There are a lot of problems with those objections (e.g., the documentation we already have from scientific experiments), and Stephen Braude discusses some of those problems in his recent book. What I'm quoting below isn't meant to be exhaustive. I doubt that Braude intended to cover all of the ground involved, and I'd include other factors from a Christian perspective:
As time went on, more and more people, both in and out of the field of psychical research, took seriously the possibility that physical mediums might in fact be PK agents and therefore the actual cause of phenomena attributed by others to surviving spirits. And even when the mediums and other spiritists resisted this belief, the fact remains that the belief was increasingly "in the air" and difficult to ignore as growing numbers of secular researchers began to investigate the phenomena for themselves. But this can only have had a chilling effect on the psychology of mediumship generally. Mediums knew that even some sympathetic investigators considered them to be causes of - and not simply vessels for - paranormal physical phenomena. So they now had a concern that quite possibly had never entered their minds before - namely, that they might have powers they couldn't control and that conceivably could do great harm.
It's not surprising, then, to find that Eusapia Palladino's impressive phenomena in the 1890s and first decade of the twentieth century were less impressive than those of Home twenty years earlier. And it's even less surprising to find that many of the mediumistic "superstars" in the next several decades of the twentieth century had increasingly less intimidating repertoires of phenomena. For example, by the time we come to Rudi Schneider in the 1920s and 30s, the most sensational phenomena tended merely to be medium-sized object movements. And more recently, alleged PK superstars such as Nina Kulagina and Felicia Parise produced even smaller-scale phenomena.
Moreover, it's interesting to note how PK superstars in the latter half of the twentieth century seemed to suffer greatly when producing their phenomena. Their spiritistic predecessors typically went into a trance or at least into a state of passive receptivity, and occasionally they were tired afterwards. But more modern PK stars have more thoroughly accepted their role as the originator of their physical manifestations, and they seem quite clearly to be making a conscious effort to achieve those results. But of course, since they acknowledge their own role in the production of the phenomena, it's not surprising that they should have to work hard (say) to make a cigarette or pill bottle move a millimeter or an inch. In fact, consider how convenient effortful PK is psychologically - that is, from the psychic's point of view. If PK subjects feel it's necessary to expend a great deal of energy to produce only a small effect, then (in a careless line of thought characteristic of much self deception) it can easily seem to them as if their life or health would be endangered by trying to produce a phenomenon worth worrying about….
So, practically speaking, investigators may simply have to acknowledge a law of diminishing returns in applying controls. Besides, it would hardly be surprising if at some point (given human psychology), continually tightening controls simply snuffs out the phenomena. And how readily that occurs will undoubtedly vary from one subject to the next, just as our inhibition-thresholds vary widely in many familiar life contexts. I believe that's one reason why laboratory phenomena are so modest compared with phenomena in natural settings, if the phenomena can be duplicated at all in the lab. As I've argued elsewhere, since we really are nowhere close to knowing what psi's natural history is (i.e. its function or purpose - if any - in real-life settings), for all we know it may be similar in crucial respects to familiar phenomena or abilities (e.g., sexual performance, athletic skills) that can only be evaluated in their natural contexts, not in the straitjacketed conditions required for formal experiments.
(Dangerous Pursuits [San Antonio, Texas: Anomalist Books, 2020], 10-11, 69)
Views on scientific discovery in the paranormal assume a contingent relationship between the physical and the spiritual, whether mutual causality, or causality in one direction or another. What I mean is that any scientific controls require the scientist to be able to introduce causal controls in order to demonstrate either a causal relationship or at least concurrence that implies causality. We have this kind of mutual causation among physical things and know this because we can observe it. But what about the relationship between the physical and the non-physical? Does the physical only cause the non-physical as existentialists would imply? Does the non-physical only cause the physical as creationists would imply? Does the physical and non-physical share mutual causality? Are there categories of causality and non-causality between the physical and the non-physical? How do we know? I hold that the most important cause is in the first statement in the Bible and that the import for human knowledge is that God's self revelation is a far greater epistemological medium than scientific discovery.
ReplyDeleteIt seems quite unreasonable to object that paranormal phenomenon be replicable: on demand-as if the supernatural realm is mindless and is just responsive to poking and prodding.
ReplyDeleteHowever, in a deist view, the supernatural may indeed be like this, a certain input results in a predictable output.
But for a supernatural system that is based on a Biblical creator and a corresponding malevolent power opposed to that creator, we surely wouldn't expect defined, replicable results.
Why would the malevolent power make itself detectible that easily? It is said (not sure who coined it) that Satan's most brilliant lie is that he doesn't exist.
If this is true, Satan would make every effort to go undetected.
At best, Satan would do a bait and switch/psychological confusion tactic: manifest himself anonymously- unexpected- so as to be sure to convince the witnesses that a paranormal event is taking place, but then run and hide so as to make the witnesses wonder if they're losing their mind.
On the other hand, certain strains of "Christianity" will have unreasonable expectations for a benevolent deity: do the prerequisite actions: say a prayer/believe strongly enough/name it and claim it-in order to achieve an expected result. when the result doesn't occur consistently enough, they may conclude this deity does not exist.
This is simply "experimenting" with the supernatural just as much as expecting a spirit to show up each and every time a ouija board is used.
I think it was a good thing Jesus didn't produce miracles on demand.
The Bible actually has a lot to say about contact with mediums and soothsayers and necromancers. This is enough to conclude at least two things, i.) such people and phenomena exist and are "real" and ii.) such people and phenomena ought to be avoided.
ReplyDeleteI'm inclined to agree with Coram Deo on this one.
ReplyDeleteAlso: If these phenomena are caused by personal entities (such as spirits), then yes, results won't be predictable and replicable. But in that case, all the more reason to avoid. If on the other hand they are caused by forces that lie within the normal "realm of nature" (rather like our own usual ability to move our own bodies, which is mind-body interaction but not strictly supernatural), then they may be less harmful (more like some aspect of a sci-fi story) but should actually be subject to observation, replication, etc. After all, nobody has to make these kinds of excuses for a healthy person's ability to lift his own hand at will.
So...this whole line of argument strikes me as problematic whichever way you look at it.
I don't know what you're agreeing with Coram Deo about or whether you think that involves a disagreement with me, so I don't know what the significance of your agreement with him is. His comment that "such people and phenomena ought to be avoided" is too vague. Because of how neglected paranormal topics are, including in Christian circles, and how bad so many people's reasoning is about these matters, it's problematic to make such vague comments about how "such people and phenomena ought to be avoided". See my recent exchange with Henry in another thread for an illustration. Where do people get the impression that they should ask whether doing something like reading a book on paranormal issues would be "likely to lead them down dark paths" (as Henry did in that other thread)? It probably comes partly from the overly vague and often uninformed and misinformed comments that Christians often make about paranormal issues.
DeleteRegarding "making these kinds of excuses", what are you responding to? Are you denying what Braude said about the history of mediumship and the other relevant historical issues? He's extensively documented his claims. If you're rejecting the explanations he offers for the data, then on what basis? He offers reasoning to support his conclusions, and he cites analogous situations in other fields. You use the analogy of a person raising his hand, but whether the paranormal phenomena in question are more like raising a hand or more like the other sorts of activities Braude refers to is one of the issues under consideration. If you think the paranormal activity in question should be like raising your hand, you need to explain why. I see no reason to think the activity would be of that nature.
Concerning your comment about avoiding phenomena coming from a personal entity, I'd repeat what I said above about the vagueness of using that sort of avoidance language. Even where the spirit in question is known to be a demon, we don't avoid demons in every context. And not all spirits are demons. There have been many angelophanies and apparitions of the dead, for example, that believers have experienced over the centuries without any obligation to avoid them.
Well, I would say it should be obvious that trying to replicate interactions with demons is pretty much the opposite of avoiding. I'm not saying that's what these are. I'd say many of them are probably a combo. of fraud and self-deception, but there's nothing vague about saying, "Yeah, if you think this plausibly might be an interaction with a 'spirit' outside of the person himself, not a good idea to try to do a *study* on it and to try to *induce* the person to use that power to see if you can observe it."
DeleteWhy do I reject his explanation? Because it's pretty much blatantly ad hoc. It's tailored to explain away a situation where "powers" are constantly hiding from us, unobservable, etc. Even though they are supposedly "powers." A millimeter? He's seriously suggesting that we should be impressed if someone appears to be able to use some psychic force to move something a millimeter? And he's suggesting that that's because the poor guy thinks he has to try so hard so he's "psyching" himself into not being able to move the object any farther? I mean, the obvious and salient explanation is that we aren't able to see these things the more we observe because they *aren't real* and that they are fading away as we attempt to observe them more carefully and less credulously because that removes the ability to fake. To say that that's just because of some kind of "chilling effect on the psychology of the medium" is to make the theory that the person really has powers something close to unfalsifiable.
What she said.
DeleteLydia,
DeleteBraude has argued extensively for the authenticity of the phenomena of individuals like Home and Palladino. They often operated in circumstances in which a large amount of observation was involved, controls were in place, skeptics were among those examining the individuals under consideration, etc. Braude is then going on to cite some factors associated with those cases: e.g., some connections between the psychology of the mediums and the effects being produced, the decrease in effects produced over time, the increase in effort exerted by the mediums over time, the growing belief in living agent psi, the growing awareness of that belief among those not holding it. In other words, he's citing a convergence of characteristics surrounding well-evidenced paranormal cases.
It's inadequate for you to respond by making vague references to how "I'd say many of them are probably a combo. of fraud and self-deception" and "they are fading away as we attempt to observe them more carefully and less credulously because that removes the ability to fake". You'd have to explain what relevant changes took place in the timeframe under consideration that would have prevented faking that occurred earlier. Braude has interacted at length with modern skeptical attempts to dismiss the phenomena of individuals like Home and Palladino. I'm not aware of any knowledge we've gained over the last several decades that even comes close to offering an adequate materialistic explanation for the paranormal cases in question. Similarly, it's inadequate for skeptics of Jesus' resurrection to make vague references to how we today are more careful and less credulous than the people who lived two thousand years ago. None of the knowledge we've gained over those two millennia has overturned the probability of Jesus' resurrection.
I don't see the relevance of your reference to how "trying to replicate interactions with demons is pretty much the opposite of avoiding". I said that I don't think we're obligated to avoid demons. I discussed this subject to some extent in my conversation with Henry that I cited above. It's easy to think of many situations in which moving closer to demons, interacting with them, etc. would be appropriate and, in fact, loving and beneficial in other ways: getting involved in a case of demon possession in an attempt to cast out the demon; helping a person involved in some other type of paranormal case that involves a demon; studying demonic behavior in order to better inform other people about it and counteract it in the future (some variation of demonology); etc. There are other ways in which being involved with the demonic would be inappropriate, but it doesn't follow that every form of involvement is wrong. We should avoid doing something like becoming a medium or consulting one, because of the Biblical prohibition of doing such things, not because the activities are inherently demonic. I see no reason to think they are.
DeleteMediumship could be multifaceted in that regard. In other words, it could be that some mediumship is entirely fraudulent, some involves one or more deceased humans without involving any demons, some involves demons without deceased humans, some involves both, some involves living agent psi without any entities involved other than living humans, etc. Even an instance that begins with the involvement of a demon, say a demon who empowers the medium, could develop into an instance of living agent psi as time goes on. The medium's power originated with a demon, but the use of the power over time and other aspects of its development are independent of that demon and are affected by factors like the psychology of the medium. There's a broad range of explanatory options, as in other areas of life.
As I said in the opening of my first post in this thread, I'm citing Braude's comments as a partial response to the skeptical objections in question. I noted, and Braude has noted, that we do keep getting paranormal activity documented in scientific experiments, table levitations and other phenomena caught on video, replications of phenomena, and so on. There's a large amount of ongoing evidence for the paranormal, both in scientific experiments and elsewhere. But there are reasons to think the diminishment of paranormal activity in some contexts isn't what skeptics make it out to be. The diminishment often makes more sense from a paranormal perspective than skeptics suggest, and Braude's comments provide some examples.