Craig Hamilton-Parker takes on the arch skeptic Richard Dawkins in The Enemies of Reason on Channel 4. Richard Dawkins is fiercely anti-religion and blind spiritual belief systems. Can Craig's demonstration of mediumship in a Spiritualist Church convince Dawkins that there's life after death?
The solicitor Victor Zammit comments: "Richard Dawkins may be a good theoretician biologist but knows absolutely nothing about what is admissible evidence when it comes to afterlife or paranormal matters. To my knowledge, he never stated where, when, how and why the objective afterlife/paranormal evidence presented cannot be admitted as objective evidence – or why he thinks the evidence is not valid. He tends to be descriptive... ignoring my research and ignoring the best paranormal research of paranormal professional writers and truly brilliant researchers such as Dr Dean Radin."
The press were surprisingly sympathetic to the New Agers who were prepared to take up the dawkins challenge. The Daily Mirror said: "As you'd expect, Dawkins puts his case calmly, rationally and politely. So it must have been a bit sick-making when he discovers a perfectly logical, scientific reason why some of this hocus-pocus actually works."
In an interview in the Times Dawkins admits: "So how many of these practitioners are crooks? “The psychics, I think, mostly are,” he says. “But with one spiritualist I couldn’t make out if he was a charlatan or not. It’s possible that they sort of know that they’re cold-reading, but they still think it’s the spirits channeling through them.”
Neil Davenports news column said: "In reality, it was Dawkins who came across as shockingly naïve. The programme also showed that he possesses the sense of humour of a wooden chair leg."
Actually I (Craig) disagree with the last quote. I may disagree very much with what Richard Dawkins has to say about cold reading etc. but I nonetheless liked Dawkins the man and yes he did have a sense of humour. Off camera I quipped that Darwin got the idea for evolution from a Spiritualist - Alfred Russell Wallis - and Einstein got his Nobel Prize trying to disprove Quantum Theory. Maybe Dawkins will get his trying to disprove what I do!
The intellect is a good friend but a naïve master. I feel that Richard Dawkins is intoxicated with his belief in science to the point that he lives under a sort of delusion by denying intuitive thinking and any possibility of transcendent experience. He's spiritually lop sided. I have to ask the same question that was printed in the Guardian TV section: "Why is Dawkins always so cross?"
The Whole Truth?
On the programme I suggested that Richard Dawkins also consider interviewing Rupert Shelldrake. Dawkins claimed to have never have heard of him yet Shelldrakes blog suggests that they had indeed met but Dawkin's was not prepared to include this information in the argument. See Rupert Shelldrake's blog.
A BIASED VIEWPOINT?
Richard Dawkins edits TV to suit his own agenda?
A number of Spiritualists were angry at the fact that at the event Richard Dawkins conveniently ignored important proofs of life after death. A few wrote to Channel 4 to complain. One angry spiritualist who did this wrote to me to say:
"You came to me first, and this was the first time I had seen you. When we have has readings we only ever answer yes and no during the reading and this time was no different.
"You started off with saying that you had a female, and that she was having trouble speaking, she had a lispy voice, and you could barely hear her, and you felt it was my mother, my mother had her throat cut twice in operations and did have a lispy voice, and she did have trouble projecting her voice.
"You then became confused because you said she was doing a stirring movement and you said you did not understand as she was saying over and over 'the treacle's mine', 'the treacle's mine,' this was an outstanding amazing statement as the area which I lived all through childhood was fondly known as the treacle mines.
"You gave many other factually correct details, but the most amazing of all was that you said my mother came out of her door and saw two Morris Minors, she said they were black, I said no - (They had black roofs and the man restored them but they were gray), you then mentioned the neighbours name, which was correct, later my husband reminded me that although the Morris's were originally gray he had the doors and wings replaced with and they were indeed black.
"The whole reading was accurate and could not be interpreted to be made to fit or desperately misunderstood as Richard dawkins implies to those who seek spiritualists, and we were interviewed by him after where we told him your reading was 100% accurate and even about the Morris minors changing colour.
"How can Mr Dawkins whome should be, as a man of science open to things that may not be able to be understood because we cannot physically prove these things blatantly deny that he found any proof or evidence that evening?There have been many examples in the past and present of things that may not have a concrete basis to provide evidence of proof such as 'string theories, and black holes' - did eminent theologians and scientists just ignore these things because of the inability to give concrete proof? Or were they just better men than he?
"To summarise what i found the saddest of all was that on the programme he said that he found no evidence of proof of mediumship or séance as he referred to it, and yet in my interview with him he clearly was given acknowledgement of evidence that was true, yet he chose not to show any of this on the programme, and was selective, perhaps because it did not fit with the whole ethos of his programme. Surely such a professional should have had the integrity and honesty when making such a programme to show all sides and not just make the evidence fir for the glory of a television programme!
"I want to thank you once again for your outstanding reading and the evidence that you provided."
Suzie D. - Camberley
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