INTEGRAL WORLD MAILING LIST http://www.integralworld.net Newsletter Nr. 574 Amsterdam, June 25th, 2015 CHANNELING - The Skepticism of Carl Sagan - DAVID LANE Of course, Carl Sagan has been dead for many years and since he was hyper skeptical of channeling as a means of communicating with the dead (and since I have no proficiency in such a practice anyway), I decided to use his baloney detection kit to see how he might have dealt with the Leininger account if he were still alive today. Now has the James Leininger been fully debunked? No. But are there enough reasonable doubts and questions that make the story less than convincing? Yes. Carl Sagan suggested that being skeptical doesn't mean one has to be cynical or closed-minded. But it does indicate that extraordinary claims must be properly measured and weighted by the evidence proffered in such cases. Perhaps what David Hume so wisely cautioned about accepting miracles can be applied with equal force to paranormal claims, "That no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavors to establish." Read more: http://www.integralworld.net/lane96.html OF INTEREST ON OTHER WEBSITES: Within the context of the value of skepticism (and its possible overuse), check out these new installments of the debate between Rupert Sheldrake and Michael Shermer regarding mental action at a distance: http://www.thebestschools.org/special/sheldrake-shermer-dialogue-nature-of-science/ What would an integral response to these topics be?