In many respects this showdown seems to be the case. I think the latest media coverage in regards to the wrong psychic predictions made by Sylvia Browne has brought this on.

As a psychic medium, who has done this work for years, it boggles my mind. The simple explanation is that the Scientific community believes it has the facts and everything else is below that. They are perfect, the rest is not.

The funny part, the hypocritical part, is that we live in an age where all you hear on television is how you should buy the latest health product because it will give you new looking skin, pills for ordinary headaches, colds, and other natural occurances. We have drugs for EVERYTHING. We live in a drugged up society. Is it good for us? Who knows. Are many of these claims accurate? No. But why is constantly in our face? Looking out for the interests of people? Not at all. Money, money, money.

First off, yes, there are antibiotics that can cure an infection, but do we know all the effects? In many cases, absolutley not. Drugs affect every person in a different way. And in some cases we dont know the full effect of these medications. How many times have drugs been recalled, or we've found 20yrs down the road that something that we thought was good actually isn't?

I really can go and on, but the point I'm trying to make is that Scientists diss Spirituality a lot, but they dont realize that this is natural. There are natural ways to heal, to feel better. There are ways to connect to others, to connect to the other side, but it involves something much more than pills. You cant just pop a pill and solve the problem, you have to do it naturally, something that the Scientific community has never realized.

What do you guys think?

i must say that there is a scientific explanation for telekinesis and all that

Telekinesis, perhaps. But, I don't get what you mean by "and all that".

Even if you look past the differences in terms of overall outlook, I am just looking at the hypocritical attitude of this side. Science has brought many wonderful things, but it is not perfect. It acts that way however. "We have the facts, you dont". The point is that they dont. They have some things, the rest are lies. In all the ways you can think of, they do what they accuse the spiritual community off.

I like your post, Connect, and I agree that ideas about spirituality, mediumship, telekinesis, paranormal topics, etc. are under attack a great deal in the media right now. Your analogy about "popping pills" is interesting. I'm sure many people would love everyone to pop a pill to think their way!

However, this is nothing new. Metaphysical concepts, all of which have not been scientifically-proven but have many interesting theories behind them, have been under fire by critics of all sorts throughout history - media, scientists, academics, religious leaders, and everyday folks. Not all scientists (in fact, probably very few) hold the views of someone like James Randi, who often goes on TV to debunk Sylvia Browne and others. Randi is not a scientist; he is a magician, and one who definitely does not operate in the tradition of someone like Harry Houdini, who did debunk fraudulent people, but also was very supportive and interested in "real" spiritual issues. There are scientists who go on TV and criticize paranormal topics, but these are individual opinions, not that of a "scientific community." Scientists are, by nature, always arguing their points, and there are many scientists in favour of concepts related to metaphysics.

So when you have Sylvia Browne or other people putting themselves in front of television cameras, they are going to be easy targets for ridicule and criticism. Yes, this creates a negative environment for those of us who are deeply interested in spiritual topics. But the best thing to do is treat it for what it is: media sensationalism. There is a much deeper debate and research being done in the background - that is what is meaningful, not what is on TV. I say be part of the meaningful debate and don't worry too much about what's on the boob tube - and encourage other's to consider that too.

all the best,
Chris

Science doesn't seek to "diss" Spirituality. Spiritualists themselves, perhaps, but the scientific community's point is simply that these stated claims are still unproven. You're right, maybe in the future someone will come along and prove to the world that these things exist and can be beneficial to society, but it *has not happened yet*. In "dissing" people like Sylvia Browne, scientists are only trying to protect those innocent people who lack the information and perception to see a sophisticated con artist. I'm going to ignore your little rant on medication, as it is largely irrelevant to the discussion.

Not to quibble, but the closest word you could use for the meanings you're giving "spirituality" might be "spiritualism". Spirituality in itself is something that even materialistic scientists haven't targetted as an enemy, because at heart it can be much more free-form than organized religion, not needing a codification of beliefs.

There are tons of studies going on with the paranormal, some of which produce interesting data, however, the scientific community is biased against such work, so they never get much publicity.


Telepathy for example, has been proven in my opinion.

Well when we can all psychically heal ourselves we can stop using medication.

The "We have the facts you don't" statement and one's like them are used by both sides.

Scientists would stop bashing psychics if people actually proved that they have psychic powers...but thats all too easy isn't it. Every day somebody here at UM claims to have some sort of psychic powers and are suprised when they are bashed. Its like saying"I have a unicorn in my backyard" but not letting anyone over to see it.

Connect

Just by reading through your OP, are you confusing Spirituality with Alternative Medicine ? Your mentioning medicine and so the alternative to that would be natural remedies/therapies, which BTW I totally agree with ......Popping pills isn't always the answer....

I don't understand though how Spirituality fits in this equation........

My thought is that there are different forms of spirituality. Those could be classified as being religious, as organized religion, a form of spirituality that encompasses other beliefs such as mediums, ghost chasers, etc., and another that would best be described as mentalist.
Science would, if classified in these areas, be in the first. Scientists tend to attach themselves to a specific belief system and defend it against all comers, right or wrong.
I'm in the last class. While closely associated with the sciences for all my life, I will not allow myself to become too attached to any of the beliefs of science. I feel that's a terrible mistake.
Having this attitude has opened my mind to many things that seem to exist, such as psychic healing, which is not acceptable to scientists of any form. Ages ago, the attitude of medicine was that the medical doctor could not heal anyone, only aid in the healing (help the body heal itself); now, the idea seems to be that to be healed of any injury or disease, the docs are the ones that do it. This is pure nonsense: if the body doesn't want to heal, it won't; if the body does want to heal, it will heal, with or without help from doctors. What it boils down to is that the body is under the control of the mind, like it or not. Good scientific research has shown that mind things happen prior to physical things, but unfortunately this fact is not according to what medicine wants us to believe, and therefore is downplayed and ignored.
A research into endocrinology will verify what I have just typed.
It is fact that meditation or any other means of altering mind states is beneficial to the human body.
If we wish to progress, science must become more open to the existence of mind and its control of its environment.
Denying the existence of something does not make it false.

First off, welcome to the forum.

Now, about your claim that science has the idea that it is always perfect, is not true. You can ask any scientist if they think science is perfect and they will say something like "No, but it does have many answers."

Also, not all science is ignoring the possibility of metaphysical phenomenon. Quantum Physics is experimenting the possibilities of many metaphysical concepts. Heard of the Law of Attraction? Leading Quantum Physicists like Fred Allan Wolf are supporters of the idea, as are meta physicists, philosophers and even successful business people. IF you haven't heard of the Law of Attraction, The Secret is both a book and movie documentary that explains how it works and how you can use it to make a better life for yourself.

By the same token, touting the existence of something doesn't make it true. From what I've seen many people percieve the scientific community's statement of "there is no proof" to be the same as "it doesn't exist". This is simply not true, a scientist can believe with all their heart that something exists, but until there is proof the only statement they can make is "we don't know". If you truly believe something like "psychic healing" will be the new wave of medicine, prove it to the world, to keep it to yourself is selfish.

I recall seeing a Nova program on psychic healing in Mexico. Short version of long story: healer sliced open man with grapefruit sized lump in belly; removed large handful of flesh, threw it in trash; zipped man's incision up (just like a zipper) and sent him on his way.
This was filmed by the Nova crew. Their analysis was that it was fake, they had taken the trash, had the thing analyzed, and found it was chicken insides. However, the man no longer had a lump, and a second interview with him after 6 months showed he still was without lump and was perfectly healthy. Keep in mind this was a big lump, probably about 5" in diameter.
This was supposed to be a scientific investigation. In engineering, only a fool will disregard something that has been seen (or filmed) because it doesn't fit the standard beliefs; regardless of the possibility of something else happening (such as the chicken insides). You see, real science must take into consideration ALL the facts, not just one or two; failure to do so is failure of the scientist. And so, concluding that the operation was fake was in fact a failure of the investigating party, period.
This is one example of the failures of humans: it doesn't fit, disregard it or call it fake.
As to proving the existence of psychic healing, enough people have seen it, heard of it, or experienced it to force the issue: if it doesn't exist, prove them wrong, don't just say no one has proved its existence.

To be fair to the Nova crew, had the man with the lump been analysed by medical professionals and the 'lump' been confirmed as an actual tumor? It is relatively simple to fake a lump on the body and, with the use of a bit of animal blood and flesh, pretend to film a real excision.

I would think that the 'tumor' being revealed to be chicken entrails would indicate this example was an attempted fraud by the 'healer'.

The Nova crew had an MD in it. Also a sleight of hand artist, physicist, and the crew itself, among others.
ON FILM, the entire removal was shown. According to the crew, the subject had been carrying the lump (notice I say "lump" and not tumor) for more than a decade.
As I recall, when the healer was confronted with the chicken innards, she said "people must be shown something" to convince them that the removal was done.
In Mexico, in the countryside, no one fakes anything of this importance. Saying such a thing would be an insult to the locals, and one would no longer be welcome in the place. These were poor people, without either the need to impress anyone, nor the wherewithal to do so if they wished. They are also a proud people, with good reason, since they are descendants of those whose civilization predates the oldest known European civilizations. These people generally verbalize no intention of trying to impress anyone, nor did the healer. Her intention was simply to help those who attended this thing.
It is also wise to note that the "amphitheater" used had a limited amount of seating, less than 15 probably, as I didn't count more than 15. The given reason for this was that the healer could not function properly with a greater number of people; therefore, groups of that size were admitted in sequence.
Further, what I disagree with is the conclusion reached by anyone about what happened in the film if the results are not taken into account. Any theory that could be considered valid must include the results of the healing. Put it this way: working an equation that has 4 elements, 3 being unknown, cannot be solved. The same equation wherein 3 of the elements are known can be solved; with 1 element and the equate, a reasonable hypothesis can be obtained. Leaving out the results makes the conclusions nothing more than rantings of illegitimate scientists.

I don't see so much warring between Science and Spirituality as I do Science and Psionics. Spirituality and Psionics are two very different things.

But anyway, I agree with you. We can no longer do anything on our own. We must have this tool, or we must have this medicine. People need to realize that there's much more power inside ourselves than we think. Now, I'm not saying we can go run across the ocean while carrying a bus or anything, but we have a lot more power than we think, and we need to use it. It's not gone yet, but it may be one day.

Also, for some reason, I'm reminded of a supernatural book I glanced through one time. Patients (I can't remember what they were suffering from) were given pills. To one half of the patients, the doctors said the pill will definately help them. To the other half of the patients, the doctors said the pills may help, but probably will not. After about two weeks, I think, the patients who were told the pill would help showed significant improvement over the patients who were told the pill probably would not help. The pills given to all the patients were nothing more than simple sugar pills.