Chapter Fourteen - Richard Bellamy
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Richard Bellamy
BLEARY-EYED, BELLAMY ambled into the lecture hall, a portfolio of his lecture notes under his left arm. While he could recite these lectures from memory, he hadn’t slept well the night before, so better not chance it. Students were quietly chatting, and a few surreptitiously watched as he took his place at a podium at the head of the class. He cleared his throat and the students quieted down. This was one of the few live lectures Bellamy delivered during the semester, the class was in full attendance.
He gazed out on the sea of young eager faces, the rows of seats climbed upward towards the back of the lecture hall. While most of his students sat a wrapt attention, he noticed a few screen-gazers. Bellamy dismissed them in his mind but did take satisfaction that his lectures filled the largest lecture hall on campus. Introduction to Neuropsychology was a course students scrambled to get into each year, the course filled within the first five minutes of its opening during the semesterly course registration. This cavernous classroom was his sanctuary, while his research was under attack and that meddlesome Detective Farmer was sniffing around, here he was the absolute authority. His words were unquestioned here, no one dared argue or debate him.
Bellamy grabbed the lapel microphone and attached it haphazardly to his necktie, “Now,” he said, his voice booming through the lecture hall. As you have discussed with my teaching assistant, the limbic system plays a critical role in emotional processing, regulation, and decoding.”
A light illuminated behind him as the projector hummed on, a slide show depicting diagrams of the brain showed on the large screen to his back. Teaching assistants acting as synchronized stagehands were essential in the theater of Bellamy’s class.
“The amygdala, in particular, is essential for detecting and responding to emotional stimuli— fear, pleasure, anger. These emotional responses are hardwired into our brains. They are survival mechanisms key to us interpreting threats in our surroundings.”
He reached for the clicker and skipped to the next slide, “Without these processes, our ability to make decisions, to form memories, or to navigate and interpret social interactions would be severely impaired—.”
An enthusiastic hand shot up, “Dr. Bellamy, I have a question,” a voice piped up as Bellamy was cut off. Taken aback, he tried to focus his eyes on the sea of students. A young blonde girl, brimming with energy, was at the edge of her seat. Likely a freshman attending her first lecture.
Bellamy cleared his throat, and called on the young girl, “Go ahead.” He stepped from behind the podium and towards the girl who was seated three rows back.
The student smiled shyly as she felt the lecture hall of over a hundred student’s eyes all shift to her, ”So, like, I’ve seen a ton of stuff on social media about being an ‘empath,’ and people act like it’s a superpower. Is that real, or just, like, some social media psychology?”
Lips curling into a slight sneer, Bellamy moved further from behind the podium and towards the front row of students. They shifted uncomfortably, “An empath?” he repeated, condescension dripping from his tone. “Let me guess, perhaps, you saw this on one of your scrolling video sites — how do you young people call it, Tickle Tockle?”
The class snickered.
The blonde girl’s posture went rigid, “Yeah, and a few other places. People say they can feel other people’s feelings. Sense their emotions. Is there any science behind that?”
Bellamy clasped his hands behind his back, “What is your name my dear?”
The girl's lips were a thin line, she swallowed hard, “Alex.”
“Well, Alex,” Bellamy said, launching into professor mode yet again, he slowly paced the front of the class, “The phenomenon of self-diagnosed empaths is not so clear. What you’re referring to is a pseudoscientific label people slap on themselves in order to feel special or above everyone. The truth is humans are indeed social creatures. We are naturally attuned to each other's emotions as a result of thousands of years of neurobiological evolution. Emotional sensitivity is an ability that we all have. We can intuit one another’s moods because of our communal, tribal nature. It is an evolutionary mechanism and not a superpower.”
Bellamy paused, his eyes scanned the room, he let the theatrical silence fill with weight— a trick he had picked up from his years as a lecturer. “So, no, you are not an empath. Nor a psychic. You are not a superhero with magic powers. You are a healthy human with functioning mirror neurons. Congratulations.”
Some students chuckled softly at Bellamy’s flippant tone.
“Now as I was saying—” Bellamy started but was interrupted by Alex once more.
“Excuse me, professor, isn’t that closed-minded though? Are there studies about heightened sensitivities to emotions and thoughts? Aren’t there people able to influence the behaviors of others? It’s not a superpower, but it’s also something,” Alex finished.
Bellamy froze, and the room suddenly felt hot again. A familiar sweat returned to his forehead. The buzz of the projector suddenly became pronounced. He reached for a handkerchief from his back pocket and dabbed at the bead of sweat forming on his brow.
“Heightened sensitivities? Yes, in very rare and exceptional cases,” he said, offering a tight smile. “But your generation’s obsession with turning seemingly innocuous human processes into labels is hardly scientific. Tell me, then, what are your credentials in assessing the validity of neurobiological claims made by those on social media?”
Alex was unfazed, “None, but I Googled your name. Weren’t you, yourself discredited after making claims about these types of sensitivities? There are articles discrediting your claims and theories as “pseudoscientific psychological mysticism.”
The lecture hall grew tense.
The corner of Bellamy’s mouth twitched, he ambled back behind the lectern, gripping it tightly. His knuckles whitened, his jaw tight. Bellamy scanned the room, he noted a few students offering stiff smiles, and one student coughed in the far back seats.
“All I’m saying, Dr. Bellamy, is you have made similar claims as these people on social media and even your ideas have been rejected. It just seems ironic for you to be so dismissive.”
A nervous thrill shot through Bellamy, while he was unaccustomed to being challenged so outwardly, something shifted in him. “Ah, I see. The great danger of internet half-truths parading as facts. We have access to limitless information and suddenly we are experts. If you must know, my work is theoretical in nature. However, unliked your so call social media empaths, my work is predicated on empirical neuroscience and settled science.”
The student opened their mouth to retort, but Bellamy cut them off with a gesture, “I see we are not interested in today’s prepared lecture. No matter — let’s discuss this further. If you’re truly interested in the broader potentialities of the human brain then pay attention because I’m going to show you something you won’t find on social media,” Bellamy said smugly, he made a cutting gesture to his teaching assistant who quickly shut off the projector.
Turning to the whiteboard, he began writing quickly.
Extrasensory communication.
Brain regions: Broca’s Area and Wernicke’s area
“The extrasensory communication, or as you more commonly refer to it as “telepathy,” is a theoretical ability to send and receive thoughts without speech. This relies on heightened neural connectivity in the language centers of the brain,”
The dry-erase marker flew across the marker board, as Bellamy wrote.
Spatial Awareness Manipulation
Brain regions: Temporal and parietal lobes and prefrontal cortex
He turned glancing across the classroom, the students sat in awe, “A hypothetic ability to alter other’s perception of space and visibility. This is rooted in the brain's ability to process and interpret spatial awareness.”
Bellamy continued scribbling, fighting through a hand cramp,
Emotional Influence
Brain regions: Amygdala and insula.
“Next, referencing what Alex asked about, you’ve heard referred to as an “empath,” is a heightened ability to influence or perceive emotional states. This is tied to the brain's emotional regulation and social processing.”
He felt a familiar fire in his belly, something he had not felt in ages,
Enhanced Pattern Recognition, Anticipation, and Recall
Brain regions: Prefrontal cortex and hippocampus
“The fourth potential is known commonly as precognition and retrocognition. Using an advanced form of pattern recognition, there is potential for predictive and reflective cognitions. In other words, seeing past and future events.”
The lecture hall was in complete silence, but the tension was replaced with an excited, hopeful stillness.
“And, finally, and perhaps most controversial—”
Object Manipulation
Brain regions: Parietal lobe and cerebellum
“Consisting of a capacity to exert unseen force or influence on objects without physical interaction, tied to the brain’s motor control centers.”
Bellamy stepped back from the whiteboard and admired his scrawling and then turned to the class, “What I am describing is hypothetical or theoretical potentialities, supported by speculative theory. There is nothing supernatural or magic about this. There are studies that have and continue to study these potentialities. In no way does this support your social media pseudoscience. These concepts may exist at the fringes of neuroscience, but often new more speculative claims do. That is until we have empirical evidence supporting the claims.”
Alex remained quiet, her expression unreadable. She seemed to be taking it all in — as did all the students. With his superiority restored, he moved back to the lectern, his words crisp and deliberate, “Now let’s continue with the remainder of the lecture.”
As he returned to his prepared lecture, the student’s jab lingered in his mind. Was he willing to sacrifice his career, his reputation, and his funding for these speculative claims?
Yes, he had to. She needed him to. It was for her sake he was willing to put it all on the line.