Limited Scope

[James S]

I've always thought a bit of scepticism is a good thing when dealing with the unknown. It provides a point of balance between disbelief and blind faith.

When I look at the claims people make, I take the view that I have experienced some pretty unbelieveable things myself, so I won't immediately discount someone elses claims as being fake, but I always question such claims, and try to judge their merits. I tend to rely a lot on my intuition to tell me what's a load of crap and what isn't.

I think we all have that bit of "guilty until proven innocent" type of disbelief in us. It's a matter of wether we prefer to hang on to it, or put it aside and try to learn about something.

James.

[Fenris]

I take the stance that anything is possible, but not everything can be done easily. When I look at someone making a claim of a fantastic metaphysical feat I make a judgement on that person, because some things, although possible still take an enormous amount of energy and ability. For example when someone says in a boastful prideful way that they have levitated, and they are 13 years old and been 'interested' in this 'energy stuff' for six months now, you immediately doubt them. You look at their manner and personality and this gives you an insight into their spiritual progression, and a look at how long they have trained for gives you an idea of their ability and knowledge. With spiritual progression comes metaphysical ability, so it is possible a highly spiritual person void of considerable metaphysical knowledge could manage levitation. On the other hand a person may have chosen to spend their life nurturing their psychic talents in favor of spiritual progression and will develop adequate ability to pull it off – But this takes a lot of time.

So using these factors you can make a fair judgement, but of course it isn't fool proof. However to blindly accept every persons claims would be an awful thing to do. For one you might be encouraging someone's delusion, and facilitate an unhealthy mental attitude. And secondly you are taking away from people undergoing real spiritual progression and the life trials they endure to get where they are going.

Regards
David.

P.S Great topic!  

[Lysear]

I aggree with the points made so far. It is quite funny though, when occultists, who's lives revolve around practicing things that most consider impossible, riducule others for making claims that they themselves consider impossible! Its a funny old world we live in.

[warlockyoshi]

I take the stance that anything is possible[}:)]

quote:

It is impossible for me in my current state,
without any outside help to travel faster than the spped of light.  Kakkarot I agree with
your post.  People have criticized me for things that I have said I can do and I no I have
done it to you and I would like to appoligize to you.  The fact that I do not believe in god
made me predijuce against what you said.  If god talked to you thats cool man.  Your post
reminded me of a book I once read.  It was Monsters by John Michael Greer.  In the book
Greer says that since we fear monsters we cannot see them.  WE have been tought since
we were children that monsters do not exist, so we believe they do not and therefore can
not see them.  In order to see  monsters you  must open your mind.  I believe it is the same
with metaphysics if you believ someone else cannot do something then then you yourself
will not be able to do the thing which you say cannot be done.

[Euphoric Sunrise]

I whole-heartedly agree with you kakkarot. I'm very new to the occult and talking to people on message boards, and still i have seen so very many people who have built walls on their path of knowledge.
A classic example of this is the DBZ thing going on. People take the attitude that because others claim to be doing 'impossible' things that they are liers and just seeking attention. I find it strange that these people can accept things like necromancy, and astral travel, yet flat-out refuse to accept that some people can manipulate energy to the extent they claim to be able to. On internet message boards this is particularly damaging when seasoned users who are looked up to take that stance, because they then build walls on other people's paths. It puts a limit on how far a person can travel on the path, which is a bad thing.
I'm not saying so many people can do it, or even that anybody can do it at the moment, but i'm also not saying it's impossible, and that's the problem. The minute somebody starts saying something is impossible is when they put limitations on things. There are some people in this world who refuse to believe that it is possible to move an object with the mind, yet i think everybody on this forum would accept it because they have lifted that barrier, they have demolished one of the many walls that was built on their path.
Phew, i've been wanting to say that for a while! []
Anyway i'm gonna stop this rant now and end with one of my favourite quotes ever, although i don't know who said it first: "Nothing is true, everything is permitted."

[goingslow]

On the other hand we were given brains for a reason.  to use them.

Where does it state because we believe in Astral Travel we have to applaud or not be insulted by every person out for glory who states they just blasted 20 of their peers across a hallway.

That will be fun though.  Walking around clapping and amazed at everything someone states.  There are frauds out there.  What I dont get is how people dont understand the difference between knowing anything is possible.  And maybe not believing your brother who one day can levitate, the next day he beat 100 demons because he wanted to call them up and whoop some butt, and today your closet is rearranged because he decided to try out telepathy.

then again I believe in Astral projection.  What gives me the right to pick and chose..

Come on already.  We all are skeptical and those who blindly believe are suckers.  Who knows though maybe you can beat a bunch of demons.. be that advanced yet still feel the need to get the glory from it on a message board.  Anything is possible.  spins around.. yeah!

[Euphoric Sunrise]

I'm not saying people should go around and blindly believe everything they hear or even see. All i'm saying is that saying something is impossible is a bad thing IMO. Do i think half of those people who claim to be able to do those things can actually do them? Of course not. If they can do that then surely thousands of other people can, and that power in the wrong hands would be chaotic. I'm simply saying that i think it is possible for a human being to do it.

[kakkarot]

well, i guess this is as close to the right forum as i can get with this topic. (if i'm wrong, please feel free to move it  ).
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Another Problem with Humans: our limited scope of reality.

A "normal" person lives in a "normal" world: magic doesn't happen, God is merely a belief, and the "impossible" really is impossible.

From what i've seen on a few forums and a few sites, it would seem that many people who practice metaphysics have the same view as normal people: they seem to think that anything which is too far beyond their own abilities is impossible for anyone to achieve.

And this is a grave fault of those metaphysicists since they should know better than that. Normal people have only ever lived in a world where they have never witnessed such things, but metaphysicists have witnessed things that normal people have declared to be non-existant.

Too many times i've seen metaphysicists criticize "normal" people because the normal person won't believe what they've never witnessed, and then turn around and criticize another metaphysicist because don't believe that the other metaphysicist because they've never witnessed that which the other metaphysicist claims to be able to do. For instance, one guy might claim to be able to spin the pin-wheel and maybe even push a pencil across a desk but if someone else claims to be able to teleport, then the first person immediatly denies that such a thing is possible.

"Weaker" metaphysicists live in a world that is a step beyond what "normal" people live in, so why is it so impossible that other metaphysicists may live in a world that is a step beyond what the weaker metaphysicists do?

Now, of course there are going to be those who make stuff up or delude themself, but it is just as delusional to believe that others CAN'T do what they claim to do just because it's beyond your own abilities.

So instead it is better to be a sceptic rather than a disbeliever. a sceptic will search for the truth, even if it is not what they expect or want to believe, while disbelievers will continually offer up alternative explainations as excuses, even if such explainations are ever sillier than that which they don't want to believe.

In this way, disbelievers lie to themself and are not after any truth at all; they merely wish to continue living in their own little simple world where they don't have to do much thinking. The sceptic on the other hand, spends most of his/her life thinking, trying to discover the ever elusive truth to the world. It is much more difficult to be a sceptic than it is to be a disbeliever, but at least you won't merely be deluding yourself.
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any thoughts or opinions?
~kakkarot