Book Report: Psycho-Kinesis by Adrian Clark -- Metaphsyical c.1973

 Psycho-Kinesis: Moving Matter with the Mind (C) 1973 by Adrian Clark, Parker Publishing

Background Information: The publisher of this book is Parker Publishing, a company that specialized in self help and metaphysical books in the 60s and 70s (they're still around and still selling the same titles: https://parker-publishing-company.myshopify.com/) I have to say that I'm an avid collector of these books! I used to find them for a few dollars in used book stores and on line, but recently they seem to have become much more popular (and expensive). They're a lot of fun to read, and most follow a standard format--an irresistible title, a series of inspiring anecdotes how various people made their dreams come true with whatever the book is teaching, and usually a nice recap at the end of each chapter.

This book is a bit of an oddity. The book is less about Psychokinesis than it is about the author's theory of psychic powers in general. So if you're passionate about moving things with your mind, you'll have to be patient with this book. Nevertheless, you'll still get some interesting and unusual thoughts and theories about psychic phenomena, and, of course, some pointers for your own experiments. 

The author is clearly very religious, and feels that faith is a cornerstone of all psychic abilities. It's vital that you have faith in your abilities, but also that asking for help from higher powers will greatly enhance your abilities. At the same time, he works in the aerospace sciences. He tries to reconcile psychic phenomena with physics by crediting psychic energy to photons, which, at the time of his writing, were known to be powerful, massless and spring in and out of being spontaneously, and for that reason, are worthy of scientific research. It also seems to reconcile with some biblical concepts about light. He has clearly done a lot of research and discusses various other theories on the subject, including Kundalini energy and something called "Vol" energy. 

Around about Chapter 6 he offers several exercises and discusses the necessary qualities to cultivate for success, including faith, confidence and concentration. If you're looking for the how-to section, this is it. 

I tended to get the feeling that this book was actually made up from various lectures of articles that the author had presented elsewhere and compiled for the book, since there's a bit of redundancy, and some terms that seem to apply to universal themes through the book occur only once. 

Interestingly, and I guess in an attempt to fuse his religious perspective with a scientific one, he regards many of the bible stories in terms of his photon theory and even views Jesus as an extraterrestrial. Of further interest is that he and his fellow experimenters were also NASA researchers!