Not Another "Why" Thread!?

I like to think that it's a bit different than the others though (if nothing else, I hope to at least give a starting point to noobs). As you can see by my join date, I have been around for a while, and I was definitely into the subject way before I joined here. I have also read literally hundreds of books on the paranormal, have a minor in theology (major completely unrelated), and have a lot of "hands on experience." My only results ever? Lucid dreaming.

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tl;dr version: If you know the history of the paranormal completely (and history as well, as well as understanding the necessity for rulers to use religion as a control tool), and can trace it back past Sumer, what keeps you believing?

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Anyway, lets get to the "root" of things, starting with the most modern beliefs and going down to pre-civilization. I AM leaving out anything to do with UFOs, OOPARTs, and not dwelling on secret societies here, because I think that would be going too wide with the subject matter. I can make a diff thread on that if someone wants later. Anyway:

First we have the complete bull# that people get introduced to first: Vampires/werewolves/psi balls/reiki/telekinesis/remote viewing/dim mak. As far as I can tell, these have absolutely no basis whatsoever. For vampires/werewolves we have Hypertrichosis/Porphyria/Vlady Tepes/our homegirl Bathory and some others - all having nothing to do with real vampirism. Oh, I guess I should bring out "psychic vampirism" here - again, absolutely no basis, except for fat lonely women looking for a way to be special. Then we have psi balls / telekinesis - as far as I am concerned these are all based purely on star wars and anime. There is really no historical basis. I guess another source could be ghosts/poltergeists, but again, there is no compelling reasons here. Remote viewing came completely out of nowhere, and doesn't even make any sense, as opposed to say, astral projection, which at least seems to have some theory behind it. I am not even going to go into the supposed "military projects" with remote viewing - the claims are as supported as that "MK ULTRA" fat dude saying he jumped out of planes without a parachute. Oh, and there is Wicca - something that grew out of Gardner writing a short article (in the 1960s, I think) on island traditions that grew into a million dollar industry of spamming bull# with ABSOLUTELY no basis. We will see how Wicca borrows from alchemy and The Lesser Key in the next few paragraphs.

The next steps are usually: "High Magic" (that is demonology/Thelema), Chaos Magic, meditation (yoga/chakras/chi). The source of "High Magic" in the present are mainly the works of Aleister Crowley, who has been idolized to no end. The thing is - if you read his original works, you will find him to be a delusional idiot. Who does he borrow from? Medieval alchemists (The Lesser Key of Solomon) and egyptian teachings, note that he just uses egyptian traditions ONLY for the names of deities. He also leans heavily on John Dee. It's worth noting that both Crowley and Dee are respected because of their achievements BEFORE they turned to occultism, after which they accomplished nothing. In fact, Dee was completely duped into believing in the Enochian Keys, which are a complete fabrication.

On to chaos magic - it seems to be an offspring based on the power of will and doesn't have much to do with any of the traditions. I have a hard time tracing it's roots past crowley. It leverages on the power of belief and "as above, so below" principles, however it seems to also be a completely secular practice in terms of tapping into the power of the subconscious to get things done. In either case, I spent about two months on sigilization with zero results, and see nothing that lends it credibility overall.

As for yoga, opening the third eye, etc - it all seems to be on the level of Christian mystics levitating, getting stigmata, and bi-location - all hearsay accounts with no real evidence. Sure, we can find the sources, the Bhagavad-Gita for Hinduism; Interior Castle and Dark Night of the Soul for Christian mysticism, etc which could have spawned future stories. Still, nothing in terms of fact.

So, where the # do we get all this summoning demons/angels/etc crap that the medieval alchemists were obsessed with? One fictional book by Solomon and the Kabbalah. That's it. What are these? They are really just a compilation of Sumerian and Assyrian beliefs that were adopted to fit with Judaism/Christianity. All the creation myths come down to Sumerian origins as well, mainly the son god as the central deity and the flood myths.

So, what else do we have to consider? The mystery cults of Rome and Greece and shamanism. Here when we get down to it, it all comes down the hallucinogenic substances and the Trickster archetype (Enkiru, Prometheus). With the drugs, we get down to Terrence McKenna and his theory that humans got high on some shrooms, which opened up their awareness and made them evolve above animals. One of those whatever theories, regardless of whether it's true or not, it does nothing for us in terms of opening up secrets to the paranormal.

So...ah, THE MAGI! Zaruthsta/Zoroaster seems to be the source of the whole heaven/hell concept, although he presented it as "light and darkness," the thing is, we know NOTHING about him and there is nothing to lend his beliefs credibility. Well, other than him getting exiled, like a bitch, and being able to do nothing about it. He is like Jesus/Moses, except with even worse documentation and less impressive miracles.

So, what are we left with. African Shamanism and the accounts of a number of colonial officers. These accounts are very close to native american shamanism - namely shape shifting and speaking with the dead. Then there is the whole zombie fish, which we already traced to a neuro-toxin in a certain type of fish.

Hmmm, and out of all this, the ONLY documented case? Mirin Dajo. That's it - people can ramble about Dyatlov pass, Russian mystics, military experiments, levitating monks, people getting stuck in teleporting ship experiments, but all we REALLY have is Mirin Dajo. Also, don't take my limited list as me not knowing of certain cases - I can pull out The Holographic Universe and The Encyclopedia of the Paranormal of my shelf and start listing ad nauseaum, the point is that he is the ONLY one who performed in front of a huge group of scientists with no plausible explanation (in before someone posts that dumbass video about how he created scar tissue by slowly cutting himself every day - utter bull#).

So anyway, my point is this - if you are someone who knows exactly what I am talking about with ALL of these, what keeps you believing? Virtually all of it can be traced to pre-historic sources, which not only get ridiculously poorly documented, but hugely exaggerated as well.

Hi! Good thoughts. Appreciated.
But let me turn this around on you, if you please. What keeps you believing?

Also, if you care to write more about Mirin Dajo, I would like to read it. If not, guess I'll look him up myself. Sigh.



As for my thoughts, I have huge curiosity, but not much inclination to believe in much of the above, although some of the notions do give me pause.

Problems that can't be solved by any other means (in a reasonable time frame) is what keeps me going at it. There are also some things I saw as a kid, but I had a relatively unstable childhood and I was really young, so I don't give that too much weight.

As for Mirin Dajo, in short: He could put swords through his torso / through vital organs (though not the heart) without any apparent consequence. He then proceeded to jog while impaled with a rapier and otherwise display the fact that he wasn't hurt. These wounds would be fatal to a lot of people, but he didn't even bleed. Also, this is all on video. There were no clothes / booths / shades or obstructions of any kind involved. He also did this in front of around 50 to a hundred scientists, allowed a scientist to run him through with a sword, and had an X-ray taken of himself with the sword. I think the video speaks for itself.

www.youtube.com...

Supposedly he trained with fakirs in the middle east. As for the only attempt to "debunk" him - it was pretty half assed, you can watch it here:

www.youtube.com...

Basically, their explanation is that he slowly poked the sword through himself until scar "tunnels" were formed all the way through his body. I really don't buy that #. First of all, the doctors who examined him thoroughly (which they did) would have found evidence of these. Second of all, the doctor who pierced him picked a spot on his own. Finally, "that # makes no sense, yo."

Oh, and he died from a ruptured aorta. I am divided on whether this adds to his credibility or detracts from it. On one hand, it proves that he was really doing this #, on the other hand it points out that his technique had limitations.