Getting to the point

There is one alternative medicine modality that I've always been hesitant to criticize.  That hesitancy has come from the fact that it is widespread, so widespread that I know a dozen people who have used it and reported positive results.  Even though I could see no biologically sound reason why it would work the way its practitioners claimed, it's always seemed to me to fall into that gray area of "things that may work for some as-yet unknown reason."

That modality is acupuncture.  I get asked about it regularly, both in my Biology classes and in my Critical Thinking classes, and I've usually shrugged, and said, "Well, I don't believe in prana and chakras and the rest of it, but could acupuncture be triggering some positive response, in some way we have yet to elucidate?  Sure.  People used medicinal plants long before they understood pharmacology, and the fact that they attributed the plants' success at treating disease to good magic or benevolent spirits doesn't mean that the plants didn't work.  It could be the same here."

Well, I can't make that claim any more.

Just last week, David Colquhoun (University College of London) and Steven Novella (Yale School of Medicine) published a paper in Anesthesia & Analgesia (available here) that evaluates the results of every controlled study of acupuncture in the past ten years, and reaches the following conclusion:

The outcome of this research, we propose, is that the benefits of acupuncture, if any, are too small and too transient to be of any clinical significance.  It seems that acupuncture is little or no more than a theatrical placebo... 

The best controlled studies show a clear pattern – with acupuncture the outcome does not depend on needle location or even needle insertion. Since these variables are what define "acupuncture" the only sensible conclusion is that acupuncture does not work. Everything else is the expected noise of clinical trials, and this noise seems particularly high with acupuncture research. The most parsimonious conclusion is that with acupuncture there is no signal, only noise.

The interests of medicine would be best-served if we emulated the Chinese Emperor Dao Guang and issued an edict stating that acupuncture and moxibustion should no longer be used in clinical practice. 

I have to admit that when I read this paper, my first reaction was to wince.  Part of me, I suppose, really wanted acupuncture to work -- even if we had no idea how it worked, the idea that you could alleviate pain (or anxiety, or insomnia, or depression) simply by sticking someone with little needles seemed preferable to telling people that they simply had to live with chronic conditions if standard medical treatment failed.  But one of the harsher sides of the rationalist view is that you go wherever the evidence drives you, even if you don't want to.  And after reading the paper by Colquhoun and Novella, and taking a look at their sources, I am brought to the inescapable conclusion that they are correct.

It's frequently that way, though, isn't it?  I think most of us, even the most hard-nosed skeptics in the world, would be delighted if some of the wild things the woo-woos claim turned out to be true.  Being a biologist, I would be thrilled if there were surviving proto-hominids like Sasquatch or surviving dinosaurs like Nessie, Champ, Mokele-Mbembe, Kelpies, and the Bunyip.  A convincing demonstration of intelligent alien life would be about the coolest thing I can imagine.  Even the existence of an afterlife is something I'd be mighty happy about (as long as it wasn't the being-tortured-by-Satan-for-all-eternity variety).

But, as my grandma used to say, "Wishin' don't make it so."  And it appears that in the case of acupuncture, the Colquhoun/Novella study conclusively demonstrates that there's nothing much there besides the placebo effect -- sorry though I am to have to say so.

Of course, that doesn't mean that acupuncturists are going to go out of business any time soon.  There are still a lot of true believers out there, and they can pull in clients from odd sources, sometimes.  Just last week, the veterinarians at a Tel Aviv zoo decided to call in acupuncturists because their attempts to treat a chronic ear infection in one of the zoo animals had failed.  The patient?

A fourteen-year-old Sumatran tiger.

Now that's some conviction in your beliefs.  You think acupuncture works?  Here, go stick some needles in this live tiger.

Be that as it may, apparently they anesthetized the tiger beforehand (smart move), and the acupuncturists all survived unscathed.  No word yet on whether Kitty's ears have stopped hurting.  My guess, given the Colquhoun/Novella study, is no, since the placebo effect doesn't work too well on cats.

Although to be fair, judging by my success rate at giving pills to my own cats, traditional veterinary medicine generates its own, unique set of problems as well.

We've got your number

Today's question is: how far should you go in accommodating people's irrational superstitions?

The whole question comes up because last week, town councillors in Richmond Hill, Ontario voted to ban the number four from any new street addresses.  "The number 4 in different Chinese cultures," councillor Greg Beros said in an interview, "the Asian culture, in their language it sounds like the word death, and that has a very bad connotation for them."

Notwithstanding that Mr. Beros seems to be confused on the difference between "Chinese" and "Asian," not to mention the fact that "Asian" is not a language, he is correct that in traditional Chinese folklore the number four does have bad associations.  And the town had already set a precedent in this direction by previously outlawing addresses containing the number 13.

My reaction, predictably, is: seriously?

At what point do you just have to say, "I'm sorry, that's ridiculous?"  Now, don't get me wrong; I'm all for treating people with respect, and that includes granting them the right to believe whatever they want to.  But that respect of their right to belief does not extend to a requirement that I respect the belief itself.  You are perfectly free to believe that the letter "S" is unlucky, and to refuse to buy a house with an address containing an "S."  It is also within your rights to refuse even to drive past 767 South Sissinghurst Street.  But it is well within my rights to consider your belief superstitious nonsense, and there is no reason in the world that town governments should feel obliged to act as if your claim has any basis in reality.

Oh, I know a lot of this has to do with money.  Town councillors are concerned with economics, and a lot of economics has to do with selling real estate.  If a significant fraction of the houses aren't going to sell (as would be the case in my "letter S" example, assuming a large number of people believed that), the town governors' actions would be simple pragmatism.  But in Richmond Hill, it's just two numbers -- 4 and 13 -- that are outlawed.  (Councillor Beros emphasized that house numbers containing 4s were okay, such as 14, 24, and so on -- it was only the single-digit number 4 that was verboten.)  So we're not denying the majority of the housing to a substantial proportion of the population, here.  The solution is simple: if you don't want a house with the number 4, then don't buy one.

Of course, I recognize that this is a losing battle.  Because of the weirdness associated with the number 13, many airplanes have no 13th row, and skyscrapers no 13th floor.  (If you're curious, the origin of the "unlucky 13" myth isn't certain, but may have started because there were thirteen people present at the Last Supper, an event that certainly didn't end well.)

Superstition, unfortunately, is still rampant in the world.  As I mentioned in a post last week,  the list of beliefs in lucky and unlucky actions is long (and bizarre).  But rational people need to be unafraid to identify those beliefs as what they are (i.e. untrue), and there's no reason in the world anyone should have to cater to the silly demands of someone who wants us to treat their mythology as if it were fact.

Onions in your socks

A point I've made before is that if you are trying to convince people about some oddball belief you may subscribe to, your credibility is not helped if you then append to it something even weirder.  For example, if you make a living cleaning up people's auras by waving quartz crystals around their head, I'm not going to be more likely to believe you if you tell me that you had once accomplished the same thing using a Brillo pad.

Unfortunately, this is not advice that homeopath Diane Elms has taken to heart.  Elms is a Canadian homeopath and "specialist in drugless cancer care" who won "Iridologist of the Year" in 2008.  (Iridology, if you've not heard of it, is right up there with homeopathy in the "crazy alt-med" department; it is the contention that you can diagnose any disease by looking at the irises of a patient's eyes.  Here's what the Skeptic's Dictionary has to say about it.)

Elms writes a column called "Healthy Habits" for the Sachem and Glanbrook (Ontario) Gazette, and this week she had a doozy.  The title, "The Use of Onions as a Healthy Habit," doesn't raise any immediate red flags, especially with me.  I grew up in southern Louisiana, where onions are one of the Four Major Food Groups.  (The other three are pepper, garlic, and seafood.)  But it turns out that Elms isn't just talking about eating onions, although she does recommend that, too.

She wants you to put onions in your socks.

I wish I was making this up.  Apparently she is under the impression that onions have the ability to "draw out toxins."  Here's a direct quote:

Recently, one of my patients shared how when she was nine years old and was very sick, the homeopath told her parents to put onions in her socks to draw the fever to the feet. I sat up and listened. I asked her to share more about the onions since I myself have never had the opportunity to use them as of yet.  She explained that she had a high fever. The medical doctor said she contracted pneumonia.  At the time, her family lived in Germany and couldn’t afford to do the medical treatment, so they called the homeopath. The homeopathic doctor gave her a homeopathic remedy and told her parents to put onions in her socks. Her parents were to change her socks every 12 hours and put new onions in them each time. In three days, her fever broke, and she came out of her coma. The homeopath told her parents to burn the onions. They were not to bury them but to burn them because they would be so full of toxins.

Oh, for sure!  I will definitely tell this to my AP Biology students, next time we are studying human physiology and the immune system.  I will, however, add one additional thing, which is:

BA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA *falls off chair*

So, homeopathy isn't enough?  It's not sufficiently loony to give a desperately ill person a pill that has nothing in it, you are also going to stuff onions down her socks to "draw the fever to her feet?"  What next?  Are you going to smear CheezWhiz in her hair to magically protect her head from evil spirits?

But Elms isn't done:

Back in flu season, I was speaking at a wellness expo and talked about the benefits of onions. You can eat onions for their anti-toxic benefits as well as their antioxidant, cholesterol lowering, atherosclerosis, blood thinning, asthma and anti-cancer properties. You can also cut an onion in half and place it beside a person who is sick. The onion will draw the toxins from the person into the onion. I know it sounds odd. A few people in the audience had a hard time digesting the new information about onions.

Yes, Ms. Elms, I'll just bet they did.

What gets me here is the whole medieval aspect of this -- because what is this but the "invoking magical plants" thing that they did back in the 14th century, with new terminology?  Because she can throw out words like "antioxidant" she sounds like she knows what she's talking about, and I bet there are lots of folks who read this column and now are walking around with their feet smelling even worse than usual.

I mean, really.  Think about it from an evolutionary perspective.  Here we mammals have evolved an excretory system -- liver and kidneys, especially -- that is excellent at removing toxins from our blood.  How on earth could we have evolved a system that only works if there are onions nearby?

"Hey, Ogg," says one proto-hominid on the African savanna to another, "you no look so good.  Maybe you should stick onion in your socks, yeah?"

"But Thag," Ogg responds, "we live on African savanna.  No onions here.  Besides, you and me both naked.  What are 'socks?'"

"I don't know," Thag says.  "I figured you did.  I guess you screwed, then."

*Ogg dies*

Anyhow, that's our crazy idea of the day.  My recommendation: eat all the onions you want.  They're tasty, although it is true that if you eat too much of them, your sweat starts to smell like onions.  Be that as it may, they're a nice addition to dinner, even if they don't "draw out toxins" any more than garlic repels vampires.

Sanal Edamaruku and the death curse

A good many of the topics I discuss on Skeptophilia are serious, and more than a few are (or should be) rage-inducing. There are times when the idiocy people are driven to by superstition and credulity rightly makes rationalists furious.

Other times, though, the whole thing devolves into street theater.  Witness what happened to Sanal Edamaruku back in 2008.

You might know Edamaruku's name.  He's a skeptic and outspoken atheist in India, where he is the president of the Indian Rationalist Association and the founder and president of Rationalist International.  Edamaruku has, in the past few years, become something of a lightning rod in India for the fight against superstition, and in fact he was brought up on blasphemy charges last year after exposing a "weeping Jesus" statue in a Catholic church in Mumbai as a hoax.  (He left the country shortly thereafter, and is currently touring Europe and speaking out against the role of religion in government -- so the outcome of the charges is, as yet, pending.)

So a lot of what Edamaruku involves himself in is deadly serious -- his courage at fighting indoctrination and discrimination in one of the most thoroughly religious countries in the world is an inspiration.  But just yesterday, I ran into a video of something that he did that ranks right up there with some of the best comedy I've seen -- and that's even considering that the whole thing was in Hindi and I didn't understand a single word of it.

Apparently it all started five years ago when the minister of the state of Madhya Pradesh, Uma Bharati, accused a political rival of using the powers of a "tantrik" (a black magician) to harm her.  The magic of the tantrik had, Bharati said, caused her uncle to die, made her hit her head on the door of her car, and made mysterious blisters arise on her leg.

Well, Edamaruku was interviewed and asked about the claim, and he said that it was ridiculous.  No one, he said, could harm someone using magic.  And then, Edamaruku challenged the tantrik -- one Pandit Surinder Sharma -- to try and kill him on public television.

You should watch the video of the result.  Trust me.  It's brilliant.

It's hard to pick out my favorite aspect of this film.  The serious expression on Sharma's face, as contrasted to Edamaruku, who looks like he's trying not to burst out laughing.  The point where Sharma takes off his shirt, as if to say, "Okay, this magic will work much better if you can see my flabby chest."  The chanting, the waving around of a knife, the flicking of water droplets at Edamaruku, who stands there, an amused expression on his face, through it all.  Best of all, the point where Sharma asks for more time.

"Hang on," Sharma seems to be saying, "I'm not done yet.  Hold still while I kill you some more."

The ordeal lasted two hours (the video I linked is a six-minute excerpt), at which time the anchor declared it a failure, as Edamaruku had endured it all without a scratch (much less a mysterious blister).  According to one source, Sharma was baffled by his inability to magically hurt Edamaruku, and said, "You must worship a strong god who was protecting you the whole time."

"Actually, I'm an atheist," Edamaruku replied.

But it takes a lot to discourage a magician, and Sharma said that he wanted to try again, this time using "ultimate magic."  Here's an eyewitness description of what followed:

The encounter took place under the open night sky. The tantrik and his two assistants were kindling a fire and staring into the flames. Sanal was in good humour. Once the ultimate magic was invoked, there wouldn’t be any way back, the tantrik warned. Within two minutes, Sanal would get crazy, and one minute later he would scream in pain and die. Didn’t he want to save his life before it was too late? Sanal laughed, and the countdown begun. The tantriks chanted their “Om lingalingalingalinga, kilikilikili….” followed by ever changing cascades of strange words and sounds. The speed increased hysterically. They threw all kinds of magic ingredients into the flames that produced changing colours, crackling and fizzling sounds and white smoke. While chanting, the tantrik came close to Sanal, moved his hands in front of him and touched him, but was called back by the anchor. After the earlier covert attempts of the tantrik to use force against Sanal, he was warned to keep distance and avoid touching Sanal. But the tantrik “forgot” this rule again and again. 

Now the tantrik wrote Sanal’s name on a sheet of paper, tore it into small pieces, dipped them into a pot with boiling butter oil and threw them dramatically into the flames. Nothing happened. Singing and singing, he sprinkled water on Sanal, mopped a bunch of peacock feathers over his head, threw mustard seed into the fire and other outlandish things more. Sanal smiled, nothing happened, and time was running out. Only seven more minutes before midnight, the tantrik decided to use his ultimate weapon: the clod of wheat flour dough. He kneaded it and powdered it with mysterious ingredients, then asked Sanal to touch it. Sanal did so, and the grand magic finale begun. The tantrik pierced blunt nails on the dough, then cut it wildly with a knife and threw them into the fire. That moment, Sanal should have broken down. But he did not. He laughed. Forty more seconds, counted the anchor, twenty, ten, five… it’s over!

Myself, I think Edamaruku missed a sterling opportunity.  I think when Sharma threw the "clod of wheat flour dough" into the fire, Edamaruku should have clutched his chest and fallen to the ground.  Then, when Sharma declared himself victorious, Edamaruku would have stood up and said, "Oh, sorry.  Just kidding."

I know that's what I would have done.  But I'm just mean that way.

I find it heartening that we have people like Edamaruku in the world, who are not afraid to expose the sort of credulous nonsense of charlatans like Sharma for what it is.  And the fact that he can do so with confidence and unfailing good humor (and on public television, no less) is an inspiration.  You have to wonder how many Indians were led to question the veracity of their beliefs by watching this spectacle.

In some religious philosophy, one is encouraged to laugh at the devil -- ridicule, it is said, is the one thing that Satan cannot stand.  I, however, would turn that around.  Laughter is one of the soundest weapons of rationality.  If we illuminate superstition with the clear light of science, it can't help seeming funny -- and our ability to laugh at it is the first step toward letting it all go.

Let the sun shine in

Sometimes I'm asked why I am so determined to post daily on this blog.

Just last week, a friend and loyal reader of Skeptophilia wrote, "I don't know how you continue to write this stuff day after day after day and still maintain your sanity in the process.  Of course, I'm assuming that you still have a modicum of sanity left.  Maybe my answer lies in the fact that you've gone batshit crazy long ago... I certainly would have."

I don't know about the last part.  My family and friends probably have decided opinions on that count, and maybe I'm better off not knowing how they'd respond.  But just yesterday, I was sent a link to a site that I think illustrates the two reasons why I've kept going with this (now for over three years).

The site is called "Super Human Abilities Confirmed by NASA."  The title should put you on notice immediately, and indeed, the content lives up to its promise.  The contention?

Staring at the sun will give you superpowers.

No, I'm not making this up, but if the question, "How the hell could this possibly work?" came to your mind, rest assured that the same thing occurred to me.  But they explain it thusly:

Sun gazing (also known as sun-eating) is a strict practice of gradually introducing sunlight into your eyes at the lowest ultraviolet-index times of day – sunrise and sunset. Those who teach the practice say there are several rules to the practice. First, it must be done within the hour after sunrise or before sunset to avoid damaging the eyes. Second, you must be barefoot, in contact with the actual earth – sand, dirt or mud; and finally, you must begin with only 10 seconds the first day, increasing by 10 second intervals each day you practice. Following these rules make the practice safe, says sources...  During your first 3 months of practice, the suns energy is moving through the eyes and charging the hypothalamus tract, says those who have studied this technique and used it. The hypothalamus tract is the pathway to the rear of the retina which leads to the brain. The brain then, over time, becomes activated by the energy supply being received by the sun.

No, actually, what will happen is that your retina will fry like a bug under a magnifying glass, and you will lose your eyesight.  Funny how they never mention that possibility.  Maybe with a "charged hypothalamus tract" you can get by without seeing, I dunno.

But if you think the nonsense ends there, you're wrong.  The author goes on to say:

By seven and a half months of gazing, now at 35 minutes, need and desire for food is dwindling. According to sun gazing experts, food is not actually needed to maintain the body, only energy – and ‘sun-eating’ provides that energy. By 9 months, all taste for food, including aroma, all hunger pains and cravings disappear. Those who make it this far say that they report a noticeable ’change’ in the way their brain feels – like it’s “charged up.” After 9 months of sun-gazing – reaching a maximum of 44 minutes – it is advised that you give up sun-gazing and redirect your attention now to the Earth.

For 6 days straight, one is to walk barefoot on the earth, 45 minutes per day. During this barefoot walking, the pineal gland is said to become activated. Professional sun gazers and those researching the science say that each toe is connected to a specific gland, and by walking barefoot on the Earth, you activate these glands. The big toe is thought to be aligned with the pineal gland, the second toe with the pituitary, then the hypothalamus, thalamus and finally the pinky toe correlates to the amygdala. Walking barefoot, with the sun now falling on the top of your head, practitioners claim to create a sort of magnetic field in and around your body that recharges you and your brain.

Well, that makes sense.  I stubbed my amygdala on the table leg last week, and it hurt like a sonofagun.  Maybe if I'd just stared into the sun enough, I'd have had a magnetic field that would have been strong enough to repel the table.   (Okay, I admit, the table is made of wood, which is known for being unresponsive to magnetic fields.  Just play along, all right?)

Oh, and one other thing: NASA has never weighed in on sun-gazing.  My guess is that if someone called up NASA, they'd respond, "Of course you shouldn't stare into the sun.  Are you morons?  Or what?"

Now, how does this site illustrate why I keep writing Skeptophilia, other than the fact that there seems to be an endless stream of bullshit out there to write about?  The reason is that the "Sun Gazing" website had, according to the hit tracker at the bottom, been Facebook-shared over a thousand times, and the comments section was evenly split between people who called the author out on her ridiculous claims, and people who said that sun-gazing was the best thing ever, and recommended that everyone should do it.

So that's reason one that I write this blog.  I firmly believe that the best way to combat nonsense is to shine some light on it.  (Don't stare right into it, though.)  And the fact that even a claim this idiotic has support indicates to me that we need a lot of dedicated light-shiners.

Reason two, though, is that the individual who sent me the link is a former student of mine.  The fact that I have former students who, years after graduation, are still enthusiastically ferreting out absurd claims is about as encouraging to me as anything could be.

So anyway, there you are.  Sun-gazing as an incentive to combat loony wingnuttery.  And if, as my friend suggested, I eventually go completely batshit crazy doing this, I hope I'll still say (from my room in the asylum) that all in all, it's been worth it.

The iniquity of the ancestors

This week was rife with religious stories.  First, we had the Catholics arguing over whether or not Pope Francis did a public exorcism of a demon in St. Peter's Square; then we had the announcement that plans for a Noah's Ark theme park in Kentucky were going forward; and just yesterday, there was an allegation by the candidate for lieutenant governor in Virginia that doing yoga will make you vulnerable to Satan.  So it seems only fitting to end the week with yet another bizarre claim from a public religious figure -- this time that Native Americans need to pray for god's forgiveness of their "generational iniquity" because their ancestors were pagans.

The perpetrator of this amazingly offensive statement was televangelist Cindy Jacobs, who is somewhat notorious for saying bizarre stuff.  She has, in the past year, claimed that she was given "magic spaghetti" by god that multiplies in volume; that god protects her shoes; that she is capable of curing mental illness by "binding the spirit of insanity;" and, weirdest of all, that mass bird and fish deaths were caused by the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."  [You can watch clips of all of these here.]  So we really shouldn't expect that anything she says is going to be the epitome of rationality.

But this time, she seems to have crossed some sort of threshold into outright racism.  Here's a transcript of the quote in question.  It occurred during a talk on the evil spirit "Leviathan," which she claims is especially designed to attack people with pagan ancestry:

If you have in your bloodline any animus [sic], any Native American blood, for instance — not all Native Americans worshiped the serpent or crocodile, many did — but you might want to renounce that and repent for the generational iniquity.  If you are — perhaps you’re Mexican and you might have indigenous blood in you or Mayan blood, those who have Aztec blood in any way, you need to repent for the sin of animism before you begin to deal with this spirit.

Now, it's to be hoped that you reacted to this statement the same way I did -- with outrage, that (1) there could be any "sin" associated with your race, or that (2) there is such a thing as "hereditary guilt," condemning you because of something wrong your ancestors did.  I am hopeful that even Christians would be horrified at what this woman has said, and repudiate her soundly.

But there's a problem with that, and it's a little awkward to point it out, but it must be said.  The difficulty is that what Jacobs is saying is completely consistent with Christian belief, as laid out in the bible.

Examples of descendants being held responsible for their ancestors' transgressions abound in the bible.  How about the cheery line from Psalm 109, regarding what should happen to a wicked man:  "Let his days be few; let another take over his position. Let his children be fatherless and his wife a widow. Let his children wander as beggars, searching for food far from their demolished homes."

Then, in Isaiah 14:19-21 we read, "But you are cast out of your grave like an abominable branch, and as the raiment of those that are slain, thrust through with a sword, that go down to the stones of the pit; as a carcass trodden under feet.  You shall not be joined with them in burial, because you have destroyed your land, and slain your people: the seed of evildoers shall never be renowned.  Prepare slaughter for his children for the iniquity of their fathers; that they do not rise, nor possess the land, nor fill the face of the world with cities."

Oh, and there's Deuteronomy 23:2:  "No one born of a forbidden marriage nor any of their descendants may enter the assembly of the Lord, not even in the tenth generation."

And, after all, what is the whole Adam and Eve story about but all of humanity being punished because two of our distant ancestors broke some weird and arbitrary rule about which fruit to eat?

(Of course, there's the passage from Ezekiel 18:19-20 that says, "Yet you say, Why? does not the son bear the iniquity of the father? When the son has done that which is lawful and right, and has kept all my statutes, and has done them, he shall surely live. The soul that sins, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him."  Yes, I know that contradicts what the other passages say.  No, I don't know how anyone could read this and still think it's all literally true.)

In any case, repellent though I find Cindy Jacobs' statements, the fact remains that they really are pretty consistent with what the bible says.  So, honestly, it's not Jacobs that needs to explain why she said what she did; the reason for that is obvious.  The ones who have some explaining to do are the devout, bible-believing Christians who say she's wrong.

In any case, the whole thing makes me want to scream, so I think I may turn back to dealing with less high-blood-pressure-inducing topics, such as how anyone can really believe that there is a guinea pig loose on Mars.  But I will leave you with one last thought about today's story, a quote from the wonderful author Terry Pratchett:

"The company of those who seek the truth is infinitely to be preferred to the company of those who think they've found it."

Satan, politics, and yoga

As I've mentioned before, I tend to avoid purely political topics, both in Skeptophilia and also in face-to-face discussion.  I simply don't know enough about most politically-based issues to comment intelligently, and if there's one thing the world needs less of, it's people bloviating on topics about which they are essentially ignorant.

Still, there are a couple of things that strike me as interesting about political races in general.  The first is that a lot of elected officials are evidently elected on the basis of being Average People -- the folksy, I'm-one-of-you-guys approach is wildly successful, creating an environment where "Vote for Joe Smith!  He's just as dumb as you are!" becomes a viable campaign slogan.

The second is how many people are one-issue voters.  As long as the candidate agrees with you on that issue (common ones are abortion, gay marriage, tax reduction, and immigration policy) (s)he can have wildly bizarre opinions on other topics and still get elected.  In fact, as long as the candidate has the right line with respect to the one issue, (s)he can be crazy as a bedbug and no one seems to notice.

Which brings us to E. W. Jackson, who is a candidate for lieutenant governor of Virginia.

Jackson is a minister-turned-politician who is the pastor of Exodus Faith Ministries, an evangelical Christian sect.  He's also a published author, with a book called Ten Commandments to an Extraordinary Life: Making Your Dreams Come True that was excerpted in an article for the National Review Online by Betsy Woodruff called "From the Pulpit to the Ticket."  And these excerpts, along with direct quotes from a political rally/prayer meetin' that Woodruff attended, make Reverend Jackson sound like he might be, not to put too fine a point on it, batshit crazy.

He clearly thinks that his political success is one of god's most pressing priorities.  At the rally, he got a little agitated when he considered the possibility of losing the election:

One of the questions they’re asking now is, are they going to be able to shut E. W. Jackson?  And the answer is no, because there’s a fire in my bones!  Our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ love and righteousness!  You try to build this nation on anything or any other foundation, and it will fall!  Glory to God!

Predictably, his stance is "pro-life" and against gay marriage -- hardly unusual for a conservative Republican.  What sets him apart is his attitude toward his intended constituency.  Here's a quote from his book:

[M]ost people are dead spirits. As such they have the nature of Satan who does not want to have anything to do with God or anyone related to Him. Of course they are not aware that they are imbued with the nature of Satan. They would be mortified by the idea of becoming Satanists or devil worshippers. Satan benefits far more from people who do not know they serve him than from those who knowingly bow to him. Your spirit was made for attachment. It is either attached to God or to Satan, but it is not neutral, no matter how much people think themselves to be.

And, in Jackson's mind, it's easy to get "attached to Satan."  Even doing yoga is enough:

When one hears the word meditation, it conjures an image of Maharishi Yoga talking about finding a mantra and striving for nirvana. . . . The purpose of such meditation is to empty oneself. . . . [Satan] is happy to invade the empty vacuum of your soul and possess it. That is why people serve Satan without ever knowing it or deciding to, but no one can be a child of God without making a decision to surrender to him. Beware of systems of spirituality which tell you to empty yourself. You will end up filled with something you probably do not want.

Yes, people, Jackson believes that Satan latches onto people while they're doing yoga.  Here I just thought that yoga was good for making you less stressed and more flexible, but apparently I was wrong -- Satan just waits till you go into the Lotus Position and then leaps on you while your legs are all tangled up.

What's worse, apparently the people at his church just kind of sit there and nod when he says this stuff, a reaction I find frankly baffling.  I mean, if I told my students that they shouldn't eat pineapple,  because pineapple is the Devil's Fruit (you can tell because it's spiky), and that they'll become possessed by Satan if they eat it, I would quite rightly be escorted off the premises after being given a horse tranquilizer.  But Jackson, evidently, can babble this kind of nonsense, and no one objects.

You have to wonder how the interests of Virginia will be best served by having a lieutenant governor who thinks that most of the people in his state are dead souls who have the nature of Satan, and who seems, frankly, to be a raving loon.

If I owned a yoga studio in Virginia, I'd be thinking of other options right now.  Maybe switching over to PraiseMoves, which bills itself as "the Christian alternative to yoga."  The founders of PraiseMoves would agree wholeheartedly with Reverend Jackson:

Yoga is always destined to fail miserably in its fundamental purpose. Yoga practices can be very harmful as well. Physically, spiritually and emotionally harmful. Yoga was always meant to be imparted by a teacher that stayed with the student for long periods of time. Constantly monitoring, constantly instructing, constantly observing the student. The Indian gurus that teach yoga are always in a disciple/devotee relationship with their students. This is because yoga can be a very dangerous practice...  The exact opposite happens in a typical PraiseMoves class. At the end of class, the participants feel connected with fellow Believers. They have had a real encounter with the God of the Bible, through His Word, and His Holy Spirit.

So that clears that up.

Anyhow, despite my being generally apolitical, I can't help but hope that Reverend Jackson loses this fall.  I haven't yet gotten over my elation that Michele Bachmann isn't seeking reelection -- I was hoping that there'd be one less wacko in an elected position this November.  But if Reverend Jackson wins, it'll come out a wash, which seems to be a pretty common occurrence.  Maybe there's a Law of Conservation of Elected Wingnuts, or something.