Gazic

Hi. Leo recently stated that there was plenty of scientific evidence for psychic/paranormal phenomena, but I've never seen anything remotely convincing myself. I recently watched the Joe Rogan podcast with the "mentalist" Banachek, where he talks about debunking Uri Geller and tricking scientific researchers for years to prove that all self-proclaimed psychics use psychological tricks and sleight of hand. While I'm sceptical, I'm also open minded, so was wondering if anyone had any evidence they could share. Or just general thoughts on the subject? Is it all tricks, delusion or wishful thinking? Or is something more subtle going on? Thanks.

Could you tell me this week's Euro Millions lottery numbers then please? Thanks in advance x

Hmm, just to go off at a tangent... your icon moves when I'm not looking directly at it. When I observe it, it stops. It's like an iconised double slit experiment

Hey, thanks for the reply. That's fascinating. Anecdotes like that are what keep me open minded. I just don't get why they never seem to be testable under controlled conditions. You'd have thought statistically significant results would be easy enough to obtain, unless there's some kind of spooky quantum observer effect going on. But then I'm no expert on that, so I'll stop talking...

It's interesting to hear people's opinions on this, but ultimately isn't it a bit pointless to reel off a list of people whose presentation of the teachings resonates with you and say "they're enlightened, while this other person is not"? I'm new to all this, but how do we even know that anyone is enlightened until we've at least had a glimpse of it ourselves? A more relevant question would perhaps be "whose teachings do you personally find helpful"? Still, I've got a few new names to check out so thanks everyone

This has been happening to me more frequently since I started meditating and learning about enlightenment, about a year ago. I'm fully aware of cognitive/confirmation bias and this is something I'm mindful of. But a few things have been pretty crazy. For example, I was reading Eckhart Tolle on the train home from work - something about how you can heal yourself through presence and body awareness - and my mind spontaneously cleared. I went totally into a space of calm presence/nowness for about 20 seconds, which had never happened to me before. I presume something in what I read had resonated with my unconscious. When I got home I went on to Amazon or Netflix or whatever to choose a movie (can't recall the name of it now). About 20 mins in, I paused it to go get a beer and some writing on a building in the background caught my eye. It was the name of a garage. It said "Eckhart Auto Body Control". Mind blown.