StevePavlina.com Podcast #021 - Being Psychic (Blog)

[supertom]

since astral is high reality and physical is lower, is there anything lower/dense than physical.

[supertom]

you guys should go way more indept about astral...... so interesting

[impaul99]

Originally Posted by munish

At its core, proof-seeking is rooted in fear, self-doubt, and low self-esteem.

I’m sorry to disappoint those who ask me to prove the existence of lucid dreaming… or astral projection… .... Those people will be waiting a very long time because I don’t care to prove anything.

Proof

You mean people actually doubt the existence of Lucid Dreaming?

WTF, seriously?

LOL, what's next, people being skeptical about humans dreaming just because they don't remember it for themselves?

Long before I ever had a lucid dream I totally knew it was going to be possible. I just knew I had to practice.

[Savage]

Originally Posted by impaul99

You mean people actually doubt the existence of Lucid Dreaming?

Some skeptics would doubt the existence of their own heads if they weren't attached.

I guess if a skeptic doesn't get to experience something, they have to conclude it's impossible... perhaps as a way of protecting their fragile self-esteem or something.

How many skeptics does it take to change a light bulb? Light? What light? Everyone knows that Edison guy is a quack.

[tekomino]

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

Some skeptics would doubt the existence of their own heads if they weren't attached.

I guess if a skeptic doesn't get to experience something, they have to conclude it's impossible... perhaps as a way of protecting their fragile self-esteem or something.

Well, skeptics exists becouse of lack of evidence. For example, claim of communicating with dead is very hard to believe. Let me take a slice of that pie and explain.

If one can communicate with dead say your relative for example father, the basic precursor for such communication would be a memory transfer between living being and the dead one, meaning that dead being has same memories that it had before he died. If that was not the case then dead one would have no clue who you are or know about events in past.

So, the memory of living must be there if you claim communication with dead. Lets dig into that then...

The long term memory in humans is stored in neocortex part of brain short term in hippocampus part. This has been proven be countless research. It has also been shown that it is possible to erase memory by manipulating brain cells.

This proves that our actual memories are stored in the brain. Its like computer memory just much more sophisticated.

So when person dies, this memory would have to be downloaded out of brain somewhere, if we are later to communicate with dead that "remember" us.

That raises interesting question: Where is memory downloaded and stored when you die? With billions and billions of people that died you would need lots of storage. And with so much information to transfer from brain to somewhere else I would think we would get wind of energy moving.

Secondary point is that with amount of suffering lot of people endured during lifetime, why you would need this memory at all? I would argue that you do not need this memory if there is some other realm after death.

So, my point is that this process of downloading memory from living to dead is significant yet there is no evidence of it.

Secondly, if there is no memory transfer then claims of communicating with dead are rather dubious.

And to close it off, there is duality. Everything has its opposite to define it. Life/Death, Consciousness/No-Consciousness, Existence/Non-existence thus you just can't be forever.

Your life one way or another has to end or it would not be at all.

[Dan.Linehan]

Originally Posted by tekomino

So when person dies, this memory would have to be downloaded out of brain somewhere, if we are later to communicate with dead that "remember" us.

That raises interesting question: Where is memory downloaded and stored when you die? With billions and billions of people that died you would need lots of storage. And with so much information to transfer from brain to somewhere else I would think we would get wind of energy moving.

What makes you assume it's not uploaded every night?

[tekomino]

Originally Posted by Dan.Linehan

What makes you assume it's not uploaded every night?

Then it would be impossible to erase it. Diseases like Alzheimer and brain injury memory loss would not exists...

[Dan.Linehan]

Exactly. Otherwise, anyone who got with a degenerative disease like Alzheimer's or traumatic brain injury would forget all the lessons they came here to learn.

[tekomino]

Originally Posted by Dan.Linehan

Exactly. Otherwise, anyone who got with a degenerative disease like Alzheimer's or traumatic brain injury would forget all the lessons they came here to learn.

No offense, but that does not make any sense. People forget plenty...

[Dan.Linehan]

Your experiences are uploaded (scribed, whatever you want to call it) while you sleep. If you forget things here the experiences and memories are still backed up in the ether.

[tekomino]

Originally Posted by Dan.Linehan

Your experiences are uploaded (scribed, whatever you want to call it) while you sleep. If you forget things here the experiences and memories are still backed up in the ether.

Nope. With backup available we would never forget anything... There is no backup.

[Dan.Linehan]

Just because there is a backup doesn't mean you can always access it. We have off-site backup here at work, for instance, but I can't get to it from my local PC.

[tekomino]

I believe that fear of death, the fear of the end of your life, gives birth to beliefs such after-life, akashic records and in general the belief in existence after your physical form dies.

Most of us just can't deal with that and choose to invent or believe in things to ease the mind.

One of the secrets of life seems to be to learn to let it go when time comes. Death is the journey nobody returns from...

[Plato]

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

For example, the articles I've written on polarity are based on channeling sessions I did around 2002, long before I started working in the PD field. It took me years to really make sense of those concepts and to decide how I wanted to polarize (I kept going back and forth), but I eventually saw that it made sense.

I'm going mad trying to figure out which way to go. It's sick.

I thought I was polarizing to the light successfully and I'd been "connected" for about two days straight and was feeling strong love, but then I tried to do astral projection and I'm not sure what I did but I went into a weird state where it seemed I was surrounded by demonic faces, who I imagined to be trying to resist my polarisation to the light. It freaked me out a bit, and I tried to resist but since then the love has dissipated. In fact I felt completely drained and then the idea of being demonic seemed attractive again and I'm back in limbo! I dinnae know what to do chuck!

[Erin Pavlina]

Tekomino, if there is no afterlife and if our consciousness does not continue on, then who am I talking to when I do readings? I mean often things get really specific, like the time this grandmotherly spirit came to me and said, "tell her she's wearing my ring but it's not my ring." Very confusing but I told my sitter and she said, "Oh, that's because I loved my grandmother's wedding ring so much I had a replica made and that's what I wear on my finger." That is not general and not obvious.

Or the time the deceased person came to me without a head and my sitter confirmed that the person she most wanted to hear from had been decapitated in a car accident (not a common way to go!).

Or when the dead woman gave her daughter her computer password so she could access it after death. Even my sitter didn't know that. So how am I getting the info? It can't be telepathy because in this case my sitter didn't know the password to the computer files.

I totally understand if a person can't believe it until they experience it themselves. And not every spirit I speak to gives me such personal and specific info. I wish they did. But when they do, it blows even me away!

[Akashic_Librarian]

Ohh you just ripped Tekomino a new one Erin. I have not experienced Mediumship, or really anything vaguely psychic...and my natural reaction is to call it rubbish, but I ordered Ask Your Guides on Steve's recommending so lets see what happens

[tekomino]

Erin, with all respect, I don't doubt that you are reading that information off of the people you are performing reading for, but I do doubt reading that information from spirits etc.

All readings I had and have witnessed are based on "fishing" for information and excellent observation skills. Nothing magical... It also explains inability to read to people that "don't believe" i.e. don't reveal necessary information for exploration.

BTW, I am willing to bet that password recovered in the example below was not strong password with meaningless letters and numbers...

It is always interesting to me how spirits have trouble getting started and lack specifics until the reader reveals more information and "guides" them...

You know I'd be surprised if you can provide any useful information for me in a reading...

No disrespect really.

Originally Posted by Erin Pavlina

Tekomino, if there is no afterlife and if our consciousness does not continue on, then who am I talking to when I do readings? I mean often things get really specific, like the time this grandmotherly spirit came to me and said, "tell her she's wearing my ring but it's not my ring." Very confusing but I told my sitter and she said, "Oh, that's because I loved my grandmother's wedding ring so much I had a replica made and that's what I wear on my finger." That is not general and not obvious.

Or the time the deceased person came to me without a head and my sitter confirmed that the person she most wanted to hear from had been decapitated in a car accident (not a common way to go!).

Or when the dead woman gave her daughter her computer password so she could access it after death. Even my sitter didn't know that. So how am I getting the info? It can't be telepathy because in this case my sitter didn't know the password to the computer files.

I totally understand if a person can't believe it until they experience it themselves. And not every spirit I speak to gives me such personal and specific info. I wish they did. But when they do, it blows even me away!

[Erin Pavlina]

The password was not a common word. It was in fact a series of random numbers and letters. But that was a really extraordinary example. You are wrong about the fishing, but I know charlatans use that technique so I can also see why you assume all psychics do. I may or may not get anything extraordinary from you (or other skeptics). It's unfortunate because it would be great if I could guarantee extraordinary info for every person I come into contact with. Perhaps a stronger medium or psychic could.

I've done too many readings and had too many of these extraordinary things happen to discount them. But again, I totally understsand that if you've never had an expereince like this it can be hard to accept that others ARE having them. But you can probably understand that most psychics aren't going to waste their time trying to prove something to someone who already believes what they do is impossible. There is work to be done with those who do believe. If I ever run out of people who are helped by my readings, perhaps I'll start lining up the skeptics

I know you are not disrespecting me so no worries. We're just living in two different realities.

[3mb]

Originally Posted by munish

At its core, proof-seeking is rooted in fear, self-doubt, and low self-esteem.

According to whom? Based on what specific evidences? Do you consider these useful beliefs to be peddling from your belief stall?

Originally Posted by munish

I’m sorry to disappoint those who ask me to prove the existence of lucid dreaming… or astral projection… .... Those people will be waiting a very long time because I don’t care to prove anything.

But you care enough to type and say so?

What the thinker thinks the prover proves.
We perceive and add meanings, meanings(beliefs) affect what we perceive, some of our meanings have been inherited through our cultural language, authority figures and so on... and on the merry dance goes, does it ever stop?... I'll leave that to other meaning makers to decern their own beliefs to live in.

Perhaps to ask, is it useful, is it helpful, does it better experiencing... farewell.

[3mb]

Originally Posted by Erin Pavlina

Tekomino, if there is no afterlife and if our consciousness does not continue on, then who am I talking to when I do readings? I mean often things get really specific, like the time this grandmotherly spirit came to me and said, "tell her she's wearing my ring but it's not my ring." Very confusing but I told my sitter and she said, "Oh, that's because I loved my grandmother's wedding ring so much I had a replica made and that's what I wear on my finger." That is not general and not obvious.

Or the time the deceased person came to me without a head and my sitter confirmed that the person she most wanted to hear from had been decapitated in a car accident (not a common way to go!).

Or when the dead woman gave her daughter her computer password so she could access it after death. Even my sitter didn't know that. So how am I getting the info? It can't be telepathy because in this case my sitter didn't know the password to the computer files.

I totally understand if a person can't believe it until they experience it themselves. And not every spirit I speak to gives me such personal and specific info. I wish they did. But when they do, it blows even me away!

Arh... the human internet where all experience is stored in the database, regardless of what the current flesh has recycled into.

And once again for good measure...What the thinker thinks, the prover proves... a quote from Robert Anton Wilson perhaps.

[Savage]

Originally Posted by tekomino

All readings I had and have witnessed are based on "fishing" for information and excellent observation skills. Nothing magical... It also explains inability to read to people that "don't believe" i.e. don't reveal necessary information for exploration.

Sounds like you've witnessed some pretty crappy readings... which is really no surprise considering your expectations. That's the kind of thing you'll often get from the cheapo psychics like you'd find at a New Age bookstore... or the expensive scammers... or the talk show drama.

I hope you didn't waste too much money on that.

[impaul99]

Originally Posted by tekomino

All readings I had and have witnessed are based on "fishing" for information and excellent observation skills. Nothing magical... It also explains inability to read to people that "don't believe" i.e. don't reveal necessary information for exploration.

BTW, I am willing to bet that password recovered in the example below was not strong password with meaningless letters and numbers...

It is always interesting to me how spirits have trouble getting started and lack specifics until the reader reveals more information and "guides" them...

You know I'd be surprised if you can provide any useful information for me in a reading...

No disrespect really.

What you're describing can be done through techniques called "Cold Reading". It is a common technique taught by mentalists and magicians. It's how someone like David Copperfield can "read your mind".

It's not based on any kind of "spiritual" training but rather based on human psychology and very well thought out trickery. For example, if I say to someone "Think of a number between one and five.", that creates a "suggestion" in their subconscious to pick numbers 2,3,4 because they are literally BETWEEN 1 and 5. Therefore, in such an example, even though there is an illusion of a person picking out of 5 numbers, they are really only picking between 3 numbers.

Of course, you WILL run into some smart-ass once in a while who will pick 1 or 5 just to be difficult, but there are ways around that anyways. In the end, by "leading" people, you can pretty much "force" them to pick a card or number or something else.

Cold reading like this can also be used in other ways. For example, I could walk up to a woman without knowing her at all and say to her "I'm a mind reader, I can tell that you're a dependable person, sometimes a bit stubborn but down-to-earth...etc." She might say "WOW! How did you know that?!" Well, it's pretty easy considering you're wearing an emerald necklace which PROBABLY means you were born in MAY which PROBABLY means you're a TAURUS which PROBABLY means you've read your horoscope many times and you were told that TAURUS's are supposed to be down-to-earth, stubborn and dependable.

I've studied with a professional magician for a number of years and seeing some of the stuff he's done with mentalism and close-up magic has been incredible. I know how he does the effects, but I've seen people who were completely convinced he had supernatural powers.

That's why when I looked at Psychic phenomena I wanted to see if it's all just bunk based on cold-reading and advanced charlatanism and stuff, or if there is any truth to it. It took a while, but after some readings I proved to myself that it was real.

I was told, by a psychic, in a reading certain details that nobody knows or should know about in my life. I have also done things like write 3 very specific questions I wanted the psychic to do "readings" on the next morning, and the next morning the psychic gave me answers to those three specific questions WITHOUT me saying a word to her.

Meaning, it was an MSN reading, and she started the conversation basically saying "Before you say anything, let me tell you what I've got so far..." and she proceeded to answer my questions.

These were not your generic questions, they were very specific to my situation that week. They are not things you would figure out I was thinking about from reading my Blog or whatever. My mom or my best friend wouldn't guess those things either. So it's not cold reading.

I haven't done any readings with "dead people" so I can't comment on that, but at the very least the psychics I've done readings with have the ability to enter my mind and read what's there.

[impaul99]

Originally Posted by tekomino

The long term memory in humans is stored in neocortex part of brain short term in hippocampus part. This has been proven be countless research. It has also been shown that it is possible to erase memory by manipulating brain cells.

This proves that our actual memories are stored in the brain. Its like computer memory just much more sophisticated.

I am not sure this is accurate. I was watching a show on TLC or Discovery once and they were showing this experiment where they basically took a bunch of rats and ran them through a maze until they memorized which way to go. Essentially they scientifically created a memory for these rats to know how to run the maze.

Then what they did with the rats is they surgically removed a piece of their brain and let them re-run the maze to see which part of the brain contained that memory.

So for example, for Rat #1 they removed section A, for Rat #2 they removed section B etc. until all sections were removed.

Essentially, the end of the experiment was that after extensive testing and scientific research they could NOT find where memories are stored in the brain, and in effect they concluded that memories are not stored IN the brain but somewhere else.

I can't remember which show this was on exactly, but I'm pretty sure one could find something by digging around on the net.

(For example, I found this article on another theory also: http://www.propeller.com/viewstory/2...%2F&frame=true
)

My point is simply this. There is no scientific proof yet that memories are stored in the brain. It's just a theory.

[Koek]

I went to Erin some time ago for some readings, but I'm still not sure what to make of it. Am I missing something? Read for yourself.

At the time I did the readings I had a totally open mind towards it and was quite excited about it. Even today I still believe in psychics, so no doubt there.

I did both an email reading (23 Jan 2007) and a phone reading (a couple of weeks later) with Erin.

In the email reading Erin told me that my guides (7-10) wanted me to do something with making a film (either in front or behind the camera) to "draw attention to the plight of underprivileged people or people who need help" (quote from reading). I have no experience whatsoever in front or behind the camera so I was somewhat surprised!

A year and a half later and this has not happened, nor has anything come across my path, and that's the part I don't get. I mean do I wait for it to happen, or do I grab my Sony Handycam and make it happen (somewhat on a whim). Sure I see people that need help around me, but I don't really feel I have a message in me that isn't already out there...

What makes it hard to decide is that Erin told me at one point that one of my guides was someone I knew from my teens who had died young. I asked Erin for his name, but she couldn't tell and asked me for the name so she could tell if it was him or not. This struck me as somewhat odd. Nothing conclusive came from it, so I just left it at that.

I guess I just find it hard to go on this 'mission' when in my mind there is some doubt as to whether this is reliable or not... There are other things I can do and feel passionate about I guess...

I do greatly admire the things that both Steve and Erin have done over the last couple of years, so that won't change! Clearly a match made in ... SpiritWorld?

[tekomino]

Originally Posted by impaul99

My point is simply this. There is no scientific proof yet that memories are stored in the brain. It's just a theory.

Paul, that point is not even worth debating if you believe this... There is overwhelming scientific proven and tested evidence that memories are stored in brain. Please don't spread misinformation.

[impaul99]

Originally Posted by tekomino

Paul, that point is not even worth debating if you believe this... There is overwhelming scientific proven and tested evidence that memories are stored in brain. Please don't spread misinformation.

The same scientists that you believe are proving that memories exist in the brain are also the ones who don't believe that psychic phenomena exists, so it is an unfair, biased group of people to ask. It would be the equivalent of asking a hardcore KKK member if a black person is guilty of something.

As a reasonable, logical, sane human being would you trust your own mind / observation skills above those of some "scientist" out there, or would you continue to listen to their conclusions just because they have a "Dr." in front of their name?

What I mean is, lets say you devised an experiment for yourself where you would test the theory that memories may not be stored in the brain, such as for example getting a reading done by a professional psychic who "reads" a memory that you supposedly have in your brain. Would that prove to you that scientists are wrong? Or would you not trust your own judgement?

For example, lets say you wrote down three questions you have about your life in your journal, such as for example "Should I sell my house?" and "Should I get a puppy?" and "Will I ever hear back from that girl I saw last week?".

Then lets say you got a reading done with a psychic and before telling him/her ANYTHING about anything, like basically just paying for the reading and then saying "Ok, read for me please..." the psychic said to you "Ok, I am getting three things...firstly it is time for you to move to a new city, and I see a new member of a family joining you...but it's not a child, it's a puppy... and I'm also getting the sense that you are waiting for someone...somebody you met just recently, a girl, and you are waiting for her but it's time to move on. She has moved on and there is no sense waiting for her... however, someone new will come into your life later on this year anyways, so don't worry... you will meet someone in the new city you'll be living in.."

Would that convince you?

I mean, besides the psychic working for the CIA and having surveillance access to watch what you write in your journals at night, how else would the psychic know to answer THOSE 3 questions where it could have been anything? You could have asked if your grandma is going to die, whether your friends will ever invite you over for poker night, whether your car will sell, if your neighbors dog will stop crapping on your lawn or any one of a billion possible questions you may have, right?

I'm not saying that you believe an event like this could take place. I'm just saying *IF* it did...*IF* you wrote down 3 questions and the psychic answered them like that, would you throw out what the "scientists" claim out there and start looking for different possibilities, or would you claim that your own sanity is at question here, and choose to continue to believe the brilliant "scientists" just because they have a "Dr." in front of their names?

I think what you'll find with people like me and Steve Pavlina is not that we are retarded people with low IQ's and a lack of scientific understanding who will believe any kind of "quackery" thrown at us because we don't have the intellect to understand things like physics or calculus or basic scientific method, but rather that we ARE intelligent and we do understand science, but we also don't believe everything that Doctors and Scientists say *IF* we have done our own personal experiments which prove scientists wrong.

[wolfgang]

I kind of like the idea that memory doesn't reside in the brain per say.

However, it's also true that doctors have not found the exact spot of a brain that hold a memory. That it appears to be holographic in a way. Each bit of the brain stores content as much as all the other bits. I hope this is not misinformation.

Then, from here we can take the leap that the universe is a holographic form such that anything we take in our brain is also showing up everywhere else! now that's a theory, ha?

[yossarian]

Originally Posted by wolfgang

I kind of like the idea that memory doesn't reside in the brain per say.

However, it's also true that doctors have not found the exact spot of a brain that hold a memory. That it appears to be holographic in a way. Each bit of the brain stores content as much as all the other bits. I hope this is not misinformation.

Then, from here we can take the leap that the universe is a holographic form such that anything we take in our brain is also showing up everywhere else! now that's a theory, ha?

Not each bit of brain, but many parts of the brain deal with memory. There is no one memory center of the brain. Also, it's been found that certain forgotten memories can be induced by electrical stimulation of various parts of the brain.

We definitely don't know what memory is or where it is stored, but the brain certainly plays a role.

We do know that short term memory in particular has a very strong relation to the hippocampus, which is like a half-inch-thick hollow sphere that envelops the inner parts of the brain.

Edit: The crucial point that I didn't mention is that we cannot prove that memory is stored anywhere. We can just find a correlation between memory and brain. Correlation != causation. So if the hippocampus is correlated with short term memory, we cannot actually conclude that the hippocampus stores short term memory. To do so is to express faith in a reductionist universe for which there is equally weak evidence as there is for an emergent universe. Scientists should not make the correlation/causation fallacy, but when talking casually they do all the time. If you were to press them on the issue to make precise statements, they would agree that it is correlation they've discovered and not causation.

It is very possible that the actual memory is in the ether and the brain is simply a retrieval mechanism. Most scientists don't bother dealing with this hypothesis however, and instead assume that the brain itself is a storage mechanism. This assumption is casually made and not precisely accurate.

[Kaspian]

Responding to stuff several posts ago:

There's a nicely detailed book on astral projection, available for free online. It not only includes several journal entries of the author's experiences, but it also has suggested exercises at the end of each chapter.

Out of Body Experiences

[yossarian]

Originally Posted by GreenTea

However, I've still got this lingering question in my mind about the relationship of all this to being present. Being truly present is supposed to activate a deeper intelligence so that you know what to do in each moment--how does this relate to communication with spirit guides?

Also, how does all this fit in with the concepts of non-duality? If we're all connected and the sense of a separate "I" is ultimately an illusion, then isn't the sense of separate spirit guides also an illusion? Isn't it ultimately all one consciousness experiencing itself through different forms?

Thanks Again

I really like your post because it points out what I consider to be the deeper truth, and that is how we rest in a state of perpetual oneness. This is often forgotten.

Since you brought it up, I highly recommend Joel Goldsmith to you. He goes into this in so much excellent detail. Specifically I would say you should read, "Invisible Supply" which talks about stuff like the metaphorical armor of oneness.

IMO these teachings are the deeper teachings, with the spirit world, the astral world, etc, just being another series of illusions with their own various laws. Just like the physical world they are Godly illusions, they are valuable illusions, but they are still illusions and by penetrating these levels we don't necessarily penetrate to deeper truth.

Give Goldsmith a read, I'm betting you'll really like it and have your questions answered better than you could have ever hoped them to be.