truly healthy skepticism

"It doesn't matter who you were in your past life, if you still don't know who you are."  - Eckhart Tolle

One reason that is such a great quote is, it separates contemplation from hokum.  The two are closely related sociologically, but really are not so related conceptually.  True, if seeing clearly leads to seeing things that others label as supernatural, well, then maybe they are real.  But the process of getting to see clearly leads one on a real tour of disorienting mind-states.  It is probably prudent to investigate what we find there with gentle reason.

I just did a little websearch on Kirlian photography just now.  It's always interested me, the "auras" that seem to radiate from living things, but only living things, when photographed in this way.   Rather like JewWatch being the first hit you get when you Google "Jewish", my first hit was a skeptical site which debunked the process (and which linked to a good debunking of aura photography). 

It's so interesting - when I'm with Kabbalistic healers, aura-types, and all that, there's both a social and a psychological pressure to buy into various nonrational belief systems.  It's reinforced with rhetoric.  I'm trapped in my own doubt.  I'm not "yet" open to this.  I'm not ready.  It's okay, one day I will be.  Et cetera.  In fact, what I notice in those environments is a real unease with what is going on.  I believe we have intuition, and that just about any medium that allows us to focus in on these intuitions -- looking at a crystal ball, using an astrological chart, whatever -- is fine for that purpose.  But I'm noticing a contrast between the unease I feel when being told about my star chart, and the comfort I feel in reading these skeptical - but not hostile or closeminded - sites. 

Skepticism is an interesting thing.  There are these sort of professional skeptics who go around debunking everything.  It fascinates them.  Clearly it fascinates them because they want to believe.  The One is calling them, just as It calls the crystal healers.  But the skeptics are too devoted to the One to betray truth in this way.  They're too believing for the believers.

That's me, I hope.  I hope I can stay open to what I should stay open to.  But, in the language of the new age, I also want to honor my skepticism.   Kirlian photography is cool.  But it seems to be the result of moisture and gas ionization.  Let's not let all these doodles -- and that also goes for crazy Buddhists into magic, crazy Jews into Qabala, etc. -- distract us from what is happening right now, which is God.