Telepathy in a 1980s workplace

A cautionary experience

Photo by Marco Grosso on Unsplash (beyond a light green ridge sloping from left to right in the foreground is a parallel ridge, with darker grass and two trees communing with each other against white clouds)

In the 1980s I got on quite well with one of the managers above me in the hierarchy - he was, in fact, one of the better ones I worked for in the course of my nearly half century career, someone I had a workplace friendship with (a few of these became friendships, but some never did - they were just weird out of the workplace).

He would, from time to time, get my opinion on various matters - not always technical issues, often systems, etc. On one occasion, he asked me to drop into his office, and, after I sat down, he passed over a pad of stick-it notes (the generally yellow notes that used to get plastered everywhere before personal PCs, and still get used fairly often - even [perhaps somewhat ironically] on whiteboards), and said “Give this a bit of a try and let me know what you think of it”.

Now, in those days I tried very hard not to be psychic at work (the last 15 years of work under the evil of neoliberalism caused so much psychic damage I no longer had to try) - I aim to shut down what abilities I had, largely as part of protecting myself against the tension, despair, anger, and sundry other assorted unpleasant experiences of a high pressure workplace.

But in this particular case, because we were friendly, if not friends, I could practically feel, let alone hear (subjectively, not objectively), him willing me to also find that: the note lost its stickiness after being used once - and these things are supposed to stick in multiple locations.

So, in a moment of weakness, I reached over to the pad that had he passed over, picked off the top note (they were a lovely lilac, rather than the bright yellow of most), stuck it down on the desk, picked it up, repeated, and then said, “Yeah, you’re right, it loses it’s stickiness”.

To say the least, he was quite ... nonplussed at this. So we wound up having a decent length yarn about Psychism 101 and Telepathy 101 and Psychic Ethics 101 and Me Trying Not to be Psychic 101, and especially that I tried to say shut down as much as possible at work, but he was actively broadcasting very strongly because he wanted to get the message through.

Incidentally, that’s something that I’ve found with a lot of people: if they don’t want to do something or say something but want that to happen anyway, they will broadcast a wish, a very, very STRONG “wish”, that I (or whoever they’re aiming this attempt at negative psychic control at) do or not do something in order that they be relieved of (normal adult) responsibility.

Anyway, we agreed that I would take one pad of the notes and pretend to discover its flaw by “normal” means, so he could then have the basis for saying, “Well, look, you know, Kayleen took it away and she’s found this flaw”.

Unfortunately a few weeks later, obviously discomfited by this incident (when I asked a third party, they said he had left a message that I would know why) , he left the company, which was quite a blow to me.

That emphasised to me the importance - particularly in a competitive and often cruel industry where you needed allies - of staying shut down, and hiding any psychic ability, beyond just not using it: actively hiding it, not because it could be actively harmful (think angry people with pitchforks), but there could be pitchfork-free adverse consequences as well.

This incident came to mind recently when watching one of Steve Neill’s (of Breaking the Silence) Conversations with a guest where telepathy was discussed, including in the context of what Whitley Streiber has been writing about it - which I have not yet read.