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 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

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

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

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

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.

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

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