'What do you know about 'The Urantia Papers'?'

[psyche101]

12 hours ago, Nuclear Wessel said:

Funnily enough tho you turned down @Liquid Gardens offer for you to prove your abilities to him. I think all he asked you to do was read something simple on a white board, or describe what he was doing.

A few years ago I offered to go out into the workshed, pick something at random, return and put it on my desk and he could tell us all what it was.

Had a Uri Geller / Carson thing going on apparently......

[psyche101]

2 hours ago, Desertrat56 said:

Good question.  I assumed it was what australians call peanut butter.  Assumptions usually mislead, though.  

Both terms are reasonably common.

[+Nuclear Wessel]

7 minutes ago, psyche101 said:

A few years ago I offered to go out into the workshed, pick something at random, return and put it on my desk and he could tell us all what it was.

Had a Uri Geller / Carson thing going on apparently......

Being that I would be absolutely thrilled by having some kind of ability like that be strongly supported by evidence, I would be more than willing to work with him on an experiment to prove it.

I don't think he will oblige, though.

[Essan]

18 minutes ago, Nuclear Wessel said:

Being that I would be absolutely thrilled by having some kind of ability like that be strongly supported by evidence, I would be more than willing to work with him on an experiment to prove it.

I don't think he will oblige, though.

I am pretty sure he'd agree , if you absolutely believed him

But if you didn't, you'd be biased  and therefore not a credible witness.

 

[jmccr8]

4 hours ago, Desertrat56 said:

Good question.  I assumed it was what australians call peanut butter.  Assumptions usually mislead, though.  

Hi Desertrat

I asked because it was being spread all over the thread, And no jam either.

[jmccr8]

14 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

The point is no one can prove disprove my contact.

Hi Walker

There is nothing to disprove as it has not been shown to exist

14 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

I am a bit more "advanced" than others because  at least i can compare what i have learned and been shown, to that which the author of the UB was shown  But to everyone else it is about the peanut paste. Ie did I, or did I not, eat it?  have  I, or  have I not, lived most of my life in contact  with the cosmic consciousness 

You would like us to believe that you are advanced and like your alien this has not been demonstrated just like the science of the UB and the teachings about their history of other humans or physical locations on Earth have been shown to hold any validity.

14 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

Neither can be proven.

Both have to be accepted or denied on faith

If there is no evidence to support a position then there is nothing to consider so there is no point proving or disproving until there is evidence. I don't need faith either way if there is no evidence.

[+Sherapy]

8 hours ago, eight bits said:

Psychotic break would (I think) be more like the dark side of these things. From a variety of people who've recorded and published their experiences, it seems to be the opposite of stress. If any thing, it often comes at "Miller Time." Bucke had his while riding home at night in a cab after an evening visiting friends. Mine was after running on the beach at night and cooling down, then looking up at the moon. Osho's was more or less literally Miller Time, it came after he drank his first beer . Tennyson's regular ones were during mantra meditation sessions ...

For people who are interested in the psychotic break aspect, a classic case report is that of the artist Jesse Watkins, written up by R.D. Laing in The Politics of Experience, chapter 7, "A Ten-day Voyage," New York: Pantheon Books (Random House), 1967. It's probably floating around online in whole or part.

Although Bucke liked the idea of religious pioneers having "cosmic consciousness" episodes, my money would be on psychotic breaks. For example, Jesus having a visionary experience followed immediately by "40 days" wandering in the desert, comforted by angels and confronting Satan (Mark 1:9-12) ... that's simply not a 10 minute +/- overwhelming experience of an extraordinary perspective on life.

 

Gallup has been asking adults about religious experiences (using a variety of ways to call them) in the US and UK for about two generations now. Although not all of them are Bucke Experiences (might as well name 'em for the first scientific report of them), they seem to be very common. Gallup has from time to time done the cross-tabulations, and no, they aren't just for religious people. (Anecdotally, Pullman is surely a secular person, and I am, too.)

Jung's idea would, however, cover the full spectrum of "religious expereinces," which include psychotic breaks (see Sheri's post), temporal lobe epilepsy (Karen Armstrong, the religion writer, is a sufferer of that), and some even less pleasant mental and neurological health possibilities.

It felt marvelous. I don't think I could live a normal life if it lasted for a long time. And you mentioned driving!

(However, several years ago, I corresponded with a person online who, so far as I could tell, did manage to stretch a Bucke experience into several weeks' duration. She seemed to be functioning well enough. I'd be willing to try for the record because it really feels great.)

 

Great add too. I think you are right these type of subjective experiences are commonplace especially after a few drinks. 

[SHaYap]

Just also to add that Osho is the yogi formerly known as Bhagwan Sri Rajnesh ...

Quote

...also known as Acharya Rajneesh, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, and later as Osho, was an Indian godman, mystic, cult leader, and founder of the Rajneesh movement. During his lifetime, he was viewed as a controversial new religious movement leader and a mystic Guru. He rejected institutional religions. Wikipedia

Born: December 11, 1931, Raisen, India

Died: January 19, 1990, Pune, India

TV shows: Wild Wild Country

Siblings: Snehlata Jain, Shailendra Shekhar, Rasa Kumari, Neeru Singhai, more

Parents: Saraswati Jain, Babulal

~

Made quite a name and number for himself back in the states back in the day... 

~

 

[+Sherapy]

1 hour ago, SHaYap said:

Just also to add that Osho is the yogi formerly known as Bhagwan Sri Rajnesh ...

~

Made quite a name and number for himself back in the states back in the day... 

~

 

Rajneesh the cult leader?

[SHaYap]

1 hour ago, Sherapy said:

Rajneesh the cult leader?

The one and, sadly, not only, but of among many... He was quite successful of his day, I'll give him that... 

Walkerism, but more convincing if not mesmerizing 

~

[Will Due]

20 hours ago, eight bits said:

So far as I know, and maybe @Will Due can comment directly on this so we're all on the same page, there is no claim about the origin of the UB involving anything called "the cosmic consciousness."

 

I would say yes, cosmic consciousness was not involved with the origin of the papers.

But there were also several other things that were noted to not have been involved with the origin of the papers too, such as:

• Unusual activities of the marginal consciousness
• Unusual activities of the subconscious mind
• Automatic writing
• Automatic talking (spirit mediums)
• Hearing voices
• ESP (extra sensory perception)
• Associated or combined psychic states

One of the most interesting things about the origin of the papers to me has to do with what William Sadler was involved with as a sort of hobby or side venture. As well as being a respected physician, who traveled to Europe to study psychiatry under Sigmund Freud, Sadler was also a debunker of paranormal claims. I've heard it said that until the day he read the paper on the twelve apostles, which reportedly brought him to tears, he was highly skeptical about practically everything that had to do with the papers.

 

 

Edited December 24, 2021 by Will Due

[Mr Walker]

22 hours ago, eight bits said:

So far as I know, and maybe @Will Due can comment directly on this so we're all on the same page, there is no claim about the origin of the UB involving anything called "the cosmic consciousness."

Cosmic consciousness (without the definite article) became a phrase as the title and subject of a book by Canadian psychiatrist Richard Maurice Bucke (1837-1902). The phrase refers to a private interior mental state, not some person, place or thing in the cosmos external to the person whose mental state it is. It is characterized by a radical change of perspective and ideation, acute both in its rapid onset and brief duration. It can recur, but often is a once-in-a-lifetime thing. Tennyson, however, was able to induce the state by what seems to be a kind of mantra meditation focused on his name.

Bucke himself had had the experience (hence his interest in the phenomenon), and in our time, secular novelist Philip Pulman seems to have had it a few times, too.

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/cultural-capital/2011/06/church-experiences

As have I, once, although something similar but less intense has happened sometimes during meditation.

Bucke thought that some founders of revealed religions (e.g. Mohammed and Jesus) may have had the experience. Indian guru Osho, who was a kind of religious leader late in the last century, reports having had the experience.

The "consciousness" in cosmic consciousness is the person's own, not something that exists outside of us, and cosmic refers to the perspective in the sense of "universal order and harmony," not cosmos in the sense of outer space as a place, or whatever space aliens might live out there or any of that stuff.

Presumably, although the experience seems always to be episodic, the capacity for experiencing that state is persistent. So, in some figurative sense, you might say that Tennyson or Pullman or Bucke "contacted" the cosmic consciousness. There is nothing about the experience, however, that compels the conclusion that is a "contact" in anything like the sense of one mind contacting some other person's mind or personality. Rather, it seems to be one mind temporarily slipping its moorings.

As to its role in religion, I'm with Jung on this, that organized religion in some ways protects people against having "religious experiences," or when they do have them, gives them a safe outlet for reflection and recovery afterwards. Protective mechanisms can include rituals, but also, I think, lengthy discourses upholstered with mind-numbing irrelevancies.

I am trying to think of a book like that.

 

I said

My take on the UB  is influenced by my own life -long contact with the cosmic consciousness which, i suspect,  tis the source of all human faiths (other than those deliberately constructed by humans  who know they are untrue) 

The UB originated with a single man who went into a trance like state and saw these things 

He related  his visions to others, and later his visions were written down directly 

This is very similar to many religious origins  

Some would call it a vision from "god," but I see it as a contact with the universal or cosmic consciousness

Ps I used this phrase long before i had heard of Bucke or other writers on the  topic.

It matched what i experienced contact  with.  ie the  universal consciousness The term is also used for an inner, higher, level of consciousness which is different from, but conec5ed to, contact with the external cosmic consciousness 

Bucke learned a lot from  Walt Whitman, who described the external universal consciousness and his own connection to it  For  him the universe had  a consciouness, and he  was an integrated part of it.  Bucke accepted this but, for him, it was the raising of his own consciousness to a level where he also became part of tit which was more significant 

For Bucke it was a transcendental moment; for Whitman a life time connection. yet bucke alsosaw anexternaluniverslconsciouness

quote 

 

According to Bucke,

This consciousness shows the cosmos to consist not of dead matter governed by unconscious, rigid, and unintending law; it shows it on the contrary as entirely immaterial, entirely spiritual and entirely alive; it shows that death is an absurdity, that everyone and everything has eternal life; it shows that the universe is God and that God is the universe, and that no evil ever did or ever will enter into it; a great deal of this is, of course, from the point of view of self consciousness, absurd; it is nevertheless undoubtedly true.^[3]

^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_Consciousness}

I am not sure you can experience one without the other.

Naturally   you tend to believe they are speaking of only an inner consciousness (which is wondrous enough) but clearly the y were not.

That  level of inner consciousness allowed connection to a wider, universal, consciousness (god if you are religious )

Lol no, not  "slipping its moorings" but reaching a higher state of conscious awareness AND, through that, transient or permanent   contact with the universal or cosmic consciousness  It is like learning to read and write, and opens up access to knowledge in the same way 

I've used this before but its well worth a read.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/out-the-darkness/201703/cosmic-consciousness

 

Edited December 24, 2021 by Mr Walker

[Mr Walker]

9 hours ago, jmccr8 said:

Hi Walker

There is nothing to disprove as it has not been shown to exist

You would like us to believe that you are advanced and like your alien this has not been demonstrated just like the science of the UB and the teachings about their history of other humans or physical locations on Earth have been shown to hold any validity.

If there is no evidence to support a position then there is nothing to consider so there is no point proving or disproving until there is evidence. I don't need faith either way if there is no evidence.

This reflects your own world view 

Life has not been proven to exist on Mars,   but neither has it been disproven. You don't have to show something to exist before you can prove it does not

[eight bits]

4 hours ago, Will Due said:

I would say yes, cosmic consciousness was not involved with the origin of the papers.

That's helpful, along with the list of other excluded psychological phenomena. Thank you.

Also, anything you know about Sadler's work process would be helpful. I only know the outlines, that there was a "sleeping subject" who was a patient. I take that as a literal description: the subject either talked in his sleep or recalled things in detail upon waking up from sleep (do you know which?). At some point, Sadler noted that there was a lot of coherent structure to what the subject was saying.

I can understand that Sadler would decide that some record should be made of what the subject was saying. From what you write, maybe that's not so much because Sadler believed what the subject was saying at that point, but rather because it was an interesting phenomenon, maybe even medically significant for the patient.

Assuming what I've said so far is more-or-less correct, then where I lose the plot is when Sadler assembles a "forum" of interested friends (?) to serve as both a source of questions for the subject and also an editorial board (?) in preparing the subject's answers for eventual publication. It seems to me that that would suggest a non-trivial level of belief by Sadler in the truth of the subject's content, beyond simply recognizing an interesting medical or psychological phenomenon.

I appreciate that that is not a well formed question, but I am pretty much lost at that point (and for all I know, I was lost before then and hadn't noticed it). Anyway, that's where I am on the origins question, and if you see a way forward from there, pointers are welcome.

 

2 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

Ps I used this phrase long before i had heard of Bucke or other writers on the  topic.

OK, I'll just file cosmic consciousness along with all the many other words and phrases that mean something in the Wonderful World of Walker, but which ought not to be confused with the same words being used to denote things whose existence has been established in the real world.

[+Sherapy]

8 hours ago, SHaYap said:

The one and, sadly, not only, but of among many... He was quite successful of his day, I'll give him that... 

Walkerism, but more convincing if not mesmerizing 

~

The Rajneeshee’s I have heard about them loosely. There is a documentary on Netflix called “Wild Wild Country” I think I will watch it. There is also Bikram Choudary  of Bikram Yoga in this documentary I actually know and have practiced yoga with some of the  people who are in the documentary who were duped and harmed by him. There were only a few of us who saw through his BS. To me, he was a giant red flag, especially, the grandiose claims. But, these days he is on the lam in Mexico and the Bikram empire has crumbled. This man wasn’t even mesmerizing, I never did understand how so many were blinded by the chandlers of Narcissism of this creep, like some others I will not mention names, it seems something vital is missing. 
 

 

Edited December 24, 2021 by Sherapy

[+Sherapy]

16 hours ago, Nuclear Wessel said:

Being that I would be absolutely thrilled by having some kind of ability like that be strongly supported by evidence, I would be more than willing to work with him on an experiment to prove it.

I don't think he will oblige, though.

Nope, also there was a refusal on  a test that another poster refined that I came up with on speed reading and comprehension.The offer was to speed read a philosophical essay excerpt of my choosing ( no heads up) them answer 3 questions. Time allotted 10 mins. If this was possible I might have been interested in speed reading 

Edited December 24, 2021 by Sherapy

[+Nuclear Wessel]

9 minutes ago, Sherapy said:

Nope, also there was a refusal on  a test that another poster refined that I came up with on speed reading and comprehension.The offer was to speed read a philosophical essay excerpt of my choosing ( no heads up) them answer 3 questions. Time allotted 10 mins. If this was possible I might have been interested in speed reading 

Interesting how they always fold when an offer is done to actually prove their abilities. I guess if you've already proved it to others there's no need to prove it to somebody under controlled conditions, right?

[Grim Reaper 6]

15 minutes ago, Sherapy said:

Nope, also there was a refusal on  a test that another poster refined that I came up with on speed reading and comprehension.The offer was to speed read a philosophical essay excerpt of my choosing ( no heads up) them answer 3 questions. Time allotted 10 mins. If this was possible I might have been interested in speed reading 

That's very cool my friend and then after he fails you need to give him Zap-Zap!!

[Grim Reaper 6]

4 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

This reflects your own world view 

Life has not been proven to exist on Mars,   but neither has it been disproven. You don't have to show something to exist before you can prove it does not

Are you ok, man your not making any sense my friend at all it appears your logic has gone the way of the Dinosaur's!!

[Grim Reaper 6]

5 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

I said

My take on the UB  is influenced by my own life -long contact with the cosmic consciousness which, i suspect,  tis the source of all human faiths (other than those deliberately constructed by humans  who know they are untrue) 

The UB originated with a single man who went into a trance like state and saw these things 

He related  his visions to others, and later his visions were written down directly 

This is very similar to many religious origins  

Some would call it a vision from "god," but I see it as a contact with the universal or cosmic consciousness

Ps I used this phrase long before i had heard of Bucke or other writers on the  topic.

It matched what i experienced contact  with.  ie the  universal consciousness The term is also used for an inner, higher, level of consciousness which is different from, but conec5ed to, contact with the external cosmic consciousness 

Bucke learned a lot from  Walt Whitman, who described the external universal consciousness and his own connection to it  For  him the universe had  a consciouness, and he  was an integrated part of it.  Bucke accepted this but, for him, it was the raising of his own consciousness to a level where he also became part of tit which was more significant 

For Bucke it was a transcendental moment; for Whitman a life time connection. yet bucke alsosaw anexternaluniverslconsciouness

quote 

 

According to Bucke,

This consciousness shows the cosmos to consist not of dead matter governed by unconscious, rigid, and unintending law; it shows it on the contrary as entirely immaterial, entirely spiritual and entirely alive; it shows that death is an absurdity, that everyone and everything has eternal life; it shows that the universe is God and that God is the universe, and that no evil ever did or ever will enter into it; a great deal of this is, of course, from the point of view of self consciousness, absurd; it is nevertheless undoubtedly true.^[3]

^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_Consciousness}

I am not sure you can experience one without the other.

Naturally   you tend to believe they are speaking of only an inner consciousness (which is wondrous enough) but clearly the y were not.

That  level of inner consciousness allowed connection to a wider, universal, consciousness (god if you are religious )

Lol no, not  "slipping its moorings" but reaching a higher state of conscious awareness AND, through that, transient or permanent   contact with the universal or cosmic consciousness  It is like learning to read and write, and opens up access to knowledge in the same way 

I've used this before but its well worth a read.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/out-the-darkness/201703/cosmic-consciousness

 

What is this cosmic consciousness are you willing to do a test and prove once and for all you have it??

Because honestly if you refuse that also is proof you do realize that right??

[Grim Reaper 6]

7 hours ago, Will Due said:

 

I would say yes, cosmic consciousness was not involved with the origin of the papers.

But there were also several other things that were noted to not have been involved with the origin of the papers too, such as:

• Unusual activities of the marginal consciousness
• Unusual activities of the subconscious mind
• Automatic writing
• Automatic talking (spirit mediums)
• Hearing voices
• ESP (extra sensory perception)
• Associated or combined psychic states

One of the most interesting things about the origin of the papers to me has to do with what William Sadler was involved with as a sort of hobby or side venture. As well as being a respected physician, who traveled to Europe to study psychiatry under Sigmund Freud, Sadler was also a debunker of paranormal claims. I've heard it said that until the day he read the paper on the twelve apostles, which reportedly brought him to tears, he was highly skeptical about practically everything that had to do with the papers.

 

 

Thanks for your honesty Will, that shows character!

Edited December 24, 2021 by Manwon Lender

[+Nuclear Wessel]

6 minutes ago, Manwon Lender said:

What is this cosmic consciousness are you willing to do a test and prove once and for all you have it??

Because honestly if you refuse that also is proof you do realize that right??

If he accepts and fails then his facade crumbles. If he doesn't accept he can't "fail", so his facade still has some merit, in his mind, because we can't disprove it.

It's just a defense mechanism. The man has zero credibility lmao

Edited December 24, 2021 by Nuclear Wessel

[XenoFish]

7 minutes ago, Manwon Lender said:

What is this cosmic consciousness

From what I gather both this cosmic consciousness and the collective unconscious are just words to describe the "idea sphere" of humanity, not a real thing.

[Grim Reaper 6]

3 minutes ago, Nuclear Wessel said:

If he accepts and fails then his facade crumbles. If he doesn't accept he can't "fail", so his facade still has some merit, in his mind, because we can't disprove it.

It's just a defense mechanism. The man has zero credibility lmao

No if he doesn't except the challenge he also fails because its a loss loss situation unless he can prove his abilities so by saying no he's also saying I cant do it!!

The he must be Zap-Zapped to atone for his behavior!!

[The_Phantom_Stranger]

7 hours ago, Will Due said:

 

I would say yes, cosmic consciousness was not involved with the origin of the papers.

But there were also several other things that were noted to not have been involved with the origin of the papers too, such as:

• Unusual activities of the marginal consciousness
• Unusual activities of the subconscious mind
• Automatic writing
• Automatic talking (spirit mediums)
• Hearing voices
• ESP (extra sensory perception)
• Associated or combined psychic states

One of the most interesting things about the origin of the papers to me has to do with what William Sadler was involved with as a sort of hobby or side venture. As well as being a respected physician, who traveled to Europe to study psychiatry under Sigmund Freud, Sadler was also a debunker of paranormal claims. I've heard it said that until the day he read the paper on the twelve apostles, which reportedly brought him to tears, he was highly skeptical about practically everything that had to do with the papers.

 

 

You had better make sure your book does not contradict the Revelations. As in the last page of the Bible in the last chapter of Revelation Jesus warns, "

 

¹⁸ For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:

¹⁹ And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.

"

This was the same warning laid down to the Hebrews in the Torah, but brought up to the New Testament.