I've been so busy posting at the 2+2 forum, that I have not done anything I was going to do with this blog. Interesting. I'm thinking that the dynamic form is probably the best place to put what energy I have now.
I do with I could put the Gospel of Thomas material there. Maybe I'll ask madnak - the moderator how he feels about it.
Well, we'll see. Anyway, if anyone comes looking back here - I am over here now: Religion, God and Theology.. Look for "praxising." You don't have to sign up or post.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Friday, September 18, 2009
Science Investigates Medjugorje
It's always been problematic for Americans that the great body of scientific research at Medjugorje was done by scientists who were French and Italian for the most part, and who's findings were published n European journals in languages most of us don't speak.
This link Are the Apparitions of Medjugorje Real? is to a PDF rendition of an article in the Journal of Scientific Exploration, Vol. 15, No. 2, p. 229–239, 2001. This is a meta-analysis of the results of previous researches into the visionaries and the author draws his own conclusions, namely:
This link Are the Apparitions of Medjugorje Real? is to a PDF rendition of an article in the Journal of Scientific Exploration, Vol. 15, No. 2, p. 229–239, 2001. This is a meta-analysis of the results of previous researches into the visionaries and the author draws his own conclusions, namely:
Dr. Stevenson argues that collective apparitions cannot be explained away with the telepathic hypothesis of apparitions (Stevenson, 1982). The Medjugorje apparitions belong to this group of collective apparitions. Recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis (RSPK) involves spontaneous physical effects, unexplicable in terms of known physical energies, that occur repeatedly over a period of time. Dr. Stevenson also believes that visionary experiences accompanied by controlled RSPK indicate a discarnate spirit at the physical site (Stevenson, 1972). The present author shares the same view (Pandarakalam,
1988). There is evidence to believe that Medjugorje apparitions involve manifestation of controlled superior “psychokinetic-like power.” The externally controlled voice phenomenon is an example. The medical observations and synchronisms suggest that the Medjugorje visionaries are responding to an outside power and not to internal stimuli. The dual modes of perception also suggest that there is a nonphysical agent in front of the visionaries. The stronger motivation on the part of the apparition, compared with percipients; collective percipience and quasi-physical features of the apparition; and the limitless loving capacity of the apparition point toward a true apparitional occurrence at Medjugorje. The selective inaudibility of the voices of the Medjugorje visionaries goes in favor of a Marian apparitional experience, as this is a characteristic phenomenon during the terrestrial visitation of the divine Mother. So we are left with the logical option of trusting the visionaries and believing in the reality of Marian apparitions at Medjugorje. After his investigatory studies, Dr. Bartulica (1991) concludes that Medjugorje will remain in the history of either unusual human behavior or authentic apparitions, regardless of
the Church’s final verdict. In the years to come, paraphysics, particularly interdimensional physics, might offer complicated interpretations for the apparitional phenomena (Schwartz & Russek, 1999a; Ruth, 1989). Still, one of the alternative explanations of Medjugorje events would be the visitation of
the Mother of Christ at the physical site.
This post is not intended, however, to convince anyone that the Virgin Mary is appearing at Medjugorje. The reference is to an article that covers the results of investigations that is written in English so that I can offer a summary of some of the findings. What is not clear from an overview are some of the specifics. For instance, when they measured the direction of the unwavering gaze of the visionaries, and found that they converged on an exact point in three-dimensional space, the only possible explanation would be that there were multiple points on a wall that each stared at that had been pre-determined to result in their gazes converging in mid-air. So researchers put an opaque screen directly in front of the seers - that it, they didn't have anything to look at. Nothing changed. Their direction of vision did not change nor waver.
Another element not apparent is that when this all started and seers were children, they were just normal kids. The apparitions would happen at the same time every day, and just before the seers would be doing whatever, playing doing chores, etc. and then go have their apparition and immediately go back to whatever they were doing. When the researches began, their routines were interrupted enough for the measurements the researchers made to be done just before, during and after the apparition period. This completely rules out any suggestion that they could have been given drugs that made them impervious to pain, or stopped them blinking when bright lights were directed into their eyes.
But one of the more compelling things, and not related directly to the seers, is reported by Sullivan in The Miracle Detective in relation to an interview given by Dr. Marco Magnelli, a neurophysiologist and avowed atheist who had reviewed the charts of the seers' brain function during apparition and believed they were incorrect. He went to Medjugorje in 1988 to find evidence of fakery. He conducted his own tests and concluded that the visionaries were in "a genuine state of ecstasy" similar to, but not as deep as, the trance states achieved by deep meditation. (Of course, the children weren't meditating just before, sometimes they were singing or playing or something else.)
But what Magnelli couldn't get over were the birds that gathered in the trees surrounding the rectory inside of which the seers had their visions and the researches were conducted. The apparitions took place in late afternoon and the birds would be clustered in the trees "by the hundreds chirping and cooing and calling, at times deafeningly loud until 'they suddenly and simultaneously all go silent as soon as the apparition begins.' "
A few months after his investigation, Dr. Magnelli became a practicing Catholic.
I'm giving a brief overview here from another site, but there is a reference list at the end of the linked article to the original researchers reports if anyone who speaks those languages wants to go looking.
Another element not apparent is that when this all started and seers were children, they were just normal kids. The apparitions would happen at the same time every day, and just before the seers would be doing whatever, playing doing chores, etc. and then go have their apparition and immediately go back to whatever they were doing. When the researches began, their routines were interrupted enough for the measurements the researchers made to be done just before, during and after the apparition period. This completely rules out any suggestion that they could have been given drugs that made them impervious to pain, or stopped them blinking when bright lights were directed into their eyes.
But one of the more compelling things, and not related directly to the seers, is reported by Sullivan in The Miracle Detective in relation to an interview given by Dr. Marco Magnelli, a neurophysiologist and avowed atheist who had reviewed the charts of the seers' brain function during apparition and believed they were incorrect. He went to Medjugorje in 1988 to find evidence of fakery. He conducted his own tests and concluded that the visionaries were in "a genuine state of ecstasy" similar to, but not as deep as, the trance states achieved by deep meditation. (Of course, the children weren't meditating just before, sometimes they were singing or playing or something else.)
But what Magnelli couldn't get over were the birds that gathered in the trees surrounding the rectory inside of which the seers had their visions and the researches were conducted. The apparitions took place in late afternoon and the birds would be clustered in the trees "by the hundreds chirping and cooing and calling, at times deafeningly loud until 'they suddenly and simultaneously all go silent as soon as the apparition begins.' "
A few months after his investigation, Dr. Magnelli became a practicing Catholic.
I'm giving a brief overview here from another site, but there is a reference list at the end of the linked article to the original researchers reports if anyone who speaks those languages wants to go looking.
Dr. Petrides (article's author) has done extensive study in brain laterality and visual perception research at the Institute of Living, and has doctoral training in clinical psychology at St. Louis University.It is extremely noteworthy that the reported apparitions in Medjugorje are the first apparitions in history to be thoroughly investigated by science. Professor Henri Joyeux headed a team from the University of Montpellier, France. Dr. Frigerio and colleagues from Italy did further investigation. The regularity of the apparitions has made for consistent and extremely reliable findings.
Five alleged visionaries tested were found to simultaneously look at precisely the same spot, even though no reference point was visible, within one-fifth of a second of each other when the Blessed Virgin Mary allegedly appears. Such synchronization can only be explained by some external “object” holding their gaze—but one which those around them could not see.
During the same one-fifth of a second, there are simultaneous kneeling and the cessation of eye movements. There is no eye movement during the entire apparition, from 3 to 45 minutes. There is also the simultaneous raising of their heads and gazing upwards while remaining fixated on a spot moving upwards when the apparitions is finishing.
Two of the alleged visionaries do not blink at all during the apparition. They eyeball normally dries when there is no regular blinking (15-20 times a minute) to moisten the cornea, but lacrimal secretion does not seem necessary during the apparition. The other alleged visionaries blink about half the normal rate. None of them blinks in response to touching the eye during the apparition (cornea sensitivity to varying pressures is completely absent), although they blink normally at other times.
There is no reaction to pain during the apparition. When touched with an algometer, which causes a cetaneous lesion or skin burn, there was complete absence of sensitivity. The alleged visionaries react normally to pain at other times.
The interesting results of a hearing test before and during an apparition showed normal hearing, but during the apparition, an input of ninety decibels (equivalent to a loud explosion) showed NO reaction. Auditory evoked potential measurement (electrical activity of the ear) indicated normal ear activity with no transmission to the inner ear during the apparition. It is a measurable inhibition of hearing that is involuntary and inexplicable physiologically.
What EEG testing showed was that before the apparition, the brain waves are predominantly beta rhythm interspersed by alpha rhythm (normal conscious attentiveness). At the start of the apparition, the beta rhythm remains for a short time and then is replaced by an almost uninterrupted alpha rhythm. Alpha rhythm is most often observed during relaxation, in a state or expectation, or engaged in meditation. It also usually requires practice to achieve such a diffuse response. Because most of the brain is devoted to visual processing, it is noteworthy that the alpha rhythm over the entire cranium was exhibited while the alleged visionaries had their eyes wide open throughout the apparition. Closed eyes would be expected with alpha rhythm because visual stimulation usually produces interference with alpha rhythm.
To test visual stimulation further, a 1000 watt light bulb was placed in front of the eyes of the alleged visionaries during the apparition. Not only is a 1000 watt light bulb usually painful to the eye but also it would normally cause increased blinking and influence alpha rhythm. There was no blinking movement of the eyelids to the 1000 watt stimulus. The pupil contracted as one would expect in bright light but there was no change in alpha rhythm to the 1000 watt light. This is scientifically inexplicable and never seen before. FOR THE PUPIL TO RESPOND, THE BRAIN MUST REGISTER THE LIGHT BUT NO BRAIN WAVE CHANGE TOOK PLACE. Additionally, such intense stimulation normally causes a significant cortical response, but none occurred during the apparition period.
During the apparition period, the alleged visionaries voices stop. Even though all the muscles involved in speech continue (all mouth, jaw and throat muscles), the larynx (voice box) shuts off. This is physically impossible. The laryngeal function cannot be physically isolated from the rest of the muscles of speech. The larynx ceases to emit sound during the apparition—except for one exception. In unison, during the apparition the alleged visionaries will be heard simultaneously praying, “Who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name…” When asked, they report Mary is leading them in the Lord’s Prayer.
(The explanation from the children as reported in the Journal article at the top is that Mary says "Our Father.." to start the prayer and then they join in.)
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
How Mediumship Works
This is a link to the Science Studies Metaphenomena thread on 2+2 Religion, God and Theology forum.
From that thread, an edited post of mine:
Utts examines a huge body of data and concludes psychism is a fact, PEARS demonstrates with science and math that remote viewing is a predictable behavior and that people can affect the action of material objects with their thoughts, alone.
GLOBAL CONSCIOUSNESS PROJECT(this whole site no matter where you are seems to have this one link so I am having trouble making this easy. But you can go there and find out all about what they are doing.)
Theoretically, if consciousness affects matter then - if a lot of people's individual consciousnesses are focused on one thing, the noosphere should be affected somehow and that should, in turn, have an effect on matter/energy. So, EGGs, or - the RandomNumberGenerators - planted all around the globe spew out a continuous and random stream of XOs, (to simplify - there is all sorts of detailed info on the site).
The hypothesis being - you should be able to see the random numbers become non-random if there are global events of such magnitude that they get the attention of a large number of persons. There are lists of events at the site and their levels of deviation from expectation. The events that effect the EGGs are those that get the attention of large numbers of people, often disaster, but also things like "Prayer Days." The common attribute is something that garners the attention of many thousands of people at once.
I'm going to try and stick a link in here to a animated graphic that shows an average 24-hour period with no major attention-getting events showing a random baseline. I believe they call this a "drunken walk" graph. [IMG]http://noosphere.princeton.edu/images/anim13387.gif[/IMG]Note the numbers on the vertical axis at left.
Below is the 24 hours of 9/11[IMG]http://noosphere.princeton.edu/images/anim12414.gif[/IMG]
Compare numbers on vertical axis at left.
Note one other thing. The first plane hit at 8:46a.m. The last building collapsed at 10:28 A.M.
Look at the time - along the horizontal bottom axis, when the line [I]began[/I] the upward deviation. It is more than two hours before the first plane hit.
The results of years of these researches clearly supports the hypothesis that focused human consciousness on a large scale has a measurable and predictable affect on a physical object, like a Random Number Generator.
But two hours before the first plane struck the first tower, there was nothing going on in the world to draw the attention of many thousands of people. The question then becomes: whose consciousness was affecting the EGGs?
The PEARS project already established, with unassailable mathematics, that people can affect objects by intent alone. This is no longer a debate question, there is more direct evidence for both telekenesis and remote viewing than there is for the Oort Cloud or the evolution of dinosaurs into birds.
As Dr. Utts said so long ago in the abstract from her assessment of the experiments on remote-viewing that preceded Pears:
From that thread, an edited post of mine:
Utts examines a huge body of data and concludes psychism is a fact, PEARS demonstrates with science and math that remote viewing is a predictable behavior and that people can affect the action of material objects with their thoughts, alone.
GLOBAL CONSCIOUSNESS PROJECT(this whole site no matter where you are seems to have this one link so I am having trouble making this easy. But you can go there and find out all about what they are doing.)
Theoretically, if consciousness affects matter then - if a lot of people's individual consciousnesses are focused on one thing, the noosphere should be affected somehow and that should, in turn, have an effect on matter/energy. So, EGGs, or - the RandomNumberGenerators - planted all around the globe spew out a continuous and random stream of XOs, (to simplify - there is all sorts of detailed info on the site).
The hypothesis being - you should be able to see the random numbers become non-random if there are global events of such magnitude that they get the attention of a large number of persons. There are lists of events at the site and their levels of deviation from expectation. The events that effect the EGGs are those that get the attention of large numbers of people, often disaster, but also things like "Prayer Days." The common attribute is something that garners the attention of many thousands of people at once.
I'm going to try and stick a link in here to a animated graphic that shows an average 24-hour period with no major attention-getting events showing a random baseline. I believe they call this a "drunken walk" graph. [IMG]http://noosphere.princeton.edu/images/anim13387.gif[/IMG]Note the numbers on the vertical axis at left.
Below is the 24 hours of 9/11[IMG]http://noosphere.princeton.edu/images/anim12414.gif[/IMG]Compare numbers on vertical axis at left.
Note one other thing. The first plane hit at 8:46a.m. The last building collapsed at 10:28 A.M.Look at the time - along the horizontal bottom axis, when the line [I]began[/I] the upward deviation. It is more than two hours before the first plane hit.
The results of years of these researches clearly supports the hypothesis that focused human consciousness on a large scale has a measurable and predictable affect on a physical object, like a Random Number Generator.
But two hours before the first plane struck the first tower, there was nothing going on in the world to draw the attention of many thousands of people. The question then becomes: whose consciousness was affecting the EGGs?
The PEARS project already established, with unassailable mathematics, that people can affect objects by intent alone. This is no longer a debate question, there is more direct evidence for both telekenesis and remote viewing than there is for the Oort Cloud or the evolution of dinosaurs into birds.
As Dr. Utts said so long ago in the abstract from her assessment of the experiments on remote-viewing that preceded Pears:
"Research on psychic functioning, conducted over a two decade period, is examined to determine whether or not the phenomenon has been scientifically established. .....
Using the standards applied to any other area of science, it is concluded that psychic functioning has been well established. The statistical results of the studies examined are far beyond what is expected by chance. .....
...It is recommended that future experiments focus on understanding how this phenomenon works, and on how to make it as useful as possible. There is little benefit to continuing experiments designed to offer proof, since there is little more to be offered to anyone who does not accept the current collection of data."
Which brings us to the topic at hand: if there are consciousnesses that are not attached to physical persons, if that can affect something as mundanely physical as a random number generator, if individuals using their own conscious intent can also affect a random number generator or how many balls fall into which slot, (and all this has been clearly demonstrated by science) then - it is perfectly logical to assume that individual consciousness not in physical persons (I refer to these as "people on the Other Side") can affect a few electrons in a human brain.
Let's be clear. When you look across the room at a picture or person, or out the window at tree of car, you do not see anything across the room or in the street. Whatever information you gain, happens inside your own brain. Do you need eyes to see or ears to hear? Of course not, you dream when all is quiet and your eyes are shut quite effectively.
We all accept that our intentions affect the physical without knowing exactly how that happens. We have read reports of people giving themselves something called "stigmata" by focused thought, or have seen a report of someone hypnotized who can make a burn appear on their skin at the suggestion of the hypnotist. No one knows how this is done, just that it can happen.
We know thought generates change, just thinking of something that happened can bring about feelings of anger with increased blood pressure, elevated temperature. Thinking of other things can cause blood pressure to rise in very specific portions of the body, and we look for ... mating opportunities.
The question is: where is the "self" that makes the thought that generates the effects? If you as "self" can affect your own brain, then another self, one independent of you, can also. That is: if a person can affect a machine simply through conscious intent and you can affect your own brain through conscious intent than another can affect your brain in the same way.
And so a medium or visionary will see, hear, understand, smell, even feel because of the influence of someone not in a physical body, because they exist as consciousness. As do we. You experience the world as a series of electrochemical interactions. Influence those interactions or generate some, and you experience a different world.Or at least, receive information from someone not of this one.
(note: in order to find the images posted here, you go to the Global Consciousness Project Main Page, put 9-11 in the search box, this will take you to a list of articles on the site, choose #4 "Animated Graphs." Once there, #1 Baseline Random Data - a random 24 hour period - and #3 is the Variance 9-11, the 24 hours of Sept 11th.)
The God Experiments - Who Stole the Razor?
This was in my old computer files, it was first published on a now-defunct forum and at the time the issue and article were not available online.
Okay, Guthrie, we'll be sure to believe that just because you said it.
The December 2006 issue of Discover contains this article, “The God Experiments” about five researchers who have been experimenting with "religious experience." By the third paragraph, the article tells us that there is going to be little to no objective science in these experiments:
"..researchers come to study religious experience with very different motives and assumptions. Some of them hope that their studies will inform and enrich faith. Others see religion as an embarrassing relic of our past, and they want to explain it away."
Could someone PLEASE put the "science" back into science? What is the result of a "scientist" doing anything in order to prove a previously held opinion? Well, you get the kind of thing reported here.
Michael Persinger, neuroscientist, declared he had induced religious experiences in subjects by stimulating specific areas of their brains. No less an avowed atheist than Richard Dawkins volunteered to test the "God machine" as it was dubbed. Dawkins admitted later on the BBC that he was "very disappointed" to have not had any spiritual sensation.
In point of fact, the machine doesn't work, the results are unreliable and unreplicable. But that didn't stop Michael Shermer and the rest of the skeptic sycophants around the 'net crowing about the "fact" that a machine can make you have a religious experience.
Sloppy science abounds in these "researches." Stewart Guthrie of Fordham University, characterized in the article as being in the "explain it away camp," posits that humans have invented God, because different gods with minds and emotions similar to our own populate the world's religions. He cites anthropomorphism as the causative factor, an evolutionary adaptation run amok. While this may explain different people's tendency to make God a person, like an old man with a beard on a mountain, it doesn't explain the prevalence of animal gods in ancient cultures. There is no actual science being practiced here, there is just some guy with a lot of letters after his name making up an argument based on, well, nothing, really, but his need to publish or perish.
Guthrie's conclusion is that the whole of mankind, while still living in essentially disconnected cultures, all decided in an orgy of anthropomorphic extremism, that "the entire world of our experience is merely a show staged by some master dramatist."
Okay, Guthrie, we'll be sure to believe that just because you said it.
I was still wondering why, when the earliest gods are almost exclusively animals, he decided this was anthropomorphism when I got to more about the God Machine man, Persinger. He says our sense of "self" is mediated by the left hemisphere of the brain and that injury, psychological trauma, stroke, drugs or epileptic seizure "might" make our right brain mistake activity in our left brain for a different person. I guess we could call this the "evil twin theory of god" and put it on an episode of Guiding Light.
This whole "which part of the brain is god in" seems to be a fairly popular theme, with Andrew Newberg, a neuroscientist at U of Penn, hypothesizing on the reason people from different cultures and religious traditions (like Buddhists and Christians) report similar mystical experiences. Newburg has decided that sensations of self-transcendence and oneness arise from neural processes. Newberg hypothesizes that suppressed activity in the posterior superior parietal lobe "could" heighten a sense of unity with the external world. This suppression happens because of an individual's "willed" activity. ( I wonder where this self came from that willed changes in the brain and where is that self, on the left side or the right side?) But mystical experience is not a heightened sense of unity with the external world, it is a sense of a being in which the “external world” becomes insignificant.
But this gets more interesting. Newberg's brain scans found some response in the hypothalmus, also. Since the hypothalmus is most famous for regulating arousal and quiescence, Newberg concludes, according to the article that an "evolutionary perspective suggests that the neurobiology of mystical experience arose, in least in part, from the mechanism of sexual response." Hey, sexy science sells!
He has a problem, though. While the hypothalmus is rockin' and ragin' during sexual activity, the part of the brain more active during spiritual practices is: the frontal lobes. (I want Persinger to take note of the plural here, not just one frontal lobe on one side.) The frontal lobes, as we all know, are late comers in evolutionary history and are associated with HIGHER cognitive function.
Here's where I think we have a really interesting compare and contrast. Persinger tried to cause a feeling by externally stimulating the brain. Newberg tried to explain the experience by saying it was "internal control" that changed things. If Persinger believes mystical experience can be artificially generated by adding energy to the physical brain, where does he think the energy comes from that does it in people not attached to his machine? What outside source is stimulating the brain then?
If Newberg believes that internal manipulation by the self causes changes in brain function, could he please define "self?" If we have no soul, no unique identity outside of our physical bodies, what part of the brain was activated to cause the self to undertake this activity? That is, is the "self" some other part of the brain? What part of the brain, in reaction to what stimulus, can generate a self that makes other parts of the brain active or not? And, when that "self" became active enough to do the stimulating, why didn't that show up ion the brain scans?
Who started it? (At this point the left brain should invite the right brain outside to settle who's in charge like real men.)
Why has science abandoned Occam's Razor? The simplest explanation, the one that accounts for all the phenomena observed, is that "god," or something outside the human body and perceivable by the majority of humans, exists and the experience of that by the self, which is attached to the body, comes through the stimulation of the brain by the connection with the external agent. If some real scientists, the kind that objectively study what does happen ever engage in true research, Discover would have a story worth reading.
Monday, September 14, 2009
The God Voice
I want to establish the theistic context first. Next up will be some science. OK a lot of science.
Re: the "god Voice." There is nothing unusual about God talking to us. Most Christians or people of other faiths with active prayer lives experience this. For example: person is praying for an answer to the question: what should I do? There are a variety of options. At some point, often outside of prayer since we so often talk so much during we can’t hear anything but ourselves, maybe sitting at a traffic light or watching TV, it suddenly “comes to him” the answer. It’s usually like a phrase, a thought, maybe..... you don’t have to do anything. And when that comes it carries with it a kind of peace, a lifting. And then they know. Why don’t more people say God talks to them? Maybe because of how it sounds and the reactions of those around them, like the ones I got in this forum. Maybe because they have a false humility that tells them God wouldn’t bother talking to lowly li’l them. Maybe they just don't think it's anyone's business.
This type of thing, what I call the “God Voice,” I perceive as direct communication from outside of Time/Space I usually call the Other Side. Is it from Heaven? God, Himself? An angel, or some other person? Probably all those things at different times or none at any time and I don’t care. This is knowledge acquired from a perfect Source. Some have a more direct experience with this, visionaries or people like Joan of Arc. Was Joan a nut? Or a mystic? Or a medium? What about that mediumship thing, anyway – isn’t that against my religion?
Paragraph 2116 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, seems pretty clear on the topic:
Of course, the Church, in the person of her human beings, can be wrong. A medium cannot “conjure up” the dead because a medium has no special power, just the willingness to be open, to listen, to be an instrument. And every person is not seeking power. My observation is that the people who seek out mediums are looking for information: they wish to know their loved one is okay, they wish to be reconciled in spirit. Jesus promised that those who mourned would be comforted, (Mt 5:4) He did not specify some limit to that comfort.
So, the Church can be wrong, I can be wrong, we all can be right. How will we know the difference? How do you know what's True?
This is a description of enlightenment. Some would call this gnosis. Yet, we know of those that believe they are enlightened when they bomb an abortion clinic or assault a gay person. So many get it so wrong when they are so sure they are so right that we can simply despair of ever knowing anything True and decide to accept or reject everything which means we believe in nothing.
How will I know what is True? God already gave me the answer, so many years ago, when I knew God was beyond, essentially unknowable. From Merton to Saint John of the Cross to the Hindu and Buddhist readings, what I knew was validated. What is known in the heart, felt to be True, if it is, will be validated over and over again, inside and outside of any system to which we subscribe.
But ultimately and ineluctably, it is Jesus Who tells us how to know what is true.
In the twelfth chapter of Matthew, a “demoniac,” a person both blind and mute, is brought to Jesus for healing. Jesus heals this person and restores their sight and hearing which causes the amazed crowd to begin wondering if Jesus is the Messiah. (“Can this be the son of David?”) The Pharisees aren’t thrilled about this and accuse Jesus of “driving out demons by the power of the devil.” How did the people there know what to believe? Jesus tells them that no kingdom, town or house can last if divided against itself. That is, Satan cannot act against Satan. In the end He says:
Power and control, lies and fear, destruction and despair are not fruits of the Spirit. Jesus says, in this same passage, if He drives out demons by the spirit of God, then the Kingdom of God has come among the people. So, healing is a fruit of the Spirit. If we read His Words we know that mercy and forgiveness, love and reconciliation are all fruits of the spirit. We know from Saint Paul that divination of spirits is a gift of the Holy Spirit to benefit all. To bring knowledge, comfort, faith, enlightenment to someone through mediumship by the power of the Spirit means the Kingdom of God is among us. Whatever brings us to Light and Peace we can know is true, and is, in fact, bringing God to us and us to God through Christ.
Here are two stories from before I acknowledged the whole psychic thing in my life that are examples of the God Voice – in the first, the knowing – is called by some clairsentience, BTW:
Story 1: I used to pray regularly at the church at noon. I would often run into this one woman coming in as I was going out. Pretty soon we would stop and chat briefly. After a year or so of brief chats I knew she was married and how many children she’d had and what her hobbies were, that sort of thing.
Years before, during the time I was on the cops, one winter night a car had slid underneath a semi truck on the highway and a woman and child were trapped under the truck in the car. I’d never been to the scene, I was called to close a highway entrance ramp near the scene. But I heard about it later that night when I took one of the officers who was a good friend out and got her drunk because she had spent two hours listening to the mother screaming for someone to save her child and when, after a couple hours, they finally got to the car under that semi and cut it open, they found the child had died.
This accident happened many years before I was started doing contemplation in the church. I never thought about it or discussed it. I had essentially forgotten about it until one night I am reading a book with the TV on, when I had the sudden and realization, complete and whole and out of nowhere, that my friend at church who prayed the hour after I did, had been the woman in the car under the semi.
I was completely startled. Wherever in the world did such a thought come from? She had never said she’d lost a child. She never indicated any terrible sadness in her life. Nothing, there was not one single reason to believe this was true. But I did believe it. Then I told myself I was crazier than Aunt Hannah’s fudge and tried to put it out of my mind. But I felt so sure. And more, I felt this kind of push to tell her what I knew. No! nonononono.
Just forget it, I told myself. But it was like a constant nagging voice in my head when I would see her.
Ask her.
NO.
This went on for almost a year. I finally decided I had to say something. I knew her better by then and thought she would pass it off if I were wrong and forgive me if I were right. Even after I decided it took a while to work up my nerve. Tell her. Okay. God forgive me, this is stupid.
So, one day I simply told her that I had had this rather odd notion for awhile and felt like I had to ask, I had this idea she might have been in an accident I worked and I told her the date and location. Her reaction was strange, while she kept shaking her head “no,” her face had frozen, she looked like a deer caught in headlights. Instead of just accepting the “no” I started telling her the story, the car under the truck, the small child in the seat next to the mother, how we found the child had--
She interrupted me. She just started telling me her story. Her baby was three months old. She had the baby in a carrier in the front seat, she had a seatbelt on, a lapbelt. They were not on the highway they were stopped in traffic. They were coming from the pediatrician, the baby was healthy but had just had an immunization injection and was fussy and crying. While they were stopped, she took off her lapbelt and took the baby from his carrier to hold him and comfort him, holding him against her with his head under her chin, his little body against her chest.
There was a truck, not a semi, but a panel truck and it was not in front but coming up behind her much too quickly. It was overloaded, the driver not paying attention, he didn’t see the traffic was stopped, he didn’t stop in time. He rear-ended her. She was thrown forward onto the steering wheel. Her baby was dead in her arms when she sat back, his head crushed against the steering wheel by her own body.
As she spoke, I had something come into my mind over and over. I said it to her, “It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t your fault.” According to her, no one knew of this but the immediate family, it had happened before she came to the parish. She’d never spoken of it. Ever. Nor had she had any kind of counseling to deal with it from what she said.
So, she tells me this terrible thing. It isn’t what I believed, but it also was so close that she couldn’t stand to hear the story I was telling, and to stop it, felt compelled to tell her own. Why? Not why did she tell me. But why did I believe what I believed – which was both wrong and right? And why would God have compelled me to bring it up to her? The truth is, I don’t know. Maybe somehow it did some good. She never spoke about it again. I guess I think she should have had some counseling. But I don’t know that she ever did.
It seems to me that God plants seeds in our lives and that they come to fruition at various times as we continue on our individual paths. Maybe our encounter was some sort of planting. I don’t know. I do know I just didn’t think much about it afterward. So, this happened, it made no sense, I didn’t think about it. Besides, any wondering of mine was pretty much eclipsed in the enormity of her tragedy.
It was years later, when I started having psychic experiences I could no longer deny, that I started reading up on the topic. One medium was describing how he gets information, that to get the information about how someone was killed or some other thing, he might be shown a scene from a movie that had similarities. Or how he might see his mother when someone else had an illness that was misdiagnosed, because that is what happened to her. As I read this, I remembered having that car accident in my head, being so sure my friend was actually the mother in the accident who had lost her child in the car with her. She wasn’t that person, but she was in terms of that experience. I was not wrong, I simply didn’t understand how mediumship worked. I didn’t question my unusual occurrences when they happened, I just came to call all of them, “some God thing” and shrug it off. This knowing about my friend had been a God thing. It was also a “psychic” thing.
In terms of my friend, someone wanted her to get a message. The message was: It wasn’t your fault. Could the messenger have been her child? Who exactly was speaking to me? Was it some sort of ESP? Is that generated on it's own, or facilitated by the Intent of God? I don’t know, it may have been one of my own guides delivering the message or one of her people. It doesn’t matter. Because it is all from that power of life and love that we call God. Because in Eternity there is no Time or Space, because whatever is from one, is from One.
And because the Kingdom of God is among us, we cannot separate “reality” from “eternity.” And because we are so limited here in our ability to understand, we cannot separate the “God voice” from any other voice:
Story 2: One blistering hot summer day, I had to drive over to COSTCO for a few things. I couldn’t think of anything when I loaded the car but that I couldn’t wait to get home and out of the heat for the rest of the day. TV and cold sweating beverage cans in my hand were all I had in mind. But as I pulled out of the parking lot, it came to me that I was a few blocks from the Housing Authority and had a question that needed answering and I could just stop by. Right. In the heat and traffic, go out of my way to ask a question I could get answered by phone. Sure, that was going to happen. Besides, they were closing soon, anyway...
Just go. Crap. So I go because I had learned not to ignore that “voice.”
When you work or volunteer in a church you also often deal with people in the Welfare, Housing, Food Stamp portions of government. They don’t treat you any better than their regular clientele, however. When I arrived, the case worker wouldn’t speak to me, though they used to just chat if you stopped by. The new procedure was, you have to have an appointment.
So, while I am standing there being mildly irritated and glad I had no really pressing question to ask, I overhear a conversation happening a few feet away. There is a couple there, an exhausted looking couple in strange clothes, night clothes with coats thrown over them. It is summer, hot summer, they had coats on. The woman looked sick to me.
From the conversation, I learn they had a fire in their apartment and have been out since 3am and at Housing since the office opened at 8. It is now almost 4pm. They have been waiting for emergency housing. They have nothing with them, no money, just the clothes on their backs. And those weren’t much. The housing person finally got them a food and motel voucher, but they had no way to get there. Housing said they’d give them a one day bus pass.
This sick woman in her slippers and coat was not going to be walking the two miles to the bus stop in the 95 degree heat without collapsing. Was she supposed to take off the coat she’d grabbed in a panic in the night because now it was hot and walk around the streets in her nightgown? If they got to the bus stop, which bus should they catch? Neither housing, nor these people, knew what bus to get or transfer to. I had heard the address of the motel and I knew very well there was no bus service near there. Housing just didn’t care what these people did as long as they got the hell out of the lobby by 4 pm, which was about five minutes away, when Housing closed. So I did what anyone reading this would have done. I said, “C’mon, I’ll take you.” When I dropped them off and they tried to thank me, I said what I knew was a simple truth:
“Don’t thank me, thank God. He sent me over there to Housing to give you a ride.”
See, there are no coincidences, not like this. I know people reading this think there are or might try to assign some kind of probability. But really it was all God’s doing. Now, if God uses us here to do His work in caring for us, then why shouldn’t He use us after we pass on to do the same thing? Was it “God, Himself” who told me to go over to Housing? Or was it one of that couples’ passed relations, a Mom or Dad, watching over them who checked around, saw me close-by and put the idea into my head? Is there a difference? If we are to become Christ to one another, if we are holy, and we are, then this is all God’s work and will.
If we pray to discern God’s will, then getting any guidance about His will is holy and if we also get guidance to do His work when we aren’t specifically asking for it and call that “psychic,” it doesn’t make it not holy. AND, if we ask for something or offer our service to Him in a way that other people define as “unholy” well, that still doesn’t make the processes anything but that which is from God.
And if we are going to reject the gifts and miracles of love He gives us because it doesn’t fit within a framework we, or someone else, constructed for God to fit into, then we are worshipping ourselves and our own ideas, or that of whatever institution gave us that framework, and THAT, I believe, is idol worship.
The God Voice speaks to us all. We can ignore it until we don't hear it at all, like the ticking of a clock on our nightstand when we want to sleep; or pay attention.
Re: the "god Voice." There is nothing unusual about God talking to us. Most Christians or people of other faiths with active prayer lives experience this. For example: person is praying for an answer to the question: what should I do? There are a variety of options. At some point, often outside of prayer since we so often talk so much during we can’t hear anything but ourselves, maybe sitting at a traffic light or watching TV, it suddenly “comes to him” the answer. It’s usually like a phrase, a thought, maybe..... you don’t have to do anything. And when that comes it carries with it a kind of peace, a lifting. And then they know. Why don’t more people say God talks to them? Maybe because of how it sounds and the reactions of those around them, like the ones I got in this forum. Maybe because they have a false humility that tells them God wouldn’t bother talking to lowly li’l them. Maybe they just don't think it's anyone's business.
This type of thing, what I call the “God Voice,” I perceive as direct communication from outside of Time/Space I usually call the Other Side. Is it from Heaven? God, Himself? An angel, or some other person? Probably all those things at different times or none at any time and I don’t care. This is knowledge acquired from a perfect Source. Some have a more direct experience with this, visionaries or people like Joan of Arc. Was Joan a nut? Or a mystic? Or a medium? What about that mediumship thing, anyway – isn’t that against my religion?
Paragraph 2116 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, seems pretty clear on the topic:
“All forms of divination are to be rejected: recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead or other practices falsely supposed to 'unveil' the future. … horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens … recourse to mediums all conceal a desire for power over time, history, and, in the last analysis, other human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers…”
So, the Church can be wrong, I can be wrong, we all can be right. How will we know the difference? How do you know what's True?
“…Christians are those who know the truth because the truth is in them. The truth, then, is an active principle which teaches us from within so that we have no further need of a teacher.” Dictionary-Concordance to the NAB, “truth”
“I write to you not because you do not know the truth but because you do … the anointing that you received from him remains in you and you need no one to teach you, his anointing teaches you everything…”
1 John 2:21,27
How will I know what is True? God already gave me the answer, so many years ago, when I knew God was beyond, essentially unknowable. From Merton to Saint John of the Cross to the Hindu and Buddhist readings, what I knew was validated. What is known in the heart, felt to be True, if it is, will be validated over and over again, inside and outside of any system to which we subscribe.
But ultimately and ineluctably, it is Jesus Who tells us how to know what is true.
In the twelfth chapter of Matthew, a “demoniac,” a person both blind and mute, is brought to Jesus for healing. Jesus heals this person and restores their sight and hearing which causes the amazed crowd to begin wondering if Jesus is the Messiah. (“Can this be the son of David?”) The Pharisees aren’t thrilled about this and accuse Jesus of “driving out demons by the power of the devil.” How did the people there know what to believe? Jesus tells them that no kingdom, town or house can last if divided against itself. That is, Satan cannot act against Satan. In the end He says:
“Either decide the tree is good and its fruit is good
or the tree is rotten and its fruit is rotten.
You know the tree by its fruit.”
Matthew 12:22-33
Here are two stories from before I acknowledged the whole psychic thing in my life that are examples of the God Voice – in the first, the knowing – is called by some clairsentience, BTW:
Story 1: I used to pray regularly at the church at noon. I would often run into this one woman coming in as I was going out. Pretty soon we would stop and chat briefly. After a year or so of brief chats I knew she was married and how many children she’d had and what her hobbies were, that sort of thing.
Years before, during the time I was on the cops, one winter night a car had slid underneath a semi truck on the highway and a woman and child were trapped under the truck in the car. I’d never been to the scene, I was called to close a highway entrance ramp near the scene. But I heard about it later that night when I took one of the officers who was a good friend out and got her drunk because she had spent two hours listening to the mother screaming for someone to save her child and when, after a couple hours, they finally got to the car under that semi and cut it open, they found the child had died.
This accident happened many years before I was started doing contemplation in the church. I never thought about it or discussed it. I had essentially forgotten about it until one night I am reading a book with the TV on, when I had the sudden and realization, complete and whole and out of nowhere, that my friend at church who prayed the hour after I did, had been the woman in the car under the semi.
I was completely startled. Wherever in the world did such a thought come from? She had never said she’d lost a child. She never indicated any terrible sadness in her life. Nothing, there was not one single reason to believe this was true. But I did believe it. Then I told myself I was crazier than Aunt Hannah’s fudge and tried to put it out of my mind. But I felt so sure. And more, I felt this kind of push to tell her what I knew. No! nonononono.
Just forget it, I told myself. But it was like a constant nagging voice in my head when I would see her.
Ask her.
NO.
This went on for almost a year. I finally decided I had to say something. I knew her better by then and thought she would pass it off if I were wrong and forgive me if I were right. Even after I decided it took a while to work up my nerve. Tell her. Okay. God forgive me, this is stupid.
So, one day I simply told her that I had had this rather odd notion for awhile and felt like I had to ask, I had this idea she might have been in an accident I worked and I told her the date and location. Her reaction was strange, while she kept shaking her head “no,” her face had frozen, she looked like a deer caught in headlights. Instead of just accepting the “no” I started telling her the story, the car under the truck, the small child in the seat next to the mother, how we found the child had--
She interrupted me. She just started telling me her story. Her baby was three months old. She had the baby in a carrier in the front seat, she had a seatbelt on, a lapbelt. They were not on the highway they were stopped in traffic. They were coming from the pediatrician, the baby was healthy but had just had an immunization injection and was fussy and crying. While they were stopped, she took off her lapbelt and took the baby from his carrier to hold him and comfort him, holding him against her with his head under her chin, his little body against her chest.
There was a truck, not a semi, but a panel truck and it was not in front but coming up behind her much too quickly. It was overloaded, the driver not paying attention, he didn’t see the traffic was stopped, he didn’t stop in time. He rear-ended her. She was thrown forward onto the steering wheel. Her baby was dead in her arms when she sat back, his head crushed against the steering wheel by her own body.
As she spoke, I had something come into my mind over and over. I said it to her, “It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t your fault.” According to her, no one knew of this but the immediate family, it had happened before she came to the parish. She’d never spoken of it. Ever. Nor had she had any kind of counseling to deal with it from what she said.
So, she tells me this terrible thing. It isn’t what I believed, but it also was so close that she couldn’t stand to hear the story I was telling, and to stop it, felt compelled to tell her own. Why? Not why did she tell me. But why did I believe what I believed – which was both wrong and right? And why would God have compelled me to bring it up to her? The truth is, I don’t know. Maybe somehow it did some good. She never spoke about it again. I guess I think she should have had some counseling. But I don’t know that she ever did.
It seems to me that God plants seeds in our lives and that they come to fruition at various times as we continue on our individual paths. Maybe our encounter was some sort of planting. I don’t know. I do know I just didn’t think much about it afterward. So, this happened, it made no sense, I didn’t think about it. Besides, any wondering of mine was pretty much eclipsed in the enormity of her tragedy.
It was years later, when I started having psychic experiences I could no longer deny, that I started reading up on the topic. One medium was describing how he gets information, that to get the information about how someone was killed or some other thing, he might be shown a scene from a movie that had similarities. Or how he might see his mother when someone else had an illness that was misdiagnosed, because that is what happened to her. As I read this, I remembered having that car accident in my head, being so sure my friend was actually the mother in the accident who had lost her child in the car with her. She wasn’t that person, but she was in terms of that experience. I was not wrong, I simply didn’t understand how mediumship worked. I didn’t question my unusual occurrences when they happened, I just came to call all of them, “some God thing” and shrug it off. This knowing about my friend had been a God thing. It was also a “psychic” thing.
In terms of my friend, someone wanted her to get a message. The message was: It wasn’t your fault. Could the messenger have been her child? Who exactly was speaking to me? Was it some sort of ESP? Is that generated on it's own, or facilitated by the Intent of God? I don’t know, it may have been one of my own guides delivering the message or one of her people. It doesn’t matter. Because it is all from that power of life and love that we call God. Because in Eternity there is no Time or Space, because whatever is from one, is from One.
And because the Kingdom of God is among us, we cannot separate “reality” from “eternity.” And because we are so limited here in our ability to understand, we cannot separate the “God voice” from any other voice:
Story 2: One blistering hot summer day, I had to drive over to COSTCO for a few things. I couldn’t think of anything when I loaded the car but that I couldn’t wait to get home and out of the heat for the rest of the day. TV and cold sweating beverage cans in my hand were all I had in mind. But as I pulled out of the parking lot, it came to me that I was a few blocks from the Housing Authority and had a question that needed answering and I could just stop by. Right. In the heat and traffic, go out of my way to ask a question I could get answered by phone. Sure, that was going to happen. Besides, they were closing soon, anyway...
Just go. Crap. So I go because I had learned not to ignore that “voice.”
When you work or volunteer in a church you also often deal with people in the Welfare, Housing, Food Stamp portions of government. They don’t treat you any better than their regular clientele, however. When I arrived, the case worker wouldn’t speak to me, though they used to just chat if you stopped by. The new procedure was, you have to have an appointment.
So, while I am standing there being mildly irritated and glad I had no really pressing question to ask, I overhear a conversation happening a few feet away. There is a couple there, an exhausted looking couple in strange clothes, night clothes with coats thrown over them. It is summer, hot summer, they had coats on. The woman looked sick to me.
From the conversation, I learn they had a fire in their apartment and have been out since 3am and at Housing since the office opened at 8. It is now almost 4pm. They have been waiting for emergency housing. They have nothing with them, no money, just the clothes on their backs. And those weren’t much. The housing person finally got them a food and motel voucher, but they had no way to get there. Housing said they’d give them a one day bus pass.
This sick woman in her slippers and coat was not going to be walking the two miles to the bus stop in the 95 degree heat without collapsing. Was she supposed to take off the coat she’d grabbed in a panic in the night because now it was hot and walk around the streets in her nightgown? If they got to the bus stop, which bus should they catch? Neither housing, nor these people, knew what bus to get or transfer to. I had heard the address of the motel and I knew very well there was no bus service near there. Housing just didn’t care what these people did as long as they got the hell out of the lobby by 4 pm, which was about five minutes away, when Housing closed. So I did what anyone reading this would have done. I said, “C’mon, I’ll take you.” When I dropped them off and they tried to thank me, I said what I knew was a simple truth:
“Don’t thank me, thank God. He sent me over there to Housing to give you a ride.”
See, there are no coincidences, not like this. I know people reading this think there are or might try to assign some kind of probability. But really it was all God’s doing. Now, if God uses us here to do His work in caring for us, then why shouldn’t He use us after we pass on to do the same thing? Was it “God, Himself” who told me to go over to Housing? Or was it one of that couples’ passed relations, a Mom or Dad, watching over them who checked around, saw me close-by and put the idea into my head? Is there a difference? If we are to become Christ to one another, if we are holy, and we are, then this is all God’s work and will.
If we pray to discern God’s will, then getting any guidance about His will is holy and if we also get guidance to do His work when we aren’t specifically asking for it and call that “psychic,” it doesn’t make it not holy. AND, if we ask for something or offer our service to Him in a way that other people define as “unholy” well, that still doesn’t make the processes anything but that which is from God.
And if we are going to reject the gifts and miracles of love He gives us because it doesn’t fit within a framework we, or someone else, constructed for God to fit into, then we are worshipping ourselves and our own ideas, or that of whatever institution gave us that framework, and THAT, I believe, is idol worship.
The God Voice speaks to us all. We can ignore it until we don't hear it at all, like the ticking of a clock on our nightstand when we want to sleep; or pay attention.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Pure Medjugorje
The Messages and Teachings of Mary at Medjugorje online.
Only I don't think it's going to be a joke.
I'm going to check the site against the book and see if there are any messages not included and, if so, post them here. Also, keep in mind the messages were reported in the native language of the seers, which I believe is called Serbo/Croation. (Though that seems to be fraught with political baggage, so I freely admit I do not know the correct way to refer to it.) The translation to English needs to be kept in mind if some of what Mary is reported to have said seems somewhat odd.
There are few places online where you can find the complete body ("corpus") of what the visionaries at Medjugorje reported that they heard from the Blessed Mother. At sites like Medjugorje USA - Comprehensive Medjugorje Virgin Mary Website, you can only find the "public" messages beginning in 1984. Many things the Madonna said have been left out.
These kinds of sites are doing great work, and many are run by seriously devout Catholics who only want to follow some Bishop's idea of what the world should be told. Remember that no Marion apparitions in history, as far as I know, have ever been declared to be the factual appearance of Mary, Mother of Jesus by the Church.
Why would anyone care if all the messages are made public? What Mary wishes from us is conversion and prayer, seems simple enough. But what Mary said sometimes seems a bit at odds with what Catholics generally believe. For instance, that in God there are no divisions or religions. That all people are to be respected.
Then there are those embarrassing "secrets." That there will be an indelible sign on the mountain in Medjugorje where Mary first appeared in 1981. That this sign will be visible to all, it's miraculous nature obvious and that it is the last call to conversion and repentance for the world. What follows the sign is apparently worldwide disaster, as in "When the Rapture comes, can I have your car?" variety.
Only I don't think it's going to be a joke.
Mary says she comes for the last time as "Queen of Peace." The only way Peace comes, is from God, the only way we stop war, or all other human/human horror, is through prayer. I believe that prayer is the most powerful force in the Time.
But what I believe is entirely inconsequential. What Jesus says, what Mary says, is the point.
The book pictured at the site, and published there in part, is the only source, and an exceptional source, for the messages from the beginning on June 24th 1981 to April 25th 1988, plus some undated messages from that time frame. Laurentin, or whoever created the site, has wisely left out all the editorializing that is included in the actual book. The site adds on all messages retrievable from April 1988 to the present.
But there is also more information than simply what Mary says, there are also the experiences she gives the visionaries, like a trip to the afterlife. One more thing the professional theologians weren't keen on, in some respects.
I put this link here so that anyone who wants to put the effort into finding out as much as possible what has been and is being transmitted to us, can have a reliable source.
I'm going to check the site against the book and see if there are any messages not included and, if so, post them here. Also, keep in mind the messages were reported in the native language of the seers, which I believe is called Serbo/Croation. (Though that seems to be fraught with political baggage, so I freely admit I do not know the correct way to refer to it.) The translation to English needs to be kept in mind if some of what Mary is reported to have said seems somewhat odd.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Faith and the Oort Cloud
The recently published You Are Here by Christopher Potter (HarperCollins 2009) describes itself on the flyleaf as "... a dazzling exploration of the universe ... as seen through the lens of today's most cutting-edge scientific thinking..." On page 29, Potter gives us some of the characteristics of the Oort cloud, including:
"There are perhaps as many as a billion or even a trillion (a thousand billion) comets in the cloud."
"It is called a cloud, not just because there are so many of them, but because the objects orbit at every conceivable angle."
"The Oort cloud holds the light (and now unseen) bodies that the large gas planets threw into more distant orbits."
"Like Kuiper objects, the bodies that make up the Oort cloud have remained unchanged since the solar system formed."
Pretty cool, huh? But what does it mean that the light bodies are "now unseen?" I left out some information from the introductory paragraph to this section. Here is the salient paragraph (emphasis mine):
"At the furthest reaches of the solar system, 50,000 times the distance from the earth to the sun, ... is the Oort cloud, or so it is conjectured. There is no direct evidence for it's existence..."
The Oort cloud is an immense spherical cloud surrounding the planetary system and extending approximately 3 light years, about 30 trillion kilometers from the Sun. This vast distance is considered the edge of the Sun's orb of physical, gravitational, or dynamical influence.Within the cloud, comets are typically tens of millions of kilometers apart. They are weakly bound to the sun, and passing stars and other forces can readily change their orbits, sending them into the inner solar system or out to interstellar space. This is especially true of comets on the outer edges of the Oort cloud. The structure of the cloud is believed to consist of a relatively dense core that lies near the ecliptic plane and gradually replenishes the outer boundaries, creating a steady state. One sixth of an estimated six trillion icy objects or comets are in the outer region with the remainder in the relatively dense core.
I read her whole entry and can't find the part that states that the Oort cloud is a hypothetical construct. her "information" just goes on and on, all about how the cloud works and what influences it - just a real cornucopia of imaginary information.
Do I "believe in" the Oort cloud? Sure, why not. At least, I don't disbelieve it. It explains the behavior of certain comets. Could be right.
Giving credit where it is due, the Wikipedia entry does include the word "hypothetical." Since I don't work in this field I'm not too invested one way or the other.
So what's the point, am I just attacking science? No. I am pointing out how easy it is to come to a belief system that you have faith in while believing you have "facts." Science, you know, reality.
There is more evidence for the existence of life after death than there is for the existence of the Oort cloud. There is direct observation through multiple replications of controlled studies with significant statistical results that demonstrate that persons can move objects with their minds. There is similar evidence that people can "remotely view" - that is see objects psychically. But people who will confidently discuss the complex nature of an Oort cloud and how it it influenced by "Tidal forces ... from stars in the Milky Way's galactic disk with some pull from the galactic core ... " will roll their eyes in supreme contempt for anyone who would dare to try and seriously discuss such "pseudo science."
We call that "bigotry."
Comment here.
Do I "believe in" the Oort cloud? Sure, why not. At least, I don't disbelieve it. It explains the behavior of certain comets. Could be right.
Giving credit where it is due, the Wikipedia entry does include the word "hypothetical." Since I don't work in this field I'm not too invested one way or the other.
So what's the point, am I just attacking science? No. I am pointing out how easy it is to come to a belief system that you have faith in while believing you have "facts." Science, you know, reality.
There is more evidence for the existence of life after death than there is for the existence of the Oort cloud. There is direct observation through multiple replications of controlled studies with significant statistical results that demonstrate that persons can move objects with their minds. There is similar evidence that people can "remotely view" - that is see objects psychically. But people who will confidently discuss the complex nature of an Oort cloud and how it it influenced by "Tidal forces ... from stars in the Milky Way's galactic disk with some pull from the galactic core ... " will roll their eyes in supreme contempt for anyone who would dare to try and seriously discuss such "pseudo science."
We call that "bigotry."
Comment here.
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