To our Skeptic/Non-believing friends-
Yeah, I’m religious, I’ve had very few “paranormal”/inexplicable/
way-too-coincidental experiences, which given enough effort I COULD rationalize away somehow (tho those aren’t why I’m religious). But I’ve heard stories from friends both religious & non where they can find no explanation which is not supernatural.
So- what have you experienced that is pretty darn odd & poses a challenge to your skepticism? How do you reason it out?
I’ve had a few such moments. The first one to come to mind, I was sixteenish; my best friend was a year and a half older than me. One day, I had talked to her in the morning, nothing out of the ordinary. Later that day, I was hanging out at home, fixing a snack around four in the afternoon and I suddenly got completely panicked and frantically started trying to call her. I couldn’t get ahold of her, left a couple messages at her home, couldn’t get ahold of her at any other number (she lived in a different town about an hour away, so I couldn’t just go to her house)… then maybe two hoursish later she calls me and says she was in an accident a couple hours before and totaled her car.
I’m not sure how to explain it, because it’s not that I was worried because I hadn’t heard from her (as I had talked to her that morning and knew she was going to be out and about), she wasn’t intending to make any special, long-distance driving trips or anything–just running errands and working her horses. If anyone has a rational explanation for this, I’d love to hear it.
Peace,
~mixie
One more thing–not a challenge to skepticism, but randomly funny anecdote. I practice Wicca (sort of), and went to a very, very small high school. There was this obnoxious Jr. high kid who was your typical fifteen year old, loud, un-funny, throwing peoples’ stuff in garbage cans, non-clever graffiti writing, destroying things for no reason, bad home life sort of trouble maker.
I wanted to beat him senseless on many, many occasions.
One day, in Spanish class he was being particularly obnoxious because there was a substitute teacher. I turned around and glared at him and he was like “What, are you going to put a spell on me or something?” So I continued wordlessly staring for maybe ten or fifteen seconds, then made some random, generic witchy-looking hand gesture (just to be a smartass)… and swear to god at that exact second, a ceiling tile fell and landed on his desk, heh. I have never seen someone jump so high–and the look on the faces in the rest of the class was absolutely priceless.
Totally deadpan, I was like “next time, I’ll aim a little more to the right”.
They were fixing the roofs and removing asbestos from my school at the time, so it’s not at all surprising to me that a tile would have fallen. I just think it’s great that it chose that exact moment and exact spot to come down, heh.
Peace,
~mixie
I want to be a skeptic, but there are simply too many subtle, weird things in my life for me to completely write off ‘wacko’ theories and thirdhand phenomina.
Like the fact that when I walk around my city at night, streetlights burn out at an average of one or two an hour as I pass. This may be related to the way that hardware dies horribly around me. Personal hardware within two years of purchase (not even waiting for the warrantee to void, thankfully). Other hardware far more frequently: I worked for a little while at a broadcast company and approximately $20-$30 thousand dollars of damage was caused over the course of my stay (three months) just by hardware simply dying when it was brought to me.
I have had several events where I’ll enter a room and any radios present fritz out and lose the channel. When I leave the room, the station returns. Other people entering and leaving cause no untoward side effects (save one man who caused the channel to come in clearer).
Also, if I say something IS, then it is almost always disproved within a day, often within a minute. I would say ‘always’, but then it would be proved wrong. For example, when I buy computer games, I always ditch the oversized case, although this means I can’t return the game. At the time, I had never had any need to return a game. When someone finally asked why I would void the return policy like that, I said I have never had a problem with a game CD, so it was unneccisary. Of course, that game didn’t function.
Similar events have happened with news, tests, and other people’s personal relationships. I think I just have an innate knack for phenominally bad timing. However, this has made me careful to hedge a lot in virtually everything I say.
-C
Clarification: when I talk about causing hardware to not function, I don’t just mean my hardware. I had three roomies, and their computers always had hardware failures within days of mine, simultaneously, usually the same componant. Even if I never used their computer.
-C
I have repeatedly been subject to odd occurrences and striking coincidences–things that dance right at the edge of significance, yet never quite cross the line.
F’rinstance:
In college a small group of acquaintances–classmates–tried to do what’s called “psychometry,” which is described as getting clairevoyant-type info related to an object or its owner by touching it. (Or in this case, touching the cloth it was wrapped in.) The object in question was some small thing all wrapped up; I don’t even recall what it was now, maybe a pocket watch. I held it for a second, then said something that was sticking in my mind (which had no meaning to me at all): “lyntz or leentz.” It turned out that my classmate (who used her married name) was something like the great-great-grandneice of the composer Franz Liszt; “Liszt” was her maiden name, which no one knew (nor had she ever mentioned her famous relative). The object had been passed down from that side of the family.
Want another? One night I dreamed of a “story” which had, as an element, a “wizard” climbing a rather prominent, open “staircase”. The next day I purchased a CD of Tchaikovsky’s The Sleeping Beauty. (Phillips: 446 166-2) Though Tch. was a composer I was interested in, I didn’t have this particular recording in mind (I usually purchased only the cheap Naxos CDs), nor did I recall ever having glanced at it. Furthermore, even after I got it home I didn’t pay any immediate attention to the cover illustration…But at some point that day I began to consider the cover…and what do I see? A drawing of a staircase suspended in midair with a wizard looking on (not climbing it). [And when I went to fetch the CD just now, what’s the first thing I see? Liszt’s Symphonic Poems!]
There have been one or two other incidents in which very striking “dream images” have appeared the next day in real life–images of an absolutely unique nature, things that I know I had never seen before.
There is no doubt whatsoever in my mind that said mind occasionally receives what I call “leakages” from a day or two in the future–almost always visual images.
And in the last few years I have also noted this: I have sometimes found myself pondering an unusual or obscure term, thinking “gee, I haven’t seen that word in a long time” or even “I wonder if this term I’m thinking of is a real word at all, or just a variant I’ve made up?” --and then within two hours, there’s the word in black and white in something I’m reading. (Usually in a context such that it would have been virtually impossible for me to have “read ahead” and forgotten that fact.)
Yes, I’m well aware of the “you only notice it because you were thinking of it” argument. And I can only say that these are rare, unusual, or specialized words; and it’s gotten to the point that whenever I find myself dwelling upon such a word, I can almost count on running across it within hours (in a neutral context, wherein such a word would not be particularly expected).
So go figure.
Pardon me for practically spamming this thread, I should qualify my statements, since this is the debates board, not the IMHO board.
I have talked in some detail with approximately a dozen others about their electromechanical devices failing (computer parts, televisions, etc). They all indicate a much lower rate of failure than I experience, save for those who actually house with me, who indicate that their failure rate has increased dramatically since the current housing situation was initiated.
And I realize that I may only be noticing the statements that are proven wrong while letting the others slip by without notice, but I am fairly sure this is not the case: recently, whenever I say something is a certainty, I cringe. The cringe is followed, fairly soon, by information proving me incorrect. If I am stating something that does not get proven incorrect without realizing it, that would mean that, for some reason, I only cringe when I know ahead of time it is going to be proven wrong.
I should also state, for the record, that I have no measureable psychic powers, have experienced no continuing inexplicable phenomina other than those mentioned, and do not believe that most who believe themselves psychic or connected to a higher being actually are. I reserve judgement on the existence of any psychic powers, supernatural phenomina, and higher beings.
-C
I realise this isn’t quite the answer you’re looking for, but not really.
First of all, we should pigeonhole me. I tend to regard myself as an agnostic, but that’s slightly vague. I can imagine evidence that might convince me of religious/supernatural phenomena, but I can also believe that God/the universe has reasons to hide these. I don’t necessarily think we can’t know, but I think we might not be able to. And while I suspect I can be conveniently classified as a skeptic (I even had a subscription to Skeptical Inquirer for a period), I don’t self-identify as one. I find the dubious stuff too entertaining, I’m uncomfortable about too many aspects of organised skepticism (for a start, “skepticism” seems far too American a term - damn it, you’re sceptical), etc. I also like to delude myself that I’m too self-aware to be pigeonholed.
That said, what has happened on occasion is that I’ve had what you could call borderline paranormal experiences, that is experiences that, as they happened, were hard to explain and disconcerting. A good few classic UFO sightings that sometimes took some time to figure out or were momentarily very convincing, a ghost story that was scary while it was happening, … that sort of thing.
Of course, that I could explain such occurances has tended to make me more sceptical. They’ve also made me realise how important it is to be there if you want to figure out the explanation. In most cases, the experience was convincing because I couldn’t see or understand some detail. Bring that to your attention and you suddenly snap out of the illusion. And while it’s a cliche to dismiss anecdotal evidence in argument, this is why I personally dislike being asked to explain it. The account is likely to omit exactly the detail that’s crucial.
But my most interesting borderline experience is worth recounting because it is a case where I think the odds of coincidence can be usefully estimated. One Saturday afternoon in the early 90s, I had bought a copy of Walter S. Gibson’s Thames and Hudson book on Hieronymus Bosch. That evening I briefly flicked through it and came across a picture of Bosch’s Ascent of the Blessed from the set of panels in Venice. As the title suggests, this shows souls being lifted up to Heaven by angels. The striking thing is that the route there is a tunnel with a bright light at the end. And I though, hmm, that looks like reports of near-death experiences. Because I was due at a party, I had to put the book aside, but conciously made the mental note-to-self to have a closer look at the issue. Next morning, I walk into the common room in the student halls I was in at the time and, as usual in those days, start wading through all the British Sunday papers. And in the Sunday Telegraph I come across a full page article by someone who’d had the same thought on seeing the painting in the Palace of the Doges.
Now this was undeniably spooky. Particularly given the connection to NDEs. Or Bosch for that matter.
Yet, on reflection, I think that someone in the UK was sort-of likely going to have exactly that experience that morning. Why ? The book’s been in print a long time, the World of Art series is very popular and so is Bosch. So Thames and Hudson must be shifting at least one copy a week. Most of those are probably bought on Saturdays. So it doesn’t seem that improbable that someone was going to buy it that Saturday. And, since the resemblence is striking, I’d expect most buyers to hit upon the possible connection early on. The only question then is how likely are they to read the Sunday Telegraph. This is not a certainty; indeed I haven’t read a copy in perhaps the last ten years. Yet they’ll probably be a broadsheet reader, so that increases the odds there. Perhaps a 1-in-10 chance ? Overall, it seems to me that the odds of someone in the UK buying the book on the Saturday, realising the resemblence and then reading the article are probably somewhere in the 1-in-100 range. So what happened wasn’t probable (even allowing that it could happen to anyone and not just me), but it’s not startlingly unlikely.
For the record, Gibson has a plausible explanation for the layout that doesn’t involve Bosch having had a NDE. The issue actually seems to me, on reflection, interesting but not terribly important. Even if Bosch had such an experience, knowing he did wouldn’t tell us much, though it rules out a few of the explanations for them that have been proposed over the years.
Finally, something like utterly intuitive love-at-first sight is inexplicable when it happens to both of you. But that’s not something you even want to think about rationally.
I had a very cool creepy experience when I first moved to New York, in 1981. I went way downtown to the hostages ticker-tape parade, on lower Broadway. It was very cold out and I was looking for a store to duck into. I saw a Lord & Taylor’s, and went inside, though it wasn’t open yet (it was about 8:30). It was dark, the only lights from the windows; there were women setting up old-fashioned glass display cases, and one of them came up and politely asked me to go outside till they opened.
A couple of years later, I was working at the L&T on 5th Avenue, and mentioned this to one of the supervisors. She asked where the store was, and she told me, “We haven’t had a store on that corner since the late 19th century!” [cue Twilight Zone music]
My explanation? I got the address wrong; I got the name of the store wrong. It would be really fun to think I stepped through a time portal into an 1860s Lord & Taylor’s, but I really don’t think so.
Nothing that I can think of. But then, even if there was something that happened that other people might consider “mysterious,” I likely wouldn’t. For example, I have experienced Deja Vu on numerous occasions. Is it weird? Hell yes! Do I think I have ESP or something? Hell no! I know there are scientific explanations for it and I kind of enjoy it as it happens but then don’t think much more of it. In fact, it didn’t even occur to me until I was already writing this message.
I have made acquaintance with a couple scientists who have studied personality types in terms of Angel/ghost/whatever sightings. What they found is that there are some people who NEED an answer when something happens. So if they cannot explain it, it immediately becomes “unexplainable.” Others have personality types where it’s not such a big deal. So even though something weird might happen to them, they are not going to suddenly believe in the supernatural just because it can’t be explained at that very moment.
It’s an interesting idea.
Said by David B in a post dated 12/29/1999 at 2:13 PM in the “The Atheist (Non)Religion, Part 2” thread (which seems to have vanished from the archives) after I had done a pretty accurate “cold reading” on him.
(I have hard copy of the thread, and will repost relevant parts on request unless Mods. object.) 
Uh huh. Suuuuure. Like we believe this mysterious thread in which I supposedly said that just up and disappeared and you happen to have the only remaining copy. Riiiight.
Whenever I am excluded from an organization (fired, for example) that organization collapses within days without me lifting a finger. I always compare it to being marooned in a lifeboat, and then the larger ship sinks.
A similiar effect occurs whenever someone tries to hurt me, physically or otherwise. Anyone actually striking at me ends up with stitches, broken hands, etc while I walk away unhurt, and it has nothing to do with martial arts skills.
**
IMHO, IMHO.
My Great Uncle emigrated to Australia before I was born and I never saw him. Before he left, he gave my Grandfather a solid silver fob watch. One day my Grandfather noticed that the watch had stopped which was weird in itself because that watch had kept perfect time every day for three decades. Later that day he learned his brother had died of a heart attack. Grandad never took the watch to get it fixed and believed in ghosts ever since.
Read the thread and thought I’d add my two cents.
First off…even though the house was brand new when we bought it(we watched it go up over a period of like 5 mos or so), it is haunted. Now whether this is due to where it is located or it’s proximity to the town cemetary( a scant 4 mi away), I do not know but I do know that my house is haunted.Yup. Haunted…by a female ghost.At least I assume she is female…I always get that feeling when she is nearby. I see her as a flash of white light in the kitchen,mostly at night. At first CG tried to dismiss it as t he cats playing with the vert blinds that hide our sliding back door but most of the occurances happen when the cats are not even in the kitchen with me. They also usually happen at night, which rules out flashes of natural light and there aren’t any bright street lights behind us to cause flashes of light at night. Nor do I usually turn on the porchlight unless somebody is out there, so that rules THAT out.Bettina(as I call her…I’ve never ‘asked’ her name) likes to hang out in our kitchen, particularly when I’m there and I have one-sided conversations with her. I laid the ground rules out from the start: Don’t mess with me and I’ll not mess with you. So far she hasn’t done anything other than hang out, which I take as a good thing considering what I’ve seen on Sightings.
IDBB
DAVID B.:
“…a couple scientists who have studied personality types in terms of Angel/ghost/whatever sightings. What they found is that there are some people who NEED an answer when something happens. So if they cannot explain it, it immediately becomes ‘unexplainable.’ Others have personality types where it’s not such a big deal. So even though something weird might happen to them, they are not going to suddenly believe in the supernatural just because it can’t be explained at that very moment…”
That personalities vary in this manner is not unexpected. But in and of itself, it has no significance. Why? Because–as you more or less say–the “non-prones” have a desire NOT to believe which is just as divorced from the facts of the case as the desire of others TO believe.
What matters is the incident itself, surely; not our desire for the supernatural or our fear thereof.
I hope we’re not going to get away from the stated purpose of this thread and back into the usual “Amazing Randi v. Uri Geller, round 7743” type of thing.
Ben Hicks, your Grandfather’s watch stopped short, never to go again, when the old man died?
Gee, someone should write a song about that . . .
That I exist in a world such as I find it challenges my ability to form material explanations constantly. I only use them as a counter to opposite assertions (and vice versa), because I see no way in hell to make any positive claims that have a snowball’s chance of being complete.
The continued failure of the paranormal is disheartening, however.
Failure of its repeated demonstration, that is.