Psychics, snake handlers, and yogis

Okay, so today a bit about the endeavor that will be taking my brain over for the next few months. It actually doesn't have anything whatsoever to do with snake handlers. Well, not that I know of, but it does certainly involve some extreme individuals who fit in the more... open minded... segment of the world's population. Part of our plan is based on numbers such as exist here. Now, first note that these numbers were compiled by a Christian organization, take that as you will (I personally don't think they would exaggerate the numbers who believe in psychics more than those who believe in God, however.) If the abovementioned numbers are to be believed, two out of every three people (in the UK) believe in psychic power, or believe that their daily horoscope has actual bearing in their lives. If we take some of the lower, more acceptable numbers, almost 20% of people (in the UK) have consulted for some sort of "non-traditional" spiritual guidance (tarot, psychic, astrology, etc.) On the one hand, one of my top-of-reccommended-reading-list books is The Demon-Haunted World, which indicates that I don't much care for blind or foolish superstition that most of the world accepts as a fundamental way to deal with reality. On the other hand I have always been a laissez faire kind of fellow when it comes to other people's spiritual lives. If it brings them joy or comfort, why try to mean-spiritedly destroy another person's beliefs. If they are unhappy, they'll find a philosophy that works for them. What this breaks down to is, I don't necessarily believe in psychic power, or sympathetic magic, or the pure light of being found when you meditate... but A LOT of people do. They are fascinated by these things. And I am perfectly content to take some time to try to provide material that they will watch, and discuss, and possibly, if we do a decent job at, be enlightened and be made joyful by. I hope this doesn't make me a hypocrite. I want to look at the numbers for a moment, for my own long term storage. 20% of the UK population has experienced these alternate spiritual ideas. Let's say 20% of those do so regularly (4% of gross) and only 20% of them will go out of their way (i.e. pay, go online to watch a show, etc.) to participate, we still have .8% of the population of your average country would be in the potential interested viewership of an internet video broadcast, and currently 60 of the english speaking world has a 300kbs internet connection. That makes, lets round to one half of a percent of 1.8 billion potential english speaking viewers (that's 90 million people worldwide...) So I intend to be slinging snakeoil... err... building interesting IPTV content featuring psychics, yogis, shamanists, and... well, I'm going to stop giving away secrets now. Just keep a watch out for Higher Cloud. Who knows? shrug...

tags: psychics  yoga  iptv  faith  spirituality  carl sagan  skeptic  

links: digg this    del.icio.us    technorati    reddit