Help! I am scared stiff

Discussion in 'Pseudoscience Archive' started by Clarentavious, Sep 23, 2002.

  1. wet1 Wanderer Registered Senior Member

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    Well, I hunted it up.

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  3. notme2000 The Art Of Fact Registered Senior Member

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    A friend of mine and I watched Mothman Prophecies. An eerie movie indeed. After actual research using indifferent sources, we found it to be a huge exaduration of the truth. HUGE. Take comfort, chances are, the only things that can hurt you are robbers, escaped lions and fast moving vehicles.
     
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  5. kirstykiwi Registered Senior Member

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    When I was a child I used to see dark 'shadows' pass by out the corner of my eye.
    As Banshee mentioned, it was almost like they were just 'passing through' in their own little world.
    Mediumship, clairvoyance runs through my mothers side of the family - grandmother, aunts, cousins etc. They are all level-headed people who don't make a big thing of it - it just 'is'.

    Here is a question I hope someone can answer.

    How would one differentiate someone with eg: schizophrenia (auditory voices/ hallucinations), to those 'sound' people who profess to hear spirits?
    I work in Mental health, and have always been fascinated with the difference. It's a tricky one.
    Thanks

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  7. notme2000 The Art Of Fact Registered Senior Member

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    dillusion vs wishful thinking?
     
  8. kirstykiwi Registered Senior Member

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    You know, I find sceptics incredibly boring people. It seems if there is no proof to something then some people immediately debunk it.
    I do not consider my family to merely 'wishful think' about seeing spirits etc. They are educated successful people in their own right. This is why they keep fairly quiet about their 'sensetivities about certain things.
    Because you don't understand it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
    Not everything is black and white. There are many shades of grey in this world.
    I think the world is going through a 'spiritual' (not religious) cleansing of sorts. Everything is connected, and we are rediscovering parts of our brain that have been 'lost' through the centuries which enable us to use our 'natrual' abilities.
    So there!!
     
  9. ghostdoctor Registered Member

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    Well you should not be scared at all

    For once in my life, I wholey agree with this fine article witten by a member of CSICOP.

    Perhaps it will help you and I am not making fun of you as some others have done. We all (in ghost research) should know and be compassionate to people's fears. That shock-u-mentary was very poorly done and in what is now the 'standard' for ghost 'productions. Very dissapointing.

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    Haunting Mockumentary Reaches New Lows
    A media review submitted by Tom Flynn.
    September 23, 2002

    A Haunting in Georgia, 2-hour "special documentary." Produced by New Dominion Pictures, executive producer Tom Naughton. Viewed on Discovery Channel, Sunday September 23, 9:00 - 11:00 p.m. Eastern. Will be rebroadcast frequently.
    With A Haunting in Georgia, the docudrama/mockumentary* genre reaches new lows, both in its credulous treatment of the paranormal and in the way it further muddles the already-murky truth standards of the re-enactment documentary form.
    The story. An Ellersie, Ga., family claims to be undergoing extended hauntings at their home. At age three, Heidi Wyrick met a stranger she called "Mr. Gordy," who became her constant companion. No one else could see him; the family took years to decide that Mr. Gordy was more than Heidi's imaginary friend. At six and a half, Heidi awoke with apparent claw marks on her cheek. A year later her father Andy woke up with similar gashes on his torso. Meanwhile the visions continued: not just Mr. Gordy, but a man with a severed hand and a shadowy figure with a hooded face. Mr. Gordy and the one-handed man were discovered to be long-dead past residents of the area: how could Heidi have known anything about them? Unsolved Mysteries did a piece on the Wyricks in 1994. Heidi's sixteen now, and the visions are still coming. Her younger sister and her mother, Lisa, sometimes see things too. Amazingly, the family never moved. Instead they went to parapsychologist William Roll, who chalked up the apparitions to "place memories" triggered by positive ions produced by a nearby earthquake fault. The makers present this as a "scientific" explanation! Dissatisfied with Roll's counsel, the family consulted psychic Amy Allen, who detected several spirits, one of them evil, another a "protector." Finally, after almost a decade of manifestations, the Bible-believing Wyricks thought to involve their church, undergoing a bargain basement exorcism while New Dominion's cameras rolled.
    A Haunting in Georgia purports to tell the Wyricks' story as a two-hour mockumentary. New Dominion crews spent fifteen days filming the family and picking up background shots. Like the same producers' Discovery series The New Detectives and The FBI Files, Haunting relies heavily on fictionalized re-enactments. Purists decried the technique when shows like Unsolved Mysteries pioneered it, but it's become depressingly standard today. As New Dominion's police procedurals show, historical accuracy (which, admittedly, can get expensive) is a low priority: The FBI Files famously re-creates crime investigations from the 1970s in which agents have 17" Gateway monitors on their desks, use cell phones, and drive Dodge Intrepids. Still, the form retains a rule or two, especially this one: give viewers enough clues to know when they're viewing a re-enactment and when they're viewing the real participants. On The FBI Files, the fully-dramatized cinematic segments are clearly re-enactments with actors, while present-day commentaries by actual participants are shot news-style, with superimposed titles identifying their talking heads. (Usually you can't persuade the actual participants to stoop so low as to re-enact themselves.) Episodes usually close with mug shots of the actual offenders, whom viewers can compare to the actors who portrayed them.
    That's the last vestige of cinematic veracity that still adheres to the making of made-for-cable documentaries, and A Haunting in Georgia throws it in the compost heap. The entire program was shot in a uniform fictionalized cinematic style, with actual participants and re-enactors mixed so wantonly that you can't tell them apart without a scorecard. Unfortunately, this being a cable show, the scorecard (the end titles) flashed by too fast to read. But there were a couple of screenfuls of credited re-enactors - this despite the fact that most Wyrick family members played themselves. Most footage was apparently shot at the actual Wyrick home where the manifestations allegedly took place. And that's part of the problem - with the Wyricks re-enacting their alleged experiences of ten years ago, seven years ago, and a couple of months ago, and all of it shot in a uniform style, it's impossible to guess where reality lets off and the fictionalizing begins. Obviously little Heidi at age three and age six had to be played by child actresses. But the others? Was it the real William Roll or an actor? The real psychic, or an impersonator? There's no way to tell. The talking heads and the re-enactors are the same people, and no one gets an identifying super that would say, "Okay, viewers, this is the real Amy Allen."
    With this departure from established mockumentary technique, viewers lose their last platform, however rickety, from which to tease perhaps more-reliable participants' claims from the less plausible re-enactments. Ironically, it may serve to degrade the program's verisimilitude. Viewing A Haunting in Georgia without any advance research, I assumed that everyone on-screen was a re-enactor. Only after some Web research did I learn that the makers had shot so much footage at the Wyrick home with the real Wyricks. And only then did I begin to consider that it might have been the real William Roll, the real Amy Allen, and so on. Haunting's makers have actually managed to underplay the most unique aspect of their production, its unusually lavish access to actual settings and participants.
    I don't think the folks at New Dominion mind. It's pretty clear that they hunger to move out of the documentary "ghetto" and into something more filmic. Haunting feels less like a re-enactment documentary than a TV-movie with heavy voice-overs - a cross between Blair Witch Project told in the third person and The Amityville Horror on an even lower effects budget.
    Sadly, another casualty of this final step beyond documentary form is that the makers felt no obligation to include critical comments by skeptics. In Haunting's two solid hours, the broad assumption that hauntings happen is never challenged. The narrator intones breathtaking claims like "Science has proven that strong geomagnetic fields are associated with ghosts"** without a questioning rebuttal, or even a backward glance.
    Whatever one may think of the Wyrick family, average viewers can't help but come away with the impression that ghost-hunting of the Hanz Holzer magnetometer-held-high school has a solid scientific basis. And oh yeah, psychics work too.
    Haunting passes faster if you keep a mental catalogue of the numerous anachronisms and continuity flubs. Mother Lisa Wyrick doesn't age a day -no effort was made to change her appearance or wardrobe for the scenes set when daughter Heidi was a child. Then again, maybe Lisa stays youthful because she's so thrifty - the camera keeps poking into the parents' bedroom: Lisa's worn the same plaid nightshirt for almost a decade. Maybe that's what drew her to Dr. Roll, who visited Heidi as a child and returned years later, still wearing exactly the same late-1990s sportcoat, dark-colored shirt, and tie.
    Despite its ludicrous aspects, A Haunting in Georgia merits skeptics' serious concern - and the attention of anyone who cares about the documentary form's power to transmit genuine knowledge (or harmful misinformation). Haunting presents highly questionable paranormal claims as fact, and does so in a "newish" way that will discourage many viewers from expecting any skeptical rejoinder, or from finding its absence remarkable. By eroding the already-porous boundaries of documentary technique, Haunting undercuts the last stylistic clues most viewers can rely on to estimate the possible veracity of any given shot or sequence.

    Notes
    * For terminological clarity, docudrama means a program shot in an entirely fictionalized cinematic style, but which purports to tell the story of real events. Mockumentary means a program shot in a faux documentary style which uses latter-day re-enactments to supply narrative material for which actual historic footage is unavailable or would be impossible to obtain.
    ** Not an exact quote, I'm working from memory but trying to convey the sense of several bald statements that claim clear scientific support for extremely dubious statements about paranormal or fringe phenomena.
     
  10. MissyJ Registered Member

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    Quote

    ___________________________________________________
    It is rather peculiar though, 'cause not everyone sees Shadows/ghosts. Some do, others don't, though I never tell, they are there (wherever it is they appear). So, it is not that the people visiting, actually know about these ghosts/spirits
    __________________________________________________

    My house has a ghost in it that I have seen. I was in the washroom runging my water for my bath and I felt that someone was standing behind me. I turned and saw a dark figure standing in the door way looking at me, or looking my direction. I looked away to turn the water off and when I looked back it was gone. I have also, many times, walked into the living room and hall way and had the doors open and lights turned off and on. I have never felt that this ghost is a harm to us. Its just there.

    Last year I had a friend move into this house with me. I hadn't told her about the ghost I had seen, but after a few months of her living her she came to me and said that she had seen a figure of a woman a number of times in this house. If I'm crazy at least I'm not the only one.
     
  11. laxweasel Registered Senior Member

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    70
    I would say that with said spirits it depends heavily on religon. I suppose if you want you could look up some ancient runes of protection, but then you get into a whole other sccarrryy thing.
     
  12. Boo Registered Member

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    I watched this show last night on TLC; I was wiggin'!! Sorry, but if it was me, I think I woulda gotten the heck outta Dodge.

    I think the creepiest part was the 'phantom' whose face was never shown; I assume it was a male, but I guess you couldn't be too sure huh?

    The next creepiest part was when it ended and Heidi said, Well...some things are happening still that I just don't even talk to mama about - kinda makes you wonder.....

    I don't feel frightened, but it will stay with me for a long time.
     
  13. imperfection Registered Member

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    1
    hey

    sorry in reply to Banshee who said something along the lines of why show them fear blah blah, erm evil ghost shall we call them... feed off fear it empowers them.
    thats all i wanted to say for now lol.:bugeye:
     
  14. Prince_James Plutarch (Mickey's Dog) Registered Senior Member

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    Thanks for joining our forums just to thread necromance and to add nothing.
     
  15. mtmarc Registered Member

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    A Haunting in Georgia

    Actually after reading some of the posts in this area, I have come to believe that some people are either misinformed or don't quite know the extent of the contacts/haunting. For clarification, anytime that there is physical injury, such as scratching or claw marks or anything of such, this is always an indicator of demonic activity. If you do not believe in demons, then you are sticking your head in the sand. Good and evil are always at odds in many ways and this is the most ancient and discounted area of them all. There are too many accounts of demonic activity in all cultures to one point or another and too many different extents. Research it if you have doubts.

    Yes, I am a Christian and yes, I KNOW there are spirits as well as demons and other evil powers and entities in this world. I my self have experienced such, and no, I will not expand on that. Many people say that "you should just accept it". WRONG, there is always something you can do, you just have to look and be very honest with yourself and others and look to your faith. If you have one, and if you don't, then look to people who have the experience in dealing with and ridding people of these entities.

    If you accept your situation then you might as well just invite evil into your world, because in a sense that is what you are doing. Do not let evil into or around your lives, homes anything! Make a stand and stick with it. This is the first step to gaining your freedom from these types of things. Yes, there are sensitives in this world. Some of them consider their abilities a gift, some a curse, some accept it as the norm. Whatever their stand, they need to come to terms with it and deal with it in a very proactive manner and get control over it.
     
  16. Dywyddyr Penguinaciously duckalicious. Valued Senior Member

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    You for one.

    No it's not.

    False.

    No you don't. You believe there are. It's a major, and significant, difference.

    PS, read the post just above yours...

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  17. mtmarc Registered Member

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    Demons and such

    Actually, it is not a matter of belief, but a matter of experience. You may be on the side of "Science" or skepticism, which is unfortunate, but if you wish to ignore the existence of demons and evil, then that is your purgative.

    I will say that I must correct myself in one particular area, and that is the area of the, "For clarification, anytime that there is physical injury, such as scratching or claw marks or anything of such, this is always an indicator of demonic activity." I did misspeak this point, because there are accounts of Poltergeist activity which has been proven to be a product of negative energy created and/or manifested by the person(s) experiencing the activity. I do concede this area and apologize for the misstatements earlier.

    But just keep in mind the documented and verified events of exorcism and the archeological evidence which is coming everyday supporting and reinforcing the Holy Bible and its writings. Research it on the web if you do not believe me.

    I have been on all sides of this at one time or another in my life; I have been a Buddhist, a non-believer and even just plain in your face skeptical. What I have experienced in my own life is not energy or a psychological issue. It is plain evil and demonic and I know this.

    But, I leave it to you.
     
  18. Dywyddyr Penguinaciously duckalicious. Valued Senior Member

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    Correction. What you believe you experienced is filtered through your pre-conceptions. Hence: yes, it is a matter of belief. There is no hard evidence that you encountered spirits or demons...

    Nope. I'm not ignoring them. It's hard to ignore something that doesn't exist.
    (Note: prerogative, not "purgative").

    And so you compound your error. No, there have been no cases where it has been "proven" to be a product of "negative energy". (And "poltergeists" don't exist either).

    Once more we come back to perceptions. "Exorcism" depends on belief. Nor does archaeological evidence support much of the bible.

    And then you went woo woo, obviously.

    No it's not, and no you don't.
     
  19. chimpkin C'mon, get happy! Registered Senior Member

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    So you will only see that evidence that fits your preconception, and even if it barely supports, it will be shoehorned in.

    Wondering how many of these scratches and claw marks from demons... were on the left of the upper body in righthanders, or on the right in lefthanders? Or somewhere either hand could reach?

    I have met a demon, grew up with him.
    He pulled his pants on like everyone else.

    I'm willing to believe in the demonic in an entirely Jungian sense. All the demons I've ever met wore human flesh. And why anyone should fear the dead is beyond me, it's the living I've always had trouble with.

    I'm actually willing to believe that exorcism...has a certain purgative value in those who believe in such a ritual. But the bennies are strictly psychological; those of a strong interior catharsis.
     
    Last edited: Sep 27, 2011
  20. Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

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    I would love to go there to be honest... I believe my capacity for 'spiritual defense' is sufficient to ward off any affront any 'hostile spirits' may attempt... but then again, I also believe a curse only has as much power over you as you grant it... the mind is a POWERFUL instrument, not to be trifled with... a weak mind is a simple and easy to manipulate item... a well honed and training-sharpened mind... well, that's a different story...
     
  21. Arioch Valued Senior Member

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    2,274
    Sigh, I remember when the Discovery channel actually had good programming, you know, as in programming that was actually educational instead of this pseudoscientific hogwash.

    Now, on to specific replies.

    @mtmarc --

    Actually we have a more parsimonious explanation for this, self inflicted injuries during REM sleep. Of course, if you have any empirical evidence to back up your boldfaced assertions then be my guest and show it. Otherwise the explanation which requires the fewest number of assumptions which also fits the facts is the one that we have to go with.

    Or we just have better explanations now than we did thousands of years ago.

    You know what, you're right. We should pay more heed to ancient "wisdom", even when it conflicts with science. For example, maybe we should start treating headaches with trepanning again, you know, to let the demons out? Or maybe we should be treating schizophrenia by rubbing the heads of schizophrenics with sheep's lungs? Or how about we go back to treating illness as an imbalance of the humours again? Those ancients were so full of wisdom that I just don't know where to start.

    You know, there's a reason we don't do such things anymore, it's because the so called "wisdom" of the ancients really wasn't all that wise. Oh sure, it might have been the best that they could do given their circumstances and their lack of acquired knowledge(though that still doesn't explain the use of sheep's lungs), but I think that we've made a few advancements in recent times.

    We have a perfectly functional explanation for this too. Humans are all very similar in how they think(if this weren't so then the entire practice of psychology would be even more of a waste of time), therefore it's to be expected that many of the same phenomenon would be explained by people in similar ways.

    Of course, I don't expect you to accept any of this, you're too ideologically blinkered to accept anything that might threaten your worldview.

    Oh, I have. Between my time in seminary school and my time researching this stuff as a skeptic, I think I have all my bases covered. Of course, I always welcome people to prove me wrong...well...to prove themselves right.

    Well then it's time to put up or shut up. Show us your evidence that proves that these things exist. Links to peer reviewed articles are preferable to BS that you pull out of your ass.

    Then I think that you can guess where I'm going to tell you to shove your assertions. Anything which can be asserted without evidence can be rejected without evidence.

    Actually until evidence is shown to support the assertion it is purely a matter of belief. That's sort of the way things work.

    Wait, you came on a website devoted to science and the discussion thereof to say that it's "bad" to be "on the side of" science? Really.

    We aren't "on the side of science", we accept science because it works better for discovering the nature of reality than any other tool ever devised. We know that it works better because it's solved countless mysteries while the competing methods(mysticism, theology, etc.) have solved none. And, of course, the goodies that arise as a byproduct of science are quite a boon to "our side" as well. We have evidence that our method works, where's the evidence that your's does?

    Um, that's not why we took issue with your statement. We took issue with your statement because we already have an explanation that fits the evidence better and also requires no unnecessary assumptions. I'm not exactly sure where there's room to misunderstand that.

    Proven by who? Using what methods? Was the proof published? If it was published then were the results repeated by others? These are the questions that we need answered before we can take your assertions seriously.

    There aren't any documented and verified events of exorcism that stand up to even cursory scrutiny, they're all scams or evidence of psychological issues.

    Furthermore we're finding more and more archaeological evidence that contradicts the bible instead of supporting it. The Garden of Eden? Pure myth. Noah's Arc? Complete fabrication. Hebrew slaves in Egypt? Not a single trace. The forty year trek through the desert? Never happened. The ten commandments and the golden calf? Fiction again. The life, death, and resurrection of the Christ? We have more reliable evidence for the life, death and resurrection of Elvis than we do for the biblical account.

    Sorry, but the facts all disagree with you here. Even Israeli archaeologists, those who want to prove this stuff true the most, disagree with you here. But then, you have your faith, so why bother letting those pesky facts get in the way of your fun?

    Personally I prefer the peer review literature as they have a built in quality control mechanism whereas the internet seems to be diametrically opposed to the notion of quality control. But, as the peer review literature isn't always available, I have honed by skills in bullshit detection and fact checking. And all I've found online are cranks and cons. Take that how you will.

    Wow, that's just so great because, most of us have been all of that too. However, unlike you, we would rather base our beliefs on what we have in evidence rather than what we would like to believe. Oh, and we're also probably a good deal more educated than you when it comes to the fallibility of our experiences.

    Where's your evidence for this?

    No, you believe it. Until you can support this with evidence it will remain a belief and nothing more.
     
  22. member 1492 Registered Member

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    3
    Hypothesis and the Scientific Method

    Many people believe in a human soul. The human soul is believed to remain in

    existence even after the death of the physical body. Therefore, it is believed

    by many that human beings are spirits in the material world. Furthermore, it is

    hypothesized that spirits exist at a higher vibrational frequency than living

    beings in the material world.


    The Law of Thermodynamics, might well be used in trying to explain the

    antidotal evidence and observable phenomenon that continue to reinforce

    this belief. The First Law of Thermodynamics (Conservation) states that

    energy is always conserved, it cannot be created or destroyed, but it can

    change from one form to another. Hence,


    - A "Cold Spot" may be a sign that a spirit is trying to draw energy from the

    environment

    - Depletion of batteries may be a sign of a spirit drawing energy from a

    material source


    The following is a good example of the type of evidence one

    might encounter when investigating paranormal phenomenon:

    ZwdBbZtGCkE site:youtube.com


    As the scientific method is often limited by the current state of technology,

    one should not totally discount the existence of spirits but only say that at

    the moment more research needs to be done.
     
  23. Buddha12 Valued Senior Member

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    2,862
    "Any claim that postmortem personality survival is impossible that is based solely on the belief that it is incompatible with the contemporary laws of physics is not rationally supportable. Rational science-based opinion on this question must be based on the content and quality of the empirical data, not on the presumption that such a phenomenon would be strictly incompatible with our current scientific knowledge of how nature works."

    Henry Stapp, a distinguished quantum physicist who studied under Heisenberg, and Pauli, amongst others

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Stapp
     

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