Claimed paranormal seeing while blindfolded by youngsters trained in that skill - videos
Here's a claimed paranormal seeing by a blindfolded USA based Indian origin kid who underwent some training to acquire that skill, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtLkzg8bFgA, 12 min. 37 secs, published Jul. 30th 2015.
https://www.facebook.com/ravi.s.iyer.7/posts/1765570946992808 has a shared Facebook video dated July 12th 2016, where some paranormal seeing when blindfolded is demonstrated by some youngsters trained in such paranormal skills, to Rajiv Malhotra. The video is around 23 minutes.
My view is that it is fascinating, if true.
I put up this comment on the original Facebook post, https://www.facebook.com/RajivMalhotra.Official/videos/660957954057545/:
Wow! Very interesting! The parapsychologists getting involved, which you said you plan to initiate, will be crucial for scientists to consider it seriously, I guess. They would want to test under controlled conditions. Thanks for sharing this.
--- end FB comment---
Ravi: The crux is scientists investigating this claimed paranormal ability under controlled conditions. Rajiv Malhotra mentioned that he intends to do that (by involving parapsychologists). About Rajiv Malhotra, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajiv_Malhotra:
Rajiv Malhotra (born 15 September 1950) is an Indian-American author and Hindu activist who, after a career in the computer and telecom industries, took early retirement in 1995 to found The Infinity Foundation, which focuses on Indic studies and promotes a non-western and nationalistic view on India and Hinduism. Malhotra has written prolifically in opposition to the academic study of Indian history and society, especially the study of Hinduism as it is conducted by scholars and university faculty, which he maintains denigrates the tradition and undermines the interests of India "by encouraging the paradigms that oppose its unity and integrity".
---- end wiki extract ----
Malhotra is viewed as a controversial figure by Western academic circles in fields of Hinduism and comparative religion. However, if he is able to initiate a scientific examination of these claimed paranormal seeing while blindfolded capabilities, that would be an interesting contribution, IMHO.
----------------------
Given below are selected comments from my Facebook post/share mentioned above (https://www.facebook.com/ravi.s.iyer.7/posts/1765570946992808).
[An FB user provided this video link: The Clairvoyants: Cool Couple Plays Mind Games with Heidi Klum - America's Got Talent 2016 Auditions, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILOjUHn39qM, 4 min. 47 secs, published May 31, 2016. He mentioned that this video got 4.1 million views and made an argument that Indians have an inferiority complex when it comes to similar powers demonstrated by Indians. He mentioned that Indians will believe such things only when it is exported to India by white people as "Made in USA", and that Indians have a slave mentality of attacking such powers demonstrated by Indians.]
Ravi S. Iyer wrote (slightly edited):
Well, I think you are generalizing here. There are some rationalist/atheist type Indians who are very scornful about paranormal powers of Hindu spiritual masters. But most Indians do not fall into that category. ... Also, very unfortunately, there are many fake spiritual masters in India today who either are complete fakes or greatly exaggerate any paranormal powers they may have. That makes it difficult for common people to figure out which spiritual master to trust.
---
Ravi S. Iyer wrote:
Saw the clairvoyant video - that seemed to be pretty good. I wonder whether any parapsychologists have investigated the couple. That would bring it into the scientific examination realm and lend credibility to such powers.
----
Sai Das wrote:
Several ways I can think of right off the bat of faking this. What would any satguru say about this? We know what Sri Ramakrishna did. Strikes me as a promo video.
----
Ravi S. Iyer wrote (slightly edited):
Sathya Sai, as far as I know, did not encourage people to focus on acquiring siddhis [paranormal powers], nor did Ramakrishna. So as Sai devotees we should not invest effort or encourage others to invest effort in acquiring such siddhis. .... However, from a larger perspective, the mainstream media and the scientist & rationalist community treat all such claims of paranormal powers as fake. Not only that, they mock anybody who has belief in miracles! From purely a world knowledge point of view, I think it will be wonderful if such paranormal powers are demonstrated under controlled conditions to investigative scientists. Then scientists will be willing to view it with some seriousness. That may lead to paranormal abilities being accepted as a reality in mainstream knowledge. Note that such mainstream knowledge dealing with paranormal abilities being accepted as a reality seems to be COMPLETELY controlled by hard nosed scientists.
----
Sai Das wrote (slightly edited):
I was listening to a TED talk I believe it was about consciousness and a scientist was saying that (there) was very little scientific information on consciousness and that the vast majority of scientists scoff at it saying it has nothing to do with science. Such narrow mindedness! Without consciousness, there is no science! :)
---
Ravi S. Iyer wrote:
I have some small exposure to this area. A few scientists are vigorous in their openly expressed support for paranormal phenomena and consciousness, and they publish papers on it in a few fringe journals. However, they face the scorn of mainstream scientists, which typically damages their academic and scientific career, as the decision makers for most academic and scientific appointments & grants in the science field, are mainstream scientists!!! Prof. Erlendur Haraldsson, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erlendur_Haraldsson, https://notendur.hi.is/erlendur/english/, is one such brave psychology/parapsychology scientist/academic who writes in support of paranormal phenomena. In one of our mail exchanges, Haraldsson had mentioned the name of Rupert Sheldrake as one of the eminent scientists who write in support of consciousness (or something like that), http://www.sheldrake.org/, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Sheldrake.
--- end FB comments ---
An additional private comment I made to another person in this context (slightly edited):
Somehow I think some of these rationalists are not even willing to seriously look at it (such phenomena). I think they become like political leaders who get tied up with their followers, emotionally, and perhaps even financially. So like political leaders will never or rarely accept good things about their opponents, rationalists will never or rarely accept good things about such phenomena. After all, the rationalists are also human, and have human failings like bias.
----
[I thank Wikipedia and have presumed that they will not have any objections to me sharing the above extracts from their website on this post which is freely viewable by all, and does not have any financial profit motive whatsoever.]
https://www.facebook.com/ravi.s.iyer.7/posts/1765570946992808 has a shared Facebook video dated July 12th 2016, where some paranormal seeing when blindfolded is demonstrated by some youngsters trained in such paranormal skills, to Rajiv Malhotra. The video is around 23 minutes.
My view is that it is fascinating, if true.
I put up this comment on the original Facebook post, https://www.facebook.com/RajivMalhotra.Official/videos/660957954057545/:
Wow! Very interesting! The parapsychologists getting involved, which you said you plan to initiate, will be crucial for scientists to consider it seriously, I guess. They would want to test under controlled conditions. Thanks for sharing this.
--- end FB comment---
Ravi: The crux is scientists investigating this claimed paranormal ability under controlled conditions. Rajiv Malhotra mentioned that he intends to do that (by involving parapsychologists). About Rajiv Malhotra, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajiv_Malhotra:
Rajiv Malhotra (born 15 September 1950) is an Indian-American author and Hindu activist who, after a career in the computer and telecom industries, took early retirement in 1995 to found The Infinity Foundation, which focuses on Indic studies and promotes a non-western and nationalistic view on India and Hinduism. Malhotra has written prolifically in opposition to the academic study of Indian history and society, especially the study of Hinduism as it is conducted by scholars and university faculty, which he maintains denigrates the tradition and undermines the interests of India "by encouraging the paradigms that oppose its unity and integrity".
---- end wiki extract ----
Malhotra is viewed as a controversial figure by Western academic circles in fields of Hinduism and comparative religion. However, if he is able to initiate a scientific examination of these claimed paranormal seeing while blindfolded capabilities, that would be an interesting contribution, IMHO.
----------------------
Given below are selected comments from my Facebook post/share mentioned above (https://www.facebook.com/ravi.s.iyer.7/posts/1765570946992808).
[An FB user provided this video link: The Clairvoyants: Cool Couple Plays Mind Games with Heidi Klum - America's Got Talent 2016 Auditions, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILOjUHn39qM, 4 min. 47 secs, published May 31, 2016. He mentioned that this video got 4.1 million views and made an argument that Indians have an inferiority complex when it comes to similar powers demonstrated by Indians. He mentioned that Indians will believe such things only when it is exported to India by white people as "Made in USA", and that Indians have a slave mentality of attacking such powers demonstrated by Indians.]
Ravi S. Iyer wrote (slightly edited):
Well, I think you are generalizing here. There are some rationalist/atheist type Indians who are very scornful about paranormal powers of Hindu spiritual masters. But most Indians do not fall into that category. ... Also, very unfortunately, there are many fake spiritual masters in India today who either are complete fakes or greatly exaggerate any paranormal powers they may have. That makes it difficult for common people to figure out which spiritual master to trust.
---
Ravi S. Iyer wrote:
Saw the clairvoyant video - that seemed to be pretty good. I wonder whether any parapsychologists have investigated the couple. That would bring it into the scientific examination realm and lend credibility to such powers.
----
Sai Das wrote:
Several ways I can think of right off the bat of faking this. What would any satguru say about this? We know what Sri Ramakrishna did. Strikes me as a promo video.
----
Ravi S. Iyer wrote (slightly edited):
Sathya Sai, as far as I know, did not encourage people to focus on acquiring siddhis [paranormal powers], nor did Ramakrishna. So as Sai devotees we should not invest effort or encourage others to invest effort in acquiring such siddhis. .... However, from a larger perspective, the mainstream media and the scientist & rationalist community treat all such claims of paranormal powers as fake. Not only that, they mock anybody who has belief in miracles! From purely a world knowledge point of view, I think it will be wonderful if such paranormal powers are demonstrated under controlled conditions to investigative scientists. Then scientists will be willing to view it with some seriousness. That may lead to paranormal abilities being accepted as a reality in mainstream knowledge. Note that such mainstream knowledge dealing with paranormal abilities being accepted as a reality seems to be COMPLETELY controlled by hard nosed scientists.
----
Sai Das wrote (slightly edited):
I was listening to a TED talk I believe it was about consciousness and a scientist was saying that (there) was very little scientific information on consciousness and that the vast majority of scientists scoff at it saying it has nothing to do with science. Such narrow mindedness! Without consciousness, there is no science! :)
---
Ravi S. Iyer wrote:
I have some small exposure to this area. A few scientists are vigorous in their openly expressed support for paranormal phenomena and consciousness, and they publish papers on it in a few fringe journals. However, they face the scorn of mainstream scientists, which typically damages their academic and scientific career, as the decision makers for most academic and scientific appointments & grants in the science field, are mainstream scientists!!! Prof. Erlendur Haraldsson, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erlendur_Haraldsson, https://notendur.hi.is/erlendur/english/, is one such brave psychology/parapsychology scientist/academic who writes in support of paranormal phenomena. In one of our mail exchanges, Haraldsson had mentioned the name of Rupert Sheldrake as one of the eminent scientists who write in support of consciousness (or something like that), http://www.sheldrake.org/, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Sheldrake.
--- end FB comments ---
An additional private comment I made to another person in this context (slightly edited):
Somehow I think some of these rationalists are not even willing to seriously look at it (such phenomena). I think they become like political leaders who get tied up with their followers, emotionally, and perhaps even financially. So like political leaders will never or rarely accept good things about their opponents, rationalists will never or rarely accept good things about such phenomena. After all, the rationalists are also human, and have human failings like bias.
----
[I thank Wikipedia and have presumed that they will not have any objections to me sharing the above extracts from their website on this post which is freely viewable by all, and does not have any financial profit motive whatsoever.]
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