I
preach a sermon to myself
As an
Anglican clergyman I have often been tempted to see people through
the eyes of my particular philosophy and theology, through the
picture of things that I share with like-minded friends. And here I
am at it again, being an editor of a journal, and strongly putting
forward a point of view. So I often find myself giving myself a good
talking to, preaching somewhat as follows: Would it not be true to
say, that the True Church is the Universe, that we are conscious
participants in it, experiencing it from a multitude of points of
view? That each point of view is fragmentary? What about these
quotes from David Bohm's Wholeness and the implicate order:
“wholeness
is what is real, and ... fragmentation is the response of the whole
to man’s action, guided by illusory perception, which is
shaped by fragmentary thought.” Those “who are guided
by such a fragmentary self-world view cannot, in the long run, do
other than to try in their actions to break themselves and the world
into pieces, corresponding to their general mode of thinking”.
“This can be seen especially clearly in terms of groupings of
people in society (political, economic, religious, etc.). The very
act of forming such a group tends to create a sense of division and
separation of the members from the rest of the world, but, because
the members are really connected with the whole, this cannot work.
Each member has in fact a somewhat different connection, and sooner
or later this shows itself as a 
difference between him and other
members of the group.” [Read a fuller version of these quotes
in Nate Cull's contribution below.]
Of course
I agree with Bohm.. but what am I to do? Materialism has split our
culture's universe into material and spiritual, and then denied the
spiritual. Spiritually minded thinkers cry “Murder!” and
hotly present the case for the reality of the spiritual. Should one
remain silent? Yet the mere affirmation of spirit seems to confirm
the split. A materialistic understanding of human consciousness is
refuted, we consider, in Irreducible Mind. Do springs of
inspiration and love then gush forth? In a group we exchange
theories about the nature of things, while one or more of us are
deadly afraid of what would happen if they surrendered to Spirit,
the Unknown, and another seems to be seeking to control the universe
through use of logic while at the same time refusing to examine the
premisses from which the logic proceeds. We take refuge in appealing
to authorities and to gurus. But one person's guru is another's
poison. To retreat into silent meditation provides no remedy, for
our prejudices and preconceptions remain, and our hostility to the
mind-maps of others remains unabated.
We seem condemned to live in a fractured world. Yet “peak
experiences”, deep meditation, prayer, and those times that we
are in loving relationships with others, are times when we are most
lifted out of our fractured selves. It must always be good, when we
gladly and with empathy hear the stories and thoughts of others. It
must be helpful when our internal juries weigh the testimonies of
others, yet without coming to final judgement about the rights and
wrongs of what we hear. I find it helpful to think of the present
moment, each succeeding present moment, as gifts from God (however
we conceive that term). And when I speak of the present moment, I
truly mean any present moment, war or peace, work or family,
science or the arts, the ecologically threatened world, together
with the human race, or alone for a while by myself, I see the One,
the Whole, God, or Christ as being in dialogue with myself: the
present moment is what is being said to me. How I respond to that
eternal Thou addressing me, is then the issue at hand. Salvation,
or enlightenment, comes when we accept and embrace the present
moment, with its delights, its threats, its shames, its pains, as
what is given to us, asking for our response.
Post
a comment
Articles
This article has been revised, March 2008
The TV show, “SENSING
MURDER” - Michael Cocks
Their blurb reads: Presented by Rebecca Gibney, the series follows New Zealand and Australia's
most gifted psychics Sue Nicholson, Kelvin Cruickshank, and Deb
Webber who've impressed audiences with their chilling accuracy. In
Series Two Sensing Murder will continue to deliver compelling and
engaging viewing, honouring the lives of victims, and exploring the
devastating impact on families and loved ones left behind. This
riveting programme works closely with police in their ongoing
investigations and trails our psychic investigators as they go on
unpredictable journey's filled with drama and intrigue, connecting
with the spirits and unravelling the secrets behind their murders.”
Reality
TV's description of several of the Sensing Murder Programmes, the
defence of their genuineness by their director, and by Criminal
Psychologist Nigel Latta can be read here
<sensing.htm>
In case you haven't seen this TV
series, two or three especially gifted Australian and New Zealand
psychics are not told in advance of the town to which they are going
to be flown. On arrival they are told that they are to investigate a
previously unsolved murder, and are given a photo of the victim,
which they may or may not begin by looking at. The producers of the
programme assert that no information other than the photo is given
to the psychics. They are continuously filmed throughout the day,
and when they correctly sense some detail of the case as being a
fact, this may occasionally be confirmed. They are told nothing
about the case.
A
sceptical site (www.sillybeliefs.com) has analysed the programmes
very closely, and notes that the psychics seem to get help from time to
time, and questions how the 90 minute programme was put together,
when we are told that what is presented is the product of many hours
filming. It is the case that the sceptical site is absolutely certain
that the psychics are phoney, and that the programme is a scam, and
that of course is not the best frame of mind for impartial
investigation. Nevertheless, as it is so important to make a proper
evaluation of such apparently remarkable events, we can commend
their study up to a point. We can note the renactments of murder, the
chilling sound effects, we can discern re-enactment clips, continuity
clips, we may see the psychics entering a house, we don't see the
producers getting agreement from the occupants of the house for the TV
party to enter. The sceptical site discerns times when the psychics are
helped, turned to face the right way, and this may very well have
happened.
What is my opinion? Because I have studied Irreducible Mind,
and much of the research literature to which it refers, because I have
had paranormal experiences that will stand up to the hardest scrutiny,
I do not start from the point of disbelief in the phenomena allegedly
depicted in this show. I know that psychic ability is not a physical
thing that can be switched on and off like radar. It occurs most of all
in times of strong emotion, humour (when our defences are down),
crises, high meaning, deep relationship. I dont believe that it can be
turned on and off like a tap. In my experience, any alleged
psychic will vary widely in their ability to channel, depending on the
situation, and their state of mind. This is why I am not troubled by
the suggestion that they might have had some help.
These and the other events that have
been reported in this journal for several years, cry out to be
recognised by theologians, and the Christian churches: after all
Christianity is based on a belief in an afterlife, in a spiritual
world, in prayer, in healing, in “words of knowledge”,
in prophecy, in an awareness of the spiritual. The basic issue,
surely, is not Creationism versus Darwinism, but whether there is a
spiritual dimension of existence or not. Surely, this is the key
question.
Victor Zammit on Missing Person Tracey Ann Patient
http://www.victorzammit.com/articles/sensingmurdernewzealand.htm I watched this Sensing Murder
episode about the missing young thirteen year old Tracey Ann Patient
very carefully. The presenter, Rebecca Gibney, informed us of the basic
facts. Briefly on the 29th January 1976 Tracey left her girlfriend's
home late at night; she was kidnapped, murdered and her dead body was
found next morning in a bush some sixteen kilometers away from where
she was seen last.
The psychics were to tell us what exactly happened to Tracey Ann Patient more than 30 years after the incident.
The psychics chosen had had to
prove their skills by describing details of an obscure murder from a
photograph. Deb Webber was one of 5 out of 100 Australian psychics who
was able to do this accurately. Sue Nicholson was one of three out of
75 New Zealand psychics who passed the test.
In this case we were informed that only the photo of the victim was given.
No other details of the case were
given. The two chosen psychics never met and were not allowed to talk
to each other during the investigation. The psychics were kept under
constant supervision. The crew only confirmed positive statements they
made. They were filmed non-stop in one day.
What did these two psychics come up with?
According to the information given to the viewers:
1. The two psychics related virtually identical information about the case which is summarized below.
2. The information given by each psychic corresponded one hundred per cent with what was known about the case.
3. ... this is a woman … young woman …
4. … she's thirteen years old …
5. … she loves animals … she had a horse … "I'm sure'.
6. … she liked riding.
7. … she's English …
8. … name is …. Tracey … Ann Tracey …
9. … went missing in 1976 …
10. … it was January … before school started …
11. … she had been with a girlfriend (the night she disappeared) …
12. … took a short cut through a park …
13. … I see a car … light colored car …
14. … car stopped … she's walking towards the car ...
15. … he pushed her into the car …
16. … he put something around her neck …
17. … he's white Caucasian …
18. … he's unshaven …
19. … he's got dirty fingers … grease …
20. … (victim) couldn't breathe …
21. …drove her a fair distance …
22. … *something happened in the car … sexual …
23. … something around her throat … stocking! …
24. … man struggling with her in the car …
25. … car in bushland, he got her out … and dumped her, he walked off.
26. … her body was found the next day …
27. … she's taking me to Henderson Valley area …
28. … found near scenic Drive …
29. … lived in Henderson …
30. … (both psychics
independent of each other) go through a short cut victim went through
on the night of the kidnapping …
31. … (before the kidnapping) she was with a friend …
32. … (Deb correctly pointing the direction Tracey went that night) …
33. … area of home in Dellwood Avenue …
34. … stocking went around her neck straightaway -that's why no one heard Tracey screaming.
35. … (being driven towards
the area where Tracey was found, psychic directs the television crew
driver when to turn right …correct) …
36. … Deb walks out of the
car towards the bush and points specifically where Tracey was found
… (Waitaken Range is 17 hectares wide) …
37. … Kidnapper lives locally …
38. … he moved away … went North …
39. … he's got two children
… is separated … and his name is …… (Deb
Webber gives the kidnapper's full name)…
40. … piece of jewelry missing …
41. … it's a ring …
42. … there's an engraving on the ring …
43. … she left it in the car …
44. … this man works in heavy machinery ...
45. . .. her parents went back to England …
Rebecca Gibney informs us that the
information related by the psychics was stunningly accurate – Deb
Webber actually naming the killer. The police were able to trace the
suspect who is now working as a mechanic. He lives in Northern
Henderson as both Deb Webber and Sue Nicholson stated.
The record shows that there is no
evidence that the production company tried to cheat and mislead the
public or to act fraudulently. Nor was there evidence that the psychics
cheated or were into conspiracy with anyone or acted fraudulently.
The film crew, those who assisted
in the production and the presenter herself related absolutely no
critical information to the psychics and did not act fraudulently in
anyway whatsoever. Nothing illegal or unethical or unfair was
done.
Having read this, we can look at the sceptical website: http://www.sillybeliefs.com/murder-3.html
and see whether should see what
we have just read in a different light. There is a huge amount to
read. There is merit in some of the observations there, and the
general tendency is to demonstrate that the participants "could have"
cheated. The problem with this line of thought, is that until the facts
are known, almost anything at all "could have" happened. The psychic
"could have" forged a cheque, gone to the shops: but in the absence of
facts, we are only left with suspicions from which they cannot defend
ourselves.
I
discussed this in an email with John L. Ateo, one of the
producers of this website, and he was kind enough to forward what a
producer of "Sensing Murder" had written in an email:
In it the producer wrote,
“It is .. the case that psychics often concur ... with police
records. However, psychics do not and cannot gain access to police
files - therefore they can't cheat. The production crew rarely get
access to police files - another fact. Only by contacting the police
after a filmed reading will the police confirm or deny questions we
put to them. These questions are composed from our analysis of the
filmed readings and at this point our investigators (former police
officers) make enquiries with investigating police to check the
relevance and quality of content. Neither we nor the psychics have
access to police files. In the George Engelbrecht case, when the
psychic's findings were presented to police, the former 2IC on the
case admitted that the psychics had come up with detailed
information held in the police files that had never been made
public. Superintendent Paul Nickalls (who appeared on the Insight
programme to congratulate psychic Kelvin Cruickshank) confirmed that
the psychics correctly stated information about the weapons; the
offender's shoe-print; the location of the victim's body; where the
offender's footprints went in the house; as well as crucial details
about a suspect that was originally discounted, but is now being
actively re-investigated as a result of the psychic's conclusions,
with police hopeful of a breakthrough. Superintendent Paul Nickalls
said this information was closely guarded by top-ranking police, was
never made public, or leaked to the media, and there is no way the
psychics can have obtained it. ...”
Later,
the producer describes his own beliefs about what is happening, in
this TV series:
|
“I'm the
biggest sceptic of all. I directed 8 out of the 16 Sensing
Murder shows and was also one of the two associate producers. I
am not sure if I believe the psychics communicate with the dead.
I am more inclined to believe they have some kind of gift or
savant inclination that enables them to see things or tune into
passed events. I believe, in fact I know, the crew and
production team don't cheat, and do not pass on information.
[Elsewhere in his email, the director notes that camera crews
are hired at short  notice at the time of production, and have no
other involvement in what is going on.] Nigel Latta ([a
psychologist] whose expertise in profiling criminals and liars
is indisputable) does not believe the psychics have studied up
and retained information about every unsolved case in New
Zealand . He was confident he could ascertain through the
psychic's body language whether they were recounting previously
learned facts.
"I do not have Nigel's expertise in detecting body
language - what I do have is a lot of experience interacting
with the psychics. And based on my experience, I do not believe
they cheat. They have no networks around them to help research;
the psychics appearing on the programme have had or still have
learning difficulties and in no way could be described as
intellectuals. They are spontaneous, almost child-like people
who do heartily believe in what they are doing. I have filmed
hours and hours of readings and have been astounded at what has
occurred. We as programme makers insist that we totally control
the conditions in which the psychics do their readings as far as
is humanly possible. Yes, we made errors in continuity when it
came to editing, but I categorically refute that the team
cheated. The one thing I can't get my head around from your
point of view is: if they do cheat - how do they get access to
police files? Even we as hardened media professionals have not
been able to gain access to police files.”
The following link gives New Zealand
Reality TV's own rebuttal of the sceptics, together with
their summaries of the evidence produced by the psychics in each of the
episodes. I also give the text of psychologist Nigel Latta's
assessment of the integrity of one of the productions. sensing.htm
A sting operation catches Deb Webber:
A recent NZTV
TWO “Eating Media Lunch” programme entitled “Sensing
Bullshit” shows a sting operation by skeptics, where a
single woman consults Deb, claiming to have had a dead husband.
Deb duly communicates with the “dead husband” and
also provides information about a non-existent dog. Skeptic Bob Bruce
says that “those who flock to Deb are easy targets.. for
this scam” and feels that her behaviour is most immoral.
View the YouTube clip here.
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2zSRAjjjE8&NR=1>
This second clip can also be viewed. It overlaps in
content with the first. View
here.
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLI1zjrSoPk&eurl=http://www.throng.co.nz/sensing-murder
>A
sample trailer for “Sensing Murder”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1rgTisjtjg
What can we say?:
Let's agree
that the sting operation shows Deb giving information about a
non-existent husband. It looks bad for Deb. But what can
we know reasonably for certain about what is going on in Sensing
Murder? We can know
1. that when Deb is lied to, as in
the sting operation, she comes up with apparently imaginary
data. This either happens because she is making it up, or
because as Deb said, all she can do as a psychic is to report
what comes to mind. From that video clip the most that we can be
sure of, is that Deb can be misled by what comes to mind, and
therefore with Deb we should be cautious in taking everything
she says as gospel.
2. On TV Deb is seen imparting numerous
pieces of information, found only in police files. Should we not
accept the director's question, “if they do cheat - how do
they get access to police files? Even we as hardened media
professionals have not been able to gain access to police
files.” Remember that it is stated that all the information she is given is
a picture of the victim, upside down on a table.
3. If one can't get
access to confidential police files, then if the two psychics
independently come up with considerable nearly identical material
confirming each other and material in police files, if we cannot
reasonably demonstrate fraud on the part of the police, or the
director, then the psychics are likely to be genuine.
4. Skeptics point to limited success as if it were
proof that Deb and fellow psychic Kelvin Cruikshank were somehow
frauds. But success is success.
5. The YouTube clip
shows Deb, when lied to, reporting intuitions that seemingly have no
basis at all in reality. We need to remember however, that what
psychics do is report what comes to mind. Sometimes what they say
corresponds with some reality, and sometimes it doesn't. The less
nonsense, and the more stuff squaring with reality in some way, the
better the psychic.
6. In response to my email, John L. Ateo replied, “We don't accuse Latta of
cheating because we have no evidence of such and I believe he is
probably just naïve. The director is a different story. The
production team definitely cheated to enhance the psychics'
skills, but whether the basic info was obtained through true
psychic powers, outright cheating or naivety on the part of the
production team can't be determined without more information.
(Blatant cheating by the production team is far more obvious in
the other two episodes we analysed than in the Insight episode).
While I personally believe the director is not as gullible as he
makes out, all we can do is point out where there is actual
evidence of cheating and let the reader make up their own mind.
We don't want to be accused of making claims we can't
substantiate.”
Comment: “Latta... just
naive”
ie. The title of Ateo's website, “SillyBeliefs” suggests
that Ateo has an entrenched belief that the psychics are frauds.
In his analysis of the programme in which Latta reported, John
Ateo believes he detects instances of the psychics being helped. In an
email to me Ateo wrote, “Outright cheating or naivety can't
be determined without more information” i.e. Ateo
gives his game away. In this programme he has no actual hard
evidence that there was cheating.
“The director
is not as gullible as he makes out” ie. What can Ateo
be hinting at? That Geoff Husson, Director & Associate
Producer of Sensing Murder knows that the psychics are
cheats, and is therefore perpetrating a scam on the public? Or
is he hinting that Husson is in cahoots with the police, gaining
confidential information from them, and then feeding the
information to the psychics? Does Ateo not accept that the
police information was confidential, and not available to
journalists or to the public? In what way does Ateo consider
that Husson is lying?
“Blatant cheating by
the production team is far more obvious in the other two
episodes we analysed than in the Insight episode”
In view of the lack of hard evidence for the implied accusations
levelled at the psychics and Geoff Husson in the present episode
being discussed, it is possible that perceptions of “blatant
cheating” in another episode may be equally unsoundly
based. But in any case these considerations are not relevant here. Because
the issue is whether or not the psychics independently supported
each other in producing information that could only be confirmed
from police records not available to journalists or the public,
and whether they did it in this instance. Whatever their
possible sins on other occasions, the question is whether or not
in this present instance the psychics correctly
independently sense numerous details of a murder, which could
only be confirmed from confidential files. Do we trust the
testimony of the police to the correctness of what they sensed?
Do we trust the testimony of the Director? Do we trust the
testimony of the relatives and friends of the murder victim?
There
can be no doubt that there is much that is phony and much that is scam,
in psychic research but also in any research where scientists are
depending on funding for their livelihood. Human beings cannot always
be relied on for integrity. So there is need for some organisation like
the Skeptics.
|
“Houdini knocks their socks off”
Those who have been following Victor
Zammit's “A lawyer presents the case for the afterlife”
may have read about regular materialisation séances
in Sydney. In one of these a month or two back, Houdini
materialised, and promised that in the near future he would do
something that would “knock their socks off”. He would
take something to do with Houdini memorabilia in the USA, and
materialise it in another country. In October this year, he did just
that. In a sėance in the
UK, he asked an American to step forward from the circle, with two
companions. The American held a dish, and the materialised Houdini
dropped this commemorative coin into it.
“Harry
Houdini – Ehrich Weiss” “Houdini – The great
escapist”
It
is not yet known where this coin came from. Enquiries are still
being made. The coin can be compared with another coin [illustrated
below] whose origin is known. Note the different treatment of
the hair. You can read fuller details at
http://www.silvercordcircle.com/newsletters/tour_review.pdf
Our
boggle threshold may be challenged, but if we investigate from
Victor Zammit's site, we may be persuaded to accept the possibility
of its reality.
Www.victorzammit.com
Different Kinds of Fundamentalism
“The Most Holy Family
Monastery” is a small ultraconservative rebel-Catholic group, not
particularly stressing love of God and neighbour. What they dislike in
the present Pope, may be cause for hope for a more united world. They
are shocked by pictures of the Pope. praying in turn with
Moslems, Jews, an Orthodox bishop and a Lutheran woman pastor.
Look through the pdf and see what else they are shocked at, and get an
insight from this negative quarter into how the Catholic church
is in fact becoming less rigid, and recognise the work of Spirit in the
world in general.
Post
a comment
Rustum
Roy: Scientific Fundamentalism the Most Dangerous
http://www.rustumroy.com/Scans/299.pdf
Every major religion has within its followers a
segment of dogmatically committed fundamentalists, supported
by a distorted interpretation of its theology. Fundamentalists
affirm that only their beliefs - often coded in a written text
rather than oral traditions - are true. On a small planet with an
ineluctably polymorphous cast, now forced by technological
developments to interact with each other, all fundamentalisms are
dangerous, and the more powerful, the more dangerous.
Science-and-technology is the most powerful force under human
control; hence, scientific fundamentalism is the most dangerous.
Video:
multiple videos on science and religion
THE SCIENCE OF ETERNITY
In
twelve parts. Well worth exploring.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yr-xBTipxos&mode=related&search=
Interview
with Deepak Chopra: Afterlife
View
video
http://video.google.com.au/videoplay?docid=-4821764861935482335&q=life+after+death&total=3917&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=4
He has published a book Life after death. He believes that
all fear is the fear of death in disguise. It is very different in
India where Life and Death are punctuation points in the eternal
drama of life. At the time he was cremating his father, children
were flying a kite in the draught from the funeral fire and there
was a wedding being celebrated nearby, thus we have joy, sorrow,
mystery together. He was raised in a Catholic school, but had
Moslem friends, Parsee and Hindu friends, with them all having a
concept of an after life. The picture of Paradise is held in common
between religions. All religions have a concept of reward and
punishment.
Chopra discusses other matters: the Hindu concept of Karma; Who is the Person? Soul is
not a thing but a process including relationships; it has no location; it
expresses itself in a personal embodiment; it becomes part of the
matrix of the memory field of the universe.
There are other interviews of Chopra to be discovered at this site.
Alan Steinfeld and others, being the interviewers.
Post
a comment
ARTICLES and COMMENTS from READERS
Dr Elizabeth Keane (Brisbane Austr.)
My experience with the pendulum
I had a great experience yesterday.
Last week a wire screen door had sprung shut on my hand. Luckily, I
suppose, it hit my ring and not my finger. Otherwise it could have
really injured it. However when I looked down the sapphire at the
centre of the ring had gone. We searched high and low outside the
door and inside. It had just disappeared. The door opened onto tiles
and the pool so there was nowhere for it to be. On Friday I went to
the library and noticed a book on dowsing and pendulums - picked it
up and browsed it that night. It talked about finding lost objects
with a pendulum. On Saturday morning, five days later I tried it. I
walked around the tiles asking Is it here? and getting a 'no'.
Finally I held it over the pool and got a 'yes.' Then I tried the
steps into the pool. A no and then a yes!! I bent over and peered
into the water - the sapphire was sitting on the blue fibre glass on
the second step, just a tiny blue crystal but I could actually see
it under the water. I was overjoyed. It was amazing. So that is my
good story for the week.
I am not sure what it tells about
Christ. My prayer right now and for the last few months has been
"Let that mind be in me which was in Christ Jesus'.
[Philippians 2.5] I don't necessarily think that is relevant - but
how would I know? I do wonder if a spiritual guide is around
listening and helping. The writer of the book I picked up refers to
our own intuition and a larger consciousness as a source of the
information. It is still a mystery to me. [Email: 24 September
2007]
Elizabeth was awarded a PhD from
the University of Western Sydney for her dissertation on
Communications from the Dead, in 2006
Rev. Ian Crumpton, Presbyterian Minister, New Zealand
Hearing voices on the margins
Hi Michael,
You raise in your editorial a question which runs deep in our culture.
In education for example, are we producing well rounded men and women,
or people with abrasive edges? Critics of society, or adjusters to it?
We need a degree of both, of course.
I recently saw the film "Amazing Grace", tracing the work of William
Wilberforce in the movement to abolish the slave trade. The film - not
to be missed - showed how, in time of war, all liberalising movements
and trends get stopped in their tracks. Funding strictures in our
universities have had a similar effect: those departments offering job
tickets in the commercial world attract private sponsorship and
business contracts. Students flock to them. These include economics,
business studies, accountancy, and the like. Those offering real
education, teaching people to think - classics, philosophy, history,
literary studies - become the pariahs of academia.
In religion we see the fragmentation of institutional structures - part
of a broad trend throughout the West. Shrinking denominations cling to
their traditions, as you say, fearfully. But Sister Wendy Beckett
remarked, "Christianity is renewing itself from those who have fled to
the margins." That is where we see the creative spiritual insights.
Grounding faith in a contemporary world view, while at the same time
challenging that world view, opening people to new dimensions of
reality. It's always been like that. Jesus did it in his context. So
did Guatama
Buddha. Martin Luther (another good film) was able to do it by virtue
of his location on the margins of Christendom, where he enjoyed
two blessings: the protection of a bunch of independent minded German
princes who resented paying taxes to Rome, and the invention of
printing. There are plenty of blinkered conformists in our time. Faith
calls us to a new open-ness - to other ways of knowing, other ways of
being. Those that dominate at present have produced a dangerously
unstable materialistic culture. If faith is of the fearful,
conservative kind, it is a major part of the problem. We need to listen
to the voices from the
margins.
- Ian Crumpton
Norman Kjome (USA)
submits this website on
<http://rhowey.googlepages.com/recollectionsofo.k.bouwsma>
[A
student said,] "I am a solipsist!" Bouwsma paused
and looked at her and then asked: Miss C., do you have a
telephone?" Miss C. replied: "Yes." "What
color is it?" Bouwsma asked. "Red," replied
Miss C. Bouwsma looked at the class and said, while quietly
chuckling, "Imagine that! A solipsist with a red telephone and
no one to talk to!"
Post
a comment
Read
The Ground of
Faith BLOGSPOT for further
reader contributions.
The Western Creed: A belief
exercise
Prof. Charles Tart
I BELIEVE – in the material universe – as the only and
ultimate reality – a universe controlled by fixed physical
laws – and blind chance.
I AFFIRM – that the universe has no creator – no
objective purpose – and no objective meaning or destiny.
I MAINTAIN – that all ideas about God or gods –
enlightened beings – prophets or saviours – or other
non-physical beings or forces – are superstitions and
delusions. Life and consciousness are totally identical to physical
processes – and arose from chance interactions of blind
physical forces. Like the rest of life – my life – and
my consciousness – have no objective purpose – meaning –
or destiny.
I BELIEVE – that all judgements, values, moralities –
whether my own or others – are subjective – arising
solely from biological determinants – personal history –
and chance. - Free will is an illusion. - Therefore the most
rational values I can personally live by must be based on the
knowledge that for me – what pleases me is Good – what
pains me is Bad – Those who please me or help me avoid pain
are my friends – those who pain me or keep me from my pleasure
are my enemies. - Rationality requires that friends and enemies be
used in ways that maximize my pleasure – and minimize my pain.
I AFFIRM - that churches have no real use other than social support
– that there are no objective sins to commit or be forgiven
for – that there is no divine or supernatural retribution for
sin or reward for virtues – although there may be social
consequences of actions. Virtue for me is getting what I want –
without being caught or punished by others.
I MAINTAIN – that the death of the body – is the death
of the mind – There is no afterlife – and all hope of
such is nonsense.
Please
note that the Western Creed does not reflect the actual beliefs of
the author, or his scientific opinion about the nature of reality.
It is a parody of genuine religious creeds, created in order to
illustrate the degree to which a distorted form of science,
'scientism' has affected our Western beliefs and values. By
experimentally believing this creed and reciting it aloud,
preferably with a group of friends, and then discussing how it makes
you feel and what it reveals about your deeper beliefs, much can be
learned.
[From
“Network” December 1993. No. 53]
Book Review
[This
book] is another interesting little piece in the puzzle of
religion, spirituality and the paranormal.
Sheldrake has become infamous for
his theory of ‘morphic resonance’ - which I’m
not too invested in either way or the other - but what I find
particularly interesting about his work is that in investigating
paranormal phenomena (particularly telepathy-like occurrences) he
does not focus only on humans, but also on animals. If his
findings are to be believed (and I see no reason why they
shouldn’t be, if you believe any of this stuff) then
animals are at least as good as, and in many cases better than,
humans at second sight or sixth sense. And that certainly fits
with the pop mythology. It’s a cliche in ghost stories that
‘the cat/dog reacted strangely’. Oscar
the hospice cat is a current example. This raises interesting
questions about the nature of consciousness and the soul: like
intelligence (or potentially sentience), it doesn’t appear
to have a hard cut-off point between species, if dogs are able to
tell at a distance when their owner is planning to come home. An
African Grey parrot featured in the book is apparently able to
read its owner’s mind.
(This opens all sorts of
weird-science ideas to me. Could we use African Grey parrots in
space missions, using telepathic instructions? If a parrot is
able to access the psi dimension, which presumably means it has a
soul, then what about a planaria, or an e. coli? If we either a)
get enough computing power to simulate an organism at the atomic
level, or b) develop a teleportation
technology (remember, we can already destructively ‘teleport’
whole atoms, preserving quantum state) and get to the point where
we can teleport living things, and then want to determine ‘does
the process of simulation/teleportation destroy the soul’ -
well then, don’t bother waiting until you can send through
a human or even a great ape - just run a psi-attuned African Grey
through! And see if it behaves the same afterwards.)
One of Sheldrake’s
experiments involves the power of gaze: he believes that humans
and animals have the ability to somehow detect when they are
being looked at intently (or rather, I expect, that it is about
the detection of the intention itself - the idea that
the universe is constructed primarily of intentions rather than
objects recurs a lot in the mystics and in the Gospels - the
parable of the Widow’s Mite, for example). I personally
have never noticed that I have any particular ability to attract
the attention of people by either looking at them or
concentrating on them. In fact I feel like I’m
spectacularly under-endowed in that department. But the idea is
intriguing and it would be easy to run the fairly simple
experiments he describes.
Sheldrake also has a fairly
weird-sounding take on how human (and animal) vision works; he
feels that (in accordance with ancient belief) it involves the
eye sending out ‘rays’ to the subject,
rather than the processing of incoming photons. This makes
absolutely no physical sense, but it does have a certain kind of
logic if you view the universe as a computational or simulation
system, where the value of a quantity is not calculated until
there is a request for it: in fact, this is exactly how the CGI
methodology of ‘ray tracing’ works. I am not sure if
this is precisely how Sheldrake is arguing, but I can see how (if
attention is a real thing, at an underlying ’spiritual’
layer to the universe) focusing one’s mind on a distant
object - by means of ‘paying attention’ to the signal
path of a physical receptor - could send some kind of underlying
‘probe’ back up the line of sight to the object being
studied. So even ‘passive’ sensors could leave an
‘active’ trace on the universe at a subliminal level.
Which is a pretty freaky thing when you think about it. It’s
the sort of weird aliveness we take for granted in computing -
that merely by interrogating an object you can alert it of your
presence - but we moderns tend to live under the reassuring
assumption that the outside, physical universe is ‘dead’
and doesn’t notice when we pay attention to it, until we
start bringing out the sharp sticks to stand well back and poke
it with.
This 'deadness' is of
course what religion has always argued strongly against -
religion is all about the universe being alive, and is why the
existence of religion seems so weird and unnatural to the modern
mind - but intellectually subscribing to that idea is one thing.
Becoming terrifyingly aware that everything you do, in fact
every thought you think generates real and literal
interactions with the cosmos - not limited in any way by any of
the usual physical quantities like space, time, energy or matter
- is something else. What does that awareness do to science? If
our very breath, less than a breath, stirs worlds - how can we
move, how can we possibly have any space to exist as separate
beings? Science is all about making sure our sticks are
sufficiently sharp and sufficiently long and then poking at will
- if it turns out that you can’t make a stick long
enough to isolate you from karma, how can we move without
hurting ourselves?
Or put a little more bluntly: If
we can’t vivisect a cat without scarring our soul, how do
we develop new eco-friendly detergents to replace the ones that
kill fish?
(The answer would seem to be:
we’re not separate beings and it is impossible for us to
be. And that an acceptance of deep interaction, wired-in at the
lowest levels of physics and sub-meta-physics, does us no harm.
And that we have to accept somehow that there exists something
more than karma, more than cause-and-effect blowback:
forgiveness, release, repentance, centering, whatever it is that
allows us to somehow realign ourselves with the True World. And
that somehow there are two kinds of science, knowledge of the
outer world, and knowledge of our inner selves, and our greatest
ignorance seems to lie in the second.)
Click
http://natecull.org/wordpress/2007/09/23/the-sense-of-being-stared-at/
to
read this as presented in Nate's Blog, and read the interesting
discussion which follows.
Nate Cull
I’m
reading David
Bohm’s Wholeness
and the Implicate Order and it’s interesting the very
strong parallels between his thought and the ideas in A Course In
Miracles (and in Mary Baker Eddy). He is very concerned with
fragmentation versus unity - ACIM is concerned with
separation versus unity (and goes so far as to identify
this with the Christian doctrine of sin).
Some quotations from the first
chapter:
It is instructive to
consider that the word ‘health’ in English is based
on an Anglo-Saxon word ‘hale’ meaning ‘whole’:
that is to say, to be healthy is to be whole, which is, I think,
roughly the equivalent of the Hebrew ’shalom’.
Likewise, the English root ‘holy’ is based on the
same root as ‘whole’. All of this indicates that man
has sensed always that wholeness or integrity is an absolute
necessity to make life worth living. Yet, over the ages, he has
generally lived in fragmentation.
It is important to give some emphasis to this point. For
example, some might say: ‘Fragmentation of cities,
religions, political systems, conflict in the form of wars,
general violence, fratricide, etc. are the reality. Wholeness is
only an ideal, toward which we should perhaps strive.’ But
this is not what is being said here. Rather, what should be said
is that wholeness is what is real, and that fragmentation is the
response of the whole to man’s action., guided by illusory
perception, which is shaped by fragmentary thought. In other
words, it is just because reality is whole that man, with his
fragmentary approach, will inevitably be answered with a
correspondingly fragmentary response. So what is needed is for
man to give attention to his habit of fragmentary thought, to be
aware of it, and thus bring it to an end. Man’s approach to
reality then may be whole, and so the whole response will be
whole.
…
As has been indicated,
however, men who are guided by such a fragmentary self-world view
cannot, in the long run, do other than to try in their actions to
break themselves and the world into pieces, corresponding to
their general mode of thinking. Since, in the first instance,
fragmentation is an attempt to extend the analysis of the world
into separate parts beyond the domain in which to do this is
appropriate, it is in effect an attempt to divide what is really
indivisible. In the next step such an attempt will lead us also
to attempt to unite what is not really unitable. This can be seen
especially clearly in terms of groupings of people in society
(political, economic, religious, etc.). The very act of forming
such a group tends to create a sense of division and separation
of the members from the rest of the world, but, because the
members are really connected with the whole, this cannot work.
Each member has in fact a somewhat different connection, and
sooner or later this shows itself as a difference between him and
other members of the group. Whenever men divide themselves from
the whole of society and attempt to unite by identification
within a group, it is clear that the group must eventually
develop internal strife, which leads to a breakdown of its
unity…
…
So fragmentation is in essence a
confusion around the question of difference and sameness (or
one-ness), but the clear perception of these categories is
necessary in every phase of life. To be confused about what
is different and what is not, is to be confused about everything.
I’d love to drop in some
corresponding quotations from ACIM and Science & Health to point
out the parallels, but don’t have time right now. Suffice
to say that the ideas which leap out at me here are ‘the
world is really one, but at a level beyond what we can sense’,
‘illusory perception of fragmentation’ being
(probably) the same thing as ’sin’, and very
strongly, the idea that there is only really one choice
or classification to be made in this world: between things that
are different and things that are the same, and we can’t
easily see this at all (possibly not at all without external
help, which, however, is readily available as soon as we relax
and look away from our immediate surroundings).
Post
a comment
Read the whole series
of reviews
Experience
Shared Near-Death Experience
See
http://www.near-death.com/experiences/evidence09.html
In
the Summer, 1996, edition of the Journal of Possible Paradigms,
Issue 4, an unusual shared NDE is described by a woman named Susanna
Uballe. Here she describes what happened:
"The
experience of co-experiencing death is, I feel, much like a NDE. I
did not have a near death experience, but did travel part way up the
tunnel with my husband as he left this dimension.
"On
Memorial day (observed), May 27, 1979, I was five months pregnant
with my son, Christopher. My husband and I rode bicycles and ran
errands around town, and it was a very hot day for Minneapolis. I
lay down after dinner and was so exhausted that I could barely move.
As my husband went to the corner store about 8:00 to buy something
for his lunch the next day, I fell into a very deep sleep.
"I
dreamt that I was walking with my husband, Herb, up a dark and shady
forest path. It was a heavily wooded path, which was enclosed by a
thick canopy of trees overhead. The path was slightly inclined, and
at the crest of a hill I saw the sky, somewhat like the light at the
end of a tunnel. Herb and I had been in deep conversation, about
what I could not tell, but I suppose we were reminiscing about our
relationship. I felt our very closeness and felt totally in love.
"He
began to tell me about what it was like to die; at first filled with
rage, pain, and frustration, and upset that the clerk didn't seem to
understand his pleas to call an ambulance, that he had been stabbed
in the heart and needed help. He said that after a short while,
which felt interminable while he was experiencing it, he left his
body and floated above it and saw the body below him, and felt
detached from it, like it was just a body. He was filled with peace
and love. And he felt no pain.
"After
telling me this, he then said that he had to go. His feet started to
move very fast, and he began to leave me behind on the path. I told
him that I could do that too, and put some effort into "powering
up" my feet to make them go super fast. I actually started to
rev up and move along the path quickly, and felt as if I was
traveling up a tunnel of forest toward the sunlight at the top of
the hill. As I began to keep pace with him he said "NO!"
in a very powerful voice, and I woke up in my bed, feeling hurt at
being told no.
"I
looked for him, to tell him about my dream. He wasn't there, and his
side of the bed showed that he had not slept in the bed that night.
It was dawn. I began to get irritated, thinking that he must have
gone off with some friends, and feeling upset at how irresponsible
he was behaving. I went to where we kept our bicycles, to see if his
was there, and it wasn't. I was so angry that I broke the bicycle
lock and chain off of my bicycle with my bare hands, (he had taken
both keys with him), and set off down the street toward the corner
store. His bicycle was near the store, and a patrolman was standing
next to it. I asked him where my husband was, and why his bicycle
was sitting there. He asked my name and address, and refused to tell
me anything more. He suggested that I go back home, and that someone
would explain everything to me later. In about fifteen minutes a
police officer and a clergyman came by and told me that Herb had
been killed the night before.
"The
dream braced me for this news, and although I was in shock, I felt
assured constantly that he was not in his body, and a comforting
presence was with me throughout the next few days of viewing the
body, the funeral and other unpleasant business.
"Two
days after the funeral, I was preparing for bed and contemplating
suicide to join Herb, so that we could be together on the other side
or in our next phase of incarnation or whatever. I consciously
thought a question, "Should I kill myself to join Herb, or stay
here."
"I
then went to bed. I was just falling asleep when I felt a presence
by my right side, and looked to see Herb, naked and glowing with a
soft, beautiful white light. He looked beautiful and I felt filled
with love and happiness to see him. He spoke mentally to me, and
said, "This is our son," indicating my womb, "Take
good care of him." I had no question then about my purpose, and
have tried to do the best possible job taking care of my son ever
since. It did not at all seem strange that he used the word "son",
and, of course, although these were the days before ultrasound, I
did give birth to a boy."
Post
a comment
![[counter]](http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/cgi-bin/Count.cgi?df=thegroundoffaith)
The
Ground of Faith
