Ghosts and paranormal activity in ED & PR

[Chick]

Robert Poste's Child Wrote:

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> I phoned the same friend once and had a rather

> strange conversation as she had called me at the

> same time and our calls met in the middle, with

> neither phone actually ringing.

>

> Not sure I see this stuff as necessarily

> spiritual, though. Physicists can prove that

> everything is composed of energy, that everything

> that has lived has an energy field, and apparently

> that time is non-linear outside our day-to-day

> experience (don't ask me for references as I'm not

> that bothered) so it seems reasonable that in some

> circumstances some people might unwittingly tap

> into this somehow.

>

> Science isn't always black and white: when you

> hold hands with someone, you know which is your

> hand and which is theirs, but at the simplest

> molecular level you can't see where one person

> stops and the other begins. I find that rather

> beautiful.

What utter rubbish.

[Robert Poste's Child]

StraferJack Wrote:

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> Never mind what he got out of it, what did you?

>

> Hadn't done it before and not since? If it was

> genuinely powerful or, god forbid, useful, why not

> pursue this fantastic avenue

Can't say I got anything much out of it at the time, just find it interesting to try things out for myself sometimes. Hadn't thought about it for years till I saw this thread.

Retelling it here has allowed me the amusement of witnessing some enjoyably ego-driven chest-beating though. Does that count?

[Louisa]

RPC things people often dismiss or do not think about are just the sort of things which we need to explore more profoundly.

Louisa.

[Robert Poste's Child]

Louisa, you're probably right.

Chick, are you flirting with SJ?

[Louisa]

Everyone on EDF flirts with SJ. It's a right of passage.

Louisa.

[fabfor]

Robert Poste's Child Wrote:

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> I was involved in a group psychometry exercise

> once, years ago - not something I've done before

> or since. The leader gave everyone a photo related

> to his personal life in an envelope and you had to

> blurt out the first images that came into your

> head. I saw a woman with dark hair, a curve in a

> wide, brown river with a muddy shoreline and the

> sun on the water, then a sort of industrial

> interior with small metal things going through the

> air on a belt. They were just flashes but clear,

> so I described them, feeling like a total idiot.

> When I opened it, the picture was of his mother,

> who was originally from Sheffield, who lost

> another son when he drowned in the river.

>

> Maybe the guy was a charlatan but I can't see what

> he got out of it if so.

Interesting.

Many years ago, six of us went to the Spiritualist Association of GB HQ to 'check it out' and were very surprised by a very accurate psychometry reading, using a wristwatch belonging to a member of our party. He was a medical student and had gone in a confirmed cynic but came a confused cynic!

He said that she had revealed (worldly) things that even his brother (also an attendee) didn't know. He was clearly in shock and we all had to accept that something 'weird' had happened.

I remain convinced that psychometry is really telepathy (with the aid of an object).

[aquarius moon]

StraferJack Wrote:

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> What does that even mean Aquarius ?

>

> I read your post. You claimed your cat was put to

> sleep, but like Stephen kings per semetary it came

> back?

>

> And I'm defensive aind impatient?

I don't know if she came back, I just felt her and it had never happened to me before.

All I'm saying is don't be so disbelieving just because you haven't experienced it yet. Doesn't mean you never will.

Keep an open mind as you may one day be proved wrong, as I was, because until it happened to me, I didn't believe it either.

[Burbage]

MagMag Wrote:

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> Co-incidence or synchronicity? Accident or

> connectivity? Watch out Burbage..... we might be

> quantum entangled!!!

It's possible. Although it would usually require a bicycle, second-hand or otherwise, to be common to both our lives, the shocking state of modern enamelling, and the general disregard of bicycle-training, suggests parking-stands and lampposts may also be powerful vectors for the atomic mingling.

But as I can't be sure (unless Louisa can find the time to consult the late Mr O'Brien on our behalf), I'm tempted to put it down to the fact that we might have happened to read books by the same author. And that's neither synchronicity nor coincidence. That's publishing.

[Alan Medic]

Perhaps feeling a cat rubbing against your leg is similar to the experience of an amputee feeling his leg is still there.

[david_carnell]

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/the_data_so_far.png

[Otta]

StraferJack Wrote:

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> Santa. Not real

> Yeti. Not real

> UFO. Not real

> Ghosts. Not real

Santa. Not real

Yeti. Not real

UFO. PROBABLY Not real in terms of reported sightings, but surely possible given how tiny we are in the universe...

Ghosts. PROBABLY Not real

I bet you can't wait to ruin Christmas for your kids and put them right! ;-)

[StraferJack]

of course once we identify a flying object, it's no longer a UFO

But I take your point - and I would be well up for ghosts being real

But being realistic and weighing up the balance of probability - just sifting through all the reported sightings (particularly of UFOs) there seems to be a pattern of dimmness/gullibility. And given how much time/money as been spent on trying to find ANYTHING to do with them, the chances of them existing are miniscule. I'm happy to be proved wrong but no point telling lot's of people they are REAL either (you haven't done that but some people will insist!)

As for my kids.. well, there's the rub. I'm loving playing along with the whole Santa/Easter thing but if I have to compare grown ups posting on a public forum with them, I know who comes off worst ;-)

[El Pibe]

Ha :)

Although strictly speaking UFO. Not real still stands

just

No such thing as life elsewhere = massively unlikely.

That said, we're in a pretty isolated bit of space, why anyone would use the enormous energies/thousands of years involved in supralight/sublight travel to get here and potter about concerning themselves with our sensibilities of truthes we may or may not be able to cope with, whilst obssessing with cow/field vandalism and probing anuses, is anyone's guess.

[StraferJack]

on the subject of Santa and "finding out" I remember being traumatised by the revelation. I don't think my parents told me, it was just the steady accretion of facts

Can't remember how old I was - pretty young but I suspect kids these days will all have found out via the internet before they hit 4

[El Pibe]

"dimmness/gullibility" is rather harsh.

"Heart over head" is how I'd put it.

Just for a while I truly believed that stevenage could get a result over everton. Turned out the evidence was lacking, but this is the sort of situation when you can prove the negative that there's no such thing as a stevenage cup defeat to everton.

As the alleys for ghost enthusiasts to use scientific techniques to prove their existence diminish, so the noises about how science doesnt understand and they're only perceptible to those willing to believe (and by some non physical facet that our occular/tactile/aural senses somehow have over and above other ways of recording photons and pressure changes) accrete.

[Otta]

They're looking for musicians. They're thousands of years ahead of us in most things, but for some reason they've not moved past plain chant, and they're desperate to rock out.

They picked up Ziggy Stardust on SJ's frequency, and thought he was real.

[StraferJack]

The evidence for your Stevenage hope wasn't lacking - it just showed an extremely small chance of it happening.

Your heart overrode your head and you let it. And therefore I pronounce you a woo merchant ;-)

[StraferJack]

I like your thinking otta

[El Pibe]

"The evidence for your Stevenage hope wasn't lacking - it just showed an extremely small chance of it happening"

It's all about how you *want* to interpret things.

The evidence of Stevenage getting a result in the 4th round of the FA Cup is about 50% so heart was at least no well placed than a contrary position. Of course sitting bottom with a terrible run of form, against Martinez's effective side suggested otherwise, but it was at least plausible.

But you make a valid point about heart over head, given the balance of possibilities I chose to believe a contrary position. Had we never reached the 4th round I would still have gone for it because that's what I wanted to believe.......

I'm sure there's a parabolic point to be made in there somewhere if someone can just spot the subtle clues.

[StraferJack]

putting the "bolic" in parabolic

"The evidence of Stevenage getting a result in the 4th round of the FA Cup is about 50%". hmmmmmm

[El Pibe]

that's per time they were in the 4th round, not per fa cup in existence.

[El Pibe]

...and result being not losing at home and getting a glorious and lucrative away tie. Come on, I'm a west ham fan, I take the good stuff where I can find it.

[root]

Louisa Wrote:

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> Guys there is no argument, we are just human

> beings and we only know what we know and can prove

> to date. I'm sure there is a lot more beyond our

> understanding, even the ability to which our

> understanding can stretch. So all the nay sayers

> arrogantly using logic to dismiss another's belief

> can carry on doing so. It bothers me not. I still

> believe whether you do or not.

Of course there's only so much we know.

Which is why we take a step back and ask ourselves, "what are we trying to explain?", or "how does this work?" or "how do I solve this problem?".

Then we scrach our heads, go through the knowledge we have accumulated to date and make educated guesses here and there and come up with a hypothesis. Then we build models and make predictions and device experiments to test those hypothesis. We test, observe and collect data, refine our methods and analyse all that data we've collected. If our results tally with our hypothesis we throw a party and if not we scratch our heads, see what what we have learnt, revise our hypothesis and start all over.

What we don't do is start with an absolute truth and holding onto it when it flies straight into the face of observation and reason. Since I moved to ED I have lost count of how many times I have been stopped by assorted god bothereres all of whom wanted to share their version of absolute truth with me. About how I am a sinner but someone dies for the sins I had yet to commit a couple of millenia ago because he loved me. Others wanted me to go to some metaphisical hospital where they cure illnesses science cannot explain. Others even left pamphlets in my mail saying how evolution and cosmology are just a hoax and the world is just 10000 years old.

[maxxi]

Who revived this thread!?

Or has it, indeed, been revived?

Perhaps this is no longer a live thread but the shadow of a thread that 'passed over'. A thread essence that lives on in our collective consciousness and all those posting on it are giving it form and/or suffering (and contributing to) an emotionally generated mass hallucination.

Or perhaps they're asleep at their keyboards and it's all automatic writing.

Am I really posting this - or have I been ghost written?

wooooooo...

[El Pibe]

I think I said it more succinctly earlier but...http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/29/you-make-these-mistakes-i_n_4675728.html

in other words we can't trust our senses or judgement but are inclined to do so :)