Trusting the Observer: A Neglected Factor
Monday, February 3, 2014
By Richard Blasband, MD
Simon Singh is a British science writer of such books as
Big Bang, Fermat’s Enigma, and Trick or Treatment, a coauthored
examination of alternative medicine. When Singh
wrote an article for The Guardian taking chiropractic practice
to task for allegedly outrageous claims, he was sued for libel by
the British Chiropractic Association. Singh fought the case in
court and prevailed, in the process becoming something of a
hero to those challenging the pseudoscience community.
In a recent interview entitled “Author Simon Singh Puts
Up a Fight in the War on Science,” published in the September
2010 issue of Wired, Singh asks for the acceptance of establishment
science by “trust” in their education, training, experience,
and greater numbers. Indeed, there is much that can be
said for these things in gaining our trust. However, as important
as these factors are, those bearing them can well be wrong
in their conclusions. If the fundamental assumptions on which
a case is based are wrong then it doesn’t make any difference
how many examples are given to support one’s conclusions.
The corollary is that if only one example is given based upon
a correct fundamental premise, then the conclusion is likely to
be truthful. The issue, then, is how do we know which originating
premises are correct?
Science tries to ascertain this by the two-step of hypothesis
based on observation followed by a testing of the hypothesis.
One then rejects or refines one’s hypothesis, tests some
more, and so on. There is an assumption here that is rarely
mentioned, at least rarely until most recently, and that is the
clarity of the observer who makes the initial observation.
Until now it has been assumed that we are all equally clear
in our unadulterated and transparent sensory perception and
apprehension of the external world and that our intentions
have nothing or little to do with the outcome of not only our
observations but the testing of our hypotheses. We now know
that this is not true. Indeed, there is ample evidence from
depth psychology that our character structure determined by
innumerable thwartings of our life force in our growth and
development can so “armor” us that we literally perceive the
world in a distorted form.* And there is sufficient evidence
from quantum research to demonstrate how dependent the
results of particle/wave experiments are on the intention of
the observer, not to mention the seminal work of the PEAR
laboratory of the profound effects of intention on the behavior
of machines whose output is random.
My personal experience as a depth therapist of over 45
years of experience working with men and women of all ages
from infancy to well past middle age, from all professional
walks of life, is that all of my clients living into their 20s have
significant amounts of psychophysical armoring and demonstrate
significant and varying degrees of perceptual distortion
and distortion of thinking depending upon where in their organism
they are armored. If the eyes and brain are affected, for
example, and they are to some degree in everyone, visual clarity
and thought will be also. Release of the armoring through
appropriate emotional expression results, by the client’s own
admission, in significant recovery of vision, three dimensional
imaging, and loss of confusion in those we would deem as
schizophrenic. In those with lesser disturbances there is always
an increased clarity of thought. It is a dynamic process.
While, admittedly, my professional clientele represent a
small population, they do not come to me with very serious
problems: that is, they appear to be fairly representative examples
of the Western population as a whole. Except that they
are so aware of the disparity between what they are and what
they could be that they seek my help. My point here is that
there is good reason for believing that the armored state is
our collective state and that there is little true objectivity not
only in us, and in our apprehension of external reality (which
we also create), but by extension, so it is among our scientists.
If this is true, and I believe it is, then what we think is
real is not real, but is some compromised reality and the fundamental
premises on which we base our initial hypotheses
are not correct. From this point-of-view mainstream and alternative
medical science are both flawed: It is no wonder that
definitive cures are not available from either camp.
Singh can fight ad infinitum for the former, but even if
we stand on his turf we wonder if he knows that only 15% of
the medications in the standard approved pharmacopeia have
undergone the double-blinded gold standard of testing. The
same, of course, goes for alternative medications. Singh and
the chiropractors and their descendants can and will continue
to duke it out, but as long as it takes place on insubstantial and
wobbling ground, little of substantial value will be learned.
* Blasband, R.A. “Emotional Armoring as a Filter of Consciousness,”
Filters and Reflections, Edited by Jones, Z., Dunne, B.
Hoeger, E., and Jahn R. ICRL Press, 2009
Dr. Richard A. Blasband is a board-certified psychiatrist who
received his medical training at the Medical School of the University of
Pennsylvania and the Department of Psychiatry at Yale University
Medical School, where he served on faculty. Blasband currently lives
in Sausalito, California where he conducts a private practice, has a professorship at Energy Medicine University, serves as Research Director of the Center for Functional Research, and co-directs, with Dr. Dominique Surel, the Clinic for Integral Transformation.
EDGESCIENCE #5 • OCTOBER–DECEMBER 2010 / 3
Copyright ⓒ 2010 Society for Scientific Exploration
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