The greatest advantage acquired in travelling and pursuing mankind in the original, is that of dispelling those shameful clouds that darken the faculties of the mind, preventing it from judging with candor and precision. Time—I see it not, I feel it not: it I but s shadowy name—a succession of breathings measures forth by night by the clank of a bell, by day by a shadow crossing a dialstone. Absence makes the heart grow found, but suddenly, I felt hot, and I was beginning to sweat. I adjusted my tie and tried to fan myself, but the sweat just kept rolling down my face. How could I be in the house of the Lord feeling like this, lusting after someone else’s mate while I sat next to my own? I felt my penis begin to expand and I had to fight hard to keep an erection at bay. “That was beautiful, was it not?” the bishop asked when the performance was done. The congregation responded in a chorus of “Amen.” I cherished the greatest respect towards everybody’s religious obligations, never mind how comical. By a toleration of what is detested we expose ourselves to the keenness of an adverse mind. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 5

The timidity natural to minds of quick and delicate perception increased evidences of trust and confidence in my efforts. “Now, I would like you to open your Bibles to Isaiah 41:11-16,” said the Deacon. “Brother, it is time.” I almost jumped out of my skin and out of the pew when I felt someone tap me on the shoulder. When I glanced in the aisle, Deacon Miller was standing there next to me. “Huh? Time for what?” “It is time to take up the collection.” “Oh, yeah, I am sorry, Deacon. I will be right there. The deacon walked away and I turned to Christina. “I will be back.” Christina nodded approvingly. She was so proud that I was starting to make the moves to become a deacon of the church. I adjusted myself under my suit jacket and carried the Sunday program in front of my bulge. As I passed the collection basket along each row, the swelling in my pants went down, and I purposely avoided looking in the direction of the choir. The last thing I wanted was to be passing the collection plate and have someone spot the tent in my pants. I could just hear the whispers behind Christina’s back now. I closed my eyes and prayed. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 5

What sort of explanation or account could we hope to find, supposing it were to be definitely established that precognition does indeed occur? Presumably this would have to cover whatever other parapsychological phenomena were also found to be genuine. To provide such a theory would be enormously difficult, if not impossible. In any case, in the present confusing and apparently contradictory state of the evidence in this field, a state which should no doubt be attributed (at least in part) to the lack of any theory adequate to serve as even the most tentative of working hypotheses, it is impossible to say with confidence and precision just what are the phenomena is which we need to take account. In each case the reason for talking of precognition is not that any particular guess can, at some stage, be identified as precognitive but that, after the guesses have been checked against the targets, the proportion of hits in a series of guesses is found to be significantly above mean-chance expectations. #RyanPhillipe 3 of 5

With appropriate alterations the same thing seems to be true of all ostensible parapsychological phenomena. Guesses, even if they have been solid and on point in the past, does not mean the plot will work on every target. Suppose insider stage a crime and break laws in staging this crime, but the target never responds as expected so they cannot hold him because this one is an outlier, he does not fit the statistical averages. So then to cover up the insider commit a crime, they engage in outrageous behavior in hopes of getting the outlier to “go off” so they can prove that he was a threat in their precognition was right, but he does not react to their plans and they are running out of time to cover up the crimes they committed. Not only do the insider now face criminal charges, but they also face a financial liability for the harassment, abuse, and torture of their target. This is why precognition is not something used in law enforcement because humans have free will and you cannot convict someone of a crime they did not commit. It is usually argued that that whereas this perhaps has to be allowed in the case of quantitative experiments in card guessing, dice throwing, and so forth, it does not apply at all to what appear to be spontaneous cases of telepathy and clairvoyance, nor precognition. #RyanPhillippe 4 of 5

When you set someone up and target a person and try to predict how they will behave and have contingency plans to contain them to cover up your criminal behavior, that is entrapment and a criminal conspiracy, at the very least, and is surely wrong. However, suppose someone we find that someone who had no means of inferring that the Titanic might meet disaster nevertheless has a dream which is later to have corresponded in amazing detail with what actually happened on the night when that great ship went down. Still, our only warranty for describing his dream as precognitive lies precisely in that extraordinary degree of correspondence: any single item of correspondence might be dismissed as something which was bound to happen “by the law of averages,” and so no single item can be picked out as unequivocally precognitive. Much like my relationship with Christina, she has not been treating me right for several years, so it is not precognition that my heart would wonder, but more by the law of averages. This is no reason to ignore or to dismiss the evidence. However, it may very well prove to be a significant theoretical pointer. The task of reconstruction and interpretation is thus very different from and more precarious than that of interpreting a philosopher whose original writing are still available for study. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 5