Case in point: Scientology

Aside from some of its outright kookiness, the philosophy of self-growth makes a good bit of sense and can be applied by virtually anyone outside of the Church. 

Other tenets of Scientology, I don’t agree with. 

They think all humans are immortal spirits, which they call ‘thetans’,  who have forgotten (amnesia?) their true nature.  The thetan is a reincarnated soul who once lived on other planets.  Thetans need to be rehabilitated with a counselor.  These sessions are called audits.  A member is not able to proceed with further advancement until they have been fully rehabilitated (brainwashed, programmed, etc…)

Why is there such a human need for all the romanticism about one’s origin? Does every faction have to begin their story with some great tale?  And what about the processes (rites, initiations, rituals etc…)of the paradigm?  People pay thousands of dollars to climb the proverbial ladder of attainment there. For what? I mean, really, for what??

This week on the popular A&E series Paranormal State, the Paranormal Research Society attempted to communicate with a demon by employing the use of a shakti helmet.   ”Shakti”  is Sanskrit and in Hindu mythology Shakti is the Divine Feminine consort of Shiva.  The shakti helmet, on the other hand, is a gadget worn to affect the frontal lobes of the brain to produce spiritual experiences.  It uses Trans Cranial Magnetic Stimulation to bring about these experiences.

Without going into the science of it, the helmet basically produces hallucinations that believers like to call “religious experiences” without  drugs.

In what way this machine is helpful to someone who already believes they are in the company of demons?

Image from www.shaktitechnology.com

Enter the paranormal investigators:  Some of them claim to be debunkers (we’ll talk about that later) and some are open about looking to prove ghosts exist.  They all have their methods of investigating.  The have their techy looking gadgetry and spend hours of what equates to walking around in the dark having one-way conversations with people that have died.  If any of these groups were ever able to produce evidence of a ghost that holds water, why hasn’t the scientific community picked up on this, endorsed it and put the curious to rest?  The answer is that they haven’t.  They haven’t and they won’t. 

On the contrary, the scientific community has been able to disprove much of this so-called evidence of the paranormal.  The Cult of the Skeptic will look at these cases and more.