Lathrop wrote in message <36599937.2F5C08CA at bigplanet.com>...
>to cris re. obe.
>I can't address your question in regard to the specific
>neurological correletes of obe's. But Early out of the
>body experiences led me to a life long study of
>"psycology" and healing. I once did an informal survey
>of folks in my melieu of the time. and found that many
>of them were able to remember having obe experiences
>often as small children and sometimes as teenagers (as
>I did).
I don't know why you chose memories from childhood as a means of validation.
You place far too much faith in personal reportage. Episodic memory isn't
that great and various studies have indicated that human memory is
precarious with time. I know this because I have a good memory and don't
trust anything past 5 years for personal events. My semantic memory is
capable of error also, as F. Le Fever is well aware.
There has been a lot of writeing on the
>question. One Investigater was robert monroe an
>electrical engeneer and business man who wrote several
>books and created an institute for study of the
>phenomina. I stopped doing it because I percieved it to
>be somehow dangerous. I had no access to information on
>the subject and was unable to discuss it (in the 50's)
>with anyone for fear of being labeled as crazy. It
>seems to be well within the range of normal experience
>and can be taught.
If it is well within the normal range then why is it so rare? I have never
heard any suppression of the idea, and although I have read some remarkable
accounts of this type of stuff (Try: !A Collection of Near-Death Research
Readings: Scientific inquiries into the experiences of persons near physical
death",Lundahl, Craig R.,Nelson-Hall Publishers, Chicago, 1982. ) it is
often the case of being tantalisingly interesting but never conclusive. In
the early 80's a few universities around the world established para-normal
departments. I believe nearly all have vanished. If this stuff is real we
are not going to find it through science.
A friend of mine, former rampant new ager, a true follower of all things
celestially prophetical, did happen to die about 2 years ago and remained so
for some 2 minutes. There was no light, there were no sounds, there were no
OBE's there was just nothing. If anyone was receptive to this she was but
now she appreciates my cynical perspective.
What is the nature of the out of
>body perspective? I don't know and I've thought about
>it a lot and discussed it with quite a few people. Some
>research by an english psycical society lends some
>credence to the notion that information gathered in
>that state can be accurate. (calle remote viewing)As to
>the mind, body, spirit queustion Science has yet to
>find the mind in the brain.
A straw man. The whole brain is the mind. Your thinking echoes Descarte's
little man sitting within the pineal gland. Not required. At present I'm
quite happy to do without a central executive, which is not to say I am
satisfied with my current understanding. Try Fodor's classic, "The Language
of Thought" dated @ 1983, or try the entertaining Mr. Dennett. You haven't
look hard enough.
Bits and pieces at best. I
>have run into a number of apparent previous life
>experience memories in "session" with clients and
>fellow experimenters. Usually on the genetic track.
>Subjects usually percieved these as memories of a
>previous incarnation. I can imagine other expainations
>but the memories are subjectively real as is your
>externalized perspective.
>I have often Used guided deep relaxation as a hypnotic
>induction technique and found it effective in produceng
>altered states of conciousness for the purpose of
>assisting people to heal themselves. I could go on
>about the subject indefinitely. But It is a normal
>experience altho a culturally taboo one.
My bet is that these various weird phenomena relate to Temporal Lobe
epilepsy. I don't think all these can be explained this way, but second
reports are just that. You know, its a miracle the brain does what it does,
we shouldn't be too surprised that it goes astray every now and then. Like
why I bothered to address this.
John.
