The Gifts, Energy & The Universal Subconscious Highway

As a resident of Sarnia, I often browse the Sarnia Online Classifieds - it is a busy site that has local buy/sell classifieds as well as some business advertising. One of the business advertisers is a guy (pseudo)named Darin James. His (other) name is Darin Scheiding and he claims to be a "medium", "free thinker" and "psychic councillor". The "free thinker" has an obvious space in it so as not to be confused with a "freethinker" and I must thank him for that.

On Darin's website http://www.darinjamesonline.com/, he explains who he is and the special "gifts" that he has. And, being a skeptic, I had to know more. Darin claims that Ouija boards can be dangerous (I agree, any rigid press board can be used as a weapon), that ghosts exist and that he can talk to the dead. He even claims that his grandmother appeared to him (as if fully alive) after her death. (Note: I've met many people who made claims similar but they also admit to the usage of hallucinogenics.)

Darin has a page titled "The Gifts, Energy & The Universal Subconscious Highway", which I've quoted below in case it gets changed. The spelling, grammar and content is Darin's - I have not edited the content either way (Other than to italicize it and put back in lost line feeds).

Everyone can or does tap into the energy known as The Universal Subconscious Mind or as I call it "The Universal Subconscious Highway".
It has been highly reported by science and other proffessionals that we do not use our entire brain compacity. Learning and expanding yourself you can use more of your brain power. Some are born with more useage others not . But we can all change this. A prime example is a young man who was shot with a 357 Magnum lost half his brain and completely recovered . In time and with surgery the doctors even repaird the damaged skull so nobody could tell his injury ever even happened.

I was born with extra use also giving me extra gifts . I do believe we all have gifts of some form or another. And yes you can develop your own gifts given time and work. Many of you experience dejavu a knowing or recognition of being in a place or situation before.
Gut feelings should never be dismissed lightly. Your first gut feeling is usually right in most cases. The problem is most listen to their conscious anilitical mind and second guess yourself. Trusting your intuition or Gut takes time and practice for sure.

I believe we are all energy and that the energy that is you and I inhabits our bodies like a space suite. Our bodies may not go on but our energy does. Being that we are energy we are connected to that Universal Subconscious that I talked about earlier. A very simple example your thinking of a friend who may live thousands of miles away now. Next thing you know the phone rings and guess who it is. Every thought we have is energy and it goes out on this Universal Subconscious Highway be it good thoughts or bad. That is why it is sooooo important to watch what you think and say for all of it returns to us in one form or another.
One thing you must also know that is so very important is when dealing with the subconscious either your own or the Subconscious Highway is the Subconscious takes things very litterally. It is our conscious mind that questions the subconscious takes everything as fact and records it.
Hypnosis is a very valuable tool to understand and deal with both subconscious and conscious minds. The subconscious records everything at all times and hypnosis can help in recall of any of those records or to change thinking patterns that you would like to change from Neg to Pos.

To begin with, the anecdote that Darin uses should be enough to convince anyone that what he has to say must be the truth. Two anecdotes is always better because in science, multiple anecdotes = data. *Smack* What the f#$k? I was dazed by the inanity and I must apologize. Anecdotes = anecdotes and the plural of anecdote is not data. I tried searching for information on this person who was shot in the head with a "357" with no luck - I'm not doubting that someone could recover from a "357" shot to the head, I just am not sure the story is as Darin tells it - I'm a bit skeptical, you might say.

Even if someone could lose half their brain and "fully recover" (what does a full recovery mean, anyway?), what does that say about "special gifts"? Nothing.

Ever thought about a friend who is thousands of miles away and then "voila", the phone rings and it is them? That's magic - or selective observation. Have you ever thought about that friend and the phone not ring? Have you ever had the phone ringing and you say "I bet that's John" and, amazingly, it is John? What about times that you've said it is John and it wasn't John? Was there another reason for you to suspect it was John?

I'd be amazed if the phone started ringing and Darin said "I bet that is someone I've never met before and his name is Harvey Winklestein" and, sure enough, some guy named Harvey Winklestein dials a wrong number and reaches Darin. That'd be amazing. I suggest you have Darin come over to your house and have him tell you who is going to call and then get ten of your friends (that he is not aware of) to randomly call your house - Darin should be able to tell you, before you answer the phone (or look at call display) who is calling. Heck, if he could get 50% right, I'd suggest he start planning on what he's going to spend his million dollars on.

Darin also warns that you should be careful what you think (remind you of a sky fairy, invisible pink unicorn or flying spaghetti monster?) because it will return to you in one for or another. (Did we forget that Darin claims to be a "free thinker"? Did he forget too?)

But the main reason that I quoted the above page is because we should not dismiss "gut instincts" lightly. Darin goes on to say that "Your first gut feeling is usually right in most cases" and I think statements like this are as wishy-washy as they have to be, to allow someone, like Darin, to make such absurd statements. Consider the wording itself.

"Usually right in most cases". Putting grammar aside, let's consider what percentages would constitute "usually". I would suspect that "usually" would mean more often than not (at least 50%). "Almost always" would be closer to the 90% mark where "most" would be closer to the 75% point.

If we apply such numbers to Darin's sentence. "Just more than 50% right in 75% of the cases." So less than half of the cases? Seems like a high enough level of effectiveness to throw reason out the window.

Come on Darin, you're pushing woo and my gut instinct says you know it's wrong.

Head on over to Darin James' site and leave a message on his guestbook - he'd love to know what you think!