crane@fortune.UUCP (John Crane) (01/10/84)
I know several people who can pop in and out of their bodies at will. For them, this is evidence enough. For the rest of us, all we need to do is find out what they did, learn how to do it to, experience it for ourselves, and finally make our own conclusions.
tischler@ihuxv.UUCP (Mark D. Tischler) (01/10/84)
In response to John Crane's article: John, considering that you are in California, although it is northern California, there are enough airheads that would give that very impression -- of "popping in and out of their bodies". Lots of people, especially good actors, can do a wonderful impression of "popping in and out of their bodies" without giving away the fact that they never really left. Boy, if you could "pop in and out of your body", just think of all the neat tricks you could play on people while they foolishly thought that you were still in your own body! ^ | | | | SARCASM, in case you couldn't tell. Just thought I'd make that clear, since people will believe just about anything these days. Right, John.
tim@unc.UUCP (Tim Maroney) (01/10/84)
Astral projection (which is what we in the Western Magickal tradition call John's "popping out of the body") is not by any stretch of the imagination evidence for the existence of the soul. The phenomenon can be explained completely by the existence of the psyche (which is self-evident to any but a behaviorist) and the capacity to experience without external sensory input controlling the experience. The consciousness of an astral voyager is not particularly different from that of a normal person, except that the experience is not directed by external sensory data. Therefore, the ability to astrally project does not imply the existence of any part of the human beyond the mere psyche. I should add that I do believe in the existence of higher manifestations of the Self, which are basically the same thing as the "soul" many people speak of. All I am saying is that the elementary practice of astral projection has no bearing on the issue. -- Tim Maroney, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill duke!unc!tim (USENET), tim.unc@csnet-relay (ARPA)
crane@fortune.UUCP (John Crane) (01/11/84)
(1) Where I live has nothing to do with what I believe of what I have experienced. Furthermore, I have lived in California all of six months of my 38 years. Prior to that I lived (in reverse order): Seattle; Bellevue, WA; College Station, Tx; Houston; Dallas; New York City; Provo, Utah; Stockholm Sweden; Portland, OR. I'm sure if anybody really tried they could find something wrong with all those places as well. (Let's see: I got rained on in Seattle, mugged in NYC, over-sexed in Stockholm, under- sexed and brainwashed by the Mormons in Utah.) Saved you a lot of trouble, didn't I? (Of course YOU know that I'm just being sarcastic!) (2) I'm not asking you to believe anything. Just a willingness to try something for yourself and make your own conclusions. We can argue all day about whether something is or isn't, we can also argue about the credentials (relevant or irrelevant) of the person describing a phenomenum. But there remains the acid test: (and this seems to excape a lot of people): DOES IT WORK!
crane@fortune.UUCP (John Crane) (01/11/84)
I am saying that the psyche IS the soul. If a person can experience sensation through other than the five physical senses including backing up three feet behind his head and viewing the body, that indicates at least to me that the person is not his body, but something else. Strange that the "science" of psychology denies the existence of what it was originally supposed to study, abandoned the study of the person himself, and gone after experiments with animals, chemicals, shock treatments, and lobotomies.