"God Helmet" neuroscientist announces telepathy is fact!
You might have heard of Dr. Michael Persinger "God Helmet" in the past, which recreated religious experiences through magnetic fields. Well now he's claiming the same principles are involved in all manner of telepathy.
I'm only 10 minutes into the video so far, but I thought DVers might find this particularly interesting as he talks about dreaming quite a bit.
02-09-2012, 07:47 AM
wana
so we were right all along then , you see they wont call us mad anymore , and he proves thaat drreamsharing is true also
02-09-2012, 10:24 AM
Original Poster
Lol they'll still call me mad.
To be on the cutting edge of evolution, one must be willing to endure a little ridicule from the old paradigm. That's the way it's always been.
It's not as if this information is new, it's not like suddenly some piece of evidence has trickled down to support some confirmation bias held by advocates of telepathy. We've known human civilization is inertly telepathic, the evidence has been there for decades if not longer. It's not some mystical idea, but people like to think it's mystical so they dismiss it as pseudoscience, tossing that word around like a hacky sack.
Indeed, to achieve anything in this world, you have to face the fact that most people will not understand you.
02-09-2012, 02:29 PM
moSh
Wow, thanks for sharing this - it's all entirely new to me and in a way it's opened my eyes to a lot of things. Where can I find more stuff like this?
I wasn't sure, though, what he meant by storing information in the Earth's magnetic field. Did he mean it's available from the Earth's magnetic field but still stored in our own brains?
Also, though he talks about the benefits of 'no more secrets' (albeit rather extreme cases), I'd say there's a large ethical challenge. Could this not turn into the biggest invasion of privacy in history? I'm thinking embarrassing memories and repressed thoughts all the way to credit card details and other important information. Surely we all need SOME secrets?
02-09-2012, 04:54 PM
EbbTide000
An Empathic Civilisation
The last minute of this 54 minute YouTube is wonderfull
A woman says:
You have anticipated my question very nicely, thank you. You've spoken of what happens to governments, large populations, when a certain proportion of people become literate. And literacy, of course, is a way of sharing information.
So perhaps what your speaking about now with, "No more secrets", is a new sort of literacy in which we are able to read the record of the entire human population, forever.
So, therefore
What do you suspect would happen? What would you predict would happen once this skill, that could be learned, is achieved by a significant proportion of the population?
Persinger answers:
Well, I would say the following.
Just suppose, right now, you could feel the seering, burning bullet of someone being killed in Northern Africa.
Or
Just suppose, right now, you could feel the unbelievable torture of having your stomach empty in Central Africa.
I guaratee you there would be no more war and there would be no more starvation.
That's one of the implications.
The woman says:
An empathic civilisation.
Persinger answers:
That's right.
Woman says:
Thank you.
Clapping and Youtube ends.
02-09-2012, 05:16 PM
EbbTide000
It is 2:44am Friday morn here so night-night
Quote:
Originally Posted by moSh
Wow, thanks for sharing this - it's all entirely new to me and in a way it's opened my eyes to a lot of things. Where can I find more stuff like this?
I wasn't sure, though, what he meant by storing information in the Earth's magnetic field. Did he mean it's available from the Earth's magnetic field but still stored in our own brains?
Also, though he talks about the benefits of 'no more secrets' (albeit rather extreme cases), I'd say there's a large ethical challenge. Could this not turn into the biggest invasion of privacy in history? I'm thinking embarrassing memories and repressed thoughts all the way to credit card details and other important information. Surely we all need SOME secrets?
Go to my profile and look at my 13 started threads and open the three on Todd Murphy. Dr Michael Persinger is Todd Murphy's mentor.
I am on my phone right now and sometimes the links I put in by phone dont work but I will try:
If the above three links work you wont need to go to my profile and started threads.
In Lecture tow Todd proposes an intriguing scientific hypothesis on how we scientifically, "Reincarnate" and it's to do with the Earth's electromagnetic grid. The same electromagnetic grid that connects us all telapathetically in dreams or in altered states of consciousness.
02-09-2012, 06:03 PM
Oneironaut Zero
Very interesting video, The Cusp. Thanks!
I took a few notes, and there were both things that I found intriguing, and those that I found were a little less conclusive than the speaker made them out to be:
Things I'm not so sure about:
- I don't know that I like the 'hologram' analogy he uses. I mean, I've heard various explanation about how the universe is likely based on a hologram, but that theory includes everything that is physical, and has a lot more context. The way he uses the analogy in this video seems completely underdeveloped - as if he's saying "since we can interpret the workings of the brain as similar or 'the same' as the geomagnetic activity of the Earth, we should just assume that it works like a hologram." Not to say that he's wrong, but I'm not completely sure that the analogy was fleshed out enough for me to agree with it.
- When he talks about how these experiences happen 'Particularly when we're dreaming', I have to ask 'when else would they happen, at such a large scale. When our minds are in altered states (dreaming, drugs) we are most likely to experience things that aren't really happening in any other place but our minds. So the idea that we mostly experience these while we are dreaming makes just as much sense, if these phenomena aren't real, as it would if they were.
- Some of the picture analogies were so abstract that they are likely to fit - somehow - into one's bias. It's like when people look up at the clouds and see a giraffe, and then make the assumption that the universe (Or God) intended that cloud to be a giraffe.
- When he says that subjecting two minds to the same magnetic field "makes the brains the same" this is contradicted by the fact that he stated that there were still the matters of personal biases and interpretations and perspectives that exist within the data. The way I see it, if the two brains were 'the same', personal biases would have no bearing on the experiment, and the two people would be thinking the exact same thing about the exact same concepts.
- There are a few more analogies that I don't really like. Comparing how "we see birds fly and then we can make airplanes" and how "we see lightning and then we can make harness electricity" with "we see possible cases of telepathy and then we can inherently harness that power". The two former examples are of our subsequent reactions to actual, empirical, undeniable phenomena. The latter is about a phenomena that we can only theorize exists, because of the ability to demonstrate situations that (merely) suggest their existence. They are not the same.
- When he said the relationship between cellphone / tech use and paranormal experiences wane, as more tech becomes available, he then says that this is not because those people are becoming more exposed to information, but really does not offer any evidence to that end.
Outside of those few disagreements and unanswered questions, there were definitely some things that I found interesting, and would like to know more about:
- That these events happen more often under periods of low geomagnetic disturbance. I'd like to see more telepathic experiments done in these types of conditions.
- How light flashes in one room affects a person in another. I've heard of instances of things similar to this, but they are all just so sporadic and rare. I would like to see a lot more experimentation with things like this.
- The 'pattern vs intensity' concept is kind of interesting and has a lot to do with the new 'science has learned to extrapolate audible words from thoughts' breakthrough that had just been announced, in that those pulses/patterns are what are so extremely important to the transmission of language.
- I would definitely like to see more about 'photons being emitted' when thinking of 'light' and the possibilities surrounding this concept.
- The entanglement issue, which is one that I have also thought would be a plausible reason for telepathy.
- Sean Harribance. I hadn't heard of him, but will look into it more.
- I'm also just very interested in the role of technology, through all this, and whether or not we will be able to detect some of these 'hidden' forces, sometime in the future. Of course, it's easy for one to compare the "it's not possible" paradigms of the past with what's going on now, but that does not mean that everything we believe is inherently possible now, will be rendered truth, in the future.
Great vid, though. :thumbup:
02-09-2012, 06:29 PM
Original Poster
Quote:
- I don't know that I like the 'hologram' analogy he uses. I mean, I've heard various explanation about how the universe is likely based on a hologram, but that theory includes everything that is physical, and has a lot more context. The way he uses the analogy in this video seems completely underdeveloped - as if he's saying "since we can interpret the workings of the brain as similar or 'the same' as the geomagnetic activity of the Earth, we should just assume that it works like a hologram." Not to say that he's wrong, but I'm not completely sure that the analogy was fleshed out enough for me to agree with it.
I also had trouble with this, it didn't seem like he properly explained this aspect though I'm sure it makes sense to him. I'd like to know more.
Quote:
- When he talks about how these experiences happen 'Particularly when we're dreaming', I have to ask 'when else would they happen, at such a large scale. When our minds are in altered states (dreaming, drugs) we are most likely to experience things that aren't really happening in any other place but our minds. So the idea that we mostly experience these while we are dreaming makes just as much sense, if these phenomena aren't real, as it would if they were.
I'm not really sure what you mean when you say an altered state of mind makes you more likely to see things that are only in the mind. Do you mean to say not real? Because that's debatable.
Quote:
- Some of the picture analogies were so abstract that they are likely to fit - somehow - into one's bias. It's like when people look up at the clouds and see a giraffe, and then make the assumption that the universe (Or God) intended that cloud to be a giraffe.
That's a different phenomenon, taking senseless data and pulling form from it is an adaptive quality humans developed in order to spot camouflaged predator and prey. These pictures already had real objects and photos to be compared to, and the question is a matter of whether or not they match. This isn't about seeing something in inkblots, rational interpretation of data was more of an obstacle than an aid as exemplified by the person drawing a wormhole when looking at the bridge.
Quote:
- When he says that subjecting two minds to the same magnetic field "makes the brains the same" this is contradicted by the fact that he stated that there were still the matters of personal biases and interpretations and perspectives that exist within the data. The way I see it, if the two brains were 'the same', personal biases would have no bearing on the experiment, and the two people would be thinking the exact same thing about the exact same concepts.
While their brains are operating the same, personal bias stemming from life experience still plays a role.
Quote:
- There are a few more analogies that I don't really like. Comparing how "we see birds fly and then we can make airplanes" and how "we see lightning and then we can make harness electricity" with "we see possible cases of telepathy and then we can inherently harness that power". The two former examples are of our subsequent reactions to actual, empirical, undeniable phenomena. The latter is about a phenomena that we can only theorize exists, because of the ability to demonstrate situations that (merely) suggest their existence. They are not the same.
I'm not sure that's the conclusion he was going for, but if so I'll admit there's a difference because I see this telepathy as something we can all develop naturally, without the need to use technology to emulate it.
Quote:
- When he said the relationship between cellphone / tech use and paranormal experiences wane, as more tech becomes available, he then says that this is not because those people are becoming more exposed to information, but really does not offer any evidence to that end.
We lost our telepathy long before they invented the telephone, that's for sure. In fact, according to the Aboriginals, we lost our telepathy the moment we decided to keep secrets.
Quote:
- That these events happen more often under periods of low geomagnetic disturbance. I'd like to see more telepathic experiments done in these types of conditions.
Me too, and eventually I'd like to see it mapped out in order to ascertain exactly what level of disturbance is caused and why it's caused, and furthermore I'd like to see if there's a relationship between geomagnetic activity and wide scale social behavior.
Quote:
- I would definitely like to see more about 'photons being emitted' when thinking of 'light' and the possibilities surrounding this concept.
- The entanglement issue, which is one that I have also thought would be a plausible reason for telepathy.
I find it fascinating, and I vouch for the entanglement theory myself based upon my personal experience of AP. This is also why I'm more interested in learning of this hologram theory.
Quote:
- I'm also just very interested in the role of technology, through all this, and whether or not we will be able to detect some of these 'hidden' forces, sometime in the future. Of course, it's easy for one to compare the "it's not possible" paradigms of the past with what's going on now, but that does not mean that everything we believe is inherently possible now, will be rendered truth, in the future.
Judging the world from the present standpoint, it's impossible to tell the difference between insanity and innovation. Indeed, that is why I stress so often that success is only form of truth in the universe.
02-09-2012, 10:12 PM
moSh
Thanks debrajane, I'll definitely give those a read, but they're pretty long, so probably not tonight :bedtime:
I didn't quite get the 'entanglement' part, though; would someone mind explaining it a bit more please?
Also, was he suggesting that most of us would only be able to exhibit these telepathic abilities with the help of the correct frequency? i.e. not being able to develop it naturally like Harribance?
02-10-2012, 05:16 AM
shadowofwind
My two cents:
Electomagnetics and quantum mechanics can't plausibly account for precognition, and for me telepathy and precognition always occur together.
Here Occam's razor applies: if you already need new physics to account for the precognitive aspect of it, you probably don't gain anything by adding an additional theory that can't account for the precognition, unless you have some reason to believe that two additional theories are needed instead of one.
I don't think the electromagnetic hologram idea makes any sense anyway though. There's just no realistic way to extract the information.
My job involves shining a coherent light on very small objects and extracting information from the spectra of the scattered response. A lens doesn't work because wavelengths that would be short enough for optics on that scale would vaporize the target. I've also worked with radar imaging problems that are difficult for similar reasons. There are fundamental limits with light, its not an engineering problem. (Light and electromagnetic fields are different words the same thing, used in different contexts.) Telepathy is so far beyond those fundamental limits that to me it scarcely deserves thinking about in the same context.
I think that some physicists insist that everything real can be explained in terms of existing theories, out of self-regard, and other physicists try to suck up to those physicists. The physicists who I know who believe in telepathy don't try to cook up such explanations. But then they don't have anything to say that gets passed around the internet, because they'd be lying if they pretended to be able to explain such things that way. By natural selection, its the cranks that get publicity.
02-10-2012, 07:03 AM
The Cusp
Right off the bat he's talking about how the right brain is dominant in dreams. I don't agree with that at all. I've found my sleeping position affects hemisphere dominance, depending on what side I sleep on.
And what the hell was that about Windows blocking out psi abilities? I usually leave my computer on at night. Think I'll have to start turning it off just in case, lol.
He touched on so many topics in that lecture, I need to do some research before I can begin to digest it all. Wonder if I can get ahold of the guy, and if he'd answer my emails. I hear he's pretty arrogant, some of the students at that university are saying he has a bit of a god complex, and has actually damaged the brains of student volunteers with his experiments.
02-10-2012, 07:56 AM
EbbTide000
Absorbing stuff
Quote:
Originally Posted by The Cusp
Right off the bat he's talking about how the right brain is dominant in dreams. I don't agree with that at all. I've found my sleeping position affects hemisphere dominance, depending on what side I sleep on.
And what the hell was that about Windows blocking out psi abilities? I usually leave my computer on at night. Think I'll have to start turning it off just in case, lol.
He touched on so many topics in that lecture, I need to do some research before I can begin to digest it all. Wonder if I can get ahold of the guy, and if he'd answer my emails. I hear he's pretty arrogant, some of the students at that university are saying he has a bit of a god complex, and has actually damaged the brains of student volunteers with his experiments.
Dr Michael Persinger is Todd Murphy's mentor. Todd Murphy "fleshes-out" what his mentor "touches-on" in this short, (54 minute YouTube).
There are 6 absorbing Lectures, (Each over 90 minutes) by Todd Murphy, on YouTube.
I hope to pull-my-finger-out and get them transcribed here in Dreamviews so folk can print them out and philosofically disect and argue them out.
I have begun transcribing the first three lectures. I am so thrilled that you guys are discussing Dr Michael Persingers stuff.
02-10-2012, 08:06 AM
The Cusp
Quote:
Originally Posted by debrajane
There are 6 absorbing Lectures, (Each over 90 minutes) by Todd Murphy, on YouTube.
Thanks for the tip! I'm eager to hear more on the subject and some nice long lectures will do just nicely!
A couple other interesting tidbits from that video though...
Imagining white light double the right brain activity. This could be useful for all sorts of things, from meditating to dream related applications.
And right at the end he says this technology is now being developed? Yikes! If they are already developing practical applications for this stuff, that's huge!
02-10-2012, 08:09 AM
shadowofwind
I see that he has a psychology degree. Nothing wrong with that, but his theories relate to electromagnetics, and most indications are that he understands very little about that subject and is too arrogant to admit it.
A person can definitely do damage with those kinds of experiments. You can even mess yourself up with neurofeedback without applying any external stimuli. (I've worked in that area also.)
I agree the thing about windows is BS.
This morning a scientist coworker was telling me about a book by a psi-believing biologist that's scientifically sound. I'll find out what that is again and post a link tomorrow. It won't include any theories about how psi might work though, just experimental results to prove its real.
02-10-2012, 08:20 AM
Desert Claw
I really liked what he said about 28 minutes into the video:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Michael Persinger
if you can imagine it, it can be done. and that's why, because the brain is matter. its based upon the physical principles of the universe. and if you have that capacity to imagine it, that means the potential was there for it to be done. because our brains are reflective of these essential aspects of the matter of this universe.
02-10-2012, 09:43 AM
nrg
Thanks for great news! I knew it was possible!!! now we have proof!
On the secont hand it sounds pretty scary! I dont think that if they develop this technology ( which is in progress from what the doc is saying) they gonna give it to everybody.
The other thing - just think about lobbies and goverments - are they gonna let it happen?
As always big possibilities bring on big responsibility.
At least ill be safe by my windows machine - lol - i wonder if they tried with linux/ unix. Maybe its just the computer not the system thats blocking the connection.
02-10-2012, 12:00 PM
EbbTide000
But he works with other scientists
Quote:
Originally Posted by shadowofwind
I see that he has a psychology degree. Nothing wrong with that, but his theories relate to electromagnetics, and most indications are that he understands very little about that subject and is too arrogant to admit it.
A person can definitely do damage with those kinds of experiments. You can even mess yourself up with neurofeedback without applying any external stimuli. (I've worked in that area also.)
I agree the thing about windows is BS.
This morning a scientist coworker was telling me about a book by a psi-believing biologist that's scientifically sound. I'll find out what that is again and post a link tomorrow. It won't include any theories about how psi might work though, just experimental results to prove its real.
I just Googled "Dr Michael Persinger" and Wikapedia says this:
Michael A. Persinger*
(born June 26, 1945) is a cognitive neuroscience researcher and university professor with over 200 peer-reviewed publications. He has worked at Laurentian University, located in Sudbury, Ontario, since 1971.
He is Director of Laurentian University's Consciousness Research Laboratory.
Notable awards
*LIFT (Leader in Faculty Teaching), 2007
*TVO (Ontario) Best Lecturer 2007
*Laurentian University Research Excellence Award 1989
*Sudbury Regional Brain Injury Association Lifetime Membership Award 2001
Early Life:
Michael Persinger was born in Jacksonville, Florida and grew up primarily in Virginia, Maryland
and Wisconsin. He attended Carroll College from 1963 to 1964, and graduated from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
In 1967. He then obtained an M.A. in physiological psychology from the University of Tennessee and a Ph.D. from the University of Manitoba in 1971.
So
I recon Persinger has coleagues in other scientific areas and works with them on his hypothesis'
02-11-2012, 05:07 PM
Oneironaut Zero
Quote:
Originally Posted by Omnis Dei
I'm not really sure what you mean when you say an altered state of mind makes you more likely to see things that are only in the mind. Do you mean to say not real? Because that's debatable.
Actually, this is one of the earliest notes I made on the video. I'd actually misinterpreted a bit, and was thinking more along the lines of 'seeing or talking to spirits of dead loved ones', as opposed to just having a possible psychic episode where you 'feel something.' What I was saying, though - if he was talking about paranormal encounters of that kind - was that saying that we would see apparitions and such (had that been what he was talking about) would happen mostly in our dreams would seem like a cop-out. It would be like someone saying that 'they just feel God', as opposed to being able to provide actual evidence of his existence. However, I'm aware that I was probably just misinterpreting what types of phenomena he was talking about at the time.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Omnis Dei
That's a different phenomenon, taking senseless data and pulling form from it is an adaptive quality humans developed in order to spot camouflaged predator and prey. These pictures already had real objects and photos to be compared to, and the question is a matter of whether or not they match. This isn't about seeing something in inkblots, rational interpretation of data was more of an obstacle than an aid as exemplified by the person drawing a wormhole when looking at the bridge.
I disagree (somewhat). If you look at the situation with the person observing the artist's product as being analogous to the person that's looking at the cloud and seeing the giraffe. After all, who's answering that question of "whether or not they match?" The artist, or the experimenter?
02-11-2012, 05:15 PM
Original Poster
But my point is, one is not drawing meaning out of abstract pictures. At least not in the examples he shows. They clearly match to a degree that confirmation bias could not effect. When they do not match perfectly, you can still see that the correlations between the photos and drawings are not random.
02-12-2012, 09:13 PM
shadowofwind
Quote:
Originally Posted by debrajane
I recon Persinger has coleagues in other scientific areas and works with them on his hypothesis'
Except that if he worked honestly with physicists of even modest caliber, they'd point out the ridiculous aspects of his hypothesis, and he'd address those points or abandon it. What he's got is only useful for gaining notoriety by misleading non-experts.
02-13-2012, 07:23 AM
nrg
Quote:
Originally Posted by shadowofwind
, they'd point out the ridiculous aspects of his hypothesis
Can You point them out?
02-13-2012, 08:32 AM
shadowofwind
Quote:
Originally Posted by nrg
Can You point them out?
One problem is there's no way, even in principle, to separate the desired information in the electromagnetic field from the vast quantity of other information that's there. Also there are fundamental limits to detection, due to thermal noise, quantum fluctuations, etc., which would be much greater than the strength of the signal.
Another problem is that a lot of telepathic experience is clearly acausal, and that falls outside of the scope of electromagnetics.
On the first point....Imagine trying to see your reflection in a shag carpet. The information is there, but you have no way to piece it together, because you don't have precise information about the location of all the atoms in the carpet fibers. And even if you had that information, the simulation to reconstruct all of the light rays would be too much for a supercomputer, and by orders of magnitude would be wiped out by the heat vibration of the molecules in the carpet fibers anyway. Now imagine trying to read a book in the reflection off the carpet. Now imagine the book is in a room on the other side of the planet, and the information must reflect and refract off of many carpet-like surfaces to reach you. And furthermore information is arriving from a billion other books at the same time, which you must distinguish from the first book. My description here isn't by way of analogy, its the same problem, because electromagnetic fields are just light.
Radio works because the wavelengths are longer than molecules, so they aren't interfered by them much, and communication is broadcast on a dedicated channel using a very simple signal. With the brain, signals get generated throughout the 3-dimensional volume, but are all muted and mixed together at the surface. Its possible to tell what parts of the brain are active, and the strength of various frequencies, but that's like distinguishing what channels are on a radio dial, not like listening to the channels themselves. Signals right at the brain surface can also be used for simple kinds of controls. But a big gotcha here is that the conductive properties of the head are mismatched with the conductive properties of air, so that almost none of the signal gets past the skin. By way of analogy, its like how a one-way mirror works, where you can't see the people on the dark side of the mirror but they can see you, except that the effect is stronger than that. This is why EEG electrodes are placed directly on the skin. I don't think a person could telepathically communicate using electromagnetism if they were standing a foot from someone, except by the crudest of yes/no signals. Now go back to the book reading example, and suppose that the book won't be opened until tomorrow, but you're supposed to read it off of the 1000 mile away shag carpet right now.
I don't expect him to take the time-travel element into account, since that reasonably might not be an aspect of the problem that his attention is on. But I don't see how he can plausibly posit electromagnetism as a mechanism without addressing these other issues in detail. Without that, its not science. The scientific approach would be to say "at present we have no idea how it works", and continue trying to demonstrate the phenomena and characterize its behavior. If he wanted to speculate that the information is transmitted by a currently unknown medium that would be more reasonable, but he'd still have to tackle analogous kinds of questions if he wanted to have any kind of 'theory'.
Finally, as an analogy that might explain the light scattering problem better: Imagine writing a message on a match, then burning a match so that most of the carbon and trace elements combine with oxygen or otherwise evaporate and mix with the air of the world. Now later you want to recover the match by analyzing the air, distinguishing which molecules came from it and what their arrangement was, so that you can create a new match like the old one so that you can read the message. I don't think this analogy overstates the difficulty of telepathic communication using electromagnetics.
I know that's not a very rigorous answer, but that's the best I can do without sinking more time into it.
02-14-2012, 12:38 PM
nrg
Thank You very much for anwsering Shadowofwind.
Ok so maybe its not the electromagnetic field thats the medium. Maybe thats where they are wrong. But for me more important was to here that telepathy is proven. ( im not english native speaker) I hope i understood correcly. What about the s string theory and quantum phisics saying that we are all interconnected? Maybe thats the medium.
02-14-2012, 06:47 PM
shadowofwind
His 'God helmet' is best known as a demonstration that out of body experiences are essentially unreal. In the same way, I think that if he's successful in 'proving' telepathy by approaching it as an electromagnatic phenomena, what he effectively accomplishes is a debunking of telepathy by branding it as a superficial radio-like phenomena.
Electromagnetics is the strongest interconnectedness that we have according to current physics theory. Other interactions are weaker, and subject to the same kinds of limitations that I described for electromagnetics, except more so.
I agree that quantum mechanics provides a useful, imagination expanding metaphor. And string theory suggests an idea of exotic parallel worlds. But quantum mechanics doesn't allow for the kind of interconnectedness that we seek. And string theory suggests nothing specific about the possible characteristics of other worlds, and does not posit that they have any connection with our world.
In any case, I agree wholeheartedly that telepathy is real.