Dowsing and Remote Viewing with Paul H. Smith

source: New Thinking Allowed     2016年8月4日
Paul H. Smith, PhD, serves as president of the International Remote Viewing Association an organization of which he is a founder. A former Army intelligence officer, he served for seven years as part of the military’s top-secret remote viewing program. He is author of Reading the Enemy’s Mind and The Essential Guide to Remote Viewing. He currently serves as president and chief trainer for Remote Viewing Instructional Services. He is also the author of DVD courses on both dowsing and remote viewing.
Here he describes how his interest in dowsing developed during his time as a remote viewer for the Army at Fort Meade, Maryland. He discovered that dowsing was capable of providing information regarding locations that often proved to be elusive to the remote viewing process. As a result of his interest, he was eventually elected president of the local chapter of the American Society of Dowsers. He maintains that the ideomotor response associated with dowsing can be triggered by psi-mediated information. He notes that dowsing, combined with remote viewing, were particularly effective in locating drug traffickers at sea in the Caribbean. He cautioned, however, that these methods are never 100% effective.

New Thinking Allowed host, Jeffrey Mishlove, PhD, is author of The Roots of Consciousness, Psi Development Systems, and The PK Man. Between 1986 and 2002 he hosted and co-produced the original Thinking Allowed public television series. He is the recipient of the only doctoral diploma in "parapsychology" ever awarded by an accredited university (University of California, Berkeley, 1980). He is also past-president of the non-profit Intuition Network, an organization dedicated to creating a world in which all people are encouraged to cultivate and apply their inner, intuitive abilities.
(Recorded June 15, 2016)

A Journey through Western Christianity: from Persecuted Faith to Global Religion (200 - 1650)

source: YaleCourses    2016年8月25日
Titus Street Professor of Ecclesiastical History, Bruce Gordon, takes you on a journey through the history of Western Christianity from approximately 200 to 1650 CE. This MOOC, which will be offered on the Coursera platform will focus on central themes/questions that have shaped the emergence of the religion from the ancient world to the Scientific Revolution.

The course is divided into several themes in which participants engage with key written texts, visual material, music, and film, to explore moments transitional in the emergence of Christianity as a global religion. The themes include martyrdom and the body in Early Christianity; North African Christianity and the politics of persecution; Convivencia Christians, Jews, and Muslims in Medieval Spain; Martin Luther and the Freedom of the Conscience; The Jesuits in China and Ethiopia; and Kepler, Galileo and the Revolution in the Heavens.

Central to the MOOC is an emphasis on the connectedness of emerging European Christianity with cultures in Asia, Africa, and the Americas, with particular attention to the reciprocity of influence. Further, the lectures will illustrate ways in which literary theory, gender studies, and social sciences are central to contemporary ways of thinking about the history of Christianity. The background material provided with the course will provide participants a clear sense of the big picture while they focus on the more specific themes. The lectures balance attention to the particular issues raised by the topics and the broader significance of events and ideas.
Learners will be challenged to think about the nature of religious history, how Christianity has a diverse, global past and present, and to consider how the central questions that faced (and face) the Christian religion in particular cultural contexts.
This MOOC starts in September and can be found at coursera.org/yale.

The American Pragmatists - Cheryl Misak (New Books in Philosophy)

source: Philosophical Overdose     2015年6月13日
Pragmatism is American’s home-grown philosophy, but it is not widely understood. This partly is due to the fact that Pragmatism emerged out of deep philosophical disputes among its earliest proponents: Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey. Although it is agreed that they are the founders of Pragmatism, they also held opposing views about truth, meaning, reality, experience, and value. A further complication emerges in that it is widely believed that Pragmatism was purged from the philosophical mainstream and rendered dormant sometime around 1950, and then recovered only in the 1980s by Richard Rorty. In her new book, The American Pragmatists, Cheryl Misak presents a nuanced analysis of the origins, development, and prospects of Pragmatism. She shows that Pragmatism has always come in a variety of flavors, ranging from the highly objectivist and realist views of Peirce and C. I. Lewis to the more subjectivist and nominalist commitments of James and Rorty. More importantly, Misak demonstrates that Pragmatism has been a constantly evolving philosophical movement that has consistently shaped the landscape of English-language philosophy. On Misak’s account, Pragmatism is the philosophical thread that runs through the work of the most influential philosophers of the past century. Her book will be of interest to anyone with interest in Pragmatism or twentieth-century philosophy.
This interview is from the New Books in Philosophy podcast. For more information, go to www.newbooksinphilosophy.com.

Is God Perfect? (Closer to Truth)

# click the up-left corner to select videos from the playlist 

source: Closer To Truth     2016年8月3日
What does it mean for God to be perfect? Perfectly knowledgeable? Perfectly powerful? Perfectly good? Perfectly free? Did God create the 'perfect world'? That'd be hard to believe.
Click here to watch more interviews on God's perfection http://bit.ly/2b3r2BW
Click here to buy episodes or complete seasons of Closer To Truth http://bit.ly/1LUPlQS
For all of our video interviews please visit us at www.closertotruth.com

William Dembski - Is God Perfect? 5:37
Richard Swinburne - Is God Perfect? 3:37
J.P. Moreland - Is God Perfect? 3:47

Brian Kelly: "The Points Guy" | Talks at Google

source: Talks at Google     2016年8月23日
Brian Kelly, the Founder and CEO of The Points Guy, stops by Google for a wide-reaching conversation about frequent flying and mileage earning in today's age of standardization. He also speaks about his work with PeaceJam and TPTtv.
You can find the Points Guy throughout the internet at www.thepointsguy.com, and on YouTube, Twitter, & Instagram.
This talk was moderated by Cliff Redeker.

Tim Ferriss: "How to Cage the Monkey Mind" | Talks at Google

source: Talks at Google    2016年8月1日
Tim Ferriss will be joined us at Google to talk about his career, books, podcasts, and stoicism. Tim was asked the following questions:
What has been the most important Stoic teaching that I’ve come across?
How do I manage the many requests I receive?
What are the factors or elements that have led to the success of the podcast?
Where do I see myself in five years?
If I could pick three people — alive or dead — to be in my personal board of directors, who would they be?
How do I experiment with my dog training?
What are my recommendations for longevity?
How do I fight insomnia?
And much, much more…

Truly Terrible Advice: Find Your "True Self" and Be Authentic | Michael Puett

source: Big Think    2016年7月31日
Ancient teachings from the western tradition have impressed on us the importance of authenticity and being true to one's self. But what if those teachings set us on the wrong path? Michael Puett's latest book is "The Path: What Chinese Philosophers Can Teach Us About the Good Life" (http://goo.gl/Sltm1b).
Read more at BigThink.com: http://bigthink.com/videos/michael-pu...

Transcript - We tend to think we know what the good life is. So we tend to think basically to lead a good life you should look within, try to find yourself, find your true self and then spend your life being as sincere and authentic to that true self as you can. And if you do that the idea is you’ll live life on your own terms and sure you can’t control what will happen to you but at least you’ve lived your life as you were meant to live it and you’ll be true to yourself. Now that sounds great except suppose that all of it is wrong. Suppose as our philosophers here would say we’re a very, very messy selves. And we’re messy selves that fall into these patterns of responses in the world. And therefore what you’re finding when you look within are just these sets of patterned responses that you’ve fallen into. Now if that’s the problem that we face as humans then the notion of flourishing is very different. The way to live a flourishing good life is by breaking these patterns and creating worlds within which you and those around you can flourish. That’s a good life. And you’re not going to do it by looking within and finding yourself because again you’re probably just going to hit a bunch of patterns you’ve fallen into. And you’re focusing also on yourself whereas if we are patterned creatures much of what we are depends on these patterns we’re falling into with those around us. So the good life for these philosophers would mean you’re trying to create worlds within which you and those around you can flourish at a mundane level.
So immediate friendships, family at a larger societal level too. And that’s constant work. The idea is it’s constant work, working through these patterns we’re falling into, altering these patterns, breaking these patterns, creating different patterns and it’s an endless work of every situation from the very mundane to the very, very large scale of constantly trying to shift these patterns for the better. And the vision is that and really only that is what the good life is. The good life is a world in which as many of us as possible, ideally everyone is flourishing. And you’ll never get there but it’s a lifelong process of ever trying to create worlds within which we can flourish. Read Full Transcript Here: http://goo.gl/fvWyOR.