I have visited many, many sites dealing with psionics of varying kinds. Some of them are really informative. some, not so much. All of them have people who care, but what they truly care about can be debated.
I still visit a few of them, to kinda keep up with what's going on with those members who I feel are in it for the right reasons, with the right attitudes. One thing I've noticed is that there are some very real reasons that most don't seem to make it long-term.
One reason is semantics. People get hung up on wording instead of focusing on what's actually being said. It's similar to not reading a letter because you didn't like the postage stamp. It's a terrible thing when someone can't get help with genuine questions because another doesn't like their particular wording. If anyone really had concrete knowledge of exactly what's going on, why, and could teach it to others, forums like this wouldn't exist, the mechanism would have a fancy scientific name attached to it, and Homeland Security would be hosting job fairs for it using "micro-pk only" applications. Since that hasn't happened, it's pretty safe to assume that all of it is speculation on one level or another. As if this stuff isn't hard enough to decipher as it is...
Double standards are another killer. There is a plague of double standards that have infected many of the OECs around. The usually involved new members and old members interacting with eachother. I'm specifically talking about the need for new members to accept that older members have "achieved", their ways of achieving it, and the revelation of the "mechanism" behind it. I can say that I have more respect for someone who says "I don't know" rather than someone pretending to have a fool-proof method that can't seem to even produce a crappy video to demonstrate. If a newbie posts a video, it's discredited. If an older member posts one, it's touted as the gold-standard. I would elaborate more, but visitation to some of the older communities will show this in short order.
Ego is the biggest of the lot, usually tied in with double standards. This section will get more than one paragraph. This is usually tied to communities where there is a small core of long-term members that prop eachother up against anyone else going against the grain of their specific personal belief systems. Usually, this is backed-up by other long-term members chiming in to tell the new person to do a variety of things that normally involve the following: Read older posts (a great idea), read older posts made specifically by the heirarchy (potentially a good idea), and don't ask questions that may upset the balance of power of the heirarchy (WTF?).
Method Ego is a killer. Most people want to tell you how to get things done. This can save time, but can also lead to inflexibility within the system, resulting in fewer ideas coming form fewer sources. Add the inability to question the core members about things and the death of the community is well on it's way. It's not that much different from a book about Stalin I just read, concerning his methods and how he went about making them work. Water that doesn't flow becomes stagnant. Stagnant water stinks.
I am bringing these things up to potentially help others new to the OECs to realize when they're seeing unhealthy behavior. All of these things are present in communities that have fallen by the wayside or are heading that way. All of them a reversible, but most likely will not be. There are egos to soothe.
One thing that really opened my eyes to these things was this small, but worthy, pk forum. The video links show things and explain points of view with healthy skepticism. They don't brow-beat their specific method and it's purported mechanism. They flat-out tell you to find your own path.
Posting a different method of action or proposing different ideas doesn't get you castrated here. The practice is viewed as a personal journey. That is very different from most OECs and doesn't allow for personal egos to easily take root. I am thankful for that direction.
Postings between community members here can show that allowances are encourage for personal discovery, regardless of differing mechanisms and personal opinions. I can't see most of the unhealthy behaviors coming to rest here if things continue this way.
I agree with what you say, but only to my own understanding of what I've read. Though there are some videos and forum members that are a little misguided or even seem to be misguiding the curious on purpose even in this small "OEC". My interest has dropped in psionics because any paranormal occurance that I've seen either in video or in life appears and often turns out to be delusional.
What angers me most is as I become more educated in psychology I notice the subliminal messages that are broadcasted in major cities and other urbanized areas via television, radio, and the internet. I think the forum should be focusing more on strengthening our psyche and our internal mental functions rather than trying to force something external that we have far less control over.
When we search for these "powers" and unprecedented abilities... We're simply searching for answers to our life questions. Attempting to find meaning or the answer to our existence. Why do we attempt to find meaning this way? We all somehow feel this innate importance as to why we exist... I feel this is an urge felt by intelligent people, but their curiosity leaves them much more gullible and vulnerable to misleading information. This is an effective method to keep the more adaptable and questioning intellectuals boxed up and unheard.
Why do we really search for these abilities? It'd give us attention? Power over others? Answers to the inexplicable experiences of our personal lives? Perhaps it'd finally let us know if we're truly crazy or not.
When things happen that cannot be explained, why do we come up with explanations that don't match up but continue to feed off of the misleading sources? I applaud those that experiment at home for their ingenuity and the attitude of needing an answer for their questions... But we need to do it scientifically. Science and technology are inevitable our future and will surely encounter evolutions just as humans do throughout the ages, mostly evidence through the psyche as language, music, and even thoughts and learning.
Sitting in your living-room with a webcam and various gadgets hoping to get a result is not collecting any useful data or even promoting any learning. You're simply looking for something you can't explain and attempting to give it an explanation. Scientific observations should follow scientific method. Although we all do similar methods of finding out information, we all often skip hypothesizing what will happen before we experiment... skipping finding the controlled variables and observing the variables that do occur. I often find experimenters automatically assuming they have control over the situation without knowing or considering which physics actually do control the situation, and conjecture a ridiculous explanation without any evidence or variables.
So let's not sit around and dawdle in mysticism, let's seek to educate ourselves with the known before we experiment with the unknown.
-- Edited by spizzazle on Monday 13th of July 2009 01:29:57 AM
-- Edited by spizzazle on Monday 13th of July 2009 01:34:07 AM
I agree with some of what you're saying, for sure.
Steeling ourselves against advertising and whatnot seems to be outside the scope of these forums. I'd figured the advertising thing out before I studied anything related to psychology. At least some organizations are finally be held liable for some false advertising, but get away with it far too often. A good one is the Litigation Project http://www.cspinet.org/litigation/index.html
I've taken years of Biotechnology classes, chemistry courses, and mathematics courses. Anyone taking those courses, who looks at them bluntly, realizes that everything in our "scientific" world operates on speculative observation. They often know how to do something. The rest of the time, they sometimes know what works, but know more about what doesn't. The "why" is often what eludes them. A good example of this inserting a plasmid into a host cell. They know how to do it (I've done it multiple times). Why it works is nothing more than speculation, but they have multiple methods that produce results. If they know how it worked, the success rate would be much, much higher than it is.
If scientists (including psychologists) can't fit something into their models, they often try to come up with other explanations (which is the basis for the Scientific Method). The really good scientists will tell you they have no idea of what's going on when they really don't. And most of the time, they don't. That's why there are so few scientific laws (as they are immutable) and plenty of theories.
I am not looking for Life's answers, though, or power over others. Simple human potential that I think is there. Life's questions won't fully be answered until we die and see what's really going on. Everything else is a sort of speculation. Until we know what's going on, we can only try to find the methods than work and try to improve upon them or explain them better.
To control the experiments to the degree needed to establish concrete evidence isn't possible for the average person. Any experiment is fallible. There are too many variables to control. It's more akin to a psychology experiment than a laboratory experiment. This is a psychologically driven area and that automatically means that someone has to interpret the results using their views of reality. The error is built into the system from the beginning.
If someone wants to build a lab onto this house that can control all of the variables, then by all means, I'll use it. I'll even take them out to dinner. But until that happens, I'll produce the best result that I can with what I have available. We really can't do anything more than that, can we?
I think an important approach is to create simple reasonably controlled experiments that others if they are so inclined can try and duplicate. When this is done people can start to come together and agree on exactly what is happening. In some cases Ie Tesla it took people a long time to understand what he was trying to show. Thomas Edison tried his hardest to convey him as an evil Charloten. This same Edison was a literal tombstone for many other ideas that came out in his era.
Before this happened men and women that knew of herbal healing and mind body energies were classed under a Chirstian concept of devil worshiper Tortured and murdered by the establishment.
I would write more on this however am running late for work.
If history has taught us nothing we are doomed to repeat it.
I believe a community/forum can really help the group that want to share ideas about training the mind and introspection into the psyche if that is what they seek however the only thing that is really going to help the individual is themselves by putting in the time be it training, research, meditation etc....
"Sitting in your living-room with a webcam and various gadgets hoping to get a result is not collecting any useful data or even promoting any learning. You're simply looking for something you can't explain and attempting to give it an explanation. Scientific observations should follow scientific method. Although we all do similar methods of finding out information, we all often skip hypothesizing what will happen before we experiment... skipping finding the controlled variables and observing the variables that do occur. I often find experimenters automatically assuming they have control over the situation without knowing or considering which physics actually do control the situation, and conjecture a ridiculous explanation without any evidence or variables."
I wanted to comment on this Idea. "Sitting in your living-room with a webcam and various gadgets hoping to get a result is not collecting any useful data or even promoting any learning." Although I am not seeing this from your perspective. There seem to be a lot of assumptions and generalizations in this idea. Is this based on personal experience? or personal opinion of what others are doing? "You're simply looking for something you can't explain and attempting to give it an explanation." Is this really how you see this?
"Although we all do similar methods of finding out information, we all often skip hypothesizing what will happen before we experiment... skipping finding the controlled variables and observing the variables that do occur. I often find experimenters automatically assuming they have control over the situation without knowing or considering which physics actually do control the situation, and conjecture a ridiculous explanation without any evidence or variables."
Ok those were my Questions I am just going to give one perspective. In my line of work I diagnose hypothesize and experiment it is my job to do these things I am successful in what I do and am paid well to do it. I find that I am my own worst critic. I like the challenge of testing different variables and I have tested every intelligent skeptical argument given to the phenomenon and found it wanting. This of course is something that I share with others and invite them to experiment with as well. Power is knowledge and for someone to tell me that I believe I have powers makes me giggle inside.
I believe I have a gift to be able to see a different perspective I believe I have the drive to practice to focus to pay attention to study. I believe the pk effect will one day be able to be fully explained as a natural law. One does not need to be able to tell you how muscles work to be able to run and to push tin on a stick one does not need to write a paper or get lab tested. One simply tests ones theories until one finds a better one. If it is something that drives you then train. Getting frustrated at not getting better is like the music student who wants to learn the guitar but never practices and wonders why they have not gained better understanding of their instrument.
I understand the frustration at all the propaganda the illusions and the straight out fiction but really your the only one that has the power to allow that to affect you in a way that creates anger. I know I have felt foolish from time to time realizing a fantastic video was an illusion however this doesn't change what I have witnessed experienced and observed. When I do believe something to be true I share because I know those who know what I know will gain perspective from it. It is in no way an attempt to fool. But hey that's just one perspective there are so many out there just about anything is conceivable.
Spizzazle this is not meant to be aimed at you but to the ideas that you have presented that personally I have witnessed others have. I just wanted to add one perspective.
-- Edited by Ro on Tuesday 14th of July 2009 01:01:11 PM
"I believe I have a gift to be able to see a different perspective" is only delusion. Your experiences still govern how you go about everything, including the random coincidences and odd relationships in the texts you read that force you to mold new perspective at will. It is merely a skill that came with development.
I admit the human race is onto something with understanding energy but it takes far more understanding of the geometry, physics, and overall nature of the universe in order to grasp these concepts. If we haven't solved the universe and understood it as a race... Why do individuals feel they were born with an innate importance? Is it not the nature of any living being to think that way? Why do we humans wander aimlessly and by our own will when we feel this importance, when we should be collectively involving ourselves with communities rather than becoming hermits alienating ourselves from the world hoping for drastic change that will satisfy our importance and integrate us into society? Do deception and intelligence have to go hand-in-hand in order for us to feel alive?
Though you may feel transcendent by being able to "change perspective" it is only a intangible parallel to growth. What I don't understand is... why do people continue to perpetuate false videos in hopes of feeling more attached to this universe when they are clearly anchored within an illusion to begin with? Cleverly beguiling themselves into believing that one blip of information that made their psyche ravaged with the mental viruses of "what if" sorts.
We can all sit here and act professional and calm while we defend what we hold true to ourselves but we will never truly understand each other's perspectives. This struggle to find understanding is life... And I respect anyone with a goal beyond the present but I will always question their motives.
I don't necessarily let people anger me, since in my measly lifespan the only thing that angers me are the actual negative actions and their consequences that others proliferate for whatever selfish reasons. I understand how weak most people can be, especially those that are oblivious to 90% of the actual facts that we do discuss in this forum, and how they can falter and submit to the cyclic misunderstanding that is their mind. In short, people don't anger me, only their negative actions that others have to suffer for.
"Why do we humans wander aimlessly and by our own will when we feel this importance, when we should be collectively involving ourselves with communities rather than becoming hermits alienating ourselves from the world hoping for drastic change that will satisfy our importance and integrate us into society?"
I don't know how much of this I can relate to however I will say sometimes meditation requires one to withdraw and focus within to find answers. If the world wants to alienate someone for having an idea that is outside of the known then then it will it always has. Those historical Titans who have believed in their research have made significant changes to our understanding.
I actually consider that everyone has gifts that allow them to excel in their Dharma. I consider everyone of equal importance in their right to live their life however this does not mean that I consider a person who has no interest in pursuing research more evolved than one that does. ie the medical opinion of a carpenter over a doctor. In fact I stopped eating meat because I got over the self important ego that man has placed over the other lifeforms on this planet. Yoko Ono Said a Dream shared with no one is just a dream.
A dream shared with many reality.
There is wisdom in this statement. The many Authoritarian establishments and advertising companies of the world know this. Consider the fiction we are sold en mass ie the last few years.
In regards to your comment about gifts of being gifted delusion. Quote "Intellectual giftedness is an intellectual ability significantly higher than average.
Gifted children often develop asynchronously; their minds are often ahead of their physical growth, and specific cognitive and emotional functions are often developed differently (or to differing extents) at different stages of development. One frequently cited example of asynchronicity in early cognitive development is Albert Einstein, who did not speak until the age of two, but whose later fluency and accomplishments belied this initial delay. In regards to this fact, psychologist Steven Pinker theorized that, rather than viewing Einstein's (and other famously gifted late-talking individuals) adult accomplishments as existing distinct from, or in spite of, his early language deficits, and rather than viewing Einstein's lingual delay itself as a "disorder", it may be that Einstein's genius and his delay in speaking were developmentally intrinsic to one another.[1]"
This is more the context was pointing towards as this is a common term I had not considered those that use it delusional including myself. I have experienced other authors that throw words like delusional around to attack an idea to make it sound like it belongs in the nut farm
Perhaps I am delusional for believing what I see and what my senses tell me for testing my theories and recording them for sharing ideas with others. I have been insulted laughed at and my reputation tarnished for believing what I have seen. Maybe I am delusional for daring to question the established set of rules for reality. Perhaps now having had all this pointed out I will analyze my motivations so that I can justify myself to others. ....
I have been down this road I have demonstrated what I am capable of to my peers family and friends some of which which believe it or not are scientists and engineers. Motivation? I share what I learn so that people in the future can learn and even improve it. I believe in the concept of evolution of the mind.
"Your experiences still govern how you go about everything, including the random coincidences and odd relationships in the texts you read that force you to mold new perspective at will."
I like what you have said here however I still think there is more and this is a belief but I think that each individual has an innate nature specific only to themselves that governs response. Even a cloned AI robot exactly program duplicated will demonstrate preference unique to itself.
What if no one ever shared anything new? What would have happened had Tesla given up sure we would have gotten there someday... or even the aviators before the Wright brothers they didn't quite have it right but they provided the information so that others could learn from it. Whether or not you decide to test a demonstration in a video or discount it outright that information is still there for you to do something with if you are so inclined to follow it up.
As much as I enjoy intellectual debate I learned a while back to realize that everyone has a different way of perceiving reality to pigeon hole someone based on my own experience is not only close minded but lazy. Your reply was very stimulating as I hope my response was I do I realize that I am not always right however I must hold true to my beliefs as they are based on the reality I have experienced and shared with those around me I am grounded in the constant analyze of those I show. I would like to believe they are intelligent and not weak minded delusional as well. In the end everyone has an opinion its up to the individual to believe in themselves and test what they believe.
I didn't mean to use the word delusion to talk down or imply anything. As interested as I am in psychology, I use it as a term to mean "persuading oneself to alter their reality to fit a strong belief". But it's just that: without being able to confirm this reality with other observers of this reality... It remains their own reality and not the reality we all perceive each other in.
