Crystals

 

Another criticism of Facilitated Communication (FC). See also previous blog post. One thing that struck me when reflecting on this problematique is that FC´s transition into the paranormal ("The Telepathy Tapes") is perfectly logical. 

FC makes sense only if you postulate that autistic people have highly evolved souls trapped in the wrong body. How else would severly autistic pre-schoolers or ditto elementary school kids suddenly be able to communicate in grammatically correct English or solve mathematical problems far above the grade-levels of their neurotypical peers? A true believer could further argue that the autistic child only establishes a telepathic link with the facilitator, not with anyone else, hence FC only works when the facilitator is around. And so on!

There is a New Age concept known as "Crystal Children" which fits neatly into the FC matrix. Who knows, maybe they really are connected somehow? The idea seems to be that children with severe mental challenges are really extremely spiritual and filled with ancient wisdom etc, etc. 

It´s rather common that alternative thinkers, when faced with difficulties proving the physical existence of a phenomenon, resort to supranaturalist explanations. Why is Bigfoot so elusive? Maybe because he isn´t a flesh-and-blood creature, but a woodland elf. Indeed, why is it so difficult to get conclusive evidence for any "alternative" claims? Maybe because they are caused by spirits who are tricksters and use fairy glamour to get away? Why can´t the US military ever down a UFO? Because the aliens are really angels or demons. Here we see a similar logic at play: the type 3 autists are immortal reincarnating savant-souls inhabiting (for whatever karmic reasons) a severly impaired body-mind. (Wait ten years and gender dysphoria will be "explained" in the same way: it´s an eternal - and eternally gendered soul - trapped in the physical body of the wrong biological sex.)

I happen to be open-minded to the paranormal / supernatural, so I actually consider this something of a problem. That is, people resorting to the preternatural in ad hoc fashion. Maybe a squatch is a woodland sprite, but if so, please freakin´ prove it, rather than using that claim as an escape hatch from the somewhat embarrasing fact that no physical specimen has ever been secured. Note also that in the case of FC, the failure rate under controlled conditions is 100%, which is a worse result than any experiment with telepathy or remote viewing I´m familiar with! 

If you need to associate an alleged physical phenomenon with controversial paranormal claims in order to make it sound more plausible, you really have no leg to stand on.