Special Report: Under the Magnifying Lens: Part 1

PART ONE: STARSEEDS' BELIEFS - AN INTRODUCTION

Part One aims to introduce the reader to the world of starseeds, and tries to establish the foundations on which further exploration and investigation will be undertaken in subsequent parts.

Introduction

In the first part of the first of the series of Special Report, Under the Magnifying Lens will explore - partly through inside circles, but later on in books - what it is like to be a "starseed". But firstly, what exactly is a "starseed"? My personal definition, garnered from meeting the people themselves, is as follows: 'A starseed is a person who believes themselves to be here on Earth for a purpose, or spiritual mission. They may believe themselves to have originated from "other star systems" (which essentially means that they believe themselves to have an "extraterrestrial" origin). The mission may differ in terms of wording depending on the person asked, but basically each person believes that their "purpose" is to raise the vibrations of the planet and its people.' But:

1. How is this "raising of vibrations" brought about, in the eyes of the starseeds?

2. What is it like to be a "starseed"?
3. How do "starseeds" view the world - and indeed, themselves?
4. Does being a starseed change who you are?
5. Does being a starseed change your perception of your past?
6. How do starseeds differ compared to spiritualists?



Investigation 1

In October 2014, the investigator went to the annual meeting for starseeds (for the first time), intrigued to find out what being a starseed is all about.It must be said that at this point that the investigator is sceptical of starseeds' beliefs and their explanations, but was armed with a curious mind to go behind the curtains in order to try to understand the world from their perspective.
                                                                       

Report 1:

   The host spoke a great deal about her own personal encounter with the "star beings", to whom she referred to as "Pleideans". After she had told us about her experience of seeing such a being, she showed us the impression she had  made of it, which looked like a massive indigo orb. (It looked like a very impressive painting of massive indigo orb; it was probably created with acryllic paints.)
Was this orb that she had seen really a "multi-dimensional being", or was this orb brought about because of a bit of debris behind her eye's retina? Evidently, the host was convinced that it was evidence for the existence of the Pleiadeans.

The day seemed to drag on. There was a great deal of exchange of people's experiences, with people of like mind swapping their perspective and explanations or thoughts with others. I tried to keep a low profile, because I was uncertain what to say should I be asked about my thoughts on this stuff. However, I took the opportunity to talk to the starseed people themselves, and listened to some interesting stories involving what were perceived to be star beings. Some of these tales took place many years ago. One person told me about their experience of suddenly being bathed in a light (which likely was white) whilst in the bathroom.

Although I'd heard about the Pleiadean race, the "Lion People" were a concept of star-beings that I hadn't come across before. So it was interesting when the host mentioned about her first meeting, some years ago, with the Lion People, and how they are "coming to help us". It strikes me as strange that all these beings have resemblances to what we are familiar with here on Earth (such as the Pleiadeans having humanoid features and the Lion People - unsurprisingly - having lions' heads for their heads) but that point will be expanded on in a later part.

Since it was more of a field trip into the world of starseeds, I tried to make notes concerning it all when I got back home (about 30 minutes later). It obviously was wrong to covertly take notes of everyone's disclosed encounters with the star beings, especially considering that most of them were taken very seriously and literally. For this reason, I only wanted to get an overall feel or sense of what starseeds were like, without making too much of an attempt to remember all their experiences.


In my next field study - as of yet undetermined when - I will take notes where possible in order to answer the key questions listed above. As an aside, I am neither lying to nor intentionally deceiving anyone during my "membership" to starseed meetings - indeed, I do not claim to hold their beliefs. I believe that the best way to understand a given group's perspective is to meet the members of that group themselves, and to have discussions with them about the subject of their beliefs (e.g. star beings such as the Lion People, and spiritual concepts with which I am familiar, like spirit guides). The answers to my list of questions will be obtained through this way. 

Conclusion

This first part has put in the groundwork upon which further investigation will be undertaken. In the second part of this series - The Believer's Perspective, a closer look will be taken regarding starseeds' experiences - indeed, the phenomenonology of their beliefs and experiences will be examined under the microscope.
In the third part of this series - The Sceptic's Perspective, the literature concerning starseeds will be explored in depth, as well as taking a peek at phenomena that is of relevance or importance to starseeds, and finally, possible ways of explaining their experiences will be examined in depth.

Monthly Book Review (November) - Did You Spot the Gorilla by Richard Wiseman

Every month - that is the plan, anyway - I will review a book selected randomly from my Paranormal Library. This month, I will review Did You Spot the Gorilla by Richard Wiseman.

Did You Spot the Gorilla is a book based on the psychological concept of selective attention - otherwise known as 'inattentional bias'. In their 1999 study, Simons and Chabris discovered this phenomenon: they asked participants to count the number of passes made by the basketball players in their video, and when asked at the end, 'Did you spot the gorilla?' the majority of people hadn't - they had been so focused on counting the number of passes, that they didn't notice the man in gorilla costume appear, not one of the players leave the stage, nor the curtains changing colour.
    Wiseman's book proved to be interesting - it includes some activities for the reader to participate in without leaving the comfort of their cosy chair, which help them to understand the ideas and concepts the author talks about. The book is filled with quotes, as well as with interesting studies, such as Wiseman's own study in which he asked participants - the 'lucky' individuals and the 'unlucky' individuals - to count how many pictures there were in a newspaper. Unbeknownst to them, he had put a big bold box that read, 'Win £100 by telling the experimenter you have seen this.' The results found that the individuals who had actually noticed (and therefore took subsequent action for) the 'Win £100' box, were the individuals who had claimed that they  frequently had spells of good luck. This suggested that lucky people were better at spotting unexpected opportunities than unlucky people - a finding that follows Derren Brown's discovery. This study clearly found the same concept as Simon and Chabris - that if you are sufficiently attentive to all the sensory information available to you (or most of it), you will be more easily able to notice the unexpected - whether it be an opportunity to win £100 or spotting a man in a gorilla costume.
Wiseman also includes key tips for "spotting the gorillas in your own life" - which try to help the reader to take advantage more of unexpected opportunities that crop up.
    The book also has an unusual element - two characters, Oliver and Lucy, feature in a couple of pages in each chapter, and they enhance the reader's understanding of how looking for gorillas (unexpected opportunities) can be applied to real life.
    Was the book worth the time and effort to read? Undoubtedly, yes. It had the author's usual sense of humour and perhaps "fun", and once again proved to be an interesting, enjoyable and informative read.

Look out for next month's book review!

References

Did You Spot the Gorilla - Wiseman, R. (2004). London: Arrow Books.
Inattentional bias - http://www.kienco.com.au/blog/2013/05/11/environment-scanning (last accessed: 29/11/15)
The Monkey Buisness Illusion - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGQmdoK_ZfY (last accessed: 29/11/15)

Near-Death Experiences

Introduction

Near-Death Experiences (NDEs) are deemed by some as "evidence" for the afterlife. Why is this? Typically, NDEs involve going through a tunnel, at the end of which experients usually see a bright white light. They may also meet religious figures, such as Jesus, and, indeed, deceased family members or friends. The place that they end up at is usually a beautiful place. The post (which may be updated later on) aims to have a peek into the world of NDE experiences.

Cases of NDEs

In their book, Life After Death and The World Beyond on p.40, authors Jenny Randles and Peter Hough cite a near-death experience that a young boy had experienced and which had been reported in the 1993 edition of Psychic News. This boy had entered a coma for three months after being struck by a car. When he woke from it, he described his near-death experience:

After passing through a tunnel and coming out into the light, he said, he continued his journey into a beautiful land which he interpreted as heaven.Young Pietro described heaven as being bright, full of sunshine and music. He met and talked with many people whose names he remembered after his recovery. His startled parents confirmed that they were long-dead family members, of whom it was unlikely that the child could have been aware. Eventually, the boy said, he was told he could not remain in heaven because his parents needed him back on earth. Reluctantly he agreed to leave, and then awoke from coma

This case has a few key features that are shared by countless other NDE reports:

1. The boy, five year old Pietro Volpato, passed through a tunnel
2. After passing through the tunnel, he came into the light
3. After that, he found himself in a "beautiful land"
4. He interacted with family members in this "heaven" 
5. He was "told" that he couldn't remain in this beautiful place and so he had to return back

    Neurosurgeon, Dr Eben Alexander, in his book, Proof of Heaven, describes his personal experience of a near-death experience which he had during a coma. In this, he saw a beautiful land, angelic beings and "someone next to me: a beautiful girl with high cheekbones and deep blue eyes. ... We were riding along together on an intricately patterned surface, alive with indescribiable colors - the wing of a butterfly."
 
In The Near-Death Experience by Calvert Roszell p.47, recounts the NDE experienced by a twenty-year-old man called George Ritchie:

George Ritchie tells of finding himself suddenly looking at his body in the hospital room from above, filled with panic; he calls this the greatest shock of his life. He relates that he maddeningly found himself floating through walls and doors and even people. He felt an icy lonliness settling over him that he says cannot be comprehended in terms of bodily experiences at all.

Here, Ritchie seems to find himself in an out-of-body state, which is commonly experienced in conjunction with NDEs. After that (p.48), Ritchie "reports that the dark hospital room then began ti light up all around him until it was bathed in an indescribably dazzling brilliance. At that point, what appeared to him as the shape of a man of light stepped toward him from out of the light. This figure stood by his side while a panorama of his life passed before his eyes in complete detail, and all the thoughts of his mind were laid open to this figure, whom he now calls his guide."
   In Ritchie's account, there are some more parallels with the typical NDE experience: an out-of-body experience (OBE), seeing bright light around him (usually, this is described as white light and accompanies the experiencer to the spiritual dimension), seeing another person (often a spiritual guide, or family members, or even religious figures), and the undergoing of a life-review.

After-effects of NDEs: How experients cope after their experiences

In The Wisdom of Near-Death Experiences by Dr Penny Sartori p.26, a first-hand account is given by an NDE experient concerning what it is like to return to normal life after the profound, and often life-changing, experience of having an NDE:

... Not all NDE experiencers remain uplifted and joyously positive throughout every day of their lives post event. ... My NDE made me drop out of my BA Honours Sports Studies degree course because I couldn't deal with the back-biting, the competitiveness, the 'posiness',  ... it all seemed so artificial ... I later got a job in the NHS and have been very happy in my role ... but this led to a 'burn-out' moment where I was trying to up-hold the rights of the elderly, trying to ensure that the sick were getting the best quality in all the investigations they received. I  have put everyone else's health and happiness before my own, so that now at 40 I realize I have very little for myself, ... I have gone through great bouts of depression ... even repeatedly considering 'going back to that peaceful place' ... as an NDEr you feel like a misplaced person...

Rather than necessarily seeing his having had an NDE as a blessing, this person seems to find it, at times, as something of a curse. Whereas before they had the NDE, they felt as if they fitted in to society, but since the NDE, they feel as if they no longer "fit in". As he goes on to say, some NDErs struggle to come to terms with their experience, in that they can't find people with whom they can share their experience, and what they personally could draw from. 

The NDE experience can change people in many different ways. For many, it heralds the dissolving of a fear of death - clearly due to having apparently just escaped the clutches of death during the time that they had their NDE, as well as being due to "glimpsing heaven" - in which the experient found themselves in a beautiful place where they encounter deceased family members.

  

Proof of Heaven?

In her book, Conversations with Heaven p.247, Theresa Cheung claims that "near-death experiences provide us with the best evidence for communication with the departed and the most convincing proof we have that heaven is real". But are NDEs really evidence for the afterlife, or are there alternative explanations?

Whilst it may seem logical to believers that the answer is "Yes" - given that the experient has seen themselves entering a tunnel, at the end of which is a bright white or golden light, which preludes their entrance into a heaven-like world where they meet dead relatives (which would be interpreted, therefore, as a "spirit world"), others argue that NDEs are not, in fact, evidence for the survival hypothesis. One explanation brought forward is the "Dying Brain Hypothesis", which, as explained by Susan Blackmore in her book Consciousness An Introduction, p.365, is where

Severe stress, extreme fear and cerebral anorexia all cause cortical disinhibition and uncontrolled brain activity, and we already have most of the ideas needed to understand why this should cause NDEs. Tunnels and lights are frequently caused by disinhibition in visual cortex, and similar noises occur during sleep paralysis. OBEs and life reviews can be induced by temporal lobe stimulation, and the positive emotions and lack of pain have been attributed to the action of endorphins and encephalins; endogenous opiates that are widely distributed in the limbic system and released under stress. The visions of other worlds and spiritual beings might be real glimpses into another world, but against that hypothesis is evidence that people generally describe other worlds that fit their cultural upbringing. For example, Christians report seeing Jesus, angels and a door or gate into heaven, while Hindus are more likely to meet the king of the dead and his messengers, the Yamdoots.

 As Explaining the Unexplained by Hans J Eyesenck and Carl Sargent p.155 put it:

A severely injured or stressed person is inevitably affected by powerful physiological changes such as depleted oxygen supply to the brain, sensory isolation, and the like. Some of the characteristics of an NDE are by no means unique to it. The sensation of travelling along a chute or tunnel is one encountered in epileptics, migraine sufferers, and sometimes when just about to fall asleep ... Drugs and anaesthetics may indeed elicit some of the simplest phenomena associated with NDES, athough there are abundant cases of NDEs from people who were not under the influence of drugs or anaesthetics at the time of their experience.

Furthermore, the nature of the NDE - which is termed as the 'phenomenology of the NDE' -'appears to be quite independent of a person's cultural background. Whether people believe in angels and spirits, Christ, Vishnu or Buddha does not appear to make any difference. Indeed stereotyped accounts of Heaven and Hell are very rare in NDE reports. Social class, education, and economic status do not correlate with the frequency or nature of NDEs either.'

References

Life After Death and The World Beyond - Randles, J and Hough, P

Proof of Heaven - Alexander, Dr E. -

The Near-Death Experience - Roszell, C

The Wisdom of Near-Death Experiences - Sartori, Dr P.

Conversations with Heaven -Cheung, T

Consciousness An Introduction - Blackmore, S.

Explaining the Unexplained by  Eyesenck, H. and Sargent, C.