Best parapsychology books according to redditors
We found 46 Reddit comments discussing the best parapsychology books. We ranked the 26 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
We found 46 Reddit comments discussing the best parapsychology books. We ranked the 26 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
>I firmly believe miracles happen all around us every day. Most of us, religious or not, may not even recognize it much of the time, instead we chalk them up to simple good fortune or a stroke of luck.
Could be fraud too, such as wafers becoming in essence the body of Christ. If miracles are so common, why don't they do better ones in church?
>Other miracles from the Catholic perspective (HERE) include incorruptible bodies of saints, ...
It's not surprising that that source doesn't allow comments. I suspect that the author of that article knew it couldn't stand up to that sort of attention.
In Flim Flam, James Randi did some experiments that concluded it was possible for chunks of raw chicken to dry out before they rot, so I'm not at all sure that incorruptible bodies of saints are miracles.
If you didn't already know about the experiment with the drying raw chicken, your belief in miracles hasn't been sufficiently examined. If you are going to base your religious belief on this sort of thing, it is the most important thing, so you should take the trouble to become incredibly well informed about it.
>... stigmata, and one of my favorites -- The Miracle of the Sun at Fatima.
Sorry, only one miracle per customer. Otherwise I would be on the losing side of a Gish Gallop.
A recent book is quite good, if somewhat high-level, but a good starting point: A Dark Muse: A History of the Occult
THe older reference used to be Colin Wilson's The Occult: A History
Much respect to you for coming w an open heart w real questions. You will find a great deal of insight and compassion here.
As stated above, this constant info-bombardment is horrible for the human psyche - whether it's of the "red or blue" pill variety. At a certain point, one comes to realize that "ultimate understanding" is just another fiction - as a singular human one can never "have it all figured out." There is just too much goddamn information, most of it conflicting (by design or not; humans love complexity).
That said, "the end of any and all beliefs" can be an incredibly sublime place to be. Once you've microscopically examined all of yr beliefs and the why's and how's of their impact/tyranny within you, one can begin the process of discovering what one truly, actually believes. And that might end up being something completely unexpected. But no one but you can decide what that something is.
I hear you on the ADHD thing; I was prob the same when I was a kid but that was in the 70s and they just called us fucking weirdos and picked us last for kickball. We didn't get all the sweet medical meth. The fact that you've avoided being medicated is a wonderful thing in this current era.
So, not sure if this answers anything but learn to trust yrself - you do in fact exist in a beautiful and terrifying universe of amazing potential. Go with yr gut, trust yr better instincts, and practice mindfulness. You might also enjoy this book for a variety of reasons.
Good luck; you have friends and allies.
To everyone who's experienced this or curious about it in any way, I'd thoroughly recconmend J.W. Dunn's book An Experiment With Time. He experienced dream-precognition to a great degree and developed highly intriguing scientific theories on the basis of his experiences.
You say that until tonight you haven't felt any ill intent from the entity. But that changed? From what I've heard there are essentially two 'types' of shadow being encounters- some are passive and seem more like typical ghosts, sometimes not noticing other people/surroundings, but sometimes they will focus on people and watch them. Then there are more malevolent ones- These entities seem to inspire very intense fear and act quite menacingly.
This is a strange-sounding question, but does your entity wear a hat?
You might want to check out this book. I haven't read it but I hear it's pretty good.
I don't know how you'd go about getting rid of the thing. I think I would try and ignore it for as long as I could, and maybe try burning some sage and performing an amateur house/room blessing if it got worse.
(*Quick edit because I just remembered something)- I did hear an interview with Jason Offutt, the author of that book. I remember him saying that when encountering the more malevolent 'type' of shadow person, people seemed to have success with prayer (if you believe in that sort of thing), laughing, and singing/whistling. It sounds like the expression of positive energy is what does the trick. I wish you luck!
Read a book about occult history so you know what you're researching.
I just finished The Afterlife of Billy Fingers: How My Bad-Boy Brother Proved to Me There's Life After Death. Quick read. Easy read.
There is a Kindle version, that's how I read it lol. Printed material is for losers
I see. But no worries, information about how to do them are all over the internet nowadays.
There's this three-part video seminars by Michael Raduga "Leave your body in three days":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQjAIlFZWWc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Dj9gTiLHf8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BMnGi8yxTQ
He also has free article and e-books that might help you here:
https://obe4u.com/how-to-lucid-dream/
https://obe4u.com/lucid-dreaming-books-free/
And other books that you can try finding online for free or purchasing to support the author:
Astral Dynamics Book by Robert Bruce:
https://www.amazon.com/Astral-Dynamics-Out-Body-Experience-ebook/dp/B008K06AOM
Journeys out of the body by Robert Monroe:
https://www.amazon.com/Journeys-Out-Body-Out-Body-ebook/dp/B00OWWOM2O
And many others, too.
And there's also always the Wiki of this subreddit that contains basic information that will hopefully serve you well, including dispelling misconceptions about AP, Self-defense in the Astral Planes, and various other reddit posts, articles and websites that contain very useful information. We also made sure to organize a table of contents for this as well to help with information overview:
https://www.reddit.com/r/AstralProjection/wiki/index
If you truly want to go back practicing this skill, it seems you will have to go back from square one, but at the very least it seems practicing the basics again will catapult you quickly towards immediately being able to induce conscious OOBE/Astral Projection, like a muscle memory being awakened once more.
It's a whole new world out there, I really highly encourage you to continue; this skill will help you tremendously on your journey towards personal and spiritual development (I gave some ideas on how in this sub's wiki, around the "Benefits of Astral Projection" section).
Best of luck on your journeys.
Let me help you.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004W0I00Q
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004X6U5DY
Leslie Kean published an excellent book called UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record and she and James Fox have an updated documentary based on this book called UFOs on the Record.
A lot of people disparage the alien encounter phenomenon but the late Dr. Mack's books on the subject are excellent, most recent: Passport to the Cosmos - it includes Dr. Mack's interviews with the students at Ariel school who had a mass encounter.
Hunt for the Skinwalker by Colm Kelleher and George Knapp is one of the most fascinating books - and definitely the freakiest - that I've ever read. It takes a clinical and journalistic approach to a completely bizarre collection of phenomena centered on the Skinwalker Ranch in Utah.
In the quote section, don't forget the astronaut from Apollo 17 who told Houston there was definitely something out there.
My advice on the website as a whole is to separate substantiated stories from unsubstantiated (like the Eisenhower meetings) - that's not a comment on whether or not these stories are legit, but I think it's more helpful for people unfamiliar with the phenomenon to have a resource of airtight reportage to look at.
Good site though - good luck!
If you haven't already, have a read of this short bit of writing: The Egg and also check out this book which explores a similar concept.
It all depends on which occultist and which work.
My gateway drug was Robert Anton Wilson Cosmic Trigger. One of his favorite mantras:
I
D O
N O T
B E L I E V E
A N Y T H I N G
There is a great deal of subjective evidence. When it is analyzed using the tools of comparativism, it becomes much stronger. Overwhelming, I dare say.
But there is objective evidence too. It's important that atheists never stop seeking it out. To that end, here are just a few of the books that I have read that I think every atheist should also read.
https://www.amazon.com/Varieties-Anomalous-Experience-Examining-Scientific/dp/1557986258
https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Parapsychology-Harvey-J-Irwin/dp/0786430591
https://www.amazon.com/Extraordinary-Knowing-Science-Skepticism-Inexplicable/dp/0553382233
https://www.amazon.com/Outside-Gates-Science-Time-Paranormal/dp/1560259868
https://www.amazon.com/Mysticism-Evelyn-Underhill/dp/1463612354
https://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Faces-Collected-Joseph-Campbell/dp/1577315936
https://www.amazon.com/Trickster-Makes-This-World-Mischief/dp/0374532559
https://www.amazon.com/Trickster-Paranormal-George-P-Hansen/dp/1401000827
https://www.amazon.com/Shakespeare-Goddess-Complete-Being-Hughes/dp/0571166040
Near Death Experiences.
I recommend Mellon Thomas Benedict or the book with several experiences: Love the person you’re with...by David Sunfellow
https://www.amazon.com/Love-Person-Youre-Life-Changing-Experiences-ebook/dp/B01GZIYL6O/ref=nodl_
[This] (http://www.amazon.com/The-New-Skepticism-Reliable-Knowledge/dp/0879757663) started it for me. Most of Kurtz' stuff is pretty good.
My grad school prof wrote a book on this you might find interesting, but it's highly philosophically technical, at least in terms of probability theory.
A Philosophical Critique of Empirical Arguments for Postmortem Survival (Palgrave Frontiers in Philosophy of Religion) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1137440937/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_JA2rDbCVXVKHK
I like these books :
https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Physicalism-Reconciliation-Science-Spirituality/dp/1442232382
https://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/1401953425/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1541433567&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=boy+past+lives&dpPl=1&dpID=51XVBER6UbL&ref=plSrch
https://www.amazon.com/Life-Before-Childrens-Memories-Previous/dp/031237674X/ref=mp_s_a_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1541433596&sr=8-4&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=ian+stevenson+reincarnation&dpPl=1&dpID=41TryJKvduL&ref=plSrch
I know you did not say it. It was the link you posted that said it.
What you did say was that if you did not have someone singing then were simply doing it wrong. Which sounds very much like a fact, but is in fact a statement which is very objective. But you forgot to mention that it was your personal opinion.
But I am certain a lot of people has had a very profound and pleasant experience drinking ayahuasca without any shaman songs or songs of any kind around.
What triggers me is this elitist bullshit "well you know.. that's not how the shamans do it..."
The proper way of doing it? What does that even mean? Proper according to who? If someone did it first, then they have the copyright on how do ingest something? That's a great way to never find a better way of doing something.
And they know exactly what they are doing? So in their mind all they do is set the mood with some songs? They don't call out the good spirits and keep the bad ones at bay? In my mind there might be some contradictions going on there, but what do I know? I am uneducated on the subject.
While we are on the topic of books, here are some great ones.
Atrytone,
The example I have for mystics producing info they could not have had is from The Siren Call of Hungry Ghosts, by Joe Fisher. The medium described details of landscape, locations, military hardware, etc for claimed European past lives that were partially accurate, but were effectively unknowable by the untraveled Canadian medium circle. Since the book was a refutation of the spirits the medium was channeling, and the author committed suicide soon after over stresses he blamed on the channeled spirits, none of the dismissals of self-aggrandizement etc for deception by the author are relevant. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Siren_Call_of_Hungry_Ghosts
For ESP, see Radin, http://www.amazon.com/The-Conscious-Universe-Scientific-Phenomena/dp/0061778990/ref=cm_cr-mr-title, Carter, http://www.amazon.com/Parapsychology-Skeptics-Scientific-Argument-Existence/dp/1585011088/ref=cm_cr-mr-title, or Broderick http://www.amazon.com/Outside-Gates-Science-Time-Paranormal/dp/1560259868/ref=cm_cr-mr-title.
For origin of the universe, the Cosmic Landscape is many times more complex than spiritual creation, and less testable, as I just demonstrated by refuting multiple God hypotheses -- hence it loses out on Occam.
For prayer, just do a google search on "medical controlled study prayer" and read the reports listed. As with all such studies there are hits and misses, but the trend is for a benefit.
For faith healing, see the Catholic Church's documentation of the healings at Lourdes.
I can't help on the last one -- sacred literature does not tip the balance toward dualism.
I was on a real-estate case a few years ago. It was probably the most boring thing ever, I suppose. Like, some guy bought property he thought he could turn into apartments but it turned out he couldn't and blah blah easements and local land laws. Big money, two weeks, and rich lawyers duking it out.
But, man, it was so fascinating. The legal process is so complex and interesting to me that I wish I could be on a jury more often. If you love reading police procedurals and watching legal dramas, jury duty'll be right up your alley. I spent most of the time paying attention to the cat and mouse games the lawyers played.
Of course, the rest of the jury was composed on complete idiots. One of the other jurors, I shit you not, read this book during our downtime.
I got a lot of reading done during those two weeks, as I recall.
I agree with everything you've written. A moderated approach will work. The "slippery slope" argument, though, has been used too many times to justify not taking the matter too seriously. At least we're aware of it now.
James E. MacDonald comes to mind as someone that was essentially chewed up and spit out of an institutionalized scientific community. John E. Mack did indeed get his hands dirty but really failed to delivery conclusive results.
I'm glad to see that you're at least willing to listen. It's the willingness that matters most. I give the example of NDE's a lot as something worthy of study. It's completely off-topic, but it's a great phenomenon that science avoids. Let's suppose for a moment that these NDE'ers are completely crazy, and wrong. Why deny the therapeutic benefits?
I suppose in some sense, science has become too commercialized. If it's not about touch screens, it's not 'interesting.' I knew a dude who was a Japanese Art History major. Can you believe that? How much is society going to pay for an understanding of Japanese art history? But I guess that's the same question people must ask themselves before they spend any funding to study anything. UFO's, NDE's, psychic perception ... none of those will give us cheaper chicken or beef.
Well, it's been good to meet you. I have in my mind that you're Canadian, because Americans aren't this well educated. I'm sure no one else is reading this exchange.
By the way what would you think of a 'book of the month' post? I was thinking of just posting a link to a book. We could all read it, and talk about it in a thread. I was going to buy this Jacques Valle book.
Citation as requested: the PEAR Lab results which spanned nearly three decades. Remote perception and remote influencing are rigorously proven to be real, measurable and reproducible phenomena. The most concise summary of the research can be found in the following video:
http://www.ufspiritualityandhealth.org/news/details.asp?id=1018
Here's just a bit more:
http://vimeo.com/4359545
Here's a book:
http://www.amazon.com/Consciousness-Source-Reality-Robert-Jahn/dp/1936033038
Have you heard the biblical case that Aliens are fallen angels?
Matt 24:37 "As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man."
What was it like in the days of Noah? Nephilim were having sex with humans. Genesis 6:1-8 "the sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose...The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown."
Most UFO's are video recorded as lights in the sky: Phoenix Lights in AZ as case in point. Even the Governor is on record for seeing them. Some 10K+ people all reported seeing them. Those lights often move very fast and disappear suddenly.
Angels have the ability to create light: Acts 12:7 "Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in the cell." Angels can create light in the physical realm from their realm.
As lights in sky disappear suddenly, so angels have ability to disappear suddenly (Acts 12:10) "When they had walked the length of one street, suddenly the angel left him."
Alien Abductions often feel like trance states to victims: Pulitzer Prize winner, John Mack, a Harvard Medical Doctor worked with 300+ alien abductees. His conclusion? Scientific rationalism alone can not explain alien abduction syndrome. Mack was not a Christian.
When Peter was rescued, he thought he was seeing a vision (Acts 12:9). Angels have the ability to make a human feel like they're seeing a vision.
When Satan fell from heaven, he took rebellious angels with him (Rev 12:9).
Satan masquerades as an angel of light (2 Cor 11:14)
Many alien abductee survivors and UFO seers use their experiences to create religions/spiritual principles apart from Christ.
http://www.alienresistance.org/ce4.htm has sound biblical viewpoints on the matter from people who are clearly called to ministry in this area.
It's pretty dark, full of spiritual warfare, and not something I like to go fishing into.
Ever hear of this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Experiment-Time-Studies-Consciousness/dp/1571742344/ref=sr_1_1?crid=21MRBFF8SH5F3&keywords=an+experiment+with+time+dunne&qid=1563444075&s=gateway&sprefix=an+experiment+with%2Caps%2C413&sr=8-1
Sure. He's obviously a fraud. Many psychics are. Everyone knows that.
I'm more concerned about what everyone DOESN'T know which is the degree to which Randi himself is duplicitous and why his 'prize' is a bogus heap of steaming bullcrap.
There's a few great books on it and how and why Randi's stacked the deck. This is a good one:
http://www.amazon.com/Randis-Prize-Sceptics-Paranormal-Matters/dp/1848764944
And on Randi himself and his depredations everyone should read this recent Daily Telegraph article:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/film-news/11270453/James-Randi-debunking-the-king-of-the-debunkers.html
If you're referring to Randi's fake, pseudoscientific, fraudulent "prize", forget it. It's been debunked.
lol - yeah I am sure you went through all the videos and articles in that google search in the past hour. I'll save you time - if your truly skeptical - you would read this book
You might also look into Rupert Sheldrake and his experiences with Randi. Sheldrake, on a public stage, calls James Randi flat out a 'liar' - and he does without fear of legal recourse - because Randi has been caught actually lying about data.
I dont have the time, or the need, to deconstruct Randi's methodologies here, mainly because Sheldrake and McLuan already have done that.
Randi is not taken seriously as a scientist, his test is not scientific as he likes to present it. The test is designed for failure. I know many scientists (sheldrake being one of them) personally, and none of them take Randi seriously when it comes to DATA. Randi's test is designed to produce evidence of Randi's POV, and nothing more.
EDIT: I also dont want to paint the wrong picture - although Randi's approach has little value scientifically - I LOVE that he goes after true FRAUD, such as Sarah Brown and people like that. I think it's great he exploits the frauds, he just has nothing interesting to add regarding the actual phenomenon itself
> this only works gradually and logically, you can't just imagine you'll have wings and voila. As per (4) each shift can only happen when it's just as likely for either result to occur.
Ever heard of Dimensional Jumping? Check out /r/dimensionaljumping for more info.
It's all about jumping to another reality that is not a logical extension of your current reality. It's like you detach your consciousness from your current reality stream and reattach it to a different stream.
Some people have claimed to have some miraculous effects.
Also check out Exploring the 5th Dimension this guy claims to have actually teleported his body.
And My Big TOE was written by a scientist working with Robert Monroe on scientifically testing the idea of out of body experiences. They have some amazing claims and his whole thing seems to be that the universe is actually non-deterministic....at least not the way we think it is.
Anyways fascinating stuff if you ask me. :)
If you haven't already you should check out some of Wilson's books. There's some really nutty shit in them (e.g., aliens with pancakes, little green men, psychic powers/clairvoyance) but quite intriguing.
I've only read Masks of the Illuminati (fiction: James Joyce and Albert Einstein discover a plot to take over the world) and Cosmic Trigger I: Final Secrets of the Illuminati which is a collection of essays on many different subjects.
Great reading!
No but J.W. Dunne does, and this little book influenced C.S. Lewis quite a bit.
I haven't read it yet (been thinking of picking it up), but this is about that:
http://www.amazon.com/Experiment-With-Time-Studies-Consciousness/dp/1571742344/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_1
I am a huge fan of William S. Burroughs, and although I think he was frequently (especially in old age) really gullible, his lifelong obsession with dreams informed his work and life in really productive ways.
If you want to start wondering if our understanding of time is at all correct, start doing a dream journal. Stop if it gets too annoying (unless you're an avant garde writer), as writing down your dreams solidifies them in your memory like real events, and you'll start stumbling around the world having errant thoughts like you have to be careful of the toothy fish that lives under the TV.
However, what you'll probably notice, even within a week or two, is a hard-to-explain prescience in your dreams. For example, I was recently dream journaling again for a class I was teaching on Burroughs (I have a neat job and can sometimes just teach stuff that I like, as an elective.), and I dreamt that I was a boxer who was supposed to throw a fight for the mob, but I didn't, because I wanted the win. I then turned myself in to the mob to take whatever was coming to me. It was the mobsters from True Romance (this is obviously a very Tarantino-inspired dream). They beat me up, yadda yadda not important.
I get up and go to the computer to write this down (since I'd assigned a week of dream journaling to the students, I made sure I did it too), and Firefox is open to Google News. Top story: James Gandolfini died.
James Gandolfini played the enforcer in True Romance.
How many other mob-related dreams can I remember having? How about... zero. Ever. In my life.
Could be something, could be nothing, but mysterious nonetheless.
(BTW, that's how you think about the paranormal. A mystery. Anyone who says they think they've got it figured out is deluding themselves.)
An old colleague and good friend of mine has worked for many years in human sleep research. At his request I have spent a good amount of time validating methodologies and statistical soundness of various studies he has unearthed.
If you are interested in learning more about current and past research, here are some reasonable starting points.
Susumu Tonegawa, a neuroscientist at PILM, led an experiment that claims to have isolated a genetic characteristic involved in situational pattern-matching and memory:
News article
A recently published book by Richard Wiseman, a reputable psychologist and skeptic of precognition:
Amazon reviews
A recent publication on precognition by Daryl Bem, a researcher and psychologist at Cornell University:
Paper
Richard's review of Daryl's procedures, including an experimental design concern with rebuttal from Daryl:
Review
J. W. Dunne's historical case study research on precognition in dreams:
Amazon review
Long-term research at Princeton University led by Robert Jahn regarding a purported human affect on randomization experiments:
Main site
As with all disruptive research, my experience is that this is a field in which deep emotions from both "sides" interfere with effective discourse. Remarks such as the non sequitur "you must be religious" made by Rooster_Illusion are typical: many persons inappropriately ostracize those who hold an agnostic, skeptical, and scientific stance. My main interest in this thread was to give my experience in logical and reasoned discourse to Rooster_Illusion, which Rooster_Illusion seems to have mistaken for me believing coercion and psychological manipulation are positive actions.
> My understanding is that all near-death-experience examinations that have tested for specific verifiable information (identifying geometric shapes placed prominently on top of cabinets, etc) have fallen flat.
This is both true and false. Those that have been tested for specific signs have failed - but on the other hand, only five such experimental procedures have been carried out, and only in one or two of them did they even have enough of a sample size to get a single OBE, so there's not yet any real data in that department. Currently, the AWARE project is under way which is a large multi-center study hoping to address this in a way more thorough manner than have been previously attempted.
On the other hand, studies by both Dr. Michael Sabom and Penny Sartori has found that OBEs during NDEs contain veridical information that control groups fail at in the otherwise same circumstances.
http://drpennysartori.wordpress.com/2011/08/13/obe-veridicality-research/
and
"Sabom had interviewed 32 patients who reported NDEs in which they seemed to be watching what was going on around their body. Most of these were cardiac patients who were undergoing cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) at the time of their NDE. Sabom then interviewed 25 "control" patients, "seasoned cardiac patients" who had not had an NDE during their previous cardiac-related crises, and asked them to describe a cardiac resuscitation procedure as if they were watching from a third-person perspective. Among all these patients, 80% of the "control" patients made at least one major error in their descriptions, whereas none of the NDE patients made any. Moreover, six of 32 NDE patients related accurate details of idiosyncratic or unexpected (to them) events during their resuscitation. For example, one man, who developed ventricular fibrillation in the coronary care unit, said (among many other things) that the nurse picked up "them shocker things" and "touched them together" and then "everybody moved back away from it [the defibrillator]". As Sabom explained, rubbing the defibrillator paddles together to lubricate them and standing back from the defibrillator to avoid being shocked are common procedures."
> I don't know much beyond that, but I find it curious that if there's so much documented evidence out there, that no one has grabbed it and used it to get that easy million dollars from Randi.
It's not at all that simple. Randi's committee is not accepting currently existing evidence in peer-reviewed journals, they want the experiments to be carried out while they are present. That alone refutes the relevance of his prize in this context, since flat-lining people is not (yet) legal for scientific experimentation. But if you really want to research Randi's participation in this field of investigation, I would recommend you this book to give some balance to the issue of his relevance.
http://www.amazon.com/Sense-Being-Stared-At-Extended/dp/B000AXRTP6/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1322811422&sr=1-1