All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
All metaphysical phenomena (all) are characteristics, traits, abilities or experiences of our spiritual nature, emanating from our souls.
All metaphysical phenomena (all) are characteristics, traits, abilities or experiences of our spiritual nature, emanating from our souls. The reasons we are so confused by the variety of metaphysical/spiritual phenomena is because religions, primarily Christianity, especially the Roman Catholic Church, banned most of our important spiritual abilities and traits as "heretical,’ “demonic,” or “no longer occurring.” I’ve just completed a trilogy of books jointly entitled Awakening The Soul explaining the history behind this suppression, and providing a channeled method to overcome it. These books posit four things: 1. All "metaphysical phenomena" (also described as paranormal phenomena, psi, psychic event, parapsychology, etc.) is actually our spiritual nature at work. 2. Religions suppressed awareness of our spiritual nature by making almost everything metaphysical off-limits, sinful or evil, and intimidated science into not investigating metaphysical phenomena (our spiritual nature) under the penalty of death 3. This led to our current confusion and ignorance about our spiritual nature, with most of us thinking it is something outside ourselves, while in truth it is really our internal spiritual nature in action. 4. I provide remarkable spiritual tools to restore that spiritual nature, in Christian terms. Book One: Proof of Our Spiritual Nature presents more than 80 differing examples of our metaphysical/spiritual nature, and explains 10 of them in depth. Book 2: Our Suppressed Spiritual Nature reveals why we lost awareness of our spiritual nature, primarily through religious suppression for the last 2000 years. Book 3: Restoring Your Spiritual Nature is a primarily channeled text providing exercises to restore our spiritual nature. It includes startling directions on how to reprogram the ego, and assign the Soul to be in charge of all our daily activities. It has been called “The key to the 12th Step” of AA and other addiction programs because it provides the necessary spiritual awakening. Awakening The Soul: The Trilogy is now available, containing all three volumes in one 730-page reduced price text, with hundreds of new facts and enhancements. Soul Theft: How Religions Seized Control of Humanity’s Spiritual Nature, a mainstream version of ATS: Book 2 is now also available. A great deal of additional information can be found at: awakeningthesoul.info and a discussion group of like-minded individuals is at: awakeningthesoul.ning.com and those interested in 2012 can find information and discussion at puerto2012.ning.com Questions are welcome! All the books, and reduced-price E-books are available through the publisher, ( authorhouse.com ) which also provides the best (lower price, quickest) overall service. Also available on Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Borders, etc., Thanks!
Re: All metaphysical/paranormal phenomena explained
There is an alternative view. We know that experiences like hypnagogia and misperception are caused by the way our brains work. Our brains mix hallucinations and misperceptions with real life scenes to give apparently credible paranormal or spiritual experiences.
It is easy to see how early man, when faced with a hypnagogic experience, would interpret it as a ghost, spirit or god. This could have led initially to religions and later, as people became disillusioned with them, to paranormal experiences. In either case, there is no actual spiritual aspect required.
Re: All metaphysical/paranormal phenomena explained
Good point, but “all metaphysical phenomena” does not include hypnagogia or misperception, which are an individual’s own experiences, hardly fodder for “god” worship or devotion, because they are not repeatable.
Re: All metaphysical/paranormal phenomena explained
If you look at a religion, as I’m sure you have, you will see it consists essentially of a priesthood and ordinary members. But there are also extraordinary members, like visionaries, who have strange experiences that they interpret as contact with a godhead. Such individuals may not be able to reproduce or share their experiences but they can easily gather followers and through that found a religion or split from an existing one. Their experiences could easily by hypnagogic or misperception.
Having studied the paranormal for decades, I don’t know of any ‘metaphysical phenomena’ which have been definitely demonstrated to be anything apart from subjective experience.
Re: All metaphysical/paranormal phenomena explained
I, too, have studied the paranormal/metaphysical for decades, and I believe the evidence shows statistical results far apart from subjective experience.
Remote viewing would be just one area where verifiable proof has been demonstrated, but there are numerous others.
Read Dean Radin’s “The Conscious Universe” for openers.
Re: All metaphysical/paranormal phenomena explained
I have designed and run remote viewing experiments and found most, if not all, to be unsatisfactory from a statistical viewpoint.
The key problem with remote viewing is, how do you judge the results? For instance, what are the key features of a scene and how many would need to be guessed correctly to constitute a hit? What if one scene contains much detail and another is simple. If a subject gives a short description (or simple drawing) but all bits appear relevant, is that a hit? If they gave a much longer description, but containing the same correct items while all the rest were wrong, is that a hit? Do you accept metaphorical use of words? Do you accept different objects with a similar shape to the target? If you are judging results against a list of possible targets, one of which is randomly selected, what difference does the existence of those targets make to the selected one, if any, apart from giving a spurious statistical pool.
I have yet to see a design for a remote viewing experiment that correctly assesses the odds of getting a result by chance. I’d be interested to hear about any experimental design that overcomes these problems.
Re: All metaphysical/paranormal phenomena explained
You can keep on rejecting all results forever, for you are the skeptic. I, on the other hand, feel the results are acceptable proof of the reality of remote viewing.
There’s just too much positive evidence for it all to be erroneous or false.
If it walks like a duck, etc.
Re: All metaphysical/paranormal phenomena explained
If by skeptic you mean a critical thinker, then I am happy with that label. Many people equate skepticism to disbelief but that is incorrect.
My problem with remote viewing is that I can think of no simple way of designing an experiment to quantify it statistically. That does not mean it doesn’t exist but it means that coincidence simply cannot be ruled out at present.
I have, in the past, gone on my own journey towards metaphysical elightenment. But I was forcibly brought back to boring consensus reality when I realised that different people experience the same sensory stimulus in different ways. It is sobering to see someone watching what they claim is a ghost when you know it is not. That is when I realised that we must go back to the start and re-examine apparent paranormal phenomena to see what percentage are purely subjective. I fear that percentage is so far proving extremely high. This probably explains the difficulty in coming up with an explanation for ghosts, for instance, when much of the accepted evidence is contradictory. The reason it is contradictory is that much of it derives from subjective experience rather than an objective external phenomenon.
Re: All metaphysical/paranormal phenomena explained
Consider this:
“I shall not commit the fashionable stupidity of regarding everything I cannot explain as a fraud.”
Carl Gustav Jung
Founder, Jungian Psychology
(1875-1961)
Re: All metaphysical/paranormal phenomena explained
Jung was also the son of two spiritualists who introduced him to the world of metaphysical phenomena at an early age.
Freud, on the other hand, rejected all paranormal experience (except telepathy) because he feared psychiatry would suffer if he embraced it. (Science at the time was already in denial.)
That’s one of the big differences between believers and skeptics. Believers have experienced it, and skeptics can’t because they don’t believe in it.
Do you know why science is so skeptical of the paranormal/metaphysical world?
Because the Church forbade science and scientists from the exploration of spiritual consciousness, which it considered its domain. So ever since science has been ignoring it, dismissing it, pooh-poohing it, denying it.
I go into depth in my books on this aspect of spiritual suppression, accomplished through the Church’s suppression of metaphysical/paranormal experience, often under the threat of death. That’s why they killed the “witches,” who were folk healers, spiritual teachers and midwives.
Sorry you are skeptical — there’s a whole new world out here to be explored.
Re: All metaphysical/paranormal phenomena explained
I have very rarely encountered fraud in my paranormal research. The vast majority of cases of apparent paranormal phenomena that I have come across have proved to be either misperception, hypagogia (and its related phenomena) or coincidence.
Jung developed the concept of synchronicity. The idea of assigning a meaning to a random coincidence is precisely what causes many apparently paranormal cases that are not. Again, it is a problem of not being able to work out the chances of how often something will happen by blind chance. We humans are terrible at appreciating odds.
Re: All metaphysical/paranormal phenomena explained
[quote=soulman]That’s one of the big differences between believers and skeptics. Believers have experienced it, and skeptics can’t because they don’t believe in it.[/quote]
When you say skeptic, do you mean ‘disbeliever’ here? I am no disbeliever. I accept that there is evidence for the paranormal (who could dispute it?) and am extremely interested in explaining it. I don’t, however, have any prior assumptions about what that explanation might be.
I have, myself, seen a number of ghosts. Unlike most people in a similar situation, however, I straight away investigated my own sightings. It is so much easier to investigate a paranormal sighting AS IT IS HAPPENING than afterwards when things may have changed. Unfortunately. most of the the time the latter is our only option.
In each case of my own sightings, the ghost turned out to be a misperception. This was despite my having seeing human figures in considerable detail. I can perfectly understand how anyone not aware of misperception would have reported the apparition as paranormal.
[quote]Do you know why science is so skeptical of the paranormal/metaphysical world? Because the Church forbade science and scientists from the exploration of spiritual consciousness, which it considered its domain. So ever since science has been ignoring it, dismissing it, pooh-poohing it, denying it.[/quote]
I’ll bow to your superior knowledge if you say that is what happened in the past, however the church has no influence over scientists in the present day.
Science does not ‘pooh-pooh’ the paranormal. Science works by examining evidence and attempting to explain it by theory and experiment. There is clearly evidence for the paranormal and many scientists have spent a lot of time researching it. However, there are intrinsic problems with studying the paranormal experimentally (see my comments on the difficulties of judging remote viewing experiments above) that make it difficult to come up with a definitive answer to the problem.
The current experimental data show a slight overall trend in favour of the paranormal. This puts a limit on how powerful or prevelant things like ESP could be, making it difficult to see how it could explain the more dramatic spontaneous examples of paranormal phenomena. These more dramatic incidents can, however, generally be explained by misperception, coincidence, etc. It is clear that people have very real and valid experiences of the paranormal. However, it is also clear that in most cases those experiences are created by their own brains without any outside influence or paranormal ability.
[quote]Sorry you are skeptical — there’s a whole new world out here to be explored.[/quote]
If you mean that I’m a critical thinker them I’m not sorry about that at all. Anyone who looks at the world uncritically misses an awful lot.
Recent developments in neuroscience are very exciting for the study of the paranormal. They show, for instance, how when we do not see something well or cannot remember it clearly, our brains unconsciously manufacture experiences to ‘fill the gaps’. For people predisposed to believe in the paranormal, such ‘manufactured experiences’ are clearly likely to include seeing ghosts, UFOs and so on. We are drawing close to a workable scientific explanation for most apparently paranormal experiences.
Re: All metaphysical/paranormal phenomena explained
I believe in the paranormal/metaphysical world (all of which I consider our spiritual nature at work) because I experienced a episode of spontaneous two-way telepathy during a near-drowning incident while surfing off Baja California in 1976.
That incident prompted me — a paid professional skeptic at the time because I was a daily newspaper editor — to thoroughly investigate the paranormal/metaphysical world for the next 20 years.
But even though I firmly believe in my spiritual nature’s validity, and thus most metaphysical and paranormal experiences, I am not predisposed to other paranormal incidents.
I have never seen a ghost, never had an OBE or an NDE, never levitated, never bilocated. (However, my intuition is greatly heightened.)
So your comfortable logic is not acceptable, although your attitude is far more rational than most. You are, however rejecting all evidence of “paranormal/metaphysical” validity in favor of doubting and thus rejecting it all because the evidence is not 100 percent accurate 100 percent of the time.
You can continue writing off all evidence as “manufactured experiences,” while I will continue embracing it as real and fully understandable because it all is a result of our spiritual nature.
Re: All metaphysical/paranormal phenomena explained
[quote=soulman]So your comfortable logic is not acceptable, although your attitude is far more rational than most. You are, however rejecting all evidence of “paranormal/metaphysical” validity in favor of doubting and thus rejecting it all because the evidence is not 100 percent accurate 100 percent of the time.[/quote]
Not sure what you mean by ‘comfortable logic’. It’s not a question of doubting as I thought I explained. I have never doubted the paranormal. I have always accepted that it might exist. That is why I’ve looked for it for decades and still do to this day. The problem is that the vast majority of apparently paranormal cases have proved disappointing.
Very often a case will sound dramatic and unmistakably paranormal, until you actually investigate it. Then you will find that much of what you heard was exagerrated, mistaken or easily explained. I’m afraid our field suffers from too much hypebole and rumour.
I have also discovered that it is surprisingly easy to reproduce apparently paranormal events in the same conditions as the original observation.
[quote]You can continue writing off all evidence as “manufactured experiences,” while I will continue embracing it as real and fully understandable because it all is a result of our spiritual nature.[/quote]
I am not ‘writing off’ evidence, rather explaining it. If something weird is reported, it does not automatically follow that it is paranormal. It merely means that there is something unusual that requires explanation. If there IS a natural explanation then why invoke the metaphysical?
Re: All metaphysical/paranormal phenomena explained
This could go on forever… let’s just say we agree to disagree and let it go at that …
Re: All metaphysical/paranormal phenomena explained
A little late but welcome to the website Soulman 🙂
Re: All metaphysical/paranormal phenomena explained
Ian: Thanks for the welcome, belated or not …
Re: All metaphysical/paranormal phenomena explained
[quote=soulman]This could go on forever… let’s just say we agree to disagree and let it go at that …[/quote]
If you like but I thought it was just getting interesting! Can you tell us about this telepathy experience you had – it sounds fascinating?
Re: All metaphysical/paranormal phenomena explained
Sure, I’d be happy to do so.
This is the story, as excerpted from “Awakening The Soul: Book 3: Restoring Your Spiritual Nature”:
“To understand the origin of what is written here, and the events that led to this book, I take you back almost 30 years, to a nearly-deserted beach in northern Mexico.
“I was camped amid the rolling sand dunes with a friend, taking a few days off from my hectic newspaper job. While she sat reading in the shade of our camper, I went for an afternoon bodysurfing session. As I swam to the outside break, I realized the surf was almost twice as big as it had been that morning, and was much stronger. Nevertheless, I began riding the waves.
“But all too soon, I was in trouble. I was caught in a swift rip tide, which kept sucking me back out into the pounding 10-to-12-foot set waves perilously near a bank of sharp rocks. I quickly became tired fighting the swift current, but was unable to escape the wide, fast riptide. Soon I was exhausted, and felt my arms starting to go limp. I could feel the panic rising.
“Then I heard the voice of my friend on the beach some 300 yards away. It popped into my mind like a desperate cry for help: “Bill! Bill!” The sound of her voice was so clear, her fright so obvious! I wondered how the sound could have possibly carried the quarter-mile to where I was struggling to survive. Her voice snapped me out of my panic. “God!” I thought, “She must be in trouble!”
“Quickly, I redoubled my efforts while changing my strategy of fighting the rip currents. Digging down deep for one last surge of energy, I swam hard to the outside, toward the looming set waves. As the wave built, I positioned myself near the top of the lip and took off, riding through the turbulent rip section into calmer inside waters. I was able to swim safely to shore, although my tired arms could barely carry me. I ran to the beach, and breathlessly dashed to her side.
“What’s wrong?” I shouted. “I heard you call.” She looked at me curiously, and said, “I didn’t call, but I knew you were in trouble.” Yet she had no way of knowing that – she was sitting on the shady side of our camper, unable to see the ocean in front of our campsite. “Wow,” we said almost simultaneously, “we read each other’s minds!”
“This experience of two-way mental telepathy started it all. This began my introduction to the wonderful world of personal spirituality, the innate human ability to experience aspects of our spiritual nature, often spontaneously and inexplicably.
“Later, my always-curious editor’s mind quickly took over. I wondered about the mental telepathy that we experienced that day in 1977. If mental telepathy is real, I reasoned, then what about all that other metaphysical stuff – like mind over matter, communicating with the dead, and seeing into the future?” (c) Awakening The Soul
Hope you don’t mind me quoting from the book — easier than recreating the story.
Re: All metaphysical/paranormal phenomena explained
You call it two-way telepathy but there was no actual swapping of verifiable information or even deliberate attempted communication. It tends to illustrate my point about things often being not quite as expected when full details are ascertained.
Re: All metaphysical/paranormal phenomena explained
Back to remote viewing:
Are you familiar with the experiments at Stanford Research Institute in the 1980s-90s? They were conducted by two laser physicists, Hal Puthoff and Russell Targ, who were funded by the U.S. CIA.
A retired police commissioner from Los Angeles contacted the team and said he’d like to volunteer as a test subject, since he had always been psychic, and had employed his skills during police work — often leading police to the guilty party through remote viewing.
Soon Patrick Price became the team’s star observer. The experiments were often dictated by CIA requests, and one day a CIA contact came to the SRI, and requested that they get their star remote viewer, and asked him to visit a set of geographical coordinates, and tell what he saw.
Pat Price “went,” witnessed, and drew a strange contraption that looked like a giant crane and a large dome.
The CIA agent then produced a photo of the site — almost a picture-perfect photo of what Pat Price had drawn — a super secret Soviet nuclear site, where Soviet scientists were attempting to construct a huge nuclear reactor vessel.
Read Targ’s “Mind Race” for full details.
Re: All metaphysical/paranormal phenomena explained
Mystery Shopper, you’ll never believe anything paranormal or metaphysical, because you’ll always find some way to discredit it.
You call yourself open-minded, but your actions say otherwise.
Re: All metaphysical/paranormal phenomena explained
I am open minded to the possibility of the paranormal and equally open minded to the possibility of natural explanation for reports of apparently paranormal phenomena. My methods of research are neutral – I make no assumptions about what is behind a report before I investigate it.
I would LOVE to witness or see hard evidence of the paranormal. But to do so, it is first essential to eliminate natural explanations in any particular case. Bizarrely, the more I’ve researched the paranormal, the more new natural explanations I’ve discovered. There seem to be no end of things out there masquarading as paranormal events – a mystery in itself!
I have often day-dreamed about what circumstances might provide hard evidence of the paranormal but, so far, I’ve never come across anything remotely like them in real life, alas. But there is a continuous stream of soft evidence to keep me interested.
And yes, I’m aware of Targ and Puthoff’s work. As you may have guessed from my replies here, I am keen on RV, having done a modest amount of my own research into the subject.
Re: All metaphysical/paranormal phenomena explained
Shopper is not a skeptic for skepticism’s sake. He just demands solid proofs and ponder things very throughly.
Me myself believe ALL supernatural phenomena have rational explanations (though we lack the theoretical basis to explain some right now we may have that knowledge in ten years) and that the study of the paranormal can help furthering many fileds of science and stimulate people into thinking rationally.
Jacques Vallee divided researchers of the paranormal in three categories.
The first are seasoned field investigators. They may lack a formal scientific education but their experience alone is enough to provide them with a sound critical approach.
The second are investigators applying scientific methods: they may have formal scientific training or have learned the subjected themselves but they are always trying to find the weakest link in cases or theories "is this witness reliable and sincere?" "is there a known physical phenomenon that may account for this?" "is this just a very clever hoax like the UMMO affair?".
The third are enthusiasts. They may be both believers or skeptics. What they have in common is the fact that they already have the answers and try to shoehorn everything into their theories.
For example I come form the UFOlogy field (with a side interest in cryptozoology) and the sector is now more or less owned by the third category. We either have credulous mystics thinking we have been visited by sinister little gray men from Zeta Reticuli or friendly aliens from the Pleiades or harcore skeptics who don’t even take the time to think because everything can be explained away as an hoax or as an allucination. Yes, I also believe that many cases are either hoaxes or misidentification but I don’t toss everything out of the window. I try to be rational and to keep an open mind, though it can be frustrating and the tentation to go back to hardcore skepticism is always strong. There are a few cases with such physical evidence that can hardly be discounted as elaborate hoaxes or fantasies (Valensole, Aix-en-Provence. Cash-Landrum etc) but they also offer absolutely no proof of alien existance.
In Distortion We Trust
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
I wouldn’t cite Jacques Vallee as an authority on the paranormal, although he is in the forefront of UFO study.
His list of paranormal researchers omits those former skeptics who have actually experienced “paranormal” or “metaphysical” events, like myself. Although I earlier described myself as not predisposed to experiencing paranormal events, I have had more incidents than I listed.
For openers, I channeled large portions of my books. The experience of having “someone” dictate text in your mind (in seamless fashion from day to day) is certainly confirming evidence of one aspect of the paranormal.
I’ve also had a variety of other minor “paranormal” experiences, such as suddenly “knowing” someone had just entered my house, while I was at work, which was confirmed by me calling my home phone. A number of these events are detailed in my books.
After 30 years of study, and a variety of personal experiences, it is my opinion that skeptics and non-believers won’t have paranormal experiences, while the open-minded and those who believe will more likely experience them.
Doubt can be just as much a blockage to experience as disbelief. If you aren’t open to the possibility of spiritual experience, it is unlikely to occur, except in spontaneous episodes during high-stress moments.
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
[quote=soulman]Although “mysteryshopper” denies being a skeptic, here’s how he described himself elsewhere on this forum:
“I don’t know when skepticism becomes cynicism. EVERY skeptic you talk to will deny being cynical. Personally, I’m a cynic and don’t care who knows it.”
Case closed.[/quote]
Not at all.
Yes, I’m a cynic, in everyday life at least. I tend to think things will go wrong and they generally do. However, when it comes to the paranormal, or anything else decided purely on evidence, I take a strictly scientific view. I look at the evidence without prior assumption and see where it leads. So far it leads towards an ever increasing number of natural causes which can exactly match the reported experience. One day I may come across some evidence that will lead to the paranormal – if so I will be ecstatic, given that I’ve been looking for it since I was a kid!. Like the poster on Mulder’s wall says ‘I want to believe’ but first I need hard evidence. He was more fortunate because he got it, every episode!
I’m quite happy for you to believe whatever you like but you seem to want to label me as some kind of confirmed disbeliever when this is simply not the case. I suspect the difference between us in what types of evidence we each expect before we believe something. For me it is always ‘science grade’ and nothing less.
In fact, science is gradually explaining more and more apparently paranormal experiences. The problem is that most paranormal researchers don’t know anything about such scientific advances.
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
Well, taking a “strictly scientific view” when mainstream science denies everything paranormal, and says all reported incidents are bogus, (ala Amazing Randi) does not speak well of your claim to having an “open mind.”
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
[quote=soulman]Well, taking a “strictly scientific view” when mainstream science denies everything paranormal, and says all reported incidents are bogus, (ala Amazing Randi) does not speak well of your claim to having an “open mind.”[/quote]
Science does NOT deny the existence of the paranormal. All scientific knowledge is provisional. Any scientific theory can, and will be, displaced or altered when new evidence arises that contradicts it. If uncontestable evidence for the paranormal emerges, science will have to change to incorporate it. That is, you might say, the ultimate in open-mindedness: science changes when the evidence changes – a view I totally support.
What science DOES say about the paranormal, at present, is that there is not enough objective evidence to say it exists. If you hear someone say the paranormal CANNOT exist, it would be worth checking if they are actually a scientist!
There are no such things as ‘bogus’ paranormal incidents, in my opinion. Even if an experience is entirely subjective, it is still a real and valid event. In the human brain things always happen for a reason, just as they do in the outside world. If science can explain how someone can have such an apparently paranormal experience, as increasingly it can, then surely that is a good thing.
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
Show me one instance where mainstream science has confirmed the validity of a reported paranormal experience, please.
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
REM intrusion is an obvious example. The best known example of this is hypnagogia where the brain is partly awake while also in REM state. This produces mixtures of real scenes with dream elements (hence ‘REM intrusion’). It explains many ghost and alien reports when the subject is in bed on the point of going to sleep or waking. REM intrusion is, thus, a valid conscious state where hallucintory elements mix with normal perception.
Recent research has shown that when the brain goes to sleep, different areas shut down one by one. Once a majority of areas have shut down, we lose consciousness. Sometimes this process can go awry, with areas shutting down in an unusual order, leading to REM intrusion. It has been suggested that this process may also be reposible for OOBEs and, more controversially, even NDEs.
REM intrusion can even sometimes happen during microsleeps, where someone falls asleep for a few seconds without being aware of it. This could account for certain ghost sightings when witnesses are not resting and feel awake!
It is an exciting area of research that could explain many otherwise puzzling paranormal reports.
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
REM intrusion is not a paranormal/metaphysical event.
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
No, it isn’t! I was replying to your request for scientifically validated “reported paranormal experience”. The fact that something is reported as paranormal does not mean that it actually is. even though it may appear so. When carefully investigated, the vast majority of reported paranormal phenomena have natural explanations.
My point is that saying an experience is REM intrusion is not to dismiss it, debunk it or declare it bogus. It is a perfectly valid experience that normal people can have in normal conditions. It is simply not a paranormal experience.
I know of no reported paranormal phenomenon that has been scientifically validated as paranormal or metaphysical. As I said earlier, at present, there is no hard scientific evidence for the paranormal. There is plenty of soft anecdotal, subjective evidence around. This may be enough for people to believe in the paranormal but it is not enough for science to validate it. Maybe one day the evidence will arrive to validate the paranormal.
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
You may be interested in this:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627574.200-brain-shuts-off-in-response-to-healers-prayer.html
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
My point precisely:
“I know of no reported paranormal phenomenon that has been scientifically validated as paranormal or metaphysical.”
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
[quote=soulman]My point precisely: "I know of no reported paranormal phenomenon that has been scientifically validated as paranormal or metaphysical."[/quote]
When science eventually has a full and rounded understanding of any given paranormal or metaphysical experience, won’t that make that subject no longer paranormal in nature. Instead would it not just become an accepted branch of physics or biology perhaps.
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
I thought I had dealt with this “bogus” expression exhaustively already. Simply because I have an alternative explanation for something you describe as paranormal, it does not mean that I am denying it happened or dismissing it as “bogus2. I’m simply saying yours is not the only possible explanation.
So, regarding you ocean experience, no, I’m not saying anyone is lying. No, I’m not saying it was imagination. Yes, I believe you had a valid subjective experience. But, no, I don’t think there is any verifiable evidence that it was a paranormal experience
The situation, as you describe it, appears as two people who were, understandably, anxious about each other in a stressful situation. You were in trouble in the water and she could not see you, both situations liable to lead to stress.
Who doesn’t sometimes feel anxious about a friend or loved one from time to time (I certainly do) only to find there is nothing wrong. Sometimes, by random chance, those times of anxiety DO correspond with actual danger or distress to the other person and it can seem as though there has been a telepathic connection. If both people are anxious at the same time, it can feel doubly significant. But what about all the times you are anxious and there turned out to be no reason to be? Those times are quickly forgotten because they do not show anything remarkable. And yet they outhumber the apparent ‘hits’ many times over. Which is what you would expect from the action of random chance.
When you said two-way telepathy, I was expecting some bit of definite information, unknown and unpredictable, to be passed to and fro between two people. Instead it was two people who happened to be anxious about each other at the same time in a situation, swimming in the ocean, where possible peril is always to be expected.
I imagined it might be that one person had thought of a tree, say, for no particular reason and the other picked up that thought and then passed back their own idea, a cloud, say, which was in turn picked up. That would have been dramatic and unexpected and difficult to explain and fitted the idea of two way telepathy. I would describe your experience as one of coincidental mutual anxiety in a stressful situation.
[quote]Get your head out of the scientific sand, which is blinding you to discovering your spiritual self.[/quote]
Given that science has been outstandingly successful, compared to any other philosophical system, in explaining the worklngs of the universe, I will stick with it, thanks. It is science, not metaphysics, that allowed the invention of the computer and network that allows me to communicate these thoughts here. And as I mentioned with REM intrusion, it is well on its way to explaining many apparently paranormal reports right now!
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
[quote=soulman]You fail to explain how you could so easily write off such an experience as unacceptable, when it clearly was a qualified “paranormal” event — the transmission of information between two people separated by considerable space.[/quote]
You misunderstand, I think. I am saying that there is no evidence that ANY information was passed, regardless of distance. My explanation is that two people became anxious about each other at the same time by coincidence prompted, no doubt, psychologically by the stressful situation. Since this explanation requires no information transfer, it does not need to invoke telepathy or any other paranormal mechanism.
If I happen to think of the number 5, look up and notice I’m passing a house whose number is 5, that is a coincidence. I could just as easily have been passing house number 7 or 9.
If, on the other hand, I can say what number house I am passing, in a neighbourhood unknown to me, and be right much of the time, you would have to say it is not a coincidence. Your experience happened once in your lifetime which is easily possible through random chance.
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
MS:
Your “explanation” is more BS to avoid the obvious.
You can’t keep writing off valid human experiences as not meeting your “scientific” criteria, which is exactly how science continues to dismiss everything paranormal/metaphysical as bogus.
Remember, despite thousands of anecdotal reports from humanity spanning centuries, science didn’t acknowledge the reality of meteorites (because “there are no stones in the sky”) until the late 19th Century.
It refused to do so until two professors saw one fall and retrieved pieces from it. Then meteorites were real.
What do we need to have happen to convince science that the paranormal is real: have Stephen Hawking levitate in his wheelchair? In front of you?
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
[quote=soulman]Your “explanation” is more BS to avoid the obvious.[/quote]
It fits the events as described. As science shows, an explanation doesn’t have to be obvious to be true. If there was definite evidence of actual information transfer in your account, it might require a different explanation.
[quote]You can’t keep writing off valid human experiences as not meeting your “scientific” criteria, which is exactly how science continues to dismiss everything paranormal/metaphysical as bogus.[/quote]
As explained before, science does not ‘dismiss’ reported paranormal, or any other, human experiences. Instead it seeks to explain them and, in many cases, is able to do so, without recourse to the paranormal.
[quote]What do we need to have happen to convince science that the paranormal is real: have Stephen Hawking levitate in his wheelchair? In front of you?[/quote]
It may surprise you to know that I once worked with a group who tried, very seriously and at length, to achieve levitation through paranormal methods. Sadly, no positive results were obtained.
This is indeed the central problem with the paranormal. There is no shortage of anecdotal reports but when the time comes to produce concrete results, it always fails to turn up.
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
As I detail in my books, I have catalogued more than 80 differing “paranormal” or “metaphysical” events (which I consider all emanating from our spiritual nature). And I am sure there are others waiting to be discovered.
Either humanity is hallucinating at an ever-accelerating rate throughout history, or science has turned a blind eye to this preponderance of evidence. (Which the Church forced it to do five centuries ago.)
You can’t conjure up paranormal/metaphysical events on command, like a dog and pony show. We have not learned how to manipulate our spiritual nature to such a degree — yet.
Until Hawking levitates, science will continue blindly rejecting all evidence of the paranormal “because that can’t happen.” Just like James Randi claims.
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
[quote=soulman]Either humanity is hallucinating at an ever-accelerating rate throughout history, or science has turned a blind eye to this preponderance of evidence.[/quote]
I don’t know of any evidence that the rate at which humanity is hallucinating is changing. Do you?
Hallucinations, such as REM intrusion, form only a minority of paranormal reports. Most reports of paranormal experiences are misperception which is a completely normal consequence of the way our brains work, manufacturing bits they cannot perceive properly. Memory alteration also plays a significant role in paranormal reports, as does coincidence, neither of which involve hallucination.
[quote]You can’t conjure up paranormal/metaphysical events on command, like a dog and pony show. We have not learned how to manipulate our spiritual nature to such a degree — yet.[/quote]
In haunted locations, paranormal activity is reported to be happening on a regular basis. Thousands of investigators (including me!) spend many hours in such locations, usually armed with lots of sophisticated recording equipment, and yet they still have failed to record even one bit of hard scientific evidence so far. Even if the paranormal only crops up now and again, when it feels like it, you would expect SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE to have been around with suitable recording equipment to have captured it at least once, given the amount of effort being put in.
Do you have any evidence that the paranormal cannot be controlled?
[quote]Until Hawking levitates, science will continue blindly rejecting all evidence of the paranormal “because that can’t happen.” Just like James Randi claims.[/quote]
You keep repeating this point, even though I’ve already dealt with it at least twice. Instead of me going through the way science works yet again, I have a couple of questions for you.
Can you tell me which bit of the scientific method you think I have got wrong, and based on what evidence?
Can you also quote a specific scientist who has said ‘that can’t happen’ about the paranormal because I can’t think of one?
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
MS:
You asked: “Can you tell me which bit of the scientific method you think I have got wrong, and based on what evidence?”
(I have already addressed that, in my response to you about your dismissal of my two-way mental telepathy.)
You also asked: “Can you also quote a specific scientist who has said ‘that can’t happen’ about the paranormal because I can’t think of one?
Although this doesn’t specifically answer your question, it illustrates the wall of opposition erected by science against the paranormal, excerpted from “Awakening The Soul: Book 2”:
“Convincing mainstream science to change its 400 years of denial will not be easy. As author Michael Talbot noted in Beyond the Quantum: “Many scientists are so convinced that paranormal functioning does not exist that no amount of evidence, no matter how substantiated or credible, will ever persuade them that it does. For example, (physicists Hal) Puthoff and (Russell) Targ report that in submitting one article on remote viewing, one response they received from an ‘expert’ … was, ‘This is the kind of thing that I would not believe in even if it existed.’”
“So deep is the doubt of mainstream science, that a 1988 study of parapsychology, conducted for the U.S. Army by the prestigious National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences entitled Enhancing Human Performance concluded: “The Committee finds no scientific justification from research conducted over a period of 130 years for the existence of parapsychological phenomena.” This damning judgment was rendered without a complete review of those same studies. At the same time, the government was continuing to fund secret experiments in remote viewing, which proved remarkably accurate.”(231) (c) Awakening The Soul
Although my comment about “hallucinations being on the rise” was made metaphorically, here is some evidence to support that:
Ghost sightings highest in 25 years
Spooky sightings of ghouls, ghosts and evil spirits are higher than they have been in the past 25 years, according to a new report on haunted Britain.
“There have been nearly 1,000 reports of demonic activity in the past quarter of a century, with Yorkshire the nation’s most ghostly county.
“Encounters with devils, demons and evil spirits are as widespread today as they were in medieval times, researchers claim.
The research was led by the UKs leading authority on the unexplained Lionel Fanthorpe who studied various archives and websites as well as his own reports to identify all sightings and recordings of supernatural beings with satanic qualities.
The study found that despite being in time of accelerating technology, 21st century Britons have not turned their back on ghouls, boggarts, hell-hounds, witches, wizards, banshees and black magic curses, with a whopping 968 reports of demonic activity in the past 25 years.
The report indentifies Yorkshire as the centre of ghostly goings-on demonic activity with 74 reports of demons, including Uncabus and Succubus (male and female demons that make sexual attacks on sleeping victims), instances of demonic possession and sightings of hell hounds, water demons and demons with repulsive forms such as ghouls and werewolves.
Sightings of demons in Yorkshire have included a hideous shadow-like hell-hound with no discernible facial features which collided with a car between Northallerton and Leeming Bar on the A684. A sea-going water demon has also been reported off Filey Bay in Yorkshire. Witnesses claimed to have seen a ghostly creature with a long neck, a vast serpentine body and glowing eyes.
Devonshire rated second in the study with 57 reports of sinister activity, mainly from encounters with or sightings of demons with devil like qualities.
On Dartmoor there have been reports that the demonic shape of a man named Stephens who committed suicide still appears and bodes ill for those who encounter it his grave. The apparition is described as hideously skeletal and dressed in the ragged remnants of a grey robe.
Third in the ghoulish league table is Somerset, which hosts the highest number of monsters and has 51 sightings or reports of demonic entities, with Wiltshire coming in fourth with 46 sightings of demons.
Wiltshire is one of the most popular areas for sightings of phantom dogs, shucks or hell-hounds. At Black Dog Hill near Black Dog Woods in Chapmanslade, there are reports of a huge black hound with eyes like red hot coals.
People in Inverness report sightings of 13 water ghosts in the last 25 years, evil spirits whose main purpose is to lure their victims into dangerous water and then drown them. The water ghosts contribute to the area’s overall total of 39 demonic beings and one of the most notorious water ghosts resides in the area of Boat of Garten, which lies on each side of the River Spey, near Chapeltown and Tulloch Moor. The paranormal reports from Boat of Garten involve an ancient, inscribed stone visible when the river is at its lowest. According to legend, the stone is cursed and guarded by a malevolent water-demon, or kelpie-type entity, who protects it savagely. Anyone touching it or attempting to move it is said to become prey to this aquatic, demonic being.
The Demonic Britain report was carried out for the latest DVD release of US TV series Supernatural, normally broadcast on the cable channel Living.
Lionel Fanthorpe said: This report clearly shows we are a nation still rich in sightings and reports of devils, demons and evil spirits of various forms.
“The present human population is many times greater than it was in the past. Therefore the more people that there are, statistically, the more potential encounters they might have with these unpleasant, non-human entities.
(This posting is NOT an endorsement of these claims. I don’t believe in 99% of these spooks, goblins, etc.)
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
[quote=soulman]MS:
You asked: “Can you tell me which bit of the scientific method you think I have got wrong, and based on what evidence?”
(I have already addressed that, in my response to you about your dismissal of my two-way mental telepathy.)[/quote]
I didn’t dismiss your experience at all. I accepted it happened just as you said. What I did was to show that your explanation of the episode (two way telepathy) is not the only possible explanation. Where there are two or more possible explanations for a phenomenon, science normally applies the one that requires the fewest agencies, particularly novel ones. My explanation requires no new agencies while yours requires ESP which has not been scientifically validated as yet.
I think you are confusing reported incidents with possible explanations. No one disputes that people have apparently paranormal experiences or that they occur as reported. What IS in dispute is that they have only one likely explanation.
You have not said precisely where you think my explanation of the scientific method is wrong. Could you do so, please as I am still at a loss as to what it is?
[quote]You also asked: “Can you also quote a specific scientist who has said ‘that can’t happen’ about the paranormal because I can’t think of one?
Although this doesn’t specifically answer your question, it illustrates the wall of opposition erected by science against the paranormal, excerpted from “Awakening The Soul: Book 2”:
“Convincing mainstream science to change its 400 years of denial will not be easy. As author Michael Talbot noted in Beyond the Quantum: “Many scientists are so convinced that paranormal functioning does not exist that no amount of evidence, no matter how substantiated or credible, will ever persuade them that it does. For example, (physicists Hal) Puthoff and (Russell) Targ report that in submitting one article on remote viewing, one response they received from an ‘expert’ … was, ‘This is the kind of thing that I would not believe in even if it existed.’”[/quote]
This is you quoting someone else who is ALSO unable to name a specific scientist who has denied that the paranormal is possible. It is not scientific to deny that the paranormal is possible since, at any time, someone might come up with the evidence to say it is true. All we can say at present is that we haven’t yet reached that stage.
[quote]”So deep is the doubt of mainstream science, that a 1988 study of parapsychology, conducted for the U.S. Army by the prestigious National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences entitled Enhancing Human Performance concluded: “The Committee finds no scientific justification from research conducted over a period of 130 years for the existence of parapsychological phenomena.” This damning judgment was rendered without a complete review of those same studies. At the same time, the government was continuing to fund secret experiments in remote viewing, which proved remarkably accurate.”(231) (c) Awakening The Soul[/quote]
So which studies DID this committee examine? Just the ones that had negative results? Without stating whether or not the committee examined a representative sample of all the studies over 130 years, your point, presumably implying bias, is not justified.
Furthermore, there are many scientists doing parapsychological experiments right now. In the UK, several universities, like Edinburgh, have parapsychology departments. There are also a large number of academically trained scientists doing paranormal research in their own time. So far they have still failed to come up with definitive evidence in favour of the paranormal but the important point is, they are still looking. If scientists really believed the paranormal was impossible, all such scientific research would stop.
[quote]Although my comment about “hallucinations being on the rise” was made metaphorically, here is some evidence to support that: …[/quote]
Trends in things like ghost or UFO sightings tend to follow the media. If there are more books, films, TV programmes about the paranormal, there will be more sightings. Given the rise in ghost hunting TV shows this is entirely to be expected.
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
MS, I didn’t expect you to accept anything I said as proof, just to point out that I’m not alone in my skepticism of science.
As I said earlier, we disagree. Continuing this give and take is not proving anything for you, but it’s taking up a lot of my time.
You will have an excuse, an exception, a reason to dismiss of all evidence until it happens to you. And I doubt if it (a paranormal experience) ever will occur to you because of your proclivity to quickly find a way to “disprove” all claims.
Being “open-minded” means just that, and despite your claims,I don’t think you are, ala your quick dismissal of my telepathy experience.
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
[quote=soulman]MS, I didn’t expect you to accept anything I said as proof, just to point out that I’m not alone in my skepticism of science.[/quote]
There is no such concept as proof in science (except in certain mathematical theorems). Science is about the balance of the evidence at any given time and where it points overall. So far the balance of evidence is against the paranormal but it could move in its favour at any time. If someone provides sufficiently robust evidence science will accept the paranormal.
[quote]As I said earlier, we disagree. Continuing this give and take is not proving anything for you, but it’s taking up a lot of my time. [/quote]
I agree this thread is getting a bit bogged down. You seem reluctant to accept my characterisation of science. You don’t have to believe what I say, just try reading a book on the philosophy of science. If you find something there that I’ve got wrong, feel free to tell me!
[quote]You will have an excuse, an exception, a reason to dismiss of all evidence until it happens to you. And I doubt if it (a paranormal experience) ever will occur to you because of your proclivity to quickly find a way to “disprove” all claims.[/quote]
I NEVER dismiss evidence! This is the bit you seem to have a problem with. What we differ on is our INTERPRETATION of what the evidence means, not its contents.
As I mentioned before, I have seen several ghosts. I’ve also had some OOBEs and many other apparently paranormal experiences. I’ve also been present when others have claimed to be having a paranormal experience that I did not share. In each case I was able to investigate these incidents AT THE TIME, which almost no paranormal witness ever does (not through any fault of theirs but because most have no experience of paranormal research). Investigating at the time of the incident, with all the evidence still close at hand, is so much more informative and decisive than doing it after the event. In every case I was able to explain the experience without recourse to the paranormal, using the evidence present at the time.
So my enquiring mind does not seem to have stopped me having apparently paranormal experiences, which did not differ materially in any way from those reported by other witnesses.
Far from making me believe in the paranormal, however, these experiences demonstrated to me, graphically, just how such experiences actually work (mostly through the still little understood mechanisms of perception). Theory is all very well but it is great to see these things work in real life.
[quote]Being “open-minded” means just that, and despite your claims,I don’t think you are, ala your quick dismissal of my telepathy experience.[/quote]
This is an example of how we’re going round in circles so let me ask you a couple of straight questions:
i) I have said I accept that the events you described happened as you said. Do you accept that?
ii) I say there is more than one way that the events you describe could happen. Do you accept that?
iii) Would you say it was open-minded to consider ALL possible explanations for an incident before deciding which you think is the most likely?
iv) Do you accept that apparently paranormal reports can sometimes be caused by non-paranormal phenomena?
These are not ‘trick’ questions, I am honestly interested in your views.
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
MS:
If you had responded to what I believe was an incident of two-way mental telepathy in a curious manner, instead of instantly writing it off to some other cause — without asking one single question to further ascertain the facts — I would believe you.
I experienced it — not you. I knew what it was — not you. Yet you didn’t didn’t want to accept my knowledge of the event, nor obtain further facts before leaping to judgement.
Here’s your answer:
“You call it two-way telepathy but there was no actual swapping of verifiable information or even deliberate attempted communication. It tends to illustrate my point about things often being not quite as expected when full details are ascertained.”
You instantly dismissed it as probably being from some other cause, hardly the hallmark of a serious scientific investigator. YOU DIDN’T WANT TO BELIEVE IT WAS TELEPATHY.
Does that sound scientific to you? Does that sound open-minded to you?
I don’t think it is — thus my reaction to your Doubting Thomas attitude. You are applying your standards to someone’s experience.
If this is the strict scientific standard you apply to all reported incidents of paranormal activity, I doubt if you will ever find one you can certify.
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
[quote=soulman]If you had responded to what I believe was an incident of two-way mental telepathy in a curious manner, instead of instantly writing it off to some other cause — without asking one single question to further ascertain the facts — I would believe you. [/quote]
It wasn’t an investigation. If it had been I would have asked a great many questions (not in a public forum), done a lot of background research and I would not have suggested an explanation unless you specifically asked me.
As it was, I was just curious as you said it was a case of two-way telepathy which is very unusual. I was hoping some specific information had been exchanged in two directions, making it possibly verifiable.
[quote]I experienced it — not you. I knew what it was — not you. Yet you didn’t didn’t want to accept my knowledge of the event, nor obtain further facts before leaping to judgement.[/quote]
I don’t understand what you mean. I DID accept your knowledge of the events – you explained quite clearly what happened. If there were further facts available that convinced you it was telepathy, I assume you would have mentioned them when you heard my own theory.
[quote]You instantly dismissed it as probably being from some other cause, hardly the hallmark of a serious scientific investigator. YOU DIDN’T WANT TO BELIEVE IT WAS TELEPATHY. [/quote]
You’ve missed my point. It MIGHT have been telepathy but because no specific verifiable information was exchanged, there is no way of knowing. I told you an alternative scenario that also fitted the events, as described, and there is no objective way of telling them apart. If forced to choose between the two theories, a scientist would go with the one involving the fewest agencies, particularly novel ones.
[quote]Does that sound scientific to you? Does that sound open-minded to you? I don’t think it is — thus my reaction to your Doubting Thomas attitude. You are applying your standards to someone’s experience. [/quote]
Yes it is scientific. Unfortunately, in science we sometimes have to admit that there is insufficient information to decide between two or more alternative theories that could each account for the evidence. This is just such a case. At these times science says it is not safe to come to a definite conclusion. Such information is then not used by science. Science is based on empirical, verifiable evidence.
[quote]If this is the strict scientific standard you apply to all reported incidents of paranormal activity, I doubt if you will ever find one you can certify.[/quote]
When a case presents itself where there is only one possible theory then that theory will be accepted, whether it is paranormal or otherwise. This scientific approach has served perfectly well in other fields of enquiry so there is no obvious reason why it should not succeed for rhe paranormal.
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
MS:
You said: “This scientific approach has served perfectly well in other fields of enquiry so there is no obvious reason why it should not succeed for rhe paranormal.”
I disagree. I believe all “paranormal” and “metaphysical” (as well as psi, parapsychology, etc.) events are ALL caused/induced by our spiritual nature.
You are applying material standards to spiritual events, which will not work in most instances. (And “spiritual” does not mean “religious,” for it is a state of being for all humanity.)
You keep on testing and doubting. I’ll continue believing, and when the shit hits the fan, we’ll see who is right. You will be holding an empty bag, and mine will be filled with the spiritual beliefs I hold — which explain every single episode we call “paranormal/metaphysical” etc.
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
Try this on for size:
http://www.skeptiko.com/peter-bancel-global-consciousness-project/
And maybe this will interest you. (No slur intended.)
“Getting Comfortable With Stupidity” from Entangled Minds
Those embarking on the study of scientific study, and particularly for those pursuing important work on unknown edges of science, would serve themselves well to be comfortable with the “absolute stupidity” they will confront when solving research questions. Academia likes to follow the path of studying prior work, grading on knowledge already known, and glossing over the simple fact that important discoveries begin when one embraces the “stupidity” of not knowing the results of the direction taken. The emphasis on results-only testing can lead to the ultimate stupidity of arguing against the unknown simply by choosing only to look at what is known. As Martin A. Schwartz postures to all scientists, researchers, and cutting edge intellectuals of any caliber: “Our ignorance is infinite, the only possible course of action is to muddle through as best we can.”
(The link for this didn’t copy over. You can find the original at: http://www.anomalist.com/ for today’s listings.)
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
[quote=soulman]Academia likes to follow the path of studying prior work, grading on knowledge already known, and glossing over the simple fact that important discoveries begin when one embraces the “stupidity” of not knowing the results of the direction taken. The emphasis on results-only testing can lead to the ultimate stupidity of arguing against the unknown simply by choosing only to look at what is known. As Martin A. Schwartz postures to all scientists, researchers, and cutting edge intellectuals of any caliber: “Our ignorance is infinite, the only possible course of action is to muddle through as best we can.”[/quote]
I can really sympathise with this! For years I followed the same fruitless pursuit of the paranormal using the same failed methods as everyone before me. But a few chance observations made me realise that there was a much better way, borrowing from other disciplines as many innovators have done before. I started looking at scientific breakthroughs in disciplines not directly linked to the paranormal. The results were astonishing.
I, and others, found that apparently paranormal experiences were being explained by neuroscientists who had no interest in parapsychology. Perception was the key. Frankly, until recently we knew almost nothing about it. We still no little but there is enough to see that it can easily explain the vast majority of apparently paranormal experience, which used to be so inexplcable, without rercourse to the paranormal. What little might be left unexplained once this revolution has passed may still require the paranormal, if it exists. But I doubt it will be recognisable to most paranormal investigators who still follow the well trodden paths to nowhere in particular.
In the mean time these are exciting times with different strange experiences being explained satisfactorily for the first time all the while. It is ironic indeed that much of the research is coming unwittingly from scientists with no interest in parapsychology at all.
When I was young I thought we could solve the mysteries of the paranormal in a generation. As I gew older I thought it might take centuries. Now I’m optimistic it might happen in decades! Exciting times indeed!
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
MS:
I’m glad I finally posted something you could agree with.
You haven’t commented on the primary assertion in my books, that all paranormal/metaphysical/etc. episodes are events which are primarily spiritual in nature.
I’ve had that assertion out before the paranormal public, through blogs like this one, for almost 10 years without one single person refuting the claim.
Care to chew on that for a while?
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
I’m primarily interested in the causes of individual paranormal reports. So far I, and others, have found that most reports are caused by misperception, some by hallucinations (with various causes like REM intrusion, weak complex magnetic fields etc), coincidence and a number of other natural causes. The reason so many cases are misattributed to the paranormal lies in the common misconception that humans are objective recorders of their environment, which is a long way from the case.
I am developing investigation methods to spot natural causes much more easily, allowing investigators to concentrare on those cases that could potentially be really paranormal. Much of what we think we know about the paranormal is based on cases actually caused by natural causes meaning we probably have completely the wrong picture. Indeed. much of what people find in cases reflects fictional representations of the paranormal in the media. People are finding what they expect to find rather what is really there.
So, in answer to your question, I think it is premature at present to try to explain the paranormal because much of what we think is pararnormal simply isn’t! I read all the time about what ghosts are supposed to be able to do and yet when asked to name a credible case where it happened, people cannot. They base their knowledge on rumour, speculation and media coverage and cases with known natural causes. Until we know the true characteristics of the paranormal, or even if it exists, I don’t see how any explanation is feasible.
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
For the record, I didn’t write the introduction to the “dealing with stupidity” blog item, beginning “Academia likes to follow the path of studying prior work…”
It is from the Anomaly.com website which introduced the item.
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
I had little hope you might be wise enough to at least consider my premise that “all paranormal/metaphysical events are in reality our spiritual nature at work.”
If you are truly “primarily interested in the causes of individual paranormal reports” (as you claim) I would at least hope you would consider it a possibility.
But then, Mr. “Open-minded,” you have this take: “I think it is premature at present to try to explain the paranormal because much of what we think is pararnormal simply isn’t!”
So how can you possibly call yourself “open-minded” when you reject all/most evidence of the paranormal?
I think you are talking out of both sides of your mouth, and aren’t the least bit convincing about being “open-minded” when investigating the paranormal.
You can’t have it both ways, dude.
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
[quote=soulman]I had little hope you might be wise enough to at least consider my premise that “all paranormal/metaphysical events are in reality our spiritual nature at work.”[/quote]
There is even less evidence for the ‘spiritual nature’ of humans than there is for the paranormal. Indeed, I’ve never come across ANY evidence of our ‘spiritual nature’ so I would be interested to know what evidence you have that it exists. Either way, I can see no obvious logical reason to explain one unknown in terms of another.
[quote]If you are truly “primarily interested in the causes of individual paranormal reports” (as you claim) I would at least hope you would consider it a possibility.[/quote]
Since there is very little evidence of a ‘spiritual nature’ then how are we supposed to describe it and what it can do? Without such mechanisms to look for, there seems no obvious way to even search the paranormal evidence to look for any characteristic signature of a spiritual nature.
[quote]But then, Mr. “Open-minded,” you have this take: “I think it is premature at present to try to explain the paranormal because much of what we think is pararnormal simply isn’t!” So how can you possibly call yourself “open-minded” when you reject all/most evidence of the paranormal? I think you are talking out of both sides of your mouth, and aren’t the least bit convincing about being “open-minded” when investigating the paranormal.
You can’t have it both ways, dude.[/quote]
I’m not sure what ‘talking out of both sides of your mouth’ means. I tried it but it didn’t work too well, so I guess it was a metaphor for something or other.
Open-mindedness cuts both ways. Someone who is unconvinced of the paranormal should at least consider it as a possible explanation when examining the evidence. By the same token, someone convinced that the paranormal exists should consider that some, or even all, of the evidence may have alternative explanations.
I take the neutral path of simply following wherever the evidence points, without preconception. This can lead to criticism from both ‘sides’ but that’s life. There are disbelievers who would say I was crazy even to consider the possibility of the paranormal. It is unfortunate that the paranormal field is split so profoundly between ‘believers’ and ‘disbelievers, with little common ground, but we just have to live with that.
Having examined a large number of cases, I have found that there are plausible non-paranormal explanations in the vast majority. This includes a lot of cases that ‘believers’ regard as good evidence for the paranormal. This is because they are generally not aware of the enormous explanatory power of things like misperception.
Recent research has explained some of the apparently convincing paranormal cases in terms of misperception. With misperception it is possible to see a poorly-viewed inanimate object as a person, complete with details like hair, clothing, facial features etc. Our brains replace poorly-seen objects with similarly shaped objects from our visual memory. What is more, because this happens before we even perceive the object, it appears totally real. I have seen such apparitions myself and it is extraordinary how realistic they are.
A great many cases once considered reasonable evidence of the paranormal are no longer acceptable as such. That might seem unfortunate but the truth is always more important than our personal beliefs.
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
Talking out of both sides of your mouth means you claim to be open-minded (one side) and then in the next breath say you find no evidence that the paranormal exists (the other side).
You said:
“There is even less evidence for the ‘spiritual nature’ of humans than there is for the paranormal. Indeed, I’ve never come across ANY evidence of our ‘spiritual nature’ so I would be interested to know what evidence you have that it exists.”
If you’d like 80+ examples of this “non-existent” state of being, I’d humbly suggest you read “Awakening The Soul: The Trilogy,” which not only explains those 80+ examples, 10 in depth, and demonstrates how each has a spiritual element.
It also explains why you and so many others in science are such diehard skeptics.
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
[quote=soulman]Talking out of both sides of your mouth means you claim to be open-minded (one side) and then in the next breath say you find no evidence that the paranormal exists (the other side).[/quote]
We’ve been round this loop several times already. There is evidence and then there robust scientific evidence. They are not the same thing. You can obtain simple subjective evidence that the Earth is flat by looking out of a window. However, there is no robust scientific evidence that it is flat. There may be evidence for the paranormal but, so far, it is not very convincing to those of us who wish to extend scientific knowledge. Much of the evidence for the paranormal is entirely subjective.
I am open-minded in that I accept that the paranormal might exist. If there is good evidence for it then I will accept it. Are YOU open-minded? Are you open to the possibility that there may not be any robust scientific evidence that the paranormal exists?
[quote]If you’d like 80+ examples of this “non-existent” state of being, I’d humbly suggest you read “Awakening The Soul: The Trilogy,” which not only explains those 80+ examples, 10 in depth, and demonstrates how each has a spiritual element.[/quote]
Why not give us, for the sake of continuing this interesting discussion, your top 5 most persuasive bits of evidence in favour of the spiritual nature of humans? You have 80, I have none, even 5 would be exciting to me!
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
This old chestnut again… 😉
I’m a great believer in the power of science and rational thought – the philosophy and accepted structure of scientific enquiry. However, I’m much less comfortable with the ability of human beings to truly apply any philosophical strucutre.
My view is that we all have our own motivations – conscious or otherwise – that colour our actions. In over ten years of being involved in various walks of "the paranormal" I am yet to meet someone who does not unintentionally bias their actions.
It may be the scientist who disregards a small but critical flaw in a piece of data because that data offers reinforcement of his own opinion; it may be the Spritualist medium who regards any small piece of coincidental "evidence" as proof of his mystical ability; it may be the "ghost hunter" who seizes on some fuzzy bit of EVP as vindication for a cold night spent in a damp ruin.
My point is that we are all inherently fallible. As long as the human mind is involved with the study of the paranormal I don’t think we’ll ever have resolute answers – people will follow the "maybes" in whichever fashion suits their worldview.
As a final point, we need to be very careful about the current triumphal attitude amongst many scientists and skeptics – I remember watching Hawkins and French undertake a TV "test" of dowsing that had as much worth as a Derek Acorah seance. Just because there has been a rise of idots putting forward ridiculous theories about orbs and the like, it doesn’t mean the task of "explaining" the paranormal has become any easier.
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
Let’s go back to this comment from you, an answer to my relating how I experienced two-way mental telepathy.
Here’s your statement:
“You call it two-way telepathy but there was no actual swapping of verifiable information or even deliberate attempted communication. It tends to illustrate my point about things often being not quite as expected when full details are ascertained.”
What do you mean there was “no actual swapping of verifiable information”? That’s precisely what there was — my companion’s sensing my panic, and my sensing her distress.
It was a spontaneous telepathic event, a rather well-documented event during high-stress situations. (Mothers will suddenly know her daughter has been injured in a wreck, later confirmed, for instance.) It has been called a “telesomatic” event, where one person senses another’s pain or distress.
We had something quite similar to that, a sensing of each other’s emotions.
You can dismiss this as just another figment of my imagination, but that won’t work. It happened, and it is not that unusual. If this illustrates your “scientific” standards, it proves my point precisely: that science is all too eager to dismiss all paranormal/metaphysical phenomena. You’re ready to dismiss it in a flash, with a very bogus explanation. You are denying what occurred, a judgment which you have no proof whatsoever to support.
Unless you are calling us both liars — which I don’t think you are — I fail to understand how you can so blithely dismiss this event as another “bogus” report.
Get your head out of the scientific sand, which is blinding you to discovering your spiritual self.
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
Mysteryshopper:
Sorry my experience didn’t meet your expectations. What did you expect us to be transmitting to each other at such a time, mathematical equations?
You fail to explain how you could so easily write off such an experience as unacceptable, when it clearly was a qualified “paranormal” event — the transmission of information between two people separated by considerable space.
So much for your “scientific” view of things. You reject it, so it isn’t paranormal. Just like science. BS, MS.
Ian, you are right, and this probability falls precisely within the parameters of Schopenhauer’s famous axiom:
“All truth passes through three stages.
“First, it is ridiculed.
“Second, it is violently opposed.
“Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”
Arthur Schopenhauer
German philosopher
(1788 – 1860)
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
Although “mysteryshopper” denies being a skeptic, here’s how he described himself elsewhere on this forum, entitled “At what point does healthy skepticism become cynicism?”:
“I don’t know when skepticism becomes cynicism. EVERY skeptic you talk to will deny being cynical. Personally, I’m a cynic and don’t care who knows it.”
Case closed.
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
Matt H., meet MS.
You guys should get along just great, reinforcing each other’s doubting attitudes.
Although I’m not a great proponent of orbs, I find your comment about them illustrative of your mind-set, which reveals some very biased opinions:
“Just because there has been a rise of idots (sic) putting forward ridiculous theories about orbs and the like, it doesn’t mean the task of “explaining” the paranormal has become any easier.”
And it never will with that kind of attitude. Being “open-minded” means just that. Referring to those you disagree with as “idiots” with “ridiculous theories” reveals a mindset that supports only your own conclusions.
Applying Occam’s Razor to this field of study provides a very good clue to explaining the paranormal — since every instance of the “paranormal” has a spiritual component. The proposal that all paranormal/metaphysical events are spiritual in nature is worthy of serious consideration.
Except, of course, that mainstream science doesn’t acknowledge the reality of spirituality, courtesy of the Church’s suppression of science and scientists for the last 1,000 years.
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
Regarding, once again, the question of open-mindedness, here is my own history. I first became interested in the paranormal as a kid, through reading books. I didn’t know what to make of it because the books seemed so at odds with most other people’s (negative) opinion of the paranormal. Later I became actively involved in paranormal investigation and realised the people involved were honest and sensible. I read books by other investigators, as well as doing my own cases, and started to believe in the paranormal because the evidence looked convincing.
Since then, as I’ve outlined before, I began to see flaws in the procedures used by paranormal investigators, including myself. And new scientific research from other fields made me realise that the vast majority of cases could now no longer be considered unexplainable. There were perfectly viable, even highly likely, alternative explanations.
I also did lab-type paranormal research where I consistently came up with zilch evidence for the paranormal. Worse, I realised the inherent flaws in almost all such work. On this basis, I decided there was not yet sufficient robust evidence to demonstrate the existence of the paranormal. However, I continue to work in the field, developing tools to address the higher level of evidence now required, and may yet change my mind again, depending on the evidence.
So, as you see, I started with insufficient evidence and was neutral. Then I gathered what I thought was good evidence and was in favour of the paranormal. Now I see the flaws in that evidence and have swung the other way. I would describe this journey as an open-minded one, always swayed by the evidence rather than any in-built bias one way or the other.
Soulman, would you agree that what I describe above shows open-mindedness? If not, could you give us YOUR definition of the term, please, as it would then clearly differ from mine? Also, any chance of those top 5 most persuasive bits of evidence in favour of the spiritual nature of humans? If you can’t manage 5, how about 3?
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
You believe you are open-minded, but to date, you have found ways to dismiss every example of reported paranormal activity you’ve examined.
Your requirement that each episode withstand the test of “robust evidence” is your blockage point, for you place more value on proving the evidence than you do the existence of the evidence itself.
What do you think is causing these millions of paranormal experiences, — from seeing ghosts to having an NDE — which are commonplace to all humanity throughout recorded history? I say it’s our spiritual nature at work.
According to you, and science, it’s all “misperception,” delusions, and/or manufactured evidence.
To declare that the millions upon millions of people around the world who continually experience various aspects of the paranormal (spiritual) world are all delusional because science hasn’t proven their experiences are real is both a self-deception and disservice to the truth. No wonder humanity is confused.
I don’t have a list of the “most persuasive bits of evidence in favour of the spiritual nature of humans”
What I have accrued is more than 80+ examples of our spiritual nature at work, which are detailed in my books. Most are briefly explained, but 10 of them are explored in depth.
I have posted these elsewhere over the years, but am not inclined to do so for you. I know what you’ll do with that list.
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
[quote=soulman]You believe you are open-minded, but to date, you have found ways to dismiss every example of reported paranormal activity you’ve examined.[/quote]
I don’t make the evidence! If there are entirely plausible, even likely, alternative explanations for any particular incident that’s hardly my fault, is it?
[quote]Your requirement that each episode withstand the test of “robust evidence” is your blockage point, for you place more value on proving the evidence than you do the existence of the evidence itself. What do you think is causing these millions of paranormal experiences, — from seeing ghosts to having an NDE — which are commonplace to all humanity throughout recorded history? I say it’s our spiritual nature at work.[/quote]
If each episode, when carefully examined, fails the test of evidence then how can adding them all together make any difference? If one hundred people all fail the same exam, does that add up to one person passing it?
[quote]According to you, and science, it’s all “misperception,” delusions, and/or manufactured evidence. [/quote]
I never mentioned delusion, nor have I ever come across a case of it. I have come across very few cases of fraud either. I don’t regard either as significant causes of paranormal reports. My list of causes, in likely order of importance, was misperception, hallucination (from various causes like hypnagogia), coincidence and various other minor things. This is based on experience of paranormal investigations.
[quote]To declare that the millions upon millions of people around the world who continually experience various aspects of the paranormal (spiritual) world are all delusional because science hasn’t proven their experiences are real is both a self-deception and disservice to the truth. No wonder humanity is confused.[/quote]
Once again, I never mentioned delusion nor do I think it is a significant cause of paranormal reports. In my experience, I have found most witnesses to be perfectly credible and I believe they experienced what they report. It is the cause of those experiences which is at issue.
If someone experiences misperception but thinks they are having paranormal experiences, they will continue to do so. As you say, many people believe they experience paranormal episodes on a daily basis. It does not mean that those episodes are inexplicable to science.
[quote]I don’t have a list of the “most persuasive bits of evidence in favour of the spiritual nature of humans”. What I have accrued is more than 80+ examples of our spiritual nature at work, which are detailed in my books. Most are briefly explained, but 10 of them are explored in depth.
I have posted these elsewhere over the years, but am not inclined to do so for you. I know what you’ll do with that list.[/quote]
That’s a pity. Can you tell me this, at least? How do you differentiate between a paranormal experience and a spiritual one? For me, what someone describes as a spiritual experience, such as witnessing the Virgin Mary, say, is what I would describe as paranormal. So I’m interested to know where you draw the line.
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
[quote=soulman]Matt H., meet MS. You guys should get along just great, reinforcing each other’s doubting attitudes. Although I’m not a great proponent of orbs, I find your comment about them illustrative of your mind-set, which reveals some very biased opinions: "Just because there has been a rise of idots (sic) putting forward ridiculous theories about orbs and the like, it doesn’t mean the task of "explaining" the paranormal has become any easier." And it never will with that kind of attitude. Being "open-minded" means just that. Referring to those you disagree with as "idiots" with "ridiculous theories" reveals a mindset that supports only your own conclusions. Applying Occam’s Razor to this field of study provides a very good clue to explaining the paranormal — since every instance of the "paranormal" has a spiritual component. The proposal that all paranormal/metaphysical events are spiritual in nature is worthy of serious consideration. Except, of course, that mainstream science doesn’t acknowledge the reality of spirituality, courtesy of the Church’s suppression of science and scientists for the last 1,000 years.[/quote]
I should first stress that Mystery Shopper and I have disagreed on more than one occasion in the past. 🙂
The purpose of my post was to find some middle ground in this discussion, which is where I feel I stand. I guess it proves my point that people will read into things what they want to suit their outlook if you feel I was attacking your point of view.
For what it’s worth, I think the paranormal case for orbs – as in those found on digital cameras – is completely untenable. I open-mindedly explored this matter in some detail, and found it to be nonesense – that’s certainly not a close minded attitude to the subject.
I welcome a positive approach to any fringe subject, and have most certainly had experiences that I’ve yet to find any rational explanation for. However, that’s not to say that the vast majority of reports cannot, as Mystery Shopper points out, be ascribed to very well understood and pretty prosaic causes.
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
Granted, you didn’t say “delusional.” You said “misperception.” Both mean perceiving things that aren’t there.
I don’t differentiate between paranormal experiences and spiritual experiences. I consider them one and the same, just different nomenclature.
There are eight different types of apparitional appearances (that I have catalogued). Seeing the VM would be only one kind of apparition
Apparitional types include (as excerpted from “Awakening The Soul”):
“There are several kinds of ghosts and apparitions:
* the scary kind that haunt old houses (and almost anywhere else, actually),
* the apparitions which numerous explorers and adventurers have reported accompanying them during their exploits,
* the ghostly images of persons who suddenly become visible to others, apparently at the moment of their death,
* the images of living individuals – the doppleganger – as detailed above,
* the apparition of spiritual beings, often those of “deceased” relatives, which frequently appear at the bedside of the dying,
* the apparition of high spiritual beings, such as the appearances of Christ, the Virgin Mary, angels and saints,
* the apparition viewed when an individual “bilocates,” a spiritual trait, exhibited by a number of saints and holy men and women, and
* the image of the spiritual body, as perceived during out-of-body experiences” (c) Awakening The Soul
I consider all of these types of apparitions as events stemming from our spiritual nature.
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
[quote=soulman]Granted, you didn’t say “delusional.” You said “misperception.” Both mean perceiving things that aren’t there.[/quote]
I never said delusional because that would be incorrect. Misperception is part of the normal perception process. A delusion, by contrast, is a fixed belief which is incorrect – it is a fixed state of mind NOT a perception. As Wikipedia puts it “As a pathology, it [a delusion] is distinct from a belief based on false or incomplete information, “incorrect” dogma, stupidity, apperception, illusion, or other effects of perception.” (see top of article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delusion). We ALL misperceive all the time but we only notice it very occasionally (and some people never at all) By contrast, only certain people have delusions and they don’t require ANY kind of perception to have them. Delusions are often taken as an indicator of mental disorders whereas misperception is part of ordinary perception, common to everyone.
It is very important to make this distinction because having a misperception does NOT make anyone delusional. Telling someone they are delusional is likely to be upsetting and if all they have had is a misperception then it is entirely incorrect too!
[quote]I don’t differentiate between paranormal experiences and spiritual experiences. I consider them one and the same, just different nomenclature. [/quote]
So what evidence do have for this? On the face of it you’ve simply redefined paranormal as spiritual.
[quote]”There are several kinds of ghosts and apparitions:
* the scary kind that haunt old houses (and almost anywhere else, actually), [/quote]
Given that apparitions only appear in a minority of haunting cases, how do you know hauntings are actually caused by ghosts? Could they not be just one symptom of the haunting phenomenon?
And how do you interpret the fact that apparitions usually always appear in exactly the same place and show no sign to acknowledge the presence of the witness?
[quote]* the apparitions which numerous explorers and adventurers have reported accompanying them during their exploits, [/quote]
What distinguishes these from other apparitions apart from where and when they appear?
[quote]* the ghostly images of persons who suddenly become visible to others, apparently at the moment of their death,[/quote]
What every one else calls a crisis apparition?
[quote]* the apparition of spiritual beings, often those of “deceased” relatives, which frequently appear at the bedside of the dying, [/quote]
Do you have any examples of these? You describe them as frequent and yet I’ve never come across a single case.
[quote]* the apparition of high spiritual beings, such as the appearances of Christ, the Virgin Mary, angels and saints, [/quote]
In such cases there is often no objective identification of the apparitions involved. It is simply the witness who is convinced of who they are. So, if I, for instance, saw one of these apparitions, how could I tell it was different to any other ghost?
[quote]* the apparition viewed when an individual “bilocates,” a spiritual trait, exhibited by a number of saints and holy men and women, and[/quote]
How does this differ from a doppelganger?
[quote]* the image of the spiritual body, as perceived during out-of-body experiences” (c) Awakening The Soul[/quote]
Why should such a figure be considered a ghost or apparition? What evidence is there that they have any existence outside the OOBE?
[quote]I consider all of these types of apparitions as events stemming from our spiritual nature.[/quote]
To me, these are all paranormal experiences. What evidence is there that they are spiritual in nature?
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
I would really hesitate to use apparitions as the body of evidence for existence of the paranormal. As MS states, they’re relatively rare and the majority of accounts are sketchy (or clearly false) to the point where misperception or delusion becomes the most likely explanation.
Further, I would argue that many of the type of apparitional cases you claim would involve the witness being in a heightened or altered mindset – grief, fear, religion etc. Are these not some of the most likely circumstances under which the human mind may err and "think" it has seen something? How can we rule this out and put our trust in a spiritual hypothesis?
Of course, well recorded, detailed and/or multiple witness apparitions are much more difficult to explain and are what maintains my interest in the subject. However, as a proportion of allegedly paranormal reports these are like the proverbial rocking horse manure.
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
MS:
This is what I mean about this taking up too much of my time, while trying to convince a very skeptical individual, rather than inform a learner.
I don’t mind taking the time to inform someone who is learning, but trying to convince you of anything is a waste of my time.
Matt, apparitions are not as rare as you think, and both you and MS show a lack of being informed if you think so.
Here’s another excerpt from “Awakening The Soul” which proves my point:
A joint 15-year study conducted simultaneously in India and the United States revealed that 591 of 877 dying patients claimed to see the apparitions of spiritual beings coming to accompany them at the time of their death. About half these apparitions vanished in less than five minutes, but about 15 percent lasted up to an hour. Furthermore, 75 percent of all patients died within 10 minutes of seeing the visions.25 The study also showed that fully 72 percent of those who saw these visiting apparitions no longer feared their death.26 A 1956 study by American sociologist Hornell Hart concluded there is no basic difference between apparitions of the living or the dead. But studies also showed that 82 percent of the apparitions had a purpose, as in “announcing” a death.27
Dr. Therese A. Rando, author of Parental Loss of a Child, says that about 75 percent of parents who lose a child have after-death visions of the child.28 A study detailed in Prof. Erlendur Haraldsson’s 1989 book, Encounters with the Dead, analyzed the cases of 450 ghosts and apparitions reported in Iceland. The study revealed that 80 percent of the viewers knew the person whose apparition appeared, and also said they had no sense the individual appearing to them was dying. More than fifty percent of the sightings occurred in fully lighted conditions and only 10 percent in full darkness, countering the concept that ghosts are generally seen in dimly-lighted conditions.29
A number of adventurers and explorers have reported seeing spiritual beings who accompanied them on their exploits. American adventurer Joshua Slocum, the first man to sail around the world alone in 1898; aviation pioneer Charles Lindbergh, who flew the Atlantic Ocean solo in 1927; explorer Ernest Shackleton, who trekked to the South Pole in 1916; and British mountaineer Doug Scott, who climbed Mount Everest in 1975, all reported having encounters with ghostly spiritual beings who guided and aided them during their ordeals.30
Ghosts and apparitions appear very similar to an artificial holographic image. A ghost may be a holographic image of the individual generated by the immense cosmic energy of the Soul, projecting its image to the receiver at a special moment in space and time. A hologram is created by the intersection of two laser beams projecting an image into the same space. A ghost image may be our personal hologram projected by the light and energy of our Soul. The image is projected to intersect in the desired reality it seeks, such as in the presence of a loved one or a friend at a special moment.
Almost everyone knows someone who has encountered a ghost, and a surprising number of people claim to have done so. Ghosts and apparitions are among the most common of mystical experiences. A poll in 1986 by the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Council revealed 42 percent of the adult American population – some 50 million persons – reported contact with a ghost or apparition. Among widows, this figure soared to 67 percent, mostly contact with former spouses. Of the 42 percent who said they had contact with a ghost, 50 percent said they heard noises or voices, 21 percent said they were touched by an apparition, 32 percent said they felt the presence of a ghost, and 18 percent said they had communicated with the ghost.
Even greater numbers believe in spiritual life after physical death – 71 percent of Americans according to a 1980 Gallup Poll – and a full 30 percent of those who said they didn’t hold such beliefs claimed contact with someone who had died.31 A similar Australian study in 1989 revealed that 36 percent of the respondents said they had felt the presence of a spiritual being.32 (c) “Awakening The Soul”
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
My point, precisely. Trying to explain anything to you is a waste of my time.
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
[quote=soulman]Matt, apparitions are not as rare as you think, and both you and MS show a lack of being informed if you think so.[/quote]
I base my data on apparitions from experience of investigating cases as well as that of other paranormal investigators who have reported a marked drop in apparition sightings in the last 10 years.
I do not regard a dying person seeing apparitions as a ‘case’ and have never been asked to ‘investigate’ such an event. It is unlikely that anyone would report such a thing as a case as they would appreciate that people who are dying are clearly in the process of losing their brain function and subject to hallucinations. I would not regard these kind of apparitions as any kind of external entity.
I must admit, I thought you meant the death-bed apparitions were being seen by people OTHER than just by the person dying. That would indeed have been very interesting and unusual.
[quote]Dr. Therese A. Rando, author of Parental Loss of a Child, says that about 75 percent of parents who lose a child have after-death visions of the child.[/quote]
Again, people having hallucinations of recently dead relatives is also well-known and normal (ask any doctor) while not providing evidence of apparitions as separate entities. The death of a relative is extremely stressful and likely to produce hallucinations in some people.
[quote]A number of adventurers and explorers have reported seeing spiritual beings who accompanied them on their exploits. American adventurer Joshua Slocum, the first man to sail around the world alone in 1898; aviation pioneer Charles Lindbergh, who flew the Atlantic Ocean solo in 1927; explorer Ernest Shackleton, who trekked to the South Pole in 1916; and British mountaineer Doug Scott, who climbed Mount Everest in 1975, all reported having encounters with ghostly spiritual beings who guided and aided them during their ordeals.[/quote]
Again, also well-known and again involving a highly stressful situation likely to lead to hallucination. I see no reason to count any of these three categories as in any way equivalent to seeing a ghost of an unknown person in a haunted house, for instance.
[quote]Ghosts and apparitions appear very similar to an artificial holographic image. A ghost may be a holographic image of the individual generated by the immense cosmic energy of the Soul, projecting its image to the receiver at a special moment in space and time. A hologram is created by the intersection of two laser beams projecting an image into the same space. A ghost image may be our personal hologram projected by the light and energy of our Soul. The image is projected to intersect in the desired reality it seeks, such as in the presence of a loved one or a friend at a special moment. [/quote]
And what evidence do you have for this hologram idea, please? Incidentally, a laser is not required to produce a hologram. The important point is that the image should contain phase, as well as amplitude, information which is normally lost in everyday incoherent light.
[quote]Almost everyone knows someone who has encountered a ghost, and a surprising number of people claim to have done so. Ghosts and apparitions are among the most common of mystical experiences. A poll in 1986 by the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Council revealed 42 percent of the adult American population – some 50 million persons – reported contact with a ghost or apparition. Among widows, this figure soared to 67 percent, mostly contact with former spouses. Of the 42 percent who said they had contact with a ghost, 50 percent said they heard noises or voices, 21 percent said they were touched by an apparition, 32 percent said they felt the presence of a ghost, and 18 percent said they had communicated with the ghost. [/quote]
This touches on the distinction I made earlier between SEEING an apparition and EXPERIENCING a haunting. In many hauntings there is no apparition seen and claiming that a ghost produced strange noises is pure assumption.
[quote]Even greater numbers believe in spiritual life after physical death – 71 percent of Americans according to a 1980 Gallup Poll – and a full 30 percent of those who said they didn’t hold such beliefs claimed contact with someone who had died.31 A similar Australian study in 1989 revealed that 36 percent of the respondents said they had felt the presence of a spiritual being.32 (c) “Awakening The Soul”[/quote]
This touches on the reason why, when people misperceive, they are more likely to see a ghost than an elephant or a telephonoe box. The widespread belief in ghosts biases their brain to interpret unknown objects as paranormal.
If you will answer no other question, at least tell me this: what evidence do you have that persuades you that paranormal phenomena are spiritual in nature? It is your central claim, so I assume there must be evidence.
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
[quote=soulman]My point, precisely. Trying to explain anything to you is a waste of my time.[/quote]
Maybe so, but the general reader is getting the benefit of decades of serious paranormal research and no doubt finding out stuff they never knew. It would take a lot of serious reading to accumulate all this knowledge otherwise. That is the point of forums, is it not?
Can you at least answer the question about what evidence you have that paranormal phenomena are spiritual?
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
The evidence that I have that all paranormal/metaphysical events are in truth spiritual in nature is this realization, which came after 20 years of studying these events:
Each and every example of “paranormal” or “metaphysical” activity possesses a spiritual component, a spiritual connection, a spiritual essence — an aspect that can only be explained through understanding humanity’s basic spiritual nature.
This holds true from the most simple, say deja vu, to the most complex, such as remote viewing, an NDE or OBE. This is consistent for all 80+ examples I’ve listed in my books (and another 6-8 that I haven’t added yet.)
That commonality reveals the source of these mysterious events.
I’m an old investigative newspaper editor, who always required two solid forms of proof for any serious assertion in my newspaper. Here, I’ve provided 80+ forms of proof for my assertion — all paranormal/metaphysical events are in truth spiritual in nature.
Until this realization, humanity looked at the paranormal like the five blind men examining an elephant, each had a different, contradictory explanation about what an elephant looked like.
I know you are unlikely to accept this, but I didn’t expect you would. This is for those other interested folks.
And it won’t take “a lot of serious reading” to discover this, just one read of “Awakening The Soul.”
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
I’ve read your post several times and all that I can get from it is that you assert (your ‘realization’) that paranormal events are spiritual. I do not see any of the evidence I requested.
I, and many people I know, have spent decades personally investigating paranormal cases, and doing serious lab-style research, and have never come across even a hint that these are caused by a ‘spiritual nature’. Indeed, a great majority of paranormal reports, when investigated thoroughly, have been found to have natural causes. Have you personally investigated any cases yourself and, if so, how did you eliminate natural causes?
You say you have 80+ ‘forms of proof’. How about sharing even one with us here, please, given that they are the basis of your assertion? A bit of objective evidence is not too much to ask when you make an assertion so at odds with so many other people’s careful long term scientific research.
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
[quote=soulman]If discovering that every paranormal/metaphysical event you can name all have a common spiritual source/connection isn’t proof enough for you, it certainly is enough for me to state my hypothesis:
That all such events are actually spiritual in nature/origin.[/quote]
You are stating, yet again, that you’ve made this discovery but nowhere, in the entire thread, have you mentioned a single example of any specific objective EVIDENCE that persuaded you of it.
I have discovered many things about the causes of paranormal reports through decades of physically investigating a great number of them. I, and others, have discovered for instance that, in most cases, there are non-paranormal causes for such reports.
You say “every paranormal/metaphysical event you can name all have a common spiritual source/connection”. So why not discuss just ONE such paranormal event and say precisely how you discovered it had a “common spiritual source/connection”.
You must have a large body of evidence for this connection you claim, otherwise how could you draw the conclusions that you have? You can’t make a discovery without evidence! Could just supply a small example of this body of evidence, please, so that we can understand how you drew your conclusions?
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
The evidence is quite plainly staring you in the face — the common spiritual connection of all paranormal/metaphysical events — every one you can name — which should give you a big clue as to their source/cause.
If you can’t detect a spiritual element in every paranormal/metaphysical event, that’s not my problem.
It’s your lack of perception.
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
But what IS the connection? I don’t see how telepathy, for instance, shows any evidence of a spiritual nature. Even if telepathy is real, it could be a quantum mechanical effect linking two living brains. How do you know it’s not? What evidence do you have that it is not?
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
Telepathy perfectly illustrates spirituality — the instantaneous linkage of two minds through space, connected through their common spiritual nature, which makes the connecting linkage possible.
Spirituality posits that all minds are connected through the common field of human spiritual consciousness, which explains how many “paranormal” and “metaphysical” events function.
Quantum mechanics is turning out to be science’s way of explaining the spiritual world, although it didn’t begin with that intent. The discoveries of QM are bringing the world of science closer and closer to understanding spirituality.
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
So is there no actual new evidence specifically supporting your idea?
What you describe is just like stuff I’ve heard from spiritualists and new agers for decades now. What exactly have you discovered that hasn’t already been speculated about endlessly?
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
I don’t believe anyone has previously “speculated endlessly” about the fact that all paranormal events are actually spiritual in nature.
If you can show me one instance, I’d appreciate it.
Like I said earlier, MS, it’s too bad you are so skeptical. There is a whole new world out here to explore, and it’s a lot more positive than the negative attitude of science.
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
I was just curious as to what evidence you had for your specific claim but it doesn’t look as though I’ll be getting any. My fault for being curious …
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
How mis-perceptive of you!
If discovering that every paranormal/metaphysical event you can name all have a common spiritual source/connection isn’t proof enough for you, it certainly is enough for me to state my hypothesis:
That all such “paranormal” “metaphysical” “psychic” “psi” events are actually spiritual in nature/origin.
As my good friend Arthur used to say:
“All truth passes through three stages.
“First, it is ridiculed.
“Second, it is violently opposed.
“Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”
Arthur Schopenhauer
German philosopher
(1788 – 1860)
This must be the ridiculing stage.
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
A new review by a reader:
I just finished reading “Awakening The Soul: The Trilogy.”
Here’s my review:
It was Fantastic!!
Most everything in the book I was pretty much aware of and am in agreement with. I did learn quite a lot though, especially about channeling procedures.
The content of the book(s) alone is remarkable! I can see some of it like Book 2, as a standalone reference book on spirituality and psi.
Also the personal information you shared I enjoyed the most. It was from the heart (or should I say Spirit?)
I believe you are right when you say it was inspired.
Thank you very much for writing such a great book(s). I will treasure it as an addition to my library,
Thanks,
Jim B Cooper
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
MS:
Well, if people have “speculated endlessly” about my premise, you certainly should be able to provide one example. Are you “inventing” this assertion?
Let’s turn the tables here, and let me ask you a few questions:
1. Do you consider yourself religious?
2. Do you consider yourself spiritual?
3. Do you feel you are “in touch” with your spiritual side?
4. Do you attend religious services regularly? (weekly? monthly?)
5. Do you engage in any spiritual activities? (i.e. meditation, for example)
Can you answer “yes” to any of the questions? Your answer might provide some clues as to why you think the way you do.
It’s been a week since I posted the above questions, and I guess you’re just going to twist in the wind on this unless you answer.
I could add these questions:
6. Do you consider yourself agnostic?
7. Do you consider yourself atheistic?
I was a committed agnostic until I discovered that so many mysterious subjects — all metaphysical/paranormal, psychic or psi traits, abilties and events — were all in fact evidence of our spiritual nature, staring me in the face. I was also a professional, paid skeptic, a daily newspaper editor. When you discover the truth, that all these events have a prominent spiritual element, and apply Occam’s Razor, the answer is obvious.
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
… I see MS and Mauro around, so I’ll jump in on this….
Let’s start at the top:
Please explain were I am to find proof in the existance of the soul?
(Oh, and my answer to all seven questions is ‘No’, btw.)
Summum Nec Metuam Diem Nec Optima
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
You can find proof of the soul on P.338 of the Voynich Manuscript.
Interesting that you are neither religious, spiritual, agnostic or atheist. Do you believe in anything?
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
That would be an interesting read, since the manuscript currently only has 240 pages and only originally had 270.
As far as what I belive in? I belive in the Higgs boson.
Summum Nec Metuam Diem Nec Optima
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
Well, I hope you and the Higgs boson are real comfy, because when the shit hits the fan, you’re going to need something to hang on to.
(And PS: the shit is already hitting the fan.)
I could be a smart ass and tell you that the reference is from the missing section of the Voynich Manuscript recently found in a temple in Nepal, but I’ll refrain from this deception.
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
For a great deal of irony in that statment, you might want to translate the latin in my forum signature… 😉
Summum Nec Metuam Diem Nec Optima
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
Sorry, but I flunked Latin twice in high school, and that was about 130 years ago …
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
"I neither wish for nor fear the last day"
Summum Nec Metuam Diem Nec Optima
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
Well, do you believe as I do, that “the last day” will be our universal transformation into a higher state of being, a transformation of consciousness into a higher dimension?
Or do we just die and rot in the ground?
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
Meh. Reality has no end. Since every event splits off, every possible outcome of an event occurs simultaniously. Sure, a universe here or there might hit somethign like the Big RIp, were the existance of matter as we know it becomes impossible, but on the whole I figure that reality soldiers on indefinitly.
As far as humanity goes…. remember that EM fields are terminally disrupted by nuclear explosions. Human beings are stupid, panic-y animals that tend to choose whatever knee jerk response is most handy. More often then not, you’ll see them trample each other and all die together rather then help one another.
I’ve seen the true face of man, and it’s not as pretty as a lot of people think.
Summum Nec Metuam Diem Nec Optima
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
I agree reality has no end … just dimensional shifts… and we are getting ready for a gangbuster dimensional shift right now … we are in the early stages of it now … I don’t believe we are all headed for the cliff like a bunch of lemmings, though … those who believe in and understand the dimensional shift will go with it into a higher dimension of reality … and all the non-believers and uninformed will remain in this wonderful third dimensional hell-hole we have created for ourselves (Like Bush, Cheney, et al)
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
Ok, as soon as we start talking about the unbelivers, I’m outta here. I’ve heard a story of trancendence and unbelivers before.
Summum Nec Metuam Diem Nec Optima
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
The only thing you have to believe in is the premise of ascension, and your ability to do so …
Ahem, are you one of those …?
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
That’s what Heaven’s Gate said.
Summum Nec Metuam Diem Nec Optima
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
Soulman… instead of all the circuitous arguing on here, could you not have spent the time writing another of your charming fantasy novels?
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
The books featured here are distinctly NOT fantasy, but serious, hardcore, deeply referenced, fact-filled volumes.
However, I just finished my first novel, “Soul Surfer Johnny,” which will be available soon.
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
If you are comparing my beliefs to Heaven’s Gate or Jim Jones, you are discrediting me with no evidence other than your own bias.
I don’t advocate suicide, self-induced or forced, as a solution to anything, particularly spiritual ascension.
There is no dogma, no doctrine, no gurus, and no worship involved. Just a firm conviction in your own spiritual nature, and a complete understanding of your own spiritual destiny, which you alone guide.
Don’t force your sick bias on me or my beliefs.
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
Ironically, he decires me on one hand, and then does exactly the same thing on the other.
..and for all his talk, has not offered a single peice of proof to back up a word of this since he started. "Belive!" you cry, but even the most trustworthy must at some point provide proof.
So, if you are, in fact, right, let me play the part of Herod and ask that you proove it, rather then continue in this circular route.
Summum Nec Metuam Diem Nec Optima
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
I repeat: “The books featured here are distinctly NOT fantasy, but serious, hardcore, deeply referenced, fact-filled volumes.”
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
And yet, I fail to note a passage from them, or perhaps a quotation. Or an explaination of some proof you have? Most authors are not shy about explaining, in summery, what proof they have for the claims in thier books.
I do not buy a pig in a poke, sir. If you wish people to buy your book, explain what facts you have based this on?
Summum Nec Metuam Diem Nec Optima
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
Sir, I am a retired newspaper editor, a former professional skeptic, who does not take lightly anyone who tampers with the truth. I remained a skeptic until I experienced a paranormal event, and began investigating the paranormal.
My works were years in the making, and are probably more deeply researched, with more multiple citations for every fact, than most others available.
But NO other book, to my knowledge, states what mine do: massive convincing evidence that all paranormal abilities, traits, events, etc., are spiritual in nature; an extensively detailed history of why we are so confused about our spiritual nature, courtesy of religious suppression, and a channelled method on how to self-reconnect with our spiritual nature, without dogma, doctrine or gurus.
“Awakening The Soul: The Trilogy” contains more than 1,500 references, citing facts to illustrate this premise from all eight volumes of Philip Schaff’s “History of the Christian Church” to “The Decrees of the First Vatican Council” to Henry Charles Lea’s “History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages” to Andrew Dickson White’s “A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology” among many, many other reference works.
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
And yet, you will not offer up what a single bit of that evidence is. "BUY MY BOOK!" is not offering us any kind of proof of your claims, nor convincing us to buy your book.
By the way, Schaff’s work is suspect at best, particulrly on the early church, as some of his assertions contradict evidence which has come to light since his publication in 1858. Eusebius’ History of the Church might be a better source, though it has inaccuracies as well.
The Decrees of the First Vatican Council (1869-1870) basically outline that the Pope is Christ’s Vicar on Earth. How that has to do with Spirituality I’m not too clear.
If you’re going to site Lea, please also site Apparitions in Late Medieval and Renaissance Spain by William A. Christian, Jr. It’s a much more interesting look at spirituality duiring that period then Lea’s rather dry history of the Inquisition, and also NOT written in 19th century (granted, Lea was finally published in 1906, but he had actualy written the bulk of it years before.)
Summum Nec Metuam Diem Nec Optima
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
If you want to read sample pages from “Awakening The Soul: The Trilogy,” go to Amazon.com (the U.S. version) and you can “Look Inside” the book.
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
My my! Now we have something…. except now we have nothing because the section amazon quotes contains little or no proof of anything! (Other then, statistically, Church attendence is down, which anyone in religious circles could have told you.)
What is quoted is a few assertions that Western Christianity is bad, and that they’re behind it all. While I can say that I’m not a big fan of the Pope, I think that his predecessors assumed too much power and too much about thier right to it, I don’t think that they’re holding all of civilisation back, as there was, I might point out, a time before Christ, and if your suppositions are correct, everyone would have acended before that point.
I find one of the reviews very entertaining: you threatened a low review score poster for ‘baring false witness" against you? Pointout out poor scholorship is not baring false witness.
Summum Nec Metuam Diem Nec Optima
Re: All metaphysical / paranormal phenomena explained
He was a Bible-spouting fundamentalist Christian, who attempted to discredit my entire 728-page book on the basis on one typo (inserted by an editor) which was irrelevant in any event, so I was speaking to him in “language” he would understand. (He then changed his name on the post.)
If you want to see more pages in the “Look Inside” feature, click on “Surprise me” and then you can see sequential pages by hitting the tab on the right or left of the page.