It's ALL in your HEAD!!

Field Reports & Anecdotal Experience Men's Pheromone Advice & Field Reports
1

That’s right folks, it’s the conclusion I’ve come to. Bear with me, i got some stuff to say, and it’s probably going to be my last thread here.

So, after the whole OD ordeal, i realized maybe my friends/family who I talked to about pheromones are actually right. It is in my head after all. I have 2 doctors in my family who say pheromones don’t even exist. They acknowledge androstenone and pheromones, but say it is not detectable to humans. All of us here on pherotalk (I’m also going to make this thread on Love Scent) agree that the VNO does not exist. Am I right?

What proof do you have that pheromones work? None. There is no proof, it’s just you putting 2 and 2 together and saying it happened because of the pheremones.

Lately, these are things I’ve experienced, whether while i was OD’d, not OD’d, in the past and more recent times using pheromones from Love Scent and here:

-people rubbing their noses (which I have mentioned several times)…after questioning over 30 people about this, all of them say that NOTHING smells. meaning, them touching their nose is something they don’t even think about. so it’s something they would be doing without presence of my pheromones.
-noticed a weird smell on some of my clothes, and after using Androtics products I noticed an onion smell. still, women everywhere have been telling me I smell unbelievably good. last time I checked, onions smell bad.

Let me say a couple things. The mind is very powerful. more powerful than you can ever imagine. If I tell you to close your eyes right now and take 30 seconds to imagine the scent of an apple pie in your head, you could actually feel like you are smelling an apple pie without having it in front of you. THAT IS THE POWER OF THE MIND. i’m tellin you, that a lot of what is going on here is in your own head.

i think it was Lor or Carrie who mentioned having seen the “What the bleep do we know” movie. If you’ve seen it, you know our minds can result in very powerful effects when focused properly, and negative results when not focused.

case in effect, when I’ve been drinking too much caffeine, or coming off a hangover, or off a shroom trip, I can get very self-conscious. I can seriously convince myself that I’m so OD’d on pheromones that people 50 feet away can smell me. It may not even be an OD, but it seems so real to me, that the way I act could be creating more of the same effect through my stress level. Sigma also mentioned the possibility of this.

Vice versa, when you put on something, usually before hand you’ve read on the boards that it did such and such to some member of the forum. we got a pretty tight-knit community here and trust each other. So when I read that R0N says Turn Up The Heat is good for kissing, I believe he’s telling the truth, not knowing that simply believing him is giving me a subconscious bias to the future results I would have with doing that. maybe you guys just don’t get it yet or haven’t had the extreme issues I’ve had to be able to “see” what I’m talking about.

but the POINT is that when you simply believe “androstenone” will make women flock to you, it will happen because you believed it and visualized it. You’re seeking out certain observations that were probably there before and connecting them to the pheromone use. There’s no way to prove that the same wouldn’t have happened without pheromones because there’s no way to replicate a moment in time unless you had some sort of device to freeze and rewind time. there are no hard, scientific facts, and i’m starting to realize why no one believes in them.

you know what’s funny, this past week, I put some of my own cologne in a little spray bottle and pretended to myself that i was using pheromones. Guess what, I’ve had the exact same results. you can’t prove me wrong, and I can’t prove me right, but what does it matter, It’s been good for me. Same way I could never truly know if pheromones are doing anything for you either.

when we wear certain pheromones, if anything it puts a bias on the way we see things. sometimes we probably feel more confident and in effect are more social around people. we act differently because we want to test out the product to see how it works. I know when I first bought Love Scent products and was feeling down after some bumps in the road, once I got my products I jumped out to the clubs and start pulling women again. I think if I had just gotten my spirits up the same could have happened without pheromones.

Today, like i stated I was wearing no pheromones (since that OD experience the other week I’ve stopped and just cleansed like crazy). Most of you don’t even believe my OD experience. It’s funny that you don’t believe it but believe the same effects to a lesser extent. All I was saying is that my effects were the same as your OD’s just a higher level. what then shows the effectiveness of a product, what is the level where you can say, this thing is actually producing some effect?

Anyhow, beginning of the day I was a bit tired and seemed like I “noticed” a lot of nose rubbing. in the afternoon i took a nap in my car, and even noticed nose rubbing while in my car and people on the outside. Then I went to get a coffee at mcd’s came back to campus (school), and the nose rubbing vanished. I saw absolutely nothing. I even looked around, but noticed none at all. Then there’s the mysterious smell of onions or androstenone sweat that only seems to appear at certain points. If I can smell it or not smell it, then that ability or inability should be consistent. it doesn’t make sense for anything to only smell at certain distances or points in time. so was the nose rubbing because of an OD? was it because people have allergies? was it because of residue on My clothes? WHO KNOWS??? exactly, I might as well have had Chinese food stuffed down my pants. You wouldn’t know. according to you guys, and the people on Love Scent, my OD problems don’t exist, so I’m just seeing things and it could be anything.

I feel like i’ve mentally manipulated myself into believing a phenomena that does not exist. all experiences point to hoax or some sort of mental illusion. all my positive experiences have been just the same as would have happened with an uplifted mood on any day. I can pull (women) just as easily, if not more easily, perhaps because of the extra confidence boost knowing I’m wearing (or thinking I’m wearing) some substance that’s supposed to make me irrisistible to women. my experiences have been nothing short of amazing but these past 2 weeks i’ve worn no pheromone products and still had the same results (as I had when wearing them).

could I really be OD’d after not wearing any pheromones for 2 weeks? most of you like I said don’t believe me. i’ve bought 10 new towels, 36 new wash cloths, tons of cleansing products, new undershirts, new boxers, I exercised and sweated, changed deodorants, changed colognes, washed my sheets several times (everything with oxi-clean), vacuumed my carpets, etc etc etc. after all that you would think I could destroy anything.

It seems like everywhere i go women are all over me and men seem a little uncomfortable. at closer glance, and when asking others when i’ve been out, they say my observations are outrageous. I think they don’t know shit about body language, and it’s not like it’s just body language anyway. i can talk to and close seemingly any woman in a couple hours. in clubs and bars, they approach me and just go crazy. is this ease of pulling women the pheromones? i could always pull but not this easily/effortlessly. but how could it be if I haven’t worn them for so long? there’s no way I have residue for this long, it’s not possible.

This post isn’t meant to down talk Androtics or anyone else who makes pheromone products. i think MHarris and Jasmin are great people and they have one of the best customer services that I’ve come across in any product/service I’ve bought. they really genuinely want to improve your life with these products, and let me tell you it does, but I don’t think it’s what’s in the product, I think it’s your perception of what’s in the product. they are selling you an idea, a belief, not a product and they do it really well here because of the close-knit community. No wonder there’s more results with these products than Love Scent because Love Scent is a little chaotic and people get banned, and the management of the forum is just out of hand. Their pitch is totally different. But the concept is the same. I remember a time back in the summer when wearing NPA seemed only to produce subtle effects. Now half that dose makes it seem like girls flock to me. is it possible i’ve built up continual residue over such a long period of time?

so my point is, don’t take everything at face value. Understand that not everything is as you think. take a step back and look at the whole pheromone thing and your experience. I’m not saying stop buying because I may still spray on some Androtics stuff in the future, because like I said it gives me the feeling that I am wearing something that will produce a result, and thus I’m more conscious of that outcome. it’s like that quote that says life is 10% what happens to you and 90% what you do about it. It’s all about perspective, because 2 people can see the same situation in totally different ways that make you think one of them is on crack or something. but it’s just different views. it’s all in your head, just think about that.

it was really nice being here, but I think overall, the time spent on trying to figure out products or make mixes I can spend better otherwise. I think all of you here need to understand that you ALL are influencing your results to some extent with your beliefs. whether you believe it or not, it’s the truth. whether you like to hear it or not, I think pheromone use somewhat stems from insecurity or a feeling that you’re not good enough. I’m not saying that’s bad because I’ve been there done that. all of us have had that feeling of wanting to make a great first impression or whatever, but life isn’t perfect. some first impressions will suck no matter what mix your using or who you are. you gotta understand, even you women who are repulsed by the whole PUA tactics stuff, that you are pulling very similar “tricks” by wanting to use a chemical substance to increase attraction. in fact, pheromones are 20 times more manipulative and sneaky than learning the art of seduction, i mean I know women aren’t logical, but at least TRY to ponder that logically if you can. I don’t care what you say, you’re insane and hypocritical thinking you’re any better or more morally right than pick-up artists. you’re both attempting manipulation of the opposite sex through some means.

I’m really glad I had the OD experiences I had, or whatever you want to call them. it brought me to the conclusion that pheromones were cool, but putting water in a spray bottle and writing “magic cologne” on it does the same for me. I won’t return my products like I said, because I’m still in the process of convincing myself of all this, and this post is somewhat a long rant to emphasize this to myself as well (so apologies if it sounds repetitive). and hey, wearing some Instant Openness is a lot more convincing to my mind than my own spray bottle because I’ve already been “convinced” that the Instant Openness is doing something.

so anyway, just think about these things. Think about who you are, your “results” and what really makes you deep down use pheromones. is it really a yearning to make up for a lack of something? like an insecurity? or is it really just for kicks? and how do you really truly seriously know it’s doing anything?

anyway, I might reply back in this thread if anyone reads it or whatever, but until then, peace out everyone. Happy spraying.

2

Pheromones don’t exist…:smiley:

It is not detectable to humans…:smiley: :smiley:

VNO does not exist…:smiley: :smiley: :smiley: (According to the current resarch VNO does exist, but the neural pathway from VNO to brain may not and VNO is not required for pheromone detection. Pheromones are detected through the olfactory epithelium, whose signals are passed to the hypothalamus where a LH response and behavioural responses are generated..in a nutshell)

I suggest you listen to people who have actually done research in the pheromone field. Visit J.V. Kohl’s website http://www.pheromones.com/

I would hate to see you stop experimenting with pheromones.

3

well smooth, i am very happy to hear you have come to your own conclusions. thats pretty freakin important, because to take someone elses word for anything is not a lesson learned at all.
i do however feel that your expectations of what they were going to do for you and what ours are might be VERY different.
there is a poll here, on what we here are using pheromones for. MOST people said experimentation/curiosity. know what that tells me? to experiment you have to have an open mind, but not an easily-led one.i dont think the poll reflected people trying to avoid being the 40 yr old virgin,lol.
i can honestly say i think MOST the people here arent buying the mixes because they are hoping their life will change dramatically; intuitively i think alot of people here know there is something to it, even if it cant be explained.
when i started experimenting with pheromones, no one told me what they would do, i was told what others hoped they would do.
would you buy magic weightloss pills?
the people with unrealistic expectations look for the magic pill.
im not for or against the buying of pheromones, im FOR having fun. when it isnt fun anymore,then its time to bail.
i respect your desire to bail my friend.
good luck in all other curiosities!:slight_smile:

4

I haven’t used pheromones yet, so I cannot comment on their effectiveness. However, I do know a bit about your points regarding the power of intention. It sounds as if you’re pushing this ideology into a literal sense, and while it is a debatable issue, I can attest that it works to some degree. In the same way that you criticize pheromones for fitting into situations through bias, you can also do the same through the mind. Really, it is about perception, however, how do you know that you’re not convincing yourself that pheromones aren’t producing effects, and it is only in your mind? It seems now that you’ve attributed to a bias of skepticism. Is it possible that both can work synergistically?

5

You seemed to jump between two opposite extremes in how people percieve pheromone effects. One being completely attributing people’s reactions to pheromones and not the user, the other completely disregarding the effects of pheromones and labelling them a matter of personal perception.

Truthfully, pheromones reactions and results aren’t that black and white. Pheromone effects are a product of both a person’s actions and percpetions, and the pheromone signal itself.

I certainly believe the power of suggestion can really affect how you percieve pheromone effects…this is especially true if you’re constantly monitoring people’s reactions, and the fact that you have pheromones on. I certainly believe that the simple act of pheromones can change the way you feel, and appear to others, and yes this can drastically influence the results people see.

However I can tell pheromones really do work, if only because I’m able to discern the differences in the individual effects of each pheromone. I can see alpha-androstenol opening people up, making them blabber mindlessly, and making people more ‘fun’. I can see the sexual tones that can come with androstenone use, and the negative impact of it used excessively. I feel the trippy effect of TAF, and how high dose of it leaves me feeling ‘out of it’ well into the next morning…all while not really knowing what TAF is supposed to do. I know pheromones work, because I can feel and see the effects, and they do vary greatly depending on which ones I use. I see consistency in effects based on the pheromones used…consistency is what allows me to discern what is a self-justified/self-percieved effect, and what is a concrete effect. As Lor says, its often hard to verbalize the reactions and what we feel and see, but they are most certainly there, and not a matter of personal perception. I see differences in people’s behavior, without looking for them.

6

In the end it really doesn’t matter whether pheromones work because people get results with them. Even if they made it up in their mind, the pheromone still makes the person happier and that’s all that matters. So placebo or not, it’s gonna make you happier and that’s worth spending money on. Course everyone would want it to be real but the fact is, it doesn’t really matter. If it makes you happy then it’s worth it.

7

And in defense of pheromones, there’s about as much science backing up its reality as there is for psychology or earth science. I mean there are tests that compared the results of using pheromones on people without them knowing and over 80% responded. They used about 1000 people so the experiment is certainly accurate. There are accomplished P.H.D professors and M.D’s who vouch for the existence of detectable human pheromones so yea I believe they are more qualified than just some everyday person. The fact that there are so many buisnesses built around pheromones proves its reality. Do you think that a brilliant buisness man would invest in the production of pheromones if it were fake? Maybe he’s trying to scam you, then why are there about 50 other companies working on pheromones too? Only a fool would invest in something he doesn’t believe in or he doesn’t believe will bring results because people won’t buy it anymore. If you think this is all a scam that the entire idea of human pheromone colognes is a scam then well this is the biggest scam in the history of the human race. There are doctors, professors, and about 100 thousand people working on this scam. So the bottom line is that pheromones are completely real. Denying their effective existence is the equivalent of denying that there’s gravity

8

I do not agree with what you have say at all.

I had a confermation that pheromones work today for about the 50th time.

2 of my “friends” (i’m considering their friendship right now) showed up unannounced, they fucked up my house, acted like assholes. I was really pissed.

I went in my room, applied 2 sprays of IS, came back down, and they started to get close to me and abeyed my orders and wanted to listen to me alot.

My brother, for the first time in my life, starts to talk to me but starts laughing like i have never seen him. Laughing, he is trying to hide his laughing, he was feeling a deep bond with me. Laughing, hahahahhaha, he was almost embarassed. The computer room where i was, was filled with IS. First time i see him laugh for nothing like that.

9

I can understand that pheromone reviews and results getting blown out of proportion due to the fact that people are often overly optimistic about the results. This causes many of the claims to be exaggerated beyond what they really are. That is the reason why I will conduct an experiment that is truly scientific and unbiased when my order arrives. I suspect that I will begin testing them out on the 31st of this month. The procedures of my experiment do not involve myself, rather, it involves three of my friends (roughly the same height, metabolism, and build). I am going to use the following products:

A314
Instant Shine
Instant Honesty
Instant Openness
Turn up the Heat
Come Talk To Me 2
Ammunition
Instant female Magic

A314 will be used on all of the test subjects as a base. All of my experimentation will have one product worn additionally to the A314, However, one of my experimental subjects will wear a dummy product that does not contain any pheromones (Kenneth Cole Black). The three subjects are come to my house every single morning and have me spray the pheromones onto them. However, one of my test subjects will be wearing nothing but Kenneth Cole Black and vegetable oil on them. The dummy wearing person will be switched everyday to ensure consistent results. For the first week, all subjects will wear one pheromone product (aside from A314 or oil), for the second week and over, they will be wearing multiple pheromone products. Through the whole time, they won’t know what they are wearing because I will be applying it to them.

I will then ask the subjects (my friends) to record in detail what changed they have noticed from others around them. After a month, I will organize the data and compare it to the log that I have kept on what product have been applied to who on what date. If the data have proved to be at least 85% consistent, then it can be effectively determined that pheromones do work.

Everyone please tell me what you think or anyway I can improve upon this experiment before I can put it into motion. Thanks

P.S. smoothplayer, if you can stay until then, that would be great.

10

i think you should not change the person wearing the false pheromone everyday. Keep it consistent for a week so you can get accurate results. One day is too sketchy and well basically inaccurate. And you should not use A314 as a base but just use the products. Only keep one variable in the equation. If you use a crap load of products you won’t know what’s doing what. We already supposedly know what each product does but this is an experiment so act like you don’t and check if what we believe is correct. For example for week 1 person A wears only ammunition person B wears fake person C wears instant openness do that for a week and change. Make sure there’s no buildup of pheromones after week 1 and then continue on.

11

I agree.

If your subjects are under 25 (or possibly 30), do not use A314 as a base if you intend to assess results in social situations. If your tests were in work situations only, A314 might be more suitable.

Do not test more than product at a time. (Even if you were highly experienced with pheromones yourself and could compose a great mix for YOU, you would not know that it was a mix that would work as well for any other individual.)

Don’t switch your control without a (several days to a week) break between phero-days and non-phero days.

12

Asaindude - this is an excellent idea and I really hope you see it through. I don’t know how easy this would be, but one thing you might consider is trying to make the experiment double-blind i.e. have another (as yet uninvolved) individual give the pheromones/placebos to the subjects after you’ve mixed them, and ensure that this person doesn’t know which is which. This will avoid the dummy subject being able to pick up on that tiny “knowing” smile on your face when you catch a whiff of scented vegetable oil! :slight_smile:

13

Smoothplayer, you’ve got many very good points there, but something like pheromones, maybe not pheromones themselves, but something similar does deffinitely exist. Pheromones have been proven on animals. Humans are animals, why wouldn’t they exist on them?

Ofcourse human mind is powerful and these products give confidence, which is very important. It gives you the feel there is something besides what you do yourself that gives you the, um, atractiveness, you know you get to them on the subconcious level, which makes you feel above the game, because humans usually do not control their subconciouse reactions, subconciouse controls the consiouse actually, but you control their subconcious decisoions and feelings, so you naturally feel bigger then the game, superior. In that case, pheromone products are placebos, they help you by organising you and making you think, feel different and well, be different, bigger, more important. I’m pretty sure I can do it without pheromones and maybe you can too, in which case you probably don’t need them. I’m still going to use them, bacause I do believe it works on it’s own aswell, I’ve gotten some results, which have convinced me pretty much. Even if not for there being pheromones that work, but that women like that smell. Smell is quite important for women and if I just smell better and am more confident, that’s a quite good result.

It’s your decision not to use them, but by saying it’s all in our head, you’re not telling me anything new. The world is the way we preceive it, how we take it in and react to. Same goes to pheromones. Us knowing it’s real and acting like it is actually pretty much makes it real and not just for us. If we know there is something about us subconciously affecting other people, believe me, it’s there and it is working that way, just because we act like if there were something and the other person subconciously gets the message that I know I’m getting to her subconciously. If she has doubts and doesn’t know that, then he’ll take my perspective. Humans and other socially triggered animals work that way. If we don’t know about something and we meet someone who truly knows it and you feel it through his actions, then you’ll take it similarly to a proof that it exists, if you get what I mean.

Anyway, a sleeping girl made psysical contact with me and tried to practically inhale me and in haircut the woman turned totally red in her face when being near me - blood rushing to her head. Also the way cat’s have been acting near pheromones. I gotta say - there’s something there, bro and saying pheromones don’t exist by doctors, that seems quite ignorant, when it’s quite wildly known how big a part they play on animals. My thought is that with humans as socially complicated animals, they work more so, but are far more complex and don’t trigger such clear and onesided responses as “oh, god, hold me now, I have to grab you now and have sex with you for a week!” Admiting the existance of pheromones, could be a problem for many scientists though, because it plays a big part in the whole case of free will. Some people are really not prepared to admit just how much they are not conciously in control. Using pheromones might give something like a control over the subconsiouse, but the fact is, it’s the subconcious feelings that make us use them. Humans are not as much in control as they would like to think, the fact they know so little about pheromones and other factors “digging underground” and making us act the way we do, just supports the fact - it’s a dark territory for many and would be quite devastating to accept how totally unimportant everything they have been doing through their life might seem in such a “higher perspective”. I do not consider my own actions meaningless and the “higher perspective” as something that would totally demoralise me and take away any hoped greater meaning, but I do acnowledge it.

14

honestly, Im just a bit confused. Thing is, when I’ve apparently OD’d I start to get super-sensitive to certain reactions from people, so even when the OD goes away, that awareness level is still high. i have trouble figuring out whether or not the fact that people are fidgety or touching their faces a lot is in my head or not.

what i think is they could have been fidgety before i arrived. before using pheromones i never noticed how much people touch their faces. maybe i’m just a relaxed person, but even without pheromones people touch their faces and fidget a lot. when i was a kid, my mom put pepper on my hands and punished me for putting my fingers anywhere near my mouth or face…so maybe that’s why i don’t do it nearly as much as others. i just thought it was ediquette?

anyway, Sigma, you’re right, i tend to be extreme. but one thing is that even before pheromones, when i found a girl attractive, i would be like to myself ‘im going to do her’ and i just knew it. it was weird, like that feeling you get when you know you’re going to get with someone, and it would just happen. i think maybe it’s because of thinking about it? now, with pheromones, i started attributing that result to pheromones and not my thoughts.

anyway, i still think pheromones can have an effect in 2 ways:

  1. they make your mental ability to manifest attraction much stronger. like if I see a chick who i think is hot, and given enough time with her, my mental ability to get it going is stronger because i “think” i’m wearing something that is attracting her so i’m more sure of a positive outcome?

  2. they actually do have a sexual/social effect on people. and this doesn’t include body language unless it’s really overt or obvious. because eye contact and stuff is all things that i could be just getting anyway. it has to be something out of the ordinary to be attributable to pheromones.

i think it’s a little of both. it really depends on what kind of effects your looking for. my problem is that i want to be able to tell when is it the pheromones that are working the charm, or when is it me? because if you can’t tell the difference, then how do you know when something is effective or not. another problem i’ve had is that using too much -none can be counterproductive. learnt my lesson though and i’ll be sticking to clubs/bars for that high -none stuff.

at the same time, i think i’ve learned the lesson of not telling other people i use pheromones. i think part of this conclusion of “it’s all in my head” was also the result of other people thinking i’m crazy and trying to convince me that it’s all mental. my family was certainly concerned about my psychological condition, lol. next time you tell anyone about using pheromones, make sure they are very open-minded. my friends also thought i was crazy. i guess one good thing about pheromones is that no matter how many people you tell, no one will believe you anyway.

15

best bet is to wear the pheromones, but don’t be so mindful of them while wearing them. if you’re constantly looking for the effects you could either 1. inhibit the effects by acting abnormally, 2. creating the effects themselves by imposing your expectations.

Its best to wear them, enjoy the day, and note the effects in retrospect. that you you actively are socializing with people around you, and are able to fully benefit from the effects. do this long enough, and you’ll find general consistencies in the effects, and be able to more conclusive attribute certain behaviors to the pheromones you wear.

hanging back and constantly analyzing the effects can be greatly counter-productive.

16

Smoothplayer, I have to say, I find your conclusion seriously amusing. But, to each their own.

No offense intended, but it sounds to me as if you have been cowed into your conclusion by those who are overly skeptical because you were not experienced enough with the subject.

17

So, do you suggest I save my money and not buy this stuff?
And asiandude, any updates on your experiment?
I have pherlure and am not certain whether it creates OD effects or not but after reading about OD I constantly think about whether it’s the pherlure that has people turning away from me or what not… shit’s starting to ge tmental now…

18

Self-trust

All of what follows is just one man’s opinion. Instead of writing each statement with qualification clauses and wiggle words, IMHO’s, and “In my view” etc., I’m putting this blanket disclaimer up front. I offer the following for your enjoyment or curiosity, but not as “argument”: I offer no proofs or defenses, and I readily acknowledge that other points of view and conclusions are equally valid.

I say that all trust depends on self-trust. If you’re not sure of whether to trust someone or not, that means you don’t trust your own judgment of that person.

I intensely dislike organized religions. They appeal to people who apparently cannot judge for themselves what they hold to be true, or good. People who cannot abide ambiguity, and need answers in black and white. Brittle people. Organized religions are mostly an exercise in asserting authority, and more or less gullible bowing down to authorities – whether in the form of the “wise” spiritual leader, or to some holy book.

When someone tells me they are a devout X (pick any major ‘corporate’ religion) and give off signs of zealotry, I make a mental note to avoid giving them responsibility for handling sharp objects; I shift their names to the ‘Liability’ column on the balance sheet of citizenship. (In a country where church and state are supposed to be separate, someone whose primary rationale for passing a law is “because God says so” should be stripped of the vote for as long as the delusion persists. Shouldn’t they?) I flag every statement of such a one asserting “knowledge” (scientific or otherwise) for skeptical review.

So I come to the conclusion that belief is the near neighbor of delusion, that belief is wishful thinking. Why isn’t a well-supported hypothesis enough? Why are some people innately afraid of “maybe/probably” or “it hasn’t been disproved yet” and demand closure of the inquiry – why do they need a yes or no, now? The first time I heard the phrase “rush to judgment” was in the O. J. Simpson case, but I knew that it was a defining concept. Apparently some people just cannot handle the suspense of doubt. They have to pretend they “know”, for sure.

So they turn to belief systems. Religion, of course, is a belief system. For some, science is a religion, with the same outcomes. There are other belief systems that are more or less socially acceptable, or weird.

All of this comes to the matter of interpreting one’s own experience. If you follow the mother culture mythos without even being aware of the beliefs being whispered into your ear, that is one way of structuring experience.

Another way is to divest oneself of beliefs as much as possible, yet another to consciously pick and choose and edit beliefs.

There is some evidence that we can live, and live well, without beliefs. There is also evidence that “reality” is socially constructed.

So, we have here a community – a society – that has an interest in pheromones. Is it possible to have an interest without believing that pheromones “work” – or better, without having a belief either way on whether pheromones produce some expected result?

My condolences to you, smoothplayer. I appreciate that you may need to believe what you believe, and I hope you get well soon.

19

not for nothing, but doctors don’t know everything about everything, no matter how much they think they do. many are great at their specialities, and lord knows they need to remember a lot of info, but oftentimes, outside of their speciality, they are out of their depth. I say this from personal experience - got doctors in my family too - and have had similar discussion not about this topic specifically, but about others. Pretty heated discussions. In some instances it took 20 years, and brand new cutting edge research to acknowledge that perhaps they were mistaken.

I’m jsut saying, jsut because soemone has a white coat on, doesn’t mean they are absolutely correct.

as for the other stuff your mentioning - i’m really not sure what to say. if pheros don’t work for you, they don’t work for you. i’m not sure what this nose-rubbing thing is all about, but i haven’t seen anything out of the ordinary with folks on that regard. I also can’t speak for your OD story. I don’t know how you can OD in a quantifiable way on something that you allege doesn’t work/exist in the first place - but if you are consistently getting laid, well err..congratulations i guess.

best of luck to ya.

20

@smoothplayer:
There is no spoon. :slight_smile:

I think the people around you will also tell you that you are crazy if you tell them that you believe in the theories of a movie like Bleep! or The Secret.
Maybe you should show conformity to the people around you or you will be treated like Edward Scissorhands.

If you do something which is not part of the mainstream don’t tell it to the wrong people until you have the self-esteem to back it up.

Are you worried about your family and your doctors thinking you are crazy?

Here is some homework for you:

These are exercises from the book “Prometheus Rising” by Robert Anton Wilson, a guy who visited many different obscure belief-systems (short form BS) in his life.

The next two exercises are especially interesting for pheromone users and your “all-in-your-head thesis”:

These were part of the first chapter. It’s about a theory described here:

Did we learn anything about pheromones working or not now? No.
What did we learn today?

I know that I know nothing
(Sokrates)

PS: How many bad reps did you get for your post? :slight_smile:

Edit: :open_mouth: Oh no, I replied to a nearly 2 month old thread. Damn. :roll_eyes: