Charlatans, Demagogues, and Scientists
You often hear people complaining about spiritual scams such as charlatans who pretend to be psychic, or religious leaders who pervert religion to suit their thirst for power. But one of the biggest scams is hardly even recognized. This is the scam perpertrated by scientists who deny the reality of ESP and the afterlife. The evidence for ESP and the afterlife is overwhelming and the claims of materialist pseudoskeptics to the contrary don't stand up to a close examination of the facts. What could be more important to science than the huge gaps in scientific understanding revealed by ESP and the afterlife? What could be more important to humanity than the knowledge that we survive death? What would the world be like if everyone understood that they survive death and they are responsible for what they did while living on the earth? - The world would be a much better place. When you consider this, you see that Science is a huge scam, has done immense harm, and is a colossal and repeated failure to itself and to humanity.
This scientific scam was first perpetrated when philosophical naturalism was incorporated into mainstream science and it has been perpetuated ever since by scientists and other materialists who claim moral authority from science.
The scientific scam makes other scams possible.
The charlatans who pretend to be psychic are small time operators. Compared to the scientific scam they haven't influenced society significantly. But the scientific scam is also partly responsible for the harm done by these charlatans who pretend to be psychic. Because scientists dissuade people from believing in psychic phenomena, they prevent the government from developing a licensing process for psychics like there is for doctors, lawyers, plumbers, and electricians. By pushing the psychic industry out of the mainstream and into the shadows, they make it harder for people to get reliable information on the industry. By calling everyone a fraud they obscure the fact that psychics are genuine and the charlatans are only pretending to psychic.
If scientists had allowed themselves to take up the study of psychic phenomena such as mediumship the way Nobel prize winning scientists such as Charles Richet, Pierre Curie, and Marie Currie, and many other scientists such as Sir William Crookes, wanted to, much harm would have been avoided.
Scientism exonerates religion.
Religious leaders who pervert religion to quench their thirst for power do immense harm. However the fact that the science scam perverts science into the religion of Scientism shows that you can't blame religion in general for the abuses that some people perpetrate. No one would blame the scientific method for the lies of Scientism and so no one can blame the phenomenon of religion in general for the problems caused by those who abuse religious belief.
Scientists who are the priests of Scientism, who put themselves up as intermediaries between the public and Truth, use science to control people, to keep them from accessing other sources of information. Mediums, near-death experiences, aliens, alien technology, and alien contactees are all sources of truth that threaten scientist's power. Similarly, scientists try to suppress information about intelligent design and even unorthodox theories like cold fusion. In order to protect their position of power, the priests of Scientism are doing everything they can to suppress access to sources of information that will demonstrate current science is incorrect or incomplete.
There are many people who dislike anything that has to do with religion and look to science to protect society from the harm they think religion does. However the same evil they claim is inherent in religion is found in Scientism. They can't blame religion for the problems they complain of because similar problems result from science and from political philosophies. The problem is not religion or science, or political philosophy, the problem is human nature. Power hungry demagogues will use whatever ideology happens to be convenient to gain power over others. The fact that science is perverted into Scientism by people who want to maintain a position of power is the proof of this.
A religion, Spiritualism, has succeeded where Science has failed: in bringing the truth of psychic phenomena and the afterlife to the public.
I have been a member of several Spiritualist churches. I never encountered cold readers, hot readers, or any other type of charlatans at these churches. The mediums I saw giving demonstrations at Spiritualist church services were expected to give veridical evidence of survival. If a medium did not have the ability to give meaningful, verifiable evidence that they were communicating with a spirit, they wouldn't be working for the church.
I know some people would like to blame Spiritualism for the charlatans pretending to be mediums and who have committed fraud, but that is a double standard. No other field is blamed for the charlatans who pretend to be practitioners. Even though science is abused by those who turn it into Scientism, science is not discredited by fraud. Scientific fraud only creates stronger arguments for stricter adherence to scientific principles, it does not discredit those principles. By the same logic, it is incorrect to blame Spiritualism for the charlatans who pretend to be mediums.
In the realm of psychic phenomena, Spiritualism is a clear case where an organized religion has outshone any other segment of society. Spiritualists have kept alive the knowledge of psychic phenomena, they have taught many people to develop and use psychic abilities, they have certification programs for mediums and healers, they help educate the community about psychic phenomena through lectures, demonstrations and classes, they provide demonstrations of mediumship and healing services to the community for free (or for whatever one puts in the collection basket).
Compared to the religion of Spiritualism, science is a fraud and a failure. In an area where Science has failed miserably and has been a force for ignorance and deceit, Spiritualism has been a force for reason, truth and light.
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