Saturday, October 31, 2009

Could some reports of ghosts be caused by unusual magnetic fields triggering strange reactions in the brain? The writer follows neuroscientists and psychologists to Muncaster Castle to see if science can lay a ghostly mystery to rest. In an earlier experiment, Chris French, who studies anomalistic psychology at Goldsmiths, University of London, created a dimly lit, featureless white room where people could be exposed to simple sine-wave magnetic fields and low-frequency sound waves, which have also been linked with ghostly experiences. The result? The volunteers were just as likely to report odd sensations regardless of whether the magnetic fields and infrasound were switched on or not. Elsewhere, Scientifically Haunted House Suggests You’re a Sucker and 8 Ghost Detecting Gadgets That Can Confirm Your Sanity.

Of Mice and Men Michael Prescott's Blog
Psi healing studies are getting good results. Using a device called a planimeter to measure inflicted skin wounds on groups of mice, all subjects that received spiritual healing, by use of positive energy focused on the rodents within a measured period of time, showed vast improvement over those in separated and untreated controlled groups. In order to fend off skeptics and tainted results, all mice subjected to the study were bagged separately so as to prevent direct contact with skin oils or the warmth of the experimenters' hands that might be argued to aid in the healing. And in other mind news, if you've ever tripped on LSD and wondered what was really going on in your head, scientists attest This Is (Literally) Your Brain on Drugs: Views From Inside a Drug User’s Brain.

With the boom of ghost hunting tours, the question arises: Why do we seek the 'paradox of horror'? Why do we seek an uncomfortable or frightening brush with the unknown? Theories of a contained thrill, not unlike a roller coaster, to those seeking answers of our existence after death, to coping with trauma during a time of personal loss, are all arguably valid. But does the recent rash of interest in seeking the spirits of the dead, and its lucrative results, attract the charlatans ghost groups, bilking people for money with no experience and no inclination to find anything remotely haunted for the would be seeker of ghostly delights? At least in the EU, new regulations are clamping down to prevent it. And across the pond, PRISM explores paranormal activity in UTM, local area.

UFOs and The Divine Milieu UFO Iconoclast(s)
If human beings make up the cellular structure of the Universe or, rather, the Mystical Body of Christ to take a page from Teilhard de Chardin, then shouldn't we be asking if UFOs are viral or bacterial intrusions--infections as it were--within the Body of Christ? And furthermore, are UFOs, like the AIDs virus, not amenable to cure or understanding?

Calling Mary Worth, Hell Mary, Mary Jones, or Bloody Mary-- any will do. It seems the adolescent dare game of Bloody Mary's origins, apparently a descendant of an early 1900s rhyme, and possibly with more ancient ties to Egyptian mirror-gazing called scrying, has a storied past. There's the ancient Greeks' use of a mirror, known as the psychomanteum, to talk the the deceased. More recently, the Ganzfeld Technique, a process of looking at a mirror in darkness to invoke sensory depravation, is said to convince users that faces are looking back at them. But as any funhouse experience will tell you, all you need to do is shine an image diagonally on a mirror to produce a scary effect. But you could always try saying Bloody Mary three times in the mirror and see for yourself. With creepy video.

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