Recently it's gotten harder to publish comments here. TypePad seems to be aware of the problem. They put up this notice today:
Thank you for all of your comments letting us know that the spam service is being overaggressive in categorizing your blogs' comments as spam! This is great feedback. We’ve heard you and have made a change to the service that will help direct legitimate comments straight to your comments folder.
Their "change to the service" has not actually solved the problem, unfortunately. But I'm sure they will continue to get complaints and will respond more effectively before long. Until then, commenting may be spotty.
I've found that comments blocked as spam get shepherded into a separate folder, where they can be retrieved. Below are some of the blocked comments that were mistakenly characterized as spam. I've also published these comments in the appropriate threads. In a couple of cases I've replied to these comments here, but not on the threads.
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Neutrinos can be detected. Thoughts can be detected as brainwave patterns. The soul has yet to be detected. This is why scientists find it logical to believe that there is empirical evidence for the existence of neutrinos, but none for the evidence of souls. Why does this confuse you so?
The problem isn't the soul's lack of weight or it's invisibility to the naked eye. The problem is that despite allegedly consisting of pure 'energy' (a much misused term in New Age circles) the soul has not yet been detected by even the most sensitive of instruments.
And arguments along the line of "well we don't know everything about how consciousness works therefore we might as well believe in souls" are too banal for words. You might as well argue that because we don't know how the Big Bang started, we may as well believe in Santa Claus.
-Graylien
["Thoughts can be detected as brainwave patterns." Two problems here. First, thoughts per se are not detected as brainwave patterns; what is detected is a certain brain state that appears to be correlated with a thought. Second, would anyone argue we need "scientific" evidence to establish that we have thoughts?
"The problem isn't the soul's lack of weight or it's invisibility to the naked eye." But that was the argument put forth by the skeptic whom I was criticizing. If you think that this argument is weak, then we are in agreement. - MP]
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For the elucidation of the questions of the survival of bodily death and the nature of the soul in general, I think that it is good that Robert Crookall's The Supreme Adventure gets some of the attention it deserves. In my estimation this is an extremely important work. By relating accounts one by one of the transition from this world to the next Crookall places before us a pattern. Each account is independent from and uncoordinated in its origin with the others. This gives the pattern that emerges a claim to "objectivity," (whatever that term may ultimately mean). This approach leaves the skeptic with a vexatious and, to my mind, an insoluble problem.
Michael has drawn our attention to "the tunnel" as a common feature of the experience of casting aside the physical body in the accounts that were recorded before the publication of Raymond Moody's well-known book in 1975. Moody's book in effect called up witnesses who were ordinary people to confirm what had been expressed much earlier by mediums--i.e., extraordinary people.
I would like to call attention to another facet of Crookall's book, his distinction between the experiences of those who died a natural death (in old age) and those who died what Crookall calls an "enforced" death, i.e., violently, at a relatively young age. The accounts that Crookall cites consistently show that in the cases of those who die of natural causes in old age a "call" goes out from the dying person and someone--a loved one, friend, relative, or what Crookall calls a "deliverer"--comes to meet the dying person to assist them in their transition. In the accounts of those who meet their death suddenly, in accidents, or especially in war, nothing like this happens, or if it does it is later in the process. They often find themselves wandering alone in a fog, not realizing in many cases that they are dead. The experiences of the two groups are quite different. Without belaboring the point, the question is: Why would all of these stories agree on this distinction if they were works of imagination? The consistency of this line of demarcation buttresses the view that we are dealing here with a reality of some sort.
And one final point. Crookall's study casts a bright light on the brain/mind problem. Firstly, in many cases the dying persons experience a dual consciousness, being aware both of the surroundings where their physical body is located and also of a new environment toward which they are headed. It is as if there are two minds operating simultaneously. Secondly, once death has become irreversible there is a great expansion of consciousness. Thought has much greater range and clarity once the physical body, and its brain, are cast off. If we take these accounts seriously, this indicates (at least to me) that those who look upon the brain as a limiting, filtering device designed to help us survive in a dangerous and unpredictable world, are correct. The brain, as someone said--I think it was William James--is like unto a reducing valve.
I think anyone who gives Crookall's book some serious attention will find it to be a gold mine.
-wvogt
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Your argument is a straw-man argument and totally false.
1) No one ever said the neutrino was invisible. You assumed that because you can't see it. Being small is not invisible.
2) As science does, to find the truth they tested the idea. They did not require you to believe something without evidence. Now, belief is not required. As religion expects you to believe with evidence.
3) Science only deal with the real world. Mysticism, make believe and superstition is not part of it.
4) If you think there is a soul, test for it and find it. Don't complain that because the idea of a massless neutrino is the same as a massless soul they should be recognized as the same idea. Wrong. Neutrinos were know to exist and detected them. It was whether a mass or no mass, was the question. belief not require. Lets find out the truth.
Straw-man argument you put in this blog.
-Ed
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Hi all,
The 'meme' explanation was thoroughly squashed by "Historical Perspectives on Near-Death Episodes and Experiences", by John R. Audette (article, not book). He cites:
* Albert Heim's work on NDEs in people who survived life-threatening situations (such as falling climbers). Heim mentioned the 'quickening of thought', past-life review, and incidentally - for those that have ready my essay in Darklore, or Rogo's books on transcendental music - that they often heard beautiful music.
* The near-drowning of Admiral Francis Beaufort in 1795. Again, the quickening of thought, and the life review ("the whole period of my existence seemed to be placed placed before me in a kind of panoramic review, and each act of it to be accompanied by a consciousness of right or wrong").
* Catholic priest Louis Tucker's NDE (occurred in 1909, but was published in 1943): "The sensation was not quite like anything earthly; the nearest familiar thing to it is passing through a short tunnel on a train. I emerged into a place where people were being met by friends. It was quiet and full of light, and Father was waiting for me.
And so on: besides tunnels and life reviews, other things that pop up are the 'telepathic' nature of communication in the otherworld, and also the 'crossing of a border'. He also cites Crookall's work as evidence of NDEs before Moody's book came out. I should mention too that Mike Tymn wrote up an early NDE on his blog a little while back.
The question in relation to correspondences with mediumistic communications, which I talked to Michael about via email, is whether these things were known at the time or in the occult literature. e.g. where does the saying "his life passed before his eyes" originate, how much was known about 'astral travel' etc. Myers wrote about the past life review in 1895, so it was at least in the literature - and would therefore be difficult to use as hard evidence that mediumistic communication is backed up by NDEs.
Kind regards,
Greg
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>In sum, we were expected (until lately) to accept the reality of an invisible massless neutrino, but to reject and ridicule the reality of an invisible massless soul. All because science "says so."
Man I'd love for there to be souls, but its much easier to repeat neutrino experiments... =)
> What this amounts to is an appeal to authority
Not all authorities are created equal. Repeatable, competitive and adaptive ones are much cooler.
I think belittling science is a bad habit, and perhaps a little reactive. Its not a belief system, its the single most effective system we have for explaining the universe in a repeatable, usable fashion.
Now, its certainly true that individual scientists can be very resistive to change, but thats actually signs of a healthy system. If scientists dropped everything for every single anomaly they'd end up rewriting science for an awful lot of sloppy experiments and computer glitches. Extraordinary claims... well you know. If its true, there will be evidence, and that evidence will mount.
>Invisible and massless entities are accepted without demur if they are consistent with the materialist worldview, but rejected out of hand if they contradict materialism
The evidence for things that contradict materialism tends to be of poor quality. I've looked at a fair amount of it, it seldom fails to disappoint although there's just a hint there that makes you go hmmm.
Don't attack the messengers, go get better evidence.
>Unfortunately, it would appear sentient massless things do exist; considering that people are able to accurately identify things in different places from their bodies due to becoming a "sentient massless form"
I've not seen a decent experiment like this (although again, would be cool). Mostly its kind of like the numbers game (where you take a number and find a bunch of things that have the same number... there will be lots... and go... coincidence!!?!!). Vague drawings that can be interpreted a variety of ways. There were some cool correspondences, but you have to know how many hits there were or how many misses.
And there are three types of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics (like the pear experiments /sigh) =) so you have to be very careful with vague experiments.
Well anyways... found this via the anomalist. Don't usually post but I think parapsychology would have a better chance of progressing without the 'science attacking', which serves nothing but the forces of ignorance.
>Most atheists refuse to deal with consciousness preferring to call it the hard problem.
It is a hard problem and a very cool one. Admitting we don't know is infinitely preferable to making something up on slim evidence.
But, I still hope there's a soul... =)
- Tracy
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There is a thin line between obe's, astral projections and lucid dreams.
From all the stuff I read and from my own experience I would describe it as follows:
Out of body experience: being out of body in the physical realm which makes it possible to check on friends and get some verifiable data from OBE's.
Astral Projection: out of body but projected to another realm/dimension/sphere/inner planes/afterlife whatever one wants to call it. Here beings etc, teachings can be experienced. But most of the time there is also some subconscious influence of how things are perceived like always.
Lucid dreaming: Out of body but totally in our own created world. Kind of like an astral projection with a huge amount of subconscious influence. Most of the time during LD's there isn't any communication with beings which are perceived other then pieces of ourselves.
Dreams: out of body but totally not self conscious and absorbed in our own drama play.
Anyhow I said there is a thin line because they can mix pretty easily with each other.
During a lucid dream one can actually project from there to another plane. Or from an astral projection one could go back to the physical realm and actually
Kind of the same how a lucid dream can become a normal dream or how during a lucid dream there are gradations of self awareness...
I think the difference is felt in the atmosphere and the depth of the experience.
For people interested in learning how to have OBE's themselves checkout www.robertpeterson.org it's a free online book and gives a great introduction on the whole OBE thing.
Robert is a computer programmer and was a big sceptic himself until the moment he started exploring it himself and couldn't deny his own experience. Real skepticism in action :)
greets,
Filip
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According to the index tunnel is listed on pages 15, 60, and 104. I missed or forget the one on page 15. Little of my research to date that I can remember has talked much about the tunnel experience except during an NDE. But then my memory is suspect at this stage of my life.
It appears to me that passing through a doorway is mentioned more than passing thru a tunnel in this book but it appears that when one experiences an NDE passing through a tunnel is the most popular explanation of the transitional stage. I always wondered why an NDE would be different than those that cross over, communicate thru a medium, and don’t speak about the tunnel experience.
The last paragraph on page 55 is a worthwhile read concerning how or why mediums are able to produce ectoplasm and how sitters may be able to enhance this ectoplasm output. This appears to be the case, as it seems that sitters do influence the output of the medium. Many mediums have suggested this causal correlation between the sitters and the mediums having an impact on the séance.
I think I have posted this before on here but it is worth repeating.
“It is because of the divine spirit within us that we seek truth: it is because of the divine spirit without us that their is truth to discover” Lily Dougall page 51
This quote pretty well sums up my 16 years of research into one sentence. Love it. Something to ponder. Who is “us” if the divine spirit exists without us?
-William
[The book's index is not very good. There are other tunnel references. See pp. 106ff, for instance. - MP]
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