On Psipog. "The truth will set you free."

(Ducks out of the way to avoid the controversy that is assured to ensue…) =P

But really, this doesn’t shake my beliefs in psionics. Well… at least not the belief that the things that people catagorize as psionics aren’t possible.
It just fortifies my belief that this world is truly subjective. Your mindset is your reality.

It’s hard to say that everything psipog said is false. After all, meditation is never a bad thing and it always helps to have better control over your body. The actual psionics part with psi-balls and psi-wheels, etc, I dunno. I guess it’s possible, but I can’t really say just how so. It’s interesting to experiment with when I’m bored, but I’ve never really let it consume my time.

And yeah, I agree whole-heartedly with the forum comment and the videos. Anyone who took those videos as complete and total proof needs to be smacked up-side the head with reality. As for the forums, they were interesting to read. I went to them for the same reason I go to another set of forums where the inhabitants seem to believe Digimon are real. I, subscribing to the theory of infinite worlds, see no problem with this and go there to see what they believe and to pick out any little bits of knowledge they may have.

:tongue: It’s my job.

You still believe. It’s alright I guess. Not really my business.

“Even Connely himself said, in his reasons for closing the site, that he never had any success with Psi excluding Astral Projection.”

Could you link wherever he said this? That’s very surprising to me.

“But Science doesn’t have the technology to detect it!”

https://www.psipog.net/blog/2006/06/reproducible-results.html

They had some success effecting a Geiger counter.

-Hatter

Yeah… it’s just nice that you respect others opinions. I can see how frustrating it would be to seemingly waste two months to something completely pointless to you. I don’t neccesarily believe in psionics, but I do believe in the effects, and I think “psionics” is just another path to the ultimate end of the supernatural event that happens. Like a Yogi performing a siddhi, or a priest performing a healing. I’m pretty sure these are all paths to one ultimate end. Thats just me though.

Found your link, Hatter. :happy:

(Wish their site was easier to navigate. :tongue: )

psipog.net/blog/

There he admits most of the exercises were designed so there was always still hope Psi was real.
“Practice was constructed in such a way that we would easily sabotage our own efforts. After all… what happens if we honestly practiced our hardest, and didn’t get the proof we were looking for? Then we were forced to conclude that psionics wasn’t real, and therefore the cynical cold mechanical world must be true. So we made backdoors. We constructed a practice in such a way that if we failed, we could make an excuse, so that we could still believe in this mysterious world.”

And the Geiger Counter experiment? He doesn’t seem very trustworthy from other sources, who’s to say he didn’t lie?

I suppose that my statement should have said “Even he didn’t have much success with Psionics, excluding Astral Projection.” *Fixed.

“OBEs are the only thing in psionics where I’ve felt an extreme amount of confidence. Psi balls are easy, but they are also very subjective. I do believe they’re real, and I do believe my instruction for them is solid, but at the same time: who cares?.”

And drum, I’m not one of those intolerant prig skeptics. I have morals. :grin:

EDIT: Connely came to the forums once to correct our description of MILD back when I believed him to be legit. One can only hope he doesn’t find this. A flamewar for the ages. :hide:

Calling the entire thing a lie leaves a bad taste in my mouth, it just doesn’t seem very likely, but I certainly can’t rule it out.

I can’t believe you didn’t get any results with psiballs after months of practice. Bad luck I guess?

In my case, I’ve had practice sessions where my friend reported to the letter exactly what I experienced. No, we didn’t talk about what we were planning on doing beforehand, and we did not exchange information in any way during. Neither of us are 11-13, and I certainly do not believe in the flying spaghetti monster or digimon.

I don’t need external proof anymore, there is something there. I have experienced it as have my friends. Whether it be “psi,” or the mystical idea of chi or the idea of kundalini or prana, I am fairly sure there is an energy that may be manipulated.

EDIT: Oh…I probably shouldn’t have posted about it on his blog then…lol. Don’t worry, he himself isn’t going to start a flame war.

-Hatter

I held the Belief System for a year. I shared it with my friends and regret it dearly. We were all fooled.

Psiballs, I am convinced that it was placebo effect.

Hatter, I get that you aren’t a naive DBZ fan or a Pastafarian. I respect your belief in Psi, it’s just that I had no such success.

EDIT: Posted on his blog? XD!

One of my friends who believes in this crap is 100 percent certain that psi exists. When asked why its not actually a public affair when it comes to research and documented recordings, he starts talking about a giant government conspiracy…

EDIT: Never mind.

Oh well, Patarak. Government conspiracies about psychic phenomena? I’d say that I have more faith in The Flying Spaghetti Monster and his Noodly Appendage being real.

I’ve thought about why, if amazing phenomenoms happen, they aren’t more popular and rise up in news and science. You could say they do, but I’m convinced that almost all phenomenom claims in the media are fake. If you take a step back and look from a philosophical perspective, and if you believe that there are higher laws existing in the universe that keep the world in check (karma for example), then it would make sense that real cases of paranormal things don’t come to be known so easy. You could probably imagine the problems caused by science proving things that most people didn’t believe in, belief systems being shaken, the whole world being forced in another direction, societies collapsing and arising, the list could go on and on. Subjective reality plays a role in this too, I think. I’ve noticed that only with a lot of seeking do things really manifest themselves. And the quote Sean made about why psionics failed was completely true. The backdoors that we all created corrupted the path to obtaining what we seeked to acchieve. The fact that we created a backdoor meant failure because we didn’t believe with enough confidence to take a leap of faith. The hesitation caused the failure, which was justified with our backdoors. Blessed/cursed be the person who takes the leap of faith and finds out the truth…

Well OBVIOUSLY the government doesnt want us to know about magical meta-human powers, dum-dum…

I suppose, Patarak. Though that is clearly the Motive Fallacy at work.

Yeah Genkai, I’m the same Hatter. (From the PsiPog Forum.)

I found this post through Sean’s site, so this is my first visiting this forum. Interesting, I just had my first lucid dream last week :smile:

I lived with Sean for 2 and a half years through college, during which time he had a large audience via Psipog.net. I’m not sure how much psionics I personally believe in, although I don’t discount the possibility of much in this world.

What I do know is that Sean never once intentionally misled anyone on this site. The site was not used to get rich or sell product. Sean split the ad revenue (from google ads which he put up VERY late in the game) with other contributors and founders of the site, even against my bad advice to “just keep it.”

Admitting the flaws in their “practice” further proves this point. Who would want their reputation to be shaken other than someone who was truly invested in the site for learning?

I do not believe that it was Genkai’s purpose to attack Sean, but saying that the Psionic “movement” is preying on people, then placing Sean at the top, does just that.

Psipog could have easily stayed open and garnered more and more attention, and this is what a true scam site would have done. More ads and more products would have been involved, with less information and less collaboration from the community. That was certainly a viable option, although a questionably honorable one.

Please take this into consideration before you make connections like these.

-Jesse

Ah. I didn’t intend to attack Sean in any way. Quite sorry if it came across like that.

(Of course, I didn’t intend to post it on ALW either, Hatter. :tongue: )

I agree. Were it truly all a lie, there would have been some sort of cash-in, and Psipog didn’t do that. Unless it was a prank of some sorts.

Apparently, it’s Connelly 1, Genkai 0.

But the Archiving still surprised me, and made it seem a bit less believable. Also, I understand that there were various users on the forums that weren’t gullible preteens, and that complicates the issue exponentially.

*Congratulations on the Lucid Dream, though!

[color=darkblue]**If you roomed with Sean, why didn’t he show you any Psionics and convince you? Assuming he can do it, of course.[/color] :confused:

GAH! So confusing! Why do you torture me, Peebrain!?

Oh goodie :-P. I’ll just post once here - I really don’t care if you think psionics is fake or not. I’m sorry you didn’t get the results you were hoping for.

Did you read the entire blog post? The whole point of the post was that I closed the site BECAUSE I got hardcore measurable proof. Of course I’ve had anecdotal proof before then, and seen things with my own eyes that couldn’t be explained… but there is always a thread of doubt. Once I saw the actual measurements from the geiger counter, I could no longer “explain away” legitimate results. I had the data. “Psionics is real” had been encoded in digital format. There is no decision to be made - a 1 is a 1.

The videos don’t prove anything. I’m talking about scientific proof here. The reason we posted videos online is: because it’s cool. Do I need a scientists permission to post videos online? No. So let them create controversy… who cares. We’ve always encouraged healthy skepticism.

Perhaps that is my fault. The reason we taught psi balls first is for the simple reason: that’s how I was taught. I think psi balls are a little silly and pointless… and you’re right - there are ways people can fool themselves (which is why we encourage healthy skepticism and verifying your skills “How to be a Good Skeptic”, psipog.net/art-how-to-verify-your-skills.html ).

But psi balls can be performed correctly. We’ve measured them with the geiger counter. We’ve taken pictures of them. So… now what?

I do joke about being insane, but I don’t honestly believe I am clinically insane. I just say that to remind myself that self-delusion is possible FOR EVERYONE (including you!), to keep me connected with reality. I believe most people are more insane than sane - this belief and interpretation originates in Zen Buddhism, that says we’re all living in a world of illusion. That’s what I mean when I say I’m insane. That I’m also in this world of illusion with everyone else.

Either way, I’m sorry you haven’t had results with psionics. I’m sorry to everyone who has practiced and didn’t get results. I personally have gotten results. I know a lot of people who have also gotten results. If you think we’re lying or crazy, then oh well.

I’ve done things that can’t be explained. I’ve proven (to myself) that OBEs aren’t WILDs (yes, I’ve had both). I’ve proven that telepathy is real. I’ve proven that remote viewing is real. I’ve proven that there is an energy that can be manipulated and detected with a geiger counter. I’ve proven that basic PK is real, and I have no reason to doubt what people have told me about larger scale PK. I’ve proven that the voice I hear in my head knows what it’s talking about. I’ve proven that empathy is real.

Did I prove it to you? No. Can I prove it to you? Probably not, but maybe some things. My best way to offer proof to you is to try and teach you. To tell you exactly what I did, and have you try it out and see if it works for you too. That’s what I’ve tried to do with PsiPog.

shrugs

I’m sorry you didn’t get the results you expected. When did reality get so serious anyways? Where did you sense of adventure and curiosity go?

You can’t stop people from experiencing weird things. And I bet you experienced some weird things yourself that can’t be explained. I can’t offer an explanation, I’m just here to say: hey, I experience weird things too.

~Sean

I understand that you created Psipog to prove it to yourself, and once that was accomplished, you closed it down.

:neutral: Okay, but why stop at proving it to yourself? Why not try to prove it to everyone? You know, rich, famous, etc. Wouldn’t need to win the lottery then. :happy:

That’s okay, but just putting the vids up for controversy meant that you’d attract annoying people who would try to debunk them and others who would just take them as proof. No healthy skepticism there.

By whom were you taught? I’m curious now.

I know. Without it, people would be too busy constantly defending their model of reality against attacks like I inadvertently caused and never succeeding as a species.

I agree here, it’s just that people often confuse the two and I was unsure about whether you were one of those people.

To yourself! Why not go all the way and change human history assuming that you’re not pulling our leg! This is getting ridiculous!

Fair enough.

I realize that we will never understand the universe and that there is no reason to take up empowering belief systems. I just don’t like people lieing about it. (I don’t mean you, just in general.)

Amen.

I was taught by the online book Active Psy (now archived on the psipog.net server at psipog.net/activepsy/ ), with a lot of personal instruction from Rainsong.

I don’t put them up with the purpose to create controversy, but I’m not stupid - I’m aware that will happen. I’d rather post the videos and have a bunch of people discuss it, then not post the videos and have a bunch of people complain about “if you can do all that stuff, why not make a video?” (which is why we started a media section in the first place).

And if I win the lottery, don’t you think that’s a great way to “prove it to everyone”?

It’s a very good question though. Why did I decide that personal proof was enough? Why not keep going on the path, and start proving it to everyone?

I guess the simple answer is: I felt it was the wrong path. My gut told me it was time to go.

The foundation of PsiPog was based on an imbalance. In fact, a lot of “successful” people are very imbalanced. There does exist a true and healthy success, but it’s not the norm.

My mother exercises every day, but a large reason why she does that is because she fears getting older, and she fears death. So she feels she needs to fight against it by staying as physically healthy as possible. People are amazed at her drive, but they don’t see the fear providing the fuel.

My friend constantly challenges himself to understand difficult problems, figuring them out, and doesn’t give up until he GETS IT. His drive comes from his belief that he’s stupid. He’s convinced he’s stupid. So he tries to prove himself wrong by learning new things… but no matter how much he learns, he still thinks he’s stupid. People are amazed at his ability to learn things quickly, but they don’t see the insecurity providing the fuel.

I worked hard on PsiPog. I helped thousands of people. But my passion originated in a fear as well. I feared that the skeptics were correct. I feared that the atheists were right. I had nothing to offer to tell them otherwise. They constantly told me I couldn’t prove it, and I believed them. This belief drove me to prove myself wrong. People are amazed at how much PsiPog has done, but they didn’t see the fear that pumped the devotion.

The only difference between myself and the other examples is that I actually DID find the proof. My mother might always fear getting older, and my friend might always think that he’s stupid… but luckily for me, my fear could be manually overcome by having the raw data.

Now that the fear has been extinguished, I don’t have the drive I used to have. I no longer care about proof. I just don’t care. If you need proof, then go get it. There is more than enough information on PsiPog and in books. That’s all I did. Read and experiment. It’s no secret. You don’t even need to read that much. Spend $30 on some books, read them, and do what they say. You’ll get your proof. It really isn’t that hard.

But really - we need to ask ourselves why we need this “proof”. Do you know how many times I was amazed at something I’d seen, and told myself, “Oh my goodness, I’ll never doubt myself ever again, that was totally amazing!”. Only to forget about it in an hour and feel that desire for more proof.

It’s like greed, or gluttony, but instead of obsessing over money or food, we obsess over proof. It’s never enough. More more more. Keep pumping it in.

Have you ever told yourself, “Man, if I could just do this one thing, then I would totally believe, and it would be awesome!” I used to tell myself that all the time. Then that something would happen, just like I wanted… and it wouldn’t be enough. I’d come up with more restrictions, and demand more.

Man, I’m done with that world. There is no “proof”, it’s just your mind. It’s your mind telling you that you NEED something that is “out there”. So go get it! Get that proof! You need it! It’s right around that corner! It’s right over that hill! You’re almost there!

Na. Turn the sword on itself.

Maybe that makes sense.

~Sean

Oh. Facepalm :tongue:

Anyway, that post did make sense. Active Psi was quite well put together besides.

Understood.

Thanks for the responses, Sean.