Into the mystic (an experience). (page 7)

logansrun

That was a wonderful point-by-point rebuttel of my post, Six.

Xena

Nice post Bradley. Shame it was over Six's head.

Seems like quite a few of the skeptic's don't say "I don't know" they say "I don't believe and you are stupid if you do" that's pretty much their explaination. While some people who have had mystical and/or paranormal experiences can be dogmatic about where they think they come from, quite a few are more than willing to admit THEY DON'T KNOW....they had the experience and are looking at it from different directions and at the moment the one that makes the most sense to them...because science can't prove or disprove it.....is a paranormal one. Go figure.

I haven't had to many experiences out of the ordinary...one reason might be because I tend to be a very literal person and I don't look for the nuances of things. One thing I did have happen that I found interesting was one day my daughter out of the blue while she was doing yard work with her dad asked him what baklava was....at the very moment I was buying some to give to her on the spur of the moment. Coincidence? Kinda bizzare one as we don't discuss Greek pastry products normally and I haven't had any baklava in about a year as it's difficult to find here. Some kind of mental connection between a parent and child? Don't know....but I do know that every now and then things like that happen...is it just a numbers game or is there more to it....guess what? I don't know But I am open to hearing other peoples experiences and thoughts on the matter.

logansrun

Xena,

Here's the deal: Humans like to have a consistant worldview. It's comfortable. It's stable. Whether it's believing in Jehovah God and His Organization, the dialectical-materialism of Marxism or the naturalism of skeptics -- the human mind will always sort things out to fit it's Weltenschauung.

Interestingly, one of the founders of CSICOP -- the Center for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal -- a man by the name of Truzzi, I believe, left the organization because he felt they had a dogmatic agenda and were biased in their treatment of unexplained phenomenon. It is well and good that skeptics apply the hermeneutics of suspicion on believers in the "supernatural." But it works both ways. You can't tell me that the skeptic doesn't settle down into a philosophical comfort zone and have certain motivations not to believe, or even look into, the supernatural/spiritul. I know I did.

Or maybe I'm just getting into all this fringey new-age stuff to get chicks. Hows that for the hermeneutics of suspicion!

Edited to add the link about Truzzi... http://tricksterbook.com/truzzi/Tributes/WestrumRon.html

SixofNine

Or maybe I'm just getting into all this fringey new-age stuff to get chicks.

Is the "maybe" really necessary? lol.

logansrun

Six,

I don't think you're a skeptic. I think you're a cynic. But that's okay. Jesus loves you anyway.

Narkissos

There's something I'd like to say. I don't know if it belongs here or to yesterday's "lightning bolt" thread (I'm thinking of the Dostoevsky quotation I put there), since I commented on both and find them closely related.

From my admittedly limited experience, the kind of "mystical", or "spiritual" experiences we are discussing here do occur when they are really needed. In times of stress, despair, sickness or near death, for instance.

As I see them, they are not some kind of luxury which could be attained through effort, method, just because we feel like it or find it fashionable. This all would end up, I'm afraid, in some sort of pityful pretence.

It reminds me of one sentence in the famous French movie Les enfants du paradis, by Marcel Carné (Jacques Prévert's dialogue): Garance (Arletty) says to her rich man: "You are extraordinary: you are rich, and you want to be loved as if you were poor. What about the poor, then? Think, my friend: you cannot rob the poor of everything."

Now I think of so many wealthy, healthy and happy people in church repeating "Blessed are the poor, blessed are those who mourn" like a kind of mantra, not really knowing what they are saying. Do they need to know? Probably not, or at least not in their present circumstances. Maybe they never will, and in that case they won't miss anything. Or again maybe they will, and then they'll realize that they had no clue of what it was all about.

As German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer (hanged by the Nazis in 1945) had it, "one doesn't think of heaven in the arms of his fiancée".

I think many "religious" or "spiritual" persons are greatly mistaken when they speak of their spiritual way as something good for everyone at any time. It does no good to what they try to witness to, nor to the life of ordinary, healthy people.

Sorry if this sounds rude to some. It isn't meant to be, just something I deeply feel (believe?) and wished to express.

rem

Please Bradley,

Show me the money. Show me the replicated experiments. I'm not saying that fellow "skeptics" such as Randi can't be overly dogmatic. I'm just coming at it, as best I can, from a purely rational standpoint - something new-agey types won't even begin to do.

I admit, I believe the probability of the supernatural realm to be so small as to be practically zero. The same is true of my belief in god. All I need is some good evidence. In fact, down deep, I think I really want to believe.

Anecdotes are not evidence. I've seen both sides of the story.

For every example of plate techtonics you give, I can give you 10 more along the lines of cold fusion, lamarkian evolution, etc. Remember, it was evidence that turned the tide for plate techtonics theory - not anecdotes.

Regarding SETI, I happen to have been running it on my PC for quite some time. I don't view it as a hard science (though it is based on hard sciences such as information theory), and plus it's just in it's infancy. If the skies had been as thoroughly searched as the field of parapsychology, then I think you would have point, and I wouldn't be wasting cycles on my PC.

rem

rem

Haha,

Apologies to *Robdar*! :)

rem

onacruse

rem:

With all respect, I feel compelled to insert myself into the conversation and engage you directly on the following:

Please Bradley,

Show me the money.

No one can show you the money. You either have it in your own hand, or you don't. Looking at a $100 bill is not the same as having one in your wallet.

Show me the replicated experiments.

Experiments are only worth what they "show" today. Tomorrow's experiments may (and often have) totally overturn the results of yesterday's experiments.

I'm not saying that fellow "skeptics" such as Randi can't be overly dogmatic. I'm just coming at it, as best I can, from a purely rational standpoint

My friend, try as you might, there is no space between heaven and hell wherein you can be purely rational. Rationalism is a figment of our imagination.

I admit, I believe the probability of the supernatural realm to be so small as to be practically zero.

Practically, but not absolutely; and thus rationalism bites you like a rabid dog on your own heels, as evidenced by:

The same is true of my belief in god. All I need is some good evidence. In fact, down deep, I think I really want to believe.

The only good "evidence" would be a direct revelation from a Higher Being to you, and then where would you be? You might be absolutely convinced, but there is no way that you could present the "evidence" of that revelation to others as "good evidence." If you really did have such an experience, and walked into Princeton University, accosted the professor of philosophy, and said: "I just had a revelation, and I absolutely positively unequivocally know that it's the truth!!!" He'd say, "So??? Show me the proof, or else get out of my office." And you'd leave his office, head hanging down, in despair.

Anecdotes are not evidence. I've seen both sides of the story.

Yes, you have, and no, you haven't.

Respectfully,

Craig

Robdar

This attitude is ironic to me. The fact is that incredible advances have been made in the scientific era specifically because superstitious beliefs were cast aside for rational ones. And scientists have studied this field for a long time now. No progress has been made in finding paranormal causes - but you know what? Scientists have made progress by studying it - they have made tremendous progress in the field of psychology and biology of the brain.

How do you find it ironic? I see no irony but if you can point it out, I'll be sure to laugh since I find irony funny.

I never meant to imply (and really don't see how you interpreted it as such) that no advances have been made from studying parapsychology. Or, that there hasn't been any progress made. What I was trying to convey is that I think that instead of scoffing, and applauding those who scoff (since we are only applauding them for shutting their minds) that we should shake off the notion that it is all just probably "probability". That sort of thinking holds us back. So, it looks like we are in agreement that these things should be studied.

I wouldn't waste my time on studying alchemy and nor would I waste my time studying parapsychology - except for learning about how it relates to psychology and other sciences.
If you can show me one amazing advance that the study of parapsychology has made (that doesn't have to do with psychology), then I will eat my words. Of course, I can list of thousands made by real science.

Hmm, well, I don't disagree. But I don't think that minds should close to other possibilities either. During each and every one of my science classes, my personal experiences have caused me to think more deeply about what I was studying. I tried to look from other angles and from outside the paradigm in my experiments and studies. Sometimes I amused my professors but I know they enjoyed my questions because they told me so. Okay, about you eating your hat...... Does your definition of parapsychology include alchemy and astrology? As you are aware, Alchemists were the fore runners of modern science. Physics and chemistry are indebted to alchemists. It's because of alchemists that we have modern advances like porcelain, metallic compounds, alcohol distillation, acids, etc. It doesn't matter that Alchemy was a psuedo science, we still acheived much knowledge from it. It helped catapault us into a whole new age of science and technology. Who's to say that a willingness to consider parapsychology wont do the same thing? And, btw, Astrology led to advances in mathematics and astronomy. So, you could say that astrology eventually helped us to put a man on the moon. Can you actually say that "real" science has no relationhip to "psuedo-science"? Robyn

Into the mystic (an experience).

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