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The Paranormal business is booming in the US
While immersing myself in American culture, lined up at a donut
store in Berkeley, California, someone overheard my
accent and asked, “Where are you from? England?” Upon
explaining that I’m Australian, there came a look of sudden
recognition, “Ah! That’s where our Governor’s
from!”
Living in the US
for the past six months has prompted me to reflect upon the status of
critical thinking, skepticism and the paranormal here, as opposed to back
home. Of course, these are observations and not an empirical study!
Earlier this year, I
attended The Amazing Meeting in Las
Vegas, an international skeptical event hosted
by the James Randi Educational Foundation. The speaker’s list
included Richard Dawkins, skeptical magicians Penn & Teller and many
other eminent thinkers. The Virgin Mary Grilled Cheese Sandwich even made
an appearance (this modern ‘relic’ was recently sold through
E-Bay to online casino GoldenPalace.com). During the event, I was asked
about the prevalence of paranormal belief in Australia, “is it as
much a problem there as it is here?” As images of John Edward,
Sylvia Brown, Benny Hinn and Uri Gellar flashed through my mind, I
responded, “It is, because your problems come our way!”
I had to concede that Australia
also has its unfair share of paranormal and pseudoscientific purveyors.
We both have (or don’t have!) Yowies (or
Bigfoot, Sasquatch, Skunk Man/Ape!),
‘Ngangkari’ medicine men (shamans) and divining (dowsing).
Like a paranormal ‘critical mass’, we find the same
phenomena, just different names.
Where in Australia the heirs of two
media magnates relied on feng shui advice for a business venture that
ultimately failed, American Former President Ronald Reagan routinely
consulted astrologers. While Michael Jackson reputedly paid US$150 000
for a voodoo ritual to kill Steven Spielberg among 23 others, our Prime
Minister was cursed when protesters pointed the mystical bone at him.
While America
had the financially lucrative Amityville Horror, we had the Guyra Ghost and the Humpty Doo Poltergeist.
But the US does it on a much grander
scale. Celebrity Scientology, fire-walking motivational experts, UFO
Festivals, television evangelists and more!
Visiting a psychic in Australia
is a clandestine, word-of-mouth affair, the deed taking place in an unassuming
kitchen or lounge room. In the US, it’s big business.
Psychics operate from main street offices with bright neon signs. In the
East Bay Yellow Pages, psychics are ironically nestled between
psychiatrists and psychologists and dangerously listed as ‘psychics
and healers’.
As for alternative
medicine, in Las Vegas,
Slim Dusty could encounter the real Pub with No Beer – Oxygen Bars.
The US
has the same practices, chiropractic, naturopathic and homeopathic.
Unfortunately, as in Oz, the orthodox guys are in on the game. Pharmacy
chains are known an ‘integrative’. To satisfy the demand,
‘ma and pa’ outlets advertise themselves as ‘natural
medicine centers’. One establishment boasts “the pharmacy
that prescribes yoga”. There are fad diets and snake-oil merchants:
Pritikin, Scarsdale,
South Beach, Atkins, Blood Type, the Dr
Phil Diet and ‘Dr’ Joel Wallach. Such trends are perennially
popular but I was pleased to witness the recent demise of my ‘Your LoCal LoCarb Store’.
While the British ten pound
note features Charles Darwin, US currency trusts in God. Speaking of
Mother England, while the Queen disappears from school halls in Australia, there’s an ongoing debate
in the US
with groups calling for the posting of the Ten Commandments in schools
and other public places.
While less emphasis is
placed on ‘scripture’ classes in Australian public schools,
creationist groups are still making furtive attempts to infiltrate the US
school system. Dr Eugenie Scott, Executive Director of the National
Center for Science Education, observes that, in an effort to bypass the
Bill of Rights religious neutrality requirement, “We are seeing an
interesting ‘morphing’ of supporters of ‘creation
science’ into ‘Intelligent Design’ creationism into
proponents of ‘evidence against evolution’.” To make
creationism palatable, the “strategy is shifting to promote that
evolution be ‘balanced’ by the teaching of antievolutionism,
variously described as ‘strengths and weaknesses’ of
evolution, ‘evidence against evolution’, or the slogan, ‘teach
the controversy’.”
But there’s a light
at the end of the tunnel - and it’s not a near-death experience.
After all, America
is the home of Houdini and has given skepticism James Randi, Carl Sagan,
Michael Shermer and Paul Kurtz. The US boasts many prolific organisations to counter uncritical thinking –
The James Randi Educational Foundation, the Committee for the Scientific
Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, The Skeptics Society and
Quackwatch. However, with over 50 such organisations
in the US,
the movement isn’t as cohesive as the Australian Skeptics, a
national organisation.
The end result is that the
Skeptic’s task of promoting critical thinking is equally arduous in
both countries, where pseudoscience and the
paranormal are both different and the same. Same phenomena, just on a
different scale.
Stollznow, K. 2005. The
Skeptic of Oz. Australasian Science. Vol. 26, No. 3, p.46.
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