Ram Bahadur - Buddha Boy

For those that want to know who I'm talking about, check out this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram_Bahadur_Bomjon

When reading the story, or watching the documentary film (shown on the civilization channel) about Ram Bahadur - popularly coined as Buddha Boy who hadn't drank or ate for 11 months in a row, I can't help but be amazed at this example of the surreal. Like all things, I am naturally skeptical of this situation, because during the time of his 11 or so months of meditating 24/7 under a tree in Nepal major donations were collected by his family and a whole economy sprung up from the millions of pilgrims that journeyed to visit him.



Alot of things in this situation should be expected though, especially when someone is performing a miracle over so long a time period:

1. People will want to see this first hand - hey... so would I!
2. With millions of people coming to visit a stationary attraction, there will be a real opportunity for capitalizing on this situation and this is no exception.
3. Curiosity will get the better of people and many will want to get a closer look so security (barriers and security guards) will come into play.
4. For a religion based situation like this, it is common practice for visitors to leave donations.

Skeptics may overlook the natural cause/effects that a supernatural situation would result in and hastily conclude that Ram Bahadur and his family are manufacturing this apparent "miracle" for their own financial benefit.

In attempt to scientifically prove or disprove Ram Bahadur's apparent abilities a documentary film team videotaped continuously for 96 hours Ram Bahadur sitting where he has claimed to be sitting for the last 6 months. Unfortunately, they were unable to verify if he was still sitting there at night so their 24hour footage only got the boy in the daylight hours. At this point most people would say, ah ha! he's a fake and move on. I believe however that Ram Bahadur may actually be legit and that the limitations that the camera crew worked in were simply that - limitations. What can't be undisputed is that of the footage they did receive, we can conclude that Ram Bahadur did sit 4 days in a row (approx 12 hours per day) without standing up, drinking, eating - a feat in itself gives some legitamacy to the claims.

If we know for sure that for 96 hours during the daylight hours he has sat in the same spot continuously, then we can believe that for the full 11 months he been doing this same thing (because of the thousands of witnesses that watched him through that period). This feat in itself along with the predictable financial repurcussians and infrastructure that would arise should give legitamacy to the claim being made to this scientifically impossibly feat.

So what about John Edwards? (Crossing Over TV show)

Right from the start, I think we naturally kick in our skeptic nature when we see someone using an apparent and surreal talent for what appears to be profit and fame. Motives like this tend to bring out lies and deception so are skepticism isn't premature in these circumstances. I believe however that the majority of us will automatically dismiss examples that fall into this category when there are some examples that actually are legit.

If we think of someone like John Edwards - who appears to be able to have some sort of 6th sense, the ability to communicate with people who have died or crossed over to the purely spirit, non-physical realm - we see an individual who has become both famous and wealthy because of this apparent ability he has. So John Edwards falls into our category of automatically being very skeptical about his abilities, but I think he should be given a second look and here's why:

Let's say he is legit and really has this ability. Having a talent like this in itself, doesn't make one free of all the needs that every other human being on this planet must fulfill i.e. food and security. So like everyone else, John Edwards some how has to have his basic human needs fulfilled and in his case he has two options; he can go to school and land a mundane career like everyone else, or use his talent as a way to put food on the table and attain security. He just happens to be someone that chose the latter of the two. For that reason, I don't think we should automatically dismiss his abilities or anyone for that matter that chooses this course.

In some respects, the more successful someone is that takes this direction for obtaining their food and security, the more legit they may be since it's harder to fool people when one is a fraud. However one must keep in mind that the individual may just be more skilled in fooling someone.

Seeing some of his tv shows, I was impressed with his apparent ability and decided to see him first hand during a tour he put on a few years ago to get a closer look at his ability and see if I could be convinced or not that he was legit. Being a natural skeptic I wasn't that impressed with a lot of his public readings that day because they didn't appear to be that hard to manufacture. There was one reading however that did stick out as very "left field", and that was a reading where John Edwards mentioned an owners dog and how it had a problem in it's left ear. The person being talked to responded and said that their dog that passed away was deaf in the left ear. If John Edwards was a fraud, then that was a pretty lucky guess he made, since it was a very specific reading he made.

So, for the reasons I mentioned here, I would suggest giving John Edwards a closer look. He may not be a fraud and if he isn't, imagine what implications would result from what he has been able to achieve:

1. Their our concious beings or ghosts that exist in some other dimension and they have a memory and some connection to their human forms.

2. Some people have the ability to communicate to some capacity with this other realm.

I really wish that a scientific approach would be undertaken to objectively study John Edwards in a controlled environment so we don't have to keep wondering if he is for real.