All metaphysical/paranormal phenomena explained

[Thunderbird]

T-bird that was 40 years ago, I read everything I could get my hands on about every paranormal topic I could find, telepathy, distant viewing, precognition, telekinesis, if it was paranormal I was there. It took me a long time to realize this stuff had absolutely no basis in reality, none, it was all hog wash, stuff that people claimed was true because the "felt" it had to be or they "believed" it had to be. No real evidence what so ever any more than there is evidence of God, purple unicorns, Thor, or the flying spaghetti monster. It was belief, nothing more.

 

 

I really don't believe we where reading the same books. I never was one to believe in things like UFO’s, Bigfoot, The Lock ness monster or fundamentalist religion myths, except in the realm of metaphor. I am more interested in studying ideas about why our minds work the way they do, and examining assumptions about what we believe to be true. Also I have had personal experience’s that I wanted explained and did find the answers that I sought in these books.

 

I have found many answers in these types of books.

 

 

Castaneda’s- 9 books

Joseph Campbell- 3 books

Talbot's "The Holographic Universe”

Fritjof Capra -4 books

Deepak Chopra- aprox 6 books

 

 

 

What each must seek in his life never was on land or sea. It is something out of his own unique potentiality for experience, something that never has been and never could have been experienced by anyone else. Joseph Campbell

[Moontanman]

T-Bird, Soulman said he could explain all paranormal phenomena, telepathy, precognition, distant viewing, telekinesis, these are all the main phenomena of the paranormal. He made the claim, all I want is evidence.

[Thunderbird]

T-Bird, Soulman said he could explain all paranormal phenomena, telepathy, precognition, distant viewing, telekinesis, these are all the main phenomena of the paranormal. He made the claim, all I want is evidence.

 

I don't think it will hold up under scrutiny from the scientific community. I would agree with you on this point, but as Campbell stated in the quote above the personal experience is just that .

"A tooth ache is just as real as a tooth"

 

Soulman A word of advice here, Do not try to put to much emphases on scientific data it’s not going to get you very far here. Instead if you could share a personal story of a “ non ordinary experience” you have had. I think you have something to share and it would be a shame if you got stuck with proofs before anyone gets a chance to hear specifically what you are talking about.

[Moontanman]

I'll agree with you there T-Bird, I've had some unusual experiences in my life that are inexplicable but claiming them as proof would be disingenuous to say the least. I'll read what he has experienced but to say a personal experience is proof of something is less than realistic. I've had dreams come true, OBEs, dowsing, telepathy, remote viewing, many, maybe most people have had such experiences. The do not prove anything but the fact that odd things do happen. We tend to remember things of consequence and forget those that do not agree with our world view.

[Galapagos]

Galapagos:

As noted earlier, I'm not a metaphysical performer,

If by "performer" you mean, a person with magical powers, then, yes, you are not one, and neither is anyone else.

 

If anyone thinks they are a psychic/sorceror/"performer", or that any "performer" does exist, I would argue they are ethically obliged to demonstrate these abilities and collect the money from JREF, if anything, for these reasons outlined in my post:

The whole "I'm not in it for money" thing doesn't fly here; any reasonable person would collect this money and donate it to charity if they didn't care, or at least use it to print a bunch of copies of their magic-book and pass it out to people.

 

Also, the word "performer" is kind of ironic here, as the people who claim such psychic/magic/paranormal abilities are in fact clever illusionists, entertainers, or performers of magic tricks. The difference between them and people like say, James Randi, Penn and Teller, or Criss Angel, is that the last three guys admit they are just creating illusions.

 

although I have experienced a number of metaphysical abilities and traits.

What does this mean? Please define these terms more clearly.

 

Also, you could have just responded with a simple "That is correct", to this part of my post:

 

I'm guessing that the most that can be done with Soulman's special knowledge is to create vague threads on internet forums and new age books about it.

 

 

 

I'm very familiar with The Amazing Randi and his challenge, which I will leave to the performers. (Although personally, I think Randi's anti-spiritual convictions would drive him to discount any metaphyscial or paranormal abilities.)

James Randi isn't "anti-spiritual", he is anti-BS; he is a skeptic. If someone can scientifically demonstrate their claims(these tests are agreed upon, and objective), they get the money. You attack his character because you know his test is a clincher: if the powers exist, someone should have won.

Out of all the people tested, all have failed. Most do not admit they were mistaken in the end either.

See here for the challenge FAQ:

Million Dollar Challenge FAQ

See here for more info on the judging:

1$ Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge - Judging the results

 

If you want to attack Randi's character then you should provide a clear example of where he goes wrong and explain how.

 

 

I'm here because I believe there is a higher message in my books for those with open minds. I don't cater to the gullible or the naive, but to those spiritual seekers who want answers to the many unanswered questions humanity faces. If I can help in that regard, it's worth the effort it takes.

What is the higher message? Could you post it clearly here, or would that ruin your booming book sales?

And what are these unanswered questions, and what on earth qualifies you to answer them?

[CraigD]

The ATS excerpt © Awakening The Soul: The Trilogy:

…

Since 1940, the studies of out-of-body and near-death experiences, reincarnation, and a host of other fields, prove the validity of personal spiritual experience. Despite the fact that spiritual experiences such as telepathy, out-of-body remote viewing, precognitive insight and intuitive visions are spontaneous more often than not, lab testing has repeatedly verified their reality.

Such verification is precisely what science requires to validate claims of these phenomena.

 

In particular, hypography’s little domain of science enthusiasm requires backing up claims like this with links (preferred) or references to paper-only publications (less preferred, as these are much harder for our readers to access). So, soulman, please back up the claims quoted above.

 

I’m personally interested in tests of out-of-body viewing, in greatest part because such experiments are among the easiest to design, and the easiest for people to understand, and in lesser part because I’ve personally had the subjective experience many times, and been able to test it, and also had the opportunity to test it (albeit unethically and unpublishably) on lots of clinically dead folk in a hospital emergency room.

 

The design of OBV experiments is simple: place something easy to remember but hard to guess where the subject can’t see it, have the subject use OBV to report it to a recorder, then compare the actual something to the recorded reports, with all participants being blind – that is, the person making and placing the object must not communicate with either the subject or the recorder, and the recorder must not peek at the object. In all of my tests, 4 digit numbers written on paper cards were used, in the case of me as a subject, placed above eye level on the top of a tiled partial wall in a bathroom, in the ER tests, placed above head level on the top shelves of equipment carts.

 

People familiar with paranormal literature may recognize these experiments as similar to ones done by Charles Tart in 1966. Tart’s experiments are discussed in and around “Legitimizing claims such as Charles Tart's”.

 

In both of my experiments, the results were negative. Although I was often able to “see” and report the number on the card with certainty, I was always wrong. Prompted by the recorder, the NDE ER patients either noticed no card, or reported the wrong number. I describe the ER experiment in more detail in “My humble (but troubled) experiment”.

 

It’s helpful for would-be experimenters to note that one can conduct such experiments with inadequate controls. If you get reproducible positive results, you can then go to the necessary lengths to provide adequate controls. Organizations like the oft-maligned-by-paranormalists-and-lauded-by-skeptics JREF will provide assistance in this.

[soulman]

Ladies and Gentlemen:

 

I am not a scientist attempting to introduce a new scientific theorem here, I'm an investigative journalist reporting the widespread evidence for the reality of metaphysical phenomena.

 

As I stated in my ATS books:

 

"Since I am neither theologian, scientist, philosopher, historian, nor psychologist, I sought the findings and opinions of learned men and women in these various fields to authenticate the premise of this book. I quote them extensively throughout, letting their words make the case that is presented." ©

 

You'll have to check in with my sources to get the proof you demand. You are intent on refuting their findings, which I simply collected and presented. If so many expert men and women (many of them scientists themselves) throughout the world are convinced of this reality, you are challenging them, not me.

 

Here's another ATS excerpt, to demonstrate this point:

 

"Nobel laureate Dr. Charles Richet, honored for his discovery of allergic shock, felt the wrath of criticism when he began studying clairvoyance: “I didn’t say it was possible,” he retorted. “I only said it was true.”221 The same thing happened to physicist Robert Jahn, dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Princeton University, and a noted authority on aerospace through years of work with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Department of Defense. His work with psychologist Brenda Dunne produced significant results in the field of OBE remote viewing. “Did his colleagues applaud his pioneering spirit?” asks author Richard Broughton in his 1991 book, Parapsychology: The Controversial Science. “Not exactly. They as much as said he was crazy and a disgrace to science and the university.” Jahn was ousted from his dean’s post for his “unconventional” research. Subsequent analysis of Jahn and Dunne’s work revealed the likelihood their results were due to chance was 1 in 100 billion." ©

 

More food for thought ..

 

Soulman

[Moontanman]

Soulman did you include any of the overwhelmingly negative insights by scientists that have checked this stuff out as well. for every positive scientist there are hundreds of negative ones. If you didn't include the negative then this is not food for thought it's junk food for thought.

[soulman]

Moontan:

 

I fully reported that mainstream science has rejected all aspects of reported metaphysical/paranormal phenomena, often without fully examining the data, and explained why this occurred:

 

"Church suspicion and hostility toward science began soon after the founding of the Church. From the 4th Century BC to the founding days of modern science in the 16th Century AD – a span of 2,000 years – there was only one primary version of science, the Greek science of Aristotle and Plato. In fact, it was Aristotle who first coined the word, “science.” Greek science included three broad segments: the study of physics  the study of things that change; the study of mathematics  the study of abstract quantity, and the study of metaphysics  defined as the study of “being.”45

 

"This last category became – de facto – the Church’s domain, for everything considered metaphysical was, in fact, being expressed through our consciousness or seemed “miraculous” in some way. This territory the Church claimed as its own, and thus science and scientists avoided all things metaphysical for fear of inviting Church scrutiny. That set the stage for today’s skeptical avoidance of all things metaphysical by a broad body of mainstream science, which ridicules all such claims as bogus or delusional. The Church co-opted one of the three primary branches of scientific study, and science has never reclaimed it." © Awakening The Soul: The Trilogy

 

Mainstream science has never fully investigated metaphysics, just ignored it or debunked it

 

Bill (Soulman)

[Moontanman]

So you automatically assume that any research that disagrees with your world view is wrong and or stacked against you? Thanks you have proved my point completely.

[soulman]

No I don't, for I know there are flawed tests out there that deserve debunking. However, there are far more that are unfairly debunked. If the shoe fits, wear it.

[CraigD]

No I don't, for I know there are flawed tests [of claims of the paranormal] out there that deserve debunking. However, there are far more that are unfairly debunked. If the shoe fits, wear it.

This post of yours, soulman, illustrates your failure to follow the first and arguably most important of hypography’s ground rules: In general, back up your claims by using links or references.

 

In saying that you know of test that are flawed and others that are unfairly debunked, you are asserting the existence of these tests. You should provide links, or in the inconvenient event that you are unable to find a URL link, a text citation of a paper, television show, etc, containing at least its title, authors’ names, and date. This allows readers to study and discuss the information, and is IMHO the essence of why science is objective: it involves objects – observable phenomena and recorded observations of them – rather than subjective qualities such as individuals’ enthusiasm for and belief in perceptions of phenomena. The presence or absence of independently verifiable objective data is IMHO what distinguishes scientific discussion from faith-based indoctrination, the former of which is the main purpose of hypography, the latter prohibited here.

[soulman]

Ladies and Gentlemen:

 

I just don't think I can have a civil discussion here under your rules, since as I explained, I'm presenting evidence on the continuing widespread occurrence of metaphysical phenomena -- which I identify as all having a spiritual connection -- and science's reaction to it, as presented in the daily news, 100 years of books, 4,000 years of history, and a wide array of holy documents.

 

I contend this is all evidence of some higher source, a contention which science ignores and/or debunks.

 

We disagree, and your rules make this discussion intolerably difficult for me, since I'm reporting popular and mainstream sources, not the original lab results and analysis you want.

 

Here's one last shot, and I'll end my association with this forum. © Awakening The Soul: The Trilogy:

 

"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"

 

You folks do need someone to joust with you and keep you aware of alternative realities, but I don't have the time.

 

Adios, Soulman

[Moontanman]

Good bye

[CraigD]

We disagree, and your rules make this discussion intolerably difficult for me, since I'm reporting popular and mainstream sources, not the original lab results and analysis you want.

Although many of our readers enjoy sources as close to primary as possible, our rules don’t require “original lab results or analysis”, only that claims be backed up by links or references of some kind. If readers find the linked or referenced sources incredible, we’ll explain why in our posts.

 

If, as he states, soulman finds this intolerably difficult, his decision not to post at hypography is IMHO correct. If he finds in the future that supporting his claims is not intolerably difficult, he may begin posting in such a manner. Making unsupported claims, paranormal or otherwise, simply can’t be tolerated at a science site, on by any community that respects the idea of objectively verifiable reality.

[Pyrotex]

Goodbye soulman. Sayonara.

So long. Toodles. Happy trails.

Don't let the door hit you in the butt.

If you need a place to stay, try the

H. P. Lovecraft Hotel.