Ben< This session is the beginning of a new seminar. The subject is precognition. It comes from two Latin words that mean "before" and "knowing". We will explore various examples of "knowing beforehand" and more specifically, knowing something before one should be able to know it by normal thought processes. Thus, we will be looking at precognition as a paranormal phenomenon.

Ben< Tonight I will post one definition (with which I disagree), and then ask three questions.

Ben< Webster's Dictionary defines precognition as "the supposed perception of an event, condition, etc., before it occurs, especially by extrasensory powers." Notice that unnecessary, prejudicial word "supposed" in this definition, by which the editors of Webster's Dictionary set themselves apart from all those unenlightened people who believe that precognition is or can be real. If they left out that word, I could agree with their definition.

Trinkat< I guess 'supposed' is a better word than 'alleged'.

Ben< QUESTION 1: During our last seminar, LEGS mentioned that she knew her minister and his wife would have more children before they knew that his wife was already pregnant with twins. How do you think LEGS *might* have known what she knew when she knew it? (I am inviting you to speculate about this, so as to show some of the alternative hypotheses for how this happens.) YOUR TURN

FRAML< Hmmm ... she is a spy for the CIA and had their house under surveillance.

guitarist< LOL @ FRAML! Actually I have a couple of great-uncles who were spies on the Communists, so I can't say it isn't possible.

Trinkat< I can't really speculate when it involves my Mom -- I have seen her be right SOOOOO many times.

Ben< Trinkat: OK, suppose it was someone (anyone) other than your mom.

Jello< Hmmm, question: "alternative" hypotheses to what? I've heard everything from the NDE account of feeling past, present and future merged together, to spirits giving *probable* outcome-visions based on current conditions.

guitarist< LEGS might have sensed it through a number of different psychic senses -- a voice, a knowing, a vision, an omen, others of which I have no idea -- which she then interpreted to mean that they would have children. It might have come very clearly to her, or through symbols.

KAM< Ben: I've never known how we (LEGS & I) knew things ... maybe this seminar will help clarify how. *S*

LEGS< I'm interested to know some of the ideas you might come up with to explain this also. I felt it was from God ... or at least a Godly message. "And there's going to be more" was what I 'heard'.

merry< While human beings tend to perceive time as linear, it isn't really. "As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be ... " Thus we are sometimes able to perceive things that "haven't happened yet."

Ben< merry: Yes, the nature of time is a large part of this phenomenon. However, in this case, the minister's wife was pregnant; they just didn't know it yet.

merry< Ah! In that case, it could be any number of ways, but they all come down to the way we are all interconnected.

DestinyB< Perhaps the minister's wife had mentioned feeling nauseous.

sahadeva< Or perhaps the first twinkling of the ajna (third eye).

suitESPirit< I believe LEGS is in tune with her spirit guide who informed her subconsciously. She went with the flow of her "empty vessel" that was filled by her spirit. She was merely the channeler.

Sprinkles< Perhaps the energy that forms around the couple and the vibes that come off form a picture, and being she allows herself to be open to this energy or vibe, the picture comes to mind. Her senses have been heightened or in tune with the sensations that might have formed the picture. (I think) I am not sure what enables the ability, but I do know that this can be done.

FRAML< Seriously, I don't know. But I guess it is like when I felt that I could be seen as a danger to a couple's marriage. And I was meeting them for the first time.

DestinyB< Oh, FRAML! *smile*

FRAML< Mine was a 'feeling' or sensing rather than hearing a voice. And I had that from the first contact when I was setting up the business meeting.

KAM< Sometimes, as LEGS said, it's an audio message; other times, visions of what will be flash in my mind. And it may be because we are extra sensitive to other people and their feelings and emotions and we care about them ... so we pick up ... but how?

suitESPirit< I personally feel it's how we are connected to our Guides. They continually give us messages that are meant to be expressed. LEGS' minister's wife was aware she should go to a doctor soon (especially with twins). This helped her, no doubt.

guitarist< BTW, are we going to talk about when we see things (in dreams, etc.) that we don't understand until they happen? Is this part of precognition?

Ben< guitarist: Yes, that's part of where I'm headed next week. *S*

Dreami< Ben: Could we touch on that a bit this week, too? *S*

Ben< Dreami: OK. I'm partially prepared for that aspect of precognition. First, let's see how this line of questions goes.

Dreami< Ben: Okay ... thank you. *VBS*

sahadeva< Continue, Ben.

Trinkat< I find it very interesting that most of the people here tended to not believe in psychokinesis but are having a hard time coming up with alternative hypothesis for precognition. *s* Just an observation. *s*

guitarist< Trinkat: I can only speak for myself. I have never to my knowledge seen anything that would bring the word "psychokinesis" to my mind, but I have, extremely rarely, known things or seen them beforehand. I also know other people who have known things beforehand. Usually they are scared of this phenomenon because it is a double-edged sword (for blessed event or tragedy).

KAM< Amen to the latter part of your statement, guitarist!

merry< guitarist: What exactly are you referring to when you say "psychokinesis?"

guitarist< merry: I mean that I haven't seen objects floating in the air that weren't caused by someone physically throwing or otherwise placing them there.

merry< Thank you, guitarist. I just wanted to be sure I understood.

Duamutef< I think we all agree psychokinesis exists. I feel that the question should be why are we experiencing these precognitions and how are we able to receive them.

greyman< Rod Serling made a pretty good living describing psychokinesis and precognition with ironic twists in many of his television screen plays. Submitted for your approval. *G*

Nata< greyman: *S*

Trinkat< guitarist: My younger daughter is still mad at me for keeping her home from a school event held some 20 miles from our house. She had prepared for the event (with my assistance) by purchasing a new dress and spending the day primping. About an hour before she was to leave, I suddenly started becoming nauseous every time she said " When I leave." I made her stay home. There was a nine car pileup on the road between our home and the event at precisely the time she would have been on the road.

DestinyB< Trinkat: How wonderful that you acted on your feelings and may have saved your daughter! That took courage!

Dreami< Trinkat: That is awesome. *S*

Sprinkles< I think that the senses and instinct are powerful in precognition. Like one would smell danger or have a gut feeling, and these things reveal themselves through the mind's eye. (IMHO)

Duamutef< You mean intuition, Sprinkles -- the ability to receive a quick mental message without thinking?

Sprinkles< Duamutef: Yes. In a way it is like a gut feeling only it isn't slammed at you like a punch -- it flows. That same sense of feeling is used in the flowing, but it isn't abrupt. *S*

KAM< Sprinkles: These precognitions are a bit different from the gut feeling I get about things. Can't really explain the difference. The precognitions are usually about other people, and the gut feeling is a sense of self preservation, normally.

whytedove< KAM: That's kinda the way it works with me as well.

Ben< One of the common alternate hypotheses is: subconsciously reading subtle physical indications of pregnancy.

LEGS< Ben: Her being pregnant again was the furthest thing from my mind. The older child was 8, the younger 5. I just was thanking God for her sweet influence in His name on both her own family and on the congregation.

guitarist< I don't know, Ben, I would have to be hit over the head (so to speak) with signs of pregnancy concerning myself! *g* The only time I ever knew someone was pregnant, it was my best friend (I was living with her and her family at the time) and she told me that she had missed her menses by a week. While I don't consider that "precognition" in the psychic sense, I did tell her she was pregnant before she herself knew it. Her fourth daughter came out of that.

DestinyB< Some first physical indications of pregnancy are feeling sick from food cooking odors and/or a queasy feeling (any time of the day).

Ben< QUESTION 2: LEGS explained how she knew what she knew by saying: "They have two beautiful children about 8 and 5 ... and as I smiled thinking what a nice little family, I heard 'And there will be more' so after church I asked the minister when they were expecting." Was this precognition? YOUR TURN

Trinkat< Ben: I think it was.

KAM< Ben: Yes ...

sahadeva< No, Ben, it was not, as you have stated.

guitarist< Yes, Ben, I think this would fall under precognition. LEGS's question to the wife afterward, just a tad early (the wife had no idea she was pregnant), is probably something that will not be forgotten for a long time. *s*

DestinyB< Yes, I think LEGS experienced precognition when it came to this incident.

lightgrrl< Agreed, that was precognitive.

FRAML< Ben: She knew before the lady did, so it was precognitive in that sense, but she did not know before the minister's wife actually got pregnant. So there is room for discussion about how much before an event one has to receive knowledge in order to consider it precognitive.

sahadeva< hmm ...

LEGS< That's good, FRAML. Yes, they were both adamant when I spoke to them, that they were having no more children because of the difficulty in schooling children these days.

KAM< FRAML: Some visions/precognitions appear far, far in advance -- a year even -- others only a brief period of time ... 1/2 hour to several hours ... as opposed to the "intuition/gut feelings" of almost immediate concern. *S*

FRAML< KAM: Yes, that was what I was trying to bring out. To insert a time before which everyone would discount any observation of things which might give unconscious tips. But LEGS' voice, I consider to be an outside source, beyond excellent observation abilities.

Trinkat< Besides which, the pregnancy and the birth are two distinct events. Precognition of the birth does not have to include precognition of the woman becoming pregnant (not to mention that it would be really intrusive *s* and how would you feel about telling someone that you knew when it was going to happen?)

Nata< Can you read these precognitions in your dreams? Or is that something totally different?

guitarist< Nata: I believe that we can, sometimes, know things from our dreams. I recently did, and am still processing the event. To be more precise, I dreamed symbolically, and months later saw the reality, and then understood the dream.

merry< guitarist: My efforts towards precognition started that way. I found that things would occur, or I would learn about something and have a strong "I knew that" feeling. I traced it to images from dreams or meditations or even daydreaming that I had not consciously interpreted.

Ben< Perception of a *voice* indicates that something was spoken, and a speaker is an entity. Thus, in this case, I think a spirit told LEGS something the spirit knew but the people did not. This can be called precognition in the sense they didn't know it yet, but not in the sense of transcending linear time, because the wife was in fact pregnant at that time. Therefore, I would call it a revelation given as a message by a discarnate entity. [Oops ... that isn't right. If the message had been "She is pregnant" that would be a revelation. The message "And there will be more (children)" was a prediction.]

guitarist< Yes. It seems that spirits (or Spirit) play a large role in our precognitions.

LEGS< I had been in worship service for almost an hour when this happened. I felt that it was of God, if not actually God speaking to me, and I still do. I would say it was a heavenly message.

suitESPirit< LEGS: What was her response to you AFTER she found out about her condition? Has she ever asked you how you knew this? What did you say?

LEGS< In a Pentecostal Church, people expect God to speak to you, and to receive messages from another for themselves. It was not believed. I didn't say "You are pregnant." I didn't know she was pregnant, just that there would be more in their family.

suitESPirit< I have to still say it is SPIRIT. You were chosen that day to reveal to her.

Trinkat< The definition of precognition is 'knowledge beforehand' and mentions nothing of how that knowledge was gained.

KAM< Trinkat: You beat me to that one. I was just going to say that, with the audio and the visions, they are given to me/us by some source naturally; but would that preclude those "knowings" from being precognitions? I don't know what I could call them, if not precognition.

Ben< Trinkat: Yes, and that is why we are exploring the HOW possibilities. Spirit communication via ESP is one of those possibilities.

sahadeva< Therefore, "I heard" could be a human voice under that definition.

DestinyB< Yes, it was a spirit whispering in LEGS' ear, but it was also precognitive because it wasn't known to any humans yet. Does it matter what method was used to deliver the message? Spirits also use dreams and visions. In my opinion this falls under the precognition umbrella.

Trinkat< I agree with DestinyB.

suitESPirit< I believe LEGS had the spirit of discernment that day. Especially after a 1 hour prayer service, I believe the spirit of her heart was open to receive. It was known 'beforehand' that she would reveal it.

sahadeva< From what I have read so far, imho it was not precognition. Perhaps the "I heard" in Ben's post meant a mental voice.

[Ben< sahadeva: Yes, in this case, LEGS heard a mental voice. The source of her precognition (knowing beforehand) was a prediction made by a spirit: "And there will be more (children)." I believe this was a good spirit, probably an angel or as-angel, who saw by clairvoyance that the minister's wife was pregnant, and quietly and truthfully predicted what would happen based on that observation. I posted this case because what we call precognitions are so often predictions by spirits.]

[Ben< It is important to know that predictions by spirits are not always accurate. And it is important to realize inaccurate predictions by spirits prove that spirits do not know everything -- and, of course, that some spirits are liars.]

Ben< QUESTION 3: Do you have an example of "knowing beforehand" that you would like to share? If so, please indicate HOW you think you knew what you knew when you knew it. YOUR TURN

FRAML< Ben: None other than the one I already mentioned that I can remember right now, but I know I've had others.

Jello< How about a series of "coincidental" events in a few people's lives, paralleled or reflected back in such a way that, when large, unforeseen event X happens, it just "fits" because it is the continuation of the pattern? (Hmm, in the case I was thinking of, it was "unforeseen" but "expected" -- how's that for odd?)

Ben< Jello: When something (however large) "fits" because it is the continuation of a pattern, my first thought is: the realization that it "fits" was a result of pattern recognition, which is an (often subconscious) thought process.

Jello< Ben: In my case, the pattern is/was strong enough to be screaming at me in all caps. :) We'll see how many more things happen in the near future. :-/

LEGS< I once went ahead with a relationship in which I heard strongly that I was only a stepping-stone to the person, but accepted their explanation of what they were looking for. Later, it turned out exactly that way.

suitESPirit< Ben: I had an NDE on July 3, 1994. I have never been the same since. (Precognition is just one manifestation of this experience.)

[Ben< suitESPirit: Sorry I missed this post. Yes, others have reported that an NDE was for them the first of many psychic experiences. And several people in these seminars have expressed interest in hearing more about that pattern of events.]

DestinyB< When I was 12 an elderly man lived next door who was not in the best of health. He had suffered from two heart attacks and wasn't expected to live much longer. I "knew" that he would be killed in a car accident. A few months later the neighbor man was driving alone and pulled out in front of a semi truck and was killed instantly.

[Ben< DestinyB: Yeah ... that's an example of the kind of precognition that seems to transcend linear time and therefore leads to a lot of philosophical speculations.]

merry< Ben: The times I've known about something before it happened, I just knew. I barely remembered the first time it happened. I was a child. My mother was carrying me in to take my nap, and I saw a picture of an old man on the wall. I asked her who it was, and she told me it was her grandfather. I said something about him being dead, and she said no, he was still alive. Later that day she got a call that he had died. I remember it all clearly. There were no voices. I just knew.

Ben< merry: "I just knew" is surely the most common answer. However, sharing thoughts of HOW this can happen may help, and especially toward evaluating the relative reliability of precognitions, which is the basic operational problem in this subject area.

merry< Ben: I agree that evaluating the relative reliability of precognitions is the basic problem. It's something I've worked at for some time. I've learned there is a particular "texture" to certain thoughts or images or dreams I have, and those tend to be the ones that are most reliable. But I've never considered "how" it works, since it never occurred to me that might matter. I don't need to know how a car works to drive it -- I only need to know how to operate it and recognize signs of incipient trouble.

[Ben< merry: It isn't necessary to know all the technical details, but one does have to know a lot about a car in order to operate it, and even more to recognize signs of incipient trouble. Especially, one needs to know where each control is located and what it does, and what each instrument and warning light indicates.]

KAM< Okay ... sharing ... while shaking hands upon meeting a young man, I saw a vision of him lying bloody and with bones sticking out of his legs and arms, with a motorcycle and it's wheels turning in the immediate background. I asked if he had a motorcycle, and if he had had a bad wreck on it. His first response was yes, the second was no. Dilemma ... should I tell him what I had just envisioned?

guitarist< KAM: I think I would tell the young man to take especially good care of himself going home. Then I would pray for him, that he might avoid what happened in my vision.

KAM< I told him to be very, very careful ... to take care riding his motorcycle ... wished him well, and continued on my way ... only to hear that two weeks later he was in a terrible motorcycle accident wherein his legs and arms all had compound fractures, and he was in ICU with a concussion as well. He recovered ... and bought another motorcycle.

Trinkat< Ben: I've had several incidents that I have felt were precognitive, usually involving my children, and usually more a feeling than anything else. When the children were small, I would wake up thinking I heard one of them calling my name, only to get to their rooms and find them sound asleep. I would be standing there looking at them when they woke up ill or frightened. *s* And so they always thought I was magic because I was there before they needed me.

[Ben< Trinkat: If you *heard* one of them calling your name, that was telepathy from the soul of the sleeping child to you. If you *felt* ill or frightened, that may have been telempathy by which you picked up what the sleeping child was feeling. In either case, such signals indicate that your caring-connection to the child was active, operational, working.]

DestinyB< Trinkat: Mothers and children have a special connection. The younger they are, the stronger it is. When my son was a baby, I always knew when he needed me and was there before he awoke. He hardly ever cried as an infant and was a very happy baby.

Trinkat< DestinyB: It never stops. I wake in the middle of the night just before the phone rings, and my daughter in Ohio is on the line crying. I have an urgent need to contact my son in El Paso, only to find that he is in the infirmary with his knee out of place. I show up at Luke and Shannon's house (three years ago) to find that Luke is asleep and has begun to run 103 degrees temperature with an infection in his jaw bone. It's not just babies ...

DestinyB< Trinkat: The connection between you and your loved ones is amazing!

Sprinkles< I have been able to see and describe others without having ever met them. There usually is something in particular that I am able to pin-point, like a scar or mole, something. Joyous events and events that were meaningful at one time. I open myself to the person and the feelings, and just concentration of focus. All senses are heightened and I tune in. How, I don't know. But it terrified me at first. With results being positive, I continue to do so.

[Ben< Sprinkles: You described how you do it. You open yourself to the person ...]

sahadeva< Ben: I had my head on the ground, meditating. I saw vividly (not a dream) through a wall that a person was walking down the stairs. I lifted my head, and that person (my baba) opened the door at the bottom of the stairway to greet me. I did not know he was in the upstairs. How would you categorize that experience?

[Ben< sahadeva: Clairvoyance. And then you lifted your head because you wanted to see with your eyes, and that changed your seeing from clairvoyance to normal vision.]

Duamutef< I never had precognition. The supernatural event in my life was that I woke up and found I was levitating above my bed one night. A second later I fell back on the bed as if someone (or something) dropped me.

[Ben< Duamutef: If you were sleeping under a blanket, it would be interesting to recall where the blanket was during this event. If the blanket was still covering you while you were above the bed, your physical body may have levitated and lifted the blanket. If the blanket wasn't covering you while you were above the bed, this event may have been an out-of-body experience that felt like levitation.]

Dreami< Well ... (gulp) my mom used to dream about me, and this one time she dreamt of herself in an accident but it happened to me. She started crying when I told her how I had come to in the back of the truck and could only move my neck up from the bed until I prayed. She started crying and said that she dreamt it but with it happening to her ... so she kinda knew ahead of time.

[Ben< Dreami: That's interesting. She apparently dreamed that she was you.]

Dreami< And now I dream, and sometimes, like today ... it happens. And I will get these overwhelming "gut" feelings, and when I don't listen to them ... well, it happens anyway. So I guess I should listen, huh? *S*

Trinkat< (((Dreami: Yeah, hon, you should!)))

Dreami< Trinkat {{{big, big hugs}}} Thanks, I felt kinda weird sharing this. *s*

KAM< Dreami: Don't feel weird about sharing here, luv. (((HUGS))) And yes, you need to pay attention to what you feel or think or dream and remember dreaming ... okay?

Dreami< KAM: But how come I can't always remember what I dream, yet sometimes when I do remember and it happens, it freaks me right out ... like today? Shouldn't I be able to always remember? *S*

KAM< Dreami: We don't always remember our dreams, but when we do, they are usually a message of some sort for us. There are ways to try to remember our dreams, but I find that they don't work unless I'm meant to remember them. *S*

Dreami< KAM: Thanks ... that makes sense. **S**

merry< KAM: I've always dreamed a lot, and vividly, and often remember what I dream. But some dreams have a particular texture to them ... those are the ones I pay special attention to.

KAM< merry: Yes, that is a special way of putting it ... a particular texture to them ... and heed them well. *S*

merry< KAM: *nodding* "Texture" is the best word I've found for it, though it's really more of a feeling.

DestinyB< When I was 9 the phone rang in the middle of the night and I sat up in bed and said "Grandma died". It was a call to inform us of my grandmother's death from a heart attack. She had never been seriously ill in her life.

Trinkat< (((DestinyB)))

Dreami< DestinyB: That is like me with my grandfather. I knew before they told me, and he too was never sick.

merry< I see a recurring pattern of younger children knowing of an older relative's death.

Trinkat< merry: I feel that my older deceased relatives guide and protect me. Twice in my life, I've awoken to find one of them standing at my bedside, only to find the next day that they had died. Understand though, that I feel very fortunate to have had my elders for as long as I have. They've all been long-lived and have been available to share their wisdom and love with me.

KAM< Trinkat: Guess none of our relatives wanted to leave without telling us good-bye ... which is a nice way to know that they have left this worldly plane and gone to something better. *S*

[Ben< There are many reports of visitations by loved ones soon after they died. If we look at this pattern from the visitor's point of view, we may find an insight concerning our own future: Who will I not want to leave without saying good-bye?]

guitarist< I had a recent event which I would not like to share at this time because I'm still processing it.

Jello< guitarist: But it might be months in the future. On the other hand, most people who are warned probably won't believe, but perhaps we should try anyway? (And it's said that people who know about NDEs tend not to have them, too.)

junebeam< Ben: Before the 3 main older adults in my life died (my mother-in-law, father-in-law, and father) there was a dead bird in my path that was very bizarre and unexplained.

Ben< junebeam: Omens are tough. I will try to touch on that later in this series.

Jello< I've had carloads of feelings that I guess are premonitions but which turn out false, so I shrug and go on with life.

guitarist< Yes, so have I, Jello ... and that's why, when it does happen, I spend months dwelling on it. :)

Jello< Hmm ... so far all I see is that I can see lots of significance when I look backward in time, but since I seem to need to not know the future right now (so I can sort some things out), maybe that's why I don't see much of it.

LEGS< Jello: I have an active imagination, being a writer, and so I have a lot of explanations for many things. But when these particular things happened, it was different ... very positive, no hesitation, not from within. So Ben is probably right: discarnate info passed on. Luckily, mine has been for good news more than bad.

Jello< LEGS: Yes, writers are very open to suggestion (errr, fiction writers are, at least), but I think there is something more direct when a powerful spirit puts in a thought, rather than the vague static-y things we pick up otherwise.

merry< Jello: "Always in motion is the future," as Yoda said. I don't think I see THE future ... I see A future. I've had precognitive "knowings" that were not only strong but recurring, and then suddenly vanished. My thought is that something happened to change the future.

sahadeva< merry: Do you think the mental process is involved in a true precognition?

merry< sahadeva: I'm not sure what you're asking. Which mental process are you referring to? And what are we calling "true precognition?"

sahadeva< merry: Thought involvement is what I mean by mental process.

merry< sahadeva: I just wasn't sure what you meant by true precognition. Are you asking if I feel that thought process is involved in reliable precognition? I know for myself, the most reliable precognition flashes I get are when I'm NOT thinking about it.

StarrFu< sahadeva: Precognition comes when you are not thinking. The mental body is open then, and being is the first step. Mine are strange and bring noise, smells and tastes with them.

sahadeva< Yes, merry, I don't think any mental process can be involved. Seems StarrFu may have strange precognition. Also, merry, chasing a bunch of psychic channeler types is certainly a dead end. To accept the experience is enough, and to enjoy the experience of the self.

StarrFu< Yes, there are times where we need to be rather than do.

merry< sahadeva: I agree! As it happens, I turn to the oracles I use, not for knowledge of future events, but for insight into the lessons of the moment.

sahadeva< merry: I know nothing of oracles. It probably takes a lot of time to do that stuff like tarot.

StarrFu< I have strange toes ... a toe that opened up to sensing wars starting with Korea, an earthquake toe after the bad one in 1971 in Mexico, a toe that opened to plane crashes, and a toe attuned to natural disasters ... all on the same foot. I get a stabbing pain and a picture(s). Wonder what's in store for the other foot?

guitarist< StarrFu: OOWWW! That hurt as I thought about it. My husband has bad enough feet as it is -- he wouldn't appreciate a "gift" like yours!

StarrFu< guitarist: It is all over in a quarter of a second. I have to replay things to make sense.

DestinyB< I've had so many precognitions and deja vu experiences that I could write a book about them. I learned to trust the messages for a time, but now I know that everything doesn't come true. I feel like there are ways to change things and make them not happen (sometimes).

KAM< DestinyB: Yes, the future, if known, can be changed. Your precognitions of a future could change what you do and how you handle situations, and change the vision you had. So for me, I still trust my precognitions and my intuitions and my dreams ... and try to change those that would be detrimental to others or to myself, by my actions as time progresses ... so may we all ... but to distrust them ... no, I do trust them!

lightgrrl< Any comforting words for those of us who aren't gifted with precognition?

FRAML< lightgrrl: Always look where you put your foot before you take your next step. *G*

Ben< lightgrrl: Precognition is a mixed blessing, to say the very least, as several people here tonight are pointing out.

lightgrrl< Thank you for the reminder, Ben. I don't mean to sound ungrateful but I do feel alone when I hear stories about contact with relatives here and beyond.

Jello< lightgrrl: I think precognition is a mixed blessing ... and most people seem to learn on their own just fine without it. Evidence shows that after death most of us gain a lot of what was limited during life ... we may not need to rush things.

lightgrrl< Indeed, Jello, I guess I'm doing okay without the additional "input."

Jello< lightgrrl: There are plenty of us out here with limited perception, inability to channel, no precognition, etc.

KAM< Ben & Jello: True, so true ... a definite mixed blessing!

sahadeva< KAM: So it is. Semi-photographic memory is also a mixed blessing.

Jello< lightgrrl: I know your frustration, but I think some people can tell you they lack most psychic abilities "by design" -- i.e., for their own good, by their own choice.

guitarist< Jello: Why would someone choose this if they hadn't run into the difficulties themselves -- i.e., had psychic incidents and then chose to shut down?

Jello< guitarist: I have heard of that from someone, and also, there's the possibility of pre-life choice. Sometimes having an ability is not to one's benefit. :)

guitarist< Jello: I agree that sometimes an ability like this is more painful than helpful, especially as I become acquainted with individuals who have it on a more or less regular basis.

Ben< ALL: Rather than posting a fourth question now, I think it would be better to continue this discussion of personal examples. I'll get into the deja vu feeling and precognitive dreams next time.

sahadeva< What about the forward time precognition, Ben? It's so easy to get caught in semantics ... being pragmatic, I know this.

Ben< sahadeva: I will have to lead into the subject of time-transcending precognition with some scenarios, I think, in order to focus the discussion instead of letting it run away into all kinds of theories.

sahadeva< OK, thanks, Ben. I never had the past stuff, only little future ones having to do with my path that were almost immediately fulfilled (in a week or two). Otherwise, I am a precognition dummy. lol

Ben< /topic Discussion of precognition

DestinyB< There was a time when I was in my 20's when I was having many, many precognitive experiences, to the point that it was interfering with my normal life and making me crazy! With foreknowledge comes a responsibility, and at the time I couldn't handle it. I prayed that the ability to "know" be stopped, and it was for a time. As I've grown spiritually, the "gift/curse" has been slowly restored to me.

KAM< DestinyB: Yes, I understand. And with maturity, you are able to handle the precognitions that you do get ... much better than before, anyway ... right? (((HUGS)))

DestinyB< Yes, KAM: This is a gift and should be treated as such. The times we aren't able to change some event or warn someone about it are to prepare us for what is inevitable.

sahadeva< DestinyB: Yes, special abilities are a curse, in a way. I know what you mean.

merry< sahadeva: In fact, on reflection, that's a lot of why I don't worry about the why and how of precognition, telekinesis, or other "supernatural" phenomena (which I don't think are outside nature). I found that intellectualizing about them tends to lead to the Centipede's Dilemma.

sahadeva< merry & DestinyB: It is very easy for people to get caught in the nonsense of the astral. These are certainly real but not a goal to strive for, imho.

StarrFu< Being a reader and a healer for over 40 years, I know that precognitions have less value for me if they come true. I am given these visions to aid the good into being greater, and to prevent or advise the "not so good" so that a possibility of it not happening is stronger.

guitarist< StarrFu: I agree with you, especially about tragic events. It is better that they do not happen, and that people are steered away from them. :)

Jello< Hmm ... I also occasionally get flashes of a feeling that something terrible will happen to me or someone else. I think it's a good thing I'm fairly sure I don't have precognition ... I might be really terrified otherwise.

Ben< ALL: I couldn't keep up with the discussion tonight, so I plan to go back over this transcript and add some comments as I usually do.

KAM< *smiling at Ben*

Jello< I recall some NDE books where people were given frightening visions of what could happen in 1997 (etc). I wonder if we have somehow averted some of those, or if those visions weren't true to begin with?

DestinyB< Jello: I studied and tracked many famous psychics for a number of years. All of them had high accuracy ratings until around 1997 ... then almost NONE of their predictions came true! I wondered if something changed (divine intervention?) to change all the outcomes of the visions.

Jello< DestinyB: (on 1997) ... that is interesting.

KAM< DestinyB: That is interesting ... really beginning in 1997? wow ... wonder what it was that happened to change those predictions ... hmmmmm

guitarist< DestinyB: I heard a shot the afternoon of the day JFK was assassinated. I knew something terrible had happened, but knew not what. I had just turned 8 years old. That was the last time that happened to me. :)

DestinyB< WOW guitarist! That's something!

guitarist< Yeah, DestinyB, it's something I don't talk about much. The afternoon was quite peaceful where I was, and I couldn't find the source of the shot I'd heard. Not long after that, we kids were gathered together and told about the assassination.

Aradiaa< I don't know if this is something I should put here and now, but because I keep thinking of it, here is a little something that is coming back to me. During the 1991 war in the middle east ... in *the air* something is coming, called by the war ... people are *crazy* (sick)? I keep thinking now, there was something *released* into the air. The face of it is justice ... but a justice based on an eye for an eye. (Whoever lives by the sword, dies by the sword) ... I don't know ... I just want to share this.

Ben< Aradiaa: That vision and feeling seems to have been seen and felt by more than a few people. And yet, the interpretation of it is very difficult and answers concerning what it meant vary widely.

Aradiaa< To add to that post ... I want also to say that the post was more of my interpretation of the vision or dream. The actual events that I saw and interpreted were something in itself.

Aradiaa< Ben: *smiling* I just typed that before I saw your post.

DestinyB< Aradiaa: That was a powerful vision! Do you often have insights about world events? For me, I "heard" a painful noise and knew something had happened. I wrote down the time, and later found out that the first bombing of Desert Storm had been at the very same time!

Aradiaa< DestinyB: I'm not sure that I have visions. I don't know about most of the things I envision or daydream! *L* But with these certain experiences, I think that at the time, I "felt" there was something to them, but had not the words or knowledge or even the means to tell them to another. And because I have not dedicated myself (due to personal reasons) to all I had a dedication to when these things happened to me, I have no idea if what is happening to me nowadays is even connected. (I feel apart from the connection, visions of world events, insights.)

Aradiaa< Well, thanks for letting me put some of my experiences into this room. I'm going now ... Love and laughter to all!

guitarist< All: I wonder whether, when we bless each other with "sweet dreams" and other such sentiments/blessings, we are not chasing away precognition, particularly knowing about tragedy. I also wonder whether we do this to keep foreknowledge away on purpose.

Jello< guitarist: Hopefully, blessings will tune the spirit upward, helping the spirit avoid precognition that isn't helpful! If you're right, then the purposefulness is hopefully a good thing (if the blessings are good).

sahadeva< Well, here's a strange one -- figure this out. I went to the park in Florida and saw many seemingly ghosts of children in the playground, then a holy being rounding them up. I looked back and it was all gone. I shook my head and said to myself "I'm dreaming" (but my eyes were open). I went home and turned on the TV and watched the Oklahoma bombing.

DestinyB< sahadeva: I'm glad I wasn't the only one who experienced odd things that morning. I've wondered if there was something important about the Oklahoma bombings. I didn't know anyone personally who was affected by them.

wiggit< We all were. Levels of community are many ... reach to other states, countries ...

Jello< The psychic shock waves of the bombings were huge, it seems, just from the public reaction.

wiggit< Humans connect ... in tough times.

Jello< sahadeva: Hmm, and you had perceived the children to be in that park ... or was it a sense of juxtaposition?

sahadeva< Jello: I saw them with open eyes, in the park playing with the holy being, and they disappeared. Perhaps juxtaposition, I don't know, or think about it. It just happened, Ok?

Jello< sahadeva: Thanks for the clarification. :)

Ben< sahadeva: You might have picked up that vision of a holy one rounding up the ghosts of children from any of many minds (sapient beings, incarnate or discarnate).

sahadeva< Ben: Probably a coincidence with the Oklahoma thing. I do remember it as a very joyous and uplifting experience, made me think of the lord constantly for weeks.

Ben< sahadeva: Yes. Watching holy spirits rescue children is always a joyous and uplifting experience for me, too. It keeps me thinking of the good-will and loving-kindness of all those who work as instruments of the Most High God.

sahadeva< Ahh ... the worship of the lord is refreshing and uplifting.

LEGS< Indeed, sahadeva.

Ben< sahadeva: Yes, I agree. And also, there are many gods, and many mental images of the Lord, that I do not worship. *S*

LEGS< Ben: Can you enlarge on that? When I worship, I aim my thoughts to God and his son Jesus.

Ben< LEGS: Yes. I know your understanding of the good-will and loving-kindness of God and Jesus. However, as our dear friend Trudy said, she was taught a mental image of God that she described as "Santa Claus with a flame-thrower." She could not connect her heart to the Lord in prayer until she discarded that old image, that false theology.

LEGS< Oh ... yes, Ben, I read her correspondence with you. BTW, she was here one nite recently (well, a couple of months ago). Is she well ... still growing in her faith?

[Ben< LEGS: Trudy is doing very well, and has a job she really enjoys. As you would expect, it is a job in which she is helping people, and she was guided to it.]

sahadeva< In our first discussion, Ben (a few months ago), I recounted the story of my old lady friend that met an Indian guru (Satchitananda). Shortly thereafter she had her first vision of Jesus (she was a devout Christian her entire life). The love of god is universal. Semantics get in the way, though.

Ben< sahadeva: Yes. Semantics can get in the way -- and as Rene said several years ago when he was first building SpiritWeb, dogma is the poison for spiritual life. As you know, I believe that spiritual truth is simple and universal. I just don't understand enough of it yet. *S*

sahadeva< Me either, Ben. When love spreads thru the heart this is an indication.

Ben< sahadeva: Many years ago I wrote a little poem that I called "My Prayer." It goes: "If I could have but one prayer answered, I'd plead with all my heart and mind: Father, Father, teach me wisdom -- the blessed wisdom to be kind." That prayer has been answered, and answered, and answered -- and apparently the answering of it is an open-ended process. *S*

LEGS< (((Ben))) a good prayer, indeed ... *s*

sahadeva< Ahhh ... my simple prayer is constant, "Never let me forget you" --because I have forgotten. Also I pray "Grant me understanding."

Ben< sahadeva: The need for that simple prayer I also understand from experience. Namaste.

sahadeva< Ben: It is the true feeling behind the prayer that is significant. As an old bird, you know. Love to you, my friend, and all here.

Bengal< Thank you! I know the word, Namaste. It is a word passed to me by a dear friend. I am (hopefully) on a spiritually journey. But it does get tiresome at times.

LEGS< Namaste, Bengal. I hope that your strength on this spiritual journey may be unflagging.

DestinyB< I had a dream about a gray place ... smoke, fires, danger. Many dangerous people lurking about. There was a building which I entered, with doors on each wall. I went and opened a door to the back of the building where I found about 20 young children dressed in white gowns. They were crying, confused and upset. Why were these children left alone? Even babies? The older children were attending to the babies. They were upset when I entered the room, but relaxed when they saw I was a "momma type" person. I stayed with them and comforted them the best that I could until a lady in a long gown came in and said that she would care for them now. I woke up, and the Oklahoma City bombing was on TV. Was there a connection with my dream? I don't have any answers.

wiggit< DestinyB: Sounds like there was a connection. At least a home that is safe for kids ... it was not that day. ((((Hugs))))

Jello< DestinyB: "Many dangerous people lurking about"?

DestinyB< Jello: I can't claim to understand the dream ... only that maybe there were so many souls leaving the planet at one time that maybe they needed a little human soul intervention to help ease the transition for the children. It was one of those dreams that didn't feel like a dream at all. It felt like reality! I'm straying from the subject.

wiggit< Not really straying ... dreams are so real ... give them whatever you need.

Jello< DestinyB: But in natural disasters across the world, people die by the scores, and most of us here don't notice. I think we have a closer link to those kids because we share a common culture, and perhaps more connections ... perhaps other things that make us "closer" in some kind of non-physical space.

wiggit< close proximity.

DestinyB< Jello: I've wondered why (if it was some sort of out of body experience) they would choose me to help. I'm no one special and have no personal connection to Oklahoma City or it's inhabitants. The only thing I can think of is that I was asleep and able to assist. Perhaps the children were afraid of the Angels!

Jello< DestinyB: You are a caring spirit, and perhaps you had a connection to the 3 year old or something like that ... and you felt the need and you went.

wiggit< Or intermediary, to carry on 'till all required beings were able to get there.

Ben< DestinyB: As in any other kind of search-and-rescue operations, anyone who *can* and *will* help those who need to be helped to a place of safety is invited to participate. *S*

DestinyB< Ben: That's good to know. I'm always willing to help those in need. I had never heard of human intervention with spirits before this happened to me. The information on your website was a real eye opener!

sahadeva< Ben: Musta been that funny little old yogi's influence. *VBS*

LEGS< {{{Ben}}} thanx again for having a seminar to allow us to sound out ideas and theories ... know that you do a lot of work. I will have to read to find out what everyone decided gave me the message about the minister's wife. *S*

LadyBleu< The day of the Oklahoma bombing, I remember I went there in my finer body. I was doing rescue work on the inner. I remember distinctly, like yesterday, especially one 3 year old ... the sweet face ... we knew each other ... we kissed as I handed her to an angel-like being.

sahadeva< All of us small creatures have a great destiny, there is no doubt about this.

LadyBleu< The gulf storm also ... It appeared that I was taken way up above the firmament, then gathered the lovely brilliant orange beams of light dispersed as golden chiffon like luminous waves or beams ... enfolding the emotional bodies of all the deceased and mourning, confused loved ones, still dazed and alive ... with a huge, awesome over-shadow Being of powerful force projecting through me to them. I could only say "Thank you ... use me any way you know ... oh thank you!" Later, not sure when or how long, I was back in my body wiping tears from my cheeks. I stayed sad for three days and then snapped out of it.

DestinyB< One night I sat up in bed and clearly heard my former husband's grandmother say "My heart hurts." I was shaking and didn't know what to do. (I was 24 years old.) Should I call someone at this hour (3 AM)? I didn't do anything. She died that night of a heart attack around 3 AM. I felt bad that she had called out to me to help her and I did nothing! She forgave me at her funeral (which she enjoyed). She said it was just her time to leave.

wiggit< a special time ... :) for you.

guitarist< I'm glad for you, DestinyB, that your former grandmother-in-law forgave you after she died. This is the kind of thing I wish I had more often, from people I don't hear from often.

LadyBleu< Mother was in coma. Suddenly I looked up at my daughter and said "My Mom just passed over." Without hesitation, I called the Home Care in Seattle: "Please connect me to Mrs S room." The voice on the other end said "Sorry to inform you, Mrs. S just passed away. Can I be ..." I interrupted "No ... No ..." and hung up the phone ... wondering ...

[Ben< LadyBleu: This sounds to me as though you felt something change at the moment she passed, and properly interpreted what that feeling meant.]

LadyBleu< 22 years ago (my daughter was 2 years old), ahead of us it appeared as though several cars would collide. In that moment, the car was lifted up ... up and over the curb, and the car made its own right turn, avoiding a multi-car pile up. My sweet child looked at my big bugs eyes as I was still holding my breath, and said "Ain't that ga-woovey motho?" ("groovy" was a hip word in the mid 60's.)

DestinyB< LadyBleu: I've heard of divine intervention in the prevention of serious car accidents ... even about cars passing "through" each other. Maybe your child is a reincarnation of someone who lived in the 60's! These infernal machines we use for transportation keep the Angels very busy!

LadyBleu< I had a vision in about 1972 or 73, of my daughter standing atop a spiraling staircase ... there was a rainbow, and at the end of it, a pot of gold. I asked my daughter "What do we do with all that money?" From high on the top of the spiraling stairs, and in a distant voice, she responded to me, "We'll make curtains out of it, mother!" *giggles*

LEGS< A nice picture, LadyBleu ... *s*

LadyBleu< ((LEGS)) *S* I think so, too. Have you had any visions? Oftentimes precognitive dreams may actually be visions not understood at the time as such. I think so ... What are your thoughts?

LEGS< LadyBleu: I am more likely to have things come to me either while writing or as though someone spoke it to me ... a near audible message, as Ben reiterated at the beginning of tonite's class. Many times when I finish writing an answer to someone, I wonder where the info I gave them came from, as it was subject matter that I was not aware of.

LadyBleu< Oh, LEGS, Yes! Yes! I do love your explanation of spirit communication. I also feel that way. Many times people ask me to repeat it, and I say "I can never remember exactly what I said, and never say it the same way twice." I am learning to use a recorder now. Sometimes I am amazed what came from me. Yes, I like that. Guess I have had these on-going talks with God since I was a kid. I thought everyone did. LOL Should have known better ... it could have been a best seller ... hummm! ... Good work, Neil Donald Welsch! *giggles*

DestinyB< LadyBleu: Have you come into that "gold" yet?

LadyBleu< DestinyB: Well, as I think of your question, I believe I have. I want for nothing. My needs seem always to be fulfilled. I have always more to give away when others are in need. Wisdom is gold. I have acquired wisdom in this school of hard knocks ... as in Ben's prayer, I also requested wisdom and knowledge from on High. I'm an old "crone" ... a "Kundi TuTu" in Hawaiian ... and have now opportunity to pass it onward to the younger grasshoppers and darling "braves" and "squaws" as the expression goes ... I think? LOL Did I use the right Native terminology? Hope so, and hope not to offend anyone ...

sahadeva< Tell me some more, Ben, about the old yogi you met in London, please.

Ben< sahadeva: What else do I know about the old yogi I met in London? The answer is "Nothing." Everything I know about him is in that one report on my website. I still do not even know his name.

sahadeva< I see, Ben. I met one, too, in 1975. What I asked was what you felt at the time you met him, if you could re-describe it.

guitarist< All: just a thought here ... I tend to think that precognition is a lot like meeting celebrities or personalities ... both can be awe-inspiring, not everyone has equal access, and either of them can be a double-edged sword depending on what or who you know and your relationship with it or them. My husband is a chief engineer in public radio. He has also been in public TV and in remote TV as an engineer-in-charge of a TV truck. Through him, I have met some 'personalities.' The Star Trek convention was not one of them.

LadyBleu< guitarist: (re: visions) Oh yes, I do agree with you. I had to ask "Please stop. I do not want to see that kind of future. Please stop!" ... and it did.

sahadeva< Ben: Thank you for your seminar tonite. I feel uplifted as I'm sure many here do.

Ben< sahadeva: Thank you. I also felt it was a good seminar tonight, and an excellent discussion afterward. This is a neat group of people.

Aelina< I'll just throw this out at random, if you don't mind. I spent last Saturday crying a fair bit. I had just managed to get hold of my father after my grandmother died the previous Monday, and he was upset because apparently my grandmother had removed my mom (who passed in 1996) from her will, and I had been effectively left out as a consequence. I felt a great sense of aloneness and hurt well up in me. It was very painful. I could not understand why this had happened. During the height of my pain, as my husband was ineffectively trying to comfort me, I informed him that I could not sense her. I never did sense her passing. He surprised me by informing me that HE felt her, at the foot of our bed. For some reason that calmed me down.

DestinyB< Aelina: Interesting that your husband felt her presence! Perhaps being upset made it difficult for you to feel her spirit! Sorry for your loss.

Ben< Aelina: You might well not sense her passing if your connection to her wasn't active at that moment. And grief or any other kind of upset can block a connection, so it isn't surprising that your husband felt her at the foot of the bed when you didn't.

Aelina< Thank you, DestinyB and Ben, for your words. And yes, grief was preventing that among other things. I never really sensed my mom, either, but she visits me in my dreams a lot. I did sense my mother's father, my gran's husband who passed just before my mom did. He visited me one evening, then went on to do whatever it is he does.

Jello< It was your grandmother's presence? I wonder if she regrets the hurt she caused you?

Aelina< Jello: Yes, actually ... she does. I do not think she meant there to be hurt.

Jello< OK ... It must be terrible to see in retrospect what one has done. (I'm not looking forward to it, but if we can forgive others, we can be forgiven.)

LEGS< Jello: That forgiving business is one I dare say we all need to work at ... including forgiving ourselves, which is difficult for me. I worry about being a poor mother ... etc.

Jello< No kidding ... especially if we continue to do something we aren't sure is right ... I dunno ... sometimes we gotta learn, I guess, and pray that we don't do too much damage and learn the right things. *S*

Aelina< It is a terribly frustrating thing to desire to plan your passing so that hurt will be minimized, and then run out of time. There was so much she still wanted to do.

Jello< Aelina: Yes, that IS nasty. :( But I do hope that you know she still cares about you.

Aelina< Jello: Almost never doubted it.

Ben< Aelina: Yes, frustrating to the soul who passed earlier than he or she expected to, and it can result in a need to make amends. Being always prepared to depart this world reminds me of something I read. A monk was asked what he did during the silent vespers meditation in his monastery. He said "I imagine myself preaching my own funeral."

sahadeva< To meditate on your own death is powerful. I spent 3 weeks at Varanasi watching burning bodies, and never was afraid to die after that.

Aelina< Ben: I have felt, most of my life, that I will be 'here' for quite some time. What is unclear to me, and what I worry about, is whether any that know me and love me will still be here when I pass. It feels that those who are family are so very far away, 10,000 miles in reality, yet so far emotionally, too. For one can not help that life apart speeds on and there is little time to connect.

Ben< Aelina: Ah ... yes. And yet, there are friends and potential friends closer to us than we often realize.

Jello< Though they can throw huge monkey wrenches into our lives sometimes. :)

[Ben< Aelina: Both the feeling that you will be 'here' for quite some time and the unclear worry about whether any that know you and love you will still be here when you pass could be coming from the subconscious (karmic) memory of a past life in which you out-lived all those who knew you and loved you -- or it could be coming from an attached spirit (perhaps a relative) who had that experience.]

Ben< ALL: Well, 'tis time for me to hang up the mouse. (It hates that, but at least it doesn't run away during the night.) Peace and blessings to each of you. *poof*

Ben< Tonight we'll take a look at the deja vu experience and precognitive dreams. Then I'll post a scenario-question to illustrate some of the implications of symbolic precognitive dreams.

Ben< Webster's Dictionary defines deja vu as "the illusion that one has previously had an experience that is actually new to one." In this definition, *illusion* is somewhat prejudicial, and *feeling* would be a better choice of words.

Ben< QUESTION 1: Have you had a deja vu experience that you would like to describe? If so, please include a comment concerning how you think that deja vu experience happened. YOUR TURN

flybye< Yes, have occasional deja vu.

Ben< flybye: How do you think deja vu happens?

flybye< I thought maybe it was like a blip in your brain, like a rerun of a similar experience.

sauergeek< deja vu experience: riding in the back of the family van at about age 15, getting a vision of playing a game on our computer. Some time later, I downloaded a game, and realized that it was the game I had been playing in my head in the car. No clue how it happened.

toad< Ben, yes, I have had several deja vu experiences in my life. I would like to comment on them and say that I have no clue as to how they happen.

Ben< sauergeek & toad: Okay. One possibility of how deja vu happens is what we'll be exploring tonight.

selki< Yes, I have deja vu.

LEGS< I often experience the deja vu feeling; however, the "often" adverb includes doing regular chores that I do repeat ... as well as being in new places and seeing a stranger dressed a certain way, hearing them say a certain phrase, just as a certain car drives by (for instance), and feeling that the exact scene has been seen before ... ????

Yopo< *S* Yeah! My most interesting deja vu experience was one where I had that "feeling" while the events were playing out like a recording, and I could remember exactly when I HAD experienced it before. It was a repeat of the same sequence experienced in a dream maybe three days previously. Involved opening my mailbox, and finding a very specific but unexpected letter inside.

LadyV< For me, only once. I was in a cemetery and had this absolute compulsion to sit on a beach near the grave of a young pilot. I could not leave. I felt as if I knew the man in that grave. I did not.

12DnAHelix< I am a precog/visionary/direct knower. My whole life has included coincidences so far beyond synchronicity to appear 'As If By Design.' Is it Ok if I sit in? I could use some greater understanding.

Ben< 12DnAHelix: Sure, you're welcome. Contribute if and when you wish to.

12DnAHelix< Ok. ;)

Yopo< Most often, though, I have that "this has happened before" feeling without remembering specifically where or when I HAD the experience previously.

sauergeek< In my case, I'm fairly certain I had not seen the game anywhere before, nor anything similar to it.

guitarist< I can identify no instance right now that I can clearly say was deja vu. So, I'm listening to all of you for now.

Ben< Last week, merry said, "I traced it [deja vu experiences] to images from dreams or meditations or even daydreaming that I had not consciously interpreted."

FRAML< Ben: I've had them, primarily related to the Ardennes region of Belgium, when I was touring there in the mid 1980s.

toad< I am also a visionary. My visions come to me like turning on a television set. The way I don't know how TV works is also the way that I don't know how my visions work. Thank you.

flybye< I had a premonition of an accident. I felt it in the air, and just knew something was gonna happen. Shortly after, a phone call confirmed it. I was young, about 13, and haven't experienced that since. But I don't think its the same thing as deja vu, is it?

[Ben< flybye: A premonition is a feeling that something is going to happen; deja vu is a feeling that something has happened before.]

selki< I had a deja vu one time (when I was a kid) where I was in a house. I knew the layout of the house. Then one day I went with my parents and guess what? It was the house. I had never been there before. I still don't understand if it was deja vu or OBE.

Ben< selki: Thanks for mentioning that. OBE can be a source of something like deja vu that is related to location: "I've been here before."

sauergeek< I've had other instances where I thought there was deja vu involved, but I was able to track out a similar experience or, in a couple cases, realize that I really *had* been there before and just didn't realize that how I got there was somewhere I'd been before.

DestinyB< There have been so many times that I've experienced deja vu that I don't know where to begin. I normally dream about a being in a place and seeing everything around me, and a day or so later find myself there. I once went on a month-long camping trip in the Western USA. Almost every night I would dream about where I would visit the next day, and it would happen exactly as dreamed. Since I had never been to any of these places before and we weren't on a schedule there was no way I could know what it would be like.

guitarist< That's amazing, DestinyB!

selki< Sometimes I'll go someplace, and I get this "feeling" that comes over me like I've seen these events happening ... what is that feeling?

toad< Deja vu . . . deja vu. How do you do?

Ben< In my case, a deja vu experience is usually the recognition of something I previously saw in a realistic dream. I had forgotten the dream -- until I had the deja vu experience and asked myself "When and where did I see this before?" Then I remembered that I had dreamed it.

greyman< As a younger man I would get frequent deja vu experiences. I never gave much thought to the "mechanics" or "theory of operation". I can remember being surprised about the experiences. Most were recently occurring dreams that soon after became "reality". I have never had a deja vu experience that came from a dream more than several weeks earlier (from dream to reality).

toad< Hey ... whoa ... what's happening here? I think I just had one!

Yopo< It's usually hard to reality-test the conviction that events are being repeated. Knowing the lay-out of a house one has never visited until now or knowing what is to come a moment before it happens seems to add an additional dimension.

Ben< COMMENT: Deja vu literally means "already seen". Thus, the deja vu experience is actually *recognition* rather than precognition: "I have seen this before, just like this!" -- plus a small shock that comes from the contradictory realization: "But I didn't! I couldn't have! This hasn't happened before!"

sauergeek< "But I only just now downloaded this game!" :-)

selki< Ben, that is what happens to me. It seems as though I can be someplace as simple as the beach, and I get the feeling that I am repeating an event that already has happened. It has happened to me many times. It's like I've seen this happening before it actually does.

guitarist< selki: Like the movie "Groundhog Day"?

selki< guitarist: Something like that. It's been happening to me since I was a kid. I have strong deja vu sometimes. It feels like something slams into me when it happens.

DestinyB< LOL @ guitarist: That movie was a nightmare! It bothered me to watch it!

LEGS< Ben: Thanx for the info about it being a dream. I know that I have remembered something happening in a dream when it occurs in 3D, but didn't think dreaming it was a recognized source for deja vu ... but yes, as a source for precognition instances.

flybye< I had a dream (when I was young) that I was shot in the head. I felt the pain. It felt real. Then I felt myself leave the body, like you hear people describe, the light and peacefulness. Then I woke up.

[Ben< flybye: That dream could have come from your soul-memory of the way you died in a previous life, or from a discarnate soul who died that way. Past life regression and spirit releasement therapy investigate those two possible sources of dreams such as you described.]

Ben< COMMENT: Deja vu isn't simply recognition or pattern recognition, because we don't feel that little shock if we remember when we saw this before. So, the deja vu experience raises the next question ...

Ben< QUESTION 2: Last week, guitarist said, "I dreamed symbolically, and months later saw the reality, and then understood the dream." Have you seen something (either symbolic or realistic) in a dream, meditation, day-dream, etc., that you didn't understand, and later saw the reality, and then understood the dream? If so, please describe that sequence of events. YOUR TURN

DestinyB< On my trip, the only constant thing was my family and our vehicle and camper. We just wandered wherever the road took us and spent the night in different locations each night. I think the deja vu made things more familiar, so that it would be easier to accept all the changes everyday. I don't think we're wired to have that many changes for an extended period of time.

12DnAHelix< I have written descriptions of the Global Network of Centers (1995), two years before I located the man who was an architect and designed the centers exactly as I had been shown, down to the shape (1997). Then he gave me his work, the whole philosophy and initiative behind creating a global network of centers. I experience conscious direct knowing pretty regularly, though I think I have only had bonafide deja vu once ... but lots of information received through telepathic communication, in addition to accessing the quantum energy levels that we can attune with. Dream precognitions are usually soul impulses that arise from within the subconscious mind.

selki< My youngest son came to me one time and said he was worried about something. He described what was happening to him ... it was deja vu ... he was too young to realize what it was. I told him he was very special, and to let it happen. Gosh, he was just a little guy, and it scared him because he didn't know what it was.

LadyV< 1. dream of car flying through the air with me in it. 2. reality of car flying through the air with me in it. 3. understood dream.

12DnAHelix< Our perceptual fields are not limited to the 3-dimensional constructs that our belief systems have shackled them within. Most of this stuff is explained pretty good in 'The Holographic Universe' by Michael Talbot.

Yopo< I guess the conventional explanation for the feeling of deja vu has to do with some obscure brain malfunction, where we are accessing the event as it is stored in our memory simultaneously with the direct experience of the event. Remembrance of the dream experience that clearly preceded the actual event sorta shoots that theory down.

[Ben< Yopo: Yes, it does.]

flybye< I was drifting off to sleep and saw 3 old native Americans, symbolizing 3 generations. The oldest said to me, not in words but as I interpreted it to be, some blessing to me and my family. He had some kind of rain-stick, or rattle. Soon after that, I found out my sister was pregnant. Maybe that was it.

LadyV< flybye (smiling)

LEGS< Nice interpretation that sure seems to fit, flybye ...

Yopo< Hmm ... Can't recall a symbolic dream that was later clarified by an actual event. Leastwise, not from my own experience.

sauergeek< I'm with Yopo on this one.

DestinyB< I was having dreams about a place that I had never been before. About 3 months later I had moved into an apartment and one day experienced deja vu and remembered the dreams about this place. I think it was mental preparation to help with the stress of moving.

Ben< ALL: As you have no doubt noticed, my second question is the flip-side of my first question. In the second question, a precognitive dream is remembered and not forgotten as it is in the deja vu experience.

sauergeek< Hmm, I suppose that my game vision and then download technically qualifies under this second question, rather than the first.

LEGS< Ben: Enlarge on this for me, please. Do you mean that it is more possible that the deja vu experiences are also actually precognitive dream sequences that we simply fail to remember? Or perhaps they were farther back in our life, and we forgot them ... at least on the surface of our minds?

Ben< LEGS: Yes, I think the deja vu experience is usually (if not always) the recognition of a precognitive dream that we have forgotten. This understanding of how deja vu works just moves the question to precognitive dreams.

FRAML< Mine were recognizing places that I had never been to before, and ones I knew I had not seen pictures of -- primarily battle locations for the Battle of the Bulge in WWII.

[Ben< FRAML: Thanks for mentioning this. As we have discussed, in this case, you might have been there in a previous life, but more likely, the discarnate soul of a WWII soldier we found attached to you was recognizing places he had been.]

12DnAHelix< The reason why I came in here, is because I had a dream 2 nights ago ... can't describe the sequence but it woke me up with a shock and it was semi lucid. I was inside this space and in the center was this 144,000 faceted Diamond Light Etheric Crystalline Sphere. It was spinning at a superluminal rate, with these pulses coming out from the center of it and the energy geometries being thrown off of it incised with the same curvature as the facets. It was cycling through the entire spectrum of the rainbow, even up into the opalescent spectrum. It has been sitting pretty heavy because of the dynamics and circumstances of my whole life. The last time I had a dream involving this crystalline geometry sphere was in September of 1997. When I had the first dream back then, the conditions on the planet were dismal and everyone was running around in the storms. All of a sudden this humongous geometric crystal, like I just described, raised out of the center of the earth. All the people who had been running around stared up in the sky in awe as this thing spun on its axis. As it raised up it shape-shifted into the Androgynous Light Mother Earth Goddess Planetary Mind Field Being ... that is when I gained some major revelations. So I had this dream of this thing two nights ago and I am trying to figure out what it's all about.

flybye< wow, that's very ...

DestinyB< WOW, 12DnAHelix! What a dream!

flybye< What's the question?

12DnAHelix< flybye: I was shown 2 time-lines projected 25 years into the future from the end of 1999 (back in 1996/1997). Before that I was given the only visual rep of the 12 DnA Strand Heart Soul Star on The Planet ... and I also have some architectural conceptual diagrams for a Global Network of Visionary Planning-Satellite Telecommunications Centers. I know that this dream is very significant. I have been listening to 'DnA Activation Music' though, so I think that might have triggered something.

Ben< 12DnAHelix: That surely sounds like a symbolic dream. Interpretation of such dreams depends on what the symbols mean to the person who had the dream, so it is very difficult (well-nigh impossible) for anyone else to accurately interpret such a dream.

12DnAHelix< I was just hoping someone might know what to tell me {yeah right}.

Yopo< Ben: I would think maybe symbolic dreams are a more difficult matter to come to any conclusion about. Mainly, 'cause we might be inclined to "read in" a symbolic meaning in light of a later significant event. The relationship might be little more than a creation of our own mind, no?

[Ben< Yopo: Oftentimes there is no relationship whatsoever between a symbol and what someone thinks that symbol stands for.]

guitarist< 12DnAHelix: How can a Light Mother Earth Goddess (obviously female) be androgynous? Just curious.

12DnAHelix< Because the earth represents the feminine womb aspect of creation, life, nature, etc, and the sun would represent the masculine characteristic. I guess I could cut and paste the direct description that I wrote after I woke up from that dream (3 years ago, 1997) ... androgynous with feminine/mother characteristics emphasized.

toad< Anything is possible.

flybye< Did you ever dream you could fly like a bird?

toad< flybye: Yes, I have sort of flown like a bird. I have also flown on my back.

merry< flybye: I've had recurring dreams about flying for many years. For a long time, I had a great fear of getting tangled in power lines, and it seemed like they were everywhere.

Ben< COMMENT: There are many kinds of dreams. Some dreams are realistic; many or most dreams are symbolic, but it isn't always easy to tell the difference. Some dreams are precognitive; many or most dreams aren't precognitive. We don't usually recognize which dreams are precognitive until we see what we dreamed come true and remember that we previously dreamed it. This is why it is risky to base decisions on "precognitive" dreams -- our own or others' ...

Yopo< I always find the deja vu experience is accompanied by an odd sense of unreality. The experience itself FEELS just a bit like a dream. As though the stuff of reality is momentarily a bit more malleable than usual. Wonder if that is somehow significant?

Ben< Yopo: Yes, I also experience deja vu as a slightly altered state of consciousness -- and with it, the feeling that I can change the course of what I foresaw by doing something (anything) differently than I did in the precognitive dream. I'll get into that next week.

Ben< QUESTION 3: Suppose you lived in Washington, DC, and received a letter from a person you knew had some psychic abilities, saying she had a clear and recurring dream that a bomb was going to be placed in the White House, and asking you to forward that message to the Secret Service so they could take the appropriate precautions. What would you do (or not do) and why? YOUR TURN

FRAML< H'mm, sounds like a loaded question.

LEGS< (((FRAML))) *lol* Ben, I would tell her to contact a local law enforcement agency to pass on her message along with a reference as to her character. Reason: that message coming from an individual could be taken to be a veiled or intentional terrorist threat.

FRAML< Ben: I'd probably notify them. But I expect they get dozens of those type of warnings; however, I guess they check them out. Or have a list of 'psychics' who call a lot.

flybye< I wouldn't, because you know the FBI would be on your doorstep in a heartbeat, thinking you were a kook planning to do it yourself.

LadyV< 1. Notify local police. 2. Follow up on it. 3. I would trust her word if I knew that she had psychic abilities. 4. I would take the responsibility for trusting her. 5. I would rather appear a fool if I was wrong in trusting her than take a chance on the lives of others. Does not matter ... white house, grey house ... same difference.

selki< I would believe that she was telling the truth about her dream. Would be kind of difficult to go to the Secret Service or even the police with this type of warning.

sauergeek< My first thought would be to wonder why she didn't contact the Secret Service herself. I would probably forward it per request. Why? I expect that if I knew such a person, I'd have distinctly eerie feelings about her abilities from prior experience, and would be willing to believe her on this one based on those experiences. (I'd also expect the Secret Service to be dubious of this, and suspect both myself and her of being up to something.)

Yopo< Well. I'd probably forward the information anonymously. Probably without alluding to a psychic source. To avoid energy being wasted investigating either me or the psychic, and to make sure it is taken more seriously. (I imagine psychic predictions are often dismissed owing to their "questionable" origin.)

daCrone< Since I'm not connected to the Secret Service, I'd have to wonder why my friend contacted me. I would likely suggest to my friend that s/he take the initiative.

merry< Ben, with the realities of contacting the Secret Service and convincing them that the warning was valid aside, I take your question to be about whether we are willing to publicly commit to supporting precognition. I would be, under the right circumstances.

guitarist< I would think about it twice or three times, even though I believed this person. I would even pray about how to go about it. The reason: once the Secret Service hears about something like this, I think they would wonder if I myself had anything to do with it. It would be pretty upsetting to be investigated, although I gave the warning. Come to think of it, I would want to know if my source wanted her identity known, because eventually they would want to know (and investigate) her too. Based on this, I would or would not reveal her. Perhaps I would ask some questions first, like "What sort of precautions are you presently taking against a bomb threat" and so on, then gently tell them that I had received information about the "upcoming" bomb placement.

DestinyB< If I received a letter like that, I might tell trusted friends and family about it, but wouldn't pass it on to the Secret Service because I would not want to be under suspicion of being involved in a bombing plot. Wouldn't it be up to the psychic person to convey that information? I doubt anyone would take it seriously anyway.

guitarist< I take that back. I would ask my friend if she had contacted anyone first. I agree with sauergeek that it's the person who knows whose responsibility it is to report the information.

DestinyB< I "knew" about a week beforehand that there would be an assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan. I told my spouse about it, but no one else.

Ben< ALL: Good, thoughtful comments on that scenario. Thanks. I'll post what I did next.

toad< Answer to question #3: I would turn myself in -- because my stupid psychic friend found me out.

Ben< This scenario happened to me in 1972. I did contact the Secret Service in that case. The agent who answered the phone asked me one question: "Can you vouch for her accuracy?" I said, "No, I can't. But I would rather tell you than wish I had." He said, "I understand perfectly. Thank you." If they found anything, there was no mention of it. Later, the woman who sent me that message wrote to all her friends saying she had foreseen that there would be a bomb in the White House -- and the bomb was the Nixon tapes in the Watergate scandal that led to his resignation.

LadyV< ... it was symbolic ... but it was heard.

Yopo< Ben: Hmm ... That durn symbolism thing again ...

merry< That's always the catch with precognition and dreams ... to interpret them accurately. *S*

greyman< Ben: Yes, Arlo Guthrie had Nixon's missing 18 minute "gap" in "Alice's Restaurant Massacre" (in four part harmony). That was a bomb, too.

Ben< COMMENT: When she said the bomb she foresaw was the Watergate tapes, she illustrated the tendency to re-interpret symbolic dreams after the fact in order to claim they were accurate. That happens a lot. [It is basically dishonest.]

merry< As an aside ... some years ago I heard that the FAA had opened a special hotline for people to phone in dreams of airline crashes. They were trying to find some way to use the information to prevent disasters.

LadyV< merry: That is good news to hear! That means the psychics are being heard. Thank you.

merry< LadyV: I took it as very good news. I was also heartened that it was reported on a mainstream news show of some sort, with absolutely no "kooks" spin on it.

Ben< ALL: My impression of that Secret Service agent was, he had received many such telephone calls, knew what to do about them (sweep the building looking for a bomb, which they do regularly anyway), and especially that he sympathized with my position.

daCrone< That is interesting info, Ben. My thinking when you said you would post what you did was that, by virtue of your background, you'd have more credibility than I would. The agent's response puts that in a somewhat different light.

Ben< /topic Discussion of seemingly precognitive dreams

DestinyB< I used to have many precognitive dreams. Some came to pass exactly as dreamed, in some I was able to change something and they didn't happen, and others didn't come true anyway. This has been going on since childhood but has not happened since about 1997.

Ben< DestinyB: "Some came to pass exactly as dreamed, in some I was able to change something and they didn't happen, and others didn't come true anyway." I think that's a fine description of the normal distribution of precognitive experiences (my own and those I've heard or read about). Thanks.

DestinyB< Thanks, Ben! :-D

[Ben< The next post is rather long, but it is relevant to this subject and illustrates the difficulty of interpreting symbolic dreams that may or may not be precognitive. It is an example of an apocalyptic dream.]

12DnAHelix< This is my NoteBook Entry From 9/21/1997. Last night into this morning I had a series of vivid dreams. Let me recapitulate what I can remember. In my dreams, the energetics of the planet were changing. I saw people flocking all over the place, it was like a madhouse. People had no idea what was going on. There were strange cloud formations in the skies, and it was like the entire planet was being electrically charged. There was lightning-like phenomena, although it was unlike normal lightning we are adjusted to. This was beyond dazzling, like there was lightning jumping across all of the clouds. The sky was sparkling like a brilliant diamond from these storms. The planet was very humid, and the rain was heated. People were acting in a crazed maniacal manner. In the middle of all of this upheaval, from inside the center of the earth arose this dazzly 144,000 sided hyper-tetrahedral geometric form. This form was brilliant translucent silver and shifted into all of the colors of the rainbow (many of which can not even be perceived with our physical eyes). It rose up into the atmosphere and shape-shifted its form into an image. As this occurred all of the people who had been scattering and screaming and running around in this fluctuating dismal storm-like condition of the planet stared up into the sky in awe at the splendor their eyes beheld. I was one of these people. This happened last night. The image that this form became was that of the oversoul of the human species, the mother earth goddess, and an androgynous light-being. This being revealed to the individuals alive on the planet at that time what could have been done previously, to insure that along our current time-line (of which there are numerous probable outcomes - depending on the decisions we make right now) we would be prepared. The information I have been receiving really strongly for approximately the past 2 years is beginning to come into focus and make close to complete sense. This information is both crucial and urgent. Each and every single individual being alive is almost in a sense a modern day Noah. Only this time the instructions that are being given are not to build an ark. The guidelines and instructions that are being revealed to us, revolve around the creation of a neo-civilization. Right now our species evolution has arrived at the doorway, star-gateway, or threshold. Whatever our decisions may be, there is no longer any turning back. This is what we have reached. I experienced a Ground Zero Lightning strike last September as well ... and this dream had something to do with that. I woke up feeling the same sort of shock after the lightning strike, with my mind flashing back to when the bolt hit ... and then from there just spiraling off into these other levels dealing with the dynamics of my life ... that is like what my consciousness cycled through two nights ago when I woke up.

12DnAHelix< I need to talk to a specialist. Anna Hayes needs to hurry up and get back from Peru. I gotta go. I have to talk to someone who has the keen 'KnoW'. I am sorry, I shouldn't have even come in here and shared all of that.

flybye< A person is capable of imagining a million different scenarios of any subject. That's what I consider an artist. When you're dreaming, some of these scenarios emerge.

12DnAHelix< I don't think anyone here is equipped to deal with 12th Dimensional Stuff. I wish there were, here around SWC, though. <~PoooF~>

guitarist< You may be right, DnAHelix. I hope you find what you're looking for. Bless you.

Yopo< I wonder? If future events could be consistently and persistently foretold ... would the future ever get here? *brain moving toward gridlock*

Ben< Yopo: LOL Yep, the implications of this subject can lead to mental gridlock -- and/or endless philosophical speculations.

merry< Yopo: I think that's why the future can't be consistently foretold. It's too fluid.

flybye< Then there's the "fate" thing. You have a hunch something will happen, but does that mean it can't be changed somehow?

LadyV< flybye: That's a good point. Do you follow your hunches? Where do they come from? Inside your mind, or just a feeling? The reason I ask is that for me its a persistent feeling, "can't quite put my finger on it" kind of thing. How about you?

flybye< I try to follow my hunches, but you know sometimes we want to do what we want to do.

LadyV< flybye: Human nature ... yes ... agree.

sauergeek< A random thought: all dreams are precognitive (save for nightmares and obviously fantastical ones, such as one I remember of being chased by three different colored sentient trains); only a few prove to be so when the events in question arrive because people chose other ways that nullified the dream's message. Again, just a thought.

Yopo< sauergeek: Interesting idea, but it renders proof or disproof impossible. Which of course doesn't mean it isn't so. *S*

guitarist< Most times, I think people don't realize that their dreams are telling them anything. As Ben said before, most dreams *aren't* precognitive. So, it's between a rock and a hard place to tell whether you're assigning meaning after the fact when it happens. I know that in my case, it had to do with a specific person, who was in both my dream and the reality that followed (and whom I don't see very often -- roughly every 5 years). And the two were clearly related somehow. The question was how, because it wasn't deja vu -- the dream was more like the behind-the-scenes process for the reality to come, perhaps.

DestinyB< guitarist: I've dreamed about someone and later met him. Though it wasn't deja vu, I recognized him from the dream.

FRAML< guitarist: I don't worry about dreams. I forget 99% of mine right after I wake. So I don't know if I've had any precognitive dreams.

guitarist< FRAML: Good for you, I guess ... usually I don't, either. And I didn't about this dream, either, except to ask what this person was doing in it. But when the reality happened, I then went back to the dream to try and understand it.

Yopo< Ben: Why do you think so many precognitive dreams manifest symbolically? Could it be that symbolism somehow does an end-run around the filters of the rational mind?

SageWoman< Yopo, I believe we receive information symbolically every day, both in dreams and in synchronistic events that happen in "reality."

flybye< I believe it's part of our evolution. Like other animals, we develop different skills just to survive, and premonition is an instinct.

LadyV< flybye: Thank you. That makes sense to me.

Ben< Yopo: Dreams in general manifest symbolically because the dreamer's subconscious mind is clothing a thought with symbols in order to express it. Lucid dreaming is much less likely to be symbolic.

Yopo< Hmm ... As though the subconscious is a non-verbal realm. Hadn't thought of that.

LadyV< Yopo: Run that one by me again ... "As though the subconscious is a non-verbal realm." Now I have to think about that. You know, Yopo, that makes a lot of sense ... the symbols are ... yet! some of us do have words ... I do ... course that does not mean it is from my subconscious.

daCrone< I've been working on trying to understand how my not-so-conscious self communicates. One example: when the Concorde crashed, I visualized the site. It was very difficult, and I kept getting an image of a frying pan lid. I had no idea what that meant in the context of the crash. After hearing about the stray piece of metal on the runway, I am wondering if metal is just metal to my not-so-conscious self.

DestinyB< daCrone: WOW! Interesting!

LadyV< daCrone: That would have been very emotional, to visualize that scene.

daCrone< LadyV: Yes, there was a lot of sorrow that accompanied it ... also stunned disbelief. // DestinyB: The lid meant nothing to me without an explanation, so it's clear I don't have the vocabulary down ... if that is what was happening at all.

guitarist< Yes, daCrone, I agree with you that vocabulary is very important. I am discovering that myself. Each of us has to learn his/her own symbol language -- as if things weren't already complicated enough. *g*

daCrone< guitarist: I'm tending toward the idea that, though there may be some 'collectively shared' terms and images, most are individually determined, which means, no book for that! LOL

sauergeek< Another thought on precognition (dream or otherwise): your brain may be subconsciously constructing the outcome of choices made in foreseeable future decisions, and producing that as a dream or vision. If the decisions do work out the way your subconscious built them, you have precognition for that particular set of events. Otherwise, it's just something random.

flybye< That makes sense to me, sauergeek.

LadyV< sauergeek: choices ... that makes sense also.

DestinyB< sauergeek: Interesting thought!

Yopo< sauergeek: I follow that to some extent. The mind as the foundation of reality. Subconscious as the sub-basement. Waking consciousness as the part most visible above the surface.

LadyV< Yopo, sometimes when I listen to you my head literally vibrates, I have to think so darn hard! (laughing and teasing)

Yopo< LadyV: Verbalization seems to be on the upper level. Deeper levels seems to be a place of emotion and sensory impressions. (Of course, words can operate symbolically, too.)

LadyV< Yopo: Thank you. I will remember this about the level of brain for symbols and words.

flybye< Where's Ben?

Ben< flybye: I'm here. I was just answering some pm's.

[Several pages of posts by (and about) a would-be disrupter have been deleted.]

Ben< ALL: Back on topic -- there were hundreds or perhaps thousands of people who foresaw the assassination of JFK before it happened. Many tried to warn him that he would be in great danger during that visit to Dallas. Many more people told someone else who later verified their precognition, but didn't try to warn JFK or his staff.

DestinyB< Didn't Jeanne Dixon try to warn Kennedy?

[Ben< DestinyB: Yes, I've read that she did.]

guitarist< Ben, interesting. I have heard of others who refused to heed warnings of this kind. I wonder whether they were conscious of walking toward their death, or did they believe the warnings at all?

Ben< guitarist: In the reports concerning the warnings sent to JFK, it seemed to me that his attitude was fatalistic: "que sera sera". On the other hand, I guess he couldn't afford to change his travel plans every time he received such warnings.

daCrone< JFK predated the remote viewing business, didn't he? Just curious.

sauergeek< daCrone: if by "remote viewing" you mean television, no, JFK was televised on many occasions. If you mean something else, could you explain, as I'm failing to follow you.

daCrone< sauergeek: Remote viewing as in the military program established to 'see' events/objects from afar. I don't recall when it was established but I am thinking 1970's.

sauergeek< daCrone: I take it the program was trying to take advantage of psychic phenomena? I'm not familiar with the program you mean.

Ben< daCrone: JFK predated the US government research and use of remote viewing, but the phenomena (traveling clairvoyance, and/or OBE) predates recorded history. Some Australian aborigines probably still use it as a means of survival (to go see which water holes have water in them, etc).

daCrone< I understand, Ben. Just wondered if JFK administration had any inkling of the remote viewing research, or was that drawing board not set up yet. Thanks.

LadyV< Ben, thank you.

sauergeek< A question to find the answer to regarding JFK: how many warnings of that nature did he get on previous occasions, when nothing happened?

Ben< sauergeek: I don't know how many warnings JFK got, or how often, but from the response by that Secret Service agent to my telephone call, I suspect there were a lot of them, and that could lead almost anyone to ignore them, like they would ignore the boy who cried WOLF! too often.

Yopo< Ben: Suppose the fatalistic might say, a thing foreseen cannot be avoided, so why listen?

guitarist< Interesting questions, sauergeek and Yopo.

Ben< Yopo: Yes, it seems to me that the essence of fatalism is the notion that the future is predetermined and nothing can be done about it.

Yopo< Ben: *S* It is a hard thing to argue with. Though I don't personally accept the idea that the "choices" we make, and even the thinking that goes into them, are foreordained. Once that is accepted, even the arguments are predetermined. *LOL*

sauergeek< Yopo: Our entire legal system, and substantial portions of society, are based on the premise of free will. Should free will prove false, what point would there be in imprisoning criminals? -- they had no choice but to commit their particular crime.

Yopo< sauergeek: Well, I suppose lockin' 'em up was foreordained, too. *sigh*

sauergeek< Yopo: That way lies madness, or at least a lot of twisty little arguments all the same.

DestinyB< Some bad things are going to happen to all of us, regardless of whether we foresaw it or not. Both negative and positive experiences help us grow.

LadyV< DestinyB: That is true ... and they happen so fast ... it is the surprise that is the shock.

Jello< Hmmm, except in some NDEs, there seems to be the sense that some future disasters CAN be avoided. If these foreseen events are like the "probable visions" these people have, then we CAN do something about it.

guitarist< Jello and others: If all my dreams were so direct, then I'd be able to pray away all the disasters I'm being warned of! But I haven't been warned of any in that manner. The thing about symbolism (as it seems to happen more often) is that if you don't understand it, you can't pray about it in the same way you would if you did. (Does this make sense?)

Jello< guitarist: Very interesting. And perhaps symbolism makes us look deeper.

LEGS< Ah, but Jello ... when we don't understand something shown to us, isn't that really a good time for prayer? For understanding, for protection for our loved ones and for ourselves so we can continue in caring for them ... watching those little things that others may miss to make life smoother. *s* I talk to God all my waking hours ... seldom do I go many hours without a plea or a thank you. *s* Now that I have Phariseed myself ... do consider what I say.

Jello< LEGS: I think that's what I was saying. :) When we don't understand, we are forced to look. :)

sauergeek< Hm, I've just remembered a precognition that one of my uncles had. He had an impression (I'm not clear how it came) that he would lose his ability to walk. My parents and he were traveling to a park to walk around in it, and my uncle got a clear voice in his head to bring his walker. He did not. While in the park, he fell, injuring himself in a way that put him in a wheelchair until he died some years later.

LEGS< sauergeek: We don't hear much about precognition because people don't trust themselves once they find out it isn't valid with every dream or feeling. I sometimes see something sitting in a precarious place ... or a wire or brick where it could cause a stumble on the rare happenstance that someone should walk that way ... and if I don't immediately do something about the item that triggers such a little warning, sure enough, the lamp will get broken ... glass, cup, picture frame, whatever ... or someone trips and hurts theirself at the stumbling spot. Makes me feel responsible to do something about such things ... then (*laughing*) when I do take care of such, my family says that I'm just a worry wart.

guitarist< Yes, LEGS ... I guess precognition might be said to be like seeing something that could happen, like a brick in the wrong place where people could trip over it. Are you a worry wart? Not if every time you *don't* do the thing you usually do, something happens that you'd expected (somebody tripped over that durn brick!).

DestinyB< When it comes to dreams about people I know, I always tell them about it and warn them. I tell them that sometimes we are told these things in advance so that we can alter something and change the outcome. I even tell the ones who might think that I'm crazy!

sauergeek< LEGS: Interesting. That reminds me obliquely of something I've come across while debugging software. Sometimes I'll find a bug, and say to myself, "This should never have worked" ... and then, only *after* I find it does the bug manifest and have to be fixed. (This has happened to me on several occasions, more than I can recall right now.) Perhaps what you're doing is the real-world equivalent.

Acorna< I once had a dream about my sister-in-law accidentally setting our house on fire, and a week later my brother called and told me the house she was living in burned down.

daCrone< Fire images are the one thing I do take seriously. I don't even joke about them.

Acorna< Fire images?

daCrone< Acorna: What I meant was that if an image of flame or fire makes it into consciousness for no provoked reason, I do pay great attention. That one has always panned out -- something has always caught fire afterward. That's the only reliable one -- or it was -- so I respect it a lot. *S*

Acorna< daCrone: The problem is, sometimes I have those real feeling dreams and nothing happens, and sometimes they do. Since I dreamt that she caught my house on fire I suppose I was only going to be wary if she were here.

LEGS< (((Acorna))) You are right ... most of us would do the same ... but perhaps this is one of the things that would be termed symbolic ... just that there was a fire and this person was somehow connected? the house she DID live in. Right, Ben? Would that be a symbolic dream?

[Ben< LEGS: No, those weren't symbolic images. In that dream, the image of fire meant real fire, and the image of a house meant a real house.]

daCrone< I know what you mean, Acorna -- those feelings can be like the little boy who cried wolf -- but I do respect fire images enough to take every precaution. They may not be reliable, but I'm not willing to risk it. *sorta smiling*

Acorna< daCrone: I understand that. I guess I don't want to be another worry-wart. As LEGS said, I think we have plenty in our family. *G*

[Ben< daCrone & Acorna: You have nicely illustrated some decision problems that are caused by precognition -- Shall I act on this or not? If I don't, will I later wish I had? If I do, will I later wish I hadn't? And to what degree do I want my life to be ruled by precognitions that may or may not be reliable?]

Jello< Thanks to everyone once again for extending care and concern. That is what makes us alive, and what brings life to others. :)

Ben< Tonight will be our last session on precognition. First, I'll post 4 short paragraphs that describe some semi-synonyms of precognition, followed by a more-or-less typical scenario of genuine precognition. Then I'll ask three questions based on that scenario.

Ben< I think that premonitions, omens, and portents are "semi-synonyms" of precognition because they are usually less reliable than a realistic precognitive dream. (We can talk about this after the hour, if you like. For now, I'll just post my descriptions.)

Ben< A premonition is a feeling that something bad will happen; a sense of foreboding. The result is usually an unfocused fear or formless anxiety, but a premonition can make a person more alert, aware, and thus ready for whatever may happen.

Ben< An omen is anything that is supposed to foretell a future event, either good or evil. The key word here is "supposed" -- the fact is, anyone can suppose that anything is an omen of any future event, whether the omen and the event are actually related or not.

Ben< A portent is something that signifies or is supposed to signify an event that is about to occur, especially an unfortunate and/or important event. Here the key is whether the portent is actually related to the event (such as a precursor of that event) or is merely something that someone supposes is related to the event.

Ben< SCENARIO: You have a lucid dream in which you are walking along a city street with many other people. Not far in front of you, you see a little boy wearing a blue shirt and red shorts standing on the sidewalk next to the street. He steps off the sidewalk into the street and gets hit by a car. As you watch his little body fly through the air from the impact, you wake up at home in your bed. Two days later, you are actually walking along a city street with many other people. Not far in front of you, you see a little boy wearing a blue shirt and red shorts standing on the sidewalk next to the street -- and you suddenly realize that everything in your field of vision is exactly as it was in your dream.

Ben< QUESTION 1 : What would it take -- how much information would be necessary -- to accurately predict, two days in advance, that everything and everyone in this scene would be exactly where they are at precisely this moment? YOUR TURN

greyman< Ben, I don't know, but I'll bet the answer is 42. *G* (What do you get when you multiply 6 by 9, base 13!)

FRAML< I don't know. Perhaps we should look at the significant information required. The boy, the red shirt, and the impact of a car. You gave no mention as to type of car. I figure the crowd as "inconsequential extras" who were filling in the dream (coming from dreamland central casting).

Ben< FRAML: Characters "coming from dreamland central casting" is an interesting comment (and it does happen); however, in this case the actual people were also in the dream. (There may be some variation between the dream and the subsequent reality. I can get into that later, if you wish.)

greyman< Be careful what you pretend to be, because you are what you pretend to be. -- Kurt Vonnegut

FRAML< Ben: No matter. I just don't think I'd remember all the exact people. I would have focused on the central event. I might recall afterward that they were the same people I saw, but I rarely, in real life, take note of faces in crowds.

sauergeek< Ben: The amount of information it would take to predict the scene you've described would probably require solving equations that chaos theory covers. To my mind, not possible; the scene from two days ago could not have been constructed through accepted scientific definitions of information.

Ben< sauergeek: Yep, the amount of information that would be required is one of the reasons why precognition is excluded from present scientific explanation.

LEGS< Seems impossible to plan for such info, but the dream provided a possible scenario. It is up to us to try to change the outcome if possible ... moving rapidly? or is this to show us that we can't change such a predictive dream?

LadyV< In the scenario it is stated that you "suddenly realize that everything in your field of vision is exactly as it was in your dream." How could you accurately predict this two days in advance since you knew in the dream what to expect were the dream to materialize?

guitarist< There would have to be a heck of a lot of information ... the location of the dream scene, the clothes the child was wearing, the distance or closeness to the street ... I don't know what else.

daCrone< I really don't know. I suspect there would have to be a lot of something -- emotion, energy, something -- attached to the event. Why would it come my way? Would it have appeared somehow to others as well?

RiverRocks< I agree with sauergeek on this one. It would be impossible, IMHO, to obtain through today's scientifically defined processes enough information in advance.

guitarist< I'd be thinking, "Uh, oh! deja vu!" I'm praying instantly for the child. This has never happened to me, but if it did, and I recognized it, I would try to make my way toward the boy, praying all the while that the event would not happen.

LadyV< guitarist: Intervention then would mean that one believes that this is possible. I agree with you, in that case, prayers would help.

guitarist< LadyV: I believe that the majority of these dreams come so that the dreamer gets the chance to affect the outcome, if that is possible.

LadyV< guitarist: I agree.

daCrone< Did I wander into a reality or did it come and find me? That the dream made it across normal barriers would, though, make me alert.

sauergeek< daCrone: With what Ben has described, I'd probably write the scene off as just a dream -- until I saw it in real life. I get occasional unpleasant dreams and regularly dismiss them as just that.

5foot2< We can't call it precognition until the event has happened. I imagine our brains fill in additional information ... finding similarities?

sauergeek< Should such a sequence of events happen, I would be reasonably confident in stating that the envisioned scene could not have come through any method that science currently understands. But I would have to argue that it *did* come from somewhere.

Ben< sauergeek: Yes. Those who have had such an experience know that it actually happened to them, even though it isn't explained by any current scientific theory.

guitarist< So, Ben, when did this happen to you? (I'm kidding, Ben; I'm commenting on the number of times I've seen these scenarios be your personal experiences.)

[Ben< guitarist: This scenario didn't happen to me exactly this way, although I have had very similar experiences.]

daCrone< That there was a two day interval without a feeling of foreboding would mean the 'premonition anxiety' didn't necessarily set in until the moment of realization?

Ben< daCrone: There was no premonition anxiety in this scenario, because you didn't really believe the dream was precognitive until you actually saw the scene.

RiverRocks< It was a vivid dream with a myriad of details which might or might not come to pass, so there was no anxiety concerning a possible future event.

Ben< QUESTION 2: Our vague understanding of the vast amount of information that would be necessary in order to predict this scene highlights the question: How could anyone see all this in a dream two days before it happened? (I'm asking you to speculate at this point.) YOUR TURN

LEGS< Unless the premonition or lucid dream includes calendars and clocks, we couldn't know it was going to be two days away from the dream time.

guitarist< For that matter, how could anyone see all this in a dream with any kind of lead time? I haven't seen anyone know exactly when a thing was going to happen.

[Ben< LEGS & guitarist: True. In this scenario, at the time of the dream, you didn't know it would happen two days later. Lack of precise information about the chronological time or timing of a foreseen event is very typical of precognition.]

guitarist< And for that matter, how do we know it's going to happen at all?

[Ben< guitarist: Good point. At the time of the dream, we don't really know it will happen. People who keep journals of their potentially precognitive dreams usually find that some of those dreams eventually happen and some do not.]

sauergeek< Any speculation I can come up with requires that some kind of information crosses time in the wrong direction. I can conceive of the emotional trauma of each person in the crowd creating the kind of effect that Obi-wan Kenobi got in Star Wars when that planet (I'm forgetting the name) was destroyed -- but with the addition that he would've had to feel it two days before it happened.

daCrone< Speculation Central up and running. *LOL* Perhaps there are realities or possible realities forming all of the time. Perhaps they possess varying amounts of *ooomph*. Perhaps when we're asleep we can wander through them.

[Ben< daCrone: Your "Speculation Central" is running very well. *S*]

LEGS< I suppose (speculate) that the more such things do happen as dreamed, the more we are going to trust our precognitive dreams and be aware of when/where and what is happening around us.

[Ben< LEGS: Yes. Good point. The opposite is also true: if our "batting average" is low or declines, we are less and less likely to trust our next precognitive dream.]

LEGS< Another thing about such messages/knowledge (accepted beforehand or disbelieved until it occurs) is that we cannot deliberately 'foresee'.

FRAML< Ben: It would be as if your mind had done some time travel, or been the recipient of a time message. To me this would be in the "One Step Beyond" category (I saw that old series on TV recently).

LadyV< Universal consciousness? as in outside of time as we know it ...

greyman< If you buy into the idea that "Energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed", you may buy into a simple conclusion: The universe is finite, with a preset amount of energy/matter. Then again, you may not. *G*

LadyV< greyman: Yes ...

greyman< LadyV: Because of the Laplance equations: 1/(C*C-V*V), time travel may be impossible. As V (velocity) approaches the speed of light (C) time/distance goes to infinity (1/0). It would take an infinite amount of energy to time travel. If you buy into the concept that the energy contained in the universe is finite, time travel is a futile pipe dream. Or is it? *G*.

sauergeek< greyman: The one interesting note about that equation is that the singularity is only at the speed of light -- velocities past the speed of light turn the solution negative. A frequent science-fiction explanation for faster-than-light travel is that a way was found to go *around* the speed of light, instead of accelerating to and then past it.

LadyV< greyman: I just have Faith ... the details would worry my head ... but if I get out my books and check your words, most likely you are right.

greyman< LadyV: Don't trust me, verify for yourself. We are limited by our understanding.

LadyV< greyman: I am thinking right now of a book at the library on physics. I read it a couple of years ago, and might go and check it out again. My point is that the mind and the heart (in my case) do not often conflict. (smiling)

greyman< LadyV: How fortunate!

sauergeek< Also, would going faster than light necessarily imply time travel? I don't know enough about relativistic physics to say.

greyman< sauergeek: tackions travel >C, what happens when they decelerate <C?

DestinyB< Who says that spirits follow any of our laws of physics when it comes to time?

LadyV< Which reality are we dealing with, that of the spirit world that warns us, or the rational world of 3D ... until we see that what was in the dream is reality?

[Ben< LadyV: We are dealing with spiritual considerations until we encounter a foreseen physical event; then that particular sequence of spiritual and physical experiences raises questions concerning both spiritual and physical reality.]

LEGS< Ben, back to my theory that if we stand willing to help ... or in this case (*s*) sleep willing to help, then we may be used as messengers or willing hands as needed, for/by the Creator.

sauergeek< LEGS: I hadn't thought of that angle -- that someone or something outside of time (for whom everything is now) put the vision in your head.

RiverRocks< I agree with LEGS. Precognitive episodes, whether sleeping or waking, are a gift to the receiver, and I don't personally think it really matters where they come from -- especially if they help prevent or alleviate disastrous events.

Ben< LEGS & RiverRocks: In such cases, the problem with divine intervention as an explanation is that it raises the questions "Why didn't that precognitive dream come true?" and "Why didn't God intervene in that case?"

LadyV< God is a team worker. He sends warnings. Intervention has generally been done by the team. If no one listens ... or no one is praying somewhere ... not much He could do about that.

RiverRocks< ((LadyV)) Yes!

Ben< LadyV: Good point.

RiverRocks< Ben: Man is a creature of free-will. No one I know ever promised that God would keep bad things from happening ... why should he intervene in everything? And I didn't say that it was divine intervention in the first place. I happen to think that the talent of precognition itself is the gift, not the individual episode.

[Ben< RiverRocks: The gift of precognition is sometimes given by God, but there are many other sources of that gift, and some of them do not obey God. This is also true of every other psychic power and spiritual gift, which is why the fact that one has such powers or gifts does not prove they came from God.]

LadyV< I wonder what the possible guidelines are for those that do have these dreams ... anxiety, as was mentioned ... two days to wait ... intervene now ... test the waters ... How?

[Ben< LadyV: The best guidelines I know of in such cases are to pray for divine intervention (May it not happen this way), and then wait and be ready to intervene if and when one sees the opportunity to intervene developing.]

tracey< Ben: If someone is connected to another soul in their heart and spirit, I think this happens much more than is made public. I had a dream that my sister was in a car accident, and it happened a week later. Similar things have happened. When my brother was injured in the same way, I knew it and told my parents, and I was only 8 ... the call came a half hour later. I think there is a connection between souls that cannot be explained by ''science'' ... it just is. *S*

FRAML< tracey: The scenario was dealing with someone that the receiver of the premonition dream did not know, rather than a family member, but I can attest to there being premonitions due to those caring links.

tracey< FRAML: Sorry, luv ... just came in and didn't get that part ... but we all know each other *S* from one time or another. *S*

LadyV< tracey: True. (smiling)

tracey< **LadyV** I knew you before ... I am sure. *S*

LadyV< It is family, you know ... on both sides ... what is the difference? To me, when I look at it that way, I figure that the only responsibility I have is to help do the job. You don't worry so much when the relatives are pulling their share. It is the listening that matters ... and that to me is very important.

sauergeek< Though the idea of things being able to put visions in my head gives me the willies.

LadyV< sauergeek: Look at it this way as a possibility ... your angel was speaking to you about an event ... maybe a warning for your sake ... or for others that might need aid.

guitarist< sauergeek: I don't think that it's "things" that put the visions in our heads, but personalities ... as Ben mentioned, spirits often do this. I would feel as you do, if I thought that some *thing* was putting visions in my head!

sauergeek< guitarist: I was including sentient beings in "things", whether they are incarnate or discarnate.

guitarist< sauergeek: Hopefully, we are in contact with kinder, wiser, more gracious ones. :)

sauergeek< Then again, trying to wrap my brain around the idea of being outside of time is hard enough as it is.

Sprinkles< My reaction to seeing the dream come about is the same as guitarist's first reply -- to see if there is something that I would be able to apply to prevent the child from being hit by the car. But I would have an after-thought of just why is it I would receive this dream. Why me, not the child or the driver?

LEGS< Yes, Sprinkles, in a way it becomes a burden to discern if appropriate action is possible or even desirable ... with such iffy pre-knowing.

RiverRocks< Sprinkles: The dream possibly came to you for no other reason than you would be aware enough and near enough to do something about it.

sauergeek< To expand on RiverRock's explanation: the recipient of the dream might be the best choice of people capable of picking up the dream; or, depending on who can or can't pick up precognitions, the only choice.

RiverRocks< Well, in such a case, maybe the episode was given you, not to be the intervention point to prevent the incident, but to increase your belief in your ability to be precognitive so you would pay attention when it was to be you that needed to intervene.

whytedove< Seems to me one needs to define the dream state and reality here. There are those who believe that when we do what we have been taught is dreaming, that is the reality and the waking state is the dream world. So it necessarily follows that if you see something when you're awake, you've already seen it in a dream. Why wouldn't you have a memory of something that has already happened?

Ben< How could anyone see all this in a dream two days before it happened? I don't know. I do know it happens, because I have experienced it several times, but I don't know how it happens. None of the theories I have read explain to my satisfaction how genuine precognition actually works. (I will present my own speculation as to how it happens at the end of this session.)

Ben< SCENARIO (continued): As you suddenly realize that everything in your field of vision is exactly as it was in your dream, you *know* that little boy is going to step off the sidewalk into the street and get hit by a car. You start to run toward him, but before you can get there, a little old lady standing next to him touches him on the shoulder and says, "Be careful. Look both ways before crossing the street." As the boy looks up at her, a car whizzes past them and goes on its way. You stop running and stand there with tears in your eyes. The little old lady looks up at you and smiles. You remember that she was also in your dream, but in your dream she did not touch the boy or speak to him.

daCrone< tear in my eye, now

LadyV< In that case you witnessed love in action ... I like that ... still better, though, to pay attention.

ladyhawk56< Namaste.

tracey< Ben ... *S* ... that is beautiful. I can see the lady touching the shoulder of the child, and the look between the one who knew and the one who was there. *S* Beautiful. *S*

FRAML< Ben: Yes, she changed the scenario that was in your dream. Why? Who knows? Perhaps she was just doing "grandmotherly duties" for a child not hers because she is like that. (Or perhaps she had the same dream?)

LEGS< Ben: Would such an event be designed by the infinite to give us humility ... that we would not assume everything depended on us?

[Ben< LEGS: Hopefully it would have that result, but I'm not at all sure that such an event would be designed by the infinite merely to teach me a lesson.]

daCrone< This makes me wonder more about the dream. I would have to ponder a lot because something beyond the danger to the boy was involved. This is like a multi-layered feeling ... the woman, the boy, myself.

tracey< ***daCrone** Yes, luv ... all are connected. *S* (((HUG)))

sauergeek< Ben: It sounds like there were at least two aware people in the crowd, or that (presuming someone projecting) that the projector was covering as many bases as possible.

guitarist< Hey, Ben, I think she is an angel. If so, she is the one who, perhaps, gave me the dream. That's why she can intervene, then look at me (I'm sure, before she sees that I'm crying) and smile at me in the real situation, where she did not intervene in the dream. (This is a dream I would be thinking about for months, for sure. I think I would be praying more, and paying more attention in general!)

LEGS< So I would also be interested in seeing what later became of the boy ... after being saved by what I would consider divine intervention.

Ben< QUESTION 3: Many people have had experiences more or less like this scenario. What does this entire scenario indicate about the nature of reality? YOUR TURN

FRAML< Ben: That we do not create reality ourselves, but it is a part of life that we are all players in, and free-will players at that.

sauergeek< Given the complete match between dream and reality, with one critical exception (and a fair certainty that, had that exception not happened, the reality would have played out as in the dream), I would say: 1) reality as predicted in dreams is fungible -- precognitive dreams do not necessarily have to come true, 2) precognitive dreams may well happen because they're not supposed to come true, and 3) the future can be foreseen, but not necessarily accurately.

[Ben< sauergeek: Well said. Two weeks ago, Jello mentioned that some people have had frightening visions of what would happen in the future, but those visions didn't come true. Then she asked, "I wonder if we have somehow averted some of those, or if those visions weren't true to begin with?" In this scenario, it is reasonable to believe the vision was true to begin with, and the part of the vision that didn't come true was averted, because you actually saw how it was averted.]

guitarist< Question 3 indicates to me that time and space and matter are not the only reality; that a super-reality sometimes intervenes, just to show itself, if one is sensitive to it.

Jello< guitarist: Well said.

DestinyB< Reality is changeable. All events are not destined to happen.

Sprinkles< The nature of reality here indicates to me that even those things seen precognitively are not etched in stone. All things are changeable right up to the last moment. If I had this dream, the moment I woke up I would have been praying that something could prevent this from happening. Perhaps this holds to the fact that my prayers would have been answered. Hence, if I was unable to do something, my prayers would be that someone else did. With the hope of all turning out well, I would surely be grateful for any and all prayers that went out in loving care for what had just taken place. After all, there are a lot of prayers being answered all at the same time, and some only when it is needed. *S*

Ben< COMMENT: I think, if the little old lady had been predisposed to do things such as speak to that little boy, you would have seen her do it in the precognitive dream. Therefore, I think she decided at the last minute to speak to him, and her decision (initiative) was what made the difference between the precognitive dream and the subsequent reality.

daCrone< Do we know if she, too, had a dream? or was given to acting on hunches? Perhaps she was angelic ... that she looked at me, I would take as meaningful -- but then I can find meaning in all sorts of stuff. LOL

Jello< I am reminded of a story I read (Guideposts?) where a woman in a taxiing plane was inspired to pray for a man on the ground. She felt an angel leap toward the man, who at the next moment looked up just in time to avoid getting hit by the plane. It is interesting how intermediaries (fallible ones at that) appear to be necessary so many times.

[Ben< Jello: Good story, and good point. Thanks.)

guitarist< Question 3, continued ... or if the woman isn't an angel in disguise, she is a fellow dreamer. Or maybe she just sees me crying. Who knows? Maybe she thinks I'm the child's mother, momentarily.

suitESPirit< "Serendipity"

Ben< SCENARIO (continued): You say to the little old lady, "If you hadn't spoken to him, he would have been hit by that car!" She says, "Yes, I see that now, and I don't usually speak to children on the street, but I just felt this sudden urge to touch him and say what I did ... "

daCrone< ... and so she did respond to an inner urge ... thanks. *S*

LEGS< Ben: At this point I would think perhaps the urgency of my own thoughts had reached her mind ... a sort of telepathic urgency manifesting in her action since I was too far away (not to give self credit, though, because it wasn't thought out like that).

Ben< LEGS: Good point. Your own sense of urgency could have transmitted to her, and moved her to speak to the boy.

guitarist< I would say to her, "And how sensitive you were in that moment, dear heart! I'm sure his mother would be very happy to hear that! And, by the way, where is she?"

LEGS< Ah, let's not blame the parents always ... *s* ... but still, an interesting thought from you, guitarist.

guitarist< LEGS: His mother could be close by, but we haven't seen her or dealt with her in our being wrapped up in the event. That's why I'm asking. *s*

[Ben< LEGS & guitarist: Since you didn't see her in the dream or the actual event, it would be a good idea to turn to the boy and ask him, "Where's your mother?"]

Ben< This is my own answer to Question 3: I think reality crystallizes out of a fan-shaped array of potential realities, moment by moment -- and therefore, reality cannot be changed, but what comes into reality can be changed within the limits of what is possible.

Ben< And this is my theory of how it happens: I think genuine precognition happens in an altered state of consciousness that taps into a bit of omniscience, and omniscience actually means "knowing all that can be known" -- i.e., all that was, all that is, and all that *can* be -- but not all that *will* be, because the choices and initiatives of free-willed beings cannot be completely known in advance.

guitarist< Trying to wrap my mind around the possibility of a fan-shaped array.

daCrone< I LIKE IT, Ben ... a fan ... not necessarily blobs or blocks of possibilities, more like fingers. *S*

DestinyB< Ah yes ... the different paths and free will.

LEGS< *smiling at Ben* Ahho ... my fan-shaped choices arrayed before me, with only the single spine that was taken straggling along behind my steps. This is an analogy I've used often to convince people they can choose each moment ... but cannot UN-choose their path, just let the next decision lead the way experience has shown it should.

sauergeek< Ben: That brings up another interesting physics theory: in every decision, no matter how small, all possible outcomes happen through the creation of a new universe for each outcome. So in the particular universe that we saw, the child was saved; in another universe the dream played out and he was hit by the car.

daCrone< sauergeek: And there is a middle aged woman who drives a convertible in Alaska ... I know she is there and I know why!

Jello< Hmm, reminds me of the laymen's physics books where they talk of potential realities splitting off at every decision juncture.

Lo< I KNOW that my experience violated all known laws of physics.

Jello< Heh, sauergeek and I are talking about the same theory. Probably read the same book. The disturbing thing about the theory is that it implies infinite parallel universes. *shrugs* I guess it's possible but it seems so arbitrary.

sauergeek< One note about the multiple-universe theory: the equations of physics *allow* for the possibility. there's no proof that it actually happens. (There are a lot of possibilities left open by generally-accepted physics equations; this is just one of them.)

Ben< sauergeek: I don't believe we create a parallel universe (reality) with each of our decisions. I think our decisions influence which possibilities do and do not come into the one reality.

Ben< /topic Discussion of precognition

Lo< I've heard that time does not occur in the spirit domain as we experience it; hence, I perceive that it may be possible for some such event to be revealed during an altered state such as a dream. I know that such things DO happen, since I have experienced them, and once was even able to tell someone (this was not in the dream) just before it happened right after I perceived it as a deja vu event, who was able to verify I had told him beforehand just after it DID happen. This has always remained in my memory as evidence that we do not really understand our perception of time, etc. I did not attempt to alter the event any more than to relate to my friend what was about to happen. The event involved things that none of us could have projected merely from our observations just beforehand!

[Ben< Lo: OK ... you had the deja vu feeling, "This has happened before." Then you *remembered* (from the precognitive dream) what would happen next if reality continued as you foresaw it in the dream, and you told your friend what was going to happen next just before it happened. Some time later, he verified that you had told him before it happened. Very nice. But not easy to explain briefly. Most people would probably think you were crazy if you said, "I remembered what was going to happen next."]

greyman< Our purpose is to consciously, deliberately evolve toward a wiser, more liberated and luminous state of being; to return to Eden, make friends with the snake, and set up our computers among the wild apple trees. Deep down, all of us are probably aware that some kind of mystical evolution is our true task. Yet we suppress the notion with considerable force because to admit it is to admit that most of our political gyrations, religious dogmas, social ambitions and financial ploys are not merely counterproductive but trivial. Our mission is to jettison these pointless preoccupations and take on once again the primordial cargo of inexhaustible ecstasy. Or, barring that, to turn out a good, juicy cheeseburger and a strong glass of beer. --Tom Robbins

LadyV< Well, in that case I clap for Tom Robbins!

RiverRocks< That is the nice thing about seminars -- since there is no instructor, everyone gets to get their own opinions out there in the open and have some new things to think about. What will be the subject next week?

[Ben< RiverRocks: I'll be on vacation for the next two weeks.]

sauergeek< Ben: Going back to your introduction for the seminar: you said that omen and portent were semi-synonymous. I always considered them absolutely synonymous -- they both involve the interpretation of some unexplained event as relating to (or predicting) another (usually bad) event. Favorites in medieval times were comets, eclipses, and earthquakes.

[Ben< sauergeek: Omen and portent are close to each other in meaning, but omen doesn't denote anything other than supposition, whereas portent can also refer to an actual precursor of the event. I was just trying to point out that neither of these words is a close synonym of precognition although they are sometimes used as if they were. Your comment about medieval favorites reminds me of the following paragraph, which I prepared for this session but didn't use.]

[Augury is the practice of divination by interpreting omens. An augur is a person who practices augury; a fortuneteller, prophet, soothsayer. In ancient times, many governments officially designated certain people as augurs and used them to interpret omens as being favorable or unfavorable to proposed undertakings. When the results of this practice were unsatisfactory, the augurs were replaced, so I think the ones who survived got pretty good at making predictions and used their ritualistic interpretation of omens as window-dressing (stagecraft).]

sauergeek< Ben: Your suggestion of omniscience brings up something that's bothered me about the whole concept. An omniscient being knows everything that can be known, including as many possible futures as it may care to conceive of, but it is still bound by time, so that eventually all those possible futures must play out into one. But such a being would also seem like it should be outside of time. I'm not stating this well. I'll try coming up with a better way of saying it.

guitarist< sauergeek: Perhaps the omniscient being is eternal but downwardly compatible with the material universe, so that it can affect and deal with time while being outside it.

sauergeek< "downwardly compatible" *ROFL*

guitarist< Well, sauergeek, I know that I'm talking to a pretty computer-savvy guy. *s* The only thing I ask is, did that make any sense whatsoever?

Jello< sauergeek: That's the theory: God is outside of time.

sauergeek< Jello: If god is outside of time, then how is his understanding of the future ever in doubt? His omniscience should be absolute. My attempts at figuring out what it would be like to be outside of time involve being aware of everything that happened, is happening, or will happen, all at once. Given that, in our understanding of time, the future is an array of possibilities and "now" constantly reduces those possibilities to one, a being aware of every now would see the now as we will eventually see it -- and be able to predict it with 100% accuracy.

LadyV< ... then you would be God ... sauergeek ...

Ben< sauergeek: I didn't say "an omniscient being" though that is one of the explanations. And I don't believe that all possible futures must or do come into reality. I was just saying that all-knowing cannot include foreknowing everything that will come into reality, because the results of free will cannot be completely known in advance. In other words, even God doesn't know everything His children may initiate or decide to do. *S*

guitarist< Sorry, Ben, I did say something about an omniscient being. My fault, I guess, misunderstanding you.

sauergeek< guitarist: My comments to Jello also apply to your thought -- I'm not sure how to convert a being that I see as having absolute knowledge of the future to one which does not.

guitarist< I know, sauergeek -- I should have said "omniscience" rather than "omniscient being" displays that quality of being downwardly compatible with the material universe, etc.

sauergeek< Ben: That implies that an omniscient god is still subject to time. That seems wrong.

LEGS< sauergeek: As the hairs of our heads are numbered and known to the God I believe in, so it is that He knows us ... where we are, and what we are doing ... but not what we will do next, nor what we want to do next ... and that is why we petition for needs and wants with prayer. And though God loves us all, we do not all love everyone else, so we ask for those we do care about or have been asked to pray for by one we care for and respect, so that we want what they want in results.

guitarist< sauergeek, it isn't hard for me to imagine that G-d subjects Himself to time for our sake when He deals with us.

Lo< Links with spirit beings indeed indicate that TIME does NOT exist for them as it does for us.

LadyV< Lo: You stated earlier that you had an experience ... would you feel comfortable sharing it? Do you have dreams that warn?

Lo< I thought I posted my experience.

LadyV< Lo: I am sorry I did not catch it. I will review tomorrow.

Ben< Lo< Hi! I saw your post, but didn't have time to respond to it. I'll add my response when I edit the transcript. [Done, back up there where Lo posted it.]

daCrone< Every time I perceive a reason or a way of spirit and think I may have an explanation at last about the true nature of that which is, something happens to make it obvious I have merely perceived a sparkle from a facet of that which is. I know so little it ain't funny, Magee ... thing is, not knowing doesn't bother me so much anymore.

suitESPirit< Oh, daCrone ... so beautifully put! I just love you!

guitarist< suitESPirit: daCrone is a wise one, isn't she? *s*

daCrone< Well, thank you, suitESPirit and guitarist ... uh, now I am sitting here admittedly clueless and obviously speechless. *S*

greyman< Ben: Predestination as foretold by Dr. Probability?

Ben< greyman: The several doctrines of predestination cause a lot of unnecessary pain and suffering.

greyman< Ben, yes, and much pain and time lost trying to disprove the concept of predestination.

Jello< There is much pain where-ever lies abound. And filtering out lies from truth is a heavy-duty task that sometimes frustrates me no end.

Ben< greyman: I'm reminded of a story of two preachers. One believed in predestination and the other didn't. They were good friends, so they arranged to preach in each other's churches one Sunday. As they were going to church in their buggies, they met in the middle of the town. One said, "There! See? We were predestined to preach in each other's churches today!" The other preacher said, "No, we weren't." ... and he turned his buggy around and went home.

guitarist< Oooooh, Ben!

sauergeek< I'm not trying to bring up predestination. I believe that an omniscient, out-of-time god is capable of *seeing* the future, but does not *control* it (by choice, not by incapability). I'm just trying to resolve a god outside of time and a god who cannot predict the future with complete accuracy.

Jello< I think C. S. Lewis tried explaining that once. (God outside of time who sees all our actions and choices.)

Lo< sauergeek: But do we have any direct evidence that God really DOES know what we each will actually choose to do? Supposedly, we are all made in his image -- with free will, etc.

sauergeek< Lo: My limited understanding of theology says that god is outside of time and is omniscient, but cannot see the future. To me, that is a logical contradiction. One of those three statements must be false, or, alternately, my logic is flawed. I'm unable to find a flaw in my logic, though I'd be happy to hear any that y'all might be able to come up with.

Ben< sauergeek: God isn't subject to time. However, less than absolute foreknowledge is a necessary result of free will.

Jello< Sometimes it also seems to me that free will is something we are terrible at -- and too often there seems to be a "path" that we're stuck on. Maybe it's the freaking karmic circular track. I hope not.

sauergeek< The weak point of my logic is my conception of what it is like to be outside of time; that's the result of speculation and things that make sense to me. Can anyone offer other ideas of what it's like to be outside of time?

Mahamaya< The Supreme Reality -- Ultimate Truth -- is devoid of the desire to "create" impermanent worlds! The universe is an illusion!

Jello< sauergeek: You're asking people trapped in 3-dimensional space, incarnate in physical bodies, for that? :)

sauergeek< Jello: I don't have anyone else to ask. :-)

Lo< sauergeek: My understanding is that those that are in the spirit dimension do not experience time as we do, but that does not really imply that they are omniscient, does it? I sense that Ben has posed a key and very interesting observation with: "Less than absolute foreknowledge is a necessary result of free will."

Ben< sauergeek: Sure, we have glimpses of what it is like to be outside of time. We separate our consciousness from chronological time rather often, and not only when we're asleep. [I often lose track of time. For example, I often look up from an interesting book and notice that two hours have passed without my being aware of the passage of time.]

Mahamaya< The Absolute Timeless is devoid of the desire (key word -- DESIRE!) to create the mental concepts, space and time.

sauergeek< A thought, based on the scenario from the seminar: god observes the reality of the child being hit by the car, and decides that he'd rather that not happen. So he plants a dream that will change the outcome of the event, and he tweaks the little old lady at the last minute. Plausible?

Ben< sauergeek: Yes, plausible. I would only add this much to what you posted. I believe God foresaw the *potential* reality of the child being hit by the car ...

sauergeek< Given that god is outside of time, potential reality would be as accurate as what I said. (I suddenly feel like I'm in the bit of Douglas Adams' "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" where he goes over all the changes in verb tenses that time travel created.)

guitarist< sauergeek, I love Adams too!

Lo< I admit that I personally find it quite difficult to grasp what it means to exist in the spirit world and not experience time as we normally do.

LoveBride< Lo: I totally agree with you!

sauergeek< Lo: I'm talking about one specific being outside of time: the Judeo-Christian god, who is, by every bit of theology I'm aware of, omniscient.

Lo< sauergeek: I understand. But, do we really know that God is omniscient? Yes, theologians claim so; but we also know that many of them have made serious mistakes in the past. If we were really made in His image, we surely do have free will (choices) for it is unthinkable for Him not to have a free will, at least to me.

Jello< NDE accounts testify to a sense of omniscience, but even the NDE accounts differ in their theology. You get people "just knowing" that everything from Catholicism to Mormonism to (insert-your-religion-here) is true ... from what I've seen.

sauergeek< Lo: I'm not understanding something. How does god's (in)ability to foresee the future and/or his omniscience tie into whether or not he has free will?

Ben< sauergeek: It isn't a question of whether or not God has free will; it is a result of his children having free will (angels, ghosts, humans, demons, etc).

Lo< sauergeek: It has to do with His having created us in His image. Thus, if He has free will, then we do too, and if we have free will, how can He predict our choices (or see that part of the future that we create independently). See?

Ben< Speaking of the Judeo-Christian doctrine (or dogma) that God is absolutely omniscient, I seldom hear this mentioned: when the ancient Israelites started "sending their children to Moloch" (by tossing them into the fire in an iron idol), Yahweh said, "I didn't tell them to do that. It never entered my mind."

Jello< Isn't there a place where YHWH says, "If there are any other gods beside me, I don't know of them"?

sauergeek< Ben: Interesting. That weakens the doctrine of omniscience.

Jello< What is free will? The way that the Life vs. Death choice is set up, you have free will, but one decision brings one life, the other death ... so really it implies, "You have to choose X to live." If you "have to choose X" then is that free will?

Jello< Like when my boss told me: "You can choose to do X over Y, but you should know that doing Y will make me note that you were unwilling to do X and it will affect your job rating." What kind of choice is that?

Jello< The threat of punishment for wrong "choice" is coercion! I don't get it.

Jello< So even if we go by the automatic rules of karma ... if you choose wrongly you suffer; if you choose well you reap rewards. Pavlovian.

guitarist< Jello and sauergeek: We all have the right to make choices based on or independent from those of others. If we care about our job rating (and why should we assume that we do? We may have another job up our sleeve!), at least we know what our expected action should be. As someone once said, "We're all on a two-week contract." :)

Sprinkles< guitarist: Who said that? LOL A two week contract? Dang! And I was taking things a day at a time. Whew! Now I can relax a little. I have 13 days to stretch. (Sorry, I couldn't help that. *S*)

Jello< My point is, though, if your choices either help save you or condemn you, then you have your little railroad track cut out for you. You are not really free to choose, because the wrong choice means destruction. Unless it's a choose-your-own-adventure book where you have multiple good choices, multiple neutral choices, multiple bad choices ... but from what I've seen in life, there are often just a lot of "Yes-or-No" questions. Pavlovian. Good dog, bad dog. (OK, OK, that's not what the Pavlovian experiment was.)

sauergeek< Or, as my boss is fond of quoting, "Cake, or death?"

Jello< If we go by standard Christianity, if you refuse to believe (or choose to disobey) you are condemned.

sauergeek< Per my understanding of standard Christianity, the only way to avoid condemnation if you don't believe is to not be aware of Christianity.

Ben< COMMENT: Even one personal experience of genuine precognition can shake up a lot of preconceptions. *smile*

Jello< Even one personal experience of the spiritual can shake up a lot of preconceptions, but you can't give that experience to someone who hasn't had it, or to someone who is in denial.

Lo< Jello: I sense that every single decision you make during the day, is YOURs to make per your own free will or choice. I do not follow what you are saying here about the way that the Life vs. Death choice is set up, etc.

Jello< "I set before you the way of Life and the way of Death. Choose Life." (paraphrased) Hmph, well, maybe making the technically right decision for the wrong reasons might be worse than making the wrong decision for the right reasons.

sauergeek< Jello: I think that's from one of the gospels, but I'm not sure.

guitarist< Jello's quote was from the Old Testament. Sorry, folks!

Jello< So you just gotta do what you think is best as far you can see ... and if you keep doing that, your actions become very predictable. (less free will?)

Jello< Help, I'm bitter and I can't get up. :)

LEGS< I see it as multiple choices, varying in degrees of condemnation to exemplification of our path, but the next step we can make a better choice ... when we see we have erred.

Jello< If we see what we think is the right choice, then we just have to take it whether we want to or not? And of course we can be wrong.

sauergeek< Presumably you're choosing to act that way. There are an infinite number of choices that you make without even thinking about it in a day. You could (as an extreme example) one morning wake up and choose to shoot your neighbor. You (presumably) do not -- every day.

Ben< Jello: What many interpret as divine promises of reward and threats of punishment seem a lot more like kindly and wise parental advice to me. "If you choose this path, that is where it leads."

Jello< If the "best path" is a clear best path, then it is still a railroad track laid out for us that we ought to follow.

[Ben< Jello: A railroad track is a railroad track whether we follow it or not.]

sauergeek< That choice, and myriad others similar in nature but differing in degree, is available to everyone every day. Nearly everyone makes the same choice. Is there less free will because of this? I'd say that the free will still exists regardless of the regularity of the choice.

LEGS< The best path is fraught with temptations to stray from it ... which makes it a bit less visible than a railroad track would be. *G*

Jello< OK, I'm tired of choosing what people tell me is the "right thing". How the Hell do they know? Except, in the context that I'm speaking of it, they would know ... so I'm doubly condemned.

LEGS< I see our existence being based on free will ... the choice being what that free will is. Only when one is bound and enslaved by those forcing their own choices upon one, are we not of free will, and even then we can see that our way is not what we would choose.

Jello< For a moment, it occurred to me that the notion of a condemning God is enough to make almost any angel fall.

[Ben< Jello: Bingo!]

LEGS< Jello, when we sincerely seek the best path, praying that our steps be guided upon it, we are more likely to be in the spirit of grace that we see that path as the most desirable and thus it becomes our free choice.

Jello< I should probably stop darkening the boards tonight with Opposition spew. Good night ...

sauergeek< Jello: It sounds like you want to make choices in a vacuum -- choices without having to deal with the consequences (whether good or bad). The rules of karma are largely accurate because the consequences *are* there.

Jello< sauergeek, I REALLY don't want to hear it from you.

Lo< Jello: How can you possibly think that you are condemned when Jesus' message in the NT is that God cares for you, loves you, even forgives us all for our mistakes, and asks you to return His love and share it with others?

Jello< Thanks, LEGS. I try, but I have no idea if it's doing anything whatsoever.

LEGS< Ah, sweet Jello, your distress jibes at me that I have no answers for you ... but for you I always have prayers ... that your choices please you and that you continue to seek the better of the multiples before you ... that you find that particular joy in your path that will reward your having made the choice to tred it ... that you continue to be chosen of God, as I feel you are.

Jello< LEGS, who is not chosen of God? Could there be such a person?

LEGS< Jello, you have me there ... but I feel great promise emanating from you each time we chat here.

Jello< LEGS, I believe everyone has great promise ... but I do feel the frustration of those who see that promise seemingly wasted by the world ... and by the past, and conditions of being, and the pressures of "the world."

Ben< Jello: I believe that various paths always branch out before us, from where each of us is now, but our choices among those paths are always our own to make. I also believe that God wants all of us to choose what is best for us, but cannot (or does not) control the choices we make.

Jello< I guess it's very clear that God does not control us (unless you are a Pentecostal).

LEGS< *thinking of the strayed Pentecostals I have met* generalizations are made to disprove generalizing.

Sprinkles< Jello, I believe only you and you alone will know what the "right thing" for you is. Others may try to advise you of their "right thing" because of the experiences or events they have overcome through their own trials and errors. The "right thing" for one individual does not make it right for all. This is where you become open to suggestion but the ultimate choice is yours. You will find that which you seek and you will know if it is or not the right thing. *S*

LEGS< Great advice, Sprinkles, for each of us ... so well said.

Jello< Yes, but there are some "laws" that are pretty clearly stated. Since when are violations of that supposed to be acceptable?

Lo< I sense that God rejoices that we each choose different paths for our lives, thereby creating unique, interesting beings to appreciate and love and care for, which He will gladly guide toward more acceptable ways if we but ask for His help and understanding.

LEGS< When a certain law is nagging at you (or any one of us), then there is a reason ... either it is because we are bending or would like to bend it ... if we are not outright flaunting disobedience of it ... so that is when it 'bugs' us ... that is when we would like someone to say it is Ok because it is our choice ... but when we know we are making a wrong choice and continue to do so, that is when we should immerse ourselves in prayer for guidance and strength to overcome what we see as bad in our path.

Jello< I give up ... Though I thought I'd given up before. *shrugs*

sauergeek< Sprinkles: Having personally experienced an awareness of the right thing on a very few occasions, I believe that the right thing is sometimes applicable to all people under all circumstances. (Though in my case, all my right thing experiences have had to do with algorithms in computer code.)

Sprinkles< sauergeek, yes, of course it is applicable. But what I may believe to be right for me, you may feel differently about because your circumstances, events and life in general are not the same as mine. Example: a vegetarian condemns the consumption of meat. For the vegetarian to choose not to allow meat in his/her diet is a right thing for him/her. Does that make the meat-eater wrong? What is right for one is not right for all. (IMHO) *S*

sauergeek< Sprinkles: There are certainly cases where one person's right thing does not apply to all. I would argue that calling that the "right thing" is a misnomer. I've also found that actually nailing down the right thing for a particular situation is usually an exercise in frustration.

Lo< I must really turn in for some sleep. Jello, I hope I've encouraged you to search out God's nature that Jesus described which is rather different than described in the Old Testament. Good night all! Blessings to all.

LEGS< *sigh* I wish I knew what would help, Jello. I don't know what you are fighting or wanting, but we all can't stand in one spot with the same perspective ... that is where we are bound to differ on things ... but we can willing try to make the right choices as often as possible. ((((((Jello)))))))

Ben< Jello: I gave up my struggle with the many, many theologies long ago, because it kept giving me spiritual indigestion. *S*

sauergeek< What did you do for spiritual Pepto-Bismol? :-)

Ben< sauergeek: I didn't take a spiritual palliative; I took a spiritual purgative -- the realization that theologies are manufactured by theologians.

sauergeek< Ben: For the purpose of perpetuating their careers as theologians? I've heard the same arguments applied to philosophers, yet Plato had a lot of good points. Maybe if nobody paid them ... (or, in the case of one Jesuit who had a lot of radical ideas, the catholic church prohibited him from publishing anything while he was alive. So a lot of his stuff got published after he died, and it has a lot of weird, but good, ideas in it. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.)

suitESPirit< Only an empty vessel can be filled. If it's already over-flowing nothing can get in.

Sprinkles< suitESPirit: Oh, my, but what a lot of sharing can be done. LOL (Sorry, I get silly when I am getting tired.) *S*

Ben< sauergeek: The purgative was merely the realization that my spiritual indigestion was being caused by human opinions.

sauergeek < Ben: are you familiar with the Jewish commentaries on the Torah? (There's a proper name for them, but I forget what it is right now.) There are things in the commentaries which directly contradict each other -- which I think is really neat. Or was that kind of thing part of the indigestion?

guitarist< Yes, sauergeek -- I agree with Ben; I might add that human opinions often get in the way of our relationship with G-d and how we see Him and relate to Him.

[Ben< sauergeek: I've read some of the Jewish commentaries. They didn't bother me, because they didn't claim to be anything other than scholarly arguments. What I purged was a huge mass of untestable assertions, rationalizations, rules and regulations -- regardless of where I found them.]

Ben< ALL: Okay, it's past my self-appointed bedtime. Peace and blessings to each of you. *poof*