sunny@hoptoad.uucp (Sunny Kirsten) (05/12/86)
For those of you who insist that psychic phenomena can't exist because
if that pile of /dev/null had ever proven to have any value, there
would have been large headlines nobody could miss; Given the rampant
NEWSPEAK, it is not suprising that the establishment downplays offical
approval of psychic phenomena, and you have to look to find the
headlines with some effort, for the stakes are high. Those who persue
psychic awareness are first taught to own their own power and their own
space so that the opening of senstivity does not result in more
programming by other people, and control by other people, but in the
removal and prevention of these things, so that the psychic can truly
know their own pure mind, and be able to distinguish it versus the
energy patterns of another soul. Unless you can sense the difference
between your own energy and someone elses, you can't successfully read
/ heal another person. And if you can't keep other people's energy
separte from you, you take on their problems. The establishment wants
nice programmed controlled subservient wage slaves to turn the
treadmill, not aware people who insist on exercising the freedom of
will guaranteed to them in the Constitution of the U.S. of A.
Therefore, I offer you a small database to aleviate the fact you have
so far remained officially ignorant of PSI phenomena, and choose to
deny its existance on the basis that you haven't seen any evidence.
You may not have looked in the places you would find it. For the
person who said they'd found a psychic fair to be a real unrewarding
experience, I know a dozen people who have found psychic awareness to
have totally turned their lives around and helped them to take control
of their own lives, unfetterd by what Daddy or deceased Mommy want, or
what sibling, boss, mate, neighbor, (group spirit) televison, want us to
do with our lives. And maybe you ran into a bozo and an unusually bozo
psychic fair.... maybe another sampling would improve the statistical
sample above 1 sample:
4th Annual New Age Renaissance Fair
Nov 16-17 at the San Jose Convention Center
The Bay Area's best and biggest psychic fair plus
health and human potential, visionary arts/crafts, top speakers & performers
(Peter Caddy, Iasos)
Box 997, San Jose, CA 95108 (408)292-6716
The following listings are extracted from an issue of Psychic Life, this
first section being those who are willing to put up with the hassles of
being approached with a "prove it to me" attitude:
Berkeley Psychic Institute - sponsored by the Church of Divine Man, main office:
(415)548-8020 2436 Haste St., Berkeley, CA 94704
BPI (415)325-4124, 235 Alma, Palo Alto, CA 94301
BPI (415)459-8830, 1752 Lincoln Ave., San Rafael, CA 94903
BPI (916)452-4081, 1614 27th St., Sacramento, CA 95816
BPI (408)429-6166, 1320 Mission, Santa Cruz, CA 95060
BPI (707)545-8891, 1591 Sebastopol Rd., Santa Rosa, CA 95407
BPI (619)224-1797, 3137 Nimitz Blvd., San Diego, CA 92106
BPI (408)298-6443, 180 E. Younger Ave., San Jose, CA 95113
BPI (415)462-3040, 328 St. Mary's St., Pleasanton, CA 94566
Washington Psychic Institute - Sponsored by the Church of Divine Man
Regional Office (206)463-9671,
Route 5, Box 479, Vashon, Wa 98070
WPI (206)782-3617, 2007 N.W. 61st, Seattle, WA 98107
WPI (509)325-5771, 2803 N. Loncoln, Spokane, WA 99205
WPI (206)759-7460, 4604 North 38th, Tacoma, WA 98407
WPI (206)671-4291, 1311 I St., Bellingham, WA 98225
WPI (503)232-3443, 1906 S.E. Ankenny, Portland, OR 97214
WPI (206)258-1449, 2308 Lombard, Everett, WA 98201
WPI (604)879-8707, 655 W. 7th, Vancouver, B.C. V5Z1B7
And to include other areas, but not those who want to waste time proving to
you when they could be reading / healing you...
Rev. Alanna Marea Karels (Psychic Aura Readings)
Anchorage, AK (907)344-0410
Rev. Thelma Meites (Psychic Readings & Healings)
Upstate New York (315)347-2100
Rev. Laurie Schryver (Psychic Nutritional Readings)
(415)331-9142, (702)588-4150
Hal Glasser (313)731-3006
Utica, MI
Carol Songtree (602)721-8013
Tucson, AZ
Lea Swain (502)395-8172
Calvert City, KY
Nope, can't be much evidence for psychic phenomena around, them're probably
all charlatans. Guess P.T.Barnum must've been right, there's a sucker read
psychicly every minute, or all them people wouldn't be able to make a living
running that scam. Obviously these are just more of them California Granola
Folks... Once you sort out the fruits and nuts, all you got left is flakes.
((-:) And, yes, it's true folks, I DO live in fLAKE county.(:-))
Sunny
p.s., I'm moving to the New Age Digest moderated by Tim Maroney
until or if there is ever another psi forum. I will yet post the results of
my survey to announce the overall net vote on where psi "should" be discussed.
--
Sunny Kirsten
U.P.S.: 10329 Hilltop Rd.
U.S. Mail: P.O.B. 2025
Loch Lomond, CA 95426-2025
Voice Phone: (707) 928-5546, 987-2477
USENET: ...!{sun,ptsfa,well,lll-crg,ihnp4,ucsfcgl,nsc,frog}!hoptoad!sunnyking@kestrel.UUCP (05/22/86)
From: sunny@hoptoad.uucp (Sunny Kirsten) Newsgroups: net.astro,net.bio,net.singles,net.social,net.women,net.med,net.philosophy,net.religion Date: 12 May 86 00:51:57 GMT Reply-To: sunny@hoptoad.uucp (Sunny Kirsten) Keywords: PSI Psychic Paranormal Metaphysical Spiritual Occult ESP Clairvoyance For those of you who insist that psychic phenomena can't exist because if that pile of /dev/null had ever proven to have any value, there would have been large headlines nobody could miss; One question to those who claim the existence of psychicic phenomena: Evolution theory predicts that if it exists and is useful it would be the norm as those with the ability would outbreed those without. Who can deny the utility of the ability to detect a stalking tiger at a distance? To cloud a prey animal's thinking to prevent him from bolting? To know what lies under concealment? To perform telekinetic manipulation? In short, every psi ability I have heard described would be sufficiently useful in the paleolithic world that a person who claims psi exists must explain why it is not the norm, like sight and hearing. This is in addition to performing repeatable experiments which don't fail to work in the presence of doubters but which are claimed to work in the claiment's own lab, provided there are only true believers present...
gsmith@cartan.UUCP (05/22/86)
In article <8300@kestrel.ARPA> king@kestrel.UUCP writes: >Evolution theory predicts that if it exists and is useful it would be >the norm as those with the ability would outbreed those without. >In short, every psi ability I have heard described would be >sufficiently useful in the paleolithic world that a person who claims >psi exists must explain why it is not the norm, like sight and >hearing. This is a good point (otherwise I wouldn't have thought of it too). But it doesn't prove the case. Other possibilities are: (1) Psi exists, but is so weak it is almost useless. (2) Psi exists, but it has just recently evolved and is slowly growing stronger. (3) Psi exists, but is always associated with other genetic factors which are negative. (4) Psi exists, but is not inheritable and so evolutionary theory does not apply. (If you think the last is impossible, assume like Sunny that souls exist and incarnate in bodies. Your argument then falls apart). ucbvax!brahms!gsmith Gene Ward Smith/UCB Math Dept/Berkeley CA 94720 Fifty flippant frogs / Walked by on flippered feet And with their slime they made the time / Unnaturally fleet.
bzs@bu-cs.UUCP (Barry Shein) (05/23/86)
From: king@kestrel.UUCP >Evolution theory predicts that if it exists and is useful it would be >the norm as those with the ability would outbreed those without.... Not clear: a) It would have to be inheritable from generation to generation, not just a freak of an individual. b) It could (especially based on (a)) be rare enough and random enough that selection is not significant. c) It could be an ability that generally requires training or some conscious, socially supportive setting to 'blossom'. This is a little vague I admit. As an extreme case, if there is indeed an ability to "bend spoons" one has to have invented spoons to discover it (ok, that's silly, what I mean is it may not be of any use in hunting, eg, per se, etc.) I doubt very much one could "prove" that PSI does not exist any more than one can "prove" that UFOs do not exist (unless of course we could provide a full working model of the human mind and the requirements of PSI and show the two to be incompatible although that still probably would not satisfy the true believers.) Fortunately I think the burden for proof goes the other way. As a friend of mine once said "I don't believe in ghosts but I happen to know for a fact that they exist...". -Barry Shein, Boston University
litow@uwmeecs.UUCP (Dr. B. Litow) (05/23/86)
> > From: sunny@hoptoad.uucp (Sunny Kirsten) > Newsgroups: net.astro,net.bio,net.singles,net.social,net.women,net.med,net.philosophy,net.religion > Date: 12 May 86 00:51:57 GMT > Reply-To: sunny@hoptoad.uucp (Sunny Kirsten) > Keywords: PSI Psychic Paranormal Metaphysical Spiritual Occult ESP Clairvoyance > > For those of you who insist that psychic phenomena can't exist because > if that pile of /dev/null had ever proven to have any value, there > would have been large headlines nobody could miss; > > One question to those who claim the existence of psychicic phenomena: > > Evolution theory predicts that if it exists and is useful it would be > the norm as those with the ability would outbreed those without. > > Who can deny the utility of the ability to detect a stalking tiger at a > distance? To cloud a prey animal's thinking to prevent him from > bolting? To know what lies under concealment? To perform telekinetic > manipulation? > > In short, every psi ability I have heard described would be > sufficiently useful in the paleolithic world that a person who claims > psi exists must explain why it is not the norm, like sight and > hearing. This is in addition to performing repeatable experiments > which don't fail to work in the presence of doubters but which are > claimed to work in the claiment's own lab, provided there are only > true believers present... The assumption here is that the total environment for evolution is somehow 'static' which seems soubtful. Indeed cultures our technologies (in the broad sense) and our accumulated atr forms all modify this environment. It seems likely that selection for certain faculties is swamped for many (perhaps hundreds or thousands) of generations until the environment is sufficiently benign to even allow there marginal emergence. The biologist C.H. Waddington has a nice nomenclature for the dialectic of phenotype as organism-type and phenotype as the epigenetic environment. I do think though that you have raised a deep point regarding psionics that presents a clear problem for those who are convinced of its manifestations.*** REPLACE THIS LINE WITH YOUR MESSAGE ***
john@quad1.UUCP (05/23/86)
> Evolution theory predicts that if it exists and is useful it would be > the norm as those with the ability would outbreed those without. > > In short, every psi ability I have heard described would be > sufficiently useful in the paleolithic world that a person who claims > psi exists must explain why it is not the norm, like sight and > hearing. This is in addition to performing repeatable experiments > which don't fail to work in the presence of doubters but which are > claimed to work in the claiment's own lab, provided there are only > true believers present... There are several answers to this besides the one which the author suggests: (1) Evolutionary theory is wrong. (2) Evolutionary theory is correct and the race is gradually evolving and maybe in the next million years psi ability will become the norm. (3) Maybe everybody has it now, but not everybody knows how to use it, just as everybody has a brain but not everybody is an Einstein, and as everybody has a body, but not everybody in a concert pianist or an Olympic athlete. As far as I'm concerned you can accept the author's original thesis or any of the above or accept anything else as being a better explanation. Speaking for myself, I have had experiences that might be termed psi, and have experienced them in conjunction with a group of other people. However, I do not trot these experiences out to satisfy curiosity or try to prove anything. These abilities are meant to help oneself and others and are NOT to be used to prove their own existence.
jc@cdx39.UUCP (John Chambers) (05/23/86)
[I hope nobody minds my deleting most of those newsgroups:-] > Evolution theory predicts that if it exists and is useful it would be > the norm as those with the ability would outbreed those without. > > Who can deny the utility of the ability to detect a stalking tiger at a > distance? To cloud a prey animal's thinking to prevent him from > bolting? To know what lies under concealment? To perform telekinetic > manipulation? Hey, what's the argument here? PSI/ESP/etc in exactly the sense it's usually used is quite common throughout the animal (and plant?:-) kingdom. All sorts of critters from lowly worms to fishes to platypussies to birds and mammals have been documented as having sensory receptors for EM fields, electrostatic and/or magnetic. Others (honeybees, for example) can see "outside the visual specrum" (typically near UV). Whaddaya mean, that's not "Extra-Sensory Perception"? Stand up and define your terms, fella! You have only two choices. You can define the phrase as meaning not received by any of the critter's senses. Or you can define it as meaning reception of signals that aren't part of the standard list of "five senses" of homo sapiens. In the former case, case ESP is an oxymoron; if it was received, then it obviously was a sensory perception. In the latter case, ESP obviously exists; all it takes is a critter that has some sense that humans lack, and that's easy. All most people mean by ESP/PSI is that it's done by means that they don't understand. In fact, as usually understood, ESP is easily demonstrated in humans. The standard list of senses doesn't include measuring accelerations (such as gravity). There is an obvious survival benefit to knowing which way is up, and all mammals (including humans) have a sensory organ (the semicircular canals) that measure acceleration. Similarly, it is easy to demonstrate that a normal human knows to great accuracy the relative positions of all bodily parts, and that this knowledge does not come from any of the standard five senses (or from the semicircular canals). Physiologists call this the "kinesthetic sense". Whence comes this knowledge? From pressure-sensitive nerve endings inside each of the joints. I claim that I have the above ESP capabilities, and so do most other mammals. Can you give me a definition of ESP or PSI that excludes them and doesn't also trivially exclude all possible senses? As for telekinetics, well, my brain can cause the motion of several things at a significant distance; I call them my hands, feet, .... If that doesn't satisfy you, I might also point out that my brain can also cause the motion of lots of things that are remote from my body. Right now, my brain is controling the paths of some electrons inside your terminal.... [This is fun, isn't it?] -- John M Chambers (617-364-2000x7304) / cthulhu \ /usenet / inmet \ / news ...!{ harvax }!cdx39!{ jc \ mit-eddie / \ uucp \ mot[bos] / \root
pete@valid.UUCP (Pete Zakel) (05/24/86)
> One question to those who claim the existence of psychicic phenomena: > > Evolution theory predicts that if it exists and is useful it would be > the norm as those with the ability would outbreed those without. Evolution theory predicts no such thing. Being useful doesn't cause one to outbreed. Being detrimental causes one to not live long enough to breed. Only if NOT having psi is detrimental would psi be selected for. > Who can deny the utility of the ability to detect a stalking tiger at a > distance? To cloud a prey animal's thinking to prevent him from > bolting? To know what lies under concealment? To perform telekinetic > manipulation? Yes, but what if psi is somewhat unreliable and requires training and a certain mindset to bring out. What if it doesn't work under normal stress but works well under EXTREME stress. You then wouldn't expect to see it except in optimal conditions. Also, considering precognition, what if there isn't *A* future, but *MANY POSSIBLE* futures. Then if on sees something bad in the future and manages to avoid it, that which is seen doesn't happen and becomes evidence AGAINST precognition, even though the precognition was actually USEFUL. -- -Pete Zakel (..!{hplabs,amd,pyramid,ihnp4}!pesnta!valid!pete)
drew@ukma.UUCP (Andrew Lawson) (05/25/86)
In article <8300@kestrel.ARPA> king@kestrel.ARPA (Dick King) writes: > From: sunny@hoptoad.uucp (Sunny Kirsten) > >One question to those who claim the existence of psychicic phenomena: > >Evolution theory predicts that if it exists and is useful it would be >the norm as those with the ability would outbreed those without. > This presuposes that everything about humans is explained by evolution, which is to say that all that we are is essentially genetic. Perhaps the ability (or more likely the awareness of the ability) to perform psychic acts is developmental/environmental and not genetic. -- Drew Lawson cbosgd!ukma!drew "Parts is parts." drew@uky.csnet drew@UKMA.BITNET