Olavi,

You're not alone.

Many others feel the same way you do that spontaneous
events should carry more weight than controlled
settings within a carefully constructed model.

My difficulty with placing spontaneous psi events
above experiments is that they are often not
documented soon or well enough. That being said,
there are many cases that lead us to cautious
conclusions about the nature of psi, such as
out-of-body experiences, near-death experiences, etc.
Both of these phenomena are derived from spontaneous
psi experiences.

As listed in James Beichler's article, "To Be or Not
to Be" (http://www.scientificexploration.org/
jse/articles/pdf/15.1_beichler.pdf) there are over 100
theories of psi in existance. Any theory that has
weight has to have examples it can point to in order
to demonstrate that it is not imagination, speculation
or wishful thinking. Were we not to rely on the
evidence, we would be just as guilty as the fools that
pronounce such a thing to be so without cautious,
careful testing or the debunkers that deny psi's
growing evidence in the face of it.

There is a careful balance that we can walk, I think.


For me, I was once a very gullible proponent of a
specific religion. When I developed critical thinking
skills, I quit, becoming an ardent, but honest,
skeptic. The debunker's dishonesty drove me to where
I've been for a number of years, only choosing to give
any time or attention to that which has been carefully
constructed and peer reviewed or at least
well-documented with other documented claims revealing
similar experiences.

I am not doubtful that psi exists at all. I am
cautious, though, at pronouncing that such a theory is
more accurate than others.

Hope this helps,

Mike Wilson



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