Seriously Strange, 8-9


-----------------------------------------------------------

8

Seeing ... Aeternity

Dean Radin

208-38


p. 209 culturally-halted human development

"some meditation researchers are proposing that what used to be regarded as ordinary [Shapiro, Walsh, & Britton 2003] 'is increasingly coming to look like a form of arbitrary, culturally determined, developmental arrest'."

Shapiro, Walsh, & Britton 2003 = Shauna L. Shapiro, Roger Walsh, & Willoughby B. Britton : "An Analysis of Recent Meditation Research and Suggestions for Future Directions". J FOR MEDITATION AND MEDITATION RESEARCH 3:69-90.


pp. 210-11 logical consequences of ongoing praesent sensory cognition of futurality

p. 210

"But perception of the future ... would call into question our basic understanding of causation ... . If that assumption is incomplete, the house of cards {i.e., frail and possibly illusory system of unverifiable assumptions built upon other unverifiable assumptions} built by science to explain the universe, life and ourselves must be re-examined. ...

{Without any drastic alteration of epistemology (and without utter divorce of epistemology from ontology) -- which if analyzed in detail may lead to major paradoxa concerning the nature of temporality -- cognition of futurality may be readily subsumed under the standard category of receptive telepathy to material-plane denizens (mortal humans) of emissive/transmissive telepathy from subtle-plane denizens of their plans for the future, which plans they are (always have been, and always will be) very much in an omnipotent status of being capable to enforce universewise/universewide, even against every-and-all possible opposition. [written Mar 7 2016]}

p. 211

What if our everyday sense of time is an illusion, ... an approximation of a deeper reality residing beyond the everyday constraints of space and time? What if wen that reality is perceived from 'inside' space-time, both the past and the future would be observed to influence the present?"

{As we are constantly being made all-too-well aware, our own plans for the future do indeed radically "influence" our own actions in the praesent. If the sustainers-and-enforcers of plans-for-the-future (as frequently revealed to "2nd-sight"-capable hylics-psychics-pneumatics of even a mortality-limited nature) be instrinsically fundamental to a universewise infinitely-antient plan reaching infinitely into the future, embracing all conditions and all circumstances both thinkable and unthinkable, then these conditions would indeed be fully met : namely, wherein and whereby "both the past and the future would be observed to influence the present". [written Mar 7 2016] This logical solution is not particularly difficult to recognize, and must occur to anyone considering the problem with sufficient care; but it is never stated (viz., neither in print nor via other public venue) by any professor at any capitalistploutokrat-funded university, for to do so would be such a violation of capitalist-ploutokrat principles (of extremist materialism and its extreme consequences), as to entail immediate dismissal from professorship, with no possibility of obtaining any further professorship anywhere else on this utterly materialism/materialist-dominated planet.}


pp. 211-2 praecognition of flashes

p. 211

"the eminent British statistician I. J. Good ... in the 1940s suggested that one might study whether precognition existed by exposing people to flashes of light at random times while their brain activity was recorded, and then analyzing the resulting activity prior to the flashes to see if their brains anticipated the upcoming stimuli. [p. 296, n. 30 : I. J. Good : "Letter to the Editor". J OF PARAPSYCHOLOGY 25 (1961):58.] ...

A half-century later, Eva Lobach and I tested ... Good's design. We found significant evidence in support of precognition. [p. 296, n. 31 : Dean Radin & Eva Lobach : "... Investigating a Possible Retrocausal Factor". J OF ALTERNATIVE AND COMPLEMENTARY MEDICINE 13.7 (2007):733-9.] ...

p. 212

Of historical interest, Good's proposal presaged W. Grey Walterbet al.'s description of ... one of the first slow cortical potentials (i.e., a type of electrical signal) identified in the brain associated with anticipation. Walter ... later specifically recommended that slow cortical potentials might be an effective means for investigating presentiment in the brain." [p. 297, n. 33 : W.G. Walter (ed.) : The Contingent Negative Variation and Its Significance for Psi Research. Parapsychology Foundation, NY, 1970. -- Roberto Cavanna (ed.) : Psi Favorable States of Consciousness. Parapsychology Foundation, NY, 1970.]


p. 223 experimentally-tested awareness of futurality

"This experiment tested advanced meditators' reports of awareness extending through time [into the future]. The results indicate that their subjective impressions [of foreknowledge of the future] are, in principle, ontologically accurate, i.e., some aspect of their awareness really does reach into the future.

From an orthodox {but which orthodoxy?} perspective,

{from (and only from) an "orthodox" atheist-materialist perspective : but certainly not from any orthodox theistic-spiritualist perspective!}

this conclusion would be regarded as controversial, to put it mildly."


pp. 228-9 similar results from praevious experiments performed by other experimenters

p. 228

"Similar temporal anomalies have been measured, inadvertently, in experiments conducted for other purposes.

University of Amsterdam psychologist Dick Bierman found three experiments ... using skin conductance measures instead of EEG." [p. 299, n. 55 : Dick J. Bierman : "Anomalous Baseline Effects in Mainstream Emotion Research Using Psychophysiological Variables". J OF PARAPSYCHOLOGY 64 (2000):239-40.]

p. 229

"Another example of an accidental discovery suggestive of presentiment was reported in Nature in 2011." [p. 299, n. 60 : Edvard I. Moser & May-Britt Moser : "Seeing into the Future". NATURE 469 (2011):303-4.]


"Further evidence that apparent time-reversed effects may be pervasive but normally go unnoticed is provided by a series of nine experiments reported by Cornell University social psychologist Daryl Bem ..., also in 2011. ... He obtained ... evidence in ... the ... experiments, indicating that effects sometimes precede their causes." [p. 299, n. 61 : Daryl J. Bem : "Feeling the Future : Experimental Evidence for Anomalous Retroactive Influences on Cognition and Affect". J OF PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 100.3 (2011):407-25.]


"There is also growing interest in the possibility of similar temporal anomalies in other cognitive and perceptive tasks, including perception of ambiguous figures and decision making." [p. 299, n. 62 : Robert F. Bornstein : "Exposure and Affect : Overview and Meta-analysis of Research 1968-1987". PSYCHOLOGICAL BULLETIN 106 (1989):265-89. Jerome T. Busenmeyer; Zheng Wang; & James T. Townsend : "Quantum Dynamics of Human Decision Making". J OF MATHEMATICAL PSYCHOLOGY 50 (2006):220-41.]

{Certainly, foreknowledge in matters of decision-making is customarily designated "prophecy" and is ascribed to receiving information from divine sources in all manner of traditional religions -- so that the sort of "scientific experiments" referred to, are simply confirming age-old knowledge, part-and-parcel of the wisdom of every tribal shaman since time immemorial.}


pp. 230, 299-300 counter-intuitive aspects of temporality

p. 230

"today discussions about highly counter-intuitive aspects of time, including retro-causation and time as an illusion sustained 'by virtue of our thinking ourselves as separate from everything else', regularly appear in the mainstream physics literature." [pp. 299-300, nn. 65-72 : pertinent references to the litterature.]

p. 299, n. 65

Craig Callender : "Is Time an Illusion?" SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, 2010, pp. 59-65.

p. 300, n. 66

O. Costa de Beauregard : "Macroscopic Retrocausation". FOUNDATIONS OF PHYSICS LETTERS 8 (1995):287-91.

p. 300, n. 67

Avshalom C. Elitzur : "On Some Neglected ... Peculiarities of Quantum Non-locality". FOUNDATIONS OF PHYSICS LETTERS 3 (1990):525-41.

p. 300, n. 68

Noboru Hokkyo : "Rettrocausation Acting in the Single-electron Double-slit Interference Experiment". STUDIES IN HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF MODERN PHYSICS 39 (2008):762-6.

p. 300, n. 69

David T. Pegg : "Retrocausality and Quantum Measurement". FOUNDATIONS OF PHYSICS LETTERS 38 (2008):648-58.

p. 300, n. 70

Benni Reznik & Yakir Aharonov : "On a Time-symmetric Formulation of Quantum Mechanics". PHYSICAL REVIEW A 52 (1995):2538-50.

p. 300, n. 71

Daniel P. Sheehan : Quantum Limits to the Second Law. Amer Institute of Physics, NY, 2002.

p. 300, n. 72

Daniel P. Sheehan : "Frontiers of Time : Retrocausation Experiment and Theory". AIP CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS 863. Amer Institute of Physics, NY, 2006.


p. 238 unfairly stigmatized

"Sam Harris supported ESP research in his book, The End of Faith. ... In this case, Harris ... stood firm ..., declaring [SH"RC"] 'that this field of study [parapsychology] has been unfairly stigmatized'."

(See also his book WUGSWR.)

SH"RC" = http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/response-to-controversy2 2011

WUGSWR = Sam Harris : Waking up : a Guide to Spirituality Without Religion. New York : Simon & Schuster, 2014.


-----------------------------------------------------------

9

Paranormality of Everyday Life

Jeremy Biles

239-70


pp. 241-2 Freud on "The Uncanny"

p. 241

"In his 1919 essay 'The Uncanny', Freud claims that the uncanny ... '... leads back to


what is known of old ...'.

{since before it became suppressed by an arising historic ruling-class}

p. 242

It is ... something 'familiar ... which has become alienated ... through


the process of repression.'"

{oikonomic-and-political repression by a ploutokratic ruling-class}

{Subsequently, however, Freud withdrew all his pronouncements in favor of an "Uncanny". This withdrawal was [praesumably] at the urging of ruling-class ploutokrats, delivered to him through (as usual) their lackey-stooges.}


p. 242 advent of a mysterium tremendum from contemplating a mechanical device as otherworldly

"Freud discusses ... Ernst Jentsch's earlier notion that uncanny effects derive from 'intellectual uncertainty; so that the uncanny would always ... be something one does know one's way about in'. {This is a concise statement describing the meditation-technique of Skeptic philosophy.}

{This was a commonplace of antient temple-automata as objects-of-meditation. It involveth a Skeptic-philosophic point-of-view; though the fact (that it must involve that particular mystical philosophy) hath not as of yet become generally recognized by authors in history of religions.}

Jentsch specifically postulated {that a particularly relevant aspect could} ... emerge where there is 'uncertainty' as to whether a figure is a human or an automaton, animate or inanimate. The ambivalence of an object or figure ... gives rise to an intractable uncertainty to which Jentsch finds attached the effects of the uncanny."

{The "uncertainty" is particularly relevant when a devotee is viewing a temple enactment of a myth, whether deus ex machina or not; or in a religious puppet-show (of deities as puppets), or even in a modern-day cinema (movie)-shewing of depicting a myth about deities; or likewise a television program on it.}

{In antient Hellenistic temples, simulacra of miracles were mechanically performed by automata for the faithful (ET"AM").} {Cf., by Heron (of Alexandria), the book "Automata, a description of machines which enable wonders in temples (thaumata) by mechanical or pneumatic means (e.g. automatic opening or closing of temple doors, statues that pour wine, etc.)." (A-W"GA")}

ET"AM" = "Ancient Magic: The Illusions Created in Temples by Amazing Inventions". http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/1123060-ancient-magic-the-illusions-created-in-temples-by-amazing-inventions/

A-W"GA" = "Greek Automata ". http://www.ancient-wisdom.com/greekautomata.htm


p. 244 the sacred and the seductive : the fearsome and fascinating

"Otto cast responses to the sacred in similarly ... ambivalent terms, calling attention to the simultaneously overwhelming, powerful and fearful aspects of the sacred and the seductive, compelling, enchanting aspects.

{This ambivalence is especially characteristic of (or intense in) Kaula and of d.akini (Vajra-yana) occultisms, of (or in) Hekate and of strigilia (witchcraft) cults.}

In The Idea of the Holy, he observes that [1923, p. 31] 'These two qualities ... combine in a strange harmony of contrasts : mysterium and fascinans,' accounting for 'the resultant dual character of the numinous consciousness'."

Otto 1923 = Rudolph Otto (transl. by John W. Harvey) : The Idea of the Holy : an Inquiry into ... the Idea of the Divine and Its Relation to the Rational. Oxford Univ Pr.


pp. 244-6 "The Sacred in Everyday Life"

p. 244

"Michel Leiris's extraordinary

p. 245

autobiographical essay 'The Sacred in Everyday Life' ... begins by asking ..., [1988, p. 24] 'What, for me, ... does my sacred consist of ... objects, places, or occasions ..., that ambiguous attitude caused by the approach of something simultaneously attractive and dangerous, prestigious and outcast -- that combination of respect, desire and terror that we take as the ... sign of the sacred?' ...Leiris goes on to characterize the sacred as [loc. cit.] a 'radically distinct world' ... . ... .

p. 246

... Leiris finds in recalling and interpreting the paranormal a means of evoking and experiencing the paranormal. ... what Leiris reveals is that autobiographical investigation may ... be turned toward awakening an uncanny sense of otherness in the everyday, calling forth the excessive, transgressive experience of the sacred."

Leiris 1988 = Michel Leiris : "The Sacred in Everyday Life" . In his The College of Sociology (1937-39), ed. by Denis Hollier; transl. by Betsy Wing. Univ of MN Pr, Minneapolis. pp. 24-31.


p. 253 spiritual transformation by means of studying the history of religions

"As Eliade suggested, the study of religion might effect [1969, "preface"] 'the inner transformation of the researcher'. My sacred researches ... were dedicated ... to existential transformation through the sacred act of scholarship itself."

Eliade 1969 = Mircea Eliade : The Quest : History and Meaning in Religion. Univ of Chicago Pr.


p. 254 surrealism

"This Eliadean insight combined with ... study of surrealism, a highly influential art movement founded by Andre' Breton and centred in Paris that flourished particularly between the World Wars. Surrealists sought experiences of the 'marvellous' by invoking ... dreams and erotic phantasms ... that would shock one out of the mental framework ... associated with capitalism. ... In effect, the experiences sought by surrealists paralleled my ... fascinations, and their techniques were akin to my emerging inclination

to read the world as a series of {omenlike} messages. In fact, in their wanderings, the surrealists apprehended the world as a series of signs,

{This inclination is based in a pious conviction that because praeternatural divinities are praesent in all important places and times, and controll all significant events, therefore they are able to, and do, cause events in the way of omens for their mortal devotees -- events which can be read meaningfully by a discerning devotee of theirs.}

seeing in everyday objects and encounters -- on urban streets, through Parisian arcades, at flea markets, or in landscapes --

encrypted meanings corresponding to unconscious desires. {"unconscious desires" on the part of other persons being guided to produce the omens, or "unconscious desires" on the part of the Surrealists themselves, or both other persons and themselves?}

{Omens ("encrypted meanings") could correspond "to unconscious desires" of their (the Surrealists') own, if and only if, besides the divinities subliminally causing other persons to praesent the omens, those (or allied) divinities also were simultaneously to cause matching subliminal desires within the Surrealist omen-observers themselves.}

Though inspired by ... techniques of ... dream analysis,

{oneiromancy being a favored prognostic application amongst, e.g., Byzantines and Muslims}

the surrealists sought not

to ensure health and foster social integration,

{These are typical objectives of most oneiromancy, and likewise of most spirit-mediumship.}

but rather to unlock

the {divine-based} power of the unconscious,

{where it is assumed that the "unconscious" (or the subliminal, or whatever) mind, at least of pious devotees (such as of Surrealists), is controlled by fate-manipulating deities}

liberating the 'mad' ... . The surrealists, in short, were seeking experiences of the sacred beyond the confines of traditional religious structures and strictures. The 'marvellous' amounted to the shock of the sacred in everyday life, elements of the numinous in the material objects and places around them. [p. 305, n. 35 : Celia Rabinovitch's Surrealism and the Sacred provides ... the only monograph dedicated to offering an account of the connections between surrealism and sacred, specifically in relation to the Surrealists' 'pursuit of the uncanny'. See, especially, pp. 3-33."] They were seeking the sacred

without a God,

{without the autocratic tyrant of a Christian "God", but with the peace-loving democratic deities of paganry}

religious experiences

without religion."

{without intolerant, repressive Christian "religion", but with the liberal-radical polytheism of Strigilia/Wicca}


p. 255 Friedrich Nietzsche [a German university-professor in the classics]

"Friedrich Nietzsche ... famously developed the 'myth of the eternal return' {Die fröhliche Wissenschaft, aphorisms 285 & 341 -- WP"ER--FN"}.

{This afterwards also became the title of a book by Mircea Eliade.}

The son of a Lutheran minister was obsessed with ...

calling himself the 'anti-christ'

{Every university-professor in the Hellenic and Latin classics, then (and now) was (and is), anti-Christian; and thus potentially entitled "anti-christ".}

even as he,

in his final madness,

{He lapsed into a permanent "catatonic" (i.e., deep-trance) status.}

made 'the crucified' his signature."

{This /-fixion/ alluding, evidently, to the "fixity" of the trance-state for which he aimed.}

He found in the crucifixion of Jesus a declaration of God's absense".

{According to Valentinian gnosis, the godhead escaped out of the body of Khristos at the time of the crucifixion.}

WP"ER--FN" = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_return#Friedrich_Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche (transl by Thomas Common, with poetry rendered by Paul V. Cohn & Maude D. Petre) : The Joyful Wisdom ("La Gaya Scienza"). 1910. https://archive.org/stream/completenietasch10nietuoft/completenietasch10nietuoft_djvu.txt


pp. 255-6 effect on the author (J.B.) of reading (a translation of) Kabir

p. 255

"It began in a basement classroom, in the same philosophy of religion class in which I encountered Eliade, when my professor read aloud some verse by


the mystic poet Kabir : ...

{accounted as a forerunner of Radha-svamin}


What you call 'salvation' belongs to the time before death. ...

{referring to the necessity to encounter deities (in trances and/or in dreams) while one is alive -- as expounded in more detail by Radha-svamin}

p. 256

What is found now is found then. ...

{"now" = while alive; "then" = after death}


So plunge into the truth,

{"truth" = Satya-Loka 'Truth-World', the highest of 5 divine worlds}


find out who the Teacher is,

{the Teacher = guru who is capable of introducing cela to seeing/hearing (while living) of the divine worlds}


Believe in the Great Sound!"

{'Great Sound' (/maha-svana/) = Sound-Current of instrumental music played by Caran.a deities in the 5 divine worlds}

{I have for many years (decades) been a membre of the Ruh.ani-Sat-sangha ('Spiritual Existence-Congregation'), an offshoot of the Radha-Svamin religious society.}


p. 258 ecstasy at the Grand Canyon

"The Grand Canyon ... Upon beholding ..., I was immediately overcome with laughter and tears ... . For perhaps thirty minutes

I was seized by ecstasy ... ."

{praesumably caused by Hopi, and by Zun~i, deities, for this is an emergence-place of theirs}


pp. 264-5 Georges Battaile

p. 264

"With Michel Leiris and sociologist Roger Caillois, Bataille established the Colle`ge de Sociologie in Paris, a ... influential college of intellectuals who, from 1937 to 1939, convened to discuss the role of the sacred in modern life. ...

p. 265

Bataille was preoccupied with ... ritual orgies {i.e., Kaula rites}, the potlatch and erotic mysticism ... . For Bataille, these are ... experience of 'continuity' with being itself. For Bataille, experiences of the sacred have both existential and political {the Radha-Svamin religious society being allied with S`ikh, and thus with Rajput, governments} import. ... For Bataille, the left sacred {viz., Vama-acara 'Perversion-Teaching'} is associated with extreme affects ... and excessive experiences


(burst of laughter ...,

{most easily achieved by copious ingestion of various sweet spices, such as cinnamon}


poetic effulgence). ...

{easily achieved by means of various psychedelic drugs, such as kalamos (sweet-flag)}


Through my studies, I became increasingly intrigued by Bataille's ... practice of


'joy before death' ... ."

{readily available by ingestion of lysergic-acid, an excellent eucharist}


p. 305 litterature recommended

p. 305, n. 39

"Bataille's essay 'The Practice of Joy before Death', Visions of Excess : Selected Writings, 1927-1939, Allan Stoekl (ed.), ... Carl R. Lovitt and Donald M. Leslie Jr. (trans.), 1985, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis."

" "

"Angela of Foligno's Book of Vision and Instructions. For ... Angela's Book, see Amy Hollywood, Sensible Ecstasy : Mysticism, Sexual Difference, and ... History, 2002, University of Chicago Press, ... pp. 60-87."

p. 305, n. 41

"Jeremy Biles, Ecce Monstrum : Georges Battaile .., 2007, Fordham University Press, New York."


p. 268 Surrealist spiritual techniques

"Mingling poetry, art and politics, the Surrealist techniques of ...

automatic writing ...,

{Deities of writing (e.g., DH.TJ and Nabu>) are invoked, taking control of one hands, which one can watch while they (the deities) write messages by using one's hanfds.}

dream invocation

{calling upon deities who divinely manifest in one's dreams}

and interpretation,

{systematic recognition of praesence of deities in one's dreams}

and reading the world as signs {omens} were aimed at cultivating ... the marvellous ... ."


pp. 268-9 Surrealist political commitments

p. 268

"In the present era of global

p. 269

capitalism ..., {an ongoing effort to fulfill}


the subversive strategies of surrealists, minging art and life in political praxis,

{The deities are induced to accomplish the subversion -- which inducement is effected by means of art (for, deities are much-attracted by art) in political reference.}


remains urgent."

{This praxis is continued in such gathering-places as Greenwich Village (in Manhattan) and Berkeley (campus of the University of California).}


----------------------------------------------------------

Sudhir Kakar & Jeffrey J. Kripal (edd.) : Seriously Strange : Thinking Anew about Psychical Experiences. Penguin Bks India, New Delhi, 2012.