Working as a professional psychic means that I attract skeptics like moths to a flame. I’ve become rather well accustomed to that skeptical smirk. Not from those who come to me for a reading but rather from tag-a-longs or relatives and friends of clients. Explorers throughout time have wondered what makes people stubbornly resistant to new ideas, concepts or directions. What is at the root of skepticism? What is the best approach to take when someone expresses skepticism at something we find fascinating and worthy of further exploration?

Not an Easy Medicine to Swallow

Skepticism has however, played a vital role in the progression of civilization. It has forced frontier workers such as creators, inventors, spiritual messengers, explorers, and seers to work harder at their craft to prove its validity and viability in this world. It has pushed us all to perfect our gifts. Skeptics nudge us to be even better at what we do. Skepticism incisively cuts away debris that only serve to clutter up nuggets of truth. It separates the wheat from the chaff. But that doesn’t make it an easy medicine to swallow when you’re one of those who is willing to keep an open mind, exploring new vistas in the human condition. Never underestimate the power of skepticism to destroy a budding brilliance. Maybe even something that might make a significant contribution to solving a serious world problem.

They Die Small Deaths

The dark side of skepticism is evident in those people who were destined to go where no one has ever been before and failed. Those special bright lights, who by quirk of birth have that natural spark in them to forge new approaches and perspectives. Yet due to the oppressive mantle of conformist parents, social convention, and peer pressure, before they’re even out of elementary school, they are so conformist they have little else ahead of them than a fierce and depressing servitude to the drudgery of mediocrity. In school they are often the victims of bullying and later in life they are treated as pariahs. They die small deaths all their lives until at the end with so little time left, they confess that they lived a life by someone else’s design. And it’s too late. That is the very dark side of skepticism.

Some who persist regardless of those skeptics around them, may be driven to live a life of isolation, loneliness, and despair as they follow their curiosity and unique explorations. Unless they are able to locate their tribe, their lives can become emotionally destitute. Only phenomenal financial and recognition success can redeem them in the eyes of others. Sadly that reverence often comes along with envy and jealousy!

Fear of Appearing Naïve, Un-Discerning, Stupid or a Dupe

The problem comes in with skepticism when it is not energized by love. When it is a cast-off of fear and pride. Fear of looking like a fool, an oddball, or freak. Fear of appearing to be naïve, un-discerning, stupid or a dupe. The skeptic is driven by a desire to appear smart, educated and wise. They don’t abdicate their positions easily, no matter how much evidence is presented to prove the viability of this new discovery or invention. Experiencing evidence with their own senses doesn’t necessarily lead to believing. This brand of skeptic are typically mimicking someone powerful in their lives such as parents and culture. Skepticism is generational much like most of our beliefs.

There are fanatical skeptics who, like their counterparts in religion, believe so fiercely in how it couldn’t be so, that they are blinded to evidence to the contrary. Annoyingly, like all fanatics, they are seldom able to carry on an intelligent conversation.

If you consider yourself a skeptic, root out its source discriminately,

• Are you simply mimicking someone else?
• Are you afraid others will criticize you for being easily taken in by quacks?
• Who are you proving your skeptic position to?
• Are you motivated in your adherence to careful discernment by love or fear?
• Are you unconsciously one of those bright lights destined to go where no one has in the past, whose unique expression was beaten down and now must fiercely deny that side of yourself so much so that you must appear to others as skeptical?
• Do you care that much about what other people might think of your beliefs?

Put Equal Amounts of Effort in Your Skepticism

The ideal and loving position to have when confronted with the spirit of invention, exploration and mystery is one of skeptical believer. Be open, explorative and excited that someone is over the moon to reveal something new and unique. Offer your help in every way you can to facilitate a clearing of the new path.

Become a part of the forward moving energy whereby skepticism for example may aid in the development of better experimental tools. Join volunteer organizations whose purpose it is to examine new vistas with a discerning criteria. Don’t be a lazy skeptic! No one admires the arm-chair skeptic; someone not prepared to put equal amounts of effort into the debunking as the person who has put the vast amounts of work into a creation.

Remember that many new directions have taken decades, sometimes centuries to be proven and acknowledged by the main stream. Just because it cannot be proven to be true today doesn’t mean that it won’t change at a future time. Keep in mind too that sometimes the proof does exist but those who have performed the experiments have been restrained by a strict code of secrecy. Maybe even under threat of dire consequences.

Our perception of reality is always dependent on perspective, life experience and level of knowledge. Our collective paradigm of reality however, is shifting so fast that what is true today can be utterly debunked tomorrow. Don’t allow yourself to fall into the trap of fanatical skepticism whereby any amount of proof will fail to shift your perception. You will find yourself not a part of the main stream at all but on the fringes just like those you are fiercely determined to reject. You will become one of those old dinosaurs that people laugh at behind your back because you can’t keep up with the times. And times are a’changing as Bob Dillon pointed out almost fifty years ago. I’ve experienced many of those changes first hand as a psychic who has been in practice for almost 40 years.