Last week I removed the Geiger Game from the site, in order to collect a weeks worth of “uninfluenced” data. Here is my analysis:

3 May 2008, 00:00 EDT to 10 May 2008, 00:00 EDT

Measurements: 67141
Maximum CPM: 34 on 05/08/08 05:43:33 EDT
Average CPM: 11.575
Median CPM: 11
Mode CPM: 11 (7985 occurrences)

Probability and statistics are a bitch. It’s a fact of life :-P. I plan on writing a tutorial and how to interpret these numbers correctly, but until then, I just wanted to post the table above, and the raw data for others to analyze.

Graph:

Data: Geiger Counter Week-Long Data

Ernesto e-mailed me a question:

“As of now, I have just finished reading your incomplete sequel to your first E-Book. It left me feeling empty as your new website does not talk about all of the “Psi” phenomenon discussed in your first. I wish you could publish a blog in which you finish expressing the ideas of your sequel. Do you still practice Telekinesis and Psi Balls? Do you have any new ideas about how they function with this new broader outlook?”

One reason why I don’t talk about some of my current beliefs is because they sound insane :-P. Part of me would rather quietly hold on to my bizarre beliefs, and work on them in private, than to express them for everyone to read and criticize. Keep in mind that a lot of my friends in real life and co-workers read this blog, and my name is attached to every post, so I feel an increased burden to tone things down :-P.

Another reason I don’t talk about my current understanding is because it’s not clear. I don’t see it clearly in my mind, so I have a hard time explaining it. I’ll start to write a sentence, but it won’t feel correct, so I’ll try again. And again. Ultimately, the problem is that I haven’t “figured it out” in my own head, so I won’t write about it.

But for this post - sure, I’ll give it a shot:

The biggest belief that I struggle with is that it is my understanding that reality is a dream of some sort. And I hate saying that because it’s very cliché, but I’ve yet to find any other explanation for what I’ve observed.

I’ve outlined this belief in past posts: Everything is Meaningful, and I am Probably Insane.

The basic idea is that the things we experience in reality have deeper meaning. Just like in dreams, where certain metaphors drive the experience, these same metaphors are also the driving forces for what we experience in reality.

The reason why I believe this is because I’ve been tracking it in my own life. I have these experiences which are too bizarre to be labeled “coincidence”. I see the metaphors, sometimes while the experience is happening, other times after the fact. I can predict what’s going to happen by looking at what the metaphor requires. A lot of the time I’m correct (though I will be honest, I am not 100% :-P).

Now of course, the same old arguments can be brought up, that I am biased because I’m looking for meaning, or that I’m a sucker, or whatever. Those arguments don’t really bother me, because I know I am very honest with myself, and that no one is more critical of my own thoughts than me. But, from an outsider’s perspective, they do seem like legitimate complaints. One reason I don’t like discussing my beliefs is because I’ll have to argue these worn out positions with people who don’t care as much as I do. I’ve put years of blood sweat and tears into my current beliefs, constantly challenging them from every perspective I can think of, testing reality, forcing myself to drop incorrect beliefs (at the expense of my ego and pride), etc. It’s very frustrating to argue with someone who is just trolling around because they have nothing better to do.

Now, the question that I’ve yet to answer, is how deep do these metaphors go? On the surface, it might seem like I’m just arguing in favor of basic psychology. I’ve observed these metaphors manifesting themselves in reality - not just in my own head - so at a minimum I’m talking about something more than psychology.

Right now I’m divided between three basic explanations:

#1. Reality itself is governed by these metaphors. Reality is a dream. Science is derived from this dream. Examples of this theory are cited in the above links: Everything is Meaningful, and I am Probably Insane.

#2. There is an underlying physical reality that is governed by science, but there is a mental reality governed by these metaphors that co-exists with this physical reality. This would mean that the metaphors are a result of the mind, but that we see manifestations of these metaphors in reality because of large scale unconscious telepathy. I talk about this idea here: Current Understanding of Intention Manifestation.

#3. Something I haven’t thought of.

If explanation #1 is correct, then reality is a free for all. There are no rules. Psionics, and all belief structures, are now easily explained. This sounds a little outlandish, so I tend to side with #2.

If explanation #2 is correct, then there is a very large question. How does this “mental reality” affect the physical reality? In this explanation, macro-psychokinesis is not explained.

Most likely, explanation #3 is correct. But since I’ve yet to think of it, I don’t know how it works :-).

Now, the next question might be: how can we determine which is correct? What would be a wonderful test that would clear a lot of this up?

Well, winning the lottery.

The lottery is void of mind. If this “mental reality” exists, then the lottery would not be a part of it. Therefore, intention manifestation wouldn’t work on the lottery (which is my experience). So, according to my experiences so far, #2 looks like it might be correct.

However, the problem with #2 is the question of macro-psychokinesis - i.e., how does the “mental reality” affect the physical reality? Is the physical reality deterministic? Where does free-will fit into this?

If #2 was completely correct, then you couldn’t use psychic abilities to win the lottery. Yet I have already succeeding in breaking the mathematical odds, and other psychics have won the lottery as well. See: Psychic Wins Lottery, I Won, I Won… Again.

So, #1 doesn’t feel correct, and my experiences back it up because I failed to win the lottery using intention manifestation.

But, #2 is also incorrect to some extent, because I have succeeded a little bit in winning the lottery, and others have done better than I have.

So, in conclusion…

In my last eBook, I talked about belief systems, and how we can succeed with psychic abilities using drastically different belief systems. The question that I had at the end of that eBook was basically: how can that be?

My answer to that question is that reality is some form of dream. I haven’t posted a lot on this subject because a lot of the revelations have been very personal as I inspect the metaphors driving my own life.

The next question is: to what extent do these metaphors affect reality? Either reality is a dream, and physical reality is derived from that dream (#1), OR there is a physical reality, and a mental reality, each governed by different rules (#2).

Judging from my experiences, and my intuition, I believe that #2 is probably more correct. However, then the question becomes: how is macro-psychokinesis possible? I.e., how does the mental reality affect the physical reality?

At that point, a good test is to attempt to win the lottery (something completely physical), using mental means (psychic abilities). This will get me lots of money, play into my own life metaphor, and help answer these glaring questions about how reality works.

Any questions?

Recently I got into an argument about whether out of body experiences were real or not.  Whenever I get into such an argument, I always force myself to be as scientific and logical as possible.  This usually pisses skeptics off, because they are used to being the scientific guy, and the other person being the religious nut job.

I insisted that scientific evidence - if studied without bias - actually supports the theory that OBEs are real.  The skeptic was quick to jump on that claim.  He stated that OBEs (and their close cousin, near death experiences) were nothing more than a brain going crazy from the chemistry.  He presented me with recent scientific studies and articles as proof:

1. Scientists Induce OBEs in the Lab - A scientist used virtual reality goggles to trick the brain into thinking it was out of body.

2. Extreme Gravity Triggers OBEs/NDEs - A report stating that extreme G-Forces will induce an OBE because of the lack of blood flowing to the brain.

3. People have NDEs While Brain Dead

Seems a little daunting at first - I mean, how could I call myself a scientific guy, when there is scientific evidence that OBEs/NDEs aren’t real?

It turns out it was pretty easy:

1. Did the scientists really induce an OBE? No. The virtual reality goggles gave a creepy illusion of being out of body, but the OBE state of mind wasn’t actually induced. It’s an optical illusion. Just because you can fake it, doesn’t mean that the original isn’t real. I can create a fake video of me walking - that doesn’t mean I can’t walk.

2. All the report states is that lack of blood flowing to the brain can induce a near death experience. Well, that doesn’t really say either way whether the experience is real or not. It just says that when you do things that might kill you, you might have a near death experience. Which is actually pretty obvious :-P. I can induce a gun shot wound by shooting someone in the leg. Does that mean gun shot wounds aren’t real? Of course not.

3. The third piece of evidence was the best. How many of you read the page? Probably not that many. It turns out that article is in favor of NDEs being real. The person I was arguing against only read the title. I read the article.

I want to point out two things: 1. I am right about the evidence supporting OBEs being real.  I may make a separate post with a list of evidence in the future.  But more importantly, 2. skeptics are full of shit.

Skeptics hide behind citing work, and long articles, and scientific studies - but they can only get away with it because it’s very rare for them to actually be challenged.  It’s a game of intimidation - not one of pursuing truth.  The strategy is simple: argue the skeptical position, and when someone challenges you, just google the topic and paste a bunch of links to scientific documents.  No real effort required, and you look smart in the process, and feel good about bitch slapping some “moron”.

And for the most part, science has figured a lot of stuff out, so this strategy actually works really well.  For example, if you were to get in an argument about evolution vs. creationism, you could just google it, and find enough links on the internet that supports evolution, and throw them in the religious guys face.  You win.

But the reality of the situation is that science hasn’t figured everything out.  And when it comes to the subject of parapsychology, they are light years behind.

The down side to this is that you have to know your stuff if you want to challenge a skeptic.  The skeptic won’t put in the effort, so if you want to sound credible, you have to put in the effort for both of you.  It is an uphill battle, and I’ve yet to see a skeptic change their mind, but it’s an important battle because it teaches us that science is far from perfect, and suffers from the same fundamentalism as any other system of beliefs.

AndPious sent me the following link: http://www.haloorbital.com/.

The story goes that the owner of the site, Stan Deyo, has created a propulsion vehicle that basically functions like the sci-fi UFOs.  Apparently his site will open in 2008, which is just around the corner.

Now, of course we’ve seen things like this in the past.  Steorn immediately comes to mind.  I would love for it to be true, but part of me just says: I’ll believe it when I see it.  Nonetheless, my curiosity is certainly piqued :-).  I’ll be checking out the site regularly until 2008, to see the status.  If I notice anything significant, ALW will be the first to know.

Oh goodie!

I took a month off from the lottery, due to the low jackpot amounts over the course of October.  And it couldn’t have come at a better time - October has been especially stressful for me for many reasons.  Changing jobs, changing shifts, changing apartments, and in general just changing my whole day-to-day activities.  But that stress is finally equalizing itself, and life is starting to get back into a pattern, so I’m free to experiment with more fun ideas on reality.  And it just so happens that the lottery jackpot has gotten within my acceptable range :-).

I played on Friday, but didn’t get any numbers, unfortunately.  But that’s ok.

I’ve come to accept that I’ve failed over the summer (in terms of the lottery).  If you remember… the lottery motivated me to start living my ideal life right now (instead of waiting around for a huge jackpot).  That meant learning more about music, exercising and eating healthy, investing, and thinking about tough subjects like value, choice, faith, etc.  So the lottery was a success in terms of motivation and life-stuff, but the act of winning was a failure.  I didn’t win the jackpot.

However, I now think that it was better that way.  I’ve come to reject the ideas of personal development and intention manifestation.  And I think that it’s important to reject those ideas.  They served me well for quite a while, but now it’s time to move on.  Had I won the lottery in the summer, it would have validated the ideas of personal development and intention manifestation… which would have been incorrect, and messed with my head.  So it’s better this way.  Or at least - that’s how I currently rationalize my failure at the moment ;-).

Now that I have finished my rejection, I feel more free to win the lottery without all the intellectual baggage associated with it.  During the summer, success of the lottery project was directly linked to correctness of my belief structure.  That’s a wonderful way to inject emotional stress into a situation :-).  However, now I feel like my success with the lottery is independent of my beliefs.  So I can relax.  I feel more playful and curious, as opposed to forceful and frustrated :-P.

We’ll see how long this lasts ;-P.

Either way, I want to do more experiments, and gather actual EVIDENCE to figure out how I can pull off this win.  I most definitely believe it’s possible and plausible to win the jackpot.  I stand by my rejection of modern statistics and probability, and my rejection of randomness.  That’s sound logic right there - and the evidence supports it.  Now I just need to keep reminding myself to focus on the evidence, and not any willy nilly emotion or philosophical idea that flutters across my creative mind.

Hurray :-).

Science is great.  And I’m not just saying that.

I used to consider myself very scientific… but really I never understood why science was correct.  I just knew that it was suppose to be the best system of discovery, so I should trust it.  It came down to trust.

When I discovered that psychic abilities were actually real, I felt like my trust was betrayed.  I felt like science had led me down a faulty path, and that path had turned out to be incorrect.  Science had failed me.  My trust was broken.  So I started to look towards other things to trust in.

Nothing really grabbed my eye, though I did try a lot of belief structures over the years.  I would always end up rejecting it because it wasn’t scientific enough :-).  Eventually I did settle somewhat on the idea of personal development.  It was scientific to a point, but there was a lot of intuition and psychic ideas in it as well.  Sounds perfect :-).

But lately, I’ve come to discover that the personal development mentality is flawed as well.  The flaws are very clever and creative, and very hard to detect.  Ideas like meta-beliefs can really screw your mind over… Intention manifestation is a very clever idea as well.  Ultimately, I do not believe in intention manifestation, and the things that are incorrect with the intention manifestation model can be detected by being scientific.

Which is why I feel that science is the best method for discovery.  At this point, it doesn’t feel like before - I don’t feel like I “trust” science, instead I feel like I’ve derived the scientific method by trial and error.  Every other belief system I’ve tried out has failed because there are gaping holes that are easily prevented using logic, reason, experimentation, and evidence.

I can disprove intention manifestation pretty quickly.  Let’s make an experiment.  Intend to win the lottery for a month straight.  And if you win, then intention manifestation has some evidence to support it.  And if you fail, then intention manifestation has some evidence to disprove it.

It just so happens I did that exact experiment :-).  I believed 100%.  I visualized.  I intended.  I put my heart into it.  I got my emotions going.  I did this religiously for a month.  And I got zero results.

Now before everyone flips a lid, let me make something clear: there is evidence that the process of intention manifestation actually does affect reality.  I’ve seen it with my own eyes, with different intentions.  However!  It is NOT as simple as “placing your order” with the universe.  The universe is not a genie.  Or at least - that’s not what the evidence suggests.

In the future I may delve further into the raw evidence, and look for alternate explanations.  However, the point of this post is to express the simple point of view that: science produces the most accurate observations about reality.

Period.

The best way to learn about reality is to actually play around with reality and see what happens.  I know this seems obvious.  But that’s not what a lot of us do.  A lot of us form our opinion of how reality should function - and then we play around with reality until we notice the results that confirm our opinion.

Or we play around with reality until we form an opinion on something… then we only do things to confirm our premature assumptions.  There is actually an amazing idea in psychology that looks into this phenomenon - it’s called confirmation bias.  I recommend reading about the experiments they did to observe this phenomenon - it’s very interesting.

-

It’s hard for me to express why science is important while in the same breath say that psychic abilities and intention manifestation do produce results.  But here I am :-P.

I think it’s important to separate skepticism from science.  The scientific method says nothing about skepticism.  The scientific method can be executed by a computer program.  But in the real world, we are humans, with emotions and opinions - and it’s very very hard to remain objective and judge the outcome of something fairly.  Especially once we start investing a lot of emotional energy into one outcome or another.  The skeptical person usually displays a heavy emotional tendency towards evading admittance of ignorance, among other obsessions.  But hey - no ones perfect :-P.

The scientific method - the idea that we need to objectively play around with reality to understand reality - and that we need to constantly change and evolve our understanding fairly and without bias - is a beautiful goal.  It might be impossible to be 100% scientific, but putting our focus on evidence, experimentation, playfulness, and objectivity (even if objectivity is inherently impossible), is the most rewarding belief structure for learning about reality.

I have to pass this link along… it’s totally sweet.

It seems the Berkeley, the University of California, is posting lectures on YouTube. Full lessons, ranging from biology, physics, and search engine technology. Right now I’m watching the quantum physics series. The link is here:

http://www.youtube.com/user/ucberkeley

Here’s one of the 200+ videos on their directory:

Enjoy, science nerds!

In light of dealing with skeptics on ld4all.com’s message boards, I will offer multiple ways to prove psychic abilities are real. There are two main paths: do the research, or experience the phenomenon. Feel free to do both at the same time for double the proof.

Do the Research

Here are some links that JoeT provided (I hope he doesn’t mind I ripped them off from him):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology
http://www.parapsychology.org/
http://www.parapsychologydegrees.com/
http://www.rhine.org/
http://perso.orange.fr/basuyaux/parapsy_eng/links/
http://www.biomindsuperpowers.com/
http://www.espresearch.com/
http://www.parapsych.org/
http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/
http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0003044

Here are some links of my own that I’ve enjoyed:

http://www.ions.org/
http://www.lfr.org/LFR/csl/
http://www.dina.kvl.dk/~abraham/psy1.html
http://www.fmbr.org/
http://www.psywww.com/asc/obe/missz.html

Here are some books:

Out-of-Body Experiences - A Handbook, by Janet Lee Mitchell, Ph.D.
Remote Viewing Secrets - A Handbook, by Joseph McMoneagle
Journeys Out of the Body, by Robert Monroe
Altered States of Consciousness, by Charles T. Tart
The Invention of Telepathy, by Roger Luckhurst
Experimental Telepathy, by Rene Warcollier
Telepathy and Clairvoyance, by Rudolf Tischner

The links and books above give more than enough proof. How many of you searching for proof will actually read any of it though? The information is usually pretty dry, I admit. Nonetheless, if you really want that scientific proof - there you go. It’s all at your fingertips. The only thing holding you back is your ability to read.

Experience the Phenomenon

The path that I personally enjoy is to experience the phenomenon directly. You can’t really argue with personal experience! Oh sure, after you have a bunch of weird experiences, people will look at you differently. Some will call you crazy, and tell you what you experienced was simply impossible. Some will treat you like a circus animal, asking you to perform on cue for their personal amusement. Some will say you’re a liar, and that you’re trying to deceive people for profit. But hey - if you really want that proof - you’ll need to make some sacrifices.

Here are some links with “How-To” information:

http://psipog.net/articles.html (I like this one, personally)
http://www.psipalatium.com/
http://www.psc-online.org/sections/view.php?id=9
http://www.upconline.net/articles.php
http://zhkyrl.brinkster.net/psionline/allarticles.html
http://www.psipog.net/activepsy/contents.html (This is where I started)
http://www.fork-you.com/
http://www.crvmanual.com/
http://www.robertpeterson.org/obebook.html
http://www.firedocs.com/
http://alittleweird.com/2007/05/11/how-to-receive-anything/
http://alittleweird.com/2007/07/04/how-to-leave-your-body/

Here are some books with “How-To” information:

You Are Psychic!, by Pete A. Sanders
Astral Dynamics, by Robert Bruce
Astral Travel for Beginners, by Richard Webster
Out of Body Exploring, by Preston Dennett
Psychic Development for Beginners, by William W. Hewitt
Develop Your Psychic Skills, by Enid Hoffman
Kundalini Awakening, by John Selby and Zachary Zelig

Conclusion

There you go. There’s your proof. Everything you need - right there. A lot of the information is free on the web. Purchasing books does cost some money, but surely it’s not that much. Maybe $10 per book. If you’re going to invest in only one book, my personal favorite is You Are Psychic!, by Pete A. Sanders. It gives a lot of great exercises to try and has a nice explanation for how psychic phenomenon might work.

It’s really not that hard to prove psychic abilities are real. The actual work involved isn’t that much. Mainly it consists of reading. If you decide to try some exercises, they aren’t difficult either. What usually happens is that people refuse to do the research because they’re lazy, or they refuse to try an exercise because they feel silly. Then they proclaim that psychic abilities can’t exist because they’ve never seen proof. Well no duh.

One last thing: This is by no means an exhaustive list. Use Google. Search. Go to a library. Actually GO TO A LIBRARY. I spent countless hours at the University of Georgia’s library, reading random books on psi research. The main keywords to look for are “telepathy”, “clairvoyance”, “esp”, and “psychokinesis”. Searching for other terms doesn’t usually produce results.

That’s it.

Today I present two short posts in one:

The first thing to note is that I just had an out-of-arm-experience.  I have these every once in a while.  Someone called me at 9:45am speaking Spanish that woke me up.  I went back to bed in a weird state of mind.  I did dream some, but I also experienced laying in bed messing around with my arms.

The experience went on and off for about 20 minutes.  I was laying in bed, looking at my wall, and my arms were “out” of my body.  I couldn’t see them, but I could sense where they were.  I moved them in front of my face, trying to see them, but no luck.  I felt my face with my hands, and my hands felt my face, but my face didn’t feel my hands.  It was pretty cool.  I had an experience like it before, years ago when I was 16 years old.

I almost decided not to post about it, because it was a mundane experience, but there was one important feature.  On my wall, I have playing cards taped to it for decoration.  While having these out of arm experiences, I focused on one of the playing cards to keep my consciousness aware.  When I woke up, it dawned on me that I should check that specific card to see if I perceived it correctly.  While in the bathroom, I predicted the card would be dark with two symbols on the front.  When I checked, I was correct - it was exactly as I remembered it.  This isn’t die-hard proof of anything, however it is an interesting thing to note.

In other news… Steorn, the guys who claim to have discovered perpetual motion, had a public demonstration July 6th, 2007.  Unfortunately, they couldn’t get their technology to work.  Here is a video of Sean McCarthy making excuses.  I didn’t watch the whole thing because of the bad quality and length, but maybe someone else is interested:

I’ve been posting a lot lately, because the comments from the previous posts engage my mind :-). If you haven’t visited the blog in a few days, be sure to check out the previous posts. I’m moving somewhat fast.

Why do we love this idea of randomness? Why are we attached to it?

I was sitting and thinking about this question, and the solution popped into my head. In hindsight, it’s actually pretty obvious, and it’s spelled out very clearly in the movie “The Secret” (which I’ve seen a few times, Joe :-P). The way the solution popped into my head is pretty funny though… I was getting bored with the question of why people love randomness (because I couldn’t answer it), so I decided to start an entirely new and unrelated line of questioning. I asked myself what my most offensive belief was. I answered that karma and cause and effect is a pretty offensive belief. Then the solution to my previous question about randomness hit me.

The reason we love this idea of randomness is because we use it 99% of the time when something bad happens.

One of the biggest problems in all religions is answering the question of: why do bad things happen to good people? This is a very hard question. Small bad things can be reasoned away, but then you see extremely bad things, like child molestation, rape, or natural disasters that kill millions of people… and in religion, people are forced to ask themselves: if God is a good God, then why would he allow this to happen? Big problem for religion.

What do we do? I believe that while we all have our own religious beliefs, and we all will answer why bad things happen to good people differently - I believe that in our hearts, most of us will rely on this idea of randomness. Some of the really bad things in this world don’t have a good explanation, no matter how much faith we have. So at some point, in our conscious or subconscious mind, we latch onto the idea that sometimes random shit happens.

But now look at what we’ve done. We’ve attached the idea that randomness exists to the most emotionally charged experiences we can think of. That means we really need this idea of randomness. If randomness were to leave the picture, then we would have to deal with all these highly emotional issues again. Our subconscious mind does not want this.

For example, when I was a little kid, my aunt died from cancer. I think she was in her 30’s. I must have been 8 years old, and at such a young age, I had to deal with this extremely emotional situation. I barely understand death as it is, and now my aunt is gone. I ask my parents why she died, but they can’t give a solid explanation. Maybe I hear that it was “her time”, and that “God decided to take her”. Those are great ideas… but what sinks into the subconscious mind? What is the belief I form in my heart?

Probably that random shit happens. Now I’m 24, and I’m challenging this belief. Which means I have to re-live my aunt’s death, and try to make sense of it again. I also have to re-live everything else where I’ve used randomness as the explanation. Talk about exhausting!

I think we all latch onto this idea of randomness because we’ve all had bad experiences. No one lives a perfect life. Everyone has family members who have died, or friends, or teachers. My 6th grade teacher died when I was 13 years old - he was a volunteer firefighter, and was responding to a call, and a tree fell on his car with him in it. How do I explain that to myself? It seems the only way I can live in peace is to use this idea of randomness.

If you don’t like my theories on randomness, or even if you do, I submit to you an exercise: ask yourself, “What would it mean, emotionally, if randomness didn’t exist?” - you can start by finishing this sentence: “If randomness didn’t exist, then _______”. Don’t give a one sentence answer either :-P. Chances are that blank should be a few pages long. (No need to post your response in the comments :-P).