Comment by Atheist Ninja on January 5, 2009 at 1:38am

well #2 is easy, do a double blind study. You'll need you and two people you don't know. Have one person be the intermediary between you and the recipient. In separate rooms do your little magic trick and "impress" your sensation on an object, make sure it's a neutral object that cannot imbue a sensation in itself. Have the intermediary bring the object to the recipient, make sure it is someone who can be careful not to in any way show signs of what sensation you were feeling. Repeat several times with different people, different objects, and different sensations. If an unusually high number of recipients of objects guess the same sensation as yourself, you may have something going. Oh and this should be obvious but I'll add it too, you have to tell the intermediary what sensation you "impressed" into the object before each test.

Comment by Mike on January 5, 2009 at 1:42am

Sounds to me that you probably have a very high intellect. I would say #1 is odd if you saw a fox but seeing the connections that something "cunning" might be able to teach you is reasonable. I don't know why it took a form though.
#2 is probably your very empathetic and have learned throughout your life to predict outcomes of how people may feel ina situation. I honestly believe our brains are a series of logic gates and you're just running your programming that you've learned in life.
#3 again, you might have mental abilities that you have learned ion your own. There are shows of people tasting words on Discovery channel along with a whole host of other sensory oddities. There are also monks in the buddist religion(i think) that are able to control their body tempurature through deep meditation. You may have mental connections that make this easier for you and is some what natural and yet undeveloped. Yoyu're not the first person with this ability im sure. After all, if you believe most things on this planet are of the same DNA then you could logically think that there are certain things turned on in some humans that aren't normally there duh to evolutionary choice.

Comment by Drew on January 5, 2009 at 2:12am

I'd like to make a comment about the science/spiritual/religious conundrum. If we need to clarify what is happening with language, I suppose we could say: (a) religion = profession of faith; active movement towards a belief; (b) spiritual = an energy, non-physical, but present. I hope that makes sense in the scenario I am suggesting.

The idea of moving energy, spirit, anima, aura, etc. is a bit confusing. Why does it necessarily have to be tied to God, religion, an institution? Science isn't entirely clear on issues of energies that are not in the human-visible spectrum. Astronomers debate the states of these materials regularly, but come to some consensus using the "radiation spectrum." Non-visible energies exist, some hot, some cold, some unknown. I am simply trying to say that an experience with energy does not necessitate anything non-scientific, or even uncommon.

I am most qualified to talk about your concept of moving energy, in the form of clearly-controlled heat. Buddhist monks have been doing this for ages; it is most common practice in Tibetan Buddhism. The concept of moving internal energy in the form of heat doesn't necessitate Buddhism in any way, but that is where we most hear about it today. It comes from earlier practices in Chinese medicine, the concept of Qi-Gong. This "chi" was we often pronounce it in English is confusing to some because it seems to imply faith in Buddhism, Confuscianism, or at least some sort of spiritual world.

But look at it this way. The world is made of energies. Some collide and form objects, some reject objects... and the vast majority of energies in the universe are unseen. We feel cold air in winter, but don't see it. We feel the sun's rays when we walk outside in the summer, but don't see the rays. Does this necessarily state that sunlight and cold air are supernatural, thus spiritual, thus religious? No, it's just basic science.

There are several studies going on as we speak relating to "chi." It's become a hot topic amongst scholars due to the massive amounts of practitioners in various New Wave movements. And scientists are hitting up the idea. It has been dubbed "bio-electro-magnetic energy." Unseen energy, inside the human body that reacts to magnetism and acts similar to electricity. Studies have been done on Tibetan monks showing up to a 17% increase in the temperature of their hands and feet while told to move the heat. Within a minute, the heat will dissipate when the monk actively stops commanding it. Through Qi-Gong practices, many people have been able to do this to a much lesser degree... I have experienced it during my studies.

It sounds wild and weird... and it is. But science moves into new frontiers all the time. There is no immediate answer as to how, why, when, but this is an issue of science. If you want to make it unnatural, spiritual, religious, that is up to your own methods of interpretation, study, and experience. But I can clearly state that the concept of a controlled-heat sensation inside the body is not unfounded, uncommon, or recent.

I'm not really qualified to comment on your other notions, but hopefully what I have been to supply will be helpful. I apologize if it is muddy and unclear... it's become late, but I thought this an important issue to discuss with you as you appear quite excited about the subject now.

Comment by Fox Anderson on January 5, 2009 at 4:36am

No worries on being unclear. I understand what you are saying. I didn't know about the monks and the moving heat bit. Thanks for the information. As for the test, I will try that when I get some people to help me. I don't know how long that will take. I will post the results in a new blog when I get the tests done.

Comment by The Urban Spaceman on January 5, 2009 at 11:18am

Help I cannot explain why the sun exists, it must be a sun-god bestowing light upon us.

Comment by Fluther on January 5, 2009 at 12:19pm

I'm reminded of the atomists who were a group of ancient Greek philosophers, they proposed atoms but it took 3000 years before they were proved to be correct. There could well be something else out there that we can hardly imagine (we are like ancient Greeks smashing rocks and squinting trying to find atoms), but we are far away from even testing it properly, never mind explaining it. Though for the most part, a quick look into psychology may help. There is nothing in the intellect that wasn't first in the senses, and if you believe something strongly enough you can interpret your sensory inputs any way you like. It's a weird universe and we interpret it with weird brains. You're a smart guy, go get that nobel prize tiger!!

Comment by Andy Urban on January 5, 2009 at 10:20pm

Ever since the dawn of homo sapiens, we have been puzzled by phenomenon both internal and external. With his newly evolved brain, he could now wonder why something happened and create myths (religion). Things he could not see that seemed supernatural (wind, storms, volcanoes earthquakes, etc.) that could not be explained, but surely had powerful influences over him were left to his creative imagination to fill in the gaps to his understanding. As I always like to say, reality (or its interpretation) is dynamic, otherwise the world would still be flat and we'd be burning witches. I am friends with an ordained shaman who performed a 'healing' on a cyst I had on my back. Although I was a skeptic, it was the darndest thing when I felt a warm 'tickle' pass through my body. A week later she popped it like a zit. There's no way I can prove what she did was supernatural, but I definitely felt something. Could it be a supernatural power? It could have been just the power of suggestion. Maybe there was some unknown to science ability my shaman friend had. She didn't really have a belief about it herself. She just called it 'non-ordinary reality.' So who knows what all that mystical stuff really is? Remember, only a few years ago, people getting struck by lighting was thought of as a punishment from their god. Now we know better. Well, some of us do. The rest have to read books about why good things happen to bad people.

This is it. There is no hidden meaning. All that mystical stuff is just what's so.

Hope this helps.

Comment by SevenTenths on January 6, 2009 at 2:16am

141 is a very high IQ . I would guess that many things "appear" intuitive to you. Am I right? This usually indicates a very high degree of awareness. So, you're probably just damned smart...
There is a very real possibility of ESP when one considers just how "thin" our sensory perceptions are. Any such ability therefore wouldn't require the existence of a god.

peace,
7/10

Comment by Fox Anderson on January 12, 2009 at 3:52pm

Most things seem rather intuitive to me yes. Things like how planes fly were apparent to me when I was in elementary school.

Comment by Fox Anderson on January 12, 2009 at 3:57pm

One other thing. I tried an experiment to see if my animal guide was real. The set up was this. If he is real then looking in the other room and telling what was going on (whether my room mate was awake or not) would be easy. I didn't get any information on that and had to still check for myself.

I have abandoned my belief in such things at this point. Though I still want to further test the imprinting physical sensations part.

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