Guybrush

Actually, from what I've seen from healing in churches, speaking in tongues and so on (granted, on the telly), they are full of suggestion and other psychological trickery to make what goes on seem real and spiritual. For example there's usually a very high level of emotional intensity - people get worked up. Preachers usually touch people, lay their hands on them and scream at them or push them to the floor. It's an intense experience and these tricks further enhance that feeling and encourage/provoke people into hysterics which are interpreted as spiritual experiences. Preachers also often use direct commands on the line of "sit" or "sleep" and so on which is also a powerful form of suggestion, sometimes used to induce hypnosis. What's happening is that participants are working themselves into a mental state where they are vulnerable to suggestion and act the way they believe they are supposed to.

Do you believe your healing pastor could heal someone's broken arm under calm conditions in a quiet church under an x-ray to show and prove the healing? If there is a God, then I don't think she/he'll mind if there isn't a lot of screaming and yelling, but I bet you the healing wouldn't work.

The next time you are in this setting, instead of getting worked up and participating wholeheartedly, try and look at it from a more sober point of view. What's happening to these people?

edit :

Children are particularly vulnerable to this stort of stuff and should not, in my opinion, be exposed to it.

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ThePhanastasio

I don't now if the abilities are supernatural in nature - and I'm not sold on the people who claim to be psychics or mediums.

Like Vanilla, I have had dreams that were very specific before events occurred. It's not frequent or something I have control over. It's just something that will happen sometimes.

And as far as the intuition things - there are very specific moments when right before something happened (something which has to do with chance or probability, mainly) I have occasionally gotten a very strong feeling that something is going to turn out a precise way. Every single time I have this feeling (which is pretty rare, mind you, but has happened) I'll go ahead and say what's going to happen. And everytime I've had that specific feeling, it's been right. Not just like a hunch.

I don't think it's necessarily supernatural in origin, but I know that there are others like this. It could very well be something that all people are capable of and have a completely logical explanation.

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Scarlett O'Hara

Exactly how I feel. I have very strong inclinations towards situations sometimes. I am being lead by a higher being.

The dreams are not just me not wanting grandparents to die. I had never given it a thought before I dreamed about my granddads death. I saw him as a person that would never go as I was 13 at the time. I have reoccurring dreams which is another reason why my analysis is spot on.

This is the situation: a couple of years ago I dreamed I was surrounded by friends and people from my old high school and there were four white kittens I was playing with. Suddenly, one of the girls said "I'm sorry but we need to kill these kittens, they can't stay alive anymore." I began to scream to stop them but one by one the girl rung their necks.

Second dream of the four white kittens they were all killed again. Third dream, I'm walking the same kittens on a massive lead where they are all connected, introducing them to mothers and children to create happiness for them. A flash occurs and I end up walking down a one way road and realise I've let go of the lead - the kittens are stuck in the middle of the road and one had been run over. The objective of this was for me to run across and save the remaining kittens before they all were run over.

Here's the analysis: white is a symbol of purity, vulnerability and innocence. The four kittens represent each part of who I am: mental, emotional, spiritual and physical. At that point in my life I was extremely depressed and lonely, physically abusing my body by taking too many painkillers. The first and second dream indicated I was neglecting/destroying these four parts of my being through drugs and not understanding the cause of my unhappiness or even acknowledging my depression (I was in denial). The third dream was showing that when I look after myself I make others happy and am an incredible person. The moment I stop taking care of one element of my being or let myself go in any manner, the rest of the elements will disintegrate also. It was a warning to carefully monitor my subconscious and my actions day to day in order to protect myself from falling apart again.

So that's what I meant, not just oh I dreamed about my teeth falling out so I'm going to be rich.

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Stone Birds

now truthfully i'm smart enough to know that it's all crap but i really want "supernatural" to exist, reality is boring and not worth paying attention to that's why we make stuff up and that's why i voted yes

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duga

^

That's some really interesting stuff. I love hearing about peoples' dreams.

Every time my life is about to get a big change, I have a recurring dream about being lost in a cave. I had this dream before I found out I was moving to Singapore in middle school, I had it the night before I met my now ex who I had a 4 year relationship with, I had it before we broke up, and I had it before I got my current job. I'd say that's a winning record.

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Janszoon

I wouldn't be surprised if there were ways in which we interact with the world around us that we are unaware of currently. But supernatural powers? No. I think most cases can be chalked up to things like confirmation bias.

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Dirty

Nope, I don't believe anyone has these type of powers. There's a lot of instances where people dream something or predict something and then it happens. But I feel like they dream and predict things all the time that do NOT happen, but those things get dismissed. It's like you could dream or predict a million things and because 1 of them happens all of a sudden they think they have a supernatural power or something. It's kinda like when I was a pothead. And I swore everytime it was 4:20 I was looking at a clock. But then I realized that it wasn't that I was looking at the clock every time it was 4:20. It was just that it was a significant number. Somehow I feel like that last part relates but I'm not sure how and I'm tired.

Howard the Duck

I've been hexed one too many times by black magic "houngans" to not not believe in it

djchameleon

speaking of black magic

well I don't know if it's classified as black magic but I really don't like Haitians because of my past experience with them and their belief in Voodoo.

I was skeptic for the longest but whenever I'm around certain Haitians, I get a bit nervous.

I make sure that none of my hair drops anywhere in their vicinity because they could use that for their spells and what us west indians like to say "obiaya" hmmm I've never had to type that out but yeah it sounds like that.

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Howard the Duck

be extra careful when they're having white powder in the palm of their hands