Third, it acted like a sense, rather than as something dependent upon
the intellectual process of thought. You could, for example--I argued to
my imaginary listener--command your nose to smell a rose, and by
autosuggestion you might think you were succeeding; that is, until you
really did smell a real rose, then you'd know that you'd failed to
create it through a thought pattern. The sense would have to be
separated from the process of thinking about the sense.

So what was psi? But, at this point, did it matter much? Wasn't the main
issue one of learning how to produce it, use it? How long did we work
with electricity and get a lot of benefits from it before we formed some
theories about what it was? And, for that matter, did we know what it
was, even yet? "A flow of electrons" was a pretty meaningless phrase,
when you stopped to think about it. I could say psi was a flow of
positrons, and it would mean as much.

I reached over and picked up a cigarette. I started fumbling around in
the center drawer of my desk for a matchbook. I didn't find any. Without
thinking, I opened the drawer containing the two cylinders. They were
pressing up against the side of the desk drawer, still trying to get out
of the room. Single purposed little beasts, weren't they?

I closed the drawer, and noticed that I was crushing out my cigarette in
the ash tray, just as if I'd smoked it. It was the first overt
indication I'd had that maybe my nerves weren't all they should be this
morning.

The sight of the cylinders brought up the fourth point. Experimental
psychology was filled with examples of the known senses being unable to
make correct evaluations when confronted with a totally new object,
color, scent, taste, sound, impression. It was necessary to have a point
of orientation before the new could be fitted into the old. What we
really lacked in psi was the ability to orient its phenomena. The
various psi gifted individuals tried to do this. If they believed in
guides from beyond the veil, that's the way they expressed themselves.
On the other hand, a Rhine card caller might not be able to give you a
message from your dear departed Aunt Minnie if his life depended upon
it--yet it could easily be the same force working in both instances.
Consequently, a medium, such as the Swami, whose basic belief was There
Are Mysteries, would be unable to function in a framework where the
obvious intent was to unveil those mysteries!

That brought