From: gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us (Gary S. Trujillo)
Subject: PROPOSAL regarding methodology
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 07:06:42 GMT
Expires: Thu, 31 Dec 1992 00:00:00 GMT

Hello, Everyone.

After reading the postings in the ("MORE EXPERIENCE") thread, I feel
motivated to write an article suggesting some kind of procedure to
investigate the OBE phenomenon (or is it really several distinct
phenomena?) we're all interested in learning more about.

I've restrained myself pretty much so far, wanting to take care of
making sure that the technical details of the alt.out-of-body newsgroup
were properly taken care of.  Given the small number of responses I've
received to my repeated requests for information on those who do get
the alt.oobe newsgroup but not the (newer) alt.out-of-body, I think I
should soon be in a position to send out the control message which will
travel the net, destroying alt.oobe as it goes.  Maybe we should give
it another week - but I think that leaving alt.oobe in place and asking
people to cross-post may be causing more confusion due to the double-
postings some people are receiving than the benefit coming from continuing
to use alt.oobe as a vehicle for reaching what appears to be a small number
of people.

So FOR THE LAST TIME:

*****  Anyone NOT receiving alt.out-of-body who has not yet contacted me,
and who has not received confirmation of my having received your message,
please let me know IMMEDIATELY, so your name can be added to a temporary
mailing list that will enable you to keep in touch with the alt.out-of-body
newsgroup while we're working on getting you the new newsgroup.  For those
in this category, I suggest you get in touch with your postmaster also, to
begin the process.  You can explain that alt.oobe is about to be destroyed,
and that alt.out-of-body should be manually created and alt.oobe aliased to
alt.out-of-body.  Let me know if you need help convincing your postmaster.
(If you're uncertain who to contact, try sending mail to the "postmaster"
account on your own machine - or on the main mail hub if you're on a local
area network.  If you can't figure out what address to use, send me mail,
and I can probably give you an address that will work.)

Now - on to the out-of-body experience (OBE) subject itself...

I think the discussion we've had these past couple of months that we've had
alt.oobe and alt.out-of-body, and during the time previous when the subject
was discussed in alt.dreams and in alt.paranormal and in alt.consciousness,
we've had some very useful exchanges.  A number of people have come forth to
talk about their experiences, others have asked questions, some have tried
to question the reality of the experience, or to claim it's really only a
form of dreaming.  We've also had those who have not tried to deny the real-
ity of the experience, but have said that it's a dangerous activity, either
because the travelling body can become permanently separated from the physi-
cal body or because it might find itself in dangerous circumstances, either
due to "evil forces" or because of there being dangerous places that can be
wandered into, be they uncharted spiritual realms or high-tension power lines.
:-)

I would like to see us develop a methodical way to investigate this set of
phenomena in a more rigorous fashion - one that still leaves plenty of room
to ask questions and to offer personal experiential accounts - and even to
question the veracity of certain claims, but which lets us propose and in-
vestigate hypotheses together and to use personal accounts in a way that
might shed some light on the phenomenon for those of us who have not had the
OBE experience.  We can also ask questions which have either come up either
explicitly or implicitly, such as "Why would one want to have an OBE in the
first place?"  I hope we can also develop a list - maybe even a database at
some point, which would be accessible via email (I may soon have the capa-
bility to support such a thing) that one could query to find titles of books,
names of teachers, schedules of events, answers to frequently-asked questions,
etc., etc.

I'd like to suggest that we might try to imagine ourselves all assembled in
a large room, maybe sitting around in a circle, with people joining all the
time, and that our discussion has begun with a number of people volunteering
to speak - to say something about our own experiences, or to ask questions
or to issue warnings, or to mention books we've read.  Each of us is taking
notes, either in notebooks or on our laptop computers, or just in our minds,
and keeping a list of outstanding questions, and points that need to be in-
vestigated, or maybe followed up with more detail or when there's a claim or
an interpretation that some people feel needs more evidence.  In such a set-
ting, I think what I would propose is that we delegate someone to go to the
blackboard or whiteboard at the front of the room and make a number of head-
ings:

      1. questions to be investigated
         A. nature of OBE phenemenon
            (comparison of different people's experiences, anecdotal
             accounts from published literature, claims made by teachers)
         B. how to investigate nature of OBEs
         C. reasons for wanting to experience and learning
            to control OBEs
         D. possible dangers, cautions, etc.

      2. resources (books, tapes, teachers, techniques)

      3. names of people in the room having had experiences, along
         with brief descriptions of the kinds of experiences they
         claim to have had

      4. names of people who have volunteered to work on a particular
         aspect of our joint investigation or to maintain a database
         (or list) on a particular subject

Then we can all contribute items to go under each heading, and we can use
these items to devise a series of "action items" to delegate to volunteers
or to take on ourselves individually.

I don't want to suggest that we adopt a structure for our conversation
that seems too rigorous (or ponderous), but I'd like to have a way to
investigate claims more systematically, and to focus on certain aspects of
the question one at a time, and to record any conclusions we might come to
jointly, making note of whatever questions we decide we need to leave open
for further study and investigation.

I suggest that we have a discussion about possibly adopting such a model
for our conversation.  I'm not proposing it needs to dominate the entire
discussion; people can continue tossing in their ideas, but maybe we could
just have a kind of committee that picks out the ones that look especially
interesting which we decide to evaluate and possibly test as a group, with
special deference, perhaps, to those who claim to have had experiences.
I hope we can discover a process whereby those who feel they have had OBE
experiences can let us compare and contrast their experiences in some way
that lets us test the objective validity of their claims and the reality
of the experiences (if such a thing is possible).

I'd like to suggest is that those who make claims clearly cite the sources
of their statements.  For example, Sascha recently made a series of state-
ments about the nature of the OBE phenomenon:

> I would like to point out though, that there is such a thing as the lower
> astral, which is quite distinct from the Astral. In the lower astral
> you find out misguided bretheren who don't know better...

I would suggest that whenever a statement like this is made, that one be
clear on whether this is a statement coming from interpretation of personal
experience, or whether it's according to something written, or taken from a
teacher in a verbal form, etc.  If it's from personal experience, I feel
the person should say something like, "Based on my personal experience, I
feel..." or "According to what <so-and-so author> says on page xyz of
(title, publication date, ISBN number) book, pamphlet, etc." or "From what
I heard <so-and-so teacher> say (giving as much detail as possible about
the person)..."  I don't feel it's sufficient to merely give statements
without some attribution, so we know whether you're interpreting your own
experience, or citing someone you consider to be an authority, or whether
you're making a statement of "religious faith" (as that term is commonly
understood).

I'm hoping that maybe we can talk a bit about what resources are available
and we can maybe form into groups to talk about particular books which are
commonly available.  In fact, I can imagine some fairly structured dis-
cussions, each with a leader who volunteers or is chosen through some
process we can work out who can put in some thought to how best to go
through a book, evaluating claims, testing methods, and discussing ideas.

All these thoughts are a bit fuzzy in my mind, and I don't want to go into
unnecessary detail at this point.  I just want to toss out the idea, and
see whether anyone else feels as I do that the random discussion we've had
is useful to let us get to know one another, but maybe we need another kind
of process to let us come up with the answers I think we want, both individ-
ually and collectively.

I hope this idea of more structure doesn't sound too stifling to anyone.
It doesn't really have to be adopted in any formal way by the group.  Those
of us who want to talk about the idea can just do so in a conversation
thread based on this article, initially.  We can make decisions about what
we want to do, and refine these basic procedural ideas as much as we feel
we need to until we arrive at a set of actual action items we can work on
to get things set up.  We can make a proposal to the group as a whole (and
they will have access to our discussion, since it will be carried right here
in public view, and can join in at any point they might want).  Such pro-
posals might include such things as:

      1. initiation of a project to put together a "FAQ" ("frequently-
         asked questions") article

      2. announcement of a study group to read and discuss a certain
         book or to use a particular technique and compare notes

      3. formulation of a particular question which we have agreed
         to ask the group as a whole and work on researching, using
         anecdotal accounts from the literature and based on personal
         experience

      4. designation of certain volunteers as scribes or archivists
         on particular topics

I guess I've said enough for now.  I think everyone will see what I intend
here.  I really have a lot of questions myself, and am anxious to explore
the whole subject, but I just find the typical Usenet way of everyone talk-
ing at once and very little focus a bit antithetical to the kind of know-
ledge I most want.  I think we have a very important matter before us here,
and I'd like to investigate it just as carefully and as thoroughly as pos-
sible, and I hope others agree that it's worth a bit of thought to figure
out how to go about discussing the subject so we can get some substantial
answers.

Please let us know what you think, by means of a followup to this article.
I would also welcome personal comments.  I would be happy to summarize such
comments.  If you don't want to be quoted anonymously, please let me know
when you send me mail.

Thanks very much, folks.  I'm really looking forward to hearing what you
have to say and to expoloring this most fascinating of subjects!

Thanks for being there.

Gary
--
    Gary S. Trujillo                            gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us
Somerville, Massachusetts              {wjh12,bu.edu,spdcc,ima,cdp}!gnosys!gst
Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body