Archbishop grounds the astral travellers

THOSE who have made a multi-million euro industry out of people’s gullibility are understandably angered by Archbishop Brady’s challenge to their wares (Irish Examiner, August 23).

Other non-religious commentators have already expressed concern about the growth of these quasi-supernatural salespeople. Comparing this kind of astral travelling with aspects of religious faith, which has proved a bulwark of reason against such twaddle ever since King Saul was told not to consult the witches of Endor, and which has bequeathed us whatever vestiges of civilisation we have, only demonstrates the silliness or slyness of their arguments. The archbishop is merely doing what any moral leader worth his salt should do by pointing people towards God-given reality and reason and away from superstition and manipulation. Even Shakespeare, a man of an even more gullible time than our own, observed: “The fault lies not in our stars but in ourselves”. But, as GK Chesterton once remarked, “those who cease to believe in God soon believe in anything”.

Fr Paul Clayton-Lea