The Science of Occult, Paranormal and Other "Supernormal Phenomena"

I have a very simple question. I am not an occultist, mystic of savant of paranormal phenomena. What I've read (which is substantial) is altogether interesting in terms of being a form of knowledge, but meaningless, in terms of the "force" it can have on me, because I have never actually seen with my own two eyes anything paranormal happen.

So my question is: Has anyone here ever actually seen with their own two eyes something that is otherwise considered impossible? I do not mean "telepathy", which could be explained more parsimoniously as thought-convergence (as when two who know one another think the same thing in the same context; this is merely a convergence of two similarly organized brain-systems, existing in the same context, and so entrained by their respective memories to the same interpretation of an experience), or anything happening "in the head", i.e. outer body experiences, "astral travel", or any claims of precognition.

I want to know if you have:

seen with your own two eyes another person levitate (a common claim)?

have you, with another person, seen an apparition, in the sense that you and additional others saw the same thing, in the same way, but knowing that it was a non-material presence (the idea of a collective hallucination sounds too implausible to account for a jointly perceived phenomena)

occultists claim to "summon" spirits and other transpersonal phenomena, visible in some way to those present. Has anyone here actually done this and seen this happen?

various spiritual traditions claim the power to "transport" objects, or "materialize" objects, or actually move objects, with nothing other than some mental power. Has anyone here seen this?

These are the types of evidences that have force in convincing skeptics. Am I a skeptic? Not really. I am not a card-carrying proponent, in the sense that my academic interests aren't towards proving paranormal phenomena, but I am at least open to the possibility that our current societal-structure and the effect it has on our psychological functioning, if understood in terms of a "pan-idealist" metaphysics (the world is conditioned by the nature of human consciousness, i.e. consciousness of its relatedness) may itself be an determining condition, an action that interferes with your capacity to objectively experiment - and so, somewhat circularly, a physicalist expectation may entail a physicalist metaphysics, whereas an idealist expectation entails an idealist metaphysics.

I only lean in this favorable direction because of my own study of human beings, human psychodynamic processes in light of evolutionary environments, and my profound conviction that human beings certainly do not, in the least bit, possess much knowledge of themselves. This is not due to any inherent stupidity in us, just that the sort of "left brain knowledge" that convinces people requires immense social scaffolding, for example, academic psychology, cognitive science, neuroscience, and psychoanalysis, are "left brain" explanatory frameworks that help justify a certain knowledge about self-world relatedness, that is itself more conducive to right-brain, experiential realities.

If people were educated to better understand themselves, would this provide a suitable background to the expression of such phenomena? The idealist metaphysics says 'yes'. Assumed in this framework, at least implicitly, is that the physical world is really mental; and the nature of physical organization (sub-atomic, atomic, molecular, organism) is conditioned by mental perception. If mental perception were to contain awareness of self that acknowledges an "embeddedment" of the self in a matrix of relational meanings with other selves, then the self would be "integrated", not merely within itself, but also with the other, the other human, who served as "the other" in the formation of our biological being in evolutionary environments to which we adapted to.

So, at least hypothetically speaking, the physicalist metaphysics could potentially be wrong, but it would be impossible to prove it without extensive societal psychological changes.

In any case, a nice place to start - for me - is to ask the question that I've asked, and try to learn from some of the answers people can give

a reply to: Astrocyte

I, and my grandmother both saw a "shadow person" or other apparition.

It appeared in our kitchen against a white backdrop. It appeared close to midday and we have skylights nearby and so there was no issue of seeing something vaguely, in the dark. It had wispy or ill defined edges. It was only momentary, but gave us quite a fright. It felt malevolent to me.

I saw the apparition first and my reaction caused my grandmother to turn towards it. I was about 15 feet away and she was about six feet away. I thought she was going to collapse and so I ran to her aid but when I looked back towards the apparition, it was gone.

I could discern no facial features or clothing details except that it wore a Fedora style hat and perhaps a suit coat (from the shoulder profile).

My grandmother later said she thought it might have been her late husband.

At the time, my grandmother was in late stages of terminal cancer and was living at my parents house prior to going into palliative care, She passed a few weeks after the incident. I was about 11 years old.

I have seen things that I can't explain as a scientist. I went to college for Electrical & Computer engineering and Physics. I have seen many things that can't be explained by science.

Some examples :

For a period of 45 minutes, I recorded an entity on a FLIR camera which could not be seen with the naked eye. The entity, which had the form of a young child, interacted with several other people and even walked through them, blocking out their heat signature. Interestingly enough, the entity also reflected what appears to be a "cold shadow" on the linoleum floor.

I saw an old metal cabinet drawer that had been rusted in a frozen position for decades go flying 22 feet across a room and slam into an opposite wall.

I've seen disembodied red lights appear and follow people which had no source.

I've seen horrific scratches appear on individuals that didn't fit human hands or fingernail patterns. These occurred in a room with no furniture or objects with which they could have been created.

Eta - I used to own a scientific research organization who studied this type of phenomena. We collaborated our research with some government agencies and other universities

a reply to: Astrocyte

As an engineer myself, I can recall quite a few things that scientifically I could not explain.

The best one I can tell (in that myself and two others witnessed the same thing), was that we heard noises which didn't make sense.

My friend moved into his deceased grandparent's old home, and as kind of a farewell, several of us guys spent the night there. This is the type of farm house where you know where everyone is: The floor would creak right underneath you.

As it got late, we all made our way into the living room (which had a view of the stairway up to the second floor), and we all must have nodded off after the usual telling jokes in a whisper and being typical guys spending the night.

I remember waking up because I heard footsteps coming down the stairs, and I thought it was my friend's parents coming down to make sure we were actually sleeping. Found that my friend (that lived in the house) was also awake as well as one other person. We all were looking at the stairwell, but couldn't see anyone to match the footfalls - It sounded like someone wearing boots clomping down the stairs.

By this time I think the three of us were shaking, because we heard the steps hit the ground floor, and go in our direction for a second (as if "something" was peeking in at us). The steps then clomped down the hallway out of sight. We heard the basement door open, and the steps went down into the basement. Keep in mind, while the upstairs had enough light from the windows to see, the basement was pitch black at night. No lights came on at all during this, and we didn't hear the steps again.

I've got more first-hand accounts, but many fall into the "you weren't there, so I can't convince you it was real" category. Nothing extreme like levitation, but some experiences are a bit on the weird side.

-fossilera

a reply to: Astrocyte

~ seen with your own two eyes another person levitate (a common claim)?

No

~ have you, with another person, seen an apparition, in the sense that you and additional others saw the same thing, in the same way, but knowing that it was a non-material presence

Yes

~ occultists claim to "summon" spirits and other transpersonal phenomena, visible in some way to those present. Has anyone here actually done this and seen this happen?

I have not

~ various spiritual traditions claim the power to "transport" objects, or "materialize" objects, or actually move objects, with nothing other than some mental power. Has anyone here seen this?

Are you asking this in the sense that I have done so or witnessed others doing so? No
Are you asking this in the sense that something that could be described as a 'ghost' has done so? Yes

Of course, being 'scientific' means objective reasoning, not subjective reasoning, so all the answers you will receive are inherently subjected to a plethora of likely falsifications.

a reply to: Astrocyte

It all depends on what you mean by Eye's, I have seen thing's while awake going about my life but the only way I can describe it was as if I had another set of eye's just slightly out of sync with my physical eye's, there was a definite seperation between the physical and this other realm I seemed to have a partial but incomplete view of from time to time.

For me I saw both mist like form's and shadow like form's, usually shadow or darkness around people with mental illness and people whom were generally what we may regard as not nice sort's leading me to the assumption dark entitys are therefore more likely to be evil while the mist like one's - grey or even light (but casting no illumination in the physical world) seemed more neutral.

My experiences are too many to go into detail but needless to say for me I see little difference between the mental torment this can cause and indeed does and the effect's of many mental trauma condition's, being a little psychic can actually cause a person to be disfunctional in there normal day to day lives and I can not help but get the impression that a lot of the dark entity's were actually parasitic.

When a pet cat died over a year ago now I stayed with him till he passed over and watched as something about the same size as the cat came out of his body then moved off like a cat running away, since that time both myself and my mother have seen the cat out of the corner of our eye's from time to time, he only stayed with us a short time but was and remains well loved having latched onto us for some reason as his death was near.

At time's we have a smell of Snuff (tobacco powder), no one smoke's or takes that but My grandmother used to back in the 1970's before she passed over, my mother and sister were there when she died and saw a silver line or light that seemed a little like smoke rise from her forehead toward the ceiling in the hospital.

Needless to say I would regard my family as sensitive but a word of caution.

When my mother's aunt gertrude beverly passed on my mother placed her rosary into her hand, when my mother went to see her, her other hand looked almost skeletal but that one with the rosary looked alive and was supple.

From time to time I see shape's like I said, they are vague not clearly defined but definitely there and like I say the experience is like seeing through another pair of eye's that are not working right and are just out of sync with my physical eye's.

a reply to: Astrocyte

I was 25 and she was 26. We were in a bedroom talking. A knock came at the door and a friend outside asked if we were decent and could he come in. We said we were and yes he could.

He opened the door and was naked from the waste up. As he entered our bedrrom, we both were bowled over by a white foggy mist that engulfed the room as if it were coming from his chest. Like being under water in a swimming pool that needs chlorine, where you can see, but it is all milky.

She asked him if he had just woken up from a nap or what and he said he had. She told him to leave as his left over whatever she called it was spilling all over the room. He did and as soon as he closed the door it was gone. It was not light from outside as he had entered from a hallway.

Oh no
You can't use paranormal and science in the same breath never mind thread
It's blasphemy

Sorry, I have never seen anything paranormal
Don't doubt that there is, can't deny the millions of storys

originally posted by: Astrocyte

have you, with another person, seen an apparition, in the sense that you and additional others saw the same thing, in the same way, but knowing that it was a non-material presence

On two occasions, I've had balls of light materialize in front of me. The first time, it was a white light, like a really bright light bulb. It materialized out of thin air and floated through the air like 10 feet in front of me for a few seconds and then disappeared. The second time, I was walking in the woods at night with a friend, and two bluish-green balls of light appeared up above the trees, and while "pulsating" in brightness, slowly floated down into the trees before disappearing. No, they were not lightning bugs. The lights were... baseball sized, maybe larger, and bluish-green. There were no lightning bugs out at that time of the year.
I've had plenty of other encounters, but strictly speaking of actually SEEING things (UFOs not included as I've seen 4 of those), that's it.

various spiritual traditions claim the power to "transport" objects, or "materialize" objects, or actually move objects, with nothing other than some mental power. Has anyone here seen this?

One time as I reached for a glass of water on my desk, a lighter sitting nearby shot away from my hand for no apparent reason. Another time when I was about 17, I got ahold of this little telekinesis toy which I actually got to work pretty well. It was basically a little platform with a needle sticking out, and on top of the needle was balanced a plus-shape piece of aluminum or some other metal. Over top of that went a plastic case to prevent the ability to blow on the piece of metal. I'd put my hands on either side of it and make it spin really fast, and eventually I was able to make it stop within a few seconds and spin really fast in the other direction. It was neat to do it back and forth and realize there was some kind of unknown science at play.
Also to add, one time I was sitting in my car with a friend at a local haunted spot, the back end of my car suddenly slammed down as if someone had jumped on it. The car was parked and turned off.

a reply to: Astrocyte

I shut down the fingerprint scanning machine in front of two cops, does that count ? You should of seen their reaction, "uhhh this has never happened before.." priceless.

Among other things I've sent demonic entities to people who thought I was full of it. They came to me crying out of fear, they could hear their name being whispered in their ear at night, among other things.

When I get mad, my eyes go black and I tend to give off a very scary/threatening aura, or sometimes a "shadow person" will appear standing behind me when I'm mad.

There are ways to gain power in this world, and if you read carefully what I wrote it's pretty self explanatory.

The problem then becomes, how does one use inherently "evil" abilities to do some good ? It's not as if I was born an evil person, I just lost myself along the way.

Also, as always, don't try this at home..unless you want to live through the type of misery I've had to endure so far in life.

a reply to: Astrocyte

I have felt and experiance things which are very unusual for most people.
But never seen it with physical eyes.

Do you realize you are limiting only on the eye sense mostly? Are humans only the eyes?
Well good luck on your quest for truth, but you have put a very limiting condition from the get go.

Especially when you consider the nature of these entities and reality (astral planes, souls, gods, etc...) if it exists. For them sight or form is not important, but you know what it is? It's Emotions, intent, thoughts.

You should focus on that in my opinion rather than sight, just a suggestion. If you want self evidence of something, you will get it faster this way.

a reply to: Astrocyte

Me and my son both woke up in the middle of the night seeing the same thing, we call it the devil animal.

originally posted by: Astrocyte

I want to know if you have:

seen with your own two eyes another person levitate (a common claim)?

No

have you, with another person, seen an apparition, in the sense that you and additional others saw the same thing, in the same way, but knowing that it was a non-material presence (the idea of a collective hallucination sounds too implausible to account for a jointly perceived phenomena)

Saw, no. Other senses (sound specifically) yes. However, we are both skeptical about the nature of this experience, despite being at a loss to adequately explain it.

occultists claim to "summon" spirits and other transpersonal phenomena, visible in some way to those present. Has anyone here actually done this and seen this happen?

I haven't.

various spiritual traditions claim the power to "transport" objects, or "materialize" objects, or actually move objects, with nothing other than some mental power. Has anyone here seen this?

I haven't.

Peace.

Me and the wife were in the kitchen I think I was brewing up at the time quite near to a shelf that holds cookery books and a radio which had been in this position for years in fact the more books we collected the tighter the squeeze on the shelf. The shelf was in between a cupboard and the fridge so no chance of anything falling off the side. So I'm brewing up with the kettle below the shelf when the radio about 3"x6" not on at the time propels itself off the shelf doesn't fall off but ends up on the floor 4 feet away. I being surprised said to my wife "did I do that" she thought I must have caught it with my sleeve? I still wonder to this day how it happened and did I do it but I'm 99% sure I didn't. It's back on the shelf jammed In between the cook books still works but out of shape never had anything like it since.

When i was kid my dad built a jungle gym inside a sand box for my brother and I. The jungle gym had monkey bars and had two "gymnast rings" hanging from one side of it, the kind that hang from chains that gymnasts do their pull up routine and swing around on. Anyway, my brother and I were playing in the sand box as kids and I happened to look up at the gymnast rings for some reason. One of the rings just swung really fast and wrapped itself around the bar that was suspending it with out anyone near it. The ring next to it stayed motionless. My brother saw it too, and we just took off running and went and told my mom.

Another time my brother and I came home from a party in high school. It was about 1 am. My parents were sleeping. We heard piano music playing in the house so we searched to see where it was coming from. We looked all around the house, I thought my parents were up but they weren't. I opened the door to my room and the music stopped immediately. I think it was an old lady that previously died in the house before we moved in playing the piano (that didn't physically exist).

We also had faucets turn on at night and things fall of shelves. I used to see shadow beings as a kid all the time, randomly still do. that could be in my head, but the two experiences i described above were with my brother and i know that was not something just in my head.

seen with your own two eyes another person levitate (a common claim)?

No.

ave you, with another person, seen an apparition, in the sense that you and additional others saw the same thing, in the same way, but knowing that it was a non-material presence (the idea of a collective hallucination sounds too implausible to account for a jointly perceived phenomena)

Maybe, the little kid next door, who was the youngest at the time may have saw what I saw, other then that, don't recall any other reaction from the other kids. I was also the oldest out of them at the time.

occultists claim to "summon" spirits and other transpersonal phenomena, visible in some way to those present. Has anyone here actually done this and seen this happen?

Extreme Christians claim to summon the Holy Spirit to fight Demons, just like how the priest accused Jesus of summoning Demons. Personally I think it a matter of being at the right or wrong place at the right or wrong time.

various spiritual traditions claim the power to "transport" objects, or "materialize" objects, or actually move objects, with nothing other than some mental power. Has anyone here seen this?

I've heard of guy two thousand years ago able to fill an empty river full of fish, and empty baskets with bread. Other then that none what so ever...Maybe Chris Angel.

a reply to: Astrocyte

I have never actually seen with my own two eyes anything paranormal happen.

Well then feast your eyes here and here. Two videos my wifes phone
only would pick up these things flying around at two different residences. The one at night was
our place. The other, my wifes friends house. What ever they are they are orbs that
are detectable only to her phones camera. Light with no source not detectable to the human eye.

a reply to: TerryMcGuire

No offence meant here at all but I feel that I must ask. Are you serious or just pulling our chain here ? My mind is blown either way as that is one of the wildest things I have ever heard of. I think that I would have fainted had I been there and would have only awoken after much beer was poured over my head. I have had little experience with things like this myself although I believe in things like this because I know that they do happen.
Also , what became of your friend and does he have any memory of this at all and are you sure that it was someone that you both knew or was it something else ?

originally posted by: bluemooone2
a reply to: TerryMcGuire

No offence meant here at all but I feel that I must ask. Are you serious or just pulling our chain here ? My mind is blown either way as that is one of the wildest things I have ever heard of. I think that I would have fainted had I been there and would have only awoken after much beer was poured over my head. I have had little experience with things like this myself although I believe in things like this because I know that they do happen.
Also , what became of your friend and does he have any memory of this at all and are you sure that it was someone that you both knew or was it something else ?

Actually Moon, that was a one of experience of that nature. Though I have had various other types of experiences, that experience never happened again. The woman and I both were shocked at the same moment, when he open the door and came in, as if we had both at the same time encountered a blast of hot air, though there was no temperature change or pressure as such. Just the visual experience. We turned to each other and looked each other in the eye to see if the other was seeing it too.

After he had left the room and closed the door, maybe a minute or two passed and he came back in. We both noticed that the mist was not completely gone, that it was still there around him but very weak, as if the last remaining wisps of it were dissipating as he got further in time away from that first moment.

He and I , and she, remained close friends for several years and spoke if that experience numerous times.

originally posted by: threeeyesopen
a reply to: Astrocyte

I shut down the fingerprint scanning machine in front of two cops, does that count ? You should of seen their reaction, "uhhh this has never happened before.." priceless.

Among other things I've sent demonic entities to people who thought I was full of it. They came to me crying out of fear, they could hear their name being whispered in their ear at night, among other things.

When I get mad, my eyes go black and I tend to give off a very scary/threatening aura, or sometimes a "shadow person" will appear standing behind me when I'm mad.

There are ways to gain power in this world, and if you read carefully what I wrote it's pretty self explanatory.

The problem then becomes, how does one use inherently "evil" abilities to do some good ? It's not as if I was born an evil person, I just lost myself along the way.

Also, as always, don't try this at home..unless you want to live through the type of misery I've had to endure so far in life.

As you know , it is all about playing with fire.

Passions are more easily aroused when riding an evil wave and you cannot master evil until you know something about it