A fifteen year old Nepalese boy, Ram Bahadur Banjan, who many believe to be the reincarnation of Lord Buddha, has been attracting worldwide attention. For the past six months he has been sitting under a banyan tree meditating, allegedly without taking food or drink. Thousands of pilgrims flock to him to receive his darshan, while critics are looking to test the truthfulness of his claims.

Investigating the Reincarnation of Buddha discusses several approaches towards investigating the truthfulness of these claims while citing historical precedence of similar cases. All in all, it’s quite an interesting read. I totally love a world where a debunker cites the venerable Rev. Ivan Stang of the Church of the SubGenius and his classic dada-esque text, High Weirdness By Mail, as source material! I salute him.

And I totally admit that the world boasts no dearth of charlatans posing as gurus (just read Guruphiliac!), faking magical powers and superhuman feats (referred to in the classical yoga texts, like the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali as siddhis).

Herewith however, I’d like to break from common logic’s conclusions.

First, just because a urine analysis shows a spike of nutrients every fortnight, implying a secret intake of food, does not necessarily falsify the claim. Probabilities will indicate otherwise, yes the odds are against us, but we are discussing the exceptional here.

Secondly, I maintain that even when “science” debunks claims of the paranormal, or when gurus are exposed as frauds, this does not discount the value of the extra-normal experiences. Even when events are proved beyond all reasonable doubt to be hoax, the magic is not dead. Even when your guru has been “exposed”, this does not invalidate your experience and the lessons that you have learned and the reasons that you find yourself tangled within the riddle. And just because there’s a man behind the curtain, doesn’t necessarily mean that you didn’t speak with your dead father. The spirit realm, just like any other “energy”, will expend the least amount of energy needed to accomplish its task. The man behind the curtain could think he’s joking, but the spirit realm, could just as easily be surfing his will to action.

Things aren’t always what they seem.