SCEPCOP Forum

Hello All.

I have been browsing these pages for a while and overall I like what I see.

I lay no claims to special powers, unique gifts, nor any scientific training.

Nor am I a past or present member of any religious organisation, sceptical association, psychic development group or occult society.

I admit to having periodically attended meetings, lectures and psychic seminars etc, hosted by such organisations in the course of my research, however.

I have been an interested and if may say so, relentless, researcher into matters usually consigned under the heading of "paranormal."

This reasearch has led me down many a dead end and even along a few rather odd highways and byways.

I am sure that these frustrations are common for others who delve seriously into that vague world of the paranormal.

In the course of what is now some 30 years of private research and experimentation
into these nebulous fields, I have encountered much which causes me to question the orthodox explanations provided by parapsychology and Spiritualist dogmas.

Indeed, as much or more reasons to question some of those theories as I have found reasons to question the "scepticism" of some self-styled Skeptics.

eg. My own research has provided me with the strongest of personal grounds for concluding that ESP, thought telepathy, ghosts, poltergeists and spirit mediumship are all real enough phenomena, albeit far rarer phenomena than many enthusiasts would care to believe.

Human error and self-deception are and always will be more common than the phenomena mentioned above and a helluva lot easier to investigate and to prove.

I have found nothing which leads me to believe in the existence of a god nor anything which leads me to conclude that spirits are anything other than people who no longer have material bodies and are no brighter now than they were when they were above ground and breathing or that psychic and/or mediumisticaly gifted persons are any more "spiritually elevated" than the rest of us.

Well such is my own experience.

I enjoy browsing sceptical sites such the JREF Forum and I pay attention to the published work of other organised sceptical associations such as CSICOP.

I congratulate the founders of this web site for providing an alternative to the purely sceptical sites and hope that this Forum grows and matures into a place where sceptics and believers alike may debate each other with mutual respect and civility.

Hi Warrigal,

Welcome to the forum. It seems you have a solid middle ground on everything. That's good and one of the hallmarks of a true skeptic. You are a rare type.

Just keep questioning, searching, and examining evidence. There is so much good info now out on YouTube too.

BTW, when you said, "I have encountered much which causes me to question the orthodox explanations provided by parapsychology and Spiritualist dogmas" isn't that sort of an oxymoron, since Parapsychological and Spiritualist explanations are not "orthodox". Orthodoxy tends to be the viewpoint of materialist science. Have I misunderstood something?

Vinstonas

Hi Scepcop and thank you for your welcome.

When I wrote:

"I have encountered much which causes me to question the orthodox explanations provided by parapsychology and Spiritualist dogmas," I was guilty of some very sloppy grammar!

Parapsychology and Spiritualism are two seperate things and although neither of them are orthodox from the standpoint of mainstream science or of Judeo-Christian theology, both have over the years, evolved their own standard theories and explanations regarding the phenomena which they both observe.

Once a theory becomes accepted within even an "outsider" field of research, it becomes an orthodoxy of sorts and the adherents of which become most reluctant to modify their theory when confronted with a situation where some of the facts in an individual case under investigation just refuse to fit the theory.

Thus, rather than stretching the theory to encompass the facts, or revising the theory entirely if it lacks sufficient elasticity to be valid anymore, I have on several occassions had the disappointing experience of seeing otherwise sincere investigators torturing facts until they fitted the favoured theory.

This is just human nature and paranormal researchers are no more nor less immune to this thinking than are sceptics.

Regards,

Warrigal

Agreed Warrigal. You are very insightful about human nature. And might I add that ego plays a part in it too. We all like to be right and not wrong. And we are limited by our field of vision.

Welcome to the forum Warrigal. Even-handedly examining all sides of the issue is what all serious researchers should be doing. It's the only way to filter out biases on each side and get to the bottom of things. Compare the overall data with the explanations and research of all sides of the issue, and find out which is stronger, going back and forth, back and forth, "They say this, what do you have to say in response?", "They may say this, but the data says that.", Etc.