A Lengthy Interview With Stephen Braude

Many modern critics of Christianity hold a naturalistic worldview or something close to it. They suggest that there's little or no evidence that would challenge their worldview. I think that's often because they're highly ignorant of the evidence.

The radio program Coast To Coast AM recently had a lengthy interview with Stephen Braude, a paranormal researcher and professor of philosophy at the University of Maryland. Go to approximately the nine-minute mark in the You Tube clip just linked, then follow the links on the right side of the screen to listen to later segments of the interview.

I disagree with much of what's said by the host and Braude. I think they neglect a lot of relevant evidence.

But Braude is highly knowledgeable about evidence for the paranormal, and he makes a lot of significant points during the interview. He discusses some of the best cases of paranormal activity that we have (best in the sense of having the best evidence), such as the nineteenth-century medium Daniel Home and Ted Serios' ability to make images from his mind appear on photographs. He also discusses a woman in Florida who has gold-colored brass appearing on her body and on other objects in her presence, among other phenomena. You can see some video footage of this woman, as well as some still shots of Ted Serios' photographs, in a shorter interview with Braude found here. Go to the video titled "UMBC In the Loop: Stephen Braude".

Braude has been in Europe lately, partly to investigate a group in Germany that's been claiming to experience some paranormal phenomena. Apparently, Braude received some sort of grant to investigate it. He said that he has video footage of a table levitation, but some of the more significant phenomena he witnessed weren't caught on tape. He says something about seeing a non-human hand come out of a person's mouth, for example. He seems to be largely undecided about the validity of the group's claims, though he thinks at least some of the activity is genuine. Some aspects of the context in which the group is operating are suspicious (a darkened room, asking people to make noise at particular times during a seance, etc.). But he seems to think there's some evidence for the validity of the phenomena, and he's in the process of doing more investigation.

He said that he's retiring later this year. Apparently, though, he's only retiring from his position at the University of Maryland teaching philosophy. He said that he'll continue researching the paranormal. And he's working on another book.

I'm almost finished reading one of Braude's books, but I haven't read any of his others. From my limited exposure to his material, I have the impression that he underestimates the potential role of non-humans in the phenomena in question. At least in the book I've been reading and in the interviews I've listened to, he says little about God and seemingly even less about demons and angels. He'll mention the possibility of one human mind affecting another or what effect the human mind might have on the world around us, and he discusses such possibilities at length. But he says so little about how other beings, like God or demons, might be involved. (He may take a different approach in other books, for example, but then I would wonder why he says so little about other beings in the book I've been reading and in multiple interviews I've heard. Maybe I'd have a different impression if I read or listened to more of his material.)

At one point during the recent interview, he offers an explanation for why people tend to be afraid when they first witness something like a table levitating. He suggested that people are afraid because of the event's implications about the power of the human mind. That may be true in some cases. But I think a better explanation, and I don't know why Braude avoids discussing it so much, is that people are afraid of a more powerful being, such as a demon, who would do them harm. If human minds in general have the power to do things like levitating tables, then presumably we could respond to what other human minds are doing with the power of our own minds. But what if a more powerful being is doing it? I think that's more relevant to the fear people have.

The involvement of non-human agents seems to make more sense of the evidence in some cases (for a variety of reasons). I'm open to the idea that humans have more abilities than we currently realize. I suspect we do. And I think that's a partial explanation of what we see in the paranormal. But my impression is that Braude is too focused on that aspect of the explanation and is neglecting other aspects.