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I have a Haunting!
11 years ago
I am very much a skeptic unless I see or experience something for myself. I am though, a firm believer in paranormal activity and even as a child, I had a heightened sensitivity to it even though I didn't really understand it at the time.
I have had a number of paranormal encounters over the years, some being quite, hmmm, powerful, but have not really had one of any consequence for some time....till the last couple weeks.
I am a collector of many things, old and artistic, and one of these things are vintage and antique drafting sets, (pre WW2 - Civil war and earlier. I recently acquired a set of superb condition and top quality, from sometime around 1913 or a little after. When I received the set and opened it, I was blown away by many aspects of it and quickly started removing one piece at a time and examine them. I quickly noticed that 5 of the 6 ink nibs in the set had a device (all patent dated 1904) that when flipped around, relieves tension on the blades for quick and easy cleaning, and all of them were swung to the open position. (I rarely ever see even one of these open in a set that has them).
When I got to the first tool with one of these, I examined it and then swung the device closed and adjusted the blade and that was when things started to happen. I felt a presence, mild but there, and at the same time I heard a faint whisper that told me that there was an entity associated with this set. All of this so far was very subtle and I somewhat ignored it, passing it off as my imagination and continued the examination of each tool and closing each nib device as I did so, (The tools don't quite look right or fit their slots when open). But the feeling of the "presence" persisted throughout the whole processes. I then carefully wrapped the case in bubble wrap and put it away.
I took it out this evening to view it again and upon opening it, was hit by the feeling of the presence once again but much stronger and I instantly noticed that the 2 nib devices on the 2 largest nibs were swung fully open again and one tool was twisted sideways in its slot to accommodate it. I definitely had all the devices closed when I put it away and would not have put the tool in crooked like that.
I did remove one of the tools and started to close the device again but thought better of it (or something suggested it be best that I don't).
The case is still open and I still feel the "presence". Thinking back to the first night, I realized the source of the "whisper" was not the entity, but my spirit guide, (long story there). He is always with me, so I am used to his presence but he rarely speaks to me even if I speak to him, so when I heard the whisper, I ignored it. (That has happened in the past and ill things have come of it at times).
The name of the previous owner is written in pencil on the leather of the bottom flat but someone rubbed on it to try and remove it. There was also quite a bit of writing on the side flap but most of that is now illegible too though there is a signature and the word WON. (Sets like these were quit often given as contest prizes. This set listed for $50 in 1913! A huge chunk of change then!
Thanks for reading this far and make of it what you will. http://www.furaffinity.net/view/14708328/
I have had a number of paranormal encounters over the years, some being quite, hmmm, powerful, but have not really had one of any consequence for some time....till the last couple weeks.
I am a collector of many things, old and artistic, and one of these things are vintage and antique drafting sets, (pre WW2 - Civil war and earlier. I recently acquired a set of superb condition and top quality, from sometime around 1913 or a little after. When I received the set and opened it, I was blown away by many aspects of it and quickly started removing one piece at a time and examine them. I quickly noticed that 5 of the 6 ink nibs in the set had a device (all patent dated 1904) that when flipped around, relieves tension on the blades for quick and easy cleaning, and all of them were swung to the open position. (I rarely ever see even one of these open in a set that has them).
When I got to the first tool with one of these, I examined it and then swung the device closed and adjusted the blade and that was when things started to happen. I felt a presence, mild but there, and at the same time I heard a faint whisper that told me that there was an entity associated with this set. All of this so far was very subtle and I somewhat ignored it, passing it off as my imagination and continued the examination of each tool and closing each nib device as I did so, (The tools don't quite look right or fit their slots when open). But the feeling of the "presence" persisted throughout the whole processes. I then carefully wrapped the case in bubble wrap and put it away.
I took it out this evening to view it again and upon opening it, was hit by the feeling of the presence once again but much stronger and I instantly noticed that the 2 nib devices on the 2 largest nibs were swung fully open again and one tool was twisted sideways in its slot to accommodate it. I definitely had all the devices closed when I put it away and would not have put the tool in crooked like that.
I did remove one of the tools and started to close the device again but thought better of it (or something suggested it be best that I don't).
The case is still open and I still feel the "presence". Thinking back to the first night, I realized the source of the "whisper" was not the entity, but my spirit guide, (long story there). He is always with me, so I am used to his presence but he rarely speaks to me even if I speak to him, so when I heard the whisper, I ignored it. (That has happened in the past and ill things have come of it at times).
The name of the previous owner is written in pencil on the leather of the bottom flat but someone rubbed on it to try and remove it. There was also quite a bit of writing on the side flap but most of that is now illegible too though there is a signature and the word WON. (Sets like these were quit often given as contest prizes. This set listed for $50 in 1913! A huge chunk of change then!
Thanks for reading this far and make of it what you will. http://www.furaffinity.net/view/14708328/
As for things going bump in the night, are you sure 'you' are the only one that could have 'looked' in this case the whole time?
Beautiful set.
That's probably why you sense a spirit guide...he/she/it saw this coming for far longer than you've even been aware of the guide's presence...and may very well be standing by to protect you--from this and any other nuisances, not to mention those little "nudges" to do x, y, or z from time to time to make your life more enjoyable and rewarding. Just flow with it.
As you may have guessed, my outlook on things spiritual are a tad unconventional. If you find these thoughts offensive, I apologize in advance and will immediately and quietly withdraw from the conversation.
As for the current "presence", I feel no malice and rather welcome it, my place is a bit hum-drum.
What'd you do, create your account just to talk to me? ;)
There is so much to the spiritual side of life that it's always gratifying to learn of another's experiences. That said, it's also important to understand the rules, so to speak. And knowing your "rights" vis-a-vis dealing with those you encounter is important for your peace of mind. If your space is invaded, you have every right to say, "back off" and should not hesitate to do so. Conversely, a pleasant experience is what Spirit intends...always. It's good that is your own in this case. So...enjoy!
if you're into this kind of stuff, i'd suggest you start with this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZKxLpeYISE
it's explaining in simple but effective steps. if this topic catches your interest, you can check out other videos.
if everything is really made up of strings and connected through a network of super strings, the possibility of a greater intelligence (which would be our entire universe) could also contain the energies of being which lived a long time ago, connecting them to other, still existing beings or even just plain items and materials.
this would mean that all of this is real; god, heaven and even your spiritual guide.
these are merely "ancheint" words and neither our brain nor our technoligy is capable to fully
analyze and comprehend these things, but that doesn't mean it's not there :)
String theory doesn't have anything to do with the description of spirits or gods. It describes the behaviour of conventional matter at tiny scales.
String theory has about as much to do with ghosts as germ theory has to do with dragons.
Try reading a paper or book on string theory published by a physicist, rather than watching youtube videos.
i have seen and read different theories and versions and for me personally, a larger intelligence (in this case referred to as "god") and as well as other entities (referred to as "ghosts" or "spirits") do exist, even if i can't actively -see- them.
if you prefer to rely on your limited physical perception (which is natural for a human being)
then continue to do so. our technology is limited as well. string theory works at least mathematically,
even if it isn't possible to prove it practically (right now).
and since it's also about philosophy, it's open for interpretation.
personally, i don't believe that we cease to exist when we die. even physics tells us that
energy doesn't disappear.
you could also try to explain quantum physics, which can't be explained 100% accurately with our
technology. or explain why there is less antimatter than matter in the universe, or why the universe is expanding faster every second, or what caused the big bang (if there was a big bang)
theories are exactly this: theoretical
if you're one of those who only believe in things with evidence, do it. i'm still waiting for my personal evidence that the earth is round, since i haven't seen it from space :)
all the talk about planets and galaxies could be propaganda; we wouldn't know.
For example, you're right that string theory is mathematically consistent with itself. You're not correct that this means ghosts exist. String theory doesn't have anything to do with ghosts at all. Just look at the maths which describes string theory and try to find a ghostly variable in there.
If string theory were proven to be correct, that would be exciting, but it wouldn't prove ghosts exist, because string theory doesn't make any predictions about the existence of ghosts.
In Physics energy is 'approximately' conserved. [I'm sorry, but at the micro-scale energy/mass is not conserved. Its existence is probabilistic and this manifests with the illusory macroscopic impression that their is conservation]
But even if energy were perfectly conserved, this would not mean that there is an afterlife, because a human brain isn't 'energy', but a very specific and arrangement of components. Think of it more like a china cup. If you smash the china cup, you still have lots of ceramic, but you don't have a cup anymore. That's why people who are brain damaged suffer irreparable damage to their mind.
You unfortunately don't understand what the word 'theory' means: "A scientific theory is a series of statements about the causal elements for observed phenomena. A critical component of a scientific theory is that it provides explanations and predictions that can be tested."
Germs are a theory. Gravity is a theory.
Proving that the earth is round and that planets exist is pretty simple: http://todaslascosasdeanthony.com/2.....circumference/
Here's an explanation of how Eratosthenes, a Greek scientist born 276 BC proved that the earth was round, and measured its circumference to within an accuracy of 7%.
You can easily repeat the measurements, if you contact a friend living a known distance north or south of you.
This is the kind of thing you should have been taught how to do in school; I was.
i never said (or at least i didn't mean) that string theory actually proves ghosts directly.
what i mean is that string theory is a part of it. gravity and genetics have nothing in common as well, still
they are both needed to form a human brain, for example, and the brain may be "only" an arrangement
of millions of cells, but i doubt you'd deny it's effect, which is the human intelligence and sentience.
of course you can say "human sentience" is just an illusion, but this would mean that you're degrding
everything to mere equations and numbers. i have people i care about, i wouldn't dare saying it's just data stored in my head. it would imply that everything is meaningless, which is a pretty depressing and therefore psychologically destructive idea. but i'm digressing.
there is one major difference in our ways of thinking.
i believe in something already and i'm looking for way to explain it. when i find something, i try to use it
as an explanation until i find something better.
you, on the other hand, don't seem to "believe" in anything you can't prove, so you're trying to prove
everything else wrong.
both ways are significant, because we're seeking for the same answers but from different points of view.
what i understood is this:
1: string theory claims that very small string-shaped "objects" are part of every quark which is a part of the subatomic particles. they "vibrate" in different frequencies to give the particles their properties.
2: through cymatics we can see how different frequencies of sound can bring liquids into shape. some of these shapes are even found in nature like in plants or insects or cells and bacteria.
3: dark energy (not sure if the existence of dark energy has been proven so far) if it exists, may form a kind of network through our universe, which connects everything.
somehow i believe these things 'could' be related in some way. i don't say that "god" is a guy sitting on a chair on a cloud... "god" could be an alien lifeform, an intelligence in another dimension or anything else.
if you want to degrade everything into equations again, god could be the big bang *shrugs*
also ghosts or spirits are not necessarily transparent people, floating in the air and through walls. they could be echoes of some kind or something generated by lifeforms, but it's generated in other dimensions.
these are things we still can't figure out.
and btw. if energy disappears after time, where does it go ?
into nothingness?? maybe "nothingness" does exist but we're not able to imagine it ?
Proving atoms exist by observing brownian motion, measuring the charge on an electron, and so forth. That kind of stuff is important and everyone should be entitled to see these things in their education.
String theory doesn't present a possible mechanism for ghosts to exist. People who don't understand what string theory is have made up a bullshit mechanism to try to make their belief in ghosts sound credible by associating it with a novel scientific hypothesis. It's the same deal as homeopaths claiming they sell 'quantum medicine'.
I'm not sure that sentience can be said to be illusory, and I don't think describing physical systems with numbers degrades them. That's silly and anti-knowledge. Describing things physically could help us treat disorders more effectively...so it's surprising some people think that these physical descriptions rob us of something.
My way of thinking is the scientific method [I'm training to be a scientist]. Deciding what you believe and then seeking for evidence to confirm it is a notorious fallacy, called 'confirmation bias'. Instead scientists decide on an idea to test, and look for predictions that would prove it wrong. If the idea survives all the predictions, then its credibility increases.
Confirmation bias can lend an illusory impression of credibility where none actually exists, so we have to be careful to avoid it in science. [for instance we could use confirmation bias to support the miasma theory of disease, even though a falsifiable test proves that it is actually germ theory which describes disease, not miasma theory]
Your description of why string theory proposes the possibility of ghosts and gods existing isn't constrained properly, being reliant on verbal analogies and intuition, and it doesn't propose any falsifiable predictions.
So it's not a useful idea we can test. Can you think of a way of making it testable? Do you think reading about string theory from literature by the scientists who thought of the idea, rather than youtube videos, could help?
At, where does energy go when it isn't conserved? I don't have a complete understanding of quantum scale physics, and so am not equipped to answer that question without consulting the literature.
also i am not a scientist and i don't have any chance of doing a practical experiments to support my claims.
i said right at the beginning of this conversation, that i'm using several things / theories /whatever.
skip to 6:09 of this video; it's about cymatics https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXNucjhf8Dg
you can see here how, through the use of different frequencies, a drop of water is shaped into a
cell-like form, almost behaving like a cell in mitosis and then changing it's form to a insect-like shape.
you can end the video at 6:54
so i can't imagine that this is pure coincidence, that many shapes in nature can be "simulated" through
frequencies directed on liquids.
and when i think there are these "strings" in every quark of every atom, which vibrate at several frequencies each, my -intuition- tells me that there could be a connection.
an apple and the moon have nothing to do with each other as well, but still Isaac Newton had an intuitive idea which lead him to the question by observing a falling apple "if the apple falls, does the moon fall?"
and thus he found out that the apple and the moon have at least one thing in common and that's 'gravitational effect'
that's the same what i think about cymatics and string theory. they have one thing in common: frequencies.
and the stronger frequencies could interfere with the frequencies of these extremely small strings.
and the last thing would be dark energy.
this is a computer simulation of dark energy http://www.weltderphysik.de/typo3te.....697a351ae3.jpg
this is an electric circuit http://www.pitopia.de/pictures/stan.....leo_276410.jpg found in computers
this is a brain cell http://www.myscience.ch/news/2013/d.....-uzh/image.jpg
if dark energy, which should be found in the entire universe, really look like in this picture, i must say it really looks like the other two things i just mentioned.
if this is true, i'd say it's not impossible to assume that there could be an intelligence out there.
and if it actually 'is' an intelligence, i don't think we could even imagine -how- intelligent this 'entity' could be, keeping in mind that it would be like a brain in the size of our comos (!)
now you could say "i'm only ssuming through intuition" or "only because it looks like a brain cell it doesn't have to be intelligent"
yeah, you could be right. but you could be wrong. we have not the technology to prove anything of that.
that's why i trust my intuition :)
so generally i don't say that ghosts are real, but i say god 'could' be real and "if" god "is" real, why shouldn't be ghosts? you said that you don't know where energy disappears and i doubt you'd find a book about real evidence where it is going, only theories.
as i said before: only because we can't see it (through our own perception or with the help of technology) it doesn't mean it's not there.
and i don't read books (there are several reasons, but i'm not going to discuss them here)
i hope you understand my point much clearer now
I'm sure you appreciate that, even though rain clouds sometimes form into shapes like cups-and-saucers, cars or icecreams that this doesn't mean cloud-chambers are involved in the production of crockery, cars and icecreams, yes?
But that's the same mistake you're making when you confuse 'it looks like a caterpillar' with 'it could make a real caterpillar', or think that vibrations in sound are directly comparable to vibrations in string theory.
It's the same mistake you're making when you think that, because braincells have the same shape as a distribution of dark energy, that they have the same function. It's as asinine as suspecting that because chocolate and poo have the same colour, that they must both be delicious.
Maybe if you replaced the words 'ghosts' with 'fairies' or 'vampires' you would understand. :\
it's about complexity and clouds or all the other things you mentioned are not really complex.
something has to fit into some kind of system and be complex enough in order to function.
i can also say that our brain actually has no intelligence, but is only recating through more complex algorythms than other animals or the computers hamunity has built so far.
i fully understand your point of view. unfortunately i'm interpreting it as you being not able to look beyond your own nose or thinking outside of the box (no offence intended), because you're only accepting clear evidence.
i'm sure you think something similar about me, that i'm superstitious and / or fixated too much on intuition and belief and not willing to think logically or something.
but mainly i think we're missing the point of this whole journal.
Teiirka had an unusual experience and wanted to share it with us; i, as many others, wanted to
tell her that she's not alone in her beliefs or experiences (i myself had one particular case where i knew a friend would knock on my window, but i couldn't know it because he wanted to surprise me)
in hope to comfort her.
i don't think there was any intent of discussing it as a psychological or scientific topic.
and i must say, it is rather exhausting. since english isn't my first language, i have to think really hard how to translate what i want to say, so i'd appreciate it if we could end this conversation.
neither one of us is learning anything from it and i doubt that anyone will change his mind.
i'm just glad we didn't had a negative conversation / having a fight.
i whish you well in your endevour to become a scientist, if this is really what you want to become.
bye
A drop of whatever, which superficially appears to look the same shape as a caterpillar, isn't as complex as a caterpillar. Caterpillars took a few billion years to evolve by natural selection operating on consecutive generations because they are very complicated structures.
Expecting reality to spontaneously 'vibrate' a consciousness into existence, rather than through a lengthy process of selection...because you think a vibrating drop looks like a caterpillar is...not reasonable.
I agree that Teiirka's experience isn't unusual. I also don't think that it is compelling evidence of the paranormal. 'Ghosts' always do the most inane and pointless things, like 'moving the leaves on a potted plant', causing cold draughts, or just making people feel weird.
If there really was a paranormal world, do you really think that it would manifest through misplaced paper cups and cold chills?
Ever notice how all descriptions of ghosts tend to be disappointing crap like people being surprised about the location of a sentimental object, or feeling cold breezes? They could be black-outs, rather than the ghosts of dead soldiers trying to communicate with the living by misplacing objects.
I'm aware it's possible to assert that one instance of a synchronous woo woo experience in a lifetime is within a reasonable probability envelope when contrasted with all the times it hasn't happened, but I've mentioned it to a number of my hardened sceptical friends, and they've not suggested a mechanism besides sheer probability (which I think I found in a book).
I have a few rather more subjective experiences, but the second witness makes that one more significant to me.
Proof can only be extracted under controlled conditions, and when we don't know why an event has occurred, because it occurred under conditions which weren't controlled, for example, it is most appropriate to say 'we don't know' than to posit explanations which we know have always only ever been observed to fail when tested under controlled conditions.
Saying 'there is something more' is clearly not just a dressed up version of 'we don't know', because it typically posits an additional intelligent - or at least intentional - agent. I appreciate the desire to prove and test, and would love for that to be possible, but I'm also aware that some experiential things - love, despair - may be broadly measurable - even affectable - in the brain as chemicals, but I find it too mechanistic to expect that to meaningfully explain the rich depth of what it feels like to be alive, to be self-aware
Neuroscience can tell me about the narrator theory all it likes, and how my sense of self is an accident of self preservation circuits mixing with complex social mirroring and theory of mind, but I still have to deal with me each morning.
I agree it's a significant leap from my experience as an embodied consciousness, to proposing disembodied consciousnesses, but I'm reminded about the thought experiment concerning the proposal of colour in a blind or monochrome species: a whole lot of scepticism may be warranted, but isn't necessarily correct.
Of course, with ghosts and such people's experiences usually aren't extraordinary at all- they often experience very mundane things like 'feeling a funny feeling', or discovering their television set is on when they thought they had turned it off. In this case it's the interpretation which is extraordinary, and it's apparent that people are running away with their imaginations.
Whether or not you like mechanical explanations of observed phenomena doesn't change the fact they're the only explanations which have ever been demonstrated to have any validity. Hypotheses aren't contrived to make us feel good about ourselves, after all.
The thought experiment concerning colour is facile. We've experienced this exact event already. Radio waves, IR, UV and Gamma are all frequencies of light beyond direct human perception as colours. We however know they exist because we can measure them. So if anybody wants to prove ghosts exist, we should demand no less of them. Measurement is necessary.
If no measurements can be presented, then the null hypothesis is that ghost stories really are just stories.
I'm familiar with the scientific method, really I am, but the colour example I gave wasn't facile: experience is more than numbers. I wasn't saying that because I can invent a situation where something we know to be true might reasonably raise scepticism in a contrived alternate society, so spooky woo woo must thus be true since it's the target of scepticism here. Color is our perception of a very specific range of wavelengths, and is a very genocentric concept. I gather butterflies have several additional primary colours. We couldn't explain the experience of red to the blind or monochrome, even though we could certainly arrange to reliably distinguish red and green cards for them, without having to rely on whatever marks we had them add to the backs, providing compelling evidence of a quantitative difference (or telepathy, haha), and while we could waggle a complete brain map at them, they'd never know what red felt like. Sadly, I will never know what it's like to have a neocortex wrapped around a badger brain..
Your use of 'validity' kinda begs the question, but sure: 'scientifically valid' since you're a pure scientist. Something might be ethically valid, artistically valid, or personally valid. Similarly, elsewhere, the terms 'power', 'energy', and so on have meanings that are valid in a scientific context, but science appropriated those terms from everyday language as convenient shorthand: when I say I have a lot of work to do, I don't mean just moving some mass some vertical distance, nor when I wake up tired and say I have low energy am I taking about joules, and I doubt you use those terms that way in an everyday context.
So, while it's definite that the universe has many unsolved mysteries, measurement that can be reproduced by a third party is the only reliable way we have of being sure that our measurements represent the world outside our head, rather than being an artifact of processes happening inside it.
That's why you and your friend's experience of a 'bad presence'- which some people would interpret as paranormal rather than psychological- is about as meaningful as 2 hikers' claims about seeing something hairy in the woods and concluding that it is evidence of big foot.
In the absence of a magnetic monopole drifting through the curtains, or infrasonic hypnogogic waves from the central heating, I'm interested to hear your scientific speculation.
Consider the possibility that a burglar was approaching you and your friend, hidden in the shadows, but gave himself away subconsciously. You both get a creepy feeling, having detected that something bad is afoot, and the thief slinks away undetected.
That's much more likely and much more plausible than an evil spirit pestering you.
If you can't distinguish between those possibilities, and can't be sure the event wasn't just probabilistic, then your friend's word isn't independent verification- just corroboration.
Your experience could have been many different things, why do you think not having the proper information to determine the cause entitles you to think that paranormal causes that have only ever been shown to be fraudulent trickery under experimental conditions, are an important candidate?
It's as if one suddenly feels very happy for no known reason, so decides a fairy being nearby is a prime possibility.
What entitles me to blame woo woo? The absence of any obvious external influence at all, the absence of a spooky setting, the absence of any expectation of woo woo, and twenty years of sceptical and scientific people, many professional hard scientists - myself included - failing to suggest a plausible mechanism. Appeal to authority, sure. Not scientific. Not measurable, certainly not repeatable.
What entitles you to say 'it wasn't that' when you have no alternate hypothesis other than 'my preconceptions deny that possibility'?
Of course I can't be sure it wasn't probabilistic: it was a one-off. I already mentioned the probability envelope of something weird happening vs all the times it hasn't happened. The null hypothesis is that I'm a moron and so is Kim, and that something no more substantial than a simultaneous brain fart occurred. But saying 'oh, it's just probabilistic' is scientific mumbo jumbo for 'don't worry about one-offs, they're not falsifiable. You're only human, you were hallucinating. Strange things aren't amenable to study, so I'll just assert its irrelevance until you accept that'. Proof by dogmatic assertion.
Who am I trying to fake out with this anecdote? Have I tried to convince you of any more than I had this experience? I've even asked you to suggest a plausible mechanism, just as I've asked all my sceptical friends, but sometimes the simplest answer is not 'you're an unreliable witness, here have some anti psychotics' but 'yes, that was odd, and I can't think of a mechanism, but I still don't believe in ghosts'.
I can mention the dream I had a over a year ago predicting my current commute, when we had no idea where we'd be moving to, when I'd never travelled that train route before, and I can agree that had the move not happened, I'd probably have forgotten the dream (or perhaps have found some allegory in it). But I don't really see the point because that too didn't happen under laboratory conditions, and I don't have a sealed affidavit.
Science has helped people discover a lot of wonderful things, but it does not address issues like ethics. Like compassion. Like why bother living. Science does not want you to study it, does not care about humans. Science is not a complete answer, is not a reason in and of itself. It is a very powerful tool, but not everything is a nail, regardless of how exciting your hammer is - especially humans, who tend to react ungratefully of you bash them on the head. Even Dawkins is beginning to understand that, I think.
It's your job to prove that it was magic, not everyone else's job to prove that it's not. Proving that it wasn't because you'd both eaten an undercooked meal and felt ill at the same time, or that it wasn't a burglar, or that it wasn't anything else doesn't prove that it is magic.
This is the same way people used to think about the weather and volcanoes- that they must be manifestations of the Gods' temperaments, because that's the only- and dumbest- explanation they could think of.
It would be the same deal if you claimed you'd been visited by aliens. You shouldn't expect anybody to believe you until you prove it- because you're the person making the extraordinary claim, so you have to provide the extraordinary proof.
And that proof has gotta be better than 'I can't prove the people I met were not aliens, but I know they were not plumbers...and I can't think of anything else...therefore it was aliens'.
O_o Scientific information is important in ethics. If your decision isn't based on a predictive model, how do you know it will achieve the desired outcome? Ethical decisions, such as how to deal with epidemics of nasty infections, require evidence based ways of thinking. You can't just go on feelies alone.
What did you think people making difficult ethical decisions, such as drafting building-code qualities in response to earthquakes did? Pray to the earthquake god for help?
If it's a spirit you could possibly ban it from the room with a mental exercise, if it's just energy I don't know how to deal with that yet.
It is much more reasonable to presume funny feelings have a psychological origin, because that mechanism has already been proven, than to presume it implies supernatural beings are responsible.
[Unfortunately power also has a physical definition, which is the rate of transfer of energy...force also has a physical definition, which is the rate of transfer of momentum. There are 4 fundamental forces, Gravity, Electromagnetism and the Nuclear weak and strong forces]
Also your other issue is telling me these words can only be used to describe something in a particular way of physics or whatever. My attempts of grammar are trying to convey the idea, or explain what can be rather difficult for me. If you wanted you could say the object is radiating a sensation within a certain range. I don't care if they have a current physical definition what it could mean. You miss the point of saying oh by the way it also has a physical definition is overlooking I'm attempting to explain a sensation that feels disconnected from body nerve feelings. Like a difference of being poked in the arm by a finger. That is the physical sensation, you know exactly how it feels, if you pay attention to the sensation and the particulars of how it feels. Then being poked by an 'other' that feels like it's being felt, or experienced in an alternate sensation. As I said like a phantom, like feeling a phantom limb isn't always experienced as a physical sensation. Not to be confused or thought of as those who actually think they're feeling it like a real body part, like an arm that was once there. Instead as something that feels more, tacked on, purely mental sensation in some places...gah not sure how to word it to best give you an idea what it would feel like.
To cover a point before I forget, I am not saying in these cases there is a being responsible. I'm saying basically there's an experience outside of the normal scientifically accepted scope of five senses that may be either picked up, or registered mentally in an attempt to make sense of what signal the brain is getting and isn't sure how to translate it.
All tests endeavouring to test for supernatural causes for psychic and mystical phenomenon to ever be conducted have either not been able to engage the question, because the claimant phrased their hypothesis so as to deliberately make it untestable- such as a psychic saying her ability only works when she's not in controlled conditions-, or have demonstrated that there is no supernatural mechanism at all- for example when people who admit they aren't psychics are able to pretend they have psychic abilities by using cold reading and facial ques.
Perhaps the world is different outside of controlled conditions, but hypotheses extended from controlled conditions are the best tools we have for understanding the wider world.
Most scientific hypotheses make predictions, but you also need to propose an unavoidable mechanism that is logically necessitated by the prediction in order to show your idea is true.
For example, Newton's Prediction of the return of Haley's comet at a specific date, because he had calculated its orbit.
Being able to predict where someone would be next saturday isn't necessarily meaningful at all. They might visit the same location every saturday, and have accidentally given that information away to the 'psychic'.
From my experiences which I wish to prove to go out on a limb. Saaay you warned him his wife was going to fall down the back patio stairs saturday night... it's so hard to pick out foreseeable events that can't be perceived as rigged or, well yeah they were drunk, or we have kids and trip on toys all the time. >.<
When people really are able to make precise predictions, it's because they've figured out the mechanism by which physical systems function.
If someone can make precise predictions, but says their ability is magical, then testing the veracity of their claim is very difficult, because it can't be reproduced by a third party.
We would be left having to say 'someone has the ability to predict events, but we know absolutely nothing about how they do it, and hence can't remove the possibility that they are rigging the results because we don't know what they're doing', rather than 'they have demonstrated they are psychic'.
We live in a world in which people already have x-ray vision, thanks to medical scanners...but many people are more amazed that a self-described psychic can tell them what their star sign or telephone number is. :\ *sigh*
I collect firearms, and I have a Federal Firearms License (FFL) that allows me to purchase Curios and Relics (antiques, 50 years old or more). I also have a sensitivity to residual 'charges' on objects, an ability called Psychometry. Metallic and other mineral artifacts hold these sensations best, and firearms are often so charged. I once purchased a used, modern autoloading pistol. Once I had it home, I loaded a disarmed round, pointed it and instantly had a brief mental flash of someone pointing it at a cat, and his wife screaming, "John!" Another time, I bought a rusty old revolver for parts. Once home, I held it for a minute, and saw a sad old man commit suicide with it. I just know it was April of 1929, and the man had lost everything. A dealer at a gun show, familiar with my 'gift' (he has it too) handed me a beautiful Belgian pistol and asked me what I felt. I told him, "Cold, damp, burning sense of guilt in the pit of my stomach." A dark city scene. Then I saw the person holding the pistol shoot someone in the back. I couldn't hand it back to the dealer fast enough. He grinned, "Now you see why I want to get rid of it?"
My former sister-in-law inherited a set of antique, worn-out silverware from an old woman for whom she had cleaned house for years. She kept the old silverware case in the kitchen until it started to get in the way. She wrapped the wooden box in an old dish towel and moved into the basement. For weeks, she and my brother were plagued with noises from the basement, flickering lights, sighing sounds in the kitchen and things getting broken throughout the house. When she moved the silverware back to the kitchen, the phenomena ended.
Have you ever tried arranging a test with a gun-shop owner, who knows the history of the cereal numbers of the weapons he or she owns, to determine whether you really can tell what the gun's history was?
Because if you could, you should have spent your life as a forensic detective solving murder mysteries by touching the murder weapon.
...and if you don't have that power, then you're just a man who has mental problems and owns lots of guns...which isn't exactly a comforting thought for everyone else.
It doesn't make any sense why the dead would want to return to life so that they could haunt boxes of silver spoons. Is that what you would really do?
I did do pretty much what you suggested with one gun shop owner. He handed me an old rifle and asked me what I felt. I told him, "Cold. Alone. Frustration. Sitting in a tree and waiting for hours." He admitted that the rifle was his father's and that the old man had taken it hunting for years up in Vermont, and never even seen a deer.
I don't use my ability to solve crimes because it would be... difficult... to sell it to a jury. It hard enough getting them to swallow forensic science.
I think comparing your ability to vaguely describe a gun's former history with a Barnum statement such as 'sitting for hours alone and frustrated' to forensic science is improper.
Forensic scientists have to identify very specific narratives by collecting evidence a third party can verify.
Your interpretation of that gun would match most hunting rifles to ever have existed- not to mention many other guns. Most rifles were used by someone at some time to sit alone in the woods, waiting for an unsuspecting animal. You didn't decipher who the gun belonged to, or that the man never saw a deer- only that the gun was 'at some time, pointed at things in the wood'.
Your story would have also have matched a depressed cousin, who sat in the woods for hours before killing himself.
How useful do you think your power is, if it can't distinguish between those two very different narratives?
The test you contrived needs some improvements, dare I add.