the science of the spirit describes as the essential next step in the evolution of consciousness, the development of the new capacities for clairvoyance or spiritual perception, has been assiduously taken up in its preliminary stages — psychic phenomena — in areas where it is most needed, in the fight against crime, which is increasingly exposing the public and law enforcement officers to a barrage of sick, irrational, tragic, violent and dangerous situations, not to mention the unending frustrations caused by a top-heavy legal system that rules far too many times in favor of the criminals. “According to Chief James Basil of the Buckland, Massachusetts Police Department, one of the few police officials to go public on the subject, ‘A lot of police departments may use psychics, but they will only admit it off the ‘record’ … In all likelihood, increasing public pressure eventually will force law enforcement personnel to use psychics more frequently. This is evidenced by the escalating number of requests for help that psychics receive from victims’ families … The current situation is summed up nicely by Karen Henrikson and Chief Kozenczak (ret.), chief investigator on the John Wayne Gacy case, in their article Still Beyond Belief: The Use of Psychics in Homicide Investigations: ‘The world of parapsychology has a great deal to offer… Having once experienced the positive attributes a psychic can lend to a case, parapsychology seems to be a natural companion to the world of criminology.’ One of the purposes of this book is to foster that companionship.” Awareness of the necessity for standards, codes of ethics, and a heightened sense of morality is evident in articles and books about the developing science of psychic criminology (e.g., some psychic sleuths ask for payment beyond expenses and seek publicity), and the constant everyday work required in distinguishing truth from falseness in many investigative areas transfers over into level-headed assessments of psychics and psychic phenomena. The authors stress that it has become essential to avoid wasting time, human resources and funds.
Parapsychologists have become aware of the unique states of consciousness between waking and sleeping, and it seems that in the use of “forensic hypnosis” — defined as the use of hypnosis during a legal/criminal investigation, conducted with witnesses and recorded — the subject does not lose consciousness, but enters into an altered state of consciousness. It is to be hoped that any methods that cause the subject to become unconscious and “taken over” by some unseen entity will be recognized as spiritually unlawful and hence harmful. Just as there are natural and social laws, there are spiritual laws. The Blue Sense offers an interesting passage on hypnosis in Chapter Nine, “Psychic Success Stories.” Regarding the mentalist Kreskin (George Joseph Kresge, b. 1935), “… Kreskin disbelieves in hypnosis as a special state, and his work with witnesses did not involve placing them into a trance. He believes everything done in a trance can be done in the waking state.” In working with witnesses to a crime, “Kreskin met with each of them separately and had them relive their actions at the time while assuming the body positions they then had. Two of the three reported vivid recollections …” Beneficial psychic phenomena will lead to an enhancement of consciousness and, when revealed as an aspect or facet of the truth, will prove fruitful.
Clearly, psychic criminology is a light on the horizon that promises to increase, opening up entirely new fields of discovery and, perhaps more importantly, serving to stimulate the “sixth sense,” the intuitive hunches or the “blue sense” of police officers, in their search for solutions in difficult cases and in their exposure to very real dangers on the job.
As a guidebook Psychic Criminology offers chapters on The State of the Art, A Short History of Psychic Criminology, Scientific Evidence and Theory, Practical Application, Working With Psychics, PSI Case Files, PSI On The Job, and Conclusion. An Appendix offers an example of an “Intuitive Investigation Report Form.” In addition, there is a bibliography with publications ranging from the years 1875 (Among the Zulu and the Amatongos) to 2002, a glossary that needs further work (although many major areas and terms, such as psychometry and precognition, are defined in the third chapter), and a helpful index.
In the chapter on “Working With Psychics,” the authors offer these challenging perspectives: “… It seemingly would be a straightforward question to ask a psychic if a missing person is alive or dead. When the authors did this, however, we were continually frustrated by receiving contradictory replies from credible psychics. At the verge of giving the whole endeavor up, one particularly insightful psychic asked us if we had considered the possibility that the different psychic sources (i.e., the different levels of reality from which psychics gain their information) had differing definitions and perceptions of the states of being called ‘alive’ or ‘dead.’ For instance, if life after death is a reality, then a person we would consider dead may appear quite alive to a psychic source. Yet another psychic source may define a person as ‘spiritually dead,’ which is more dead than being physically dead. Such explanations, no matter how seemingly implausible, must be considered and weighed carefully.”
It gets better:
“With this complication in mind, we began to formulate our questions more precisely, leaving no doubt as to what it was that we were asking. For example, instead of asking if a particular person is alive or dead, we would ask, ‘Is the person who goes by the name of John Doe planetside and currently alive in a physical body as we know it?’ Although somewhat cumbersome, this form of precise questioning removed the problem of different perspectives, definitions, and perceptions and allowed for a greater degree of confidence in the psychics’ answers.”
The numerous difficulties being confronted in these areas can all be traced to a single cause: absence of true knowledge of the spirit and of spiritual laws in our religious and educational systems and in our society, pushed to the background while a hundredfold false systems, organizations and self-aggrandizing individuals, deluded or deliberate, clamor for attention and the spotlight — and receive it. From The Case for Anthroposophy, Chapter V, Concerning the Nature of Spiritual Perception, by Rudolf Steiner, 1917: “In order to acquire a reliable psychic relation to the spiritual world, it is a very great advantage to cultivate assiduously the knowledge of three rather subtly differentiated mental processes: 1. Psychic or soul processes leading up to a spiritual perception; 2. spiritual perceptions themselves; 3. spiritual perceptions translated into the concepts of ordinary consciousness.” From Preparing for the Sixth Epoch, 1915: “… In the sixth cultural epoch all materialistic beliefs, including science, too, will be regarded as antiquated superstition. Men as a matter of course will accept as science only such forms of knowledge as are based upon the spiritual, upon pneumatology.” Anthroposophy or the science of the spirit was introduced and developed during a time period — at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century — when false and dangerous practices of spiritualism, e.g., séances and trance mediumship, were becoming well-known and popular. Interest and work in all aspects of psychic phenomena should eventually lead the inquirer onto the path of the next stage of development: the discovery and attainment of true spiritual knowledge from the highest sources possible in our time.
There is currently an important PDF document made available online by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Quantico, Virginia, a Subject Bibliography of available books in the Academy Library covering the areas of Parapsychology and Psychic Criminology (with a disclaimer that the list of books does not represent an endorsement by the FBI). The Blue Sense and Psychic Criminology, Second Edition, are both included on this list, as well as many other books that will be of interest to those who wish to delve further into these studies. – Review by Martha Keltz