Sorry, Crunchy Cat, I was a little preoccupied. I think I got the last of the poison out of my system, so I'm just going to pretend that this is a new thread.
Nice site. It has alot of good information that is mixed with alot of false
information. A dangerous combination IMO.
Many of the logical arguments behind it are sound, though in my opinion Mr. Wu extends the definition of "scientifically acceptable evidence" too far in some places.
Anyhow, you implied that you have a new sense. That's cool. What is it? Once this is defined lets work together to test it.
(Senses, plural... and "new" is hotly debated, but I'm going to rely on the anthropological/ontological evidence for this one.)
Of course, there are proven extraordinary abilities such as heightened somatic awareness, which has documented, peer reviewed research to back it up. There were the yogi experiments of the 1970s, in which people who claimed to be masters of bodily control slowed their heartbeat or radically shifted their brainwaves on command. Biofeedback and certain forms of meditation have been used to "train" people to produce similar results, though rarely to the same degree. People under hypnosis have given themselves blisters, etc.
I'm loath to go into the really extraordinary claims... at this point, it's like bleeding in shark-infested waters... but what the hell. First, your example:
Heck, I'll even throw in some weird claims myself. I can cause a strange
physical sensation to manifest in my body {sic} ...in fact I saw a 'Chakra' diagram once and the points of 'energy' shown correspond to many of my pulse points... but this is just an observation and not intended to act as proof of 'Chakra').
I have made an interesting observation; however, if I wake up from sleeping then initiating a pulse will immediately launch me into a lucid dream. {sic} ..Usually the corruption clears in what I would approximate to be 5-10 minutes of dreamtime.
So, lets summarize my claims:
* I can reproduce a very unusual physical sensation at will.
* The sensation can be brought about in pulses and typically
emanates from my head but may emanate from various points in
my body. The emanation point is not something I can control.
* The greater the intensity of the pulse, the farther the sensation
will travel in my body.
* Initiating a pulse after waking up will immediately throw me into
REM sleep (there have been no exceptions to date). The content
of the dream after doing this will be corrupted for a short time.
I'll make you a deal. If you tell me about your sense and help me test
it then I will be accountable to you for proving any of the above claims
I made (which are consequently much harder to prove because they
are all internalized).
Forgot where I was going with this... oh yeah--you framed your "interesting sensation" in a fairly rational light. I feel that this is absolutely necessary for people delving into experiences that are not widely recognized as normal and/or real. The mind CAN delude itself into believing, seeing, hearing, or sensing many different things, depending on one's conscious and unconscious intentions. The greatest New Age pitfall is learning about an unfamiliar belief, saying "it would be so cool if that was true!" and then making up reasons to believe in it. This is an easy mental trap to fall into, but it is not the only psychological mechanism behind mystical exploration.
The capacity for discernment, in my opinion, is often indicative of one's ability to perceive what is real. Anecdotal accounts of mystical experiences, for example, are often contradictory when taken as a whole. When you sift through this continuum of belief, however, some voices stand out as the product of people with few mechanisms, illusions or scheming agendas. I don't really count myself in this camp, since I have my own hangups--pride in my intellect, anger at spiteful attitudes... but there are a few, such as Michael Murphy, Stephen Mitchell, and Ken Wilbur, whose level of clarity I aspire to. To say nothing of Plato.
Now, those funky senses:
Sense #1: Perception of energy fields which pervade matter, and a more refined, coherent type of energy which living beings appear to emit, and which can transmit mental and emotional content from one person's mind to another. This sentient energy is hard to classify in a five-sensory context, as it appears to have a property of sympathetic sound vibration (i.e., empathy), currents that resemble electricity, and a radiating property that resembles the behavior of light.
Sense #2: Awareness of an aura of coherent energy surrounding and pervading my own body and the bodies of other people. Said auras change in form, vibration (this is the most difficult aspect to describe; the sound-wave analogy falls short of the actual experience), and intensity. It is impacted by a person's state of mind, and the energy of his or her surroundings, both of which are interdependent.
Sense #3: Enhanced spatial orientation. Actually more of an application or side-effect of #1 and #2. Ability to discern people's emotional state at a distance, without visual or auditory contact and no deductive grounds on which to base these conclusions. Also an ability to detect the proximity of a person. This doesn't mean that I'm always saying to myself "I sense that so-and-so is getting nearer," or "so-and-so is feeling angry," in which case the odds are that eventually I'll be correct and can then falsely believe I have a special power. It is generally accurate.
Granted, this is just my experience; I don't expect anyone to accept it unless their own experience leads them to similar observations. For what it's worth, this is one of the more commonly reported spontaneous psychic experiences (among people without a prior belief in their own psychic ability). This is sporadic, but might be repeatable under controlled conditions. I certainly don't have the research savvy to design the study.
I'll give a little background, which incidentally predates the Celestine Prophecy's popularization of these extrasensory abilities. Early in high school, I didn't know mucch about Eastern metaphysics, then one day, someone performed a 30-second Reiki session by pointing their fingertips at my hand from about three inches away. It had a strange effect of making me acutely aware of electrical impulses circulating throughout my body (I was expecting something more like warmth spreading through my hand). It was a bit like what some people have described feeling while on MDMA.
I was intrigued and decided to investigate the notion of energy exchange in hopes of learning about the mechanism behind what had happened to me. I found out that it is not a new idea; it is present in the beliefs of Hindus and all offshoots, particularly Tibetan Buddhism; in Celtic mysticism; even, arguably, in Christianity (laying on of hands, casting out demons, etc). I found the Tibetan explanation most appealing; for over a thousand years, people in Tibet have been deeply involved in trying to systematize knowledge obtained through senses 1 and 2, among others.
Science is just a tool for getting at the truth. It is quite frankly the best tool available by leaps and bounds.
Most reliable, formulaic and systematic, sure. But it necessarily has shortcomings in what it can identify as "real." The way I see it, there are two Great Hypotheticals at the core of the mysticism vs. science debate:
1. Human beings can develop abilities unknown to most scientists.
2. The human mind is capable of both embellishing one's subjective experience with information that is not real, and screening out information that is real. Both of these abilities being contingent on expectation and belief, it is possible that people who are psychologically invested in the apparent continuity of a certain reality construct could, hypothetically, screen out certain information about their reality in order to reinforce that construct.
Now, still speaking purely in hypothetical terms, IF the above statements were true, would you rather that the people studying psychic powers tried to systematize their perceptions, and to be cautious about self-deception interfering with the process, or would you rather that they explore these abilities recklessly, place no value on objective discernment, and accept others' assertions about psychic powers without checking them against what they actually perceive?
When a claim is made, it is an assertion of truth and there are a bazillion ways to support claims. I have ESP (ok read my mind). I have telekinesis (ok raise my hand). I have clairvoyance (ok get the winning lottery numbers). Planets are spherical (ok show me).
At the risk of feeding into the same logical stalemate, suffice it to say that unlike a planet, the mind does not have a fixed, geometically simple shape. Each person is inconceivably complex, and it is impossible to control all of the conditions within oneself. In my limited experience with ESP, concrete thought ("I am thinking of a ring that I left in Tuscaloosa") does not transmit as often as abstract content ("I am thinking about something that I lost, an object that I lost recently and cannot get back"). The patterns of meaning are what transmits most easily, and it's mora of a challenge to prove that this kind of information is something other than fancy guesswork. (I'm not trying to make a scientific case here, just stating some of my own tentative conclusions.)
The only context that Q and I are working in is the known model of existence. If someone builds upon the model or corrects in that is a wonderful thing. If someone jumps into a different model then they are going to have alot of contradiction to get over.
I agree. It doesn't make every contradiction correct--and I say that as someone who has contradicted a fair share of "extraordinary claims" myself.
My opinion on this is that the disciplines that produce results are the ones
worth studying.
I agree this wholeheartedly, but would you apply this to first-hand "results" as well? Granted, there are ways to produce elaborate delusions (LSD, for example). There may also be ways to become more perceptive of objective elements of reality.
Case in point: a lot of people start yoga believing that it is a fitness program and intent on doubting the claim that it is based on vital energy which arises from the Earth, ascends through the Chakras and back out the top of the head. A lot of them who practice it, particularly the pranayama discipline, end up believing otherwise based on what they consider sensory evidence.
Oh, as for this:
Your accusations of "You follow the religion of Materialistic Scientism" are totally stale. Simply prove everyone wrong with evidence. There is nothing else to it, really.
Stale but true.
Scientific Rationalism: "We can functionally disregard most claims that have not been proven, while remaining open to the possibility of research which could eventually prove them. Those who cease to reserve a margin of doubt are no longer truly objective."
Materialistic Scientism: "Human science has advanced so far, it has functionally replaced religion as the ultimate authority on what it real. Based on our faith in science, we can assert that claims which radically diverge from the available scientific evidence are NOT real. furthermore, we can safely assume that attempt to prove them WILL be futile, because they are imaginary."
I'm paraphrasing, but the terms themselves aren't mine. Q perfectly illustrated the latter paradigm, by claiming to know exactly what is NOT REAL when it comes to psychic ability.
This polarization is significant, if you consider that one or the other viewpoint will dictate what a given scientist will consider researching, and that scientists, in turn, are building the body of evidence which determines what many believe. Their choice of paradigms could have a pretty fucking monumental impact on humankind.