Enemies of Reason ?

Last night I suffered through Richard Dawkin's program The Enemies of Reason, and found myself it a fit of fury. So I decided to write a personal rebuttal to the arguement he makes in this program in a somewhat ranty fashion.

Admitedly, I am have been quite hesitant to write anything about my personal opinions on spirituality, especially since anyone who is my Facebook friend is going to see this in my notes, but I think that's only going to foster a fear of these kinds of beliefs, and so it's time to crack that shell. And I figure, I've already told people just yesterday that I work with the I Ching, and if I'm actually going to make my philosophical beliefs a part of my public performance, then I better get used the challenge of people projecting "New-Aged flake" onto me.

In the beginning, Dawkins names off the gifts of science and reason, one of them being antibiotics, which are the one of the harshest kind of medicine for your body. But garlic has been known to be a effective antibiotic and antiviral healing agent long before science "proved" it to be; it was not a "personal feeling" that moved people to use it as such, but rather personal experience: it simply worked. Also an ancient practice that did not grow out of modern science, Traditional Chinese Medicine has been proven to be just as effective as modern medicine at treating certain kinds of illness (I read this in The Web That Has no weaver). These are just a couple tidbits I know of, but there is a huge slew of scientific evidence for the validity of ancient natural healing techniques which could easily take many volumes to summarize.

The example psychics chosen by Dawkins in this program are the hokeyest unbelievable people you could imagine. This reminds me that there is a lot of New-Aged bunk out there pushed by profiteers who play on others' insecurities and trauma. But if what could be dubbed "psychic technologies" have no scientific grounding, it makes me wonder why the CIA would fund research on things like Remote Viewing and other psychic phenomena for decades.

When it comes to astrology, we know that the moon cycle affects many things in our physical existence, from the tides, to plant's biological functions, to the women's menstrual cycles, so why would we assume that larger bodies in our solar system could not affect our physical and thus mental state. Unfortunately the astrologer he interviewed had no rational explanation for it. I do like the point that Dawkins makes in commenting that Astrology is not an evolving science, and has done nothing to come into concord with our scientific knowledge of the cosmos.

Yes, people will tend to believe broad statements that you give them in horoscopes, and so people are conciously subjecting themselves to a certain influence when they read their horoscopes. But I suppose the point in astrology is to conduct your mind towards those energies that are present so as to go with the cosmic flow. I wonder if Dawkings celebrates the solistices and equinoxes, which tends to be a ritual for pagans, "those bastian stuperstitious types" **fist shaking**. After all, those are points in our calendar that are scientifically chosen.

To be honest, I don't even check my horoscope regularly, nevermind keep up to date on the ephemerus, but I think there is something important about mentally taking note of different temporal cycles. Nevermind gazing up at the stars, that's not really a time machine at all. A calendar is a time machine, it has the ability to allow us to communicate with our future and past selves in a very rational way: our calendar is how we plot our our intentions for our futures, and look back at our former deeds cronologically.

As for the idea of associating symbolics to different time periods, well, I think that running any balanced set of symbolics through ones mind at any rate is a useful idea. For example, I think it's a useful exercise to for 12 days in a row to medidate on each one of the astrological symbols. Why ? Because the astrological symbols are a metaphorical language for our different types of behaviour, and to be able to understand that language gives us the ability to better understand human reationships and to have a degree of control of our own psychologies. By running the cycle in our mind, it's like running a course of learning in imagination.

As for the ability of the human mind's intention to affect the physical world, I drect you attention to the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research, which has proven by many studies over a 27-year period that the human mind and its intentions can affect the results of supposedly random mechanical output. I first saw these kind of studies on David Suzuki's The Nature of Things, and it really changed my attitude towards these types of things because I was a very skeptical and scientific person at the time. Another project hosted by Princeton is the Global Conciousness Project, it's homepage reads:

Our purpose is to examine subtle correlations that reflect the presence and activity of consciousness in the world. We have learned that when millions of us share intentions and emotions the GCP/EGG network shows correlations. We can interpret this as evidence for participation in a growing global consciousness. It suggests we have the capability and responsibility for conscious evolution. We make the world we live in, and we can create a Planetary Smile.

What Dawkins calls a false positive I call a ritual, and rituals are designed to strengthen one's intentions. One example of how rituals have been scientifically proven to strengthen one's intentions: I know there are studies that have proven that having a group of strangers pray for and individual in a hospital significantly improves their healing process.

Some call intentional healing "the placebo affect" when people believe that they are going to get better, they do. I think there is a rational explanation for this type of healing, some if it involves lowered levels of stress, some of it involves the human's ability to direct the flow of electromagnetic energy (as in reiki), and I'm sure a lot of it modern science can't yet explain. But does that make it mere superstition ? I think not, and I'm someone who is continuing to study the practical application of what Dawkins might call superstitious or irriational belief. It really involves cutting through a lot of BS, but I'd rather do this than become a rational dogmatist like him.

My ultimate goal in spiritual practice is not escape from the world that I have become so disgusted with in so many ways, it is to give myself a sense of empowerment so that I may work to transform our social and environmental illness. I often feel a tensions between "activists", those who believe that global tansformation will come from social organizing and political re-empowerment, and "hippies", who believe that global trasnformation will come from spiritual re-empowerment, and I feel as though I am interested in playing in both spheres. I think that each form of power is valid and that their interplay is crucial in the effectivness of making our society more sustainable.