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TheScamDetective
Joined: 15 Jun 2007
Posts: 1334
Location: California
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 Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2007 8:35 pm Post subject: |
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Thats what believers do...they have nothing concrete to base their own beliefs on so they place them outside of physics or anything else than just might be a threat to their beliefs.
They do that, imo, because they have the burden of proof...but there is none so they put themselves outside of the realm of reality thinking they are safe there.
_________________
"It's our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."
Dumbledore
to Harry Potter
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OldTimeradio
Joined: 17 Jun 2007
Posts: 90
Location: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
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| Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2007 1:05 am Post subject: |
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| Ataraxik wrote: |
| No offense to Old Time Radio.... |
Absolutely none taken. Hey, maybe I'm just flat-out wrong! But if that's indeed the case, I suspect that all the Paranormal stuff is out the window too.
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Sincerely,
OldTimeRadio
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dr wu23
Joined: 24 Jun 2007
Posts: 2158
Location: Indiana
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| Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2007 11:43 am Post subject: |
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| OldTimeradio wrote: |
| Ataraxik wrote: |
| No offense to Old Time Radio.... |
Absolutely none taken. Hey, maybe I'm just flat-out wrong! But if that's indeed the case, I suspect that all the Paranormal stuff is out the window too. |
Why would all the paranormal stuff be out the window? I have always thought it possible that what we call the' paranormal 'may be aspects of Reality we just don't understand with science yet.
_________________
"Some say the valley has always been haunted ever since River ran.
The rippling waters fast as the colors conceal the Green Man."
Roy Harpur from The Green Man
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Ataraxik
Joined: 22 Jul 2007
Posts: 635
Location: Manteo, Roanoke Island, NC
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| Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2007 1:15 pm Post subject: |
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Thx for not taking offense, OTRadio. I hereby (with tongue in cheek) request dr. wu remove the 'fundie' label placed on you. A true fundy would have hit the roof, lol.
As for the paranormal being as yet outside the ken of science, hmmm. I don't know. When I consider all the things science has uncovered, truly obscure and infinitely complicated processes and workings, I have to wonder. Especially when I consider that science discovers so much by pure accident: a French chemist, head of his lab, absentmindedly sets down a packet of uranium salts on a photographic negative and discovers later that an image has been thus placed on the negative. Unimpressed, he tosses the odd finding to a graduate assistant who then goes on to discover radiation (that graduate assistant being Madame Marie Curie, of course).
What I'm getting at is that scientific discoveries tend to come from investigating observed effects that have no explanation as yet. This is a good description of the paranormal: effects without explanations (setting aside whether the reported effects are real and genuine). However, when you consider the reported effects of the various paranormal claims, they are decidedly trite and pedestrian compared to the unexplained effects whose research led to scientific discoveries. Those reported to possess such paranormal powers bend spoons, offer horoscopes, make predictions about what will happen to celebrities, inform you your dead grandfather loves you, move ping pong balls, etc. The effects of other reported paranormal powers have an obvious root in straightforward religious beliefs. Ghosts and haunted locations suggest the existence of souls and survival (after a fashion) after the body has died.
A further problem is that even the effects of claimed paranormal powers (let alone causes) seem to defy scientific observation. It seems millions of people experience paranormal effects as long as they are not in a scince lab. Once controls are set up, the reported effects disappear.
So, while I certainly agree science has much left to discover, there is a profound difference between scientifically explaining fully evidenced effects and scientifically explaining effects that themselves defy being established evidentially. You can't help but to then question the claims for paranormal effects.
I have encountered a great many ideas as to why even paranormal effects (again, let alone the causes) defy scientific scrutiny, but so far, even the best have been pretty much apologetics and special pleading, while many ideas were just plain silly. Special pleading isn't necessarily wrong - quantum physics is a good example - and such pleading ceases to be 'special' once the scientific reasons for making a special case are established, but neither 'the paranormal' as a whole nor any of its subsets have offered a reason to justify special pleading, and pretty much call for it because nothing else works. It wasn't enough early on to state that quantum physics operate differently than 'regular' physics, and it isn't enough for paranormal power advocates or claimants to place the paranormal outside of science without due cause either.
Of course, this all presumes a desire to operate scientifically and many paranormalists have abandoned that vector for discovery and simply go with declarations.
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I am not young enough to know everything. - Oscar Wilde
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dr wu23
Joined: 24 Jun 2007
Posts: 2158
Location: Indiana
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| Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2007 6:27 pm Post subject: |
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Ataraxik said: I hereby (with tongue in cheek) request dr. wu remove the 'fundie' label placed on you. A true fundy would have hit the roof, lol.
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So noted, but you'll have to have Yipsl do it since this is his mod forum. From now on OTR gets special dispensation from me.
As far as the idea of the paranormal being analyzed with science I still think it's possible that what we are experiencing with the paranormal could be quantum reality glitches or aspects that we have yet to comprehend.
_________________
"Some say the valley has always been haunted ever since River ran.
The rippling waters fast as the colors conceal the Green Man."
Roy Harpur from The Green Man
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Ataraxik
Joined: 22 Jul 2007
Posts: 635
Location: Manteo, Roanoke Island, NC
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| Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2007 8:46 pm Post subject: |
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I was about to say "as I understand quantum physics" then I recalled that quote "if you think you understand quantum physics, you don't understand quantum physics". Anyway, as was said by people who know far more about quantum physics than I do, quantum affects occur only at the quantum level.
Anything's possible. The inability to capture paranormal effects in the lab when they seem to occur left and right outside the lab seems to suggest certain problems.
_________________
I am not young enough to know everything. - Oscar Wilde
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Yipsl
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| Posted: Tue Aug 28, 2007 6:11 pm Post subject: Re: Has the Tricksters taken a turn or two as the Virgin Mar |
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| Skeptical wrote: |
R. Lee, a good friend of Department 47, has written a number of interesting articles over at UFO Digest. One of her most recent efforts may hit a nerve among some of the orthodox - she suggests that some visions of the Blessed Virgin may, in fact, be the work of the ubiquitous Trickster:
http://www.ufodigest.com/news/0807/trickster.html
I don't quite know what to make of various Trickster theories, but I am pretty sure Jesus's Mother probably doesn't make a practice of hanging around remote villages and appearing before every deserving kid . Any thoughts?
S |
I tend to agree that the trickster attempts to mimic the Catholic and Christian Orthodox artistic and theological representations of Mary. That was noted by Vallee and Keel in the context of UFO lore. It's as if many of the ancient goddesses of Europe or Mesoamerica decided to appear as Mary near their sacred sites to encourage a cult that distracted from the worship of God and of God's Son, who was also Mary's human son.
Then again, I am a sort of fundamentalist, in that I take the Bible as literally as necessary to understand the spiritual struggle that humanity is engaged in. While I have the greatest respect for Mary, I do not see her as the Queen of Heaven like Isis (the goddess, not this board's poster), and I particularly see the apparitions of Mary in Mexico and France as related to pagan religion trying to hold on and in Portugal as perhaps UFO related.
What it all portends, Fortean tricksterism, demonic deception, holy truth couched in human categories and whatnot is beyond me. I do not focus on Mary and I find it interesting that the mystical appearance of Jesus, as in the vision of Julian of Norwich are not fraught with the same tendencies as the apparitions of Mary. Even the devout Catholics should be disturbed by many Marian apparitions.
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Yipsl
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| Posted: Tue Aug 28, 2007 6:18 pm Post subject: |
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| Skeptical wrote: |
I do hearken back to those old Star Trek episodes in which they suggest that some beings gain sustenance from emotion. Perhaps the Tricksters get something out of scaring or thrilling us. I could also cite the case of Mr Myxlplik, the extradimensional who periodically pestered Superman. He did it just for the fun of it. it may be that being an advanced creature does not preclude you from being an a-hole practical joker. 
S |
That's actually what demons are seen as getting in folklore: emotional sustenance, sometimes it's sexual and other time's it's like eating food. Keel said we are Moon Food and I tend to agree with him. I just think we are not God's Moon Food, even though the demons would have us believe God has horrible motives too.
What is advanced? I loved those Superman stories too and I considered Myxlplik to be an overgrown kid pestering younger and smaller kids. A being that is extradimensional from our standpoint is not automatically advanced.
It's the various magical cults that seek to exploit and tame elementals and the UFO cargo cults that seek salvation from physical ET's that equate advanced status with either ethereal natures or advanced technology. IMHO, both the magicians and the ETH cargo culters are wrong.
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OldTimeradio
Joined: 17 Jun 2007
Posts: 90
Location: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
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| Posted: Tue Aug 28, 2007 6:32 pm Post subject: |
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| dr wu23 wrote: |
| [ From now on OTR gets special dispensation from me. |
Thanx! But I still believe that my conception of God as stated in my post above is much too large for Fundamentalists to accept and would get me burned at any Fundamentalist stake.
MOREOVER, that view which Dr. Wu claims is "Fundy" was not originally mine. I was taught it by a Jeffersonian Deist philosophy professor who is a practicing Unitarian! So it follows that Dr. Wu 's idea of Fundamentalists even includes Unitarians!
As she said to me, "As our grasp of the Universe grows exponentially larger so must our ideas of God."
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Sincerely,
OldTimeRadio
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dr wu23
Joined: 24 Jun 2007
Posts: 2158
Location: Indiana
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| Posted: Tue Aug 28, 2007 6:37 pm Post subject: |
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| That's actually what demons are seen as getting in folklore: emotional sustenance, sometimes it's sexual and other time's it's like eating food. Keel said we are Moon Food and I tend to agree with him |
I don't ever recall Keel saying that but I do recall Gurdjieff saying it as well as Ouspensky reporting that Gurdjieff used to teach that in his 4th Way groups . I think it's just mystical metaphor (G's system can be very difficult to understand) and that Gurdjieff did not lterally mean that. If Keel did say it he got it from G and other mystical ideas from that period.
I think too many people who cling to 'old cultural beliefs' and 'trad religions' are stuck in this bias based on these old ideologies and are unable to move beyond to other possibilities.
_________________
"Some say the valley has always been haunted ever since River ran.
The rippling waters fast as the colors conceal the Green Man."
Roy Harpur from The Green Man
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dr wu23
Joined: 24 Jun 2007
Posts: 2158
Location: Indiana
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| Posted: Tue Aug 28, 2007 6:43 pm Post subject: |
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| OldTimeradio wrote: |
| dr wu23 wrote: |
| [ From now on OTR gets special dispensation from me. |
Thanx! But I still believe that my conception of God as stated in my post above is much too large for Fundamentalists to accept and would get me burned at any Fundamentalist stake.
MOREOVER, that view which Dr. Wu claims is "Fundy" was not originally mine. I was taught it by a Jeffersonian Deist philosophy professor who is a practicing Unitarian! So it follows that Dr. Wu 's idea of Fundamentalists even includes Unitarians!
As she said to me, "As our grasp of the Universe grows exponentially larger so must our ideas of God." |
I stand corrected about your 'fundy' views or I should say lack of.
Some of your posts that I have read at Fortean Times seemed to be in a very mainstream position. Perhaps I just didn't see enough to get a more rounded view.
| Quote: |
| As she said to me, "As our grasp of the Universe grows exponentially larger so must our ideas of God." |
Yes..which is why I have moved on beyond theist/Christian ideas which to me are far too small and restrictive.
_________________
"Some say the valley has always been haunted ever since River ran.
The rippling waters fast as the colors conceal the Green Man."
Roy Harpur from The Green Man
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Yipsl
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| Posted: Tue Aug 28, 2007 9:58 pm Post subject: |
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| dr wu23 wrote: |
| Quote: |
| That's actually what demons are seen as getting in folklore: emotional sustenance, sometimes it's sexual and other time's it's like eating food. Keel said we are Moon Food and I tend to agree with him |
I don't ever recall Keel saying that but I do recall Gurdjieff saying it as well as Ouspensky reporting that Gurdjieff used to teach that in his 4th Way groups . I think it's just mystical metaphor (G's system can be very difficult to understand) and that Gurdjieff did not lterally mean that. If Keel did say it he got it from G and other mystical ideas from that period.
I think too many people who cling to 'old cultural beliefs' and 'trad religions' are stuck in this bias based on these old ideologies and are unable to move beyond to other possibilities. |
I'll look for the Keel quote, it may take me this weekend to find it. He cites ancient Chinese scholars, but provides no sources, which is typical Keel. He's well read but does not always footnote. If you've found it in Gurdjieff and Ouspensky it's probable that they found the same source Keel did and incorporated that into their work.
Though you're unhappy with traditional religions, note that any belief becomes traditional over time. If the citation is Taoist, it's another bit of proof that the world's most traditional belief systems all agree that we are in spiritual danger from what Western religion calls demons, but which are called by other names in other cultures.
Regardless of whether the Christian model is true (and I think it is), there's a bit of spiritual warfare going on that certain "new" belief systems just ignore. Keel, for all his agnosticism, does not ignore what is going on, and neither did Fort, though he tended to blame the Supreme Being in a tongue in cheek manner.
Folklore, Paracelsus and other magicians, psychic and UFO researchers investigating the EDH all warn that the promises of "other possibilities" simply do not pan out and eventually show up to be lies. Perhaps it's time for you to consider that?
| TheScamDetective wrote: |
Radio
"But does Existence need a creator?"
~
Not in the sense of some mythical, invisible, unprovable god.
For even if god exists...he/she would have had to come into existence at some point ..so who created god? |
God is self creating. IMHO, God is the Absolute and contains the multidimensional realities. As one ancient mystical Jewish teaching says "The world is not God's place, God is the Place of the world". As one Christian scholar who studies heaven says "God created heaven and chooses to dwell there. He will dwell on the New Earth because it's His choice."
People need to stop seeing God as the white haired guy on the Sistine Chapel reaching out to Adam at the moment He created him. Even God as a Being we can relate to personally is a self limitation that God makes for the benefit of His creatures. That's the traditional view, and new views that reject God in favor of either randomness in a multiverse or non personal forces that care not about creation are based on two false premises; one that we as humans are the captains of our fate and the other that a non personal force gives rise to personal beings.
Keel was right, we are property. Choose wisely as to which spiritual being you belong to. Despite the flaws in monotheistic religion (which are less than the flaws in nontheistic religion), I choose God. I hope you someday do too.
| Ataraxik wrote: |
| Easterners and Westerners alike want one thing, to avoid admitting "I don't know." It is only in how they avoid it that they differ. |
Very good quote, the one point I'd make is that both Easterners and Westerners do know. They simply do not want to take their folklore seriously. That's why they devise systematic theologies in the West and innumerable localized deity incarnations in the East. If they paid attention to their ancient folklore, they'd be much closer to the truth.
The only systematic approach to the truth is to take stories seriously, albeit sometimes with a grain of salt.
| Ataraxik wrote: |
| the cage one finds himself in when he cites physics to disprove things he doesn't believe in, but finds he has no choice but to place certain things he does believe in outside the purview of physics, such as God, creation, etc., forced to do so without any reason beyond the fact that's the only way he can maintain the belief. Having to juggle the internal conflict must be very tiring. |
Many find that they desire to place things they don't believe in outside physics, such as God, because such things traditionally are seen as staking claims on one's will. God "must" be metaphysics, and metaphysics "must" be useless because a God that eternally creates universes capable of bringing forth life over time within parameters suitable to that life limits the personal will of the believer in scientism or modern skepticism.
Me, I see God as Ribono shel Olam, the Master of Forces, seen in the quantum foam as creating innumerable universes and in the human psyche as creating beings made in His image capable of wonder at the multiverse. It strikes me as odd that physicists use multiverse views to discredit both the anthropic principle and God, all the while not realizing that those views are heralded in the most ancient of mystical sources as proof of God.
God does not exist, as only created beings exist, but there is more to God's nonexistence than to our existence. If we choose wisely, then we will share in God's existence, but if we simply grumble that it just isn't so and that "I" cannot believe such a silly thing all the while ignoring all proofs and stories, then the only thing that will be left in the end is a grumble, not a human being made in God's image.
| Ataraxik wrote: |
| If it isn't falsifiable, it isn't knowable. One may only have faith. |
Not all that is knowable is falsifiable. The heart has reasons which reason can only relate to chemical processes in the glands, and thus knows very little. I think having faith is a good thing. Aside from the humorous fact that my wife is named Faith, I've always liked the concept. I have never seen faith as blind belief, and therefore a negative, but as a positive reaction to human experience.
I see faith as knowing trust. I trust my experience and thus believe that which comes closest to explaining my experience. I do not seek to falsify a hypothesis for the Numinous which I acknowledge exists outside science because it is too primal, too wild, too untame to fit into either tame systematic theology or misguidedly agnostic science.
Last edited by Yipsl on Tue Aug 28, 2007 11:05 pm; edited 4 times in total |
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Yipsl
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| Posted: Tue Aug 28, 2007 10:22 pm Post subject: |
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| dr wu23 wrote: |
The Universe may simply be. It exists and that's all we can say. The Universe may have always been and always will be just like the theists claim for 'God'. In this respect 'Reality' itself becomes 'God' (always was and will be) in an eastern mystical manner which of course doesn't work for the Christians. They want their cake and to eat it too....they want 'God' as the creator but want him to be an apriori existence .
Very convenient. |
Before God created this world, He created innumerable worlds. That sounds like Reality to me. The difference between East and West is that the East sees personality as an aberration and the West sees personality as the image of God. That is the philosophical difference between Eastern and Western mysticism.
The folklore of the East agrees with the folklore of the West and the Easterners must take all their innumerable personal gods and make them not only impersonal forces but aspects of one particular force. I think they're being deceived.
I think I'd call your worldview mononothingism. All is Reality and reality is nothing except what the hiker on the path of eternity wants it to be. I still see that as narcissism at its natural conclusion, or maybe it's hiking the trail of Reality with blinders on? Just be careful not to trip over the rocks and don't forget to look for any precipices along the way.
| OldTimeradio wrote: |
| Ataraxik wrote: |
| There is spiritual comfort and rhetorical invulnerability in such unreason. |
The ONE thing I've learned in 50 years of studying this stuff is that "unreasonability" is INVARIABLY the other guy's approach to knowledge. |
Very good. I've noticed that skeptics who insist upon reason as the core of their critiques ignore the reasonableness of human experience, both everyday and mystical. It all comes down to axioms when a philosophy is stated, but when the veneer of philosophy or science is removed, it all comes down to will.
We are, or are not, the captains of our own fate. We are, or are not, property. Fortean phenomena finally brought me to a realization that folklore happens. I was never a skeptic, but always a believer in God. Yet, I wanted my God to be a bit tamer than God is described in the Bible and Western mystical tradition. Now, I have no desire to tame God or to water down the traditions that tell us, however imperfectly, about God.
I read recently that Unitarians believe God is too good to send us to hell, and that Universalists believe that we are too good to be sent to hell. Perhaps skeptics believe that we are as close to hell as we're ever going to be, so they're about trying to create a secular heaven on earth?
The Buddhists believe in bardo hells and paradises. While that might be true, that we create the next world we desire, I think it's more likely that God creates the worlds we desire and allows us to choose where we wish to go, based on both our deeds and our desires.
I hope for a Christian universalism akin to that of George MacDonald who said that there was no hell lacking to bring the soul to God, or to a situation that might pan out to be Purgatory for some and Hell for others similar to C.S. Lewis' drab insignificant city at the beginning of "The Great Divorce". I used to believe in Jewish universalism that holds everyone has a share in the World to Come unless they choose to lose it. Now, I believe we are in a situation caused by both the free will choice of the earliest humans and negative intervention by godling EDH beings that's so close to the classic view of the Fall and the Curse that it makes little difference.
If anyone tells me that I've come back from Mount Hermon California even more missionary than at my old folklore oriented Jew by choice best, then I won't argue the point. You might think I'm trying to save you from a hell that simply does not exist, and therefore I'm being an irrational fool, but I'm actually seeking to save hell from irrational fools who simply do not see that there is a judgment and a Judge. This Judge gives us what we deserve in the World to Come by allowing us to go where our heart's desire takes us.
If all we want is our very own self, then that is all we'll get. I just don't think we'll get it for long or forever. Hell is emptiness and the fullness of our personality made in God's image can't last there for long. Whatever is left to suffer and curse Heaven won't be human forever.
I'd rather like to think that Hell does not seek to be it's own kingdom, that would be Tarterus that desires that. I'd rather think that Hell would prefer to be left alone and empty, whereas Heaven wants companionship and fullness.
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Yipsl
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| Posted: Tue Aug 28, 2007 11:33 pm Post subject: |
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| Ataraxik wrote: |
Ah, now I remember you from the Aggie meetings.
No offense to Old Time Radio, but he has posted publicly, fair game and all, and I had always wondered how people can slip in and out of the application of physics, such as using physics to debunk Phillip's belief in historical giant humans, but placing objects of one's own beliefs safely outside the scrutiny of physics for no apparent reason, except maybe because it protects the belief from too close of a scrutinization. |
Good, back to folklore. I accept historical giant humans. The question is what constitutes a giant? The Patagonian stories of age of sail travelers is seen as hyperbole and the giants simply at the high range of normal height. Yet, what is normal height in one culture is not normal in another, diet and all that.
The Biblical giants weren't strictly human, they were hybrids, and therefore I don't expect we'll be finding their bones any time soon. Were I too come up with a "the hellhound ate my homework" explanation, I'd say that they weren't strictly made of permanent baryonic matter. Either they were like Keel's M.I.B.'s and UFO occupants (i.e. temporary transmogrifications of normal matter to clothe something else), or their remains were taken away to a different dimension for disposal. Thus, the Bible would be discredited because the only large bones medieval man could discover that were gigantic were of dinosaurs and huge mammals.
If anyone's curious, I used to be strictly an old earth creationist, but now I waver between old and young earth creationist for the following reasons:
I wasn't there at the time, all I see is that the universe proclaims God's glory, not how old it is.
Our dating methods are inconclusive and fail past a certain point. I cannot vouch for billions of years and the text says that it's rather closer to 6000 to 10000. Yet, I still sense truth to the Talmudic dictum that the six days of creation contained all the ages of the universe.
Catastrophism wins out over uniformitarianism often enough to muddle the evidence open to science, let alone the evidence open to us zetetic folklorists.
Folklore happens, so I believe in giants, physics be confounded.
| OldTimeradio wrote: |
The idea of a "Trickster Mary" is by no means unknown to the Roman Catholic Church. That is one of the main reasons that the Church is usually so reluctant to approve "visions of Mary."
But what the Church is talking about here are "demonic impersonations" of Mary.
Many famous "sightings" of the Virgin have been followed by what I'll call "secondary visions," in which other people in the same general neighborhood report that they also experiene Marian visions. But these putative "visionaries" are very often people of decidedly low moral character and the doctrines and teachings they receive are replete with theological errors (anti-Christian, not just anti-Catholic).
More importantly in one of the secondary visions which followed upon the famous mid-19th Century experiences of Bernadette Soubirous the "Virgin" was accompanied by two "angels" who seem to have erupted right out of UFO lore.
They seemed much more "tough guy" bodyguards than angels in the usually-accepted sense, and they were dressed in black slacks, black turtleneck sweaters and black berets.
No UFO buff needs to be told who they resemble! |
Interesting, very interesting. I was raised a non Catholic in a lapsed, rarely going to church Catholic household that were not my blood relatives. They were more into bloody mary's at the bar than they were into Mary at church. My quest for God took me to Judaism as I found all the statues I occasionally saw in church while attending Catholic elementary schools and a Catholic college as beside the point, so I gravitated to the Vallee/Keel UFO folklore view of major apparitions. That continued even after I chose to be Jewish through conversion 18 years ago.
I'll investigate the literature on these false Mary's and review the traditional accounts of approved Marian apparitions for comparison. I don't doubt those pesky mazzikim are always ready to pull a fast one on humans, but whether those mazzikim are slaves of fallen angels or are the offspring of such angels with humans is another folklore belief that I simply cannot verify. I just know they exist and should not be trusted.
| dr wu23 wrote: |
| OldTimeradio wrote: |
| Ataraxik wrote: |
| No offense to Old Time Radio.... |
Absolutely none taken. Hey, maybe I'm just flat-out wrong! But if that's indeed the case, I suspect that all the Paranormal stuff is out the window too. |
Why would all the paranormal stuff be out the window? I have always thought it possible that what we call the' paranormal 'may be aspects of Reality we just don't understand with science yet. |
Science is the aspect of Reality that we think we understand, until we have experiences that show us otherwise.
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Yipsl
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| Posted: Tue Aug 28, 2007 11:58 pm Post subject: |
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| Ataraxik wrote: |
A further problem is that even the effects of claimed paranormal powers (let alone causes) seem to defy scientific observation. It seems millions of people experience paranormal effects as long as they are not in a scince lab. Once controls are set up, the reported effects disappear.
|
Not everything accepted by science is reproducible in a lab under any set of controls. Neo-Darwinian evolution, for example. Perhaps McFadden's quantum evolution might be testable, but I'm not quite certain of that.
Paranormal phenomena are trite and are simply a quasi-scientific way of describing what our ancestors called magic. Magical effects (as opposed to illusions) are not reproducible because the laws of the universe do not allow for their regular occurrence and religious traditions ascribe magic to demons, while hermetic traditions ascribe magic to daimons or elementals (same difference LOL).
Religious experiences are anecdotal and anecdotal experience is rejected as probable false experiences by modern skeptics, whereas us old school zetetics and Forteans tend to see anecdotal experience as the core human experience, with observations based on controlled laboratory settings as localized and special. The rarer the experience, the less it can be controlled. Since mystical experience is given to human beings by either God or a spiritual EDH entity that is less than God, I can't see it being reproducible at will.
God allows human freedom to the point of not seeing the obvious because they'd prefer the safe, the tame, the controlled. Spiritual EDH beings are either working for God on one side and limited by His dictates or they are in a struggle with God. They do not intervene to prove a miracle to scientists.
I remember reading a short story by the French author Pierre Boulle who wrote "Monkey Planet" that became the inspiration for the "Planet of the Apes" movies. A physicist is converted by a miracle and a priest loses his faith because he cannot reproduce the miracle. That is very much the nature of reality, which is why mystics are rare and miracles seem to defy nature because they start outside of nature.
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