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	Helen Keller & ESP Did the Deaf and Blind Genius Possess Ways of Sensing Beyond the Normal? by Preston E. Dennett
Index of Issue 17

Helen Keller achieved worldwide fame for having overcome her double handicap of deafness and blindness to become one of the most influential public figures of her time. She was a true pioneer of social advancement. She was one of very few women to attain a higher education. She worked tirelessly for the rights of the handicapped. She was a also a suffragette, an enormously popular public speaker, and a successful writer.

She rubbed elbows with the leaders of politics, religion, business and the arts, including such legendary figures as Mark Twain, Alexander Graham Bell, Charlie Chaplin, Oliver Wendell Holmes and Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt and others.

However, it was Helen's charm, charisma and good-nature in the face of her handicaps that attracted the love of millions of people, making her one of the most popular women of her time.

What few people know today is that Helen also displayed another remarkable characteristic-very strong psychic abilities.

This first became evident in early childhood, soon after she met her lifelong teacher, Annie Sullivan. After much work, Helen had finally grasped language and was learning about the world around her. Annie Sullivan took Helen on an automobile trip to the country. Afterwards, Helen excitedly described the trip to her mother. This was not unusual, except for the fact that Helen used a particular phrase which Annie Sullivan had not told her. Annie had told Helen that "clouds touch the mountain softly, like beautiful flowers." But when Helen described the clouds to her mother, she said "beautiful cloud caps."

Of this first hint of psychic ability in Helen, Annie Sullivan wrote, "I don't see how anyone is ever to know what impression she did receive."

This first incident was just a hint. There would be several other more remarkable incidents, such as the following. In 1894, author Lawrence Hutton had the opportunity to observe an unusual incident involving Helen. As he says, "She seems to have a sixth sense. She receives and understands somehow what of course she cannot hear. The devotion she has for her teacher is beyond all words...and when some one spoke of this and wondered what would become of Helen in case of any separation, the child, hearing nothing of course, turned to the teacher, and pulling her face towards her own kissed her on the lips, as if to say she could not think of it."

Hutton was amazed and mentioned what had just happened to Annie Sullivan. Sullivan gave a startling reply. Says Hutton, "Miss Sullivan told us that with no conscious movement, no intentional or perceptible 'talking with her fingers,' she could make the child follow her own thoughts, do what she wished her to do, go where she wished her to go, perform any of the acts of 'mind- reading' which the professional psychologists exhibit on stage, or in an amateur way."

Many people were impressed by her apparent psychic ability. Will Cressey, a New York columnist writes, "She cannot hear...she cannot see. But yet, in some mysterious way, she senses many things. Let anyone walk by that she had grown to know, and she learns them as quickly as she does everything else. She recognizes the vibration of their footsteps. If there is dancing going on on the stage, or the music is playing, she is beating time, smiling, and weaving back and forth and from side to side in time with the music."

Part of Helen's genius was her photographic memory. She was tested for sense of smell and touch and came within the average range. And yet, she continued to amaze people. Because of her extreme popularity, she had hundreds of friends. She was able to recognize each of them by simply holding their hands.

Mark Twain was also amazed by her extrasensory perception. He wrote of his first meeting with Helen, "The wonderful child arrived now, with her almost equally wonderful teacher, Miss Sullivan. The girl began to deliver happy ejaculations, in her broken speech. Without touching anything, of course, and without hearing anything, she seemed quite well to recognize the character of her surroundings. She said, 'Oh, the books, the books, so many, many books. How lovely!'...then Mrs. Sullivan put one of Helen's hands against her lips and spoke against it the question, 'What is Mr. Clemens distinguished for?' Helen answered, in her crippled speech, 'For his humor.' I spoke up modestly and said, 'And for his wisdom.' Helen said the same words instantly-'and for his wisdom.' I suppose it was mental telegraphy for there was no way for her to know what I had said."

Artist and sculptor Gutzon Borglum wrote of his meeting with Helen Keller, "I shall never forget that hour with Helen Keller...From it I learned that soul, over and above the body, has eyes."

As can be seen from the above accounts, Helen was not only gifted in clairvoyance but also with mental telepathy.

Helen was not entirely unaware of her talents. She was a strong believer of life after death and the spirit world. She modestly reported that she wasn't sure if she had the so-called "mystic sense" and yet she felt she had an ability to "bring distant objects within the cognizance of the blind so that even the stars seem to be at our very door. This sense relates to me the spiritual world...This sense reveals the Divine to the human in me, it forms a bond between earth and the Great Beyond, between now and eternity, between God and man. It is speculative, intuitive, reminiscent. There is not only an objective physical world, but also an objective spiritual world."

When Dr. Rhine's experiments with extrasensory perception were revealed, Helen expressed her belief that such things do happen. As Helen wrote, "It has always been a strong belief with me that there are powers in many animals which can be developed beyond the physical senses, and it is a gratification to note that orthodox scientists are beginning to seek other causes than mechanical ones to explain telepathy...Surely if creatures without the reasoning faculty can perform such wonders, Man endowed with spiritual and intellectual powers can achieve phenomena not to be explained by mechanism but by laws still waiting to be discovered."

Annie Sullivan was in a better position than anyone else (other than Helen herself) to observe Helen's psychic abilities. Annie speculates that the reason for Helen's strong intuition was to compensate for her blindness and deafness. Says Sullivan, "Helen Keller's development suggests to me that the loss of one or more faculties may, by way of discipline, drive the handicapped person to deeper levels of will-power than is required of normally equipped human beings. I have no doubt whatever that most people live in a very restricted sphere of their potential capacities. They make use of only a small portion of their possible powers and resources of their minds. It is as if, out of all their physical furnishings, they should use only a fraction of each sense. When the complete destruction of one or more senses creates an emergency, we see how much greater our resources are than we supposed. May not deafness and blindness be a way of getting at latent functional possibilities?"

One of Helen's most incredible psychic incidents occurred near the end of her life. Helen had become increasingly spiritual, and yet not confined to any one religion. She was a strong believer in what she called "the separateness between soul and body." And yet, she was searching for proof of the spirit world when, finally, she had what appears to have been a profound out-of-body experience.

Helen describes the experience in her words, "I had been sitting quietly in the library for half an hour. I turned to my teacher and said, 'Such a strange thing had happened! I have been far away all this time and I haven't left the room.' 'What do you mean, Helen?' she asked, surprised. 'Why,' I cried, 'I have been in Athens.' Scarcely were the words out of my mouth when a bright amazing realization seemed to catch my mind and set it ablaze. I perceived the realness of my soul and its sheer independence of all conditions of place and body. It was clear to me that it was because I was a spirit that I had so vividly 'seen' and felt a place thousands of miles away. Space was nothing to spirit! In that new consciousness shone the presence of God, Himself a Spirit everywhere at once, the Creator dwelling in all the universe simultaneously."