There’s much paranormal activity, including levitation, after-death experiences, ghosts, multiple personalities, voices, flying objects, haunted houses, and possessed persons.
And more: Automatic writing, painting, singing, speaking, and other paranormal activities… What to make of them? Are they scams or real? Does the immaterial spirit world exist? Why ask such questions?
If such phenomena are reality, they defy the scientific method, which depends on empirical, observable, verifiable evidence that can be tested with measured results. To be clear, energy and the minutest elemental particles that travel in waves, although invisible, are still material, composed of atoms, protons, neutrons, and the smallest quarks. Science has made incredible progress in discovering the Universe’s building blocks. That’s the material reality. But science denies paranormal activity and, at the very least, shuns anything non-material.
(Transform Your Mind, Upgrade Your Life, Chapter 10)
I want the God-Intended meaning of Scripture
The ultimate question related to whether paranormal activity is real is the clash between monism and dualism. Does everything have only a physical, material origin (monism), or additionally, are there immaterial, transcendental, supernatural essences (dualism)?
In this book, Transform Your Mind, Upgrade Your Life, the author discusses whether mind and consciousness are derivatives and, therefore, part of the brain (monism, science’s perspective) or whether they are outside of the brain, belonging to the supernatural realm (dualism). If we give evidence for paranormal activity, then dualism must be taken into account as a real phenomenon.
Examples of Paranormal and Supernatural Cannot be Denied
There is so much evidence of paranormal activity that major websites and stores have dedicated libraries of books to these mysterious, dreadful, but true encounters.
The Explanation has written extensively about sound people who have personally experienced supernatural effects. Please watch this video about paranormal activity and its real influence on individuals; it’s a chapter from the book Mind-Body Problem Solved. And read this article about Mind Control from the book Agony of Humankind and the Antidote.
This TED Talk by Elizabeth Gilbert, a best-selling author, on Your Elusive Creative Genious is enlightening, and I encourage you to watch it. She shares the radical idea that, instead of the rare person “being” a genius, all of us “have” a genius. I believe you cannot come away from this lucid explanation with any other understanding than that something non-material exists. If you don’t want to call it divine or spiritual, that’s fine; refer to it as metaphysical—without physical presence or abstract.
Paranormal Activity Exists, Dualism Reigns
The logical conclusion The Explanation draws from paranormal activity is that its existence is reality. WARNING: This reality must be avoided. It is serious, and its practice can cause damaging results. We must talk about it and will return to this subject. We acknowledge the existence of paranormal activity but disapprove of its practice for our own sanity.
The only reason The Explanation proves its evidence is to demonstrate, without a doubt, a non-physical world outside of our material world. This second invisible, ethereal, immaterial realm exists and is as real as our tangible physical environment.
In other words, dualism and not monism is the correct state of the universe.
The Nature of Neshama
Now, let’s apply this understanding to the subject at hand, the nature of human beings. Let’s expand Genesis 2:7.
And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath (H5397) of life; and man became a living soul.
The word breath appears twice in English in this verse. In Biblical Hebrew, they are two totally different words, each with its significant meaning. For now, we’ll focus only on breath in breath of life. When we read this in our native language, we think of the air we breathe, which is correct. That air is a physical element insofar as science is concerned. Unfortunately, the translation only renders a partial understanding of this word.
נְשָׁמָה nᵉshâmâh nesh-aw-maw’; from H5395 (נָשַׁם); a puff, i.e. wind, angry or vital breath, divine inspiration, intellect. or (concretely) an animal:
KJV – blast, (that) breath(-eth), inspiration, soul, spirit.
The 17th-century King James translators used five English words to render this one Biblical Hebrew word. Note that two of them, inspiration and spirit, are immaterial. We will return to the soul later. This primary verse about the creation of the first human being plunges us into dualism. On one side we have a body of dust, which includes the brain, as well as the air we breath, and on the other side we have neshama representing the paranormal activity of inspiration and spirit. I’m using the paranormal in this context simply with its Greek grammatical meaning as a prefix: besides: alongside: beyond: aside from. In other words, separate from the material realm.
I remind you we have already given definitive evidence for the reality of paranormal activity. We shouldn’t be surprised to find its base at Creation in the most profound verse about the origin of humankind.
This quote from Dr. Robert Epstein (PhD in Experimental Psychology and former editor of Psychology Today) was never so valid.
A successful understanding of the mind–brain relationship will necessarily involve understanding the brain as a transduction device in one way or another. Such an understanding could prove enormously fruitful and can help us move beyond the current materialist framework in which neuroscience is practiced, which has held us so far back in our understanding of the mind and the brain. The brain is obviously material but it is just as obvious that the mind has immaterial abilities.
Dr. Epstein refers to the mind as having immaterial abilities. That’s correct, but it omits consciousness, which is also an immaterial paranormal activity.
Neshama Endows Humans with Inspiration, which is Consciousness
This unique spiritual element is thrust into humans by their Creator God. We are going to focus on it and its accompanying spirit, ruach, which we’ll see in an upcoming chapter because together, they make humans human. Each human uses them to make themselves into what they become. Hence, neshama and ruach are at the basis of Transform Your Mind, Upgrade Your Life. That’s why we must spend time establishing the solution to the Mind-Body Problem. Without this base, we cannot develop the God-intended Biblical way to avoid and heal anxiety for everyone in the 21st century.
Similarly, from God’s Biblical point of view, by infusing neshama and ruach into humans, God shows us HOW He equipped us with the essential and necessary capacities to develop into Kings, Queens, and Priests.
What Neshama Confers on Human Beings
The Explanation simply answers what the qualities of neshama are by referring to God’s Word.
But there is a spirit in man: and the inspiration (H5397 – neshama) of the Almighty gives them understanding (H995).
Neshama confers understanding on you, me, and every human who has or will walk the face of Earth. Let the Bible define understanding.
בִּין bîyn bene; a primitive root; to separate mentally (or distinguish), i.e.(generally) understand:
KJV – attend, consider, be cunning, diligently, direct, discern, eloquent, feel, inform, instruct, have intelligence, know, look well to, mark, perceive, be prudent, regard, (can) skill(-full), teach, think, (cause, make to, get, give, have) understand(-ing), view, (deal) wise(-ly, man).
That’s a list of non-material qualities possessed by each human being, obviously at different levels, but they characterize humans. I highly recommend you expand your understanding of neshama by watching Breath of Life. The Unique Possessors of Neshama on Earth and Neshama is Translated Inspiration. Discover Deeper Meaning
We have established the existence of paranormal activity to show evidence for dualism, physical and spiritual worlds. Genesis 2:7 clearly reveals the biblical fact that God breathed neshama into the first human’s body of dust, establishing this dualism (Genesis 2:7). This neshama is God’s inspiration (Job 32:8), endowing humans with understanding (Job 32:8 – H995), a mark of discernment or perception. The Explanation transposes this meaning into modern terminology: consciousness.
Together, the neshama and ruach are the elements in humans we work with to Transform Our Minds and Upgrade Our Lives. We’re getting the basis of human psychology right.
This post is Chapter 10 from the book Transform Your Mind, Upgrade Your Life
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