“Manypeople that pursue psychic abilities are actually insecure people attempting to make themselves special so that they can feel significant in a world in which they feel they are just one of the crowd.”
However, the need or desire to help others is frequently a pursuit to help oneself or make oneself feel important. Just ask how many college freshmen consider themselves pre-med or pre-law. They make these statements because it brings with it automatic status without having to actually follow up on the goal. The desire to help others is often not as altruistic as it appears on the surface.
Who cares if you can levitate? So What. It’s just a power. A pretty amazing and rare power, but a power just the same. “Enlightenment” or union with the Dao would be something much better to work for. Besides, the real spiritually advanced yogis/sages who actually can do things like levitation aren’t about to come out and anounce it and put on magic shows.
My thoughts.
<font size=“1”>“Time, space, the whole universe - just an illusion! Often said, philosophically verifiable, even scientifically explainable. It’s the <font color=“blue”>‘just’</font> which makes the honest mind go crazy and the <font color=“blue”>ego</font> go berserk.” - Hans Taeger</font>
If there is any divine BS behind the scenes, I would think that that being would be beyond such trivial ego trips and bizzaro crap. But then again, argument for that not being the case is the pathetic current state of affairs.
I mean, if I can imagine a perfect Utopia, I would think that an Allmighty Creator would be able to top me. So if there is an Anything, it is LAME, and enjoys/allows sorrow, and other petty things.
Looks like David’s real trick was the loophole he left himself out of his statement that he used no wires on the initial TV filming… Like I said, in the world of magic, there is little new under the sun - just new ways of presenting the same old tricks.
plasticsquirrel - u still stand by your statement that u personally witnessed him levitate 2’-4’ off the ground in Haiti? Might your eyes have been fooled like such?
to tell you the truth, i can’t really stand by it. i don’t think that li hongzhi is insane, though, and if copperfield really didn’t levitate, then li’s perception was that he did. good intentions, though, to give an example that westerners could relate to, and refrain from giving a name of a student or something like that. if copperfield did, then he did, and if he didn’t, then it was li’s perception that he did. either way, it’s not a big deal.
his ideas may be bizarre or radical, but they make pretty good sense to me, and are very interesting. i’ve been able to see connections between things better when i look at things through the perspective of things that he describes. some of the things about different dimensions just confuse the heck out of me, though. the thing about aliens was new to me, though. i’ve never heard about the aliens thing. i suppose it makes sense, given that we’ve lived for thousands of years, and only in the past hundred years have we really progressed rapidly. for a nut, he sure has a lot of students. something around 80 million, if i remember correctly. and you’d think someone would have debunked his work or pointed out flaws, after all of the ground he’s covered in his explanations of things.
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=“-1”>quote:</font><HR> for a nut, he sure has a lot of students. something around 80 million, if i remember correctly. and you’d think someone would have debunked his work or pointed out flaws, after all of the ground he’s covered in his explanations of things.
[/quote]
Wow, 80 MILLION? I bet the coordinator of his fan club is a bit irritated. Just because you are popular doesn’t make you cool. Look at Scott Baio or Willie Ames. And he hasn’t offered proof for his explanations either.
i never said that i saw david copperfield personally in haiti. i’m not sure where that conception came up from. i saw it on tv about a year ago. normally i wouldn’t have thought anything about it, but he was walking through a village and showing them stuff like that. i didn’t think it was a very good thing of him to do, seeing as how they probably got misconceptions about him being into voodoo or something. i never stood by saying that it was real, though. i said that it looked real, and i used that as an example to show that li’s observation might not be false. i’m not sure why people are trying to attack what i’m saying. at best, they are just opinions and observations. i’m not sure why people take them as anything but. it seems like they are going out on a limb to prove me wrong.
as for the comment about his fan club, there is no organization of practitioners of falun dafa. that is what makes going to church more of a cult than falun dafa. instruction is free and outdoors, and people can come and go as they choose. li’s books are free on the internet, as are his instructional video tapes and lectures. i tell you this not to gain support for falun dafa, but to show you that it has nothing occultic about it.
as for proof, how do daoists know that the eight immortals are in fact immortal? or that jesus christ hasn’t been dead for two thousand years? no one is trying to make people believe anything. li does explain most everything in his books, and you could look in those for answers, and he also relates things to science for further understanding. he and his followers, however, have no desire to prove anything to anyone, though. they are not missionaries.
i thought i had established myself on this board as being a respectable poster. it distresses me so much that people will try to rip me down or take little bites out of me. these people often seem more like scholars than practitioners. a true practitioner of any religion or spiritual path has no need for proof.
“i also saw david copperfield levitate off the ground once, and there was no way that was faked. it was in haiti, outside, and he was demonstrating to a few locals in broad daylight. emphasis on “few,” as being two or three. not something worth rigging wires for (it wouldn’t have been possible, for that matter).” - PlasticSquirrel
Well, reading this, I assumed you had witnessed it IN PERSON. But if it was on TV, then LMAO!!! All bets are off then! Did his “levitation” fit the description of the “Balducci” levitation? And keep in mind - h*ll yeah it would be “worth rigging wires” up for on a TV show! Although, on TV, of course they would only try to make it seem “spontaneous” and not so…
yeah, i guess. i’m a sucker. it looked real, and the presence of the villagers made it seem that way, but i guess it’s probably the same things as the balducci thing.
maybe li hongzhi is like me, and doesn’t see very much magic on tv
People have used mysticism through the ages to garner power over others in order to make there own lifes easier.
If I can make you believe I have power you will serve me in the hopes that you can gain some of it or be percieved by others that you have it.
If I can make you believe that I am right in everything I say, then where do you learn from? Nowhere but my word, which in turn makes your word and observation invalid.
To often we all see people who make blanket statements about the powers of a diety or the powers of a person who has lived a certain way.
My thoughts are, that everything there is, is enough for anyone and everyone to simply investigate come to their own conclusion and move on to the next thing that peeks their curiosity.
Better to figure out how to eat well and live longer through that simple action than to try and figure out how to float in the air. which serves very little purpose other than for others to observe you and say “wow, look at that guy floating in the air, I wonder how he does that and if he’ll teach me?”
My thoughts are that these pursuits are ridiculous at the get go.
People pay 5000 dollars to learn to levitate. If that is not funny, what is?
Nexus
<font size=“1”>“Time, space, the whole universe - just an illusion! Often said, philosophically verifiable, even scientifically explainable. It’s the <font color=“blue”>‘just’</font> which makes the honest mind go crazy and the <font color=“blue”>ego</font> go berserk.” - Hans Taeger</font>
And “Ring of Fire,” a documentary filmed in 1988, about a Chinese-Javanese acupuncturist named John Chang who allegedly has just about every superpower imaginable. One of his disciples, Kosta Danaos, has written a book, “The Magus of Java: Teachings of an Authentic Taoist Immortal” about him and his teachings. I have neither seen the film or read the book yet. But if anyone has, please share your opinions on if this guy is for real or not! I have no idea. http://shop.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=2417SIZOYN&mscssid=R2FQ1G78RMV98KUAWTW58QVXQWEPF9A3&isbn=089281813
I believe mostly in what Li Hongzhi has stated, except for the David Copperfield part, but I think it was just stupid sarcasm. I believe that so called “aliens” have a big part in the science developed on Earth until today. For example, rumours tell that one of the surviving alien from that UFO crash years ago helped humans develop the Stealth Fighter. There are many unbelievable facts that aliens have really affected science on Earth.
Yuen - If you want to know what God, aliens, UFOs, JFK, Marilyn Monroe, the pyramids, secret societies, etc. may all have in common - the Mother of All Conspiracy theories - here’s a good place to start: http://www.paranormalnews.com/article.asp?ArticleID=29
it looked real, and the presence of the villagers made it seem that way, but i guess it’s probably the same things as the balducci thing.
