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Thursday, April 5, 2018

I'm back: Belief Space!



Hello again! I haven’t posted in a long time because I have been getting my life in order. Before you ask, no, I’m not done. But I have moved into a new phase, and I’m now moved to start getting back into the world!

I’ve set up a new web site!  It definitely was time: The site was getting pretty long in the tooth, and was just a stopgap, anyway. Another reason is that I’ve significantly changed my outlook, understanding and methods, so that the old site no longer resonated with me. My views and techniques have really evolved over the past couple of years, so a new look and message was definitely in order. Have a look!

There is so much to cover! I don’t have room for it all here, but I will probably touch on aspects of what I’ve learned over the next several months. Today, I’m looking at something that happened recently, seemingly because of a presentation I’m writing for the local MUFON chapter, but I suspect the shift has been going for a while and this is just part of the process!

Anyway, the trouble started when I actually sat down and started writing the presentation. I realized, after babbling on for a couple of pages, that I didn’t really know what it was I wanted to say, because I was too afraid to take a stand on anything controversial.

I had started out with the idea of exploring the how past life regressions can be used for healing. But that quickly moved to UFOs and abductions, as they occur in regressions, which still didn’t feel right. Long story short, I’m now zeroing in on UFOs and what they tell us about the nature of reality. I’ll have to keep you in suspense because it’s not finished yet, though I’m getting there!

But that’s not what I’m going to talk about here. Over the past couple of months have experienced an increasing amount of pain in my back, upper and lower jaws, ankles, legs, kinda all over. It’s not chronic, persistent pain, as a rule, but it feels like stiffness from overuse. I have taken on some new activities, but nothing that would explain what’s going on. I constantly have the feeling, especially in my upper back and shoulders, of being compressed or confined, and I’m constantly stretching and twisting, trying to loosen it up, but nothing works.

I went to a Reiki circle recently, and the leader started the evening with a guided meditation. I’m now going to make a scandalous confession: In the 11 years that I have been involved in Reiki, I have never felt anything. I constantly hear about wonderful the energy feels, and how useful the energy is for everyone else, but I have never felt anything of any kind. I’ve never been 100% sure if that’s a failing on my part, or everyone else is fooling themselves.

Well, during the meditation, I confronted this conundrum and noticed that I didn’t want to believe that any kind of spiritual healing works. I had a vision that, inside myself, there is this…I don’t know, call it a “container.” I remember struggling to come up with a word to describe it, but I failed. (“Container” isn’t right, but it’s all that I got, so I’m going with it.) The “container” appeared dirty white, and it represented the boundaries and limitations I have put around my spiritual, intuitive and paranormal abilities. “Thus far and not further,” I had decided what was possible for myself, and what was not and I kept those boundaries firmly in place. But the container is struggling and straining, the abilities want out! I then realized that my physical discomfort really felt like I was a lobster who had outgrown its shell. The shell was starting to come apart, but it hurt! Physically and emotionally.

I would like to say that I have burst the container and my abilities are now in full flower, but, not so much. The container is one of belief and fear, designed to keep me safe, and it won’t be easy to let go of that. However, now I know, so I can work on it.

In the study, METAPHYSICS OF THE TEA CEREMONY: A RANDOMIZED TRIAL INVESTIGATING THE ROLES OF INTENTION AND BELIEF ON MOOD WHILE DRINKING TEA, Dean Radin and Yung-Jong Shiah demonstrate that belief is a very important component in achieving any spiritual, parapsychologal, effect.

I learned, early on in my life, to not trust anything or anyone. I have survived by accepting everything and everyone only provisionally, and then testing for myself whether the thing or person is solid and trustworthy. This has served me well in computer science, giving me a good understanding of how things work, which is invaluable when it comes time to extrapolate what might be possible in designing new systems. Unfortunately, I am beginning to understand that it falls apart completely when it comes to the paranormal. There, belief is a necessary precondition. You must believe a spell, for example, can work before it will work. Totally opposite of the normal, scientific, approach of being skeptical until there’s enough evidence. This implies a whole new paradigm for scientific discovery and validation.

I clearly have very specific beliefs about what is true and possible for me, around the paranormal. Despite everything I have seen around me, and have experienced personally, I still have it all in the “provisional” box. I’m just too afraid to believe everything I hear. I want some way to distinguish the “real” from the truly delusional, for I believe that distinction still exists. I don’t know how to do that yet, but I’ll keep working on it. In the meantime, I’ll be using meditation and other techniques to deconstruct my beliefs around magic and the paranormal and see where that leads me.

As always, feel free to comment and question. I am absolutely a work in progress.

Take care,
Rodney Whitehouse

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