Garbage, all of it.

[wolfgang]

Originally Posted by John Freestone

It seems to me that when you decide to believe in magic, it means suspending rational judgement, because rational judgement belongs to a "wrong" mindset, an illusion about reality. Reality is just what you're creating in your mind.

I would hope rational judgment is part of the equation. Maybe our rational judgments have not been entirely accurate for a while. We have proved the 3d world to the point of wondering even at the scientific observation level what the heck it is. Newer probing into matter and energy is really weird stuff. And statements from scientists often sound like something a mystic would say, or the gurus of past said.

Hence some of the resistance to sceptics like me - believers don't want to have their "positive" thoughts interrupted by my doubts. As a well-educated person on such matters, you must see that, and it's common in many religions. You have to give up doubt altogether, immerse yourself in faith. Maybe that's what I'm struggling to understand about LoA - so many believers seem to want to do experiments to prove that it works, as if it wasn't a religion, but a hidden science waiting for the world to discover it. When someone asks believers for evidence, they get told they can't have objective evidence, but must prove it for themselves, whilst also being sent off to websites where the proof is documented rigorously.

What is doubt? Is it really fear? What is faith? Does it have to be blind? I hope not. Our logical brain can come along for the ride it you entertain some of the newer science about quantum particles/energy/field.

[John Freestone]

I think I understand better today, almost like I set myself the question last night and have slept on it - why, if one believes in SR (as I've been reading about it from Steve Pavlina's blog), would one do experiments?

I'd like to clarify what the question means, and actually I could use Steve's writing as an example (although I won't bother quoting him exactly). The basic philosophy of SR (subjective reality), he says, it that reality is very different from how the materialist view goes. Reality is, in "fact", consciousness: nothing more. Your body, including your brain, and also your personal mind, are constructs, ideas, created by consciousness. Other people, too, and the environment - the whole world - is actually inside your consciousness, as it were, rather than outside it.

Fine. That's a philosophy. It has a certain degree of internal logic to it. However, soon Steve introduces new conditions in this cosmology: you manifest things in the physical plane by what you think. Pardon? So there is something called the "physical plane" then, not just consciousness, which a moment ago was the sum total of the universe - one divine cosmic consciousness. Presumably, then, the physical plane is an illusion created by consciousness, or the original proposition (that consicousness is all there is) was incorrect, a simplification, and in fact there is also this other place we live - the physical plane. Death, Steve also promised, was merely a construct, an illusion of consciousness, BTW.

So that's my difficulty, my confusion, my question, which is a genuine one ALG, and I'm sorry if you find it "boring" (I think the word you're looking for is more like "irritating", however).

Is all this SR stuff (which I see as very much the basis of IM and LoA) saying that reality is just one cosmic consciousness, and absolutely anything is possible if I overcome my habitual thinking patterns (karmic), and we spend time experimenting to see what we can change though an act of will simply because of that same karmic illusion - in fact we could do anything at all? Is that what your experiments are, exercising the will-muscles, kind of thing, to confront and destroy those self-imposed mental limitations?

And if so, why bother discussing whether ALG is a master manifester, since ALG doesn't actually exist, he's just a figment of the Cosmic Consciousness's delusions? Or are there actually different people, different beings, souls and all that? If so, why does the SR theory say that all there is is cosmic consciousness and all the people in my life, everything even in my past and future, the whole of the content of consciousness, is an illusion? Do you believe that people aren't really real? Do you believe in SR/IM/LoA so much that you're prepared to say it's perfectly safe for a person to jump off a cliff?

You see, I've never dismissed the idea that our thoughts influence reality, I just think that it might possibly be a big mistake to take it to extremes and believe that the whole of reality is sitting inside consciousness, and I rather wonder if all the experimentation isn't so much the development of IM skills towards an infinite will power, but an attempt to discover the limits of the Law. Those of the first persuasion will say they can't manifest a coin or a feather or do some other miracle for me on demand because "they're not good enough at it yet". The second kind, like me, would say that there are things I can influence with my will and things that I can't.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean, moonrambler, by "personal development on steroids", but it sounds like you're asking a similar question there. It is a natural human tendency (in the "normal" philosophy of separate human beings with distinct brains and thoughts) for us to extrapolate things to untenable conclusions. New science is often cited as a reason why we should all be able to be in several places at once, levitate at will or have any amount of money we want, and I used to make that suggestion without much real understanding myself, but my conversations with real particle physicists have brought me back down to earth, put my ego in check again, and reminded me that reality might be a lot more complicated than I like to think. It's that liking to think that is the problem.

I agree completely with wolfgang that people could be doing a lot more with their minds in terms of healing their bodies. I would go further and say that positive thinking does make a difference to outcomes in the physical world that seem disconnected with our thoughts - the LoA, in effect - I just see the limits of the LoA being closer to home, I see it as probably being located in an individual human mind, and I see it as probably working (if and when it does) through complex, non-mystical processes. These may be many and varied. One example would be communication between people on an unconscious level through body-language, pheromones, etc., which can account for experiences sometimes interpreted as telepathic. A great deal of success in the lifestyle experiments reported here (of the "I made millions!" kind) can be thought of in terms of this theory, which I might call the "Weak Law of Attraction". If you set your mind to doing something, you unconsciously and consciously instigate all manner of events that you would not by thinking it unlikely, and those events set off other events. By thinking positively, feeling confident, etc., you make those around you notice you more and respond to you more willingly and obligingly. Those inclined to believe in magic will interpret the results in mystical terms, but there are sound, scientific, material reasons why most of these effects take place. The good news is that you don't have to stop doing your positive thinking and meditations. You don't have to stop practising the Law of Attraction. You don't have to stop deciding to get rich and being more likely to get rich. It's just that you retain a degree of critical intelligence that recognises you can't - AND WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO - fly, levitate, drink hemlock or walk through walls...and you remain immune to the influence of those who, either innocently or to deliberately take advantage of you, might persuade you of impossible things.

These effects - the subtle manipulations of body-language, verbal and sub-verbal cues, subliminal messages of all kinds - are the stock in trade of the confidence trickster and the innocent but deluded cold reader of "messages from beyond" or "fortunes", and they work in tandem with the suspension of disbelief, the susceptibility, the hypnotic programmability, of the other.

I therefore have no doubt that intending to increase your IQ, ALG, is likely to do so, and intending to get published is what causes people to get published. We seem only to be arguing about the mechanisms involved. Doubts, rejections of theories, trying new ideas on for size, discussing things, arguing - these are things I enjoy doing at forums. I have never told you you must believe what I believe. I'm just arguing with you. You can withdraw from that argument at any time. It seems my discussion of superstition has offended you, since you pretend that I am calling you a superstitious villager. I am just as susceptible to superstition as anyone else, and I don't mean to insult your intelligence at all. Often, I believe, it is those of the highest intelligence who get caught up in extravagant theories and fail to see their limits (the whole history of science and philosophy is full of them).

[moonrambler]

Originally Posted by John Freestone

I'm not sure exactly what you mean, moonrambler, by "personal development on steroids", but it sounds like you're asking a similar question there. It is a natural human tendency (in the "normal" philosophy of separate human beings with distinct brains and thoughts) for us to extrapolate things to untenable conclusions. New science is often cited as a reason why we should all be able to be in several places at once, levitate at will or have any amount of money we want, and I used to make that suggestion without much real understanding myself, but my conversations with real particle physicists have brought me back down to earth, put my ego in check again, and reminded me that reality might be a lot more complicated than I like to think. It's that liking to think that is the problem.

Going at personal development in a big-time way by investing lots of time and effort (even if it's fun effort) and getting much bigger results than previously. Is that the reason for success, or is it law of attraction?

It is difficult to conclude whether a gigantic unexpected bonus at work is the result of being a very valuable employee (acting in "the certain way"), or LoA. Or is it the same thing?

A great deal of success in the lifestyle experiments reported here (of the "I made millions!" kind) can be thought of in terms of this theory, which I might call the "Weak Law of Attraction". If you set your mind to doing something, you unconsciously and consciously instigate all manner of events that you would not by thinking it unlikely, and those events set off other events. By thinking positively, feeling confident, etc., you make those around you notice you more and respond to you more willingly and obligingly. Those inclined to believe in magic will interpret the results in mystical terms, but there are sound, scientific, material reasons why most of these effects take place.

To me, though, this really is Law of Attraction. It is a way of being.

[John Freestone]

Originally Posted by wolfgang

I would hope rational judgment is part of the equation. Maybe our rational judgments have not been entirely accurate for a while. We have proved the 3d world to the point of wondering even at the scientific observation level what the heck it is. Newer probing into matter and energy is really weird stuff. And statements from scientists often sound like something a mystic would say, or the gurus of past said.

It is true, to some extent, that new science sounds like ancient mysticism, but if "rational judgement is part of the equation" then we must be careful about what we conclude. Firstly, there are many scientific theories that are pure speculation - indeed that is what all theories start as. Most of the weird science you're talking about has in no way been proven, though some of it does have some evidence. Secondly, it almost always applies to unbelievably small dimensions of matter. Particles have been deduced as existing in two places at once (it is even too much to say "observed") under strict scientific conditions - but gurus only under hearsay conditions.

Rational judgement would also speculate how much the scientists of today have been influenced by humanity's deep and ubiquitous spiritual philosophies through time - are they unfairly biasing their theories towards ones that involve magical ideas - especially when you understand how new theories grow on top of older ones. Many scientists are actually of a mystical or religious bent themselves, although many aren't. Einstein and Newton come to mind immediately.

Mostly, however, we find that those who have a good understanding of particle physics do not extrapolate their findings to encompass all being. They also believe in evolution. They also believe in the force of gravity that holds their desk in place. They don't imagine that they can reinvent the whole of engineering to reflect the fact that particles can appear and disappear. They don't spend their time trying to build matter-transporters. Some of them promise "replicators" in the home quite soon ("Earl Grey, hot"), but none of the technology suspends any rational law of science: it's just nanotechnology, assuming they get there.

Time travel, it has been said, is perfectly possible in theory. The only problem is that the theory requires more energy than is supposed to exist in the universe, and the existence of a certain type of particle that has not yet been discovered. See how great the weird science is?

What is doubt? Is it really fear?

Well, it can be, but this is another of those whips the LoA illuminati like to hit us with: If you don't believe in your magical powers, you must be frightened. The common culture has got you under its spell of fear. However, if you started out hypnotised by the prevailing myths and then overcame that enslavement, you did it by thinking for yourself, doubting what you thought you knew and what other people told you.

So, no, doubt isn't really fear. Fear keeps you believing what you believe as much as it stops you imagining different scenarios. If someone tells you to stop doubting and just believe, they could be hoping to raise your consciousness, but very often they're trying to stop you noticing something. Often, in this LoA game, it's done because it makes them feel better the more people agree with their theory...it increases their hit count and their income for instance. Doubt isn't a problem, but fear is. Those who use that whip are in fact trying to make you fear to doubt. They are trying to stop you considering alternatives to whatever it is they're proposing. All the religions do it. SR is a religion, in case you hadn't noticed.

What is faith? Does it have to be blind? I hope not. Our logical brain can come along for the ride it you entertain some of the newer science about quantum particles/energy/field.

I feel there's a distinct message between the lines here (using my psychic powers ): I really really want to believe this stuff, and...ooooh look, here's some weird science...that just must support the theory.

Sorry, I just think there is a really important psychological state that is dreadfully undervalued. It's called not knowing. Suspension of belief. ALG pities me for it, but I'm in good company along with Socrates. It is difficult sometimes. It takes patience to get used to it. Everywhere we look we're being told what the facts are, and we're programmed to try to work it out, to know one way or the other.

We can't fail to exercise faith, of course. Every time I take a step I have faith the world is going to be there to step on. But it is blind. That is one of the true gifts of ancient mystical teachings. Fixed views was one of the categories of things that keep us trapped, according to Gautama Buddha (which is deeply ironic if you know how much Buddhists have argued about their dogma ever since!).

[moonrambler]

Here's an example of the sort of thing that happens to me ALL the TIME. These events make me think there may be a law of attraction, but conjuring this sort of thing on purpose doesn't work real well for me.

I spend a lot of time driving, thinking and daydreaming much of the time. This morning's theme was the first summer I went to college in a town about 70 miles from here (I started college in summer rather than in fall), which I was thinking about partly because it got flooded this week. My thoughts went something like:

"I was real happy that summer, if I made a list of my top 10 happiest times in my life, that summer would be in there, it was so cool to get away and be on my own in a new place, and it was a small campus community in summer, kind of like a Utopia, and wouldn't it be cool if there were a place like that I could move to, and I met Bob [still one of my closest friends] that summer, and every Wednesday we used to watch Starsky & Hutch [because I had a big giant crush on Starsky], and Tami used to write me all the time, and that last year in high school we used to have friendly arguments about who was hotter, Starsky or Hutch, and man, I should really get in touch with Tami again, it's been way too long, and I remember this picture my Dad took of me that summer [I just ran across this picture recently] when he'd gotten that new Polaroid and was taking pictures of everybody and everything, and I was holding up a picture of Starsky & Hutch and I can tell by the look on my face I was seriously tired of that camera, heh, and boy was I skinny back then, and I went out with Randy, who was my first college boyfriend, if you want to call him a boyfriend, because we only went out for three weeks, and he had that awesome Z28 Camaro which over the next few years got totally rusted out for some reason, which must've really made him irritated."

Then I stopped at a rummage sale, got back in the car, looked in the side view mirror, and damn if I didn't see a _____________ . I was so surprised I went out loud, "ACK!"

There really are only two things I could've seen that would wrap this up perfectly, and it is the more unlikely of the two.

[John Freestone]

Am I being thick, moonrambler? What did you see?

[Angela]

I'm guessing it was a Z28 Camaro. Either that or Paul Michael Glaser.

[moonrambler]

Originally Posted by John Freestone

Am I being thick, moonrambler? What did you see?

I saw the red & white Starsky Torino!

[Wax Frog]

"Don't give up on IM, Moonie... it's still worth one... more try... Did you just see that car go by... "

Sorry, couldn't help myself

[John Freestone]

Originally Posted by moonrambler

I saw the red & white Starsky Torino!

Whew, thanks. I just couldn't stop wondering. Is that moment now one of your top ten?

[moonrambler]

Originally Posted by Wax Frog

"Don't give up on IM, Moonie... it's still worth one... more try... Did you just see that car go by... "

Sorry, couldn't help myself

Wow, now there's a song you don't often hear!!

Originally Posted by John Freestone

Whew, thanks. I just couldn't stop wondering. Is that moment now one of your top ten?

Well, I don't know. It certainly was a good one though.

[Angela]

There's a fun little example of the Law of Attraction in action today in an L.A. Times interview with the fabulous Herbie Hancock. He is the first jazz artist in 43 years to win for Best Album, and it's probably the lowest-selling winner in that category in history.

I like that he is focusing on the "way of being" approach (encouragement) to attracting what he wants:

But given the other nominees, you had to be considered a long shot. How did you deal with that?

I started thinking what would be the purpose of my receiving that Grammy. If it's just for my own ego to get another Grammy, that's nice. I like getting Grammys. Who wouldn't? But I already had 10 Grammys. And I never did make music to get Grammys. You don't get into jazz for reasons like that. And then it became clear to me what a great mark it would be for jazz and for the jazz community. It would call attention to it and it would be encouraging to younger musicians. So I started chanting three hours a day, seeing images of myself receiving the award.

And it worked?

Well, I got the award.

[wolfgang]

Originally Posted by John Freestone

It is true, to some extent, that new science sounds like ancient mysticism, but if "rational judgement is part of the equation" then we must be careful about what we conclude. Firstly, there are many scientific theories that are pure speculation - indeed that is what all theories start as. Most of the weird science you're talking about has in no way been proven, though some of it does have some evidence. Secondly, it almost always applies to unbelievably small dimensions of matter. Particles have been deduced as existing in two places at once (it is even too much to say "observed") under strict scientific conditions - but gurus only under hearsay conditions.

maybe the issue is trying to conclude anything shouldn't be done. weird science is speculation and not conclusions. the one bit that gets assumed a lot is that the small particle world is stuck in the small particle world - that may be a hasty conclusion, and to say the small particle world can be in the macro world is a hasty conclusion too.

Rational judgement would also speculate how much the scientists of today have been influenced by humanity's deep and ubiquitous spiritual philosophies through time - are they unfairly biasing their theories towards ones that involve magical ideas - especially when you understand how new theories grow on top of older ones. Many scientists are actually of a mystical or religious bent themselves, although many aren't. Einstein and Newton come to mind immediately.

Mostly, however, we find that those who have a good understanding of particle physics do not extrapolate their findings to encompass all being. They also believe in evolution. They also believe in the force of gravity that holds their desk in place. They don't imagine that they can reinvent the whole of engineering to reflect the fact that particles can appear and disappear. They don't spend their time trying to build matter-transporters. Some of them promise "replicators" in the home quite soon ("Earl Grey, hot"), but none of the technology suspends any rational law of science: it's just nanotechnology, assuming they get there.

belief locks in what we see to the point that we forget what we believe. or we have decided to believe a set of "rules" to be able to live like this in a somewhat stable 3d world - that may only be as stable as our consciousness's ability to keep focus on our agreements about what to believe.

Well, it can be, but this is another of those whips the LoA illuminati like to hit us with: If you don't believe in your magical powers, you must be frightened. The common culture has got you under its spell of fear. However, if you started out hypnotised by the prevailing myths and then overcame that enslavement, you did it by thinking for yourself, doubting what you thought you knew and what other people told you.

not just LoA material says this. fear is the ego. separation from source/God is fear. faith that things are ok is not fear. doubting faith in a divine plan that is in effect no matter what, is fear.

So, no, doubt isn't really fear. Fear keeps you believing what you believe as much as it stops you imagining different scenarios. If someone tells you to stop doubting and just believe, they could be hoping to raise your consciousness, but very often they're trying to stop you noticing something.

I don't think anyone can just believe by not doubting. Doubting means not believing something. Doubting something can be a fear based response to not having a belief that makes one safe.

Often, in this LoA game, it's done because it makes them feel better the more people agree with their theory...it increases their hit count and their income for instance. Doubt isn't a problem, but fear is. Those who use that whip are in fact trying to make you fear to doubt. They are trying to stop you considering alternatives to whatever it is they're proposing. All the religions do it. SR is a religion, in case you hadn't noticed.

don't agree w/ you about SR as religion. where's the church of SR? SR is some kind of idea that can be defined in such a way to be true by it's definition. I mean not the part about your own consciousness being the only one conscious here. But that subjectivity is all our senses give us anyway. why is that a religion?

I feel there's a distinct message between the lines here (using my psychic powers ): I really really want to believe this stuff, and...ooooh look, here's some weird science...that just must support the theory.

I thought you didn't believe in psychic powers and here you are being a psychic! of coarse this is the way I go about looking that things. And that's what I'm trying to tell you. Doubt if you wish but weird science is in support such that we can still have rational thoughts that don't object to newer ways of looking at the 3d world and our role or our consciousness's role in it.

Sorry, I just think there is a really important psychological state that is dreadfully undervalued. It's called not knowing. Suspension of belief.

Not sure what you mean. Are you saying knowing is suspension of belief?

ALG pities me for it, but I'm in good company along with Socrates. It is difficult sometimes. It takes patience to get used to it. Everywhere we look we're being told what the facts are, and we're programmed to try to work it out, to know one way or the other.

We can't fail to exercise faith, of course. Every time I take a step I have faith the world is going to be there to step on. But it is blind. That is one of the true gifts of ancient mystical teachings. Fixed views was one of the categories of things that keep us trapped, according to Gautama Buddha (which is deeply ironic if you know how much Buddhists have argued about their dogma ever since!).

I would think you know that the earth will be there. It is faith in that which you know and that makes you believe it. Blind faith, I've thought, is something one doesn't quite know yet and accepts based on someone else saying it is that way.

[mercuryrising]

Originally Posted by John Freestone

It is true, to some extent, that new science sounds like ancient mysticism, but if "rational judgement is part of the equation" then we must be careful about what we conclude. Firstly, there are many scientific theories that are pure speculation - indeed that is what all theories start as. Most of the weird science you're talking about has in no way been proven, though some of it does have some evidence. Secondly, it almost always applies to unbelievably small dimensions of matter. Particles have been deduced as existing in two places at once (it is even too much to say "observed") under strict scientific conditions - but gurus only under hearsay conditions.

What you are missing is why they have to come up with these theories in the first place, which is that the Newtonian model doesn't work on a very large or very small scale. Why do the rules change when we are not directly perceiving the event?

Rational judgement would also speculate how much the scientists of today have been influenced by humanity's deep and ubiquitous spiritual philosophies through time - are they unfairly biasing their theories towards ones that involve magical ideas - especially when you understand how new theories grow on top of older ones. Many scientists are actually of a mystical or religious bent themselves, although many aren't. Einstein and Newton come to mind immediately.

Kind of sounds like all people are going off their subjective experience of reality.

Mostly, however, we find that those who have a good understanding of particle physics do not extrapolate their findings to encompass all being. They also believe in evolution. They also believe in the force of gravity that holds their desk in place. They don't imagine that they can reinvent the whole of engineering to reflect the fact that particles can appear and disappear. They don't spend their time trying to build matter-transporters. Some of them promise "replicators" in the home quite soon ("Earl Grey, hot"), but none of the technology suspends any rational law of science: it's just nanotechnology, assuming they get there.

Science assumes that the subject/object matrix is real. If they didn't, it would be impossible to induce causality (answer the question "how"). What we are really talking about is ontology. Because of the dualistic nature of language it is difficult to talk about the nature of being, which is why mystics use metaphor to communicate what they understand. Jesus used farming, fishing and wedding feasts. We use quantum mechanics, relativity and computer science.

The problem comes in when people take these metaphors literally, either to be absolute truth or as a replacement for science. When Jesus talks about the farmer throwing seeds on various types of ground, he is not giving a lesson in agriculture.

Time travel, it has been said, is perfectly possible in theory. The only problem is that the theory requires more energy than is supposed to exist in the universe, and the existence of a certain type of particle that has not yet been discovered. See how great the weird science is?

Where does this line of thinking take you? In other words, how does it serve you? If we were discussing this a hundred years ago and I described some of the technologies in existence today, you'd think I was nuts.

Well, it can be, but this is another of those whips the LoA illuminati like to hit us with: If you don't believe in your magical powers, you must be frightened. The common culture has got you under its spell of fear. However, if you started out hypnotised by the prevailing myths and then overcame that enslavement, you did it by thinking for yourself, doubting what you thought you knew and what other people told you.

I'm going to take a different route than wolfgang on this one. You should doubt everything. If you continuously doubt everything, you never land on a firm set of laws or principles that work absolutely. Most skeptics don't do this... they doubt what they never believed in the first place, but rarely look at what they do believe.

So, no, doubt isn't really fear. Fear keeps you believing what you believe as much as it stops you imagining different scenarios. If someone tells you to stop doubting and just believe, they could be hoping to raise your consciousness, but very often they're trying to stop you noticing something. Often, in this LoA game, it's done because it makes them feel better the more people agree with their theory...it increases their hit count and their income for instance. Doubt isn't a problem, but fear is. Those who use that whip are in fact trying to make you fear to doubt. They are trying to stop you considering alternatives to whatever it is they're proposing. All the religions do it. SR is a religion, in case you hadn't noticed.

Subjective reality points out that we are not perceiving the actual reality. What that actual reality is can only be speculated. So "SR" doesn't ask anyone to believe anything, rather to look at what they do believe and how that effects their life. It goes further than "positive thinking' or something to point out that how we perceive things actually changes the phenomena we perceive.

I feel there's a distinct message between the lines here (using my psychic powers ): I really really want to believe this stuff, and...ooooh look, here's some weird science...that just must support the theory.

Sorry, I just think there is a really important psychological state that is dreadfully undervalued. It's called not knowing. Suspension of belief. ALG pities me for it, but I'm in good company along with Socrates. It is difficult sometimes. It takes patience to get used to it. Everywhere we look we're being told what the facts are, and we're programmed to try to work it out, to know one way or the other.

"I know that I don't know," is a paradox which you might wish to contemplate further. Considering the Platonic theory of Ideas and the Cave metaphor, I would say you are not in the best company. I think Aristotle is more up your alley.

As I said before, this is about looking at beliefs, many of which we've been conditioned to accept, and choosing what we want to perceive in reality. It does not require the suspension of reason.

[moonrambler]

Originally Posted by John Freestone

The good news is that you don't have to stop doing your positive thinking and meditations. You don't have to stop practising the Law of Attraction. You don't have to stop deciding to get rich and being more likely to get rich. It's just that you retain a degree of critical intelligence that recognises you can't - AND WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO - fly, levitate, drink hemlock or walk through walls...and you remain immune to the influence of those who, either innocently or to deliberately take advantage of you, might persuade you of impossible things.

Perhaps we really don't want to prove to ourselves that the laws we've created for this universe can be broken in this way. Perhaps we don't want to be so proficient at the game that the illusion crumbles. Or it would get boring, like Monopoly would if we controlled the dice so that we always quickly win in a big way.

[cylon]

newsflash--I have no intention of drinking poison (just to see) or jump off a building to see if I'm superman.

There should be a poll here of how many forum members have done some death-defying trick.

When I'm in the moment and the "zone" I feel so good that all I want to do is laugh and be happy and spend time doing the things I love.

What we talk about here is getting in tune with your "highest self" the wise, eternal part of you that takes joy in life. That's the part of you that wants to manifest abundance and be happy. When you're feeling happy, at peace, then you're in touch with that part. And that part of me has never asked me to jump off a building.

[jawillie]

Originally Posted by cylon

newsflash--I have no intention of drinking poison (just to see) or jump off a building to see if I'm superman.

There should be a poll here of how many forum members have done some death-defying trick.

When I'm in the moment and the "zone" I feel so good that all I want to do is laugh and be happy and spend time doing the things I love.

What we talk about here is getting in tune with your "highest self" the wise, eternal part of you that takes joy in life. That's the part of you that wants to manifest abundance and be happy. When you're feeling happy, at peace, then you're in touch with that part. And that part of me has never asked me to jump off a building.

YES! Totally. Thank you for that.

[moonrambler]

Originally Posted by John Freestone

Whew, thanks. I just couldn't stop wondering. Is that moment now one of your top ten?

Originally Posted by moonrambler

Well, I don't know. It certainly was a good one though.

Discussion in another thread about astral projection reminded me of something. An example of a definitive Top Ten. I spent a week at The Monroe Institute some years back. (I didn't have any out-of-body experiences.) Joe McMoneagle was scheduled to spend a morning with us and before he arrived, we were going to watch a video which showed his remote viewing capabilities. Before the video, we were asked to go into meditation and see if we could visualize the same scene/location he was going to try to visualize in remote viewing. Well, I got nothing. I went into meditation and surrounded myself in gold light and I couldn't get anything but the gold light. No visions of any place or anything, just gold light. I was disgusted and figured this is the way it goes for me!

They started the video and the location shown was the St. Louis Arch in Missouri. Joe's voiceover begins, "Gold light."

Whoa! Now I was totally blown away. I learned a lesson not to discount any of my impressions, not to think they are insignificant.

After the week was over, I was driving back to Wisconsin from Virginia. At some point on the second day, I stopped at a convenience store in Indiana for a break, and walked around looking at stuff, just to get out of the car for awhile. I started looking at postcards. In the midst of all these postcards of Indiana scenes, was one single postcard of the St. Louis Arch. This freaked me out so much that I left! That postcard definitely did not belong in this convenience store in Indiana.

There was a rummage sale down the road so I drove down there just for the heck of it. I decided to buy a couple blue tin plates which had pretty winter scenes painted on them. When I got home, I hung them in the kitchen hallway.

Four years later, a close friend of mine died suddenly of a massive heart attack. This is a guy who had once expressed a desire to get to go on a spaceship adventure like in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, so I like to think he was offered this chance and left. A couple days later, at around 4 a.m., one of those tin plates fell off the wall and hit the floor BAM! I was really disturbed by this and couldn't get back to sleep. I was wondering if it was my friend doing a little poltergeist activity (which would be just like him) and wondered why he would choose that plate to knock off the wall. It took me the better part of the day before I remembered when and where I had bought that plate.

There are connections here that give me questions about reality.

[John Freestone]

Hi wolfgang. I agree with some of what you say here, especially about the problem of trying to conclude things.

Originally Posted by wolfgang

don't agree w/ you about SR as religion. where's the church of SR? SR is some kind of idea that can be defined in such a way to be true by it's definition. I mean not the part about your own consciousness being the only one conscious here. But that subjectivity is all our senses give us anyway. why is that a religion?

I suppose I'm using the word 'religion' fairly loosely. Sometimes I use it to mean absolutely any philosophy or world view, but here I guess there are various features that make SR/IM/LOA rather more like a religion than many other subjects. For instance, it is based on a metaphysics (variously interpreted) in which thought (usually directly or magically) influences physical nature, or in which physical nature is non-existent or secondary to thought, etc. To make a comparison, this is like Christianity saying that there is a heaven. Various ideas are axiomatic; they are first principles and not really testable, or not testable by the usual methods. There are persons who are widely considered as teachers, leaders, visionaries, etc., like priests. Where is the church of SR? Well, I don't see that as relevant. A great many Christians would also say that it was irrelevant to ask where the church of Christ is, and consider it non-physical or consisting of the community of all Christians.

Not sure what you mean. Are you saying knowing is suspension of belief?

No, I was explaining my phrase 'not knowing' by saying that I mean 'suspension of belief'. I think this is what you're saying above about not coming to conclusions (at least in terms of weird science relating to the macroscopic world).

I would think you know that the earth will be there. It is faith in that which you know and that makes you believe it. Blind faith, I've thought, is something one doesn't quite know yet and accepts based on someone else saying it is that way.

Do you mean that you trust SR in the way we both trust the earth will be there when we walk, because it is "that which you know and that makes you believe it"? I can say that about the earth being there, but not that reality is fundamentally subjective. That is something that people tell me, but I have no way of knowing if it's true, and I don't really trust it very much. I understand that everything I can say about it is a subjective and linguistic label...and all that postmodern stuff...I just can't say I experience having control over reality the way people here keep saying is possible - intention manifestation, psi, magick, etc.

[wolfgang]

Do you mean that you trust SR in the way we both trust the earth will be there when we walk, because it is "that which you know and that makes you believe it"? I can say that about the earth being there, but not that reality is fundamentally subjective. That is something that people tell me, but I have no way of knowing if it's true, and I don't really trust it very much. I understand that everything I can say about it is a subjective and linguistic label...and all that postmodern stuff...I just can't say I experience having control over reality the way people here keep saying is possible - intention manifestation, psi, magick, etc.

The jury is still out on having control over reality for me as well. I am attracted to the ideas and find myself in state of witnessing what seems to fall into the descriptions of what the IMer's are saying. That my experience is all my doing, in the way that reality is a symbolic reflection of my inner being.

Part of me is not really interested in controlling reality - except to generate more peace or harmony. Although it is fascinating to imagine maybe our beliefs of reality are not quiet right yet and there are some fun things we can do that would break the rules as we see them. Almost like wanting to be entertained by reality by changing beliefs and seeing things from a perspective that encompass or brings back feeling awed and being innocent in a way.

I do try to generate peace and harmony as much as I can with what I believe. And a lot of that is dropping drama of learned behavior - the mechanisms of self identity preservation or perceived threats and the responses that turn into habits. That activity may not be necessary - to defend my "self" - and without habitual mind stuff, hopefully the heart can be better at running my life - actually the heart would probably be following life, not running it. Or be better at being natural and flexible and conscious instead of reactive and habitual. Maybe all that is really psychological maneuverings as opposed to trying to believe IM. But one of the steps is to "know thy self" and forgiveness and acceptance, etc... sort of like there's no way to play with these ideas while having tons of personal baggage. Which is a good thing to work on anyway, ditching the habitual reactive self (well it's not ditching it but being at choice - which is to be aware and responsibly conscious)

[John Freestone]

Originally Posted by mercuryrising

What you are missing is why they have to come up with these theories in the first place, which is that the Newtonian model doesn't work on a very large or very small scale. Why do the rules change when we are not directly perceiving the event?

The first bit of this is quite easy to explain. They came up with new physics relating to the very large and very small because some observation didn't fit with what they already had. The scientific community generally responds to observed phenomena and develops theory that is only accepted in as much as it explains observed phenomena. "Weird science", as we've got to calling it, tries to explain certain properties of electrons and protons, etc., that have been observed repeatedly - with enough consistency to cause a problem for the old physics. This is exactly what I was trying to contrast with 'weird philsophy' (I'll call it) like "everything is inside my mind" or "I can do magick, me", for which there is no evidence. ...and god knows there are enough scientists who have set out to discover the secrets of ghosts, pk, ETs and so on. A great many of them have given up. None of them have convinced the scientific community. That is often presented as some kind of conspiracy, but I don't think it is. I think many scientists are genuinely ready to be proved wrong, and the evidence just keeps being proved false - either a deliberate fraud or, probably more often, self-delusion on the part of some 'medium' or other.

The second bit seems unrelated, but you seem to be pointing hesitantly towards the 'observer effect'. I don't pretend to understand nuclear physics, but when that phrase applies to a particular bit of 'weird science' it describes the properties of sub-atomic particles. It does certainly bring into question some of the fundamental axioms of realism, but we should be careful what conclusions we jump to about what is possible, and not immediately replace it with subjectivism. To do so would be a bit like Einstein realising that Newton was a bit wrong on certain things and deciding that the universe was sneezed out the nose of a fruit bat. If we think like that, what's the point of asking what weird science is telling us? Just believe whatever the hell you want. That's what SR says, and good luck.

Kind of sounds like all people are going off their subjective experience of reality.

Of course, in a sense we are. You have your reality and I have mine. That doesn't mean there is nothing real. In fact it is more evidence that there are separate human minds thinking different things. The more I write here, the more I tune in to how often an observation like this is used to postulate an obscure idea, whilst the most obvious fact about it is ignored. The whole point of philosophy and science is to discuss and experiment and see if we can, as a community, work out more than we can know by ourselves.

Where does this line of thinking take you? In other words, how does it serve you? If we were discussing this a hundred years ago and I described some of the technologies in existence today, you'd think I was nuts.

Again, there is a very big difference between saying that some things that were thought to be impossible are now known to be possible and saying that anything is possible if you just believe it enough.

I'm going to take a different route than wolfgang on this one. You should doubt everything. If you continuously doubt everything, you never land on a firm set of laws or principles that work absolutely. Most skeptics don't do this... they doubt what they never believed in the first place, but rarely look at what they do believe.

I'm astounded to see that we agree pretty well here. Unfortunately, I'm finding it a lot harder than I thought it would be. How do you doubt everything? I'm surprised you're saying this because I thought IM and LoA were about using belief positively, and doubt would surely sabotage your intentions, wouldn't it? Oh, I see from the following that you don't see it that way:

Subjective reality points out that we are not perceiving the actual reality. What that actual reality is can only be speculated. So "SR" doesn't ask anyone to believe anything, rather to look at what they do believe and how that effects their life. It goes further than "positive thinking' or something to point out that how we perceive things actually changes the phenomena we perceive.

I'm happy with the first part, but I see SR used as a basis for a great deal of deliberate believing, intention to manifest things with chanting and magick and stuff. The second bit is rather weird. If we don't know what 'actual' reality is, our perception of it doesn't change it, necessarily, it just changes our perception. It's there that the thing gets directive. I agree that I can change how I think about an object. I can realise that the names I give it are just labels and might not be part of its actuality. But that doesn't mean that if I give it a different name it will behave differently. I can see a million dollars as just so much paper, or an idea human beings agree means a certain thing. LoA teaches you that if you intend to get it, you'll get it, and the more you believe in it the better.

As I said before, this is about looking at beliefs, many of which we've been conditioned to accept, and choosing what we want to perceive in reality. It does not require the suspension of reason.

I can't see what you do with your reasoning once you just choose what to perceive. Ah no, I'm beginning to.

[mercuryrising]

Hey John, what animates all this?

[John Freestone]

Originally Posted by mercuryrising

Hey John, what animates all this?

What animates all what?

[cylon]

This stuff doesn't work unless you're relaxed and in the moment.

[hkalchemy]

It seems to me that we choose our beliefs and then reality ripples out from there. If you believe that LOA and all that stuff is a load of nonsense, then of course you'll find no evidence for it, just as atheists will find no evidence for God. But if you choose to believe in God, you'll find God everywhere. Whether God (or the LOA) is real is another question. Is anything real?

[John Freestone]

Originally Posted by hkalchemy

It seems to me that we choose our beliefs and then reality ripples out from there. If you believe that LOA and all that stuff is a load of nonsense, then of course you'll find no evidence for it, just as atheists will find no evidence for God. But if you choose to believe in God, you'll find God everywhere. Whether God (or the LOA) is real is another question. Is anything real?

That's a very concise statement of the general theory, hkalchemy, and of course, within certain limitations I'd say it has some validiy. We tend to see the kinds of things ('evidence') we are looking for, which are those that are already part of our belief system. However, I feel it leaves very big and important gaps and is possibly quite wrong fundamentally. I was happy believing it for a while. Now it seems to me that there are large parts of reality that ripples along quite nicely whatever I believe. I tend to think nowadays that if you believe in LOA you will appear to find evidence, but that is purely a trick of the mind (which psychology has demonstrated), and if God is real only for my when I believe in it, it makes it a curious sort of God to me.

It comes down to what we think should constitute evidence. Because if you understand the ways that the mind gets tricked into believing things that aren't true, you know that we need to collect data fairly, according to mathematically or philosophically defensible principles. That means collecting data against a hypothesis as well as for it, to compare them, or taking control situations into account.

If, for instance, I decide that I can predict the future, and I'm a bit wooly in my thinking, and I experiment by taking something random like "mouse", and I sit and concentrate on images of mice for an hour, chanting "mouse, mouse, mouse", and then I'm sitting later watching TV and suddenly a trailer for a wildlife documentary includes a mouse, I will consider this good evidence and think I'm making progress. This is the kind of 'evidence' people 'find' all the time, but if you learn about the principles involved in this kind of thing, you discover that there are natural psychological pressures to believe these are significant events when they are pure coincidence.

I dare to say "are" rather than "might be" coincidence because of the weight of scientifically tested, repeatable evidence for such self-delusive functions of the mind. Indeed, the sad thing is that LoA and IM theories notice the effects, but misinterpret their meaning. Not only do they include all sorts of false positive 'evidence' (indeed, if it was a field vole in the trailer, or an advert for a computer mouse, the wooly thinker might include it), they ignore evidence against. When challenged to make something change out there in subjective reality, and they can't manage it, they find excuses - they're not masterful enough yet, their preconceptions are too strong, they're having an off day, anything to allow them to continue to believe they're psychic. The history of psychic research is absolutely full of such people, sincere believers who are sure they can prove their abilities, who go away angry because the scientists, with their more level-headed approach, find that their predictions or readings are correct no more often than one would expect by chance.

There's a difference between saying "I tend to see what I want to see" and "My beliefs change reality".

[moonrambler]

Originally Posted by John Freestone

If, for instance, I decide that I can predict the future, and I'm a bit wooly in my thinking, and I experiment by taking something random like "mouse", and I sit and concentrate on images of mice for an hour, chanting "mouse, mouse, mouse", and then I'm sitting later watching TV and suddenly a trailer for a wildlife documentary includes a mouse, I will consider this good evidence and think I'm making progress. This is the kind of 'evidence' people 'find' all the time, but if you learn about the principles involved in this kind of thing, you discover that there are natural psychological pressures to believe these are significant events when they are pure coincidence.

I dare to say "are" rather than "might be" coincidence because of the weight of scientifically tested, repeatable evidence for such self-delusive functions of the mind. Indeed, the sad thing is that LoA and IM theories notice the effects, but misinterpret their meaning. Not only do they include all sorts of false positive 'evidence' (indeed, if it was a field vole in the trailer, or an advert for a computer mouse, the wooly thinker might include it), they ignore evidence against. When challenged to make something change out there in subjective reality, and they can't manage it, they find excuses - they're not masterful enough yet, their preconceptions are too strong, they're having an off day, anything to allow them to continue to believe they're psychic. The history of psychic research is absolutely full of such people, sincere believers who are sure they can prove their abilities, who go away angry because the scientists, with their more level-headed approach, find that their predictions or readings are correct no more often than one would expect by chance.

There's a difference between saying "I tend to see what I want to see" and "My beliefs change reality".

I have problems with all the same things you mention here about inconsistency in results, and then wondering how much really is pure coincidence.

With the example you give about the mice, what's missing is something that is really very weird, weird enough that other people are a bit freaked by it and don't just pass it off as coincidence. Now first, I would never do this with mice, because I would wind up with a house full of mice , but if I did, I'm pretty sure what I would get is an ad for a computer mouse, because that seems to be the way this tends to work for me. It always seems like I'm getting a result that is humorous. At least it's humorous to the universe, it isn't always humorous to me.

I have no explanation why these things seem so random. I could be a complete skeptic and say it's because coincidences are bound to happen, and because of my intense curiosity about this subject, I might notice them more. Or, I could be more agnostic like I actually am, and get freaked when the coincidences seem really very weird, but still want to know why these events seem so random and uncontrollable.

I told a story on the forum at some point about handing my girlfriend a birthday present while we were at her parents' house, and they had some wildlife show on the tv, and I had wrapped her gift in paper with hippos and other exotic animals on it, and at the exact moment she started to open it, a hippo appeared on the tv that looked exactly the same as the hippo on top of this present, and I mean exactly the same, it was so strange, I pointed at the tv and went "Look! Look!" and she looked and we were both kinda freaked out by that.

Trying to calculate odds of random events like that is kind of impossible though. What are the odds her parents would have a wildlife show on, and one that would show hippos, and that I would use wildlife paper to wrap her present, and that she would open the present right at the moment a hippo would show up on tv, etc.

Events like this can get more and more bizarre as you make the odds wider. Like, if her parents never watched tv, and none of us have any interest in wildlife, but they happened to have the tv on because there was a tornado warning. And they had on a soap opera, but there was an ad for the wildlife show. And the ad showed the hippo. And I never buy wrapping paper with wildlife on it, but happened to get some free in the mail. And then my friend got a card from her son with a hippo on front and it said "Hippo birthday to you!" And so on.

[cylon]

If you're the only one you have to be accountable to, then your own evidence is all you need to be concerned with.

[cylon]

Also, with the hippo-story, giving the gift (I assume) you were feeling positive emotion at the time.

[moonrambler]

Originally Posted by cylon

Also, with the hippo-story, giving the gift (I assume) you were feeling positive emotion at the time.

Does it have to be positive emotion, though? As Paul was asking in one of his "everyone" or "everything" threads? I'm wondering now if it is more about love, just like the answer I got from the Messiah's Handbook. Couldn't I just as easily have something like that happen if my girlfriend and I had gotten into a big biff earlier that day? Then it would be like the universe was saying, "C'mon you guys, your friendship is bigger than the foolish junk you argue about."

The current emotion might be negative but the underlying feeling (love) is positive.