Ronny,
Ronny wrote on Nov 5th, 2008 at 4:29pm:How does one know for certain that Moen did not use other possible unknown skills to be able to experience other consciousness and confuse that unknown skill with his "learned" skill from the Monroe Institute? Perhaps there might be a confound going on?
The first thing for me to say is that in my opinion only the information you gather from your own direct experience should be cause for you to change your beliefs about the afterlife. In the prologue to the book I said "my experience, however, has convinced me that any ordinary human being with curiosity can learn to explore human existence beyond death." My over 10 years experience teaching others (many of whom have had zero previous experience, and have professed zero innate talent) since writing that statement have served to reinforce it.
One of my primary purposes in writing Voyages into the Unknown was to point out that all of us have "other possible unknown skills to be able to experience other consciousness." In my opinion the skills from the Monroe Institute are not so much something that I learned there as they were something I realized I had all along.
Ronny wrote on Nov 5th, 2008 at 4:29pm:One such skill could be mind-reading. Could Moen have mind-read thoughts that living persons have already about the deceased people, hence whatever Moen reported was not actual communication with the departed people, but mere memories and thoughts of people who are alive?
This same "mind reading" explanation has been proposed in the past. One might think it would be difficult to rule out this possibility, and indeed there may be cases in which this is actually going on. However, there are several cases which do rule out this possibility. These cases involve information obtained from the deceased that was unknown to any other physically living human being. In one case a large sum of money was hidden in a place that was easily accessible. Specifically, it was in a large envelope, taped to the bottom of a cash drawer, of the cash register the deceased and his wife had used in their restaurant business while he was physically alive. This cash register was on display, out in the open, in the home the deceased man had lived in with his wife. His wife, now a widow, and continued to live in the home after his death. If she or anyone else had known where her deceased husband hid the money she or that person could have easily taken a and no one else would've ever known. But, several years after his death the deceased man was contacted and he gave the information about the money's whereabouts. He also asked that the person you received this information not inform his wife but instead inform his daughter. It turned out the envelope contained a long letter to his daughter explaining many important things to her, and the cash. There have been a number of similar cases that rule out of his mind reading explanation. As with any sort of investigation I feel it's important to continue gathering more data to get a clearer overall picture a whatever the truth really is.
Bruce