the spirit realm

[seeker]

i have done some serious thinking about the existence of a parallel plane, which has been deemed supernatural simply because it transcends our mortal capabilities of sensory perception.

think of all the stories you might have heard growing up about ghosts, specters, apparitions, wraiths, angels, demons... what do these all have in common? they are all tied to this elusive yet engrained notion of the existence of a place where spirits do their business.

based loosely on science and a great deal on long hours of pondering, i have come up with some theories.

i believe there are two levels immediately recognizable by human perception. the first, perhaps lowest level is that of the physical realm. this is where we walk, this is where our brains observe through any of the five common senses of touch, taste, smell, hear, and see. everything we can examine through these senses dwells within this plane, or level, of existence, and is in some way manipulatory or malleable via one or more of the senses.

the second level is the spiritual realm. this encompasses the phenomena often labeled "supernatural" or "paranormal" and is often said to be felt by the mind, for lack of a better term. few people deny feeling from time to time that there is something more to life than what our five limited senses indicate. others attempt to tap readily into this other realm through prayer, meditation, ritual, sacrifice, etc. then there are those who proclaim to have extrasensory perception, granting the ability to perceive beyond the line of present, sometimes into the past, and even through the minds of others. fact or fiction, such a state would be best explained as an attunement to a sixth sense, to borrow from the common descriptor. there is evidence to suggest that, even in limited amounts, human beings are capable of psychic moments.

when a woman has a child, for example, she can feel when the baby is hungry. her breasts will produce at the right time every time so that the child can feed and grow. this is not something that is actively triggered by thought, like twitching a finger. it comes from a command issued by the deepest part of the brain, free of the mother's effort. note that a good deal of the human brain serves unknown functions.

another example comes from asia, in the form of mind mastery. through long periods of meditation in which the subject clears his mind and thinks of nothing, a person can gradually learn to control the automatic functions of the body. scientific experiments have been performed to test these people's abilities, and it has been found that some can will their hearts to stop, allowing the person to survive for abnormally long periods of time in small rooms of limited oxygen.

taking these things into consideration, one might conclude that there may be a realm subject to different laws than those we have deciphered and categorized as physics. obviously the laws of physics have been proven not to work in every field of science. quantum mechanics, which deals with the intensely minute, is a relatively new branch of study that has borne some fascinatingly bizarre results.

therefore, i submit that it is possible that the spiritual realm is merely a place subject to a wholly different set of senses and laws. the angels, demons, and spirits are not necessarily beings of immense power or existence, but rather native inhabitants with potentially better insight into our own physical realm than we have into their spiritual one. a poltergeist, wraith, or ghost may just be a spiritual animal, if you will; nothing but a natural creature that perhaps has no sensory output for sight, touch, etc. except in extreme cases. just as a man born blind has no concept of color, neither do we have a comprehension of what exists in this parallel plane. through magic or spiritual experimentation, perhaps a whole new field of study exists to be explored.

in conclusion, i would ask you to merely consider the implications of my ideas. maybe there are levels exceeding even the spiritual and physical. perhaps there is a third level containing the laws of god, or maybe there are a dozen levels comprising alien livelihoods. just remember, a blind man doesn't see infinite blackness; he sees nothing at all.

[Brihjenne]

What seperates these realms? Is it merely the difference of the vibration of energy or something more complicated?

[seeker]

i don't necessarily think they're separate, except that the beings living in one realm have trouble interacting with the beings on the other. whether it's a different set of natural laws governing or something like you suggest, i don't have any idea. maybe it's something to think on.

[Brihjenne]

I was asking because I have been thinking about that a lot recently. Wondering if it's a completely different underlying realm that some people have opened to themselves or if it is a single plane... the difference I suppose is how we would reach communion with that plane. Either we'd look at reaching it as going through a door or changing the dials on our radios. If they were seperate but parallel there would have to be points of interaction, places where they curve to meet each other. If they are not seperate (and this is the one that seems more correct to me) then we would merely adjust the energy that we produce or are aware of.

I think everything is available to us, but in order to become aware of it we have to attune ourselves to it. We're in tune with the visible world most of the time and sometimes with energies too fine for machinery to detect. We have the best opportunity to experience it all, with our feet firmly planted on the Earth and with our minds and souls permeating and interacting with all that we haven't yet become aware of.

[seeker]

well, i think there are ideas that would support either way. astral projection, for instance, is out-of-body. ESP on the other hand, seems to occur all within the head of the esper. do you think there is more credibility one way or the other?

[abefrohmn]

Interesting analogy about wraiths and such being like animals on another plane. As one who is been either a victim of his own imagination or someone who's been blessed and cursed with an innate ability to percieve things from this realm, I found that very-thought provoking. It may not seem a likely connection, but I highly recomend you read "Being and Time" by Martin Hiedegger. His work influenced greatly my reckoning on ghosts and the paranormal and why some can live in a house and be haunted as hell while others never get a goose-bump risen on their skin (and the answer is not some being "gifted" and others not) The closest I can come to explaining it in a sound byte is who makes "a space" for what. Definitely check it out. Or the begininer's guide, like I did ;-)

[Brihjenne]

Oh I am saying that ESP and astral projection both occur on this same level. Just because your consciousness leaves your body doesn't mean that it isn't still in the physical plane. Energy is physical too. I suppose the distinction is between material and ethereal or spiritual, whatever you want to call it. But in a way it's all physical.

If we are all created from the same energy, vibrating at different rates-- I mean, you look at a rock, and science tells you that an atom is made up of a VERY minute amount of matter and a whole lot of space, you kinda think whoa, this slab of granite is primarily made up of space. Which is sorta cool.

If everything is made up of that same energy, and we all appear to have consciousnesses, does it logically follow that the universal energy has an intelligence too? I've kind of been in this state where I can look at someone and see them as me, just looking at me from another perspective. I have been seeing rocks and trees and animals as all being the same as me, just in a different perspective. We're all "one conciousness, experiencing itself subjectively." One energy. It's all one.

Maybe I am just sleep deprived but I am thinking really that it's one realm. We can't communicate so well with people we can look at because they speak a different language. It's the same way with the other vibrations. I guess a psychic or a sensitive would be people that hear and sometimes understand the other languages coming though.

Sorry, I really need sleep.

--edit--
Oh wait no I don't think one has credibility over the other. Having some experience with both I see them both as perfectly natural and on the same plane as I am... it's like when you are listening to music or drawing or something that gets you out of your usual material frame of mind you become aware of other things that you wouldn't normally have noticed if you were percieving them with a purely material viewpoint.

I read this idea once that I reallly clicked with but I can't remember right now where it is from. Basically it's that we're all a single entity. We condense in some places to material form (bodies) and that is where the individuality is defined. So we really are more than connected, we run into each other sometimes, and maybe the so called spirit realm does the same. Our energies coincide and we become aware of them.

Ok, now I sleep.

[seeker]

i was wondering about the "we are all one mind" concept. being the same energy makes sense, but can you (or anyone) elaborate? i don't even know what philosophy this concept comes from.

as for the idea that wraiths, etc. are spiritual animals, that's an idea i had when i began to think about what the spiritual realm would have to be made up of from a scientific perspective. since i tend to be rather stunted in my ability to feel anything not of the physical world, i can't really use any personal experience to come up with my theories.

which is why i'm intrigued by the comment by brihjenne... you say you have experience with both astral projection and esp. what is the nature of this experience, if you don't mind my asking?

now that i think of it, perhaps the closest thing i have to experience is my often rampant imagination. i guess the fact that i dismiss it as such wouldn't negate any truth of it if it were something more, but i don't know.

for a period of time following (or in the midst of, i suppose) a very deep depression, i began to have conscious visions. at first they were very mild and obviously inspired by my immediate surroundings--my best example of this comes from high school... after dissecting a fetal pig, i went to eat a ham sandwich and in my mind the first bite i took was through the little creature's skull. i began to go into little phase-outs where i'd feel like i was looking through the eyes of other people (these were very vivid experiences and happened almost daily). eventually i could do this at will.

the visions all came crashing down one night when i was stranded for a couple of hours in a bowling alley. i was waiting to meet some folks and i was very depressed. the music began to seep into my head, old love songs that you always hear in horror movies for cheap ambience, and i began to see the musicians themselves, ghosts of typical description. i don't know who the musicians were, so i can't say whether or not they were accurate. but this was only the beginning.

my mind was stirred at this vision/imagining and i began to look around, my head feeling somewhat stuffy and hot. then i began to see the patrons of the room in positions of brutality. first i saw a boy tied to one of the columns by his dripping intestines. i turned and there was a soldier nailed to the ceiling. finally i saw another man laying on one of the tables, his chest cavity ripped open and his arms twisted underneath him. his hands were protruding from the cavity and cupping his beating heart, which was tied to the inside of his body by arteries and veins.

needless to say, i was freaked out. i looked down so that i didn't have to see anymore of them and in my mind, my hands were bloody. i shut my eyes and lay my head down. when the people i was there to meet arrived, it had stopped.

anyway, i believe it was all just rampant imagination fueled by my depression, but who knows? it was a weird time.

[Brihjenne]

Strange. My experience with things-- though it began when I was young-- really took off when I was going through deep depression as well. I started seeing things around me and having the feeling that something was trying to drag me further down. I think part of why this happens is because by then, you are used to thinking about all of these things going on around you, the blood, the violence and mutilation, you're creating those thoughts. Thoughts are energy, and energy always has an effect on the world. When you have a negative reaction to something and think about it a lot, you're making that bigger with your thoughts and perhaps it manifests itself in hallucinatory form.

I've also had the experiences of looking through other people's eyes, and so far the explanation i have come up with is that I decided to have another perspective for awhile.

I would also say though I've had some experience with both leaving the body and esp I haven't been able to get a handle on it consciously. Both have occured when I wasn't really much in my mind, focused elsewhere. I suddenly become aware of going somewhere else thinking that my body is doing it too, except I walk through a wall or door or become aware of what someone around me was thinking. It gets to where sometimes, with people I am talking to and comfortable to some level with, I can tell them what they are going to say. I'm not always aware that it is their thoughts that I am having til either I or they say it. With some people it happens quite often, with others once in awhile.

My cousin is quite adept with telling me what I am thinking. I think if you make an effort to practice these things, especially with people that you know, the ability grows. You become more used to thinking in such a manner and your mind doesn't shut it down with doubts or calling it impossible.

The human will gets in the way a lot. You start thinking you want something to happen and you'll be thinking "i want this" and your thoughts are that you are lacking the experience. The idea of the 'younger self' is that there's a part of you that always says "yes." So you have the thought of missing something, and the younger self is saying "Yes, yes you are missing something." When you are having an experience the younger self is saying "yes, yes we are having this experience" or "yes yes, you are going to have this experience."

I am not quite sure how exactly it happens, but when I am driving somewhere at night, I will look at the streetlights and think that I want them to go off. If I have that thought of wanting them to go off, they never do, but when I remove the wanting from my thoughts, move in to a place where I'm still or see the light in my mind as being off, (the knowing that something just is that way and the younger self saying "yes, yes, that light is off") the lights will go off. I think it all depends on the frame of mind you put yourself in.

Thought is very powerful. Will is very powerful. We have to take care with our intents.

Hah. Sorry this is so long. I was going to say something about the idea of the one mind but I have to go to class. Alas, another time.

[dawn]

it all comes down to perception in and of the basic binary code.
have any of you read the celistine prophecy? damn fine book,it very may well answer your question

[raiSINgirl420]

Originally posted by grrrl
have any of you read the celistine prophecy? damn fine book,it very may well answer your question

have you heard of the parody to this book by an unknow author:
the cellulite prophecy?
i haven't read it but heard if it.
it sorta says the number of people who are conscious of their waistlines reaching critical mass will itself reach a critical mass...until at the end of the twentieth century, we will fill up the earth.

weird.

hehe, just thought i would share