The Spirit Cons Her
Where does the Huffington Post find these people:
I know I told you I was over astrologers, but I never said anything about clairvoyant healers. A friend of mine raved about Tori Quisling, so I had to meet her. Her readings supposedly guide and empower. What’s the harm in that?
What’s the harm? How about getting ripped off by a charlatan?
Ah, but the little lamb was seeking cosmic wisdom:
I figured she could teach me a few spiritual lessons, or at least explain what the heck an aura is.
Yeah, what the heck is an aura? Can somebody tell me without having to pay a glorified, over-priced fortune teller? How about you, gentle seeker of urban Dharma? Did you learn what an aura is, and by the way, what was the cost of your spiritual lesson?
I once spent 8 hours on a flight sitting next to a certified African witch doctor. He was pretty clear what he was selling, the placebo effect.
I.E. If you can reduce the anxiety related to having an illness the bodies immune system is more effective.
The only danger in seeing witch doctors and clairvoyant healers is if the immune system is incapable of rising to the task of treating the disease.
Of course if you don’t believe in witch doctors or clairvoyant healers there won’t be a placebo effect in which case you will have been ‘ripped off’.
I don’t really get what the problem is here. Someone went to a “reader,” who recommended she be less judgmental, take things less seriously, be more grateful, and focus on positive outcomes. Not something I would personally pay $150 for, but if the person got something out of it then what’s the harm?
Also, as a Buddhist practitioner living in the city, I didn’t really appreciate your snark about “urban Dharma.” Would it be OK to mock my philosophy if I were a Methodist, or a Jew? Not cool.
There is these days an interesting discussion at the Rationally Speaking blog of Prof Massimo Pigliucci about the legitimacy for the American Atheists organization to publicly call religions “a myth” and “a scam”. According to the prevailing wisdom, religion beliefs and practices are to be “respected”, but where does “religion” ends, and weirdness begins? Should one “respect” absolutely all “religion”, including -say- satanic cults or Haitian voodoo? Or Charles Manson’s faithful? Or the Jones congregation in Guyana? And their practices?
I personally adhere to Bertrand Russell’s dictum that persons are to be respected, but ideas, beliefs and practices are all open to debate and deserve no a priori “respect”.
PDA,
The bloggers’ website is called urban dharma, so I was playing off that. I don’t have anything against Buddhism–I think it’s a great spiritual practice.
But I have a big problem with “readers” as you call them. And if someone promotes that stuff uncritically, then I’ll take issue with that as well.
As for the $150, yeah, you could probably get a gypsy fortune teller to tell you the same stuff for $20 bucks.
A charlatan is a charlatan is a charlatan. Doesn’t matter if it’s wrapped in new agey, feel good wrapping.
Did we read the same article? Like I wrote above, the reader (that’s not what “I” call her, it’s what she calls herself) gave her some fairly uncontroversial advice, the kind motivational speakers usually charge much more than $150 for. If the buyer got what she wanted for her money, how does that make the reader a charlatan? How does that make the transaction a con?
It seems like you saw the words “clairvoyant healer” and just stopped reading there. I’d agree with you if the person was offering, for example, to cure the writer’s cancer with pyramids or some such. That’s not what she did, though, so I don’t get what your objection is.
My turn to ask if you read the same article: “The first thing Tori tells me is that she sees green energy all around me. In my mind, green means money, so I got excited. Alas, she explains, green means growth. In Tori’s words, living on the path is my path. Oh Lord, just call me Dorothy! She continued with her vision, telling me she saw me in a quaint white beach house with my guy, eating breakfast and publishing some kind of magazine from home. Now she’s talking.”
PDA, you believe that people can tell the future?
Anyone who claims they can is a charlatan in my book.
Okay, that is pretty bullshitty. I admit, I saw the green aura crap and my eyes sort of crossed at that passage.
There’s still a level of caveat emptor at play here, but I agree that anyone who’s selling Minority Report services deserves to be called a con-man. Um, person.
Keith: “you believe that people can tell the future? Anyone who claims they can is a charlatan in my book.”
Funnily enough, that’s my feeling about climate models and those who advance their predictions. A lot of people don’t seem to understand the lack of magical ability that technology has, in rather the same way that some idiots don’t seem to understand that a tarot card is just a bit of cardboard.
Keith, I take it that you have actually looked into the Bhuddist Path – { Buddhism”“I think it’s a great spiritual practice.} Very nice descriptive phrase.
As to the future, as per Bhuddism, if the Bhudda is correct in saying that time does not exist, then yes, predictions of the here/now may be possible.
🙂
I have. I studied eastern philosophy as an undergraduate. Learned all the history behind Confucianism, Taoism, etc.
I’ve also been an avid practitioner (off and on throughout my life) of Tai Chi. I’ve read a fair amount of Zen philosophy. So I think eastern arts have a lot to offer.
I just don’t like when it’s mixed up with woo.
Yeah, why do they always forget the hoo after the woo?
😉
Simon if you can’t distinguish between predictions couched in terms of statistical trends and models based on multiple lines of evidence, and subjected to scientific peer review, and ones couched in terms of auras , energy fields, and ‘evidence’ collected during one $150 session, subjected to no sort of review at all, then it’s no wonder that you misunderstood Keith here.
Steven, you can’t see the link between two mechanisms, each seeking many clues and hints from the past – whether a global mean temperature derived from many misunderstood and unknown forcings and feedbacks, or such things as the un-tanned band probably left behind by a wedding ring – in order to assign gnostic certainty of a future path.
A climate model that doesn’t fully understand what has gone before, and why, can have no real skill in computing what will come. Faith in these things is not science-based.
Simon, methods matter. And science has NEVER required ‘full understanding’ in order to advance with skill.
WRT climate models, Steven, yours is a belief that is unsupported by evidence. Models are not credible at 30 year scales and there is nothing to support the typical argument that they can perform better at greater spacial scales.
Climate models are what they are. I have no problem with them trying, although I admit I have an issue with the lack of ROI regarding advances in their skill over the years.
No, what I have a problem with is climate models being presented as skilful for the specific purpose of advancing the formation of a particular policy or line of policies, when in fact they are not skilful at all. In fortune telling terms, those who do this are what we commonly describe as “hucksters”, “con artists”, “charlatans” and “fraudsters”. Or, more broadly, “fortune tellers”.
Urgh! Spatial*