Clairvoyance and messages from beyond the whatever... what do you reckon?

MixedMedia's Photographers we Like thread. And I am in the middle of searching for photos by Ansel Adams, with which to make contribution to. This is an extremely difficult but massively rewarding search, because almost all of his work is 'my favourite', and this evening, I have come across many I had never seen before! Ecstasy

UNTIL

I Google-happened on this, and was like ZOMG and WTF, ygm?

http://news.deviantart.com/article/75854/

My sides split at this bit

On occasion, I see opportunity for comedy, and this was like a portal to a flood of possible scenarios., for example:
Question:"Mr Adams, you used very small f-stop to maximize depth of field ... at what point did you get diminishing returns on account of diffraction, and did unsharp-masking create more problems than it solved?"
Response: "Your Geat Grandpa is happy, and forgives you for wearing Saggy Pants"

Indeed, there was no Guarantee for that evening that Mr Adams was going to get even a single word in.



However, when I had got over my and my , I magused up and got real.

There are milennia of recorded precedents for messages from beyond, whether from beyond the grave, as in channeling dead photographers, or from beyond this realm, as in channeling Angelic messages or the ascended masters in the Astroid Belt, or channeling people who are living, but far away, without electronic assistance, loud hailers or semaphore .... and for milennia, these precedents have coexisted with arguments about their 'reality'. It is as if the 'challenge' is an essential part of the phenomenon.

In this thread, I ask "What do you reckon". OK, that includes direct statements of belief and disbelief. Also includes an exploration into its status as an almost eternal debate ... the accompanying questions 'is it real' or 'whose channel' is real are as pervasive as what is being questioned. Those are the main two foci for the moment, though I can sense spin-off lines of inquiry, and it is important that they be included and somehow organised.



My own angle:

The phenomenon of projection of one's own content - attributing it to external sources is, IMO, a massive clutter which can co-exist in the same space as whatever possible 'truly' external sources there may be. A typical test to distinguish is to establish non-locality - connections which could be no other than external, or outside anything which could be 'just' internal. 19th century tests for ESP where a test 'sender's message is compared with a test 'receiver's' statement.

Secondly, if one has established some non-local accuracy of the message, there is the problem of establishing the veridity of the source. in the Ansel Adams comedy example above ... what if some recently dead amateur photographer shared h/er angle on possible compromise between f-stop in the field and unsharp masking in the darkroom? What if the dead Ansel Adams decided that a jab as saggy pants was more important than the topic?

I get more excited by the questions than I do about 'is it or isn't it', and if a message makes sense to me On It's Own terms, I have no problem with people attributing it to what source they will.

 

Dude! ...aka Zen, it's not even April 1st Fools Day!

Otherwise, I don't believe we can communicate with dead people. Though I do love Ansel Adams and would love to chat with him if he would be so kind as to honor me with a few moments of his time. But sadly, now he's out of time.

I do believe there is such a thing as "extrasensory perception" and that some people have hightened capabilities in those areas and it may even be something we can all develop to some extent if we knew how. I believe that we only understand the "tip of the iceberg" when it comes to the subtle and highly developed sensory capabilities of the human body and brain.

ps: I also love deviantART

 

I reckon clairvoyance has never involved the dead. You've seen pictures of auras & spirits from before the age of photoshop? What do you reckon about those, Zen? I reckon claptrap.

 

Ourcrazymodern?

Some of those are like Our Lady of Pizza Configuration, or Jesus appears on a slice of toast - Rorschach phenomena. Some are, imo, plain bogus ... victorian fairy photos. Cloth did not exist in those days which would 'hang' on them like that at those minimal sises. Kirlian photography irritates me the most ... because it pursuades me to get 'scientific-ISH' and to hallucinate valid analogy with electomagnetism. It has a sneaky appeal, which for now, I avoid like the plague, and lash myself to the mast, as did Odysseus when the Sirens sang 'Lah Lah Lah .... we're the Real Deal'.

'Auras' themselves, as reported not in photos, but speech "Oh, dude, I can see your aura ... it's like this". Regarding this case, my favorourite 'explanation' or interpretetion, is that the seer has brought to consciousness a synesthesia, that s/he has made a gut-judgement based on observable data, given it a visual 'label', and then describbes the label. For example ... we've all seen people giving 'dark' looks, or emitting a healthy 'glow'. If s/he gives me a dark look whilst emitting a healthy glow, then we're getting the beginnings of a detailed aruic description. To me, the difference between aura-vision and descriptions of syneshesias is whether we wrap quote-marks round our statements of perception.

BadNick Yes. As a continuation of above, I, like you, believe we are on the tip of the iceburg ... I also believe that the iceburg is melting. I believe there si so much going on in the realm of the 'natural' which we have not fully plumbed, which does NOT need explanations which are way out of the box. There is more 'sensory' and first order extra-sensory work to be done ... a lot more, before we need to drop in external postulates for the purpose of explanation.

Nb ... I am not intending to denigrate the usefulness of such postulates. For example, I would rather an extremely shy student of the works of Ansel Adams or Jimi Hendrix claim 'channeling' than remain silent. Similarly, go ahead and let the benzine ring be 'seen' in a dream. However, I do want the output of such sources to be valid on its own terms.

( .. what have I got myself into .. I was only looking for nice piccies by Ansel A for a Photo thread, where the emphasis could be on nourishing the eyes, and clicking 'like' from time to time! Oh well )

 

I would love for all of this to be real, but the evidence just isn't there. I would love for there to be evidence, and I welcome any that is presented, but it never pans out.

 

Let him who sees dream, including yourself.

 

First question - Charlatan. Its a field full of them.
However, I have had precog episodes - the world fell away and there was just me seeing a friend drowning. Windsurfing the next day, hit on the head wih the boom and trapped under the sail, I helped fish him out, slightly concussed. I made sure I was there as I knew it was going to happen.
Its just an example.

 

I also think of @MSD's "but the evidence just isn't there"

And find within myself a dichotomy: To be sure, I'll stick to high criteria around scientific method. At the same time, when I get 'a warning', then, heavens to betsy I WILL heed it. I won't blindly follow the initial 'injunction' of a vision, but I will scrutinize deeply and closely as possible the matter at hand.
Within margins of acceptable safety, I do want to give my sense of ignorance In The Face of the Great Unknown the benefit of the doubt.
In matters such as these, what I Reckon I believe is a different thing from what I reckon I'd DO. There are assessors of probability who will demystify through dilution, by examining all combinations of vision/no vision, did/ didn't do something about the vision, did/didn't have water accident and did/didn't drown as a result. I'd still have done what you did ...made sure I was with him.

Hmm ... I'll cringe and hold the following sentence in iron tongs at arms length:"Perhaps it works when it needs to work and hasn't got time for parlour games or tests of initiation".

I'll do more than cringe. I'll put my Science-Club Badge on the desk along with my magnifying glass and go on unpaid leave pending further inquiries by the Methodological Correctness Police.

I'd've still made sure I was with him.

 

Its nearly 17 years now. I was asleep, and I woke up in a panic kicking at my blankets, and I thought I should phone Tim. I looked at the clock, it was 2.30am, and I couldnt call a shared house t that time. I said out loud, go back to sleep Tim, I'll call you tomorrow.
The next morning I had a job interview, and when I got home I got phone call. A friend called to tell me that our friend Phils house had caught fire at about 5 that morning, Phil, Nathan and another chap had gotten out. Tim hadnt. I insisted it wasnt at 5, it was at half past two.
The inquest. Tim fell asleep on the sofa drunk and with a fag in his hand, and the sofa went up. Estimated time was half past two. His legs (where I had been kicking) were burnt to the bone, as were his hands. He was crawling across the floor to the phone and the door when he died. I blamed myself, for years. Last year I was talking to a lady who sees dead people and fairies and the like, and she said when you are dreaming, your spirit goes on adventures, and it is drawn in sleep to people you are close to. Rather than blame myself, she said he reached out and I answered - I find it easier now - I miss my dear Tim, but the guilt is much lessened.

 

I believe certainly that this is more on heaven and earth than is dreamed of by most people and all that...

That said, I personally have never seen one of these professional medium's who didnt seem to me to be either deluded or faking it.

I believe that the dead can reach into the world of the living... but I dont believe the things that they have to tell us or conditions that create that effect are much like the comforting and mundane messages of the average TV medium.

 

I experimented with EVPs after seeing the Michael Keaton movie "White Noise"- I spent some time in a few locales recording the ambience, and my research came up with nothing.

I can't say I believe, but it was an interesting way to spend a week.

 

I went to the spiritualist church, a friend whos mum was involved in it invited me. I went with open mind. Lots of old ladies with cameo broaches try to get through on a regular basis - chortle chortle. The chap did his bit, very vague suggestions trying to reel in his little fish, then he introduced his trainee lady friend. She said to my friend 'do you know you have a spirit guide?' friend replied yes, her mum had told her, and the woman replied that she had two.
Over tea with the congregation, I got talking to the lady speaker, she had moved to th area, was looking for work, but like many women returning to the workplace had little confidence. I offered to help her with her cv, so she popped round.
She asked me 'Do you believe in spiritualism'
replied 'I have an open mind'.
her reply 'I think its a load of old bollocks'
They had both been paid by the church for being guest clairvoyants/speakers. Surely the church people would spot a charlatan - why not speak out unless it was a fellow charlatan.

Her and her male partner had done their show or performance - even set up their own wee church over a bookmakers.
There is money in the dead, in the anguish of those left living. Throw in a little faith healing, and like any tv evangalist, you are sitting on the back of a lucrative cash cow - whoopie.
Yes I do believe in healing, because I have used it - makes my hands take on a green colour, which I never noticed till some lady asked me whilst walking the dogs 'have you been doing healing? Your hands are very green'.
There are, it seems, political games within spiritualist churches. One I was told was okay till a man came in, and was so helpfull to the ladies, they hadnt realised what he was doing till he was embedded and with political power. Other side of the coin, local ancient church has a new property manager for the diocise. He has put up rents, driven out charities, and has told the old ladies the pews are being sold and replaced with stackable plastic chairs. (make a financial killing), he thinks the chairs will be more comfortable he says.
I dont like the religious side of the spiritualist church, I dont see it has anything to do with christianity, but they like their christian prayers. Jehovahs lot think spiritualism is akin to devil worhipping.
I try to live by one rule, not ten, and that rule is 'do no harm' - although I dont think that applies when dealing with bad people doing bad stuff for bad reasons - Karma isnt about being a doormat.
Sometimes I have answers - but its like its not me who has chosen the words. Sometimes I give warning.

 

i only pay attention to this stuff when i see a skeptic do a 180 into complete belief in esp. beyond that my trusty magic 8 ball and my lucky hoodie are about as superstitious as i get

 

Baraka - you have the slimmest belief, having given it thought, on the subject or reincarnation. Can I ask your opinion. If the soul or spirit that leaves to travel once again on the wheel does so at death (I think sometimes you meet special people who you have a bond to, and maybe you were hanging around together talking whilst awaiting the next new body, the next transport) - when would you imagine soul or spirit first meet? Conception? With the first lung full of air?
My son doesnt believe in spirits, but he says an an electrician, the body, in his belief, would probably have a last discgarge of electrical energy
Event - watch out for the hoodie - the old ladies wear them out as disguises when they are naughtly so youths in hoodies get the blame.

 

This is such an upsetting and lovely story. The event was terrible, but what got addressed here was the output rather than the methodology of its derivation. Its tangible effect among people. That lady had one out of a range of explanations of what is real, and sought to achieve atonement. Respect to her, and sympathy/empathy to you chinese crested

I choose to take the direction: how do these phenomena work, and what do they work to achieve, and how can we best assess their meaning, rather than 'are they real'.
This is my 'Preferred direction', but I recognize inner conflict: for me, a sense of personal identity after death would make me feel a heckuva lo better. So I realize I actually want my "Beyond whatever" as stated in the thread title, therefore, by my own account, I should simply go ahead into 'believe it because it's useful' mode. I don't actually do that. It seems that I do make some definite negative judgement about its reality.

 

Any skeptic who had done a 180 and become a believer is a shitty skeptic because they, of all people, should know what standards of evidence are.

How does he arrive at this conclusion? Static electricity discharges when you touch something grounded.

 

or they find evidence that meets their standards to the point of convincing that person

 

This is rather interesting-
EXCLUSIVE: BRITAIN'S LAST WITCH TRIAL

• 
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By David Edwards 6/12/2006
In 1944, medium Helen Duncan became the last woman in Britain to be convicted of witchcraft when one of her seances exposed a government attempt to cover up the deaths of 861 sailors. Now, campaigners aim to clear her name

IT started much the same as her other seances. With a chilling moan and strange white substance leaking from her mouth, Helen Duncan began communicating with the dead...
But suddenly, the eerie calm was pierced by a police whistle and officers piled into the house, in Portsmouth, Hants, to arrest Britain's top medium.
The following morning Helen, known as Hellish Nell, was charged under section four of the 1735 Witchcraft Act.
It was 1944, and, astonishingly, officials had ordered her arrest because they were afraid she would reveal top-secret plans for the D-Day landings.
They had been monitoring her since she had revealed the sinking of a British battleship earlier in the war - even though the government had suppressed the news to maintain morale at home.
It took a jury just 30 minutes to find her guilty and she became the last person to be convicted of witchcraft in Britain.
As she was led away to start her nine-month sentence in London's Holloway Prison, the housewife cried out in her broad Scottish accent: "I never heard so many lies in all my life!"
Helen's "gift" had long put her on a collision course with the authorities and led to one of the most bizarre chapters in British judicial history.
Today, exactly 50 years after her death, campaigners hope to persuade Home Secretary John Reid to overturn the verdict. "Helen Duncan was one of the world's top mediums, a woman who gave hope and comfort to many," says Ray Taylor, editor of Psychic World.
"It was her gift that caused the government to hound her under an archaic law which eventually led to her death.
"It's a scandal and it is time that her name was cleared."
Helen Macfarlane was born into a poor family in Perthshire, central Scotland, in 1897. Growing up in Callander, Stirlingshire, she earned her nickname due to her tomboyish behaviour. Even as a teenager, she appeared to have a sixth sense, predicting the length of the First World War and invention of the tank.
When the unmarried Helen became pregnant in 1918, she fled the village and settled in Dundee. There, she married an invalid soldier, Henry Duncan, and had five more children.
During that period, Britain was still reeling from the devastating losses sustained in the First World War and many grieving families sought spiritual comfort.
Seances quickly sprang up, conducted by people claiming to be in touch with the dead.
Helen was among them and, by the 1930s, she was travelling the country, summoning up spirits before incredulous audiences.
But while the seances were making her a celebrity, scientists were already questioning her abilities and, in 1931, she was invited with Henry to London to have her skills tested by psychic researcher Harry Price.
He recalls: "She was placed in the curtained recess. In a few seconds, the medium was in a trance. The curtains parted and we beheld her covered from head to foot with cheese-cloth!
"Some of it was trailing on the floor, one end was poked up her nostril, a piece was issuing from her mouth. I must say that I was deeply impressed - with the brazen effrontery that prompted the Duncans to come to my lab, with the amazing credulity of the spiritualists who had sat with the Duncans and with the fact that they had advertised her 'phenomena' as genuine."
In a bid to reveal the contents of Helen's stomach, Price asked if she would undergo an X-ray.
"She refused. Her husband advised her to submit. But that seemed to infuriate her and she became hysterical. She jumped up and dealt him a blow on the face.
"Suddenly, she jumped up, unfastened the door and dashed into the street - where she had another attack of alleged hysterics and commenced tearing her sŽance garment to pieces.
"Her husband dashed after her and she was found clutching the railings, screaming." Yet the researchers did not bring about Helen's downfall. Instead, the seeds were sown in the Mediterranean, on November 25, 1941.
HMS Barham, a 29,000-tonne battleship, was attacking Italian convoys when it was hit by three German torpedoes.
The ship went down within minutes, with the loss of 861 lives. Already reeling from the Blitz, the British government decided to keep the news quiet, even forging Christmas cards from the dead to their families.
But they never reckoned on Helen's psychic powers...

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Days after the attack, she held another seance and claimed that a sailor with the words HMS Barham on his hatband appeared and said: "My ship is sunk."
News of the apparition swiftly reached the Admiralty, which finally chose to act two years later, in January 1944, amid fears that Helen would somehow reveal plans for the D-Day landings five months later.
When Helen was arrested, everyone expected a swift release. But such was the paranoia of the authorities, she was refused bail and told that she would stand trial at the Old Bailey.
It was alleged she had pretended "to exercise or use human conjuration that through the agency of Helen Duncan spirits of deceased dead persons should appear to be present".
News of the case infuriated PM Winston Churchill. In a note to his Home Secretary, Herbert Morrison, he wrote: "Give me a report. What was the cost of a trial in which the Recorder was kept busy with all this obsolete tomfoolery, to the detriment of the necessary work in the courts?"
The trial lasted seven days. Mediums had rallied to her cause and their defence fund allowed her barrister to call 44 witnesses to testify she wasn't a fraud.
Yet it was to no avail. Helen served her sentence and emerged from prison that September a changed woman.
AT first, she vowed never to hold another meeting but eventually relented â€" a fateful decision.
The end came in 1956, when she agreed to give a seance in Nottingham. Though the Witchcraft Act had been repealed five years earlier and spiritualism was recognised as a bonafide religion, Helen was arrested and subjected to a strip search.
She never got over the shock and, after being rushed to hospital, remained there for the next five weeks and died on December 6.
Whether a gifted psychic or a charlatan who exploited people's griefs, the strange tale of Helen Duncan - the unfortunate victim of Britain's last witchhunt - continues to attract controversy

There was a documentary on Helens life. I have been asked before to give evidence behind the story, it was also printed in the national daily papers at the time. Obviously, the Admiralty believed she had abilities. Poor woman. I wonder who decided to write families cards from their dead, and who wrote them. The letter from Churchill is of course on public record. Yawn.