(2023-05-18, 08:03 PM)Typoz Wrote: Well, a lot of stuff just goes on quietly in the background, no-one bothers trying to attack it/them. But once a case or a person becomes famous, known to the public, then the heavy negative publicity is mobilised.
What I'm not convinced of is that all the relatively unknown cases would fare any better if by random circumstance they happened to be propelled into the limelight. It's just too convenient that high-profile cases get knocked down in terms of public perception. I'm not convinced that if Alexander and Geller were obscure nonentities that these negative perceptions would have arisen in this way.
Hmmm I don't know about that. I think there are NDErs who are more credible than Alexander and psychics more credible than Geller.
It does become complicated when judging Geller or Alexander against historical claims of what we might call Psi such as healings, matter transformation/conjuration, etc. At least we can do some research on these living figures whereas with history we have to trust the investigators and witnesses were not easily fooled. (I do actually think there are some historical cases that I feel we should at least give some credence to despite the obvious accusation that the story is exaggerated and may be based on fraud we'd be able to detect using modern equipment.)
'Historically, we may regard materialism as a system of dogma set up to combat orthodox dogma...Accordingly we find that, as ancient orthodoxies disintegrate, materialism more and more gives way to scepticism.'
- Bertrand Russell
- Bertrand Russell
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