Hi Mr Wang,
"Dr. Tiller's experiments to demonstrate the effect of mind over matter began by imprinting electrical devices with a specific intention. The imprinting was done by four experienced meditators, people who Tiller says were "highly inner-self-managed people."
Then this device — imprinted with the intent — was wrapped in aluminum and sent by overnight shipping to a laboratory 2000 miles away, where it was placed beside the "target experiment" and turned on."
Here's my skeptical perspective of the experiment. The following is my wholly biased, unscientific, unproven, purely opinionated, puposefully hypothetical, and maybe rhetorical view, so Dr Tiller, don't sue me if you ever read this.
From those two paragraphs, we see assumptions taking place where the validity of the assumptions themselves were the intent of the experiment. Why was the device wrapped in aluminium? Was there some assumption on that part? These "highly inner-self-managed" people, what did they exactly do with the device? And whatever they did, did they do it in a controlled environment? Notice how the experiments are wholly not replicable by non-"highly inner-self-managed" people. Who counts as "highly inner-self-managed"?
(Haha, one of these days i'm going to get my own phd, the obstacle called "i'll never make it" aside, and then people are going to say "Look at lbandit, that scrub of the universe, even he has a phd.. Doesn't say much about doctorates and writing books that sell does it?")
Mr Wang, i'm sure you have your reasons for past life regression hypnosis. My guess is that you want to know your spirituality better, for your journey in your "spiritual path" (quoting you : )). I'm not going to dissaude you or anything, considering the recent sedition cases and "freedom from offence" thingy, which to me seems more like empowerment of speech for believers of theism. So i'm not sure asking anyone not to believe in something is sedition or not. Well... the law does not seem to protect minorities without religion.
Anyway, just a couple of points regarding hypnotism. I'm sure you know about them too.
1) The human mind is very malleable.
2) In a hypnotic state, a person has increased susceptibility to suggestions.
3) Even not in a hypnotic state, the human mind has been shown to be affected by suggestions. (No references to any clever doctorates here, but you can grab plenty of case studies off textbooks.)
What about horoscope or tarot reading? They do seem less invasive. Personally i won't want to mess with my own mind. In any case, what ever you do, keep the Straits Times articles' critique going : D
Best wishes.
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Oh... i think i forgot, thanks for dropping by : )
ReplyDeleteOh, you're welcome.
ReplyDeleteWhy am I going for past-life regression? Well, as you probably can tell, I've already done a lot of research on it; examined the analysis of PLR doubters and PLR believers etc. On a theoretical/analytical basis, my present position is that I believe in PLR, and I believe that a lot of good can come from undergoing it. The next step then follows logically -
for example, if you believe that it is good to exercise at least three times a week, then the next logical step is to start exercising three times a week, is it not?
Of course, it is also an kind of experiential validation for me. Or invalidation, if it doesn't work.
As for the malleability of the mind under hypnosis, well, there are interesting accounts of independent verification.
For example, X undergoes PLR and discovers that his wife in his present lifetime was his best friend in his past lifetime and they lived in Japan. However, after the PLR session is over, he does not tell his wife about it.
His wife then goes for PLR with a different psychotherapist, and under PLR hypnosis, his wife discovers that X was her best friend in a past lifetime and they lived in Japan.
So their PLR accounts match, despite the fact that neither told each other about their experiences until later, and despite the fact that each used a different psychotherapist, and neither psychotherapist knew who the other psychotherapist was. Etc etc.
So I'm considering seeing if I can duplicate these results with my wife. She's game for this too!
Oh in case you're interested, here's a link about past-life regression hypnosis.
ReplyDeleteAs for Tarot, heh, I'm already into that (and meditation too), but more on that another time.
Funny thing is that when you really look at all this stuff, you see how it all links up into a grand big picture;
from quantum physics to acupuncture to synchronicity to superconsciousness to Tarot to Buddhism to Hinduism to reincarnation to past-life regression to near-death experiences to channelling to meditation ....
... well, I'm sure you doubt or outright disbelieve it, but that is that and that is that ....
i know you said yo've read skepdic before. So pardon me for the linking to skepdic again. But i thought some of the stuff looks pretty interesting since you are thinking of doing independent validation (and something to look out for during validation).
ReplyDeleteSelf Deception
"In How We Know What Isn't So, Thomas Gilovich describes the details of many studies which make it clear that we must be on guard against the tendencies to
1. misperceive random data and see patterns where there are none;
2. misinterpret incomplete or unrepresentative data and give extra attention to confirmatory data while drawing conclusions without attending to or seeking out disconfirmatory data;
3. make biased evaluations of ambiguous or inconsistent data, tending to be uncritical of supportive data and very critical of unsupportive data.
"
Forer Effect
"Forer gave a personality test to his students, ignored their answers, and gave each student the above evaluation. He asked them to evaluate the evaluation from 0 to 5, with "5" meaning the recipient felt the evaluation was an "excellent" assessment and "4" meaning the assessment was "good." The class average evaluation was 4.26. That was in 1948. The test has been repeated hundreds of time with psychology students and the average is still around 4.2 out of 5, or 84% accurate."
Cold Reading
"Not all cold readings are done by malicious manipulators. Some readings are done by astrologers, graphologists, tarot readers, and psychics who genuinely believe they have paranormal powers. They are as impressed by their correct predictions or "insights" as are their clients."
Confirmation Bias
"This tendency to give more attention and weight to data that support our beliefs than we do to contrary data is especially pernicious when our beliefs are little more than prejudices. If our beliefs are firmly established upon solid evidence and valid confirmatory experiments, the tendency to give more attention and weight to data that fit with our beliefs should not lead us astray as a rule. Of course, if we become blinded to evidence truly refuting a favored hypothesis, we have crossed the line from reasonableness to closed-mindedness."
Differences between Testimonials and Controlled Studies
And for your reading leisure, the Full Moon Effect
Yup, yup - I know all that.
ReplyDeleteFor me, the thing about PLR is that people who have undergone it have experienced very positive changes in their (current) lives. In a sense, the point becomes moot whether their "past lives" are real, or are false memories, or whatever. That's because the aftereffects of the PLR are real and undeniable and longlasting.
Anyway, the whole PLR thing has developed to a stage when it becomes almost strange to view PLR hypnosis as a phenomenon on its own. Many conventional psychotherapists now routinely incorporate PLR into their hypnosis, or at least allow the possibility of it to happen.
For example, psychotherapists have all along been using hypnosis to treat phobias. Typically, they try to identify the original cause of the patient's irrational fear (say, of water). In the past, they would ask the patient (under hypnosis) a question like:
"Think back now. What is your earliest childhood memory of being afraid of water?"
Sometimes they hit jackpot. The patient will recall an incident when they were young - two? three? years old, when they had a bad experience with water, which led to the development of their phobia. Sometimes they don't. The patient recalls nothing about his childhood days which led to the phobia.
Nowadays the psychotherapist simply modifies the question a little. He asks:
"Think back now. What is your earliest memory of being so afraid of water?"
The patient MAY recall an incident in this life which caused the phobia. In a surprising number of cases, however, the patient simply trips automatically back into a past life (often one where he died by drowning) - even though the patient never knew anything about PLR and wasn't told that it might happen.
~~~
Also, thanks for the warning - I did try to research about that. I haven't been able to find any research stating that PLR could be really harmful or dangerous or anything like that.
I did find an eminent psychotherapist saying that PLR is overused these days - it's often used in cases where more conventional methods would have worked just as well; and also that PLR is too timeconsuming and expensive.
The biggest warning is that for people with serious psychological problems (which is why they are seeing a pyschoanalyst in the first place) are already having trouble coping with one life (their present life) and having to cope with memories of a past life simply makes things so much more complicated.
I can see the point of that - however, since I don't really think I have any serious psychological problems, I'll take the risk.
If nothing else, I'll just try it for the experience. Just like some people would try skydiving; or bungee jumping; or trekking in Nepal. I figure PLR regression is cheaper, safer and potentially a greater life-changing experience.
Oh, and you gotta try this as well -
ReplyDeleteself-hypnosis!
You can do it right in the comfort of your own home. And very popular with the world's top sportsmen these days (Tiger Woods uses it all the time).
As to whether PLR is harmful or dangerous, i don't know. On the surface, it doesn't seem harmful to me though.
ReplyDeleteBut again, i still won't go for such a thing, mainly of two reasons, one that i probably won't have the money for it, two, the very same reasons why many people do not donate to Ann Kay F anymore. I simply do not believe in past life.
As to self-hypnosis... a no too. The next most fearful thing for me, other than death would be losing my mind. For without a soul, my individuality is defined only by my consciousness.
Heheh! We always fear what we don't know. The secret is to find out more - then you'll know.
ReplyDeleteHypnotism is common. Various forms of it have happened to you, although you did not know it.
At various times of your life, you would have been in a state of deep concentration -
you could have been studying; reading; running; swimming; listening to music; playing a musical instrument; acting on stage; giving a speech; praying; meditating; playing a highly absorbing compute game; competing in a tennis match; painting a picture; having ecstatic sex; whatever -
to such an extent that you were totally absorbed in what you were doing; became oblivious to everything else. And when the activity ended, you feel like you're coming out of a certain mental state ...
You were already having a hypnotic experience then. You just didnt know it. :)
Hypnotism is quite conventional these days. Some of the more common applications are to help people do things like break addictions (smoking, alcohol etc); deal with chronic, longlasting pain (due to injury or a disease like cancer); cure phobias (eg of crowds, water, animals).
You must have heard of NLP? Neurolnguistics programming? There's a lot of hypnotism in that.
As for the cost of PLR,, I'm sure you can afford one or two sessions ($180 per hour, one hour per session, at the place I'm checking out). It'll be expensive if you keep doing it, but I don't intend to keep doing it.
Anyway, just yesterday, I was reading a book (not abt PLR, just about spirituality in general) and the writer wrote something to the effect that by now, the average soul has already had numerous lifetimes, and clearly not all the lifetimes are equally significant in the dedvelopment of the soul, so you probably wouldn't bother to explore more than a few of them anyway ...
Hi Mr Wang,
ReplyDeleteLet me put it this way. If some time later, somewhere some professor from a reputable university starts saying that near death experience can improve a person's appreciation of life in 92% of the cases and starts publishing testimonials from successful volunteers.
Then he offers to induce a near death incident for the chance to experience near death experience for the low cost of $179 per session, with 99.999% of non-death rate, or whatever equivalent percentages that NASA can tolerate on equipment failure.
Mr Wang, would you pay $179?
Of course, from a certain perspective, my scenario is unfair. It all depends on how much weight a person puts into the harm and probability of harm.
Disclaimer: All numerical figures my own imagination.
Well, as you say, it's all in the numbers. For example, suppose the risk from dying from an NDE is indeed less than the risk of dying from being hit by a car when you cross the road on the way to work.
ReplyDeleteThen why not?
Of course, our instinctive reaction to an artificially induced NDE is "Noooo!". Because near-death means near death. But if "near death" really means "no lah, nowhere near death at all", then why not.
Anyway ...
Just to tell you a bit more about the real benefits of PLR. These were discovered by its pioneer, Dr Brian Weiss, and the results have been achieved by other psychotherapists around the world.
Patients have been able not only to explore their past lives. They have been able to explore that space between their past deaths and their next life.
How do I put it? Well, basically, patients have been able to remember how, immediately after their past deaths, their souls proceeded to meet .... nonphysical beings. And they remember the communications being made then. Which are priceless, invaluable communications.
I'm not going to tell you now, because I know you won't believe it. Not that I blame you, of course. Many people wouldn't believe it. But if you want to know more, you could try this book - Many Lives, Many Masters.
Oh wait. Just thought I'd mention it - Brian Weiss is one of your favourite kind of people! A scientist type. Columbia, Yale Medical School, head of a entire psychiatry department in a major US hospital. Etc.
One more little detail. PLR has yielded the same kind of results in a wide variety of patients of all religious persuasion (also in atheists). Thus whether you believe in reincarnation or not, or in non-physical beings, is quite irrelevant. For example, staunch Christians who strongly believe in only one earthly life and thereafter eternal life in heaven, will also see multiple earthly lives under PLR. Atheists who believe in no afterlife of any kind have also reported multiple past lives under PLR.
And there's more!
Brian Weiss has also experimented with FUTURE lives! That is, your NEXT life ....
Well, before you either get a headache digesting this (or before you die of laughter - depending on your reaction) - I guess I should stop here.
To backtrack a little, while hypnotic regression invovles hypnosis, we really should not bundle hypnotic regression and non-regressive hypnotism as the same thing.
ReplyDeleteI would agree that hypnotism does have its good uses when used to break addictions or alleviate pain.
Hypnotic regression is more, for it involves... um.. regression. While there are many claims of past life regression success, and also many lifes improving after PLR (quality of life can improve whether anot the memories are true), there are also unsucessful attempts. If i were to make an advertisement, or write a book promoting PLR, its not difficult to choose which ones i would include.
Memories recovered from hypnosis will always be plagued by suggestions and imagination, despite it being vividly detailed and geniunely believed by the subject. It is one of the main reasons why evidences obtained by hypnosis is not accepted in most courts of law.
Though not PLR, other hypnotic regressions have caused problems. From a person believing that he/she was abused during childhood to being kidnapped by aliens.
Patients attending PLR have their soul tavel to meet nonphysical beings. Interesting is it not? And if one of them claims to have met a god and said god appointed him as prophet and said prophet demands that we start bowing and praying to him and that we should consume nothing but bbq flavor twisties.
Given such extreme scenario and comical diet, its not unfair to ask for evidence and logic of diet for his claims. But why must we wait for the extreme to occur before we begin questioning?
And... future lives. Before i continue, let's call a single smallest indivisible unit of time as a 'moment'.
A glimpse-able future is something i cannot conceptualize, unless i'm watching a movie (go with the flow or waste $7). Which moment is the present? Who, what, why, how tracks the present? If every moment is the present for beings in that moment, does it not indicate that everything is predestined? Surely you do not believe that everything is pre-destined, and that we're just re-living a story book.
If you believe every moment to be a parallel reality (you do seem accepting of multiple reality), then what a person do would have no consequences in another moment.
I fail to conceptualise a model in which the future is glimpse-able.
Regarding Christians and atheists being able to find memories of past life during their regression session, you might want to look at the following excerpt from skepdic.
Excerpt:
"Psychologist Robert Baker demonstrated that belief in reincarnation is the greatest predictor of whether a subject would have a past-life memory while under past life regression hypnotherapy. Furthermore, Baker demonstrated that the subject's expectations significantly affect the past-life regressive session. He divided a group of 60 students into three groups. He told the first group that they were about to experience an exciting new therapy that could help them uncover their past lives. Eighty-five per cent in this group were successful in "remembering" a past life. He told the second group that they were to learn about a therapy which may or may not work to engender past-life memories. In this group, the success rate was 60%. He told the third group that the therapy was crazy and that normal people generally do not experience a past life. Only 10% of this group had a past-life "memory.""
What i do find more acceptable is that the concept of judgement after life (be it burning in hell or punished by bad karma) was spawned by people (ancient) who feel that it is unfair that some bad guys die unpunished and some good guys never got a break.