I am not sure if this is the right place to post this, but here goes.
I watched the lecture on youtube by Thomas Campbell, I have not read the book, not tried it out. I am open but sceptic, and my biggest reason for being sceptic is the fact that there are lots of prizes out there for proving paranormal activity. My question is, if you guys (Campbell at least) say that this has been proven, and that there is evidence of healing, astral projection and so on, why don't you go get the prizes? I do not want to sound like an asshole, I just think that the fact that you have not is a very good argument that what you say is not true.
So maybe this should be the next thing, to go grab the money? What do you think about all this?

Here is a link about one of the prizes and how paranormal activity has not yet been proven. It is old, but still valid.

http://www.undeceivingourselves.com/I-atte.htm

All the best wishes.

Ferdinand,

Welcome to the forum. Here is a good thread to read to start:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2728

I am sure others here will also contribute more posts as variations of this topic has come up many times before.

Bottomline: If you want the truth you have to go and get it yourself. Only your own personal and subjective experiences can "prove" it to yourself in any meaningful way.

Steve.

_________________
Be the difference.

Ferdinand,

I am curious why you would think that anyone here, Tom included, none of whom make claims to being able to reliably and consistently discern information based on Tarot readings or other such card manipulation, should be able to perform in such a test as your link indicates? Or why would you think that they would want to try? Their money is safe as they basically know they are creating near impossible circumstances with the intent of creating failure and their intended 'debunking' results. In general, I would say that we don't believe that the kind of thing being tested for in that link can be done any more that the group doing the testing believes that it can be done. And they certainly don't intend to set up their test in such a way or base the determination of success in such a way that they might possibly loose their money. It's basically a set up.

One of the things that we find to operate as part of the rules of this reality frame is called here the Psi Uncertainty Principle. It is a sort of catch all fail safe that makes sure that when anomalies do occur, they can be readily swept under the rug and disregarded. This is a reality that is intended to operate under a set of rules and while it is recognized that accidents do happen and in a virtual reality based upon consciousness, anomalies can be created, this is not to be permitted to become a general disbelief and disregard of the intended parameters and thus to interfere with the intended purpose which is outside of those rules. Whether it is a lack of witnesses or uncertainty of details, anomalies will be disregarded.

As a personal example, early in the morning of the 911 terrorist attacks, I went into a period of much disturbed sleep during what must have been their final preparations and taking over of the jet aircraft involved. I experienced a lucid and vivid dream in which I was attacked from out of the darkness of night by shadow shapes arising from natural shadows, metamorphosing into large dogs like Doberman Pinschers that attacked me as I was walking back to my pickup truck. Before I could reach the cab and my pistol, I was just able to pull out my big pocket knife, open the blade and stab the first comer just below the ribs and up into the heart as it leaped up towards my throat. I woke up immediately with the phrase 'the forces of darkness are coming out into the light' in my head. When I woke up late the next morning after sleeping badly for the last hours of my night, I was told that a plane had just crashed into the side of the New Your World Trade Center and the story was on television. Nothing unique as I understand that thousands were made aware in advance in some similar, unclear and unspecific, but direct mental way that something was happening. This is part of a life time of strange things I have experienced and a world full of such experiences by many. If I send in a write up, do you think they would give me the money? Even if I dredged out of memory and wrote up the many other things I have experienced which I accept in sum as my personal 'proof'?

They are well aware that they have set up a success proof test. Such experiences are basically internal and proof, as for the experience itself, is personal.

Ted

Thank you very much for your replies. I am amazed to hear you story Ted, and also not so, because I have heard other stories like that, for instance my mother saw death in a very lucid and vivid dream, like you described, the day her father got diagnosed with cancer.
Thomas Campbell claimed in the youtube lecture however, that he has been able to astral project himself to other rooms and "read blackboards". This could be proven under controlled condition like in the link, right? Or does the negative energy from the sceptic scientist present in the room make it impossible for him to do so (not being sarcastic btw)? So I understand what you say about personal experience, I simply fail to see the consistency with what Tom said about the evidence he collected - evidence that, to me, does not seem to be subjective. Please help me out here, I am very curious.
Thank you in advance.

I don't think it would be so much the negative energy, but rather that it doesn't work that way. Too flashy I'd bet.
Love
Bette

_________________
All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

Ferdinand,

I don't know what to answer for Tom. He is in the process of travel and presenting lectures in California at present. I don't know what the people who have made these prizes would have in mind, if they have some kind of standard test or not. I do know that Tom participated with another OOBE explorer at the Monroe Institute with Robert Monroe in a situation where the two experimenters went OOB from two separate and isolated rooms with Robert Monroe talking individually to each by an isolated line and microphone as they interacted and explored mentally. On the tape made on Robert Monroe's end, the conversation that the two subjects had between each other mentally, the observations made, all as reported to Robert Monroe appear as basically all one consistent conversation. A very convincing argument for authenticity but proving nothing as regards the test offer for a prize.

Whether Tom would subject himself to whatever conditions the people making the money for proof offer would accept is not something that I know. My personal impression is that they will make sure that no one can prove anything to their satisfaction. The one test referred to was just a preliminary as I understood it. If you had done so well that you forced them to accept your effort as a pass, they would have still wanted to set up an even harder test, modified based on the first test to do their best to make sure that you failed the revised second test. What Tom would say is for Tom to say. He is not at all likely to engage in a matter of Tarot reading. I know I don't have the kind of skills to even think about it. Nor do I know that a 'proof' would be permitted under the Psi Uncertainty Principle. I know from experience what Tom can do in the way of non physical communication, but that, my knowing, does not violate the PUP but it proves nothing to the reward offerers either.

I will bring this to Tom's attention but can offer nothing for certain.

Ted

I'll ask Tom tomorrow WHEN I SEE HIM! :)
Love
Bette

_________________
All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

I thank you very much for your help :)

Then there is that "Amazing Randy" huckster.

Maureen Caudill (A TMI grad, and also a facilitator with that outfit) reports that friend Robert Bruce (author of several astral-related books) did approach that fellow, but the guy reliably sets up, or changes, the rules after the fact, is the sole judge, and is short, rigs everything so that he never pays.

It almost sounds like it ought to be actionable somehow.

-Montana

Yesterday, when I was meditating i tryed to go out of body- and to go in the other room to look at the clock.

I went and looked at the clock- the time was 18:77!! LOL

So i didn't bother coming beck to body to try to prove it.

I know that I was "out" and it was fantastic expirience as always- but to prove it for others...?

Everybody needs to do it for themselves.

Ferdinand,

These questions keep popping up on here from time to time.

IUOC's who are highly developed/low entropy beings do not come forward and claim these prizes and prove to the masses amazing abilities because;

among other reasons, such as the PUP.....

These Low Entropy highly developed beings,
A. have no need to prove anything to anyone, ego is not involved in their interactions.
B. have no desire to attain monetary value for purposes such as petty entertainment for others (parlor psychics)
C. realize that it will offer no value whatsoever on a mass scale (large medium or small). The resulting interpretations of the perceiving FWAU's that are not ready to accept these types of abilities will be, but not limited to; denial, fear or even worship. All of which will be a net loss to the action and promote no value whatsoever.
D. In the simplest of terms, They are beyond such activity ( not to be mistaken as a superiority trip, it's more like a hand that has out grown a glove )

Each FWAU needs to figure it out ( TRUTH ) on their own

Tom : "You are a unique individual with a unique brain, consciousness, and intent -- you are perfectly competent to develop your own path -- in fact you MUST develop your own path, there is no other effective way."

However, In more intimate settings I would tend to think that a highly developed being if so inclined with a specific purpose or goal in mind may decide to 'enlighten' a certain individual that may create value and growth.

OM

I actually like the Amazing Randi. There are a lot of charlatans out there that take advantage of people. I'm glad there is someone out there that encourages questions. I've read his "rules" to winning the cash, they are pretty limiting, but I think the point is to remove any and all doubt.

Like everything, you have to take him with a grain of salt.

I think it's the charlatans of the world that give the study of the paranormal a bad name. You find one person who is pulling a scam, and it makes honest people with honest experiences suspect.

And as Tom says, if you subjectively "try the pudding" yourself , then you don't need Randi (or others like him) to prove it to you with a cash prize.

:)

_________________
"Wherever you go, there you are."

Ferdinand (and others),

I agree with the answers given by other posters to your original query. However, there is another approach to grasping the validity of My Big Toe, which you will understand better once (if) you read the books. This hinges on the fact that MBT is not centred on the paranormal - it is nothing less than a complete model of reality, as any Theory Of Everything must be. As such, its compass includes the (so-called) paranormal, but only as a small incidental part. It tells us of the structure of reality, and (most importantly) of our place and purpose in it, as units of consciousness. And it does this in the language of modern western science. Many of the core concepts in MBT are already within the thought-space of mainstream science, and you may find it easier to start your personal quest from that perspective, rather than from the paranormal angle, fascinating though that is. So, look into things like quantum mechanics, which demonstrates the illusory nature of our apparently objective physical world - all is mere probability until actualised by (conscious) observation and measurement. Also, look up the papers of Prof Brian Whitworth, who makes a convincing case for the world as a virtual reality, by showing how a VR answers the conundrums of physics which the Objective Reality concept does not. And Whitworth is not alone, this idea is gaining ground.

If you gain a good understanding of these mainstream, and just-edge-of-centre scientific concepts, then the ideas presented by MBT will seem far less way-out. True, MBT has gone much further ahead, and combined these concepts into a coherent whole TOE, with consciousness as the one, fundamental reality behind them all, but it remains fully compliant with the laws of physics.

As everyone above has said, only you can decide.

Arthur

_________________
"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."

Ferdinand, *excited* I have the answer!!! I know what it will take to prove paranormal activity! *playful, acting like an innocent 5 y.o.* It's easy... all you have to do is make the researches have a near death experience. Change their long-held internal belief system. At the end of the NDE, they'll believe that paranormal is possible. You'll be the first one in line, to show them your results, and you'll get the $100 K. Eureka! I've found it.

*okay, back to being serious* [ For anyone who plans to write and chastise me about the words "God" and "Spirit," DON'T. If you want to chastise me, and make me use words like PMR and NPMR and IUOC and AUO... please, just don't. My words work just fine for me. Please, do something else with your time. ]

For example, I love my brother dearly. He is now in college to be an engineer. I've been talking to him for 10 years about belief in God, in a higher power, in Spirit. Actually, the name I like best is "the energy grid of the Universe." I tell him... cities have electrical grids that we can't see. So does the Universe. Plug in your drill/ saw/ other tool to the power grid in your garage, and you have more power, are more effective. Plug yourself into the electrical grid of the universe, and you yourself will have more power, be more effective. (Those are the words that he can relate to.)

For years, I've been talking to him, and for years, he's been telling me no such thing exists. These past two years, he's been having a real hard time with his life. He FINALLY is open to my ideas. When he said, via cell phone, "Last night, I prayed to God." I almost fell off my chair. "I'm sorry brother, I didn't hear you right. Say it again." He said, "You heard me. Don't make me repeat it."

My point: There is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING that I have done to prove the existence of a higher power. Nothing! The changes had to come from my brother, from his own internal belief system. After his internal thinking changed, that's when he's willing to listen, and believe. The best that I can do... "Meet People Where They Are At!" Use words that he can understand. Use concepts that he can relate to. And give him time to make the changes within himself. I hope that helps answer your Q.

Lisa ;-)

There was a little girl lost in the Florida swamps yesterday for 3 nights and a man who went to the same church the little girls and family goes to was out looking for her all alone. He pray to find her, and he recited some specific scripture, and he found her. The girl, when found, was also reciting some scripture. The man asked to find her, and he found her. The girl asked to be found, and she was found. They are saying it is "almost" a miracle. Everyone says God did it, I'm down with that these days. It's just data.
Love
Bette

_________________
All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.