One would like to know that their explorations are valid and that they are not the victim of charlatans. It is a hard thing to both be accepting and not be gullible. How shall we travel the map and avoid all the false paths? Who should we trust and who should we question? How much should I trust my own experiences?
Monroe Institute
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Discovering how to fool others, and yourself is interesting I guess. But a simple Google search about Project Alpha would be cheaper. The utensil bending there fooled many a scientist.
Pixel42
Schrödinger's cat
And these people would never apply for the MDC? That indicates just how much they are making on their scam.
dlorde
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Unfortunately, those few for whom the fear of death is diminished (e.g. by visions of an afterlife) and who also consequently value life less, can have a disproportionally negative effect on society (e.g. suicide bombers).
Not to say diminished fear of death is a bad thing, but it has it's dark side.
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Pakeha - I did check out a few youtube videos on spoon bending. Some interesting ways to make it appear that a spoon is bending on its own. I didn't see any presentations where a utensil continued bending when placed on a table without any continuing human contact with it. If there is a video of such a thing, that would be of real interest to me.
dlorde - out of the 1,000 or so NDEs I've read about, I don't get the impression that an NDE experience results in a reduced appreciation for life before death. People who attempt suicide and recover come back with an understanding that committing suicide is a mistake. It doesn't necessarily follow that an enhanced appreciation for life after death through an NDE leads to a diminishment of appreciation for life before death. If anything, it is more likely that an NDEr will find a greater appreciation for life once he has shed his fear of death.
dlorde - out of the 1,000 or so NDEs I've read about, I don't get the impression that an NDE experience results in a reduced appreciation for life before death. People who attempt suicide and recover come back with an understanding that committing suicide is a mistake. It doesn't necessarily follow that an enhanced appreciation for life after death through an NDE leads to a diminishment of appreciation for life before death. If anything, it is more likely that an NDEr will find a greater appreciation for life once he has shed his fear of death.
pakeha
Penultimate Amazing
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^^^
Unless my memory has deteriorated, the technique for doing that is actually public knowledge.
I'll do some hunting, as all the links I had on the subject got lost in my third to last puter melt-down.
May I point out that MI's claims really do seem to be tripping down the path of conscious fraud?
I find this very sad, actually, as I've had dear friends pour their money into MI courses- specifically hemi-synch.
Hmm.
This subject (the spoon that continues to bend) has been already discussed on this forum 6 years ago:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=45980
Here's an amusing link, the writer's advise to 'fake it till you make it' seems par for the course.
http://www.mind-energy.net/archives/138-How-to-bend-a-spoon-using-your-mind.html
Last link, I promise!
http://www.mind-energy.net/archives/167-Spoon-bending-instructions-and-pictures.html
Unless my memory has deteriorated, the technique for doing that is actually public knowledge.
I'll do some hunting, as all the links I had on the subject got lost in my third to last puter melt-down.
May I point out that MI's claims really do seem to be tripping down the path of conscious fraud?
I find this very sad, actually, as I've had dear friends pour their money into MI courses- specifically hemi-synch.
Hmm.
This subject (the spoon that continues to bend) has been already discussed on this forum 6 years ago:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=45980
Here's an amusing link, the writer's advise to 'fake it till you make it' seems par for the course.
http://www.mind-energy.net/archives/138-How-to-bend-a-spoon-using-your-mind.html
Last link, I promise!
http://www.mind-energy.net/archives/167-Spoon-bending-instructions-and-pictures.html
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I guess it has been a while since I last visited this site. A lot has transpired in my journey/exploration. Tonight at 10pm EST the Unexplained series on the bio channel is wrapping up its season with a 2 part show about the Monroe Intitute and its Lifeline program. Last spring I and 14 other people were at TMI for Lifeline. The Unexplained film crew was there all week recording our experiences. I'll be interested in seeing if there was independent 3rd party verification of the deceased beings some of us interacted with.
Did you bend more spoons?
I haven't been to the MC2 program where spoons are bent. I have seen the youtube videos and compliment the people who can appear to be bending flatware when it really is a slight of hand. That doesn't change the fact that others I trust have participated in spoon bending. Probably some time in the 1st half of 2013 I'll get a chance to see it and, hopefully, accomplish it myself. If/when that happens, I'll have the first person proof I need. Just because someone can mimic the real thing, doesn't negate the reality of what some people can do.
Even if this were possible, as Randi likes to point out, you're doing it the hard way.
And anyway, how useful is bent flatware?
Stray Cat
Philosopher
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See this has always bothered me.
The flattest of all flatware is a knife.
I've yet to see anyone bending a knife. A spoon is easier for the very reason it's not flat and is the weakest of all cutlery.
Lusikka
Critical Thinker
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BTW, have you ever read what Marcello Truzzi has written about the Project? It is not quite in line with the official Truth skeptics usually know.
Marcello Truzzi (1987): Reflections on "Project Alpha": Sientific Experiment or Conjuror's Illusion?. Zetetic Scholar, No 12-13, s. 73-98.
http://www.tricksterbook.com/truzzi/ZS-Issues-PDFs/ZeteticScholarNos12-13.pdf (begins on page 73)
It takes a long time to load.
I apologize for the bad quality of the scanning. The Zetetic Scholar is a reminiscence of times, when skepticism was really skepticism and not the pseudo one like today.
jfish - am interested in hearing about your experiences with the monroe institute, I will PM you RE this as I am thinking about doing the gateway program, which is the precursor for all of the other courses.
I've posted on this thread previously and was given a reminder via e-mail about it recently. Since my last post I attended a Monroe weekend workshop, which was a hemi sync guided meditation for the main part.
It was interesting, but nothing ground breaking for me, I'm approaching this from a skeptical point of view. I couldn't say that anything I experienced was anything more than self hypnosis. I've achieved similar states of awareness and deep relaxation via normal meditation and also different states of awareness via just meditation. Which is why I'm keen to hear what you thought of Gateway before I part with (sometimes) hard earned.
I have read a lot on Out Of Body Experiences and it intrigues me so I've been practicing a lot of the techniques it suggests, being a frequent lucid dreamer and having previous fairly regular bouts of sleep paralysis and the accompanying vibrations (add the hallucinations(??) that accompany this). I've managed to induce an OOB at will twice, once the feeling of completely separating from my body but in complete darkness, the other a bit longer where I was stood up at the side of my bed and walked to the living room. I noticed at the time the room looked completely different. It could have just been a hallucination or a lucid dream based on a premeditated thought of what an OOB feels like, but it felt a lot more real. Although I'm just a beginner at this, the whole point in it is to try and bring some information back that proves to me (within reason) that the phenomena is more than a trick of the mind. In fact, it will take a few pieces of information to convince me of this (to prove that said 'information' is not something that I picked up subconsciously at some point in my life).
I'll keep going with it because it is interesting to me and I especially enjoy the lucid dream state so being able to gain more control here is fun and intriguing.
Good luck.
pakeha
Penultimate Amazing
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I can't get the paper to load.
Could you quote from it, please, so we can get an idea of what it's about?
catsmate
No longer the 1
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It's a rather long winded (26 pages, about a quarter of the "journal") self published article by Marcello Truzzi in the journal he founded (Zetetic Scholar) attempting to pick holes in Project Alpha. Very defensive.
It's rather odd, he criticises the hoax (carried out by amateurs under laboratory conditions) while also criticising Randi for not replicating alleged paranormal feats under laboratory conditions.
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Resume, you asked what is to be gained by bending spoons even if it were possible. I don't see any immediate benefit but it opens up possibilities. The double slit experiment (quantum physics) seems to point to the possibility that elemental particles react to observation. The phantom DNA effect also seems to indicate we may be able to influence how matter behaves. If we can bend spoons, can we apply that skill set to other things? Could it be used to help in the healing professions? Might we be able to focus that energy on tumors, for example? I don't have any answers, just possibilities.
For the more materially minded another component of the MC2 program is bringing group focus to influence the roll of dice. I haven't heard of any classes being able to fully control the numbers that show up on the dice but I've heard they can consistently improve the odds of a given combination being rolled.
If seedlings can germinate faster through focused energy, perhaps there are applications for enhancing agricultural output.
We may find that there are limitations to what can be done and we're left with little more than parlor entertainment.
For the more materially minded another component of the MC2 program is bringing group focus to influence the roll of dice. I haven't heard of any classes being able to fully control the numbers that show up on the dice but I've heard they can consistently improve the odds of a given combination being rolled.
If seedlings can germinate faster through focused energy, perhaps there are applications for enhancing agricultural output.
We may find that there are limitations to what can be done and we're left with little more than parlor entertainment.