Whether or not religious or cultural belief embraces or rejects psychic experience has a tremendous impact on the reporting of psychic experiences and, by extension, the incidence and frequency of their occurrence. Our Western culture, for example, is caught in a vice between two poles – religion and science – that tend not to agree on much except when it comes to the rejection of psychic phenomena. Not surprisingly, as Westerners, we are encouraged, overtly, and covertly, to keep quiet about our personal psychic experiences.
Among the Ancient Israelites, seeking knowledge outside of the formal religion through a psychic was strictly forbidden. Ironically, King Saul, who had fallen out of favor with God and who had raised up the young and handsome David to replace him, sought guidance from a fortune teller despite his ban on the profession. He wanted a medium to bring back his trusted advisor Samuel from the dead to find out what he should do with this young upstart David. The woman protested when Saul shows up in disguise and says, “Surely you know what Saul has done. He has forced the mediums and fortune-tellers from the land. You are trying to trap me and get me killed” (1 Samuel 28:9).
The Christian faith took up King Saul’s ban on fortune tellers and other psychic sources, seeing them as an insult to God and the work of the Devil. The Catholic faith, which ironically has a long and rich history of mysticism, belief in angels (and the Devil), and approved apparitions, especially regarding the Blessed Virgin Mary, strictly forbids an individual from seeking guidance from “occultist” sources. Specifically, the Catechism of the Catholic Church states, “All forms of divination are to be rejected: recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead or other practices falsely supposed to ‘unveil’ the future.” And it adds, “Consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots, the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums all conceal a desire for power over time, history, and, in the last analysis, other human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers. They contradict the honor, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone” (Catholic Church 2116).
Their overreaction reminds me of a Bruce Springsteen line from 4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy), “Did you hear the cops finally busted Madame Marie for telling fortunes better than they do.” Science also gets offended when people tell fortunes better than they do. Edgar Cayce was beset by medical professionals, including Harvard’s Dr. Hugo Munsterberg, one of the most prestigious psychologists of the time. He visited Cayce intent on proving he was a fraud and aggressively questioned the source of his information, as Harmon Bro reports (1989, p. 356). As we’ve learned throughout this course, parapsychologists, despite their extensive training and focus on proper research methods and protocols, have waged a battle for respect and acceptance from the beginning.
With the strict dogmatic rejection of anything psychic from the Judea-Christian faith that dominates modern Western culture on one side, and the widespread scientific materialism on the other, it’s no wonder at least until the recent decades, our culture has downplayed a belief in psi. We discourage children who potentially have psychic experiences by telling them it must all be in their heads, thereby producing adults who think the same way and, thus, they pass the thinking onto their kids.
Fortunately, Individuals like William James, Edgar Cayce, and Carl Jung, as well as movements like Spiritualism, New Age, and Parapsychology, have made significant progress in opening up Westerners to the possibility of psi experiences. Raymond Moody’s groundbreaking 1975 book, Life after Life, chronicled not only the number of Near-Death Experiences (NDEs) but also their similarities, further chipping away at the strangle-hold faith and science had on our society regarding psi phenomena. Since the release of his book, countless people have come forward emboldened to share their NDEs, further illustrating that the more acceptance there is of something, the higher the reporting and likely frequency of such a phenomena.
The reporting of psi experiences is still downplayed in our culture, however. As I noted in my final paper, we tend to use less threatening and acceptable labels to describe them, such as “a mother’s intuition,” a “gut feeling,” or a “6th sense.” When I attended a psychic development conference at A.R.E. last November, medium John Holland began his talk by asking how many people in the audience told their colleagues and family members back home that they were going to Virginia Beach for a work-related seminar. Three-quarters of the room sheepishly raised their hands, and we all had a good laugh at our own expense.
Peer pressure against the reality of psi experiences severely limits people’s willingness to report about them. When I’m with people at A.R.E. or the Spiritualist church, it’s almost like we’re part of an underground movement like the French Resistance during World War II. If the culture beats it into people’s heads that psi experiences aren’t real and that they’re crazy for even talking about it, the incident and frequency will diminish as well, except for those who are genuinely gifted, courageous, and hopefully have found a supportive community to spend time.
The opposite is true with cultures that embrace psi. Robert Van de Castle, in Our Dreaming Minds, chronicles cultures who embrace dreams as an invaluable communication channel starting with the Ancient Mesopotamians. Dreams were meticulously recorded and written in “some detail” because of the “close affinity that existed between the Mesopotamian dream and the realm of the divine,” Van de Castle notes (1994, p. 49). The Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Native Americans, Aboriginals, and countless other cultures extracted psychic information from dreams, and kings and rulers placed great value on the information gleaned. Battle plans and even ways to avoid a future famine as Joseph did for the Pharaoh (Genesis 41:28-30) came through precognitive information gleaned from the sleep state.
Shaman, high priests, the selected woman who received oracles at Delphi, and other great seers provided psychic information that changed the trajectory of their civilizations and ours in the process. Individuals with such psychic gifts were praised, and certainly, the frequency, incidence, and the amount of reporting of information from unknown sources were prolific. This had a trickle down affect on the rest of the culture, as there was open sharing of these experiences in community gatherings and within family life. I have faith we’ll get their someday.
References
Bro, H. (1989). A seer out of season, Virginia, Beach: A.R.E. Press
Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed. Accessed March 24, 2020, Retrieved from http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM
Moody, R. (1975). Life after life, New York, NY: Bantam Books.
Springsteen, B. (1973). “4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy).” On The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle [Record]. Blauvelt, New York: Columbia Records.Van de Castle, R. (1994). Our dreaming mind, New York, NY: Ballentine Books.