Is Self-directed Neuroplasticity Evidence That Consciousness is not Produced by the Brain?

There is a lot of discussion on an internet forum I follow about self-directed neuroplasticity. Some people feel that self-directed neuroplasticity is evidence that consciousness is not produced by the brain.

I disagree with this opinion.

Self-directed neuroplasticity is the phenomenon whereby the brain is altered by conscious thought. Meditation and cognitive therapy are conscious processes that have been shown to alter the brain.

However, some people believe the brain cannot be capable of modifying itself and therefore self-directed neuroplasticity shows that consciousness must be independent from the brain.

The reason I don't consider this to be correct is as follows:

1. Ordinary neuroplasticity is not controversial. Neurons in the brain alter their connections during any process that involves learning.
   

2. If you want to demonstrate that self-directed neuroplasticity is different from ordinary neuroplasticity and is evidence that consciousness is not produced by the brain, you have to start from the premise that consciousness is produced by the brain and try to show that premise leads to a contradiction. If you start from the premise that consciousness is not produced by the brain you are starting from the point you are trying to prove. Those who believe that self-directed neuroplasticity is evidence that consciousness is not produced by the brain often ask "who is doing the meditation that alters the brain" - as if this implied consciousness was not produced by the brain. However that implication is the point to be proved not an assumption you can start with.
   

3. Self-directed neuroplasticity, like the placebo effect, demonstrates that consciousness can influence the brain and therefore consciousness is not an illusion or an epiphenomenon of the brain.
   

4. Do the two statements 1) consciousness is produced by the brain, and 2) consciousness is not an illusion or an epiphenomenon of the brain - constitute a contradiction?
   

5. No. Consciousness might be produced by the brain and also influence the brain. For example, one part of the brain might influence another part of the brain. As an analogy, a computer system or network of computers can be programmed to allocate and reallocate resources depending on changing usage requirements. You could try to refute this point by saying in self-directed neuroplasticity consciousness alters the part of the brain that is responsible for consciousness. If you do that, you are admitting that the brain produces consciousness which is what you are trying to disprove.
   

6. You cannot argue that it is impossible for the brain to alter itself, because in self-directed neuroplasticity consciousness has effects on the brain that alter consciousness. Cognitive therapy and meditation are both conscious processes that alter the brain and have effects on consciousness. If consciousness can alter itself, which is not in dispute, you are admitting there are conscious systems that can alter themselves and therefore there are no grounds to argue that the brain cannot produce consciousness and alter itself.
   

7. Therefore self-directed neuroplasticity, whereby consciousness alters the brain, does not provide evidence that consciousness is not produced by the brain.
   

I think there is so much confusion over this issue because people who believe consciousness is not produced by the brain bring that opinion to the debate and they don't realize how it influences their reasoning. They start from that premise and don't realize it. They often refer to some other phenomenon that is evidence consciousness is not produced by the brain as if it bolstered their argument. But that is just another way of assuming the premise they are trying to prove or proving the premise by alternate means. In order to show self-directed neuroplasticity is evidence that consciousness is not produced by the brain, you have to start from the premise that consciousness is produced by the brain and try to show that leads to a contradiction. Otherwise you are starting with the premise you are trying to prove. However as I have tried to show above, that premise does not lead to a contradiction.

However there is a large amount of evidence from other phenomena that does show consciousness is not producecd by the brain.

Further reading on self-directed neuroplasticity:

• Fusing Mind and Matter by Dr. Jeffrey M. Schwartz at www.vision.org
  

• Quantum physics in neuroscience and psychology: a neurophysical model of mind–brain interaction Jeffrey M. Schwartz, Henry P. Stapp and Mario BeauregardPhilos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2005 June 29; 360(1458): 1309–1327.
  

• Evolution, self-directed neuroplasticity, and quantum entanglement by Bernardo Kastrup at bernardokastrup.com
  

Copyright © 2012 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

Skeptics Whose Critical Thinking Skills are Stunted by Church Logic

A common reason some skeptics seem unwilling and unable to consider the evidence for the afterlife and psychic phenomena is because their critical thinking skills are stunted because of their overly religious upbringing. These skeptics are skeptical mainly because they were brought up in an oppressive religious environment and later in life they came to reject that religion and everything related to the supernatural. Most of these types of skeptics are what I call victims of Christianity, and have had their logical faculties stunted by what I call "Church Logic".

Many religions are not receptive to questions about dogma. When someone asks an inconvenient question they are fed a canned response that is not very logical and they are discouraged from pursuing the matter. This type of logic pervades their cultural environment while they are growing up and it has the effect of preventing them from distinguishing rhetoric from substance. They learn that the answer to a question is something you memorize rather than understand.

They may eventually become skeptics and reject their religion and its dogma, but they still don't have the reasoning ability to see that thinking clearly involves more than just trotting out a pat answer. They have gone from one form of extreme dogmatism to another because that is the only way they are capable of thinking. Instead of addressing the evidence for the afterlife and psychic phenomena in detail and with specificity they dismiss it with dogmatic phrases like "it's pseudoscience", "he is a woo merchant", or "the plural of anecdote is not data". They have a huge blind spot when it comes to logical reasoning because they never developed the ability when their brains were still young, developing, and flexible. They have a glaring ignorance of the evidence for the afterlife and psychic phenomena but they can't see that they are hide bound because they have no other way of thinking about controversy except through memorized dogmatic answers.

Copyright © 2012 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

Materialism Cannot Explain Consciousness

It is very easy to demonstrate that materialism cannot explain consciousness. First, show that none of the materialist explanations for consciousness are valid:

• Consciousness is not an illusion or an epiphenomenon of the brain.
  

• Consciousness Cannot be an Emergent Property of the Brain".
  

• Claiming consciousness is an emergent property of the brain is just an fancy way of saying, "Materialism cannot explain consciousness".
  

• Consciousness, a subjective phenomena that cannot be measured objectively, cannot be produced by physical processes all of which are in principle measurable.
  

• Correlation does not prove causation. The correlation between brain processes and mental states is not proof that consciousness is produced by the brain. The theory that the brain is a filter of non-physical consciousness explains more of the empirical evidence.
  

• If materialism were true, natural selection could not produce consciousness.
  

• Humans are more than biological machines that operate strictly according to physical laws. (If materialism were true, you would not know you are reading these words.)
  

• The Brain is not a Conscious Computer. Human mathematicians can identify truths that cannot be proven by a computer program. And if you believe your mind operates according to the laws of materialism, like a computer, it is irrational of you to believe anything.
  

• More
  

Next, provide evidence that consciousness is not produced by the brain or any physical process and that it survives death:

• Quantum Mechanics
  

• Shared and Veridical NDEs
  

• Shared Death Bed Visions
  

• Multiple witness crisis apparitions
  

• Philosophical Arguments
  

  (A fundamental failing of the materialist explanation of consciousness is that there is no way to explain through physics why red looks like red, why happy feels happy. You can't go from wavelength and frequency to explain what the subjective experience of seeing the color red is like. You can't explain why certain chemical reactions cause the subjective experience of feeling what happiness feels like. There is something fundamental about consciousness which cannot be explained by materialist science.)
  

• Mediumship: (Proxy Sittings, Drop-in Communicators, Cross Correspondences)
  

• Reincarnation
  

• More
  

Then, preemptively refute the skeptical criticisms of this evidence:

• There are valid, scientific uses of anecdotal evidence.
  

• Materialist "explanations" of Near Death Experiences fall far short of explaining the phenomenon.
  

• Proxy sittings prove that mediumship cannot be explained by hot reading or cold reading.
  

• Magicians cannot reproduce the phenomenon of mediumship.
  

• More
  

Copyright © 2012, 2014, 2016 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

Video Showing Stored Healing Energy Turning a Psi Wheel

I added two videos to my previous post Objects That Contain Healing Power

One video shows an Egely wheel (a very sensitive psi wheel) turning under a jar, the other video shows that the wheel starts to turn when the jar is placed near it.

Objects That Contain Healing Power

This is the fourth post in my series on psi wheels.

In the first post, I discussed how everyone can measure the energy field surrounding their body with a psi wheel and how to use a psi wheel to measure this energy as you bring it into and through your body when you practice spiritual healing. In the second post, I discussed how the psi wheel shows that the energy in the field surrounding the body is the same as the energy that flows through you when you give spiritual healing to another person. In the third post I discussed using qi gong to increase the flow of healing energy (qi) through your body to help develop your abilities as a spiritual healer.

In this post I will discuss how to use an Egely wheel (a very sensitive psi wheel manufactured by the Egely Research Company) to demonstrate that healing energy can be stored in inanimate objects.

(The Videos shown below are only provided to illustrate the apparatus and phenomena that I have written about for those who are interested and who may want to try reproduce it themselves. The videos are too short in length and too close to the subject to be considered as proof of the phenomena. Since it is impossible to proving anything with a video, I have no plans to make more convincing videos. The proof of the phenomena will come when others reproduce them. One of the phenomena, turning a psi wheel covered by a jar by placing a hand on the jar, has been reported by many others. I am not aware of anyone else who has reported the second phenomenon: using the jar by itself to turn the wheel.)

When I first learned spiritual healing at a Spiritualist church I was taught that a healer can put healing energy into an inanimate object and then if another person holds that object, the healing energy will be transferred to the other person. I was able to test and confirm part of this belief using an Egely wheel. I was doing a healing meditation and monitoring the flow of healing energy with an Egely Vitality Meter. This is a very sensitive psi wheel. To be totally certain that no air currents were influencing the wheel I used a jar turned upside down to cover the wheel. The jar was made out of plastic, recycle number 1, PETE. I put my hand on the jar to spin the wheel. This is a very inefficient way to turn a psi wheel and the wheel turns much slower when covered with a jar - which is why I use the more sensitive Egely wheel when doing this rather than my homemade psi wheels. While this was occurring, I took the following video of it:

After meditating this way for twenty minutes, ten minutes with each hand turning the Egely wheel under the jar, I tried an experiment to see if the jar had retained any healing energy. I took away the jar covering the Egely wheel and waited for it to stop turning. Then I placed the jar near the wheel and took my hand away from it. The Egely wheel began to turn. While I did this, I took the video of it shown below. After several rotations I moved the jar away from the wheel and it soon stopped turning. I put the jar near it again and it began to turn once more. Another time, I let the jar turn the wheel for ten minutes. This length of time would rule out the possibility that the motion was caused by air currents created when the jar was placed near the wheel. I then took the jar away and the wheel stopped turning after a few seconds. Since the wheel stopped turning when the jar was removed, it is unlikely that air currents could be the cause of the movement of the wheel when the jar was next to it. I put the jar back and the wheel resumed turning and continued to turn for several minutes until I stopped the experiment.

This phenomenon is consistent with another observation about psi wheels. Psi wheels seem to turn in the opposite direction when they are under a jar than when they are uncovered and exposed directly to a hand. Usually, a psi wheel will turn clockwise when the left hand is placed near it and counterclockwise when the right hand is placed near it. However, if a jar is placed over the wheel, the wheel will turn clockwise when the right hand is placed near it and counterclockwise when the left hand is placed near it. This phenomenon suggests that the wheel is not turning inside the jar because some force field from the hand penetrates the jar, but because the force field from the hand induces a field in the jar - like two gears that turn in opposite directions when their teeth mesh. Interestingly the Egely wheel (and a home psi wheel to a lesser extent) is shaped like a gear. If a field is induced in the jar, it seems possible that the jar might retain the field once the hand was taken away as if it was magnetized (a la Franz Mesmer). This would explain why the jar without a hand near it would also cause the psi wheel to turn, whereas if it was simply the energy from the hand penetrating the jar that turned a covered wheel, that would not explain why a jar could turn a wheel without a hand near it.

These observations seem to confirms the belief that healing energy can be stored in inanimate objects. There is some scientific evidence in this area. Dean Radin published an article, Effects of Intentionally Enhanced Chocolate on Mood in the Elsevier journal Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing, Volume 3, Issue 5, Pages 433-546 (September 2007), which describes how chocolate which had been prayed over elevated the mood of the people who ate it.

Update 9/5/12: I tried a slightly different experiment today. First I placed the plastic jar near the Egely wheel to make sure it did not have any residual "magnetism". Then, I did the healing meditation for five minutes turning two homemade psi wheels, one with each hand. Next, I stopped using any psi wheel and continued meditating with my right hand on the plastic jar in the same position as if it had the Egely wheel under it but without the wheel. After ten minutes with my hand on the jar, I placed the jar next to a stationary Egely wheel and took my hand away. The wheel began to spin counterclockwise and continued to turn until I moved the jar away after five minutes, then the wheel stopped turning.

Copyright © 2012 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

Zerdini's World

Zerdini has started blogging at Zerdini's World. If you are interested in mediumship you will undoubtedly enjoy this blog. Zerdini has had vast personal experiences with some of the world's best mediums. Previously, he has posted and comented at various places on the internet but now his accumulated knowledge is being collected in one place. I've known him to be very helpful in answering questions and providing additional information, so if you have questions please don't hesitate to comment on his new blog.

About the Author:

I have over fifty years experience of mediumship having sat with some of the world’s finest mediums.

This website is about mediums and their mediumship – both mental and physical.

It has come about as a result of the many questions I’ve been asked on various blogs, forums and other websites.

There is a great deal of valuable information on mediumship, it is spread across many different sources. I decided to make some of my own experiences and knowledge available on one website so readers can make up their own minds, or at least begin the search for their own evidence.

Copyright © 2012 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

Hearing Voices? Talk Back Politely.

Michael Prescott blogged about an interesting article, Living With Voices By T. M. Luhrmann, in theamericanscholar.org. It's about a treatment for people who hear disturbing voices that no one else can hear. The treatment involves talking back to the voices politely and respectfully. Read the article for full details.

Besides offering help for people with this type of disturbing experience, it is significant also because it offers a case where the skeptical view is wrong and the Spiritualist view is right. The skeptical approach to treating people who heard voices was to deny the reality of the voices and treat them as hallucinations. The Spiritualist approach to this problem was to treat the voices as spirits and help the spirits come to terms with their existence as spirits so they would stop bothering the patient.

There are several doctors that are well known for successfully using the Spiritualist approach even before this new treatment described in Luhrmann's article was developed: Carl Wickland (Thirty Years Among the Dead), Titus Bull, and Edith Fiore (The Unquiet Dead).

People may have different opinions about whether the voices are really spirits or hallucinations, nevertheless, this new research seems to confirm the work of Wickland, Bull, and Fiore, that the Spiritual approach, treating voices as if they are spirits, is better than the skeptical approach which is to consider the voices to be unreal hallucinations. Skeptics like to say they have the best interests of the public in mind, that they want to protect people from being fooled, when they insist on a materialist worldview. However, when it comes to helping people who hear voices, that worldview is not always in the best interest of the public. If a form of alternative medicine is an effective treatment and especially when it is superior to what is available from mainstream medicine, the skeptics are not doing anyone any good by calling those practitioners charlatans and quacks.

Related posts on this blog:

• Treatment for Spirit Possession
  
• Hallucinations
  
• Turning off Psychic Abilities
  

Copyright © 2012 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

Spiritual Healing Development with Qi Gong

This is the third post in my series on spiritual healing and the psi wheel. In the first post, I discussed how everyone can measure the energy field surrounding their body with a psi wheel and how to use a psi wheel to measure this energy as you bring it into and through your body when you practice spiritual healing. In the second post, I discussed how the psi wheel shows that the energy in the field surrounding the body is the same as the energy that flows through you when you give spiritual healing to another person. This post is about using qi gong to increase the flow of healing energy (qi) through your body to help develop your abilities as a spiritual healer.

You don't have take my word for it when I write these different statements about this energy. You can verify them for yourself using a psi wheel. You can measure the effects of qi gong on your energy field and your ability to move the energy through your body during spiritual healing by using a psi wheel before and after you do qi gong and during spiritual healing.

Qi gong is a part of traditional Chinese medicine. It includes exercises that enhance the energy field that surrounds your body and it improves the flow of that energy through your body. Since spiritual healing works by moving this energy through your body and into another person, doing qi gong will help you to develop your healing abilities and it is also a good way to prepare for a spiritual healing session.

From wikipedia:

Qigong, chi kung, or chi gung (literally "Life Energy Cultivation") is a practice of aligning breath, movement, and awareness for exercise, healing, and meditation.[1] With roots in Chinese medicine, martial arts, and philosophy, qigong is traditionally viewed as a practice to cultivate and balance qi (chi) or what has been translated as "intrinsic life energy".[2] Typically a qigong practice involves rhythmic breathing coordinated with slow stylized repetition of fluid movement, a calm mindful state, and visualization of guiding qi through the body.[3]

Below are instructions for a few qi gong exercises. I suggest doing eight repetitions of the moving exercises and holding the stationary positions for at least twenty breaths. There is no harm in doing more and you can do as much as you like. But for some people who are very busy, if they try to do too much it will become burdensome and they may give it up. It is better to do just a little bit than to do none at all.

• Three Jiaos: HTML PDF
  

• Lower Ball Rotation: Stand as in the Three Jiaos. Hold your hands at the level of your lower abdomen as if you were holding a ball about six or eight inches in diameter between your hands. Then rotate the "ball" clockwise so your left had is above your right hand. Then rotate the ball the other way so the right hand is above the left hand. Repeat this for several repetitions and synchronize the movement with your breathing. Notice the sensations in your hands.
  

• The Full Circle: The web page says to do each position in The Full Circle for five minutes but I suggest in your first session you hold each position for twenty breaths and gradually increase that number if you want to in subsequent sessions. Twenty breaths is approximately one minute, you can time your breathing before you start if you want to be more precise. These exercises are similar to the qi gong exercises described in the book 15-minute Tai Chi (below).
  

• Pulling Down the Heavens: There are several exercises similar to this one that you can do. Instead of raising you arms above your head, bring them to the forehead for several repetitions, then to the heart for several repetitions and then to the abdomen just below the navel for several repetitions. Then do the exercise shown at the link raising your arms straight above your head.
  

When you do qi gong exercises, notice the sensations you feel in your hands and your body. Try to feel your own energy field from within the body and also feel it from without your body with your hands. For example, if your hands pass across the area of your chest, notice sensations in your chest and the sensations in your hands as they pass through the energy field around your chest. Practicing in this way may allow you, in time, to develop the sensitivity needed to feel your own energy field and the energy fields surrounding other living things.

These exercises are just suggestions to introduce you to qi gong. A complete qi gong workout that will provide the maximum benefit to your energy field and flow of energy through you should include warm-up stretches to loosen the muscles and movements to loosen the joints, tone the muscles, and align the vertebrae. If you want to try a more complete workout that includes all of these components I would suggest one of these DVDs:

• Chi Energy Workouts for Beginners by David Carradine
  

• David Carradine's AM & PM Tai Chi Workout for Beginners by David Carradine
  

  Tai Chi Focus Relax Rejuvenate on youtube.
  

Chi is the same word as qi but spelled differently. Some of the advanced movements on the DVDs are complicated and may be difficult to learn but it is not necessary to do everything on a DVD (this is also true of the books below). The AM workout in the AM & PM DVD is very simple but is a complete workout.

Some books on qi gong I recommend are:

• 15-Minute Tai Chi by John Ding and Alan Ding. This book includes several 15 minute workouts that include qi gong and tai chi. I combine all the qi gong exercise together and do those as part of my qi gong workout. They are very similar to the full circle linked to above.
  
• Becoming One with Nature: Restore Yourself with Tai Chi by Martin Lee, Ph.D., Emily Lee, TC Master, Melinda & Joyce Lee
  
• The Complete Idiot's Guide to T'ai Chi and QiGong Third Edition by Bill Douglas. See Part 3 which is about QiGong.
  

You can measure the effects of qi gong on your energy field by using the psi wheel. Notice if the psi wheel spins faster after you do qi gong than it spins before you do qi gong. Also notice if the psi wheel spins faster during spiritual healing practice if you do qi gong immediately before the spiritual healing practice.

Copyright © 2012, 2015, 2016 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

The Psi Wheel and Spiritual Healing: What Does it Mean?

The Psi Wheel and Spiritual Healing: What Does it Mean?

Yesterday I posted about How to Use a Psi Wheel to Practice Spiritual Healing. That post has significant implications:

1. The human body is surrounded by an energy field.
   
2. This energy field can influence matter.
   
3. The healing energy used in spiritual healing is probably the same type of energy.
   
4. This energy can be controlled with the mind. The method of control is unknown because the precise nature of the energy is unknown. The manner of mental control might be something ordinary like the way the mind can control muscles, or it might be something more paranormal.
   

The phenomenon of the psi wheel turning when a hand is placed near it is something that occurs with almost everyone and no effort or intention is necessary for the wheel to turn. This has been shown by George Egely. Egely received a Ph.D. in the field of energy transfer and he conducted extensive research and could not find any scientific explanation for this. The phenomenon indicates that the human body is surrounded by an energy field and that energy field can influence matter and cause the wheel to turn.

During my experimentation with a psi wheel, I discovered that performing a spiritual healing meditation increases the effect that causes the psi wheel to turn. During my experiments, I made no intention to spin the psi wheel. When I performed the spiritual healing meditation, I only visualized the healing energy flowing through me and out from my hands. I made no conscious thought or mental effort toward making the wheel turn. The fact that visualizing this energy emanating from my hand increased the rate at which the wheel turned when my hand was placed near the wheel suggests that the energy involved in spiritual healing is the same type of energy that always surrounds the body and that during spiritual healing, this energy is emitted in greater amounts than normal. This is also consistent with the observation by Egely that people who are ill are less able to spin a psi wheel.

All of this suggests several areas for further research:

• Studies could be done to look for a correlation between the rate of rotation a healer can induce in an Egely wheel (a psi wheel with electronics that measure the rate of spin) and positive outcomes of their healing sessions. If a correlation can be shown experimentally, then the Egely wheel could be used in future research to quantify the amount of healing applied by a healer. It also might provide a way to rate healers and that information could be useful to patients looking for spiritual healing practitioners.
  
• The position of the wheel with respect to the body seems to affect the rate of spin. The wheels seem to spin faster when off to the side and not directly in front of the user. This suggests that spiritual healers may be more effective if they hold their hands out to their sides rather than directly in front of their torso. If this effect could be shown experimentally to improve healing, this knowledge could be used by all energy healers to improve the treatments they give to their patients.
  
• Some people report the ability to turn a psi wheel without using their hands. Many energy healers can give healings without being in the same location as the recipient of healing. Experiments could be done to determine if these two abilities are the same. If they are not the same phenomenon, it would still be interesting to learn if the ability to turn a psi wheel without placing the hand near it also has healing properties when applied to a patient.
  
• Another question for experimental research is where does the energy that moves the psi wheel come from? In the spiritual healing I do, the energy is believed to come from outside the healer. If it could be shown by measuring the metabolic rate of a healer, that their metabolism cannot account for the work involved in turning the psi wheel, then that could support the belief that the healing energy comes from outside the healer.
  

Copyright © 2012 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

Using a Psi Wheel to Practice Spiritual Healing.

You can make a simple device that will respond to spiritual healing energy. You can use this device to practice and develop your ability to do spiritual healing.

The device is called a psi wheel. It is a small pinwheel that will turn when you place your hand near it but without touching it. You can make one easily yourself, or you can purchase one. Science cannot explain why a psi wheel turns when you place your hand near it, or when it is inside a jar or how a jar can be magnetized to turn a psi wheel without placing your hand near it.

Here is how to make a psi wheel:

You will need:

• Aluminum foil (some people use paper but I find aluminum foil works much better than paper).
  
• An eraser
  
• A needle
  
• A ruler
  
• Scissors
  

Use the scissors to cut a square piece of aluminum foil two inches on a side.

Fold it in half horizontally.

Fold it in half vertically.

Turn it over.

Fold it diagonally to the right.

Fold it diagonally to the left.

Now there are 8 creases radiating from the center of the square.

Fold each crease to create a diamond with four vanes.

Then unfold it a little bit to get the final pin wheel.

Push the eye of the needle into the eraser so the needle stands vertically with the point up.

Place the pinwheel on the tip of the needle.

Now that you've completed your psi wheel, try it out.

• Sit at a desk or table away from anything that might create drafts such as an open window, fan, or air vent. Stray air currents might cause the psi wheel to move and would mask the effects of your hand.
  
• If you want to use your right hand, put the psi wheel on the table a few inches to your right. If you want to use your left hand, put it on the table a few inches to your left. A psi wheel will respond to your hand better if it is not directly in front of your torso and if neither your hand or arm is directly in front of your torso.
  
• Place the palm of your hand near the wheel (see the video below). Try to sit with your neck, shoulder, and arm relaxed. You may find it comfortable, if your chair has armrests, to put the wheel and your hand near the edge of table and your elbow on the armrest of the chair.
  
• Getting the psi wheel to turn does not require any special powers. It should work for most people without any effort on their part beyond putting their hand near it. At first, it is usually best if you don't think about it or look at it or try to do anything to make it turn. Worrying about whether it will turn may have a negative effect. Try meditating with your eyes closed or reading something and after a minute or so look at the wheel to see if it is turning. The wheel will usually turn counter clockwise if you use your right hand and clockwise if you use your left hand. Once you experience it turning for a little while you will probably be able to watch it without inhibiting it.
  

If the wheel doesn't start turning after a minute or so, check the following:

Technical Issues:

• Gently bump the wheel with your finger to make sure it spins freely and is balanced on the needle. Make sure the bottom points of the wheel do not bump into the eraser.
  
• Try moving the wheel a little bit on the tip of the needle. This can be particularly helpful if the wheel turns one way and then the other repeatedly without completing a full revolution, or if the wheel slows down at the same point in every rotation. That type of behavior means the wheel is not balanced correctly and you can try to improve the balance by moving the wheel slightly with respect to the tip of the needle.
  
• Be sure the psi wheel is not directly in front of your torso but is a few inches off to the side and use the hand on the same side of your body.
  
• Make sure the wheel is not bumping into or in contact with your hand.
  
• If the table or desk you are using is cluttered and there are objects, particularly metal objects, computer equipment, or electronic gadgets, near your hand, move them several inches away from your hand.
  
• Try cutting out another piece of aluminum foil, make another wheel, and try that one.
  

Energy Field Issues:

• Try relaxing your hand, or straightening your fingers, or spreading your fingers for a second or two.
  
• Try putting the psi wheel on the other side of your body and using your other hand.
  
• Go out for a walk for twenty minutes to an hour and try the psi wheel when you get back. Or, try some other type of mild exercise. This is probably the most important suggestion on this list, it is best way for a beginner to quickly increase his energy field.
  
• Do qi gong exercises to strengthen your energy field.
  
• If you are sleepy, fatigued, hungry, or ill, the wheel might not spin. Try later when you are feeling stronger.
  

If you can't get a homemade psi wheel to work, purchasing one at the link above may be a good alternative. The commercial ones turn with much less friction and are much easier to use. Reading the instructions for the Egely Wheel may also help you get your homemade wheel working. This article by Dr. Parisetti, which describes his experience learning to use a psi wheel, may also be helpful.

To use the psi wheel to practice spiritual healing, first you have to learn spiritual healing. My web site explains how to do that. I also suggest you read my article on A Synthesis of Spiritual Healing and Qi Gong which describes a good technique for improving your ability to use healing energy.

To use the psi wheel to practice spiritual healing, sit at a desk or table and imagine the spiritual healing energy coming down into you through the top of your head. Understand that the energy flows though your arms and out your hands, maintain loving intentions if possible, but your concentration should be primarily on the energy coming into you from above.

You can repeat a prayer such as one of these:

• Oh God, please move healing energy through me to where it's needed for the highest good.
  

• May the light of God heal and bless the world.
  

As you do this, place your hand near the psi wheel. If you have two psi wheels, you can use one with each hand (but they will probably turn slower than one alone so you may want to get some practice first before you try this with two wheels). It is usually better to close your eyes since thinking about the wheels will distract you from the healing meditation. However you can peek once in a while to see if the wheels are turning.

You should find that if you concentrate on the healing meditation, the psi wheel will turn, but if your mind wanders or you stop the flow of energy through your hands, the wheel will slow down or stop. Practicing this way should help you improve your concentration and develop your ability as a spiritual healer.

If you try using two psi wheels, one near each hand, and find one turns much faster than the other, or one does not turn at all, try the following:

• Try just one psi wheel, and use it with the slow or stopped hand. Once it begins to turn well, try going back to two wheels.
  
• If you are sleepy, fatigued, hungry, or ill try later when you are feeling stronger.
  
• The problem may be due to a misalignment in the vertebrae of the neck. The nerves that go from the brain to the hand pass through the vertebrae of the neck. A misalignment in the neck vertebrae can adversely affect those nerves and reduce the hand's ability to turn a psi wheel. If you sometimes have discomfort in your neck, that could be a symptom of misaligned vertebrae. Try doing some gentle stretches to loosen the neck muscles: Move your head by looking up and then down several times. Then then tilt your head to the left and to the right several times. Then look to the left and to the right several times. A chiropractor can make a diagnosis and suggest exercises to help maintain correct alignment of the neck vertebrae.
  

When you are done with a session, you can store your psi wheels in an upside down jar. Place your psi wheels on the upside down lid and place the wheels on the lid. Then screw the upside down jar over them. This will allow them to be transported easily and protect them from damage and it will protect people from being accidentally stuck by the needles. (Click on the image below for a larger version.):

Copyright © 2012 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

Psychobiological theories do not explain Near Death Experiences

Near-Death Experiences Between Science and Prejudice by Enrico Facco and Christian Agrillo:

Several studies have proposed psychobiological interpretations of near-death experiences (NDEs), claiming that NDEs are a mere byproduct of brain functions gone awry; however, relevant facts incompatible with the ruling physicalist and reductionist stance have been often neglected. The awkward transcendent look of NDEs has deep epistemological implications, which call for: (a) keeping a rigorously neutral position, neither accepting nor refusing anything a priori; and (b) distinguishing facts from speculations and fallacies. Most available psychobiological interpretations remain so far speculations to be demonstrated, while brain disorders and/or drug administration in critical patients yield a well-known delirium in intensive care and anesthesia, the phenomenology of which is different from NDEs. Facts can be only true or false, never paranormal. In this sense, they cannot be refused a priori even when they appear implausible with respect to our current knowledge: any other stance implies the risk of turning knowledge into dogma and the adopted paradigm into a sort of theology.

The full article provides supporting information.

Copyright © 2012 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

Charles Darwin was not an atheist, he believed in a form of Intelligent Design

I've updated the Eminent Researchers page on my web site to include a section on Charles Darwin.

Charles Darwin discovered the theory of evolution by natural selection. He was not an atheist, he was agnostic. He believed that one could not know if God existed or not. Darwin also believed that natural laws resulted from design which indicates that he believed in a form of Intelligent Design.

Wikiquote

Charles Robert Darwin (12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist who achieved lasting fame by outlining the theory of evolution and proposing that evolution could be explained through natural and sexual selection. Prompted by awareness that Alfred Russel Wallace was developing similar theories he published his own sooner than he had originally intended. This theory is now considered an integral component of biological science.

darwinproject.ac.uk

In my most extreme fluctuations I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God.— I think that generally (& more and more so as I grow older) but not always, that an agnostic would be the most correct description of my state of mind.

Wikipedia

Agnosticism is the view that the truth values of certain claims—especially claims about the existence or non-existence of any deity, but also other religious and metaphysical claims—are unknown and (so far as can be judged) unknowable.

Wikiquote

With respect to the theological view of the question: This is always painful to me. I am bewildered. I had no intention to write atheistically, but I own that I cannot see as plainly as others do, and as I should wish to do, evidence of design and beneficence on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars or that a cat should play with mice... On the other hand, I cannot anyhow be contented to view this wonderful universe, and especially the nature of man, and to conclude that everything is the result of brute force. I am inclined to look at everything as resulting from designed laws, with the details, whether good or bad, left to the working out of what we may call chance.

Copyright © 2012 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

UFO Secrecy and Spirituality

Scientists who have tried to calculate the likelihood of aliens evolving on other planets and coming to the earth have consistently concluded that aliens should be here. Recent discoveries of extrasolar planets have only increased the odds. Many people say they have seen alien vehicles and aliens themselves. This is not accepted by mainstream society most likely because the aliens and the government are trying to keep the presence of aliens secret. The fact that SETI has not detected alien radio communications is not necessarily surprising. Aliens would probably have technology far superior ours, why should we expect them to use the same communication methods we use?

It seems probable that intelligence agencies in the US (and maybe other governments) keep their knowledge of UFOs and aliens so secret and so well compartmentalized that even the highest elected and appointed officials do not have access to the information. This would protect and prevent the information from being be released by political means. There isn't just one reason the information might be protected so securely by the intelligence agencies there are many reasons:

• Some aliens seem to be abducting people and there is nothing the government or military can do to stop it. If acknowledged by the government, this could cause panic, and make the government look incompetent. Simply admitting the existence of aliens might not be too disturbing, but saying that some aliens are abducting people and hybridizing with them (raping them), could be very disturbing to many people. Some of the things the abductees have said they were told by the aliens, (imminent wars, disasters, alien invasions that never seem to really happen) if given credence by governmental acknowledgment of an alien presence, could cause panic.
  

• It is rumored that the US government (President Eisenhower) made an agreement with some of the aliens to receive advanced alien technology in exchange for permission to carry out abductions. Since there was no way to stop the abductions it seems to be more of a surrender than a pact. If true, this would be a huge embarrassment if it become public knowledge.
  

• People who claim contact with aliens consistently report alien predictions of imminent natural disasters, wars, and alien invasions that never seem to occur. If the aliens could make these predictions in person to all of humanity, it could cause world wide panic and social disruptions.
  

• Some aliens may look just like humans. This could lead to chaotic situations where some humans claim to be aliens and take advantage of the fear and gullibility of other people. Or, it could lead situations where some humans are accused of being aliens and are persecuted. It also creates the possibility that the highest levels of the government are infiltrated by aliens. It would be very embarrassing for the government to have to admit this as a possibility or a fact.
  

• The technology the UFOs use for propulsion seems to be capable of speeds reaching thousands of miles an hour in the atmosphere without subjecting interior of the craft to extremely high acceleration forces. This technology might be theoretically obscure but it might not be difficult to construct with currently available materials. If this was acknowledged by the government, it could encourage all sorts of dangerous people (national governments and private individuals) to attempt to discover this means of propulsion. That could lead to the development of weapons like extremely fast missiles (long range or short range) that are impossible to defend against. The power source for the alien craft might also be adapted to produce a warhead for these missiles of unimaginable power.
  

• The technology used to power the alien crafts, if made available to the public could disrupt our fossil fuel based economy. Obviously the current power structure doesn't want to change the status quo. But less obviously, if all the people currently employed in energy industries became unemployed, they would stop buying things and stop paying taxes until they found new jobs. The ripple effects could cause a deep recession or world wide economic depression. The new alien technology could ultimately have huge economic benefits and be good for society in the long run, but the transition from fossil fuels could be chaotic and traumatic for many people.
  

• When secret military aircraft are accidentally observed by the public, the credibility of those observations can be damaged by misinformation ridiculing the observations as absurd reports of UFOs. Thus it would be harder to keep new and advanced military craft secret if UFOs were no longer a subject of ridicule.
  

• The aliens don't use money. If a technologically superior civilization was known to not use money, people all over the world would question the current economic system on earth. If people demanded we organize the world economy on the same lines as the aliens organize theirs, it would threaten the power of the current elite which depends on monetary wealth for maintaining its power and luxurious lifestyle. The powerful will do what is necessary to maintain the current economic system.
  

• The aliens may tell us the truth about the human soul or spirit and the truth about the history of human evolution and religion. This may contradict popular religions and scientific theories and could upset many people. Also, some people in the government might not believe this truth and consider the aliens to be demonic deceivers who should not be allowed to propagate heresy to the public.
  

• The aliens may want to avoid disrupting the current cultures on earth. In the past, contact with European explorers led to the destruction of native cultures all over the world. Some aliens may want to avoid something similar and some aliens might be working to keep their presence secret. For reasons that might be ethical or simply selfish some aliens may want to preserve the current cultures on earth. The government may agree that there is a danger to earth culture and cooperate in keeping the alien presence secret.
  

• If the presence of aliens is disclosed, no matter what the true alien agenda is (and there may be different groups of aliens with different agendas), some people will believe what the aliens say and some will not believe what they say. Some people will believe what the government says about the aliens, some people will not believe what the government says. Some people will benefit from the changes the aliens bring about, some people will find their own interests are harmed by those changes. No matter what the alien agenda is, it has the potential to cause intense social disruption. This could lead to fracturing of society into different factions and could lead to massive protests, boycotts, or other forms of resistance against governments, and could have significant effect on the world economy. Many people might feel a greater allegiance and loyalty to the aliens than to the human governments. Certain and factual knowledge of the alien presence is a grave danger to the status quo. Those in power benefit from the status quo and will resist change.
  

• Those people responsible for suppressing information about aliens may have committed crimes or violations of the US constitution in order to keep that information secret. They will be reluctant to divulge what has been going on because they could face criminal charges.
  

There isn't enough public information to make a correct judgment about whether the government's response to the aliens is good or bad. For example, there are purportedly many cases of military jets trying to intercept UFOs and recent rumors of US beam weapons being used on the UFOs. Is the government trying to prevent abductions or trying to discourage friendly aliens from making their presence known? Also, there could be different factions within the government doing different things with or without coordination or knowledge of each other. Some government actions might be good and some might be bad. It is not really possible for us to judge what is going on due to a lack of information.

Understanding the alien agenda also requires a spiritual perspective. We can't make a correct assessment of the phenomena unless we also know the truth about the human soul and human history on earth. There may be coordination in the spirit planes of aliens and humans on the earth plane, but we don't understand this while we are on the earth plane so we react with fear that is not appropriate. This is a very complicated subject but as an example to explain what I mean, suppose some aliens are hybridizing with humans as some abductees and abduction researchers claim. Where will the souls of the hybrids come from? What if there will be human souls incarnating in the hybrids? How can we tell if the aliens are invading the earth or helping humanity to evolve?

Copyright © 2012 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

How Physicists Might Discover the Spirit World

In an article on cnn.com, physicist and author Sean Carroll describes how the recently discovered Higgs boson might allow physicists to study dark matter. Dark matter is a form of matter that comprises five sixths of the total mass of the universe, however little is known about dark matter because it rarely interacts with ordinary matter. In his article, Carroll describes how scientists could use the Higgs boson to investigate dark matter.

Some people suspect that the spirit world is made of dark matter. In this case, physicists studying dark matter could soon discover the spirit realm. However, even if the spirit world is not made of dark matter, Carroll describes a process that would allow physics to eventually discover the spirit world. When physicists stumble upon an effect in their laboratories or particle accelerators that involves spiritual physics, further study will inevitably lead to discovery of the spirit world.

Through mediumship and other paranormal phenomena, we know that spirits do have some effect on the physical world. Wave function collapse may be one such effect. Quantum entanglement may be also be a phenomena that links the physical world to the spirit world. Therefore, it is only a matter of time before persistent investigations of mainstream physics will lead to the discovery of spiritual physics.

From the article:

It's possible, even likely, that millions of them [dark matter particles] pass through your body every second. It's like a city with two populations, each speaking a different language, and no translators or bilingual interpreters. The two groups of people go about their separate lives, never directly speaking with each other. Likewise, in our galaxy, dark matter and ordinary matter pass right through each other all the time.

The Higgs boson could be the bilingual particle we've been looking for. We don't know exactly what the dark matter is, but we certainly have our favorite theories. In many of those models, the Higgs is the one particle that readily interacts both with ordinary protons and neutrons and also with dark matter.

...

There are several experiments currently running with the goal of detecting dark matter.

...

We're not just waiting around for dark matter to be detected, either. Now that we've found the Higgs, we can start studying its properties in detail.

...

But once we better understand the Higgs and the particles it decays into, we might be able to infer the presence of dark matter just by process of elimination, by pinpointing events in which more energy went into the collision than we detected coming out.

...

Copyright © 2012 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

Eminent Researchers: Alan Turing and Wernher von Braun

I have updated the Eminent Researchers page on my web site to include Alan Turing and Wernher von Braun.

Alan Turing

From Wikipedia.

Alan Mathison Turing, OBE, FRS ( 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954), was a British mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, and computer scientist. He was highly influential in the development of computer science, providing a formalisation of the concepts of "algorithm" and "computation" with the Turing machine.[1][2] Turing is widely considered to be the father of computer science and artificial intelligence.[3]

In a paper where he describes his Turing Machine,
Computing machinery and intelligence. Mind, 59, 433-460,
Turing wrote:

I assume that the reader is familiar with the idea of extrasensory perception, and the meaning of the four items of it, viz., telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition and psychokinesis. These disturbing phenomena seem to deny all our usual scientific ideas. How we should
like to discredit them! Unfortunately the statistical evidence, at least for telepathy, is overwhelming. It is very difficult to rearrange one's ideas so as to fit these new facts in. Once one has accepted them it does not seem a very big step to believe in ghosts and bogies. The idea that our bodies move simply according to the known laws of physics, together with some others not yet discovered but somewhat similar, would be one of the first to go.

Turing recognized that the lack of ESP would prevent a computer from passing the Turing Test.

Wernher von Braun

From Wikipedia:

Wernher Magnus Maximilian, Freiherr von Braun (March 23, 1912 – June 16, 1977) was a German-born rocket scientist, aerospace engineer, space architect, and one of the leading figures in the development of rocket technology in Nazi Germany during World War II and, subsequently, the United States.

From Wikiquote:

Nature does not know extinction; all it knows is transformation. Everything science has taught me, and continues to teach me, strengthens my belief in the continuity of our spiritual existence after death.

...

For me, the idea of a creation is not conceivable without invoking the necessity of design. One cannot be exposed to the law and order of the universe without concluding that there must be design and purpose behind it all.

...

It is in scientific honesty that I endorse the presentation of alternative theories for the origin of the universe, life and man in the science classroom. It would be an error to overlook the possibility that the universe was planned rather than happening by chance.

Copyright © 2012 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

Doctors Testify to Patient's Spirit Return

Doctors Testify to Patient's Spirit Return

Within hours of Burke being pronounced dead at the hospital, two members of the medical team who had treated him received a "visitation" from Burke in their own homes – before they knew that he had passed on. What's more, the men had never met.

Copyright © 2012 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

Savants and ESP

Last month I posted on Acquired Savant Syndrome. Today I noticed an article Savants: What They Can Teach Us by Larry Dossey, MD that says Savants are often capable of ESP.

Savant is derived from a French word meaning “learned one.” Although they are often mentally or socially impaired, savants frequently possess astonishing creative and intuitive powers of obscure origin, in areas such as mathematics, art, or music.

...

“Savant syndrome” was popularized in the 1988 movie Rain Man. Kim Peek, the developmentally disabled man who was the inspiration for the film, knew more than 7,600 books by heart, as well as every area code, highway, zip code, and television station in the United States.

...

Many clinicians have reported savants capable of extrasensory perception, or ESP, also called psi.

...

The article describes one child who would know when his parents were going to pick him up from school, another who would know about conversations that occurred out of earshot and who had the ability to pick up thoughts, and another who would know when the telephone would ring and who would be calling.

In the same way that Acquired Savant Syndrome is explained by the filter model of the brain, so is ESP in people who are born as savants. The same abnormality in the brain that causes impariments like autism, may also damage the filtering ability of the brain that normally blocks certain facets of consciousness. When that filtering ability is damaged, the abilities that make them savants as well as the ability for ESP can manifest.

Copyright © 2012 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

Restore Yourself with Tai Chi

I got this book from the library today and I highly recommend it:

Becoming One with Nature: Restore Yourself with Tai Chi
by Martin Lee, Ph.D., Emily Lee, TC Master, Melinda & Joyce Lee

It covers energy healing, self healing, and meditation. It includes an exercise to help you learn to feel the energy (chi), as well as a 64 sequence of forms (tai chi movements).

It's only 144 pages but contains photgraphs and written text of how to do the forms.

My only criticism is that the author tries to give a scientific explanations of why it works. Martin Lee is a physicist who worked on particle accelerators and he is trying to get technical, analytical, scientific, minded westerners to believe in it long enough to try it and prove it for themselves. I can understand his motivation but in my opinion the explanations are not compelling. He does give short case histories of people who have been helped by the techniques including himself and I find that much more convincing - except much of what he is writing about I already know and accept from my experieces with spiritual healing.

I was looking for a book that gave the qigong/tai chi/chi kung perspective on healing because I was interested in expanding my understanding beyond what I have learned in Spritiualist churches and this book satisfies that interest. What surprised me was how similar the two forms of healing are.

Copyright © 2012 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

Reality is an Illuison

Someone once suggested a person could be an isolated brain in a vat controlled by a virtual reality generator and there would be no way the person could tell the difference between that and an objective reality.

I suppose this could be true, but I think it is more likely that the brain is the virtual reality generator.

Neuroscience has shown that the brain produces the sense of self, and the sense of time.

People who have had Near Death Experiences say that they experience love, timelessness, and oneness while retaining their individuality. They say that when out of the body, deformities, disease and its associated pain, no longer exist.

The sense of time and the sense of self, disease and pain we have while incarnated are not real. They are illusions produced by the brain. All the studies by neuroscientists attempting to show how the brain produces consciousness are really showing how the brain produces a sham reality.

Many of the great mystical traditions have said that reality is an illusion. Neuroscience provides the mechanism for that illusion.

Copyright © 2012 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

What Near Death Experiencers Have to Say About Reincarnation

Many people who have Near Death Experiences learn about reincarnation during their experience. There are many examples of this described at www.near-death.com

Sandra Rogers:

I was given the choice of remaining with the light, provided I return later to the physical world and experience all that brought me to the point of shooting myself, or I could return now and pick up my life where it was

Karen Brannon:

All of my being wanted to stay there in bliss, but ever since I was six, I knew that reincarnation is the natural fact of life, and now, I had the knowingness that if I chose to stay, I would have to reincarnate to Earth again later.

Thomas Sawyer:

Reincarnation is not a linear thing. One of the problems in defining it is that there is no analogy to it. It is outside of time, yet we can't help but think of it in terms of the past and the future, and this incarnation. The whole story is so big and so involved.

Christian Andréason:

Heaven, I undeniably saw that I had lived an innumerable amount of lives. Yet, what I saw went way beyond our comprehension of what we think reincarnation is. So, I am not exactly speaking of being born again and again on this planet alone.

Arthur Yensen:

Between lives, with the great knowledge of our oversouls, we choose the next life we are going to live and how much karma we are going to meet and settle. For example, if you abused animals, or people, in one life your oversoul would probably cause you to reincarnate into a situation where you'd get abused to make you realize the misery you've caused others.

Amber Wells' research:

...

Her paper was published in the Journal of Near-Death Studies in the fall of 1993. In her study, 70 percent of the group of near-death experiencers demonstrated belief in reincarnation. In contrast, a Gallup Poll found that only 23 percent of the general population endorse this belief.

...

"It is a matter of personal knowledge from what the being with whom I spoke during my near-death experience told me about my older son, that he had had 14 incarnations in female physical bodies previous to the life he has just had."

...

"My whole life went before me of things I have done and haven't done, but not just of this one lifetime, but of all the lifetimes. I know for a fact there is reincarnation. This is an absolute. I was shown all those lives and how I had overcome some of the things I had done in other lives. There was still some things to be corrected."

...

"I had a lot of questions, and I wanted to know what they [the light beings she encountered in her near-death experience] were doing – why are you just kind of milling around here? And someone stepped forward ... it wasn't just one ... I got information from a number of them ... that they were all waiting for reincarnation."

...

Some experiencers interviewed during Ms. Wells' study described the general process of reincarnation as one consciousness separating into individual souls to be embodied in matter. One experiencer took this idea even further, stating that reincarnation takes place more on a collective level rather than an individual level. In other words, this experiencer felt that a collective energy recycles itself through matter and that our sense of individuality is a product of our present incarnation only.

...

Some experiencers indicated that the cycle of reincarnation would probably come to an end for earthly embodiments, but that one would continue to incarnate into other realms or dimensions.

Betty Bethards:

As you are ready, and as you choose, you will be shown your past lives. If you do not believe in reincarnation it may take a long time before you are able to deal with this. Eventually, you must learn to understand yourself in a continuity of growth over many lifetimes. You must recognize all the strengths you have built and all the karmic ties you have created which must be dissolved.

David Oakford:

The being told me that each planet has a theme for learning and that any of them can be chosen by a soul when we are between physical lives.

More on reincarnation on my web site.

Copyright © 2012 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

Acquired Savant Syndrome

Acquired Savant Syndrome occurs when a exceptional talents arise after a brain injury. The “Acquired” Savant—“Accidental” Genius by Darold A. Treffert, MD explains:

A 10-year-old boy is knocked unconscious by a baseball. Following that traumatic blow, he suddenly can do calendar calculations. He can also remember the weather, along with other autobiographical details of his daily life, from that time forward. An elderly woman who had never painted before becomes a prodigious artist after a particular type of dementia process begins and progresses. Another elderly patient with dementia has a similar sudden epiphany of ability, but this time in music. A 56-year-old builder, who had no particular prior interest or skills in art, abruptly, for the first time in his life, becomes a poet, a painter and a sculptor following a stroke that he miraculously survived. An 8-year-old boy begins calendar calculating after a left hemispherectomy for intractable seizures. These are examples of what I call the “acquired” savant, or what might also be called “accidental genius.”

Materialists will say acquired savant syndrome occurs when part of the brain is injured because, either inhibitory function is lost or another part of the brain becomes more active to compensate for the damaged part. But why should compensating for lost functions result in new abilities that never existed before? That is not "compensation". It also seems unlikely that evolution and natural selection could account for the existence of these exceptional abilities that are only expressed as a result of brain injury. The materialist explanations are even less plausible when you consider the details of the cases.

For example:

Derek Amato:

A man who suffered concussion after diving into a shallow pool has made a seemingly improbable discovery: it made him a musical genius.

...

Amato, who can not read music, explained that he knew what to play as he could see black and white squares in his head that triggered his fingers to move.

Tony Cicoria

At a park in 1994, Tony Cicoria, an orthopedic surgeon, was hanging up a pay phone when lightning from a gathering storm struck the booth, shooting through the phone and into his head.

...

Shortly afterwards, he had a mysterious, insatiable need to listen to classical piano music. But he soon found that just listening to the music wasn’t cutting it. So, despite never showing any desire to play an instrument before, he bought sheet music and began teaching himself the piano. Learning was slow going though, because instead of playing the Chopin composition in front of him, he kept wanting to play the melodies that were echoing inside his head instead. When he realized these songs were of his own creation, he began furiously writing them down until he had dozens composed. In 2008, Cicoria released a CD of his music called, Notes From An Accidental Pianist and Composer. His best-known song from the album is fittingly titled, “The Lightning Sonata.”

This is how the brain compensates for an injury?

These new skills do not require the training an uninjured person would need to develop them. Some people may be able to learn to use uninjured brain tissue to compensate for functions lost due to brain injury. For example, after a stroke a person may be able to relearn how to move paralyzed muscles. However this requires a long period of physical therapy and usually does not return full function. Yet in Acquired Savant Syndrome, skills that the subject didn't have before the injury arise fully formed without effort or intention.

Natural selection occurs when a trait evolves in response to an environmental factor. How can the ability to do calendar calculations or playing the piano in response to seeing black and white squares in the mind's eye be explained by natural selection? What is the survival advantage in having these abilities in response to an injury? Pianos and calendars have not existed long enough for natural selection to play a role in humankind's ability to use them without making an effort to learn how.

Compensation, and or natural selection are not good explanations for these phenomena. A better explanation for acquired savant syndrome is that the brain does not produce consciousness but is a filter of non-physical consciousness:

The filter model is superior to the hypothesis that the brain produces consciousness because the filter model explains more evidence. You can damage a filter in two ways. You can clog it or you can punch a hole in it. When brain damage causes loss of function like amnesia, that is like a clog in the filter. When brain injury results in increased function, that is like a hole punched in the filter. Examples of increased function include Acquired Savant Syndrome and when people have increased psychic abilities after a brain injury.

Update: Also see my more recent post: Savants and ESP

Copyright © 2012 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

Free E-book by Eric Weiss: The Long Trajectory: Reincarnation and Life After Death

http://ericweiss.com/the-long-trajectory

Assessing Skeptical Claims

I often see questions on internet discussion forums asking if there is any known rebuttal to some skeptical claim. When assessing skeptical claims, it is important to understand that there have been many cases of misleading claims by skeptics.

Because there are so many misleading claims made by skeptics you should:

1. Demand the same level of proof for skeptical claims that you demand for proof of the paranormal. An accusation of fraud is not proof of fraud, just as a claim of a paranormal phenomenon is not proof of a paranormal phenomenon. Skeptics demand scientific statistically significant evidence and replication and they still don't believe any paranormal claims. But when it comes to accusations of fraud, despite many misleading claims made by skeptics, people tend to assume that any accusation of fraud is reliable without considering it may be incorrect due to ignorance, incompetence or duplicity of the skeptic.
   

2. Never make up your mind on a skeptical claim until you see how the other side rebuts the skeptics on that issue. Just like sometimes there is a simple natural explanation for a supposed paranormal phenomena that is overlooked because people are ignorant of science or magic tricks, sometimes a skeptical claim may be easily rebutted by someone who knows the details of the situation. The skeptic may be ignorant of the phenomenon he is criticizing, or there may be indisputable evidence the skeptical claim is false.
   

3. Be especially suspicious of any side to a dispute that relies heavily on ridicule, persecution, tenuous unproven alternative hypotheses, and misleading statements rather than a simply relying of facts and arguments. People who can't argue based on the facts and logical analysis will resort to other means to convince people of their beliefs.
   

Copyright © 2012 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

Physicalism is Dead: Ex-Skeptic talks about why he left the Skeptical M...

Physicalism is Dead: Ex-Skeptic talks about why he left the Skeptical M...: Stephen Bond, former skeptic, had this to say: Of course, there is nothing inherently elitist about reason or the scientific method. Cri...

Psychic Contributions to Physics

Extrasensory Perception of Subatomic Particles (PDF), (HTML)

Abstract - A century-old claim by two early leaders of the Theosophical Society to have used a form of ESP to observe subatomic particles is evaluated. Their observations are found to be consistent with facts of nuclear physics and with the quark model of particle physics provided that their assumption that they saw atoms is rejected. Their account of the force binding together the fundamental constituents of matter is shown to agree with the string model. Their description of these basic particles bears striking similarity to basic ideas of superstring theory. The implication of this remarkable correlation between ostensible paranormal observations of subatomic particles and facts of nuclear and particle physics is that quarks are neither fundamental nor hadronic states of superstrings, as many physicists currently assume, but, instead, are composed of three subquark states of a superstring.

Occultism and the atom: the curious story of isotopes

http://www.cwlworld.info/pw_article_sept03.pdf (PDF), (HTML)

For example, Besant and Leadbeater reported in 1908 in the journal The Theosophist their discovery of a variation of neon - five years before the English chemist Frederick Soddy gave the name of "isotopes" to atoms of an element differing in mass. Their colleague, C. Jinarajadasa, who made sketches and notes during their investigative sessions, wrote in 1943 to Professor F. W. Aston, inventor of the mass spectrograph, at Cambridge University, England, informing him that Besant and Leadbeater had discovered in 1907 the neon-22 isotope by psychic means five years before scientists found it. (How the two Theosophists identified isotopes will be explained later). The distinguished scientist replied that he was not interested in Theosophy!

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Skeptiko Interview with Dr. Melvin Morse

In the skeptiko podcast interview with Dr. Melvin Morse, Morse tells of the case of a child drowning victim who had been underwater for 17 minutes and after being rescued had no heartbeat for an additional 45 minutes. Dr. Morse never saw any sign of life in the patient. At the time he thought she had died. It was only long afterward that he found out she survived.

Yet during that time, the patient experienced floating out of her body and remembered being intubated, hearing a phone conversation the doctor had, and hearing the nurses talking about a cat that died. When she regained consciousness she asked the nurses where her friends from heaven were. She also remembered that heaven was "fun".

The full interview is here.

So by chance or coincidence or fate or whatever, I happened to be in Pocatello, Idaho and there was a child there who had drowned in a community swimming pool. She was documented to be under water for at least 17 minutes. It just so happened that a pediatrician was in the locker room at the same community swimming pool and he attempted to revive her on the spot. His intervention probably saved her life but again, he documented that she had no spontaneous heartbeat for I would say at least 45 minutes, until she arrived at the emergency room. Then our team got there.

She was really dead. All this debate over how close do these patients come to death, etc., you know, Alex, I had the privilege of resuscitating my own patients and she was, for all intents and purposes, dead. In fact, I had told her parents that. I said that it was time for them to say goodbye to her. This was a very deeply religious Mormon family. They actually did. They crowded around the bedside and held hands and prayed for her and such as that. She was then transported to Salt Lake City. She lived. She not only lived but three days later she made a full recovery.

Alex Tsakiris: And what did she tell you…

Dr. Melvin Morse: Her first words, the first words she said when she came out of her coma, she turned to the nurse down at Primary Children’s in Salt Lake City. She says, “Where are my friends?” And then they’d say, “What do you mean, where are your friends?” She’d say, “Yeah, all the people that I met in Heaven. Where are they?” [Laughs]

The innocence of a child. So I saw her in follow-up, another one of these odd twists of fate. I happened to be in addition doing my residency and just happened to be working in the same community clinic in that area. My jaw just dropped to the floor when she and her mother walked in. I was like, “What?” I had not even heard that she had lived. I had assumed that she had died. She looked at me and she said to her mother, “There’s the man that put a tube down my nose.” [Laughs]

Alex Tsakiris: What are you thinking at that point when she says that?

Dr. Melvin Morse: You know, it’s one of those things—I laughed. I sort of giggled the way a teenager would giggle about sex. It was just embarrassing. I didn’t know what to think. Certainly, I’d trained at Johns Hopkins. I thought when you died you died. I said, “What do you mean, you saw me put a tube in your nose?”

She said, “Oh, yeah. I saw you take me into another room that looked like a doughnut.”

She said things like, “You called someone on the phone and you asked, ‘What am I supposed to do next?’”

She described the nurses talking about a cat who had died. One of the nurses had a cat that had died and it was just an incidental conversation. She said she was floating out of her body during this entire time. I just sort of laughed. And then she taps me on the wrist. You’ve got to hear this, Alex.

After I laughed she taps me on the wrist and she says, “You’ll see, Dr. Morse. Heaven is fun.” [Laughs] I was completely blown away by the entire experience. I immediately determined that I would figure out what was going on here. This was in complete defiance of everything I had been taught in terms of medicine.

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