Pseudoskepticism in Hollywood: the movie Red Lights with Robert DeNiro, Sigourney Weaver, Cillian Murphy and filmmaker Rodrigo Cortes

I haven't watched this movie yet, but as you can watch in the trailer (and in the online commentaries about it) and in interviews with Rodrigo Cortes (the filmmaker), it is clear to me that movie presents a pseudoskeptical view of psychic phenomena.

It focuses on "paranormal frauds" which, as any serious researcher of parapsychology knows, do exists and have been motive of concern for seasoned parapsychologists for a long time (see for example, this article by George Hansen published in the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research).

In the this interview, the filmmaker Cortes comments "Something that I wanted to do through the film is try to explore the roots of belief, because everything has to do with beliefs. When I studied the side of the rationalists and the skeptics, and the side of the believers and so-called psychics, I found out that both of them, no matter what they claim to do, behave in a very similar way. They only accepted what confirmed their previous positions, and tended to reject everything that put them at risk."

Note that Cortes calls "rationalists" and "skeptics" what is more properly called PSEUDOSKEPTICS (=materialists and atheists who deny or debunk psychic phenomena because it doesn't fit in their naturalistic, anti-religious, anti-spiritual worldview), and "believers" and "psychics" as their opponents. Obviously, this is a wrong terminology, because the "rationalists" and "skeptics" tend to be pretty irrational in many instances (see Jime's Iron Law for evidence).

 But Cortes, who's a intelligent man, realizes that bias exist in BOTH group (not only in the group of "believers"), and this speak well of Cortes' intelligence and objectivity. For example, in the same interview he says "Let me put it in a different way: If you believe in God, that's a belief. If you are an atheist, it's a belief too, because you cannot prove that God does not exist. It's something that you have to believe in, which is something that I found pretty fascinating about the character of Matheson. I would say that that's my way of behaving, too—it isn't receiving, it's not about denying. It's about questioning, and trying to understand."

Again, the above comments shows Cortes' intelligence, in contrast with some atheists and pseudoskeptics who try to mislead the public into the belief that atheism is simply "the lack of belief in God" (which actually conflates atheism with agnosticism). The actual definition of atheism, as a metaphysical position, is the belief that God doesn't not exist (more technically, it is the belief that the proposition "God exists" is false).

As philosopher of religion William Lane Craig explains

But Cortes's beliefs are clearly naturalistic. In another interview published in a Spanish magazine about paranormal topics, he comments "Nature cannot be trascended, everything has a place according to natural laws." (El Ojo Critico, Nº70, p. 28. Translation by me). Such naturalism obviously begs the question against theism and, by implication, against spiritual and supernatural (=beyond the physical or material nature) explanations of psychic phenomenon (which seem to be phenomena not connected with blind natural laws or purely mechanical forces but with intentional agents or free persons... therefore, only a personalistic worldview provides a proper framework to understand them as part of the fabric of reality. You cannot make sense of these phenomena in terms of blind and mechanical forces, and spontaneous and non-conscious natural laws of matter, and this is precisely why "naturalists" and materialists are committed debunkers of these phenomena. Even some professional parapsychologists, not trained in philosophy, fail to understand this point, believing naively that they're studying purely "natural" phenomena, when actually they're studying phenomena which imply essentially a personalistic worldview contrary to the essential impersonalism of scientific naturalism and materialism).

Parapsychology is NOT metaphysically neutral, because it studies phenomena which push the balance in favour of certain metaphysical doctrines and against others (i.e. scientific materialism). As philosopher Chris Carter comments "As I discuss in my book, this militant opposition is something peculiar to Western societies, and it is basically due to the historical conflict in the West between secular and religious members of society... It is essential to realize that most of the deniers and phony-skeptics are militant atheists and secular humanists. For instance, the world's leading "skeptical" organization, The Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP) was founded in 1976 by atheist philosopher Paul Kurtz, at a meeting of the American Humanist Association. For various reasons, these people have an ideological agenda which is anti-religious and anti-superstitious. One of the main pillars of their opposition to religion and superstition is the doctrine of materialism: that is, the doctrine that all events have a physical cause, and that the brain therefore produces the mind. If they conceded the existence of psychic abilities such as telepathy, and of the Near Death Experience as a genuine separation of mind from body, then this pillar of their opposition to religion would crumble. Hence, their dogmatic denial of the evidence that proves materialism false"

If parapsychology were metaphysically neutral, then naturalists would have no problem with parapsychology because, after all, parapsychologists are not defending any religion at all. But they're discovering phenomena which fit a personalistic worldview like THEISM and don't fit the impersonalistic worldview of scientific naturalism and materialism. This is the key of the debate.

As atheist philosopher Thomas Nagel comments "I believe that this is one manifestation of a fear of religion which has large and often pernicious consequences for modern intellectual life.

In speaking of the fear of religion, I don’t mean to refer to the entirely reasonable hostility toward certain established religions and religious institutions, in virtue of their objectionable moral doctrines, social policies, and political influence. Nor am I referring to the association of many religious beliefs with superstition and the acceptance of evident empirical falsehoods. I am talking about something much deeper—namely, the fear of religion itself. I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself: I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and wellinformed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that.


My guess is that this cosmic authority problem is not a rare condition and that it is responsible for much of the scientism and reductionism of our time. One of the tendencies it supports is the ludicrous overuse of evolutionary biology to explain everything about life, including everything about the human mind. Darwin enabled modern secular culture to heave a great collective sigh of relief, by apparently providing a way to eliminate purpose, meaning, and design as fundamental features of the world"

It is the fear and hostility to THEISM (i.e. to a worldview which, beyond the purely physical, non-teleological, impersonalistic and blind natural world, poses a more basic spiritual world grounded in a free, conscious, super-powerful, intentional and ultimately perfect person called GOD) which is the core of naturalism, materialism and pseudoskepticism. (Again, even parapsychologists have not recognized this, because they also conflate "theism" with "religion").

Note that even quantum mechanics, which in some interpretations postulates consciousness as basic and causally important to physical reality, doesn't refute the above philosophical consideration, because a consciousness which is free, ontologically independent of nature and hence undetermined by natural laws is precisely what God (and its spiritual creations = spirits) are supposed to be. For this reason, atheist philosopher Quentin Smith and agnostic quantum physicist Euan Squires, have suggested that the standard dualistic interpretation of quantum mechanics provides a good  SCIENTIFIC argument for God's existence (and hence, for theism).

People watching movies like that will tend to think that "the paranormal" is limited to spoon-benders and other "psychics", when actually the best evidence for most psi phenomena is found in laboratory experiments with normal subjects (see Dean Radin's books for discussion of the experimental evidence) in which the evidence for psi is discoveried after careful statatistical analysis.

As a hard-core fan of movies, I'm sure that I'll enjoy this movie too (it has great actors there), but I strongly disagree with the general approach and misleading impression that it will give to the public.