PROOF

EXPLAINING LIFE’S MYSTERIES May 9, 2009

By Stephen Ellis

Nobody asked me, but…

There are several really good paranormal blogs on the web, and if you have a genuine interest in such things as ghosts, psychic communication, communicating with the dead, UFO sightings, etc., these blogs should be read or, at least, reviewed. Probably the best one is called “Phantoms and Monsters”. I like this best because it is not merely someone’s opinion, but it extracts paranormal news items from around the world and reprints them. You can visit them at www.phantomsandmonsters.wetpaint.com and subscribe to their daily reports. It’s free.

Another one of the better sites is paranormal@google.com. The Google site provides an even greater variety of reports than does phantoms and monsters, but the quality of the items leaves a lot to be desired.

Another good one offering a variety of reports is www.area51.org . The only problem this site has is that the reporting tends to be slanted towards their own beliefs. Nevertheless, it is well worth reading.

More than any other single thing people write to me about is “proof”. What proof do I have that the UFO reports are not made by people seeking their 15 minutes of fame? What proof do I have that John Edwards or Patricia P. can’t really talk to the dead? What proof do I have that some psychics have pulled memories out of inanimate objects, etc., etc.

The answer is very simple: There is no “proof”! How can I prove that a dream I had about another life was for real? It can’t be proven. There may be all kinds of evidence to show that a life such as the one I dreamed about actually existed (although historical records of simple people like myself either don’t exist or do not go back many years)…but even if we can prove that such a life existed, how can we possibly prove that I was the person in that life? You may ask questions as to how I got that memory…but that really doesn’t “prove” anything.

Then, too, for every person who acknowledges the existence of paranormal phenomena, there will be someone who feels it’s merely a lot of baloney. Take the case of Bridey Murphy where a hypnotist, regressed a Wisconsin woman back to a previous life: she spoke with a heavy Irish brogue and described her life in a small village near Cork, Ireland including a description of her husband and children. This caused a veritable barrage of skeptical newspaper reporters to go to extreme lengths to prove her statements were false. A few of them even went to the extent of making-up stories to try and prove that there was no previous life for the woman. The fact is that she had never been to Ireland and yet was able to describe the landscape there…her home…her type of life, etc. How do we really prove that some memories were not implanted in her? The answer is, again, we can’t!

Using logic and common sense we begin to realize that the efforts of hundreds of skeptics to prove she didn’t have a previous life in Ireland were far more ridiculous than to accept the possibility that she did live before. That’s where common sense and logic must come into play: There will never be “proof” that we lived before…but, if you stop to think about it, there will never be “proof” that we didn’t. It’s a matter of what you choose to believe…and, of course, taking a close look at the evidence:

There have been, literally, “millions” of reported ghost sightings throughout history. I find it difficult to believe that in each case people were only seeking their fifteen minutes of fame or that they were hallucinating. There have been thousands of cases where information ostensibly known only to the dead was conveyed to the living via dreams, via visitations and/or via “automatic writing”. There have been millions of reports of communication of one sort or another with dead people; millions of cases where objects physically moved from one place to another without explanation. Similarly, there have been millions of cases of UFO sightings, of psychic phenomena, of déjà vu experiences, etc. It would take an enormous amount of arrogance to call all of the people making these reports “liars”, “phonies” or “psychos”. Yet, that’s exactly what the people insisting on scientific proof are doing.

Science can’t tell us why we’re here or how we got here…with any scientific proof. The Darwinian Theory of Evolution has almost the same number of “holes” in it as does the Biblical story of Creation. Neither can be proven scientifically.

In my opinion, the evidence is conclusive that there is more to our lives than our five senses can detect from the time our body takes its first breath to the time our body takes its last. Proof? Of course not. But neither is there any proof that what I believe is not so.

I feel very sad for people who refuse to allow for the possibility…even when the evidence to the contrary is overwhelming…that things genuinely exist that are outside of the range of our senses. They are living a life without meaning. If some people want to be skeptics…fine! But they should never allow their skepticism to preclude or “pooh-pooh” paranormal reports. Remember, there is no more scientific proof the skeptics are more correct than we are.

If the non-believers of the world would simply allow those who believe to tell their stories without being “put-down” by the skeptics, I’d be willing to bet that there would be millions of additional reports that would be impossible to explain scientifically.

The fact is, that as the science of quantum mechanics discovers more facts concerning our universe, it tends to give significantly more credence to some paranormal claims. Interesting!

If you have any questions, write me at stebrel@aol.com.

As I said…nobody asked me.