BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm

Subject: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: Wolfgang
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 07:05 AM

Some of you may be interested in reading this article:

Bridging the chasm

Karla McLaren, author of several books on auras, chakras, energy, chronicles her difficult and painful transition to skepticism. She deplores the deficit in effectivly communicating on both sides and the lack of understanding on the side of the believers that skeptics really care about people. Some bits to water your mouth:

I know he would not like to hear this, but it's still true: James Randi's behavior and demeanor were so culturally insensitive that he actually created a gigantic backlash against skepticism, and a gigantic surge toward the New Age that still rages unabated.

Our cultural training about the dangers of the intellect makes it nearly impossible for us to utilize science properly - or to identify your intellectual rigor as anything but an unhealthy overuse of the mind.

We love to say that we embrace mystery in the New Age culture, but that's a cultural conceit and it's utterly wrong. In actual fact, we have no tolerance whatsoever for mystery. Everything from the smallest individual action to the largest movements in the evolution of the planet has a specific metaphysical or mystical cause. In my opinion, this incapacity to tolerate mystery is a direct result of my culture's disavowal of the intellect. One of the most frightening things about attaining the capacity to think skeptically and critically is that so many things don't have clear answers. Critical thinkers and skeptics don't create answers just to manage their anxiety.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 07:46 AM

whaat!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: *daylia*
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 08:04 AM

There has been plenty of scientific work done already to bridge the gap between Western science and Eastern energy work, particularly in the field of health. Therapeutic Touch, acupuncture, and Reiki are now practiced in hospitals and medical clinics alongside traditional Western doctoring and surgery. Here's a quote from the Reiki article ...

The word, "Rei", means variously - universal, spiritually guided, and divine. Additional research shows that it also means supernatural consciousness or spiritual consciousness [some would say simply "ghost-like, non-physical, spiritual]. In the West, one might speak of God-consciousness without the connotation of religion, if that concept is possible to the Western mind.

The word "Ki" is a Japanese word referring to life force or energy [some would say pervasive internalized universal energy]. In Chinese it is "Ch'i" or "Qi". In Sanksrit, in Hindu thought, it is referred to as "Prana"; in Hawaiian it is "Ti" or "Ki", in Polynesia it is "Mana", in Iroquois it is "Orenda, in Greek it is "Pneuma" or "Nous", in Hebrew it is "Ruah", in Islamic countries it is "Barraka", and in the West it has been called the Light, cosmic energy, odic force, orgone, bioplasma, Universal Radiant Energy, and Vital Life Force.

Western scientists, such as Einstein, Heisenberg, Bohr, and Planck have said that energy is the essence of the material world. Quantum physics demonstrates that solid matter and separation into "things" is somewhat illusory; there are only varied states of energy. This view is inherent in the Unified Field Theory ....

Research in the fields of psychology, oncology, immunology, and cardiology has shown that the reduction of stress has immediate important positive effects on the immune system and cell changes, as well as in the avoidance of pathology. Many diseases are related to excess stress. Can Reiki be of help, since it reduces stress?

Reiki is currently in use as a complementary therapy at the Tucson Medical Center in Arizona, the Portsmouth Regional Hospital in New Hampshire, and at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Hospital in New York. The Hospital at the University of Pennsylvania (HUP) Medical School, Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, Marian General Hospital, and the California Pacific Medical Center all offer Reiki to their patients. In Cleveland, hospitals are considering setting up a Reiki clinic. In Vermont, there is already a Complementary Medicine clinic at Windsor Hospital where Reiki practitioners are working. A recent newspaper article indicates that there are at least 65 Reiki practitioners among the doctors and nurses at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. There are other hospitals in Vermont, New Jersey and California which have permitted Reiki as a stress-reduction modality. New hospitals are being added to this list almost daily.

I am neither a "skeptic" or a "believer". I am (among other things) an energetic healer - a Master of two traditions of Reiki (Tibetan and Usui Shiki Ryoho) and a HUNA practitioner/instructor. I, my teachers, students and clients have witnessed and experienced many many MANY successful healings using both Reiki and HUNA, healings that could not possibly been accomplished using today's Western medical techniques. Neither I nor they need scientific journals or prizes from Stockholm to "prove" that what we do WORKS! It will be very interesting to see the scientific explanations unfold as years go by.

To illustrate my point (at the risk of boring you with another anecdote), a couple years ago I was visiting my cousin, a Registered Nurse, in Nanaimo BC. She was telling me that in her hospital, Reiki practitioners are welcomed in the surgery rooms as the doctors cannot but agree that patients receiving Reiki energy during surgery recover many times faster and with far less complications. All the nurses at her hospital are encouraged to take courses in Therapeutic Touch as well.

Then she told me her daughter, 10 years old and a promising young figure skater, had been suffering with painful plantar's warts for about a year. SHe had been religiously taking her daughter out of school for weekly chemical "burning" treatments at the doctor's for months. The girl's foot had become a godawful painful mess of angry red inflamed sores, and the child was getting ready to quit her figure skating because of them.

My cousin asked me to use Reiki to help the child's foot, and I did. I passed Reiki energy to that foot about 6 times, a couple minutes each time, over a period of 48 hours. I got a call from her mother a week later thanking me profusely -- she said the child's foot had healed up completely, no more visits to the doctor and she was back to her old routines at the figure skating club.

Well, at the time I was new to Reiki, and found it hard to believe that those few little treatments could have had such an effect - that kid's foot had been a real mess! So I drove the 100 km back to their house to check it out for myself - and sure enough, there was only the faintest little pink scars where those sores had been. WOW -- I was one impressed camper, and she was one happy kid!

Here's a couple more links about energetic healing and the inroads Western science is making, right now! - to document and understand how it works. Enjoy!

Reiki and Science

Eastern vs Western Logic

On Energy work for the Doubter

Measuring Life-Force Energy


SUGGESTION: If you'd rather not wait (and suffer) for years for Western medical science to catch up to Eastern energetic healing methods, try this. Next time you have a headache, a toothache, or any other complaint that you're good and ready to get rid of, PM me. I'll pass you energy, wherever you may be and you can check out the effects and results for yourself.

YOu don't need to "believe" a thing, and you certainly don't need "permission" from Stockholm to try it. You've got nothing to lose except your pain and your skepticism - because the worst these techniques can possibly do for you is .... nothing.

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: beardedbruce
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 08:09 AM

Unified field theory, in particle physics, is an attempt to describe all fundamental forces and the relationships between elementary particles in terms of a single theoretical framework. Forces can be described by fields that mediate interactions between separate objects. In the mid-19th century James Clerk Maxwell formulated the first field theory in his theory of electromagnetism. Then, in the early part of the 20th century, Albert Einstein developed general relativity, a field theory of gravitation. Later, Einstein and others attempted to construct a unified field theory in which electromagnetism and gravity would emerge as different aspects of a single fundamental field. They failed, and to this day gravity remains beyond attempts at a unified field theory

link to where I got this - no need for LH to repeat it...

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 08:57 AM

Doh!

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: Amos
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 10:10 AM

Superted, I don't know what you mean, but it seems tome you are being supercilious and nasty. What are you on about? Why can you not stay silent until you have something productive to say?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 10:12 AM

Same to you with brass knobs on!

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: GUEST,mack/misophist
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 10:13 AM

At the risk of showing the same 'cultural insensitivity' as James Randi, I'm bound to comment that the New Age movement is essentially religious in nature - focused on belief and personal perception rather than verifiable results. It's core members do not seem to understand the scientific method or the reason for it's existence.

Rather than start an interminable argument over minutiae, I will just point out that in India and China, seen by many New Agers as the twin fonts of wisdom, those who can afford to use western medicine, not the traditional forms. When results are all that matters, science is the only thing that works consistently.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 10:18 AM

From your "mouth watering" quotes she sounds like she's putting a new spin on the New Age, not building a bridge for skeptics.

Thanks, Wolfgang.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 10:19 AM

"Cultural training about the dangers of the intellect" – what is she talking about? Yeah, I know, there are countless fantasy/horror movies about science gone wrong, starting with Frankenstein, but I see little evidence of this in "real life" or in our major institutions, like schools, government, churches (except fundamentalist ones), health institutions (except chiropractors). Evidently this "cultural training" doesn't get passed on to everybody, or real doctors and scientists wouldn't exist.

I guess I'll have to read the article!

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: GUEST,Skeptic
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 10:27 AM

*daylia* you ought to move to farm country - they could use your help. You have more bullshit in your post than a farmer puts on 1000 acres in ten years. The one thing you have proven is that your IQ is below 70 or you wouldn't believe that grabage.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 10:28 AM

The problem I have with the so-called "skeptic" movement (besides the fact they seem to have no social skills and are jerks), is they have an agenda. That agenda is to taunt New Agers by "debunking" their beliefs. The skeptics are a fringe group of idiots with way too much time on their hands.

I'm not interested in anything that nasty. I really don't care what New Agers or "skeptics" believe about one another, and I don't think the "skeptics" movement is rooted in science anymore than the New Age movement is--it is rooted in an unhealthy desire to wreak vengeance upon New Age believers, while leaving religious believers alone. It is kind of like one movement stalking another. Creepy in the extreme.

Now, I will agree that we are living in an era where many people are anti-intellectual, but I don't know that more people are anti-intellectual today vs 50 or 100 years ago.

I fully comprehend that science is often wrong, that it's "theories" (which are really just somebody's wild ass guesses dressed up in scientific language of the field in question, and often with NO data to back it up) are as rooted in their cultural belief system as snake charmers' beliefs are in theirs. The science community simply pays a whole lot more money to be indoctrinated into their belief system than John and Jane Catholic believer or Butterfly-in-the-Evening and Synde New Age believer and their priests and shamans do. The indoctrination system is called "post-secondary education" or "The University" or "Academe" or "institution of higher learning" (depending upon your denomination). A scientist, to my way of thinking (which admittedly has been unduly influenced by one of those "institutions of higher learning") is just as much as priest for the church of scientific rationalism as any pastor is for a church of Episcopalians.

I also actually know what the definition is of "metaphysical" and I know it doesn't mean what many New Agers think it means.

But I also am eternally grateful to those New Age thinkers who have stretched the boundaries a bit when it comes to questioning conventional beliefs. I agree, the majority of the New Age movement is as moribund as the Methodist church or molecular biology as an academic discipline. But there are some good thinkers out there. And as an unabashed intellectual, I love to read what a good thinker has to say. Which is why I don't feel threatened by beliefs that are far outside the mainstream.

I always thought a large part of the problem is the Inquisition nature of the attacks on those who lean towards "New Age" beliefs. Take astrologers, for instance. They aren't new kids on the block. Astrology truly is the roots system of belief to modern day astronomy. Ancient astrologers kicked ass, and figured out some very amazing stuff. If you don't believe that, go to some of the incredible archaeological treasures they built in alignment with the solstices, thousands of years ago, without any of the tools astronomers take for granted today. They were a pretty smart bunch. They had some pretty good engineers working for them too, again, with none of the tools engineers take for granted today. And they moved some mighty big rocks some mighty long distances, and piled them up in a mighty mystical way to make their temples to the stars.

As for the astrolgy of today, I think the whole real conflict is over whether it is "science" or not. Some of it is based on the science of those milleniums ago, and you throw some math in for doing the calculations. But astrology today is really a symbolic system rooted in Greco-Roman or Hindu mythology more than science, even though it does use the planets of our solar system and the rudimentary numeric system of degrees to determine the relationships between the heavenly bodies at any given time, calculated to a particular place on earth.

But it isn't as bizarre as the science community would have you believe. We all operate in our daily lives subconsciously using mythic attributions, be it "Saturnian" qualities, or the qualities attributed to red haired people, or the qualities or essence attributed to particular vocations (one that is still one of the strongest in use in contemporary times), ie what a carpenter is like, what a doctor is like, what a teacher is like, what an Arab man or an English woman is like.

Some might call those frames of reference/beliefs stereotypes rather than mythic archetypes, which is fine. I just think it is a bit more accurate to describe them as mythic archetypes when, in fact, the archetype is rooted in the ancient world.

Other than that, I'm on a journey called life, and the coolest part of it to me is exploring and examining a LOT of possibilities in ways that harm none.

The "skeptic" movement is interested in harming, psychologically in my opinion, New Age believers.

Not cool.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 10:39 AM

Amos, super ted is singing
    "Doh" a deer a female deer
    Ray a drop of golden sun
    Me a name I call myself
    etc etc...

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: *daylia*
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 10:42 AM

When results are all that matters, science is the only thing that works consistently.

Works consistently to do what exactly, mack? Keep the pharmaceutical companies, universities, Western medical establishment, coroners and undertakers in business, perhaps?

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: sledge
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 11:03 AM

Daylia, don't be so dissmisive of the Scientific medical community. In the past when "natural healing" was all that was available to many communities, infant mortality was very high, 50%+ or more, a person in their mid 40's was considered old, not to mention a raft of diseases that used to kill off millions . Now we have low infant mortality, a population of ever increasing longevity and treatments that stop a simple infection from being a death scentence.

For example, Smallpox, it used to kill 30% of those who contracted the disease while blinding a large number of those who lived and scaring just about all the others, a scientific program of vaccination meant that the last naturally contracted case was in 1977 with one further case contracted in a lab the following year. Thats what science can do, its proven and not just anecdotal.

Sledge

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: *daylia*
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 11:03 AM

*daylia* you ought to move to farm country - they could use your help. You have more bullshit in your post than a farmer puts on 1000 acres in ten years. The one thing you have proven is that your IQ is below 70 or you wouldn't believe that grabage.

Of what use is it to keep a post like this in an otherwise informed and intelligent discussion? Is it the price to be paid for freedom of speech or something?

Just to let you know, I've taken IQ tests 3 times in my life - and my scores ranged from 135 - 140. I'm certainly not Einstein, but I'm not exactly a blubbering idiot either.

And I repeat ad nauseum, that "belief" has absolutely nothing to do with life-force energy OR it's effects - anymore than "belief" has anything do with the sun or the life-giving effects it's energy produces.

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: Gervase
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 11:08 AM

Trouble with bridging the chasm is that, on one side, there are solid banks and foundations built on rigorous scientifict practice, and on the other there's...
And that's the trouble; the term "New Age" has become a catch-all, embracing such diverse delights as Hopi ear candle therapy, crystal healing, reiki, shiatzu (off topic - what's a shiatzu? One with no penguins. Sorry...) and every other 'alternative' practice under the sun.
Some, perhaps, may in time be validated and adopted, others are and will always remain quite bonkers; lucrative for the practitioner and sometimes downright dangerous for the gullible.
From my tone, you can probably guess that I'm a sceptic. Not that I want to be, of course. I would love to be able to believe that a quartz crystal can cleanse my chakras or that remotely channelled reiki energy can heal the damaged ligaments in my knee, but I have yet to see proof.
I don't have any agenda other than to embrace what is sensible and rational and reject what is palpably wrong. My scepticism is simply a mater of observation and experience. For good or ill, I've spent a lot of time with people who passionately believe in many 'New Age' techniques and therapies. While there are many who do sincerely believe that they can extract sunbeams from cucumbers and turn base metal into gold, I have seen people being exploited and even damaged by 'New Age' practitioners - including one woman I know who went blind through diabetes because she believed her 'healer' and not her GP.
Ad therein lies the problem. We all want solutions. When we were religious we came to terms with mortality and disease by inventing gods to blame. Then science became the great saviour, with its magic bullets and seers in qhite coats.
Today, however, we seem to be on the run from both. We seem to have largely lost our organised faith and misplaced our trust in science and the enlightenment, and instead run hither and thither, seeking out quick fixes and instant wisdom from any old place.
For our spiritual - and increasingly physical - succour, we're lurching through the aisles of the 'New Age' store like children in a pick'n'mix frenzy, victims of our gullibility and a yearning for some sort of mystery in life.
Of course, the one-on-one attention an alternative therapist gives to a client is a good thing. Most of us want someone to talk to and a sympathetic ear for our troubles. A good massage is always welcome, too. But the rest of it...
This sceptic is glad to hear that Karla McLaren seems to have woken up to reality. If there are other good thinkers out there on the fringes of the New Age, could someone please point me in their direction?

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 11:12 AM

"The "skeptic" movement is interested in harming, psychologically in my opinion, New Age believers."

??what an astounding finish to a piece of slanted, factually incorrect diatribe! The "New Age Believers" do enough harm to themselves....they don't need any help.

I could type for 3 hours pointing out flaws in that strange bit of nonsense which breaks most of the rules of cogent agrument, but I don't have time, and you would just make MORE outrageous remarks in repsponse. You probably will anyway.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: *daylia*
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 11:17 AM

Soory sledge, I was being defensive there -- of course Western medical science has produced many, many "miraculous" benefits over the years. Today, Eastern energetic healing techniques have been proven to complement and enhance Western medicine, "filling in the gaps" where Western medicine falls short.

If I were to break my leg this afternoon, I would go to the hospital to have it set by Western doctors AND I would use HUNA techniques to speed the healing and ease the pain. There are documented reports of Hawaiian Kahunas (priests) completely healing broken bones using HUNA techniques in a matter of minutes - but nevertheless, I certainly would NOT rely completely on one approach. I would use both, and in so doing I would reap the benefits of both.

And I consider myself VERY fortunate to be living in a day and age when both approaches are readily available!

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 11:20 AM

You know, it isn't accurate to say that the peoples of the East use Western medicine if they can afford to abandon their culture's traditional medicinal practices. They use both, and see them as complimentary healing modalities, not oppositional modalities the way we have been brainwashed into viewing them in the US. In Europe, where there was once a very strong and powerful tradition of herbal medicine practiced which is the root system to today's pharmaceutical industry, is more open to complimentary healing modalities than the US.

There still is a science dedicated to developing plant based medicines, and it is called pharmacognosy.

Sledge, you are right to point out that we owe a tremendous amount of thanks to the scientific (why did you capitalize that, BTW?) medical community. I wouldn't trade it for a million massages.

But what the scientific medical community has been too dismissive of, are sound medical practices which are less invasive and sometimes take a bit longer to work on a patient, which is the case with many complimentary therapies like acupuncture.

What that all too often overlooks is the relief a patient gets, and how dramatically those therapies work to relieve pain and improve the patient's quality of life. In the very fucked up US medical establishment, if it ain't a pill, a machine, or a surgical intervention, it ain't medicine.

That is just pure bullshit. Massage therapy would do so much more to relieve pain, with no negative side effects, than narcotics, for instance. But our insurance industry is beholden to our pharmaceutical industry, so insurance pays for addictive drugs with many negative side effects to relieve pain, rather than massage therapy twice a week, which has no negative side effects, and many positive ones.

So you tell me, what's wrong with that picture?

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: *daylia*
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 11:28 AM

Massage therapy would do so much more to relieve pain, with no negative side effects, than narcotics, for instance. But our insurance industry is beholden to our pharmaceutical industry, so insurance pays for addictive drugs with many negative side effects to relieve pain, rather than massage therapy twice a week, which has no negative side effects, and many positive ones.

So you tell me, what's wrong with that picture?

Nothing, GUEST -- you express my point of view VERY well. That's why I LOVE HUNA -- it's easy, it's simple, it feels wonderful, it costs NOTHING, it works and perhaps even more importantly --- I HATE TAKING DRUGS!!!!

With HUNA, I don't have to.

I haven't even popped a Tylenol in about 4 years now.

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: sledge
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 11:35 AM

It was A reflex I suppose that the caps lock went on, but then having worked in medicine for aound 23 years I guess I have an instinctive respect for it.

During my time on Hospital wards I nursed quite a few who were grateful for those strong opiates, especially those who illnesses were terminal. And those strong drugs have also seen child cancer survival rates increase by around 20%, thats quite a few relieved families I reckon, better they buy a wig following chemo-therapy than a coffin. And that 20% has come about from years of hard work by white coat wearers using science.

I wonder if our guest would trade in those massages for the medical/scientific side of things if they were lying in bed, their body ravaged by cancer or with their failing liver slowing poisoning the body.

Sledge

Sledge

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 11:47 AM

Spoken like a True Believer in the "Skeptic" Movement, there BillD.

A charlatan is a charlatan, whether as a snake oil salesman or a brain surgeon who loses or maims all his patients.

I worked with one of those brain surgeons--virtually every patient he operated on died, but he keeps practicing in a major university teaching hospital, because he is being allowed to do experimental surgeries on patients with tumors in parts of the brain that medical science hasn't been able to successfully treat.

Sound medical science? No. Hit or miss? Yes. He is using living, breathing human beings as if they were cadavers. Deeply disturbing. Now, I'm completely on the side of using human subjects for research if done properly. I'm all for cutting edge medical research. I am fascinated by the science and the art of practicing medicine. But I am as skeptical of so-called "scientific" medicine as I am of the "old wives tales". If it is proven to work, I'm all for it, and I don't care who "discovered" it.

All our medical knowledge came from people, often women, who did the thankless work of collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data on plants, metals, and other naturally occuring substances developed by humans as medicinal curative agents, or from experimenting with and observing the ways physical manipulation of the energy pathways in the human body (ie yoga, tai chi, massage, acupuncture, diet, etc) works to relieve pain and speed healing.

If the term "energy pathways" disturbs you skeptics, you can readily substitute the word "systems" as in the endocrine system, the nervous system, the pulmonary system, etc.

There is a pretty well documented history of extremely useful traditional knowledge (which in some instances is very ancient knowledge indeed) that has been passed down to us. That is as true of science as it is religion. Today's complimentary healing "quacks" (as the skeptics ignorantly insist they are) were yesterday's health care professionals, just like today's astronomers were yesterday's astrologers, or today's metallurgists are yesterday's alchemists.

So just where are those "factually inaccurate" statements, BillD?

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: sledge
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 11:49 AM

Daylia,

I guessed that was the case with yourself, but surely if you are going to live with a foot in both camps, treading a bit more carefully ainn't such a bad idea.

I am still quite sceptical of many claims, the only alternative therapy that I really have time for is accupuncture at the moment as I have seen some of the benefits and its not that uncommon for it to be offered by GP's in the UK.

Watching with interest

Sledge

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: mack/misophist
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 11:51 AM

It's a fair criticism of scientific medicine to say that it's cold and uncareing. This can be improved. No offense to Wolfgang, but it's nothing but basic psychology. (Wolfgang is a psychologist, if you haven't noticed.) There are three main reasons why sceptics oppose the New Age movement:

    A. New Age "medical" therapies often seek validation by inclusion in tax supported plans and institutions. Since these "therapies" are usually unproven or disproven, we see this as a theft of public money and an erosion of what science itself means.

    B. The risk of death or permanent disability from New Age "therapies" is unreasonably high.

    C. New Age authors constantly seek validity by claiming to be "scientific" and using pseudo-scientific jargon. Opposing this is a simple matter of correcting facts.

Science makes no claim to perfection. What it does claim, is that it is the most efficient and effective method for learning about the physical world. Any group that wants to win converts from the community of sceptics will have to prove (in our terms) that their way of looking at the world is more effective.


"If you can't predict with it, it's not science." - JBS Haldane

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 12:01 PM

" Massage therapy would do so much more to relieve pain, with no negative side effects, than narcotics, for instance"

what's wrong with that picture is the phrase "much more"!

I know massage therapy...my wife DOES it,(professionally, for several years) and it can do some nice things, but it was NOT what I needed when I had a kidney stone, or a strained back. She can help 'some' headaches if they are related to stress and tension, but others respond ONLY to a bit of drugs.

It is not like I have not tried alternative therapies or seen them tried....my mother-in-law spent LARGE sums of money on healers and 'natural' medicines and had pyramids built with wires and metals to 'focus' healing thoughts..etc....and she got worse, and worse and died. Congestive heart failure does not seem to respond to "New Age" therapies.

The problem is, people remember good results, and assign causality to whatever they did just prior to feeling better, even if the results were due to natural results. (old joke...take these pills and repeat this mantra and your cold will be gone in 5-6 days. Or do nothing and your cold will be gone in 5-6 days)

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: sledge
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 12:01 PM

Guest,

if your surgeon was losing most of his patients who were already suffering from almost certainly termainal cancer how is that a surprise, surely before any surgery took place he outlined the risk and likely outcome to get their consent, this was their last chance probably wouldn't you say. Given that the survival rates for brain cancer are still only 12% (cancer research uk) is it so hard to grasp at a last chance when death is so close.

Sledge

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 12:11 PM

really don't care what New Agers or "skeptics" believe about one another, and I don't think the "skeptics" movement is rooted in science anymore than the New Age movement is--it is rooted in an unhealthy desire to wreak vengeance upon New Age believers, while leaving religious believers alone. It is kind of like one movement stalking another. Creepy in the extreme.

[snip]

But I also am eternally grateful to those New Age thinkers who have stretched the boundaries a bit when it comes to questioning conventional beliefs. I agree, the majority of the New Age movement is as moribund as the Methodist church or molecular biology as an academic discipline. But there are some good thinkers out there. And as an unabashed intellectual, I love to read what a good thinker has to say. Which is why I don't feel threatened by beliefs that are far outside the mainstream.

[snip]

incredible archaeological treasures they built in alignment with the solstices, thousands of years ago, without any of the tools astronomers take for granted today. They were a pretty smart bunch. They had some pretty good engineers working for them too, again, with none of the tools engineers take for granted today. And they moved some mighty big rocks some mighty long distances, and piled them up in a mighty mystical way to make their temples to the stars.

[another post, snip]

You know, it isn't accurate to say that the peoples of the East use Western medicine if they can afford to abandon their culture's traditional medicinal practices. They use both, and see them as complimentary healing modalities, not oppositional modalities the way we have been brainwashed into viewing them in the US. In Europe, where there was once a very strong and powerful tradition of herbal medicine practiced which is the root system to today's pharmaceutical industry, is more open to complimentary healing modalities than the US.

---

Guest, that space in between spirituality and science, between skeptics and the New Age, is occupied at least in part by scholars who hold a Postmodern view of the world. In your various remarks cut and pasted above you're reflecting the role of thinkers who realize that science is priviledged by Western culture, and by modern industrial religions (christianity, judaism, and muslim). They also realize that the "magical" aspects of religion, including cures and miracles and healing rituals, have been continually trumped or debunked by science. Skeptics are important for debunk frauds like the "healers" from the Philippines who palm chicken livers and do phony surgery for gullible believers. There are always going to be people in the world who need to be protected from themselves, because they don't have the tools to figure out a scam when it's put in front of them. But a postmodern view of the world holds that the spiritual beliefs (particularly those that generated in small localities and stayed put) have a great deal to offer humans today.

Postmodernists hold an inclusive (but also resigned) view of the world. They recognize that our languages carry great cultural baggage, to the benefit of some and the detriment of others. That our languages are largely influenced by dominant religions and science, and therefore, texts (whether literary or spiritual, current or mythic, written or oral tradition) must be examined carefully when used by different groups as each appropriates a share of it to convey their own beliefs and meanings. In national politics, dominant culture literature, and broad based entertainment venues, language tends to favor the general vs. the local. The PoMo resignation comes with the understanding that our schools aren't teaching critical thinking skills, and many people grow up learning (through schools and religions) how to consume, with an econonmic view of the world, not a metaphysical view of the world. They aren't learning to examine their lives and the world around them as a form of "text" or a story that can have many tellings and go many directions.

A postmodern view questions religion AND science. Neither should go unexamined by critical thinkers.

Enough generalization about specifics.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: mack/misophist
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 12:14 PM

Daylis'a comment about the medical establishment are out of place. Her basic criticism is about economics, not science.

GUEST's remarks about the brain surgeon are likewise mistaken. The law requires informed consent for such things. When a person is going to die in the near future, anything that could help can be considered. Personally, I think that the cost of such things should be absorbed by the institution, not the patient. But that's economics, again.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: *daylia*
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 12:15 PM

A. New Age "medical" therapies often seek validation by inclusion in tax supported plans and institutions. Since these "therapies" are usually unproven or disproven, we see this as a theft of public money and an erosion of what science itself means.

    B. The risk of death or permanent disability from New Age "therapies" is unreasonably high.

    C. New Age authors constantly seek validity by claiming to be "scientific" and using pseudo-scientific jargon. Opposing this is a simple matter of correcting facts.

I'd appreciate if you posted some credible evidence to back up these claims, mack.

Yes, there is great fear ... even hatred and bigotry ... within the Western medical establishment and their pharmaceutical cohorts toward Eastern healing methods. Why? Because they're so simple and they work! Anyone - man, woman or child - can learn them if they have a mind to - and practicing them greatly reduces - in some cases even eliminates - the need to rely on pharmaceuticals, surgery or any other invasive, painful - not to mention expensive - Western medical procedures.

Why is there so much debunking and ridicule in the scientific community about so-called "New-Age" traditional healing methods? I highly suspect it's for the same old timeless and
hypocritical (according to the Hippocratic oath) reason ....

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$


daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 12:27 PM

Sledge, my mother is currently the beneficiary of that compassionate use of opiates. Her doctor is brilliant, and I have fought tooth and nail to keep him as her doctor despite a manipulative and fucked up hospice and nursing home medical establishment doing all they can to undermine her doctor. My mother has suffered from chronic pain from debilitating physical disabilities for many years, but only recently began receiving compassionate, humane treatment from her care givers. The only thing that has changed is a tumor in her right lung was discovered last fall. In the US medical establishment, a patient is usually only seen as being deserving of compassion if they have an acute illness, or a terminal one. People who suffer with life-long disabilities which are not life threatening, are not treated compassionately or humanely by the US medical system, in my experience.

I also know a lot of disabled people who have suffered from chronic pain. Unfortunately, there is no compassion for them in the medical establishment, especially if the conventional wisdom is that there are behavioral causes to their pain (ie obesity, or failure to exercise or modify the diet) despite the cutting edge research that has been done by the scientific medical research community into the uses of opiates with chronic pain patients.

That research, done over two decades now, has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that chronic pain patients can benefit tremendously from long term high dosages of opiates to relieve their pain and dramatically improve their functionality and quality of life, without the addictive side effects found in people who don't suffer from chronic pain. But still, the US medical establishment is largely opposed to providing pain relief management to any chronic pain patients except those with terminal illness.

Since the Bush administration has been in office, there has been a holy war against doctors and chronic pain patients over the use of oxycontin, or "hillbilly heroin" as it is sometimes called, that was made infamous when Rush Limbaugh was outed for his addiction to it. The end result: doctors will rarely prescribe oxycontin for more than one or two refills to anyone unless they are in the end of life stage of a terminal illness. That has set the cause of chronic pain treatment back by several decades at least.

Which is why so many people who suffer tremendously from chronic pain, or recurring flare-ups of acute pain, are seeking out alternatives to alleviate their suffering. They are seeking it out because the US medical establishment, in a conspiracy with the insurance and pharmaceutical industries, refuse to treat them.

I also live in an area where there is a cluster of brain cancers in children. A friend of our family's daughter was diagnosed with a brain tumor when she was entering puberty, that is so rare it has only been seen in male adolescent descendants of Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors. All these children in the brain cancer cluster lived in a geographical area where their water supply was found to be contaminated with radiation, and subsequently closed down.

Miraculously or ironically (depending upon one's worldview), the world's only medical expert on those specific, rare types of brain tumors also lives and practices in this same area where the children's brain cancer cluster was found. When our family friend asked the doctor if there were any complimentary therapies he recommended to make the treatments less painful or the patient survival rate more likely, the doctor's response was quite illuminating. He said the research has only shown one factor to be statistically significant enough to note among the children who survived the cancer and went on to live normal lives: the belief of the parents that the child would be cured. He also told the father that massage therapy would provide the best relief for pain, and was especially recommended because opiates in children is a bad combination.

And before you get carried away with your self-righteousness Sledge, I am currently watching my mother suffer a pretty awful death from lung cancer. I don't need you to lecture me. While my mother has chosen not to use complimentary therapies, it doesn't mean I don't know how effective they can be for alleviating pain and human suffering. It isn't just about "the cure" as you keep insinuating Sledge. It is also about having much more compassion and empathy for people who are suffering from pain, and helping alleviate it, rather than condemn them as whiners and junkies the way that the US medical establishment does.

I have known a number of life threatening disease survivors in my life, and a number of people who have succumbed to them. Including AIDS. And heart disease. And diabetes. And COPD. And cancer. I have seen the patients suffering with these diseases treated with compassion and respect (not to mention, pain relieving drugs without judgment and derision).

And I have also seen the physical life-long suffering of people with painful disabilities, contemptuously dismissed and/or demonized by the medical establishment as whiners and junkies, who are just looking to milk the system or get their next narcotic fix. I find that double standard of so-called "compassionate care" appalling.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: *daylia*
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 12:35 PM

OK, one more attempt to present the facts about energetic healing, chronic pain and Reiki as practiced in Canadian hospitals today.

For those who can't be bothered to click on the link and read the article, here's a couple quotes:

The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine at the US National Institute of Health (NIH), classifies Reiki as a "Biofield Medicine, which involves systems that use subtle energy fields in and around the body for medical purposes"[ii]. Reiki is a 2,500-year-old hands on system of healing which was introduced to Western cultures in the mid 1900s, and more recently has been adopted by a number of hospitals, and other health care settings, given increased attention in those settings to alternative health care strategies. Nurses often practice Reiki as an adjunct to conventional Western Medical treatment. As of 2001[iii], 47% of US state nursing boards recognized providing alternative therapies including Reiki as being within the scope of nursing practice (if the nurse is qualified in that therapy).

Reiki therapy is safe and non-invasive. It is proving useful in hospices, nursing homes, emergency rooms, operating rooms, organ transplantation care units, pediatric, neonatal and OB/GYN units; facilitating relaxation and recovery and decreasing anxiety and pain[iv]. It can be a helpful addition to conventional therapy for HIV/AIDS and cancer patients[v], [vi]...

Reiki programmes exist at a number of other palliative care centres, chronic pain clinics or clinics for condition for which pain management is vital, including: New Hampshire's Center for Integrative Medicine, the Pain Management Center at Elliot Hospital in NH, Ottawa's Sandy Hill Community Health Centre (for treating the HIV/AIDS community), Bruce House AIDS hospice, the AIDS-Committee of Ottawa, The Marvelle Koffler Breast Centre recovery centre for breast cancer patients at Toronto's Mt. Sinai hospital, Portsmouth Regional Hospital's Pain Management centre and Oncology Clinic, the women's health centre at the University of Connecticut's Charlotte Johnson Hollelder Center, and the Yale/New-Haven Hospital.

The results: one double-blind study[viii] found that "Reiki is an effective modality for reducing pain, depression, and anxiety"; Hartford hospital reports that Reiki provides significant pain relief for surgery patients[ix]; Edmonton's Cross Cancer Institute concluded that Reiki showed a highly significant reduction in pain in a pain management study including cancer; in a study of Reiki for treating HIV-related pain and anxiety[x], Pamela Miles found that newly trained Reiki practitioners perceived reductions in pain and anxiety when they performed Reiki on themselves or classmates.

This last item is key: they improved through performing Reiki on themselves. The importance of self-sufficiency, of being able to reduce pain by oneself cannot be overstressed. And they can accomplish it without additional medication...

Summary

Reiki provides a chronic care patient and any family caregiver that they may have with a proven tool to deal with pain. Reiki works with the body, mind, and spirit, all of which have to be taken care of, especially if the pain or condition has been present for a long time. Reiki can be learned by anyone, it is useful immediately upon learning, and can improve the quality of life of many chronic pain sufferers.

Anyone wanting to learn more about or experience the benefits of Reiki or HUNA for themselves is MOST welcome to contact me - just PM me if you'd like my private eMail and/or phone number. I teach both systems privately and in workshops, and I do energetic healing work absolutely free of charge.

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 12:39 PM

We love to say that we embrace mystery in the New Age culture

That's a pretty presumptuous thing for her to say, in my opinion. How does she know what "we" love to do? She's only one person. On the other hand, I also have a problem with lumping everyone who shares some ways of understanding spirituality that don't fit into any of the more established religions, into one category called "New Age" culture. We're all different. We all experience our spirituality in our own ways.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 12:39 PM

With my Postmodern bit as background, I will note that a big reason the New Age is viewed askance is because there are some in this world who don't appreciate the wholesale appropriation of older religions' practices and beliefs. American Indians in particular. The repackaging and recombination of their beliefs and ceremonial activities and sites often offends the traditional practitioners. Many people don't like having their religious sites taken over by bimbos with their crystals. Lynn Andrews is the poster child for this movement.

SRS
The novel Hanta Yo by a clueless white lady came even earlier than Andrew's work, but has been demonstrated to be a hot button with some members of this forum, so this remark shall "appear" invisibly.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: sledge
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 12:44 PM

Guest,

What can I say, but sorry to hear of your personal circustance.

If you want to lecture other don't be surprised if a bit comes your way in return.

I know enough enough about patient care, both the good and bad, I'e seen the patient go home better than they arrived, I've seen them die and been with them and their families, I've also wiped up more than enough vomit, urine and faeces than I care to remember and even then I've tried to ensure that I see every patient as a person not as a job.

Sledge

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 12:46 PM

As regards the neurosurgeon I mentioned, I worked with a neurosurgeon who's office was next door to the "experimental" neurosurgeon. I think what he is doing is criminal. He is giving false hope to those who have no chance of being cured, in order to exploit their false hopes "for the good of science".   He and the hospital just don't tell the patients and their families that. Sure, they go through the "informed consenst" dance. But it doesn't change the dynamic of the beliefs of the patients and their loved ones that this might be the magic bullet cure, and the beliefs of the doctor and the medical establishment that exploits those patients in the name of medical science and research.

There is no doubt that these exploited patients and their loved ones are put through much more suffering and pain than they would if the medical establishment cared about and had compassion for them, rather than viewed them as guinea pigs for their research and fodder for their publications. This neurosurgeon is a highly respected (in medical circles) man. Published in all the best journals. An expert in the field. Wealthy beyond most of our wildest imaginations.

He isn't much better than the so-called doctors involved in Nazi medical experiments in the concentration camps, IMO.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 01:05 PM

Sledge, I apologize to you personally. In no way do I intend or wish to demean the work you do, and I am tremendously grateful to you for choosing to make healing your life's work. It is, indeed, a thankless job (much like my own in education) in many respects. I am increasingly alarmed at how few people are willing to go into health care, especially nursing, anymore. I don't presume to speak for you, but I can't help but wonder if one of the reasons why there are so many fewer people willing to go into the field, is because the only practitioners who get any respect in the field of medicine are the doctors and researchers.

In fact, the whole disconnect for me after many years of having too much contact with the medical establishment for a healthy, functional person with little tolerance for those suffering from chronic self-pity (I know a lot of nurses too!), is the disconnect in the US between healing art and medical practice.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: *daylia*
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 01:08 PM

....my mother-in-law spent LARGE sums of money on healers and 'natural' medicines and had pyramids built with wires and metals to 'focus' healing thoughts..etc....and she got worse, and worse and died. Congestive heart failure does not seem to respond to "New Age" therapies.

Well I'm sorry to hear about your mother-in-law, Bill, and I don't know anything about pyramids built with wires and metals, but I do know this ...

if a person WANTS to be sick for any reason, conscious or subconscious (ie if their illness "pays off" for them via disability cheques, keeping them on drugs they enjoy taking or winning them pitying attention from others) - or if at a deep subconscious level they feel unworthy or afraid of receiving healing energy, then they will NOT allow the healing changes to take place. We are all free agents - and that means free to choose pain, sickness, even death over the opportunity to heal.

That's why energetic healing is never guaranteed. Dependant as these techniques are on the free will of the recipient, results simply cannot be predicted in the same way that the results of taking a pill or having surgery can be predicted (more or less).

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: GUEST,SueB
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 01:13 PM

Just anecdotal stuff here - I have a neighbor, a very wonderful warm person, with a labyrinth in her back yard, herbs in her garden, essential oils on her shelf. She recently told my youngest daughter that the reason she (my daughter) needed glasses was because on some level she really didn't want to see. Naturally, my jaw dropped. I asked her, you don't think it has anything to do with the curvature of the lenses of her eyes, or that fact that nearsightedness runs in my family? She didn't. Also, she doesn't "believe in" the germ theory of disease. I tend to think of her beliefs as a strange morass of magical thinking and improbable causal relationships, but it works for her.

But back to the original premise, that there are two sides, and a chasm between them, seems too black and white to me. What about a continuum, or a bell curve? Or a Venn diagram? After all, many of us read our horoscopes while in the doctor's office waiting room, or consult feng shui guides and also make annual donations to Doctors Without Borders.

Yes, in some parts of the US there is a virulent strain of anti-intellectualism, but is there really a Skeptics' Movement?

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 01:35 PM

if a person WANTS to be sick for any reason, conscious or subconscious (ie if their illness "pays off" for them via disability cheques, keeping them on drugs they enjoy taking or winning them pitying attention from others) -
------------From Mudcat's own Edgar Cayce of warts.

That remark is going to go over real well with lots of folks--NOT. Touches and chants and crystals don't work? Must be the patient wanted to be sick.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: *daylia*
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 01:55 PM

It's the truth, GUEST. Deal with it.

I don't have any experience with chants or crystals, but I've been practicing energetic healing for about 6 years now - both "hands-on" and at a distance. I learned Reiki first, and later HUNA. I much prefer distance work, and I prefer HUNA - it's much easier, more powerful and more effective than Reiki.

HUNA is not as well known in the West as Reiki. Yet. It's time will come, if I have anything to do with it (and I'm making sure I Do!)

So I call upon all ye Catters to come unto me and release thy warts, thy lumps, thy pains, thy twisted thinkings, thy hatreds and ill wills and emotional warpages ... for who do these things serve, pray tell?

You?

Me?

Proctor and Gamble?

Dr. Do-Little?   

(just funnin, mostly anyway - please keep your wartages to yourself!)

;-)   daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 01:57 PM

SRS, it looks like you have been through the indoctrination system of a post-modern institution of higher learning more recently than I have. ;-)

I do share some of beliefs reflected in some of the excellent critical thinking done by some post-modern thinkers. But I also have formed much of my philosophical worldview through my own personal experience far from academia, in the real world. Allow me to situate the context of my personal "real world".

My real world is in an area with a fairly sizable Native American population, a fairly sizable immigrant community of Asian Americans and African Americans, including a recent African immigrant community, a burgeoning Latino immigrant community, and a predominantly Eur Am dominated community of about 89%. I work in an urban K-12 public education institution, and live in a working class/poor neighborhood inhabitated predominantly by the minority communities on the fringes of the considerably wealthier Eur Am neighborhoods surrounding us (because it is the only place I can AFFORD to live, working as an urban educator in an area with incredibly over-inflated housing values and costs). I am Eur Am.

As to the whole Lynn Andrews/New Age phenomenon so despised by many in the Native American community, I am with them all the way. She is a phony, exploiting peoples' ignorance about native peoples' history and culture to make a capitalist killing off the New Age market. She is tremendously successful at it.

I also know that most the Native Americans I know, and I know a lot of them, are just as ignorant of their tribe's history and culture as most other people, they just have substituted their romanticized view of their past for the New Age romanticized view of their past. Neither is accurate, so I find the whole controversy surrounding the appropriation of native religion to be much less controversial than Russ Means or Dennis Banks would have you believe it is.

I am in total solidarity with the repatriation of burial remains and goods from the white man. I fully support the rights of native tribes to be sovereign governing entities fopr their people and their lands, as defined in the treaties made with their ancestral leaders by the US government. Much of that land has been stolen, and must be returned to the tribes, along with their hunting, fishing, water, and mineral rights.

I also support anything that can be done to save the native languages, such as they are, and the authentic cultural traditions of the tribes, so long as the practice of those cultural traditions is in accordance with healthy, beneficial traditional practices. Not all traditional practices rooted in culture are positive. The native traditional practice of abandoning female widows in the wilderness after the death of their male partner, as was practiced among some native tribes in the fairly recent past, would be one that comes most readily to my mind. Granted, it isn't done in the way it once was among the tribes, but any trip to a contemporary reservation will show you that plenty of elderly, widowed native women have been abandoned by their families and left in substandard housing, with little to no attention paid to their most basic needs of adequate food, heat, sanitation, transportation, and medical and mental health care. How is that any different than leaving them in the wilderness?

There is a tremendous amount of misogyny and sexism in traditional cultures. I don't want to see that institutionalized in the name of false sanctity towards cultural traditions, which deserve to be left behind as relics of a superstititious past. The contemporary native religious practices are largely a reinvention, and that movement is wholly dominated by powerful male members of the communities who wish to glamorize a mythic warrior culture which never existed in the ways they claim they did. I don't support that.

I don't support the practice of banishing women who are menstruating from community life while they have their period. I don't support institutionalizing those sorts of practices in native tradition today, because it reflects a backward thinking return to ignorant superstitions of the past. And that particular practice is mighty prevalent among the reinvented native religion advocates today. Go to a pow wow or community feed, and you will run into it.

As to the medical thing, don't know how many of you have had the opportunity to read the fascinating book The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, but that book and Mama Might be Better Off Dead: The Failure of Health Care in Urban America are two books that gave me a real "Aha!" moment when I read them.

There are much bigger fish to fry than the New Age movement, even when it comes to medical charlatanism and outright malicious treatment of patients that are considered the dregs of our society, like the disabled, minorities, and elderly women of all cultures.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: mack/misophist
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 02:00 PM

It's unfortunate about GUEST's mother. To set the record straight, however, the failure to perscribe isn't usually the doctor's fault. The government has recently been monitoring the use of opiates. Doctors who "over-perscribe" no matter what the reason have had their licenses threatened. Also, at least one pharmacist was threatened with the loss of his license if he continued to fill a certain doctor's opiate perscriptions.

It seems that Daylia is determined to confuse the economics and politics of health care with the practice of science. Her privilege, I guess.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: *daylia*
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 02:08 PM

Science, economics, politics and health care are intrinsically connected, mack -- quite frequently to the physical and financial detriment of the person needing help.

If you'd rather fragment the issue than look at the complete picture, that's your privilege too.

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: GUEST,SueB
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 02:13 PM

But that's the thing, we have no real understanding of how the mind works. Medicine talks about the placebo effect, but it's such an intangible. We take for granted the existence of a subconscious mind, but look in the dictionary for a definition of subconscious, and it's pretty darn vague. We don't know what it is, but we accept that it exists, and influences us in ways of which we are not consciously aware. Some people do seem to be always sick, some people don't "give in to illness" - the mind is not separate from the body, and how do you sort it all out? That's why I say it's not one or the other, rational vs irrational as the argument seems to suggest.

Then again, I admit to having been slightly offended when years ago my car window was broken and my stereo stolen, and a different neighbor (a woman who spent a great deal of time channeling and doing that writing thing where you are simply the instrument for a higher spirit to speak through) told me that I must have "asked for it" because the universe gives you exactly what you ask for.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: mack/misophist
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 02:27 PM

In rereading this thread, I'm saddened that so few seem to have read the article Wolfgang posted. Here's what it's about:

A woman who worked in the New Age 'healing' industry became convinced that the rationalist point of view isn't as perverse and wrong headed as she had thought for so long. At about the same time, she began to lose faith in what she was doing. When she announced this to her community, she lost her livelihood and generated a lot of ill will for herself. This was more or less what she expected. Today she's trying to form some synthesis of New Age spirituality and scientific effectiveness. I have serious doubts about any spirituality, but I don't doubt this woman's sincerity or basic goodness. At least, not very much.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 02:28 PM

mack, I apologize if I didn't make it clear that my mother's doctor has always prescribed her plenty of opiates, sleeping pills, anti-depressant and anti-anxiety medications. More than many health care professionals feel comfortable with, which is why they keep trying to undermine him.

As my mother's doctor says about my mother "She is on enough medication nightly to sink a ship".

Is he prescribing all these medications because it is good for my mother? No. Is he doing it as a routine matter with his other patients? No. He is doing it, because he is doing his best to help a disabled, obese, elderly woman who suffers from depression, COPD, and neuropathy (related to her disability that has made her wheel chair and bed bound for the past 5 years), and has been institutionalized in a nursing home for 5 years, to sleep and be as pain free as possible.

The horror stories surrounding the maltreatment of elderly women by the medical establishment are indicative of the type of care either you (if you are a woman) or your mother, aunt, partner, sister, etc will likely receive before they die. Race and class status are also mitigating factors, as daylia points out so succinctly.

And mack, I'm not dissing you. I think you are doing a great job in the thread trying to grapple with the thorny issues being raised here.

SueB, I used to wonder about that stuff too. But I realize now that there are just as many judgmental people who embrace magical thinking, be it of an organized religious nature, or a New Age one. I've heard organized religion believers say the same sorts of things as you have heard from your acquaintances. Only religious believers tend to put it in terms of you being punished for your sinfulness, slothfulness, whatever. Same diff, IMO.

I am on the same page as Daylia for the most part. Energy is energy. The problem stems from the value judgments placed upon the use of energy that are rooted in our cultural belief systems.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: Teresa
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 02:31 PM

Guest, thank you for your post of 12-27. I have a friend in that very same situation. Hear hear.

I don't see why there has to be a war between science and New Age communities. Each have different ways of arriving at their results.

There can be dogmatic scientists, dogmatic New Agers; there can be people in each community who are full of wonder.

Two favorite examples in science: Carl Sagan saying something to the effect that "Because you know how a sunset works doesn't make it any less beautiful."

Richard Feynman, when he said that it is ok not to know how something works; that is where all the questions come from. :)
T

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 02:39 PM

You are right mack. I read the article, but with plenty of skepticism. Why the skepticism? The banner at the top of the page with the photo of the "Skeptical Enquirer" magazine cover tells me it is a "skeptic" movement website for debunking New Age beliefs, but not conventional religious beliefs. As I said, I see them as being just as lunatic fringe as much of the New Age stuff. If they were willing to challenge the religious belief systems of orthodox religion as stridently as they do New Age believers (many of whom are deeply religious and continue to practice their conventional religion in addition to believe in some New Age ideas and practices), I might give the article the time of day.

As with anything, one needs to be well informed, and a critical thinker. That includes being well informed about the "skeptic" movement and it's agenda.

You even mention, mack, that the woman in the article got exactly what she expected for denouncing her former way of life/system of belief. With all the enthusiasm of the newly converted, I'm sure.

So why would anyone lend particular credence to this woman's story, when the outcome met her own, and most reasonable thinking peoples' expectations? Of course someone who leaves the fold and then denounces it to those considered to be it's mortal enemies is going to meet with condemnation from those she left behind.

Duh, eh?

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: *daylia*
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 02:39 PM

Sue, your stories really get my dander up! Oooo I've run into SO MANY people like that in the "new-age" field .... and I just can't stand it any more than I can stand fundamentalist Christianism!

How about telling your neighbour(s) that their preaching, their half-baked opinions and their unsolicited advice is being duly ignored, not only because it is both ignorant and inappropriate, but because the Universe also gives them exactly what they ask for. And deserve!

Then just walk away, and make sure both you and your daughter DO ignore it.

daylia

PS Practicing HUNA energetic techniques can result in relief or improvement of any condition, including congenital ones. NO guarantees, of course ... but it CAN. Reiki might too, but Reiki IS less effective.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 03:15 PM

Actually, I'm going to have to take back what I said about you mack. I must have overlooked the post you made with this in it:

A. New Age "medical" therapies often seek validation by inclusion in tax supported plans and institutions. Since these "therapies" are usually unproven or disproven, we see this as a theft of public money and an erosion of what science itself means.

    B. The risk of death or permanent disability from New Age "therapies" is unreasonably high.

    C. New Age authors constantly seek validity by claiming to be "scientific" and using pseudo-scientific jargon. Opposing this is a simple matter of correcting facts.

Oh my god, if that is what you actually believe mack, I'm afraid you and your "skeptic" buddies are much more dangerous than I initially thought.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 03:43 PM

The only thing James Randi is guilty of is of being right...

"I've flown form one side of this galaxy to the other.. I've seen a LOT of strange stuff, but I've never seen anything make me believe there's one all powerful force controls everything... There's no mystical energy field controls MY destiny... it's all a lot of simple tricks and nonsense"
-Han Solo-

"Talk New Age all you want, it's Old Age gonna get ya in the end."
-Garnet Rogers-

Keep yer dowsers, and your tarot cards, and your astrology, and your aura reading and your transubstantiation.. cause as far as I'm concerned, it's all a load of cr@p... If it help you get through the day, bully for you... don't expect me to give it a 2nd though...

"some people just had it in for healers and people with paranormal gifts."
Return to sender... no such beast... Uri Geller was a FAKE! Plain and simple...

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 04:01 PM

Let us begin the debunking, then Clinton. Let's start with this one, given to us by mack, above:

"New Age "medical" therapies often seek validation by inclusion in tax supported plans and institutions. Since these "therapies" are usually unproven or disproven, we see this as a theft of public money and an erosion of what science itself means."

My questions to you skeptics:

1. What New Age "medical" therapies do you mean? List them specifically please. Some medical therapies, like massage therapy or music therapy are often labelled New Age out of ignorance.

2. What "tax supported plans and institutions" are you referring to? Name names, be specific.

3. What "public monies" are currently being given to New Age medical therapies? Under what governmental department are our tax dollars being distrubted to these New Age therapies? What Congressional committees and subcommittees are responsible for their oversight?

4. How do New Age "medical" therapies "erosion of what science itself means"? (Editor's Note: I shudder to think this answer may stem from the same sort of "logic" that gay marriage undermines the institution of heterosexual marriage.)

You see, none of the above has anything to do with legitimate science, but definitely has a LOT to do with stereotypical, illogical "magical" thinking by so-called skeptics.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 04:39 PM

Guest, interesting discussion (though there are several guests here, so you'll have to sort yourselves out with that moniker).

Why the skepticism? The banner at the top of the page with the photo of the "Skeptical Enquirer" magazine cover tells me it is a "skeptic" movement website for debunking New Age beliefs, but not conventional religious beliefs. As I said, I see them as being just as lunatic fringe as much of the New Age stuff. If they were willing to challenge the religious belief systems of orthodox religion as stridently as they do New Age believers (many of whom are deeply religious and continue to practice their conventional religion in addition to believe in some New Age ideas and practices), I might give the article the time of day.

As with anything, one needs to be well informed, and a critical thinker. That includes being well informed about the "skeptic" movement and it's agenda.

The exposure to Postmodernism (also refered to as Deconstruction, a term McLaren used when refering to her evolution away from her former career) is a good way to compare the worlds. In my academic "indoctrination" as you call it (you were correct--two M.A.s), I covered environmental philosophy and American Indian literature. There are lots of "aha! moments when reading theory. Learn enough about Semiotics (signs/signifiers) so when you read multiple works within a given field the philosophy contained within the use of the language in those stories and poems and ethnographic materials begins to gel. You learn to look at the material and find clues to the meanings intended by the person who is speaking English, whether as a native speaker, as a second language, or as a translation (translations are by far the trickiest to work with). Thus, collections of American Indian stories with titles like Reinventing the Enemies' Language make perfect sense. The language is used in such a way that the EurAmerican is not at the center of the story, and what they conceive of as "universal" understandings are no longer valid. It's a real eye-opener for some, a real turn-off for others.

Not all traditional practices rooted in culture are positive. The native traditional practice of abandoning female widows in the wilderness after the death of their male partner, as was practiced among some native tribes in the fairly recent past, would be one that comes most readily to my mind. Granted, it isn't done in the way it once was among the tribes, but any trip to a contemporary reservation will show you that plenty of elderly, widowed native women have been abandoned by their families and left in substandard housing, with little to no attention paid to their most basic needs of adequate food, heat, sanitation, transportation, and medical and mental health care. How is that any different than leaving them in the wilderness?

There is a tremendous amount of misogyny and sexism in traditional cultures. I don't want to see that institutionalized in the name of false sanctity towards cultural traditions, which deserve to be left behind as relics of a superstititious past. The contemporary native religious practices are largely a reinvention, and that movement is wholly dominated by powerful male members of the communities who wish to glamorize a mythic warrior culture which never existed in the ways they claim they did. I don't support that.

No culture is perfect, they all have things that others find distasteful or immoral. I would respond to the charge regarding the abandoned elderly women that in the New World the poor elderly fall through the economic cracks throughout nations, not just in Indian cultures or on reservations. Not just women, not just Indians. With colonization came much of the economic chaos we see today; prior to the European arrival there were entirely different ways of reckoning were in effect. No value judgement here, just the simple observation that things were different.

As to debunking New Age and/or debunking modern religion. This could go on for many pages, and has, in many scholarly venues. I'll try to keep it brief. It is my opinion that humans have created their gods in various images, and their religions take on practices according to where they live. Some religions have grown and expanded well beyond their borders, and have lost touch with the native earth that gave rise to them. That the three big industrial religions were spawned in the deserts of the Middle East and now are entwined with Science and Economics means that they've moved far beyond the function of many autochthonous religions: a simple method of survivial that includes an origin story and includes many practices and rituals that, if successful, keep people more or less in a cyclical balance in the land where they live. When those local cultures and their spiritual practices go out of control to such an extent that their lives on the land become toxic (for example--Easter Island; some of the early Central American nation-states; probably some early European cultures; and quite possibly the Anasazi, in the American Southwest ca. 1300) then the cultures fail and vanish, and individuals reappear elsewhere to try something new.

The big three are much more than a way to live. They're a big power brokerage, where (mostly) white men control many people and get very rich in the process. Along the way there are people in it for good works, and there is enough of a balance between the rich and powerful and the altruistic that a lot of people never quite catch on to what is going on. (Kind of like the Republican party, evidently!)

"Reinvention," spiritually or in other ways, is a common practice in all cultures. To expect American Indian cultures to remain static museum pieces is unrealistic. If they had been untampered with for the last 500 years, they still would have changed from what they were in 1492. If Europeans had visited rather than conquered, ideas and practices still would have percolated quickly through the native cultures, and change would have occurred. The syncretism within native cultures is such, and in many ways more powerful than that demonstrated by the European cultures, that what you see today as Native Spirituality is an amalgam of religious beliefs--it's a survival skill. There is simply no way to describe a typcial American Indian today--they live everywhere, do everything. Those who live on reservations have a wide variety of experiences. The snapshot of the poor Indian on the Rez is just that, a snapshot through a keyhole. Just like many people from other cultures, there are some who can't get past the barriers of poor health, poor education, poor representation, and oppressive government and dominant culture practices.

In the McLaren article, she makes a point that illustrates precisely the problems we have when butting heads on some of these topics at Mudcat. She writes as a former New Age practicioner, now a scholar learning to understand the nuances of critical thinking:

Our cultural training about the dangers of the intellect makes it nearly impossible for us to utilize science properly - or to identify your intellectual rigor as anything but an unhealthy overuse of the mind. I know that sounds silly, but think of the way you view our capacity to dive deeply into matters of spiritual or religious study. You don't often treat our rigor as scholarship, per se (though it takes quite an intellect to understand and organize the often screamingly inconsistent sacred canon) - instead you tend to treat our work as an overabundance of credulity or perhaps even a stubborn refusal to listen to sense.

The "overabundance of credulity" is alive and well in some of these discussions. And we're always going to lock horns about it.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 05:41 PM

SRS, no disrespect intended, but:

What the hell is an "industrial" religion?

Why do you use big, rarified words like "autochthonous" when everyday, commonly understood words like "native" or "indigenous" will do?

And thirdly, you may have a degree in American Indian literature, but you don't seem to have much experience of American Indian cultures. That is a polite way of saying, you seem to have acquired an education without actually knowing too many Indians.

You seem much too quick to defend the NA hegemonic culture, when there isn't one. Neither is their a "Native American religious amalgam of religious beliefs". At least, not among any of the American Indians I know, who argue incessantly about their religious differences with one another as we Eur Ams argue ours. Or as a friend of mine likes to say "we aren't all Sun Dancers, you know".

Just like in any other grouping of people from different cultures, there are dominant and less dominant cultures. I live at the epicenter of the tensions between Northern Plains and Woodland tribes. Their cultural differences are very real, and their racial experiences of the US virtually identical. They struggle with the same gender, class, and race dynamics that the dominant Eur Am cultures grapple with, which is why I don't feel a need to apologize for, or attempt to paper over the failings of their culture's traditions anymore than I would my own. They are plenty capable of defending themselves, if they choose to do so. I really want to see their cultures survive, and as long as well meaning academic types keep acting as apologists for them, which is what I think you are doing here, there will be more cultural loss, not less. If the native cultures are going to survive, they are going to do so by being scrappy and being a part of contemporary dialogues and debates of the issues that matter most to most people.

Those issues certainly include sexism. Some of the most interesting discussions I've ever had about Rousseauian romanticizing have been with Native intellectuals who haven't been college educated, and never heard of the guy. But they understand the concept of Romantic nationalism just fine. I know may be a bit of a leap for a lot of people that Native people actually have intellectual traditions that extend further back than Vine Deloria, but there you have it.

And BTW, I never claimed that Native religious traditions had to be, or should remain static. You are the one who brought up the Lynn Andrews thing. That raises the issue of "reinvention" for discussion. There are philosophical differences all over the map in Indian country on this very issue--and when I say Indian country, I mean both the res and urban Indian country. But I wouldn't say it is much of a big deal anywhere in Indian country, in my experience. Although I should qualify where I'm coming from regarding Native Americans: my experience with American Indian people is living and working with them, not studying them.

Perhaps that accounts for the differences between your views and mine.

Finally, the last quote you gave for the article doesn't make sense to me. Either you have quoted it far enough out of context, or the writer just isn't very good at writing with enough clarity to make herself understood.

But if you are getting at the same sort of thing that I'm guessing Wolfgang was trying to get at, I'm not buying into that sort of an oppositional set up of New Age vs "skeptic" debate over who is right vs who is wrong. That would be a truly mindless waste of time. I'm not certain that is what you are getting at, but because you came in and started speaking in post-modernspeak tongues, it is hard to know what exactly it is you are truly going on about here.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 06:32 PM

Guest, I use the words that fit the ideas I'm trying to express. "Authochthonous" implies more than just "indigenous" or "native." In this case, it implies the special relationship between the beliefs and the particular land in which they were formed. If you had to work a little to get that meaning, sobeit. Yes, I grew up around and have Indians in the family. (There are also northern European, Philippino/Chinese, Turkish, Japanese, and Hispanic members of my family.) I told you that I was giving you the short version of things from a scholarly view, and even then, it was a hefty post. Don't presume that a scholarly view of the world precludes a workaday view of the world.

"Industrial religions" is a shorthand term to refer to the big three "religions" that are far more than just religions--they're a compound of spiritual dogma, economic policy and scientific discourse.

I said nothing about NA hegemony or any pan-Indian religious beliefs that you call a "Native American religious amalgam of religious beliefs". You apparently live at the center of your world, where you bring your beliefs and attitudes to words written by others. I made no apologies for anyone's cultural traditions, simply pointed out that you are making a mistake by assuming that these things occur in one place only, or that Indians are a special kind of victim. That kind of thinking in and of itself is victimizing.

Guest, you were doing okay for a while. Sorry I lost you--I thought your close reading and critical thinking skills were sharper than they apparently are. You have a chip on your shoulder and as you read my remarks made a number of incorrect assumptions. Don't assume that if someone chooses to study a culture that by default they are outside of it, have no knowledge of it, or are so far removed as to make it into a museum piece.

The last quote that I ran was aimed at others, who probably won't get it anyway. It was in the context of our discussion, but evidently beyond your ken. Sorry I overestimated your abilities.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: mack/misophist
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 07:56 PM

A. Sceptical Inquirer does do articles on religious topics, ie. the Shroud of Turin, miraculous re-liquifying blood of some saints, that sort of thing. Since their articles are often in response to something, New Age topics are covered more often because they arise more frequently.

B. Guest has demanded names and dates, facts and figures. Frankly, I decline to do 2 - 4 hours of research that, judging from Guest's tone, will be rejected out of hand.

C. Although I sometimes disagree with SRS, this time the nail was hit squarely. And hard.

D. Guest ought to address the SRS with a little more care. That knife is sharp.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 08:41 PM

You know SRS, you don't need to use fancy words and postmodern MA academic-speak language to communicate with me. I find it off-putting, condescending, and dilettantish.

I also think you WERE acting as an apologist for native misogyny and sexism when you commented glibly in response to the examples I gave "No culture is perfect, they all have things that others find distasteful or immoral." and followed it up with "I would respond to the charge regarding the abandoned elderly women that in the New World the poor elderly fall through the economic cracks throughout nations, not just in Indian cultures or on reservations."

Well SRS, what I had said about misogyny and sexism in native communities didn't require a response from you, and especially not a response where you seemingly imply that misogyny and sexism aren't even on the radar because "other cultures" have those problems too.

All you are doing is stating the obvious, without ever engaging with points raised. That is the sort of superficiality that is off-putting to me. But apparently you've made a fan of mack.

I also disagree about the writer in the article linked to--I don't find her article to be particularly interesting, much less revelatory, and I certainly don't find it to be compelling writing. And it certainly doesn't live up to the suggestion of "Bridging the chasm". Widening the rift is what it seems intended to do, IMO.

Each to their own on that score.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: mack/misophist
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 10:17 PM

Look at the article again, Guest. "Bridging the chasm" is a goal, not a claim. Should she begin to succeed, I suppose you will be there. To pull it down.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 03 Sep 04 - 01:01 AM

Mack, thanks for your remarks.

Guest, that article Wolfgang linked to was well-considered and deftly written. If the weight of the rhetoric here has become too heavy for you, you have only yourself to blame. You started using keywords that fit into scholarly discourse, leading me to believe that you spoke the language. It felt good to expand on the subject that was interestingly nuanced up to that point. Silly me, thinking you were actually particiapting in the discussion instead of blowing smoke. If you were hoping no one would call your bluff, you fooled yourself.

Enough said.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: *daylia*
Date: 03 Sep 04 - 08:02 AM

Like Karla McLean, I too have encountered more "new-age" charlatans, bogus theories, rip-off artists, psychic robbers and truly dangerous psychopathic ego-driven so-called "healers" than I can count over the last decade or so. In my exploration of energy work I've been lied to, scammed, robbed, sickened and attacked via various mysterious "magickal" and "shamanic" methods almost to the point of no return - and as I recovered from all those terrifying and painful experiences, I learned. I learned what works and what doesn't, what's real and what's not, who to trust and who to stay away from.

And of course I have encountered the skeptics as well, the ones who ridicule and debunk any approach or theory except those currently deemed "acceptable" by the scientific community. In fact, the most formidable skeptic I've ever encountered is the one between my own two ears!

But unlike Karla McLean, I see no reason to amplify the differences between the two groups in my own mind, to call these differences a "war" between "two cultures". These groups spring from and express exactly the same culture - and that is C20 Western culture. And it's not a "war" imo, but simply a difference of terminology, approach, experience and opinion.

There are plenty of so-called "new-age" healers and authors who do bridge this perceived "chasm" quite successfully. Ted Andrews and Gregg Braden are the first that come to mind.

Karla's problem reminds me of a rainbow. A rainbow could be perceieved as bands of VERY different colored light presented side by side, in harmony, to form a unified whole - or it could be perceieved as those same bands of very different colored light side by side in raging conflict, forced by the uncaring hand of nature to present together as a unified whole.

Now, what's the most common motivation for starting or engaging in a "war"? Money, and territory. I bet Karla is hoping to capitalize LARGE on her new book, her perceived "war". But she'll have to make her fortune without my help. I found nothing new or useful in her article - just the same old boring "poor me" whining and finger-pointing.

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: Wolfgang
Date: 03 Sep 04 - 08:37 AM

Mack, you've described nicely in one post my surprise about many of the reactions here. This article is not about right and wrong but about the interaction between two cultures (naming one for short 'New age' is as good or as bad as naming the other 'skeptics'). I have read it as blaming both for what goes wrong in the interaction and for not listening closely to what the other culture wants to say. The main issue is what each one (and society) can lose by failing to listen with the intention to understand.

GUEST, Skeptic, and 02 Sep 04 - 10:28 AM have tried to illustrate her point: bashing and insult is a 'good' start to further mutual understanding. The readers' reaction in the Skeptical Inquirer (more than to any other article this year) has been very different I'm glad to say. Most letters said something like how right she is about saying that the skeptics' ability to communicate their worries is mostly bad.

The banner at the top of the page with the photo of the "Skeptical Enquirer" magazine cover tells me it is a "skeptic" movement website for debunking New Age beliefs, but not conventional religious beliefs. (02 Sep 04 - 02:39 PM )

02 Sep 04 - 02:39 PM, you're not informed (as has been posted already). Two recent issues have been on science and traditional religion (with widely varying opinions, for there is no party line). Claims of the paranormal (as long as they are testable) are fair game for them whether that is claims about Lourdes, religious predictions of the end of the world, sightings of the Madonna, right wing evangelists about evolution, or any claim from a non mainstream religion. Faith statements that are not testable are off limits for them, whether that is a big church or a small (pagan, for instance) movement. Exoprcism to has been a focus of critique.

The line is here: If, for instance the Catholic church says that in the transsubstantiation the wine becomes the blood of Jesus in a metaphorical sense that's none of their business to criticise or make fun of that belief. If a village priest would claim that the wine physically becomes blood than this would be a case for CSICOP.

Daylia,

your first post was what makes me yawn: claims and stories, like any salesman has them a dozen. Your link, however, in a later post, that was to my taste. From that link I could follow to other links about effectiveness and reviews about Reiki (and similar techniques). I see two main points after perusing the empirical literature:
(1) The main effect claimed is on pain with subjective dependent measures. That's what I can believe, for exactly under these conditions the placebo effect is largest. A very quick relief of subjective pain can be reached with a lot of methods in many conditions. If that works it is better than pain killers, for it has fewer side effects. It seems to work better with persons with a high suggestibility (which, alas, makes it less useful for me).
(2) Most of the studies listed are case reports. Controlled studies with random assignement and placebo groups are very few (and in the Reiki case, seem to come mostly from one single researcher; that always raises an alarm for me). A review article linked is summarised as follows:
13 studies showed a positive effect, 9 showed no effect over control interventions, and 1 showed a negative effect.

The authors identified a number of limitations in studies...including underpowered studies and inadequate randomization resulting in
non-homogeneous study groups. The authors concluded that further study of (several different, among them Reiki) interventions is merited.

That's what I feed from and I must say that at this moment I am not overwehelmed yet. Keep up using this type of arguments.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: *daylia*
Date: 03 Sep 04 - 09:26 AM

Well, Wolfgang, were it not for those same old anecdotal experiences, I would have had no reason or motivation to explore the field of energy work at all. I do apologize for having bored you. ANd I do know that should you ever decide to check out a therapy like Reiki or Huna first-hand, your opinion of it would likely undergo quite a dramatic change.

Until then though, all you are really going on is second-hand, second-rate opinions and/or the usual questionable and ever-changing scientific (or pseudo-scientific) "evidence". If this is all that's required for you to form an opinion you're satisfied with, great.

But I'm different. I've learned to trust my own first-hand experience - even my own 'hunches" and intuitions - far more than anything I encounter from an outside source, no matter how credible or "acceptable" that source may be. Why? Because failing to trust my own direct experiences, hunches and intuitions; assuming that anyone else - scientist, "healer" or otherwise - might know better than I do what is best for me -- these are EXACTLY the attitudes that got me into such trouble when I first started exploring the more subtle realms of life. That was a VERY expensive lesson, and I am highly unlikely to ever forget it.

I'm glad you found something of value in the Reiki article. And please don't kid yourself - if you were ever hospitalized or in chronic pain, you just might find something of great value in a Reiki treatment, should the nurse at your bedside be properly trained (and permitted) to offer you one. Properly administered for relief of pain and anxiety, Reiki is more effective, far safer for the human body / psyche and much cheaper than any drug.

Drugs work like a sledgehammer - they may (or may not) hit the target (ie have the desired effect) - but the umpteen other most distressing side effects they inevitably trigger make therapies like Reiki a most desirable alternative.

Only problem with Reiki is that it's a completely natural technique that anyone can learn. It does not require expensive equipment or years of (also highly expensive) university training.   Pharmaceutical companies and Western medical professionals make no profit on it. In fact, the use of techniques like Reiki cuts into that corner of the market quite considerably - and that's what all the bally-hoo disguised as "scientific skepticism" is all about, imo. IT's all about what's best for the wealthy and influential powers-that-be in the scientific /pharmaceutical / medical community -- NOT what's in the best interests of the public.

IMHO.

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: mack/misophist
Date: 03 Sep 04 - 04:09 PM

The two posts above, from Wolfgang and Daylia, demonstrate a major rift between the scientific and New Age communities. The New Age accepts and often seems to prefer anecdotal evidence. A trained scientist may find it interesting but won't accept it as proof or even evidence, necessarily. Why? Because the better the story, the more heavily filtered it is. Affected by the tellers cultural bias, expectations, and pleasure that the thing worked (One finds relatively few negative reports.) The better the story is, the more convincing it is at an emotional level. It doesn't matter that the condition being treated may have been mis-diagnosed, may have gone into normal remission, or may actually remain the same even though the patient feels better. A trained scientist, on the other hand, will try very hard to eliminate all personal, psychological elements from an experiment/test.

So the New Ager is often resentful when the scientist rejects his 'proof' and the scientist disdainful when the New Ager fails to understand his.

You know which side I'm on.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: shepherdlass
Date: 03 Sep 04 - 05:21 PM

No axe to grind for either side of this argument. Surely there's room for complementary use of these techniques - sometimes old remedies, like the bark containing aspirin, turn out to have a rational explanation in the end. But I couldn't help but notice that Clinton Hammond used a quote from "Star Wars" - that fantastically accurate piece of scientific non-fiction!!! - to emphasize his point. Glad Han Solo's empirical data about the extent of the universe is given credence over and above the "quacks".

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 03 Sep 04 - 06:32 PM

Mack, you illustrate the two positions very clearly.

There are people who have been for years laboring to bring the spiritual and the scientific-secular closer together, particularly when it comes to environmental issues. For one thing, as you point out, the Story is a major method of conveying information in all cultures, and scientists haven't generally felt it possible to reduce their work into story form, or to break it into manageable chapters. This is why the the religious "opiate of the masses" is successful--it uses storytelling as its major tool and stories break down into nice sound bites, as it were.

At the same time, philosophers recognize that when one goes back to the earliest roots of many religions, one finds "early science"--environmental components that teach how to live in a place. This means in a manner that, while I hate to use the hackneyed term "balance," doesn't strip the environmental resources from a place (over use the water, over hunt the game, etc.) This goes back to the autochthonous nature of religions--that pesky term that Guest finds too ponderous--teaching a way to live on a particular chunk of real estate that has specific types of soil, amounts of water, types of wildlife, etc. Philosophers look at religious creation and allegorical didactic stories as mythic material meant to teach a culture about itself and as a concerted way to manage the behavior of the members of that culture who share the same beliefs.

Within those cultures, the storytellers were priviledged figures who both taught and entertained. This is a crucial factor in getting your larger points across to a lot of people. A particular example of this philosphical approach to religion as a way to teach good science and environmental attitudes is to resurect those old and often forgotten environmental storied bits of established religions. There is no way to "create a new myth"--that idea flies in the face of the very term "myth." When you can see 'the man behind the curtain' the magic doesn't work. You need the authorless collective unconscious behind the stories to make them work today--in other words, the tools needed to merge the early science with modern science are still there, the older bits of modern religions, waiting to be revived by today's theologians. This approach is illustrated by Max Oelschlaeger in his book Caring for Creation: An Ecumenical Approach to the Environmental Crisis.

That last paragraph of McLaren's article that so confused Guest gets at the heart of what you said and what I'm saying. Read it again:

Our cultural training about the dangers of the intellect makes it nearly impossible for us to utilize science properly - or to identify your intellectual rigor as anything but an unhealthy overuse of the mind. I know that sounds silly, but think of the way you view our capacity to dive deeply into matters of spiritual or religious study. You don't often treat our rigor as scholarship, per se (though it takes quite an intellect to understand and organize the often screamingly inconsistent sacred canon) - instead you tend to treat our work as an overabundance of credulity or perhaps even a stubborn refusal to listen to sense.

This is why daylia and I are always at loggerheads on these topics. I refuse to accept her sweeping annecdotes without credible evidence and her response is to call names and dismiss the scholarly approach to any given question being discussed as too intellectually rarified.

I doubt Max Oelschlaeger is interested in joining Mudcat to mediate, so list members will no doubt continue to duke it out. But Wolfgang brought a very good article to our attention when he started this thread.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: *daylia*
Date: 03 Sep 04 - 09:44 PM

I understand why my "sweeping anecdotes" (that must mean the Reiki treatment I described in my first post?) convince no one.

All the second-hand opinions, reports and "empirical studies" in the world could not possibly have convinced me that techniques like Reiki or Huna work, or even that such as thing as mana (life-force energy) exists unless I'd had my debut - meaning at least one first-hand physical experience with it! (I'd tell you how that happened, but I'd rather not "sweep" anyone away again)

Others, perhaps not caring for the bother and risk of a first-hand experience (one which just might change their understanding of themselves, their lives and their world FOREVER no less! shudder shudder) are content to sit on the sidelines observing, analysing, demanding someone or something else feed them "proof" which they may or may not deem "acceptable" - and then systematically rejecting any "proofs" offered till the cows come home.

Well, that's fine too.

Certain people, or personality types do respond quickly and easily to traditional spiritual/energetic healing methods like Reiki and Huna, while others do not.

I know which group I belong to.

Do you?

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 03 Sep 04 - 10:37 PM

See what I mean? It's a sales pitch calculated to challenge a lot of people who are uncertain: "Try it, it'll change your life. Forget your common sense, what do these eggheads know?"

"Skeptics," as the article calls those with critical thinking skills who have evaluated the pressure behind the pitch, are comfortable in resisting it. Once you're into the touchy-feely stuff, you're an easy mark for manipulation. You're in for the "cold reading" that is mentioned in the article. She also says, after discussing her decision to exit the New Age field:

I respectfully ask that you in the skeptical community consider making a similar (though hopefully not so jarring) shift in your behavior and approach to us. I understand now, after years of reading and research, that the skeptical culture exists because of a very real concern for the welfare and well being of others. Of the two cultures, I can honestly say I now vastly prefer the skeptical one. However, I know firsthand that the skeptical viewpoint cannot be heard or assimilated in the New Age and metaphysical community; it is anathema, and that's a shame for every single one of us. It is a shame because the search for the truth, the concern for the welfare of others, the need to be treated with respect, and the need to be welcomed in a culture - are all things my people share with yours.

The trouble with these shouting matches is that they draw hard and fast lines. I'm not willing to speculate or enlarge on any of the uncharted gray-area subjects that interest me and in which I have personal experience, when someone is very likely going to come along and appropriate it as something that is part of their LaLa Land stuff.

. . .the yelling between our cultures just becomes louder while the real communication falls into the chasm that divides us. In all the din, people in my culture hear what they deem to be hyper-intellectual and emotionally charged attacks upon their cherished beliefs, while people in your culture hear what they deem to be wishful thinking, scientific illiteracy, and emotionally charged salvos in defense of mere delusions.

I think she has pegged it.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: katlaughing
Date: 04 Sep 04 - 12:35 AM

Understanding the differences between ancient metaphysical principles and trendy "new age" fads would go a long way in bridging any chasms.

If the author of the article Wolfgang linked to really wants to bridge the chasm she'd do well to write shorter, less convoluted articles with more practical suggestions rather than going on and on and on about herself and her angst.

While she's been busy with her identity crisis, real people, from both *sides* have been working together at such places as the John Templeton Foundation. There is also a long tradition of studying the scientific application of metaphysical laws through certain traditional organisations, from ancient times to the present.

kat

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: GUEST,Ooh-Aah
Date: 04 Sep 04 - 12:43 AM

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: GUEST,Ooh-Aah
Date: 04 Sep 04 - 12:58 AM

I agree strongly with Mack/Misophist. As Carl Sagan commented, 'extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof'. So much New Age stuff is simply anecdotal - 'I know someone who had 28 cancer patients recover after they were sprinkled with water from a holy Celtic well' - that kind of thing, which one always seems to encounter at parties. If one gives a snort of disbelief then immediately one is labelled as narrow-minded, arrogant or even racist (if the anecdote involved the alleged remarkable powers of some non-white group). I am sick and tired of it, and find the scepticism I am reading here a breath of fresh air.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: GUEST,*daylia*
Date: 04 Sep 04 - 05:47 AM

See what I mean? It's a sales pitch calculated to challenge a lot of people who are uncertain: "Try it, it'll change your life. Forget your common sense, what do these eggheads know?"

Sales pitch?!? I stated above, very clearly that I teach these techniques and do energetic healing work absolutely free of charge.

I practice Huna every day of my life because I love it. It has proven to be of great benefit to my health and happiness, my quality of life and that of everyone around me. And it works! - depending, as I've said before, on the emotional/mental state of the recipient. Or I certainly wouldn't be wasting my time on it!

There are very few scientific studies finished as yet, certainly not enough to assuage the doubts of those who could be convinced by such things, "eggheads" or no. Even the studies that ARE available are questionable - as are all other scientific studies - because the intents and biases of those funding and carrying out any study investigation are MOST important variables that are often hidden from public view.

For people like me, even a hundred such studies could never be as convincing as ONE first-hand experience with energy work.
And it's not at all that I "prefer" anecdotal evidence - the fact is that anecdotal evidence is the only kind readily available about energetic healing at the present time. But my own first-hand physical experiences? They are not at all "anecdotal" to me (of course) - they worth more to me than a century's worth of other people's stories and scientific reports. And that is EXACTLY as it should be, for my own health, safety and well-being.

Sorry folks, but you can't learn how to swim, experience what swimming is all about and in so doing, find out if swimming is the work-out that suits you best by reading scientific studies about swimming. Even if you found and read hundreds of such studies, AND someone you trust took the time to explain to you in minute detail what it feels like, how to move your body in the water etc - all that information would be next to meaningless unless you finally decided to jump into that pool and try it yourself. THis is only common sense, too.

It's the same with Huna. That first plunge into unknown territory may feel risky, but it's WELL worth a bit of courage and effort. You just might find something of great benefit that you can use and enjoy for the rest of your life. You've got nothing to lose except your pains and your skepticisms, and it won't cost you a dime.

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: GUEST,*daylia*
Date: 04 Sep 04 - 06:19 AM

Re this perceived "chasm" - it exists only in the minds of 2 types of people:

1) those who don't care to venture into unknown territory, preferring instead to sit on their safe and familiar fences reading, whining, babbling and arguing about things they know absolutely nothing about, and

2) those who attempt to create, propogate, and push everyone around them into their perceived "chasms", because they see big BIG $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ at the bottom of them.


daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: HuwG
Date: 04 Sep 04 - 06:41 AM

If I might interject an observation from Geology, a field in which I used to work many years ago.

In Geology, the Creationists are the main "skeptics", when it comes to the generally accepted theories of Plate Tectonics, and of the age and method of creation of the Earth.

If one can refrain from being annoyed by their smug attitude, i.e. "We have discovered this lacuna or inconsistency in such and such a theory, therefore science is a self-serving and fraudulent establishment and we Creationists are correct in this debate and any others we might have in this field, and also the ones who will go to Heaven", it has to be admitted that skeptics are useful. They don't have to propound anything of their own in order to be useful. A theory might have gaps or fuzzy areas. It is not good enough to leave it at that. The holes have to be filled, by better observation, or more careful thought on the subject, or junking the theory and coming up with a better one.

For example, it was only in the last five or six years that a gap in the Plate Tectonic theory was filled when metallugists and material scientists brought their minds to bear on the problem.

I have to admit that certain "establishments" do have their faults. By "establishment", I mean mainstream spokesmen or pundits on a subject, or members of bodies such as the British Medical Association, which regulates Doctors in Britain. These bodies are vitally necessary. I would definitely not want some enthusiastic amateur to represent me in court should I ever be accused of anything; I would much prefer someone who is proved by membership of the Law Society to have the intellectual and practical qualifications to do so effectively.

However, members of any "establishment" can lapse into an exclusive, know-it-all attitude. (An example here; the mother of a woman I know went to hospital after suffering chest pains. Mother and daughter were desperately worried that it might be a heart attack. Man in white coat appears, and says, "ECG indicates a myocardial infarct". Daughter says, "Is that a heart attack ?" "It's a my-o-card-ial in-farct", says the white-coated one, as if to a five-year-old.)

And, establishments have been proved to be wrong in the past; there is a built-in inertia, or perhaps resistance to changing accepted dogma in the face of uncomfortable facts.

So, "skeptics" are useful, either in challenging the facile assumptions of an over-comfortable and smug establishment, or in demanding that the outrageous claims of the travelling snake-oil salesman be subject to the same tests as the doctrines of established medicine. I don't deny that skeptics can be the most awful self-satisfied parasites or charlatans themselves.



Incidentally, I wouldn't dream of putting Daylia in the class of snake-oil salesmen, nor would I accuse Mack/Misophist, to take the opposite point in this debate, of self-satisfaction. This has been the most politely and precisely conducted debate I have seen between established and alternative science.



However, I will terminate with an urban myth which indicates the potential hazards of accepting alternative science at face value. A Chinese man on a visit to Britain begins suffering back pains, which have occasionally plagued him. Back in Hong Kong, a visit to an acupuncturist invariably gives relief. So, he goes to a London acupuncturist which he finds in the telephone directory. The practice is obviously doing well. The acupuncturist himself is sleek and well-fed and on the wall of his office he has an impressive-looking diploma, written in Chinese. The Chinese visitor looks at this and then says, "Will you tell me please, why a man in your position should require a licence to catch fish in Kowloon harbour ?"

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: GUEST,*daylia*
Date: 04 Sep 04 - 07:25 AM

So, "skeptics" are useful, either in challenging the facile assumptions of an over-comfortable and smug establishment, or in demanding that the outrageous claims of the travelling snake-oil salesman be subject to the same tests as the doctrines of established medicine. I don't deny that skeptics can be the most awful self-satisfied parasites or charlatans themselves.

Well said, HuwG -- thank you very much for your input. I'm not sure about this part why a man in your position should require a licence to catch fish in Kowloon harbour ?" but I will say this;

I am looking forward very much to the day when there is greater scientific understanding of traditional healing methods like Reiki and Huna, in the best interests of the public. There is SO much charlatanism out there that can be VERY dangerous for newbies to energy work. I was one of those wide-eyed newbies a few years ago, and I DO know exactly what I'm talking about!

The following may prove helpful to anyone considering embarking on an exploration of energetic healing or any "new-age" psychic/occult/spiritual tradition:

Teachings of Gautama Buddha

Do not believe in what you have heard; do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations; do not believe anything because it is rumoured and spoken of by many; do not believe merely because the written statements of some old sage are produced; do not believe in that as a truth to which you have become attached by habit; do not believe merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. After observation and analysis, when it agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.

If a so-called healer's personal health or lifestyle seems chaotic (ie substance abuse, problematic relationships, legal problems etc); if they seem to be lacking for students who stay with them for any length of time OR if the students they do have appear cowed, awed, or intimidated by their presence; if they offer you "guarantees" of any kind; charge you more than $30/half hour for a healing session; insist you to come back frequently (ie weekly or even monthy)sessions; tell you that you must rely on "spirit" or "your guides" (?) if you question a teaching or technique that conflicts with your common sense; if they seem more interested in listening to themselves talk than listening to you; if they advise you even ONCE to stop taking prescriptions or otherwise go against your doctor's advice - then RUN, don't walk to the nearest exit and report them to your local authorities.

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: katlaughing
Date: 04 Sep 04 - 10:07 AM

HuwG, my acupuncturist is going to enjoy that one! Thanks, also, for your well-put thoughts on this. It is appreciated.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 04 Sep 04 - 11:34 AM

HuwG, you described the position well from the Geology standpoint. Your observation of However, members of any "establishment" can lapse into an exclusive, know-it-all attitude. . . is a the point at which paradeigm shifts happen, when the older ideas in science become overburdoned with their own importance and not responsive to the newer research. They get left behind. There is a role there where the "skeptic" becomes the new mainstream practitioner. Skeptic is too general a term to consistently apply to one particular type of position (i.e., conservative vs. liberal, though after enough repetition, who knows--other words have lost their original or primary meanings through repeated popular usage).

I actually didn't associate daylia with snake oil salesman. I merely illustrated the positions occupied on a sliding scale that runs from scholarship to annecdote in the field of topical discourse. There will always be some overlap, but there are points where it is a higher density of one or the other. "Sales pitch" should of course not be taken literally--many people "sell" ideas in encounters in which no $$$$ will ever be exchanged. That doesn't make it any less of a "selling" situation.

HuwG, you might enjoy visiting a page that links to the work of Chris Scotese at the U. of Texas Arlington, who is doing some interesting work in illustrating the motion of plate tectonics.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 04 Sep 04 - 11:44 AM

"Glad Han Solo's empirical data about the extent of the universe"

Heh...

I quote it, because it best sums up my experience and opinions as well...   and also, it's from a cool movie and someone might get a little giggle outa the quote...

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: mack/misophist
Date: 04 Sep 04 - 11:46 AM

HuwG: Thank you for a useful addition to this. A necessary point, well made.

Daylia: Re the quote from Gautama, That's a basic part of the scientific method. It's part of the reason why students do the same experiments over and over.

Herbal remedies have been mentioned a couple of times. The practice is not dead. Check "ethnopharmacology". The advantage of chemically prepared drugs over herbs is that one knows exactly how much of the active ingredient is included. That, and the assurance that other, potentially dangerous substances are absent.

Daylia keeps harping on the profit motive and profiteering. It is a valid issue. And it will remain one unless society changes enough to make it impossible. That's her responsibility. And mine.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 04 Sep 04 - 11:46 AM

Note to self: proof read proof read proof read. Paradigm is the correct spelling of that word.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: *daylia*
Date: 04 Sep 04 - 12:04 PM

I posted the information above for two reasons:

1) to help provide readers with accurate scientific and first-hand information about so-called "New Age" spiritual/energetic healing methods, and

2) to help illustrate that the only "chasm" which exists between Science and the so-called "New Age" is the one which may (or may not) exist in the mind of the perceiver.

Yes, I do love personally experiencing and observing the benefits in others of studying, practicing and teaching techniques like Reiki and Huna. Doing something for love is, I suppose, in some ways self-serving (because it feels so good!), but I am honestly not trying to "sell" anyone anything here.

If readers with no first-hand experience of these techniques choose not to believe or accept anything I've posted here as truth, that's not only their privilege but it's perfectly understandable.

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: *daylia*
Date: 04 Sep 04 - 12:16 PM

Daylia: Re the quote from Gautama, That's a basic part of the scientific method. It's part of the reason why students do the same experiments over and over.

Interesting observation, mack! I didn't learn it in science class, but in a book by Ted Andrews called Psychic Protection. Now, isn't this a wonderful illustration of the "chasm" (???) between Science and the "New Age"!

Thanks for the insight,

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: Wolfgang
Date: 04 Sep 04 - 07:35 PM

Not too many discussing tha article as Mack has already noticed.

Some even try to prove the author's point by playing the insulting skeptic and the ignorant believer (skeptic, 02 Sep 04 - 10:28 AM).

it is a "skeptic" movement website for debunking New Age beliefs, but not conventional religious beliefs. (02 Sep 04 - 02:39 PM )

02 Sep 04 - 02:39 PM , you're completely uninformed.
Two recent issues of that magazine have been dedicated to discussing science and traditional religions. And you don't seem to realise what they consider debatable and what not. The line is whether they deal with statements of fact or statements of belief and nothing else. They have often attacked factual statements of traditional religions about evolution, appartions of the madonna and cosmology. If its about (transcendent or whatever) beliefs it's off limits for them, even if this only may be a small cult, if it's about statements of facts it is open season whoever has said that.

To make it clear in an example: If the catholic church says that in the transsubstatiation procedure the wine becomes the blood of Jesus in a metaphorical sense, it's none of their business. If a catholic priest says that in his church the wine has actually turned into blood in a physical sense, they don't shirk to act.

Daylia, at your first post I have yawned, because it was a repetition of anecdotal evidence, nothing new or interesting. But I was pleased to see in a later post a link to empirical research. That's what I want and I applaud you for that. I went to that link and looked for a review or metaanalysis article. I found REIKI—REVIEW OF A BIOFIELD THERAPY HISTORY, THEORY, PRACTICE, AND RESEARCH on the site you had linked to and I started to read

Two things are met my eye at the first reading:
(1) The good and strong effect are nearly exclusively on pain perception measured with a subjective variable. I've told it a few times here, that is exactly the combination for which the placebo effect is maximal. Subjective pain perception can be influenced by many methods in suggestible people (long know for instance in hypnosis reasearch). For these people, this is of course preferable to medication for these side effects are smaller than with pain killers.
(2) Most articles cited are in lesss known journals and are case reports or anectodal articles. Only a minority is about placebo control research with random assignement. There was one thing that immediately made me suspicious. Nearly all of the well controlled experimentation came from one single author, namely D. Wirth. (look at the table on the last page) Well, I'm like an old detective, sometimes I get suspicious without at first being able to tell exactly why. That is my intuition (which is nothing else but difficult to verbalise knowledge), but you should not rely upon someone else's intuition.

I knew I had heard or read that name recently and I did a bit of follow up work: Doctor Daniel Wirth has no medical degree, he is doctor of parapsychology. Most of his many articles (which look good at the first glance) come from the Healing Sciences Research International with no university affiliation. Another researcher who didn't trust those good looking papers of Wirth tried to communicate but got not response. He then tried to communicate with co-authors and found that some even did not know they were mentioned as coauthors. Wirth, who also sometimes used a wrong name to get a passport, has been involved in several fraud cases, has been charged with transporting stolen money and with making fals statements at court. Insurance fraud can be added to that list.

In May, 2004, when the trial United States vs Wirth & Howard (an accomplice) was about to begin, they pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud and bank fraud. This month, the verdict is expected and that guy will go to jail.

This is the same Daniel Wirth who has left in his trail dozens of articles about the effect of alternative treatments and prayer. Some better journals that had accepted his articles have removed his articles from their websites. The London Observer had an article about him in May, this year: Exposed: conman's role in prayer-power IVF 'miracle'.

This man is responsible for all or nearly all of the (at the first glance) well controlled studies about Reiki etc. My guess is that this is one of the cases where someone with an agenda (easy money in the alternative health scene) has published data he never had sampled. Anyway, data from this source are not believable any more, and I must say that I am surprised a Reiki site you have linked to still has an article praising Dr. Wirth without any qualifications. Don't they read that the only source with controlled Reiki reserarch has been discredited or don't they care. At least, I'd loved to have read a word of warnign. But that fits well in the picture I see too often: articles that have long been thoroughly discreditied and debunked are still cited as evidence on believers' sites. I get the impression that for them the results of a study is more important than the quality.

But, Daylia, go on please giving me access to empirical research. Don't tell stories that cannot be checked for accuracy, give me something else to work on. Articles and empirical research, that my beef. Give me more of that. The first site, I'm (not) sorry to say, is not very convincing for the reasons told here.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: *daylia*
Date: 04 Sep 04 - 08:25 PM

Wolfgang, I'm glad you found something to interest you in the Reiki material. I am not at all surprised that you found that the study cited has now been debunked.

And I'm sure that if ever you might desire to, you (and only you) are more than capable of searching out any "empirical evidence" you require.

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: Two_bears
Date: 05 Sep 04 - 02:02 AM

I know he would not like to hear this, but it's still true: James Randi's behavior and demeanor were so culturally insensitive that he actually created a gigantic backlash against skepticism, and a gigantic surge toward the New Age that still rages unabated.

Randi is nOT a honest skeptic. He is a debunker, and would not accept it if he saw someone levitate for real (just because he could do it via illusion).

ANL - 2B

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: Two_bears
Date: 05 Sep 04 - 02:07 AM

Reiki is currently in use as a complementary therapy at the Tucson Medical Center in Arizona, the Portsmouth Regional Hospital in New Hampshire, and at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Hospital in New York. The Hospital at the University of Pennsylvania (HUP) Medical School, Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, Marian General Hospital, and the California Pacific Medical Center all offer Reiki to their patients. In Cleveland, hospitals are considering setting up a Reiki clinic. In

I wish someone would introduce them to HUNA. HUNA blows Reiki and most of the other forms of energy work out of the water!

ANL - 2B

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: Two_bears
Date: 05 Sep 04 - 03:24 AM

Rather than start an interminable argument over minutiae, I will just point out that in India and China, seen by many New Agers as the twin fonts of wisdom, those who can afford to use western medicine, not the traditional forms. When results are all that matters, science is the only thing that works consistently.

Mack:

There is another font of Wisdom (Hawai'i).

You are absolutely correct. Results is all that matter. With these skeptics, and you list results; they dismiss the results as anecdotal. We mystics can not get them to think outside the box, or to even try this spiritual technology to see if it works for them, (when they get to be judge, jury, and prosecutor).

From your "mouth watering" quotes she sounds like she's putting a new spin on the New Age, not building a bridge for skeptics.

SRS: If we mystics WERE to build a bridge; the skeptics would not have the courage to walk across it

*daylia* you ought to move to farm country - they could use your help. You have more bullshit in your post than a farmer puts on 1000 acres in ten years. The one thing you have proven is that your IQ is below 70 or you wouldn't believe that grabage.

Skeptic: What have you proven other than you have a small mind and a small heart?

Daylia and I have seen these mystical things work time after time. To us mystica this is NOT BS. This spiritual technology WORKS!

From my tone, you can probably guess that I'm a sceptic. Not that I want to be, of course. I would love to be able to believe that a quartz crystal can cleanse my chakras or that remotely channelled reiki energy can heal the damaged ligaments in my knee, but I have yet to see proof.

metal into gold, I have seen people being exploited and even damaged by 'New Age' practitioners - including one woman I know who went blind through diabetes because she believed her 'healer' and not her GP.

Gervase: I HAVE seen the proof; that lifeforce energy (hands on and via distance) works.

Read my website about Tammy F's hand, and ask Daylia about her friend Mike, and Joy H who attended my HUNA workshop in Atlanta last November. Joy had hurt her foot some time before, and she was in serious pain. Both Daylia and I had done healings and absolutely NOTHING happened. I figured her subconscious mind was blocking the healing by feeling as if she deserved to be in pain; so I asked her what the injury was keeping her from doing, after a bit of persuasion; she admitted that she liked to dance, so I gathered another surcharge of energy and this visualized her dancing. then after about two minutes.; Joy smiled and said "Two Bears; I don't know what just happened; but I fest something shift in my foot." and for the redt of the day at the workshop; she was walking around free of pain.

Gervase; about the diabetic you mentioned above. When I give a workshop; I tell people of a healer says something like that; they should RUN. and furthermore; these healing modalities should NEVER be used in place of receiving proper health care.

I wonder if our guest would trade in those massages for the medical/scientific side of things if they were lying in bed, their body ravaged by cancer or with their failing liver slowing poisoning the body.

Sledge; with Chemotherapy; the scientists are trying to kill the cancer before the chemo therapy kills the patient.

continually trumped or debunked by science. Skeptics are important for debunk frauds like the "healers" from the Philippines who palm chicken livers and do phony surgery for gullible believers. There are always going to be people in the world who need to be protected from themselves, because they don't have the tools to figure out a scam when it's put in front of them.

SRS: did they actualy record the Philapine healers palming chicken liver on video tape? or did a debunker like the Unamazing Randi try to explain a real healing as palmed chicken liver palmed in the healers hand?

I have a Friend Claire E. and Claire and her husband Peter (a medical doctor) went to Brazil to meet Joao de Deus (John of God). Since Peter was a medical doctor he was asked to observe the surgeries up close and personal, and he saw John of God cut people open without anisthetic (SP). the incisions did not hardly bleed, and Jogn of God prodeeded to remove tumors weighing several pounds, and Peter was looking for fraud, and saw none. when they returned home Peter said "I don't know what to believe any more"

I wish these skeptics would go there and observe THAT healer!

In the Bill Moyers series about healing in China; they record a MD who is doing brain surgery on a woman who is awake and talking whle the MD is working on different areas of this woman's brain.

I wish the debunkers would watch that video then speak to the patient, MD, and Qigong master who blocked the flow of ch'i so the MD could cut the top of thay woman's skull off, then continued to block the flow of ch'i so the patient was not unconscious from the pain. the MD was literaly talking to the patient while he operated on her

ANL - 2B

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: Two_bears
Date: 05 Sep 04 - 03:43 AM

subconscious level they feel unworthy or afraid of receiving healing energy, then they will NOT allow the healing changes to take place. We are all free agents - and that means free to choose pain, sickness, even death over the opportunity to heal.

Absolutely correct Daylia: This is why I say than 98% of all healings happen between the ears.

ANL - 2B

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: *daylia*
Date: 05 Sep 04 - 05:46 AM

Thanks for all your input, Two Bears. I doubt your stories will convince anyone though. After all, they are only the usual questionable second-hand anecdotes - why should they? A few years ago I'd have read them and thought "Yeah right - and don't look now, but Santa Claus is on his way down the chimney too!" (Actually, that is exactly what I thought the first time I was offered Reiki and had it explained to me).

The more scientific and scholarly-minded folds here prefer "empirical evidence" over anecdotes, and that's understandable. Only problem is they'll probably be pushing up daisies by the time any such "empirical evidence" (which may or may not be honest "empirical evidence") is produced and made available to the public by the scientific community. So the only "empirical evidence" I can offer at this time is the chance to produce their own "evidence" and "Bridge that chasm" for themselves, once and for all, by experiencing the effects of life-force energy first-hand. No one has taken me up on it yet, and that's not surprising either.

If I hadn't been in so much pain from that cat-bite through my fingernail years ago, I wouldn't have been interested in trying Reiki either - and I may never have discovered the truth. IT was a case of being desperate enough to try a technique I'd never heard of before, to take a chance and trust the stranger sitting beside me who'd offered it to me in compassion.

Well, I'm not going to hope somebody here lapses into some sort of hellish pain so I'll be asked to give a demonstration, that's for sure!

But if even one person finds something helpful in anything I've posted above, it will have been worth the time and energy I've spent here. That's why I posted what I did - not to engage in the formidable (and certainly thankless) task of attempting to "convince" a die-hard debunker or skeptic via the written word.

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: Two_bears
Date: 05 Sep 04 - 05:50 AM

Here are some facts for the people who dogmaticaly cling to scientific theory.

FACT: May 7th I was 8 days old, and I went through the windshield of the car and across the road. My Mother and sister were killed, and my right eye came completely out of the socket.

FACT: May 12th; the doctors had put my eye back in, discovered that my pituitary gland at the base of the brain was injured, and given me a 0% chance of survival. and if by some miracle I survived; I would never be anything more than a vegetable.

FACT: June 1995; I was in a car accident, and my Aunt had left her umbrella on the dashboard of the car and the umbrella hit me on the side of the head. I was not hurt in the accident; but my doctor wanted me to have an MRI (just in case the umbrella had done more damage than first thought).

FACT: June 1995; I take the MRI results to my doctor, and he findsa 6 mm tumor on my pituitary gland. The doctor wanted to do surgeryl but I would not permit it.

FACT: February 1998; my pituitary gland completely shut down, and I am in the hospital and only days away from death. Since the pituitary is the master gland; it produces 6 different hormones over one's life. one is HGH, another one causes puberty, another one is precursors that activate the thyroid gland, and I'm sure the other three hormones produced by the pituitary activate and balance the other glands of the endoctine system. My doctor put me on 15 mg of Cortef, and 100 mcg of Synthroid, and gave me perscriptions of Potasium, and another drug, and told me categorically that I would have to take those for the rest of my life. in 6 months; the drugs had destroyed my quality of life, and I had added 30% to my body weight.

FACT: February 1999; a friend suggested I study HUNA. I read a few books by Madeleine C. Morris, Max Freedom Long, and Scott Cunningham, and I told my friend the following about HUNA "Not only no; but HELL NO!"

FACT: in July 1999; I was obese, depressed, and eating a starvation diet of 700 calories a day (A Big Mac used to have more than 1,100 calories!), and STILL gaining weight! I stopped taking the medication, and after 6 days without the medicationl I was on death's door, and in the hospital again with my kidneys and bowels shut down. (I was not practising HUNA then. Only Reiki, Actualism, Qigong, etc, and all of those use mental lifeforce energy and not spiritual lifeforce energy). I persuade my doctor to take me off of of the medications (potassium, and the other one I do not remember).

FACT: August 1999; Cortef and Synthroid STILL destroyed my quality of life;; but by recognizing the symptoms of my health problem; and only taking the medication when my body sent me the symptoms to take the medication. I began taking the medication every three days, and supplementing the healing with Reiki; (so I had one day of hell and two days worth living).

FACT: March 2000 I was still using Reiki; but a friend introduced me to Crystal healing. By placing an amethyst in my water bottle (and another one under my pillow at night), using Reiki, and taking the medication when I felt the symptoms; I was able to to take the medication only once every 7-10 days.

FACT: October 2000; I was outside praying to the Great Spirit asking for guidance, and I had two mystical experinces in two minutes.

1. Three mourning doves flew up while I was praying, and they landed no more than 7 feet from where I stood, and proceeded to walk around my feet as if I were invisible. After a bit of time; I remembed that the dove is the symbol of peace, and in HUNA there is one commandment "Harm nothing with hatred", and there were three doves, and I remembered in HUNA there are three selves (Unihipili, Uhane, and 'Aumakua. Serge Kahili King calls then Ku, Lono, and Kane).

2. I asked the Great Spirit if the doves were a sign that I should study HUNA; for the wind to stop, and the wind stopped in 5 or 10 seconds.

I finished the prayer, and thanked the Great Spirit for the guidance I had received, and ended my prayer. About 3 seconds after ending my prayer; the doves noticed my presence, and flew off in a big hurry.

Fact: October 2000; I found much better HUNA books written by Charlotte Berney, Allan P. Lewis, Clark Wilkerson, etc.

"Hawaiian Magic" by Clark Wilkerson was written in 1968, and I have seen this book sell for as much as $500. Right now; there is a copy of "Hawaiian Magic up for bids, and has 6 days left. The auction # is 3928523694, and it has 15 bids from 6 or 7 different bidders, and a top bid of $150!

Fact: November 2003; I gave a HUNA workshop n Atlanta, Ga, and after spending 6 hours to teach them the spiritual technology of HUNA, and each of them received a healing, and participated in doing a healing for the others; then I told then about my little friend on the pituitary gland. These students were not professional healers, and all the knowledge they had about healing was the 6 hour workshop, and first hand experience they gained by doing.

Fact: September 5th 2004: Since November 2003 at the HUNA workshop; I have only taken my the medication a total of 6 times, and I did not really need to take the medication two of those times.

I took the medication in April before visiting a friend out of state, and I took the medication before going to Canada in July. (I did not waht to have to take my medication on the trip and have to go through a day of hell, and far away from home.

With these FACTS, and a plethora of first hand experiences; I have the following to say to the debunkers who dismiss natural healings out of hand or try to dismiss individual healings as anectodal "Everyone is entitled to their opinion; even when they're wrong" or "There are only two opinions that matter to me and neither of them is yours!"

ANL - 2B

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: Two_bears
Date: 05 Sep 04 - 08:57 AM

Here are some links where Reiki and other alternative healing modalities are being explored.

http://www.whccamp.hhs.gov/fr2.html

http://www.acupuncturetoday.com/archives2004/mar/03reiki.html

http://www.harthosp.org/IntMed/outcomes.htm#sleepnausea

I hope some readers are awakened to the potential of a human body and mind.

If you are interested in energy healing; here is a link to my website where you can learn the basics of HUNA free of charge.

http://www.geocities.com/huna101

ANL - 2B

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: *daylia*
Date: 05 Sep 04 - 10:21 AM

In the Bill Moyers series about healing in China; they record a MD who is doing brain surgery on a woman who is awake and talking whle the MD is working on different areas of this woman's brain.

I wish the debunkers would watch that video then speak to the patient, MD, and Qigong master who blocked the flow of ch'i so the MD could cut the top of thay woman's skull off, then continued to block the flow of ch'i so the patient was not unconscious from the pain. the MD was literaly talking to the patient while he operated on her

There are no "pain receptors" in brain tissue itself. Brain surgery is often performed while the patient is awake and conscious. Do you mean that the woman's scalp was not anesthetized, but she was given life-force energy (using QiGong) instead?

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: *daylia*
Date: 05 Sep 04 - 10:55 AM

Some interesting points of view from a few of the scientists and researchers who contributed to the text Biological Psychology (4th edition; James W. Kalat)I studied at university:

Modern psychology takes completely for granted that behavior and neural function are perfectly correlated ... There is no separate soul or life-force to stick a finger into the brain now and then and make neural cells do what they would not otherwise ... It is quite conceivable that some day the assumption will have to be rejected. But it is important also to see that we have not reached that day yet ... One cannot logically be a determinist in physics and chemistry and biology, and a mystic in psychology.

- Donald O. Hebb (1904-1985)


(Well, there's our "chasm").

*sigh*


I have learned as much from outside academia as from within. Many industrial firms have great research equipment and the money to apply to a problem. For instance, for some of my odor studies I needed extremely pure, highly expensive chemicals. The cost would have been prohibitive in a university laboratory, even with a large research grant. But industrial firms are willing to support the research if the information might help develop products that they can market.

- Susan S. Schiffman

(Substitute the words "pharmaceutical firms" or even "Reiki firms" for "industrial firms", and you get an idea how the cards are stacked against honest and credible scientific research into energetic healing modalities).

*another sigh*


People are too easily influenced by negative data. It is often hard to make things work right. If you can never prove your idea, maybe the idea was wrong, but maybe you never did the experiment right.

- Candance Pert


(Another reason why it's not advisable to put one's complete trust in "empirical evidence", even if it IS honest and unbiased).

*triple sigh*



How many interesting facts fail to be converted into fertile discoveries because their first observers regard them as natural and ordinary things! .... It is strange to see how the populace, which nourishes its imagination with tales of witches or saints, mysterious events and extraordinary occurrences, disdains the world around it as commonplace, monotonous and prosaic, without suspecting that at bottom it is all secret, mystery, and marvel.

- Santiago Ramon y Cajal (1852-1934)


:-) Now, that one I like!

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: mack/misophist
Date: 05 Sep 04 - 12:08 PM

Somebody ought to say a few words in defense of The Amazing Randi, I suppose. The practice of using stage magicians to investigate paranormal claims is well established. AFAIK it started with Harry Houdini. He wanted very badly to believe we can communicate with the dead. But every medium he investigated turned out to be a fraud. He wrote a book about it. Read it for yourself, if you're interested. Some very bright people were taken in by these frauds; some because they were credulous, some because they didn't know what to look for. Houdini, being a kind of professional fraud himself (Stage magic is a kind of fraud. We all know it's not real magic.) knew how to observe correctly. Randi merely carries on this tradition. The basic rationale is the principle of parsimony: if a thing can be done without using extraordinary gifts or means, then that's probably what's happening.

One reason for this kind of scrutiny is the notion that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. This might make more sense in another context. Such as "When you're facing the heavy weight champion of the world, it's not enough to knock him down, you've got to knock him out." Somebody said this about Ali, once. This testing isn't limited to paranormal claims. It applies to all testable claims.

Two Bears seems unimpressed by the scientific standard of evidence. What can one say? It's the standard that brought us all of modern technology. It works. Consistantly.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 05 Sep 04 - 12:35 PM

From Stage LEFT, a bear wanders onto the stage and speaks:

SRS: If we mystics WERE to build a bridge; the skeptics would not have the courage to walk across it.

Two Bears, you never have gotten it. Simply your argumentative tone alone is enough to convince me that your "healing" techniques are preaching to the choir and not seeking converts. You would rather argue, and you would rather lump instead of sort and filter the contrary attitudes that you are faced with. Your life as text is no doubt as you report it. Self-reporting is a selective process and allows too many loopholes for those who want quantified proof from more than one source. Science asks for the ability to repeat the experiment. There are medical practitioners who are attempting to build those bridges, who have incorporated other non-medical healing programs and more informal reporting into their research and practices. Christiane Northrup is a name that comes to mind by way of illustration.

That bridge as you describe it is one of blind faith, and is built all on your say-so. The article that started this thread was clear in that a meeting of the parties in question is necessary and that chasm must be bridged by people building from both sides. Your bridge would, I fear, miss that shared middle ground altogether and wander off toward the opposite shore without enough support for anyone's weight.

I happen to think a great deal of idiopathic healing takes places when people with illnesses have a positive outlook and have managed to channel their energy constructively. This may be with or without the help of healers. This crosses many cultures, with or without formalized religion involved.

I'll leave it at that. Now you can cut and paste and pepper the thread with item by item rebuttals. Keep in mind, however, that you're posting the perfect illustrations for what the McLaren article was saying. Reiterating one of her remarks: "I know firsthand that the skeptical viewpoint cannot be heard or assimilated in the New Age and metaphysical community; it is anathema, and that's a shame for every single one of us. It is a shame because the search for the truth, the concern for the welfare of others, the need to be treated with respect, and the need to be welcomed in a culture - are all things my people share with yours."

It is a shame.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: katlaughing
Date: 05 Sep 04 - 12:37 PM

Two Bears, thank you for the most interesting links.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: Amos
Date: 05 Sep 04 - 12:53 PM

One cannot logically be a determinist in physics and chemistry and biology, and a mystic in psychology.

- Donald O. Hebb (1904-1985)


I am sorry but this is malarkey, akin to saying that it is not logical to believe in electronics as the science behind telephones unless you ALSO believe electronics is the science of thought, an absurd proposition. Thought, qualia, awareness are QUALITATIVELY different and orders of magnitude more telling in the overall scheme of human life than mechanisms are.

Here's another effort: suppose you wrote the word "understanding" into a memory register and then copied it into the next cells of the register over and over again until every row in that register was full of the binary settings for the hexadecimal code for the ASCII characters for the word "understanding". Then suppose you also duplicated that entire register with all those settings and linked the duplicate to the primary and repeated these ten thousand times, so there ten thousand registers, let's say of 1 megabyte each, ten thousand megabytes of memory reflecting thousands of copies of the word "understanding", all powered up. Stack them all up in a closet somewhere, all set and humming happily.

Do you believe all that electromechanical complexity now understands anything?

Really?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: *daylia*
Date: 05 Sep 04 - 01:16 PM

Two Bears, the White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy is a comprehensive and informative read, with an extensive bibliography. Thanks for posting the link.

Here's a quote:

Despite their diversity, there are some common threads that run among many traditional systems of health care as well as systems that have emerged more recently. These similarities include an emphasis on whole systems, the promotion of self-care and the stimulation of self-healing processes, the integration of mind and body, the spiritual nature of illness and healing, and the prevention of illness by enhancing the vital energy, or subtle forces, in the body.1


Well, I never thought I'd see the day I'd be rooting for the W ... oh never mind ...


daylia


PS but   IT'S ANOTHER MIRACLE!!!    ... now stop that RIGHT now ... :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: *daylia*
Date: 05 Sep 04 - 01:54 PM

"I know firsthand that the skeptical viewpoint cannot be heard or assimilated in the New Age and metaphysical community ... "

Karla's statement is a sweeping generalization and (therefore not surprisingly) just plain wrong. I know first hand that there are MANY in the so-called "New Age and metaphysical community" who very wisely embrace a "skeptical viewpoint". Including myself.


Do you believe all that electromechanical complexity now understands anything?

:-) Well my own bioelectrical complexities are still processing that data, Amos ... but probably not!

I like to think that Donald's "chasmatic" thinking has been reduced quite considerably by scientific advances over the last two decades (since he walked the planet). If that's so, it's only made room for new "chasms" like Karla's, it seems.

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: mack/misophist
Date: 05 Sep 04 - 03:00 PM

A. I'm pleased to announed that a google search for "Daniel Wirth + huna", and another for "Two Bears + Daniel Wirth" yielded zero results. A plus for Mr two Bears.

B. However, an earlier post by Wolfgang showed that the scientific basis for Reike is pretty thoroughly compromised. Earlier yet, a GUEST demanded to know where public funds were being used for questionable New Age treatments. I quote Two Bear's post of 2:07 AM:

Reiki is currently in use as a complementary therapy at the Tucson Medical Center in Arizona, the Portsmouth Regional Hospital in New Hampshire, and at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Hospital in New York. The Hospital at the University of Pennsylvania (HUP) Medical School, Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, Marian General Hospital, and the California Pacific Medical Center all offer Reiki to their patients. In Cleveland, hospitals are considering setting up a Reiki clinic.

Somehow, these programs were pushed through without any serious check of the basis of Reike. 'Nuff said.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: katlaughing
Date: 05 Sep 04 - 03:39 PM

Somehow, these programs were pushed through without any serious check of the basis of Reike.

That's a pretty sweeping claim, mack. Were you personally involved at each and every one of those hospitals when they made the decision to implement Reiki?

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: mack/misophist
Date: 05 Sep 04 - 06:08 PM

Dear katlaughing:

Of course not. Although in 2001 I had surgery at the Pacific Medical Center and can attest to the flakiness of the 'support' facilities available. What I suspect happened must have been something like this:

    A while back a committee of the NIH passed a resolution endorsing acupuncture. It seems the members had been split for quite a while, with the 'anti' group having a clear majority. Then one day, when most of the 'anti' group was out of town, a special agenda was introduced and the resolution was passed. Pure burocratic manipulation. The 'antis' were furious. And rightly so. This kind of sleaze has no place in national policy.

Each hospital is a different case. I wager, though, that all are similar.

PS. By 'serious check' I mean exactly the kind of thing Wolfgang did. When the majority of the validation comes from one person, it's a red flag to any researcher. The man that did most of the Reiki studies, Daniel Wirth, is a real piece of work. His last project involved the efficacy of prayer at an 'in vitro' fertility clinic. The man given as the head of the project says he never heard of it until 6 months after it was finished. The head of the clinic, Dr Cha, isn't responding to comminications and may have gone home to Korea. Since the clinic was associated with Harvard, the story got plenty of press. Anything Wirth says about anything needs to be checked twice.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: GUEST,*daylia*
Date: 05 Sep 04 - 09:45 PM

Here is a study by Olson and Hanson, 1997 at the University of Edmonton on using Reiki to manage pain. Click on "display" and you'll read

The purpose of this study was to explore the usefulness of Reiki as an adjuvant to opioid therapy in the management of pain. Since no studies in this area could be found, a pilot study was carried out involving 20 volunteers experiencing pain at 55 sites for a variety of reasons, including cancer. All Reiki treatments were provided by a certified second-degree Reiki therapist. Pain was measured using both a visual analogue scale (VAS) and a Likert scale immediately before and after the Reiki treatment. Both instruments showed a highly significant (p < 0.0001) reduction in pain following the Reiki treatment.

I have found Reiki studies on-line funded by the Canadian Breast Cancer Association as well as the National Institutes of Health in co-operation with the University of Michigan and Harborview Medical Center. Reliable scientific research on the medical applications of alternative therapies such as Reiki has become absolutely necessary imo, in the best interests of the public.

Could you suggest a more appropriate setting for this research than in hospitals and/or medical clinics, mack?

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: mack/misophist
Date: 05 Sep 04 - 11:43 PM

No. But I'm not qualified to assess this. Wait till Wolfgang takes a look. He's the closest thing to a scientist around here. To my ignorant eye, however, it looks good. Please don't think that I'm attacking Reiki or HUNA specificaly. They're just the things that have come up. My personal bete noir where this kind of thing is concerned, is abuse; abuse of validating procedures, of burocratic procedures, and all the rest. Didn't Wolfgang say that this is exactly the area where psychological effects are greatest?

I would much rather stick to the original topic, but will respond to whatever arises, if I have something to say.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: GUEST,Ooh-Aah
Date: 06 Sep 04 - 04:01 AM

Could I point out that for all the sound and fury of TwoBears frequent posts, and his long lists of 'FACT's he is STILL only offering personal anecdotes to back himself up. The fact that these are very personal and intensly sentimental suggests that he is practicing a common form of emotional blackmail among believers- 'challenge my beliefs and you are making a personal attack on me, so I have the right to get VERY UPSET'.
    This is one reason we need scientific proof rather than people typing true or false information into computers.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: GUEST,*daylia*
Date: 06 Sep 04 - 08:51 AM

But I'm not qualified to assess this. Wait till Wolfgang takes a look. He's the closest thing to a scientist around here.

Yes, and I'm hoping he takes a look at the studies Two Bears posted too - from Hartford Hospital and Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. Here's quote from the Harborview article:

Researchers at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, Washington are attempting to add to the depth of knowledge about reiki by using a $304,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health to determine whether it can ease the pain and suffering associated with fibromyalgia, a debilitating rheumatic condition that affects roughly six million Americans.

In the words of Dr. Nassim Assefi, an internist and women's health specialist at Harborview,

"As a medical student, I had studied traditional Chinese medicine in China, and had seen some remarkable results from qigong and acupuncture treatments that could not be explained by the Western biomedical model, so I was already open to the possibility of other healing paradigms," Dr. Assefi explained in an e-mail to Acupuncture Today. "Shortly after my patient passed away, Harvard offered me the opportunity to receive reiki training, and soon thereafter, I integrated reiki into my everyday patient care. I remain an open-minded skeptic about the mechanism of reiki, but I have been impressed by my anecdotal experience; every time I use reiki on patients, they feel better.

"No high quality studies have thus far been published on the efficacy of reiki for pain. Thus, I set out to apply the highest scientific standards to objectively answer the question of whether reiki is beneficial in the treatment of fibromyalgia, a chronic pain syndrome that is not well treated by conventional methods. If reiki proves to be effective for the treatment of fibromyalgia, our unique clinical study design will help answer preliminary questions about how reiki works."2

There are two other areas of abuse that concern me even more than abuse of scientific research methods or bureaucratic procedures - and those are

1) abuse of the public by preventing them from being accurately informed about / provided with natural alternative therapies which may eliminate their need for costly and dangerous drugs, as well as reducing time spent in hospital wards and clinics, thus freeing up those facilities and medical personnel for the next person who requires them:

2) abuse of the public through all the misinformation and charlatanism out there disguised as "New Age healing methods". Remember that techniques like Reiki and Huna work by affecting what the scientists are now calling the body's "Biofield". There is very little scientific understanding as yet about this subtle bioelectric "field", although it has been the focus of traditional Chinese medicine like acupuncture for thousands of years.

In the hands of an unscrupulous or improperly trained practitioner, techniques like Reiki can be dangerous to both the "healer" and "healee". They can affect a (receptive) human being on all levels, mental, emotional, physical and spiritual - not to mention financial - for better or worse. Unfortunately, I do have quite a bit of personal experience with this. Reliable public information about these techniques from the medical/scientific community will go a LONG way toward putting the charlatans out of business.

Re Karla's article: I see no better way of bridging any "chasms" between Science and the "New Age" than learning about, practicing and working towards at least a modicum of scientific understanding of traditional spiritual/energetic healing techniques like Reiki and Huna. I don't see how books like Karla's help the situation, except by generating profits for those who choose to engage in such "wars" rather than getting out there and putting their "new-age" techniques to practical use, helping others.

GUEST Ooh-Aah, I know Two Bears personally and at the risk of speaking for him, I suspect he's just being his usual out-spoken blustery on-line self, and not making a play for anyone's sympathies. He does not take people's responses to his work or his opinions personally, be they positive or negative. In spite of the image his posts create, he DOES have a healthy respect for the rigours of scientific method and procedure, and recognizes it's importance. He just doesn't consider Science to be the be-all and end-all, the "last word" on this subject in any way - and neither do I.

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: Wolfgang
Date: 06 Sep 04 - 09:46 AM

Houdini's book is great. Its title is A Magician among the Spirits.

Randi ... would not accept it if he saw someone levitate for real (just because he could do it via illusion) (Two Bears)

Two Bears, you understand little outside of your field. He surely wouldn't accept it if the 'levitation' was only shown under conditions where fraud is possible. But if he was allowed to study closely and make some quick tests, the matter would be completely different. Have you ever asked yourself why supposedly paranormal stunts are done under bad viewing condition, with no checks, are not done repeatedly etc? Well, that's are the conditions under which prestidigitators work.

As for Randi not changing his skeptical mind, there once was that man who claimed he could see from a vinyl record (without any labels!) at 1 yard distance which recording that was and who was the conductor (only classical music). Randi didn't believe that at first, tested him and found the guy could do what he claimed.

I get the impression, Two Bears, that you wouldn't recognise a magician's trick when you watch it.

Daylia, the Olsen and Hanson study is exactly what I believe to be true and have said so all the time: Several technique of subjective pain reduction, your methods being a few of many, are (for a subgroup of patients; large enough to be interesting) working. But they do not work better than a placebo control. That study is just the no control group pre-post subjectivwe dependent variable design which is known since long to reduce subjective pain. A former colleague of mine could get a wisdom tooth removed with no narcotics at all. He just knoew how to hypnotise himself. It would only be interesting (though hardly to expect) if Reiki etc would work worse than a placebo treatment.

That's why I was so surprised to find studies showing that Reiki works better than a placebo control, for that's what these studies said. That would have been truly interesting and puzzling. But then I found all these studies were published by a fraudster.

You do not seem to realise how much damage the elimination of these studies does to Reiki. From a real alternative to pain killers it went back to the status it shares with many relaxation methods and methods influencing the ego-perception: One of many methods eliciting in some people a placebo effect. This is not a blank dismissal for as I have said, if that works I'd prefer it to painkillers, but it is much less than advertised.

Bring on the good studies and I'll have another look. The good study should have: (1) random assignement (2) a placebo (or opposite treatment) control (3) blinding and (4) an objective outcome measure. It is not for nothing that these requirements are made. For if these are met and we have a positive result we really have soemthing new to think about and not just a new one of the many methods using the placebo effect to alter subjective perception since more than 2,000 years.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: Wolfgang
Date: 06 Sep 04 - 10:20 AM

Two Bears,

I join Katlaughing in thanking you for the links. Nothing new so far for me from these links: announcements of studies, advertising, simle pre-post tests with subjective variables not potperly reported, nothing at all that could convince me yet that there is something worth looking at. But I found this quote in your link:

No high quality studies have thus far been published on the efficacy of reiki for pain

See, that's what I was saying all the time, so I guess we agree?

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: Two_bears
Date: 06 Sep 04 - 10:25 AM

There are no "pain receptors" in brain tissue itself. Brain surgery is often performed while the patient is awake and conscious. Do you mean that the woman's scalp was not anesthetized, but she was given life-force energy (using QiGong) instead?

Daylia: In the video it was reported that the woman being operated on was NOT anesthetized at all, and the video explained why the surgery had to be done that way.

Yes; I was aware that there are no pain receptors in the skull or the bone.

Somebody ought to say a few words in defense of The Amazing Randi, I suppose. The practice of using stage magicians to investigate paranormal claims is well established. AFAIK it started with Harry Houdini. He wanted very badly to believe we can communicate with the dead. But every medium he investigated turned out to be a fraud.

Mack: Are some or even MOST so called mediums frauds? this could be; but does NOT mean that ALL mediums are frauds.

About the magicians investicating the paranormal is non sence. the problem with magicians testing the paranormal is because they find ONE way to fake it via illusion; they infer that ALL mediums use that method to fake it.

The way to test mediums is to go to a medium, and then after the paranormal event; examine what is in the room for ways of fakery.

Two Bears seems unimpressed by the scientific standard of evidence. What can one say? It's the standard that brought us all of modern technology. It works. Consistantly.

Mack: That's not it at all! Science has given humanity an almost twice as long life expectency, and a much better quality of life.

I just do not trust scientists to explore the paranormal; because the mothers milk of scientists is MONEY, and receiving grants for studies.

If a scientist was to walk out on a limb and confirm something not accepted in the current field of sciencel they would never be able to work in their field again.

Two Bears, you never have gotten it. Simply your argumentative tone alone is enough to convince me that your "healing" techniques are preaching to the choir and not seeking converts.

SRS: I am not being argumentative. When I am being argumentative; you will know (an example was the other thread where I called you "intelectually dishonest"). I am passionate about this spiritual technology because I have seen it work time after time after time. All I want is to raise the blinders of other people and show them this spiritual technology that can explore, and decide for themself if this works or doesn't work. I am fond of saying "They get to be the judge, jury, and prosecutor.".

preaching to the choir? Not hardly. It has worked on MANY people that were complete disbelievers' but if you had read the incident of Tammy F's hand CAREFULY; you would have know that. At the beginning she said "I don't believe in that crap" 3-4 minutes later she had her right hand working again, and her expression was "Damn! This is cool!"

text is no doubt as you report it. Self-reporting is a selective process and allows too many loopholes for those who want quantified proof from more than one source. Science asks for the ability to

Do you want to come over and have me take you to meet my doctor? and show you my medical record? I will. Put up or shut up.

That bridge as you describe it is one of blind faith, and is built all on your say-so.

Absolutely not! I teach people who and what they really are; then they take this spiritual technology and test it until they either accept this technology is real or reject it (just like I did). Disbelievers have nothing to lose except their disbelief.

I happen to think a great deal of idiopathic healing takes places when people with illnesses have a positive outlook and have managed to channel their energy constructively.

Would you please define "idiopathic"? I am a simple man and do not have any degrees.

People CAN channel their own energy via creative visualization, or meditation and direct their energy to heal their body (the Hawai'ians would call this energy mana mana). I am living proof of that.

However; there is a spiritual technology where people can take that basic mana and mana mana and transform that basic mana and mana mana into mana low that is MANY times more powerful that the method described above.

Two Bears, thank you for the most interesting links

You're quite welcome.

Karla's statement is a sweeping generalization and (therefore not surprisingly) just plain wrong. I know first hand that there are MANY in the so-called "New Age and metaphysical community" who very wisely embrace a "skeptical viewpoint". Including myself.

Absolutely correct Daylia; I myself was a convinced athiest until 1996 when I had my OBE that proved to my satisfaction of life after death, and giving me a spiritual awakening.

When I was learning Qigong 31 years ago; if Tsang had said "in 30 years you will be laying hands and healing the sick; I would have said "Oh yeah; where can I buy some of whatever you have been smoking?"

In 1999 when my friend introduced me to HUNA; I read a few books and told him "Not only no; but HELL no!" I did not accept this spiritual technology as real until it had been proven to work.

Two Bears, the White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy is a comprehensive and informative read, with an extensive bibliography. Thanks for posting the link.

My pleasure Daylia.

Well, I never thought I'd see the day I'd be rooting for the W ... oh never mind ...

I don't like Bush, and I like Kerry even less. There are about 100 men and women I would like to vote for before we get to tweedle dum and tweedle dumber.

A. I'm pleased to announed that a google search for "Daniel Wirth + huna", and another for "Two Bears + Daniel Wirth" yielded zero results. A plus for Mr two Bears.

Thank you Mack: Now may I kindly ask that you actually read my website to see what *I* say about HUNA in general and Healing in particular, and learn this spiritual technology for yourself and you decide for yourself of this spiritual technology works or it does not.

http://www.geocities.com/huna101

ANL - 2B

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: Two_bears
Date: 06 Sep 04 - 10:40 AM

Could I point out that for all the sound and fury of TwoBears frequent posts, and his long lists of 'FACT's he is STILL only offering personal anecdotes to back himself up.

Ooh Aah:
Personal experiences are all that I have to share at this time.

The fact that these are very personal and intensly sentimental suggests that he is practicing a common form of emotional blackmail among believers- 'challenge my beliefs and you are making a personal attack on me, so I have the right to get VERY UPSET'

Would you please care to offer one instance where *I* said that?

Two Bears, you understand little outside of your field. He surely wouldn't accept it if the 'levitation' was only shown under conditions where fraud is possible. But if he was allowed to study closely and make some quick tests, the matter would be completely different. Have you ever asked yourself why supposedly paranormal stunts are done under bad viewing condition, with no checks, are not done repeatedly etc? Well, that's are the conditions under which prestidigitators work.

Wolfgang; read my post to Mack about the proper way to test the paranormal (examine the room immediately AFTER the incident for signs of fakery). Just because Randi discovers a way to fake it via illusion does NOT mean the medium was a fake.

ANL - 2B

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Sep 04 - 01:07 PM

Ohh Ahh - Have you offered your services to the porno film industry yet? You sound like a natural.

Looks like I missed a ton of stuff by ignoring this thread. :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: *daylia*
Date: 06 Sep 04 - 01:48 PM

Wolfgang, I don't think this study used a "control group", but it does test the effectiveness of "placebo" Reiki.

Although the Reiki research in totality supports the anecdotal records, the absence of randomized and placebo-controlled trials precludes the interpretation of the outcomes as resulting from specific effects as opposed to placebo effects plus natural history ... none of the final participants in round 4 (4 breast cancer patients and 4 observers) could differentiate between the identity of placebo and Reiki practitioners.

If I'm interpreting this correctly, it is probably not a popular study within the Reiki communities. It seems to indicate that patients could not differentiate between a treatment given by an "initiated" or "attuned" practitioner and the placebos, who had received basic instruction in Reiki techniques but no "attunements". In short, experimental subjects experienced the same benefits from a Reiki treatment whether it was administered by a placebo or a Reiki practitioner.

THis does not surprise me. It's one of the reasons why I prefer Reiki over Huna. Huna does not employ "secret" symbols or require that students receive "attunments" from a "Master". I know through personal experience that neither symbols nor "attunements" are required to work successfully with life-force energy. This is important, because according to tradition, Reiki Masters can charge up to $10,000 for an attunement to Mastery.

The other reason I prefer Huna over Reiki is that Huna techniques employ the healthiest, most powerful and effective level (or "voltage") of vital life-force energy; in Hawaiian - mana loa, or the "spiritual" level. (Please pardon the non-scientific vernacular used for convience here, in these "chasmatic" times). Techniques like Reiki employ mana mana, or "mental" life-force energy. Mana mana can and does afford beneficial healing effects, but in my experience Reiki techniques can be riskier, and the energy itself less powerful and effective.

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: *daylia*
Date: 06 Sep 04 - 01:51 PM

Oops that should read "This is one of reasons I prefer Huna over Reiki", not vice versa!

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: mack/misophist
Date: 06 Sep 04 - 01:54 PM

Dear Mr Two Bears:

You said: Mack: Are some or even MOST so called mediums frauds? this could be; but does NOT mean that ALL mediums are frauds.

It means that Houdini looked very hard and found none who were genuine among some of the most fameous mediums in history. Nobody can check them all.

You also said: The way to test mediums is to go to a medium, and then after the paranormal event; examine what is in the room for ways of fakery.

This doesn't work. The Fox sisters who, I believe, were the first modern spirit mediums confessed that their 'spirit rapping' was produced with clickers strapped to their thighs. Would you ask your mediums to strip?

Then: I just do not trust scientists to explore the paranormal; because the mothers milk of scientists is MONEY, and receiving grants for studies.

If a scientist was to walk out on a limb and confirm something not accepted in the current field of sciencel they would never be able to work in their field again.

You misunderstand the process. All paradign shifts come from some young researcher/s making extraordinary claims. For example, consider quantum theory. It eliminates cause and effect at the quantum level. A form of statistical analysis is used instead. This is what Einstein was referring to when he said "God does not play dice with the universe." Workmanlike studies that extend science incrementally lead to solid careers with no glory. Researchers who lead paradign shifts become immortal. More or less.

Then: Would you please define "idiopathic"? I am a simple man and do not have any degrees.

I suggest you do as I do. There are a host of on-line dictionaries and glossaries. Of course, it's easier to do with the linux multiple desktops. BTW, I don't have any degrees, either.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: mack/misophist
Date: 06 Sep 04 - 02:43 PM

Note to GUESTOoh-Aah: If you feel insulted, remember that an insult is a cup of poison. Any one can hand it to you, but only you can drink it. Also, there are other terms you could have used - perhaps more effective ones - than 'emotional blackmail'.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: Two_bears
Date: 06 Sep 04 - 09:57 PM

If I'm interpreting this correctly, it is probably not a popular study within the Reiki communities. It seems to indicate that patients could not differentiate between a treatment given by an "initiated" or "attuned" practitioner

Daylia: that is because there is not much difference between a Reiki attuned person, and a non Reiki attuned person. I am a Master/Teacher of higher in five different forms of Reiki (Karuna. Magnussa Phoenix, Tibetan, Usui Shiki, and Usui Shiki Ryoho)

Both the attuned and non attuned persons were transferring mental lifeforce energy through the minor chakras in the palms of the hands. The Chinese Qigong masters called these areas Laogong.

There are only two differences.

1. the attuned persons had been doing healing for a while, and was able to transmit more energy.

2. the attuned person had techniques to still and focus the mind.

THis does not surprise me. It's one of the reasons why I prefer Reiki over Huna. Huna does not employ "secret" symbols or require that students receive "attunments" from a "Master". I know through

You prefer Reiki over HUNA? IMHO HUNA beats Reiki hands down for many reasons.

The other reason I prefer Huna over Reiki is that Huna techniques employ the healthiest, most powerful and effective level (or "voltage") of vital life-force energy; in Hawaiian - mana loa, or the "spiritual" level.

Ah you placed them in the wrong order in the paragraph earlier.

You are correct. Mana loa is MUCH more powerful than mana mana, and Qigong, Reiki, Actualism, Silva Mind Control, Seichim, etc only use the basic mana or mana mana (mental lifeforce energy).

Dear Mr Two Bears:

Mack: I am a simple guy. Just use the name Two Bears. I do not care for formality for two reasons.

1. it is often insincere
2. it is not necessary

You said: Mack: Are some or even MOST so called mediums frauds? this could be; but does NOT mean that ALL mediums are frauds.

It means that Houdini looked very hard and found none who were genuine among some of the most fameous mediums in history. Nobody can check them all.

True. I never said it would be easy.

You also said: The way to test mediums is to go to a medium, and then after the paranormal event; examine what is in the room for ways of fakery.

This doesn't work. The Fox sisters who, I believe, were the first modern spirit mediums confessed that their 'spirit rapping' was produced with clickers strapped to their thighs. Would you ask your mediums to strip?

There is no need to have them strip; but someone could pat the medium down for hidden devices.

Mack: I have seen some bizarre things from the paranormal in my life; and there was no medium present; and mant of them were outside; so I can only accept them and go on.

I will NEVER forget what happened in one pipe ceremony that happened on the first weekend of December two years ago.

You misunderstand the process. All paradign shifts come from some young researcher/s making extraordinary claims. For example, consider quantum theory. It eliminates cause and effect at the quantum level. A form of statistical analysis is used instead. This is what Einstein was referring to when he said "God does not play dice with the universe."

If a young scientist cares about his reputation, and wishes to be gainfully employed; will not walk out on a thin limb like that.

Pretty much the same thing happened to me when I was in the Computer Anti-Virus field 10 years ago.

InVircible by NetZ computing claimed to

1. Detect ALL viruses
2. Remove ALL viruses
3. Repair itself if Invircible became infected.

At this time; most tests of Anti-Virus software tested the viruses by scanning, and InVircible had a scanner; but detected the unknown viruses via generic detection methods (detecting viruses by detecting the change made by viruses when the viruses infected the boot sector, Master Boot Record, or files.

I tested Anti-Virus software (both scanners, and generic detectors, and published a list of recommended scanners (software that detected a minimum of the viruses in my collection, and generic virus detectors that passed my tests.

People asked me to evaluate InVircible, and I did, and I immediately started finding security holes big enough to fly a jumbo jet through.

After I reported the security faults (it only took 9 viruses to show that all three claims were full of hot air), the author, and his U.S. distributor attacked me. they repeatedly threatened me with law suits, and degraded into a shouting match; but I refused to back down an inch.

This war went on for two years, and I tested four different versions of InVircible, and not ONE of the well respected independent virus researchers had the courage to duplicate the tests I had performed and either stand with me or against me.

After more than two years; Vesselin Bontchev was asked to evaluate InVircible, and he wrote a paper more than 40 pages in length, and he acknowledged Bill Lambdin (me) in the document for my earlier research to identify security holes in the program.

This is why I do not trust scientists to tell the truth about research into paranormal events.

I suggest you do as I do. There are a host of on-line dictionaries and glossaries. Of course, it's easier to do with the linux multiple desktops. BTW, I don't have any degrees, either.

Mack: there is no need to use such words, and I am puttering around on a 737 MHZ Celeron processor running Windows ME (a slow processor, and a flaky operating system does neither gives one speed or stable environment.

ANL - 2B

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: mack/misophist
Date: 06 Sep 04 - 11:39 PM

Two Bears:

I used the "Mister" because I come from a formal background and because I am a firm believer in the idea that common courtesy helps to grease the wheels of society.

We're going to have to disagree about the role of stage magicians. Houdini was able to expose frauds because he was a professional fraud himself. Men who were better educated and, possibly, smarter were taken in because they didn't know what to look for. The example I gave was a simple one. I can't imagine what could be done with modern technology.

You still miss the point of how a career in science progresses. Every hotshot researcher dreams of the opportunity to upset some long established idea. Yes, it's dangerous, professionally speaking. If he can prove he's right, though, all is golden. Werner Heisenberg and Nils Borh were derided, then lionized. Stephen Hawking was laughed at when he theorized about black holes. In these cases the issue wasn't money but knowlege. If a researcher could prove beyond doubt that a paranormal event was genuine, and reproduce his results his reputation would be made.

And long words? People use them because they are exact, because they're accustomed to them, and/or there's no good synonym. I suspect you know what idiopathic means.

And computers? I'll PM you about that. It doesn't really belong here.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: GUEST,Ooh-Aah
Date: 07 Sep 04 - 05:20 AM

Don't worry Mack - I don't feel remotely insulted - just amused. You need to read my 'emotional blackmail' comment in context.
Little Hawk - what has being sceptical to do with the porno industry -a non-seqitur if I ever saw one!

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: Two_bears
Date: 07 Sep 04 - 08:09 AM

Two Bears:

Thanks

I used the "Mister" because I come from a formal background and because I am a firm believer in the idea that common courtesy helps to grease the wheels of society.

I also grew up in that kind of environment; but the people I knew would use flowery words to a persons face, then speak ill of them behind the persons back. In those cases the formality was insincere.

I would MUCH rather have people tell me what they think of me to my face instead of speaking ill of me behind my back.

With me; what you see is exactly what you get. I will say the same thing to your face; that I will tell others behind your back.

I dislike formality because I prefer to know where I really stand with a person.

You still miss the point of how a career in science progresses. Every hotshot researcher dreams of the opportunity to upset some long established idea. Yes, it's dangerous, professionally speaking. If he can prove he's right, though, all is golden.

I sincerely hope you are right; but in 1994 and 1995 the hot and upcoming A-V researchers knew of the security holes I reported in InVircible, and not ONE had the courage to duplicate the test and either confirm or reject the findings I reported.

If a researcher could prove beyond doubt that a paranormal event was genuine, and reproduce his results his reputation would be made.

I sincerely hope you are right, and I DO hope somedat we mustics and science will be able to come together.

And long words? People use them because they are exact, because they're accustomed to them, and/or there's no good synonym. I suspect you know what idiopathic means

Mack: If I knew what it was; I would not waste my time or lifeforce to ask for a definition.

ANL - 2B

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: *daylia*
Date: 07 Sep 04 - 08:29 AM

Little Hawk - what has being sceptical to do with the porno industry -a non-seqitur if I ever saw one!

The porno industry appeals to the Ooh-Aah in us all. Ooh-Aah!

Wolfgang, I'm hoping you have the time to take a look at these studies by Toni Bunnell M.Sc., Ph.D, Faculty of Health, University of Hull, UK

The Effect of 'Healing with Intent' on Pepsin Enzyme Activity

Complete details of that experiment in pdf format

And a quote: The rate of breakdown of egg albumen by a 1% pepsin solution was followed using a Jenway 6051 Colorimeter at a wavelength of 470nm. An effect due to healing was indicated by experiments using percentage light transmission (%T) as an indicator of reaction rate. Across 20 separate trials the reaction rate of the enzyme sample 'healed with intent' was found to be significantly greater than the unhealed sample (p = 0.03).

The Effect of "Healing with Intent" on Peak Expiratory Flow Rates in Asthmatics

And a quote: The results obtained in this study suggest that the delivery of "healing with intent", for a ten-minute period, produces a significant improvement in breathing efficiency in the majority of asthmatics, using peak expiratory flow rate as an indication of lung function. As such, it would appear to be a valid complementary therapy for use with prescribed medication.

... In previous studies, healers have been shown to produce 70-V surges of electricity in addition to anomalously large magnetic fields from their hands ... Sugano et al., noted that EEG changes observed in healers during healing are predominantly an increase in alpha waves across the brain.24 Increased changes of brain waves from baseline to healing periods were recorded in experienced (effective or expert) healers compared to those less effective. Healers also tend to evidence increased activation of the right hemisphere during healing. Receivers of healing show increased synchronicity of alpha waves as well as increased EEG amplitude in the frontal areas. This observation and that of another study is in agreement with later studies demonstrating that, during healing, the healer's alpha brainwaves synchronize with those of the healee, so that both will be resonating at the same frequency, known as sympathetic resonance.18,23,24 In addition, healing has been shown to have an effect on enzyme activity, eliminating any possibility of the existence of a placebo effect.4-8,10,12


And here is Dr. Bunnell's summary of his own work: A Tentative Mechanism for Healing

If these studies are reliable (and I'll trust your expertise on that one, Wolfgang), they show very positive results for energetic healing indeed! Conducting preliminary studies on energy work using animals, plants, enzymes etc as subjects rather than humans seems like an excellent idea. That way, the effects of the energy itself could be measured WITHOUT the introduction (and interference) of the human psychological variable (ie personality or "state" of receptivity).

Hey, doing all this research on-line about energetic healing, I'm almost tempted to go back to university and finish my Masters, using THIS as my thesis! The hallowed halls of academia might prove to be a MOST refreshing change after almost a decade of being immersed, for better or worse, in "New Agisms".

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: *daylia*
Date: 07 Sep 04 - 08:46 AM

At first glance I thought "idiopathic" might mean "pathological idiot", but no ... according to Webster's, it means

1. arising spontaneously or from an obscure or unknown cause: PRIMARY;

2. peculiar to the individual


Hope this helps.

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: Wolfgang
Date: 07 Sep 04 - 09:45 AM

The way to test mediums is to go to a medium, and then after the paranormal event; examine what is in the room for ways of fakery. (Two Bears)

You don't seem to know that the book from Houdini mentioned above is using exactly this method of fraud detection. And Randi BTW is never arguing that he could do something similar under different conditions (that would be unconvincing) but that he could do the same effect under the same conditions.

Have I overlooked your comment to me saying that we both agree on this point (according to your link):
No high quality studies have thus far been published on the efficacy of reiki for pain
Do you agree with the author's assessment?

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: Wolfgang
Date: 07 Sep 04 - 10:36 AM

Daylia,

I have read the one Bunnell study in detail. First, a general word to studies. One can criticise single studies in retrospective, but that is a suboptimal procedure for manyx reasons: One may not find what was wrong, one critical detail may not have been mentioned, the description may be wrong and all that. The ultimate test is if the results described can be repeated by other researchers.

Two examples: The first empirical test of Einstein's theory did not come out in favour of the theory. Up to now, nobody knows why. But since this has not been replicated, the theory stands and the test is forgotten.

Backster once has published a bokk upon 'The power of prayer on plants'. Many of the experiments are perfect the way they are described. Nevertheless, nobody really believes Backster, because his results have not been replicated. With that in mind, read what I have to say about Bunnell:

No randomisation procedure is mentioned (the rough rule here is: what has not been mentioned has not been done or done wrong) in the detailed description.

The short abstract mentions double blind procedure, the detailed description only mentions one blinding.

The pilot study mentions t-test per trial (which did not make sense to me), the long study mentions just one t-test. The t-test her is not optimal a nonparametric test would be better, but (as the data look) would be significant as well.

The pilot study mentions one independent variable with three levels (healed, simply handled, warmed (untreated)), the longer study first says that the results from the first three trials of the pilot study were incorporated but then goes on only to mention two levels (healed/unhealed) for all trials. What has she done here? Lumped unhealed and untreated together? We'll never know.

I can't say for sure that the one or the other detail were responsible for the result, but her way of reporting and doing the study doesn't increase my trust in her competence doing this type of research.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 07 Sep 04 - 10:57 AM

I haven't read this thread much past 100 posts because it has entered the zone that GUEST OohAhh described perfectly--the emotional blackmail phase (you wanna meet my doctor? I dare you to prove my individual facts wrong!).

Idio--one's own: personal: separate: distinct.

Idiopathic, as in the definition posted above, in this usage implies that the cure is peculiar to the individual. That something in their own character or metabolism (reason not necessarily known) allowed them to recover.

When I am being argumentative; you will know (an example was the other thread where I called you "intelectually dishonest").
Name calling always gets you a lot of mileage, doesn't it, Two Bears? You're always argumentative, and I always know it. Your arguments also always bring the discussion to the lowest common denominator, and they stop being productive when that happens.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: mack/misophist
Date: 07 Sep 04 - 03:43 PM

A word about experiments: The general rule is 'One experiment may be interesting. Repeated by 5 or 10 others, it points a definite finger. Repeated 100 times, it's convincing.Repeated 1000 times, probably indicates a new rule of nature. Quantum theory, for example, has been validated millions of times. Such as, every time some one turns on a television.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: *daylia*
Date: 07 Sep 04 - 03:56 PM

Idiopathic, as in the definition posted above, in this usage implies that the cure is peculiar to the individual. That something in their own character or metabolism (reason not necessarily known) allowed them to recover.

A most accurate implication! And one which, when seen in light of my anecdotal experience, further implies that all human beings are "idiopathic", ie able to heal themselves using "something in their own character or metabolism (reason not necessarily known)". The ancient Hawaiians called that mysterious "reason" mana, or life-force energy, and understood it's 3 "voltages" (mana or physical/emotional; mana mana or mental; and mana loa or spiritual) as fundametal components of every human being's "anatomy".

Wolfgang, thank you very much for your thoughtful analysis of the Bunnell research. Going by what you have said about the reliability of her "empirical evidence" (or any other "empirical evidence) I hope you will agree that further research/replication of her results is warranted, as with Backster's interesting-sounding work with plants and the healing power of "prayer".

FWIW, I agree with your quote from Dr. Nassim Assefi's article (internist and women's health specialist at Harborview). The on-line research I've been doing over the last couple days only validates my initial hunch - that she is absolutely correct in saying "No high quality studies have thus far been published on the efficacy of reiki for pain.

And I further agree with her in that I also have "... seen some remarkable results from qigong and acupuncture treatments that could not be explained by the Western biomedical model, so I was already open to the possibility of other healing paradigms," as well as her statement I have been impressed by my anecdotal experience; every time I use reiki on patients, [in my case, people] they feel better.

I qualify that last statement by adding that until I had received proper instruction (some years after I was introduced to Reiki), the person I was working on would indeed always feel better - but I would walk away with their symptoms. Over time, my new-found "healing" abilities became VERY sickening to me, to the point where I became so sensitive to other people's physical pains, fevers, illnesses - even emotions and thought-patterns - that I started isolating myself from everyone. Being in public places was an ordeal. I eventually had to take a whole year of sick leave to deal with it - and I'm not kidding. :-(   

Little Hawk can attest to this. He was one of my first Reiki recipients, years ago, and knows the details of my "healing career" first-hand. If a scientific explanation or quick medical remedy had been available at the time, it would have saved a LOT of time and grief - not to mention fear! - that's for sure.

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: *daylia*
Date: 07 Sep 04 - 04:04 PM

Oops I meant to hit "Preview" not Submit ... sorry bout the bad html folks.

Quantum theory, for example, has been validated millions of times. Such as, every time some one turns on a television.

Not sure about quantum theory and tv's mack, but I know that life-force energy is validated a million times a day too - every time you look in the mirror, look at a tree, pat your cat for example. That's what I hoped people would glean from the quote I posted above;

How many interesting facts fail to be converted into fertile discoveries because their first observers regard them as natural and ordinary things! .... It is strange to see how the populace, which nourishes its imagination with tales of witches or saints, mysterious events and extraordinary occurrences, disdains the world around it as commonplace, monotonous and prosaic, without suspecting that at bottom it is all secret, mystery, and marvel.

- Santiago Ramon y Cajal (1852-1934)

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: mack/misophist
Date: 07 Sep 04 - 11:28 PM

Dear Senor Ramon y Cajal,

You'd be surprised how few are missed. I wish you had left a list of things that need investigation. Even though you lived during a period of enormous change, little of the technology needed to study ordinary things had been developed yet. Today, we have much more powerful tools and many more hands and eyes.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: Two_bears
Date: 08 Sep 04 - 08:40 AM

You don't seem to know that the book from Houdini mentioned above is using exactly this method of fraud detection. And Randi BTW is never arguing that he could do something similar under different conditions (that would be unconvincing) but that he could do the same effect under the same conditions.

Wolfgang: I was not aware Houdini wrote a book; or read it. Houdini was a bit before my time.

My tirade was against magiciams of the ilk like the Unamazing Randi who was debunking the Psychic surgeons of the Philapines.

The Unamazing Randi did psychic surgery via sleight of hand, and inferred that all psychic surgeons were frauds and they used sleight of hand fakery.

What should be done is record the surgery with high speed film or tape, then watch the surgery frame by frame for fakery. After finding a fraud; expose that individual as such.

No high quality studies have thus far been published on the efficacy of reiki for pain
Do you agree with the author's assessment?

I have no credible comment about Reiki and pain. because I have not read all of the tests.

Furthermore; I no longer teach of practise Reiki because HUNA literally blows the doors off of Reiki, Seichim, Qigong, Actualism, Silva Mind Control, etc.

ANL - 2B

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: GUEST,*daylia*
Date: 08 Sep 04 - 08:45 AM

Wolfgang if you are weary of studying these articles out of the goodness of your heart please just say the word, but I'd love to have your expert opinion on this study by American researchers Bengston and Krinsley in 2000:

The Effect of "Laying On of Hands" on Transplanted Breast Cancer in Mice (this is a pdf file)

Here's a quote: Our tentative conclusions: belief in laying on of hands is not necessary in order to produce the effect    [Ha! Toldja! :-) ]; there is a stimulated immune response to treatment which is reproducible and predictable; and the mice retain immunity to the same cancer after remission. Further work should involve testing on various diseases and conventional immunological studies of treatment effects on experimental animals.


It is disappointing to find such an incriminating review of Backster's work with plants, after reading your positive assessment above:

Skeptic's Dictionary on Backster's studies with plants

I'm wondering what your response to the Skeptics might be, Wolfgang.
And Mahalo nui loa (thank you very much) for your patient explanations and giving your time and expertise here.

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: *daylia*
Date: 08 Sep 04 - 09:19 AM

Man I have a lot of "double posts" here! Not trying to hijack the thread or anything, but I'd like to comment on

I have no credible comment about Reiki and pain. because I have not read all of the tests.

Two Bears, even if I had read all the studies done on Reiki to date I would still be in no position to assess them. An undergraduate degree in Psychology has given me a basic understanding of scientific method and vernacular, but I am still not familiar enough with research procedures to know whether a study is reliable or not. That's why I'd rather ask Wolfgang than believe everything I read.

We all have different experiences, different areas of expertise. I prefer to see this situation as beneficial - as different (and therefore most valuable) perspectives or "angles" on the topic at hand, each adding a unique contribution to an understanding of the complete picture. I see no point in using our differences as excuses to engage in non-productive and seemingly endless arguments and "wars".

So here's to building a "Rainbow Bridge" over that "chasm" - and remembering that arguments and anecdotes are NOT exactly "Rainbow" material. This thread is certainly living proof of that!

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: Wolfgang
Date: 08 Sep 04 - 12:58 PM

Daylia,

they too have not reported random assignement of the mice to the groups, but in this case that is not so damning for the study because the effect sizes reported are so big (dead vs. alive).

In a somewhat simple example: If a messias heals/resurrects a person that is already dead the lack of a placebo control group (or nonrandom assignement) is not really vital. Whereas in pain perception a placebo effect can in the mind of most scientists explain all or most of the effect, there is no reasonable argument that a mere belief in the effectiveness of the treatment alone can wake up a dead person.

Extremely big effect sizes need no controls. If a messias really would wake up a dead person any scientist saying well he perhaps selected a dead still a bit fresh looking and therefore random assignement has been violated would only get laughter from his colleagues. There still could be counter arguments (fraud etc.) but lack of random assignement isn't a good one.

Still I would have preferred random assignement. All I said is under the assumption that the usual course, mice dying after about three weeks, is correct. I have no expertise at all on that field.

The study therefore seems good at the first glance but for two things: (1) The journal itself is a bit fringe science and is not considered respectable. But that alone is not a very good reason to reject it. There have been dismal studies in respectable jounals and vice versa.
(2) They only cite positive references. No really critical discussion of their results can be found. That looks a bit fishy to me.

I would have loved to read more about precautions against fraud in that study for that in my eyes is the most probable hypothesis. Replacement of the mice by similar looking ones by a person with a strong interest in one particular result. That thought seems not to have crossed their minds.

Anyway, such a result when corroborated should get a Nobel prize but my guess is we'll never more read about it in any mainstream journal. If the authors really believe they have found what they claim they should seek the way out into the world of peer reviewed journals.

I'll have to rethink what I have said about Backster. Perhaps I have mixed him up with another person doing similar research. I find normally the information in the Scepdic reliable but their language too hard and uncompromising. (Don't show that link to Amos, he'll not like what one can read there about Swann.)

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: *daylia*
Date: 08 Sep 04 - 05:38 PM

thanks, Wolfgang. Studies by independent researchers who are obviously affiliated do with an alternative therapy seem to be very hard to find.

I wouldn't write Bengston's work off quite yet, though. Here's what he's been up to since the rather incredibly successful experiment with cancerous mice in 2000 you reviewed:

...I have been awarded a sabbatical for the fall 2002 semester to work with the cancer center of the University of Connecticut's medical school. We are moving on several fronts. First, we are going to replicate my healing studies in their "clean" lab, with an eye towards discovering what biological processes are involved in tumor regression. And second, I will be working with the radiology department doing functional MRI imaging to see if there are detectable brain patterns associated with healing.

It will be interesting to see the results of this follow-up study (if any). Thanks again for your help and your interesting posts,

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: Two_bears
Date: 08 Sep 04 - 06:18 PM

Two Bears, even if I had read all the studies done on Reiki to date I would still be in no position to assess them. An undergraduate degree in Psychology has given me a basic understanding of scientific method and vernacular, but I am still not familiar enough with research procedures to know whether a study is reliable or not. That's why I'd rather ask Wolfgang than believe everything I read.

I would much rather directing my energy to healing myself and those around me than reading test results.

ANL - 2B

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: *daylia*
Date: 08 Sep 04 - 07:04 PM

Yet there's much to be said for rising to the challenge any "chasm" presents.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 10 Sep 04 - 09:25 PM

From the Thread List

BS: A new level of terror
BS: God's simple plan of salvation...

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: Little Hawk
Date: 10 Sep 04 - 10:57 PM

Being skeptical has absolutely nothing to do with it, "Ohh-Ahh". The porno industry welcomes both skeptics and true believers as far as I know, as long as they're willing and fairly well-endowed. :-) Man, THINK about it. Just think about it.

You know, guys, I would love to read this whole thread, I really would...and eventually I may do so...but I have a life here (just barely) that is calling me to start baling before the boat sinks.

If I get more time tomorrow I may plow my way through this whole thread, and then possibly even come up with some pearls of wisdom of my own with which to delight the mind of a believer and drive a skeptic into foaming fits of cold sarcasm, lofty contempt or raging fury!

In the meantime, carry on without me.

Remember: We all share this one glorious trait in common - We all tend to quietly think, in our hidden heart of hearts, as we walk through the door..."The smartest person here just entered the room."

I know this, I see it in myself and in others, and I chuckle even at myself, because I do see it. There is nothing more human than vanity. We delight in hearing the words of our erstwhile debating opponents, because it assures us of our own superiority and their folly, and it provides us with ammunition for the next DEVASTATING volley of verbal brilliance. Vanity, vanity.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: GUEST,cmherlof
Date: 11 Sep 04 - 11:05 PM

Bridging the gap between science and the humanities is a conceptuality of systems thinking. I say so with respect to a world that can work for everyone, which is synergetic. We have to ask questions referential to a coordinate system and also as we learn better how to generalize concepts. One question that I've discovered relative to conscious participation in our evolution is this: "What is the most consciously comprehensive considerate alternate option?" Once you get to your answer, you may find that you must ask it again. It relates succinctly to equity not the punitive mind sets as well as spaces and spheres in Universe.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: GUEST,Christina
Date: 11 Sep 04 - 11:13 PM

Intellect is in the process of integrating our unification conceptions. It is integral to the conscious participation in our evolution. It is what this humanity is directed toward.

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: Amos
Date: 06 Nov 08 - 09:48 PM

A SOUND curiosity, in which a spoken phrase seems to morph into a song when repeated, is shedding light on the difference between speech and song.
Diana Deutsch, a psychologist at the University of California in San Diego, first noticed the illusion in the mid-1990s when editing a recording of her own voice. One phrase - "sometimes behaves so strangely" - began to sound like a song when she replayed it several times.
Now Deutsch has confirmed that the illusion is real by testing it on proficient singers. Those played the same phrase just once and asked to repeat what they heard, spoke it back. But those who heard the phrase many times, sang it back (listen at www.tinyurl.com/65tcer).
The illusion only occurs when the phrase is repeated exactly - not with a slightly drifting key, for instance. "It brings to the fore a real mystery - why don't we hear speech as song all the time?" says Deutsch. She suspects our brains normally suppress musical cues when we hear speech, so that we focus on interpreting the words. But repetition of the words, which we've already processed, can sometimes override this.
"It stops the inhibition of the pitch region of the brain so we hear song, which is really what we ought to have been hearing in the first place," says Deutsch, who will discuss her findings next week at an Acoustical Society of America meeting in Miami, Florida.
Her team is now using MRI scans to see which brain regions "light up" when people perceive a shift from speech to song.
From issue 2681 of New Scientist magazine, 05 November 2008, page 17

Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 07 Nov 08 - 05:21 PM

Science is--and damn well should be--skeptical. If you have a hypothesis that's testable, test it. If it's not, ignore it.