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        New Message Board Archives >> 2005 General Board Posts >> OT: On-line course on consciousness
        
(Message started by: Frank_W on Apr 1^st, 2005, 12:59pm)

Title: OT: On-line course on consciousness
Post by Frank_W on Apr 1^st, 2005, 12:59pm

Free on-line book, dealing with lucid dreaming, OOBE's, and altered states of consciousness, if anyone is interested.
http://www.geocities.com/lucidmetro/coursetable.htm#TABLE%20OF

Title: Re: OT: On-line course on consciousness
Post by Gator on Apr 2^nd, 2005, 1:45am

Thanks for the link Frank. I'll defintely give it a look at. That kind of stuff interests me.

Title: Re: OT: On-line course on consciousness
Post by RichardN on Apr 2^nd, 2005, 1:58am

Having had an OOBE at age 14, I've been interested ever since.

Thanks for the link Frank.

Title: Re: OT: On-line course on consciousness
Post by jokrs2 on Apr 2^nd, 2005, 2:29am

Thank you, Frank! This should help me clear up some problems I'm having....like not remembering dreams at all, just to start...No REM??? Blessings, Joe

Title: Re: OT: On-line course on consciousness
Post by Kevin_M on Apr 2^nd, 2005, 12:57pm

on 04/01/05 at 12:59:10, Frank_W wrote:

Free on-line book, dealing with lucid dreaming, OOBE's, and altered states of consciousness, if anyone is interested.

I am sure this has a following of interest by many.

Though perhaps meant in the light of sharing, this seemed to be curiously inserted at a midway point of the reading:

Quote:

Replace the old INTENT with the following

INTENT: - "I am allowing myself to go to "Lucid Metro", a mutual shared dream meeting places that I am allowing my total consciousness to organize, meet, and share my creative potential with other dreamers. While there I will meet with my friends or group and create a special building for myself to return to."

An abrupt parting of interest was nagging me at this point:

Quote:

ARE THERE OTHER INTELLIGENT BEINGS OUT THERE?

I myself have had a few experiences with alien intelligence's which I tend to rather avoid because they so far have seemed self-absorbed and neutral. The one's that I have interacted with which were somewhat nice just liked to play fun games. They didn't stick around to tell me any secrets. The beings I have dealt with the most are usually my friends who have come back in time to greet me as their total self. Which I think is interesting.

Prompting a search for a review of another publication by Ian Wilson:

cont'd...

Title: Re: OT: On-line course on consciousness
Post by Kevin_M on Apr 2^nd, 2005, 12:57pm

cont'd...

Quote:

"The After Death Experience " by Ian Wilson

Reviewed by Matthew Shepard.

In this book, Ian Wilson makes a detailed investigation of ideas and experiences relating to the possibility of life after death. He is by no means uncritical in his handling of the evidence and yet admits that while certain theories about life after death are based upon spurious facts there still remains evidence of a sufficiently perplexing nature as to throw doubts on the idea that death is the final curtain to life.

One theory with a seemingly good scientific basis is that of reincarnation. Under hypnosis, subjects have been taken back to revisualise memories of their early childhood; further regression of this kind to before the date of their birth has resulted in memories of past lives. Moreover, unlike other so-called evidence of the paranormal, the results can be replicated - "in this regard the phenomenon has the satisfaction of something genuinely scientific in the sense that if certain guidelines are followed it can be repeated and demonstrated by people who have never tried it before."

However, closer scrutiny of the phenomenon of regression reveals various problems. If a man is regressed by hypnosis to childhood and asked to write, he will do so in a childish scrawl - yet that has been found not to correspond to the actual handwriting of childhood!. In other words, under hypnosis, the person will produce a simulation of their childhood handwriting, not the actual handwriting. It would appear, therefore, that the hypnotised subject is "going through an act, just like he will if told he is a typewriter or a chimpanzee, because he has effectively allowed himself to becomea puppet for whatever strings the hypnotist may pull." This hypothesis is corroborated by the fact that the person's understanding of reincarnation mirrors that of the hypnotist - if the hypnotist believes a person to begin a new life on death, the past lives reflect this, but if the hypnotist expects a gap between past lives, this too is revealed!

Another area of Investigation into life after death is mediumship. Ian Wilson looks at the record of the most famous medium of recent times - Doris Stokes. Initially, the conversations produced by her supposed contact with the dead seemed startlingly accurate, but further scrutiny revealed that Doris Stokes was most accurate when giving messages to people she knew well, and this accuracy deteriorated markedly with strangers. What is even more suspicious is that her demonstration of powers at large auditoriums, such as the London Palladium and the Sydney Opera House appear to have been "rigged". Her success was spectacular with a number of members of the audience, but "not only had these key individuals been known to Doris beforehand; each had been specially invited to the show by none other than Doris herself."

A more critical experiment in spiritualism has been the sealed packet test. Here a packet is sealed up with a message known only to one person. After the person's death, the medium - supposedly in contact with him - should be able to reveal the message. The packet can then be opened, and the messages compared. As Wilson points out, where deception can be proven not to have taken place, the results of the type of experiment have usually thrown up incorrect messages from the medium; one example is a message which was "If I could revisit any place on earth, I would visit Hampshire" being revealed by the medium as "a passage from Plato on the eternal nature of love"! However, such a disparity is often overcome by ad hoc explanations, such as "he used to read Plato when in Hampshire"!' A better test was devised by one scientist, who prepared a coded message of a passage in a book. The key to decipherment was known only to him. After his death, mediums attempting to contact him, reported that he told them that his memory was not as good as it had been and therefore he was unable to reveal the key to his coded message, which sounds suspiciously like a convenient excuse. The simplest explanation is that he could reveal the code, because the medium was not, in fact, in contact with his dead persona, but only believes themselves to be.

Another exceedingly odd phenomena explored by Wilson is the out of the body experiences perceived by people close to death, usually on the operating table while undergoing some major surgery. These people feel that they are floating above the operating theatre, and looking down at the surgeons operating on them The experience is so vivid that it appears to be real, I.e. quite unlike a dream. Moreover, it is retained as a memory of a real event, rather than fading quickly like a dream. Wilson thinks this provides at least some evidence of the continued existence of consciousness outside the body and possibly after death. I think he has failed to consider the possibility that under the peculiar states of consciousness involved, it may be possible for dream and reality to become confused, so that an artificial (but plausible) construct is taken as real, like an hallucination.

Fascinating book, and provides some intriguing and controversial conclusions

I can't get myself to proceed beyond certain extensions to the boundaries of belief.

Thanks though

Kevin M

Title: Re: OT: On-line course on consciousness
Post by Frank_W on Apr 5^th, 2005, 9:14am

I see what you mean, Kevin. For me, the stuff on dreams, lucid dreaming, and OOBE's, are what interest me the most. Especially in the field of human consciousness and exploration, the old saying around here, "Take what you need and leave the rest," rings truer than ever.

Title: Re: OT: On-line course on consciousness
Post by Kevin_M on Apr 5^th, 2005, 10:39am

on 04/01/05 at 12:59:10, Frank_W wrote:

if anyone is interested.

Especially in the field of human consciousness and exploration,

I was. I read it but with this guy's body of work, I had to draw the line, took me outside of my interests within minutes. When interested, sometimes exploration leads to decisions on what to leave and what to take, had to read it to find out though. However, you are correct, the words "free" and "online" should have given me a big clue.

Learn everyday.

Kevin M

Title: Re: OT: On-line course on consciousness
Post by ExplodingEyeBall on Apr 5^th, 2005, 11:12am

Interesting.

I don't agree with everthing there but I did find it very interesting reading.