"on one end you have the "want to believe" thing pretty entrenched, on the other end, I'd say we have this "doubt" thing pretty entrenched... the same sheep/goat thing isn't it? "

i'm building a related hypothesis about the genetical basis of political leanings, which now has a fair amount of support. here it goes: i think liberals, conservatives, and sheep and goats, co-evolved in a frequency dependent manner under kin and group selectionist pressures. in other words, they need each other to benefit kin or group survival, and teeter-totter back and forth. too many conservatives, not enough change. too many liberals, not enough tradition and relying on the known and people's capacities for growth. too many sheep, too many goats. same shit.

i invite deep critical reflection on this hypothesis! don't just believe me!! ; )

"most of us would rather be in conformance with the common to a degree that we can still have our social circles. "

we are deeply social animals, bordering on ant-like behavior. we are among the more colony-like creatures outside of insects around. it's easy to take the non-conformist punk attitude that one is beyond group identification, but that quickly smells like the bullshit it is. that's not to say some aren't more dangerously conformist than others! but we NEED each other, with the exception of some rare hermits that often find a way to succeed socially anyway.


"when I'm asking questions, doubting, thinking, being scientific about it... the energy work doesn't work...
when someone asks me to do it, for the sake of them seeing it... it's a very left brain thing, and it's as if there is not even an interest to do it from me... and other times, at a spur of the moment, it just happens without much reasoning behind it "

this is not because the doubt is harmful in and of itself, or that skepticism is bad. it is related to the anatomy of your brain. the more you bring into conscious awareness, the more you slow things down electrochemically. consciousness comes at a very high price, and most decisions are best made via unconscious inference. it's like thinking clinically about sex or drumming... it fucks things up. you have to achieve a balance of control and abandon that gets you where you want.

i recommend you utilize more skeptical, scientific reflections on experiences AFTER the fact. that way you're not interfering with the moment, but you might take yourself and others further along to understanding what's going on. you are a pioneer, so see what kind of map you can bring back to the tribe. it is often in the act of explanation where one goes wrong, even if one assumes one is simply reporting what occurred without attachment to rationality.

you're right, there is some hemisphere specific explanations here. when you start to explain things, you more often invoke the left hemisphere's language centers. be friends with your left hemisphere. you need it. without it you'd be lost. romanticizations of the right hemisphere like jill bolte taylor's stroke acid trip tell only... half the story.

i see now you have a political interpretation of left/right hemispheric activities, but i think you'll find that even though the left hemisphere gets to make up the stories, the right is deeply implicated in many activities that are causing harm to our species. your energy focus may have calcified into ideology itself as you try to destabilize people's sense of things to be more open. energetic approaches may their own doctrine, even if it is silent.

I'd say that the playground that we run around in is clearly defined. And, as I've mentioned elsewhere, I see each of us hovering around a distinctive template that is unique for each of us. Typically, the overlap of our individual templates will define our beliefs and social circles. Of course, there's a certain degree of freedom that allows us wiggle-room, and at times this enables us to enter territory we wouldn't otherwise consider. It appears to me that some people have more wiggle-room than others, and for them it may be easier to extend the boundaries of their playing fields. Sheep and goats appear to typically group with individuals of similar templates, yet the variations are immense, virtually infinite - and I'm unclear as to the underlying mechanism(s) that enhance one's degree of freedom - though I seem to have various ideas about this.

As far as spoon bending goes - you'd have to call me a goat. You or anyone else can meet me for dinner. I'll bring a spoon and put it on the table. If you (without touching it) can bend or levitate the spoon, or cause it to change color or vaporize or something - then dinner is on me at the restaurant of your choice.

"I think there is a deep psychological cry as today's common global social systems are still not very welcoming of many aspects that which is out of the common ordinary"

indeed, a deep psychological cry. and sometimes this cry hides *under* a dissociated psychicism.

your single anecdote and admitted lack of unfamiliarity with research coupled with your surety that no studies are carefully controlled is itself not very carefully controlled! what's with all the multiple standards among scientists here? you think no actual scientists have ever studied alleged paranormal phenomena?? really? susan blackmore, after getting her PhD in Parapsychology, spent most of her adult life studying topic after topic, life after death, out-of-body experiences, lucid dreams, alien abduction, among other things, and her research was well-performed and interesting, and taught us a lot about the brain as well.

www.susanblackmore.co.uk/research.htm


in a collection of a bunch of paranormal researchers, she finally threw in the towel and moved on:

www.susanblackmore.co.uk/Chapt...tz.htm

i'm sure there are scores more. wow, we're seeing some sheep/goat hybrids here, i think!

".....- I'm only asking you to acknowledge that there is something there to be explained. If it's a matter of needing to see a peer-reviewed article on it, that's cool and I will dig up a link. Do you need 5? 10? It sounds like no amount of evidence will convince you until the scientific community at large accepts it, but this is an odd criterion. ....."

Yes I need the scientific community at large to accept it. It is what is required for all the other fields of science. I do not find that odd.
I think there are a lot of things that need to be explained and a lot that we do not know yet.
That does not require me to agree there is a sheep-goat effect. Just like any other field of science, I require some evidence that is acceptable to the scientific community at large. Parapsycology should not be any different than any other field of science.