This article originally appeared in The Skeptic, Volume 4, Issue 3, from 1990.
It was my turn to give a talk at our evening class on the paranormal.
Our experiments on card guessing, hypnotic regression to past lives, reading the Tarot, and white magic hadn’t been conclusive, and I was determined that this time we should have some success.
As I was known to be skeptical about card guessing psi, I told the audience that I’d been looking up other ways of testing this marvel. ‘You can relax while I do the hard work of mental concentration. Shut your eyes and wish, and then focus your mind on two geometric shapes, one inside the other.’ After a brief interval I drew a circle inside a triangle on the blackboard to gasps of astonishment. Nearly half of them had thought of the very same thing or the reverse. Everyone had thought of a circle.
I continued this phenomenal success with number guessing. ‘I want you all to relax again, and to think of a number between 1 and 50. To make it a little easier, I’ll choose a number with two digits, both uneven, like 13, but both different, not like 11.’ When I wrote 37 on the board, again half of them had chosen that very number.
Now I moved on to more complex visualisations. ‘I’m going to think of a simple outdoor scene. I want you to do either a sketch or just make a note of whatever comes into in your mind.’ Then I drew a scene and eventually held it up to them. I had included a house with a tree on each side of it (one coniferous, one deciduous), a stick man walking to a boat on a lake, with hills behind it, and the sun shining above. All these items except the man had been visualised by at least one member of the class, though no one had seen them all. The lecturer decided this was because I’d chosen too complex a scene.
We agreed this was the most successful series of experiments we’d done as a class.
I had joined the evening class on the paranormal halfway through the autumn term (November 1989), with the intention of inserting a little healthy scepticism into the group. This class has been running very successfully for about ten years in Lowestoft, and several spiritual improvement groups have been set up over the years to promote healing in particular. I was impressed by the lecturer’s attitude, which was to respect standard medication etc and to take no payment unless this was offered after healing. The healers present were similarly cautious in their approach, though their beliefs in spirit possession would be damaging to anyone who thought themselves possessed, but I was put down firmly when I made this comment.
Over twenty people attended, and they were all firmly convinced that paranormal events have been proved scientifically. Disbelieving scientists were dismissed as ignorant materialistic sceptics. We discussed various concepts at some length, such as Steiner’s theories, the lost continents of Atlanta and Limura, auras and methods of experimenting with these using Dr Kilner’s glass screen and Adamkenko’s toboscope. The approach was experimental – we were asked to think about a sick person at a particular time, and apparently she felt better for this.
During the spring term numbers dropped, but several members took a good deal of trouble to gather information on their particular specialties, and produce talks for the rest of us. Topics were practical and included witchcraft, UFOs, hypnotherapy, and use of the Tarot, ordinary cards and the I Ching for divination.
Finally, as resident sceptic, I was asked to do my stint. As my day approached, the time allotted shrunk from two hours to half an hour and then 20 minutes. Undismayed, I prepared enough data for the full two hours, assuming correctly that if I could make it interesting enough, I should be allowed to extend my time. By this time, it being March, the numbers had dropped to eight.
It took me some while to decide how to approach this opportunity. My main aims were:
- to put forward the human face of science and the fascination of some of this century’s discoveries
- to explain why scientists in general are sceptical of paranormal claims
- not to cause upset to any of the people present, and to steer clear of those topics they’d gone to such pains to prepare
- to warn them of fakes
- to put things over fairly simply, remembering the wide range of scientific understanding among the listeners
- to make the talk amusing and provide activities
- to provide backup notes for people to take away at the end, including a book list.
After my initial psi success, they were all interested to hear the rest of my talk. I started by explaining that science is a self-correcting discipline, and that scientists are as fallible as anyone else, using Fleischmann and Pons and the fusion fiasco as my example. By use of a very simple demonstration, I explained how controlled experiments are set up. Before the talk I had grown some cress in two metallic pie dishes on paper hankies, watering one from the tap and the other with water in which a quartz crystal was placed. I logged all my observations over an eight day period, and put these beside the cress on the bench. In the four pages of notes I provided for later reading, I also gave instructions on testing claims that crystals improve fuel consumption [1].
Then I explained the importance of the double-blind procedure in experiments with human administrators. There were a lot of questions and interest was considerable throughout.
My second major point was to explain why the majority of scientists are sceptical, using Dr Susan Blackmore’s examples of the unreliability of original material held by the SPR [2]. I explained how little we know of human physiology (for example, effects of stress on production of brain opiates) and psychology – and here I dehoaxed them, amid groans and laughter, on the population stereotypes with which I’d started the talk. Details of these were included in the notes [3].
I handed out copies of Von Daniken’s Palenque ‘astronaut god’ [5], and showed how important it is to study the relevant literature, to avoid misunderstanding the figure. Psychic archaeology was the next topic – how difficult is it to guess where prehistoric remains might be found? For this I had drawn a sketch map of the area around Chichester, reorientating it by 90 degrees, included towns (without names), the sea inlets and rough contours of the Downs. By following simple rules – for example, the Romans made straight roads near the sea along plains if possible; stone age humans tended to use hill walkways and build on easily defended sites, using dewponds for water, etc, I showed how easy it would be for a GCSE student to pinpoint possible sites. They tried this on the photocopies, and later compared their results with the actual map. This experiment didn’t work as well as I’d hoped, as I did not explain the task adequately.
It was now time for coffee, and I knew I was going to have problems with a PK demonstration. For this I’d fixed a horseshoe magnet to my bra strap, and put on a thick jumper to hide the bulge. Apart from the discomfort of overheating, while I was talking the magnet fell out. I retrieved it and debated on a quick dash to the loo during the break. There wasn’t time – I got involved in discussions about visions and second sight. I handed over a compass to our witch, and he attempted to move it psychokinetically. No luck. Several of the others came to try their powers, and I slipped the magnet back into position. Although I have no slight of hand ability, and didn’t attempt to hide what I was doing, no one noticed. Eventually, the group were thrilled by my powers. ‘Wouldn’t it be odd if you, the sceptic, were psychokinetic!’ they exclaimed, crowding around.
‘I’m afraid it’s only a Geller,’ I told them, and they collapsed about laughing as I withdrew the magnet.
Apart from one or two more comments the talk was practically finished, and the lecturer took over to regain a bit of lost ground!
I think that on the whole I was fairly successful in my aims, although I didn’t have time to explain the attraction of scientific discovery.
By humorous and non-threatening presentation, I managed to get across the complexity of the scientific approach, and I hope I encouraged them to look more rigorously at pseudoscientific claims. It alarmed me that believers could so easily be fooled by simple tricks, even by someone they knew to be sceptical. Their knowledge that I had tricked them over the mindreading had no effect on their faith in the PK experiment
Did I make much impression on the class’s beliefs? Discussions at later classes indicated no change, but one has to take the long-term view here. And we parted friends, agreeing that the classes had been most useful for their presentation of varying viewpoints.
References
- Lawrence E.Jerome, Crystal Power, Prometheus, 1989. Petrol mileage experiment, pages 1 3 1-134; plant growth experiment, pages 136-1 39.
- Susan Blackmore, The Adventures of a Parapsychologist, Prometheus Books, 1 986, the Wilmot OBE case, page 193; the Danvers OBE case, page 194.
- David Marks and Richard Kammann, The Psychology of the Psychic, Prometheus Books, 1980, Appendix 1 , pages 220, 221.
- Ronald D. S tory, Von Daniken’s Golden Gods, in Kendrick Frazier, editor, Paranormal Borderlands of Science, Prometheus Books, 1981.
- Kenneth L. Fed er, Psychic Archaeology: the Anatomy of Irrationalist Prehistoric Studies, in Paranormal Borderlands of Science (see ref. 4).
Acknowledgements
My thanks for backup, help and advice is due to Steve Donnelly who also provided a back number of the Skeptic and loaned me his copy of Crystal Power by Lawrence E. Jerome, and to Mike Hutchinson who also lent me James Randi’s Test Your ESP Potential, and sent four highly useful Prometheus books.
