stripping the gurus - Brahma Kumaris Info

218 STRIPPING THE GURUS
For Sheldrake’s work, see Randi (2003a), (2004); also Marks
and Colwell (2000), and Robert Baker (2000). William Tiller—who
wrote the preface for Itzhak Bentov’s (1977) Stalking the Wild Pendulum—fares
no better in the skeptical analysis; cf. Randi (2003e).
The mystical Bentov himself was instrumental in introducing the
spoon-bending Uri Geller to Andreija Puharich, and thus to Russell
Targ and Harold Putoff—the “Laurel and Hardy of Psi,” in
Randi’s (1982) reckoning—back in the ’70s (Sannella, 2001).
On Geller, see Randi (2000a), (2000b), (2001c), (2002), (2004a);
also Knight (2004).
Ironically, Wilber’s relatively error-free (1999a) The Marriage
of Sense and Soul, on the integration of science and meditationbased
religion, received a complimentary review (Minerd, 2000) in
Skeptical Inquirer. Indeed, Minerd closed his evaluation with the
comment that Wilber’s writing was “refreshingly free of the pontifications,
careless generalizations, and self-admiration indulged in
by other writers.” (Uh ... that statement may have been true of
that one book, but it is certainly not applicable to large chunks of
the man’s work before or since then. Indeed, in the “Further Reading”
section of even that specific text, Wilber suggests both his
[1996] A Brief History of Everything and his [1998] The Eye of
Spirit as being worthy of exploration. The former contains his misunderstandings
of basic evolution and of the Pythagorean theorem;
the latter presents the second of his studied misrepresentations of
David Bohm’s work. “Careless” does not begin to describe. And
“self-admiration” and “pontification”? Let me count the rosaries!)
Minerd also opined that “devotees of Wilber ... would be a group of
people that skeptics could, if not quite embrace, at least live
alongside very easily.”
Ach, if he only knew. Yet, the likes of Wilber and Schwartz
are, in all seriousness, the best that mysticism-influenced consciousness
studies has to offer, to argue for its validity. (Amazingly,
although Wilber elsewhere completely ignores the skeptical
objections to the work of many of his “fine scholars,” he actually
quotes approvingly from Martin Gardner, regarding the Anthropic
Principle, in his Marriage of Sense and Soul. So, contrary to what
one might reasonably assume from the rest of his work, he does at
least realize that the skeptical position exists, even if entirely disrespecting
it in practice.)
Thankfully, Minerd did note disapprovingly that Wilber “implicitly
accepts the reality of mystical experiences, and it is suffi-