From: rpjday@cuug.ab.ca (Robert P.J. Day 277-3175)
Subject: Re: July 4, 1992 - Global Spiritual Independence Day
Organization: Calgary UNIX Users' Group
Distribution:  world
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 1992 22:31:34 GMT

In article <65736@cup.portal.com> John_-_Winston@cup.portal.com writes:
>Dear World: I just got back from a unplanned astral dream that I went
>to Russian and observed the people and country. They have a wonderful
>heritage and I came back with tears in my eyes. Sorry to appear so
>sentimental.

  You don't appear all that sentimental.  Just deranged.

>It reminds my of one of my 14 past lives that I have 
>investigated. The life I'm referring to is a life I spent after Jesus
>lived in the  Holy Lands. I was a teacher of christianity and was one
>of the first to be thrown in the arena in Rome.

  Do tell.  Apparently the lions are falling down on the job.

>Now back to the real world.

  Now THERE'S a thought.

>Last week a person sent me over 102k bits of information. I
>appreciated the info. but I get fined if I get more than 100k of infor-
>mation on my E-mail account in a days time. I have been guilty of 
>sending that amount of info. to one person in one day myself. So 
>everyone send me anything you like but please limit it to about
>30k bits.

  Perhaps then we could rid ourselves of Mr. Winston and his astral
wanking if we all (one, two, THREE!) mailed him /etc/termcap, or something
like that.

>Cheers.
>John Winston

  Mr. Winston, at the risk of undoubtedly repeating what others have
already said, what is the point?  Why are you posting this drivel to
sci.skeptic?  More to the point, what are we supposed to do with it?
  Rest assured, this is a perfectly serious question, and it has to
do with what it means to be a skeptic.  From where I sit, being a
responsible skeptic involves two things:

  1) being willing to listen, with an open mind, to any claims, no
	matter how fantastic or extraordinary
  2) being willing to listen to the evidence produced to support such
	claims

  Without 2), there is little any skeptic can do to intelligently discuss
1).  In other words, Mr. Winston, simply telling us stories of your
astral travel is useless.  Are we supposed to comment on it?  Are
you trying to convince us of its authenticity?  Would you prefer we
soundly denounced you as a complete helium-head?  What's your point?
What is the purpose of these posts?
  Assuming you would like others in this group to take you seriously,
I propose the following experiment to test your abilities of astral
wank... uh, travel.  I live at 5724 Dalmead Cres., NW, in Calgary, Alberta.
The next time you're out and about, drop by.  Make your way to my office
in the basement of the house (there's only one office down there, so
there can be no confusion).  There are three bookshelves along one of
the walls.  There is a single object on top of the middle bookcase,
with some writing on it.  Please tell me what the object is, and what
it says.
  Failing that, please tell me just whatinell the point of all this
is.

R. Day
Member, Alberta Skeptics
... the pit bull of skepticism ...

P.S.:  Any further responses to Mr. Winston will be restricted to
  sci.skeptic.
Newsgroups: talk.religion.newage,alt.consciousness,alt.dreams,alt.drugs,a