Outlands Community USA - 11 04 09 For Skeptics

11 04 09 A Genuine Skeptic

Wed, 4 Nov 2009 16:26:52 UTC

I am a bit leery of naming some skeptics by name, as one has a reputation for suing people who piss him off and another, in my 'umble opinion, is a jock with journalist credentials and a decent background in science who seems peculiarly hostile to folks making extraordinary claims. There is one writer, however, whom I shall name and shall actually praise because of his basic intellectual honesty and his great sense of humor: John Horgan.

In 2003 he published his book Rational Mysticism and within its covers he presents eleven different people, all of whom are in some way associated with what might be called "modern enlightenment." Some twenty-five years ago such folks were happy to gather under the umbrella of the "New Age" movement, but since the New Age has produced so many quacks, charlatans and frauds, many of the more genuine people within this broad phenomenon have been steadily making distance from the aegis of the New Age. Yet, one hundred years ago, the same people might have happily accepted that they were occultists. Horgan visited with Huston Smith, Ken Wilber, Michael Persinger, James Austin and - gawd help us - the late Terence McKenna and Oxford psychologist Susan Blackmore. For those unfamiliar with her, Dr. Blackmore is best known for exploring the concept of memes, but she is also a skeptic of all things paranormal and happens to be a Zen practitioner.

In each of the interviews pursued in Rational Mysticism, Horgan did what he does best, asked intelligent questions of each of these people and did some solid ruminating after. Perhaps the most profound of these was his partaking of the psychedelic brew ayahuasca with a group of others curious as to what this Amazonian shaman's "medicine" might show them about life, the universe and everything. While he was eased into the experience by very competent and compassionate guides (Tony and Kevin), at the end he experienced what any of us who have dipped into the scented vat learn, that our confrontation with the naked universe is a supremely solitary affair: he had what plausibly passes as a vision of the very end of time. Although written with an artlessness characteristic of him, the feelings of desolation of such a vision are apparent.

It is in the concluding chapter, "The Awe-ful Truth," that we meet the real man, someone who has asked the questions of those teachers and prophets so-called and has found so much in them and in their answers wanting. He recognized that while skepticism is a great tool for clearing away spiritual and scientific rubbish and nonsense, in the long run, like Zen, it produces its own rubbish. Thus string theory, parallel dimensions, the apocalypse due in 2012 and other phantasms can be disposed, but the ensuing residue is likely to consist of a growing and pathological doubt. At the very end of this chapter Horgan speculates about the notion of free will; do we humans have it? It seems from some viewpoints that we really don't but it is a social necessity at the very least and we all have some life-experience of it: he makes the point that his kids have more free will than an infant and that he has more free will than his kids. To feel that we have a free will makes us not only the arbiters of our experiences - something which any New Age guru would mercilessly push in your face - but makes us, and not some deity responsible for our lives as individuals and as a social whole. If you want to embrace the Eternal Light, then fer chrissakes DO something about the poor people in your part of the world. Any skeptic who thinks and feels this way is someone with whom I could have a great time over a coffee or dinner. Never mind that they might think that I'm deluded or that I think they're wearing blinders, bring another round of mocha lattes.

So, what then of the entrenched superskeptics who are hardnoses when it comes to mystical experiences all kinds? What of the folks who say that there is no telepathy, there are no spirits hovering about us, no afterlife of any sort and say it with such startling venom? I am here going to quote Hungarian psychiatrist Dr. Ede Frecska:

"......let us examine the soundness of Western confidence in scientism. We can summarize the basic concepts science holds about the human phenomenon as follows:

>>Man is the by-product of mere chance. This follows from the combination of evolution theory and random genetic mutations. There is no divine plan, no Almighty Creator. From the chance movements of the material world, complex systems evolved as a result of chance and were chosen by natural selection.

>>We live in a universe alien to us and ignorant of our destiny. The anthropic principle, either in its 'soft' or 'strong' form, is not able to come to the rescue of an individual person. The two forms of the anthropic principle diverge in their interpretation as to why the physical constants of our universe predispose it to be hospitable to human life, but agree that the cosmos is absolutely indifferent toward the fate of any one member of the species.

>>We have come from nothingness and will return to nothingness after death. The meaning of this is the same as the decree "dust to dust." Only the most basic components of our bodies will survive and continue on in the circle of life.

It is apparent to a mind trained in behavoral sciences that these concepts are strikingly similar to the Beck triad: the psychiatrist Aaron Beck noticed the cognitive distortion that depressed subjects perceived in self, the world and the future, calling it the negative cognitive schema of depressive thinking. Derogatory views of the self, the world, and the future are core features of the depressed individual:

'I am a worthless person.'
'The world is an inhospitable place.'
'My past is a tragedy; my future is hopeless.'

Beck suggested that depressed people draw illogical conclusions about situations, and these lead to a distortion of reality, which manifests in the magnification of negative experiences and the trivialization of neutral or positive ones. The cognitive triad is the source of the extremely low self-esteem of depressed subjects. Indeed, it can lead to 'micromanic' (the opposite of grandiose) delusions, manifesting in the extreme form as psychosis. The parallel between the these of scientism and the Beck tried is close and raises the following questions: Does the same outcome stand for scientific thinking as well? Is scientific thinking illogical or biased in its worldview in a way similar to that of a depressed patient? Of course, science is not illogical, but it may suffer from overexclusiveness [1]"

It would be easy for me to dismiss wholesale the work of those skeptics who would just as easily dismiss me and the Outlands Community as one more delusive and factless bit of bunkum. But the fact remains that not all skeptics fit the Beck triad, least of all John Horgan, whose basic honesty and good humor will forever stand in my mind as a check against the myriad snake-oil mongers rampant in the world who are ready to deprive you of your money and, illusion or no, your free will. Are the remarkable claims which we make here true? Be skeptical, inquire, question, even doubt a while if you must. But kindly do the same for those who claim there is no supernatural anything, who, in the words of my daughter, seem to be Bitter Old White men who would leave us in a world that is too similar to that of a chronically depressed individual.

[1] I wish to thank Dr. Ede Frecska for permission to quote pp 164 - 165 from his 'The Shaman's Journey: Supenatural or Natural? A Neuro-Ontological Interpretation of Spiritual experiences' in the book Inner Paths to Outer Space: Journeys to Alien Worlds through Psychedelics and Other Spiritual Technologies by Rick Strassman, M.D., Slawek Wojtowicz, M.D., Luis Eduardo Luna, Ph.D, and Ede Frecska, M.D. Park Street Press, Rochester Vermont 2008; and my thanks also to Dr. Rick Strassman for putting me in touch with Dr. Frecska

Rational Mysticism: Spirituality Meets Science in the Search for Enlightenment, John Horgan; Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston & New York 2003

06 24 09 Some thoughts about skepticism

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 11:59:30 UTC

There are some words which describe people's attitudes about things which are usually thought of as "supernatural." One of these is "skeptical" and for most people it means an attitude of total doubt. "Skeptic" comes from the ancient Greek word skeptikoi, which means "to inquire or search." The nuance of a skeptic being a doubter began in the English language sometime in the sixteenth century. A second word is "cynical" and is usually associated with a person who has an attitude of assured, perhaps sneering doubt about something. "Cynic" is related to the ancient Greek word kynos, which means "dog-like." It more than likely refers to a school in ancient Athens called the "Grey Dog," where a student of Socrates, Antisthenes, taught. How "cynic" and "cynical" morphed into the current English usage is beyond the scope of this short essay.

In noting that both words derive from ancient Greek usage, I should add that they both were descriptive of philosphical systems current in ancient Greece. According to Greek philosophical tradition, Skepticism was founded by Pyrrho of Elis (c. 360 - 270 BCE). His leading idea was to withhold assent to or agreement with a philosophical or scientific idea, because it is quite common that good reasons for a contradictory idea can be advanced. He had the very common-sense notion that we can only know how things appear. The teachings of the "School of Skepticism" was compiled into a longish book by the writer Sextus Empiricus (c. 160 - 210 CE) called Outlines of Pyrrhonism. It should be noted that this author did not count himself as a Skeptic. The school of Cynicism produced the remarkable figure of Diogenes of Sinope (c. 404 - 323 BCE), the son of a dishonored banker who moved to Athens, then to the city of Corinth in Greece. Although quite possibly legendary, stories told about him say that he lived in poverty; his home was a kind of barrel or tub. He is also said to have gone about in the daytime with a lighted lantern, "looking for an honest man." Whether these stories are true or not, they reflect the basic impetus of ancient Cynicism: to strip away the unnecessary in life. In modern terms, it can be said with justice that we don't need that Rolls Royce, we don't need that condo in the Hamptons or Monte Carlo.

The short sketch just given is meant to clear the air and put us on common ground. When it comes to things which are "supernatural" it sounds to me like a healthy idea to withold my assent or belief in them until I've made some inquiry into the phenomena described as such. There is no element of doubt in this skepticism, it is an attitude of "show me what you've got." This in turn comes from basic scientific method; if I claim that you can make a ghost visible by some process (I haven't claimed this, okay?), someone else should be able to test my claim using my method. This is known as "peer review" and has verified or debunked many a claim put forth not only by supernaturalists such as myself but by many a reputable scientist. It's downright healthy to be this way!

However, those of us who claim to experience supernatural phenomena are often hard-pressed to give a testable procedure to the world. As an example, people who claim they've been abducted by aliens are usually by themselves when the alleged abductions take place. The stories told by abductees plainly indicate that they neither desired nor caused the abduction, and in practical terms, they likely could not get the aliens to come back for a repeat performance. From this, many a modern skeptic can legitimately ask, "Well, if they're there, why don't they land in Times Square, at the Kremlin or in Piccadilly Circus?" The same can be said for people (like myself) who claim to have angelic presences in their lives. "If there are angels, why don't they visit the Pope or the Dalai Lama?" Or the Amazing Randi, for all of that.

There is a further reason for modern skeptics to be well over the edge into Total Doubt. Are the people making such fantastic claims also making fantastic piles of money from their experiences? If there are non-ordinary cures for cancer and AIDS; if there are in fact wise beings who wish to guide us from our destructiveness and foolishness as human beings, why haven't any of the people making these claims provided the information for free or for nominal charges? It's no secret that in the world of computers, you can have an operating system which in many ways is better than either Windows or Mac. Linux and its many distros (Ubuntu, Debian) are available for free under the various OpenSource licenses. I don't see why someone making claims for cures and guides can't give away what they themselves have been given - and many a skeptic will agree with me there.

In an epistemological sense, it does to some degree matter how a person views the world when it comes to supernatural phenomena. If a person has a life attitude of "it can't happen," it is likely that no amount of evidence or peer-review repitition will convince them. On the far other end of this spectrum are those who believe in these things without exercising any critical acumen whatsoever. These are people whom I would describe as living in Total Superstition. Recall that Pyrrho suspended his judgment about things; when it comes to extraordinary phenomena, it seems wise to do the same. While the sad fact remains that many people making wild claims are just plain deluded or lying,there are others who are not.

Wilhelm Reich (1897 - 1957) was originally a psychoanalyst who had been a student-disciple of Sigmund Freud but, like many of Freud's students, broke away from the master amidst controversy and ill-will. Reich's major contribution to psychology was his description of "character armor," wherein a person's "true self" was hidden from the world by various defense mechanisms created by the mind. Reich characterized such people as being extremely physically rigid, and he devoted a number of decades of hands-on work trying to help such people literally loosen up. It should be recalled that to be a psychoanalyst in Freud's day meant getting a degree as a physician, so Reich had the benefit of knowing scientific protocol. However, as his life progressed, Reich began making a number of extraordinary claims; one was that he had successfully created a kind of living organism which he called the "bion;" another was that the universe was but a face of a kind of energy which he called "orgone." Unfortunately his work did not hold up well under peer-review, and Reich's usual response was to dismiss his critics. In his later years he is generally seen as having been paranoid and deluded. That did not keep him from writing any number of books and articles. There is some interesting material in one of these, Ether, God and Devil, which has some relevance to our little foray here.

Reich claimed in this work that there were three kinds of people in the world - discounting those who had been liberated by his therapy. The first of these he called animists, and he described them as people who healthily experienced their bodily sensations and projected them out into the world. For such people, the sun was a person, the water was aware of the world. A second class of people whom he described were the mechanists, and for these he had a good deal of scorn: as they were so locked into their character armor, so rigid in their bodies as to not be aware of them, and they could at best see the universe as a machine and not as a living organism. Lastly, Reich proclaimed with almost equal vituperation, were the mystics. Mystics were, like the mechanists, rigidly locked away behind their character armor, but did in some way experience the physicality of their bodies; this experience was then distorted and then projected outwards into the universe and is responsible for claims about gods, angels, aliens and ghosts.

Whether Reich was paranoid and deluded at this point in his life is besides the point. Whether everyone who lives in Total Doubt may be legitimately described as a mechanist, or everyone who I describe as living in Total Superstition is one of Reich's mystics, is also besides the point. What Reich recognized is the epistemological worldview of people, and this has got to be recognized, or perhaps redefined for the present day. There simply are too many unusual occurances in the world that defy explanation under what we know. What I am asking here is that those in Total Doubt and those in Total Superstition start listening to each other, perhaps in a way that Pyrrho of Elis would approve.

01 03 09 Why we listen to skeptics

Fri, 2 Jan 2009 17:43:09 UTC

Although we haven't gotten any response on this blog I wanted to make a post for the New Year. I wanted to make clear that we here at the Outlands Community Home (in Clifton NJ USA) are aware what skeptics like Michael Schermer, Dr. Susan Blackmore and John Horgan think of us. I also want to make clear that we respect all of them and that their writings help us to keep it real.

To make a broad generalization, skeptics like those authors whom I've just mentioned (and a good number of others) do not believe that there is any supernatural element in the world, or among we mortal human-type folks. Usually they do not see the world through what may be loosely termed mystical eyeballs. This means: no ghosts, no angels, no UFOs, no aliens, no channeling and channelers, no divinatory methods such as tarot cards, astrology, palm reading, and no telepathy or similar "psi phenomena." This may sound grim to those of us who live a life which may include any or all of the above, but the reasons these folks give have a lot of validity.

First and foremost is the matter of proof. For those who have encountered UFOs or aliens, you might think that I am unfairly selecting you, but the request for proof is pretty basic and reasonable. Why don't the saucers land in New York, Tokyo, the Vatican? Why are so many tales told by people who were alone and far from other people? This applies to those who perceive angels and those who have died. If we can perceive these invisible entities, why is it that others don't?

We have our own reasons for doubting the claims of some people who have had these experiences. Many have written books about their experiences. It's okay to write a book, perhaps make some good money from it - witness Whitely Striber - but too often people who claim to have some corner of the supernatural realm make it into a thriving and deceitful business. Sylvia Brown is one such person; the Church of Scientology is another. In our three years online we have contacted (via e-mail) dozens of authors who have written what are usually called "New Age" books - Dr. Gary Schwartz, Arjuna Ardagh come to mind - and never received so much as a one-word reply. By contrast we have e-mailed an impressive number of people in the sciences, physicists, biologists, psychologists and science writers, all of whom were gracious enough to reply. Please bear two things in mind here: all of those who have replied are extremely busy people; many have enormous teaching loads and research programs with which they are involved. None of them are making the money that so many "New Age" people are. And none are deceptive, either. [1] Most have shown more than a sense of humor as well.

Another reason that skeptics doubt what we and other do is that there is no scientific theory in back of what we do. Perhaps for some, who have had no scientific training whatsoever, this is an unfair demand. Perhaps I'm different in that when I was a little kid I was heavy into science. I learned very early that if there is a scientific theory, it should be testable. Up until the rise of string theory [2], physics made some amazing advances - mathematicians and physicists came up with astounding theories and saw them demonstrated in laboratories, in astronomical observations and data analysis, sometimes in the aftermath of nuclear tests and also in particle accelerator tests. By contrast, there is little scientific theory promoted by the very New Age people I skewered a few lines back. When it comes to "where" angels and dead people "live" you'll usually hear something about "other planes" or "other dimensions." This has some scientific validity, but the science is something like 2300 years old. It's a variation of a Graeco-Roman philosophy called NeoPythagoreanism. Without going into a short dissertation about this school of thought, it drew upon the teachings of the much-earlier Greek philosophers Pythagoras, Plato and postulated that there was an invisible world of worlds, each "sub-world" occupying a particular vibrational "plane." There is no evidence whatsoever for these invisible vibrational worlds. You might think about this in another way. Would you want to be treated by a doctor who practiced the medical ideals of 2300 years ago? Or cross the ocean in a ship manned by mariners from that period?

We here at Outlands Community Home have some ideas about why and how we experience the supernatural things in our lives. None are all that scientific; they are theories that cannot really be proved or disproved. We think, for example, that human consciousness does not reside within the brain, rather, it uses the brain but resides outside of the body. We have no real theories for the successes we have garnered for our Learn Telepathy Quickly program - it may be that the Instant Messenger window, sitting on the computer screen, is a type of one-dimensional object, about which there is some wild and speculative writing [3] At the same time, those skeptical writers who say that there is absolutely no proof whatsoever for claims of telepathic contact seem (from here) to be broadly ignoring the accumulated research of long-established scientific societies such as the Society for Psychical Research (UK) and the American Society for Psychical Research (USA).

notes:
[1] We do communicate with a number of people in the sciences but we have made it plain to them that we will not be saying who they are in public. Our ability to maintain communications with them depends upon this promise to protect their privacy.
[2] Two great books debunking string theory are "Not Even Wrong" by mathematician Peter Woit and "The Problem With Physics" by physicist Lee Smolin.
[3] visit this page for an idea of one dimensional object theory:

http://www.programmablematter.com

Roy Waidler
mortal steward, Outlands

10 18 08 We welcome skeptics

Sat, 18 Oct 2008 15:50:42 UTC

We are aware that there are a number of people who will visit this website who are skeptical of our claims and would think that the whole thing is little more than fancy rubbish. We understand that there are those of you who will think that our mortal steward and channeler Roy Waidler is a deluded person and that all of the material on these pages is the product of his imagination. You might think that he needs some psychological help. You might think that he's a charlatan. So we've created this page for those of you who might react in this manner. We'd ask you to read on and perhaps leave a comment; you can do that by clicking the yellow "comments" tab at the bottom right corner of this page. To comment you'll have to leave a valid e-mail link; this prevents spamming and outright flaming.

So if you feel that there is no scientific proof whatsoever for anything having to do with what we discuss here, would you object that we'd think of you as a materialist or rationalist? We write these words with due respect, for were it not for the materialism and rationalism of the 17th century philosophes we might all yet be living in a world dominated by the darkest parts of religion. We recognize that materialism has given us much, down to the computer used to write this text. Materialism has also given us better health and has done much to advance genuine scientific knowledge and its varied applications in alleviating human misery. At the same time we would hope that you'd agree with us that materialism has certain limitations; this became apparent especially in physics, when the classical view begun with Newton could no longer explain the universe and all that is within it. It was from these limitations and disatisfactions that quantum physics arose.

We would also like to state our awareness of the number of charlatans who espouse ideas such as ours; they are solely out to capitalize upon the gullibility of the uninformed. It might surprise you to learn that we would agree with you about a large number of such people. At the same time this forces us to ask for special consideration that we are not like these other people or groups.

To address the first issue, we'd like to explain a few things. You might notice occasional comments in our material here that "we are not big on proof." We are not trying to hide behind ignoring legitimate requests for demonstration of our claims. If you are at all familiar with the nature of parapsychological research, proof is pretty hard to come by. The British Society For Psychical Research was founded in 1880 by leading scientists of the day to verify claims made by those making out-of-the-ordinanary claims. They performed a signal service by debunking quite a number of fraudulent mediums, and to this day one of their goals is to separate the frauds from what may be genuine. Having said that, we find it rather confusing that a number of people with a materialist view of the world dismiss the SPR and its work wholesale. The SPR did much to develop such things as double-blind testing and to use statistical analysis of data, and this was back in the 1880's and 1890's. Having said that, we return to our recognition that "proof is pretty hard to come by." There is one area in which we feel that we have been gathering proof of our claims and that is with telepathy. We feel that we have created a method by which a person may learn the rudiments of telepathic communication; this can be done in 15 minutes with the use of an instant messenger; we use the one that MSN/Hotmail has. If you're skeptical of our claims about telepathy, we invite you to try the Learn Telepathy Quickly exercise with us. You may request to do the exercise by e-mailing us at outlands.community@gmail.com No matter how the exercise works out, if you are a skeptic, with your permission we will publish the results here in this blog. We're not afraid of falling flat on our face! We liken the current state of our telepathy project to that of the early days of the telephone; at first, calls failed easily, you had to shout to be heard sometimes, and there was a small danger of electrical shock if there was a lightning storm. Yet today many people avail themselves of the telephone's descendants, the Internet and cell-phones.

As for the second matter, we are plainly not charlatans. We ask no dues, we charge no fees for Membership. We don't even push people too hard to become Members; they may instead choose to remain in contact with us without joining and we refer to them as Associates. Members and Associates may believe whatever they want because we have no set dogma and only one real rule: to be courteous in all dealings with us and with each other. We have among the Members and Associates people with many beliefs; there are Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Pagans, Atheists and Agnostics. We'd also like to point out at we do not market anything; we don't sell CDs, DVDs, books, teeshirts, hats, totebags or devices. No-one gives up the life they are living to become slaves of the Community. In fact, in the past we have commissioned and paid for work by Associates and Members; further, we have provided subsidies to those in genuine financial need. If you are going to judge the character of the Outlands Community as an online spiritual group we ask that these things be considered.

Sara Jane van Beeuwelan and Roy Waidler