"What is this alt.out-of-body newsgroup?"

Newsgroup History and Purpose

The alt.out-of-body newsgroup, created in September of 1992, was established to provide a forum for exchanging ideas about out-of-body experiences and for sharing actual accounts of such experiences. It is the successor to the alt.oobe newsgroup, established in July of 1992 for a similar purpose. (The older newsgroup still exists on some systems, but it is no longer in wide-spread use. The name "alt.out-of-body" was chosen following a discussion about an appropriate name and a subsequent vote in alt.config.)

Much of the discussion of out-of-body experiences has centered around the recounting of experiences and speculation on the nature of those experiences. Some articles have questioned whether the experiences are of an hallucinatory nature or purely a function of biochemical processes that occur in the brain, and, at the other extreme, some have linked them with notions of the existence of an immortal soul and other ideas generally associated with religious interpretations of human existence. Most readers are intrigued by the thought of being able to have and control OBEs, and see them as a potentially interesting experience, though some smaller number of people taking part in discussions are interested in trying to figure out their nature and function and their possible implications for the understanding of what it means to be fully human.


Mailing List

The alt.out-of-body newsgroup is linked with a parallel mailing list, provided for the benefit of those who do not have access to Internet / Usenet or to the newsgroup. To subscribe to this list, send a message containing the text:

subscribe alt.out-of-body Your Name

to the address "listserv@gnosys.svle.ma.us." Postings can be made to the mailing list / newsgroup by sending to the address "alt.out-of-body@gnosys.svle.ma.us."
 

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