The Paranormal

[knowledgehungry]

Well since this is the water cooler here's a totally irrelevant topic. Who believes in Ghosts, Demons etc?

[wrythawk]

I'll believe anything if I can see it for myself, as for the paranormal haven't seen anything like that irl so no I don't believe it.
I'll update you whenever I change my mind, and any ghost I ever encounter is gonna get his ass shot or stabbed;) amen :D

[Valinomycin]

IMHO there are no paranormal things. Everything can be explained or will be explained. If man doesn't understand something its always paranormal. Another question is, what's your definition of paranormal. In case of ghosts and demons I don't believe they exist.

[Silentnite]

I'm pagan, and having participated in a few rituals, I believe I've experianced the paranormal. Not to mention the fact that in my house doors and lights open and close and flicker on and off respectively. Quite spooking.
And its popular opinion that my 11th grade english teacher was either a demon or the devil himself.... :D

[Anthony]

Did you hear about the gay ghosts? They kept putting the willies up each other :)

[kingspaz]

Some one had to say it :D

I don't believe in the paranormal because it makes no sense, or maybe I can't comprehend it. Do people here who do believe in the paranormal believe in it because they think it is the truth, or because they are afraid to face the reality? I would like to believe in the paranormal as I am mortal and would like to think there is something more after my death. The reality is nothing more than decay. On this basis I will not call things I don't understand 'paranormal', just as religions that don't understand how the world was created simply say 'god created it'.

[Skean Dhu]

I don't beleive in ghosts per se, but I do believe there are spirits of sorts. I do beleive in God therefore It would be hypocritical of me to dismiss the paranormal outright. I don't think that 'ghosts' are dead relatives or people that have been murdered in horrendus ways.

[knowledgehungry]

Yeah, I don't know how I feel about ghosts, I do believe that there are certain things that have not been adequately explained by science. As for what I would do if I saw a ghost, I'd definitly shoot it, same with an alien if one of those fuckers comes near me it's gonna be wasted, I don't care if I start an intergalactic war:).

[xyz]

I could use a spot of intergalactic war right now actually...

[Barcy]

I remember having Mega bringing up the topic of sleep deprivation in the water cooler once; where I made mention to semi sleep states (that is to say you’re up and moving, but the brain is still in dream state).
As I had one questionable experience/encounter as a child (No UFOs, walking corpses and definitely no experimentation involving my arse, probes or forty satellite antennas).
I was chatting with a scuba diving mate, who is a PHD in phycology and he explained it is often possible for people to be semi awake and have dreams seep into their conscious state.
Thus ghost and UFO sightings usually have the following factors.

• At night
• After or during a long fatiguing trip
• After long stint of sleep deprivation
• Stress is a factor also (again see sleep deprivation)

I have also known people to tell me of their experiences (but most of these would been recreational drug users of the higher order)
I also have an old flat mate swear he was the victim of a psychic attack, but there is a lot to be said for suggestion and belief. It is scientifically proven that belief can harm or heal an individual and my friend is one to believe in things to easily.
But many years ago I did have an incident, where I placed a curse and wished death on an ex boss. The guy was a complete nut case, one minute you were his best mate and the next he hated your guts. Two weeks of me wishing death upon him and he did just that, he died in his sleep. But before those gullible people in the forum say “Cool, how can I do that?” He died of a brain tumour, thus his weird behaviour. If I had not found out this fact, I may now be a believer in witchcraft and psychic attacks. There is science and logical explainationsbehind just about any of these topic, you just have to look hard enough, refrain from X files for a bit, don't watch movies like "The Grudge" and those ghost and aliens should not bother you are all. :D

[megalomania]

I had a dream last night where I captured some mob boss and chanted a satanic ritual over him before setting him on fire. The mob guys found out who I was and were after me. I escaped on a train and when I jumped on it just happened to be carrying dynamite... Keep in mind the year was the 1930's and I was about 12 or so. I also had an accomplice.

Analyze that one!

That's as close to paranormal I get I suppose. I really have to question the intelligence of people who believe in ghosts. Especially the "ghost hunter" para-psychologist types who spend their lives hunting farts in the wind.

[knowledgehungry]

Well I guess this counts as the paranormal, but do any of you believe in the devil?

"The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was making man believe that he doesn't exist"

[Pb1]

Don't be silly, we all believe in NBK… :p

I don’t believe in the other one, though.

[Silentnite]

There's more to be said for believing in the possibility then in wholeheartedly saying, well I'll be reincarnated as a spector and take my revenge upon the living... I'm just saying its possible. And besides that, it makes for good stories around the campfire...

[draco aster]

As a christian, I do not believe in the paranormal. I do believe that everyone has a spirit, once you die your spirit goes to heaven/hell. And angels/demons do exist on this earth.

[xyz]

Despite giving the "I'm a ghost" answer, I don't beleive in the supernatural.

What really gets to me is the "exorcists" who brainwash people into beleiving they have demons inside them. If you understand the principles of hypnotism, then just from watching one of these people at work you will notice that's all it really is. They don't intentionally hypnotise people, but sitting them down in a quiet room, asking them to concentrate totally on the "exorcist" and then telling them for hours that they have demons in them has essentially the same effect.

Tell someone something enough times and they'll beleive it, particularly if they are in a hypnotic state (the conscious mind partially, or in some cases totally, absent, but the subconscious still fully functional), because the subconscious mind possesses most of the abilities that the conscious mind has EXCEPT the power of criticism, if the subconscious is told something, it won't question whether it is the truth or not, it will immediately accept it to be truth. Granted, most "exorcism" subjects will only be in a very shallow state of hypnosis, and that's why the "exorcist" has to tell them about their demons for hours to make them beleive it. It is also helped along by the fact that anyone going to see an "exorcist" most probably WANTS to beleive that they are possessed by demons.

Some people say they "don't beleive in hypnosis" or think that it has something to do with the supernatural or something. It's nothing of the sort, hypnosis has been scientifically researched, documented, and experimented with for a long time and is merely the means of getting someone's conscious mind to shut down (or at least partially shut down), while leaving their subconscious fully functional (as opposed to only partially functional in the case of sleep).

If anyone is wondering why the subconscious mind cannot question things it is told, I'll try to explain it. If I were to give you a pen and tell you it was about to become so hot it would burn your hands, you would think to yourself "I've held thousands of pens in my life and none of them have ever heated up by themselves", your mind would have recalled times you picked up pens without them getting hot, and these memories would be the evidence that let you know I was bullshitting. However, the subconscious mind cannot access memories like that, so if you were under deep hypnosis and I told you that pen was about to heat up and burn you, you would have no evidence to call upon, therefore no way of knowing that pens do not heat up by themselves, and would accept my words to be the truth.

[vlodjak]

I would belive in paranormal things, but i havent seen any, the only thing that makes me think are my dreams that sometimes come pretty true in life.

[Desmikes]

If I am not mistaken, US military was looking into paranormal for more than 200 years and they stopped few years ago because they never accomplished anything. For the last half a century there has been a one MILLION (USD) award available to anyone who would perform any paranormal feat (moving objects, telepathy, out of body experience, whatever) under proper scientific supervision; nobody has claimed the prize yet.

Having said that, I personally witnessed bizarre behavior that make me believe that it is possible to make people/animals sick of even kill them with your presence, thoughts, spells or smtn. For example: My friend’s perfectly healthy, sleeping 2 year old daughter would wake up and start screaming nonstop for hours and sometimes faint after their neighbor would visit their house. I mean a minute after the neighbor would walk out of the door, the girl would wake up and start screaming. It couldn't have been a conditioned response. BTW This neighbor also had a doughter of the same age and she was constantly sick.

Plain weird: several battery-operated non-digital clocks (the wall-hanging type) would quit working soon after my mother would sit under them. They would do the same even if the batteries were brand new. The clocks usually would start back up soon after she moved away. Cheap digital wrist watches don’t last for more than a week or two either. Many people witnessed as she and another woman were blown apart (I am talking about bright light and flying across the room, not a usual crack) by an immense static discharge; this was after she spent some time around hanging winter coats. There are many more such stories...

[festergrump]

My mother has the same clock stopping properties but she has to be in direct contact or have them very near her for a day or two. Digital or mechanical makes no difference, they stop. I write this down to science, though, and not paranormal. This must be due to her personal magnetic field, I think. I've met two other people with this problem (yes, it's a problem for them). Seems to be not as uncommon as you might think.

I believe in unexplained occurances. If anyone wants to label them as paranormal, fine by me. I do believe that any and all of these will one day be explained by science, though. I find most of them about as fascinating as an Australian fellow's toilet flushing completely backwards from my own. (upon hearing this at a prepubescent age my vocal chords took immediate action and before I could stop myself-- aloud I had uttered the sound: "Hmm.").

[Silentnite]

Ill be the first to say it, I know I shouldnt... but... *It must have been your mothers magnetic personality*.... AH HAHA Im sorry.
Does this thread also cover aliens? Because, given the possiblities, it seems Very likely that there is someone else in the universe.
I agree with Festergrump and say its all Unexplained Occurances.
And sadly, I just got the flushing backwards thing.

[xyz]

Lol, all this talk of my toilet flushing backwards just reminded me of this dumb bitch in my geography class who managed to convince herself that the clocks turn backwards in the northern hemisphere... :rolleyes:

Just shows why geography teachers shouldn't use the terms "clockwise" and "anticlockwise" when describing the vortexes created by sink plugholes and toilet flushes.

EDIT: Hmmm, the number results of the poll don't match the number of names, i.e. only 13 members have said no and only 3 have said they're ghosts, but the poll says that 15 have said no and 4 have said they're ghosts. Are non-members able to vote in these polls? If so, is this such a good idea? (I mean in the case of polls for other things, like NBK's pdf)

[Chris The Great]

Can't you click the poll without posting? Unless I'm misunderstanding you....

I voted no, after all people used to think that lightning was thrown by gods, we now know it's just a really big electrical discharge. I think that eventually we'll have an explanation for everything. Or, at least close to it, it seems the closer we look the more complex things get.

[xyz]

No, I don't mean people's posts, go up to the poll and click on one of the numbers, a new screen will appear that shows who voted for what, and gives a total number for each poll option. The thing that made me wonder was that the numbers don't match the number of members who've voted.

[Chris The Great]

Oh, I see. I would assume that those would be anonymous votes.....or the system is rigged ;)

[xyz]

That's what I mean, do you think that allowing anonymous votes is a good idea? It would allow any little piggies watching the forum to fuck around with our polls, not good for things like NBK's pdf poll.

[jelly]

If anyone could demonstrate a paranormal ability, why doesn't he/she grab fucking $1.000.000 without any problems? Because there are no ghosts, daemons or PSI... Uri Geller and all the others are just middling magicians.

http://www.randi.org/research/challenge.html

One of the most important book about the PSI "scene" is Martin Gardner's "Kabarett der Taeuschungen"... written in the 80's... I don't know the title of the english original. If you are interested in this topic this book is a MUST READ!!.... and all the books written by James Randi.

[Jacks Complete]

Wouldn't any piggie simply make a log-in name?

Anyway, science explains what it can, what is left is called supernatural, or religion, or whatever.

I see a third way, here. Science explains being in love as, effectively, a chemical imbalance in the mind. Religion, faith, etc. tap into these same feelings and link them to other things, like God. Of course, neither are correct, since love is something that cannot be tied down (unless your partner is willing or unable to escape!) to either of those descriptions, because it is something every man must experience for himself.

Why has no-one ever claimed the million pounds? Because you cannot. Imagine if you had the best set of eyes ever, and you could see through paper, and tell what the person opposite was reading. They would test you for days, then work out how to stop your "power" by using foil paper, or whatever, and not give you the money, saying "it isn't mind reading, s/he can just see through walls with infravision". There was a case where this happened. The girl could tell you what page of a book you were looking at from opposite you. Turned out that "all" she was doing was looking into the eyes of the reader, and looking at the reflection off the page, and reading the page number off them! But that isn't supernatural once it was explained. So no prize.

Now, go find someone, get them to look at a wall, and see if you can even see the reflection of a book. It is a tiny dot with a small rectangle. You couldn't see 72pt. text. In my opinion, what they say she was doing was impossible, even with a telescope.

I have yet to see the supernatural. I have been overwhelmed by fear on one or two occasions for no reason. I have seen sights that no-one else has, at least until a lot later. I have seen a few things that I thought were supernatural or from another world.

One weird one with the moon changing shape which threw me completely, but turned out to be a weird optical heat diffraction effect on the nose of a nearby blimp.
Another was this incredible aerial projectile weapon test, with arcing streamers of white fire lancing into the sky in total silence. I'm still not sure what this was, but you can now buy cake fireworks that do very close to the same thing. Occam's Razor says it was a test of one of those, or something like it, before they were famous.

[Marvin]

I assume the board is supressing the names of people that are invisible. I'll be an invisible ghost for a test.

I think the most important thing anyone can have in a lab is the understanding that everything happens for a reason you have control over.

A ghost did not spill the acid, the reaction did not fail because you angered god, if you do the same thing twice and it turns out different you didnt do it the same way.

[Silentnite]

Hows that go? Once is an accident, twice is a happenstance, and three or more times is a pattern? Could be a persistant poltergiest.

Was the person wearing glasses for that card test? Thats how my teacher figured out I was reading a different book then the rest of the class.

Speaking of 'Supernatural Powers', there was a Family Guy where Chris asked Meg 'Guess what animal I'm thinking of. And its not a cat.'
'I don't know, a dog'.
'Wrong! It was a cat. Ok, guess again, and this time its definitely not a cat'
'Is it a cat?'
'Oh my GOD GET OUT OF MY HEAD!!'
So mind powers are possible. :D

[xyz]

Marvin, no, you appear on the list even when set to invisible...

Jack, of course a piggie could create an account, but that means they only get to vote once. I'm fairly sure that so long as they didn't log in they could vote as many times as they wanted. There is probably something to try to stop this (cookies, IP logging, e.t.c.) but nothing that offers any real protection.

[kbk]

i didnt believe in any of this kind of shit until just recently, i went out with this girl who said she was a witch, i was like yeah ok thats cool...then this one night i was on the phone with her and she said "i just did a spell" and i just said "o thats cool" because i didnt believe any of it...then she asks me, can you feel something pinching your toe? and i could...from then on i have believed in ghosts, demons, witches and all that shit, but not god...also my friends house is haunted and this ghost opens and closes doors at like 4 am, i even went in the hall to see if anyone was there, there was no one, it was dead silent and as soon as i got back in my bed the door opened again, and i had just latched it shut, the door opened part way, then closed slowly and re-latched itself. i was pretty freaked out, no wonder i didnt sleep at all...

[X-Wulf]

It may be just me, but i find the belief of government reports rather amusing.
"the government say they aren't doing [insert covert subject here] research ... so they obviously can't be". And since when did we ever believe ANY government or subsidiary department? We know that they at least used to do paranormal research 'cause they've been forced to declassify some of their older files, but nothing recent. And even if they were ordered to present such up-to-date files, i seriously doubt they would.
Now this may sound like some paranoid ranting, but it's really just common sense ... e.g. if the US governement could successfully implement remote viewing for survaillance, would they tell ANYBODY ... ummm lets thinks ... NO!
Likewise, if anybody could actually claim the 1mil, how long would it take for our friendly government officials to offer that person 2mil to come show them how its done?
As for ghosts and apparations, there are already some scientific theories dealing with these including distortions of space-time and various ripple effects which result in manifestations of past events (sounds, lights, etc.), objects and people at later dates (though usually in the same locality).
It's such theories that para-psychologist investigators are trying to prove/disprove. an example would be how the area around a "ghost" suddenly drops in temperature, with the explaination being that perhaps manifestations of that sort require large amounts of energy (sorta like the sea pulling back before the wave comes), with the most readily available energy source being the ambient heat ...

but hey, just my 2 cents worth

[Marvin]

xyz,

Curious. Only one explanation, REAL GHOSTS!

X-Wulf,

Pseudoscientific theories maybe. They use 'sciency' words, they just make no sense.


The goverment dabbles in a lot of stuff 'just in case' but not for the obvious reasons.

Aliens have been used in the past as convenient cover stories for experimental tests, seemed no down side if the russians really did think US had alien technologies to reengineer, only they got out of hand and people started seeing them everywhere with the 'evidence' merging into one big blur. They want things burry, but they dont want people hanging around trying to disprove the cover stories. They also provided a reason people could hang around area 51 and other bases in large numbers with binoculars and that definatly wasn't part of the plan.

The goverment has also admitted using 'remote viewing' several decades ago, and operatives have been credited with amazing feats. The obvious logical answer, that the goverment does these experiments 'just in case' and these are just flukes doesnt wash for several decades of 'research'. To my mind this is just another cover. Someone has this information allready and to protect the source they have groups of dedicated goverment psychics that do what real psychics do. Pretend to uncover information they allready know, and pad it out with general data until it looks convincing.

One person may think they see a ghost and get cold shivers in perfectly still air. A paranormal investigator read in popular physics may interpret that as energy being used to bend spacetime, dispite obvious physics flaws, and attempt to measure it. A biologist would almost certainly interpret the same report to be someone scared witless by their own shadow and receiving enough adrenaline to mobilise a heard of antilope - with resultant cold shivers.

As for the 1 million, its pretty good evidence there are no mediochre psychics at least, beat the odds convincingly and get the money. If anyone were capable of really talking to spirits, seeing into peoples minds or predicting the future it would be pretty easy to make billions on the stock market, trading secrets, advising lottery consortiums. The world would be a very different place.

[X-Wulf]

Good point there Marvin (lol @ "enough adrenaline to mobilise a heard of antelope")
Though your post begs the (perhaps off topic) question: what are they really researching? If they can come up with things as obscure as remote viewing and aliens to throw us off, then what is it they're involved in? Though mind you, that could just be another little mind game ... give them something fantastic, let them think we're doing something paranormal, and proceed to divert funds to normal weapons research ... *shrug*
But this is now falling into general speculation and conspiracy theory.

[Jacks Complete]

kbk, you went out with a witch? What was the sex like?

I went out with an alien, and the sex was out of this world.



...sorry!

[Silentnite]

Maybe a broom got shoved somewhere... Just kidding.
KBK: maybe it was just the power of suggestion. Cause I have had that happen too. I just "suggested" to some rather gullible people(not saying you are, but they sure were) that their hands were getting heavier, and heavier, and heavier. Until it felt like they were tied up.

I bought myself a pizza with the money I took from them. After they woke up they had a laugh.

[Brakkie]

I certainly believe in ghosts. I've talked with people that claim to have seen a ghost. It's really scary to listen to them. I seriously believe that there are ghosts and that there is life after death. The only question is. What life is there after death and is everyone able to get a life after death?

Maybe one day humanity will find that out...

[Tribal]

I belive in ghosts, I've had some paranormal signs in my house, I got really scared becouse one can't stab a fucking ghost...