The Meme Machine (34 page)

Death and the truth trick

Research shows that people of all ages and backgrounds have somewhat similar experiences when they come close to death and are revived (Blackmore 1993). Although most experience nothing, those who do report experiences tend to describe going down a dark tunnel towards a bright light, leaving the body and viewing their body from above, travelling to a beautiful place where beings of light await them, occasionally experiencing scenes from their life replayed all at once, and finally having to make a difficult decision to return to ordinary life. Normally, the experience is happy and peaceful, although occasionally it can be hellish. Above all, it feels absolutely real – ‘realer than real’. I have had this experience myself (although I was not close to death) and it was vivid, beautiful, absolutely realistic, and had a dramatic effect on my life. Reports from as long as two thousand years ago and from many different cultures suggest that the basic experience is common to humans everywhere and can affect them profoundly.

The core features of this complex experience can be understood in terms of what is going on in a brain under stress. For example, the surprisingly positive emotions are probably due to the brain releasing endorphins (morphine–like chemicals) under stress. Fear and stress also result in widespread random firing of neurons throughout the brain which, depending on where it occurs, has different effects. For example, stimulation of the temporal lobes (which can be done experimentally) can induce floating and flying sensations, memory flashbacks, and feelings of religious significance. Perhaps most interesting is the origin of the tunnel. Cells throughout the visual system are organised so that many are devoted to the centre of the visual field and far fewer to the periphery. So when all the cells fire randomly, the effect is like a bright light in the middle fading out towards the edges, or bands and lines in spirals and rings. This may be the origin of the near–death tunnel as well as the tunnels that are common in Shamanistic drawings and certain drug experiences.

Some near–death experiencers are happy to find rational explanations, but many reject them. They know they saw Jesus. He was as real as real can be. They know that they have a spirit that left their body, travelled down the tunnel and went to heaven. And they know their experience is proof of life after death.

What is interesting from the memetic point of view is that Christians typically see Jesus while Hindus meet Hindu deities (Osis and Haraldsson
1977). Some people encounter ‘beings’ of no particular religion, but there is no recorded case in which a religious person has met a deity from a different religion. Some Christians even meet St. Peter at his pearly gates, while Hindus are more likely to be judged by Chitragupta who has their names written in his great book. Americans are likely to go along with the heavenly beings they meet while Indians are more likely to resist when they meet Yamraj, the King of the Dead, or his messengers, the Yamdoots, who have come to take them away. Americans are likely to meet their mothers but Indians rarely encounter female figures.

The experienced ‘realness’ of the visions leads many people who have them to reject any naturalistic explanation at all, and in the scientific literature the debate is dichotomised between those who are convinced that near–death experiences (NDEs) are evidence of life after death and those, like myself, who are not (Bailey and Yates 1996). In fact, the experience cannot be evidence of life after death because all the people who described the experiences were still alive. Nor can any naturalistic explanation, however full and satisfying, prove there is
no
life after death. So the argument is ultimately sterile. But from the memetic point of view this is not the issue. Instead, we should ask a different question – why are NDE memes so successful?

The answer is similar to that for abductions. The NDE story serves real functions. First, there are underlying brain states that predispose certain kinds of experience when people come close to death and which cry out for explanation. These are interpreted with the memes available to that person at the time, whether those memes come from television, science or their religious upbringing. The classic NDE story also serves another function in reducing fear of death and providing reassurance about the meaning and purpose of life. Fear of death is a far more potent motivator than fear of sleep paralysis, and the desire for life after death an excellent hook for NDE memes. Memes do not need to be true to be successful.

They do, however,
claim
to be true. Natural selection has generally equipped us to choose ideas that are true over those that are false. Our perceptual systems are designed to provide as accurate a model of the external world as possible. Our capacity to think and solve problems is designed to give true rather than false answers, so in general, true memes should thrive better than false ones. But this provides an opportunity for deception – for truth mimicry. First, false claims can sneak into memeplexes under the protection of true ones. We might call this the ‘truth trick’. Second, memes can simply
claim
to be true – or even ‘The Truth’. So, for example, UFO believers claim that the conspiracy is suppressing The Truth. NDErs claim to have seen The Truth with their
own eyes. And believers in God and life after death know The Truth. This is aslightly different version of the ‘truth trick’, for it need have no element of validity at all.

Finally, NDE memes use the ‘altruism trick’. People who come close to death and survive are often changed by the experience, becoming more caring of others and less concerned with themselves (Ring 1992). The limited evidence available suggests that this change is a function of simply facing up to death, not of having a near–death experience, but when NDErs behave altruistically this helps spread their NDE memes – ‘I’m a nice person, I’m not so selfish now, believe me. I really did go to heaven’. Wanting to agree with this honestly nice person helps spread the memes. And if the NDE survivor really does help you, then you may take on the NDE memes as a way of returning the kindness. Thus, NDE memes spread, and among them is the idea that people who have had NDEs behave more altruistically.

Other forms of the altruism trick are nastier. The Christian version of NDEs depends heavily on the idea that only good people go to heaven. Having a beautiful NDE implies you are a good person and should be believed. This also means that people who have hellish NDEs are less likely to report them, and their memes will do less well (not to mention the fear and loneliness they must feel if they cannot talk about their experiences). Disbelievers in life after death and researchers who pursue brain–based explanations are treated as nasty people who, if only they were nicer, would come to The Truth – another tactic that gives heavenly NDE memes the edge. No one wants to share the beliefs of a nasty person.

The most successful NDE memeplex in North America today is a rather sickly Christian version. Experiencers describe heavenly scenes, a classic Jesus, judgements based on the most narrow interpretation of morality, and lessons to be learned in this schoolroom of life. Their books stay on the best–seller lists for months and some of them become rich. In Europe, other versions seem to survive the competition a little better but, so far, scientific explanations are faring badly.

If we have to set naturalistic explanations against heavenly ones, then a memetic viewpoint is far more compatible with the former. But memetics cannot settle this impossible issue one way or the other. What it can do is explain why powerful myths spread through whole cultures and provide a shape for some of the most profound experiences of people’s lives. These strange experiences are, like all our experiences, dependent on a brain state that has been shaped by both genes and memes. I suggest we will come to understand them better when we stop trying to draw a line
between ‘real’ and ‘unreal’ experiences, and ask how particular experiences are created by natural and memetic selection.

From alien abductions and near–death experiences we can glimpse a general formula for certain kinds of successful memeplex. Take a highly emotional naturally occurring human experience with no satisfactory explanation, provide a myth that appears to explain it, and include a powerful being or unseen force that cannot easily be tested. As optional extras include other functions such as social coercion (the Old Hag gets you when you do wrong), reduction of fear (you’ll live forever in heaven), use the altruism trick (good people have this experience or believe this myth) or the truth trick (this explanation is The Truth).

Until recently, no one designed such memeplexes on purpose. They were designed by memetic selection. We may imagine that hundreds of thousands of myths and stories have been invented over the millennia and passed on by thousands and millions of people. The few that survived were the ones that had all the good tricks to aid their recall and propagation. Modern culture is the legacy of thousands of years of memetic evolution.

Divination and fortune–telling

From magic crystals and Tarot cards to the healing power of aromatherapy and homeopathy, memeplexes spread using the tricks I have described, and some of their carriers get rich at other people’s expense. Take Tarot cards, for example. Imagine you go to a Tarot reader and have the unnerving experience that she seems to know all about your life and personality and can give you advice over a problem that is troubling you. She seems to understand you uncannily well and gives details you think she could not possibly have known. Perhaps she says something like this (as you read this, try to imagine it is being said directly to you by a sincere looking, sympathetic woman who gives every sign of caring about you and your troubles, and looks deeply into your eyes between glances at the cards in front of her).

You have a need for other people to like and admire you, and yet you tend to be critical of yourself. Disciplined and self–controlled on the outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure on the inside. At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision.

I see from this card that you love animals. You have a cat, and the cards tell me you went to France last year. I know you are worried about the pain
in your back but the orientation of this card shows that it will improve soon. I can see you playing as a child – now you may not know this yourself, but if you look carefully you will find you have a scar on your left knee.

Evidence suggests that Tarot readers succeed by (mostly unconsciously) using the perfectly normal skills of responding to feedback, reading subtle body language, and using the ‘Barnum Effect’ – that is, using statements that almost everyone will judge as true of themselves but not of others. I took the first three sentences from the classic Barnum Personality Reading (Forer 1949). Other Barnum statements include positive ones (few people would admit to not being kind–hearted), double–headed statements (one half is bound to be true of you) and ambiguous ones (read in what you like). Correct names and dates can be homed in on by trial and error in the certainty that clients will forget all the wrong tries, and will remember questions as though they were statements of fact. The little details I gave were ones I had heard so often that I included them in a survey of over 6000 readers of a British newspaper (Blackmore 1997). Among the results were that 29 per cent owned a cat, 27 per cent had been to France in the past year, 30 per cent were suffering pain in their back (and that’s not including all the ones who might have had back pain in the past) and 34 per cent had a scar on their left knee (note the importance of scars in abductions too). You do not need to get every statement right to make a good impression.

So clients go away impressed and the Tarot reader becomes even more convinced of her powers, but that is not all. In the process, the clients pick up lots of Tarot card memes. The reader has special powers that you do not have. Tarot cards hold ancient mysteries that cannot be tapped by unbelievers. When you shuffle them they magically tune in with the rhythms of the universe and unfold your secret destiny. They will reveal the good in you and put you in touch with your higher nature – and so on.

These memes are successful because they seem to explain the client’s experience and include all the right tricks. The fear they prey on is the fear of uncertainty and of making the wrong decisions in a horribly complex world. People typically go to psychics when they are at their lowest and want guidance. This means they are all the more likely to fall for claims of higher powers or of special insight. The ‘illusion of control’ also works in favour of these memes. Stress is reduced when control over a situation is increased – and if real control is not possible, an illusion of control will do (Langer 1975). Many experiments have shown the power of this
illusion, and believers in the paranormal are more prone to it than disbelievers (Blackmore and Troscianko 1985). Similar arguments apply to the memeplexes associated with clairvoyance, palmistry, Feng Shui, divination with pendulums, and dowsing with twigs. Literally thousands of experiments have demonstrated without a shadow of a doubt that the claims of astrology are false (Dean
et al.
1996) and yet one–quarter of American adults believe in the basic tenets of astrology and 10 per cent read an astrology column regularly (Gallup and Newport 1991). I think these disturbing facts are better explained in terms of the power of the memes to replicate themselves than by writing off so many people as simply stupid, ignorant or gullible.

Note the powerful use of the altruism trick in some New Age phenomena. Crystals imbued with special powers are created to help you; the ancient Egyptian food supplement will improve your life and fill you with natural vitality; a consultation with the colour therapist will harmonise your energies with the universe. The psychic is a spiritual person who is there only to help you (and does not really want to charge a fee). In fact, these methods of divination are just ways of appearing to see the future or read a person’s mind, but they are routinely associated with goodness, love, compassion, and spirituality. We rarely ask the obvious question – what is ‘spiritual’ about astrology or a crystal ball? There is no obvious answer and yet these methods trade on that association. Bookshops categorise them all as ‘Mind, Body and Spirit’. This is not good news for true compassion or spirituality. It is very good news for the moneymaking memes of the New Age.