who abandoned a formerly lucrative career in the New Age world and is preparing to return to school to become a social scientist and researcher.

Many thanks to Mr. Brian Steel of Australia, who alerted me to this article.

(For those unfamiliar with his work, Brian Steel is a Spanish language specialist.

For a few years, Mr Steel was a disciple of an Indian guru named Satya Sai Baba and wrote promotional material publicising the guru's alleged miracles.

Eventually Mr Steel recognized that Satya Sai Baba's claims were fraudulent. His intellectual journey mirrors that of Kara McLaren.)

Using his research skills, Brian has documented how Satya Sai Baba marketed himself over the years. Steele traces precisely how and where SSB's published texts contradict each other. His website is a fascinating read.

[bdsteel.tripod.com]

Two Cultures: New Age and Science/Skepticism

Kara MClaren has observations about New Age culture that may ring a bell for some of us:

'The problem is this: In my culture, you can't openly attack anyone or their character, [i:d12ec4cf39]and you can't use truly focused skepticism[/i:d12ec4cf39]. In my culture, personal attacks are considered an example of emotional imbalance (where your emotions control you), while deep skepticism is considered a form of mental imbalance (where your intellect controls you). Both behaviors are serious cultural no-nos, because both the emotions and the intellect are considered troublesome areas of the psyche that do very little but keep one away from the (supposedly) true and meaningful realm of spirit.'

This rejection of reason has left so many lovely people vulnerable to harm--and the author eventually left the New Age culture for this reason, and also abandoned a lucrative career.


[www.csicop.org]

This is an excellent article.

This points out the problem I had in Massage. The cultural divide she mentions is so extreme there that my loss of licensure is seen as a triumph for the New Age and the end of "those people" (skeptics and other belief systems). And this is not just in Massage, but in America. Civil Authority backs the New Age, or so it is seen.

The cultural divide is reaching the boiling point.

Rand

Good for her. I hope that good things come out of this. She is very brave to be so honest and forthright with her experiences. I am behind her 100%.

After the experiences I've had, I will never again allow someone to tell me that the thinking mind is a "distraction" or "ego" or some evil in the way of my enlightenment. My thinking mind saved my ass, thank you very much. Without it I would have been sucked into a vortex I would have no chance of getting out of. I value my intellect deeply and it's really nice to be connecting with it again.

Anyway, why can't what we know from science be considered miraculous enough? Look at human anatomy. When you really delve into the science of the body, it is a miracle. You don't need to project all of this mysticysm onto it. It's amazing without all of that.

If God gave us an intellectual capacity, these beautiful thinking minds, then it's spitting in the face of God to negate that. I believe that God wants us to think. That there is no real value in merely having an open heart if you're negating the gift of your intellect and capacity for skepticism at the same time.

I was a closet New Age Ninny, when i was in my 20's.

I think it all started for me when i read Creative Visualization by Shakti Gawain, and i just went from there.
The impetus behind it for me, was the search for Truth, Meaning, Understanding, and just trying to figure out how the Universe works, and what is the nature of Reality.
That was the driver for me.
What is the Nature of Reality?

Also, another big driver in this is personal Grandiousity, and Wishful Thinking.

I always had certain doubts about the truth of what was being said, and EVENTUALLY my common sense and BS detectors kicked in, and my mind switched over to the Skeptical side.

She is correct about James Randi and others. They are quite vicious in their methods, and that just entrenches the other side in their beliefs.

One person she doesn't mention is Carl Sagan.
His book, "The Demon Haunted World" put the final nail in my NewAgey beliefs.
Carl Sagan also commented that guys like Randi, and their approach was not very helpful.
Sagan put forward ideas on how to teach Critical Thinking, but to do it in a non-threatening way.
For instance, his books do this.
They are always respectful of the "other side", and express respect for others beliefs, AND he offers a HOPEFUL vision for the future as well, as many other things.

I think the approach of Carl Sagan is the most effective, and its a shame he died, as he would have been the #1 voice for reason in this New Dark Age. Maybe i should try and Channel Carl Sagan?
:wink:

Probably the key is to listen, and be respectful, and to introduce ideas in a non-threatening way.

I am guilty of just attacking the idea directly. This is easier, but far less effective.
Carl Sagan put out an entire program of how to do this, and part of it was his Baloney Detection Kit.
[www.uiowa.edu]

It takes enormous patience, and Character to be able to deal with irrationality in a respectful way. Belief change is a slow process.

By the way, my NewAgey beliefs changed, but the drivers are still the same. The search to understand how the world/universe/mind/brain works.
The difference now are the METHODS to go about doing this.

In my view, this problem starts with our education system, which teaches kids to OBEY and listen to Pronouncements from Authority, and not think for themselves.
Also, Catholic Schools, and other religious schools, just teach there are a priori TRUTHS that cannot be questioned.
I see no difference in believing in Virgin Births, and Miracles, then i do with Aliens, Channelling, and reaching Christ Consciousness.

There i go being provocative again....but its too much fun!

If you get a chance, read this book, you can get a used paperback for a few bucks. It will change your life.

Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World : Science As a Candle in the Dark.
[www.google.com]

Coz

that she couldn't talk to anyone in her circles about the process that she was going through in shifting to skepticism. Gee, what compassionate, loving New Age colleagues. :roll: So threatened by her challenge to their narrow beliefs that they couldn't find it in themselves support her emotionally. This is why I have rejected so much of the New Age community. They are just as close-minded and rigid as any other fundamentalists.

you can go visit the www.sustainedaction.com website--it covers the very troubled legacy of Carlos Castaneda, whose work has been revealed as fraudulent, and who has, since last year, been unmasked as leader of a very cruel, secretive cultic group.

Castaneda's fantasy books were a major contribution to New Age thought, which has its earlier sources in Gnosticism, Blavatsky/Theosophy and Gurdjieff.

There were a small group of dedicated correspondants on SA, such as emiliolizardo, greg mamishian, and robin billings, who tried to argue with people who'd invested their peace of mind and sanity in Castaneda's wierd world. They got burned out, got tired of being screamed and jeered at, and left.

The clash of the two cultures is quite visible on the website.

If you use the concept of meme theory, you can see that the big difference between New Age and science is that both are bundles of memes, but the New Age 'meme-plex' lacks 'meme busters', while science has 'meme busters.'

Critical thinking (aka 'meme testing/meme busting') is the intellectual equivalent of a boundary--like a well functioning immune system.

When you lack a healthy immune system, you get sick from any alien micro-organism that comes along, because your physical boundaries are readily breached.

If you dont know how to detect and test new memes through use of critical thinking (and a capacity for healthy, appropriate annoyance when your BS detector is triggered)--then your brain will be infected by any stray meme that floats in on the cultural tide.

If you dont have a 'meme buster'--that is, critical thinking skills and tools such as Carl Sagan's Baloney Detector, you have no way to test the memes in your collection and determine which ones are truthful and which ones are just cluttering up cognitive space.

Unless you can test memes, you'll eventually get stuck with what I call 'cognitive packrat syndrome'--your inner life gets more and more cluttered up with a burgeoning jungle of memes that you've never tested and dont ever toss out, exactly the way you get more and more dust bunnies under your sofa when you neglect to clean house on a regular basis.

(Guilty as charged!)

I flirted mildly with some New Age material myself. But I never really got into crystals, even when these were fashionable; it wasnt critical thinking that saved me.

What saved me was sensing that if I let myself take crystals and channelling seriously, there would be an expanding list of things I'd have to worry about and that I'd have too much stuff to worry about.

Thats the thing with New Age stuff--without a 'meme busting' process built into it, there's no limit on the amount of mental curios you end up burdened with.

The embargo on anger had a crippling effect. My peace group boycotted anger, and we thought it bad to 'be judgemental'.

As a result, we were constantly taken advantage of by various street savvy crooks.

The limit was achieved when one of the women in our group came home early from work and found her boyfriend at home, in their bed, shagging another woman.

X got mad.

Know what her boyfriend said?

He bleated, 'You're being judgemental!'

Leopard Girl wrote:

>This is why I have rejected so much of the New Age community. They are just as close-minded and rigid as any other fundamentalists.<

Indeed they are. I had a group jeering and taunting me, asking if I'd gotten my massage therapy license back yet.

And people tell me New Age beliefs are sweet and nice, and there's no problem with them being on a civil test...

Rand

I have a buddy from kindergarden days, who is now a New Age type of "healer" He does a grab-bag of techniques, and makes 6 figures, working a few hours a day, has a book, tapes, a website, etc, etc.

He is a good person, and is still my friend. BUT, he has no interest in modifying his beliefs. He thinks he understands "Reality" and that he is healing people, and people pay him hundreds of dollars to "heal their auras" and stuff like that, sort of waving his hands around in the air.
He was a chiropractor, so he is a real good self-promoter.

I think he is smart enough to see when things don't work, but the money, and the adulation blind him.
Its funny, i have never really gotten into applying critical thought to his work in his presence. After all, its a free country, sort of, and people are freely giving him money to do his "treatments", and some people probably get better from the placebo effect.

So its a tricky thing.
As long as what people are doing is legal, and they are not using undo coercion, then i can't see anything wrong with it, even though i think its bunk.
It really moves into freedom of Religion, which is what it is.

Perhaps the criticism should start when people are abusive, and exploitative, and coercive.
If they are just good salesmen, selling the Placebo effect to willing customers, and if they are "wrong" but have no interest in trying to sort things out, then this is something else.

I have many New Agey friends in the entertainment business, and when they talk about their stuff, i just nod my head, and say "hmmm, interesting". I really don't get into it.

New Agey beliefs will always be with us. Humans like to be Magical Thinkers. Perhaps we need to accept and respect others beliefs, even if we think they are nutty.
What i say to people is, "that's an interesting perspective. I actually look at the same thing in a very different way".

As i think about it, i think basic New Agey beliefs are ok, just as long as they don't go too far. Then real harm can set in.
But many New Age believers will NEVER change their beliefs.
After all, how many people give up their Religions?

Coz

'As i think about it, i think basic New Agey beliefs are ok, just as long as they don't go too far. Then real harm can set in.'

If Karla McLaren (the former New Age teacher) is right, and if rejection of critical thought is an essential part of New Age culture, then right away, you've jettisoned the one thing that can help you determine whether your commitment to New Age belief 'has gone too far.'

[i:cb33db9a76]Suspension of critical thinking and actual rejection of critical thinking may be two different things.[/i:cb33db9a76]

Suspension of critical thinking is what we do when we [i:cb33db9a76]pretend to forget [/i:cb33db9a76]that Star Trek is 'only' a TV show (or movie). We thus enjoy Star Trek, but we dont get trapped in the story. A tiny part of us is aware that we are not on the SS Enterprise, even while another part of us is experiencing the story as though we 'are' aboard the SS Enterprise.

It is a very different matter when someone forgets that Star Trek is 'only a story' and they take the fantasy for reality and get trapped in the fantasy.

Critical thinking (and also the ability to tell the difference between metaphor and reality) have been jettisoned (or never acquired).

You're without meme testers and while you experience the world as marvellous and wonderful (as a little child does) you have also become vulnerable, and exploitable, just as that small child is.

Cult activity begins when someone or something pushes us to first suspend, *and then* (this is the crucial step!) [i:cb33db9a76]reject or disable [/i:cb33db9a76]critical thinking altogether.

Once you've rejected or disabled critical thinking, you have NO way to re-evaluate whether a situation is good for you or has begun to harm you--or persons you are with.

Its like finding yourself walled into a room with no doors or windows from which to make a non-traumatic exit.

If you've merely suspended critical thinking, you can still locate an exit door and make an fairly non-traumatic exit. But you usually need to be healthy, reasonably well rested and no under heavy influence from drugs, alcohol, trance or group think for your critical thinking to be suspended, yet still 'locatable'

To escape from a mental room in which critical thinking has been totally rejected or disabled, you either have to be rescued by someone who kicks the wall down from outside, or you have to kick a hole in the wall yourself--or get thrown out of the group.

These forms of exit are traumatic as hell. So is the third option--getting kicked out by the group that has conned you into rejecting critical thought.

Critical thinking is like a good pocket knife. You dont need to have it in your hand, blade open, all the time, but its smart to always have it within reach, because you never know when you'll need it.

One situation that can readily lead first to suspension of critical thinking, and perhaps later to rejecting it, is precisely when many of your friends or co-workers have rejected critical thinking.

When we are nice people, we usually stay quiet and nod our heads when a friend or coworker (or boss!) praises some odd belief system. I was out of town for a week as a crew member on a 7 day sports marathon, and a coworker would babble all sorts of peculiar health theories in my ear.

I nodded and let it go in one ear and out the other. But if I'd gotten more involved in the discussion, I might've been sucked in.

So first you listen because you're polite. Without critical thinking skills, you may end up continuing to listen because you get interested and dont run tests on the material.

Then you go to an 'orientation meeting'. If you dont take out your critical thinking tool-kit the next thing that may happen is..

you pay a hefty chunk of change, sit in a manipulated environment and...you know the rest.

The Esalen Institute contributed in very important ways to the New Age movement. Geoffrey Hill gave several lectures at Esalen and in this long but worthwhile article, he gives his take on how the Human Potential Movement fell short of its early promise.

[www.pacificnet.net]

(Hill quotes)

THE FAILURE OF THE HUMAN POTENTIAL MOVEMENT:
FROM SELF-ACTUALIZATION TO EXPERIENTIALISM

'Like all other social movements, the Human Potential Movement, after certain inner conflicts were resolved within it, has moved inexorably toward its present and future destination, dictated by the loudest voices within the tribe[i:67886e743c]...This is why it is usually dangerous to follow movements wholeheartedly, for the most pathological voices are usually the ones guiding it[/i:67886e743c]. (Which means we need critical thinking and our meme testing kits within our reach!-Corboy)

'And this brings up the paradoxical nature of all movements. On one hand, the positive, healthy aspects of a movement empower individuals toward their desired ends, and there is always much greater potential in numbers more than in the individual. On the other hand, the greater the adherence to the movement, the more depowered is the individual subscribing to it. ... The reason movements rarely possess this ideal is because the loud, predominant voices within each movement demand the attention and obedience from the majority, thus robbing individuals of their individuality and authenticity.

[i:67886e743c]So, like all movements with good ideas, the Human Potential Movement has been led astray from its good ideas by its most vocal leaders, and in my opinion, has been walking down a narrowing and limiting path for many years. [/i:67886e743c]

'If there was a battle over the direction of the movement, it centered around the conflict between two men: Abraham Maslow and Frederick (Fritz) Perls. Both men had spent considerable time at Esalen, and both were severely at odds with each other. Maslow was the prophet of the intellect, standing as a perpetual reminder that the movement must not veer from it's philosophical moorings. He tried to encourage more reading, research and writing about the psychology of the movement. Perls, on the other hand, derided intellectualism. He was fond of saying, "Lose your mind and come to your senses". And he was the perfect example of that philosophy put into practice. He chastised workshop participants viciously if they didn't follow his directions to focus on their emotional and bodily wants in the here and now. He lived an aggressively sexual, predatory lifestyle on the Esalen grounds, seemingly having an obsessional need to proposition young women and to touch their genitals.

'While Maslow encouraged people to think, Perls forced them to feel. It was a war between the mind and emotions. While Maslow stood firm as a proponent of rational thought, Perls slithered through the grounds looking for his next sexual conquest. There have certainly been many who have come through the movement on an intellectual quest, but since this was primarily a movement of the boomer generation, where altered states of consciousness prevailed over intellectual growth, the forces of Perls, the emotions and the body won the war over the soul.

'I've been in (Esalen)groups whose prominent message is that redemption is found through the body. Through various methods of play-acting, participants are forced to act out their problems through violence. The message is loud and clear: if you have been oppressed, abused, mistreated, misunderstood, or robbed of your dignity, the answer is to get revenge in the same way which you were abused.

'In the minds of some of these participants, especially those who have cultivated their higher natures, that is, their minds and spirits, healing through violence is repulsive to them.

'And if such a participant in such a circle dares to resist the directive of revenge, if he dares to talk about the problem, to protest the bodily method of therapy, or to avoid confrontation through violence, [i:67886e743c]he is scolded that he is in his head, that he is thinking or talking too much, that he needs to stand up, be a man, and fight the battle through vicious anger through the body. When the majority of the group have conformed to the animal instincts canonized by the movement, the voices of protesters are effectively quashed, with physical restraints, ostracism, and ridicule[/i:67886e743c].'

All this echos Kara McLaren's observations about New Age rejection of critical thought

Hills other observations slot well into meme theory:

'Some emotional and philosophical viruses are usually hidden within each methodology which hinder the promised redemption from ever being fulfilled. This is especially so when certain seemingly promising elements of a particular movement are over-emphasized at the exclusion of other, less exciting, but healthier elements.'