Why do most Pyschics or Mediums Seem to be Liberal?

Well, since I believe the Bible to be the inspired, inerrant word of God I'd probably find the book to be an interesting but ultimately completely unbelievable discussion.

Ehrman started out believing that himself. He got into textual analysis to prove that point of view. It moved him away from that point of view.

...and how much of a percentage of the psychic's subsequent business was this author getting?

Zero. It was a one time article. A one time thing. The author never did anything with the psychic again.

Amazing claims require amazing evidence, and I'm afraid that "some book makes the claim" doesn't rise to that level of proof, especially when there are so many other possible explanations.

I didnt claim the story was real. I don't claim to believe in it or against it. I just posted it for discussion.

http://www.alternativescience.com/james-randi.htm

James Randi's "$1 million challenge"

Most people have heard of the challenge by James Randi offering $1 million to anyone who can demonstrate psychic powers.

On the face of it, Randi's challenge must be a good thing mustn't it? There's a million dollars just sitting there waiting to be picked up, and all anyone has to do to win it is perform under controlled conditions the kind of claim we read about every day in the newspapers -- spoon bending, mind-reading, remote viewing.

So doesn’t the mere fact that no-one has won Randi's challenge prove that such things are impossible? As usual in the murky world of "skepticism", things are not exactly what they appear to be.

Randi's $1M challenge was unveiled on 1st April 1996. You can read its terms in full at the website of the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) the organisation administering the challenge.*

A quick glance through the provisions seems to show an eminently reasonable and fair challenge. But now go back and look again a little more carefully, this time with the kind of critical eye that Randi brings to exposing cheats and frauds. What you find are some ambiguities that are likely to make any serious claimant uneasy to say the least.

The first such ambiguity is contained in the preamble where it says, "Since claims vary greatly in character and scope, specific rules must be formulated for each applicant."

This means, quite reasonably, that the rules for any particular attempt cannot be finalised until a claimant steps forward and announces what he or she is going to do -- bend spoons, read minds or walk on fire. But it also means that Randi will fomulate the rules for each individual attempt at his challenge on an ad hoc basis. And, of course, the claimant has to agree to these ad hoc rules. If he or she does not agree, the contest will not take place at all.

The second ambiguity is in Clause 4, which says that "Tests will be designed in such a way that no "judging" procedure is required. Results will be self-evident to any observer, in accordance with the rules which will be agreed upon by all parties in advance of any formal testing procedure taking place."

This means, quite reasonably, that there will be no interminable arguments by 'experts' over statistical measurements. Either the spoon bends or it doesn't: either the claimant reads minds or he doesn't. The written rules, agreed up front, will decide.

But it also means that there will be no objective, independent judging or adjudication, by scientific criteria, carried out by qualified professional scientists. Randi alone will say whether the terms of the challenge have been met -- whether the metal was bent psychically, or the electronic instrument deflected by mental power, or the remote image was correctly reproduced. In the event that the claimant insists the written terms have been met, but Randi disagrees, then it will be Randi's decision that prevails.

Not only will Randi be the sole judge of whether the claimant is successful, but even if a claimant appeals on scientific grounds that he has met the agreed terms of the challenge, Randi will be the sole arbiter of any appeal as well. Randi says there will be "no judging". In reality, he is both judge and jury -- not only of the claimant's cause but of his own cause as well.

With these two major ambiguities in the rules it would not be surprising if Randi never found a serious claimant to accept his challenge. Any potential claimant who reads the rules carefully will be concerned about two things.

First that the terms enable Randi to draw up specific rules that are unwinnable -- and hence that no claimant would agree to -- and then enable him to claim that "no-one has won the prize".

Second there is Randi's own objectivity. His position can be understood from his own writings such as this.

"The scientific community, too, must bear the blame. When a Mississippi inventor obtained the signatures of some thirty Ph.D.'s (most of them physicists) on a document attesting that he had discovered a genuine "free-energy" machine (essentially a perpetual motion device), and when the U.S. Patent office issued a patent in 1979 to another inventor of a "permanent magnet motor" that required no power input, there was little reaction from the scientific community. The "cold fusion" farce should have been tossed onto the trash heap long ago, but justifiable fear of legal actions by offended supporters has stifled opponents." [Click here for the real scientific facts].

"These absurd claims, along with the claims of the dowsers, the homeopaths, the colored-light quacks and the psychic spoon-benders, can be directly, definitively, and economically tested and then disposed of if they fail the tests."

It doesn't seem to have occurred to Randi that the thirty Ph.D.'s who attested to the new machine might know a little more about physics than he does.

Given uninformed and prejudiced views such as these, the concern will be that Randi, as sole judge of success, will never accept that paranormal phenomena have been demonstrated because his position is that he knows on a priori grounds that the paranormal is impossible and hence whatever the claimant has demonstrated must be merely an unexplained trick of some kind.

I put these ambiguities in the rules to James Randi. He dismissed them, saying only that I should "read the rules", and suggesting that I am a "nitpicker" and "pedant".

Randi is a non-scientist who has announced that -- by some undisclosed but non-scientific means -- he knows that such anomalous claims are farcical and 'absurd', and should be 'tossed on the trash heap.'

The real facts are that Randi is doing exactly what he has accused some scientists of: he has conducted no properly designed experiments, has published no empirical results (reproducible or otherwise) and has not submitted himself to any peer-review process. Yet he expects us to accept his conclusions as having some scientific significance and meriting attention.

Randi says, "There seems to be a certain quality of the human mind that requires the owner to get silly from time to time. Sometimes the condition becomes permanent, a part of the victim's personality."

Here, at least, are words that no-one can disagree with.

http://michaelprescott.freeservers.com/FlimFlam.htm

Flim-Flam Flummery:

A Skeptical Look at James Randi

by

Michael Prescott

Years ago, when I was a full-fledged skeptic, atheist, and rationalist, I read James Randi's 1980 book Flim-Flam! Psychics, ESP, Unicorns and other Delusions. Randi is an accomplished magician and a professional skeptic, dedicating to disproving any and all claims of what he considers pseudoscience. In line with this agenda, and as its title suggests, Flim-Flam is a concerted attack on miscellaneous purported irrationalities – everything from the pop-culture writings of Erich von Daniken to the more serious investigations of professional parapsychologists. I enjoyed the book, which reinforced my belief system at the time.
Recently I picked up Flim-Flam again. Having changed my mind about many things over the past twenty years, I responded to it much differently this time. I was particularly struck by the book's hectoring, sarcastic tone. Randi pictures psychic researchers as medieval fools clad in "caps and bells" and likens the delivery of an announcement at a parapsychology conference to the birth of "Rosemary's Baby." After debunking all manner of alleged frauds, he opens the book's epilogue with the words, "The tumbrels now stand empty but ready for another trip to the square" – a reference to the French Revolution, in which carts ("tumbrels") of victims were driven daily to the guillotine. Randi evidently pictures himself as the executioner who lowers the blade. In passing, two points might be made about this metaphor: the French Revolution was a product of "scientific rationalism" run amok ... and most of its victims were innocent.

Still, the tedious nastiness of Flim-Flam does not tell us anything about its accuracy. Intrigued, I decided to check out a few of Randi's claims in detail.

I chose to focus on Chapter Eight, Randi's dissection of the experiments of Russell Targ and Harold Puthoff, two well-known parapsychologists. Randi calls them "the Laurel and Hardy of psi" and proceeds to argue that their experiments were a tissue of ineptitude, gullibility, and dishonesty.

The first thing I noticed was that Randi never gives any indication that Targ and Puthoff have any scientific credentials or accomplishments. The casual reader could be forgiven for assuming that they are not "real" scientists at all. For the record, Targ is a physicist credited with inventing the FM laser, the high-power gas-tranport laser, and the tunable plasma oscillator. Puthoff, also a physicist, invented the tunable infra-red laser and is widely known for his theoretical work on quantum vacuum states and the zero point field. (See The Field, by Lynne McTaggart, for an overview of Puthoff's work in quantum phyics.) If these two are "Laurel and Hardy," at least they come with good résumés. Randi, by contrast, has no scientific training.

Randi starts off by telling us how Targ and Puthoff took a professed psychic, Ingo Swann, to Stanford University, where, they said, Swann used his psychic abilities to affect the operation of a magnetometer. According to Randi, "the report was all wet." He knows this because he contacted Dr. Arthur Hebard, "the builder of the device, who was present and has excellent recollections of what took place." Hebard, Randi says disputes the Targ-Puthoff account. He is quoted as saying, "It's a lie. You can say it any way you want, but that's what I call a lie."

This is pretty compelling stuff. But is Randi's version of events accurate? Let's take a look.

First, he seems to make a rather basic error when he says that both Targ and Puthoff were present for this experiment. As best I can determine, Puthoff conducted the experiment, which took place in June, 1972, without Targ's assistance. Targ had met Puthoff prior to this time, but their work together apparently did not begin until a few months later.

That's a small point. Far more important is the matter of Dr. Hebard's testimony. There's another side to the story, which I found in Chapter 17 of Psychic Breakthroughs Today by D. Scott Rogo. Rogo, who died in 1990 at the age of forty, was a prolific journalist and researcher of psychic phenomena. He wrote numerous popular books, some of which have been used as college texts. He also published research papers in peer-reviewed parapsychology journals. Although Rogo was sometimes criticized for tackling overly esoteric subjects, he had a reputation for honesty and was respected for his willingness to do hands-on investigation and field work, rather than relying on armchair appraisals. A Scott Rogo tribute and bibliography can be found here.

Rogo writes, "There obviously exist several discrepancies between Dr Puthoff's views on what happened during this experiment, and what Randi claims Dr Hebard told him. So to clarify the matter, I decided to get in touch with Dr Hebard myself. I finally tracked him down at the Bell Telephone Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey. He was very willing to discuss the Swann magnetometer demonstration with me, and professed to be very interested in parapsychology." Hebard's interest in the paranormal contradicts Randi's statement that Hebard, "not being a reader of far-out literature," was unaware of Targ and Puthoff's claims.

Rogo acknowledges that Hebard's account differs in some respects from Puthoff's. "Dr Hebard denied in no uncertain terms, however, Randi's claim that Swann was never asked to 'stop the field charge' being recorded from the magnetometer. He easily recalled that he had suggested that it would be a fascinating effect if Swann could produce it . . . which, of course, he actually did soon after the suggestion was made. Randi also directly quotes Dr Hebard as calling some of Targ and Puthoff's claims 'lies'. Dr Hebard was very annoyed by this claim since, as he explained to me, Randi had tried to get him to make this charge and he had refused. Dr Hebard later signed a statement to this effect for me." (Ellipsis in original.)

As for the discrepancies between Hebard's and Puthoff's accounts, Rogo reports that in a subsequent meeting with Puthoff, he was shown "the actual graphed print-outs given by the magnetometer during the Swann demonstrations. The records supported Dr Puthoff's contention more than they did Dr Hebard's."

So far, then, the best we can say is that Randi's criticism of Puthoff (and Targ, who apparently wasn't even involved in the magnetometer experiment) is far from the last word on the subject.

Randi proceeds to launch a comprehensive critique of Targ and Puthoff's article "Information Transmission under Conditions of Sensory Shielding," which appeared in the October 18, 1974, issue of the respected journal Nature, and which can be read here (or here). The article details experiments involving, among other participants, the professed psychic Uri Geller.

Randi's take on this series of experiments is withering. He skewers Targ and Puthoff as "bunglers." He reports that their experiments were conducted in a chaotic atmosphere conducive to cheating. He says that a hole in the wall of Geller's isolation room enabled him to spy on the scientists during their ESP experiments. He says that Targ and Puthoff falsified the results of the tests by omitting failed experiments that would have lowered Geller's averages to the level of chance. Further, he says that the scoring of Geller's performances was mishandled, generating higher scores than Geller deserved.

The question naturally arises: How does Randi know all this, since, as he admits, "I've never even set foot on the sacred grounds of SRI [Stanford Research Institute, where the experiments were conducted]"? He explains that he was given inside information by "an individual" who claimed to represent dozens of SRI scientists. This group, which worked in secret and even adopted a code name (Broomhilda), passed the information to Randi.

Unfortunately, Randi never names this individual or any other members of the Broomhilda group. He says that "Broomhilda verified for me much of the information that I had been holding on to for years," but where did he get this earlier information in the first place? "That data," he says, "now moved from the status of hearsay to documented fact." But documented is hardly a term applicable to either the initial information, which is never specified, or the Broomhilda information, which came from an anonymous source. He adds, "Additional facts were elicited during conversations and correspondence with individuals. Many of these persons were not aware of Broomhilda and were acting on their own. Their completely independent input supported Broomhilda's charges. Taken together," he concludes, "the information from all sources amounted to quite an indictment."

Maybe so, but it's an indictment that would never hold up in court. The reader is expected to take Randi's word that his unidentified sources are trustworthy – and that the sources themselves are well-informed about experimental procedures they may or may not have witnessed.

Thus when Randi alleges that "hundreds of [failed] experiments that were done by SRI ... were never reported," we must take the statement on faith, as it is unsupported by any documentation. Similarly, when Randi says definitively, "All the other tests [i.e., the successful ones] lacked proper controls and were useless," we search in vain for any footnote to back up this assertion.

A posting I found on a message board sums up the situation nicely: "Claims of poor scientific method leveled at the experimenters have been shown to be mainly unsubstantiated personal opinion and second-hand 'Chinese Whispers.'" (Chinese Whispers is the British equivalent of the American game, Telephone.) It might be worth adding that critics of paranormal phenomena, like Randi, are forever decrying any reliance on "anecdotal evidence," which is precisely what the bulk of Randi's argument consists of.

Randi does produce two individuals willing to go on the record – Charles Rebert and Leon Otis, both of whom were SRI psychologists. Rebert and Otis apparently disagreed with the Targ-Puthoff conclusions; indeed, Randi tells us that "a horrified Rebert also heard that Targ and Puthoff were going to proclaim these erroneous findings before Stanford University's psychology department, and he forbade such a blunder. The talk was canceled." But this only tells us that there was a dispute among the scientists at SRI. Rebert and Otis ran some unsuccessful tests with Geller and decided that he was a fraud. Targ and Puthoff ran what they regarded as successful tests and decided that, in some areas at least, Geller had legitimate psychic powers. Nothing in Randi's text establishes which conclusion was correct.

Randi goes on to report that after he had criticized Geller in an earlier book, Targ and Puthoff "issued a 'fact sheet' in rebuttal to twenty-four" of his points. According to Randi, "This attempt was a failure, and in response to one claim that the SRI tests were done under tight controls, a scientist who was there declared flatly, 'This is b.s. As far as my colleagues and I are concerned, none of the experiments met accepted scientific protocol.' I will not burden you," Randi concludes, "with the other twenty-three points; they are as easily demolished."

Well, hold on. A quotation from yet another anonymous source ("a scientist who was there") hardly constitutes a demolition job, especially when the scientist's argument consists of an unsupported assertion ("none of the experiments met accepted scientific protocol"). Personally, I would have welcomed the "burden" of the other twenty-three points and of Randi's detailed and carefully documented rebuttals.

Some idea of the counter-arguments to Randi's claims can be obtained by taking another look at D. Scott Rogo, who earlier showed the initiative to track down Dr. Hebard. Unlike Randi, who, as we have seen, had "never even set foot" inside the research facility, Rogo visited SRI on June 12, 1981. He found that Randi had misrepresented the hole in the wall of the isolation room through which Geller was supposedly able to spy on the researchers. The hole, a conduit for cables, is depicted in Flim-Flam as being three and a half inches wide and therefore offering a good view of the experimental area where the researchers were working. Rogo found, however, that the hole "is three-and-a-quarter inches [wide] and extends through a twelve-and-a-half inch wall. This scopes your vision and severely limits what you can see through it. The hole is not left open either, since it is covered by a plate through which cables are routinely run. Dr Puthoff and his colleague were, however, concerned that their subject might be ingenious enough to insert an optical probe through this hole, so they monitored the opening throughout their telepathy experiments."

Randi also indicates that the hole is stationed 34 inches above the floor. Not so, says Rogo. "It isn't three feet above the floor, but is located only a little above floor level. The only thing you can see through it - even under optimal conditions - is a small bit of exterior floor and opposing wall. (The viewing radius is only about 20°, and the targets for the Geller experiments were hung on a different wall completely.)* I also discovered during my trip to SRI that an equipment rack was situated in front of the hole throughout the Geller work, which obstructed any view through it even further. I ended my little investigation by talking with two people who were present during these critical experiments. They both agreed that wires were running through the hole – therefore totally blocking it – during the time of the Geller experiments."

It would appear that the hole in the isolation booth's wall poses considerably less of a problem than the holes in Randi's arguments.

By now, I felt that Randi's credibility was in doubt. He had committed careless errors of fact, had quite possibly misrepresented and misquoted Hebard, and had made unsupported assertions based on rumors. I wondered what Targ and Puthoff have to say about all this. The only responses from either of them that I could find online were part of a long essay by Winston Wu, "Debunking Common Skeptical Arguments Against Paranormal and Psychic Phenomena"; the relevant part is Argument 18. Puthoff is quoted as saying the following:

"In Flim- Flam, [Randi] gives something like 28 debunking points, if my memory serves me correctly. I had the opportunity to confront Randi at a Parapsychology Association conference with proof in hand, and in tape-recorded interaction he admitted he was wrong on all the points. He even said he would correct them for the upcoming paperback being published by the CSICOP group. (He did not.)* ...

"The truth of the matter is that none of Randi's claimed suspected inadequate controls actually had anything to do with the experiments, which of course Randi was not there to know of. This has been independently reported by Scott Rogo somewhere in the literature, who came out specifically to check each of Randi's guesses about inadequate controls and found them inapplicable under the conditions in which the tests were conducted. In fact, all of Randi's suggestions were amateurish compared to the sophisticated steps we took, suspecting as we did everything from magician's tricks to an Israeli intelligence scam....

"In case one thinks that it was just a case of our opinions vs. his opinions," Puthoff continues, "we chose for the list of incorrect points only those that could be independently verified. Examples: [Randi] said that in our Nature paper we verified Geller's metal-bending. Go to the paper, and you see that we said we were not able to obtain evidence for this. He said that a film of the Geller experiment made at SRI by famed photographer Zev Pressman was not made by him, but by us and we just put his name on it. We showed up with an affidavit by Pressman saying that indeed he did make the film."

There is no way for me to verify Puthoff's statement that he tape-recorded Randi's concession of defeat "on all the points." This has to stand as an unsupported assertion, just like Randi's own arguments. But it is possible to take a closer look at Puthoff's last two claims.

First, Puthoff insists that his and Targ's Nature article does not endorse Geller's alleged metal-bending. This is accurate, as you can see for yourself by reading the article. Puthoff and Targ write, "It has been widely reported that Geller has demonstrated the ability to bend metal by paranormal means. Although metal bending by Geller has been observed in our laboratory, we have not been able to combine such observations with adequately controlled experiments to obtain data sufficient to support the paranormal hypothesis."

On the other hand, I have not found any statement by Randi in Flim-Flam to the effect that Targ and Puthoff "had verified Geller's metal-bending." He attacks the Targ-Puthoff experiments on other grounds. Of course, he may have made this statement elsewhere, but as far as I can tell, Puthoff is rebutting a point Randi never made.

How about Puthoff's second claim, regarding the SRI film? Randi certainly does make this an issue in Flim-Flam. Targ and Puthoff, he writes, "appended to [the film] – without his knowledge or permission – the name of Zev Pressman, the SRI photographer who had shot the film.... Pressman, said Targ and Puthoff, was present during [a particular series of] experiments. Not so, according to Pressman.... Most damning of all, Pressman said to others at SRI that he had been told the successful [tests] were done after he (Pressman)* had gone home for the day. So it appears the film was a reenactment ... Pressman did not even know that Targ and Puthoff were issuing a statement, he did not sign it, and he did not give them permission to use his name. He knew nothing about most of what appeared under his name, and he disagreed with the part that he did know about." (Italics in original.)

Here we have Randi saying that this photographer, Pressman, was duped and used by the experimenters, while Puthoff says that Pressman signed an affidavit swearing that "indeed he did make the film." Is there any way to resolve this?

A further Web search turned up Chapter 14 of The Geller Effect. Part One of this book is written by Uri Geller. Part Two, which includes Chapter 14, was written by Guy Lyon Playfair. Living up to his name, Playfair offers an even-handed presentation of the various controversies surrounding the flamboyant and eccentric Geller.

Playfair writes, "[Randi] turned, in a later book, Flim-Flam, to the professional photographer who had made the film, a Stanford employee named Zev Pressman, with an extraordinary series of unfounded allegations....

"Pressman flatly denied all of Randi's allegations in two public statements, neither of which was even mentioned in the 1982 reissue of the book. 'I made the film,' said Pressman, 'and my name appeared with my full knowledge and permission . . . Nothing was restaged or specially created . . . I have never met nor spoken to nor corresponded with Randi. The 'revelations' he attributes to me are pure fiction.'"

It is true that no mention is made of these "two public statements" in Flim-Flam's 1982 edition – the edition I own.

For corroborating testimony, I turned once again to the indefatigable Scott Rogo, who investigated this claim just as he had looked into Dr. Hebard's testimony and the infamous hole in the wall.

Rogo writes, "I spoke directly with Mr Pressman on 5 January 1981 and he was quite interested when I told him about Randi's book. He denied that he had spoken to the magician. When I read him the section of Randi's book dealing with his alleged 'expose' of the Targ-Puthoff film, he became very vexed. He firmly backed up the authenticity of the film, told me how he had taken it on the spot, and labeled Randi's allegation as a total fabrication. (His own descriptive language was a little more colourful!)*" Rogo also reports that Puthoff showed him Pressman's signed affidavit.

How could Randi's conversation with Pressman be so different from Rogo's? The truth is, Randi does not appear to have had a conversation with Pressman at all. Take another look at the quote from Flim-Flam. The key words are: "Most damning of all, Pressman said to others at SRI ..."

Evidently, then, Randi's source is not Pressman himself, but unnamed "others at SRI" who passed on this information to Randi. Another round of Chinese Whispers, it seems.

At this point Randi ends his discussion of the Geller experiments and proceeds to criticize Targ and Puthoff's later work, as well as the work of another researcher, Charles Tart. Dealing with these criticisms would require another essay of equal length to this one, so I will stop here. The reader who wants to go further is invited to read Randi's Flim-Flam and then click on any of the links inserted throughout this essay and listed below. Or just search the Web for the keywords Randi, Targ, Puthoff, etc., and see what comes up.

Before I began this modest online research project for a rainy afternoon, I had mixed feelings about Randi. I saw him as closed-minded and supercilious, but I also assumed he was sincere and, by his own lights, honest. Now, having explored his contribution to the Targ-Puthoff controversy in some detail, I am thoroughly unimpressed. Randi comes across as a bullying figure, eager to attack and ridicule, willing to distort and even invent evidence – in short, the sort of person who will do anything to prevail in a debate, whether by fair means or foul.

The title of his book thus takes on a new and unintended meaning. From what I can tell, James Randi really is the Flim-Flam man.

I didn't know Janet Mayer is a psychic?

Here's a picture on this link that shows Janet with Allison at a Psychic Medium conference...2005

You got the message as to where the 2006 one wil be, right?

Thank you to Allison DuBois and John Edward and Sylvia Browne and Janet Mayer no matter what your political affiliation.

First of all, why this ridiculous thread isn't in the smoky backroom is beyond me. Secondly, if your assertion is that we should actually "thank" the links of DuBois, Edward, and Browne, then you and I have some serious issues.

They are nothing more than 21st century scam artist predators that prey on the weak and feeble minded. They aren't even good at what they do - in fact, many debunkers have higher hit rates than those clowns. They've gotten lazy with their stolen wealth and no longer even try to cold read very well at all.

Browne is the worst, as she charges many hundreds of dollars for you to call her. Many people have recorded these calls and found that she recites the same bullshit to you as she does to me.

I can't believe I"m wasting time on this. John Edward? Read this.

PATHETIC

Since you asked this:

Thank you to Allison DuBois and John Edward and Sylvia Browne and Janet Mayer no matter what your political affiliation.
First of all, why this ridiculous thread isn't in the smoky backroom is beyond me. Secondly, if your assertion is that we should actually "thank" the links of DuBois, Edward, and Browne, then you and I have some serious issues.
They are nothing more than 21st century scam artist predators that prey on the weak and feeble minded. They aren't even good at what they do - in fact, many debunkers have higher hit rates than those clowns. They've gotten lazy with their stolen wealth and no longer even try to cold read very well at all.
Browne is the worst, as she charges many hundreds of dollars for you to call her. Many people have recorded these calls and found that she recites the same bullshit to you as she does to me.
I can't believe I"m wasting time on this. John Edward? Read this.

I will answer point by point.

I thanked all of them, but I did not indicate that I supported or endorsed any of them. I am not a spokesperson for the US Government and it is not my job to publicly endorse anyone as I am still a consultant/volunteer for this country. I do thank them for acting as responsible citizens and trying to do something to help others. I don't hear them bashing our President as many of the Hollywood elite do.

What John Edward did for me was two things, he actually did a reading on my dead brother and made me feel less afraid of my dreams/visions/premonitions and more accepting to what I was doing. I was identified as psychic by the US Army on June 25, 1983 when I did a triple remote viewing around the same incident and went to my CC about it. Nuff said there.

Allison brought the whole thing to light through her TV show and if she wasn't the real deal, she would not be known by name in Maricopa County Superior Court.

Jante Mayer knows what she has done for me and for the person that started this thread. I find all of the above to be blessings.

With respect towards Sylvia Browne, I am not familiar enough with her to know much more than the fact that she is on Montel frequently and I haven't heard complaints that she repeats herself week after week. What I am aware of it that many do have a tough of grace by angels and Sylvia Browne makes it seem less scary and easier to accept.

As to why you are asking me about where this thread was started, well...

I didn't start the thread
Many posters interact with the originator of the thread and/or me

We (Pippin and I) became cyberfrineds for more than just our Republican Commitment, but because of the paranormal and I am sure she would agree with me on both Allison and Janet (and I don't see a critique on Janet...but if I do, your head will roll...got it?)

I also thanked the President and informed him that I would be happy to continue to serve, just like the rest of my family. We are all military, so maybe you may want to tread lightly.

If you have an issue with my mental faculties, feel free to leave a comment for my boss at 1-202-456-1414. You will probably get transferred to 1-202-456-1111. I would give you an internal fax number, but I don't want them disturbed by a mole-troll like you.

Since you seem to be of knowledge as to how good they are or aren't, please post an intelligent discourse about the research methodologies that prove your views. Be sure that it is ready for peer review and since it is in the umbrella of psychology, that is my specialty as a teacher and can teach it at the college level.

Please provide far more detail about the debunkers and their scientific methodologies and where they first debunked and whether or not the debunking was stringently replicated according to the steps of research methodology.

I, personally, have not called Sylvia Browne and can't say what she does or does not say. If someone has the money to call and call and call and call, then they will spend lots of money to get the same answer over and over and over again. If they pay others to do it for them, you think it would n't go back to the origin of the money?

On a final note, what are your religious beliefs? Why do you choose to pick a fight. I didn't provoke you. Are you sure you are not a mole-troll that is here to start a slap-fight amongst the peaceful?

Your post was weak and unbecoming to a regular poster of Freerepublic. This sort of posting is generally not tollerated by us and the viking kitties can and will be ouot to play with a mole-troll if necessary.

If you ever post anything that is provoking, name calling, badgering, inflammatory or annoying to me again, you will be reported to the Admin Moderator.

I thanked all of them, but I did not indicate that I supported or endorsed any of them. I am not a spokesperson for the US Government and it is not my job to publicly endorse anyone as I am still a consultant/volunteer for this country.

Huh? I didn't mean to invoke the US Government in this discussion. I'll take you at your word.

I do thank them for acting as responsible citizens and trying to do something to help others.

I'm sorry, this is where we differ - immensely. Sylvia Brown, John Edward and their ilk do just the opposite I'm afraid. They are, in fact, some of the most irresponsible citizens of the earth. They are LIARS, CHEATS, SCAM ARTISTS, etc. They and their compadres HURT people. They give them false hope and often steer them away from medical help. They should all be in jail.

I don't hear them bashing our President as many of the Hollywood elite do.

Maybe because they continue to let them get away with fraud so easily.

What John Edward did for me was two things, he actually did a reading on my dead brother and made me feel less afraid of my dreams/visions/premonitions and more accepting to what I was doing.

That's nice. Did it bother you that he didn't know your dead brother's name or how he actually passed away or really any other details other than vague guesses? Kate, I'm a nice guy and I could do the same for you. And I'm not even trying to make a buck.

I was identified as psychic by the US Army on June 25, 1983 when I did a triple remote viewing around the same incident and went to my CC about it. Nuff said there.

No, I"m sorry - not nearly "Nuff said." The US Army, to my knowledge, did not endorse anyone as a "psychic." Ever. No one has ever, to my knowledge, succeeded in "triple remote viewing." Ever. Now, I'm fully willing to accept that you are the one person in the world who has this supernatural ability - but I'd like a bit more proof of that.

Allison brought the whole thing to light through her TV show and if she wasn't the real deal, she would not be known by name in Maricopa County Superior Court.

You got me there. She is, indeed, a real human being. And NBC really did create a fictional show about her fictional abilities. And yes, they know her name - as the woman who never met a mic she didn't like and never bristled at lying as to her credentials:

Allison's big claim to fame, which she maintains started her career as a medium, was her work with the Texas Rangers. We've seen mention of this in numerous articles around the internet, as well as in statements attributed directly to Allison herself. In the January 17 issue of Haunted Times, the following statements appeared in the introduction to an interview with Allison.

Allison] sent details about crimes she could not possibly have known to law enforcement agencies around the country. ... Uncomfortably, The Texas Rangers contacted Allison shortly after receiving her information and asked her to come to Texas to assist them with a missing persons investigation.

And Kate, does this exchange bother you at all?

Not to be outdone, on January 3, NBC launched Medium, its own "chilling drama series inspired by the real-life story of research medium Allison Dubois." (The show begins with the titles, "There really is an Allison… Really.") Patricia Arquette stars as a law student who begins to suspect that she can talk to dead people, read people’s minds, and see the future. With pluck and confidence, she dispels doubts and shows up skeptics including her rocket scientist husband and police investigators. Her abilities are apparently far more impressive than real-life psychic detectives: At one point Dubois leads a group of Texas Rangers to find a missing child’s body. In contrast to the typical vague, post hoc predictions about where the body is, Dubois stands in a field, points to the ground, and says the body is "right here, about three feet down."

The show repeatedly claims to be based on the experiences of a woman named Allison Dubois, who is credited as a "consultant/real-life medium." In fact, according to the show’s NBC Web site, "Dubois has consulted on a variety of murders or missing persons cases while working with various law enforcement agencies including the Glendale Arizona Police Department, the Texas Rangers, and a County Attorney’s Office in the Homicide Bureau."

Unfortunately for Dubois, the Glendale police and the Texas Rangers tell a different story. "The Texas Rangers have never used psychics and have no plans to do so," spokesman Tom Vinger stated flatly. Glendale police spokesman Michael Pena stated that the detective who handles missing persons cases "does not recall using Dubois at all in [one specific] case, or in any other cases." As is often the case, the claims made by psychic detectives wither under a little real detective work.

From here.

On and on it goes, here. And besides, let's play make-believe and pretend Ms. DuBois has this ability. Shouldn't she be tried and put in jail for withholding all sorts of information regarding crimes around the world? I should sure think so.

I'm not familiar with Janet Mayer. So I just looked at her site. She looks like a very nice woman who charges $200 to cold read people over the phone and comfort them about how their dead relatives are in a "good place and they say hello and the letter N has something to do with something, right? No? then the other common letter S is important somehow?" You wear Socks? Right? I'll pay the 200 bucks if you want and we'll record her reading of me and I won't play her cold reading games (that is, leading her on) and we'll see how she does, ok? Will she do better than John Edward did, even when being helped by a believing audience member?

JOHN EDWARD REVISITED

Back in 2000, when “psychic” John Edward was a hot media number, an editor at TV Guide sent me a 2-hour videotape of some of his shows, with the request that I examine them to find examples of his “cold reading” techniques. This was to provide input for an article they were doing on him. Now, this was a task of considerable difficulty for me, since what actually got to be broadcast was of course the edited version of any audience session, and subtleties of technique – not to mention omission – are easily lost in editing. My contact at TV Guide suggested I look over the entire tape to find examples I could use. As I told him, that could possibly lead to data-searching, a trap into which so many parapsychologists have fallen; I said that I would take the very first episode on the tape, and analyze that. And I did.

Let’s examine this item, the “Crossing Over” show of December 19th, 2000. Edward began the session with a warning to the audience that he couldn’t meet their specific expectations, a technique that excused in advance what actually turned out to be a rather bad guessing game. Remember, every member of his audience, self-selected to consist of persons who sincerely want to make a connection with the spirit of a deceased relative or friend, sits and waits for a comment from Edward, an initial, name, suggestion, relationship, or situation that they can in some way relate either to their lives or to the life of the deceased. They search frantically for that connection which Edward is constantly urging them to make. Here are the first 50 seconds of that show:

John Edward: The person that’s coming through back here, they’re telling me to acknowledge I have a male figure who’s coming through and he’s coming through with a younger male. So I have a father figure who’s coming through, coming through with a person that would be below him and it’s like there’s some sort of connection between October, or the 10th of a month having some type of meaning, and there’s a feeling of somebody either working in transit, being involved with busses or trains, there’s something like “transit” feeling that comes up with that, because they’re showing me somebody with a transit connection, so I don’t know exactly where this goes. [He points into the audience.] It’s like I’m in the back, two rows back there. Do you understand this? [He points to a man, 70 years or so in age, who has indicated his interest.]

Just to bring a bit of clarity to this drivel, here it is again, the redundancies and the “stuffing” removed. It’s about a quarter of the original size, and much clearer:

A male father figure with a younger male, a connection between October, or the 10th of a month, and somebody working in transit, involved with busses or trains. [He points into the audience.] Two rows back. Do you understand?

This was delivered rapidly, with no pauses, not providing any opportunity for a denial. The question, “Do you understand this?” is a cold-reading technique; of course these simple words are understood, but affirmation of that fact can – and does – appear to indicate that all the items in this rambling sequence are being accepted by the victim, not just “understood.”

The chap “two rows back” indicated that he wanted to hear more of this:

Man: Yes.

JE: Okay. Your dad passed?

Man: Yes.

JE: Okay. And is there a younger male for him who’s crossed over, like his son or a younger brother?

Man: My son.

JE: Okay. Your dad and your son are coming through together. There’s a “D” connection that comes up around this, that either means that your dad is the “D,” your son is the “D,” there’s someone with a “D” connection around this. You understand that?

Again, the “Do you understand” ploy, even though the victim denies any suggested connection. And the identification of the father with “his son or a younger brother” is wrong. It turns out to be the victim’s son.

Man: Not a “D.”

JE: Okay, keep thinking about it.

We have here another common cold-reading move, in which the victim is told to continue to try to come up with a connection, and the implication is that Edward will return to the guess and further develop it. And he does, though the victim’s wife supplies the connection, as someone frequently does, trying to help the scam artist:

Man: [interrupts when his wife whispers to him]… mother-in-law.

JE: Who’s passed?

Man: [nods yes.]

JE: Okay.

Man: Dottie.

JE: That’s a “D”!

Next, following this clutch-at-a-straw, Edward reminded the man, in a quick re-cap, what he’d told him. He said he’d “brought through” his dad, and a “younger male,” plus the month of October, and the 10th of any month (either of which he then suggested to the man might mark a birthday or anniversary, but neither did), and insisted that at least the number “10" was “marking” something or someone, extending the field now to include “an uncle or uncle-in-law.” Still no connection. He then asked if the family consisted of three children, or perhaps one child “and two others.” Both those guesses were also met with a blank stare and denial.

But remember, in the case of his “bringing through” the father, Edward didn’t give a name or even a correct initial, though he tried! The “younger man” he had introduced, he guessed was either the man’s brother or his uncle, but it wasn’t; it was his son. Note, too, the gimmick of instant correction used by Edward: he guessed the wrong relationship here, but as soon as the man corrected his guess for him, he incorporated it immediately by saying, “Your dad and your son...” All that long attempt to connect the transit industry with the man or with the deceased – 9 seconds out of the 20 seconds of “fishing,” – also failed, and though Edward, before leaving the man and moving on, tried the “transit” reference once more, it was a total washout and was then ignored. The month of October, or the 10th of any month – giving him 42 days out of the year! – didn’t fit any angle, and Edward didn’t find anyone with a “D” name until the man’s wife suggested her own mother, who up until then had not even been mentioned. Edward accepted it eagerly as fitting the “D” guess.

This was a resounding failure as a reading, but the subject of all this guesswork was reduced to sobs and tears by the experience, and the audience was impressed.

Here are the total guesses made for the first subject of the Oct. 19/00 “Crossing Over” show. Edward tries to get him to identify with these 23 guesses, all rattled off inside of 50 seconds, about one guess every two seconds:

Response

(1) There is a male figure? (2) There is also a younger male figure? (3) There is significance to the month of October? (4) There is significance to the 10th of any month? (5) There is a transit industry connection? (6) Busses are involved? (7) Trains are involved? (8) Your father is deceased ? (9) The younger man is your brother? (10) The younger man is your uncle? (11) There is a “D” connection? (12) Your son is the “D”? (13) Your father is the “D”? (14) Can you identify with any “D” person in your life? (15) The 10th of a month — any month — is a birthday? (16) The 10th of a month — any month — is an anniversary? (17) There’s a birthday — of anyone — in October? (18) There’s an anniversary — of anyone — in October? (19) The number 10 “marks something”? Anything? (20) An uncle is “connected” with the number 10? (21) An uncle-in-law is “connected” with the number 10? (22) Your family has three children? (23) Your family consists of one child and two others?	Yes Yes Yes	No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No
_______________ 3 right 20 wrong

Guess #1 has a 50/50 chance of being right. But notice: the way that Edward conducts these sessions, he can also apply any and all guesses to anyone in the audience – there were about 40 persons – who might choose to indicate a “hit” for them, by a gesture. Friends, family, co-workers and acquaintances, living and dead, all are eligible to fit any guess. Guesses #1 and #2 are definite hits. Then it goes downhill.

Guesses #3 & #4 ask the subject to identify with some 42 days out of 365, to connect with any and all birthdays, anniversaries, or dates of decease – any event – of anyone, since Edward only says “There is significance” to one of these dates.

Guesses #5, #6 & #7 are very wide, involving all possibilities in commuting, vacations, accidents, daily routine, the neighborhood, or occupation, and again, everyone in the audience is also eligible to identify with this guess.

Guess #8 is asked as a question, though Edward – and everyone else – is quite safe in this guess, since nonagenarians are very, very, rare.

Guesses #9 & #10 are simply the usual rapid stabs at correlation, and are immediately ignored by the audience as trivial – when they miss. But they’re not trivial, since if they’d been correct, they would have amplified the value of this otherwise dismal reading.

Guesses #11, #12, #13, & #14 are “stabs” at a letter that could represent anything. A person (living or dead), friends, family, acquaintances, a first or last name or initial, a city or town, a company, a title, an object, would all be eligible. But Edward misses. It’s astonishing that he receives a “no” on #14!

Guesses #15, #16, #17 & #18 offer very wide possibilities. From all the persons this man knows of, it’s inescapable that one or more of them have to have something that can be identified with one of these guesses. But the victim fails to think of any.

Guess #19 is also very wide, for the same reasons. The number 10 must be related to “something”... #20 and #21 are wild stabs which simply fail.

Guesses #22 & #23 are two more “stabs” made in hopes of salvaging this fiasco, but they fail to hit. When #22 is denied, Edward modifies it to a wider scope in #23 (note: as he does with guesses #20 and #21, too) but he still misses. He says,

I don’t know if this is your son… being either one of three, or three people in the family, where there’s two of them, then there’s one.

This could have been a “hit” in several different ways, if (1) there were three people at one time, (2) there are now three people, or (3) there once were two people, and one of them died or simply moved away, and (4) it might also apply to anyone other than the son. The statement presents many possible scenarios for the subject to choose from. All fail. Note, too, the “I don’t know if…” approach, which is quite true, because he doesn’t know! This form of address also invites a response from the victim, a hint that a choice, a correction, or a clarification should be made so the statement will "fit."

At this point, Edward gives up and switches quickly to another subject.

What struck me about this reading was that at the conclusion, the victim was smiling through his tears in evident satisfaction, thanking Edward for the revelations he’d received. There were only 3 of 23 guesses that emerged as correct, and each was less than spectacular, yet this man was not fazed or disappointed one bit. How can Edward ever fail, when he has such victims to feed on?

From here.

I don't see a critique on Janet...but if I do, your head will roll...got it?

Now you do. If my "head rolls" as a result of me trying to bring some light and truth to the conservative website I love, then I will "die" happily. I'm not attacking you, you look to be a lovely grandmother with a beautiful grandson - hey, I have a new 3 month old son myself. And I feel for anyone who loses loved ones - I just have a problem with charlatans taking advantage of nice people, that's all.

I also thanked the President and informed him that I would be happy to continue to serve, just like the rest of my family. We are all military, so maybe you may want to tread lightly.

Thank you for your and your family's service. Say hello to President Bush from me next time you see him. As for your not-so-veiled threat, um, I find that a bit odd. I mean no harm. Geeze, lady, I take back that part about you being nice.

Since you seem to be of knowledge as to how good they are or aren't, please post an intelligent discourse about the research methodologies that prove your views. Be sure that it is ready for peer review and since it is in the umbrella of psychology, that is my specialty as a teacher and can teach it at the college level.

I'll just refer you to James RAndi's site for all that. I agree with all of his proven methodologies. And by the way, Kate, when Kate from Spice Island reads something and opines upon it, that's not what real scientists call peer review. It's a much more rigorous process than that. Perhaps your unfamiliarity with it allows you to believe that psychics actually exist. That's fair. Also, arguing from authority helps no argument.

On a final note, what are your religious beliefs? Why do you choose to pick a fight. I didn't provoke you. Are you sure you are not a mole-troll that is here to start a slap-fight amongst the peaceful?

My religious beliefs have nothing to do with this at all. And besides, some Christians find this stuff satanic whereas others find it all very angelic and peaceful. Relgion only muddies the waters more, when it comes to psychics. Though I tend to think the part about bearing false witness comes into play here. I don't mean to pick a fight. I mean to correct wrongs and save people money, time, and aggravation and possible misdiagnosis. I am not a "mole-troll" and rarely even post, but read FR every day. Give me a break.

If you ever post anything that is provoking, name calling, badgering, inflammatory or annoying to me again, you will be reported to the Admin Moderator.

Oops then, sorry. I"m sure this post was annoying to you. But lets call a truce on the name-calling (since you dropped several upon me), badgering (as your post was), inflammatory (asking one's religion seems to fit that bill) or, hmm, provoking. Odd choice of words since you strangely threatened me 3x in your post.

I mean no harm. We agree on what's important in our country. You are the one making the extraordinary claims, however and as such, YOU are the one who needs to back up the claims, not me.

How did you make this determination?

You do know that James (the Amazing) Randi is a rather militant atheist, don't you? Read the magazine The Skeptical Inquirer, to which he is a regular contributor, if you doubt me. He seems to have no use afor religion at all.

Randi is a prestidigitator (a magician), not a scientist of any kind. He also is a person who absolutely disbelieves in anything supernatural. I don't think it's possible to get him to award the million dollars, no matter your procedures or your results.

His philosophical viewpoint defnitionally precludes anything mystical, metaphysical, or consciousness-related, so he would be required by his worldview to find a reason why what was done wasn't valid, even if his challenge was accepted exactly as he describes it.

Randi's "challenge" is structured in such a way that no one CAN pss the tests he creates. And isn't it interesting that (according to JREF's own website) he has the "preliminary" tests done entirely by his own people? That is how he can ensure that no one ever passes the test.

http://www.randi.org/research/index.html

"The JREF does not involve itself in the testing procedure, other than helping to design the protocol and approving the conditions under which a test will take place.

Preliminary tests are usually conducted by associates of the JREF

Remember; it's the JREF Paranormal Challenge, and The JREF alone dictates the rules surrounding it and how it is run "

IOW, Randi and his people control the testing process.

http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/James-Randi

"Randi revealed that he had been able to orchestrate a years-long and complete compromise of a privately-funded psychic research experiment."

Some of Randi's detractors claim that the challenge is insincere, and that Randi will ensure he never has to pay out. In the October 1981 issue of Fate magazine, Dennis Rawlins quoted him as saying "I always have an out"

"(T)he rules prohibit independent judging, making the success or failure of the challenge dependent on whether Randi agrees that the test has been passed"

http://www.trvnews.com/tsl/090502/

"The catch is the psychic must agree to a test according to Randi's guidelines, where he is the sole judge. And as part of his challenge, the applicant must give up all rights to any legal action. In essence, the deal is rigged."

http://www.lougentile.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=200

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2004/2/prweb106721.htm

http://www.survivalafterdeath.org/articles/keen/randi.htm

"A PRELIMINARY comment on Mr. Randi's ethics - and those of Fulcrum TV's producers: When he practices as a stage illusionist, the audience know they are being entertained and deceived: they suspend their disbelief and enjoy the show. To pretend to be a genuine psychic, and to connive with the TV staff without the knowledge or consent of the victims to garner details about members of the audience, their friends and their sitting positions, with a view to misleading them - even though the ruse is later acknowledged - is to employ deception in what was claimed to be a serious programme about a very serious subject."

"since I was alongside the lady at the time, and observed what went on, as did Dr. Parker and Dr. Puhle who were immediately in front of me, I should say that she takes (USA) size 10 clothes at Macy's, which is way down the obesity scale, is regarded as attractive for her age, smiled at Mr. Randi and said quite politely but firmly, with no finger stabbing, and to his obvious astonishment, "Mr. Randi you're a fraud", whereupon he staggered back and stammered, "And you, you, you, you're ugly," to which the lady responded as he disappeared backwards through the double doors, "But at least I'm honest"

"Under Article 3, the applicant allows all his test data to be used by the Foundation in any way Mr. Randi may choose. That means that Mr. Randi can pick and chose the data at will and decide what to do with it and what verdict to pronounce on it. Under Article 7, the applicant surrenders all rights to legal action against the Foundation, or Mr. Randi, no matter what emotional, professional or financial injury he may consider he has sustained. Thus even if Mr. Randi comes to a conclusion different from that reached by his judges and publicly denounces the test, the applicant would have no redress. The Foundation and Mr. Randi own all the data. Mr. Randi can claim that the judges were fooled. The implicit accusation of fraud would leave the challenger devoid of remedy."

"Mr. Randi thrusts every case into the bin labelled 'anecdotal' (which means not written down), and thereby believes he may safely avoid any invitation to account for them."

That's the other problem with Randi's challenge, that he has already been quoted publicly as saying that what he is asking you to prove can't be done.

"That these doubts about the genuineness of Mr. Randi's dedication to objective research are far from theoretical may be concluded from the efforts made by Professor Gary Schwartz of Arizona University in designing his multi-centre, double-blind procedure for testing mediums. Schwartz was not interested in the prize money: he merely sought to obtain Mr. Randi's approval for his protocol for testing mediums - and he duly modified it to met Mr. Randi's suggestions. Having falsely declared that the eminent parapsychologist Professor Stanley Krippner had agreed to serve on his referee panel, Mr. Randi ensured that the other judges would be his skeptical friends Drs Minsky, Sherman and Hyman, all well-known and dedicated opponents of anything allegedly paranormal.

As the ensuing Randi/Schwartz correspondence (which Mr. Randi declined to print on his website) makes clear, when the outcome of the experiment proved an overwhelming success, Mr. Randi subsequently confused a binary (yes/no) analysis with the statistical method required to score for accuracy each statement made by a medium, and falsely accused Dr Gary Schwartz and his colleagues of selecting only half the data for analysis. He then derided the publication of Professor Schwartz's findings in the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, the world's oldest scientific peer-reviewed publication devoted to the paranormal, and in which Mr. Randi himself has published contributions. He criticised the fact that the Schwartz findings appeared in neither Nature nor Science, although he must have been aware of the long-standing refusal of these two leading scientific journals to publish anything touching on the paranormal."

"Mr. Randi notoriously failed to fulfil his boast to be able to replicate Ted Serios' "thoughtography" tests" (This is the case where he said he could replicate the act by "parlor tricks" then when challenged to do so, refused. Why wouldn't he show that it was just a trick if he was so certain? (It likely is, BTW.) Was he afraid that his effort to do so would fail? Maybe he knew he couldn't do what he said he could do.)

http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/encyclopedia/J/Ja/James_Randi.htm

"There have been various objections from people claiming paranormal abilities to the nature of the test and its rules:
No independent judge will be used, and the tests are designed by the JREF without scientific peer review.

Randi has rejected at least one applicant, with the rejection letter stating the reason was because the applicant was "a liar and a fraud". (*)

According to the challenge webpage, no offers to conduct a formal test have ever been extended by the JREF to an applicant. (*)"

http://www.rense.com/general50/james.htm

"Indeed, contempt for the human condition (or at least the condition of the pitiable "unwashed public") seems the very crux of the debunker ideology. It is this contempt which leads them to belittle eye witness accounts of "paranormal" phenomena as "anecdotal testimony,"

It is also this contempt which has driven the most noted skeptic/debunker of them all, the so-called "Amazing Randi," to stake a million dollars of other peoples' money on his assertion that no paranormal, supernatural, or occult phenomena can be proven by responsible scientists.

Randi often refers to paranormal proponents as "frauds," and/or "self-deluded fools," and inspite of Randi's stated basis, it is JREF which ultimately must approve all testing protocols. Unfortunately, in many ways, the Challenge remains too much of an unknown to come under any real scrutiny, as JREF asserts that numerous applicants, after failing the mandatory "preliminary testing," have asked that their identities be kept secret. It is also JREF's assertion that no applicant to date has ever passed the preliminary testing."

"Bear in mind that Randi asserts there is no valid evidence to support any paranormal, supernatural, or occult phenomena.

"What exactly is Randi asserting when he writes: "We only respond to responsible claims." Is Sylvia Browne's claim that she can talk to the dead a "responsible" one? What about Uri Geller's assertion that he can bend spoons with the power of his mind? Would Randi have use believe that he views the "abilities" of Browne and Geller as more "plausible" than Kolodzey's? Again, we must remember, it is Randi's assertion that there is NO VALID EVIDENCE of any paranormal or supernatural phenomena, so there really can be no such thing as "degrees of plausibility" in this field. But even more importantly, if Kolodzey IS a liar and a fraud (which he may very well be), then one would think that JREF has all the more reason to accept his application. Isn't that the whole point of the Randi Challenge - to expose dangerous hucksters and/or "self-deluded frauds?"

Now, I'm certainly no advocate of the paranormal. I tend to be very skeptical of these paranormal things myself -- although I am not closed to them. Some may be real.

I know these fields attract a lot of hucksters and charlatans. But they are no bigger frauds than Mr. Randi himself, IMO.

http://www.skepticalinvestigations.org/whoswho/index.htm#JamesRandi

"James Randi is a conjurer (the “Amazing Randi”) and showman who is described on his web site as “the world’s most tireless investigator and demystifier of paranormal and pseudo-scientific claims.” He used to be a leading figure in CSICOP, but had to resign because of litigation against him.

He has an ambiguous attitude to scientific authority, deferring to it when it supports his beliefs, but rejecting it when it does not.

On his web site he asserts: “Authority does not rest with scientists, when emotion, need and desperation are involved. Scientists are human beings, too, and can be deceived and self-deceived.”

But as a leading Fellow of CSICOP, Ray Hyman, has pointed out, this "prize" cannot be taken seriously from a scientific point of view: "Scientists don't settle issues with a single test, so even if someone does win a big cash prize in a demonstration, this isn't going to convince anyone. Proof in science happens through replication, not through single experiments." ( www.skeptic.com/archives03.html)

Randi’s fellow showman Loyd Auerbach, President of the Psychic Entertainers Association, is likewise sceptical about this “prize” and sees it as a stunt of no scientific value."

Randi's dishonest claims:

http://www.skepticalinvestigations.org/whoswho/Randi_dogs.htm

http://www.skepticalinvestigations.org/skepticorgs/index.htm#randprize

"The rules are conceived by a showman not a scientist, and make little sense from a genuinely scientific point of view. The introduction to the rules states, "All tests must be designed in such a way that the results are self-evident, and no judging process is required." Most scientific research, including research in particle physics, clinical medicine, conventional psychology and parapsychology, depends on statistical results that need to be analysed by experts to judge the significance of what has happened. Practically all serious scientific research would fail to qualify for the Randi prize. Contenders have to pay for their own travelling expenses if they want to go to Randi to be tested: Rule 6: "All expenses such as transportation, accommodation and/or other costs incurred by the applicant/claimant in pursuing the reward, are the sole responsibility of the applicant/claimant." Also, applicants waive their legal rights: Rule 7: "When entering into this challenge, the applicant surrenders any and all rights to legal action against Mr. Randi, against any person peripherally involved and against the James Randi Educational Foundation, as far as this may be done by established statutes. This applies to injury, accident, or any other damage of a physical or emotional nature and/or financial, or professional loss, or damage of any kind." Applicants also give Randi complete control over publicity. Rule 3: "Applicant agrees that all data (photographic, recorded, written, etc.) of any sort gathered as a result of the testing may be used freely by the JREF."

Check out http://www.skeptic.com/archives03.html

http://www.skepticalinvestigations.org/exam/Dace_amazing3.htm

"Alternative medicine is a favored target of skeptics, despite the fact that no scientific discipline is ever perfect or complete and that we can expect at least some trends from the periphery of medical practice to be taken up eventually within the scientific mainstream. Granted, certain aspects of alternative medicine are obviously fraudulent, such as ear candling and magnetic bracelets, but to denounce anything at all that’s outside accepted, traditional medicine is to promote a view of science more akin to religion - with its unreflective, ossified dogmas - than science as it actually exists."

"Richard Dawkins said he was worried that Randi would eventually have to pay up. Dr. Dawkins had just delivered a truly fine lecture - the high point of the conference, in fact - and Randi had joined the famed author onstage for a public chat. “About the million dollar prize, I would be worried if I were you because of the fact that we have perinormal possibilities.” Dawkins had just introduced this neologism during his talk. An alleged phenomenon is perinormal (from the Greek “peri,” in the vicinity of) if it seems impossible but which, in contrast to the “paranormal,” turns out to be a 100% natural, skeptic-approved phenomenon. Electromagnetic fields, for instance, were once perinormal but eventually came to be recognized as real. The question, then, is which phenomena currently dismissed by skeptics as paranormal are actually perinormal. “I mean, what if somebody-what if there really is a perinormal phenomenon which is then embraced within science and will become normal, but at present is classified conventionally as paranormal?”

But Dawkins had a trick up his sleeve. If a “psychic” phenomenon turns out to be real, then by definition it is physical and therefore not really psychic after all, and thus Randi still shouldn’t have to pay."

http://www.skepticalinvestigations.org/exam/Prescott_Randi.htm

"Randi's dissection of the experiments of Russell Targ and Harold Puthoff, two well-known parapsychologists. Randi calls them "the Laurel and Hardy of psi" and proceeds to argue that their experiments were a tissue of ineptitude, gullibility, and dishonesty.

The first thing I noticed was that Randi never gives any indication that Targ and Puthoff have any scientific credentials or accomplishments. The casual reader could be forgiven for assuming that they are not "real" scientists at all. For the record, Targ is a physicist credited with inventing the FM laser, the high-power gas-tranport laser, and the tunable plasma oscillator. Puthoff, also a physicist, invented the tunable infra-red laser and is widely known for his theoretical work on quantum vacuum states and the zero point field. (See The Field, by Lynne McTaggart, for an overview of Puthoff's work in quantum phyics.) If these two are "Laurel and Hardy," at least they come with good résumés. Randi, by contrast, has no scientific training.

Randi starts off by telling us how Targ and Puthoff took a professed psychic, Ingo Swann, to Stanford University, where, they said, Swann used his psychic abilities to affect the operation of a magnetometer. According to Randi, "the report was all wet." He knows this because he contacted Dr. Arthur Hebard, "the builder of the device, who was present and has excellent recollections of what took place." Hebard, Randi says disputes the Targ-Puthoff account. He is quoted as saying, "It's a lie. You can say it any way you want, but that's what I call a lie."

This is pretty compelling stuff. But is Randi's version of events accurate? Let's take a look.

First, he seems to make a rather basic error when he says that both Targ and Puthoff were present for this experiment. As best I can determine, Puthoff conducted the experiment, which took place in June, 1972, without Targ's assistance. Targ had met Puthoff prior to this time, but their work together apparently did not begin until a few months later.

That's a small point. Far more important is the matter of Dr. Hebard's testimony. There's another side to the story, which I found in Chapter 17 http://66.221.71.68/analysis.htm of Psychic Breakthroughs Today by D. Scott Rogo. Rogo, who died in 1990 at the age of forty, was a prolific journalist and researcher of psychic phenomena. He wrote numerous popular books, some of which have been used as college texts. He also published research papers in peer-reviewed parapsychology journals. Although Rogo was sometimes criticized for tackling overly esoteric subjects, he had a reputation for honesty and was respected for his willingness to do hands-on investigation and field work, rather than relying on armchair appraisals. A Scott Rogo tribute and bibliography can be found here

Rogo writes, "There obviously exist several discrepancies between Dr Puthoff's views on what happened during this experiment, and what Randi claims Dr Hebard told him. So to clarify the matter, I decided to get in touch with Dr Hebard myself. I finally tracked him down at the Bell Telephone Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey. He was very willing to discuss the Swann magnetometer demonstration with me, and professed to be very interested in parapsychology." Hebard's interest in the paranormal contradicts Randi's statement that Hebard, "not being a reader of far-out literature," was unaware of Targ and Puthoff's claims.

Rogo acknowledges that Hebard's account differs in some respects from Puthoff's. "Dr Hebard denied in no uncertain terms, however, Randi's claim that Swann was never asked to 'stop the field charge' being recorded from the magnetometer. He easily recalled that he had suggested that it would be a fascinating effect if Swann could produce it . . . which, of course, he actually did soon after the suggestion was made. Randi also directly quotes Dr Hebard as calling some of Targ and Puthoff's claims 'lies'. Dr Hebard was very annoyed by this claim since, as he explained to me, Randi had tried to get him to make this charge and he had refused. Dr Hebard later signed a statement to this effect for me." (Ellipsis in original.)

As for the discrepancies between Hebard's and Puthoff's accounts, Rogo reports that in a subsequent meeting with Puthoff, he was shown "the actual graphed print-outs given by the magnetometer during the Swann demonstrations. The records supported Dr Puthoff's contention more than they did Dr Hebard's."

So far, then, the best we can say is that Randi's criticism of Puthoff (and Targ, who apparently wasn't even involved in the magnetometer experiment) is far from the last word on the subject.

Randi proceeds to launch a comprehensive critique of Targ and Puthoff's article "Information Transmission under Conditions of Sensory Shielding," which appeared in the October 18, 1974, issue of the respected journal Nature, and which can be read here The article details experiments involving, among other participants, the professed psychic Uri Geller.

Randi's take on this series of experiments is withering. He skewers Targ and Puthoff as "bunglers." He reports that their experiments were conducted in a chaotic atmosphere conducive to cheating. He says that a hole in the wall of Geller's isolation room enabled him to spy on the scientists during their ESP experiments. He says that Targ and Puthoff falsified the results of the tests by omitting failed experiments that would have lowered Geller's averages to the level of chance. Further, he says that the scoring of Geller's performances was mishandled, generating higher scores than Geller deserved.

The question naturally arises: How does Randi know all this, since, as he admits, "I've never even set foot on the sacred grounds of SRI [Stanford Research Institute, where the experiments were conducted]"? He explains that he was given inside information by "an individual" who claimed to represent dozens of SRI scientists. This group, which worked in secret and even adopted a code name (Broomhilda), passed the information to Randi.

Unfortunately, Randi never names this individual or any other members of the Broomhilda group. He says that "Broomhilda verified for me much of the information that I had been holding on to for years," but where did he get this earlier information in the first place? "That data," he says, "now moved from the status of hearsay to documented fact." But documented is hardly a term applicable to either the initial information, which is never specified, or the Broomhilda information, which came from an anonymous source. He adds, "Additional facts were elicited during conversations and correspondence with individuals. Many of these persons were not aware of Broomhilda and were acting on their own. Their completely independent input supported Broomhilda's charges. Taken together," he concludes, "the information from all sources amounted to quite an indictment."

Maybe so, but it's an indictment that would never hold up in court. The reader is expected to take Randi's word that his unidentified sources are trustworthy - and that the sources themselves are well-informed about experimental procedures they may or may not have witnessed.

Thus when Randi alleges that "hundreds of [failed] experiments that were done by SRI ... were never reported," we must take the statement on faith, as it is unsupported by any documentation. Similarly, when Randi says definitively, "All the other tests [i.e., the successful ones] lacked proper controls and were useless," we search in vain for any footnote to back up this assertion."

"Some idea of the counter-arguments to Randi's claims can be obtained by taking another look at D. Scott Rogo, who earlier showed the initiative to track down Dr. Hebard. Unlike Randi, who, as we have seen, had "never even set foot" inside the research facility, Rogo visited SRI on June 12, 1981. He found that Randi had misrepresented the hole in the wall of the isolation room through which Geller was supposedly able to spy on the researchers. The hole, a conduit for cables, is depicted in Flim-Flam as being three and a half inches wide and therefore offering a good view of the experimental area where the researchers were working. Rogo found, however, that the hole "is three-and-a-quarter inches [wide] and extends through a twelve-and-a-half inch wall. This scopes your vision and severely limits what you can see through it. The hole is not left open either, since it is covered by a plate through which cables are routinely run. Dr Puthoff and his colleague were, however, concerned that their subject might be ingenious enough to insert an optical probe through this hole, so they monitored the opening throughout their telepathy experiments."

Randi also indicates that the hole is stationed 34 inches above the floor. Not so, says Rogo. "It isn't three feet above the floor, but is located only a little above floor level. The only thing you can see through it - even under optimal conditions - is a small bit of exterior floor and opposing wall. (The viewing radius is only about 20°, and the targets for the Geller experiments were hung on a different wall completely.) I also discovered during my trip to SRI that an equipment rack was situated in front of the hole throughout the Geller work, which obstructed any view through it even further. I ended my little investigation by talking with two people who were present during these critical experiments. They both agreed that wires were running through the hole - therefore totally blocking it - during the time of the Geller experiments."

IOW, Randi completely misstated the information he used to debunk Geller. (Geller may well be a fraud, but Randi "debunked" him just as fraudulently.)

Hmmm... he can know how a room is set up without ever seeing it. Sounds paranormal. I wonder if he'll award himself the million bucks.

Describing it incorrectly is likely a mistake. Insisting on the mistake after he's been publicly corrected is out-and-out lying.

Randi is an aggressive person. He's not the nicest guy in the world.

the challenge is rigged to make sure that no one CAN pass it. And given that:

1. Randi's people do the preliminary test (according to his own website);
2. Randi controls the flow of information about all the projects and all publicity about them; and
3. You have to waive your right to sue Randi or his organization (it's in the rules; I read them)

He "always has an out," as he himself has said. He can simply announce that the test was a failuer (after all, his people did it) and you are not allowed by the structure of the challenge to contest him.

That's hardly in integrity.

The Amusing Randi is as much of a fraud as the people he exposes.

William James nailed Randi (even before Randi was here) when he said, "I believe there is no source of deception in the investigation of nature which can compare with a fixed belief that certain kinds of phenomena are impossible." Yet this is exactly the mindset from which Randi operates and from which his million-dollar challenge is issued. Stated simply, there is NO proof, no matter how thorough, that someone with James Randi's worldview will EVER accept! They have already ruled out the possibility of any of these experiments succeeding before they conduct them.

1. Randi has been publicly quoted as saying that paranormal phenomena are impossible.

2. Randi's people perform the initial test on a claim.

3. Randi controls the data generated and its distribution

4. You have to waive your right to sue Randi. These things are from his own rules.

As Randi said, "I always have an out."

Now, a test conducted by someone who is not open to it working (by his own quoted statements) is not going to work. And if that person also controls the data and its distribution and cannot be sued, then that person can declare the results to be anything he wants and no one can contest it. This means that the system is set up so that one CANNOT pass the test. To me, offering a million-dollar challenge and rigging it so that it cannot possibly be passed is not in integrity. It's not quite honest.

Now, couple these facts with the fact that Randi, by his own admission, set up an associate of his as a phony psychic and toured Australia with him, charging admission for his shows. Randi says it was "to show how gullible people are," but it's still fraudulent. Scott Rogo proved that Randi lied about the conditions of Geller's performance. And Randi boasted that he could easily do (through tricks) what is called "thoughtography" but when challenged to do so, he refused.

Randi has made an ideology of his disbelief. I define ideology as the inability to see the difference between your opinion and the facts and the unwillingness to think outside your box. That ideology has led him to structure teh rules of the challenge, as outlined above, in such a way as to ensure that no one can pass it. It's not the experiments that are corrupted, it's the structure of the challenge.

And Mr. Randi is not a scientist. he has publicly stated that there is no possibility that any paranormal ability could be true. Thus, he is not allowing for new evidence. Which is one more reason no one will ever collect the million.

Personally, I think it comes from The Amusing Randi's insatiable need for publicity.

Randi is closed to the possibility that any paranormal phenomena could ever be real. While I agree with him that most of these guys are scam artists of the first magnitude and I am glad that he and others work to expose them, I am open to the possibility that one or a few may be genuine.

But no amount of evidence, no amount of testing, no amount of proof will ever convince Randi or his acolytes like you, the members of the Randi cult, no matter what. He and his acolytes come in with what might be called an "invalidation bias" (simply Confirmation Bias for the negative) and everything is going to fit within that tiny construct or it's "fraud" in the minds of the Skeptics.

It might be a good idea to look outside that box once in a while.

As I said, he's as big a fraud as the people he exposes. Randi's putative offer is never going to be paid, no matter what people do and no matter what the evidence shows. I'd love to see someone get through his rigged system and perform as advertised, just so I could hear him wiggle and weasel as he explains why he isn't giving out the million bucks.

I am tired, I am sick, I was in the hospital between the time I first posted and the time that you posted.

I am too worn out to go through your extremely long response.

If you knew who Janet was in the first place, you would understand that it was not your head that would roll.

I will give my regards to the President in the most convenient way for me. If it is by fax, great. If it is by mail or e-mail, great. I don't plan on going to crawford again for a while and I am not sure of his itinerary, but can get back with you.

John didn't have to identify my brother, it isn't the person, it is the message...when you get that, you will get the message...

I don't give advice, I just give the message and the recipient takes it FWIW and I am glad that when I give a message to W, he listens. It hasn't been often, but it has been important. As far as the main message goes that I get from the OS, it is that abuse is still abuse no matter how you slice it.

I didn't say the army or anyone else endorses me. They don't. I volunteered. In the process, it became clear that I was beyond good with CRV, but that it was also going to be very specific. It was all too specific to be chance or random. When it is that good, it is the work of God.

If there comes a time when you want to sit down and talk about my experiences one-on-one, let me know.

I am aware of a case where Ms. DuBois ruled out an innocent suspect and that left the guilty party exposed.

In the end, it is still not about Allison, Janet, John or me, it is about the message.

I could never speak unless they spoke first.

My head is hurting from this argument and I am too sick to deal with it any more this week.

PM me if you want to talk and hear my side and know that it may be a while until I can get back to you.

Hey, Kate, I'll keep you in my prayers.

Also tell him/her that his/her screenname tells us a lot about him/her.

I correct myself after putting up this thread.

But what led me to the conclusion that most pyschics seemed to be liberal are the predictions I've read on some of the site were there were predictiond made for different years both in the past as well as in the future.

All these predictions were either made by liberals who are also engaging in wishful thinking. or left leaning meduims

I look for conservatives who are psychic but could find none.

I knew that could not be true because I believe psychic abilities havr to political prefferance.

So my conclusion might be that most real psychics don't tend to advertise thier gifts. and conservative aren't into making rediculous and biased predictions.

oops!

"to" should have been "no"

Cause their nuts.

well, liberals are anyway.

You know what's funny about "psychics"?

There's a show called Psychic Detectives on TV. I occasionally watch it. One episode a psychic humbly claimed credit for solving it. On another show, Forensic Science, the SAME crime was solved through the usual methods with NO mention of any psychic. The evidence alone lead to the criminal.

I have little doubt that the same scenario is repeated all the time. I wouldn't say that I don't believe psychics have the ability to see the PAST. I will say with certainty that they do NOT have the ability to predict the FUTURE. Those that can see the PAST engage in ungodly worship.

Sure there are demons out there. One third of the angels were cast out with Lucifer. The total number of angels are countless. Those cast out are the ones that help these "psychics". They're not blind. They see things. I'd want NOTHING to do with ANY psychic. I don't care what the situation is.

Psychics are typically liberal because they are godless. They have NO moral boundaries. Psychics don't worship the Judeo Christian God ... it's the other one they adore.

I still stick to my guns as being psychic and have seen bits and pieces ot the future.

I just do my job and go about my life quitely.

I don't see specific events, but rather, important parts that make it easier for others to deal with.

I am helping with a crime in Maricopa County and the reality is, all of the evidence and whatnot wasn't and won't be found without me telling where it is.

I am still tired and sick as a result of this crime and would love to argue more, but I am just too tired.