Many of you will remember we used to have a 'myth, legend or fact' forum which catered for among other things the supernatural. Due to lack of regular use it went some years ago (I was one of the mainstays) and although it can still be raised here or in the general board my main question is just to gauge the level of interest for it here as since then it's barely made an appearance. I know there are many supernatural forums, but besides one which packed up in 2002 the others are pretty rough and never seem to last very long either.

I've almost exhausted my own new topics on it, but would always contribute to others as I've been actively researching it since 1991 when I joined a development group. From there I've started doing hypnotic regressions on alleged alien abductees since 2001 and also studied shamanic practice. I've been to watch performances to see for myself, including my original inspiration Uri Geller who performed near me two years running and meets every member of the audience at the end who wants to speak to him, Matthew Manning the healer, and Geoff Boltwood who seems to materialise scented oil from bare hands (no sleeves and been checked by an investigator for cheating).
Had I found nothing my studies would have stopped after a few weeks, and the fact 19 years later I'm still active means I've learnt a lot. I'm not expecting a revival of the old forum but would still like to both see the level of interest in such topics here, and would also be happy to answer any questions about my own experiences as my current understanding is what seems to be happening is phenomena accepted in quantum physics already are simply possible at every level but not common or easy to find and almost impossible to repeat or measure.

I would be interested in the study of the supernatural. I find it fascinating and would like to learn more. I know that you are very involved with many projects, Dave, but I'm curious as to what drew you to this subject initially.

Probably fairy tales as a child, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe for instance. Then when I saw Uri Geller bend a fork when I was 12 I became hooked on the possibility there was more possible than people realised.
I carried on doing what I could reading and trying things till I left college and then studied it properly. I'm in no doubt we act as transmitters and receivers no different from any electrical equipment, which is what we are if you measure the brainwaves.
And the longer I go on the more I find, often not the things I was looking for but equally amazing and impossible to test scientifically although I have managed to get some people to witness them to prove I'm not inventing it.

Add to that the fact that although I have no ability in composition I often hear music in dreams I could never have written (as have many professional musicians), as well as groups of obscure information that couldn't have been found without the internet to search afterwards. We're all channeling it to some extent (called the Akashic Records, the sum total of all knowledge) but most people ignore or dismiss it when it happens rather than try and cultivate it. I'm sure we aren't developing something new but used to have it and lost it for some time.

Satguru, I have a strong interest in the topic. Just recently, I have been made aware of an incident in our community which uninformed meddling in the supernatural had dire consequences.
As an Australian Aboriginal, I know there are places I shouldn't go, and I get clear messages if I do inadvertently venture too far. If it's ok, I will PM you regrding the incident I mentioned earlier in the post - you may find it interesting.

satguru, I've got a friend on Kauai who's got a sister who apparently has the ability to do telekinesis (I have not seen it myself, though) and is on the verge of doing that Randi Challenge.

I'd need to ask permission from him before I posted any links or transcribed his story but if it's OK with him and his sister, would this be something that you all would find interesting and worthy of discussion? Actually, I'd probably be more comfortable inviting him over to the forums here to tell the story than to try and paraphrase it myself. He's not an FTer so also, if you don't mind, I was going to forward him the link to this thread also.

Not a given but I have a feeling he would be interested in getting some serious responses/discussion from the people on here as the other forum we frequent where he posted this on, well, let's just say it has far more of a junior-high locker room mentality at times than these Forums.

Thanks.

Very interesting both! Please PM me with the story- I've been sensitive to places all my life, negative mainly, and avoided some for no apparent reason as long as I remember because they feel wrong to me. I think we all share these instincts but few take much notice of them or try and develop them further so they vanish into the background.

Please invite your friend here Schoonie, I've been following the Randi challenge since it started, and wonder why some people I've come across haven't tried it either. A few I have spoken to say when they've looked at the conditions it's been more or less worded that it's virtually impossible to do. I haven't seen it myself but can well believe that. Plus the nature of these things makes them notoriously difficult to repeat on demand. Plus people literally do get death threats and the like for exposing such abilities in public, they have since the beginning of history and tends to push such things into the shadows as the handful of people who claim to do it easily are often far too scared to demonstrate to anyone, which tends to block any progress for any of us in the field.

Once a single example is proved that's the end of it, it can either be done or not. The explanations may never be found but they don't know what causes gravity either but pretty sure it exists.
There has been a test on precognition a few years ago where people were shown good or bad images for ages on a screen and tested for their reactions, and all consistently reacted before the images came up. It was accepted as unexplained but not exactly acted upon as a result. But it's an official test and don't see Randi offering the subjects any money for doing so.

"good or bad images"

I saw something a little like that on the TV a few years ago. People looked at photographs of complete strangers, and were able to say, with a high degree of accuracy, if they were alive or dead.

Hi Schoonie!

Hello all. Hello satguru. Greetings. I'm just a fellow traveler along for the ride. I'm an observer and a participant, albeit one who likes to write, in this shared consensual hallucination that we call life. I know Schoonie from another board where we share many sports interests. The crowd there: surfers, can be cruel, skeptical, biting, inflammatory, and juvenile. They can also be hilarious, kind, friendly, well educated, brilliant, and deep. Schoonie asked me permission to link to the short story I wrote (& by extension another thread involving a Paranormal mystery at my house that defies rational explanation).

I considered that request very thoughtful of him. I assume that once you release information to the wilds of the internet, it's fair game to the whole world. I thought I'd stop by as a personal favor to him as well as my own personal interest. He almost singlehandedly kept me from going into lurk mode over there again which is something I did at that site for about 8 years before I finally started posting. Just to let you know: in real life he's a good, thoughtful person with a wry and twisted sense of humor.

I consider myself a skeptic to most supernatural claims but I have seen and heard too many amazing things in my personal life to be a complete skeptic. I've seen and heard things from people I trust implicitly of phenomenom that are considered to be impossible given our current understanding of the world and the human mind.

Allow me to introduce myself. I'm an IT Network Engineer for an R & D lab in Hawaii. I'm also a former Sr. Electronics Tech where I ran most of the electronics of an actual rocket test facility. I'm also interested in the Paranormal having siblings and family members that have seen ghosts all of their lives and having a sister with extremely strong ESP abilities. I tend to take the middle path in any contentious or controversial subject trying to see things from both (or several) points of view even if I may disagree with some of these beliefs.

I believe that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

Anyone claiming to have psychic abilities (especially someone making a lot of money from it by selling books, CDs, DVDs, and seminars) SHOULD be willing to scientifically validate their abilities if they are authentic. If you're the genuine article I feel that you owe some explanation to the rest of us, perhaps offer some hints to unlock the same abilities in others. I think that respected scientific research into the psychic abilities of genuine psychics and people with ESP-type abilities could help aid the evolution of the whole species and broaden our knowledge base of the universe for all of us.

I find myself fortunate to be the sibling of a highly gifted person with a handful of ESP abilities. I believe that she is capable of finally providing that elusive extraordinary proof recorded under strict laboratory conditions that both skeptics and believers have long sought.

I also believe that all rational explanations (including fraud or clever sleight of hand) should be completely exhausted before any phenomenom is labeled as "possibly" Paranormal or related to ESP. As a former semi-professional magician with expert level training & a person that has long been familiar with the Randi Challenge I've always thought that my sister would be a perfect candidate for this Challenge. She has no training in performing magic tricks. She had a free teacher in the household (our father) but was never interested. She admitted to me that she's burned out on her well paying job & needs a career change. Her doctor has told her she'll be dead in 10 years if she keeps working and living the life she lives. I suggested to her this Challenge as a means to be able to change careers on her own terms as well as a means of saving herself from an early death via job.

I have no doubt that under the right test circumstances (preferably something unobtrusive with test observers & most participants behind a one way mirror) that my sister could manifest one of a number of her abilities. Even with an array of different cameras (including high speed and Infrared) covering all angles and scientists, expert magicians and skeptics in attendance she should still be able to provide proof once and for all that ESP, in fact, DOES exist. My sister is aware of the rules of the Challenge, that there would be a high level of scrutiny and that the burden of proof would be on her. She is completely at ease about this. When I first told her of this Challenge she was shocked that no one's taken the prize yet. She lives with the reality of her abilities every single day and uses it constantly but unconsciously at work to help her complete her difficult job.


In one phone call a few weeks ago with my two siblings we were able to recollect 7 different instances of her manifesting her ability involving 4 different witnesses over the course of many years. The ability I'm talking about is telekinesis or psychokinesis. With my own eyes, twice I've seen my sister violently move objects that she never physically touched just with the power of her mind.

I am not a betting man. I am also aware that nearly 1000 people have failed the preliminary challenge so far. However, I would NOT bet against my sister passing both the preliminary and the actual Randi Challenge if she truly set her mind to it. If this sounds intriguing please be my guest & read the true stories I've written brought to you straight from Hawaii.

Perhaps this could be the place that I could bounce ideas off as to the parameters of the Challenge to make it conducive to her success while still remaining fair and transparent. I seek only the truth and the truth is that there is more to life then that which we can see. We may not be able to scientifically prove the existence of God nor Ghosts but I believe that a serious study of the Paranormal & ESP could provide worthwhile hints to the Truth behind the veil of life. If you have questions regarding the true stories I wrote, please feel free to ask.

I've heard about this being done from a few reliable sources as well. I've never seen anyone move objects but have seen materialisation and Uri Geller do his usual performance, holding his hands in front of the audience in the aisle so we could look properly. He also held a spoon hanging downwards holding the tip making it impossible to bend manually but it still bent.

If your sister can move objects then that is one of the hardest to dispute, as without the use of magnets (how most magicians do it) or threads (which would fail every test on earth) the final hurdle would be repeatability. If she can produce it even once in a whole day's attempts genuinely then I can't see how Randi would be able to fail her. Either way she needs to be investigated by a university as they are the ones who genuinely want to learn, unlike Randi who's just a big mouth out to keep his own profession going in the face of competition.

Welcome to the forums, and I'm very pleased my appeal actually brought a new member to tell their story, and hope we can keep up with every step of your sister's progress here as well.