Fmaj7, in your original post you said that you didn't want to imply that your beliefs were more valid than anyone else's, but you didn't actually say what your beliefs are.

The way I have resolved all this for myself is to realize that human beings have the capacity for spiritual experience. I myself have had lots of spiritual experiences. But most attempts to explain them or to define them and (especially) to place them within the context of any human-made system/doctrine/structure causes them to not make much sense.

Things that don't make sense to me (and that seem quite similar) include astrology, palmistry, tarot, Christianity, and the casting of spells. I don't think these sort of things have much in common with alien abductions, crops circles and the lot, except that they also don't make sense. The various non-mainstream healing plans are in yet a third category, and again, some of them make sense and some don't. As you have noticed, nonsensical things are often believed in by credulous people. But the same could be said for many people who play the stock market or who think that Las Vegas can be a profitable place to go. There are lots people who believe in lots of things that don't stand up to critical analysis.

On the other hand, I know people who apparently think astrology makes perfect sense but who think aliens are out of this world, so to speak. So no, I don't think that belief in one unbelievable thing automativally means belief in others. I just think that if an already credulous person decides that one non-mainstream system works, they might easily decide that they all work.

On a slight tangent, I know a guy that does tarot readings and uses the cards as a focusing tool to bring his empathy and people reading skills to the fore. His readings work, which is a very different thing than saying the cards themselves delve into the psyche of the person being read. So -- I don't believe in the tarot because it doesn't make any sense, but I believe in empathy because I have seen and experienced many examples of it. I have had some very good results using the I Ching, but I don't think there is anything psychic involved with achieving those results -- I just think it's a brilliantly written book.

John