Mental Illness and the Paranormal
by oracleofreason
Some shocking insights by parapsychologist Barry Taff. In a recent post on his website, Taff explains that in recent years he has noticed a higher amount of people who suffer from mental illness as a result of their obsession with the paranormal. In his essay, Taff writes:
The ever increasing problem of mental illness associated with the paranormal must be addressed and soon, or we will all pay the price for it in years to come.
Many of these people cannot differentiate between reality and fantasy, as they’re paying more attention to what’s going on in their heads as opposed to what’s really transpiring in the real, physical world around them. Such individuals are dissociative in the extreme.
If we ignore and neglect this problem, we will have a significant portion of our population who believes the nonsense depicted on paranormal reality shows and they will start blaming the problems they encounter in life on the paranormal as opposed to taking the proper course of action to deal with the situation. We will have many individuals who will seek the help of people totally unqualified people to assist them in their time of need.
Barry Taff outlines numerous instances of people who come to him or whom he encounters with problems yet they are a result of people who follow New Age mysticism. Some even go so far as to allege programs related to psychics or ghosts are real. In a previous blog post I remarked about how nonsensical this kind of mysticism is in which one participant agreed with my observation. The problems associated with the paranormal that Barry Taff outlines are the result of people who subscribe to New Age and use it as an escape hatch to avoid reality as evidenced by how many times Taff has been yelled at for telling potential patients that they really need professional help.
After I read Barry Taff’s essay, my mouth literally dropped since he points out something that may not yet be a widely known problem. Fortunately, Taff not only recognizes this as a problem but states things need to change. I would be curious to find out the New Age community’s reaction to his statement. I agree with the view espoused by Doubtful News. The people who suffer from the delusions Taff highlights not only need help from a professional therapist but, simultaneously, need to stop blaming things like aliens, ghosts, or the C.I.A. and own up to their problems. Until and unless they do, the people who suffer from paranoid delusions resulting from delving heavily into the paranormal will continue to live in utter denial and (ultimately) destroy their lives and the lives of their loved ones.
Oracle of Reason 
I always wondered if people claiming that they had “out-of-body” experiences were simply experiencing psychotic episodes. How would these people know the difference? They believe that they are ascending to some higher plane, but are they really?
I certainly don’t think so.
So you believe people who claim to have had out-of-body experiences? Maybe I was mistaken–I thought that you said that these are “new age delusions.”
They are. I commented on the latter part of your first post.
As an outsider looking in on the US i have been utterly shocked over the last 4 years by the conspiracies coming out of the right wing there. These people are sick… i mean, literally ill in the head.
It isn’t just on “the right” it’s also the left. The left in this country conjured up the 9/11 Truth movement and also purported conspiracies related to capitalism too. The Enron scandal and the housing market crash come to mind.
Conspiracy theories is literally a continuous theology applying the argument from design to world events. Worst part about it, is that (like religion) there are spin doctors who make money off of it to get rich.
Glenn Beck is proof enough of that!
Yeah Glen Beck and Pen Gillette–real wack jobs.
I don’t know enough about Gillette to comment. I know he’s a Libertarian and they always come across as nutjobs.
He claims to be an atheist, but it is clear that he is very superstitious.
Really? How is Penn Gillette superstitious?
He does a lot of those “hocus pocus” hand signs. Either that or he’s gangsta.