General Chat

There is a continuing debate which highlights how little is known about the closely related and fundamental scientific question of human consciousness. These complex questions are likely to continue to baffle scientist for many more years, until the breakthrough comes - as it undoubtedly will.

"Perception": Lovely word. It means to become aware through the senses of which most people assume we have but 5 ; sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch Actually, there are several more. A better one is "extra-sensory" which, as a pre-fix, opens up a whole new ball-game but really just alludes to becoming aware by means other than the 5 aforementioned.

This sensory apparatus is really an extension of the brain. But recently, Swedish scientists have discovered that the brain, or central nervous system (which is an extension of the brain) can detect electromagnetic fields independently of the famous five. About 20% of the population can become aware of the electromagnetic radiation from power cables. The findings have been checked and verified in the UK and elsewhere.

Consciousness has yet to be defined by science. Memory, another mysterious sense, still to be pinned down and defined, starts well before birth- at least by 12 weeks after conception. There is evidence that memory can be transmitted at cellualr level.

What cannot be emphasized enough is that what we perceive of the world, not to mention the universe, is just a tiny range of what there is. Our eyes are sensitive to just a very narrow band of a huge spectrum of radiation that includes radio waves, microwaves, x-rays, gamma rays, infra red and ultra violet light and beyond and all manner of electro-magnetic radiation. Our ears pick up but a fraction of the sound that exists and we come a very poor second, in this respect (not to mention smell), to our domestic pets. We are oblivious of things less than about a millimeter across, but tend to believe that what our limited senses do not perceive cannot possibly exist. Most people had difficulty in coming to terms with, or even believing in, bacteria until the fairly recent invention of the microscope. Even today, with some people, seeing is believing.

Many physical processes make no impression on our senses but these days, science is becoming (and I stress the word "becoming") to make more and more of the strange world out there accessible.

Perception of what is around and inside us, by means other than sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste (the so-called 5 senses) is known as "mindsight". The mind "sees" something that is not registered by the normal 5 senses although the brain may then delude us into thinking it is our eyes, ears or nose that is picking up the phenomena. It will seem that real to us!

Until recent tests were carried out at the University of British Columbia in Canada, this was just another "not proven" example of the power of the mind. Vision researcher Dan Simons of the University of Illinois, now “suggests the existence of an interesting and previously unknown “attentional mechanism" i.e. mindsight. It was further suggested that people who do not experience this may be screening out what appears to be a gut feeling in favour of what is, to them, more rational. Wonder what a Tudor ancestor would make of today's world? Probably his/her mind would crack as they would not be able to cope with it.

Prof. Currie of The Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology states "that as long as living creatures continue to exist, they will adapt and change - and the sky is the limit, there are no constraints on what they may do". Humans are relative newcomers to the scene and their future remains an enigma, despite recent TV documentaries telling us what is to come in the next 5 million years. What is clear is that what is of value will be developed and that includes our newly acknowledged mindsight. I nearly said "newly discovered" but many of know that is not the right phrase.
Len

Why do many so emphatically reject the possibility of extra-sensory perception?

It seems curious that we are prepared to believe much of the incredible world that we live in, and will accept a person's word, without proof or evidence, yet demand proof when someone reports a paranormal phenomenon. We all accept the existence of the duck-billed platypus, though I doubt many who read this knows anyone who has seen one, let alone seen one themselves, yet we question a close friend who reports seeing a ghost.

Could it be that - deep, deep down, - we already know the answer, and it terrifies us?

Len, something else really interesting to ponder on. I am really enjoying your thoughts.
I think 'mindsight' is exactly what my Mum had. I like that word.
Throughout her life she saw and heard things that other people did not.
We always said she was like a radio receiver - she could receive programmes we couldn't because she was tuned into another frequency.
I think we all just need to learn to retune ourselves.

Jo

This is very deep and not really in my sphere of knowledge but I can see some historical explanation of ghosts.They certainly served a purpose.
I grew up on stories of haunted places in the village,we all knew where to not go because of ghosts.So had our parents and a number of previous generations.
Having looked quite deeply into the history of the village it seems that every one of the haunted places I knew of,bar one,is on a route from the sea and this village was particularly well placed for smuggling,not only the later imports but the mediaeval wool exports too.The exception was the cavalier who was seen by the landlord of the pub that strangely enough had people coming in hoping to catch a glimpse.He served the purpose of attracting customers,good marketing eh?
If you are doing something illicit on a road at night,it is not a bad idea to put a bit of fear into the populace regarding that road.
There are a few natural phenomena that can help with this fear too.I have experienced one quite recently.Sitting here late at night finishing something on the computer I heard what sounded like a whole string of horses going by,with nothing to see.It was a boar hedgehog looking for a woman! No doubt a lot of headless horsemen were hedgehogs.

Thankyou Len, for your theories, I am always fascinated by your posts,

Caz ( with ancestors from very near you}


xx

Electro-magnetic radiation is the general name given to energy with electrical and/or magnetic fields. These forces travel through space and often through solids as do waves on the sea or bullets through the air - but much faster, usually near the speed of light (part of the spectrum of radiations) which is 186,000 miles a second. Visible light itself is part, a very small part, of this range of energy and usually, when we think of "spectrum" it is the rainbow which comes to mind from the reds at the longer frequency end and getting through the colours to blues and violets at the shorter frequency level. Mostly it is in waves and the wavelength; the distance between the crests of the waves is called the "frequency". Just to make it a bit more confusing, there is another form of energy which, like the bullet, travels in discontinuous particles or photons or quanta (from which is derived "Quantum mechanics" a new branch of physics. Our receptors, eyes, have two means of detecting photons, differing light-sensitive cells in the retinas called rods and cones which detect coloured or grayscale light.. Remember - our eyes are extensions of the brain.

The slowest known waves-lengths or frequencies are sound waves which are, of course, pressure-wave motion with a frequency in the region of 20 to 20,000 hertz and requires a medium (gas,water,solids) through which to travel. It may, though, be translated into electrical impulses and back again. There is evidence that "life force", probably electro-magnetic phenomena, may induce physiological sensations of sound which although received direct into the mind may appear to have been received by the ears, eyes, nose or even touch due to the cortex of the brain which processes the information received.. One could speak with a ghost but for obvious reasons, a ghost would be unlikely to transmit sound waves. "Mind-hearing" is quite a commonly reported sensation, in others as well as schizophrenics, and if a ghost appears to speak, notwithstanding having no solid vocal chords to vibrate, the sensation of hearing may seem just as real.

VLF, “very low frequency" is in the lower part of the sound spectrum and very much below the capabilities our hearing to detect; although some animals use VLF, e.g. elephants who, it has recently been discovered, converse together over incredible distances using VLF. These wavelengths may be measured in metres. From there upwards the wavelengths get shorter and shorter, into the electromagnetic bands, micro-waves, radio frequencies (quite a wide band). Invisible to us, are infra red light, ultra violet, x-rays and to the shortest frequencies of all, the gamma rays. I have skipped a lot. Gamma rays are given out by the nuclei of radio-active atoms. They were sometimes called y-rays, "y" being a similar shape to the symbol for "gamma", the third letter of the Greek alphabet, hence the later name There is, though, a deeper mystery to the void first hinted at by Minowski, Albert Einstein’s tutor. Space and time form a continuous mathematical entity, which encompasses dimensions at present unknown to humanity, which is gradually being revealed.

Of all the bewildering elementary particles in the physicist’s inventory, the most ghost-like is the neutrino. Its existence was predicted in 1930 by Wolfgang Pauli, on purely theoretical grounds but it was not until 1956 that the actual neutrinos, emanating from the Atomic Energy commission’s huge nuclear piles, were trapped in the laboratory by Reines and Cowan

The reason why it took so long to detect them was that the neutrino has virtually no mass, no electric charge, no magnetic field and is not affected by gravity. It is not captured or repelled by the electric or magnetic fields of other particles whilst flying past them. A neutrino originates somewhere in our galaxy, the Milky Way, or perhaps in another galaxy and, travelling at the speed of light can go through the solid body of the earth as if it were empty space. It can only be stopped by a head-on collision with another elementary particle and the chance of that is infinitesimally small. Fortunately, there are enough around that collision do occur which enabled them to be detected. In the time it takes to read this sentence billions, coming from the sun and other stars, are streaming through your skull and brain.

Sorry, this essay is a bit too long for a single post therefore will be continued in my next.
len

Cont.
To the unprejudiced mind, neutrinos have a certain affinity with ghosts – which does not prevent them from existing. This is not just a whimsical metaphor. The absence of ‘gross’ physical properties in the neutrino’ and its quasi-ethereal character, encourages speculation about the possible existence of other particles which would provide the link between mind and matter. Remember, 96% of the cosmos is composed of ‘dark matter’ completely unknown to science. Thus the eminent astronomer V.A Firsoff suggested that “mind was a universal entity or interaction of the same order as electromagnetism and there must exist a modulus of transformation analogous to Einstein’s E=mc² whereby ‘mind stuff’ could be equated with other entities of the physical world”. He further suggested that there may exist elementary particles of mind-stuff (consciousness) with properties somewhat similar to the neutrinos.

The universe, as seen by a neutrino's eye, if it had one, would look very unfamiliar. The earth and other planets simply would not be there or might, at best, seem as thin patches of mist. The sun and other stars may be dimly visible as they emit some neutrinos. A neutrino brain might suspect our existence from certain secondary effects but would find us very difficult to prove as we would elude the neutrino instruments at its disposal.
Our universe is no truer than that of the neutrinos - they exist but they exist in a different kind of space and probably, almost assuredly, other entities also exist but they are governed by different laws.
In our universe, so far as is known, no material body or energy can exceed the speed of light because at this velocity its mass and so inertia become infinite. The neutrino, though, is subject to neither gravitational nor electromagnetic fields so that it need not be bound by this speed limit and may have its own, different time.

From earlier analyses of mental or conscious attributes, it appears that they have no definite location in the so called physical (or, better, gravi-electromagnetic) space, in which they resemble a neutrino or even a fast electron. This suggests a special kind of consciousness-space governed by different laws - which is corroborated by the para-psychological experiments and findings made at Duke, Princeton, Freiberg, Edinburgh and other Universities and respected centres of learning already referred to in my story. It seems that consciousness/ mind/spirit/soul, call it what you will, is subject to laws of its own, defining a different type of space-time.
len

Joanna
I empathise with your mum. A lot of people think that I too have lost the plot (Don't they Ray?)
Len

Len, I don't think you have lost anything to do with this plot!
I have learnt so much from reading through all the facts you have given us.
It sounds as though this is something you have been studying for years.
My Mum lived comfortably with her 'gift' - as did we.
Do you have psychic abilities too?

Jo

Joanna. Yes, I suppose I have been thinking of this for years (along with wine, women and song etc etc and many other subjects). My favourite word used to be "rubbish" but long ago found that "maybe" was a better one.
I do insist on evidence though and therefore it was on the books that I looked at mediums of the "psychic" variety. After about 5 years of checking them out I found that perhaps 95% were deluded or downright spoofs. There was that 5% though that I could not fault and, believe me, I tried.

As Dr Alden, a clinical psychologist, of the Derbyshire Royal Infirmary remarked, concerning the use of hypnosis, "We may not know how it works, but it certainly seems to". She says hypnosis can be so effective in reducing pain that patients can even stop using conventional pain-killers.

Hypnosis was first recognised by the ancient Egyptians and Greeks as a way of inducing dreams to solve problems. The phenomenon may also be induced by meditation or deliberately "going into trance" as do trance mediums. It may also be induced by music (especially "gospel music"), dance, flagellation (how the saints of old did it) or mind-altering drugs. Read up shamanism.

Hypnosis involves focusing (or disengaging) the attention to such a degree that one may switch off the usual senses and work purely in the subconscious mind and, at that stage it is possible to experience an interaction between minds.

I put this in just to widen the scope of this discussion.

Well, we are getting into something else entirely now.
Oh boy, have you widened this topic, Len!
Hypnosis: that is something of which I do have personal experience.
I was taught by a pupil of some famous chap, whose name I cannot for the life of me remember just now.
But - many years ago, I taught a friend self-hypnosis, which she has since used to keep her constant migraines at bay - very successfully!
I have used self-hynosis myself before dental appointments.
As for the psychic things that I have experienced in my life: well, there is no proof I can give you - except my word that weird, inexplicable things happened.
My Dad and my husband had/have to be convinced of things otherwordly - and they were/have been.
Looking forward very much to your next input, Len!

Interesting what you say about mediums.

I have never been able to find a convincing one but, like you, have looked hard.

I would be eternally grateful and very, very interested if it were possible to let me know who one (better still - all) of the 5% were that you couldn't fault.

Eldrick. I am somewhat long in the tooth, frail of body but reasonably sound of mind. When I had the time and energy to travel the country seeking out mediums, armed with notebook and tape-recorder, was about many years ago and few of them would be known today. Of course, there are well-known mediums today and many quite intelligent people vouch for them

I started off by visiting a medium on the spur of the moment, a French lady who I had never met before and who, until we met, did not know I existed. I saw an ad. for a "free" demonstration at the Spiritualists Association in Belgravia, London. Anyone could attend. - and I found that four-letter word very appealing.

Being a born sceptic, I am too cagey to give away clues. It was a public demonstration. I was picked out of a crowd of maybe a 100 people and had not sat anywhere near the medium, having gone just to observe. The medium gave me a long message from my grandfather which included that I had an oil-painting of him - which I promptly denied. There was much other personal information about my grandather which I could not accept as true. Not being overly shy, I was rather curt with the medium and suggested she was guessing. I later found out from an aunt, my Godmother, who I told about the medium, that I did have the oil-painting, a small one, buried in a box of old family photos that she had given me, which I had not yet opened. On checking..... it was there. I also found I was wrong - and the medium right - on a number of other counts. She also told me that I carried a memorial card re my father, which I did, in my wallet. This implies that either the medium or the deceased has access to my subconscious and/or memories. Taking into account that the medium told me things which I had not known, and which I only found out later from an independent source, logic leaves me believing in life after death, although what form it takes is uncertain. Certainly it is intelligence with a memory and reasoning powers. Of course I could not leave it there. That was the starting point.

I have never seen the pyramids but do not doubt that they exist, people tell me they do - too much evidence to be denied. Some would deny it, though. There are those who still believe in a flat earth, which was made and populated in the course of 7 days, precisely 4,600 years BC.

Since my sense of curiosity would not allow me to let it rest, I subsequently travelled quite long distances on many occasions, to observe mediums (The names Kathleen St George and Roy Morgan come to mind) and regressions under hypnosis. I am now fairly well convinced about it, having had the opportunity to meet and assess many mediums, hypnotists and subjects at various sessions. It cost me £75 to be regressed - maybe 20 years ago. Well worth it though - although one has to be sure of getting a real hypnotist, a person of integrity. In the case of Roy Morgan, I got rather angry with him for telling me things which I thought could not possibly be true. I went back to him later and apologised as checking proved me to be wrong.

Years ago, when I had more time and fewer commitments, I spent about 5 years traipsing around the country, armed with notebook and tape-recorder studying mediums. True ones are hard to find although they do exist. Many of them are charlatans and one could recognise their spiels, seeing how they scanned the sitters, obtaining information upon which they embroidered. I would not trust a TV programme, too easy to enhance with cutting, editing and special effects. I have met quite reasonable people, though, who have had dealings with contemporary mediums such as Colin Fry who have been won over.

As usual, I exceeded my allotted space and had to prune this considerably but may get in some of the deleted material later, if appropriate.
len

i love lens threads,i,ll be thinking about this for days lol.thanks lenxxx

len have you ever watched crossing over with john edwards,hes amazing but not a show off.and always accurate.xxx

Things that go bump in the night> Len there are other things that go bump in the night!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Len, glad to read more of your thoughts.
How interesting you are!
Please do not cut anything short, let us have it all.
The Pyramids I can vouch for; seen them twice. They do exist!
I have also had amazing messages through various spiritualists and mediums. And yes, no-one knew I was going and I talked to no-one before the readings. Nor do I give out anything helpful.
I have been to see Colin Fry twice now. I don't think I would go again.
I also raved about John Edwards until I came across an article which made me wonder just how much of the studio audience had been 'got at' and had given out information unwittingly.
There was even a suggestion of microphones being placed in the audience to pick up their conversations.
Who knows?
Anyway, please do give us more, Len.

I am not very keen on disclosing my personal excursions into the paranormal as I am aware that what I say is anecdotal. The only way to be sure of anything, if one can ever be sure, is by personal experience and the weight of evidence.

I much prefer to keep to the known laws of physics and make out a case from that angle. As for "letting you have it all", Joanna, I would be happy to oblige but GR merely cuts off what I have laboriously typed, often in mid-sentence, should I exceed 5000 characters so I have to give a severely pruned version. So far, in this short posting, I have used up 657 characters. I am not going to check their figures.
Len

Len, I did not mean to pressure you in any way.
I have just found this so very interesting, and well-presented.
I fully understand if you now feel that it should be brought to an end.
I think everyone who has read the above has learnt something.
Thank you.
Jo