Theos-Talk Archives (June 1996 Message tl00227)

On alt.eckankar I found the following posting by Dr. Mike
 Mueckler (biologist, I believe) who was once a member
of the Eckankar group, who also has had many, many
out-of-body experiences himself over the course of his life,
 and who as you will see in the post below, is now totally
skeptical that such "soul traveling" is really real.  Of course,
I don't agree with his *extreme* position.  I thought
Alexis, Jerry S., JRC and others might be interested with the
"attitude" displayed by Dr. Mueckler towards "psychic experiences."
Far too many scientists have this attitude toward the psychic and
this was part of what I was trying to convey to Alexis in one
of my postings a month or two ago.

Daniel

> Date: 4 Jun 1996 03:41:56 GMT
> From: mike@cellbio.wustl
> Subject: Re: Soul Travel: Subjective or Objective?

In article <19960603103233.aaaa0007F@babyblue.cs.yale.edu>, Joseph Polanik
<polanikj@riscy.forsyth.tec.nc.us> wrote:

> you are obviously ignoring cases where people report, as part of their
> so-called Near-Death Experience, details of the resucitation procedure
> that occurred after the body became inert (or 'temporarily dead'). In
> the same vein are cases where the experiencer left the immediate
> vicinity of the body and noticed something unusual which was
> incorporated into the report and later verified by others.
>
> in your many years of sifting thru the evidence you surely came across
> cases such as this. perhaps you felt that this evidence didn't meet your
> standards as to type, quality or quantity.


To a trained observer, this is not evidence, it is closer to fable, story
telling or wishful thinking.  People lie, exaggerate, bend the truth, and
convince themselves of things that never happened. There are perfectly
rational explanations for all of these cases when one takes the reality of
human fallibility into consideration.  When the heart stops beating, the
brain continues to function for many minutes.  If it didn't the people
really would be dead and would not be capable of being resuscitated.
Visual and auditory sensory inputs during this state can be processed and
translated into dream like images.  Nothing mysterious about it at all.
We know that the perception of disembodiment can be induced by sensory
deprivation and electrical stimulation.  Hypoxia probably induces a
similar state under the right circumstances.  Trivial.

These events are real alright--lucid dreams and hallucinations--they have
been reproduced in the laboratory by electrical probing, sensory
deprivation, drugs, and by those who can induce lucid dreams.  <Yawn>


> so we are left with the supposed 'fact' that tests conducted in the
> laboratory have yielded meagre results. if this is indeed a fact
> it would invite the evaluation of the our standards and expectations as
> indicated above.


I love this.  Perhaps I will use it for our next manuscript that is
criticized by reviewers--Your standards of proof are too high! What do you
want, real evidence or something?

Of course the military found no evidence for remote  viewing, because it
is nothing but dreaming.  That says it all.  If it were real, you can bet
your life that it would be exploited in business and by the military.


> stimulating certain areas of the brain can produce reports of phenomena
> similar to phenomena reported in OBE reports. even assuming the stimulus
> is generating a new experience rather than evoking a memory of an old
> one, these brain probing experiments don't prove as much as you seem to
> think.


They provide a perfectly rational, mundane explanation for a phenomenon I
am all too familiar with, both subjectively and objectively.  The evidence
is overwhelming that these are nothing but dreams.   That is obvious to
anyone who has truly explored it first-hand with a true scientific
attitude.
>

> Ah! there *is* a recurring phenomenology --- when it suits you to
> recognize it.

Again, well known to those who have thoroughly explored this state.
Trivial. If you are obsessed with eck masters before you fall asleep, what
are you likely to dream of, chopped liver?  Use your head.
>
>     and Twitchell's proclaimed experiences have none of these.
>
> this is a wild claim for which you have provided no support. suppose you
> supply us with references to material which you think illustrates the
> recurring phenomenology and with references to material which you think
> shows that Paul's 'proclaimed experiences have none of these.'


 You can read Monroe's first book and several of the faq's available on
the net on astral projection to get a feel for some of the recurrent
themes.  For example, the vibratory state accompaned by paralysis--a well
known phenomenon to sleep researchers called sleep paralysis that
accompanies rapid eye movement dreaming--exactly what you would predict
would occur during a lucid dream.  Others are right out of the older
projection literature (silver cords) and are experienced only by people
who are familiar with that literature, i.e., they experience exactly what
they expect to experience--that's what lucid dreaming is all about.

.........