Adm. Buckles said:
But this is the same old con. You can't honestly prove any ability without control methods to keep out the sheisters. The idea that pressure and lack of ideal conditions is what keeps anybody from proving their gifts beyond a reasonable doubt is a cop out. Either you can or you can't. I have read your original post and I think the religous study is hardly proof of anything. I have felt the same euphoria after a football game. My body's physical reaction is explained in any junior high biology book.
What I am saying is that your's or anyone else's practice methods for learning precognition and psychic ability is flawed. There is no practice method to broaden your supernatural abilities.Becuase such abilities don't exist in any quantifiable way. You can only broaden your knowledge in reason, logic and fact. Sherlock Holmes was not a psychic yet he used reason and logic to determine a person's history. Sherlock Holmes was fictional but his methods were sound and every psychic uses them either conciously or subconciously. I don't believe that all psychics aim to defraud people but I do believe that all psychics are frauds.
You may choose to believe or not to believe but the one constant is that if a person like a card sharp, a magician, or a holecarder told you their abilities were supernatural you could not disprove them with your knowledge of psychic ability. But they could disprove yours with reason, logic, and facts. You could disprove them by asking the holecarder to perform at different tables, giving the magician something he did not provide, or asking the card sharp to do the same thing while you shuffled. But that would be introducing control methods into the equation something you would not be willing to do with your abilities.
That was a well put and fairly common critical analysis. It is, however something I would disagree with from my own perspective.
What happens is that your conscious mind is attempting to shut out any form of metaphysical matters. My guess is that you actually have had some strong feelins of ESP when you were very young, but that was quite some time ago and you have locked out this from your normal consciousness.
Another way to look at ESP:
Mathematics says we can not divide by zero. This is because zero as a divisor indicates that we are not dividing at all. That there is no way to put in an = sign as we didn't divide to begin with.
But there is an interesting exception. When we use a graph scale in Negative numbers.
I suppose maybe we would use a negative graph to define precipitation absorption in years of drought. The drought years would be represented by graphed numbers below the horizontal line. Then in rainy years we would graph our dots in lines above the horizontal. Perhaps there are better examples. This is just the only one I can think of without digressing too far.
What we find is that our perception of a zero divisor must be modified. In a Negative graph we can't multiply a -2 x -2 and get a -4. this is because the sum of any two negative numbers is always a positive number.
However in a negative graph a positive number would put the sum in positive scale or above the plane we want to work in. Unacceptable to, say, describe the content of moisture within a soy bean field in a dry Autumn.
So (as my 12th grade algebra teacher taught me) we must use IMAGINARY numbers. Thus:
-2 x -2 = i4. "I" for "Imaginary number".
The "Imaginary number" is quite real within the concept of our graph. We could call this usage as "Imaginary logic" It is perfectly logical but doesn't fall into the realm of most ordinary mathematical equations we're commonly used to.
How does this apply to precognition?
Well the time to use "Imaginary logic" is when we have a typical person who has strong doubts as to the validity of ESP, or even one who refuses to accept the plausibility of the concept at all. Obviously that second person would be less inclined to even study the idea to begin with. However if we apply some "Imaginary Logic" to these people we at least have a starting point.
So I have suggested that these people consider adopting a strategy which would apply this logic within the confines of a seemingly illogical "graph". For starters I mentioned that he/she begin attending some mainstream religious circle for a length of time. Not to brainwash the individual but to expose the person to others who have found a spiritual path and thus have improved their lives together in a positive way.
An old but very wise person once said: "About the only deniers of the power of prayer are the ones who've never tried it".
So try that and later maybe we can continue the discussion more effectively.
Next: Look at this "Imaginary logic" from a utilitarian level. We're not trying to levitate or move physical objects. But even more importantly we don't want to change any of the basic fundamentals of our blackjack play. We wouldn't split fives, or double down on stiff hands.
All we would want to do is look for those minority of times where some small decision like "hit or stay on fifteen in +3 TC against dealer's eight" would make a difference. And maybe all we would do is bat 50/50.
Fine. However each time we did this we might evaluate what thoughts came to mind when we made an accurate decision to stay or hit. What was the feeling? Was there a voice? Etc. Then after wards and over time we'd take stock of this sense and develop it more.
And if nothing panned out? Well then so what? It isn't like we gave up much EV on a borderline decision anyway. Hell even if we arbitrarily asked this question on every near 50/50 judgment call it wouldn't have much effect over-all.
My first precognitive call was very striking to the adults around though I didn't make much of it at the time. And it was in a card/board game. The one by Parker Bros. called "Clue".
My whole family was on vacation at a coastal Oregon Beach. We were in a very comfortable lodge. It was one of my happiest moments growing up with my family. I was about four or five years old at the time.
The grownups let me play even though the game is really for older children. A lot of deductive reasoning that a four year old wouldn't normally be able to comprehend. Mom and dad just didn't want me to feel excluded as my other two siblings (brother & sister) were much older than me.
And yet I won the game!
I hadn't done the paperwork like brother sis, mom and dad did. Instead towards the end of the game I had the perfect vision of the three cards left in the little black envelope. I said:
"I want to make an accusation. Colonel Mustard did it in the kitchen with the knife".
No one else in the family had those cards! So we checked the black envelope and my guess was right on the money.
I had the family as witnesses but as naturally happens they attributed the prediction as luck or some other matter. Adult humans often refuse to accept these things. Maybe not even if a UFO landed in their own back yard. Some would still deny this!
No, I haven't seen any of those...
However I could SEE the cards! It was through a different focus of attention. These days I have to be very relaxed and in a deep meditative state to get anywhere near close to that kind of vision. Becoming an adult, dealing with uncertainty, negative thinking, negative influences and other matters tend to block out these very real forms of ESP.
So the solution to precognitive development (and other spiritual matters) seems to be a positive, steady acceptance of their reality but through baby steps and rational thinking.
Just like the negative numbers in a graph we can apply logic to them. The important things is to behave logically in all other matters.
Like a -6 x -6 = i36.