I admit I was fascinated when I first heard about the Law of Attraction. Mainly, I was fascinated that so many people were so attracted to an idea so intellectually unattractive. Among those who have been taken in are the likes of Oprah Winfrey.

So I peeked a little deeper into the world of New Age channelled beings. They are an intriguing bunch! Here are the top ten things I learned:

10. Abraham, channeled by Esther Hicks, is not a single spirit, but a whole group of them. They thus often go by the name Abraham-Hicks. (This confusing nomenclature does not mean that Abraham are a bunch of rednecks, as it might appear at first glance.)

9. Abraham teach, among other things, that "anything that you can imagine is yours to be or do or have." Abraham do not, however, teach you not to split infinitives. (They would probably prefer that I say "to not split infinitives.")

8. Channelled spirits do not teach spelling, either. Take poor Djwal Khul. Other versions of his name variously add and remove H's. His followers often just give up and call him DK.

7. The continent of Lemuria was a short-lived hypothesis of the 19th century. A better understanding of plate tectonics made it obvious to science that Lemuria never existed — but the channelled spirit Ramtha, who claims to hail from that land, never got the message. Perhaps Ramtha is actually from the real sunken continent Zealandia. They didn't have geography classes 35,000 years ago.

6. Ramtha teaches that we are all gods. In fact, he calls us "forgotten gods" because we have forgotten our divinity. Apparently Ramtha himself forgot this when he led 2.5 million warriors into battle against the Atlanteans.

5. In the New Age, spiritual beings may be warm fuzzy teachers (except Ramtha), but extraterrestrials are militaristic. Just consider Ashtar Galactic Command, led by the ET Ashtar Sheran.

4. Channelled beings care a lot about their copyrights. Abraham's channeller Esther Hicks has been removed from the "Law of Attraction" video The Secret due to "contract issues." Meanwhile, the Austrian Supreme Court recognizes that only Judy Zebra Knight is allowed to channel Ramtha.

3. Channelled beings have their own secret societies. The Illuminati of the New Age is called the Great White Brotherhood. Despite their provocative name, they do not seem to have any connection to David Duke or the National Alliance.

2. Though Christians generally view the New Age movement to be inimical to their faith, Jesus is very busy in the New Age. He is constantly being reincarnated (despite not being dead). He dictates texts like A Course in Miracles that are in utter contradiction of his earlier words found in the Bible. In the New Age, poor Jesus is a pretty confused guy, and I suspect he must be very tired.

1. Jesus is part of the Great White Brotherhood. Of course he is.

Today is One year ago was July 7, 2007, and Time magazine has declared it "the most popular wedding day ever." After all, the date 7-7-07 "carries some serious cosmic cachet," according to the Pittsburgh Times-Review.

Wait, wasn't I just writing about superstition just the other day?

I have been thinking about magical thinking all weekend, and my thoroughly non-scientific conclusion is that it seems to be the "default" way of thinking for human beings.

The behavioral psychologist B. F. Skinner believed that superstitions arise from coincidence combined with reinforcement. When a person experiences a fortuitous (or unfortuitous) event associated with something unrelated, posits Skinner, she may come to associate the unrelated thing with the stroke of fate. Then, whenever she experiences that unrelated thing, she will look specifically for the event she believes is connected to it. If the event doesn't happen, her thinking is not affected much, but if it does, the superstition is reinforced.

But that does not explain why superstitions become embedded in cultures. Everyone in the English-speaking world knows that the number 7 is good luck (hence the popularity of the 7-7-07 wedding) and 13 is bad luck. (Good thing 13-13-13 will never appear on the calendar.) In Chinese-related cultures, 4 is unlucky. Specific colors, animals, objects, and behaviors (like knocking on wood) are frequently co-opted into superstitions.

I think the popularity of superstitions stems from the natural human tendency toward magical thinking. It's probably an adaptive way to think, since in the nitty-gritty of daily life, magical thinking will usually do a person more good than harm. It's like the way the smarter animals think. In humans, the ability to reason seems to be appended to it.

Do you have any superstitions? What are some weird superstitions you have heard of?

Science writer Brian Clegg recently wrote in his blog^* that religious thinking is often "magical" thinking. He gave several examples from the Judeo-Christian tradition, including this one from the Church of England:

I would suggest that those in the Church of England who don’t want women bishops are motivated by magic. Their argument is that it has always been that way, that Jesus only chose male apostles, and that bishops sort of stand in for Jesus, so have to be male, as he was.

Clegg is a science writer, and quite a good one, but his expertise does not extend to Christian theology. His example above confuses magical thinking with sacramental thinking.

Magical thinking is "nonscientific causal reasoning" that follows certain rules, a bit analogous to scientific laws. Like scientific laws, magical thinking does not identify these rules as arising from any particular source; they just are. Superstitions arise from magical thinking.

Christianity — particularly Catholic Christianity and those Protestant traditions most akin to Catholicism — is deeply imbued with sacramental thinking. In a sacrament, there is an outward, visible symbol of a supernatural reality. In the case of ordination, the supernatural reality is that deacons, priests, and bishops are marked with a supernatural character that gives them the ability to "stand in" for Christ. The outward symbol includes the necessity that the ordained be similar to Christ in the most fundamental way: they must be male. (I think it's interesting that the Church of England is hung-up on female bishops, since it already allows female deacons and priests — doesn't it make sense that God would require male gender for either all ordinations or for none?)

Unlike magical thinking, the associations found in sacramental theology are attributed to a specific and personal source — God. Male gender is not necessary because of our limited perceptions and understanding, nor because of some great cosmic "should"; it is necessary because God made it so.

* Do not, by any means, miss the first comment to Clegg's post! It will make your day.