Supernatural experiences?

[Slytovhand]

Actually, Flyn, I do believe in the nega-psych.

If we presume that such paranormal activity is caused by entities (rather than merely non-intelligent energies), and those entities are capable of sensing who's attuned to such things and who's not, then it would make perfect sense that such things wouldn't happen around you.. you give off 'not near me' vibes (regardless of what you actually say... you've posted enough "I think that's all crap" type of messages on here... suddenly saying "I wish I could see it" isn't going to wash).

Now, you might think this theory sucks big ones... but consider the other end of the spectrum. Those who are very psychically tuned seem to run into this stuff all the time! Spirits like them and always want to chat... and they're quite capable of dealing with it (in one form or another... hopefully! although... I've known people who weren't.. and they aren't happy with it ).

This theory isn't much different from cat/dog people and non-cat/dog people (although, there is some logic to that.. don't screw up your eyes to cats - they take that as a sign of affection/liking).


ETA: oh, btw, you're not a statistical anomoly! There's actually a very large percentage of the population in the same boat.

Besides - there is also the other side of the statistics... if something did happen to convince a person that there is supernatural stuff, then they'd then be classed as a believer... so, strangely enough, all believers have had something supernatural happen in their lives. Non-believers, OTOH, haven't had a convincingly supernatural event happen, so all non-believers have never experienced... nothing overly surprising in the stats there!

[Flyndaran]

Actually, Flyn, I do believe in the nega-psych.

If we presume that such paranormal activity is caused by entities (rather than merely non-intelligent energies), and those entities are capable of sensing who's attuned to such things and who's not, then it would make perfect sense that such things wouldn't happen around you.. you give off 'not near me' vibes (regardless of what you actually say... you've posted enough "I think that's all crap" type of messages on here... suddenly saying "I wish I could see it" isn't going to wash).
...

I can see how one could come to that conclusion. But we are all full of internal inconsistencies. I don't believe in the supernatural, because I haven't seen proof of it. But I still would love to see something impossible. It's the desperately hopeful part of me that wants to experience something truly magical.

[Wingates_Hellsing]

I think that my government has a good chance of ruining my life.

Please prove me wrong.

Good analogy? maybe not. But it's good enough for government work

Never had a supernatural experience myself. Maybe it has to do with my slick techno skillz . On a serious note, I think it all comes down to a persons outlook. If you believe (even a little) in the supernatural, you're going to write things down as supernatural that others are going to interpret as natural phenomena.

Since such occurrences are by definition unprovable one way or the other, the only real answer is maybe.

My answer's no, but a neutral answer is maybe. My answer is different because of a thing we call bias and it's what makes the world go 'round .

[Red_Dazes]

But darn it I look for it, and really want to experience it if it exists. I just haven't seen anything that can't be explained rationally much more easily.

Perhaps that is the problem right there...you LOOK for it too hard. Sometimes if you're looking for something too hard you tend to miss it.

I've always been more skeptical than the rest of my family, even at a very young age. Whenever anything would happen and everyone would scream "god" or "ghost" I'd be off searching for the real answer...and often made them all look like fools. But I've had a few experiences I can't explain, so while I would love to dismiss everything as "tricks of light" "saw it out of the corner of my eye" etc... I can't always... though I try my damnedest. I guess it just comes down to. Some people will never experience "supernatural?" things, and some will... maybe the system is biased... maybe some people are just more "sensitive" or maybe alot of us are on the way towards a severe mental break down and finally showing the first signs of it. Who knows.

[Slytovhand]

Tales of amazement, ghosts... and idiots.

Ok, first story... it was one of those nights when I could just feel stuff was going on, and entities moving about... (yeah, I can...). Anyway, I chose to centre myself and relax. I sat on my bed and started to meditate. I'm the only one alone in my house (and it is a house, not a unit - so completely detached from anything else). Next thing, the lamp shade from my ceiling light drops and smashes only a couple of feet from me... this thing that had been sitting up there for years and years. No big movements in the house (so no 'external motion set it off'), nothing happening at all... extremely still - moreso than usual! Not cold, not hot (so no expansion/contraction arguments). And, as I said... I felt stuff was going on. So... reasonable grounds (in my mind!)

Second story... group of us sitting around playing DnD (pnp). All of a sudden, the lights go out. Everyone gets riled up (apparently, some of the persons there had made an enemy or 2... great!). Within minutes, I'd never seen so much weaponary in all my life! (well, ok, I had, but it doesn't tell the story as well ). The guys (who lived there) armed to the teeth with knives and swords and the like 'go on patrol'.... seems, after some actual thought came into it, that while we were playing, someone had banged the floor a bit (as happens when you're playing on the floor), which had caused enough vibration to make an already loose fuse drop out completely.. so... that was... fun

And, Flyn, just totally for you.... a few years ago, it was October/November. Melbourne Cup was coming up. I heard, extremely distinctly and in no uncertain terms, in my head "3,6,9" in reference to it (thank you very much Rhiannon, Celtic Goddess of horses! and one of my 'patrons'). So, I put down a boxed trifecta (but, still not 100% on the 'faith' thing, only went 3x bet, not the 10x I was intending...). First 3 past the post?? 3, 6, 9. Got myself a nice $5000 (instead of the $17K I would have got had I trusted it ) Now, that's all verifiable (well, except for the bit about hearing it), and certainly is not going to be readily explainable by science! 'Luck'?? Again, if you take my claim that I heard it before it happened into account... not likely to have both together!


BJ -

No, Occam's Razor. The impossible has been eliminated. Therefore, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

Actually, that was Sherlock Holmes.

Occam's Razor is:"entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily". Or: When competing hypotheses are equal in other respects, the principle recommends selection of the hypothesis that introduces the fewest assumptions and postulates the fewest entities while still sufficiently answering the question. AKA - All things being equal, the simplest solution is most likely the correct.

But... what's defined as 'simplest' doesn't always mean 'shortest'. After all, "God did it" is by far the shortest answer, and in someways is the simplest... but introduces more than is necessary for an explanation, and requires far more explaning in itself.

[Flyndaran]

not[/I] going to be readily explainable by science! 'Luck'?? Again, if you take my claim that I heard it before it happened into account... not likely to have both together!
....

How many times have you heard things and they don't pan out? That would be confirmation bias when you only remember the times those random "thoughts" pay off, literaly in this case.
Or even if you've only heard voices this one time and it paid off doesn't necessarily mean that it was supernatural. 3,6,9 seem like a rather common sequence anyway, and eventually someone wins the lottery, so to speak.
I won't act rude to those that believe in such things as long as it doesn't affect me. But I won't believe they are even possible, unless and until I see undeniable proof. I will continue to be on the lookout hoping to someday witness the impossible.

[BroomJockey]

BJ - Actually, that was Sherlock Holmes.

No shit? Really? Wow. Never knew. Not possible that I meant to reference both, after all.

[Slytovhand]

No shit? Really? Wow. Never knew. Not possible that I meant to reference both, after all.

WTF???

'Reference both'... but without actually doing any referencing... except to the first, and then wanting people to buy that you were talking about 2 separate things?? Unlikely, at the best of times.

No, far more likely that you had a misquote... after all, that's the simplest and most logical explanation....

[BroomJockey]

No, far more likely that you had a misquote... after all, that's the simplest and most logical explanation....

Actually, since a period was present, making them two separate thoughts, and there were no quotation marks, I'm going to leave the sarcasm out and tell you flat you're wrong.

You're wrong.

[bunnyboy]

As for the original post, this is something I keep hearing from people I hang out with (seem to have a lot of people who are newapagiccans (for those that don't know that's my fancypants way of saying new-age-pagan-wiccans, basically the people who populate occult and new age bookstores that aren't seriously looking for a good tome to pick apart) that hang around me) and I've always thought it was BS, basically it's saying that because you're not looking at the world through young eyes, you can't see the supernatural/miracles/what have you going on. Oddly I'm a skeptical agnostic, but well I believe in weird things like prana/ki/kundalini/orgone/insert name for vital force here and it's manipulation, and some miracles (I've met at least one true stigmatic, you know with the wounds on the wrist with no verifiable explanation as to how it got there) and in general just have a skeptical, but believing view of the world and thr supernatural.

To exlain that last part, I do believe that the supernatural is real, but in general it affects us in at most very minor ways, and tends to have its own set of laws, some of which are incredibly old (The Hermetic Axiom*, Law of Polarity**, Ghosts are rarely found in graveyards, miracles require extremes of faith on the good side of extremes of faith) some of which are just plain new (any entity that is universal has no concern with us hairless apes, Asimov and Niven's axioms***, Earth is Purgatory.) However I will look at it with an extremely skeptical eye, is the sound that people are hearing a ghost moaning or stepping on the floor, or is it just the house settling? So I guess according to both the people who the OP quoted, and most of my newapagiccan friends I should not have had ANY sort of supernatural experience.

Buuuuuut (and here's the rub) The stigmatic above, the fact that I constantly get called a necropath (I feel the feeling of dead people) by them, and have experienced first hand just how much power you can get from Ki/Chi/Prana/Pneuma/too many names on both the receiving and giving ends, I would say I'm pretty much an exception to that rule, if it was true.

Very often I see things like that and want to bang my head on something hard, mainly because it seems to come from people either cribbing from White Wolf (Mage: The Ascension in particular) or from authors who rather than teaching them anything useful, want to make them feel speshul to increase the sales for both themselves and two certain publishing companies (which seems to be the 10% who didn't get it from the main conflict of M:TA.)

Gah I hate rambling on this stuff, but damn it feels good to vent, especially when I have the morons above who try to convince me of everything under the sun (2012 is "teh end of teh wuruld", magic is just imagining, Crowley had no ideas and was a mean man who killed millions of children a day.**** )

* As Above, So Below
** Everything has an opposite
*** Sufficiently advanced technology\magic is indistinguishable from magic\technology
**** To be fair this is true, but it was his poetic/occult blind***** way of saying he bopped the bishop daily
***** symbolic language used to confuse a novice/outsider so they aren't coming in with the "cup full to be filled."

[Flyndaran]

If you have experienced something completely magical, then it would be irrational NOT to believe. I just hope that if it exists, I will get to experience one paradigm breaking event at least once in my life.

The problem with being surrounded by inane believers is one of being surrounded by those requiring less evidence to believe something. It's a sad statistic, nothing more.
Look at my fellow atheists. I'm surrounded by crotchety crumudgeons. It doesn't make me one, but thems the breaks.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Yeah.

I am never entirely comfortable with this conversation, as I can't help but feel it makes me look even MORE Like a loon. But okay.

The short version:

You know how you hear about teenage girls in the house make all kinds of crazy "paranormal" (whatever that means) shit happen? That was my house growing up. And it's never entirely worn off my sister. She's "gifted."

I've seen some weird shit. A lot. It doesn't much faze me anymore. (the funny bit is that it ALWAYS fazes my sister, and I'm pretty convinced she's some kind of catalyst or something) Some of you know I work sometimes as a dukkerer (fortuneteller.) You might be suprised to also learn I won't allow stuff like Ouja boards in my house.

Family's got a history of this stuff. Mostly on Dad's side. Dukkering's from his side. So's all the so called paranormal crap.

Husband's family gots some stuff going on, too. I expect when our girl hits puberty, the freaking electrical plugs will start dripping ichor. (I'm kidding. Mostly. )

BOOZY: You had an episode of The Haint? (Hag, or whatever)? Me too. Didn't think it was paranormal, just the scariest thing I think that has ever happened to me. Actually I think it triggered the claustrophobia I have sufferend ever since. I have heard theories that the experience is a nightmare about being born. That makes quite a bit of sense to me. Would you be willing to tell me about your experience with it? I find the whole thing quite fascinating. I've found a couple others who've experienced it, and it was fascinating talking to them about it. I'd love to hear what your take on it is.

[Boozy]

I actually experience sleep paralysis very frequently, most commonly when I am taking midday naps. For me, I usually have a vague sensation of being held down by an invisible and malevolent presence. Only once (and this was just last month) did I actually hallucinate and see someone standing over me.

Often, I feel that I am hovering outside my body for a few seconds. This lasts until the paralysis wears off and I can feel my body again. My brain is interpreting my state of consciousness paired with paralysis as an "out of body" experience.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Oh, good Lord.

Boozy, if this happened to me frequently, I'd have to take some serious drugs just to get to the point I could relax enough to go to sleep.

The one time it happened to me, it scared me so bad I literally thought I was losing my mind. At the time, I had no idea what had just happened. A friend of mine who heard all the screaming, woke up, and tried to calm me down said I looked so wild-eyed and out of it, she was afraid to touch me.

It seriously was just about the scariest thing that ever happened to me.

I guess knowing what's happening would help take the edge off the fear. As would the lack of the "presence."

[Boozy]

I recall it being very frightening the first few times. But when something happens often enough, it loses its edge a bit. And it helps to know exactly what is going on.

Even now, when it's happening, I have a feeling of "Oh, for fuck sake, not this again, how annoying" and "Oh my God I'm going to die!!!" It's a strange sensation to know with your rational mind that you are safe when at the same time your subconscious is freaking the hell out.