User:Thomas Butler

The account of this former contributor was not re-activated after the server upgrade of March 2022.

Help

Pretty much all of my time is dedicated to the work of the ATransC, which is to study all things related to psi and possible survival of consciousness, public education and helping people who are doing the same. I my view, Citizendium has the potential of being an important means of mentoring an informed society by means of helpful but not dogmatic articles. However, I have major concerns preventing me from doing much more here at this time:

I have no wish to promote anything here, only inform; however, if I am only one of a few people working in the paranormal subgroup, then it will fail.

If you look at ATransC, it should be clear that I have been attempting to gather useful articles and references on these subjects since around 2000. Most of the ITC references have been generated by me as editor or for ATransC by others. For completeness, any Citizendium article on ITC will necessarily include references from atransc.org, and there is a potential conflict of interest for me to add those references.

For me to "speak freely," I will likely move future efforts to the Collective until others come to help here. Please consider pitching in.

Sandboxes

User:Thomas Butler/Tom Butler's paranormal sandbox

A brief bio

As a senior citizen, my focus is on what I can do for the community and certainly not on building my career or reputation. To address the idea of conflict of interest, my wife and I maintain the ATransC is a nonprofit research and education organization which is in service to the paranormal community. It does not take precedence over that community and the good health of other organizations is as important to us.

Not being a detail person and needing to work full time while attending college, I made it through college by understanding the concepts. This has continued today, but with the engineering training and too many bad days briefing my bosses, I temper a conceptual focus with a desire for actionable results.

It is important that my contributions to articles are given a more modern bias, as I tend to be a little too abstract. Your help is appreciated.

Current

With my wife, Lisa, I am director of the Association TransCommunication (ATransC) which was founded in 1982 as the American Association of Electronic Voice Phenomena by Sarah Estep. I am ordained with the National Spiritualist Association of Churches (NSAC).

Academic

Bachelor's of Science degree in electrical and electronic engineering.

Work experience

For the Department of Defense--four years in the US Air Force as an electronic technician (fire control and bomb navigation radar) and Civil Service as an engineer for the USAF Logistic Command. In the telephone company as a telephone systems technician, engineer, long-range strategic planning, network management systems planning, design, acquisition and deployment of network management systems.

General

My way of learning is more conceptual in that I see systems rather than components and this has made me effective in long-range planning. Although I was told by an early English teacher that I had no business in collage (I was a 23 year old freshman and just out of the service), most of my work career has been successful because of my technical writing skills. It was a couple good professors and my Senior Project adviser that directed my conceptual sense toward writing.

Metaphysical

• My personal website is Etheric Studies, on which a few of my essays and books are available for download.
• The Cosmology Series of essays explains concepts associated with the survival hypothesis. Because the ATransC point of view is rather different than that held in parapsychology, the hypothesis is referred to as the Trans-survival Hypothesis to avoid confusion. The Cosmology Series link includes an index.
• I am author of the Handbook of Metaphysics. This is a 1994 effort to provide a context of metaphysical concepts in which readers might be able to better understand the idea of a greater reality.

Past Organization Affiliations

• Rosicrucian Order
• Silva Method
• Builders of the Adytum
• Mensa
• Eckankar
• Delphi University
• Monroe Institute
• Morris Pratt
• National Spiritualist Association of Churches

Publications

Co-author

There is No Death and There are No Dead, AA-EVP Publishing, 2003, ISBN: 0-9727493-0-6.

Author

• Handbook of Metaphysics, ©Tom Butler 1994, Christopher Publishing House, Hanover, Mass. 02339. ISBN: 0-8158-0485-7.

A number of novels that are available in the Book section of my Etheric Studies website:

• One Who Cares, ©Tom Butler 1996, Northwest Publishing, Inc., Salt Lake City, Utah (Publisher is now out of business). ISBN: 1-56901-692-5
• Two Worlds, One Heart, ©Tom Butler 1995, Commonwealth Publications, Edmonton, AB, Canada T6E 5C5 (Publisher is now out of business). ISBN: 1-55197-053-8