It's not only skeptics who have harsh words for psychics and mediums. Some devoutly religious people do, too.
Case in point: a Web site called CANA (Christian Answers for the New Age). The site is devoted to critiquing any and all "New Age" beliefs and practices as contrary to Christianity. The world is apparently filled with such demonic temptations, which range almost from A to Z - from alternative healing to yoga - not to mention astrology, meditation, and even Halloween. (Parents are warned not to let their kids dress up as ghosts and goblins "or [any] other figure that belongs to the world of death or the occult.") Harry Potter books also come under close scrutiny.
But what caught my eye was the article on mediums. The author (and founder of CANA) is Marcia Montenegro, formerly a New Age aficionado herself. She went to seances, had a spirit guide, and prepared horoscopes. Then she converted to Christianity and ditched most or all of her onetime beliefs and practices.
In the article, Montenegro mentions various mediums and channelers, but with the exceptions of John Edward and (possibly) James Van Praagh, she lists no one who has been subjected to any scientific testing. Instead, she names such dubious figures as J.Z. Knight, Ruth Montgomery, Jane Roberts, and Neale Donald Walsch. None of these folks has ever worked with parapsychologists as far as I know, and none is given any credibility by serious researchers. (This is not to say that there may not be some legitimate wisdom in the "channeled" writings of, say, Jane Roberts - but it is not evidential, i.e., verifiable.)
Why not talk about Leonora Piper, Gladys Osborn Leonard, or Eileen Garrett - the three most tested mediums in history? Why not mention the "cross correspondences" - channeled communications that persisted over a period of years, in which several nonprofessional mediums in different parts of the world received messages that made sense only when they were put together like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle? Why not discuss the many cases of "spirit contact" involving ordinary people who claim no special abilities, but who have received evidential information from a deceased friend or relative?
Having given the impression that mediums consist mainly of untested celebrity figures, Montenegro then launches into the standard litany of complaints.
Why do recently dead people have trouble communicating? Where do they get these [symbolic] objects that they show Edward and Van Praagh? Why can’t they just project their thoughts into Edward’s mind? Why are their messages so prosaic and, well, boring? The picture one gets of these creatures certainly does not present a very interesting company of people to pass the time with.
Sigh. How many times do these objections need to be answered? The triviality of the messages is necessary because it is only trivial personal details that are evidential. If a medium says that the spirit of your grandmother is coming through, you will probably not be convinced unless Grandma tells you something that only you and she would know. Of necessity, this will be something obscure, unimportant, and personal. As for the difficulties of communication, well, why should we expect messages from a dimension outside the space-time universe to be delivered flawlessly? This is like saying that telephones don't work because sometimes there is static on the line.
All available evidence suggests that these communications have to be filtered through the medium's subconscious, with inevitable distortions or omissions along the way. Some people pick up brief scraps of information, while others get clearer reception. But no one is 100% accurate, just as no baseball player, no matter how talented, ever bats 1000. Is this really so hard to accept?
Montenegro's criticism, though tedious and wrongheaded, would at least be understandable if she were claiming that all mediums are frauds who only pretend to get spirit messages. This, however, is not her position. Instead she seems to think that mediums are genuinely in touch with supernatural entities - only these entities are really demons masquerading as our loved ones.
If this is so, then what becomes of her litany of objections? Taking the "demons" idea seriously, I could rewrite her above-quoted passage as follows:
Why do [demons] have trouble communicating? Where do [demons] get these objects that they show Edward and Van Praagh? Why can’t [demons] just project their thoughts into Edward’s mind? Why are [the demons'] messages so prosaic and, well, boring? The picture one gets of these creatures certainly does not present a very interesting company of people to pass the time with.
Certainly one would think that if malevolent demons are going to all the trouble to deceive us, they might come up with better ways to communicate and more interesting things to say!
So Montenegro is first implying that the spirit messages are dubious and fake, then saying that they are genuine but evil. Which is it? I guess any argument will do, even if it's self-contradictory, as long as it scares people away from the dreaded practitioners of the occult.
Naturally, the article includes the obligatory Bible quotes about the dangers of consulting with sorcerers. Nothing is mentioned about the fact that the word translated "witch" or "medium" (as in the story of the witch of Endor, I Samuel 28) probably means "necromancer," a somewhat different concept. Moreover, if all the prohibitions of Leviticus and Deuteronomy are going to be observed today, then we had better stop eating shellfish, lending money at interest (or accepting such loans), planting two different kinds of crops in the same field, wearing two different kinds of fabric at the same time, etc. We should also, I guess, resume the practice of stoning people to death for adultery, homosexuality, blasphemy, or disobedience to their parents. Right?
All these Biblical prohibitions were enacted in a social context that has vanished. For the most part, they were intended to maintain Israel's distinctiveness by banning practices that were common in nearby cultures. Mediumship was just one of these practices; there were countless others. There is no more reason to assume that mediumship is an "abomination" today than to assume that eating lobster is an "abomination."
Montenegro concludes,
The spirits responding to contact are not dead people or wise spiritual beings, but evil spirits. The messages from these spirits may mention God, but they never urge Bible study, worship of God, or the need for Christ as Savior. The spirits deny Christ as the Savior or distort His message....
We cannot get information from God through spirit contact. We don’t need guidance from wispy spirits playing charades. We don’t need a medium, channeler, or psychic contacting spirits who are playing with our minds and preying on our grief. Instead, God gave us His only son, and He gave us His word in scripture.
Personally, I think this attitude is a large part of the reason why church attendance is declining across the Western world. People today need some empirical basis for religious beliefs. By and large, they aren't content simply to say, "Well, the Bible says it, so it must be so." They know that the Bible is only one of many books hailed as sacred by many peoples around the world and throughout history. If they are going to trust the Bible or any other inspired writing, they are going to need evidence that their trust is not misplaced. This evidence need not take the form of absolute proof - how often do we get absolute, indisputable proof of anything? - but it must at least show that there is some plausibility to the idea of an immortal spirit, an afterlife, and a divine purpose to life.
Mediumship and other forms of spirit contact provide us with precisely these sorts of data. They are testable phenomena that are occurring today, not thousands of years ago. They allow us to gather information directly, rather than relying on ancient traditions that may or may not have been transmitted accurately. They permit direct, first-hand experience rather than relying on second-hand belief.
They also help to put us in touch with the experiences of the earliest Christians. Read The Acts of the Apostles or the letters of Paul, and you'll see that what we would today call paranormal phenomena were reported constantly by the first evangelists of the new faith. The earliest churches had members who spoke with "the tongues of angels" - channelers or mediums, we would say. I John 4:1 advises us to "test the spirits" - not to shun them, but to test them. Clearly there were a lot of early Christians who claimed to channel spirits, and at least some of them were accepted as genuine. Why are these phenomena holy in AD 46, but unholy in AD 2006?
Properly understood, mediumship is not a threat to Christianity, but one of its greatest assets. Web sites like CANA just don't get it. By trying to suppress or belittle the empirical evidence for the spirit world, they are doing their own cause, and their own faith, far more harm than good.
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