Bill, this occurs to me. Maybe you have such a strong instinct for "shooting down wild claims", because you yourself made a lot of wild claims in some other lifetime! You may have been a snake oil salesman or a person who conducted seances for big bucks and brought "messages" to people from their dear departed grandmothers, while tapping the bottom of the table with your boot! Maybe your own past karma is what is causing you to react so much to that sort of stuff.

Just one among numerous possible theories. ;-)

It wouldn't be the first time, for instance, that a former drunk has come back in the next life as a moral campaigner against alcoholism...or any number of other such examples. That's duality for you. The thing people most can't stand is their own glaring past errors, demonstrated by others.

(that's more spiritual theorizing...nothing more) (I'm not saying I know.)

I find it fun to discuss such things, just in order to raise the possibility and give it some thought.   Who are we here to work on and improve? Others or ourselves?