In his book “Pseudoscience and Extraordinary Claims of the Paranormal: A   
   Critical Thinker's Toolkit,” Jonathan Smith describes as paranormal and   
   extraordinary the claims of "astrology, psychics, spiritualism,    
   arapsychology, dream telepathy, mind-   
   over-matter, prayer, life after death, creationism, and more.” I find   
   absolutely nothing extraordinary about these claims. Most people around the   
   world believe in one or more of these things; and stories from every culture   
   around the world have all    
   sorts of accounts of the paranormal.   
      
   I suppose the reason that many people in the West and in places like China and   
   Japan get away with thinking such things extraordinary or pseudo-scientific is   
   that they live in cultures that practice religions that have outlawed most   
   forms of overt    
   spiritual activity. Shamanism, magick, clairvoyance, spiritism and similar   
   pursuits have been labeled as works of Satan by Bible-believing Christians and   
   Jews, and Buddhism has likewise discouraged similar activities. This has   
   destroyed the evidence for    
   such things. It has also destroyed the evidence for God. So now there are all   
   these materialist fundamentalists, calling themselves skeptics, running around   
   saying that religion is for morons and spirituality is for lunatics, and that   
   both the mainstream    
   priests and the people who teach and practice alternative spirituality are   
   conmen.   
      
   I started out as an atheist – a militant atheist. I have a university   
   degree, I held down responsible jobs, and I am not into drugs. Nor do I make   
   any money from talking about these kinds of things. But I have had all sorts   
   of spiritual experiences. I    
   mean experiences with less than one in a billionth chance of happening; and   
   not just one but many of them.   
      
   And I know any number of highly intelligent people, including distinguished   
   scientists, who also speak of having had such experiences.   
      
   There was one time when my girlfriend woke up in the middle of the night   
   complaining that her ex-husband was talking to her in her head. In the morning   
   she decided to test this, so she said in her head, “OK Todd, if you have   
   been talking to me in    
   spirit then call me.” 30 seconds later Todd calls her and tells her that he   
   has been talking to her in spirit.   
      
   In 1995, I had a beautiful romantic relationship with a woman named Michelle,   
   who had finished an Ivy League university in three years, and who was a poet.   
   In 2000 I wanted to have this re-capitulated, so what happens but that I start   
   corresponding with    
   a woman named Michele, who had finished an Ivy League university in three   
   years, who was a poet, and who in 1995 had had a similar kind of relationshi   
   with a man from Bulgaria whose last name was similar to my middle name.   
      
   Once I saw in my meditation an outpouring of sorrow in Argentina. I picked up   
   the newspaper and found out that someone famous in Argentina died, and that   
   there was a huge outpouring of sorrow for him.   
      
   A gypsy lady was able to tell me that I was corresponding with a man in   
   California who was a chauvinist; that I had been in a fight with my father the   
   previous day; and precisely identify the character of people about whom the   
   only thing she knew were    
   their names.   
      
   And that is only the start. Yes, call it anecdotal if you want; but it would   
   not be anecdotal if it happened to you.   
      
   There was a significant interest in such things in 1960s and 1970s, that has   
   been blamed on drug use and a supposed generational “narcissism.” While   
   drug use may make available some parts of the brain that are not normally in   
   conscious use, these    
   parts of the brain are there drug use or no drug use, which means that there   
   is a reality to them that is independent of how they are stimulated. A person   
   practicing Buddhist meditation or shamanic practice can access these parts of   
   the brain as well as    
   can any acidhead. And then there is that little question of, Well why are   
   these parts of the brain there? What are they for? And why is it that when   
   they are stimulated – drug use or no drug use – they produce such results?   
      
   As for the claims of “narcissism,” they are simply ridiculous. Were Native   
   American shamans, Buddhist and Christian monks, Hindu swamis and   
   Renaissance-era witches narcissists as well? Most of these people are far more   
   humble than the materialist    
   fundamentalists, who are arrogant enough to think that they are sane and that   
   everyone else is a kook. Narcissism belongs much more to these vicious,   
   abusive, bullying intellectual fascists. As can be told by, say, any number of   
   women who've partnered    
   with men who have had such convictions.   
      
   Are claims referred to in that book extraordinary? No. Are they    
   seudo-scientific? Some are, and some aren't. There are any number of con   
   artists out there, and I have not seen a greater presence of them among those   
   claiming paranormal powers than among    
   politicians or stockbrokers. It is wrong to encourage skepticism of the   
   paranormal while opposing skepticism of economic and political practices. And   
   while it is reasonable to want a person going into such exploration to do so   
   with a brain, it is in no    
   way reasonable to claim that it is against intelligence to have had paranormal   
   experiences or to have beliefs in the paranormal.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)