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Sample the Skeptic's Dictionary

medium

In spiritualism, a medium is one with whom spirits communicate directly. In an earlier, simpler but more dramatic age, a good medium would produce voices or apports, ring bells, float or move things across a darkened room, produce automatic writing or ectoplasm, and, in short, provide good entertainment value for the money.

Today, a medium is likely to write bathetic inspirational books and say he or she is channeling, such as JZ Knight and the White Book of her Ramtha from Atlantis. Today’s most successful mediums, however, simply claim the dead communicate through them. Under a thin guise of doing “spiritual healing” and “grief counseling,” they use traditional cold reading techniques and sometimes surreptitiously gather information about their subjects to give the appearance of transmitting comforting messages from the dead. Subjective validation plays a key role in this kind of mediumship: The mediums rely upon the strong motivation of their clients to validate words, initials, statements, or signs as accurate. The clients' success at finding significance and meaning in the sounds made by the medium are taken as evidence of contact with the dead.>>more

sample Mysteries and Science (for kids 9 and up)

psychics

In a nutshell: Psychics are people who use ESP to find out what's happened somewhere in the past or at some distant place in the present or future. Are there any real psychics? The science says no, but many people believe they are psychic. And many people—including a few scientists—believe that psychics really do have ESP.

Psychics are people who say they get information about the past, present, and future by ESP. Psychics say they can "see" other places and times in their minds without using their eyes, ears, or other senses. Psychics say they can "see" what's in the minds of people around them and around the world. Psychics even claim to get messages from dead people.

Skeptics believe psychics get information the same way you and I do, through our senses. Skeptics don't deny that psychics are using a special part of the mind: it's called the imagination.>>more

a blast from the past

Oprah's 3-ring Psychic Circus

What's your frequency, baby?

February 16, 2007. Yesterday, ringmistress Oprah featured alleged medium John Edward in one ring, alleged psychic detective and medium Allison DuBois in another, and paranormal investigator Dean Radin in the third ring. The only skeptic in the audience, apparently, was a woman who was identified as "skeptic woman" and "science lady." [Her real name, Laura McMahon, was never used by Oprah, even though she was invited to be on the program.] Oprah wanted to know why the "science lady" didn't believe. Mrs. McMahon said, in effect, that she didn't believe because there were no peer reviewed scientific studies supporting belief in the paranormal. Oprah didn't ask any follow-up questions like "Well, how do you think these clowns perform so unbelievably well on my show, if they're not using psychic powers to connect to another dimension? Do you think they're pulling a con? doing a cold reading or something like that?" Instead, Dean Radin responded by asserting that the skeptic was wrong. >>more