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Skeptic-bait #1: "Astral Projection"
#11
RE: Skeptic-bait #1: "Astral Projection"
(October 7, 2015 at 4:43 am)robvalue Wrote: There's another possibility. People don't come up with their "remote viewings" as independently as they might think. This shows the importance of rigorous scientific conditions, which these kinds of things have not stood up to as far as I know.

http://youtu.be/eAPdHyM2Oqg

This is video series which shows how easily people can be tricked into woo beliefs in general:

http://youtu.be/0CFDAw7sv9c
This was amazing. So how exactly did she guess her face? Through confidence and analyzing the rest of her body?

(October 7, 2015 at 4:31 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: I've actually read a fair bit about astral projection. I believe a more apt description of this phenomenon is 'dreaming'.

Boru
Yes it's most likely lucid dreaming but the whole remote-viewing testimonials doesn't make sense with that theory (if you believe the testimonials that is) Rob's video shows a better theory on the remote viewing aspect of it.
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#12
RE: Skeptic-bait #1: "Astral Projection"
I'll wait for evidence before posting in this thread.

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#13
RE: Skeptic-bait #1: "Astral Projection"
Derren lead her to her conclusions, for her to draw it in sufficient detail. He is a professional trickster. You'll see this if you watch some of the second video I put up.

When tests aren't rigorous, whether people realize it or not, they give much away through suggestion.

I would love to meet him and see what crap he could pull on me. I like to think I'm about as sceptical as they come, but I'm still human and vulnerable to trickery.

He talks to some people who are obsessed with alien abductions in this section. There is an unintentional hilarious line here... "in the grey area"! Listen from 1:18 - 1:45

http://youtu.be/2qnlbN95rcE
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#14
RE: Skeptic-bait #1: "Astral Projection"
(October 7, 2015 at 5:13 am)Parkers Tan Wrote: I'll wait for evidence before posting in this thread.
You want to try it yourself? It's better than tripping off on LSD.

(October 7, 2015 at 5:16 am)robvalue Wrote: Derren lead her to her conclusions, for her to draw it in sufficient detail. He is a professional trickster. You'll see this if you watch some of the second video I put up.

When tests aren't rigorous, whether people realize it or not, they give much away through suggestion.

I would love to meet him and see what crap he could pull on me. I like to think I'm about as sceptical as they come, but I'm still human and vulnerable to trickery.

He talks to some people who are obsessed with alien abductions in this section. There is an unintentional hilarious line here... "in the grey area"! Listen from 1:18 - 1:45

http://youtu.be/2qnlbN95rcE
LOL got my belly in smuggy laugh when she talked about "this should be in a scientific journal". Did he read up about her medical conditions beforehand in order trick her into believing he was psychic?
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#15
RE: Skeptic-bait #1: "Astral Projection"
That's most likely, yeah. The fact this didn't occur to her shows how caught up in the "magic" she is. He could probably have pulled it off by cold reading also.

He's very good at showing how much people see and believe what they want to, and how irrational beliefs can form.

I'm guilty of it too. I got tricked by some pipes, not even a person, the last couple of days. We've had a leak, and the landlord is taking ages to fix it. Due to various occurrences, I was convinced it was an out-pipe and water leaving the sink and the bath was leaking out. I believed this for over 24 hours. It wasn't until I finally investigated further and checked exactly where the pipe went that I found out it was an in-pipe, and had nothing to do with water going out the sink or bath.
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#16
RE: Skeptic-bait #1: "Astral Projection"
I've had these kinds of experiences, and they are very real-feeling. In fact, I describe them as feeling MORE real than waking life.

However, what is real as an experience and what is useful in describing and interacting with the world around us are different things. I've never seen nor heard any credible evidence of someone using Astral projection to find information that they could not otherwise have had access to.

That doesn't mean it's impossible-- only that I have too little confidence in anecdotal evidence and personal reports to draw a positive belief about it.
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#17
RE: Skeptic-bait #1: "Astral Projection"
Since I can remember "kicking it with the creator of the universe," I can testify that one's brain is not always one's friend.  Big Grin

I have no interest in a repeat performance. So 1-3. 4 is a truism.
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#18
RE: Skeptic-bait #1: "Astral Projection"
Oh yes. I should mention James Randi again.

He has an open challenge for a million bucks (not sure how much that is in real money) to anyone who can demonstrate paranormal abilities under scrutiny. Out of the relatively few that try, they all fail.

The only question to me with all these kinds of things is if they really believe they have powers, or if they are straightforward con artists. Of course, I'm never going to say I'm certain one of them out there isn't real. But it's up to them to demonstrate that it is real. If they're not prepared to have it properly tested, then that's good evidence that it's all balls.
Feel free to send me a private message.
Please visit my website here! It's got lots of information about atheism/theism and support for new atheists.

Index of useful threads and discussions
Index of my best videos
Quickstart guide to the forum
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#19
RE: Skeptic-bait #1: "Astral Projection"
Yeah Randi sure did lions work to expose all the fakers including astral voyagers, if only more people read his books.

You know back in the day there was some serious study of this by Stanford Research Institute and astronomer J. Allen Hynek who were using astral visions by famous astral traveler Ingo Swann and Harold Sherman in advance of the Mariner 10 spacecraft's trip past Mercury and the voyage of Pioneer 10 past Jupiter. This just shows you how even educated people can be foolish.
Let's first see what they guessed and missed:
[Image: 9a6ab6af0fcc91e0eb81972740864613.png]
[Image: 299b807c0f07e728bacf08df40d06b7d.png]

[Image: 4d42a3bdbcdeea42ecce1d99bfea70d9.png]
[Image: 3ce3fb83eb904f9f98476435ef352893.png]
We can assign them 24 out of 65, or 37 percent "hits." Their errors amount to at least 30 out of 65, or 46 percent. And this assessment deals only with the number of guesses, not with the quality of the information! Such gross errors as reporting that there are 30,000-foot-high mountain peaks on the Jovian landscape and also sandy, molten crust damn the results beyond redemption!

Later for BBC Swann claimed he had not gone to Jupiter after all! Travel by astral means is so fast and giddy, said he, that he had probably shot off into another solar system, somewhere in another star's gravity field, and had described for the breathless scientists another planet, not Jupiter! Thus we have an explanation for the errors, and all is well in Wonderland once more.

Nevertheless scientists were very pleased with results of their Jovian ramblings. According to Hynek, Swann's "impressions... cannot be dismissed," and the Stanford Research Institute was "very pleased."
Astronaut Edgar Mitchell said that Swann "described things and gave details which were not known to scientists until the Mariner 10 and Pioneer 10 satellites flew by the planets and got the information."
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
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#20
RE: Skeptic-bait #1: "Astral Projection"
The idea that we can magically transport our minds to other places in the universe is absurd. It's another one of those claims that's not worth refuting, and it's just another reminder that the human brain is flawed.
Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cozy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigor, and the great spaces have a splendor of their own - Bertrand Russell
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