Reading “Proof of Spiritual Phenomena”

Also I can tell he's done less research on it than prominent voices on the skeptic camp.

I was surprised how poor it is. He's rather arrogant for some reason best known to himself.

Sbu mentioned the book “Consulting Spirit by Ian Rubenstein"

This is a curious book, written by a doctor, who gradually gets engrossed in psychic phenomena.

At the start I found this book rather shallow - the author's experiences don't seem to make much emotional effect on him. However, the book hs grown on me, and I am about halfway through, and when I finish it, I think I will read it again and extract some notes.

There are details of a variety of spiritual practices which make be worth exploring.

I picked this book up incredibly cheaply in Kindle format, and I'd really recommend everyone explores it.

[Ninshub]

Sbu mentioned the book  “Consulting Spirit by Ian Rubenstein"

This is a curious book, written by a doctor, who gradually gets engrossed in psychic phenomena.

At the start I found this book rather shallow - the author's experiences don't seem to make much emotional effect on him. However, the book hs grown on me, and I am about halfway through, and when I finish it, I think I will read it again and extract some notes.

There are details of a variety of spiritual practices which make be worth exploring.

I picked this book up incredibly cheaply in Kindle format, and I'd really recommend everyone explores it.

He was an interviewee on Skeptiko a long time ago.
https://skeptiko.com/physician-ian-ruben...unication/

He was an interviewee on Skeptiko a long time ago.
https://skeptiko.com/physician-ian-ruben...unication/

Thanks for that - it is so far back in time it doesn't even figure in the list of podcasts available on the forum! I have downloaded it and look forward to listening to it.

David

[Ninshub]

I have a vague memory of enjoying it. Well enough so that the name stuck in my mind when you mentioned him!

If I had the same personal experience I would instantly come to believe fully in at least in psi (and personal survival would become very much more likely).

I do find this an interesting statement on a couple of levels.

Firstly, I have something of a similar conviction myself - a kind of need to be convinced and a notiion that a personal experience would "seal the deal" for me. But I can't be certain that it would - I've had a few very convincing synchronistic experiences which involved my dear-departed relatives. A simple example comes to mind from my youth when I was hitch-hiking through Europe. I had been marooned by the roadside in the then Yugoslavia (a really bad place to hitch hike) for two days without a hint of a car stopping so I looked up and said to my late father - "Dad, if you are there, help me please". Not five minutes later and probably only the second or third car to approach me slowed and stopped. I had my lift all the way to the border and beyond.

Proof! I thought. But shortly afterwards I had decided it was a nice coincidence but only that. That's what always happens when these highly unlikely but significant events happen to me.

The other observation I would like to make is to ask why it is only possible to believe a personal experience. I have been told stories by others whom I trust without question and, had these stories been about anything but contact with the deceased, I would have no reason to doubt. Yet for such expereinces I seem to demand more - as though the bar must be set so high that no third-person account can reach it. And if I - as someone open to and eager to hear such accounts - if I place the bar so high, I can imagine how impossibly high it might be for a sceptic, no matter how open to being proved wrong.

Not five minutes later and probably only the second or third car to approach me slowed and stopped. I had my lift all the way to the border and beyond.

Yep, that was probably your Dad, Dave.

I do find this an interesting statement on a couple of levels.

Firstly, I have something of a similar conviction myself - a kind of need to be convinced and a notiion that a personal experience would "seal the deal" for me. But I can't be certain that it would - I've had a few very convincing synchronistic experiences which involved my dear-departed relatives. A simple example comes to mind from my youth when I was hitch-hiking through Europe. I had been marooned by the roadside in the then Yugoslavia (a really bad place to hitch hike) for two days without a hint of a car stopping so I looked up and said to my late father - "Dad, if you are there, help me please". Not five minutes later and probably only the second or third car to approach me slowed and stopped. I had my lift all the way to the border and beyond.

Proof! I thought. But shortly afterwards I had decided it was a nice coincidence but only that. That's what always happens when these highly unlikely but significant events happen to me.

The other observation I would like to make is to ask why it is only possible to believe a personal experience. I have been told stories by others whom I trust without question and, had these stories been about anything but contact with the deceased, I would have no reason to doubt. Yet for such expereinces I seem to demand more - as though the bar must be set so high that no third-person account can reach it. And if I - as someone open to and eager to hear such accounts - if I place the bar so high, I can imagine how impossibly high it might be for a sceptic, no matter how open to being proved wrong.

In a similar vein, when I was a young boy (maybe 12 or so) I remember watching the 10 Commandments on Easter Sunday.  My family was largely secular, but back then (the 70's) this was quite the event each year.  The scene where Charlton Heston (Moses) parts the Red Sea is a real epic moment in the film.

I remember thinking how lucky the Israelites were to have witnessed such clear proof of God and how I wished I could witness something like it.  But then I came to an additional thought; that back then folks must have believed in all sorts of magic and supernatural phenomenon.  So, seeing the sea part may not have been definitive proof for the Israelites.  After all it could have been another actor besides Moses' God.  Therefore, while it was clearly a miracle through the modern lens of a 12 year old in the 1970's, it wasn't necessarily then.  Thus, it still required a leap of faith.

I then concluded that any miracle I might witness in my life would be similarly nuanced; that I would likely have mundane, alternative explanations.  That to see something as "proof" would likely always require some degree of a leap of faith.

Its sorta worked out that way so far, although I still hold out hope of seeing a large body of water parted by a pious man holding a staff.

https://orbi.uliege.be/bitstream/2268/29..._final.pdf
A critique of Parnia that Kondziella was involved with.
It's just me or it sounds like they are trying to "brute force" a consensus? Some of the points already got addressed by Parnia and others.