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0:00
Hey everyone, so as many of you know, I am fascinated with the way the public perceives science. And in particular, the broad pseudoscientific trends that crop up in our culture, influencing the masses to varying degrees. I like to identify them, diagnose them, and disarm them. Today I want to talk about one such flavor of pseudoscience related to the field of physics that has been picking up steam since the 1990s, and that is quantum mysticism.
0:26
What the heck is quantum mysticism, you ask? Excellent question. It’s challenging to encapsulate this phenomenon in a sentence, but I believe I can do it fairly well. The essence of quantum mysticism goes like this: Quantum physics is confusing, so it’s magic, therefore if magic can be framed using the terminology of quantum physics, that magic is real. You see, quantum theory, from the perspective of the public,
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is shrouded in mystery. It is typically spoken about in an almost mystical tone, as though it were akin to the occult. This is largely due to the fact that it is very hard to understand. True comprehension is reserved for physicists and mathematicians who can solve complex equations, as the power of this theory lies exclusively in the math itself. Everyone else must be satisfied with hollow, often misleading conceptual explanations, and that is indeed the way that this
1:21
topic is typically explained to the masses, who demand explanations under the false assumption that this area of science must somehow be immediately and fully transparent to them. For whatever reason, people tend to be interested only in the frontier of scientific fields. So instead of wanting to learn about Newton’s laws, which they would have a solid chance of understanding with some competence in basic high school algebra, they want to talk about things
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like quantum mechanics, which most of us have zero chance of fundamentally comprehending, given the lack of prerequisite knowledge faced by anyone without at least a bachelor’s degree in physics. When media outlets attempt to satiate this desire to commune with the boundary between the known and unknown, they take lots of liberties and make lots of mistakes, and the public brings a lot of baggage to the table. Even with seemingly professional pseudo-documentaries like
2:12
“What the Bleep Do We Know?”, the concepts are sorely misrepresented, and the viewer walks away with a false sense of comprehension, or worse still, a head full of lies. This confusion can lead people to purchase whimsical books and expensive seminars from ridiculous false prophets, forego legitimate medical treatment in favor of unsubstantiated healers and gurus, and sometimes even get roped into a cult or two. There are many flavors of this fad, and a bit
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later we will get to the meat of the deception which invariably involves misuse of the word “quantum”, and deliberate misinterpretation of something called the double slit experiment. But I would like to start somewhere more fundamental. Let’s begin with the core confusion that enables the whole show. Much like other scams and pseudoscience, it all stems from a misunderstanding of basic scientific concepts and terminology. In this case,
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it is the word “energy”. What is energy? Even just hearing that word out loud, dozens of connotations probably come to mind. Here is the way quantum mystics on the internet use the word incorrectly.
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So as you can see, to the quantum mystic, energy is a synonym for magic. It means whatever they want it to mean in order to sell to the suggestible viewer whatever it is that they’re selling. But in science this word has a very specific definition, which we must learn now. For maximum effect, please purge yourself of every connotation you are aware of for the word energy, as the term has been completely convoluted by society, so we need to start from a blank
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slate. Act as if you’ve never heard this word before. Are you ready? Here it comes. Energy is the capacity to do work. The end. Now to further clarify, we should also define work. Again, in society, this word means many things. It can refer to a profession, an action, or even a location, so let’s again purge ourselves of these connotations so that we can learn what it means in science. Work refers to an action done on an object whereby an applied force
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causes a displacement of that object. So work is about motion. When you apply a force to an object and it moves, like pushing a box across the floor, you’re doing work. So energy is the capacity to do work, which is what causes motion. And that’s all there is to it. Energy is a property of a system, and nothing more. To elucidate further still, we could highlight different forms of energy. Kinetic
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energy is the energy an object possesses by virtue of its motion, which can be transferred to other objects through collisions. Potential energy is the energy an object possesses by virtue of its position in a field. Lifting an object into the air increases its gravitational potential energy, which is then converted into kinetic energy as it falls, just the way a compressed spring has a lot of potential energy, which is released as it expands. Thermal energy, or heat, is just a
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transfer of kinetic energy, and temperature is a measure of the average kinetic energy of the particles in a system. Hotter systems of particles are moving faster on average, colder systems of particles are moving slower on average. Chemical energy is a kind of potential energy which describes the potential of some molecule to undergo a particular chemical reaction, which is simply a rearrangement of atoms. All of the above is explained in far greater detail
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over in my classical physics playlist, should you wish to learn about these concepts. Finally, matter itself is a form of energy, according to the most famous equation of all time, Einstein’s E = mc^2. E is energy, m is mass, and c is the speed of light, which is a big number, and when squared is an even bigger number, so matter times this big, big number equals lots of energy. But even this form of energy is not mystical in any way.
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When matter is converted to energy in a fusion reactor or a nuclear bomb, it is still the same phenomenon we have been describing. It can be defined rigorously and measured quantitatively, so even in this abstract context it is never ill-defined or vague. So you see, when we say “everything is energy”, it’s actually a true statement, because matter is a form of energy. But this does not mean that there is a magical spiritual world. It does not mean you can heal
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yourself with your mind, or any of the other bogus claims we will investigate in a moment. Energy is not an object. It is not a substance. It is not an essence, or a life force, or a magical realm. It is a property of an object or system that can be transferred into another object or system, typically in the form of work. That’s what energy is, and that’s the only thing that energy is. Unfortunately, colloquial usage of the word energy has muddied and obscured this definition.
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People say things like, “This room has such good energy.” This is a metaphorical usage of the word, which is acceptable if acknowledged as strictly metaphorical. It means that one gets a good impression from the room. It conveys a feeling in a fun, poetic way. It does not mean that there is a literal substance emanating from the room that we call “good energy”, which is magically perceived by your third eye in some way that science can’t comprehend.
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Further compounding the confusion is the fact that in physics, quantitative measurements of energy, in particular potential energy, can have positive or negative values. Positive means greater than zero, negative means less than zero. It’s just math, and the way we define systems in physics. By sheer linguistic coincidence, we also use the word positive to mean good, and negative to mean bad, as in having a positive or negative experience. But these two connotations
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are totally unrelated. So when people remove the concept of positive or negative energy from the arithmetic domain in which it has actual meaning, and take these phrases to mean good or bad energy, the result is totally meaningless. There is no such thing as good energy, or bad energy. There is no context in which this makes any sense except the strictly metaphorical, so when these terms are
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used improperly, it is simply an unfortunate side effect of allowing words to have multiple meanings in a language. The literalization of this metaphorical usage confuses people, and renders them susceptible to cranks and con men who exploit this confusion for financial gain. Speaking of cranks and con men, let’s get to them now. I want to start with one of the primary figures, if not THE primary figure responsible for the popularization
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of quantum mysticism in the 1990s. That is the glammed-out guru himself, Deepak Chopra. Deepak rose to prominence on the success of his 1993 book, “Ageless Body, Timeless Mind: The Quantum Alternative to Growing Old”. This, along with his previous book called “Quantum Healing”, piggybacked on the broader New Age movement that was picking up steam, and he rode the tidal wave of science-flavored self-help-themed snake oil to significant fame
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and fortune. As you can see, “quantum” is a very important buzzword for this brand of deception, and it only serves to disguise mysticism as science. Given that Chopra has published nearly a hundred books, there is no time to go into every single thing he’s written, nor would I ever subject myself to that kind of torture, but a pervading theme across his body of work is the power of the mind. The mind, according to him, has limitless
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power in healing oneself as well as shaping or even manifesting aspects of physical reality. He describes the phenomenon of “perfect health”, the title of another one of his books, and a selling point for his ultra-expensive wellness retreats. He advertises that those who read or attend and learn these techniques, which we could call sorcery, can be totally free of disease, never feel pain, and even halt the aging process, all simply with the mind. Of course, it seems that
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even Deepak himself was unable to put that last technique into practice, as he is 74 years old, and he looks his age. His other favorite thing to talk about is how physics tells us that consciousness creates reality, another hallmark of the quantum mystic. Here’s a taste.
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So as we can see, even for those who aren’t specifically looking to be healed, there is still plenty to bait you with. The selling points of consciousness creating reality pretty much write themselves. Realizing your infinite potential, manifesting your desires, these are all attractive notions which can ensnare suggestible people who are dissatisfied with their lives, or otherwise overwhelmed by reality. It’s emptiness disguised as transcendental self-improvement, something
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which has served as the basis for Scientology and other successful criminal organizations. To be fair, not every quantum mystic has their own cult, but some of them do. And even those that don’t, should we really look the other way when people make a fortune from deliberately misleading the public? How is it that are they able to do this? The success of Deepak stems from two things. First, he uses his Indian identity and calm, calculated manner of speech
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to put out an air of ancient Eastern wisdom. To the untrained ear, he sounds like a wise sage, and he also was at one point a real doctor, so he appears to have credibility. Second, he is a third-degree black belt in the art of pseudoscientific word salad. He may be the best there’s ever been at this impressive skill. He knows precisely which buzzwords to use and in precisely which combinations so as to present what sounds to many like profound truths,
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when in reality, most of what he says is utterly meaningless. In fact, there is a Deepak Chopra quote generator online called “Wisdom of Chopra”, which is programmed with vocabulary from his twitter feed, and equipped with a randomizer, which will spit out randomly generated blocks of text that are completely indistinguishable from what he actually says. Here, I’ll show you. These are all statements that were randomly generated for me by Wisdom of Chopra, except one,
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which is something Deepak actually said. See if you can pick out the genuine quote. And here it is. Did you get it? Don’t worry if you didn’t, you’re not missing anything. So as you can see, it’s a simple formula. Dazzle people with spiritual-sounding nonsense until their eyes glaze over and they open up their wallets nice and wide. And given Chopra’s net worth of 150 million dollars, it would seem that it is quite an effective formula as well.
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You see, this particular flavor of gibberish resonates strongly with a certain type of person. This would be the secular individual who is filled with the longing for worship but has no institutionalized god to put it upon. We all possess certain neural proclivities towards seeking and affirming divinity. And to this end, quantum mysticism offers the universe as God, along with all the transcendence, permanence, interconnectedness, and self-empowerment,
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without any of the burdens of organized religion. It’s a vapid stand-in for spirituality that avoids the outdated social practices and conservatism of the more popular faiths, but keeps the perceived ties to the ancient world, wild unsubstantiated claims about reality, plus bonus chis and chakras. Even for those who aren’t looking for god, there is plenty to work with, since all humans have
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certain desires that are easy to tap into. We see this with virtually all of Chopra’s book titles. The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire. You are the Universe. Boundless Energy. The Wisdom Within. It’s marketing. People want their anxieties to congeal into serenity which gives way to perfect control over their lives and minds. People want to feel relevant in the universe and connected to everything in it. Quantum mystics are attuned to the deep longings
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of their target demographic in order to most effectively exploit them, and to that end they are selling one thing only. Identity. You see, a brand of razor blade may be selling masculinity. A brand of fragrance may be selling elegance. A brand of soft drink might even sell the feeling of being EXTREME! But the quantum mystic, on the other hand, is selling artificial transcendence. It’s the convenient sale of an enlightened self-image for the spiritual warrior in a hurry.
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Given that we live in the internet age, this fad is not limited to a handful of authors and gurus. Many versions of this narrative can be found all over YouTube. There are hundreds of such channels, each with their own flavor, but the core message tends to be pretty much the same, so I’ll just pick on one of the bigger ones, which is called Spirit Science. Here we find mystical ramblings amidst a backdrop of delightful animations. Let’s take a listen to one about crystals.
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No, crystals are not alive. There are very specific criteria that qualify something as being alive, including metabolic activity, which means lots of chemistry happening inside all the time, response to stimuli, growth, and reproduction. Crystals are inert. They are not alive, period. The word life has a rigorous definition, and it can’t just be applied to any random object.
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No, they are not.
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We are discovering some more key buzzwords for the quantum mystic, vibration, and frequency. These are used just like energy as being synonymous with magic. That atoms and molecules vibrate doesn’t mean they can cast magic spells, and frequency is just a word that means number of cycles per unit time and has no significance when not applied to a concretely defined phenomenon. When the mystic says higher frequencies, they mean good frequencies,
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which doesn’t mean anything, just like good energy doesn’t mean anything. When the quantum mystic says that something is emitting frequencies, or vibrating to frequencies, they mean that it is magic, and they want to use a scientific vocabulary word to pretend that magic is real. Health is not “the natural state” of things. Disease is natural. Death is natural. This is the setup for a snake oil pitch. And it’s a classic one. Then again with the buzzwords.
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Frequencies of what? The word frequency doesn’t mean anything if not directly referencing a physical phenomenon that can possess a frequency, like light or sound.
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This graphic is meaningless. We don’t have orbs of colored light around us. Disease has a molecular basis, it does not have a basis in invisible personal rainbows that definitely do not exist.
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Again, what is this? Frequency of what? This has no correlation with anything in physical reality. Headaches and cancer are not caused by little quivering lines. This is such unadulterated fantasy that there isn’t even anything to debunk.
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No, this does not happen. If it did, it could be measured and substantiated. It is a fabrication aimed at people who don’t require evidence in order to believe something.
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The translation here is that crystal healing works by placebo effect, so if you don’t think they will work, they won’t work, because they only work when you trick yourself into thinking that they work.
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No, they aren’t. That doesn’t mean anything. Molecular geometries do not exclusively resemble platonic solids.
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No, it doesn’t make sense. It sounds like magic. Just saying “doesn’t that make sense” is not an argument.
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They are called periods, not octaves. The periodic table is not a piano.
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There are no sponges made of 100% silicon. If something is made of 100% silicon, it is silicon. This is one of the dumbest sentences I’ve ever heard. I can’t understand how any human person doesn’t just laugh out loud when they hear things like this. Ok that’s enough on crystals, let’s hear some commentary on physics.
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This doesn’t mean anything. It’s just more vague nonsense intended to get people nodding their heads, pretending they are learning about deep truths in physics.
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What is this? Subatomic particles are not colored squares and circles and triangles. What are we looking at? What do these symbols represent? Not even a half-assed attempt to explain anything is offered, just random images acting as a backdrop for world salad.
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People love cool shapes, so the quantum mystic shows lots of cool shapes. Again, meaningless.
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I’m sorry, how? This shape is the root of light? What does that mean? Where are the platonic solids in here? How does this shape produce musical systems? Please explain. My favorite part is how it’s the source of musical systems that are unknown. So we don’t know them, but they’re still based on this? That’s about enough, but here’s one more tidbit.
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No, there are no scientists trying to explain what a soul is because that is not a scientific concept. Science is the study of the physical world. Anything supernatural by definition is not science, and there is no evidence that anything supernatural exists. This disconnect encapsulates the problem with quantum mystics. If someone wants to believe in a soul, or speculate about the supernatural, they can go ahead and do so. But to pretend that it is supported by science
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is ludicrous. Videos like these are just rapid fire lies over stock footage aimed at people who want to believe in magic, but also want to feign compatibility with real science. They are willfully ignorant to the point where they can’t be bothered to even google a word to find out if it’s being used properly, because the story they’ve chosen to believe takes precedent over fact. And these are the types that will buy the 7 day transformation course,
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and attend the retreats, and otherwise fork over the cash that makes these channels lucrative.
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Getting back to a more general discussion, as we can now see, from Deepak to YouTube, a central theme of quantum mysticism has been identified:
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So that’s the story. Consciousness creates reality. There is no such thing as a physical world, consciousness is all that exists. Now this little hypothesis is all well and good if uttered between stoned philosophy undergrads at a party, but no, the quantum mystic insists that this notion is physics, that this deep truth is derived directly from empirical science. Well, it absolutely isn’t, but that then begs the question, where did this lie come from?
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It’s obvious that it’s just a self-help sales pitch. It’s quantum Tony Robbins.
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Manifest your desires! With only four easy payments of $19.99. So again, if the notion of consciousness creating reality has nothing to do with quantum physics, how can these mystics claim as much? This is very easy to answer. All of this woo stems from deliberate misinterpretations of key experiments in 20th century physics. The most notable such misinterpretation is related to the famous double slit experiment.
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I have a tutorial on this topic as well as many other key aspects of quantum physics in my modern physics playlist, so please head over there after this video if you’re interested in learning more about it. But to briefly summarize the issue that is relevant here, the double slit experiment was pivotal in demonstrating something called wave-particle duality. In short, everything is both particles and waves. Light is waves, but it’s also particles called photons.
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Electrons are particles, but they are also waves of probability density. When you get down to the tiniest things, everything is particles and waves, and it doesn’t matter that it doesn’t make sense to us. It doesn’t matter that we can’t visualize it, or rationalize it, that’s what the math tells us, so that’s how reality works. The way the double slit experiment works is that particles are
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allowed to diffract through two slits to generate an interference pattern on a detector beyond, as makes sense for a wave. We can do this with light, but we can also do this with electrons, and in fact we can even do it with an individual electron. The diffraction of an individual electron is a compelling demonstration of the wave nature of matter. Now here’s the kicker. When we are not interfering with the process, the particle appears to pass through both slits, just like a
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wave. But when we try to determine which slit it passes through, it appears to only pass through one, like a particle. It’s incredible! The act of observing the particle changed its behavior.
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Observations influence external reality. At least, that’s the pseudoscientific narrative that charlatans spin. In fact, it is impossible to observe a tiny particle, like an electron, without affecting the system. Observation requires physically interacting with such a particle. In the submicroscopic realm, observation is not a passive process. We can’t spy on an electron the way we can peek at our neighbor through the window.
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Animating a little eyeball simply watching the electron is misleading and inaccurate. Measuring something about an electron involves interacting with it. Detection requires the emission of photons that interact with the electron, and thereby affect certain properties of the electron. It is the physical act of taking a measurement that affects the system, not our consciousness. There is no magic, there is no voodoo, and there is no basis with which to conclude that particles
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know they are being watched, or that we can create alternate realities with our minds.
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Something similar can be said for the quantum mystic’s interpretation of the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle, the concept of superposition, and any other aspect of legitimate physics they attempt to reference which means absolutely nothing if you don’t do any math. There is nothing in physics that lends any credibility to the notion that the universe is immaterial, or some kind of mental construct. One can engage in such philosophical speculation if they choose,
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and it’s not a totally meritless intellectual exercise, but to say that such ideas have some kind of empirical basis in physics is objectively false. Anyone who says anything of the sort either doesn’t understand physics, or is lying, or both. Then of course there is the word “quantum” itself. It is a far more boring word than many people presume. Quantum simply refers to the minimum amount of any physical entity involved in an interaction. So for example,
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photons are quanta. A photon is the smallest amount of light there can be. This idea of quantization tells us that physical properties consist strictly of integer multiples of some tiniest indivisible subunit. So there is a tiniest quantity possible for energy, space, and time, and all values are multiples of that unbelievably tiny subunit. Quantization is a core principle of quantum mechanics, and that’s what this word refers to.
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It does not refer to lasers or interdimensional travel or whatever other unadulterated fantasy the mystic seeks to infuse it with. So, apart from the self-help snake oil courtesy of Deepak and pals, where else does this narrative rear its ugly head? Who else lines their pockets with this brand of pseudoscience? Let’s head over to the medical realm. Another facet of quantum mysticism involves a total distrust of Western medicine. According to the mystic,
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the body can heal itself, so real medicine is just big pharma trying to make a buck. This is another example of how the alt-health industry fosters and exploits anti-establishment bias. There are some people who so desperately want to believe that every perceived authority is wrong, that they will blindly trust anyone who tells them so. And in this realm, it means avoiding drugs and doctors in favor of magic crystals and healers. As the narrative goes, Western medicine treats
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the symptoms, while alternative medicine treats the cause. In fact, this is the precise opposite of the truth, as these phony treatments operate exclusively by placebo effect, which is the slight mitigation of physical symptoms brought on purely by expectation.
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Essentially, if you believe your pain should be alleviated by pretty rocks, or someone floating their hands over your body, then a shallow, fleeting period of pain relief can be experienced. But it is not causally related to the item or practice in question. It can be achieved by waving a magic wand and shouting “Abracadabra!”, if the subject is prone to believing that should work. So all the “power of the mind” rhetoric is not entirely without basis. But this palliative
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effect, apart from disappearing rapidly, does nothing whatsoever to address the cause of the ailment. All disease has a molecular basis, and real medicine addresses that molecular basis with molecules, like drugs. These are compounds that interact with proteins in your body, like enzymes and receptors, so as to induce a physiological change in your body which reverses or otherwise addresses some unintended biological activity.
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We don’t really have time to talk in-depth about how medicine works, as that’s not the point of this video, but I have a pharmacology playlist if you’re interested, as well as others on biochemistry and biology for the relevant background information. Otherwise rest assured, alternative medicine treats the symptoms, and poorly at that. Western medicine treats the cause. Anyone who says otherwise is a duper or one who has been duped.
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So what are these treatments precisely? Well as we said, lots of people believe that crystals have magical healing powers. Pushers of this narrative display such disregard for physical reality that beyond not feeling obligated to substantiate these claims in the slightest, they even tend to throw out vaguely scientific sounding word salads as justification, knowing that their target demographic will not scrutinize them for a single second. Their customers want to believe
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that magic is real, and are willing to pay money to a practitioner to perpetuate this delusion. This could take the form of placing stones on the body, or the not-as-ancient-as-advertised practice of reiki, which is just waving one’s hands over the body to channel “healing energy” from a “universal source”. It’s essentially faith healing but with Asian mysticism instead of the Christian god. Each charlatan has their own jargon and specialized accoutrements, but at their core,
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they’re all the same. They use words like quantum, vibration, frequency, and energy, all incorrectly, with the goal of propping up pseudoscience so blatant that it’s legitimately offensive. All the while, the story is spun of how arrogant scientists and doctors must be, to ignore these powerful healing techniques, thinking themselves bigger than the universe. The hilarity behind this accusation lies in the fact that it is the healer who is so arrogant, that they
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literally believe they have magic powers, like a wizard. That they are so wise, so enlightened, that they have access to a tier of reality that eludes the rest of the species. What could be a more narcissistic and childish delusion than this? Now to be fair, we would do well to temper the outrage. Let’s say someone goes to a reiki session with a little back pain. They find the practitioner to be warm and personable. They have a little chit chat. They lie down in a room
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with calming colored lights and pleasant ambience. There’s some Enya playing, or whatever those types of people are listening to these days. It all adds up to a legitimately therapeutic experience, leading to a placebo effect that makes them feel a little better. So where’s the harm? Well, in such a case one could say that there is no tremendous harm, and if you are looking to pay the price of a massage but not get one, then that’s really up to you. And in fairness, most
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practitioners of these treatments are somewhat honest about their limitations, stating that they are not legitimate solutions for serious medical conditions or life-threatening emergencies. But not everyone in this culture displays this absolutely minimal modicum of ethical behavior. Some people get swept up in the notion that this sort of paradigm is the only true medicine, and that doctors and hospitals are not to be trusted under any circumstance. It goes without
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saying that this is a dangerous way of thinking, and when people forego actual medical treatment in favor of New Age voodoo, if this is prompted or encouraged by some perceived authority, it is a criminal act. People who prevent those in need of medical attention from getting that help should be formally prosecuted, especially in the case of parents acting on behalf of their sick children.
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Beyond these extreme circumstances, it is an enormous problem that the alt-health industry is not regulated whatsoever. What this means is that when a healer makes some dubious claim, in their shop or on a website, it is not scrutinized, nor are they made accountable for its veracity in any way. There is no entity in place to monitor any of this activity, because it does not fall under the domain of any kind of actual science or medicine such that existing regulatory bodies
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would have jurisdiction. Imagine what would happen if a pharmaceutical company advertised that their new drug was a treatment for some kind of heart disease, when in fact it’s just a sugar cube. In what world would that be allowed to happen? Within legitimate industries, these kinds of bald-faced lies are impossible. But in the alt-health realm, it’s the norm. Homeopathic healers sell treatments that are truly nothing, just little globules that may as well be sugar
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cubes. If the consumer doesn’t have the sense to see through the lies, that’s on them. Regulation of any kind would mean the death of alt-health, as virtually nothing in it can be substantiated in any manner so as to be considered legitimate. So as we can now hopefully see, the narrative of the quantum mystic is preposterous. The notion that all of these healing techniques and ancient practices constitute some kind of ultimate truth, and that Big Medicine wants to hide these truths
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away to pump you full of nasty chemicals to make money, is childish, and in itself money-driven. Humans had an average lifespan of 30 all the way until the turn of the 20th century. Our current lifespan and quality of life is owed almost exclusively to scientific advancements enabling the treatment, and in some cases total eradication, of infectious diseases and other maladies. Science is the real deal, and Western-medicine is science-based medicine.
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The mystics are the ones slinging snake oil for cash, as this crystal frivolously labeled “Magic Wand of Universal Power” on sale for only 150 dollars is, I’m sorry to say, just a pretty rock. This is where one must distinguish between your everyday self-help grifter and the much more damaging narrative of the quantum mystic. The former may be vague and hollow, but ultimately in some cases does actually help people. The path to happiness is inward and subjective, so if someone
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attains happiness and personal growth through some cookie cutter self-help seminar, there’s no real basis for anyone to tell them that they didn’t. The quantum mystic, however, makes concrete, highly specific claims about the nature of external reality that are objectively false. These false claims lead people away from medical treatment and sow the seeds of distrust in the scientific community, which inevitably rears its ugly head in the form of the anti-vaccine movement
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and other cultural defects that end up killing people. In short, this is not a phenomenon that should be ignored. It should be exposed and deflated to prevent further damage.
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If you doubt how far this can go, you underestimate the degree of deception some people are willing to commit, as well as the capacity of the average person to fall for it. I’m talking about cults. Quantum mysticism is fertile territory for wannabe cult leaders. Take for example a YouTube channel called Actualized.org, which has a little over a million subscribers. At first glance, this self-proclaimed prophet, a guy named Leo Gura,
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offers the same transparent self-help mumbo jumbo as a thousand salesmen before him. But as he evolved, his tactics went beyond this. Allow me to briefly demonstrate that Leo is a cult leader. I’m not being facetious here. When I say that someone is a cult leader, I mean that literally. But every cult has a story, so let’s see how this one started. Again, like many cults, Leo started out in the self-help realm. How to be attractive. How to get money. How to get girls. How to make
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said girls “squirt” once you get them. Obviously some very high brow stuff. But before long he took a dive into the pool of mysticism. Here’s him warming up with some of the compulsary jargon.
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So like many others, quantum mechanics is the well he draws his lies from. What’s the central theme?
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So we’ve heard this script before. Physical reality isn’t real. It’s all consciousness. Given his confidence on the subject, he must have some training in physics, I bet.
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No, thinking about something really hard doesn’t magically deliver comprehension, it just leads people to a false sense of wisdom, which is fertile grounds for cult-building. Let’s see how Leo does it.
43:44
This is what cult leaders do. Insist that they’re right, and any doubt or sentiment to the contrary is absurd. That voice of sanity telling you that this is bullshit, don’t listen to it. Listen to me. Listen only to me.
44:27
This is called gaslighting. It means to manipulate someone psychologically to get them to question their own sanity. It’s what sociopaths do, and all cult leaders are sociopaths.
45:17
So basically, I am right because I am right and if you don’t think that I’m right, it’s because you are deceiving yourself. Cult leaders always construct ideologies with built-in defense mechanisms so as to be impervious to criticism, kind of like a deity. Speaking of deities…
46:05
Yes, Leo is god. You heard him right. He is omniscient. Even though just two minutes prior, this happened:
46:33
Funny how an omniscient deity didn’t know who was at his door.
47:12
Passengers, we have reached cruising altitude. At this point, any rational person would conclude that Leo is identical to any lunatic raving on a street corner with tissue boxes for shoes and a frying pan for a hat, and would walk right by having a nice laugh. But try to remember that no one is rational 100% of the time. Some people are more gullible than others, but even highly rational, intelligent people can have their judgement and sense of self diminished
47:40
through destabilizing events. Some people are vulnerable. Some people follow his instructions to take high-octane psychedelic drugs and allow him to shape their reactions to these experiences. Some people have experienced intense trauma, and are susceptible to the tactics of a cult leader like him. This is why most cults start out in the self-help realm. It lures in those who look outwards for answers about themselves. But wait a minute, what if you already have a god?
48:59
That’s right, folks. Whatever you worship, it sucks. Leo is better than all gods before him. What does he do with this power?
49:24
I dunno, sounds kind of Jesusy to me. So anyway, what’s in it for us?
49:38
Wait a minute, I’m god too?
50:00
Wow, where do I sign up? By now we have a pretty firm grasp on what Leo is peddling. So where does this get really dangerous and harmful? Let’s take a look.
50:36
If you think it sounds like he is glorifying death, you’re not the only one. Let’s hear it a little more clearly.
50:56
And one more time.
51:05
Remember from his rant before where he points into the camera, the viewer is the devil. Only death will save the viewer. He is actively telling people to kill themselves. Later in this video he issues a disclaimer stating that nobody should physically harm themselves or others, but it’s not enough. Fragile people hear things like this repeatedly and it affects them. And guess what? Some of them have tried. Here are comments in his forum from some of his followers
51:33
outlining suicidal thoughts and actual suicide attempts, as a direct result of Leo’s influence.
51:41
Prior to COVID Leo was planning a nationwide tour with meetups, and mentioned the desire to start a retreat center. So far over the internet he hasn’t been able to physically separate vulnerable people from their support systems. Who knows what he could do in person? So as you can see, Actualized.org is a cult. It is one of many cults in this landscape. And what happens when we turn our backs to cults?
52:06
Very bad things. The most insignificant of these would be irreparable damage to the psyche of cult members. Stepping up from there, cult leaders tend to commit rape and other acts of physical abuse. These people are largely just predatory sociopaths spinning an intricate web of lies to take advantage of others. We tend to mythologize people like Charles Manson and convince ourselves that
52:29
it’s something out of a storybook, but there are a lot of people like that, and they do this stuff all the time. And if you want to see just how bad cults can get, look at Scientology. The amount of suffering this cult has caused is immeasurable. Countless lives wasted and families destroyed. What if someone had stopped it decades ago before it got so out of control? Who could argue that precisely this shouldn’t have been done? So why shouldn’t we be doing it now to other cults?
52:59
I don’t have the answers regarding this larger goal. It will take a combined effort of many people, and cooperation from various federal and private institutions. But in the meantime, all we can do is identify these toxic people and aggressively disempower them in any way we can.
53:17
To that end, the only way I can help is to offer tips on how to spot misinformation online, such as the false claims of the mystics in this video. As this channel has always been largely academic, beyond the occasional debunk like this, I’ve chosen to write a book containing the sort of information we’ve talked about here today, covering pseudoscience related to fields from chemistry to medicine to physics. It’s
53:39
called “Is This Wi-Fi Organic? A Guide to Spotting Misleading Science Online”. If you’re interested in getting some tips on how to spot these broader trends, from genuine public confusion to vicious hoaxes and con men, give it a read. Otherwise, I’ll see you next time.
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