Monday: Fun with Deepak!

February 2, 2015 • 7:48 am

Sometimes I actually feel sorry for Chopra. He’s afflicted with a terrible case of Chronic Maru’s Syndrome, and simply can’t brush off criticism. What that means, with respect to our debate about his HIV/AIDS denialism and Chopra’s deeply misguided views about where the disease comes from, is that he’s insecure about his position, and about whether people respect him as a scientist (he’s not one) or as a doctor. After all, his authority (and hence his ability to make $$) depends on those credentials. So when his views are criticized, he emits aggressive tw**ts:

Screen Shot 2015-02-02 at 6.24.05 AM

LOL; he doesn’t understand evolution! I’m just as evolved as Deepak—but I’m a better scientist! Professor Ceiling Cat has a Ph.D. and the Emperor Has No Clothes award! That give me the credentials to say that Chopra has no clothes.

Below Deepak makes a frank admission, but the fact is that the “worst” in Chopra is actually the real Chopra, an insecure man who covers his insecurity with bluster.  Even though he promotes meditation and calmness, at the slightest criticism of his views he erupts into anger and name calling, and it’s ugly stuff. Despite his wealth and diamond-studded glasses, I can’t help but think he knows, deep down inside, that he’s a fraud. If he doesn’t, then he has none of his vaunted self-awareness.

Anyway, here’s another new tw**t:
Screen Shot 2015-02-02 at 6.24.41 AM

I am not Deepak’s shadow. Shadows are attached to someone at the feet, and I don’t want to be that close to him.

79 thoughts on “Monday: Fun with Deepak!”

  1. I’m sure you’re right. Deep down he knows he’s a fraud despite his most fervent efforts to convince himself otherwise.

        1. You’re both wrong — yet right, because:

          “The web of life experiences humble human observation”

          2. And I thought spiritual positivity is inherent in matter.

            Thats the beauty of Chopra’s word salad – mix and match anything you want and the irrelevance stays contant.

    2. “Deep down” assumes sincerity. I’m not quite convinced that he really believes the things he says, any more than any TV preacher believes he can heal the sick or a flim-flam artist believes his the snake oil he sells lives up to its claims.

      But I suppose there’s no reason not to take him at his word.

      1. No. Sincerity can be feigned, which I think DeepChop is expert at. Why in the world would you take him at his word? The man is a consummate liar.

        1. This is what I’m saying. The bluster and outrage may be feigned as well. I’m not sure why that’s a winning strategy for a seller of inner peace and oneness with the universe – he’s certainly not modeling the “spirit” his “philosophy” would imply one can attain – but he must know what he’s doing because he’s rolling in it. Maybe the image of victimization, at the hands of naysayers and Big Science, furthers his brand with the New Age crowd? He must be on to something if all these skeptics are o “threatened” by him, right?

          1. The bluster and outrage are genuine as are the need for attention, the feeling of being special, the manipulations and the exploitations. He’s a narcissist through and through. They’re fun sometimes when they see you as an ally because they back you up, but if you are a competent person, in no time, you will find yourself on the other side facing a narcissist in a rage over some perceived insult.

      2. I assume sincerity because it’s not only very easy for intelligent people to fool themselves, but Chopra lives in a world in which respect for religion, spirituality, and faith is deeply embedded. Add to this the fact that he’s very popular, he’s surrounded by admirers, and he’s regularly meeting with more-or-less legitimate scientists who agree with his views and we’ve got a recipe for being sure of yourself.

        Sincere delusion is usually the path of least resistance. If there are areas where a believer knows they’re fudging, they’ll think of it as true to the general principle and not really a lie lie.

        1. “…regularly meeting with more-or-less legitimate scientists who agree with his views…”

          Really?

          DeepChop is smarting because he’s been called out on something that is so over-the-top-stupid that even he can’t dance around it. That kind of exposure smarts. Or, given the emperor-has-no-clothes nature of this situation… chills. He’s smart enough to know he’s been seen naked and his response is typical of someone who’s been exposed.

          1. James Randi once said something to the effect that “There is no idea so painfully stupid that you can’t find a PhD to support it.” If you look through the cast of “experts” in films like What the Bleep Do We Know you’ll see the names of people with actual degrees in physics or astronomy or what have you who have gone off the rails and now insist that science proves woo. These are the Big Names that go to the Science & Spirituality conventions and present pseudoscientific arguments so convincingly.

            Chopra’s only a medical doctor. A handful of physicists hanging around and assuring him that yes, yes, quantum mechanics is showing the world what the mystics have known all along is going to make him feel like he’s got experts on HIS side.

            I don’t think it takes being “smart enough” to see through this. It takes what Dr. Steve Novello has called “neuropsychological humility,” a learned awareness of how easy it is for us to fool ourselves. Intelligence can actually work against that one, since it can make you very good and seeing why it’s the other guy who needs to be more humble.

          2. Weren’t a lot of the PhDs in Bleep interviewed under false pretenses and had their interviews edited to look like they were supporting the woo-woo when they really weren’t?

          3. A few of them, yes, I watched an interview with one of them, who was quote mined into saying the opposite of the point he was making. He decided it would be a pain and publicity to sue them.

            As for the others, they keep showing up in pro-woo stories and articles, capitalizing proudly on their status as movie stars.

        2. This is the biggest challenge to my theory, I agree. It’s presumptuous on my part to say he’s fully aware that he’s just making up crazy stuff for the rubes. If I’m wrong, then his inability to practice what he preaches is astonishing. The constant mischaracterization of his critics, if he’s not aware he’s doing that, implies a disconnect with reality that is hard for me to fathom – but certainly that’s not proof he isn’t deluded!

          2. It is challenging to figure out if Deepa is deluded or just faking it. A faker can be very sincere and I think be genuinely offended when called out. All it takes is a bit of narcissism. I would allow that we may never actually know.

        3. My guess is he’s gone through phases in his life. Early on he may have been sincerely interested in spirituality as millions of New-Agers are. This in itself requires fuzzy logic. As he began to gather a following and wealth, I suspect darker aspects of his personality took over. Today, he may have developed a capacity repressing cognitive dissonance. He’s able to build the materialistic empire and play the enlightened guru without realizing the conflict.
          Deep down, yes, he knows he’s a fraud. He just can’t help himself.

      3. Any grifter knows you must feign sincerity until it becomes real. Fool yourself too often and you hypnotize yourself into believing it anyway. Ads to the sincerity quotient.

        Actually believing it in the first place is even better then your confirmation bias kicks in to massage the outlier data that is contradictory then the mind can brilliantly make “black white and you can die at a zebra crossing.”

  2. Textbook narcissim. Fly into a rage when criticized and then blame everyone else. At the debate with Sam Harris and Michael Shermer, he lost it and blamed his losing it on Michael Shermer.

    1. I was going to say the same thing. It is LITERALLY textbook narcissism! It’s like a made up teaching case that’s too perfect to be real. But there it it.

    2. Upon reflection I have come around to thinking he is a textbook narcissist. He’s got the fancy materialistic baubles, he reacts strongly against criticism, and he is unconcerned about the damage he causes.

      With age, I have decided that I have known several people who were narcissistic to some degree, or had some other kind of sociopathy. They sure can leave a lot of damage in their wake.

      1. Yes, I’ve known many with narcissistic tendencies and I’ve met full blown narcissists and sociopaths. The best is watching narcissists fight each other as long as you’re a fair distance away from the explosion.

        1. He always reacts too. A couple of years ago, not long after I joined Twi**er, some of us were mocking his theories, and someone tagged him in. We’re a bunch of nobodies and he joins the conversation and starts trying to refute us. It was unbelievable he even cared what we thought.

          Nobody was personally rude. In the end he blocked everyone except two of us. We were members of the former ASH/Atheist Superheroes/Atheism| Secularism| Humanism group, which meant absolutely nothing beyond a bit of fun and standing up for those things. I suppose he thought we were a real organisation.

          So, yes, narcissism.

  3. “…the real Chopra, an insecure man who covers his insecurity with bluster. Even though he promotes meditation and calmness, at the slightest criticism of his views he erupts into anger and name calling, and it’s ugly stuff. Despite his wealth and diamond-studded glasses, I can’t help but think he knows, deep down inside, that he’s a fraud. If he doesn’t, then he has none of his vaunted self-awareness.” Can we upload that gem of a summation to Wikipedia?

    1. I can imagine why he’d be insecure. Just think of what his situation would be like once his great wall of woo comes tumbling down. He can’t keep this up forever. Look at how people have began tearing down Dr. Oz lately. His time will come and he knows it.

  4. Deepak Chopra should not feel so bad about losing a debate with you or Sam Harris. He should be happy to escape with his life.

    1. Yes, that is the proper response when attempting to engage in a battle of wits while unarmed.

  5. I made, perhaps, an ill considered tweet in reply. But at least my twitter feed isn’t full of weird posturing about forgiveness and deepities. What a deepakcle.

    1. I made one as well, although I didn’t feel it quite so ill-considered. My apologies Professor Coyne-I had to refer to you as “Jerry” in the tweet. You know, with the 72 character limit and all… I have to admit, I love me some morning Woo-Smackdown.

    2. I’m sure it has been a life long deepoch of deepacles!

      It may have become deepressing…

  7. Shadows are attached at the feet only if the feet are on the ground. Deepak is so full of hot air that he floats off the ground.

    2. With Deepak’s current psychological state, I’m sure he would think shadows attack him.

  9. “attached”, not “attacked”. But that’s a perfectly understandable brain fart LOL

  11. But aren’t you just a construct of Depak’s consciousness? How can you bring out the worst in him if you are just a figment of his imagination that goes away whenever he stops looking at you?

  12. Chopra’s reactions are the best refutation of his “create your own reality” philosophy.

  14. Deepak is so insecure. Maybe if he were to actually learn about biology and physics, instead of making up feel-good philosophical guesses, he would feel better about himself. But that’s not where the money is.

    1. Most people would rather feel good than learn cold biology and physics. It is just the way things are. Blame Evolution for it. I do. You can do that when you can think of things outside of your biology and behavior.

  15. … an insecure man who covers his insecurity with bluster. Even though he promotes meditation and calmness, at the slightest criticism of his views he erupts into anger and name calling, and it’s ugly stuff.

    The problem isn’t necessarily with Chopra — or at least, it goes deeper than personality. The world view he promotes, with its sky hooks, elitism, ancient wisdom, mysticism, and claim to be on the cutting edge of scientific discover, is a very insecure world view. The peace and understanding is on the surface: it covers the need to believe in special revelation.

    Faith and science is shaky ground. Of course there’s a constant need for affirmation, support, encouragement — and arguing with the Enemy (if you think you can hack it.)

    There’s no there there, in New Age Spirituality. So it derives its real passion from the self-vision it promotes. You enter it in order to become what you want to become. Everything is okay, everything will be okay, and the believer is the most okay of all. We’ve figured it out. We ARE reality. We control reality with our minds. That’s because we’re positioned against the two angry, vicious, shallow ways of seeing the world: religious fundamentalism and materialist atheism. NOT being either one of those defines the system.

    Fundamentalism isn’t thinking you’re right and other people are wrong. It’s measured against how you treat dissent. Religion can’t deal with it, given the nature of the claim. If you think enlightenment comes from within and only those who get it will “get it,” then there’s no common ground with skeptics. There’s no way to reason towards a consensus. You’re above (because you’re humble,) they’re below (because they’re arrogant,) and trying to persuade them is like trying to explain calculus to a goat. So no wonder it’s frustrating when the goat laughs. No wonder the only two options, now that “persuade” is gone, are isolation and/or force. Insults like Chopra’s come out of those last two. We are the Other.

    I think he’s going after Jerry for the same reason conservative preachers send out alerts to their followers about the gay agenda ruining America or Christians being persecuted. It both reinforces the idea of in/out group and rallies the troops.

    He must be right or people wouldn’t argue with him. Oh, sure, you bet. That’s the sloppy way to instant credibility. A person of faith who is sloppy with reason and sloppy with evidence and sloppy with science isn’t going to take criticism as a potentially useful check-and-balance against error. No, they’re going to use it to mop up their self-esteem and keep it near them in a bucket, and then spill it back over the world.

  16. The last large thread about him had a new commenter who seemed to be a guru of some sort. He said that Deepa had been trained in serious meditation where you can control your body and aspire to change physics after lots of training and effort. But then Deepa went off to peddle an ‘instant’ version of that stuff, saying “..he’s apparently come up with ways of interpreting his spiritual tradition to maximize profits”.
    Enlightening.

        1. Deepak might be better than the new commentator.

          The new commentator called for agnosticism about absolutely everything. At least we can pin Deepak down to a position most of the time.

          If you waded through the text, the guru was saying we could levitate if we learned it right and that QM was the explanation.

          1. The difference between an Agnostic & Atheist is the Agnostic gives the benefit of the doubt to Believers that Atheists do not.

  18. He is a mildly entertaining distraction, always good for a chuckle, like a predictable sitcom character. So I thank him for a little levity in my day.

  19. On first read, I thought that DC seemed confused about Jungian archetypes, but perhaps that second tweet is actually very revealing about the Shadow.

    Primarily the Shadow is a manifestation of the unknown in our consciousness, because of its name presumed to be negative or evil but that’s not necessarily the case: our lizard brains can come into conflict with our image of our civilized self, but that doesn’t mean our animal selves are bad or wrong – they keep us alive, and sometimes “know” better than we do (for example, the “gut feeling” that someone we’re attracted to is not a good mate).

    We usually think of the Shadow as something hidden inside ourselves, but here DC is saying an actual, separate person is his Shadow!

    Interestingly, Jung thought the Shadow was a source of “projection,” that is, our inability to face our insecurity leading us to assert our own faults as others’ shortcomings (Projection much? Check!).

    If my Shadow “brings out the worst in me,” what does DC think is his “worst”? Since he’s referring to acting a big crybaby and attacking others for sleights to his bona fides and his ego, sounds to me like he means that. And regrets it! As he should.

    Since New Agers love them some Joseph Campbell, I assume DC is not referring to Jung’s Shadow but to Campbell’s archetype based on the former. In Campbell’s analysis, the Shadow is not the enemy (he posited no archetype for enemy, just obstacles on the journey to glory, and defeat of an enemy can be the Hero’s objective of course) but a mask an enemy or obstacle may put on to test the hero (“Snakes! Why does it always have to be snakes?!”) because it could cause the Hero’s downfall. And what is it that PCC & Co. say that constitute such a mask? I think the consensus of the commenters here is the questioning of DC’s character and knowledge of science. If that were not DC’s secretly-held inadequacy, it would not evoke the image of the Shadow. And note his wording: it’s not “maybe” or “could be” – Jerry MUST be DC’s Shadow.

    So in short, what DC is saying is Jerry’s mockery of DC’s “science” causes him to act like the WATB that DC is not, because it rubs salt in the wound of DC’s deepest insecurity.

    Which raises the question of why a guru with the keys to the “future of God” is mired in outdated (if not discredited) psychological tropes? It couldn’t be that his notion of spirituality is as lame and confused as is his understanding of science. Could it?

    1. I thought that the Shadow had learned the secrets of hypnosis in order to cloud men’s minds so they couldn’t see him.

  21. I must admit Jerry brings out the wort in me…

    Don’t worry Deepak, remember that Jerry is just the the precipitating agent, and the material agent is never the cause of your behavior. Its your lifestyle and life choices that cause your outbursts.

    1. Rats; you beat me to it. But, I might also add that PCC is also the author of books that are respected by actual scientists!

  23. The comments betray a serious inferiority complex, no doubt coming from promoting very bad ideas that aren’t even wrong for so many years.

  24. Deepak a fraud? Oh say it isn’t so. But if he is one he surely knows it and doesn’t care. Only a charlatan would get rich selling “enlightenment”. Deepak can’t believe any of what he spouts; if he did he’d be too afraid of that karma wheel crushing his ass next time around to do what he does.

  26. ‘chronic Maru’s syndrome’?

    Please. What has Maru ever done to deserve that? Can’t we find a better term of opprobrium?

    (I _like_ Maru, his good name should never be sullied by comparison with the Deepak).

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