A few facts about lucid dreaming

A short video I came across about lucid dreaming.  I knew most of the information in the video already, but I thought it was a good, quick overview of the topic.

What if our physical bodies are the biological drones of our spirit selves?

I sometimes listen to Alex Tsakaris' Skeptiko podcast and a term I hear him refer to a lot is "biological robot."  The concept behind the term suggests that human bodies are nothing more than robots made of flesh and blood where consciousness is just an illusion created within the brain.  It's an atheistic concept that Alex doesn't agree with, and I don't agree with it either.  I think consciousness goes beyond the brain and is a part of our spiritual selves.

But what if you could blend the concept of a biological robot with spirituality?  We think of a robot as something constructed out of metal and circuitry with some kind of computer controlling its body like the one in the video below.



A robot may have a computer controlling it's function, but a human can still send commands to it.  So what if our physical bodies are something like a robot that gets "commands" from our spiritual self?  What if the physical body is the biological "drone" of a spirit "pilot?"  The biological drone body may be preprogrammed to perform tasks like regulating bodily functions and to have default responses to certain situations (instincts).  The spirit pilot could still issue commands and perhaps even override instinctual responses to certain situations if the situation warranted a different response.

I come from a Christian background, so I'm reminded of the story from Genesis where God creates man from the "dust of the earth" and gives man dominion over the Earth to till the land.  We have now created robots and drones using the metals of the earth to perform tasks for us.  What if God did much the same thing by creating biological drones to maintain the Earth?  What if those biological drone bodies are actually the physical avatars of spirits?  If you come from a different background, you could reinterpret what I just said with whatever suits you, whether it be some "universal consciousness" or alien overlords, but the concept would still be the same.  Were we created to maintain the Earth?  Could it be our spiritual selves are unable to directly interact with the physical plane so biological drones were created from the physical plane (the "dust of the earth") so our spiritual selves could directly interact it?  Could our spiritual selves be guiding us in much the same way we could play a virtual reality game?



People who report having near-death experiences typically say they can recall hovering outside of their body and they may experience the reality around them with greater clarity.  What if that experience is like the spiritual equivalent of removing a virtual reality helmet where your awareness shifts from the digitally created virtual reality to the actual reality around you?

I think this concept would fit well with someone who believes in reincarnation as well.  Whereas the biological drone body could give out eventually, the spirit pilot would live eternally and could be capable of taking over a new biological drone body.  The drone body wouldn't be able to recall the previous body because it is a new body, but the spirit pilot would still remember the old body.  Kind of like how you might replace an old computer with a new computer when the old one crashes.  The new computer wouldn't remember the old computer because it isn't the old computer.  But you as the user would still remember the old computer even as you issue commands on your new computer.

If this concept I've outlined here is in any way accurate, I myself probably wouldn't follow the reincarnation aspect.  I think it would be more likely the spirit self is born alongside the physical body, but the spirit self operates at a higher level than the physical body.  Whatever the case may be, these are just some of my rambling "what if" thoughts and it doesn't necessarily mean I think everything I've outlined here is the true reality.  I do feel that we are spirit beings living in physical bodies though.

If any of my ramblings here are accurate or even partially accurate portrayals of reality, I imagine they over-simplifications of something much more grand.

Questions about Consciousness

I like to watch the YouTube channel Vsauce, which is a channel of videos about random topics including science, funny pictures, and things you can do online.  I came across a video today that questions and is titled, "What is Consciousness?" Although there is no clear answer to that question, it brings up some interesting information, and, not surprisingly, more questions.  But I suppose that is the sort of question that leads to more questions! Personally, I think consciousness -- the mind and our awareness -- exists independently of the physical brain. I think the physical brain is more or less a control grid for the mind to control the physical body in the physical world. But that doesn't mean the study of the physical brain isn't interesting and sometimes confounding!



At the end of the video, there is also a link to a "Leanback," which is just a playlist of interesting videos about a topic with short videos of narration by the host in between each informative video. It's a cool thing to just sit and watch if you have a little time to spare.

Out of Body Experience; Hallucination or Reality?

This article refers to out-of-body experiences as 'hallucinations' caused by a 'glitch' in the temporal lobe, but is it really a hallucination? I suppose the mind could create a hallucination like that, but what if someone experienced their surroundings the way they really are, and not just as a figment of the mind's imagination (such as seeing something they wouldn't have been able to see with their eyes at the physical location they are at)? If our consciousness, or spirit, whichever term you prefer, exists independently of the material brain, isn't it possible that the only 'glitch' could be in the brain's ability to confine a person's consciousness to their body (or at least the sense of being in our body, looking out from our eyes)?

Something to think about.

Instant Induction Hypnosis and Missing Time?

I was watching a DVRed episode of a Discovery Channel show called Deception with Keith Barry that focused on the possibility of spy agencies using hypnosis as a tool for spying.  Barry, a 'mentalist' skilled in the art of hypnosis, explored some possible ways a spy agency may use hypnosis.  In one experiment, he put two hypnosis skeptics into a trance and told them the combination of a safe that had $5000 in it but told them they wouldn't remember the combination until he woke them up and gave them a trigger phrase.  When they first woke up, they were skeptical that they had even been in a trance at all, but he gave them a minute to remember the combination and open the safe and get the $5000.  The minute passed, and neither of them remembered the combination.  Barry said the trigger phrase, and they immediately remembered the combination.  Afterwards they were convinced they had been hypnotized afterall.  The purpose of the experiment was to see if someone could be hypnotized and told secret information that they wouldn't remember until given a trigger phrase.  If they had been captured and interrogated for information by someone who didn't know the trigger though, the person wouldn't be able to divulge the secrets because they wouldn't consciously know that the secret was...and they might not even be aware that they had a secret hidden in their subconscious in the first place.

Barry also experimented with the possibility creating a Manchurian Candidate type of scenario (though not to kill someone).  In his experiment, he programmed someone to go and 'drug' an assassin (actually an actor) in a coffee shop and steal some pictures from him and bring them back.

He also did a mass hypnosis experience by putting most of the people in an audience in a trance and convincing them they had seen a hilarious movie.  But the experiment that most caught my interest was one where he used a hypnosis technique he called instant induction hypnosis.  He was able to walk up to three different strangers on the street and put them in a trance in a matter of seconds without them even realizing what he was doing.  With one guy, he just had him stand still looking at his watch for 10 minutes.  Another guy he convinced to sit on the ground with a beggars sign and beg for money.  Another guy he convinced to go to a ATM and withdraw $60 and throw it in the trash (Barry went and retrieved the money though, and gave it back to the guy).  What was interesting though, is these people didn't recall doing what Barry told them to do.  They had to be shown they had done it.

As interesting as all of that was on its own, what really got me thinking was how easily Barry was able to put those strangers on the street into a trance and then have them do something without having any recollection of it.  Could this explain some of the stories people have told about experiencing missing time (where people cannot account for what happened to them during a certain period of time...here are a few examples here, here, and here)?  The strangers on the street Barry put into a trance didn't even realize he had put them in a trance.  Could something like this be one possible explanation for what has happened to people who claim to have experienced missing time?  In some cases, a missing time experience may also be part of an alien abduction experience.  If a guy on the street could put a person in a trance, then I suppose it's possible an alien could too.  But what if there was no alien?  What if the whole alien abduction experience was a false memory implanted into their mind while they were under a trance?

Why someone would want to implant an alien abduction experience into someone's mind, I don't know.  I don't know why someone would have put them into a trance in the first place either.   But perhaps being temporarily put into a trance could explain at least some of the cases of missing time some people have reported experiencing.

An Interview with Dr. Charles Tart

I found an interview with Dr. Charles Tart, a Psychology Professor with an impressive academic resume, where he answers questions regarding his views on science and spirituality.  I was very impressed by the interview, so I'm posting a link to it for anyone interested in reading it.

Read the interview here: An Interview with Dr. Charles Tart (original link is no longer available, see this link instead)

H/T

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Some 'What if' questions of what we are a part of

I've been putting this post off for a few days because I haven't been sure how to word it or organize it.  Sometimes it can be hard to put some of my thoughts into words.  It makes sense in my mind, but sometimes it's difficult to find the right words to convey my thoughts.  It's not necessarily that the words don't exist, it's just that it might be necessary for others to understand  a certain point of view or have knowledge of certain things related to the subject first.  A point of view and a person's specific knowledge can be gained over time and from different experiences, so sometimes it can be difficult to just sum everything up and still properly convey the message to someone else.  Sure, you could try to write about every aspect of your thoughts and what you base it on, but that could get very time consuming and wordy.


So the contents of this post mainly consist of some of my mind's ramblings over the past few days.  I don't really have a singular point I'm trying to make.  A lot of these thoughts are just questions, and shouldn't necessarily be considered  'beliefs' or even theories.  This post is of a rambling nature, but hopefully the questions will at least make sense.

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Why is it that we are so concerned with seeking "life as we know it" somewhere "out there?"  Because we want to know that we, the billions of us living now plus all of our ancestors before us, are not 'alone' in the vast universe?  So far, not much has been found.  Sure, it's been claimed microbes have been found and even water on the moon and mars, but so far, we haven't found plants or animals or people like us anywhere else.

But why should we be so focused on finding "life as we know it?"  How should we define life anyways?  Plants are not sentient, yet they are life.  Most people don't think of the sun as a lifeform, but if you consider that a plant is a lifeform, why not the sun?  Stars are born.  They live for a while (a very long while).  They 'grow' into red giants and red dwarfs and white dwarfs and towards the end of the life, they go supernova and 'die'.  I guess a black hole could be considered the death of a star too, but technically, it still exists, albeit in a form so dense it is not even measurable.  In a way, maybe they don't really 'die' at all.  But they do appear to have some sort of life cycle.  So is the sun not alive?  Consider this; would you be alive if the sun wasn't there supplying light and life giving energy to the earth?

As Heisenberg said, "We have to remember that what we observe is not nature in itself but nature exposed to our method of questioning."  But so often do we try to view everything through a particular lens. If you viewed the Mona Lisa through a microscope without ever stepping back to see the bigger picture, would you ever really know what it is? Sure, you could analyze the paint particles you see. You could do an in-depth analysis of what colors they are and maybe even conclude what chemicals were combined to make that color. But is that what the Mona Lisa really is? Is it just paint particles and a chemical analysis? Or is it a picture of a woman? If all you did was look at the painting through the lens of a microscope, you'd never see that is actually a picture of a woman.

So is this how we view our reality? Through the lens of a microscope or a telescope? What if we are a part of a much larger whole? We can see what matter is made up of through a microscope. The atoms we see consist of an atomic nucleus with electrons clouds orbiting it. Is it that much different from the moon orbiting the earth or the planets orbiting the sun or the stars spiraling in a galaxy (granted, an electron's orbit may not be elliptical like we are used to seeing with planets, but it is nonetheless orbiting around something). So what is this common theme of orbiting objects? Why is it when you look through a microscope you can see orbiting objects, and yet when you look through a telescope you also see orbiting objects?  If the atoms we see through a microscope make up matter, then what do the stars and planets we see through a telescope make up?

And what of consciousness? Biologist Rupert Sheldrake considered the possibility that the sun may be conscious. Now of course if you go along with scientific establishment's current thinking that consciousness is entirely a manifestation of the brain, then that would sound absurd.  The sun has no brain, so how could it be conscious?  But if you consider that consciousness is not just a manifestation of the brain, then I suppose you could ask the question of "why not?"  If the brain is merely an instrument for consciousness to control the physical body, then that means consciousness can still exist without a physical brain.  So if consciousness can exist without a brain, then why couldn't the sun be conscious?  If it were conscious, would we even be able to grasp a consciousness so vast?

What of our cellular structure?  Our bodies are made up of many individual cells.  Each cell has a purpose it serves.  Some cells are part of the makeup of our skin, some cells are part of the makeup of our organs.  Some cells are dead, making up our hair and nails.  But do these cells understand what they are?  Do they understand what they are a part of?  Do they understand they are a part of a conscious being?  Do they know what consciousness is?  Sure, a cell serves it's purpose, it forms part of the makeup of life as we know it, but does it really understand what it is?

What if we too are just part of the makeup of something bigger?  What if the cells of our body are to us what we are to the earth?  What if the earth itself is a lifeform?  If something much larger than us observed the earth through a microscope, could it not consider that the earth is alive?  The earth is teeming with life of different types.  The lifeforms on earth completely rely on the life giving resources of the earth and its star.  If the earth itself was 'dead', then how would life exist on it?  If the sun was 'dead', then how would one of its planets have life on it?  And shoot, if were going to toss out the question as to whether or not the sun might be conscious, why not the earth too?  Maybe it would help explain some of the mysteries of the world that we still don't understand.  When a person is dreaming or under hypnosis, the dream world or memories seem real, as if they were really happening.  Perhaps an earth mind could have a similar effect on the reality that we live in.

But then again, perhaps it is a ridiculous thought to consider that the earth or sun could be conscious.  I can point out that life on earth may just form part of a bigger whole in much the same way that our cellular structure forms part of a much bigger whole that make us what we are, but I suppose a key difference between the two is that I am able to actually question what it is that we are a part of.  I can question what I am a part of, but does a cell really question what it is a part of?  So is it even a good analogy at all?

Nevertheless, I still wonder what all it is we are a part of.  And I'm glad that I can wonder that.  I'm glad to be able to say that I AM.

Psychic Research: Mainstream Science or Not?

The mainstream scientific community has a tendency to shy away from belief in psychic phenomena.  When they do consider it and try to experiment with the phenomena, they oftentimes do so with a condescending approach. They are typically more concerned with trying to debunk it than they are they trying to prove it.  There are some scientists, such as Dean Radin and Rupert Sheldrake, who take a more positive approach to studying psychic phenomena, but Radin and Sheldrake are a rare breed in the scientific community.

However, the opinion of mainstream science on the subject of psychic phenomena hasn't been of much interest to some government agencies.  It's no secret that some law enforcement agencies have consulted with psychics to gain tips on cases they are trying to solve.  And it's has now been known for some time that the U.S. government had secret research projects regarding psychic phenomena that went on for many years.  The Stargate Project, which was a code name for several sub-projects by the U.S. government regarding research on psychic phenomena, existed from the 1970s until 1995.

Obviously there are 'authority' figures in both politics and science that have taken the subject seriously.  So why do the academics typically shy away from it?  Are they afraid they won't be able to come up with a good enough explanation?  Or are they really that closed-minded?  I wouldn't be surprised if, considering many universities are government supported, the government has purposely coaxed the educational establishment to avoid the subject and try to debunk it just to keep the public consciousness away from the subject so they can monopolize on the advantages psychic phenomena could potentially bring.

Although if that was their plan, their plan has failed.  Public interest in psychic phenomena has not waned, and I think interest in the subject is actually booming now.   The government has acknowledged their own research on the subject and you can see many TV shows and documentaries relating to psychic (and paranormal) phenomena in general.

But not mainstream science.  They still aren't that interested  They are still avoiding the subject or trying to debunk it.  It's like these guys are in some sort of Darwinist dark age.

I mean, if the government declassified documents that state they have some sort of partnership with gray aliens  and Larry King interviewed a little gray alien, would the academics still rush to debunk the whole thing?  Would they be like, "Well, the alien is obviously a genetic altered human.  We took a DNA sample and we saw the similarities.  See look here at this picture.  You see how similar that strand is?  Here, let me circle it.  You see it?  You see it?  That indicates it's a genetically altered human.  The whole thing was probably a Soviet experiment from the beginning."

I doubt they would react that way (although I wouldn't be surprised if some did), so why are they so apprehensive about psychic research?  Why are guys like Radin and Sheldrake thought of as mavericks?

I think mainstream science needs more mavericks.

"How" doesn't answer "Why"

I was thinking about consciousness and 'self' today while I was out walking, and it occurred to me that when it comes to neuroscience, scientists may be attempting to answer the question to "why" the brain works the way it does with the answer to "how" it works.

I tend to think our mind consists of at least two levels of 'self'.  The conscious and subconscious, which I tend to think are the 'animal mind' and 'soul mind' respectively.  I say "at least" two levels of self because I'm not totally convinced the subconscious is the soul mind.  The subconscious itself may be part of the physical/animal mind, but the point is, I believe our highest 'self' transcends the physical body and brain.

I think the brain is more of a control panel for our higher self.  This is, of course, not the scientific view, which suggests that everything occurs in the brain itself.  But I think the observed neural activity in the brain is not merely the result of the brain's physical functioning, but the result of that 'neural activity' interfacing with the brain.

Scientists have taught us many things about our limitations.  They've taught us that our eyes can only see an itty bitty little bit of the light spectrum.  There are certain things we can't hear.  They've even taught us that this varies animal to animal.  Dogs don't see as many colors as we do, but they can hear and smell things better than we do.  But despite the limitations we have, scientists seem to ignore these limitations in their experiments.  They only care to study what they can observe.  If they can't observe it, then it must not be.  How ironic?

To get to the point I want to make in this post though, when it comes to the brain, I think scientists may be limiting their answer to "why" the brain works with "how" it works because they cannot observe "why" it works.  To use an analogy, if Person 1 is using a touchscreen cell phone and started moving an object around on the screen with his finger and then asked Person 2 why they object was moving, Person 2 would probably look at Person 1 stupid and answer, "Because your're moving it around."  And yes, that is WHY the object is moving around...because someone is moving it.

But let's say Person 1 who is moving the object around on the screen is invisible.  A Person 3 comes along and asks Person 2 how the object is able to move.  To investigate, Person 2 may get a screwdriver and take the back off of the phone.  After some investigation, Person 2 concludes that the circuit board is what enables the object to move on the screen.  Not only that, it appears that the circuit board is what makes the whole phone function!  But that is HOW it works.  That doesn't answer WHY it's doing what it's doing.

The answer to WHY the circuit board is doing what it is doing is because the invisible Person 1 is instructing it on what to do.  But because Person 2 and Person 3 don't see Person 1, they assume that the circuit board must hold all the answers, including the answer to why.  As a result, the answer to 'why' gets lumped together with the answer to 'how', or they just continue to look at circuit board for many years trying to find an anomaly that may explain - or can be interpreted to explain - 'why'.

If Person 2 and Person 3 limit themselves to only considering what they can observe, then they may never understand that the intelligence - the why - behind the circuit board's operation is the invisible Person 1.

"We have to remember that what we observe is not nature in itself but nature exposed to our method of questioning." -Werner Heisenberg, theoretical physicist


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P.S. Just to add another point to my post, lumping "how" and "why" together seems to be common in science.  For instance, I googled the question of why the sun is hot.  Here is the first answer to come up:

The sun is hot because the atoms deep inside the sun are undergoing nuclear fusion. Nuclear fusion releases a lot of energy. This energy excites all the other atoms in the sun, and causes them to move about. This is what heat is. So the nuclear reactions inside the sun cause the sun to be hot.

That answer came from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Physics Department.

But why are the atoms deep inside the sun undergoing nuclear fusion?  Why does nuclear fusion release a lot of energy?  Why does nuclear fusion even occur?  What is it that makes the laws of physics what they are?  Why is that the way it 'is'?

I think the answer given to why the sun is hot would be like someone asking a hunter why he shot a deer, and then the hunter answering because he "pulled a trigger on the gun, which ignited a reaction in the chamber, which propelled a bullet toward the deer, which blasted through the deer's heart, cutting off its blood circulation, which caused it to fall over dead."  Imagine getting that answer instead of just getting an answer like, "To eat it."  So in this case we have 'what' happened; the hunter pulled the trigger igniting a reaction that propelled the bullet towards the deer.  As to 'how' the deer died, it was the bullet going through its heart and cutting off its circulation.  But as to 'why' it all happened, it was because the hunter wanted to eat it.

Maybe this is the key difference in religious studies and scientific studies.  Religion wants to know why, but science wants to know how.  Perhaps we could have an even greater understanding of things if we recognize that each question needs to be answered separately.

Tunnels to the Light

Michael Prescott has been writing about Near-Death Experiences (NDEs) on his blog lately, and I was particularly intrigued by his latest posting on the subject where he cites some cases from Kenneth Ring's book Lessons from the Light.

Here is one of the cases he cited:

Then there is the case of a nine-month-old baby boy who suffered a cardiac arrest during an emergency surgical procedure and was without a pulse for 40 minutes. Afterward he was in a coma for three months. Ring reports:

Two years later, when he was five, he was having lunch one day with his father and spontaneously brought up the time "when he had died."

As the mother observed before she related this event to us, neither parent had ever heard this story before. She went on to say, "He had never, ever, been told that he had died. He was never told the things that happened to him."

In any case, as the mother recalled a conversation, it went like this:

He sat down besides his dad, and he said, "Dad, do you know what?" And his dad said "What?" "You know I died." "Oh, you did?" And he said, "Yeah." His dad said, "Well, what happened?" And he said, "It was really, really dark, daddy, and then it was really, really bright. And I ran and ran, and it didn't hurt anymore." And his dad said, "Where were you running, Mark?" And he said, "Oh, Daddy, I was running up there [pointing upward].... And he said he didn't hurt anymore, and a man talked to him. And his dad said, "What kind of words did he say?" And Mark said, "He didn't talk like this [pointing to his mouth], he talked like this [pointing to his head]." Because he couldn't tell you with his little vocabulary that it was through the mind. And he said, "I didn't want to come back, Daddy, but I had to."

Here is another case he cites:

I was hovering over a stretcher in one of the emergency rooms at the hospital. I glanced down at the stretcher, knew the body wrapped in blankets was mine, and really didn't care. The room was much more interesting than my body. And what a neat perspective. I could see everything. And I do mean everything! I could see the top of the light on the ceiling, and the underside of the stretcher. I could see tiles on the ceiling and the tiles on the floor, simultaneously: three hundred degree spherical vision. And not just spherical. Detailed! I could see every single hair and the follicle out of which it grew on the head of the nurse standing beside the stretcher. At the time, I knew exactly how many hairs there were to look at. But I shifted focus. She was wearing glittery white nylons. Every single shimmer and sheen stood out in glowing detail, and once again, I knew exactly how many sparkles there were.

I recommend you go read the whole article.  If you've ever been interested in NDEs or paranormal phenomena in general, I think you'll probably like it.

Below are my comments about his posting.
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One thing interesting to me about the case of the nine month old boy is that at nine months, he wouldn't know how to say much of anything. But during the NDE, he was apparently able to communicate and understand what was being said to him. Not only that, at five, he was apparently able to translate that understanding into words.

Another thing of interest to me are the NDErs who describe how vivid everything was during their experience. I think that is more evidence that the spirit self is our highest self. It seems our brain's interpretations of what we see and hear around us is restricted to the limitations of our eyes and ears. Our spirit self probably soaks up all the vivid information we see and hear, but humanity doesn't seem to know - or has forgotten - how to access all of this detailed information. During an NDE though, it seems that spirits no longer confined to the limitations of body are able to fully experience a larger spectrum of reality. I don't know if I would go so far as to say that we are spirits 'trapped' in human bodies; I think it may be that experiencing life in a human body is an intended part of development, or we may have just forgotten how to access the full spectrum our spirit self is able to observe.

I sometimes wonder if the bio-magnetic energy fields around us are either our spirit selves, or an effect given off by our spirit selves. I also wonder if the 'electrical' currents flowing through our brains are not the result of 'brain activity' itself, but the result of our brain being operated by those 'electrical' currents. In other words, perhaps the brain is like a set of buttons, and the 'electrical' currents are like a set of fingers. If so, then it makes sense that the physical body would cease to operate once the 'fingers' move away from the 'buttons'.

Astrology: A Very Long History

I'll admit, I've never been that interested in astrology.  When I was younger, I thought the whole thing sounded silly.  Even now I don't take it too seriously, but I do find the concept behind it more interesting.  Over the years I've come across a lot of things that have piqued my curiousity about it, whether it be personality profiles based on it, or accurate predictions made with it.  I'm also intrigued by how ancient people such as the Maya were able to make such a complex and accurate calendar based on astrological observations.  I've been thinking about it more lately because I've been thinking about cycles of time (I wrote about that the other day).  I also know that the sun and the moon effects us and the earth itself.  So with all that in mind, I've been considering how other stars and planets may effect us also.

No one is denying that stars and planets move through the sky.  But not everyone thinks the movement of the stars and planets has any real effect on us or society.  It occurred to me though that belief in astrology may be the oldest 'religion' (for lack of a better term) there is.  Typically, you can trace the origins of a religion to someone.  But, you can't really do that with astrology.  You can trace the various types of astrology back to specific regions, but you can't really trace it to any one person.  It's almost as if astrology in one form or another is as old as recorded history.  It's like it was just sort of 'there'. So where did it really come from?  Who was the first astrologer?  Who was the first person to notice all the movements of all the heavenly bodies and record what they thought it all meant?  And why did they think it meant what they said it meant?  How many different people figured it out?

I figure it began by one of two ways:

• It was taught to early man by an angel, demon, or alien.
• Someone merely observed how the stars moved at night, then recorded whatever events occurred afterwards and associated the observed movements with what events occurred (or didn't occur).

Now let's just assume for a moment that the latter is true.  Are the movement of heavenly bodies actually connected to the events that occur?  Or are they merely unrelated events that someone erroneously connected to the movement of stars?  What if there really was no connection between the movement of the stars and what events occurred?  

What if there was no connection, but a connection was created and entered into the collective sub-conscious. What if the collective sub-conscious causes events to happen in a certain way at a certain time based on the position of the stars?  In other words, what if the movement of the stars have nothing to do with the events that occur, but thousands of years of belief in astrology have resulted in people unconsciously causing the events to occur anyways?  Could it be so embedded into the collective subconscious that even people that don't know anything about astrology still unconsciously contribute to causing events to happen based on the position of the stars?  Is this why religions such as Judaism, Islam, and Christianity condemn astrology?  Are these religions trying to free the collective subconscious from the belief that the movement of stars has some real significance?  Are they trying to tell us that our lives aren't dictated by the positions of stars?  Are they trying to break the cycle?

But then I'm also reminded of how the sun and moon effect us.  So I begin to wonder again if the other stars and planets can have a subtle effect on us to.  

I'm still not sure what I believe.  But it gives me something else to ponder.  

Reality that you can't see

Reality is only what your mind perceives it to be. What you consider to be existence occurs in your mind. Your eyes don't really see, they just transmit light signals to your brain. Your ears don't really hear, they just transmit sound waves into your brain. Everything is interpreted in your brain. What's interesting is that our view of reality can be shaped by what our mind is told to think. For instance, hypnotists can hypnotize people and tell them that upon waking up, they won't be able to see someone. In some cases, the hypnotist will tell them they won't be able to see him/her (the hypnotist). Here is an example:

Here is another example. In this one, the girl not only seems to think the hypnotist is invisible, he has also convinced her that a stuffed monkey is alive and talking to her.



In one case I've heard about, a hypnotist told a man that his daughter would be invisible. When he woke up, he not only couldn't see his daughter standing in front of him, but he could read the inscription on a watch being held behind her back. Pretty amazing huh? Like I said in my recent article A Quest for Truth, the subconscious mind will believe whatever it is told. If it is told that someone is invisible, then the mind will no longer process the light waves bouncing off that person. Instead, it will process the light waves coming behind that person. So the reality around you does exist, but reality as you know it is only how your mind perceives it. So the next time you want a break from reality, just remember, the reality you think you know is all in how your mind perceives it anyways!

Does Reincarnation Occur?

Trying to find a definitive answer to the question of whether reincarnation really occurs is no easy task. In eastern religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism the belief in reincarnation is an accepted part of the faith. Western religions don't say much about it though it seems. The Bible seems to indicate that there isn't any reincarnation:

And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgement. - Hebrews 9:27

But religious beliefs aside, is there any evidence of reincarnation? There actually may be. Some hypnotists have regressed people far enough back into their past that they remember a life prior to being born. Some skeptics have dismissed these claims, saying that the hypnotists have lead them on. But in another type of phenomena, there is no hypnotist to lead anyone on. There are numerous documented cases of children remembering a past life. I remember one particular instance documented on TV years ago where a small child living somewhere in the East (I think it was India, but I can't remember for sure) where belief in reincarnation is the norm remembered details of another man's life. His memories were spontaneous and were not prompted by anyone. He was able to tell his parents who he had been, where he was from, and how he died. They went to meet the family of the man he claimed to remember being, and even the dead man's family were convinced the boy was the reincarnation of their family member. What really made it interesting was that the boy had two birthmarks on his head that corresponded with the entry and exit wounds of the bullet that went through the head of the man he remembered being.

The case of that boy isn't an isolated incident though. Dr. Ian Stevenson, a biochemist and professor of psychiatry investigated the phenomena of children spontaneously remembering past lives for 40 years and documented thousands of such cases. If you search the Internet, you can probably find numerous examples of such phenomena. Here is one I came across yesterday that a Fox affiliate reported about:

What I thought was unusual about that case was how old the kid was. Typically children who spontaneously remember a past life remember it when they are very young and just learning to talk. Once they get older, they tend to forget about it. So are these cases documented proof of reincarnation? It's hard to say.

Perhaps the lives these children remember aren't literally lives that they have previously lived. Maybe the souls of these dead people have merely formed a close bond with a living person and the living person catches glimpses of the dead person's life because of it. Perhaps the phenomena is similar to a demonic possession, except it is not a demon doing the possessing. Some Christians who believe in reincarnation despite the Bible's relative silence on the subject (besides that one passage in Hebrews I mentioned earlier) have attempted to validate the belief using the case of John the Baptist. In the book of Luke, John's father Zechariah is visited by an angel of the Lord who tells him that his son (John the Baptist) would go before the Lord in the "spirit and power of Elijah". Elijah was an Old Testament prophet who was prophesied to return before the great and terrible day of the Lord (Malachi 4:5). Jesus even said that John the Baptist could have been the prophesied return of Elijah if the people were willing to accept it (the people weren't willing to accept it though). But I don't really think these particular passages are pointing to the literal reincarnation of Elijah. For one, Elijah never died in scripture. He was carried away into heaven in a chariot of fire. I suppose it's possible he could have died at some point after being carried into heaven, but we are never told that if that is the case. I think the passage in Luke about John going before the Lord in the "spirit and power of Elijah" probably just means that John the Baptist would be following the same role Elijah would have followed. But, on the other hand, maybe the passage indicates what I have theorized in this article; maybe the spirit of Elijah formed a bond with John the Baptist and guided John in his work.

Now someone may say I'm just being biased and trying to make the evidence supporting reincarnation fit what I already believe about it. And maybe I am. But what if I'm right? Maybe the Buddhists and Hindus have merely misinterpreted the soul of a dead person bonding with a living person as being a reincarnation of that dead person. Assuming for a moment I am right, it would be easy to see how people could misinterpret the evidence and form a belief that people are reincarnated into new lives based on that misinterpreted evidence. Perhaps one day we'll all know what the answer to this mystery is though.

A Quest for Truth

For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace. (1 Corinthians 14:33)

So why are the mysteries of life so confusing? The simple answer to that is because the devil seeks to confuse us. He did it in the beginning with Adam and Eve and has been doing it ever since. But I think the answer can go deeper than that too. I think the truth is that we are hard wired to believe anything we hear. We automatically assume everything we hear is true - subconsciously. The conscious mind is what questions the things we hear. If you don't believe me just observe a hypnotist perform hypnosis on someone. With the conscious mind out of the way, the hypnotist is able to tell the hypnotized person pretty much anything and the hypnotized person will believe it or do it. A good example of this involves a recent case of a woman in Great Britain who was told under hypnosis she had gastric bypass surgery. She was actually able to remember having the surgery performed despite the fact that she never really had the surgery performed! In addition to remembering the surgery she also lost "4 stone" because of it (I think that's around 50 pounds or so). Consciously she knows that she never had the surgery performed, yet she still remembers it and still lost weight because of it. So the subconscious mind is obviously stronger than the conscious mind and, despite the fact that the subconscious mind never sleeps and is aware of every minor little detail we observe and hear, it doesn't seem to be capable of understanding what a lie is.

If you want more evidence just observe how a very small child will believe whatever its parents tells them. A small child doesn't understand the necessity to question what its told, so it will believe whatever it is told. You can tell them there's a Santa Claus, a Tooth Fairy, an Easter Bunny or whatever, and they just assume its true. They don't realize until they get older that they need to question what they hear. So basically the knowledge that we need to question what we hear is a learned trait. The irony is that if people didn't lie, then we wouldn't need to bother questioning anything. Basically humanity is being held back because some people have the desire to lie to get ahead. Because we know that people have the potential to lie, we automatically assume we have to question some of the things we hear. Imagine how much further we could get if we weren't so busy questioning everything we hear? If everyone just told the truth and everyone knew they could trust what they hear, everyone could unite together and combine their knowledge for the advancement of humanity. Having to question what we hear and in some cases go back and research the basis for someone's claims just slows the process down and keeps people divided.

So what started with the serpent deceiving Adam and Eve snowballed into something much bigger. Now we have so many different beliefs and so many different opinions on so many different subjects that the whole world is pretty much confused about everything. An entire religion could start as one man's lies and ultimately lead to thousands or millions of followers. Basically it starts by one man saying something and then someone else assuming he is telling the truth. That person (or those persons) then tells their friends and family, who assume they can trust what they are being told (which is really only a lie that was assumed to be true getting repeated). Once enough people believe something to be true, then they assume it is an established fact. Once the conscious mind believes something to be true though, then trying to convince a person otherwise can be difficult. The subconscious is already totally convinced, so if the conscious mind doesn't question what it hears, then it is very difficult to make progress in convincing that person what they believe is a lie. So the question process can work in reverse too because if a person already believes one thing to be true, then they question the validity of anything they hear that contradicts that. Part of the trouble with this is that people get so firmly rooted in what they believe, when someone else questions what they believe then they feel the need to seek out evidence to "prove" it. What usually happens though is that when seeking evidence for a belief, they let what they already believe shape the evidence they find, instead of letting the evidence shape what they believe. The truth is, many things are open to interpretation. While doing some research for a book I am writing, I read in a book how some scientists were able to "prove" the Earth was much younger than the 4.5 billion year old stuff that you usually hear about by using radiometric dating. Yes...the same radiometric dating that supposedly "proves" that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old can also "prove" that the Earth is only thousands of years old. How can that be, you may ask? Well what most people don't know is that radiometric dating evidence is based on theoretical concepts. Most scientists adhere to the idea that the "the present is the key to the past", which is based on a concept known as "Uniformitarianism". Basically it is the assumption that all natural processes have always been the same and always happened the same way and can be measured in the same way. Prior to Uniformitarianism people believed in "Catastrophism", which pretty much means the opposite - natural processes haven't always been the same. So for instance, if you assume an event such as the Great Flood to be true, then that throws the dates for what is below the flood period line way off because such a catastrophic event "contaminates" the ground. In other words, it disrupts the natural processes. A volcanic eruption can have a similar effect. Volcanic rock from a volcano that was known to have erupted say, a hundred years ago, can be dated to being millions of years old if you assume that the natural processes have not been contaminated (Uniformitarianism). The intense heat of the eruption disrupts the natural processes though, which is what makes the dates wrong. But if the dates can be wrong in one spot, then they can be wrong anywhere.

So what do we have here in this case? Basically you have Darwinists on one side who have invented a theoretical concept that allows them to interpret the evidence to mean that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old, which would fit their belief that species evolved over incredibly long periods of time. On the other side you have people who interpret the same evidence differently based on the idea that natural processes haven't always been the same. So in other words, the evidence is only as good as what you interpret it to be, and generally most people interpret the evidence based on what they already believe.

I think even as adults a lot people still retain a little bit of that childlike assumption that whatever they hear is true. Although adults know to question things, typically they find it easy to believe anything they hear that matches what they already believe. They are also more likely to believe what they hear based on how its presented to them. If someone they trust tells them something, typically they will believe it even though it may be that the person they trust has merely repeated something told to them that they assumed to be true, but isn't. They are also more likely to believe something they hear from a news reporter they trust or if information is presented to them in a professional manner (such as a documentary film or book). But, I think we all know that reporters, documentaries, and books can be wrong or lie, yet, we typically find it easy to believe what is said if it matches what we already think or don't have a reason to question it.

I guess the reason I decided to write this is because I was thinking idealistically today. Imagine a world with no lies. A world where everything you knew was the truth. No one would be confused and everyone would be united. But because some people throughout history have decided to take advantage of the human inclination to believe that whatever they hear is true for their own benefit, we are left with a world of confused people who fight amongst themselves instead of coming together in peace and truth for the betterment of the human race.