The Force powers as we know them

forceuser wrote: You've got me there my English is terrible even my mother had a hard time understanding me. In my college days I had a professor tell me I needed to take English as a second language.
Since most of you seem like you're on the road to becoming a jedi or self aware.
I had a man tell me" you have 2 ears and one mouth you're supposed to listen twice as much as you speak. " and of course by now you can tell I'm old school my mother always told us if you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything.
Your words trouble me because they don't have compassion understanding or even the Desire to learn from others.
My grandfather taught me your word is your bond.
I try not to exaggerate or embellish .
I'm going to tell you a little about myself not to brag just to show you I'm not a kid who needs
To feel important while telling the world they're wrong.
I have received diplomas and certificates in automotive mechanics, I've been in the military, repelled and jumped out of planes something I thought was important at the time. I don't know how I graduated the sheriff's Academy when I could barely spell Write a report, they must have felt sorry for me. I received a general contractor's license and also a realestate license. I have built hundreds and hundreds of homes and personally bought Around a 100.
I don't need your approval. Like you my whole life I was trained to believe the force and its use was impossible and things movies were made of. Not trying to convince you . My only proof would be A doctor who travels the world preaching ,and an a handful or so of eyewitnesses. I know that's not scientific proof.
All I can say is all those things you've seen the jedi do In a fictional movie . Plus more can and have been done in Real life.
May you all be with the force.

What state do you live in? If you can do such things as you say, then i will gladly fly or take a bus to come and meet you. Im saying this in front of everyone. I will go to where you are and if you can really do any of these things i will 100% be on Team forceuser, forever. I promise you that the real actual truth is important enough to me that im seriously willing to do this and willing to be honest about what i see. If its true that humans have the potential to do these things then seeing that with my own eyes is worth the effort it takes to know it and the resistance id get defending it. If you really have these abilities and you can do them so i can see them, i will be HONORED to keep preaching the message in spite of all the scorn and criticism in the world.

What state do you live in?

Also to forceuser:

Hey but look, since you said you were taught that your word is your bond (which means you must be telling the truth) and since youve gone to a fair bit of effort to convince us that you can do these things, how about before i buy a plane ticket and book a hotel, you do just a tiny bit more effort and record a video on your phone of you moving objects or doing some kind of Jedi powers. You can upload it as a private video on youtube and post a link to it so we can see it? Could you do that? Its not difficult to record video on your phone or to upload videos on to youtube. Could you record yourself doing something awesome and then share that video with us? I mean honestly, youll make way more of an impact with one video than you will with 100 posts. Just make a video where you do some Jedi Force stuff and say so the camera records you saying that youre doing it for TOTJO. Man, youd make a difference if you did this!

forceuser wrote: Looks like we shall truly never know even if the government had 8 men and one woman in a Room doing testing Someone.
Who's to believe them they can easily type something on a computer screen.

You realize foia wasn't around at that point, so there was no motivation to lie

Edit: unless you're referring to Stargate which was shut down quickly and fully declassified shortly after. You've got to be an Olympic mental gymnast to figure out why that means conspiracy

Or static shock in the testing equipment so now the data is flawed.

That's not how things work, and if you knew anything about instrumentation/electronics you would know how ludicrous this sounds

That's ridiculous no government would spend millions of dollars on testing something they knew was against what they believed and scientific fact..
Can you imagine what would happen if someone were to raise an Apple off a table with their mind it would cause chaos because then the laws of gravity would only be a theory.

The government spends tons of money, and neither the US nor Russia currently spend any money on psychics et al.

On to more important things. The real Star Wars movie comes out in a few weeks.

You can't just try to deflect attention to something else when you're caught without a knowledgeable answer

forceuser wrote: That's ridiculous no government would spend millions of dollars on testing something they knew was against what they believed and scientific fact..

Well, various governments are offering immense funds on research in general. If it turns out that things believed to be fact at one point really aren't, so be it. Better be wrong at one point at correct at another than wrong all of the time and never find out. That being said, though, nobody is claiming that any government spent millions of dollars on testing something they accepted to be factual. Call me old-fashioned, but I for one find it far more likely that a few key career politicians and warriors sincerely believed in woo-woo and went on a mission to try and exploit it for their needs, than that all of physics as we knew them even just a century ago is completely false and some perfectly trustworthy and not desperate war actors found out and then swiftly managed to make their discovery a secret again to which the same people that make sense of particle dynamics and galaxy formations are somehow completely oblivious to ever since their demise and until today.
Also who exactly is ensuring the politicians' scientific credentials or literacy again? Is it the voting public? The same voting public of which a third takes young earth creationism seriously and almost half of which denies climate science?

Can you imagine what would happen if someone were to raise an Apple off a table with their mind...

Let's talk about it when we have any reason to think that it could or did happen. Imagination isn't exactly something we struggle much with, and while I appreciate it's social importance, when it comes to assessing what actually goes on in the world, I prefer sticking to what we can actually observe.

it would cause chaos because then the laws of gravity would only be a theory.

There are multiple theories of gravity (two particularly useful ones), each with their own various laws. Why an occurrence that might seem to violate them all would cause chaos, I'm not sure. Please, explain.

It's funny, I just came across those transcripts of the US Government Remote viewing stuff; what a co-inky-dink.

What are your thoughts on that Gisteron?

On that you came across them at right about the same time as they were mentioned in this thread? Hmm, I don't know. Could well be a coincidence. I mean, think of the possibly thousands of things that come up as you surf the web without them being discussed here at the same time. Or the things that come up here but not elsewhere in your feed. Those don't seem important, do they... Maybe there is more to it. I have insufficient information to say either way.

If you mean the content of the transcripts, feel free to link any in particular.
The one uploaded by Malicious and attached to post #346618 seems either incomplete or deliberately sparse. It looks like some meetings took place, maybe even some studies, but no procedures or results are described in the document itself. There is almost nothing in there for me to even comment on, really. Needless to say I don't think it underwent any peer review elsewhere either. Aside from the in part vague definitions and in part references to undefined terms, the only substantive content - and incidentally also the only place where the document has complete sentences at all is the summary. There it says that remote viewing should not stand alone and also that it can be used "in conjunction with" other intelligence sources. In other words, it is treated as a source that's only really any good if there are others corroborating it, but not on its own. I don't know how they could have expressed its redundancy/uselessness in any more generous, more charitable terms than that.

As for the fact that any time was (allegedly) wasted investigating psychic powers in the first place, that's fair enough. I don't think of that as much of an argument on substance anyway. And as I in my last post, I don't think that high political or military/intelligence offices come with or require either scientific literacy in particular, or even critical thinking more broadly.

Intelligence analysts are all about critical thinking. Intelligence collectors though tend to be a bit more specialised to the skills required to collect. But the quality of the product enables its analysis, so knowing what is useful and not tends to help probably. Quality control needs measures of control in collection, and from memory that is where those agencies fell short.

In regards to why....... it was the Cold War, no side wants the other to have an advantage - but research costs valuable resources so we'll never know if it was chasing deception or chasing potential genuine research (at the higher levels). No doubt it would be likely those involved at the lower levels in doing it believed it, as its a higher quality deception for them to. But, it might have been legit, and I ended up with the same sort of results in some areas of it with my dodgy attempts.

The reason I specified high offices is exactly this. I don't think that a significant fraction of the analysts and researchers were thinking to themselves "Oh, of course, magical powers the reports of which contradict each other more often than not, if they are each even being coherent at all, contradict almost everything we know about how nature works, known to be sold by charlatans, and elsewise indicated by exactly nothing - yea, totally legit!". I think it was more of a case of some higher ups thinking along the lines of "Oh, and you say we can beat the Russians with it? Shut up and take my money!"
Both scenarios are technically possible, and both are odd, too, but both seem (to me) vastly more plausible than the idea that yes, as a matter of fact, everything we think we know about nature is completely incorrect after all.

The fact that an idea or a thought created by one human being is capable of causing another human being to think or behave differently is proof enough that the force is absolutely real and present in all of our lives.

In the context of Star Wars, the force seems unlike anything that exists in our world, but if we look around us we’ll see that people’s thoughts and ideas have profound and tangible effects on the real world every single day. The beautiful thing about this truth is that we’re all capable of using our minds to touch other people and affect the world around us as well.

Star Wars is, of course, fictional. But when it comes to the force, there are way too many examples that prove it is a very real thing that every single one of us is capable of using.

look up the words Chi, Qi, Prana, Shakti….they are all terms referencing the same thing. Intelligent energy pervading all things that can be directed by the mind. In India there are what are called Siddhis, or supranormal abilities that can be a side effect of intense spiritual practice. These can range from telepathy to telekinesis to teleportation and bilocation, according to Indian scriptures. I can tell that George Lucas is very well read in Eastern religious literature, so I’m sure he had this in mind when creating Star Wars and the force.


https://medium.com/personal-growth/the-force-is-real-7874801ba1f0

WoodfordJedi wrote: look up the words Chi, Qi, Prana, Shakti….they are all terms referencing the same thing. Intelligent energy pervading all things that can be directed by the mind. In India there are what are called Siddhis, or supranormal abilities that can be a side effect of intense spiritual practice. These can range from telepathy to telekinesis to teleportation and bilocation, according to Indian scriptures.

Argumentum ad populum.
Faulty generalization

Yes, the Force is inspired in these concepts present in Eastern religions.
Yes, Eastern religions are real, and contain loads of wisdom.
That does not mean that every element of Eastern thought is automatically true. Nor does it legitimize "Force powers" as a real thing.

The author of the article i linked to makes some argument the force is real, i don't pretend to speak to the accuracy's of any of his observations.

Im sensing my attempts to contribute to the discussions disturbs you and shall withdraw.

My apologies

No need to apologize woodfordjedi…I think there is some background you should have about us before you continue this topic. What the vast majority of us practice here involves the “real “ world. We have various religious backgrounds, but a lot of us have strong science backgrounds as well. We get many people here every year claiming to be psychic, have telekinesis powers of some type, even some who claim to have the dark side force lightning. And not one of them can prove it.

As you can imagine, it’s very disheartening to members of a legally and federally recognized religion and church to have people show up who can’t seperate Star Wars fiction from reality. We even had a guy once claim to get visions from emperor palpitine ( who was orbiting earth in his space ship).

We take what we do here very seriously, and just want to be sure you do as well. We do have thi chi practitioners, reiki masters, Buddhist, and Christians here, and we respect their beliefs……but the line for most of us gets drawn when people start talking about magical powers to float objects across the room or lightning from their fingers……these things obviously put us in a very defensive mood.

Zero wrote: No need to apologize woodfordjedi…I think there is some background you should have about us before you continue this topic. What the vast majority of us practice here involves the “real “ world. We have various religious backgrounds, but a lot of us have strong science backgrounds as well. We get many people here every year claiming to be psychic, have telekinesis powers of some type, even some who claim to have the dark side force lightning. And not one of them can prove it.

As you can imagine, it’s very disheartening to members of a legally and federally recognized religion and church to have people show up who can’t seperate Star Wars fiction from reality. We even had a guy once claim to get visions from emperor palpitine ( who was orbiting earth in his space ship).

We take what we do here very seriously, and just want to be sure you do as well. We do have thi chi practitioners, reiki masters, Buddhist, and Christians here, and we respect their beliefs……but the line for most of us gets drawn when people start talking about magical powers to float objects across the room or lightning from their fingers……these things obviously put us in a very defensive mood.

Thank You Zero, for your counsel and patience.

I claim no psychic powers, and the only time i heard Palpatine was at the movie theater.

I am deeply skeptical of all claims of supernatural things. Personally the scientific principle is the only method of navigating reality. things we cant explain are simply knowledge gaps, not ipso facto proof of the supernatural.

To me the universe is a mechanism that can be quantified and understood if viewed with curiosity and honesty.

I hope this worldview is acceptable in Jediism

WoodfordJedi wrote: I'm sensing my attempts to contribute to the discussions disturbs you and shall withdraw.

My apologies

By all means carry on, if these discussions disturbed me I wouldn't have posted. I apologize if my response seemed dismissive.

As a disclaimer, I do believe some "supernatural" phenomena is real, as I have experienced things I can't explain, and it's made me realize that there is a whole lot of things out there that I ignore. However, I have lost a considerable amount of time in the past pursuing such things, only to realize that

A) I was making a faulty generalization by assuming that because some "psychic" phenomena may be real, all psychic phenomena out there must be real.

There are better uses of my time and focus (Eastern thought itself cautions Siddhis to be distractions from the path)

my work in the energy community has shown that there are no "super powers" or "psychics", but links between people who can empathically feel other people and get clips of information from other people. There's nothing psychic or super about it. It's empathic human connection.

Manu wrote:

WoodfordJedi wrote: I'm sensing my attempts to contribute to the discussions disturbs you and shall withdraw.

My apologies

By all means carry on, if these discussions disturbed me I wouldn't have posted. I apologize if my response seemed dismissive.

As a disclaimer, I do believe some "supernatural" phenomena is real, as I have experienced things I can't explain, and it's made me realize that there is a whole lot of things out there that I ignore. However, I have lost a considerable amount of time in the past pursuing such things, only to realize that

A) I was making a faulty generalization by assuming that because some "psychic" phenomena may be real, all psychic phenomena out there must be real.

There are better uses of my time and focus (Eastern thought itself cautions Siddhis to be distractions from the path)

Thank You Manu.

As a bit of background that i think you will appreciate, i was at the Sydney book launch of "Other temples, Other gods" in 1980
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4806041-other-temples-other-gods

And was active in the community that it was based on, Wicca, The order of the golden phoenix, an OTO style order. Astral projection, etc etc.

Like you i invested a considerable amount of time and energy on the topic, with identical results it would seem.

Personally i found no evidence of Psychic phenomena although like you i saw some things ive yet to explain, but i put that down to a knowledge deficit, not an example of the supernatural.
Mileage will vary, but thats my view.

Although i did enjoya technique called "The lessor banishing of the Loo" as a form of sympathetic Magick, Its effect if anything speaks to me of a good way to manage stress, and for the believer im sure it works as, If nothing else a manifestation of the placebo effect.

I wont post its format here But will happily share it via PM for those who want a giggle.

dwagoonie wrote: my work in the energy community has shown that there are no "super powers" or "psychics", but links between people who can empathically feel other people and get clips of information from other people. There's nothing psychic or super about it. It's empathic human connection.

My own take is very similar.
Ive found ive developed a deep sense of situational awareness. But i dont consider it a superpower, but rather perhaps the regaining of something lost to modern humans.
Wild animals seem to have the same sensitivity, and where i live is teeming with wildlife.

Ive come to know when a hawk is near, long before i can see it. The woodland ducks that freeload on my pond, the cockatoos and other birds all undergo a subtle shift in behavior, and sure enough when i look there is the hawk or eagle cruising for lunch.
Even the lizards know and ive become sensitive to all of these animals ton the point i am part of their network and share their reading of the environment.
I can tell where a snake is in the yard in the same way, even if it cant be seen. The animals all share intel with each other when a predator is near.

My wife and I have been getting into similar subjects a LOT lately. We've had some...odd occurrences and a general sort of malevolent influence for...a long time now.

Some background: I am a Hellenic/Greek Polytheist. So everything I have encountered (which isn't much) in these realms is generally parsed through that understanding as a basis. For example, I can sometimes, if I'm focusing or "reaching out with my feelings" a presence or personality to objects. Usually these are living things, especially trees. Now, I refer to these under the general term "nymphs" because of the Greek spiritual background, but I'm not opposed to the possibility that there are other tree and nature spirits. In other words, I can and do practice "psychometry" - gaining insight or sensing things about physical objects. I am also, I believe, somewhat of an "empath" or clairsentient. I am pretty good at "feeling" or "knowing" how others are feeling, sometimes even what they are thinking about, without having asked. Some of this can be explained away through body language, tone of voice, and similar mundane things, but what about online interactions through text? I get impressions from people very quickly. Again, a lot of this may simply be mundane life-experience. I was born in 1989 and have spent most of my life frequently communicating with people online. So, I am an experienced communicator when it comes to the written word (I'm also a fiction writer, an artistic pursuit that generally requires a high degree of emotional intelligence and mundane empathy). Still, there seems to be "something more" to it. My wife, who I will talk about below, believes I am some level of "empath" as well. We are pretty sure this is something beyond normal, everyday empathy or just emotional intelligence.

My wife, on the other hand has a more powerful set of "psychic" or "supernatural" abilities. Just naturally. We are currently in the process of learning to control and expand those abilities in both of us as part of our attempt to gain some modicum of control over our interpersonal relationships (especially our relationship which has recently been severely damaged, mostly thanks to my chronic...foot-in-mouth syndrome) and our environment. She grew up in a much more...permissive and encouraging environment when it comes to the paranormal and supernatural. I grew up in a...somewhat stifling Christian household where these things were "of the devil." Now, that may be a little overdramatic and unfair to my parents, but you get the idea. Anyway, Alexandra grew up in Gettysburg, PA. Yes, THE Gettysburg. What's more, she was raised in a very old (18th century, I think) farmhouse that actually served as a field hospital for the Confederacy during the 1863 battle of the American Civil War. Probably goes without saying that they all, including unrelated farmhands and laborers, had experiences in and around that house. Particularly involving spectral soldiers and such. If you've never been to Gettysburg...it's a spooky place. It has an energy...a life, even, of its own. And this doesn't go just back to the Civil War, this goes back much, much further to the Native American tribes that lived in and around the area. I'm not sure of the specifics but Little and Big Round Top (two small "mountains" or large hills on the battlefield of Gettysburg that saw significant and protracted fighting during the battle) were either sacred or even taboo to the local tribes. They recognized long ago that this is a place of power and, perhaps, danger from unearthly or "unnatural" forces. Most of her "powers" or "abilities" center around sensing, communicating with, and working with spirits/Gods/guides/ghosts and so forth. She is quite powerful, I believe, and she isn't even taught or practiced. So...I'm looking forward, with some small amount of trepidation, to seeing her powers blossom under her explorations, studies, and renewed practice using those abilities.

Anyway, I guess my main question is: Why bother adding the Jedi overtones to things that already have names? We don't need to insist that these things are of "the Force" to internally recognize them as such and telling others their power is not "spiritual" or "supernatural" but of that "force" seems counterproductive and bound to stir up controversy. These are charged issues sometimes and people like to use their own turns. However, you didn't say you intended to force your Jedi views on everyone else, just making a point. It's important to be sensitive to others especially when we're talking about the spirits of dead loved ones or similar. What difference does it really make if that "guardian spirit" is "just a Force ghost" or something else? Does it even matter? If all things are of the Force, as Jedi believe, then isn't it simply assumed that it all, to some degree, issue from that Force? I think this is my question because I already have religious/spiritual beliefs that color my thoughts, feelings, and beliefs on such topics and I've never seen the point in reflavoring those with a sprinkling of Jediism. But, that's just me. If it helps you or works for you, then by all means, call them "force ghosts" or "force visions."

A more productive question for everyone: What abilities do you believe/know you have? What do your friends and family have? From what I understand such abilities often run in families, sometimes being said to "skip a generation." Which psionic/psychic/force abilities do you believe actually exist in our material/spiritual world?

Great topic! Thanks for bringing it up!

Also! I'm very interested in possibly beginning to learn about or even practice Reiki or some similar energy healing/protection system. Any information people have on this subject, or references they can point me to, would be welcome! Thanks!

Systems helping systems :side:
In seriousness though, old labels for things tend to bring baggage IMO, which is counter-productive to me beyond referencing out of my system.

If not because many names might be for different reasons, some of which might have import into the question of why would Jediism use its own names.
Yes perhaps the different names developed in isolation (ie ignorance of others) or used unique labels just to distinguish themselves, and could be instead shared. But perhaps the meanings are actually nuanced to mean slightly different things, or perhaps the labelling represents the doorway (which is designed to be entered) rather than what is revealed within - which might represent the particular avenue of approach that could be unique to the traditions techniques and culture rather than the shared revealed thing itself. Especially if the label is trying to work with ineffability
And also a lot of really old stuff seems to have been distorted as translations and cultures evolved, so what they are said to mean might not actually be quite what they originally meant!

But moreso to me labels are useful if they carry forward the language and symbology that is associated with it... and in the context of a skill, then that context IMO is the particular training used to acquire it, use of it, or to a lesser extent some other variation of how it might be valued in acquiring or applying - not comparative or referential to other similar systems like might be if using other systems labels. And for me, my Jediism tries to learn from the past but build for the future, so it's all about building systems which work (or might work) and that then defines the labels which work best.

To the other question, just a bit of extra sensory perception (ie sensing what I seemingly shouldn't be able to sense), and some precognition from dreams (rare and seemingly associated with loss of life). For the later it's important for 'hits' to be too specific to be imagined, in things like time, place and activity, and as a result of that I've found that they tend to occur not too far into the future (short range precog) if not at the same time (ESP). Given those conditions, I've discounted a ton of kewl experiences, but the imagination is so powerful when it gives peak integrated experiences there can be way too much to possibly parse into any framework beyond rich hallucination... as asserting truth or otherwise seems a waste of time as our faculties are not powerful or reliable enough. Such that with my conditions it makes repeatability seemingly impossible so far for me.

Lykeios wrote: A more productive question for everyone: What abilities do you believe/know you have? What do your friends and family have? From what I understand such abilities often run in families, sometimes being said to "skip a generation." Which psionic/psychic/force abilities do you believe actually exist in our material/spiritual world?

Also! I'm very interested in possibly beginning to learn about or even practice Reiki or some similar energy healing/protection system. Any information people have on this subject, or references they can point me to, would be welcome! Thanks!

So as to that more productive question, I'd say that personally i've dabbled in some weird stuff over the years, but to say I had an specific abilities, that would be hard honestly. I'd like to say I have a pretty natural ability to deescalate situations that might be in part due to my ability to be empathetic towards others and actively listen, but I don't know if that's me being an "empath" per say. I also have a knack for martial arts, accumulating and projecting energy, and learning things very quickly after having only seen something once or twice. However again I can't really say that's due to anything extraordinary. I'd like to believe however that i'm gifted with these abilities due to my connection to the energy that surrounds me. I'm currently a Master Teacher in Usui Roho Reiki, so I definitely have an affinity for channeling energy and what not, but I don't assume to command it either as I'm just the vessel/lightning rod for the energy being given.
I've never seen anyone else in my family manifest any such abilities that i've mentioned above, or anything that i've tuned into. My family doesn't really believe much in any sort of other abilities, psychic or otherwise, and has always just been very plain jane. I'm really the only one that I'm aware of that has had any contact with such abilities and has learned how to utilize some of them.
I know you said you'd like to learn more about Reiki, so I am master teacher certified, so if you'd ever like to learn anything please message me! I love to teach and share what knowledge I have.