Pseudoskepticism/Hoffman Quadrinity Process

See w:Hoffman Institute.

This page was started because Rationalwiki has:

In its original form, the program involved meeting a purported spirit guide and establishing psychic contact with one's parents when they were children, [...]

The original program's reliance on the supernatural and use of concepts internal to the movement like negative love and quadrinity clearly put it in the realm of pseudoscience. Alleged psychic communication with one's parents as they were when they were children does not have any scientific basis, and the "communication" thus received may be imagined or suggested.

Something does not become a pseudoscience "because it has no scientific basis," if it claims no scientific basis. Further, if a program is designed for personal development and therapy, the use of "imagination" and "suggestion" is not "pseudoscientific." It is not necessarily a "reliance on the supernatural," since the "meeting" is certainly something within the experience of the participants, such as it is. That is, the use of imagination in therapy is a technique that does not depend on some alleged "reality" to the meeting, that is, something outside of the participant.

The knee-jerk rejection of something of this nature, based on some element that is not understood or believed to be a "psychic claim," forgets that the "psyche" is the mind. Is the mind unreal?

This rejection is characteristic of pseudoskepticism.

The RationalWiki article goes on to state, in a note:

This description is based on Bob Hoffman's 1976 book Getting Divorced from Mother & Dad: The Discoveries of the Fischer-Hoffman Process. As can best be gleaned from Hoffman Institute websites, the terminology has changed and is now framed as visualizations rather than actual psychic contact.

Of course. But this is simply a shift in what something is called. Was the original claim that the "psychic contact" was "actual"? Did it matter? Essentially, a belief system, it is possible, was projected by a skeptic in writing the article.

The original footnote was much more blatant:

This description is based on Bob Hoffman's 1976 book Getting Divorced from Mother & Dad: The Findings of the Fischer-Hoffman Process. As can best be gleaned from Hoffman Institute websites, the terminology has changed slightly but the program still has the same reliance on supernatural woo.

Further reading

[http://jesuskoan.blogspot.com/2019/08/the-ontological-odd-couple-and-origins.html The Ontological Odd Couple and the Origins of the Fisher-Hoffman Psychic Therapy], by Ken Ireland, a former teacher of the process, who recounts being a participant as the Process was developed. Freedom of mind resource center page on the Hoffman Quadrinity Process.