Paranormal

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“My return trip to the psychic fair” (Undercover at a paranormal expo)

dogpsychic

This past weekend, the second annual Quad Cities Psychic and Paranormal Fair was held. Sponsors encouraged attendees to keep an open mind, but I did leave room in there for three questions for those plying their mystic merchandise: What is this? How does it work? How do you know it works?

We’ll take one merchant at a time, followed by analysis of their psychic prowess.

BROKEN RECORD

What is this?

I can talk with animals, I can do Akashik readings, and I do intuitive readings.

What is an Akashik reading?

An Akashik record is an energetic record of your soul across all lifetimes. It goes a little deeper than other types of readings.

How does it work?

We open your records by saying a prayer and then you I ask you questions and we have a conversation and I give you the information that comes to me, and we have a dialogue.

How do you know it works?

Because I feel the energy coming in and it makes me shudder.

Analysis: Sounds like a draft.

TURTLE SOUP

What is this?

I do animal spirit readings

What is that?

You pick out the cards and based on what animals you pick, it tells me about you. For instance, the turtle represents Mother Earth, so that would show you’re concerned about the environment.

How does it work?

We pick one card for each of the directions and one card for the middle, and we can reference what that says about you. Then my guides come through and protect against negative energy so we know the reading is accurate.

How do you know it works?

Because people ask me, “How did you know that?” And I say, “I don’t.” I never know what’s going to come through. I’m just a conduit for the animal guides.

Analysis: I recommend the zoo instead. You get more than five animals and you cut out the middle man since they can guide themselves.

CERTIFICATE OF INAUTHENTICITY

What is this?

Angel-reading cards

How does it work?

We let you know what the angels have to say. She has her deck and I have mine, so you two angel readers for the price of one. It reveals what they want you to know. Angels are around us all the time. The archangels will come and let you know who or what can help you.

How do you know it works?

Because I’m certified.

Analysis: She’s winging it.

THE HEAD SCRATCHER

What is this?

Craniosacral therapy.

How does it work?

It has to do with the cerebral spinal fluid, which is what houses all of the nerves in the nervous system. This therapy bathes and nourishes and protects it. It’s it the meninges, in the cranium, and goes all the way to the sacrum. And the idea is that there’s a rhythm that’s involved in the expansion and contraction of the craniosacral system. The sutures in the cranial bones allow for some flexibility and the idea is to make sure the system is able to expand and contract without any restrictions.

Is it for specific issues like a sore arm or for general health?

It works for everything.

How do you know it works?

It’s similar to massage or chiropractic, but focuses on the scalp. It balances the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system. One is for fight-or-flight and the other is for digestion, rest, and immune system functioning. What craniosacral therapy does is beneficial in resetting those two contrary nervous systems.

Analysis: Recommended for dandruff.

STONE CRYSTAL PILOTS

What is this?

Crystals and stones.

How do they work?

They have different aspects for healing. For instance, this chart shows that agate is for bringing stability to your life, or that topaz makes you more financially stable. You just put them in your pocket and use them as a focal point.

How do you know it works?

Because different people have channeled information about them.

Analysis: Change the channel.

POSITIVE BIOFEEDBACK

What is this?

Biofeedback and chakra imaging. It’s going to tell me what your chakras look like and how balanced everything is inside of you, and I get intuitive information as well.

How does it work?

It has biosensors. You put your hand here and it reads your heartrate and it tells me exactly what you look like. It’s very accurate. It’s less influenced by the things around you than is the Kirlian photography. Whatever is vibrating close to you in your auric field will be the most prominent.

What does it reveal?

It gives you confirmation for the things that are going on that you need validation for, that you maybe didn’t want to look at. I channel spirits a lot so I can see what a person is going through.

How do you know it works?

The validation of the people that I’ve read over the years.

Analysis: Valid reports of those seeking validation reporting being validated.

LIGHTEN UP

What is this?

Past-life readings

How does it work?

The spirit gives me a vision and I start describing that and it goes into more detail. I ask the spirit to show me what is most important for you to know right now, just look for patterns, things that need healing, or help you understand why you are the way you are.

How do you know it works?

Some people I can see are lighter when they get up out of the chair because a weight has been lifted. For instance, if you have a phobia about snakes or closed spaces, you go back to when that began, then it cures it all the way down the timeline.

Analysis: Not recommended for weight loss.

KNIFE STRIFE

What is this?

Shamanic healing

What is that?

Your energy body sometimes picks up energy that is heavy. It can be the result of accidents, traumas, or a childhood experience. What we do is detect them and clear them out of your field. We get information along the way so as we’re reading somebody, we might get information about what is going on.

Is it physical healing or more mental?

That depends on the energy in your field. You might have physical pain in the back of your shoulder because there’s some heavy energy directed toward it. If someone stabbed you in the back metaphorically, you can feel it physically.

What is the healing process like?

We remove that heavy energy and return it to normal. Sometimes it’s in thought form and caused by our belief systems and the way we were raised. We hold onto that but it doesn’t really serve us. The energy comes from our ancestors. It’s in our DNA.

How do you know it works?

We see the change in our clients. Do you sense energy here that is stuck in your back?

My back seems fine, but I’ll remember to be on the lookout for energy blockage there.

Analysis: Won’t be back.

OILS NOT WELL

What is this?

Essential oils. They all do good stuff for the body.

How does it work?

Smell it. That gets it into your system. You can put a dab in your palm or your wrist. That puts it in the bloodstream that takes it to the rest of the body. Normally we say put it on the bottom of your feet because it has all the reflex points.

(Looking at chart) So if you have frankincense, you could use it on these illnesses?

Frankincense is an excellent oil, yes.

How do you know it works?

Young Living is the only essential oil that has the research behind it.

Such as what?

Here is a reference book that talks about the basics of essential oils and their purity. It shows photos of some of the farms where the plants are grown. We own the majority of our farms. The soil is completely organic and completely pure. There hasn’t been any chemical touching it. We repopulate, we replant, you can look up each oil and find out tons of information about it, and its constituents. It also tells you historically how it was used, it has information on the various blends you can create and what those are good for. I could just go on and on.

(She could go on and on, although apparently without addressing the research my question was about). But you’re saying they’ve done studies about this?

Young Living is full of doctors and researchers and scientists constantly doing research. We lead the world in frankincense research for cancer and tumors.

You can use frankincense for cancer?

Frankincense is one of the best cancer fighters around, and lemon is also very anti-tumoral and fights cancers.

I was thinking chemotherapy for cancer patients, and here they should have been gardening.

If a cancer patient had started using frankincense 10 years ago, chances are things could be different. Even if they’re in chemo now, adding this to their regimen could help. Ours are pure, the other essential oil companies’ products are chemically made.

And these don’t contain chemicals?

None.

They’d have to have chemicals in them.

Young Living oils do not have chemicals in them, no compounds, nothing.

Anything beyond a pure element is going to be a compound or a mixture.

Young Living uses plant products.

But they still contain chemical compounds. Even water is a chemical compound.

I’m not a scientist. (This won the day’s “No Shit” Award)

Well, what is this graph here with the chakras?

The oils have very high frequencies and energies. Some of them are better at promoting chakra health depending on where you use it. This tells you frankincense is very good for the head or that lavender works around the heart. If you want to anoint each chakra as you’re mediating, this enhances that. And then there’s a blend called White Angelica that repels negativity and increases your frequency and your spirits.

Do you use them?

Oh yes. I threw out all that junk – medicines, cleaning supplies, makeup, and it just took a weight off the house. The negativity of those chemical products was not there.

Analysis: Compound fracture

GAG REFLEX

What is this?

Reflexology.

How does it work?

I massage your hands and feet and feel for the pressure points. I can sometimes tell what’s going on in your body and adjust it or help you overcome your issues or detect the energies.

How do you know if something needs fixed?

(Takes my hand). Do you feel that little pop there? That’s what I feel for and know that something is stressed.

How do you know it works?

My clients say, “That feels better.”

Analysis: Good if you need to outsource your knuckle-popping.

TELE-PHONY

What is this?

Thomas Edison’s spirit phone, the spirit phone to the dead. You turn it on and can her your loved ones’ voices come through.

How does it work?

I’m going to talk a little more about it in a presentation at 1 p.m. (I’m sensing he wants me to pay. I foresee not doing so).

How do you know it works?

Thousands of people have heard the voices come through. (Or sounds that were voices with the help of apophenia and a tremendous amount of conditioning and prompting).

Analysis: Hang up.

GOOD READ

What is this?

Energy readings.

How does it work?

I just read your energy and a lot of things come up and I can provide guidance. It’s like most other readings except that I don’t use cards

How do you know it works?

I’m usually right on with what’s going on with people. And it doesn’t necessarily have a lot of detail about them. It’s just kind of where you’re at and what kind of balance you need. Do you come to these kind of events very often?

Well, they’ve had two and I’ve been to both of them, so I guess I’m a regular.

You must have some kind of an interest in this stuff.

You’ve got me down. You ARE an energy reader, you know me.

That’s what I sensed from you, that you had an interest in this kind of stuff. (She sensed it within two minutes of meeting me at an event that focused entirely on the topic!)

Analysis: Weakly reader

I’M COMING, ELIZABETH

What is this?

Past-life Hypnosis.

Who is Elizabeth?

She is who I was in a past life.

How does this work?

I do it as a therapy. If someone has a lot of weight they can’t get rid of, we delve into why, and sometimes it will be several past lives. One woman had 100 pounds she could not get rid of. In a past life she was a small child and her father left them, then her mother died. She was scrounging for food and starved to death. That had happened to her in a couple of lifetimes. Her compensation in this life was to always have her refrigerator and cupboard full, and to eat constantly, from her previous life’s fear of starvation.

How do you pick up their past lives, or do the clients pick them up?

I tell them, go back to whatever, and tell me what you’re experiencing.

How to you know it works?

It could be just that their subconscious mind venturing to some area that help them resolve issues. Can I proves there is such a thing as reincarnation? No. Can I prove it doesn’t exist? No.

Oh, you’re a Ph.D. What in?

Chemical hypnotherapy.

Analysis: Doctored credentials.

MACHINE IN THE GHOST

What is this?

Paranormal investigations

What is it?

We do mostly residences. We check them out and see if there’s a ghost there.

How does it work?

These are some of the tools we use. This is an EMF reader, and this is a K2. We also have motion detectors and cameras.

When you pick something up, how do you know it’s a ghost as opposed to something else causing the frequency or electronic disturbance?

If it’s a ghost, it will have a lot more electricity and it has a lot of dead space around it. You can tell because it will answer your question. You can ask it to beep once for yes or twice for no.

Can they ask you questions?

For that, we use a radio to detect what’s going on and you can pick up the voice.

Analysis: There’s a 50 percent chance they’re right about it being a ghost. The only other voices that come through the radio belong to the living.

GIVEN THE RUNE-AROUND

What is this?

Rune readings. They come out of Viking culture. The runes were given to them by the gods to help clarify their mind.  

How does it work?

I have people put their hands in the bowl and spin around, until one feels good. They do that five times. Each symbol has a different meaning and they play off of each other. I just tell the person what it says. It’s up to them to relate it to their question.

How do you know it works?

Because I’ve done it for myself many a time. If I have trouble or questions or need clarification, I pull them out and think, yeah. It helps to clarify the situation, and sometimes it reveals something you didn’t want to acknowledge. Sometimes it’s what other people have told you many times.

Analysis: I can relate because other people have told me stories just like this many times. It’s called subjective validation.

TATTOO YOU

What is this?

I’m an astrologer

How does it work?

When you’re born, all the energy is tattooed onto your soul and that’s what we read, your energetic soul. It tells me a little bit about where you left off in your past life, you soul’s intent for this lifetime, and some of the major areas you need to focus on.

How to you access it?

I just need the time and place of your birth.

How do you know it works?

Because I’ve lived through it and heard a lot of testimonials. It’s been scientifically proven that every planet, star, and asteroid has its own energy, so that energy comes down and effects all of humanity.

What kind of energy is it?

I don’t know, other than we each have our own specific energy that we’re made of. The cosmos are very chaotic right now and so it’s very chaotic down here, with the earthquake in Nepal and riots in Baltimore. The earth is absorbing all that energy.

Analysis: Baltimore Flop.

BIOHAZARD

What is this?

This is acupressure and reflexology, and we also have a biomat.

What is a biomat?

It’s cleansing and energizing. It has amethyst crystals woven throughout it. Even to just lay on it for a while is refreshing. You feel yourself sinking, sinking, sinking into the sea of warmth and you’ll feel it penetrating. What happen is, the far infrared heat passes deeper into your internal organs.

What is acupressure?

The pressing of certain points on your body, and I know where they are. It stimulates those acupressure points and relaxes the muscles and helps you feel better. Or if you have the flu, it would help boost your immune system.

What is reflexology?

I have this handy-dandy chart here. You can see here that your internal organs are represented on your feet. So just by pressing the corresponding point, it stimulates the healing process to these organs. It increases the flow of chi, which is your life force energy that flows through these energetic chakras called meridians. The ideas is to stimulate so your body release neurochemicals.

How do you know it works?

Well, women who can’t get pregnant can get pregnant. People with huge sinus issues walk out and can breathe, a person has a headache and it’s gone. People don’t understand how it works. But reflexology goes way back to Egyptian times. Acupuncture goes back to Chinese medicine 3 to 5,000 years ago. If it didn’t work, people wouldn’t be using it.

Analysis: Seems to be working in reverse. I only got a headache after hearing all this.

WATCHING PAINT DRY

What is this?

I paint your soul. It takes about an hour and a half.

How does it work?

You give me your name – it has to be your birth name – and your birthday, and the spirit guides me to create these. It talks to me and that’s how it happens. It’s been happening since I was very young. Some people say, “I don’t like this or that,” but that’s just it. That’s what God told me to paint. The spirit tells me what you are, not what you want.

How do you know it works?

Because I always see it. I don’t question it any more.

Analysis: Souled out.

PICTURE DAZE

What is this?

Aura photography. Everybody has an aura energy that is around them. We have a camera that takes a picture of it.

How does it work?

It’s based on Kirlian photography and you put your hand here and it gets the feedback off of it, and you can see the colors. It means different things depending on what’s going on. It’s energy that’s put off and it also gives details as to what’s going on in your chakras. You can see your energy throughout your entire body.

Analysis: Aura of gullibility.

CRUDE PYRAMID

What is this?

Attunement. This pyramid will connect to the universal vibrational energy field being emitted to our planet. You will be attuned to an amazing, powerful, and more highly-refined spiritual energy by opening your upper chakras to receive those given to you.

How does it work?

Pyramids have been around for many centuries. This is a model of the Giza pyramid, and the energy of a Giza pyramid is as a transmitter. Then this over here is a 4-4-4 pyramid, meaning it is four feet wide, high, and deep, and you sit inside it. Your body is an electromagnetic field and on a daily basis, it collects harmful debris from the environment, from X-rays, from cell phones, and from things we don’t even think about. The worst is people energy. Everybody’s intuitive, so if you’re in a group and they’re all negative, you can feel it. When you’re in the pyramid, it reverses the polarity of the negative charge that’s attached to you.

How do you know it works?

Scientists figured it out.

Analysis: My intuition feels negative about this.

I will close by relating that I found one merchant I believed in, one who proved she could deliver as promised. Consistent with her claimed ability, the concessionaire handed me a 7-Up and popcorn. And I’m pretty sure the corn was GMO.

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“Spoke on the Water” (Jennifer Groesbeck case)

BABY

Jennifer Groesbeck died last week when her car crashed into Utah’s Spanish Fork River. This tragedy would normally have been a regional story, but it became a major news event because her 18-month old daughter Lily survived half a day hanging upside down, her car seat positioned above the water.

But it was a specific element to the rescue that garnered much of the attention. The four hero police officers who rescued the baby later reported they heard an adult voice coming from the car. Officer Jared Warner said he had no explanation for the voice. But hundreds of posters on CNN, Fox News, and other sites filled the void. It was an angel or the mother’s ghost, they emphatically declared, often in all caps and with exclamation points to the power of 10. Praises were lifted to God for sparing the baby, with no accompanying curses for him leaving the young girl motherless.

There’s no reason to believe the officers invented the tale. It could have been the child, but this is unlikely since she would have had to go from speaking to unconscious in the relatively short time it took for the sounds to be heard and the rescue made. Another possibility is the officers were experiencing apophenia, where one detects patterns or phenomenon in sights and sounds. This happens when you wrongly think your cell phone is vibrating or that there’s a knock at the front door when you’re in the basement. Expectation can make a person especially vulnerable to this.

Discovery.com related a story from 2012, where customs officials searched a cargo ship for suspected stowaways. The officials heard knocking and shouts of distress from the ship’s containers. But when opened, no one was inside. The officials’ anticipation had led them to misinterpret other sounds as panicked pleas. This could have been what the Utah police officers experienced. Boats, anglers, bicyclists, hikers, frogs, birds, echoes, trucks, or a flowing river could have made sounds that were interpreted by adrenaline-pumped rescuers as a plea from the netherworld.

There’s no recording of the event, so there’s no bolstering either position, whether asserting the miraculous or the mundane. The accident report has yet to be made available, but it will contain a crucial point, either by documentation or omission. If the four officers independently reported a voice coming from the car, this would be strong evidence they heard something. Not necessarily a deceased woman yelling, but something. But if the memory of the cry for help only surfaced when they were discussing it afterward, with one mentioning it, then another saying maybe he did too, and the others coming to that conclusion, this would be strong evidence of distorted memories and groupthink.

Sharon Hill, editor of Doubtful News, said these ghostly tales are a societal phenomenon. “The apparent sighting or sign suggesting the intervention of a guardian angel are very common cultural stories,” she said. “These types of colorful flourishes are a result of the person relating the story interpreting it in a comforting way. We interpret the event in the framework of our beliefs.”

Unlike the great majority of excited posters who declare there is no possibility beyond their interpretation, I do not assert absolutely that this was apophenia or groupthink. But I do insist that no miracle is required to survive a car crash that is reported by a fisherman, responded to by police officers, and mitigated by a functioning car seat.

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“Loco-motor” (Ideomotor response)

OUIJA WITH DOWSINGWith your team needing to stop the clock to set up a last-second field goal, you spike an imaginary football into the living room carpet. You sway your head back and forth to John Michael Montgomery (or preferably something better). You make a subtle chewing motion and lick your lips when someone mentions chocolate-covered cherries.

These are manifestations of the ideomotor response, a physiological phenomenon in which physical movements occur simultaneously with our thoughts, memories, and emotions. They are sometimes mostly conscious, such as the imaginary football spike, and other times semiconscious, such as with the music or cherries. It is the unconscious manifestations we will address, manifestations that are sometimes harmless, sometimes comic, and sometimes tragic.

In these instances, the person has no awareness they are executing the movements, which leaves them open to the suggestion that something magical, mystical, or sinister is in play.

Dr. William Carpenter discovered the phenomenon in 1852 and created the word, a portmanteau of idea and motor (for muscle movement). He deduced that the influence of suggestion or expectation led to involuntary and unconscious motor behavior. While Carpenter gave it a name, its use went back several centuries prior. Its most frequent appearance was in divining rods or dowsing tools. These were primarily used to locate water, but were also touted as being able to find oil, gold, golf balls, missing persons, or anything else a person was after.

It usually involved a wishbone shaped rod or twig, which the operator swept over an area. Eventually, the point would swivel, indicating the area where digging should commence. Advocates traditionally employed metallurgical mumbo-jumbo to explain how it worked, though today one is more likely to hear something mystic like Qi given as the magic power.

In actuality, the keys are involuntary muscle movements and motivated reasoning. It might fail once, twice, thrice, or a dozen times, but if it eventually unearths what one is looking for, the previous failures are overlooked and success declared. If all efforts fizzle, there are any number of justifications offered: Bad energy, crossed signals, too hot, too cold, static electricity, solar flares, or the operator’s poor body chemistry.

Divining rods have adapted for the 21st Century. The identifying factors of modem dowsing devices include technobabble, a sleek look, and an outrageous price. The most expensive ones run close to $10,000 despite featuring ersatz electronics and no success in independent testing.

It would be one thing if purveyors were just taking money, but they have also taken lives. In Iraq, dowsing rods were modernized for the War on Terror and rebranded as bomb detectors. Desperate and gullible militaries and governments gobbled them up.

The most infamous was the Alpha 6, which Sam and Joan Tree fastened together with cheap parts from China. The assembly was a plastic box without electronic components and a freely-rotating piece of metal passing as an antenna. The Trees had essentially reworked a $12 golf ball dowser, attributed life-saving properties to it, and sold it for $25,000. They raked in $3 million before being busted. It was sold to other audiences as a device for finding lost children. It must have been really good at locating juvenile suicide bombers.

Meanwhile, Paul Johnson offered the Sniffex explosives detector to the U.S. military and sold $50,000 worth. The Navy conducted double blind tests on the Sniffex and found it performed no better than chance. In a typical failure, a truck laden with a half-ton of explosives was driven next to a Sniffex without the combustibles being detected. Johnson offered the ad hoc reasoning that the testing area was polluted with explosive residue, throwing off the device. Rather bad trait for a bomb detector to have, being confused by too many explosives.

Another unfortunate consequence of the ideomotor response has occurred with facilitated communication. This is used to assist persons who have speech impairment due autism, cerebral palsy, or similar conditions. A facilitator supports an arm of the subject, and moves toward the place on the keyboard it feels drawn.

The technique has failed repeatedly in scientific testing. In every instance, the responses were those of the facilitator rather than the subject. For instance, a partition was placed between the two, and the facilitator would be shown a photo of crocodile and the subject a photo of a dog. Invariably, it was the amphibian that was typed in when the tester asked what animal was seen.

When more involved questions were asked, the same vernacular, phrases, and even misspellings of the facilitator were prevalent. Elementary school children were typing words like dissertation and ameliorate. This proved to be devastating for parents who thought their children had been able to communicate with them for the first time. The biggest victims were two fathers whose facilitators had typed in accusations of sexual assault against the men.

Perhaps the most well-known ideomotor responses are in conjunction with the Ouija Board. Though accused by some of being Satan’s spawn, the board is merely a game invented in the 1890s and manufactured today by Hasbro. Like facilitated communication, it relies on users to manually spell out words. One or two persons will hold a teardrop-shaped implement called a planchette and move it about the board. Of course, the contacted spirit always uses the same language, speaking style, and grammatical errors of the planchette operators.

That the Ouija Board was merely the ideomotor response in action was best demonstrated by Penn & Teller. The illusionist duo had a couple use the Ouija Board, then blindfolded them before stealthily turning the board 180 degrees. Subsequent responses had the couple moving the planchette to the opposite side of the board from where the letters had been previously.

I’ve been addressing alternative medicine with enough frequency that I was hoping to get away from it for a while. But alas, it rears its unscientific head here. For the ideomotor response figures prominently in radionics and applied kinesiology.

Radionics is the purported ability to detect radiation in people. Devices allegedly measure radiation (or vibrations or Qi) in order to diagnose disease. This treatment is done by using an unproven energy said to be akin to radio waves. Radionics is inconsistent with biology and physics and has no scientific basis. The practitioner does little more than wave a box with protrusions around a client until he feel pulled in one direction. The boxes may produce measurable readings, but there’s no connection between these measurements and disease or tissue damage.

Onto applied kinesiology, which is the claimed ability to diagnose and treat illnesses by gauging muscular strength. Its methodology is to assess how a client’s muscles respond to being pushed against, with this somehow revealing what ails him. Testing relies on subjective assessment, so different practitioners could decide the same patient is at high risk, medium risk, or no risk. Or one advocate could find that the client has strained quadriceps, while another thinks the trouble is bloating.

When put to a scientific test, the field has never scored better than chance. It has this in common with all other ideomotor response-driven fields, where spooky tales and uncontrolled, unscientific experiments are given more credence than empirical evidence.

In personal experience, I have found the ideomotor response to be of mixed value. The last time I utilized the spike motion, the Chiefs stopped the clock, but missed the field goal.

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“Levity-ation” (Levitation)

LEVITATIONINGCAT

Levitation is the act of raising one’s self or an object without external aid. It has been scientifically verified aboard space stations, but is otherwise impossible. Tricksters have used illusion, strings, magnets, and other devices pull the ruse. However, since it is one of the easiest frauds to disprove, it is among the least frequently claimed of paranormal abilities. The few who attempt the charade today do it for a handful of audience members in a home setting, aided by darkness, lackeys, and suspension devices or weight-assisted trickery.

The only regular modern claimants are Transcendental Meditation proponents, who assume the lotus and bounce around chanting and rocking. They refer to this as Yogic Flying, which has three stages: Hopping, Floating, and Flying, with the first stage being the only one ever attained.

One technique for the charlatan of yore was to be sandwiched by a pair of strong henchmen, whom he tells he is becoming weightless. The sitter to the medium’s left would take his left hand, while the one on the right would place a hand on the medium’s shoes and hold them together. Done correctly, this would cause it to look like the medium was floating with minimal support, when of course his assistants were entirely responsible for his gravity defying.

Parlor tricksters and mediums were the most frequent levitation claimants, but the idea was too mystical for faith to be left out. It was a feature in the extinct religions of Gnosticism and Hellenism. It is still supported by Satanists, Buddhists, and Hindus, while Catholics have claimed a number of saints could do the trick. The ability is largely vacant in Protestant lore, although Jesus walking on water would be a close approximation. None of these claims have ever survived a scientific challenge, although the Hindus at least give the ability the excellent moniker of Frog Power.

Levitation reached its heyday in the 19th Century, being most popular in the urban U.S. and U.K. It fell out of favor when skeptics exposed their use of wires, pulleys, and lifting techniques. One of the more prominent charlatans was Daniel Home, who wowed audience members by levitating between two balconies before skeptics revealed that Home was merely resting on a connecting ledge, which oversized clothes shielded.

Another fraudster, Easapia Palldiono, claimed she could lift a table. Then two skeptics clandestinely entered a darkened dining room she was working in and snuck under the table. There, they saw the charlatan’s foot strike a table leg to produce raps, which was meant to frighten and distract. The table tilted to the right because of the pressure of her right hand on the surface. Next, she placed her left foot under the left table leg. Pressing down on the tabletop with her left hand and up with her left foot under the table leg, she lifted her foot, causing the table to seemingly rise.

Those less confident in their abilities used photographs. Examination revealed the ruse, with the usual culprit being muslin incorporated to suspend the objects. Signs of the fraud included blurry body parts that suggested bouncing, a waving scarf, and suspended hair. Very few photographs of purported levitation are offered any more since photos are much easier to manipulate and even the gullible would likely not be swayed.

If attempted at all today, the objects are much lighter than a body or table. The levitator, for instance, may use a pencil or telephone book pages. Doing this successfully requires control, not of the brain but of the breath. The trick is to clandestinely blow on the object, usually with the mouth half open. During the short time it takes the shot of breath to reach the object, the person will look away. Also, they are careful to blow at the surface, not the object.

The most well-known practitioner was James Hydrick, who demonstrated the ability on “That’s Incredible!” He failed to replicate the feat on Bob Barker’s “That’s My Line” when James Randi was on stage. Hydrick did it once, but then Randi placed packaging peanuts around the pages, peanuts that would move away if blown on.

Hydrick failed to show any telekinesis talents, but he demonstrated remarkable ability in the ad hoc reasoning department. He said stage lights were infusing the peanuts with a static charge, and that this charge added weight to the pages. Hydrick spent 90 minutes flailing and failing, blowing it indeed.

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“L. Ron Shuttered” (Scientology)

CLAMMANThe four main targets of skeptics are the paranormal, alternative medicine, pseudoscience, and religion. The one entity that fits in all these categories is Scientology.

It started in the early 1950s as a mix of hypnosis, science fiction, and terrible psychology. A few years later, L. Ron Hubbard founded the Church of Scientology after saying he discovered the soul (and its accompanying tax exempt status).

He outlines his ideas in Dianetics. Throughout the book, Hubbard makes vague, extraordinary, and unfalsifiable claims, such as “Dianetics contains a therapeutic technique which can treat all inorganic mental ills and organic psychosomatic ills, with assurance of a complete cure.” Grandiose, untestable, and non-peer reviewed claims like these are featured in many other pseudosciences and pseudomedicines. What differentiates Scientology from the rest is its $100,000,000 in annual tax free income.

If Dianetics truly is medicine, that means Scientologists should be arrested for practicing it without a license. Moving onto the pseudoscientific, Hubbard writes, “Dianetics is an organized science of thought built on definite axioms and natural laws and physical sciences.” However, Hubbard never uses the Scientific Method, never explains his research (generously assuming he conducted any), and subjected none of it to peer review.

The gist of it all is that mental and psychosomatic illnesses are traced to engrams. These are ghosts of unpleasant experiences. If something bad happens when hearing a lawn mower, hearing the same sound later might bring back that bad feeling or illness. Anxiety, claustrophobia, and hacking coughs all come back to the engram. There is no way to empirically test such claims and Diantetics “research” is limited to anecdotes from persons who may not be real.

Dianetics is an arduous read, full of undefined terms, unproven claims, and insufferable, tangential language. One example: “An engram is a definite and permanent trace left by a stimulus on the protoplasm of a tissue. It is considered as a unit group of stimuli impinged solely on the cellular being. Engrams are only recorded during periods of physical or emotional suffering. During those periods the analytical mind shuts off and the reactive mind is turned on. The analytical mind has all kinds of wonderful features, including being incapable of error.”

Imagine going through 600 pages of that. No telling how many engrams that has caused. Elsewhere, Hubbard writes, “Cells are evidently sentient in some currently inexplicable way. Unless we postulate a human soul entering the sperm and ovum at conception, there are things which no other postulate will embrace than that these cells are in some way sentient.” Hubbard here gets in three logical fallacies in just two sentences: The false dilemma, the appeal to ignorance and begging the question.

Like all good religions, Scientology creates both the problem and the solution. To get cured of an illness, you need a Dianetic therapist to release the engram. To do this, the Scientologist uses what Hubbard calls a reverie. He describes this as intense use of a faculty of the brain which everyone possesses, but only Hubbard got around to noticing. Hubbard goes through a verbose description of the process, but in the end it’s little more than one man telling another his worries. A bartender does that, plus you get a beer with it.

Accompanying these release sessions are a piece of ersatz electronics called an Electropsychometer, a sort of rudimentary polygraph. Per Dianetics, the meter is used to measure “the state of electrical characteristics of the static field surrounding the body,” a scientifically worthless claim. Usually, the subject holds something akin to a soda can with protruding wires, while repeating “Thetan.” Once free of engrams, the person “would be in full control of their mind and psyche. As such they would have special abilities, such as perfect memory and analytical powers.” So then, an hour with Scientology Man and one’s problems are solved for life, right?

In reality, sessions get more costly and can create a cycle of persons returning for more expansive and expensive cures. The meter, when used by a trained Scientologist, is supposed to show if a person has been freed of spiritual baggage. With a claim this vague, as well as there being no way to tell how the meter works or how the therapist is reading the data, the subject can be kept coming back indefinitely. With the money some people spend on this, they could have started their own movement.

Since it only became a church for legal benefits, Scientology barely ventures onto religious terrain. But when it does, it can compete with the Venusian telepathic communicators and Magic Underwear purveyors. It teaches that an alien dubbed Xenu led a contingent of space ships to Earth 75 million years ago and blew up some volcanoes. Aliens died in the explosion, with any persons that have come along since bearing the Scientology equivalent of Original Sin. Blurring the thin line between religion and the paranormal, Scientology holds that the alien genocide victims are still around in energy form, emitting negative vibes that Diantetics will protect from. Hubbard was a science fiction writer before penning Dianetics, so Xenu and his minions may be part of a shelved work.

Scientology doesn’t really address god, but Scientologists who attain a higher level can access Thetans, which are the dead space aliens. These are the same aliens that were best avoided before, but graduate level Scientologists presumably have some secret knowledge that allow them to do this safely. Scientology maintains man is immortal, but offers little about the afterlife or how people can increase their chances of a good one.

The movement has a litany of other oddities, such as believing in man’s descent from clams. Also, Hubbard was against both breastfeeding and baby formula. So he came up with his own concoction, one conspicuously lacking in vitamins. He was also against pain medication for birthing mothers, a great irony since he was also against noise in the delivery room. Then we have the Purification Rundown, where Scientologists ingest large doses of vitamins before hopping in the sauna for a five-hour sojourn. I actually do this one. Except the vitamins are in orange juice form and I skip the sauna part.

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“Astral misconception” (Astral projection)

NDEAn out-of-body experience, sometimes called astral projection, refers to person feeling they are detached from their body. But the person is not out of their body, nor out of their mind.

The feelings can occur when the person is hovering near death, but also can be brought about through a variety of physiological, psychological, and experimental means. The most frequent avenue is via oxygen deprivation and hyperventilation. They can also be experienced after a localized epileptic seizure or through the influence of anesthetics. In addition, they can be created artificially by electrically stimulating the brain’s temporal and parietal lobes.

Regions related to our proprioception are activated during OBEs. These regions impact our sense of the relative position of different parts of the body, as well as the effort required to move. Intoxication disrupts proprioception, which is why drunks are unable to close their eyes and touch their nose. Similarly, disrupting this sense causes some out-of-body experiences.

Researchers in London demonstrated this on volunteers. Scientists sat the subjects in chairs and had them peer into goggles connected to video screens that showed the volunteers’ backs. When researchers touched the volunteers’ chests with rods, the subjects felt as though they were removed from their bodies and were observing them from a distance.

Feelings similar to this have been reported by survivors of plane crashes and car accidents, as well as those suffering epileptic seizures. When someone is dying or experiencing a seizure, neurons can misfire, cutting the flow of oxygen to the brain. This screwing with the visual cortex leads to visions of white light, tunnels, and feelings of warmth. These are common in the out-of-body experience’s faith-based cousin, the Near Death Experience.

During such an experience, pupils widen, reducing the depth of field. This means the person sees a bright light, and any persons in front of them seem to be bathed in a pleasant glow. By contrast, any images on the periphery are blurry.

Oxygen starvation also causes failure of organs and tissues, but since the eyes and brain are most sensitive to its effects, they shut down first. The brain stem, meanwhile, is the most resistant to oxygen starvation. Therefore, oxygen starvation will cause vision to fail before causing a loss of consciousness.

Consider what happens when a person faints, which occurs when there is a temporary failure of blood flow to the brain. As the process begins, a fainting victim will notice that everything is turning gray or black. This is because their vision failed before they lost consciousness. Some people also report tunnel vision just before going under.

Most people undergoing an NDE will report they felt themselves being drawn to the light. This may be due to the initial restoration of central vision, followed by the recovery of peripheral vision. This would cause a person to initially see what appeared to be a dot of light at the end of a tunnel. This light would grow as the vision increased, creating an illusion of moving through the tunnel.

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“Obtuse triangle” (Bermuda Triangle)

TRIANGLE
On Dec. 5, 1945, U.S. Navy aviators on a training mission went missing in the Atlantic Ocean. The 14 sailors and five airplanes were never found. Later in the week, a plane searching for the missing crewmen blew up.

The head pilot in the original flight thought he was headed toward the Florida Keys, when in fact he was already past them, and he continued farther east. The Navy attributed the incident to pilot error. Because faulty instruments, darkness, and weather were also thought to be factors, the head pilot’s family objected, and the official report was changed to attribute the incident to “causes unknown.” The report on the subsequent tragedy noted that “it too never returned,” an accurate but unnecessarily cryptic description of an aircraft lost when its fuel tank exploded. These unrelated and explicable tragedies birthed the belief in nefarious forces at work in a triangle whose points are Miami, Puerto Rico, and Bermuda. The Bermuda Triangle term had never been used before and was created to fit this new narrative.

The number of aircraft and sea vessels lost over the years is consistent with a busy shipping lane in a storm-prone area. There is no more percentage of unexplained loss here than in any other triangle, rectangle, or hendecagon one could invent. A NOVA investigation concluded that ships and planes behave no differently in the Triangle than anywhere else. Lloyd’s of London, which insures ships against disappearance or wreck, reports the number lost in the Triangle is consistent with its size and traffic.

The most thorough examination of Bermuda Triangle claims was conducted by author Lawrence Kusche. He researched original sources for each incident of missing craft in the Triangle, and regularly noted inconsistencies between writers’ claims and witness testimony and weather logs. Some embellished reports spoke of ideal conditions, when a check of the weather that day showed the opposite.

More egregious, some writers included media reports of missing aircraft, without bothering to learn that they were later located. Perhaps most ridiculous, some accounts listed aircraft and sea vessels lost after leaving the Triangle. This included a ship that went missing near Singapore after starting the journey in Miami. So even craft that went missing halfway around the world and were then found were added to the Triangle tally. There were also attempts at historical revisions, with false claims that the Mary Celeste and Santa Maria were lost in the area.

Besides the 1945 Navy incidents, there were three occurrences that garnered significant attention at the time. In 1963, the S.S. Marine Sulphur Queen tanker disappeared. None of its 39 crew members were found. Author Charles Berlitz claimed this occurred in good weather and baffled Coast Guard officials. Kusche’s research showed that, in fact, there were rough seas, structural damage, and a cargo of 15 tons of molten sulfur. During prior voyages, tons of sulfur had leaked into the tanker. This is a possible explanation, though it lacks the creativity of the theory which holds craft are shot down by a laser fired from the sunken Atlantis continent.

A freighter dubbed The Sandra was purported to have mysteriously disappeared in ideal weather, when it had gone down after encountering hurricane-force winds. The Freya was listed as being found ominously adrift in the Triangle, when it had been found abandoned in the Pacific Ocean.

Kusche found that most writers relayed their speculations onto fellow “researchers,” who did no follow up investigation. This sloppy research and communal reinforcement created the Bermuda Triangle myth that continues.

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“Oui little challenge” (Ouija board)

ouija

When I decided to start this blog, I was going through possible topics and the Ouija board briefly floated through my mind before being dismissed.

Some topics, such as the anti-vaccine movement, would be a Major League challenge for me, given my microscopic amount of medical knowledge. Others are double-A, such as cryptozoology, which requires addressing issues like eyewitness reports and the fact that animals are discovered all the time. Then we have a Rookie League challenge, such as homeopathy, which necessitates little more than explaining the process.

But Ouija boards seemed downright sandlot. I didn’t think anyone actually believed in them, except perhaps a middle school girl at a slumber party. Or maybe a fundamentalist Baptist preacher who thinks the planchette is being guided by a demon’s digits.

Then a successful, educated, religiously-ambiguous middle age woman told me she believed. If the idea is still out there, it needs to be addressed. So here, somewhat sheepishly, is my rundown of the Ouija board.

To the believer, it is a divination system that can reveal the past, aid in the present, and predict the future. In reality, it is nothing more than the ideomotor effect in action. This is when suggestion or expectation causes involuntary and unconscious motor behavior.

You can conduct a test to show how the ideomotor effect works. Hang a small weight like a ring from a string about two feet long. Hold the end of the string with your arm out in front of you and let the weight hang freely. Ask yourself a yes-or-no question, with clockwise being “yes,” and counterclockwise being “no.” Before long, “answers” will begin to emerge, as the ring will start to swing in small circles.

You are making imperceptible movements without knowing it, and the string causes these movements to be build. Eventually, it will develop into a full swinging motion. When the ideomotor effect kicks during Ouija board use, and the person believes the movement is coming from a spirit, they are vulnerable to all manner of suggestion.

Besides this physiological reason, the subconscious also comes into play when using the Ouija board. This was best demonstrated on Penn & Teller’s “Bullshit!” They had a pair of believers fiddle about with a Ouija board for a few minutes. Then the two were blindfolded and the board stealthily turned 180 degrees. The duo were then asked yes-or-no questions, and they brought the planchette to where they “yes” and “no” options had been before the board was moved.

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“Crossing Over to Long Island” (Mediums)

GHOUL
Psychics have come in many forms over the years: Soothsayers with their portent of doom; fortune tellers hovering over crystal balls; intense men in suits presiding over a séance in the dark. The most prominent these days is a woman who is from Long Island, is a medium, and is short on specifics.

While the skeptic movement is my greatest passion, I try to keep my posts light and nonjudgmental. That is not the case when I address the likes of Teresa Caputo and John Edward. I reserve great disdain for those who tell persons they are speaking with their dead relatives. I called them vultures until I realized this analogy was amiss. Vultures scavenge from the dead.

John Edward and Teresa Caputo prey on the living, making millions off grieving parents, children, and siblings, when they are at their most vulnerable.

These hucksters are graduate students in the twisted art of cold reading. They will ask, “Is there anyone here that has lost a sibling?” Well, yes, in an audience of 500, of course someone is going to qualify. Then they keep subsequent “guesses” vague enough that they keep scoring “hits” and the person, desperate to think they are connecting to a lost loved one, will buy it, and discard any “misses.” What seems like innocent conversation is actually the medium mentally feeling out the subject. They can gauge body language and voice inflection, and know when to proceed further. On television, of course, any misses are edited out, and there is the possibility of it being scripted.

Mediums claim the dead person is saying they loved music, being outdoors, or family time. Not once has the deceased announced, “My name is Joe and I was born on Jan. 26, 1931, in Tyler, Texas.”

Even some who acknowledge that Edward and Caputo are charlatans believe some good comes from what they do. They think Edward and Caputo offer those left behind peace and comfort. At best, this is true in the short term.

In the Kübler-Ross model, the five stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Someone who buys what Edward or Caputo are selling is vulnerable to spending an indeterminate amount of time in stages one or three. If someone claims to be speaking to a deceased loved one, the departed might not seem dead at all, and denial is an ongoing process. Those who see the same medium regularly are especially susceptible to the bargaining stage. For a price, the medium will send a few more pieces of netherwordly reassurance your way.

Not everyone accepts the Kübler-Ross Model and, of course, people grieve in different ways. But relying on a medium, rather than going through the normal process, will keep a person stuck in their grief and no genuine healing will occur.