Ouija similar experience
Offline Ok since some people have asked... I will tell about my Ouija similar experience. This is not a traditional Ouija config. Here we call it "Jogo do Copo" I don't know if you have a name for it in english
The configuration is similar to the one on the photo:
I've used a plastic cup so it wouldn't brake. The cards around the table are the letters of the alphabet and the words "yes" and "no". 4 people were placed around the table at equal distances.
It all started like this:
My brother got home one day and claimed that he played this game and it worked! I was skepitcal... and didn't believe him (BTW he is an atheist and still can't explain how the game works... a weak atheist but still an atheist). He insisted we tried it. I conceded.
We got our mom and dad... and started our little spiritism session. We turned the cup upside down and each of us placed our index finger on top of it.
My brother conducted the whole thing by calling a good spirit to move the cup........ nothing happened ... he kept calling ... finally when I was getting bored... the cup started to move very slowly...
A minute latter it moved a lot better.
We asked "it" various questions and he answered them. Many times it was gibberish others it was a concise answer.
During the experience my inquisitive mind was focused on the top of the glass trying to see if I could notice anyone moving the cup... I couldn't see nothing... I asked repeatedly if anyone were moving it. They allways said no for sure. I sure wasn't! That I know for sure! I saw the cup movements very closely and it's more likely that our fingers were dragged by the cup's movements than our fingers doing the pushing.
I can't explain this. I made this experience with the people I trust the most. If it was Ideomotor effect the cup couldn't have moved or it's movements should be erratic because there where four vectors of forces involved, one for each person.
My brother thinks It's some kind of mind power over matter... If it is... it's something we haven't discovered yet...
I would like to try something different next time... instead of letters I would use cards. Then a 5th person will look at the cards on the table and choose one without saying. This person would go to another room with a card deck and pick from that deck the chosen card. Then at the game we would ask the "cup" to go to the card the person picked and it is holding on the next room... but to be honest with you I haven't tried this yet... I don't feel very comfortable with this "game"
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Offline If it's the cup doing the moving and not your fingers doing the pushing, then why does it only move if you put your fingers on it? That just seems like a dead giveaway to me. You need to focus "spirit energy" through your fingers or something?
If it was spirits, energy focusing would be a possible answer to explain why it only moves with our fingers on it. But I'm not saying this was the case yet.
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Offline Simple experiment which will debunk this for you: Instead of letters, use a number code for each letter. Randomize the number code so that none of the players know which letter corresponds to which number. Post the code for the 'spirits' to see, but such that none of the players can read it. For example, you could use a code like this:
A - 6
B - 13
C - 20
D - 7
E - 16
...
If the 'spirits' are really disembodied minds, then they will not need your minds to know the code, they would just look at the paper/chalkboard/whatever that you post up. It's exactly the same set up as a regular ouija board, except the ghosts look at the code page, see that H corresponds to 15, O corresponds to 12, A corresponds to 6, and X corresponds to 25.
When you ask the spirits if this ouija thing is for real, you should then get the code numbers 15, 12, 6, and 25. Write those down and decode the answers after the session is done.
My prediction: If you get any answers at all, they will be entirely gibberish.
*All* of the work of a ouija board occurs inside human minds, not ghost/spirit minds. If nobody present knows the capital of Lichtenstein, then neither will the ghosts. If you all have a mistaken belief that a hidden object is behind door number 1, then the ghosts will have that same mistaken belief.
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Offline Simple experiment which will debunk this for you: Instead of letters, use a number code for each letter. Randomize the number code so that none of the players know which letter corresponds to which number. Post the code for the 'spirits' to see, but such that none of the players can read it. For example, you could use a code like this:
A - 6
B - 13
C - 20
D - 7
E - 16
Crap. Why didn't I think of that?
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
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Offline This doesn't invalidate my sentence.
True.
I wasn't moving it, I know this with absolute certainty.
Absolute certainty?
I was often dragged by the cup. I dare you to try this at home.
I'm not interested. I'd be willing to watch a video or something.
I'll be amazed by the speed of the cup, even a relatively heavy one.
But, your cup was a plastic cup, right? Light, extremely easy for people to move it without knowing it.
Can you do it with a heavier glass cup?
If in my case the cup was being moved by the people present then there were only 2 possibilities when a subjective question was posed. 1st - One person took the lead unconsciently and answered the question. 2nd - Everyone would try to answer the question and the result would be gibberish or erratic movements.
Lol. If that were true, it would already explain everything, wouldn't it?
I want to ignore Occam's razor because it doesn't put the facts into perspective
Occam's Razor doesn't "put" any "facts into perspective." It is the principle that one should favor the explanation with the fewest assumptions. A well understood natural explanation has fewer assumptions than a supernatural "explanation."
and because it's an easy answer
The answer with the fewest unjustified assumptions.
when you are too lazy to think on other possibilities
The other "possibilities" are counter inductive, unjustified, and definitievely incomprehensible to reason and empirical evidence.
or already too sure of an answer.
I judge claims to be more or less likely depending on the evidence.
Again I repeat I was not moving the cup.
You can say that as many times as you want. All it tells me is that weren't consciously moving the cup.
The Ideomotor effect explains the pendulum thingie which involves tiny winnie forces, it doesn't explain beating attrition of a 300g cup around a table.
Why not? Is there a force limit on the Ideomotor effect at 200 grams?
A lot back then! When I did it with my parents we would change people to see if the movement was dependent on one of us. It wasn't, but with 3 people the movement was considerably slower.
That's interesting.
I rather try the deck of card thing.
Actually, I really really like natural's idea. You should try that.
"Although the effects of ideomotor action have been understood for at least 150 years, the phenomenon remains surprisingly unknown, even to scientists." Ray Hyman, Ph.D.
If just you're saying that we don't completely understand how the brain works to produce this effect, I'll accept that.
You do know that Hyman is a noted critic of this sort of paranormal stuff in the last century and would almost certainly claim the Ideomotor effect in your situation as well though, right?
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
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Offline I was making slight contrary movements to discard the possibility that I was contributing to the cup's movements, and my finger was often dragged by the cup. What you think of this is not my concern, your free to think what you like. I experienced it, I was there. Someone else had to be moving the cup. Maybe a more suggestionable person?
Why not? Is there a force limit on the Ideomotor effect at 200 grams?
There has to be a limit. You can't lift a 10kg bar and say you are not doing it... unless you have some kind of muscle problem... I don't buy the Ideomotor effect outside tiny forces.
Teralek wrote:
If in my case the cup was being moved by the people present then there were only 2 possibilities when a subjective question was posed. 1st - One person took the lead unconsciently and answered the question. 2nd - Everyone would try to answer the question and the result would be gibberish or erratic movements.
Lol. If that were true, it would already explain everything, wouldn't it?
Teralek wrote:
A lot back then! When I did it with my parents we would change people to see if the movement was dependent on one of us. It wasn't, but with 3 people the movement was considerably slower.
That's interesting.
It is... isn't it? That's why I'm not screaming ghosts yet.
My brother said he tried with a 500g cup elsewhere with other people.
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Offline I was making slight contrary movements to discard the possibility that I was contributing to the cup's movements, and my finger was often dragged by the cup. What you think of this is not my concern, your free to think what you like. I experienced it, I was there. Someone else had to be moving the cup. Maybe a more suggestionable person?
Okay, fair enough.
There has to be a limit. You can't lift a 10kg bar and say you are not doing it... unless you have some kind of muscle problem... I don't buy the Ideomotor effect outside tiny forces.
Okay, I'll essentially agree with that too, but I don't think it requires much force to slide a plastic cup.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
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Offline Didn't Pen and Teller already debunk this? The experiment they used is easily repeatable and can be extrapolated to the card setup easily. If you don't want to watch the whole video you can skip to 4:00 where they start the actual blindfolding part of the test.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JA5uYhXpa-E
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I played this game with friends when I was in high school, I pushed the cup around to fuck with them. It's not hard to make it seem plausible.
Faith is the word but next to that snugged up closely "lie's" the want.
"By simple common sense I don't believe in god, in none."-Charlie Chaplin
Funny there is an ad for some ouija game here.
I did the game where you have a person sit in a chair. then 4 other people gather around the person in the chair. Each person clasps their hands with only there two "pointer' fingers sticking out. They put those pointed fingers under either the seated person's underarm or behind their knee so that all four parts are covered. They then try to lift the person. It fails. The lifting people step back and then each put a hand over the person's head in order and as it comes around they put their other hand next. None of the hands must touch and it has to be in the proper order. Then the first person who put their hand over the head of the person sitting in the chair pulls their hand out and in order each person removes their one hand until no hands are above the head. Now they try to lift the person and it is easy. I have done it and also have been the person sitting in the chair. It eliminates the issue of the OUIJA board of having someone push. I think that happens because your muscles get tired and it happens without being aware of it. That is why you get some answers that make sense and some that are gibberish. If was something woo-woo related it would be more accurate.
But back to the chair thing. I was impressed by it but don't think it is something spooky spiritual.
Has anybody else done this?
Religion Kills !!!
Numbers 31:17-18 - Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.
http://jesus-needs-money.blogspot.com/
If it's the cup doing the moving and not your fingers doing the pushing, then why does it only move if you put your fingers on it? That just seems like a dead giveaway to me. You need to focus "spirit energy" through your fingers or something?
Why not? If the cup can easily be moved with your finger, then if it was the Ideomotor effect, the cup would have moved, by definition. Moving the cup unconsciously would be a perfect example of the Ideomotor effect. These things occur all the time, with ouija boards, dowsing rods, etc.
That is a very thoughtful response, but logically unsound.
The movements of the four of you were mostly unconscious, but not random. Generally, each of you would exert a fairly light force and slowly change the direction of that force. Then, you would gradually respond to each others forces until you are all essentially moving the cup together. It's just psychology.
That's a good idea. If it was the Ideomotor effect, then the cup shouldn't be able to pick the correct card more than blind guessing.
Omg, you're scared of this thing?
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
I have often been baffled why (other) human-animals are so easily startled by this... cultural phenomena, namely why they find it so emotionally provocative and entertaining...
I never quite got the "point" of it...
“A meritocratic society is one in which inequalities of wealth and social position solely reflect the unequal distribution of merit or skills amongst human beings, or are based upon factors beyond human control, for example luck or chance. Such a society is socially just because individuals are judged not by their gender, the colour of their skin or their religion, but according to their talents and willingness to work, or on what Martin Luther King called 'the content of their character'. By extension, social equality is unjust because it treats unequal individuals equally.” "Political Ideologies" by Andrew Heywood (2003)
I wasn't moving it. period. I was even making conscient slight movents with my finger to discard that option... and I find hard to believe that the other persons were. I need more evidence of that.
Also If some questions had different answers depending on the person... the cup shouldn't try to give an answer. It would move erratically as each person moved it at a different direction. In any case, I need more evidence. The card deck thing would be interesting if I could get 4 more people to help me...
Besides I haven't found any scientific study about the Ideomotor effect on these situations, and I don't think there are any... so the evidence on your side is weak.
Wow, I think Luminon has a new ally in waging his war for woo woo. That's not an insult btw, as I think Luminon is still held in high regard by the majority of skeptics here because of his overall good nature and affability.
Basically, I do think that people who use Oujia desk move it, but they do it subconsciously. And the meaningful results are there, because they allow the ghost to control a portion of their subconsciousness. It works similarly with pendulum, tarot or whatever, the subconscious moves or choices reflect something that we want to make visible. The main point is, that these items are just tools.
People in my community generally consider it as useless fun. Just because someone is dead, it doesn't make them wiser or better to talk with. If people are in afterlife, they should either reincarnate or take their afterlife lessons. I think spiritism is like 3D films, people go for it because of the thrill and novelty. My community says that one should rather learn to communicate with one's own superconsciousness, which is much wiser, loving and more powerful than any ghost.
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
Theism is why we can't have nice things.
Well... I've never got "meaningful results" in a sufficient quality to reach the same conclusion... but I only made 3 or 4 sessions.
Are you in a spiritism community?!
"Just because someone is dead, it doesn't make them wiser or better to talk with." - It depends... in my opinion...
"If people are in afterlife, they should either reincarnate or take their afterlife lessons." - Do you believe everyone reincarnates eventually or reincarnation is reserved only to certain specific cases?
I think Tarot is bullsh**
"My community says that one should rather learn to communicate with one's own superconsciousness, which is much wiser, loving and more powerful than any ghost." - I find interesting that you call superconsciousness to what people commonly call "higher self"... can you please elaborate? I have trouble understanding the concept.
If I could communicate with Albert Einstein I think it would be pretty interesting. Among the many other dead people I would like to communicate with.
Common psychology so far is only concerned with personality. But it will only reach it's true purpose when the profound transforming influence of higher self will be discovered. Personality is well capable of living and enjoying the world on it's own, but it only becomes perfected, useful, selfless, genial or downright "divine" when it contacts the soul and intelligently cooperates with it. The soul needs the personality to explore and work with physical world, as a tool. And personality needs the soul for power and guidance in life's inevitable trials and hard work of any kind that needs to be done. This is why the history gave us so many traditions that mistake the soul downright for God (because it pretty much feels like that) and say to leave your worries to God, listen to God, find God in your heart, do what God's love tells you is right, and so on... Of course, it's technically imprecise, but just as well it is usually good enough for practical purposes. This is why we sort of respect even the religional types, if we see that particular individuals have contacted the soul through religional worldview. They think this is God or downright Jesus concerned with them, but this is actually their own god within, higher component of themselves. Development will eventualy make them equal to Jesus who was nobody unique, but no need to tell them. I know what how it feels and it's easy to observe if someone feels it too. Such people are very loving and rather tolerant, they're not your typical bible thumpers and brimstone snuffers. As long as people are under the soul contact they can be trusted, no matter if they're believers or rationalistic skeptics. I think that such people of all kinds but good will should cooperate.
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
"Ian Stevenson, a psychiatrist-parapsychologist at the University of Virginia, gained a level of prominence for publishing more than 2,500 case studies from around the world of children that seemed to him to be able to remember events in a life that had ended, often in a violent way, before the child was born." He studied this for 40 years and his investigation even took Carl Sagan to say that some of these accounts had no explanation and more investigation was needed on the cases of children who seem to be remembering past lives.
What I find astounding about Stevenson investigation is not the fact that he made a renown atheist say such a thing, which by itself is a feat (
), but that in most of his cases (if not all) these children's supposedly past lives ended in tragic and violent deaths, not natural "standard" deaths! What this tells me is that reincarnation only happens when your death was not suppose to happen and was some sort of an accident (murder or suicide falls in this category). This is compatible with my Baha'i and NDE afterlife vision which accounts for further worlds of learning. Baha'i's don't believe in reincarnation at all. NDE research is more permissive on this subject.
I know many people who are working on the same New Age "movement" you've just described. Suffice to say they haven't convinced me yet to their cause. I think this is another way to make money. Last time was 60$ for a session of family constellations (cheap psychology), I have better things to do with my money. This kind of multi personal me just doesn't get in my mind... maybe it's a way of trying to describe something that compares to nothing in this plane of reality. There can't be 2 Me's, that's irrational for me... However in QM there can be 1 particle in 2 places at once! That too is hard to swallow... but proven in labs...
In essence I don't disagree with what you said but I don't know if I agree either... maybe this is like a Picasso painting. We both look at the same thing but express it differently. I believe that some sort of communication "with the God within" is beneficial though. I do it too.
But you make too much assumptions of what this tells you. Use Occam's razor please, or even logic, I dare to say. This only says, that traumatic memories are more likely to be somehow remembered by people, than others. This is because a trauma in circumstances of dimmed consciousness is typically imprinted deeply into subconsciousness. In next life, if the person sees something similar even if harmless, the unconscious trauma will be restimulated. Regression therapy gets the person into relaxed state where you can gain conscious access to the past experience and by repeated re-living it consciously the body will eventually realize that this is a past experience, there is no present danger and that reacting as it reacted is now already inappropriate. It is also possible to take a person to relatively happy lives, but therapists frown at this because it has no therapeutic purpose.
There perhaps are further worlds of learning. But this one, physical world is the world of greatest learning, greatest work and most important of them all. Nobody is allowed to progress further, until all lessons of physical world are learned. Human evolutionary component I told you about is compelled to master the physical world, and our free will stops here, all beings sooner or later must reincarnate, because nobody, not even the best person can learn all lessons and do all work of life in one lifetime.
You see, this business is highly about quality of people. You can only get good services if you know people who had good results. Without reliable recommendation by a thoughtful friend you either get nowhere or have to try things on your own, which costs money, time and sometimes health. On the other side, our fame spreads regularly, because it's fueled by real results that relatives and friends of our clients personally observe.
Our everyday personality is such, there are bodily needs, the demands of reason and conscience, and we are somewhere in between... This is I believe what Freud meant by id, ego and superego. It also very well reflects the esoteric trinity of physical, astral (emotional) and mental body, that make up personality together. People commonly have consciousness focused in astral body, which makes them primarily emotional, only secondarily reasoning, most of them. Consciousness theoretically stems from the soul, like light, but is gradually colored, dimmed or even blocked by condition and rudimental vegetative consciousness of the vehicles, like by filters.
The purpose of development is to become a magnificent personality, proud and impressive ego, which is then however fully sacrificed for service to the soul, as a powerful, responsive and disciplined tool.
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
You weren't consciously moving it. If you were unconsciously moving it, you wouldn't know about it.
So, you're suspending your judgment until you get more evidence either way?
You are assuming that each person would necessarily move the cup towards the answer that suits them. There is no reason to assume that.
Over time, the four people would move the cup together. It's well understood psychology.
Oh, the evidence on my side is weak? The Ideomotor effect is a well understand psychological phenomenon, and your situation would be a perfect example of it.
What evidence do you have that it was being moved by spirits?
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
Dude Lighten up a bit!
I wasn't moving it. period. I was even making conscient slight movements with my finger to discard that option...
Yes. I have my own opinion though
No I'm not! There are all reasons to assume that. If not to the answer that suits them, to where would they move it to answer this subjective answer?
Not if the answer wasn't consensual.
BTW I forgot to mention something very important. The cup would only move with 4 to 3 people... Never with two or one. I don't know why.
I have none. But it is not a well understood psychological phenomenon.
Leviticus 19:26 (King James Version)
26Ye shall not eat any thing with the blood: neither shall ye use enchantment, nor observe times.
Wedgie boards are against God's Law. They are evil and forbidden. Instead of conferencing with Satan's minions, why don't you pray to God? You don't kill people do you? Why do you think that breaking this divine edict is any better?
The Truest Christian these atheists will ever meet. I worship the only Lord at the Church with the Truest Christians: Landover Baptist.
Interesting ideas Luminon... I don't have any thoughtful friends in these areas though...
Also. I know that I wasn't applying pressure on the glass because my finger was often being dragged with the cup. I was seated on a chair and had to get up... I was lazy
If you do it with two or more people it is very obvious if either of you is applying such pressure. Even if you do it yourself inadvertently the other person will spot it.
Talking to you guys gave me the will to try this game again. I just have to find 4 idiots not too supersticious to try it... this time with a deck of cards round a table with a cup and ask it to move! Movit stupid glass!
Actually from what I recall we used one of the store bought game boards and it had a heart shaped*?* plastic thing. It slid across the slick surface of the board very easily, barely had to push it to make it move. Come on, when parker brothers / hasbro makes an ouija board .. really? You know they make ghost outfits and vampire teeth too.
http://www.boardgames.com/ouijaboard.html
Faith is the word but next to that snugged up closely "lie's" the want.
"By simple common sense I don't believe in god, in none."-Charlie Chaplin
I've never played this type of Ouija. In the link says 2 players. I only works with two? (The Ideomotor effect)
Is some board game replete with mysterious numerology and all the rest of it, stuff able to be detected in Beryl Murkin's living room in the town of Peak Hill after midnight but undetectable by all other means. Please. If ghosts really had anything to say through their ethereal scarce-existent lips they would just pop right out and say it. The human imagination is a wild and wonderful place. If you are spiritual and believe in god then I guess making the leap to ghosts, witches, demons and an entire invisible cadre is easy to do. It'd be a curious study to find if the kids who had imaginary friends at kindergarten were more or less likely to carry these powerful imaginings through into later life.
For this and other reasons I insist the subjective human brain should not be used as a spirit sensor. At the same time, I think the oft-repeated argument that everything the human brain experiences is similarly subjective and thus all facts are questionable is too silly for words. In order to sidestep these annoying issues, let's agree to only believe in stuff that can be detected by sensors and inanimate machines prior to their consideration by our subjective little minds. Everything else, let's agree to use the phrase: "It's my assumption" before every statement of unproven opinion or flexion of cognitive bias.
It's the only honest way.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
And by the way, some of my good friends are basically witches, today called alternative psychotherapists, facilitators, healers, and so on.
Technology must be able to do what some of us do today - communicate with invisible friends, become a medium for ghosts, conduct pranic energy, measure human aura and energy centres, and so on. All this can trained and gifted people do, although subjectively. And when technology will be able to do it too, it will be possible to prove that this is an objective activity.
By it's own nature, technology is basically dead. We are not dead, we are a system of material body, etheric body, and other bodies of even different material properties, all of which coexist together to form a living person. Merely dense-material technology will have a really hard time to detect anything else than other strictly dense-material phenomena. Unless it is constructed specially for the task. So it is with people, work of such kind requires training and mainly natural talent. This is not something that will reliably work without understanding, as you know, what we can't understand we can't control, repeat at will and therefore use for scientific purposes.
There is of course research of Wilhelm Reich, but it was stopped when FDA (not scientists or the public) accused him and locked him up. This is not an example of scientific inquiry, but market lobby. Reich's discoveries have almost nothing to do with ghosts, but it's the first step of discovering subtle states of matter and therefore the true form of reality.
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
Machines, sensors and other devices can see in the dark, hear the cyclic sounds of the magnetic fields of pulsars in Andromeda, watch viruses invading living cells at the atomic level and gaze out so far into the universe they can see the signature of the expansion of the big balloon. I am going to pin my hopes on this sort of technology giving me answers, not on the feelings of self-proclaimed experts in imaginary fields. I don't believe you can define mysteries into existence. Reality is wild enough without doing that.
I'm not going to say that the wonders of the universe are discovered, nor will I deny that underneath our daily reality is some seriously weird shit. But when people die, they just die. Some EMI 'soul' doesn't hum off into the ether upon our death and if it does, I'll believe it when I see it on an oscilloscope. As for witches, I'm talking not talking about nice people who drink dandelion tea. I'm talking about people who do magic that defies physics. You know. Samantha Stevens and her delightful mother, Endora.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
As for witches, you'd have to see for yourself. We use our possibilities to spy on our business partners, co-workers, job applicants, future employers, people's health state and relationships. We also use it to fix all these relationships, also between institutions. You see, we're people's people. We don't move rocks or bend spoons or other objective activity, we move people's mindset and purify their character. Without talking, sometimes without them being present, sometimes without them knowing. This is what we're currently free to do. We fix fucked up lives, that's our job, we're currently not equipped for making a global scientific revolution. Not when even much better equipped people were defeated by business and political lobby carried out by book-burning fanatics.
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
If it was happening unconsciously, how would you know?
I would suggest that everyone remove their fingers from the cup in the middle of a session, while the cup is moving. I'm sure you can imagine possible supernatural reasons why the cup is immobile without your finger; after all, it's supernatural, so we can make up whatever we want. But, it should help just to actually observe that the cup can't move when you don't have your fingers on it.
Okay.
Well, to whatever direction they end up moving it to based on many different factors that are specific to the situation.
It's not like you simply move to the answer that you want except it's unconscious. Unlike woo, real science is complicated. In fact, I would describe it as at least as much a "physical thing" than a "mental thing," if that makes any sense. Particularly, the way your finger is resting on the cup. How tired your muscles are. The kind of cup it is. Etc. Then, since there are four of you, you have to factor in everyone else. As ex-minister wrote:
"I did the game where you have a person sit in a chair. then 4 other people gather around the person in the chair. Each person clasps their hands with only there two "pointer' fingers sticking out. They put those pointed fingers under either the seated person's underarm or behind their knee so that all four parts are covered. They then try to lift the person. It fails. The lifting people step back and then each put a hand over the person's head in order and as it comes around they put their other hand next. None of the hands must touch and it has to be in the proper order. Then the first person who put their hand over the head of the person sitting in the chair pulls their hand out and in order each person removes their one hand until no hands are above the head. Now they try to lift the person and it is easy. I have done it and also have been the person sitting in the chair. It eliminates the issue of the OUIJA board of having someone push. I think that happens because your muscles get tired and it happens without being aware of it. That is why you get some answers that make sense and some that are gibberish."
- This is accidentally corroborated by your own words.
My brother conducted the whole thing by calling a good spirit to move the cup........ nothing happened ... he kept calling ... finally when I was getting bored... the cup started to move very slowly...
Many times it was gibberish others it was a concise answer.
I am fine with you saying you suspend your judgment until more evidence comes in, but I do think that psychology and how muscles work already explains why the cup moves, why it only moves when your fingers are on it, why it sometimes gives a meaningful answer and sometimes doesn't, why it only started moving after you were bored and it gradually moved better as your muscles got more tired, etc. To claim that it is supernatural would be an argument from ignorance and a failure of Occam's Razor.
It has very little to nothing to do with whether everyone agrees on the answer.
That is interesting. How much did you try it?
The Ideomotor effect is not well understood?
Hmmm, do you need to see in order for the spirits to move the cup? How about, next time, you blindfold yourselves and have another person shuffle the cards around the edge of the table, so you don't know where they are or what they say? See how often you get coherent results.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
This doesn't invalidate my sentence. I wasn't moving it, I know this with absolute certainty. I was often dragged by the cup. I dare you to try this at home. I'll be amazed by the speed of the cup, even a relatively heavy one.
Can't speak for ex-minister. His experience was not the same. If in my case the cup was being moved by the people present then there were only 2 possibilities when a subjective question was posed. 1st - One person took the lead unconsciently and answered the question. 2nd - Everyone would try to answer the question and the result would be gibberish or erratic movements. There's no other way around this.
My brother conducted the whole thing by calling a good spirit to move the cup........ nothing happened ... he kept calling ... finally when I was getting bored... the cup started to move very slowly...
Many times it was gibberish others it was a concise answer.
I want to ignore Occam's razor because it doesn't put the facts into perspective and because it's an easy answer when you are too lazy to think on other possibilities or already too sure of an answer. Again I repeat I was not moving the cup. The Ideomotor effect explains the pendulum thingie which involves tiny winnie forces, it doesn't explain beating attrition of a 300g cup around a table.
A lot back then! When I did it with my parents we would change people to see if the movement was dependent on one of us. It wasn't, but with 3 people the movement was considerably slower.
But if you think it moves with just one person I can entertain you. I'll sit myself in front of a table with my finger on top of a glass and ask it to move. The cup will not move with my own muscles without me knowing it, that's just stupid. The table is not made of butter.
I rather try the deck of card thing.
"Although the effects of ideomotor action have been understood for at least 150 years, the phenomenon remains surprisingly unknown, even to scientists." Ray Hyman, Ph.D.