Review of Science and Spirit

2022

Religious studies and concomitant fields within the humanities have long ignored paranormal phenomena as viable data for theory building. This thesis is an attempt to correct such an error and provide a step towards taking seriously the experiential reports of persons who recount anomalous and paranormal happenings that defy a materialist metaphysics. Post- Enlightenment societies have largely presupposed a working metaphysical model of materialism through which all acquired knowledge must be filtered. This model is insufficient to explain all the material data including paranormal phenomena. The assumption that this model contains the only method(s) that can assess data leads to a form of epistemological marginalization by which all other societies’ beliefs and experiences are subjected. The methodological approach of phenomenology and the accompanying tool known as “bracketing” are challenged and argued to be a reinforcement of the metaphysical paradigm of materialism. Other epistemological approaches are considered that advocate for more open ontological possibilities. An examination of the alien abduction phenomenon and the related research findings of several academics is presented with an emphasis upon the objective nature of the phenomenon. Related research funded by the US government pertaining to anomalous findings such as UFOs, poltergeist activity, remote viewing, telekinesis, psychokinesis, prognostication, and other psi-related abilities are discussed as they relate to the alien abduction phenomenon. The primary intention of this thesis is to showcase the serious attention that paranormal phenomena merit within the academy and the implications for incorporating such data, especially within the discipline of religious studies. New approaches and theoretical frameworks could potentially arise as a result of engaging with the possibility that paranormal phenomena are real and accepting that our current scientific understanding of the world around us is in some ways incomplete.

Spirit mediumship is a complex, near universal phenomenon (see Talking With the Spirits: Ethnographies from Between the Worlds for a cross-cultural snapshot of just a few of the world’s mediumship traditions), which, despite over 130 years of investigation from psychical research and the social sciences more generally, continues to evade scholarly attempts to pin it down and neatly explain it. Countless attempts have been made, however, from the debunkers who suggest that all mediumship is a mixture of fraud and delusion, to the social anthropologists who argue that spirit mediumship is a purely social phenomenon, performing specific social functions, and certain parapsychologists who suggest that spirit mediumship offers proof of survival after death. And yet, none of the theories that have been put forward quite seem able to offer a fully satisfying explanation for what is going on.

A Companion to Epistemology, ed. Dancy and Sosa, 1992

2008

The history of pathological skepticism apparently became strong with the "Age of Enlightenment" and the back lash to the power of the church. Pathological skepticism is alive and well in current science and is not confined to the paranormal. See the "Author's note" by Chandler Burr, (2002) The Emperor of Scent: A story of perfume, obsession, and the last mystery of the senses, Random House, Pages 227-239 for an example of "Hume's syndrome," defined as "a state of involuntary negative hallucination with regard to seeing or acknowledging facts that appear to disrupt one's cherished worldview." As in the age of enlightenment, those now so afflicted are educated, smart or even brilliant, with prestigious positions and honours. They just go off their nut when their nut buttons are pushed. As Burr states the situation, he discovered a "complex story of scientific corruption, corruption in the most mundane and systemic and virulent and sadly human sense of jealousy and calcified minds and vested interests. That it was a scientific morality tale." Abstract --One of the obstacles to progress in psychical research is irrational resistance to the phenomena. Among eighteenth-century Enlightenment writers, one type of resistance was evident that has persisted until present times. To illustrate, the present paper looks at David Hume's discussion of miracles in his An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748/1955). Hume's essay actually lays out a good case for some extraordinary events reported about the death of the Jansenist Francois de Paris --phenomena produced by the so-called "convulsionaries of St. Medard." The contradiction is resolved by Hume himself, who naively reveals what motivates him to deny the overwhelming testimony he reviews: namely, his fear of validating religion. This paper notes the same pressure to deny "miracles" in another eighteenth-century writer, Edward Gibbon; Gibbon, however, unlike Hume, yields to the pressure of evidence and admits one startling instance of a well-documented preternatural event. A third figure from the same century is cited, a rationalistic Promotor Fidei of the Catholic Church, Prosper Lambertini, who, ironically, may be cited as having advanced the cause of the scientific investigation of psychic phenomena. The lesson from history is not to be seduced by stereotypes: an empiricist can deny and distort facts; a religious believer can be critical and objective.

2020

Fellows of the Royal Society of London were invited to participate in a survey of attitudes toward religion. They were asked about their beliefs in a personal God, the existence of a supernatural entity, consciousness surviving death, and whether religion and science occupy non-overlapping magisteria (NOMA). Overwhelmingly the majority of Fellows affirmed strong opposition to the belief in a personal god, to the existence of a supernatural entity and to survival of death. On 'NOMA', the majority of Fellows indicated neither a strong disagreement nor strong agreement. We also found that while (surprisingly) childhood religious upbringing and age were not significantly related to current attitudes toward religion, scientific discipline played a small but significant influence: biological scientists are even less likely to be religious than physical scientists and were more likely to perceive conflict between science and religion.

In "'I Believe in Science Now!' Skeptics Between Hope, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", I follow the dictum that a pure ethnographic description should already entail the theory, i.e., it should entail everything to be said with no need for explaining, summarizing, or theorizing it. The text describes the scenery as full of tipping points and conversions and as corresponding to all that we have learned about the mediumistic trial; so far, the borders between science, entertainment, business, information, delusion, manipulation, self-help, and religion and the secular remain porous and the question who are the believers and the missionaries remains open for shifting interpretations. The adherents of the skeptical social movement who deny the existence of paranormal phenomena appear themselves to be completely obsessed by the paranormal. Thus, in my description, skeptics do not appear as spectators from the outside, but as an essential part of the mediumistic trial. Like Franz Boas in George Hunt’s case, however, they find it difficult to see their part in the game of the mediumistic controversy, because they do not take seriously enough how magic and mediumism need skepticism for their work and functioning.

The present study presents a discursive analysis of a cognitive phenomenon, paranormal beliefs. A discursive psychological approach to belief highlights that an important component of the cognitivist work has been how the object of paranormal belief has been defined in formal study.

Journal of Scientific Exploration, 2012

Readers of Dr. Tony Jinks's first major literary offering to the world of parapsychology might be surprised that, in his Preface, he makes two salient points that are not to be taken lightly: First, he criticizes as "facile" and witless the skeptical assumption that paranormal beliefs and experiences can simply be attributed to drunkenness, stupidity, gullibility, or emotionalism, and second, he claims that he is not an expert writing for experts. Regarding the former comment, it does justice to the book to state that Dr. Jinks is not only accusing lay persons of making these casual assumptions, but he targets professionals (e.g., clinicians) who base those same inaccurate diagnoses on mainstream psychological theory. My experience from over a decade in the field suggests that this form of "professionalism" is not only generally manifest in the aims underpinning the psychology of parapsychology, but I also see a new form of radical skepticism surfacing that i...