Wednesday, September 4, 2013

What are Psychic Abilities?

What makes Psychic Powers Work?

Telepathy is the communication between two minds via non-verbal means. Clairvoyance is the ability to get visions of events taking place elsewhere in the world. Telekinesis is the ability to move objects remotely without physical intervention. Channeling is the ability to mediate communication between the living and the dead. And the list can go on. We can talk til we are blue in the face about all the different kinds of abilities out there, and our theories about how they work, but in the end, what are they?

Science has been looking in to psychic phenomena for decades, if not centuries, and the general consensus is, that it's not real. The primary reason for this is two fold, as I've found.

The first and likely most important is, reproducibility. Psychic phenomena, like all supernatural phenomena that are tested here in the west, commonly lack reliable means of being repeated again and again, as science demands for proper testing. Until then, science cannot accept something that could be chalked up to a fluke.

The second is establishing an acceptable theory behind these phenomena. Currently, because of the brain being the center of our attention in science; science looks to the brain and it's physical components for areas that are dedicated to these phenomena. But no physical area has been detected to be the source of either the sending of receiving of these effects. So therefore if there is no station in the brain to do it, it must not be actually occurring.

To put it another way, if it does not repeatedly adhere to their physical theory of the world, then they wont accept it. But the phenomena itself persists, digging into the sides of the scientists who oppose it, until like good little soldiers they are, rise to fight. They can't very well let something stand that might challenge the status-quo, and with inquiring minds at their back demanding a rebuttal, they default. It's the mind playing tricks on them, mental illnesses and delusion, or their favorite when the odds are against them, “It's chance!”.

As simple of an argument that it is, claiming it's chance, it does sadly fit. After all, there is a lack of repeatability within testing, so chance alone may account for the statistical hits and misses. Although that is only when the bare and blunt results of these tests are weighed. I could probably bash science, or more accurately scientists; because it's not science itself that holds the bias; all day for overlooking a set of real phenomena just because it doesn't adhere to their standards. Even though quantum physics doesn't either, but that doesn't challenge their beliefs in the world as stringently. I wont though. Because the fault doesn't fall completely on their shoulders.

Many try and train to acquire these abilities, and so they practice and practice and practice. Trying to hone the sharpness of the skill, refining it, polishing it. But when the time comes to call on it, it's not always there. You end up feeling tired and worn out, maybe even a little board, or perhaps nervous given the circumstances, and it's not always there. Why is that?

I can only give you speculation at this point based on what I have read regarding these tests, and the participants in them. There seems to be two types of people that get tested for these abilities. The haves, and the have nots. Far, far more people who are tested are in the second category of the have nots, then the first. What the haves have is not the ability to perform these supernatural feats, where the have nots don't and think they do. What the have nots actually lack, is the power. Energy might actually be a more fitting word, though.

Like anything else you do, it requires fuel to perform. Now energy in this sense is far more then mere fuel, but in this instance, we will look at it as such. Most of those capable of repeatedly performing these supernatural feats are chi masters. You know, qigong, kung fu, tai chi, yin and yang, those sorts of masters? Anyways, the other group is more of less the average joe who tries to practice honing the skill, but neglects the fuel that powers it. These masters train to not only hone the skill, but to store the power, or energy needed to fuel it, within themselves. Because of this, they not only have the skill to perform these miraculous feats, but also the energy needed to accomplish them, so they get far more consistent, and frankly impressive results.

Most who are interested in training for these psychic abilities are invested in this new age movement, which over emphasizes the mind as this end all be all thing, that requires nothing more than some exercise in visualization to strengthen the ability. This exercise may improve the vividness and accuracy of these phenomena, but it doesn't improve the frequency or potency of them.

Telepathy, as an example, is information transference from one mind to another. But what does this information ride on? What medium does it use to get from point A to point B? Of course you know where I am going with this, it's energy. When it comes down to these abilities like telepathy or telekinesis, it's energy that powers them. When trying to accomplish either of these two abilities, your body will only use the excess energy that it has on hand to try and do so, and unless pushed, which is dangerous, will not allow you to exceed past this extra energy.

Most of your energy is dedicated to keeping your body healthy, so in most cases, these abilities can only be achieved when extra energy is acquired, and most people don't have an excess of energy. It is because of this that you get the unpredictability of psychic or supernatural phenomena under tests. They burn up the excess energy over the first round of tests, leaving them empty and struggling to reproduce results. Which also happens to look very bad for the testers.

Again this is usually the opposite for energy masters, as most of their efforts are spent not on training up these skills, although they do, but on saving up mass amounts of energy. So they have plenty of energy to work with for a while. The draw back is, they put a great deal of effort into saving up this energy, like money in a bank account, and therefore might have some reservations about letting it go for what might be deemed as parlor tricks.

But to sum up, all psychic or supernatural phenomena require energy to be performed or perceived, which explains why these testers aren't consistently hitting high scores, and why psychic and supernatural abilities aren't getting the appropriate attention they deserve. I see a lot of people sitting down and trying to move objects to no avail, and work with telepathy, or clairvoyance, etc. showing no fruit for their labors because they believe that you need some special practice or technique, while neglecting the most basic and most important part.


Anyways, hope you enjoyed.

Later!

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Extrasensory Perception

ESP

You meet someone for the first time, and a vibe rings out from deep within you, and suddenly you know without images or words, what kind of person they are. The phone rings and before you answer, or even see the caller ID, you know who it is. You are walking along a dark road when you come to a crossroads, when you look both ways, something ominous warns you from taking the left path over the right, something you can't see, only feel, and you might not understand why.

What is Extra-Sensory Perception (ESP)? What is this part of you that everyone experiences from time to time, in varying degrees, that can gleam information from future events or situations. What informs you of the nature of someone you just met? Or, allows you to know who's calling before one of your five senses can confirm it for you. What sometimes warns you of impending danger before it occurs so you can avoid it? What about ourselves do we not know or fully understand?

ESP is a widely experienced and heavily debated phenomena. We don't understand where it comes from, or what purpose it serves, or how accurate information about the future can be acquired prior to the event itself. Yet at the same time, it occurs enough to not be wholly overlooked either. Another problem that is present, is whether or not this phenomena can even be attributed to something physical within the body.

ESP was often tested using a series of cards called Zener Cards, or now appropriately named, ESP cards. Each card would have 1 of 5 possible symbols on them in a deck of 25 cards. The deck was shuffled, and the experimenter would draw a card, making sure the participant testing for ESP didn't see the card, while they psychically tried to predict the correct symbol on the card. Afterward, the score would be tallied up based on how many of the cards the participant predicted correctly, against how many they got incorrectly.

This test for ESP was developed by J. B. Rhine, who was interesting in psychical research, believing it to be a branch of abnormal psychology, eventually dubbing the phenomena as Parapsychology. He moved to Duke University in the late 1920's and opened a lab dedicated to it's research and hoping to turn ESP into an acceptable field of science. Many students and volunteers were tested for ESP during Rhine's years at Duke university, and in 1940 he co-authored a review of ESP research from over 60 years.

The review included 50 studies, most of which belonged to independent research groups and other universities. The majority of the studies showed significant results regarding ESP, with participants scoring far above chance alone. Interestingly enough, it's not just high scores that generate attention, it is also incredibly low scores that do as well. Scores so low, they are far below chance.

Rhine, among others, began testing to see why some participants would score highly above chance, while others scored far below chance. They found one indicator that produced low scoring was due to boredom. If the participant was tested for too long, the scores would eventually decline. This was believed to be due to a loss of interest. From there the researchers wanted to know just how much of the participants personality played a part in the test results.

Much of the research showed that the subjects attitude played a large role in whether they had a high or low success rate. For instance, those who were shown to believe in ESP, had a greater tendency to produce higher scores then those who did not. Besides belief being a major contributor, other things have shown to aid the effectiveness of ESP, such as creativity, artistic ability, mental and emotional stability, and meditation.

Besides Rhine's Zener card experiments, and others like it, there was also the Ganzfeld Experiment, conducted by Charles Honorton. The ganzfeld experiment is again aimed at testing ESP, but this time more controls are put in place to try and eliminate any flaws in the process. The experiment itself puts a person in a sound proof room that is electromagnetically shielded, the person sits in a chair, with eyes covered, and headphones on that play static for a half an hour. This forces the persons awareness inward.

After a half an hour has passed, a sender outside of the room, observes a randomly chosen target image, who then tries to mentally send this information to the receiver sitting in the shielded room. The receiver verbalizes everything they might see, which is then recorded on tape. Over 350 experiments were conducted between the years 1982 and 1989, where significantly positive results were produced again and again. They also found that belief and attitude affects ESP results just as Rhine did.

Research into ESP is still ongoing, but the field continues to hold promise, despite skeptics appeals. Each day we draw closer and closer to an answer, and thereby closer to the truth, as science is forced to expand to fit the evidence.

ESP has since broadened its definition to fit just about all kinds of psychic abilities and activities. Such as telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance and even telekinesis, but I'll try to cover those later. In the end, if you believe in ESP, it seems the science is on your side!

Hope you enjoyed.

Later!

Thursday, June 20, 2013

Improving Self-Esteem

Overcoming Doubt

My last post was about doubt and a little on how to over come it. This time, I want to dig a little deeper in how one might try and overcome it. To see if I can't flesh out a process a little more, and maybe help anyone out there that might be having some issues with self-esteem or doubt. I myself (as of the time of the writing) recently went through an episode of depression, doubt, anxiety and fear. It all sort of culminated into an ugly moment in my life, and I struggled to find my way out of the darkness.

For most of my life, I have struggled with self-esteem issues. Always looking at myself as if I was unworthy or inadequate. Never quite measuring up to the standard of things, a born failure if you will. I would have my good days, sure, but they usually proceeded a bad day, which would quickly put a lid on any optimism I might have acquired during those good times. A victim of circumstances, always allowing the bad in my life to carry more weight then the good.

A couple of months ago, I figured something out about my life. Something that in-fact would change my whole world. It was like a light-bulb had finally turned on, and I could see everything more clearly, which allowed me to put my energies in the right places to help fix my life. It was great! Everything was clicking. Like I was the guy from the movie Limitless. I literally became faster, smarter, stronger, happier, less stressed and fatigued, and I for some reason, didn't need as much food or sleep to get me through the day, with no ill-effects. I felt 120% better! Like a whole new person was born.

Of course this was short lived. A week or two into my new found happiness, when then something happened (which I wont go into) and suddenly, the walls around my new life buckled and the ceiling collapsed hard on me. Hitting rock bottom after climbing so high was very difficult to deal with. I went from living in a dream world, to living in a nightmare. I was tormented by fears and doubt, which lead to depression, and depression further fed the fears. My mind swirled with images and thoughts derived from these fears. It swallowed my mind, turning it against me. I couldn't control these thoughts, or push them out of my head. They even began to wake me in the middle of the night, or prevent me from sleeping in the first place. It was pretty bad.

All I wanted to do was return to being happy, feeling confident and full of energy. I figured the best way to do this was to retrace my steps on how it managed it the first time. But there was a problem. I suddenly couldn't remember how I did it. Only bits and pieces of it remained, but most of the path I took to achieve it vanished from my mind. It was unbelievable to me. During that great period, only weeks prior, I had spent most of my waking days just thinking about how good I felt, and even how I managed it. I even meditated on it, everyday! Yet now, when I needed it the most, I couldn't remember...

All I remembered about it was, that I focused on myself above everything else, it involved the subconscious mind, as well as the Soul, and energy. But now, when I thought about those things, they felt so distant from me. Like petty wishful thinking. Even though I remembered not only believing in these things, but also being aware of them, and feeling them. It was like I was in touch with some deep part of me. But now, I felt like it was all an illusion. A trick of the mind I played on myself. Even though deep down, I knew it wasn't.

So I was trying to juggle retracing my steps and dealing with my depression at the same time. Trying to remember how I came to a point in which I was able to reach some deep place inside me, and begin to turn my negative beliefs around into positive ones. I spent weeks on it. Everyday dedicating it to just finding my way again. And everyday, coming up with only the same bits and pieces that I already knew, and they felt empty. I kept trying to believe in myself, and looking to the future with hope, but it did feel hopeless. After a while, it began to stress my body, and stress developed in the back of my head and neck, which made matters worse. Finally after a couple of weeks, I began recalling a few more memories. Like, everything tormenting my mind was just crap. Crap that needed to be cleared out because it was fear based, and nothing more. Others included the importance of energy in your physical, emotional and psychological health.

Finally I began to remember more, and here is how I did it.

We as a people are conditioned from an early age to be subjected to the outside world. We get our happiness, love and confidence from the experiences around us, and it doesn't need to be that way. I'll give an example. Lets say today is an average day for you, and you are feeling pretty neutral, not too good, but not too bad though either. Suddenly, someone comes up to you and pays you a compliment, one that hits you just right, and suddenly you are feeling better and happier!

So, why are you feeling better now as opposed to a few moments before the compliment? It's not that the person gave you happiness. It's not even that the person is responsible for your happiness. It was all you. You see, when the person in the example above, complimented you, YOU responded internally. It's partially psychological, because we aren't really taught to be that independent. We are taught to mostly respond to outside stimulus, and not as much inside stimulus. Even though that feeling of happiness was always within you. I mean, it came from you, right? It had to be in there to be felt and experienced in the first place, right?

So if that feeling, or any feeling you want for that matter, is already inside of you, why can't we call them up on demand when we want them? Because we are conditioned to be responsive to the outside world, not the inside world. However, if you focus a bit more on responding to yourself, and less on the outside world, you could feel as you wish, all the time. It's a matter of reevaluating where you should put the most authority in your life. Why can't YOU make YOU feel happier? What could possibly be standing in the way?

Maybe believe in yourself? Perhaps you respond to others more then yourself because you believe in them more then you? Ever ask yourself why that might be the case? Maybe because everyone else looks to them (figuratively speaking) or others as an authority, so perhaps you should too? Then again, it was probably 'them' that convinced you to trust 'them' over yourself in the first place.

So it just becomes a matter of learning to respond to yourself a bit more. Learn to feel happier because you want to. Not needing something outside yourself to accomplish it, because it's already within you in the first place, or else you couldn't experience it. Once you begin to respond to yourself, you will begin to believe in yourself, and you will feel like your thoughts and feelings matter the most to you, and you will have authority over your own life. You will feel centered and grounded in yourself.

Once you pop the lid, things really begin to pour. You may even start to challenge other negative beliefs. Start asking yourself why you can't feel smarter, or calmer, or have more energy to do things, or anything you want really. You could start changing everything you don't like about yourself. You are effectively a walking psycho-energetic being, and everything is energy. So imagine what you could do if you could change your mind around, and spend all that energy on positively reinforcing yourself. Why not, right? After all, it is your life.

Meditation helps wonders with this too. Although, the prospect of sitting still while contemplating yourself may not sound all the thrilling, it does allow you to focus your mind on just the task at hand with no other distractions, so you can dig deeply into yourself and turn things around. You aim is to simply get yourself to respond to yourself, on as deep of a level as you can. Don't stress over it, stay as relaxed as possible, and you begin to notice as you do this that you are almost talking to yourself on a deep level. I kind of looked at it as giving myself therapy. And after a while, meditation became quite pleasant, because I was responding to myself more and I could then make meditation feel however I wanted it to feel. Even being able to tell aches and pains to go away, because I held a connection with some deeper part of me.

Anyways,

I hope this was at least mildly helpful.

Hope you enjoyed!

Later...