A new paper looks at similarities and differences between skeptics, parapsychologists, (scientists of psychic ability) and believers in psychic ability.
Source: Skeptics and Parapsychologists Have Something in Common
This is a complex topic because you can have otherwise intelligent people who are spiritually clued-out or brainwashed by contemporary scientism. On the other hand, you can have otherwise smart people who get sort of weird when they get on the topic of their cultish beliefs.
How many of us are not biased or 'brainwashed' to some extent?
Many years ago, I had a conversation with someone about the paranormal. They believed that so-called psychic activity had something to do with energy radiating out from the brain and being picked up by another brain.* I felt this was foolish because psychics and saints claim to read hearts and minds at a distance, often great distances. The person I was talking to was an otherwise intelligent person who nonetheless seemed uneducated and naive about spirituality.
I had just returned from India, had had a guru there, and was very open to the paranormal. I had yet to convert to Catholicism, which only enhanced and elevated my spiritual life without negating it. Today, my interlocutor's views - we've lost touch so I don't know if their thinking in this area has evolved or not - seem narrow-minded and deeply entrenched in materialism.
On my side, I had to learn more about the importance of personal humility, admitting mistakes, and the need for scrupulous rationality grounded in observation. God knows I made mistakes in my spiritual awakening. For me, it was like a newborn with a new gift of interior perception. The child confuses, as the Hindus say, "the rope for the snake" until he or she learns to discern the difference, deepen their understanding, and better integrate all their faculties.
I'm still learning as I go along but isn't that the way it should be? Anyone who thinks they have it all figured out is probably misguided and a bit arrogant.
—
* I don't like using the inelegant "they" instead of "he" or "she" but make this stylistic compromise to maintain "their" privacy.
Comments