 Robert Todd Carroll
New Psychic crackdown in the UK Psychic tells skeptic to bathe in ‘sacred space’ by Irene Haskins 2008/03/06
Psychic vs. Skeptical Predictions Max Fagin Guess What I'll Write Next: Psychics continue to make outrageous claims Leon Jaroff, Time
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psychic
As an adjective, psychic refers to forces or agencies of a paranormal nature. As a noun, psychic refers to a medium or a person who has paranormal powers. The term was first used by renowned chemist William Crookes to describe renowned medium and magician Daniel Dunglas Home (1833-1886). In 1871, Crookes attended a Fox sisters séance and came away convinced that the rapping noises they produced were genuine spirits. Said Crookes: “I have tested [the raps] in every way that I could devise, until there has been no escape from the conviction that they were true objective occurrences not produced by trickery or mechanical means.”* In 1888, the sisters confessed that they had produced the raps by cracking their toe-joints and that they made bumping noises by fastening an apple to a string and surreptitiously bouncing it off the floor. Of Home, Peter Lamont notes: “Virtually everybody else in this field was caught cheating at some point, but he never was. I’ve been a magician since I was a wee boy, and I have worked in parapsychology for a decade. And I don’t know how he did some things. Nobody has explained them to date.” (TimeOnline) One person who was caught cheating was Florence Cook, a medium whose work in séances had been vouched for by Crookes. She not only cheated as a medium, she and Crookes seem to have cheated on Crookes's wife. According to William Williams, the medium and her scientific examiner had a secret affair. They “used the séances as a cover for their meetings” (Williams 2000: 66). [Williams's source may have been Trevor Hall's The Spiritualists: The Story of Florence Cook and William Crookes (London, 1962), published as The Medium and the Scientist by Prometheus Books in1984.* See Christopher 1975: 171.] James Randi, who has tested many people who think they have psychic abilities, has found that when he has tested the alleged paranormal powers of psychics (1) they had never before tested their powers under controlled conditions, and (2) those who don't offer preposterous rationalizations for their inability to perform seem genuinely baffled at their failure. Often, psychics are not frauds; they genuinely believe in their powers. But they've never tested their powers in any meaningful way. Randi offers $1,000,000 to anyone who can demonstrate psychic powers, but hurry because this offer ends on March 6, 2010. The Australian Skeptics will throw in an additional $100,000 (Australian) [about USD 75,000] for the psychic and $20,000 (Australian) [about USD 15,000] for anyone "who nominates a person who successfully completes the Australian Skeptics Challenge." B. Premanand of the Indian Skeptic will throw in another Rs. 100,000 [about USD 2,300]. And, "Mr. Prabir Ghosh will pay Rs. 20,00,000 (20 lakhs = 20 x 100,000) [about USD 45,000] to anyone who claims to possess supernatural power of any kind and proves the same without resorting to any trick in the location specified by Prabir Ghosh." (See the entry on the Randi Paranormal Challenge for a list of all those offering cash prizes to anyone who can demonstrate psychic ability.) To believe in the ability of a person to channel spirits, to "hear" or "feel" the voices or presence of the dead, to "see" the past, the future, or what is presently in another's mind, or to make contact with a realm of reality that transcends natural laws is to believe in something highly improbable. Psychics don't rely on psychics to warn them of impending disasters. Psychics don't predict their own deaths or diseases. They go to the dentist like the rest of us. They're as surprised and disturbed as the rest of us when they have to call a plumber or an electrician to fix some defect at home. Their planes are delayed without their being able to anticipate the delays. If they want to know something about Abraham Lincoln, they go to the library; they don't try to talk to Abe's spirit. In short, psychics live by the known laws of nature except when they are playing the psychic game with people. Psychics aren't overly worried about other psychics reading their minds and revealing their innermost secrets to the world. No casino has ever banned psychics from the gaming room because there is no need. The improbability of there being a paranormal realm is argued for in many entries in the Skeptic's Dictionary. If it is improbable that the paranormal is real, then it is improbable that psychics are tapping into the paranormal realm. Why then are psychics so popular with young and old, stupid and intelligent, ignorant and wise alike? The main reasons for belief in such paranormal powers as clairvoyance and clairaudience are (1) the perceived accuracy of psychic predictions and readings; (2) the seemingly uncanny premonitions which many people have, especially in dreams; and (3) the seemingly fantastic odds against such premonitions or predictions being correct by coincidence or chance. Most believers do not base their conviction on the scientific evidence for psi, which is claimed to be overwhelming by Dean Radin. However, the accuracy of psychic predictions is grossly overrated. The belief in the accuracy of clairvoyants such as Edgar Cayce and Jeanne Dixon is due to several factors, including mass media error and hype. For example, it has been repeatedly reported in the mass media that Jeanne Dixon predicted the assassination of President Kennedy. She did not. The New York Times helped spread the myth that Edgar Cayce transformed from an illiterate into a healer when hypnotized. One of the more egregious cases of mass media complicity in promoting belief in psychics is the case of "psychic" Tamara Rand, producer Dick Maurice, and talk show host Gary Grecco of KNTV in Las Vegas. All conspired to deceive the public by claiming that a video tape of a "Dick Maurice Show," on which Rand predicts the assassination attempt by John Hinkley on Ronald Reagan, was done on January 6, 1981. The tape was actually made on March 31, 1981, a day after Hinkley shot Reagan (Steiner). Another reason the accuracy of psychic predictions is grossly overrated is that many people do not understand how psychics use techniques such as hot and cold reading. The accuracy of premonitions and prophecies is also grossly exaggerated because of lack of understanding of confirmation bias and the law of truly large numbers; their accuracy is also exaggerated because of ignorance about how memory works, especially about how dreams and premonitions are often filled in after the fact. psychic performers The strongest kind of evidence for psychic power comes from witnessing an alleged psychic perform. Some performers seem to be able to do things that require paranormal powers; these are the masters of the art of conjuring. Others seem to be able to tell us things about ourselves and our departed loved ones that only we should know; these are the masters of cold reading. Others surreptitiously gather information about us and deceive us into thinking they obtained their data by psychic means. The success of numerous hoaxes by fraudulent psychics testifies to the difficulty of seeing through the performance. Psychologist Ray Hyman, who worked as a "psychic" to help pay his way through college, claims that the most common method used by psychics is "cold reading" and offers the following Guide to Cold Reading:
The list goes on, but you get the idea. What looks like psychic power is little more than a game of Twenty Questions, or a fishing expedition, with the mark providing all the relevant details and connecting all the dots, while the "psychic" appears to be getting messages from beyond. Of course, sometimes the "psychic" is simply an observant, thoughtful person, who says things appropriate for the age and gender of the subject. For example, one of my students--right out of high school, tall, handsome, strong and athletic--was told by a "psychic" to stay away from the sex or he'd be having a baby. The student became an immediate convert. He'd already gotten a girl pregnant and had a daughter. Good advice became proof of psychic power in this young man's mind. She also told him other things "nobody could have known," such as that he had once thrown up all over himself and crapped in his pants. He apparently had done this as a young man and didn't realize that she was describing a nearly universal situation for babies. The deception can be more dramatic than cold reading, of course. According to Lamar Keene, a "reformed psychic," some people seek psychic advice from professional psychics who exchange information on their marks. Some psychics do what is called a hot reading, i.e., they have hard information about you that they have gained through a variety of surreptitious methods. They may have done research on you and that's why they know things they shouldn't know. They may have an accomplice who chats you up, listens to your conversations, has you fill out a card, or the like. The psychic herself may chat you up before the reading and get information from you that she can use later. Still others are magicians who try to pass off their conjuring skills as paranormal powers. It has also been argued that if psychic power existed, to use it would be "a gross and unethical violation of privacy" and "professions that involve deception would be worthless" (Radford). There wouldn't be any need for undercover work or spies. Every child molester would be identified immediately. No double agent could ever get away with it. Psychics would be in demand for high paying jobs in banks, businesses and government. "Most psychics would be very, very rich...." (Radford) and since psychics are such altruistic persons, giving up their time to help others talk to the deceased or figure out what to do with their lives, they would be winning lotteries right and left and giving part of their winnings to help the needy. We wouldn't need trials of accused persons: psychics could tell us who is guilty and who is not. The polygraph would be a thing of the past. Of course, the operative word here is if. If psychic power existed the world would be very different. It seems clear that psychics can be explained in one of three ways: (1) they truly are psychic; (2) they are frauds, taking advantage of people's gullibility and weaknesses; or (3) they're deluded and self-deceived. Of the three options, the least probable is option number one. "Psychics" who are honest about their deception call themselves mentalists and call their art magic or conjuring. Yet, it is the "psychics," not the mentalists, who are the darlings of the mass media. Thus, when the mass media promote "psychics" for their entertainment or news value, they are either promoting fraud or encouraging delusions. Perhaps the media think that because most parties in the psychic game are consenting adults, that makes it okay. Perhaps the police agree and that is why telepsychics like Miss Cleo can practice without fear of arrest for fraudulently claiming to have psychic powers. See also Akashic record, aura, Edgar Cayce, Jeanne Dixon, ESP, clairaudience, clairvoyance, cold reading, dream, Forer effect, ganzfeld experiment, hot reading, magical thinking, mentalist, Raymond Moody, optional starting and stopping, paranormal, parapsychology, precognition, psi, psi-missing, psychic photography, psychic surgery, psychokinesis, remote viewing, retrocognition, séance, shotgunning, subjective validation, Charles Tart, telepathy, James Van Praagh, and warm reading. further reading
Christopher, Milbourne. (1975). Mediums, Mystics & the Occult. Thomas Y. Crowell Co. Frazier, Kendrick and James Randi, "Predictions After The Fact: Lessons Of The Tamara Rand Hoax," in Science Confronts The Paranormal, ed., Kendrick Frazier (Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1986), first published in the Skeptical Inquirer 6, no.1 (Fall 1981): 4-7. Hansen, George C. (2001). The Trickster and the Paranormal. Xlibris Corporation. Keene, M. Lamar. The Psychic Mafia (Prometheus, 1997). Kurtz, Paul. ed., A Skeptic's Handbook of Parapsychology, (Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1985). Lamont, Peter. (2005). The First Psychic: The Peculiar Mystery of a Victorian Wizard. Little Brown. Marks, David and Richard Kammann. Psychology of the Psychic (Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1979). Paulos, John Allen. Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences (Vintage Books, 1990). Randi, James. Flim-Flam! (Buffalo, New York: Prometheus Books,1982), especially chapter 13, "Put Up or Shut Up," where he gives accounts of tests done on several psychics who have tried to collect the $10,000 Randi used to offer to anyone demonstrating a psychic power. So far, no one has collected, even though the offer is now over $1,000,000! Rawcliffe, Donovan Hilton. Occult and Supernatural Phenomena (New York: Dover Publications, 1988). Williams, William. Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience. (Facts On File, Inc. 2000).
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©copyright 2006 Robert Todd Carroll |
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