St Frances of Assisi would levitate to as high as a beech tree. This victorian medium called D.D.Home was witnessed to have levitated to the ceiling. what are your veiws on this

I believe that it's possible and works on the same principle as sp00n bending. We could probably even walk on water.  ;D  And I'm not being facetious.  ::)


Love, Mairlyn ;-)

I kinda of love this stuff, mind over matter and beliefs pushing our "physical" reality furthur, always interests me. I found a site in which it explains through breathing etc you can train to do this levitation.

I use to be into magic and did a simple trick to levitate and it was simple and very effective and astounded loads of people, was real good fun!

Ryan

It's all intriguing stuff.

Lately my older sister has been watching the show "Mind Freak" starring Chris Angel. Good show. Although a part of me believes he's just a great illusionist - I dare not to tell this to my sister. Ever since she's been watching it, she's been doing more of meditation, etc. (which she hasn't done in YEARS). She's training to ... "bend reality" within a year. Sounds funny but I wish her the best of luck anyway. I just don't think it can happen THAT fast. But then again, you just never know.

I tried to spoon bend before but.. I just can't get the hang of it. This guy in my chem class did a trick for me. It was the spoon bending trick. When I touched it, the part of the spoon he was touching was really warm. How the hell do you do it?  :-/ Maybe it had something to do with the spoons he carried around. Afterall, he had like 15 of the same kind in his bookbag.

Chilliperpperflea, you've levitated ey? Was it something that tricked the eyes or did you literally lift yourself off the ground?

Hey,

No i can't actually levitate lol, mine was just an illusion.

Apprantly it can be done through meditation though which i would love to see but not sure whether i really believe it, im not sure, to see though would be awesome.

Ryan

Im afraid I will have to admit I struggle with levitation.

ESP, OBE's and afterlife I can see as a very good possibility. But levitation has always been associated with a magician of some sorts when ever I have seen it or read about it.

The secrets and mysteries of the conscious mind plus my own experiences with precog dreams, death bed visions, validations and now a little dabble in partnered explorations really gives some weight to my personal belief system's structure.

But the pure physical impossibilities of floating plus the drought of any form of positive anecdotal evidence makes this puppy out of my belief system vista.

Sorry  :-/.  ;D

But hey!, a few years back I struggled to believe in a lot of the stuff im veering to now so who knows!

Levitation would be cool I suppose, but at the end
of the day...
What would you do with it???
A LOT of work (meditation, ect.) so you could miss
the health benefits of taking the stairs? (Assuming it CAN be done, if it isn't you've wasted a lot of time meditating...)
Although it might make a good stage trick (lots of
$$$, fortune&fame, yadda yadda.)
Now throwing lightning bolts, like in Dungeons & Dragons or Star Wars... THERE would be a cool
"siddhi" to know. Money potential would be there,
(you could put on one hell of a show!) plus it would be useful for self-defense. (Even if the gov't took your guns away, it couldn't take yor new-found abilities away!) If I had good reason to believe in "magic" or "major siddhis",
I'd be meditating 24/7 for THAT one...

B-man

TESTIMONY TO D. D. HOME'S 3 LEVITATIONS:

I draw these 3 accounts from David Fontana's book , "Is There an Afterlife?", p. 250:

(1) A report from D.D. Home's friend, Adare:
Home 'was lifted up to the back of my chair.  `Now,' he said, `take hold of my feet. ' I took both his feet in my hands, and away he went up into  the air so high that I was obliged to let go his feet.  He was carried along the wall, brushing past the pictures, to the opposite side of the room.  He called me over to him.  I took his hand and felt him alight upon the floor."

(2) Another time, while out of doors, Lord Adare and Captain Charles Wynne saw Home floating above the ground and being carried over a two foot broken wall.  In Adare's view, `There could not be a better test of his being off the ground.'  

(3) Adare witnessed Home's most dramatic levitation.  He was lifted up and taken out through the 3rd floor winder of Ashley House in London and re-entered through a window in the next room.   ???

Don

Hi Don-

Interesting, but I am assuming there is no direct evidence of these levitations other than anecdotal accounts.  Seems reasonable that at least a photo or two could have been taken.

Supposedly there are Tibetan monks who also can levitate but again, no direct evidence.

As to spoon bending, that has been discredited at least as Yuri Geller (sp?) is concerned.  That was sheer trickery.

If these things are really possible, there should be no reason why we can't have documentation.  Until such evidence is gathered and made available for examination, it seems prudent to be cautious before accepting them as bonafide.

Same thing can be said for those who claim they can have OOBE.  Again, there are simple experiments that could demonstrate conclusively that someone can go out of body.  If so, I'm not aware of any.

As an aside, I'm still fascinated by your account of Leonard and the deceased son or son-in-law who appeared in physical form and was actually able to drive a truck.  I would love to know why this is so extremely rare.  The fact that it happened even once should mean that it can happen again.

Accounts of a spirit being able to move things in the physical environment are far and few between (other than such things as table tipping or other tricks of the medium trade).

Btw, I don't buy arguments by those who say the scientific community is trying to suppress such evidence.  Scientists are also human beings and would have no reason to keep information from being revealed.  

Roger

Havent really looked at scientific studies involving OOBE. But found this after 5 mins :-

http://www.near-death.com/tart.html


wrote on Feb 20^th, 2006 at 3:45pm:

Scientists are also human beings and would have no reason to keep information from being revealed.   Roger

http://www.sheldrake.org/controversies/wiseman.html

What about that effort ?

Or this? :-

http://www.skepticalinvestigations.org/whoswho/vanLommel.htm

You will not accept OOBE's without evidence yet make the assumption that scientists will also give balanced and truthful views?

The story about the dog is interesting but by no means solid evidence that it could detect when its owner was approaching.

And as for NDEs, they may very well be the portal in understanding what lies beyond death.  But then again, maybe not.  We just don't know.  

I would much rather have the best minds in the scientific community examine something from all angles and rule out all other possible explanations before concluding that an NDE is evidence of survival.

Ever hear of Melvin Morse?  He's a doctor who has written about the NDEs of children.  He was once a skeptic who now believes that we do in fact survive death.  But he's also honest enough to admit that solid evidence may never be obtained.

And that's a good thing.  Think about it.  If we suddenly had irrefutable evidence of life after death, totally conclusive and acknowledged by the scientists, what then?  How would your earthly life change?  Ever think about that?  It's kind of like a dog chasing a car, what would it do if the car stopped?

You might say that it would take away the almost universal fear of death.  Yes, that's probably true.  But my question is, how would it change the way you live your daily life?

I think the real challenge is not in trying to prove that we have an afterlife.  I personally think that effort is pointless and will never be successful.  Instead, we should be much more concerned about where our own lives are going and how we can make a difference while still alive.

I sometimes think all of these efforts are really, at bottom, a cop out.  They occupy our time way too much when far more important things are being left unattended.

Greetings Rondele,
You say:
"You might say that it would take away the almost universal fear of death.  Yes, that's probably true.  But my question is, how would it change the way you live your daily life? .....I sometimes think all of these efforts are really, at bottom, a cop out.  They occupy our time way too much when far more important things are being left unattended."
I liked the way you presented your ideas, until I got to this part.  You apparently have never had a real fear of death crammed into your soul, or you wouldn't have said that. It immobilizes a person and they are forever unable to make a moral decision, because that god has become so fearful to them.
Once they are freed of their fear of death, by such a belief as Moen's, they/I am free to live again. It has changed my life in immeeasurable ways.
There are so many important things to be doing, that's true.  So why are we here at this site?  Why are you here, I wonder?
bets

Roger,

David Fontana documents several levitation cases. I skipped over most of these when I read his book, but will now research them to see if any of them transcend the status of mere anecdote.  I'm skeptical of the alleged witness to D. D. Home's levitations.

To me, your reference to the mediumistic ability to move objects paranormally is more interestng.   Despite what you may read in my current "Mental Medium" thread, I am skeptical about most [not all] claims that mental mediums channel the dead.  In a couple of posts, I will document some cases that illustrate the  reasons for my skepticism.  But "physical" mediums are far more impressive to me because of the well documented investigations of the ability of their spirits to teleport objects.  When I feel complete about my "Mental Mediumship" thread, I will start a new thread just on "Physical Mediumship" to demonstrate how uniquely awesome the  best of these cases are.

By Leonard's case, you are of course referring to my old "Dead Truck Driver" thread.  As you know, Leonard was a good friend of mine; so his glowing report carries unusual weight with me.  To me, this case is somewhat analogous to Nellie's apparition to her daughter Bea in the book "Lighted Passage." which you kindly mailed to me.   Remember, a discarnate Nellie is actually able to give her daughter an etheric flower which Bea is then able to press and paste in her photo album!  I imagine this case is particularly meaningful to you because you are related to Bea's father.  Many analogous cases are reported in anecdotes about angelic apparitions, but I don't know the participants personally.

Don

Hi Don-

In a story about Melvin Morse in Feb RD, it talks about Morse's visit with Ian Stevenson.  "Ok, Ian.  What's the bottom line?  Is reincarnation real or not?  You've studied it for 25 years now.  What conclusion have you reached?"

"It's a gray area," Stevenson replied.

"That answer stuck with Morse.  'I've started to wonder if that's the best answer any of us in this field will be able to give.'

"Morse takes a deep breath.  At times, it seems as if the universe itself is preventing him from finding the answers he seeks."

'I tell you, there's a mind at work here,' he says.  'One that is perversely skewed toward keeping us from ever proving its existence.'

Morse pretty much sums up my own feeling about researching the afterlife.  I would be willing to bet that 20 years from now, assuming the world hasn't blown up and we are all still alive and Bruce's website is still up and running, that we would find pretty much the same kinds of questions, speculations, and theories that we find right now on this conversation board.

Roger
ps- I agree, the story about Rea and the rose is intriguing.  However, I'm not related to her father.  I was just a close friend of the grandson of the author (Rev Howell Vincent).  And for me, the most compelling part of the book was Vincent's brief discussion of retrievals, especially since the main purpose of the book was to describe the afterlife contacts with his deceased daughter!

Betson-

Yes, I fear death.  But I think the larger issue is that most of us fear the unknown, whether it's death or something else.  We are much more comfortable living "inside the box" to borrow a popular phrase.

I have to remind myself that if I were never born, I would never have to worry about death.  And the odds of being born with my own unique consciousness is pretty amazing.  Same for you.

The earth has been turning for what, several billion years?  And before then, how long was the universe existing?  Fear is such a useless emotion unless it is tied to something over which we can control.  Like not driving while drinking for fear of a crash.

As for me, I would much rather be alive and fear death than to never have been born to begin with.  So we should celebrate life, and just be thankful that we were created.  Even tho I have no solid evidence that we survive death, I believe that we do.  I just don't think anyone will ever be able to prove it.

R

Roger,

I was impressed by your report on Ian Stevenson's modest assessment of his childhood evidence for reincarnation because he remains the most respected researcher in this area in the world.   In some of Stevenson's alleged reincarnation cases, it was later proven that the prior personality was still alive well after the child was born.  So what does that say about the child's past life memories?

Some of the most basic questions are poorly grasped even by devotees.  For example, most people think of biblical faith as belief or mental assent to theological propositions.   In fact, the world means "faithfulness" to one's spiritual quest.  This distinction allows for periods of intense skepticism.   In my view, the self-inflicted pressure to determine whether one really believes in certain spiritual claims is often premature or unnecessary.  Overstatement often leads to disillusionment and cynicism; understatement often allows the flower of fascination to blossom at a more natural and fulfilling pace.   After all, it is the power and permanence of our awe and its impact on our conduct that truly determines where we stand on basic spiritual issues.   Doubt is often the catalyst for a spiritual hunger that deepens spirituality and leads to far superior insights and experiences.  

Besides, psychological research has shown that Christians with several loose ends in their belief system are more helpful and compassionate than those who have no doubts and have a settled spiritual self-image. Some day, I may start a thread that documents the empirical evidence on the relationship between compassion and the nature of one's religious orientation.

Don

P.S.  It's good to see you posting again.  I need a skeptic like you around while I'm musing on how to reply to the latest jibe from my buddy Spitfire.

wrote on Feb 20^th, 2006 at 4:32pm:

The story about the dog is interesting but by no means solid evidence that it could detect when its owner was approaching.

Can you explain why not? The man did a series of experiments and collected data that prooved it.

Don-

Your post about doubt being the catalyst for spiritual insights struck a chord with me.  

I am reminded of a recent column in our local paper written by a minister.  He was talking about how people can have all the material possessions in the world and yet feel a sense of emptiness.  He quotes Ecclesiastes 6:2, "God gives a man wealth, possessions and honor, so that he lacks nothing his heart desires, but God does not enable him to enjoy them....."

In trying to answer that question, he quoted Pascal who said "There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every man."  Also Acts 17:27 where Paul said "God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each of us."  

I especially like what Dale Evans Rogers said- "I looked my whole life for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow but found all I was looking for at the foot of the cross."

So maybe Paul gives us the reason why we'll never be able to prove the existence of the afterlife.  And if that's true, it makes a lot of sense to me.

As for me, I don't really think I'm a skeptic about the afterlife.  Actually I think I really do believe in it.  But I'm a skeptic when it comes to much of the new age beliefs.  Folks are so quick to embrace Seth or Elias simply because of what they read in books or on the net, not because they themselves have had any experiences that would validate what these so-called advanced entities say.

As Bruce has said, there's a big difference between beliefs and knowns.  I agree with that, although I'm not sure whether we can really say we "know" something.  We might think we know, but whether it's really true or not, is really uncertain.

As Swedenborg has pointed out, there's a lot of deception in the afterlife.  And there's probably a couple of levels of deception as well.  There may be malicious deception and benign deception.  We'll probably never know the real deal even when we die.  It's all a big Mystery.  And as any mystery writer knows, if you give away the answers too soon, the reader will put down the book before he gets to the end.

R

There is more on levitation within Christianity.

The Orthodox (Greek, Russian, et al.) have a large monastic community on Mt. Athos in Greece that has existed since the time of the Roman Emporer Justinian.

They practice a form of meditation by repitition of the Jesus Prayer ('Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me a sinner'). This method is part of what is known as Hesychasm. This has produced some startling results. The following is an except of a text written in the fourteenth century by Callistus, Patriarch of Constantinople (aka Byzantium/New Rome/Instanbul) and his co-author and fellow monk Ignatius of Xantholoulos:

"Thus, light springs forth for them, as from the sun's disc, and enables them spiritually to reason, judge, see, foresee and the like. In general, throught Him all showing and revelation of unknown mysteries shines forth for them; and they become filled with supernatural and Divine power in the Holy Spirit. This supernatural power renders their flesh lighter or rather finer and makes them soar on high like a meteor. By this power of light in the Holy Spirit some of the holy fathers, while still in their bodies, traversed wide rivers and deep seas dry-footed, as though immaterial and incorporeal. They covered in a moment great distances, requiring many days of travel and performed many other marvellous deeds in heaven, on earth, in the sun, on the seas, in deserts, in cities, in every place and country, in beasts, in reptiles and generally in every creature and every element--and they were glorified. When they stood at prayer, their holy and precious bodies were lifted off the ground as though on wings; after death they remained uncorrupted and performed signs and miracles..."

I should note that 'uncorrupted' means they didn't decompose.

Taken from: Callistus, Ignatius. Directions to Hesychasts, #95. Writings from the Philokalia on Prayer of the Heart. Trans.  E. Kadloubovshy and G.E.H. Palmer. London, Boston: Faber and Faber 1992

Rob

Leilah

So keep us posted on the results your sister gets. Reading your post, I realized that in my own way I too am trying to learn to bend reality. Yeah, I like the way that sounds.

If there really are earth changes coming by 2012, will all of this be easier?

Rob

always interesting to hear about Mt. Athos though if they wouldn't let the women there, it sounds like they were afraid of bending more than eating utensils. was Mt. Athos mentioned in Zorba? Well Jacob Needleman wrote some stuff about the Orthodox Church in Lost Christianity that I think touches on some of the interesting aspects. What do you think of Kyriacos C. Markides'   work?

The 'holy and pious' monks of Mt. Athos (an independent semi-autonomous republic) do not allow female 'creatures' of any kind to set foot there, except cats (for rodents). It should be obvious, to all but the politically correct, why celibate men would not want women around, especially since a lot of modern women (but not all) often dress much more provocatively than women did when those monastic communities were founded.

Oh, I know someone has to flame me for that one. Go ahead and send your ventimous hatred to: ihaterobroy@thetruthhurtsandIhateittoo.com.

Lucy,

I've haven't read Zorba. My readings on Orthodoxy are mostly of Meyendorff, Lossky, Coniaris, Hierotheos, Ware, Florovsky, Romanides, and of course the various authors in the Philokalia. I should add that I also read eastern Catholic writers as well.

I perused the excerpts of Needleman and Markides at Amazon.com and they look quite promising! Thanks for the references. You are the best!

Love,
Rob