Debra Diamond Brings Wall Street Smarts to NDEs, and Mediumship |424|

You should do interviews with spiritual people debating each other, sounds childish but as I see it we can learn a lot more
 
There's a woman I just started following who had pictures with all the top... ummm researchers and goes on to explain how many are not exactly what they preach. At best they are researchers, most don't meditate for example. She had pictures with David Wilock and Nassim Harim, I was interested
 
Marco Passio debate with Brother Panic and throw in Shermer. Ratings through the roof
 
Royal rumble... Dead Radin, Shermer, Rupert Sheldrake, Passio, panic and a skeptical scientist who is popular.
 
Dan_LastName said:
I agree that there's "usefulness" in considering that there is a hierarchy of spiritual beings with a degree of absoluteness. I tend to think that there is also usefulness to considering that the meaningfulness of such beliefs comes from the "correctness" of the beliefs rather than from the usefulness of the beliefs.
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I largely agree with your comment. I was merely observing that the hard yards on this topic have been done, and they maybe should be explored before we tackle the correctness or meaningfulness of such ideas. There's a lot of 're-inventing the wheel' commentary that probably arises from a lack of awareness of extant thought - since it is never cited.

Alex, it might be worthwhile seeing if you can get Gary Lachman on the show. He's got a pretty decent firewall around him and I suspect he might be responsive to your 'celebrity' (sorry, should have put the quotes around that word).
 
David Bailey said:
1) Some people suggest that people have another component that remains in the spirit world.

2) The structure of time may be more complex than we tend to assume.
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Time is very flexible -expandable and contractable, whereas space is way more rigid. Time can be seen in its cyclical mode - essentially sidereal - or psychological. We experience both - and the more adept or 'gifted' of us can play/work with that flexibility - and hence 'foresee' or predict with accuracy. It does happen, but it ain't often we come across it. Also, it could be asserted that some aspects of magic are entirely down to manipulation of time.

Finally we are manipulating the space/time ratio more and more as our tech advances - space stays the same, but time taken to traverse space has changed radically. And a lot of our tech is using non-physical media to transmit data/experience - as analogues of magic if you will.
 
Baccarat said:
Royal rumble... Dead Radin, Shermer, Rupert Sheldrake, Passio, panic and a skeptical scientist who is popular.
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I think Alex gave the pure materialists plenty of opportunity to put their case, so very few people want to plough through more of their nonsense.
Baccarat said:
You should do interviews with spiritual people debating each other, sounds childish but as I see it we can learn a lot more
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That might be a very good idea - because these contradictions between different accounts might get thrashed out.
Baccarat said:
There's a woman I just started following who had pictures with all the top... ummm researchers and goes on to explain how many are not exactly what they preach. At best they are researchers, most don't meditate for example. She had pictures with David Wilock and Nassim Harim, I was interested
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Can't you unpack this a bit - tell us what and who you are talking about!
David
 
David Bailey said:
I like the Trump administration a lot. I think he is doing everything possible to contain NK and Iran without going to war with them. This is very hard, and he could have used a war to boost his popularity with many of his critics - he resisted that temptation, even in the early days when his presidency still seemed a bit insecure.

Some time back, there was much talk here on the forum that many politicians may have ended up being blackmailed to do things they would not otherwise have done. This was scoffed at as being extreme - but does it really look so wild as we see the Epstein scandal unravel? Does President Obama's willingness to do a deal with President Putin, really match up with the actions of his team in later years - attacks (explicit or otherwise) on Syria and Libya - and destabilisation of The Ukraine - why did he veer away from his earlier peaceful policies? I cheered for Obama when he first got in, just as I cheered for Trump more recently, but Obama changed.

This ability to control the actions of US presidents, may well have contributed to the West's seeming wanton desire to attack and wreck the Middle East and other places. Look back at the absurd history over the last 50 years or so.

So getting back to my original point, I would say that heads of state like Trump may be about the best you can get, but nobody would claim he is akin to a god, and as below so above - reality may be controlled by multiple intelligent entities, with varying morality and large but finite abilities to control our physical reality. A god who needs to throw out multiple designs to see which will work, doesn't sound infinitely knowledgeable to me.

David
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David, I thought there was an agreement political discussions would be taken off line. I think you have a responsibility as a moderator not to be the instigator of contentious political comment. It not only deflects the conversation away from the focal spirit of Skeptiko, it introduces, in then instance of Trump, the most radically contentious theme imaginable - and not suited to this forum. In case you want to argue the toss, I am on my 27th book on American history, politics and Trump since 1 December last year. This is not a debate we need on an open forum discussion about an unrelated subject. If you want to set up an alternative discussion I would be happy to participate. But I won't respond to what I perceive to be numerous errors or misrepresentations above. Do we go off line and invite folk to join the discussion -or kill it now?
 
Michael Patterson said:
David, I thought there was an agreement political discussions would be taken off line.
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Personally I’m strongly against anything being ‘taken offline’. However I would be even more strongly against shutting it down completely. Please keep the conversation going, wherever that may be.
 
Dan_LastName said:
For me, it's unknown whether these big questions are fundamentally answerable or not. Perhaps our useful, meaningful, provisional answers are the best we can do for now. Perhaps we will have different useful, meaningful, provisional answers in the future that scratch more of our itches when it comes to these questions as we experience them today. But then perhaps we will have different itches that would need to be scratched ...
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Dan, I know I may be accused of sounding arrogant, and I will cop that accusation - while denying it. These are not questions that have not been answered. There is an extensive body of literature on this theme.

I started off when I was 16 - with Paul Brunton's Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga. That was over 50 years ago when books on the subject were findable but scarce. So I read the established classics - now drowned by a cacophony of unimpressive commentators and speculators going to print with half-baked ideas for the sake of ego and whatever benefits arise from their problematic and temporary fame.

I got what was really a classic grounding in esoteric thought that prevailed from the late 1800s into the 1970s. So I got educated in Vedic thought, Buddhist metaphysics, Zen metaphysics, Qabala, Theosophy, Hermetics and the Western Mystery Tradition. I was a child of time really. There wasn't a lot that was easy to find back then. I am not saying my education was comprehensive or complete - but it was coherent and substantial - compared to what a person starting a similar quest over the past 2 decades might encounter. I know there contributors to this forum with similar backgrounds -you can pick those who have passed esoterica 101.

Now we are awash with published commentary that has no idea of the legacy that was/is a foundational body of knowledge that maybe they should have accessed before they went to print.

It is known "whether these big questions are fundamentally answerable or not." They have occupied the best minds of humanity for millennia. It is pretty much settled. Our challenge isn't to go back and re-litigate battles already won, but to take the next step in our evolution by rethinking how we understand our reality on the evidence we have accepted.

The fact that we are returning time and again to issues settled by good science demonstrates that the issue is not science, but culture. What is contested is not so much knowledge but how that knowledge influences culture -alters power relations, status and so on.

I say we accept the established cases -and if we do not know they are established, go back to confirm they are. That done, we can move on into new territory. Look Frank DeMarco's works for example - or Jane Roberts.

I have complained to Alex before that we are fighting battles already won, but I have since learned that while this may be technically true, it does not meat we are necessarily ready to move on. There is so much investment of self-identity in what we know to be failed models of reality, but we are still bonded to them. We have to be both courageous and compassionate in moving on. For some, that is a traumatic separation.
 
Eric Newhill said:
hinking about this some more.....has there ever been a competent medium (competent=thoroughly tested and proven) that has had to tell a client trying to communicate with the deceased that the connection isn't possible because the deceased has reincarnated? - Because you'd think that would happen from time to time; especially if the deceased died an untimely death.

That's not a rhetorical question. Genuinely interested.
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None that I know of Eric, that's because the interval between death and reincarnation tends to be sufficient to prevent that problem from arising. There claimed cases of rapid incarnation. For example, I believe, the Dalai Lama returns quickly - because this is a highly evolved soul that does not need the intervening interval of any apparent duration between incarnations. I do not accept this as true, I merely report it as a claim.

There is what might be called a pre-life review that occurs with souls of sufficient self-awareness, and this may include an agreement to what amounts to an early termination for some reason (there are details offered I won't go into here for the sake of brevity).

On the other hand there are claims that less evolved souls may be so driven by deep desire for physical incarnation that, upon their demise, will immediately seek to return. In some cases they will attempt to occupy the body of somebody close to them.

Now while I will say that what I say above is what I have read - and hence do not vouch for it - I will say that I was involved in a case of a guy trying to enter his now widowed wife's body. That effort created a radical health condition, including gross skin conditions. My then partner, who is clairvoyant, brought this guy through and I spoke with him. We resolved the matter and the woman with the skin condition was relived of the adverse affect.

I have been involved in several such interventions and all I can say is that the intervention, based upon a set of assumptions, led to the termination of the adverse health manifestations.

You can make what you will of my story
 
Michael Patterson said:
I have found that 'spirits' of the higher order are disinclined to set us straight about things they see we are not ready to work with. I have been flat out refused answers to questions posed and when I have asked why the answer is always the same: You are not ready for this.
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Agreed, and I'll start out with what are the qualities of readiness. Just give me that. The reincarnation question can be as simple as what occurred prior to this birth as in Jim Tucker children recounting a previous life. Perception here about reincarnation appears linear but to understand it requires being able to view it outside of time and space which are aspects serving its fundamental purpose. It has a purpose of some device. My curiosity is then who/what makes such a determination of qualification and why. Is reincarnation involved with my qualification? It is almost circular thinking. I cannot know this answer either, but I ask it just the same.
 
Michael Patterson said:
I am revisiting White's The Unobstructed Universe, which was published in 1940. Its a conversation between White and friend and recently deceased Betty via another friend. Betty is trying to explain to White and co how things work from her POV. She described the physical plane as the 'obstructed universe' and her metaphysical plane as the 'Unobstructed Universe'. She affirms that all is consciousness and then attempts to explain why the difference between the obstructed and unobstructed states.

I read the book for the first time decades ago. It is conceptually difficult because envisioning the metaphysical analogues of space and time is not an easy task - but each time I try I am a little less conditioned.

Part of the problem with looking through the wrong end of the telescope is that we lack the language and conceptual framework to understand that is what we are doing. I go back to valued 'channelled' or 'communicated' writings often just to shake up my thinking and loosen the grip of materialistic thought on my mind -its a kind of spiritual delousing bath I have to do several times a year.
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So you did originally ask the question and although the answer was your not ready. Are you being guided into where you should investigate. Yeah, why not, you seek and it is given to you, in time. It seems you are coming into, at least, a intellectual understanding. If mathematically minded physicists can discover and comprehend completely incongruent realities of the very small. Why not you or I coming to an understanding of difficult concepts about the unobstructed universe.
 
Dmitch said:
It has a purpose of some device. My curiosity is then who/what makes such a determination of qualification and why. Is reincarnation involved with my qualification? It is almost circular thinking. I cannot know this answer either, but I ask it just the same.
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This is my understanding. Some of us are driven by basic desire and are not amenable to any kind of planned life. Others understand that an incarnation is a step on the path of evolution of consciousness, and they are playing a part in that. There are spirits/souls of higher evolution who oversee incarnations and who do make plans in cooperation with (re)incarnating souls.

I have good grounds for believing that my contraction of GBS in 2008 was known back in the mid 1980s, and that it was something I had agreed to. When I was lying on the lounge room floor in 2008, having become quite suddenly paralysed, I was very calm and I had a sense this was, finally, what it was all about. GBS has transformed my life - crap on the physical plane - but amazing otherwise. I have asked myself whether, if I could go back and change things, whether I would. No, I am a much better person for my experience and I would trade the limitations and cost for that. I know in that deep intuitive sense, one has lying on a floor beyond volitional movement, that this was my destiny. Did I agree to this before I was born? I did.
 
superqualia said:
If we keep getting back garbley-goock doesnt that imply something?
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Well, one of my points is that the "medium" might be a fraud, delusional or just partly psychic. All high probability events, IMO.

superqualia said:
Oh! And it turns out on average people are quite similar, so its possible to get hits 1/3rd the time with cold reading. This is infocoming from julie bieschel, i believe, but would have to check to be sure if you have any doubt about that number.?
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Yes. I know all about that. The medium that impressed me deeply was not providing generalized information. In fact the spirits that came through seemed to go out of their way to provide highly detailed personal information so as to convince me (and my wife) that it was really them. I am not an idiot and neither is my wife. In fact I have been professionally analyzing things for just about my entire life. [/QUOTE]
 
Michael Patterson said:
This is my understanding. Some of us are driven by basic desire and are not amenable to any kind of planned life. Others understand that an incarnation is a step on the path of evolution of consciousness, and they are playing a part in that. There are spirits/souls of higher evolution who oversee incarnations and who do make plans in cooperation with (re)incarnating souls.

I have good grounds for believing that my contraction of GBS in 2008 was known back in the mid 1980s, and that it was something I had agreed to. When I was lying on the lounge room floor in 2008, having become quite suddenly paralysed, I was very calm and I had a sense this was, finally, what it was all about. GBS has transformed my life - crap on the physical plane - but amazing otherwise. I have asked myself whether, if I could go back and change things, whether I would. No, I am a much better person for my experience and I would trade the limitations and cost for that. I know in that deep intuitive sense, one has lying on a floor beyond volitional movement, that this was my destiny. Did I agree to this before I was born? I did.
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Michael I have read your account of GBS, but it was last year or so you recounted it and my memory fails me. What does GBS stand for?
 
Vortex said:
Well, it is entirely possible that one's soul can be "simultaneously" - from the corporeal / embodied realm perspective - being reincarnated here on Earth and yet still remain in the psychic / disembodied realms of the afterlife. The two reasons are...

a) The timelessness of the nonphysical forms of existence. The events there need not be strictly historically correllated with the earthly timeline; they almost certainly do show some flow and change as the events here, yet probably not in the form of singular, unidirected, one-event-in-a-moment, first-cause-then-effect sequence. More likely scenario is that different streams and clusters of changing psychic events can be accessed in accordance of the views, needs and wishes of the person(s) coming into contact with the nonphysical realms.

b) Incarnation in the form of earthly embodiment does not necessarily require leaving the psychic realms completely. It is quite probable that a soul's experience of embodiment is not a literal "insertion" into a body (to describe it so...), but rather a kind of perceptual distraction. To understand what I mean, imagine playing a videogame here in the physical realm. When one plays a videogame, one don't enter it in a literal sense: one still sits in a chair in front of one's PC or, or on a sofa in front of a TV with a console attached - yet one's attention can be distracted so fully that one may start feeling AS IF one lives within the game. The same can work with embodiment and disembodiment: we may be playing an ultra-high-immersion game here in the corporeal part of the world, intense and captivating enough for us to perceive it, transiently and illusively, as a reality, even as "the" reality... while in fact remaining in the spirtual dimension.

What do all you here think about these thoughts of mine?

P.S. Oh, and good to be here again, after a long absence. :)
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Yes. In my post I allowed for the possibility of an aspect of the soul of an reincarnated person to be in a dimension that a medium can talk to regarding a previous personality.

I just start getting concerned when we have to create elaborate explanations for mediums' failures.

When people have NDEs they see and communicate with people they know who are dead; not the souls of living people. Why would it be different for mediums?
 
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