Spirits and other incorporial things

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I don't know about these apparent actions at a distance but I'm not yet prepared to believe in telepathy either though I've had some hard to explain experiences myself in this area. I don't think of these as supernatural though more like unexplained intuition at a distance.

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I would have said that "unexplained intuition at a distance" would quite catagorically be classified as supernatural, at least by my definition of the term.This discussion seems to be progreeing realy well. No name calling or unecessary labeling and both sides admitting, to some degree, to seeing the other's point of view. This is a welcome change from some ot the other threads I have followed.I just want to clarify a few points that Have cropped up since I was here last.First, I am male. This has obviously been a little uncertain judging ny a few of the recent posts.
Second, None of my experiences, nor my interpretations of them have been based on any religious faith as has been vaguely hinted at. I am not a religious person.
Third, I do indeed have a scientific background. I am involved in Analytical Chemistry and Cancer research at a nuclear research reactor in the University of Missouri.Just a bit of background. Have to go again now. Back tomorrow.PY

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Well yes it could be. I am holding forth a hope, and nothing more than a hope, there might at some time emerge a scientific explanation of mind that might explain this so that it would be an ununderstood natural phenomena and not an intervention of a power about nature.

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This is precisely what I have been saying all along. I never claimed any kind of higher power, just something as yet unexplained.PY

Deleted duplicateThis message has been edited by PurpleYouko, 11-22-2004 10:53 AM

Deleted duplicateThis message has been edited by PurpleYouko, 11-22-2004 10:54 AM

deleted duplicateThis message has been edited by PurpleYouko, 11-22-2004 10:53 AM

Now this is the open minded attitude that I have been trying to get across here.
Skeptisism is a very healthy thing and I don't expect anyone to beleive things that I tell them without significant evidence. However there is still a willingness to entertain the possibility that there might be something in it.In my opinion, anyone who just catagorically states that something is impossible is the one suffering from delusions. There is no way to know if it is possible or not. We simply don't know enough about ghosts to make that kind of conclusion.OK I know that we have no solid evidence (photos or that kind of stuff) that they exist. At least no solid evidence that anyone agrees on. Some people simply seem to have the ability to feel things that others can't or won't admit to. Photos have been published in magazines that claim to be real. When I look at them, I instantly get a feeling that they are either genuine or not. More often than not they aren't. I know other people who get this same feeling too.I have run a few experiments on this kind of thing also. An example is that I found a whole bunch of photos that all claimed to be supernatural then performed the best blind experiment that I could manage by showing each one to 3 other people (in different rooms) who all claim to be able to feel the same as I can. 2 of the 3 agreed with me with exactly on almost all of the photos. The third didn't.Needless to say, none of this was published as I was only 15 at the time but I was pretty happy that the outcome confirmed my own findings.Another specific incident that always sticks in my mind involves a painting of (supposedly) my younger brother who died at birth. The painting was done by a self professed spiritualist and showed him at age 10 (approximately). The painting was presented to my mother when I was about 13. I took one look at it and almost screamed. The thing seemed to exude pure evil.OK so far nothing special or unusual. right? just a kid imagining stuff? It gets more interesting.I seemed to be able to feel this painting from anywhere in the house and it made me very uncomfortable so I persuaded my mum to put it out in the shed at the bottom of the yard. Now everything felt OK again.Over the next couple of weeks I forgot about the painting until one day when I came home from school and as I opened the door, I felt like I was walking through the gates of hell (a bit melodramatic I admit). I walked straight up to my mum and asked her where she had put the painting. I knew it was back in the house. She told me that she had brought it into the house to test whether I could really sense it or not. It was face down in the cupboard under the stairs, under a pile of bed linen.After that she was convinced and burned the painting.If you have all day to read this stuff then I can keep churning out these personal accounts for ever. (there are a heck of a lot of them) I don't expect anyone to change their opinion but I would appreciate an open mind or even a logical alternative explanation.
At the very least you should be able to see why I am convinced that there is more weird stuff going on out there than conventional science presently knows about.PY

Hey that is some COOL information.I wasn't aware of this condition but it is one of the best possible explanations that I have heard. It could apply in certain circumstances but I don't see how this could be the answer when I experienced the feeling that I described as soon as I entered the house. This entry was through a garage and series of doors before I actually saw anybody.
Even if some other sensation could be transposed to a feeling of "walking through the gates of hell", it would still suggest that I actually experienced some other sensation to trigger it. Short of ESP, I can't think of any other place that sensation could have come from.
Either way, I knew the painting was back in the house and I was proved to be right, just as I have been proved right on numerous other occasions when similar (but not so severe) things happened.Either something is really there or I have a sense beyond the normal ones that is playing tricks on me. I could accept either way.PYThis message has been edited by PurpleYouko, 12-02-2004 04:19 PM

Hi Bencip I think it would be kind of cool to submit to testing. Trouble is that this kind of stuff never operates on demand. This is always the major argument of the skeptic and as such is a very strong point.Your point about pheremones is also a good one. It could go a long way towards screwing up an amateur experiment between a bunch of 15 year olds. I admit that I didn't consider this possibility but I will describe the experiment and see what you think. This is how it went, as accurately as I can remember. (this was 25 years ago after all)1) I found, scrounged, copied as many supposed "ghost" piccys as I could get my hands on. Some of these felt real to me. Others didn't
2) I made up 4 lists with a series of check boxes on for each picture. Stuff like "Not real", "real", "maybe" and so on.
3) Myself and 3 friends each took a copy of the pile of pictures and a copy of the check sheet, into 4 separate rooms to fill it out.
4) Compared results for correlation.I thought it was a pretty cool experiment at the time. I would probably do it a little differently today though. Funny you should mention ouiji boards. That is another area that I used to experiment with. I was actually a strong skeptic of the process for the very reason that you described.
That all changed one night when I and a group of my friends all decided to make a makeshift board out of a circular table, a glass and a bunch of scrabble letters. It started out as fun then the glass started spelling out threats and stuff. All the girls in the group decided to stop so they just stood back on the other side of the room to watch. This left myself and two male friends. We all kept going for another few minutes until it just got too intense. (cold feeling room and all the ghostly stuff) We all let go of the glass but the damn thing still kept moving on it's own with nobody near it. After spelling out a few more threats, the glass suddenly threw itself across the room and smashed against the wall.I can't explain it unless there was.
a) Someone with a subconscious (or conscious) telikinetic ability.
b) Some form of genuine spirit comunicating with us.Either way. I stopped messing about with that kind of stuff after that.PY

I have just been getting them out of my system, so to speak. I will try to refrain from adding any more.I am just fascinated with this subject and want to learn more about it so I figured that a few examples from my own past might get things moving.I have to admit that I can't really see the difference between "spirits" and "spirit" unless we are talking about the religious connotation of "spirit" as in "The holy spirit enfused my body". Otherwise "spirit" is just a singular form of "spirits".As Dormamu says. I don't see the point.PY

I have also felt this kind of thing but the "spirit" that you descibe isn't quite the way I see it.
I think of it more as an "aura" that people exude and some others are able to detect in some way. I don't see it as an actual entity kind of "spirit" in this case.
However, as stated previously, I have also encountered what I beleive to be non-corporeal entities (spirits) many times.PY

I am more inclined to think that maybe these whatever-they-ares are a completely unknown non-corporeal life form that is able to interact with our universe to some degree through something akin to ESP of Telekinesis.
I really don't have any fixed beleifs about them or their nature. That is one of the reasons I am on this thread.
Why must they all be bad? fallen angels?
I have encountered some that seem to be good while others are not. Just like people really.PY

Sidelined All I was trying to say is that I don't have a clue what was going on and nobody has ever given me a possible explanation which is any more credible than my own theory (rather, postualation as it certainly isn't a theory by scientific defininition)All I have ever stated in this thread is evidence from my own senses. Unlike some people, I would not automatically assume that I am insane rather than be really observing a real phenomena caused by something as yet unexplained by science.
The odd one or two things could be swept away perhaps but there are just so many things that I have no explanation for.Just offer me another possible explanation that is at least as plausible as mine and i will entertain the possibility that mine is wrong. Can you say the same?I know you can probably site a bunch of cases where a skeptical shrink has picked holes in stories of alien abduction and stuff. Just bear in mind how many false memories are also created by such shrinks and how many times they get it wrong. Most in my opinion. I wouldn't trust a debunking psychologist as far as I could throw one. They, like others, set out simply to disprove what they already know (by some beleif method rather than science) is wrong. This isn't open mindedness!PY

Ifen Why not?
Isn't that what scientists are doing to explain the missing mass in the universe? Positing an unknown and as yet untestable suggestion?Isn't telekinesis often given as the explanation for poltergeist activity rather than accept that there may be actual ghosts there?
How can you explain something with a solution which doesn't exist?
Obviously these people beleive it is more likely for an adolescent to have some form of uncontrollable unknown ability than it is for ghosts to be throwing stuff about.Bit of a double standard here I think.PY

Hey Crash.First up, quit calling me "she"
I have a wife and kids and last time i checked I was male.If you need proof of that then.. heck we live in the same town. I can come round and talk to you in personOn a more serious note though, from what I understand of dark matter (which isn't that much I admit), it is an undefined something which must be there in some form in order to make the rest of the universe make sense. Nobody has seen it. Nobody has touched it. Nobody has directly measured it. All the evidence we have for its existence is a gap in science that has to be filed with something.Does that about sum it up or am I wrong here?In that case it is in fact a postulation and has not yet been elevated to a theory.What if the missing matter is actually something else. Maybe not matter at all, after all DM is not really matter as we normally understand the term.What if phsychic energy is the reason behind the apparent discrepency rather than DM? To me either postulation is equally valid. They are both just ideas to explain the data.This is obviously a gross oversimplification of the situation but it still makes the point.PY

Phatboy This explains my problem pretty well.I like to think of myself as a very scientific minded person. I never really accept anything on faith without seeing it tested and proved. There are even parts of general relativity that I personally don't agree with as I can see other explanations that make just as much or even more sense to me. But that is way off topic so I won't go into it.
If I hadn't had all of these experiences personally I would be on the other side of the debate here. On the one hand I want to see proof as much as the next person but on the other I have the proof of my own senses which, in a court of law would be all that is needed to get someone the death penalty. Apparently it means nothing in science though.PYThis message has been edited by PurpleYouko, 12-05-2004 01:36 PM