Entry 861, on 2008-09-29 at 21:17:41 (Rating 3, Religion)
I listened to a podcast today where a follower of the "religion" of spiritualism was interviewed along with a psychologist who had been researching the beliefs involved with religion and spirituality. The thing which constantly impressed me was the language the believer used. She made up a whole lot of weird concepts which had no definite meaning and had absolutely no real support for their reality, yet she kept making up more and more as if they were just the same language we all use every day.
Here's a list of some of the nonsensical phrases she used: universal consciousness, tuning into the great ether, picking up vibrations, you are vibration energy, move from the physical to the other world, existing on the the earth plane, the collective consciousness of all energy has chosen to move to the earth plane to experience humanness, everyone is linked through vibrations, we pick up telepathic vibrations because we are spirit and send out waves of energy, we resonate with all nature: flowers, animals, trees, if faith healing is real to them its real, people are drawn to the energy, we are all part of the force of creation.
So what does all of this mean? Well the overall theme seems to be that there is some mysterious energy shared by everything in the universe, that the universe has some sort of consciousness, that life has a spiritual aspect, and our time on Earth is only part of a greater life, and that reality is just a personal, subjective phenomenon.
OK, so these general themes are shared by many paranormal beliefs and form an underlying theme in many religious beliefs as well, so what's the problem? Well I guess my biggest complaint is just that these people believe all of this stuff without ever wondering about how we can prove they are real or find out more abut them. Do these people just have no curiosity or do they think they can't be investigated, or maybe they know they aren't real and are scared to look too closely!
But how can paranormal phenomena be studied? Aren't they beyond the usual methodology of science? I don't think so. The spiritualist claimed the "spiritual vibrations and energies" were shared by the living as well as those who had "passed on". So we should be able to make up experiments where these links can be demonstrated if they exist.
Of course paranormal psychologists have been doing experiments of this sort for many years. I wouldn't like to say that there have been no results supporting the reality of paranormal phenomena, but the positive results have been weak and difficult to replicate. Even after all these years there is no study which the majority of researchers take as serious evidence showing that a spirit, a soul, life after death, life energy, spiritual vibrations, harmonious resonation, or a universal consciousness really exist.
So all of this talk of spiritual forces, telepathic vibrations, and universal life energies are really nothing more than gobbledegook. Maybe some paranormal phenomena are real but making up meaningless descriptions for them and talking as if they were real without giving them any real thought is no way to move ahead with the subject!
Comment 1 by SBFL on 2008-10-01 at 23:37:23:
OJB said: "Well I guess my biggest complaint is just that these people believe all of this stuff without ever wondering about how we can prove they are real or find out more abut them."
Is this just like OJB and his recent postings on management and the financial markets crisis? Pot. Kettle. Black.
Comment 2 by OJB on 2008-10-02 at 11:24:09:
I was talking about a particular person (interviewed in the podcast) who had these very specific and extreme views. I recognise there is a spectrum of belief in this area and that many people don't indulge in such credulous and unsophisticated beliefs.
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