Skip to content

A skeptic looks at the paranormal

I would really like to buy into the out-of-this-world paranormal game, but common sense will ultimately prevail in my actual world here on earth.

I would really like to buy into the out-of-this-world paranormal game, but common sense will ultimately prevail in my actual world here on earth.

We have many roads to travel when it comes to the paranormal world and all of them are dead ends.

For example, who in this world of billions of earthlings actually called the disaster in Japan? With all of the cards, crystal balls and star alignments at their disposal, the real answer would be easy-nobody.

Nobody came forward and said that my tea leaves have instructed me to warn the people of Japan that a major disaster was imminent. Nobody saw that little event on their ESP dial.

The real science of seismology and geology will never give an accurate prediction of a cataclysmic event because most credible research scientists like to deal in reality. A reality where such events are difficult to predict beyond a probability factor found in a long mathematical equation.

The cautionary tale for real science is the basic principle that nothing is absolutely certain until it becomes an irrefutable fact-global warming alarmists aside. All else is theory and conjecture.

But paranormal practitioners are rarely held to any degree of scientific scrutiny. They can exert their control on a gullible public that has a steadfast belief that life’s answers can be found on a Ouija board or wrinkles in the palm of a hand.

They prey on the weak and gullible segment of society that finds comfort in the vagaries of their answers.

These answers are typically gleaned from a series of questions that are designed to dig deeply enough into a person’s life to give the psychic a sliver of insight into the customer.

Make no mistake about it, these people are customers and most psychics want a return visit from their customers. A series of vague accuracies are really nothing more than an effective interrogation based upon likely events in everybody’s lives.

Have you lost somebody in your life? Have you been in a relationship that didn’t work out- or has problems? Have you recently encountered a setback in your life? Anybody over the age of ten would say yes to most of their questions

It gets worse when the game includes interviews with dead people in your life. The game is usually a situation where a psychic will google dead people for you. Apparently dead people hang around psychics like prisoners hang around a pay phone waiting for their turn to communicate with the outside world. It seems that both groups have a lot of spare time

Dead people have always been a concern for me. Are dead peoples’ hobbies in the afterlife really just a series of wispy smoke events and slamming doors? If so, has the late Peggy Lee produced an afterlife follow-up to her depressing hit ‘Is That All There Is’?

If the dearly departed are hanging old buildings around under such conditions (without access to cable TV), then I think we have found Hell folks-pure and simple.

I think the rule of thumb here is also simple: have fun with the paranormal game but please don’t take it seriously and tell people that a psychic was able to read you like a cheap novel. A good salesman or cop could do the same thing with you.

More of Jim Sutherland at mystarcollectorcar.com