Million dollars says there’s no evidence of the supernatural

Almost every time I write something like “There’s no proof of anything beyond the physical” I get challenged by believers in ESP, astral projection, life after death, or other supernatural phenomena.

That’s fine. I love challenges. If I wanted to have everything that I say accepted without question, I wouldn’t be a blogger. Nor would I have been married for thirty-five years.

But here’s the thing: when I say “proof” I mean proof. The real deal. Scientific confirmation. Controlled studies. Replicated studies worthy of being published in a major journal. Proof that makes skeptics into believers.

The James Randi Educational Foundation has a One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge. Yes, a million bucks awaits anyone “who can show, under proper observing conditions, evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event.”

So if you know someone who can demonstrate a paranormal ability, or if you can do this yourself, check out the application procedure. And remember me if you win the prize. Sending 5% my way would be a nice thank-you for cluing you in to the Challenge.

I promise that I’ll put a personalized plate on the convertible Mini that I’ll buy with my share: ESPTRU, or whatever you want.

Now, I realize there are lots of supposed scientific studies that claim evidence of the supernatural. A Church of the Churchless comment led me to the “Science is a method, not a position” blog, where I dutifully clicked away on links that purport to shed light on the blind spots of reductionist materialism.

I wanted to find the proof that I’m looking for. After all, I’m made of matter. And I’m not wild about the prospect of being reduced to nothing when I die. So any evidence to the contrary is going to grab my attention.

Unfortunately, I came away empty-handed, my skepticism still intact. I read about the dog who seems to know when his owner is coming home. I’d seen this feat demonstrated on a TV special and it certainly raises questions. But answers? No.

Ditto with this study of telephone telepathy, also by Rupert Sheldrake. There was a 1 in 20 chance that the results were a statistical fluke. Without replication by independent researchers, telepathy remains highly questionable.

One of Randi’s FAQs is “Scientific papers have been written supporting paranormal events and talents. Therefore, how can you deny them?” His answer:

Scientists can be wrong — sometimes, very wrong. The history of science is replete with serious errors of judgment, bad research, faked results, and simple mistakes, made by scientists in every field. The beauty of science is that it corrects itself by its own nature and design. By this means, science provides us with increasingly clearer views of how the world works. Unfortunately, though science itself is self-correcting, sometimes the scientists involved do not correct themselves. And there is not a single example of a scientific discovery in the field of parapsychology that has been independently replicated. That makes parapsychology absolutely unique in the world of science.

Some say that scientists aren’t willing to even consider evidence for paranormal phenomena. That doesn’t make sense. Scientists are driven by a desire for fame and fortune just like other people. To make a discovery that turns the world upside down—as would solid proof of the supernatural—that’s the dream of most scientists.

Carl Sagan said that one of the most important functions in science is to reward those who disprove our most closely held beliefs. Randi is taking this function literally. A million dollars literally.

There’s no excuse for not taking the Randi Challenge. Claus Larsen has come up with an answer to the most common excuses, such as “I don’t do this for personal gain.” Like he says, you can always give away the million dollars to a worthy cause.

May I suggest my Mini-Cooper Convertible Fund?

Comments

[Roger]

Brian;
This Saturday morning, I am at the central library in the city that I live. This PC is available for my use for one hour. It's quiet here now. My use of this PC is available for up to four hours per day. When I bring up your blog, are you collecting a fee? Ok, Ok, I know I'm being silly.

This morning, I was hoping to begin my own personal investigation into the Realm of Nothing. Likewise, the analogy of the Radio. Both sound interesting. Both sound fascinating.

If the Radio is symbolic of the One, is the Receiver within the Radio, the Sub-Conscious Mind? Hopefully, I'm on the correct train of thought.

Does the analogy extend to the Radio Waves that are transmitted to the Radio? Does the analogy extend further to the Radio Tower with Attached Radio Station?

Is the One, or the Nothing of the Oneness, capable of being explored thru the Sub-Conscious Mind? Am I on the correct train of thought?

If so, I wonder what the Radio Tower/Radio Station symbolizes? Is the standard answer going to be; Nothing?

Is the nature of the Radio Waves, emminating from the Radio Tower to the Radio, explorable? Please don't tell me it's Nothing too.

I'm fascinated with just making Observations. Making observations, I find to be FUN.

If my discussion is incorrect, please feel free to let me know.

Thanks....Roger

[Edward]

Supernatural?

Scientific replication is important when we want to reproduce phenomena. We don't know exactly how the electricity flows through the wires, but since it does over and over, we can exploit the natural tendency.

Has anyone replicated Robert Frost's poetry? Scientifically been able to repeat the construction of this linguistic and semiotic phenomenon over and over? There are other poets, and other poems, but none are these precise communications. The precision is important, because it is the identifying factor.

Has anyone replicated the poise and precision of Ghandi in the lab? Created the identical conditions that lead to peaceful resistance and the ability to communicate that power to others? Yes, there were Milgram's experiments, describing an arc in predictive behaviourism. This indicates that it is possible to design such an experiment.

Sit someone down and tell them they must connect on a profound emotional level with a family member and report... now. Seems unreasonable. Lab experiments are doomed to fail when they are designed to study mental and emotional phenomena that are by definition unique.

Even precise musical reproduction is possible, performer to performer in controlled environments, but the scientific reproduction "feels" lifeless. Can the music that is recognizably Mozart's be created now? Many have tried. Same with literature. "Here's the new Asimov!" But it is not Asimov, it is not his talent and execution and poetic and dialectic together in one manuscript.

Reproduction of natural events is irrelevant to the emotional and spiritual life that is necessitated by the phenomena. I have said before, there is no objective proof that emotions exist, but that is a patently absurd position to take. All we experience of others are the actions - you tell me you are angry, but your anger is imperceptible to me: I see how you act. Happy tears or sad tears? I don't know if you don't tell me.

James Randi is offering a million dollars to a pregnant man.

[Brian]

Edward, as (almost) always your thoughts are mind-provoking and spirit-soaring. I resonate with your caution that replication isn't possible in nature's most mysterious depths.

And yet...

Caution also should extend to those who want to have their supernatural cake and eat it too (not saying you are one of them--you're a cake eater, not a cake saver).

Either we have Mystery or we have Fact. I can accept that the beyond is beyond our understanding. That inexplicable stuff happens. I've had it happen to me. I've gone "Whoa! What was that all about?" and found no answer. Nor even a beginning of an answer.

But often it is said that astrology, or homeopathy, or remote reading, or astral projection, or some other far-out practice is a "science." When I hear that word, I think Fact.

And it's fair to demand proof of Fact (not of Mystery). I'll take my mysticism and spirituality black--devoid of Fact. I'll be happy to drink with others who similarly raise their cups and toast, "Who knows? Certainly not us!"

What gets my philosophical goat is attempts to have it both ways. Let's either get drunk on Spirit through mysticism or stay stone sober through Science.

But to do both at the same time is a downer, a fact I remember from my psychedelic days (when the attempt to appear normal in the presence of a San Jose patrol car, while the world was dripping with colors hallucinogenically, was a real struggle).

Flow or Control. I don't think an "and" connects them.

[Brian]

Roger, sure sounds to me like you're on the right train of thought. Follow those tracks and you'll end up in an interesting place, for sure.

The thing about Nothing is that it also is Everything. Plotinus taught me that, though I suspect it's so obvious I always knew it. Whatever the One is, it is nothing particular, or it wouldn't be everything.

So you flip Nothing over and find Everything. Or, the reverse. Beyond this pancake analogy (which I'm just about to make, so my stomach is doing the writing here) I don't know what to say about your radio metaphor.

I too hope that consciousness can tune in to whatever is broadcasting from the Big Tower on High.

Since I have no idea what frequency to tune into (nor how I'd do the tuning even if I did know the frequency), my own approach is to try to empty my mind of competing "programs" and simply observe what is observable.

[Matthew Cromer]

Brian,

James Randi's offer is a joke. Randi is infinitely biased against the existence of the phenomena he is supposedly investigating.

http://amethodnotaposition.blogspot.com/2006/02/randis-credibility-redux.html

Would you trust Oral Roberts to fairly evaluate the evidence for evolution? Let him put up the money to be paid out based on the judgement of a disinterested third party and then let's see what happens. . .

The combined studies of Jaytee show odds against chance of many thousands to one. This includes data from arch-skeptic Richard Wiseman which fit the pattern perfectly. Sheldrake conducted similar studies with another return-anticipating dog, with similar results of thousands to one against the null hypothesis.

http://www.sheldrake.org/papers/Animals/dogkane.html

You referenced one study of telephone telepathy conducted using a UK pop band for a television special over a single afternoon and cited the results as being only 1/20 against chance. However you ignored Sheldrake's other videotaped studies of telephone telepathy showing combined probability against chance of many millions to one against, which were cited in the same blog post.

http://www.sheldrake.org/papers/Telepathy/calls_video.pdf

You also ignored Richard Biermann's successful replication study, also cited in list of scientific studies referenced on AMNAP.

http://www.sheldrake.org/articlesnew/pdf/Lobach.pdf

It is true that it is difficult to replicate studies in parapsychology. But it is difficult to replicate studies throughout biological, psychological and medical science. There are always very large experimenter effects. This is not a particular flaw of parapsychology experiments.

http://amethodnotaposition.blogspot.com/2005/09/scientific-proof-of-psi-phenomena.html

[Brian]

Matthew, in defense of Randi his web site says that the actual testing would be carried out by an independent third party, and that the claimant gets to approve the research design.

Yes, Randi is a skeptic. But that's what scientists are supposed to be: skeptics. That's how science progresses. "I'll believe it when I see it" is valued over "I'll see it when I believe it."

Well, I'd say inability to replicate is indeed a major flaw of parapsychology experiments. This is what keeps them from being believable. If the paranormal is so abnormal as to be capricious, how can it be considered real?

[Matthew Cromer]

"Well, I'd say inability to replicate is indeed a major flaw of parapsychology experiments. This is what keeps them from being believable. If the paranormal is so abnormal as to be capricious, how can it be considered real?"

I never said that parapsychology experiments couldn't be replicated.

I said that replication is difficult. And that experimenter effects are very strong.

But this is exactly the same case with conventional science studying human beings and other living systems - eg psychology, biology, and medical science. See the beginning of this blog post:

http://amethodnotaposition.blogspot.com/2005/09/scientific-proof-of-psi-phenomena.html

As for Randi, there have been a large number of potential claimants for the $1,000,000 who tried to negotiate reasonable terms for a test, but found that Randi was intractable with setting totally unreasonable test conditions and standards for success.

At this point, the word is out about his duplicity and complete bias, and no serious parapsychologists nor practitioners will have anything to do with him.

So now only the dregs and the frauds attempt to get the prize money.

Randi is a carnival operator. He is not a scientist. Read how he operates when he addresses a real scientist like Rupert Sheldrake:

http://amethodnotaposition.blogspot.com/2005/09/who-do-you-trust.html

Michael Prescott has also written a long essay about James Randi's credibility here:

http://www.skepticalinvestigations.org/exam/Prescott_Randi.htm

Sorry Brian. James Randi is dishonest. He is not a skeptic. He is a dogmatist. No reputable person ought to associate themselves with him and his methods. CSICOP, the paramount "skeptical" organization in the world, had to disassociate itself from him because of his lack of honesty and integrity. So for people to continue to beat the drum of his bogus million dollars offer is quite irrelevant to the existence of psi phenomena. It's rhetoric, not science.

"If the paranormal is so abnormal as to be capricious, how can it be considered real?"

Are you claiming that only things that are well understood and controlled and always repeatable by anyone under any circumstances are real?

[benandante]

Brian, I've become accustomed to your stubborn adherence to the illusion that "science" is a form of "factual" reality. Despite the cognitive dissonance of your reliance on words like "mystery" and "science" -as if antonyms- I am able to resonate with the basis for (most of) your postings. Most of the time I can mentally adjust your insights and commentaries internally and find that your deeper meanings can always be applied to my personal experience. Semantics are semantics, and yet this is a semantic discussion, yes?

After all, I am here engaged at your site. That in and of itself "proves" that I find your blog interesting/thought provoking/educational in a literal and a figurative sense. Could you provide sufficient proof to prove that in a court of law, or public opinion? It's doubtful, although I suspect that my tone, my previous posts and my times of lurking, my choice of words and topics of discussions all provide you with some insights into my sincerity. It comes down to unquantifiable measurements, Brian.

Similarly, because father's were unable to prove (or disprove) through DNA the question of paternity did not make their assertion false, no matter how long ago the question was posed. Before the technology of measurement existed to make an assertion a "fact" was it merely an assertion? Of course not, and just as barometers allowed men and women to deduce that it was about to rain (or was raining), if the right individual took a a simple walk outdoors they would have provided the same (accurate!!) information.

This reliance on current technologies able to provide measurement borders on zealotry, if you would only step back and reevaluate your bias honestly. The insistence that the invention of your yardstick proves that inches and feet and miles are factual realities is laughable. Reliance on technology to validate human experiences is a belief system that spiritually eats its own head.

Framed with that understanding and insight, the content and tone of your missive, and your replies, make clear that you and other science-ists are clearly just as "drunk" as the rest of us are. Unless your position is that injesting a man-made and carefully ENGINEERED substance that causes a form of inebriation is technically a form of sobriety, you are just as lit as the rest of us. And as they say in 12 step meetings, a drug is a drug is a drug... and I would add even when it is all dressed up as a rational thought. ;)

Cheers,
JH NY

[5th element]

The properties of light seem to provide a legal loop hole for esp properties. ie. exsisting outside of time and space. Also, maybe particle entanglement.

I tried hard not to believe in esp or sycronicity but, it's hit in face so hard a number of times, I don't know what to think.!!

[Brian]

benandante, I will indeed plead guilty to believing that "'science' is a form of 'factual' reality," as you put it.

I'm not sure what you implied by the quotation marks around "science" and "factual." I assume this points to those words not meaning anything. Or at least not what they normally are taken to mean.

Guess I'm just not enlightened enough to be in touch with whatever reality exists beyond this one. I'm typing on a computer made possible by science. I got my breakfast today out of a refrigerator made possible by science.

I'm going to get a physical exam next week from a physician who, I believe, knows scientific facts that will benefit me. I'm going to get some blood tests for the same reason.

Yes, I agree with you, and other commenters, that not everything in life can be captured or measured by the scientific method. Every scientist I've ever read or talked to says the same thing. No disagreement there.

What I don't understand, and probably never will understand, is why people deny what seems so obvious: that science can indeed tell us a lot about the material world. Every day each of us relies on scientific advances, yet many still say "it's all illusion."

I have no problem with someone saying, "I've experienced such and such, and it's beyond words or proving." However, as soon as this person adds, "And you should believe it," a massive contradiction rears its head.

Subjective and objective reality are different. Now, I realize that post-modernists would disagree--it's all just illusion and seeming. And maybe it is, viewed from some exalted realm of reality.

Thing is, I'm down here. And so is everyone else, so far as I know. Those who claim to be in touch with higher truths can't prove it. So I'm willing to accept their subjective authority (just as I'll accept a claim of "I saw a fairy" so long as the claimant doesn't ask me to believe in the objective truth of it).

But what rankles me is when people simultaneously say (1) the paranormal is subjective and beyond the domain of science, and (2) you should believe in the paranormal.

Either the paranormal is a mystical mystery, or it's a scientific fact (unproven, to me, means it's a mystery). Show me the facts, or I'll continue to view the supernatural as mystery.

[benandante]

Brian, apparently I have something to prove to myself because I am going to try to bite into the sandwich one more time.

"Either the paranormal is a mystical mystery, or it's a scientific fact (unproven, to me, means it's a mystery). Show me the facts, or I'll continue to view the supernatural as mystery."

OKAY. Now let me paraphrase so you and I can discuss the same thing (and my replacements are in caps since I have no italic function, sorry to shout):
'Either SCIENCE is a mystical mystery, or it's a scientific fact (FALLIBLE, to me, means it's a mystery). Show me PERFECT MEASUREMENT, OR A WAY OF MEASURING ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING THAT EXISTS WITH NO GAPS OR MISTAKES, or I will continue to view THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD as mystery.'

(I would further replace "Mystery" with "belief system" but I think we are communicating ok with that concept.)

Get it? I think it might require an openmindedness that I just assume everyone is capable of since I am capable of it. No exalted throne, I have skin and hair and problems. I've felt both joy and pain but never lost sight of the idea that they were all part of a world created for me right now in this place and time.

I cannot seperate my experience of God when I stop talking about the Divine. That fridge was created by "science"? If your ability to reach into a machine in your kitchen and pull out perfectly preserved and prepped food before cooking it with another incredible invention without feeling anything like awe, then I truly feel sorry for you. I don't usually put much stock in past lives, but maybe I had to stoke a fire and butcher a few cows in my past lives. Or maybe I can extend the wonder I feel looking at a tree or a painting to the wonders of the sewer system or a rubber band.

I confess: I don't believe in science, Brian. I think that like most things that are considered and taught as fact today, in ten years science will revise their findings to the point they contradict themselves.

Now go back to that paragraph and replace fact with truth. Replace science with organized religion. Get my point? Brian, trusting in science is good up to a point, just as trusting in Monsignor is good, just as trusting in my yogi is good, just as trusting my town's religious institutions are good.

I cannot believe you do not get what I am trying to say so inelegantly. I wish I were not so inept. Are you being wily, or obtuse, or pretending to not get this on purpose? I just cannot reconcile a mind like yours not grasping MY point, despite my flawed style of communication.

Measuring a thing does not prove anything. It proves that you have devised a way to measure it.

All science does is make up ways to measure stuff.

Saying "I measured this, so it proves this is a FACT" is magical thinking. "If I cast my horoscope and it looks favorable I can go to the shore for vacation" is not any wackier an example of magical thinking than "If the doctor cannot find any reason for my symptoms then I guess I will just ignore the awful heartburn I cannot get rid of". In fact, astrologers don't kill people, but doctors denying the pain of people with GERD condemned at least four people I know to horrifying, painful deaths because their patients BELIEVED IN MEDICINE AND BELIEVED IN SCIENCE.

I was under the impression that this site was all about independent thinking. But you insist upon dependence on a finite set of arbitrary and shifting principles, because the bigots don't mention God?!?

"I have no problem with someone saying, "I've experienced such and such, and it's beyond words or proving." However, as soon as this person adds, "And you should believe it," a massive contradiction rears its head."

Yeah, I know what you mean. Holy cow do I know what you mean.

[Nick]

Brian
Forgive me for what sounds like a personal jibe, but you really are getting silly with your scientific faith.
Let’s offer anyone a million dollars who can prove the following:

That so called objective reality really exists and is not just a phantasm produced in the brain or is not a virtual reality trip produced by extraterrestrial software (amongst other far out philosophical speculations).

Prove that evolution is wholly randomly determined and down to chance.

Prove that the evolution of life is wholly a fluke and that there is no purpose whatsoever behind any of it.

Prove that wholly objective insentient (supposedly) matter gives rise to wholly subjective conscious states of mind.

Prove that the big bang was a pure chance random event.

Sorry Brian, but your faith in scientism is fast determining that this blog name should be changed. To something like;

"Church of the true scientism. Home for those who like to endlessly lambast religious faith whilst conveniently ignoring their own faith in science".

Who on this blog has ever suggested that the supernatural is the answer to anomalous phenomena? Many readers might suggest that it is the supra-natural that allows for such things. A cosmology and paradigm that suggests that matter has ultra subtle dimensions that can contain annomalous phenomena. To deny that such occur is frankly extremely silly and is starting to show that you have sold out to materialism.

Incidentally Professor David Bohm thought along these lines, that matter exists along an energetic continuum that allows for ultra subtle realms of existence, with no one realm reducible to the other.

If academic credentials matter to you then check out Professor Brian Josephson at Cambridge University for a truly scientific exploration of anomalous phenomena rather than the ridiculous close minded jibing of Mr Randi.

http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~bdj10/

When you or any other true believers in scientism can prove my questions above then I will concede. As that is unlikely to ever happen then I suggest that you are being over confident in your new faith.

[Roger]

Hi benandante;

Long time no see!!! How have you been? Trust, everything is ok. Best wishes to you.......

[benandante]

Roger, things are great. Glad to hear from you as well. This site reminds me of a really great coffeeshop/bookstore, there are people that come and go and a few regulars who help the newbies along as they are getting their sea legs. I feel as though I am mentally walking in the door of a place that is filled with learning and comeraderie and most of all, a love for growing and learning.

Namaste, hope is well with you,
JH NY

[Roger]

Hi benandante;
Thanks for your reply. I think I understand what you mean by Newbie. Being a Newbie is FUN. There is something Special about being on the Outside Looking In. Once I am WITHIN, will it still be FUN? Am I one of those Types that's more Fulfilled by the Process? Hmmmm.....Food for Thought. Hopefully, we can chat from time to time. Best wishes to you.
Roger

[spooky]

Mmh, so thats what I am here; a 'newbie'...What does that 'bie' part mean? I am from somewhere in europe so excuse my English. I might make silly mistakes, or just miss the point of a discussion because I misread some. Anyway, you all discussing science in relation to..ya, what...ESP, paranormal stuff? Proof! What is proof? Is it that 'thing' that goes for all? That is repeatable at all times and true for all of us in general? I am an artist and like science I do research to what reality is. Not all artist have that question while all scientist are alike in this. About proof artist and scientist are also different; a scientist does not create reality. Most artist create illusions,like paintings of sunsets and stuff (very boring art I think).
Well; here is what happens when you look at a painting of Robert Ryman (very famous guy); read this, then check his work and see for your self if it was worth the effort (also in relation to proof).
Most painters create images, illusions on a canvas that pull you so to speak in a different world. The painting has a narrative, it refers to something that is not present at where you are when looking at the painting; the galerie, museum,etc. A painting of a sunset gives you the impression of the artist view of the phenomena. The artist might show you his way of translating actual color into his way of painting, or the artist gives it a more poetical 'tone', maybe the sunset is more a memory, then it is a daily cycle. What ever the artist ment to say; it is subjective. It might be good, to your taste or not, but it refers to something else then what it actually is; a painting. Robert Ryman his paintings are not a picture, and they are not abstract paintings(!, thats important to remember). He says that when he paints a line he does not actually paints a line like in a representation of what we know as a line (or sunset).He just puts paint on an area of the canvas and then stops. At the edge of the paint to another edge of paint or the lack of it exist a line. Just like the edge of a table or so. Then what has this to do with proof? Well, his paintings he calls 'realism' not to confuse with paintings that look like photography; how ever skilled such paintings are; it is illusion. just like 'real' photography is illusion; it refers to 'reality' while it is just a picture of it. The proof here is that the one who is looking at Rymans works of art, is looking at paint, at canvas, at the wall behind the canvas, the whole room is part of the canvas, the light is part of the canvas; not of the picture, there is no picture ,no illusion. One becomes aware of 'viewing' and that is the meaning of his work; not some referent we allready know. Becoming aware of 'viewing' at that moment is very intense. That might count for something, but there is more. My experience of looking at his work is slightly different then yours. Still we look at the same paint; we cannot discuss the different meanings the artist might have in our opinion. He ment us to SEE , just to see what is there instead of vague meanings from himself or us.In other words; he created reality, not that different from a table or whatever. He proofs, to me anyway, that we share the objective outside world, that we see the same things and yet we differ sometimes a lot, sometimes we dont differ at all. Meaning that we are incapable of proving to be right about something but are capable of saying what one is seeing; dialog exists because we are quit similar. But can anyone proof that his painting is ugly or beautiful? Do we need that proof for our experience, for our next step or choice to make? I dont, science teaches me new way's to look at the universe, but they proof to me like Ryman's paintings proof to me; I am aware of certain things.Science says 1+1:2, Rayman says piant and paint is more paint.Both have beauty. Sometimes I become so absorbed by the idea that all matter is just frequencies that my view changes; literally light becomes intense and form dissolves a little! Am I psychotic then? No, I just tuned in a part of reality that I dont use daily. Its very impractical since no-one else does that at the same moment; if we would, we would see things different globaly and start inventing new words, new mathematics and before you know it we would call that objective and start this discussion all over again, but on a different level then we are now. Would it be beter there? Not perse, but thats another discussion. phoe, sorry, I wrote a lot...

[spooky]

I went back to your first comments about proof. I understand what you mean, despite all my beautiful expiences out side the box it would help to have them as an objective truth. A science. Or some scientific explanation. The thing is that I doubt my own wish here, or it least in the form my wish exists. Why do I want to know this through science, through such a form of proof. If you have read what I wrote just here before you might see that art can be very real; non-subjective and yet I will have a different experience of it then you. Thats a reality. We might agree on 1+1:2 but even there we experience it different. How? Well, the numbers remember me of something maybe, or I look more at the shape of them and you more at their mathematical significance. Still, we do agree on the outcome....Is that it? The outcome of It All? Hows that important? Will that enlighten me? Another (Belgium) artist works in a procces that continious always, there is no ending. When she works in her studio and then brings her work the museum, she reacts immediatly to the new surroundings; the work changes she says because the place is other then before. That is true. So again, here is some-one very occupied with the present time and 'viewing'. Here work unfoldes in a continium. There is now answer of general truths as in science; she even avoids that because she says 'reality is unrepeateble' only the present counts, because here, now, I exist, you exist, the the work exists. The past time is memory, the future never happened'. Sounds like Zen , hu? And yet she is a post-modern artist very well informed about philosphy, science and history. As a spectater you can dive in to her instalations, film projections, foto's and sculptural spaces. Her work looks like nothing really, only the fact that it is active makes you get exited over card board stuff and vague lightnings. Nothing of her work is important or especially beautyful. You dont hang it above your couch. Maybe she is right. Because this way she questions reality directly, in experience. Ofcourse there is also theory, and reflection, as in all good artwork. But its momentum, to be able to theorize about it means to experience it first. Why? Because thats the only place one can understand, validate her work. That's the only place, moment of proof. Am I getting here somewhere? It is just my thoughts you know, I have similar questions as you do.
spooky.

[Brian]

Spooky, I do know what you're talking about. At least, I think I do. Like you say, it's difficult to get into someone else's head. And maybe that's the point.

Perhaps spirituality is all about getting inside our own head. Of experiencing reality as created...by us.

That's one of the themes Don Cupitt strikes in his book, "After God: The Future of Religion." He speaks of religion as art, as an ever-changing reflection of how we humans relate to the cosmos and to each other.

A while back I wouldn't have liked such an idea. I used to have a firmly realist view of, well, reality. There is objective truth and it is possible to know it.

Well, there may still be objective truth. But more and more it seems to me that each of us filters reality through our own lens. So, as Cupitt says, why not embrace this subjectivity whole-heartedly, rather than try to push it away?

We each become spiritual artists, expressing our own experience of whatever "spirit" means to us. Like you said, that can be ever-changing, ever-fresh, ever-unbound by dogma or theology.

Sounds good to me.

[spooky]

:....this discussion starts to sound like the nihilist discussion ... anyway, you sayd that thing about getting into your own head, embracing our subjectivity .. mmh, yes but I try to find something else. I am not sure what; I feel sort of stock on certain 'modes' of thinking and 'naming'. Phoe! Lets try...In seeking of the truth one wants objectivity; proof of some kind. Then (lets asy things bluntly, things are more subtle ofcourse) science with its objective modes don't seem to bring us the knowledge we seek: it learns us a lot and helps, but, well, something is missing. Then we turn to meditation, we learn to focus and concentrate deeply and somehow we learn, again, a lot. Still something is missing. So fact based science as such did not work completely, only partly. Meditation based on focus and innerconcentration did not work completely, only partly. Perhaps I am not patient enough; can be! However, what about a third try out: openness. Meaning that I follow a certain idea, gutfeel that I only resently got because I tried the first to options of science and meditation. What if we already are in a state of bliss. Of oneness but our realisation of that is blocked not because we dont meditate enough but because of lack of being Present. just being present in / out / whatever. Ai, phoe again, I havent a clue. But lately I just try stop trying, hard as it is, and just be; flashes of insight and lightness happen, actually like deep concentrated meditation brought sometimes. But it appears in daily life! Thats a significant difference.

[benandante]

Spooky, I think our experince is similar. I approached metaphysical study in the same way I approached algebra: if it is not applicable to daily life, why bother me with the stuff? Because of that insistence that it "be useful", the meditation and new thought and other workshops I attended delivered real and tangible results - I would meditate on a person's name and drive directly to their home using the unconscious/superconscious/intuition. Healing and oracular work I approached in the same way, out of the arrogance of youth and blissful ignorance that so many struggle for decades to experience even one tangible event. Why me? why not me, I guess.

When life is an act of prayer, when washing my hair is a form of mediatation, when walking down the stairs is yoga and absentmindedly reaching for the casserole dish without oven mitts (again) requires immediate transmutation of the heat before it affects the tissue, then the idea that there is a "real" world is as irrelevant as the idea that I might be happier living as a frog.

There may be a world that is removed from my spirit, but I have as much connection to that reality as I do my amphibian skin.

Jeanine

[spooky]

..my amphibian skin seems thick however; sometimes I flow, in that flow I 'loose' my worldly taught reason, but instead I am aware deeply of movements, of what is to come next, of other peoples psychi (weird enough, not my own)Things appear more as energy then as form and I am an endless part of an endless universe. Stuff like that. Then, it stops for months and I only live in a 'normal' mode of living; like most of us do; pretty unaware...Upset, happy, angry, frustrated, dreamy; aah, for the record, I dont mean others are stupid...Its just that I dont know how to controle it; while the answer probably is; dont even try to controle it! Just BE!

[Catherine Muller]

Dear all,

I’d like to request that we agree to disagree on certain aspects of this discussion. I confess at this point I’m growing wary of the stance of ‘Sant Mat is bunk and vegetarian is misguided and sooner or later when you’re older, Catherine, you’re going to see the light’. (Pun intended). It strikes me one is just going to reach a dead-end where this is concerned as it’s a case of each to his / her own. So, let’s live and let live.

Instead, I’d like to offer this email from a very dear elderly gentleman called David written to me in 2007. He has been a source of some illuminating information. ( I can provide you with his contact details if you wish to engage with him directly. ) I'm posting it here, because the super-natural is the only category in which it fits. Brian says he requests 'real deal' proof of the supernatural. Well, how else does one explain this (below)?

It is delightful for a range of reasons: firstly, it’s funny and 2008 has been a rough year and we all need to laugh a little; secondly; it raises a range of compelling philosophical and metaphysical questions around inter-species communication across continents and dimensions.

What you need to know is that David is an animal intuitive who can communicate long-distance telepathically. He lives in the USA in New Mexico.

Here goes:

“ Here’s a funny story out of my case book. Last fall a Lady emailed me from Rwanda about her sick chicken. The lady was a New Zealander on a year long aid mission to help Rwandans. Her Chicken was named Margaret Thatcher. I truly don’t get many chickens for healing. So this was a first. Visited with Margaret, not knowing what kind of reception I would get. I had no idea chickens were so sensitive. It was like Margaret immediately sensed my presence and started telling me her trouble was something stuck in her throat. So I went into her throat (we can do that when in the Other World) and found, of all things … a chicken bone. You know like the kind that get stuck in dog’s throats.

Wrote back to the human, who immediately email back that a neighbor’s dog has jumped a fence and ran off or killed a couple of her chickens. She got some bread to feed Margaret and Margaret coughed up the bread and the chicken bone.

Done. Case dismissed. Except it wasn’t. Two days later got a frantic email from Margaret’s “Mother”. Margaret is lost, can I find her? No sooner did I reach out, and there was Margaret wondering where I had been, and basically said she was looking for me. I was able to get something of a description of where she was. Margaret’s Mother knew what I described and went and brought
Margaret back home.

As an amateur I’ve studied quantum physics extensively to gain a little glimmer of what is really taking place. In World War II I was in Intelligence in the South Pacific. A number of displaced Chinese residents and a Malayan introduced me to what I have since learned was Taoist, shamanic visualization and control of our body envelopes. Later back in this country I worked with 5 of the Native American tribes and expanded my knowledge. “

All the best, C
Catherine Muller
Email: [email protected]
Johannesburg
South Africa

[Catherine Muller]

Hi there,

And here's another story that taps into the supernatural. I'm posting it separately because it's not quite as humorous as the above chicken story and about something quite different this time: dream messages.

Here goes:

Two years ago I went for some hypnotherapy sessions which were, quite frankly, great. Lots of inner child work and lucid visualisations.

During the time of my hpnotherapy sessions I had a dream that was very vivid. In it, a girl (for the sake of this story and for the sake of confidentiality in case she googles her name and finds this) I shall call her Donna Appleton. In my dream she told me she had been sexually abused by her father. She told me what suburb she lived in and it was all incredibly clear and precise in detail. I don't often have dreams where someone is giving me such particularly detailed information. So often one has a sense of something in dreams, but this was like a data down-load. I also have to state that in waking life I have never met a Donna Appleton (to the best of my knowledge).

I woke the next morning and immediately went to the phone directly. Sure enough, in the phone book in her suburb was a D. Appleton. I phoned the number, my heart was pounding. A lady answered and I asked: does Donna Appleton live there? The woman replied she used to but not anymore. I made up some nonsense story about trying to trace an old school friend, and she revealed that D. Appleton was Donna's dad (he was still alive) and that Donna had since got married and moved out of home ... But sure enough, this was Donna's childhood home.

She was a very sweet old dear and I was overcome with a terribly sad feeling that if my dream was true - and up until this point all the details about the name and the suburb were bang on the money - this poor woman probably never knew her daughter had been molested.

I hung up because this all proved a bit too much for me (my sincerest apologies, Mrs Appleton).

The next week I told Thomas, my hypnotherapist, what had happened and he deduced there must have been some kind of informational realm that I tapped into where I got these details about Donna and her life. Thomas cautioned me not to interfere and to simply let fate take it's course.

Most curious, I tell you ...

All the best, C
Catherine Muller