path_of_one
Embracing the Mystery
Personally, I don't think "power places" are supernatural. I just think they are places in which some sort of energy or force is concentrated. I don't think it has anything to do with magic.
Certain places make humans feel odd. Shamanic traditions have long held these are important in some way. I am not one to throw out thousands of years of human experience and thought because of Western scientific notions. I find other humans' systems of thought valid and useful as well as those of my own culture. Otherwise, I'd feel ethnocentric and like I was limiting my worldview. But that's just me.
We can make any place sacred, but unless you entirely limit consciousness and energy to human beings, other types of beings also contribute to a place's overall systemic "hum" if you will. This is hard to explain, but I'll try- this is based on my experience and others I know who are sensitive/intuitive sorts.
Every moment and every place is sacred to me in a way, because I choose to make it so.
But some places and moments have an inherent energetic feel to them that change me, rather than me changing them. It's a different sort of exchange, and it is due, in part, to other beings' contributing their communciations, energies, and so on to the overall system of that moment and place. Some places have many more of these beings than others, or more powerful beings than others. I don't mean supernatural beings necessarily. These could be trees, rocks, bodies of water, animals, and so on.
It's kind of like some places, for an intuitive sort of person, are like walking into a crowded room. Sure, I can think of people in any place, but there are some places already filled with people... that's a different experience.
In some rooms, people might have a party. In others, a crowded room might be filled with congregants praying. Somewhere else, it is the DMV.
Natural places have similar differences. Some places feel like congregations of beings in worship or meditation. Some feel like a whole lot of angst-ridden beings. Some feel like beings having a good time. Some feel like beings watching quietly.
If someone has no experiences like this and is not inherently intuitive or sensitive to other beings' feelings, energetic states, etc. it is quite difficult to explain and of course would take "belief" to accept another person's claims. But if someone is this way, it is one's way of moving on the earth and is impossible to avoid, so it isn't "belief" but rather "experience." The experience could be inaccurate, but it doesn't make it less real. We know that the brain doesn't fully distinguish between imagined/dreamed reality and "real" reality. This is why people in sports often use imagination of perfect result to perfect their real game. What it points to is that the experienced reality is real to the person who experiences it, and no matter how much another person says "that's hogwash," it doesn't really change the fact that for that person, it is what their life is.
I don't have the capacity to turn off intuitive senses of being-ness of place, including sensing "power places." I've done it since I was a toddler. I accept it might be "all in my head," but everyone's reality is filtered through their heads, so that's nothing particularly useful. It isn't wishful thinking for magic or the supernatural. It is what I experience as part of my ordinary, natural world around me, and it was that way before I really had any goals of how I'd see the world. To me, it'd make little sense to ignore how my brain naturally functions, especially when it is useful, just to fit in better with Western culture and its ethnocentric idealization of the "rational" and "materialistic" worldview.
citizenzen
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What "force" or "energy" is being concentrated? What is the mechanism of this concentration?
You throw these concepts out, but without definition. Why hasn't this effect been scientifically observed?
So blindfold a number of people and have them stand "here" and "there" and record their feelings. If you're right, a statistical correlation should appear. It should be fairly simple to prove this.
As the old saying goes, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof."
Where's the proof?
I think the next areas where there will be emergent development will be at the interface of the traditionally "hard" or physical sciences (such as physics, chemistry and math) and the the "soft" sciences (such as biology, psychology, anthropology and sociology).
These fields have traditionally used different methodologies and approaches. But it seems like the soft sciences are becoming more quantitative and the hard sciences are looking outside of the traditional box.
This tread is a good example. The "spooky" interactions at a distance have been known since Einstein speculated about these ideas. Experimentalists are now finding proof. But they refer to interactions at relatively tiny distances (perhaps a few atomic radii).
Psychologists and anthropologists have very creative ways to speculate on the psychic analogy, that is why I enjoyed reading Poo's interpretation of these forces. And by considering some of the physics involved, maybe she will be the next Nobel Physics winner
These fields have traditionally used different methodologies and approaches. But it seems like the soft sciences are becoming more quantitative and the hard sciences are looking outside of the traditional box.
This tread is a good example. The "spooky" interactions at a distance have been known since Einstein speculated about these ideas. Experimentalists are now finding proof. But they refer to interactions at relatively tiny distances (perhaps a few atomic radii).
Psychologists and anthropologists have very creative ways to speculate on the psychic analogy, that is why I enjoyed reading Poo's interpretation of these forces. And by considering some of the physics involved, maybe she will be the next Nobel Physics winner
citizenzen
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So go prove it and win yourself a Nobel and eternal fame.
[youtube]8T_jwq9ph8k[/youtube]
If you watched this video, did you catch the part where he said, "People remember the hits and forget the misses"?
This is a key to so much magical thinking.
Remembering the hit, forgetting the miss.
[youtube]8T_jwq9ph8k[/youtube]
If you watched this video, did you catch the part where he said, "People remember the hits and forget the misses"?
This is a key to so much magical thinking.
Remembering the hit, forgetting the miss.
T
Tao_Equus
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T
Tao_Equus
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Not just 'remembering' the hit but inflating its significance too is in my opinion able to account for 100% of religious or spiritual 'experience'. The truth is if you believe in such things you are already incapable of being rational about them. Cognitive bias is so powerful when tainted by religious conviction that scepticism is the only rational reaction to it.
If we could describe the process scientifically, then there would not even be a discussion on the issue because it would already have been addressed - but it is also worth remembering that today's science probably is not the pinnacle of all scientific thought humanity will ever develop.
There are a great number of mysteries within the every day human experience which are contrary to our scientific understanding of matters - we presume there is an explanation, and that we merely lack the mathematical tools to describe them.
For example, when I was last studying physics in school in the 1990's, bumblebees were too heavy to be able to fly, and fish were unable to swim as fast as they do - but I doubt you'd ever have disbelieved that bumblebees could fly or fish could swim just because there was no scientific explanation for them doing so!
Similar with at least some aspects of so-called psychic and spiritual experiences - which are given such labels precisely because we lack the scientific models to describe them, but that does not preclude that these models will not develop in time.
There are some moments when our surroundings impact us emotionally - sitting on a hillside watching a blazing sunset can feel awe-inspiring. There are many such types of experiences we could list - but what all of them have in common is that the experience is focused on environmental conditions which could have occurred anywhere. In other words, the place is not important - it is merely the physical location from which a particular emotive event was observed.
With "places of power" there is something that excites through no obvious external stimulus, and is entirely centred on the location. Something about the place feels different on an unconscious or even conscious level, and more than that, it is a feeling that others can share in.
I've posted before about the human body's bio electromagnetic field, and wondered if this could be serving as an underdeveloped sense - additionally, how we consider it perfectly mundane that cobalt particles on recording tape can capture audio-visual experience, yet somehow metallic minerals in everyday natural settings under certain conditions are not seen as being able to do anything remotely similar.
A personal theory is that humans can be unconsciously sensitive to electro-magnetic phenomena, and this can potentially account as a scientific mechanism for at least some psychic/spiritual experiences.
For example, we know that a lot of ancient spiritual sites can follow very exact lines, and these have been called Ley Lines. What if these actually followed major field lines in the earth's natural magnetic field?
As for places of power - what if the arrangement of rocks and natural minerals can record some form of echo of the human experience beforehand? Something that is not strong enough to be a directly observable projection, but still has presence enough to be felt subconsciously?
Perhaps these ideas may explain something of why certain places appear to have a feeling of "power" - ie, they impact you emotionally and spiritually without any obvious cause - or perhaps I'm over-rationalising a process that is actually very different.
Either way, as with all such experiences, they are very difficult to describe if someone has never experience it.
Perhaps yourselves have felt something in some place before, enough to catch your attention, but you deigned to give it much consideration because it seemed irrational to do so?
If so, that's the sort of place we're speaking about, and that's why the term "place of power" is loosely used - because it designates a place that impacted us for no obvious reason, and without the rational scientific tools to describe it, we must necessarily file it among our spiritual experiences.
2c.
path_of_one
Embracing the Mystery
I don't know. I'm not a physicist, nor do I play one on TV.
I put those words out there as a best approximate to what I experience, which should be fairly obvious from my disclaimers that I'm trying to give the best possible description of my experience.
I don't ask that other people agree my experience is most accurate, but rather that people respect the variety of ways people experience and integrate information. I think that's fairly reasonable, don't you?
As for scientific observation, so far as I understand it, physics is uncovering potentialities and probabilities that were long considered fantasy (Many Worlds Theory, anyone?)... so I imagine that in time, this may also be uncovered. There is a conservatism to science in funding and publication that make it a necessarily slow process, but that's not such a bad thing. It's just how science works. I'm patient.
I think that's up to those that care about proving this to others. I'm content with my own experience; as I said, for me it is not about proof but rather about my experienced reality and usefulness.
If you'd like to design an experiment, go through the Institutional Review Board to use human subjects, deal with liability forms, blindfold a group, lead them several miles out into the woods on rough terrain, record it all, write it up, and offer it to the public... I'd be happy to read the results. Personally, I'm not that dedicated to having other people think as I do. I really don't care if you or others experience reality as I do; part of the beauty of humanity is that we are diverse in personality, intelligence, and sensitivity. Makes society go 'round.
As for proof in general, who gets to define "extraordinary?" What is extraordinary to me may not be to you, and most of human experience is not provable. If I tell you to prove to me that you love your wife, what evidence would you offer? Your actions? Your words? Why should I believe that is evidence of an emotion, an experience?
LOL- Tao, this only expresses your own biases. All humans are biased. All humans are culturally conditioned. You always somehow want to believe you are the rare exception, but that is just more blatant evidence that you are biased.
I recognize my own biases and I fully admit that my experiences may not be accurate portrayals of the real world.
What I ask for is respect for the usefulness of inaccurate beliefs, which has been readily documented cross-culturally in anthropology. Dogmatic attachment to materialism is just another culturally conditioned worldview that closes one's mind to others' perceptions; in essence, another form of ethnocentrism.
I try to strike a balance between the usefulness of objectivist science and the valid critique of post-modernism. For this, I am generally respected as a scientist despite my own plethora of beliefs. It is not getting rid of beliefs and shamanic experiences, or denying them, that makes one a good scientist. It is recognizing that they are outside the jurisdiction of one's work as a scientist, and being able to recognize one's own biases as a result of one's own conditioning, personality, intelligence, and worldview... and then recognizing the validity of diversity in the world.
I think the next areas where there will be emergent development will be at the interface of the traditionally "hard" or physical sciences (such as physics, chemistry and math) and the the "soft" sciences (such as biology, psychology, anthropology and sociology).
These fields have traditionally used different methodologies and approaches. But it seems like the soft sciences are becoming more quantitative and the hard sciences are looking outside of the traditional box.
This tread is a good example. The "spooky" interactions at a distance have been known since Einstein speculated about these ideas. Experimentalists are now finding proof. But they refer to interactions at relatively tiny distances (perhaps a few atomic radii).
Psychologists and anthropologists have very creative ways to speculate on the psychic analogy, that is why I enjoyed reading Poo's interpretation of these forces. And by considering some of the physics involved, maybe she will be the next Nobel Physics winner
I'd love to see physics work with shamans from various traditional societies, with anthropologists involved. Most anthropologists are skeptics and atheists. Yet, most of them who have worked with shamans can tell you about incidences of unexplainable phenomena, particularly healing at distance or through means that should not affect the physiological/physical body of human beings.
I do think there is something going on there, and I don't think it is a figment of imagination. I also don't think it is "supernatural" necessarily.
I have had some very interesting conversations with astrophysicists and they are not as "hard science" as one might think. Nor are all social scientists touchy-feely like I am. Even though I'm the touchy-feely variety, my scientific work is primarily on stuff that can be modeled, counted, and accounted for. Intellectually I like working on patterns that are identifiable and useful; I'm interested in using technology such as ABM and GIS modeling for cultural modeling and predictability, for data analysis, etc.
I find it interesting that, in general, the public often have a vision of what science is or should be that is not how science actually works. Having done science for a while now (and having started in biology/ecology, so having had some experience with a "natural" science) and having had many conversations with other scientists of a variety of disciplines, I just find it amusing to be told by others that I "should" do X or Y, that C or D is what scientists "should" do in research, that science is based on this or that. LOL Meanwhile, science is its own sort of cultural system, and it changes over time and is pushed and pulled by the individuals in it. We don't sign onto a creed to practice science- we fight and struggle for what science will be, for what is valid evidence and interpretation given what is possible in various disciplines. This is why I love science- it's freedom and openness.
All that said, I have no real ambitions for prizes of any sort. I do what I do because I love doing it, and because I hope to contribute something useful to policy and the public. Because of this, I don't work scientifically on things like psychic phenomena. I find this personally useful, but I don't think policy or the public is at a point where it is useful in a broader sense, so why bother? I work on things like cultural models and decision-making, how people structure information and retrieve it, how people learn information. Practically, I apply this stuff to things like health care systems, conservation of natural resources, and mediating conflict.
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citizenzen
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Yes, that's fairly reasonable.
It's also reasonable that when you post these experiences in a forum, you will find people who disagree with your viewpoint and provide a counter argument. That is after all, one of the main purposes of a forum.
You may be mistaking dissent with disrespect. It's not an easy thing to distinguish sometimes, especially when you hold a viewpoint close to your heart.
But, I'm not going to couch my posts with, "Sorry. I mean no disrespect, but..." That should be unnecessary in a discussion between intelligent adults. I think that's fairly reasonable, don't you?
path_of_one
Embracing the Mystery
Certainly.
I think it entirely respectful to say: "My experience and observation indicates blah blah blah." I do not consider respectful of others' views to say "People engage in wishful magical thinking, and are irrational" or somesuch, which implies ethnocentrism- a partiality toward one's own view that fails to accept cultural and other differences as valid.
I maintain that the Western notion of dismissing all other worldviews, such as those of shamans or other such people, in favor of materialism, is a form of prejudice and ethnocentrism. I have found that underlying such views is a feeling of superiority to other peoples in the world and their cultural worldviews, and a dismissal of their ways of knowing and categorizing information. Personally, I find that not only offensive but also not useful, since much useful information is coded in non-scientific ways, as has been evidenced in the ethnobiology and ethnoecology literature, as well as studies of folk medical systems. One example of many- acupuncture may be inaccurate in its explanation of health (i.e., flows of chi) but it's useful and works for certain symptoms nonetheless. To dismiss outright acupuncture and its observations is foolhardy, as it dismisses useful information simply because it isn't the Western science worldview. Science could eventually explain how acupuncture works, but for most people, it is the nuts and bolts of how to use it, not how it works, that is useful and important. So too with empathy and other such sensitivities.
Disagreement, based in one's own evidence (or studies) is neutral. Outright statements about the intellectual superiority of Western science over the "magical" "imaginary" etc. views of other peoples, and the assumption that other peoples must justify their beliefs not through usefulness, but through the Western science worldview (thereby treating Western science as superior and THE way of knowing) is ethnocentric, prejudiced, and to many indigenous peoples, offensive... the same sort of thinking behind "The White Man's Burden" that simply has a new worldview backing it.
I choose to be open to all ways of knowing, accepting of experiential and observational differences, and to recognize that I am limited both individually and culturally. I do not claim my way is best, but rather that it is useful to me. In this way, I respect others' ways of knowing, cultural models and worldviews, and ways of organizing information.
citizenzen
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path_of_one
Embracing the Mystery
Cute!
(And hey, remember, you were the one who claimed to like PC-ness.)
(And hey, remember, you were the one who claimed to like PC-ness.)
citizenzen
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I span the gamut between squishy liberal and crusty son-of-a-gun.
I'm both crunchy and chewy.
Peace, Path.
T
Tao_Equus
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Carrying on from what CZ said (post 31)... I do not speak as an authority, just as myself, with my opinions. It goes without saying that I have some biasses, philosophical ones, ( I am completely straight
). I am interested in the psychology that drives people to religious belief, the practice of its rituals and its effects across societies. I do not look at religion through the same lens as you and where as you tend to focus on unifying principles I tend to see where it is used as an excuse for things that are wrong, or could be better. I will not stop doing that and nor will I apologise for that. I genuinely feel I do understand, and I at a minimum empathise, with your descriptions of what belief is to you. But to take that facet of belief for myself I simply would not be me and would introduce only more biases for me to weigh against.I have a great respect for your effort on this forum. You have given me some of the toughest intellectual challenges I have faced here and enriched my understanding of some current thinking in the world of anthropology. You are one of my favourite reads here. But I could no more be you than you could be me. So please do not think I do not understand... really I do as much as I am able, but I have had my own university of life and give dialogue based on that. I think you underplay the basic psychological motives for belief, because belief is important to you. They are a tad uncomfortable when reduced to that after all.
Sometimes my deepest criticisms are my simplest. And here it is almost as though the most objection comes from my simplest observations. People are more forgiving of long winded statements that can be dissected and obufusicated till the point is long forgotten. It works both ways. For example often CZ makes one of his soundbite sized posts that wee's me off because he does not give me enough to nail him on, (sorry CZ
). The kind of diffuse metaphysics you believe in is not alien to me. I was just leaving that kind of space when I first arrived on CR. But I did not leave it behind just to give integrity to my atheism. I left it because the models I had used to support it were found to be insubstantial wishfull thinking. Pretty, comforting and self-empowering too I agree, but without foundation none the less. Sometimes the reduction to fundamentals is threatening, it can make people feel stupid to have a glaring impossibility in their cherished belief pointed out to them in a few simple words. But sometimes the charge 'you oversimplify' is a false one. Sometimes the truth is easy to grasp.Ohhh... and I am a rare exception..... we all walk a path of one
nativeastral
fluffy future
mmmm hmmmmm..... Ann Summers counts on it
presumably not an instance of rational and unbiased thinking
see it as an abbreviated synonym of po1's rendition.
its not that we need a new pair of glasses since the problem is the utter dependency of sight in humankind [in general] as the main instrument of
procuring 'evidence', rather than other senses that say, blind people 'feel'. 'whats it like to be a bat'? we don't have a clue [despite what dan dennett says] because of subjective experience unavailable to a third person perspective [why psychology has been falsified as a science and why materialism wants to eliminate the 'subject' from the agenda in studying human cognition etc preferring the 'computer model' as its much more deterministic and 'predictable' therefore measurable] .
so, maybe not yet can we 'measure scientifically' the energy centres of chakras, whether they are emitting, absorbing, transmitting or transducing, or pick up frequencies or vibrations in 'places' despite numerous testimonies; imagination or not spaces and places do 'entangle us'. either we will one day be able to develop instrumentation or we won't but it is a truth a reality [water divining anyone?] that we are sensitive instruments overlaid by a lot of gunk [white toast and jam in my case!]
we live in a psychic-all world, ask the devas before you pick that flower
T
Tao_Equus
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ask the devas before you pick that flower
Ask the devas before you pick that flower
If the fruit it would be would be sweet or sour
The juices rich and sustaining whole these hours
Or leave one aloft the pan raining aching showers.
In will, in want, in need and in the acts and facts
We are compelled to see through our milky cataracts.
Ask the devas before you pick that flower
Before you erect to ego such ivory towers
Bastions of ages fall age by age with no succour
Regardless defiant, compliant, fighting or cowered.
We are compelled to see through our milky cataracts
Our will, our want, our need in the acts and facts.
Ask the devas before you pick that flower
For there is no power like flower power!!
nativeastral
fluffy future
oh all right rabbie
the milky bars are on me
since the flower remedies
are doing the trick
for not such a rational ...
the milky bars are on me
since the flower remedies
are doing the trick
for not such a rational ...
I am pretty sure that sometime in the near future a Nobel prize will come from a collaboration between a "soft" scientist and a "hard" scientist. And when that happens it will be less because of the topic they choose and more because they became friends during the process
.And I think it might be the same story with people of different religions and interfaith dialogue (and the prize will be peace)
.
citizenzen
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It works both ways. For example often CZ makes one of his soundbite sized posts that wee's me off because he does not give me enough to nail him on, (sorry CZ
No problem. I like "soundbites" because I see a forum like a conversation. There's always an opportunity to say more at another time, and like in real life, I'm not a gabber.
As for the "not give me enough to nail him on"... well, that's my secret. I have a few forum rules that if I stick to, help make me less of an easy target.
Now back to the subject. I don't want to give the impression that I am absolutely against any of these notions. There may be "power places". But for most people, the issue isn't about being open to mystery, it's about wanting quick fixes to difficult problems.
So we till have horoscopes, lucky charms, and other sorts of (here I go again) magical belief intended to bring some advantage to one's life. We are all prone to this and I think it stops progress rather than propels it. Think you've found a power spot? Great. Does it make you enlightened? No! You still have to do all the work you still needed to do, plus you have to at some point step off that spot and reenter the real world.
Buddhists have a concept of Maya, or illusion that interferes or can be mistaken for enlightenment. The best way I've seen to deal with it is to constantly throw out what is in one's mind and let life fill back in. Let life come to me without attempting to manipulate it or game it in any way.
Power place, weak place, it doesn't matter where I stand. Each place provides me the opportunity to be one with the moment, one with life, to be egoless, to act impeccably, to experience enlightenment.