September 15, 2015: Loyd Auerbach

Art Bell welcomes parapsychologist Loyd Auerbach, director of the Office of Paranormal Investigations and co-author of ESP Wars, for a conversation covering psychokinesis, ghosts, near-death experiences, and Cold War psychic espionage programs. The episode opens with Art debunking a viral hoax claiming Pope Francis warned of hellfire from above, a fabricated story that had fueled September doomsday panic across the internet.

Auerbach distinguishes between conscious apparitions and residual hauntings, explaining that most ghost experiences involve loved ones appearing at the moment of death to say goodbye. He describes witnessing psychokinetic events firsthand, including a glass ashtray launching into the air at the haunted Banta Inn and objects moving inside sealed rooms during experiments with the late author Martin Caidin, creator of The Six Million Dollar Man. Auerbach reveals that the key to psychokinesis is not forceful concentration but a calm, visualization-based altered state similar to an athlete being in the zone.

The discussion turns to Soviet research on psychic Nina Kulagina, whose apparent telekinesis was traced to histamine-laden sweat generating electrostatic fields strong enough to move objects. Auerbach also addresses poltergeist phenomena, attributing them not to spirits but to unconscious psychokinetic outbursts from living people under stress.