The Prophet

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I am in reflective mood, like the man in my favourite book, it appears that the time has come to leave. Like Almustafa, The Prophet’s namesake, I will reflect on my journey. Unfortunately, I am not as grown up as he is, so anything I say here will probably be more about ego than anything else. Indeed, I have scorned others who have left the forum, seeing them as ‘snowflakes’. Oh well, snowflakes are complex structures when seen through a microscope, just as we are complex beings when looked at in depth. 

It has become blatantly apparent that I have become out of synch with the moderators here. It’s no-ones fault, it is as it is. 

In fact I am rather pleased with the way I think. I think out of the box. That some don’t feel that such thinking has a place here, I think is misguided. I think their thinking is limiting and to some extent ego driven. Yet it is my own ego that finds this fact hard to accept. We can’t all have what we want, and this forum is not inhabited by sufficient people who want what I want, which is a place to express my spiritual rambles. And make no mistake, a lot of my posts have a spiritual edge. I spend most of my time thinking about life, death, and what it all means. Since we left Skeptiko and started the forum I have been out of phase with many here, since I wanted somewhere to express my thoughts, while they wanted it to be strictly Pscience. 

Parapsychology and Science are but a relatively small part of life, to me, life is largely about human behaviour and emotions. Nothing can be discussed openly that hasn’t been filtered through human brains, that is a huge problem. Alex found this out years ago, that facts don’t matter. Science and psi are secondary to human behaviour, you can’t discuss PScience without including human behaviour, and how can you dismiss topics which show human behaviour at its glorious best/worst? I have said that most things I am interesting in when I post are not the topics under discussion! Tom Campbell’s ranting on about people’s selfish behaviour and consciousness is not the point I was getting at. What stuck out was the way the comments showed how his opinion brought about lots of cognitive resonance, or was what he said itself cognitive resonance? To me, this is far more important than the vast majority of posts on the forum. If we can learn to understand why we get attached to ideas it will surely move us in a forward direction. 

I didn’t think it would come to this when I posted a Tom Campbell video on the forum. Some will doubt my honesty. Don’t.

David Bohm is quoted as saying “A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.” 

https://youtu.be/emAeFuwtelQ

I said earlier that ‘it is as it is’, and that is no doubt true. However, I was and am still aware that the things I want to discuss and put to others, are not what the majority of members of this forum wish to see. So I don’t want to be ‘controlled’ when I post, I’d rather be childish and spit my dummy, like others before me. I prefer to think of it as a form of protest. Control is what we’re seeing everywhere at present, I just don’t want to see it in my friends. 

So I will say a deep thank you to everyone who has accompanied me on my journey. I may well post conversations to various individuals, but my public posting days are over.

I said that I was ‘howling at the moon’ a few times when I wrote about my recent spat with my pals. I can’t express loudly enough how well this phrase ‘vibes’ with what I’m feeling. 

It is perfect.
Oh my God, I hate all this.   Surprise
Stan, you may not have noticed but there really isn't enough of us anyway now to discuss much...even if you wanted to. 
If you leave for good then it's another step before the forum effectively becomes dead@Tumble weed.net.
Stan, you and I haven't always got along but bad feelings come and go and forgiveness happens eventually, even if not always easily.  I admit I owe you countless apologies for all my foot stomping and very un-Christlike behaviour but I hope that there is now no longer any bad feelings and that if you do stay away, you can do so with peace of mind. 

All the best.
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Yeah I also don't think you realize that most of the reason there's not a lot of discussion on what you'd like is because there's just not many people here. Finding people who are both interested in parapsychology while also not being crazy new age cultists is incredibly difficult. Likewise with honest skepticism rather than cynicism. I am less active at the moment but I don't plan on leaving anytime soon even though I've had a few close calls. I really don't think there's much of any reason for anyone to leave and especially to delete all their posts as if they're trying to cover up their prior associations here.
"The cure for bad information is more information."
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(2020-08-02, 12:40 PM)tim Wrote: Stan, you may not have noticed but there really isn't enough of us anyway now to discuss much...even if you wanted to. 
If you leave for good then it's another step before the forum effectively becomes dead@Tumble weed.net.

What on Earth happened? I noticed that Max_B is gone. Many of the skeptics have jumped ship as well.
"Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before..."
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(2020-08-03, 06:30 AM)E. Flowers Wrote: What on Earth happened? I noticed that Max_B is gone. Many of the skeptics have jumped ship as well.

Don't know precisely, E Flowers.  But Malf didn't jump ship, he was dropped off at a large Island and is now flourishing on avocados.
(This post was last modified: 2020-08-03, 10:40 AM by tim.)
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(2020-08-03, 06:30 AM)E. Flowers Wrote: What on Earth happened? I noticed that Max_B is gone. Many of the skeptics have jumped ship as well.

I think interest in these topics generally just runs in cycles. People - including myself - would leave the Skeptiko forums for months at a time only to return later. I assume COVID-19 doesn't help, as everyone has other things to prioritize.

But I also think there's a cycle of general public awareness - between Mind-Energy, Skeptiko, and Psciencequest we've likely covered all the basic and some in-depth stuff about Evolution, The Hard Problem of Consciousness, Parapsychology, Quantum Physics, Information Science, etc. There just isn't much new to put forward, even the skeptic/proponent debates have a sense of cyclical exhaustion now.

I think this then reveals the divergence of interests, where people go off to other spaces to look deeper at the particular facet they have interest in.

For me personally I am just going to start posting some things relating to more specific topics, like my thread on Super-Psi vs Survival. Even 1-5 people genuinely interested is enough for me. Thinking about doing Trickster & the Paranormal next...
'Historically, we may regard materialism as a system of dogma set up to combat orthodox dogma...Accordingly we find that, as ancient orthodoxies disintegrate, materialism more and more gives way to scepticism.'

- Bertrand Russell


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I'm basically the reason the members experiments area exists and I'm also pretty much the only poster there. I don't really care if anyone reads it, I only post so the information is out there at all for anyone else doing their own practice. Though it is nice if people read it. Likewise engagement on my various personal experience pretty much starts and ends with Laird except in a few cases. Which is fine, I ain't posting those for attention.
"The cure for bad information is more information."
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(2020-08-05, 02:14 AM)Mediochre Wrote: I'm basically the reason the members experiments area exists and I'm also pretty much the only poster there. I don't really care if anyone reads it, I only post so the information is out there at all for anyone else doing their own practice. Though it is nice if people read it. Likewise engagement on my various personal experience pretty much starts and ends with Laird except in a few cases. Which is fine, I ain't posting those for attention.

I read most of your posts with interest, but it's true that I rarely comment.
(2020-08-05, 02:14 AM)Mediochre Wrote: I'm basically the reason the members experiments area exists and I'm also pretty much the only poster there. I don't really care if anyone reads it, I only post so the information is out there at all for anyone else doing their own practice. Though it is nice if people read it. Likewise engagement on my various personal experience pretty much starts and ends with Laird except in a few cases. Which is fine, I ain't posting those for attention.

My attention span is very short these days and I don't read long posts as much as I used to but your experiments are very interesting and I'm sure others get something out of reading them.   I don't have it in me so much to do specific experiments these days but I find from time to time that interesting things just happen to me.  For these I am very grateful.  Despite all my ups and downs, these things help to keep me going.
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