[extropy-chat] Scientific standards of evidence

[R.Coyote]

This is rather personal, I hope you dont mind the world reads this, I
thought to myself.
---

Sometime back in the early 90's I felt compelled to clear out a bunch of old
psychological baggage concerning
my past.

One of the People I hadn't come to terms with was my step father, He was a
very abusive person, very violent cruel and sick, and had a profoundly
damaging effect on my life, I hadn't seen nor heard from him in about 15
years, and he was never a subject of conversation, as he was
institutionalized for a genetic brain disorder and  was schizophrenic
paranoid, and I presumed he was probably dead from the disorder.

One day I felt inexplicably compelled to begin an exercise where I began to
write down all the things I hated about the guy, and then forgive them item
by item.

After a few minutes of this I had a eerie feeling, and promptly  walked
outside to the street curb, and simply  stood there rather absently
expecting something, but I didn't know what, after a while I got into my car
,and  sat in the car at the curb waiting for "something".

My mother had noticed this strange behavior and continued to ask me what the
hell I was doing just sitting in the car doing nothing, I had no Idea, I
couldn't explain.

A few minutes pass, and to my utter astonishment,  the step Father is
walking down the street towards the house, appearently he had escaped from
the institution, and had taken several busses across town to get there, he
was quite delirious and could barely speak because of Huntington chorea and
anti psychotics, and what he spoke about was indeciphrable anyway.

I Invited him to sit down outside, I sat with him and to be brief I  told
him I forgave him but he had to go back to the "hospital", and sat in a
strange silent communication for a while.

 My mother was in a total panic, as she was rather traumatized by this guy
in the past, and refused to come out of the house, she was in full
astonishment that he was there, and could not believe he was there at all,
actually accused me of lying etc.

So I called the police and explained the situation, they came and picked him
up, we never heard from him again learned later that he died a short while
latter.

I "knew", I anticipated that he would return, after 10 + years to gone.

I suppose I could produce police records, hospital records, etc. take a
polygraph and pass,  but cant be bothered ast some people "here" are as
narrow minded as some Religious Fundamentalists (Satan did it) , in that if
it doesn't fit their world view,   It cannot be true. (it was a
hallucination, he's a liar, its a hoax etc.)