Sometimes getting fooled again is good for you, as in healing good. Shamans have been healing people for tens of thousands of years, using their considerable powers of persuasion and that most efficacious of treatments: placebo.
While shamanic healing methods are varied, there is a great deal of ritual similarity across time and space: trance, sucking, [...]
Tags:Bali·Balian·Balinese healers·cultural tourism·Daniel McGuire·Ketut Liyer·Mangku Pogog·New Age·placebo·ritual healing·shamanic healing·suggestion·traditional healers
Sedona, Arizona is ground zero for New Age spiritual retreats and commercialization of all things New Age. For several thousand dollars, you can spend a long weekend in Sedona taking in the mystical charms of its four vortexes, all the while being shepherded in your quest by gurus such as Mark Amaru Pinkham, whose spectacular [...]
Tags:Angel Valley·Archangel Michael·Arizona·aura cleansings·chakras·commercialization·commoditization·crystals·four vortexes·gurus·Janelle Sparkman·Marc Lacey·Mark Amaru Pinkham·metaphysical·Michael Hamilton·New Age·North American Grand Prior of The International Order of Gnostic Templars·Sedona·Sedona Metaphysical Spiritual Association·spiritual consumption·spiritual retreats·Spiritual Warrior·sweat lodges·vortex·vortices
Stephen Hawking’s new book, The Grand Design, is generating a fair amount of press because of his claim that the laws of physics explain the Big Bang and remove the need for a Prime Mover. God in the Gap theists have thus been pushed further back in time to nothingness, which is the non-state that [...]
Tags:bellum omnium contra omnes·Big Bang·Deepak Chopra·deism·design·designer·Enya·God in the Gap·Leviathan·Natural Theology·New Age·physics·Prime Mover·spiritual realm·Stephen Hawking·The Grand Design·theism·theodicy·Thomas Hobbes·transcendent reality·watchmaker analogy·Where is the Design·William Paley·Yoga
In “Quantum Consciousness: The Way to Reconcile Science and Spirituality,” Kingsley Dennis elegantly discusses what has proven to the most intractable issue in neuroscience: consciousness. Because fluctuations and altered states of consciousness are so often linked to the supernatural-religious, I have examined it in many posts, including Consciousness and the Supernatural, which provides a brief [...]
Tags:Abner Shimony·absolute unitary being·altered states of consciousness·atomic·biological systems·biophotons·biophysics·Butterfly Effect·classical mechanics·connection·consciousness·David Lewis-Williams·dependence·eastern metaphysics·electromagnetism·energy·entanglement·field matrix·fluctuations·Fritz-Albert Popp·interdependence·Kingsley Dennis·Leibniz·Mae-Wan Ho·matrix·metabolic processes·nature of reality·neuroscience·New Age·panpsychic·photon emissions·quantum coherence·quantum consciousness·quantum mechanics·quantum waves·resonating field·Roger Penrose·Spinoza·Stuart Hameroff·Stuart Kauffman·subatomic·The Rainbow and the Worm·universal consciousness·wave mechanics·Whitehead
Over at HuffPo Religion, Deepak Chopra opines on the non-existent “war between science and religion.” Religion is of course being investigated by scientists and examined by historians, but this does not make the interrogation a war. Religion is simply another object or category of positivist inquiry.
Chopra’s piece begins with some surprising concessions:
What is the war [...]
Tags:awareness·consciousness·cosmos·creativity·Darwin·Deepak Chopra·evolution·experiment·fact·facts·faith·Genesis·godhead·intelligence·matter·mind·mysticism·New Age·observation·origins·positivism·premises·religion·replication·science·self-regulation·theory·universe·war
Whether or not you like Christopher Hitchens, one thing is certain: he can turn an incisive phrase. At his best, Hitchens writes with an acerbic aplomb that can be charming; at his worst, he is downright nasty.
With the latter Hitchens in mind, I have not yet been able to bring myself to read his jeremiad, [...]
Tags:atheism·caliphate·Christopher Hitchens·consumerism·crystals·fundamentalists·Galileo·God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything·Islamic empire·jihad·Khalil Gibran·Laurens van der Post·materialism·Muslim·mysticism·mystics·New Age·Prince Charles·radical Islam·religion·science·sharia·soul·universal soul
USA Today is running a story about the “spiritual teacher” Eckhart Tolle, who is categorized by some — usually Christians seeking to denigrate or demonize him — as a “New Age guru.” Whatever the merits of Tolle’s thought might be, his close association with Oprah certainly raises some well-justified suspicions. I can hear the John [...]
