Quantum entanglement and the Supernatural

...and if anyone thinks I must be lying or deluded, because things like this do not happen: in that case I will apply for the one Million dollar challenge, because I have proof it happened. A lot of people saw it.
Proving the river flowed backwards would not win the MDC.
Proving that your prayer made it flow backwards would.
But, that would be quite impossible to prove... unless you are saying that you could do it again?
In which case, put in an application :)
 
Or was it a case that you made a general call for 'impossibility' and during the rain, something happened to the river and you took that as the answer to your unspecific prayer? Then in a case of revisionism, you altered your perception of the preceding events to fit.

I am not that sure. Actually I was writing the impossible things I prayed for down, because I think my memory fools me sometimes and I wrote down the name of the river. I did not write down what I prayed for it to happen. Just wrote down its name and when it was flowing backwarts I thought "Oh my God, I prayed for it". I was still doubting my memores then and thought it might be something like a deja-vu, but later when I saw I had written down the rivers name...
I feel like 90% sure I prayed for that. It would also make much sense, because of that blessing people of my hometown sometimes use: "When the rivers are flowing backwarts, when the rabbits are hunting hunters, when the mice cath cats, that is when I shall forget about you"... and it means "I shall never forget about you". You know what a friendship-book is? I have been writing this in hundreds of friendships books and several people have been writing it in my friendship books. So that is one of the first things I think of when I think of impossible stuff.
 
Proving the river flowed backwards would not win the MDC.
Proving that your prayer made it flow backwards would.
But, that would be quite impossible to prove... unless you are saying that you could do it again?
In which case, put in an application :)

After that had happened I prayed for it to happen to a bigger river near my hometown, did not happen so far... buif t when it happens you will be the first to learn.
It would devaste me if that happened.
 
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According to the Bible God several times killed enemies of the Israelites simply because he has been asked for it. Of course I hope if there is a God that he is not like this, but how can I be sure?

Well for one thing, there's no convincing evidence. But I know it's of no use reasoning with you about this topic. Instead I'd like to point out that you seem to have misinterpreted other people's advice. When your psychotherapist talked about prayer, I'm sure she meant it to mean "to offer devout petition, praise, thanks, etc., to (God or an object of worship)" , like the first definition in the dictionary.

And the self-help book that advised to do the things you're afraid of, that advice must have been intended to help you expand your comfort zone, not freaking yourself out by praying for things you don't want to happen. The latter does nothing to expand your comfort zone. Also, it won't diminish your bizarre belief that prayer is like some kind of voodoo curse in a pulpy fiction story. I don't even think you should try to prove or disprove that belief in any way because it won't work because of conformation bias.

What I think you should do is stick with your therapy and trust that it can help you. I'm saying this because you remind me very strongly of a friend of mine who I've helped out by letting him stay at my place when he was out on the streets and suffered from mental problems.

I don't know if you're aware of this, but everyone thinks both 'good' and 'bad' thoughts about everyone they know. It's perfectly normal. Everytime something bad happened to someone my friend knew, he thought it happened because of his bad thoughts about that person. After a while, he even believed every accident or disaster he heard about on the news was the result of his bad thoughts. I tried endlessly to reason with him about this, tried to explain how the world just doesn't work that way, but my efforts had no effect whatsoever.

What did help him though, but it wasn't a quick fix, was therapy. Over a period of about a year, his delusions slowly disappeared. Of course I can't be sure this wouldn't have happened anyway without therapy, but I seriously doubt it.

By the way, I don't know much about psychology/psychiatry, let alone OCD, but there seems to be one person in this thread who does (Maia), and she's the one whose feedback you should take really seriously.
 
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By the way, I don't know much about psychology/psychiatry, let alone OCD, but there seems to be one person in this thread who does (Maia), and she's the one whose feedback you should take really seriously.
I think that there may be lots of people on here who know OCD at a different level. My own OCD is a great advantage as it allows me to sit for hours repeating a new card move. Though at this level I do understand it is a completely different form, but just to show that you can actually USE OCD to your advantage.
 
After that had happened I prayed for it to happen to a bigger river near my hometown, did not happen so far... buif t when it happens you will be the first to learn.
It would devaste me if that happened.

How about this: try a more benign experiment. Design one that would show just whether your prayer does or does not have an effect on something minor, then repeat it ten times or more... see where it goes.

No need for devastation! :)
 
I think it is unusual, but may be not impossible. None of us has seen this happening before. My parents neighbour had been living in that town for 80 years and never seen anything like this happening.... but then she said she had never in her life seen it rain that much. It is a very small river.

A lot of people saw it. It really happened and people have been talking about it. I am not lying. It happened.

...and if anyone thinks I must be lying or deluded, because things like this do not happen: in that case I will apply for the one Million dollar challenge, because I have proof it happened. A lot of people saw it.

A lot of people may have saw the river overflow, but did anyone see you pray for it? Either way, postdictions are not eligable. What I would like to ask is why didn't you pray for good things to happen? Tell you what, if you pray for me to win the Lotto, I'll go buy a ticket and we'll see how it turns out. What better proof could you ask for? The Lotto is a perfectly random event, effect the outcome and I'll give you half.

I've had a lot of perfectly logical sounding thoughts cross my brain over the years that I know are utter nonesense. I almost died once and sometimes when a driver cuts me off or someone bumps into me the thought still crosses my mind that I really died and they did that because they didn't see me because I'm really a ghost. For a split second it sounds perfectly logical and my heart skips a beat and I start to panic but then I realize how silly that is and that this is the real world and the real world is actually a very mundane place and things like ghosts don't really exist and I'm certainly not one.

I don't have much money so my visits to my shrink are few and far between but when I do go he asks me how I feel and I tell him the ghost story once again and he helps me get over it using techniques that I would have never thought of because he is trained to do this sort of thing and I am not. This is why you should see a professional, they'll help you see things in a new light, and come to terms with that light if it's something you don't want to come to terms with. You, like me, are believing in something that is impossible, it simply can't happen. You can continue to believe it or get help on moving past it, the choice is mostly yours, but I do believe your life will be much better in the long run if visit a professional at least a couple times and actually listen to them. If you really do have powers, believe me, they will be the first to jump up and help you prove it to the rest of the world. If you don't, they'll help you come to terms with that.

We all want to feel special, we all want to feel unique. There are ways of satisfying that want without inventing new realities.

If you are a troll then smile and be happy that you caused me to waste a whole 15 minutes on you, after all that's all trolls crave. If you are sincere, then re-read this and consider it, and I wish you the best.
 
Hey,
Thank you very much for you respond. I think I have been doing this exposure and response prevention-thing (like deliberatly cursing people)... and now I am a mess, because I blame everything bad that happend to them afterwards on me.
One says "Feel the fear and do it anyway" and I did because at this time I believed my fear was only due OCD. Now I am not that sure. I still hope there is OCD but I want to be realy sure and I think I will have to learn more about quantum theory and the supernatural before I can feel safe again. That's why I am here.

[/quote]

PL... (standard disclaimer about how I can't diagnose or treat over the Internet...)

I think you know what you're doing here... you're looking for reassurance. Trying to "be really sure" before you can "feel safe again" is all part of the compulsions. You know that the only way out of this is to stop the compulsions. Have you worked out graded exposures with your therapist?

Okay, this is general info for everybody who might be curious about how this works:

Exposure and response prevention is the only therapeutic treatment for OCD. You can't argue yourself out of obsessions, or be convinced out of them, or prove to yourself that they're ridiculous, because the core of OCD is uncertainty. Let's say that your obsession is that you can never be sure you turned off the stove. You might spend HOURS every night checking the stove. You might call home twenty times a day trying to get other people to check the stove. You might drive back home over and over to check the stove. These are the compulsions that you perform in an attempt to neutralize the obsession (and the core fear is that the house is going to burn down because you didn't check the stove the right way. )But you will never feel sure that you did it correctly, and nothing that you do will ever really neutralize your obsession, including going online and spending hours every day checking ways to be sure you really did turn off the stove, joining turning-off-the-stove discussion forums, posting to did-I-turn-off-the-stove thread, etc. The only way out of this trap is to expose yourself to your fear (by only turning off the stove once) and then to STOP yourself from responding the way you used to (by not checking it endlessly).

This is going to feel AWFUL at first! Your anxiety will go through the ROOF! It will feel like the hardest thing you've ever had to do. But it's the only way out of hell. It isn't like there's a choice available between a calm, happy way of life that you were living with the OCD, and going through the miserable anxiety of getting rid of the OCD. You can't stay in the same place without suffering anyway. But you do have the choice of going forward.

What "graded exposure" means is that the turning-off-the-stove example was much simpler than anything you'd normally see with OCD. Usually, the cases are much more complex, so you'd sit down with your therapist and come up with a "hierarchy of exposures." What's the worst exposure you could imagine? Then the next worst, and the next worst... all the way down to the bottom, and the bottom exposure is where you start. There's also a lot more to this, and once again, this is just educational material and is not a substitute for medical advice.

Part of having to live with uncertainty is the uncertainty that maybe you really do have some kind of paranormal power. Well, if you do, there's lots of time to deal with that question after dealing with the OCD. At least, that's what I'd say if I were your therapist.

Trust me. I know how hard this is. But you can get through it. There's light at the end of the tunnel! :)
 
This is going to feel AWFUL at first! Your anxiety will go through the ROOF! It will feel like the hardest thing you've ever had to do. But it's the only way out of hell. It isn't like there's a choice available between a calm, happy way of life that you were living with the OCD, and going through the miserable anxiety of getting rid of the OCD. You can't stay in the same place without suffering anyway. But you do have the choice of going forward.

I am not seeing my therapist any more and not sure if I want to start seeing her again. When I started seeing her I was afraid of illness and screening me and my loved ones for signs of it, I was afraid of knives and I was afraid of driving. I did not have any fear of the supernatural then. I have had those fears as a teenager but managed to overcome. I was able to live with the fears I had. They were not unbereable.
By telling me that a lot of people believe that things one prays for happen and then refusing to further discuss that topic she managed to convince me I was not a schizophrenic.... but I was afraid of magical powers again. Back then I was sure it was only a stupid OCD-fear. I have already told you what happened next.

Now it is really bad. I am not any longer able to function on a normal level, cannot sleep anymore, cannot eat anymore, don't believe I will ever be happy anymore. I just think I will most likely spend the rest of my days feeling guilty and afraid :boxedin::covereyes:faint: That is why in order to recover - if it is ever possible - I will have to convince myself that kind of things just don't happen. I have prayed for horrible things that did not happen yet (like me and my friends and family going to hell) and I am so afraid of that, I think of it every hour. I try not to, but my mind just keeps ruminating.

Some things that I prayed for but were nearly impossible happened. I tell you two others examples. A newspaper I like has a dicussion board. A few month ago a book I was reading at this time was mentioned on this board and for a reason I do not understand it scared me. I told myself there was no reason to be afraid and prayed for the topic of that book mentioned in the newspaper (was a book on salutogenesis and they never had an article on this before). For a few month nothing happened. Then that newspaper featured a special on salutogenesis and on a programm named FAST to promote it. I started to panic but managed to tell myself that this was coincidence... but then I realized that in the same volume there was an article on the roma people and one about giftedness... now what's so scary about that: at that time I was crossreading four books, one on salutogenesis, one on FAST, one on giftedness and one on the roma. There had been articles about roma and about giftedness in this magazine before and FAST and salutogenesis go together, but it scared me so much. I thought I could not breathe.

Another scary thing that happened to me: There is a plaza, where three other roads met. In one of the roads there has always been a nail-parlor (it was like 50 meters away from the plaza). A few month ago a nail-parlor owned by the same franchise chain opened in the second of the roads (also 50 meters away from the plaza). I thought "Well, as long as they do not open a third one..." and then I was praying for them opening a third one, because I thought that this clearly would make no sense and that it would not happen... but guess waht happened. A third nail parlor opened it's doors and it is only 50 meters away from the plaza and runned by the same franchise chain. Why are they doing that? Does not make any sense, does it? That scared me.

I wrote down that I prayed for those things, so I know I really did. Other times am not so sure.

I wanted to ask you if it was possible to have false memories... like remember praying for something when you really did not. I think I may suffer from these.
 
I think that there may be lots of people on here who know OCD at a different level. My own OCD is a great advantage as it allows me to sit for hours repeating a new card move. Though at this level I do understand it is a completely different form, but just to show that you can actually USE OCD to your advantage.

You do suffer from OCD too? What kind of thoughts do you suffer from?
 
I don't know if you're aware of this, but everyone thinks both 'good' and 'bad' thoughts about everyone they know. It's perfectly normal. Everytime something bad happened to someone my friend knew, he thought it happened because of his bad thoughts about that person. After a while, he even believed every accident or disaster he heard about on the news was the result of his bad thoughts. I tried endlessly to reason with him about this, tried to explain how the world just doesn't work that way, but my efforts had no effect whatsoever.

That was kind of you, helping your friend. I am 99% percent sure bad thoughts cannot hurt people (I pray to neutralize them anyway, because I do not want to risk anything)... but I am so afraid bad prayers can hurt them. I guess there are very few people praying for bad things to happen. So most people do need to care if bad things happen if one prays for it, because they did not. I still do not understand how I could be so stupid.

What kind of therapy did your friend do?
 
Tell you what, if you pray for me to win the Lotto, I'll go buy a ticket and we'll see how it turns out. What better proof could you ask for? The Lotto is a perfectly random event, effect the outcome and I'll give you half.

We could give it a try, but I think it would not work... because people might been praying to win the lottery too.
I already prayed for some good things to happen. I prayed for the end of world-hunger. Did not happen and I did not expect it to happen.
I was praying for our neighbour, who had terminal cancer to recover - she died. I know two couples who have been trying to concive for years. Prayed for them. One of the women is pregnant (may have happend anyway), the other is not.
But tell me your numbers and which lottery you participate in. I will give it a try.
 
How about this: try a more benign experiment. Design one that would show just whether your prayer does or does not have an effect on something minor, then repeat it ten times or more... see where it goes.

No need for devastation! :)

Sounds like a good idea. I prayed for the coffee machine to break and it did. That must not mean anything, because sometimes they do. May be I should pray for the new one to break and again and again and again.
 
You do suffer from OCD too? What kind of thoughts do you suffer from?
Nowhere near at the same level as you describe in yourself. Mine is about behaviours such as the more usual constantly checking I locked the door when I leave the house. The most serious bit is my compulsion to pick at the skin at the base of my fingernails (even when it's all red raw and bleeding I continue), which is why I use the playing cards. As long as I am doing something with my hands, I am not picking (using a less harmful compulsion to counteract one that causes pain). There really is no obvious associated thought pattern that comes with it and I have to say that it's never been officially diagnosed in me because I don't see it as a problem that I can't handle and control by myself.

Your problem is much more serious and I think more connected with your other mental health issues which I think you need to get help with (as you have already been advised).

I'm sure that reassurance from random people on the internet wont be of any help, but I will try and say that thoughts are internal, there is no scientific basis on which to believe that your thoughts can affect the outcome of rivers, nail bars or coffee machines. In the most simple terms, your mind is playing tricks on you. However, I realise this is a rational approach to thinking about it and you are not rational (which is an observation, not an insult or judgement).

Get professional help. :)
 
I hope you will start therapy again. You could pray to find a good therapist to help you and also pray that you will get well. (This is not a joke, might as well pray for good things to happen to him.)
 
I...and if anyone thinks I must be lying or deluded, because things like this do not happen: in that case I will apply for the one Million dollar challenge, because I have proof it happened. A lot of people saw it.

Why not pray for something bad to happen to Gary Glitter.

Nobody would care if something bad did happen and it would be an interesting experiment.

However we would have to set a time limit - how quickly do your prayers take effedct?
 

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