Paranormalia

A Medical Medium

As I've mentioned, I'm fascinated by what psychics and mediums do. I've long been convinced by the academic research that it's a real process. But how does it start? What exactly do they experience?

Not being psychic at all, to me mediums seem like a different species. Many of them say they've always had the gift, that as children they saw dead people, and assumed everyone did, and so on. They're so much part of the whole psychic spiritualism thing, with its jargon of 'energy' and 'vibrations', that it takes an effort of will to enter into their world. Some small part of me still thinks it's all made up.

But what if someone who is very much part of the real world - if there is such a thing - were to cross over? Doctors, for instance. I've always considered them to be a highly sceptical bunch, having been trained in the rationalist, problem-solving scientific tradition.

Years ago I recall visiting my local GP about a minor complaint carrying with me a book about psi research. He commented on this, having just read somewhere that ESP had been definitively debunked. (I believe it was an article by Susan Blackmore, who was pretty much everywhere at the time.) He wasn't hostile, but I got the sense that it would be pointless trying to convince him otherwise.

So I was glad when I was recently given an excellent book about a London GP who works as a spirit medium. It's called Consulting Spirit: A Doctor's Experience with Practical Mediumship, by Ian D. Rubenstein. (I thought at first he must be an American, since the book uses American terms like 'primary care physician' but it turns out this is only because the book is published in the US.)

Rubenstein's experience started in his surgery one day when a patient having his blood pressure checked suddenly said he had a man with him, and he wanted to have a word. The doctor had previously had no idea that this patient, a public relations whizz in the entertainment world, had anything to do with spirits. But went along with it, and to his complete astonishment the man then channelled his grandfather with a 20-minute discussion about Rubenstein's personal life.

Rubenstein subsequently learned this was something that he should be doing too, and started having powerful and accurate intuitions. He talks about receiving what feels like a 'tug' or even a 'slap' on the back of the head. This happened once when he chucked his car keys on the table just as he was going out, knowing he wouldn't need them; he felt a slap and a verbal warning to take them or they would get stolen. He ignored it, the keys were stolen, and all kinds of problems ensued.

In one particularly striking incident he hears from an acquaintance at the gym that her grand daughter has swallowed the plastic cap from a pen. It's assumed to be in her digestive system, but Rubenstein has the strong impression that it has lodged in one of her bronchial tubes, which would be much more serious. He convinces the woman and her daughter to have the child tested, but x-rays show nothing wrong. Having spooked them completely they insist on further tests in a major hospital. Still nothing seems amiss.

Finally, to calm the frantic women, a doctor suggests pushing a bronchoscope tube down the girl's windpipe.

That afternoon, the doctor looking after Kirsty extracted the chewed cap of a red plastic ballpoint pen from her right main bronchus. Because she'd chewed it, the plastic cap had frayed into little barbs so that it had begun to embed itself into the wall of the bronchus. It was unlikely she would have been able to cough it up. The consequences of it being left in her lung for any length of time would have been disastrous for Kirsty's health. She would have developed pneumonia or possibly even a serious chronic lung condition called bronchiectasis.

A useful come-back to the 'what good does it do?' complaint that sceptics always make about psychics, methinks.

Encouraged to go into it more deeply, Rubenstein joined a training circle at a spiritualist church. His first experience at the circle involved sitting in a circle and trying to focus on the first image that came into his head - as he says, the complete opposite of what they teach you at medical school. But he quickly discovered that the images were meaningful to other people. The figures he saw, and the situations they described, were understood and accepted by them, with a level of detail that makes any kind of chance or Barnum effect implausible.

Here's an example:

In my mind's eye, I could still clearly see Jane, standing behind Hayley. But behind her I became aware of an altogether more shadowy presence. This was a woman, older than Jane, with gray hair and wearing a floral dress. She was smiling and had her hands on Jane's shoulders. Then the image changed and became more vivid. I experienced the startlingly clear vision of a crystal chandelier, which took up my entire inner field of view. It radiated a powerful light and I could clearly see rainbow colors refracted from the cut crystal.

With that, I felt I'd suddenly been handed a vast amount of information about this woman; as if she'd somehow dropped it into my head, all at once.

I heard myself saying, very quickly, "I can see a crystal chandelier. There wasn't just one - she had lots of them. Her house was full of crystal chandeliers. She was very proud of her house. It was always neat. She was very close to you. I think she was your grandmother or maybe your grandmother's sister. She had a stroke and was incapacitated towards the end of her life... Then I started to splutter... I felt an intense happiness welling up in my chest. It became impossible to contain it and I burst into tears. Everyone in the room was looking at me. I couldn't help it. I was overcome with emotion. Then I lost the connection. It just went. I could remember what I'd seen but the vividness of the information was not longer so apparent. The emotions I'd been feeling had suddenly disappeared, as if someone had thrown a switch. However, the image of the crystal chandelier remained very clear - I can still recall it.

Hayley was looking at me intensely. "That was my aunt. My great aunt. You got her exactly right. And she loved crystal chandeliers. But the best bit is the fact that you're crying." "Why?" I asked. I felt extremely foolish. I hadn't cried in public since I was a child. "Because nine years or so before she died she'd had a stroke, like you said. It affected her brain. She became much more emotional. She used to cry whenever she was happy." I was pleased but I felt as if I'd been put through the wringer. My headache was back and I was completely drained of energy.

I found these sorts of detailed descriptions of the inner process quite useful. I also resonated with the way the author dealt with his new experiences. The tone is well judged: he is properly sceptical, in the sense of examining and questioning them, but he doesn't let this get in the way of his curiosity. He doesn't panic or try to suppress his intuitions. Nor does he agonise about what people might think when he develops his mediumship. He just gets on with it. In fact it surprised me how enthusiastically he embraced his new calling, while continuing his professional work. (It helps that he has a supportive wife, and nobody at his work appeared to seriously stand in his way.)

The book is breezy like a novel, written largely in dialogue, which makes it an easy and entertaining read. As I say, it's informative about the process of becoming a medium, and I really recommend it.

But more than that, it's also an important book. Rubenstein has shown how it is possible for an ordinary non-psychic member of society, someone who in his professional work is embedded in rationalist thinking, not merely to adjust to psychic intuition when it arrives unbidden, but to learn how to use it for the benefit of others.

(Since posting this, Ian Rubenstein has been in touch, and is happy to answer any questions readers may have in the comments thread below.)

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Plans for the Million Dollar Challenge?

I've been listening to a conversation between organisers of James Randi's Million Dollar Challenge. They were discussing a test of psychics that they organised for ABC's Primetime Nightline show last summer. It was quite revealing.

The test was set up by the stage magician Banacheck, DJ Grothe (president of the James Randi Educational Foundation), and Jamy Ian Swiss, also a magician and one of JREF'S resident experts on psychics. The clip can't be viewed outside the US, so I can't comment on how it went. But I was struck by the comments of Grothe and Swiss afterwards.

They categorise psychics in three ways. First there are the celebrities, led by the 'Unholy Trinity' of John Edward, James van Praagh and Sylvia Browne. Such people do great harm and make big bucks scamming ordinary people, they complain. They're desperate for scientific endorsement - if they get one they'll never stop talking about it - yet at the same time they're 'desperately afraid' to submit themselves to proper scientific testing. That's why none of them ever pitches for the million dollars.

Then there are the 'store-front' psychics, who offer quick readings off the street for a token fee, then try to bilk their customers with expensive cures for invented ills. The JREF folks were dismayed to learn that Nightline was targeting these people as potential participants, as of course none would submit to testing - and none did.

However they got a number of takers from their third category. These are psychics in the spirituality and New Age community, some of whom accidentally found out about the show and were keen to take part. Swiss calls them 'shut-eyes', by which he means people who actually believe that their psychic powers are real.

Grothe was fascinated by this. The idea of a faker who doesn't realise he/she is faking seemed to be a new idea for him. The psychics he met in the studio were all warm, sincere and kind-hearted, he commented with surprise. It's true, there really are such people, Swiss explained; they just don't realise that what they do is illusory.

Swiss went on to comment that sceptics are far too quick to assume they know what is going on in other people's minds. I'd say that hardly states the case. If they weren't so stuck in their ideological bubble these guys would know that psychic vision isn't just a game played by con artists - it's a mental process that people experience - more often than one would think. Just now I'm reading a book by a doctor who suddenly began having accurate psychic intuitions about real-life situations, followed it up, and is now also a practising amateur medium (a fascinating story for another post). You can't associate with psychics and mediums for long without understanding this. It doesn't have to be taken at face value, but that's where genuine investigation starts, by getting up close.

Grothe and Swiss also talked about the Challenge itself. This time, instead of designing a bespoke test, JREF came up with an off-the-shelf version they could apply more or less to any psychic, whether palm or tarot reader, psychometrist, mediums, or even astrologer. This was the way they'd like to go in future, Swiss said. It would mean the challenge would be more accessible, and they could take it out to the psychic community. 'No preliminaries, a one-shot test, and if you pass we'll give you a million bucks.'

As things stand, the Challenge is not a scientific test, as Swiss himself explicitly said. If someone ever won, he pointed out, it wouldn't mean that person was psychic, it would just mean he/she won on that day. It would be a fluke. (Surely this makes a nonsense of the taunt that psychics, by refusing the Challenge, show how scared they are of scientific testing.)

But there seems to be a certain impulse for change at JREF. When the Challenge was saved, having earlier been slated for retirement by Randi, I recall talk of it being made more transparent and accessible. This is odd, in a way. One of its strengths as a propaganda device has been that it's so opaque. We're invited to take the Great Man's word for it that no one has passed the preliminaries. With rare exceptions that's all there is.

It also succeeds by being so extremely hostile to the idea of what it aims to test. That ensures that no one who is at all gifted will participate, reduces the likelihood that anyone will win, and reinforces expectations of what it will find. As a method of investigation it's a non-starter.

So why tinker with it? It works perfectly well by just sitting there like a big roadblock. Scientists and sceptics love it, as it saves them having to leave their comfort zone.

But if younger, more dynamic people come along, and start doing things with the Challenge, pushing out the boundaries, what then? What might it become? As far as I'm aware there have only been three televised tests, but perhaps we could start seeing more of those. Suppose more psychics and mediums are encouraged to take part. In theory that might raise the chances of someone winning the cash, in which case the Challenge would become the victim of its organisers' overconfidence.

What interests me more is the possibility that, along the way, some of them might start to get a more educated view of psychics, and perhaps even feel that there's something here worth checking out, instead of mindlessly debunking.

I could be wrong, but I thought I glimpsed in this conversation some faint stirrings of seriousness. It would be going too far to call it scientific curiosity, but it might be the precursor to it.

Book Review: Rupert Sheldrake's The Science Delusion

We're used to scientists telling us that the universe is inert matter, that we lack free will, and that our ideas, beliefs and goals are just 'folk psychology'. To voice dissent is to invite sharp correction or be denounced as a follower of pseudoscience. So for those of us who are suspicious of the claims of materialism it's astonishing, and also heartening, to hear a scientist agree that it's a hidebound ideology, dismiss the belief in determinism as a 'delusion' and call on the 'high priests' of science to abandon their 'fantasy of omniscience'.

All this sounds rather rhetorical, and the title of The Science Delusion seems to have been chosen as a counterblast to the Great Panjandrum of scientific orthodoxy himself. But Rupert Sheldrake is not Richard Dawkins, and this is as coloured as his language gets; the book certainly has little about religion. For the most part it's a dispassionate expose of materialism's failures and a plea for scientists to open up to new thinking. The sciences are being held back by 'assumptions that have hardened into dogmas, maintained by powerful taboos', he argues. Not only have the most fundamental questions not been answered for all time, they can all be replaced by more interesting and fruitful ones.

Provoking stuff, but despite his reputation as a heretic, gained from his controversial theory of morphic resonance and his psychic research, Sheldrake has impeccable credentials as a biochemist - Cambridge, Harvard, ground-breaking research and a stint in India helping to develop high-yield crops - that demand respect.

Sheldrake identifies ten core beliefs that scientists take for granted: that people and animals are complex mechanisms rather than goal-driven organisms; that matter is unconscious and human consciousness an illusion; that the laws of nature are fixed; that nature is purposeless; that all biological inheritance is carried via material structures like genes, and so on. Each is the basis of a chapter in which he draws attention to unresolved tensions, problems and dilemmas. Most scientists think these will eventually be ironed out. However Sheldrake argues they are symptoms of a deeper malaise, and that the failure of the materialist model to make good on its predictions will eventually lead to its demise.

A key idea for Sheldrake is the existence of information fields that act as a kind of universal memory. Once a form or activity has come into being it provides the blueprint for other similar effects, which may then multiply with ease. The classic example is the formation of crystals, for which Sheldrake has elsewhere provided evidence, but in principle he thinks it can apply to anything, from the development of new organisms to the acquisition of new skills.

This has implications for cosmology, he believes. Far from being set in stone since the Big Bang, nature's laws should be considered as evolving habits that grow stronger through repetition; the universe is an ongoing creative process, of which human creativity is part. He questions the belief in the absolute equivalence of energy and matter, arguing instead that new energy may be coming into the universe all the time. If that's so, then the idea of a perpetual motion machine - a guarantee of crackpot status to anyone bold enough to propose it - could indeed be possible. But how will we know if scientists lack the confidence to strike out in bold new directions?

Modern science claims to have vanquished vitalism - the idea of a living force and purposive vital factors in animals an plants - as long ago as the nineteenth century. In practice it has simply reinvented it in molecular guises, Sheldrake argues. Dawkins justifies his idea of the selfish gene as a metaphor, but other neo-Darwinists like Daniel Dennett appear to take it literally, as if genes have a conscious interest in their future state. In reality, Sheldrake insists, genes are not 'selfish and ruthless, as if they contained gangster homunculi'; there's no evidence that they do anything more than make proteins. They don't carry the instructions for the development of embryos, let alone the intensely goal-directed behaviour demonstrated, for instance, by the wasps who successfully build and repair complex nesting structures no matter what obstacles are put in their way.

The machine metaphors beloved of materialist thinkers are misleading, he insists. No machine starts from small beginnings, grows, forms new structures within itself and then reproduces itself. Yet plants and animals do this all the time and to many people - especially those like pet owners and gardeners who deal with them on a daily basis - it's 'blindingly obvious' that they are living organisms. For scientists to see them as machines propelled only by ordinary physics and chemistry is an act of faith. Sheldrake believes instead that the development of organisms, and animal behaviour, are controlled by 'attractors' in morphogenetic fields, that exert a causal influence and draw the organism towards its goal.

Sheldrake has a lot to say about the unfulfilled promises of molecular biology. For all the excitement over gene science in the past two decades, and the $100 billion biotechnology boom that it fuelled, only a very limited genetic basis has been discovered for human disease. Biologists are drowning in data but can't make much sense of it. The genes associated with development have turned out to be almost identical in mice, humans, flies and reptiles, offering no insights as to why these forms differ so dramatically. In short, he says, it's time to look elsewhere for the causes of biological formation.

On the subject of consciousness Sheldrake points out that even materialists can't decide what causes it, which is why there are so many rival theories. He quotes Galen Strawson, himself a materialist, who is scathing about the way fellow philosophers are willing to deny the reality of their own experience - testament to the power of the materialist faith. He approves Strawson's interest in panspychism, the doctrine that all matter is invested with mental as well as physical aspects. That same conclusion was reached nearly a century ago by the philosophers Henri Bergson and Alfred North Whitehead, based on quantum mechanics: that matter is not timeless, and that all physical objects are entities or events that have an inner duration.

There is just one chapter on psychic research: this covers telepathy and precognition, with especial focus on animal telepathy and Sheldrake's own experiments with animals, also telephone telepathy. (The sense of being stared at is covered in a chapter on consciousness.) Sheldrake urges that science pay more attention to animal premonitions of disasters, and describes his 840-strong collection of anecdotal accounts of premonitions in humans, of which 70 per cent are about dangers, disasters or deaths. There is little on sceptics, apart from details of public encounters with two who dismissed his arguments while amply demonstrating they knew nothing about his research, and with Dawkins, who tried unsuccessfully to lure him into a debunking television interview. There follows also a chapter on mechanistic medicine, in which he acknowledges its record of success, but questions whether it is the only kind that works.

Materialists argue that their model has proved so durable, and so resistant to challenge, that there can no longer be any doubt that it is true. Sheldrake argues by contrast that the model is simply reinforcing itself by its expectations. Psychologists and medical researchers know only too well how experimenters' beliefs can influence outcomes. However this is not at all understood in the hard sciences, which as a result hardly at all use blind methods in their experiments. The assumption is that there is a 'correct' outcome, and if you don't get it you're not doing it properly. It would be easy enough to test for experimenter bias in a biochemical experiment on enzymes, for instance, Sheldrake says, but so far no one has taken him up on the idea. One British science teacher agreed that students are influenced by their expectations, but said that was 'what science education is all about' and he certainly wasn't going to open up that particular can of worms in his school.

If psychic phenomena is real, there is even the possibility that scientists can affect the outcomes of experiments psychically. Indeed the belief in mind over matter - so furiously denounced by professional sceptics - has been observed in the physics lab. Wolfgang Pauli was believed by his colleagues - and by himself - to unwittingly interfere with sensitive lab equipment by his mere presence. And remarkably, a biochemistry professor at a major US university even boasted to Sheldrake about his ability to get better results than his colleagues by 'willing' the system to work.

This is a superb and timely book and one for which in a way I have been waiting for the last twenty years. My own academic research has convinced me that psychic phenomena genuinely occur, and that the rejection of it is driven largely by ideology and personal antipathy. That being the case, it's hard to conceive that the materialist model is the whole story - for all its dramatic successes, which of course Sheldrake fully acknowledges. I can't judge how solid the case is for morphic resonance, but there seems to be at least some evidence for it and in theory it helps resolve some major dilemmas. Of course the book won't find favour with most scientists, who will brush it off as a persistence of discredited vitalism. But it may encourage some to be open about the more adventurous views that Sheldrake claims they often express to him in private.

Perhaps more to the point, there's a need for a book like this that's authoritative, wide ranging and accessible, and that challenges the prevailing paradigm for a wider audience. That applies especially to young people whose ideas have not yet been shaped by it, and their curiosity dulled as a result. The publishers were kind enough to send me two hardback copies - an error, no doubt, but I have put it to good use, giving the extra one to my eighteen-year old nephew, who is brimming with curiosity and questions about nature. I'd like to think that his generation have a greater opportunity to question the prevailing dogmas and will eventually forge a new science, one that describes more closely what humans observe and feel about their world.

Hitch in Heaven?

Christopher Hitchens's death has led to a predictable eruption of religious hostilities. For some Christian fundamentalists it's along the lines of 'that nasty atheist will have got a terrible shock'. For his part sceptic PZ Myers 'takes joy in discomfiting the godly'.

'We find our hope and joy in our lives, right now...not in an imaginary world, sight unseen, that we only get to enter after we're dead and unable to come back and tell everyone that the priests lied to us.'

It's hard not to wonder what a deeply committed atheist might feel on finding himself conscious after his death. Initial confusion and puzzlement, certainly, but gloating over a miscreant getting his come-uppance is surely misplaced.

Hitchens was praised for holding fast to his beliefs, even under the pressure of illness. I'd have expected no less. Even so, according to a BBC report he told an interviewer that if it turned out he'd been wrong he would be surprised, but that was OK, because he liked surprises. That sounds characteristic. I don't think he would feel any guilt. Like Bertrand Russell, he would say there hadn't been enough evidence. During life, the curiosity upon which he set such store just didn't stretch to psychic phenomena.

But perhaps all this is beside the point. I agree with the Huffpost's religious editor, Paul Brandeis Raushenbush, who thinks Hitchens' thoughts about his own death, and death in general, deserve respect.

His fierce atheism was determined to yank our thoughts away from any future place and time after we die, back to the world that is present to us in this very moment. Take, for example, this arresting passage from The Portable Atheist:

'Death is certain, replacing both the siren-song of Paradise and the dread of Hell. Life on this earth, with all its mystery and beauty and pain, is then to be lived far more intensely: we stumble and get up, we are sad, confident, insecure, feel loneliness and joy and love. There is nothing more; but I want nothing more.'

This emphasis on the present may feel incomplete to some. But concentrating on what we know -- our own experiences, senses and rational mind -- does not, in fact create a void; rather, it fills these precious moments that we have on earth with intensity, urgency and inherent meaning. An atheist perspective on the afterlife eliminates the option of patient endurance in hopes of rewards in the sweet by and by; rather, it insists that any hopes and desires must be realized in this life, or not at all.

A powerful disbelief in afterlife might be seen as an affirmation the value of life - one of humanism's more attractive qualities. If we're sure this is the only one we have, we should live it to the full, and not go 'gentle into that good night'.

But could the opposite be true? Does a belief in afterlife actually weaken one's commitment to life. Do we value it less if we look forward to the kind of existence described for instance by near-death experiencers?

It's possible. I sometimes wonder if Frederic Myers, who died relatively young at 58, might have lived longer if he had fought against his last illness. He looked forward to the next life so much he seemed happy enough to let go of this one. But then Myers was powerfully immersed in the idea of survival of consciousness. He was deeply romantic. He believed he was in communication with the married woman he had fallen in love with, and who taken her life in tragic circumstances, and that she was waiting for him. He couldn't wait to move on.

So perhaps his case is exceptional. One certainly can't generalise, and say that religious people don't value life. What one thinks about that surely depends as much on temperament and circumstances as metaphysical beliefs.

Hitchens had a good life, doing what he loved, surrounded by friends, and well cared for at the end. Someone in his position doesn't need to find consolation in the idea of an afterlife. But concepts of 'loving life' and 'living it the full' are not so much of an option for peasant farmers struggling with floods and famine, wage slaves in dystopian urban hells, African child soldiers, the homeless and the chronically long-term sick. The slaves labouring in American plantations found solace in the Christian message of a better future life, and could they be blamed for that?

Jonny Wilkinson's Search for Truth

I don't much associate rugby players with spirituality, so it's interesting to see what is being said about Jonny Wilkinson on his retirement from the game. Wilko was no common or garden sporting star. There was something oddly religious about his quest for perfection on the pitch, especially the obsessive practising at drop-kicks and conversions, that paid off so spectacularly in the 2003 World Cup. He seemed always, as Donald McRae says in his send-off piece, to "delve within himself in an apparent search for purity and truth."

That unflinching mentality was complicated by a puritanical streak that meant Wilkinson imagined every minute of his day was recorded by a hidden video camera. At night, he pretended that the instance of which he was least proud would be screened back to himself and the people he loved most. "I follow this ethos because, when I go to bed, I want to feel I've done absolutely all I can to move forward in my life. I need that intense self-scrutiny."

Was this determination to excel behind the perpetual injuries that eventually blighted his career? In another life Wilkinson might have been an ascetic hermit or a Jesuit, pushing himself to the limits. He seems to have a philosophical bent: he read up on quantum physics and took to Buddhism and meditation to help him moderate his obsessive perfectionism. People "scratched their heads in confusion" about it, McRae says.

Sports interviewers did maybe, but many other people will understand where Wilkinson is coming from. The remark about the hidden video camera recording his life is particularly interesting, being suggestive of the near-death experience. It got me thinking, because it's pretty much what I feel also, although without focusing on it particularly. I've become so convinced by the logic of psychic phenomena in general, and the near-death experience in particular - the materialist dismissal of the phenomenon as a hallucination seems to me to be scientifically incoherent - that I'm bound to pay attention to the implications. That means I take it for granted that everything I do and think is being recorded in some sense, and that one day I'll have to review the whole thing from start to finish. And quite possibly to have to keep on doing so. My past life will be my 'project'.

So the image has become part of the framework that governs my mind and in a certain sense acts as a restraint or as an incentive, as the circumstances require. In my case this has little to do with concepts of 'religion' or 'faith' or 'belief'; it's simply a logical step to take. If I'm going to be stuck with my life, as a product, so to speak, I'd ideally like it to be a class product, not trash.

Now since the near-death experience is so well known, it seems likely to me that a great many people allow themselves to be guided by it in the same way. In which case, the idea of a judgement at the end of life, powerfully present throughout the Christian era, remains equally present now, in a modified form.

I'm not sure how well this is understood by those people who long for the "death of religion". Richard Dawkins is on typically crowing form today in the New Statesman, pointing out that the latest Social Attitudes study published last week paints an increasingly grim picture for religion in Britain. In 1983 one in three did not have a religion, but by 2010 this has become one in two.

[The study] clearly demonstrates that religious affiliation, religious observance and religious attitudes to social issues have all continued their long-term decline and are now irrelevant to all but a minority of the population. When it comes to life choices, social attitudes, moral dilemmas and sense of identity, religion is on its deathbed, even for many of those who still nominally identify with a religion.

One could argue that if 50% of the population said 'yes' when asked if they had a religion this is quite a high figure, in a society that is usually described as secular. The concept of 'having a religion' is a rather vague one anyway: it doesn't imply actual belief. I'd also query what we are actually measuring here. The real decline is in traditional church-going, especially in the Anglican Church, which has apparently halved since 1983 to 20%. But church-going really only correlates with religiosity, not with inner beliefs.

What surveys like this seem to ignore is the growing interest in spirituality. According to Penny Sartori's Hereafter Report last January, in a poll of 3000 Brits, 66% said they believed in some form of afterlife and almost all believed their actions in this life would affect their circumstances in the next. I'd say this is a pretty high number, and not particularly indicative of increasing secularity.

So what Jonny Wilkinson talks about - and what sounds outlandish in the context of a sports interview - is quite likely what a large proportion of the population actually thinks. We may no longer require religion in the traditional Dawkinsian sense of the term to help us make life choices and sort out moral dilemmas. But things have moved on, and there are other models that we can use, that are not exactly secular.

Sceptic Balloons (by Phil Brisk)

[Thanks to Phil Brisk for this therapeutic technique to help cope with sceptics.]

I've been thinking lately about storylines - or 'narratives', if you prefer a posher word - and how they shape our understanding of the world.

For example, take just two of the storylines that emerged recently in attempts to shape opinion on the UK's public sector pensions strike.

There's the narrative of the Daily Mail, presenting that action as an insult to hard-working private sector workers who can only gaze with envy at the privileges enjoyed by molly-coddled public sector staff. Then there's the contrasting version of the same events wheeled out by the other side - a version that portrays the strikers as brave champions of the right of all citizens to a well-funded, secure retirement.

These are only two examples, but they illustrate how narratives work. They take real life and package it in a particular way. They simplify, stripping out nuance and complexity. They boil things down to just a few key ideas - the ideas the inventor of the narrative wants us to focus on.

When you stop and consider, it's not hard to see why storylines are so seductive. After all, who's got time to do their own independent thinking and research these days? Much easier to grab a quick, convenient narrative - a pre-processed, off-the-shelf version of reality whisked up by somebody else. By a politician, say, or an ad man, or a tabloid editor - or any one of a thousand others with an axe to grind and position to push.

Of course, there's only one problem. Narratives aren't reality. As I said, they're only someone's selective and simplified version of it. The narrative might seem to be anchored in fact. But that connection will almost certainly only be a loose one. And storylines, in my experience, are a bit like balloons. The moment they get a bit of wind behind them, they want to take flight. They want to slip their anchors and soar. That's fine when you're talking about balloons. But with narratives, it's different. If you're not careful the narrative soon floats free, with no one to notice it no longer has any kind of connection with fact.

What's this got to do with the concerns of Paranormalia? Actually, quite a lot. Because the closer I study the work of the self-appointed "de-bunkers" of psychic phenomena - James Randi, Chris French, Susan Blackmore, et al - the less I see these people as sober scrutinisers of hard evidence and the more I see them as sellers of balloons. The balloons they're selling are all versions of the narrative of scientific materialism - a highly selective, oversimplified version of the world that, increasingly, is losing connection with the available facts.

In my imagination, that's not a scientist's clipboard I see in their hands, it's a big red balloon. Personally, I find this image rather useful. It encourages me to smile when I think of them, rather than snarl. And that's good. Because, as Robert reminded us in his recent post on Chopra and Dawkins, "spirituality in action" has got to mean remaining non-snarly and kind-hearted in response to the dogmatic scientific materialists - no matter how provocative they may sometimes be.

Here's a case in point. Last night I was listening to something quite irritating by Susan Blackmore - a rather muddled attempt to pour cold water on the fascinating and well-attested phenomenon of NDEs. For a moment I wanted to hit her. Then I closed my eyes ... and just pictured her holding her big balloon. (It was a lovely yellow and pink one, if you must know.) Then, I just wanted to give her a hug.

It's a visualising technique that works for me. Maybe it will work for you.

Sheldrake and Dawkins

I talked recently about Deepak Chopra describing how he was 'ambushed' by Richard Dawkins for his 2007 Enemies of Reason films on Channel 4. The film makers hadn't told him it was Dawkins he was going to be talking to.

Another putative 'enemy of reason' was Rupert Sheldrake, who in his new book describes a similar encounter. He talked about it at the time, and Greg Taylor published it here. But it's so extraordinary it's worth repeating.

Sheldrake was emailed by a Channel 4 researcher to say that Dawkins wanted to talk to him to discuss his research on unexplained abilities of people and animals for a new TV series. Sheldrake wasn't keen, because he knew it would be one-sided. Not so, said the researcher - they were now much more open minded: 'We are very keen for it to be a discussion between two scientists, about scientific modes of enquiry.'

So Sheldrake agreed. Dawkins duly turned up with a film crew and the exchange started. Dawkins said they probably agreed about many things, but it worried him that Sheldrake was prepared to believe almost anything. Sheldrake replied that it worried him that Dawkins was so dogmatic, giving people a bad impression of science.

One all. Dawkins then said he would like to believe in telepathy, but there just wasn't any evidence for it. He complained that if it really occurred it would turn the laws of physics upside down, and added , 'Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.' Sheldrake pointed out that most people have experienced telepathy, and suggested that the claim that they are deluded about their own experience is itself extraordinary. Where was the extraordinary evidence for that?' Dawkins took it for granted that people want to believe in 'the paranormal' because of wishful thinking.

They agreed that controlled experiments were necessary and Sheldrake started to talk about the work he had been doing on telephone telepathy. The previous week he had sent Dawkins some of his published papers.

I suggested that we actually discuss the evidence. He looked uneasy and said, 'I don't want to discuss evidence.' 'Why not?' I asked. He replied, 'There isn't time. It's too complicated. And that's not what this programme is about.' The camera stopped.

Sheldrake pointed out that he had made it clear that he wasn't interested in taking part in another low-grade debunking exercise. 'It's not a low-grade debunking exercise; it's a high-grade debunking exercise,' said Dawkins. The director asked to see the emails Sheldrake had been sent. He read them 'with obvious dismay' saying that the assurances Sheldrake had been given were wrong. So they packed up and left.

Sheldrake says

in no other field of scientific endeavour to otherwise intelligent people feel free to make public claims based on prejudice and ignorance. Yet in relation to psychic phenomena, committed materialists feel free to disregard the evidence and behave irrationally and unscientifically while claiming to speak in the name of science and reason. They abuse the authority of science and bring rationalism into disrepute.

I suppose a certain amount of subterfuge is needed if you want to get your opponents to open up to you on camera. Although as I recall from the film, his various 'enemies' - Christian evangelists, alternative healers, etc - seemed only too happy to talk to him, perhaps not knowing who he was, and caring less. But he surely can't have imagined that Sheldrake would passively submit.

I often find myself defending Dawkins, as an original thinker and fine writer. I rather dislike the caricature of him as a zealot. But God, does he ask for it. This sort of behaviour is so childish and grubby. Sheldrake is a trained biologist pursuing evidence-based science and it's hard to forgive Dawkins for treating a fellow scientist with such disrespect.

Horgan on Buddhism

Science writer John Horgan has reprised the anti-Buddhism critique that he first published on Slate.com eight years ago. Slate has reissued the original article, and Buddhists are again berating him for his ignorance. So he wants to have another go at explaining his misgivings.

Horgan's recent book Rational Mysticism looks at attempts by scientists to account for mystical and religious experience, from a materialist perspective. As part of his research he checked out Zen Buddhism and attended meditation sessions. However meditation never really tamed his 'monkey mind', he says. He was also distracted by a classmate who kept asking 'unbearably pretentious questions'.

There were intellectual qualms:

One of Buddhism's biggest selling points for lapsed Catholics like me is that it supposedly dispenses with God and other supernatural claptrap. This claim is disingenuous. Buddhism, at least in its traditional forms, is functionally theistic, even if it doesn't invoke a supreme deity. The doctrines of karma and reincarnation imply the existence of some sort of cosmic moral judge who, like Santa Claus, tallies up our naughtiness and niceness before rewarding us with nirvana or rebirth as a cockroach.

Horgan goes on to point out that research on meditation suggests its effects are variable. Meditation is supposed to reduce stress, anxiety and depression, but it has been linked to increased negative emotions, he says, while brain scans yield inconsistent results.

As for the 'deep truths' perceived through meditation or mystical experience, Horgan complains of a lack of consistency. Some find that mind, not matter, constitutes the deepest level of reality and is in some sense eternal. However he inclines to the view of meditators like Susan Blackmore, who are strict materialists and deny that mind can exist independently of matter. (Blackmore even rejects the concept of free will, holding that there is no self to act freely.)

Then there's the claim that contemplative practice will make us gentler, more humble and compassionate:

Given the repulsive behavior over the past few decades of so many gurus-including Chogyam Trungpa, who was an alcoholic womanizer and bully-you could conclude that mystical knowledge leads to pathological narcissism rather than selflessness. Instead of shrinking to a point and vanishing, the mystic's ego may expand to infinity. Did Buddhism deflate the ego of Steve Jobs?

...Like an astronaut gazing at the earth through the window of his spacecraft, the mystic sees our existence against the backdrop of infinity and eternity. This perspective may not translate into compassion and empathy for others. Far from it. Human suffering and death may appear laughably trivial. Instead of becoming a saint-like Bodhisattva, brimming with love for all things, the mystic may become a sociopathic nihilist.

Horgan also thinks some 'bad' gurus have 'fallen prey to mystical nihilism', corrupted by 'that most insidious of all Buddhist propositions, the myth of total enlightenment'.

This is the notion that some rare souls achieve mystical self-transcendence so complete that they become morally infallible-like the Pope! Belief in this myth can turn spiritual teachers into tyrants and their students into mindless slaves, who excuse even their teachers' most abusive behavior as "crazy wisdom."

A final misgiving is about the glorification of male monasticism. Hogan notes that the Buddha himself started on his path to enlightenment by abandoning his wife and child. For him, by contrast, 'spiritual' means life-embracing. So a path that turns away from aspects of life as essential as sexual love and parenthood is 'not spiritual but anti-spiritual'.

It's Christianity that usually gets atheists hot and bothered, with only the barest of nods to eastern mysticism. So I was interested in Horgan's complaints, some of which I've had to deal with myself. The last one, for instance. It must be tough on the families when the breadwinner goes off to find God. It seems true too that spiritual practice can lead people in the wrong directions, inflating their egos.

But over the years I've come to realise that the insights of Buddhist psychology are timeless, and essential to a healthy mind. Nor are they culture-dependent. The writings of Jack Kornfield have been particularly influential. He understands the obstacles, both practical and intellectual, that bother newcomers, because he has experienced them himself. At the same time he has seen people get past them to them to turn their lives around.

It's easy to be misled by archaic thinking. For instance anyone who becomes immersed in spirituality literature, or who just listens to what near-death experiencers say, should eventually recognise that the 'cosmic moral judge' idea is a misunderstanding. We judge ourselves: our future experience will be determined by what we are now and what we have made of ourselves. That may not have been obvious to our ancestors, but in our age we can transcend their ideas - if we choose to.

So why does someone who, on some level is open to spiritual ideas, close the door on them? Why does he gravitate so firmly to the negative aspects of religion?

It must be hard to avoid, if you spend your time interviewing top scientists and are firmly embedded in materialist culture. Then there's the traditional religious upbringing. Mine was no big deal, and it did not take much to break from it. Even so, I was well into my thirties before I was able to consider any kind of religious thinking on my own terms. I guess Horgan's experience with Catholicism was more intense. Atheists who had to fight to win their freedom of thought don't willingly surrender it.

However there's a sense in this sort of reasoning that, in order to keep resisting something, one has to keep reminding oneself of its worst aspects. Otherwise one might give in. Horgan's complaints have a certain truth, but they are the exceptions not the rule. He can't really believe that mystical truth seeking typically turns a person into a sociopathic nihilist. And why meditate if it makes you more anxious, not less? But if he allows himself to think these things, it's easier to justify turning his back on the whole thing.

Chopra and Dawkins

I wonder what Richard Dawkins makes of this profuse and lengthy apology that Deepak Chopra has just made to him on YouTube.

Chopra says 'sorry' about comments he made while appearing on Bill O'Reilly's show on Fox News a few weeks ago. O'Reilly had previously had a spat with Dawkins. When the professor talked about 'the Judao-Christian myth', he interjected that it wasn't a myth, it was reality. Myth, insisted Dawkins. No, reality, said O'Reilly. And so on.

Later O'Reilly got Chopra on his show, ostensibly to talk about his new book, War of the Worldviews, but began by asking, what did he think of people like Dawkins? Well, Chopra began, he had once been ambushed by him. Channel 4 had called to ask him to contribute to a documentary, without telling him that it was being made by Dawkins; it was later shown under the title Enemies of Reason.

'Very dishonest guy. Did you kick his butt? I kicked his butt,' said O'Reilly.

'I did kick his butt - for three hours. But only three minutes was used,' said Chopra. 'He uses his scientific credentials to camouflage his bigotry.'

Chopra went on to mention that Dawkins had told Francis Collins, leader of the human genome project and one of the world's greatest scientists, that he, Dawkins, was a far better scientist, and that Collins shouldn't dare to question his credentials.

The problem with Dawkins is he thinks we're all idiots, O'Reilly said.

Quite mild stuff, but a month later Chopra has been having second thoughts about this exchange. In his mea culpa he said he had represented Dawkins 'unfairly and mean spiritedly'. 'Dr Dawkins has been critical of my work for the past several years; unfortunately I reacted by being personally offended and was unfair in my criticism of him in my TV appearances and written criticisms.'

They have different worldviews, he said. Dawkins is concerned with evidence-based science, while he himself is concerned with consciousness as a fundamental reality, 'and facts and evidence are more description of modes of human perception and knowing than descriptions of reality.'

Addressing Dawkins directly, he went on:

The purpose of this blog is to apologise for my behaviour. I need to learn to listen to my worst critics without being personally offended. I understand totally where you come from and also how you feel about dogmatic religion, and how dogmatic fundamentalism and religion can hurt and damage humanity and its future evolution. I also want to let you know that I am more aligned with your thinking than with Bill O'Reilly's, although we have fundamental differences.

I don't suppose O'Reilly will have him back now. Perhaps he'll ask his next guest, 'hey, what do you think about that Chopra guy?'

Sceptics' reactions to the apology are along the lines of, Dawkins was never going to lose any sleep about what Chopra thinks of him.

Quite so. But this is more about Chopra than Dawkins.

When I first became interested in Buddhism, some years ago, the first lesson I learned was about slander. You don't sound off about people behind their backs. This struck me as completely true, and also quite novel. I wondered why it wasn't an equally strong part of Christian culture. Ever since then I have tried to practice it, with occasional lapses but for the most part successfully, I hope.

But it's challenging in a field like this, which is deeply polarised, and when people are constantly bitching about those with opposite views. I have to be on my guard all the time. Particularly sometimes when I'm invited to talk on radio and I feel the host sort of trying to get me to trash the Dawkins and Randis. It just makes me uncomfortable.

So I can see how Chopra got into a jam with someone like Bill O'Reilly. He wanted to be agreeable and do what was expected of him. Weak and reprehensible. But perhaps he was intimidated. For me, being in a Fox News studio would be sort of like being summoned by Darth Vadar: I wouldn't dare antagonise them.

But of course afterwards he felt deeply uneasy about it. The answer is to fess up - publicly and unequivocally. Which is why, in his clip, Chopra doesn't seem discomfited by his very public confession of wrongdoing - on the contrary, he seems relieved.

This is spirituality in action. As I say, I wonder what Dawkins makes of it.

Sheldrake's New Book - Preview

Rupert Sheldrake's new book, The Science Delusion, is published on January 5. Should be a big event. I've just received an invite to the book launch in London on the 17th, chaired by Dr Peter Fenwick. But I'll review it before that - soon, I hope.

Here's the blurb

The science delusion is the belief that science already understands everything, in principle. The fundamental questions are answered, leaving only the details to be filled in. The impressive achievements of science seemed to support this confident attitude. But recent research has revealed unexpected problems at the heart of physics, cosmology, biology, medicine and psychology.

In his new book, Dr Rupert Sheldrake, one of the world's most innovative scientists, shows how the sciences are being constricted by assumptions that have hardened into dogmas. Should science be a belief-system, or a realm of enquiry?

Sheldrake shows that the 'scientific worldview' is moribund. Increasingly expensive research is reaping diminishing returns. In the sceptical spirit of true scientific enquiry, Sheldrake turns the ten fundamental dogmas of science into questions, opening up startling new possibilities. The 'laws of nature' may be habits that change and evolve. Minds may extend far beyond brains. The total amount of matter and energy may be increasing. Children may inherit characteristics acquired by their parents. Memories may not be stored as traces in our brains. Mental causation may work from the future towards the past, while energetic causation works from the past towards the future. The Science Delusion will radically change your view of what is possible.

This is the subtext to a lot of thinking and writing in the consciousness/spirituality sphere. It looks as though Sheldrake is going to tackle the problem head on.

The deliberate echo of The God Delusion suggests that it will be quite polemical. That wouldn't surprise me. Sheldrake is thoroughly fed up with the treatment he gets from sceptics, and I get the feeling he's running out patience. It would be natural to want to fight back.

That worries me ever so slightly. I can't imagine Sheldrake as a polemicist. I've always admired his ability to calmly face down his critics without resorting to their sort of dogmatic excitability - a key requirement in this field.

But then he's a veteran scientist and an enormously experienced writer and investigator. So if anyone can pull it off, he can.