Saturday, July 29, 2006

Love and Telepathy

I have recently started a new project on the theme Love and Telepathy.

The project is inspired by the book Mental Radio by Upton Sinclair who chronicled how his wife could reproduce sketches he had made while they were several miles away. Another artistic inspiration for this project are the Griffin and Sabine series by Nick Bantock, a series which contains correspondences and artworks between lovers Griffin (a card designer from London) and Sabine (a girl living in a faraway island). The exchange between them is curiously mystifying and provocatively interesting.

The project seeks correspondences, artworks or any medium of exchange that involves the themes of love and telepathy. It could be love letters sent by lovers far apart, hinting a unison in thoughts and feelings, serendipitous events, stories about "connecting" with another person and other things related to the subject.

This project has been registered at www.mail-art.de

Please mail your submissions to:
H. Malinis
108 BSA Mansion, Benavidez Street,
Legaspi Village, Makati City 1229
Philippines

Friday, July 28, 2006

Experiences on Love and Telepathy

Submitted:

Back in college, I took at course in Hypnotherapy as part of my Psychology major. One of the experiments that are professor induced us to do was trance induction and focusing our mind to see something we haven't already seen. For others, they experimented on "astral travel" - travelling to a place where they have never been and later on, asking verifying statements from persons who know the place.

For me, it was naturally a different experiment that I had in mind - seeing what my online friend looked like. I have grown fond of my online friend that I have in contact with for about a year already. However, we have never exchanged pictures or anything. So I tried to focus my mind on "seeing" this person - and drew whatever image was dictated to my mind. For one, I could not believe the outcome of the spontaneous sketch, I easily dismissed it and said to myself that this is impossible. The drawing turned out to be someone with a high forehead and who had a bit of a frown, almost cold presence...homely, simply put. I probably was thinking of stereotype appearances of people, so I easily dismissed the sketch as I haven't really encountered such an appearance.

After half a year later, I was able to get photos of my online friend...and I have not really remembered that I drew him as such way before. I realized the striking, almost caricature depiction of my online friend - and one would easily recognize that indeed it is him - if shown vis-a-vis the picture.

It only happens that even if my online and friend and I have stopped communicating for about a gap of several months, after we have reconnected...there was this noticeable synchronicity between us. We could almost tell what we were thinking and sometimes what i am typing is also what he was thinking, it is only a matter who was able to send the IM or Instant Message (MSN/Yahoo) for a fraction of a second difference. Moreso, when we reveal our imagined thoughts about each other, we almost always depict the same scenes/scenarios (apart from the stereotypical scenes) that play out generally in people's consciousness.

Meanwhile, we never have any planned meetings online but somehow, when I feel that I want to talk to him, he is online as well. My thoughts on this series of events is that it is a mixture of telepathy and serendipity caused by some deep mutual feelings between the two of us.

It is hard to relay the whole history of our relationship and my personal history prior to these occurences. I sometimes dismiss is it as pure coincidence but on times like this, I would like to indulge myself and put my biases aside and simply explore it on a phenomenological basis.

COPYRIGHT 2006. Excerpt from the article Love and Telepathy.

Saturday, May 06, 2006

How To Mail Your Happy Thoughts?

Mail in your Happy Thought on one side of a homemade postcard (4" x 6"). Each postcard showcasing one happy thought may be made by any technic. You may use separate postcards if you want to share two or more happy thoughts.

Be brief, creative, and unique. Inspire.

You may send anonymously or you may also share your stories behind these happy thoughts.

Address:
Happy Thoughts
H. Malinis
108 BSA Mansion Benavidez Street,
Legaspi Village,Makati City 1229, PHILIPPINES

The inspiration behind the project:

We all go through phases in life when we feel down, sad and uninspired, wouldn't it be nice if we could browse a collection of creative artworks showcasing happy thoughts of people the world over? ...how an ice cream could make up one person's day, the thought of a loved one, childhood memories of lakes and swings...all of these remind us of the good things in life. It is hoped that this collection of happy thoughts will inspire people, and reach out to them, wherever they may be, whenever they need uplifting and inspiration.


Submissions

I have already received many submissions from the mail-art community and would upload some on the next days.

Among those that have contributed had the following happy thoughts in mind:

1. "Everyday is a happy thought"
2. " A chaque fois qu'Angela pensait a lui, ses yeux changeaient de couleur." (Everytime that Angela thought [to] of him, her eyes were changing [of] color)
3. "Chocolates my future bf will give me"
4. "Integrity"
5. "My family that fills up the missing pieces of me"


I am planning to extend my mail-art project deadline and would post the same on www.mail-art.de.

It is a great joy to read all these happy thoughts and it is my hope that these happy thoughts would inspire other people too.

Some submissions were more extensive, thus I would scan them in the future time for viewing.

Happy Thoughts

Here's an excerpt from Norman Vincent Peale's The Power of Positive Thinking that you might find illustrative of HAPPY THOUGHTS:

A group of boys and girls were asked to list the things that made them the happiest. Their answers were rather touching.

Here is the boys' list:
"A swallow flying; looking into deep, clear water; water being cut at the bow of a boat; a fast train rushing; a builder's crane lifting something heavy; my dog's eyes."

And here is what the girls said made them happy:
"Street lights on the river; red roofs in the trees; smoke rising
from a chimney; red velvet; the moon in the clouds."


There is something in the beautiful essence of the universe that is expressed, though only half-articulated, by these things. To become a happy person have a clean soul, eyes that see romance in the commonplace, a child's heart, and spiritual simplicity.

Source:
Peale, Norman Vincent
The Power of Positive Thinking, Prentice-Hall, 1978.

This has been the inspiration for the mail-art project "Happy Thoughts" - a collection of works exhibiting the creativity of people and showcasing the thoughts that make people happy.