Poor Blossom Goodchild if you are hearing voices in your head you might want to seek psychiatric help
The video posted above is truly sad. What is going on in our culture such that people who convince themselves that they are hearing voices in their head are treated as prophets and enlightened individuals? Have we reached such a degree of absurdity that when someone claims to be hearing voices in their head we don't treat this as a sign of possible mental illness?
Poor Blossom Goodchild is a 'channeler' who claimed to have heard voices in her head and these voices told her that a giant UFO was going to fly overhead to prove the reality of the 'Galactic Federation of Light'.
A number of things about this are shocking to me. First of all, why did poor Blossom not seek professional help when this happened? Why would she choose to literally believe the voices she heard in her head? This simply boggles my mind. Let me assure you that if I start hearing voices in my head I will make a bee-line straight to the nearest psychiatric professional to help me understand this disturbing condition that might indicate any number of serious disorders.
The other thing that puzzles me is why Blossom would choose to *believe* the voices in her head. Especially when you take into account the history of the situation. For as long as we can remember, people who have been hearing voices in their heads have been given messages of an eschatological nature which have always proven false.
I am also shocked at how many people took this prediction to heart and treated it seriously. If you watch the video above it is a truly sad affair. My heart goes out to poor Blossom Goodchild and all of those who suffer from New Age weak and soft thinking that so pervades our culture. I am also bothered by how much anger, hate, and vile bile that has been sent Blossom's way by angry and disappointed individuals. Clearly this poor confused woman meant no harm and it is unfair to put your personal issues onto this handicapped individual.
I have said it on this blog before, and I will say it again; New Age people are some of the nicest, most kind, loving, and pleasant people to be around. However, it is the fact that most of them appear to have lost all capacity for rational thought that concerns me. Look, I enjoy a good drumming, reiki share, breathwork, and kirtan as the next New Ager. I find these meditative practices to be relaxing and soothing to the mind and spirit. However, relaxing and soothing things do not justify adopting bizarre belief systems with no more evidence than a vision or tickle of the subconscious mind.
Channeling, which is literally just a form of self hypnosis where the practitioner is able to convince them self that they are receiving communications from other worldly sources, should be taken with the largest grain of salt. Just as no person speaking in tongues at a Pentecostal Church is actually communicating in a real dead language, neither is a channeler literally receiving communications from space aliens.
Consider the fact that any alleged communications from disincarnate entities over the past hundred years has been comprised primarily of eschatological material and has contained absolutely zero information content that could be scientifically verified. Taking this into account anyone should be highly skeptical of these forms of subconscious regurgitation.
I truly feel sad for poor Blossom Goodchild. The video above shows a broken woman who meant no harm. I hope that she abandons this channeling business and seeks help in the form of therapy or whatever best can steer her back on the path towards rational and critical thinking as a protection against future episodes of delerious dissapointment.
Comments
The Origin of Consciousness
in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind
Further clarification on Wiki.
Isn't there a TV show now about an attorney who sees visions and stuff?
I've met people who hear voices, and it's generally not amusing, like in the movies. They also are not typically prophetic. I can't even imagine not wanting to get help.
She's been channeling for up to ten year, so she probably trusted herself enough.
Go look at her website, she has a live recording of her channeling a spirit.
Thanks for the excellent links and food for thought!
Anonymous, I'm sorry to say but I don't see a clear distinction between automatic writing or voice channeling. It's all the same load of nonsense either way.
John
It seems like they are really hearing and seeing what they say they did, and I think there are at least two possibilities. One, the military has the technology to broadcast "voices" into people's heads, convincing them they are hearing from aliens. They also have the technology to fake the appearance of UFOs and other things, and all this could be used by people with enough clout, in order to trick people into accepting a one-world government.
The other possibility is that there are entities of some sort, on a level we don't understand, which have the capability to appear and communicate with unsuspecting people. They have been called demons and faeries in medieval times, and they are called aliens or extraterrestrials nowadays. Scientists who study these things have increasingly thought there was SOMETHING going on, more likely from another dimension than another planet.
These are possibilities that are worth considering.
I was trying to make a simple point about people who convince themselves that they are receiving communications from disincarnate entities even though the quality of these messages is generally extremely poor.
On the other hand you brought up a wide range of questions and issues each of which would require an entirely separate discussion.
To keep things as simple as I can, I must tell you that (A) I believe there exists a real, legitimate, and unknown UFO phenomenon and (B) I don't believe that channelers and other New Age beliefs has a damn thing to do with the topic.
John
How would you know to get psychiatric help, if, when you heard the voices, you were simultaneously convinced they reflected reality? How do you form rational thought and logical plans when disease affects your mind to the point of making rational thought unlikely or impossible?
(that said, it always puzzles me that skeptics seem to ignore the Interdimensional hypothesis of UFO's entirely. Psychologist Remo F. Roth has yet another explanation for UFO's and related phenomena which I think is the most interesting of them all.)
Certainly, almost all Channelers and Mediums are frauds. Blossom Goodchild seems to be an exception in that she at least genuinely believes that her contact is real.
That of course still leaves the possibility that she is schizophrenic.
At least I did something creative and made a stupid concept album about this event (well, it's inspired by it). I have uploaded it to Esnips and you can download it there (for free, of course):
http://www.esnips.com/web/Flux-Liner-The-Event
btw Blossom has just released a post-14th channeling which I think is quite cool (if only because it made me laugh).