Feng Shui

[pgrmdave]

This is a philosophical system to invite "Good Vibes" (auspicious Energy)

 

It's this statement that I object to the most. If it was "to make people happier" it might be better, but because it is framed in such a way as to say that there is something which exists which has no purpose but to make humans happier or less happy (the 'energy'), it treads on science's toes. In that sense, it is like any religion which proports to have application on the physical world.

 

And no, I don't get 'good vibes'. Sometimes I walk into a place and I feel happier - why? Maybe it reminds me of a time when I was happier, or maybe it is pleasing to my eyes, or maybe other people in there are smiling, and I assume that there must be some reason to be happy, so I am. How do I explain it? It's all biology, chemistry, and physics, my friend :hihi:

 

If you find it "pointless" then move along to other threads. Don't waste your time Or mine.

 

I'm sorry if you feel that I am wasting your time, but I have legitimate problems with many of these ideas. I've seen people who had less reasoning skills be too easily taken in by them, without actually understanding that they are nothing more than pretty words that don't describe real world events.

[InfiniteNow]

It's striking how similar a thread on chi has become to some other threads on faith. Personally, I really think there is more to chi than just a belief (like faith implies by it's very nature), but the arguments are being framed in the same spirit...

 

Hha... whooda thunk it?

[InfiniteNow]

I would challenge you to find any scientific psychological study with 1.00 correlation.

Killing your participant will result in 1.00 correlation to your response rate... Granted, it's inversely proportional, but hey... It's still 1.0 correlation! :)

[hallenrm]

How many times do I need to remind you that "Chi" has a broad meaning for energy.

I'll look for some links.

 

I sort of agree with you Racoon, here's the link on energy from wikipedia, people have to sometime agree that science can not be monolithical (is that the right word) there can be different meanings of the same word to different people, especially in different contexts. As and when the true scientists start accepting it, the development of SCIENCE will accelerate!!!!:confused:

[MagnetMan]

Henges and Churches have traditonally been intuitively postioned above "ley" lines. Modern experiments have shown that these ancient sites are situtated directly above strong magentic currents running through the Earth. Like water diviners, Feng Shui diviners are super-sensitive to these magnetic forces.

[Turtle]

Henges and Churches have traditonally been intuitively postioned above "ley" lines. Modern experiments have shown that these ancient sites are situtated directly above strong magentic currents running through the Earth. Like water diviners, Feng Shui diviners are super-sensitive to these magnetic forces.

 

From bacteria to humans, scientists find tiny bits of magnetite in many creatures when they look for it. In humans it is found in the pineal gland.:steering:

[Turtle]

Dang Turtler, I've been having a hard time with this Pineal Gland thing??

 

Thank you all for your contributions so far...:steering:

De nada Señor. Heres a post/link from another thread:

___I seem to recall that someone has found magnetite in the human pineal gland as well. I'll try to find a reference. Aint science fun!?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...&dopt=Abstract

[MagnetMan]

Dang Turtler, I've been having a hard time with this Pineal Gland thing??

the Pineal Gland is still kinda' mysterious?

 

Seems many ancient vertebrates had a light sensitive "third eye" on top of the head. We humans have a modified version of this photosensitive organ, a lump of tissue in the brain called...you guessed it.. the Pineal.

 

The Pineal gland secretes the hormone melatonin into the blood And cerebrospinal fluid.. (in case someone didn't know)

which affects biological clocks, activity levels, and reproductive cycles.

 

I still maintain, for now, that it maybe due to something we can't explain yet with current scientific methods...

 

In tantric yoga drawings the adjna chakra (third eye) is shown in the center of the forehead. Ancient yoga traditions state that most efficacious time for meditation practice is a dawn and again at dusk. Modern science has shown that this is when the pineal is the most active.

Kriya yoga is an ancient mental practice in self-realization that instructs the meditator to roll the eyes back in the head and focus on a point in the center of the brain (pineal) and concetrate on visualizing intricate objects (usually a lotus in full bloom). Modern sports psychologists have found that visualization techniques improve performance.

An ancient Tibetan practice is to brick-up an initiate inside a cave for three years, three months and three days. He gets food and water via a double enclosure. The neophyte practices visualization in total darkness throughout that time, and learns to visualize and recount all the colors and movements of the atomic radiations of the entire inner chakic system (the body's nervous plexi - from coccyx to pineal) The objective is for the "I" (soul)to exit the body via the fontenale and float above it. This realization reveals that death does not exist.

There are countless accounts of people in modern operating theatres, finding themselves floating above the table watching the doctors operate on their bodies

[hallenrm]

I wonder if Buildings there take into account Feng Shui principles?

But due to India's rich and ancient culture, might they have their own "Concept" that might be similar??

 

 

Thanks, :shrug: Well Feng Shui is getting popular in India too. There is a regular column regarding it in my morning newspaper. Parallel to that is the ancient Hindu practice that is somewhat similar. It is called Vaastu, I am sure you would know about it too.

 

There a lot that the west has still to learn from the oriental wisdom.:hyper:

[InfiniteNow]

In tantric yoga drawings the

adjna chakra

(third eye) is shown in the center of the forehead.

It's also called Ming Mung in Shaolin.

[InfiniteNow]

There a lot that the west has still to learn from the oriental wisdom.0.o

Isn't Oriental a rug?

[SkyHigh]

A cynical point of view.

 

Businesses want employees to be happy so they are more productive and generate more revenue for the business. Whether or not the businesses believe in the positive effects of Feng Shui in the workplace is not the issue, it's whether or not the employees of that business believe.

 

If I was constructing a building for employees in a culture where belief in Feng Shui was the norm, I would construct it to the principles of Feng Shui in the knowledge that the design would be automatically accepted by my employees, and they would be happy in the knowledge that the building was constructed in line with their beliefs, therefore happier, more productive employees.

[CraigD]

There are countless accounts of people in modern operating theatres, finding themselves floating above the table watching the doctors operate on their bodies

I tried to experimentally test these anecdotal accounts, with negative results, but less data than I would have liked – see ”My humble (but troubled) experiment”.

 

I especially like this claim of the paranormal, because it is very easy to test in an ideal, double blind manner, while subjecting patients to virtually no sense of intrusiveness or intimidation. To my knowledge, despite its popularity, it has never been experimentally confirmed.

[MagnetMan]

I tried to experimentally test these anecdotal accounts, with negative results, but less data than I would have liked – see ”My humble (but troubled) experiment”.

 

I especially like this claim of the paranormal, because it is very easy to test in an ideal, double blind manner, while subjecting patients to virtually no sense of intrusiveness or intimidation. To my knowledge, despite its popularity, it has never been experimentally confirmed.

 

I hardly imagine, should I have an out-of-body experience, that I would focus my attention on a 3x5 card on a table. Your experiment would be valid if you told every patient to make sure they checked it out should they experience that paranormal event.

 

I spent three month in Katmandu once and got to know a Tibetan lama quite well. He told me that he was entombed in a cave for three years in a traditional spiritual exercise. During that long period of sense deprivation, he had to undergo a complex series of visualization expercises relating to the chakra energy system inside the body, and report, through the bricked-up wall to his master exactly what he saw. The test culimintated in him exiting his body. He saw the self as a small blue pearl of energy. Since then he said that he has been able to exit his body at will. It would have been interesting to get him to read a card of my own - but asking him would have been a trespass.

[CraigD]

I hardly imagine, should I have an out-of-body experience, that I would focus my attention on a 3x5 card on a table. Your experiment would be valid if you told every patient to make sure they checked it out should they experience that paranormal event.

Would you not at least notice that the presence of a distinctly marked white card atop an otherwise featureless collection of metal equipment tops? Almost certainly, you would notice it if you were to stand on a step ladder and look down on a patient in an ER treatment room.

 

Aside from the practical problem that it’s often impossible to have a conversation with a patient brought into an emergency room (they are often unconscious), informing a patient that, should they have an our-of-body, near-death experience, they should check for a numbered card on top of a crash cart would violate the experiment’s double-blinding, a critical requirement for nearly any well-controlled experiment of this kind.

 

I am not disputing that people have OOB NDEs, or that mystics experience what is sometimes termed “astral projection.” What I’ve attempted to demonstrate is that these experiences are actually perceptions of objective reality. Despite the expressed belief of most people claiming to have had these experiences that they are perceiving objective reality, Neither I, nor any other experimenter, has succeeded in demonstrating this. Absent this evidence, the scientific explanation consists of 2 non-mutually exclusive possibilities:

• The claimant is lieing
  
• The claimant is truthfully reporting their experience, but their experience is not of objective reality. Their experience is a vivid imagining, a dream, or an hallucination.
  

I spent three month in Katmandu once and got to know a Tibetan lama quite well. He told me that he was entombed in a cave for three years in a traditional spiritual exercise. During that long period of sense deprivation, he had to undergo a complex series of visualization expercises relating to the chakra energy system inside the body, and report, through the bricked-up wall to his master exactly what he saw. The test culimintated in him exiting his body. He saw the self as a small blue pearl of energy. Since then he said that he has been able to exit his body at will. It would have been interesting to get him to read a card of my own - but asking him would have been a trespass.

Such an experiment would be more than merely interesting – a positive result from a reproducible, well-controlled experiment of this kind would be overturn over half a century of negative results, and have profound implications in Neuroscience, and its underlying Physics.

 

The experience in Katmandu that MagnetMan describes is of an extraordinary claim for which he explicitly refrained from attempting to gather validating or falsifying evidence. Exchanges in which one explicitly refrains from asking for evidence of claims are very common in social interactions, and an important part of civilized behavior. They communicate courtesy and trust. Claims treated in this manner, however, cannot be considered scientifically factual – they are, in essence, polite make-believe. I regularly have such conversations with an old friend, in which he regales me with vivid stories of his experience in the US-Vietnam war, even thought both of us are aware that, in the course of clinical work, I have read his military medical history, and know that, although he was in the US military during the Vietnam war, he was never in Vietnam nor on a ship at sea.

 

A few alternatives exist:

• Out-of-body viewing is not objectively real, but is believed to be by many people.
  
• Out-of-body viewing is objectively real, can be performed more-or-less at will by perhaps a 100 or more people known to exist by hundreds of millions of people, and personally known by perhaps thousands of people, including MagnetMan, but has never been demonstrated in a well controlled, easily understandable, inexpensive scientific experiment.
  
• Out-of-body viewing is objectively real, has been scientifically demonstrated, but the experiments are a secret from the greater scientific community and public.
  

[MagnetMan]

I am not disputing that people have OOB NDEs, or that mystics experience what is sometimes termed “astral projection.” What I’ve attempted to demonstrate is that these experiences are actually perceptions of objective reality. Despite the expressed belief of most people claiming to have had these experiences that they are perceiving objective reality, Neither I, nor any other experimenter, has succeeded in demonstrating this.

 

What you are saying is true of all perceptions of reality. Quantum theory has shown that what we perceive to be true is not necessarily so - all atomic behvior is strange and charming. Right brain people do not experience the same preception of reality as do left brain people. A purely mechanistic mind-set relegates the charming aspect of life to the delusional. This is not only a shame, it is also quite selfish. I would not think of calling a scientist a deluded person, even though much of what they believe is only theoretical.

 

We all dream, even scientists. That is OOB. Flying dreams are vividly emotive because of the sense of release they instill in the psyche as we esacpe the pull of gravity. I believe that this exactly the feeling we experience when the body dies. Many of us have been woken upon hearing somebody snoring right beside us - only to realise that it was our own body snorting there. That is OOB. The spasmodic jerk ( sometimes painful) that we regularly experience in the synapse between sleep and wake is the astral body jumping back into place. There is no "objective' evidence for any of this. Yet they are direct experiences, subjective to be sure, but which cannot simply be denied or dismissed as delusional forms of unreality. They are as much a vital part of our lives as the taste of ice cream before the first lick and the pangs of love one has for one's child.