Merkabah

[Skarekrow]

This is something I struggle with quite a bit. Not that I can't admit I am wrong. Quite the opposite actually. I've found that when I screw up, make an incorrect assertion or do something that is weighing on my conscience, it is simply easier to say "I'm sorry, I was wrong" ( or something to that effect). Yet, this has actually worked to my detriment professionally and socially on a few occasions because the common perception is "why do that?" Basically people believe it makes you look weak and/or stupid. So even if one is clearly in the wrong, the general perception upon admitting this fact is that it is a gutless, pathetic thing to do. A mellow "oops, sorry" becomes a groveling Mea Culpe to the ears of most. Aside from feeling at a disadvantage, I also end up disappointed in humanity in general. Because I am willing to stand corrected, I end up holding this expectation of others. Only to be terribly disappointed that they act like belligerent 5 year olds until the bitter the end. Any resolution is usually achieved by ignoring and silently forgiving rather waiting for and actually receiving any kind of apology or self-correction.

It sounds like you need to be more easy on yourself in general.
I have been purposefully trying to not use the “sorry” word…instead I will try to find words of gratitude instead.
So instead of saying “I’m sorry I couldn’t do this or that because I hurt today.” I try to say instead, “Thank you for always being so supportive of me even when my back gives me shit.”
So not quite the same as what you described above but maybe you can alter it to make it work for you somehow…you’re smart.
I had to be culpable at work ALL THE TIME…in that job, you get used to very quickly owning up to shit.
Still we had people that always try to blame everything or anyone else for what goes wrong…funny how they are usually the first to take credit when it goes well too?
Hmmmm?

My own person code of ethics that I always have followed is - if you fuck up, say so, don’t make excuses, explain how you fucked up, and how you will not fuck it up in the future - then apologies are in order, but never apologized for your own shortcomings, apologize for the situation.
Anyhow…it’a all a bit work-politicky.

Just do your best is what my Dad always said…he never said I had to be the best, not once…he was proud of my efforts far more than the actual results, though he would also be quick to tell you “good job” when it was well deserved.
I try to be the same with my own Son.

 

[Skarekrow]

This was always my favorite poem my Mom used to read to me as a child.
It holds magic and truth in it’s words.

(That’s Robert Louis Stevenson btw)​

 

[Skarekrow]

@Kgal

Orders!?

This is a very interesting article…why such a rush I wonder…who is trying to save their own asses and from what?

Congress Orders NASA to Build a Deep Space Habitat by 2018,
is Insane

The plans are due by mid-2016 so you better believe people are scrambling in Houston.


Neel V. Patel​

• 
  [*=center]December 30, 2015
  [*=center]
  [*=center]Link - https://www.inverse.com/article/970...ebook&utm_medium=inverse&utm_campaign=organic

Between finding liquid water on Mars, blue skies on Pluto, and other major discoveries, NASA had a pretty good 2015.
Congress noticed and rewarded the agency with a massive budget increase.

But, as the old saying goes, there is no such thing a free, freeze-dried lunch. Congress is now instructing NASA to use some of the extra money – roughly $55 million – to construct a prototype model of a deep space habitat.

The pols want the thing operational by 2018.
Lest there be confusion, the omnibus bill that stipulates how much NASA gets in the following year actually reads: “NASA shall develop a prototype deep space habitation module within the advanced exploration systems program no later than 2018.”

It also says that NASA needs to provide Congress a report within the first 180 days of 2016 detailing how those funds are being used to create the habitation module.
So, to sum up, NASA will have two years to create something that’s never been made before and is distinct from all other NASA projects currently underway.

And they’re already on deadline to know how to do this.
This project will totally not run into any problems whatsoever!

Of course, NASA has spent much of the last year voicing a desire to get humans to Mars within the next two decades or so, and has been going over several different ideas for how that could be accomplished.

A deep space habitat could fall in line with those plans – especially as they might relate to using the moon as a proving grounds for missions to Mars and beyond.
A habitation module sitting in cislunar space (between Earth and the moon) could be a useful spot for launching those types of missions.

But so far, instead of tackling the habitation module itself, NASA has elected to fund several other industry studies being run by private companies.
Congress’ new directive might force the agency to begin accelerating plans and take control of the wheel.

How likely is it that NASA will meet the 2018 deadline?
Pretty unlikely.

NASA sets deadlines for itself just like any other major government institution, but it does so with the understanding that a lot can go wrong.
Space exploration requires that everything needs to be operating at 100 percent before a launch can be green-lighted – and when that’s not possible, NASA has no problem scrapping the deadline. (Just last week, the agency indefinitely suspended the launch of the InSight Mars Lander due to faulty equipment.)

That’s why NASA goes about developing its projects with methodical detail.
It’s not going to rush into something just because Congress wants it now.

It couldn’t even if it wanted to – developing and testing spacecraft is an arduous process.
Developing a deep space habitat would require several years’ work involving a ton of different personnel.

If Congress believes it will get a prototype module before 2018 just because its in writing, it must not really understand how NASA works, let alone space research in general.

Perhaps the governing body knows this and is simply trying to jumpstart the process by making it a requirement, with no real plans to hold NASA strictly to it.
Regardless, the request could jumpstart the project and get things moving forward sooner rather than later.

We might not get a full on deep space habitation prototype in two years, but we can at least expect some big news to come out before then.

 

[Skarekrow]

Don't grieve.

Anything you lose comes round in another form.

The wound is the place where the Light enters you.

Lovers don't finally meet somewhere.

They're in each other all along.

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.

When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.

Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open?

This is love: to fly toward a secret sky, to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment.

First to let go of life.

Finally, to take a step without feet.

Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.

Everyone has been made for some particular work, and the desire for that work has been put in every heart.

Let the lover be disgraceful, crazy, absent-minded.

Someone sober will worry about events going badly.

Let the lover be.


~ Rumi






​

 

[Skarekrow]

24 Kahlil Gibran Quotes to Nourish your Souls

Some words pass through us quickly and vanish into the air; others burrow into our very flesh and change the way we think, speak and feel.

For me, the work of Kahlil Gibran falls into the second category.
Lebanese born, educated in New York, Paris and Beirut, he was the third best-selling poet in history, and his words sparked a literary revolution.

Best known in the West for his book, The Prophet, Gibran lived from 1883 to 1931, but his legacy survived much longer, messages of universal love, freedom and tolerance taking root in the countercultural soil of the American sixties.

I set out to offer you ten of my favorite passages from his writing, but as you will see, it is simply too brilliant to stop so soon.
Each of these quotes has at some point touched me deeply.

I have no words to express the profound impact of this poetry, and I hope it will leave you speechless as well:

“One day you will ask me which is more important?
My life or yours?
I will say mine and you will walk away not knowing that you are my life.”
~

“For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?
And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.”

~

“Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.
But you are eternity and you are the mirror.”

~

“Let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.”

~

“Trees are poems the earth writes upon the sky, We fell them down and turn them into paper,
That we may record our emptiness.”

~

“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.”

~

“My friend, I am not what I seem.
Seeming is but a garment I wear – a care-woven garment that protects me from thy questionings and thee from my negligence.
The “I” in me, my friend, dwells in the house of silence, and therein it shall remain for ever more, unperceived, unapproachable.”

~

“I have found both freedom and safety in my madness; the freedom of loneliness and the safety from being understood, for those who understand us enslave something in us.”

~

“The timeless in you is aware of life’s timelessness.
And knows that yesterday is but today’s memory and tomorrow is today’s dream.”

~

“And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.”

~

“Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.
And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;
And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.”

~

“The appearance of things changes according to the emotions; and thus we see magic and beauty in them, while the magic and beauty are really in ourselves.”

~

“They deem me mad because I will not sell my days for gold; and I deem them mad because they think my days have a price.”

~

“If you reveal your secrets to the wind,
you should not blame the wind for
revealing them to the trees.”

~

“We are all prisoners but some of us are in cells with windows and some without.”

~

“We wanderers, ever seeking the lonelier way, begin no day where we have ended another day; and no sunrise finds us where sunset left us.
Even while the earth sleeps we travel.
We are the seeds of the tenacious plant, and it is in our ripeness and our fullness of heart that we are given to the wind and are scattered.”

~

“For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst?”

~

“Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself…
You may house their bodies but not their souls, for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.”

~

“Many of us spend our whole lives running from feeling with the mistaken belief that you can not bear the pain.
But you have already borne the pain.
What you have not done is feel all you are beyond that pain.”

~

“Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself, Love possesses not nor would it be possessed: For love is sufficient unto love.”


~

“To measure you by your smallest deed
is to reckon the ocean by the frailty of its foam.
To judge you by your failures
is to cast blame upon the seasons
for their inconsistencies.”

~

“In one drop of water are found all the secrets of all the oceans; in one aspect of You are found all the aspects of existence.”

~

“If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours.
If they don’t, they never were.”

~

Say not, ‘I have found the truth,’ but rather, ‘I have found a truth.’

 

[Skarekrow]

 

[Kgal]

Darth Vader returning from Peru after a 2 week Ayahuasca plant medicine diet

:lol:

 

[Kgal]

@Kgal

Orders!?

This is a very interesting article…why such a rush I wonder…who is trying to save their own asses and from what?

Congress Orders NASA to Build a Deep Space Habitat by 2018,
is Insane

The plans are due by mid-2016 so you better believe people are scrambling in Houston.


Neel V. Patel​

• 
  [*=center]December 30, 2015
  [*=center]
  [*=center]Link - https://www.inverse.com/article/970...ebook&utm_medium=inverse&utm_campaign=organic

Between finding liquid water on Mars, blue skies on Pluto, and other major discoveries, NASA had a pretty good 2015.
Congress noticed and rewarded the agency with a massive budget increase.

But, as the old saying goes, there is no such thing a free, freeze-dried lunch. Congress is now instructing NASA to use some of the extra money — roughly $55 million — to construct a prototype model of a deep space habitat.

The pols want the thing operational by 2018.
...

:lol:

Did you see where the administration passed a law saying no deep space activities by unknown corporations can be sued?

"They" are getting ready for disclosure and they're hoping it will be a long drawn out process so they're passing laws to protect their asses now in advance of it. They are also hoping they can escape the planet and live up there while maintaining control.

Do I think it will help them? No.

There is one huge thing going on right now they have no control over...and that is the amount of Light now steadily increasing in Earth's energy matrix grid. By the end of this year the old energy matrix grid of Fear (energy) will be gone...and the Elite in power will have no basis or foundation upon which to operate. I think this is why they want off planet so badly.
That's the good news.
The bad news is "some"....not all.... will probably go down kicking and screaming causing as much pain as they can while they fall.
Mitigation efforts are in place...but there will still be chaos and damage....in part due to remaining karma to finish as this game winds down to a close.

I'm keeping a keen eye on disclosure. I still think it will come from within the people as it's building even now. I see so many random videos uploaded from people now about lights in the sky. Who knows what they are....could be our own secret space program....Russian's secret space program...or ET's galore. Or...photoshop. It doesn't matter now. All that matters are people are looking UP...instead of at their tv's or phones...or whatever. This is a significant behavior change amongst the masses. The elite know it...and it's freaking them out too.
Also - I'm seeing comments and posts from people who are experiencing all sorts of mystical events in their lives. Miracles are happening more and more too.

It's an amazing thing to watch the world awaken from deep sleep. ...and I am humbled and in awe...

 

[Skarekrow]

From my window this morning​

 

[Skarekrow]

Thanks @Jacobi for the link.
I have posted an article on this thread somewhere similar to this, but it wasn’t very in depth.
Still, it talked about "seeing things" to be common enough for eye doctors to have to warn their patients of “hallucinations”.
Curious.

Blindsight:
the strangest form of consciousness​

Some people who have lost their vision find a “second sight” taking over their eyes –
an uncanny, subconscious sense that sheds light into the hidden depths of the human mind.
​

By David Robson

​

​

28 September 2015


​

When Daniel first walked into London’s National Hospital, ophthalmologist Michael Sanders could have had little idea that he would permanently alter our view of human consciousness.

Daniel turned up saying that he was half blind.
Although he had healthy eyes, a brain operation to cure headaches seemed to have destroyed a region that was crucial for vision.

The result was that almost everything to the left of his nose was invisible to him.
It was as if he were looking out of a window, with the curtains drawn across half of his world.

Intrigued, Sanders referred Daniel to the psychologists Elizabeth Warrington and Lawrence Weiskrantz, who confirmed the hunch with a series of clever tests. They placed a screen in front of Daniel’s blind spot, for instance, and asked him to point at a circle, when it appeared in different places.

Daniel was adamant that he could not see a thing, but Weiskrantz persuaded him to just “take a guess”.
Surprisingly, he was almost always right.

Or Weiskrantz and Warrington would present a single line on the screen, and Daniel had to decide whether it was horizontal or vertical.
Again, Daniel was adamant that nothing had appeared before his eyes, yet his accuracy was around 80%, much more than if he had been guessing randomly.

And yet, as Sanders began testing him, he noticed something very strange:
Daniel could reach out and grab Sanders’ hand, even when it must have fallen right behind his blind spot.

It was as if some kind of “second sight” was guiding his behaviour, beyond his conscious awareness.

It was as if a curtain had been drawn over half of the patient's visual world ​

Just how many of our decisions occur out of our awareness, even when we have the illusion of control?
And if the conscious mind is not needed to direct our actions, then what is its purpose?

Why did we evolve this vivid internal life, if we are almost “zombies” acting without awareness?
Clearly, despite his blindness, Daniel’s healthy eyes were still watching the world and passing the information to his unconscious, which was guiding his behaviour.

Publishing a report in 1974, Weiskrantz coined the term “blindsight” to describe this fractured conscious state.
“Some were sceptical, of course, but it has held its own and become an accepted phenomenon,” Weiskrantz says today.

And over the following decades, the condition has come to answer some fundamental questions about the human mind.
“These cases open a window into parts of the brain that are normally not visible,” says Marco Tamietto, who is based at Tilburg University.

“They offer a view to functions that are difficult to observe – that are normally silent.”

Unravelling the mind

Consciousness is so deeply intertwined with everything we do, that many scientists had previously believed it would be impossible to study.
How can you pick apart the rich fabric of our minds to find the one thread that gives rise to the vivid sense of awareness, of feeling and “being” and experiencing the world, without unravelling everything else around it?

Daniel, whose name has been changed for this article and is known in the literature simply as DB, offered some of the first clues. “What you want to do is to look at something that is as close to consciousness as possible, but which is lacking that specific quality, that subjective experience,” says Christopher Allen at Cardiff University.

“And that’s what blindsight gives you. The participant is still perceiving, but they lack awareness of perception.”

​

One of the first tasks was to test exactly what blindsight patients are capable of without their conscious visual awareness – and the results have been quite remarkable.

Of particular interest has been the fact that they can sense emotion: when presented with faces, they can tell whether it is happy or sad, angry or surprised, and they even start to unconsciously mimic the expressions. “Even though they did not report anything at a conscious level, we could show a change in attitude, a synchronisation of emotional expressions to the pictures in their blind field,” says Tamietto, who has worked extensively with Weiskrantz.

How much of the world do we really "see"?
And how many of our actions are really determined by our unconscious?

Besides mirroring expressions, they also show physiological signs of stress when they see a picture of a frightened face.
“The plan for the future is to try to train them to pay attention to bodily reactions,” says Tamietto.

It might be helpful to notice if they are in danger, for instance.
“They can use the bodily changes to understand what’s going on in the world – as an indication that there is something interesting or problematic.”

In 2008, Tamietto and Weiskrantz’s team put another blindsight patient through the most gruelling test yet.
Unlike Daniel, he was blind across the whole of his visual field, and normally walked with a white cane.

But the team took away his cane and then loaded a corridor with furniture that might potentially trip him up, before asking him make his way to the other side. “Despite saying he wasn’t able to see, we saw him shooting by on his very first attempt,” says Tamietto.

You can watch it for yourself, on the video below.

[video=youtube;ACkxe_5Ubq8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=ACkxe_5Ubq8[/video]​

Importantly, the participant claimed that not only was he not aware of having seen anything; he was not even aware of having moved out of the way of the objects. He insisted he had just walked straight down the hallway.

According to Beatrice de Gelder, who led the work, he was “at a loss to explain or even describe his actions”.

Reversible blindness

Only in very rare circumstances do they come close to being aware of what they are seeing.
For instance, one subject was able to distinguish movement in fast, high-contrast films; he described it as being like “a black shadow moving against a completely black background” – a “sense of knowing” that there was something beyond.

But even then, he could not describe the content itself, meaning that his experience lacked almost everything we would normally associate with vision.
“There’s a lot of controversy about whether those reports truly reflect visual experiences,” says Kentridge.

Of all the questions these studies have posed, the most pressing has been why?
What causes the conscious and unconscious to decouple so spectacularly?

Tellingly, all the blindsight subjects had suffered damage to a region known as V1, at the back of the head, suggesting that it is this region that normally projects the stream of images into our awareness.

To test their ideas, scientists can use a form of non-invasive brain stimulation that disrupts different brain regions, in an attempt to induce a reversible form of blindsight in healthy participants.

Keen to know how it feels, I recently took part in one of those experiments at Allen’s lab in Cardiff, UK.
(You can see a video of the procedure below.)

(You can watch a video on the actual page of the article if you click the link below)
Out of media player. Press enter to return or tab to continue.

The technique is called “transcranial magnetic stimulation”, which uses a strong magnetic field to scramble the neural activity underneath the skull.
“The advantage is that you don’t have to cut someone’s head open to demonstrate the same behavioural characteristics as clinical blindsight,” Allen told me before the experiment.

After Allen had found the right power, I sat in front of a computer screen, and he flashed up pictures of arrows for a split second: my job was to say whether they pointed left or right.

The pictures were sometimes timed with the TMS signals causing the temporary blindness – and like Daniel in those original experiments, I often saw nothing and felt that I was guessing.

Nevertheless, once I had finished, Allen told me that I had answered many more correctly than would be expected by chance alone, suggesting the TMS had succeeded in giving me blindsight.

The experiment began with Allen placing a magnet over the back of my skull, just above V1.
Next, he began applying the magnetic field for short intervals at increasing strengths.

At first, all I could feel was a slight tapping sensation (the effect of the magnetic field on my skin) but eventually I did notice a fleeting dark line crossing the centre of my vision, a bit like an old TV monitor just after you pressed the off switch.

It only lasted less than a second, however, and although it gave me a small shock, I soon became used to the sensation.
Through studies such as this, Allen has found tentative evidence that the visual information is funnelled through the “lateral geniculate nucleus”, deep in the centre of the brain – a bypass around V1 that allows the information to be processed unconsciously in areas involved in emotion or movement.

Eventually, the researchers may even understand how the brain creates visual consciousness itself – and why V1 is so crucial.
One idea is that consciousness relies on communication to and from many areas of the brain – and maybe V1 is working as a hub that helps orchestrate that broadcast.

People with blindsight cannot see what's in front of them, yet they can somehow "feel" the contents of a scene ​

Picking apart the experience may also reveal further clues about the power of unconscious mind.
To understand how, imagine that you are part of a strange puppet show.

You have been blindfolded, and your limbs are tied to invisible strings.
Every so often, they are tugged here or there by a hidden puppet master, leading you through a complicated dance.

To the audience, it looks like you are in full control of your actions, but you don’t have the foggiest idea of what you’ve just done.

Juha Silvanto at the University of Westminster agrees: “Consciousness is just a summary of all the information coming in, but the fact the subconscious can guide behaviour suggests that elaborate processing is going on without us being aware of it.”

Indeed, some philosophers have gone as far as to wonder whether we could be little more than “zombies” acting on mostly unconscious impulses.
That puppet show is essentially what happens when someone with blindsight navigates their way past obstacles – with the non-conscious mind acting as the puppet master.

“It shows that awareness isn’t the whole story,” says Tamietto.
“Very often we believe we have decided something, but our brain has made the decision for us before that – in many ways, and in many contexts.”

​

This, in turn, begins to cast doubt on some long-held assumptions about the very nature, and purpose, of consciousness.
After all, it is by no means certain that other animals have a rich inner life like us, so it must have emerged for some reason.

Previously, psychologists had proposed that we have a kind of “spotlight of attention” that sweeps over our vision, and when it lands on an object, the object pops into consciousness.

In this way, our heightened awareness helps highlight the most important parts of a scene, giving us the chance to respond.
By exploring their unconscious, blindsight patients have opened new paths for the study of the human mind

Except Robert Kentridge at the University of Durham has evidence to suggest this too may be wrong.
His insight came when he was talking to a blindsight subject in between some of the basic visual tests, in which he flashed different images at different parts of the blind spot.

The subject had said that he thought he would do better if we were told where, in the blind spot, the image would appear. “It seemed very strange,” says Kentridge – since they have no awareness of what is in their blind spots, they shouldn’t be able to focus their attention there. “It’s as if you were trying to direct attention around the back of head – you shouldn’t be able to do it,” he says.

Even so, he was happy to play along and design a separate experiment where he could give the subject a clue about where the image might appear.
The results were a kind of paradox: even though the participant was still not able to actually see anything, his subconscious discrimination seemed to be quicker.

In other words, the subject really was “paying attention” – but without being conscious of exactly what he was attending.
For this reason, Kentridge thinks we need to rethink our ideas about consciousness and attention.

Rather than it acting as a spotlight to boost perception, he instead suspects that consciousness may have evolved to boost memory, drawing together all the different pieces of information into a cohesive picture that is easier to remember. “

You need to encode what’s happening in the world in a single package,” he says.
These are just the first of many clues that may eventually solve the riddles of human consciousness.

Sadly, Daniel will not be taking part in those further experiments.
“He passed away last November, but was a willing subject for many years,” Weiskrantz tells me.

By gently reaching into his darkness, however, he has shown the way for others to follow, guiding us through some of the biggest mysteries of the human mind.

 

[Skarekrow]

Do loved ones bid farewell from beyond the grave?
By John Blake, CNN
Updated 3:41 PM ET, Fri September 23, 2011

Death doesn't sever the connection between loved ones, say people who've experienced so-called crisis apparitions.
​

Nina De Santo was about to close her New Jersey hair salon one winter's night when she saw him standing outside the shop's glass front door.
It was Michael.

He was a soft-spoken customer who'd been going through a brutal patch in his life.
His wife had divorced him after having an affair with his stepbrother, and he had lost custody of his boy and girl in the ensuing battle.

He was emotionally shattered, but De Santo had tried to help.
She'd listened to his problems, given him pep talks, taken him out for drinks.

When De Santo opened the door that Saturday night, Michael was smiling.
"Nina, I can't stay long," he said, pausing in the doorway. "I just wanted to stop by and say thank you for everything."

They chatted a bit more before Michael left and De Santo went home.
On Sunday she received a strange call from a salon employee.

Michael's body had been found the previous morning -- at least nine hours before she talked to him at her shop.
He had committed suicide.

If Michael was dead, who, or what, did she talk to that night?
"It was very bizarre," she said of the 2001 encounter. "I went through a period of disbelief. How can you tell someone that you saw this man, solid as ever, walk in and talk to you, but he's dead?"

Today, De Santo has a name for what happened that night: "crisis apparition."
She stumbled onto the term while reading about paranormal activities after the incident.

According to paranormal investigators, a crisis apparition is the spirit of a recently deceased person who visits someone they had a close emotional connection with, usually to say goodbye.

Reports of these eerie encounters are materializing in online discussion groups, books such as "Messages" -- which features stories of people making contact with loved ones lost on September 11 -- and local ghost hunting groups that have sprung up across the country amid a surge of interest in the paranormal.

Although such encounters are chilling, they can also be comforting, witnesses and paranormal investigators say.
These encounters suggest the bond that exists between loved ones is not erased by death.

"We don't know what to do with these stories. Some people say that they are proof that there's life after death," said Steve Volk, author of "Fringe-ology," a book on paranormal experiences such as telepathy, psychics and house hauntings.

Scientific research on crisis apparitions is scant, but theories abound.
One theory: A person in crisis -- someone who is critically ill or dying -- telepathically transmits an image of themselves to someone they have a close relationship with, but they're usually unaware they're sending a message.

Others suggest crisis apparitions are guardian angels sent to comfort the grieving.
Another theory says it's all a trick of the brain -- that people in mourning unconsciously produce apparitions to console themselves after losing a loved one.

A telepathic link between loved ones
Whatever the source for these apparitions, they often leave people shaken.

Nor are apparitions limited to visions.
The spirit of a dead person can communicate with a loved one through something as subtle as the sudden whiff of a favorite perfume, Volk says.

"Sometimes you just sense the presence of someone close to you, and it seemingly comes out of nowhere," Volk said. "And afterward, you find out that person was in some kind of crisis at the time of the vision."

Many people who don't even believe in ghosts still experience a mini-version of a crisis-apparition encounter, paranormal investigators say.
Did you ever hear a story of a mother who somehow knows before anyone told her that something awful has happened to her child?

Have you ever met a set of twins who seem to be able to read each other's minds?
People who are extremely close develop a virtual telepathic link that exists in, and beyond, this world, said Jeff Belanger, a journalist who collected ghost stories for his book, "Our Haunted Lives: True Life Ghost Encounters."

"People have these experiences all the time," Belanger said. "There's an interconnectedness between people. Do you know how you're close to someone, and you just know they're sick or something is wrong?"

An eerie phone call at night
Simma Lieberman said she's experienced that ominous feeling and has never forgotten it -- though it took place more than 40 years ago.

Today, Lieberman is a workplace diversity consultant based in Albany, California.
In the late 1960s though, she was a young woman in love.

Her boyfriend, Johnny, was a mellow hippie "who loved everybody," a guy so nice that friends called him a pushover, she said.
She loved Johnny, and they purchased an apartment together and decided to marry.

Then one night, while Lieberman was at her mother's home in the Bronx, the phone rang and she answered.
Johnny was on the line, sounding rushed and far away.

Static crackled.
"I just want you to know that I love you, and I'll never be mean to anybody again," he said.

There was more static, and then the line went dead.
Lieberman was left with just a dial tone.

She tried to call him back to no avail.
When she awoke the next morning, an unsettled feeling came over her.

She said it's hard to put into words, but she could no longer feel Johnny's presence.
Then she found out why.

Nina De Santo says one of her friends stopped by her salon to thank her -- a day after his death.​

"Several hours later, I got a call from his mother that he had been murdered the night before," she said.
Johnny was shot in the head as he sat in a car that night.

Lieberman thinks Johnny somehow contacted her after his death -- a crisis apparition reaching out not through a vision or a whiff of perfume, but across telephone lines.

She's sorted through the alternatives over the years.
Could he have called before or during his murder?

Lieberman doesn't think so.
This was the era before cell phones.

She said the murderer wasn't likely to let him use a pay phone, and he couldn't have called after he was shot because he died instantly.
Only years later, when she read an article about other static-filled calls people claimed to have received from beyond the grave, did it make sense, she said.
Johnny was calling to say goodbye.

"The whole thing was so bizarre," she said. "I could never understand it."

He had a 'whitish glow'
Josh Harris' experience baffled him as well.

It involved his grandfather, Raymond Harris.
Josh was Raymond's first grandchild.

They spent countless hours together fishing and doing yardwork in their hometown of Hackleburg, Alabama.
You saw one, you saw the other.

Those days came to an end in 1997 when Raymond Harris was diagnosed with lung cancer.
The doctors gave him weeks to live.

Josh, 12 at the time, visited his grandfather's house one night to keep vigil as his "pa-pa" weakened, but his family ordered him to return home, about two miles away.

Josh said he was asleep on the couch in his home around 2 a.m. when he snapped awake.
He looked up.

His grandfather was standing over him.
"At first, it kind of took me by surprise," said Harris, a maintenance worker with a gravelly Southern accent. "I wondered why he was standing in the hallway and not in his house with everyone else."

His grandfather then spoke, Harris said.
"He just looked at me, smiled and said, 'Everything will be OK.' "

His grandfather then turned around and started walking toward the kitchen.
Harris rose to follow but spun around when the phone rang.

An aunt who was in another room answered.
"When I turned back around to look, he was gone," Harris said.

As if on cue, his aunt came out of the room crying, "Josh, your pa-pa is gone."
"No, he was just here," Harris told his aunt, insisting that his grandfather had just stopped by to say everything was OK.

He said it took him a day to accept that his grandfather had died.
"Honestly, before that, I never believed in the paranormal," he said. "I thought it was all fake and made up. But I just woke up and I saw him. It couldn't be my mind playing a trick. He looked solid."

Fourteen years after his grandfather's death, there's another detail from that night that's still lodged in Harris' memory.
As he watched his grandfather walk to the kitchen, he said he noticed something unusual.

"It looked like there was a whitish glow around him."

'Can you come out and play?'
Childhood is supposed to be a time of innocence, a time when thoughts of death are far away.

But crisis apparition stories aren't confined to adults and teens.
Donna Stewart was 6 years old and growing up in Coos Bay, Oregon.

One of her best friends was Danny.
One day, Danny had to go to the hospital to have his tonsils removed.

Stewart played with him on the morning of the surgery before saying goodbye.
She said she was in her bedroom the next day when she looked up and saw Danny standing there.

He wanted to know if she wanted to go out and play.
Stewart trotted to her mother's bedroom to ask her if she could play with Danny.

Her mother froze.
"She went white," Stewart said. "She told me that wasn't possible."

Her mother broke the news.
Danny had an allergic reaction during surgery and died, Stewart said.

"When I went back to my room, he was gone," she said.
Stewart, now an Oregon homemaker and a member of PSI of Oregon, a paranormal investigative team, said the encounter changed the way she looked at death.

"These experiences have made me believe that those we love are really not that far away at all and know when we are not doing as well as we could," she said. "Just as they did in life, they offer comfort during crisis.''

Still, Stewart often replays the encounter in her mind.
She asks the same questions others who've had such encounters ask:

Did my mind play tricks on me?
Could he have been alive?

Did it all really happen after he died?

De Santo, the former New Jersey hair salon owner, has taken the same self-inventory.
The experience affected her so much she later joined the Eastern Pennsylvania Paranormal Society, which investigates the paranormal.

Josh Harris says his grandfather, Raymond, pictured with his wife, Barbara, appeared to him in an apparition.​

She said she checked with Michael's relatives and poured through a coroner's report to confirm the time of his death, which was put at Friday night -- almost 24 hours before she saw him at her salon on Saturday night.

She said Michael's body had been discovered by his cousin around 11 Saturday morning.
Michael was slumped over his kitchen table, dead from a self-inflicted gunshot.

De Santo was baffled at first, but now she has a theory.
Michael started off as a customer, but she became his confidant.

Once, after one of her pep talks, Michael told her, "You make me feel as if I can conquer the world."
Maybe Michael had to settle affairs in this world before he could move on to the next, De Santo said.

"A lot of times when a person dies tragically, there's a certain amount of guilt or turmoil," she said.
"I don't think they leave this Earth. They stay here. I think he kind of felt he had unfinished business. He needed to say goodbye."

And so he did, she said.
This is how she described their last conversation:

As they chatted face to face in the doorway of her shop, De Santo said they never touched, never even shook hands.
But she didn't remember anything unusual about him -- no disembodied voice, no translucent body, no "I see dead people" vibe as in the movie "The Sixth Sense."

"I'm in a really good place now," she recalled him saying.
There were, however, two odd details she noticed at the time but couldn't put together until later, she said.

When she first opened the door to greet Michael, she said she felt an unsettling chill.
Then she noticed his face -- it was grayish and pale.

And when she held the door open for him, he refused to come in.
He just chatted before finally saying, "Thanks again, Nina."

Michael then smiled at her, turned and walked away into the winter's night.

 

[Kgal]

Do loved ones bid farewell from beyond the grave?
By John Blake, CNN
Updated 3:41 PM ET, Fri September 23, 2011

Death doesn't sever the connection between loved ones, say people who've experienced so-called crisis apparitions.
​

Nina De Santo was about to close her New Jersey hair salon one winter's night when she saw him standing outside the shop's glass front door.
It was Michael.

He was a soft-spoken customer who'd been going through a brutal patch in his life.
His wife had divorced him after having an affair with his stepbrother, and he had lost custody of his boy and girl in the ensuing battle.

He was emotionally shattered, but De Santo had tried to help.
She'd listened to his problems, given him pep talks, taken him out for drinks.

When De Santo opened the door that Saturday night, Michael was smiling.
"Nina, I can't stay long," he said, pausing in the doorway. "I just wanted to stop by and say thank you for everything."

They chatted a bit more before Michael left and De Santo went home.
On Sunday she received a strange call from a salon employee.

Michael's body had been found the previous morning -- at least nine hours before she talked to him at her shop.
He had committed suicide.

If Michael was dead, who, or what, did she talk to that night?
"It was very bizarre," she said of the 2001 encounter. "I went through a period of disbelief. How can you tell someone that you saw this man, solid as ever, walk in and talk to you, but he's dead?"

......
Michael then smiled at her, turned and walked away into the winter's night.

Wowww....!!!! These are similar to what happened to me on Nov 11th, 2014 when B materialized in my bedroom the next night after he died. He wasn't grayish looking though.... he looked more alive than I have ever seen any one look. He glowed with love. That's the only way I know how to describe it. You know that "look" someone gets when they first fall in love? Like that...only more...
This is bringing up all sorts of emotions....again.
To be in the presence of that kind of Love...that depth of Love...that total allowing and unconditional Love...is very powerful and pulling to one's heart. I didn't want to stay here when I was in the presence of that....for I instinctively knew it was the love flowing from the creator through him and available to me. I needed only to reach my hand for it.
Like [MENTION=5667]Jacobi[/MENTION] noted in my thread.... it brings me up close and personal with my humanity. I know I'm letting it go...as I take another step to that Love....that Light....but it's a grieving process too.

Believe it or not...Being Human is an extraordinary exquisite experience like no other in the Universe. ...and no matter the pain and suffering in our lives we have also experienced moments of intense joy and bliss. It's these moments we will miss....

 

[Skarekrow]

Wowww....!!!! These are similar to what happened to me on Nov 11th, 2014 when B materialized in my bedroom the next night after he died. He wasn't grayish looking though.... he looked more alive than I have ever seen any one look. He glowed with love. That's the only way I know how to describe it. You know that "look" someone gets when they first fall in love? Like that...only more...
This is bringing up all sorts of emotions....again.
To be in the presence of that kind of Love...that depth of Love...that total allowing and unconditional Love...is very powerful and pulling to one's heart. I didn't want to stay here when I was in the presence of that....for I instinctively knew it was the love flowing from the creator through him and available to me. I needed only to reach my hand for it.
Like @Jacobi noted in my thread.... it brings me up close and personal with my humanity. I know I'm letting it go...as I take another step to that Love....that Light....but it's a grieving process too.

Believe it or not...Being Human is an extraordinary exquisite experience like no other in the Universe. ...and no matter the pain and suffering in our lives we have also experienced moments of intense joy and bliss. It's these moments we will miss....

The more commonly used term is a “death-bed visitation”, and they are actually the most common form of “spiritual” sighting as well.
So why haven’t we studied this anomaly that has happened in every religion, culture, and time?
They are so sporadic and random that in order to collect evidence of such an encounter would be near impossible.
Though, I’m sure the Higgs-Boson was hard to find to but they found it.


As for @Jacobi and his notions…and his response to the quotation I posted.
Yes…there are reactions I think we go through when we come to such realizations that aren’t too far off the five stages of dying.
Though I don’t feel more disconnected from people…well, let me rephrase - from certain people.
But those who have clearly made it their life-long purpose to be robber-barons, to bask in materialism, to look down upon altruism in any form.
I feel very disconnected from those people and those who’s ideas and ideals make this world less full of love - in the name of logic that will never be grasped or understood by them because they cannot have that experience of being anyone but who they are.
Or they chose not to…and why not? It’s so much easier.
Just do what the TV tells you and sells you, listen to our obviously highly-genius level politicians tell you climate change is all good…drill in the arctic…displace tribal people.
We have a surplus of oil around the world.

From certain people I get very strong feelings and you can roll your eyes at the word “empath” but in my head or not, it continues to happen.
I feel very isolated…especially when @Sensiko runs off to work.
I occupy my time on here, reading, studying things, lots of music, cleaning, sometimes I do witchy things…but mostly I feel like I have zero purpose anymore.

To search for a purpose to this life is to drive yourself insane.
It will never be found because it is always there.
Can never be known because you know it already and just don’t know it.

It IS good to stop and smell the roses and contemplate the beautiful and wondrous things life shows to us, but this is an unbalanced picture of the energies flowing around us…there is darkness, stop to fear it, stop to learn from it and to love it, feel the warmth the darkness can bring you too.
If you ignore this part of yourself and the fact that the world isn’t unicorns and rainbows no matter how rose-tinted your glasses are - you chose to be ignorant.

I can honestly say that I have no fear of any negative entities…I have felt them, in dreams and elsewhere, IRL…I don’t invite any in of course…and has I have said previously I work very hard to make my house “invisible” to such things and to certainly try to negate any influence they may try to impose on me or my loved ones.

I just have this innate core reassurance that I will beat them every time.

I have purposes in life of course…I am a Lover, a Father, a Son, a Brother.
But in my soul there is a hole.
(good name for song btw…as sung by “Electric Witch” ((not a real band but one day maybe)) the name I am copyrighting now on this post).

You can choose what to fill your own hole with (keep it clean here!)…but we all have one, some people just have it stuffed full of things rammed in there…some people have fragile things ready to spill out and shatter into tiny pieces…some people seem to even flaunt their hole…or fill it with drugs…it can be filled with anything - but the catch is, YOU don’t always get to choose what it gets filled with.
The best you can do is surround yourself with people who would put nice things in there for you…who help brush out the dead leaves.
I”ll just shush now…ramble over.

 

[Skarekrow]

"The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don't go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want.
Don't go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.

The door is round and open.
Don't go back to sleep."

~Rumi

"There is a way between voice and presence
​

where information flows.

In disciplined silence it opens.

With wandering talk it closes."

~Rumi

​

 

[Quiet]

"The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don't go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want.
Don't go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.

The door is round and open.
Don't go back to sleep."

~Rumi

"There is a way between voice and presence
​

where information flows.

In disciplined silence it opens.

With wandering talk it closes."

~Rumi

​

I'm loving all this Rumi! It always makes me feel glad to read his words. Across time, space, culture....I still feel he is sitting right next to me, the connection I feel, and his experience of life is so profound, timeless and relevant.

Thank You for sharing and spreading that Love

 

[Skarekrow]

I'm loving all this Rumi! It always makes me feel glad to read his words. Across time, space, culture....I still feel he is sitting right next to me, the connection I feel, and his experience of life is so profound, timeless and relevant.

Thank You for sharing and spreading that Love

I continue to constantly run into it more and more myself, and more and more of it makes sense to me now at this stage of my being than ever.
You are most welcome, but I wish I could hug you I haven’t seen you in so long!
I trust you are well?

 

[Skarekrow]

[MENTION=5667]Jacobi[/MENTION]

Cyndi knows….


[video=youtube;hP9b4zlO2cU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=hP9b4zlO2cU[/video]

“…believe me it’s a long way down…"

 

[Skarekrow]

I put some Rupert Spira on Kgal’s thread and thought it would be nice to throw one up here as well.
Enjoy!

Matter is a Way of Seeing

[video=youtube;oqOjFC9MCDc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=oqOjFC9MCDc[/video]

A conversation about the relationship between Consciousness and objects.


(btw…if you ever watch his videos…there are an awful lot of vases full of flowers in a good many of them…conSpiracy?)​

 

[Kgal]

Just ran across this Vimeo of a scene cut from the movie Avatar. Jake goes on a vision quest courtesy of the poison worm. Even though this is largely CGI you can tell he transcended his physical body. I wish they would have left it in the movie.

I don't know about you guys...but that movie made a profound impact in my life.

Type in the word 'avatar' for the password.

[video=vimeo;102242028]https://vimeo.com/102242028[/video]

 

[Skarekrow]

Just ran across this Vimeo of a scene cut from the movie Avatar. Jake goes on a vision quest courtesy of the poison worm. Even though this is largely CGI you can tell he transcended his physical body. I wish they would have left it in the movie.

I don't know about you guys...but that movie made a profound impact in my life.

Type in the word 'avatar' for the password.

[video=vimeo;102242028]https://vimeo.com/102242028[/video]

That would have been cool to see fully animated…perhaps in the second one they will return to this topic?