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24th April 2014, 07:57 AM | #1 |
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Scorpion's Spiritualism
I realize I am not the smartest kid on the block, and that I am out of my depth in many debates. But this does not take away from me the life experience of delving into psychic matters. I have had very evidential messages from mediums, and they told me facts that they could not have known. James Randi says they are just cold reading but my experience teaches me otherwise, and no amount of reasoning will be likely to change my mind. I was told here that human memory is flawed and that is why I think I remember some things, but for me that is just flim flam, and an attempt to sweep my experiences aside. I am confident my memory of some incidents is fairly accurate. Therefore my conclusions about them remain the same in spite of dismissive arguments I have read here. I conclude there probably is a God, and the human mind survives death , and consciousness is stored in a higher vessel than the brain. I think there is not enough evidence either way to prove or disprove this, so it does not matter how clever some of the people here are, all they have done is outsmart themselves. They have closed their minds to the possibility there is a divine purpose and meaning to life and experience because they have no evidence. Which leaves us with faith as the only road to belief in God.
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You see many stars in the sky at night, but not when the sun rises. Can you therefore say there are no stars in the heavens during the day? O man because you cannot find God in the days of your ignorance, say not that there is no God. Sri Ramakrishna Even in the valley of the shadow of death two and two do not make six. Leo Tolstoy |
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24th April 2014, 08:17 AM | #2 |
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"They want to make their molehills equal to the mountains by cutting the mountains down." -turingtest "The universe did not come from nothing, it came from 'We don't know'." -Dancing David "Cry, booga, booga, booga! and let slip the Hamsters of Silly!" -JFDHintze |
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24th April 2014, 08:37 AM | #3 |
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I realize I am not the smartest kid on the block, and that I am out of my depth in many debates. But this does not take away from me the life experience of delving into magic matters. I watched as David Copperfield made the statue of liberty disappear. I watched as Penn & Teller caught actual bullets in their mouth. Sure, some people say they are just "tricks", but I know what I saw. These claims of "tricks" are just an attempt to sweep my experiences aside. I am confident my memory of these incidents is fairly accurate. Therefore my conclusions about them remain the same in spite of dismissive arguments I have read here.
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24th April 2014, 08:41 AM | #4 |
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24th April 2014, 09:20 AM | #5 |
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24th April 2014, 09:21 AM | #6 |
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24th April 2014, 09:23 AM | #7 |
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Simple probability tells us that we should expect coincidences, and simple psychology tells us that we'll remember the ones we notice... |
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24th April 2014, 09:27 AM | #8 |
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I think it unlikely that anyone else here has as much experience of psychic mediums as I have. I have been looking into it since the 1960's and I attended many trance lectures at the spiritualist association in London throughout the 1970's. My conclusions were that some mediums are genuine, and they do not just do cold reading, as James Randi says. They do tell you facts and names, and details that it would be difficult for them to know unless they are doing what they say they are doing. Which is talking to the spirits of the departed. I conclude that most people here have little or no experience of psychics, and they write them off because of a preconception that they must all be fakes. Or it would entirely change the scientific paradigm. We would have to accept life after death, and higher realms of experience. Therefore I guess I am trying to preach a belief system.
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You see many stars in the sky at night, but not when the sun rises. Can you therefore say there are no stars in the heavens during the day? O man because you cannot find God in the days of your ignorance, say not that there is no God. Sri Ramakrishna Even in the valley of the shadow of death two and two do not make six. Leo Tolstoy |
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24th April 2014, 09:29 AM | #9 |
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24th April 2014, 09:33 AM | #10 |
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24th April 2014, 09:43 AM | #11 |
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The laws of physics are not incompatible with the possible existence of higher undetectable realms. The spirit world says the higher worlds are vibrating at a far higher rate than physical atoms, and the realms inter-penetrate. So they can exist in the same place without being perceptible by any other means than psychic development. Using the senses of the astral and mental bodies to see into higher dimensions. Using the chakras in the etheric body as channels.
There may be a purpose in all experience, no matter how harsh it seems from a human point of view. Hard experience strengthens the soul in the same way that the struggle between predators and pray forces evolution in both. The spirit world says that God remains above all this and we ultimately evolve spiritually toward reuniting with him in a state of grace, at which time our sufferings will seem a small price to pay. This takes place over many, many incarnations, not just one human lifetime. |
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You see many stars in the sky at night, but not when the sun rises. Can you therefore say there are no stars in the heavens during the day? O man because you cannot find God in the days of your ignorance, say not that there is no God. Sri Ramakrishna Even in the valley of the shadow of death two and two do not make six. Leo Tolstoy |
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24th April 2014, 10:30 AM | #12 |
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24th April 2014, 01:41 PM | #13 |
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Hey tsig! Did I change your mind about whether the estate of a deceased person could maintain an action for damages for assault on that person? You deserted the discussion rather than reply to my post (and those of others) having told me that I did not understand the term 'estate'.
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24th April 2014, 05:31 PM | #14 |
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"They want to make their molehills equal to the mountains by cutting the mountains down." -turingtest "The universe did not come from nothing, it came from 'We don't know'." -Dancing David "Cry, booga, booga, booga! and let slip the Hamsters of Silly!" -JFDHintze |
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24th April 2014, 05:40 PM | #15 |
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[quote=Scorpion;9968994]The laws of physics are not incompatible with the possible existence of higher undetectable realms. The spirit world says the higher worlds are vibrating at a far higher rate than physical atoms,
...and you know this...how? What is your source of what the "spirit world" says? [quote=Scorpion;9968994]...and the realms inter-penetrate. {/quote] ...and this has been demonstrated...how? Ah. You can only "perceive" them if you believe that you can perceive them in ways that those who do not believe cannot perceive. Cool story Odd typo, or...NEW REVELATION? "Oh, Mighty Chatterjee, please don't let this leopard get me...I will offer up 70 bananas and a mango if you preserve me..." ...and you know this...how? What is your source for what the "spirit world" says? Don't suppose you plan to offer anything resembling evidence for any of this, do you? |
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"They want to make their molehills equal to the mountains by cutting the mountains down." -turingtest "The universe did not come from nothing, it came from 'We don't know'." -Dancing David "Cry, booga, booga, booga! and let slip the Hamsters of Silly!" -JFDHintze |
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24th April 2014, 07:14 PM | #16 |
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24th April 2014, 09:40 PM | #17 |
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24th April 2014, 09:58 PM | #18 |
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The problem with incarnations is there's more people alive than have died. Whereat do those souls come from? Humanity began with just a handful of homo sapiens, who bred and fruitfully multiplied the number of us. A "handful" of souls is now several billion? How's that compute? |
25th April 2014, 01:50 AM | #19 |
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25th April 2014, 03:11 AM | #20 |
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25th April 2014, 04:16 AM | #21 |
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25th April 2014, 04:54 AM | #22 |
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Aaaargh. I deliberately avoided making any kind of supposition about reincarnation, and reserved myself to smartaleckyness. But since you ask... I'm assuming they're being recycled! Souls are issued to the first squillion people/creatures who correctly complete the application form in triplicate, and this form is tacitly accepted as a re-application upon the death of the squillionth (and so forth) person/animal. If it happens that people/critters find themselves to be soulless, this is more than likely due to clerical errors or automatic disqualification (which i can only speculate might apply to such beings as locusts, goats and people who cut in lines) |
25th April 2014, 05:00 AM | #23 |
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25th April 2014, 05:07 AM | #24 |
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25th April 2014, 05:40 AM | #25 |
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25th April 2014, 06:40 AM | #26 |
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And what prevented you from saying so at the time? I mean, that is what this thread is actually about. As I recall, you just cheesed off in silence instead of piping up. In fact, it was a little worse than that because you launched your point with a sarcastic attack on my professional credentials as a lawyer so, at the very least, I should have thought an apology was due. Don't get me wrong. I don't mind in the least and I am not asking you to apologise. I just want you to know I remembered it and that these things tend to hang in the air. Better not to misread of course but, far better than that, when you do, is to own up and make your peace with the thread, the forum and/or the other poster.
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25th April 2014, 08:51 AM | #27 |
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25th April 2014, 08:52 AM | #28 |
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What is interesting of all that pool of souls to draw from, only the known historical figures get the "second, third..." chance. The many others that lived and died in anonymity get no second chance, if the claims of having a past life had any basis in reality. I get Military History Quarterly. The number of grunts dying in battle, and the toll on the losing sides is enormous, but it's only Napoleon who shows up 100 years later, not one of the grunts that died at Waterloo. |
25th April 2014, 08:55 AM | #29 |
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25th April 2014, 09:00 AM | #30 |
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Funny, but I've noticed that too!
The thing that always strikes me about reincarnation of the common or garden variety is - so what? Say I am the reincarnation of some nobody no one ever heard of. What of it? I don't remember him and he had no foreknowledge of me. So it's exactly the same as if he died and I was born and neither event had any connection with the other. More to the point, it means death is forever or that it is not not forever because of reincarnation. Reincarnation only addresses the problem of being permanently dead, or permanently not being, if there is some cognitive link between the dead one and the living one, otherwise it's pointless. |
25th April 2014, 09:45 AM | #31 |
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I don't believe in reincarnation, but I did in a past life...
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InfoWars. Punching logic in the face on a daily basis. (from Facebook) |
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25th April 2014, 10:53 AM | #32 |
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25th April 2014, 11:02 AM | #33 |
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I would very much appreciate it if you would post this in Rich Savage's "Bayesian Statistics" thread...
http://www.internationalskeptics.com...d.php?t=248163 |
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"They want to make their molehills equal to the mountains by cutting the mountains down." -turingtest "The universe did not come from nothing, it came from 'We don't know'." -Dancing David "Cry, booga, booga, booga! and let slip the Hamsters of Silly!" -JFDHintze |
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25th April 2014, 11:25 AM | #34 |
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25th April 2014, 11:52 AM | #35 |
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I seem to remember a science fiction story from some years ago in which babies started to be born without minds/brains. The x-planation was that there was a finite number of souls and the Universe had run out (some number were normally in the buffer in Heaven but it was exhausted).
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"Reality is what's left when you cease to believe." Philip K. Dick |
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25th April 2014, 12:11 PM | #36 |
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I've read that one. The protagonist (a Buddhist IIRC) decides to commit suicide so that one less child will be born mindless.
I've also read a story where someone investigating why life expectancy appears to be dropping finally works out that every time the world's population exceeds a certain number the oldest person alive drops dead, apparently to free a soul for the next baby to be born. Can't remember the title or author of that one either. |
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25th April 2014, 01:24 PM | #37 |
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So why cant any of these psychics ever demonstrate these abilities under controlled conditions? One thing about psychics is that it's actually very easy to test the claims they make.
The things you list - "Facts and names, and details that it would be difficult for them to know unless they are doing what they say they are doing" - all very easy to test under controlled conditions. All things that psychics apparently do with ease day in day out during private sessions, stage and TV shows. Yet as soon as simple controls are used that prevent shenanigans (and more importantly prevent natural human cognitive biases from skewing the results) the abilities mysteriously disappear. Show me results from a few credible, properly controlled tests that demonstrate psychic ability exists and I'll change my mind on the matter. What will it take for you to change yours? |
26th April 2014, 10:34 AM | #38 |
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The spiritualist mediums I have studied teach that we incarnate on many, many different planets. They are at different stages of evolution, and some are far higher in development than ours. The soul or spirit goes to a planet that is at a stage of evolution where experience will benefit that soul.
There are also countless souls in the spirit world between incarnations. According to the mediums I have heard giving trance lectures, there has been a great rush of souls wanting to incarnate on the earth at this time because the opportunities for spiritual advancement are great. |
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You see many stars in the sky at night, but not when the sun rises. Can you therefore say there are no stars in the heavens during the day? O man because you cannot find God in the days of your ignorance, say not that there is no God. Sri Ramakrishna Even in the valley of the shadow of death two and two do not make six. Leo Tolstoy |
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26th April 2014, 11:38 AM | #39 |
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My source is that I attended many trance lectures by several mediums at the spiritualist association in London for several years during the 1970's.
Two of the mediums I listened to at the spiritualist association were Ivy Northage and Ursula Roberts. I also went to White Eagle lodge and heard Grace Cook give trance lectures. I also attended an art class by Gladys Mayer, a student of Rudolph Steiner. I believe all these people are now dead, but information about them all can be found on the Internet together with some of their teachings. PS. Trance lectures are where a medium is purportedly taken in trance by a discarnate spirit who then speaks through the mediums mouth. |
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You see many stars in the sky at night, but not when the sun rises. Can you therefore say there are no stars in the heavens during the day? O man because you cannot find God in the days of your ignorance, say not that there is no God. Sri Ramakrishna Even in the valley of the shadow of death two and two do not make six. Leo Tolstoy |
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26th April 2014, 11:57 AM | #40 |
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The spirit world do not want or intend to give absolute proof of their existence to the people of this world. Because that would defeat the very object of incarnation. Which is to choose our own path through the world and by doing so invoke karma that is designed to teach us to spiritually evolve. If we had absolute proof of the existence of the spirit world we might as well stay there and not incarnate at all. But in this world we are tried and tested by experience that leads us gradually up the path of evolution over many incarnations.
I am unlikely to change my mind about all this as finding it out was the work of years, and I have had much subjective evidence that we do survive death, in the form of many evidential messages from the spirit world given to me by mediums. But telling you of my experiences is just anecdotal, and although it gives me belief it proves nothing to you. You would have to spend years in a spiritualist church to get such evidence, and even then you might not. The spirit world do not give away their secrets to the idly curious, only to those that they think will use the knowledge in a positive way. |
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You see many stars in the sky at night, but not when the sun rises. Can you therefore say there are no stars in the heavens during the day? O man because you cannot find God in the days of your ignorance, say not that there is no God. Sri Ramakrishna Even in the valley of the shadow of death two and two do not make six. Leo Tolstoy |
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