E.H. What makes something "real"? If a ghost appears to me....that I don't know personally...nor do I have any personal information about them...but can give detailed information...what is that? Where did this information come from? It's out there and everyone (anyone) can tap into it.

To say that if not all people have had the same experience it's not real is silly. Many people have not experienced cancer. Does it make it unreal? Many have not experienced love. Does that make love unreal? Many have not experienced Aids, hunger, happiness, a brocken bone, electricity, having a baby...and so on.

At the age of 15 I was diagnosed with Sciolious. At that time one shoulder was already 1 inch higher than the other. The doctors said that I would hunch back by the time I am thirty. For over 10 years I was in pain. I had to roll in and out of bed and once I was on the bed it took several minutes to adjust and relax, which was extremly painful. To I am 47 (I think : ) and have been without any back pain for over 10 years.

What happened? I did not go to a doctor, nor massage, nor chiropractic, nor operation....but Doctors claim Scoliosis can not be "reversed"... only stopped.

What about my kidneys? If it was up to Doctors...I would have only one now.
No witnesses? My mother is my witness...my family...the doctors I went to back then. I am sure the records are somewhere to be found...if I felt the need to prove anything....which I don't.

I have testamonials of people healing of all sorts of things. Things changing in their life....simply by changing their consciousness (that which they are aware of).

The light of the eye is consciousness. What you believe you will see. All things are possible...but you will only see what you believe is possible.

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May your awareness be perfection

If you say so.
Every one of those is a purely ridiculous analogy. We have millions upon millions of medical reports, slides, tissue samples, of cancer, AIDS, broken bones. We can demonstrate hunger, happiness, electricity, having a baby any time we feel like it to those who have never experienced them.

The supernatural? Well, it can't be demonstrated "at will." In fact, it seems to work only in private. I am always suspicious of things that only work sometimes, and especially when they only work when skeptics aren't looking. If electricity was that spooky, trust me, nobody would use it. It would be useless because it couldn't be relied on.
I don't know what happened. Maybe the magic thingies came and replaced your spine while you were sleeping.
All of which goes to demonstrate something really important. You don't accept that the body may do naturally (heal itself) what you would prefer to think of as supernatural. And yet, the wonders of how the body can and does heal itself is becoming more and more clear to those who study such things. I don't pretend it isn't wonderful, glorious, even "magical." I certainly don't understand it. But I accept that it is natural, just not understood yet.

Supernatural means something that can't be explained, ever, through natural means.
And why would it not? Once again, you choose to use the word "consciousness" as if it were something completely divorced from natural reality. This is the single fact beyond which you and I will never get.

It is exactly the same thing as if I said the shortest distance between two points on a plane is an parabolic arc. My geometry, based on that single false axiom, could never be reconciled with Euclidean geometry that every child learns in school. Now the question is, are they (and Euclid) all wrong because they don't accept my axiom? Or is my geometry perfectly good, but based on an essential untruth, and therefore also perfectly worthless?
And there, you just have to make your assertion and not demonstrate it. Because you can't.

Or can you conjure up something in the "real" world in such a way as to cause me to perceive it, too? If "all things are possible," I don't see why not...

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evangelicalhumanist: Greek "eu"=good and "angelos"=messenger. Spreading the good news of Humanism.

.... and they - of course (Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins) - will be among "the elect" and "the few".
roflmao.

The event appeared in my consciousness as though it really happened, i can only assume that it actually did. I can remember it far more clearly than many other -- far more important -- events of my life, although much of my memory is admittedly cloudy at the moment.
That particular event i can recall with no effort whatsoever, unfortunately, i can no longer re-experience that feeling of being completely loved - even adored.

I don't think for a moment - and neither am i claiming - that in my case it is anything to do with how far i've "evolved" compared with other people, what allowed me to experience it was meditation, and though i tried on many, many occasions subsequently to achieve the same state again, sadly i have never managed to, and unfortunately meditation is now beyond my abilities.

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The Peaceful Place: http://www.agedhippy.plus.com/

"An object is perceived, or not perceived, according as the mind is, or is not, tinged with the colour of the object. "
Patanjali - Sutra 4:17

vivamis...

"To experience anything one would have to be conscious...beyond consciousness...there is no experience.

Every experience is subject to a person perceiving it. No person...no experience."

First statement...if , in perception, there is one to be consciouse, then what is percieved will be colored by experience and resulting expectation which will color the experience, ie, make it's reality illusional. To be aware one is aware results in a person. ( the "I AM" factor i call the watcher)

Second statement...no person, no experience. Exactly!! This results in no experiencer. When awareness, not mind, is predominant and one is not thinking they are aware of being aware, there is no experiencer just aware. This does not preclude there is no perception.

Adjacent ( for lack of a better word) to THIS perceptional awareness is the open mind, allowed to entertain and pay note to what the senses are transmitting. As an open mind it holds that all things are possible tho all are not possible to perceptional ability as perception by the senses is limited to thier field of ability. In short, this awareness without an experiencer can actualy percieve the mind at work.

An open mind can entertain possabilities beyond the realm of the senses. i cannot read the calendar from here without my glasses...does that mean i do not hold the possability there are dates on it because i can't see them? Again i am talking about relative reality, that is reality which can exist only by consciousness lending sense perception,and mind and mind's judgements to it. Normal, paranormal, a coin with both sides, and an experiencer of these things is relative reality, not one is more real then the other since flat out consciousness makes no distinctions.

Within the paranormal perameters are there not those who claim to have abilities they do not? This is my reason for not buying into all of it.

There can be awareness with no mind, but there can be no mind without awareness.

Chippingaway...exactly my point. Is anything "normal" to you? Then there are also paranormal and abnormal. As long as there are "things" to "buy into"...you are still in your mind.

The point of the article was to open people's mind to see everything as the "norm" (or nothing).

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May your awareness be perfection

Malcomb, so glad your back!!

It has appeared to me (most of my brief life so far) that those who feel the need to defend their position, also feel threatened by anyone whose position is different. Debates however do give all an equal opportunity to let their survival instincts express themselves.

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Only Love Prevails,
Don

E.H. said

Strange phenomena have been reported in various experiments by quantum physicists, such as, the observer will influence the outcome of the experiment. Just by observing. Different observers will influence the outcome in different ways.
So there is at least a hint of scientific evidence that skeptics can alter the outcome , just as those who have faith can also influence the outcome.
We are still with all our "modern" attitude a long way from really knowing how things actually work in our reality.

Dear me. That horrible film "What the BLEEP do We Know?" has a lot to answer for. Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle isn't magic. It makes the perfectly rational case that the act of observation (which always involves some kind of contact) must of necessity have an effect on the thing contacted. And at the quantum level, where things are extremely small, that effect would of necessity be very large by comparison. This isn't "strange phenomena." It's a completely expected outcome.
And sometimes I will agree, but any alteration in the outcome would of necessity be the result of some action taken by reason of the faith of the person holding it, not by virtue of the faith alone. Of that latter, as I continually point out to deafening silence, there is no evidence.
Now this is really very funny. Do you know why? Because if you read enough posts on this site, or if you sit in a pew in church, or if you go to your local pub for a brew, you will hear no end of people -- lay people, clergy, drunks -- all telling you precisely how things work in our reality. For the things we don't understand by the way, 7.2 times out of 10 it's God or the Devil.

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evangelicalhumanist: Greek "eu"=good and "angelos"=messenger. Spreading the good news of Humanism.

It took thousands of years for people to determine that electricity isn't a spiritual thing, could be understood scientifically and harnessed for use.
Sure human knowledge is doubling faster than ever, but I wouldn't hold my breath as to getting an explanation such as you are looking for.
From my perspective I think that such things as spiritual phenomena are actual events, but I cannot explain them.
The real explanations may be much different than my ideas anyways.
All I ever hope for is open mindedness from those discussing such things, as, at the end of the day, notwithstanding all the amazing experiences of various individuals, there are no experts here, no final say.