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Saturday, May 5, 2012

Pseudo-Scientific Spirituality

On 3rd May Times of India published an article by some spiritual guru on its editorial page. Here is link to the full article. I am just reproducing some extracts which are quiet hilarious. After reading it I can understand why some of my friends have started calling it 'TOI'let paper. Thanks to Sreekrishna Varma Raja P. C. for bringing this to my notice.

What: Another aspect is, on poornima, the planet is in a certain position in relation to the moon. The vibration and feel of the moon is very different when it is full. And its magnetic pull is also different at that time. It is working upon the surface of the planet which is exposed to the moon. When there is such a natural pull, since your spine is vertical, there is a tendency for your energies to move upward. That means, blood and prana, the fundamental life energies, flow in a different way. Just as tides rise higher on that night because of the moon’s gravitational pull, your blood is also being pulled up and the circulation of blood increases in your brain.

This upsurge of energy enhances your qualities, whatever they may be. If you are mentally imbalanced, it will make you even more imbalanced.

Why its here: From Physics point of view, the entire first para is nonsense. There is nothing special about full moon position. It is same as any other phase of the moon. Secondly, the moon's magnetic field is practically zero as compared the earth. Thirdly, tidal forces on a human body are again negligible as compared to the gravitation field.

The analogy I like to give against all these pseudo-scientific arguments goes something like this: There is an elephant pushing a car from one side and an ant pushing the same car in exactly the opposite direction. So if you ask me "is there some force exerted by the ant?", I must answer "Yes". But more relevant question here would be "Does it matter?"

The second para is another medical myth which was common 30-40 years back but has been statistically disproven. Don't these people learn anything when they were in school?

3 comments:

  1. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic (Arthur C Clarke).

    Just few years ago, the fact that you can talk into a small plastic box and other person halfway round the world replies back instantaneously with her face seen in the same box would have caused people to die with hysteria.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I did not quite get the point this comment is trying to make.

      Delete
    2. I did not get it either. ;-) Thats why I ignored it.

      Delete