A Visit from the Spirit Realm

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Do you believe in a spiritual world? Have you ever had an experience that you thought was spiritual?

My grandfather died ten years ago. I was just thinking about a dream that I had about him a few months after he died, the details of which I will not go into here, but it was far and away the most vivid and "real" dream I've ever had. If there is a spiritual world, that dream is what I think it would feel like to communicate with it.

I'm not sure if I believe in spirits or a spirit world, and although the idea of having an eternal soul appeals to me greatly, I'm sticking with "I won't know 'til I get there". But I like the idea.

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My mother was spiritual, almost a mystic. While I was growing up she talked about death as a great adventure and told me that she'd try to come back to us if she could. I remember saying, well, don't scare me if you do, please.

Sadly, she died a relatively young woman after a long and lingering fight with cancer. Less than a week after she was buried, my sister-in-law and I were in the basement of our family home -- going through old clothes mostly, packing stuff away -- a very mundane job that most people have had to perform. Another of my sisters was expected to arrive soon, so we weren't at all surprised when we heard the door from the garage open above our heads and high-heeled shoes walk across the floor to the kitchen sink... then (we heard) the water get turned on and splash down the drain. We called to her that we were downstairs and to come on down. She didn't come and we didn't hear anything more. We called again and then, chuckling that she just didn't want to start the work we had planned... we went upstairs, still calling her name and teasing her.

But there was nobody there, the lights were dark in the kitchen. While we stood there looking around and wondering what the heck was going on, the sister we'd been expecting did drive up. We asked her if she'd come home and then left suddenly, but no... she'd rushed home through traffic and was obviously too tired to be playing games. She said we looked like we'd seen a ghost. We didn't, but we may have heard one.

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I live in a state where seemingly credible people are still living who claim to have seen evidence of a crashed alien spacecraft and where other seemingly credible people claim to have seen one or more of the many ghostly inhabitants of the Saint James Hotel or who have had other close encounters with paranormal entities. I have many friends and/or acquaintances who have related near death experiences or visitations from departed loved ones or awareness of the presence of angels, and all of these are absolutely convinced of the reality of a spirit world.

For myself, I've never seen an extra terrestrial or a ghost but I have had experiences that support my belief in a spirit dimension.

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Foxfyre wrote:

I live in a state where seemingly credible people are still living who claim to have seen evidence of a crashed alien spacecraft and where other seemingly credible people claim to have seen one or more of the many ghostly inhabitants of the Saint James Hotel or who have had other close encounters with paranormal entities. I have many friends and/or acquaintances who have related near death experiences or visitations from departed loved ones or awareness of the presence of angels, and all of these are absolutely convinced of the reality of a spirit world.

For myself, I've never seen an extra terrestrial or a ghost but I have had experiences that support my belief in a spirit dimension.

Although, I fully realize that I am a serial abuser of the word 'irony', I feel compelled to point it out here. When somebody who believes that a magical baby murderer created the world in six days turns around and is amazed at "seemingly credible people" who belive in ghosts...the irony meter goes off the scale.

It is true that some very intelligent people believe in god, ghosts, and aliens. But that does not make the delusion charge any less valid. Human beings of all levels of intelligence have a penchant for distorting their memories and remembrances for psychological reasons. How much more powerful then is the capacity to develop a belief where there is no contradictory sensory input, if that belief is psychologically useful, such as in the case of religion and spirituality.

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But ILZ, the fact that you (and many others) do not believe in a spirit world is not reasonable proof that such does not exist.

There are all manner of scientific explanations for the paranormal phenomena professed by believers (who are not all thiests and/or Christians by the way), but all are theory. There is yet no proof. And given the cloud of witnesses who profess to have experienced paranormal phenomena, can we say that all are deluded or nuts? Who is to say that we know all there is to know?

I personally believe we have discovered a tiny fraction of science that is still out there to be discovered. And I think we know a tiny fraction of knowledge that there is to know. I personally intend to keep my options open that there are wonderful things yet to learn.

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Well, I don't equate my experiences in a "spirit dimension" with religion.

Until I had several "spirit dimension" experiences, I was skeptical. Now, I just accept the fact that "Spirit Happens"....

PaL
:-)

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Peace and Love wrote:

Well, I don't equate my experiences in a "spirit dimension" with religion.

Until I had several "spirit dimension" experiences, I was skeptical. Now, I just accept the fact that "Spirit Happens"....

PaL
:-)

The only meaningful distinction is that one is organized while the other is not. Spirituality, in the sense the people in this thread seem to be using it, may be a far less dangerous belief than religion, but it is still a delusion because it involves believing in something despite a lack of evidence or the presence of contradictory evidence.

I do not dispute that such metaphysical things may exist, but to say that they do exist or probably exist, is mildly retarded. And, Peace and Love, using your own inner psychological experiances to validate your belief in spirits does not lend much credence to your argument.

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Foxfyre wrote:

But ILZ, the fact that you (and many others) do not believe in a spirit world is not reasonable proof that such does not exist.

I know. The fact that there is absolutely no evidence supporting such claims and a veritable mountain of evidence disputing it is what makes believing in such things retarded.

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There are all manner of scientific explanations for the paranormal phenomena professed by believers (who are not all thiests and/or Christians by the way), but all are theory. There is yet no proof. And given the cloud of witnesses who profess to have experienced paranormal phenomena, can we say that all are deluded or nuts? Who is to say that we know all there is to know?

First of all, the burden of proof lies on the people who claim such things exist, not on the scientists (read: rational people) who claim they do not. You're asking scientists to prove a negative.

Secondly, a lack of arguments disproving the existance of something is not evidence that said thing does exist. That is like me asking you to prove that there are no four headed chimpanzees in the world and then using your inability to prove that as proof of thier existence.

Third, you only make yourself look ignorant when you put forward the flawed sematic pseudo-argument that scientific ideas are somehow less credible because they are called theories. There is no such thing as a scientific fact - it is not a fact that your mother is, in fact, your mother - all we have are observations that have not been disproven by other observations.

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I personally believe we have discovered a tiny fraction of science that is still out there to be discovered. And I think we know a tiny fraction of knowledge that there is to know. I personally intend to keep my options open that there are wonderful things yet to learn.

The scientific foundations - ie - the scientific method - are immutable and will never change. However, there are many scientific advances we have yet to make. So, in that sense, you are right that we have tapped into only a tiny fraction of knowledge. But this has nothing to do with believing in spirits, gods, flying pigs, or any of the other fanciful beings that spring from the fertile minds of irrational people.

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Peace and Love wrote:

Well, I don't equate my experiences in a "spirit dimension" with religion.

60's don't count.

Hi PAL!

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Hi Craven!! How are you??

I've known since the 60's that I'm delusional.... LOL....

Retarded?? That's something that happens to yeast when it's exposed to too-high or too-low temperatures.... a hassle when baking bread....

PaL
:-)

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Peace and Love wrote:

Retarded?? That's something that happens to yeast when it's exposed to too-high or too-low temperatures.... a hassle when baking bread....

heh

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I'm busier than I've been in a long long time, and I guess that's a sorta good thing.

Who said anything about retarded?

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ILZ wrote: "it is not a fact that your mother is, in fact, your mother"

Tell that to the dads who were forced to watch the bloody thing pop out of their wives. Yeesh...

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ILZ writes:

Quote:

First of all, the burden of proof lies on the people who claim such things exist, not on the scientists (read: rational people) who claim they do not. You're asking scientists to prove a negative.

I don't see it as a burden of proof on anybody. I see no need to prove or disprove what another person reports as his/her experience though it is sometimes prudent to do our own research before accepting the truth or interpretation of what the other person reports.

Having said that, I think one does not need to accept scientific theories as any more than 'theories' in order to be rational. Many scientific theories hold up only until better science comes along. Somewhere in my reading, I seem to call that Eistein's theory of relativity holds up when the numbers expand to probable infinity, but it breaks down as they are contracted. (My math isn't good enough to test that for myself however.)

Some scientists once taught that the sun revolved around the earth, even that the earth itself was flat. Other scientists disagreed, albeit in those days it was wisest to agree with the science that agreed with the view favored by the monarch or pope de jour lest one lose one's head.

When the movie "Day after Tomorrow" came out recently, the papers were reporting that scientific gurus were protesting it as 'bad science'. Then this week the papers reported that other scientists were 'warming' to the idea. Even now all scientists do not agree on the probable origin of the universe, whether there is unnatural global warming, whether there is an unnatural hole in the ozone, etc.

And there is no agreement among scientists as to whether paranormal phenomenon is imaginary or fact or whether there is a spirit world or whether people have souls. And many know we do not (yet) have the science necessary to prove or disprove a spirit world.

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I think to assume that we simply live and die is as dualistic as religion, and given that it is clear the universe continues on without us is ample enough speculative evidence to suggest that something exists beyond our physical being, even if we do not understand it yet.

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IronLionZion wrote:

First of all, the burden of proof lies on the people who claim such things exist, not on the scientists (read: rational people) who claim they do not. You're asking scientists to prove a negative.

I regret that I answered Kicky's question in a way that makes you think I'm trying to prove anything. I am not interested in proving anything. As the song goes... I know what I know.

All I offered was a small and strange anecdotal truth. Because I report this, you feel compelled to claim I must be a liar, irrational, delusional and/or retarded?

I am surprised.

<raises eyebrows> Where is your scientific curiosity?

My mother, btw, was a field entomologist whose career was cut short by WWII and later raising a large family.

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Okay, I'm not trying to prove or disprove anything here either, and I really just thought that this was an interesting topic, but since people want to argue about it, here's an argument I've heard for the existence of a soul.

If you believe in free will, then it follows that we have souls.

The soul is the incorporeal essence of oneself, and free will is about voluntary choice, being able to choose one's own actions; the freedom to make choices that are not determined by prior causes.

Therefore, free will is a cause and not an effect in its interactions with corporeality. So if free will exists, its basis must be incorporeal. If free will exists it has to have some kind of existence. And since the basis of free will cannot be corporeal, the only alternative left is the incorporeal.

The self chooses one's own actions and is thus the basis of free will. So, the basis of the self must be incorporeal if free will exists.

The soul exists because free will exists.

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Huh?

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<shakes head> ;-)

I hope ya don't buy that argument Kicky, it has some really glaring leaps of pure faith and is, on the whole, just a baseless cum hoc ergo propter hoc argument.

Break it down:

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If you believe in free will, then it follows that we have souls.

No it doesn't. This is similar to saying: "If you care about humans you will be a liberal"

The very issue at hand is supposedly proven by simply assuming it's true.

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The soul is the incorporeal essence of oneself, and free will is about voluntary choice, being able to choose one's own actions; the freedom to make choices that are not determined by prior causes.

Soul can also be described as onés imagination. It can be called corporeal. But more importantly, the notion that we can make decisions without the influence of prior causes is a giant leap of faith.

It's a false assertion slipped in there.

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Therefore, free will is a cause and not an effect in its interactions with corporeality.

LOL

Because of the baseless claim (that happens to be false).....

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So if free will exists, its basis must be incorporeal.

Actually, it doesn't. "And if people had half a brain they'd recognize..."

No basis for this repeated claim is made except with other unsubstantiated claims.

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If free will exists it has to have some kind of existence. And since the basis of free will cannot be corporeal, the only alternative left is the incorporeal.

Here we get to the root of this misleading argument.

It takes something intangible and trys to assert spiritual existence based on it.

Ask yourself whether a fart is corporeal. As yourself whether a thought is corporeal.

We don't see these as tangible things but they are. Each have corporeal manifestation and this is proven (e.g. farts are made up of particles that can be observed, thoughts have manifestation as electrical impulses).

This is the kind of argument that can call anything that is marginally intangible a spirit.

Static electricity for example.

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The self chooses one's own actions and is thus the basis of free will. So, the basis of the self must be incorporeal if free will exists.

The soul exists because free will exists.

Now, it closes with repetition.

Now a sould may well exist, but this argument certainly makes no attempt to substantiate that so much as it simply tries to sound confident about it based on same games with intangibles.

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I,m going toread the previous post later....sure sure
but in your dreams you should try to look at your hands. Plan it before bed and just before sleeping. Eventually once you look at your hands you can then take control of your dream, but you'll probably snap out of it the first time from shock, but there you could be in lucid time space.

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A Visit from the Spirit Realm

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