I’m kinda glad I started this thread now, as its gotten interesting with the different points of views and all (although this was not my intention). Some of the discussion here kinda reminds me of the, Jesus is God/ no Jesus isn’t God debates that never really seem to resolve, with either party stating their particular point of view as best they can. I like this kind of discussion because where two opposing points of view collide, is very often where the sparks of truth are found.
Daystar, you said, "True hauntings, ghosts, etc., are nowhere nearly as common as popular opinion and entertainment media would have you believe."
This statement implies that you believe or you at least are open to the possibility of genuine a haunting existing, but just not as common as what popular opinion holds. Is this the thought you wish to convey? Do you believe that there is such a thing as a genuine haunting or such a supernatural paranormal occurrence? I’m not trying to corner you, I just wanna know what you believe. Is there a kind of litmus test you would use to verify such an occurrence as outside the realm of ‘normal’ explanation?
"Regarding the Ouija board, what happens if the person with the question is not touching the planchette at all. Minute tremors in our are the explanation for the magic of Ouija boards. Our subconscious mind will guide our hands without our conscious knowledge."
The planchette typically must be touched, at least it did for me. It can work for one person but I always needed a second person contacting it to enable it. I don’t buy into the theoretical explanation of the movement of the Ouija planchette being ‘driven’ by the unconscious, and here’s why. While I think the unconscious or the subconscious is fascinating, it still must work within the realm of believability. For instance, in my story about my young skeptic friend who had a childhood dog, Haus. The volunteer had never sat down in front of a Ouija Board before. I had him place his hands on the planchette, immediately close his eyes, lean his head back as I asked the Board the question about the name of his dog. From the time he entered my home to the time his head was tilted back was all of maybe five minutes. Now to me, it seems a remarkable feat, that my young friend’s subconscious mind could in that short amount of time, view and scan the entire Ouija board with all its letter and number assignments, commit that all to memory including their precise locations on the Board, physically direct the planchette to those exact assignments (which he could not see) quickly answering my question, and do all that within just a few seconds time! WOW! I wanna believe in science of the mind, but that seems a bit much to believe. This seems plausible to you? I think it takes a leap of faith to believe that the very thing we as people can sometimes spend an entire lifetime trying to get in touch with through psychotherapy (that is the subconscious or unconscious mind, to help us find out why we do the things we do and who we are), that we could just as easily run out to Toys R Us and grab a 10 dollar Oiuja Board and get there lickidy-split! If that’s the explanation that satisfies your curiosity, then ok. But it doesn’t satisfy mine. And that would be ok with me. It just doesn’t fit.
If one believes in God, a spiritual being (which I do), then it doesn’t seem to be much of a leap of logic that there could be other created spiritual bodies. If God is invisible to the human eye’s spectrum, then why couldn’t those other beings be invisible as well? I know we as people have blamed everything on the Devil throughout the ages. Everything from mental illness to natural disasters. We’ve gotten smarter about such things. But, because we were 100 % wrong that everything was spiritual in the past, lets not be wrong now that everything must be able to be 100% proven in a laboratory.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy..
