We live in the internet era and it’s a beautiful thing, in many ways. You have access to more music than any human being in the history of mankind. You have access to unlimited knowledge, unlimited sources of information to cross-check before you can form an opinion. You can see your relatives across the ocean on a screen, in real time. It’s indeed a wonderful thing.

But the internet is also the place where any opinion or idea, no matter how bizarre, nonsensical, unfounded or crazy seems to hold equal value. So long as enough people subscribe to it, then it is an idea worth entertaining or even advocating for, without having to pass the scrutiny of any methodology.

For the last couple hundred years, we’ve had this thing called scientific method, which has accounted pretty much for the majority – if not all – of our progress, inventions, discoveries and breakthroughs. The scientific method starts from a skeptical observation of reality, followed by the formation of an hypothesis and testing under qualified experimental conditions.

The perimeter of science

While nobody would even think of constructing a building entirely disregarding laws of physics such as gravity, or even to manufacture a soda can while ignoring Boyle’s law, when it comes to personal growth and spirituality in particular it seems that none of this matters anymore.

Are there things that science currently cannot account for? Yes.

Is it possible that some of the things that are currently regarded as unscientific, in the future will be explained by a better model or a better experiment? Yes, it is.

Has science been wrong in the past? And is science subject to what Thomas Kuhn called paradigm shifts, that completely revolutionize the whole framework within which research is being conducted? Yes.

But let’s be careful here. Does the above imply that – because the scientific method cannot be entirely relied upon in explaining and validating all phenomena – then it’s free for all, and any theory outside of its perimeter, from aliens, soul fragmentation, chakra’s external activations, entities, energy fields, quantum healing, DNA activation, ethereal downloads and more, becomes equally valid and legit without any scrupulous testing? The answer is a resounding: NO!!!! This inference is totally arbitrary and absurd!

There should be no need to emphasize this in the twenty-first century, but from what I see online, here we are. Ask someone who’s deep into remote viewing or bending spoons with his mind – things that have never passed any test under lab conditions – and he’ll bring up the argument that throughout history we believed that the earth was flat (and some still believe it now…).

Sure. But because we believed things that turned out to be false, does that make his theory any more valid? Is the burden of proof suddenly shifted? And even if one day we cracked the code of remote viewing and learned how to harness this ability: what are the odds that you’ve just bumped into the on-in-a-million precursor of this field who can do it already and not instead a fool that is trying to sell you a bunch of baloney?

Most importantly why doesn’t he go to an accredited university and makes himself available for testing under rigorous experimental conditions so he can finally show the world that he can bend spoons, remote view, read minds and all? That would make him one of the most famous individuals in the world overnight!

This is something you should ask yourself, in particular before you book the next session with a tarot reader, psychic, healer, this or that gifted individual who claims to have a certain ability or to deliver a certain result to you.

If that person really possessed this gift or ability and could deliver in a consistent, unequivocal and tangible way (which means for example, as measured against a placebo intervention), then why would he waste his time charging you 50$ per session instead of undergoing scientific scrutiny in a research lab, showing the world he’s the first authentic mind-reader? He’d make so much money that your 50$ would become pittance in comparison.

Now you might say that he doesn’t care about the money. But still he’d still get so much visibility that he could spread his gift to the whole world instead of keeping it limited to you and the handful of friends you’ve been referring, right? That’s something for you to contemplate. If his stuff really works, then why doesn’t he just do that?

Don’t throw the baby with the bath water

So, am I saying that everyone who offers services outside of the perimeter of traditional science is a scam? No, I don’t believe that.

When it comes to ‘healers’ for example, I do believe that some individuals possess authentic abilities to detect issues in the body and possibly even bring some relief. But just like in the scientific method, I suggest a skeptical approach. And with this mindset, I’d suggest that a good 90% are a little more than scammers or highly deluded people.

Then I believe there’s a minority that might be onto something. But often, they don’t even know exactly how these things work themselves. It’s like having a natural talent at something, but not knowing exactly how you do it. That’s the limit of what lies outside of the scientific method. It’s very difficult to teach or pass on reliably and that’s why I’m very skeptical of all the teachers that sell you so much certainty about anything in general too.

Am I advocating for sticking to mainstream science in this article? No, I am not. Actually, I am an explorer, a skeptic, a curious mind. I’ve tried and experimented with different fields and techniques for over a decade.

Personally, I believe that there are a lot of things which science hasn’t been able to explain, which effectively work in practice and maybe one day will be validated. Some examples of things I find effective are: Bach Flower Remedies, energy or Qi, Qi Gong, intuitive abilities, and – to some extent – the law of attraction.

Even when attempting to prove the effectiveness of these techniques or ideas, they’re not good candidates for double-blind experiments. If you take Bach Flowers for example, every individual is supposed to take a unique combination of flowers, depending of where he’s at in life. His response to the flowers is also a very individual thing. Hence it’s not very suitable to try to prove the flowers’ effectiveness by putting together a sample group of diverse individuals and make them all ingest the same flower, then compare their responses with a placebo group. Chemically speaking the flowers are just water, granted. But my personal experience with them – over several years – makes me quite confident that some of the reactions I’ve witnessed in my body and mind after taking them, are never triggered by my regular mineral water! Could it be just placebo effect? I do not think so but, as a healthy skeptic, I still must account for that possibility. I’m not attached to my ideas in that sense, so one day I might tell you: yeah, sorry man, it was all just placebo. I can’t exclude that.

This is something you should pay close attention to: is the person advocating for this or that bizarre theory deeply involved with it? Does he have an emotional attachment to his idea, or even worse, has he built an identity or even a business around it? Then this should tell you how objective and non-biased he can be…

If he’s not a scam, then at least the possibility for self-delusion is sky-high when the personal involvement is there.

How to keep an open but rational mind

So, what’s the ultimate answer? Should you disregard whatever is not scientifically proven? Should you sample and try everything? Should you believe your friend or guru?

I can only share my personal approach. Like I said I’m a healthy skeptic and I think you should become one too. Don’t be fooled, a healthy skepticism is the foundation of the scientific method too.

As a skeptic you simply want to make sure that you have no pre-conceived notions. Hence, if something works and you see that it works, then you’re open to believe it, even when it runs against everything you’ve been taught or told so far. But until it’s revealed to unequivocally work, then you keep the default position that it doesn’t work. Because why would you do otherwise?

If I told you that I can materialize money with my mind right now on the table, why would you adopt the default position that I can? You’d pretty damn sure think I can’t, but perhaps you’d give me a chance to demonstrate it and prove you wrong.

So if that’s the approach you’d use towards materializing money, why don’t you have the same approach to everything else?

In the absence of any scientific validation for a tool, an exercise, a technique, what you’d like to have is at least some personal extended experimentation with it, to draw a tentative conclusion about its effectiveness. At least that.

In spirituality, I see so many people taking things on face value, then deluding themselves that they work, contrary to all the factual evidence before their eyes. It happens so often that it’s almost a joke.

If you take a course with the guy who sells you on the idea of ‘manifesting a million dollar’ with the power of the mind – even though it runs against mainstream physics – you can totally be open to it. But after applying the knowledge from his course, have you made a million dollar? Because if not, then why would you buy the upgraded course that goes like: “Clearing your subconscious blocks so you can manifest more”?!

Then you’re just being a fool. And yet I see thousands of these fools at every event! Their main problem is that it’s more painful to let go of the delusion that ‘one day it will work’, than shelling out money over money to the gurus to keep the hope alive!

It is only through experience and action-taking, constantly questioning whether you’re not just deluding yourself and objectively listing out your own results, that you can come to trust a technique, tool or idea. And that’s how I’ve come to trust some of the things I mentioned before. I trust Qi Gong because I’ve done it for long enough and I’ve seen consistent and radical changes in my life, that it was just less reasonable to attribute them to randomness or self-delusion than to the practice itself.

But for sure I won’t jump straight into a course, pouring thousands of dollars on empty promises and then keep buying more and more hoping to see the result later, when the first course hasn’t even delivered anything yet.

Once you explore areas outside of the scientific method and mainstream science – and I encourage you to – you need them to produce at the very least some strong anecdotal evidence for yourself.

If you go to a healer, what is the problem that you’re trying to heal? How many sessions will it take? And most importantly is the problem healed at the end? Because if you keep going and going every week and she finds a different chakra problem, a different part of the past to be healed, a different blockage every time, a different area in your body to be treated, while you’re just every bit as stuck in life, then you’re just going for emotional support. You’re not healing, you’re doing psychotherapy the wrong way and with an unqualified individual, at best.

You need to see at least some results (big results take time) within a reasonable timeframe, if you do the actual work and are serious about it, not a random result here and there, or a little coincidence or synchronicity that you’re so eager to interpret as a proof. Otherwise you’re just being gullible.

What I’m talking about here is real changes in your life, the kind that doesn’t have you going back to the guru for more training indefinitely, but rather, allows you to move on and to say: “problem is solved. Thank you so much, I no longer need to be here”.

Also published on Medium.