Go to Religion in the Modern World
- Add a comment
- Go to Hoogly Googly little Goblins and Haunted Houses
Oh well, I'm going back to Zorg where all things are possible
and where demons can be fought. You make very good arguments, very unemotional very well thought and very scientific. I admire your brain and you enormously. But I'm still going back to Zorg. (I'll be back though so watch out!!!!!!!)
posted by
Kabu
on May 23, 2007 at 4:58 AM
| link to this | reply
kabu - I'm not suggesting that the paranormal can be reproduced in a
labratory, only visions of manifestations of entities associated with the paranormal.
Hypnosis and the power of suggestion do play a role in how the human mind can be manipulated but I am not referring to these things either. I am speaking specifically of physical stimula upon the human brain and body to produce the same effects in human subjects with consistency. And it is not a matter of believing in it or not, this is scientific experimentation where the results are conclusive. A good place to begin reading about this is: HERE . . . most ghost hunters will agree that in most of the cases of ghost sightings there are elevated levels of electro-magnetic energy. The skeptic argues that the elevated energy is the causal factor to the sightings while the believer in ghosts insists that the elevated energy is a direct result of the manifestation. The latter is being proven as false.
This by no means explains everything, even in the blog link I left in an earlier comment chronicling my experience, I did not come up with all of the answers. The point however is that the scientific research I describe debunks a great deal of what many people still to this day ascribe to the paranormal. As I mention in this post, it is a one way trajectory, commonly held beliefs are debunked continuously, it is never the other way around. All I can add is what I would say to anyone who has had a paranormal experience; if you did not believe in such things it is very unlikely that you would come away from the experience with the same explanation as you have today.
posted by
gomedome
on May 22, 2007 at 11:29 PM
| link to this | reply
gomedome
I don't think that the para normal can be reproduced successfully in a lab. First the experiment is contrived with a willing participant under clinical conditions. Secondly no matter what you may say the power of suggestion must apply.
I will just add for myself....I've had it proven that I'm not a candidate for hypnosis nor am I an hysteric. Interesting discussing this after all these years though and you're scientific aproach is a challenge..
posted by
Kabu
on May 22, 2007 at 8:11 PM
| link to this | reply
Kabu - I would not try to convince someone who has had these types of
experiences that what they experienced was not real to them.
From my own experience, there is no disputing that if someone has experienced something like the two examples you give, they have in fact experienced something real. I can only add some realities that are irrefutable. The feeling of a sensed presence can be artificially induced in a laboratory. This has been done as part of ongoing research in one of my country's universities for some time now. All subjects, without exception derive the sensed presence, which quite often manifests itself into a visible image (visible to the subject only) from their own set of definitions and parameters. They have yet to have a Muslim subject have a vision of the Virgin Mary as an example.
This strikingly consistent result to the same stimula draws two conclusions. All humans are constructed physically in much the same manner as there is not any differences noted in the results from subjects of different races, cultural backgrounds etc. etc. The second most telling conclusion is that all persons must have a prior knowledge of the manifesting entity. Again I am not going to argue about what you have experienced, I have no doubt that the experiences were frighteningly real but ask yourself what of the previous set of parameters are pertinent to your experiences. The first question becomes; who else saw the demon manifestation? If the answer is only you, this type of experience begins to follow a classic case scenario. Where you are completely and utterly convinced that everything happened as you describe it, an objective observer may not agree entirely. There is nothing unusual about this either, typically people attempt to fill in all of the blanks after such a horrifying experience, from their own beliefs and understanding of what transpired.
posted by
gomedome
on May 22, 2007 at 7:02 AM
| link to this | reply
No I disagree
I didn't know what was happening until it happened and then when that devil finally left me I saw it suspended in the doorway. The most evil disgusting filthy "thing'
Then another time I was taken all innocent to a house where a man was sure he'd been cursed by his dying mother. No one told me but I've never been so embarrassed because I just kept falling off my chair. Something kept giving me a shove and off I'd go. after we left and I apologized for what must have looked like drunken behaviour I was told about the curse. I'd been taken there to see if I felt anything strange.
After that I left the church. I felt I'd been used and treated like the resident freak.
posted by
Kabu
on May 22, 2007 at 5:07 AM
| link to this | reply
Kabu - sorry but there has to be another explanation for what you
experienced but I have no doubt that the experience itself was very real.
I base this on a similar experience that I had. I blogged about it: HERE . . .
posted by
gomedome
on May 21, 2007 at 11:15 PM
| link to this | reply
gomedone from a furry little bloggit rising into heaven
love it love it love it...... but Pooh to your total disbelief.
I once had a demon sit on my shoulders and two grown men couldn't lift me off the floor.
I've suffered with neck pain ever since and My chiropractor says the vertebrae have been squashed. And I haven't had whip lash. Hard not to believe in something after that.
posted by
Kabu
on May 21, 2007 at 8:58 PM
| link to this | reply
Tonyzonit - I think that most reasonable people would agree on the
existence of numerous inexplicable phenomena.
The difficult part in debunking many of these inexplicable experiences is that many people do not, for whatever reasons, want to hear the truth. From the subject who has had the experience and does not want to concede to having their senses completely deceived, to more insidious reasons such as money. Prophecy is a good example, in most cases it is simply the manipulation of the human brain, specifically in conditioning the subject to see nothing but desired outcomes. Failed versus successful predictions are never routinely publicized as a plus/minus rating. We only hear about the plus side, this is true from the carnival fortune teller to biblical prophecy.
posted by
gomedome
on May 21, 2007 at 3:05 PM
| link to this | reply
I agree that strange phenomena do in fact exist, and this includes a
natural ability to experience people's thoughts from afar, and an ability to predict the future. I find these phenomena exciting and fascinating; I certainly do not dismiss them because there is too much evidence for them. But there is indeed a scientific explanation for them. I look forward to the day when we uncover some of the secrets of how these processes work.
posted by
Antonionioni
on May 21, 2007 at 2:36 PM
| link to this | reply
good post
posted by
riri0322
on May 21, 2007 at 12:43 PM
| link to this | reply