Pseudoscience

Many contemporary programs attempt to imitate the language and style of science, without the rigor or discipline of the scientific method. Often this is done very creatively. In Scientology there exists the notion of "engrams"; in Silva Mind Control, the concept of "alpha" is used, without reference to actual data. In both cases the enquirer is told that the programs are based on a great deal of scientific research, although empirical data is never forthcoming. There exist at the Monroe Institute of Applied Sciences attempts to numerically classify states of consciousness without reference to empirical data. Various teachers of dowsing and radionics attempt to liken psi awareness to the perception of mysterious radiations emitted from all objects. The Adventure Trails Survival School has developed a unique theory of frontal lobe brain functioning. In each case there is a theory and there is data of some sort, usually ignored by academia, to be explained. The connections between the data and the theory lack rigor.

Some contemporary programs, such as Silva Mind Control and Scientology, claim that their techniques have been scientifically tested and developed. Since this allegedly scientific work has never been published, and judging from the quality of material from these organizations that has been published, one can only conclude that these programs were, at best, created using some amount of trial and error and not fully utilizing the scientific methodology. This pretense to scientific methodology and knowledge is, in my opinion, the result of the cultural vacuum created by the failure of most American academic institutions in investigating psi training and related areas. As fringe institutions have moved in to fill up the vacuum and meet public demand, they by their very nature have been less attentive to the merits of reason, logic, ethics, and responsibility which we like to think are fostered in our mainstream institutions. This situation is slowly changing as academically oriented institutions such as John F. Kennedy University in Orinda, Calif., the Association for Transpersonal Psychology, the Foundation for Mind Research, and the Soviet psi training programs-move, as well, to fill in the cultural vacuum that had previously been the sole domain of religious or pseudoscientific organizations.

It must also be recognized that, given the contemporary cultural fragmentation of world views as articulately described by Sorokin (1937, 1941), even pseudoscientific theorizing may have the virtue of catalyzing the activation of human potentials that might otherwise be ignored. Many examples of human progress can be cited, such as the discovery of oxygen, that were based on faulty theory

Sorokin, P.A. The Crisis of Our Age. New York: Dutton, 1941.

Sorokin, P.A. Social and cultural dynamics. New York: American Book Company, 1937-1941, 4 vols., abridged one volume edition (Boston: Porter Sargent, 1957.)

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