Merkabah

Two more parts…sorry I have to break it up…it’s too much info!
Be up shortly.
 
So the rest fit into part 3 (there will be no part 4).


Science and the Near-Death Experience Part 3
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[TD="class: auto-style147"]I.

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[TD="class: auto-style156"]Near-death experienceshave influenced some of humanity's greatest philosophies and religions:[/TD]
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The famed Greek philosopher, Plato, described in his legendary work entitled Republic, the NDE account of a soldier named Er. Plato integrated at least three elements of this NDE into his philosophy:



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[TD="class: auto-style52"](1)[/TD]
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The departure of the soul from the cave of shadows to see the light of truth.[/TD]
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The flight of the soul to a vision of pure celestial being.[/TD]
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Its subsequent recollection of the vision of light, which is the very purpose of philosophy.[/TD]
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[TD="class: auto-style147"]II.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style156"]The man responsible for making Christianity a world religion, the Apostle Paul, described his own NDE as follows:


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[TD] "I know a person in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know - God knows.

And I know that this person - whether in the body or apart from the body - was caught up to paradise. He heard inexpressible things, things that people are not permitted to tell." (2 Corinthians 12:2-4)[/TD]
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In this letter, Paul based his authority as an Apostle of Christ on this NDE.

The phrase "I know a person" is a humble way of referring to himself. Some or all of his revelations of Jesus certainly came from this NDE.

The inspiration of much of the New Testament can be attributed in some way to Paul's NDE.[/TD]
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[TD="class: auto-style160, bgcolor: #F4F4FF"]17. Scientific Theories Explaining Near-Death Experiences[/TD]
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[TD="class: auto-style161, bgcolor: #FDEDD9"]a. Dying Brain Theory[/TD]
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[TD="class: style86"]PRO: Because NDEs have many common core elements, this shows that they are not spiritual voyages outside of the body, but are a function of the dying brain.

All brains die in the same way and that is why all NDEs have essential core elements which are the same. They are the result of neurotransmitters in the brain shutting down which creates lovely illusions. (Susan Blackmore)[/TD]
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[TD="class: style127"]CON: Because NDEs have many common core elements, this suggests that they are spiritual voyages outside of the body. Also, if the dying brain creates NDE illusions, what is the purpose for doing it?

If our brains are only a high-tech computer-like lump of tissue which produces our mind and personality, why does it bother to create illusions at the time of death?

If everything, including the mind and personality, are about to disintegrate, why would the brain produce a last wonderful Grand Finale vision?

Even if NDE elements can be reduced to only a series of brain reactions, this does not negate the idea that NDEs are more than a brain thing.

Read this article on the errors of the pseudo-skeptics of NDEs.[/TD]
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[TD="class: auto-style161, bgcolor: #FDEDD9"]b. Lack of Oxygen Theory[/TD]
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[TD="class: style86"]PRO: Neurologist Ernst Rodin offers cerebral anoxia as a possible cause of NDEs of the dying brain. Such anoxia produces a confusing dream-like state of delusions and hallucinations.(Susan Blackmore)[/TD]
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[TD="class: style86"]CON:Cardiologist Dr. Michael Sabom responded that the NDE involves a clear awareness and a more mystical content, and NDEs have also occurred in people without anoxia.

Pim van Lommel led a study concerning NDEs during cardiac arrest. In our study all patients had a cardiac arrest, they were clinically dead, unconsciousness that was caused by insufficient blood supply to the brain, and the EEG has become flat.

In patients cardiac arrest (ventricular fibrillation) is sometimes induced for testing internal defibrillators. In these patients the EEG becomes usually flat within 10-15 seconds from the onset of syncope due to the (reversible) total loss of function of the brain.

According to the physiologic theory, all patients in our study should have had NDE, but only 18% reported NDE.[/TD]
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[TD="class: auto-style161, bgcolor: #FDEDD9"]c. Right Temporal Lobe Theory[/TD]
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[TD="class: style86"]PRO: Neurologist Dr. Michael Persinger argues that instability and activity in the brain's right temporal lobe is responsible for religious experiences of deep meaningfulness, early memories, and out-of-body experiences (see this Temporal lobe theory page.)[/TD]
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[TD="class: style86"]CON: Dr. Melvin Morse agrees that the right temporal lobe shows NDE-like activity, but he sees it as the mediating bridge for a spiritual experience, not reductionistically as nothing but brain activity (Morse, 1992).

Also, the characteristic emotions that result from temporal lobe stimulation are fear, sadness, and loneliness, not the calm and love of a NDE.

While scientists may be discovering a mechanism associated with NDEs, this does not mea NDEs are strictly produced by this mechanism.

A mechanical function associated with NDEs does not negate the idea that NDEs might be more than a mechanical function.[/TD]
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[TD="class: auto-style161, bgcolor: #FDEDD9"]d. Cortical Disinhibition Theory[/TD]
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[TD]PRO: Susan Blackmore interprets the tunnel and the light as an optical illusion created by the effects of anoxia and drugs, creating cortical disinhibition, with the effect of random light spots radiating from the center of a dark internal visual field.[/TD]
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[TD="class: style86"]CON: Dr. Michael Sabom tested and rejected this brain-only argument.

While brain neurology is obviously a part of NDEs, he says, it is not a sufficient explanation because of the verified or veridical aspects found in some NDEs.

This aspect suggests the possibility that consciousness can exist outside of the body.[/TD]
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[TD="class: auto-style161, bgcolor: #FDEDD9"]e. Hallucination Theory[/TD]
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[TD]PRO: The psychiatristDr. Ronald Siegel interprets NDEs and similar imaginative visions of the afterlife as hallucinations, similar to the effects of psychedelic drugs or anesthesia (see this Hallucination Theory support page.)[/TD]
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[TD="class: style86"]CON: Psychologist John Gibbs states, "NDE accounts from varied times and cultures were found to be more orderly, logical, defined and predictable than comparable accounts from drug or illness-induced hallucination.

Impressive data from Tart, Moody and Carl Becker also argue for the objective elements of a NDE, including returning with knowledge later verified and third-party observations of odd death-bed phenomena (such as luminosity or apparitions).

Peter Fenwick, a neuropsychiatrist, notes that drug induced hallucinations take place while the subject is conscious. During a NDE the subject is unconscious.

While in the state of unconsciousness, the brain cannot create images. Even if they did, the subject would not be able to remember them.

NDEs involve clear, lucid memories. Also, drug induced hallucinations distort reality while NDEs have been described as "hyper-reality."[/TD]
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[TD="class: auto-style161, bgcolor: #FDEDD9"]f. Depersonalization Theory[/TD]
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[TD]PRO: Noyes and Kletti theorizes that a defense of the nervous system stalls off mental disorganization during the death crisis by presenting an altered passage of time, vivid and accelerated thoughts, a sense of detachment, unreality, automatic movements, and revival of memories (see this Depersonalization theory page)[/TD]
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[TD="class: style86"]CON: Dr. Michael Sabom argues that depersonalization fails to account for all the elements of NDEs. Some NDE elements do not fit into the depersonalization mode, such as the strong spiritual and mystical feelings, and the increased alertness and awareness.

Also, the vast majority of experiencers reject the idea that their NDE is the result of depersonalization. To reduce what was a profound and transforming experience to nothing more than a set of neurotransmitters going on the blink is a bit like seeing Michelangelo's statue of David as nothing more than several tons of marble.[/TD]
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[TD="class: auto-style161, bgcolor: #FDEDD9"]g. Memory of Birth Theory[/TD]
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[TD="class: style86"]PRO: Otto Rank proposed that the birth trauma is behind all neuroses, for all anxiety-producing experiences of separation reactivate the separation from the mother at birth(Brown, 52-53). This theory has been modified to explain the NDE.

The cosmologist Carl Sagan proposed that the tunnel and light are a reliving of the infant's descent down the birth canal (Sagan, 353-68) (also see this Memory of birth page.)[/TD]
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[TD="class: style86"]CON: Carl Becker asserts that the infant descending the birth canal has its eyes closed and its brain too undeveloped to allow memories of birth (Becker, 1982).

Similarly, Susan Blackmore showed that people born by caesarian section have the tunnel experience and OBEs in equal proportion to those born naturally (Blackmore, 1983).

Birth is also often an unpleasant experience for babies. In contrast, NDEs are often described as extremely pleasurable.[/TD]
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[TD="class: auto-style161, bgcolor: #FDEDD9"]h. Endorphins Theory[/TD]
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[TD="class: style86"]PRO: The brain's naturally produced narcotics, such as the endorphins, have been offered by endocrinologist Daniel Carr to explain why, at the very moment when the body's death would be expected to bring incredible pain and terror, the NDE surprises us with pleasure, calm, and peace.[/TD]
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[TD="class: style86"]CON: Dr. Melvin Morse responds that patients receiving prescribed narcotics similar to the endorphins experienced no NDEs (Morse, 1989).[/TD]
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[TD="class: auto-style161, bgcolor: #FDEDD9"]i. Denial of Death Theory[/TD]
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[TD="class: style86"]PRO: The NDE is seen by some Freudians as a denial of death, a hallucinatory wish fulfillment defending the ego from its impending annihilation.[/TD]
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[TD]CON: A large number of people who have NDEs are initially not even aware they have died. In these cases death is not even considered or denied (e.g., Dr. George Ritchie, Rev. Howard Storm).[/TD]
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[TD="class: auto-style161, bgcolor: #FDEDD9"]j. Fear of Death Theory[/TD]
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[TD]PRO: Severe anxiety and stress at the time of death creates a disassociative state.[/TD]
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[TD="class: style86"]CON: Pim van Lommel led a study concerning NDEs during cardiac arrest. Only a very small percentage of patients said they had been afraid the last seconds preceding the cardiac arrest.
Also, the medication given to them made no difference.[/TD]
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[TD="class: auto-style161, bgcolor: #FDEDD9"]k. Darwin's Theory of Evolution[/TD]
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[TD="class: style86"]PRO:This theory holds that NDE reports are a deliberate ploy of humans to help the human race to adapt better to the inevitable end of their lives.

This is based on the survival of the fittest which means that every species has the primary urge to struggle to increase its hold on the planet and guarantee the survival of its descendants.[/TD]
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[TD="class: style86"]CON: This theory does not explain why NDEs are erratic, or why we shunted down an evolutionary sidetrack for years by making NDEs something that people are reluctant to talk about.[/TD]
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[TD="class: auto-style162, bgcolor: #FDEDD9"]l. Too Much Carbon Dioxide Theory[/TD]
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[TD="class: style86"]PRO:Near-death experiences are tricks of the mind triggered by an overload of carbon dioxide in the bloodstream.

During cardiac arrest and resuscitation, blood gases such as CO2 rise or fall because of the lack of circulation and breathing.

Patients who experienced the phenomenon, blood carbon-dioxide levels were significantly higher than in those who did not. (Zalika Klemenc-Ketis of the University of Maribor in Slovenia)[/TD]
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[TD="class: style86"]CON: According to neuropsychiatrist Peter Fenwick of the Institute of Psychiatry at Kings College London, "The one difficulty in arguing that CO2 is the cause is that in cardiac arrests, everybody has high CO2 but only 10 percent have NDEs.

What's more, in heart attack patients, there is no coherent cerebral activity which could support consciousness, let alone an experience with the clarity of an NDE."[/TD]
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[TD="class: auto-style162, bgcolor: #FDEDD9"]m. Rapid Eye Movement (REM) Intrusion Theory[/TD]
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[TD="class: style86"]PRO:Dr. Kevin Nelson of the University of Kentucky suggests near-death experiences are akin to dreaming and they use the same rapid eye movement (REM) mechanism associated with sleep.

In other words, near-death experiences are a part of the dream mechanism and the person having the experience is in a REM state.[/TD]
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[TD="class: style86"]CON: Dr. Jeffrey Long from the Near-Death Experience Research Foundation (NDERF.org) disagrees with Nelson on a number of points.

First of all, he states that Nelson's comparison group - the non-NDErs - is not typical and many were medical professionals and colleagues of Nelson.

Secondly, Nelson's research questionnaire was poorly designed.

Thirdly, Nelson failed to recognize dramatic differences between NDE and REM intrusion. Hallucinations stemming from REM intrusion - just before waking or while falling asleep - are often "bizarre and unrealistic" such as seeing objects appear through cracks in a wall or movement in a painting on the wall.

By contrast, memories from an NDE are lucid and rooted in the real world. NDErs almost uniformly don't say, "Oh, that must have been a dream." About 75 percent say they were more alert, more conscious than normal.

There's also a consistency of elements in NDEs which hallucinations don't have.

Fourthly, 98 percent of NDErs encounter deceased relatives, as opposed to dreams where it's common to encounter living people. NDErs also encounter deceased relatives whom they didn't know at the time were dead.

Fifthly, the totality of evidence shows there's something going on that's outside the medical evidence. NDEers almost always say that it wasn't a hallucination or dream; it was some different realm, some different aspect of their existence.

And finally, REM intrusion - whether sleep paralysis or hallucinations - tends to be frightening or deeply unsettling. By contrast, most people who go through an NDE say the experience is almost supernaturally calm and peaceful, even joyful.

Not only anecdotes, but real evidence does support this. In a 2001 study in the medical journal The Lancet, of 62 cardiac attest patients who reported a NDE, more than half said the main emotions they experienced were "positive."

Long says these distinctive, positive emotions are powerful evidence that a NDE is not just REM intrusion in disguise.[/TD]
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[TD="class: auto-style162, bgcolor: #FDEDD9"]n. Sharp Increase of Brain Activity After Heart Stops Theory[/TD]
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[TD="class: style86"]PRO:Dr Jimo Borjigin of the University of Michigan suggests that the dying brain does not shut down as might be expected, but instead, becomes much more active during the dying process than even the waking state.

He bases his findings on a study involving rats where it was discovered that in the 30-second period after the rodent's hearts stopped beating, there was a sharp increase in high-frequency brainwaves.[/TD]
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[TD="class: style86"]CON: In a paper entitled, "Seeing Dead People Not Known to Have Died: Peak in Darien Experiences,"
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Dr. Bruce Greyson from the Division of Perceptual Studies at the University of Virginia argues that in his collection of 665 NDEs, 138 (21%) included a purported meeting with a deceased person.

People on their deathbeds see, and often express surprise at meeting, a recently deceased person, of whose death neither they nor anyone around them had any knowledge. This excludes the possibility that the vision was a hallucination related to the experiencer's expectations.

Such NDEs are termed "Peak in Darien" cases, after a book by that name published in 1882 by Frances Power Cobbe. The title is taken from a John Keats poem describing the shock of the Spaniards, who, after scaling a peak in Darien (in what is now Panama), expect to see a continent, but are confronted instead with another ocean.

Bruce Greyson reports in his paper, published in the academic journal 'Anthropology and Humanism', many examples, including that of Physician K. M. Dale who related the case of 9-year-old Eddie Cuomo, whose fever finally broke after nearly 36 hours of anxious vigil on the part of his parents and hospital personnel. As soon as he opened his eyes, at 3:00 in the morning, Eddie related that he had been to heaven, where he saw his deceased Grandpa Cuomo, Auntie Rosa, and Uncle Lorenzo.

Then Eddie added that he also saw his 19-year-old sister Teresa, who told him he had to go back. His father became agitated, because he had spoken with Teresa, who was attending college in Vermont, just two nights ago.

Later that morning, Eddie's parents learned that Teresa had been killed in an automobile accident just after midnight, and that college officials had tried unsuccessfully to reach the Cuomos at their home.

Bruce Greyson relates many other examples, including cases in which the deceased person seen was someone whom the experiencer had never known.

For example, Greyson reports cardiologist Maurice Rawlings describing the case of a 48-year-old man who had a cardiac arrest. In a NDE he perceived a gorge full of beautiful colours, where he met both his stepmother and his biological mother, who had died when he was 15 months old.

His father had remarried soon after his biological mother's death, and this person had never even seen a photo of her. A few weeks after this episode, his aunt, having heard about this vision, brought a picture of his mother with a number of other people. The man picked his mother out of the group, to the astonishment of his father.[/TD]
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[TD="class: auto-style161, bgcolor: #FDEDD9"]o. Consciousness Survives Bodily Death Theory[/TD]
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[TD="class: style86"]PRO:There exists strong circumstantial evidence of consciousness surviving bodily death. While this evidence does not constitute conclusive scientific proof, it does make survival after bodily death a possibility which can be upheld in a court of law.

The evidence for survival can be found in science, philosophy, history, metaphysics, religion, and anecdotal testimony. Quantum physics (see above) makes some scientific theories of the NDE outmoded while supporting elements of NDEs.

Scientific studies support the possible validity of NDEs elements such as being out of the body, the retention of mental images during brain death, veridical experiences of autoscopic events, the ability to accurately foresee the future, receiving information that leads to new scientific discoveries, people born blind being able to see, groups of people sharing a single experience, unbiased children having similar experiences as adults, causing experiencers to be drastically changed and convinced of survival after death, the evidence supporting the objectivity of NDEs, and the affirmation of ancient religious concepts found around the world.

Some of the skeptical arguments against the survival theory are often not valid and the burden of proof against survival has shifted to the skeptics.

The following is a list of the evidence supporting NDEs as the survival of consciousness:[/TD]
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[TD="class: style114"]1.Quantum physics makes some scientific theories of the NDE outmoded: New developments in quantum physics shows that we cannot know phenomena apart from the observer.

Arlice Davenport challenges the hallucination theory of NDEs as outmoded because the field theories of physics now suggest new paradigm options available to explain NDEs. Mark Woodhouse argues that the traditional materialism/dualism battle over NDEs may be solved by Einstein.

Since matter is now seen as a form of energy, an energy body alternative to the material body could explain the NDE. This is supported by Melvin Morse who describes how NDEs are able to realign the charges in the electromagnetic field of the human body so that somehow the brain's wiring is renewed.

He reports on patients who have NDEs and who recover from such diseases as pneumonia, cardiac arrest, and cancer(1992, 153-54). Perhaps the brain is like a kind of receiver such as a television, radio, or cell phone.

What is received (i.e., signals, music, voice) is not produced by the receiver, but exists separately as electromagnetic waves that are processed by the receiver to make them visible or audible to the senses.[/TD]
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[TD="class: style114"]2.Quantum physics support elements found in NDEs: Similarities can be found between elements of NDEs and in quantum field concepts of non-locality, universal interconnectedness, a non-material dimension without our time-space relationship, and in the concept of subjectivity.

All events are related and influence each other instantaneously and in reciprocity, and only subjectivity remains.[/TD]
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[TD="class: style114"]3.Scientific studies support the out-of-body aspect of NDEs: Pim van Lommel led a study concerning the NDEs of research subjects who had cardiac arrest. The findings of the study suggests that research subjects can experience consciousness, with self-identity, cognitive function and memories, including the possibility of perception outside their body, during a flat EEG.

Those research subjects who had NDEs report that their NDE was a bonafide preview of the afterlife.[/TD]
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[TD="class: style114"]4.Memories and images are produced and retained by standstill patients: See Dr. Michael Sabom’s groundbreakingAtlanta study.[/TD]
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[TD="class: style114"]5.People see and hear verifiable events far from their bodies during a NDE: See
(a) Dr. Charles Tart's research subject,
(b) Pam Reynolds,
(c) Dr. George Rodonaia,
(d) Dr. George Ritchie, and
(e) variousNDE experiencers.[/TD]
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[TD="class: style114"]6.Strange aspects to NDEs cannot be explained by brain chemistry alone: If NDEs are merely hallucinations, why do the vast majority of experiencers report being told an identical and unusual message?

This unusual message is that they must return because their time for death hasn't come, or some variation of this.

Assuming that NDEs are merely hallucinations, it is odd that people are having mass hallucinations of receiving similar unusual messages.[/TD]
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[TD="class: style114"]7.People born blind are able to see during a NDE: See Vicki Umipeg's NDE account.[/TD]
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[TD="class: style114"]8.Groups of people can share the same NDE at the same time: NDE research Arvin Gibson documented the account of a group of firefighters who succumbed to a forest fire.

During their NDEs they saw each other outside of their bodies and had a most interesting experience.

See the Group NDE web page involving May Eulitt and Jake.[/TD]
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[TD="class: style114"]9.People are able to successfully foresee future events during a NDE: Some of these events were the Second World War, Desert Storm, and the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack.
See the NDE and the Future web page.[/TD]
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[TD="class: style114"]10.People are declared dead and left for dead for several days during a NDE:A Russian scientist was declared dead and put in the morgue for three days during which he had a NDE.

See Dr. George Rodonaia's NDE account. Also, visit Emanuel Tuwagirairmana's NDE account.[/TD]
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[TD="class: style137"]11.Unbiased children have NDEs that are similar to adult NDEs: See P.M.H. Atwater's research onchildhood NDEs.[/TD]
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[TD="class: style137"]
[/TD]
[TD="class: style88"]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: style137"]12.Scientific discoveries have been made from the direct result of NDEs: See the list of scientific discoveries above.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: style137"]
[/TD]
[TD="class: style88"]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style73"]13.NDEs can be viewed to be archetypal initiatory journeys: Dr. Ken Ring stated that NDEs can be viewed psychologically as archetypal initiatory journeys involving a death of one's old ego and a rebirth of a new self.

An adequate interpretation must incorporate the spiritual realm of kundalini experiences, the imaginal realm, and the mind at large.

As Ring envisions in an essay in this book, this paradigm can deconstruct our traditional Western worldview. It may lead to a dramatic next step in the evolution of a more ecological and more compassionate consciousness.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style73"]
[/TD]
[TD="class: style88"]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: style114"]14.People are dramatically changed as a result from having a NDE:The philosophy of Positivism, founded by A. J. Ayer, is the philosophy that anything not verifiable by the senses is nonsense.

And since NDEs mark the end of the senses, the survival of the senses after death is nonsense. But this philosophy is challenged by its founder A. J. Ayer himself.

Later in life, Ayer had a NDE where he saw a red light. His NDE made him a changed man: "My recent experiences, have slightly weakened my conviction that my genuine death...will be the end of me, though I continue to hope that it will be."(Ayer, 1988 a, b).[/TD]
[TD="class: style88"]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: style114"]
[/TD]
[TD="class: style88"]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: style114"]15.People are absolutely convinced they were out of their body during a NDE: See the Evidence of NDEs web page.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: style114"]
[/TD]
[TD="class: style88"]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: style114"]16.NDEs can be considered an objective experience:The philosopher Carl Becker examined four ways in which NDEs may be considered objective: examined four ways in which NDEs may be considered objective:[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: style83"][TABLE="width: 648, align: center"]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style87"]a.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]
Paranormal knowledge that is later verified.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style87"]b.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]
The similarity off deathbed events in different cultures. In different cultures.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style87"]c.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]
Differences between religious expectations and visionary experiences.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style87"]d.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]
Third-party observations of visionary figures, indicating that they were not merely subjective hallucinations (Becker, 1984).[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: style83"]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style73"]17.Other paranormal phenomena supports NDEs to be experiences of the survival of consciousness including:

(a) Deathbed visions,

(b) Quantum physics,

(c) Dream research,

(d) Out-of-body research,

(e)After-death communications research,

(f )Reincarnation research,

(g) Hypnosis,

(h) Synchronicity,

(i )Remote viewing, and

(j ) Consciousness research.[/TD]
[TD="class: style88"]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style73"]
[/TD]
[TD="class: style88"]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style73"]18.NDEs have been happening for thousands of years and are not a modern phenomenon: See the NDE accounts associated with
(a) Plato,
(b) the Apostle Paul, and
(c) the Tibetan Book of the Dead.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style73"]
[/TD]
[TD="class: style88"]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style73"]19.Skeptical arguments against the survival theory of NDEs are often not valid: Sociologist Dr. Allan Kellehear states that some scientific theories are often presented as the most logical, factual, objective, credible, and progressive possibilities, as opposed to the allegedly subjective, superstitious, abnormal, or dysfunctional views of mystics.

The rhetorical opinions of some NDE theories are presented as if they were scientific (Kellehear, 1996, 120). Many skeptical arguments against the survival theory are actually arguments from pseudo-skeptics who often think they have no burden of proof.

Such arguments often based on scientism with assumptions that survival is impossible even though survival has not been ruled out. Faulty conclusions are often made such as, "Because NDEs have a brain chemical connection then survival is impossible."

Pseudo-skeptical arguments are sometimes made that do not consider the entire body of circumstantial evidence supporting the possibility of survival or do not consider the possibility of new paradigms.

Such pseudo-skeptical claims are often made without any scientific evidence.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style73"]
[/TD]
[TD="class: style88"]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: style114"]20.Memories of near-death experiences are more real than reality: Researchers at the Coma Science Group, directed by Steven Laureys, and the University of Liege's Cognitive Psychology Research, headed by Professor Serge Bredart and Hedwige Dehon, have demonstrated that the physiological mechanisms triggered during NDE lead to a more vivid perception not only of imagined events in the history of an individual but also of real events which have taken place in their lives!

These surprising results - obtained using an original method which now requires further investigation - are published inPLOS ONE. The researchers looked into the memories of NDE with the hypothesis that if the memories of NDE were pure products of the imagination, their phenomenological characteristics (e.g., sensorial, self referential, emotional, etc. details) should be closer to those of imagined memories. Conversely, if the NDE are experienced in a way similar to that of reality, their characteristics would be closer to the memories of real events.

Their results were surprising. From the perspective being studied, not only were the NDEs not similar to the memories of imagined events, but the phenomenological characteristics inherent to the memories of real events (e.g. memories of sensorial details) are even more numerous in the memories of NDE than in the memories of real events.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style73"]
[/TD]
[TD="class: style88"]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style73"]21.The burden of proof has shifted to skeptics of the survival theory of NDEs: All neurological theories that conclude NDEs to be only a brain-thing, must show how the core elements of the NDE occur subjectively because of specific neurological events triggered by the approach of death.

These core elements include: the out-of-body state, paranormal knowledge, the tunnel, the golden light, the voice or presence, the appearance of deceased relatives, and beautiful vistas.

Perhaps the final word should go to Nancy Evans Bush, a NDEr with the International Association for Near-Death Studies, who said: "There is no human experience of any description that can't simply be reduced to a biological process, but that in no way offsets the meaning those experiences have for us-whether it's falling in love, or grieving, or having a baby."[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style73"]
[/TD]
[TD="class: style88"]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: style114"]22.A significant amount of support suggestive of consciousness surviving bodily death exists.

Although this has not been proven conclusively using the scientific method, the open-minded skeptic include this significant amount of evidence as well as taken into consideration the testimonies of millions of people who have had both objective and subjective NDEs and OBEs constituting very strong circumstantial evidence. Here are some Wikipedia articles dealing with this subject as well:

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9][10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] and [21].[/TD]
[TD="class: style88"]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: style38"]CON: The survival of consciousness after death has never been proven conclusively using the scientific method.[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style129"]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style160, bgcolor: #F4F4FF"]18. Near-Death Studies Research Conclusions[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: style86"] Read current articles of NDE research supporting the survival of consciousness from the body.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: style86"]Dr. Raymond Moody: Common NDE aspects:[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: style1, align: center"][TABLE="width: 745, align: center"]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style89"]a.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]Strange sounds[/TD]
[TD="class: style114"]e.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]Traveling rapidly[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style89"]b.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]Peace and and painlessness[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style89"]f.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]Seeing light beings[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style89"]c.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]Out-of-body experience[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style89"]g.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]Life review[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style89"]d.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]Tunnel[/TD]
[TD="class: style114"]h.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]Reluctance to return[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: style86"]Dr. Kenneth Ring: Research findings:[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: style1, align: center"][TABLE="width: 745, align: center"]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style89"]a.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]Moody's findings Moody's findings are affirmed.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style89"]b.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]They happen to people of all races, genders, ages, education, marital status, and social class.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style89"]c.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]Religious orientation is not a factor.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style89"]d.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]People are convinced of the reality of their experience.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style89"]e.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]Drugs do not appear to be a factor.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style89"]f.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]NDEs are not hallucinations.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style89"]g.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]NDEs often involve unparalleled feelings.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style89"]h.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]People lose their fear of death and appreciate life more.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style89"]i.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]People's lives are transformed.[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: style86"]P.M.H. Atwater: The content of the NDE involves an otherworldly awareness that can be brief and consist of only one or two elements, or can be more involved, even lengthy, and consist of multiple elements. Common elements include:[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: style1, align: center"][TABLE="width: 745, align: center"]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style89"]a.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]Greatly enhanced thoughts.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style89"]b.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]A darkness or light that is perceived as alive, intelligent and powerful.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style89"]c.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]A sensation of movement and/or presence.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style89"]d..[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]A sudden sudden overwhelming flood of emotion.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style89"]e.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]An encounter with an identified deceased person or animal, or an encounter with an apparently nonphysical entity.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style89"]f.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]A life review.[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: style86"]Dr. Melvin Morse: The brain's connection to a higher power can be validated by indisputable scientific facts such as:[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: style1, align: center"][TABLE="width: 745, align: center"]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style89"]a.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]Memories can can exist outside of the brain.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style89"]b.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]Scientific evidence supporting reincarnation.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style89"]c.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]Anecdotal evidence that people exist after death in some form of energy.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style89"]d.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]People often exhibit supernatural powers.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style89"]e.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]Right temporal lobe activity verifies the reality of them.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style89"]f.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]The mind/brain can be induced to have them.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style89"]g.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]Brain research is able to support the reality of an unseen power.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: style114"]h.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]More conclusions can be found here.[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: style86"]Dr. Jeffrey and Jody Long: of 302 near-death experiences:[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: style1, align: center"][TABLE="width: 745, align: center"]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style88"]a.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]29% saw the Being of Light as a familiar being.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style88"]
[/TD]
[TD="class: style38"]Of the percentage who saw familiar beings:[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style88"]
[/TD]
[TD="class: style38, align: left"][TABLE="width: 685, align: center"]
[TR]
[TD="class: style114"] I.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]25.9% saw blood relatives.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: style114"] II.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]22.9% saw religious figures.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: style114"] III.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]25.8% saw the Being of Light as an unfamiliar being.[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style88"]b.[/TD]
[TD="class: style130"]Of the 166 people who saw beings:[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style88"]
[/TD]
[TD="class: style38, align: left"][TABLE="width: 685, align: center"]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style89"]I.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"] 53% saw familiar beings.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style89"]II.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"] 47% saw unfamiliar beings.[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: style86"]Dr. Jeffrey Long, in his book, "Evidence of the Afterlife: The Science of Near-Death Experiences," documented a study he conducted - the largest scientific study of NDEs ever - based on his research of over 1,300 NDEs shared with NDERF.org.

Using his treasure trove of data, Dr. Long explains how NDEs cannot be explained by brain chemistry alone, how medical evidence fails to explain them away and why there is only one plausible explanation - that people have survived death and traveled to another dimension.

Dr. Long makes his case using nine lines of evidence and they are:[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style142, align: center"][TABLE="class: auto-style141, width: 742, align: center"]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style144"]a.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style143"]
Crystal-Clear Consciousness. The level of conscious alertness during NDEs is usually greater than that experienced in everyday life - even though NDEs generally occur when a person is unconscious or clinically dead.

This high level of consciousness while physically unconscious is medically unexplained. Additionally, the elements in NDEs generally follow the same consistent and logical order in all age groups and around the world, which refutes the possibility that NDEs have any relation to dreams or hallucinations.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style144"]b.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style143"]
Realistic Out-of-Body Experiences (OBEs): OBEs are one of the most common elements of NDEs. Events witnessed and heard by NDErs while in an out-of-body state are almost always realistic.

When the NDEr or others later seek to verify what was witnessed or heard during the NDE, their OBE observations are almost always confirmed as completely accurate. Even if the OBE observations include events occurring far away from the physical body, and far from any possible sensory awareness of the NDEr, the OBE observations are still almost always confirmed as completely accurate.

This fact alone rules out the possibility that NDEs are related to any known brain functioning or sensory awareness. This also refutes the possibility that NDEs are unrealistic fragments of memory from the brain.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style144"]c.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style143"]
Heightened Senses. Heightened senses have been reported by most who have NDEs. Supernormal vision has occurred even in those with significantly impaired vision.
This is medically unexplainable.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style144"]d.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style143"]
Consciousness During Anesthesia. Many NDEs occur while the NDEr is under general anesthesia - at a time when any conscious experience should be impossible. While some skeptics claim these NDEs may be the result of too little anesthesia, this ignores the fact that some NDEs result from anesthesia overdose.

Additionally, descriptions of a NDEs differ greatly from those people who experiences "anesthetic awareness." The content of NDEs occuring under general anesthesia is essentially indistinguishable from NDEs that do not occur under general anesthesia. This is more strong evidence that NDEs occur independent from the functioning of the material brain.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style144"]e.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style143"]
Perfect Playback. Life reviews in NDEs include real events which previously occurred in the lives of the NDEr - even if the events were forgotten or happened before they were old enough to remember.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style144"]f.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style143"]
Family Reunions. During a NDE, the experiencer may encounter people who are virtually always deceased and are usually relatives of the NDEr. Sometimes they include relatives who died before the NDEr was even born.

If NDEs are merely the product of memory fragments, they would almost certainly include far more living people, including those with whom they had more recently interacted.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style144"]g.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style143"]
Children’s Experiences. The NDEs of children, including very young children who are too young to have developed concepts of death, religion, or NDEs, are essentially identical to those of older children and adults.

This refutes the possibility that the content of NDEs is produced by preexisting beliefs or cultural conditioning.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style144"]h.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style143"]
Worldwide Consistency. NDEs appear remarkably consistent around the world, and across many different religions and cultures.

NDEs from non-Western countries are incredibly similar to those occuring in people in Western countries.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style144"]i.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style143"]
Aftereffects. It is common for people to experience major life changes after having NDEs. These aftereffects are often powerful, lasting, life-enhancing, and the changes generally follow a consistent pattern.

NDErs themselves are practically universal in their belief that their experience of the afterlife was real.[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: style86"]Dr. Michael Sabom: The Atlanta study concluded:[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: style1, align: center"][TABLE="width: 745, align: center"]
[TR]
[TD="class: style114"]a.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]NDEs provide evidence of veridical perception (i.e., verified out-of-body vision).[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: style114"]b.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]What people see and hear while they are dead has a factual basis.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: style114"]c.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]Near-death experiencers accurately recall events that are happening around them when their brain isn't functioning.[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: style86"]Pim van Lommel: The Dutch study on NDEs involved:[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: style1, align: center"][TABLE="width: 745, align: center"]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style89"]a.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]The replication of the veridical perception phenomenon reported by Dr. Michael Sabom.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style89"]b.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]Lommel described a patient who was able to describe verifiable events from a vantage point far away from his body.[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: style86"]Dr. Barbara Rommer: Less-than-positive NDEs can be classified into four types:[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: style1, align: center"][TABLE="width: 745, align: center"]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style89"]a.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]NDEs that are misinterpreted positive NDEs.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style89"]b.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]NDEs involving a void which is very unpleasant.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style89"]c.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]NDEs that involve visions of hell.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: style114"]d.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]NDEs that involve frightening life reviews.[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: style86"]Dr. Karl Jansen: Ketamine research findings:[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: style1, align: center"][TABLE="width: 745, align: center"]
[TR]
[TD="class: style114"]a.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]NDEs and the drug ketamine produce identical visions.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: style114"]b.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]They both induce real visions of a real god.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: style114"]c.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]Ketamine affects parts of the brain such as the right temporal lobe, the hippocampus and associated structures in the brain.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: style137"]d.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]NDEs are an important phenomenon that can safely be reproduced by ketamine.[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: style86"]Dr. Peter Fenwick: On the difference between hallucinations and NDEs, Fenwick states in Tom Harpur's documentary Life After Death that drug-induced hallucinations are not the same as NDEs:[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: style1, align: center"][TABLE="class: auto-style122, width: 745, align: center"]
[TR]
[TD]"The difficulty with those theories is that when you create these wonderful states by taking drugs, you're conscious. In the NDE, you are unconscious. One of the things we know about brain function in unconsciousness, is that you cannot create images and if you do, you cannot remember them ... [During a NDE] the brain isn't functioning.

It's not there. It's destroyed. It's abnormal. But, yet, it can produce these very clear experiences ... An unconscious state is when the brain ceases to function. For example, if you faint, you fall to the floor, you don't know what's happening and the brain isn't working.

The memory systems are particularly sensitive to unconsciousness. So, you won't remember anything. But, yet, after one of these [NDE] experiences, you come out with clear, lucid memories ... This is a real puzzle for science. I have not yet seen any good scientific explanation which can explain that fact." (Dr. Peter Fenwick)[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: style86"]Dr. Ian Stevenson: Stevenson's ground-breaking reincarnation research concluded that birthmarks and congenital deformities have one to five characteristics in common:[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: style1, align: center"][TABLE="width: 745, align: center"]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style52"]a.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]The person expresses a wish to be reborn through a particular woman.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style52"]b.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]A woman has an after-death visitation by an apparition who tells her that he/she are to be reborn through her.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style52"]c.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]In some cultures where reincarnation is a dominant belief, newborn children are checked for recognizable birthmarks to determine their past-life identity.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style73"]d.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]A child, usually between 2 and 4 years, talks about having memories of a past life.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: style114"]e.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]A child feels uncomfortable with its current family.[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: style86"]Kevin Williams, B.Sc: These are statistics of common elements found in 50 NDEs profiled on this website:[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: style1, align: center"][TABLE="width: 745, align: center"]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]69% Experienced overwhelming love[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]31% Received forgotten knowledge[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]65% Experienced mental telepathy[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]27% Experienced fear[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]62% Had a life review[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]21% Had a homecoming with deceased loved ones[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]56% Meet a Being of light[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]21% Was shown their past lives[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]56% Felt tremendous ecstasy[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]19% Saw or experienced hell[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]46% Learned unlimited knowledge[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]17% Saw a heavenly city of light[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]46% Visited numerous afterlife realms[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]13% Visited a heavenly temple of knowledge[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]46% Was told they were not ready to die[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]10% Saw earthbound souls[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]44% Was shown visions of the future[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"] 6% Their NDE was the result of an attempted suicide[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]42% Traveled through a tunnel[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"] 0% Saw a devil[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]37% Met Jesus Christ[/TD]
[TD="class: style32"]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style129"]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style160, bgcolor: #F4F4FF"]19. Events Which Can Trigger an Out-of-Body or Near-Death Experience[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: style1, align: center"][TABLE="width: 745, align: center"]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style106"]a. Death[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]h.After-death vision[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]o.Relaxation[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style106"]b. Dreams[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]i. Eye movement[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]p.Psychic powers[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style106"]c. Stress[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]j. Sexual orgasm[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]q.Astral projection[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style106"]d. Brain stimulation[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]k.Surgery[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]r..Mirror gazing[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style106"]e. Deathbed[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]l.Drugs[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]s.Falling down[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style106"]f. Seizure[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]m.Gravity[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]t. Alien abduction[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style106"]g. Coma[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]n.Meditation[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style51"]u.Mental illness[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style129"]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style160, bgcolor: #F4F4FF"]20. Scientific Discoveries are Coming to Earth from Another Dimension[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: style1, align: center"][TABLE="class: auto-style141, width: 744, align: center"]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style147"]a.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style143"]
"Many of our important inventions were first created in the spiritual universe by spirit prodigies. Then individuals on Earth receive the inspiration to create these inventions here." (Betty Eadie)
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style147"]b.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style143"]
"Spirituality and science are one and the same." (Lynnclaire Dennis)[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style147"]c.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style143"]
"Science and technology are gifts from God bestowed through inspiration. People on Earth have literally been led to these discoveries, many of which later became perverted by humanity to use for its own destruction." (Rev. Howard Storm)[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style147"]d.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style143"]
"The mushroom cloud of the atomic bomb is one of the holiest archetypes created by human beings. It, more than any religion or philosophy on Earth, brought humanity together all of a sudden, to a new level of consciousness. The power behind the atom is the power of God - the Force that holds all things together." (Mellen-Thomas Benedict)[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style147"]e.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style143"]
Visit the Skeptic's Corner for specific discoveries learned from near-death experiences.[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style129"]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style160, bgcolor: #F4F4FF"]21. Television-like Technology Exists in the Afterlife[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: style1, align: center"][TABLE="class: auto-style141, width: 744, align: center"]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style147"]a.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style144"]
"Then I was instantly zapped to a domed room with square screens up and down the walls, on the ceiling - hundreds of television screens. On each screen was a home movie of one event in my life." (Jeanie Dicus)[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style147"]b.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style144"]
"In a sacred room, we see our lives flash before us on a "scanning machine." This device is a domed screen where our lives are placed out in three-dimensional holographic form." (Sylvia Browne)[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style147"]c.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style144"]
"It was a lot like looking at a hologram, but full color 3D with sound and scent." (Hal)[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style147"]d.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style144"]
"He is told it resembles a movie theater which allows souls to see themselves in the future, playing different roles in various settings." (Dr. Michael Newton)[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style147"]e.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style144"]
"In response they used a machine to show her a scene from earlier in her life." (Betty Andreason)[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style147"]f.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style144"]
"With that I saw frames appear like screens on a television set." (Lou Famoso)[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style147"]g.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style144"]
"The box opened to reveal what appeared to be a tiny television picture of a world event that was yet to happen." (Dannion Brinkley)[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style147"]h.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style144"]
"He told me what I had to do in life and had me go to the other side of the room and look down into something like a television set so I could see my future." (Clara)[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style147"]i.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style144"]
"Next we went to a place she called the lookout. It appeared to be only an overhang on a high cliff, but the view was intensely magnified.

I could look into the world I had left behind as though peering into a monitor, if I chose to do so. No one spent a lot of time here, Maggi said, but some occasionally stopped by to check on what was going on in the Earthly realm." (Jan Price)[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style129"]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style160, bgcolor: #F4F4FF"]22. Computer-Like Technology Exists in the Afterlife[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: style1, align: center"][TABLE="class: auto-style141, width: 744, align: center"]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style147"]a.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style143"]Albert Einstein was observed operating a Heavenly Computer: "Next we materialized in a computer room ... Some of [the people there] I knew by name, others by reputation; and all had time for me, to teach me if ever I need help understanding. One of them was Albert Einstein, whom I had always admired greatly but distantly, and this great man took time away from his duties to encourage me.

He asked me if I would care to operate the computer, which was very complex and beautiful and designed to guide the path of destinies. I was flattered, but felt incompetent and unsure of myself in the presence of such greatness. I told him I would like to try, but I was afraid of making a mistake.

He laughed greatly, and reassured me, saying that error was not possible in this place. Encouraged, I seemed instinctively to know how to operate this unusual machine, and waved my hand in a pattern over the large keyboard, rather like playing a piano without touching the keys.

I knew instantly the task had been performed perfectly, and it had somehow been of great benefit to someone. I was suffused with the joy of a job well done. I would gladly spend eternity here at this rewarding work if only for the tremendous feeling of well-being I had experienced as a result.

Through open doors I glimpsed enormous rooms filled with complex equipment. In several of the rooms hooded figures bent over intricate charts and diagrams, or sat at the controls of elaborate consoles flickering with lights ...

Years later, when I picked up the December 1952 issue of Life magazine and saw some of the instruments in the second U.S. atomic submarine engine, I had the strange feeling of deja vu until I recalled seeing the very same instrument in one of these labs." (Dr. George Ritchie)[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style147"]b.[/TD]
[TD="class: auto-style143"]
Betty Eadie saw a large machine, similar to a computer, but much more elaborate and powerful. Betty realized that all important things on Earth are first created in spirit. (Betty Eadie)[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: auto-style163"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: style38"][TABLE="width: 100%"]
[TR]
[TD="width: 100%, align: left"][TABLE="width: 100%"]
[TR]
[TD]"The unconscious psyche believes in life after death" - Carl Jung, M.D.[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

​
 
Ooooo.....Indra's Net!

I've seen it in my meditation visions for a long long time now. It's you and me and everyone else energetically connected by a cord of light. There's more....but what I've "seen" are people floating in their energetic fields with light cords streaming to the next ones adjacent.


from Lee Harris:

"The energy of the heart is flooding into the Earth. More and more, the energy of the heart is being allowed through man’s creation.
This will bolster the energy of the mind. The energy of the mind is powerful and can create great shifts.
In past generations, heart energy has been little present in the mind. It has been diluted, for that was the level humanity was ready for.

The time has changed. The barriers to heart energy have dissolved.
Humanity is ready to receive their hearts. And you are ready to further receive your heart, for you are the heart leaders.
You are ready to acknowledge, work with and consciously see heart energy at a deeper level.
That is who you decreed to become in this great kaleidoscope of life.
You wanted to be one of the souls working consciously. "
~~Zachary through Lee, from Ask the Heart (For It Knows Everything) in 'Energy Speaks-Volume Two'
 
Has some worthwhile information contained within.

The Holographic Universe Part 1

The Holographic universe suggests that the physical world we believe to be real is in fact illusion.

Energy fields are decoded by our brains into a 3D picture, to give the illusion of a physical world.

[video=youtube;lMBt_yfGKpU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=lMBt_yfGKpU[/video]

Part 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=vU6yCD_sEvU

Part 3

[video=youtube;_EvCG9o8Nn4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=_EvCG9o8Nn4[/video]

Part 4

[video=youtube;p1rox1AhJLg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=p1rox1AhJLg[/video]

Part 5

[video=youtube;CuZOl0GUzRM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=CuZOl0GUzRM[/video]​
 
Kgal said:
Ooooo.....Indra's Net!

I've seen it in my meditation visions for a long long time now. It's you and me and everyone else energetically connected by a cord of light. There's more....but what I've "seen" are people floating in their energetic fields with light cords streaming to the next ones adjacent.


from Lee Harris:

"The energy of the heart is flooding into the Earth. More and more, the energy of the heart is being allowed through man’s creation.
This will bolster the energy of the mind. The energy of the mind is powerful and can create great shifts.
In past generations, heart energy has been little present in the mind. It has been diluted, for that was the level humanity was ready for.

The time has changed. The barriers to heart energy have dissolved.
Humanity is ready to receive their hearts. And you are ready to further receive your heart, for you are the heart leaders.
You are ready to acknowledge, work with and consciously see heart energy at a deeper level.
That is who you decreed to become in this great kaleidoscope of life.
You wanted to be one of the souls working consciously. "
~~Zachary through Lee, from Ask the Heart (For It Knows Everything) in 'Energy Speaks-Volume Two'
Click to expand...

Today feels very “off” to me. I think it has a lot to do with the Michael Brown verdict and the subsequent riots and protests.
People are craving justice.
Not just in this instances but in our lives overall…we have two very distinct forms of law in our country and it isn’t even being tried keeping it on the down low…it’s being paraded and flaunted in people’s faces that if you are poor, you get no justice in the US…and if you are rich, nothing happens to you, you certainly don’t go to jail.
I think it is going to take things like this and perhaps more painful and uncomfortable than this to really open the eyes of the people…so on one hand I am glad to see that people are starting to recognize their power combined is where the real power is.
Unfortunately, there are people who just don’t get it…those who looted the stores were angry at the verdict and their life situation maybe, but they missed the point if by committing criminal acts they think it makes the initial act more just…it can not.
Damn if change isn’t painful and dangerous sometimes!
 
An old trick the authorities do is to plant their agent provocateurs in amongst the protestors to start conflict situations and to burn and loot to make the protestors look bad and to incite trouble in order to allow the authorities to come in heavy handed

So some of that might have been going on

I think what we are seeing is a radicalising of the 'working class'

The 'middle class' is still sitting too pretty to be radicalised; they'll maybe grumble a bit but they're not going to get off their butts yet

Basically by keeping interest rates low the authorities are allowing a housing bubble to grow and its keeping peoples mortgages affordable so while the middle class can afford their mortgages and can make their payments and are even watching the price of their homes rise they're generally going to be fairly docile

Things will hot up when the housing bubble bursts and house prices correct themselves leaving people with less equity to borrow from

What i'm saying in a nutshell is that not everyone is feeling the squeeze so badly yet that they will be motivated enough to act; some are still coasting and content to coast and have been conditioned by thatcherite/reaganite thinking that they should only watch out for their own interests and not feel any solidarity for anyone else...it's short sighted behaviour and a harsh lesson is on the way
 
Last edited:
muir said:
An old trick the authorities do is to plant their agent provocateurs in amongst the protestors to start conflict situations and to burn and loot to make the protestors look bad and to incite trouble in order to allow the authorities to come in heavy handed

So some of that might have been going on

I think what we are seeing is a radicalising of the 'working class'

The 'middle class' is still sitting too pretty to be radicalised; they'll maybe grumble a bit but they're not going to get off their butts yet

Basically by keeping interest rates low the authorities are allowing a housing bubble to grow and its keeping peoples mortgages affordable so while the middle class can afford their mortgages and can make their payments and are even watching the price of their homes rise they're generally going to be fairly docile

Things will hot up when the housing bubble bursts and house prices correct themselves leaving people with less equity to borrow from

What i'm saying in a nutshell is that not everyone is feeling the squeeze so badly yet that they will be motivated enough to act; some are still coasting and content to coast and have been conditioned by thatcherite/reaganite thinking that they should only watch out for their own interests and not feel any solidarity for anyone else...it's short sighted behaviour and a harsh lesson is on the way
Click to expand...

I think that the bubble will continue to grow for a while still.
I agree that there could for sure be some agent provocateurs at work as well.
Here is where you and I differ slightly but it’s no big deal…I believe (like 80% of the US) that we should have at least some common sense gun control measures in place.
For example…I live 10 mins from another state…a state with no such background checks and whatnot.
They have gun shows at least 5 times a year, where there is no background check or waiting period.
Yes, criminals will always get their hands on weapons and guns if they want to…but why make it easier for criminals to be armed?
Also…I understand that people are worried that they will be put on some list for future gun confiscations…but as of right now, I have more hoops to jump through to pay my phone bill online than buying a gun.
I don’t give a fuck what kind of guns people have…I really don’t…just have some common sense checks and balances when buying and selling something made to kill.

Anyhow, I think you are correct about the current housing bubble…certain folks are still making a killing off of buying distressed homes and flipping them.
But that whole market is built on false mortgage rates being artificial propped up to squeeze every last drop of blood from the turnip.
People are seeing the market supposedly recovering and they are waiting patiently for the raises they have forgone the past 6 years because our employers told us they just couldn’t afford it, but be patient…the raises are coming…nonsense.
All lies.
People want what they have worked hard for and have earned.
 
Skarekrow said:
I think that the bubble will continue to grow for a while still.
Click to expand...

Yeah they are as economists are saying continuing to 'kick the can down the road' through money printing but at some point....the reality train will come careering in

Skarekrow said:
I agree that there could for sure be some agent provocateurs at work as well.
Click to expand...

For sure man there will be undercover guys in there

Skarekrow said:
Here is where you and I differ slightly but it’s no big deal…I believe (like 80% of the US) that we should have at least some common sense gun control measures in place.
For example…I live 10 mins from another state…a state with no such background checks and whatnot.
They have gun shows at least 5 times a year, where there is no background check or waiting period.
Yes, criminals will always get their hands on weapons and guns if they want to…but why make it easier for criminals to be armed?
Click to expand...

Criminals won't use legally obtained weapons. They'll use black market, unlicensed, untraceable weapons so regulating law abiding citizens makes no differecne to the criminals

Skarekrow said:
Also…I understand that people are worried that they will be put on some list for future gun confiscations…but as of right now, I have more hoops to jump through to pay my phone bill online than buying a gun.
Click to expand...

Yes the licensing is to make a list of who owns what so that when the post-boston-bombing style police house to house searches happen people will be disarmed by the now experienced SWAT teams

Poeple will then be in a situation where they will think: ''shit we're being disarmed...what are we going to do?''

And they will have to make a snap decision then and there whether to hand over their guns or to resist

That's not a good situation for the public to be in so its best that they don't allow that to happen because by the time the public get their act together the guns will have been seized and sporadic fighting will have broken out across the country

The public need to act in concert as one group; if they act individually they will be picked off easily

Skarekrow said:
I don’t give a fuck what kind of guns people have…I really don’t…just have some common sense checks and balances when buying and selling something made to kill.
Click to expand...

Under usual circumstances that might be reasonable but we are in the middle of a crisis; the guns are the pivotal thing in that crisis. If the guns weren't there do you think the NWO wouldn't be in place already?

Skarekrow said:
Anyhow, I think you are correct about the current housing bubble…certain folks are still making a killing off of buying distressed homes and flipping them.
But that whole market is built on false mortgage rates being artificial propped up to squeeze every last drop of blood from the turnip.
People are seeing the market supposedly recovering and they are waiting patiently for the raises they have forgone the past 6 years because our employers told us they just couldn’t afford it, but be patient…the raises are coming…nonsense.
All lies.
People want what they have worked hard for and have earned.
Click to expand...

They're not going to get it because inflation is going to eat their savings and the value of their money because pay rises will not keep up with inflation

Life's going to get harder and harder until people do something or something snaps; the NWO crowd want a crisis so that they can offer their system forward as the solution and a crisis is brewing
 
Last edited:
Skarekrow said:
Today feels very “off” to me. I think it has a lot to do with the Michael Brown verdict and the subsequent riots and protests.
People are craving justice.
Not just in this instances but in our lives overall…we have two very distinct forms of law in our country and it isn’t even being tried keeping it on the down low…it’s being paraded and flaunted in people’s faces that if you are poor, you get no justice in the US…and if you are rich, nothing happens to you, you certainly don’t go to jail.
I think it is going to take things like this and perhaps more painful and uncomfortable than this to really open the eyes of the people…so on one hand I am glad to see that people are starting to recognize their power combined is where the real power is.
Unfortunately, there are people who just don’t get it…those who looted the stores were angry at the verdict and their life situation maybe, but they missed the point if by committing criminal acts they think it makes the initial act more just…it can not.
Damn if change isn’t painful and dangerous sometimes!
Click to expand...

Yes. Change is generally painful for humans.

We have been nearly annihilated numerous times and each time we "came back" we were laden with more Fear traumas imbedded in our very DNA. It's true....not only do I know it to be true...but science is now recognizing it.

For that reason and many too numerous to describe we Fear any changes to our comfort level. This includes many things - but is always comes down to we try like hell to maintain control. We are conditioned - most of us - to constantly estimate the future based upon our past - and with a past laden with traumatic events - it would be logical for us to be mired in Fear. Therefore whenever chaos enters into our lives we fear it because it's potentially accompanied by trauma and pain of some kind. Loss of job. Loss of house. Loss of income. Loss of food. Loss of electricity. All these things are tied directly to our survival. When those in power manipulate markets for their gain and our loss - they are doing it on purpose to generate more fear amongst the masses. They've been doing it to humanity for thousands of years.

Now that the energies streaming on to the planet are "stirring things up" - so to speak - the lid is coming off humanity's anger. One of the goals of ascension is to allow it and let it go. I'm not saying it's an easy process - but it's being done now. Just like in a relationship where one person will trigger another person and they become angry - society is responding the same way to traumatic events. I mean you know society is just a collection of people and has certain characteristics as a collective as an individual. So societies everywhere are being triggered in order for the collective in that society to be able to release their anger. ...and oh my god...there is soooooo much anger.

When you look back over the last 10 generations you begin to see the level of pain endured by so many....so many! The cabal represents only 1% of the population. Assuming they're sitting around fat and happy - that leaves basically 7 billion people who are walking around in Fear. That's a LOT of Fear energy....what....permeating our entire energy field around the globe.

This Ferguson event is yet another situation that potentially serves the cabal and their agenda. As sad as it 'seems'..... this event is also serving another purpose I see as positive...and that being it is exactly as you say "In your face "fuck you types of action"....which of course is stirring people up to see the truth....to question their beliefs....to make them go "what the fuck is happening here?"

So yeh...things are going to get a bit rougher for a while as this cauldron bubbles and begins to roil. The thinking in the Light community is - the energy of love is flowing to the planet and will balance the chaos energy - by opening hearts and minds. Like Lee Harris' quote said: Opened hearts leads to more higher energy conscious of the mind. This light is affecting everyone on this planet.These two things are happening simultaneously....Chaos AND Heart opening. Like any chaotic system there will be ebb and flow in both of those energies...but eventually humanity will line out as cooperation and compassion picks up on the planet. You can already see it happening - right?

As for people not getting it - I can see what you're saying as it occurs all around me. Yet I am also noticing people who I get a chance to interact with - beginning to "get it". Tonight one of my coworkers told me I had no idea just how much good I do in the world....and she thanked me for sharing my brain with her and everyone else by giving them timely knowledge for their understanding. This is happening all around me as I visit with my client's families and try to help them during their crisis.

I do want to suggest something here about the looters and shooters. I suspect you think you understand their motives for doing what they did in response to the verdict. I invite you to step back from thinking you know what you know and assume you know nothing. Look at the actions of all the people involved in this insanity. For all you know those looters were in the employ of organized crime....or....they could be sick and tired of the bullshit and needed a reason to pop off. You know when a person gets into anger and fear - their rational thinking mind shuts down - and people do stupid and dangerous shit.
Also - their "criminal acts" were really no different than the criminal act of the policeman getting completely off for murdering another human. imo There's multiple aspects to this event that bring up all kinds of possibilities....

Breathe.
:)

It brings me enormous pleasure to talk with you Skarekrow. Thank you for this. :kiss:
 
Kgal said:
Yes. Change is generally painful for humans.

We have been nearly annihilated numerous times and each time we "came back" we were laden with more Fear traumas imbedded in our very DNA. It's true....not only do I know it to be true...but science is now recognizing it.

For that reason and many too numerous to describe we Fear any changes to our comfort level. This includes many things - but is always comes down to we try like hell to maintain control. We are conditioned - most of us - to constantly estimate the future based upon our past - and with a past laden with traumatic events - it would be logical for us to be mired in Fear. Therefore whenever chaos enters into our lives we fear it because it's potentially accompanied by trauma and pain of some kind. Loss of job. Loss of house. Loss of income. Loss of food. Loss of electricity. All these things are tied directly to our survival. When those in power manipulate markets for their gain and our loss - they are doing it on purpose to generate more fear amongst the masses. They've been doing it to humanity for thousands of years.

Now that the energies streaming on to the planet are "stirring things up" - so to speak - the lid is coming off humanity's anger. One of the goals of ascension is to allow it and let it go. I'm not saying it's an easy process - but it's being done now. Just like in a relationship where one person will trigger another person and they become angry - society is responding the same way to traumatic events. I mean you know society is just a collection of people and has certain characteristics as a collective as an individual. So societies everywhere are being triggered in order for the collective in that society to be able to release their anger. ...and oh my god...there is soooooo much anger.

When you look back over the last 10 generations you begin to see the level of pain endured by so many....so many! The cabal represents only 1% of the population. Assuming they're sitting around fat and happy - that leaves basically 7 billion people who are walking around in Fear. That's a LOT of Fear energy....what....permeating our entire energy field around the globe.

This Ferguson event is yet another situation that potentially serves the cabal and their agenda. As sad as it 'seems'..... this event is also serving another purpose I see as positive...and that being it is exactly as you say "In your face "fuck you types of action"....which of course is stirring people up to see the truth....to question their beliefs....to make them go "what the fuck is happening here?"

So yeh...things are going to get a bit rougher for a while as this cauldron bubbles and begins to roil. The thinking in the Light community is - the energy of love is flowing to the planet and will balance the chaos energy - by opening hearts and minds. Like Lee Harris' quote said: Opened hearts leads to more higher energy conscious of the mind. This light is affecting everyone on this planet.These two things are happening simultaneously....Chaos AND Heart opening. Like any chaotic system there will be ebb and flow in both of those energies...but eventually humanity will line out as cooperation and compassion picks up on the planet. You can already see it happening - right?

As for people not getting it - I can see what you're saying as it occurs all around me. Yet I am also noticing people who I get a chance to interact with - beginning to "get it". Tonight one of my coworkers told me I had no idea just how much good I do in the world....and she thanked me for sharing my brain with her and everyone else by giving them timely knowledge for their understanding. This is happening all around me as I visit with my client's families and try to help them during their crisis.

I do want to suggest something here about the looters and shooters. I suspect you think you understand their motives for doing what they did in response to the verdict. I invite you to step back from thinking you know what you know and assume you know nothing. Look at the actions of all the people involved in this insanity. For all you know those looters were in the employ of organized crime....or....they could be sick and tired of the bullshit and needed a reason to pop off. You know when a person gets into anger and fear - their rational thinking mind shuts down - and people do stupid and dangerous shit.
Also - their "criminal acts" were really no different than the criminal act of the policeman getting completely off for murdering another human. imo There's multiple aspects to this event that bring up all kinds of possibilities....

Breathe.
:)

It brings me enormous pleasure to talk with you Skarekrow. Thank you for this. :kiss:
Click to expand...

I don’t profess to know what is in the mind of those who are looting. I didn’t mean for my comment to sound as such.

I only know that the majority of people in the US feel disenfranchised.
We are finding out that we don’t have that voice of democracy we were taught we have…by we, I mean those who don’t buy into the blatant lies told to us by our so-called “leaders”. Who are they leading? They certainly don’t represent the people.
To me, that is the underlying issue that blooms into so many more.
The people looted because they felt they deserved it because of X….or maybe they were government plants.
Either way, I can’t say that I have always followed the law or haven’t done anything illegal in my life, and I don’t consider myself to be a bad person, so why would I make that assumption about anyone else? lol

What we should really be afraid of is the private prison complex!
My God, what a conflict of interest when we have lobbyist representing the prisons helping to write the laws concerning those imprisoned.
Here is a study that everyone should read - http://nccdglobal.org/sites/default/files/publication_pdf/prison-bed-profiteers.pdf
That scares me!
Yes…it is more fear.
We are bombarded with it, like it or not…it slithers it’s way into your most protected ideals, and pops them like soap bubbles forcing you to invent new paradigms.
I have been stepping out of body lately…just a few feet…but it’s the most control I’ve ever had over the practice.
I stepped out the other day and was able to comfort my ego self (dealing with loss) with so much unconditional love…it was very brief, but very powerful.
I believe that part of the reason I have arthritis was for the challenge to escape an egocentric train of thought.
Constant pain makes it very easy to remain trapped in your head, to give into the physicality of the illness, to give into self-pity.
It’s much harder to stop your train of thought…to try and transcend that annoying voice of your ego…inevitably, when I start to feel self-pity, I think of those who are worse off than I am…and I don’t have to imagine with any depth…I am better off than most of the world.
Still, you must allow some amount of self-love…I don’t believe you can be free of egocentric thinking unless you have a certain measure of love for yourself.
In fact, some of the most egocentric people, have a hatred of themselves to the very core IMO.

Anyhow, as always, thank you for all your kind words, and words of wisdom!
I think that these riots are just the beginning of what is to come.
When history looks back, they will say something like “all the signs were there, especially after the Mike Brown verdict.” and people will wonder how it was all ignored for so long.

There certainly is chaos in the world…but there seems to be more love as well…people are reaching some sort of collective understanding that greed and war and hate cannot continue to rule the planet.


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But I do nothing upon myself, and yet I am mine own Executioner.
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- John Donne
 
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Ancient Egyptian Handbook of Spells Deciphered

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An Egyptian Handbook of Ritual Power (as researchers call it) has been deciphered revealing a series of invocations and spells. It includes love spells, exorcisms and a cure for black jaundice (a potentially fatal infection). Written in Coptic (an Egyptian language) the 20 page illustrated codex dates back around 1,300 years. This image shows part of the text.
​



Researchers have deciphered an ancient Egyptian handbook, revealing a series of invocations and spells.
Among other things, the "Handbook of Ritual Power," as researchers call the book, tells readers how to cast love spells, exorcise evil spirits and treat "black jaundice," a bacterial infection that is still around today and can be fatal.

The book is about 1,300 years old, and is written in Coptic, an Egyptian language.
It is made of bound pages of parchment – a type of book that researchers call a codex.

"It is a complete 20-page parchment codex, containing the handbook of a ritual practitioner," write Malcolm Choat and Iain Gardner, who are professors in Australia at Macquarie University and the University ofSydney, respectively, in their book, "A Coptic Handbook of Ritual Power" (Brepols, 2014).

The ancient book "starts with a lengthy series of invocations that culminate with drawings and words of power," they write. "These are followed by a number of prescriptions or spells to cure possession by spirits and various ailments, or to bring success in love and business."

For instance, to subjugate someone, the codex says you have to say a magical formula over two nails, and then "drive them into his doorpost, one on the right side (and) one on the left."

The Sethians

Researchers believe that the codex may date to the 7th or 8th century.
During this time, many Egyptians were Christian and the codex contains a number of invocations referencing Jesus.

However, some of the invocations seem more associated with a group that is sometimes called "Sethians."
This group flourished in Egypt during the early centuries of Christianity and held Seth, the third son of Adam and Eve, in high regard.

One invocation in the newly deciphered codex calls "Seth, Seth, the living Christ."

The opening of the codex refers to a divine figure named "Baktiotha" whose identity is a mystery, researchers say.
The lines read, "I give thanks to you and I call upon you, the Baktiotha: The great one, who is very trustworthy; the one who is lord over the forty and the nine kinds of serpents," according to the translation.

"The Baktiotha is an ambivalent figure. He is a great power and a ruler of forces in the material realm," Choat and Gardner said at a conference, before their book on the codex was published.

Historical records indicate that church leaders regarded the Sethians as heretics and by the 7th century, the Sethians were either extinct or dying out.
This codex, with its mix of Sethian and Orthodox Christian invocations, may in fact be a transitional document, written before all Sethian invocations were purged from magical texts, the researchers said.

They noted that there are other texts that are similar to the newly deciphered codex, but which contain more Orthodox Christian and fewer Sethian features.

The researchers believe that the invocations were originally separate from 27 of the spells in the codex, but later, the invocations and these spells were combined, to form a "single instrument of ritual power," Choat told Live Science in an email.

Who would have used it?

The identity of the person who used this codex is a mystery.
The user of the codex would not necessarily have been a priest or monk.

"It is my sense that there were ritual practitioners outside the ranks of the clergy and monks, but exactly who they were is shielded from us by the fact that people didn't really want to be labeled as a "magician,'"Choat said.

Some of the language used in the codex suggests that it was written with a male user in mind, however, that "wouldn't have stopped a female ritual practitioner from using the text, of course," he said.

Origin

The origin of the codex is also a mystery.
Macquarie University acquired it in late 1981 from Michael Fackelmann, an antiquities dealer based in Vienna. In "the 70s and early 80s, Macquarie University (like many collections around the world) purchased papyri from Michael Fackelmann," Choat said in the email.

But where Fackelmann got the codex from is unknown.
The style of writing suggests that the codex originally came from Upper Egypt.

"The dialect suggests an origin in Upper Egypt, perhaps in the vicinity of Ashmunein/Hermopolis," which was an ancient city, Choat and Gardner write in their book.
The codex is now housed in the Museum of Ancient Cultures at Macquarie University in Sydney.

 
What evidence??



Selected Peer-Reviewed Journal Publications on Psi Research

(a growing list of articles published mostly in the 21st century, plus other resources, compiled by Dean Radin)
To read the corresponding blog post and write your comments, go here.

The term psi denotes anomalous processes of information or energy transfer, processes such as telepathy or other forms of extrasensory perception that are currently unexplained in terms of known physical or biological mechanisms.

The term is purely descriptive: It neither implies that such anomalous phenomena are paranormal nor connotes anything about their underlying mechanisms. (Daryl Bem and Charles Honorton in Psychological Bulletin, 1994)
​

Healing at a Distance


  • Astin et al (2000). The Efficacy of “Distant Healing”: A Systematic Review of Randomized Trials (Download PDF)
  • Leibovici (2001). Effects of remote, retroactive intercessory prayer on outcomes in patients with bloodstream infection: randomised controlled trial (Download PDF)
  • Krucoff et al (2001). Integrative noetic therapies as adjuncts to percutaneous intervention during unstable coronary syndromes: Monitoring and Actualization of Noetic Training (MANTRA) feasibility pilot (Download PDF)
  • Radin et al (2004). Possible effects of healing intention on cell cultures and truly random events (Download PDF)
  • Krucoff et al (2005). Music, imagery, touch, and prayer as adjuncts to interventional cardiac care: the Monitoring and Actualisation of Noetic Trainings (MANTRA) II randomised study (Download PDF)
  • Benson et al (2006). Study of the therapeutic effects of intercessory prayer (STEP) in cardiac bypass patients (Download PDF)
  • Masters & Spielmans (2007). Prayer and Health: Review, Meta-Analysis, and Research Agenda (Download PDF)
  • Radin et al (2008). Compassionate intention as a therapeutic intervention by partners of cancer patients: Effects of distant intention on the patients’ autonomic nervous system (Download PDF)
  • Schlitz et al (2012). Distant healing of surgical wounds: An exploratory study. (Download PDF)

Physiological Correlations at a Distance


  • Duane & Behrendt (1965). Extrasensory electroencephalographic induction between identical twins (Download PDF)
  • Grinberg-Zylberbaum et al (1994). The Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Paradox in the Brain: The transferred potential (Download PDF)
  • Wiseman & Schlitz (1997). Experimenter effects and the remote detection of staring (Download PDF)
  • Standish et al (2003). Evidence of correlated functional magnetic resonance imaging signals between distant human brains (Download PDF)
  • Wackermann et al (2003). Correlations between brain electrical activities of two spatially separated human subjects (Download PDF)
  • Schmidt et al (2004). Distant intentionality and the feeling of being stared at: Two meta-analyses (Download PDF)
  • Radin (2004). Event related EEG correlations between isolated human subjects (Download PDF)
  • Standish et al (2004). Electroencephalographic Evidence of Correlated Event-Related Signals Between the Brains of Spatially and Sensory Isolated Human Subjects (Download PDF)
  • Achterberg et al (2005). Evidence for Correlations Between Distant Intentionality and Brain Function in Recipients: A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Analysis (Download PDF)
  • Radin (2005). The sense of being stared at: A preliminary meta-analysis (Download PDF)
  • Radin & Schlitz (2005). Gut feelings, intuition, and emotions: An exploratory study (Download PDF)
  • Schlitz et al (2006). Of two minds: Skeptic-proponent collaboration within parapsychology (Download PDF)
  • Moulton & Kosslyn (2008). Using Neuroimaging to Resolve the Psi Debate (Download PDF)
  • Ambach (2008). Correlations between the EEGs of two spatially separated subjects: a replication study (Download PDF)
  • Hinterberger (2010). Searching for neuronal markers of psi: A summary of three studies measuring electrophysiology in distant participants (Download PDF)
  • Schmidt (2012). Can We Help Just by Good Intentions? A Meta-Analysis of Experiments on Distant Intention Effects (Download PDF)
  • Jensen & Parker (2012). Entangled in the womb? A pilot study on the possible physiological connectedness between identical twins with different embryonic backgrounds (Download PDF)
  • Jensen & Parker (2013). Further possible physiological connectedness between identical twins: The London study (Download PDF)

Telepathy & ESP


  • Targ & Puthoff (1974). Information transmission under conditions of sensory shielding (Download PDF)
  • Puthoff & Targ (1976). A perceptual channel for information transfer over kilometer distance: Historical perspective and recent research (Download PDF)
  • Eisenberg & Donderi (1979). Telepathic transfer of emotional information in humans (Download PDF)
  • Bem & Honorton (1994). Does psi exist? (Download PDF)
  • Hyman (1994). Anomaly or artifact? Comments on Bem and Honorton (Download PDF)
  • Bem (1994). Response to Hyman (Download PDF)
  • Milton & Wiseman (1999). Does Psi Exist? Lack of Replication of an Anomalous Process of Information Transfer (Download PDF)
  • Storm & Ertel (2001). Does Psi Exist? Comments on Milton and Wiseman's (1999) Meta-Analysis of Ganzfeld Research (Download PDF)
  • Milton & Wiseman (2001). Does Psi Exist? Reply to Storm and Ertel (2001) (Download PDF)
  • Sherwood & Roe (2003). A Review of Dream ESP Studies Conducted Since the Maimonides Dream ESP Programme (Download PDF)
  • Delgado-Romero & Howard (2005). Finding and Correcting Flawed Research Literatures (Download PDF)
  • Hastings (2007). Comment on Delgado-Romero and Howard (Download PDF)
  • Radin (2007). Finding Or Imagining Flawed Research? (Download PDF)
  • Storm et al (2010). Meta-Analysis of Free-Response Studies, 1992—2008: Assessing the Noise Reduction Model in Parapsychology (Download PDF)
  • Storm et al (2010). A Meta-Analysis With Nothing to Hide: Reply to Hyman (2010) (Download PDF)
  • Tressoldi (2011). Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence: the case of non-local perception, a classical and Bayesian review of evidences (Download PDF)
  • Tressoldi et al (2011). Mental Connection at Distance: Useful for Solving Difficult Tasks? (Download PDF)
  • Williams (2011). Revisiting the Ganzfeld ESP Debate: A Basic Review and Assessment (Download PDF)
  • Rouder et al (2013). A Bayes Factor Meta-Analysis of Recent Extrasensory Perception Experiments: Comment on Storm, Tressoldi, and Di Risio (2010) (Download PDF)
  • Storm et al (2013). Testing the Storm et al. (2010) Meta-Analysis Using Bayesian and Frequentist Approaches: Reply to Rouder et al. (2013) (Download PDF)

General Overviews & Critiques


  • Utts (1996). An assessment of the evidence for psychic functioning (Download PDF)
  • Alcock (2003). Give the Null Hypothesis a Chance (Download PDF)
  • Parker & Brusewitz (2003). A Compendium of the Evidence for Psi (Download PDF)
  • Carter (2010). Heads I lose, tails you win (Download PDF)

Survival of Consciousness


  • van Lommel et al (2001). Near-death experience in survivors of cardiac arrest: a prospective study in the Netherlands (Download PDF)
  • van Lommel (2006). Near-death experience, consciousness, and the brain (Download PDF)
  • Beischel & Schwartz (2007). Anomalous information reception by research mediums demonstrated using a novel triple-blind protocol (Download PDF)
  • Greyson (2010). Seeing Dead People Not Known to Have Died: “Peak in Darien” Experiences (Download PDF)
  • Kelly (2010). Some Directions for Mediumship Research (Download PDF)
  • Kelly & Arcangel (2011). An Investigation of Mediums Who Claim to Give Information About Deceased Persons (Download PDF)
  • Nahm et al (2011). Terminal lucidity: A review and a case collection (Download PDF)
  • Facco & Agrillo (2012). Near-death experiences between science and prejudice (Download PDF)
  • Matlock (2012). Bibliography of reincarnation resources online (articles and books, all downloadable)(Download PDF)

Precognition & Presentiment


  • Honorton & Ferrari (1989). “Future telling”: A meta-analysis of forced-choice precognition experiments, 1935-1987 (Download PDF)
  • Spottiswoode & May (2003). Skin Conductance Prestimulus Response: Analyses, Artifacts, and a Pilot Study (Download PDF)
  • Radin (2004). Electrodermal presentiments of future emotions (Download PDF)
  • McCraty et al (2004). Electrophysiological Evidence of Intuition: Part 1. The Surprising Role of the Heart (Download PDF)
  • McCraty et al (2004). Electrophysiological Evidence of Intuition: Part 2. A System-Wide Process? (Download PDF)
  • Radin & Lobach (2007). Toward understanding the placebo effect: Investigating a possible retrocausal factor (Download PDF)
  • Radin & Borges (2009). Intuition through time: What does the seer see? (Download PDF)
  • Bem (2011). Feeling the Future: Experimental Evidence for Anomalous Retroactive Influences on Cognition and Affect (Download PDF)
  • Bem et al (2011). Must Psychologists Change the Way They Analyze Their Data? (Download PDF)
  • Bierman (2011). Anomalous Switching of the Bi-Stable Percept of a Necker Cube: A Preliminary Study (Download PDF)
  • Radin et al (2011). Electrocortical activity prior to unpredictable stimuli in meditators and non-meditators (Download PDF)
  • Radin (2011). Predicting the Unpredictable: 75 Years of Experimental Evidence (Download PDF)
  • Tressoldi et al (2011). Let Your Eyes Predict : Prediction Accuracy of Pupillary Responses to Random Alerting and Neutral Sounds (Download PDF)
  • Galek et al (2012). Correcting the Past: Failures to Replicate Psi (Download PDF)
  • Mossbridge et al (2012). Predictive physiological anticipation preceding seemingly unpredictable stimuli: a meta-analysis (Download PDF)

Theory


  • Josephson & Pallikari-Viras (1991). Biological Utilisation of Quantum NonLocality (Download PDF)
  • May et al (1995). Decision augmentation theory: Towards a model of anomalous mental phenomena (Download PDF)
  • Houtkooper (2002). Arguing for an Observational Theory of Paranormal Phenomena (Download PDF)
  • Bierman (2003). Does Consciousness Collapse the Wave-Packet? (Download PDF)
  • Dunne & Jahn (2005). Consciousness, information, and living systems (Download PDF)
  • Henry (2005). The mental universe (Download PDF)
  • Hiley & Pylkkanen (2005). Can Mind Affect Matter Via Active Information? (Download PDF)
  • Lucadou et al (2007). Synchronistic Phenomena as Entanglement Correlations in Generalized Quantum Theory (Download PDF)
  • Rietdijk (2007). Four-Dimensional Physics, Nonlocal Coherence, and Paranormal Phenomena (Download PDF)
  • Bierman (2010). Consciousness induced restoration of time symmetry (CIRTS ): A psychophysical theoretical perspective (Download PDF)
  • Tressoldi et al (2010). Extrasensory perception and quantum models of cognition (Download PDF)
  • Tressoldi (2012). Replication unreliability in psychology: elusive phenomena or “elusive” statistical power? (Download PDF)

Mind-Matter Interaction


  • Crookes (1874). Researches in the phenomena of spiritualism (Download PDF)
  • Crookes (1874). Notes of séances with DDH (Download PDF)
  • Jahn (1982). The persistent paradox of psychic phenomena: An engineering perspective (Download PDF)
  • Radin & Nelson (1989). Evidence for Consciousness-Related Anomalies in Random Physical Systems (Download PDF)
  • Radin & Ferrari (1991). Effects of Consciousness on the Fall of Dice: A Meta-Analysis (Download PDF)
  • Nelson et al (2002). Correlations of continuous random data with major world events (Download PDF)
  • Crawford et al (2003). Alterations in Random Event Measures Associated with a Healing Practice (Download PDF)
  • Freedman et al (2003). Effects of Frontal Lobe Lesions on Intentionality and Random Physical Phenomena (Download PDF)
  • Bosch et al (2006). Examining Psychokinesis: The Interaction of Human Intention With Random Number Generators–A Meta-Analysis (Download PDF)
  • Radin et al (2006). Reexamining psychokinesis: Commentary on the Bösch, Steinkamp and Boller meta-analysis (Download PDF)
  • Radin (2006). Experiments testing models of mind-matter interaction (Download PDF)
  • Radin (2008). Testing nonlocal observation as a source of intuitive knowledge (Download PDF)
  • Nelson & Bancel (2011). Effects of mass consciousness: Changes in random data during global events (Download PDF)
  • Radin et al (2012). Consciousness and the double-slit interference pattern: Six experiments (Download PDF)
  • Shiah & Radin (2013). Metaphysics of the tea ceremony: A randomized trial investigating the roles of intention and belief on mood while drinking tea (Download PDF)

Potential Applications


  • Carpenter (2011). Laboratory Psi Effects May Be Put to Practical Use: Two Pilot Studies (Download PDF)
  • Schwartz (1980/2000). Location and reconstruction of a Byzantine structure... [by remote viewing] (Download PDF)

Books

Radin (1997). The Conscious Universe: The Scientific Truth of Psychic Phenomena
Radin (2006). Entangled Minds: Extrasensory Experiences in a Quantum Reality
Irwin & Watt (2007). An Introduction to Parapsychology
Mayer (2008). Extraordinary Knowing: Science, Skepticism, and the Inexplicable Powers of the Human Mind
Kelly et al (2009). Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century
Tart (2009). The End of Materialism: How Evidence of the Paranormal Is Bringing Science and Spirit Together
Carter (2010). Science and the Near-Death Experience: How Consciousness Survives Death
Van Lommel (2011). Consciousness Beyond Life: The Science of the Near-Death Experience
Alexander (2012). Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife
Carpenter (2012). First Sight: ESP and Parapsychology in Everyday Life
Carter (2012). Science and Psychic Phenomena: The Fall of the House of Skeptics
Targ (2012). The Reality of ESP: A Physicist's Proof of Psychic Abilities
Radin (2013). Supernormal: Science, Yoga, and the Evidence for Extraordinary Psychic Abilities

Websites with access to articles

Daryl Bem: Click here »
Brian Josephson: Click here »
Edwin May: Click here »
Stephan Schwartz: Click here »
Rupert Sheldrake: Click here »
James Spottiswoode: Click here »
Charles Tart: Click here »
Russell Targ: Click here »
Patrizio Tressoldi: Click here »
Jessica Utts: Click here »
Richard Wiseman: Click here »
Journal of Scientific Exploration: Click here »
Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) Laboratory: Click here or here »
Division of Perceptual Studies, University of Virginia: Click here »

Videos

Greyson (2008). Consciousness Without Brain Activity: Near Death Experiences (United Nations)
Radin (2008), Science and the taboo of psi (Google TechTalk)
Sheldrake (2008) The extended mind (Google Tech Talk)
… more to be added …

 
Astral Projection and Out-Of-Body Experiences

Astral-energy.jpg


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Astral Projection and Out-Of-Body Experiences

According to tradition, shamans are individuals who, by definition, have overcome the common perceptual mindset of space-time conditioning.
Space for them no longer exists.

It is sufficient for them to intensify the sharpness of their interior sight and the intensity of their interior light to be able to penetrate everything.
We read in traditional texts and in reports of scholars that shamans bilocate themselves, that they move in space, can go far and return in an instant, that they are clairvoyant, besides being therapists and magicians.

Certain shamanistic conceptions suggest that our past thoughts and our mind have never left our body, for the simple fact that they have always been outside our body and our brain.

They do not need to emerge from inside, because they have never been inside.
The shamanistic initiation makes the trainee simply aware that mind and consciousness are outside and above, and they have always been so.

The initiation practices reawaken a corresponding state of consciousness, that gives the living awareness of this vision.
The shamanistic conceptions and the converging descriptions of out of body experiences coincide with the notion that mind and consciousness are a prius in respect of the brain and the body -- in other words, that brain and body evolve out of consciousness.

Astral projection is one of the most salient features of the mystical tradition underlying most of the major religions.
In fact, anthropologists have found that OBE beliefs appear in about 95 percent of the world's cultures.

The idea that consciousness can function independently of and outside of the physical body is found in Egyptian manuscripts that delve in detail into the nature of the ka, or double that can separate from the physical body and travel at will.

ka.JPG


The ba is the principle of life that dwells in the ka, much like the heart of the physical body.

ba.JPG



The khu is the radiance of the being in eternal life, and sekhem is the form through which a person exists in heaven.

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In addition there is the ren or spiritual name of a being.

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Allusions to astral projection are particularly prominent in the scripts of Tantric Buddhism, a subdivision of Mahayana Buddhism found in Tibet and parts of Mongolia.

Such experiences are considered to be a mark of his devotion to the Buddha.
Pure Land Buddhism in China is a tradition which not only admits to NDEs, but is philosophically grounded upon their reality and accessibility to all people.

The particular notion of astral projection can be traced back to Pythagoras' claim to hear the music of the heavens.
The Pythagoreans assumed that the distances of the heavenly bodies from the earth somehow corresponded to musical intervals.

By allowing one's consciousness, uplifted by philosophy, to rise through these astral spheres one ultimately might attain to union with the divine.
Subsequently such terms as astral projection and out-of-body experience have come to be applied to a wide variety of visionary, mystical and psychic experiences.

For examples, the experience developed in the mystery traditions which enabled participants to lose their fear of death might be viewed in this way.
St. Augustine's visionary experience, described earlier, is another possible instance.

Dante Allegheiri epitomizes the artistic evolution that signalled the end of the middle ages and the rise of the Italian Renaissance.
His descriptions in the Divine Comedyof his own visions into the worlds of hell, purgatory, and paradise enjoy a paramount position in Western poetry.

Yet there is a striking similarity in his work to the understanding of the afterworld one finds earlier in Egypt, Tibet, and Plato, as well as later in the visions of Emmanuel Swedenborg.

Dante's familiarity with several systems of medieval mysticism leads us to believe he used dream and reverie states as an inspirational source for his artwork:

At the hour near morning when the swallow begins her plaintive songs, in remembrance, perhaps, of her ancient woes, and when our mind, more a pilgrim from the flesh and less held by thoughts, is in its visions almost prophetic, I seemed to see in a dream an eagle poised in the sky, with feathers of gold, with open wings and prepared to swoop. And I seemed to be in the place where his own people were left behind by Ganymede when he was caught up to the supreme conclave...

​
Broadly speaking, we can define an astral projection, bilocation or out-of-body experience (OBE) as the sensation of observing phenomena from a perspective that does not coincide with the physical body.

Often one will experience consciousness being transferred from the physical body to another "astral body," "second body," "etheric body," "double," or "doppelganger."

On other occasions, one may experience oneself as a mere point of awareness outside of the physical body.

There seem to be several distinct, but related, types of experience lumped together un`er the general rubric of out-of-body experience.
These include
(1) lucid dreams where one seems to be conscious within a dream world,
(2) clairvoyant awareness of distant locations,
(3) the actual sensation of separation from one's physical body, floating above it, and looking down upon the physical form,
(4) travelling outside of one's body to different locations in physical time and space, and
(5) gliding and flying through the various supersensible "astral" and spiritual planes.

Thousands of OBEs have been reported by individuals of all ages and from all walks of life.
Such experiences have played a major role in the shamanistic rites and esoteric schools of many previous cultures.

Much occult literature abounds in unsubstantiated claims regarding the vast scientific and historical knowledge that can be imparted to visitors upon the "higher planes."

Some of this literature is actually quite valuable because of the systematic explorations conducted by philosophically trained clairvoyants.
This body of literature seems to put the OBE into a larger perspective.

Ramacharaka's Theosophical Perspective

A typical description of astral travelling, from the "occult" viewpoint is provided by Yogi Ramacharaka:

It is possible for a person to project his astral body, or travel in his astral body, to any point within the limits of the earth's attraction, and the trained occultist may do so at will, under the proper conditions. Others may occasionally take such trips (without knowing just how they do it, and having afterwards, the remembrance of a particular and very vivid dream); in fact many of us do take such trips, when the physical body is wrapped in sleep, and one often gains much information in this way, upon subjects in which he is interested, by holding astral communication with others interested in the same subject, all unconsciously of course.

The conscious acquirement of knowledge in this way, is possible only to those who have progressed quite a way along the path of attainment. The trained occultist merely places himself in the proper mental condition, and then wishes himself at some particular place, and his astral travels there with the rapidity of light, or even more rapidly.

The untrained occultist, of course, has no such degree of control over his astral body and is more or less clumsy in his management of it. The Astral Body is always connected with the physical body (during the life of the latter) by a thin silk-like, astral thread, which maintains the communication between the two. Were this cord to he severed the physical body would die, as the connection of the soul with it would be terminated....Perhaps the best way to make plain to you the general aspects and phenomena of the Astral World, would be to describe to you an imaginary trip made by yourself in that world, in the charge of an experienced occultist.

We will send you, in imagination, on such a trip, in this lesson, in charge of a competent guide it being presupposed that you have made considerable spiritual progress, as otherwise even the guide could not take you very far, except by adopting heroic and very unusual methods, which he probably would not see fit to do in your case.

Are you ready for your trip?
Well, here is your guide.

You have gone into the silence, and suddenly become aware of having passed out of your body, and to be now occupying only your astral body. You stand beside your physical body, and see it sleeping on the couch, but you realize that you are connected with it by a bright silvery thread, looking something like a large bit of bright spider-web.

You feel the presence of your guide, who is to conduct you on your journey. He also has left his physical body, and is in his astral form, which reminds you of a vapory something, the shape of the human body, but which can be seen through, and which can move through solid objects at will. Your guide takes your hand in his and says, "Come," and in an instant you have left your room and are over the city in which you dwell, floating along like a summer cloud.

You begin to fear lest you may fall, and as soon as the thought enters your mind you find yourself sinking. But your guide places a hand under you and sustains you, saying, "No just realize that you cannot sink unless you fear to -- hold the thought that you are buoyant and you will be so." You do so, and are delighted to find that you may float at will, moving here and there in accordance to your wish or desire.

You see great volumes of thought-clouds arising from the city like great clouds of smoke, rolling along and settling here and there. You also see some finer vapory thought-clouds in certain quarters, which seem to have the property of scattering the dark clouds when they come in contact with them. Here and there you see bright thin lines of bright light, like an electric spark, traveling rapidly through space, which your guide tells you are telepathic messages passing from one person to another, the light being caused by the Prana with which the thought is charged.

You see, as you descend toward the ground, that every person is surrounded by an egg-shaped body of color, his aura which reflects his thought and prevailing mental state, the character of the thought being represented by varying colors. Some are surrounded by beautiful auras, while others have around them a black, smoky aura, in which are seen flashes of red light.

Some of these auras make you heart-sick to observe, as they give evidence of such base, gross, and animal thoughts, that they cause you pain, as you have become more sensitive now that you are out of your physical body. But you have not much time to spare here, as your trip is but a short one, and your guide bids you come on.

You do not seem to change your place in space, but a change seems to have come over everything -- like the lifting of a gauzy curtain in the pantomime. You no longer see the physical world with its astral phenomena, but seem to be in a new world a land of queer shapes. You see astral "shells" floating about -- discarded astral bodies of those who have shed them as they passed on.

These are not pleasant to look upon, and you hurry on with your guide, but before you leave this second ante-room to the real Astral World, your guide bids you relax your mental dependence upon your astral body, and much to your surprise you find yourself slipping out of it, leaving it in the world of shells, but being still connected with it by a silk-like cord, or thread, just as it, in turn, is connected with your physical body, which you have almost forgotten by this time, but to which you are still bound by these almost invisible ties.

You pass on clothed in a new body, or rather an inner garment of ethereal matter, for it seems as if you have been merely shedding one cloak, and then another, the YOU part of yourself remains unchanged -- you smile now at the recollection that once upon a time you thought that the body was "you." The plane of the "astral shells" fades away, and you seem to have entered a great room of sleeping forms, lying at rest and in peace, the only moving shapes being those from higher spheres who have descended to this plane in order to perform tasks for the good of their humbler brethren.

Occasionally some sleeper will show signs of awakening, and at once some of these helpers will cluster around him, and seem to melt away into some other plane with him. But the most wonderful thing about this region seems to be that as the sleeper awakens slowly, his astral body slips away from him just as yours a little before, and passes out of that plane to the place of "shells," where it slowly disintegrates and is resolved into its original elements.

This discarded shell is not connected with the physical body of the sleeping soul, which physical body has been buried or cremated, as it is "dead"; nor is the shell connected with the soul which has gone on, as it has finally discarded it and thrown it off. It is different in your case, for you have merely left it in the ante-room, and will return and resume its use, presently.

The scene again changes, and you find yourself in the regions of the awakened souls, through which you, with your guides, wander backward and forward. You notice that as the awakening souls pass along, they seem to rapidly drop sheath after sheath of their mental- bodies (for so these higher forms of ethereal covering are called), and you notice that as you move toward the higher planes your substance becomes more and more etherealized, and that as you return to the lower planes it becomes coarser and grosser, although always far more etherealized than even the astral body, and infinitely finer than the material body.

You also notice that each awakening soul is left to finally awaken on some particular plane. Your guide tells you that the particular plane is determined by the spiritual progress and attainment made by the soul in its past lives (for it has had many earthly visits or lives), and that it is practically impossible for a soul to go beyond the plane to which it belongs, although those on the upper planes may freely revisit the lower planes, this being the rule of the Astral World -- not an arbitrary law, but a law of nature....


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This description bears at least some resemblance to other accounts from such diverse sources as the Egyptian Book of the Dead, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Plato's description of Er, Dante's Divine Comedy, and Swedenborg. Although the social climate in our culture is arriving at a point where it will soon be more prevalent, so far there have been few spiritual visionaries who felt that working with scientists would be a beneficial use of their time.

Similarly very few scientists are interested in working with visionaries.
Thus, science has currently little to say about such experiences.

An Accidental Projection

Apparently not everyone who leaves their body is able to travel to the Empyrean heights (if they exist).
Many individuals who have been spontaneously thrust outside of their bodies, or who have cultivated the ability to have OBEs at will, have sought a scientific confirmation and understanding of their experiences.

These projections often result from hypnosis, anesthesia, drugs, stress, or accidents.
A typical accidental projection, occurred to a seventy year old Wisconsin man:

He had hitched his team, one wintry day, and gone into the country after a load of firewood. On his return, he was sitting atop the loaded sleigh. A light snow was falling. Without warning, a hunter (who happened to be near the road) discharged his gun at a rabbit.

The horses jumped, jerking the sleigh and throwing the driver to the ground head-first.He said...that no sooner had he landed upon the ground than he was conscious of standing up and seeing another "himself" lying motionless near the road, face down in the snow.

He saw the snow falling all about, saw the steam rising from the horses, saw the hunter running toward him. All this was very exact; but his great bemuddlement was that there were two of him, for he believed at the time that he was observing all that occurred from another physical body.

As the hunter came near, things seemed to grow dim. The next conscious impression he had was of finding himself upon the groun ( with the hunter trying to revive him. What he had seen from his astral body was so real that he could not believe that there were not two physical bodies, and he even went so far as to look for tracks in the snow, in the place where he knew he had been standing.
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OBE In A Dream

Projections frequently occur in dreams.
A classic example of a dream OBE, was reported in 1863 by Mr. Wilmot of Bridgeport, Connecticut:

I sailed from Liverpool for New York, on the steamer City of Limerick....On the evening of the second day out,...a severe storm began which lasted for nine days....Upon the night of the eighth day,...for the first time I enjoyed refreshing sleep.

Toward morning I dreamed that I saw my wife, whom I had left in the U.S., come to the door of the stateroom, clad in her night dress. At the door she seemed to discover that I was not the only occupant in the room, hesitated a little, then advanced to my side, stooped down and kissed me, and quietly withdrew.

Upon waking I was surprised to see my fellow-passenger...leaning upon his elbow and looking fixedly at me. "You're a pretty fellow," he said at length, "to have a lady come and visit you this way." I pressed him for an explanation, and he related what he had seen while wide awake, lying on his berth. It exactly corresponded with my dream....

The day after landing I went to Watertown, Conn., where my children and my wife were... visiting her parents. Almost her first question when we were back alone was, Did you receive a visit from me a week ago Tuesday?"..."It would be impossible," I said. "Tell me what makes you think so."

My wife then told me that on account of the severity of the weather,...she had been extremely anxious about me. On the night mentioned above she had lain awake a long time thinking about me, and about four o'clock in the morning it seemed to her that she went out to seek me....

She came at length...to my stateroom. "Tell me," she said, "do they ever have staterooms like the one I saw, where the upper berth extends further back than the under one? A man was in the upper berth looking right at me, and for a moment I was afraid to go in, but soon I went up to the side of your berth, bent down and kissed you, and embraced you, and then went away. The description given by my wife of the steamship was correct in all particulars, though she had never seen it.


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Astral projection is so often associated with dreaming that many writers insist the astral body normally separates from the physical during sleep.
Most of us, this theory posits, are not sensitive to the separation and only maintain a vague memory of the experience as a dream.

Conscious Astral Projection

Many techniques for conscious astral projection involve regaining consciousness within the dream state.
I would suggest however you not engage in such practice if you often experience great discord within yourself.

Sylvan Muldoon's Method

One technique is offered by Sylvan Muldoon in his book The Projection of The Astral Body:

1. Develop yourself so that you are enabled to hold consciousness up to the very moment of "rising to sleep." The best way to do this is to hold some member of the physical body in such a position that it will not be at rest, but will be inclined to fall as you enter sleep.

2. Construct a dream which will have the action of Self predominant. The dream must be of the aviation type, in which you move upward and outward, corresponding to the action of the astral body while projecting. It must be a dream of something which you enjoy doing.

3. Hold the dream clearly in mind; visualize it as you are rising to sleep; project yourself right into it and go on dreaming.
Through the use of properly applied suggestion, prior to the dream, you will be able to remember yourself in your dream and bring your dream body-or astral body-to full waking consciousness. This technique may require months of gentle persistence.


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Muldoon's book, first published in 1929, offers a wealth of information based on the hundreds of out-of-body experiences he had over a period of many years. However, Muldoon's experiences were seldom completely conscious, and never beyond the limits of the immediate earth environment. In one "superconscious" experience, after a lonely evening, he found himself in a strange house, watching a young lady, who happened to be sewing at the time.

Six weeks later, he chanced to recognize this woman on the streets of the small Wisconsin town where he lived.
Upon his approaching her, she was startled to discover he was able to accurately describe the inside of her home.

She eventually became a very close friend of his and participated with him in a number of projection experiments.By systematically observing his own condition in the out-of-body state, Muldoon was able to derive some very interesting hypotheses. For example, he made numerous measurements of the "silver cord" connecting the astral and the physical bodies, stating that it varied in thickness from about 1 1/2 inches to about the size of a sewing thread according to the proximity of the astral body to the physical.

Muldoon does not tell us how these measurements were made. Presumably they are simply estimates of some sort. At a distance of from eight to fifteen feet, the cord reached its minimum width. It was only after this occurred that Muldoon was able to exercise complete control over his astral body. He also noticed that the impulses for the heartbeat and breath seemed to travel from the astral through the cord to the physical body.

I have tried the experiment many times of holding the breath, while consciously projected, and within cord-activity range. The instant that it is suspended the before-mentioned action of slight expansion and contraction ceases, in the psychic cable, as it likewise does in the physical body; but while the respiration ceases the regular pulsating action [the heartbeat] continues. A deep breath in the astral will produce an identical breath in the physical; a short one will produce a short one; a quick one will produce a quick one, etc.

Muldoon also observed that physical debilities and morbid physical conditions seemed to provide an incentive for projection. He himself was quite frail and sickly during the years when his experiences were most pronounced. It was his hypothesis that the unconscious will -- motivated by desires, necessities, or habits that would otherwise have resulted in somnambulism or sleep walking -- led to astral projection for him because of the debility of his body. When he was thirsty at night, for instance, he might find his astral body travelling to the pump for water.

On one occasion it occurred to Muldoon that his heart was beating rather slowly. He went to a doctor who told him his pulse was only 42 beats �r minute and gave him a cardiac stimulant -- strychnine -- to correct the condition. For the next two months Muldoon took this stimulant, and during this period he was not able to induce a projection -- although during the previous year he had been averaging at least one OBE each week.

After he discontinued the medication, he was again able to astral project. He also noticed that if he experienced intense emotions while out of his body, it tended to cause his heart to beat faster. This resulted in his being suddenly "interiorized" again, often against his conscious will. Such sudden interiorization often resulted in painful, sometimes cataleptic, repercussions within the body.

As his health improved, Muldoon's abilities waned and practically disappeared. Eventually he lost all interest in astral projection-after having made the most significant contribution of his time. Since then several other individuals have contributed extensive reports of their own out-of-body experiences.,

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Robert Monroe's Method

Robert A. Monroe, the author of Journeys Out of the Body, describes how he visited several medical doctors looking for an explanation of his condition.
They could find nothing wrong with him. In fact, Monroe is an excellent example of an individual whose reported experiences could not easily be attributed to defective mental or emotional functioning.

A former vice-president of Mutual Broadcasting Corporation, Monroe is now president of two corporations active in cable-vision and electronics. He has produced over 600 television programs. During the years of his reported OBEs, Monroe has continued to lead an active business and a rewarding family life.

His book documents many dimensions of OBE activity. In what he termed "Locale I" and "Locale II" are found the common experiences of the occult literature-floating outside of one's body within the familiar physical environment and then travelling to the "astral" worlds of heaven and hell complete with spirits and thoughtforms.

In "Locale III" Monroe describes his visits to a plane rather parallel to our own. Human beings there lived much as we do, with some rather odd exceptions. They had no electricity or internal combustion motors, yet a rather sophisticated technology was built around a sort of steam power. Their automobiles held a single bench seat large enough for five or six people abreast.

Monroe is currently engaged in a very sophisticated program of training scientists and others to participate in out-of-body experiences.

Robert Crookall's Observations

While personal accounts of this sort are invaluable, they do little to satisfy the scientific need for information that has no possibility of subjective distortion or falsification.

A small, but important, step in this direction has been made by the eminent British geologist, Dr. Robert Crookall.
Struck by the many independent reports of OBE, Crookall attempted a critical analysis of the data from as many sources as he could possibly collect. By looking at this collection from different perspectives, he was able to discover a number of interesting, and previously undetected, patterns of out-of-body experience.

In his first analysis, Crookall revealed a basic OBE pattern which was scattered among hundreds of cases from many different cultures: The replica body is "born" from the physical body and takes a position above it. At the moment of separation, there is generally a blackout of consciousness"much as the changing of gears in a car causes a momentary break in the transmission of power."

Commonly the vacated physical body is seen from the released "double." Sometimes the "silver cord" would be noticed. The experience is generally not frightening. Many different phenomena are viewed after separation and the return of the double follows a reversal of the pattern just indicated. Rapid re-entry can cause shock to the physical body.

In a second analysis, all cases were broken down into two large groupings. One group contained projections resulting naturally and gradually -- from illness, exhaustion or sleep. The other included forcible and sudden projections caused by accidents, anesthetics, suffocation, or willful projection. Crookall reports that people who left their bodies in a natural manner enjoyed consciousness of a clear and extensive type-with telepathy.

While the consciousness of the forcibly ejected was remarkably restricted and dim, with dreamlike elements. Those who left naturally tended to glimpse bright and peaceful conditions. The forcibly ejected, if not on earth, tended to be in the confused, and semi-dreamlike conditions corresponding to the "Hades" of the ancients. The former met many helpers (including dead friends and relatives), the latter sometimes encountered discarnate would-be hinderers.

A third analysis compared the differences in experiences reported by ordinary people with those of individuals who claim to be psychics. By and large, the psychics reported experiences very much like enforced projections, whereas the non-psychics had experiences of natural projection. He also noted that the psychic and mediumistic people commonly observed a mist or vapor leaving their bodies and forming part of the double. Similar statements are often made by those who observe the permanent release of the double during the process of death.

This suggested to Crookall that the double actually comprised a semi-physical aspect called the vital or etheric body as well as an astral or super-physical Soul Body. If after the projection, the semi-physical body is still attached, the double will be able to move physical objects, cause rappings, etc.

However, if the projection occurs in two stages, so that the Soul Body is separate from the vital body, then the Soul Body is free to travel to the higher "paradise" realms. This second stage would be equivalent to discarding the "astral shell" in Ramacharaka's account. In his most recent work, Crookall documents many cases in which the projection experience occurs in two stages.

Contemporary Perspectives About OBEs

In a survey of experimental psi research literature, Carlos Alvarado determined that -- in spite of occasional striking results -- the evidence for ESP occurrence, as well as for the possible ESP-conducive properties of the OBE, is considered to be weak.

Alvarado also noted that since 1980, the psychological community has been giving increasing attention to the out-of-body experience characterized by surveys of spontaneous OBEs studying psychological and other correlates and aspects of the experience.

Psychologists have been able to find very few factors that reliably correlate with the OBE experience in terms of age, sex or religious orientation.

However, psychological variables such as absorption, fantasy proneness, locus of control, lucid dreams, dream recall and others, indicate the importance of internal cognitive processes related to the OBE because of the positive relationship with the experience.

For example, in a survey of 321 people by British psychologist Susan Blackmore, twelve percent reported out of body experiences.

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Susan Blackmore
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Most OBEs occurred when resting but not asleep and lasted one to five minutes.
Many details of the OBEs were obtained -- the most significant finding being that OBErs were highly likely to report lucid dreams, flying dreams, hallucinations, body image distortions, psychic experiences and beliefs, and mystical experiences.

Research into the out-of-body experience is at an extremely primitive state.
The experience itself has yet to be adequately defined. When groups are asked if they have had an out-of-body experience, the percentage of Yes answers varies so widely that it demands an explanation.

Gertrude Schmeidler, a psi researcher emeritus from the City College of New York, reports that 12 surveys show a range of Yes answers between 4% and 98% when people are asked whether or not they have had an OBE. This analysis indicates that the differences do not depend on the wording of the question or the explanation of it. Perhaps differences in prior exposure to direct suggestion -- or to cultural conditioning -- can account for such enormous extremes in the groups' reports of OBEs.

A unique perspective on out-of-body experience has been developed by the Jungian analyst Arnold Mindell and his concept of the "dreambody." He views the dreambody as a multi-channeled information center which communicates a message concerning one's life process through dreams, via pain, verbally, by auditory channels, and in body symptoms, and movements. In order to achieve and increase awareness of the patient's life tendency, Mindell advocates amplifying not only dreams but body symptoms.

Mindell observes that dreambody awareness increases most dramatically near death. He says tha near death, dying people experience their dream bodies as clairvoyant or lucid dreams. They feel they can go places and often actually hear, see, and feel what is going on at a distance even though their real bodies still lie in bed.

He suggests that their dreambody is almost free to do the impossible because their proprioception no longer relates to the pressures, pains, and agonies of their physical body. The dreambody appears to transcend the real body. It is a form of awareness that is independent of the living body. He suggests that death may be the last edge, the one at which we truly begin to live as we are.

Some out-of-body experiencers describe the sensation of possessing and, in some instances, simultaneously occupying a multiple number of "bodies" at varying locations, sometimes in conjunction with the sense of being disembodied. A variant of this experience, during which subjects seem to shift awareness alternately between two or more locations. Researchers tend to think that, if the phenomenology of this experience is to be taken at face value, it could possible be modelled by a hyperdimensional view of consciousness (such as is presented in the Appendix).

Interesting confirmation of the need for a hyperdimensional model comes from J. H. M. Whiteman, a South African mathematician and physicist who has written extensively on his own out-of-body experiences. He maintains that that models of OBE, purporting to explain the evidence in terms of conventional psychological, psychiatric, or physical theories, are premature and incomplete.

Whiteman feels that they seriously misconceive the states in question. He suggests that little if any real progress in understanding OBEs can be expected in the so long as one-space theories govern research in the subject.

Perhaps the most interesting question posed with regard to out-of-body experience is that suggested by British psychologist Susan Blackmore, who asks how "the human information processing system construct the illusion of a separate self in the first place."
 
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[SIZE=+2]Spiritual Anatomy Part 1
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Many cultural traditions contain an esoteric thread describing what might be referred to as the anatomy of the human soul.
There are the ka and ba of Egyptian mythology, the meridians of acupuncture, the chakras and nadis of yoga, the sephirot of Hebrew cabbalistic tradition, and the etheric and astral bodies of western esoteric lore.

It is natural that this should be so since, as master mythologist Joseph Campbell pointed out during a Thinking Allowed interview, the mythologies of all cultures are borne of our bodily experiences:


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Joseph Campbell

Fantasy and imagination is a product of the body.
The energies that bring forth the fantasies derive from the organs of the body.

The organs of the body are the source of our life, and of our intentions for life.
They conflict with each other.

Among these organs, of course, is the brain.
And then you must think of the various impulses that dominate our life system -- the erotic impulse; the impulse to conquer, conquest and all that; self preservation; and then certain thoughts that have to do with ideals and things that are held up before us as aims worth living for and giving life its value.

All of these different forces come into conflict within us. And the function of mythological imagery is to harmonize and coordinate the energies of our body, so that we will live a harmonious and fruitful life in accord with our society, and with the new mystery that emerges with every new human being -- namely, what are the possibilities of this particular human life?

The deeper truth embedded within cultures that emphasize mythological systems of spiritual anatomy is that the divine is within us.

Cultures that do not emphasize the anatomy of the soul tend to be those which view the diety as external and apart from the human being.


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One might say that our spiritual bodies are made of thought itself.
Of course, from the perspective of psychic folklore, thought is tangible -- almost solid -- and certainly very potent.

As we journey through the lore of spiritual anatomy, it is appropriate that we begin by examining the role of thought itself.
The concept of thoughtforms provides an excellent vehicle for the journey-- for in many systems and teachings thought, itself, is very spiritual in nature.

Thoughtforms

Descriptions of thoughtforms and the mental body come from Theosophists Annie Besant and C. W. Leadbeater who were both very influential in the shaping of modern psychic folklore:


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Annie Besant -- Fabian Socialist (and George Bernard Shaw's lover)
who later became head of the Theosophical Society.

"The mental body is an object of great beauty, the delicacy and rapid motion of its particles giving it an aspect of living iridescent light, and this beauty becomes an extraordinarily radiant and entrancing loveliness and the intellect becomes more highly evolved and is employed chiefly on pure and sublime topics.

Every thought gives rise to a set of correlated vibrations in the matter of this body, accompanied with a marvelous display of color, like that in the spray of a waterfall as the sunlight strikes it, raised to the nth degree of color and vivid delicacy.

The body under this impulse throws off a vibrating portion of itself, shaped by the nature of the vibration -- as figures are made by sand on a disk vibrating to a musical note -- and this gathers from the surrounding atmosphere matter like itself in fineness from the elemental essence of the mental world.

We have then a thought-form pure and simple, and it is a living entity of intense activity animated by the one idea that generated it.
If made of finer kinds of matter, it will be of great power and energy, and may be used as a most potent agent when directed by a strong and steady will....

Each definite thought produces a double effect-a radiating vibration and a floating form.
The thought itself appears first to clairvoyant sight as a vibration in the mental body, and this may be either simple or complex....If a man's thought or feeling is directly connected with someone else, the resultant thought-form moves toward that person and discharges itself upon his astral and mental bodies.

If the man's thought is about himself, or is based upon a personal feeling, as the vast majority of thoughts are, it hovers round its creator and is always ready to react upon him whenever he is for a moment in a passive condition....

Each man travels through space enclosed within a case of his own building, surrounded by a mass of the forms created by his habitual thought.

Through this medium he looks out upon the world, and naturally he sees everything tinged with its predominant colors, and all rates of vibration which reach him from without are more or less modified by its rate.

Thus until the man learns complete control of thought and feeling, he sees nothing as it really is, since all his observations must be made through his medium, which distorts and colors everything like badly-made glass.

If the thought-form be neither definitely personal nor specially aimed at someone else, it simply floats detached in the atmosphere, all the time radiating vibrations similar to those originally sent forth by its creator.

If it does not come into contact with any other mental body, this radiation gradually exhausts its store of energy, and in that case, the form falls to pieces; but if it succeeds in awakening sympathetic vibration in any mental body near at hand, an attraction is set up, and the thought-form is usually absorbed by that mental body."


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To this picture of the mental body, Yogi Ramacharaka adds a further description of the mental world as such:

Places and localities are often permeated by the thought of persons who formerly lived there, who have moved away or died many years ago.

The occultist knows that this thought-atmosphere of a village, town, city, or nation is the composite thought of those dwelling in it or whom have previously dwelt there.

Strangers coming into the community feel the changed atmosphere about it, and, unless they find it in harmony with their own mental character, they feel uncomfortable and desire to leave the place.

If one, not understanding the laws operating in the thought world, remains long in a place, he is most likely to be influenced by the prevailing thought-atmosphere, and in spite of himself a change begins to be manifest in him and he sinks or rises to the level of the prevailing thought....

In the same way dwellings, business-places, buildings, etc., take on the predominant thought of those inhabiting them or who have dwelt in them.


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Eileen Garrett
Founder of the Parapsychology Foundation

An example of the perception of thoughtforms is provided by the famous medium Eileen Garrett:

One sees lines and colors and symbols.
These move, and one is wholly concentrated on them and their movement.

I say "symbols" here for want of a better word.
I frequently see curving lines of light and color that flow forward in strata, and in these strips or ribbons of movement there will appear other sharply angled lines that form and change and fade like arrow heads aimed and passing in various directions.

And in this flow of energy that is full of form and color, these arrow heads will presently indicate the letter H.
Each line of the H will be an independent curve, and their combination will not remain identifiable for very long.

But I shall have caught it; and holding it suspended in awareness, I continue to watch the process develop and unfold.
Soon a rapidly drifting A appears in the field of concentration, and then, let us suppose, an R; and presently I have gathered the word HARRY out of the void, either as a proper name or as a verb temporarily without either subject or object.

Whether it is actually a noun or a verb will depend upon the context of the perception as a whole.
This process is infinitely rapid. But I have achieved an alertness of attention, of awareness, of being, which is equal to this rapid flow of immaterial line and color and symbol, and out of this alertness, poised above the flowing stream of differentiated energy, I gather a message with a meaning -- a message which has come to my consciousness out of the objective world as factually as the reflected light from the distant Moon may reach my consciousness by way of my sense of sight.


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The existence of the mental world implies a view of nature incorporating meaning as well as mechanism.
We are no longer dealing with blind forces bouncing aimlessly throughout the universe.

The substance of the mental world is imbued with purpose.
Minds, or monads, are constantly emitting radiation of an intelligent nature.

Every thought may be thought of as an active spiritual force.
Iconoclastic researcher Andrija Puharich, M.D., has coined the term inergy, meaning "intelligent energy" to refer to this realm of spirit or thought.

The Aura


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Theosophical, psychic and mystical lore has it that the emotions and thoughts of an individual distinguish themselves by their form and color.

This is thought of as the aura or astral body which is visualized as an egg shaped envelope around the human being.

Is the aura Qimply composed of our thoughts (or our thoughts about someone else's thoughts) or does it have an independent physical existence?

The answer, of course, depends on what we mean by aura -- which is hardly an operationally defined scientific term.

There are many different meanings for the term.
(For example, in medicine, an aura refers to sensations which develop prior to the onset of an epileptic seizure.)

C. W. Leadbeater, one of the Theosophists who was responsible for popularizing the term "astral" plane, claims that it was inherited from the medieval alchemists. The term means starry and was applied to the plane above the physical because of its luminous appearance.

Furthermore, the emotional currents were thought to be influenced by the planetary positions.
The meaning of the different colors that appear in the astral body is recorded by Yogi Ramacharaka whose writings mimic those of Madame Blavatsky, founder of the Theosophical Society, on this topic:

Auric Colors and Their Meanings

Black represents hatred, malice, revenge, and similar feelings.
Gray, of a bright shade, represents selfishness.
Gray, of a peculiar shade (almost that of a corpse), represents fear and terror.
Gray, of a dark shade, represents depression and melancholy.
Green, of a dirty shade, represents jealousy. If much anger is mingled with the jealousy, it will appear as red flashes on the green background.
Green, of almost a slate-color shade, represents low deceit.
Green, of a peculiar bright shade, represents tolerance to the opinions and beliefs of others, easy adjustment to changing conditions, adaptability, tact, politeness, worldly wisdom, etc., and qualities which some might possible consider "refined deceit."
Red, of a shade resembling the dull flame when it bursts out of a burning building, mingled with the smoke, represents sensuality and the animal passions.
Red, seen in the shape of bright-red flashes resembling the lightning flash in shape, indicated anger. These are usually shown on a black background in the case of anger arising from hatred or malice, but in cases of anger arising from jealousy they appear on a greenish background. Anger arising from indignation or defense of a supposed "right," lacks these backgrounds, and usually shows as red flashes independent of a background.
Crimson represents love, varying in shade according to the character of the passion. A gross sensual love will be dull and heavy crimson, while one mixed with higher feelings will appear in lighter and more pleasing shades. A very high form of love shows a color almost approaching a beautiful rose color.
Brown, of a reddish tinge, represents avarice and greed.
Orange, of a bright shade, represents pride and ambition.
Yellow, in its various shades, represents intellectual power. If the intellect contents itself with things of a low order, the shade is a dark, dull yellow; and as the field of the intellect rises to higher levels, the color grows brighter and clearer, a beautiful golden yellow betokening great intellectual attainment, broad and brilliant reasoning, etc.
Blue, of a dark shade, represents religious thought, emotion, and feeling. This color, however, varies in clearness according to the degree of unselfishness manifest in the religious conception. The shades and degrees of clarity vary from a dull indigo to a beautiful rich violet, the latter representing the highest religious feeling.
Light Blue, of a peculiarly clear and luminous shade, represents spirituality. Some of the higher degrees of spirituality observed in ordinary mankind show themselves in this shade of blue filled with luminous bright points, sparkling and twinkling like stars on a clear winter night.

The student will remember that these colors form endless combinations and blendings, and show themselves in greatly varying degrees of brightness and size, all of which have meanings to the developed occultist.

In addition to the colors mentioned above, there are several others for which we have no names, as they are outside of the colors visible in the spectrum, and consequently science, not being able to perceive them, has not thought it necessary to bestow definite names upon them, although they exist theoretically.

Science tells us that there are also what are known as "ultraviolet" rays and "ultra-red" rays, neither of which can be followed by the human eyes, even with the aid of mechanical appliances, the vibrations being beyond our senses.

These two "ultra" colors (and several others unknown to science) are known to occultists and may be seen by the person with certain psychic powers.

The significance of this statement may be more fully grasped when we state that when seen in the Human Aura either of these "ultra" colors indicates psychic development, the degree of intensity depending upon the degree of development.

Another remarkable fact, to those who have not thought of the matter, is that the "ultraviolet" color in the Aura indicates psychic development when used on a high and unselfish plane, while "the ultra-red" color, when seen in the Human Aura, indicates that the person has psychic development, but is using the same for selfish and unworthy purposes--black magic," in fact.

The ultraviolet rays lie just outside of an extreme of the visible spectrum known to science, while the "ultra-red" rays lie just beyond the other extreme.

The vibrations of the first are too high for the ordinary human eye to sense, while the second comprises vibrations as excessively low as the first is excessively high.

And the real difference between the two forms of psychic power is as great as is indicated by the respective positions of these two "ultra" colors.

In addition to the two "ultra" colors just alluded to, there is another which is invisible to the ordinary sight -- the true primary yellow, which indicates of the Spiritual Illumination and which is faintly seen around the heads of the spiritually great.

The color which we are taught characterizes the seventh principle, Spirit, is said to be of pure white light, of a peculiar brilliancy, the like of which has never been seen by human eye -- in fact, the very existence of absolute "white light" is denied by Western science.

The Aura emanating from the Instinctive Mind principally comprises heavier and duller shades.
In sleep, when the mind is quiet, there appears chiefly a certain dull red, which indicates that the Instinctive Mind is merely performing the body's animal functions.

This shade, of course, is always apparent, but during the waking hours it is often obscured by the brighter shades of the passing thoughts, emotions or feelings.

Right here it would be well to state that even while the mind emotions or feelings remains calm there hover in the Aura shades which indicate a man's predominant tendencies, so that his stage of advancement and development as well as his "tastes" and other features of his personality may be easily distinguished.

When the mind is swept by a strong passion, feeling, or emotion, the entire Aura seems to be colored by the particular shade or shades representing it.

For instance, a violent fit of anger causes the whole Aura to show bright red flashes upon a black background, almost eclipsing the other colors.

This state lasts for a longer or shorter time, according to the strength of the passion.

If people could but have a glimpse of the Human Aura when so colored, they would become so horrified at the dreadful sight that they would be far more hesitant about flying into rage -- it resembles the flames and smoke of the devil's "pit" and, in fact, the human mind in such a condition becomes a veritable hell temporarily.

A strong wave of love sweeping over the mind will cause the entire Aura to show crimson; the shade will depend upon the character of the passion. Likewise, a burst of religious feeling will bestow upon the entire Aura a blue tinge, as explained in the table of colors.

In short, a strong emotion, feeling, or passion causes the entire Aura to take on its color while the feeling lasts.
You will see from what we have said that there are two aspects to the color feature of the Aura; the first depending upon the predominant thoughts habitually manifesting in the mind of the person; the second depending upon the particular feeling, emotion, or passion (if any) is dominating him, at that particular time.

The student will realize readily that as the man develops and unfolds he becomes less and less prey to passing passions, emotions, or feelings emanating from the Instinctive Mind, and that Intellect, and then Spiritual Mind, manifest themselves instead of lying dormant in a latent condition.

Remembering this, he will readily see how great a difference there must be between the Aura of an undeveloped man and that of the developed man.

The one is a mass of dull, heavy, gross colors, the entire mass being frequently flooded by the color of some passing emotion, feeling, or passion.

The other shows the higher colors and is very much clearer, being but little disturbed by feelings, emotion, and passions, all of which have been brought largely under the control of the will.

The man who has Intellect well developed shows an Aura flooded with the beautiful golden yellow betokening intellectuality.
This color in such cases is particularly apparent in the upper part of the Aura, surrounding the head and shoulders of the man, the more animal colors sinking to the lower part of the Aura.

Read the remarks under the head of "Yellow in the color table in this lesson.
When the man's Intellect has absorbed the idea of spirituality and devotes itself to the acquirement of spiritual power, development, and unfoldment, this yellow will show around its edges a light blue of a peculiarly clear and luminous shade.

This peculiar light blue is indicative of what is generally called "spirituality," but which is simply "intellectual-spirituality," if you will pardon the use of the somewhat paradoxical term -- it is not the same thing as Spiritual Mind, but is merely Intellect impregnated by Spiritual Mind, to use another troublesome term. In some cases when this intellect is in a highly developed state, the luminous light blue shows as a broad fringe or border often being larger than the center itself, and in addition, in special cases, the light blue is filled with brilliant luminous points, sparkling and twinkling like stars on a clear winter night.

These bright points indicate that the color of the Aura of the Spiritual Mind is asserting itself, and shows that Spiritual Consciousness has either become momentarily evident to the man or is about to become so in the near future.

This is a point upon which much confusion has arisen in the minds of students and even teachers of occultism.
The next paragraph will also shed further light upon the matter.

The Aura emanating from the Spiritual Mind, or sixth principle, bears the color of the true primary yellow, which is invisible to ordinary sight and which cannot be reproduced artificially by man.

It centers around the head of the spiritually illumined, and at times produces a peculiar glow which can even be seen by undeveloped people.

This is particularly true when the spiritually developed person is engaged in earnest discourse or teaching, at these times his countenance seems fairly to glow and to possess a luminosity of a peculiar kind.

The nimbus shown in pictures of mankind's great spiritual leaders results from a tradition based on a fact actually experienced by the early followers of such leaders.

The "halo" or glory shown on pictures arises from the same fact.
​

Because most of Ramacharaka's descriptions accord with the teachings of Blavatsky, Leadbeater and other Theosophists, it would be a mistake to assume that he is writing on the basis of either careful measurements or personal experience.

From the perspective of a biocomputer model of mental functioning, one might view the perception of auric colors as a particular way some individuals program their minds to function, i.e., as the result of cultural conditioning or autoconditioning enhanced by the altered state of consciousness induced through meditation and yogic practices.

If we view the mind/brain system as a biocomputer, we could say that there are various sensory inputs (eyes, ears, nose, mouth, skin) and various internal perceptual display systems (sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch). It is entirely possible that the input from one sensory mode could be displayed internally using a modality normally reserved for a different sensory mode.

Thus, under the influence of hypnotic suggestion or psychedelic drugs, individuals often report "seeing music."
This well-known phenomena is referred to as synesthesia.

A very reasonable explanation of the human aura as reported by psychics is that this is also a form of synesthesia -- a special way we can program ourselves to display information in the sensorium of our minds.

The inputs for this display pattern could conceivably arrive from any sensory (or extrasensory) modality, could be derived from intuitive or logical processing, or could be generated from the biocomputer programming (i.e., cultural condition and autoconditioning) itself.

An amusing anecdote relating to the perception of the human aura on the "astral level" comes from the Texas psychic Ray Stanford. Ray, who seems to be very proficient at seeing auras, visited his twin brother Rex, a parapsychologist then at the University of Virginia; he gave a demonstration of his talents before a small group of researchers assembled by his brother.

One of the guests was Dr. Robert Van de Castle, the director of the sleep and dream laboratory.
Ray noticed a number of pink spots in the aura around Van de Castle's abdomen. This perception puzzled him since it is one he normally associated with pregnant women; and he remarked to Dr. Van de Castle, "If I didn't know better, I'd say you were pregnant." This drew some laughter from the audience.

However, Van de Castle then reflected that he had been analyzing the dreams of pregnant women all morning and had even remarked earlier that day that he was beginning to feel like a pregnant woman himself.

Experimental Tests of the Aura

You might think it would be relatively simple for scientists to test the objectivity of the aura, by comparing the independent observations of a number of psychics.

In fact, the problem is difficult and there has been very little systematic research.

For one thing, if the observations are being made at different moments of time, it is possible the aura could change appearance.
Also, a truly objective study would want to rule out any other sensory cues that could be confused with the aura.

Charles Tart has suggested that the target person for such a study be hidden behind an opaque screen shaped so only the aura should be visible beyond its perimeter and not the physical body at all.

To my knowledge, eighteen years after Tart's proposal, there have still been no satisfactory experiments of this type.
In a study conducted by Dr. A. R. G. Owen of Toronto, fourteen different psychics made independent observations of the aura of a single subject.

The reported descriptions show wide variation that, according to Owen, "seems to go beyond that degree of variability in the aura, that according to percipients of auras, is to be expected as a result of temporal variations in the physical, emotional or mental state of the possessor of the aura."

However the study took place over a one year period.
Going over the data, I myself was struck by the similarity of reports made by different observers on the same day.

Owen maintained there was no cogent evidence the subject was in different physical or emotional states during the different days of experimentation.

It does not appear he was looking for subtle emotional changes.

The fact that lighting conditions were different on the different days of experimentation further confuses the data.
Furthermore, some subjects saw the aura with their eyes open, while at least one subject viewed the aura with his eyes closed.

 
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Spiritual Anatomy Part 2​

The Vital Body

In addition to the astral body, which seems to correlate with thoughts and emotions, some occultists refer to the vital body or sometimes etheric body -- more associated with life energy and health and more suggestive than the astral body of having a measurable physical basis.

It is interesting to note that the term etheric body developed at a time in history prior to the Michelson-Morley experiments which disconfirmed the physical theory of the ether as a medium permeating the known universe.

It is probably that the term etheric body (like astral body) developed from what was once legitimate scientific speculation.
Today such terms belong clearly in the realm of occult folklore.

Max Heindel, founder of the Rosicrucian Fellowship, describes the etheric or vital body:

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According to Rosicrucian Max Heindel, one's level of
clairvoyant functioning is reflected in the aura as diagrammed above.

The vital body of plant, animal, and man, extends beyond the periphery of the dense body as the Etheric Region, which is the vital body of a planet, extends beyond its dense part, showing again the truth of the Hermetic axiom "As above, so below."

The distance of this extension of the vital body of man is about an inch and a half.
The part which is outside the dense body is very luminous and about the color of a new-blown peach-blossom.

It is often seen by persons having very slight involuntary clairvoyance.
The writer has found, when speaking with such persons, that they frequently are not aware they see anything unusual and do not know what they see.

The dense body is built into the matrix of this vital body during ante-natal life, and with one exception, it is an exact copy, molecule for molecule, of the vital body.

As the lines of force in freezing water are the avenues of formation for ice crystals, so the lines of force in the vital body determine the shape of the dense body.

All through life the vital body is the builder and restorer of the dense form.
Were it not for the etheric heart the dense heart would break quickly under the constant strain we put upon it.

All the abuses to which we subject the dense body are counteracted, so far as lies in its power, by the vital body, which is continually fighting against the death of the dense body.

The exception mentioned above is that the vital body of a man is female or negative, while that of a woman is male or positive.
In that fact we have the key to numerous puzzling problems of life.

That woman gives way to her emotions is due to the polarity noted, for her positive, vital body generates an excess of blood and causes her to labor under an enormous internal pressure that would break the physical casement were not a safety-valve provided in the periodical flow, and another in the tears which relieve the pressure on special occasions -- for tears are "white bleeding."

Man may have and has as strong emotions as a woman, but he is usually able to suppress them without tears, because his negative vital body does not generate more blood than he can comfortably control.

Unlike the higher vehicles of humanity, the vital body (except under certain circumstances, to be explained when the subject of "Initiation" is dealt with) does not ordinarily leave the dense body until the death of the latter.

Then the chemical forces of the dense body are no longer held in check by the evolving life.
They proceed to restore the matter to its primordial condition by disintegration so that it may be available for the formation of other forms in the economy of nature.

Disintegration is thus due to the activity of the planetary forces in the chemical ether.

There are certain cases where the vital body partly leaves the dense body, such as when a hand "goes to sleep."
Then the etheric hand of the vital body may be seen hanging below the dense arm like a glove and the points cause the peculiar pricking sensation felt when the etheric hand re-enters the dense hand.

Sometimes in hypnosis the head of the vital body divides and hangs outside the dense head, one half over each shoulder, or lies around the neck like the collar of a sweater.

The absence of prickly sensation at awakening in cases like this is because during the hypnosis part of the hypnotist's vital body had been substituted for that of the victim.

When anesthetics are used the vital body is partially driven out, along with the higher vehicles, and if the application is too strong and the life ether is driven out, death ensues.

This same phenomenon may also be observed in the case of materializing medium and an ordinary man or woman is just this: In the ordinary man or woman the vital body and the dense body are, at the present stage of evolution, quite firmly interlocked, while in the medium they are loosely connected.

It has not always been so, and the time will again come when the vital body may normally leave the dense vehicle, but that is not normally accomplished at present.

When a medium allows his or her vital body to be used by entities from the Desire World who wish to materialize, the vital body generally oozes from the left side -- through the spleen, which is its particular "gate."

Then the vital forces cannot flow into the body as they do normally, the medium becomes greatly exhausted, and some of them resort to stimulants to counteract the effects, in time becoming incurable drunkards.

The vital force from the sun, which surrounds us as a colorless fluid, is absorbed by the vital body through the etheric counterpart of the spleen, wherein it undergoes a curious transformation of color.

It becomes pale rose-hued and spreads along the nerves all over the dense body.
It is to the nervous system what the force of electricity is to a telegraph system.

Though there be wires, instruments, and telegraph operators all in order, if the electricity is lacking no message can be sent.
The Ego, the brain, and the nervous system may be in seemingly perfect order, but if the vital force be lacking to carry the message of the Ego through the nerves to the muscles, the dense body will remain inert.

This is exactly what happens when part of the dense body becomes paralyzed.
The vital body has become diseased and the vital force can no longer flow.

In such cases, as in most sickness, the trouble is with the finer invisible vehicles.
In conscious or unconscious recognition of this fact, the most successful physicians use suggestion -which works upon the higher vehicles-as an aid to medicine.

The more a physician can imbue his patient with faith and hope, the speedier disease will vanish and give place to perfect health.
During health the vital body specializes a superabundance of vital force, which alter passing through a dense body, radiates in straight lines in every direction from the periphery thereof, as the radii of a circle do from the center; but during ill-health, when the vital body becomes attenuated, it is not able to draw to itself the same amount of force and in addition the dense body is feeding upon it.

Then the lines of the vital fluid which pass out from the body are crumpled and bent, showing the lack of force behind them.
In health the great force of these radiations carries with it germs and microbes which are inimical to the health of the dense body, but in sickness, when the vital force is weak, these emanations do not so readily eliminate disease germs.

Therefore the danger of contracting disease is much greater when the vital forces are low than when one is in robust health.

In cases where parts of the dense body are amputated, only the planetary ether accompanies the separated part.
The separate vital body and the dense body disintegrate synchronously after death.

So with the etheric counterpart of the amputated limb.
It will gradually disintegrate as the dense member decays, but in the meantime the fact that the man still possesses the etheric limb accounts for his assertion that he can feel his fingers or suffers pain in them.

There is also a connection with a buried member, irrespective of distance.
A case is on record where a man felt a severe pain, as if a nail had been driven into the flesh of an amputated limb, and he persisted until the limb was exhumed, when it was found that a nail had been driven into it at the time it was boxed for burial.

The nail was removed and the pain instantly stopped. It is also in accordance with these facts that people complain of pain in a limb for perhaps two or three years after the amputation.
The pain will then cease.

This is because the disease remains in the still undetached etheric limb, but as the amputated part disintegrates, the etheric limb follows suit and thus the pain ceases.


​
Heindel's description is typical of the type of writing found in the occult and mystical literature from many cultures and periods of time.
A word of caution here.

There are a few effects of an optical or physiological nature that might easily be taken for an aura by a careless, or uninformed, observer.
In a clever series of experiments, Canadian researcher A. R. G. Owen determined that many people will see such "rim" auras, glowing about an inch or two from the edge of inanimate objects even more distinctly than around living plants, animals, and humans.

Many people were unable to distinguish between the aura that appeared around a piece of cardboard shaped as a hand and that observed around a real human hand.

​

A. R. G. Owen

Other observers, particularly those who saw a much larger and more vivid aura, were quite able to make the distinction.
In any case, almost all of the subjects were able to see some aura-like visual phenomena.

These perceptions are attributed to the active role the retina and the visual cortex take in organizing and interpreting visual contours while the eye itself is constantly making tiny movements, scanning whatever is observed.

AURA

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You can easily experience this yourself simply by focusing on the contours of the word written above.
See what you notice.

The power of suggestions also is active here.
This effect is highlighted by the sharp black and white contrast.

On the other hand, Dr. Owen was able to repeatedly demonstrate a most unusual and vivid aura-like appearance on the end of a rod while it was the focus of concentration from two gifted psychics.

A number of observers were able to independently verify this perception, which was not normally seen around the rod.
However the exact conditions for replication of this effect are not known.

The Chakras

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The word chakra in Sanskrit means wheel; and according to the Theosophical tradition, the chakras are "a series of wheel-like vortices existing in the surface of the "etheric body."

The etheric body is part of the human aura closest in proximity to the skin.
It is sometimes referred to as the health aura, and I think can be equated to the electromagnetic field of the body or the bioplasma without doing injustice to the Theosophical system.

The chakras actually extend out beyond the etheric body to the more subtle parts of the aura-such as the astral body.
While normally invisible, some individuals perceive the etheric body as a faintly luminous mist extending slightly beyond the body.

In 1927, the Reverend Charles Leadbeater wrote a book on the chakras based largely on his own psychic perceptions:

When quite undeveloped they appear as small circles about two inches in diameter, glowing dully in the ordinary man; but when awakened and vivified they are seen as blazing, coruscat@ng whirlpools, much increased in size, and resembling miniature suns....If we imagine ourselves to be looking straight down into the bell of a flower of the convolvulus type, we shall get some idea of the general appearance of a chakra. The stalk of the flower in each springs from a point in the spine.All these wheels are perpetually rotating, and into the hub or open mouth of each a force from the higher world is always flowing.... Without this inrush of energy the physical body could not exist.


​
Leadbeater also has uncovered descriptions of such vortices, similar to his own, in the works of the seventeenth century German mystic Johann Georg Gichtel, a pupil of Jacob Boehme. Gichtel assigned an astrological planetary influence to each of the seven centers in his system.


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It is uncertain to me whether he was influenced by the Sanskrit tradition.
However, on the title page of his book, Theosophia Practica he claims to be presenting...

A short exposition of the three principles of the three worlds in humanity, represented in clear pictures, showing how and where they have their respective Centres in the inner person; according to what the author has found in himself in divine contemplation, and what he has felt, tasted and perceived.

​
In Los Angeles at the Higher Sense Perception Research Foundation, Dr. Shafica Karagula, a neuropsychiatrist, has for many years made clinical observations of individuals gifted with extraordinary perception.

One of her subjects, whom she calls "Diane," reported the ability to visualize vortices of energy, like spiral cones, which seemed to be in remarkable agreement with Leadbeater's descriptions.

She described the etheric body as a sparkling web of light beams in constant movement "like the lines of a television screen when the picture is not in focus." There were eight major vortices of force and many smaller vortices.

Seven of the vortices seemed to be directly related to the different glands of the body.
Diane was able to successfully diagnose various diseases by noticing disturbances in the vortices.

Karagula tested this ability by taking Diane to an endocrine clinic of a large New York hospital and having her read the auras of patients selected at random in the waiting room.

Then Diane's observations were checked against the medical case records.

Karagula claims she was amazed at the accuracy of Diane's diagnoses over a large number of cases.
However she provides no exact figures in her book or in her published reports and we are not informed if independent judges and experimental controls were used.,

It is difficult to ascertain the extent to which Dr. Karagula or her subjects may have had their perceptions colored by the Theosophical tradition.
Many other psychic individuals I have been acquainted with report an ability to visualize chakras.

However, I know of no tested psychics who have indicated the ability to perceive chakras prior to any occult training.

When it comes to making any physiological sense out of the chakras, the whole matter is filled with confusion.
One widely quoted approach equates the first chakra with the reproductive system.

Others associate the second chakra with sexuality and reproduction.
Sometimes the sixth chakra or third eye is associated with the pineal gland, sometimes with the pituitary.

The third chakra is sometimes associated with the solar plexus, sometimes with the spleen, and sometimes with the digestive system.
Sometimes the second chakra is associated with the spleen.

Sometimes all of the chakras are associated with nerve plexus, sometimes they are all associated with the endocrine glands.
In the Tibetan system, the sixth and seventh chakra -- the third eye and the "thousand petalled lotus" are thought of as one.

The Cabalistic system divides the body into ten centers.
Ironically, all these systems will go into great detail in specifying the circuitry -- often called nadis -- connecting the chakras together.

I find it easiest to confront all of these paradoxical interpretations with a certain curiosity and humility (although I tend to think some writers masked their lack of understanding with dogmatic assertion).

Paradoxes of a comparable sort are not uncommon in the physical and natural sciences, and generally exist on the frontiers of knowledge.
Most researchers tend to ignore these uncomfortable, and poorly substantiated, reports.

One ingenious hypothesis was developed by Dr. William Tiller at Stanford University.
Tiller was impressed with the apparent relationship of location and function between the chakras and the endocrine glands.

He wondered how these so called "etheric" organs might interact with the glands.
Drawing from concepts used by electrical engineers, he suggested this interaction could be analogous to a process of transduction. Imagine great energy streams flowing through space and passing through our bodies, unabsorbed and unnoticed.

Tiller suggests that perhaps the chakras can be tuned in to couple with this power source and transduce some of its energy from the astral or etheric levels into the glands.

One can think of the chakras and glands as electrical transformer loads that will deliver maximum power if they are balanced with respect to each other.


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Transduction of etheric force through the chakra into the bodily force
within an endocrine gland (courtesy William Tiller)

One might say ideas are speculative in the extreme.
While such ideas have little or no scientific merit, they serve the function of providing a modern metaphor for ancient teachings.


Dr. Lee Sannella

An interesting approach to the chakras has been taken by Lee Sannella, MD.
He noticed that the classic literature of yoga refers to a process of psychic awakening known as the rising of kundalini.

This is pictured metaphorically as the rising of a coiled snake-like energy from the base of the spine to the top of the head.
As the kundalini rises, it energizes or awakens each of the chakra centers.

Sanella encountered many cases of individuals who reported symptoms similar to the classic descriptions of kundalini rising.
These include many strange bodily sensations of vibration and heat, combined with visionary experiences and apparent psychic awareness.

He suggests that the classic yoga descriptions may be more appropriate than the medical tendency to label such experiences as "psychotic."

Do chakras have some objective existence, or are they are the creations of minds who claim to observe them?
The same problem is actually encountered in all fields of human knowledge.

Do atoms exist?
Are quarks real?
Where is humor?

Such concepts serve as maps to guide us through our experience; or, to use another metaphor, they are menus.
We would be foolish to confuse the map for the territory or the menu for the meal or the metaphor for that which is denoted by it.

Sometimes, however, by a subtle consensus of agreement, this is exactly what we do.

Dr. Hiroshi Motoyama of Tokyo is a student of raja yoga who has attempted to give a literal interpretation to the chakra metaphor.
In addition to wearing the hats of medical researcher and psychiatrist, Motoyama is also a Shinto priest.

Using his intuitions, and those of several observers, Dr. Motoyama divided a yoga class of 100 members into three groups:

(A) the yogi group in which the chakras had been clearly awakened;

(B) those in whom the chakras had been slightly awakened; and

(C) those in whom the chakras had not yet been awakened.

The chakras are often visualized as lotus blossoms that when fully awakened appear in full bloom.
In this case, no controls seem to have distinguished between "awakened chakras" and skill in practicing yoga.

A number of investigations were then made to determine if there were physiological differences between these three groups.

Examining the "disease tendency" of the different internal organs corresponding to chakras, such as the heart, the digestive system, the genitourinary system, and the nervous system, Motoyama found significantly greater instability of these systems in class A and B subjects.

Acupuncture points associated with these organs were stimulated and measurement of skin current values were made on the palms of the hands before and after stimulation.

Again the highest level of response was found in the A group.
Motoyama also measured differences in the current of the fingertips and toes on right and left sides.

This time greater imbalances were found in the A group of "yogis" with awakened chakras.
From these studies, he concluded that the nervous system and the autonomic functioning of individuals with awakened chakras shows a much wider range and flexibility of response than with ordinary individuals.

Certainly the study as reported could be criticized.
One might easily suggest that Motoyama was drawing inferences from random data in order to fulfill his own expectations.

Perhaps the findings seem cogent and consistent with other studies in which yoga and zen masters are able to dramatically vary heartbeat and brainwave measurements.

A safer interpretation is simply to suggest that quasi-scientific work of this sort, while it contributes almost nothing to our scientific understanding, serves to perpetuate psychic folklore and polish it with the gleam of seeming scientific approval.

According to yogic tradition, the chakras themselves are not to be confused with any actual physical organs of the body.
Dr. Rammurti S. Mishra -- endocrinologist, Sanskrit scholar, and yogi -- in his translation of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali states that the seven chakras are purely psychological classifications adopted as focuses of concentration in yoga.

He also added that through the chakras mindstuff is able to operate upon the anatomical parts and physiological activities.
You might say chakras are important parts of the software programmed into our biocomputers.

As one becomes deeply involved in yogic meditation, one is taught practices associating particular sounds or mantras, images, and mythological patterns to each chakra.

Thus, to an extent the chakras are brought into awareness by a creative thought process, acting upon the unformed substance we can loosely call the human aura, bioplasm, consciousness, or imagination.


Lama Govinda

Lama Anagarika Govinda, an Indian National of European descent belonging to a Tibetan Buddhist Order, describes this process quite succinctly:

"Thinking is making," this is the fundamental principle of all magic, especially of all mantric science.
By the rhythmic repetition of a creative thought or idea, of a concept, a perception or a mental image, its effect is augmentized and fixed (like the action of a steadily falling drop) until it seizes upon all organs of activity and becomes a mental and material reality: a deed in the fullest sense of the word.​

Chinese Acupuncture

Another theory dealing with subtle physiological systems of the human body is the Chinese healing art of acupuncture which unites ancient cosmology and astrology with a concept of life-energy, or Qi, flowing through channels in the body.

One of the best ways to experience acupuncture is through a massage technique which focuses on the acupuncture points and meridians.
This only requires a very gentle touch and is not difficult to learn or apply.

Instructions can be found in several good books., It has been my experience that such a massage, in addition to being healthful and sensual, provides an excellent way a person can actually feel the flow of something (call it Qi, or Chi, if you like) inside and around the body.

For about twenty-four continuous hours after I have had acupuncture massage, I have clearly felt the awareness of my body flow extend about a foot out from my skin.

This is something you really should try.
The experience is extraordinary, but not scientifically evidential.

There has been a lot of testimony regarding the successful use of acupuncture as a cure for all diseases and as an anesthetic.
However many western doctors and researchers, unable to accept the "mystical" Chinese system, tend to ascribe these "miracles" to the power of suggestion.

Drs. Theodore Xenophone Barber and John Chaves of Medfield State Hospital in Massachusetts exemplify this view in an article published in Psychoenergetic Systems.

They maintain acupuncture can only be used successfully as an anesthetic when the patient is not fearful and has a strong belief in its efficacy.
Furthermore, they add that additional sedatives, narcotics, and local anesthetics are generally used in combination with acupuncture.

They also point out that the acupuncture needles can act as a counter-irritant, distracting the mind from the pain surgery occasions.
This view is, in fact, consistent with the "gate control" theory of pain.

You have probably had the experience yourself, when you were in pain, of being able to alleviate your suffering by softly stroking or scratching some other part of your body.

The suggested explanation for this phenomena is the "spinal gate" in the substantia gelatinosa through which pain signals must pass to be received in the brain. Fewer pain signals can get through this gate if there are other non-painful stimuli activating the nerves which must pass through.

This theory is still problematic, but remains generally accepted among western scientists.

Essentially, explanations of the sort Barber and Chaves have proposed are based on the assumption there is simply no validity to the concepts of chi energy or acupuncture meridians.

Dr. Felix Mann, a western researcher who at one time accepted the traditional theory, now argues differently:

The Chinese have so many connections in their acupuncture theory that one can explain everything just as politicians do....in reality I don't believe the meridians exist. I think that the meridians of acupuncture are not very much more real than the meridians of geography.

​
Mann points out the meridians for the large and small intestines are never used by the Chinese in treating intestinal problems.
The only reason the twelve meridians are there, he claims, is in order for acupuncture theory to be consistent with Chinese astrology.

This argument is questionable as the S.I. meridians are used for treating a number of other problems.
Nevertheless, experienced healers pragmatically avoid using any unnecessary points.

Mann proposes that the effectiveness of acupuncture is actually due to stimulation of neural pathways mediated by spinal and ganglionic reflexes.
In spite of his rejection of the Chinese theory, Mann still follows the traditional methods in his therapeutic practice.

Wilhelm Reich and Orgone Energy

A concept parallel to chi energy and prana is the notion of orgone energy developed by Wilhelm Reich, a Freudian psychiatrist noted for his analysis of character based on muscle tensions.

The term orgone comes from "organism" and "orgasm" and refers to the orgasm reflex of repeated expansions and contractions as the basic formula of all living functioning.

Reich made the bold assumption he had discovered a new form of energy -- underlying the pulsations of life -- neither heat, nor electricity, magnetism, kinetic energy, chemical energy, nor an amalgam of any or all of these.

Most historians agree that in his early years Reich was an influential theorist.
He is credited as a father of psychotherapeutic systems, such as bioenergetics, which work primarily with the human body.

However, many claim that Reich himself went insane in his later years.
He was accused of medical quackery and died in a federal prison in 1955.

Reich's story may be viewed as a sad example of the social, political and psychological dangers inherent in forcing a premature marriage of science and mysticism.

Researches in the late 1930s in Norway led Reich to assume that he had discovered bions, which he regarded as the basic units of orgone.
Using high quality optical microscopes with magnification from 2000x to 4000x, Reich observed sterile solutions of organic compounds in water.

He would, for example, take coal dust and heat it to incandescence in a gas flame and then, while aglow, put it into a sterile nutritive solution.
Under the microscope, tiny vesicles were seen pulsating rhythmically in a soft, organic manner.

Reich claimed to clearly distinguish this motion from the random, angular Brownian movements also observed at that magnification.
Eventually these vesicles, or bions, seemed to take on a blue glimmer, unlike the black carbon from which they seemed to originate.

In fact, at a certain stage in their development, according to Reich, they took on a positive blue stain reaction to a biological Gram stain, unlike the carbon particles.

The bions were about one micron in diameter (or one millionth of a meter).

In the same series of experiments Reich also claimed to discover smaller elongated, red bodies, approximately 0.2 microns in length.
He called these bodies T-bacilli and felt, through a series of experiments beyond the scope of the present book, that they were the cause of cancer.

The essential point for now is that Reich felt he had observed the creation of life within his test tubes.,

Later experiments led Reich to postulate that orgone energy permeated the entire universe and that it could be concentrated in a special device he called the orgone accumulator.

Inside the accumulator he observed, in addition to the small blue ion dots, a diffuse bluish-grey light and rapid straight yellowish rays-all manifestations of orgone. Reich began to observe these forms in dark rooms, and outdoors throughout nature.

The accumulators themselves were simply boxes with walls made from alternating layers of an organic material, like wood, and an inorganic material, like iron. Sometimes as many as twenty layers have been used.

The idea is something like a greenhouse effect such that orgone energy enters into the accumulator but cannot leave it.
Most significant, from the standpoint of possible experimental proof, was Reich's claim that the temperature inside the orgone box and also outside the walls was generally slightly higher than the temperature in the room or outside air about it.


orgone.JPG

Basic design of orgone accumulator.
To = temperature above accumulator;
Ti = temperature within accumulator;
T = control (temperature of air in room).
El = electroscope.
Arrows indicate direction of ostensible radiation.

The difference averaged about one degree centigrade.
Furthermore, this temperature difference was greater on dry days than in humid weather.

This experiment, if verified, provides concrete evidence of some new and unknown form of energy generating heat.
Reich took his findings directly to the most famous scientist of his day, Dr. Albert Einstein.

After some correspondence, Reich visited Einstein in Princeton on January 13, 1941.
For nearly five hours that day, Reich discussed his theories with Einstein.

He actually demonstrated the visible radiation within the accumulator and explained the temperature difference effect.
Einstein, realizing the importance of this work, offered to test the orgone accumulator himself for the temperature difference effect.

He did so and arrived at the results predicted by Reich.
However, in a letter to Reich, he added his assistant had come up with an alternative explanation -- the temperature difference was due to air convection currents in the cellar of Einstein's home where the experiment took place.

Reich retested the phenomena in the open air and with sufficient controls to rule out the possibility of air currents.
His results were again positive; however Einstein refused to answer any of his further correspondence.

Reich's letters at this time show reasonable arguments and thorough research.
Nevertheless, Einstein's rejection led him to turn away from all establishment science.

Eventually Reich's work with cancer and his rental of orgone accumulators brought him into conflict with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
In 1954, Reich was brought to trial but refused to testify, claiming his researches were a matter for scientific, and not legal, jurisdiction. He was sentenced to prison for two years for contempt of court.

His books were actually burned by the government and withheld from the market.
Nine months after sentencing he died in a federal prison.

Careful examination of his writings shows that while they often lacked a scientific precision, they showed a scientific willingness to be led by the facts.
For all his faults, Reich was a genius and by no means a cancer quack.

His imprisonment and death were a great setback to those who were interested in pursuing his researches.

While I am personally aware of several scientists (such as Dr. Bernard Grad at McGill University in Montreal) who claim to have observed the formation of bions under the microscope, there are -- to my knowledge -- no published replications of this crucial finding from independent laboratories.

Neither are there any published refutations.
In The Cancer Biopathy, Reich does include a letter from Dr. Louis Lapique of the University of Paris who had observed the pulsating bions and was prepared to offer a physical-chemical interpretation of this effect.

Reich also states that his findings had been experimentally confirmed in 1937 by Professor Roger DuTeil in Nice.
However there is no independent report.

The temperature difference experiment has been replicated and the results published in the orthodox Reichian Journal of Orgonomy (Nov. 1971).

Reichian research continues only as a fringe study outside of the boundaries of the scientific community.
It is unlikely that Reich's orgone theories will ever be taken seriously by most mainstream scientists.

Eventually, science may progress to the point where it will be able to integrate the Reichian anomolies (if such there truly be). At the present time, there is only dwindling interest in this area.

Some studies have pointed towards the unusual properties of orgone accumulators.
For example, at UCLA in the early 1970s, experiments were conducted with an orgone accumulator and an identical-looking control box (built by an undergraduate student, Roger MacDonald) made out of wood.

Into each of these boxes was placed a tray containing ten leaves all plucked from the same plants.
High-voltage photographs were then taken of the leaves every day for one week by an experimenter who did not know which leaves were in the orgone box and which were in the control.

After seven days, eight of the ten experimental leaves were easily photographable and produced bright images, while only three of the control leaves produced pictures.

Even after fifteen days, eight of the leaves placed in the orgone box were still producing high-voltage images, while all but two of the leaves in the control box were wilted and dying to the point they were not photographable.

This finding, like other research in high-voltage photography, has largely been dismissed by the scientific community because of inadequate experimental controls against possible extraneous influences..

Another series of experiments with orgone accumulators was conducted by Dr. Bernard Grad of McGill University.
Using careful experimental controls, Dr. Grad tested the effects of treatment in an orgone accumulator upon cancerous rats.

The results of Grad's studies are complex.
While the orgone treatment alleviated the symptoms of cancer, it did not really prolong the animal's lifespan.

Yet Reichian ideas are a fertile source of folklore.
Orgone blankets are still sought as a cancer treatment.

And there are those who claim that cloudbusters developed by Reich are capable of controlling weather patterns.

The Russian Concept of Biological Plasma

The Russian concept of biological plasma is the latest version of what is essentially Mesmer's old notion of animal magnetism.
The term plasma in physics refers to a gaseous collection of positive and negative ion -- sometimes regarded as a fourth state of matter as it is not quite the same as a molecular solid, liquid or gas.

The atmospheres of stars, which extend out to interstellar space, are composed of such plasma.
The idea that a coherent plasma body might surround and interact with biological organisms was first proposed in 1944 by V. S. Grischenko, a physicist and engineer.

Dr. Victor Inyushin, a biophysicist at Kirov State University in Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan, has been the leading theoretical spokesman for the biological plasma body.
In contrast to inorganic plasma, biological plasma is said to be a coherent, organized system.

The entropic, chaotic motion of particles is reduced to a minimum.
Like the visible human body, the bioplasmic body thought to be relatively stable in varying environmental conditions --although it is particularly susceptible to electrical and magnetic perturbations.

All kinds of oscillations of bioplasma put together create the biological field of the organism.
In the complex organism and its cerebral structures a complicated wave structure -- a biologogram -- is being created, characterized by its great stability as far as the maintenance of the wave characteristics is concerned.

The euphonious term, biologogram, appears to be an application of the hologram idea -- a three dimensional image formed by wave interference patterns.
The entire image can be reconstructed from any portion of the hologram.

This model is very popular among consciousness researchers.
Holographic analogies explain why brain functioning is not severely impaired when portions of that organ are removed.

The theory of the bioplasmic body has been useful in a communist country where the official dogma is materialist -- and researchers have had to be careful to avoid heretical doctrines.

However, the Soviets acknowledge that the biological plasma theory was originally conceived in the absence of any experimental proof.
The concept is now used as an umbrella explanation of all sorts of phenomena ranging from hypnosis to astrology, telepathy, psychokinesis, and high-voltage photography.

The explanations I have seen in the translated literature seem like rather awkward efforts to fill in the gap in our knowledge left unfilled because of insufficient experimentation.

Bioplasma is still, as far as I can tell, an entirely speculative concept.
That plasmic phenomena occur in connection with biological organisms is not doubted, but if such fields are organized into coherent and stable patterns a deeper explanation will be required.

The research finding that lends support to the concept of bioplasma is the preliminary report that changes in the corona discharge of humans and certain animals can be shown to vary with the emotional state of the organism, or state of consciousness, in a way independent of other physiological variables that might effect the discharge.

If true, this finding is most unusual since we generally associate a number of physiological parameters with changes in emotional intensity.
None of the reported experiments have been described in sufficient detail to be taken at face value.

High-voltage Photography

The Soviets have also reported that high-voltage (as developed by Semyon and Valentine Kirlian) photographs are sensitive to changes in the emotions, thoughts and states of consciousness of human subjects.

Additional apparent support for this theory came from data gathered by Dr. Thelma Moss and her colleagues at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute.

Thelma Moss

Studies with subjects in relaxed states produced by meditation, hypnosis, alcohol and drugs generally showed a wider and more brilliant corona discharge on the fingertips.


kirl1.jpg


High-voltage photograph showing electrical corona around fingertip
of individual before alcohol consumption

kirl2.JPG


Same fingertip after consuming 9 oz. of bourbon

kirl3.JPG


High-voltage photo of fingertip after consuming 15 oz. of bourbon
(courtesy Thelma Moss)
​

In states of arousal, tension, or emotional excitement, the researchers observed the appearance of blotches on the color film.
Preliminary research seemed to indicate that these photographic indicators were independent of such physiological measurements as galvanic skin response, skin temperature, sweat, or constriction and dilation of the blood vessels.

This is a difficult finding to accept, and not thoroughly documented in published reports.
Other studies showed a brighter and wider corona in subjects who were in the presence of a close friend or someone of the opposite sex.

In 1970, Lynn Schroeder and Sheila Ostrander published in Psychic Discovereis Behind the Iron Curtain a rumor regarding research with the Soviet healer Colonel Alexei Krivorotov:

At the moment when he seemed to be causing a sensation of intense heat in a patient, the general overall brightness in Krivorotov's hands decreased and in one small area of his hands a narrow focused channel of intense brilliance developed.
It was almost as if the energy pouring from his hands could focus like a laser beam.

​
These reports aroused the interest of western researchers who were determined to investigate this phenomena for themselves.
E. Douglas Dean of the Newark College of Engineering in New Jersey, using Czechoslovakian designed equipment, had the opportunity to conduct similar experiments with a psychic healer by the name of Ethel E. De Loach.

Dean took several sets of her fingers when she was at rest and when she was thinking of healing.
In every case, Dean reported that the flares and emanations were much larger in the pictures when she was thinking of healing.

Some of the effects with Mrs. De Loach were very striking:

One time Ethel was doing a healing and she knew I was so happy about getting this big orange flare on the photograph.
She asked me if I would like a green one.
Well I said, "My goodness, yes! You mean you can make a green one to order?"
She said, "yes."
So we set up the equipment and we got a green flare, a small one.

​
Further research along these lines were conducted by Dr. Thelma Moss and her associates working at the UCLA Center for the Health Sciences.
Using high-voltage photography, they have observed an apparent energy transfer from healer to patient.

After the healer has finished a treatment, the corona around his fingertip is diminished.
On the other hand, an increase in the brilliance and width of the corona of the patient is observed after treatment.

Volunteers with no experience in healing were unable to replicate the same effect.In another series of experiments, the UCLA group explored the healing interactions between people and plants.

In this study, the "healers" were people who claimed to have a "green thumb," in other words, people who had the ability to make plants flourish under their care. In each experiment there was both an experimental leaf and a control leaf.

Both leaves were photographed after being freshly plucked from the same plant.
Then each leaf was mutilated and photographed again.

Typically this caused the leaf to become dimmer on film.
Then the "healer" would hold his hand about an inch above the experimental leaf for as long as he felt was necessary, and the experimental leaf would be photographed again.

Most of the twenty "green thumb" volunteers were able to cause an increased brightness in the leaves after treatment.
These leaves also remained brighter for many weeks longer than the control leaves.

Moss and her coworkers found a number of subjects who claimed to have a "brown thumb" with plants -- plants always seemed to get sick and die under their care.

When these subjects attempted the leaf experiment, they were able to cause the corona around the leaf to disappear.

One of America's most well-known ostensible psychic healers, Olga Worrall, exhibited apparent conscious control over the energy interactions being photographed.

Olga Worrall

Oddly enough, the leaf had almost disappeared in the photograph of Mrs. Worrall's first test run. Thelma Moss commented:

This was deeply disturbing to us: how could we tell Dr. Worrall, a lady for whom we had the deepest respect, what she had done to the leaf?
But, obviously we had to tell her.

She looked at the photographs with quiet dignity, and then asked if she might repeat the experiment.
She believed she had given the leaf "too much power," and thought a more gentle treatment might have different results.

The experiment was, of course, repeated....the second, mutilated leaf...after a more gentle treatment has become brilliant.
This was the first time someone had been able, deliberately, to reverse the direction of the bioenergy.
Since then, we have had another subject who was able to predict the direction of the energy flow.,

​
A report by skeptical researchers Arleen J. Watkins and William S. bickel at the University of Arizona has identified six different physical factors that affect Kirlian photographs: photographic paper, pressure, voltage discharge, explosure time, moisture in the sample, and photographic developing time.

Undoubtedly there are other factors as well. I
t is not clear that any of the published studies purporting that this method produces interesting results of a psychic or psychological nature, has sufficiently controlled for all of these factors.

High-voltage Photography Anecdotes

Several related findings have been reported from the UCLA radiation field photography laboratory.
One study attempted to observe the fingertips of pairs of individuals, holding their fingers close together, but not touching, as they stared into each other's eyes.

Frequently they found, for no apparent explanation, that one of the fingertips in each pair would practically disappear.
One of the subjects was a professional hypnotist, and it was repeatedly discovered that he could blank out the fingertips of any one of a number of partners.

In a rather striking experiment, one subject was asked to visualize sticking a needle into her partner, who was known to be afraid of needles.
The high-voltage photograph of their fingertips shows a sharp red line darting out of the aggressor's finger toward her imagined victim whose emanations appear to be retreating.

On the other hand, the photographed corona of two individuals taken while they have meditated together, according to Moss, has typically has shown a merging and uniting of the two individual coronas.

Sometimes when two persons were able to generate feelings of hostility towards each other, the corona between their fingers would abruptly cut off, leaving a gap so sharp and clear it became known as the "haircut effect."

In some instances a bright bar, like a barrier, would appear between the two photographed fingerpads.
Further studies with family groups engaged in family therapy were conducted.

Group photographs were taken with the fingerpads of each member of the family.
Typically one member of the group, generally the son, would not photograph at all.

Other photographs in this study suggested to the researchers that high-voltage photography could provide insights into the emotional reactions between people.,

The Phantom Leaf Effect

The most startling finding of high-voltage photography research was called the "phantom leaf" effect.
Ostrander and Schroeder in Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain first reported that the Soviets were often able, after removing a portion of a plant leaf, to photograph a corona pattern around the leaf as if the whole leaf were still there.

This suggested to researchers that radiation of energy around the leaf formed a holographic pattern acting as an organizing force field for physical matter.
The Soviets dubbed this hypothesized organizing field the biological plasma body.

For several years American experimenters tried unsuccessfully to duplicate this effect.
While the relevant procedural variables were still unknown, scientists such as William Tiller maintained that this single observation was "of such vast importance to both physics and medical science that no stone should be left unturned in seeking the answer!"

In 1973, Kendall Johnson, after bore than 500 trials, succeeded in producing a "phantom leaf" with clear internal details.
Immediately researchers suggested the results were due to an artifact -- possibly from an electrostatic charge left on electrode's surface before the leaf was cut.

John Hubacher, a graduate student working in Thelma Moss' laboratory then produced about a dozen phantom leaves that show an internal structure -- presumably belonging to the cut-off section of the leaf. Experimenting in the spring months (which was suggested as a relevant variable)

Hubacher came to expect clear phantom images in about 5% of his attempts and partial images in another 20%.
He was unable to ascertain the variables that resulted in a perfect image.

He claims that he was careful to cut the leaf before it was placed on the electrode in order to avoid the possibility of an electrostatic artifact.
In fact, he went further and attempted to deliberately create a pseudo-phantom effect by pressing the leaf against the film emulsion before cutting a section off.

The results of these efforts did not create any good looking phantoms.

Perhaps the most encouraging efforts in this direction were the motion pictures taken of the fading phantom leaf through a special transparent electrode.
The speed of the camera was slowed to about six frames a second.

This work was in Dr. Moss' laboratory with the help of Clark Dugger, a graduate student in UCLA's noted cinema department.
Both black and white and color high-voltage photographs showed the "phantom" sparkling brilliantly and pulsing for several seconds before it disappeared.

In these experiments, the leaf was reportedly always cut before it was placed on the electrode; and the phantom leaves were obtained only during spring months.,
Working in Moss' laboratory, and also at the Washington Research Center in San Francisco, I was able to reproduce partial phantom effects with little difficulty.

However, I am unable to make any claims for the phenomena as it would have taken many months, perhaps years, of intensive research to control all of the possible sources of artifact.

The leaf being photographed, for instance, must be grounded with an electrode; and the placement of this electrode, a possible source of additional corona discharge, seems crucial.

Sometimes unaccountable images appeared on high-voltage photographs of normal leaves, fingertips, and also inanimate objects.

William Joines and his colleagues of the electrical engineering department at Duke University have been able to produce a "phantom leaf" effect, for example as a result of film buckling.

William Joines (courtesy Foundation for Research on the Nature of Man)

The phantom leaf effect, if true, carries such significance for science it is essential the experiments be replicated under tightly controlled conditions that can provide a secure foundation for theoretical models.

While only further well-controlled studies can resolve these tenuous problems, the scientific community has turned away from Kirlian high-voltage photography as a productive research tool.

Kurt Lewin's Field Theory

In order to explain these uncanny photographic events, some researchers have drawn upon the efforts of psychologist Kurt Lewin (1890-1947) to apply the concepts of physical fields to the study of human personality.

One of the unique characteristics of Lewin's theory was using of diagrammatic representations of internal and external personality interactions.
The following diagram is one Lewin used:


[TABLE="width: 100%"]
[TR]
[TD]
lewin1.JPG
​
[/TD]
[TD]
lewin2.JPG
​
[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

The individual is described graphically by the quality of psychological environment (or aura) around him.
Person b, for example, is one with a thicker boundary.

The outer world has little influence on the life-space and vice-versa.
The life-space of person a is more open and expansive.

Lewin has often been criticized for the unjustified application of physical concepts and terminology to the realm of personality where they did not belong.
It was claimed that his diagrams were an attempt to appear scientific without using the requisite controls and measurements of science.

Furthermore, it was difficult for these critics to see what these diagrams had to do with the "real world."
Proponents of Kirlian high-voltage photography suggest Kirlian photographs can be read almost as if they were Lewin diagrams of personality fields.

This claim goes far beyond what Lewin himself ever actually suggested.
However, in the analytical psychology of Carl Gustav Jung, it has been proposed many times by Jung himself that the archetypal world -- although it exists within the mind -- should be thought of as objective reality.

It resembles Plato's realm where ideas themselves exist as visible thought-forms.

 
An interesting article by Susan Blackmore when she was still a skeptic.


J. H. M. Whiteman and OBE
274_002.jpg
by Susan Blackmore

For Yram out-of-body experiences are just part of a wider experience.
The same is true for Whiteman, a Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cape Town in South Africa.

In his book The Mystical Life he describes his vision of God as archetypal light, his practice of continuous recollection, his discovery of 'The Source' and higher Obedience, and other revelations leading him, after more than twenty years, to the 'higher Transformation'.

It is within the context of this mystical development that Whiteman describes his out-of-body experiences.

In some sense the whole of the mystical experience takes place 'out of the body' -- that is, in a non-physical world and using non-physical senses; but Whiteman distinguishes many different types of 'separation'.

These vary in the degree to which consciousness is clear and rationality maintained, and in the extent of awareness and activity in the physical body.
Of most relevance here are the experiences he call 'full separation'.

These occur when 'the physical body and its sense organs appear to be asleep or entranced while the subject himself to singly-conscious in another space and body, or multiply conscious in spaces other than the physical'. Related experiences include dreams, 'fantasy separations' and 'half-separation'.

Crucial to the full separation is that the subject's consciousness is fully located apart from the physical while the power of rational reflection is maintained.
Whiteman also distinguishes psychological, psychical, and mystical states.

The kind of experiences depends on the state of the person undergoing it.
Psychical states of separation appears far more 'real' than physical states, almost like being awake for the first time.

The difference between psychical and mystical states is hard explain, he admits, but easy to recognize when it happens.
Most of Whiteman's work concerns the different processes involved in separation and return.

First there are experiences in which separation is induced by shock, drugs, or illness.
Whiteman describes one that occurred when he was a boy of about 12.

He was experimenting in his laboratory when he burnt himself with a piece of yellow phosperous.
He felt no pain but walked downstairs for his mother to dress the burn.

As he watched her the room seemed to take on glowing, dream-like quality; objects seemed to be more distant, and then first his hearing and then his sight disappeared.
Feeling in his body then disappeared, from his feet upwards, and only when all feeling had gone did he realize he was standing and aware of the sound of some heavy object falling.

Before realizing what was happening he found himself lying on the floor, ashamed at having fainted.
The second type of separation is that which begins from a dream.

This was the most common method for Whiteman, as it had been for Oliver Fox.
In the first experience of this type he became lucid in a dream and suddenly his perception seemed free and pinpointed.

He thought, 'I have never been awake before.'
The parallel with Fox's experience can be seen in content as well.

In another separation he saw a wonderful building, a glowing palace or temple with stained glass windows and people moving up and down the steps.
He was led to understand that this came from a joint memory of many human beings worked out over a long period of time.

From this vision he was gradually brought back to the physical world, refreshed in both body and spirit.
Other separations were effected by passing through some sort of opening.

On one occasion Whiteman saw a circular opening, within which was a vivid park scene.
On others he could see his bedroom 'through the eyelids', seeing it clearly although his eyes were closed; then, he would pass through an opening in the ceiling or a wall.

Whiteman relates this method of passing through an opening to the phenomenon of tunnels.
A fourth type of separation can occur from a balanced state of dissociation.

Under this heading Whiteman includes those occuring spontaneously when he was in a state of voluntary detachment, those induced by a wish on his part, or by calling forth Obedience.

The latter, he claims, leads to a better quality experience.
In one experience he left his physical body sleeping in bed and examined his bedroom, which bore only a superficial resemblance to the actual room.

He avoided the mirror, in case it should lead him into fantasies, and approached the door, finding it had no handle.
He then turned to the windows, trying to escape from the stuffy air, and passed out into the silence of the night.

But there the experience ended and he returned to the body because, he thought, he had lacked higher reflection and obedience throughout the experience.
Whiteman describes states in yet further experiences in which he was conscious of more than one space at once.

Although he does not say so this seems to be similar to the state of dual consciousness already described.
In other experiences he seemed to participate in another person's personality and memory, finding himself aware of some scene simultaneously as though it were unknown and familiar.

Finally in his last type he achieved separation through recognition of 'The Waters'.
By this he means that there is a transitional stage in which everything appears shapeless and fluid.

Often this state lapsed into a dream of flying or floating.
Whiteman also describes a variety of experiences with different processes of return.

In some the two bodies gradually come into coincidence.
Whiteman gives as an example an experience in which he was in a park or wood when he felt the physical world's call.

The inner space began to melt away and in its place there formed a parallel world, like the physical but not identical.
From there the other body was lowered into the physical and consciousness returned to the body.

An alternative kind of return involved dual consciousness of an inner world and of the physical world, one gradually supplanting the other.
Many other authors have described both these methods of return to the physical.

Whiteman also mentions false awakenings of two kinds.
In the first he would return from a separation and seem to be back in the physical, only to find that he was still separated.

In the other kind he seemed to return to a dissociated state, but the bedroom turned out to be a strange one.
Some of Whiteman's experiences ended because they lapsed into other sorts of experience, such as a dream or half-separation.

Others ended symbolically with him seeming to return through sinking into earth or water; and in a final type he ended by being absorbed into some other entity.
Whiteman also describes the different forms taken in separation experiences.

For example, in psychical separation the other body is like the physical but in mystical states higher form of greater and greater beauty are manifested.
Similarly the worlds seen and the light which illuminates them vary as the experience becomes more mystical.

Whiteman does not describe many of the features which have so preoccupied other writers such as the silver cord, the different modes of travelling, or the physical objects and places apparently seen.

Nor did he experiment with trying to move physical objects or travelling to unknown places to check whether the details seen were correct.
In fact he specifically argues that the veridicality of the experiences, in physical terms, is far less important than their 'reality' in terms of that other world in which they take place.

The similarities between Whiteman's and others' findings imply that the same experiences are being described.
Separation through shock, from dreaming, or through symbolic openings are all familiar, as is dual consciousness, and return through gradual merging.

The clarity and vividness of the experience is a common feature, but the great difference lies in Whiteman's emphasis.
For him every state is seen as a reflection of the nature of the inner mind or stage of mystical progress.

It may be because of my own lack of mystical awareness, but I cannot help wondering whether the mystical life is really a necessary prelude to these experiences.
Many spontaneous OBEs in otherwise untrained people have mystical qualities about them.

In my own OBE I experienced a state of unity with the world and a wonderful sense of joy, energy, and clarity.
But I had had no mystical training or prior experience whatever.

Whiteman emphsises the need for Obedience, arguing that it was Yram's use of effort which led to his unpleasant experiences, but Yram also describes joy and well-being in his experiences.

Whiteman describes the distaste and shame which followed his attempts at induction by effort, but I wonder whether that shame stemmed from a sensitivity to a higher nature, or his own preconceptions about how he ought to behave.

I do not know, and can only express some doubts.
Perhaps we can only answer certain questions by experiencing these states for ourselves.

And one thing is becoming clearer.
If we did experience them they would certainly not be identical to any we have yet read about.

No two people have described identical experiences, or identical progression through their experiences out of the body.


  1. Whiteman, J. H. M. 'The Process of Separation and Return in Experiences Fully "Out-of-the-Body"' (Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, 1956, 50, pp. 240-274).
  2. --. The Mystical Life (London: Faber and Faber, 1961).
  3. --. 'The Scientific Evaluation of Out-of-the-Body Experiences' (in J. C. Poynton ed. Parapsychology in South Africa. Johannesburg: South African Society for Psychical Research, 1975, pp. 95-108).
 
Skarekrow;793680..... I have been stepping out of body lately…just a few feet…but it’s the most control I’ve ever had over the practice. I stepped out the other day and was able to comfort my ego self (dealing with loss) with so much unconditional love…it was very brief said:
http://www.poetrysoup.com/images/quote_left.gif[/IMG]But I do nothing upon myself, and yet I am mine own Executioner.
quote_right.gif
- John Donne
Click to expand...

You can step outside of your body?!?!? That's so F 'in coooool! AND to top it off - you gave your self unconditional from there! You have connected with your Higher Self - your Multi Self - your whateveryoucallit aspect of You!!!!
YES! It feels so extraordinary when we make that connection for those brief moments it feels like what I imagine to be pure Bliss. It's certainly knock your socks off kind of sensation and so intense the body can get quickly overloaded - hence the brief connections. It is being said now those moments will continue to increase more rapidly culminating in an event sometime in Sept 2015.

WooHoo! This is exciting to hear. To me it seems you're brigding between 3rd frequency and 5th frequency where your higher self is. I heard recently the 4th frequency was largely filled with dark energy while pockets of light energy were here and there. Now the light energy is increasing while the dark is decreasing. Each time one of us wakes up "down here" and seeks to increase their frequency - a wormhole or tunnel or passage or path or 'rainbow bridge' - is created so that others may use it behind you. I'm beginning to think we are all very unique in what ways we use to bridge the gap between 3rd and 5th for I have found no one else going through what I'm going through right now.

High Five for busting through the programming and shining out into other frequencies!!! :bounce:
 
[SIZE=+2]Communication with Higher Intelligence

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​
The notion of higher intelligences that influence the affairs of the human race has an old and venerable tradition and can be found in all religions.
Ancient Sumeria, for example, is generally regarded as the first major civilization.

To Sumeria we owe the inventions of the wheel, writing, arithmetic and geometry, and money.
The Sumerian's own legend, as recorded by the ancient historian Berosus around 400 B.C., is that the arts of civilization were taught to the savage inhabitants of the fertile crescent region by an unknown creature who possessed superhuman intelligence.

There appeared, coming out of the sea where it touches Babylonia, an intelligent creature that men called Oan[nes] or Oe, who had the face and limbs of a man and who used human speech, but was covered with what appeared to be the skin of a great fish, the head of which was lifted above his own like a strange headdress.

Images are preserved of him to this day.

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This strange being, who took no human nourishment, would pass entire days in discussions, teaching men written language, the sciences, and the principles of arts and crafts, including city and temple construction, land survey and measurement, agriculture, and those arts which beautify life and constitute culture.

But each night, beginning at sundown, this marvelous being would return to the sea and spend the night far beyond the shore.
Finally he wrote a book on the origin of things and the principles of government which he left his students before his departure.

The records add that during later reigns of the prediluvian kings other appearances of similar beings were witnessed.

Angels and Guardian Spirits

St. Augustine (354-430 A.D.) described in his City of God a very vivid picture of the evolution of the soul through stages towards the heavenly kingdom.
Like later church fathers, he proclaimed that while magic was real, it was the work of the devil and therefore evil.

On the other hand, while he repudiated pagan magic, Augustine fervently believed in the protection angels and guardian spirits would provide to Christians:

They watch over and guard us with great care and diligence in all places and at all hours, assisting, providing for our necessities with solicitudes; they intervene between us and Thee, 0 Lord, Conveying to Thee our sighs and groans, and bringing down to us the dearest blessings of Thy grace.

They walk with us in all our ways; they go in and out with us, attentively observing how we converse with piety in the midst of a perverse generation, with what ardour we seek Thy kingdom and its justice, and with what fear and awe we serve Thee.

They assist us in our labours; they protect us in our rest; they encourage us in battle; they crown us in victories; they rejoice in us when we rejoice in Thee; and they compassionately attend us when we suffer or are afflicted for Thee.​

The Glance of the Master

The Sufi tradition, which originated in Persia, involved singing, dancing and storytelling as techniques for exploring the inner mind. Many of the wonders described in the Tales of the Arabian Nights are of Sufi origin. Snake charming and fire-eating practices still exist as testimony to the faith self-control of certain sufi mystics.

One well-known Sufi was the Sheikh Shahab-el-Din. Idries Shah relates the following story about him:

It is related of him that he once asked the Sultan of Egypt to place his head in a vessel of water.
Instantly the Sultan found himself transformed into a shipwrecked mariner, cast ashore in some totally unknown land.He was rescued by woodmen, entered the nearest town (vowing vengeance against the Sheikh whose magic had placed him in this plight) and started work there as a slave.

After a number of years he gained his freedom, started a business, married and settled down. Eventually, becoming impoverished again, he became a free-lance porter, in an attempt to support his wife and seven children.

One day, chancing to be by the seashore again, he dived into the water for a bath.
Immediately he found himself back in the palace at Cairo, again the King, surrounded by courtiers, with the grave-faced Sheikh before him. The whole experience, though it had seemed like years, had taken only a few seconds.


​
This application of the doctrine that "time has no meaning to the Sufi" is reflected in a famous instance of the life of Mohammed.
It is related that the Prophet, when setting out on his miraculous "Night Journey," was taken by the angel Gabriel to Heaven, to Hell and to Jerusalem.

After four-score and ten conferences with God, he returned to earth just in time to catch a pot of water that had been overturned when the angel took him away.
The Sufis loved to tell such stories.

Their traditions seem to be a mixture of teaching stories in the genre of Aesop's Fables and the Tales of the Arabian Knights with a very profound understand of methods for transforming human nature.

Irina Tweedie, is author of Daughter of Fire, a diary of five intensive years of spiritual training in India with a Sufi master.
In the following excerpt of my Thinking Allowedinterview with her, she describes aspects of her spiritual training which suggest that some ancient techniques have survived to the present day.


Irina Tweedie

She refers to what the Sufis call the glance -- the unanticipated look of the guru that affects one profoundly.
At that moment, one realizes their connection with that teacher:

According to the Sufi tradition, the moment the teacher looks at you for the first time, you are born again.

​
I was struck by the many doubts which Mrs. Tweedie experienced during her period of Sufi training.
She seemed to alternate between moments of great peace and moments of the most profound inner torture:

I remember at the end I was suicidal.
I decided to throw myself from the bridge, at Kampur, the city where my teacher lived.

It was on the Ganges which is deep.
So I thought, "Well, it won't hurt very much."

He seemed to know my thoughts, because suddenly he turned to me.
He was sitting in the garden, and I was so disgusted I didn't want to look at him.

He said, "Mrs. Tweedie, look at me." So I looked at him.
I sort of -- aahhh! He was full of blinding light.

I sort of just looked, speechless.
And he said, "Mrs. Tweedie, do you think I would waste my powers if you really were hopeless?"
And perhaps half a day before he had told me that I was utterly hopeless.


​
This particular teacher seemed to be acting in an irrational manner, apparently to help his student "stop her mind," to get her outside of her conditioned intellect. This is sometimes referred to as the tradition of crazy wisdom.

The purpose of the teaching is not so much to instruct people about it, because there are many books, but to lead people to it.Robert Frager, founder of the California Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, is on the faculty of the Institute for Creation Spirituality at Holy Names College.


Robert Frager

He is the coauthor of Personality and Personal Growth. A fifth-degree black belt of Aikido, he was a student of Osensei, the original founder of Aikido.
He is also a Sufi sheik.

In the following excerpt from my Thinking Allowed interview with him he describes his first encounter with a Sufi teacher which is very much reminiscent of Irina Tweedie's description of the glance:

"I was sitting in my office at the California Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, with my feet up on my desk, talking on the phone to someone about something administrative.

Two of my colleagues had invited a Sufi group to come talk at the school for a few days; and a heavy-set Turkish man walked by my office and looked at me.
The look must have taken a half a second at most.

He did not break stride.
He did not stop and stare.

But the moment he looked at me, time stood still, absolutely.
Time stopped for me, and I had this impression that all the data of my life was being read into a high-speed computer -- that he somehow knew everything that led up to my being in that office with my feet on the desk.

Many years later, someone else in another Sufi tradition, when I mentioned this story, said, "My God, that's a perfect description of what we call the look of the sheik.
That itself is an initiation at some level."

I suddenly found myself sitting at mealtime with this man, and then he started telling stories, and it was as though no one had ever told spiritual stories before.

The stories just knocked me over -- the power, the wisdom.
It felt as though there was no one else in the room, that he was literally telling the stories just to me, and that they were all designed for me.

And then after the stories were over I glanced around and I said, "My goodness, there are other people here too."


​
I asked Dr. Frager if a cynic might not say at this point that even a sophisticated professor like himself could become hypnotized.
He responded that it was more like falling in love, in a Platonic sense, with the teacher.

The essence of the practice is one of opening the heart.
The practice of devotion to a guru originated in the Hindu Bhakti Yoga tradition.

The guru is said to communicate higher states of consciousness through his or her very presence or being.
Certain gurus, with thousands of western devotees, currently encourage their disciples to practice this method.

They include Gurumayi Chidvilasananda and Da Love-Ananda, both of whom claim to have received confirmation of their spiritual attainment from Swami Muktinanda.

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Joseph Chilton Pearce, reknowned author of Crack in the Cosmic Egg
and Magical Child, is a devotee of Gurumayi Chidvilasananda

Space does not permit extensive comments on this modern manifestation of an ancient tradition.
It is worth noting, however, that press scrutiny of virtually all contemporary claimants to various degrees of divine or holy stature strongly suggest, if one is willing to make conventional judgments, that such guru figures have failed to maintain an unwavering state of higher consciousness.

Many claimants to a state of higher consciousness -- including Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Bhagwan Rajneesh and Swami Muktinanda -- have been reported to have feet of clay., Of course, such individuals can be effective teachers.

However, if a guru encourages the worship of devotees, a prospective disciple would be wise to consider the effect that the human flaws of the master may have on such a practice.

Da Love-Ananda (also known as Da Free John and Adida), a western seeker formerly named Franklin Jones, has become a prolific writer on the "great tradition" of spiritual seeking, as well an individual whose claim to having attained the highest state of awareness is viewed seriously by many scholars. {II-68-B}

Adida

For several years, he has been compiling an annotated bibliography of spiritual literature, organized according to his own system which views the spiritual journey as a process of seven stages.

Several of Da Love-Ananda's other books attempt to explicate the telepathic processes by which a spiritual master interacts with devotees.

Cabala

Cabala is the word for the Jewish mystical tradition that acknowledges the personal experience of the absolute.
The tree of life diagram shows the ten emanations of god that are the attributes of both humanity and the universe.

In later occult systems the tree of life was used as a philosophical basis for integrating the tarot cards with astrology as well as a guide for meditation and reveries. In these ecstatic states one progressed through a hierarchy of visions that lead to ultimate mystical union.

One might say the tree of life served as a very sophisticated map of the inner spaces through which consciousness progresses.
One of the most sophisticated interpretations of Cabala is that offered by Stan Tenan of the MERU Foundation.

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Stan Tenen

Tenan maintains that the Cabalists discovered in the ancient languages a schematic for the unfolding of the universe from unity to multiplicity.
This schematic, he maintains, is isomorphic to ideas that are currently being generated in contemporary cosmology.

Emmanuel Swedenborg

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Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) the single individual who combined within himself the most intense spiritualistic exploration with the most sophisticated scientific expertise was born the son of a devout Swedish bishop whose family was ennobled by the King when he was thirty-one.

Being the eldest son, Baron Emmanuel Swedenborg took a position in the Swedish House of Nobles.
During his long life Swedenborg published scientific papers on a wide variety of topics.

They include soils and muds, stereometry, echoes, algebra and calculus, blast furnaces, astronomy, economics, magnetism, and hydrostatics.
He founded the science of crystallography and was the first to formulate the nebular hypothesis of the creation of the universe.

He spent many years exploring human anatomy and physiology and was the first to discover the functions of the ductless glands and the cerebellum.
In addition to mastering nine languages, he was an inventor and a craftsman.

He built his own telescope and microscope.
He designed a submarine, air pumps, musical instruments, a glider and mining equipment.

Throughout his life he worked as a mining assessor in Sweden.
He participated in the engineering of the world's largest dry dock.

He developed an ear trumpet, a fire extinguisher, and a steel rolling mill.
He learned bookbinding, watchmaking, engraving, marble inlay, and other trades.

At one point he engineered a military project for the King of Sweden which transported small battleships fourteen miles over mountains and through valleys.
At the age of fifty-six, Swedenborg had mastered the known natural science of his day and stood at the brink of his great exploration of the inner worlds.

He began by surveying all that was understood by scholars in the area of psychology and published this in several volumes along with some observations of his own.

Then he started writing down and interpreting his own dreams.
He developed yoga-like practices of suspending his breathing and drawing his attention inward, thus enabling him to observe the subtle symbol-making processes of his mind.

He carefully probed the hypnogogic state, the borderland between sleep and waking in which the mind forms its most fantastic imagery.
As he intensified this process he gradually began to sense the presence of other beings within his own inner states.

Such a sensation is common to the hypnogogic state.
However for Swedenborg, these occasional glimpses into another world came to full fruition quite suddenly in April of 1744. From that time until his death, twenty-seven years later, he claimed to be in constant touch with the world of spirits.

During his waking hours he regularly probed the vast regions of heaven and hell and engaged in long and detailed conversations with angels and spirits.
The following passages provide us with a typical example of Swedenborg's later thought:

OF THE SPEECH OF SPIRITS AND ANGELS

The discourse or speech of spirits conversing with me, was heard and perceived as distinctly by me as the discourse or speech of men; nay, when I have discoursed with them whilst I was also in company with men, I also observed, that as 1 heard the sound of man's voice in discourse, so I heard also the sound of the voice of spirits, each alike sonorous;

insomuch that the spirits sometimes wondered that their discourse with me was not heard by others; for, in respect to hearing there was no difference at all between the voices of men and spirits. But as the influx into the internal organs of hearing is different from the influx of man's voice into the external organs, the discourse of the spirits was heard by none but myself, whose internal organs, by the divine mercy of the Lord, were open.

Human speech or discourse is conveyed through the ear, by an external way, by the medium of the air; whereas the speech or discourse of spirits does not enter through the ear, nor by the medium of the air, but by an internal way, yet into the same organs of the head or brain. Hence the hearing in both cases is alike.

The words which spirits utter, that is, which they excite or call forth out of a man's memory, and imagine to be their own, are well chosen and clear, full of meaning, distinctly pronounced, and applicable to the subject spoken of; and, what is surprising, they know how to choose expressions much better and more readily than the man himself; nay, as was shown above, they are acquainted with the various significations of words, which they apply instantaneously, without any premeditation; by reason, as just observed, that the ideas of their language flow only into those expressions which are best adapted to signify their meaning.

The case, in this respect, is like that of a man who speaks without thinking at all about his words, but is intent only on their sense; when his thought falls readily, and spontaneously, into the proper expressions. It is the sense inwardly intended that calls forth the words. In such inward sense, but of a still more subtle and excellent nature, consists the speech of spirits, and by which man, although he is ignorant of it, has communication with them.

The speech of words, as just intimated, is the speech proper to man; and indeed, to his corporeal memory: but a speech consisting of ideas of thought is the speech proper to spirits; and, indeed, to the interior memory, which is the memory of spirits. It is not known to men that they possess this interior memory, because the memory of particular or material things, which is corporeal, is accounted every thing, and darkens that which is interior: when, nevertheless, without interior memory, which is proper to the spirit, man would not be able to think at all.

From this interior memory I have frequently discoursed with spirits, thus in their proper tongue, that is, by ideas of thought. How universal and copious this language is may appear from this consideration, that every single expression contains an idea of great extent: for it is well known, that one idea of a word, may require many words to explain it, much more the idea of one thing; and still more the idea of several things which may be collected into one compound idea, appearing still as a simple idea. From these considerations may appear what is the natural speech of spirits amongst each other, and by what speech man is conjoined with spirits.


​
It is tempting to think Swedenborg went insane at this point.
However he otherwise showed no signs of mental weakness.

He continued to serve as a mining assessor, for instance, throughout his life.
Yet, during this twenty-seven year period he wrote some 282 works in the above manner describing his inner explorations. {II-71}

When asked how he could write so much, he casually answered that it was because an angel dictated to him.
Numbers of people witnessed him speaking with invisible figures, yet he could always be interrupted in the midst of these states to deal with a visitor or a business matter.

He described the world to which we all go after death like a number of different spheres representing various shades of light and happiness, each soul going to that for which his spiritual evolution has fitted him.

The light of higher states seems painful and blinding to one who is not yet ready.
These spheres resembled the earthly society that Swedenborg knew.

His descriptions of life in the spheres are written with the careful mind of a scientist.
He speaks of the architecture, the flot2s and fruits, the science, the schools, the museums the libraries and the sports.

The great German philosopher Emmanuel Kant set about to examine the Swedenborg phenomena with an aim toward discrediting them.
However Kant himself was at a loss to explain the well-reported incident in 1756, when Swedenborg, then in Gottenburg, clairvoyantly saw a fire raging three hundred miles away in Stockholm.

This incident occurred in front of fifteen very distinguished observers.

Due to the voluminous quantity of his erudite writings, Swedenborg's popularity has not been large among the general population.
Often, his spiritual visions do seem to degenerate into arbitrary theological interpretations of scripture.

After his death, the Church of the New Jerusalem was founded to preserve his teachings, which can be found in the encyclopedic Heaven and Hell, The New Jerusalem and the Arcana Coelestia as well as in several excellent biographies.

Swedenborg's thought was to exert a particular influence on two of Europe's great artistic geniuses, William Blake (1757- 1827) and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832).

Gustav Theodor Fechner and Psychophysics

Until the middle of the nineteenth century, there was no recognized branch of experimental science whose domain of exploration was man's psyche.
While there was generally a strong public interest in the researches of Mesmer and Reichenbach, there were no trained academicians or established professionals who were competent to research and judge extraordinary claims.

Psychology was thought of as a branch of philosophy, until the pioneering research of Gustav Theodor Fechner (1801-1887) established psychology as `n independent branch of science.

Fechner's formal training lay in medicine and physics.
Like the ancient shamans he showed a natural sensitivity to the subtle levels of his own inner world that he could not suppress.

Writing under the pseudonym of Dr. Mises, he published a number of works both satirical and symbolic.
His biographer, Dr. G. Stanley Hall, describes one of these books, written in 1825, entitled Comparative Anatomy of the Angels:

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​

These are not symbolic, but real, living angels, which stand in the organic world a little higher than man, who is not the highest nor the most beautiful.
Even the ass thinks his own type ideal.

The human form is a strange aggregate of surfaces and curves, hollows and elevations.
There are no flat surfaces and therefore curves and specifically the sphere are the ideal forms and these change (as, indeed, Plato had said).

The parts of man's body are beautiful as they approach it, but the eyeball is most complete. It is the organ of light and in light angels live.
Earth is not their fitting residence.

They belong to higher bodies like the sun, the stars, or light.
Just as the air is the element of the angels, who are simply free and independent eyes, all eye, or the eye-type in its highest and most beautiful development.

Thus, what in man is a subordinate organ, in the angels is of independent worth.
In animals the eyes look backward or sideward, whereas in man they look forward.

But angels are single eyes.
Their language is light and their tones are colors.

The eye-language of love hints at the speech of angels, these creatures of the sun with their ethereal bodies.
Their skin is merely connected vapors, like soap bubbles.

Their transparent nature can take on colors.
They change their form and expand and contract according to their feelings.

They are attraction or repulsion, and with this goes the wonderful color play.
They are organisms.

They move by hovering and sweeping along.
General gravitation, which relates all bodies, is their sense.

They feel the farthest thing in the universe and the slightest change in it.
They are, in short, living planets and, in fine, the planets are angels.

​
In his search for the archetypal form of angels, Fechner's work can be seen as in the scientific tradition of Goethe, his countryman, who attempted to reconcile science and poetry.

In his perception of the earth and planets as living organisms, he is bearing witness to the ancient esoteric teachings.
One of the defining characteristics of Fechner's life is that he suffered a disease very much akin to the initiatory sickness known among shamans.

In 1840 his eyesight began to fail him.
Soon he could neither read nor write.

He found he could not eat or drink and he was unable to endure society.
He lost all control over his thoughts or his attention.

His dreams tormented him. His own state seemed to him like the condition of a puppet.
By the end of 1843, people believed him to be incurably blind and completely insane.

He spent months in solitude in a dark room; and at a level deep within himself he never lost hope.
It was in this state, literally the dark night of his soul, he felt he was called upon by God to do extraordinary things for which his sufferings had prepared him.

He recovered after this self-perception and soon discovered within himself even greater physical strength and psychic sensitivity.
The whole world now revealed itself to him in a splendor and detail exceeding his earlier visions.

He resumed his academic work, no longer in physics but as a philosopher.
This work led to some very cogent philosophical explorations into the nature of consciousness itself and from there to his pioneering experimental work in psycho-physics:

As to the origin of consciousness, we have a series of thresholds, upper and lower waves. The highest consciousness is God, who planned vaguely at first and is realizing his purpose in all the world processes, so that his plan progresses and becomes more definite and conscious. Thus, as Paracelsus and Jacob Boehme thought, God is growing in our experience, which, as it gives him character, also contributes to his consciousness and adds to his achievements. God comes to consciousness in us....

​
Life and consciousness never arose, he said, but are original activities of the universe; they are two expressions of the same thing and differ only as a circle seen from within differs from one seen from without.
From without all is manifold, from within all is unity, and both together constitute all there is.

The soul is not punctual but is pervasive throughout all the body.
Those processes immediately bound up with consciousness are psycho-physic movements and they are primordial and cosmogonic.

The physical world operates under one law and we must assume that the spiritual world is no less so.
There must be then, a priori, some exact mathematical relationship between the physical and the psychical, some law of concomitant variations, for all that is psychic is but the self-appearance of the physical; a material process runs parallel to every conscious process.

This Pythagorean insight as to the mathematical relationship between the physical and psychic worlds led directly to the development of modern, scientific psychology.

In all fairness, however, to contemporary psychologists, most are ignorant of Fechner's mystical background -- and would probably be shocked by it.

The Theosophical Society

A most intriguing chapter in consciousness history involves the Theosophical Society, founded in 1875 by Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (H. P. B. for short), a most notorious character.

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Madame Blavatsky in perambulator, attended by two students
James M. Pryse (left) and G. R. S. Mead (right)

Madame Blavatsky declared herself to be a chela or disciple of a brotherhood of spiritual adepts in Tibet whose members had acquired psychic powers beyond the reach of ordinary men.

She asserted that they took a special interest in the Theosophical Society and all initiates of occult lore, being able to communicate intelligently with individuals by visiting them in a phantom or astral form.

These beings were called the Mahatmas and are described in Blavatsky's book Isis Unveiled:

Travelers have met these adepts on the shores of the sacred Ganges, brushed against them on the silent ruins of Thebes, and in the mysterious deserted chambers of Luxor.

Within the halls upon whose blue and golden vaults the weird signs attract attention, but whose secret meaning is never penetrated by idle gazers, they have been seen, but seldom recognized.

Historical memoirs have recorded their presence in the brilliantly illuminated salons of European aristocracy.
They have been encountered again on the arid and desolate plains of the Great Sahara, or in the caves of Elephanta.

They may be found everywhere, but they make themselves known only to those who have devoted their lives to unselfish study and are not likely to turn back.

​
According to William Q. Judge, a New York lawyer who was one of the co-founders of the Theosophical Society, such a Mahatma appeared to the first Theosophists when they held a meeting to frame their constitution.

A "strangely foreign Hindoo," came before them, left a package and vanished.
On opening the package they found the necessary forms of organization, rules, etc., that were adopted.

The early history of the society was based largely on such miracles. Blavatsky's wonderworking and teaching attracted such notable students as Thomas Edison, Sir William Crookes, Alfred Russell Wallace, British Prime Minister William Gladstone, Alfred Tennyson, and later U. S. Vice-president Henry Wallace and Annie Besant (the former mistress of George Bernard Shaw, who succeeded Blavatsky as head of the movement).

After seeing the Society well established in New York, Madame Blavatsky moved to India. Marvelous phenomena of an occult nature were alleged to have taken place there at the Adyar headquarters. Mysterious, ghostly appearances of Mahatmas were seen, and messages were constantly received by supernatural means.

One of the apartments, named the Occult Room in the headquarters, contained a sort of cupboard against the wall, known as the Shrine.
Ghostly letters from the Mahatmas were received in this shrine, as well as sent. Skeptics were convinced and occult lodges spread rapidly.

Madame Blavatsky and other Theosophists were interviewed in England by members of the SPR who were favorably impressed.
At this point in 1884, a scandal broke out.

Two members of Blavatsky's staff claimed they had conspired with Madame, forging Mahatma letters and placing them in the shrine P`rough a trap door.
To back up their claim, they submitted private correspondences from H. P. B. Blavatsky countered with charges of her own.

Leaders of the SPR considered the matter significant enough to send Richard Hodgson to India in order to personally investigate the matter.
What followed was perhaps the most complicated and confused investigation in the history of psychical research.

Hodgson concluded Madame Blavatsky was a phony -- "one of the most accomplished, ingenious, and interesting imposters of history."
His 200 page report attempted to reconstruct in detail all of the mechanisms by which she impersonated every sort of phenomena.

He hired handwriting experts, for example, who determined the Mahatma letters were really written in Madame's handwriting.
Most of the evidence was of a circumstantial nature as the original shrine had been destroyed by the time Hodgson had arrived at Adyar.

mahatma.JPG

More recently, Theosophical apologist Victor Endersby has written a book challenging the Hodgson report point for point.
Endersby cites independent testimony from handwriting experts who clearly disagree with those hired by Hodgson.

The Theosophical Society is still active.
The teachings of the Theosophists continue to have an enormous impact on the esoteric folklore of western culture and for that reason are quoted several times in this book.

A Course in Miracles

Since the original publication of The Roots of Consciousness, there have emerged numerous examples of ostensible contact with higher intelligence.
One of the foremost among these is A Course in Miracles, which is a system of spiritual transformation.

Hundreds of thousands of individuals have used this material; and its emphasis on love, foregiveness and freedom from guilt have had an influence on a new generation of spiritual seekers comparable to that of the Theosophical Society in previous years.

A Course in Miracles suggests that a miracle is really a shift in perception -- to see the spirit that lies behind all forms.
Judith Skutch Whitson, is the president of the Foundation for Inner Peace, the organization which published A Course in Miracles.


Judith Skutch Whitson

In the following excerpt from a Thinking Allowed interview, she describes the origins of this material:

In 1975, I met William Thetford and Helen Suchman, two medical psychologists at Columbia Presbyterian School of Physicians and Surgeons, who served as scribes for the material.

The way it came to them was through their relationship.
They had had a very long period together, teaching, researching, writing grant proposals; yet their life together and among their faculty was not very harmonious.

They described it as one of the most stress-filled domains in the world -- academia, medical academia.
One day the quieter of the two of them, Bill Thetford, who was a very gentle man, a very thorough scientist, a very solid person -- he just blew up.

He said in a very meaningful way to her, so that she heard him, that he was sick and tired of the attitudes that that stress seemed to have promoted between the two of them, and that they just were not getting along, that there had to be a better way to live in the world.

There had to be a better way, and he was determined to find it.
Instead of laughing at him -- because she was quite an acerbic woman, very sharp, the older of the two of them by fourteen years -- she actually took his hand, and she said, "You know, Bill, I think you are right.

I do not know what the better way could be, but I will help you find it."

Two people joined to find a better way of being in the world -- in other words, to heal their relationship.
Not too long after, Helen started to experience what she called heightened visual imagery which gave her the feeling that there was something within her catching her attention and very gently taking her along the way, through experience, to an opening up.

After many of these visions, she started to become very familiar with an inner voice which spoke with a gentleness and yet an authority she could not avoid listening to.

One day, she was at home, unable to sleep, and she was actually feeling, hearing the words: "This is a course in miracles. Please take notes."
She did not know what to do.

That was quite startling.
She called up Bill on the phone, and she said, "You know that voice I told you about?

It will not go away, and it is saying something very peculiar."
He said, "What is it saying?" And she told him: "This is a course in miracles. Please take notes."

He is a very pragmatic fellow.
He said, "Well, you've been having interesting experiences which I've been taking down so we have a record of them. Why don't you just do what it says? You take very fast shorthand. Why don't you just do it?"

So she did, and what she took down startled her a great deal, but the next morning she brought it into the office.
Before the staff came in, they locked the door and pulled down the shades so no one should catch them at this.

She actually read from her notebook to him what she had taken down, and he typed it up.
It was an introduction to A Course in Miracles.

It said: "This is a required course; only the time you take it is voluntary. Free will does not mean you can establish the curriculum, only the time in which you need to take it."

It said the opposite of love is fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no opposite.
It also said the course could be summed up very simply this way: "Nothing real can be threatened, and nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God."

Well, she was threatened.
At that time she called herself a militant atheist, and he was an agnostic, and here was something that mentioned G-O-D, and it just was not in her vocabulary.

So he convinced her that it was beautifully written, and whatever it was, if it should happen again, to keep on doing it.
That began a seven-year collaboration.

Any time she wished, when she was ready, she could pick up her shorthand notebook and her pen, and literally start from where she left off before, without even checking what the book said.

With Bill typing what she had taken down every day, A Course in Miracles came into being.
I asked Helen, the first day I met her, "Did the voice have a name?

Did it identify itself, such as the Seth material and others?"
She said, "I was afraid you were going to ask that," and Bill Thetford said, "Why don't you tell her, dear?

She is going to read it." And she said, "It says it is Jesus."
I said, "Well, is it?"

And she said, "Of course," which was interesting, because on the one hand, as a Jewish lady, she did not believe in it, but on a metaphorical level she knew it was true.

I think we are all in that position in our lives.
There is something that we know is true, but we do not agree to believe in it.

I could not have predicted, in 1975, that there would be three hundred thousand copies of A Course in Miracles in circulation.
I have no idea how many people study one copy, so I am guessing over a half a million folk are students of A Course in Miracles.

I think we are probably laying the foundation, along with many others, who share basically the same point of view but go about it in different ways -- a foundation for a tremendous change of mind, which I call the great transformation.
​

The Invisible College

invisible.JPG

Earlier we discussed the image of the Invisible College used by the early Rosicrucians to symbolize their internal contact with higher intelligence. (This same term has been used by scientists, such as Jacques Vallee and J. Allen Hynek, to refer to the loosely connected network of scientists investigating the UFO data.)

An interesting perspective on the Invisible College comes from a report from Dr. Shafica Karagula, director of the Higher Sense Perception Research Foundation in Los Angeles.

Karagula specialized in clinical studies of individuals who are gifted with unusual perceptive talents.
One of her subjects, whom she called Vicky described a series of experiences she had in her sleep where she seemed to be visiting a college and attending classes in many different subjects.

Her vision was quite lucid, recalling the architecture of the buildings, and the subject matter of her lectures.
The lectures follow an orderly sequence and Karagula claimed to have carefully recorded a number of them from Vicky.

On one occasion, Vicky remembered that a friend of hers, who lived across the United States was in the classroom with her.
After some cautious questioning on the telephone, this person verified that he also remembered being present although he did not recall the details of the lecture as clearly as she did.

Although similar experiences have been reported by many people, and are known to dream-researchers, they have yet to be more systematically probed.
The notion of the Invisible College, of course, stems from the Rosicrucian writings of Francis Bacon.

Peter Dawkins, a Francis Bacon scholar, tells a story of his own involvement with this work that falls very much in the Invisible College tradition.

Peter Dawkins

The following excerpt is from my Thinking Allowed interview with him:

One day we went on a retreat, my wife and I, and on that retreat was a lady who was the secretary of the Francis Bacon Society in England.
She introduced me to Francis Bacon, who I had not really studied before.

I knew of him, but hadn't really bothered much about him.
A great sort of gap in my education, that was.

I went away not really knowing what to do about this.
And I was woken up with a vivid dream.

Now, I don't often remember dreams, but this one I was woken up to remember.
It was quite vivid.

There was a certain gentleman making a certain gesture that was important in the dream, with a very short message to send to this lady.
So I had to do this at four o'clock in the morning.

There was no way I could not do it.
It was a request that could not be refused.

I wrote, and I got a letter back from her by return post saying, "Thank you very much.
I've waited twenty years for this.

Now we can begin our work."

She asked me a series of questions, and as I read them, suddenly I could answer them, whereas a few days before it probably would have been alien to me. Something changed in my consciousness at that time, and it opened the gateway to another level of consciousness, which I've been working with ever since.


​
To me, Dawkin's story is plausible because it echoes a dream experience that has been relevant to the development of my own career.
That experience took place in 1972 at a time when I was still a graduate student in criminology at the University of California.

My interest in criminology reflected my fascination with human deviance.
However, I was feeling very uncomfortable studying only negative forms of deviance.

I deeply wanted to reorient my career focus.
One evening I felt inspired to tell myself, and to accept without doubt, that I would have a dream which would provide an answer to my career dilemma.

Then I did have such a dream.
I dreamt that I was visiting some friends in Berkeley, who were not at home.

Knowing where they hid their housekey, I took the key and let myself into their apartment.
I walked into the living room where I found a `agazine sitting in the middle of the floor.

In the dream it was called Eye (a popular magazine at that time).
I picked it up and began paging through it.

While I was dreaming, I had a distinct feeling of elation.
I knew that somehow the answer I was seeking existed in that magazine.

I awoke early in the morning and, like Dawkins, felt drawn to act on the inspiration of the dream.
Immediately I dressed and ran four miles across Berkeley to the apartment I had dreamt of.

My friends were not home, but I did know where they kept their key.
Breaking the bounds of conventionality, I let myself into their home.

To my delight, there was a single magazine in the middle of their living room floor.
It was not called Eye; it was called Focus. And this magazine literally brought focus to my life.

It was the magazine of listener-sponsored television and radio in San Francisco.
As I sat there paging through Focus magazine, I was struck with the idea that I would redirect my career through involvement with public broadcast media.

I applied to volunteer at KPFA-FM, Berkeley's listener-sponsored radio station -- and within three weeks, I was asked to host and produce a program twice a week called "The Mind's Ear."

Suddenly, I found that my life was transformed.
Every Tuesday and Thursday I had the oportunity to hold intimate, hour-long, uninterrupted discussions with leaders of the human potential movement, yogis, scientists, psychics, psychologists, visionaries, humorists, etc.

I felt as though I had found my home in the universe.

It was this experience that gave me the confidence to pursue a unique doctoral diploma in parapsychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and to write the first edition of The Roots of Consciousness.

The inspiration of that dream still motivates my life twenty-eight years later as I produce the Thinking Allowedtelevision series and prepare this internet edition.

My own dream experience certainly does not reflect a contact with higher intelligence in the romanticized or stereotyped manner characteristic of theosophical and rosicrucian legend.

It does suggests a synchronistic connection (which implies some higher intelligence) that has been integrated into the movements and actions of my life pattern.

 
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[video=youtube;_e1XUnOSxAs]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_e1XUnOSxAs[/video]
this is the official infjs.com merkabah theme song
 
The way the video makes the bodies move is the way my body feels some times during meditation. :lol:

Very appropriate song. It reminds me of a late 70's sound.... totally funky... :)
 
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