"We have nothing with the outcast"
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@modernPrimitive said
"
I even have for example evidence that knowledge of the "physical plane" can be attained through OBEs. Now certainly the experiment was not performed many many times to calculate a statistical mean, however the statistical significance of the one that one single event is incalculable....for example guessing the details of a highly specific conversation held by two people right down to the very words used. Even that highly improbable statistic did not convince me initially, it was a gradual wearing down over the years where psi events just became undeniable and as I said they're too personal to mention here."Interesting post - at the risk of derailing and already-well-derailed thread even more, do you know about Susan Blakemore's case? She was a psi/OOBE researcher who kind of went from believer to skeptic over the years, but she's still kind of "friendly" to the whole thing.
The other thing is, you should work on it more re. the physical case - after all, there's a million dollar prize waiting from James Randi for the first person to demonstrate it to sceptical satisfaction!
I'm pretty sceptical, but there's still wiggle room in that psi/occult phenomena may just be very, very rare, and the kinds of experiments done so far (mostly using random people I believe) have been useless because you either have to have a (very rare) talent for it, or have occult training. It's still possible - the fat lady hasn't *quite *sung yet, wrt closing of the scientific doors to all this stuff (although she is perilously close, hovering there on the wings
). -
@gurugeorge said
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@modernPrimitive said
"
I even have for example evidence that knowledge of the "physical plane" can be attained through OBEs. Now certainly the experiment was not performed many many times to calculate a statistical mean, however the statistical significance of the one that one single event is incalculable....for example guessing the details of a highly specific conversation held by two people right down to the very words used. Even that highly improbable statistic did not convince me initially, it was a gradual wearing down over the years where psi events just became undeniable and as I said they're too personal to mention here."Interesting post - at the risk of derailing and already-well-derailed thread even more, do you know about Susan Blakemore's case? She was a psi/OOBE researcher who kind of went from believer to skeptic over the years, but she's still kind of "friendly" to the whole thing.
The other thing is, you should work on it more re. the physical case - after all, there's a million dollar prize waiting from James Randi for the first person to demonstrate it to sceptical satisfaction!
I'm pretty sceptical, but there's still wiggle room in that psi/occult phenomena may just be very, very rare, and the kinds of experiments done so far (mostly using random people I believe) have been useless because you either have to have a (very rare) talent for it, or have occult training. It's still possible - the fat lady hasn't *quite *sung yet, wrt closing of the scientific doors to all this stuff (although she is perilously close, hovering there on the wings
)."Yes apologies for the derails...I suppose this topic deerves it's own thread.
Hey gurugeorge. Are you the same gurugeorge from IIDB / "freeratio dot org"
Well if you are, you will know that I have spent at least several years discussing these topics on that particular forum. As I said, that was my personal journey into skepticism and it was highly valuable to me.Yes I know of Susan Blackmore. People have their opinions are always will and they're welcome to them. I actually contacted James Randi's man Jeff Wagg several years ago to discuss methodologies and there are posts on "freeratio dot org" discussing these particular methodologies. In discussions with my "partner" in the matter however, developing the methodology is rather difficult. Repeatability becomes difficult due to exertion. For example we found that an etheric projection was the best method for obtaining accurate "physical clairvoyance" however not every time one OBE's is one exactly on the "lowest frequency" of the etheric. Often the physical becomes distorted for example, a cupboard is in the wrong place - it's those times that the etheric is a true representation of the physical that we score. This is exceedingly difficult to control and moreover having to perform this say 20 times in a 12 hour period is just not viable.
Also, people forget that psychic events are usually of importance to some life situation, in other words there is the factor of emotional or psychological significance....a sense of ugency or an emotional need for clairvoyant knowledge. Just look at the efficacy of a ritual void of emotional content versus that which is full of emotional content - BIG difference in result. These are the very factors that the scientific method tries to eliminate, which is a bit of a problem because in the long term if we are to get anywhere we need to find a way to **account ** for them rather than **eliminate **them - in other words our current scientific method just offers us **part **of the picture. We create a "fake, sterile" environment that does not reflect the way reality is and then we are saying that psychism is not a part of reality. Yet the sterile conditions for the scientific method are not an accurate reflection of a reality in the first place. I understand that we probably do not yet have the tools to do this. We need a new scientific method that can **account **for these factors rather than eliminate them.....and I think that time is way off in the future although brain imaging shows that we are getting there. And I agree, parapsychologists need to work with hardcore occultists rather than popular mediums. But as we know even occultists and mystics don't always develop psychic ability.
Interestingly, the topic came up yesterday with my old "psi partner", as we have just confirmed our telepathic link yet again with some new events that occurred (again of a highly personal nature). His concern with Randi is firstly the emotional pressure to perform which affects concentration, secondly he doesn't want to be a guinea pig or become famous etc...ie: It's not his will and I don't think it is mine either. Moreover Randi now only challenges famous people. He's also apparently been caught lying and cheating to secure his own ends, which considering that he has bought into his belief system so strongly, is not surprising. The man is not a scientist, he's a stage magician and I'm not certain he is trustworthy regardless of his supposed good intentions.
However, Crowley does mention scientific testing as the future "method" of the A.'.A.'. and I think there will be value if Thelemites and the other highly experienced occultists could get together perform these experiments....whether secular society should know about it or not, is another matter.....
To me, it's not particularly important whether people believe it or not.
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"Also, people forget that psychic events are usually of importance to some life situation, in other words there is the factor of emotional or psychological significance....a sense of ugency or an emotional need for clairvoyant knowledge. Just look at the efficacy of a ritual void of emotional content versus that which is full of emotional content - BIG difference in result. These are the very factors that the scientific method tries to eliminate, which is a bit of a problem because in the long term if we are to get anywhere we need to find a way to account for them rather than eliminate them - in other words our current scientific method just offers us part of the picture. We create a "fake, sterile" environment that does not reflect the way reality is and then we are saying that psychism is not a part of reality. Yet the sterile conditions for the scientific method are not an accurate reflection of a reality in the first place. I understand that we probably do not yet have the tools to do this. We need a new scientific method that can account for these factors rather than eliminate them.....and I think that time is way off in the future although brain imaging shows that we are getting there. And I agree, parapsychologists need to work with hardcore occultists rather than popular mediums. But as we know even occultists and mystics don't always develop psychic ability. "
Yes. Precisely.
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@modernPrimitive said
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@gurugeorge said
"
@modernPrimitive said
"
I even have for example evidence that knowledge of the "physical plane" can be attained through OBEs. Now certainly the experiment was not performed many many times to calculate a statistical mean, however the statistical significance of the one that one single event is incalculable....for example guessing the details of a highly specific conversation held by two people right down to the very words used. Even that highly improbable statistic did not convince me initially, it was a gradual wearing down over the years where psi events just became undeniable and as I said they're too personal to mention here."Interesting post - at the risk of derailing and already-well-derailed thread even more, do you know about Susan Blakemore's case? She was a psi/OOBE researcher who kind of went from believer to skeptic over the years, but she's still kind of "friendly" to the whole thing.
The other thing is, you should work on it more re. the physical case - after all, there's a million dollar prize waiting from James Randi for the first person to demonstrate it to sceptical satisfaction!
I'm pretty sceptical, but there's still wiggle room in that psi/occult phenomena may just be very, very rare, and the kinds of experiments done so far (mostly using random people I believe) have been useless because you either have to have a (very rare) talent for it, or have occult training. It's still possible - the fat lady hasn't *quite *sung yet, wrt closing of the scientific doors to all this stuff (although she is perilously close, hovering there on the wings
)."Yes apologies for the derails...I suppose this topic deerves it's own thread.
Hey gurugeorge. Are you the same gurugeorge from IIDB / freeratio.org?
Well if you are, you will know that I have spent at least several years discussing these topics on that particular forum. As I said, that was my personal journey into skepticism and it was highly valuable to me.Yes I know of Susan Blackmore. People have their opinions are always will and they're welcome to them. I actually contacted James Randi's man Jeff Wagg several years ago to discuss methodologies and there are posts on freeratio.org discussing these particular methodologies. In discussions with my "partner" in the matter however, developing the methodology is rather difficult. Repeatability becomes difficult due to exertion. For example we found that an etheric projection was the best method for obtaining accurate "physical clairvoyance" however not every time one OBE's is one exactly on the "lowest frequency" of the etheric. Often the physical becomes distorted for example, a cupboard is in the wrong place - it's those times that the etheric is a true representation of the physical that we score. This is exceedingly difficult to control and moreover having to perform this say 20 times in a 12 hour period is just not viable.
Also, people forget that psychic events are usually of importance to some life situation, in other words there is the factor of emotional or psychological significance....a sense of ugency or an emotional need for clairvoyant knowledge. Just look at the efficacy of a ritual void of emotional content versus that which is full of emotional content - BIG difference in result. These are the very factors that the scientific method tries to eliminate, which is a bit of a problem because in the long term if we are to get anywhere we need to find a way to **account ** for them rather than **eliminate **them - in other words our current scientific method just offers us **part **of the picture. We create a "fake, sterile" environment that does not reflect the way reality is and then we are saying that psychism is not a part of reality. Yet the sterile conditions for the scientific method are not an accurate reflection of a reality in the first place. I understand that we probably do not yet have the tools to do this. We need a new scientific method that can **account **for these factors rather than eliminate them.....and I think that time is way off in the future although brain imaging shows that we are getting there. And I agree, parapsychologists need to work with hardcore occultists rather than popular mediums. But as we know even occultists and mystics don't always develop psychic ability.
Interestingly, the topic came up yesterday with my old "psi partner", as we have just confirmed our telepathic link yet again with some new events that occurred (again of a highly personal nature). His concern with Randi is firstly the emotional pressure to perform which affects concentration, secondly he doesn't want to be a guinea pig or become famous etc...ie: It's not his will and I don't think it is mine either. Moreover Randi now only challenges famous people. He's also apparently been caught lying and cheating to secure his own ends, which considering that he has bought into his belief system so strongly, is not surprising. The man is not a scientist, he's a stage magician and I'm not certain he is trustworthy regardless of his supposed good intentions.
However, Crowley does mention scientific testing as the future "method" of the A.'.A.'. and I think there will be value if Thelemites and the other highly experienced occultists could get together perform these experiments....whether secular society should know about it or not, is another matter.....
To me, it's not particularly important whether people believe it or not."
Great post. Re. experiments - perhaps virtual reality (game engines) could be used to simulate, in a controlled way, the emotional charge, in experiments?
Recently I played a great CRPG called Dragon Age: Origins. That's the first game that I've reacted to like a great film (i.e. cried in a weepy bit). These things are getting better and better. Perhaps at some point they could be used as initiation tools, on the one hand, and as experimental tools, on the other. You could create a "mod" (modification of the game using the game's tools, made by fans) for this sort of experiment in a game like Dragon Age (or other games like Oblivion and Fallout 3, which are also moddable).
As a tool of initiation, it would, curiously enough, be a return to the truly ancient way of doing this - real rituals that are secret to the aspirant, that evoke strong feelings in being lived-through.
But even before that, which I think still has a bit of time to come, you could use game engines in the kinds of experiments you are talking about.
Thinking further on this: imagine you are in a 6-person virtual "party" of dragon-slayers (i.e. 6 of you are controlling fighting avatars, and you can communicate with each other), and another experimenter is the GM (game master). You've fought your way through some monsters, so your adrenaline is up. To get past the final "seal" on the door to the dragon's lair, you all have to guess the correct symbol out of a bunch of proferred symbols (this correct symbol is the one the GM is thinking about). Each time you get it wrong, a bit of your health diminishes, and you have less chance of beating the game. (Winning in-game could be tied to a sizeable "treat" irl.)
That might get the juices flowing enough to charge the psychic meter up; yet it's still all totally controlled in a scientific manner.
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There is nothing in the scientific method that prevents the participants in the ritual from experiencing intense emotions, however impartiality is necessary on the part of the observer, and the instruments used must not be influenced or interpreted falsely via emotional biases.
If you are trying to demonstrate than a particular ritual has the ability to stir emotions in a particular way that effects the biases and psychology producing inaccurate observations, which may include the stimulation of the sense of meaning, profundity, and other such feelings and psychological states that create the illusion of certainty, then I will agree 100% that this is possible. It is also falsifiable and can be experimentally verified.
That ritual creates these distortions of psychology that effect general perception and cognition, not just in the interpretation of experimental data but is life experience in general, and especially the illusion of certainty can and does have an effect on beliefs and behavior. That when these sorts of psychological states are active it is very hard to dissuade the individual that their personal feelings are accurate.
Take the Gambler who has never learned statistics, he will believe die hard and dead on that after 20 loses on the same bet, the odds are finally in his favor and ups the ante. No matter how hard you try to tell him, the odds are the same every round, he will not believe. Show him the evidence and he will either refuse to accept it, or will believe the evidence but back on the casino floor will continue his bad habits despite the evidence. This is because just knowing the information, is not enough for it to really sink in, the brain is hard wired for the gamblers fallacy, and it takes work to change it. You have to actually write down what bets to make win, and do the math, if you rely on your gut, you will always make the fallacy.
The same is true with rituals but where as a casino if a ritual environment designed to manipulate and profit form the Gamblers fallacy and others like this, the magick ritual stimulates other perceptual and cognitive fallacies and errors to produce illusions, and incorrect conclusions, and other unusual mental phenomena. The effects of magick can be amazing, can stimulate feelings of meaning and certainty, etc. But it is best to think of the ritual trance state as an intoxication, and just as you would not believe in the pink elephants of a drunk, so too should one be highly skeptical of the anecdotal evidence provided by magicians.
Unless the ritual is closely observed by an observer with instruments that are not aroused by the emotions and states stimulated by the ritual behavior, one can not take anything gleaned by the participants for fact.
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@Froclown said
"There is nothing in the scientific method that prevents the participants in the ritual from experiencing intense emotions, however impartiality is necessary on the part of the observer, and the instruments used must not be influenced or interpreted falsely via emotional biases.
"For the most part the controls create an emotionally / psychically sterile environment for the subjects. Those based on emotional content, such as one study which analysed the ECG's of people who were shown images that induced an emotional response have been more successful than the "guess the picture on the card" type of experiments. Failure of parapsychologists and the general public to understand psi as having a strong emotional component is to blame for this. I know in my own personal experience that it is far easier to sense emotions than guess a symbol or number. (Kabalistically we want something as close to Assiah as possible, "thoughts" are too fleeting, emotions are far more viable a test).
Moreover, how do you remove the belief system of the experimenter? Methodologists are assuming that because the necessary controls are in place, the experimenter's / judge's, sponsor's and even public's beliefs cannot influence the outcome of the experiment - and that's based on blind acceptance of materialistic assumption. This is a form of confirmation bias and that is not proper science / skepticism.
This is why we have to create control groups to account for the placebo effect, which scientists have made little headway in explaining. Why is the placebo effect even there in the first place if the proper controls are in place...well obviously belief has something to do with it.
Did you even read the paper I posted?
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@gurugeorge said
"Great post. Re. experiments - perhaps virtual reality (game engines) could be used to simulate, in a controlled way, the emotional charge, in experiments?
Recently I played a great CRPG called Dragon Age: Origins. That's the first game that I've reacted to like a great film (i.e. cried in a weepy bit). These things are getting better and better. Perhaps at some point they could be used as initiation tools, on the one hand, and as experimental tools, on the other. You could create a "mod" (modification of the game using the game's tools, made by fans) for this sort of experiment in a game like Dragon Age (or other games like Oblivion and Fallout 3, which are also moddable).
As a tool of initiation, it would, curiously enough, be a return to the truly ancient way of doing this - real rituals that are secret to the aspirant, that evoke strong feelings in being lived-through.
But even before that, which I think still has a bit of time to come, you could use game engines in the kinds of experiments you are talking about.
Thinking further on this: imagine you are in a 6-person virtual "party" of dragon-slayers (i.e. 6 of you are controlling fighting avatars, and you can communicate with each other), and another experimenter is the GM (game master). You've fought your way through some monsters, so your adrenaline is up. To get past the final "seal" on the door to the dragon's lair, you all have to guess the correct symbol out of a bunch of proferred symbols (this correct symbol is the one the GM is thinking about). Each time you get it wrong, a bit of your health diminishes, and you have less chance of beating the game. (Winning in-game could be tied to a sizeable "treat" irl.)
That might get the juices flowing enough to charge the psychic meter up; yet it's still all totally controlled in a scientific manner."
Interesting ideas!
I was thinking more along the lines, for starters, of measuring the correlation of brain activity (MRIs) with psi "hits" vs "misses".
Baselines of emotional states of participants, are they anxious today, preoccupied etc, and how has that affected their performance? -
just as the answer to a math problem does not change with the emotional state of the person who solves the problem, a properly set up experiment has no interference form the experimenter, if the procedure is done correct the result is tallied by un-biasable method. If the experimented in her bias was to misread an instrument, the photo will show her error, if she tweaked the myth by rounding up or not solving the problem right, it will show in her work.
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@Froclown said
"just as the answer to a math problem does not change with the emotional state of the person who solves the problem, a properly set up experiment has no interference form the experimenter, if the procedure is done correct the result is tallied by un-biasable method."
I'm not talking about the experimenter's / particiapnt's bias directing the outcome via "normal, physical" means. If we hypothesize that psi exists then there would be "mental" ways of affecting the experiment by belief - and apparently you still have not read the paper to which I linked. You see, the fault is in assuming materialism in the methodology (that the mind cannot affect matter indirectly) which is bias which is not good science.
It's the same reason we have to set up control groups to account for the "Placebo effect". Why does the placebo effect even exist if our methodologies are supposedly so perfect? Well we do know that it has something to do with people's beliefs. AHA! Now, just think about that carefully for a second, then tie that back up with my first paragraph.
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"Great post. Re. experiments - perhaps virtual reality (game engines) could be used to simulate, in a controlled way, the emotional charge, in experiments?
Recently I played a great CRPG called Dragon Age: Origins. That's the first game that I've reacted to like a great film (i.e. cried in a weepy bit). These things are getting better and better. Perhaps at some point they could be used as initiation tools, on the one hand, and as experimental tools, on the other. You could create a "mod" (modification of the game using the game's tools, made by fans) for this sort of experiment in a game like Dragon Age (or other games like Oblivion and Fallout 3, which are also moddable).
As a tool of initiation, it would, curiously enough, be a return to the truly ancient way of doing this - real rituals that are secret to the aspirant, that evoke strong feelings in being lived-through.
But even before that, which I think still has a bit of time to come, you could use game engines in the kinds of experiments you are talking about.
Thinking further on this: imagine you are in a 6-person virtual "party" of dragon-slayers (i.e. 6 of you are controlling fighting avatars, and you can communicate with each other), and another experimenter is the GM (game master). You've fought your way through some monsters, so your adrenaline is up. To get past the final "seal" on the door to the dragon's lair, you all have to guess the correct symbol out of a bunch of proferred symbols (this correct symbol is the one the GM is thinking about). Each time you get it wrong, a bit of your health diminishes, and you have less chance of beating the game. (Winning in-game could be tied to a sizeable "treat" irl.)
That might get the juices flowing enough to charge the psychic meter up; yet it's still all totally controlled in a scientific manner.
"These are all very worthwhile ideas and subject of some research I am doing. Specifically, when I get my hands on this little item, I plan to grab raw EEG/brainwave data during various rituals, consciousness frequencies, entheogens, and even while sleeping and dreaming. This device was also developed with the use of games and virtual worlds and game engines in mind. This adds new dimensions of data to such experiments.
img194 dot imageshack.us/img194/1865/emotiv2.jpg
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There is an SDK which exposes collection APIs:
"A high resolution, neuro-signal acquisition and processing wireless neuroheadset and our proprietary software toolkit that exposes our APIs and detection libraries.
Real-time display of the Emotiv headset data stream, including EEG, contact quality, FFT, gyro (if fitted â custom option), wireless packet acquisition/loss display, marker events, headset battery level.
"
https://www.emotiv.com/ResearchPlus.html
I dont' have it yet, so not sure how well it works or if its crap. Certainly a 1st generation model..
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@vortex666 said
"These are all very worthwhile ideas and subject of some research I am doing. Specifically, when I get my hands on this little item, I plan to grab raw EEG/brainwave data during various rituals, consciousness frequencies, entheogens, and even while sleeping and dreaming. This device was also developed with the use of games and virtual worlds and game engines in mind. This adds new dimensions of data to such experiments."
Holy Shit! I suppose now would not be a good time to mention that I'm in the visual effects and production / post production industry, which means I can produce 3D / video content.
looks around suspiciously