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Perception/Observation – Experience can influence our beliefs dramatically. Just like how often times after being in a car accident a person can become afraid of stepping into a vehicle again.

A near death experience can change someone’s mind set about things. In this blog post the person talks about how they had a near death experience after being electrocuted. They state that the experience has changes their life. In many cases, it has started people on the belief of God or of another life after death, but either way their experience changes their thoughts and ideas about thing completely.

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It was about ten o'clock on Saturday morning February 28, 1987, when I had an experience that changed the rest of my life! This day was different than any other because after I left my home, I would not be back for months.

As I waited outside for my ride to work to pick me up, I heard the sound of someone whistling in my backyard. I walked toward my backyard and found out that it was my good friend Russell in his backyard, walking around with his cockatiel on his shoulder. We sat on our adjacent fence, which divided our residential lots, and talked a while and played with his bird to pass time. After about fifteen minutes had passed, Buddy flew up into a nearby tree. We both knew that Buddy could not fly far because his wings were clipped, but we had to get him down from the tree. Since Buddy was in a tree that hung in my yard, I first began to net him with a swimming pool pole. The harder I tried however, the higher up Buddy flew. When Buddy flew out of the pole's reach, I grabbed a ladder to boost me up higher. After climbing about 25 feet in the air while on a second story extension ladder, I again tried to get Buddy. But after one end of the pool pole got within 22 to 24 inches of a high tension power line, the electricity arced across the air, and used me as a common ground.

At first I did not know what was going on. Everywhere I looked was RED! I did not see scenery; it was like someone put a red wall in front of my eyes. And in one direction I could see a flash of light coming toward me at a tremendous speed. I tried to get out of its way but I was helpless. I clenched my teeth and tried to face this wall of light head on. And as it got closer, I could hear a 60 Hz hum increase in volume! Finally I screamed as it over took me, and then I watched it leave in the distance. Then I saw another flash! I needed help but I was doomed for its execution. The Flash of light approached closer and closer, the hum roared through my ears. I lost complete bodily control over my hands, legs, arms, and mouth. I prepared to accept the second flash. But once again I screamed in pain as it plowed over me like I was not there! I thought I was dead, but in the distance I saw a third Flash of light waiting to approach me. I frantically looked around for an escape route, but all I saw was a wall of red. There was nothing I could do and there was no where I could go? I had run out of options. I believed that I struggled for freedom as much this time as I did the first, but everything was happening too fast to remember. Than everything went black. There was no time...there was no sound...there was no light...time had just stopped!

I opened up my eyes and saw Russ over me, but he could not hear me. I could not move a muscle because it was like a plain of glass separated us and I was frozen in time! Then everything began to go black again. I was scared, I wanted so much to say, "Hey" but the situation progressed without me. My life faded to black and again I felt no pain...there was no time...there was no sound...and there was no light! Time had just stopped! I can't say how much time passed but later I opened my eyes again.

I remember seeing my eyes under that glass pane. I saw Russ hard at work trying to save my life. But when I looked up and around, I noticed that I was not on the ground anymore. I was sitting on the fence watching the accident from a bird's eye view. On the ground I was hurting, but I felt no pain, no pressure, heard no sound, and saw everything like it was ten minutes ago? And in the blink of an eye my environment changed.

I was in a large white room that had no walls. The white light in this room everywhere was so bright, that there were no shadows or darkness. In the distance I could see hundreds of human shaped figures walking towards me. I felt scared and began to run. And as I started running, a figure came out of the crowd, and like a javelin thrower, it threw a bolt of light that was about three feet long into the air. The light came down and struck me in my back as I was running away. After it hit me, I could not move a muscle. With all of my strength I struggled to move. The figures walked closer, I saw that the figures had no facial features,: it was almost like they were an outline of a solid transparent mass. But, then about seven to ten seconds later, I broke free!!! I can't explain what happened but I was free! I ran until I dropped. I ran as far as I could until I came upon something. The new surface that I saw was different than what I was on before. It moved! It was the same color as the ground I was on, (white) but this was almost like water! Of course the "water" was white in color, but it was different. The figures were continuing in my direction, so I had two choices. I could deal with them or run like a coward? I choose to run!!! When I took my first step onto this new ground, I fell in and could not stay afloat. I was not worried about breathing, but once I fell in this water, I opened my eyes on the ground and saw my backyard as I left it.

To this day I'm not sure where I was? What had happened? Imagine going different places without your control? Being pulled, pushed, and afraid. The only thing I do know is the difference between something real and a dream, and this was real! I don't bring up the subject because it makes people uncomfortable, but I do try to answer any questions.

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international association for near death studies

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international association for near-death studies

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It was about ten o'clock on Saturday morning February 28, 1987, when I had an experience that changed the rest of my life! This day was different than any other because after I left my home, I would not be back for months.

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Patternicity – Our mind depict faces or different circumstances based on a pattern. These could be seeing a face in an object or distance looks like you're leaning on the Eiffel Tower.

In the picture below it looks as if the statue of Buddha had a hold of the airplane tail.

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Ideology – Is a belief in a custom. It’s a set of expectations or goals.

The Amish but their faith in the expectations of their church. It's within their belief that they keep practice with some of the older techniques and living styles. They believe that doing something slower and working hard for it gives us more gratitude for it and it gives us more time to be thankful. They believe what people were doing over 100 years ago, is a better way to connect with God. I don’t completely disagree with this belief, I think that the more time you put into something the more likely you are to appreciate and cherish it. However, they have to fit a certain kind of expectation in everything they do or they can be shunned by the community and their family. These expectations make up their complete lifestyle.

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All natural – Is often used as a form of trickery in today society. People want things that are good for them and good for the environment so they are easily sucked into paying more for things brands say are all natural.

LUSH is a good example for this they say they make their products all natural and they are all hand made. This maybe true but not all natural products are safe and good. I am a victim myself to products like these. There seem to be so many positives but what they are actually doing is using these words to disguise the truth. This topic is very controversial as LUSH is a very popular brand but please find below and example of the many articles and blog posts about how not everything is as it seems.

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Beauty Lies Truth – Beauty Industry Needs a Makeover

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As time goes by, fashion and beauty trends change. Our site will help you to keep updated with every latest trend you need to know about.

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Ancient wisdom - The thought that people from ancient times have a better understanding than we do now. Maybe they believe they must have been closer to the earth instead of technology and they seen something we can't see anymore today.

Forest spirits are a great example of ancient wisdom. People from ancient times and even today believe there are spirits in the forest that protect it or help things grow. These beliefs have been around for a long time and therefore leads more people to believe in these creatures. Often times the spirits have shrines built to them that still stand today.

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Appeal to authority – People idolise other people, a great example of this is how people look at celebrities. The put these people, and there for their beliefs on a pedestal. If the people you admire or look up to believe in something, then often times others start wanting to believe in it as well.

Katy Perry believes in aliens. I’m sure that in just that statement if you look up to Katy you would feel more of a conviction to also believe I aliens. This I think is something all humans have they want to compare and therefore believe in what some of what there favorite celebrities believe in.

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Confusion of correlation with causation - #3

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Confusion of correlation with causation - #3

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Confusion of correlation with causation – Is a lot like what it sounds like. It’s the thought that well these things are all happening often within this place or people that do these things so they link a cause to it that may even be mythical.

Ghosts are a great example of confusion of correlation with causation. If things start happening that no one can explain people start inking it to ghosts. For example, the piano was playing and no one was in the room there must be a ghost in the house.

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Confirmation bias – The ignores of fact in some cases. People believe what they want to believe in their minds they have already made a decision about the subject they are learning about. These people choose to ignore the negative in some cases and focus on the proof that supports their belief.

Mermaid stories surfaced all over and will still surface today. These beliefs were most likely formed by the fact that we didn't have much knowledge of the oceans and lakes in ancient time. So many believed the stories people from sea came back with. These stories about how they seen these beautiful creatures in the waters. Many people today even spout stories about how they had seen a mermaid. These stories are still often believed. I think it's because people believe that if the stories are so frequent and there’s still sightings today then they must be true. People choose to ignore the facts around them that may prove that mermaids don't exist and focus on the evidence that they do.

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A Russian print from 1866 shows a mermaid and a merman.

Credit: Public domain.

With most of our blue planet covered by water, it's little wonder that, centuries ago, the oceans were believed to hide mysterious creatures including sea serpents and mermaids. Merfolk (mermaids and mermen) are, of course, the marine version of half-human, half-animal legends that have captured human imagination for ages. One source, the "Arabian Nights," described mermaids as having "moon faces and hair like a woman's but their hands and feet were in their bellies and they had tails like fishes."

C.J.S. Thompson, a former curator at the Royal College of Surgeons of England, notes in his book "The Mystery and Lore of Monsters" that "Traditions concerning creatures half-human and half-fish in form have existed for thousands of years, and the Babylonian deity Era or Oannes, the Fish-god ... is usually depicted as having a bearded head with a crown and a body like a man, but from the waist downwards he has the shape of a fish." Greek mythology contains stories of the god Triton, the merman messenger of the sea, and several modern religions including Hinduism and Candomble (an Afro-Brazilian belief) worship mermaid goddesses to this day.

Many children are perhaps most familiar with the Disney version of "The Little Mermaid," a somewhat sanitized version of a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale first published in 1837. In some legends from Scotland and Wales mermaids befriended - and even married - humans. Meri Lao, in her book "Seduction and the Secret Power of Women," notes that "In the Shetland Islands, mermaids are stunningly beautiful women who live under the sea; their hybrid appearance is temporary, the effect being achieved by donning the skin of a fish. They must be very careful not to lose this while wandering about on land, because without it they would be unable to return to their underwater realm."

In folklore, mermaids were often associated with misfortune and death, luring errant sailors off course and even onto rocky shoals (the terrifying mermaids in the 2011 film "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides" are closer to the legendary creatures than is Disney's Ariel).

Though not as well known as their comely female counterparts, there are of course mermen - and they have an equally fierce reputation for summoning storms, sinking ships and drowning sailors. One especially feared group, the Blue Men of the Minch, are said to dwell in the Outer Hebrides off the coast of Scotland. They look like ordinary men (from the waist up anyway) with the exception of their blue-tinted skin and gray beards. Local lore claims that before laying siege to a ship, the Blue Men often challenge its captain to a rhyming contest; if the captain is quick enough of wit and agile enough of tongue he can best the Blue Men and save his sailors from a watery grave.

Japanese legends have a version of merfolk called kappa. Said to reside in Japanese lakes, coasts and rivers, these child-size water spirits appear more animal than human, with simian faces and tortoise shells on their backs. Like the Blue Men, the kappa sometimes interact with humans and challenge them to games of skill in which the penalty for losing is death. Kappa are said to have an appetite for children and those foolish enough to swim alone in remote places - but they especially prize fresh cucumbers.

The reality of mermaids was assumed during medieval times, when they were depicted matter-of-factly alongside known aquatic animals such as whales. Hundreds of years ago sailors and residents in coastal towns around the world told of encountering the sea maidens. One story dating back to the 1600s claimed that a mermaid had entered Holland through a dike, and was injured in the process. She was taken to a nearby lake and soon nursed back to health. She eventually became a productive citizen, learning to speak Dutch, perform household chores, and eventually converted to Catholicism.

Another mermaid encounter once offered as a true story is described in Edward Snow's "Incredible Mysteries and Legends of the Sea." A sea captain off the coast of Newfoundland described his 1614 encounter: " Captain John Smith [of Jamestown fame] saw a mermaid 'swimming about with all possible grace.' He pictured her as having large eyes, a finely shaped nose that was 'somewhat short, and well-formed ears' that were rather too long. Smith goes on to say that 'her long green hair imparted to her an original character that was by no means unattractive.'" In fact Smith was so taken with this lovely woman that he began "to experience the first effects of love" as he gazed at her before his sudden (and surely profoundly disappointing) realization that she was a fish from the waist down. Surrealist painter Rene Magritte depicted a sort of reverse mermaid in his 1949 painting "The Collective Invention."

By the 1800s, hoaxers churned out faked mermaids by the dozen to satisfy the public's interest in the creatures. The great showman P.T. Barnum displayed the " Feejee Mermaid" in the 1840s and it became one of his most popular attractions. Those paying 50 cents hoping to see a long-limbed, fish-tailed beauty comb her hair were surely disappointed; instead they saw a grotesque fake corpse a few feet long. It had the torso, head and limbs of a monkey and the bottom part of a fish. To modern eyes it was an obvious fake, but it fooled and intrigued many at the time.

Could there be a scientific basis for the mermaid stories? Some researchers believe that sightings of human-size ocean animals such as manatees and dugongs might have inspired merfolk legends. These animals have a flat, mermaid-like tail and two flippers that resemble stubby arms. They don't look exactly like a typical mermaid or merman, of course, but many sightings were from quite a distance away, and being mostly submerged in water and waves only parts of their bodies were visible. Identifying animals in water is inherently problematic, since eyewitnesses by definition are only seeing a small part of the creature. When you add in the factor of low light at sunset and the distances involved, positively identifying even a known creature can be very difficult. A glimpse of a head, arm, or tail just before it dives under the waves might have spawned some mermaid reports.

Modern mermaid reports are very rare, but they do occur; for example, news reports in 2009 claimed that a mermaid had seen sighted off the coast of Israel in the town of town of Kiryat Yam. It (or she) performed a few tricks for onlookers before just before sunset, then disappearing for the night. One of the first people to see the mermaid, Shlomo Cohen, said, "I was with friends when suddenly we saw a woman laying on the sand in a weird way. At first I thought she was just another sunbather, but when we approached she jumped into the water and disappeared. We were all in shock because we saw she had a tail." The town's tourism board was delighted with their newfound fame and offered a $1 million reward for the first person to photograph the creature. Unfortunately the reports vanished almost as quickly as they surfaced, and no one ever claimed the reward.

In 2012 an Animal Planet special, "Mermaids: The Body Found," renewed interest in mermaids. It presented the story of scientists finding proof of real mermaids in the oceans. It was fiction but presented in a fake-documentary format that seemed realistic. The show was so convincing that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration received enough inquiries following the TV special that they issued a statement officially denying the existence of mermaids.

A temple in Fukuoka, Japan, is said to house the remains of a mermaid that washed ashore in 1222. Its bones were preserved at the behest of a priest who believed the creature had come from the legendary palace of a dragon god at the bottom of the ocean. For nearly 800 years the bones have been displayed, and water used to soak the bones was said to prevent diseases. Only a few of the bones remain, and since they have not been scientifically tested, their true nature remains unknown.

Mermaids may be ancient, but they are still with us in many forms; their images can be found all around us in films, books, Disney movies, at Starbucks - and maybe even in the ocean waves if we look close enough.

Additional resources

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With most of our blue planet covered by water, it's little wonder that, centuries ago, the oceans were believed to hide mysterious creatures including sea serpents and mermaids. Merfolk (mermaids and mermen) are, of course, the marine version of half-human, half-animal legends that have captured human imagination for ages.