Is J. Neil Schulman justified (logically) in believing in God?

[J Neil Schulman]

If you believed God existed but that God only rarely entered into communication with human beings using an inner voice, as Joan of Arc claimed, would you still find my claim to be incredible?

If I believed that God exists and that he sometimes, if rarely, communicates with human beings, I would not necessarily reject your claim outright, but I would be very, very skeptical.

Btw, I don't think Joan claimed to hear an inner voice. The voices she heard, like the visions she saw, appeared to have an external origin.

Ghs

I don't know what the difference would be between reporting an inner voice that only one person hears and reporting a voice having an external origin that only one person hears.

But since you bring up a possible distinction, here's a weird story for your trouble.

In May 2002 I was a speaker at the national convention of the Foundation for Economic Education in Las Vegas. I was accompanied by my mother, Betty, at that time 77 years old, and before she had problems walking or severe age-related memory problems. After an extended illness, my dad, Julius Schulman -- a concert violinist (see his web page at http://www.juliusschulman.com)-- had passed away 18 months earlier.

In between speakers and panels my mom and I walked through the dealer's room. Escape from Heaven was just published and in addition to speaking at the con I was passing out copies of the new novel to friends and for promotional purposes. Laissez Faire Books had a table there and I dropped off a copy. I also gave copies to Teller and Kerry Pearson. Lots of friends were in attendance, including SEK3.

Near the front of the room was a dealer selling audio lectures on Austrian Economics in Spanish. They had CD's playing music to draw people to their table. As my mom and I got closer we both heard what sounded to us like a 19th century violin concerto with orchestra composed in the style of someone like Tschaikovsky or Mendelssohn, and it was being played by a first-rate solo violinist. There were two things that struck my mom and me simultaneously. First of all, it sounded like my father's style of playing, which after a lifetime of exposure we were both experts on. Second, it was a violin concerto that neither of us had heard before -- and this is also near impossible, given that we're both experts on violin repertoire -- especially the 19th century.

In something that reminds me of the scene near the beginning of Atlas Shrugged where Dagny Taggart asks the brakeman what he's whistling, I walked up to the guy at the table and asked him what the CD was he was playing. He said, "It's Bach."

Now, I know Bach's work intimately, and the violin concerto my mom and I were hearing was not Bach. You can't mistake baroque era violin for the romantic-era violin concerto my mom and I were hearing. I said so and asked to see the CD they were playing. He said he was just watching the table until the owner came back and if I returned in a half hour I could ask him.

So, a half hour later I returned to the table and asked the owner what the CD was that was playing when my mom and I walked by their table for the first time. He said, "Bach." I said something like, "Look, we know what we heard and it couldn't be Bach. Could I look through your CD's?" He said yes.

The CD in the player was Bach.

Every other CD they had at the table was Bach.

There was no CD at the table with any romantic 19th century violin concertos.

Draw your own conclusions. My mom and I know what we heard, and we both heard the same thing: an unknown violin concerto in the style of a 19th century composer -- the exact sort of violin repertoire my dad most loved to play, and which sounded like him playing -- coming out of a CD player that the owner's claim -- and the immediate evidence -- could not have been playing.

Everyone else aside from my mom and me said they heard Bach.

Edited January 9, 2011 by J. Neil Schulman

[J Neil Schulman]

Mr Shulman,

Excuse my butting in here, and going over any ground already covered.

Now, there is nothing like an 'argument from personal experience' (if you like) to throw me off my stride, and that's not a bad thing.

Not knowing your past as many here do, I've impartially come to the conclusions that you are no grandstander, and are highly rational - up to this point of contention.

I accept unreservedly that you believe what you believe, and you believe you experienced something extraordinary.

But,of course, this kind of claim requires extraordinary evidence.

Question:

How, on this type of forum, did you think you could prove your claim, or impart your experience?

Second, why? Have you a desire to spread the word, despite the opposition you knew you'd get?

Whatever - personally, I respect the courage it took.

Also, I thank you for this challenge to re-check my atheistic fundamentals; I had to dig deeper than I have done for a while...

All the best to you,

Tony

Tony, I came to this forum because it was titled "Is J. Neil Schulman justified (logically) in believing in God?"

I didn't start this forum. I just came to answer questions which Starbuckle, who started it, said were left dangling from an interview with me published several years earlier.

[Starbuckle]

Another good overview from GHS (post #644). Unfortunately, it merely hit the bullseye, which isn't good enough in this case.

Neil denies he's accepting anything on faith, but he makes many claims in his memoir (and here) for which he offers no evidence whatever, except, one must suppose, the testimony of the God-voice.

It's not clear to me whether Neil really believes in the multiple universes (with regard to which he currently erroneously claims that some but not conclusive evidence has been discovered) or was just proposing the multi-unis as one of many come-up-with-able deus-ex-machinaic mechanisms for salvaging mystical identity-violation from the charge of being mystical and violating identity.

But take, for example, his notion that God ("spirit" in his essential nature) is "everlasting" (albeit in a way co-extensive with the universe rather than antecedent to it). How does Neil know this about the God-being? Did the God-voice say, "I'm everlasting"? How did Neil confirm that the God-voice's claim is "true"? Is Neil just taking it on faith? Did God at some point say, "By the way, everything I'm saying and/or every characteristic and every value and every purpose you're imputing to me in consequence of this experience is true and there is no need, no need at all, to confirm it in order to affirm it, trust me on this"? Or did God offer proof that he is everlasting? If he communicated this proof to Neil, what is this proof? Or does the proof exist only as a foggy, hard-to-articulate quasi-memory of Neil's mind-meld with the God-thing?

Another not exactly neo-Randian epistemological weirdness arises when Neil seems at times to claim that the most critical criterion for determining the validity of a perception of a God-ish entity is an ethical one. Even if a mind-meldee's perception or "rational" interpretations of his experience with a purported God-being are important, these cognitions are nonetheless, in Neil's apparent view, insufficient warrant for accepting that one has mind-melded with God. For if the cosmic entity who is mind-melding with a person encourages that person to do very bad things, then, according to Neil, that being can't be God. Yet I would myself never dismiss the existence of something, say a person, whom I have every reason to believe does exist, simply because that person is someone I would assess as evil.

So: What if all the epistemological criteria that Neil says his God-experience has met were indeed also met by the God-experience of someone claiming to have been visited by a being Neil-God-ish in every respect except for being wicked? Given all the other outre metaphysical assumptions we're being asked to swallow, what would be so impossible about a God who enjoyed being sadistic, treating human beings as his playthings, threatening to kill humans who try to "make a deal with me," etc?

Edited January 9, 2011 by Starbuckle

[George H. Smith]

In May 2002 I was a speaker at the national convention of the Foundation for Economic Education in Las Vegas. I was accompanied by my mother, Betty, at that time 77 years old, and before she had problems walking or severe age-related memory problems. After an extended illness, my dad, Julius Schulman -- a concert violinist (see his web page at http://www.juliusschulman.com)-- had passed away 18 months earlier.

In between speakers and panels my mom and I walked through the dealer's room. Escape from Heaven was just published and in addition to speaking at the con I was passing out copies of the new novel to friends and for promotional purposes. Laissez Faire Books had a table there and I dropped off a copy. I also gave copies to Teller and Kerry Pearson. Lots of friends were in attendance, including SEK3.

Near the front of the room was a dealer selling audio lectures on Austrian Economics in Spanish. They had CD's playing music to draw people to their table. As my mom and I got closer we both heard what sounded to us like a 19th century violin concerto with orchestra composed in the style of someone like Tschaikovsky or Mendelssohn, and it was being played by a first-rate solo violinist. There were two things that struck my mom and me simultaneously. First of all, it sounded like my father's style of playing, which after a lifetime of exposure we were both experts on. Second, it was a violin concerto that neither of us had heard before -- and this is also near impossible, given that we're both experts on violin repertoire -- especially the 19th century.

In something that reminds me of the scene near the beginning of Atlas Shrugged where Dagny Taggart asks the brakeman what he's whistling, I walked up to the guy at the table and asked him what the CD was he was playing. He said, "It's Bach."

Now, I know Bach's work intimately, and the violin concerto my mom and I were hearing was not Bach. You can't mistake baroque era violin for the romantic-era violin concerto my mom and I were hearing. I said so and asked to see the CD they were playing. He said he was just watching the table until the owner came back and if I returned in a half hour I could ask him.

So, a half hour later I returned to the table and asked the owner what the CD was that was playing when my mom and I walked by their table for the first time. He said, "Bach." I said something like, "Look, we know what we heard and it couldn't be Bach. Could I look through your CD's?" He said yes.

The CD in the player was Bach.

Every other CD they had at the table was Bach.

There was no CD at the table with any romantic 19th century violin concertos.

Draw your own conclusions. My mom and I know what we heard, and we both heard the same thing: an unknown violin concerto in the style of a 19th century composer -- the exact sort of violin repertoire my dad most loved to play, and which sounded like him playing -- coming out of a CD player that the owner's claim -- and the immediate evidence -- could not have been playing.

Everyone else aside from my mom and me said they heard Bach.

So what is the point of this story? Most people have had unusual experiences that they cannot explain. I have had experiences much weirder than the one you describe.

I would suggest some explanations, but I have little doubt that you will have claimed to have covered all the bases -- the explanation could not have been x, y, or z, because you absolutely ruled out all such possibilities during your intensive and meticulous investigation at the time -- so I don't want to waste my time.

I suppose, therefore, that there can be only one explanation: God must have done it. For some reason God decided to compose and play a violin concerto in the Romantic style that only you and your mother could hear. This is where this story eventually leads, is it not?

Ghs

[Later addendum] There is one other explanation, namely, that your psychic powers were tuned into your father playing the violin in the land of the not-so-dead. Another perfectly reasonable explanation, of course.

[J Neil Schulman]

Another good overview from GHS (post #644). Unfortunately, it merely hit the bullseye, which isn't good enough in this case.

Neil denies he's accepting anything on faith, but he makes many claims in his memoir (and here) for which he offers no evidence whatever, except, one must suppose, the testimony of the God-voice.

It's not clear to me whether Neil really believes in the multiple universes (with regard to which he currently erroneously claims that some but not conclusive evidence has been discovered) or was just proposing the multi-unis as one of many come-up-with-able deus-ex-machinaic mechanisms for salvaging mystical identity-violation from the charge of being mystical and violating identity.

But take, for example, his notion that God ("spirit" in his essential nature) is "everlasting" (albeit in a way co-extensive with the universe rather than antecedent to it). How does Neil know this about the God-being? Did the God-voice say, "I'm everlasting"? How did Neil confirm that the God-voice's claim is "true"? Is Neil just taking it on faith? Did God at some point say, "By the way, everything I'm saying and/or every characteristic and every value and every purpose you're imputing to me in consequence of this experience is true and there is no need, no need at all, to confirm it in order to affirm it, trust me on this"? Or did God offer proof that he is everlasting? If he communicated this proof to Neil, what is this proof? Or does the proof exist only as a foggy, hard-to-articulate quasi-memory of Neil's mind-meld with the God-thing?

Another not exactly neo-Randian epistemological weirdness arises when Neil seems at times to claim that the most critical criterion for determining the validity of a perception of a God-ish entity is an ethical one. Even if a mind-meldee's perception or "rational" interpretations of his experience with a purported God-being are important, these cognitions are nonetheless, in Neil's apparent view, insufficient warrant for accepting that one has mind-melded with God. For if the cosmic entity who is mind-melding with a person encourages that person to do very bad things, then, according to Neil, that being can't be God. Yet I would myself never dismiss the existence of something, say a person, whom I have every reason to believe does exist, simply because that person is someone I would assess as evil.

So: What if all the epistemological criteria that Neil says his God-experience has met were indeed also met by the God-experience of someone claiming to have been visited by a being Neil-God-ish in every respect except for being wicked? Given all the other outre metaphysical assumptions we're being asked to swallow, what would be so impossible about a God who enjoyed being sadistic, treating human beings as his playthings, threatening to kill humans who try to "make a deal with me," etc?

Starbuckle, what were your intentions and expectations when you started this topic with my name in the headline? Were you expecting me to walk on water for you? Part a river? Draw down locusts? Turn water into a nice vintage wine?

You'd already read the interview with me. I made no claims to be able to present anything more than what I learned in a "mind-meld" with God. Maybe you never watched Star Trek and are clueless how a mind-meld was portrayed on that TV series. It was shown as a conjoining of thoughts and personal identity, two minds operating as one and having access to the other's memories, active thoughts, cognition, and feelings.

All this analysis is after the fact, either by me or someone else. I have the advantage in analyzing it that I was there. That's why there's the potential for my analysis to be convincing to me. I've said till the cows come home that nobody else, since they weren't there, can possibly have any basis to find my report convincing, unless something in their own experience makes it ring true.

C.S. Lewis wrote that the only person he'd ever met who'd seen a ghost didn't believe they existed. One doesn't have to have a prior belief system to have had experiences that can open the mind to the possibility that there are modes of existence beyond what we normally experience, and that what we are by nature makes it possible for us to perceive them by means we can't yet pin down in a laboratory.

I had no expectations that my account would be believed here, but I did expect more open-mindedness to the possibilities that my account could be true than I met.

But if you set up this forum merely to make yourself more comfortable in your skin by rationalizing a way to dismiss anything you don't already believe in, I'm the least of your problems.

I'm not the scholar George Smith is on the history of religion. But despite my best intentions to remain an atheist, after reading his book, something happened to me that convinced me we were both wrong. I don't blame George for disagreeing with me. If the roles were reversed I'd be where he is. But I'm not a fool and I know shit from shinola. Yes, I've made a serious study of epistemology. And I stand by my understanding of what I experienced, regardless of whether what I say is convincing to anyone else.

Louis Armstrong was once asked to explain jazz. He said, "If you don't know, I can't explain it to you."

That's a totally unsatisfying answer. But it's a lot like that. Some experiences don't lend themselves well to explanation. And if you don't believe me, try explaining Rembrandt to the blind, Prokoviev to the deaf, or what an orgasm feels like to a castrato.

Edited January 9, 2011 by J. Neil Schulman

[J Neil Schulman]

In May 2002 I was a speaker at the national convention of the Foundation for Economic Education in Las Vegas. I was accompanied by my mother, Betty, at that time 77 years old, and before she had problems walking or severe age-related memory problems. After an extended illness, my dad, Julius Schulman -- a concert violinist (see his web page at http://www.juliusschulman.com)-- had passed away 18 months earlier.

In between speakers and panels my mom and I walked through the dealer's room. Escape from Heaven was just published and in addition to speaking at the con I was passing out copies of the new novel to friends and for promotional purposes. Laissez Faire Books had a table there and I dropped off a copy. I also gave copies to Teller and Kerry Pearson. Lots of friends were in attendance, including SEK3.

Near the front of the room was a dealer selling audio lectures on Austrian Economics in Spanish. They had CD's playing music to draw people to their table. As my mom and I got closer we both heard what sounded to us like a 19th century violin concerto with orchestra composed in the style of someone like Tschaikovsky or Mendelssohn, and it was being played by a first-rate solo violinist. There were two things that struck my mom and me simultaneously. First of all, it sounded like my father's style of playing, which after a lifetime of exposure we were both experts on. Second, it was a violin concerto that neither of us had heard before -- and this is also near impossible, given that we're both experts on violin repertoire -- especially the 19th century.

In something that reminds me of the scene near the beginning of Atlas Shrugged where Dagny Taggart asks the brakeman what he's whistling, I walked up to the guy at the table and asked him what the CD was he was playing. He said, "It's Bach."

Now, I know Bach's work intimately, and the violin concerto my mom and I were hearing was not Bach. You can't mistake baroque era violin for the romantic-era violin concerto my mom and I were hearing. I said so and asked to see the CD they were playing. He said he was just watching the table until the owner came back and if I returned in a half hour I could ask him.

So, a half hour later I returned to the table and asked the owner what the CD was that was playing when my mom and I walked by their table for the first time. He said, "Bach." I said something like, "Look, we know what we heard and it couldn't be Bach. Could I look through your CD's?" He said yes.

The CD in the player was Bach.

Every other CD they had at the table was Bach.

There was no CD at the table with any romantic 19th century violin concertos.

Draw your own conclusions. My mom and I know what we heard, and we both heard the same thing: an unknown violin concerto in the style of a 19th century composer -- the exact sort of violin repertoire my dad most loved to play, and which sounded like him playing -- coming out of a CD player that the owner's claim -- and the immediate evidence -- could not have been playing.

Everyone else aside from my mom and me said they heard Bach.

So what is the point of this story? Most people have had unusual experiences that they cannot explain. I have had experiences much weirder than the one you describe.

I would suggest some explanations, but I have little doubt that you will have claimed to have covered all the bases -- the explanation could not have been x, y, or z, because you absolutely ruled out all such possibilities during your intensive and meticulous investigation at the time -- so I don't want to waste my time.

I suppose, therefore, that there can be only one explanation: God must have done it. For some reason God decided to compose and play a violin concerto in the Romantic style that only you and your mother could hear. This is where this story eventually leads, is it not?

Ghs

[Later addendum] There is one other explanation, namely, that your psychic powers were tuned into your father playing the violin in the land of the not-so-dead. Another perfectly reasonable explanation, of course.

That's close to what my mother and I have believed -- that we were hearing a performance my dad was somehow piping directly to us from the other side. You won't believe me when I tell you that I later met my father on the other side, in a full-sensory experience that included seeing, hearing, smelling, and even feeling a gentle summer breeze and a hug. You can dismiss it as a dream. I can't.

But what sort of dream is it that happens to two people at once, not drinking, not on drugs, not experiencing dehydration or ketosis, when they're awake and walking through the dealer's room at a libertarian conference?

Edited January 9, 2011 by J. Neil Schulman

[Starbuckle]

I probably forgot to mention that I believe "Star Trek" is fiction.

[George H. Smith]

[Later addendum] There is one other explanation, namely, that your psychic powers were tuned into your father playing the violin in the land of the not-so-dead. Another perfectly reasonable explanation, of course.

That's close to what my mother and I have believed -- that we were hearing a performance my dad was somehow piping directly to us from the other side. You won't believe me when I tell you that I later met my father on the other side, in a full-sensory experience that included seeing, hearing, smelling, and even feeling a gentle summer breeze and a hug. You can dismiss it as a dream. I can't.

But what sort of dream is it that happens to two people at once, not drinking, not on drugs, not experiencing dehydration or ketosis, when they're awake and walking through the dealer's room at a libertarian conference?

I don't believe you at all, partly because I had many similar experiences after my father drowned in a boating accident in 1974, shortly after I had returned to Tucson to rest up while awaiting the publication of ATCAG. He and a friend were swept overboard in a freak storm on Lake Roosevelt while zipped-up in their sleeping bags.

I had nightmares for years (the notion of drowning while confined still terrifies me), but the weirdest experiences occurred while I was wide awake and completely sober. I would sometimes go for hours at a time without realizing that my father was dead, and I would frequently hear his voice coming from another room. It took at least a year before these voices stopped, and there were other disturbing incidents as well.

So don't tell me about your paranormal interpretations of such experiences, as if you are the only one who has ever had them. I had dozens and dozens of them, and I struggled like a son-of-bitch to retain my hold on reality.

Ghs

[william.scherk]

Given all the other outre metaphysical assumptions we're being asked to swallow, what would be so impossible about a God who enjoyed being sadistic, treating human beings as his playthings, threatening to kill humans who try to "make a deal with me," etc?

There was an essential difference between the first god experience and the second, as Neil has recounted the two. In the first, the spirit was a voice in conversation, and in the second, the god thingy was entirely incorporated within Neil. The first spoke to him inside his mind, and in the second Neil awakened to being god himself. Going only from his waffly criteria for judging the reality of other folks' god experiences, either the first or the second was unreal by Neil's standards. I think we will be waiting a long long time for Neil to square that circle.

An indication of how Neil approaches the reality of the pixies and sprites and psi-conductors is seen in his much-elaborated tale of psi-sprites at the audio lectures table in 2002.

Here we are instructed that he is a world expert on violin concertos, and that it was pretty near impossible that he or his mom could fail to identify Bach. Since the evidence was that there was only Bach, Neil had the choice of 'I was mistaken' or the choice of mysterious intercontinua pixie-jokesters who played a special song that only he and mom could hear.

Given the choice between pixies and human fallibility, he chose the least likely explanation.

Apparently this was an example of his marvelous discernment. Folie a deux is the kindest way to characterize this kind of stubborn refusal to entertain the obvious.

I am waiting for him to tell us about his astral travelling excursions, which also offered him proof of his specialness.

From all of these made-up post-hoc justifications for spiritist beliefs, I conclude that Neil really believes he is pretty dang special. If he didn't hammer on about a crappy Twilight Zone episode, and a blacklist that kept him from achieving his due as a fine screenwriter, and if he didn't bang on about his specialness in every other endeavor he has attempted, I would be more inclined to accept his unique special connection with pixie world.

But his entire identity and self-concept is at stake in every challenge to any aspect, so he resists to the point of delusion.

[Jerry Biggers]

I've never seen Neil wear a hat of any kind, let alone a fedora, but nonetheless ...

<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bY-zmJ1VCQI?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0"></param><param'>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bY-zmJ1VCQI?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bY-zmJ1VCQI?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>

(Jimmy Durante and Monty Woolley in "The Man Who Came to Dinner," 1942)

Damn!...Where is Sheridan Whiteside (Monty Woolley, in the role he was born to play) when we need him? I'm sure that Mr. Whiteside could have added a few choice penetrating barbs to this thread.

[J Neil Schulman]

[Later addendum] There is one other explanation, namely, that your psychic powers were tuned into your father playing the violin in the land of the not-so-dead. Another perfectly reasonable explanation, of course.

That's close to what my mother and I have believed -- that we were hearing a performance my dad was somehow piping directly to us from the other side. You won't believe me when I tell you that I later met my father on the other side, in a full-sensory experience that included seeing, hearing, smelling, and even feeling a gentle summer breeze and a hug. You can dismiss it as a dream. I can't.

But what sort of dream is it that happens to two people at once, not drinking, not on drugs, not experiencing dehydration or ketosis, when they're awake and walking through the dealer's room at a libertarian conference?

I don't believe you at all, partly because I had many similar experiences after my father drowned in a boating accident in 1974, shortly after I had returned to Tucson to rest up while awaiting the publication of ATCAG. He and a friend were swept overboard in a freak storm on Lake Roosevelt while zipped-up in their sleeping bags.

I had nightmares for years (the notion of drowning while confined still terrifies me), but the weirdest experiences occurred while I was wide awake and completely sober. I would sometimes go for hours at a time without realizing that my father was dead, and I would frequently hear his voice coming from another room. It took at least a year before these voices stopped, and there were other disturbing incidents as well.

So don't tell me about your paranormal interpretations of such experiences, as if you are the only one who has ever had them. I had dozens and dozens of them, and I struggled like a son-of-bitch to retain my hold on reality.

Ghs

George, I believe you.

[william.scherk]

So don't tell me about your paranormal interpretations of such experiences, as if you are the only one who has ever had them. I had dozens and dozens of them, and I struggled like a son-of-bitch to retain my hold on reality.

There are many names for this kind of experience, and it appears to be quite common. It can be called 'grief hallucinations' or 'bereavement hallucinations' -- it is extremely common in the elderly bereaved and can also occur years after a death. Sometimes it can be as simple and as profound as a feeling of presence, or visitation, sometimes a fully sensory experience.

There is a wonderful story in Scientific American that underlines the ubiquity of such things in human experience.

The dead stay with us, that much is clear. They remain in our hearts and minds, of course, but for many people they also linger in our senses—as sights, sounds, smells, touches or presences. Grief hallucinations are a normal reaction to bereavement but are rarely discussed, because people fear they might be considered insane or mentally destabilised by their loss. As a society we tend to associate hallucinations with things like drugs and mental illness, but we now know that hallucinations are common in sober healthy people and that they are more likely during times of stress.

[J Neil Schulman]

So don't tell me about your paranormal interpretations of such experiences, as if you are the only one who has ever had them. I had dozens and dozens of them, and I struggled like a son-of-bitch to retain my hold on reality.

There are many names for this kind of experience, and it appears to be quite common. It can be called 'grief hallucinations' or 'bereavement hallucinations' -- it is extremely common in the elderly bereaved and can also occur years after a death. Sometimes it can be as simple and as profound as a feeling of presence, or visitation, sometimes a fully sensory experience.

There is a wonderful story in Scientific American that underlines the ubiquity of such things in human experience.

The dead stay with us, that much is clear. They remain in our hearts and minds, of course, but for many people they also linger in our senses—as sights, sounds, smells, touches or presences. Grief hallucinations are a normal reaction to bereavement but are rarely discussed, because people fear they might be considered insane or mentally destabilised by their loss. As a society we tend to associate hallucinations with things like drugs and mental illness, but we now know that hallucinations are common in sober healthy people and that they are more likely during times of stress.

The principle of parsimony is biased by the assumptions you start with. But if believing in hallucinations rather than ghosts seems least hypothesis to you, nothing I say can change your mind.

[J Neil Schulman]

An indication of how Neil approaches the reality of the pixies and sprites and psi-conductors is seen in his much-elaborated tale of psi-sprites at the audio lectures table in 2002.

Here we are instructed that he is a world expert on violin concertos, and that it was pretty near impossible that he or his mom could fail to identify Bach. Since the evidence was that there was only Bach, Neil had the choice of 'I was mistaken' or the choice of mysterious intercontinua pixie-jokesters who played a special song that only he and mom could hear.

Given the choice between pixies and human fallibility, he chose the least likely explanation.

Apparently this was an example of his marvelous discernment. Folie a deux is the kindest way to characterize this kind of stubborn refusal to entertain the obvious.

Can you tell the difference between a lead pencil and a Sharpie? A Porsche and a pick-up truck? A penis and a vagina?

After living with my father for a lifetime, that's about how hard it is for my mom and me to know the difference between Bach and Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Sibelius, or Glazunov.

Anyone else here know enough about classical music to explain this to Mr. Scherk?

Jeff Riggenbach, I know you read this forum. Do you honestly think there's even the slightest possibility I can't tell the difference between Bach and a late 19th century violin concerto? I know that you could in about five seconds.

Edited January 9, 2011 by J. Neil Schulman

[caroljane]

I have yet to find in any of my readings or discussions anyone else who claims that God entered his body for eight hours and conflated our personal identities, shared multi-dimensional cognition including the ability to look at other people's past and "central motivating factor" future; and uploaded to me a database of information which ended up unfolding over the subsequent years.

I haven’t been posting on this thread because I feel I should read the linked interview first, so I don’t mean to be rude just popping in and asking a couple basic questions. First, in allowing you to learn about the future, did God give you some winning Powerball numbers? Why not? That’s the database field I’d really like to have uploaded when it happens to me. Whatever the supernatural voice tells me to do, I’m game so long as it’s accompanied by winning lottery numbers. Hear that, Mephistopheles?

Second, where you on drugs? LSD or mushrooms, particularly? Had you used them before, and maybe had a flashback?

You can read Neil's discussion of his experience (one of several tellings, one of several experiences) in Chapter Six: Mind Meld.

I think it is accurate to say that Neil was physically and mentally stressed around the time of the Mind Meld. In the passage below he gives the most expansive version of events.

Beyond the obvious priming for the event (for which you will need to read the whole account), I am struck by Neil's interpretive options. It seems like he saw only two choices: I met god or I am crazy. Although he asserts that Occam's razor is no use to anyone in interpreting experience, I figure the razor cuts cleanly.

Considering the unusual mental state he found himself in -- paranoid, dehydrated, sleepless -- it seems likely to an outsider like me that the one state led to the other, and no spirit beings were actually involved.

Your mileage may vary.

Going back five months before that, I started a diet. I had put on weight, probably as a consequence of the unhappiness of going through a divorce. I put on weight and I started a severe diet, and it was a diet which had worked for me before in my life very, very effectively. A diet of reduced calories, usually under 900 calories a day, but also restricting carbohydrates as well to under maybe 30 or 40 grams a day. In addition to which I was walking, exercising.

So the combination of restricted calories, restricted carbohydrates, and exercise put me into the state which the Atkins Diet and the Atkins diet books and Dr. Atkins talk about, which is you go into a state of ketosis.

Within a couple days before February 18, 1997, which was a Tuesday, I have been in the hospital emergency room because I feel myself fainting. I feel my heartbeat is irregular. I feel in serious danger. And so I go into the Emergency Room and what do they do? They say you’re dehydrated and they rehydrate me by putting an intravenous saline drip into me to get me back up to rehydration.

This happened twice, at least once before the 18th and I’m not sure exactly which day but it probably would have been the Saturday before. I think it happens within a day or two after the event, on around the 19th or something like that.

So two times during this period, I am in such ketosis of blood poisoning from the excess of ketones in my blood caused from five months of severe diet and exercise and just before and just after that I am dehydrated in ketosis and breathing shallowly.

J. NEIL SCHULMAN: But in essence the precondition for what appears to happen to me appears to have a physiological component to it and it is described in the Bible and I unwittingly, simply by trying to take off weight, have put myself in the same situation as if I’d gone out to the desert to fight the devil.

Fasting puts you into ketosis. Apparently the ketones have some toxic effect on the brain, which enables something to happen.

This is not a drug experience. We’re not talking about taking an artificially engineered substance, or even a natural plant substance, into the body, to produce some sort of effect. We’re not talking about my taking Peyote or Marijuana or LSD or anything like this. This is something, which is in the body’s mechanism, itself, which can be triggered by a specific technique, and that technique is denial of food. And something happens in the brain.

Now, on the Monday before, when I go to the Karl Hess Club, suddenly it occurs to me I have done things over the previous few days. I have, in essence, sent out information to various different people. I have met during that previous week with detectives at the L.A.P.D. and presented my theory to them. I have presented it to O.J.’s attorneys. And that night it occurs to me, if this has gotten to Ron Shipp, if this information that I am presenting a theory that Ron Shipp was involved in these murders and framing O.J., I could be in physical danger.

BRAD LINAWEAVER: I remember you from that period and I remember I’ve never seen you more paranoid.

J. NEIL SCHULMAN: Right, because I suddenly thought, “what have I done to myself? I’ve exposed myself, I’ve exposed my family here, and I need to take immediate action to batten down the hatches before because if I am vulnerable I wouldn’t know about it.” In essence I go to high alert.

That night I went to my bank, I withdrew cash, got into my car and started wondering where should I put myself for the next few days, while I’m making further contacts? Who can I go to who I wouldn’t necessarily be traced to, if I were to go there as a safe house? Should I drive to Jean, Nevada, and stay in one of those $18 a night hotel rooms, which I could easily afford to do? Is there some friend who could be useful to me?

What I essentially decided to do that night was drive out to Randy Herrst’s house and ask him for help. I drove out late at night to Randy’s. He came down with me, and we basically sat in my car, and I laid out all of this to him. And I said, “Look, am I just being paranoid or is there a real possibility that I’m in danger here?”

He said, “Neil, the point is that you have no way of knowing, and so, yes, you were right to take protective steps. Now let’s figure out what we’re going to do, to resolve this quickly, in such a way that you don’t have to go into hiding if somebody really is pissed off with you and is going to take some action.”

So around 10 o’clock in the morning of February 18th I’ve been up all night talking with Randy and strategizing this. So now in addition to the physiological condition of ketosis and dehydration, which I’ve been experiencing, I’ve now gone without a night’s sleep.

And we go have the meeting with this attorney in Beverly Hills. He says, “Well, look, I know another attorney who has a direct contact with Gil Garcetti at the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office. Let’s present your material to him.”

And so we make an appointment for me to go back to his office later that day and meet with him again.

Now, having had this first meeting with Randy and this attorney, in the morning of February 18th, I need to get some sleep. Randy thinks it’s a good idea if I not go to sleep unprotected. That I not go to sleep and simply be alone.

BRAD LINAWEAVER: You mean have somebody on guard?

J. NEIL SCHULMAN: Have somebody on guard. This is Randy’s suggestion. Randy is acting in essence as my bodyguard at this point. But Randy also has gone a night without sleep and he needs to go home and sleep as well, before this meeting, and so we called up another friend of ours, Dafydd ab Hugh, and I said, “Dafydd can you come over to my place?” and I explained the situation in brief. I said, “There’s some potential for danger. I don’t know exactly how to calculate it. It may be a small potential. It may be a large potential. But we don’t know. Could you just come over to my place and just sort of watch my back while I get some sleep?”

And Dafydd said, “Yes,” and he came over.

Dafydd gets there around 11:30 or 11:45 in the morning. And Randy says, “Okay, I’m going to go home and get some sleep and I’ll meet you later today, and we’ll go over to the attorney’s office again.”

So Dafydd is out in the living room, and I say, “Okay, I’m going to lie down.” And I go into my bedroom, and I close the door to lie down and get some sleep before the meeting.

And I lay down on my bed, and about ten seconds later — almost immediately — something has happened and I sit up in bed.

The first impression I’m having is that I have just traveled a long way, and I’ve just arrived.

And I’m looking around and I’m thinking, “Where am I? What’s going on?”

Remember, all of this is from my internal perspective.

Okay. I am sitting up and saying, “Huh! Now I’m here. I’ve just arrived.” But I wonder what’s going on.

And suddenly I sit up, stand up, and I remember that I am God.

I’m realizing as this is coming along, as my mind is sifting through all the new stuff, that J. Neil Schulman is a fictional persona, which I have created my entire life, because up until that moment I was hiding from myself the fact that I was God.

This is what is going through my mind while this is happening.

Now. One can say that I’m going through a psychotic episode at this point. Certainly the physiological conditions for a psychotic episode — ketosis, dehydration, lack of sleep — all of these various things can add up and say that I’m having a break with reality.

But the problem is that I’m not experiencing it as a break with reality.

You had a psychotic episode, Mr Schulman. They are experienced as reality.

[J Neil Schulman]

I have yet to find in any of my readings or discussions anyone else who claims that God entered his body for eight hours and conflated our personal identities, shared multi-dimensional cognition including the ability to look at other people's past and "central motivating factor" future; and uploaded to me a database of information which ended up unfolding over the subsequent years.

I haven’t been posting on this thread because I feel I should read the linked interview first, so I don’t mean to be rude just popping in and asking a couple basic questions. First, in allowing you to learn about the future, did God give you some winning Powerball numbers? Why not? That’s the database field I’d really like to have uploaded when it happens to me. Whatever the supernatural voice tells me to do, I’m game so long as it’s accompanied by winning lottery numbers. Hear that, Mephistopheles?

Second, where you on drugs? LSD or mushrooms, particularly? Had you used them before, and maybe had a flashback?

You can read Neil's discussion of his experience (one of several tellings, one of several experiences) in Chapter Six: Mind Meld.

I think it is accurate to say that Neil was physically and mentally stressed around the time of the Mind Meld. In the passage below he gives the most expansive version of events.

Beyond the obvious priming for the event (for which you will need to read the whole account), I am struck by Neil's interpretive options. It seems like he saw only two choices: I met god or I am crazy. Although he asserts that Occam's razor is no use to anyone in interpreting experience, I figure the razor cuts cleanly.

Considering the unusual mental state he found himself in -- paranoid, dehydrated, sleepless -- it seems likely to an outsider like me that the one state led to the other, and no spirit beings were actually involved.

Your mileage may vary.

Going back five months before that, I started a diet. I had put on weight, probably as a consequence of the unhappiness of going through a divorce. I put on weight and I started a severe diet, and it was a diet which had worked for me before in my life very, very effectively. A diet of reduced calories, usually under 900 calories a day, but also restricting carbohydrates as well to under maybe 30 or 40 grams a day. In addition to which I was walking, exercising.

So the combination of restricted calories, restricted carbohydrates, and exercise put me into the state which the Atkins Diet and the Atkins diet books and Dr. Atkins talk about, which is you go into a state of ketosis.

Within a couple days before February 18, 1997, which was a Tuesday, I have been in the hospital emergency room because I feel myself fainting. I feel my heartbeat is irregular. I feel in serious danger. And so I go into the Emergency Room and what do they do? They say you’re dehydrated and they rehydrate me by putting an intravenous saline drip into me to get me back up to rehydration.

This happened twice, at least once before the 18th and I’m not sure exactly which day but it probably would have been the Saturday before. I think it happens within a day or two after the event, on around the 19th or something like that.

So two times during this period, I am in such ketosis of blood poisoning from the excess of ketones in my blood caused from five months of severe diet and exercise and just before and just after that I am dehydrated in ketosis and breathing shallowly.

J. NEIL SCHULMAN: But in essence the precondition for what appears to happen to me appears to have a physiological component to it and it is described in the Bible and I unwittingly, simply by trying to take off weight, have put myself in the same situation as if I’d gone out to the desert to fight the devil.

Fasting puts you into ketosis. Apparently the ketones have some toxic effect on the brain, which enables something to happen.

This is not a drug experience. We’re not talking about taking an artificially engineered substance, or even a natural plant substance, into the body, to produce some sort of effect. We’re not talking about my taking Peyote or Marijuana or LSD or anything like this. This is something, which is in the body’s mechanism, itself, which can be triggered by a specific technique, and that technique is denial of food. And something happens in the brain.

Now, on the Monday before, when I go to the Karl Hess Club, suddenly it occurs to me I have done things over the previous few days. I have, in essence, sent out information to various different people. I have met during that previous week with detectives at the L.A.P.D. and presented my theory to them. I have presented it to O.J.’s attorneys. And that night it occurs to me, if this has gotten to Ron Shipp, if this information that I am presenting a theory that Ron Shipp was involved in these murders and framing O.J., I could be in physical danger.

BRAD LINAWEAVER: I remember you from that period and I remember I’ve never seen you more paranoid.

J. NEIL SCHULMAN: Right, because I suddenly thought, “what have I done to myself? I’ve exposed myself, I’ve exposed my family here, and I need to take immediate action to batten down the hatches before because if I am vulnerable I wouldn’t know about it.” In essence I go to high alert.

That night I went to my bank, I withdrew cash, got into my car and started wondering where should I put myself for the next few days, while I’m making further contacts? Who can I go to who I wouldn’t necessarily be traced to, if I were to go there as a safe house? Should I drive to Jean, Nevada, and stay in one of those $18 a night hotel rooms, which I could easily afford to do? Is there some friend who could be useful to me?

What I essentially decided to do that night was drive out to Randy Herrst’s house and ask him for help. I drove out late at night to Randy’s. He came down with me, and we basically sat in my car, and I laid out all of this to him. And I said, “Look, am I just being paranoid or is there a real possibility that I’m in danger here?”

He said, “Neil, the point is that you have no way of knowing, and so, yes, you were right to take protective steps. Now let’s figure out what we’re going to do, to resolve this quickly, in such a way that you don’t have to go into hiding if somebody really is pissed off with you and is going to take some action.”

So around 10 o’clock in the morning of February 18th I’ve been up all night talking with Randy and strategizing this. So now in addition to the physiological condition of ketosis and dehydration, which I’ve been experiencing, I’ve now gone without a night’s sleep.

And we go have the meeting with this attorney in Beverly Hills. He says, “Well, look, I know another attorney who has a direct contact with Gil Garcetti at the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office. Let’s present your material to him.”

And so we make an appointment for me to go back to his office later that day and meet with him again.

Now, having had this first meeting with Randy and this attorney, in the morning of February 18th, I need to get some sleep. Randy thinks it’s a good idea if I not go to sleep unprotected. That I not go to sleep and simply be alone.

BRAD LINAWEAVER: You mean have somebody on guard?

J. NEIL SCHULMAN: Have somebody on guard. This is Randy’s suggestion. Randy is acting in essence as my bodyguard at this point. But Randy also has gone a night without sleep and he needs to go home and sleep as well, before this meeting, and so we called up another friend of ours, Dafydd ab Hugh, and I said, “Dafydd can you come over to my place?” and I explained the situation in brief. I said, “There’s some potential for danger. I don’t know exactly how to calculate it. It may be a small potential. It may be a large potential. But we don’t know. Could you just come over to my place and just sort of watch my back while I get some sleep?”

And Dafydd said, “Yes,” and he came over.

Dafydd gets there around 11:30 or 11:45 in the morning. And Randy says, “Okay, I’m going to go home and get some sleep and I’ll meet you later today, and we’ll go over to the attorney’s office again.”

So Dafydd is out in the living room, and I say, “Okay, I’m going to lie down.” And I go into my bedroom, and I close the door to lie down and get some sleep before the meeting.

And I lay down on my bed, and about ten seconds later — almost immediately — something has happened and I sit up in bed.

The first impression I’m having is that I have just traveled a long way, and I’ve just arrived.

And I’m looking around and I’m thinking, “Where am I? What’s going on?”

Remember, all of this is from my internal perspective.

Okay. I am sitting up and saying, “Huh! Now I’m here. I’ve just arrived.” But I wonder what’s going on.

And suddenly I sit up, stand up, and I remember that I am God.

I’m realizing as this is coming along, as my mind is sifting through all the new stuff, that J. Neil Schulman is a fictional persona, which I have created my entire life, because up until that moment I was hiding from myself the fact that I was God.

This is what is going through my mind while this is happening.

Now. One can say that I’m going through a psychotic episode at this point. Certainly the physiological conditions for a psychotic episode — ketosis, dehydration, lack of sleep — all of these various things can add up and say that I’m having a break with reality.

But the problem is that I’m not experiencing it as a break with reality.

You had a psychotic episode, Mr Schulman. They are experienced as reality.

Yours is Message 665 in this forum. It doesn't surprise me you haven't found my reply to this point, though it's been made many times. If this incident had been a one-time deal, and only while stressed and suffering from dehydration and ketosis, I would have concluded the same thing.

But it wasn't the only incident. It's the keystone in a long series of life experiences.

I conclude otherwise. In the absence of evidence, you have no good basis to agree with me.

[jriggenbach]

Jeff Riggenbach, I know you read this forum. Do you honestly think there's even the slightest possibility I can't tell the difference between Bach and a late 19th century violin concerto? I know that you could in about five seconds.

I do not honestly think there is the slightest possibility that either of us could hear a Bach violin concerto and think it was written in the late 19th Century.

JR

[9thdoctor]

Jeff Riggenbach, I know you read this forum. Do you honestly think there's even the slightest possibility I can't tell the difference between Bach and a late 19th century violin concerto? I know that you could in about five seconds.

I do not honestly think there is the slightest possibility that either of us could hear a Bach violin concerto and think it was written in the late 19th Century.

JR

Fritz Kreisler successfully passed off a work of his own as a violin concerto by Vivaldi. I agree with the main point though, if you're mixing up Bach and Tchaikovsky, you don't know diddly about classical music. What's this have to do with God? I haven't been following the thread.

[william.scherk]

Emphases added.

Now, I know Bach's work intimately, and the violin concerto my mom and I were hearing was not Bach. You can't mistake baroque era violin for the romantic-era violin concerto my mom and I were hearing

[ . . . ]

I said something like, "Look, we know what we heard and it couldn't be Bach.

[ . . . ]

My mom and I know what we heard, and we both heard the same thing: an unknown violin concerto in the style of a 19th century composer

[ . . . ]

Everyone else aside from my mom and me said they heard Bach.

Well, I am willing to add you to the body of thought that finds meaning in Bach, who finds Bach to contain all music, who finds Bach to be divine.

So, perhaps we should put a third explanation on the table for consideration.

Bach was both messager and message on that uncanny night. In other words, using the music of the spheres, Bach reached out from Heaven to announce a connection between the divine and the Schulmans. Using a violin concerto, for a few brief moments, Bach parted the membranes between universes, sent a bolt of pure awareness from the Universal Consciousness to you and your mother, and so showed the whole world that not only are musical miracles possible, but that the Schulmans are antenna to receive the Universal Bach Consciousness.

Isn't it possible, Neil, that Bach is god? that if only we tune our intenna, we can absorb the mystery that glorifies the multiple membranes?

I think that is is most plausible that the voices you heard and the supercognition you experienced is actually the eternal genius of Bach moving in the world of J Neil Schulman! In some ineffable way 'GodBach' is 'RiggenBach' and 'Bach' is Music and Music is Knowledge and Quantum Superposition is Bach and violin concertos are proof of Superstring Theory and John Edward and Uri Geller and all the mysteries of the world.

I get a chill down the spine just thinking of this . . .

In support of this most plausible explanation, I list a few testimonies of the Power of Superstring Bach:

Bach is like an astronomer who, with the help of ciphers, finds the most wonderful stars.

- Friederick Chopin

To strip human nature until its divine attributes are made clear, to inform ordinary activities with spiritual fervor, to give wings of eternity to that which is most ephemeral; to make divine things human and human things divine; such is Bach, the greatest and purest moment in music of all time.

- Pablo Casals

And if we look at the works of JS Bach - a benevolent god to which all musicians should offer a prayer to defend themselves against mediocrity - on each page we discover things which we thought were born only yesterday, from delightful arabesques to an overflowing of religious feeling greater than anything we have since discovered. And in his works we will search in vain for anything the least lacking in good taste.

- Claude Debussy

...the greatest Christian music in the world...if life had taken hope and faith from me, this single chorus would restore all.

- Felix Mendelssohn

Bach is the beginning and end of all music.

- Max Reger

I had no idea of the historical evolution of the civilized world's music and had not realized that all modern music owes everything to Bach.

- Niccolai Rimsky-Korsakov

Music owes as much to Bach as religion to its founder.

- Robert Schumann

...the most stupendous miracle in all music!.

- Richard Wagner

Bach is a colossus of Rhodes, beneath whom all musicians pass and will continue to pass. Mozart is the most beautiful, Rossini the most brilliant, but Bach is the most comprehensive: he has said all there is to say. If all the music written since Bach's time should be lost, it could be reconstructed on the foundation which Bach laid.

- Charles Gounod

Study Bach. There you will find everything.

- Johannes Brahms

If one were asked to name one musician who came closest to composing without human flaw, I suppose general consensus would choose Johann Sebastian Bach...

- Aaron Copland

If Bach is not in Heaven.....I am not going!

- William F. Buckley

Whether the angels play only Bach praising God, I am not quite sure.

- Karl Barth

I do not honestly think there is the slightest possibility that [J Neil Schulman or I] could hear a Bach violin concerto and think it was written in the late 19th Century.

- Jeff Riggenbach

[J Neil Schulman]

Jeff Riggenbach, I know you read this forum. Do you honestly think there's even the slightest possibility I can't tell the difference between Bach and a late 19th century violin concerto? I know that you could in about five seconds.

I do not honestly think there is the slightest possibility that either of us could hear a Bach violin concerto and think it was written in the late 19th Century.

JR

Fritz Kreisler successfully passed off a work of his own as a violin concerto by Vivaldi. I agree with the main point though, if you're mixing up Bach and Tchaikovsky, you don't know diddly about classical music. What's this have to do with God? I haven't been following the thread.

For the thread, see my Message #664 in reply to William Scherk's Message #659.

[J Neil Schulman]

Emphases added.

Now, I know Bach's work intimately, and the violin concerto my mom and I were hearing was not Bach. You can't mistake baroque era violin for the romantic-era violin concerto my mom and I were hearing

[ . . . ]

I said something like, "Look, we know what we heard and it couldn't be Bach.

[ . . . ]

My mom and I know what we heard, and we both heard the same thing: an unknown violin concerto in the style of a 19th century composer

[ . . . ]

Everyone else aside from my mom and me said they heard Bach.

Well, I am willing to add you to the body of thought that finds meaning in Bach, who finds Bach to contain all music, who finds Bach to be divine.

So, perhaps we should put a third explanation on the table for consideration.

Bach was both messager and message on that uncanny night. In other words, using the music of the spheres, Bach reached out from Heaven to announce a connection between the divine and the Schulmans. Using a violin concerto, for a few brief moments, Bach parted the membranes between universes, sent a bolt of pure awareness from the Universal Consciousness to you and your mother, and so showed the whole world that not only are musical miracles possible, but that the Schulmans are antenna to receive the Universal Bach Consciousness.

Isn't it possible, Neil, that Bach is god? that if only we tune our intenna, we can absorb the mystery that glorifies the multiple membranes?

I think that is is most plausible that the voices you heard and the supercognition you experienced is actually the eternal genius of Bach moving in the world of J Neil Schulman! In some ineffable way 'GodBach' is 'RiggenBach' and 'Bach' is Music and Music is Knowledge and Quantum Superposition is Bach and violin concertos are proof of Superstring Theory and John Edward and Uri Geller and all the mysteries of the world.

I get a chill down the spine just thinking of this . . .

In support of this most plausible explanation, I list a few testimonies of the Power of Superstring Bach:

Bach is like an astronomer who, with the help of ciphers, finds the most wonderful stars.

- Friederick Chopin

To strip human nature until its divine attributes are made clear, to inform ordinary activities with spiritual fervor, to give wings of eternity to that which is most ephemeral; to make divine things human and human things divine; such is Bach, the greatest and purest moment in music of all time.

- Pablo Casals

And if we look at the works of JS Bach - a benevolent god to which all musicians should offer a prayer to defend themselves against mediocrity - on each page we discover things which we thought were born only yesterday, from delightful arabesques to an overflowing of religious feeling greater than anything we have since discovered. And in his works we will search in vain for anything the least lacking in good taste.

- Claude Debussy

...the greatest Christian music in the world...if life had taken hope and faith from me, this single chorus would restore all.

- Felix Mendelssohn

Bach is the beginning and end of all music.

- Max Reger

I had no idea of the historical evolution of the civilized world's music and had not realized that all modern music owes everything to Bach.

- Niccolai Rimsky-Korsakov

Music owes as much to Bach as religion to its founder.

- Robert Schumann

...the most stupendous miracle in all music!.

- Richard Wagner

Bach is a colossus of Rhodes, beneath whom all musicians pass and will continue to pass. Mozart is the most beautiful, Rossini the most brilliant, but Bach is the most comprehensive: he has said all there is to say. If all the music written since Bach's time should be lost, it could be reconstructed on the foundation which Bach laid.

- Charles Gounod

Study Bach. There you will find everything.

- Johannes Brahms

If one were asked to name one musician who came closest to composing without human flaw, I suppose general consensus would choose Johann Sebastian Bach...

- Aaron Copland

If Bach is not in Heaven.....I am not going!

- William F. Buckley

Whether the angels play only Bach praising God, I am not quite sure.

- Karl Barth

I do not honestly think there is the slightest possibility that [J Neil Schulman or I] could hear a Bach violin concerto and think it was written in the late 19th Century.

- Jeff Riggenbach

A plausible thesis. I'll reconsider. :-)

[Xray]

Since life has never been created in a lab out of non-life, and human-level self-consciousness has never been duplicated in a lab, the assertion that consciousness is a product of evolution rests where it was when first offered well over a century ago: untested and unproved.

"Since life has never been created in a lab out of non-life," (NS)

This does not mean it won't happen at some point. As early as in the 1950s, the famous Miller–Urey experiment already "demonstrated that organic compounds can be created by fairly simple physical processes from inorganic substances." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Miller

By the way, Rand, herself, denied accepting evolution as a proved theory.

And what do you think was Rand's motive for her denial here? Could it be that her elevating "man" to some kind of 'sacred' being (In AS, she even compares Galt to the greek statues of "man as a god") did not quite mesh with the idea of apes being our very close biological relatives?

How My God Experience Ruined My Life

by J. Neil Schulman

Before I mind-melded with God I was a successful writer with two published novels and three published non-fiction books; and I'd had an episode I wrote of The Twilight Zone produced on CBS.

After I mind-melded with God I was a successful writer with three published novels, a published collection of short stories, a published collection of my screenwriting, and seven more books; the Twilight Zone produced on CBS; and I wrote, produced, and directed my first feature film which won two film-festival awards.

Before I mind-melded with God I was a libertarian activist for individual rights and against statism.

After I mind-melded with God I was a libertarian activist for individual rights and against statism.

Before I mind-melded with God I disliked faith-based religion and arbitrary binding traditions.

After I mind-melded with God I disliked faith-based religion and arbitrary binding traditions.

Before I mind-melded with God I advocated that people rely on reason instead of faith.

After I mind-melded with God I advocated that people rely on reason instead of faith.

Before I mind-melded with God I wasted my time not going to church.

After I mind-melded with God I wasted my time not going to church.

Yep. My mind-meld with God sure as heck ruined my life and degraded my values system.

In other words, your god obviously just "happens" to share the same values as you do. Amazing coincidence I must say!

Have you ever considered that this kind of god might just be be a psychological twin residing in your consciousness only?

I asked you few posts back if you can rule out that you may have had break with reality but got no reply. I'll ask again: Can you rule it out?

After I mind-melded with God I advocated that people rely on reason instead of faith.

And that's why you seriously believe (if I recall correctly, you say so in your book) that Jesus rose from the grave on the third day? Where please is the "reason" in that?

Now, I know Bach's work intimately, and the violin concerto my mom and I were hearing was not Bach. You can't mistake baroque era violin for the romantic-era violin concerto my mom and I were hearing. I said so and asked to see the CD they were playing. He said he was just watching the table until the owner came back and if I returned in a half hour I could ask him.

So, a half hour later I returned to the table and asked the owner what the CD was that was playing when my mom and I walked by their table for the first time. He said, "Bach." I said something like, "Look, we know what we heard and it couldn't be Bach. Could I look through your CD's?" He said yes.

The CD in the player was Bach.

Every other CD they had at the table was Bach.

There was no CD at the table with any romantic 19th century violin concertos.

Draw your own conclusions. My mom and I know what we heard, and we both heard the same thing: an unknown violin concerto in the style of a 19th century composer -- the exact sort of violin repertoire my dad most loved to play, and which sounded like him playing -- coming out of a CD player that the owner's claim -- and the immediate evidence -- could not have been playing.

Everyone else aside from my mom and me said they heard Bach.

And ... ?? What did you and your mom do then? I hope you at least tried to identify which violin concerto from Bach was on that CD and ask to hear it again? Please don't say you didn't think of that.

I think that is is most plausible that the voices you heard and the supercognition you experienced is actually the eternal genius of Bach moving in the world of J Neil Schulman! In some ineffable way 'GodBach' is 'RiggenBach' and 'Bach' is Music and Music is Knowledge and Quantum Superposition is Bach and violin concertos are proof of Superstring Theory and John Edward and Uri Geller and all the mysteries of the world.

LOL, that was good!

Make sure to get a share of Neil's royalties in case he might use these ideas for in his next Science Fiction story ...

Edited January 9, 2011 by Xray

[J Neil Schulman]

William Scherk's clever variations on Bach aside, the incident that happened to my mom and me at the FEE convention is a perfect example of why an experience can lead to a least-hypothesis interpretation for me which is a wild-ass complicated explanation for someone else. The "evidence" is so individually tailored that not only is there no one-size-fits-all but the slipper that fits Cinderella is apparently of a size not to be found in any shoe store.

Edited January 9, 2011 by J. Neil Schulman

[caroljane]

WSS, thanks for the plausible analysis and the great quotes about immortal Bach. How wonderfully musicians can put into words the indescribable.

[Greybird]

Many scientists, including project leader Carl Sagan, debated with passion and intensity as to what aspects of human life should be portrayed on the golden record to be attached to the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 probes, now in interstellar space.

(These literally golden not-so-oldies were detailed, including their visuals and summaries of their music and text, in Sagan's gorgeous coffee-table book Murmurs of Earth, and figured into the plot of "Starman," starring Jeff Bridges.)

One Sagan associate suggested cutting short the discussion about what would best represent human beings to distant aliens. "We could just send them the collected works of Johann Sebastian Bach."

He added: "That, however, would be boasting."