20 March 2019, 23:58:

Autumn Equinox for the Southern Hemisphere

Today is the autumn equinox – it is the day of the year where we observe an equal amount of day and night for both the Southern and Northern Hemispheres. In the south we are moving away from the heat and bustle of summer, whereas our northern counterparts are seeing an increase in light and activity.

The autumn equinox is aligned with the element of Air. In everyday speech, breath forms an important part of our way of communication and it is connected to the seat of the mind as well as that of our soul. We notice that our perspectives of life colour our actions and our opinions. It also influences how we choose to voice our ideas. We can use these powers of persuasion to inspire (the light aspect) or to diminish (the shadow aspect). This leads me to the main theme of today’s article…

In today’s society where we are in constant and instant communication with one another through the miracle of modern technology and social media platforms, where we deal with the likes of the Super Opinion. This is a symptom of the Hydra syndrome, where one believes that your own opinion is the ultimate say in the matter, you disregard and ridicule the opinion of those who should disagree. A clear behavioural characteristic of the Hydra syndrome is the multiplication of its threats, insults and general condescending comments towards other logical, reasoned and/or open-minded suggestions. It is distinct from the Troll syndrome, which is the relentless and open personal attack without provocation. The Hydra and Troll syndromes aren’t mutually exclusive and can exist concurrently, however the Hydra aims to oppress, whereas the Troll aims to harm.

These analogies illustrate the pervasive culture of communication that we have embraced on social media. It is spreading and contaminating the way we speak to colleagues and even with friends and family during gatherings . I will specifically address some of the bias and judgmental attitudes of the Scientific community with regards to spiritual practices, but as my analogy illustrates the problem remains rampant and ubiquitous.

“Blind belief in authority is the greatest enemy of truth.”

Albert Einstein

Being a ‘scientist’ does not give me (or other scientists) the right to stand in judgement of the spiritual community and to do so with disregard to scientific method, sound research and objectivity. It degrades scientific merit to a point of unreasonable self-righteousness and nonsensical opinion. Very often I come across popular Science articles that indulged in such distasteful degradation of the opinion/beliefs of others. These topics include, crystal healing, Feng shui, meditation, acupuncture and a variety of other alternate healing practices. Generally when I notice alternate healing topic from science platforms I want to find an insightful and well balanced piece about the history of the topic, how it has changed due to the changes in our lifestyles and perspectives. Yes, it may be linked to certain ideas of metaphysical concepts of magical phenomenon, but we must keep in mind that science has yet to find a way to substantiate such claims, but for now everybody can and should enjoy a little magic once in a while away from hard-core materialistic and reductionist measurements that grips science so that we all develop open-minded and well-rounded knowledge of other people and their beliefs… Instead I find non-informative heavily biased articles about how ‘sciency’ stuff have been stolen for click-bait by the New Age community or they are full out ridicule pieces that proceed to insult said community with names such as ‘quacks’. Then queue several comments from the rest of the scientific community with more derogatory comments and mockery.

Now if the authors of these scientific articles ‘truly know’ that these forms of healing are ineffective, then prove it, where is your research and results? And don’t do lazy science-abuse by setting up experiments which you already designed to fail. Please provide the proper science, instead of writing your own version of click-bait. It is arrogant and reflects poorly on the rest of the scientific community who tries to cultivate understanding between different perspectives and different ways of living.

This type of behaviour has also become the general tone we have in our society lately, the one of the Super Opinion. When writing articles, especially critique or rebuttals, I always seek to maintain a well researched and unbiased approach – I present to you the facts, include some personal observations (which are clearly disclosed as such) and try to get you to make up your own mind instead of leading you to a prejudiced conclusion. The aim of articles or comments or whatever form of communication you choose, is to discuss not to oppress or to harm and I think somewhere along the line we have forgotten this, especially on social media.

Even Dr Albert Einstein with his degree in physics (as hard-core materialistic and reductionist science field as can be) did not judge, mock or disregard other people or other scientists within the fields of what were/is regarded as pseudoscience, i.e., Paraspychology (even psychology for a time). I assume that he extended this same amount of courtesy to those with differing opinions and beliefs as well. For instance, I did a bit of research a while back on Orgone energy and Orgonite Pyramids and how these work.

Personally, I don’t use them as I think it has some design-flaws. Moreover I find Dr Reich (its inventor) to be a really creepy guy with all kinds of unsavoury ideas, so I don’t want to associate with derivatives of his inventions. However, orgonite pyramids do bring comfort to many and in discussion with these people I find that we generally agree that science still has many gaps of its own to fill. Anyways, back to Einstein. Dr Reich who proposed the concept of orgone energy even wrote to Einstein and asked him to evaluate his orgone box or accumulator. Instead of laughing him off, Einstein agreed to test his invention (Ref 1 & 2). I would really like to get hold of the Einstein’s notes and correspondence letters, but from what I could gather Einstein tested the accumulator quite vigorously and wrote back (in a polite way, gasp!) that he could not find substantiating evidence to Reich’s hypotheses (however the conclusion of Einstein’s experiments are still highly debated and some have re-tested the orgone box in the last decade (Ref 3)).

Einstein’s story illustrates his objectivity and open-mindedness in his willingness to test Reich’s theories as well as providing him with the results. Furthermore he did not insult or degrade Reich’s standing the the scientific community after his evaluation of the box, he mostly kept to his own business after that. Einstein himself even seemed to be curious of the metaphysical realm and you would find many of his popular quotes and sayings hinting at this.

This brings me to the concept of Kindness when we communicate and even evaluate one another. We can agree to disagree without throwing ourselves into a spiral of insults and derogatory comments. You can even have your judgement and opinions about others or what they do, but there is no need for you to voice them, especially if they don’t add value to the discussion. If someone does something you don’t like, yet they do not harm anyone, you have no business telling them otherwise. Do not oppress others simply because they have a different outlook or opinion to yours. Because when you do, you strip their freedom, deny their choices and dull their creative expression. How many groundbreaking inventions have been thrown away due to the unwillingness of others to listen and how many people are prevented from bringing change to the world because of the mockery by peers? Rather let’s opt to give each other some space (with or without judgement) and try to go back to the principle of ‘Live and let live’. It takes very little from us to be kind and kindness is a very simple thing. It has no field of expertise, it knows no culture, ethnic background or belief system. It belongs to no-one and to everyone. It is a small thing that can drive great accomplishment with the minimal investment, all we need to do is just be willing to listen even when we don’t understand.

References

1. Orgone. Wikipedia
2. The Reich-Einstein Experiment. Encyclopedianomadica
3. DeMeo, James. (2009). EXPERIMENTAL CONFIRMATION OF THE REICH ORGONE ACCUMULATOR THERMAL ANOMALY. Subtle Energies. Vol.20. 17-32.

Related Articles

1. Breath as the seat of consciousness, life and relaxation: The Path towards our Meditation Journey
2. The Fountain of Youth, Human Evolution & Futuristic Synthetic Life: Where does that leave the individual, what about the soul?
3. Parapsychology, Zener cards and precognitive dreams: Scientific problem solving for ESP and psychic abilities
4. The Science of Crystal Healing & Gemstone Therapy