Psychic Abilities

[Guest]

I believe in psychic abilities. I have read enough scientific reports and first-hand anecdotes to conclude that at the very least, something very weird is happening.

One good anecdote is the posts on websites such as PsiPog.net, especially the videos on them. If psychic phenomena do not exist, I find it strange that all these people are either deluded or are intentionally faking. One person thought that the people on the PsiPog videos were faking. He attempted to disprove their videos by moving a quarter underneath a glass without using his hands. The video can be found on Google Video here: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 6438663073

This video is not very convincing. It can be easily guessed at what he did; he used a magnet to move around the quarter. The sign of that is how when he started to move the quarter, he put one of his hands underneath the table. I find this video unconvincing because there are videos of people moving non-metallic objects, such as pens and books, while keeping both hands on the table.

One good video is: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=...6&q=psipog. It is more convincing because there is clearly no contact between hand and pen, the ends move at different times which suggests the pen was not moved by a string, and the pen is basically non-magnetic and even if the pull of the ball was strong enough it couldn't move both ends. This video doesn't prove anything but it does show that the taboo in science against the supernatural should be dropped and that these phenomena need to be highly investigated.

Verification of the supernatural would be a far greater achievement and would be better for humanity than much of the high cost scientific investigations doing on today. Think of it this way, most supernatural phenomena inevitably rely on the existence of a soul. Proving that the soul exists could heal some rifts between science and religion, it would help neuroscience, it could finally answer the mind-body problem, and, most importantly, it would be an indescribably large comfort to all people. The question of life after death would not be answered after death but when we are living and have time to do what we need to with our lives.

[SoulRiser]

I haven't looked into the telekinesis stuff much, but I definitely do believe in telepathy and empathy. Mike did a few random tests on me over the course of a few days. He'd like ask me out of the blue "Out of 100, what number am I thinking of?" (after he'd been repeating the number in his head over and over for 2 minutes). I got it right the first 2 times he asked, after that it didn't work so well anymore. And then he tried thinking of an animal (how many species of animals are there?). I got it right once out of about 5 tries. It doesn't always work, but what are the odds of it working even once when you're dealing with that many possibilities? The times I got it right, I saw the number in my mind, as in, I saw the digits as a picture. Same with the animal. He thought of a white rabbit, first thing I saw was a white fluffy thing, I started thinking to myself "Is it a sheep?", and then the word "Rabbit" appeared. Nifty

That, and me and a few of my friends often think of the same thing at the same time. And then we go all when we say it. That even works over IRC when they're nowhere physically near me.

[Abandoning Ship]

I once guessed a number between 1 and 40 on the first try....does that count for anything?

[Abandoning Ship]

It was 27, too. Is that like Aztec for Psychic or...somthing?

[Madness]

lol, ill say its possible that its possible, but i think people need to think that what seems to be "psychic abilities" can be a shitload of other things.

[Demonic Pyro]

I think its real. Noting is imposable, just exxtremely improbable.

And BigWolf can you manipulate elements with it??
Like say Ummmm Fire?
Lmao
I'm just playin

[Demonic Pyro]

Lmao, that's funny
Not cause it's dumb, but cause I all of the sudden remembered when you talked about it before...

Oh and I'm and Aquarius...
It's wierd I love Fire, and yet my sign is water and I prefer the cold over warmth....

[Demonic Pyro]

really? the waves look like water...
Meh
I don't really care much for zodiacs, my horoscope is always wrong.... I get it the day after or before I need it....

[Madness]

If ur really interested in manipulating fire, and believe in this kinda stuff, check out occult magic, and no, its not throwing fireballs like RPGs etc, its about focusing and alot of stuff, its really complicated. Alot of meditation etc, and again, you wont be throwing fireballs (atleast not likely). Im a bit skeptical with everything and ive read into occult magic, but never tried it ( i will sometime though). http://www.angelfire.com/mi3/tomekeeper/
Read around there. Has alot of info on the stuff.

[Guest]

BigWolf Wrote:There's a picture on PsiPog where it shows NI levitating a Swiss Army Knife in his hand

Images are very easy to fake and so are not very reliable. The shadow on the levitating knife picture looks fake to me.

Toucanman Wrote:I once guessed a number between 1 and 40 on the first try....does that count for anything?

Not in itself. One in 40 is like a 2.5% chance (if my maths are correct). That's not very convincing. If you managed to do it like 10 times in a row and on multiple occasions, then I would be impressed.

Demonic Pyro Wrote:And BigWolf can you manipulate elements with it??

Elements don't literally exist, they are just easy ways for us to categorize and manipulate things. It's like taxonomy, species don't exist and taxonomy is completely false but without referring to species and kingdoms, biology would be immensely hard and talking about evolution would be impossible.

[liq3]

I was gonna post a thread on this same topic...Lucky I use the search button, and search for more then one word!

I don't have that much to say...Except I've been practicing alot of the stuff. Telepathy, empathy, remote presence (little success, only managed to make my arm go really tingly), remote viewing, psychokinesis, lucid dreaming (even if somewhat unrelated) and psi manipulation. I'm particularly strong in empathy...Also if anyone ever wants to practice something...like telepathy...I'd be more then happy to.

And yes, that picture of the swiss army knife being floated is particularly false looking. I know that guy moved a chair though...at least I think it was him.

Also on that thing about souls...I'm positive they exist...I guess it's almost impossible to prove they do. Also I think psionics (thats the name for the whole bunch of stuff) has not been proved mostly because would the government really want to deal with all the problems it'd cause? It's a total cover up...

Kirby, would you consider getting 4 seven times out of 13 rolls on a 6 sided dice proving something?

[Guest]

For that type of proof I take a lot of convincing. Multiple tests are needed. Getting any specific combination of numbers on a six sided die thrown 13 times is 0.00006% (I think). But it's not very convincing if you aren't trying to get a certain combination or don't do it completely, which is what happened in your case I think.

My idea about what the soul is a bit different than most people. At the root there is consciousness which has the dual aspect of subjectiveness/willing. But a floating consciousness can't do anything, it doesn't have a body and it doesn't even have a mind. The actual soul is a subtle body. The consciousness uses this subtle body which gives them certain capacities, memories of past lives for example. But the subtle body doesn't have reason or thought. It takes another body, in our case on Earth it is our material bodies. All of our thinking and reasoning ability stems from our material brains. Our main memory is in the brain but the subtle body's memory also records things.

[Bob Dole]

Ah hell, I've been messing around with psiballs for the past few days and I managed to give myself a splitting headache. Does anyone know how I mgiht fix this?

[liq3]

FightforRight Wrote:Ah hell, I've been messing around with psiballs for the past few days and I managed to give myself a splitting headache. Does anyone know how I mgiht fix this?

Yeh if you're getting a headache don't do it for a day or 2. I was practicing PK alot for a few days. I had HORRIBLE blood suger levels. The 2nd day I could barley stand and actualy went back to bed after being up for an hour. I was lightheaded for most of the 3 days and no amount of food helped much. Along with being lightheaded my vision had a habit of being impaired briefly when I got up - blood rushing from head I guess - most of the time too. When I stopped those symptoms went away.

Kirby Wrote:For that type of proof I take a lot of convincing. Multiple tests are needed. Getting any specific combination of numbers on a six sided die thrown 13 times is 0.00006% (I think). But it's not very convincing if you aren't trying to get a certain combination or don't do it completely, which is what happened in your case I think.

Well...I was actually trying to roll four. Also it was only 7/13. Something more notable...A deck of cards. Trying to get a certain card last. I'll admit that I haven't had much success - only done it once - but I know I've always drawn the card in the 2nd half, except maybe 3 or 4 times...out of about 100. Also on average it was in the last 15. I could safely say that 80 out of 100 times the card I was trying to draw last, came up in the last 15. That's quite a low chance really. Which to be precise - and because the number looks fancy - is 4.22411e-024%...or 0.000000000000000000000422311%. I have a program that figures it out. No I didn't write it. Personally I think that's QUITE low, and in most cases scientifically proving. That was a 100 tests, so, is that enough for you? They were spanned over 2 weeks as well.

About the soul...I'm not sure about what it does, but I'm CERTAIN it exists. A theory I have that ties in with Heaven and Hell...Hm. Remember this is just a theory. We are our soul, it's our essence what makes us us. Human bodies are merely a vessals, transport ship. Alot like a car. Now normally souls just exist. Purely. Our bodies taint our soul, like a test. They try to bribe us and lure us away from what is pure. When we die, if we pass the test, we are invited to Heaven. If we fail, the Devil takes us down to Hell, punishing us for all eternity. Our memories and all don't really exist in our brains. They exist in our soul and this where the taint really comes in. It limits our ability to remember things, the older we get the worse and harder it becomes. It clouds our normally perfect logic. Slow down our wits...It goes on. Our bodies effect our soul in huge ways, with emotions and such. Emotions are made more complicated the older we get, to try to confuse us and scare us away from pureness. It bribes us with many superficial emotions they are 'good', but in reality horribly bad. Doesn't matter whose reality.

Anyway thats a theory in the making, which a lot of details to work out. Don't take it very seriously. Well now I must be off to bed, so...Insert some random word that means goodnight here.

[Happy Camper]

I'll preface this by mentioning I have a really weird blend of skepticism and open-ended faith in my system. Which, you know can make my thoughts seem inconsistent.

I believe in a higher being and I guess I believe there's a sort of supernatural energy out there. But I'm not sure I buy into the whole thing where anyone can learn to channel it or manipulate it. And since I love psychology, oh-so-much, I'm going to going to look into this stuff and believe that people believe they're doing this stuff when really they're just under the power of suggestion or some sort of hopeful illusion. But at the same time, I suppose anything's possible.

After looking over some of the stuff at PsiPog I think that my last director did some of this stuff with us. I mean he didn't tell us that we were going to work on psiballs or anything but he always went through about an hour of centering ourselves, imagining a cylinder of light energy, controlling that energy, manipulating where it went, grounding ourselves, passing the energy to others, and so forth. It was more of a group synergy thing than anything else. But now that I read over some of the articles, I sort of think I might have an idea of what this is about. Because the exercise certainly had to be one of my favorites (even though most people thought it was bull).

I read this topic and it sparks my interest now because I've spent extra time in meditation lately as a sort of stab at method acting. I'm eating differently, dressing differently, and engaging and researching a bunch of stuff that I wouldn't normally. So earlier today when I was looking at that sight, I challenged myself to step out and give it a try. It's not like it's going to hurt if it's false.

Anyway...I spooked my cat with something and that sort of amused me. Although my thoughts keep dragging psychology text to try and be counterproductive. Like the whole "feeling a sensation" with the spiral in your hand without actually tracing it. They used this to diagnose me with OCD but I have this thing where everything has to be symmetrical in feeling. Like if I'm walking in my shoes on a sidewalk and I step on a crack with my right foot my right foot feels completely unbalanced with my left food and it's like where the crack came in contact with my shoe, there's this tension that needs to be released and in order to right it I have to do the same with my left foot. I claimed it didn't matter if I was looking where I was stepping or not, I'd feel it anyway. (Or did I just subconciously see it?) Yeah, that probably makes more sense. That's how I tend to think of these things. You can interperet a lot using someone's body language, that doesn't mean you've mastered empathy.

But yeah, I'll be giving this whole thing a try anyways if I can get my mind to shut up.

[Guest]

I got a book out from the library recently and it mentioned that case with the sleeping girl and how she found the number on the shelf, etc. I checked in the back and presto, there is the name of the paper. It is "Psychophysiological Study of Out-of-the-Body Experiences in a Selected Subject" by Charles Tart. Luckily Charles Tart has a website and the paper is reproduced on it: http://www.paradigm-sys.com/ctt_articles2.cfm?id=31

Quote:Abstract

A young woman who frequently had spontaneous out body experiences was studied in a sleep laboratory for four nights. She reported several partially out experiences and two full ones. While the physiological data are limited by dependence on her retrospective report in correlating physiological pattern with the experience, it seems as if her out experiences occurred in conjunction with a non-dreaming, non-awake brain wave stage characterized by predominant slowed alpha activity from her brain and no activation of the autonomic nervous system. Two incidents occurring in the laboratory provide suggestive evidence that the out of-the-body experiences had parapsychological concomitants.

[liq3]

I know telepathy is real since it's got a statistically high success rate for me. Thats enough proof for me. About empathy? One person told me about an emotion I felt - while we were practicing empathy of course - and it was dead accurate. Astounding thing is I've never told ANYONE of that feeling. Psychokinesis? That dice thing, my high success with cards and what's happened with my psi-wheel.

First time it moved (I moved it...) I was blown away. 2nd time it made me believe further. I still wasn't convinced though. I had done research on the net. Apparently there are always wind currents in a room. So I doubted myself. One thing all the articles say is "Question all doubt logically, don't just it.". So I thought, and got this answer. "If there are air currents in the room, and nothing generating and change in them, why isn't moving now? When I ask it to move it moves almost instantly for me. If I tell it to stop it stops. These are some pretty huge coincidences aren't they now? And they keep repeating themself". That's proof enough for me. Well almost. One crazy thing happened once. I was practicing PK with my friend and my sister. Well they were, I was really just watching them. Then I lifted my hand and pointed my thumb (can't remember if it was intentional or not) at the psi wheel. It exploded! Not in a literal sense. It did 5 full rotations in about 2 seconds. That's some pretty crazy wind currents we got there! Also, I'm not hallucinating, about 5 other people have seen me do it, only 3 of them believe it's PK.

[Vatman]

....

[Guest]

You can't believe in it because you are a realist? In other words, it is too weird for you to believe. Lots of scientists think that too. Current scientific dogma says that anything related to religion and the supernatural should not be investigated because its completely false, but the people that have said that are mostly scientists who have not taken an analytical and objective view of the evidence for and against.

Marcello Truzzi was a founder of CSICOP and was never convinced that paranormal phenomena existed. But Marcello Truzzi left CSICOP because as he said: "When an experiment of the paranormal meets their requirements, then they move the goal posts. Then, if the experiment is reputable, they say it's a mere anomaly." I find that the professional skeptics that go on TV and radio shows to debate parapsychologists always say the same things and are never familiar with the evidence their opponent gives.

I would like to point out that these powers aren't superhero style. Most people that can bend cutlery can only make the metal soft enough to push over, not actually bend it with their mind.

Kirby Wrote:One day the Buddha was walking along the riverbank and ahead of him he saw an old man meditating. The old man senses the Buddha, stands up, and greets him. They talk for a moment and the man says, "Sakyamuni! I am old and weak but I have been training all of my life: look at what I have achieved." The man then walks across the river on top of the water and back. Now if the Buddha wasn't so compassionate and respectful, his response would have been along the lines of "WTF? You're a fucking dumbass."

[rexyke]

Dude, if psychic powers were really real and common at all, why don't we see any more homemade psychic videos on youtube than music vids? It's simple, to take a normal camera and recording a display of your abilities, it'll be interesting for everyone to see.

Show the psychic's face, and the surroundings, not just something moving on the table. Unless of course, psychic stuff's all talk. Not to say the possibility of psychic powers is zero, but from the sites you guys showed, seemed like loads of lies and made-up stuff from bored ppl. Not even a simple video to demonstrate the value, heck, in this time and age.

[thoughtmaker]

there's actually a million dollar award to be given to someone who can show their abilities in a scientific enviroment.

i believe in things like this, but not in the usual way.

if anyone's ever seen the matrix (which i'm sure most of you have) there is a part where neo meets a boy who can bend spoons with his mind. the boy hands the sppon to neo and says 'do not try to bend the spoon. that is impossible. instead, only try to realize the truth.' to which neo asks, 'what truth?'

there is no spoon.

everything is experienced through the mind (or consciousness) control the consciousness, control everything. this is why i meditate.

i'm not sure if it is at all possible to move things with you mind (in this reality) but it's entertaining to try and it's better than simply saying, it can't happen.


as for your headaches, you're mind and body are probably too tense. relax, but still hold you concentration. also if you get a headache, self-hypnosis might help.

close your eyes and think to yourself, 'this headache isn't so bad. in fact, i can feel it going away right now. i can feel myself feeling better and better.' while doing this, just imagine a very nice feeling taking over the headache.

if you imagine hard enough, the pain will go away.

[Guest]

rexyke Wrote:Dude, if psychic powers were really real and common at all, why don't we see any more homemade psychic videos on youtube than music vids? It's simple, to take a normal camera and recording a display of your abilities, it'll be interesting for everyone to see.

I never said that psychic powers are common, at least I don't think I said it. Mostly I oppose people rejecting psychic stuff and the paranormal simply because it's weird or whatever.

Quote:Show the psychic's face, and the surroundings, not just something moving on the table.

I already pointed that out. Many of the videos are very flawed because they do not clearly show that there is no other influence on an object, such as a magnet or wind. Using a glass or otherwise clear table would clear up some of the problems.

[psychopath]

I can do that pen teleknesis thing very easily with small magnets, I'll post a video.

ps Yes I do believe in teleknesis but I think that video is a fake...

[rexyke]

Kirby Wrote:I never said that psychic powers are common, at least I don't think I said it. Mostly I oppose people rejecting psychic stuff and the paranormal simply because it's weird or whatever.

Wasn't you that said it. But from what i see, the beliefs of most "psychics" are that everyone possess such abilities within them, that it is a natural thing, just that ppl are untrained in it. Though, there are billions of ppl around the world, and I was wondering if psychic powers were the real deal, why isn't there any general acceptance of them? Let's say one in a thousand ppl can manifest their powers, that would already be a significant number of ppl, and psychic powers would become at least, common knowledge.

Quote:I already pointed that out. Many of the videos are very flawed because they do not clearly show that there is no other influence on an object, such as a magnet or wind. Using a glass or otherwise clear table would clear up some of the problems.

I've seen loads of vids, none really convincing, be they real or not. Master Francis Khang Cao though, looks authentic. But I think that if cameras were to revolve around when telekinesis is at work, it would add a whole lot of credibility, as most magicians use angle to their advantage when performing tricks.

[Bob Dole]

I personally believe that a vast majority of people have psychic abilities. However, it takes an ASSLOAD of training to get anywhere. Last year, I spent my rather useless 3rd hour class with two friends trying to use psychokinesis to spin a psi-wheel. We were all able to do it. However, we had damn near zero control and it was draining as hell.

[psychopath]

I said I would post a video of me using my psychic skills, here it is:

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=AJonHkdXcmw

I'll be posting quite a few and they should be better each time.

The video is not a trick, I had to meditate quite a bit before doing it.

The pieces of paper show that there is no wind, and in my second video I'll be using a glass, plus it'll be a smaller object,
meaning it is harder it hide a decent sized magnet.

[Darthmat]

It looks so real.....

Fein, it's real.

[psychopath]

Here is another:
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=3h2Ji-eXcTs

I had to meditate all day making elephant noises to achieve that...

[Guest]

The only real proof right now is to yourself. If you have done something that is very clearly the result of paranormal powers then it is proved to yourself even if you can't expect other people to believe you.

rexyke Wrote:Though, there are billions of ppl around the world, and I was wondering if psychic powers were the real deal, why isn't there any general acceptance of them?

I don't know any precise statistic, but it would be my guess that a very large portion of people in Indo-Asia believe in them.

[Faust]

I held a debate with Sean of Psipog fame on the LD4all forums a while back.

This conversation ended up convincing me that they were legitimate. Please forgive me for being an asshat on the first few pages.

Also, those interested should check out Connelly's blog http://www.alittleweird.com where he writes about a much broader range of topics.