Autism, Paganism, Psychic Ability and the Paranormal

[AGXStarseed]

Following an article back in June in which a fair few of us talked about having psychic/spiritual experiences, I've been doing a bit of 'digging around' to find more information as I genuinely have an interest in this sort of thing.

What I've found is something quite thought-provoking, despite the article been a few years old now. The article - written by an Australian woman called Jenny Taylor (who has Asperger Syndrome) - not only looks at Autism and its possible link to the psychic and spiritual, but also a look at a possible link to Autism and Paganism.

The article is too long to post and has a fair few pictures so instead I will just post the link.
Hope you enjoy reading it.


Here's the link: Autism, Paganism, Psychic Ability & the Paranormal ~ Updated | The Other Side

 

[Beverly]

Definitely makes one think. I've often thought that perhaps ASD is not a defect at all but, the next evolution of the human species, it just goes awry sometimes and we see debilitating autism but, any aspect of genetics occasionally goes awry and debilitates the person.

I have a family heritage of being healers and spiritual guides, medicine women if you will. I never knew we weren't supposed to be able to feel injuries and diseases in others or that I wasn't supposed to be able to visit the dreams of others. My mother did it, as did my grandmother and, I'm told every female in my direct family line for as long as anyone remembers did those things.

I learned, as I got older that supposedly humans can't do those things but, I can and do so, that's a misconception/ lack of research and scientific evidence is all. Maybe because most of the people I know that can do it don't want to be poked, prodded and studied like lab rats.

I don't think of my Native American path as pagan but, I suppose in the grand scheme of definitions of faith it is pagan even though, to me, Great Spirit and God are one and the same.

Am I an Aspie because of whatever it is in my makeup that allows me to sense injuries and diseases and, walk in dreams, or can I do those things because I am an Aspie? I don't know, maybe the two are co-dependent or synergistic.

 

[Madame Catfish]

I usually avoid anything relating to the supernatural like the plague. I'm analytical to a fault and find that sort of thing aggravating.
However, the article was oddly straightforward an interesting.
Like I said, the paranormal and hokus-pokus usually annoys me (I was a cynic from an early age, becoming a closet atheist within a catholic family by the age of eight and a diagnosed depressive the same year), but my family has always had a touch of weirdness in it. Psychic weirdness, I mean.
I think it would be my great great great aunt (give or take a great) on my father's mother's side who was a full blown psychic in her day. Most of the family disowned her because she was kind of psycho, but she had all sorts of premonitions, mostly small stuff within the family, but also predicting WWII events and something big in the 60's (I'd have to ask my dad more about that).
Again, I'm not full into accepting the ideas of the psychic, but along my dad's family (which is also where the autistic genes are) we have these gut premonitions that we cannot explain. Dad usually knows when someone is going to pass away, even if they aren't in bad health, when he sees them. He just takes a look at them and says that this is the last time he will see them and knows that they'll be gone within a week.
One of my sisters can do the same thing, never wrong. They'll just get quiet after saying goodbye to someone and you'll ask them what's wrong and they'll just shake their heads. Especially weird considering my sister is a loud energetic type that doesn't really care about much.
That's happened to me twice, with my grandmother and my aunt. My aunt was in good health, too. Sudden heart attack out of nowhere. She was just sitting on her porch and I was saying goodbye to my cousin and I rushed over there and gave her a hug and wouldn't get in the car because I knew something was wrong.
I also have memory's that I cannot explain. I remember things from before I was born sometimes. When I was little my parents used to dismiss it as me hearing stories in the family and replicating them, but I am a very visual person. I was able to draw out the apartment my mother and father were living in in 1989 (ten years before my birth) and knew the placemet of the furniture and the carpet colour and the colour of the plates and the smell of the rabbit. Scared the crap out of me, didn't seem to suprise my dad. I have this one memory of a whitewash church somewhere east of us. It feels further east, taller trees, a bit more humid. Anyway, I know the church and that my dad was the pastor, but my dad has never been a pastor and we have never been to that church. It might be a dream or something silly, but my memories of the place are to exact. It's like I have a series of pictures in my head from the different places I was standing at different moments.
All of these phenomenon are probably bullcrap with a simple explanation, but I cannot find them, so I'll post here.

 

[watersprite]

Same as you Madame Catfish .
I do not want to be psychic and when I have been it is never useful as far as I can tell. I am not going to post what has happened to me. I still think it could all be coincidental. I don't claim to know what this part of life is or where it comes from - just think I might have an odd glitch and information skips into my brain un-asked-for sometimes.

 

[Tom]

I too tend heavily towards scepticism of the paranormal. I can never make it square with scientific evidence or logic.

The basic problem I find with all theories of this nature is that almost immediately 'might' has to be inserted instead of 'is'. Rather elaborate constructions can be made using 'mights', often interesting and intriguing, but like all the many that have come before, unable to stand up to scientific scrutiny.

Of all the manifestations, I find what I'll generalize as the 6th sense the most persistent and at times rather convincing. There is also a long association of it with women in particular, that goes back in the recorded record (in the West at least) to the earliest writings and practices. But as far as I know none has ever been able to demonstrate it under scientific conditions in tests.

It's possible that some things still evade or are undetectable by science, so the door should always remain open. But I must admit I don't really ever expect anything truly paranormal to walk thru it. Which is a good thing, because I would probably soil myself if something did.

 

[inabox]

I always look for a scientific reason first. But if there isn't one then, because I've got an open mind, I will consider all options.
I've had dreams which turn out to have come true, even with all the exact details. I'm trying to tune in this so it becomes useful. I can sense spirits. Unless it's my subconscious mind thinking a lot about them so I just think I can sense them..
I read the article. I don't know much about Paganism. I might look into it.

 

[AsheSkyler]

I'm skeptical towards the ghosts and spirits end of the paranormal stuff. Never encountered anything relating to it. They just stay in my "to be investigated" mental file.

I recently learned that actually feeling another person's emotions is called "referred empathy". Or was it "referred emotion"? It's a referral, anyway. I'm currently working on a theory involving Aspie over-sensitive nerve endings and tactile defensiveness to justify it since on the most basic level that all emotions and feelings are chemicals and electrical charges. And there are some people out there who generate such an electrical charge they have issues being around lightbulbs, so its plausible it could work in the other direction where a person was a lightning rod so-to-speak. If you also take into account that so many Aspies have to turn into borderline stalkers/researchers to study other people so they can blend in better, we've got a good foundation for understanding the logic behind a lot of emotions, reactions, and potential future outcomes, and possibly being rather useful. I like to stick to the more direct things like natal charts and cartomancy. Especially cartomancy, I've got a knack for seeing correlations and also breaking down an issue to basic components to lay out for a person to see better.

I got nothin' on my premonitions though. Random gut feelings that warn of an impending bad thing and I have dreams where I catch glimpses of the future and then days or years later I have freaky Deja Vu. Down to the finest detail. Like watching Avatar toward the middle/end where things are getting blown up midair while sitting next to my then-fiance while him and his dad try to figure out his dad's phone, and while I've forgotten the conversation since then I do remember that they said verbatim what I had heard in the dream. I had no idea when I first dreamed it who those people were or what movie was on until it happened, I'm not privy to the meta data when those dreams come.

 

[inabox]

Much like you said, AsheSkyler, my late partner (an aspie) generated A LOT of electrical charge when he was angry. Once or twice, (no other scientific explanation for this) lit up a strip light that was not connected to any power source, just by holding it. Those take a massive amount of volts to light up......

 

[Tom]

Much like you said, AsheSkyler, my late partner (an aspie) generated A LOT of electrical charge when he was angry. Once or twice, (no other scientific explanation for this) lit up a strip light that was not connected to any power source, just by holding it. Those take a massive amount of volts to light up......

Just to suggest a potential answer, ESD (Electro Static Discharge) came to mind. They use to drill that into our heads in electronics training. Under the most ESD favorable conditions a person can generate 20-25K Volts.

The Shocking Truth Behind Static Electricity

 

[inabox]

Just to suggest a potential answer, ESD (Electro Static Discharge) came to mind. They use to drill that into our heads in electronics training. Under the most ESD favorable conditions a person can generate 20-25K Volts.

The Shocking Truth Behind Static Electricity

Thanks for that Tom
Maybe it could also explain why some people involuntarily turn off street lights when they walk underneath them.

 

[Tom]

Thanks for that Tom
Maybe it could also explain why some people involuntarily turn off street lights when they walk underneath them.

Hmm, thats a new one on me. Unless it has something to do with a photo-electric sensor perhaps. Electricity is capable of some weird phenomena though. Things like Ball Lightning, St Elmo's fire and the like. A flight engineer friend told me one time his air refueling aircraft became electrified in a storm and the inner hull glowed with a bluish light. Strangest of all was he was able to actually pull some of the bluish plasma (or whatever it was) away from the wall a little and then have it snap back flat when he released it! And he wasn't shocked.

 

[Jimbo]

I'm not into paganism. I'm a Christian and I have had several ghostly encounters that I can't explain.

In one incident my wife also saw the ghost which was an old man walking across our bedroom. The first time we saw it we thought it may have been our imaginations, then the second night I felt a hand touch my head and saw a white figure.

There was another time in our current house which was my grandparents old house where I saw someone walking down the hall. My wife was in the bedroom and it sat on the bed and patted her leg as if it was saying everything was going to be OK. She had just been praying and was having surgery the next day.

I have also had experienced in other houses where I have been working. I can sort of sense spirits.

I know its weird but I have no explanation for these things. It's just part of my life.