Thread: Super powers in waking life ?/!

Orb: When you say 'everything is truely some type of energy', you must be alluding to a collection of qualities which you associate with the word 'energy'. Otherwise it would be like saying 'everything is that which it is'. To me the phrase says something like 'everything is a simple dynamic complex of inertial spontaneity'. I agree with that. Common concepts of 'energy' are included in my thought about what matter is, with light being a special case in that the state its in is all translational, so to speak. But this doesn't answer my question, other than to suggest that "astral energy" is a type of matter where we perceive it to be, without addressing the other alternatives.

The moon, as a physical object, is a large ball of rock in space some modest distance from the earth. Suppose I see a reflection of the moon on the surface of a lake. Is the moon in the lake? If you consider moonlight to be an extension of the moon, then there's some of that, but for the most part the moon is in space near the earth, not in the lake.

Similarly, when you see someone's aura, where is it? Is it in the space surrounding that person's head, reflecting to your mind's eye, and projected onto your mental model of the space surrounding the person's head? Or is it somewhere other than in the space surrounding the person's head, but you are projecting it there in your mind, because of a relationship it has with the other person's mind, which is related with their head?

Imagine you're driving a car, but instead of being able to see through the windshield, a computer projects a cartoon of your surroundings onto the inside of an opaque windshield. What we call 'seeing' is like that. Imagine you're looking for something good to eat, and the computer helpfully colors things differently depending on whether they're edible and what they taste like. That's what color is like, except usually things are colored approximately by wavelength of reflected/emitted light, rather than by edibility. Imagine that some things emit smells, but since you can't smell through your windshield, the computer creates a little colored cloud in the air around each thing to indicate what it smells like. This is like an aura. So my question is, does the colored cloud literally represent particles emitted by the object, colored and brightened so that you can see them? Or is it more figurative, like sound is figurative, indicating where a smell comes from, but with the cloud not being distributed according to the actual distribution of emitted particles?

To carry this analogy further, suppose that different objects could be bought, and each had a price associated with it. Your computer could superimpose a little $ and number next to each object. Those symbols would be in your visual field, but would not be literally representing something that hangs in the air next to each object.

I'm guessing that you're assuming that when you see an aura, it represents something actually in the air around a person's head, like a smell that other people can't detect. If someone who can see auras is willing though, I'm interested for them to mess with this a little bit, and try to learn more about that. If the aura has an objective, spatial location outside of the visual field in your mind, that says something about the nature of 'astral' stuff. It means that its made of what I earlier referred to as exotic matter, and that there's some objective map between that matter and what we think of as surrounding space. Also of interest is color, how much power do you have to change the apparent color of the aura using your imagination? Is the color inherent in the aura, or is it symbolic, and assigned by your mind?

Originally Posted by shadowofwind

Orb: When you say 'everything is truely some type of energy', you must be alluding to a collection of qualities which you associate with the word 'energy'. Otherwise it would be like saying 'everything is that which it is'. To me the phrase says something like 'everything is a simple dynamic complex of inertial spontaneity'. I agree with that. Common concepts of 'energy' are included in my thought about what matter is, with light being a special case in that the state its in is all translational, so to speak. But this doesn't answer my question, other than to suggest that "astral energy" is a type of matter where we perceive it to be, without addressing the other alternatives.

The moon, as a physical object, is a large ball of rock in space some modest distance from the earth. Suppose I see a reflection of the moon on the surface of a lake. Is the moon in the lake? If you consider moonlight to be an extension of the moon, then there's some of that, but for the most part the moon is in space near the earth, not in the lake.

Similarly, when you see someone's aura, where is it? Is it in the space surrounding that person's head, reflecting to your mind's eye, and projected onto your mental model of the space surrounding the person's head? Or is it somewhere other than in the space surrounding the person's head, but you are projecting it there in your mind, because of a relationship it has with the other person's mind, which is related with their head?

Imagine you're driving a car, but instead of being able to see through the windshield, a computer projects a cartoon of your surroundings onto the inside of an opaque windshield. What we call 'seeing' is like that. Imagine you're looking for something good to eat, and the computer helpfully colors things differently depending on whether they're edible and what they taste like. That's what color is like, except usually things are colored approximately by wavelength of reflected/emitted light, rather than by edibility. Imagine that some things emit smells, but since you can't smell through your windshield, the computer creates a little colored cloud in the air around each thing to indicate what it smells like. This is like an aura. So my question is, does the colored cloud literally represent particles emitted by the object, colored and brightened so that you can see them? Or is it more figurative, like sound is figurative, indicating where a smell comes from, but with the cloud not being distributed according to the actual distribution of emitted particles?

To carry this analogy further, suppose that different objects could be bought, and each had a price associated with it. Your computer could superimpose a little $ and number next to each object. Those symbols would be in your visual field, but would not be literally representing something that hangs in the air next to each object.

I'm guessing that you're assuming that when you see an aura, it represents something actually in the air around a person's head, like a smell that other people can't detect. If someone who can see auras is willing though, I'm interested for them to mess with this a little bit, and try to learn more about that. If the aura has an objective, spatial location outside of the visual field in your mind, that says something about the nature of 'astral' stuff. It means that its made of what I earlier referred to as exotic matter, and that there's some objective map between that matter and what we think of as surrounding space. Also of interest is color, how much power do you have to change the apparent color of the aura using your imagination? Is the color inherent in the aura, or is it symbolic, and assigned by your mind?

shadowofwind: When I first responded to your post I was very intrigued. I didnt respond immediately because I wanted to put lots of thought into my answer. By the way, thanks for clearing up what I had misinterpreted, I thought you were confused about whether or not it actually this "astral" matter existed. Obviously you are more open minded than I had expected, sorry for judging, its just I am used to narrowmindedness in my day to day life.

I digress though, what I meant by everything is truly some type of energy is that it is a matter of perceiving the different types energy. Everything has its own energy "signature" and yes astral energy would be considered 'exotic' matter in my opinion. I think that auras are a way of percieving this matter. Another belief that I have not found anything contradicting is that the brain will interpret any experience like this and make it real to the person having the experience. A personal example from my life is when I see orbs, because I see them more than auras, I will try to find meaning in them but I base the meaning I find off of the database of memories I have in my head.

Basically what I am trying to say is that there is not a standard for what an individual will see when they "see" auras or things of that nature. What it comes down to is perception. With that added awareness of the more subtle energies that exist in our universe, you still have all of your other senses and brain as well, so it will be filtered though the brain and senses to make it real to the person having the experience. This is how I have interpreted the auras and orbs that I see. Since I have never had any outside information intake about what auras mean or what orbs mean I have come to my own conclusions. Hope that clears some things up for you, if you have any questions ask and I will do my best to answer.

Orb:

Its pleasing to hear that your thoughts about these things are based largely on your own experience. Often when talking to people who base their interpretations more on what they've read, I seem not to learn as much, because I've read a lot of books too.

The reason I question interpretations of paranormal experiences is not that I doubt that people have real paranormal experiences. Its that I've learned that a lot of standard 'esoteric' beliefs and interpretations of experiences are not entirely to be trusted. A lot the ideas one reads are partially true, all of it that I'm aware of is at least partially conjecture presented as fact, and partially untrue. So I've tried to get rid of all my beliefs and assumptions and start over from scratch. Astral matter was one assumption I've been re-examining, not because I have a particular issue with it, but because I've been re-examining everything.

One reason I've been doing this, as I have posted elsewhere, is I can see that the ideas through which we interpret our inner experiences are based to a significant degree on past scientific ideas. Even though most people don't think about those connections, they're still limited by the ideas available to them subconsciously. Many experiences would be a lot richer and more understandable if people had a better framework within which to imagine those things to themselves. Although modern scientific thinking is very poorly equipped to deal with or explain supernatural phenomena, the older ideas that mystics and 'New Agers' use are quite limited also, and improvements are now possible. So I'm trying to help piece together a more developed way of thinking about 'higher worlds', so that people will have those available to use. As an example of what I mean, if a person has a dream that's akin to a past life experience, there isn't much they can do with it besides imagine its a 'past life', or dismiss it as meaningless or using some kind of psychobabble. I think the 'past life' metaphor is inadequate for many such experiences however, which makes those experiences hard to even have, much less understand.

I'm aware that a lot of seemingly different interpretations of experience can be almost equivalent. When I say that an idea is 'untrue', what I mean is that it fails to adequately describe the experience it attempts to explain, and that life difficulties tend to arise from where it breaks down.

Fifteen years ago when I used to read books, I read some of a Theosophical bent, particularly by H. W. Percival. Those suggested that the best path of development currently is to work on issues having to do with identity and redemption first, and leave psychic development until after that's all straightened out. The argument given was that if you develop psychically first, then your pride and power lusts will get you all entangled in your new astral playground. So although a person's psychic tendencies will develop to some extent anyway, as a side effect of the moral and noetic development, the latter was supposed to be the focus. I don't entirely believe this argument, in part because of watching the effect that attitude seems to have on people. I wonder if they'd actually be less psychically snared up, and less hypocritically conflicted, if they were less afraid of the psychic part of themselves. Since our psychic natures are a natural part of us, it seems to me that they should be exercised and used as they develop, otherwise leaving them stunted will have undesirable effects. At the same time, it does seem natural to me not to force things in weird ways, becoming the psychic equivalent of a contortionist. This is one reason I don't usually see astrally: I've chosen not to try to develop it. Another reason is I'm just not very receptive or creative in that way - I've got other unusual mental abilities but not that one.

I'm probably going to be quite busy for six weeks following this one. So I'm going to share some thoughts on orbs, in case those might be of use to you. And I'm going to say a lot up front, without much feedback, because I won't have time for a back-and-forth conversation later. Some of this I have previously posted elsewhere.

Presumably, there are a very wide variety of orbs that represent very different phenomena, since its such a natural shape. So my orb might very easily not have much to do with your orbs.

One thing I learned years ago is that if I ask a question, I can pretty much count on getting some kind of an answer. It may not be a complete answer, and it may not be entirely right, but generally speaking its a step. Over the years, the muse/daemon/fate/higher-self/desire/feeling/subconscious/soul/angel/spirit-guide/entity/poltergeist that provides the answers has developed, exhibiting an increasingly wide range of capabilities, and not really fitting into any existing paradigms. One way it communicates is in dreams and in intuitions. It also arranges external events, in much the same manner that it arranges dreams, apparently. It also can produce obviously miraculous events, but usually does not. It can communicate using other people's thoughts as a sort of vocabulary, and can use my thoughts to communicate with other people. I think it is extremely patient. It has a sarcastic sense of humor. Its obviously deeply connected with other people's intuitions and destinies, even though it exhibits something like an individual identity in relation to me. A couple of weeks ago, when suggesting how I should try viewing a particular inner experience, it referred to 'higher kin' and 'lower kin', the implication being that there's a deeper part of my 'self' that's related to me in some way, but not exactly my 'self' either. (This is one criticism I have of a lot of eastern teachings, they seem to assume that everything is either 'I', usually a 'false I', or else a homogeneous, universal self. I think that reality has a lot more complexity and nuance than that, and it doesn't do it justice to call the nuance 'false' or 'illusory'.)

Anyway this muse once represented itself to me as an orb of light, maybe about the size of a grapefruit, touching different parts of my brain while creating a dream that would be played back to me later. On another occasion, in response to my questions about its identity and nature, it appeared in a dream as the moon, but several hundred yards away and a few meters across, rather than at the distance of the 'real' moon and hundreds of miles across. I feel that it is related to us as people, and its nature is qualified by the condition that we are in, as opposed to being pure and ultimate and godlike. I've some reason to believe that it doesn't like being thought of as an 'it', but I don't know what else to call it, since it doesn't have a gender or a name that I am aware of. The knowledge it can communicate seems to be limited, but its either quite intelligent in a certain kind of way, or its a tool of something else which is quite intelligent. Some of the 'lessons' it gives in dreams or events are quite beautifully designed in my view.

OK, ask questions if you want.