Do mediums truly talk with ghostly dead people(for open-minded people)?

[Teri]

Silas,
I was disconcerted and disappointed with your replies to Guru, Visited and myself. You are surmising; assuming; diagnosing and advising, without any qualifications or research to support your contentions. Clearly your conclusions are based solely on your own opinions: I would prefer to exchange theories about these occurrences with people who are experiencing the subject matter, or are not quite so restricted in thought or knowledge.

Cheers
Teri

 

[Silas]

I have no qualifications, that is quite true. However, I have read fairly extensively, and I am thoroughly acquainted with rational, scientific, logical and skeptical thinking. But specifically your thing - yes, I have had experience of it.

Guru claimed to be a skeptical and rational thinker, and yet one transcript of a tv programme, followed by the purchase of three books caused him to become a believer. I merely pointed out the illogic of believing what is written by the conman himself.

Visited described undergoing a traumatic experience. I cannot imagine sitting in a room with someone who tells me that he's under some kind of mental attack, and then telling him that the chair he is sitting on belonged to someone who died two days ago. That is not how normal, rational people behave! If someone in my presence felt a sudden, irrational fear, I would do everything in my power to reassure them that there were no real demons or spirits hovering nearby, or indeed anywhere, and that the pathway out of his fear was to hold onto the real, the material and the physical.

That, in essence, was what I was trying to do for you, too, Teri. As a matter of fact, yours is the only one of the three I've had direct experience of myself. Last week I awoke to find myself in an utterly paralysed state. I was in half a dream state, too, so I frequently got up and went downstairs, only to open my eye and find myself back in bed and paralysed again. How could I tell I was paralysed and awake? Because when I waved my right arm, nothing appeared in front of my face. My brain was totally issuing the commands and feeling the correct response from the arm - and yet nothing was really happening. There is no more vulnerable feeling. In the past, similar experiences have had me feeling that someone (a woman) was in bed with me, and I could feel everything about her being real - and yet she was not. However, having done some reading and seen a couple of documentaries on this subject, I'm perfectly satisfied that my experiences have a rational basis, and that however bad, frightening and vulnerable I feel when having it (I used to get the paralysis a lot and I can tell you it is not pleasant at all), I'm reassured by the fact that I know that any presences I feel in my room at that time are purely imaginary.

I would like you to think about your experiences and think through the possible consequences of each explanation. If there's a mysterious spirit which is messing about with you in some way, exactly what can you do about it? Who can you go to for help? Is there any actual, physical evidence of their presence or is it as if they weren't there? If someone explained to you everything there was to know about this spirit - who it was, where they came from, what they wanted from you - exactly how does that help you to fight it?

Conversely, there is clearly no physical evidence of its presence, you just feel things on your hair or your legs on occasion when you're lying in bed after just waking or just on the point of sleeping, and it's obviously just part of your imagination. Is it a pleasant experience? Undoubtedly not. But what is the benefit of imagining a real threat, if it's possible to dismiss it as pure imagination?

In my view, the first way - well, that way madness lies. And the second way is likely to promote a healthier mental outlook all round. Your case is slightly different from the other two - it's only you involved (in my view, "you're only fooling yourself"). In the case of John Edward and Visited's "spiritual circle" we are dealing with people who deliberately exploit either people's grief or their fear of the unknown, either to bolster their own beliefs, or manifestly in the case of Edward, to make money as the star of a top-rated TV show.

For a clear available exposition of the fraudulence of all mediums, I recommend the article William James and Mrs. Piper by Martin Gardner, available in his book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0312169493/qid=1100877088/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/104-0715737-8158313?v=glance&s=books&n=507846">The Night is Large: Collected Essays 1938 - 1995</a>.

 

[Teri]

Hi Silas,

It seems to me that you and I are both rational people – although I am making this assumption from our brief exchange but I respect your outlook on the subject. I cannot defend or argue on behalf of Guru or Visited, so I’ll keep this exchange only between us.

I know exactly whose energy is around me –it’s my older brother-- and I can say with complete honesty that he would be the last person I would have expected to be communicating with me, because while he was alive my relationship with him was strained due to the influences of other family members: We pretty much stayed away from each other due to unfounded lies.

Firstly, please know that this is a new occurrence in my life. It was unexpected, and prior to it happening, I never even considered that I would experience this. I believe myself to be an open-minded person and I need convincing to accept something that has never before presented itself so blatantly. I don’t feel threatened, frightened or apprehensive about any of it, and I don’t feel the need to ‘do’ anything about it. It’s only the one energy that is around me (I don’t think I could handle any more anyway), and I believe that sooner or later he will move on. But for now there is nothing to be frightened about.

In the beginning I did dismiss events as pure coincidence or that I'd developed some newfound imagination. I even used to tell my workmates about things that were happening and have a giggle about it. But now, experiences are happening too often and I know that people would soon be thinking I’ve lost the plot. (Aussie expression).

As I sit here replying to you, I’ve decided to keep a diary for my own benefit. I wrote in an earlier post that I didn’t want to have to justify myself by listing events, and I still feel this way. The important thing for me is that I am aware of what is happening, and, again, I don’t care if you believe me or not. The events are too personal to be written about on the Internet, and human nature is fairly predictable. I hope you understand what I’m saying. I will, however, have a look around for the book you mentioned so I can form my own opinion about the explanations given.

If you would like to further discuss this, I would be happy to exchange PM's.

So cheers for now.
Teri

 

[kmguru]

Just as human mind needs a body to exist, even a non-corporeal entity would need a mechanism to hold its charged particles or energy and be able to have an energy conversion system. With all the highly developed multispectral sensor technology, we should be able to locate and communicate if such entities exist.

Something to think about...

 

[Teri]

kmguru,
After reading your reply, you have actually prompted me to learn about the nature of energy: I'm now on a quest to learn as much about all forms of energy as possible. If it leads me to discount or amend my ideas and theories about the energy of deceased persons, then so be it.

It's just kind of frustrating when a scientist speaks of the phenomena of black holes or dark matter and it is accepted unconditionally and researched further. Energy is converted from one form to another all the time: It cannot be destroyed. I am finding it to be an amazing topic. (This has given me a question for the scientists in the forum but is not appropriate here)

When ordinary people speak of energies of the type we are discussing, they are dismissed simply because they have not yet been able to conclusively prove they exist.

When you think about the many things in this universe we don't understand, it's disappointing that contemplating that a deceased person's energy could not possibly exist. Why is it so unimaginable that the things we are discussing cannot happen?

 

[SkinWalker]

Of course a deceased person's energy continues to exist. It just takes a chemical process to make use of it. Like cremation. Stand close to the body and you can absorb some of that energy in the form of warmth. Eat the body and you take on it's energy in the form of carbohydrates and proteins... how many calories in the average person?

 

[kmguru]

Teri:
After my post, I was thinking about, if a non-corporeal lifeform is possible on Earth. Only one such life may be possible, that is Earth itself. Earth can contain a cohesive energy field due to the magnetic field as a containment in the polar regions and the energy it receives from the Sun and genarates the electrical charge out of lightening etc. Does that mean, Earth is an intelligent being? Who knows? Some say, the automated natural cycles is the proof...

 

[Silas]

It's just kind of frustrating when a scientist speaks of the phenomena of black holes or dark matter and it is accepted unconditionally and researched further. Energy is converted from one form to another all the time: It cannot be destroyed. I am finding it to be an amazing topic. (This has given me a question for the scientists in the forum but is not appropriate here)

I'm very glad you're getting some kind of education in scientific matters. Let me however clarify a few matters. Whatever "aura" or "energy" you are experiencing will not, I guarantee, be picked up by any kind of scientific instrument. Since the energy you are experiencing is outside the purview of scientific exploration, there isn't even any way of knowing whether it falls within the conventional scientific laws of energy conservation.

Secondly, there is actually no such thing as "unconditional acceptance" in the scientific community. That is what science is - the conditional acceptance of theories which are supported, it is to be hoped, by some kind of mathematical analysis in the first instance, and subsequently backed up by experimental or observational evidence. Black holes are nothing more than a consideration of the laws of gravitation in extremis, to whit: what would happen if enough mass concentrated together to create a gravitational force stronger than the electromagnetic, nuclear strong and nuclear weak forces? It's been calculated that a star would only have to be 1.4 times the mass of our Sun for it to become a black hole when it collapsed at the end of its life as a normal star. It's not unlikely that they do exist therefore. So astronomers look for the evidence of their presence. Dark Matter comes from the other direction - the galaxies are not expanding or moving in a way totally consistent with Newtonian gravity or Einstein's General Relativity - so to explain what we are seeing, scientists postulate Dark Matter. It may, however, turn out to be a chimera like the aether of the 19th Century. But it is taken seriously because it's mathematically and conceptually valid.

 

[Teri]

Silas,
Firstly, I'll just get this out of the way - when I wrote the words 'accepted unconditionally', I was actually only trying to say that such things are given more credence; but that is just an aside.

Now, keeping in mind I have no qualifications of any kind in any of the areas we are discussing, I wonder whether you could maybe explain to me in layman's terms the difference in enthusiasm to investigate matters of black holes in relation to investigating the possibility of any kind of non-corporeal intelligent energy, force, or spirit, or whatever anyone wants to call the supernatural experience.

You wrote: "It's been calculated that a star would only have to be 1.4 times the mass of our Sun for it to become a black hole when it collapsed at the end of its life as a normal star. It's not unlikely that they do exist therefore. So astronomers look for the evidence of their presence." It's that last sentence I've fixated upon - the fact that scientists 'look for evidence of their presence'.

When I think about the concept of a black hole: a void where everything is extinguished - energy, light, even time itself - I can't really wrap my mind around the concept. It's as difficult as trying to imagine infinity; or simpler still, the distance of the universe. To me these things are wondrous in themselves.

Then I'll come back to earth with a bang and find I'm experiencing things that many other people have claimed to have experienced, even some of the most intelligent of minds, and I wonder why science continually pushes these things into another category. I've gone through my whole life never really taking seriously the experiences people have claimed, but I do keep an open mind. It becomes a whole other story when you experience it yourself.

This is the reason the urge to learn about energy in all forms has become important. I want an explanation - this is my dilema.

I hope I’m making some sense. It really is difficult trying to explain myself here. I don’t want the tone of this post to be taken the wrong way. I have no hostility or agitation at anyone. It is at these times I wish I had a super computer to answer my questions so I don’t have to reveal my ignorance to members of the human race.

In any case
Have a good day
Teri