One of the (many) things I find mystifying about the very religious is their tendency to think that God agrees with them.
Not, mind you, that they agree with God. Once you've accepted that some deity's dictum is your ultimate guide to life (whether it be the Bible, the Koran, the Book of Mormon, or whatever), it isn't strange at all that you would then follow the rules to the best of your ability. So although I do wonder what could lead anyone to accept that a self-contradictory text that was pretty clearly written by people is the infallible, literal word of God, I see how (once you've done that) it becomes unassailable.
What is more curious is how many of the same people who think that God has spoken to humanity through a revelatory book then make the further leap that any other thing they believe must be God's opinion, too. I've commented before on the wild meanderings of Pat Robertson, who (for example) decided that the people of Haiti were sent the devastating earthquake of 2010 because of their history of practicing voodoo. The upshot of most of Reverend Pat's pronouncements is that God has decided opinions on what should be done about the wickedness of the world, and coincidentally, those agree exactly with what Reverend Pat himself would do, if he were God.
The latest in this long line of people who seem to feel like their whims must be God's whims as well is Franklin Graham, son of the iconic evangelical leader Reverend Billy Graham. Now, while I don't agree much with Billy Graham's philosophical and political positions, I've always thought he was a good man, who tempered his religious fervor with a genuine love for humanity and a sense that he should follow Jesus' command to render unto God what is God's and render unto Caesar what is Caesar's. Billy's son Franklin, however, doesn't seem to be restrained by any such understanding, as was evidenced by a recent interview he granted to Newsmax.com, and which was summarized here.
"In the last four years, we have begun to turn our backs on God," Graham
said, in an obvious shot at the Obama adminsitration. "We have taken God out of our education system. We have taken him
out of government. You have lawyers that sue you every time you mention
the name of Jesus Christ in any kind of a public forum." He went on to say, in a remarkable echo of Reverend Pat, that because of all of this God will visit upon America "a complete economic collapse" in order to bring us back to the "path to godliness."
I very much get the impression here that all of the fire-and-brimstone he's putting into God's mouth, and his prediction that God will smite the American economy with his Mighty Fist to teach us a valuable lesson, is not something he's abstracted from reading the Bible, but is what Franklin Graham would like to see happen because of his own particular bent toward Christian fundamentalism and political conservatism. It's peculiar to observe someone who has so identified himself with the holy writ that he feels that he has the duty to pronounce God's word to the people -- as if he had become the mouthpiece of the deity, as if every word he said must be God's opinion as well.
This is a completely baffling stance to me, and I say that not only because I'm a secular atheist, but because I know how often I get things wrong. I am far from infallible -- there are (many) topics about which I am partially or totally ignorant, I think illogically sometimes, I come to false conclusions. Human minds only take you so far; our task, as far as I can see, is to hone and train our brains insofar as is possible, and always remember that we might not be seeing the picture correctly. But what if you felt like you had, for one reason or another, a direct pipeline to the mind of God? You would no longer doubt anything that came into your brain; surely God put it there, right? You would lose that sense of perspective that keeps us all moving forward in our understanding of how the world actually works; and you would, scarily, have an instant justification for any action you took, any words you uttered. Franklin Graham, I think, has crossed that line -- and that puts him in the same category as the British Islamists who just yesterday announced a fatwa against Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai. [Source]
I find the whole thing bizarre and frightening. That anyone can stand up in a public forum, and say, "I know what God wants," without the entire audience simultaneously shouting, "How the hell do you know what God wants?" is deeply puzzling to me. But, oddly, that does not seem to be a very common reaction. Many people, for some reason, want a figure to act as God's spokesperson, and the question, "But what if he's got it wrong?" never seems to occur to them.
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Neuroimaging the brains of psychics
A fascinating study has just been published by scientists working at the University of Pennsylvania. The methodology and results are described in this article, released last Friday, entitled "Neuroimaging During Trance State: A Contribution to the Study of Dissociation," but the gist is that that the team involved, headed by Julio Fernando Peres, has done PET (Positron Emission Tomography) scans of alleged mediums who claimed to be in touch with the spirits of the dead.
These particular mediums say that they can perform psychography, which is when the spirit of a deceased person is working through the medium's body, controlling his/her hand to produce written text. Now, neuroscientists understand fairly well what is happening in the brain when a person speaks or writes; in particular, when someone writes complex text, several areas of the brain (including the left culmen, left hippocampus, left inferior occipital gyrus, left anterior cingulate, right superior temporal gyrus and right precentral gyrus) show higher levels of activity. The researchers compared the mediums' levels of brain activity when producing text in the ordinary fashion (i.e., when they claimed they were not being guided by a spirit, and were fully conscious and fully themselves) and when they were in a trance state. And when they were in a trance state, all of them showed consistently lowered activity in all of the brain areas that are typically higher during writing. Peres et al. state, "The fact that subjects produced complex content in a trance dissociative state suggests they were not merely relaxed, and relaxation seems an unlikely explanation for the underactivation of brain areas specifically related to the cognitive processing being carried out. This finding deserves further investigation both in terms of replication and explanatory hypotheses."
It's an interesting finding. The response of psychics to this article thus far can be summed up as, "Ha. We told you." And indeed, this result is exactly what you'd suspect if what the mediums claim is true -- that their hand was no longer under the sole control of their own brains, that someone else had taken over and was guiding their motions.
I am, however, not convinced that this is the only explanation, and I was glad to see that the authors weren't quite so eager to jump on the bandwagon -- their final statement that "this finding deserves further investigation... in terms of... explanatory hypotheses" is precisely right. We cannot rule out that there is control by a spirit; that hypothesis is consistent with the results. But before saying that this constitutes proof of psychic mediumship, other possible explanations must be ruled out.
I have to say, though, that these folks are going about this research in exactly the right way. If psychic phenomena of any kind exist, they should be testable, verifiable, and replicable under controlled conditions. The fact that these alleged mediums are showing anomalous brain activity is certainly suggestive that something worth studying is going on here -- and I hope that Peres et al. or other researchers in the field will pick up this study and run with it. If the results hold, we may be looking at the first step toward hard evidence for the existence of a spiritual realm, which would be an absolutely stunning result (although I have to say that if this proves to be the case, the number of retractions I'd have to write for scoffing statements in previous Skeptophilia posts would be equally stunning). My overall reaction: while I'm still in the doubters camp regarding what this study means, at least we finally have some folks who are approaching the question scientifically. And that is a step in the right direction.
These particular mediums say that they can perform psychography, which is when the spirit of a deceased person is working through the medium's body, controlling his/her hand to produce written text. Now, neuroscientists understand fairly well what is happening in the brain when a person speaks or writes; in particular, when someone writes complex text, several areas of the brain (including the left culmen, left hippocampus, left inferior occipital gyrus, left anterior cingulate, right superior temporal gyrus and right precentral gyrus) show higher levels of activity. The researchers compared the mediums' levels of brain activity when producing text in the ordinary fashion (i.e., when they claimed they were not being guided by a spirit, and were fully conscious and fully themselves) and when they were in a trance state. And when they were in a trance state, all of them showed consistently lowered activity in all of the brain areas that are typically higher during writing. Peres et al. state, "The fact that subjects produced complex content in a trance dissociative state suggests they were not merely relaxed, and relaxation seems an unlikely explanation for the underactivation of brain areas specifically related to the cognitive processing being carried out. This finding deserves further investigation both in terms of replication and explanatory hypotheses."
It's an interesting finding. The response of psychics to this article thus far can be summed up as, "Ha. We told you." And indeed, this result is exactly what you'd suspect if what the mediums claim is true -- that their hand was no longer under the sole control of their own brains, that someone else had taken over and was guiding their motions.
I am, however, not convinced that this is the only explanation, and I was glad to see that the authors weren't quite so eager to jump on the bandwagon -- their final statement that "this finding deserves further investigation... in terms of... explanatory hypotheses" is precisely right. We cannot rule out that there is control by a spirit; that hypothesis is consistent with the results. But before saying that this constitutes proof of psychic mediumship, other possible explanations must be ruled out.
I have to say, though, that these folks are going about this research in exactly the right way. If psychic phenomena of any kind exist, they should be testable, verifiable, and replicable under controlled conditions. The fact that these alleged mediums are showing anomalous brain activity is certainly suggestive that something worth studying is going on here -- and I hope that Peres et al. or other researchers in the field will pick up this study and run with it. If the results hold, we may be looking at the first step toward hard evidence for the existence of a spiritual realm, which would be an absolutely stunning result (although I have to say that if this proves to be the case, the number of retractions I'd have to write for scoffing statements in previous Skeptophilia posts would be equally stunning). My overall reaction: while I'm still in the doubters camp regarding what this study means, at least we finally have some folks who are approaching the question scientifically. And that is a step in the right direction.
Monday, November 19, 2012
France vs. the Mayans
Alarming news is coming out of France, where the true believers are heading to await the Mayan apocalypse that is due to occur in a little more than a month; the only safe spot in the world is being declared off-limits by the government. [Source]
In a move that is bound to cause consternation amongst that segment of humanity that has pancake batter where the rest of us have brains, local officials in the town of Bugarach, France have made the decision to seal off access to the nearby mountain, the Pic de Bugarach. Devotees of Mayan prophecy believe that on December 21, the top of the mountain will pop open, in the fashion of a jack-in-the-box, and an alien spaceship will rise out which will then save any people who happen to be in the area at the time. I hardly need to point out that there are some flaws in this scenario, the main one being that after intensive study, geologists have concluded that the rule "mountains are made of solid rock" is almost never broken. But true believers never let a little thing like science get in the way.
My feeling is that they also are unlikely to let official rules get in their way, and allow me to put any French officials who are reading this on notice: I have been studying woo-woos for some time now, and if there is a group that is less likely to completely ignore such a ban, I don't know what it is. Come December 20, I think you should prepare yourselves for an onslaught. These people fully expect the world to end, and there is no way in hell they are going to go back home and die when they could be climbing a mountain in France to wait for a spaceship just because you said "non."
It all brings up the question, though, of what all of them are going to do on December 22 when it becomes obvious that (1) the world didn't end, and (2) the mountain didn't pop open, and (3) the spaceship never showed. You'd think that this would induce them to say, "Wow, what goobers we've been," and to settle down and revise their worldviews into something more in line with common sense. But studies have shown that when nutjobs make prophecies, and those prophecies don't pan out, rather than causing the true believers to give up, it makes them believe even more strongly. Yes, you read that right; you spend the night huddled together, waiting for the Second Coming of Jesus, and midnight arrives and Jesus doesn't, and the next day, you still believe. It was just that (1) something was amiss with your prediction of the time, or (2) Jesus changed his mind and has now decided on a later date. It was not that your fundamental premise -- that Jesus was on his way -- was incorrect.
So what is the right approach, then? It's a tough question. Every once in a while, I'll have a woo-woo sign up for my Critical Thinking class. You'd think that given my solid reputation as a skeptic, they either wouldn't sign up for the course, or else would sign up and keep quiet about their beliefs, but I've found that these sorts inevitably want to argue, and they never give up. (The two most memorable examples were a girl who was an ardent believer in astrology, and a boy who belonged to the aliens-built-the-pyramids set.) They just can't take my scoffing lying down, and are determined to bring me to my senses. But given that this is also basically my approach toward them, I suppose it's only fair.
In any case, I hope that the police in Bugarach are ready for a riot, because that's what it's likely to come to. Myself, I wonder what the next Big Thing is going to be, once they realize that December 21 was a wash. Will they revise the date, in the fashion of Harold Camping? Or come up with a whole new prediction? Either way, it should be interesting, and I suggest you plan on monitoring woo-woo websites the week after the non-apocalypse. I can barely wait.
In a move that is bound to cause consternation amongst that segment of humanity that has pancake batter where the rest of us have brains, local officials in the town of Bugarach, France have made the decision to seal off access to the nearby mountain, the Pic de Bugarach. Devotees of Mayan prophecy believe that on December 21, the top of the mountain will pop open, in the fashion of a jack-in-the-box, and an alien spaceship will rise out which will then save any people who happen to be in the area at the time. I hardly need to point out that there are some flaws in this scenario, the main one being that after intensive study, geologists have concluded that the rule "mountains are made of solid rock" is almost never broken. But true believers never let a little thing like science get in the way.
My feeling is that they also are unlikely to let official rules get in their way, and allow me to put any French officials who are reading this on notice: I have been studying woo-woos for some time now, and if there is a group that is less likely to completely ignore such a ban, I don't know what it is. Come December 20, I think you should prepare yourselves for an onslaught. These people fully expect the world to end, and there is no way in hell they are going to go back home and die when they could be climbing a mountain in France to wait for a spaceship just because you said "non."
It all brings up the question, though, of what all of them are going to do on December 22 when it becomes obvious that (1) the world didn't end, and (2) the mountain didn't pop open, and (3) the spaceship never showed. You'd think that this would induce them to say, "Wow, what goobers we've been," and to settle down and revise their worldviews into something more in line with common sense. But studies have shown that when nutjobs make prophecies, and those prophecies don't pan out, rather than causing the true believers to give up, it makes them believe even more strongly. Yes, you read that right; you spend the night huddled together, waiting for the Second Coming of Jesus, and midnight arrives and Jesus doesn't, and the next day, you still believe. It was just that (1) something was amiss with your prediction of the time, or (2) Jesus changed his mind and has now decided on a later date. It was not that your fundamental premise -- that Jesus was on his way -- was incorrect.
So what is the right approach, then? It's a tough question. Every once in a while, I'll have a woo-woo sign up for my Critical Thinking class. You'd think that given my solid reputation as a skeptic, they either wouldn't sign up for the course, or else would sign up and keep quiet about their beliefs, but I've found that these sorts inevitably want to argue, and they never give up. (The two most memorable examples were a girl who was an ardent believer in astrology, and a boy who belonged to the aliens-built-the-pyramids set.) They just can't take my scoffing lying down, and are determined to bring me to my senses. But given that this is also basically my approach toward them, I suppose it's only fair.
In any case, I hope that the police in Bugarach are ready for a riot, because that's what it's likely to come to. Myself, I wonder what the next Big Thing is going to be, once they realize that December 21 was a wash. Will they revise the date, in the fashion of Harold Camping? Or come up with a whole new prediction? Either way, it should be interesting, and I suggest you plan on monitoring woo-woo websites the week after the non-apocalypse. I can barely wait.
Saturday, November 17, 2012
St. Paul's Letter to the Klingons
In an investigation of wasteful government spending, Senator Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma) has publicized the fact that the Pentagon sponsored a seminar (at the cost of $100,000) called "Did Jesus Die for Klingons, Too?"
I wish I was making this up, but if you don't believe me, here's the source. All of this rather undercuts Governor Romney's contention that we can't cut military spending without jeopardizing American national security, doesn't it? Especially given that the folks at DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) that sponsored the event hired noted astrophysicists LeVar "Geordi LaForge" Burton and Nichelle "Uhura" Nichols as keynote speakers, and had a gala "Come As Your Favorite Alien" dinner party afterwards. One speaker, an unnamed philosophy professor who was called upon to address the topic brought up in the title of the event, concluded that Jesus only died for humans; the Klingons are on their own, sin-forgiveness-wise, not that they probably care. I suspect that any priest who was brave enough to tell Gowron he had to say ten Hail Marys and five Our Fathers because he'd told a fib last week would soon be missing important body parts, so it's probably just as well.
It is not the overall silliness of the workshop that I want to address here, nor the bloat in the Pentagon's budget. What I'd like to look at is the central contention of the workshop -- which is what would happen to organized religion if intelligent life were found elsewhere in the universe.
It's probably facile to say, "Nothing. There being life elsewhere wouldn't change belief in a deity here on Earth." But think about it; almost every major discovery that science has made in the past thousand years has had the effect of moving humanity further out of the center of the universe. From Copernicus (the Earth isn't at the center), to Kepler (the planets don't move in idealized perfect circles), to Darwin (humans evolve just like everything else), to Mendeleev (everything is made of the same set of elements), to Watson, Crick et al. (all organisms, including humans, encode genetic material the same way), everything we've found has led to the view that we're not really very special at all. Humans are just one more animal species, made of the same stuff and behaving the same way as other animals do, on a little spinning ball of rock around a quite ordinary star in a quite ordinary galaxy. The recent discovery of thousands of extrasolar planets, some of them fairly earthlike in characteristics, makes it seem like even what we have here on Earth may not be all that unusual.
Now, myself, I think all of this is wicked cool. I love it that our systems work the same way as other animals; not only does it explain so much about our behavior, it also means we're inextricably connected to the natural world. I think any blow to our species' ego is far outweighed by the fact that these discoveries are just downright fascinating.
But think about how antithetical that view is to the basic view of Christianity and the other major religions. The mainstream religious view -- and I realize that there are individual people, and probably sects of religions, who do not believe this -- sees humanity as something special, something unique in the history of the universe. In fact, Christianity's central tenet is that humanity is so special that the all-powerful, omniscient deity incarnated his son as one of us.
So, what would happen if we were to discover intelligent alien life? My sense is that a lot of folks with a strictly religious worldview would have a hard time incorporating it. If you remember the wonderful movie Contact, which looks at just such a situation, recall that the ultrareligious wingnut who had been harassing the main character did have exactly that reaction -- to the point that he sacrificed his own life (taking out a great many other people with him) to protect the purity of the religious message. While this movie is (of course) fiction, I don't think that such a thing is outside of the realm of possibility. The discovery of intelligent alien life would be, in a way, the ultimate pulling-out-of-center for the human race, and one that I think some worldviews couldn't handle.
On the whole, I think the question is an interesting one to consider. So even if DARPA probably shouldn't have spent 100 grand to throw their big Star Trek-themed party, it's an idea worth investigating. I would, however, be more interested to hear what Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Michio Kaku have to say on the matter than LeVar Burton and Nichelle Nichols.
I wish I was making this up, but if you don't believe me, here's the source. All of this rather undercuts Governor Romney's contention that we can't cut military spending without jeopardizing American national security, doesn't it? Especially given that the folks at DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) that sponsored the event hired noted astrophysicists LeVar "Geordi LaForge" Burton and Nichelle "Uhura" Nichols as keynote speakers, and had a gala "Come As Your Favorite Alien" dinner party afterwards. One speaker, an unnamed philosophy professor who was called upon to address the topic brought up in the title of the event, concluded that Jesus only died for humans; the Klingons are on their own, sin-forgiveness-wise, not that they probably care. I suspect that any priest who was brave enough to tell Gowron he had to say ten Hail Marys and five Our Fathers because he'd told a fib last week would soon be missing important body parts, so it's probably just as well.
It is not the overall silliness of the workshop that I want to address here, nor the bloat in the Pentagon's budget. What I'd like to look at is the central contention of the workshop -- which is what would happen to organized religion if intelligent life were found elsewhere in the universe.
It's probably facile to say, "Nothing. There being life elsewhere wouldn't change belief in a deity here on Earth." But think about it; almost every major discovery that science has made in the past thousand years has had the effect of moving humanity further out of the center of the universe. From Copernicus (the Earth isn't at the center), to Kepler (the planets don't move in idealized perfect circles), to Darwin (humans evolve just like everything else), to Mendeleev (everything is made of the same set of elements), to Watson, Crick et al. (all organisms, including humans, encode genetic material the same way), everything we've found has led to the view that we're not really very special at all. Humans are just one more animal species, made of the same stuff and behaving the same way as other animals do, on a little spinning ball of rock around a quite ordinary star in a quite ordinary galaxy. The recent discovery of thousands of extrasolar planets, some of them fairly earthlike in characteristics, makes it seem like even what we have here on Earth may not be all that unusual.
Now, myself, I think all of this is wicked cool. I love it that our systems work the same way as other animals; not only does it explain so much about our behavior, it also means we're inextricably connected to the natural world. I think any blow to our species' ego is far outweighed by the fact that these discoveries are just downright fascinating.
But think about how antithetical that view is to the basic view of Christianity and the other major religions. The mainstream religious view -- and I realize that there are individual people, and probably sects of religions, who do not believe this -- sees humanity as something special, something unique in the history of the universe. In fact, Christianity's central tenet is that humanity is so special that the all-powerful, omniscient deity incarnated his son as one of us.
So, what would happen if we were to discover intelligent alien life? My sense is that a lot of folks with a strictly religious worldview would have a hard time incorporating it. If you remember the wonderful movie Contact, which looks at just such a situation, recall that the ultrareligious wingnut who had been harassing the main character did have exactly that reaction -- to the point that he sacrificed his own life (taking out a great many other people with him) to protect the purity of the religious message. While this movie is (of course) fiction, I don't think that such a thing is outside of the realm of possibility. The discovery of intelligent alien life would be, in a way, the ultimate pulling-out-of-center for the human race, and one that I think some worldviews couldn't handle.
On the whole, I think the question is an interesting one to consider. So even if DARPA probably shouldn't have spent 100 grand to throw their big Star Trek-themed party, it's an idea worth investigating. I would, however, be more interested to hear what Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Michio Kaku have to say on the matter than LeVar Burton and Nichelle Nichols.
Friday, November 16, 2012
Akashic fields forever
Yesterday, a student of mine asked me if I knew what an "Akashic Field" was.
I was tempted to say that it was a field that had no buckwheat in it, but that was a rather abstruse pun at best. So I told him that I didn't, but my intuition was that a term where the first word sounded vaguely Sanskrit and the second word was "field" was probably referring to something that didn't exist, and then I told him I'd look into it and get back to him.
It's nice when your intuition is correct.
A quick Google search brought me here, to the Linda Howe Center for Akashic Studies, wherein we learn that the "Akashic Field" is an energy matrix that allows you to access the "Akashic Record." The latter, according to the website, is defined thusly: "The Akashic Record is a dimension of consciousness that contains a vibrational record of every soul and its journey. It is completely available everywhere... The energy present in the Record is a very quick vibration with a great velocity. It is also full-bodied and rich. When opening the Record, a quickening occurs. The infusion of light accelerates everything in its path. In the presence of light, all darkness is seen and brightened. Individual conscious minds do not need to direct this light. Infinite wisdom of light goes where it is needed and received to fulfill its function."
Okay, now that we've successfully disabled any readers who have taken a college-level physics class, I'm sure the next question to ask is: how do I get access to this amazing source of wisdom?
"Working with the sacred prayer provides a reliable, deliberate way to move into and access the consciousness of the Record responsibly." Linda Howe tells us. We then are directed to take one of her classes ($300-500 for in-person classes if you live in the Chicago area, or happen to be near one of the places she's touring, and $25-40 an hour for online classes where you watch a video recording) so we can learn the "Pathway Prayer Process" to tap into the "Akashic Record" and "receive guidance."
Well, sorry, I'm not going to spend $25, much less $300, to find out more about something that sounds like a slightly reworked version of "The Force" from Star Wars. (Although other websites I looked at said that your access to the Akashic Record had something to do with the pineal gland, the Egyptian god Osiris, and the Orion Nebula, and that modern Americans were losing this ability because of fluoridation in water. The Nazis were also briefly mentioned.)
The problem is, the whole "Akashic Record" idea traces its origins not to Ancient Egypt or Ancient Babylon, or in fact Ancient Anywhere, but to the writings of noted early 20th century wingnut Edgar Cayce, whose mystical books are still immensely popular (and his followers say that he didn't write them, but "channeled" them). So let's see what Cayce himself has to say on the subject -- that's sure to be illuminating, right? "We have explained before that the intelligent infinity is brought into intelligent energy from eighth density or octave. The one sound vibratory complex called Edgar used this gateway to view the present, which is not the continuum you experience but the potential social memory complex of this planetary sphere."
Okay. Right. What?
The problem, of course, is that Cayce et al. seemed to have been really good at making stuff up, and they counted on (and in many cases found) the credulity of the vast majority of the public working in their favor. For an excellent skeptical look at the ideas of Cayce and other channelers of Mystical Knowledge of the Ages, take a look at this site, which shows that not only is the basic claim nonsense, but the writings that were produced from accessing the "Akashic Records" (such as Levi Dowling's famous The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ) are actually riddled with simple, and easily checked, factual errors.
A little hard to explain if you think, like Linda Howe, that the "Akashic Record" contains accurate information of "every soul and its journey," isn't it?
In any case, the whole thing smacks of wishful thinking to me. Until someone brings out an Akashic-o-meter and can show that this "Akashic Field" actually exists, and that it's not just someone going into a trance and deciding that she was Cleopatra in a previous life, I'm not buying it. Me, I'm going back to my previous definition of an "Akashic Field" as a field with no buckwheat, which, you have to admit, is kind of a kick-ass pun.
I was tempted to say that it was a field that had no buckwheat in it, but that was a rather abstruse pun at best. So I told him that I didn't, but my intuition was that a term where the first word sounded vaguely Sanskrit and the second word was "field" was probably referring to something that didn't exist, and then I told him I'd look into it and get back to him.
It's nice when your intuition is correct.
A quick Google search brought me here, to the Linda Howe Center for Akashic Studies, wherein we learn that the "Akashic Field" is an energy matrix that allows you to access the "Akashic Record." The latter, according to the website, is defined thusly: "The Akashic Record is a dimension of consciousness that contains a vibrational record of every soul and its journey. It is completely available everywhere... The energy present in the Record is a very quick vibration with a great velocity. It is also full-bodied and rich. When opening the Record, a quickening occurs. The infusion of light accelerates everything in its path. In the presence of light, all darkness is seen and brightened. Individual conscious minds do not need to direct this light. Infinite wisdom of light goes where it is needed and received to fulfill its function."
Okay, now that we've successfully disabled any readers who have taken a college-level physics class, I'm sure the next question to ask is: how do I get access to this amazing source of wisdom?
"Working with the sacred prayer provides a reliable, deliberate way to move into and access the consciousness of the Record responsibly." Linda Howe tells us. We then are directed to take one of her classes ($300-500 for in-person classes if you live in the Chicago area, or happen to be near one of the places she's touring, and $25-40 an hour for online classes where you watch a video recording) so we can learn the "Pathway Prayer Process" to tap into the "Akashic Record" and "receive guidance."
Well, sorry, I'm not going to spend $25, much less $300, to find out more about something that sounds like a slightly reworked version of "The Force" from Star Wars. (Although other websites I looked at said that your access to the Akashic Record had something to do with the pineal gland, the Egyptian god Osiris, and the Orion Nebula, and that modern Americans were losing this ability because of fluoridation in water. The Nazis were also briefly mentioned.)
The problem is, the whole "Akashic Record" idea traces its origins not to Ancient Egypt or Ancient Babylon, or in fact Ancient Anywhere, but to the writings of noted early 20th century wingnut Edgar Cayce, whose mystical books are still immensely popular (and his followers say that he didn't write them, but "channeled" them). So let's see what Cayce himself has to say on the subject -- that's sure to be illuminating, right? "We have explained before that the intelligent infinity is brought into intelligent energy from eighth density or octave. The one sound vibratory complex called Edgar used this gateway to view the present, which is not the continuum you experience but the potential social memory complex of this planetary sphere."
Okay. Right. What?
The problem, of course, is that Cayce et al. seemed to have been really good at making stuff up, and they counted on (and in many cases found) the credulity of the vast majority of the public working in their favor. For an excellent skeptical look at the ideas of Cayce and other channelers of Mystical Knowledge of the Ages, take a look at this site, which shows that not only is the basic claim nonsense, but the writings that were produced from accessing the "Akashic Records" (such as Levi Dowling's famous The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ) are actually riddled with simple, and easily checked, factual errors.
A little hard to explain if you think, like Linda Howe, that the "Akashic Record" contains accurate information of "every soul and its journey," isn't it?
In any case, the whole thing smacks of wishful thinking to me. Until someone brings out an Akashic-o-meter and can show that this "Akashic Field" actually exists, and that it's not just someone going into a trance and deciding that she was Cleopatra in a previous life, I'm not buying it. Me, I'm going back to my previous definition of an "Akashic Field" as a field with no buckwheat, which, you have to admit, is kind of a kick-ass pun.
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Correlation, intelligence, and politics
Everyone loves a good correlation. Our brains are outstanding pattern-finders; we are very good at picking patterns out of the sensory input that bombards us constantly, so good that we sometimes invent patterns where there is nothing there but some random array (numerology and pareidolia are two excellent examples of this).
There's a second problem, though, and that is that although our brains are pretty good at finding patterns, they're not nearly as good at determining what those patterns mean. Presented with a correlation, we're quick to assume that there's a causation present -- especially if the relationship seems to support something we already thought was true.
Take, for example, the following table, that has been making the rounds of liberal websites this week:
The statistics given -- the percent of adults 25 years or older who have a college degree -- correlates strongly with which of the two presidential candidates the state went for. The states with the highest percentage of college graduates went for Obama; the ones with the lowest went for Romney. And of course, the crowing on the liberal websites was loud and long, and mostly to the effect of "Ha! We're smarter! We knew it!"
The problem is, is this really what this table shows? What we have here is a correlation; that Democrats actually are smarter, or that being smarter caused you to vote Democrat, very much remains to be seen. I can think of three other explanations for the data without even trying hard. (1) A college education is also correlated to having a higher-paying, more stable job; the message about Obama being weak on jobs resonated more with the people with fewer marketable credentials. (2) The lack of diplomas from colleges, and tendency to vote Republican, in the right hand list are both caused by a second factor; a higher adherence to evangelical religion in those states. (3) Going to college brainwashes you into becoming a Democrat; colleges are frequently accused of being hotbeds of liberalism.
Which is it? Or is it something different still? I think you can see that establishing what caused the pattern is a lot harder than seeing the pattern in the first place. But when someone finds a pattern that seems to suggest something we already believed, it's easier just to jump to a causation when one has yet to be established. (Especially when the conclusion is, "Boy, aren't we smart?" Psychological studies have been done that have shown that nearly everyone thinks (s)he is above average in intelligence, something that has been nicknamed the Lake Wobegon Effect.)
Now, to be sure, patterns like this certainly do demand an explanation; saying "correlation does not imply causation" and then forthwith giving up thinking is lazy. Something is going on here that needs explaining. And as Daniel Engber, in his wonderful piece "The Internet Blowhard's Favorite Phrase," put it, "Correlation does not imply causation, but it sure as hell provides a hint." Whatever the reason behind the pattern in the table -- whether it is true that Democrats, on average, are smarter than Republicans, or one of my three alternate explanations is correct, or that some combination of those reasons is responsible, or that it is caused by something else entirely -- it certainly is a question that should be of interest to sociologists and political scientists. What it is not is a reason for the liberals to go "Woo hoo!" and then stop thinking.
Because, of course, that one is not the only correlation that is out there. How about this one, that made the rounds after the 2008 election:
Yes, the red state/blue state split correlates almost perfectly with another statistic, the number of breweries per capita. I can see it now -- conservatives claiming that the election was invalid, that people who voted for Obama in the blue states actually meant to vote for Romney but screwed up their ballots because they were drunk.
There's a second problem, though, and that is that although our brains are pretty good at finding patterns, they're not nearly as good at determining what those patterns mean. Presented with a correlation, we're quick to assume that there's a causation present -- especially if the relationship seems to support something we already thought was true.
Take, for example, the following table, that has been making the rounds of liberal websites this week:
The problem is, is this really what this table shows? What we have here is a correlation; that Democrats actually are smarter, or that being smarter caused you to vote Democrat, very much remains to be seen. I can think of three other explanations for the data without even trying hard. (1) A college education is also correlated to having a higher-paying, more stable job; the message about Obama being weak on jobs resonated more with the people with fewer marketable credentials. (2) The lack of diplomas from colleges, and tendency to vote Republican, in the right hand list are both caused by a second factor; a higher adherence to evangelical religion in those states. (3) Going to college brainwashes you into becoming a Democrat; colleges are frequently accused of being hotbeds of liberalism.
Which is it? Or is it something different still? I think you can see that establishing what caused the pattern is a lot harder than seeing the pattern in the first place. But when someone finds a pattern that seems to suggest something we already believed, it's easier just to jump to a causation when one has yet to be established. (Especially when the conclusion is, "Boy, aren't we smart?" Psychological studies have been done that have shown that nearly everyone thinks (s)he is above average in intelligence, something that has been nicknamed the Lake Wobegon Effect.)
Now, to be sure, patterns like this certainly do demand an explanation; saying "correlation does not imply causation" and then forthwith giving up thinking is lazy. Something is going on here that needs explaining. And as Daniel Engber, in his wonderful piece "The Internet Blowhard's Favorite Phrase," put it, "Correlation does not imply causation, but it sure as hell provides a hint." Whatever the reason behind the pattern in the table -- whether it is true that Democrats, on average, are smarter than Republicans, or one of my three alternate explanations is correct, or that some combination of those reasons is responsible, or that it is caused by something else entirely -- it certainly is a question that should be of interest to sociologists and political scientists. What it is not is a reason for the liberals to go "Woo hoo!" and then stop thinking.
Because, of course, that one is not the only correlation that is out there. How about this one, that made the rounds after the 2008 election:
Yes, the red state/blue state split correlates almost perfectly with another statistic, the number of breweries per capita. I can see it now -- conservatives claiming that the election was invalid, that people who voted for Obama in the blue states actually meant to vote for Romney but screwed up their ballots because they were drunk.
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Telehealing
I have a commitment to the truth, and I try never to let other considerations (money, power, pride, personal gain) trump that commitment. It's why I have made the statement in Skeptophilia more than once; if you can show me that anything I've written here is demonstrably wrong, and have the facts to back you up, I will happily print a retraction.
That isn't to say that sometimes I'm not sorely tempted to lie. I'm only human, after all. In fact, today's post is about a guy whose moneymaking idea is so inspired, so completely brilliant, that I wish I'd thought of it first. Had I done so... well, let's just leave it at "I hope I'd have done the right thing."
Meet Michael Mohoric, who runs Qigong Energy Healing. Now, I'm sure you've heard of Qigong before; it's the same old tired "revitalize your aura and realign your chakras" stuff, and his site is full of our favorite words "vibration" and "frequency" and "energy." But most Qigong practitioners at least make a show of having their clients show up in their offices, and then lie down while the practitioner waves his/her hands around or does whatever it takes to manipulate an essentially nonexistent "energy field." Mr. Mohoric, on the other hand, has gone the next logical step -- he does the whole thing long-distance.
For a monthly subscription fee of $99, Mr. Mohoric will "send you energy" once a week. "I feel that this series of energy transmissions can be life transforming for many people," he tells us on his website. "Although one session can often provide dramatic results, multiple sessions can deepen the energy work and get to deep-seated core issues. By receiving energy for a full month, the energy will continue to work deeper and be able to address long held patterns and anchor the changes. When one has had an energetic pattern for many years, it can take time to release and cancel the pattern and move it out of one’s energy field."
For your $99 a month, he will do a "long-distance healing session" and "energy adjustment" once a week, sending out a "major energy transmission" every Wednesday night. He suggests meditating at that time so you can pick up his signal, but you don't need to worry if you forget to tune in; he says you'll get the energy anyhow, and there's a testimonial from a guy who forgot and then started feeling really energized on Wednesday night, and suddenly remembered what was happening. "The energy is intelligent and will work with you individually to give you personalized attention to your specific energetic needs," Mr. Mohoric writes.
Oh, yeah, and for another $39 he'll energize your pets long-distance, too.
Well, let's see; we have confirmation bias, dart-thrower's bias, misuse of scientific terminology, and the placebo effect going on here. Have I missed any?
That said, don't you think it's a brilliant idea? What a job! You maintain a website, get people to subscribe to your services not just one time only, but for a monthly fee, and in return, you work one night a week. Assuming he really is doing anything on Wednesday nights. Doesn't this sound like the career of a lifetime? Even if you really believe that what you are doing is real -- and however outlandish it sounds, he appears to be sincere -- the sum total of your job is to sit there for an hour on Wednesday evening and beam out some "energy" to your customers. Doesn't matter if it gets there or not; he has the usual disclaimer at the bottom of the page that he is "not making a medical claim" and that "all healing is self-healing" and that "like any modality, it won't work for everyone." The rest of the week you can sleep in late, go for a run, play with your dog, take a nap in the hammock, whatever floats your boat.
Given that I'm shortly to get myself together and spend the day attempting to educate savage hordes of teenagers, that kind of life sounds pretty awesome.
Of course, there's just this one teensy problem, and that's that commitment-to-the-truth thing I was mentioning earlier. Given that controlled scientific studies have never found a shred of evidence for the existence of chakras, energy meridians, or the rest of it (for a nice summary of the studies that have been done in this regard, go here), I couldn't in good conscience take your money when I knew that what I was accomplishing was precisely nothing.
Well, okay, how about this as an idea? You send me $99 a month ($39 additional if you want me to include your pets), and every Tuesday night I'll think about you in a scientific way. I'll picture you thinking critically, using scientifically-sound logic, and being rational, and applying those skills to your everyday life. I'll ponder how much more clearly you'll think if you can accomplish those goals. Okay, I know that my thinking about you won't make you change, but I promise I'll do it faithfully. Ready to sign up for my service?
No?
Oh, well, it was worth a shot. Truth always comes at a cost, I suppose.
That isn't to say that sometimes I'm not sorely tempted to lie. I'm only human, after all. In fact, today's post is about a guy whose moneymaking idea is so inspired, so completely brilliant, that I wish I'd thought of it first. Had I done so... well, let's just leave it at "I hope I'd have done the right thing."
Meet Michael Mohoric, who runs Qigong Energy Healing. Now, I'm sure you've heard of Qigong before; it's the same old tired "revitalize your aura and realign your chakras" stuff, and his site is full of our favorite words "vibration" and "frequency" and "energy." But most Qigong practitioners at least make a show of having their clients show up in their offices, and then lie down while the practitioner waves his/her hands around or does whatever it takes to manipulate an essentially nonexistent "energy field." Mr. Mohoric, on the other hand, has gone the next logical step -- he does the whole thing long-distance.
For a monthly subscription fee of $99, Mr. Mohoric will "send you energy" once a week. "I feel that this series of energy transmissions can be life transforming for many people," he tells us on his website. "Although one session can often provide dramatic results, multiple sessions can deepen the energy work and get to deep-seated core issues. By receiving energy for a full month, the energy will continue to work deeper and be able to address long held patterns and anchor the changes. When one has had an energetic pattern for many years, it can take time to release and cancel the pattern and move it out of one’s energy field."
For your $99 a month, he will do a "long-distance healing session" and "energy adjustment" once a week, sending out a "major energy transmission" every Wednesday night. He suggests meditating at that time so you can pick up his signal, but you don't need to worry if you forget to tune in; he says you'll get the energy anyhow, and there's a testimonial from a guy who forgot and then started feeling really energized on Wednesday night, and suddenly remembered what was happening. "The energy is intelligent and will work with you individually to give you personalized attention to your specific energetic needs," Mr. Mohoric writes.
Oh, yeah, and for another $39 he'll energize your pets long-distance, too.
Well, let's see; we have confirmation bias, dart-thrower's bias, misuse of scientific terminology, and the placebo effect going on here. Have I missed any?
That said, don't you think it's a brilliant idea? What a job! You maintain a website, get people to subscribe to your services not just one time only, but for a monthly fee, and in return, you work one night a week. Assuming he really is doing anything on Wednesday nights. Doesn't this sound like the career of a lifetime? Even if you really believe that what you are doing is real -- and however outlandish it sounds, he appears to be sincere -- the sum total of your job is to sit there for an hour on Wednesday evening and beam out some "energy" to your customers. Doesn't matter if it gets there or not; he has the usual disclaimer at the bottom of the page that he is "not making a medical claim" and that "all healing is self-healing" and that "like any modality, it won't work for everyone." The rest of the week you can sleep in late, go for a run, play with your dog, take a nap in the hammock, whatever floats your boat.
Given that I'm shortly to get myself together and spend the day attempting to educate savage hordes of teenagers, that kind of life sounds pretty awesome.
Of course, there's just this one teensy problem, and that's that commitment-to-the-truth thing I was mentioning earlier. Given that controlled scientific studies have never found a shred of evidence for the existence of chakras, energy meridians, or the rest of it (for a nice summary of the studies that have been done in this regard, go here), I couldn't in good conscience take your money when I knew that what I was accomplishing was precisely nothing.
Well, okay, how about this as an idea? You send me $99 a month ($39 additional if you want me to include your pets), and every Tuesday night I'll think about you in a scientific way. I'll picture you thinking critically, using scientifically-sound logic, and being rational, and applying those skills to your everyday life. I'll ponder how much more clearly you'll think if you can accomplish those goals. Okay, I know that my thinking about you won't make you change, but I promise I'll do it faithfully. Ready to sign up for my service?
No?
Oh, well, it was worth a shot. Truth always comes at a cost, I suppose.
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