Merkabah

[Skarekrow]

Hi Skarekrow,
I remember when I was about four I could sort of see myself from above in my room sometimes before sleeping or after I woke up. I thought about this later and thought that maybe I was just dreaming this but recently I've wondered if it was just the transition between having a more universal consciousness to a more individualized one. I wonder if we had been brought up in households or cultures where exploration of the universal/collective consciousness is encouraged, if we would have kept that "flow" more - or would we rebel against that because it didn't give us the challenge of the uphill battle that we seem to have now? It's like we have the adventure of being the sole duck being hatched on a chicken farm - we learn the language of all the clucking and we forget that we can really fly. Maybe the differences help us learn and question and grow even more. Anyways, thanks for all the wisdom you share in your posts - at least we can all sort of connect here and not feel quite as 'ugly'!

Thank you for sharing your views and opinions here…I appreciate it.
I believe you.
I remember watching multicolored particles swirl around my head..sometimes it would stop and go back the other way…but I remember it was very much like watching dust motes blowing and creating whirlpools and currents…except that I could see it in the dark…and could reach out my hand and interact with it…or so I seem to remember doing.
I wonder if it was like you said, one of those things where your parents didn’t see what you saw and eventually you didn’t either because it was always dismissed?
It’s hard to stay in the “flow” because just about everything in life is geared to distract us…to individualize us and wrap us tightly in our egos!
I remember the last time I felt like this it seemed that everyone was in a bad mood and couldn’t see why I felt so good…I think I just lost focus dammit.
Anyhow…glad to have my head back on so it feels…lol.
What is really frustrating for me is maintaining that sense of “contentment”…I find I am constantly purposefully trying to step out of my own head and observe myself from a third-perpective (which takes practice) because it seems to eventually break me through whatever ceiling I seem to run into.
Again, thanks for reading!

 

[Skarekrow]

Hallucination or Time-Surfing Soul?

Is literal time-travel — into the past and/or the future, and then back to the present — actually feasible?
The answer to that question is: it really depends on who you ask.

In short, this translates to: no-one actually knows.
But, there is something on this matter that I want to bring to your attention and which may shed at least some light on the matter.

On the other hand, you might find yourself even more confused, after reading what I have to say.
And, with that all said and done, read on…

A particular fungus, one that can provoke remarkable experiences in an individual who partakes of it, Amanita muscaria is also known as the sacred mushroom.
It was back in the 1950s that one Andrija Puharich — an American of Yugoslavian descent — delved deeply into the mind-altering abilities of this fungus from his lab in Glen Cove, Maine.

Andrija Puharich was someone who knew a great deal about how the mind could be manipulated: from 1953 to 1955, and as a Captain in the U.S. Army, he was attached to the military’s Army Chemical Center, Maryland.

His work there spilled over into certain realms also being explored by the CIA, and which ultimately became part and parcel of the work undertaken by the agency’s “mind-control” program, MKUltra.

It turns out that Puharich was someone who had a fascination for the mysteries of ancient Egypt, and who also came to suspect that Amanita muscaria might allow the participant’s essence, or soul, to leave their body and, quite literally, to time-travel — in astral form — into the distant past.

A theory that, in many ways, is even more thought-provoking, suggests that rather than allowing the experiencer to travel into the very heart of millennia long gone, Amanita muscaria actually provokes the surfacing of long-buried, encoded memories passed down from generation to generation, and possibly from time immemorial.

​

It so transpires that both scenarios fascinated the scientific figures of the CIA — to the extent that, at some point in March 1956, an individual whose name is blacked out in the heavily redacted files that have been released via the Freedom of Information Act, was rendered into an altered state by Amanita muscaria and carefully monitored to determine the effects on the subject.

The man — who was able to consciously recall the events after the effects wore off, and who shared the details with CIA personnel — suddenly found himself plunged into the heart of ancient Egypt.

He saw nothing less than squadrons of gleaming, extraterrestrial flying saucers, massive in size, and raising equally massive stone blocks into the air, and essentially, using a form of advanced levitation to construct the pyramids at Giza.

The files reveal that the people attached to the project — which was a sub-project of the overall MKUltra umbrella — were in no less three minds as to what the experience told them. Some of the doctors and scientists believed that the man had experienced nothing stranger than a vivid hallucination, possibly provoked by the fact that he had earlier and fairly extensive contact with Puharich, and, therefore, may have been unintentionally influenced by the latter’s beliefs and conclusions.

Rather astonishingly, two of the team concluded that…(drum roll)…the man’s soul had literally surfed time and had stumbled upon the secret of how the Pyramids at Giza, Egypt were built.

Then there was the theory that what the man experienced was none other than the spontaneous surfacing of deeply buried, inherited memories from times and ancestors long gone. Memories that, for the most part, remain latent and untapped, until something like Amanita muscaria opens the door, so to speak.

An early example of time-travel?
I really don’t know.

Shame there was no reference in the file to flux capacitors.
If there had been, we might really have the answer…

 

[Skarekrow]

Lucid Dreamers Show Better Self-Reflecting Capabilities When Awake

The ability to control what happens in one's dreams is an endearing prospect, so much so that there are pages of information online which supposedly help individuals achieve this curious state, which is known as lucid dreaming.

Despite being a well-recognized phenomenon, we still know very little about it, nor why some people seem to experience it more frequently than others.

Now, a new study by scientists at the Max Planck Institute has offered some novel insight into the subject with the finding that a particular brain region known to be involved in self-reflection is larger in lucid dreamers.

According to the researchers, this could mean that lucid dreamers are better at self-reflecting during wakefulness.
“Our results indicate that self-reflection in everyday life is more pronounced in persons who can easily control their dreams,” lead author Elisa Filevich said in a news release.

During a lucid dream, individuals are aware that they are dreaming but have not left the sleep state.
Some people are even able to control what is happening in the dream, allowing them to dream about anything they desire.

Although lucid dreaming is poorly understood, studies have shown that frequent lucid dreamers demonstrate greater insight in everyday life than nonlucid dreamers.

Some individuals have also reported that self-reflection is more pronounced in lucid dreams, which is why some scientists believe the phenomenon could be linked to metacognition, or thinking about thinking.

However, no one had explored the relationships between lucid dreaming and thought monitoring at the neural level before, which is where the current study came in.

For the investigation, scientists asked participants to fill out a questionnaire examining lucid dreaming ability, and then split them into groups depending on the frequency of lucid dreaming.

Both structural and functional MRI scans were taken of all the volunteers, which were then compared by the researchers.
As described in The Journal of Neuroscience, the brain images revealed that the most frequent lucid dreamers had greater volume in a brain region called the anterior prefrontal cortex compared to those within the low-lucidity group.

This area is involved in controlling conscious cognitive processes and also plays a role in our ability to self-reflect.
Alongside this apparent change in brain structure, the researchers also observed differences in brain function.

They found that those in the highly lucid group displayed more activity in this brain region during megacognitive, or thought monitoring, tests while awake.

According to the researchers, these findings suggest a relationship between metacognition, in particular thought monitoring, and lucid dreaming and that these two abilities share neural networks.

The researchers would like to continue this work by investigating whether it is possible to improve metacognitive skills through training.

To do this, they will attempt to teach people how to lucid dream and then examine whether their thought monitoring abilities improve.

 

[Skarekrow]

How to Access Superconsciousness

[video=youtube;TcX-CBrF9m4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?x-yt-cl=84838260&feature=player_detailpage&x-yt-ts=1422327029&v=TcX-CBrF9m4[/video]

Please use your own discernment before believing anything stated in this video.
Some things can only be validated after a proficient skill in meditation has been attained.

Meditation is not just about relaxing the mind or loosing ourselves for a few moments before we go back to our daily routine.
Authentic meditation can open a cosmic portal within us to explore all the depths and heights of the universe with unimaginable clarity, totality and insight.

Through this exploration our awareness expands, and we are enabled to share deep insights that enrich ourselves, and the world.
In this way, we help create an expanded vision capable of healing the seemingly unsolvable issues facing mankind through a more enlightened global and universal perspective.​

 

[Skarekrow]

The Bizarre Anatomical Machines of Italy

The historic and magnificent city of Naples, Italy, has long been home to some of the finest masterpieces of art on earth.
Among the quaint streets and museums, one can find a place called The Cappella Sansevero, or the Sansevero Chapel, also called the Chapel of Santa Maria della Pietà.

It is a beautifully crafted chapel that is home to some of the best works of the top Italian artists of the 18th century; truly a dynamic treasure of Italy’s artistic heritage.

Yet among all of the intricate paintings and marvelous sculptures, one may come across the more bizarre aspects of the chapel.

As one peruses the various works of art here, it soon becomes evident that some of the weirder and more eccentric creations that Italy had to offer are displayed in its halls.

The strangeness gets weirder and weirder and if you happen to stray off into the underground chambers of the chapel, you are bound to come face to face with one of the creepiest and little understood works of art ever produced by human hands; the enigmatic and baffling human machines of Cappella Sansevero.

The chapel itself dates back to 1590, and was built by the Duke of Torremaggiore, John Francesco di Sangro, on the grounds of the affluent Sansevero family as a private place of worship, and later was converted into a family burial chapel under the hand of Alessandro di Sangro in 1613.

It wasn’t until between 1749 and 1766, when Prince Raimondo di Sangro commissioned major renovations, that the chapel began to take on the baroque, masonic inspired form it exhibits today.

Raimondo di Sangro went to great lengths to hire some of the most well known artists of the time to help turn the chapel into a luxurious and lavish showcase of artwork.

​

Cappella Sansevero​

Prince Raimondo di Sangro was known as an eccentric, enigmatic, and mystical man.
He was the head of the Neapolitan Masonic lodge, the symbols of which are interspersed throughout the chapel, and was a student of numerous areas of the sciences, as well as alchemy and other mystical disciplines.

He also spoke several exotic languages such as Hebrew and Arabic and was an inventor, some of his inventions of which were rather bizarre, such as a mechanized carriage with wooden horses that was said to be able to travel over both land and water.

These eccentricities led to the Prince garnering a reputation as a practitioner of wizardry and black magic, and rumors abounded that he performed sinister magical rituals, human sacrifices, and curses.

It was also said that he could perform great feats of alchemy, such as creating blood out of water or even thin air, and that he used the various body parts of his sacrificed victims in his odious spells and potions.

The Prince was said to lock himself away for days on end and perform demented experiments on human beings, such as reanimating the dead.
These dark rumors and legends that swirled around the Prince made him into a man to be feared and avoided; a larger than life black sorcerer who could bend magical and natural forces to his will.

The Prince did little to deny these rumors and it is thought that he even encouraged them.
Prince Raimondo di Sangro’s eccentricity can be seen reflected in some of the various pieces exhibited within the chapel, and there are flashes of true bizarreness scattered among the more than 30 various works of art that can be found here.

The Prince was intrigued by macabre and unusual artwork, sculptures, and pieces of scientific equipment, and as such went about collecting such items for the chapel.

Here one can find some mysterious works of art that were atypical for their time.

One such piece is a sculpture created by Giuseppe Sanmartino, that is usually referred to as Cristo velato, or “The Veiled Christ,” which depicts a post-crucification Christ and was crafted from a peculiar marble-like substance invented by Prince Raimondo di Sangro himself.

It is a remarkable sculpture, famed for the incredibly hyper-realistic way the marble depicts human skin and the fabric of the veil.
The effect is somewhat unnerving, and it seems as if the sculpture is a real living person that is wearing an actual veil rather than a completely marble construct, ready to pop awake at any time.

The undeniably creepy sculpture looks so real, in fact, that it long was the source of rumors that the Prince had used his dark sorcery to transform a real person into marble.

Other unique sculptures on display made of the same eerily realistic material include Francesco Queirolo’s sculpture Disinganno (Disillusion), which depicts a man trying to disengage himself from a net, and Antonio Corradini’s Pudicizia (Modesty), also known as “The Veiled Truth,” which shows a female figure paying tribute to the Prince’s mother.

​

The Veiled Christ​

There are other wonders to be seen in the chapel as well.
The ceiling is covered in a striking, chaotically colorful fresco by Francesco Maria Russo called the Glory of Paradise.

In addition, although little of it remains intact today, the original floor, designed by Francesco Celebrano, was black and white marble featuring a unique labyrinthine design said to be of Masonic origin and meaning “initiation.”

Most of this original floor was destroyed in a major chapel collapse in 1889, but fragments of it remain intact today in one of the chapel’s passageways.

In fact it is this very passageway that leads to the stairway down to the basement, where the chapel’s most baffling and mysterious works of art reside.

Working one’s way down a modest staircase into the lower reaches of the chapel, one will first encounter an unusual painting dating from 1750 by the Roman artist Giuseppe Pesce called Madonna con Bambino, which was painted using a unique wax-based paint also created solely for its creation by the mysterious Prince Raimondo.

Beyond this painting are by far the chapel’s most enigmatic and unsettling residents; two bizarre half flesh, half metal creations often called “anatomical models,” and more morbidly as “anatomical machines.”

These “anatomical machines” were commissioned by Prince Raymond and created by the anatomist Giuseppe Salerno in 1760.
The sculptures, if one can call really them that, are of a man and a pregnant woman, dubbed Adam and Eve, and are built over actual human skeletons with slightly askew bones connected by metal pins and wires.

There was once even a fetus included within the pregnant woman but it is thought to have been stolen long ago.
These two skeletons are overlaid with a complex, twisting network of metal tendrils and hardened arteries and veins which represent the arterial system, viscera and musculature of human beings with amazing, meticulous accuracy.

The skulls of the two figures are hinged, and can be opened to reveal an incredibly detailed spiderweb of blood vessels within.
Upon their unveiling, the disturbing models were so mystifying and grotesque that it was believed that the dark Prince had actually used his black magic and alchemy on some of his unwilling servants to morph them into these abominations.

​

Adam and Eve, the anatomical machines of Cappella Sanservo​

Regardless of whether they are the result of black magic or not, Adam and Eve present a number of very real mysteries, not the least of which is how they were made in the first place.

For years the method of construction was the source of bafflement among scientists and doctors.
Were the intricate hardened circulatory systems real, and if so how did they remain so remarkably well preserved for over 200 years?

Were they artificial?
If so, how could they be reproduced so faithfully?

Since there was little to no documentation as to the original creation of the anatomical machines, these were questions for which the answers long remained elusive.

The main theory was that the two anatomical machines were created through a process known as plasticization, or “human metallization,” which involves injecting substances directly into the circulatory systems of subjects while they were still living, after which these materials would travel along the veins and harden, painfully killing the unfortunate victim in the process.

However, no one really knew for sure.

A more detailed examination of Adam and Eve later showed that they held no evidence of the use of injected substances such as hardening materials or embalming chemicals of any kind.

Through various sophisticated tests such as scanning electron microscopy and infrared spectroscopy, it was found that the veins themselves were comprised of a core of twisted metal and silk fibers that was then covered with a layer of a mixture of colored waxes, mostly beeswax.

This detailed analysis helped to shed light on the creation of the mysterious Adam and Eve, but it still hasn’t been resolved exactly how the original creator managed to carry it out or indeed why.

It is also unclear whether the two subjects were killed for the sole purpose of turning them into these twisted anatomical machines or if they had died before hand and were then changed postmortem.

Considering that few records on their actual creation and early history exist, it is quite possible that we will never know for sure.

Whatever the reasons for their creation or the methods by which they were crafted, the anatomical machines of Sansevero Chapel certainly rank among some of the weirdest, most twisted works of art ever conceived of by the human imagination.

If the eccentric, allegedly black magic wielding alchemist Prince Raimondo di Sangro was intentionally trying to freak people out, then it was a job very well done indeed.

 

[Tin Man]

Moral Stupefaction

Is moral dumbfounding somewhat overstated?
​

I’m going to paint a picture of loss.
Here’s a spoiler alert for you: this story will be a sad one.

Mark is sitting in a room with his cat, Tigger.
Mark is a 23-year-old man who has lived most of his life as a social outcast.

He never really fit in at school and he didn’t have any major accomplishments to his name.
What Mark did have was Tigger.

While Mark had lived a lonely life in his younger years, that loneliness had been kept at bay when, at the age of 12, he adopted Tigger.
The two had been inseparable ever since, with Mark taking care of the cat with all of his heart.

This night, as the two laid together, Tigger’s breathing was labored.
Having recently become infected with a deadly parasite, Tigger was dying.

Mark was set on keeping his beloved pet company in its last moments, hoping to chase away any fear or pain that Tigger might be feeling.
Mark held Tigger close, petting him as he felt each breath grow shallower.

Then they stopped coming all together.
The cat’s body went limp, and Mark watched the life of only thing he had loved, and that had loved him, fade away.


As the cat was now dead and beyond experiencing any sensations of harm, Mark promptly got up to toss the cat’s body into the dumpster behind his apartment.

On his way, Mark passed a homeless man who seemed hungry.
Mark handed the man Tigger’s body, suggesting he eat it (the parasite which had killed Tigger was not transmittable to humans).

After all, it seemed like a perfectly good meal shouldn’t go to waste.
Mark even offered to cook the cat’s body thoroughly.

Now, the psychologist in me wants to know:
Do you think what Mark did was wrong?
Why do you think that?

Also, I think we figured out the reason no one else liked Mark​

If you answered “yes” to that question, chances are that at least some psychologists would call you morally dumbfounded.
That is to say you are holding moral positions that you do not have good reasons for holding; you are struck dumb with confusion as to why you feel the way you do.

Why might they call you this, you ask?
Well, chances are because they would find your reasons for the wrongness of Mark’s behavior unpersuasive.

You see, the above story has been carefully crafted to try and nullify any objections about proximate harms you might have.
As the cat is dead, Mark isn’t hurting it by carelessly disposing of the body or even by suggesting that others eat it.

As the parasite is not transmittable to humans, no harm would come of consuming the cat’s body.
Maybe you find Mark’s behavior at the end disgusting or offensive for some reason, but your disgust and offense don’t make something morally wrong, the psychologists would tell you.

After hearing these counter arguments, are you suddenly persuaded that Mark didn’t do something wrong?
If you still feel he did, well, consider yourself morally dumbfounded as, chances are, you don’t have any more arguments to fall back on.
You might even up saying, “It’s wrong but I don’t know why.”

The above scenario is quite similar to the ones presented to 31 undergraduate subjects in the now-classic paper on moral dumbfounding by Haidt, Bjorklund, & Murphy (2000).

In the paper, subjects are presented with one reasoning task (the Heinz dilemma, asking whether a man should steal to help his dying wife) that involves trading off the welfare of one individual for another, and four other scenarios, each designed to be “harmless, yet disgusting:” a case of mutually-consensual incest between a brother and sister where pregnancy was precluded (due to birth control and condom use); a case where a medical student cuts a piece of flesh from a cadaver to eat, (the cadaver is about to be cremated and had been donated for medical research); a chance to drink juice that had a dead, sterilized cockroach stirred in for a few seconds and then removed; and a case where participants would be paid a small sum to sign and then destroy a non-binding contract that gave their soul to the experimenter.

In the former two cases — incest and cannibalism — participants were asked whether they thought the act was wrong and, if they did, to try and provide reasons for why; in the latter two cases — roach and soul — participants were asked if they would perform the task and, if they would not, why.

After the participants stated their reasons, the experimenter would challenge their arguments in a devil’s-advocate type of way to try and get them to change their minds.

As a brief summary of the results: the large majority of participants reported that having consensual incest and removing flesh from a human cadaver to eat were wrong (in the latter case, I imagine they would similarly rate the removal of flesh as wrong even if it were not eaten, but that’s besides the point), and a similarly-large majority were also unwilling to drink from the roached water or the sign the soul contract.

On average, the experimenter was able to change about 16 percent of the participants’ initial stances by countering their stated arguments.
The finding of note that got this paper its recognition, however, is that, in many cases, participants would state reasons for their decisions that contradicted the story (i.e., that a child born of incest might have birth defects, though no child was born due to the contraceptives) and, when those concerns had been answered by the experimenter, that they still believed these acts to be wrong even if they could no longer think of any reasons for that judgment.

In other words, participants appeared to generate their judgments of an act first (their intuitions), with the explicit verbal reasoning for their judgments being generated after the fact and, in some cases, seemingly disconnected from the scenarios themselves.

Indeed, in all cases except the Heinz dilemma, participants rated their judgments as arising more from “gut feelings” than reasoning.

“fMRI scans revealed activation of the ascending colon for moral judgments…”​

A number of facets of this work on moral dumbfounding are curious to me, though.
One of those things that has always stood out to me as dissatisfying is that moral dumbfounding claims being made here are not what I would call positive claims (i.e., “people are using variable X as an input for determining moral perceptions”), but rather they seem to be negative ones (“people aren’t using conscious reasoning, or at least the parts of the brain doing the talking aren’t able to adequately articulate the reasoning”).

While there’s nothing wrong with negative claims per se, I just happen to find them less satisfying than positive ones.
I feel that this dissatisfaction owes its existence to the notion that positive claims help guide and frame future research to a greater extent than negative ones (but that could just be some part of my brain confabulating my intuitions).

My main issue with the paper, however, hinges on the notion that the acts in question were “harmless.”
A lot is going to turn on what is meant by that term.

An excellent analysis of this matter is put forth in a paper by Jacobson (2012), in which he notes that there are perfectly good, harm-based reasons as to why one might oppose, say, consensual incest.

Specifically, what participants might be responding to was not the harm generated by the act in a particular instance so much as the expected value of the act.
One example offered to help make that point concerns gambling:

Compare a scenario I’ll call Gamble, in which Mike and Judy–who have no creditors or dependents, but have been diligently saving for their retirement–take their nest egg, head to Vegas, and put it all on one spin of the roulette wheel.

And they win! Suddenly their retirement becomes about 40 times more comfortable.
Having gotten lucky once, they decide that they will never do anything like that again.

Was what Mike and Judy did prudent?


​

The answer, of course, is a resounding “no.”
While the winning game of roulette might have been “harmless” in the proximate sense of the word, such an analysis would ignore risk.

The expected value of the act was, on the whole, rather negative. Jacobson (2012) goes on to expand the example, asking now whether it would have been OK for the gambling couple to have used their child’s college savings instead.

The point here is that consensual incest can be considered similarly dangerous.
Just because things turned out well in that instance, it doesn’t mean that harm-based justifications for the condemnation are discountable ones; it could instead suggest that there exists a distinction between harm and risk that 30 undergraduate subjects are not able to articulate well when being challenged by a researcher.

Like Jacobson, (2012), I would condemn drunk driving as well, even if it didn’t result in an accident.
To bolster that case, I would also like to draw attention to one of the findings of the moral dumbfounding paper I mentioned before: about 16 percent of participants reversed their moral judgments when their harm-based reasoning was challenged.

Though this finding is not often the one people focus on when considering the moral dumbfounding paper, I think it helps demonstrate the importance of this harm dimension.

If participants were not using harm (or risk of harm) as an input for their moral perceptions, but rather only a post-hoc justification, these reversals of opinion in the wake of reduced welfare concerns would seem rather strange.

Granted, not every participant changes their mind — in fact, many did not — but that any of them did requires an explanation.
If judgments of harm (or risk) are coming after the fact and not being used an inputs, why would they subsequently have any impact whatsoever?

“I have revised my nonconsequentialist position in light of those consequences”​

Jacobson (2012) makes the point that perhaps there’s a case to be made that the subjects were not necessarily morally dumbfounded as much as the researchers looking at the data were morally stupefied.

That is to say, it’s not that the participants didn’t have reasons for their judgments (whether or not they were able to articulate them well) so much as the researchers didn’t accept their viability or weren’t able to see their validity owing to their own theoretical blinders.

If participants did not want to drink juice that had a sterilized cockroach dunked in it because they found it disgusting, they are not dumbfounded as to why they don’t want to drink it; the researchers just aren’t accepting the subject’s reasons (it’s disgusting) as valid.

If, returning to the initial story in this post, people appear to be opposed to behaving toward beloved (but dead) pets in ways that appear more consistent with feelings of indifference or contempt because it is offensive, that seems like a fine reason for doing so.

Whether or not offense is classified as a harm by a stupefied research is another matter entirely.

References: Haidt, J., Bjorklund, F., & Murphy, S. (2000). Moral dumbfounding: When intuition finds no reason. Unpublished Manuscript.
Jacobson, D., (2012). Moral dumbfounding and moral stupefaction. Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics, 2, DOI:10.1093/acprofso/9780199662951.003.0012


​

Reminds me quite a bit of Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of moral development. In how he suggested conventional morality often fails in morally grey areas. There are quite a few problems with his theory (as the linked article shows) but I thought his idea that moral relativism were interesting. How it's often shown in a negative light, but can allow one to abandon broken and destructive codes of morality. And that it causes you to question values that are little more than subjective beliefs based on what is traditionally right.

I especially liked his examination of the moral quandary about stealing a loaf of bread to feed your starving family. How he emphasized understanding both points of view, and abandoning traditional crime and punishment system we still have today.

 

[Tin Man]

It's so easy to say this, it's so easy to tell people not to worry about others judging you or to live life for yourself. It's a hell of a lot different actually doing it. Unless you're John Galt made flesh, you're not just going to stop worrying about your body or how people perceive you. It annoys me when I hear this from people. I mean, sure it would be great if I could just overcome all my insecurities and demons just by wishing it to be so, but it doesn't work that way.

I know it's just supposed to be a nice sentiment, but people buy into it. They believe that their anxiety problem or low self esteem can be fixed just from believing it and that's why the self-help industry is booming.

 

[Skarekrow]

Reminds me quite a bit of Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of moral development. In how he suggested conventional morality often fails in morally grey areas. There are quite a few problems with his theory (as the linked article shows) but I thought his idea that moral relativism were interesting. How it's often shown in a negative light, but can allow one to abandon broken and destructive codes of morality. And that it causes you to question values that are little more than subjective beliefs based on what is traditionally right.

I especially liked his examination of the moral quandary about stealing a loaf of bread to feed your starving family. How he emphasized understanding both points of view, and abandoning traditional crime and punishment system we still have today.

People don’t really take the time to examine and think about how we have come to have our current codes of morality.
I do think that people today are indeed worse off in general…there are not more assholes per say…but our society justifies their shitty behavior and rewards things like greed, selfishness, that once were negatives.
I would never punish a person who steals because they are starving…that isn’t stealing anymore - it is not dying.
Just as you would not be punished if you were defending your life against someone attacking with a knife…you most likely would not even be charged if you happened to kill them (providing the right circumstances).
You didn’t murder someone…you stopped them from killing you. That is how I view the bread idea…it is no longer stealing, and therefore just.

It's so easy to say this, it's so easy to tell people not to worry about others judging you or to live life for yourself. It's a hell of a lot different actually doing it. Unless you're John Galt made flesh, you're not just going to stop worrying about your body or how people perceive you. It annoys me when I hear this from people. I mean, sure it would be great if I could just overcome all my insecurities and demons just by wishing it to be so, but it doesn't work that way.

I know it's just supposed to be a nice sentiment, but people buy into it. They believe that their anxiety problem or low self esteem can be fixed just from believing it and that's why the self-help industry is booming.

Whoa! Hahahaha…
I don’t normally post many such quotes for the reasons that you outlined.
However; I put it up because it’s good to stop and step out of your head for just a minute and look at the BIG picture…some people (including myself) need (almost constant) reminding.
Yes, of course there is far more to it than a paragraph written by an old man.

 

[Skarekrow]

[MENTION=5667]Jacobi[/MENTION]

 

[Tin Man]

People don’t really take the time to examine and think about how we have come to have our current codes of morality.
I do think that people today are indeed worse off in general…there are not more assholes per say…but our society justifies their shitty behavior and rewards things like greed, selfishness, that once were negatives.
I would never punish a person who steals because they are starving…that isn’t stealing anymore - it is not dying.
Just as you would not be punished if you were defending your life against someone attacking with a knife…you most likely would not even be charged if you happened to kill them (providing the right circumstances).
You didn’t murder someone…you stopped them from killing you. That is how I view the bread idea…it is no longer stealing, and therefore just.

Yes, but in that example someone is actively trying to kill you, but in the bread scenario you're actively taking from someone else. And most likely the person you stole it from didn't know about your situation. They might see it as an intrusion, as an attack. It might even cause them to worry about their safety. Of course if the starving man asks for the bread, explaining his position, the shop owner is likely (unless they're the empathetic kind) to refuse.

Stealing is really the person's only choice, but that doesn't mean he should ignore the impact it could have on the person he stole from. They shouldn't just rationalize it away, just as the shop owner shouldn't rationalize away the fact that he refused a starving human being a bit of food. It doesn't change what the reality of the situation is, but might change the thinking pattern and result in ending a destructive cycle.

Whoa! Hahahaha…
I don’t normally post many such quotes for the reasons that you outlined.
However; I put it up because it’s good to stop and step out of your head for just a minute and look at the BIG picture…some people (including myself) need (almost constant) reminding.
Yes, of course there is far more to it than a paragraph written by an old man.

That might have been an overreaction. I hope you don't think it was directed at you. I'm not angry at you for posting it, nor am I angry at the old man (I thought it was a woman) for writing it. It just feels like such notions trivialize all the hard work and time that go into changing negative patterns. It's also a bit insulting to people with depression or anxiety disorders, since it suggests that you should be able to stop negative thoughts by pure will. Although I'm probably just overthinking it.

 

[Tin Man]

<!-- BEGIN TEMPLATE: dbtech_usertag_mention -->
@<a href="http://www.infjs.com/member.php?u=5667" target="_blank">Jacobi</a>
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[video=youtube;W23LKD9Z1hw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W23LKD9Z1hw[/video]

 

[Skarekrow]

Yes, but in that example someone is actively trying to kill you, but in the bread scenario you're actively taking from someone else. And most likely the person you stole it from didn't know about your situation. They might see it as an intrusion, as an attack. It might even cause them to worry about their safety. Of course if the starving man asks for the bread, explaining his position, the shop owner is likely (unless they're the empathetic kind) to refuse.

Stealing is really the person's only choice, but that doesn't mean he should ignore the impact it could have on the person he stole from. They shouldn't just rationalize it away, just as the shop owner shouldn't rationalize away the fact that he refused a starving human being a bit of food. It doesn't change what the reality of the situation is, but might change the thinking pattern and result in ending a destructive cycle.



That might have been an overreaction. I hope you don't think it was directed at you. I'm not angry at you for posting it, nor am I angry at the old man (I thought it was a woman) for writing it. It just feels like such notions trivialize all the hard work and time that go into changing negative patterns. It's also a bit insulting to people with depression or anxiety disorders, since it suggests that you should be able to stop negative thoughts by pure will. Although I'm probably just overthinking it.

Yes, of course, under what would be considered “normal” circumstances - that would be stealing, and our society doesn’t like stealing and deems it wrong.
So unless that person somehow felt “entitled” to it then they wouldn’t rationalize it away but IMO a person with a midway level of honesty would pay them back at a later time…or at least would attempt some sort of reparation.
That is the root of many evils in our society…the idea of entitlement.
The rich like to play the poverty=lazy, entitled card when a really good study in morals would look toward those who run the US currently which also happens to be the rich…people are so stupid to be just like the people in the upper classes of America, they think they will be up there with them - those who are the actual entitled group.
What does that say about morality in today’s day and age?

I didn’t read the poster that way and I put a lot of effort into changing my negative anxiety and depressive thought-patterns.

 

[Skarekrow]

Boy Gives Detailed,
Verified Information About Past Life

If you heard a child give detailed information about a dead man’s life that he could not seemingly have known through normal means, would you believe he is that man’s reincarnation?

Psychologist Dr. Erlendur Haraldsson, professor emeritus at the University of Iceland in Reykjavik, has long studied reincarnation.
He has highlighted a case he began investigating in 2000 in which a boy named Nazih Al-Danaf gave many correct details about his purported past-life incarnation.

Dr. Haraldsson worked with a local researcher, Majd Abu-Izzeddin, in Lebanon to interview the boy’s family members and the family of the deceased man Nazih may have been. All witnesses were interviewed multiple times several months apart, and the story remained by and large the same.

The most striking testimony came from the dead man’s wife, who tested the boy’s knowledge of her life with her husband.

First Talk of Another Life

At the age of about one and a half, Nazih told his mother, “I am not small, I am big. I carry two pistols. I carry four hand-grenades. I am ‘qabadai’ (a fearless strong person). Don’t be scared by the hand-grenades. I know how to handle them. I have a lot of weapons. My children are young and I want to go and see them.”

He used words his parents didn’t expect him to know at that age, showed an unusual interest in cigarettes and whisky, talked of a mute friend who had only one hand, said he had a red car, and said he died when people came to shoot at him.

He said he was taken in an ambulance to the hospital, and was given an anesthesia shot in his arm on the way.
He asked to go to his home in Qaberchamoun, a small town that is about 10.5 miles (17 kilometers) away.

Nazih has family near Qaberchamoun, but had never been in the town itself and didn’t know anyone from the town.
After years of pestering, his parents finally took him to Qaberchamoun when he was 6 years old, in 1998.

Some of his sisters went too.

Finding the House, Talking to His ‘Wife’

They arrived at an intersection of six roads in Qaberchamoun. Nazih pointed to one and said to follow it.
He then instructed his father to wait for the next fork in the road, then go up to where his house is.

His father, Sabir Al-Danaf, did as the boys said.
He was eventually forced to stop the car, because the road was wet and became difficult to drive on.

Nazih jumped out and ran on ahead.
His father followed him, and the women got out to talk to a local man while waiting for Nazih and Sabir to return.

As the women described what Nazih had told them, the man was stunned.
The details matched his deceased father. Dr. Haraldsson interviewed this man, Kamal Khaddage, whose father, Fuad Assad Khaddage, had died many years earlier.

Nazih was unable to recognize any of the houses ahead, so he and his father returned to the car.
Khaddage asked his mother, Najdiyah, to come speak to the boy.

Having heard that the boy may be her husband’s reincarnation, she tested him.
She asked him: “Who built the foundation of this gate at the entrance of this house?” Nazih replied: “A man from the Faraj family.”

This was correct.

She asked him if she had had any accident when they were living at the house in Ainab.
Nazih said she had dislocated her shoulder one morning.

He took her to the doctor when he got home from work, and she had a cast on for a while.
This was correct.

She asked him if he remembered how their daughter, Fairuz, had become ill.
He said, “She was poisoned from my medication and I took her to the hospital.”

This was correct.

Nazih went to a particular cupboard of his own accord and said that that’s where he had kept his weapons, though none were in there at the time.
That was where Fuad had kept his weapons.

The boy asked Fuad’s widow if she remembered how their car had stopped twice on the way from Beirut and Israeli soldiers had helped them start it again.
This had indeed happened.

The boy mentioned a barrel in the garden he used to teach his wife to shoot, and ran out to see if it was still there.
It was.

Najdiyah showed Nazih a photograph of Fuad and asked: “Who is this?”
The boy replied: “This is me, I was big but now I am small.”

 

[Skarekrow]

[MENTION=5667]Jacobi[/MENTION]
When I am depressed I am incredibly self-centered (it is hard to push the ego away when you are under it’s spell). There is a part of me that rolls my eyes at such posters that seemingly provide simple solutions to complex problems but that is me entertaining my cynical side (which is SO easy). And I’m not calling you “cynical” because I couldn’t guess at the mental state of another person, especially online…I can only tell you what I meant by it.
And I don’t feel like you attacked me. I’m not that touchy.
I just know that I cannot entertain negative thoughts - AT ALL because it will send me into bad thought patterns where I feel I am literally fighting for my soul.
I have learned one thing, and that is you cannot lay there and cry for someone to come help you and save you without YOU fighting tooth and nail to the bitter end…only then will you receive help.

 

[Skarekrow]

“To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic.
It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.

What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives.
If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places–and there are so many–where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.

And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future.
The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”

- Howard Zinn
​

 

[Tin Man]

Yes, of course, under what would be considered “normal” circumstances - that would be stealing, and our society doesn’t like stealing and deems it wrong.
So unless that person somehow felt “entitled” to it then they wouldn’t rationalize it away but IMO a person with a midway level of honesty would pay them back at a later time…or at least would attempt some sort of reparation.
That is the root of many evils in our society…the idea of entitlement.
The rich like to play the poverty=lazy, entitled card when a really good study in morals would look toward those who run the US currently which also happens to be the rich…people are so stupid to be just like the people in the upper classes of America, they think they will be up there with them - those who are the actual entitled group.
What does that say about morality in today’s day and age?

I didn’t read the poster that way and I put a lot of effort into changing my negative anxiety and depressive thought-patterns.

Yes, but people are complicated. It's not that the person who took the bread is dishonest, nor is the person who would refuse them coldhearted. It could simply be that the former finds it easier to justify his cause than accept he needs to depend on others, just as the latter might want to reject those in need as greedy. The painful nature of reality might cause their self defense mechanisms to kick in. But if they could learn to accept what's really going on, and change the thought process maybe next time the shop owner might be more sympathetic and the man could use the help to alter his circumstances. O

Like I said, I was probably overthinking it. Such ideas can mean different things to different people. I'm sorry that you suffer from depression and anxiety, and understand the need to limit destructive thought influences. I'm not really cynical, just overly critical.

 

[Skarekrow]

Yes, but people are complicated. It's not that the person who took the bread is dishonest, nor is the person who would refuse them coldhearted. It could simply be that the former finds it easier to justify his cause than accept he needs to depend on others, just as the latter might want to reject those in need as greedy. The painful nature of reality might cause their self defense mechanisms to kick in. But if they could learn to accept what's really going on, and change the thought process maybe next time the shop owner might be more sympathetic and the man could use the help to alter his circumstances. O

Like I said, I was probably overthinking it. Such ideas can mean different things to different people. I'm sorry that you suffer from depression and anxiety, and understand the need to limit destructive thought influences. I'm not really cynical, just overly critical.

There could be any number of circumstances where I could find it justified to steal…it is those circumstances that give me permission not the underlying idea of it still being wrong in some ways. In other words - the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, haha.
I’m sorry that you suffer too…I would rather be depressed for months on end than have one day of crushing anxiety, both of which, are on a LOA at the moment.
Let me know if you ever need a sounding board.
Cheers.

 

[Tin Man]

There could be any number of circumstances where I could find it justified to steal…it is those circumstances that give me permission not the underlying idea of it still being wrong in some ways. In other words - the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, haha.
I’m sorry that you suffer too…I would rather be depressed for months on end than have one day of crushing anxiety, both of which, are on a LOA at the moment.
Let me know if you ever need a sounding board.
Cheers.

Thanks, but I'll stick to denial and meth laced alcoholic beverages.

 

[Skarekrow]

Jane Katra:
The Amplitude of Illumination


[video=youtube_share;kKqreMVM_ig]http://youtu.be/kKqreMVM_ig[/video]

Presented at the IANDS 2010 Conference September 2-4, 2010 Denver, CO

The development of the human being is the passing from one state of consciousness to another, sequentially and in stages, through a series of shifting values: Instinctual, emotional, intellectual, and conscious evolution:
intentional action for transformation from one level of being to another.​

 

[sprinkles]

[MENTION=5667]Jacobi[/MENTION]
When I am depressed I am incredibly self-centered (it is hard to push the ego away when you are under it’s spell). There is a part of me that rolls my eyes at such posters that seemingly provide simple solutions to complex problems but that is me entertaining my cynical side (which is SO easy). And I’m not calling you “cynical” because I couldn’t guess at the mental state of another person, especially online…I can only tell you what I meant by it.
And I don’t feel like you attacked me. I’m not that touchy.
I just know that I cannot entertain negative thoughts - AT ALL because it will send me into bad thought patterns where I feel I am literally fighting for my soul.
I have learned one thing, and that is you cannot lay there and cry for someone to come help you and save you without YOU fighting tooth and nail to the bitter end…only then will you receive help.

I can relate. I often used to despise seemingly oversimplified nuggets of wisdom.

Ironically though I've come to learn that problems are not complicated. People are complicated. I learned through Taoism for example that there really are such simple solutions, but only in the context of completely deconstructing the human condition first along with its propensity to complicate matters.