Spirits and other incorporial things

That was why I said "near light". I don't recall the exact figures now but I think they have come close to 99% of the speed of light and have observed increase in mass and time dilation.And yes the observations of the deviation of starlight as it passed by the sun measured during an eclipse is taken as proof of the distortion of space time. Though in the future other theories may emerge to explain this.lfen

Hi AdminPhat,I don't think the two topics are that close. The other topic is more focused on Christian and religious doctrine or tales of demons and angels. PY's seems to not be approaching this from any doctrine but from naive experience and asking is this evidence of non corporeal entities or something else. I fear that unless the demon and angels topic is widen considerable the discussion we are having here will be deemed off topic and shut down. It seems to me that the two threads though they may be complementary are not identical and should both be allowed to continue.lfen

PY,Have you read Lyall Watson's book LIFETIDE? I just checked it out and have only given it a cursory overview. Seems like it is dealing with some of the stuff you are and using some of Jung's notions of collective unconscious to account for some of the phenomena. I have trouble with that but it is interesting.Lyall also seems to accept the fairy photographs that wowed Arther Conan Doyle but to modern eyes, except for Lyall's??? are clearly faked with drawings of fairies stuck in bushes so I'm worried about Lyall's credulity.It turns out he also wrote THE ROMEO ERROR, which I read decades ago and was impressed with and might be useful to revive a thread here. In that books he discusses the various accounts of people coming back to life after being pronounced dead. Three days in a coma with no visible signs of life (barring modern instrumentation at least) seems to have have happened in various periods, the victorians seems to be very concerned about premature burial, which presents an interesting challenge to Christian accounts and doctrines.lfen

The author of the book on Spontaneous Human Combustion showed the same startling lapse into credulity. I think the important thing is it keeps us humble. Very bright well educated professionals can have lapses particularly when then are dealing with issues not directly in their discipline. Randi offers that as an explanation of the scientist who tested Uri Geller and thought he wasn't cheating. They weren't used to dealing with cheats and their experimental controls were inadequate. Randi being a stage magician had the know how to construct tests that Uri couldn't get around.We are each of us fallible humans and make mistakes. Lyall is a very readable author on these subjects and raises some interesting questions, I'll give him that.lfen

I'm not sure what your point is. You want this thread closed and the discussion taken over to the thread about demons and angels?lfen

It doesn't sound like there was any measurement going on. I'm wondering if the temperature of the room as measured by a thermometer changed or is she felt anxiety and experienced a "chill" because say peripheral circulation was restricted?There is an alternative to skepticism or independent entities and that is that these are mind phenomena. I yet to start reading this book I checked out by Lyall Watson where he seems to be looking at Jungian collective unconscious explanations for flying saucers etc. I probably should be reading it now instead of reading and posting on this board, heh.Tibetan Buddhism seems to take a similar approach to deities and demons. That these are aspects that emerge from mind and can be dissolved back into it.So I'm saying that we need to consider the materialist naturlist explanation of these things as mis explanations, hallucinations, etc and the ancient views that these are entities, and the mind created explanation. The collective unconsious or mind created is related to the hallucination but is more dynamic and has something to say about how these experiences can be shared.As to aliens. Somewhere in the universe, sure. Visiting us? Very doubtful. Once these things get suggested they enter popular imagination. I'm thinking deities and demons are ways we can represent our conflicts over our behaviours and desires, and some people "externalize" this experience in some form of somatic experience. Others might account for purely mental conflict by attributing view points to a debate between angels and devils, like in the movie "Animal House."lfen

That's it? Either one or the other? You are young so I'm taking it you are essentially saying within your lifetime so would you guess you'll live to 80-100? at any rate before the end of this century? But can't you imagine a number of other possibilities?I've reasonably only a few more decades. The thing I'm most interested in is the developement in brain research. Rapture seems like a novel but fictional solution to the world's over population, kind of like mass "beam me up, Scotty"! I guess you are pretty fundamentalist. There seems little scriptural interest in the rapture. What little I know of it its an 19th century American notion, IIRC?Still Christians have lived through many centuries expecting the end of the world and had to adapt when their expectations didn't materialize on the expected schedule.I think as we find solutions to mysteries new mysteries will be uncovered or emerge. Suffering will continue and the Dharma will continue as a path to awakening and liberation.lfen

I don't think science is done by unbiased or neutral scientists. Sometimes sure, but often there are various biases. There are several safeguards having to do with experimental design, peer review, etc. But perhaps the most important is that the data can be replicated or the event reexamined. This is the statistical assurance of science. Falsification of data happens. Hopefully it's caught in replication or even review.You have an interesting beginnings of a proposal but just what is it you think should be studied and how? It takes expertise to study a field. Quantum physicist have different expertise than say those who studied deep cold. So who do you think should study this? What kinds of qualifications would they have. What kind of equipment would they use? Parapsychologists have kind of gone the way of ghost busters it appears.I don't think t.v. does much more than offer entertainment, if that. I don't have a t.v. because it's generally so dismal, it's just so much nasty noise polluting my home. When I visit people who have t.v. going I wonder how they can stand to have that in their homes.lfen

I've gotten the impression from Hangdawg and some other's accounts of demons that they would waive the retinal photon. I say that because they don't think everyone would see the phenomena that the sensitives see. It seems closer to a hallucination in that it is a direct stimulation of the brain's visual centers by something termed "spiritual sight"? It further appears that this "vision" is distinguished from hallucination because several people experienced it.I think it has to do with suggestible people and memory pliability.
Testing for hallucinations is probably possible with some of the new brain scan techniques but mostly it seems to be a matter of self reporting, which is why Hangdawg focuses on reliable witnessing by people one trusts.I have to say that I think Hangdawg is truthful. I fully believe his sincerity. I have reservations having to do with both his age, that the people reporting these things are personal friends of his, and his full participation is a belief system that is prone to believing these things. In short I think he lacks qualifications to properly evaluate the reports of his friends.My statement about lacking qualifications is in no way meant to derogate Hangdawg's intelligence, abilities, or sincerity. I'm not qualified to do many things and that is true of everyone. This doesn't disprove his friends experience but it means I'm inclined to stay with the more rational explanation of suggestion, hallucination, and memory drift.lfen