Psionics

[SanAgustin]

In other words, I don’t think that it necessarily means that Psionics is contrary to The Faith. Can you be more specific? I believe it, but it seems like there might be room for Psionics

It seems more evident that “Psionics” is against reason, full of pseudo-scientific jargon to lure people into it. Always be wary of non physicists or serious electrical engineers throwing the term electromagnetism around. For some reason, magnetism is always used as a way to explain away any crazy “New Age” idea have out there.

I mean you mention you like to create “energetic shields”;

Let’s see, can you go outside in plain daylight and shield yourself from the Sun’s thermal energy by pure concentration?

Can you touch raw power lines without getting electrocuted because your shields are deflecting electrical energy?

If somebody is about to punch you in the face, can you deflect their kinetic energy shielding you from physical harm?

Sounds like you want to be a Jedi. Stick to the movies.

 

[mk1486]

"I believe you really want to conform with the church teaching.All men are bless with the
gift of faith and reason. but our will are weakrned and our intellect are darkened by original Sin. in my humble opinion it is best to consult a Priest who has the time and dedication to enlighten you. The church teachings are infallible even though its members are not always obedient to it.You always have your free will you can accept it or not with the corresponding consequence of course."

I am currently trying to find a nearby priest who has both the time and interest to talk to me about it. The last one I talked to didn’t want to get involved.

**"It seems more evident that “Psionics” is against reason, full of pseudo-scientific jargon to lure people into it. Always be wary of non physicists or serious electrical engineers throwing the term electromagnetism around. For some reason, magnetism is always used as a way to explain away any crazy “New Age” idea have out there.

I mean you mention you like to create “energetic shields”;

Let’s see, can you go outside in plain daylight and shield yourself from the Sun’s thermal energy by pure concentration?

Can you touch raw power lines without getting electrocuted because your shields are deflecting electrical energy?

If somebody is about to punch you in the face, can you deflect their kinetic energy shielding you from physical harm?

Sounds like you want to be a Jedi. Stick to the movies."**

Psionics has never claimed to directly deal with electromagnetic energy or to be able to do such things as shielding from UV radiation, electricity, or kinetic force. However, some believe that such things can be accomplished to an extremely limited degree (E.g., levitating dust). If you had read my previous posts, you would know that.

I find your lack of interest toward the issue and careless comments to be quite insulting.

I am serious about this topic and if you do not want participate seriously, I respectfully ask that you take your humor elsewhere.

 

[SanAgustin]

Psionics has never claimed to directly deal with electromagnetic energy or to be able to do such things as shielding from UV radiation, electricity, or kinetic force. However, some believe that such things can be accomplished to an extremely limited degree (E.g., levitating dust). If you had read my previous posts, you would know that.

But I did read your first post. You said;

Psi “energy” seems to have electromagnetic properties and it seems to be associated with nervous system function. In other words, more energy is produced with greater activity in the nervous system.

There’s no such thing as “psi ‘energy’”. You were the one that mentioned it’s electromagnetic (or has electromagnetic properties).

As for the shielding part you said;

Such “constructs” could be a variety of things like “energetic shields” (isolating one’s self from external “energies” to variable degrees)

You said these constructs would protect you from “external energies”. I was trying to determine in practical terms, what these “external energies” are. Energy is either kinetic or potential, which one are you shielding from?

Furthermore we can be more specific, and that’s where I was drawing those examples from; are we talking about electrical, mechanical, chemical, thermal, etc energies?

I find your lack of interest toward the issue and careless comments to be quite insulting.

I am serious about this topic and if you do not want participate seriously, I respectfully ask that you take your humor elsewhere.

I’m sorry if I offended you, I’ll try to be more charitable.

However, maybe I can express this in a more respectful way, but it doesn’t sound like Psionics is based on any semi serious science. That’d be the first thing I try to tackle, why do you believe this is it some type of scientific set of facts or is there some religious/faith element to it? That might also help answer your original question.

 

[mk1486]

I’m sorry I kinda lashed out. It’s just that I’m tired of people assuming that such a thing as Psionics is completely impossible.

"There’s no such thing as “psi ‘energy’”. You were the one that mentioned it’s electromagnetic (or has electromagnetic properties)."

The wording is important and I apologize for being unclear. When I said it has “electromagnetic properties” I meant that it behaves like electromagnetic energy. I didn’t mean that it is, per se, electromagnetic.

**"You said these constructs would protect you from “external energies”. I was trying to determine in practical terms, what these “external energies” are. Energy is either kinetic or potential, which one are you shielding from?

Furthermore we can be more specific, and that’s where I was drawing those examples from; are we talking about electrical, mechanical, chemical, thermal, etc energies?"**

Here’s where no one in Psionics really and completely knows what’s going on.

I say “energy”, but no one really knows if it is even energy at all. It’s definitely not electromagnetic, but extremely large amounts have been known to “light up” or sometimes even work as kinetic energy (I.e. move very light objects). Some people say it’s some sort of energy that works at a quantum level, but I’m not sure.

When working with “psi energy”, it often seems warm and almost like some type of weightless liquid or plasma. When it’s charged for a specific function, it can be used to convey emotion. Also, each person’s “energy” is more or less unique.

In some way, shape or form, it is real. I have worked with people over the internet with it and they could tell me what I was doing with “psi” and vice versa to a surprisingly high degree of accuracy. Another thing is that I sat down with a friend and a random number generator. He would read off numbers from 0 to 5 on the random number generator and I would try to see what number it was. I tallied up the first approx. 200 results and found the average success: I was correct over 70% of the time.

When I shield, it is to keep out emotions (when I’m feeling overwhelmed) and/or psionic attack. (Attack using “psi energy”. Yes, it can be potentially damaging.)

**"I’m sorry if I offended you, I’ll try to be more charitable.

However, maybe I can express this in a more respectful way, but it doesn’t sound like Psionics is based on any semi serious science. That’d be the first thing I try to tackle, why do you believe this is it some type of scientific set of facts or is there some religious/faith element to it? That might also help answer your original question."**

It’s partly my fault, I misunderstood your intentions. Thank you.

That is correct, Psionics is not based on any truly serious science, but people who study it are often scientific. (They attempt to be objective in their observations and accurate in experiments. Unfortunately, there are no instruments to quantify data.)

I believe it because I have worked with it and gotten results. It is somewhat faith based because it is not proven, but I wouldn’t call it religious. There is no single or definitive philosophy, morality, creed, or anything of the sort for Psionics.

Unfortunately, there are not very many hard cold facts to latch on to so just about every psion goes through a (possibly indefinite) amount of self doubt where he questions whether it’s all in his head.

I hope this clears things up?

 

[SanAgustin]

Thanks for the clarifications.

It sounds like a way of achieving supernatural powers, but instead of justifying them with magic it uses pseudoscience (and I don’t mean that label as an insult BTW). I can’t speak authoritatively about this, but it almost sounds like this practice is trying to fill a spiritual void in your life and could prove to be an obstacle.

Would you mind if we do an experiment though?

Can I come up with a sequence of 5 numbers each 1-500 (ex: 98 313 53 221 411) and see how close you get to the sequence, or even how many numbers out of the set of 5 you guess? I’ll generate the sequence with a random number generator.

I can encrypt the sequence (with a message appended to it to make sure to you that there’s no trickery), post the encrypted sequence here and then after you guess share the key with you and the decrypted string?

 

[m134e5]

Hi,

I’ve been Catholic “my whole life” and am currently practicing (going to mass, the sacraments, active prayer life, etc.).

About a year ago, I started practicing something called Psionics.

For those of you who do not know what Psionics is, here is a more or less brief explanation:

Psionics is the use of a specific type of “psychic” energy associated with the nervous system to do work–it can include most of the abilities generally considered psychic (such as telepathy, or moving objects with the mind, as well as some that most people haven’t heard of).

Psi “energy” seems to have electromagnetic properties and it seems to be associated with nervous system function. In other words, more energy is produced with greater activity in the nervous system.

Although some use Psionics to attempt to “tell the future”, I do not believe that such an ability is possible. Also, if telekinesis (moving objects with the mind) is possible with Psionics, I would not care as it seems to me a waste of time.

I use it almost exclusively for focal meditation, relaxation techniques, and empathy along with a few other things.

The question is: Is this contrary to the objective teachings of the Catholic Church?

I do not believe that it is and I will not accept any argument blindly, although I am more that willing to be shown the truth.

I will be more than happy to clarify or explain anything I can.

Thank you for your time.

P.S. I’m really not sure whether this is in the right place in the forum so please let me know if I need to change some things.

If you’re trying to harness some kind of spiritual energy, it’s a mortal sin (divination). If what you’re doing can be explained physiologically, such as a mental exercise for relaxation and increasing your attentiveness to the world around you, it is fine.

 

[mk1486]

@m134e5:

"If you’re trying to harness some kind of spiritual energy, it’s a mortal sin (divination). If what you’re doing can be explained physiologically, such as a mental exercise for relaxation and increasing your attentiveness to the world around you, it is fine."

div·i·na·tion/ˌdivəˈnāSHən/
Noun: The practice of seeking knowledge of the future or the unknown by supernatural means.

Where did I mention I was trying to attain knowledge of the future?

Also, no, I’m not trying to harness any sort of spiritual power so I think I’m alright as well.

@SanAgustin:

**"Thanks for the clarifications.

It sounds like a way of achieving supernatural powers, but instead of justifying them with magic it uses pseudoscience (and I don’t mean that label as an insult BTW). I can’t speak authoritatively about this, but it almost sounds like this practice is trying to fill a spiritual void in your life and could prove to be an obstacle.

Would you mind if we do an experiment though?

Can I come up with a sequence of 5 numbers each 1-500 (ex: 98 313 53 221 411) and see how close you get to the sequence, or even how many numbers out of the set of 5 you guess? I’ll generate the sequence with a random number generator.

I can encrypt the sequence (with a message appended to it to make sure to you that there’s no trickery), post the encrypted sequence here and then after you guess share the key with you and the decrypted string?"**

You are very welcome. Now that I know you’re taking me seriously, don’t worry about insulting me. I understand that almost everything I say strikes most people as irrational and completely false.

I agree it can be an obstacle in my spiritual life as I have a problem with balancing faith/reason and objectifying the faith. However, I did recently clear out many of the conceptual issues with the faith which almost pushed me to leaving completely (Person-hood of God, Incarnation, Infallibility, etc.). They’re not completely cleared up (obviously haha), but I have made reasonable progress and no longer consider leaving the Church to be a reasonable choice. I understand that people might jump on me for this, saying that anything that endangers my faith should be dropped immediately, but I am at a point where dropping Psionics without a complete explanation could pull me away from The Church.

I wouldn’t mind some sort of experiment. However, you should know that I can’t pull rabbits out of a hat. I.e., I’m no pro at Psionics and I can not guarantee many (if any) results. My focuses are in empathy (emotion reading/projection), “energy” manipulation, and some telepathy (in that order).

I foresee a few problems with that experiment from my side. First of all, how am I supposed to “find” them? When I did the experiment with my friend, he either concentrated/focused on each number (one at a time and he moved on to the next after I stated my guess) or held the number of fingers up behind his back. (I used a blindfold or looked away so I couldn’t potentially figure it out from the muscles that would be flexed in his upper arm.) Also, the range of numbers is large enough to be slightly hard to conceptualize. (E.g. 123 might be easily projected or made into a concept, but what about 257?)

There are a few things that might be easier/better and still reasonably effective. For example, if we could chat on some sort of IM or maybe IRC and do something live through that, I think it would be best. Also, I am moderately good at reading emotions wrapped up in posts. For example, someone would post something like “what is this” (while concentrating on and feeling a certain emotion) and I would get it most of the time.

I’ll be happy to try your idea, but I’m not really sure If I can pull it off.

Maybe we can try both? We’ll try your experiment and if your interested, PM me and we can arrange some sort of live chat.

 

[thistle]

@m134e5:

"If you’re trying to harness some kind of spiritual energy, it’s a mortal sin (divination). If what you’re doing can be explained physiologically, such as a mental exercise for relaxation and increasing your attentiveness to the world around you, it is fine."

div·i·na·tion/ˌdivəˈnāSHən/
Noun: The practice of seeking knowledge of the future or the unknown by supernatural means.

Where did I mention I was trying to attain knowledge of the future?

Also, no, I’m not trying to harness any sort of spiritual power so I think I’m alright as well.

@SanAgustin:

**"Thanks for the clarifications.

It sounds like a way of achieving supernatural powers, but instead of justifying them with magic it uses pseudoscience (and I don’t mean that label as an insult BTW). I can’t speak authoritatively about this, but it almost sounds like this practice is trying to fill a spiritual void in your life and could prove to be an obstacle.

Would you mind if we do an experiment though?

Can I come up with a sequence of 5 numbers each 1-500 (ex: 98 313 53 221 411) and see how close you get to the sequence, or even how many numbers out of the set of 5 you guess? I’ll generate the sequence with a random number generator.

I can encrypt the sequence (with a message appended to it to make sure to you that there’s no trickery), post the encrypted sequence here and then after you guess share the key with you and the decrypted string?"**

You are very welcome. Now that I know you’re taking me seriously, don’t worry about insulting me. I understand that almost everything I say strikes most people as irrational and completely false.

I agree it can be an obstacle in my spiritual life as I have a problem with balancing faith/reason and objectifying the faith. However, I did recently clear out many of the conceptual issues with the faith which almost pushed me to leaving completely (Person-hood of God, Incarnation, Infallibility, etc.). They’re not completely cleared up (obviously haha), but I have made reasonable progress and no longer consider leaving the Church to be a reasonable choice. I understand that people might jump on me for this, saying that anything that endangers my faith should be dropped immediately, but I am at a point where dropping Psionics without a complete explanation could pull me away from The Church.

I wouldn’t mind some sort of experiment. However, you should know that I can’t pull rabbits out of a hat. I.e., I’m no pro at Psionics and I can not guarantee many (if any) results. My focuses are in empathy (emotion reading/projection), “energy” manipulation, and some telepathy (in that order).

I foresee a few problems with that experiment from my side. First of all, how am I supposed to “find” them? When I did the experiment with my friend, he either concentrated/focused on each number (one at a time and he moved on to the next after I stated my guess) or held the number of fingers up behind his back. (I used a blindfold or looked away so I couldn’t potentially figure it out from the muscles that would be flexed in his upper arm.) Also, the range of numbers is large enough to be slightly hard to conceptualize. (E.g. 123 might be easily projected or made into a concept, but what about 257?)

There are a few things that might be easier/better and still reasonably effective. For example, if we could chat on some sort of IM or maybe IRC and do something live through that, I think it would be best. Also, I am moderately good at reading emotions wrapped up in posts. For example, someone would post something like “what is this” (while concentrating on and feeling a certain emotion) and I would get it most of the time.

I’ll be happy to try your idea, but I’m not really sure If I can pull it off.

Maybe we can try both? We’ll try your experiment and if your interested, PM me and we can arrange some sort of live chat.

You are the one who came here asking if what you were participating in is against Church teachings. In other words you don’t know but it seems like you wanted all of us to tell you its okay. Well as far as I can tell most folks here are telling you to stay away from it and now you are saying that you could be pulled away from the Church if you don’t get a good explanation for dropping it.
For Heaven’s sake get a grip. Is your faith so weak?
Stop all this nonsense and talk to a priest about this instead of coming back door to us!

 

[mk1486]

"You are the one who came here asking if what you were participating in is against Church teachings. In other words you don’t know but it seems like you wanted all of us to tell you its okay. Well as far as I can tell most folks here are telling you to stay away from it and now you are saying that you could be pulled away from the Church if you don’t get a good explanation for dropping it.
For Heaven’s sake get a grip. Is your faith so weak?
Stop all this nonsense and talk to a priest about this instead of coming back door to us!"

I would like to be told it’s okay. It would be nice to know that I’m not misleaded. However, I am also quite willing to accept something that confirms that it’s to be abhorred. I know this line is often abused, but I mean it: I want to learn.

People have told me to stay away from Psionics, but people have also told me that all other sorts of things were dangerous and it turned out that for most of them (the ones that weren’t obviously mortal sins) were just the product of people not knowing what’s going on. For example, I have been told that iPods are of the devil, all yoga and meditation is evil, and several other things. All of them stemmed from people with good intentions who didn’t know what was going on. I think this is happening with the topic of Psionics. I think most people are saying that it’s either impossible (which I don’t think helps very much with the moral question) or they don’t know what I mean by Psionics and what it involves.

I am doing my best to get a grip in more ways than one. What more can I do? I have been taught things that were misleading by practicing Catholics (including Dominican Sisters and priests) and I have asked many questions that have not been answered. Should this not affect my faith?

My faith is so weak you say? My faith is not the strongest, but it is not blind and never will be. I have seen people who have blind faith and they end up leaving The Church or becoming lunatics. However, I believe that some faith is required and I do trust in many truths which I can not understand. If I can not question what I have previously assumed, the question will grow until I am overwhelmed. If you are asking for me to blindly follow when I think I see a cliff ahead, I can not comply.

If you truly wish for me to stop, I will respect your request and never come back to this forum. However, as I already said, I have already asked a priest and he told me he didn’t want to get involved. How is this going back door? If it is going back door, what else can I do if the front door is locked? Aren’t there priests here? Can you refer a priest that is on this forum to me?

Please let me know if I am not making myself clear, if I am a bit overboard, or not understanding you correctly.

 

[Hopemercy]

Is Jesus not enough?

His power, His love, His grace?

Living His teachings is a life’s work.

As He focusses on others, surely so must we.

 

[mk1486]

**"Is Jesus not enough?

His power, His love, His grace?

Living His teachings is a life’s work.

As He focusses on others, surely so must we."**

I hope you take this the right way because what you said could be considered credo by many people.

Jesus is not enough in the sense that we must live through him, but not exclusively focus on him. (I’m not sure if that came out right so I’ll try to explain.)

For example, would you think that we can simply have Jesus as enough and never eat or sleep again? God could easily allow you to perform such a miracle, but that doesn’t mean that testing his power is acceptable or that we shouldn’t ever eat or sleep again.

Another example is that Jesus is truth itself so shouldn’t that be more than enough? However, academics are good and we should seek to acquire knowledge of the world and people around us.

Please let me know if you need me to clarify or explain something.

 

[thistle]

"You are the one who came here asking if what you were participating in is against Church teachings. In other words you don’t know but it seems like you wanted all of us to tell you its okay. Well as far as I can tell most folks here are telling you to stay away from it and now you are saying that you could be pulled away from the Church if you don’t get a good explanation for dropping it.
For Heaven’s sake get a grip. Is your faith so weak?
Stop all this nonsense and talk to a priest about this instead of coming back door to us!"

I would like to be told it’s okay. It would be nice to know that I’m not misleaded. However, I am also quite willing to accept something that confirms that it’s to be abhorred. I know this line is often abused, but I mean it: I want to learn.

People have told me to stay away from Psionics, but people have also told me that all other sorts of things were dangerous and it turned out that for most of them (the ones that weren’t obviously mortal sins) were just the product of people not knowing what’s going on. For example, I have been told that iPods are of the devil, all yoga and meditation is evil, and several other things. All of them stemmed from people with good intentions who didn’t know what was going on. I think this is happening with the topic of Psionics. I think most people are saying that it’s either impossible (which I don’t think helps very much with the moral question) or they don’t know what I mean by Psionics and what it involves.

I am doing my best to get a grip in more ways than one. What more can I do? I have been taught things that were misleading by practicing Catholics (including Dominican Sisters and priests) and I have asked many questions that have not been answered. Should this not affect my faith?

My faith is so weak you say? My faith is not the strongest, but it is not blind and never will be. I have seen people who have blind faith and they end up leaving The Church or becoming lunatics. However, I believe that some faith is required and I do trust in many truths which I can not understand. If I can not question what I have previously assumed, the question will grow until I am overwhelmed. If you are asking for me to blindly follow when I think I see a cliff ahead, I can not comply.

If you truly wish for me to stop, I will respect your request and never come back to this forum. However, as I already said, I have already asked a priest and he told me he didn’t want to get involved. How is this going back door? If it is going back door, what else can I do if the front door is locked? Aren’t there priests here? Can you refer a priest that is on this forum to me?

Please let me know if I am not making myself clear, if I am a bit overboard, or not understanding you correctly.

First, don’t exaggerate. I did not tell you never to come back to these forums. I told to talk to a priest, not us, on this particular subject.

Why don’t you address this topic in Ask An Apologist and specifically ask for Father Serpa.

 

[Hopemercy]

**"Is Jesus not enough?

His power, His love, His grace?

Living His teachings is a life’s work.

As He focusses on others, surely so must we."**

I hope you take this the right way because what you said could be considered credo by many people.

Jesus is not enough in the sense that we must live through him, but not exclusively focus on him. (I’m not sure if that came out right so I’ll try to explain.)

For example, would you think that we can simply have Jesus as enough and never eat or sleep again? God could easily allow you to perform such a miracle, but that doesn’t mean that testing his power is acceptable or that we shouldn’t ever eat or sleep again.

Another example is that Jesus is truth itself so shouldn’t that be more than enough? However, academics are good and we should seek to acquire knowledge of the world and people around us.

Please let me know if you need me to clarify or explain something.

As what you argue is a total non-sense… Yoiu misread my post totally.

Of course.

Sacrilege to argue as you do and I seek no part of it. His Power, His grace are all

 

[mk1486]

@thistle:

**"First, don’t exaggerate. I did not tell you never to come back to these forums. I told to talk to a priest, not us, on this particular subject.

Why don’t you address this topic in Ask An Apologist and specifically ask for Father Serpa."**

I apologize for the exaggerations. they were out of line.

I am going to post this in the Ask An Apologist sub-forum and ask for him as you said. I was going to post there before, but I saw that it was locked and didn’t bother to see what exactly was going on.

Thank you very much for your time and help.

@Hopemercy:

If you would like to explain, I would be more than happy to answer.

 

[SancteIra]

Psionics is a practice that was created as a result of quantum physics and pure imagination, both are god-given so I believe that it’s okay as long as you’re not trying to hurt anyone with it. By the way, clairvoyance, telepathy and other ESP abilities are easily explained through the perception of quantum physics, it’s merely using the bioelecticity in your body to pick up information from other sources as it would the signals and information of the body and driving it toward the memory center of your brain. Even learning future events should be possible even in accordance to our religion as “all information that was, that is, and ever shall be is already in existence, whether or not it has happened yet.” so enjoy learning something cool! I’m a natural born Hemokinetic myself, though its hard to control once outside my body =_=…

 

[thistle]

This is a 2 year old thread which is not supposed to be resurrected. Even if you wish to discuss the same topic you should start a new thread.