logotipo

-------------------------

Are ITC Phenomena Evidence of Survival of Physical Death? Arguments for and Against
Enrico Marabini

The author raises a number of questions on the complex phenomenon known as ITC, or Instrumental Transcommunication, with the purpose of first of all confirming its concrete nature, and subsequently of trying to interpret the phenomenon as possible evidence for survival of physical death.

After briefly reviewing past controversies concerning the ITC phenomenon, which have made it possible for a number of researchers in the field of parapsychology to regard it as a psycholinguistic – and hence illusory - occurrence, I submit that nowadays - especially as a result of the investigations carried out by the team of Italian researchers from IL LABORATORIO - the genuineness and extraordinary nature of ITC has been confirmed.

I will then deal with the methodological aspects involved in investigating this phenomenon, and stress the importance not only of empirically observing it, but also of examining the observer, the person receiving the ITC messages, since human beings represent the most critical variable within the PSI phenomenal system. On the other hand, it has been ascertained that ITC is an occurrence that manifests within it a complex non-linear phenomenal system whose variables are represented by a range of physical, biological, psychological and transpersonal realities. Indeed, ITC phenomena display “mental” features which, as a rule, are referable to human linguistic and psychological processes involving a clear meaning from a cognitive point of view.

At this point I shall ask myself whether it is the observer’s mind that, as a consequence of its own motives, generates the communication, or whether there is a psychic configuration outside or other than him/her that interacts with the system. I will mention an interesting case, documented by the experienced Italian researcher Dr. Engineer Carlo Traina, demonstrating how the unconscious mental activity of a living person can unexpectedly manifest through a recording on a magnetic tape. After elaborating on the importance of such an event, which demonstrates how the “mind” can access the causal dynamics of electronic instruments without a known physical vector, I will refer to the title of this paper again and focus on the concept of survival of physical death. After analysing the topic in depth, I will ask what actually survives? and answer by posing a number of questions that allow me to state that referring to “survival” when dealing with ITC phenomena involves tackling a problem that is not only of an empirical nature, but also has philosophical and religious humanistic connotations.

Since what we know does not only arise from our rational functions, but also from the involvement of our intuitive functions, I conclude by stressing the need to expand the range of research in an attempt to reconcile the requirements of both “faith and reason”. In this way, our understanding of the problem can find, through an innovative logical approach, the path that may succeed in integrating our personal religious understanding with reason.