What's Love Got To Do With It?

A Concluding Note About the Potential Role of Love in the Life of the Super Skeptic

"You have to wonder why is it that certain people are so cynical and negative about mediums? Is tis simply the fault of the mediums, particularly the disingenuous and fraudulent ones? Or does the source of the negativity arise deeply within the skeptics themselves?"

"Do extremely negative opinions about the living soul hypothesis stem from the skeptics' own personal love histories, or lack thereof? What kind of person would prefer to believe that mediumship is completely a mistake, a coincidence, or a downright fraud?"

"Is it possible that the extreme skeptic's own love history encourages him or her to prefer a universe that would allow the light from distant stars to last forever, but not the info-energy patterns of human love? As you can see, we can raise many more questions than we have answers for at this time."

"However, just as it is important for humankind to come to understand what mediumship is and why people choose careers in mediumship, it is also important for humankind to come to understand the root of super skepticism, especially when the evolving data from controlled scientific experiments strongly encourage us to at least keep an open mind about the possibility that all this and more, may be real."

"Our working hypothesis is that we will never understand the answers to these and related questions unless we come to understand the nature and role of love in human existence and the cosmos as a whole. One of the great surprises is addressing the question of the living soul hypothesis is that it stimulates new visions about the nature of love and its role in the universe. May the surprises continue."

- The Afterlife Experiments -
Gary E. Schwartz, Ph.D

me: The author quoted Isaac Newton's speculation on the nature of gravitational attraction: To paraphrase in my usual fractured manner Newton said: "Gravity is the manifestation of God's universal love."

This baffles me? The author, apparently Newton, and many others have stated their belief that love is universal and 'intrinsic' to the cosmos. I have difficulty understanding what is meant by that notion. Even with a completely open perspective and acceptance of 'love' as living energy, I see love as an 'emergent' quality of being. Love exists for and between all things (remember, I'm being open). People can love other people, people can love nature in all its forms, oceans, mountains, forests, some in particular love mushrooms but in the end, it is an interplay emerging from two separate entities. I don't understand love existing in a vacuum, but that to me seems what eminent mystics, scientists, and ordinary people claim. Can anyone help me make sense of that, is it me?

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof"
- Marcello Truzzi - The skeptic's skeptic.

Well, to something the scale of God, it's not a vacuum at all. That vacuum is filled with all the energy of the physical creation. The network of energies that we've been able to map look remarkably like neural networks. There are parallels all over the universe, imo.

Here, in physical form, we love and we feel it physically. In spiritual form we would feel it more as energy. It may be that we can only recognize love in that form when we are in that form.

But it still reflects. As above, so below. IMO.

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Originally posted by BeastOfBologna

I don't understand love existing in a vacuum, but that to me seems what eminent mystics, scientists, and ordinary people claim. Can anyone help me make sense of that, is it me?

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Here's something to consider, it's a great thought from someone which I saw just recently.

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With this understanding and my knowledge of physics, I began seeing the force of love as the electric force. Our science understands that light is basically a sinusoidal dance between electric and magnetic fields of this massless wave-form we call the photon. Magnetism is created by fluctuation of electric fields; but while electric fields may change due to movement of charged wave-particles caused by magnetic fields, electric fields themselves are not created by magnetic fields. So, the electric charge is fundamentally independent of magnetism, while all magnetism is fundamentally based on electric force. Yet, without magnetism, the universe wouldn't be, as there would be no light, which means no matter, as our scientists have recently discovered.

As such, while light is needed for Creation to be, love is the most fundamental "force" to all that is, and all that could be. Magnetism is the concept born from love, from the changing electric field. Together, they dance eternally to create the multidimensional universe.

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To me God, Creator, the Universe, Brahman, Allah, Tao or whichever name you prefer is infinite intelligence and love/light.

Have you ever read the writings of the many Christian mystics? To me they're far more interesting than what the Bible could ever have to offer. I think the likes of Saint John of the Cross, Teresa of Ávila, Meister Eckhart truly achieved union with the divine and went far beyond any dogmatic beliefs of the religion, the religion of Christianity itself was just the framework for their spiritual wisdom. Love is far beyond than just being an human emotion, Agape being the highest form of love.

"To love is to be transformed into what we love. To love God is therefore to be transformed into God."

~ John of the Cross

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Originally posted by Wind

Here's something to consider, it's a great thought from someone which I saw just recently.



To me God, Creator, the Universe, Brahman, Allah, Tao or whichever name you prefer is infinite intelligence and love/light.

Have you ever read the writings of the many Christian mystics? To me they're far more interesting than what the Bible could ever have to offer. I think the likes of Saint John of the Cross, Teresa of Ávila, Meister Eckhart truly achieved union with the divine and went far beyond any dogmatic beliefs of the religion, the religion of Christianity itself was just the framework for their spiritual wisdom. Love is far beyond than just being an human emotion, Agape being the highest form of love.

"To love is to be transformed into what we love. To love God is therefore to be transformed into God."

~ John of the Cross

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yes, that makes sense, but ... I guess my question would not be how, or who, or what, but why ... why do so many call the universal binding spirit love. Perhaps the key is to abandon one's perceptual, cognitive, intellectual concept of love and look to find a 'truer' definition of the word. Love is not sweet or a selfish self-gratification between two entities, I'll use an example of pet friends and their caretakers, but more simply the lifeforce/energy that exists universally and serves to bind. The emergent quality of that reality is pair bonding at a more superficial (human) level. One other notable thing is that philosophers of all disciplines believe that human love imparted to, I'll use mother Gaia for this example, is reciprocated. A human and a rock can have an energetic feedback relationship. yeah, I'm actually making sense to myself at the moment. Love is not always sweet and beneficial when viewed from an anthropomorphic perspective. Love is not what we think it is, at its deepest level it is most certainly ineffable. :)

I'm hearing Tina Turner's voice.....

She was indeed magnetic.

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Originally posted by Dreamtimer

I'm hearing Tina Turner's voice.....

She was indeed magnetic.

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A mystic would most assuredly say she still is and in the flesh I believe ... :)