Spirit communication

Wrathernaut said:
There's plenty of stories of people having a "vision" about a loved one foretelling of their death.

While this is easily dismissed as post-experience bias, where a dream about Aunt Deathbed, whom they know to be about to die, occurs the night that Aunt Deathbed dies, is interpreted as a vision of Aunt Deathbed visiting them to tell them goodbye.

This would be "proof" of knowledge passed on by an encounter with spirits, as far as the believing observer is concerned.

Now, if Aunt Deathbed gives them the winning lottery numbers consistently for a year? That's something worth investigating.
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I'm a bonified skeptic but even I had a clear vision of my stepdad standing at my bedside a few days after he passed away. I know he wasn't there but it was sure real at the time.
 
Okay, I want to tell what I think is a great anecdote, since others did:) This is one of my favs, and I'll try to keep it short and sweet. It's the only time I had ever thought I met an "angel" I suppose, back when I was a hardcore believer :)

About a decade ago, when I was thoroughly into hearing voices, and following them, and trusting the "inner voice", etc and so forth … a friend of mine who believed the same way I did :) was with me one night when we decided to go have a barbecue. We decided to follow our "inner voice" as a sort of experiment.

We went to the store to get some supplies, and tried to get exactly what we thought our inner voices were telling us. Some meat and veggies and a couple of plates. No plasticware, no forks, no knives, no spoons …. no charcoal or matches either :) Just the food. We didn't understand how we were going to have a barbecue without fire, but we just "followed the voices by faith."

We also decided we were supposed to go to this specific lake, White Rock Lake in Dallas, to have our barbecue. It was about a twenty minute drive away, and by the time we got to the lake, we didn't know where to go for our barbecue. We begin to drive around the lake, seeing the multiple spots available, when we decided to stop at one in particular "because we trusted our inner voice."

We parked, got out … walked around, and sure enough … there was a barbecue grill with a fire and charcoal, roaring and raging. There was also plastic ware on the ground … packaged and clean, completely unused. There wasn't a soul to be seen anywhere either.

So, IOW, everything we didn't buy at the store, was right there waiting.

So we began to cook our food, and while we did, this gentlemen pulled up in a truck and began to gather supplies to start a night of fishing. He had LOTS of supplies for some reason, and it took him about 30 minutes of messing around in the bed of his truck to get set up. But once he did, he walked over to this little pier, finished his setup (he had lights and cables and all sorts of crap) and started his fishing.

After we finished cooking, we began to eat but realized we had way too much food. So we decided to make a plate for the guy and offer it to him. We even had enough clean plasticware for him. So I made the guy a plate … walk it over to him, introducing myself, and he gladly accepted. All he said was, "thank you very much man, my name is Mike," and that was pretty much it.

I walked back over, finished eating my food, and started to clean up a bit. While we were chilling and just shooting the breeze, we notice a beaver/otter in the water, and we went to check it out briefly. We turned our back on the fisherman Mike for maybe 5 minutes max.

When we turned back around, he was gone. His truck was gone, all his equipment …. everything. I mean, it took the guy like 30 minutes to get setup, and then we turn out back, and in 5 minutes he disappears. Not even a sound. And his truck was loud when it pulled up initially.

There are a million ways to rationalize all of that experience. But immediately, when we saw the dude essentially vanished, I realized that his name Mike could be short for Michael …. the angel *wooo wooo woo cue the mood music* :)

So, at that time, we thought we might have actually seen and served a meal to a real, physical angel in the "flesh". He passed on no words of wisdom or anything, but considering all the "inner voice" following we did and how it all worked out, we thought we was a sign confirming the legitimacy of our actions.

End of story :)
 
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Very interesting story, Trent. But tell me, why did you think "angel" instead of "ghost" or "doppleganger" or something else? Was it your "inner voice" or reasoning it out afterwards?

I'm not disagreeing with you. Maybe it WAS an angel. All I know is for me, when I read the bible years ago, I saw that angels are not beings you would ever want to meet. Ever. They are god's dirty-workers and slayers. If you saw an angel you would likely die a horrific death; save for a very few stories to the contrary in the bible.
 
Minarvia said:
Very interesting story, Trent. But tell me, why did you think "angel" instead of "ghost" or "doppleganger" or something else? Was it your "inner voice" or reasoning it out afterwards?

I'm not disagreeing with you. Maybe it WAS an angel. All I know is for me, when I read the bible years ago, I saw that angels are not beings you would ever want to meet. Ever. They are god's dirty-workers and slayers. If you saw an angel you would likely die a horrific death; save for a very few stories to the contrary in the bible.
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Well, at the time .... I realized he looked and acted exactly like any human being would. Now, of course, Occam's Razor can help answer the question :)

But I didn't think ghost or anything like that, because he was physical and ate. Never saw a ghost in Ghostbusters do that. Slimer was horrible at it. If he was a doppelganger or something, I don't know who he was doubling for.

As far as the angel aspect, as I understood it then, the holly bibble mentions several different types of angels. Some of those could rape women, look like men, eat, etc and what have you. So since he said his name was Mike ... I just put 1+1 together and came out with 5 :). Michael was his name, the angel Michael, and was in his "full human" mode I guess, without the raping, message passing, or smiting :) And I also attributed my puzzle piecing together to my inner voice, etc ;)

And there is no way to prove he was an angel or not, in the same way I can't prove whether a teapot orbits jupiter. But as we know, there is no point in debating whether or not a teapot orbits jupiter LOL ;)

That's the glory of those experiences, imo. It's what makes them meaningful to me in some ways .... ;)

A hardcore believer who has had a similar experience might say it was an angel or it wasn't.
A non-believer who has had a similar experience would say it wasn't an angel, or perhaps I was delusional, etc :)
Thus .... I like any and all explanations, as long as I can still feed myself and think happy thoughts LOL
 
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Deleted. Really, really messed up the "quote wrapping" again.
 
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trentwray said:
But I didn't think ghost or anything like that, because he was physical and ate. Never saw a ghost in Ghostbusters do that. Slimer was horrible at it. If he was a doppelganger or something, I don't know who he was doubling for.Yeah, a poor choice of an "entity" for me to throw out there. Er...maybe a dude named Mike who has a truck somewhere?" :o

As far as the angel aspect, as I understood it then, the holly bibble mentions several different types of angels. Some of those could rape women, look like men, eat, etc and what have you. So since he said his name was Mike ... I just put 1+1 together and came out with 5 :). Michael was his name, the angel Michael, and was in his "full human" mode I guess, without the raping, message passing, or smiting :) And I also attributed my puzzle piecing together to my inner voice, etc ;)
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I can see that. Hmmm....I forget...being an archangel, I didn't think they ever appeared to humans. But the bibble has so many names and it was so long ago that I read it that I don't know if "Michael" would appear to a human. But then again, why not? Maybe he wanted a good old-fashioned lunch. :)

And there is no way to prove he was an angel or not, in the same way I can't prove whether a teapot orbits jupiter. But as we know, there is no point in debating whether or not a teapot orbits jupiter LOL ;)

That's the glory of those experiences, imo. It's what makes them meaningful to me in some ways .... ;)
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Oh, I don't know. It may very well be worth debating. The teapot analogy can lead many to question what they've been spoon-fed as a child. It was one of the analogies that helped me to re-examine my own beliefs.

A hardcore believer who has had a similar experience might say it was an angel or it wasn't.
A non-believer who has had a similar experience would say it wasn't an angel, or perhaps I was delusional, etc :)
Thus .... I like any and all explanations, as long as I can still feed myself and think happy thoughts LOL
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Me, too! I like to see all sides of something. It gives you so much more to think about and that many more possibilities. Thanks for sharing that, BTW. I don't know what to think, personally, as I wasn't there. Maybe an angel is looking out for you! Now, it would be nice if he was there for you more often...:)
 
I Ratant said:
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There wasn't a temporal displacement with Ms. Kitaen, which made it prominent to my awareness.
I flashed on her, and later that day on the tv there was an item about her beating up her professional football player husband.
These happen in that sequence.. the name passes thru my head bone, and there's a later mention of that person in the media.
But it's not 100 percent, very random.
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I believe what happens in cases like this is that when a premonition comes true, we remember it, but when it doesn't, it's forgotten.

Basically, hundreds of random thoughts enter my head every day, most lasting only seconds. Many of those concern celebrities. Normally, I don't remember those thoughts after a few hours have passed, but occasionally one is till fresh in my memory when the celebrity I thought of appears on TV. This creates a sense of deja vu and amplifies the original memory, creating a permanent memory imprint.

So while these "precognitions" are rare, they're accompanied by a strong emotional response and stay in my memory. On the other hand, the hundreds of failed predictions quickly fade from my memory, creating the illusion that there were more correct ones than failed ones.

I can't prove any of that, of course, but it seems the most logical explanation to me.
 
Mirrorglass said:
I believe what happens in cases like this is that when a premonition comes true, we remember it, but when it doesn't, it's forgotten.

Basically, hundreds of random thoughts enter my head every day, most lasting only seconds. Many of those concern celebrities. Normally, I don't remember those thoughts after a few hours have passed, but occasionally one is till fresh in my memory when the celebrity I thought of appears on TV. This creates a sense of deja vu and amplifies the original memory, creating a permanent memory imprint.

So while these "precognitions" are rare, they're accompanied by a strong emotional response and stay in my memory. On the other hand, the hundreds of failed predictions quickly fade from my memory, creating the illusion that there were more correct ones than failed ones.

I can't prove any of that, of course, but it seems the most logical explanation to me.
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I think that, too. The "hits" are remembered and not the "misses." If premonitions were a real phenomenon than I think we would all "know" that by now. What I mean is, it wouldn't be questioned. It would be like finding a new species of animal and actually seeing it and having them in zoos, etc. Such proof as it cannot be denied.

It's possible that premonitions are real, but what anecdotes are presented are always personal and, tho perhaps meaningful to the experiencer, have little to no practical value, imo.
 
Mirrorglass said:
I believe what happens in cases like this is that when a premonition comes true, we remember it, but when it doesn't, it's forgotten.

Basically, hundreds of random thoughts enter my head every day, most lasting only seconds. Many of those concern celebrities. Normally, I don't remember those thoughts after a few hours have passed, but occasionally one is till fresh in my memory when the celebrity I thought of appears on TV. This creates a sense of deja vu and amplifies the original memory, creating a permanent memory imprint.

So while these "precognitions" are rare, they're accompanied by a strong emotional response and stay in my memory. On the other hand, the hundreds of failed predictions quickly fade from my memory, creating the illusion that there were more correct ones than failed ones.

I can't prove any of that, of course, but it seems the most logical explanation to me.
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Me too, that's why the odd hit stays with me, and the misses don't.
There's just too many random thoughts going on all the time to pay much attention to any of them as being say, predictions.
 
Minarvia said:
Me, too! I like to see all sides of something. It gives you so much more to think about and that many more possibilities. Thanks for sharing that, BTW. I don't know what to think, personally, as I wasn't there. Maybe an angel is looking out for you! Now, it would be nice if he was there for you more often...:)
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No worries. Angels aren't real LOL. It was just a fisherman playing God ;)
 
Irish Murdoch said:
Here's a question for anyone who believes that members of the human race have had contact with spirits, be they just good old fashioned dead people, angels, gods, or what have you. Have any such supposed communications ever resulted in verifiable information being passed on? Did any spirit being ever give any information later shown to be correct about the nature of the world (I'm assuming that, if there were angels, they would have known all along that the earth is round)? (Only unambiguous messages need be cited; I don't regard celestial guessing games as valid.)

Now, I know what I think the answer to the question is. But you can try and convince me otherwise. But there's a further question: if my hunch is right, and no genuine knowledge has ever been passed on by supposed encounters with spirits, why on earth do people continue to believe in them?
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There is the famous story of Descarte, who relayed a dream he had in his youth in which an angel appeared to him and told him that the mastery of nature was to occur via number and measure.

In the Amazon, there are many reports of plant knowledge coming directly from 'spirits' of the plants themselves via Ayahuasca ceremony and extended dieta. The curanderos claim that all of their knowledge of healing plants comes from this process, directly from the spirits themselves. Many of those healing plants do have an actual healing efficacy.

The occult world is also riddled with some reports. Probably the most famous claim of a 'praterhuman' intelligence delivering a message comes from Alister Crowley, who claimed that 'Liber al Vel Legis' or 'The Book of the Law' was dictated to him over his shoulder in 1904 by an spirit called 'Aiwazz'. The book is pretty prosaic and symbolically complex. Who ever did write it had a mastery of language. It's actually a marvelous work of art. Not sure how that counts as verifiable or not. The book claims to have knowledge of the entire universe, especially this particular era in our history. In 1904, the book predicted the collapse of our Western social structure, most importantly the collapse of Christianity, that, according to Crowley, would be evidenced within a century or so after it's reception.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_the_Law
 
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Bubblefish said:
The occult world is also riddled with some reports. Probably the most famous claim of a 'praterhuman' intelligence delivering a message comes from Alister Crowley, who claimed that 'Liber al Vel Legis' or 'The Book of the Law' was dictated to him over his shoulder in 1904 by an spirit called 'Aiwazz'. The book is pretty prosaic and symbolically complex. Who ever did write it had a mastery of language.
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Crowley was a poet, was he not?

It's actually a marvelous work of art. Not sure how that counts as verifiable or not. The book claims to have knowledge of the entire universe, especially this particular era in our history. In 1904, the book predicted the collapse of our Western social structure, most importantly the collapse of Christianity, that, according to Crowley, would be evidenced within a century or so after it's reception.
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Not the most astonishing prediction given the currents already at work in society, and one that can be found rather earlier in the works of Nietzsche, sans the claim that it is inspired by a higher intelligence. I've not read The Book of the Law, but I'm told it's general tone is very Nietzschean.
 
trentwray said:
End of story :)
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I have to admit that that would have freaked me out a bit had it happened to me (just reporting a psychological fact there, by the way, rather than claiming I think anything paranormal was going on)! Not the bit about the fisherman--I've been around for almost half a century, and know full-well that people behave in all sorts of odd ways, so his taking half an hour to unload and then disappearing almost immediately would simply have led me to think either "Gosh, people are odd," or "Oh dear, he really didn't want us around while he fished, and has gone off to find some solitude." No, it's the coincidence of finding just those things needed for a barbecue that would have made me think "What the ...?". Or rather, had it just happened because, say, I hadn't been able to find the other items for a barbecue, I would have laughed and thought "What a coincidence!" But had I been taking myself to follow the promptings of my subconscious or what have you, the Twilight Zone theme would have started playing in my head. But again, that's just a report of the way I would have felt--I draw no conclusions about anything paranormal here.
 
I Ratant said:
.
There wasn't a temporal displacement with Ms. Kitaen, which made it prominent to my awareness.
I flashed on her, and later that day on the tv there was an item about her beating up her professional football player husband.
These happen in that sequence.. the name passes thru my head bone, and there's a later mention of that person in the media.
But it's not 100 percent, very random.
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And you could well have been walking past a radio before that flash and heard and processed the name (as the story was 'in the news') albeit not necessarily consciously, or a newstand and seen a headline (again you may not have consciously thought about it).

Alternatively there is a pretty accepted phenomenon whereby the brain interprets what it's seeing 'in stereo' but one of the signals is delayed (only fractionally) and that very slight delay tricks the brain into thinking it has a memory of the event - note that memory can appear significantly time displaced (hours, days or even 'distant past'). It has been purported as one possible explanation for Deja Vu.
 
Minarvia said:
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All I know is for me, when I read the bible years ago, I saw that angels are not beings you would ever want to meet. Ever. They are god's dirty-workers and slayers. If you saw an angel you would likely die a horrific death; save for a very few stories to the contrary in the bible.
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Or get screwed!
 
Irish Murdoch said:
I have to admit that that would have freaked me out a bit had it happened to me (just reporting a psychological fact there, by the way, rather than claiming I think anything paranormal was going on)! Not the bit about the fisherman--I've been around for almost half a century, and know full-well that people behave in all sorts of odd ways, so his taking half an hour to unload and then disappearing almost immediately would simply have led me to think either "Gosh, people are odd," or "Oh dear, he really didn't want us around while he fished, and has gone off to find some solitude." No, it's the coincidence of finding just those things needed for a barbecue that would have made me think "What the ...?". Or rather, had it just happened because, say, I hadn't been able to find the other items for a barbecue, I would have laughed and thought "What a coincidence!" But had I been taking myself to follow the promptings of my subconscious or what have you, the Twilight Zone theme would have started playing in my head. But again, that's just a report of the way I would have felt--I draw no conclusions about anything paranormal here.
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:)
Yeah I tried to live that way for several years actually. Following the "inner voice". I mentioned this one story, because it was the only time I ever even considered the idea I'd met "an angel", and even then it was only because of the name/vanishing act connection and a Xtian-biblical stage I was in. But I didn't put a whole lot of stock in it, other than it was sort of an icing on the cake for that experience possibly and an interesting story to tell.

What I found interesting, is that living that way .... paying attention to my inner voice, etc .... proved extremely fruitful at times, in ways more "dramatic" than the story I even mentioned. I have many stories like that one (minus the "Mike" character of course :)). But at other times, it's almost as though I "followed the guidings" right into the most disappointing and rattlesnake ridden pit of despair I could find. It was as though following those coincidences/leadings/etc lead to either personal pots of gold or personal deathtraps, but rarely anything in between. And most of the time, I always learned more thru retrospection. Especially when following the "signs" lead to a dead end where I was left confused and speechless. There were some extremely difficult to explain away "synchronistic" events/coincidences ... but for every great story/event there was an equally devastating one. And some paths I took based on following the inner voice (even with others involved) took years to produce anything fruitful or make sense, and so confirmation biased and self-fulfilling prophecy type delayed hits could play a part.

It was def. a mixed bag ;) To woo or not to woo ... :)
 
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