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Psychic Discoveries – Sheila Ostrander and Lynn Schroeder

Raikov's medical experiments sound promising, yet his project to force creative talent into bloom is even more exciting and fertile. It could be used not only for talents, but also for business and industrial retraining, for headstart programs.

As a Soviet psychiatrist, Raikov is naturally interested in the physiological side of this ‘reincarnation’ that permits even people like a medical student who said not only that she couldn't draw, but also that she disliked art, to quickly develop facility at sketching. Connecting the usual monitoring devices, Raikov confirmed the supposition that the [deep active] trance is a new thing, is different in kind from the usual passive trance of deep hypnosis, in which the EEG shows the alpha rest rhythm.

In ‘reincarnation’ the alpha disappears completely and the EEG shows a pattern like that normally recorded in high wakefulness. During a student's whirl as Raphael, physiologically she seems to be superawake. Intense concentration shows in the brain, with distraction leveled out. It's as if the entire being was pulled up into one unwavering floodlight.

‘Reincarnation’ is, in many ways, the antithesis of sleep. Yet ‘reincarnation’ has affinities with regular trance. Students fall into a deep sleep before snapping back to themselves. Even though Raikov doesn't suggest amnesia, they never remember a pulse of their Iives as another person.

According to the Soviets, only a widely adept hypnotist can steer people into the freedom of ‘reincarnation’. Not every subject can be lulled into the first step, deep trance.

And even Raikov has failed to jog some people from this trance to a burst of ‘reincarnation’.