Editor’s Note: This article has been cited by P.Z. Myers at Pharyngula and Steven Novella at Neurologica, and has been reposted at RichardDawkins.net.

“It is almost irresistible for humans to believe that we have some special relation to the universe, that human life is not just a more-or-less farcical outcome of a chain of accidents reaching back to the first three minutes, but that we were somehow built in from the beginning.”

-Steven Weinberg

“You are here to enable the divine purpose of the universe to unfold. That is how important you are.”

-Eckhart Tolle

1. Introduction

The impulse to see human life as central to the existence of the universe is manifested in the mystical traditions of practically all cultures. It is so fundamental to the way pre-scientific people viewed reality that it may be, to a certain extent, ingrained in the way our psyche has evolved, like the need for meaning and the idea of a supernatural God. As science and reason dismantle the idea of the centrality of human life in the functioning of the objective universe, the emotional impulse has been to resort to finer and finer misinterpretations of the science involved. Mystical thinkers use these misrepresentations of science to paint over the gaps in our scientific understanding of the universe, belittling, in the process, science and its greatest heroes.

In their recent article in The Huffington Post, biologist Robert Lanza and mystic Deepak Chopra put forward their idea that the universe is itself a product of our consciousness, and not the other way around as scientists have been telling us. In essence, these authors are re-inventing idealism, an ancient philosophical concept that fell out of favour with the advent of the scientific revolution. According to the idealists, the mind creates all of reality. Many ancient Eastern and Western philosophical schools subscribe to this idealistic notion of the nature of reality. In the modern context, idealism has been supplemented with a brand of quantum mysticism and relabeled as biocentrism. According to Chopra and Lanza, this idea makes Darwin’s theory of the biological evolution and diversification of life insignificant. Both these men, although they come from different backgrounds, have independently expressed these ideas before with some popular success. In the article under discussion their different styles converge to present a uniquely mystical and bizarre worldview, which we wish to debunk here. Read the full story

Deepak Chopra is a modern day Shaman who promotes mystical notions of reality to millions of people by slipping magic into the gaps in our naturalistic understanding of the world around us. He always begins with a naturalistic assertion usurped from science and follows a fuzzy metaphorical interpretation of the argument to a supernaturalistic end. The hook is his claim that these ideas are on a higher truth level than that which science can access.

In reality, the motives behind Chopra’s science distortion are not very idealistic. The fantasies he promotes form the marketing strategy behind a vast business enterprise selling magical cures to every ailment imaginable.

The harm done by such New-Age Shamans as Deepak Chopra is avoidable. What is needed is for scientists, humanists and all concerned people to expose these lies that are repeated everyday in the popular media.

In the video that follows, I analyze Chopra’s strategy to show how he distorts science using metaphors in order to profit from selling quackery. If your internet connection is too slow for streaming the HD quality video, you can try accessing a lower quality version here, or the lowest (cell phone) quality version here.

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Along with photographs of skimpily clad girls, a prominent feature of Times of India, the largest selling English daily in the country, is its peddling of new age claptrap. In addition to two daily columns - Speaking Tree and Sacred Space- the newspaper has a separate section in its Sunday edition to cater to the needs of new age buffs. Named “Mind Over Matter“, the section carries assorted stuffs - book extracts, book reviews, Q&A column, etc. Though the paper does feature prominently the activities of all peddlers of nonsense, Sri Ravishankar and Deepak Chopra are perhaps TOI’s pet new-age gurus.

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