Many years ago, in 1986, a musician friend said the reason he chose to return from Europe and make his career in Australia was because he’d been to a fortune-teller, who told him to. I was mortified, and, as a friend, I advised him against making such statements in public.

At the same time, a rumour was circulating that another musician was refusing medical treatment for a life-threatening illness due his “religious” beliefs. The rumour may or may not have been true, but it did alert to several dangerous ideologies that were gaining traction at the time.

My friend’s appreciation of music from non-western cultures and exploration of philosophies that challenged western musical orthodoxy was a commendable quality. However, from the fortune-telling business and other comments he made, it was apparent that, for his musical ability, intellectual scholarship was not his forte. He was a musician, not an intellectual, and I considered a fine musician’s career shouldn’t be thwarted by unwise utterances unrelated to his talent, all the more so as his fame grew.

Privately, on 18 February, 1988, I imparted to him “I believe that all the more knowledge needs to be generated in order to enlighten the vacuum of ignorance which is being quickly filled with superstition”. (I was being poetic, thus the split infinitve. 🙂 ) Along with the lack of intellectual acumen possessed by the musician that his belief in fortune-telling conveyed, which I did not think would be good for his career, I was concerned at the aggressive promulgation of superstitious beliefs taking place at the time via pseudo-intellectual occultism on the one hand and right-wing religious fundamentlaism on the other, both driving a psyche of doom that was pervading the public consciousness at the time due to the Cold War and manifest in a belief in the inevitable destruction of the planet, whether due to Nostradamus’ prophecies or “end-of-days” scenarios as interpreted with superifical, literal transposition of the Biblical Acts and Revelation onto modern times. I believed we needed to educate people above such superstitions, which act against critical thinking skills and render people helpless against seeming inevitabilities instead of taking action against them.

Unlike him, I thought he had nothing to fear from it being known that he was homosexual, although that was for him to decide, but I sincerely hoped, for his sake as much as everyone else’s, that the fortune-telling comment would not be repeated.

Therefore, I filled in a few gaps in his education relating to some basic concepts in an effort to steer him toward a more educated perspective both for the world’s sake and that of his career. Due to his appreciation of “cosmic” concepts, I invoked Spinoza and made the same comments any scientist does and I always did, pointing out the lack of scientific basis to such things as “fortune-telling”, not with personal judgment, merely as well-meaning enlightenment. Fortunately, he took my advice and when he died several years later, I’m sure it would not have been with the great reverence he had gained within his musical career, had he not. As it happened, choosing to remain in Australia had been a fortuitous decision and with other incentives to stay and good public support as a local figure, unlike many of our talented own, he enjoyed an excellent, if unfortunately, brief career, ended only by an AIDS-related illness in 1991.

Unfortunately, we are in a time when we are again facing the same dangers and if anything, even more resolve is needed against those exploiting ignorance with superstition and false information as means by which to take advantage of others and enact malevolent interference in people’s lives. When such practices are more a quest for power and money than a genuine quest for knowledge or personal well-being, all such applications are as much prey to unscrupulousness as any other business. That they are merely devices of misinformation renders them of no value at best, dangerous at worst.

Again, in our time, we are in danger of a regression to the Dark Ages, in every field, from environmental science to medicine. As the attack on science is regaining momentum, it’s all the more important to address dangerous misinformation drawn from ideology or ulterior motives rather than fact. Not everything about science and technology is great, but it was science that warned of the major issues we now face. While modern medicine may not have all the answers and even fails occasionally, it’s because of scientific medical advances that people are enjoying longer and healthier lives than at any other time in history. Do take vaccines, do get treatment for serious and life-threatening illnesses beyond prayers and faith healing. Importantly, take care with medicines that are more magic belief than genuine cure. “First Do No Harm” is indeed a code that must be observed. That includes not doing harm by way of promulgating dangerously ignorant misinformation that could deter people from accessing life-saving treatments. Yes, drug companies are unscrupulous *******s, but even more so are those manipulating people into buying snake-oil instead of medicines that provably save lives and improve the quality of daily life for millions of people around the world. Paracetamol, for example, is a totally safe drug when used responsibly and those pushing hype to the contrary are those posing the real danger to your health. Doing no harm also includes that done to animals. Aspirin may have been refined from willow bark and there are many similar plant sources of potential, all the more reason not to destroy the natural environment and to pay attention to native peoples, but rhino horn, tiger tooth and bear bile do nothing but torture animals. There’s nothing environmentally friendly or nature-loving about “medicines” that inflict cruelty on animals or destroy entire species, which only increases the danger of deadly virus creation.

It’s not a matter of throwing all things “non-western” or “non-modern” under one roof without discernment as though “they all look alike”. On a planet of billions of people on several continents with thousands of years of history, they really don’t. And, yes, I do disapprove of vivisection in modern medicine as unnecessary cruelty, especially today, when science has provided its own alternatives and there’s no need for live experimentation, which has no more scientific value than any practices whose “value” is invisible, while its damage is not.

Ironically, or rather, hypocritically, for those supposedly rejecting all things scientific, as technology has evolved, so too, have the means by which unscrupulous parties enact their craft. So, as I imparted to my friend at the time and still do to everyone, by all means, do Tai Chi and meditate, go on retreats, love nature, enjoy the wonders of the cosmos at a deep and spiritually-meaning level, but don’t entrust life-affecting decisions to what is really only ever charlatanism, whatever new tools are employed to enact it with. They excel at exploiting curiousity and the normal human need for mystery, at elevation of the unknown and belief in the powers of “Lady Luck”, but are no more insightful than any gambling agency that operates on the same principles. That exploitation is a very exact science. Remember that, before you get as fleeced as if you were throwing away your money on any cyber scam.

Importantly, don’t believe that all is “written”. Don’t succumb to the culture of helplessness against corrupt and unscrupulous governments constantly spending your money on their forever wars, conducted for their gain, or taking away your right to protest and contribute to decision-making in our supposed democracies. And don’t give in to corporations convincing you that being boiled alive under climate change is good for your health, like doctors in the 1950s paid by tobacco companies to tell you that smoking was!

The future is open to whatever you make it and really want it to be.