Do You See Into The Spiritual Realm?

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Good question, smudge, and no offence taken. My point was that I wasn't raised to think of angels or demons, so that isn't my interest with regard to this topic and that's why I'm venturing into the metaphysical, instead. It doesn't mean I don't think angels or demons exist. I don't have a clue if they exist, to be honest. Likewise, I don't have a clue if ghosts exist, or if I myself even exist.... but that's another question for another day.

Angels and demons seem to be categorised differently by some people because, by definition, they are representative of divine forces such as god which people often discredit. In contrast, human existence can't be discredited (except by philosophers, lol) so they are more likely to be viewed as valid phenomena according to scientific inquiry. It stands to reason (to some people) that matter which existed in the first place might be able to exist in another dimension, time, or space. I'm not saying that's my belief, but that's my opinion on why some people differentiate between human ghosts vs. angels and devils.

I agree. There's so much I want to say but feel I can't. I'm more than a little concerned ...

Yup, i fully agree. What people called "magic" then, we can explain scientifically now that our understanding of the world has expanded. Our understanding and perception will always be limited to a degree, for example just because a blind man can't see light it doesn't mean light doesn't exist.

Agreed.

It's inconceivable that every generation in human history has known and understood the sum total of reality, by using their scientific tools from that time.

By that token, we would know and understand everything there is to know about the universe, and people a thousand years ago would have understood it all, too.

While the mental health world may see this topic as somewhat controversial that's not where it's truly explosive, that's in the realm of politics.

It's such a political third rail, for so many reasons, that even if the ratio of academics who are materialist vs. panpsychist, idealist, or dualist flipped from 2/3 over to 3/2, even if things went beyond that and panpsychism became the predominant viewpoint in academia and the sciences just as firmly as reductive materialism has been for decades, I still don't think noumenal experiences would be able to enjoy legal or probabilistic standards of evidence as clearance because the history of human manipulating humans with revelation has been so bloody and it took so long for us to climb out of it that the 'extraordinary evidence' bit has less to do with literal clearance and much more to do with stopping social cascades. The scientific world also has funding, in addition to legislation, to worry about and even considering that there's no reason to believe that any new discovery would throttle our need for a scientific approach to problem solving and innovation there could still be enough of a jolt to public attention that funding would follow.

A lot of bad blood, bad history, and harrowing battles to claw our way out from under books and priesthoods make this asymmetric and it will likely remain asymmetric until such a time where such experiences can be closed in such a tight box or such a narrow context that there's no way for them to spill over and turn into religious revolutions.

Hi again, techstep.

Not to derail, but I often wonder how many politicians have read political philosophy such as The Republic, Leviathan, or the works of Rousseau, Al-Farabi and Hegel?

I'm going to take a guess that it's probably a disappointing amount more than you can see any sign of having read them in their thinking or behavior.

How many Rhodes scholars have we had running around DC? Apparently it doesn't get you very far when the whole town is about money and influence and/or when even becoming one is about accolades and influence.

i unwisely played with a "ghost box" (electronic gizmo that uses a swept-frequency FM receiver), listened to some electronic gibberish for a few minutes until a loud "DROP DEAD!!" spat out of the speaker at me. this shocked me and i immediately shut the thing off, removed the batteries, put it back in its box, chucked the damned thing in the back of a drawer, and went outside for some fresh air, where i was greeted by a dark, fuzzy, particular mass coming out of the ground [appeared to be about 3' around in size] about 10' from me, it seemed to ooze malevolence in a psychic sense, i gasped and turned away, and when i turned back it was gone.

Most people would read many of those works in college. I certainly did.

People can believe in whatever they want to. That doesn’t mean that I, personally, will unquestioningly accept the claim of anyone’s experience with a “Spiritual Realm,” even my own, unless the experience is backed up by an extensive amount of valid evidence (which they never are). There are just too many other potential reasons for these experiences to fixate on one very unlikely reason.

I inwardly reject the “spiritual” reason and then ponder what the actual reason could be when I hear people voice such claims.

Why would “spirits” (or whatever) be so uninterested in providing us with tangible evidence despite the fact that they supposedly try to mingle with people regularly? Why do people with diagnosed mental problems have a much greater likelihood of having these sorts of experiences? Why does medication sometimes help with them? Why are these experiences more common among people who have a cultural belief in spirit beings?

I see a wealth of reasons that would trump a Spiritual Realm on a bad day. Depending on the nature of these beliefs, they can be quite problematic or downright harmful. Believers are susceptible to scams, not seeking appropriate medical care, and putting their faith in something empty instead of looking to logic and rationalism to make important decisions - often to their detriment.

Are you implying that if a spiritual experience arises from one of the listed conditions, it is not spiritual? Or are you stating a causality?

If, for example, alcohol intoxication (first on your list) were to be the "cause" of a spiritual experience, then shouldn't a spiritual experience occur every time or most of the time any person has alcohol intoxication?

I'm just thinking aloud here; if I were a scientist setting up an experiment to determine if alcohol intoxication caused religious experiences....you see where I am going here.

From Fnord's list, these are the only criteria I have experienced in my life. None of them caused spiritual phenomena / noumena, especially not drinking, bereavement or stroke. My stroke / brain lesion actually made me feel less spiritual.

In the 1980s when I had my major experience, I did not have CPTSD, depression or sleep disorders. I was not on any prescription meds. I was not bereaved.

Of course Fnord's list might trigger experiences for some people, but it's certainly not necessary for those conditions to be met.

Even if I had no experiences, I've read enough of classical metaphysics to understand that there is energy beyond that we can see. It's just my opinion, as others have said. Everyone is allowed an opinion, but it's important not to laugh at others or ridicule them for the experiences they've had.

I think I know who your least favorite thinker would be on this. His name is Aldus Huxley, and his thoughts on the subconscious parts of the brain as a filter (for Darwinian survival) actually would suggest that cracks in the subconscious would mean more more noumenal stuff getting through. That pretty much takes exactly what you and Fnord have been saying in criticism (ie. extraordinary mental states yielding this) and flips that in precisely the opposite direction.

I'm still trying to figure out what kind of drug, neurological disease, chemical deficiency, or waste buildup would cause an 'I' experience to ever form on neurons - which are just matter like any other matter. If we're to take reductive materialism seriously as a comprehensive understanding of the universe there's no reason for the lights to be on anywhere and that makes me wonder if something on Fnord's list is in the water - ie. maybe a good filtration system could knock it back out again (and it would even solve all of the antinatalist concerns about suffering without all the mass-killing or praying for asteroids!).

I forgot to comment on this earlier - it's really sounding like your participation in this thread is an externalization of an internal crisis, a bit like we're subbing in for the seducing voices in your own mind trying to get you to give in, live a little, and shag an incubus, take some ayahuasca, or go run around naked at Burning Man.

You have the right to do whatever you want with your own brain - we have no right to tell you what to do with it. It does help, however, to figure out what it is we're talking about, where we're coming from, or what we're trying to convey if the intent is a conversation or a useful exchange of ideas where people of differing opinions trade words or text and walk away smarter for having done so.

To be fair though - starting off from opposing viewpoints talking about 'entities' is probably a guaranteed no-go, it's like talking about the benefits of psilocybin therapy with Jeff Sessions. In that case a thread pouring over panpsychism, neutral monism, etc. would have probably been way better but where I already just about double over in pain saying that - those topics are dry, they aren't shiny or sexy the way entities are, and it's the kind of thing that would get most likely about two responses before falling off the front page of PPR.

Last edited by techstepgenr8tion on 20 Jan 2020, 10:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I know that you prefer this conversation not be intellectualised, but I'm sincerely curious. Given that you've studied some philosophy, what is your understanding of Plato? Do you discredit the entire branch of metaphysics? I'm trying to understand your position in relation to what you've read.