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Goodbye Jesus

Slaying In The Spirit: How Is It Done?


Leo

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Now I'm familiar with the basic argument: People have the slaying in the spirit because they want to, or think they should. Yes, I've had it where someone was pushing and I went down to get it over with. However, I've had it happen to me twice under different circumstances, and I'd like your thoughts. Even then at heart I was a rational materialist and didn't know it then, so after I tell how it happened I'll reveal my suspicions re: how it works:

 

Unlike what Hank Hannograph, Hermon Bailen and others state, the twice that it happened I was thrust backwards by something that seemed electrical. Not AC power: that would be painful and in a bit I'll explain why that is. The Wife and I went up for prayer and I don't remember why. I believe it was when I was kicking the tires of the "faith" situation: heal this blind man and this blind man will be convinced of your abilities. But at the time, I thought people were mainly expert at the actor's fall -- you go limp and let yourself go down, it can be done relatively convincingly. I have the disadvantage, or maybe it was advantage, of not being able to see the expressions on the faces, just the occasional thud. So, I'd figured it wasn't going to happen to me, or if he pressed I could be a sport and 'thud' wait a minute, get up and go away back into the crowd from whence I came. I'm beside myself with bemused embarrassment at having participated in such foolishness but it it what it is.

 

So, the man stands in front of us, She was knocked over and gave a little cry as She went down. And it was all I could do to not bend down and see if She was all right. Apparently they saw my immediate discomfiture at the situation and responded with some kinda words that weren't terribly convincing. As he carried on, I could tell by the sound his hands must have raised, he told me twice to put my hands up. So I did so, bending my knees thinking this was gonna be a deliberate unbalancing situation and he'd have an easy push. Then I felt what seemed to me a charge of DC electricity. The reason I say it can't have been AC power is AC is necessarily painful and damaging to organic matter: AC current goes in both directions while DC goes only in one. Look it up, it's not mystery or hidden like theirs it's plain science. If the Baptists and them were correct, this particular trick would not have happened. Of course one need not believe me, an anonymous participant on the Internet, but to me the charge was a real blast. It wasn't hot: just electric. If you've ever felt the electrical fields in the air around certain thunderstorm events, I imagine it probably felt something like that.

 

So, I was down, and he stood over me and asked if I was still a skeptic: No, I wasn't anymore, at least now I knew it was possible to do that to somebody. Because of the environment, I responded with the appropriate response but I did say I wasn't anymore. He bought that much but himself wasn't completely convinced in my case, gave somne other words I don't remember now.

 

But it smelled a bit like ozone! And I've a pretty poor sense of smell. I was assisted to my feet by a couple of his guards or whoever those were. Again this wasn't painful, as I might have expected. Being a guy that has tampered in electronics for as long as I've been able to get away with it, I've been hit a couple times by some pretty good-sized zaps, off the cathode end of a capacitor or tube from an amplifier: that's a bang to remember. And those really do hurt, as well as having all the other effects. Because they're AC generated, at least when live.

 

A second time it happened very similarly, and it was the same sensation.

 

Now between these times, I'd gone online and looked this stuff up, hence I found the counterapologetics about it being a drug or simply made up by all the participants. I understood how the Christian apologists came to that conclusion, but wondered how much electronics experience any of them had had. They certainly, to a man, had never been stoned. They claim it's like a drug, or a drug-affected state, and I've done my time with various substances: it feels nothing like any of those. The euphoria of hoping to see something happen is always there but no different really than any other situation where you hope to see something spectacular. But the hit itself is just that, some kind of "bolt".

 

Also. The counterapologists never really talked about, or answered, why: Why did this slaying in the spirit not start until around the 1920s? Until well after electricity and batteries were invented, for instance? The counterapologists are right that the actors start by doing those insanely vapid repetitive choruses over and over and over, usually making women cry, I noticed.

 

Finally, I was playing for the wedding receptions of some friends at that church, and before the wedding I was lending a hand with the sound system. Just plain old electronics engineering type stuff, nothing stage-ish or 'spiritual'. Running cables, setting some levels, and ... dealing with this arcing situation whenever the guy turned on his mic. His followers who were working with me went to great lengths to tell me that was normal, it was just the "anointing". I finally caught up with him before he went into the green room behind the stage to pray or do whatever before the service. I asked if he happened to have anything in his pockets. It's not hard to make a wireless mic or something else static arc like that: hell set your cell phone down near your desktop mic and listen, if the mic is live you'll hear it. He not only told me 'no', but said he knew why I was asking, and my problem was I was just not really ready to take things on faith.

 

This is stuff I kept to myself, seeing as at the time I was still a Christian, and without some direct evidence I didn't think I could even convince the counterapologists for this phenomenon of my theories. I tried on a Baptist preacher who was a friend of mine, and he reverted constantly to the idea that this wasn't natural as I suspected but had to be a spirit. if the man really wanted to show me, as it were, he'd have showed me a jacket with empty pockets. That doesn't seal it of course, perhaps if TSA did one of their pat-downs ...

 

So, have any of you had that experience? Have you noticed only a few people can generate this? For all the older ladies in the churches who were constant about their ideas, or those of us less demonstrative than they were, none to my remembrance could pull off the trick. I thought a young girl I think she was a teenager, at first had got a hold of whatever they use, but she approached me at the time and since everyone around me was taking a tumble I was a sport. But no electrical charge was involved. So in that instance I could see how the counterapologists were correct.

 

This has been a long time ago, and I'm sure with time and memory being what it is, things have gotten out of order and probably distorted. But I'm still very much convinced -- now able to be out about it -- that the phenomenon is technological somehow. Although two major problems remain: How to generate enough power to initiate the charge, especially many times per night (I counted over fifty one time), and how to properly conceal it? It would be very difficult to conceal a 12-V battery. If you've a set in series, all charging a capacitor, you still have problems. I asked, and it seems they were all in business attire, jackets included, so concealment of some things might be doable. But that electric field wasn't a product of my own mind, I'm reasonably sure of it. I suppose it could have been, but under what frame of reference? I was as surprised by its arrival as I could be, and only after the event really analyzed it in my head.

And then, how are they keeping this trade secret? Clearly, not just anyone can do this activity on someone.

 

Anyway, obviously their explanation doesn't fly with me. But neither have the explanations of the Christian counterapologists who a. have never dealt with electronics before apparently and b. have also never been stoned, hence their claim it's like a drug-induced experience. As to "wanting to go back for more," I do beg to differ on that one.

 

I'm open to any thoughts, and understand how unbelievable my recounting is. Part of the reason I've told so few about my suspicions is that I myself would probably not believe it if told by someone else. But again: even if you disbelieve my claim about how it felt, and there are reasons any skeptic might do that, there has to be something going on as only a relatively few people can initiate the charge, however or whatever is used to cycle up beforehand. Even a lot of avid praying types will try and make it happen, you can see them really work at it sometimes, but are apparently not privy to whatever the trade secret might be. And, of course, it's low enough in amprage that you don't go unconscious, can still speak, hear, presumably see, but are only short-term incapacitated. I know there's fakes: I'm not discounting the counterapologists completely. people who are driven by hormones and other responses to have the experience as a form of ecstatic release. Those might in fact "go back for more" as the counterapologists claim. The Wife described it as a good feeling She has had in various places, I never went to those after this first guy. I know for Her the experiences have been real, when She used to go and experience that. They were also not planned, and did make Her feel better. I don't know if people like these give a charge to the skeptics and everyone else just plays along and has a mental experience, or what?

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You mean "staying" right?

 

Totally different thing, to "stay in the spirit" and to "slay in the spirit".

 

As for how it's done... I can't say. Most only say they're in the spirit in retrospect, but at the moment they're always out of it. The only exception I can think to this is when they're doing something religious, like praying or looking at their bible. Otherwise, it sorta gives God/Jesus an excuse for when they don't snap someone out of it.

 

How convenient for them.

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I know to some the electricity bit probably sounds ludicrous and I admit there's part of it I don't really get: Having a series of batteries and a couple of decent-sized capacitors (probably in a housing) stapped around someone under a vest inside a jacket would make the person look a bit portly. Then there's the actuator, or switch: This is really important, as you would know if you've had your cell phone plugged into a cable that wasn't plugged into a power source, and found the battery to run dry. Bleed-off, loss of power.

 

Without getting into how the person detects who needs the charge and who will comply, you have to have enough time for the capacitor to recharge, there's usually that, what with people reading off cue cards or something while someone is being brought up. But there's so many little things that would by definition go wrong with this, meaning I simply don't know yet.

 

For starters, trade secrets are given away. Excepting people who own the secret formula for Coke and Pepsi, and other high security trade secrets. Is it possible these people buy such a device, lead wires and all, and just keep it all a secret? Are there no ex-faith-healers? I have scoured the counterapologists. Yes, that was contraband in the Pentecostal churches but I read the Baptists and others on the topic hoping for someone to come out and say, "I was one of those people, and I can tell you how it was done!" No such people. So if they stop doing it, they must have signed a contract or done something to prevent outing themselves to the other side. Surely one or more of them has had second thoughts about the psychosomatic nature of their healings? A small time healer who doesn't make millions at it? This hasn't yet come out. And what a great day for the Baptists, even if the ones I revealed my hypothesis to were more fond of the idea of a spirit causing the phenomenon.

 

I'm aware there are ways to break down my arguents: DC power generating heat, not enough power, unless there's something we don't know. We now understand via nanotechnology that we could technically power your cell phone with nanobatteries covering a sheet of foil an inch or so square. Obviously in the 20s the people who are now hailed as the founders didn't have this technology, but in their getup they could certainly hide things.

 

And what I've always been missing, being I'm blind, is the subtle cues that give away the situation. Obviously it was harder to convince me that the healing was real, for instance, as I wasn't wowed by the visual effects. I had to ask: Were they taken up there in that chair? Just how steady are they on their feet? Questions that usually were unwelcome by the most congenial of them. So trying to get a idea of what's physically going on when the person activates the charge, for no better term, would tell you soething, if they always moved in a particular way, pressed with an elbow maybe, something like that. I realize to some this sounds ridiculous, and I'm aware there are holes in my hypothesis. Hell "hypothesis" is actually pretty generous.

 

Soo, not like anybody's tellin', but: Havve any of you born and raised Pentecostals had this theory? I was not born and raised one of those, just straight evangelical and fell in with these in my 20s. Or, has anyone pulled off this trick and willing to tell the rest of us how it's done? I've often thought that the scary part about this would be, someone who had the technology for this could quite easily pull off a robbery or something, except the eyewitness, the person would technically remain unharmed. You'd have to move fast, I timed myself down the longest close to two minutes before I could move without my limbs feeling like gell-o. Of course my timing at the time could have been way off. But not terribly long.

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I've seen this only on T.V. and that a long time ago.

 

I do, however, seem to remember a programme where an illusionist (I'm not sure if it wasn't Derren Brown, but I may well be wrong) managed to convince people that he was an evangelist by creating this effect.  If I remember correctly it was a mixture of suggestion and putting people in a position where they were slightly off balance.  I cannot recall any details however.

 

To my mind, it's largely down to susceptibility to suggestion and getting what either you expect or what the environment pushes onto you.

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FFW no it's specifically a Pentecostal phenomenon and only under some very specific conditions, where the person is laid out on their back, sent to that position from a standing position. Sorry I didn't say specifically. I've only seen it done where the recipient is the passive responder while the agency is in the hands of the preacher or whoever is conducting it. It visually looks like they're pushing the person down. I know many Christian counterapologists who claim this, and for good reason: the person is in your face, puts both hands up, (positive and negative leads somewhere?) and whether you suspect electricity or not, the circuit is closed by the participant: a hand on either side of the face or head, but without touching.

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Oh, okay, must have misread somewhere.

 

Very weird, very weird indeed...

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I believe in some cases it is hypnosis, usually when there is lots of prep work in advance. Some who have the effect probably act to fit in, I know that is the case with many "gifts"

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You know, some energy healers can do a quite similar thing. I've fallen over in Pentecost churches many times and been to a few different energy healers - and at one point was interested in doing the healing work myself too, so I can compare a few different points of view.

 

The biggest difference is the huge show in the church beforehand, though energy healers do often meet their clients in a "convincing" place with certain atmosphere created by candles, scents etc, too. And both churches and energy healers attract people who are ready to experience something and possibly are in an emotional state and otherwisely as well good subjects for suggestion and right out hypnosis (like myself).

 

Here's an interesting thing I've heard, and I don't know how much truth there is to it to be honest, but they say that the people who feel the healing energy/Spirit the strongest have a history of being in an electrical accident when young. Well I've been zapped as a kid pretty bad, it rendered me afraid of electricity for years, and I've felt a lot of energies too, both at church and elsewhere. 

 

When I practised the energy healing, it was just visualization and concentration. Calming my mind, asking for Jesus/white light/blahblah to protect me and see that I was doing the right thing for everyone involved (including me), and imagining that my hands were a channel for loving, healing energy that flows to wherever it needs to flow.

I felt it in my hands (no surprise though, I'm great at autosuggestion) but many other people claimed to feel it too, both at a distance and in the same room, and if the person was physically hurting, I would correctly be able to point out exactly where without them saying, because I started to hurt in the same place. I'd also get mental images more or less related to whichever problem they had at the time, but I think it may have been purely my imagination, out of having known the people for a long time and being able to guess what kind of things they're going through.

 

Also energy healers claim to get better at it by repeating what they do over and over and over again. I used to know a 70 year old energy healer, she'd treat me and I had my eyes closed, and I'd ask who put the lights on in the room because I felt there was more light around me. Nobody had touched the lights. 

 

So assuming this all is plausible, we come to a conclusion that if a church man does it many times, several dozen times every sermon, within a few years he could be very good at it. The combination of the energy itself and hypnotic phenomenon = people falling over left and right.

 

 

What's my own conclusion? Well, I think this "energy" could very well be just electrical energy, our thoughts are electric impulses to begin with and... well, I don't know. But I don't believe that jesuses or other creatures or spirits are needed at all for it to work. I don't think I'm getting back to energy healing though, too much superstition and religious people involved for me to take. I could use it to calm myself, though - it's nice to direct it upon your own worries for a moment, even though it doesn't work as a permanent solution.

 

 

ETA: Just for clarification, as much as the "energy" is thought to be "healing" and I too used that word above, I never (even when I was the most excited about this) told anyone that it replaces any kind of medicinal treatment - I in fact stressed that it doesn't, but that it's just fun and nice and relaxing. I regret it myself, even more these days, that there are occasions when I really should have seen a doctor, but instead went with pain removal through this "energy work" and hypnosis, and the underlying problem was still there.

 

ETA 2: Well... of course I believed it was real healing and not just pain removal when I was Pentecostal. Unfortunately.

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Thanks Yunea. I had no idea others than Pentecostals could elicit these responses. I wasn't surprised at the hypnosis / all-in-their-head responses. But those don't account for what I experienced, which personally led me to believe, albeit without having conducted any trial, that technology is involved somewhere. I admit I don't understand a lot of what you're saying re: guiding energies and all that. Our fields are pretty low -- I don't remember the specific but certainly much lower than a car battery at 12 V.

I admit I found the Christian counterapologists pretty convincing right away, when they said the healings were generally short term and psychosomatic. I could never see the effects on other people, and me asking a few probing questions always raised others' suspicions re: doubt. If the electrical charge was caused by hypnosis, then being hypnotized is listening to some really vapid and repetitive music, and thinking: "Let's get on with the main event, people."

 

So you say there are people who can cause this and call themselves energy healers. That's interesting. I'd be curious enough to let one try pulling that stunt on me, but under one condition: short sleeves and a look inside the pockets first. Are you saying you successfully knocked someone over? As I said earlier, I know it's possible to fake it: I did "bee a sport" on a couple occasions when it looked like they weren't going to just move down the line and wanted each and every person to drop like a log. But under those few occasions, something different occurred, which would indicate that practitioner had something the others did not.

 

Of course I understand the skeptical analysis, both Christian and secular skeptics. I also know I've been subject to the power of suggestion before -- we all have. But that's quite different from a couple distinct occasions when I didn't expect anything to happen and I received what seemed to me to be some sort of electrical charge, again, DC not AC. The charge was peculiarly not hot to the touch. Tat's what make me initially think it was a capacitor: resistance heats up, not storage. And I'm aware there's holes in my arguments. But yunea has delivered a response that for the first time has some sort of alternate explanation, one I'm not really sure how it would even work. Thinking electricity? Can you lay your hands on a charging cable plugged into a dead cell phone and charge it? The phone has a limiting circuit, at least the iPhone does: Take the other end out of the plug that goes into the wall and hold onto that while it's plugged into the phone. Not the brick: that expects alternating current: unplug the USB (thin) connector from the brick and hold it and do whatever you say you do with your mind. You should observe the power meter on your phone to indicate 'Charging'. That is, if this can be generated steadily, and not in a single explosive event. The amount of power it takes to charge your cell phone is considerably less than what it takes for you to feel it. Here you can perform a simple test that will show you: Plug in your charging cable to the wall outlet, and place the other end on the back of your hand. You won't feel anything. Always place a wire on the back of the hand, because if you did feel something the reaction would not cause your hand to close around it, just a general safety situation though not necessary for a cell phone's charging cable. Even though it's plugged in, by the time that current gets to the cord from the brick, it's DC power, the same as you produce yourself.

 

Again, I have a hard time even understanding fully what a mind could do to generate that. I'm not accusing you of faking it / using technology, but merely curious. Are you saying you can knock someone down like they do?

 

I realize the troubling nature of this is that it's usually conducted around or near some sort of ritual situation. This gives a ton of credence to the skeptics who claim it doesn't technically exist at all. I, of course, cannot prove that I FELT it, nor can I demonstrate how it works. Certainly not as an Internet user. So those that claim it's all hypnosis have my sympathies. Had I not experienced it, I would be like them.

I understand how some people probably consider a technological explanation to be as silly as a spiritual one. But while spirits don't technically exist in the material world, technology does. So do trade secrets. None of us knows the secret formula for Coke or pepsi. So if there's a device by which they do this, perhaps it's technological, or perhaps Yunea has another explanation, one I admittedly don't fully grasp.

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This phenomena may be similar to a sales pitch trick I've seen a few times. One salesman was selling fluorescent light covers that were supposed to give you a healthier light for work. We went outdoors and he told me to put my right arm straight out and try to resist his pushing down on my wrist. I tried as hard as possible but he was able to force my arm down. Then we went into my shop (normal fluorescent light) and we did it again. This time my arm was much easier to force down, he claimed it was due to my lighting, but I think the second time will always be much easier. The same ploy was used by another salesman for a completely unrelated product with the same results, that is the second time was much easier, 'proving' his item had merit. If I remember right, the second salesman was selling spongy shop floor mats that gave you extra vigor.

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Leo, first of all I really appreciate this conversation, and I'll try my best to answer your questions. :) I'm glad my adventures as a very liberal Jesus follower can contribute something on this forum. 

 

I admit I found the Christian counterapologists pretty convincing right away, when they said the healings were generally short term and psychosomatic. I could never see the effects on other people, and me asking a few probing questions always raised others' suspicions re: doubt. If the electrical charge was caused by hypnosis, then being hypnotized is listening to some really vapid and repetitive music, and thinking: "Let's get on with the main event, people."
 

Agitation (from repetitive, exhausting movement for example) is a much, much more powerful way to get people into hypnotic trance than relaxation is, though the ineffecient relaxation hypnosis is talked about a lot more for some reason. Also trance is not quite as weird as they make it look in stage hypnosis even though that's real too - it's a very pleasant experience during which your critical thinking is mostly surpassed, but you feel happy, relaxed, trusting, and light, plus things happen to you easily just because someone says so. I've done a bit of hypnotism myself and I've had a subject for example feel their hands are holding a very hot coffee cup (and I've had that done with me, too, so I know it's "real"). Just demonstrating what kind of thing can be done. There may be a combination of actual electricity and then the trance making it feel much stronger than it is - I don't know for sure, and the fact that I don't know is the main reason I don't do energy work or hypnosis on others anymore.

 

I haven't knocked anyone over, but I haven't tried exactly that, either. I've managed to remove physical pain in many occasions though (but I had the people promise me they'd get checked out by a doctor,if they were originally planning to anyway) and get other people's body parts feel hot or tingly in ways unfamiliar to them before. One particularly sensitive friend has cried really hard during my energy work on her, but there could be many reasons for that, so it's not really valid proof. I have been knocked over in Pentecost churches though, and I've felt energy healing on myself very strongly. 

 

I can try the phone battery thing. Shame I just charged mine so it'll have to wait for a while. I used to know someone who'd been to an actual Reiki course where they teach you how to manipulate energies, and he claimed that as he was treating someone else with energy, his phone was near and the battery charged itself. Of course I didn't see it happen with my own eyes and the story could be exaggerated, so I'll believe it when I manage to do the same.

Then again I never took courses, I just heard a few things from others who did these things and started to figure out "my own way" to do it (told you I was new-agey....), which then quite soon worked pretty well, too. 

 

I always thought that tests should be performed, there should be meters and probes and these things that myself and other energy healers claim to do should be put to test. If there's no actual change in electric fields, then it's all weird results of suggestion I guess, but I'd be thrilled if there was found to be actual physical energy. Especially if many people who don't claim to be doing anything religious could do it anyway. 

 

Honestly enough I don't know how exactly it works. The only thing in common with everyone I know who can do it is that they just concentrate really hard and decide that it happens. I'd love to do tests, but unfortunately these things have such strong reputation of being religious mumbo jumbo for lunatics, I don't know where to find a neutral scientist that'd be open to it and perform a proper scientific study. 

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Another option would be some kind of liquid tranquilizer like choloform. Some of the preachers place their hand on your forehead and hold it until your legs give out. Others give wine, holy water or annoiting oils in advance.

I think the answer is probably in between, with a variety of hypnosis, suggestion, peer pressure, sedatives and there are undoubtedly crazy enough preachers who would not bat an eyelid at electricuting their followers. It would differ between churches which explains why peoples experiences differ as well.

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Guest Furball

I have seen these people exposed as frauds on tv. They usually bring up one of their own congregation or a paid actor. It's all rubbish

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Yunea, thank you.

 

Wertbag, interesting. I agree, people seem to describe different things. Perhaps they only electrocute the skeptics.

 

CeilingCat I can totally imagine that there are fakes, people who are called upon to come forward as actors like this. But are you claiming that I was one? Or that my technological hypothesis is bunk? Or did you just read the title and respond? This isn't a defense of the practitioners - especially not the preachers in front of crowds doing it, merely a way to perhaps expose how it's done. So either you and similar responders on here didn't read it, or you find my claims to be not credible. So why, I'm curious, would someone make up a story about being shocked by these people? On an anonymus forum where there's really nothing to gain? I'm certainly not seeking damages -- clearly, if it was electricity, the voltage was too low for that. Most importantly, the amprage. Following Occam's Razor in this instance, either it's possible to hallucinate being shocked while at the same time not thinking you're going to be a participant, rather absurd in my opinion, or the recipient thinks they were shocked when in fact it may be something else like the chemicals Wertbag mentioned, I don't know what those chemicals feel like. Or there's some entirely different explanation, maybe something like Yunea was referring to, but in that instance nobody has been knocked over.

 

I think, CC, if you wish to dismiss my technology claim here, you have to actually address that having read what I wrote. And do a better job than the Baptist pastor who instead of claiming it was all in someone's head, it was just a spirit. Both are equally poofy explanations, even if mine turns out to be entirely wrong. Yes, there are surely instances of fakery, and I admitted to "being a sport" on a couple occasions. But what device do they use when one does receive a charge of some kind? Yunea's test idea certainly could be done with a simple voltometer. But the problem is, humans by themselves generate so little electrical output that it takes very sensitive material to test it. Otherwise by coming into contact with each other, we'd shock each other. That only happens as a result of a static charge in dry, cold winters, where the human is functioning as a capacitor. An even then, it's never that serious, a mere snap, perhaps mildly painful at most.

 

I'm all for any skeptical response from someone who's actually looked at what I said, I've been pretty transparent about the holes in my argument, the ones that I know of anyway. The best part would be someone providing an explanation where we could reproduce this on demand. Although, for those who haven't experienced it, what I am presuming to be the electrical version isn't something that could be called pleasant. The suggestive euphoria was a different experience altogether, and as its skeptics rightly claim, very fleeting. But the impact, from whatever the source, is not something trancelike or pleasant. Not that I've been in a trance to know, but certainly not butterflies and rainbows.

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Guest Furball

i read it leo, i just don't believe it was supernatural. There is always a rational explanation of these things. No i am not calling you a liar, i just think you weren't aware of what was happening to you by some man made device. It's good that you keep calling me out on my posts, i like your hatred towards me. Just because people cannot explain something at the moment doesn't mean that it really was a supernatural experience. I was just watching a show last night where the tribal people were dancing around then put their hands on their fellow tribal people and they all started falling over. This can be done by manipulating energy. I did this with my now deceased cat years ago. I manipulated my energy to be that of love and warmth, by putting my hand on my cat and transferring this energy, the cat displayed a sense of calmness and peacefulness, where as before he was energetic. energy can be manipulated, so maybe that's what they figured out. I have had vivid dreams of aliens that lasted an entire night of 8 hours sleep, every time i awoke and then went back to sleep i was pulled back into the exact same vivid dream at the exact same time i awoke from it before. This happened 4 times in the night. I was sure something was really happening to me when it wasn't. If because i cannot come up with a legit reason as to your experience, then feel free to continue to put me down and talk down to me, then you should believe it's all real and leave this site and convert back to your brand of christianity. -peace

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Power of suggestion. Simple as that. No electricity needed, and I'm not even going to attempt to address the weird theories on electricity presented in this thread.

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Guest Furball

Power of suggestion. Simple as that. No electricity needed, and I'm not even going to attempt to address the weird theories on electricity presented in this thread.

I had to come up with something, otherwise i'm the fuckin' asshole here. This is the second time my reply didn't live up to his goddamn standard and i got shitted on for it. Jesus christ, people on here need to realise that not every post is gonna have a harvard educated guess. calm down people

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Sorry not intending to present you as the asshole.

 

But how does suggestion work if the person thinks it's *not* going to happen to them? I thought suggestion, like with speaking in tongues and things, had everything to do with you thinking it *was* going to happen. This turns into kind of a circular argument if people can be suggested into doing things they don't think they're going to do, or think are probably all faked. How can it both work positively and negatively?

I agree the conclusion or explanation of the practitioners is wrong. And would also be gladly corrected about my own hypothesis.

 

There are plenty of snake oil salespeople who in fact do use props of one kind or another. Admitting as much doesn't mean the snake oil claim is any more true. But some are so addicted to the dogma of suggestion as the god of the gaps I guess, that no other explanations may be put forth? Suggestion can only work if you think it's going to work. Hence I was recently told by a hypnotist: "Yes I could hypnotize a blind person, but no, I could not hypnotize you because you told me you think it's fake." That's suggestion. I'd have to believe it was real to be hypnotized. And since I was dubious as to the claims, and surprised at the assault effect, only a religion-style apologist could claim that's the exact same tool as the positively reinforcing suggestion where everyone wants to see this image and finally does, or wants to speak in tongues and finally does, or wants to get hypnotized, believes it's possible, and finally does. In all those cases the person in question actually thinks it's a real thing.

 

Maybe I'm wrong on the electricity count. But clearly I think there are props involved. There was a famous "medium" incident in the 19th century where they tested everything to figure out how it was these two were causing knocking on the table. Of course the suggestion-of-the-gaps theorists were totally wrong, but so were a vast amount of elaborate theories. What it turned out to be was a metal ring on the person's toe making that sound under the table.

 

I think if we could find, and expose, the prop in this instance, sure you'd still have people who claimed to experience it in other ways. But the prop would be exposed, and cast a lot of doubt on the situation for the fence-sitters. I find the suggestion-of-the-gaps thinking to be just as woo-tastic as the Pentecostals, especially when you double flip on the situation claiming someone is subject to the power of suggestion if they don't believe, and if they do believe. I think that little hypnotist recently was more accurate, exposing their abilities for what they aren't. You actually have to believe that it works in order for it to work, which makes it power of suggestion.

 

I'm not saying my hypothesis is right. But there are other snake oil techniques which do involve props. Might be interesting to expose what some of these props happen to be. And of course, for sure, it won't impact the already-suggested who fall at the drop of a hat whenever it's time and called for. I'm simply not prepared to say either: "I don't know, and thus god," or "I don't know and thus suggestion." Especially where the affected was not already convinced that people were doing anything other than an actor's fall.

 

I think Wertbag has some interesting suggestions, others too, with these chemicals. I don't know how those react so will need to Google that. Certainly trace elements could be added to the olive oil they're so fond of using, and provided they can pass from the oil into you and do so quickly enough, it could have its effect. I don't know of any that feel like an electric shock, but that only means I don't know of any.

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Power of suggestion. Simple as that. No electricity needed, and I'm not even going to attempt to address the weird theories on electricity presented in this thread.

I had to come up with something, otherwise i'm the fuckin' asshole here. This is the second time my reply didn't live up to his goddamn standard and i got shitted on for it. Jesus christ, people on here need to realise that not every post is gonna have a harvard educated guess. calm down people

 

 

Aww, I hope you don't think I was shitting on you. I <3 you, CeilingCat. I didn't really even pay attention to who wrote what, to be perfectly honest. I wrote my response in a hurry while waiting for hubs to pick me up from work.

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Sorry, but there's so much bullshit in this post you could cut it with a knife. Yes, I do believe there are some things that can happen that can't be readily explained, but having attended a pentecostal holiness church for three years, which was my last stop on the fundy train, I don't see any of your theories being a reality. And just FYI, I'm also a 20+ year veteran of broadcast engineering who specialized in high power broadcast transmitters. I've seen, worked with, played with and experimented with just about every voltage, current and frequency you can imagine. 

 

 

 

I know to some the electricity bit probably sounds ludicrous and I admit there's part of it I don't really get: Having a series of batteries and a couple of decent-sized capacitors (probably in a housing) stapped around someone under a vest inside a jacket would make the person look a bit portly. Then there's the actuator, or switch: This is really important, as you would know if you've had your cell phone plugged into a cable that wasn't plugged into a power source, and found the battery to run dry. Bleed-off, loss of power. 

Without getting into how the person detects who needs the charge and who will comply, you have to have enough time for the capacitor to recharge, there's usually that, what with people reading off cue cards or something while someone is being brought up. But there's so many little things that would by definition go wrong with this, meaning I simply don't know yet. 

 

You do realize that, with the exception of extremely high voltages that cause ionization (tens of thousands of volts, minimally, and likely much higher in order to accomplish what you're presenting here), you need a complete circuit for anyone to feel a thing, right? It's not going to happen from some laying on of hands, because the body of the person doing the laying on of hands is going to complete the circuit before they ever touch another person. This really is an impossibility. You're not going to cause current flow through another person by laying your hands on them. Aside from that, unless there is some elaborate current limiting circuit involved, even if you did manage to form a neat, complete circuit using capacitors as a power source, you're likely going to blast the person with a jolt that could potentially kill them. Because the resistance of body tissue varies greatly with humidity, skin dampness and even genetics, there are way too many variable at play here to make a trick like this actually work in practice. Enough voltage would be needed that the person would feel the current flow even if there was high skin surface resistance, but the current would have to be limited so as to not cause physical harm if the resistance were lower than expected. I can only think of one thing that might work, but it would present its own problems in a scenario like this:

 

 

 

 

So, the man stands in front of us, She was knocked over and gave a little cry as She went down. And it was all I could do to not bend down and see if She was all right. Apparently they saw my immediate discomfiture at the situation and responded with some kinda words that weren't terribly convincing. As he carried on, I could tell by the sound his hands must have raised, he told me twice to put my hands up. So I did so, bending my knees thinking this was gonna be a deliberate unbalancing situation and he'd have an easy push. Then I felt what seemed to me a charge of DC electricity. The reason I say it can't have been AC power is AC is necessarily painful and damaging to organic matter: AC current goes in both directions while DC goes only in one. Look it up, it's not mystery or hidden like theirs it's plain science. If the Baptists and them were correct, this particular trick would not have happened. Of course one need not believe me, an anonymous participant on the Internet, but to me the charge was a real blast. It wasn't hot: just electric. If you've ever felt the electrical fields in the air around certain thunderstorm events, I imagine it probably felt something like that. 

 

Your understanding of electricity and its effects on the human body are flawed. Damage to tissue is not caused by voltage, it is caused by the flow of current, and both AC and DC current have similar effects on the human body, depending on frequency in the case of AC.

 

The only remote possibility here, when you mention the smell of ozone, would be a very high voltage from a device like a Van de Graaff generator, which would be very difficult to pull off, especially if any kind of a wired microphone were anywhere near the person wired to it. Also, depending on the relative humidity, the ionization and leakage current would literally make the hair stand on end of anyone who came into contact with it. 

 

 

 

 

 

But it smelled a bit like ozone! And I've a pretty poor sense of smell. I was assisted to my feet by a couple of his guards or whoever those were. Again this wasn't painful, as I might have expected. Being a guy that has tampered in electronics for as long as I've been able to get away with it, I've been hit a couple times by some pretty good-sized zaps, off the cathode end of a capacitor or tube from an amplifier: that's a bang to remember. And those really do hurt, as well as having all the other effects. Because they're AC generated, at least when live. 

 

Just FYI... I'm assuming you meant anode (plate) of a tube, as in audio amplifiers that employ tubes, the cathode is very near, if not at ground potential. The plate (anode) is at a high DC potential, not AC. Plate supplies for audio tube amps that were used in older PA systems were maybe 200-300 volts. DC. Also, unless you're touching a small-value capacitor that is in an audio or RF circuit and is at high impedance, you're also feeling DC, not AC. Generally you would not find enough voltage in a circuit carrying audio to feel it at all. Again, you're likely talking about capacitors used to smooth the ripple in a DC supply. In a tube amp, once again, the voltage potential would be 200-300 volts.

 

In an RF amplifier, you could get an RF burn from the output of an amp, but if you're touching the plate of a tube that has enough output to give you an RF burn, the DC plate supply is going to bite you hard before you ever noticed the RF burn. The only exception to this is is if you're touching the output past a plate blocker cap or in the case of some older AM transmitters of a certain design, the output side of a coupling transformer. One other possibility in an RF amplifier would be a grounded-grid configuration, in which case the anode is at DC ground potential while simultaneously at high RF potential through the use of a choke inductor from plate to ground. That configuration is never used in audio and only somewhat rarely in RF amplifiers. 

 

In any case... I call BS on all of this. Yeah, sometimes weird things happen that can't be readily explained, but I've seen and experienced this slain in the spirit shit first-hand, and it is all peer pressure and power of suggestion. People desperately want to feel something, whether it be because they think that's the only way god is at work in their life, or that they don't want to be embarrassed because others might think they lack spirituality, so in their mind they do. 

 

On a sidenote, I sometimes get an "electrified" feeling when I'm listening to certain kinds of music that I really like and identify with. I used to get that feeling often when I was praying, listening to music that I thought was really "powerful" or in church. It's a very real, very intense, tingly, electric feeling that literally gives you goosebumps. Nothing mystic about it. Again, it's your mind giving you the perception of something that isn't what it appears to be.

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Can you lay your hands on a charging cable plugged into a dead cell phone and charge it? The phone has a limiting circuit, at least the iPhone does: Take the other end out of the plug that goes into the wall and hold onto that while it's plugged into the phone. Not the brick: that expects alternating current: unplug the USB (thin) connector from the brick and hold it and do whatever you say you do with your mind. You should observe the power meter on your phone to indicate 'Charging'. That is, if this can be generated steadily, and not in a single explosive event. The amount of power it takes to charge your cell phone is considerably less than what it takes for you to feel it. Here you can perform a simple test that will show you: Plug in your charging cable to the wall outlet, and place the other end on the back of your hand. You won't feel anything. Always place a wire on the back of the hand, because if you did feel something the reaction would not cause your hand to close around it, just a general safety situation though not necessary for a cell phone's charging cable. Even though it's plugged in, by the time that current gets to the cord from the brick, it's DC power, the same as you produce yourself. 

 

Are you really suggesting you can charge a cell phone by touching the USB cable? Wendytwitch.gif

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Well you caught me on the Anode vs. cathode end. It's been 20 years plus since I messed with amplifiers in that capacity. As to your mind comments, this makes more sense. I still don't know why in that one particular instance especially, when I thought it wasn't going to happen to me, and my attention was on my fallen wife that it happened. But your AC / DC comments made sense. Perhaps there isn't a parlor trick involved at all. I don't know, I merely hypothesized. Plus I always had the attitude they were hiding something, you know, the guy who does it has his goons around him pretty much all the time. Guess that led me to my perhaps incorrect conclusions there was something else. I still hold out in the I don't know category: I've certainly been moved by music before. But not a bolt to the face as in the two instances I refer to, unpleasant instances, instances I went out of my way to not encounter again, even as a Christian. Whatever it was, perhaps it was different for me, I would certainly not recommend the effects.

 

Take it as one will. But even if the electricity in any form possible is totally dismissable, which is not yet the case, I'm still open to the idea that this is a parlor trick they're pulling somehow -- thinking of a lot of past so-called paranormal experiences where tape loops have subsequently been found in the area to play the tapes of the "ghosts" in the area. The bolt was very different from the warm feeling one can get with music, or even the warm feelings we used to get a long time ago in certain church situations. Though for me these were harder to acquire than for some. This was unambiguously not pleasant, pitched at me at the time as God putting me on the ground to humble me. This having been said after the bolt, not before. I can't for the life of me concoct the experience again to just make it happen with my mind. So I personally can't rule out some kind of parlor trick that used more than power of suggestion. You had all these people joyously, and to me at the time anyway, a bit goofily falling down. The Wife told me the cry She gave was of surprise. But She never described that shock feeling. To Her it was just warm. And for me both times it was uniquely electric. But that's because electricity is my only frame of mind that I could relate it to. Far different from moving music, which gives one a warm feeling in the belly. This was quite an impression in the face.

 

I understand how many are going to say I must be just making it all up, as I'd not believe it if I hadn't had that particular experience with it. Again, the effect was done incorrectly if it was supposed to make you want it all over again, as the counterapologists claim. I'm not gonna lie, I'd be beside myself with glee to at some point encounter what that damn trick was though. I know some of you will never buy what I'm saying as I indicated it, not the warm feeling from music but something I felt seemed to be electrical in nature, and not pleasant. I would have my own private glee at finding out just how that man pulled it off. He was rather an egotistical type -- something I didn't like about him at the time even.

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Just a quick note before I run outside for the day - actually hypnosis does NOT demand the subject to believe that it's going to work, or know beforehand what's going to happen. It's all about the subject following commands, and it can certainly be done without the subject realising he's following commands that are leading into trance. Concentrating on doing exactly what someone says you should do is the key - hypnotists just use certain commands in the beginning that ignite certain responses if you are on your way to the right kind of trance for therapy/tricks to work.

 

It's just that if a hypnotist notices strong disbelief, his subject would freak out if the hypnotist went ahead and did it anyway. The experience remains more positive if the hypnotist lets his client go home at that point.

 

(Not saying that everyone everywhere can be hypnotised. Some people truly can not be, at all, and with some the sensitivity for it varies during life, for example deep anxiety makes it more difficult because the person won't trust the hypnotist.)

 

Also while trance itself is pleasant, very unpleasant things can definitely happen during it.

 

What became clear to me when I was doing this energy stuff was that not everyone feels it at all, and then some feel it very, very easily. I have no clue why that is, the "being zapped as a kid" theory does fit myself and a few others I know but that doesn't mean it's true. That makes conversations about it pretty difficult because there's always someone who's never felt anything like it, and won't feel it even if they go ahead and ask for it. 

 

I knew one guy who was manipulating energies so that others felt it, but he didn't feel it himself at all. That was weird.

 

Anyhow I really wish I had more answers, but I'd be willing to look for them if there was a proper setting for a lab trial. 

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How do police tasers work? There is obviously a method for electricuting people in a non-fatal fashion, could a taser be turned down to a minimum setting to give the kinds of results mentioned? If so the question would be how far you can disassemble and still keep the user safe...

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How do police tasers work? There is obviously a method for electricuting people in a non-fatal fashion, could a taser be turned down to a minimum setting to give the kinds of results mentioned? If so the question would be how far you can disassemble and still keep the user safe...

 

Tasers deliver high voltage (about 50 kV DC) in pulses. The voltage is delivered by two wires that are attached to metal barbs, like fishhooks, that bury themselves under your skin in two separate places on your body. The farther apart they are, the more effective they are. The two wires make up the complete circuit. Also, it should be noted that tasers cause permanent physical damage and even death much more often than most people think. About a thousand deaths in the US in the last 15 years.

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