Magic realism of another kind

One reader objects to a sceptical first-person account in HT Café by a reporter who went through a session with Dr Trupti Jain, who claims to be a past-life regression therapist

On December 9, HT Café carried this account by reporter Rochelle Pinto under the headline ‘A figment of my imagination.’

HT Image

At the outset, Pinto admits she is a cynic. She then goes on to spin a scandalous yarn about her past life. The therapist comes up with an analysis based on this bit of fiction, leading Pinto to conclude that her creative effort has gone undetected.

One reader was indignant. “By trying to play the cynical card, what is she trying to tell the reader?” he asked. “The doctor clearly says that the cynical mind is an obstacle. It would have been constructive to send someone who is well read on the subject. Past-life regression is a subject that is being explored intensively.”

As usual, I asked the concerned editor for his response. “The views expressed in the piece were based on the reporter’s experience,” said Shekhar, HT’s national culture editor in charge of Café. “To the best of our knowledge, no special qualification in the field of past-life regression, theology or religion is expected of the client, before the therapist meets them.”

“The larger cover story ‘Past tense; TV’s present’ attempted to examine the word ‘real’ in the context of television’s reality shows,” he added. “The peg was a prime time programme called ‘Raaz Pichle Janam Ki,’ where celebrities supposedly have their past lives revealed on national TV. There is no way to verify such claims. Yet the show itself got a good review in the paper. But then, that again, was the personal opinion of our TV reviewer.”

I agree entirely with Shekhar. I think TV shows should make a clear distinction between concepts that have been scientifically verified and those that lie in the realm of belief. It is very dangerous when those that lie in the latter category are presented as having a scientific basis.

Moreover, the caveat that a “cynical mind” (what the reader meant is “skeptical mind”) is an obstacle to the success of the therapy is precisely what makes it unscientific.

Scepticism lies at the heart of scientific endeavour. Any truly scientific principle should be sceptic-proof. Also, this escape hatch makes the entire process unverifiable.

If it fails, one can always say the person undergoing the therapy was a sceptic.

Yet as Karl Popper, the Austrian philosopher of science, has pointed out, for a statement itself to be considered scientific, it has to be potentially verifiable.

In other words, one should be able to design some experiment whose results will either prove or disprove the statement. When the statement or concept is so fuzzy or has so many escape hatches that such a thing cannot be done, then it is not scientific.

It belongs in the realm of belief.