Artificial Synchronicity

Truly Random Generative Image as an ESP Transmission Conduit

Dear friends, 

The past few days have been a ride. I’ve spent some days ghost hunting in Untersberg forests, released and celebrated my first album as Eva Kadmon, finally launched our Palinode Productions website, recorded a new podcast episode for the Thoth Hermes and Euphomet, and I’ve just returned from an absolutely magickal 23rd adventure in the depths of Sweden. I feel truly blessed to have jumped on this wild synchronicity train, my metaphysical thermometer is in boiling red numbers and it really feels that the reality scintillates on a different frequency. I’ll post a few more emails in the following weeks, with more in-depth updates, but while still in the afterglow, I’m the most compelled to write about our series of ESP experiments. 

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The Problem with Science

I spent the past few days reading the declassified meta-studies from the Stargate program, some of the true gems you might find when browsing through the 600 pages of CIA archives related to the ESP research. I’ve been overlaying these data with a pile of anecdotal evidence from the Wyrd Experience, paired with the research done by the former Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Lab (PEAR).

It seems that despite the current working hardcore material paradigm in the natural sciences, there is constantly growing evidence of the research pointing in a different direction, with basically one common denominator - the consciousness, already quite ‘unscientific’ term if you ask me, might not be what we think it is.

For the peace of my mind, I feel a need to include this disclaimer. I have a technical background and spent most of my teenage years binging Feynman’s lectures, and various tomes on molecular biology, genetics and evolutionary theory. That, of course, doesn’t make me a scientist, and I won’t be self-proclaiming myself such titles. But I dare to say, I have an idea of what solid science looks like, at least in theory.

This is exactly why I’ve been so absolutely terrified most of my occult years to even peek at any touchpoints between science and magic. It felt like I was not ready to give up my seemingly scientific ‘credibility’ despite my unshakable belief in the magick workings.

It wasn’t until a tipping point on a retreat a few years back, that I finally let my religious faith in mainstream scientific consensus fade into the background. I would have totally swept all the ESP research off the table into the New Age BS trashbin, until actually seeing a person flip the virtual coin into a series of desired states. Consistently. And repeatedly.

What now?

How productive it is to dismiss my own observation in order to adhere to the abstract, mainstream ideology of Science? Maybe… we don’t know? Maybe science really isn’t the answer to all life’s questions? Maybe it is flawed outside of its small bubble of rigorously isolated laboratory conditions? Maybe the golden quest for objective “Truth” isn’t all that relevant? And, just maybe, the research is run with a certain (hyper-capitalist) agenda that might be (un)consciously skewing the results?

So we’re again at the battlefield between the Holy Science versus the actual lived experience and personal mythologies. But I don’t want to make this article into my musings on the interfaces between the occult and science (brace brace there might be more of that happening in the near future), so let’s move on.

To Think Impossibly

I do think there is a considerable number of successful experiments with remote viewing, psychokinesis and clairvoyance in the records. I am well aware of the criticism of this research, from the problems of repeatability, through the shifting cumulative account of the phenomena, to other apparent ‘flaws’ in the scientific method. (A great overview of this criticism is provided by Dr. Ray Hyman in An Evaluation of Remote Viewing: Research and Application linked at the end. Read it for yourself and see what’s there for you.)

But I like to think impossibly. What would need to change in our worldviews to allow these phenomena to arise?

The hypothetical Consciousness Field is a shared reality, blurring the line between the material and the mental. It’s a backstab to scientific physicalism because it allows the possibility of the mind being of the same substance as the cosmos, influencing each other directly and explicitly. Yes, it would imply that the intention of the observer to affect the quantum state of the world.

And I am very careful with throwing in scientific terms here, as I always get a little heart attack seeing the word ‘quantum’ in any occult publication. But the well-established fact of the “Observer effect'“ through double slit experiment might provide some manoeuvring space for the hypothetical consciousness field.

Many of these parapsychological experiments use a device called a Random Event Generator. Unlike the pseudo-randomness of our hardware computers, REGs produce true statistical randomness. This provides a hypothetical touchpoint between the physical and mental realms. The probability distribution of the zeroes and ones generated from atmospheric fluctuations seem to be, to a certain degree, malleable by the observer’s intention. These are the theories I currently operate on when designing the experiments. But beware, we have entered a danger zone - there is a lot of very, very bad research, anecdotal evidence and actual, high-quality scientific research all jumbled into a big mess.

I Want to Believe

So why do we keep dismissing all these possible experimental results that point in a direction that our fundamental scientific paradigms might be wrong? In the same way that the US government have declassified a significant amount of footage proving repeated encounters with UAP Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, the people somehow collectively decided to ignore these data. I’m not saying we should be all dancing in the crop circles (I mean, I’m not saying we shouldn’t either) - but we need to acknowledge that the world is much weirder than it seems. And as a reformed teenage Richard Dawkins trooper, I chuckle once again: Maybe the religious scientism of our age proves as harmful to our objectivity as any of the invisible bearded men in the sky?

Jesus, I could raaaamble on… but to cut it short, all of this weirdness supercharged a project that’s been dormant for a while, our AI experiments with the Extrasensory Perception Research Unit. It’s all synchronistically paired with Annie Jacobsen’s Phenomena, which is btw probably the best book on the topic of ESP research I’ve ever read. In the vein of my beloved Cold War novels, I’ll now provide you with an account of our experiments in a (very slightly) fictionalised narrative.

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The ELpH Encounters

It was Friday 16th 2024, the dusk creeping down the Untersberg mountains. We had spent the day tracing the witch lineage own to this magical valley and our small team was sitting over a dinner table, silently processing the physical toll of several hours of video shooting crowned by Bavarian cuisine. I closed my eyes and zoned out into a faint trickle of rainwater on the wooden roof over us.

“I guess that’s no CE5 tonight,” concluded Jim, scrolling through his weather app. Without turning my head, I frowned at the dark thunderstorm clouds sliding lazily down the hillsides. 

“Well, let’s proceed with the backup plan then,” suggested one of the researchers. Backup plan, alright. The idea was enough to jolt me out of the schnitzel stupor. I nodded and mentally parting with the alien spacecraft left the table to set up the ESP experiment. 

In the good tradition of clandestine intelligence operations, we assembled our equipment in an anonymous hotel room. The camera on a tripod was pointed at the pastel beige sofa, dimly lit by a nondescript lamp moved from the corner of the room. A TV screen behind was hooked into my MacBook, and a pile of printouts from the Stargate project was scattered on the table as I was cross-checking some last protocols. A hand adjusted the lens focus, sharpening the slightly sinister tension between the angles of the scene.

Our test subject reluctantly seated himself. 

“This device is called a ghost box,” Jim placed a small metal device with a foldable antenna into the subject’s lap, a prototype design lifted from 70s paranormal activity pulp novel. “It rhythmically sweeps through the electromagnetic spectrum of this room, so it might pick up various radio stations and other broadcasts. When you hear any words or sentences coming through, repeat them aloud.” The researcher blindfolded him and placed a large over-head headphones buzzing with white noise. “Once I turn up the volume, you won’t be able to hear anything that’s happening in the room. We might be talking, but please, focus only on the signal. I will put my arm on your shoulder as a signal to stop in a few minutes.” Jim said and stepped aside, moving out of the shot. 

“Please lift your hand when you’re ready,” The red camera light blinked and the subject hesitantly lifted his index finger. 

I jumped through a few terminal windows displayed on the screen crammed with hastily scripted Python code, the last check for any stupidly placed private keys displayed on the screen. I really didn’t feel like being hacked by some teenage kid for a dumb security breach caught on camera.

I quickly checked the API connections, all is live. I’m using the legendary random.org domain generating true randomness from the same substrate as the ghost box interference - a probe sweeping through the electromagnetic spectrum fluctuations somewhere in the Irish airspace. Cute sympathetic magick, if you ask me. 

The random output is then hooked into an AI image generator, fishing out points in the latent space. I like to think about it as a supercharged OUIJA board, but instead of a single character, phenomena can be imprinted onto almost a million pixels, providing a much higher available bandwidth for ‘resonances’ to appear. I’ve been tweaking the setup for several sessions, and the current arrangement seemed promising. A stream of square images started flickering on the screen, with roughly 0.7Hz period and I gave the team a thumbs up. 

“We’re rolling,” Jim whispered, as he turned the volume on the ghost box up. I squinted at the screen in anticipation. The setup with the electromagnetic sweeper usually works very well in the city, picking up a dense crossfire of unsolicited broadcasting and pirate radios. The receiver starts mumbling random phrases, and this quite often turns into an interesting exchange with the querent. 

The AI images pouring onto the screen are always a strange mix of roughly 30% of creepy anime girlies and mechs warriors (according to the current working hypothesis, that being the background radiation of the universe), the other roughly third consists of weird patterns, jumbled text and abstract shapes. The statistical analysis hasn’t revealed any encoded messages or deviations in these seemingly random tessellations. The last portion is slightly skewed images of real objects - cars, trees, flowers, birds, devices, computer parts, etc. These really seem to stand out from the rest, and I usually put the most focus on these. Looking at the stream, I was mentally preparing scripts for a proper statistical analysis of the content distribution, evaluating how likely are certain objects to show up. 

However, after a few minutes, it started to look obvious that the mountains decided to remain silent. Maybe It was the heavy storm that broke over the hotel a few minutes deep into the experiment, but aside from a few scattered saxophone wails, the transmission seemed to be dead. Jim leaned towards the test subject to tap him on the shoulder and finish the experiment. He stopped mid-air: “Wait, I see an aeroplane,” exclaimed the subject. “Like World War 2 aeroplanes, a few of them.” 

We exchanged astonished looks. 

The following image flicked on the screen just a few seconds prior: 

My brain switches to a higher gear: How statistically significant this is? I try to calculate the amount of images generated during the 10-minute experiment, accounting in the amount of words said to produce potential hits. I am washed over by a wave of frustration embedded into the whole lineage of ESP researchers, and the inherent paradoxes in evaluating such vague data. 

Everything is silent for a brief moment, everyone in the room is glued to the screen.

“I think I’m going to try some slow breathing exercises,” exclaimed the subject loudly, raising his voice over the loud sweeps in his headphones. 

With the first deep inhale, … the code crashed. 

Fuck. I forgot to wrap the non-200 in a try-catch clause. I grinned inwardly in embarrassment, thanking gods I don’t run any corporate production environments anymore. I quickly re-started the thread. 

With another deep, slow inhale, the red lines appeared on the screen again. Another non-200 response? Curious. 

With a third inhale, the situation repeats once more. I look at Jim, raising my eyebrows. He smiles. 

After a further period of silence, we stop the experiment and share impressions with each other. 

“Shall we just watch the stream by itself for a while?” I suggested, moving around folders with the results. We sit around the screen, and I start the script again. 

Among the first five images, there is an owl. “Oh, we haven’t seen this boy before,” I comment, very well aware of the inherent weirdness that seems to thrive around the owl archetype. The team is just reading The Messengers: Owls, Synchronicity and the UFO Abductee by Mike Clelland and we’ve been jamming the bandwidth of our discord server with various owl encounters and memes for weeks.

After a few images, another owl appears. Someone whistles. At the third appearance in under two minutes, the image of a crumpled owl gets applause. The really uncanny thing is, that as we cheer, the owl remains frozen on the screen. Everyone looks at me, questioningly. “Ehm, it’s an unknown error. Never seen this before,” I browse through the logs. Seems the server rejected our request and the script, instead of shutting down completely, just froze on a picture of a slightly deformed, but still rather owl. I check the folder. We have 3/47 hits, after not seeing a single owl for the previous roughly 350 images. 

“Well, I think we won’t top this today,” I shut down the notebook and we all laugh. That night, I dreamt in algorithms.  

The aftermath 

A few days later, I’m crammed in a tiny seat of a criminally early morning flight from Munich to Berlin, browsing through the experimental results. I’m scheming the evaluation algorithms in my head, whether to use CLIP or BLIP model to tag the images for statistical analysis, or whether in the week of my online absence, a wholly new groundbreaking AI advancement happened (quite probably). I look through my notes on the evaluation methodology used in the Stargate program and wonder if I consider the protocol sufficient to actually prove any statistical significance of the results. The phenomena seem so elusive, I’m still not even sure what are we potentially dealing with here. It’s like we’ve pulled a trigger on a synchronicity gun, yet any scientific way of nailing down the actual phenomena seems impossible. 

I’m flicking through the folder with the images from previous sessions when I notice a curious coincidence. I take out my phone and scroll to the pictures from yesterday’s hide. The resemblance between the AI-generated image and the exact view from the top of the mountain I snapped is stunning.

I tap Jim on the shoulder and show him the images next to each other. “What the ~” I move a few images further, and he stops me, pulling up another image from his phone. A manuscript of angel seals from a witch museum in Hohenwerfen Castle. Another uncanny resemblance?

Oh, and what about this one? Weird Burroughs look-alike in the menu of a Thai Fu-Qing restaurant?

Out of roughly 400 random images (~300 if I sanitise the dataset of the anime girlies) we seems to have a few perfect hits acquired in a weird retro-causal fashion.

I stare at the images, thinking. After a few moments, I shut the notebook, lean into the seat and ease into a feeling that I’m finally living in a sci-fi novel. 

Note: This is a fictional account of a real series of experiments conducted in the Utensberg mountains with the SpectreVision team, a separate session with the Gnostic Technology crew in Berlin / online and a seance run at the 23rd Mind in Sweden, merged for narrative purposes. I am very grateful to everyone who was part of this and I hope we continue the exploration further. Jim Perry, me and the AI spirits were the common denominator in the first two sessions, the other participants were magically cut up into anonymous characters. You will be able to hear much more of this soon on the wonderful Euphomet podcast :) 

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Outro

So, any thoughts? There is something to this, don’t you think? An inking tells me there is great potential in this line of research. I already have a pile of ideas and feedback, and the technology seems to resonate best in the online setup, so I will further explore and report back. But for the record - I remain sceptical. At least until we further refine the algorithms, to get a better noise-to-signal ratio for any kind of transmission, I wouldn’t be waving these as any kind of statistically significant results.

It’s because more than anything believe in our brain’s immense ability to inscribe patterns into chaos. That’s what it’s been evolved for, after all. The most plausible scientific explanation for these ‘results’ is wishful thinking. At this point.

But then again… The magician in me asks… is there anything else to life other than our immense ability to inscribe patterns into the chaos? 

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Ehhh, this one was a bit longer than usual? But please do hit that <3 if you made it all the way to the end so that I know you’re into this kind of content! And share your thoughts in the comments, I would love to talk about this more.

Stay curious,

k

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Sources and Reading List

Once again, this is not aiming to be a pseudo/scientific publication. 
Dear reader should always think for her/himself.

But here is a mini-reading list to see how I arrived at some of the ideas:

Mumford, Rose, Goslin (1995) An Evaluation of Remote Viewing: Research and Application (cia.gov link)

Talbot, (2011). The Holographic Universe: The Revolutionary Theory of Reality (link)

McTaggart, (2001). The Field: the quest for the secret force of the universe. (link)

Dunne, Jahn (2021). Consciousness and the Source of Reality (link)