" Willing Possesion "

[prana]

Believe it if you wish, or dont believe it if you find it ridiculous, but you shouldnt mouth what you dont see in the western world, that is often seen in the east. The deities that your grandmasters pray to arent without spirits.

I have experienced it, and had complete control over it, although being a skeptic & non-believer prior to that, I was so afraid, I had turned completely cold and did not know how to control what was in me. But when asked to give thanks for his teachings, he immediately withdrew.

When asked to explain back then, it's as if a giant storm was controlling my limbs and body, and I would move around, and when I tired to resist it, I just shook uncontrollably. Kinda reminds me of those those Qi-Gong practitioners who are about to raise their qi into their heads, they tremble and sweat...

If asked now, after practising much more Buddhism, to explain what it is, my closest explanation is of a timeless thought (which arises as wind) which helps clear and clean meridian blockages in the body, to allow for greater spiritual practise.

The deity was a healer/scholar named Wang, or as we asked for him "Wang Lau sien tze". I would be careful about which deities you can ask for help to teach and guide you.

But dont ask me about asking this deity in combat to help you, it does NOT work that way. I am not knowledgeable enough in the area of san-gong to give you whys and whats, where and whens, but I can tell you this much, my greatest stupidity was to close my mind on there being greater beings than us, how selfish it was, that just because I couldnt see it or make sense of it logically, that I would discount and ridicule it.

[ZIM]

I've heard of this type of thing- and so have most of you, if you include voodun practices\Loas in the mix.

I believe in it's potential, but not for combat. I'm not quite certain of the self-hypnosis angle, primarily because I'm quite familiar with hypnosis, and this is not it, IMHO.

I also remember reading an article awhile ago, regarding a White Ape style that did this- the [Vietnamese?] practitioner was in Hawaii..

[Cody]

I liked reading what you had to say.
I do believe in voluntary physical/spiritual possession. To me, it is a fact, but not as an emanation of the spirit of one who has passed. Maybe, under some circumstances it could happen, but I don't believe in this. It is my honest thought process.

Rather, I would seek other explanations for what is related to me, and for what I have experienced. I've thought there might be more than one possibility, including an altered state of consciousness which is completely of one person, where the consciousness somehow splits temporarily as the spirit/body/mind relationship shifts. So, I am thinking that the appearance of a possessed state can occur with or without external possession. Hence, more than one phenomenon.
It's my opinion that one's training and deepest held beliefs (or lack thereof), one's expectations, can come into play. And that possession might be other than what it seems.

It has come to my attention, via another spiritual Kung Fu thread, that someone with strong beliefs and affiliations might be offended at my opinions, but I can't let that detract me, though I felt badly about it. I have learned that I must be mindful of possible trouble rather than thinking that good intentions will cover me. My lesson for today, which I will need.

best,
Cody

[MightyB]

The Boxer Rebellion... So they (the boxers) believed in calling on the spirits and practicing chi gung, that they would make their bodies immune to the effects of knives and bullets and therefore invincible in battle. They were wrong. Oh were they wrong.

Here's a little story from a witness to the boxer rebellion. It's a warm and fuzzy story for you heathens that think Christians are evil. Witnessing the madness.

This is the long term effect of the boxer rebellion: Scroll down to the Reform section.

So much for Spiritual Kung Fu.

[apoweyn]

prana,

Originally posted by prana
I have experienced it, and had complete control over it, although being a skeptic & non-believer prior to that, I was so afraid, I had turned completely cold and did not know how to control what was in me. But when asked to give thanks for his teachings, he immediately withdrew.

so... you had complete control over it. but you did not know how to control it? and it withdrew on its own, when asked to give thanks?

When asked to explain back then, it's as if a giant storm was controlling my limbs and body, and I would move around, and when I tired to resist it, I just shook uncontrollably. Kinda reminds me of those those Qi-Gong practitioners who are about to raise their qi into their heads, they tremble and sweat...

so... it was like a giant storm was controlling it? not you? or are you the giant storm? and then when you were resisting this thing over which you had complete control, you shook uncontrollably?

If asked now, after practising much more Buddhism, to explain what it is, my closest explanation is of a timeless thought (which arises as wind) which helps clear and clean meridian blockages in the body, to allow for greater spiritual practise.

The deity was a healer/scholar named Wang, or as we asked for him "Wang Lau sien tze". I would be careful about which deities you can ask for help to teach and guide you.

so... what did this healer scholar teach you?

But dont ask me about asking this deity in combat to help you, it does NOT work that way. I am not knowledgeable enough in the area of san-gong to give you whys and whats, where and whens, but I can tell you this much, my greatest stupidity was to close my mind on there being greater beings than us, how selfish it was, that just because I couldnt see it or make sense of it logically, that I would discount and ridicule it.

i agree that being closed minded is a fault. but being open minded doesn't necessarily involve buying the whole shooting match either. personally, i'm not going to make that leap straight from nonbeliever to devout avatar of wang lau sien tze. i think there's probably some stuff worth analyzing somewhere in between.


stuart b.

[ZIM]

Prana, is this similar to shaktipat? If you're not familiar, try here. [admittedly, not the best site] You can PM if you like.

Cody- this strikes me as a separate and serious undertaking from KF. FWIW, the sense I get is that you're asking in a spirit of speculation &/or possibly self-aggrandisement and maybe that is what upsets ppl. I'm not judging you, just looking at the responses.

[Former castleva]

It seems MightyB stole my very point,a good point being done anyways...
Yes,our human brains can do amazing things if made to do so,power of self-stimulation cannot be denied.
As a person close to did well say "A man can see anything he wants to see".This does not necessarily make it true though,since they are rather subjective experiences,personal psychophysics for you.
I strongly believe that a great amount of educated Chinese (as an example) of present days do not bother thinking about such things (which does not translate to culture being gone but modern influence having arrived and developments being made+beliefs of the old/superstition etc. were living "underground"-considerable parts of them like national religions still having influence)
It is not necessary to deny physiological&psychophysiological influences that such artificial "hype" may have on one (being highly scientifically proven.If I was christian,I could say that the spirit entering one´s body is satan...which sums this up so far)
Be careful when it comes to what you trust in this world,analyze and take a step.
Just my few cents.

[Xebsball]

I must say i dunno nothing on the subject.

But prana is the man!!

[jmd161]

Originally posted by Chang Style Novice
Well, with this topic, I'm ready to call troll on JMD.

If you're not a troll and deliberately trying to make CMAist look like idiots, that's even worse.

I'm not either ,but you are entitled to your thoughts.

If trying to have a discussion over something that does exist in kung fu is deliberately trying to make CMAist look like idiots?

Then i must be an idiot myself? Because i believe my sifu and sihing when they speak to me on this subject. I trust my sifu like i trust my father.Infact i think on a personal level he and i are even closer than my father and i !So think what you want i'm not interested in being a troll!

My interest lies in kung fu. Hak Fu Moon to be exact!

jeff

[MightyB]

The human soul weighs one 3,000th of an ounce, according to researchers at the Technical University of Berlin. They weighed 200 terminally ill patients just before and immediately after they died, finding a one-3,000th-ounce weight-loss in each case. In a letter to German science journal Horizon, Dr Becker Mertens said his team had taken into account other possible explanations of weight loss (such as air leaving the lungs), but that ‘the inescapable conclusion is that we have now confirmed the existence of the human soul’. The challenge now was to ‘figure out exactly what the soul was composed of’. Any takers?


http://www.newint.org/issue248/update.htm

[Former castleva]

MightyB,
Such studies were made some time ago (considerable perhaps...) in order to view what happens when the soul leaves the body.
There was loss of weight (if little) which was considered to have to do with changes in one´s system,which you mentioned to a degree.
Later those studies were stopped because of ethical and possibly related problems.

[apoweyn]

sifuabel,

as a past teacher of jmd's, i'm interested to hear your take on this subject. what do you make of it?


stuart b.

[MonkeySlap Too]

I knew a Bak Mei teacher who prayed to Kwan Gung to possess him in battle.

I know a silat group that seeks out animal 'totems'.

Frankly, I just do not beleive in this sort of thing as being anything natural. (Nothing is supernatural, if it really exists.)

There are three positions to start from here.

1.) There is no objective evidence that such things exist. There is a wealth of evidence to show that people do dumb things when they beleive it. Therefore it is just superstition.

2.) It may be superstition, but since the mind operates on visualization - it produces a mind-body effect that is not fully understood, and as such was ascribed 'supernatural' status.

3.) It's real. And depending on your spiritual beleifs, it is either a good thing, or a dangerous thing, it's not up to you, and you can't possibly know the truth, but if can't figure it out, your f@cked.

I've encountered a few interesting phenomena in QiGong training, but it hasn't been put under the test, so the jury is out. Generally speaking, don't buy into testimonials rather than direct experience, or else you end up beleiving stuff like this: www.oomyungdoe.com

Don't say I didn't warn you. Besides didn't the Buddha say "Miraculous powers are no sign of enlightenment." or some such thing like that.

[MightyB]

If life represents an escape from chemistry, we cannot appeal to chemistry to explain life. But where else might an explanation lie? Life is ultimately about complex information processing, so it makes sense to seek a solution in the realm of information theory and complexity theory. Since biological information is not encoded in the laws of physics and chemistry (at least as currently known), where does it come from? There seems to be agreement that information cannot come into existence spontaneously (except perhaps in the big bang), so the information content of living systems must somehow originate in their environment. Although there is no known law of physics able to create information from nothing, there might be some sort of principle that could explain how information can be garnered from the environment and accumulated in macromolecules.

Stuff to make your head hurt.

[MightyB]

The trouble is that the only experience we have of replicating molecules is of those used by life. It is extremely unlikely that DNA would form by chance. Even its simpler cousin, RNA, is hard to make in long enough strands to be biologically potent. And shorter nucleic acid molecules tend to make more errors when replicating. If the error rate gets too high, information leaks away faster than selection can inject it, and evolution grinds to a halt. Far from accumulating information, an error-prone molecule will shed it.