What's this all about?

Hmmm... I'm wondering what this community is all about. And what I'm doing here. But since I like writing... OK, for those of you who want to see what my writing's about, here's an essay I finished today, even before I've released it through Enlightenment.Com: ----------------------- Dear David, Thanks for your persistence in asking me to first read and then comment upon Barry L. Beyerstein's Pseudoscience and the Brain: Tuners and Tonics for Aspiring Superhumans. (I must admit that I am curious as to the nature of your connection to Mr. Beyerstein, which is nowhere stated.) I would, indeed, like to offer my comments, which are below. (Be careful what you ask for ... you may get it.) I plan on publishing these comments in my next Enlightenment.Com newsletter. I hope you won't mind if I also include a link to Pseudoscience and the Brain in that newsletter. Let's get to it, then. On the one hand, I find much of what is in Pseudoscience and the Brain to be very valuable. From a personal perspective, I have long had substantial doubts about the value of brain/light machines and acoustic entrainment tapes and devices. While I have tried various types of these devices and programs, I have not found any of them to be consistently useful. Particularly with respect to brain/light machines, I long ago stopped recommending their usage (although I have continued to try new models from time to time). You'll note that, to date, Enlightenment.Com has never offered a brain/light machine through its online store. As Beyerstein correctly points out, there seems to be little evidence that these brain/light machines work as claimed (although they do put people in a minimally altered state that can be arrived at through many types of sensory overload and repetitive stimulation). Similarly, I agree that the field of acoustic entrainment devices and recorded programs is a hard one to pin down: much more seems to be made of the connection between brainwave entrainment (and hemispheric integration) and enlightenment (or even just stress reduction and better health) than can be substantiated. At the very least, there seems to be a great deal of overblown sales hyperbole and puffing going on both with brain/light machines and acoustic entrainment devices and recorded programs. So, first, I do want to thank Beyerstein. The factual part of his article is welcome, and those who look for shortcuts (as opposed to high-leverage practices such as meditation or rebounding) would do well to recognize early on that there are none. (As Robert Heinlein said: TANSTAAFL.) Beyerstein has potentially saved a great many individuals a great deal of time with his careful, well-researched analysis. On the other hand, however ... and this is a big however .. I find the overall tenor of Beyerstein's article to be unfairly dismissive and even hostile towards an entire realm of psycho-spiritual practices and techniques that unquestionably have great value for many individuals. To begin with, the very use of the term "pseudoscience" in the title and throughout the article connotes, if not denotes, the proposition that there is nothing of value to be gained in the entire broad realm of human potential and spiritual practices. Beyerstein admits that there might be some value in taking a half hour off each day to step out of the rough and tumble of modern life, but he implies through his very writing style and word choices that there are no specific techniques, practices, or skillful means that might greatly accelerate an individual's progress, evolution, and unfoldment towards higher states and stages of consciousness. (Note that I am using "states" and "stages" here the way that Ken Wilber does.) Similarly, I get the distinct impression that Beyerstein probably has no love for the human potential movement generally. Maybe I have read him wrong, and maybe this article is really just meant to be a narrow indictment of unsupported claims as to the efficacy of brain/light machines and acoustic entrainment devices and recorded programs. But I am wondering if Beyerstein might not also be justly accused of what Charles Tart (who Beyerstein cites in the article's bibliography) calls "scientism," both with respect to spirituality and human potential generally as well as allied fields of study such as parapsychology. (See http://www.enlightenment.com/media/interviews/tartall/tartclips/scientism.mov for a video clip of Tart speaking about this. Tart elsewhere defines "scientism" as "a rigidity and pathology of thought that takes the success of the physical sciences and their current findings as a total system of thought. It is called scientistic or scientism because of its resemblance to various other dogmatic religious and political systems, rather than having the continual openness to new data and ideas that proper scientific inquiry should have." Note, too, that the reason I bring in PSI or parapsychology here is because it is, in my view, the premier example of an area of inquiry where, despite what I consider to be unquestionable proof as to the reality of a broad range of phenomena, as laid out in Dean Radin's The Conscious Universe and other volumes, many so-called scientists will insist that PSI can't possibly be real and therefore will not even consider the data.) An example of Beyerstein's tone might help clarify my perspective. Beyerstein writes "From what then, might these satisfied customers have derived their subjective benefits? Can you spell P-L-A-C-E-B-O, boys and girls?" The use of the A-L-L C-A-P-S W-I-T-H H-Y-P-H-E-N-S here is a ridiculing mode of discourse which not only makes me take note, but which I ironically find to be particularly wrongheaded. I have long felt that most reductionistic scientists use the term "placebo effect" merely to put a label on something that they do not understand. Even if, as Science News recently pointed out, scientists are establishing that difference types of placebo effects are correlated with different types of neural pathways and brain systems - even if the placebo effect were completely mapped out with respect to its physical brain functioning - this would still not explain, in my view, why and how "the placebo effect" works and how it is "triggered" by human belief and intention. There is magic in the human brain/mind interface, just as there is magic in the way that mind and matter interact over a distance (PSI again), and the facile use of the shibboleth "placebo effect" adds nothing to our understanding but instead tries to bury the reality of this magic under a convenient and dismissive scientific label. Here's another example of both Beyerstein's tone, and his approach to matters that he may not be truly expert in: "Mystical philosophers assert that the purpose of meditation is to foster this receptive, content-free mode of consciousness as a route to the more profound reality that lines beneath the mundane one we normally inhabit. This assumes, of course, that there is some immaterial fount of absolute knowledge, external to the individual, that can infuse the worthy recipient with complete, instantaneous, and indisputable understanding of "all that is" (a decidedly dualistic position...). These are, of course, metaphysical assumptions that do not lend themselves to empirical adjudication." In this paragraph I find many misunderstandings typically put forth by scientists who, for the most part, are rank (and perhaps rankled) amateurs when it comes to matters such as meditation, mysticism, and human potential generally. That is (and forgive me if I tiptoe into the ad hominem here), just because Beyerstein may be a good scientist doesn't mean he is qualified to speak or write about mysticism and human development, because in all likelihood he has not had the requisite experiences nor done the requisite work. (In Wilber's terms, he has probably not followed the necessary experimental injunctions nor observed the consequent results.) Further, Wilber's notion of "inter-subjective hermeneutical verification" shows exactly how meditative inquiries and practices can still be the subject of true scientific inquiry (even falsifiable inquiry) even though they are not of a physical nature. Extended, material, and reductionistically physical, maybe not, but scientific (truly scientific, and not just scientistic) and empirical, certainly yes. Of course, the idea that there are higher states and stages of consciousness, that people can and do evolve by dint of their focused will and attention, may not sit well with scientists who reflexively believe that scientific discourse is irrevocably at the top of the heap with respect to the human quest for knowledge and experience. The scientific method is wonderful, no doubt about it, but there are means of obtaining knowledge (and types of knowledge) which are "trans-rational," which go beyond mere science and the thinking brain, and I'm wondering if Beyerstein takes these seriously at all. (I'll refer to Wilber one last time: his essay on the "pre/trans fallacy" is certainly worth reading and contemplating.) So, once again, I really do appreciate Beyerstein's overall take-no-prisoners analysis with respect to those who sell and unfairly promote meditation devices, brain/light machines, acoustic entrainers, and "smart nutrition" as shortcuts. There is far to much mushy-headed thinking among those who desperately want to move forward via simplistic shortcuts. But, I do not like - nay, I bristle at - the way Beyerstein appears to use his scientific knowledge (even if mainly by implication and innuendo) to then bash anything and everything that constitutes the realm of self-improvement, human potential, and spiritual practice. Like it or not, enlightenment is real, spiritual development does occur (there are more advanced stages of consciousness that can and have been reached to varying extents by many individuals), and human potential can be consciously and creatively developed and channeled. "That's nice, but do you have any evidence that it really works?" is Beyerstein's rallying call. Well, there is evidence that meditation of many different types actually does work; there is evidence that many different types of spiritual and physical and human potential practices and exercises make a tremendous difference in the lives of those who seriously undertake them; there is evidence that there are, in fact, higher stages of human knowledge and functioning that can be purposefully aspired to, cultivated, and achieved; and there is certainly good, hard evidence that mind and matter interact at a distance, that is, there is evidence that we live in - that we are an inescapable and integral part of - an interactive, PSI-is-real, conscious universe. I apologize if I have attributed to Beyerstein things that he doesn't actually believe in, or if I have wandered into the realm of the ad hominem argument here. But the tone and tenor of Beyerstein's article is, in my view, quite dismissive towards a much broader range of endeavors than the narrow focus on brain/mind machines and the like. There's nothing wrong with being a skeptical inquirer, but skepticism must also, like the Uroboros, be turned on itself by those who deny and decry all that which is currently beyond our limited scientific understanding. I would be quite open to publishing a response, if you or Mr. Beyerstein have one. best, Jordan Gruber, J.D., M.A., B.A. CEO, Enlightenment.Com