The paranormal.

by Lost in the fog 68 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Xanthippe

  Once bitten twice shy I'm afraid. People who've had their lives screwed up for decades by religious nonsense are terrified of being taken in again. That's why they won't read a single line on a website or read one book about the paranormal and then they insist there's no evidence.

  Then they wheel on the fat magician and say nobody could convince him by doing exactly what he wanted according to his 'scientific' guidelines so he wouldn't give them the million dollars. So that proves it doesn't it! I don't have to read any books or think about it. The magician says there's no evidence so that's that. Nobody wants to be fooled again.
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  truth_b_known

  Come on! Haven't you watched Ghost Adventures? At the very minimum it's entertaining.

  "Show yourself!" - Zak Bagans
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  gabcol

  Growing up as a witness, I placed every "bump in the night" as demons. I remember one time I had gone to my room to study the watchtower. As I was laying in bed, I heard faint voices.. I freaked out and immediately prayed to Jehovah out loud. ( Since even mentioning his name would scare the demons away). After I finished my prayer I listened.. to my surprise, I could still hear the voices. In a panic, I ran downstairs and told my non-witness dad that I could hear voices. After a minute or 2 of laughter ( and seeing fear on my face), he went upstairs to investigate. He listened and sure enough, he could hear voices too.. Was it a demon trying to draw me away from Jehovah??? No, I had my walk-man radio on full volume sitting on my dresser... so it sounded like faint voices.

  Now a days, I am very cautious about blaming something on the supernatural. However, like the other poster on here... I work in a nursing home and have seen a few strange things.

  truth b known--- i was a big fan of "ghost hunters"
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  caves

  The universe as we know it continues forever. It would be really arrogant for humans to assume they are the only ones at play.

  Even if I had never had witnessed certain things in my life. I would still believe in something else out there. It seems illogical not to.
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  jp1692

  The word "paranormal" can include many things, everything from: ghosts and witches to clairvoyance and telekinesis.

  Any attempts at rational discussion about the subject needs to make these important distinctions. Conflating different individual ideas and/or beliefs and then trying to draw conclusions about them as a group is one of the many logical fallacies that we all were fooled by when we were in the WT cult. For example, consider how often WT publications would include the phrase, "Jehovah and his organization," in order to induce us to associate the two so strongly that in the average JW's mind they are one and the same, inseparable. It's this kind of "bait and switch" that gets otherwise rational people to blindly and uncritically accept any- and everything the organization says as if it is coming from God himself.
  

  Here is a thought-provoking article on the subject of extra-sensory perception (ESP):

  • Daryl Bem Proved ESP Is Real - Which means science is broken (Slate)

  If you read and carefully think about the arguments made in this article, you'll realize that the title is actually kind of misleading. But it does bring up some really interesting points about how easily we as humans can be mislead and how we generally interpret events and data to confirm our existing beliefs and desires.
  
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  Bungi Bill

  While living in Papua New Guinea, I did observe a number of happenings that cannot be explained by science. These weren't anything to do with poltergeists, witches, ghosts etc - but rather come under the heading of what might be termed "Extra-Sensory Perception" (ESP).

  In particular, the easy ability of so many of its people to locate missing objects was rather awe-inspiring.

  I could go on at length, but one example stood out amongst many others. That happened one Friday afternoon, when I arrived home from carrying out an inspection of the two hydro-electric plants, and discovered that my keys were missing. (I used to carry my key-ring on a Karabiner clip attached to my belt).

  The obvious place to look for missing keys is under, around or on top of the car seat - but a thorough search of those places revealed nothing. So I then retraced my steps of where I had been that afternoon, beginning with the lower power station. When that proved unsuccessful, the station staff alerted the upper power station over the VHF Radio Network that I was on my way up to them.

  On arrival at the top hydro plant, its security guard went straight for my vehicle (a double cab Toyota Hilux 4WD), opened the rear right hand door, reached behind the rear seat, and produced my keys. (Just in case you are wondering, I was the vehicle's only occupant throughout that afternoon, and had never even sat in the rear seat!) The road between the two hydro stations had a very steep section, which could only be negotiated using Four Wheel Drive, and its surface was extremely rough (rough enough to "shake the fillings loose from your teeth!"). What had happened was that after the clip broke from my belt, the key ring hit the floor and was then shaken, bounced and tumbled both backwards and upwards until it lodged itself behind the rear seat.

  The most uncanny thing of all about this was that the security guard said he knew immediately where the key ring was, as soon as he overheard the radio call.

  I am open to suggestions, bu this and similar events in PNG have left me seriously wondering about Extra Sensory Perception!
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  notsurewheretogo

  I've personally witnessed too much to not believe in spirits or whatever you want to call them.

  You may have witnessed "things" but doesn't prove the paranormal...if you could you would be a millionaire.
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  caves

  notsure-You may have witnessed "things" but doesn't prove the paranormal...if you could you would be a millionaire.
  

  I assume you are talking about James Randi. Hes nothing but a hoax and fraud. That's how he makes a living. He hasn't done the millionaire thing in some time. There is a reason.

  For several decades this little show of his has been going on and many people including journalists and the media has bought heavily into this. Bystanders repeat exactly what Randi want them to repeat: ”But no one ever succeeded the tests, so it’s proven the paranormal doesn’t exist”, they claim. While this predictive programming has been going on Randi has travelled around the world giving lectures that cost over 10,000 USD each for a standup comedy-like appearance where he makes fun of people and researchers positive to parapsychology. There is in fact reason to suspect that ”The One Million Dollar Challenge” is a way to sell expensive lectures.
  
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  Onager

  Hi Caves, I was an active poster on the James Randi Education Forum for many years. I only had a few short, written, exchanges with Randi but nothing about him ever smacked of him being a hoax or a fraud. What would the hoax be? That he isn't really a debunker of paranormal claims? A lot of people have claimed that he doesn't have the million dollars to pay out on his challenge, but that has been comprehensively refuted, so how is he a fraud?

  I tried to follow your links, but the first is broken and the second is just a short history of the million dollar challenge. If you think it's significant (or dubious) that they changed the rules so that an applicant had to have a media profile and academic endorsement, I know that is because the foundation was receiving far more applications than they could deal with.

  The problem was that lots of the applications were from clearly disturbed people who had decided on their own that they had magic powers. It was simply impossible to design protocols and get to all these people. The media and academic thing was purely to screen out the majority of claimants because if they couldn't convince a journalist or a professor they had paranormal powers then they surely didn't.

  If that's not it, what is it that convinces you he is a hoax and a fraud?
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  NU-LYTE

  no doubt in my mind they exist , had so many visitations and such . cannot deny it's for real , also there is evidence , people catch them on video and pictures ..