No Need to Invoke an Imaginary Devil to Explain Psychic Powers that Don’t Actually Exist
Kevin R. Henke
October 13, 2022
In Henke (2022b) and Henke (2022au), I stated the following:
“Lundahl (2022a) also makes the following statement to me about nature and our consciousness:
“Other takeaway in CSL's [C.S. Lewis’] Miracles, you carry around yourself two very clear indications that nature is not all there is - neither reason nor morality can be reduced to matter and energy affected by each other in accordance with laws of physics and chemistry. The ‘hard problem of consciousness’ - to take it from a somewhat different angle - remains hard. We don't just need an intelligent designer who arranged our brains for optimal consciousness, we need (for purposes we take for granted, like refuting or like blaming) something other than just brain arrangements in our consciousness.”
I fully admit that I’m no expert on consciousness. Contrary to what Lundahl (2022a) and Lewis (1960, his chapter 3, etc.) indicate in this quotation, our thoughts are electrical and our brains are matter. Lewis (1960, chapter 3, etc.) questioned the ability of humans to rationally understand our surroundings through naturalism and he argued that we should seriously consider that miracles occur. However, Lewis (1960) had the burden of evidence to demonstrate his claims for miracles and he failed to do so. Now, investigators are still looking for miracles at revival meetings, among psychics, at supposedly haunted houses, and elsewhere, and not finding any evidence for them.
Who we are, including our reason and moral values, arise from interactions between our brains and our surroundings. We observe, test and confirm with the help of others our conclusions about events in nature. Our brains, thoughts and surroundings are all ultimately controlled by the laws of chemistry and physics. That is, we can imagine what it would be like to be able to magically levitate objects only using our thoughts, but the laws of chemistry and physics don’t actually allow us to do it. Nevertheless, there is a danger that when we recognize that our brains are nothing but matter and energy that we might be tempted to trivialize this electrical activity and think that it has no serious consequences. That is, considering how much damage the electrical activity in Putin’s brain is doing to millions of people in the Ukraine, we cannot underestimate the power of a single human brain to manipulate other humans and weapons in his/her environment. This is why millions of people hope that Putin’s brain soon ceases to function and that more rational and empathetic brains will replace him.
Our morals and reasoning abilities arise in response to our surroundings, including how we interact with other humans. By getting confirmation from our fellow humans and doing experimental testing, we can make reliable discoveries about our environment. We can send spacecraft to Moon, understand why severe earthquakes occur in certain areas and not others, and we understand what causes influenza, etc. The supernatural is not needed to explain these discoveries. Because of the power of the human brain and our ability to adequately understand what’s going on in our surroundings, we can have a huge impact on our surroundings. Unfortunately, humans can also do extensive damage to our environment.
No gods, angels, demons or a Bible are also needed to figure out how people should try to function in our environments. We should develop rules (morality) through reason and not Biblical dogma so that we can live peacefully with each other and our environment. No sane person wants to live in poverty, misery and violence. Ukrainian soldiers are the only sane individuals wanting to move to eastern Ukraine.
We should also recognize that not all brains function well. Mental illness and deficiency are real. As rational research shows, chemicals, traumatic experiences and genetics can certainly cause mental illness. Demons aren’t required.
Continuing from Henke (2022ar), Lundahl (2022j), in his usual inappropriate line-by-line responses, comments on the bolded section of Henke (2022b):
“Kevin R. Henke: ‘Now, investigators are still looking for miracles at revival meetings, among psychics, at supposedly haunted houses, and elsewhere, and not finding any evidence for them.’
Hans Georg Lundahl: Psychics and haunted houses would not be miraculous in the sense here considered, and CSL [C.S. Lewis] considered most of them phoney. One way where I differ from him is, he considered most Roman Catholic claims of miracles going on into the present day as phoney too. Certainly, finding a second best thimble after a prayer to St. Anthony is not what is usually meant by a "miracle" but it is a providential find which can be safely considered as a hearing of the prayer. Something I think CSL later admitted in his posthumously published epistolary novel ‘Letters to Malcolm, chiefly on prayer.’”
Although I would agree with that there is no evidence of psychic powers or haunted houses, Lundahl (2022j) doesn’t explain why they would not be considered miraculous or supernatural if they are real. That is, why wouldn’t ghosts, if they exist, be just as supernatural as angels? He just brushes those topics aside. As for the Roman Catholic miracles, I look forward to him further commenting on Lewis (1960, p. 170) and justifying that a prayer to St. Anthony really helps to find lost items. When it comes to prayer, it’s amazing that prayers for misplaced items are often “answered” while prayers to replace a severed leg or missing eyeball are not.
Nevertheless, notice that there is an important difference between the claims of psychic powers and haunted houses on one hand and the claims of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ on the other. Psychic powers and haunted houses can be tested for their claims because they supposedly occur in the present and are accessible to investigation, while the Resurrection is a claim set in the past. We don’t have a time machine to go back and investigate it. All of the relevant evidence of the Resurrection, if it ever happened, is long gone.” [my emphasis]
Lundahl (2022s) then gives the following responses in red to my bolded and italicized statements:
“In the case of psychic powers, I would definitely consider them as a (possibly poisoned) gift by angelic beings. And ghosts being real would also qualify as an exception granted by God Himself to certain souls from either Hell or Purgatory. It is just that the phoney versions most often encountered aren't that.”
Henke (2022ar): Psychic powers and haunted houses can be tested for their claims because they supposedly occur in the present and are accessible to investigation, while the Resurrection is a claim set in the past. We don’t have a time machine to go back and investigate it. All of the relevant evidence of the Resurrection, if it ever happened, is long gone.
“Except it is preserved in historic narrative.”
Contrary to the statements in Lundahl (2022s), there is no evidence that “psychic powers” involve anything supernatural - angelic, demonic, ghosts or otherwise. This is superstition. “Psychic powers” are nothing more than “cold” or “hot” reading. In cold reading, the “psychics” ask the victim a series of questions. Depending on the verbal and bodily responses of the victim, they are able to “contact” the dead or make other “predictions.” The scam works because victims tend to remember the psychic’s hits and forget the more numerous misses. The predictions also tend to be vague and again show no evidence of anything supernatural. That is, the psychic will usually say something like: “your grandfather in Heaven says he loves you” rather than “your grandfather in Heaven says that he hid $40,000 in a coffee can three feet underground and ten paces to the north of the old oak tree in the backyard of his house on 6487 Cherry Street.”
In hot reading, the “psychic” knows the individual that will be receiving a reading. That allows the “psychic” to get names, dates and other information off the internet to an attempt to impress the victim.
The claim that the Gospels are “historical narratives” does nothing to demonstrate their historical accuracy. Again, as I explained in Henke (2022hg), Carrier (2014, pp. 387-509) demonstrates that the Gospels are works of fiction pretending to be history. Contrary to Lundahl (2022s), fiction occurs in all literary genres (Carrier 2014, p. 389).
References:
Carrier, R. 2014. On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt, Sheffield Phoenix Press: Sheffield, UK, 696pp.
Lewis, C.S. 1960. Miracles, 2nd ed., printed 1974: Harper One: HarperCollinsPublishers, 294pp.