I'm very confused.  I'm 20 years old.  About 1 or 2 years ago I became extremely uncertain about the existence of god, religion, and honestly anything supernatural that couldn't be explained scientifically or make even a small amount of sense.  I've never witnessed anything supernatural as far as I'm aware.  I'm not closed off to the existence of supernatural stuff, I'm open to the possibility of anything really.  But I have not had a reason to believe. 

I don't understand why so many people seem convinced ghosts, demons, and supernatural events are real, but yet most of the scientific community is extremely skeptical of it. 
Why is it that with the widespread usage of smart phones and cameras that little to no CREDIBLE evidence has appeared?  Everything (as far as I've researched) is questionable at best. 

I don't want to do something crazy like use a ouija board and ask a demon or spirit to show itself, because if I'm wrong....well that wouldn't be very fun.  I did attempt to record some evp's a few hours ago.  Just asked the basic "is anyone there?"    "What's your name?" Etc.  I got zero responses, increasing my skepticism towards all of this stuff. 

Being a scientific and logical minded person, I've noticed a pattern that I'm certain is very well known.  Entities need energy.  That appears to abide by the laws of physics.  What if these "entities" are not supernatural beings, but natural beings that can somehow interact with our world in ways we have yet to understand? 

I see that some people actually hunt demons on this site.  I first came to this site about a year or two ago, and I thought most of you were crazy.  But I've since changed my mind.  I just don't know what is the truth.  That's what I'm seeking. 

I just don't know what is the truth.  That's what I'm seeking.

Seeking "the truth" is easy.


In the movie Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade, the character of Dr. Jones sums this up nicely:

Archaeology is the search for "fact"...not "truth". If it's truth you're interested in, Dr. Tyree's philosophy class is right down the hall. So forget any ideas you've got about lost cities, exotic travel, and digging up the world. We do not follow maps to buried treasure, and "X" never, ever, marks the spot. Seventy percent of all archaeology is done in the library. Research. Reading. We cannot afford to take mythology at face value.

"Fact" is something that exists or is present in reality, and can be demonstrated to be so. "Truth" is what a person believes. If you believe that something is true, then it is true.

In 1997, Michael Shermer, one of the founders of Skeptic Magazine, wrote about how the "Unexplained Is Not Inexplicable":

Many people are overconfident enough to think that if they cannot explain something, it must be inexplicable and therefore a true mystery of the paranormal. An amateur archeologist declares that because he cannot figure out how the pyramids were built, they must have been constructed by space aliens. Even those who are more reasonable at least think that if the experts cannot explain something, it must be inexplicable. Feats such as the bending of spoons, firewalking, or mental telepathy are often thought to be of a paranormal or mystical nature because most people cannot explain them. When they are explained, most people respond, "Yes, of course" or "That's obvious once you see it." Firewalking is a case in point. People speculate endlessly about supernatural powers over pain and heat, or mysterious brain chemicals that block the pain and prevent burning. The simple explanation is that the capacity of light and fluffy coals to contain heat is very low, and the conductivity of heat from the light and fluffy coals to your feet is very poor. As long as you don't stand around on the coals, you will not get burned. (Think of a cake in a 450°F oven. The air, the cake, and the pan are all at 450°F, but only the metal pan will burn your hand. It has a high heat capacity and high conductivity, while air and cake are light and fluffy and have a low heat capacity and low conductivity.) This is why magicians do not tell their secrets. Most of their tricks are extremely simple and knowing the secret takes the magic out of the trick.

There are many genuine unsolved mysteries in the universe and it is okay to say, "We do not yet know but someday perhaps we will." The problem is that most of us find it more comforting to have certainty, even if it is premature, than to live with unsolved or unexplained mysteries.

Entities need energy

What entities? What energy?

I first came to this site about a year or two ago, and I thought most of you were crazy

They are.

About 1 or 2 years ago I became extremely uncertain about the existence of god, religion, and honestly anything supernatural that couldn't be explained scientifically or make even a small amount of sense.

Shermer again: "I am often asked by believers why I abandoned Christianity and how I found meaning in the apparently meaningless universe presented by science. The implication is that the scientific world-view is an existentially depressing one. Without God, I am bluntly told, what's the point? If this is all there is, there is no use. To the contrary. For me quite the opposite is true. The conjuncture of losing my religion, finding science, and discovering glorious contingency was remarkably empowering and liberating. It gave me a sense of joy and freedom. Freedom to think for myself. Freedom to take responsibility for my own actions. Freedom to construct my own meanings and my own destinies. With the knowledge that this may be all there is, and that I can trigger my own cascading changes, I was free to live life to its fullest.

This is not to say that those who are religious cannot share in these freedoms. But for me, and not just for me, a world absent monsters, ghosts, demons, and gods unfetters the mind to soar to new heights, to think unthinkable thoughts, to imagine the unimaginable, to contemplate infinity and eternity knowing that no one is looking back. The universe takes on a whole new meaning when you know that your place in it was not foreordained, that it was not designed for us, indeed, that it was not designed at all. If we are nothing more than star stuff and bio mass, how special life becomes. If the tape were played again and again without the appearance of our species, how extraordinary becomes our existence, and, correspondingly, how cherished. To share in the sublimity of knowledge generated by other human minds, and perhaps even to make a tiny contribution toward that body of knowledge that will be passed down through the ages, part of the cumulative wisdom of a single species on a tiny planet orbiting an ordinary star on the remote edge of a not-so-unusual galaxy, itself a member of a cluster of galaxies millions of light years from nowhere, is sublime beyond words."

Poetry.

[jordyn]

If there was never an appearance of our species, would anyone really know how it'd be?

"Entities need energy.  That appears to abide by the laws of physics.  What if these "entities" are not supernatural beings, but natural beings that can somehow interact with our world in ways we have yet to understand? "

We're sort of like demons, monsters, ghosts and all the other plagues of rational men everywhere...we only exist because we believe we exist, there are only laws because we insist on certain behaviors as a collective, we know there's gravity because we experience it. most of this comes down to personal philosophy derived from personal experiences and where a person's faith lays through those experiences. How many things once thought magic were explained by science, i tend to agree with this ideal.

I prefer my world to have both magic and beauty in it...the tangible world and my spiritual soul allows me to enjoy the luxury of both, while learning from the misery of their flipsides. I see the splendor of the universe and love the intricate beauty of how it's all woven so finely that one missing element and none of it'll exist. There will always be things science can't explain, that's where dreams and imagination become an important aspect of our nature and allowed us to become the dominate creatures of this world.

Thinking by your feelings is the first step, if you've been off the radar so far...staying there is a good idea, sounds like you've got the hard part figured out. 

[FlamE]

Thinking by your feelings is the first step

Your feelings are generated by your brain through certain chemicals. Thinking is also a process in your level of consciousness done by your brain. Therefor, you cannot 'think by your feelings'. Your brain is the only thing you can think,feel,sense with.

[jordyn]

Apparantly intuition and spontaneous inspirations are foreign ideals to you.

*let me elaborate...You sense or feel something odd, you think about what and why your feeling that, your brain processes it against already established knowledges, your body receives the message and then the body and mind react in unison to the situation and viola...a human feeling put into thought and then manifested accordingly by the person processing the sensation.

Should we get into the neurology of faith and belief?

Jake:

In response to what you said about seeking the "truth" - You may have misinterpreted me.  I was just seeking the truth to the answer of one question.  "Do demons, ghosts, and other supernatural occurrences exist?".  I was hoping for a yes or no, along with a short explanation.  In response to your analogy about archaeology, I am interested in having one of the "30%" experiences.  I've done my share of research.  It's not like I have a decades worth or anything though.  I've been interested my entire life.  But only interested.  I didn't put what I would consider "research" in until I was like 16, ever since then it's been a casual hobby to google anything i could think of that was supernatural related.  it's picked up recently, as in the past month, where a significant portion of my free time (although, not all of it ) is spent researching subjective experiences, possible scientific explanations, etc.  I've also watched my fair share of ghost hunter documentaries, but the majority of my knowledge is from google searches.  The end result is, I'm left very confused.  With Ouija boards, on one hand, you have all the die hard skeptics claiming its all nonsense along with most if not everything else supernatural.  And then on the other, you have a lot of people who are religious saying to NOT mess with them.  Even two close friends of mine warned me and insisted that I not do it because they feared for my safety.  and tthey seemed genuinely scared for my well being.  If advice comes from a random stranger from the internet, there's a significant possibility they're doing it just to scare you or prank you.  But when a close friend advises me the same thing, it holds a lot more weight to it. 

I neither believe nor disbelieve in supernatural things.  I'm open to anything.  I just think that the majority of people have low standards for "proof".  An older lady at my work was explaining to me that science can't explain the miracle of birth.  I told her that it was actually pretty well documented on how people get pregnant, kindly of course.  I then proceeded to explain the sperm and the egg, etc, and asked her if it made sense and she said it didn't and that it could only be god.  We then drifted topics over to how the universe was created, she said it had to start somewhere.  I then proposed, by that logic, where did god come from?  She said he was always there.  I told her, by that reasoning, why can't the universe have always been there? and she replied that it must have started somewhere but she couldn't understand that i was using her own argument against her.  I meet people like this very often, and I'm as polite as possible because I hate offending people and their beliefs so I'm super cautious with my tone and how i word it as to not offend them.  After our talk, she gave me a bible pamplet

I want the "facts", as you call them.  I have found zero traces of any conclusive evidence that points to the existence of anything supernatural throughout all my research.  Most of the evidence I've found is anecdotal evidence, which is a notoriously poor way of proposing evidence for the existence of something, unless of course you're the one experiencing the anecdotal evidence yourself.  I, for one, have not.  I've had a few questionable strange experiences, but it's possible i could have missed something that would explain it.  I have never seen anything like a supernatural being as far as I'm aware.  No moving shadows in the night, nothing pulling me out of my bed, no voices in my room, not anything really.  If you have any evidence to show me, please point me in the right direction. 

"Entities need energy" I said this based off of the widespread belief (as far as I can tell at least, feel free to disagree) that in order for a spirit or demon or (insert name here) to manifest, it must obtain energy from something.   A small fraction of electricity could theortically be safely drawn from a person, that amount is about 80 watts of electricity per hour by a sleeping person, more if the person is active and awake.  Some people have said they experienced nausea from a ghostly encounter.  I propose two ideas (assuming demons/ghosts are real), the nausea is either from the shock and fear of what they encountered, or the entity needed a considerable amount of energy (enough for the person to get sick and nauseous) to manifest or throw objects or whatever it wanted to do.  Im leaning towards the first one being true, because I'm leaning towards ghosts and demons not existing and are simply a figment of the imagination of the general public.  Also, a friend of mine named Shea, she said she visited a house with some devil worshipping books as part of her community work with the Salvation Army, they were fixing up a house or something.  The leader of their group came in the room and caught her taking a few peeks at the devil book, and he took it away from her and said its dangerous.  So she went about her business that day and at the very end of the day, when she went out to her car in the parking lot she turned on her car, it cranked up just fine and everything.  But after a few seconds she said the lights got really dim (but not dead) and she looked in the rear view mirror and she said she saw a thing with a black skeleton-like muscular dried out body with black pits of darkness for eyes looking at her.  She said she bolted out of the car.   Key point is, the "entity" in her situation, required the energy of the vehicle to manifest in a physical form to present itself to her.  She thinks the demon followed her that whole day all the way to her car, all because she flipped through a few pages in a devil worshipping book.  I, personally, don't know what she saw.  She seemed genuine in what she described, and I see no incentive for her to fool me.  She's not a prankster.

In response to you saying everybody was crazy.  I couldn't tell if that was sarcasm, or you being serious.  Do you think demons and ghosts and other supernatural entities exist?  Examples such as a demon shadow flying across your ceiling at night, demonic whispers at night, cold hands grabbing you violently at night, etc.  All the classic "haunted" stuff, do you believe that stuff is real or all fake?



Jordyn:

"Thinking by your feelings is the first step, if you've been off the radar so far...staying there is a good idea, sounds like you've got the hard part figured out"

I've been off the radar so far, what do you mean by this?  Us speaking about the paranormal and supernatural, the first thing that comes to mind is that you're warning me to remain hidden from these things and generally mind my own business.  Or do you mean something else entirely?  An explanation would be appreciated.  Also, what did you mean by saying I have the hard parts figured out?  Please be detailed. 

[jordyn]

"I've been off the radar so far, what do you mean by this?  Us speaking about the paranormal and supernatural, the first thing that comes to mind is that you're warning me to remain hidden from these things and generally mind my own business.  Or do you mean something else entirely?  An explanation would be appreciated.  Also, what did you mean by saying I have the hard parts figured out?  Please be detailed. "

That's exactly what i'm saying, you're sort of going in reverse of most people, most seem to come across it and when it's a persistant pain in their life they come asking about it, you've got the upper hand looking into them before they look into you.  It's not so much minding your own business, just not going the route of many others that come here in a panic because they're having night terrors, seeing things, friends and family being tortured and fail to accept that dabbling in the occult is what got them there and thinking that route will get them out.

you can believe it or not, i do and i've experienced what they can do to a person, a few still on this board know my story and a search of my threads from the beginning can show the change as i denied them and accepted a healthier interest for my over abundant energy/spiritual attraction.  I'm all about knowledge, just not empowering what you seek, to seek you out.

the hard part is realizing they're constructs of our minds, your doubt about them i'm sure helps and keeping that doubt will assist if you're sincerely interested in finding out for yoursel then more power to you, just don't let them suck you in...there's something out there but no one knows what and it can affect people, even those who don't believe, there's always someone in your life that does.

"Speak of the devil and he'll appear", "be careful what you wish for" and a few other proverbs come to mind when people decide to pursue this curiousity.

you're suspicious, most people pursuing these interests aren't and that's why i stated you have the hard part figured out.

Jordyn

Thank you for your response, it was very detailed and informative.  A few things come to mind though. 

I don't understand how I have some kind of advantage or "upper hand" simply because i have the opportunity to look into them, vs them looking into me first.  I guess I'm asking, what difference would it make? 

In one sentence you said "you can believe it or not, i do and i've experienced what they can do to a person", but in the next paragraph you said "the hard part is realizing they're constructs of our minds".  This seems contradictory.  Is it all in someone's mind?  Is it merely the psychological effect that an eerie environment has on people?  (cemeteries, haunted houses, etc.) 

Also, how would my doubt benefit me?  If I had to guess, I would say it keeps me from jumping to conclusions and assuming that literally every sound I heard at night simply HAD to be of demonic origins.  But that's required in every aspect of science.  You look at all the logical and more likely possibilities, than resorting to "oh it HAD to be demons".  For me, I would have to witness something pretty compelling to become a believer.  I've already said the examples, stuff like seeing a definitive black shadow with red eyes moving across the ceiling would be convincing.  So would a black skeletal figure with red eyes that was breathing fire out its nose, that would also be hard to "explain away". 

The proverbs you referenced, could it be that simply talking about it just puts you on edge and makes you jumpy and start seeing things in the corner of your eye? 

I will go look at some of your first few topics and posts.  EDIT:  Went through about the first 10 pages of your posts, you seemed to believe that all this stuff was real back then.  You speak about certain archetypes, and spells you performed, etc. 

[jordyn]

In one sentence you said "you can believe it or not, i do and i've experienced what they can do to a person", but in the next paragraph you said "the hard part is realizing they're constructs of our minds".  This seems contradictory.  Is it all in someone's mind?  Is it merely the psychological effect that an eerie environment has on people?  (cemeteries, haunted houses, etc.) 

I've had many discussions about eregores and such archetypes. It goes back to the source of the human mind, it's id power that discovered fire in caves, had more time to dream and dreamt of gods.  The human mind is capable of producing and even influencing events based on it's visualisation power, generates an energy that can sync with like energies, in it's simpliest description, pure thought manifested by human desire.

We hear a bump in the night, our mind generates energy figuring it out, without an obvious answer the mind takes over, a similiar energy latches on, reaches in through the subconscious mind and the symbiotic relationship of energy begans.  How long have humans been interacting with the natural world and what's the first thing they scriblled on cave walls?  So many dreams, thoughts, cultures, myths, stories and evolution of the mind and knowledge to have shaped energies that go back to knocking three times on wood(to wake the wood spirits for their assistance)to the now growing technomages, manipulating technology based energy to have it do things they want it to...it gets a little too sifi for my thoughts at this point, but more occult based sites have a few that talk about it, gremlins would be their demons.

it benefits you because it shows you don't have a lot of energies around you, if the energy theory is acurate then the more chaos you have to your energy, the more chaos is attracted to you, you have dark thoughts, dark things are attracted, you have happy thoughts...well, that's my personal life and why i do go with the energy flow idea, I'm just tuned into a more from the earth based energy, connected with a greater cosmic energy that's interwoven through all living things. Spirits are basically the same, just not confined to flesh and the physical world...but now we're getting into afterlife discussions and that's a whole different debate, however it also comes down to some  cosmic energy ebb and flow.

In one sentence you said "you can believe it or not, i do and i've experienced what they can do to a person", but in the next paragraph you said "the hard part is realizing they're constructs of our minds".  This seems contradictory.  Is it all in someone's mind?  Is it merely the psychological effect that an eerie environment has on people?  (cemeteries, haunted houses, etc.) 

that would depend on the mind perceiving it, how it processes it and what state it was in, i no longer see such things so i go with mind over matter.

I will go look at some of your first few topics and posts.  EDIT:  Went through about the first 10 pages of your posts, you seemed to believe that all this stuff was real back then.  You speak about certain archetypes, and spells you performed, etc. 

Just using my mind to manifest and manipulate energies that were present in my life whether from nature, spiritual that formed according to my expectation, or...lord only knows what energies i eventually was dealing with, however i shifted my energy needs and discovered more beneficial energies to exist with.  I don't not believe in demons, devils and other evils in the night, i just acknowledge what they are and realized my human mind by all accounts is more powerful than most people want to believe, we literally take other energies and manifest them, some have been manifested thousands of years before any of out were born and are free of any master, that's where the "wicked ones" come from, those ancient thoughts free from human constructs and have become their own, intelligent entities.  Ghosts are human energies trapped in the physical world without a body to interact with it, etc...it can go on and on down to the energy a simple rock on a river shore can have.

i just don't like telling people what to believe, in the end it really has no affect on my life and for any claims some may make, nothing can affect my energy, unless I let it. The human mind has always been my favorite feature of humanity though, so little is still known about it. 

Do you agree with the statement that everything in the universe has a logical and scientific explanation to it?  It's a statement that I believe, many scientists believe, and even more world renowned people such as Carl Sagan believe. 

I do not require "proof" to believe something.  I require credible evidence to decide whether I want to believe a claim someone makes.  It is what any sane, rational minded person would want.  It is how science works, and it has benefited mankind greatly.  No one can assert that they have reliable evidence that prayers, incantations, or spells actually work.  That is not to say that they do not work, it is just to say that no one has presented a credible explanation for how they could possibly work.  With science on the other hand, there are many medicines that can be easily explained and are well documented in how they help treat a person's illness.  With all of that said (and I hope you don't take offense to this, as I mean no offense), I do not believe your ideas about how the human mind can manifest intelligent energies, or that the subconscious mind can create some symbiotic relationship with another energy somehow, etc.  You believe it to be real, but that is through purely subjective experiences.  It seems my only alternative is to experience this stuff subjectively, because every objective approach I have researched comes up VERY short handed with just questionable evidence. 

How can I go about searching whether or not the supernatural is actually real? 

It seems every time I ask the above question, or read about anyone else asking the above question, there is an overwhelming amount of people who say "zOMG, don't do it, it opens a portal to hell and demons follow you....." or something of that nature.  I'm quite confident it's all fake.  All credible scientists I've researched say that the supernatural is all pseudoscience, people trying to make a quick buck off of a ghost tour in new orleans, a reality tv show on discovery channel, or a ghost book they're writing about.  Harry Houdini himself would frequently debunk psychics and mediums as frauds throughout his career.  He never claimed to have supernatural powers, and claimed that anyone who claimed to have them was doing nothing more than a cheap parlor trick.  Not all scientists are egotistical jerks, who are afraid to say "hmm, maybe I was wrong and ghosts and spirits do exist...". 

I think people should have an open mind, raise their standards on what they choose to believe in, and never be too proud to say "maybe i was wrong". 

My position, to clarify, I don't know if supernatural stuff is real.  I'm leaning pretty strongly towards "It's almost definitely not real, but chance remains".  I've never experienced it myself.  If it is real, I would like to know how to find it. 

[jordyn]

"Do you agree with the statement that everything in the universe has a logical and scientific explanation to it?  It's a statement that I believe, many scientists believe, and even more world renowned people such as Carl Sagan believe.  "

no, i don't...a new credit system for cashiers that's supposed to make our job easier isn't logical and can't be explained how it helps the cashier, i can see how it'd help the company figure who's spending what on fuel versus other conveniences a convenience store offers, but it hasn't made our job easier, just complicates it...so if something as simple as a credit card system defies explanaition, why assume science has all the answers? An astrophysist couldn't explain it either, but his speciality isn't consumer business.

i suppose quantum physics would be the best science to explain the unexplainable, but look at how little is known about that...even the dark matter they have proof of defies reason or rational as to how it exactly effects the universe or where it even comes from. I was just reading an article that they now believe neanderthals actually created art and cultured beauty before humans, which would suggest they had culture before modern humans.  If people really want to dabble with demons to see "proof" they deserve what happens to them, it's different then a person that unwittingly stumbles into it.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/jun/14/neanderthals-first-create-cave-paintings

to find something that feels supernatural, go sit outside in a flower garden just as dusk settles, the flowers take on a spectacular hue, their scents are heavy in the air and the butterflies and bees leave a magical beauty that no spell, ritual or rite could duplicate. You get the birds fluttering and twittering eating their full before settling down into the trees leaving the air to bats. Don't get me going on the sun rising from behind the mountains with amazing clouds of pink, silver and purple or the magnificence of having a drink by a lake in the middle of the night in late august as a spontaneous meteor shower bursts across the sky.

These are experiences that bring me closer to the earth, and what i worship as God, no spirits required but mine.

the supernatural depends on a person's perception, if you're looking for tv style supernatural experiences, you won't find them, those things can get pretty scary and often exagerated by frightened people who experience it, but their scares are confined to our fears and expectations.

that's the problem with belief, it comes down to a person's faith because when you seek it the most, is when it's the hardest to find. I'm more interested in why some people experience it as soon as they open the door to their spirit and others are incapable of experiencing it no matter how many they open.  *shrugs That's something science can explain and are slowly opening up to examine in the human brain, in my opinion that's utlimately the key into unlocking the secrets of what you're seeking.

My experiences led me to magick, it was the only realm at that time that offered explanations as to what i was experiencing, why and the occult was my way at telling the roman church i was subjected to after my parents divorced to feck off.  I still get stroppy about things, but my spirituality is something i closely guard now, whatever it is, it's too precious to waste on foreign spiritual energies that seek to feed off mine and personally does better attuned with the earth, where we all came from no matter which path you follow...science or magic. We're creatures of the earth, made intelligence in the flesh and designated as having dominion over the physical world with the ability to walk in the weird.

..If you believe, no wonder some of those things you're looking to validate faith hate us, seek to exploit us and others who desire to help us grow into better humans, proof is everywhere and in every culture it just depends on what you're looking for proof of and why. I can only offer my experiences because i've already resolved them and accepted what makes sense from my understandings of the world, known and unknown. Science is slowly answering some of my questions but also opening up the potential that it's not all just a spot in the brain that has certain chemicals stimulated by a set environment...sort of like the accoustacal magic they found out about stonehedge.

http://www.livescience.com/18525-sound-illusion-stonehenge.html

http://soundsofstonehenge.wordpress.com/

the human mind has always created magic to describe their experiences, now science is explaining why stonhedge is such a magical place. With no mind there's nothing.

Your reasons for disagreeing with me don't seem to make sense, to me at least.  You seem to make the conclusion that whatever makes your job easier = logical.  But, whatever makes the company more efficient, is not logical.  Logic to you is simply a perspective then?  I do not mean to be rude, but that is the conclusion I came to and I detailed my reasoning.  The new credit system does not defy explanation, you already explained it yourself, that it allows the company to view its expenses and income more efficiently and easily.  I personally believe that science does have all the answers, because that is what history has shown us time and time again.  It is just a matter of time.  There is a difference between currently unexplainable, and flat out unexplainable.  Numerous things in history were flat out unexplainable....at that time.  Lots of those things turned out to be explainable, some of them still remain.  The more mankind learns, the more questions will be asked, the cycle will possibly repeat itself forever.  Who knows? 

I do not know much about dark matter, I know they have a good chunk of evidence to support its existence.  Mainly through its gravitational effects on how they are able to structure galaxies in the shapes they are.  It's something like 75 or so percent of the matter in the universe, don't quote me on that.  It's just what I remember from discovery channel.  It may defy reason or rational on how it affects the universe, but given enough time, we will find the answers.  We always have. 

I actually just attempted to use a ouija board a few minutes ago, alone in my room.  Had my emf detector on hand.  No spikes in baseline emf.  No feelings of a presence, no voices, shadows, no responses on the board.  I was the only one touching it, and I felt no force acting upon my hand, therefore my hand did not move.  I wasn't holding it forcibly, my two fingers were gently resting on the planchette.  "Is anyone there?"  "If anyone is there, show yourself, anyone" "Tap on the door, or the wall, show yourself in the mirror".   A few more, but still no results.  If demons are real, I would assume it would only make sense that God is real as well, and in that case...I totally screwed up and got it all MAJORLY wrong.  What am I to believe based off of evidence though?  Am I supposed to blindly believe there is a God?  Choosing to blindly believe in anything does not sit well with me. 

When you say " If people really want to dabble with demons to see "proof" they deserve what happens to them, it's different then a person that unwittingly stumbles into it.", does that mean that you do believe biblical depictions of demons are real?  Have you ever seen one?  Am I really dabbling in something that I should not?  Am I putting myself in grave danger by seeking them out, even from a highly skeptical point of view? 

"Ignorance is bliss, tis folly to be wise"  A highly subjective quote, as it varies significantly with each person.  Some people are more comfortable being ignorant to the truth.  Some people are more comfortable knowing the truth.  I am more comfortable knowing the truth, than continuing to live in an illusion. 

Moloch and Muerte, is there anyway I could possibly speak with them about this?  They seem to be among the most knowledgeable on this subject. 

I actually just attempted to use a ouija board a few minutes ago, alone in my room.  Had my emf detector on hand.  No spikes in baseline emf.  No feelings of a presence, no voices, shadows, no responses on the board.  I was the only one touching it, and I felt no force acting upon my hand, therefore my hand did not move.

its like betting on very low stats, hoping to get the paranormal event jump into ur lap or something. why dont u try with haunted places? take all the gear urself and find a place where u know people are complaining about that sort of misfortune.

Please, make sure all ur equipment is working and try to look at the things from a different angle, or better said, more of them. Depends on u on how ur gonna take this.

Usually, when events happen, it records the magnetic change. It is up to the "scientist" or whomever takes this unnecessary test, how they are gonna explain it. And for as long as u dont see for urself, after u made sure that all search parameters are in line

ps: years ago i did the test myself, using a very simple technique involving radio frequency and tape recorder. We got an answer after the third question. Sort of.... i wish i never heard that voice.... so we burned the tape cause we got spooked, and voila, no evidence.

also, i had someone from my family do the orthodox magick on us....

i burned it and threw in the canal...
again, no evidence that that bones and fur did any harm to my life

and yet it did

so, sure, i agree that most of the stuff we see or hear are bogus, but there are some paterns that drow lines from way way back and they are not here for without a good reason.


just a rant...

Using a Ouija board is like betting on very low stats?  Why is it that there are numerous stories on the internet of people using the ouija board and encountering supernatural entities?  I've tried in my room several times, both alone and with another person.  Based off of what I've read on the internet, it doesn't take much to piss these spirits/entities/ghosts/demons off.  It doesn't seem to take much to get their attention. 

I have been looking at this from different perspectives.  I try to exhaust all logical explanations as best I can.

I have an emf detector, which I've used on my ouija sessions.  There are no spikes in electrical activity compared to the background emf readings. 

Please tell me about this technique, I don't quite understand what you mean.  You said it involved radio frequency and a tape recorder.  I'm interested in attempting this.  Why did you burn the tape?  Why would you destroy the only evidence you have?  It seems as if everybody does that.  Scientists are looking for evidence, and everytime somebody has "conclusive" evidence, they choose to conveniently destroy it. 

What is orthodox magic?  Explain this method, I would like to try it. 

Lastly, does anyone possess ANY evidence for the existence of anything supernatural? 

[jordyn]

so, if you can't find proof to satisfy yourself, go onto something that will work for you...you're the one beating the board up over not believing with people who already believe, what are you hoping for, everyone to say your right there's nothing there, you win?

some people just weren't meant for the spiritual world, i guess you're one of them...find your answers how others did, research books, legends and the history not try to make believers idiots that don't make sense because you fail to find the belief you're seeking and accept the fact that for some people, it's a void they'll never touch, maybe you're just more sane and scientific and such atheist ideals scare them away.

it's fruitless to argue with someone who expects the spirit to manifest in the material and is incapable of experiencing it, but that's your issue, not mine.