Paranormal Beliefs: The Role of Agents in the Absence of Responsibility

Introduction - Paranormal Beliefs: Agents & A Lack of Responsibility

An interesting concept was raised by one sceptic sometime back: the role of "agents" behind paranormal beliefs. The terminology 'agent' is used in Psychology to refer to...

In the context of paranormal beliefs, the 'agents' are the actual figures that the belief orbits around. These include:

• angels and archangels
• Ascended Masters 
• spiritual entities (e.g. elemental spirits)

Now, what benefit is there for someone to believe in angels, spirits and the like? Well, consider the situation involving Person A. Person A is overweight, and has insecurity issues (not suggesting, of course, that all people who are overweight and/or who have insecurity issues are necessarily like how Person A will be described). Person A learned by the specialists that they were overweight and that they were on a bad diet where they ate all the wrong foods and didn't do enough exercise - and, furthermore, that they ate too much. 

     However, Person A began exploring alternative approaches to health. Person A hears about Past Life Regression and gives a session a go. The therapist, a brown-haired woman who is tall and slim, goes through the introduction and explains about past lives to Person A, then she asks Person A what she wishes to explore in this session.

    Person A decides to try and explore why she is overweight, through visiting one or more of her past lives. She says so to the therapist.

The therapist  goes through the relaxation meditation, then talks Person A through the entering past lives visualisation. 

"...Now, see yourself in a past life, the one that is the most relevant to your weight problem. Tell me, what do you see?" The therapist says.

What exactly Person A sees in her supposed past life is not important. However, by trying to solve her weight problem through past life regression, she is already distracted from the more common-sense way of solving it (which is by eating less sugary, fatty, carbohydrate and refined, salty food and eating more fresh vegetables and fruit and nuts). In other words, rather than trying to deal with her weight through diet, she seeks to deal with it through treating/exploring past lives that are supposed to have some connection to her weight problem. 

   Whilst it may be seen as such by some, is dealing with the weight problem through visiting past lives really responsible? After all, spiritualists believe that everyone has had countless lives (and these, it must be added, are believed to have brought about the origin of an illness a person may suffer from in their current lifetime)  - which means that if this idea is correct (if), then there must surely be a large number of past lives to be healed in order to deal with the physical illness. In the spiritualists' view, Person A's condition (the overweight issue) may originate from a need in a past life to stuff themselves with food as a means to survive. For example, if Person A's problem was due to a past life, this past life may have involved Person A and her people suffering from a draught, where there was little to no food and he/she was at risk of dying from starvation because there wasn't enough food to sustain her hunger. Then, either later on in that lifetime, or some lifetime or other later, she had lots of food available to her, she may have had a subconscious need to stuff herself with food - originating from subconscious memories of having starved in a past life beforehand. According to the spiritualists' view, she would have had many past lives which involved immense hunger or starvation, and many after that in which she would have had an urge to stuff herself with food. The latter action might be the reason why Person A overeats in this, her current lifetime.

But. How many lifetimes has Person A had that involved starvation? In this case, Person A may have had lots, but if she decides to deal with the weight issue through past life regression, she must heal all of the past lives that caused the problem. As was mentioned earlier, according to spiritualists, we've all had countless lifetimes, so taking that into account it seems logical that Person A must have had a plethora of problems from past lives that caused her current weight problem. 

It's very much like layers of an onion. Even if Person A did heal a few past lives, that does not mean that there are more past lives in need of healing that had brought about the weight issue, that must be dealt with. And how might Person A know if she had healed them? Typically, through a "knowing" or a "feeling". But this intuitive hunch might be wrong. What if there were still past lives to be healed, only Person A got the sense that she's healed all of them, so decided that she could stop the past life regression sessions? 

Then again, what if the past lives were not ever healed through the sessions? All the "healing" requires is a visualisation of pink energy which symbolises love, around the past life recipient or situation, and an intention that the past life be healed or simply it may just be visualising a happy outcome in the past life - essentially, editing the film of the subconscious's "past life memory" so that it recalls it as having a happy ending (as in the draught past life, it might be seeing the situation as being filled with plant and animal life with plenty of water and no hunger or draught present).

Would it not be simpler to just change to a better diet? And quicker, too? Just to add - by seeking to heal the weight problem through past lives, Person A is trying to avoid having to cut down on the dietary Bad Guys that caused the problem. So the physical problem is likely to get worst, not better.

The Role of Agents

A person may develop beliefs in spiritual forces for multiple reasons. They may have been brought up to believe in them by their parents or family members. They may have emotional reasons - for example, they may develop a belief in discarnate entities as a result of having lost loved-ones.

   Yet, another reason may be due to disgust. Disgust at the state of the world. With the destruction of rainforests, leading to an increasing number of animals and other creatures becoming extinct, and a decrease in the diversity of wildlife; with the childhood obesity pandemic afflicting parts of Western society, as well as an ever-increasing population which leads to more land being cleared - and, as a result, destruction of yet another natural habitat - as well as social inequalities in Western society, whereby the working-class people cannot afford to buy the luxuries, food and items to aid their children's education, which may lead to them carrying out theft in order to get the things that they want or need which they cannot afford, it is very difficult to actually see "good people" making a difference to the state of society and the well-being of society.

    One person cannot make a difference on their own, even if they wanted to. Collecting a gathering may make more difference, but for whatever reason doing so may not be possible. It is in this state of despair that a person may develop beliefs in the paranormal in order to cope with, or combat, this sense or feeling of helplessness. In this scenario, they may develop spiritual beliefs - for example, they may decide to believe that angels exist. As a result, they may send their wishes or prayers through their thoughts to these spiritual beings through meditation, in the hope that maybe, just maybe, it might make a difference. A greater difference than being a lone gunman. 

    Of course, if the desired change does occur, then it will be interpreted to have been as a consequence of sending the prayer to their angels or object of their beliefs. If the desired change does not happen, then the person may continue to do the prayer in the vain hope that it will actually work, or they may forget the incidence altogether and lose interest, perhaps praying about other matters of concern.

Using Aliens as Scapegoats

 

Interestingly, one spiritualist I met blamed Western society's problems on evil aliens - the "Reptilians". It was interesting, because there are enough evil people in the world without adding on top of the list a group of Reptilian aliens which may or may not exist. 

  Yet, this raised an interesting point which is appropiate for discussion here. For as well as providing emotional support as mentioned earlier, and providing a person with the sense they have some control over a situation - in which they feel they can change the situation or issues by asking Archangel Michael (no offence of course) to sort it out "because no one else will"- agents can also be used as scapegoats.

   Scapegoats is a term used in psychology to refer to when a person blames certain issues or problems on someone else, or a group of people, and treats them unfairly as a result (as a "punishment"). Usually, members of ethnic minority groups may be used as scapegoats by people who are prejudiced, and who are racist or who discriminate against them. But other people used as scapegoats include partners - for example, people who rape their partners may be using their partners to express their negative emotional states through physical violence. Other people and groups may also be used as scapegoats. For example, secret societies, as well as certain individuals who may or may not be still alive, as well as one's younger sibling or older sibling or parents and teachers. But scape-goating is a way of running away from a situation and not taking responsibility to actually do something about it.

So what use is it to use evil aliens as scapegoats? Again, it may be a case of a lack of ability to make a difference. If a person is aware of the problems of Western society but feel they cannot do anything about it, then may develop their belief that they are a sort of victim "like everyone else is", a victim of malicious aliens who do everything they can to make life for the human race as much like Hell as possible. The most logical reason why there are so many problems in society and the world is due to how society is constructed. But it is not just due to sociological reasons, but also psychological ones, such as peer pressure and authoritarian personality. 

If someone was to blame society for the various problems in the society and the world, then that would mean that that person would also take some of the blame, because they are themselves a member of that society. And it would also be less specific - blaming the Reptilians is much easier, because they are a small group supposedly influencing the world governements. In comparison, blaming the whole society (in this case, everyone who belongs to Western society) would encompass a whole mass of individuals, which is less specifically directed. It is also not fair, because the majority of that society are merely following the norms and values - it is not their fault that society is structured the way it is. But then again, if there are major issues with the current system, shouldn't they take credit? Not necessarily - they may not consider them to be major issues. Or bystander apathy may stop them - they feel that someone else has what it takes to make a difference.

But clearly, it is also desirable to be the victim in a situation whereby a person feels they can't do anything. As a reuslt of feeling victimised, they may have some sense of power over the situation as already stated earlier. Furthermore, they may also not do something when they could, because they believe that either it's not their problem, or because (if they are praying to a higher being) they believe that praying for intervention will bring about the desired change.