Windbridge redux

FYI: My blog post "Words, Words, Words," a list of recommended titles on evidence for the afterlife, has been reprinted in the Windbridge Institute's newsletter, Winds of Change. If you'd like to take a look at the newsletter, please click here and then open the PDF file linked on that page.

Comments

Surprised no one's posted yet, MP, but I'll start with "Well done". That's a nice achievement.

[Bryan.A]

As we say in the internet-world.Gratz bro^^

If that was the shortened list,I wonder how many books were on your "extensive" reading list.

[Art]

Congratulations! It's always nice to be recognized. You're somebody!

[Mark Alexander (the other Mark)]

The best proof of an afterlife is to practice getting out of your body and visiting there before you die.

Just takes a bit of daily practice.

Death is still the greatest hoax ever perpetuated on humankind.

Apparently Ken Wilbur is a creationist who is a member of the discovery institute. I know Michael has mentioned his book on his blog before called a brief history of everything.

http://www.kheper.net/topics/Wilber/Wilber_on_biological_evolution.html

[Michael H]

So Michael, are you a speed reader, or what? That's quite a list, and I know you've read plenty since that list was compiled.

Pretty impressive, in any case.

[Hope Rivers]

Mark your couldnt be more correct with that. You do need to spend time in prayer and meditation. I have found the minute I started doing this regularly, the visions come, and the spirit communication also.

What I find that works is pray in the affirmative, ask a question knowing that its being answered right then. Then trust and wait but you have to quieten the chatter in your head. If you have OCD or anything like that it can be a challenge but if anything people with constant thoughts even of the irrational type should be making a bigger effort to practise the stillness after prayer and remember those worrisome or negative thoughts are not true, so squash them with something positive and believe it.

Now dont discount your dreams either because they are very potent with information, warnings, guideness and prophecy. Takes ages to understand but if your vigilant you'll get to the point you can forecast.

The thing is some people are more naturally attuned, a bit like MP being a natural with his creative writing gift. But even he knows if he wants to expand his knowledge and say maybe cross a foreign genre he still needs to learn more and practise.

Each and everyone of us CAN get connected to GOD and the only thing stopping you, is the efforts you put in. If your lazy or do it half hearted, you may not achieve getting as close as you'd like.

Talk is cheap and actions always speak louder than words. People who are skeptical should be trying to prove the afterlife to themselves literally and make that more their focus than "doubt" and questioning.

Anyway thats my two bobs worth :-) Ohh for those daring to fly like the eagle, I wish you an exciting journey. Write everything down and use your discernment.

[Hope Rivers]

I thought the same as you too Michael H, that MP must have some speed reading ability but then I thought maybe he is also a passionate guy who loves knowledge in what interests him and reading.

We are all unique and personally I'm glad, its what makes us interesting and different to each other. I thing its always intriguing how we are often fascinated by people very different to ourselves. Men don't get women and women don't get men. We communicate differently, want different things but yet..........;-)

[william]

Congrad’s Michael P.

“Death is still the greatest hoax ever perpetuated on humankind.”

That I suspect is a valid statement but one of the greatest hoax’s in the 20th century was the economic trickle down theory. Now people (i.e. middle class) whine over their economic problems.

Do the chickens really come home to roost or is it what we sow we reap or is it weep.

It is always easier to blame than to look within.

I noticed Michael P mentioned the R-101 story as one of the best proofs of life after death. Michael Tymm also believes this I suspect. Great story but the deceased pilot’s advice was not taken and the next pilot and crew also died in another copycat balloon. I.e. Dirigible. Unsolicited advice is seldom taken. So I will give some.

One book I hope you might mention in the future is “no living person could have known”. Great stories that skeptics refuse to comment on.

“Congratulations! It's always nice to be recognized. You're somebody!”

Don’t tell that to the Advaita types because to them there are no somebody’s.

[Smart Alec]

That's Michael Tymn, not Michael Tymm, and it's somebodies, not somebody's. At least you didn't write, 'Your somebody', so you get marks for that.

[Michael H]

So William, has Smart Alec persuaded you to hire an editor for your posts?

;-)

[Michael H]

While I agree with Mark Alexander that direct experience is the only genuine proof of survival for an individual, (wasn't it Plato who first wrote that philosophy was the practice of death?), the list that MP compiled certainly provides a starting point for the deconstruction of the materialist world view. And as impressive as this list is, it's just the very tip of what is becoming an immense iceberg of data addressing the 'consciousness problem'.

What we tend to lose sight of though, is that those who have a rigid materialist worldview will blithely reject all of these books, as well as any others that conflict with what they already believe to be true, while those of us who have alternative views will cull data from these volumes to support what we already believe, or want to believe. At the same time, those who read The God Delusion are either looking for reinforcement, or for holes in Dawkins' arguments.

The few that are genuinely open-minded may ask why there are conflicting interpretations in the first place. But for most, these books will contribute to the polarization. For every Life after Life, there's a Keith Augustine. It seems that the shared goal of many (not all) writers and their adherents has to do with changing minds. Which is a noble goal, given the state of humanity. The interesting thing about changing minds though, is that most people don't appear to be personally interested in the concept. The change that appears to hold the most appeal seems to be about changing others to agree with us.

At least we have that in common.

[Dave C]

I'm not sure whether this is completely on-topic, but here goes anyway ... It is from a novel I'm about half-way through right now. The mention of Mr. Dawkins brought this passage to mind:
"You can be a rationalist with your eyes shut. I know ghosts don't exist so there is no ghost in this room. If you're a rationalist, and you've made your world out of a logic that says that when things are dead they are dead and that's it, then you could be there in a room full of screaming ghouls and still conclude that there is no ghost in the room."
The Book is "The End of Mr. Y" by Scarlett Thomas and, yes, I am enjoying it so far.

[Ross W]

Dave C: "you could be there in a room full of screaming ghouls and still conclude that there is no ghost in the room"

Well, MP's list contains much evidence, and if a poltergeist was in the room, you'd know it, even with your eyes shut!

Michael H: "those who have a rigid materialist worldview will blithely reject all of these books"

Not surprising, since evidence is sometimes contradictory and often unreliable. So, for instance, MP was, despite all his learned reading, forced to say he was "guessing" when he posted that he considered Consciousness might be the ground of being. And you (MH) often say we have to realise we know nothing and should believe nothing. This kind of thing is bound to be grist to the Materialist's mill. Please do not think this is intended as criticism! I think it’s a great list. It's just that “evidence” per se is an ‘objective’ concept, and therefore must needs put an idealist on shaky ground from the outset.

[a]

Michael H, just curious, are you a Pyrrhonian skeptic?

[Michael H]

And you (MH) often say we have to realise we know nothing and should believe nothing. This kind of thing is bound to be grist to the Materialist's mill. Please do not think this is intended as criticism! . . . It's just that “evidence” per se is an ‘objective’ concept, and therefore must put an idealist on shaky ground from the outset.

No criticism taken, Ross.

I do want to clarify something, though. You are correct in that I continually suggest we need to look beyond beliefs, and that we overvalue the intellect. And it does appear to me that it is the misuse of the intellect that leads people astray in terms of realizing their connection to the underlying reality, and consequently leads to all conflicts between people. But I am not suggesting that the intellect has no value - only that we tend to apply it to questions for which it is not suited.

In the previous thread we discussed the Jill Bolte Taylor lecture, in which she suggests that we have the choice, moment to moment, to choose which aspect of ourselves to identify with. She is saying that we all have this choice. I’d add that most of us don't recognize we have that choice, even though we've all experienced both aspects at various times of our lives, to varying degrees. We have tremendous respect for the intellect, yet not so much for a quiet state of mind. Taylor is not saying that we shouldn't use our intellect, and neither am I. She is suggesting that we learn to identify with our greater self, and that if we do so we will discover that we still have an intellect, but we no longer are the intellect. She’s also implying that we don’t have to run off to a cave somewhere to uncover the higher self. If this understanding became widespread humanity would still have the ability to apply the intellect to the physical world - (Taylor's a neuroanatomist) - but there would be an understanding of who we really are as we did so.

Almost everything I've written here has been an attempt to suggest that in order to understand the underlying consciousness that brings everything together, one has to learn to use their mind differently than they’re accustomed to. As I see it, the materialists and their opponents are both laboring under the delusion that there will eventually be evidence that will conclusively prove their position, while the actual solution and common ground has to do with understanding the “I” that’s evaluating that evidence.

And no, I’m not a Pyrrhonian skeptic. If I was forced to identify with ancient Western philosophers, I’d probably land somewhere in the neo-Platonic camp along the lines of Plotinus. I also think that Peter Kingsley has very important things to say about Parmenides and Empedocles. I’m certain that everyone on earth shares an incredibly deep connection that most have yet to realize, and I’m just as certain that the path to discovering that has to do with learning to observe that part of themselves that’s busy thinking all of the time.

I’m nearly as certain that my various attempts to express that simple message just confuses people. ;-)

>If that was the shortened list,I wonder how many books were on your "extensive" reading list.

I've lost count of how many books I've read on the paranormal, but the number must run well into the hundreds by now. Of course, many of them were not very good.

>The best proof of an afterlife is to practice getting out of your body and visiting there before you die.

Easier said than done, though, isn't it? At least, I have never had any success at bringing on an OBE. (Even if I did, I would probably wonder if it was just a hallucination.)

>Apparently Ken Wilbur is a creationist who is a member of the discovery institute.

I don't think the Discovery Institute should be characterized as creationist. They advocate intelligent design, which is not quite the same thing as creationism, though the two terms are used interchangeably by the media. Anyway, I'm sure Wilbur is not a creationist in the Biblical sense, even if he is skeptical of mainstream Darwinism.

[Michael Prescott]

The last comment was mine. Sorry.

[Hope Rivers]

Mother Day is Australia today, I guess its tomorrow for the Americans, dont forget the flowers and phone calls guys :-)