The spirit problem

[Master Vigil]

Has anybody here ever tried Astral projection or had an OOBE(out of body experience). The greatest proofs are always experential. If you have experienced astral projection or OOBE's, you will need no further proofs that you have a soul.

You know some scientific studies have been successful at mimicking thes "experiences" by just stimulating certain areas of the brain. It isn't proof of the soul, but proof that our mind can make us think we have a soul.

 

[flupke]

Ah, COOL!

Why doesn't it have vibrations? Perhaps I am in tune with all of them at once, and thus it seems (to my imperfect mind) to be one thing. Like a school of fish looks like one living thing from far away. Does that make sense?

It doesn't have 'vibrations' because the energy is conserved (basic thermodynamics law). The only vibrations are in bond lenghts and bond angles, not in the actual energy.

Sort of. I am not sure if you mean, we will cease to be but energy remains after death, and that idea gives me peace... or if you mean, we will cease to be but energy remains now, and by use of meditation we can understand this and that gives us peace? But you are right about something, my definition of spirit is DEFINITELY different than most believers on this forum.

It seems to me you're pretty close to accepting that your 'spirit' is your mind, an emergent property of a complex neural network driven by energetic reactions. Remove the neurons, and you just removed the spirit. Create a new network with the energy and their will be a new mind. The new mind knows nothing about the old.

 

[Ody]

I can't think of anything witty to say... but a greater question would be... What is the 'soul' that makes us human?

 

[flupke]

No, because although you can mess around with the blastula ( a new word for me), you weren't able to create an egg in the first place, neither were you able to create the sperm. If, one day, you have the sufficient knowledge and ability to duplicate the two, then we would have to revaluate..but I am not holding my breath!

'Creating the egg' is just a biochemical trick I'm sure we'll be able to do one day. Cloning is already pretty close to it.

And, if you say the soul enters after the first division, then by mixing up the blastula (64 cells, so after 6 division cycles), the soul will have to enter one of the 64 cells, and 63 new souls will have to go to the 63 remaining cells. Each of the 64 cells has the capacity to grow to an individual human being... Great way to annoy god who has to continuously create new souls each time I decide to take out my spatula and stir !

 

[flupke]

Has anybody here ever tried Astral projection or had an OOBE(out of body experience). The greatest proofs are always experential. If you have experienced astral projection or OOBE's, you will need no further proofs that you have a soul.

When a person takes LSD , they afterwards claim to have even greater experiences than the examples you give.

Any kind of personal experience is therefore NOT a proof of a soul/spirit, because you CANNOT discriminate it from a faulty brain-function.

 

[Master Vigil]

It doesn't have 'vibrations' because the energy is conserved (basic thermodynamics law). The only vibrations are in bond lenghts and bond angles, not in the actual energy.

Perhaps it is simply when the energy "acts" per se, that I can become "in tune" with it.

It seems to me you're pretty close to accepting that your 'spirit' is your mind, an emergent property of a complex neural network driven by energetic reactions. Remove the neurons, and you just removed the spirit. Create a new network with the energy and their will be a new mind. The new mind knows nothing about the old.

I would say so. There is a little more to it, but that's basically it.

 

[flupke]

Perhaps it is simply when the energy "acts" per se, that I can become "in tune" with it.
QUOTE]

If anything at all, it's clear to me that you don't know what "in tune" means for you, which stresses my idea that, in the end, it's a psychological trick to come at peace with yourself.

 

[flupke]

I can't think of anything witty to say... but a greater question would be... What is the 'soul' that makes us human?

Our intelligence: that one thing that makes us masters over the beasts, yet gives us the burden of responsibility...

 

[Master Vigil]

Perhaps it is simply when the energy "acts" per se, that I can become "in tune" with it.

If anything at all, it's clear to me that you don't know what "in tune" means for you, which stresses my idea that, in the end, it's a psychological trick to come at peace with yourself.

No, I just may not understand the scientific words that defines what in fact I am "in tune" with. But of course, it may be just a psychological thing, and that's fine with me.

 

[may]

I can't think of anything witty to say... but a greater question would be... What is the 'soul' that makes us human?

what makes us human? i would say Jehovahs wisdom ,knowledge and power.
Jesus Christ recognized Jehovah as the One who created humans, making them male and female. (Mt 19:4; Mr 10:6) Hence, Jehovah is fittingly and uniquely called "the Creator."—Isa 40:28 wow dynamic energy indeed

Now to the King of eternity, incorruptible, invisible, [the] only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen............ 1 timothy 1;17

 

[michel]

'Creating the egg' is just a biochemical trick I'm sure we'll be able to do one day. Cloning is already pretty close to it.

And, if you say the soul enters after the first division, then by mixing up the blastula (64 cells, so after 6 division cycles), the soul will have to enter one of the 64 cells, and 63 new souls will have to go to the 63 remaining cells. Each of the 64 cells has the capacity to grow to an individual human being... Great way to annoy god who has to continuously create new souls each time I decide to take out my spatula and stir !

Sorry, you have totally lost me; my knowledge of biology is zilch. When you say "Creating the egg" is just a biochemical trick, and then you say that cloning is already close to it, do you mean that, without any resource to an egg, or sperm, or stem cells, you envisage science as being able to produce a human being ?

 

[Shade]

You know some scientific studies have been successful at mimicking thes "experiences" by just stimulating certain areas of the brain. It isn't proof of the soul, but proof that our mind can make us think we have a soul.

They mimicked such experiances with prolonged isolation and discomfort. Some scientists have also tested OBEs by getting people to explain details in other rooms or a similar method. I work on astral projection, I've hallucinated during my life, and I've had lucid dreams. If you're honest with yourself, it's easy to tell the differance between the three, especially after the experiance.

 

[Whitsuntide]

Flupke,
Here is a Christian take on it, supported by the Bible, book of Revelations. There are two deaths - a death of the natural body, and then on Judgement Day Hades gives up its dead, and death and Hades are thrown into the lake of fire and destroyed - this is the second death. 144,000 souls from the tribes of Israel are pre-"sealed", apparently becoming some the chosen population of the new heaven and the new earth. I should mention there is also some multitude of other souls, selected somehow by passing Judgement.
In this scenario, it doesn't really matter when or how many souls are created. There could be billions and gazillions, it doesn't really matter. It's like sowing seeds, billions of them are thrown out, a few fall on rocks, a few are blown away by the wind, and a few fall on good soil.
The only souls that matter are those that pass Judgement. All the rest are destroyed for good, no matter how many there are, in the second death.
To answer your question, from a Christian perspective it is perfectly plausible that each of your 64 cells, or each of the 40 million sperm wasted by each man over his lifetime, is a soul. Each one has the potential to grow into a being that passes Judgement and goes on to the new heaven and new earth. All other pass away, so they just don't matter in the eternal scheme of things. Even if they existed at one time, at Judgement Day if they do not pass they will not suffer in hell forever, they will simply cease to be and it will not matter whether they ever existed or how many of them there were, or at what stage of life.
There is a lot of debate among Christians on what happens to the "innocent", from whatever stage of life they died in. There is a lot of interesting debate on this question by Pelagius, Augustine, John Wesley. The Jehovah's Witnesses are a great source for the end times studies.
I have a really hard time with it - the thought of simply ceasing to be as if you never were, and the questions I have about my son who died in my arms the day after his first birthday - but I imagine that is why this crazy book of revelations made it into the New Testament - there had to be something to strive for. These are the last three chapters of the bible.

 

[Surya Deva]

This is what I meant Master Vigil and Flupke, that Astral projection and OOBE is experential. When you experience it yourself, you know.

Sure you could argue that it's a biochemical process(and it actually it is, when OOBE's occur, the bio-electrical activity in the brain is affected and I also believe there are chemical changes) and that the experience was entirely in the person's head. But, to the person who experienced it, they experienced a reality so real, so vivid, so alive, so beyond, that to them it is completely real and an inner realization tells them that it was true.

You could all argue all you want, that their experience wasn't true, but as you cannot experience what they expeience, you couldn't know with certainty whether it was true or not.

But it is not completely subjective, as studies into OOBES's and NDE's have shown. When they experience these, they report floating above and out of their bodies, to be able to see all their surroundings and other people interacting. A common example, in NDE's, is being able to see the operating theatre and everything that is taking place.

In documented cases of NDE, after the person is resuscitated, the person can explain in great detail what they saw was going in the operating theatre or nearby, which would be otherwise impossible to know from their vantage.

In scientitic studies, but unfortunately scientific dogma relegate these studies into fringe science/psuedoscience/paranormal. OOBE's have been tested under scientific conditions. A popular test, is the "card test" the subject who is being studied has a card in front of them turned to it's back. Then the subject goes into the state of OOBE, and after it ends, the tester asks them what card it is was, and they can actually tell it.

OOBE and AP is a very well documented phenonema and many studies have been done on it. There are many people who have experienced them, and if you go to AP/OOBE forums there you will see people talking about the experiences they had, how they had them, and even planning meet ups between one another on the "astral plane" and reporting success. Indeed, it's not only these people who report this, but some scientists such as Monroe who have extensively studied the phenomena.

There have been many books written on it and the whole dynamics of AP been in great detail explained and methods on how to achieve them.

The only way of knowing whether all these people are having real experiences, would be to try it yourself - feeling is believing.

 

[opensoul7]

I believe that all life has a divine spark , energy, spirit , soul , whatever you choose to call it.That God is the universal connector . There is a dualism to the soul , individual yet part of God at the same time. Like if a glass jar was filled with sea water then sealed and placed back in the ocean .It is seperate yet individual and always connected to the whole.If the jar breaks what happens ? it joins the whole again.The fertilized egg is already instiled with the divine spark , A creation of God , since God put the divine spark in ....
And as far as your manipulation of the already God created egg here is a quote to answer your question.
"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. "Galileo Galilei
Italian astronomer & physicist (1564 - 1642)

 

[Surya Deva]

I agree with you Open Source. There is a divine spark, a life force, that brings inert matter to life. You see what I think is the greatest proof of this divine spark, the fact when we die, just within minutes all the cells die, we begin to rot away, the body begins to die and nothing but bone is left. As if the life-energy left the body.

When we turn of a computer, we simply turn of the supply of eletricity through the circuit, but that does not mean that everything inside the computer begins to erode away. What does that mean? It means an living organism is interally sustained by energy, every single cell.

 

[Master Vigil]

But I have experienced OBE's and Astral Projection. I know that the experiential part of it is very important. But just because one feels or thinks that it's true doesn't necessarily make it so. Do I believe my experiences are true? You betcha, but I understand that logically that doesn't make them so.

 

[Surya Deva]

I know what you're saying Master Vigil. First of all, OBE/astral projection is unlike any other experience we have in the waking consciousness. Here, everyone of your thoughts manifest the reality and affect it directly. It is not a logical reality, it a purely imaginative one and dynamics are completely different from your waking reality. So it indeed would seem illogical. But that doesn't mean this reality is not real.

Western logic postulates two values something can be; true or false. This is true for our physical and waking reality. If we see a square, we know it is not a circle. If we know it is true that something is static, we know it not moving.

But, this logic is limited. Because we also know what seems to be a square, is really formed of collection of atoms. We know what is static, is really formed of particles in constant motion.

It becomes even stranger in the quantum domain, where two different states or values can coexist - which is called superpositioned.

The reality of the "Astral" plane of consciousness, which is also called subtle reality in Hinduism, is consistent with this quantum logic. Everything here is not what it seems; a square can be a circle and circle can be a square.

So with that in mind, try having these experiences without judging them and who knows it may open it up for you even more.

I have read quite a lot about people who have astrally projected, and had a few experiences myself. The experiences can be very varied. I recommend a book written on AP, that truly is the most comprehensive and indepth book I have read on it, "Astral Dyanmics" by Robert Bruce.

The ability to project is a skill. Some people are very good at it, some are not so good. To explore the astral, is like exploring the world on foot without a map. Moreover, we do not recall the experiences we have in the astral in totality. As a general rule of thumb, the longer we remain in the astral, the less we remember. To navigate the astral you need to learn the skill of using your "astral body"

Those have become experts in AP, will testify that the reality is very much real and that they can objectively interact with others and the physical reality, which Robert Bruce calls the RTZ(real time zone) More fantastic claims among APers, is encountering astral life, that is life that exists in the subtle plane, which we would call spiritual beings.

I am quite glad you can have these experiences, because they are very difficult to consciously have. Just continue exploring, who knows what you find out about yourself. The few experiences I have had, were difficult to control. I haven't projected for a very long time now.

 

[michel]

But I have experienced OBE's and Astral Projection. I know that the experiential part of it is very important. But just because one feels or thinks that it's true doesn't necessarily make it so. Do I believe my experiences are true? You betcha, but I understand that logically that doesn't make them so.

I agree. It is so difficult to know for sure that what one has experienced is part of everyone else's reality. But for you, and for me, it is real.

 

[Master Vigil]

I am quite glad you can have these experiences, because they are very difficult to consciously have. Just continue exploring, who knows what you find out about yourself. The few experiences I have had, were difficult to control. I haven't projected for a very long time now.

I have been working in the field of Mind, Body, Spirit for over 10 years. I see, smell, feel, and sometimes hear the spirit world constantly. I first "astral projected" when I was around 15. But I didn't learn what I know about myself through my many "astral travels". It was through meditation and discussions with the spirits that I learned most about myself. From the majority of people I have met who delve into this study, seem to be quite egotistical. (not saying you are, so please don't say that I am) I find more wisdom in people like Tenzin Gyatso, Mother Theresa, Ghandi, etc... who do not care about such things as "astral travel". I see humility as a greater, and more difficult, goal to achieve than astral travel. Lao Tzu said, why is the ocean the ruler of all streams? Because it lies lower than they. He also said that becoming one with the Tao is a daily diminishing, not a daily accumulating. From this, I understand that astral travel, in the realm of spirituality, is not only unimportant, but a hindrance. Just my personal opinion though.