I'd appreciate your input guys on a curious experience last night.

Dave's insights over the past year or so have got me reading about Hatha Yoga. (so far it's much like Buddhist teaching, but with an added focus on working with the body to facilitate the raising of consciousness)

I've meanwhile cautiously been experimenting with meditative techniques to raise kundalini energy, and while I get lots of light and the occasional very obvious movement of energy and lots of beautiful whole body feelings it's you could say been 'stuck' at that for many months.

Thinking that maybe some physical work as suggested by Hatha Yoga would help clear any potential 'blockage' I started a class last night. Really hard work for an overweight and not very fit 52 year old. But what a feeling of being energised upon leaving the class  - which as I write 16 hours later is still present.

The interesting bit. Some time after getting home I went to bed and put the bedside lamp out, and as is typical started into a routine where I work to remain conscious while asleep. (it's slowly coming) I got into a nice state of resting in (internal) light while lucid dreaming with my eyes closed, and after maybe 20 min for some reason started some of the kundalini breathing which intensifies  the usual (internal) light show.

Almost immediately there was this very powerful surge of internal light which coincided exactly with  the touch switched bedside lamp going crazy - starting to wildly flicker on and off. I initially thought that the intense flickering of light was 'internal', but it proved to be both.

After maybe 20 sec of this I was able to get it together well enough to be C1 conscious and touch the lamp, at which point it started working 100% normally. Switching on and off normally, with no tendency to flicker.

It was for real, because it woke my wife up. I'm reluctant to jump to conclusions, but a careful inspection showed that there was nothing touching the lamp. Leading (very tentatively) to the possibility that it was the energies I was producing that upset it.

I wasn't able to reproduce the effect in the fifteen minutes afterwards before I went to sleep, but then I wasn't trying when it happened either. It's always worked 100% reliably.

Is this in the experience of any of you possible, or have you had anything like it happen?

Or is it more likely that it has some more normal physical or conventional scientific explanation? These contact switches apparently work by registering a reduction in the rate of voltage increase as a current is fed into a capacitor - when you touch it you in effect add a lot of capacity which slows the rate of voltage rise. Which is sensed by a microprocessor based circuit that makes the decision to switch.

I'll know to discount it if the switch starts acting up in normal circumstances in the coming weeks. On the other hand maybe with lots of practice I'll be able to dump the TV remote, but for now I'm just staying neutral on the issue.....

Thanks Alan. I'm dead tired and sore all over, but in truth nothing I'd not have expected after a first almost 2 hour yoga session. Still with that lovely buzzy feeling of raised energy of another sort though.

The incident you report at least tends to suggest that what happened is at least possible...

Varga,

Very often these touch switch lamps are switched on and off by sensing the changes of the electrical property, called capacitance, of the lamp's metal surfaces.   My experimental work on sensing changes in the human energy field has shown that such changes can be detected using a very sensitive capacitance sensor.  

Now, I am not saying that your experience with the capacitance sensing lamp switch proves any connection between your breathing technique intended "to raise kundalini energy" and changes to your energy field, but I find it an interesting piece of data.  Could be just a cooincidence that your field was supposedly amp'ed up by the yoga class, you were using the breathing technique, and your wife verifies that the capacitance sensing switched lamp was flashing.  But just because it could be a cooincidence doesn't "prove" that is was a cooincidence.

I have often said that no amount of any person's evidence can ever prove anything to anyone except to the person who had the direct experience of gathering that evidence.  So, I would expect that your present, single, experimental data point won't prove a connection between your fluxuating energy field and the lamp's behaviour to anyone else, and probably not to you either.  But, that is what exploration and experimentation are for, to gather evidence through your own direct experience to prove or disprove such things to yourself.

If you chose to continue exploring and experienting to gather your own evidence I would suggest that you consider the effects of beliefs.  There is this thing we call "beginner's luck" that happens too often to be written off as nonexistent.  Often, the very first time we experience these kind of things we do it "by accident" so to speak.  We have no idea that such a thing is possible and therefore our beliefs have no way to interfere with the effect.  But, the following attempts to duplicate the effect can be influenced by our beliefs about the possibility of such a thing happening.  

Having had the original experience can have positive or negative effects on future attempts to duplicate that experience.  If we take the attitude that since it happened once I CAN happen again in my view there is a higher probability of repeating the effect.  If we let doubt and beliefs convince us that it must have just been a cooincidence and not a real effect, the probability of repetition drops.  This is, I feel, the message of the  Schlitz - Wiseman experimental results in their remote staring experiment.  That experiment (called by Schlitz and Wiseman "The Experimentor's Effect on tne Experiment) is described elsewhere on this website and in my fifth book, The Afterlife Knowledge Guidebook, in the chapter on beliefs.

The best probability for you successfully repeating the effect, in my opinion, will be found in duplicating, or taking into account, all the factors involved in the original "experimental success" including the belief factor.   If you enter the attempts in a completely doubtless frame of mind, in my opinion you will succeed often.  From my own experience I know that "completely doubtless" is not so easy as it sounds.  So, we substitute the best "I believe if it happened once it can happen again" belief we can muster and keep experimenting.

It might be interesting if a way could be found to arrange that your lamp was in close proximity to a person who practices the same sort of energy field "charging techniques" you were using, without that person knowing that the lamp is there for its' possiblel energy field sensing capability.  In a way this duplicates the begineer's luck factor since this other person doesn't know the lamp is there for a reason, their beliefs might have less effect on the experiment.  I would point out however that your beliefs can still alter the outcome.  Best to stay positive in my opinion.

Well, I guess my own curiosity has gotten the best of me again.  My urge to experiment and gather data has gotten the best of me, again.  Perhaps all of this is something you really have no interest or need to prove to yourself.  In that case please just write this post off as Bruce muddling into other people's business, again.

Bruce

I have lots of energy running through me and I haven't had problems with watches etc.  Perhaps electrical devices become a problem when a person drains energy from such a device. Once a person's energetic system is developed sufficiently, this person doesn't need to drain energy from electrical devices.  They draw it from the spirit realm.

I'd be careful with energetic techniques. Lots of people run into problems when they raise their kundalini too quickly. Some end up having physical problems, some end up having mental problems, some end up commiting suicide.  Psychological issues can come to the surface before a person is ready to deal with them.

I've found that working with spirit guidance works quite well, because spirit guidance knows when precisely to get a person's energy to push on a particular block. This occurs when a person is ready to deal with the psychological issue that causes the block and has a way of finding out what issue is causing a block.

When it comes to receiving such assistance, a person might consider whether he or she is willing to give back. My giving back includes having lots of energy run through me throughout the day so I can help with retrievels and other spirit work.

Thank you for the feedback guys. It seems like at least if it truly was me that it's not a unique occurrence, and that I'm in good company.  There's a few of us unlikely to be too popular around the average office using lots of equipment Blink

It sounds by coincidence Bruce that  a lamp like that I have amounts to maybe a fairly decent detection device for these sorts of energies. I've had a look, but can't find any branding on it. It's got a stainless steel housing that's basically a long cone, and a small shade and bulb. Bought cheaply from a German supermarket chain now here named Aldi. Ask if you'd like more details.

No problem at all with your getting interested, I'd not have posted otherwise. It's great to hear what you and the others have to say too.

The most convincing discussion of scientific work on these sorts of possibilities I've seen is in a book titled 'The Field' by Lynne McTaggart. There's an emerging view that these are basically quantum effects, and that they draw on the zero point energy field. Whatever that is - I've just dug the book out  now. I bought but didn't read it, having listened instead to the CD version - it describes experiments by a number of researchers showing the ability of psychics/the mind to influence machines, random event generators and the like; and explores potential communications mechanisms too.

My basic intention is to remain open, but to proceed cautiously. There seems definitely to be some risk R, but my sense is that the yoga by removing potential blockages perhaps minimises this rather than increasing it. But please head me off if I appear to truly be heading for trouble.

My basic take on it is that it's a part of the process of opening, or of raising consciousness, and for that reason worth accepting a little risk. Much as you describe LoL, also broadly I think as discussed in those links related to the anthakarana symbol you put up. (I've not come across it in Tibetan Buddhism, but that wouldn't be unusual)

I guess on beliefs that my instinct is to try to remain open, but neutral. Your collective feedback, some digging I did today and the Lynn McTaggart book all suggest that while what happened may not have been caused by me that it definitely could have been.

Another peculiarity on the effects of the yoga. I've had little or no sense of smell since the late 80s following a long running chronic sinus infection seemingly caused by a low immune system, in turn caused by my thyroid problems.

It's gone again now, but when I got in last night I had recovered this most intense sense of smell - some apricots in a fruit bowl smelled fantastic. Then I picked up the cat food and went yeuch!

Thanks again, will report if it happens again...

Ta Justin, I'd not heard of it. Will go digging....