An American PK Super-Star



by Michael Grosso:

One of the odd facts about our scientific world are the periodic intrusions of events completely at odds with familiar reality.  We don’t expect alien light-beings to materialize in our living rooms or ghosts to physically attack us in haunted houses, but they do, and that’s not all.  

Take, for example, the case of a man who apparently had super psychokinetic powers, but was of fairly low moral stature, and in fact may have been a murderer. Fortunately, Dr. Jeffrey Mishlove, who wrote the story of Ted Owens, treats his subject with the nuanced approach that it demands. Mishlove knew Owens (d. 1987) for years and had access to the data based on interviews, reportage, and media coverage. The PK Man is not a book for people with a fundamentalist cast of mind; one has to be mentally agile to cover this terrain.

Ted Owens named himself “the PK man” and part of the story is the intensity with which he sought to be recognized for his powers.  He also called himself the “UFO prophet” and spoke of saving the world.  Throughout the narrative, Mishlove cites many examples of Owens’ predictions and psychokinetic abilities.

I want to stress the singularity of the Owens effects: causing UFOs to appear (not just seeing them), causing weather events like lightning and hurricanes, and directing them to occur at certain places.  And last but not least, Owens seems to have mentally influenced the outcome of professional football games, sometimes in anger to get back at teams that scorned him.  Mishlove lays out evidence for this high strangeness that is hard to ignore. 

Grant there is evidence, several ideas stand out. One is the magnitude of the influence demonstrated. It’s one thing to accept evidence for PK in dice-throwing experiments or for Nina Kulagina’s ability to physically move small, light objects.  But to be told that someone can create killer storms and earthquakes, cause plane crashes, and influence a professional football game by pure intention--that is something else.  And yet, on the basis of Mishlove’s account, I’m forced to agree that there are people that can do things that seem straight out of a super-hero comic book.

Ted Owens claimed to be in touch with space intelligences and described his methods for communicating with them.  We learn that Owens taught others to produce powerful PK effects.  The notion of higher intelligences helps frame Owens’ story: in basic structure, it is like the saint, prophet, or shaman who strives to contact the appropriate divinities—Owens, modestly enough, likened himself to Moses. History of course is full of inspired prophets, revolutionaries, and megalomaniacs. Owens’ reported PK performances do seem to resemble the marvels of yogis, saints, and magicians. Lacking is moral insight and concern for the welfare of others.

In all traditional belief-systems—Roman Catholic, Sioux Indian, Tibetan Buddhist, Semite Sufi or Kabbala—we find people who possess extraordinary powers. But this is no guarantee of enlightenment. The 11^th century Tibetan, Milarepa, began as a highly destructive sorcerer but only later became an enlightened mystic.  The life of Joseph of Copertino was full of super-PK and super-ESP, but these were small compared to his heroic efforts to master his lower self, so clear from his biography, Wings of Ecstasy. Ted Owens lacked a traditional system that might have helped him discipline his uncanny talents more constructively.

PK Man (p. 264) ends with an assessment of the Owens phenomena by a Western-educated Nigerian who was an expert in the Yoruba Ifa tradition.  David Wilson (his Western name) reports that in his experience he observed shamans successfully invoke both rain and lightning.  In that and other African (and Hopi Indian) traditions, belief in numerous forms of otherworldly life forms os common. After observing a shaman stop a windstorm that was disrupting a ceremony, Wilson asked the shaman how he did it.  The reply: “You have to believe that you can.”

It so happens there is a thing in parapsychology called the “sheep-goat” effect; the data show in a given psychic test, belief in psychic power correlates statistically with success in psychic testing.  Meanwhile, in the Catholic saint tradition, levitator Joseph of Copertino would say the exact same thing; you have to believe you can do it.  (Have faith, was his constant message). So, African shaman, Catholic saint, and scientific parapsychology all agree.  Belief in the ‘impossible’ is conducive to performing the ‘impossible’.  The interesting problem is what kind of belief, confidence, and expectation makes for success.  Surely, there’s more to it than simple assent.

Mishlove concludes that, in light of all the evidence, an “intelligent energy worked with Ted Owens throughout his unusual career as a demonstrator of paranormal phenomena”.  “Intelligent energy” is a usefully minimalist term. The mystery remains as to the nature and origins of this intelligent energy.  Mishlove concludes by offering Owens as the symbolic “PK person” who lives and breathes, latent in us all. 

I came to the same conclusion from my research on Joseph of Copertino—as we might from the entire range and spectrum of extraordinary abilities.  As human beings we are bearers of mysterious powers that the history of our race has sporadically revealed. That such powers exist at all and for what purpose is still shrouded in obscurity—especially in our  mainstream consciousness. 

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