Rainsong's Rants #3

by Rainsong

Here we have yet another short rant, but this one isn't exactly in mother-hen mode. Quite the contrary in fact. There are three annoying - and unfounded - assumptions rampant among the newbies, these days.

First among these is the idea that those of us who practice psionics should have some kind of obligation to prove the existence of various psionic effects, and of psi in general. Some people actually want to "prove psi". Fine, whatever floats your boat. However, many of us have more interesting things to do than to prove the obvious. More to the point, some of us really do not care whether you believe in psionics, gravity, or seawater.

The second unfounded assumption is that any of us have the time or inclination to personally coach everyone who asks. None of the regulars on this site is under any obligation to instruct you, so an uninvited PM that says simply, "Hi. Teach me everything you know" is rude and presumptuous. Anyone making such a demand should be prepared for an equally rude answer, if you get any reply at all.

The third is even sillier. For some reason, people show up at this site assuming that everyone else is both knowledgeable and skillful. This site is designed for novices. The vast majority of the folks who frequent the forums and chatroom are at kindergarten-level at best. To assume that the posts on the forum or the articles here are state-of-the-art science is foolish. The articles are mostly based on experience, at least; the forum posts are not always so. To think that we should be able to make in-depth study of all aspects of psionics goes well beyond "stupid". To make a simple example of my own case, I am involved in some research a some very small, very specific aspects of biological effects of psionics. I am not a physicist, so I do not pretend to make serious investigation of the Physics side of the house, which is, admittedly, where most of psionics-related research ought to be. Even if this were not the case, extensive research of the sort that certain people seem to expect of us takes a matter of years to "complete" just to the point to be ready to publish preliminary findings. Usually, it is done small-bit by small-bit. The fact that several twelve-year-olds, who've just discovered psionics in the past week, are unfamiliar with the basic literature concerning psionics research does not mean that such research does not exist. The site forum is a message board, not a scientific journal. It does not pretend otherwise. Don't ask it to.

-Rainsong

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Last Modified on September 03 2003