Terry Dashner…………Faith Fellowship Church PO Box 1586 Broken Arrow, OK 74013

Consider this. Star Trek: The Next Generation wrapped up its final season in May 1994. Although The Next Generation was an updated version of 1960s Star Trek series, its producers went beyond Star Trek’s: “Space—the final frontier” theme and exploited a new philosophy of emerging generation: postmodernism. What is postmodernism, anyway?

In his book entitled, A Primer on Postmodernism (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 1996), Stanley J. Grenz states: “Like modern fiction in general, original Star Trek series reflected many aspects of Enlightenment project and of late modernity. The crew of Enterprise included persons of various nationalities working together for common benefit of humankind. They were epitome of modern universalist anthropology. The message was obvious: we are all human, and we must overcome our differences and join forces in order to complete our mandate, quest for certain, objective knowledge of entire universe of which space looms as ‘the final frontier.’”

Interesting. As you might recall from world history class 101, birth of modern era is usually placed at dawn of Enlightenment (18th century). Building on Renaissance, Enlightenment elevated man to center of world. During this time French philosopher, Rene Descartes, turned western philosophy upside-down, literally. He focused on doubt, which led him to conclude that existence of thinking self is first truth that doubt cannot deny (Grenz, page 3). Isaac Newton later provided scientific framework for modernity, picturing physical world as a machine laws and regularity of which could be discerned by human mind.

Moreover, it became goal of human intellectual quest to unlock secrets of universe in order to master nature for human benefit and create a better world. This quest led to modernity characteristic of twentieth century, which has sought to bring rational management to life in order to improve human existence through technology (Grenz, page 3). In other words, universe is ruled by laws, perceived by human intellect; therefore, educate humankind and knowledge will usher in a new age of enlightened men. Knowledge is power.

One of those techniques is EVP or electronic voice phenomenon. There are many different thoughts on EVP and how and why it's supposed to work. There was even recently a movie, "White Noise" that was supposed to shed some light on this subject but failed poorly at its' attempt. EVP has been around for years and we are only now beginning to really understand how it works. Very basically, EVP is voice of dead. It is a voice that is heard either by a person performing their regular activities of daily living or by a recorder set up specifically for trying to capture voice. It is thought that ghosts surround us every day. We do believe that they are everywhere. We have no real idea what they are doing except for very real possibiility that ghosts show up at our homes to console, guide and watch over their loved ones. Ghosts were people. Most passed on under normal circumstances. It is these ghosts that can come back to visit and check on their loved ones.

During these visits, ghosts are able to capture living's attention. They make things happen to get that attention. They might slam a door, make footsteps, knock something off a table or take something and hide it. They are trying to get your attention. They want to be acknowledged and will go to many different lengths to get that attention. They may even touch you. Once you allow your rational mind to understand that this is a possibility, you will get more contact. The ghost may have a message and want you to have it. It is up to you how this is dealt with.