Rosemary Ellen Guiley 12.07.29

[Goggs Mackay]

It's undoubtedly a tough one. I have long thought that intelligence is something that had to happen sooner or later in the universe - I see no 'point' in a universe unless something is there to acknowledge it. I wonder if whatever makes up our being can be reconstituted in another way - reincarnation of a sort. I am undecided about many things.

I do think that there is no 'heaven'. I don't think somehow 'I' will kind of 'wake up' after I die and continue being me of a sort in an afterlife, so in that way maybe I am a materialist.

As for being given information by spirits I wonder if that is not the same as 'cold reading'. I would have to see strong evidence that someone was told something they otherwise could not know.

Near-death experiences intrigue me and I have heard of people seeing and hearing information in the operating theatre they should have been unable to know. What I've read on the subject though falls short of compelling evidence. A bit like UFOs, most of the evidence is very circumstantial except there are videos and pictures and multiple witnesses to UFOs. By it's nature we will probably never get multiple witnesses or pictures proving NDE. That's not to say it could not happen, just that it is very hard to prove. I try to keep an open mind and at the moment I am probably for thinking NDE is just something happening in a dying brain. I've done plenty strange drugs and I am well aware of what the brain is capable of doing.

As for the Zozo phenomena, I think your mention is the first I've heard of it so I am gonna check it out. On first look, I'd have to be convinced that people were not aware of it before something happening to them through ouija boards or whatever etc.

An aside: 'Zozo' sounds and looks very like the symbol Jimmy Page of Led Zepellin chose for himself on their 4th studio album. He also often had it sewn into his stage clothes and he was well known for his occult interests, buying the former Scottish home of Alistair Crowley and owning an occult bookstore in London. Is it the same thing?

SPX - do you define a difference between a human 'spirit' and things like demons? To me, human spirits could exist and be nothing to do with demons etc. To me demons are like the opposite of angels, both to me being religious constructs, however I am not very well versed in many of these things so I cannot claim to be even very knowledgeable, let alone an expert!

 

[nameless]

An aside: 'Zozo' sounds and looks very like the symbol Jimmy Page of Led Zepellin chose for himself on their 4th studio album. He also often had it sewn into his stage clothes and he was well known for his occult interests, buying the former Scottish home of Alistair Crowley and owning an occult bookstore in London. Is it the same thing?

nah it has nothing to do with it. i just posted it foe laff cs it sounds similar. page choses zoso which is a saturn sigil and as an affectation to zos(Austin Osman Spare). my friends mum used to work in his book store.

 

[Goggs Mackay]

Funny thing Nameless - I just checked out the site of 'The ZOZO Phenomena' and guess what? It has plenty about Jimmy Page and 'Zoso'!

So, who knows? I had always thought his symbol read Z-O-S-O, not ZOZO but that might be splitting hairs. The site is quite interesting, whether you believe in all this or not. Worth a look.

 

[SPX]

I wonder if whatever makes up our being can be reconstituted in another way - reincarnation of a sort. I am undecided about many things.

I think the work of Ian Stevenson may provide some evidence for this:

Ian Stevenson - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I do think that there is no 'heaven'. I don't think somehow 'I' will kind of 'wake up' after I die and continue being me of a sort in an afterlife, so in that way maybe I am a materialist.

I think a lot about this. I agree that it's problematic since, as far as we know, consciousness is produced by the brain. At the very least, we know that acting upon the brain in some way can produce strange changes in consciousness. Take a bad hit to the head and you may experience difficulties learning, personality changes or memory problems. Drink alcohol, smoke weed, snort coke, etc and those will all produce a variety of effects.

But. . . At the same time, out-of-body and near-death experiences seem to suggest that consciousness can exist independently of the brain.

I certainly don't know what the answer is here. I definitely consider it a possibility that, as inconceivable as it really is to me, the brain somehow has a way to produce this thing we know of as "consciousness." But I also think it's possible that, as some researchers have theorized, the brain is something of a temporary receiver for consciousness, in the same way that a radio receives a radio signal. The brain is able to act upon consciousness, but it doesn't produce it. When the brain dies, it releases its hold on consciousness and releases it back into the universe . . . or the spirit world . . . or wherever it is that consciousness originates from.

I sometimes think that life on earth is like living in a boarded up room. Your whole world is small and limited. When we die, perhaps it's like knocking the door down and gaining access to the outside world, an entire reality that we knew nothing about.

Of course these are just ideas. . . But they're the best I can come up with, taking into account all the information that I have to go on.

As for being given information by spirits I wonder if that is not the same as 'cold reading'. I would have to see strong evidence that someone was told something they otherwise could not know.

That could be the case for mediumship. Though University of Arizona's Dr. Gary Schwartz provides some interesting evidence to the contrary:

Amazon.com: The Afterlife Experiments: Breakthrough Scientific Evidence of Life After Death (9780743436595): Gary E. Schwartz, William Simon, Deepak Chopra: Books

But there have reportedly been a lot more forms of spirit communication, including instances of communication via a number of methods, including materialization. One interesting book written on this topic was Love Beyond Life:

Amazon.com: Love Beyond Life: The Healing Power of After-Death Communications (9780061491870): Joel W. Martin, Patricia Romanowski: Books

Near-death experiences intrigue me and I have heard of people seeing and hearing information in the operating theatre they should have been unable to know.

I can't remember the researcher, but one of the earliest books on NDEs was written by a doctor who set out to disprove these experiences. He took the accounts of the experience and then cross-referenced them with hospital records from the incidents. In what is now a familiar story, in trying to disprove the reality of these experiences, he proved them . . . at least for himself.

As for the Zozo phenomena, I think your mention is the first I've heard of it so I am gonna check it out. On first look, I'd have to be convinced that people were not aware of it before something happening to them through ouija boards or whatever etc.

Uh oh. . . I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you haven't actually listened to the Guilley episode?

SPX - do you define a difference between a human 'spirit' and things like demons? To me, human spirits could exist and be nothing to do with demons etc. To me demons are like the opposite of angels, both to me being religious constructs, however I am not very well versed in many of these things so I cannot claim to be even very knowledgeable, let alone an expert!

I do think there is a difference in the ideas between a human spirit and a demon. I imagine a human spirit to a) be the product of a human who once physically existed on earth, and b) to be morally ambiguous. A demon, on the other hand, should be a spirit without a past physical incarnation and have a nature that constantly drives it toward "evil."

I don't know that either of these things exist and I think that human spirits can certainly exist without demons existing. And like you, I have a hard time with the idea of demons. They do seem to be mythological in nature and devices for making certain points about how humans are pulled in both ways, toward good and evil. Demons represent one direction; angels the other.

However, with all that said, I have heard some pretty crazy tales of exorcisms and the like, such as in this book which I read several years ago:

Amazon.com: An Exorcist Tells His Story (9780898707106): Fr. Gabriele Amorth: Books

 

[SPX]

Goggs, if I could suggest one more book, this is one fascinating if only from a historical perspective:

Amazon.com: Ghost Hunters: William James and the Search for Scientific Proof of Life After Death (9780143038955): Deborah Blum: Books

 

[ALPHA ROMEO UNIFORM]

Regarding Angels and Demons all are labels given by some author to invoke fear and protection which more rather think its something strange and unknowing which humanity has no answers for those bumps in the night which can be terrifying for some folks.

 

[Goggs Mackay]

I wonder if a lot of this stuff is wish-fulfilment? Like we all want to have something after death? The thing about OOBE's as well is I've had one of those - though there is no way for me to tell whether it was just my mind doing something. On that same night I had an 'abduction' that is not classic ET abduction but still weird enough for me to understand it could be like that. I think both things for me were related to sleep paralysis, which I've had separately a few times.

I am gonna check out some of those links, thanks. I am probably most interested in NDE's.

As for listening to the episode? I usually put on my podcasts when I go to bed, depending on how tired I am, I may listen to the whole thing and sometimes hardly any. What often happens is with me drifting off and back again, I often miss big chunks of an episode and have to come back to it later. I'm usually a believer in information going in even when you're sleeping but this whole 'ZOZO' thing went under the radar so to speak!

 

[trainedobserver]

People can convince themselves of anything. I have seen it first hand. A breeze moving a drape is a spirit, a coincidence becomes a sign, events take on sinister or cosmic importance. God and Satan, with heavenly hosts and demonic hordes fight in eternal battle for the souls of mankind while the majority of humanity toils away ignorant of their cosmic importance amusing ourselves with elaborately produced narcissistic fantasies we broadcast or otherwise propagate worldwide 24/7. (cough, cough)

To understand how superstition and irrational belief can take hold of otherwise reasonably intelligent people you only need to go no further than Pentecostalism. I have traveled in the circles where there is a demon seen behind every bush and the signs of supernatural warfare are everywhere to be seen.

Another example: Ric Clay. A man who become so convinced that the 2012 Olympics was going to be some culmination of spiritual evil and Illuminati plots that he took his life before he could live long enough to see the incredible folly of his conclusions.

In my opinion people have more to fear from the unconscious processes of their own minds than they do from invisible otherworldly entities sniffing their mental states for something like intention to communicate or anything else of the sort.

 

[Goggs Mackay]

ditto

 

[SPX]

I definitely agree that people have a tendency to believe things without any worthwhile evidence. I do come from a protestant Christian background, after all. And live in the heart of Mormon land. And have a good friend who was once deep into the Jevoah's Witnesses cult.

I am basically only interested in accounts of the unknown that have some reported element that you can't really explain as wishful thinking or mistaken identity. Kind of like goggs was talking about earlier with the "dead" people in an ER, totally brain dead, who are resuscitated and bring back details of things that were happening both inside and sometimes OUTSIDE of the room, that are later verified to be correct by multiple people.

(The only valid skeptical explanation for this is that the people are lying. So is everyone in history who has reported this experience a liar, along with everyone else in the medical profession who has backed them up? Or is it really happening?)

For me, it's a case of not throwing the baby out with the bath water, as well as being truly open minded enough to assess the available evidence without prejudice. I'm not saying that I totally achieve that ideal, but I do my best.

More skeptical people have a tendency to say, "Well, because THESE cases can be explained by mundane explanations, they ALL can!" You can't do that. You need to look at the evidence for each individual case as an isolated entity.

 

[Goggs Mackay]

Well put. Really what you've said goes for any paranormal subject. I find it hard to 100% dismiss things when something happened in front of me and one other. We could not both be seeing the same hallucination.
Jehovas Witness cult! like.

 

[SPX]

Yes, and as I'm sure you know, just about anyone with a skeptical bent would dismiss your experience. Either you hallucinated, or you're lying, or you somehow mistook a t-shirt hanging on a coat hanger as an apparition. The truth is that I have never personally had an experience that I can't explain. I've lived quite the ho-hum, down-to-earth life in that respect. But I have had a lot of people close to me (and quite a few who aren't close to me, including yourself now) tell me their stories of very strange happenings, and I'm just not going to take the easy route and assume they're either lying or incompetent. The only alternative, then, is to be open to the reality that these things are actually happening and do my best to understand it.

As for the JWs, ha ha, my friend could tell you about his experience for hours. He was quite serious about it and his whole family was pretty deeply embedded. But there was an incident in which his kid needed a blood transfusion (if I remember correctly) and the organization basically told him that if he did it he would be excommunicated. (Blood transfusions are a big no-no with them.) So after a lot of thought he left the church and ended up ultimately taking almost all of his family with him. Now he's pretty much an atheist.

 

[starise]

trainedobserver I agree that people can convince themselves of anything. I think that to say something doesn't exist without full knowledge of it is just as ludicrous as saying something does exist under those same conditions.

You mentioned Pentecostals. A great example of how some people will allow themselves to believe something that is simply not true. Pentecostalism seems to attract those looking for a thrill and there are plenty of fakes available to help them find that thrill. I don't intend to single out all Pentecostals but their belief system is faulty IMHO in that it gives too much credit to demons. If you get sick then you have a demon according to some of them.Can spiritual oppression cause sickness? I believe it can but it was most likely bacteria.Should we completely write off the spirit world because of a few nutty Pentecostals? Not in my opinion.

I also agree that we should fear what our own minds can do. I don't hold to the belief that we are an ever improving species. Sometimes our thoughts seem to be tied more to our emotions than we care to admit.Our emotions are about the most unreliable thing we could rely on in terms of concrete realities.

I come from a Christian background but much more importantly I have had the experiences that back up my beliefs and I put my faith in the God who wrote the book that is the word of God. Some people are convinced that the Bible isn't true or that only some parts of it are true. The Bible clearly says there are demons called fallen angels. The Bible clearly states that there is a spiritual struggle going on between unseen forces.According to my studies dislike is not a strong enough word for what the demons feel for us. Utter and compete hatred is a better description. Is this the thing you want to talk to?

Here is what I think trips a lot of people up.They see demons as creatures with horns colored red and angels as winged beings that look like us. The tendency is to group them with the easter bunny or Santa clause in some peoples minds. In fact these are very powerful beings. In the case of Sodom it only took a few of them to wipe out an entire city. They are very well organized.More intelligent than us by far. Like CS Lewis said in one of his books, the best accomplishment so far of the devil has been to convince people he doesn't exist.

We don't need the devil to get ourselves into trouble. I am convinced that we do a decent job of that all by ourselves. That doesn't mean he hasn't helped though,or that he doesn't continue to help. Or that he isn't busy trying to throw us off track in our thinking.

I try and get along with everyone the best I can. I'm not out to start a confrontation or make arguments. If you don't agree with me that's fine,but you won't find me cowering either. In fact I take the offensive when dealing with these forces.


Note to entities-

I'll continue to tell anyone who will listen what you are and expose the liars.

 

[Goggs Mackay]

My experience involved me and another person seeing the figure of an old lady in a place late at night where no old lady should have been. It was so out of the ordinary my friend and I ran to where she was as she headed up a lane that was a dead-end. She went into the shadows at the end of the lane and when we caught up she was not there.

She would have had to vault a 7ft wall. There was nowhere else for her to go and she was out of our sight for maybe 1.5 secs max. I say old lady but the only other explanation is that it was someone masquerading as an old lady, body suit and costume and all.

But why was someone there pretending to be an old lady at about 1130pm? We did not know we were going to be where we were, no-one else was around so if it was some prank they could not have expected an audience. That was pure chance we saw 'her'. This happened literally 100 yards from the house I'd lived in my whole life. I knew everyone in the area and any way I try to figure it out I am left with two possibilities: what we saw was an apparition or someone had planned to be in that lane late at night in winter, dressed up like an old woman with no audience to count on. For what?
If it were not for this incident I might have put tales of ghosts etc down to imagination but there were two of us?
We were not even scared until after cos until she 'disappeared' we genuinely thought it was a real old lady who was somehow lost.

 

[trainedobserver]

...I come from a Christian background but much more importantly I have had the experiences that back up my beliefs and I put my faith in the God who wrote the book that is the word of God.

I try and get along with everyone the best I can. I'm not out to start a confrontation or make arguments. If you don't agree with me that's fine,but you won't find me cowering either. In fact I take the offensive when dealing with these forces.
Note to entities-
I'll continue to tell anyone who will listen what you are and expose the liars.

No need to argue, you've made my point for me beautifully.

 

[Goggs Mackay]

@Starise - If I read you correctly you are saying that if the bible says something that is good enough for you. But what makes you think what is in the bible is correct? If you had been born in a country where Christianity was not practised do you think you would still see the bible as the truth? Are all the non-christians in the world wrong?

I think the vast majority of people who believe in the bible do so because they were brought up to believe in it.
It's all indoctrination IMO. (I have many relatives who are practising christians whom I love so I am not against christians per se)

 

[trainedobserver]

I am reminded of a childhood incident that I perhaps should not be too proud of but which illustrates a point nonetheless. A friend and I were standing in my front yard back in the 60's shortly after sundown one evening when we heard a screen door slam. We had been running around the neighborhood all day saying "I'm the booger-man and I'm going to get you!" We were around 10 years old. Hidden from view behind tall bushes, we couldn't see who had come onto the porch at the neighbors across the street and they couldn't see us. As if on cue we said, "I'm the booger-man and I'm going to get you!" in unison making for a pretty eerie sound. Suddenly, the child who had come outside screamed and began calling for their mother as though Satan himself had appeared and were dragging them to hell. We were mortified and scared to death ourselves. We ran like we'd just committed a crime and hid in the back yard snickering until we figured it was safe before we went inside to watch the Flintstones.

 

[nameless]

Funny thing Nameless - I just checked out the site of 'The ZOZO Phenomena' and guess what? It has plenty about Jimmy Page and 'Zoso'!

So, who knows? I had always thought his symbol read Z-O-S-O, not ZOZO but that might be splitting hairs. The site is quite interesting, whether you believe in all this or not. Worth a look.

yeah i checkt out that website and all the Jimmy page links are dead and everythig else is hokey, spurious and clutching at straws.

 

[Goggs Mackay]

and you used the word 'hokey' after quoting the line with 'hokey religions' from star wars! either you often use that word or it's in your mind after the star wars quotes!

 

[nameless]