The New Age: Elements of Religion

This post started off as a comment in the discussion from the previous post. It started getting a bit long, and I wanted to add some references, so I decided to put it here as a separate post. It dives abruptly into the topic and assumes a great deal, so it’s meant more as a bunch of sign posts for discussion, rather than a finished or complete statement.

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I see religion as being a bunch of psychological quirks which have been bundled together and labeled “religion”, and treated as if it’s a unified whole. Modern religion is a modern invention and bears little resemblance to the “religion” of previous epochs. The psychological quirks which modern religion exploits, however, are as old as the hills. Just don’t expect to find any sophisticated theology or philosophical musings to appear on the list. Those appeared much later, as a tool of political power. In Europe, for example, the unified philosophy behind Catholicism beat all other religious competitors in the dark & middle ages (according to Bertrand Russell), and despite all the professed sincerity of theologians, I see it as a “top down” ideology rather than anything to be equated with the ancient and primal impulses that make religion a virtually universal human trait. 

After reading a bit and thinking over the last few years, I’d argue that the individual psychological elements that lead to religion include:

* Sacrifice – the idea of offering something to a higher power in return for protection seems a very straight forward extension of a social exchange within a hierarchy. (Animals who live in hierarchical groups seem to share this, eg., cats who bring their owners dead birds seem to be doing some form of this.)

* Life after death – seems a very straight forward continuation of “object permanence” (infants learn that an object continues to exist even when they don’t see it), linked with social cognition and memory of individuals. (Again animals have this too, though probably lack the ability to become theologians)

* Ideas about causation (/active agents) – we’ve only sorted this stuff out recently, but we still find ourselves imagining that the bus company deliberately draws up its timetable exactly so we’ll see the bus pulling away just as we come out the door. There need be no surprise that people have seen dragons in lightning, or a god in the western wind.

* Hierarchy – we’re basically happy and function well if someone says they’re the boss and starts ordering people around. If that person says they also have a boss who’s much bigger and grumpier, it works all the better. Like other animals, we have a whole set of behaviors related to our perception of our place within particular hierarchies, so it’s easily exploited.

* Male fear and anger towards women – men are stronger than women, and have difficulty understanding that this doesn’t automatically grant either the right or even the means to have dominion over women in the way they have dominion over cows and sheep. Religion in its modern form allows men to say that sex is wrong (and women who arouse them sexually are evil), so they don’t need to feel how much they desire it, nor risk feeling the pain and humiliation of rejection. Religion is the perfect vehicle for this form of male stupidity and cowardice. (See footnotes)

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These single elements are found in the animal kingdom too, which I note in order to point out that these behaviors sit very deeply in our neuroanatomy. 

People today often talk about all forms of religion as if it’s a single phenomenon. But its “unity” is a modern invention, These elements used to be deeply embedded in everyday life as well as in ritual events and artistic expression etc. Today, given that science has proved more useful at explaining and utilizing the forces of nature, thereby ripping the old culture of ritual etc to shreds, religion has learned to throw a blanket over the damage and maintain power for its priests, as well as on a personal level, maintain some kind of psychological satisfaction for people who find science a bit hard to swallow (or don’t have the time or inclination to try)

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New Age spirituality has managed to distance itself from all the mainstream religions exactly enough to be seen as providing an alternative, without abandoning its access to the psychological wellsprings of religion. It has managed to avoid the worst excesses, while exploiting the same psychological quirks as mainstream religions for its own profit and maintenance of power:

* Sexuality/ Oppression of Women – The one area where New Age spirituality has contributed something positive is that it has a fairly healthy attitude to sex, and relations between the sexes. For this, I think, it deserves some acknowledgement. It could easily be written off as pandering to a market, but a case could be made that many have found its healthier attitude to sexuality liberating.

However, in every other element in the above list, it has basically pulled the same or similar tricks that the big religions have pulled over the centuries.

* Sacrifice – As well as the normal hope and optimism that makes people over-estimate their chances of success, this impulse is also specifically targeted by many New Age teachers. Paying up front with your credit card (aka “investing in your future”) with practically no recourse to a refund. James Ray’s promises of breakthroughs that follow hard work used this impulse as a cover for psychological manipulation and sadism.

* Hierarchy – chimps have to claw and tear their way to the top of the hierarchy; but New Agers have found an easier way: simply form a hierarchy underneath you. An upcoming post (don’t hold your breath) will look at the way Neale Donald Walsch has done this, but for now I’ll just note: invent your own teachings and you’re immediately a leading expert on them; invent your own God and you’re immediately sitting at his right hand. Thanks to the psychological frailties of human nature, some people will inevitably be drawn to you, and bingo, you’re at the top of a hierarchy.

* Belief in life after death, and ideas about causation – The New Age has been far more successful in incorporating science into its propaganda than any of the big religions. Where Christianity gets laughed at for promoting Creationism, the New Age has Deepak Chopra lecturing physicists about quantum mechanics. Nuff said.

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References etc.

This post, Medieval Quantum Theology, covers a debate between Deepak Chopra and Sam Harris. Chopra doesn’t quite seem to know what hit him, but scrambles out of a tight corner when confronted by a leading physicist in the question time. Eventually Chopra wrote a book with the physicist, demonstrating, for my tastes at least, that some people are way too accommodating when it comes to dangerous self serving bullshit like the quackery that Chopra serves up.

A History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell, has an incredibly insightful coverage of the development of religious thought. Free (legal) PDF here. 

Breaking the Spell is a book by Dan Dennett, which deals with the origins of religion. Here’s a lecture on the topic.

Regarding the use of religion as a tool of oppression of women, this post, Pakistani Actress Fights Fire With Fire, shows an extraordinary clip of an incredibly brave woman standing up to a Muslim cleric who is attacking her like a yapping terrier. She’d already received death threats from the Taliban, but she expresses her attitude clearly: “I’m more angry with you people than you are with me.” 

Spirituality: WTF???

The name of this blog (spirituality is no excuse) side steps many of the questions about spirituality itself. The main focus is on the way spirituality is used as a cloak for scamming and killing for fun and profit.

I’m an atheist; and I see no reason to believe in any spirit world or subtle energies or precognition or esp; but this is not strictly speaking a “skeptic blog”. Partly that’s because I lack the science background to investigate topics with the thoroughness and fairness good skeptic sites undertake. But mostly it’s because I was, for some reason, just totally outraged and unspeakably infuriated and sickened by the deaths caused by James Ray. I have felt like I belong, at least socially, to what could be called the international “spiritual community” for most of my adult life, and my atheist perspective is as much a product of my subjective inquiries through meditation as it is my reading of science.

I guess that’s why Ray’s crimes pissed me off so much. Seeing the photos of the people he killed reminded so much of people I know and love, and could easily have wound up getting themselves drawn into his racket. And it makes me painfully aware of how exposed many of my friends are to quackery, emotional, sexual and financial exploitation, and believing ideas that are not designed to serve their best interests. I want to do something to stop people spreading these ideas, and to encourage people to start thinking a bit more critically about the exploitive and dangerous spiritual culture that has developed in recent decades.

Many people get the feeling that something’s wrong with it all, but don’t quite know where or how to start criticizing it. Once you know how to do it, it looks easy, but for those who have lived mostly in the warm and (seemingly) protective cocoon of the New Age, the intellectual skills involved seem strange and cold. Sometimes it’s genuine curiosity and concern for the truth that makes them pick up that cold spanner on a frosty morning and start unscrewing things. Often it’s pain that has raised the bar for belief, and made them want to check out if this stuff is really true. 

Whatever the case, initial discovery that one particular set of New Age teachings is bullshit, is often followed by the discovery that a second set of New Age teachings is also baloney. At this point, I notice, some people like to scurry back to the cocoon. Others keep on tugging at the loose strands and eventually notice that the whole fabric of New Age culture is indeed cut from the same cloth and it just keeps on unraveling.

So, what’s left after all that unraveling?

I think that some of it was wrapped around some things of real value, like for example alternative medicine makes good use of relaxation and positive fantasies to induce desirable physiological changes. Such techniques are (or should be) used where possible by mainstream medicine. There’s certainly nothing mysterious about them, but it could be argued that having been wrapped in woo clothing, they are now more widely accepted and their worth more clearly recognized. It’s also conceivable that we might stumble on new ways of using them that might not have been discovered had they not been used in a woo setting.

The term “spirituality” might also have some value, beyond its use as a label for cultural beliefs and practices. I could imagine it being a useful “placeholder” for subjective experiences which we can’t really pin down, but are nevertheless too important not to talk about somehow. Or maybe not.

Comments are open!

New Age Horse Botherers

I can’t do it. I don’t know what to write about this video. I guess you’ll understand why if you watch it.

Conscious Horse, Conscious Rider

COMPETITION

I know it’s cheap just to just link to a video like that, so…..

I’ll offer free prizes for anyone who can provide some witty or insightful commentary.

1st Prize — A free face-lift from the Louise Hay Clinic

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2nd Prize — A set of paradigm-shifting spanners

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3rd Prize — A free subscription to @Conscious Horse on twitter

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Documentary Film: The Secret Country: The First Australians Fight Back

I’ve devoted some space on this blog to the bizarre case of Marlo Morgan, enemy of the indigenous people of Australia. Her fake story about the extinction of “true” Aborigines (along with her claim of being their guardian and messenger to the world) is the most sickening case of identity theft and cultural assassination in the history of publishing. 

Morgan’s book Mutant Message Down Under is also the most widely read book on Australian Aborigines. It’s been translated into 26 languages and been read by tens of millions of people the world over. Clearly the majority of readers fail to pick up on the surreptitious but profound racism. Clearly too, most readers lack the knowledge of the subject matter that would allow them to quite swiftly see through the hoax. (Not only is Morgan’s representation of Aboriginal culture inaccurate to the point of being surreal, but even her mere descriptions of the Australian landscape are so inaccurate as to almost be offensive.)

The biggest tragedy is that her success is built upon a genuine worldwide interest in the subject. Millions of people read that book on the understanding it’s a true story. In fact readers have paid for a dose of racist poison. Aborigines earned the interest themselves through two centuries of struggle in the face of genocide and oppression that continues to this day. International recognition of their culture is important to their continued survival, especially given that their real history is little known, even within Australia.

A series of documentaries made in Australia about Aboriginal history, oppression, and survival has recently been made available on the internet by the film maker. I will be posting them here, with a little commentary for each.

The first is The Secret Country: The First Australians Fight Back, from 1985. It deals with the Aboriginal resistance to the invasion and colonization of their land.

Marlo Morgan: Lies Don’t Count as “Fiction”

I’m a little surprised to see that one of the most popular searches that bring people to this blog is “Marlo Morgan hoax” (and occasionally a rather hopeful sounding “Marlo Morgan true”). I am pleased about this, because there is surprisingly little on the internet about what is one of the more curious cases of fraud in the history of publishing. The fraud was unmasked before her book Mutant Message Down Under was even published, yet was snapped up by Rupert Murdoch’s Harper Collins and relabeled “fiction” to avoid prosecution.

(See my earlier article for more details, and this article by Cath Ellis, for a more detailed account of the whole story.)

One of the most common responses from fans when they discover that the story is a hoax is try and fudge the importance of its authenticity. They try to argue that it is “still inspiring even if it is a work of fiction”, or that somehow it could be true in some mystical sense. For example, this reviewer claims:

If the reader approaches the book as non-fiction, then he or she is challenged to believe that certain events could have actually occurred, even though they might seem implausible at first, and in the process challenges the reader’s worldview to expand to consider possibilities beyond the ordinary.  If read as a work of fiction, the tale becomes a mythical metaphor…

This kind of apologetics ignores not only the atrociously inaccurate and deeply racist portrayal of Aboriginal culture in the book, but also sidesteps the fact that Morgan has repeatedly and explicitly claimed her story is literally true, and her status as messenger to the world for the last “true” Aborigines is authentic.

Just to put this on the record, I am linking to and transcribing (below) the entire text of an interview in which Morgan makes these claims. Her stupid book has been on numerous university courses, including ecology and anthropology, not to mention being extensively and uncritically used in primary and high schools. She has toured the world giving lectures as an expert on “Aboriginal Culture”, a subject of which she is entirely ignorant. Her last appearance I am aware of was in 2004.

Her book has been translated into 26 languages. (Ironically, the book seems to actually gain something in translation. The original self published book was the worst piece of prose writing I have ever read.)

It is unusual for liars to be as blatant and brazen as Morgan has been, and the interview below is a demonstration of her skills in this regard. (She seems to come a bit unstuck in a different interview, where the interviewer doubts her and questions her unexpectedly on a few details. She is floored, for example when asked for details about exactly what kind of health work she was doing in Australia.) 

This, along with first hand accounts of her behavior and the general way this fraud has unfolded, make me suspect Morgan is suffering from a clinically identifiable form of psychosis, possibly bi-polar disorder. I offer this speculation merely as an attempt to comprehend how Morgan seems to have convinced herself of her story.

Here is a link to the audio of the radio interview. The transcript is below the fold.

Superheroes of the New Age: Louise Hay

I’m no fan of cosmetic surgery and would prefer that people deal with their lack of acceptance of their looks or aging processes by feeling their feelings, and maybe even talking themselves into a bit more self acceptance. But obviously it’s personal decision and none of my business. 

However, I do think it is perfectly reasonable to ask why Louise Hay — who has made millions teaching that even leprosy can be cured with positive thinking — should decide to get a face lift. Can cure leprosy; can’t get rid of — or even learn to accept — a few wrinkles!

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Louise Hay, cosmetic surgery advocate

Louise Hay looks okay for her age and probably always did. But the stretched lips, splayed cheek lines and garishly contourless skin give away the fact that she has had a face lift. Probably multiple face lifts, from the looks of it. Louise made the choice to go under the knife because she didn’t believe that repeating a few words like

I love and accept my body and its aging processes

would lead to to a state of mind where she could live with herself as she is.

Ms Hay has made millions selling people the idea that positive thinking can cure every single illness there is, without so much as an asprin, to say nothing of surgical procedures. Yet when faced with simple straight forward issue that really can be effectively dealt with by muttering at oneself a bit, she instantly capitulated.

The Strange Case of Marlo Morgan

Back in the days before the internet took off as an effective means of opposing new age fraud, an American woman, Marlo Morgan, pulled off possibly the most brazen, stupid and above all, bizarre scam in the long history bizarre new age scams.

It’s a story that illustrates the damage that can be done by a “positive” message. Nobody dies in this story, but the entire indigenous population of Australia gets its identity quite literally stolen, and suffers a bizarre but pernicious form of cultural assassination. And of course, tens of millions of fans world-wide lose their cash and devalue their brains.

Very simply stated, Marlo Morgan travelled to Australia in the late 1980s and returned with a bizarre story about meeting a hitherto unknown Aboriginal tribe, travelling with them through the desert for about three months, learning their secrets and being chosen by them to be the final guardian of their culture and their messenger to the world.

Marlo Morgan: rugged adventurer, Guardian of Aboriginal culture

There are a few problems with her story, however. For example, the tribe doesn’t exist and Marlo actually spent her time working in a pharmacy in Brisbane, not wandering about in the desert, but more on that later.

Medieval Quantum Theology with Deepak Chopra

I finally got around to watching the debate between Sam Harris & Michael Schermer (on the skeptic side), and Deepak Chopra & Jean Houston (promoting the cause of New Age unaccountability on the other). It aired way back in March on ABC’s Nightline.

It was a lesson in devious obfuscation from Chopra; and clarity, sincerity and intelligence from Sam Harris. Schermer was ok, but nowhere near as impressive as Harris. New Age self-important blitherer Jean Houston, could easily have been replaced with Sammy the Performing Dachshund without detracting from the intellectual level of the debate.

Chopra spoke his usual pompous mess of arrogant bullshit, alternately attacking science and claiming science for his own. He thinks his particular type of spirituality (which he sees as the only universally correct brand) can “upgrade science”. And he accused scientists of living in the “dungeon of scientific orthodoxy”.

Then he claimed that science itself (in particular, quantum physics) has actually confirmed that “we live in a sea of consciousness”, and anyone who denies this is a “scientific jihadist“.