A Further Clinical Illustration of the Paranormal Triangle Hypothesis

The foundations of a dynamic concept of telepathic phenomena were laid down in the 1920's by Stekel7 and Freud.6 Stekel showed that “thought-transference,” as telepathic phenomena were designated at that time, “did not occur as the idle offshoot of a virtually accidental sensitization of the minds of the agent and percipient”4 but that it proceeded along the lines of strongly charged significant relationships. The content of the material that was conveyed and picked up, Stekel showed, reflected conflictful affects of love and hate which the participants in a telepathic episode related to each other.4,7 Freud concluded that telepathic communication must occur on an unconscious plane and therefore was subject to the same laws of unconscious mental functioning, particularly to the processes of distortion and symbolic representation. He showed that by unravelling the distorted derivatives of unconsciously elaborated material through the psychoanalytic method, latent correspondences could be brought to light which would make it possible to unmask telepathic events that would otherwise not be identified as such.3,4,6

Despite Stekel and Freud's findings of over forty years ago, we still tend to regard telepathic events as depersonalized outside happenings, instead of psychic manifestations that subserve the same basic laws as all behavior. “We continue to hold the data rigidly at arm's length and to keep implications at a safe distance where they cannot touch our favored conceptions of ourselves, our actions, and our relationships.”4

At this time it is still difficult to evaluate the ultimate place