What is reality, what is a 2x4?

[jupiviv]

The moment you say all doors and windows were closed, to me that meant it would be a perfect scenario for a strong draft current when someone would open a door somewhere else in the house.

Normally opening a door/large window in a closed room usually results in another door/window opening by itself, which can be a spooky thing for someone who doesn't know why that happens. Laird seems to be describing a storm that came in from the outside, which wouldn't happen if it wasn't windy or at least breezy outside. He seems to remember very little of it, so maybe he forgot that it was in fact windy outside when it happened. :-)

[Diebert van Rhijn]

The moment you say all doors and windows were closed, to me that meant it would be a perfect scenario for a strong draft current when someone would open a door somewhere else in the house.

Normally opening a door/large window in a closed room usually results in another door/window opening by itself, which can be a spooky thing for someone who doesn't know why that happens. Laird seems to be describing a storm that came in from the outside, which wouldn't happen if it wasn't windy or at least breezy outside. He seems to remember very little of it, so maybe he forgot that it was in fact windy outside when it happened. :-)

Apart from practical jokes or draft current there's a third possibility which doesn't include the dead but might be even more interesting. In the paper "Belief in the paranormal and suggestion in the seance room (pdf) some interesting outcomes of fake seances are described which would suggest people's expectations and suggestibility can create surprisingly vivid experiences. Not sure if sensation of cold air would qualify but it's often listed in reports and might be as such "expected" by some participants, perhaps also by increased sensitivity to air flows after having the goose bumps? I've been myself in states where normal sounds became like thunder and not because of a hangover!

Both experiments also revealed that during the fake seances many participants reported experiencing the type of unusual phenomena often associated with ‘genuine’ seances, including, for example, sudden changes in temperature, a sense of unusual energy and odd smells.Thus, the fake seances caused participants to report many of the experiences described by those attending ‘genuine’ seances, suggesting that such effects are the result of psychological processes (e.g., psychosomatic experiences brought about by participants’ heightened expectations or strong beliefs), rather than being caused by paranormal, psychic or mediumistic mechanisms.

[jupiviv]

It is possible that the wind that came in was simply due to the fact that it was windy outside at the time, but Laird simply didn't notice it because he was too obsessed with the ouija board. That may be the reason why he doesn't remember very much about the details and background of the incident - the ouija board session has taken up all the space.

This happens surprisingly often in life, at least to me. If I concentrate or think hard enough about something then everything else except it just....vanishes. Later I can't remember anything else about what was happening then except what I was concentrating upon.

[guest_of_logic]

The definition of spirit is generally held to be the essence or "soul" of a person.

I'm not sure that's true - some writers distinguish between "spirit" and "soul" - but I see what you're getting at with "essence".

That's the definition I'm using. There is only one true essence in a person, and that is the essence shared by all other things except that person as well.

I'm not sure what you mean by "except" in "shared by all other things except that person".

There is another(possibly more) popular definition of spirit, which is an existence contrasted with material/physical existence. But what is meant by 'material existence'? It seems to refer to the sensory world. However, the 'spirit world' seems to be surprisingly similar to the material world the way most people describe it, in that all/most of the things in it have to do with emotions and things which can potentially be experienced through an alteration or intensification of the senses. The difference between the two seems to be one of knowledge and ignorance rather than sensory and non-sensory existence, i.e, the spirit world refers to those empirical things which we are not entirely clear about, and the material refers to those things which we feel sure of.

The definition you are using seems to be the latter one. However, my comment is still valid because there is no good reason to consider the empirical things that we are not entirely clear about to be 'special' in some way. The most reasonable thing to do would be to acknowledge that we are necessarily ignorant of some things, and leave it at that.

Well, the ordinary understanding (which corresponds with mine) is that the difference between the spirit and the material is one of quality/substance and not of knowledge.

In any case, yes, these are both valid definitions of the word "spirit": spirit as in "essential nature" and spirit as in "immaterial/non-physical (usually conscious) substance". In different contexts, one or the other is most appropriate. Obviously, in the context of my own posts, I'm using the latter definition.

You say “their” friends’ house.

Just to clarify: by "them" I mean the two (grown) children (males) in the family I was staying with.

Did you know these “friends” before that night?

I don't recall that I did, no.

How many of them were there?

They were a family of at least three - two parents and a son.

Did everyone there in the household participate in the ouija board session, or just some of them?

Only the son was present. His parents were out at a social gathering.

Were you drinking or taking drugs prior to the session? Were the others?

No and no. We were all completely sober: aside from the events, the evening and our mental states were normal.

I will state openly that in no way would I consider the rapist/torturer in the above scenario to be "evil". I don't even consider Hitler and the entire Nazi system to be evil, any more than I consider their victims to be good. So why would I consider a solitary rapist/torturer to be evil?

I think I understand where you're coming from, David, given your appreciation for my recognition that human motivations are complex. I think your perspective is informed by your determinism: that human motivations have myriads of causes which mitigate responsibility for what might otherwise be regarded as "evil"; that applying a label like "evil" might cause us to judge blindly when a preferable and more empowering approach than judging is to seek to understand the (complex) causes behind the "evil".

I have sympathy for this perspective, but I think you might want to consider how it relates to what you say here:

Incidentally, you can see how Laird's mind works in posing this scenario. He is identifying with the women and children on the basis that they share his own pure, innocent self. In other words, he believes deep down that he possesses a pure, innocent self (unquestioned, unchallenged, it's just what he happens to feel) and then projects that onto the women and children. He doesn't know them from a bar of soap; it's merely an assumption that has been generated by another assumption.

Even as you believe me to be ascribing a "pure, innocent self" to the victims in this scenario, your own perspective in its own way ascribes a pure, innocent self to the victims as well as the perpetrator, seeing him as ultimately non-responsible for his actions - that he is rather, if anything, a victim of an infinite causal web.

I would like to show you a different way of seeing things by making the case that it's not only reasonable to believe in free will but that belief in free will makes more sense than hard determinism, but I don't have the energy to make that case right now with everything else going on in this thread. I will, though, say here what I would say to you if I had made that case for free will: yes, human motivations are complex, and it's likely that there are no humans to whom the following description applies, but it's my understanding that there is/are (a) force(s) in reality that seek(s) to harm, violate, abuse, destroy, profane, torture, torment, deceive, desecrate and slaughter for no other reason than that this is its essential nature or this is its free choice (I do suspect though that the former is more likely). I can think of no better word for that than, unqualified, "evil". Having said that there are probably no humans to which that description applies, there are humans who are very affected and even controlled in various ways by this/these force(s).

Re purity and innocence: I do believe that they are our original state which we tarnish to various extents through our choices in the world. Something you might not have considered about why we put women and children first, and why sometimes we see them as more innocent than men is that, aside from women's nine month gestation period being the limiting factor in the reproduction of our species, women and children are physically, and in the case of children, mentally and emotionally weaker than men, and thus less capable of defending themselves. We thus impose less obligation on them to defend themselves and thus there is less opportunity for them to "get themselves dirty" in the course of that sometimes ugly job - and so they often retain more of their original state of purity and innocence than do men, which is not to devalue men and the role they perform in any way.

This as opposed to "true" fundamentalism which is trust in the real fundamentals which one can actually know by reason and experience each and every moment one is sober.

OK, so what does this consist of? Do you mean the QRS trip, or did you have something else in mind?

"Something else in mind": true fundamentalism!

Seriously, Diebert? I ask you what true fundamentalism consists of and your answer is "true fundamentalism"? Are you trying to demonstrate A=A?

"True positives" are very rare and very difficult. At best one can have a "highly probable" explanation.

But this is the case with anything empirical other than the brute fact of one's existence and experience. The construction of a belief system isn't a criminal trial in which we bias the possibility of spirit as "the prosecution" and force upon "the prosecutor" a standard of "beyond a reasonable doubt" - even though I believe that that standard can be met by any fair-minded person who investigates the matter seriously. Instead, we ought to choose what to believe, particularly when it concerns something so important as the scope of material reality, through a more balanced weighing of the evidence: assessing what seems more likely given the patterns (or lack) of documented/experienced "highly probable" evidential material. One might be able to defend judging a single "highly probable" event as "coincidental", but add another... and another... and then the countless others that one will encounter through the smallest bit of reading... and, well, you get the point. Some defendants just can't be saved.

It's possible you wouldn't be able to give me one single true positive you know of.

I think it's more likely that you would simply never accept one. You would always leverage any smallest potentially mitigating factor into a decisive case against it in your application of the standards of a criminal trial to what is more like a civil case. I notice that you ignored the case studies that I quoted out of Dr McAll's book. What is your reaction to those?

Just assumptions some people find likely and others don't. The main issue here is the amount of possibilities and circumstances in a complex universe should instill a high degree of carefulness and distrust before talking about "facts". Without some scientific or clear philosophical principle carrying it one has left only personal experience and speculation really, a perpectly flexible, moldable playing field for any emotional needs.

The "emotional needs" card cuts both ways, Diebert. The hardened sceptic is as emotionally invested in his scepticism as the spiritual man is in his faith.

One remark about this wind business:

in a house in which all doors and windows were closed, a huge wind tore through the living room where we were sitting [...]this was not a wind that could be produced by an air-conditioner or fan device; it was the sort of wind that you get when you have both french doors open and it's windy out.

The moment you say all doors and windows were closed, to me that meant it would be a perfect scenario for a strong draft current when someone would open a door somewhere else in the house. It's a pressure thing. I've lived in houses like that so to me it doesn't sound like any strange element at all! You see, how relative this observation can be? And it's all far away in memory now which makes it even harder to be sure all the details survived in the group recall. How huge is 'huge' if tensions are already running high?

Given this forum's presuppositions, it's totally natural that you and others in this thread would seek to find ways around the experience I described, and of course I was expecting you to do exactly that. Let me just say this: I never intended my presentation of this event alone to make a bulletproof case; instead I was presenting a single experience out of the many, many similar ones I've had, some more extreme, which, taken together, form an irrefutable pattern. I didn't choose any of those many others because, unfortunately, none of them were shared with other people; also, I value my personal space and privacy. I did, though, also offer Roy's conclusive testimony and his glossary.

I would encourage you to take an holistic perspective rather than looking at things in isolation. Let's say I accept your possibility - perhaps a burglar, thinking people were out and had left the lights on, broke into the house through a door, creating a wind (ignoring that there was no door in the direction the wind came from), and then, realising that people were home, quietly shut the door again and carried on his way without us realising.

OK, so we have some small factor of doubt here about what really happened. Now take the experiences Roy relates in his book and work your sceptical magic with them: again we will have a very small factor of doubt. Then take the case studies I presented out of Healing the Family Tree and find some small possibility that things aren't exactly as they seem there. How long will it take before you give up and accept that the overall level of doubt is so small as to render your denial ridiculous, and, more damningly given your values, irrational? Will it be when I relate the story of one of my friends who had an experience of hands-on healing of a burn wound incurred in a motorcycle accident? The bike lay on top of his leg for some time, scalding it badly - as a result of the healing, he has no scar whatsoever. It certainly wasn't when one of this forum's other members, BeingOf1, related that he had personally healed by faith a woman wounded in a car accident. So, when, Diebert?

[cousinbasil]

In the above, it is not hard to imagine a very, very strange ethic that would arise from your beliefs if practiced universally.

If it was practiced universally, there wouldn't be any women. Nor any torturers.

-

You are being redundant, David.

You do slay me with this type of pithy pronouncement. Presumably all those born with - holy shit! wombs - would be men. Or did you forget to capitalize the W in women...? Details like that are important, since you do have your followers.

[cousinbasil]

I will state openly that in no way would I consider the rapist/torturer in the above scenario to be "evil". I don't even consider Hitler and the entire Nazi system to be evil, any more than I consider their victims to be good. So why would I consider a solitary rapist/torturer to be evil?

But women...they've gotta go, right?

Listen, David, don't you see what kind of asshole you are being when you say shit like this? You do not need to judge the victims of Hitler's regime to be good. Let's assume they are just people, navigating life's vicissitudes. But there is a common politically identifiable element to them - they are different. They are Jews, Gypsies, and faggots - and Jehovah's witnesses. But how is rounding them up and exterminating them like rats not evil?

Your knowledge of what the "entire Nazi system" comprised is staggeringly warped and revolting. Personally, I am neither a Jew nor a faggot not a JW nor a Gypsy - rather, I am of German descent. I seek to understand the truth. I thought that was your life's mission as well. Do you not know that in all of recorded history, the Nazis were the singularly best example of institutional evil? Not the only one, of course. I suggest you read what the Japanese did to Chinese civilians. Even the the slaughter of civilians during the Tokyo firebombing and the subsequent nuclear strikes cannot be considered evil to this extent. Because those programs were indiscriminate - in war time, civilians are merely soldiers who have not been nor could be conscripted. In Germany, Nazi actions were anything but indiscriminate. They were carried out internally, like Saddam killing his Kurds.

David - did you attend school at any point? Be honest.

[Talking Ass]

The way I look at 'reality' most likely influences how I see, or allow myself to see and interpret, the things that happen in the world of men. And by 'world' I mean at least in some sense what David and others mean when they say 'mind'. But for me 'mind' is that, but also 'psyche', 'imagination': i.e. the virtual world in which each of us lives: that 'space' that is there when we close our eyes. It seems to me that what makes humans human, is really everything that has to do with this mental world, this 'world' of psyche and imagination. It is because each of not only exists within but in fact is this 'virtual world' that it can be said that each of us lives in our own world.

I think that David and Diebert and others (in this present conversation), are making interpretive choices that on one hand derive from modern scientific views, but also from the interpretive and psychological dogmas (in the neutral sense) of Buddhism. With some common sense thrown into the mix. A desire to see through false appearances and the (it has to be noted) human tendency to embellish, to blow up, to exaggerate, to project fantasies. We are the products of endless experiments in perception and just as many experiments in interpretation. But we are now confronting a particularly compelling 'interpretation' of reality which is offered by the scientific-materialist model. I don't know if I've got it right but it states: Everything that occurs to us, occurs within a physical and biological matrix. It is possible to be quite rational and convinced and to say: "Any abberation in perception, and especially those that produce undesirable states (anger, visions, hallucinations, what-have-you), are caused by internal chemical activities, and that it is possible to change the way we relate to 'reality' through chemical engineering of the subject". This view, generally speaking, utterly reduces man to biological units that can be managed. It seems to me that this overridingly powerful viewstructure is pretty much taking over the world. I know I haven't expressed it in its full dimensions, only alluded to it, but it does have some pretty chilling elements.

I am not at all certain that the 'spirituality' described in these pages is in any real sense a spirituality that conduces one to freedom. True, I am not sure exactly how to define 'freedom'. But I do have a sense of how 'confinement' might be expressed, or rather how it actually occurs. I have wondered at times and do still wonder if this 'enlightenment' described by you-all is not rather a sort of pathological and possibly unconscious reaction to the present, less in a creative and 'positive' sense though. I am also not at all certain if in some senses at least, maybe some important ones, the philosophy that 'you' espouse might not be part of the control-systems that are rising up around us. What looks on the surface to be individualism and a turning against the movement of the herd, begins to take on characteristics that could, with a certain pressure, become dangerously predatorial (or in any case, something other than the 'spirituality' I know).

The essential problem I am noting, which has me rather concerned and a little confused, has to do with the dark and controlling nature of these 'spirits'. I am put into a tough spot because it is Laird who has recently been made the subject here. But the issue, the main, overriding issue, is that whatever is happening with these 'entities' or 'fantasies' or 'complexes' (or whatever they are), they do not conduce to freedom and well-being, nor to growth, opening up, freedom and development. They seem to be doing exactly the opposite. But the question is: What modality shall be resorted to to deal with them? From the bio-chemical perspective the answer is rather simple, if reductionist: modify the brain with chemicals. Get on with things. Manage to get by. It is a 'message' that comes from a rather dead culture, and from institutions driven by ideas, goals, and values that I simply do not know how to relate to.

On another level, one notes the Q-R-S clan and the strategy of 'rationalism' that proposes (i.e. sets up groups of organizations of mental pathways so to provide a rationale and a support for) a whole group of actions, negations, decisions, value-projections, etc., that in another way (to me) give evidence of a closing down of perceptual channels, of channels of connection and contact with other human beings, of a sort of numbed-out and abstracted relationship with life and existence. I could almost say: some of you in your unique way are possessed by some really sTrAnGe spirits! Using the word 'possession' would indicate that it is not your choice, that you are not in control of it. Rather you are being directed by something else. Perhaps something that you cannot name or even see? But IF that were true, wouldn't we have, at least in some shadow of a way, an example here of the same sort of issue? The mirror of it? That is: possession. That is: domination by 'dark', controlling spirits? Mean-spirted little creatures, really. It is really just a hop, skip and a jump to see it as 'demonic possession'. Now, I do not in truth mean to say this or to propose it. But are we dealing with likenesses? We are dealing (as I see it) with ways that perceptions are handled and how values are assigned. We are dealing with the 'psyche'. We are deling with an in a unique and special 'world' that is 'mind': the third world of perception 'much like a dream' of the Upanishad. Would you agree that anything that succeeds in dominating 'you' but which is not 'you' is a force that 'possesses' you?

Curious, isn't it, to invert things?

And so again, I return to the simple question: What conduces to Life? What links us with growth and change? What sort of activity and what sort of thinking brings us to...what is the word that I should use? (since I won't use 'enlightenment'?)

Keep in mind: I am still under the influence of a particular reading of a text that has caused me to do some serious thinking. The essence of it is this: there is no forward path. There is no up and away path. There is no transcendental path. There is only that of immanence, of going down into.

What path there is is 1) the path of 'hell' and dealing with hell (the place we find ourselves, and the contraints placed on us), and 2) the fact and reality of death. Because sometimes it seems to me that a good part of the conversation around here is one on Death, about Death, constrained and delimited by Death. What there is is some dead people talking in a language of death about their dying!

[Excuse the rhetorical flourish...]

I would almost accept, even with some gladness, a pure 'illusion', a poetic 'hope', a simple symbolization [of divinity], if it would actually lead me and you and anyone...to some sense of peace or understanding of these conditions we find ourselves in. Or maybe we're not supposed to have that?

Is it possible to know life in death? Is it possible to bring life into hell?

[Kunga]

So why would I consider a solitary rapist/torturer to be evil?

You don't... because you've never experiemced being raped and tortured. And I wouldn't be taking any buses if I were you.

And women that are obsessed with clothes & fancy underwear, etc., are conditioned to be that way, by men. Women want to make men happy. Men want women to make them happy. Would a woman that is a fat slob, stinking, with facial hair, that loves philosophy & is a genius make you happy ? lol

[Talking Ass]

Although I don't think Jupi or David or Diebert will accept this, still I think GF needs to get in a more spiritual groove, and not only that, people 'round here need to work on their moves. Like this, people. I can have David workin' it like Brown at 2:00 if he'd only cooperate! And remember, Papa Don't Take No Mess. Now, don't come whining to me saying y'all ain't been spiritualized. Get out there'n spread the word! you spiritual juvenile delinquints!

[Dennis Mahar]

until you come to understand that nothing exists in and of itself,
that all phenomena lacks inherent existence,
is appearance...

until that time,
you are talkin' shit.

[Kunga]

until you come to understand that nothing exists in and of itself,
that all phenomena lacks inherent existence,
is appearance...

until that time,
you are talkin' shit.

Right....and you could even eat shit when you come that far...and it would be the same as eatting pumpkin pie !

[Dennis Mahar]

and you could even eat shit when you come that far

possible but unlikely.

[Russell Parr]

I will state openly that in no way would I consider the rapist/torturer in the above scenario to be "evil". I don't even consider Hitler and the entire Nazi system to be evil, any more than I consider their victims to be good. So why would I consider a solitary rapist/torturer to be evil?

But women...they've gotta go, right?

Listen, David, don't you see what kind of asshole you are being when you say shit like this? You do not need to judge the victims of Hitler's regime to be good. Let's assume they are just people, navigating life's vicissitudes. But there is a common politically identifiable element to them - they are different. They are Jews, Gypsies, and faggots - and Jehovah's witnesses. But how is rounding them up and exterminating them like rats not evil?

Your knowledge of what the "entire Nazi system" comprised is staggeringly warped and revolting. Personally, I am neither a Jew nor a faggot not a JW nor a Gypsy - rather, I am of German descent. I seek to understand the truth. I thought that was your life's mission as well. Do you not know that in all of recorded history, the Nazis were the singularly best example of institutional evil? Not the only one, of course. I suggest you read what the Japanese did to Chinese civilians. Even the the slaughter of civilians during the Tokyo firebombing and the subsequent nuclear strikes cannot be considered evil to this extent. Because those programs were indiscriminate - in war time, civilians are merely soldiers who have not been nor could be conscripted. In Germany, Nazi actions were anything but indiscriminate. They were carried out internally, like Saddam killing his Kurds.

David - did you attend school at any point? Be honest.

You do know that the Nazi's thought of themselves to be working for the greater good, right? Eugenics was considered as a genuinely "good" idea to them.. You know the whole "cleansing of the races" type of thing.

You need to reach a lil deeper to understand what David is saying here.. it's about not being suckered into the illusion of good and evil, and the efforts to base ones actions on the preservation and distribution of such wisdom.

I too am of german descent, and in fact a former jehovah's witness..

[Kunga]

and you could even eat shit when you come that far

possible but unlikely.

[Good answer]



Student: What is the Buddha ?
Master: A piece of dry dog shit !


http://books.google.com/books?id=tafWnR ... it&f=false

[Kunga]

Eugenics

"cleansing of the races"

understand what David is saying here..

You need to reach a lil deeper

wisdom.

Sure, they were just being rational and logical. Had they looked a little deeper, they would of realized they were insane .

[Diebert van Rhijn]

... in all of recorded history, the Nazis were the singularly best example of institutional evil? Not the only one, of course.

So there are many more "singularly best examples"? And indeed there might be. For example Stalin's communist regime, a praised ally in the 1940's has 6 million dead from famine and 4 million from other causes on its receipt by policy. Other's have documented the UN sanctions on Iraq increased the mortality rate of just the youngest children with 100,000's. And that this was known very well by those sanctioning. Also total body count there since the following invasion might already be over a million although no government here desires counting. Is this institutional evil too? Or do you make a difference between being gassed in a camp or firebombed inside a house?

Anyway, my point would be that if one desires to distill a concept of "evil" from this, that it's clearly institutionalized in modern man himself by now. It's the politics and ideology which then sanctifies one thing as "necessary" and another thing put down as monstrosity.

Yet another view, when evil is equaled to ignorance then one could make the case the Nazis were indulging in it with the eugenics, nationalist sentiments and utilizing Big Propaganda (now called Big Media). The outcome of all ignorance is suffering: not knowing what one is doing because of emotional blinders and attachments. This can only lead to more of the same. And if a thing is so institutionalized to such degree and connected with so much that is still cherished and praised in modern society: should it still be called "evil"? It doesn't seem meaningful at that point anymore to say so unless one doesn't mind arriving at "only god is good".

[Diebert van Rhijn]

This as opposed to "true" fundamentalism which is trust in the real fundamentals which one can actually know by reason and experience each and every moment one is sober.

OK, so what does this consist of? Do you mean the QRS trip, or did you have something else in mind?

"Something else in mind": true fundamentalism!

Seriously, Diebert? I ask you what true fundamentalism consists of and your answer is "true fundamentalism"? Are you trying to demonstrate A=A?

Fern seeds and elephants, Laird. Straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel! The point as always is that having something (A) in mind is a fundamental observation. Which means one doesn't have something else (anything not A) in mind. This is true fundamentalism simply because one cannot get around it. It's beyond good and evil in its simplicity but the focus is different: it's about the camel on which all the gnats are living. It's not about denying or sifting any gnats. Though some interpret it as if gnats are ridiculed by the mere suggestion of any camel.

One might be able to defend judging a single "highly probable" event as "coincidental", but add another... and another... and then the countless others that one will encounter through the smallest bit of reading... and, well, you get the point.

It's a common mistake to think that a string of coincidences somehow would automatically change the statistical probability of each individual case. It's a known tendency of our thinking but in many circumstances it's the wrong conclusion. Whole industries rely on this misconception in their audiences though.

I think it's more likely that you would simply never accept one [true positive]. You would always leverage any smallest potentially mitigating factor into a decisive case against it in your application of the standards of a criminal trial to what is more like a civil case.

It's not for me or the legal system to determine this. For these cases where someone like you tries to assert a fact in the realm of phenomena, the scientific method and community has been developing over the centuries and it suffices in my opinion. It has its major shortcomings but more often critics just don't understand the basic principles at all.

The hardened sceptic is as emotionally invested in his scepticism as the spiritual man is in his faith.

Obviously he needs to care about the process otherwise why would he mind nonsense to be taught? But the important question is where one is emotionally invested in. Impossible truth violating fantasies or something which might actually work given the time and room?

instead I was presenting a single experience out of the many, many similar ones I've had, some more extreme, which, taken together, form an irrefutable pattern.

But this is exactly the problem. You can chain thousands and thousands of easy to refute imaginary experiences together but that doesn't create automagically something irrefutable. Check out fallacies like "correlation does not imply causation", proof by intimidation, false cause and kettle logic. Pure quantity just does not make a point, it just raises an impression or at most some anecdotal evidence. Of course one can have a wonderful experience nevertheless of amazement and bewilderment. It's not like I try to take that away.

It certainly wasn't when one of this forum's other members, BeingOf1, related that he had personally healed by faith a woman wounded in a car accident. So, when, Diebert?

I discussed this case with him there in general terms. And although I believe he's sincere I don't think there was any credible witness to that event making it a personal experience with only value to those witnessing and zero value to prove supernatural events. He also claimed bullets were passing through a body without leaving a mark in another story.

[Talking Ass]

No, Diebert, no. AND GODDAMMIT, how many fUcKiNg times you gonna make me say it?!? It ain't FuNkY enough, Jack! All that statistical Western drivel barfed up on laboratory floors. Geeks with tunnel-eyes, fractured mechanical smiles, meat-dreaming the big NADA, and you! you just carry on when you could be gettin it on. Whatsup with that, man!?!

Alright, sorry for speaking my mind but as of today this shit's gonna stop. It's gonna stop now. If I can't get y'll to act a little normal I'll have to send in the spirits, and spirits will rain down over you like Hershey's chocolate out of a can. You will study this text and try to incorporate it into your body.

Since it will not likely get though on the first go-by, you will study this text and get the inSPIRation flowing. If this don't help not even Jesus could resurrect your sorry dead butt...

And finally, you will, I SAID YOU WILL! study the Talking Ass's Eyeball and Earbone Scripture, put on the right shoes, start practicing, and for fucks sake, Diebert can you make it just a little bit funky?!? I want you jammin like at 2:38 or I'm afraid there's gonna be reprecussions...

And the rest of you. Please PLEASE! We've got to take it hIgHeR...

[Talking Ass]

I really want you people to get your spiritual ideas to move with your sentiments. If you feel your spirituality, and if it really moves you, you will create beauty and life and love which combine. Like this. I think you're beginning to bore even your own selves...

[Kunga]

Well......FINALLY !!!!!! :)

It was refreshing....I let go when I was younger...did all that been there...so those vids were a real blast from my past...of total indulgence....i was very beautiful, creative, and spiritual then too.

Now i fuckin ponder taking shrooms or dmt to give me back that high....as it is gone.... :(

As far as experiencing my own spiritual walk-the-talk...it's more subtle now...all in the head stuff....i was much freeer when it wasn't all in the head...only in the heart

But being that there really is no time in absolute reality.......it must of just happened....feels like the past...but it is the present....i guess i'm just taking a break, lol

i guess you could say i'm "well-rounded". Having experienced both indulgence in life and renunciation...one's attachments to either are lessened.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

It was refreshing....I let go when I was younger...did all that been there...so those vids were a real blast from my past...of total indulgence....i was very beautiful, creative, and spiritual then too.

Now i fuckin ponder taking shrooms or dmt to give me back that high....as it is gone.... :(

As far as experiencing my own spiritual walk-the-talk...it's more subtle now...all in the head stuff....i was much freeer when it wasn't all in the head...only in the heart

You're in a different stage now and that is good. But the problem is not what you might think. It's not the head that limits you, it's the heart which keeps throwing dilemma's up for your poor head and causes the cage to appear. In the past you just followed your heart and was allowed by your surrounding but even that is not the freedom you really want anymore now. Slave of the urges and their consequences. A little mind can be worse than no mind, agreed. The way out is the way in and through and only by knowing your own mind you will know and rule your own heart. Never you'll dream of going back!

[Kunga]

The way out is the way in and through and only by knowing your own mind you will know and rule your own heart. Never you'll dream of going back!

Yes...it's my rational mind that keeps me in the cage. Survival. Then there's the compassion thingy..[it's hard for me to indulge in selfish decisions without thinking how they will affect others.]

it's the heart which keeps throwing dilemma's up for your poor head and causes the cage to appear.

Exactly !

Slave of the urges and their consequences

Yes...i am a slave [literally]. i work for a Indian family !!!!
But i know what you are saying....again, it's all about survival. I'm waiting for the right moment/time. [Being rational/logical].

[jupiviv]

As far as experiencing my own spiritual walk-the-talk...it's more subtle now...all in the head stuff....i was much freeer when it wasn't all in the head...only in the heart

I love him who is of a free spirit and a free heart: thus is his head only the bowels of his heart; his heart, however, causeth his down-going. - Nietzsche in Zarathustra.

[Kunga]

As far as experiencing my own spiritual walk-the-talk...it's more subtle now...all in the head stuff....i was much freeer when it wasn't all in the head...only in the heart

I love him who is of a free spirit and a free heart: thus is his head only the bowels of his heart; his heart, however, causeth his down-going. - Nietzsche in Zarathustra.

Interesting....yeah, in my heart sometimes i feel hatred [what a paradox, eh ?] But my head , being more rational/logical makes the better decision/action.

[Talking Ass]

Nice, Jupi. The recognition that there IS a heart is a big one. And that it is this heart that asks us to 'down-go'.