Mental Illness and the Paranormal

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.

Desperate Arizona family hires psychic to find missing son

An Arizona family has hired a psychic to find their missing son. According to ABC 15, Jack Culolias was last seen at Cadillac Ranch at Tempe Marketplace Mall in which he was kicked out of the bar November 30th and has not been seen since. The news story points out that Melinda Vail offered her services to the famiy and claims she can tap into energy that enables her to collect information and communicate with the dead. Though she would not say whether or not the Culolias’s son is deceased.

After reading this story, I was reminded of Phoenix-based psychic medium Allison DuBois who has been a consultant on a number of police cases yet she has not solved a single one. According to CSICOP, in the 2010 Baby Gabriel case DuBois’ prediction that he would be found was wrong. This in addition to a number of prior police cases that she participated in and made incorrect predictions.

Psychics make vague, unspecific predictions or often have the wrong information that can lead police on wild goose chases. One Texas psychic is being sued by farmowners due to her falsely determining there was a mass grave of dead bodies buried on their property. The embarrassment alone from the Liberty County Sheriff’s Office investigation and local media reports was what prompted the suit. Due to Tempe PD’s slow investigation, the Cuolias family obviously felt they needed to take matters into their own hands. Including hiring a psychic who will be of no help at all.

The Nonsense of New Age

I was hanging out at a bookstore the other day and one thing that struck me was the size of the section that they had set aside for New Age-related products.

From tarot cards to books on enhancing your psychic abilities to attracting wealth and good fortune to ways to communicate with animals, an extensive selection of these products is available.

Before it closed, Borders used the Metaphysics label for its New Age section. However, what metaphysics really is is a branch of philosophy that is the study of the nature of reality.

It does not involve mysticism.

With Christianity’s dwinding influence, it looks like people are personally replacing or compliment their god of Christianity, Judaism or Islam with psychics, faith healers, and astrologers.

I can understand the appeal New Age has since its emphasis is on people to find their own spiritual path and enlightenment as opposed to major religions, like Christianity, where people must follow their dogma in order to attain salvation or forgiveness.

However, this brand of mysticism is just as much a fraud as the Abrahamic and other religions of days gone by too.

Look at the documentary What the Bleep Do We Know!? which posits a theory of some spiritual connection between science and faith.

The central theme espoused during the film is that you make your own reality while claiming that humans are interconnected with other beings, your senses are playing tricks on you, people create their own reality as they go along and that humans are all part of the collective universe or consciousness.

One so-called expert interviewed in the film states that we must go beyond our senses in order to better understand ourselves. That we cannot know reality and the life we are in or reality we see is an illusion.

All of these points are grounded in the philosophy of Plato that shuns physical reality in favor of the immaterial and supernatural and, of course, is utter nonsense.

It is unfortunate that many fail to understand that the fundamental errors in all schools of thought that involve mysticism and that their premise is essentially the same.

The only benefit individuals can gain from such approaches is a sense that they don’t have to cope with reality. At least temporarily.

A Christian, Jew or Muslim hands his or her free will over to a clergymember, while a New Age follower hands his or her consciousness over to a psychic medium, faith healer or pagan wicca.

Yet followers of mysticism all seek (in varying degrees) the same benefit in escaping from the responsibility of thinking or facing reality itself. No different than a drug user looking for a quick fix.

By people using their minds rationally, consistently and recognizing reality as an objective absolute many who would normally utilize New Age-oriented philosophies or religions, would no longer have the need to.

Though the comparison maybe controversial, mysticism itself – in this case New Age – is nothing more an escape hatch from reality. New Age and the Abrahamic religions are cousins in that their premise attacks a person’s ability to think and reason for themselves and, by and large, are an awful way for people to deal with life.

Environmentalism also falls into this category too. Its core belief is that its followers have some sort of religious conviction to preserve wildlife and beautiful scenery.

Yet, like Christian doomsayers and New Age mystics, environmentalism is another mystic sect that emphasizes and has reverence for spirituality in nature while propagating faith and self sacrifice.

I have nothing against vacations, recreational activities or just plain relaxation time since, unlike mystical philosophies, these activities do not force people to suspend thought.

However, I think the world would be a much better place if people would face reality for a change rather than trying to run away from it and, in turn, using mysticism as a means to do so.