Paranormal Experiences & Beliefs

[Armchair Activist]

A recent US survey has revelad that 73 percent of the people polled believed in at least one of the ten paranormal items presented in the survey. Of which included extrasensory perception (41%), haunted houses (37%), ghosts (32%), telepathy (31%), clairvoyance (26%), astrology (25%), communication with the dead (21%), witches (21%), reincarnation (20%), and channelling spiritual entities (9%). Only one percent of those surveyed believed in all ten items.

So has anyone here ever had a paranormal experience or even hold a belief of such existence?

[ibis]

A recent US survey has revelad that 73 percent of the people polled believed in at least one of the ten paranormal items presented in the survey. Of which included extrasensory perception (41%), haunted houses (37%), ghosts (32%), telepathy (31%), clairvoyance (26%), astrology (25%), communication with the dead (21%), witches (21%), reincarnation (20%), and channelling spiritual entities (9%). Only one percent of those surveyed believed in all ten items.

So has anyone here ever had a paranormal experience or even hold a belief of such existence?

Depends...are Libertas getting political advice from McDowell?

[Conor]

If I were you, I'd edit that opening post to make it seem somehow, even a little bit, political.

[Armchair Activist]

If I were you, I'd edit that opening post to make it seem somehow, even a little bit, political.

Well other than the ‘belief aspect’ of the topic, I would propose discussion of the research methods behind it. i.e:

- Anecdotal approach
- Experimental approach
- Participant-observer approach
- Debunking approach
- Survey approach

All of which have been subject to criticism from both sides argument.

[badinage]

If I were you, I'd edit that opening post to make it seem somehow, even a little bit, political.

Its anti-Americanism

[Auditor #9]

If I were you, I'd edit that opening post to make it seem somehow, even a little bit, political.

Isn't his post just as tolerable or intolerable as the religious threads? Politics religion philosophy...church and state etc.?

Welcome back from the dead Armchair and speaking latin too now - "revelad" - proof and not spoof..?

[NotDevsSon]

If I were you, I'd edit that opening post to make it seem somehow, even a little bit, political.

Isn't his post just as tolerable or intolerable as the religious threads? Politics religion philosophy...church and state etc.?

Welcome back from the dead Armchair and speaking latin too now - "revelad" - proof and not spoof..?

I lived next door to an empty 'haunted house' that locals refused to live in. I was highly doubtful. A science teacher I knew and some of his students decided to do some experiments in the house. What they experienced terrified them. A wooden kitchen chair that was upstairs in an empty bedroom suddenly flew though the air, missing the teacher by inches, as he set up some experiment. He was the only one in the room. The locked back door (and it had been locked over over a decade and the lock was rusted, and no-one knew where the key was) violently swung open, then slammed shut. When they went to it the door was still locked, and still rusted shut. A foul smell appeared from nowhere, stank out the kitchen, and then disappeared, only to reappear later in the night in an upstairs room. The teacher tried to set up equipment to measure changes in room temperature. The equipment end up flying against the wall of the room and smashing. One of the kids described being in the bathroom to use the toilet. There was an old metal bath. He suddenly felt a massive push, lost his balance and fell into it. There were 8 kids along with the teacher, and the other seven were with the teacher downstairs, and no-one could have entered or exited the building without passing the teacher and the 7 kids in the hallway. They searched every inch of the house but could find no-one else there who could have pushed the kid. Finally, as they all sat talking, freaked out, at the kitchen table, the kitchen tap suddenly turned on. The thing was, the teacher had tried to turn on the tap an hour earlier and found it tightened so tight he could not move it.

The teacher in question never believed in ghosts and is a scientist to his finger tips. The kids we had with him were all from his science class, all were serious kids (three had entered the Young Scientist competition that year), none were messers, and no-one in the school but the headmaster knew about the project. To this day the teacher has no explanation for the strange goings on. He cannot explain how a locked door, rusted in place, could fly open, how a rusted tap could suddenly turn on, how a chair could suddenly be flung at him, how someone could push one of the kids into the bath, or any of the other things.

A couple of years later the house was demolished. The demolition team had an awful time doing it. A bulldozer was vandalised, windows smashed as they walked under them. Water flooded the place even though there was no water supply connected. A side wall inexplicably fell sideways when being pushed forward, crushing a workman's hut. The demolition team were terrified.

The whole thing has always puzzled me because I know the guy managing the demolition and he is as straightlaced as they come. To this day the school kids refuse to talk about their night in that house and the teacher goes white if someone mentions it.

[Armchair Activist]

Personally I don’t believe in the paranormal a great deal but I would suggest one to be open minded about spirits and the like. I can recall an experience with the Ouija board in my teenage years that left me quite traumatic for several days afterwards and vowed never to play it again. I also have heard of several chilling incidents that inevitably resulted in fatality or severe madness of the persons involved.

There was also a house near me that up until recently remained practically untouched for over 4 years. Basically what happened was the lone occupant of the house had decided to take his life one morning by jumping from Wexford Bridge, because of legal reason the house was never sold. Even the cereal box and tea cup he drank from had remained on the kitchen table until the house was almost destroyed recently by fire. Rumour has it, that a group of kids had been using the house to ‘contact the dead’ with an ouija board up until a few days before the fire over the Christmas holidays. The source of the fire is unknown.

Coincidence or not stranger things have happened, that may never be explained.

[Auditor #9]

Lyall Watson (born April 12, 1939) is a botanist, zoologist, biologist, anthropologist, ethologist, and author of many new age books, among the most popular of which is the best seller Supernature. Lyall Watson tries to make sense of natural and supernatural phenomena in biological terms.


Wikipedia

There's probably a lot about nature that's just beyond our capacity to know. Lyall Watson in his book Supernature asserts that trials and tests have shown that a razor blade will stay sharp when placed in a pyramidal shape of any size. The object must be placed two thirds of the way up inside the pyramid. Anything will do apparently - even the outline of a pyramid. Don't know if it applies to Jeanette (the best a man can get) mach3 or mach4 razors. There are strange things in nature all the same I'd say.

There are even stranger things in industry...I use a mach3 razor, right? Why is there a plethora of razors? I mean, what's the advantage of a vibrating razor? Or one with orange lubrication? For some razors the blades cost €30 for 4 in Tesco's - I'd buy them but I hate porking my porsche in Tescos.

[FutureTaoiseach]

Nope. But I once had a weird dream where I was talking to a ghost who was my mother who is still alive. I recall it came during a time when I was avidly watching "Most Haunted" and "Dead Famous" episodes. Whatever programmes I watch tend to impact on my dreams.