E-mail Exchange Round 2
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Robert de Boer responded:
Subject: Re: Psychic Challenge
Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 02:29:33 +1200
From: "Robert de Boer" <[email protected]>
To: "John Blanton" <[email protected]>John
I am merely an instrument in this field. It does not feel like I can really do anything, but I have commonly had dreams which after a short period of time appear to come true. They were either premonitory, or otherwise they may have contained factual information. But you can't force your self to have a dream and it is difficult to make a dream repeat. So with a dream there is the randomness of the timing and content/topic of it is largely undetermined.Now I have received dreams with information for a specific purpose I.e as a request e.g.. "tell me something about this person before I meet her?" I also have received visions of Text as in University Exam papers which I would dream of having to sit, and which to some extent assisted me in my study. I am now a Batchelor of Veterinary Science graduate from Massey University in New Zealand, having completed the course 25 years ago.
I have also received visions of Text with very specific Historical Religious content. The most dramatic was the Statement, "Mary the Mother of Jesus had Twins. Jesus the firstborn and John (St. John) the other whom they abandon (adopted)." Now after considerable research I would stand my ground and defend that statement in any arena even to the Pope himself, if you to make me. The long-lost Christian traditions can be seen to point to this as a matter of fact.
I have received work related dreams which foretell the place and role that myself and others will take in the future. One was that a work colleague was going to die. At the time he appeared well yet within a month he was in hospital and a month or so after that he died.
There have been so many minor coincidental dreams that one has forgotten most, but in a properly designed test I feel that the truth of this, which has baffled me to the extreme, could be verified. Now any test which is like boxes with contents and having to predict which one or what's in them I would be as useless as anyone else, but if given enough time I could say to you "such and such was in my dream" and "I think it means this or that" and we wait and see what eventuates. Now the odds of that future event happening by chance could be predicted say 100:1 and you allow me the grace of several errors for I don't say it is 100%, but it certainly is bordering on the uncanny. We could then repeat the test till the odds go to whatever level you want. But I can't say I would be able to get directly to an outcome of one chance in a million and not to have had a problem, a mistake or a misunderstanding or whatever.
The reason it is not 100% is the nature of dreams which could be symbolic or based on expressions (words or pictorial) or more direct factual ones (like visions or spoken communication), so there is the element of interpretation to combat as well as recognising the eventual outcome.
One situation that demonstrated this problem was a dream I had last year while in the USA. I dreamt that Bush won the Presidency by one vote. That seemed totally bizarre for in every state the votes would be far in excess of one vote difference but as time passed and the various court proceedings unfolded the final Supreme Court decision was based on the votes of 7 or 9 judges and it was 4 to 3 (or 5 to 4) in favour of Bush. Now the recollection may be slightly in error but it substantially confirmed the dream but the outcome was totally different than what was expected to begin with. For the word "vote" was initially though to be "Electoral" but it was ultimately "Judicial".
Now any test you perform on my ability must be able to compensate for that sort of fuzzy logic. The unexpected and the unexplained solution, as well as the obvious.
Have you ever designed a test along these lines and for this type of phenomena?
Yours Sincerely
Robert de BoerWe responded:
From: John Blanton
To: Robert de Boer
Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2001 5:44 AM
Subject: Re: Psychic ChallengeRobert,
I read your response, and what you describe appears to be entirely within normal experience. People have dreams all the time, and sometimes these dreams are of things that eventually happen in the future. What we are looking for is paranormal abilities. Here are a few examples of what has been claimed in the past:
1. The ability to predict the future. That is the ability to predict the future better than can be done with purely natural abilities.
2. The ability to walk through walls. Literally, not figuratively.
3. The ability to bend small metal objects, such as keys, without applying a physical force.
This goes on and on. What are you proposing to prove? Take a look at the challenge protocol on our Web site and let me know how you plan to respond.
Thanks,
John Blanton
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The North Texas Skeptics
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