Skeptophilia (skep-to-fil-i-a) (n.) - the love of logical thought, skepticism, and thinking critically. Being an exploration of the applications of skeptical thinking to the world at large, with periodic excursions into linguistics, music, politics, cryptozoology, and why people keep seeing the face of Jesus on grilled cheese sandwiches.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Psychic surfers

Let me just say, up front, that I love my readers.

I read, and enjoy, every one of their comments.  I even like the ones who disagree with me.  The heart of skepticism is careful thought, and comments from people who think I'm wrong provoke me to think, reevaluate, reconsider. 

But every once in a while, a comment (or commenter) stands out as being especially wonderful, and that happened yesterday, and generated today's post.

If you read yesterday's post, you will no doubt remember that it was about some folks selling something called the "LifeIonizer."  I ended the post bemoaning the fact that due to my exploration of all things woo-woo, I tend to get bombarded by advertisements for things like crystals and Tarot card readings, and rarely see advertisements featuring scantily-clad surfers, and how much I would prefer the latter.

This prompted a comment from one of my frequent readers that consisted only of a link to a site, featuring a woman named Kristi Walsh, which is called...

...  Psychic Surfers.

After clicking the link, then attempting not to spray a mouthful of coffee all over my computer, and then spending the next five minutes laughing, I looked into it a little further, and went to Kristi Walsh's website (here).  Much to my disappointment, it seems as if she is using surfing as a metaphor:
Surfing is the perfect image for riding the ascension wave. This is the first time the earth, the solar system, and all beings on this planet have experienced ascension. Well, let me rephrase that, if we have experienced this before, it might have been 26,000 years ago. So most of us, jump into the NOW, or present time, and we have to figure out along the way, how to surf these psychic waves, or cosmic waves, or maverick waves.
Oh, okay!  I mean, my only question would be: what?  I don't know about you, but I didn't experience much of anything 26,000 years ago.  So I kept reading, hoping it would become clearer:
Many of us have been using psychic or spiritual tools, but we are always being called to the surf. Things are changing from a third or fourth dimensional world to something different, we are expanding our world from duality to a world where we are all one, and we are interested in new ways to create peace within ourselves and with others. Ascension means different things to different folks but there are similar stories, where one day you wake up remembering dreams and spiritual mystery school teachings, and then the next day its like its your first day on this planet.
Oh.  Now I get it.  Well, not really, but maybe tomorrow I'll wake up remembering my "spiritual mystery school teachings," and it all will become clear.

After this, she goes on for some time about "raising our vibrations," which sounds fairly illicit to my ears, so we'll just pass over this part.  I did find out that she does psychic and astrological readings, however, which sounds promising.  And I will definitely plan on trying to catch her radio program, which is on at 9 AM Pacific Time on AlignRadio, a broadcast channel whose website describes it as being "designed energetically to address the energy of earth movements, the energy of ascension with the new and ancient universal information."  I can barely wait.

So, anyway, I have once again had my life enriched by my readers, whose growing numbers encourage me daily.  I've seen Skeptophilia grow from only one or two followers, and a handful of hits daily, to hundreds of regular readers and upwards of 300 hits every day, and a total number of lifetime hits since I began writing in October of 2010 that is currently nearing 50,000.  About which I can only say: thank you to everyone who reads what I write, and thank you especially to those who comment, send me links, and challenge me daily to think harder about the world around me.  It is a privilege to reach an audience this size, and I can only hope that my writing is forwarding the cause of skepticism and critical thinking in some small way.  Keep reading, keep recommending my posts to your skeptically-minded friends, and keep sending me links... even the ones that make me spit coffee all over my computer.  It's a small price to pay.

2 comments:

  1. I am an audio/visual learner. Thus, when I read, I project a voice speaking what I am reading. I can't get through a single yahoo article anymore without guffawing when that voice adds in extra words (that that), or a to where an is should be, etc.

    I can count the amount of grammatical or punctuation errors in all is your posts on one hand hand!

    Thank you for helping to NOT make the projected voice in my head sound like an idiot.

    As for the rest of printed media... I guess the emphasis has turned from quality to quantity. Journalism and editing requires a college degree, right? *shrug*

    As for Kristi, she should change her name to Brook, because all she's doing is babbling.

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  2. I sent your articles links to all my contacts and they all love it including me.
    Alissa Monroe

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