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Ghostbusters (NEW CONCEPTS)
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Tani


In: Fairye
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Ok, maybe I will get banned from this board for what I'm going to talk about, but since this is "New Concepts" I will put it here.

Last week-end I spent all my waking hours reading a book by Mr Ian Banks, "The Enigma of Borley Rectory". I knew about the Borley case before, but this book sort of changed my opinion about the whole affair profoundly.

(deep breath) It's about ghosts and hauntings and whether some of the occurences may or may not have been faked by Mr Harry Price, in his day a very famous psychic researcher in Britain.

After Price died in 1948, several people made it their business to damage his reputation as a researcher and a person, accused him of fraud in the Borley case and whatnot - after his death, mind you, when he couldn't defend himself anymore.

Anyway, before I read Banks, I too thought that maybe some of the happenings in the 1930ies at Borley could have been faked, but Banks' book, which is painstakingly researched and very well documented, convinced me that none of the happenings at Borley were a fake.

By the way : the Rectory is gone, but there are still "paranormal" things happening in and around the Church, the Coach House of the Rectory (still standing) and the original site of the Rectory.

Gave me loads of stuff to think on.
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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Tani, you won't be banned for bringing up the subject of ghosts but you might be banned for lack of analytic content.

Which reminds me, I once read a book about a ghost and even though some people thought it was a fake the author more or less convinced me it wasn't. And anyway there have been reports of sightings which prove it.
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Mick Harper
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Since you ask, I don't believe in ghosts. I don't believe in flying saucers, God, a conspiracy to kill Kennedy or anything else that at least two-thirds of Americans fervently believe in.

I am quite interested in the sociology of these beliefs though.

And in any case my beliefs are not relevant to the things discussed here (...oh tsk, my nose is getting in the way of my typing hand...) as long they are discussed analytically.
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Tani


In: Fairye
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Would you believe in Ghosts if and when you would encounter 'something' that could be a ghost - provided you're not drunk,stoned or your mind otherwise in altered state? In the interest of analytical discussion - I'm interested what it takes to convince people, is all.
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Mick Harper
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This is a question that has always intrigued me. I know that "ghostly visitations" or "alien abductions" or "divine manifestations" seem entirely real to the individuals to whom they happen. So if it happened to me, it would certainly also seem entirely real to me too.

The question then would be whether my intellect would be able to convince me that I had experienced a brain malfunction or whether my brain would be able to convince me that I had experienced a real event.

The nearest I can get to answering this question is to ask people whose intellect I trust and who have had such an experience, how they answered the question.

But their answers are oddly equivocal.
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Tani


In: Fairye
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Well, here's one person who had several such encounters - BEFORE my brain started to get into a permanently altered state (as well as after that).
I do believe in ghosts, because I do have proof of them. Period.
I'd like to know whether anybody else here had any experiences that could fall into this category....
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Ray



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But what do you mean by proof Tani? Can you prove that you've seen or experienced ghosts to Mick's satisfaction? The trouble with most paranormal phenomena (I hate that term) is that they can rarely be proved to other people.

One exception is the distant viewing technique used by the US military as a sort of occult spying technique. There was nothing remotely New Age about the selection of the men, the training they were put through, or the viewing itself. It was all conducted in a highly martial fashion: uniformed men, with no 'psychical' leanings sitting in rows of desks having orders barked at them.

Yet remarkably they all learned to do it. They were able to pinpoint with breathtaking accuracy such things as Soviet missile bases in the depths of Siberia disguised as forest huts. I think they could even locate given individuals in any part of the world.

I'm not sure what this tells us.
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Mick Harper
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It's my understanding that remote viewing went the way of all paranormal discoveries:

1. A wacky theory is proposed
2. It gets taken up by some bunch of weirdo's with access to funding (eg US army)
3. Fantastic results are achieved while the original enthusiasts are present.
4. Results start dropping off as practical applications are set in train.
5. "Scientific" observers are sent in to investigate.
6. Results now described as "no better than chance".
7. Programme is discontinued.
8. Phenomenon disappears from official literature
9. Continues as spectral belief among gullible people.
10. It is magisterially dismissed on the widely admired Questgroup website.
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Rebecca


In: USA
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Since you ask, I don't believe in ghosts. I don't believe in flying saucers, God, a conspiracy to kill Kennedy or anything else that at least two-thirds of Americans fervently believe in.

The nearest I can get to answering this question is to ask people whose intellect I trust and who have had such an experience, how they answered the question
.

Oh dear, this does rather present a problem. My intellect must be severely in doubt since I live in America. I haven't read on this site any such sweeping generalisations about other nationalities. Then we come to the problem of trusting other's opinions. Is my intellect enough since I have been invited to be a member or do I have to prove it in some other way?

Let me see, yes one very strange incident that was not in my usual experience that certainly gave me a healthy respect for ghosts/paranormal and one convincing experience of someone who sees auras. Any one else with experience and the appropriate intellectual credentials?
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Ray



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Ah, so that's what happened to them. I did wonder.

As to other out-of-the-ordinary phenomena; I can only speak for myself here, but I've found that that the most remarkable thing about them is their lack of significance. They happen randomly and for no apparent reason.
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Ishmael


In: Toronto
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Mick Harper wrote:
The question then would be whether my intellect would be able to convince me that I had experienced a brain malfunction or whether my brain would be able to convince me that I had experienced a real event.

I am actually in a position to answer this question personally.

You see...I actually saw a "little green man" -- a goblin I would call him rather than the now popular "space alien." When I was about 12 years old, I woke up to see him standing at the foot of my bed -- as real as you or me. I screamed and I watched him literally run from my room.

But there was something odd about the experience. Odd not that I was seeing goblins but odd because I did not panic after seeing goblins. One would expect that seeing a goblin in one's room might cause one to marvel at the strangeness of the universe. One would expect to be thrown into some sort of psychic shock that such things could exist.

But I seemed to take it more or less in my stride. And despite the fact that I did in fact search the entire house to see if that goblin might still be out there hiding, there was something about my actions that seemed insincere. As I watched myself, I felt I was merely going through the motions of looking.

It was this failure to respond to the incident as would a rational human being after seeing a real live goblin that convinced me almost immediately that the entire thing had to have been some sort of waking dream. A hallucination.

And there is in fact a real psychological phenomenon we speak of in Newfoundland that probably explains my experience -- as well as most alien abduction experiences and many "hauntings." We Newfoundanders call it, "Old Hag."

"Old Hag" has three symptoms. They can be experienced in isolation or in combination. The first symptom is paralysis. You wake from sleeping but your body is frozen. You cannot move a muscle. The second symptom is a sense of "presence." You feel that someone is there in the room with you but you can't see them and you may not have any idea who they are.

The third symptom is hallucination. You actually see a being in the room with you. In Newfoundland, this being is usually represented as an old woman -- hence the name, "Old Hag." But people can see all manner of things -- not just an old woman. My goblin was likely a manifestation of the third symptom of Old Hag in isolation from the other two symptoms.

I have also experienced the other two symptoms without the third -- and trust me -- even when you know what's going on, it is one scary experience to be lying in bed conscious but frozen! Very scary.

Many people today have lost touch with these old-wives-tale traditions like "Old Hag." When something like that happens to them, they have no context in which to place it. They can't understand it. They reach for rational explanaitions and conclude that their experience had some element of reality -- a reality that includes spirits or space aliens.

Now...I am not implying that all ghost stories are manifestations of "Old Hag" -- but clearly, some are -- and I've always thought it odd that a large number of alien abductions seem to involve people being taken from their beds.
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Mick Harper
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There was something about my actions that seemed insincere. As I watched myself, I felt I was merely going through the motions of looking.

This seems to be the key to the phenomenon. My own nearest approximation was when, during a bad acid trip, some trees that I had to get through to get into the house, turned into triffids.

I was able to summon up enough courage to walk straight through them on the basis that they were probably a hallucination caused by the trip I knew I was on.

Now to this day I regard that as the most courageous thing I haver done in my life (even though I understand that the sense of courage was itself drug-induced). Nevertheless the whole thing is somehow an event-within-an-event. But not a dream since there are real people and places involved i.e. I was there, the trees and the house were there, only the triffids have now reverted to their passive state, waiting... always waiting.

Ish is correct to point out that it is the reaction afterwards that alerts us to the essential unreality of the experience. People do not ring the police after finding an alien in their bedroom, though they might devote the rest of their lives to Ufology.
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Bronwyn



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Ishmael wrote:
"Old Hag" has three symptoms. They can be experienced in isolation or in combination. The first symptom is paralysis. You wake from sleeping but your body is frozen. You cannot move a muscle.
.....
I have also experienced the other two symptoms without the third -- and trust me -- even when you know what's going on, it is one scary experience to be lying in bed conscious but frozen! Very scary
.

Now, this I can relate to. I have had the most unpleasant experience of waking up paralyzed and it scared the crap [almost literally] out of me. I'm going through sleep analysis and the "scientific" explanation I've been told is:

REM sleep causes the brain to inhibit body movement. If the brain did not do this, we would physically move along with our dreams. Sleep Apnea can cause the body to awaken seconds prior to the brain disengaging from REM mode. The result is the apparent paralysis of the extremities for a few scary momments.

Is this possible? Or is an "Old Hag" holding me down?
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Oakey Dokey



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Bronwyn wrote:
Now, this I can relate to. I have had the most unpleasant experience of waking up paralyzed and it scared the crap [almost literally] out of me. I'm going through sleep analysis and the "scientific" explanation I've been told is:

REM sleep causes the brain to inhibit body movement. If the brain did not do this, we would physically move along with our dreams. Sleep Apnea can cause the body to awaken seconds prior to the brain disengaging from REM mode. The result is the apparent paralysis of the extremeties for a few scary momments.

Is this possible? Or is an "Old Hag" holding me down
?

You're talking about the literal interpretation of 'nightmare'?

Yes your body 'switches' off muscle control to most of your conscious brain during sleep and this is what causes the paralysis on awakening. It's very common and most people experience it during their lives. My problem is I refuse to move and lack the motivation at 6 in the morning.
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Ishmael


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Bronwyn wrote:
Is this possible? Or is an "Old Hag" holding me down?

Of course, the answer is both. The scientists just have a more complicated "name" for the thing. Once a phenomenon has a name, we call it "understood."
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