Why I am against 'powers'

[dwai]

Documentation isn't the problem.

 

......

 

I wrote 4 different posts and they all wound up getting long and not really going anywhere.

 

I agree that someone making a claim should be willing to go the whole 9 yards in validating their claim. It's the scientific process, which is really just common sense. If you make the claim, follow through. If you don't (or can't) want to follow through, don't make the claim.

 

Check out this article:

 

The Battle between Science and Yoga

 

I had done serious research on this topic when I wrote this article. There is enough statistical evidence from research performed/led/funded by various American medical and government organizations to at least make a rational reader think twice about disregarding these "phenomena" as hoaxes (as you will find in the article).

[tyler zambori]

I'm curious to see how power seekers can reconcile their quests with concepts of Wu Wei. All I seem to hear about is striving, striving, and more striving.

 

Yes, even pointing out striving is striving!

[Thunder_Gooch]

Trying to become Carrie or Firestarter or the Phoenix didn't make me happy. It really only made me obsessed and attached to something that was not doing me any spiritual good. It was a distraction. I learned a lot about myself in the process of trying to become psychic and during the process of debunking myself.

 

When I finally did get a 'power' (of sorts) it was like nothing I ever imagined or aspired to. People don't think of the ability to be content and happy or still your thoughts as a 'power'. And I finally lost my fear that someone was going to win the psychic arms race and beat me to becoming the Phoenix. Most people will never put in the amount of time I invested on that ultimately futile endeavor.

 

Trying to acquire power for it's own sake is juvenile. People who seek the power to control others, seem the most drawn to siddhi development, they would be better off buying guns and learning how to use them well, and or becoming politicians, policemen or high ranking military officials.

 

I believe there are two main types of power, power over yourself (self mastery) and power to control and manipulate others.

 

Your motivation for wanting the power to begin with is the most important thing here.

 

I believe everyone has the potential to awaken to a higher level of consciousness, and ever since I was a child I've been obsessed with it. I want to become something more than this hunk of rotting flesh, I want to transcend this, to evolve.

 

Siddhis (that would pass Randi's test) mark your level of true spiritual development, and or your teacher's level of development. People who think they have reached a higher level of consciousness but cannot display any real siddhis are either mentally ill, or delusional peaced out hippies.

Edited April 6, 2010 by More_Pie_Guy

[Ya Mu]

I'm curious to see how power seekers can reconcile their quests with concepts of Wu Wei. All I seem to hear about is striving, striving, and more striving.

Ah...

Wu Wei - Is that wRong way's luminous and complete opposite cousin? Who wants to fool around with that fellow when they can do stage tricks instead?

 

Seeking power does not much good. Power is already there. Through time & effort practices, power manifests. What we do with it is entirely up to us. Either dance in wu wei or not. I like to dance. And find power works so much easier while dancing, kinda like gliding instead of having to flap the wings.

[Spirit Ape]

I think having abilities you are closer to wu wei....

[Ya Mu]

I think having abilities you are closer to wu wei....

I agree. Impossible, I think, to walk in the wu wei until we have awakened to our true self. And it is difficult for this to happen without time & effort practice. Since this time & effort practice manifests whatever natural talents one may have, IMO it naturally follows that walking in the wu wei will be easier. But we still have the choice to do so or not.

[Spirit Ape]

Arent we walking in it anyway, just some people cannot see or hear?

[Ya Mu]

Arent we walking in it anyway, just some people cannot see or hear?

Good point. But some reach level of hearing but don't listen.

[Spirit Ape]

Lack of awareness...

[Gerard]

Not everyone follows the Chinese system, never heard of wu wei and other Taoist jargon, don't post in Internet forums, don't talk to others about spiritual issues yet show signs of very high spiritual achievement and most important of all, lead normal lives (you know the old chop wood and carry water thing) and care less about telling the whole world about it.

[Spirit Ape]

Agree!!! Many paths....

[Cloudhand]

I say more like a kick in the butt!

[goldisheavy]

I am not opposed to the idea that a human mind can develop real abilities.

 

You don't understand the nature of identity it seems. What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to be Jane? Ever thought about it? The more power you have the less human you will be. Why is that? Because the meaning of "human" is defined in a certain way. Humans are beings with certain specific limitations and boundaries. As you remove limitations and erase the boundaries, you make what used to be human unrecognizable as "human." It's like suicide without violence. You die to the world as you know it while the world dies to you, and yet you live and there is no violence or suffering.

 

It's supremely scary. It's infinitely more scary than taking a bullet to the head or having cancer. Why? Because when you perceive a bad condition coming to you from what you think is outside, you can allow "your" being to contract internally and even to lose consciousness, lose grip on what's going on, to go into coma, to die. Dying is a result of not being able to come to terms with transformation. It's when the transformation fails to match your idealized self-image so dramatically, that you cannot stand it anymore and pass away. This is why people have amnesia regarding very bad accidents, because their restricted and structured consciousness cannot accommodate certain things into its structure. This is why most people don't remember having died previously or having been born, as all of that is way too traumatic to overly structured mind.

 

In contrast, when you become magical, you experience the fullness of transformation without the luxury of being able to contract your being, to shrink away, to hide, to run into unconsciousness, without the luxury of amnesia and passing away into unconsciousness. You have to be a willing participant in all of transformation, all of it internalized, and to a normal person there is nothing more scary and more insane than that. And to remain calm and composed and even kind during this is the pinnacle of mastery. That's what Buddha is.

 

I posted that 4.5k wordcount monster partly so I could demonstrate just how openminded on the subject that I have been since I was a child. I simply have higher and harder standards of proof that must be met before I agree that someone has a cultivation induced 'power' than most of you seem to. I am not going to go over easy and show awe, respect or pledge mine because someone put a chopstick through a table. After years of studying psi, magic and siddhi I am not easily impressed anymore.

 

You're a wonderful person and you don't have to prove it or demonstrate it. If you enjoy demonstrating it, that's another matter. I respect what you're saying here.

 

However, the matter about magic has not been addressed at all. You've not really tried to understand magic. Instead you tried to force your way into it using your assumptions about what magic is and how it works. You've never really asked, "Why do I feel this dismagic? What's so dismagic about this experience?" The limitations. Where do they come from? Who maintains them? There is a lot to think about.

Edited April 7, 2010 by goldisheavy

[SFJane]

Thank you for your honest post Jane, I'm sure many have had similar initial goals and experiences but might be unwilling to admit to them. The pursuit of powers may be seen as a false route, but I know that for more than one person, the steps taken on this false route were also the first steps taken on what would eventually become the true path of the Way. Many wander to the left, but then the light veers them right.

 

You are welcome fizix. I'd like to think that I count among those for whom that false path led to a true path. Thanks for commenting.

 

 

Hello Jane, Do you believe you were fortunate not to have bumped into a lot more trouble than some of what you have mentioned here? The true power can and will use any method or form.

 

I did run into more trouble that I posted here. But I suppose it could have been far worse. I am not sure what you mean by true power.

 

Thank you for sharing your personal story.

 

Are you for, against, or indifferent to the Summer Olympics?

 

For? I guess. I think it's neat.

 

Or maybe if you can somehow shield yourself from the belief of the world, making anything possible within your sphere of influence.

 

I think this is what happens when people with self professed powers keep in their company only those that are inclined to believe in them in the first place.

 

 

Moving paper inside a glass my teacher can do or could do at anytime I have him on video doing it,

 

Please post it by all means.

 

What did his doctors have to say about that, I wonder? Did they even care after he said no, or did they follow his progress?

 

It also calls to mind the story about Kan from Kunlun who healed himself after apparently being paralyzed by staying in "hold the ball" posture while watching tv. He was on some known rugby team, and I would think that healing yourself from paralysis is newsworthy- or at least article worthy, not to mention something that would have some amount of people going, "hey, how did that happen?"

 

Or do people think it's all just a misdiagnosis or a fluke?

 

I am not sure how Bruce's doctors have to say about it. In this country you can choose to make health decisions AMA.

 

Re: Kan from Kunlun.

 

Am I to understand that he became paralyzed by Hold the Ball and fixed it or that he fixed ongoing paralysis by Holding the Ball?

 

BLASPHEMY!

 

I just had to say it But I can see the defence to john chang being:

He is rich, doesn't have reason to trick people, he can't take a penny from his skills anyway.

He has nothing to prove to you or the world, your loss.

 

And thats where it stays... Thats why I wish Masters with such power made a bigger effort on showing this stuff is real...if it is...

 

 

And on a side note, John Chang has been in a car crash, but his body was protected from any injury, yin chi absorb impact, or yang made his body rock hard.

 

Yes. Agreed. And of course!

[SFJane]

Actually, fraud is probably too harsh a word to use here. I would say, JCs demos feel like a trick. I don't mean to say that JC is a con-man for money or a criminal.

 

I agree with this sentiment. I am not trying to indict the guy as being criminal but a skilled showman who is demoing one thing and saying it's caused by something else.

 

I know supporters don't want to hear this, but if psychic powers were documentable in the least then the whole world would know about it. It would not be a secret. Large portions of the population would spend their lives practicing. Before responding in objection, think about the argument and see if it actually makes any sense.

 

People from all places, at all times, have wished for and sought after psychic power. Are we to believe that over the millennia not one single solid, documentable tradition or example has come forth? I'm not trying to make anybody mad, but just think about this issue honestly. There would be no way to suppress the support for these kinds of abilities should they actually happen to exist.

 

This. Iyoiyo, I agree wholeheartedly.

[SFJane]

Just my thoughts on this. I've read roughly 85% - 90% of what you wrote. A lot of it is just repetition (like describing the various powers, yea, I understand, two three of the best examples would be enough for me to get the point, or maybe even 5, but I had to quit reading at some point as I wasn't getting any truly new information after a while).

 

All this time you've been developing powers you never actually understood magic. You still don't. BK Frantzis asked some good questions, but his questions were just a starting point (and not even a good starting point, probably because BK Frantzis either doesn't understand magic himself in the first place, or just wanted to dissuade you).

 

The good news (and keep in mind, all this is just my opinion) is that you didn't lose or waste anything. All that experience is still valuable. You've been making an enormous error by trying to brute force your way. You thought that if you only were more stubborn and practiced longer and with more devotion, you'd get some powers.

 

Let me ask you this. Imagine you had all the powers. All of them (or maybe just one all-embracing power? why would you need separate and different powers for different tasks unless your powers were limited/specialized for each task?). How would you, having all those powers (or one true power), produce an experience of an earthly human being, of this here "reality" with all its limitations? How would you go about it?

 

If you can understand what I am saying above, you'll understand something important.

 

Oh and think about this too. If you have all this power, would you still be insecure? And if you had no insecurity and no fear, would you really be as destructive as you imagine with all those powers?

 

There is a lot, a shitton that you don't understand yet. I like your honesty though; that's rare. You stand out as a real practitioner. You've made mistakes but at least they are honest mistakes, unlike 99% of people who don't make a sincere effort and whose mistakes are fake mistakes.

 

I don't recognize you as an authority on magic. I don't recognize you as even a talented beginner. I really don't know who you think you are but I don't think you have demonstrable proof of your authority or any credibility to come into my confessional thread to judge my understanding and progress within the 'field' of magic sir. Your level of condescension is really quite something for someone with no proof of mastery or ability of your own. You seem delusional and grandiose to me.

Edited April 7, 2010 by SFJane

[goldisheavy]

I don't recognize you as an authority on magic. I don't recognize you as even a talented beginner. I really don't know who you think you are but I don't think you have demonstrable proof of your authority or any credibility to come into my confessional thread to judge my understanding and progress within the 'field' of magic sir. Your level of condescension is really quite something for someone with no proof of mastery or ability of your own. You seem delusional and grandiose to me.

 

 

So wholesale rejection of all content? Nothing worth considering? Bad form on my part?

[goldisheavy]

The electric car is not comparable. People from all places, at all times, have wished for and sought after psychic power.

 

This is actually not true. What people want is to preserve their identity as people, together with all the implied limitations, while at the same time, they want to overcome these limitations. And yet you cannot have your cake and eat it too, and that's why people do get anywhere for the most part.

 

Are we to believe that over the millennia not one single solid, documentable tradition or example has come forth? I'm not trying to make anybody mad, but just think about this issue honestly. There would be no way to suppress the support for these kinds of abilities should they actually happen to exist.

 

There are a number of problems with this. First, why don't you go to your place of work and ask "Did you sincerely seek psychic powers in your life?" My bet is that most people will answer in the negative. So when you say "People from all places, at all times, have wished for and sought after psychic power." you make it sounds like a lot of people, but when you put it in perspective, when you compare that to the number of people throughout ages who did not seek any psychic powers, the picture changes dramatically.

 

Secondly you assume that the world you currently experience is not your own creation. But what if it is? Wouldn't it mean that the absence of people with powers is nothing more than your own intent and proves nothing at all? All your logic depends on the idea that the world exists objectively and independently.

 

However, if you truly believe that the world exists objectively and independently, how would psychic powers even work? By what means? Wouldn't the world work by its own rules then? This goes back to our sincerity. If you sincerely believe in psychic powers you cannot also believe that the world is objective and independent of your mind and being.

 

You have to decide what is it you really want and how seriously do you want it. Most people who talk about wanting psychic powers are deceiving themselves in a very profound way.

Edited April 7, 2010 by goldisheavy

[SFJane]

Well, psychic siddhis often occupy a middle ground between low anecdotal standards subject to confirmation bias & fraud to exceedingly high scientific standards of repeatability at will. IOW, I think siddhic occurences can often far exceed the standards of probability...while not quite meeting the rigorous standards of science. Similar to someone winning the lottery, lightning strikes or tornados. Natural phenomena is often simply hard to replicate in the lab, by nature. Which means that it could be very likely that they actually happened...but would be difficult to prove scientifically because they are not easily repeatable under controlled conditions.

 

I think several of your psychic anecdotes would fall into this category. They definitely aren't scientifically PROVEN, but cannot be easily logically or scientifically explained away either. The point here being that we should allow some room in the middle of the spectrum, instead of polarizing everything as black or white. Just because something can't be scientifically proven - does not mean it didn't happen legitly.

 

Compared to religion and superstition, science is in it's infancy. It's very easy to fall back on the weakness of science and say, well, too bad science, you just can't figure it out because you fail. Understand the progress we've made. It used to be we only theorized about extra solar planets. Now we can detect them. Sickness used to be spirits, curses and bad fumes. Now we know about bacteria, viruses and parasites.

 

For example, with your same argument, BKF's Water Method isn't scientifically proven, either. Not by a long shot. You may have attained results while using it - but correlation =/= causation. Also, the Scientific Method demands that the results be repeatable. Good luck trying to organize a mass group of people with your prior conditions willing to spend hundreds of hours doing BKF's qigong under scientific monitoring. If you couldn't convince your own family members to do so, good luck trying to convince enough random strangers. And good luck trying to raise the funding to study a treatment with little profit potential. IOW, folk methods that require a lot of personal effort like these will probably never be scientifically proven - because people are too lazy to do them & there is no profit motive to recoup the costs for such studies.

 

Have you seen some of the latest brain studies and research about the effects of meditation on the brain? Harvard researchers have shown that meditation causes growth in the prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain that rules over emotional and impulses.

 

 

 

Interesting. Although are you now saying that siddhis are real and can be attained through "psychic" training?

 

If you follow my instructions you will begin to reproduce some of the training I put myself through that led to deja vu, precog, and then if you have close friends that believe in supernormal powers you can tell them in total honesty and sincerity that you have begun meditating on your upper dantien and that it is making you psychic. Depending on your friends they may not question it and then think you are special or skilled and you'll start getting respect and cred for being a psi even though you can't prove it in a moment's notice or on demand. But it does give you this flighty heart palpating rush that makes you think you are more mentally developed than others. And that you've stumbled on The Secret and Quantum Powers and all that stuff. It can go to your head until you've convinced yourself that you are the real deal. As long as you don't go anywhere near skeptics or James Randi your claims may go untested and believed in by you and your friends for years. If that is what you want, follow my instructions to the letter.

 

 

PS - According to the John Chang videos, the team of scientists did set-up & control the parameters of all his experiments - including relocating to random locations to perform his LED diode test, for instance. Or are you saying they were in on the act?

 

Overall, you made some great points and I agree that many of us were initially drawn to these arts looking for superpowers to overcompensate for worldly insecurities. And of course, later came to find out that these those superpowers are a lot harder to come by than portrayed in pop culture fantasy genres...lol. But as we matured, our motivations changed so that didn't matter much anymore, anyways...

 

 

I read the thread you linked me and I am going to with some of the other posters on the Darrin Brown thing. Also, I can't say with any certainty whether the researchers were in on it or not. I do feel like my intelligence was insulted by having the camera switch from him tearing the newspaper indoors to igniting it outdoors. If they have the missing between footage they need to post it. I am willing to admit that my analysis is limited by not personally interviewing all parties, not having access to all film and only seeing what the camera allows us to see. I feel let down that the researches were intellectually or scientifically dishonest with some or all parts of the demos.

 

Think about it. Can chi stop a bullet? Then he takes an airsoft round in the hand at close range to the barrel? This proves his nei gung and chi is proof against, say, a .45 ACP round from ten feet? Bad, bad science, bad conclusions, poor experimental design. A pellet gun is not the same as a long barreled rifle chambered with a 7.62mm. Why aren't people at least annoyed at having been insulted by those researchers with their flimsy protocols and bad camera work?

 

Thanks for your thoughtful post Vortex.

Edited April 7, 2010 by SFJane

[goldisheavy]

If you follow my instructions to the letter you will begin to reproduce some of the training I put myself through that led to deja vu, precog, and then if you have close friends that believe in supernormal powers you can tell them in total honesty and sincerity that you have begun meditating on your upper dantien and that it is making you psychic. Depending on your friends they may not question it and then think you are special or skilled and you'll start getting respect and cred for being a psi even though you can't prove it in a moment's notice or on demand.

 

Ah, but this process is not something that you can turn on or off. This process of people believing things that are congruent with their unchecked presuppositions is always ongoing, even right now. Very respectable people, Ph.D., scientists, physicists, all are subject to this very same process. They are all affected.

 

So if being part of this process is enough to suspect the assertions that people involved in the process make, then you must suspect everyone and not just the believers in the psychic.

 

Why aren't people at least annoyed at having been insulted by those researchers with their flimsy protocols and bad camera work?

 

Actually many people are. Why do you say they are not? Not everyone is amazed by John Chang. I think witnessing a real psychic power, like with a .45 bullet would be too traumatic to the mind of most people. They would vomit like Neo did when he went through the rabbit whole in the Matrix.

Edited April 7, 2010 by goldisheavy

[Sloppy Zhang]

I am not sure how Bruce's doctors have to say about it. In this country you can choose to make health decisions AMA.

 

Re: Kan from Kunlun.

 

Am I to understand that he became paralyzed by Hold the Ball and fixed it or that he fixed ongoing paralysis by Holding the Ball?

 

Ah, funny wording on my part, sorry, sorry.

 

Here's the link to the article: http://www.kunlunbliss.com/kan.html

 

He was paralyzed somehow elsewhere, someone showed up in his room and told him the hold the ball posture. Kan held the position and was all better.

Edited April 7, 2010 by Sloppy Zhang

[goldisheavy]

Understand the progress we've made. It used to be we only theorized about extra solar planets. Now we can detect them. Sickness used to be spirits, curses and bad fumes. Now we know about bacteria, viruses and parasites.

 

"A disease is caused by bad fumes"

 

"A disease is caused by tiny little invisible creatures that live inside and on your body."

 

"A disease is caused by spirits that live inside and on your body."

 

Sorry but I don't see a tremendous difference. But one of them is sexy scientific one and others are unsexy dark ages ones.

 

I like science, but to me scientific advancement is less about superficial things, and more about how it changes the way we think about things. Things themselves though are as absurd as they have ever been. Little dudes running around your body are as silly as the spirits. The difference between bacteria and spirits is wholly superficial, like the difference between Santa Claus in the West and Ded Moroz (Grandfather Frost) in Russia is a superficial difference.

Edited April 7, 2010 by goldisheavy

[Iyoiyo]

 

Secondly you assume that the world you currently experience is not your own creation. But what if it is? Wouldn't it mean that the absence of people with powers is nothing more than your own intent and proves nothing at all? All your logic depends on the idea that the world exists objectively and independently.

 

However, if you truly believe that the world exists objectively and independently, how would psychic powers even work? By what means? Wouldn't the world work by its own rules then? This goes back to our sincerity. If you sincerely believe in psychic powers you cannot also believe that the world is objective and independent of your mind and being.

 

You have to decide what is it you really want and how seriously do you want it. Most people who talk about wanting psychic powers are deceiving themselves in a very profound way.

 

You are, of course, completely correct. However, I put aside the possibility that this existence is my own creation at least while writing on message boards. Otherwise it becomes pretty difficult to phrase ideas at all, doesn't it?

[goldisheavy]

You are, of course, completely correct. However, I put aside the possibility that this existence is my own creation at least while writing on message boards. Otherwise it becomes pretty difficult to phrase ideas at all, doesn't it?

 

I don't think that's a necessary consequence. I think a change from considering some things to be internal to your being and others to be external to considering all things to be beyond the self-other boundary is a very very subtle change. It's almost no change at all. Some would say it's not even a change.

 

When I am dreaming, I usually assume the dream world exist in the same way this waking world exists here, externally, independently objectively and so on (well that's not entirely true, but let's simplify). Suppose I become lucid and realize I am dreaming. Suddenly I realize that everything that appears, however legitimately and "physically-looking" it is, is actually a product of my dreaming mind. That can be a very mind-blowing awakening because things in my dream can look so crispy clear, I would swear they were real physical things, so then realizing they are not can be a mix of exhilaration and fear, or maybe not so much, depending on the state of mind I am in. And then what? Do things change? Do things become difficult? Not to me. I can explore the world. Everything is more or less the same. I can chat with people. I can ride the bus. The only difference is that now I can do more things. I can now disappear and reappear somewhere else. I can hypnotize people effortlessly (all the people in the dream seemingly want to do the same things I want to do and I don't have to make any kind of obvious hypnotic effort, but the hypnotic effect just appears on its own). If I am not lucid, this is less likely. If I am not lucid, someone might be arguing with me. But if I am, usually there is no argument. So if I say, "we are going here" we are going there. People don't tell me "no we are not going there." They do exactly as I say and they enjoy it. So being lucid does make things different but I wouldn't call those differences "difficult."

 

So I just described all that in terms of dreaming, because I think it's easier to think about it that way, when it's somewhat removed and compartmentalized from this here occurrence.

[freeform]

I'm puzzled - is James Randi being considered an authority in science? o_O

 

Secondly you assume that the world you currently experience is not your own creation.

 

Are you a subscriber to the 'you create your reality' idea?