This article has two purposes. One: to reassure our solid-rock-type prospective members that this organization is not a cult. Two: to avoid attracting such people as would join one. We want to build our organization on solid rock, not flakes!

After my last trip back to the San Francisco Bay area (where I used to live), I am appalled at the rampant irrationality in some quarters there. Worse, I saw the name of Gaia taken as a serious deity!

It's happened before. The Buddha said he had seen wonderful things and horrible things, thought a lot about them, and told people; but he also said that he was just a man. But before long, they were praying to him anyway.

I want that not to happen to the Gaia metaphor. I hate to see the name corrupted. Horrors! As if it was a literal female version of a god.

It is not. It isn't a "she" at all, nor any sentient being. It's a concept. The Gaia Theory is merely a convenient name for a purely scientific, provable (& partly proven) concept.

(We cannot object to the use of Gaia as a symbol for women's empowerment and emancipation, however. After all, the name's been around for thousands of years, and we're certainly not the first to use it. We can only hope that--for their own sake--nobody in that worthy camp takes the image as reality either, thereby losing a metaphor that could teach.)

What the Gaia Society is is for another page. (Sagan-ist, not paganist; of science, not Mt Olympus.) Right now, I find it necessary to dissociate our organization from certain mostly-nonsensical beliefs. It has nothing, nothing, nothing to do with such things as:

Aroma-therapy

Auras

Astral Projection

Astrology

Biorhythm

Chakras

Channeling

"Chariots of the Gods" (Ancient Astronauts)

Chiropractics

Crystal healing

Dowsing

End-of-the-worlders

ESP

Exorcism

Flat-Earthers

Ghosts, Demons

Glossolalia (speaking in tongues)

"It is Written" beliefs, especially Nostradamus predictions.

Mind-reading

Numerology

Perpetual Motion Machines

Poltergeists

Precognition

Psychics [ I've always known I would never be psychic....]

Psychic Surgery

Pyramid Power

Reincarnation & past-life regression

Satanism

Seances

Scientology

Spoon-benders

Tarot, Tea Leaves, and Goat Guts

Telekinesis

Telepathy

UFO's

The "Utah Effect" (cold fusion, etc.)

Witchcraft (except the innocent non-magical, nature-worshiping, herbal nurse types.)

Etcetera, etcetera; you get the idea.
If you think you've had a past life, we want your current one not to be around us!

Some believers in these things may accuse the scientist of lack of an open mind. Eventually, as our laughter subsides, I suppose we must answer. (See also: "Open Mind" essay)

What does the list above have in common? There are few supposed proofs offered for any of the above beliefs. Where it is possible to test their hypotheses (in particular with biorhythms) they've been shown to be without foundation. All well-done biorhythm results came out absolutely random.

They are irrational; DNA-driven. (See the book "The Spirit in the Gene", excerpted elsewhere on this site.)

Somehow, this does not deter the true-believer--they tend to believe even harder after confronting the disproof, as if doing so were a proof in itself! We even propose this reaction as a good test and definition for true-belief!

It's important to remember that the burden of proof is always upon the claimant, not the skeptic. We're still waiting for them to prove something. ...been waiting, in some cases, for thousands of years!

We love tested proofs. This is not to say that we're cold and flinty, as irrational people like to charge. On the contrary; we simply find that fantasies of this kind are boring. We want to get them out of the way so we can get to warm organic reality.

The Dalai Lama was asked what he would do if some tenet of the religion he leads was irrefutably proven to be wrong. He replied that he would immediately change the religion. Admirable. I'll go him one better: in such a case, (including "irrefutably") consider it done... before we say anything about it!