This diary is part of a continuing series on legitimate research in Parapsychology and the possible implications for society. A General FAQ on Parapsychology can be found here.
Past 5 blogs on this subject:
A Well Kept Secret #23: A Call to Action
A Well Kept Secret #22: Psychics as a Minority
A Well Kept Secret #21: The Holographic Universe
A Well Kept Secret #20: Politics, Religion, Psychics
A Well Kept Secret #19: Suffer The Children
Today's Diary will be an examination of the usefulness of Ghosts, Out of Body Experiences, spiritual encounters and UFO's.
Before we get into today's topic, the election comes first. Election day, November 4th is coming upon us rapidly. If you do nothing else, please do this, as outlined in my last post: A Call to Action. Imagine holding up a ball of living light that stretches into the future to November 4th with this intent:
All evil plans specific to voting will fail on or before November 4th, 2008.
(This dailykos post comes to mind.)
Imagine this light connected to all other living lights and combining together to grow brighter and brighter until on election day it's insanely bright and for longer if necessary. Once you've done it, relax. The light will take on a life of its own. You don't have to think about it, work at it or figure it out. It just happens.
We are taking advantage of Global Consciousness to give us the future we want instead of the pathetic one the Republicans are offering. We have that right. I can feel that a few people have already done this with me, but the more, the merrier. There is strength in numbers. I originally only asked only psychic people to help, but that was a mistake. While psychic people will be much better at it, you don't actually have to be psychic to do contribute.
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Ok, on to the topic: Like many people born with psychic abilities, I was drawn from a early age to stories of ghosts, out of body experiences, UFO's, channeling and all sorts of paranormal stuff. But I eventually lost interest in all of that stuff. Not quickly or abruptly, but gradually, over the course of a few years. The last book of that sort that I remember reading was the last book Carlos Castaneda wrote before he died. (I enjoyed the books, but according to Wikipedia he was either plagiarizing or making it up. More on that later.)
I am at heart a practical person, so I have to ask myself the question: what's it good for. If ghosts are real, if stories of UFO's are true, if people have experiences out of body, of what importance is it?
I think it's a mixed bag. If someone were to actually find a Bigfoot and credibly document it, that would be of great scientific value. It would tell us about evolution, it would tell us about our planet and something about ourselves. This sort of find would make a difference in the world if actually happened.
On the other hand, I don't understand why people search for UFO's. Anyone who has the capability to travel through the galaxy can be assumed to be advanced enough to choose whether they want to be seen. If such a situation exists, it is totally out of our control. Let's say that we do obtain perfect proof and we know for certain that we are being visited by otherworldly beings. Then what? Our only option is to wait for them to make the first move. Whether we search for UFO's or not, our only option in dealing with them is to wait. Because the outcome is the same whether we search or not, absolute proof of the existence of UFO's would probably not change things a lot.
When we move into the territory of mystical experiences this falls into the realm of personal experience. While mystical experiences can be described, they cannot be shared. These are the sorts of things that must be experienced to be understood and any other form of understanding does not do them justice.
For instance, many years ago, while attending UC Berkeley, I stayed at my father's house. School was out for the quarter and I was stressed out of my mind. I laid on the bed tried to relax. Someone started to play the piano and I had toget up and ask them to stop. I laid back down again, with my ears ringing from the tension. Half asleep, I felt a slight buzzing in my head. The closer I got to sleep, the louder it got until it grew sharply in intensity, becoming impossibly loud and suddenly a large SNAP! went off in my head and I felt a roar of tingling all through my body. I relaxed into it and let it happen. Afterwords I felt much better and was able to sleep. This has happened three times in my life when I've been under a lot of stress. I don't know what to make of it. It's a perfect example of something that can't be shared.
There is a non profit place in Virginia called The Monroe Institute. They specialize in helping people achieve out of body experiences. I have a friend who went there and reported that he was successful at leaving his body. Of course, there's the other method of achieving this result. I have another friend who was momentarily dead on the operating table. Her experience was much more vivid.
I take these experiences for real; I have no reason to doubt my friends, but at the same time, I find that I have no pressing desire to do this myself. It takes all my effort to expand and grow my exterior life and while it would be cool to travel out of body, I'm more interested in moving into a new career. (I'm sooo bored of construction.) I'm sure there are others though, for whom this exploration of the inner world would be much more worthwhile.
The value of mystical experiences then is personal, not social and therefore falls outside of the need for proof. There are just some things in this world best left unjudged. It really does not matter if people make up stories or not because to everyone else, no matter how real a mystical experience was to the person who had it, it is ultimately only a story. Even if what Carlos Castaneda had written were true, every bit of it, it would make not the slightest difference to the rest of us. We are not going to find a Yaqui shaman to lead us on the path to fantastical mysticism. But it is a cool story and like all stories, real or imagined, people can take something valuable from it.
I think that seeing ghosts falls under this heading. A lot of attention is paid to whether we can prove that ghosts exist, but even if we were to prove it, we can't all go out and see one at the circus. It is ultimately a personal experience. Therefore, believing in them or not is irrelevant. If they exist, they go under the heading of "psychic stuff." And much better scientific proof is already available.
There is no reason to believe or dismiss any of this stuff. In the case of mysticism, personal experiences will determine what we decide is true aliens will show themselves when they're damned good and ready and ghosts will just be . . . ghosts. Real? Imagined? Let your personal experience be the judge, and let others do the same. None of us has a complete picture of the universe, so who's to say what's right?