lucid dream, wicked spirits, demons questions!!

by gotcha 27 Replies latest jw friends

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  Satanus

  Janh

  Good points about the cargo cultitsts. That cocacola and chewing gum no longer appear after the military is gone doesn't mean that they don't exist anymore. And so, at times instant or sudden cures have happened. Other times the same methods are attempted and nothing happens. When i first started lurking on this board, there was a post by a lady who said her broken foot was instantly healed. I don't remember the details or her name. Some people would see this as forces from another dimension acting on this one. But just because we don't see this type of thing happening all the time, isn't proof that there aren't other dimensions that at times influence this one. At least not in my opinion.
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  Mazza

  SaintSatan, This BBC series also featured a guy who was slowly dying of a degenerative brain disease. As the disease ruined aspects of his memory and personality he became very artistic. Something he'd never been before. He'd had no artisitc talent or interest up until then. He was doing fantastic paintings though. The program postulated about this phenomenon - and it might have been along the lines of what you said.

  With regards the experiement with the electrical impulses, I have also heard it said that certain chemistry patterns of the brain may account for some people's so called spirituality. Interesting. I have always wondered why I'm so non spiritual. My chemistry is all wrong!!

  Marilyn
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  gotcha

  mazza -- thanks......maybe some people are just genetically spiritual hehe

  another origin of religion - totemism...?
• 

  Satanus

  Mazza

  Some ppeople think that like musical ability, everyone has psychic or spiritual potential. I think they are the same. If one is a chritian, it's called spirituality. If one is nonreligious, it's called psychic. If a person is motivated by negativity such as fear, hate, envy etc, it is the dark side.

  Naturally some are more gifted. Others have to work really hard at it, but if a person wants it and works at it, s/he will get it. A good starting point is meditation for say 15 minutes a day. I'm not evangelising for this, but if this is a field in which you have interest, there lots of info, lots bogus, lots of good stuff, christian, pagan or secular.
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  Introspection

  Hi Gotcha, I haven't had time to read the replies here but one thing that kind of sticks out as a sore thumb in your message is the mention of lucid dreaming. Lucid dreaming means you KNOW you are dreaming, so you know it isn't physical reality - you can do all sorts of neat things include kicking demon butts. So, my guess is it doesn't apply to your mom.

  I'm not going to address your message in terms of do demons or spirit beings exist, but an interesting thing we talked about a little before is this simple idea of being conscious - like being conscious of the fact that you're dreaming. When you react out of fear there are two possibilities - you are not aware of the fact that you are reacting out of some psychological belief, or you are aware of something disturbing (which need not be spiritual entities haunting you) but may or may not be aware of yourself reacting to it, and it seems to me in almost all cases you are not aware of how you as an individual fits into a larger context in view of this source of fear. Basically, my point is that the scope of one's awareness is limited in both cases. This, I think is a more useful principle which helps shed light on such phenomena and people with different perspectives can agree on. People certainly have psychological demons that haunt them, whether spiritual beings outside them exist beyond the five senses is secondary. If they don't have any mental discipline on the individual level they will never be able to distinguish their mental ghosts from reality, regardless of whether ghosts actually exist or not.
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  gotcha

  thanks intro..i think what u said is true...the thing is that my mom wouldn't admit that most of what's happening to her is psychological..not only in terms of this dreaming but also when it comes to being sick..i think she's quite paranoid..but as always she tells me that i can't feel/know what she's going through..

  about lucid dreaming - thanks for clearing that up to me..i just remember a friend telling me about it
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  Introspection

  Just thought of another way of looking at it.. If there were spirit beings who haunts people etc, would they bother with people who haunt themselves?? They'd probably just sit back and lauuuugh....

  "No sir, I didn't like it!" -Mr. Horse from Ren and Stimpy
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  Introspection

  Ok Gotcha here's a more serious reply.. (not that I wasn't serious before, but the last message was not as serious as the first) From what I've observed it's interesting that spiritual teachers, (ones I believe can actually be considered such) as well as teachers of internal martial arts (which is related but certainly not the same) actually tell you very little. If you do your research you'll find the info, but the approach appears to be questions aimed at whether you have actually gotten the point of the practice, the instructions are very basic. (basically, meditate) Frankly the reason for it is simply so you'll come to naturally discover certain things for yourself. After all, if they say more than you need to know you might very well convince yourself of having some experience whether you actually had it or not. Critics will often turn around and say "ohh, it's so secretive - reminds me of a cult." Well, ok but the difference is they're not preaching anything, the people I'm describing leave it up to you to decide whether you might be able to learn anything from them. (you can also leave whenever you want, there's no social pressure - in fact you need to muster up some of your own resolve which is usually referred to as discipline) People having the short attention span that they do and glued to their world views as they are just tend to not stick it out or pay too much attention to what's there - whether pro or con people tend to focus more on their question rather than what's actually in front of them. Anyhow, perhaps the key here and the important thing in light of our shared JW heritage (I say that jokingly, certainly too strong a word for me anyway) is that whatever people tell you, if they allow room for you to find out for yourself then that's probably a healthy approach, but if it's an authoritarian approach of Joe Bob here has the truth and you should listen to him, it's probably not. At the very least, you won't know if Joe has the truth because you're just accepting that blindly rather than doing something to test that yourself.