Posted by Roberta Grimes • June 21, 2016 • 12 Comments
Afterlife Research, Human Nature, Understanding Reality
GUEST POST: Victor and Wendy Zammit are the world’s leading afterlife
experts. For decades they have fearlessly battled all who would deny humankind these truths, and they even have posted a million-dollar challenge for anyone who can prove that the afterlife evidence in their wonderful book, A Lawyer Presents the Evidence for the Afterlife, is either misinterpreted or bogus. Their indispensable Friday Afterlife Report is available for free at victorzammit.com. This article by Victor will help you better understand why so many otherwise intelligent people, both scientists and religionists, are still so unable to accept what is by now incontrovertibly true. Having also long fought this battle against ignorance, I think what Victor has to say is brilliant!
AFTER DECADES of dealing with all kinds of paranormal skeptics, I can relate to you that there are at least nine reasons why closed-minded skeptics tend to remain stubborn about their skeptical beliefs – and why some of them unreasonably attack those who scientifically and empirically investigate evidence for the paranormal. The nine reasons below can apply to any person who inflexibly holds strictly subjective, personal beliefs, whether those beliefs are religious or secular.
My experience with closed-minded skeptics is that they do not investigate the evidence. They completely reject any information that is not consistent with their own cherished beliefs, even if that evidence is scientifically supported. And they lack the skills, competence, and objectivity to perceive new evidence in a scientific and balanced way. Here are some of the reasons why:
perception.” It is known that, by and large, the environment you were born in will shape how you will see the world. If a Western skeptic from New York had instead been born in India, more likely than not the skeptic would be a Hindu. If he were born to a radical, extremist Islamic family, the skeptic would be a Moslem. If born to an orthodox Jewish family, the skeptic would be an orthodox Jew. And in secular Western countries, many people today grow up with an atheistic bias. One needs to have skills and considerable resolve to rise above such environmental conditioning and programming.
scientist who will reject the paranormal outright because he/she can get funding for taking that position. These scientists-come-skeptics will never listen to logic, to science, or to intelligent reasoning. They can’t move from their positions because they would lose money, power, status, and even their careers. Do you remember those negatively prejudiced scientists and medical doctors we once saw in glossy magazines in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world, and also on television, stating as scientists that smoking is good, and even is healthy for you? Or those scientists who once stated that certain pharmaceutical drugs were healthy, when subsequently it was shown that these drugs might have killed hundreds or even thousands of people – a drug like vioxx? To this day there are scientists in Germany who still insist that smoking is safe.
and unreasonable about the paranormal or the afterlife evidence could be suffering from a powerful negative hypnotic effect. Some years ago I sent clear, easily identifiable afterlife evidence in rebuttal to a couple of hard-line skeptics. Their reply was, “where is the evidence?” Yet non-aligned scientists easily identified the evidentiary value in the same evidence when it was sent to them. It is possible that skeptics at some time in their lives experienced a “parallel hypnotic directive” that there is no afterlife or paranormal evidence. This is exactly what happens when we see a hypnotist on stage telling a couple of our hypnotized friends that they will be eating an apple. But the hypnotist then gives them an onion to eat, not an apple, and the hypnotized subjects CANNOT IDENTIFY THE EVIDENCE and refuse to believe they each have eaten an onion! Even after they have been taken out of the hypnotic state, they still insist that “the apple was really delicious.” Hypnotic suggestion can be so powerful that it can be almost impossible for people to overcome it.
being spiritual (you will notice that I said “spiritual,” NOT “religious.”) An atheist could be “spiritual” (or highly ethical) when he/she does voluntary work for the benefit of others without a thought of making some kind of profit for him/herself. But there is a class of closed-minded skeptics who may be highly intelligent but are spiritually retarded, meaning that they have not reached a stage in life where they can perform secular spiritual work for the benefit of others in selfless service. Nor can these spiritually deficient folks objectively identify legitimate afterlife evidence.
Having read Victor’s wisdom, now I better understand how it is possible that in the twenty-first century we still get such nonsense as scientists attempting to preserve the minds of those we love inside computers so we’ll be able to talk with them after they die. The next time I hear from someone who is stuck in close-minded skepticism, I’m just going to send him Victor’s wonderful words!
http://qz.com/709969/2300-years-later-platos-theory-of-consciousness-is-being-backed-up-by-neuroscience/ love this i don’t know i have my own twitter to post research on stuff and i need a 3 party to help with some thing this is either saying that your mind makes your brains. or your brain makes your mind but wither way its the best theory and either way don’t know what it mean some people told me it mean mind makes brain but u tell me
Hello Brandon! Thank you for suggesting the article, but it is oddly incomplete in that it doesn’t address – and even seems to imply that it is impossible to address – what consciousness actually is, where it comes from, or what it is capable of doing. To agree with a minimal definition that is 2300 years old doesn’t really tell us much that’s new, but what I find useful about the article you cite is that it is telling us that the scientific understanding of consciousness is just now catching up to what was known 2300 years ago! And, yes, that seems about right.
It is impossible for any open-minded person who has examined the evidence to doubt that – as Max Planck said a century ago – consciousness is primary and it pre-exists matter. But, as Victor wonderfully says above, the mainstream scientific community is in large part so intellectually hobbled at this point that many scientists still waste entire careers in trying to upload from our brains what is not even in our brains at all in hopes of “preserving” us. This has gone quite a bit beyond ridiculous now, and perhaps even the greatest tragedy of all is – as Victor also tells us – that they are so far down this road at this point that they can’t find a way to abandon the lives and careers and decades of effort that they already have wasted :-(.
Hi Roberta ,I love what you are always up to and what you stand for ,listening to people like Victor and Wendy zammit and you of cause and the likes is always a pleasant moment,but I always wonder why is it so hard for some people to think for themselves particularly Christians ,I used to be one but i always felt I didn’t’t belong to it because if God had a religion I don’t think they would be so many ,and like u have said I have tried to put my self in the shoes of people from various religion so that I cannot condemn anyone with whatever they believe in because if I was born as a Hindu I would be following in their traits and so on,although the bible has been changed over time but at least there are some words that make sense,if you look at John 8:31-32 it talks about the truth will set you free if you know it and when in comparison to religion and what you guys talk about religion doesn’t set you free in fact it gives you fear and makes you feel inferior,and what you guys talk about sets someone free you feel how important and loved you are ,Christians just want to perfect their ignorance and God knows I have nothing against them…..
Dear Benson, insofar as we have been able to determine, there is no religion that is of God. All religions are man-made, and they are therefore subject to every human failing. Often, the figures around whom religions are built do come from God, and that is certainly the case with Jesus: we are told now that Jesus was actually God on earth, and the dead abundantly confirm that His teachings are genuine. It is therefore indeed a pity, as you say, that no Christian denomination takes those teachings as seriously as Jesus means them to be taken!
Hi Roberta; I run into these people often in my work, mostly about believing the government’s story of 911. No matter how much evidence I show them nothing changes. Your article has given me great understanding of why this is. I have decided awhile back, just to let them be. Their mind is made up, why confuse them with facts. My life has become easier, since I just let them be, since their minds are closed, but now I may have them read this.
Hello Gary! As you can see, the syndromes that Victor describes work in every area of human inquiry. It simply is human nature to find ways to be oblivious to whatever is our own version of the truth, is it not?
Logic and thinking cannot give us ultimate answers about beingness and the nature of being. Thinking is a wonderful thing and a beautiful tool used in creation and the enjoyment thereof. Thinking is what beings do, but it most certainly is not what or who we are. It is only in silent hyper awareness that we realize (reality of isness) do we find our self and our source. Knowledge and its usage is a wonderful game we play within the created universe, however we can never find ourselves with knowledge. As a Zen poet once wrote, searching for God (or an explanation for what and/or who we are) is like riding on an Ox searching for an Ox. Being is not something to be explained or discovered. It is a state beyond time and space to experience or become aware of. For the skeptic the very thing that is cherished, logic, thinking, and knowledge is exactly what is keeping them in the darkness of ignorance.
Wonderfully said, dear Michael! And “riding on an Ox searching for an Ox” is a wonderful analogy. I tell people that the reason it is so hard for some to find God is that they are looking outside themselves, when, as Jesus says, “The Kingdom of God is within you.” Or trying to become aware of God is like a fish trying to become aware of water: in reality, God is our whole environment so we cannot even imagine NOT-God.
Yes, Victor Zammit does an excellent job of pointing out the areas that are holding the closed minded skeptics back.
As you know, Roberta, that Max Planck seemed to indicate that in a generation or two a new paradigm would emerge as the older scientists died off. We’ve both lamented that it somehow hasn’t happened. I think why relates to the “Money, Power, Status…and a Job” section Victor delineates. From my reading around the Internet, I’m convinced that powerful political and financial forces are holding the materialistic paradigm in place and science is not naturally unfolding. If it were, Dr. Planck would have been right about the new paradigm emerging by now.
Another factor that gives fuel to dogmatic skeptics are the number of fake psychics and mediums that still operate. Unfortunately, another fake has recently been exposed. It’s a Gary Mannion, a physical medium from the U. K. Someone apparently took some surreptitious infrared video of one of his seances and unmasked him as an outright fraud. Here’s the link:
http://www.garyfiles.co.uk/
I’ve never heard of this guy, have you? Perhaps Victor is following these comments and knows of this faker and will chime in with his thoughts.
We’ve got to expose these cheats as they only add to the skeptics arsenal to attack the truths of the whole afterlife field.
Hello Michael! Well said – I’m sure you’re right on both counts. Where backward thinking is so rigorously enforced, you know for sure that the reason has got to be money! And I don’t know Gary Mannion but I do know of him, and I’ve learned from the Zammits about his having been caught cheating. They’re upset about it, of course, since there are so few physical mediums that one cheat can taint the entire field.
I am ever more confident that the only thing that will break through the scientific stonewalling will be for so many laypeople to know these truths that the closed-minded scientific community is exposed as the ridiculous Luddites that they are. Establishing good electronic communication that everyone can use without a medium is going to make a tremendous difference! As will the Internet. I spend a good part of most days now answering questions from people all over the world, and today they included folks not just in English-speaking countries but also in Norway, Russia, and India. I know that others working in this field – including especially the Zammits – are these days having the same experience. Scientists will be the last to begin to learn the truth, and they will be dragged to it kicking and screaming, but they will in truth have to face it soon!
Yes, I wish the veil would lift, for a lot of people. I think it is more, and more.
Everyone needs the comfort, and reassurance, that there is a beautiful dimension, we flow to, when we pass.
I have always felt that butterflies, flowers, etc.. are just mild, watered down glimpses, of the magnificents, of the next, or continuing realm.
We are connected, but our frame of reference, for this reality, denies the unknown, naturally. Dream states lets the connection in–bypasses out intellect.
My love passed unexpextedly, and I had many premonitions, that were being conveyed to me—I didnt realize it at the time. they came in symbols, and scenes from movies I had seen—so they were conveyed by something apart from myself. I get it now, and I really dont like the way the Universe will have its way, when a death is supposed to happen. I couldnt stop this event from happening—I was blocked, in getting to my life love, to save him. So, I understand now, that birth and death are on their own schedule, and we are unaware of so much, that we are a part of. The dead know more of the truth than we do, and will have more enlightening phases to go through.
I feel subtle vibes of him around—but it is almost like they don’t want to overwhelm our senses,with it, because it might be too much. The gentle pressure on my blanket, when I sleep,or the push of the rocker when I am in it. Also, thoughts from him in my mind that came suddenly, and were undeniable. I heard him say, in my mind—“keep me with you”—I said, in my mind “how”, and he said “in your heart”. That happened to me, on a plane, where the sun was in the clouds, and I apparently was in a more, meditative state. So, we get these glimses and have to follow them, in our own way.
This is so beautiful, Jenny! Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us here. The transformation that is underway now is happening for so many of us in the way that it is happening for you: not by logic or evidence, but in each heart. Reality is not material, but rather it is entirely spiritual, and eventually the closed-minded materialists that Victor “gets” so well are going to be overwhelmed by the truth as it overtakes our culture. Always, always, the truth wins, doesn’t it? And meanwhile, the joy of growing in revelations of the sort that you so well describe is beginning to transform the world!