Cherylee Black, Laboratory Verified PK |470|

Cherylee Black, had her psychokinetic abilities tested in controlled laboratory experiments.

photo by: Skeptiko

That’s from the Netflix series, Stranger Things… and that’s El of course, a young girl who was raised from birth in an MKUltra lab in order to develop her Psychokinetic powers where she can move things across the room; crush Coke cans while they have electrodes attached to her brain to measure what’s going on, and, you know, of course a lot of that stuff is true. And we have today with us a woman who has been laboratory tested to do PK stuff. Cherylee is such an interesting person, such a great person. I’ve known her for a long time through the show. Made a lot of great contributions to the, to the Skeptiko form over the years. And it was really cool to talk to her about all our experiences, including multiple near death experiences, but in particular, this laboratory work. Doing PK. Here’s a couple of clips.  

Cherylee Black: [00:01:15] in terms of how skillfully I could do the PK was completely dependent on practice. So the more I did it, the faster I could get the pin wheel to work and the more control I had over the pinwheel, but whether or not that pin will move, had almost everything to do with my, with my, uh, state of mind that day.

And it actually to get the experiment to work, I had to be in a good mood. It wasn’t a negative mood. Whereas if I was in a negative mood, I would try and get that pinwheel to move and something across the room would move instead. 

 You know, I think these are all very personal journeys and maybe, maybe the scientist doesn’t. Need to see, see the PK and maybe some do. And I think you see it, if you need to see it. Um, I think it’s just, there’s a lot more to us than we realize.  [box]

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Welcome to Skeptiko where we explore science and spirituality with leading researchers, thinkers and their critics. I’m your host, Alex Tsakiris. And today we welcome Cherylee Black. Cherylee has a fascinating story. She’s had multiple near death experiences, two when she was quite young and perhaps because of the aftereffects of those experiences, it says, or perhaps just because it’s the way her life was meant to be.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:02:42] She then experienced kind of a series of strange things throughout her life. , including pre-cognitive dreams, Poltergeist encounters, and one thing that we are going to explore pretty extensively on this interview, Cherylee experienced and developed the ability to kind of enter into this world of psychokinesis PK.

The look, mom, no hands. I can move stuff with just my mind kind of thing. And. There’s been a, there’s always been an interest in this. There’s been a renewed interest in, in this, I think, especially like about that Netflix series, stranger things kind of tune people into that. And there’s also been numerous YouTube videos.

You can find, of course the problem with all that is. PK is about the easiest dang thing to fake in a video. Then you can imagine, right? I mean, you can kind of put anything down there and say, look, I’m moving it with my mind and you can make a fake video. But the cool thing about your li is she is someone who’s actually.

Allowed herself to be studied in some very, very respectable top, top parapsychology labs. And she’s come back from those experiences saying, yeah, they verified that this is real and I’m experiencing this because we don’t really know. I hesitate with all the words here. I hesitate to say I’m making this happen or anything.

Cause we just that’s part of what we need to kind of pull apart. Cherylee is also a, she’s such a super cool friend of this show has been with me on this journey for a long time, was really active in the forum for a while, then not so much, which is totally cool. I think that’s great. People come, people go, it’s just kind of like, Oh, moving party and that’s it supposed to be, but it’s really cool to connect with you here.

On this interview and, uh, it’s great having you. Thank you. 

Cherylee Black: [00:04:55] Oh, thanks for asking you. 

Alex Tsakiris: [00:04:59] So I kind of sketch some stuff out of here, but tell us more about, about your, your, your whole, any part of that that you want to fill in from the NDE to the PK, to the Poltergeist, anything in between? 

Cherylee Black: [00:05:16] Oh, gee. I mean, there’s a lot there, you know, I.

I think Randy, when he wants to see the NDE stuff, there’s a video that, that ions published that kind of has the three NDEs there. Cause it takes a long time to go through them all. Um, 

Alex Tsakiris: [00:05:33] you know, one thing I found interesting, you might want to talk about is an NDE as a very young child. Like you were like two years old or something.

I mean, how does that, how that’s different than what we normally hear. How does that. What is that experience like number one, is it different when you’re a young child like that in terms of what you experienced in that, in that extended realm? And then how does that affect you? You know, what’s your mission like differently when you come back?

Cherylee Black: [00:06:00] I think when, when you’re that young, first off, you don’t have anything to tell you that this is weird. Like, you know, like it’s just. It’s just, okay, this happened. It, you know, there’s, there’s nothing in your that tells you that maybe I should hide this or, or maybe there’s something wrong with, this is just kind of part of who you are.

And when you talk about weird stuff, when you’re little, everyone thinks it’s cute, you know, it’s just cute little girl and she’s buried. You know, she has this great imagination and, and, and it’s wonderful. And when you’re really little, um, everybody thinks it’s great. Um, and I think that experience for me, you know, when I went through it, I think the thing that, that kind of is different about the really young experience from when I was older is that I was much more aware.

That there was like little me, like little, two year old, two and a half year old meat. And then there’s this really bigger me that seemed to just know so much stuff that I didn’t, you know, like had this much bigger perspective. And somehow I was able to kind of live with it within having those two, you know, young knee and whatever that other meeting was that seemed to know way more stuff.

Um, And it, you know, it didn’t, it didn’t really seem to me like it wasn’t supposed to be that way. It was just like, yeah. That’s just how things are there. 

Alex Tsakiris: [00:07:34] That’s really cool. That’s a very interesting insight. And then what about the, the one when you were, when you were older in your late twenties? So is there, is there like a continuity, is there a connection as they’re like, okay, we are next chapter or is it like, oops, here I am again, accidentally kind of thing.

Cherylee Black: [00:07:53] Mmm. I think, well, you know, I had a really scary one when I was, was 10. Like, you know, you’re an absolutely distressing NDE. And I think it was almost like when I had the NDE, when I was 29, it was almost like to make that one the bad one better, you know, it was like, it was kind of to explain that, yeah, you had that bad one, but in some ways, The bad one was kind of a course correction.

Cause like I had this really wonderful one when I was really young. And I think that that one might have, if I just kind of kept following the path that set me on, I might not have ever had a normal life. And I think the bad one kind of brought me back more into this world somehow. And, and then I had a very normal life in my twenties.

I got married. I had a job and you know, did university and all that stuff. And then at 29, I kind of got pushed more into the spiritual side of things again. And, and I think it was, that was the time for me to do that. 

Alex Tsakiris: [00:09:03] And then when does the other stuff kind of start factoring in? And I’m not sure I fully understand how you understand the other stuff.

So, you know, I, I don’t want to flavor it too much, you know? So just tell us what you think. Happens after that. And in particular, how it connects to the, to the NDE, if it does connect, I don’t want to make any of this. 

Cherylee Black: [00:09:32] Um, well, first up I will say I reserve the right to change my mind on any of this. Cause I think throughout my life, I’m just constantly reevaluating how I see it.

And I just. Even though when you’re kind of in that NDE state, and it seems like you just know everything, um, you come back here and, you know, you know, you, maybe you did, but you’re back and you kind of got a sense of what it was like to know everything and that kind of have everything settled, but you’re here and you don’t, and you still have to kind of work it out and, and you’re constantly refiguring out how it goes.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:10:14] Can we pause right there? Cause I mean, I think like I don’t, I’ve never had it and indeed, you know, like I tell people on the show, I don’t even know anyone personally in my family. Like my kids have never had the, not father, you know, I don’t know anyone like that, but. In to a certain extent, I love studying it.

Like I have kind of from a distance, because what you’re saying, I just want to make that point over and over again. It’s so many people have had an NDE insistent that they have some privileged perspective on this thing. And I’m like, well, maybe you do. Maybe you don’t, but I’m just following the data. And I’m telling you the data does not support what you’re saying.

I just interviewed someone a couple of days ago, lovely person, Trisha Barker. She runs the NDE summit and she’s interviewed all these ND ears and she’s. I hadn’t experienced her herself a very profound experience on doubtable experience in terms of she was flat lined. She was in the hospital. And, but one of the things we talked about is the kind of difference in me, just stumbling into this inquiry to perpetuate doubt.

Doubt is the most spiritual thing. And the thing, you know, from indie ease is the, exactly what you said, that there is this sense of all knowing. And the what that, but that goes away. When you come back here, when you come back here, we’re all on the level, playing ground of figuring this stuff out and constantly making mistakes and constantly course correcting.

And if you think otherwise, then go sign yourself up for the latest Colt, the latest guru, who will give you that certainty that you want, because otherwise it does kind of peeve me when I hear indie ears kind of taking this. This position of authority that just is not consistent with the logic of what they’re saying.

So, and I think that also fixed factors into, and I want to turn the mic back over to you, but I have a sense that you have been so involved in the parasitology community. And the scientific community and in there’s, cause there’s this other thing going on. Yeah. I think where there’s this strange kind of relationship between that research community and experiencers where they, they don’t give experiencers their due cause experiencers are the ones who really been there and doing it, but there is also.

This nice interchange when experience, her says, you know what? I really want to participate with you in kind of understanding it from this rational scientific, if you will, kind of way. And that’s something that you’ve sought out. So again, I kind of totally stole the mic there. So I’m going to give it back to you and you’re going to respond to any of that 

Cherylee Black: [00:12:51] stuff.

Negative part of it, that, that people kind of hold the NDE ears up on these pedestals. And they’re encouraged to have a particular narrative and go along with that narrative. And if you do, it can be a great way to sell books. Um, you know, 

Alex Tsakiris: [00:13:14] the attention, just get that positive, not in a, just get positive attention.

Cherylee Black: [00:13:18] Yeah. And you know, like, and if you say like you don’t see a lot of near death experiences talking about negative near death experiences at conferences, and when I’ve been to ions conferences, nobody shows up for those lectures. I mean, that’s not, that’s not what they’re there for. And. So there’s almost kind of, kind of this double standard that if you have the right kind of experiences, you’ll get a lot of attention, a lot of feedback, and people will pay attention to you and they’ll kind of bolster everything you say.

Like it’s just the most wonderful thing. But if you talk about any of the bad parts, even just about some people have wonderful NDEs and then. Come back permit and their marriages fall apart because they’re different people. And like you don’t, although that’s mentioned in the literature, people don’t really talk about that much, you know, and I can think of a number of very famous in years whose marriages.

You know, whose marriages ended right after their MBEs.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:14:31] nobody likes to look at that cause he’s going on and done all this great thing with his wife and his second wife. I don’t have any, I don’t have any problem with that, but you know, the other part of that, cause some people do, you know, PMH, Atwater deserves a lot of credit cause she is like one of the first ones say.

After effects, integration problems, they’re all here. And then the people are really tuned into kind of. Spiritually transformative experiences. Wow. That’s been reported for the longest time. Somebody has a Kundalini experience in India, comes out of the blue, the same thing. They have this kind of crazy period.

They go through, they ruin all these relationships and then they can do it. So that’s one aspect of it. I’m glad you bring it up. You know, it came up with my, in my interview with Fisher that, that, I guess you sparked it with the other thing you said about just your life kind of going on and. Not being perfect.

Oh my God. Parker comes back from her near death experience and she’s marching on and doing all these wonderful things that she’s been told to do and a healer and a teacher, she goes to South Korea and is raped, you know, as extremely traumatized. So yeah. Where does that fit in? You know, we don’t talk about that.

Like your life is somehow you’re going to come back from your NDE and your life is somehow going to be plotted out to be quote unquote. Perfect. Again, that’s can be someone’s. That can be someone’s opinion. My reading of the data is not consistent with that view. 

Cherylee Black: [00:16:00] Oh, no, I mean, my life right out, I, I would say with my third NDE, the car accident, right before it, I would have said my life was perfect.

Right before that car accident, EV I had a job. I loved, I mean, I was working as a musician, um, and I was working as a landscape painter and it was a really, really wonderful, I had a great marriage. Uh, I was so happy. You have no idea. It was just a wonderful life. And then I had that accident and then my husband didn’t recognize me.

I tried so hard to pretend that I was who I was before and I couldn’t do it. Like, I, I really worked at it and I just couldn’t do it. And so, yeah, I went through, well, I was lucky that it ended with worse, cause it almost ended with death. Um, And, you know, it was a really traumatic, um, experience afterwards.

And yet it was so weird because part of me was just so happy for that NDE. I mean, it, it was an amazing, wonderful thing. Um, but the cost of it was pretty high. Uh, . 

Alex Tsakiris: [00:17:20] Why do you think that was, I mean, tell us some of the, some of the reasons that that came about why it was especially hard to, uh, to integrate all that back into your life?

Cherylee Black: [00:17:31] Well, you know, it, well, mostly it was, it was. I was trying really hard to be who I was before the N D and I couldn’t, I couldn’t done a lot of lows. I didn’t look the same. I mean, I still don’t look the same, but I mean, I’m older now, so that’s forgivable, but you know, my face was all cut up in the car accident.

I had to learn how to walk again. I had been an athletic woman. I mean, I was in the military. I, you know, I played the military bands. Um, and so, you know, I’d go out and train and do those. Annoying five mile runs that I hated, but I did them. And then suddenly I couldn’t walk. And I was a very attractive woman.

I mean, as a professional musician, I used to do a lot of PR work in the military. Um, you know, I was young and cute and pretty, and suddenly my face was totally ripped up by glass and. Like, you know, you know, you never get that back. I certainly, certainly wasn’t going to be on recruitment posters after that.

Uh, and so, you know, like I was very, very different and then things that I’d always found were enough. Like I always knew I was an artist and musician, like I just that’s who I was. And suddenly I was interested in math. Like really interested. Like I was getting excited about algorithms, you know, which is like completely sick.

He does that.

And, and I was kind of talking to, you know, I was still, when I was still married to my first husband, I was kind of talking about, well, I kind of would like to go back to university and study science. And I mean, the look on his face, it was like, you’re not, you. You were absolutely not. You. And 

Alex Tsakiris: [00:19:26] he has to deal with the physical part.

He has to deal with the lifestyle change in terms of being active and this and that 

Cherylee Black: [00:19:32] and 

Alex Tsakiris: [00:19:32] that physical part. I mean, we all want to pretend like we can just kind of, you know, push that aside or be that, but it’s so integrated into, 

Cherylee Black: [00:19:43] into marriage and relationships. Oh my gosh. Culture. 

Alex Tsakiris: [00:19:48] Culture. Cause it’s not only that it’s like when I walked down the street next to you, Cherylee, you know, I used to get this feedback from everyone else and now I get different feedback and I can’t, you know, I mean, it should, shouldn’t be that way, but it is, you know?

Cherylee Black: [00:20:05] Yeah, yeah, no. Yeah. So, you know, so it was a big deal and. And he kept telling everybody that I wasn’t me and everybody was telling him, you are so lucky. Your wife was like, he was at, it was such a bad accident. He was coming to identify the box. Um, you know, and so like, cause they are, he couldn’t tell him if, if I was going to be alive when he got to the hospital.

So all these people are telling him you’re so lucky. She’s still here. She survived it. You know, isn’t that great. And in the meantime, he’s thinking, I don’t know what that is, but she killed my wife, you know? I mean, that’s, that’s how bad it was. So, so yeah, it was kind of like part of me really wanted to explore these new interests, like in math and science and it wasn’t that I could, you know, I could still play music.

I mean, I was very. Very fortunate because there was a lot of things I couldn’t do when I came back and yet I still could play music. Like I had broken fingers and I, I was still going to band practice. They were propping, you know, the drums up on a chair for me. So, cause I couldn’t wear a Highland pipe band drum when I was on crutches and I was still playing.

I mean, I healed so quickly. I think the accident was in January and. And I think the cast came off a few months later, but that summer I was on prayed Martin, like in marching, in parades playing, um, like it was, it was, uh, almost a freakish recovery, how quickly I came back, but 

Alex Tsakiris: [00:21:57] are the main, um, you know, lessons, if you will, uh, course changes, mission changes, advice.

From that third in the E that kind of propelled you forward or were there, were there those kinds of things? 

Cherylee Black: [00:22:14] I was ma you know, I think I was much more interested in being like a whole person, like, you know, like the art was good, but it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t everything. I just wanted to know so much stuff like.

You know, and that was kind of just pre internet. Internet was just kind of coming in, but we were nicely to community. We didn’t even have cable TV, you know? So, so internet, wasn’t something I had access to at that time. Right. But, but it’s just, I wanted to know everything I want to know about math. I want you to know about science.

I just wanted to know stuff. Mmm. I mean, you know, there’s the light and love stuff that, you know, everybody talks about the light and love. But there was also, I was just so interested in knowledge, like it was, it, it was like, I was just craving it to know about everything around me and how it all worked.

Well, 

Alex Tsakiris: [00:23:10] that’s cool. I mean, I love that you say that, you know, cause yeah, we all want to go to what’s the big spiritual message and you’re saying you experienced that experientially, but what it really pushed you towards is kind of this knowledge thing. Do you think that factored into the PK stuff?

Cherylee Black: [00:23:27] I think the PK stuff had more to do with just. Trying to hide things. And I th I think it was how thing, I think it was how a lot of my emotions were coming out because I was suppressing everything. Cause I was, you know, I didn’t want my parents to think I wasn’t their kid anymore.

I, you know, I didn’t want my friends to think I wasn’t me. And, you know, my, my marriage ended so badly and that was actually the first time that the PK really started erupting was, you know, W when things were really going South. 

Alex Tsakiris: [00:24:03] Um, little bit about that. I mean, we can’t let that one go. Sorry. 

Cherylee Black: [00:24:08] Yeah. Um, I don’t like to say too much about my, my first husband passed away and, and I think a lot of the issues that he was suffering with.

Um, you know, he had, I’m sure he had PTSD from his time in the military. He had some really hard horrid experiences. Plus I just recently found out that they were giving them drugs when he was overseas. I believe it was for malaria, but apparently it also causes psychotic episodes that persist throughout later years in your life.

Um, so there was stuff going on with him that. This, you know, he had a bad childhood upbringing. He went to the military to get away from a bad family and which a lot of people do. Um, and with everything going on, I think he felt that he couldn’t protect his wife. Then somehow I took away his wife and he, he came close to killing me one night.

And what happened was. When he had his hands on me, everything started coming live in our house. Like the kitchen doors started opening and closing the TV and radio started, blaring lights were flickering on and off. And I mean, it was, it was just, everything came alive and he just ran out of the house and never came back.

And I crawled under the kitchen table waiting for it to calm down with the cat, you know, um, And that was like, you know, the first week he came and it was just, and it probably saved my life. And 

Alex Tsakiris: [00:25:51] so we process that now. And as you think about it, um, you know, and that’s really kind of one of the interesting things, you know, putting you under the microscope now, so we can pull apart your most, the most traumatic moment of your life.

Let’s analyze it and talk about it. You know, it is, it is something to think about and I’m sure you have, you know, this extended round PK Poulter guys, spirit guide. I mean, angels, demons. I mean, w w w what do you think happens when we encounter that extended realm? And then we’re going to pull out this little slice.

We’re going to call PK. How does that fit into it? 

Cherylee Black: [00:26:39] You know, it’s hard to say. I, you know, I, I’m not quite sure how to approach that cause, cause I think that, you know, PK and I, and I, you know, like I knew bill role, like William role who sort of coined the phrase or SPK. Um, I knew bill, um, and you know, he tied everything to emotion and I know the very first time I talked to him on the phone and he wanted to see if I was the real deal.

And he asked me a question. I can’t, I can’t exactly remember what it was. I just know he asked me something that absolutely horrified me and seemed like the most insensitive and awful thing to ask somebody. And as soon as he did that, the phone line started screeching, like, you know, over the phone line, there was this awful static and, and this horrible, it sounded like an air raid siren or something going off.

And then he just changed. The tactic is like, Okay. Kay. We’ll talk about something else now. And I was like, wait, wait, wait, you can’t just ask me something like that and then change the subject and was like, no, no, no, it’s fine. It’s fine. Would you like to come to Sudbury and do some research person? Just clearly he had asked me something like that to see if it would set me off.

I mean, it wasn’t that he really expected me to answer that question. And apparently, like he told me later that Tina rice, who he’d worked with, um, She used to have that effect. If he upset her on the phone that it would get, he said it was like the same noise. 

Alex Tsakiris: [00:28:11] Well, this is, this is back to like the stranger things kind of thing.

You know, the Netflix stranger things show and you know, those things are based on. I don’t want to say based on their stretching reality, they’re trusting stretch, sing truth, but we’ve heard these stories repeated and you know, that’s why, I guess I brought up the Poltergeist thing because a lot of I’m sure you’re aware of this.

A lot of Poltergeist researchers. Have connected. It, it said there’s a strong correlation between girls in the ages of kind of 10 to 13, uh, who are kind of in a heightened sense of emotional kind of. Processing and the appearance and interaction with polar guys. And they’re not saying it’s a imagination going wild.

They seem to be suggesting is that there’s a frequency of energy there that is. Uh, attractive to, or an entry point for some things that exist in these extended realm. So, I mean, even if that doesn’t connect with you because you weren’t a young girl in that way, I think there might be some connection between that kind of heightened and changed ego state and that.

Frequency connection thing. Do you have you thought about that at all? I mean, I kind of think your story suggests that you have, but have you gotten into it any further? 

Cherylee Black: [00:29:46] Oh yeah. No. And I mean, I had pulled her guys activity for a short time when I was young at, around that age when you get, you know, evil,

um, you know, so yeah. And, and certainly. You know, it came up when, when I was going through my divorce, my first husband, and it came up when I was in graduate school, working on my doctorate and, uh, which I ended up walking away from because it just wasn’t worth, worth it in the end. But, um, technically away, technically I’m still a PhD candidate in good standing.

I just don’t have a thesis supervisor. Um, but, uh, You know, when I was having some really stressful issues at university that’s when it was starting to happen again. And it was happening in the laboratory. And, you know, um, when one Nigerian student called me a witch. Um, you know, because every time I got upset blowing up in the lab, you know, somebody, somebody said that they should send me to walk by this one chemistry, chemistry professor’s lab that nobody liked to see if I could do bad things to his walking.

Fine. You know, so yeah, it’s, it’s absolutely connected to them. I’m not always negative emotions. I mean, I did actually do some. Experiments myself, where, where I was. Um, I basically set up a little pinwheel and I would practice getting it to move inside a jar every day. And before I did it, I would do a Panisse, which I think is positive and negative effect.

Um, something rather, it’s a, it’s a standard psychological test that you can kind of fill it out and then you do some kind of. Um, calculations with it afterwards, and it’ll tell you what kind of mood you were in and it’s it’s standard. And, um, Jim carpenter, who, um, he wrote first site that used to be the president of the pair of psychological association.

He was the one that recommended it to me when I was first kind of thinking, I’d like to set up some experiments just to see how, how my emotions are affecting this step. And what I found from doing my own experiments. And actually Jim presented the work. We coauthored a paper and he presented it at the fair psychological association conference was, um, that emotions did factor into whether or not that, that the, you know, the PK would occur.

Although it actually, in terms of how skillfully I could do the PK was completely dependent on practice. So the more I did it, the faster I could get the pin wheel to work and the more control I had over the pinwheel, but whether or not that pin will move, had almost everything to do with my, with my, uh, state of mind that day.

And it actually to get the experiment to work, I had to be in a good mood. It wasn’t a negative mood. Whereas if I was in a negative mood, I would try and get that pinwheel to move and something across the room would move instead. So it was kind of interesting though. 

Alex Tsakiris: [00:33:19] So tell us a little bit about the history of this laboratory work that you did cause you just kinda touched it, but kind of frame it up.

And then some of the other labs that you’re invented invited to some of the work that was going on there. I guess I got to come back to the stranger things, you know, I mean, there’s some weird connections with the MK ultra stuff, either in its kind of direct form or, you know, a lot of that MK ultra stuff was hidden and disguised as, Oh, you know, it’s just the researchers interested in this and yet they had some connections.

Cause this is obviously if. If the governments of the free world, like the United States and Canada, if they weren’t interested in this, they’d be asleep at the wheel in a way that we would like the fact that they were interested in it is understandable. The fact that they were trying to weaponize it and didn’t care about destroying people’s lives in the process is something we may not be totally comfortable with.

But this is in play in a way that anyone who doesn’t understand this is definitely in play. It’s just kind of. Not paying attention. So fill us in on the, how, how you got involved with the research and to what extent and where it went and where you think it might’ve gone, that you didn’t even see. 

Cherylee Black: [00:34:39] Oh Lord, there’s a lot there.

I mean, I think, you know, originally when I was, I actually, you know, when I was first very active in the Skeptiko forum, Uh, and it was because you were one of the few podcasters who were interviewing people like Dean. Right. And, uh, and I is, I was in university at the time. I was trying to find any kind of literature, like scientific literature on this stuff.

And I wasn’t finding it like, you know, like you really have to know. Where it looked like. I would have not thought to look at, um, engineering journals, like, you know, a triple E, which is where a lot of the re you know, there’s remote viewing stuff in nature. And, and, and it’s probably, I think, um, yeah, I triply, sorry.

And you know, which, you know, I studied earth sciences and geology. Like, I use that journal all the time. I wouldn’t have known to look there for. Information on remote viewing. Um, and so I, I was like searching the internet and trying, just to find whatever was available. I mean, I was going into the university and basically I used to give myself every Friday afternoon I was going in, in the campus university searching for information on this stuff.

And, and I wasn’t having a lot of luck until I found your podcast and then Dean raid. And once I found his stuff, And there was actually a copy of conscious mind in the library, which I wouldn’t know. No. And I found books by Charlie tart in the library. Again, wouldn’t have known that. That was where I should have been looking.

And once I started making inroads into that and reading about everything, then I found out about the, you know, the person club logical association, which I joined as a student member. And that’s where I got connected to bill role. And so. You know, I had a long, well, it seemed like a long correspondence. I mean, it really wasn’t in the, you know, he didn’t, he didn’t live many years after I first worked with him, unfortunately.

Um, but you know, he, he had invited me out to Laurentian university, which isn’t actually that far from where I lived. So it was like a five hour bus ride. If the bus goes into every small town along the way, but, but you know, 

Alex Tsakiris: [00:37:13] you put the person, girl, was he, were they colleagues or did they know each other?

Cherylee Black: [00:37:18] They were such good friends. Um, I mean they didn’t, they, you know, person jury was at Laurentian and bill was, I think, was it university of West Georgia, I think. Um, but they had written a lot of works together and. Seeing them together. Like they, I mean, they were such opposite people, person jurors very has a university professor.

I probably would have called him like a hard ass, you know? I mean, he was, he was very much into the data and, and didn’t have a lot of time for small talk. Whereas bill was a people person. I mean, you know, you could see. Why they kind of worked well together. Cause bill looked after all the niceties, niceties of life and persons you’re got the data, but when they were together, they joked and, and they poked fun at each other.

And it was just a really nice relationship between the two of them. And it’s funny because those were actually personally in particular, a lot of parents like. Pair of psychologist told me, Oh, stay away from him. Like he’s a bad guy. And you know, and he’s often the one that’s everyone says, Oh, well, you know, he has a history with, with the dark side of the government.

And yet when all these people telling me this all came from the government, all worked for the CIA, like, you know, like, like nobody’s in a sentence group.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:38:58] And I think a lot of them, no, that’s, that’s Larry it’s. I think that’s so true. And the other reality of it is a lot of people don’t know, you know, you don’t know where your funding came from necessarily in a particular, in these fields. The funding is so tiny. You know what I mean? Like you might bother to look in if you’re getting.

Because zillions of dollars or even millions of dollars. But when you’re just getting a little bit to get you further along, you’re just like, Hey, take it and move on. And it isn’t clear, you know, where it’s coming from. I think in a lot of cases, 

Cherylee Black: [00:39:29] well, in person you’re funded most of his own work. Like he, 

Alex Tsakiris: [00:39:34] it’s part of a process.

It’s like, I get a little bit here or there. It’s like, yeah. It’s like, I still have to go out and get all of it. I get a lot of it myself. 

Right. 

Cherylee Black: [00:39:42] Well, he, I think there was one is, I mean, he was pretty open with me when I asked, cause I asked where the, you know, where the funding and things came from and, uh, Most, uh, you know, he, he had done some project for the U S Navy.

It was a very small thing. He, he pointed out what that was, but the overwhelming majority of the work done it to Laurentian university. He funded out of pocket. Uh, so. You know, that’s, I mean, I guess some people, well, actually a lot of people paid their own way to go there, to see his lab and be tested in his lab.

Cause yeah. Um, 

Alex Tsakiris: [00:40:29] People remind people. So we don’t get too far into inside baseball. So break down the work that you did in these different labs or just what you knew about these labs and what they were doing and how it related to your experience. Cause this does kind of go back to what I was saying before.

She really, I mean, you know, we can’t really wrap our head around the fact that. Like just to say your experience, your urn experience, or is not enough, it’s kind of this strange situation because when you’re talking to these researchers, you know, so much fricking more than they do that, it’s like, Insane.

And yet you have to kind of take this role of yes. What do you want me to do now? You know, what do you mean? So it is kind of this strange situation. So if you could, would be a little more bold in terms of what do you think these guys and they’re all guys, what do you think they were doing? What do you think they were doing?

Right? What do you think they were doing? Not so right. Where do you think all that stuff is, has gone? You know, since you were, I guess you still are kind of keeping your fingers on it, but where do you think all that stuff is going and all that? 

Cherylee Black: [00:41:43] Wow. Okay. That’s a good question. Um, I would say person juror’s lab, um, they hooked me up to an EEG and they were actually trying to prove, um, or sorry, you don’t prove things in science.

That’s like a math and alcohol thing. Sorry. Um, but they were trying to provide evidence, um, For a theory that bill roll had had, um, part of which was that he, he thought that people who were likely to have, um, psycho kinetic experiences would likely be people who are very environmentally sensitive to electromagnetic frequencies.

So one of the experiments they did was they put me into, um, like a Faraday cage. So I closed that room. It looks like a bank false. It’s like a bank vault with shag carpeting on the floor and, and, and chairs from, you know, your grandma’s basement. Um, , 

Alex Tsakiris: [00:42:42] by the way, is famous for his Faraday cage and there’s like a million that’s his thing.

Cherylee Black: [00:42:48] Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, so you’re in the, in the fair day cage and, um, they had this device in there. That once you’re in the fair cage, you’re not affected by EMF from outside sources because that’s what a ferret cage cage does. So, but once you’re in there, they turn on this advice that, that emits a specific amount of EMS Emacs, or you make electromagnetic energy and they see what it does to you.

And the, for the first time I did this experiment, they didn’t tell me what to expect. And, and all they did, all they said was, yeah, a lot of students, we do this on students all the time. Most of them fall asleep in here. I’m like, okay, fine. We’ll do this. So I’m sitting in there and all of a sudden I was not feeling well.

And I was like, you know, this needs to stop. And apparently. Um, I was the most sensitive student they ever had to do this experiment and I had to throw up. So it wasn’t, wasn’t that fun for me. Like that was, they weren’t expecting me to have quite such a violent reaction to it. And then the next time, cause I went back about a year later, I think.

And. Did this again. And they had rejigged it to be much more sensitive. So they said, okay, we’re not going to blast you with this frequency. We’re just going to approach it and just let us know when you don’t feel good. And so what I found was like, one of the things that they found with me is that I see lights even in a dark room and I always have, and so I was telling them what color the lights were turning in this completely dark room.

Um, At different times. And they said it was absolutely, um, when they changed the frequency that I had, the colors match, the frequency, they were turning it to and which they weren’t expecting to find that, that I’m so tuned into the, the subtle changes in the electromagnetics that I can tell them what, what color it is.

Um, And even there, when they were really careful, I still ended up throwing up afterwards. They know exactly the frequency that sets it off. And they say that that’s the frequency that sets off the PK too. 

Alex Tsakiris: [00:45:11] So what, what is your interpretation of that result and what was their interpretation of that result?

Cherylee Black: [00:45:21] Um, their interpretation. Well, you can read, I mean, there’s written up in a paper, so it don’t, don’t take my word for it. People can go find the paper. It’s I think roll and roll at Al 2012, um, journal of neuro neuro case, I think. Yeah. Neuro case. And, but their, their interpretation was that yes, people who have unusual experiences are sensitive to particular.

Um, frequencies and, and, and I, we kind of agree with them because I sure got sick. Um, and I think what I liked about that was the fact that the colors of lights I were seeing, it really, it was isn’t it cool to find out that it actually corresponds to something that somebody can measure outside of me that it’s not just my imagination.

I think that was the biggest takeaway from going to purchasers lab, because I went there thinking that they were going to prove there was nothing like that was at that time in my life. I wanted to get sure for what was going on with me. I was studying science and university and I wanted to cure and I was going to get fixed and they were just going to tell me that I was just nuts and that, that was going to be the end of it and go back and be a good scientist and not ever look at the stuff ever again.

And of course that’s not what happened. 

Alex Tsakiris: [00:46:53] So I gotta, I got to poke you hear a little bit, I mean, I can understand that at one level you wanted that, but at another level you were an experiencer of this larger reality. So you had to know that that wasn’t really, you know, in play, if you will.

Cherylee Black: [00:47:16] Yeah, but, you know, I was pretty stubborn about it. I was going to fix it. I was being so stubborn. And of course that was making the PK worse. Like, you know, it was making the Poltergeist guy stuff worse because I was getting so stubborn that I was going to fix this and cure this. And I wasn’t.

And, and that was that, and it didn’t happen. It just, they just kept showing, Oh, Oh, are we still connected? We stuck it. 

Alex Tsakiris: [00:47:54] No, we just had a little, we just had a little glitch there, but

Cherylee Black: [00:48:01] stop it. Stop it. Okay. 

Alex Tsakiris: [00:48:03] That’s enough for now. It was game, 

Cherylee Black: [00:48:06] but yeah, I mean, emotional. 

Alex Tsakiris: [00:48:10] You know, what I find kind of interesting about that is you’re being so real about it. And so honest about it and it mirrors in a way. You know, Persinger is known for being this materialist. He’s encountering all this stuff and well, it’s, I, it depends on how you read him, you know, but I mean, he’s essentially jamming it back into, you know, well, let’s just find a different frequency or let’s just, you know, like explain all this away and well, I’m going to publish it, Nigeria Lee, you know, kind of thing.

And it’s like, I mean, I I’ve, that’s been my kind of thing for on the show. Very, I was very, very, very slow to come to this realization, but once I did it, I see the kind of tragic comedy of it all is that all these guys at a higher level, understand the broader reality and understand that this isn’t the really the game to try and jam it back into materialism.

And yet they let this stuff go on with just like. Yeah, I can only imagine this is my imagination is whoever is at that higher level is reading person his work and going great. Okay. You know, how can we weaponize it? How can we use it? What does that mean? And then they’re letting it just go on. We’ll let them keep talking about it.

Like, it’s just all, uh, you know, materialistic, biological robot and meaningless universe kind of world out there, you know? But it’s interesting that you kind of knew and you still didn’t want to know because it’s hard to know who the hell really wants to hold that reality. I mean, that’s just kind of tough.

Cherylee Black: [00:49:56] Yeah. Cause it’s just a lot easier not to go there. Um, and I mean, you know, my current husband is a scientist and I tried to hide it from him for a long time. Like, you know, it. That the one really good thing about going to fruition is your lab is, you know, person, jury gave me all these data sheets to bring home and then I could just, cause I didn’t even, I don’t think I even really told my husband exactly what I was going to Laurentian for.

He just figured it was a geology thing. Cause I was in grad school and going to another university that happens to be where, you know, big mining town. So, um, You know, geologists have been over there. So of course I’m going there, like big deal. And that really wasn’t what I was going there for at all. And I came home with these data sheets, um, showing, you know, the results from EEG.

We, uh, we did some photo multiplier, tube experiments. I mean, you know, various things that we did and I showed him. The results. And apparently how my brain is kind of weird, which is another thing they found. And, um, that was the first kind of conversations I had with my husband over it. I mean, he always knew I was weird, but he always thought that was kinda cute.

Keep thing anyway, but I never really, I told him that I had a near death experience. I mean, I never most near death experiences don’t tell their spouses, they just don’t. It’s easier to tell a complete stranger, because if the complete stranger rejects you for talking about it, that’s not a big deal, you know, but if your family rejects you, that’s a big deal.

Um, you know, so that’s why you’ll go to an ions, um, conference and everybody will be talking to each other and every one of them will say, yeah, I don’t tell them my family. They don’t know anything about this. 

Alex Tsakiris: [00:51:58] I told them one time and I learned you don’t you just 

Cherylee Black: [00:52:02] go there, 

Alex Tsakiris: [00:52:04] you know, for a time kind of slips away from us too far.

I know people are going to be super interested in the nuts and bolts of the PK stuff. Um, The little wheel thing that you do and other people do. What are the limits of PK, do you suppose? Um, how do you go about developing that? Was that something you should do or should not do all the kind of basic PK fascination?

You know, 

Cherylee Black: [00:52:39] it’s funny. I, I find that seeing someone else do PK seems to be contagious. Like when I went to the Rhine research center and I was doing, you know, spinning the wheels and like other people were doing it. Yeah. So 

Alex Tsakiris: [00:52:57] describe, describe the setup, describe the setup for people, the best that you can, the what, the, what the setup for the lab 

Cherylee Black: [00:53:05] test is?

Um, well, there’s a lot of different lab tests actually. Um, Is at the Ryan, they’ve got the bio bio energy lab, which they did similar experiments that Laurentian did in, you know, with a photomultiplier tube. So those experiments are pretty good. And I, you know, anyone can, can try those where you basically, you sit in a dark room and you try and produce light, and then they see if there’s spikes, if you’re glowing in the dark or not, which apparently I glow in the dark.

My husband likes to brag about that his wife flows in the dark. Um, but, but, um, Other things was, I just had a little jar and spun a pinwheel inside a closed jar, and you know, it’s not a perfect experiment. And, uh, later on I started working with an ugly wheel after Dean Raden had suggested it and put it inside a closed container as well.

Um, but it was kind of interesting that, that what I find is that when people see it often they can do it. Although it’ll kind of wear out, like there’s almost this beginner’s luck way. It’ll work for the first little bit. And then it’s like, they convince themselves they can’t do it anymore, but there’s been other cases where there was a fellow Sean McNamara who watched the video that I had done for ions.

And there actually show a little clip of me playing with the pin mill in the jar, just to give an idea of it. And he decided that he could figure out how to do this. And he started doing it. He actually teaches a course. He wrote a book like he did all the things I should have done, but, and another, a number of people have sent me emails saying that they thought it was silly.

And then they tried it after watching me do it and they can do it now. But for the most part, it seems like you do it for a while and then you kind of let it go and it doesn’t work anymore. And I, I don’t know why that is, but it seems to be how it is. Um, but one of the things I thought was interesting was a couple of people who had learned how to do this.

Um, and I had gotten involved with this researcher. I’m not going to name him because I don’t, I don’t know that he wants to be public about his interest in this topic. But, uh, he had done, done some work where he set up this machine that he said would be. Um, a way to isolate the effects and kind of a vacuum tube.

And he did all these, these things where he put the pinwheel in this closed thing. And then he had to the people like Sean and another person in there, and every time they got the pinwheel to move in this setup, he would blame it on. Whatever, like, Oh, the equipment was malfunctioning. It’s too hot in here.

It’s too cold in here. Like he had this laundry list and the two people who actually gone to his lab to do these things were very discouraged because he basically made them feel like they were complete frauds. Because his equipment was, it was just equipment malfunctions. There was no true effects. So when he contacted me and asked me to do it, I said, well, I’m not going to go to your lab.

We’re going to do this over Skype because I don’t want to go to your lab. And, and, and my, I mean, first of all, I get air six. I hate to fly, but I also figured, like, there’s no point in me going there for you to say it’s an equipment malfunction. And so I said, well, just do it over Skype. So set it up. And we’ll see what happens.

So we did this and several times with me in Canada and him in the States. So we’re not even in the same country, we’re not even on the, you know, the same part of the continent and the things started moving like crazy and a few of the videos. And of course, every time it’s, Oh, it’s equipment malfunction, it’s this and that.

So it was like, yeah. So no matter how perfect some of the scientists set up their experiments. When it moves, they still say that. So I’m just as happy that I wasn’t there for it to be an equipment malfunction because quite honestly, he could have also said it was fraud on my part, which is what I was kind of expecting because I’ve had that happen too, where they say, well, if it moves, then it’s fraud.

It’s like, well, if I’m not in the room, it’s not me doing the fraud. 

Alex Tsakiris: [00:57:25] Yeah, in a way you kind of stumbled into kind of the perfect setup there. So, uh, where are you going with this in the future and what are the personal kind of implications for you or where would you like to go? And, you know, I’m glad that you did this interview.

I think you were understandably for a long time kind of cautious and even going out there and talking about this stuff, cause it can get kind of creepy. Where do you want to go with this? 

Cherylee Black: [00:57:54] Well, I don’t know. I mean, I’ve been to quite a number of labs. Um, I have a number of people I know who are working on experiments that there’s one fellow that actually may come up with a good experiment.

It’s just the technical, um, setup that I, he won’t mind if I say his name is Ron Brian. He’s at Texas a and M and they’re working on an experiment. Where they’re hoping someone can use PK to switch the direction of the spin on a magnesium ion. Um, which I know you’re going to say. Yeah, there’s all kinds of evil, evil uses for, uh, a thought switch, but he’s hoping it will be used in medical technologies, but you’re right.

I, you know, any, anything where there’s a good use, there’s a bad use. Um, You know, and there are, and there are some good experiments out there. And I’ve been really fortunate that people have, you know, brought me to their labs and allowed me to participate in these things. But generally what I found is that they’ll only go so far and it’s like, when they get really good experiments, they back off and it’s like, Oh, we don’t ever want to look at this again.

And, and it’s almost a universal reaction. And I don’t know why that is. It’s like the experimenter that I just talked about, where he was really enthusiastic, that, you know, he was going to win the Nobel prize by proving this stuff was real. He actually used that. He actually said that Nobel prize. And yet when it came down to it, you know, just from talking to him, I knew that no, that’s not where we’re going.

And that’s why I’m not going to his lab. I’m going to do this over Skype. And I’ll get to see the little pin we’ll move and yay. And he’s going to say, well, that’s not anything and that’s okay. That’s his deal. But at least, at least I am cleared of any project.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:59:55] Finally, finally, Cherylee, do you have any thoughts on. How PK does fit into this larger kind of like, you know, my pet phrase, extended consciousness, realm, you know, what aspect of it are we looking at? Because to me, when you’re talking about that, it’s like Bravo for the scientists on one hand, on the other hand, it’s just so impossibly corrupted I did.

And my optic and ridiculous that. Do you know, they’re just looking, they’re looking in the dark alley because there’s a street lamp over there and the keys are way over in the field over here kind of thing, but that’s okay. It’s still somebody looking, which is more than we had before, but any thoughts for how, uh, how PK does fit into the bigger picture?

Cherylee Black: [01:00:50] You know, I think these are all very personal journeys and maybe, maybe the scientist doesn’t. Need to see, see the PK and maybe some do. And I think you see it, if you need to see it. Um, I think it’s just, there’s a lot more to us than we realize. And that’s, that’s kind of what you got to keep looking for and the fact that there’s these puzzles, what do they call it?

A colon, you know, where, where the whole point of the riddle is just to keep you. Kind of keep you thinking, keep, keep you searching because maybe the process is more important than, than you know, or the, the journey is more important than the destination kind of thing. Um, you know, I used to take it really personally, the fact that so many of the scientists I’ve worked with kind of, they see a good result and then they back off and I don’t hear from them again.

And I used to take that really personally. Now I just kind of think, well, that’s where they need to be. You know, if somebody comes up with a good proposal and it’s interesting and I’d like to work on it. Yeah. You know, I I’d be up for that, but if not, that’s okay too. And you know, we’ll see what happens when it happens.

I mean, it’s either that, or I could maybe start a cult.

Alex Tsakiris: [01:02:15] Two options. Hey, you got two good options there. Whichever way it falls. You’re saying, 

Cherylee Black: [01:02:23] well, I mean, that’s kind of, that’s kind of isn’t that what, you know, in the years up and do I, you know, I mean, I was kind of shocked by that part of that whole, the whole community that, yeah. A culture thing. 

Alex Tsakiris: [01:02:37] Yeah. 

Cherylee Black: [01:02:38] Yeah.

Yeah. 

Alex Tsakiris: [01:02:39] We’ll tell you what it’s been. Absolutely. Terrific. I really love this and appreciate the conversation we’ve had. And I think we went to some places that, you know, I don’t hear people talking too much about, so it’s really, really cool to have you on. And I love those. I love where we came to at the end.

I think that’s okay. You know what immediately strikes me as, how could it be any other way, you know, how could it be any other way than that? So, 

Cherylee Black: [01:03:07] awesome. Just give it a month and you might change your mind yet? Probably 

Alex Tsakiris: [01:03:15] a couple more episodes. 

Thanks again. To share a Lee black for joining me today on Skeptiko. I guess the one question I’d have on this is what do you think are the. Limits. Of PK. 

 And of course my standard. What does the reality of PK say about the extended consciousness realm? Oh, Nice little easy questions. Let me know your thoughts on that. And, uh, please stay with me. Lots of good stuff coming. Down the pike. 

I hope you stick around for it, but until next time, take care and bye for now.   [box]