/edu/ - Education

We have some threads on religion and what not, but I think we should have one taking "spirituality" as a developing science. I feel "spiritual science" isn't "anti-materialist" in the same way that quantum physics is not anti-classical physics. I'm also not saying to woo woo quantum physics into some kind of justification of spirituality. All of these things may be true and seemingly separate because of our lack of knowledge between the connections of these various phenomenon at different levels.

As for myself. I used to be a hardcore skeptic. I used to laugh at my Chinese friends telling me about Chi power and herbal medicine and whatnot. I remember my brother was interested in Chi-Qong and I brushed it off as at best a primitive understanding of understood biological processes. I had my first experience with Salvia Divinorum and immediately it was like my skepticism and my attachment to crude understandings of accepted science was blown out the window. I remember at the time I first encountered it, my inclination was to try and get some people smarter and more knowledgeable in physics and quantum physics than myself to try and encounter these kind of experiences and see what there interpretation would be. I've had many more experiences off and on various psychedelics since than, Marijauna, Mescaline, and LSD since than, and frankly, in the right state I feel like even completely sober, I could induce altered perceptions in myself and in others, but I feel like certain people who are attached to their learned perspective of reality are internally/sub-consciously afraid of ever opening themselves up to alternate perspectives. I am very hesitant to get myself involved with other people who are into this kind of stuff, because I feel like many of them, especially religious types, are victims of superstitious beliefs and understandings of these experiences and phenomenon. Yogis have talked about the high-probability of falling into superstition when encountering the spiritual unknown. It's really not hard to believe when we consider the history of accepted science. People not to long ago believed that flies spontaneously spawned from rotten food. A fault explanation of a phenomenon, does not negate the underlying phenomenon described.

There used to be in The West a high interest in spiritual science in the late 1800s early 1900s(Edgar Cayce, Dione Fortune, etc.) but all of that got kind of pushed to the periphery but still existed with some prominence with The US and Soviet remote viewing programs and suchlike. I think there should still be interest in this area of research and especially with people without such a narrow view as The US MIC. Also with people willing to objectively analyze such phenomenon, neither superstitious cooks nor "rational skeptics" who want to dismiss everything outright because of their own personal hang-ups with their own personal experiences with organized religion.

As for myself. I feel like I've experience enough and know enough where I could demonstrate the reality of "psychic phenomenon" on command in a controlled environment to prove it exists. Of course, even if I could prove it exists, it doesn't prove a soul or God, or whatever belief system one would want to extrapolate from it. But personally, I've seen enough to believe that the realm of accepted science can't explain the mechanisms of human life and our interaction with our environment.

So this thread is for the premise of investigating "spiritual" and "psychic" phenomenon in an empirical and scientific manner and accepting the possibility that there might be something there beyond "magic tricks," Charlatanism, and wishful thinking.