EXPLAINING LIFE’S MYSTERIES May 23, 2009
By Stephen Ellis
Nobody asked me, but…
One of the things science finds impossible to explain is “returning from the dead”. Medical science refers to this frequently as “near death” experiences, almost all of which are discounted as dreams and/or hallucinations. This occurrence, which is not uncommon, is one of those paranormal things that must be looked at closely and carefully:
Whether we are looking at a scientific or spiritual view of the world, there is one thing that cannot be refuted: There is one and only one universal order to the world in which we live: We are born, we grow-up and mature, and we die. What we accomplish or fail to accomplish while we are alive is an individual thing, but the fact that we enter this world, mature in it and leave it, cannot be refuted.
The way we are raised and our own consciousness will determine, to a large extent, what we will do while we are alive, but there is a universal order to the basics of life and death.
Just about every religion and philosophy teaches us that life here on Earth is followed by a life-after-death. A good question might be, ‘How is it that all these hundreds of scholars came to the same conclusions?’ There are relatively few religions that believe that death is the end. Some religions teach people that death is a celebration of entry into a new dimension and a rejoining with their loved ones. Far Eastern religions, generally, teach that death is merely the entry to a different life. Their funerals are happy occasions. Catholics teach that life is merely preparatory to life-after-death and that, upon dying, your life will be judged. Zoroastrians teach that living the right life enables us to communicate with those who have passed-on.
There is a clear disparity in what people are taught during their lifetimes. Yet virtually every “near-death” experience (stories told by people who were pronounced clinically dead) are identical! The way clinically dead people describe other dead people when they have entered the after-life dimension will vary, markedly, depending on what they had been taught during their lifetimes…i.e. some see their dead family wearing flowing robes, some will see the spirits of the dead wearing the clothes in which they were buried …but there is a universal order to what they report: All their dead friends and family appear very much alive as they were when they were about thirty years old (unless, of course, they died when they were younger); all infirmities they had during their lifetime are gone…and everyone appears happy.
You should ask yourself how it is that people from totally different cultures…who speak different languages…who come from a wide disparity of economic circumstances…all report the same thing? Observe what some who have been declared clinically dead had to say:
Mrs. Virginia S., a resident of California, had formerly held various responsible jobs in management and business. On March 13, 1960, she underwent surgery. During surgery, she lost so much blood she was declared, clinically, dead. Nevertheless, surgeons worked feverishly to bring her back and she did recover. Mrs. S. said: “I was climbing a rock wall and was standing straight in the air. Nothing else was around it; it seemed flat. At the top of this wall was another stone railing about two feet high. I grabbed for the edge to pull myself over the wall, and my father, who is deceased, appeared and looked down at me. He said ‘You cannot come up yet; go back you have something left to do’. I looked down and started to go down and the next thing I heard were the words ‘She’s coming back’.”
Mrs. June L.H., a Canadian, was on her way back from her stepfather’s funeral with a friend, Clarence, when they were involved in a terrible automobile accident. Clarence was killed instantly and June was declared almost dead while surgeons tried to save her. “I don’t remember anything except seeing car lights coming at me, for I had been sleeping”, she explained. “I first remember seeing my dead stepdad, George, step forward out of a cloudy mist and touch me on my left shoulder. He said, ‘Go back, June, it’s not time yet.’ I woke up with the weight of his hand still on my shoulder.”
Mrs. L.L. of Michigan was in an automobile accident with her husband on December 19, 1968. Her husband was killed and she was hospitalized, and given up for dead by the doctors. Her sister visited her while Mrs. L. was still unconscious. Although unconscious her sister reported that Mrs. L. spoke freely about a place she was seeing and her dead relatives she was in contact with. She knew her husband had died, and also knew that her time had not come…that she could not stay on the “plane” she was temporarily visiting. The sister asked whether Mrs. L. had seen God or visited Heaven. The unconscious Mrs. L. replied that she had not seen God or Heaven but was visiting a different “plane” of existence. The sister thought this was all nonsense but related what Mrs. L. had said to other members of the family. Mrs. L. remembers nothing about what she said while unconscious, but quite clearly remembers how life returned to her: “I felt life coming to my body from the tips of my toes to the tip of my head.”
These are merely three of thousands of examples of people, living great distances apart, with totally different family and religious backgrounds who experienced an almost identical phenomenon: the transition from the dimension of life to the dimension of after-life. Death is not a word to be feared. It is merely your soul’s or aura’s shedding of a worn-out or infirmed body to be replaced with another, younger, body.
If you’d like to hear more about other “near-death” experiences, let me know. Contact me at stebrel@aol.com
As I said…nobody asked me.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Monday, May 18, 2009
Where or When
EXPLAINING LIFE’S MYSTERIES May 17, 2009
By Stephen Ellis
Nobody asked me, but…
“It seems we stood and talked like this before…
We looked at each other in the same way then
But I can’t remember where or when…”
The lyrics of the haunting song, “Where or When” by Rodgers and Hart first came out in 1941 with the Benny Goodman band playing for a 21-year-old Peggy Lee. It was far from being the first song whose lyrics talked about a déjà vu experience. There have been stories, songs and even poems about “haven’t we met before”, “haven’t we known each other before” and “haven’t we had this conversation before” dating back to Homer’s “Iliad” and “Odyssey” written in approximately 400 BC.
So, why do skeptics and the so-called scientific community keep denying the possibility of having lived before? Or perhaps that we may be living the same life more than once in a different dimension?
Granted that nothing paranormal can be proven scientifically. But, even the claims of science are virtually not provable by their own standards. Still, if we look at the few things that science claims they can prove we must ask ourselves where they are headed? The answer is that they are headed for paranormal answers…and back to God.
If you look at the Super String Theory (which even very few physicists seem to fully understand) the existence of other dimensions containing planets just like Earth is now becoming a scientific reality. Is this really fact or is it science-fiction?
One of the questions no one seems to be able to answer, as of yet, is where these other dimensions are located and/or how we can communicate with them. Some quantum physicists believe these other dimensions are in our microscope; others believe they are too large to be seen with our telescope; still others believe they exist parallel to us.
In my book, “Explaining the Unexplained” I set forth a scenario wherein we are existing in some giant world’s microscope. I don’t say that this is the way things are, I just set it out as a “possibility “ to stimulate the imagination. Yet, there are some factors that are undeniable: Bodies in space act like bodies under the microscope. There are undeniable similarities in the way electrons spin about a nucleus and the way planets spin about the sun. The seemingly absolute limit for any atom is to have eight electrons spinning around it. For many years, we thought we had nine planets spinning about our sun, but just last year, astronomers decided that the planet, Pluto, was not in our solar system and that our system had only eight planets. Coincidence?
It is not my position to state that my little scenario is true, but if it doesn’t get you to start questioning things about our existence, then I’m not doing my job well.
I haven’t seen the film “Angels and Demons” yet, but I have read Dan Brown’s book. It starts with the premise that science and religion are mortal enemies. It’s an excellent novel, but it creates lots of so-called “facts” in an attempt to justify that premise.
The truth is that science and paranormal phenomena are one! The research and discoveries of science only serve to create questions that science cannot answer. If science cannot answer them we must look elsewhere for answers. We must come to the conclusion that there are things out there that lie somewhere outside of science’s limitations. Paranormal? Perhaps something or someone far beyond us that created everything? Science, alone, will never provide the answers.
It’s silly to believe that the heavens and the earth were created in six days or that Noah put two of every living species on an arc to survive a planetary flood. To me, it’s just as silly to believe that man came from the sea via a walking or flying fish and evolved, through monkeys, into human beings. There are so many basic differences between humans and every other species that inhabit this planet that Darwin’s “Theory of Evolution” makes about as much sense to me as the theory of our world starting less than six thousand years ago with Adam and Eve.
So why does science fight everything connected with religion? Why do they try and label the paranormal as pure fiction and its believers as less-intelligent people? Why does science say that déjà vu is impossible when billions and billions of people have experienced it? Why does science continue to call millions of people “liars” and “frauds: when they claim to see UFOs or when they have claims of recalling a past life?
The fact is that the closer science comes to the truth, the closer it comes to belief in a Creator and in the paranormal.
“...And so it seems that we have met before…
and laughed and loved like this before…
but who knows where or when.”
If you’d like to comment, send me an e-mail at stebrel@aol.com
As I said…nobody asked me.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
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.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
What Do UFOs Look Like?
EXPLAINING LIFE’S MYSTERIES May 2, 2009
By Stephen Ellis
Nobody asked me, but…
A number of people are asking a very practical question: What does a UFO look like? Most people have never seen one and wonder if they would even know it if they did see one.
The answer may be a bit surprising: The first UFO sighting around 1946 was by a pilot of a propeller driven aircraft who said he saw a saucer-like object flipping through the sky. This is a far cry from what we now call UFOs. First of all, most of the UFOs people claim to have seen do not “flip” through the sky…they sail along quite smoothly.
The shape of UFOs seems to change with almost every sighting: at first, they were called “Flying Saucers” because they were shaped like a disc or a saucer. There have been some reports of bell-shaped objects. Recent sightings have been much more detailed: Some say they have seen a huge triangular-shaped object; some have said that they saw a diamond-shaped object; some have said they were surrounded by white lights while others claimed they were surrounded by multi-colored lights. I want you to look at the pictures above and tell me what you think. These sightings were made over North Carolina. The objects stayed in the sky and “hovered” long enough for the photographers to run, get their cameras and snap the pictures before the UFOs (allegedly) shot off silently at super-high speeds. I’ve been told that there were about 50 witnesses to these objects in the sky.
Note that the shape of the object in the top picture appears to be significantly different that the shape of the object in the lower photo.
Also note that these are the first night photos I have seen of UFOs where the objects were in glorious Technicolor.
We have to conclude that either (a) this is the result of an Adobe Photo Shop and the approximately fifty witnesses are all conspirators, or (b) that there was some genuine object in the sky unlike any we’ve encountered before.
Now, let’s get back to the reports of different shapes in the sky: Is it possible that what UFO spotters are seeing is something that changes its shape? These photos would certainly indicate that...as would reports of diamond-shaped, triangular-shaped and disc-shaped UFOs. I have difficulty believing that we are being visited by a rash of different people who fly differently shaped craft.
How can something change shape in ur atmosphere? These photos do tend to support my statements that I believe our “visitors” are from a different dimension…probably a dimension where shapes can change as needed. To me it is next to impossible that a multitude of varied craft can visit us and make no attempt at contact…if they could. The reason they can’t is because they are from a different dimension and no means of communication or contact has ever been established between dimensions.
As I said…nobody asked me.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Writing About the Unexplained
EXPLAINING LIFE’S MYSTERIES April 26, 2009
By Stephen Ellis
Nobody asked me, but…
A few readers have commented that, sometimes, what I write goes “over their heads”: that I become too technical and far-out when I talk about things like excerpts from “Einsteins Time/Space Continuum” or things like the “String Theory”. This saddens me because I genuinely appreciate readers who take the time and effort to tell me what they think, and I feel like I may be letting them down.
To all of my readers I want to apologize when some of the things I write are difficult to understand. Please write to me and I will try my best to explain things in a clearer manner.
Also, please try to remember that I’m dealing with paranormal and other unexplained things that rocket scientists have been unable to explain. Unfortunately, the world we live in is very complicated and there are no simple answers available to such obvious questions about our daily life: Why our Earth keeps spinning at the same rate in space where there is measurable friction; Why doesn’t our rotation slow down like a spinning top?
O.K….granted that there is not that much friction in space, but there is enough friction to slow down the movements of our satellites and send them crashing back to Earth. You would think that after billions of years, even a little bit of friction should have, logically, slowed us down. Apparently, it hasn’t.
If you think that explaining things we live with every day is tough, try explaining things that aren’t apparent…like ghosts, UFOs, psychics, astral projection, etc. Far more intelligent minds than mine have tried to explain the “whys” and “wherefores” of paranormal things. There are explanations, but sometimes those explanations get very complicated.
I’m not suggesting that I have all the answers. All I have are “theories” that seem to fit with what little we do know. My theories tend to explain much about our world that even rocket scientists can’t explain, but there are no guarantees that my theories are correct…nor even that someone else may not come up with different ideas that are better than mine, that work even better and explain even more.
If you’re looking for simple answers, you won’t find them. Yet, most people want simple explanations. That’s why religions of all sorts and varieties are so popular:
The doctrines that every religion wants us to accept offer simple answers to very complex questions that everyone can understand. We are here because God placed us here. He created the world in six days and on the seventh He rested, etc. I’m not trying to put down anyone’s religious beliefs, but the fact is that things are more complex than that. Belief in the doctrines of any given religion creates more questions than answers: Where was God during the Holocaust? Why is He allowing the genocide going on in Darfur or the slaughter of Christians in Lebanon? Which version of the Bible is truly God’s word? Why hasn’t God answered my prayers? Did Jesus really walk on water? Did Noah really build an arc and save two of every species on Earth? Etc., etc. etc. Every religion has simple, easy to understand, answers.
Yet, who among us has not, at some time, questioned whether there really is a God? Who among us has not, at some time, questioned the writings in the Bibles? When we question the writings in our Bible, we tend to look and hope for other, simple, explanations of things. If we continue to question the religious doctrines, society tends to think of us as a “rebel”.
When we do not find easy-to-understand answers outside of the Bible, most people tend to “give up” seeking explanations and return to their religion. When they do return to their religion they will be joined by many others who have undergone the same search and found no answers. There is an important degree of “comfort” when you become a part of a group that accepts the same things you accept. It becomes insignificant that the things you have agreed to accept are without explanation or historical documentation. People in that religious group will offer you love and respect because you accept the same over-simplified answers that they accept…and “love” is a vital thing to humans.
The word “love”, to me, is one of the most powerful words in the world. Why do we “love” our children? Why don’t we simply cast them out onto the street after they’re born? Animals, far less advanced than humans, love and nurture their young…then set them free to live on their own. Humans love and nurture their young far longer than any other species of animal that inhabits the Earth. In fact, a primary drive of all humans is to seek love and acceptance from others. “Love me (accept me)” for what I am; “Love me (accept me)” for how I look; “Love me (accept me)” for what I have achieved; etc.
One of the major keys to the rise of Christianity was the belief “Jesus loves you”…just the way you are and no matter what you’ve done. And, if you “believe”...All your sins of the past can be washed away. Jesus will accept you into his realm of Heaven no matter what your life on Earth has been like.
Far be it from me to refute that beautiful concept. I am neither an agnostic nor an atheist. I am a seeker of truth and I believe the truth, rather than beautiful stories, will lead us to the real meaning and understanding of life: to the Nirvana we all secretly want.
Like everyone else, I want to be accepted. If what I write is not understood, then I am not being accepted. Often, my explanations can’t be simple because we’re talking about things very few people understand…mixed with a lot of falsified reports. I do try my best to write in a manner that everyone will understand, but sometimes it just isn’t possible. I genuinely appreciate it when someone writes to tell me what they think even if what they believe is opposed to what I’ve said and/or not complementary to me.
Write me. Maybe I will have a “simple” answer to your questions. Stebrel@aol.com.
As I said…nobody asked me.
By Stephen Ellis
Nobody asked me, but…
A few readers have commented that, sometimes, what I write goes “over their heads”: that I become too technical and far-out when I talk about things like excerpts from “Einsteins Time/Space Continuum” or things like the “String Theory”. This saddens me because I genuinely appreciate readers who take the time and effort to tell me what they think, and I feel like I may be letting them down.
To all of my readers I want to apologize when some of the things I write are difficult to understand. Please write to me and I will try my best to explain things in a clearer manner.
Also, please try to remember that I’m dealing with paranormal and other unexplained things that rocket scientists have been unable to explain. Unfortunately, the world we live in is very complicated and there are no simple answers available to such obvious questions about our daily life: Why our Earth keeps spinning at the same rate in space where there is measurable friction; Why doesn’t our rotation slow down like a spinning top?
O.K….granted that there is not that much friction in space, but there is enough friction to slow down the movements of our satellites and send them crashing back to Earth. You would think that after billions of years, even a little bit of friction should have, logically, slowed us down. Apparently, it hasn’t.
If you think that explaining things we live with every day is tough, try explaining things that aren’t apparent…like ghosts, UFOs, psychics, astral projection, etc. Far more intelligent minds than mine have tried to explain the “whys” and “wherefores” of paranormal things. There are explanations, but sometimes those explanations get very complicated.
I’m not suggesting that I have all the answers. All I have are “theories” that seem to fit with what little we do know. My theories tend to explain much about our world that even rocket scientists can’t explain, but there are no guarantees that my theories are correct…nor even that someone else may not come up with different ideas that are better than mine, that work even better and explain even more.
If you’re looking for simple answers, you won’t find them. Yet, most people want simple explanations. That’s why religions of all sorts and varieties are so popular:
The doctrines that every religion wants us to accept offer simple answers to very complex questions that everyone can understand. We are here because God placed us here. He created the world in six days and on the seventh He rested, etc. I’m not trying to put down anyone’s religious beliefs, but the fact is that things are more complex than that. Belief in the doctrines of any given religion creates more questions than answers: Where was God during the Holocaust? Why is He allowing the genocide going on in Darfur or the slaughter of Christians in Lebanon? Which version of the Bible is truly God’s word? Why hasn’t God answered my prayers? Did Jesus really walk on water? Did Noah really build an arc and save two of every species on Earth? Etc., etc. etc. Every religion has simple, easy to understand, answers.
Yet, who among us has not, at some time, questioned whether there really is a God? Who among us has not, at some time, questioned the writings in the Bibles? When we question the writings in our Bible, we tend to look and hope for other, simple, explanations of things. If we continue to question the religious doctrines, society tends to think of us as a “rebel”.
When we do not find easy-to-understand answers outside of the Bible, most people tend to “give up” seeking explanations and return to their religion. When they do return to their religion they will be joined by many others who have undergone the same search and found no answers. There is an important degree of “comfort” when you become a part of a group that accepts the same things you accept. It becomes insignificant that the things you have agreed to accept are without explanation or historical documentation. People in that religious group will offer you love and respect because you accept the same over-simplified answers that they accept…and “love” is a vital thing to humans.
The word “love”, to me, is one of the most powerful words in the world. Why do we “love” our children? Why don’t we simply cast them out onto the street after they’re born? Animals, far less advanced than humans, love and nurture their young…then set them free to live on their own. Humans love and nurture their young far longer than any other species of animal that inhabits the Earth. In fact, a primary drive of all humans is to seek love and acceptance from others. “Love me (accept me)” for what I am; “Love me (accept me)” for how I look; “Love me (accept me)” for what I have achieved; etc.
One of the major keys to the rise of Christianity was the belief “Jesus loves you”…just the way you are and no matter what you’ve done. And, if you “believe”...All your sins of the past can be washed away. Jesus will accept you into his realm of Heaven no matter what your life on Earth has been like.
Far be it from me to refute that beautiful concept. I am neither an agnostic nor an atheist. I am a seeker of truth and I believe the truth, rather than beautiful stories, will lead us to the real meaning and understanding of life: to the Nirvana we all secretly want.
Like everyone else, I want to be accepted. If what I write is not understood, then I am not being accepted. Often, my explanations can’t be simple because we’re talking about things very few people understand…mixed with a lot of falsified reports. I do try my best to write in a manner that everyone will understand, but sometimes it just isn’t possible. I genuinely appreciate it when someone writes to tell me what they think even if what they believe is opposed to what I’ve said and/or not complementary to me.
Write me. Maybe I will have a “simple” answer to your questions. Stebrel@aol.com.
As I said…nobody asked me.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Science v. Common Sense
EXPLAINING LIFE’S MYSTERIES April 19, 2009
By Stephen Ellis
Nobody asked me, but…
I seem to be having a growing battle with our scientific community: As I have said numerous times, paranormal phenomena are impossible to prove in any scientific manner: primarily because science does not recognize their existence.
Of course, science has done a very poor job of explaining a lot of things we live with every day, so I guess not being able to prove things like ghosts and living-before/again puts me in the same category as scientists…except that scientists try and make their theoretical conclusions sound factual and not subject to question. Then, of course, science changes its mind and tries to make their new theory sound factual and not subject to question.
That’s where my battle with science begins: I do question their conclusions. Common sense tells me that much of what science has declared to be hard fact does not stand up to common sense and reason. There are many questions that science has glossed-over because they can’t come up with good answers. And there are other questions that science says they have answered…only to change their mind as other facts come into play.
Examples? How is it we are living on a little ball in the middle of space, suspended by nothing? How is it that this little ball keeps rotating and revolving about our sun with such accuracy that we can predict the sunrise or sunset on any part of the Earth within seconds? Science comes up with words like “gravity”. But, when pressed, they can’t tell you what gravity really is or how it works. For years science preached that our orbit around our sun was round because gravity made it that way. Recently, when they discovered that our orbit around our sun was eliptical, they scrambled for new answers. There are a million questions for which our esteemed group of scientists have no good answers…so they make them up…and later, change their collective minds.
Science has never come up with a good explanation of human behavior: The so-called science of psychology has yet to settle-down with any genuine conclusions. Via Sigmund Freud and Freudian Psychology they developed theories about how the human mind works…until Gestalt came up with his theories and changed everything. Now, almost all “abnormal” human behavior is treated with chemicals...or rather, prescription drugs. These drugs may cloud or dull the functions of the brain, but even psychologists and psychiatrists realize that they are treating a symptom and not the problem. It seems that if they can dull the brain enough so that a person can live in our stressful society, they feel that they have done their jobs.
Certainly science has tried to explain why some people become “deviant” to what they deem is the “norm” of society. Science now claims that most problems emanate from a chemical imbalance in the brain. It seems to me that they’re going to have to come up with a theory of what is chemically “balanced” brain before they start talking about “imbalance”. Of course, they can’t do that, so they come up with a bunch of theories and then try to support those theories with a lot of fancy talk and baloney…then try to back it up with meaningless experiments.
Science makes no effort to explain how it is that a child of professional parents can become a criminal, or how someone from a dysfunctional family can become a world leader, or how two children raised in the same environment: one can become a world leader and the other a criminal.
These days, science is likely to say (with dogmatic authority) that it is their genes. But how does that explain how a set of twins, from one sac, with almost identical genes, one can become a musician and the other a mathematician…or one can become a doctor and the other a prostitute.
At least the paranormal theories that I have set forth in these blogs explain many of these things in a manner that seems consistent with what we know and what we are learning: We know we all have an electromagnetic aura surrounding our bodies. Science has made little (if any) attempts to explain what it is or how it works. But if it is an inter-dimensional thing that feeds our computer-like brains, and has done this for many others before…it explains a lot. It explains the strange dreams we may have; it explains ghosts; it might even explain UFOs. In fact, the more you unclog your brain from the nonsense our scientific community disseminates, the more sense things in life actually make.
I’m not saying or suggesting that science has not helped make our physical lives healthier and longer. But the fact is that we are not our bodies…we are our minds!
No physician or scientist anywhere can locate our minds as any part of our bodies. But they call me some kind of “nut” when I say that our mind is actually outside of our body. I firmly believe that our minds are actually located in the electromagnetic aura that surrounds our bodies. It doesn’t hold water to believe that our mind is a part of our brain. We know that brain-damaged people still think with complete clarity. If the mind is a part of the brain, when the brain is damaged by a heavy blow or by cerebral palsy, why doesn’t it affect the mind? Damage to the brain will clearly hamper the brain’s being able to control bodily functions…but we know from thousands of experiments that it doesn’t affect the mind. So why not accept my belief of the possibility that our minds are outside of our bodies in our electromagnetic auras.
If you accept this, it make things like astral projection logical and possible. It makes things like retrogression through hypnosis to a previous life seem elementary. And, of course, if we have had previous lives, doesn’t that go a long way towards explaining ghosts and hauntings?
The answers are there…but we find it difficult to accept them because this is not what we were taught in school. It’s strange to me that billions of people believe that God made our world in six days 5,500 years ago, but the same people can’t accept the possibility that He separated our minds from our bodies so that our minds would never be injured as we live our lives.
As I said…nobody asked me.
Please keep your letters coming. I answer every one of them personally. Contact me at stebrel@aol.com
By Stephen Ellis
Nobody asked me, but…
I seem to be having a growing battle with our scientific community: As I have said numerous times, paranormal phenomena are impossible to prove in any scientific manner: primarily because science does not recognize their existence.
Of course, science has done a very poor job of explaining a lot of things we live with every day, so I guess not being able to prove things like ghosts and living-before/again puts me in the same category as scientists…except that scientists try and make their theoretical conclusions sound factual and not subject to question. Then, of course, science changes its mind and tries to make their new theory sound factual and not subject to question.
That’s where my battle with science begins: I do question their conclusions. Common sense tells me that much of what science has declared to be hard fact does not stand up to common sense and reason. There are many questions that science has glossed-over because they can’t come up with good answers. And there are other questions that science says they have answered…only to change their mind as other facts come into play.
Examples? How is it we are living on a little ball in the middle of space, suspended by nothing? How is it that this little ball keeps rotating and revolving about our sun with such accuracy that we can predict the sunrise or sunset on any part of the Earth within seconds? Science comes up with words like “gravity”. But, when pressed, they can’t tell you what gravity really is or how it works. For years science preached that our orbit around our sun was round because gravity made it that way. Recently, when they discovered that our orbit around our sun was eliptical, they scrambled for new answers. There are a million questions for which our esteemed group of scientists have no good answers…so they make them up…and later, change their collective minds.
Science has never come up with a good explanation of human behavior: The so-called science of psychology has yet to settle-down with any genuine conclusions. Via Sigmund Freud and Freudian Psychology they developed theories about how the human mind works…until Gestalt came up with his theories and changed everything. Now, almost all “abnormal” human behavior is treated with chemicals...or rather, prescription drugs. These drugs may cloud or dull the functions of the brain, but even psychologists and psychiatrists realize that they are treating a symptom and not the problem. It seems that if they can dull the brain enough so that a person can live in our stressful society, they feel that they have done their jobs.
Certainly science has tried to explain why some people become “deviant” to what they deem is the “norm” of society. Science now claims that most problems emanate from a chemical imbalance in the brain. It seems to me that they’re going to have to come up with a theory of what is chemically “balanced” brain before they start talking about “imbalance”. Of course, they can’t do that, so they come up with a bunch of theories and then try to support those theories with a lot of fancy talk and baloney…then try to back it up with meaningless experiments.
Science makes no effort to explain how it is that a child of professional parents can become a criminal, or how someone from a dysfunctional family can become a world leader, or how two children raised in the same environment: one can become a world leader and the other a criminal.
These days, science is likely to say (with dogmatic authority) that it is their genes. But how does that explain how a set of twins, from one sac, with almost identical genes, one can become a musician and the other a mathematician…or one can become a doctor and the other a prostitute.
At least the paranormal theories that I have set forth in these blogs explain many of these things in a manner that seems consistent with what we know and what we are learning: We know we all have an electromagnetic aura surrounding our bodies. Science has made little (if any) attempts to explain what it is or how it works. But if it is an inter-dimensional thing that feeds our computer-like brains, and has done this for many others before…it explains a lot. It explains the strange dreams we may have; it explains ghosts; it might even explain UFOs. In fact, the more you unclog your brain from the nonsense our scientific community disseminates, the more sense things in life actually make.
I’m not saying or suggesting that science has not helped make our physical lives healthier and longer. But the fact is that we are not our bodies…we are our minds!
No physician or scientist anywhere can locate our minds as any part of our bodies. But they call me some kind of “nut” when I say that our mind is actually outside of our body. I firmly believe that our minds are actually located in the electromagnetic aura that surrounds our bodies. It doesn’t hold water to believe that our mind is a part of our brain. We know that brain-damaged people still think with complete clarity. If the mind is a part of the brain, when the brain is damaged by a heavy blow or by cerebral palsy, why doesn’t it affect the mind? Damage to the brain will clearly hamper the brain’s being able to control bodily functions…but we know from thousands of experiments that it doesn’t affect the mind. So why not accept my belief of the possibility that our minds are outside of our bodies in our electromagnetic auras.
If you accept this, it make things like astral projection logical and possible. It makes things like retrogression through hypnosis to a previous life seem elementary. And, of course, if we have had previous lives, doesn’t that go a long way towards explaining ghosts and hauntings?
The answers are there…but we find it difficult to accept them because this is not what we were taught in school. It’s strange to me that billions of people believe that God made our world in six days 5,500 years ago, but the same people can’t accept the possibility that He separated our minds from our bodies so that our minds would never be injured as we live our lives.
As I said…nobody asked me.
Please keep your letters coming. I answer every one of them personally. Contact me at stebrel@aol.com
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Mediums & Psychics
EXPLAINING LIFE’S MYSTERIES April 12, 2009
By Stephen Ellis
Nobody asked me, but…
Most people do not understand the difference between the terms “psychic” and “medium”. A “medium” is someone who (supposedly) can communicate with the spirits of the dead while a “psychic” is someone with a “sixth sense”...an extra sense beyond the five senses we all live with: sight, sound, taste, touch and smell. The true psychic can sense the thoughts of others sometimes even when the thought they are sensing is many miles away. Sometimes the true psychic can hold an object belonging to someone and sense many things about the owner of that object
Two of the most popular TV series are “The Medium” and “The Mentalist”. The first about a lady who can pick up the thoughts of dead people and the second about a man who is exceptionally sensitive to the thoughts of those around him. Of course, both these TV shows are fictionalized.
Probably the single most important thing to remember if and when you meet someone who says that he/she is psychic or has the abilities of a medium is that 99% of them are frauds. Being a recognized psychic or medium is very big business. People like John Edwards, James Van Paagh or Derek Acorah probably make enormous amounts of money every year by convincing people that they are talking to the spirits of the dearly departed. I have seen them perform and they are excellent “showmen”, but in my opinion, are not believable at all. Probably the biggest frauds are those who claim to be able to predict the future:
One of the most famous “psychic predictions” was that of alleged psychic, Jean Dixon, who announced to the media that she had warned President John F. Kennedy not to go to Dallas where he was assassinated. Whether or not Dixon really did this or whether she has capitalized on a national tragedy may never be known, but Dixon’s predictions subsequent to the Kennedy assassination have proven to be significantly less than reliable…even though many of her subsequent predictions were about things that were “expected” to happen.
This may point-up a serious problem with psychics: The abilities of true psychics seem to “come and go” without warning. The same psychic who made my knees shake when he told me intimate details of events I had shared exclusively with my brother and father may be 100% wrong in trying to pull up events from the life history of someone else.
In fact, I have met several people who have convinced me that they have genuine psychic abilities, but I have never met anyone who has convinced me they are a genuine medium. If you pay close attention to the way popular mediums work, they give what is known as a “cold reading”. They pretend that a name or a word has come to them from a spirit world and see if anyone in their audience picks up on the name. Then they proceed to follow it through with someone’s initials or other non-specific terms. If the audience member acknowledges that the spirit is a female, the medium will suggest that it is the mother or sister (a high probability guess). Cold readings are very impressive…and very phony. Frequently the medium will have a “plant” or two in the audience with whom the medium can be very specific and impress the other members of the audience. It’s all showmanship and not communication with the dead.
It hasn’t even been a hundred years since the famous magician/escape-artist, Harry Houdini, offered $10,000 to any medium who could demonstrate genuine medium powers. On course, $10,000 in 1910 was like $250,000 or more today. A lot of very famous mediums sought the funds…and put on some elaborate shows for Houdini, but none were able to demonstrate genuine medium powers and no one collected Houdini’s money.
But before you write-off all mediums as a waste of time, there have been a few very convincing incidents with which I am familiar: Just like in the movie “The Sixth Sense”, I’ve been told about some people who claim to be able to see and talk with dead people. The major difference between such people and professional mediums is that dead people seem to contact the medium and the medium has little or no ability to choose who it is that contacts him.
Then, too, several psychics have proven that they may have limited medium abilities: The best example of this I know is when psychic, Peter Hurkos, located the exact spot in Amsterdam where a little girl had accidentally fallen into a canal and drowned.
A further example of this is the growing number of psychic detectives who work with law enforcement agencies and have helped to locate where “missing” bodies can be found. The general detective routine is to tell the psychic nothing about the case, but merely show pictures of a missing person. The work of psychic detectives has truly been amazing even to the point of locating and identifying a murderer.
Mere “identification”, while helpful to the police, is not legally sufficient information for police to make an arrest or a District Attorney to bring charges. But psychic detectives have often set the police investigations in the right direction when the police had few or no clues to work with.
If you’d like to see exactly how a fake medium gives a cold reading and convinces his audience that he is speaking with the dead, use this link. A former professional medium, Darren Brown, now an admitted fake, shows how he did it.
http://www.funny-videos.co.uk/videofakemediumderrenbrown.html
If you’ve had some experience with someone who claims to be able to communicate with the dead, please contact me at stebrel@aol.com I’d like to hear from them.
As I said…nobody asked me.
By Stephen Ellis
Nobody asked me, but…
Most people do not understand the difference between the terms “psychic” and “medium”. A “medium” is someone who (supposedly) can communicate with the spirits of the dead while a “psychic” is someone with a “sixth sense”...an extra sense beyond the five senses we all live with: sight, sound, taste, touch and smell. The true psychic can sense the thoughts of others sometimes even when the thought they are sensing is many miles away. Sometimes the true psychic can hold an object belonging to someone and sense many things about the owner of that object
Two of the most popular TV series are “The Medium” and “The Mentalist”. The first about a lady who can pick up the thoughts of dead people and the second about a man who is exceptionally sensitive to the thoughts of those around him. Of course, both these TV shows are fictionalized.
Probably the single most important thing to remember if and when you meet someone who says that he/she is psychic or has the abilities of a medium is that 99% of them are frauds. Being a recognized psychic or medium is very big business. People like John Edwards, James Van Paagh or Derek Acorah probably make enormous amounts of money every year by convincing people that they are talking to the spirits of the dearly departed. I have seen them perform and they are excellent “showmen”, but in my opinion, are not believable at all. Probably the biggest frauds are those who claim to be able to predict the future:
One of the most famous “psychic predictions” was that of alleged psychic, Jean Dixon, who announced to the media that she had warned President John F. Kennedy not to go to Dallas where he was assassinated. Whether or not Dixon really did this or whether she has capitalized on a national tragedy may never be known, but Dixon’s predictions subsequent to the Kennedy assassination have proven to be significantly less than reliable…even though many of her subsequent predictions were about things that were “expected” to happen.
This may point-up a serious problem with psychics: The abilities of true psychics seem to “come and go” without warning. The same psychic who made my knees shake when he told me intimate details of events I had shared exclusively with my brother and father may be 100% wrong in trying to pull up events from the life history of someone else.
In fact, I have met several people who have convinced me that they have genuine psychic abilities, but I have never met anyone who has convinced me they are a genuine medium. If you pay close attention to the way popular mediums work, they give what is known as a “cold reading”. They pretend that a name or a word has come to them from a spirit world and see if anyone in their audience picks up on the name. Then they proceed to follow it through with someone’s initials or other non-specific terms. If the audience member acknowledges that the spirit is a female, the medium will suggest that it is the mother or sister (a high probability guess). Cold readings are very impressive…and very phony. Frequently the medium will have a “plant” or two in the audience with whom the medium can be very specific and impress the other members of the audience. It’s all showmanship and not communication with the dead.
It hasn’t even been a hundred years since the famous magician/escape-artist, Harry Houdini, offered $10,000 to any medium who could demonstrate genuine medium powers. On course, $10,000 in 1910 was like $250,000 or more today. A lot of very famous mediums sought the funds…and put on some elaborate shows for Houdini, but none were able to demonstrate genuine medium powers and no one collected Houdini’s money.
But before you write-off all mediums as a waste of time, there have been a few very convincing incidents with which I am familiar: Just like in the movie “The Sixth Sense”, I’ve been told about some people who claim to be able to see and talk with dead people. The major difference between such people and professional mediums is that dead people seem to contact the medium and the medium has little or no ability to choose who it is that contacts him.
Then, too, several psychics have proven that they may have limited medium abilities: The best example of this I know is when psychic, Peter Hurkos, located the exact spot in Amsterdam where a little girl had accidentally fallen into a canal and drowned.
A further example of this is the growing number of psychic detectives who work with law enforcement agencies and have helped to locate where “missing” bodies can be found. The general detective routine is to tell the psychic nothing about the case, but merely show pictures of a missing person. The work of psychic detectives has truly been amazing even to the point of locating and identifying a murderer.
Mere “identification”, while helpful to the police, is not legally sufficient information for police to make an arrest or a District Attorney to bring charges. But psychic detectives have often set the police investigations in the right direction when the police had few or no clues to work with.
If you’d like to see exactly how a fake medium gives a cold reading and convinces his audience that he is speaking with the dead, use this link. A former professional medium, Darren Brown, now an admitted fake, shows how he did it.
http://www.funny-videos.co.uk/videofakemediumderrenbrown.html
If you’ve had some experience with someone who claims to be able to communicate with the dead, please contact me at stebrel@aol.com I’d like to hear from them.
As I said…nobody asked me.
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