Parapsychology and transpersonal psychology: "Anomalies" to be explained away or spirit to manifest?

Journal of Parapsychology, The, March, 2002 by Charles T. Tart

Now I admit having a personal bias in favor of such a spiritual experience: I would like to have a Cosmic Consciousness experience. I would like to have such deep assurance of the goodness of the universe, but, as a scientist, I want to get the best possible version of the truth, so emotional appeal per se is of limited value here.

What's the Materialistic Scientism view of Bucke's experience? Remember now, essential science is always open to data, but Materialistic Scientism is a vast, overarching paradigm (in Thomas Kuhn's sense of the word paradigm; see Kuhn, 1962) that declares that only what is material is real. This philosophy/paradigm has immense dominance in all areas of modern life, especially science today. Materialistic Scientism is the view held by the pseudo-skeptics who are constantly attacking parapsychology, debunking our research and, indeed, trying to keep us from doing it.

Materialistic Scientism is quite clear about Bucke's Cosmic Consciousness experience, of course: It is some kind of brain malfunction. It could not possibly be true in the sense of reflecting the actual nature of the universe. Fancier terms are used from time to time to debunk spiritual experiences, and the current new term coming into use is neurotheology--an explaining (away) of spiritual experience by brain (mal)functioning.

For the viewpoint of Materialistic Scientism, Bucke's experience has the same truth value as if my personal computer suddenly started printing out, "I have experienced union with the Big Computer in the sky and now know the depths of Binary Electroecstasy!" You would call the repairman if your computer did that, and the followers of Materialistic Scientism think that Bucke needs the repairman too.

The world view of Materialistic Scientism was expressed clearly and succinctly by Bertrand Russell in 1923:

That man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought or feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system; and the whole temple of Man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins--all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy that rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul's habitation henceforth be safely built. (Russell, 1923, pp. 6-7)

This is very blunt, but it reflects Materialistic Scientism quite well. I suggest the reader take a moment to reflect on how this credo makes you feel, quite aside from intellectual reflections on what truth value it does or does not have.