IN OUR AGE OF SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS, MANY MINDS CONTINUE TO REMAIN CLOSED
Excerpted From: Food of the Soul
by Gloria Ladd
Throughout history and up to the present day people have been slow, reluctant, and/or unwilling to accept new ideas, beliefs, and truths.
This will undoubtedly always be the case.
There are those among us who refuse to open their minds to so-called mysteries. It is unfortunately an apparent fact that, even in the present time, there are those who fear any form of anything that is, to them, an enigma.
Mysteries remain mysteries only until someone finds a way to explain them.
Our remote ancestors were thrown into fits of terror during solar eclipses, in some instances of indulging in human sacrifices in attempts to appease whatever god was responsible for the sudden daytime darkness. They must have believed their sacrifices worked, for daylight did reappear.
Fortunately, people were eventually able to figure out the cause of solar eclipses.
The unknown has always had the potential to cause fear. It still has, but why? Why should we be so myopic? Why should we have no curiosity? Why do we not want to see whats around the next corner? Why do we continue to turn away from apprehensions of anything untested, unproven, and label it therefore untrue and unacceptable?
Even today two of the many maligned, misunderstood and therefore feared fields are those of the paranormal and the possibility of life on other planets.
They are mysteries; ergo, they are something to induce anxiety; ergo, it becomes easier to say they do not exist.
This is akin to denying the vast potential of the human mind
Those who honestly and earnestly delve into such studies, searching for substantiation of the wonders of the human mind and the wonders of our galaxy are often hampered by a public which, apprised of clever charlatans and snickering comments about little green men, jumps to the conclusion that those who believe such things are truly absurd or, at the very least, naive.
An expose of a quack doctor doesn't automatically carry a like reaction to doctors in general. A bumbling teacher, lawyer, architect, plumber or electrician, et al, may be put out of business and ostracized by their peers. But those peers don't necessarily assume the stigma.
If an unethical scientific researcher in any other field were to "help" his or her experiments toward a desired conclusion and this chicanery was discovered all other experiments in that particular field by other scientists wouldn't be cast aside as obviously fake.
Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), considered the founder of modern scientific methods, wrote about his experiments that were so difficult to reproduce that many doubted he actually conducted them.
Isaac Newton (1642-1727) adjusted his calculations so they would support his theory of gravity.
The "Piltdown Man" was considered one of the greatest scientific hoaxes of all time. Hailed as proof of the missing link between apes and humans, it was later revealed the skull was actually an ape jaw with part of a human skull attached and stained to look old.
It strikes me as an unfair set of double standards. There are many who find manufactured psychic ability an easy way to dupe the public and make a profit in the process. We should not, however, allow their presence to dim the importance of serious students who not only want, but also need, to learn.
One of the first contemporary and highly respected scientists to consider extra-sensory perception as valid was Sigmund Freud (1856-1938). And such acceptance didn't come easily to the genius pacesetter of psychoanalysis:"I am ready to give up my opposition to the existence of thought-transference," he wrote, adding he was, "prepared to lend the support of psychoanalysis to the matter of telepathy." (FREUD AND THE PARANORMAL, Martin Ebon).
It is reported that Freud waged an inner battle about the pros and cons of parapsychology.
But, in 1921, when Freud was invited to join the advisory council of the American Psychical Institute, he allegedly wrote, in response to the invitation:"I am not one of those who, from the outset, disapprove of the study of so-called occult psychological phenomena as unscientific, as unworthy or even dangerous. If I were at the beginning of a scientific career, instead of, as now, at the end of it, I would perhaps choose no other field of work, in spite of its difficulties." (THE LIFE AND WORK OF SIGMUND FREUD, New York, 1961).
The American Association accepted the Parapsychological Association, an international professional society for the study of parapsychology, as an affiliate organization for the Advancement of Science on December 30, 1969.
Such "respectable scientific endeavors" may be accepted into professional scientific associations but they unfortunately remain, in the minds of the masses, in the realm of nonsense. There are, again unfortunately, many who consider themselves well-educated and open-minded and yet refuse to give parapsychology the time, thought and eventual acceptance it deserves.
Was Jules Verne a psychic? Or was his 1865 book about an imaginary trip to the moon in which his spaceship was launched from Florida, took 3 days to reach the moon and, upon its return, splashed down in the Pacific Ocean just a well-thought-out lucky guess?
104 years later, Apollo 11 was launched from Florida, took 3 days to reach the moon and, upon its return to Earth, splashed down in the Pacific Ocean.
I seriously doubt if envoys for Outer Space would visit us with the intent of causing chaos or disaster. Why should they bother? We do an excellent job in the chaos and disaster departments without any outside help.
It has never been difficult for me to accept that there is a strong possibility that other forms of intelligent life exist outside our relatively small galaxy in which Earth is but a pinprick. It is one of an infinitesimal number of pinpricks in just one small group of stars on the edge of the Milky Way. The Milky Way is made up of an estimated 100 billion stars, only about 7,000 of which we can view without the aid of a telescope.
The number 100 billion is hard no, impossible for me to imagine. It is, however, a very small number when compared to the estimated width of our small Galaxy: 100,000 light years! A light year is, if rounded off, about six trillion miles. Multiply that and write it out! It makes everything on this small planet including us seem truly insignificant.
Next, we should consider the scientific statement that our Solar System 50 billion times the size of Earth is considered an extremely small sample of the total universe. And yet, beyond our small Solar System in a rather trivial-sized Milky Way there lie, in all directions, countless other "Milky Ways" and countless other Solar Systems.
When contemplating the vastness of our universe how can one be so blatantly myopic as to claim let alone believe that ours is the one and only planet capable of supporting intelligent life? We deny the possibility of life on nearby planets that lack our chemical make-up in atmosphere. Some planets are surrounded by primarily methane gas, a lethal substance for humans to breathe. But why do we discount the feasibility of non-human life thriving on methane gas and being unable to live where they would breathe a mixture of primarily oxygen?
We continue to cling so tightly to the security of what is known that we all too often close our eyes and minds to the values to be found in exploring the unknown.
Copyright © 1999 Gloria Ladd
THE DETROIT FREE PRESS called Gloria Ladd "one of the biggies" in the realm of paranormal investigations. She has been published in THE DETROIT NEWS, THE DETROIT NEWS SUNDAY MAGAZINE and Syracuse University's prestigious INTERNATIONALLY SPEAKING. She was a stringer reporter for THE NATIONAL ENQUIRER for ten years and has authored five books. The five include PLUM DEAD, now featured on www.deadendstreet.com. At present, she is working on a sequel to PLUM DEAD. In addition to her writing, Ms Ladd designed a substance abuse out-patient program for youths 17 and under and served as executive director of the program for five years.