jupiviv,
jupiviv wrote:Your "experiences" have nothing to do with spirit. Even if there is a "spirit-world" somewhere it would essentially be no different from the non-spirit world in terms of its own spirit. Therefore the very fact that you lend so much importance to it is proof that you don't realise what your spirit is.
You're using your own personal definition of "spirit" here, aren't you - or at least a non-standard definition? It seems a bit muddled, as though you were using multiple senses of the word at once. I have a hard time making sense of it. I don't have a problem with alternative definitions, so long as they're made explicit, it's just that if you're going to use your own definition, then - well, we're talking about two different things, aren't we? We might be using the same word, but we each mean something different by it. I'm sure this isn't what you intended to communicate, but the sense I'm getting out of your post is, "Your definition of 'spirit' is not the same as mine, and therefore you're wrong".
But let's not battle over definitions, let's talk meaning instead - what is "spirit" to you and why is it important to you?
Diebert van Rhijn wrote:And with the term ["false fundamentalism"] I meant any brand of fundamentalism which adheres to diametrical opposed forces of good and evil.
Oh, I had thought you meant it in the sense of fundamentalist Christianity, the stressing of the literal truth of the Bible. That's not my deal. Yes, I do think that the view of diametrically opposed forces of good and evil is the accurate one, based on my experiences and reading.
Diebert van Rhijn wrote:This as opposed to "true" fundamentalism which is trust in the real fundamentals which one can actually know by reason and experience each and every moment one is sober.
OK, so what does this consist of? Do you mean the QRS trip, or did you have something else in mind?
Diebert van Rhijn wrote:You mean reason and education is not enough? But for me it was a very illuminating moment when I participated with a group. The "possessed", a normal adolescent I knew turned suddenly violent, foaming, screaming, rolling, veins popping out, cursing, challenging, posing - all the 'classic' things. Hours of prayers were needed to calm him down. It had to sink in for a while before I realized what I witnessed was something entirely different from what was believed by most of the group and the possessed.
Something happened though but it had to do with very interesting group dynamics, expectations, penned up frustrations being unleashed like a provoked
catharsis of some kind. Further development around this case and other events confirmed this.
Again, the power of the mind, of wishes, of ideology and groups all tap deep into the emotional. It's an amazing thing to behold and understand why
'good and evil beyond' can become such an industry, such a 'life saver' to so many. But generally it occludes way more than it enlightens.
But Diebert, wouldn't you agree that this one (or number of) false positive(s) could not erase the impact of even a single true positive? Are you content to rest in your experience of false positives, or are you willing to consider other people's true positives? Here are some true positives that aren't quite so dramatic as the false one you've detailed - true positives that quietly go about their business, as detailed in Dr Kenneth McAll's book,
Healing The Family Tree:
Dr Kenneth McAll wrote:One of the most dramatic healings of my career happened with Claudine. She was fifty years old and had spent twelve years under constant supervision in hospital, suffering from chronic schizophrenia. Neither treatments nor drugs had affected her violent temper which was coupled with a delusional state of mind. Her doctors felt that there was nothing to lose - she could not deteriorate any further - and a decision was taken to operate on her brain in a London hospital.
The operation failed. Claudine did deteriorate further, losing the power of both sight and speech. With this irreversible damage and with no change in her schizophrenic state, Claudine was given up and left to 'vegetate' in a mental hospital. She became corpulent which combined with her baldness (no hair had grown on her head since her operation) gave her a rather repulsive appearance. About eighteen months later her family obtained permission from the institution in which Claudine lived for her to spend a day and a night at home.
She was brought to me. She gave no indication of understanding anything that was said to her and, after a quick check-up, I confirmed that there seemed to be no hope for her and I could recommend no therapy. The damage was indeed irreversible. At that time, I did not understand the influence of the Family Tree nor even realize the extent of the healing power of the Eucharist. Not knowing what else to say or do, I prayed aloud, simply trying to listen for the Lord's guidance and seeking his forgiveness for man's destruction of a human being. Then we said the Lord's Prayer together with its final plea, 'Deliver us from evil'. Our prayer was that Claudine might be left in peace. My patient and her famiy returned to their own home where she was to remain overnight.
Next morning, the whole household was awakened by Claudine shouting, 'Come and look at me!' Not having heard a word from Claudine since her disastrous operation, her startled parents rushed into the room. Claudine was gazing at her reflection in the mirror and shouting, 'Look at my hair!' During the night, a quarter-inch of hair had appeared all over her head. She could speak, she could see, she could grow!
Later that day, Claudine was taken back to the institution. Astonished by the change in her, doctors questioned her for several hours. Repeatedly she explained simply, 'They prayed with me'. The doctors could not understand what had happened. It was almost beyond belief that a patient who had suffered such total disabilities could be healed so suddenly and so completely that she could be re-admitted to the normal world outside.
Dr Kenneth McAll wrote:An unusual and extreme example [..] occurred in a lady in her mid-sixties who came from Australia. For fifty years she had constantly heard 'voices' with whom she conversed, calling them by name, and in all those years no medical treatment had helped her. Frequently, the advice of her 'voices' was disastrous but she could not escape their influence. They called themselves 'The Three Beasties' and had taken over when, as a non-Christian of sixteen years old, she had been anaesthetised for an appendix operation. Since there is more prayer power and discernment when praying with a team, four of us joined together to pray for her deliverance and freedom. We seemed to be successful for the 'voices', which had plagued her for fifty years, ceased.
However, that same evening, she discovered to her dismay that she had no will of her own after being totally controlled for so long. She did not know how to use a fork or even how to wash. It was only after nine months of patient training in the formation of new habit patterns and confidence-building that she was able to fly back to Australia by herself.
There are plenty of other case studies in the book.
Diebert van Rhijn wrote:Which specific metaphysical forces are you thinking of? Something like Castaneda's predatory "flyers"?
Sorry, I'm not aware of the details of Castenada's work. The specific forces I'm thinking of though are those that are conscious and malevolent in intent, demonic in nature, although I understand that there are different types of spirit entities.
Diebert van Rhijn wrote:But we could talk about lets say the "spirit" of a tree, its essence, its biosphere, its genus without invoking hierarchies of beings and unclear rituals, couldn't we?
We could, but then we'd be ignoring a swathe of reality.
David Quinn wrote:How well did you know these people before the incident?
I'd picked fruit with two of them and their parents for a couple of months up in Queensland earlier in the year, and met up with them at a week-long festival a bit before visiting them in their home, where they offered me their caravan to stay in for as long as I liked - I'd probably (educated guess) been with them for about a week when this incident occurred. They were an especially hospitable, welcoming and friendly family. I had no untoward or unpleasant experiences with them.
David Quinn wrote:Why did they own a ouija board to begin with?
They didn't. We constructed an ad hoc board by drawing on paper.
David Quinn wrote:Who suggested that they use it that night?
I don't recall - it could have been them, then again they had mentioned previous experiences they'd had with ouija boards earlier in the week and had piqued my curiosity, so it could also have been me. It's possible we planned it a day in advance, I really just don't recall.
David Quinn wrote:What was spoken about in the events leading up to the ouija board session?
I don't recall. My memory of the basic progression was: they described past experiences at some point, then one later evening we visited their friends' house and decided either on the spur of the moment or somewhat in advance to give it a go whilst the parents were out so that I could see what it was all about.
David Quinn wrote:You see, it is easy enough for a cunning operator, with the right atmosphere and a few tricks, to create a fake ouija board session. A sudden, unexpected wind by an air-conditioner or fan device, remotely controlled, can easily, under the right conditions - at night-time, in an atmosphere carefully prepared by the cunning operator - fool any innocent soul who is dissatisfied with the mundane world and on the look-out for a little unusual excitement.
Yes, well, that scenario really just doesn't fly. For starters, they weren't the types to pull that sort of stunt, they were straightforward, down to earth folk who just wanted to enjoy the simple life. Secondly, they had no good motivation to pull a stunt like that. Thirdly, it wasn't a carefully planned affair - they didn't even own a ouija board. Fourthly, this was
not a wind that could be produced by an air-conditioner or fan device; it was the sort of wind that you get when you have both french doors open and it's windy out. Fifthly, even if they
had produced it with some sort of device, it would have been visible given where the wind came from; furthermore it would have had to have been installed by their parents (who were out at the time), and their parents definitely didn't seem like the types to waste money so that their kids could pull a prank like that - this was an earthy, rural community, not a prankish university college.
The reality is much more mundane: we were just a bunch of late-adolescent/early-adult guys looking for a bit of entertainment out on a farm one night.
David Quinn wrote:Derren Brown demonstrated on one of his shows that he could fool a group of university students into believing that they really had experienced spirits in a ouija board session, to the point of utterly freaking them out, simply by setting the atmosphere and using a number of tricks. From the cunning operator's point of view, it is all about exploiting people's psychological weaknesses and expectations.
Here is the show in question:
Séance.
I think that show's been linked to here on GF before, but I watched it again because it's fascinating. There are a few unanswered questions in there, like how he got "London", "Harry" and "builder" into the envelope before the end of the seance. There's no doubt he's a skilled operator. I would, though, simply repeat to you a variation of what I wrote to Diebert above: the existence of fakes doesn't disprove the real thing. There are all sorts of motivations for hiding the truth of spiritual reality, not least of which is that knowledge is power, and darkness wants to disempower light.
David Quinn wrote:And here is a short video by Brown on the same subject, in which he offers a scientific explanation of glass-moving:
Ouija board revealed!
As I wrote in my original post, I had established in the scene I described that one of the participants was physically moving the glass. This explanation in any case seems presumptuous: it offers no basis on which to exclude the possibility that spirits operate through the beings of those involved, at least in some cases. I have no compelling personal evidence that they do, but Roy describes some in his book where he operated a similar set-up, only with a pendulum swinging from his right hand rather than a group cup, and the pendulum answered questions that his companion beside him posed in her mind. The only compelling alternative I can see to "spirit involvement" in this case is "unconscious mind-reading".
Liberty Sea,
"I act on the basis of the difficulty level of the options I have given the situation. Not on the basis of moral obligation."
I have almost no idea what this means. On which basis do you choose - the most difficult or the least difficult option? Difficult in which sense - physically, mentally, socially, wilfully or something else? Why "difficulty" rather than "morality" - how are they different? And how does this relate to the scenario that you still haven't answered specifically: if it was "easy" (in whichever sense you intend it) to notify a nearby police officer of the torture and abuse being committed, would you instead choose a "harder" option that involved not informing the police officer and allowing the torture and abuse to continue? What might that "harder" option consist of?
The Krishnamurti quote that you produced is peculiar. It redefines "good" as "totally attentive", which seems according to Krishnamurti to entail being free from desire. I'm not sure, though, how it's even
possible to live (as opposed to lying down and starving, motionless, to death) as a human without desire, unless some sort of distinction between desire and will is made, and I'm not sure Krishnamurti is making one - he seems to use "motive" and "desire" almost synonymously, in a willing sense. Perhaps he would retort that "lying down and starving, motionless, to death" can be as much a wilful act as any other, in the sense of willing motionlessness and willing to do other than eat. Granting, then, for argument's sake, the possibility of "non-willed action", on what basis
would these actions be performed? Wouldn't it be the case that in the absence of will, actions would be arbitrary? Why ought we to consider arbitrary actions to be "good"? I'm just not getting a lot of sense out of this quote. Perhaps it reads better in context. Or perhaps he's suggesting something like ceding personal will to that of a higher power, and being "totally attentive" in enacting that higher power's will. This seems like a long shot though.
In the end, though, it's just words, isn't it? You can deny your morality with all the words that you like, but that's immaterial: what really counts is what you
do when it comes to the crunch. That's why I keep raising the simple test case I put to you, and, I'm sure, that is why you keep avoiding answering it: because you know that, despite your protestations against morality, you would, in fact, do the
moral thing, and for the same reasons any other decent human being would. I have that much faith in you.