Michael Prescott's Blog

R.I.P.

A reader left a message in the comments section of this post, reporting the sad news that one of the other commenters, Rob Dentith, has passed away.

Rob contributed intelligent and thought-provoking remarks to the comments thread, and showed a sincere interest in NDEs and other psi phenomena. He wrote that he had undergone many out-of-body experiences, which had inspired him to read about the evidence for an afterlife. His attitude was serious and cautious; he did not come across as credulous or eager to believe. He also said that lately he was finding much wisdom in the Bible, and was considering becoming a Christian.

A Google search for his name turned up this information:

On Thursday October 5th 2006 we suffered a tragic loss as Unsigned Show presenter Robert Dentith sadly passed away at the age of 29.

From a personal point of view I have lost a great and very close friend and one of the nicest and most genuine people I have ever had the pleasure of meeting.  I had known and worked very closely with Rob for nearly 3 years and watched with great admiration as he poured his heart and his soul into promoting new and unsigned music in the West Midlands. 

Those of you that knew Rob will understand how radio and unsigned music were his passion and his life.  He has worked tirelessly for years on bringing new music to the fore, helping bands where help did not previously exist and to use his favourite quote: ‘provided a voice for the underground’. 

His voice is no longer here but it will live on as the scene continues to flourish as we build upon what he started.

My one abiding memory of Rob will always be his enthusiasm for life; his outlook was always positive even in the face of great adversity. 

He was a man whose cup was never half full but truly overflowing and he will be missed by us all.

The fact that Rob Dentith had acquired such a wise perspective on life at the young age of 29 makes his passing all the more tragic.

 

Okay, it's torture

A while back I wrote a couple of posts (here and here) defending the practice of waterboarding, an interrogation procedure in which a terrorist prisoner is strapped down and wet towels are pressed over his face. Water is then poured over the towels. As long as the prisoner's lungs are elevated above his head, he will not drown, but he has the strong sensation of drowning. Many people break down and start talking within thirty seconds; others last as long as two minutes; someone trained to resist the procedure can hold out longer.

My opinion at the time was that waterboarding is not torture because it does no irreparable physical damage. Since then, however, I've had the opportunity to view a couple of videos of actual waterboarding on Youtube. One of them, which runs ten minutes and includes brief interviews with attorney Alan Dershowitz and with a man who underwent waterboarding as part of his survival training, can be seen here.

After looking at these videos, I've decided I was wrong. Waterboarding is torture. It is not as bad as having one's fingers cut off, or having bamboo shoots driven under the fingernails, but it certainly inflicts physical and mental agony.

Should it ever be used against a terrorist captive? I think it can be justified only in the most dire circumstances - say, a "ticking clock" scenario in which a nuclear bomb is about to go off , and the captive knows its whereabouts. The problem with this scenario is that it is unlikely to crop up in the real world. On TV, law enforcement agents always seem to know with certainty that a terrorist plot is underway, but in real life our intel is rarely that good. More likely, the interrogators would only suspect that a major attack may be imminent, without being sure. Moreover, they probably would only suspect that the captive may know vital information; maybe their suspicions are wrong, and he knows nothing.

In very extreme cases, there may be no option other than use torture against a recalcitrant prisoner who is concealing vital, time-sensitive info. I don't think we can blithely assume that such a scenario can never come up.  But it will be an exceedingly rare case, and it should require special authorization by the president, in writing (as Dershowitz argues in the video). As a general rule, however, waterboarding and other forms of torture should be banned.

Testing one's metal

Lately I've been thinking about spoon bending.

A little while ago, I watched a documentary about Jack Houck, who has been hosting so-called PK parties for the past 23 years. The documentary can be purchased online and downloaded -- though because the file is very large, more than 300 MB, you should not attempt this unless you have a high-speed connection. It can also be purchased on CD for a higher price.

The film is an hour long, but unfortunately the first 40 minutes or so are taken up with a rather long-winded and, I thought, tedious opening statement by Jack Houck. Only in the last 20 minutes do things start to get interesting as the crowd begins to bend cutlery. The camera work is shaky, and there is a lot of jumpy editing, which makes it difficult to be absolutely sure of what you're seeing. It certainly appears that some people are bending spoons and forks without exerting undue physical pressure. True, in the early stages of the experiment, some people do seem to be working pretty hard to get the flatware to bend, rubbing the handles and even trying to flex the handles with the strength of their fingers. Later, however, once things get rolling, there seem to be clear cases in which spoons and forks bend by themselves.

Perhaps what's most convincing is a little sequence at the end when participants in the party -- who are all ordinary people -- show off the cutlery they've managed to bend. Many of these forks and spoons have been twisted into shapes that would be, I think, impossible to achieve by any ordinary physical manipulation. The handles of some items are twisted into tight corkscrews and the bowls of some spoons are badly deformed or even folded in half. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to deform the bowl of even a cheap spoon without special tools. Try it yourself and see.

Jack Houck has hosted more than 360 of these parties and has gotten consistent results. It is hard to deny that something paranormal is going on, and that the cutlery are in some way being bent and deformed by a power we don't presently understand. Michael Crichton describes his own participation in one of Houck's events in his memoir Travels; an excerpt (oddly uncredited, but taken from Crichton's book) can be read here.

Houck makes much of the need for group participation, shouts of excitement, and a general air of merriment. Perhaps it's noteworthy that seances in the Victorian era often began the same way -- with loud singing, jokes, and conviviality. It appears that by loosening up people's inhibitions, whatever ESP or PK force may be involved can more easily be liberated. Also, belief seems to have a great deal to do with the results. If people don't believe they can really do it, they are unlikely to succeed. But as soon as someone in the crowd starts to bend a spoon, and other people see it and believe what they're seeing, then those others start to have success, as well.

So if I had to hypothesize, in my armchair fashion, I would say that two key elements in successful psychokinesis are 1, a strong belief in your ability to do it, and 2, the release of any inhibitions that might prevent you from doing it.

And this leads me to suggest an experiment that, as far as I know, has not been carried out in any systematic way.

There is a state of mind in which people are very susceptible to suggestion and will accept almost any belief that is offered to them. This state of mind also entails a release from one's normal inhibitions. What I'm talking about, as you've probably guessed, is hypnosis.

The idea that hypnosis may be related to some paranormal phenomena is not new. As far back as the 19th century, researchers would hypnotize subjects and then test their powers of ESP. To the best of my knowledge, however, no extensive attempts have been made to test a subject's potential PK powers while in a hypnotized state. Maybe such tests would fail. But maybe not.

Suppose that a test subject is placed in a deep hypnotic trance. The hypnotist then says that the subject has the power to bend metal with his mind. Once this idea has been accepted by the subject, the hypnotist gives him a spoon and instructs him to bend it with the power of his thoughts. Will the spoon bend? Or will nothing happen at all?

It ought to be easy enough to find out. If a positive outcome were obtained, the test could be repeated by other hypnotists until a database of results was available for study. If the outcome were negative, we would at least know that there is more involved in PK than belief and lack of inhibition.

When I Googled the terms "hypnosis" + "psychokinesis," I got a large number of hits, but it seems that only a couple of them have anything to do with my suggested experiments. A few people are peddling hypnosis tapes that supposedly allow you to develop your powers of psychokinesis. Maybe they do, maybe they don't. What I would like to see are experiments carried out by trained, professional hypnotists under controlled conditions. Anything less is not likely to be very convincing.

Any hypnotists out there who want to give this a whirl? You have nothing to lose but y0ur spoons!

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P.S. Another online documentary on PK, this one available for free viewing , was pointed out by reader Marcel Cairo. It's in two parts. Part 1 is especially interesting, and it even begins with a demonstration of some alleged spoonbending (which may or may not be legit).

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P.P.S. Hypnotist Adam Eason has linked to this post and seems interested in exploring the idea. I'll be very interested by any results he may obtain, positive or negative.

He also says that Ian Wilson's claim that 10% of the population cannot be hypnotized (which I cited in the comments section) is wrong. "If someone can breathe, they can be hypnotised, regardless of how much they convince themselves otherwise," Eason writes.

The dogs of war

No, this isn't a post about Iraq or Afghanistan. It's about the private wars we all fight, and how pointless most of them are.

This thought occurred to me just yesterday, in the context of some back-and-forth exchanges in the comments section of another blog. One particular contributor to the comments is prone to making sarcastic personal remarks, basically spoiling for a fight. I had made the mistake -- and it was a mistake -- of engaging with this person a couple of times. Some of his statements were so odd that I eventually Googled his name.

What I discovered is that he has been active in the so-called "Holocaust revisionism" movement. Holocaust revisionists maintain that the Nazis never mass-murdered the Jews or anybody else in the death camps. In fact, they don't even refer to places like Auschwitz and Dachau as death camps, but as "military detention facilities." I guess this is better than calling them vacation spas. Holocaust revisionists say that the deadly chemical agent Zyklon-B was not used to kill the prisoners, but only to delouse them. Those prisoners who did die, they say, were the unfortunate victims of an outbreak of typhus.

In other words, these people are total, unadulterated wackos.

So I now knew this about my sometime in adversary in the comments section. I even pointed it out in one of my own comments, and he acknowledged that he does hold this position.

And then, in another comments thread, he went on the attack again. I read his remarks and was actually thinking of how I should respond ... when suddenly it occurred to me that the entire confrontation was, at this point, utterly stupid. There was simply no reason to respond, no reason to think that this person was even capable of rationality, no reason to think that he had any interest in getting at the truth at all.

Why, then, was I continuing to participate in that discussion? The answer, I have to say, is that my behavior was largely unconscious. I was operating like one of Pavlov's dogs, who learned to salivate at the sound of a bell. The dogs didn't think about what they were doing; it was a conditioned reflex. And I wasn't doing much thinking, either. The taunts and jibes from this other person were affecting me much as Pavlov's bell affected his dogs. Furthermore, it is probably safe to assume that my adversary was equally unconscious and was responding to my remarks just as reflexively as I was responding to his.

Both of us were caught up in an artificial drama, a clash of egos that served no purpose whatsoever. I had no actual interest in persuading him, and he, I'm sure, had no interest in persuading me. I regarded him with disdain, and I'm sure he felt likewise. There was not going to be any meeting of the minds. The conversation continued only because both of us were operating on automatic pilot, or, to change the metaphor, we were two vehicles careening toward each other because our brakes had failed.

All it took to terminate this pointless cycle of accusations and counteraccusations was for one of us -- in this case me -- to wake up enough to realize what was going on. Once I realized it, I understood what I had to do: walk away.

Further, I realized that even reading the comments section of this blog was a waste of time -- time that could be more profitably used doing other things. The only reason I kept going back to the comments was that my ego wanted the mild adrenaline rush that came from debate and argument. The ego always wants to puff itself up, to be in engaged in conflict and defense, and thereby to justify its existence. But what the ego wants is not necessarily in our own best interest. Quite often, the ego's interests run counter to our interests as seen from a more enlightened perspective. To see things from this perspective, however, we do have to be somewhat awake.

A dispute on the Internet is nothing, of course. But how many variations on this theme do we see all around us? Marital strife, partisan political battles, even wars - fought because the two sides are caught up in the same mindless cycle of Pavlovian responses.

In Julius Casesar, Shakespeare famously makes Antony say, "Cry 'Havoc' and let slip the dogs of war."

All too often, they are Pavlov's dogs.

Daisy

In the comments section of a previous post, reader Art recommended William Barrett's 1926 book Deathbed Visions, and helpfully included a link to the complete online text. The book is well worth reading. It includes a number of cases in which dying persons apparently saw deceased relatives at their bedside. In some instances they had no normal way of knowing that these people were dead; the information was unknown to them, and sometimes unknown to the people around them (though verified later). 

One of the most interesting cases involves ten-year-old Daisy Dryden, who died in California on October 8, 1864, after an illness. This case is recounted in Chapter 3 of Barrett's book.

In reading what follows, one should probably assume that some of Daisy's more poetical utterances have been embellished. Although educated children of that era were more bookish and articulate than most kids today, and it was, as Michael Shaara observes in his preface to The Killer Angels, "a naive and sentimental time," it still seems doubtful that little Daisy would have been quite so precociously loquacious. In any event, however much the wording of some statements may have been changed, I see no reason to doubt the essential accuracy of the report.

[Daisy's mother writes,] That night she was taken with enteritis and only lived four days. She suffered much for the first twenty-four hours, being unable to retain food, water or medicine. From that time on she had very little pain. Her poor little body had in fact become so attenuated that there was little left for the disease to work upon. But her mind was very active and remarkably clear. Her faculties appeared sharpened. She could remember recitations she had learned in school, always having been fond of memorizing poetry. And when [her sister] Lulu sang to her from the Sunday School Hymnal, she would give the name of the song and the page on which to find it.

Here I might note that this sharpened recall is suggestive of a hypnotic state, in which psi abilities often seem to be greatly enhanced. Many experiments in "mesmerism" (hypnosis) were done by pioneers in paranormal research, often with strongly positive results. The modern Ganzfeld tests also rely on placing the test subject in a mild trancelike state.

She loved to have us read the Scriptures to her. I read, in John xiv, "It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away the Comforter will not come unto you, but if I depart I will send Him unto you." At this she looked up to me so heavenly as she said, "Mamma, when I go away the Comforter will come to you; and maybe He will let me come too sometimes; I'll ask Allie about it." She often said this after this time, when she felt uncertain about anything. Allie was her brother who had passed to the other life at the age of six, of scarlet fever, seven months before. He seemed to be with her a great deal of the time during those last three days, because when we asked her questions which she could not answer she would say, "Wait till Allie comes, and I will ask him." On this occasion she waited only a short time and then said, "Allie says I may go to you sometimes; he says it is possible, but you will not know when I am there; but I can speak to your thought." ...

I can speak to your thought is an elegantly precise way of describing telepathy, a concept probably unfamiliar to Daisy.

Two days before she left us, the Sunday School Superintendent came to see her. She talked very freely about going, and sent a message by him to the Sunday School. When he was about to leave, he said, "Well, Daisy, you will soon be over the 'dark river.'" After he had gone, she asked her father what he meant by the "dark river." He tried to explain it, but she said, "It is all a mistake; there is no river; there is no curtain; there is not even a line that separates this life from the other life." And she stretched out her little hands from the bed, and with a gesture said, "It is here and it is there; I know it is so, for I can see you all, and I see them there at the same time." We asked her to tell us something of that other world and how it looked to her, but she said, "I cannot describe it; it is so different, I could not make you understand."

One morning while I was in the room, putting it in order, Mrs. W, one of our kind neighbours, was reading to her these words from the Testament: "Let not your heart be troubled. In my Father's house are many mansions. I go to prepare a place for you" (John xiv, 1, 2). Daisy remarked, "Mansions, that means houses. I don't see real houses there; but there is what would be places to meet each other in. ... [P]erhaps when I get there I'll find a home. And if I do, the heavenly flowers and trees that I love so much here - for I do see them, and ... they are more beautiful than anything you could imagine - they will be there." I said, "Daisy, don't you know the Bible speaks of heaven being a beautiful city?" She said, "I do not see a city," and a puzzled look came over her face, and she said, "I do not know; I may have to go there first." ...

Notice that here she describes a vision that differs from her preconceptions and from the religious doctrines (the river, the mansions) in which she has been instructed. She also resists the suggestion that she should be seeing a city. If she were in a highly suggestible state, she would probably have picked up on this idea and incorporated it into her vision, but she does not.

Mrs. B. was a lady who did not believe in a future state. She was, moreover, in deep distress, having just lost her husband and a son who was about twelve years old, named Bateman. She came with Mrs. W. one evening, and, sitting beside the bed, began to ask questions. Daisy said to her: "Bateman is here, and says he is alive and well, and is in such a good place, he would not come home for anything. He says he is learning how to be good." Mrs. B. then said, "Ask him if he has seen his father." Daisy replied, "He says he has not, he is not here, and says to you, 'Mother, don't fret about me, it is better I did not grow up.'" This communication set the mother to thinking and she became a firm believer in a future state....

It would be more natural to assure Mrs. B. that her husband was there with her son. Again, Daisy rejects the route she would take if suggestion were at work.

[H]er Sunday School teacher Mrs. H., who also was with her a great deal, was sitting beside her, when Daisy said to her, "Your two children are here." Now, these children had gone to the other life several years before, and if they had lived in this world would have been nearly grown up. Daisy had never heard anyone speak of them, nor did the mother have any pictures of them, so she could not have known anything whatever about them before seeing them in the spiritual world. When asked to describe them, her description of them as full-grown did not agree with the mother's idea of them, so she said, "How can that be? They were children when they died." Daisy answered, "Allie says, 'Children do not stay children; they grow up as they do in this life.'" Mrs. H. then said, "But my little daughter Mary fell, and was so injured that she could not stand straight." To this Daisy replied, "She is all right now; she is straight and beautiful; and your son is looking so noble and happy."...

Again, the obvious statement would be that the children are still the same age that they were in life. This is clearly the image that Mrs. H.'s mind. If Daisy were relying on the power of suggestion, or if she were reading Mrs. H's thoughts, she would have described the children that way. Instead she saw them as full-grown. She also saw Mary standing straight, when Mrs. H. apparently visualized her as still injured. It is also noteworthy that Daisy allegedly was unaware that Mrs. H. had any deceased children, though of course this cannot be confirmed.

Mrs. W., already mentioned, who had lost her father a short time previous, wanted to know if Daisy had seen him, and brought his picture to let her see if she could recognize him. But in the evening, when she came again, Daisy told her she had not seen him, and that Allie, whom she had asked about him, had not seen him, but that Allie had said he would ask someone who could tell him about him. In a moment Daisy said, "Allie is here and says, 'Tell Aunty her father wants her to meet him in heaven, for he is there.' Mrs. W. then said, "Daisy, why did not Allie know at once about my father?" "Because," replied she, "those who die go into different states or places and do not see each other at all times, but all the good are in the state of the blest." ...

The idea that the spirits inhabit different spheres or planes has been a standard part of spiritualist belief at least since Swedenborg (whose channeled scripts speak of multiple "heavens" and "hells"), but is not part of the Christian doctrine in which Daisy had been raised. Again, note that if suggestion or telepathy were at work, Daisy should have told Mrs. W. immediately that she saw the father.

Daisy exclaimed, "Oh, Lulu, is it not strange? We always thought the angels had wings! But it is a mistake; they don't have any." Lulu replied, "But they must have wings, else how do they fly down from heaven?" "Oh, but they don't fly," she answered, "they just come. When I think of Allie, he is here."

Winged angels would have been more consistent with Daisy's expectations, as she herself says.

Once I inquired, How do you see the angels?" She replied, "I do not see them all the time; but when I do, the walls seem to go away, and I can see ever so far, and you couldn't begin to count the people; some are near, and I know them; others I have never seen before." She mentioned the name of Mary C., the sister of Mrs. S., who was a neighbour of ours in Nevada City, and said, "You know she had such a bad cough, but she is well now, and so beautiful, and she is smiling to me."

I was then sitting beside her bedside, her hand clasped in mine. Looking up so wistfully to me, she said, "Dear Mamma, I do wish you could see Allie; he is standing beside you." Involuntarily I looked round, but Daisy thereupon continued, "He says you cannot see him because your spirit eyes are closed, but that I can, because my body only holds my spirit, as it were, by a thread of life." I then inquired, "Does he say that now?" "Yes, just now," she answered. Then wondering how she could be conversing with her brother when I saw not the least sign of conversation, I said, "Daisy, how do you speak to Allie? I do not hear you or see your lips move." She smilingly replied, "We just talk with our think."

I love that: We just talk with our think.

I then asked her further, "Daisy, how does Allie appear to you? Does he seem to wear clothes?" She answered, "Oh, no, not clothes such as we wear. There seems to be about him a white, beautiful something, so fine and thin and glistening, and oh, so white, and yet there is not a fold, or a sign of a thread in it, so it cannot be cloth. But makes him look so lovely." Her father then quoted from the Psalmist: "He is clothed with light as a garment." "Oh, yes, that's it," she replied....

The appearance of spirits in white gossamer is common to many psychic visions.

That evening, when it was half-past eight, she herself observed the time, and remarked, "It is half-past eight now; when it is half-past eleven Allie will come for me." She was then, for the time being, reclining on her father's breast, with her head upon his shoulder. This was a favourite position, as it rested her. She said, "Papa, I want to die here. When the time comes, I will tell you."

Lulu had been singing for her, and as half-past eight was Lulu's bedtime she arose to go. Bending over Daisy, as she always did, she kissed her, and said, "Good night." Daisy put up her hand and, stroking tenderly her sister's face, said to her, "Good night." When Lulu was half-way up the stairs, Daisy again called out after her, in a clear, sweet, earnest tone, "Good night and goodbye, my sweet, darling Lulu."

At about a quarter past eleven she said, Now, Papa, take me up; Allie has come for me." After her father had taken her, she asked us to sing. Presently someone said, "Call Lulu," but Daisy answered promptly, "Don't disturb her, she is asleep," and then, just as the hands of the clock pointed to the half-hour past eleven, the time she had predicted that Allie was to come to take her with him, she lifted up both arms and said, "Come, Allie," and breathed no more. Then tenderly laying her loved but lifeless form upon the pillow, her father said, "The dear child has gone," and added, "she will suffer no more."

Barrett comments,

... the descriptions Daisy gave of her vision evidently did not accord with her preconceived ideas of a spiritual world, yet it did not once occur to her to doubt the reality of what she was learning of a life apart from a material body - and the possession of a spiritual body.

He also quotes her mother as attesting that Daisy had not been "educated in the least degree on the lines of mysticism or modern spiritualism."

Of course, the case can be dismissed as a dying child's fantasy, perhaps unconsciously encouraged by the adults around her. But I'm not that cynical. I prefer to take Daisy at her word when she says, "You cannot see ... because your spirit eyes are closed, but ... I can, because my body only holds my spirit, as it were, by a thread of life."

I can't help myself!

I know, I know. I really shouldn't.

But somehow I must.

Yes, I just have to make a few comments about the latest posts by Victor Zammit. It's wrong, and I know it, but I am weak and lacking in self-control.

Zammit, as you may recall, is the Australian lawyer who has a Web site devoted to the afterlife. I used to think of him as sort of an ally, in as much as we both write online articles presenting evidence for life after death and other paranormal phenomena. But I made the "mistake" of questioning the protocols in some materialization seances in which he participated. He does not take criticism kindly, it appears, even when the criticism is intended to be constructive.

Well, he is still sitting in on these seances with medium David Thompson and still announcing their "world shattering" results. Here's some of the latest news:

MS. CAMILLA PERSSON, SWEDISH PSI INVESTIGATOR SITS WITH DAVID THOMPSON : we had a great many people from around the world wanting to participate in David Thompson’s materialization experiments. Because of technicalities, at the moment this can’t be done but may be possible later when David will be on tour in the future sometime.

That's nice and specific, isn't it? Investigators "may" be invited to attend the seances "in the future sometime," but for the present such an option is ruled out "because of technicalities."

I'm glad that's clear.

One special concession was made to a psi investigating lady from Sweden who stated among other things that she a [sic] psychic investigator and an author.

I would have thought, given the groundbreaking nature of these phenomena, that someone rather more prominent in the field of psi research might have been invited - Dean Radin, say, or Charles Tart. A Google search for "Camilla Persson" + "psychic" turns up no relevant hits.

She sat with us last Sunday and witnessed these world shattering events taking place. She witnessed the precaution we take to prevent fraud – tying the medium with one-way tags, gagging the medium, putting some ten seals on David.

One-way tags (otherwise known as flex-cuffs) are also routinely used to tie up Colin Fry, another materialization medium and a friend and sometime business associate of David Thompson. Despite these restraints, Mr. Fry was once caught in flagrante delicto when the lights came on unexpectedly, revealing that he had extricated himself from the cuffs and was simulating the levitation of a trumpet by holding it in his hand.

Escape artists have ways of, well, escaping. That's their job.

The room had one window, the window was blocked and physically impossible to open because of obstacles placed near it. There was one door, that too was sealed.

None of which matters in the slightest if the conman is already in the room, especially if he is in the companyof an accomplice. Zammit doesn't tell us who tied and gagged Mr. Thompson, but in another seance (not conducted by Zammit) it was Thompson's wife who did the honors, and who then sat next to him in the dark. Is the same procedure being followed here?

Ms Persson met William, who has been dead for over 100 years. He materialized, walked over to where she was, held her face in affection and talked to her in a clear, strong, resonant voice. ‘Jack’, one of William’s team materialized, walked over to Ms Persson and shook hands with her and also talked to her, using strong voice.

So two male figures, one at a time, walked to Persson in the dark and talked in a strong voice. Why doesn't Thompson materialize any female spirits?

It was a spectacular experience not only for Ms Persson, but for all of us. Others materialized too: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Louis Armstrong - now regular visitors; Gandhi – who is still having some problems vocalizing when fully materialized and little Timothy who handles the ectoplasm.

Hello, little Timothy!

Ms Camilla Persson also witnessed the father of one of the sitters from the afterlife coming through - giving his daughter an apport - an exquisite jewelry (butterfly). These were all convincing not only beyond reasonable doubt, but absolutely!

Cool. Zammit is absolutely convinced, which means you should be, too.

Ms Persson was quite ‘shocked’ by the sensational results. She talked to, touched even smelled the materialized entities – saying all had a different smell, different voices, different attitudes, different interests and different priorities.

Now if this isn't proof, I don't know what is. The entities "all had a different smell." Not to mention different voices, attitiudes, interests, and priorities! No actor could pull off a series of impersonations like that - especially in total darkness! Color me persuaded.

In another report on what is apparently the same seance, Zammit tells us,

The medium gagged, was tied down to his chair by way of ten ‘one way’ straps and some twelve seals.

It's too bad the medium gagged. I hope someone was there to perform the Heimlich maneuver.

Oh, wait, I think there should have been a comma: "The medium, gagged, was tied ..." That's better.

Notice that earlier there were ten seals (see above) and now there are twelve. It's this kind of meticulous attention to detail that makes Zammit's reporting so reliable.

We had a couple of surprises: 1) the brother of the visiting Swedish guest materialized and gave Ms Persson a piece of paper with a message for her in Swedish- none of the sitters speak or can write in the Swedish language. He tried to speak, but he had no experience with speaking through ectoplasm – he did say a few words- enough for Ms Camilla [sic] to recognize it very likely was her brother.

Wow, the spirit gave her a note in Swedish! Question: Did Thompson or his wife or any of his close friends know that a visitor from Sweden was going to be at the seance? Because, you know, it might be possible to come up with such a note in advance. That might also explain the spirit's difficulty in talking. It's easier to write down some Swedish than to learn how to articulate it well enough to fool a native speaker.

Another entity materialized stating it was that brilliant jazz New Orleans musician Louis Armstrong. After he sang What A Wonderful World he walked over to where I was sitting. After a very brief conversation we shook hands – I was in jazz music myself in my younger years. His voice was identical to the voice we know of how he sounded when he lived on planet earth: his voice sounded deep, Southern, very resonant, uniquely friendly, Armstrongique intonation, with the same pace, rhythm, pitch, with a lot of feeling and with that peculiar Louis Armstrong nuance in his communication.

Could a skilled mimic imitate the voice of a famous singer? Why not go to Las Vegas and find out?

I cannot guarantee it was Louis Armstrong himself, but prima facie, his voice, using Audacity software gives us a clue that yes, it could very well be Louis Armstrong.

As I've previously pointed out, Audacity (a bare-bones freeware program) cannot be used for voice comparison.

I do absolutely guarantee that I did shake hands with a materialized entity which more likely than not was Louis Armstrong. We need more time. We are diligently working on empirically identifying these etherians.

Well, I do absolutely gaurantee that Zammit shook hands with somebody. Whether or not it was "a materialized entity," a.k.a. an etherian, is another matter.

Having recounted the world-shattering seance, he proceeds to give us this gem:

WHY DON'T YOU ATTACK YOUR ATTACKERS VICTOR? My comment: Why should I? My attackers are closed minded skeptics - which means they are losers and defeatists. Attackers and debunkrs [sic], especially those who are a 'nobody', 'non-entities' - only attack those who are perceived to have value.They attack the charismatics. They attack the successful - such as Allison Dubois, John Edward, James Van Praagh and others. These debunkers are trying to get some spark in their miserable boring lives.

It's good to know that Zammit never attacks his critics. I was under a somewhat different impression, since he has posted the following about me:

... a non- entity, a nobody, someone who is colossally ignorant, without debating skills is trying to attack me on the Internet. He tries hard to be funny, but he’s as funny as frog. Of course he cannot debate the facts, he descends to his familiar place somewhere where he finds himself at home throwing mud. Mr.Prickott, stay down there where you belong and leave the thinking to those who can. For those who come across him, just ignore him. He’s nothing. He’s a nobody. He’s a loser and a defeatist.

I guess this was not an attack, after all!

Anyway, in explaining his policy of not criticizing his critics, Zammit continues:

But notice very varefully [sic], they NEVER attack my objective evidence for the afterlife because they now admit my objective evidence for the afterlife just cannot be rebutted. Instead they try to throw mud!

Notice very varefully carefully that I have criticized the objective evidence offered in David Thompson's seances, on prior occasions and today. For instance, I have pointed out that Audacity cannot be used to back up Zammit's claims. A professional-quality voiceprint analysis system is needed. Similarly, allowing Thompson's wife to secure him (if this is what's being done) and to stay in the room with him, in the dark, is an obvious violation of the most elementary precautions against deceit. This isn't throwing mud; it's stating a fact.

Hitherto, no scientist, no debunker, no skeptic - just no one has been able to rebut the classic objective evidence for the afterlife - if they could they would - and beat my $1,000,000 challenge!

His $1,000,000 challenage is as phony as Randi's, but in a different way. Zammit is asking his critics to prove a negative, which logically cannot be done. In the case of the Thompson seances, he's demanding that critics "duplicate" Thompson's act. Whatever Thompson is doing, it takes skill and practice. I could no more duplicate his feats than I could duplicate Penn & Teller's magic act - but that doesn't mean Penn & Teller are using paranormal powers.

Finally, someone asks Zammit if negative psychic energy can be directed at another person. Zammit responds that this is possible (which, I think, is probably true), and adds some sage advice:

NEVER, under any circumstances indulge in negative energy!! There is the Law of Cause and Effect – what you send unto others, will eventually return to the sender. You have been warned!

Hmm. Negative energy like, say, this?

... they are losers and defeatists. Attackers and debunkrs, especially those who are a 'nobody', 'non-entities' - only attack those who are perceived to have value ... These debunkers are trying to get some spark in their miserable boring lives.

RAW genius

A short time ago I blogged about some excerpts from an interview with Robert Anton Wilson which I'd found provocative and illuminating. I was sufficiently intrigued, in fact, to track down a copy of Wilson's hard-to-find book The New Inquisition, which I've now read.

The book is very hard to describe or categorize. I may convey some sense of it by saying that it includes discussions of quantum physics; Buddhist logic; authoritarian personalities; science and the military-industrial complex; UFOs; miraculous apparitions; rainfalls of fish, eels, coins, and cookies; and a creature known as the Bunnyman who would like us to pray for him.

If you get the impression that this is a very odd book, you are right. It is every bit as odd as any of the principal works of Shakespeare -- which, if you think about them, are really very strange stories, the comedies no less so than the tragedies. Wilson, by the way, thinks Francis Bacon wrote the works of Shakespeare. I disagree. I think it was Edward De Vere, the Earl of Oxford. But I digress.

Wilson has something else in common with Shakespeare -- or Bacon, or De Vere, as you like -- besides oddity. In his writing, as in Shakespeare's verse, there is an astonishing profligacy and fecundity of ideas and images, mixed with ironic humor. Just as Shakespeare can astonish the reader with the sheer ingenuity of his stylistic invention, Wilson can astonish us with the reckless originality of the associative leaps in his mind makes.

Perhaps the best way, though, to describe The New Inquisition is to imagine how I might have reacted to it at various points in my life. Fifteen years ago, I would have found the author insane and his book dangerous. Ten years ago I would have found the author bizarre and his book annoying. Five years ago I would have found the author confused and his book provocative. Today I find the author brilliant and his book a seminal achievement. This progression charts either my liberation from outmoded styles of thinking or my descent into madness, depending on how you look at it or, as Wilson might say, depending on which "reality-tunnel" you occupy.

I had thought of quoting some of my favorite passages and epigrams from the books, but quickly determined that I would end up quoting the whole damn thing. Not only would this make for an excessively long blog entry, but it would surely violate "fair use." Instead, I've excerpted only a few passages, which cover some, but by no means all, of the book's main themes and motifs. Incidentally, the very concept of "some but not all" is itself a theme of the book.

By way of explanation for what follows, I should note that when Wilson talks about Fundamentalism, he is referring to what I might call absolutism -- the belief that one knows the absolute truth and can be absolutely sure of it. This he contrasts with his own agnosticism, a term that he uses in more than simply the religious sense. The agnostic, in Wilson's usage, is someone who views life in terms of probabilities, not absolutes, and who is always willing to consider new evidence and a new point of view and to change his mind -- because he knows that any theory or model of reality that he may have adopted is grossly imperfect at best.

With that in mind, here are a few words from Robert Anton Wilson (all emphases in the original):

Mr. Robert Schaeffer of CSICOP has recently written a book called The UFO Verdict. I have not yet read it and therefore do not presume to criticize it, but I cannot help noticing the classic Fundamentalism of the title. A muddle-head like myself cannot even put together a plausible UFO theory yet (not even to my own satisfaction) but Mr. Schaeffer has a verdict.

No. He is even more wonderful than that. He hasn't merely got himself a verdict; he has the verdict.

As the reader knows by now, I am a simple, ignorant man (with a gaudy vocabulary). You would want me on a jury, I think, if you were charged with a major felony. I don't think you would really want Mr. Schaefer on the jury if you were even charged with a misdemeanor traffic violation. His Verdict would be quick and certain.

For some reason at this point I think of what has been called the Right Man syndrome.

This is not a concept from clinical or experimental psychology. It is a mere empirical generalization by the writer A.E. Van Vogt, in a pamphlet Report on the Violent Male, cited by [Colin] Wilson in [The Criminal History of Mankind] p. 64-71. ... The Violent Male -- and almost all violence is committed by males -- seems to be a man who literally cannot, ever, admit he might be wrong. He knows he is right; he is the total psychological opposite of the agnostic, in claiming absolute gnosis, total certitude, about all things. Van Vogt found that an astonishing amount of violence is committed by these males, and he calls the type The Right Man, because this man always insists he is Right. ...

In some respects, the Right Man seems to me like a chronic case of what clinical psychologists call the Authoritarian Personality and Freudians call the anal retentive. In these milder versions of the syndrome the same dogmatism appears but not the close link to violent behavior. Still, the Authoritarian Personality is Always Right and tends to seek positions of power. [Such men] are obsessed with facts and figures, frequently, and are rather "cold" toward human beings... They also have a statistical inclination toward being unwilling to experiment with "foreign" or "exotic" foods, and they regard philosophical speculation with extreme hostility. I think it was men of this type who killed Socrates, and I suspect they filled the top offices in the Old Inquisition.

Thank God there are none of them around today. ... [pp. 139-140]

If, as Colin Wilson says, most of history has been the history of crime, this is because humans have the ability to retreat from existential reality into that peculiar construct which they call The "Real" Universe and I have been calling hypnosis. Any Platonic "Real" Universe is a model, an abstraction, which is comforting when we do not know what to do about the muddle of existential reality or ordinary experience. In this hypnosis, which is learned from others but then becomes self-induced, The "Real" Universe overwhelms us and large parts of existential, sensory-sensual experience are easily ignored, forgotten or repressed. The more totally we are hypnotized by The "Real" Universe, the more of existential experience we then edit out or block out or blur into conformity with The "Real" Universe.

Concretely, the Violent Male -- the extreme form of the Right Man -- edits out the suffering and pain he causes to others. That is only appearance and can be ignored. In The "Real" Universe, the victim is only one of Them -- one of all the rotten bastards who have frustrated and mistreated the Right Man all his life. In existential reality, a large brutal male is beating a child; in The "Real" Universe of self-hypnosis, the Right Man is getting his just revenge on the oppressors who have abused him. ...

The ghastly acceleration of violent, inexplicable and seemingly "pointless" crimes by Right Men in this century -- and their hideous magnification into mass murders and war crimes by Right Men in governments -- indicate the prevalence of this type of self-hypnosis and what Van Vogt calls "the inner horror" that accompanies it. This "inner horror" is a sense of total helplessness combined with the certainty of always being Right. It seems paradoxical, but the more totally Right a man becomes, the more helpless he also becomes. This is because being Right means "knowing" (gnosis) and "knowing" is understanding The "Real" Universe. Since The "Real" Universe is, by definition, "objective" and "outside us" and "not our creation," we are made puny by it. We cannot act but only re-act -- as The "Real" Universe pushes us, we push back. But it is bigger, so we will lose eventually. Our only defense is in being Right and fighting as dirty as possible. ...

Man as a re-active mechanism -- the Materialist metaphor -- is Man with a grudge. ... And so we stumble on toward a bigger Holocaust than the Nazis could imagine, complaining bitterly that it is "inevitable." The "Real" Universe will not give us a chance.

When I speak of The "Real" Universe being created by self-hypnosis, I do not intend anything else but psychological literalness. In the hypnotized state, the existential "reality" around us is edited out and we go away to a kind of "Real" Universe created by the hypnotist. The reason that it is usually easy to induce hypnosis in humans is that we have a kind of "consciousness" that easily drifts away into such "Real" Universes rather than deal with existential muddle and doubt. ...

Since the criminal mentality derives from such hypnosis by a "Real" Universe and the helplessness and rage induced by such metaphors, the criminal becomes, more and more, the typical person of our age. When the "Real" Universe becomes politicized -- when the hypnotic model is based on "Us"-versus-"Them" Aristotelian logic -- the criminal graduates into the Terrorist, another increasingly typical product of the materialist era.

Against all this mechanized barbarism, existentialist psychology and humanist psychology -- aided, perhaps not coincidentally, by the metaphors of quantum physics -- suggests that other models of human existence are possible and thinkable and desirable. ...

[In such models] consciousness ... is not a passive receptor but an active creator, busy every nanosecond in projecting the art work that is an individualized reality-tunnel and is usually hypnotically dreamed of as The "Real" Universe. This trance, in most cases, appears as deep as that of anybody professionally hypnotized to repress pain during surgery. The criminal ... repressed sympathy and charity just as "miraculously" as the patient repressed pain in the above example. We are not the victims of The "Real" Universe; we have created the particular "Real" Universe that we happen to dwell in. ...

If we recognize some validity in these observations and try to "wake" ourselves from the hypnotic trance of modeltheism [i.e. seeing the world in monodimensional absolutist terms] -- if we try to recall, moment by moment, in an ordinary day that The "Real" Universe is only a model we have created and that existential living cannot be compressed into any model -- we enter a new kind of consciousness. ... We consciously seek to edit less and tune in more, and we look especially for events that do not neatly fit our model, since they will teach us to make a better model tomorrow, and an even better one the day after. ...

I walk down the street and, observing my state of consciousness, I see that I am in contact with experienced reality part of the time only. Some trees are quite beautiful, but then I realize that I have passed other trees without noticing them. I have drifted off into The "Real" Universe again and edited out a large beautiful hunk of the experienced world. The trees did not cease to exist; they were simply not-tuned-in.

One who remains alive and alert to the experienced world knows where he is, what he's doing and what is going on around him. It is truly startling, at first, to practice neurological self-criticism and notice how often one has lost track of such a simple matters as that. It is even more startling to notice that one is walking among hypnotized subjects who, most of the time, have completely lost track of such matters and are telling themselves story about The "Real" Universe while editing out vast amounts of the experienced world. [pp. 225-235]

Magick

Arthur C. Clarke famously observed that any sufficiently advanced technology will be indistinguishable from magic.

Bearing this in mind, take a look at this video. As you watch, realize that the man in the trench coat is standing in front of the video monitor and the red wall. Note the difference between the exposed parts of his body (his head and hands) and the coat itself.

For a partial explanation of what you've seen, go here. It turns out to be pretty simple, and perhaps only a gimmick.

A more recent and far more advanced development, intended to produce a similar result, is described here. This approach definitely is not simple, and may be much more than a gimmick. If it works, it will be as good an illustration of Clarke's maxim as anything we've seen.

Or more precisely, anything we haven't seen.

HT: Strata-Sphere.

Top ten

Political blogger John Hawkins recently posted his list of the ten best science-fiction movies of all time. With all due respect, it is one pretty piss-poor list. I mean, Spaceballs? Mel Brooks' Borscht Belt send-up of Star Wars? Okay, the movie has a few good gags, but it doesn't belong on any top ten (or even top hundred) list. And Signs as the number one SF movie, ever? Come on, man, try watching some movies produced before 1980.

Rather than curse the darkness, I decided to light a candle. That is, I wrote up my own list of the top ten SF movies.

It was surprisingly difficult to keep the list to only ten titles. Worthy contenders like Howard Hawks' The Thing from Another World, Richard Matheson's The Incredible Shrinking Man, the original Japanese version of Godzilla, the original Planet of the Apes, and Stanley Kubrick's dystopian A Clockwork Orange had to be ruthlessly omitted. Yet somehow two Jim Carrey movies made the final cut. What can I say? The man chooses interesting scripts.

Anyway, here's my list, which, I'm sure you will agree, is way better than Hawkins'. And there's not a Pizza the Hut in sight.

10. War of the Worlds (original) - George Pal's colorful depiction of alien invasion has a better script than Spielberg's remake. So what if you can see the wires holding up the Martian war machines? They're still cool, and the movie's pace and energy have not faded in the least.

9. Things to Come - dated but fascinating H.G. Wells drama about the fall and rise of civilization. An ode to technocratic elitism which may seem more alarming than inspiring today

8. The Day the Earth Stood Still - thoughtful, serious study of an extraterrestrial's arrival on Earth, with subtle parallels to the story of Christ. (He takes the name "Carpenter," for one.) Remember: Klaatu barada nikto

7. Metropolis - Fritz Lang's remarkable silent film, set in a city of the future that remains one of the most elaborate miniature sets ever built

6. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - complicated, ingenious comedy-drama with sci-fi overtones

5. The Truman Show - a brilliant performance by Ed Harris highlights this sharp, funny, wistful film, one of the most imaginative movies since Groundhog Day (which is a fantasy, or it would be on this list too)

4. Earth Vs. the Flying Saucers - low-budget epic with an unusually smart script and classic Ray Harryhausen special effects

3. The Empire Strikes Back - probably the best of the Star Wars saga, with astounding visuals that still hold up, a solid storyline, and an epic sweep

2. Aliens - amazing James Cameron SF war movie that owes a lot to the Robert Heinlein novel Starship Troopers (and is lightyears better than the movie later made from that book)

1. 2001: A Space Odyssey - often astounding, sometimes awe-inspiring, ultimately bewildering, a film unlike any other

Telemarketers

I just had to link to this audio of a hilariously cruel practical joke played on a telemarketer ...

I hate telemarketers.

HT: Ace of Spades.