Beyond the extended and distributed ‘self’: from subliminal extended selves to nonlocality and neurocapitalism

ABSTRACT

Russ’s (Belk, 1988) extension of William James’ reflections on the self has been a significant accelerant of interpretive and Consumer Culture Theoretic research. In this paper, I will outline a different way we can engage with James’ oeuvre; specifically via psychical research and parapsychology. These fields are subsequently linked to recent debates on quantum interconnectedness, nonlocality, brain-computer interfaces and capitalist-materialist telepathy. This endeavour initially responds to Russ’s point that ‘What we call “self” is really “selves”. Besides distributed selves and multiple selves shared between individuals, there are also multiple selves within individuals’ (Belk, 2024, p. 571). It builds upon Craig’s respective accounts by proffering materialist and post-materialist perspectives on human-human dynamics and human-computer technological affordances. As we shall see, William James encourages us to recognise multiple selves, multiple levels of consciousness, and the psychical extension of self.

KEYWORDS:

• Extended self
• subliminal extended self
• psychical research
• telepathy
• nonlocality
• brain-computer interfaces

‘It is always hard to recognize how much the cultural grip of a particular time tends to hold our thinking in fixed channels’. (Rhine, 1951, p. 12)

Introduction

The world we experience helps form the field of human consciousness. We are shaped by it, especially by scientific and philosophical reflections on ontology, human nature, the spectrum of consciousness, and ruminations on ‘supernormal’ powers such as telepathy (James, 1890/1950). Psychical phenomena have been identified since the beginning of recorded history (Heywood, 1948). Where Greek oracles expressed clairvoyant insights and precognitive visions of the future or prominent figures like Socrates and Joan of Arc stressed the importance of ‘monitory voices’ in assisting their decision-making (Myers, 1892, p. 298), these kinds of psychical talents were again prominently foregrounded from 1850 onwards when there was an explosion in spiritualist and psychical phenomena (Gauld, 1968).

As an advocate for the scientific investigation of spiritualist and psychical claims, Professor William Barrett would become a valuable supporter of psychical investigation. Notably, his initial experiments convinced him of the reality of telepathy. He contended that it was possible for an idea or image in his mind to be transferred to another person in ways that went beyond normal sensory or communicative means. In a project conducted in 1870 which involved studying village children in Ireland, Barrett explains how a young girl could access his thoughts via telepathy (although the example leaves room for clairvoyance and remote viewing as a possible hypothesis):

One of the most interesting experiments was made when in answer to my request that she would mentally visit London and go to Regent’s Street, she correctly described the optician’s shop of which I was thinking. As a matter of fact, I had found, upon subsequent inquiry, that the girl had never gone fifty miles from her remote Irish village. Nevertheless, not only did she correctly describe the position of this shop, but told me of some large crystals of Iceland spar (‘that made things look double’) which I knew were in the shop, and that a big clock hung outside over the entrance, as was the case. It was impossible for the subject to gain any information of these facts through the ordinary channels of sense, as there was no conversation about the matter. (Barrett, 1911, pp. 73–74)

Barrett’s introduction to the politics of psychical research occurred early when he presented a paper in 1876 at the British Association. Despite his research being supported by Alfred Russel Wallace (the co-discoverer of evolution with Darwin), Barrett lamented the ‘derision and denunciation’ he faced (Barrett, 1911, p. 53). Where the British Association failed to attend to his call for systematic study of psychical matters, he was able to interest various individuals associated with Cambridge University in the possibility of exploring these phenomena. Formed in 1882, the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) pronounced its intent ‘to investigate that large body of debatable phenomena designated by such terms as mesmeric, psychical and spiritualistic … without prejudice or prepossession of any kind, and in the same spirit of exact and unimpassioned enquiry which has enabled Science to solve so many problems, once not less obscure nor less hotly debated’ (in Gauld, 1968, p. 138). The membership roster was remarkable, including Professor Henry Sidgwick, Sir William Crookes, Professor Henri Bergson, Professor Charles Richet, Professor William James, Camille Flammarion, Sir Oliver Lodge, Eleanor Sidgwick, Frederic Myers and Edmund Gurney, among many others (Heywood, 1948).

As James was working on The Principles of Psychology, the accumulating empirical evidence pointed to a bifurcation in consciousness and hence a possible fragmentation of the self. It is thus not wholly unexpected that James tells us to attend to the theoretical, empirical and conceptual accounts published in the Proceedings and Journal associated with the SPR, especially the work of F.W.H. Myers (1892) (e.g. James, 1920, p. 57). Myers (1886, 1903/1992) marshals a massive volume of material which called attention to the existence of multiple streams of consciousness going on within us that we might not even register:

I suggest that each of us is in reality an abiding psychical entity far more extensive than he knows – an individuality which can never express itself completely through any corporeal manifestation. The Self manifests through the organism; but there is always some part of the Self unmanifested; and always, as it seems, some power of organic expression in abeyance or in reserve. Neither can the player express all his thought upon the instrument, nor is the instrument so arranged that all its keys can be sounded at once. One melody after another may be played upon it; nay, - as with the messages of duplex or of multiplex telegraphy – simultaneously or with imperceptible intermissions, several melodies can be played together; but there are still unexhausted reserves of instrumental capacity, as well as unexpressed treasures of informing thought. All of this psychical action, I hold, is conscious; all is included in an actual or potential memory below the threshold of our habitual consciousness. For all which lies below that threshold subliminal seems the fittest word. (Myers, 1892, p. 305; emphasis in original)

The empirical self, that is, our daily self, is shrunk to ‘a floating island upon the “abysmal deep” of the total individuality beneath it’ (Myers, 1892, p. 329). The subliminal or subconscious is the ocean that surrounds the island of the empirical self. Like James, Myers maintains that science had to explore the most pressing questions facing humanity including whether people could communicate in ways that exceeded traditional sensory channels. Were telepathic and clairvoyant powers capable of exploration using the ‘same methods of deliberate, dispassionate, exact inquiry which have built up our actual knowledge of the world which we can touch and see’ (Myers, 1903/1992, p. 7)? The literature suggested these were ideas worth pursuing.

Against this backdrop, SPR associates collected experimental and spontaneous evidence (i.e. via letters and interviews with people who had experienced psychical events like telepathy and clairvoyance) revealing that these powers were sometimes stimulated by a crisis (i.e. an accident, dangerous situation or death). These data assembly efforts led to seminal tomes like Phantasms of the Living (Gurney et al., 1886) which buttressed the evidence for telepathy.

Telepathy

Telepathy denotes all impressions (cognitive, emotional, visual, or auditory) received from a distant source without the mediation of ordinary senses. By the 1870s, various groups were engaged in telepathic experimentation. For example, the Reverend P.H. Newnham and his wife used the planchette in their studies (Gauld, 1968). This was a small board on wheels with a pencil attached to facilitate the expression of communications from a subconscious or discarnate source (Barrett, 1911). In their experiments, the Reverend would sit in the same room as his wife, but without her being able to see his face or the book he was using for note taking (Gauld, 1968, Hamilton, 2009). Rev. Newnham wrote out questions which he desired his wife to answer without speaking the question out loud or otherwise expressing it. His wife, in turn, would allow her conscious attention to relax so that she could engage in automatic writing (i.e. where the hand writes without the conscious control of the individual).

Through an extended series of tests – over 300 in total, undertaken over eight months – the Reverend posed a question and his wife’s subconscious responded to the unarticulated questions using the planchette. Unexpectedly, the ‘intelligence’ being displayed exceeded the boundaries of Mrs. Newnham’s knowledge, begging the question of its source. Theoretically, for Newnham and Myers, this indicated that the human mind was capable of absorbing and accessing information without the conscious self being aware of the process. Moreover, that the mind passed this information between the subliminal and conscious self.

Overall, a growing collection of case materials led Gurney et al. (1883) to be cautiously optimistic that their evidence supported the existence of a new phenomenon (i.e. thought transference). In 1892, for example, telepathic experiments were made at a distance of one mile, then extended to 15 miles (London-Surbiton). These were successful. European attempts at long-distance telepathy spanned nearly four hundred miles. Others crossed the globe. As an exemplar, the Miles/Ramsden trials involved two members of the SPR (Miss Ramsden and Miss Miles). In their first study, Miles and Ramsden arranged to transmit telepathic impressions (images, ideas, items) at a designated time. Miss Miles was the agent (i.e. transmitter), Ramsden acted as percipient (i.e. receiver). The former would document and annotate the images and items she was attempting to communicate; the latter recorded the images, feelings, and thoughts that were received. Additional evidence from witnesses corroborated the records.

The Miles-Ramsden experiments continued for a number of years. Sometimes they were successful, sometimes not. When the participants were separated by much longer distances (i.e. one in the UK, the other in Norway), they were less successful. In a later series of tests, Miles and Ramsden kept time-stamped records of their communications. During October and November 1906, at 7pm, Miss Miles focused on the intended subject matter and Miss Ramsden wrote down the idea she received on a postcard, mailing it the next morning to Miss Miles who, in turn, did likewise to Miss Ramsden (i.e. with the cards crossing postal paths). All records were collated. Upon analysing the data, according to the research officer of the SPR,

… almost every day some of Miss Ramsden’s impressions represented pretty closely something that Miss Miles had been seeing or talking about on the same day … while some of the coincidences of thought between the two experimenters are probably accidental, the total amount of correspondence is more than can be thus accounted for and points distinctly to the action of telepathy between them. (in Barrett, 1911, p. 101)

These types of cases were used by Myers to develop his views on human personality and self. In doing so, the notion of identity as a single self whose entire range of thoughts, feelings and practical endeavours are fully and completely known to the individual is questioned. In place of the unified ‘I’, ‘ego’ or ‘soul’, Myers (1903/1992, p. 19) calls attention to human personality that embodies unity in that there is an underlying ‘something’ that survives death (i.e. soul or ego) and multiplexity in that our self is not singular, but constituted by multiple strata (i.e. supraliminal and subliminal selves) (cf. Myers, 1903/1992, p. 44).

Strata and the subliminal extended self

The self, for Myers, is separated into our conscious, everyday self, and those strata that exist below the limen, that is, underneath the threshold for consciousness (see Barrett, 1911, pp. 35–39; Myers, 1892, pp. 306, 328). Exploration of the subliminal and its powers is so closely associated with Myers that it is called ‘Myers’s Problem’ by William James (1903/1986). Myers, like James, argues that the subliminal ‘self’ has agency. The subliminal is expansive in its functions, ranging from a storehouse keeping track of all those informational needs that enable us to negotiate the world, through to forgotten memories (Podmore, 1897). It is constantly being refreshed. The tasks and skills which once required our attention, eventually become part of the subconscious which enables the automatic performance of more mechanical functions (i.e. impulses, instincts and habits). But the subliminal is more than a mechanism of ‘unconscious cerebration’. As a self, psychical researchers declared that our ‘subliminal’ (Myers, 1892) or ‘hidden self’ (James, 1890) undertakes ‘constructive work’ (Hinman, 1900, p. 165). It has consciousness.

James takes inspiration from Edmund Gurney (a prominent psychical researcher) whose research illuminated the existence of ‘secondary’ selves. What was novel about Gurney’s studies is the fact that the secondary self took heed of post-hypnotic suggestions, monitoring the time when they had to be performed (i.e. when the secondary self is in the background, it remains active). James is emphatic that the monitoring going on (i.e. counting down to the time when the feat should be performed) is not an automatism, that is, an unthinking mechanical operation. What is happening is much more complex. It suggests that multiple selves are in action: ‘a self presides over them, a split-off, limited and buried, but yet fully conscious, self. More than this, the buried self often comes to the surface and drives out the other self whilst these acts are performing’ (James, 1890/1950).

Beyond these capabilities, the subliminal self monitors the external environment, noticing factors that escape our normal attention, interests and cognitive abilities. In those cases where deliberate attempts are made to shift the mental gears of an individual (e.g. in hypnosis or when we sleep and dream), it transpired that there were considerable depths of mental processing and recollection (Podmore, 1897) which were interpreted as an ‘extension of mental faculty’ (Bruce, 1910b, p. 458).

Expanding these capabilities still further, ‘uprushes’ pass from the subliminal through the limen to supraliminal consciousness. Myers unpacks the notion of subliminal uprushes with examples of prodigies who engage in one activity (i.e. talking) at the same time as their subliminal self is undertaking formidable calculations (e.g. Myers, 1903/1992, pp. 47–48). In Myers’ opinion, the subliminal is the domain of the supernormal, that is, the conduit through which telepathic and clairvoyant communications are received (e.g. Myers, 1903/1992, pp. 119–120). What became apparent is that

… the range of our subliminal mentation is more extended than the range of our supraliminal. At one end of the scale we find dreams, - a normal subliminal product, but of less practical value than any form of sane supraliminal thought. At the other end of the scale we find that the rarest, most precious knowledge comes to us from outside the ordinary field, - through the eminently subliminal processes of telepathy, telaesthesia, ecstasy. And between these two extremes lie many subliminal products, varying in value according to the dignity and trustworthiness of the subliminal mentation concerned. (Myers, 1903/1992, p. 43; emphasis in original)

James also opines that the ‘extended subliminal self’ is potentially the vehicle for supernormal functioning (James, 1920, p. 149), providing people with a means to ‘transcend time and space and the [currently known] laws of the physical world’ (Hinman, 1900, p. 166). ‘Supernormality’ indexed that there were people who possessed powers surpassing the norm. In this class, we find the skills of mediums (who were capable of obtaining information in ways that exceeded normal sensory methods) and practices like telepathy and clairvoyance (e.g. Myers, 1893); the evidence for which led James to assert: ‘I myself firmly believe that most of the phenomena are rooted in reality’ (James, 1909, p. 315).

What all this suggests is that human beings have abilities which entail major implications for our understanding of the self. The self is not the isolated ‘I’, but interconnected. Human mental powers are extended from mind-to-mind (human, animal) with spatial distance seemingly of little consequence (Myers, 1903/1992). These ‘powers’ may remain latent, waiting for an appropriate event or future evolutionary/environmental shift to necessitate their use (i.e. life in a post terrene world).

The existence of the subliminal thus represents an internal parsing of human consciousness. Where James initially theorised concentric circles of the self which extend outward, he correspondingly registers that Myers’ demonstrated ‘an indefinite inward extension of our being’ (James, 1903/1986, p. 207). This effectively reveals the self and human consciousness as exhibiting nonlocal attributes (i.e. that consciousness could reach out into the wider world, coming into telepathic contact with other minds or visualising scenes and locations far across the world through clairvoyance; e.g. Heywood, 1948, pp. 22–23). These ideas were ‘epoch-making’ (James, 1920, p. 151).

Like Myers, James was reluctant to assume that multiple streams of consciousness below the limen reflected some inherent defect (e.g. Myers, 1886, 1903/1992). Clearly, subliminal influences could have disadvantageous effects on an individual. Scholars long before Freud accepted that ‘some buried fragment of consciousness’ might hamper human flourishing (James, 1890, p. 372). Nevertheless, it is a problematic leap to assume that the existence of a secondary self reflects disease or maladaptation. As James points out in reference to Mrs. Leonora Piper (a famous trance medium of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century): ‘I know a non-hysterical woman who, in her trances, knows facts which altogether transcend her possible normal consciousness, facts about the lives of people whom she never saw or heard of before. I am well aware of all the liabilities to which this statement exposes me, and I make it deliberately, having practically no doubt whatever of its truth’ (James, 1890, p. 373; emphasis in original).

For some members of the psychical research community (notably F.W.H. Myers, Richard Hodgson, Henry and Eleanor Sidgwick), there was a growing belief that the self survived corporeality, remaining able to communicate from the next world (cf. Bruce, 1910a, p. 681). Typically cautious, James nonetheless exclaims that Mrs. Piper is his ‘white crow’. What he means is that she offered sufficient evidence that mediums were not always tapping into a secondary self, but something else entirely. Mrs. Piper’s ‘Hodgson’ control (Richard Hodgson being the representive of the UK SPR located in the US until his untimely death) represented either Hodgson communicating from the other side or an uncannily accurate ‘spirit counterfeit’ (James in Murphy, 1958, p. 313). In James’ words,

I am myself persuaded by abundant acquaintance with the trances of one medium that the ‘control’ [a personification claimed to be a spirit] may be altogether different from any possible waking self of the person. In the case I have in mind, it professes to be a certain departed French doctor; and is, I am convinced, acquainted with facts about the circumstances, and the living and dead relatives and acquaintances, of numberless sitters with whom the medium never met before, and of whom she has never heard the names. (James, 1890/1950, p. 396; emphasis in original)

Moving towards nonlocality and interconnection

As the twentieth century progressed, the research published by the SPR had indicated the possibility for human beings to ‘transcend’ their ‘material properties … Viewed as direct mind-to-mind communication … telepathy appeared to confirm the presence of non-physical or spiritual qualities in human personality’ (Rhine, 1951, p. 9). The idea that telepathy could be used to influence customers, retailers, suppliers and related figures (Atkinson, 1903), implied a greater level of commitment to post-materialist perspectives (i.e. telepathy was not believed to be transmitted by physical radiation), including a wide variety of idealist accounts (Tadajewski, 2022a, 2022b).

William Walker Atkinson (1903, 1907a), for example, promised to furnish his readership with the skills necessary to effect customers, clients and other important figures in their business life. There were three main modalities presented: (1) traditional methods of communication; (2) the use of ‘thought-waves’; and (3) the application of personal magnetism and positive thinking enhanced by homophilic principles (e.g. Atkinson, 1907a, p. 173). These proposals were inspired by the literature published by the SPR and others (e.g. Atkinson, 1903, pp. 49–50; 1907a, p. 28; 1907b, pp. 5–8, 14–24; 1909/2010, pp. 20–33; 1910/2010, pp. 16–23, 91–94).

To speak to the scientific community at large, J.B. Rhine at Duke University focused upon controlled quantitative experimentation in telepathy and related phenomena. Under the general term of Extra Sensory Perception (ESP), the evidence continued to mount that people possessed the ability to ‘acquire knowledge of facts independently of physical means and of rational inference’ (Heywood, 1948, p. 2). At this juncture, attempts were made to affirm that ‘pan-awareness’ could be considered part and parcel of normal sensory action. The Wykeham Professor of Logic at Oxford, Henry Habberley Price contended that

… in principle every mind is aware of what is going on everywhere; and that in most people at most times this awareness is repressed … This hypothesis is in harmony with the results of recent mass experiments, which indicate both that rudimentary E.S.P. seems to be widespread … It appears to have much in common with the phenomena of mysticism and genius, for the descriptions by creative men, from poets to mathematicians, of the manner in which their inspirations and original ideas came to them bear a marked resemblance to attempts by percipients to describe their extra-sensory perceptions. (Price in Heywood, 1948, pp. 3-4)

While Rhine did critique some early psychical research, his experimental approach tended to confirm the existence of telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition and psychokinesis (Rhine, 1951, Salter, 1945, Thouless, 1952). As such, the future for psychical and ESP research looked relatively bright (cf. Tadajewski, 2022a, 2023). At the mid-century point, investigation had provided ‘only glimpses of a great world of extra-physical or spiritual reality as hidden to us as the world within the atom was one hundred years ago’ (Rhine, 1951, p. 23). These statements led to further examinations of the transpersonal nature of human functioning. Put rudimentarily, the boundaries between people were theorised and empirically validated as highly porous (Rhine, 1951). Such views continue to attract adherents (e.g. Tadajewski, 2022a, 2022b; Tadajewski & Higgins, 2023).

Post-materialism and nonlocality

Beauregard et al. (2014) posit that the scientific community cannot credibly ignore the rising tide of findings that challenge traditional materialistic viewpoints (i.e. that matter, that is, the brain, forms the absolute bedrock for human experience and consciousness). As quantum theory and Bohmian (Bohm, 2002) ‘interconnectedness’ reveals, a basic materialism is undermined by the fact that physical reality lacks the material solidity often attributed to it (Beauregard et al., 2014; Drinkall, 2017; Sheldrake, 2013; Targ, 2004), with observation and the human mind capable of influencing the world. For Beauregard et al., the physical world of matter does not have primacy (e.g. Sheldrake, 2013, p. 212). The mind shapes reality and is capable of exceeding our generally accepted understanding of time and space constraints. The best way of clarifying post-materialism is found in ongoing studies of psychic functioning. This literature reveals that human beings have capabilities for ‘enlarged perception’ (Targ, 2004) and agency (Kress, 1977).

Depending on the source, ‘all’ people (Targ, 2004, p. 57), ‘just about everyone’ (McMoneagle, 2006, p. 266), or a wide distribution of us (Targ & Puthoff, 1974, p. 607) are capable of psychic activities with practice. Human-human (Sheldrake et al., 2004; Sheldrake et al., 2008), human-animal (Sheldrake, 2007) and human-environmental (Targ, 2004) psychical connections have all been studied.

Human-to-human contact in varied forms is seemingly quite common. Sheldrake et al. (2004) take widespread sentiment that people can identify a ‘familiar’ (Sheldrake, 2007) telephone caller before they pick up the device as a starting point for empirical research. Based on a study with the Nolan Sisters (a UK musical act in the 1980s), Sheldrake et al. (2004) explore the ability of one member of the group to correctly determine the person ringing them from a distant location. This happens much more regularly than would be expected statistically speaking.

In light of the foregoing, it is now fairly common to maintain that the mind is extended (Sheldrake, 2013), with our ‘subliminal mind’ forming the conduit for messaging and visualisation (Targ, 2004). Skilled individuals are capable of tapping into data sources from the past (retrocognition), present (telepathy and clairvoyance) or future (precognition) (Targ, 2004). In Targ and Puthoff’s (1974) paper published in Nature, for instance, they largely confirm Uri Geller’s telepathic and clairvoyant abilities (e.g. Targ & Puthoff, 1974, pp. 603–604). Relatedly, they test Pat Price’s remote viewing talents (Price was a former police commissioner with advanced psychic functioning). Upon being asked to describe a remote site, the buildings and activities associated with it, Price provides detailed – but not totally infallible (e.g. Kress, 1977, p. 12) – information that he could not have accessed through his ‘normal’ senses (e.g. Targ & Puthoff, 1974; Tart et al., 1980). In addition, the psychokinetically gifted have managed to affect shielded instrumentation. In an early experiment to test the psychokinetic powers of an individual, a former covert associate of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) relates what happened:

A man was found by [Dr. Russell] Targ and [Dr. Harold E.] Puthoff who apparently had psychokinetic abilities. He was then taken on a surprise visit to a superconducting shielded magnetometer being used in quark (high energy particle) experiments by Dr. A. Hebbard of Stanford University Physics Department … when the subject placed his attention on the interior of the magnetometer, the output signal was visibly disturbed, indicating a change in the internal magnetic field. Several other correlations of his mental efforts with signal variations were observed. These variations were never seen before or after the visit. (Kress, 1977, p. 8)

Nonlocality, then, refers to the extension and projection of human perceptivity and influence. As a way of making sense of human connexion, it

… is finding increasing acceptance in modern physics … there are ‘nonlocal’ connections called quantum interconnectedness – that is, an instantaneous spanning of space and time … Remote viewing is an example of nonlocal ability. It has repeatedly allowed people to describe, draw, and experience objects or activities anywhere on the planet, contemporaneously or in the near future … there should no longer be any doubt that most of us are capable of experiencing events that appear to be separated from our physical bodies by space and time. (Targ, 2004, p. xxviii)

From this perspective, mind is nonlocal, unmediated (i.e. mind-to-mind contact does not hinge on an identifiable energetic connection), does not adhere to the law of inverse squares (i.e. the ‘signal’ does not fade as distance extends) and occurs with immediacy (i.e. the link can sometimes be forged immediately; Beauregard et al., 2014, p. 273). These are ideas which have been in circulation for most of human history. From the Prajnaparamita, psychical studies (Targ, 2004), via some strands of Freudian and Jungian psychoanalysis (Tadajewski, 2022a), through to quantum theory, the notion that we exist as separate, ontologically divided entities ‘is an illusion’ (Targ, 2004, p. xxvi).

The investigations conducted by the Stanford Research Institute in California from the early 1970s onwards, as well as Army, Navy, CIA and numerous other governmental agencies for the last fifty years, underlines the potentialities, possibilities and dangers posed by ESP (e.g. Kress, 1977; Targ, 2004). As many of these institutional actors found, ‘unexplained results of genuine intelligence significance occur’ (Kress, 1977, p. 7). For example, Ingo Swann, Pat Price, and Joe McMoneagle exhibited very high levels of psychic skill by being able to remote view across the world (and beyond), pinpointing targets via geolocational coordinates, mentally tracking CIA agents in the field, and relating what they could see and view from multiple perspectives (e.g. Targ, 2004, p. 45). Pat Price, once again, submitted detailed outlines of operational units, describing the external facades and internal divisions and decorations of the locations (including the identifiers on filing cabinets and paperwork in offices) (see also Kress, 1977, pp. 14–15).

Post-materialism, in summary, states that:

A. Mind represents an aspect of reality as primordial as the physical world. Mind is fundamental in the universe, i.e., it cannot be derived from matter and reduced to anything more basic. B. There is a deep interconnection between mind and the physical world. C. Mind (will/intention) can influence the state of the physical world and operate in a nonlocal (or extended) fashion, i.e., it is not confined to specific points in space, such as brains and bodies, or to specific points in time, such as the present. (Beauregard et al., 2014, p. 273)

It is an expansive view of our place in the universe, stressing the possibility of a harmonious future between nations and species (Barrett, 1918; Beauregard et al., 2014). For other thinkers, our probable future is much more fraught, with the growth of surveillance capitalism, brain-computer interfaces and related technologies pointing to the control of large swathes of humanity, new forms of caste stratification, and even more unequal relations between marginal and elite groups.

Capitalist-materialist telepathic extensions

Capitalist-materialist (Drinkall, 2022) moves to extend human capabilities via transhumanist, telepathic connections are claimed to be the harbingers of an interconnected future. Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) have been around for some time, with early applications in the mid-2000s permitting people to move a computer cursor with their minds (Ahmed, 2010; Naddaf, 2024). From the outset, the promotion of BCIs and related technologies are aligned with essential medical services (Ahmed, 2010; Duncan, 2019; Naddaf, 2024). But commercial applications were quick to appear. Large tech companies heralded the possibility of controlling phones, games, and home cinemas with our brains (Dingemanse, 2020). Synchron, for instance, uses a version of a BCI to operate mobile phones (Drew, 2024a). Elon Musk thinks that this kind of technology will empower human beings as Artificial Intelligence reshapes the social world. His BCI is promoted as helping people mentally connect with assistive technology and has recently undertaken its first human trial (Drew, 2024b).

Across cultural commentary, telepathic aspirations appear with regularity (Drew, 2024a). Shifting a cursor using mental influence is replaced by the desire of corporations and billionaires to help us enhance our selves and productivity via telepathy. The sending of thought from one mind to another, with the associated benefit of speed and accuracy, is a new Taylorist fantasy. The founder of Facebook/Meta, Mark Zuckerberg, along with the World Economic Forum and numerous corporate groups, positions telepathic connection as the ‘ultimate’ technological horizon (in Drinkall, 2022, p. 137).

The market for these products looks desirable through a capitalist lens, capable of generating massive returns to fast moving players. Billion dollar valuations are common (Drinkall, 2022). Duncan (2019), for instance, provides a listing of the various industries and applications likely to use some variant of BCI technology; at the culmination of which we get hints of future directions that should make us worry, including the evaluation of job candidates, the monitoring of ongoing productivity, and the identification of ‘dissident thoughts’ (Duncan, 2019). Similarly, Drinkall (2017, 2022) emphasises that these technologies represent the most dangerous emergent aspect of surveillance capitalism (see also Žižek, 2019).

As is widely acknowledged, big data has provided the conditions of possibility for the expansion of surveillance capitalism (Zuboff, 2019). Via the collection of massive amounts of user generated data, we become subject to the influence attempts of companies and other actors through predicative algorithms (Drinkall, 2022). If we are suitably active online, using debit, credit and related payment mechanisms, then at some juncture, corporations and the technology they control (for the moment), may well have an insight into our self, whether supraliminal or hidden, that surpasses our own self-reflexivity (Žižek, 2019). The budding ‘evolutionary’ path that accompanies these developments includes greater inequality, less social mobility, and the emergence of social hierarchies which we may not even register. Continual connection to BCIs and other facilitators of ‘consensual telepathy’ (Musk in Žižek, 2019, p. 8) might mean we become even more psychically porous and ‘transparent’ without appreciating it.

We would do well to be extremely wary of corporate actors or state agencies promising to manage BCI and related ‘telepathic’ connections in an ethical or responsible fashion. The evidence suggests that surveillance capitalism is perfectly happy to ignore legal and ethical boundaries (Drew, 2024b), only acknowledging its violations when the tide of criticism becomes impossible to sideline or subdue (Drinkall, 2022). As Drinkall (2022, p. 149) avows, Facebook/Meta has a record of manipulating users without their knowledge in an attempt to determine the extent to which our moods, emotions and behaviours can be influenced. Where there is profit to be made, ethics can be muted.

Conclusion

The above narrative leaves us with multiple options. As Eric Arnould (2024) notes, radical change is on the agenda. As has been made apparent, we can access intellectually justifiable and substantiated bridges that connect rather than divide us. Technology can assist in this effort (Griziotti, 2019), but ongoing shifts to a ‘post-human capitalism’ (Žižek, 2019) led by billionaires whose position is buttressed by inequitable power relations look likely to deny the opportunity of human flourishing to many on this planet (Griziotti, 2019; Žižek, 2019). Nonetheless, the future is not foreclosed or locked-in. People do not have to be sacrificial lambs for profit and the vainglory of the few.

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Mark Tadajewski

Mark Tadajewski is the editor of the Journal of Marketing Management. His email is: [email protected]