From: pharvey@mipos3.intel.com (Paul Harvey)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: Re: Firewalk
Keywords: call and response (and the beat goes on)
Date: 31 Jul 92 19:47:36 GMT
	<1992Jul30.170107.21017@burrhus.harvard.edu> <12613@inews.intel.com> 
	<2A7893C7.2334@noiro.acs.uci.edu> <12640@inews.intel.com>

I only ask that as a scientist, you go back and reread the original fire
walking post and then the good scientific explanation of what happened and then
read the responses to that scientific post from people who were obviously
offended and probably not scientists. Do you see what happened? In this case,
science served to deny the experience of life. I'm not placing blame, only
making an observation. As a scientist, how could you have handled this
differently so that this misunderstanding would not arise? A scientist
must be aware of how non-scientists react to science. As a scientist, this is 
something I hope you learn. Don't get so caught up in the dogma of science. Let
me repeat my statement from above. Science is a tool to increase the 
understanding of life, not to deny the individual experience of life. Sabe?


Hi, it's me again. I just wanted to further elucidate my analysis of what
happened, que pason, the scenario if you wish. So, here we go yo, here we go
yo, yo-what yo-what yo what's the scenario? So the original poster, you remember
- it was so like ... 15 minutes ago, had an actual experience, of which we see
so few of today, and in the spirit of original discovery, posted an inspiring
article on firewalking. I suspect that in the back of his mind, he knew there
was some type of scientific explanation, but that is not what he was looking
for in response. [Call and response, get it?]. He was looking for some awe
that he had survived the experience and perhaps interested to see if any others
may have had similar experiences. Instead, the response was from a scientist,
or perhaps someone who just plays one on tv, and the follow-up article was a
more or less complete explanation of the science of firewalking. Then the
crowd goes wild, as is the power of call and response. Most follow-up posts
felt that the scientific response was belittling, (a diss-OK), because instead
of praising the experience, it appeared to write it off as just a cheap
scientific trick. The scientific answer seemed to say that nothing original
happened, everything that happened could be accounted for with mat'ematics.
Now what to do? One could burn all scientists and all science books, that
has been tried before, for example trashing the library of Alexandria was
certainly effective. However, in the interest of more sane approaches, I think
the solution is obvious. The fix involves both parties, as all good fixes are
wont to do. The scientist, (hi Janis), should be more aware of the type of 
response that the caller is looking for and should filter this in, if the 
scientist would like to keep the call and response going instead of being 
t'rown into the fire. This is something our medical doctors have to become
much more aware of. And at the same time, non-scientist must be aware of the
way that scientists view the world. Scientists are always looking for an
answer and tend to gloss over the experience. Most non-scientists are not
looking for answers, they are looking for the unique experience and to
see if others share similar. Non-scientist should learn that scientist and
doctors are going to respond first with an answer, any answer, that is the
way they are trained. This should not be taken as an attack on the
experience. This is just the way scientists view experience. Not good or bad,
just different. It is fairly easy for the non-scientist to say, oh that's
very interesting, but that says nothing of my experience. Of course then
the scientist might huff and puff and walk away in discust, but it make no
difference. Ah, call and response, it is so difficult, isn't it? Can I get
a hey? ... Can I get a yo? ... I got a hey, so now you know ...

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