Almost all of our knowledge today comes from this method...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method

I was just wondering why a spiritual activity, such as astral projection, is so hard to prove scientifically?

I think there needs to be far more in depth research studies done, with the overall tightest protocols and methods, replicated many many many times, before such will convince any absolutely hardened skeptic.  

the afterlife experiments seems to prove that (some) psychics are real.  so why doesn't the scientific community accept such proof?  because of their bias, of course.  it's the same reason people wouldn't believe that the earth revolved around the sun, or that the earth was round.  

another thing can't be measured or proven is PUL. pure unconditional love energy.
this is told in Moen's books voyages into the Afterlife.

now do you suppose this is one of those things only can be experienced by the individual as existent?
good luck with the search for external truth or the validity of love experiences to change a soul and evolve it beyond its belief systems. anyone seeking such objective proof is going to need more than luck. They just might need god.
or the force. whatever. something out there loves us.

There are several methodological reasons that science has problems withmetaphysics.

First, we cannot estimate the probability of encountering a spirit or performing a spiritual activity by chance alone. And we can't even tell whether reports of experiences are actually valid when reported.

Further, most materialists have totally closed minds that are in perpetual denial - For example, let's say that you just ordered your army to attack some civilizn group, and rape and pillage until they all were dead. (Darfur as an example.) I seriously doubt that you would be able to accept the implications of a shared reality by which your world and theirs is coextensive, or that you could imagine that a "higher power" might pass judgement on you. Denial feels better - at least while you're alive.

A last factor is that the experimenters set things up so that there is no possibility of "leakage of information" into the experimental situation, and they then declare that the experimental setting is free of extraneous inputs. Since psychic phenomena seem to come and go as extraneous inputs super posed on the trivia of everyday circumstances, this amounts to creation of a region free of psychic phenomena - that is experimental sterilization also sterilizes away the spontaneous psychic stuff, and keeps it away by a collective act of will by the experimenters.

And, there are more reasons - mostly having to do with the inability to do more than get reports in a limited number of instances, and those only in an unreliable manner, about uncontrollable topics, and wth a lot of "noise" thrown in. (I estimate that most past life regression reports are half noise and half valid, since they employ a regenerative loop set up between sensations and imagination, and in regenerative systems, half the throughput can be shown to be noise.)

What ultimately is convincing is when people abandon the "regular science approach" and learn meditation sufficiently that they go into their own psyches and have their own experiences. And those, because they are unique to each individual, can't be expressed usefully, as we lack words to communicate such experiences. So we wind up with those whose meditations have led to an awakening, yet they can't explain more than the superficial details. As an example, Don tells of his "night in heaven", which convinced him, but which can't be expressed as numbers or probabilities.

I recall a Zen koan.

"If you have a stick I shall give it to you.
If you do not have a stick I shall take it away."
:-)
dave

Alysia says: "anyone seeking such objective proof is going to need more than luck." This seems to be so, for some reasons: As those things like the spirit world, telepathy, remote viewing, OBEing and such involve something which is, in our today's terms, not physical, it is simply impossible to gain proof of the same type like we can have it when only physical well defined occurings are to be researched. Furthermore, because we simply don't know how this all might technically work, we are principally not able to decide if an effect is caused, for example, by person-to-person telepathy or by tuning into an universal database.
 It is theoretically not impossible to get proofs for something which is not explainable by natural science so far (or even conflict with natural laws); I've heard of some, only often the effect is, although statistical significant, but not sensational enough to make a good newspaper headline.
Even seasoned OBEer Robert Bruce notes that OBEs are very influencable by the OBEer. We should not expect, when we phase off from the physical, that we then still can perceive the physical like we do with our physical senses. We do not, because we simply aren't in the physical; the stability and relative independence and perceverance of physical things might be a typical special attribute of the physical only, and maybe that's why it seems difficult to get OBE-remote viewing proofs.

The so called "personal proof" is something very different. This has to do with personal experience and meaning; it is primary and essential for us, and even the basis for natural science.

Spooky

So we are all stuck with personal proofs and un-natural science.

It figures.   :-/

d

Yes Dave, I have the feeling it all bends somehow into itself again, merry go round, like the old symbol of the snake biting it's tail (Ouroboros) but finally it has something "whole" with it- the entireness, closed, eating itself, ultimate truth of change and persistance (hmm, well you gotta experience it... ::) )

Spooky

Maybe it's just that it's getting late and I'm feeling kinky, but your description somehow makes me think of a variety of co-educational Tantric yoga positions, the nature of which I dare not describe.   ;D

Actually, samadhi is essentially just that - a gathering of all of us into a single event that leaves various amounts of reality in proportion to the amount of attachments and contingencies we cling to. It just doesn't feel like the rest of the world is present in person as compared to presence in abstract. - More stuff that doesn't translate into words.

And my other question is how the snake that eats its tail can gain weight. :-)

dave

Dave gave a koan: If you have a stick I shall give it to you.
If you do not have a stick I shall take it away.

___
warning: joke approaches. this koan reminds me when I tried to get a loan. :)

as far as the logical scientific mind, it seems a commonality of the human passing here, the more desperate we want enlightenment, or another objective, like a good job, or we want proof, evidence that will make a big splash,  the more that it alludes us due to wanting it so bad.
the more u want something, u are dealing with the generation of doubt.
doubt has it's own little reality to produce.
all the time u r saying I want it I want it I want it, part of you is saying "you can't have it" so shut yer trap! lol.
its just the nature of a split mind of conscious to sub.

a way out of that trap, could be, to stand back and imagine what it would "feel" like to have what you want, whether thats enlightenment or just a good job in the world, (if u got a job u like, thats like a miracle, say thank u god)

so if you are imagining how it would feel to already have what u want, you are already in process of gaining that item, but still, doubts will enter in and have to start over when they do.

Partnered Exploration is a most valuable tool to be approaching internal verification, and the words if you need to share, the words will come from your heart, from spirit and someday, the more explorers come, the new language emerges. Kyo tell me they do have this language on another website but I'm addicted here....

ElieteNYC,


EliteNYC wrote on Jul 19^th, 2007 at 12:00am:

I was just wondering why a spiritual activity, such as astral projection, is so hard to prove scientifically? I think there needs to be far more in depth research studies done, with the overall tightest protocols and methods, replicated many many many times, before such will convince any absolutely hardened skeptic.

It turns out that experiments in this area with the tightest protocols and methods have already proven that we can't replicate results without including as varibles the beliefs of those running and participating in these kind of experiments.  The link below to one of the articles on this website describes an experiement that has been run more than once in an attempt to prove or disprove the existence of a nonphysical means of communication between people.  The experiment failed each time and has become known as an experiment that demonstrates the effect of the experimenter's beliefs upon these kind of experiments.

http://www.afterlife-knowledge.com/relg-sci.html

To use the scientific method properly and be able to replicate our results we must know and understand the effects of ALL the variables in the experiment.  In the above cited experiment the only way the experimenters could get reproducible results was to take into account the effect of the experimenter's beliefs upon the experiment.

So, I'll bet if we give scientists the task of running experiments to prove or disprove the existence of Spirit the results will depend upon the beliefs of the scientists and participants in the experiment.  But, you probably won't see those beliefs listed among the controlled variables for the experiment, and they probably won't be included in the analysis of results.  Non-believing scientists will replicate the results of other non-believing scientists "proving" that Spirit does not exist.  Believing scientists will get the opposite result "proving" Spirit does exist.  And people like me will be left wondering how scientists can be so stupid as to not try to design experiments to understand how these conflicting results are possible.  

Thankfully not all scientists are that stupid, as the experiment in the article demonstrates.

Bruce

I came to this conclusion what Bruce is saying awhile back, so I don't need to read the article, I just know it's true.
my sources say the same thing, just a slightly different take; when theres 2 physical  people in a room relating, there are actually 4 very solid people in the same space.

theres who you think you are, versus who they think you are. that makes two.
then theres who they think they are, versus who you think they are. that makes four.

those four different viewing points are four self images, or thought systems if you prefer.
reality is relative.

so we're back to string theory where the observer influences that which is being observed. and that brings to mind the 100th monkey idea. the 100th monkey was born, and just already "knew" what the others had struggled to evolve into.

all this just sums up in my mind that we are creating each other.

in order to create each other aright we must first create a stable self for ourself, then we create others aright. meaning, to a poet, I love you deeply and forever and shall not waver from compassion.

good thread. :)

I spoke to a man I work with the other day. He believes that he is certain that there is no such thing as the World of spirit. He believes that he takes a scientific approach. The funny thing is, I told him about out of body experiences where I was able to confirm what I experienced non-physically through physical evidence, and he wouldn't accept my results as evidence. How can a person be open to proof when they won't accept the proof you provide?

Recoverer,


recoverer wrote on Jul 23^rd, 2007 at 12:49pm:

How can a person be open to proof when they won't accept the proof you provide?

Your question so perfectly brings into focus the crux of the problem.  I finally came to the conclusion that it is impossible to provide proof for anyone other than ourselves through our own direct experience.  Unfortunately many who insist that nonphysical reality doesn't exist see their belieft as adequae reason to not waste their time investigating.

The planet we live on would still be flat if it hadn't been for someone who was willing risk sailing off the edge into the Abyss to discover the Truth.  And then, based on the reports of these few brave souls, other folks had the courage to sail toward the edge of the Earth to see for themselves.  

Many who visit this site have sailed beyond the edge of physical reality to search for the Truth of our afterlife's existence through there own direct experience.  And many of them now know the Truth.  I knew that was the most I could hope for when this website was first put up in 1996.  I am delighted and happy to see that so many brave souls continue to post their reports and in doing so encourage others to go sailing.

Love to you ALL,

Bruce

Bruce said: the planet we live on would still be flat if it hadn't been for someone who was willing risk sailing off the edge into the Abyss to discover the Truth.  And then, based on the reports of these few brave souls, other folks had the courage to sail toward the edge of the Earth to see for themselves.
____
I just got the funniest image in my head of a bunch of hairy guys sitting around drinking homemade beer asking each other when they were gonna set sail for to find out if they were sailing into their deaths (the sea is a tough mistress I hear!) days go by and everyone gathers courage, maybe with the aid of their brew. they put their funny looking hats on and climbed onboard, grim faces all and off they went, for better or worse. the guy in the crows nest was the most nervous one of all! it depended on him the lives of the others as they might have a chance to turn back if the edge was spotted in time!  my goodness this edge of the world thing has been cropping up here on the board in several posts..its a great analogy for all explorers of the unknown to take heart and be brave. as they say, if you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten.
Bruce said;
Many who visit this site have sailed beyond the edge of physical reality to search for the Truth of our afterlife's existence through there own direct experience.  And many of them now know the Truth.  I knew that was the most I could hope for when this website was first put up in 1996.  I am delighted and happy to see that so many brave souls continue to post their reports and in doing so encourage others to go sailing.
___
we're 11 years old! yay!!! when I first came here it seemed quite a small group. its really grown. I really started having fun when I came here in 2001. lots of things started to happen. My mind started to open up. I will always have the utmost gratitude for TMI and this board and Bruce's books. love, alysia

Bruce wrote:  "I finally came to the conclusion that it is impossible to provide proof for anyone other than ourselves through our own direct experience.  Unfortunately many who insist that nonphysical reality doesn't exist see their belieft as adequae reason to not waste their time investigating."


I believe there is truth in what Bruce wrote above. In addition to the man I wrote about on my above post, there is another man I was sharing my experiences with for a while. One day I found out that he still doubted the afterlife. He blew my mind. With all the experiences I've had, I'd be the stuborness man on this planet to not believe that the afterlife exists. But my experience isn't another person's experience.

Perhaps there are some exceptions.  For example, Danion Brinkly wrote that he has helped hospice patients get over their fear by sharing his experiences with them. Perhaps people who are close to death are more open to hearing what others have to say about the afterlife.

Think maybe as Spooky says it all bends into itself. That a complete explanation ultimately requires some sort of unity or all knowingness.

As in you need a reasonably accurate view of the nature of that part of the the total reality you are working in (bearing in mind that our internal landscape is a part of the same reality as the external) to design an experimental method which is correct - which takes proper account of all of the variables.

And you need an open mind - what passes for this in science at present generally has so much invested in defending (or being seen to defend) a partial view of reality that it can't (won't) open to  perceive the big picture.  

And so by definition it cannot conceive of a correct (or at least a comprehensive)  methodology. Put another way - if you don't ask the right questions, you can't hope to get the answers that matter.

Part of this is just fine, and 100% supported by scientific method. It's clear that gaining an understanding of reality is a sort of a catch 22 problem - you need to know the answer (the unity or all knowingness above) to get the design of the experimental method exactly right.

Which means that it's inevitable that our (conscious) understanding can only be partial, and can only unfold through trial, error and proving/disproving of incomplete trial hypotheses using methods which at times will be based on wrong assumptions.

The bit that's quite another issue, and is surely the critical enabler is that of openness of mind. Openness does not mean naivety or inability to be logical. It just means an ability to rest easily and allow our innate intelligence to work without ego driven grasping - without denying or trying to force fit conceptual theories to the evidence. (these theories could be as much happy clappy belief in the insupportable, as a fear based insistence that the world runs on the dog eat dog principle or the above refusal of science to open to the possibility of certain wider realities)

The closed mindedness is in my experience nothing to do with scientific method per se, and everything to do with the culture which has grown up around research and academia which decides in a really aggressive way what sort of view is respectable, and what is not. No serious academic can for example be seen to even entertain 'wrong' views - it would finish his career.

Which I guess explains why Buddhism teaches right from day one (in the four noble truths)  that egotistical grasping leads to the delusion which is right at the root of our unhappiness.

From a very old and i think rather lovely teaching called the Dhammapada which kind of hits the nail on the head:

We are what we think
All that we are arises with our thoughts
With our thoughts we make the world.
Speak or act with an impure mind
And trouble will follow you
As the wheel follows the ox that draws the cart.

We are what we think
All that we are arises with our thoughts
With our thoughts we make the world.
Speak or act with a pure mind
And happiness will follow you
As your shadow, unshakable.....

contd.

More here: http://www.angelfire.com/ca/SHALOM/dhammapada.html

One of the most powerful ways this works must surely be to block the ability of many to open to even  the possibility that there are greater realities in play than a simplistic Newtonian competing separate selves/dog eat dog take on reality admits - this opening is the door to the spiritual path, the eventual seeing that the world actually runs on love  and all that that entails.

This opening is surely the most important step possible for all of humanity, representing it does no less than the restoration of communication with Spirit/God/the true nature of mind or whatever. It's the source of the intuition or knowing (wisdom and compassion)  that's needed to balance the self interest driven drive to destruction of ourselves and our planet that so many are engaged in.

My own experience says that once you open life finds ways to bring all sorts of 'proof' into your awareness, but that until you do you simply are not capable of picking up the signals. It's probably not by accident that this most fundamental of choices is not forced upon us, which probably goes some way to explaining why it's so unprovable if you're not in that space yet.......

Vajra said: And so by definition it cannot conceive of a correct (or at least a comprehensive)  methodology. Put another way - if you don't ask the right questions, you can't hope to get the answers that matter.
____

I'd say thats right on Vajra and I found this true in gathering paranormal experiences in involuntary manner.
involuntary experiences of the inner psyche is different than setting an intention and gaining that way.

I'm just beginning to figure this out. we all want to explore outside the box. some of us want to do retrievals, others want to talk to a deceased loved one, others want to escape the boxed in thinking we can get in of endless mind chatter that goes nowhere by it's nature.

asking the right question. it would seem, I believe this is correct, that there is always an answer attached to the question, so we speak of faith.
here's an example of asking the right question from personal experience in hopes that other's can relate;

but to diverge slightly, it has been brought to my attention we can talk endlessly in circles, but only true stories of personal experience seem to perk up a board and invite heart to heart correspondence, so thats my purpose, although I really should go outside today and bring my book (yesterday dear ones, a butterfly landed on the book I was holding to my astonishment! then it flew away and came back once more.

just trying to make a point we overlook the small things in life which can bring us great joy. me thinks the scientist would have rational explanation for the butterfly landing on top of my book as I held it in my hands, and if the explanation was logical, still I decided to keep the joy and never mind the logic in this instance.

I asked the right question which brought about  a chapter in my book titled Future self Meets Denial.
As a person who desired to do OBES, I am like Bruce, I tried very hard to do it as it had been reported; I would try for awhile then give up in frustration then return to this most curious experience with all its attendant sensations. I didn't even know I was asking the right question and so I called it involuntary, but now I know it was a setting of intention within the unconscious mind through desire. and curiosity.

I simply pondered what it would be like to be stationed directly above my body and be able to turn and view the physical body in a 3 dimensional view, not in a mirror, but 3 dimensional. AHA! my higher self we can call it, or future self, the part of me lives outside of linear time responded that I had at last asked the right question; but "she" interpreted the question to mean I wanted to know myself.
she did me one better, gave me more than I asked for. she showed up in person.
if you can imagine two of you in the room looking into each other's eyes, one was perfect, one was flawed, you get the picture.
haha! I told her to buzz off, my own self I told her she made me uncomfortable. lol. how she puts up with me, I'll never know, but since she is me and I am her, she is compassionate towards me.
she told me she had been wanting to meet me for a long while and expressed joy that I had not the capacity for. then.
so I got to see the nature of duality face to face in form and 3 dimensional. more than I asked for but operating from some wisdom in the universe available to all.

I think the right question must always be Who Are We? and that will always be very personal and by nature we will sometimes react in defensiveness if another asks us this question.
I figure if we stop reacting to life defensively and do what you said, to think of all the variables within an experiment, I call that cognitive thinking because there are so many possibilities in our world to explore, and considering them all is like preparing ourselves for greater adventures.

love, alysia

Hi EliteNYC I dont understand science much but if a spirit bit a skeptic scientist on the arse he still wouldnt beleive.

Love and God bless  Love juditha

;D That's great Juditha. I had you figured for a slightly serious and proper lady but that's clearly only the tip of the iceberg.....

Chogyam Trungpa (the Tibetan Rinpoche who established the Shambhala network of Buddhist centres) talked of our cocoon. Others call it the goldfish bowl. Created as a result of the fact that our ego will perceive only selectively and in accordance with what it wants us to see. It ignores the big picture so that we can only ever see what we (it) want to see.

Opening entails  coming to see beyond this cocoon. And it's taught that this can't be achieved through conventional effort - that the harder we try, the more the ego resists and keeps on putting up the mirage.

Meditation is an important tool in this regard, because in practicing 'not doing' we calm the mind so the ego lowers its guard.

But seeing truth is is sometimes taught as being like sitting in a chair watching a mouse inching out of his hole out of the corner of your eye - if you look directly at him he'll notice and bolt.

Life unfolds
As time rolls out
While certain we decide the script
We circle endlessly in ego’s grip....

In other words if the ego realises we are seeing what it doesn't want it drops the shutters. And in this state we can't see and so can't possibly ask the right question.

Magical moments of seeing like yours with the butterfly Alysia seem often to happen this way when we are relaxed and the guard is down. I guess you are saying as well that as well as needing to stay open to ask the right question that asking the right question can help open us.

Hoping i'll eventually loosen up enough to get a visit like your guide....

EliteNYC wrote on Jul 19^th, 2007 at 12:00am:

Almost all of our knowledge today comes from this method... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method I was just wondering why a spiritual activity, such as astral projection, is so hard to prove scientifically?

Good point and good example. If some people are genuinely able to go out of their bodies and visit other locations in this world, this should be very easy to prove and someone should have done so by now I fear. Even if just to claim james randi's 1m dollar prize. If, on the other hand, they just claim to visit "astral worlds" then no one can prove if these exist outside their imaginations or not. Sorry to be blunt about it, but that's the situation as I see it.

the_seeker wrote on Jul 19^th, 2007 at 12:58am:

the afterlife experiments seems to prove that (some) psychics are real.  so why doesn't the scientific community accept such proof?  because of their bias, of course.  it's the same reason people wouldn't believe that the earth revolved around the sun, or that the earth was round.

I expect this is true to an extent (though not ALL scientists are opposd to research into spiritual or psi matters) but I can;t help but think that if someone could consistently go out of his or her body in this world then this could fairly easily be proved beyong any doubt and such a person would be keen to do so.

I mean - for example, the person could be supervised in a locked room, they could then go into a trance and visit another room/building/country/ etc and come back and report on something that was happenning /being displayed etc there. This, maybe repeated a few times, would be solid proof. It would then be up to the scientsist to admit something amazing was going on and that they would have to adjust their theories , or find a new one, to incorporate it.

LaffingRain wrote on Jul 19^th, 2007 at 2:20am:

or the force. whatever. something out there loves us.

I like to hear of this "PUL" in accounts of NDEs etc, but if this is the case why does this "something"allow so much pain and injustice and suffering to go on? Or is it not as omnipotent as we have been led to believe? Even moving away from humans, a natural world where animals each each other alive to survive is not good evidence of PUL..