Consciousness and the Paranormal

[Burnt State]

Just wanted to say that this is one of the best threads I've ever read here on this forum. It's probably because almost all of my favourite posters are here posting together and getting into it. Trained is revealing personal details, Ufology is being a stickler as always in his devil's advocate pose, Tyger is waxing on wth some wonderfully inventive prose ad imaginative ideas, Constance is quoting good poetry along with a determined insight as smcder continues to dazzle with disparate connectors filled with good thick thoughts. This thread is a treasure trove that I have not yet fully unpacked.

I did want to respond, as another recovered/recovering Catholic, to the discussion on the value of altered states and feelins of spirituality.. My favourite, most life altering experiences, were all about altered states. They contained sacred 'spiritual' connections, allowed me to reprocess an impending marriage and young adult life plans, work through the traumatic death of my father and feel the binary spooky action at a distance bliss of great sex and then later, childbirth. Some of these altered states were about the aids of chemistry and I am thankful for those large life shifters. On a side note, experiencing the defeat of ego and living in a blissful nihilism for a few hours every now and then helped to rinse out my brain way back when - it needed this rinse and flush. So I do see benefits.

If it would pay the bills and was healthy I would persist in altered states while inhabiting the creative state of consciousness and just write for most of the day. That would be a superb way to wander through reality. However, as that's mostly impossible I prefer the non-religious practice of mindfulness which allows for the employment of many universal values found in Catholicism, encourages you to feel nice, has been proved to alter our brain chemistry for the better and I'd very safe and heathy. Those who practice mindfulness are some of the best people I've ever had the pleasure to interact wth. I think that while rationalism has helped some achievements it took creativity, ad ther altered modes of perception to vision and then create new devices ad new technologies, as if they were magic.

 

[Tyger]

Trained observer wrote: "None of it is a problem for me in any personal way anymore despite how I might come across in a forum. Other than like an ex-smoker, I sometimes want to get on my soapbox when discussing the subject."

That impulse to change other peoples' minds suggests to me that the Church indoctrination and the failed expectations you had from it are still a problem for you at some level. I know several guerilla atheists who cannot stop attacking religion, spirituality, the paranormal, and the very idea of God. I suspect many similar individuals regularly read Randi's and other radical skeptics' forums to obtain inoculations against slipping away from the 'new faith' (reductive materialism) with which they've tried to replace an old one. I hope that doesn't sound harsh, but I can find no other way to account for the immense amount of emotion (anger, contempt, and at times even rage) that some people invest in preaching their materialist gospel.

Well put.

Lots on the thread - no time to post until the weekend. Looking forward to investigating some of the links. Many thanks.

Hi, Burnt State!

 

[smcder]

Just wanted to say that this is one of the best threads I've ever read here on this forum. It's probably because almost all of my favourite posters are here posting together and getting into it. Trained is revealing personal details, Ufology is being a stickler as always in his devil's advocate pose, Tyger is waxing on wth some wonderfully inventive prose ad imaginative ideas, Constance is quoting good poetry along with a determined insight as smcder continues to dazzle with disparate connectors filled with good thick thoughts. This thread is a treasure trove that I have not yet fully unpacked.

I did want to respond, as another recovered/recovering Catholic, to the discussion on the value of altered states and feelins of spirituality.. My favourite, most life altering experiences, were all about altered states. They contained sacred 'spiritual' connections, allowed me to reprocess an impending marriage and young adult life plans, work through the traumatic death of my father and feel the binary spooky action at a distance bliss of great sex and then later, childbirth. Some of these altered states were about the aids of chemistry and I am thankful for those large life shifters. On a side note, experiencing the defeat of ego and living in a blissful nihilism for a few hours every now and then helped to rinse out my brain way back when - it needed this rinse and flush. So I do see benefits.

If it would pay the bills and was healthy I would persist in altered states while inhabiting the creative state of consciousness and just write for most of the day. That would be a superb way to wander through reality. However, as that's mostly impossible I prefer the non-religious practice of mindfulness which allows for the employment of many universal values found in Catholicism, encourages you to feel nice, has been proved to alter our brain chemistry for the better and I'd very safe and heathy. Those who practice mindfulness are some of the best people I've ever had the pleasure to interact wth. I think that while rationalism has helped some achievements it took creativity, ad ther altered modes of perception to vision and then create new devices ad new technologies, as if they were magic.

A wonderful and generous post Burnt State - thank you.

Speaking of "disparate connectors", I recently came across this discussion of meditation and contemplation from a different perspective:

AODA.org - A Druid Meditation Primer

In Druid meditation, by contrast, the more common path is to train and reorient the mind instead of shutting it down. Druidry, like other mystical traditions, has long recognized that reason divorced from reality and from other (and equally valid) forms of human experience is a form of madness. Ever since the time of Pythagoras, though, Western mystics and sages have also recognized that the mind need not be the enemy of the spirit, if it's brought into harmony with itself, with the larger human self of which it forms a part, and with the cosmos as a whole. The rational can be a vehicle for the spiritual: this is the premise (and the promise) of most Western mystical paths, and this approach was adopted into Druidry from the earliest days of the Druid Revival.
. . .
In this form of meditation, which is called discursive meditation, the thinking process is not stopped but redirected and clarified; thoughts are not abolished but made into a vehicle for the deeper movement of consciousness. This is typically done by focusing the mind on a specific topic, and allowing it to follow out the implications of that topic through a chain of ideas, while at the same time keeping it focused on the topic without straying. By doing this, the meditator gradually transforms thinking from half-random mental chatter into a powerful and focused way of understanding; at the same time, the knowledge that comes out of meditation of this sort can have a good deal of value on its own terms.

. . .

In chapter 93 of Moby Dick "The Castaway", Pip falls overboard and has the following experience:

Power Moby-Dick, the Online Annotation — Chapter 93

But it so happened, that those boats, without seeing Pip, suddenly spying whales close to them on one side, turned, and gave chase; and Stubb's boat was now so far away, and he and all his crew so intent upon his fish, that Pip's ringed horizon began to expand around him miserably. By the merest chance the ship itself at last rescued him; but from that hour the little negro went about the deck an idiot; such, at least, they said he was. The sea had jeeringly kept his finite body up, but drowned the infinite of his soul. Not drowned entirely, though. Rather carried down alive to wondrous depths, where strange shapes of the unwarped primal world glided to and fro before his passive eyes; and the miser-merman, Wisdom, revealed his hoarded heaps; and among the joyous, heartless, ever-juvenile eternities, Pip saw the multitudinous, God-omnipresent, coral insects, that out of the firmament of waters heaved the colossal orbs. He saw God's foot upon the treadle of the loom, and spoke it; and therefore his shipmates called him mad. So man's insanity is heaven's sense; and wandering from all mortal reason, man comes at last to that celestial thought, which, to reason, is absurd and frantic; and weal or woe, feels then uncompromised, indifferent as his God.

 

[trainedobserver]

Consciousness and the paranormal ...

For example, I read Jane Robert's Seth Speaks in High School. It supposedly contains "revealed knowledge" from a spiritual being. At the time I really didn't know what to make of it. Today, I think she was essentially talking to herself. I don't have the impression she was a charlatan like J.Knight who allegedly channels the being Ramtha, although she could have been. I think she had convinced herself of something and suffered delusional thoughts and was enabled by those around her to essentially produce works of folk performance art.

Has anyone ever used their consciousness to contact the paranormal and come back with actionable information that doesn't sound like dime-store philosophy full of pretentious religious imagery? In other words, is there anything to suggest that revealed knowledge through paranormal means is anything more than the work of the human mind?

Is that a fair question for the thread?

 

[Constance]

Consciousness and the paranormal ...

For example, I read Jane Robert's Seth Speaks in High School. It supposedly contains "revealed knowledge" from a spiritual being. At the time I really didn't know what to make of it. Today, I think she was essentially talking to herself. I don't have the impression she was a charlatan like J.Knight who allegedly channels the being Ramtha, although she could have been. I think she had convinced herself of something and suffered delusional thoughts and was enabled by those around her to essentially produce works of folk performance art.

Maybe, maybe not. I haven't read the Seth books or any other channeled writing (with the exception of some automatic writing done by members of the Society for Psychical Research about one hundred years ago).

Has anyone ever used their consciousness to contact the paranormal and come back with actionable information that doesn't sound like dime-store philosophy full of pretentious religious imagery? In other words, is there anything to suggest that revealed knowledge through paranormal means is anything more than the work of the human mind?

Is that a fair question for the thread?

Certainly a fair question. The answer is yes. From the late 19th century well into the 20th, extraordinary mediums tested by leading scientists and scholars in many countries acquired veridical evidence of the postmortem survival of countless individuals and received actionable information in a number of cases.

The SPR archives are available online for a fee. I read hundreds of pages in the archive five years ago. The best scholarly book on this subject is by an American philosopher and paranormal researcher named Stephen Braude and linked first below. Next is a link to a short paper presented by Michael Cremo at the second Tucson Consciousness Studies Conference surveying some of the leading scientists who pursued paranormal and psychic phenomena at the SPR and parallel groups in other countries and their conclusions from the research.


Link to Cremo paper, "Famous Scientists and the Paranormal:
Implications for Consciousness Research
paranormal


Extract from an amazon review of the Braude book:

... In the best cases the evidence is so remarkable that, ultimately, one must adopt either survival or super-psi (coupled with other abilities) as the most likely interpretation. But how do we decide? This is where Braude's book really shines through. He fully explores both hypotheses in their strongest and most plausible forms.

Although most cases end in a stalemate between survival and super-psi, Braude hesitantly favours survival since super-psi would inevitably suffer from "crippling complexity" - i.e. super-psi requires multiple casual chains which would be vulnerable to a huge array of obstacles, unlike the survival hypothesis which requires only the integrity of a single causal connection between the psychic subject and a post-mortem individual.

Whatever difficulties people find with Braude's analytical style, books like his are essential to advance the study of this vital issue and give it the intellectual and philosophical depth it deserves. Essential reading.

 

[Nathaniel]

With regards to Seth - had I not begun meditating, thus beginning my own spiritual journey, I too would have been more than dubious about the validity of an ethereal being using a human body as a 'tool' to directly contact the physical realm.

However, since my journey started I have had and continue to this day to have first hand experience with a channeled being who speaks through a good friend of mine, Samantha, a kind, honest, intelligent lady who had never 'channeled' before and whom I know for an absolute fact had no interest or knowledge in anything that could be considered 'spiritual' or 'out of the box' before these experiences began.

What she told me whilst in trance consequently led me to investigate the material of various other channeled beings such as Seth, Ra, Abraham Hicks and Bashar and also books such as Destiny of Souls by Michael Newton and Messages From The Masters by Brian Weiss. I was amazed at the absolute consistency present not only in all of this material but also in the conversations I have had with Samantha.

I just think it's important to recognise this consistency about things that are so specific, whether it sounds like gobbledegook to you or not.

 

[Nathaniel]

 

[Burnt State]

Has anyone ever used their consciousness to contact the paranormal and come back with actionable information that doesn't sound like dime-store philosophy full of pretentious religious imagery? In other words, is there anything to suggest that revealed knowledge through paranormal means is anything more than the work of the human mind?

Is that a fair question for the thread?

I've yet to encounter any credible evidence that any 'real' paranormal contact with functional information has ever transpired. Earlier you asked what has been gained from the history of esoteric knowledge vs. the history of scientifc knowledge and what has humanity gained from each. We have always aimed for a rational society, denying the irrational unless it's in an art gallery. We've lost many creations and artists because of that stance. That knowledge is lost, and instead the skyscrapers rise up to meet the space junk floating up above, just out of reach.

While I favour the altered consciousness that occurs during states of creativity, there's not much that's tangible to be found for me on the edges of reality, or in an occult state of mind. Art has given us much, especially by way of understanding the myriad complexities of the human condition. It is a good and blissful thing, art.

But like in the essay that Constance posted I don't see much of merit contained there, nor in the history of the etheric knowledge bank. This essay looks like science but just reports second and third hand knowledge. Curie, like Conan Doyle, both frequented Eusapia whose history of hoaxing and fraud was well known across Europe. Doyle also believed the fairy photos were real, as did many other smart folk. Lots of credible, bright people take time to consort with, and try to sort out, the paranormal, present company included, and sometimes their desire for less order, more feeling, and a chance to discover secret, sacred knowledge wins out. It's a much more entertaining and entirely understandable way of being. However, no matter how often I clap I just can't seem to bring Tinkerbell back from the dead.

 

[Randall]

I just love how Russell seamlessly segue ways from concept to concept weaving the painfully obvious with gigantic leaps of logic and New Agey nonsense into his own brand ( pardon the pun ) of pop-culture philosophy.

 

[Tyger]

Consciousness and the paranormal ...

For example, I read Jane Robert's Seth Speaks in High School. It supposedly contains "revealed knowledge" from a spiritual being. At the time I really didn't know what to make of it. Today, I think she was essentially talking to herself. I don't have the impression she was a charlatan like J.Knight who allegedly channels the being Ramtha, although she could have been. I think she had convinced herself of something and suffered delusional thoughts and was enabled by those around her to essentially produce works of folk performance art.

Has anyone ever used their consciousness to contact the paranormal and come back with actionable information that doesn't sound like dime-store philosophy full of pretentious religious imagery? In other words, is there anything to suggest that revealed knowledge through paranormal means is anything more than the work of the human mind?

Is that a fair question for the thread?

For sure - and I'll give my response on the weekend (if family plans - that seem to be gathering steam - don't supervene).

Just to say, though, that my spiritual explorations - and especially my occult studies - have brought to me a world infused with magic - in that word's metaphorical and perhaps even literal sense. There is nothing without meaning - nothing without significance - nothing without it's place in the world. Humanity's past has come alive to me and my present is always a place of endless fascination. My enthusiasm for the human condition and my interest in all I find around me in the daily (often banal) round of my human existence has deepened, and more and more as I study, consider and contemplate, I am made more aware of the extraordinary nature of my life, and the life of the world and all my fellow travelers. Everything has become a puzzle to be found out - and there isn't enough time to get it all done.

"We can let the circumstances of our lives harden us so that we become increasingly resentful and afraid, or we can let them soften us, and make us kinder. You always have a choice." - Dalai Lama

Wisdom is everywhere - and as the study of Rome illustrates to my students - nothing is black-or-white. For every Numa Pompilius there was a Hostilius. For every admirable quality in Cato, there were any number of dubious, even despicable (by our current standards), aspects to his character. The adolescent rails against the inconsistencies of the world - and calls us on them - until they mature (through reflection) and recognize their own inconsistencies finally - and that they are human after all, and what that means.

I had someone quote to me one of their professors - and over the years I have come to see it's truth - that we are all condemned to enter our adolescence by the dictates of physiology - but it is only by an act of will that we emerge from our adolescence; most of us are ship-wreckt on the shoals of that time in our lives. How true - we still are jousting with those ghosts, one way or another - still in rebellion, still telling the world off, still searching for the ideal and being bitterly disappointed when instead it is revealed to be all-too-human.

Someone has mentioned Randi's one million dollar prize going untaken. What is interesting is that people think that anyone with that level of capacity would spend their time as a performing monkey for the sake of money. That in itself is a topic for discussion - and maybe I'll address it - but just to say, like the Roman Circus drove the Romans into an increasingly sociopathic (even psychotic) state - numbing them to an empathic response to human suffering - so, too, our current society's worship of money has blinded us to the underlying motivations for action in the world.

 

[trainedobserver]

Wisdom is everywhere ...

So is useless nonsense. Knowing the difference between the two is the key.

 

[Nathaniel]

I just love how Russell seamlessly segue ways from concept to concept weaving the painfully obvious with gigantic leaps of logic and New Agey nonsense into his own brand ( pardon the pun ) of pop-culture philosophy.

New Agey? I guess so. That depends entirely on what your perception of 'New Agey' is.

Nonsense? Not necessarily.

 

[Nathaniel]

I don't care about a Wikipedia definition of New Age. What is 'New Age' and what isn't is entirely subjective. For instance, a lot of people would probably deem me a 'New Agey' person just because of the experiences I have had and my subsequent views. But I don't like to label myself, or anybody else for that matter.

Again, what's nonsense and what isn't is entirely subjective.

 

[Nathaniel]

I can see your point, but I have never had any interest or involvement with any particular movement (New Age or otherwise) which (amongst other reasons) is why I would disagree with being 'New Agey' although I can understand why others would label me as such.
To me I have had experiences and these are the conclusions I have drawn from them. It isn't necessarily 'mystical' or 'magical' but a natural awareness that we are all capable of.

You are right though, I don't like labels.

I stand by my point that nonsense is subjective. Some of what I'd consider to be perfectly logical and rational you wouldn't.

 

[Nathaniel]

So if I say it's nonsense to believe that in base ten math 3 x 3 = 7, that is just me being subjective?

Yes, I agree with your point here, but I was speaking about the subjectivity of nonsense within the realms of 'spirituality' and the paranormal. Sorry, I should have made that clear.

I'll be back to continue this conversation at some point over the next few days, right now I have a date with my girlfriend and a PS4.

 

[smcder]

The word "spiritual" is itself a nonsense word because it has no universally agreed upon definition and is generally interpreted as being connected in some way with the supernatural. At best it's a convenience term for some set of ideas and beliefs that as you say are subjective because they're modeled into a personal worldview. In some cases these worldviews might be internally coherent, but it's been my experience that nobody has been able to demonstrate that.

But even if one were able to do that, it still doesn't mean that someone's subjective inner world has any bearing on the objective real world. Before we can consider inner worldviews to be not nonsense, they have to make sense not only to the person whose worldview it is, but to those who are able to provide a rational objective analysis of that worldview. If that cannot be done, then the person whose worldview it is has no legitimate reason to claim that their worldview isn't nonsense. For example the nut case in the asylum who believes she's the reincarnation of Cleopatra may have a completely coherent subjective worldview, but that hardly justifies saying that hers is just as legitimate a view as anyone else's. It's not.

Enjoy .

For example the nut case in the asylum who believes she's the reincarnation of Cleopatra may have a completely coherent subjective worldview, but that hardly justifies saying that hers is just as legitimate a view as anyone else's. It's not.

Disability - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The American Psychological Associationstyle guide states that, when identifying a person with an impairment, the person's name or pronoun should come first, and descriptions of the impairment/disability should be used so that the impairment is identified, but is not modifying the person. Improper examples are "a borderline", "a blind person", or "an autistic boy"; more acceptable terminology includes "a woman with Down syndrome" or "a man who has schizophrenia". It also states that a person's adaptive equipment should be described functionally as something that assists a person, not as something that limits a person, for example, "a woman who uses a wheelchair" rather than "a woman in/confined to a wheelchair."

As someone who spent seven years working in the mental health system and who, at one time, carried a mental-health diagnosis, I find language such as "the nut case in the asylum" to be disrespectful. A better option would be "a person with schizophrenia who believes she's the reincarnation of Cleopatra" . . . this recognizes the humanity of the individual and also properly identifies the illness or disorder necessary to make your point - a very reasonable approach, I think.

 

[smcder]

My comment was purely illustrative, delivered without intent to offend, and not aimed at anyone in particular, certainly not you. Therefore I respectfully suggest that your objection is based on an exaggerated sense of political correctness. However if you have a major problem with the way I expressed that particular point, I will gladly defer to the judgement of the forum moderators who are free to censor my post or ban me for my manner of expression. Please make any further complaints about this issue to them.

Why would I go to a moderator? Your request: "Please make any further complaints about this issue to them." could be construed as an effort on your part to limit my speech. I've stated the reason I find the phrase to be offensive and you can do what you like with that information. I really hoped you might have a second look at your statement and agree that perhaps it was unnecessary. That is to say - I find it unworthy of you - given your intelligence there is no reason to resort to such crude phraseology to make a point. If you had been referring to the way people used to speak of the mentally ill, I could understand that - but as I said your point could be made just as easily by referring to a person who has a mental illness. That said, you are free to express yourself any way you like - but I am also free to make reasonable comment on that expression.

And no, I don't think objecting to the phrase "the nut case in the asylum" to be an example of an exaggerated sense of political correctness - people frequently invoke that phrase to downplay real concerns - and that tactic I also find to be not worthy of you. There are very good reasons to discard certain terms - in this case, "nut-case" is de-humanizing and therefore disrespectful in that it does not recognize the humanity of the person who has an illness. This idea - that a person with a mental illness is still a person first - is part of what led to major reform of the mental health system which resulted in persons with mental illness being able to function and contribute in the community instead of being confined. Changes in language are a part of consolidating changes in society.

Further, the idea of "a nutcase in the asylum" is somewhat inaccurate - very, very few people spend an extended period of time in a mental health hospital, most mental illnesses are treatable and with support and compliance to treatment, most people with mental illness live their lives in the community. Persons with schizophrenia, for example, practice professions such as law and even psychiatry.

Another reason it is important to remember that an individual with an illness is a person first - is stigma. We never refer to an individual with cancer as "cancerous". Overcoming the stigma associated with that illness opened the way for people to seek treatment and support - "cancer" used to be a taboo word. By referring to persons with mental illness "nutcases" we perpetuate a stigma that may be a factor in some persons not seeking treatment.

Finally, for the individual, there are very practical reasons to insist on this kind of language. Suppose you lose mental capacity at some point in the future - if the prevailing cultural sense is that you are a "nut case" then you can more easily lose your rights through any of a number of mechanisms. We all have an interest in being recognized as human beings.

 

[trainedobserver]

...reasons to insist on this kind of language. Suppose you lose mental capacity at some point in the future - if the prevailing cultural sense is that you are a "nut case" then you can more easily lose your rights through any of a number of mechanisms. We all have an interest in being recognized as human beings.

Mental Health is the number one overriding conern that overshadows almost every other issue being wrestled with by society today. Health care, gun control, homelessness, term limits, you name it. The proper perception and representation of this issue is vital to the future of society in general. The terrible truth is, if we live long enough, each of us will face the possibility of having diminished mental capacity in the future. My father had a brain injury in his youth, the aftereffects he struggled with as he suffered from dementia and Alzheimer's disease in his later years. I remember the derogatory comments made by ignorant and callous relatives and neighbors over the years over personality quirks and changes that were the natural consequence of the injury and disease. Dad was a stable, hard working, good man, down to the core who dealt with problems the likes of which I cannot imagine. A "nut-case" he was not yet the "stigma" of having a "mental health problem" prevented him from acknowledging his problem or seeking and accepting help for the majority of his life.

 

[Constance]

I'm sorry to hear about that, TO. The worst thing about modern Western society is its ignorant refusal to look at, acknowledge, and respond to the immense amount of suffering around us with compassion and intelligent efforts to ameliorate it. I believe this crass indifference (this blindness, actually) is a result of the marginalization and dilution of spirituality in the West over the last several centuries, and I think that 'New Age' thinking and the New Age Movement as a whole are responses to that indifference and blindness. This movement has its spiritual roots in the compassionate recognition of the integrity and unquestionable value of each human being, and accordingly has recognized the need, the call, to reform the social and economic conditions of human life and animal life on this planet. Missing from casual attempts to ridicule the New Age Movement is any recognition of its humane values and progressive goals for human society.

 

[Tyger]

My comment was purely illustrative, delivered without intent to offend, and not aimed at anyone in particular, certainly not you. Therefore I respectfully suggest that your objection is based on an exaggerated sense of political correctness. However if you have a major problem with the way I expressed that particular point, I will gladly defer to the judgement of the forum moderators who are free to censor my post or ban me for my manner of expression. Please make any further complaints about this issue to them.

In other words, you are never wrong? I don't think I've ever seen you either apologize or acknowledge correction. What's that about? It's always on your terms. There's never a natural give-and-take. Are you aware of how crass you came across - and low brow? Apparently not. Rather , you demonstrate a very touchy temperament. You'll ridicule others - and want to do so with impunity - but have anyone else even hint that you may be 'off' in a response and you get prickly. Double standard there.

Do some reading on abnormal psychology. You might be surprised at what you discover.