What is a soul/spirit?

[Satans_Serrated_Edge]

I think the idea of a magical invisible puppeteer is rather ludicrous.

I expected as much.

But I also wrote,

evidence?

Got any? I'm sure it feels nice to believe you are actually some sort of supernatural immaterial and eternal magical..something..rather than just a meat machine. For some, I can imagine the temporary nature of existence, as well as it's seemingly meaningless nature, can be very hard to deal with.

Unfortunately without some sort of verifiable evidence these sorts of cognitive departures amount to wishful thinking and further, blatant self deceit.

 

[Jollybear]

Frooth

Care to elaborate? I'm really curious.

Sure, absolutely.

My out of body experience was SELF INDUCED. Many people have had self induced out of body experiences and people have had SPONTANEOUS out of body experiences as well.

I read two books on astral projection and I also went on a forum that deals purely on that subject as well. I also listened to some audio on youtube about it.

Anyway, after reading and gathering enough information on HOW TO SELF INDUCE ONE, I did the exercises.

To summarize it up for you what I did and then my results, here it is.

These are first the exercises in a nutshell. The exercises I am mentioning here are only brief explanations.

1 Relax your body, all your muscles.
2 With your awareness, move energy through your body, every body part. Start off with your awareness on a small body part until it starts to tingle just by your awareness alone.
3 Clear distracting thoughts and FOCUS on leaving your body. Either mentally be aware of that goal or imagine or picture in your mind’s eye doing it.
4 Let your body FALL ASLEEP but keep your mental awareness AWAKE (if your successful, you will hit sleep paralyses).
5 Simply WILL yourself (consciousness) to float up and out of your body.

Now, I have done all of this, now here is my experience. I also plan on doing more, I just got caught up in doing tons of research on other stuff and issues (I just have a deep hunger for knowledge). But anyway, here is my results.

One night I went to bed, I said to myself a few times over, I am going to have an out of body experience. It just got my mind prepared. Saying it to yourself helps you not be lazy and just go to sleep. So, as I was laying there in the bed, I relaxed all my muscles, so nothing was moving, not a toe was twitching. Then I was absolutely amazed at what happened a few seconds after that, my body COULD NOT MOVE, but my mind was FULLY awake, just as much awake as when I BEGAN to walk toward the bed to lay down. Then I TRIED to move my body, but I could not move one ounce. This did not frighten me although, because I knew based on the knowledge I learned from the book that this would happen and that it was a good sign. Anyway, I was not afraid, on the contrary, I was happy, but then again I listened to what the book told me to do and I did not get overly excited, the book warned that this could abort an out of body experience, if you get TOO excited. So, I stayed as an objective observer. I said to myself, this is great, I reached the gold, now I just have to will myself out. I did just that, I said “I now am coming out of my body” and bang, I came out. I was walking around my bed, it was dark, but I could see the room and I walked away from my body and toward the door. Then people started coming through the walls. Then I said, dang, dream material (which the book also warns COULD happen) must be creeping into my real time out of body experience. Since my body is asleep, it will still dream, but my mind is awake, so I feel the exact same awareness as if my body was not asleep. Anyway, after I seen the people, I went back and jumped into my body, and my body woke up. And I said to myself “that was awesome!”

So, that was my results (so far, I do plan on doing more, but you know, life, research, reading, debating on here, takes a lot of time to do all that too).

Any questions, comments, objections?

 

[zenzero]

Friend Frooth,

What is a soul/spirit?

Soul - dictionary meanings:

n.
The animating and vital principle in humans, credited with the faculties of thought, action, and emotion and often conceived as an immaterial entity.
The spiritual nature of humans, regarded as immortal, separable from the body at death, and susceptible to happiness or misery in a future state.
The disembodied spirit of a dead human.
A human: "the homes of some nine hundred souls" (Garrison Keillor).
The central or integral part; the vital core: "It saddens me that this network ... may lose its soul, which is after all the quest for news" (Marvin Kalb).
A person considered as the perfect embodiment of an intangible quality; a personification: I am the very soul of discretion.
A person's emotional or moral nature: "An actor is ... often a soul which wishes to reveal itself to the world but dare not" (Alec Guinness).
A sense of ethnic pride among Black people and especially African Americans, expressed in areas such as language, social customs, religion, and music.
A strong, deeply felt emotion conveyed by a speaker, a performer, or an artist.
Soul music.

In other words the CORE of a BEING is labelled as a SOUL!

Love & rgds

 

[Runewolf1973]

Just a personal understanding.... this Universe, this existence IS a BEING of sorts and therefore having spirit/soul....the animating principal or factor.

 

[Beta]

Is a soul or spirit something that can be scientifically measured or is it just speculation? And for that matter, what exactly is it? I am told that it is an energy inside all living things that provides us with emotion and morals..

Interesting opinions all !
Can we take a closer look at the Bible ?
God breathed into man the breath of life and man (the body formed from the dust of the ground) became a living soul Gen.2v7.
Further - the soul (the body from the ground now a living being) that sins it shall die Ezek.18v4,.... for dust you are and to dust shall you return Gen.3v19.
To me this shows a human being that will die if it sins.A living soul becoming a dead soul.
But there is a spirit in man....Job 32v8...through which we get understanding from the Almighty.
Here we see the difference between soul (body) and spirit (mind).
Eccl.3 tells that both..man and beast (material bodies or souls) go to the same place, return to dust v18-20. But look at v21 the spirit of man goes upwards and Eccl.12v7 the dust (man's body or soul) returns to the earth but the spirit shall return to God who gave it. :yes:
There is no mention of a soul returning to God.....for the flesh profits nothing (of eternal value).

 

[Willamena]

Evidence?

I think the idea of a magical invisible puppeteer is rather ludicrous.

And yet, you indulge one every time you use "I" with a verb in a sentence.

 

[Rainbow Mage]

Just a personal understanding.... this Universe, this existence IS a BEING of sorts and therefore having spirit/soul....the animating principal or factor.

:yes:

 

[Jollybear]

I would challenge every athiest and agnostic to research and then do exercises on how to have an out of body experience and verify it for yourself. You don't even have to believe you will experience one, just do the exercises and it will happen. Do this and when you have one, come back here and bow your head in shame for us.

 

[sniper762]

Out of body experiences are like hypnotism.........made up, make believe hogwash

 

[Madhuri]

Out of body experiences are like hypnotism.........made up, make believe hogwash

For all the people who have had out of body experiences, you look really ignorant right now. Especially when you make a statement without backing it up with anything.

 

[sniper762]

naive, influential and ignorant is what "i" think of those that claim them.

 

[Madhuri]

naive, influential and ignorant is what "i" think of those that claim them.

Of course you do...
What exactly do you 'know' about out of body experiences?

 

[Revoltingest]

I would challenge every athiest and agnostic to research and then do exercises on how to have an out of body experience and verify it for yourself. You don't even have to believe you will experience one, just do the exercises and it will happen. Do this and when you have one, come back here and bow your head in shame for us.

Or will we just think it happens.....an illusion.

Anyway, my definition of your soul/spirit:
It is a process.
When you're thinking, you're doing it.
When you die, you stop doing it.

 

[Madhuri]

Or will we just think it happens.....an illusion.

Anyway, my definition of your soul/spirit:
It is a process.

I don't understand, could you elaborate?

 

[Satans_Serrated_Edge]

And yet, you indulge one every time you use "I" with a verb in a sentence.

Nebulous statements of feigned wisdom are hardly impressive. The ego, the "I", is self evident and certainly doesn't imply a separation from or duality with the physical self. Epic fail.

 

[Revoltingest]

I don't understand, could you elaborate?

I don't see a soul or spirit as a thing.
It is the process of thinking, ie, our brains functioning.

Awful analogy time:
A stream is a stream only as long as the water is flowing.

 

[Satans_Serrated_Edge]

I would challenge every athiest and agnostic to research and then do exercises on how to have an out of body experience and verify it for yourself. You don't even have to believe you will experience one, just do the exercises and it will happen. Do this and when you have one, come back here and bow your head in shame for us.

Do you not think that out of body experiences would be easily scientifically verifiable were they to actually exist?

Think about it. If people could do this, it would be as simple to set up an experiment to test it, and the tests would be repeatable, thus this would be science. But it isn't.

Where is the mountains of data from control tests?If you cannot visualize such an experiment, consider this theoretical example:

Get ten people in a room to go out of body, into the next room and read what is written on a chalk board. When they 'return/awaken' , they should all be able to write what was written on paper, and all their papers should match.One would expect recorded data for thousands of these sorts of tests to be documented if they were being conducted. There is no data recorded from such tests, as you would expect were out of body travel to actually exist.

Consider the military applications of this sort of technology. The commercial potential. Why is nobody utilizing this?

No, it is far more likely that your experience was a lucid dream. Sorry to burst your bubble.

 

[Madhuri]

I don't see a soul or spirit as a thing.
It is the process of thinking, ie, our brains functioning.

Awful analogy time:
A stream is a stream only as long as the water is flowing.

Why would you refer to the functioning of a brain as spirit? Are you perhaps implying that 'spirit' is what we see as life force?

 

[Revoltingest]

Why would you refer to the functioning of a brain as spirit? Are you perhaps implying that 'spirit' is what we see as life force?

That sounds OK to me, although I phrase it differently.
I'd say that "life force" is a process, as is the spirit/soul.
(I'm a recovering engineer. Words like "energy" & "force"
demand that I use them technical ways. Who am I to resist them?)

 

[Madhuri]

That sounds OK to me, although I phrase it differently.
I'd say that "life force" is a process, as is the spirit/soul.
(I'm a recovering engineer. Words like "energy" & "force"
demand that I use them technical ways. Who am I to resist them?)

I hope you don't mind me dragging this on because I'm finding it difficult to understand. Can you explain to me how life force is a process? I want to know more about the nature of this process based on your particular understanding.