PsiPog.net

I'm still programming away at the new PsiPog. Let's go over the basic features of the new PsiPog, and then go into what it's potential is:

The new PsiPog is focused on sharing personal experience and ideas. It's focused on teaching people how to analyze their personal experiences better, and then teaches people how to teach. I want to encourage people to have healthy skepticism, research things scientifically and intelligently, analyze their personal experiences, and then communicate what's going on clearly to everyone else in the community. These ideals have driven the new design and creation of tools to help members make this happen.

The biggest change is that I'm allowing any member to publish their own articles. This might seem crazy at first... but only because you aren't in my shoes. The way PsiPog has worked over the past years is that all article submissions go through me. I read them, provide the author with one on one advice, and eventually they pound out an article that I think kicks ass... and I put it online. It's a great system, except for one thing: it takes a shit load of effort for me to coach every author on every article they want to post. I get a lot of submissions of pretty decent articles that have the potential to turn into really kick ass ones - but I don't want to take the time to coach every author one on one to teach them to write correctly and clairfy their thoughts. It's easy when you have a handful of authors... but when you start getting into a few dozen authors, it's impossible for me to do it.

I see a lot of great articles being submitted, but I don't have the time/patience to train the authors one on one. So I know that a lot of great authors are out there, but the bottleneck is on me. People read the articles, have great ideas, experience cool things, want to share - then they get to me, and I can't handle the demand. So no articles get posted. What a waste!

Now, once I give the power to publish in the hands of the member, that simplifies a lot on my end. Articles no longer bottleneck at me, and they flow freely to the website, and propogate throughout the community. That's good! (Of course, we need some controls in place so that fluffy information doesn't spread, but I'm confident we can nail that problem).

This new idea will need a lot of new code to be written to support it. So, while I'm recoding a lot of things, I can use this to take advantage of another faulty aspect of PsiPog: terrible data structures. To understand this, you'll have to understand some basic programming concepts. The main thing is that the way information is stored on the PsiPog server is very isolated and buggy. The new idea I have for storing the information is the opposite: integrated and clean. What does this mean? This means that once I have the article system up and running, it takes little effort to create a mailbox system. And little effort to create a psi journal system. And little effort to create a message board system. All of these core features were considered when creating the new data structures, so they all function together very smoothly and elegantly.

This also means that the search function will be USEFUL. In the new system, you can plug in something like "psi ball", and the search will quickly return all the articles, drafts, forum posts, Q&A, public journals, and your personal mail that contain that phrase. So if Jimmy Bob wrote in his journal about his first experience with psi balls two years ago, and chose to make his journal public, you can see his journal entry. And if Sammy Dudeman wrote an article on how to make a psi ball using his own custom technique two days ago, you can pull that up from the search as well.

Ok, so how does this help, and what can we do with this. The technology side will be a wonderful system that is capable of a lot of growth, and easy to use. The next step is to TAKE ADVANTAGE of it to make some real progress.

The next step is to motivate people to be intelligent and use the tools to share information. This comes from shifting our attention. The old PsiPog system had a lot of rules of what NOT to do. I've learned this is a bad way to get people on the same page as you. Instead, I need to communicate what is GOOD to do! What are the ideals? It's not about what we're avoiding - it's about where we're GOING. I could list a million rules of what NOT to do (and I've done so in the past). But the ideals of what to DO are actually a lot simplier.

Ideals like communicating clearly, being logical, being nice, being helpful, being honest, understanding people, having fun, being creative, exploring openly, researching, using credible sources of information, working together, and sharing what you know. If people will jump on board with me to support these ideals, then I know things will kick ass.

On top of this, what creative ways can we use this technology to do some fun things? Regular practices, regular online seminars, interviews with experienced people, online psi games, online PK Parties, online Flare Parties, lottery predictions, book reviews, explaining modern science in easy to understand ways, teaching CORRECT statistical analysis, sharing videos (especially with video.google.com technology), and who knows what else. The new backend will allow for anyone to have the ability to post information on whatever interests them. It will allow me to quickly publish articles of my own, and share my own experiments.

There is a lot of potential for it. And it's the technological aspect is being written right now. It's exciting :-).

~Sean

So I was thinking today...

Do I really believe in the atom? My first reaction was, "Of course I do, it's proven science". But then I thought about it a little longer. Intellectually, I understand the atom, and I know the scientific labels behind it - but do I honestly believe it? Do I believe it in my heart?

And I think the truth is that I don't. In fact, I don't think there are many people that do truly believe in the atom. We know we're "supposed" to, sort of like we know we're "supposed" to eat healthy. But when we go to the store, what do we grab? Whatever we feel like. In the same sense, I think we know we're "supposed" to believe in the atom, but when it comes down to it - what model do we adopt in our minds? The one that feels right.

So instead of looking for an intellectual understanding of psionics, I think we should start with an emotional understanding. As much as we don't want to admit it, the truth is that the decisions in our lives are dictated by our emotions - NOT our intellect. After we get the emotional part down pretty good, then we can start to work on an intellectual understanding.

Just some random thoughts.

~Sean

One thing that bothers me is that we, as humans, forget to check our beliefs against reality. Sometimes we believe something for so long, and forget to question it, that it becomes a belief out of habit. A few years down the line, and this belief starts to become more rigid. Or maybe we find our belief so clever and elegant, that we feel it would be a shame to drop the belief. Holding on to beliefs out of forgetfulness or pride is dangerous... it's something we all deal with.

For example, in the previous post, an anonymous poster commented on a belief that I had that s/he disagreed with. S/he argued that stress or anger doesn't necessarily mean that we have an inaccurate view of reality. It surprised me that I had never thought of this possibility! I adopted the belief that anger and suffering are indications of faulty views of reality a few years ago in 2001. It originated from a book, Open Heart, Clear Mind. I don't think the book literally spelled out the belief, but it was something that the book inspired me to believe in.

Since then, I had never even questioned it. Even if the belief is true, it still shows how I hadn't questioned the belief in so long, and it resulted in me presenting it as fact. I think we all have beliefs like that, some true, but a lot are probably false. Yet we glance over them out of habit, and it's hard to notice they exist. It's important to check our beliefs against reality, and even if we think the answer is obvious, sometimes we gotta ask ourselves again: "This belief has made sense in the past, but does it still make sense now? It is accurate? Does it still represent reality correctly?"

~Sean

One of the most important aspects of learning psionics is working with yourself. You either need to work within your belief system, or change your belief system. Changing your belief system can be a real bitch, so a lot of times I suggest working with the belief system you already have set up.

So what is a "belief system"? It's basically your opinion on how reality works. The mind builds an internal model of reality, so that it can function and understand what's going on around it. When you use psionics, you need to work WITH your internal model of reality - not against it.

It's hard to figure out what your internal model is - mostly because the things you think seem obvious. They are so obvious to you, that you don't question them, and you barely notice them. On top of that, anytime you witness something that goes against your internal model, you usually reject it in one form or another. We all have coping mechanisms. Coping mechanisms are how we deal with the differences between our interal reality and the reality that exists outside our mind.

Whenever you feel angry or stressed, this is an indication that reality is not playing by your rules. Your internal reality is throwing a hissy fit because the external reality isn't acting how it's "supposed to". Whenever you feel angry or stressed, take careful note of what circumstances surround it. These can hold vital clues as to how your internal model of reality is incorrect.

Back to the point: use your internal model to your advantage. Work within it. Let me show you an example, so you can see what I'm talking about.

One technique for telepathy is to visualize a link forming between your mind and the mind of your target. You visualize the link connecting your two minds, and the information being transfered through the link. Then you receive the information, and get a sense of what your target is thinking about. Sounds simple, right?

Well what if you don't believe in an invisible energy that forms a link between your minds? What if you think, "You know, that sounds pretty interesting, but ultimately I think it's bullshit. An invisible 'energy link' doesn't form between minds, it's just too silly of an idea." What should you do? Should you try the exercise anyways, and see if you get results? Sure, you could do that... but chances are you won't get results. So that just confirms your first belief that the energy link idea is bullshit.

What can you try instead? Well, the energy-link technique above doesn't fit into your model of reality. So create a technique that WILL fit within your model of reality. Find something else you do believe in, and attach a telepathic concept to it.

Perhaps you think the energy-link idea is bullshit, but you DO believe in non-locality (a quantum physics term). The belief of non-locality says that things don't have to be next to each other to affect each other. Of course, it's a little more scientific/complicated than that, but that's the basic idea. Well, here you have an opportunity to attach a telepathic concept to this belief!

Instead of visualizing an energy-link between your two minds, picture that you are exercising the non-local nature of reality, and by doing that, a part of your mind is in the same "spot" as the part of your targets mind. This overlap allows you to read the thoughts of your target by focusing on the section of your thoughts that overlap.

Try it!

Let's say you've never heard of non-locality, because you aren't a physics guy. Perhaps you are a music guy, who works as a DJ, and a lot of your life is focused around listening to music, and broadcasting music to your listeners. Here is another opportunity to attach a telepathic concept to your beliefs! Picture that thoughts actually emit a low-frequency sound - picture that the subvocalization in your mind is actually being broadcasted out. Picture your targets thoughts making low-frequency sounds in the air, and emiting outwards. Then listen for the thoughts. Use your superior listening ability to hear the thoughts.

All of these techniques will work. Not all of them will work with everyone though. Perhaps the non-locality idea makes no sense to you, and you think it sounds stupid. Well, then it probably won't work for you . This is what I mean by working with yourself - working with your belief system. What beliefs do you have that you can attach telepathic concepts to? What rules do you have in your head that could allow for telepathy to happen? USE THEM.

You can apply these same ideas with any perception or manipulation psionic skill. Come up with your own techniques on psychokinesis. Come up with your own techniques for remote viewing. Do what makes sense to you. Work within your belief system, and make it work for you.

~Sean

For those trying hard to have an OBE, I highly suggest the following technique:
1. Get 2/3rds your normal sleep (for me that's around 6 hours)
2. Go to work/school for the day
3. Take a nap after dinner, for around 1.5-3 hours
4. Wake back up, stay awake for a few more hours
5. Go to bed for the night at your normal time

Nearly every OBE I have results from the pattern above. The goal is to be restless for Step 5 - it puts you in the perfect condition to have an OBE.

So anyways - using the above technique yesterday, I (unintentionally) had an OBE this morning at around 4:30am. Needless to say, it was crazy/scary as hell . When I returned to my body, I immediately grabbed my voice recorder, and narrated my experience into it. The beginning of the narration I was still in trance-like state, because I just returned, but I wake up as the time goes on. I'm writing the entire transcript as a log for myself, but you can read it if the entire thing interests you. Some parts are repetitive. Below is a transcript of what I said:

I had an out of body experience... it was really cool. The most important part was that I stayed conscious the entire time. From start to finish. I think... Now I'm not sure if I stayed conscious. When I left, I was playing around with how to move, and I learned better ways to move around. It was very exciting and I'm kind of stirred up about it. I turned my [astral] body around, to see my physical body, and stared at my physical face for a little while - so I'm freaked out about that. I then opened my physical eyes, and from my out of body [astral body], I could see my physical eyes opened. I don't know if that was real or not - that was crazy.

When I was returning to my body, right before that to look at my face, there were waves of energy coming off my body. It was bizarre. Also, the method that I used to leave was basically mess around with my feeling of where my body parts are, kind of. Until it becomes so pliable, that I can leave my body. I am kind of freaked out right now, heh. I had pretty good vision. At one point, my body didn't like uh ... I had pretty good vision, but my movement was kind of tough. But I was getting better, I was getting practice.

At one point I floated above my ceiling, and saw like, a crystal/plastic necklace type of thing. And I grabbed it in my hand and felt it. I thought about how, that there ... at first I was thinking that if there is someone that lived above me, then they would have a necklace, but then, while I was still out of my body, right after I set the necklace down, I realized that no one lives above me - I'm on the top floor. And then I noted, after that, how it was good of me to note that, heh.

I didn't notice any entry or exit problems. I did almost have a false awakening, after I returned, but I battled through it. I detected it, and battled through it. I honestly don't remember what I did to have an out of body experience, specifically. I remember laying - if I go backwards in my memory - I was laying in bed, playing with the sensation... I don't even remember. It was almost like a dream, kind of. I don't remember "waking up". I don't remember blacking out, really. I don't know what the hell I did.

I tried to go out in the hallway, but it didn't work. I realized that my focus played a HUGE role in where my body moved. A bigger role than I previously assumed. If I just remotely THINK of a direction to move in, I will move in it [1].

I don't remember how I got the out of body experience, I remember laying in bed and playing with, like my feet, I think. I was playing with the feeling in my feet. Now... what the hell was I doing... I don't remember.

When I floated up to the ceiling, I had a glove on my left hand, a white glove. I thought that was bizarre [2].

I don't remember what I was doing. And I'm really hot right now - like it's really fucking hot. The temperature in here has got to be 84 I bet... 85 maybe [3]. The entire thing, or the entire thing I can remember, starting from before I left my body, was maybe 8 minutes total. I don't remember how I left. That bothers me. Because it feels like it was continuous. But I can't remember trancing out, or anything like that.

I remember playing with how my body felt. Like playing with ... I'm kind of freaked out. I was playing with how my body felt, like how each of my limbs felt. Mostly I was playing with my feet. I remember playing with my feet. I remember being really scared, actually. I'm kind of scared right now still, but there was no reason to be afraid, but I still feel a really potent fear right now. But I still had an out of body experience anyways. I mean I remember making that decision - that I was feeling really afraid, and I said, "No, I gotta do this". And I did it anyways, that was cool.

[voice gets a lot more clear/faster here, I was waking up and becoming more alert]

I think, I honestly remember, feeling some sort of hands on the back of my ribs before I left my body. But I don't really remember exactly what it was. It was almost like I came out of a dream state, and I was in my body playing with..., it was like I was playing with... - I was in a playful mood. But I was so really fucking scared. I was playing with altered states of consciousness. I was playing with how my body parts FELT. Like, where I detected they were. And I realized that I could turn it into an out of body experience. So I went through the normal process of ... I gradually made sure I understood what I felt, and I took my mind to where it was suppose to go, and then I floated in an upward position, and opened my out of body eyes, and looked around. And it was working, so of course, so that was good.

So I floated upwards, and I never really ended looking down the entire time. I kept floating upwards, towards the ceiling, and then maybe the first and second time I floated up to the ceiling, maybe the second time I noticed the glove on my left hand, then I turned back to my body, and I floated up for a third time, and that's when I noticed the necklace. Which of course, probably doesn't exist, right? Heh.

Ohhhh, the one time I was floating up, this is important, the one time I was floating up I looked down and I could see the light fixture, the inside of it. But, it LOOKED LIKE my New York light fixture [4], looking back on it, I remember commenting to myself how it was cool that I could see the top of the light fixture. But now that I'm looking at the actual light fixture right now, it's not the same light fixture. The one I remember is like the one that was in my New York room. That's what I remember it looking like. But the one in my room right now doesn't look like that at all. Anyways...

So I floated up again, and I saw the necklace. It kind of was floating in mid-air. I understood it to be that I was looking - like um - I floated through the ceiling and I couldn't see anything except my room, so I was looking through the floor [of the room above me], and this is fucking crazy, heh. But the necklace was floating, supposably... well not really floating, it was on something, but I couldn't see what it was on - I was looking through that - and I was getting the images of my room from underneath, so I could see my room underneath me, like maybe I don't know - like 10 feet down, or maybe like 12 feet down.

But anyways, so I picked [the necklace] up and was thinking about how what I was focused on would disorientate my perceptions. How that if I picked up the necklace, I would feel along the necklace, but that was really my perception of the necklace moving along the edge of the necklace. Not that ME actually picking up the necklace, but that was the only way I could express it. And then when, I thought, if I dropped the necklace, it wasn't of course really dropping the necklace. But it might confuse my perceptions because now I am expecting to perceive things with this dropped necklace, and now my perceptions might be trying to compensate for that, even though the reality of the situation was that I was moving my focus ALONG the necklace, so I was thinking that while I was actually grabbing and picking up the necklace and putting it back down. I was very aware.

Then I floated back down, and I thought, you know it's silly, I'm on the 3rd floor and no one lives above me. And then I thought, "Alright, well I tested that one thing, and it turned out to be false. So I'll try to test something else now." So I went back to my freaking body, and kept my eyes open, and gradually spun around. It took, I mean, I was moving around pretty quickly normally, but when I got back to my body, I was moving slower. And I gradually spun around, and while I was spinning, hovering directly over my body... heh, fucking scary is what it was.

I saw waves like emanating like that clear glass waves [5], emanating from my body, it looked like. Kinda like waves, kinda like ripples in the air. And I slowly turned until I saw my face. I looked at it, and I was just like, "Ok, that's cool", and I sent the command to open my eyes, and I saw my bodies eyes open, and I opened my mouth and closed it again. But I honestly don't know if that really happened, like I don't remember - I don't know if my actual physical body DID open my eyes, and open my mouth. Which would have been great to have a freaking recording of it - a video recording - but oh well [6].

That freaked me out, but that was ok, so after that I was like really freaked out, but I decided to float out of my door, and go into the hallway, but my perceptions were starting to get really distorted. And I was starting to flicker back and forth between out of body, and in body, so I decided to just go back in my body. So I unfocused on my body, er, I mean I focused on my physical body, but I stopped focusing on my out of body body, and I could feel my out of body moving around, and swooshing around, and I kind of just focused on my body lightly until I felt that I had came back to my body and was inside of it.

I wasn't looking, I didn't know I was actually there, but I just felt - you know - I waited, until it got all aligned and situated, and then I woke up. But that was a false awakening. Like I thought I woke up, but I didn't really. But I caught on to it, because the idea was immediately when I woke up, I thought the best way to record this would be to reach over and grab my recorder, and talk into it. So I reached over and grabbed my recorder, but it didn't feel right. Something didn't feel right. So I immediately realized that I still hadn't woken up. Or maybe I was still out of my body, I don't even know, I think I might have still been out of my body honestly. Because it was still the same state of mind.

So I tried harder, I guess you could say, to wake up, and I made it a little bit more clear that that's what I wanted to do. And then I could open up my physical eyes AGAIN, and then it was very hard and lethargic to get my arm over, but eventually I got my arm over to grab my recorder, to hit record, and record this message. And now I'm actually kind of awake - it's 5 in the freaking morning, and I gotta wake up in 4 hours, but anyways heh - that's what happened. And I'm glad I have this recorder to record it.

Notes:
1. This is the main lesson that I learned - that focus plays a huge role in movement. Of course I've read about it in books, but I've never witnessed it in such an obvious mannor until now. The way I was moving was by reaching my arms up, and focusing on my hands - and the act of focusing on my hands above me made me move upwards. Which meant my hands went up too, and so did my focus, so I kept moving in that direction.

2. The white glove was very odd. In a past OBE, I discovered that my expectations and will could change what clothes I was wearing (I changed my boxer color in a previous OBE), so for some reason I wanted or projected a white glove on my hand. One important note might be that I went to the dentist two days ago, and also this morning - and they wear white latex gloves to work on my mouth. Perhaps I was thinking about my dentist appointment, and it projected a white glove onto my hand.

3. My thermometer registered a maximum temperature of 87.6 degrees.

4. My New York light fixture that I'm talking about was just the light fixture in my old room. It was glass, and was shaped like an inverted pyramid, that collected bugs in the top. The fixture I observed in my OBE looked just like it, with bugs inside of it as well. The real fixture in my dorm room doesn't look like that at all - it's bigger and flat (recessed into the ceiling). I do see some bugs in there though.

5. The clear glass wave effect is something I notice a lot when I'm out of body. I see the effect in probably half of my OBEs, so it's pretty common. It looks like perfectly clear glass that distorts the light behind it, like looking through a wavey glass cup.

6. A few weeks ago I wanted to purchase a camcorder so I could record myself having OBEs - but the business I tried ordering it from denied my order because my shipping address wasn't on file at my bank. So I was pissed about that. Had I gotten the camcorder, I might have been able to see if my physical eyes really did open, and if my physical mouth moved.

If you've read this far, wow. Good job, you must be bored . I didn't post this with the intention of people reading it, I just wanted to record a transcript so I could erase the message on my recorder, and save this for future reference.

~Sean

I wanted to post again, to talk about how I'm sticking to my plan.

I've been coding at least 500 lines of code per week on the new PsiPog. It's coming along pretty good, and I'm excited that my motivation has sustained itself these past weeks. It's nice to set goals and accomplish them, you know? .

Anyways, I wrote the Purpose page and the About Us page. The About Us page has some old school screen shots of PsiPog, along with some designs that were never used. Cool to look at if you are bored.

Thanks for reading!

~Sean

Out of boredom and curiousity, I've decided to try an experiment with pyramids based on the book, Psychic Discoveries by Ostrander and Schroeder. Instead of typing all the same shit over again, I'm just going to paste the link to my post on the PsiPog forums that talks about it.

Click Here to read about my experiment.

~Sean

One thing that bothers me is that every once in a while I will come across someone who visited PsiPog.net a few years ago, and got banned for some reason or another, and to this day still hates PsiPog.

I feel kind of bad about that. I don't regret the way PsiPog.net used to run, but I now realize that we ran things foolishly in the past. The mistakes I made have taught me important lessons on how PsiPog.net should be run... so I don't regret the past "mistakes" - instead, I see them as lessons. And they taught me a lot about people, power, community, group dynamics, politics, team work, and all sorts of strange topics.

What bothers me the most is that some people think that PsiPog.net will continue to run in the same fasion, forever. That's simply not true. Over the past year or two, I have been moving away from the unchecked-power orientated portion of PsiPog. For example, in the past, a moderator could ban anyone they wanted, and I really wouldn't question it. A lot of times I wouldn't even know about it. Other times, I would ignore the blatent injustice, and reason: "screw it, it's my site, and I'll run it however I want".

I've moved away from that mentallity a lot. I mean, I'm 22, and was running PsiPog since I was 16... so it's not like I had everything figured out at 16 . I'm learning.

One thing that I learned is that moderators should be acountable for their actions. One way I've implemented this is keeping track of who is responsible for each chat ban. The current chat system tracks what mod set the ban, when they set it, and gives them a place to leave comments on why they set that ban (that only other mods can read) for future reference. I would like to think that this system is not only easier for the mods to use, but it also makes them put their reasoning into words so that other mods and myself can check on them.

The mods on the forums are instructed to lock threads that disobey the rules, and only I have the power to ban a user. When they lock a thread, they must have a final post saying why they are locking it. This makes them accountable to everyone in the community to make sure they are doing their job correctly.

The important thing to realize is that moding the chat or the forums is not easy. If you've never handled hundreds or thousands of users, then you really can't comprehend how challenging it is. It requires a team effort, and we all have to be accountable to each other to keep everyone in line. The staff at PsiPog are awesome - and I think we've come a LONG way from how we ran things in the past.

The mistakes in the past affect me negatively in two ways. One, there exists a small group of people who were treated injustly in the past, and will probably never give PsiPog.net a second chance. That sucks, but oh well. Two: some people who apply for moderating only do so because they think that PsiPog.net still gives moderators absolute power, and they want that power. Their motivations for applying are completely backwards.

PsiPog.net has changed, and will continue to change. The moderating system does not grant any moderator absolute power; all chat bans have to be explained to me, and all forum topic locks are explained on the last post. I've learned the hard way why checks and balances are important. I wish old members would give PsiPog.net a second chance, but oh well... first impressions tend to stick.

~Sean

I was reading NI's blog, and it got me thinking about PK again.

And I've come to this realization. If I saw myself perform PK, I honestly wouldn't believe it. Now, I can convince myself of a lot of things intellectually... I mean, I've seen others do PK, I've done PK myself, I've researched how PK could be possible, and found that PK really isn't that far fetched. I intellectually understand the procedures for how to accomplish PK, and I understand the mindset.

I can grasp it pretty easy intellectually. But if I saw it with my own eyes, my gut would not believe it. And I think that is a big problem.

One theory that I believe in is that belief plays a major role in psychic abilities. I theorize that belief has a limiting factor - if you disbelieve in something strongly, then you will not be capable of witnessing it. This sounds kinda crazy at first, but there is a lot of evidence that supports it (that I won't get into now).

So the fact that my emotional gut reaction to PK is that it's impossible, DESPITE my intellectual understanding, means that I am very limited in PK. And that really bothers me. My intellect constantly bombards my emotional self with evidence, theories, encouragement, and wonderful ideas... but the emotional self really doesn't care about that stuff. For some reason it has a death grip on the idea that PK is impossible, and no matter what, it won't let go.

I believe that this problem exists in many people, and not just about PK. That we have these limiting beliefs, and even though we intellectually know we want to remove them, we emotionally can't.

So how can I remove this emotional idea that limits myself?

I read a lot on personal development and self-help stuff, which is aimed at attacking emotional blocks like this. Some of the things I read work pretty good, and some stuf doesn't work so great. Tony Robbins, for example, seems to have the opinion that the brain is a computer-like machine, that we can reprogram to behave however we want. Now, I sort of like that idea, but it doesn't really ring true to me. Do I really want to brainwash myself into believing something so that I have the correct emotional reaction? Not really.

Steve Pavlina speaks more of my language. His goal seems to be more truth-orientated. I.e., if we find the truth, and become aware of it, then we can't become un-aware of the truth, and we are FORCED to change. The main reason why I like this strategy the best is because I've done it for a long time.

For example, I can tell you that KFC tortures genetically mutated chickens to deliver tubs of chicken to you, the consumer. In fact, I can post videos of it, and bring up all the evidence in the world. I can sit there and reason with you, and explain to you how terrible it is - and you can agree with me. But if you only agree on the intellectual level, then you will still have the same behavior of going to KFC when you want some chicken. You intellectually understand that it's wrong, but you do it anyways.

However, if when I show you the evidence, you have an emotional reaction, and begin to believe in the problem emotionally - then you have become truly aware of the problem. You feel it. And because of this, you couldn't force yourself to go to KFC even if it was the only place open. You have no decision, and your behavior is FORCED to change, because of this awareness.

My point being: the intellect is a great thing, but it really doesn't do shit for behavior. Behavior is 100% driven emotionally - and if you have your intellect drive some of your behavior, it's only because you emotionally feel that your intellect is good for some decisions. I.e., the emotional self gives the intellect power, if it feels like it. The intellect can't take power, even if it reasons it should have it. The emotional self is the gate keeper.

So anyways... back to PK. My emotional self simply doesn't believe in PK. My entire belief system and behavior has invested too much in the beleif that PK doesn't exist to change at the whim of the intellect. So I have to get to the root, rip out the core, and replace it with truth. Emotionally.

~Sean

So, I found this public domain implementation of an online HTML editor. And I love it! I'm going to implement this into the new PsiPog.net, so that it will be used for forum posts, private messaging, and posting articles.

http://fieldspar.com/rte/demo.htm

Check it out .

~Sean