BS: Out of body experiences

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Ed T
Date: 12 Aug 10 - 06:44 AM

The Mystery Behind Spontaneous Human Combustion:

Spontaneous Human Combustion

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: freda underhill
Date: 12 Aug 10 - 06:13 AM

There is an interesting book by Craig Mitchell, an Australian ambulance officer. As an ambulance officer he worked to resuscitate people, and over the years he gathered stories from many survivors, some of who had "near death experiences". His book tells many of the first hand accounts of those people who died, were resuscitated, and had an account of an other world experience. It's out of print now but sometimes comes up on ebay etc.

NEAR DEATH STORIES FROM THE OTHER SIDE published by Mandarin 1996

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Bill D
Date: 11 Aug 10 - 10:28 PM

But Amos... I am not TRYING to prove anything--especially about oranges. I don't assert that oranges are imaginary... I am calling into question others assertions about oranges..(or some other fruit that only a few seem to have tasted. They tell me I just have to squint hard and 'allow' orangeness to permeate my thick skull, and I will grok the taste. (to coin my own metaphor)

In the meantime, I will have apple pie.

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Amos
Date: 11 Aug 10 - 10:14 PM

The ironic thing, to coin a metaphor, is that you keep using oranges to prove that there is nothing but apples!! You marshall up your thoughts and your pictures and line them up with your intentions and communicate them with great intent to prove beyond a doubt that none of those oranges exist, but are just funny-looking apples in disguise.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Bill D
Date: 11 Aug 10 - 09:56 PM

I seem to have missed updates on this until today.

Yes...I would have problems with Moody's methods.
"Moody has also researched past life regression...".... gee, I wonder how that is done. You get hypnotized? You read a bunch of stories of 'confident' people? You keep records of your dreams?

As to a degree in Philosophy, I have met a couple who amazed me at how little they learned while they were fulfilling the conditions for degrees. There is 'bring able to memorize stuff and parrot stuff their committees will like'...then there is 'absorbing the basic principles of rational thinking and gaining a perspective of how human beings have developed thru history...etc.
I'll bet I WOULD like the Galileo book...right now I'm trying to get thru Paul Ehrlich's last book on 'everything relevant to evolution'

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Amos
Date: 11 Aug 10 - 12:38 PM

"This all leads me to wonder if a perduring consciousness gets to do more than just look down and listen. Will my enduring ghost be a mute witness to the goings-on down here, waving its vapory arms frantically at the undead? Or will it be an agent, endowed with the capacity to act? Put differently, if someone chooses to immortalize me in lyric, will I get to sing along?

Extremely odd queries of this sort kept leaping to mind as I perused four recently released books about the afterlife. Two examine what science has to say about the possibility that we persevere even after our bodies have ceased to function. One amasses perceptions of heaven and hell across cultural time and space. The other makes the philosophical case that "a good person quite literally survives death." "

From You're Dead. Now What? in the CHronicle of Higher Education.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: katlaughing
Date: 01 Aug 10 - 11:55 PM

Though I can see by this at Wiki his methods would not satisfy BillD, nor Galileo.:-) Which, I might say, I totally understand. Maybe we each of us get just what we believe in and that is all there is to it...some go on to "life after life" and some do not.

Ebbie, I think you would really like Fannie Flagg's book, "Can't Wait to Get to Heaven." I sent a copy ot a mutual Mudcat friend and she read it in a day. It's good!

Bill, I think you would like the Galileo book.

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: katlaughing
Date: 01 Aug 10 - 11:49 PM

He also has a medical degree.

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Ebbie
Date: 01 Aug 10 - 11:04 PM

Bill, I too have been reminded of you the last couple of days.

I'm on a mission to read/re-read all of the books that Raymond A. Moody wrote. Did you know that he had a Ph.D in Philosophy?

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Amos
Date: 01 Aug 10 - 11:03 PM

Gnu:

The hypothesis I was describing is loosely worded to try and underscore the difference between material energy and mass "things", and something that exists but has no inherent time-space-matter substance, in the same way that thoughts come into and go out of existence with out generating mass relative to their apparent dimensions. I do realize, of course, that this is "far out"--I really just mentioned it to get Bill's goat, since he is so hard over on using the time space continuum as his only proving ground.



A

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Bill D
Date: 01 Aug 10 - 10:31 PM

I really like Galileo for his attempt to sort out 'fact' from suppositions taken for granted....especially as he had to stand in the face of centuries of 'taken for granted' stuff which also had backing by authority.

He was sort of lucky in that his major concerns could be tested and verified.

*wry grin*

(I might read that sometime)

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: katlaughing
Date: 01 Aug 10 - 09:15 PM

Ya know, BillD, I am reading a book right now which brings you and all of the rest of us, and our endless debates, to mind on almost every page. It is called Galileo's Daughter and is based on letters written to him by his eldest daughter, Sister Maria Celeste. Not all of the letters are included, but the ones which are, are interspersed among chapters regarding what he was doing at the time, most of which, of course, is figuring out how to expound and make public his scientific findings without pissing off the Church. It's really good...by Dava Sobel.

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Bill D
Date: 01 Aug 10 - 05:15 PM

sheesh, Ms. Kat... an explanation based on spelling?? *grin*

(I don't usually appreciate those longer UK spelling forms, but 'aether' avoids the problem of confusing it with 'ether', which puts me to sleep.)

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: katlaughing
Date: 01 Aug 10 - 05:03 PM

Sheesh, BillD...you were complaining noting no one had answered you, so...I offered a possible explanation. *Bg*

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Bill D
Date: 01 Aug 10 - 04:41 PM

"... somebody had to get after BillDarlin'!"

Ummm... what a special position to have. *I* always thought 'somebody had to get after vacuous assertions!'...but what do I know? Oh....I remember what I know! I know that it's real easy to jump from 'naming something' to 'assuming it's real'. ☺

"SOme investigators postulate that.."
Oh, they sure do! Kinda of a long list throughout history. Some items seem to have been crossed out as we learned just what was being postulated, thank goodness.

Who.. me? Cynical & stubborn? naaawwwwww.....

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: gnu
Date: 01 Aug 10 - 03:26 PM

Amos... "a Nothingness that has the ability to perceive and the ability to postulate realities and intent..."

Nothing cannot have an ability. Unless... BOBERT!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Amos
Date: 01 Aug 10 - 03:14 PM

SOme investigators postulate that the stuff of life is a true Zero as far as normal space-time qualities go, a Nothingness that has the ability to perceive and the ability to postulate realities and intent. I rather like this notion, partly because it opens up a whole zoo of possibilities as to the scope and capabilities of such a potential.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: gnu
Date: 01 Aug 10 - 03:02 PM

Rather vacuous I should assume.

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Amos
Date: 01 Aug 10 - 02:54 PM

I wonder, given the definition, where he found a second one? Maybe he had an out of aether experience?


A

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: katlaughing
Date: 01 Aug 10 - 02:13 PM

Sure, but somebody had to get after BillDarlin'!**bg**

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: gnu
Date: 01 Aug 10 - 01:57 PM

That's what I said.

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Amos
Date: 01 Aug 10 - 12:18 PM

personification of the sky or upper air breathed by the Olympians; son of Erebus and night or of Chaos and darkness

ether: a medium that was once supposed to fill all space and to support the propagation of electromagnetic waves
wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

According to ancient and medieval science, aether (Greek αἰθήρ aithēr), also spelled ¾ther or ether, is the material that fills the region of the Universe above the terrestrial sphere.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aether_(classical_element)

Aether (also ®there, Αἰθήρ), in Greek mythology, is one of the Protogenoi, the first-born elemental gods. He is the personification of the upper sky, space, and heaven, and is the elemental god of the "Bright, Glowing, Upper Air. ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aether_(mythology)

It is pretty clear that both spellings are acceptable.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: gnu
Date: 01 Aug 10 - 06:30 AM

Ether or.

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 01 Aug 10 - 05:20 AM

"UK spellers, exclusively..."aethers" indeed!"

How do you spell aether, the same as the chemical 'ether'?

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: katlaughing
Date: 31 Jul 10 - 07:14 PM

That, or you were just trying to reach UK spellers, exclusively..."aethers" indeed!

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Bill D
Date: 31 Jul 10 - 06:57 PM

.... hmmm... you didn't answer.














I know, I know...I just don't listen properly. ;>)

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Ebbie
Date: 31 Jul 10 - 06:48 PM

I heard you, Bill. :)

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Bill D
Date: 31 Jul 10 - 05:49 PM

"Lanza's article and book on "biocentrism" have received a mixed reception."

Now there's the understatement of the century.

Bill D...back from several days of exile due to those silly laws of physics which my cable company mis-applied after the storms. I tried to contact you all thru the aether.... but.....

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: gnu
Date: 31 Jul 10 - 03:14 PM

Ebbie... I read that as "explode further", which is my experience. Hehehehee. >;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: katlaughing
Date: 31 Jul 10 - 02:58 PM

Thanks for the link, Amos. Nice to see some *awakening*:-)

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Amos
Date: 31 Jul 10 - 01:01 PM

Biocentrism--Robert Lanza's effort to re-assess science in a frame defined by consciousness-- is making waves in some quarters.

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Ebbie
Date: 28 Jul 10 - 04:34 PM

Ha, I say, gnu.

Thinking back, do you agree that when a man says, I don't know, it tends to be in a flat tone that bespeaks end of conversation? A woman, on the other hand, at that point is ready to explore further.

So there.

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: frogprince
Date: 28 Jul 10 - 04:33 PM

"I'm a man, but I can change, if I have to, I guess".

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: gnu
Date: 28 Jul 10 - 04:30 PM

Ebbie... "But as Red Green demonstrates, there are three words that are very difficult for any man to utter: "I don't know" *g*"

It's true... because women don't seem to accept that answer. Any woman I have ever know either goes apeshit or goes silent and frowns when I say that. Perhaps it is because men actually answer questions honestly?

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Amos
Date: 28 Jul 10 - 02:39 PM

"...because it is more interesting...."

Oh, indeed, sir. Of course, one has to ask what "interest" is. A kind of attention that is curious about some reality or other, I guess.   But...well, whose attention is it? There is a wide range of phenomenology being ignored by the assertion that attention is just some neuron sub-circuit talking to some other sub-circuit in a self-reinforecing loop. Such an explanation only becomes viable when you eliminate the source of the attention. In doing that, because of a strongly-felt need for agreement or empirical validity, you walk away from the real issue most adroitly.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 28 Jul 10 - 02:18 PM

Thanks for the heads up on "Absence of Mind" by Marilynne Robinson, Amos. That looks a worthwhile read. I too am sick of good scientists making headlines by being being crumby philosphers. I read the inside flap of Dawkins God Delusion, and didn't bother going any further.. What a mush.

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Bill D
Date: 27 Jul 10 - 05:41 PM

*pointedly ignoring the cute responses*

(and we had another 4 hours of no TV or cable after I posted)

" I meant to be pointing out that we all daily utilize the non-corporeal."

"my belief that we should all incorporate intangibles - the non-physical - into any equation."

Well... I think I understand the sense/feeling you are trying to convey, Ebbie.... but the question remains as to whether non-corporeal 'things' really exist in any sense other than as those funny neuro-chemical synapses I blather about. Do they? I, also, "don't know". *G*

and Amos.. if you can tell me, or refer me to the appropriate Zen master who can guide me "to notice only the beingness generating the pictures," so that I can KNOW I have 'suceeded', then I'd love some of that "instant dharma"! When groups of Zen masters and their pupils attend 'Dharma conventions' and report to each other that they did attain such.... how can any of them be sure that....ummm...well... you see why I am such a recalcitrant sort?

All we DO is 'have experiences', whether by drugs, dreams, fasting, 'thinking real hard'...or thru some mystical or ^metaphysical means. Then we report those experiences in text or spoken words ...and compare notes.

I have had dreams which puzzled me.... did I partake in some of that dharma stuff? *shrug* I dunno....all I can say is that I know some folks can slap electrodes on my head and get funny readings when I think in certain ways....and I have no particular reason to assume that 'satori' is anything else.

I stand by my opinion that it is **probable** that some folks just choose the more metaphysical explanation because it is more interesting.

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: frogprince
Date: 27 Jul 10 - 04:03 PM

I enjoy a good in-body experience once in a while,

if it's the right body.

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: bobad
Date: 27 Jul 10 - 01:54 PM

I had an out of body experience this morning, then flushed it down the toilet.

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Ebbie
Date: 27 Jul 10 - 01:45 PM

Thanks, Bill. Actually, I asked you those questions as a kind of a poke in the ribs, in response to your statement that you can't accept that any part of your corporeal body has an empowered non-corporeal function (paraphrased) . I meant to be pointing out that we all daily utilize the non-corporeal.

(Incidentally, why do we say corporeal body? Is there another kind that belongs to us? :)

The reason I am impressed by David Eagleman's approach is that it points to my belief that we should all incorporate intangibles - the non-physical - into any equation. But as Red Green demonstrates, there are three words that are very difficult for any man to utter:















"I don't know" *g*

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Amos
Date: 27 Jul 10 - 12:21 PM

Suppose, Bill, I told you I had seen a strawman. What picture would youo generate? Suppose further, I told you the strawman was perfectly circular? Would that change the picture? If I added that the strawman believed itself to be impenetrable?

Inducing beings to make pictures is no big feat--it's one of their most common addictions. You can do it with words in the best Skinnerian S_R method, or you can do it with thoughts alone, if somewhat less reliably.

But if you were to seek--as the Zen master often prescribes--to notice only the beingness generating the pictures, and none of the pictures themselves, and if you were to succeed, then mirabile dictu, satori would be yours. Instant dharma, maan!!

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Bill D
Date: 27 Jul 10 - 11:30 AM

here it is, Ebbie: (and after reading Eagleman, you should assume that in all of this lengthy screed, I had similar thoughts in my head)



goodness! That was Sept.8 of 2 years ago.
(and all this was typed Sunday night. Then, when I tried to post it, I found my cable was off due to, I guess, the storms we had earlier. I tried up till 11PM, but technology was not working)
I'll confess (or brag *grin*) that when a thread like this is refreshed, I usually re-read the whole thing before I look at the latest posts. I just spent most of 2 hours doing that. I really like to have the sense of it all before I comment.



Ebbie, your question is aimed at my very first comment, which is a bit unusual. I would have thought that 20-30 other posts mostly explained my position...but....briefly: Sure...I admit that I can *visualize* something that is not physically in front of me. I can, right now, 'see' you...or Amos in "my mind's eye"... that is what memory is about. I'd be a sad fellow without that ability. Memory enables us to 'proceed' from day to day and enlarge on what we did on previous days.
   But your question is pointed at the notion of the difference...or non-difference of 'reality' when referring to 'intangible' **things** (to use the most neutral term I can manage right now).
It's really pretty simple what I think about the issue, although as always, I can't both express AND explain--with relevant disclaimers & qualifications-- the differences in any short, pithy aphorism worthy of a wall plaque.

If I 'see' a cow (in a situation where I could touch or photograph the cow), that is a common 'experience' most of us share....even though no 2 cows are exactly the same. We extrapolate enough data and common concepts (done thru what is called "ostensive definition") that we don't have to question each other about 'cowness' (usually).
Now... next day, I tell you I saw a cow. In that first moment, MY 'image' of a cow and yours may be quite different, as YOU may have had experience with Gurnseys, while I saw a Holstein. But, if we discuss it, and I add descriptions of size, color..etc, your 'image' may change as you revise it with MY data and description, until you might possibly be able to go the field and find the very cow *I* saw...even among slightly similar cows.
Now...in all those words we exchanged, what is 'real'? Isn't it just memories of 'cow features' and colors and spatial sizes that we compare? Are those memories 'real'? Well, sure...but neither of us would claim (I hope) that we "had a cow in our head". We share words which we both agree on that relate to certain features of 'cowness'. (If I told you about a cow in Swahili, or Urdu...or American Sign Language, would we still share the same images?)

So...all those words to say that we are able to um.... 'form a picture' in our minds/heads/brains...whatever... to discuss cows. Pretty easy...not much to argue over so far.
Now, suppose I tell you I saw a 'stippleplunger' ...what is in your head? Do you see anything? Perhaps a toilet plunger that has been stippled? Maybe I tell you it is a part for an obsolete machine that very few have ever seen. (It's not...but maybe fuzzy beginnings of images swirl in your head.) Now, I can begin describing one, using exact measurements, colors, weight,....and even telling you what it did. You have the same type of data we used to discuss cows....and you can 'see' that stippleplunger well enough that I could send you to a room to fetch it for me. And you be rightfully angry if you couldn't find it and I finally admitted I made up the name, the description and sent you on a wild goose chase (or cow chase).

So..what was the status of that image in your mind/head/brain while you DID assume I was not lying? Was it 'real'? Doesn't it all depend on what each of us subjectively defines as 'real'? There WAS a real cow, but there was NO real stippleplunger....but we both share a language that we can use to 'sort' the images/memories in our mind/head/brain and re-assemble them to visualize cows..and even 'things that never were'. It's possible I could keep you deceived for years...or forever... about stippleplungers. Does the image I 'transmitted' to you have the status of 'reality'? What answer is there but, "yeah...sort of a reality" but *I*, of course, mean 'there are neurons in your brain that you have now shuffled and cataloged into patterns to allow you to recognize 'stippleplungers', even though there is no referent except in language.
You could even go explain it to others...and maybe get some to rearrange some of THEIR neurons, resulting in a search much like...oh, looking for flying saucers! Or unicorns.....or angels....or whatever.

So is the intangible "as real" as the physical? You see how many concepts are buried in the phrase "as real"...and the question about the phrase? Before we even begin talking we have slightly different concepts/notions/ideas of what "real" means and what the "as" might mean in the sentence! Then we are probably gonna have to debate the exact use of "intangible" and "physical". (as...does memory OF a cow residing in neuro-chemical synapses have 'as much' "reality" as a cow?

There are, simply, assumptions we usually make when transmitting information to each other, and we do NOT always mean the same thing about what seems to be a simple question. In the case of regular ol' cows,it's not usually a problem.... but them dreams and ghosts and OOB's and angels and stippleplungers are quite another matter.

The short form of my answer? "Sure... intangibles are real in so far as they are part of those hard-to-examine neuro-chemical reactions in the brain..that I can access in my own way"
I doubt that is very satisfactory to you (*and a few others here*), as you just LIKE the idea of attributing 'real' reality (if that makes sense) to concepts which you are emotionally committed. You are not alone...probably more people agree with you than with me...(possibly because it is SO durned much work to sort out all the implications of viewing it my way...*grin*. It's a lot easier to just use the common phrase "well, it's real TO ME!")

(I am suddenly remembering that phrase used so often in college courses, "But, I don't have TIME to write a short paper!")

As Bill Clinton said, "It all depends on what you mean by 'is'."

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Bill D
Date: 27 Jul 10 - 11:17 AM

Ah, very entertaining indeed....and I rather agree with Eagleman as he explains his determination to remain open to all 'possibilities'. I don't struggle with it in the same way he seems to, but I do appreciate that, given his education and daily concerns, it IS a serious issue trying to frame answers to certain questions. It is WORK remaining that honest.


Now... I will go to the other computer where I sat Sunday evening trying to answer Ebbie's direct question to me several posts above. When I tried to send it, I found my cable ISP was down due to the storms which hit our county. It was about 34 hours before they were back up this morning at 6:40 AM. I did have sense enough to save my long post before I shut down in frustration....

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Ebbie
Date: 27 Jul 10 - 11:08 AM

Eagleman is the kind of scientist I love.

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Amos
Date: 27 Jul 10 - 10:51 AM

A scientist in brain research contemplates possibilities--a very entertaining article on the Ancient Argument.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: GUEST,I remember
Date: 26 Jul 10 - 08:30 AM

this topic has come up before..

shycat's out of body experience

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: GUEST,Patsy Warren
Date: 26 Jul 10 - 05:25 AM

I believe I did have an OBE when my son was born. It was a difficult labour which ended in an emergency C. Section because the contactions were dying away and baby distressed. When I did go under I saw what I though was me looking down on my body with all the doctors and nurses stood around me. I could even see the clock on the wall. I was taken to a recovery room separate from everyone else in case me or my baby didn't make it and my son was taken to the special care unit. Perhaps it was because of the the drugs I was given made it appear like that but it did seem so real and I remember every detail.

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Ebbie
Date: 25 Jul 10 - 05:20 PM

"...NO reason to believe that any non-corporeal part of me can leave the corporeal parts of me.)" Bill D, September 8

Bill, can you expound on that belief a bit? Are you saying that you cannot *visualize* something that is not in front of you physically? Or that your sense of *memory* doesn't function? Or that you are unable to 'see' what the finished bowl should like when you have a burl in your hands?

See, I don't understand the process but I am of the mind (no pun intended) that the intangible is as real as the physical.

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Amos
Date: 25 Jul 10 - 01:48 PM

Is ordinary consciousness just an illusion? Marilynne Robinson takes aim at reductionist Òparascience.Ó

By DAVID B HART
Friday, July 9, 2010

An interesting book review on an interesting new site called Big Questions Online discusses the book called "Absence of Mind" by Marilynne Robinson based on her 2009 Lecture series.

The full article is here. An excerpt:

"The chief purpose of Absence of Mind Ñ the published version of Marilynne RobinsonÕs splendid Terry Lectures, delivered at Yale in 2009 Ñ is to raise a protest against all those modern, reductively materialist accounts of human consciousness that systematically exclude the testimony of subjectivity, of inner experience, from their understanding of the sources and impulses of the mind. Its targets are all the major schools of reductionism (Freudianism, Marxism, Darwinism), but also all the currently popular champions of the reductionist cause (Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Steven Pinker, E.O. Wilson, and so on). It is, in simple terms, a robust defense of the dignity and irreducible mystery of human conscience, personal identity, and self-awareness; and, as such, it is a stirring success.
If, though, I had to come up with some complaint to make against the book, I suppose I could fret for a few moments that its rhetorical power might possibly distract many readers from the cogency of its arguments. Ours is the age of ÒbulletÓ headings, after all, and expository prose is expected to come in bland, easily digestible fragments, composed entirely of short, often repetitious declamatory sentences. There is some danger, consequently, that RobinsonÕs literary grace Ñ the expressive force of her language, the dense economy of her sentences, the fluidity with which she moves from point to point Ñ will be mistaken by some as willful obscurity, or resented as a cruel tax upon their patience.

It would, however, be a dark day for civilization if writers of RobinsonÕs gifts could be swayed by complaints of that sort. In point of fact, much of the joy of reading Robinson comes from her ability to translate complex ideas into words suited to their subtleties. Beginning with her remarkable debut novel Housekeeping (1980), all of her work, fiction and essays alike, has been marked by a luminous intelligence and a rather attractive intellectual severity, communicated in a language that wastes no words and that demands attentiveness. Absence of Mind is a short book, but also an intensely reflective and penetrating one, and it offers considerable rewards for anyone willing to read it carefully, and to think along with it. For all its brevity, it makes its case with surprising comprehensiveness."

A.

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Donuel
Date: 24 Oct 08 - 03:17 PM

I try to get out of my body when I have a migraine.

Standing up most of the night helps almost as much as a very hot shower.