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This Easter, consider the Rebbe: A new perspective on resurrection beliefs

Gabriel Andrade
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This Easter, consider the Rebbe: A new perspective on resurrection beliefs

Happy Easter! One can celebrate this holiday simply for its fun and cultural significance, embracing traditions and family gatherings without subscribing to the religious belief that Jesus rose from the dead. Richard Dawkins refers to this as being a “cultural Christian“, where one appreciates the customs and heritage tied to Christianity without holding its theological convictions.

However, it’s worth noting that in the past, Easter wasn’t celebrated in this secular or cultural way – it was deeply rooted in the belief that Jesus rose from the dead, a conviction held by most people at the time. Even today, many continue to celebrate Easter with this faith at its core. Yet, for a person grounded in evidence and rational inquiry, accepting such a belief is difficult, as it contradicts our understanding of biology and the natural world.

So why do so many people still cling to the belief in Jesus’ resurrection, despite its lack of scientific plausibility? The renowned historian of Early Christianity, Elaine Pagels, has recently published Miracles and Wonder: The Historical Mystery of Jesus, addressing – amongst other things – how the belief in Jesus’ resurrection came to be. She tries her best to be polite with believers, writing as follows: “historical evidence can neither prove nor disprove the reality that gave rise to such experiences [Jesus’ post-mortem appearances].”

This is somewhat disingenuous. Sure, you cannot disprove that an actual half-bull/half-human creature that roamed Crete gave rise to the myth of the Minotaur, but given what we know about zoology, we can be almost certain that no such creature ever existed. Similarly, given our understanding of biology and the consistent failure of dead organisms to reanimate, skepticism toward a literal resurrection isn’t just reasonable – it’s the default position for anyone prioritising empirical evidence over theological tradition.

Rather than accepting their messiah failed, early Christians reinterpreted the crucifixion as a divine victory, transforming their cognitive dissonance into the conviction that Jesus conquered death

Pagels does attempt to explain how Jesus’ followers came to believe in his resurrection, implicitly drawing on what psychologists call cognitive dissonance theory. When Jesus was crucified – a shameful death utterly inconsistent with Jewish messianic expectations – his disciples faced profound psychological tension. According to Leon Festinger’s theory of cognitive dissonance, people will modify or invent beliefs to resolve such uncomfortable contradictions. Rather than accepting that their messiah had failed, the early Christians reinterpreted the crucifixion as a divine victory, transforming their cognitive dissonance into the conviction that Jesus had conquered death.

This psychological mechanism helps explain how a defeated movement could suddenly regain confidence and spread its message with renewed fervor. While Pagels doesn’t explicitly name this theory, her historical analysis aligns remarkably well with Festinger’s model of how groups respond when their core beliefs collide with reality.

Pagels compares Jesus to the late Rebbe Menachem Schneerson, whose followers – the Lubavitcher movement – similarly held fervent messianic expectations. Those expectations were challenged when Schneerson died in 1994 after a debilitating stroke. Pagels explains what happened next:

“ever since the Rebbe died, his people say that many have seen or felt his presence working miracles and answering prayers, that he is even more alive now than ever. Fascinated to witness what looked something like Christianity being created all over again, I found his website, often updated, which to this day claims to document many recent miracles. Furthermore, since the movement first caught fire several decades ago among the Hasidic community in Brooklyn and in London, it has spread all over the world: today the movement embodied in Chabad Jewish groups worldwide numbers about a hundred thousand.”

Pagels’ comparison is apt. When we observe how Schneerson’s followers maintained belief in their living Messiah against all evidence, we gain crucial insight into how Jesus’ disciples might have developed similar convictions two millennia earlier. The parallel reveals a fundamental truth: in both cases, the persistence of belief stems not from miraculous events, but from profound psychological needs. What appears as resurrection faith is ultimately the visible manifestation of deeper cognitive processes – the human mind’s remarkable capacity to reshape reality when confronted with unbearable cognitive dissonance.

Yet it is unfortunate that Pagels did not discuss at greater length this comparison, because surprisingly, there have been Christian apologists who claim that the case of the Rebbe proves that Jesus did indeed rise from the dead. Consider Michael L. Brown and his book Resurrection: Investigating a Rabbi from Brooklyn, a Preacher from Galilee, and an Event That Changed the World. Brown says that none of Schneerson’s followers “claim to have seen and met with the Rebbe in the flesh after his bodily resurrection”, whereas with Jesus, such encounters did happen. As per this argument, only a real resurrection could inspire such testimonies.

Whether Jesus’ earliest followers actually claimed to have seen him in the flesh post-resurrection remains doubtful. The Gospels recount such encounters yet, in her book Pagels wisely notes their blending of tangible and ethereal elements. The apostle Paul, our earliest source, describes apparitions, not physical interactions. Given that the evangelists never met Jesus, and they wrote their accounts at least four decades after Jesus’ death (soon after the mayhem of the Judeo-Roman war), and considering that the Rebbe’s passing only took place thirty years ago, we can’t dismiss the possibility that future accounts – written by people who never actually met the Rebbe – might similarly embellish events and make his post-mortem encounters more vivid. This may become even more likely if a catastrophe ensues. As Adam Gopnik explained recently in The New Yorker:

“if the Lubavitcher community had been struck by something on the scale of the Judeans’ loss of the Temple and their enslavement [in the Judeo-Roman war], what are now marginal, hallucinatory visions of the rebbe would almost certainly take on a more declarative, redemptive form.”

Brown also claims that the Rebbe’s followers “have so many different explanations and theories: he didn’t really die; he remains spiritually alive although concealed physically; his presence is embodied invisibly when they meet; he will still resurrect; he will come again; he was the potential Messiah; he had the soul of the Messiah, which is passed on from leader to leader through the generations; etc… This alone puts a great divide between Rabbi Schneerson and Rabbi Yeshua [Jesus]… What a contrast!”

Brown wrongly assumes a monolithic early Christianity, when in reality, interpretations of Jesus’ death and resurrection were remarkably diverse. Elaine Pagels has built her reputation demonstrating precisely this point – that early Christians held a wide range of beliefs. Some denied Jesus’ death altogether, some that he ever had a body, some anticipated his imminent return, while others envisioned a second coming far in the future. This internal diversity undermines Brown’s attempt to draw stark contrasts between the two movements.

A mixed-race crowd stands packed at an event, a speaker blurred onstage in the background, and many in the crowd have their hands raised in worship. A man holds a black leather-bound bible in his right hand.
A Christian crowd worships at an event. Via wallpaperflare.com

Brown’s argument rests on a false dichotomy – that because the cases of Jesus and the Rebbe aren’t identical in every detail, their followers’ beliefs must have fundamentally different origins (one psychological, one historical). This reasoning collapses under scrutiny. Two phenomena need not be carbon copies to share underlying mechanisms – just as two distinct pregnancies both involve nine months of gestation despite genetic differences, resurrection beliefs across eras can stem from similar psychological processes without requiring supernatural explanations.

The variations Brown highlights – corporeal vs spiritual resurrection expectations, unified versus diverse interpretations – are surface-level differences that pale beside the core similarity: both groups used cognitive restructuring to preserve messianic beliefs after catastrophic disappointment. Festinger’s psychological insights show precisely how varied these restructurings can be while still springing from the same dissonance-reduction impulse. By fixating on discrepancies rather than the shared psychological architecture, Brown commits the “perfect analogy” fallacy – dismissing a compelling parallel because it isn’t exhaustive. The burden remains on those claiming a supernatural event to prove it occurred, not on skeptics to find flawless historical replicas.

Enjoy the fun with the bunny and egg hunt this Easter, while also giving the Rebbe some thought.

You should take the opportunity to see pseudoscience up close – here’s how

Michael Marshall
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You should take the opportunity to see pseudoscience up close – here’s how

I love to attend weird woo events. I went to see David Icke giving a four-hour lecture in Southport. I spent a weekend at the Flat Earth conference, and a different weekend at Lynne McTaggart’s Get Well conference. I’ve been to Gerson therapy lectures, Q Anon seminars, psychic shows, antivax rallies, 15-minute city protests, and countless Mind Body Spirit events.

I’ve been smeared in Neem by a man who claimed that covering himself in Neem cream was the reason he didn’t look 80 (when, in actuality, I think it’s just that he wasn’t 80). I’ve received a crystal reading at a former military base in the Midlands. I’ve watched my friend and fellow adventurer Dr Alice listen to ‘digitised DNA’, courtesy of a vet-turned-Sovereign Citizen.

Alice - a thin white woman with long bright ginger hair holds a pair of over-ear headphones to her ears.
Deputy editor Dr Alice listens to a digitised form of DNA (Image credit: Michael Marshall)

I was there when Sally Morgan asked an audience member if her deceased husband connected with the name Shell or Michelle, and she replied that he used to visit a Shell garage. I’ve sat through an extensive lecture from flat earther Martin Kenny about how the world and the entirety of history was based around a massive cosmic egg.

It’s been a wild ride.

People often ask me why I do it, and whether it’s worth it. After all, it costs time, and a little money – worse, that money goes to someone or something we actively disagree with. Personally, I do think it’s worth it. If you’re interested in skepticism, there’s really no substitute for seeing the opposite of skepticism up close. You can read the Wikipedia page on cold reading, or you can watch a room full of strangers crumble at the hands of a skilled cold reader.

You can hear skeptical talks about applied kinesiology, or you can see firsthand people get fooled by someone who is subtle about the physical forces they apply, to sell some worthless trinket or another. And you can read about the impact of inadequate healthcare and how it drives frustrated patients into the arms of quackery, or you can be in right there, where people entrust their health to the advice of the entirely unqualified.

It is an education for a skeptic to be in that room – not just to see what’s being sold, and what’s soon to be the next big thing we all care about, but also to see how it’s being sold, and to whom, and why they buy it. All that makes you a more informed and more effective skeptic.

That said, there are bad reasons to go. You shouldn’t go if your intention is to persuade people they’re wrong, or to shout at the people selling things, or to be disruptive or aggressive or condescending or any mix of the above. Partly, doing so reflects very badly on skeptics, which only makes the attendees more likely to distrust us and trust the people you’re shouting at. We become the bad guys, they become the underdogs and the put upon. It really can backfire. But also, if your goal there is to understand as much as possible and to see woo in the wild, you break that spell when you disrupt, and in doing so you also shatter your learning experience.

Chances are, you already know how those conversations go when there’s disagreement and antagonism, because we’ve all experienced that. For me, the purpose of attending is a learning exercise, not a teaching exercise.

So, let’s say you agree with me, and you decide to attend whatever event you happen to spot. What should you have in mind in doing so? Here are my top tips:

What to wear

It’s worth thinking about what to wear. Or, rather, it’s worth making sure you don’t overthink what to wear. Your goal is to be incognito and unobtrusive, so don’t try so hard to blend in that you end up wearing something that makes you seem uncomfortable, because then you’ll stand out. Wear your regular clothes, but maybe skip the t-shirts with slogans that ridicule religion or woos.

If you feel comfortable, you’ll act more comfortable, and nobody will pay attention to you. That said, if your regular wear is a full suit and a full-length leather jacket, maybe this kinda gig isn’t for you.

I would however suggest that you wear something with pockets, and you make sure you’ve got a bag. The pockets will allow you to keep your phone close enough to hand for whenever you might need it, and the bag will be very handy when it comes to flyers, leaflets, free samples, and anything you’re allowed to take without handing over more cash. My strategy is always to visit all of the stands, and to casually pick up any leaflets and flyers they’ve got lying around, because they’re a treasure trove of material and they’ll help you fill in the blanks from any conversations you might have.

Free samples are great for the same reason, they’re excellent collector’s items. That said, be careful in what you do with them when you get home – one ayurvedic face wash sampler accidentally made it from my office to my bathroom somehow, and the next thing I saw of it was my wife using it in the shower. It was fine, but it’s definitely worth keeping a hard wall between woo swag and everyday toiletries.

Recording and photography

Martin Kenny - a black man wearing a blue and white striped jumper stands next to a large construction of his cosmic egg model.
Flat Earther Martin Kenny tells the 2018 UK Flat Earth Conference that the universe is actually a giant egg, complete with home-made model (Image credit: Michael Marshall)

Nobody in 2025 bats an eye at someone holding their phone, or even at taking the odd photo of what’s going on, especially during talks and seminars. It’s a good idea to look around first, watch what other people are doing, and if there’s the odd picture being taken here and there, feel free to take that as a cue to lightly document things that seem of interest. Good courtesy would be to avoid taking photos of other attendees unless it is unavoidable (eg during a demonstration, or if they’re necessarily in shot when taking photos of something else).

It can also be a good idea to set a phone or tablet to record audio from before you set foot inside the event, and letting it run until you leave. Your intent is to record something only for your own records and note keeping, rather than for any form of broadcast. At a public event, even one that’s ticketed, there is no reasonable assumption of privacy on behalf of the speakers and presenters – especially when they’re there representing their business, either by selling services on a stall, or giving a public lectures and demonstrations. If you’re speaking at a ticketed public event, you can’t reasonably claim to be doing so in private. In which case recording for your own notes should be ok, but do check the rules in your own jurisdiction.

The backstory

In terms of backstory, the key again is not to over-prepare or overthink things. It is worth having to hand an answer about why you’re there, in case you get into a friendly conversation with anyone, because they might conversationally ask you something about yourself and what brought you there. I tend to go with something like “I’ve always been interested in learning more, but haven’t really had the chance to do much of that yet”, because that puts you there for all the right reasons, but with no expectation that you’ll be an expert; it even helps explain if you seem awkward or unsure about how it all works. If anything, it’s an invitation for them to tell you more, which is exactly your goal.

Equally, you can also reflect that question back to them – do they come to these things often? What brings them along? What are they interested in? Open, friendly questions invite people to tell you more, and your job is to listen and to understand.

If you’re attending an alternative health-related event, it can be useful to have a health reason in mind. Again, don’t overthink it – you don’t want to be memorising medical notes about the exact diagnosis you’ve given yourself, the test results and the specific symptoms; this isn’t a creative writing exercise. Instead, you could refer to an illness you actually have, if you have something (thank you, my chronic allergies). Or, you could have in mind an illness you know very well – perhaps something you’ve experienced through a close family member, whose symptoms you have good recollection of. Asking what a relevant CAM practitioner at the event thinks of their symptoms can be a good way to understand to what degree they understand the limits of their therapy.

Time to head in

What do do once you’re there will depend on the type of event. It could be a conference model, in which case it’s mostly about sitting and listening to the talks. Your interaction with other attendees will be limited to breaks, so try to take the opportunity to spark up a conversation. People will often be very keen to talk, not least because lots of people attend on their own, being the only person they know who really believes in whatever conspiracy or esoteric idea is the theme of the day. A good opener is something like, “That was pretty interesting, what did you make of it?” or “Have you seen the speaker speak before?”. After that, asking open questions will invite them to tell you more, and I typically occupy a position where I am interested but don’t know too much about it specifically, but I’m really keen to learn more, because usually people are very willing to inform me.

Other events aren’t about speakers, but instead are a collection of stalls and booths. These are great, because they’re like a little samples of nonsense – woo tapas. This is where your bag will come in handy; pick up anything that’s free to take, from flyers to leaflets to free samples.

I try to adopt a friendly, curious expression, and approach with a quiet demeanour, just trying to understand what the booth is and what it’s all about. You might find the vendor engages you in conversation – you’re curious, but that’s OK, they’ll be eager to tell you. They’ve paid for that booth, and they’ll want to make it worthwhile.

You’ll get their practised sales patter, and it’s good to ask follow-up questions here, but try to keep them at the level of “what might be the obvious thing to occur to me here” or “what might be a common-sense question”. I try to avoid questions like, “How do you sleep at night?”. Ask how things work, if they’re proven, and how we know they’re proven. See what they say. If it’s a health claim, ask why more people don’t know about it, and why doctors don’t use it. Those gentle probing questions can get you quite far.

Two men stand facing each other, one with his arms outstretched as the other performs an applied kinesiology test.
Energy device Sosatec Wellballancer’s sale patter included demonstrating the harmful effects of WiFi and mobile phone radiation, via a pseudoscientific Applied Kinesiology test… which did not respond well to gently challenging questions. For more, see Good Thinking Investigates: Sosatec Wellbalancer (Image credit: Michael Marshall)

Don’t get into an argument, not least because that’ll blow your cover before you get to the next table. They might try to press a sale on you, but you can always hit the ejector seat by saying something like, “That’s really interesting, thanks so much. I’ve so much more to see but I might be back around later.” It’s OK, you don’t actually have to come back.

When it comes to events that will be a mix of talks and booths, get a brochure as early as you can and check out which talks and demonstrations stand out to you. Cast a wide net, because titles can be misleading and you don’t want to miss out on something incredibly weird just because the speaker didn’t know how to market themselves. Typically, you’re not forced to sit through a whole talk if you’re not interested, so try to find a seat towards the back of the room or near to the exit, in case it doesn’t grab you as weird enough and you want to skip out to peruse the vendors’ booths.

Free samples and taster sessions

At these booths, there may be the opportunity to take a free sample of something, or to have a free taster session of a therapy. Always accept the free sample, though if that free sample is food or drink you must have right there on the spot, exercise some caution. If it’s a foodstuff prepared with an unusual ingredient, it’s probably not going to harm you, it might just be unpleasant tasting (but that’s fine – it’s the experience, in some ways that’s ideal!). But, when it comes to shot glasses of mysterious green liquid from Ayurvedic stalls, perhaps politely decline since some tinctures are tainted with things like heavy metals and it isn’t worth the risk.

Taster sessions of therapies is a different matter. Personally, I’ll try any that are free – think of the stories you can tell afterwards. You want to be able to tell people about the time you listened to digitised DNA, or had to wear a pyramid hat to channel your energies, or were given a 10-minute computer scan to tell you which of 12,000 foodstuffs you’re intolerant of, and to what degree.

After the event

It can be quite energy intensive to attend an event like this, and if it all goes well (ie you’ve encountered something fascinating or shocking) it can leave you a little drained. especially if you’ve had to keep up a friendly, open, non-judgemental demeanour throughout. Make sure you’re far enough from the event and its audience before you drop the poker face – it can be very awkward to step out of the venue and immediately vent about the experience… only to realise someone from the audience happened to walk out close behind you. Especially if you’re planning to go back after lunch, or the next day.

Once you’ve attended and had this weird experience, the obvious question is… what now? What do you do with it? It’s useful to reflect on your experience and think about whether it might change how you talk to people about these subjects in future. Obviously, you’re going to share the most fun or shocking or silly or dangerous stories with your friends; those are the spoils of war, the reward for the effort.

A purple canvas bag with Master Sha Tao Centre written on it along with some leaflets and a CD
A selection of promotional materials for Master Sha Tao Centre, gathered from the Get Well Show, London, 2023. (Image credit: Michael Marshall)

You should then return to that bag of flyers and leaflets, and think about what you were told – how much of it was harmful? What was most concerning? Is there anything in the leaflets that adds to that or evidences it? Some of the leaflets will include claims that violate regulations – advertising standards, consumer protection, MHRA, FDA, FTC, etc. Often, making a complaint to the relevant authority can be as simple as filling in an online form and attaching an image of the flyer.

Finally, if you have a really interesting experience, or see something really worth talking about – get in touch, and we’ll be happy to cover it in The Skeptic. We’re always looking for new writers: [email protected]. You don’t have to be an experienced writer, we can help you put your thoughts together.

From the archive: Sharp Blades or Sharp Practice? Czechoslovakian pyramid power

Harry Edwards
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From the archive: Sharp Blades or Sharp Practice? Czechoslovakian pyramid power

This article originally appeared in The Skeptic, Volume 5, Issue 3, from 1991.

Clinging tenaciously to the myth of pyramid power, New Agers will expound at length on stories about the mysterious and miraculous properties that they ascribe to pyramids, erroneously supporting their beliefs with ‘authoritative’ quotations from ‘reliable’ researchers such as Erich von Daniken.

Occasionally, the name of a Czech electrical engineer, Karel Drbal, crops up as the man who not only allegedly discovered that a razor blade, placed under a pyramid-shaped container, will be re-sharpened by ‘magnetic energy curves’, but who actually patented a device which will harness the force to do just that. Further it is claimed that various foodstuffs, organisms, wine etc will remain fresh or preserved from decomposition by the properties inherent in the pyramid shape.

pyramids
Egyptian pyramids. Via Pixabay

Drbal’s line of reasoning appears to have been motivated by the observations of a Frenchman by the name of Bovis, who had observed that the corpses of small animals in the Cheops pyramid in Egypt had been mummified. Although the interior of the Great Pyramid is humid, it is well known that the hot dry Egyptian climate and/or hot air currents are conducive to the rapid dehydration and preservation of corpses in a mummified form. Since time immemorial in the Far East, fish have been laid out in the hot sun to dehydrate and preserve them and, once dried, they will keep almost indefinitely. Drbal decided, however, that there was a more mysterious force at work and the multi-purpose, multi-functional mini-pyramid was the result of his experiments.

Patenting an invention does not necessarily imply viability – plans for perpetual motion machines and rungless ladders for legless painters litter the archives of many a Patent Office. For reasons beyond the cognizance of even a moderately rational mind, Drbal’s idea caught on in the USA: the Toth Pyramid Company of New York was formed to manufacture and sell cardboard replicas. Since then the concept has proliferated in many forms, shapes, sizes and materials, from pyramid hats to aid meditation and temper psychic awareness, to pyramid-shaped dwellings for psychic and therapeutic benefit. It is doubtful, given the generally unquestioning and naive acceptance of the weird and wacky by your average New Ager, that any have ever bothered to enquire further. Had they done so, those, who in a weak moment, may have succumbed to critically examining the evidence would have had their faith shattered, for not only is the description of the invention completely devoid of any supporting scientific evidence, but the inventor actually negates his own hypothesis.

Below is a facsimile of page one of the patent and a marginally abridged translation. Reading it, I find it difficult to believe that the inventor, whose exposition appears to be inconsistent with the attributes one would normally associate with his profession, is serious. This leads me to conclude that there must have been a devious motive behind the registration of such a patently transparent concept. Either there was a sinister communist plot to undermine the production of razor blades by private enterprise, or this was a ploy to help the Czech steel industry to meet its quota. Coincidentally, the patent became valid on April 1.

A faxed Czech patent document, no. 91304, page 1, "Method of maintaining razor blades and cut-throats sharp" from April 1, 1952. Named person is Karel Drbal
A faxed Czech patent document, no. 91304, page 1, “Method of maintaining razor blades and cut-throats sharp” from April 1, 1952

By using the invention, 16 razor blades, Czech Trade Mark ‘Dukat Zlato’ completed 1778 shaves, giving an average of 111 shaves per blade. The lowest number was 51 and the highest 200. From the national economy point of view the advantages are as follows: one razor blade of the above trade mark weighs 0.51g. We will consider as average 50 shaves when the blade is sharpened in the pyramid against 5 shaves without the aid of the pyramid. Thus in one year we use 73 blades, without using the pyramid, against 8 blades with pyramid sharpening – a saving of 65 blades annually, or 33.15g of stainless steel.

For the registration of the invention, only the pyramid shape has been tested but the invention is not restricted to this particular shape. It may consist of another geometrical shape made from dielectric materials and used in the same method. Consider the following references to dielectric materials, artificial magnetic fields, alignment, geometric shape and the mathematics and geometry in Mr Drbal ‘s description of his invention.

Dielectric materials

I can claim a rudimentary knowledge of electrical components gleaned from an apprenticeship in the era immediately following the invention of the germanium crystal and cat’s whisker detector set (those readers under the age of 60 not familiar with the terms should consult The Early Days of Wireless by Mark Oney) and seem to recall that dielectric material is simply another name for insulation such as paraffin wax paper, mica, glass and even air found between the plates or aluminium foil of a condenser or a capacitor.

It can be stated unequivocally that to function, a condenser requires the application of an electrical potential and its dielectric is not affected by or has anything to do with magnetism, which works on stationary ferrous metals and moving things such as electric motors and generators. Drbal’s dielectric serves no purpose other than to keep the dust off its contents. Paradoxically, if magnetism was not subject to Kepler’s inverse proportional law, then an increase in the dielectric constant (air plus an additional insulation) would inhibit not enhance the effects of magnetic flux.

Artificial magnetic fields

Although Drbal omits any reference when he claims that ‘it is known further that razor blades can be sharpened by artificial magnetic fields’, this unsubstantiated claim implies that a razor blade placed in proximity to a refrigerator motor or between the poles of a horseshoe magnet would be just as efficacious as his pyramid.

Alignment

The earth’s relatively weak magnetic field notwithstanding, the inventor invalidates the requirements of N-S-E-W alignment by saying that while it is preferable it is ‘not necessary’. And later, although he recommends a certain alignment of the razor blade, he abrogates the requirements by adding that ‘it is not basically required’!

Geometric shape

This is where any credence, if any can be had at all in the putative powers of a pyramid shape, evaporates. Drbal states ‘It [the container] may consist of another geometrical shape’ and, using another shape ‘regeneration of the razor blade will take place too’. This statement negates completely any suggestion that the uniqueness of a pyramid shape enhances in some way the focus or concentration of the Earth’s magnetic field.

Mathematics

A complete absence of mathematical and geometrical precision is evident in the physical construction requirements where Drbal says ‘the sides of the pyramid should preferably be equal to the height multiplied by Ludolf’s number’ and whose ‘height should be between 1/5 and 1/3 of the pyramid’s height’, and finally its height can be different’.

Conclusion

Drbal would have us believe that a razor blade can be placed at any height, facing any direction and under any non-metallic container regardless of shape or size and a mysterious honing energy will act upon it. In view of the contradictions, ambiguity, arbitrariness and assumptions replete throughout Drbal’s description, it is difficult to isolate any resemblance to a coherent and plausible hypothesis. Given the unrestricted parameters, it vaguely implies that a pyramid shaped container somehow focuses geomagnetic fields to interact with the atomic structure of metals. While this would have immense industrial and scientific value, a consideration of the materials and methods used place it in fairyland.

Acknowledgements

My thanks to Pani Helena Simlova, of Prague, who went to a great deal of trouble to obtain a copy of the patent, and to her brother Josef Holman for his translation.

Do classic science fiction movies undermine understanding of science?

Larry Chan
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Do classic science fiction movies undermine understanding of science?

I’m a science fiction (SF) writer. I’m also the type of audience member who hates the movies everyone else likes, and likes the movies everyone else hates. Watching classic SF movies, I would challenge the assertion that many of them should be considered classics. Many of the SF movies that have become woven into popular culture are in fact unscientific and can actually harm the general public’s understanding of how the universe functions. This is an analysis of the most well-known speculative fiction movies – that are also the most mis-informative.

Alien (1979)

The film Alien and its sequels feature the extraterrestrial creature known as the xenomorph. It is an insectoid animal that reproduces by releasing parasitic “facehuggers” that in turn implant chestburster embryos. The embryos explode from the host’s chest and develop into adults by consuming prey with a matryoshka doll-like mouth.

At its inception, this concept is unscientific. The xenomorph evolved on an alien planet, yet is seen attaching a facehugger to a human being. At no point in its evolution did the xenomorph ever encounter a human. It is unlikely there are bipedal fauna with two arms, two legs and a head on the alien planet, considering the variety of other anatomies available in the evolutionary repertoire. Ergo, it is virtually impossible that the facehugger would have the instinct to latch onto a face. It’s never seen a face before. It would have no instinctual urge to hug a face.

The 2004 Discovery Channel TV movie Alien Planet illustrates this point in elaborate detail (Discovery Channel, 2004). In this fictional documentary, an interstellar spaceship is sent to an extraterrestrial planet named Darwin IV, where humankind’s probes discover an exotic ecosystem. Members of the food chain include prey whose quadruped limbs have become fused together, mantislike creatures that can glide, and a seven-storey-tall colossus that eats from mouths on its feet. Scientists in the documentary, including Professor Michio Kaku, commented that such organisms are within the laws of physics; more so than a humanoid, considering that an alien planet might have geology ill-suited for the human form.

Indeed, human physiology might be inedible to the developing alien fetus, and might actually be poisonous if its native atmosphere has a different chemical composition. Exoplanet HD 189773b has an atmosphere comprised of glass shards. Saturn’s moon Titan has a thick nitrogen atmosphere.

The strength of the xenomorph homeworld’s gravitational field would also influence its strength. Stephen Hawking stated that life on planets with high gravitational fields would be significantly stronger, in order to compensate for the effort of mobility (Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking, 2010). The chestburster might be so strong that it would break through a human’s ribcage before it can fully develop, whereas if it were to use an organism on its home planet as a host, the host would be strong enough to contain the parasite.

Alternatively, if the alien’s planet has a gravitational field weaker than Earth’s, it would struggle to move on Ellen Ripley’s spaceship, which is programmed to have Earth gravity. Since the creature is unintelligent, its attack would be based on instinct and, therefore, it would miss the face it’s trying to hug while trying to adapt to 9.8 metres per second squared. Ripley would have Newton’s laws to thank for that.

The filmmakers evidently did not consider common sense in morphology. The alien’s mouth-inside-a-mouth makes no sense from an evolutionary perspective. Richard Dawkins famously dissected a giraffe to demonstrate that the laryngeal nerve reaches from the brain, goes down the length of the neck, loops around the heart, goes back up the neck and attaches to the relevant organ. No intelligent designer would extend a cord over 15 feet when the two organs can be attached through a shorter path. There is no evolutionary reason why the alien should have an additional mouth that does not extend much farther than its normal mouth. In the wild, if a prey item leaps one foot away from a bear, the bear would reach for it and bite it again. The bear would not discharge a prehensile tongue with teeth at the ends of its tastebuds. Evolution does not add additional mouths or eyes just for fun. Filmmakers do.

Three giraffes walking right-to-left in the bush of Kruger National Park. One is closest, with the other two farther away
Giraffes in Kruger National Park, Mpumalanga, South Africa. By PHoTowalX, via Flickr. CC BY-NC 2.0

Lastly, from an aesthetic standpoint, the character design comes off as lazy. Killer insects are common in scifi, particularly during the 1950s B-movie era. An example would be Them!, which was about giant ants terrorising mankind. Dr Skip Young states in his article “The Dark Side of Movies as Equipment for Living” that even adults can be influenced by violent movies. He cites mass murderer James Holmes, who was 24 years old when he shot up a movie theater in order to emulate the fictional supervillain the Joker. In a similar fashion, displaying such a pedestrian character design as the xenomorph can influence the audience to think less creatively. Those who are uneducated in science might think that insectoids are the limit of what can exist in space, and might lose interest in science.

Why then do critics praise Alien as a pivotal movie? If anything, this film teaches viewers the wrong things about space and basic biology.

Predator (1987)

Predator was a film about the titular Predator, an extraterrestrial warrior who lands on Earth in order to engage in deadly sport hunting. It is a humanoid with two arms, two legs and a head, carrying weapons that might qualify as samurai armaments, if samurai existed in the far future. Upon removing its helmet, it is revealed to have quadruple mandibles, but otherwise looks like a distorted human face.

The premise of an alien hunter going on a gory Earth safari is unique. The character design of the Predator is not. The scientific inaccuracy of a humanoid alien has already been discussed, but to drive the point, I will cite Douglas Adams, author of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. When discussing human-looking extraterrestrials in scifi, he mockingly lamented, “This simply cannot be.”

The humanoid alien (I’m also talking to you, Spock) is a lazy production shortcut. It would have been too complicated to design a Predator who was, for instance, a two-headed lobster with a jetpack, or an anteater with spiked quills and projectile teeth. With the technology of the 1980s, this would have to have been done with practical effects, which would have made the film look silly. Nevertheless, it could be argued that the clumsy practical effects of a two-headed lobster would have been more memorable than a bodybuilder in prosthetic makeup. At least it would demonstrate to the audience that the production was trying to create something interesting. A failed attempt to create something new is more respectable than the timid approach of making another biped extraterrestrial. After all, science is about innovation. Einstein said, “The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.”

A less-apparent flaw in the conception of the Predator is the creature’s technology. In the Predator 2, the protagonist enters the Predator’s spaceship and finds a dinosaur skull on the wall of the trophy room. One is to assume that the Predator hunted T-rex and other prehistoric animals. The problem is, if the Predators were alive during the age of dinosaurs, why hasn’t their technology evolved past plasma guns, laser sights and tactical explosives? If they were capable of space travel 68 million years ago, they certainly had laser guns back then. Moore’s Law states that computer chips double in power roughly every two years. While the law predicates that silicon chips can only become so small before the uncertainty principle goes into effect, the Predators would have had 68 million years to overcome Moore’s Law, possibly through materials technology. In the year 1987, they would have been technological gods. Yet, they were carrying the same primitive weapons they had during the Cretaceous period.

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Kubrick’s alleged masterpiece was among one of the worst offenders of the SF genre. It depicts the story of humankind through the ages, starting from the primate ancestors of Homo sapiens, and leading to the dawn of space colonisation. A team of explorers investigates a von Neumann probe left from an ancient alien civilisation. During their mission, their onboard AI, the HAL 9000, becomes disgruntled and goes postal in his 2.7 Kelvin workplace.

First off, Kubrick seems to have forgotten the primary point of a movie – to be entertaining. The movie starts with prehistoric hominids, and then goes on for a long time with prehistoric hominids. There is no narrative. Not until the alien monolith appears on prehistoric Earth, and then there’s a time jump, and then – again – not a lot of narrative.

A chimpanzee sits in greenery on a slope and vocalises, its lips pushed forward with its mouth wide open
A chimpanzee vocalising in Uganda. By Nigel Hoult, via Flickr, CC-BY 2.0

Lacking a narrative, a movie is without a driving motivation and, therefore, the audience stops paying attention. During a market test of the Little Mermaid (1989), executive producer Jeff Katzenberg noticed that a 6-year-old boy in the audience stopped paying attention as soon as the main character started singing a song that described an integral part of the plot. This suggests that audiences prefer to watch action, rather than listening to exposition (in my career as a screenwriter, I often incorporate exposition into action sequences).

2001: A Space Odyssey’s failure to engage the general public meant it had a negative impact on serious science. Actor Rock Hudson, along with 250 other audience members, reportedly left a screening of the movie, muttering, “What is this bulls***?”. This made it all the more difficult for those of us SF writers who are serious about science. It doesn’t matter how intellectual or artistic a film is. Roger Ebert argued, “There’s a place for intellectual arguments, and that’s the printed word.” (Dark City commentary, 1998) He concurred that the purpose of a movie was to engage the audience at an emotional level, and if it happens to be intellectual, so be it. Most people to this day still don’t understand why there is an embryo floating in space at the end of the film.

It’s unpleasant to listen to someone talk about how he despises everything. The good news is, I don’t. There are science fiction movies that I consider to be highly effective. However, these movies are virtually forgotten, or if they’re remembered, they’re remembered for the wrong reasons. I think it’s worthwhile to rewatch the following films:

Dark City (1998)

Dark City features a man with no identity and no memories. He wakes up in a metropolis where the night never ends, and there are inhuman Strangers pursuing him at every corner. As the story progresses, he discovers that reality is not as mundane as he thinks.

Physicist Brian Greene reasons that in the absence of the ability to find the meaning of life, one can only find solace in how the cosmos functions. Dark City takes the opposite approach. Rather than explaining the mechanics of how the Strangers are able to manipulate reality, the film delves into the core questions that we all ask – what is the meaning of life? What is reality? What are dreams? These questions will always be relevant, since no one can know the answers, and we will always be wondering.

Dark City also explores mankind’s desire to find the truth in the face of opposition from a shadowy tyranny. Filmmaker Alex Proyas claims he made the film to comment on the oppressive nature of modern society (Dark City commentary, 1998). Whether it’s the burning of Giordano Bruno, or the persecution of Christians in ancient times, humans will always experience oppression. Skeptics can find tranquility in the movie; after all, the core of skepticism is challenging long-held beliefs. Lastly, the film is superior to 2001: A Space Odyssey because Dark City engages the audience with an understandable narrative.

Star Wars: Episode 1: The Phantom Menace (1999)

I’ll say it: Jar Jar Binks is more interesting than Boba Fett. Consider the following thought experiment: imagine the most annoying person you know. Maybe it’s the coworker who always throws his trash in your trash can, or the guy in the neighborhood who double parks and causes you to arrive late for a dental appointment (and then acts confused when you tell him why you’re annoyed). Imagine he was the face under the helmet. Suddenly Fett isn’t so cool anymore. Nobody knew what he looked like for 22 years. During those two decades, the only thing cool about him was the armor. So anyone who wears the Boba Fett armor is as cool as Boba Fett. Han Solo can wear the armor and be like Fett.

George Lucas created Jar Jar Binks because he was not interested in making the same movie he made in the 1970s. Jar Jar Binks was something new. Something no one had seen before in the Star Wars universe. Similarly, Isaac Newton was famous for being completely obsessed with figuring out the nature of mechanics, and tried many different failed experiments. Reading the Principia, scholars have noticed many errors. Newton is still considered one of the founders of modern science.

Binks wasn’t funny by any measure, but it demonstrates that the artist was trying to imagine outside the box. For this reason, the Phantom Menace might be considered one of the most daring science fiction films ever made, mistakes included. Richard Feynman said, “Study hard what interests you the most in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible.”. He would not have been displeased by Lucas’ abomination.

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic

This children’s cartoon is often frowned upon for its association with the “brony” fandom. If one ignores the grown men dressing up as horses, the show has scientific value for the younger audience.

The cartoon is an excellent introduction to the basics of evolution. Three subspecies of ponies are identified: Unicorns, who have a magical mono-horn; Pegasus ponies, who have wings and can walk on clouds; Earth ponies, who live on the ground and have robust physical strength. This is reminiscent of the Earth of 300,000 years ago, when there existed nine distinct human species. Looking at these subspecies can give children a better understanding of the scientific classification system in zoology, wherein species are defined according to kingdoms, phyla, etc.

As the show progresses, new pony subspecies are revealed, including crystal ponies and hippogriffs. Crystal ponies were frozen in time for a thousand years, and then awakened. This seems to reference attempts to clone extinct species, such as the woolly mammoth. Recently, scientists implanted mammoth genes into mice, generating wooly mice.

Does it sound silly to discuss a Hasbro cartoon in the context of science? It’s not nearly as silly as a Klingon who can reproduce with a human.

Being called a classic does not render a piece of art effective. Films are heavily influenced by marketing and publicity, which can make a mediocre product appear better than it is. Science fiction fans should not place too much weight on the opinions of “legendary” writers. Even legends can make disastrous errors, making you want to scream your vestigial mouth at the top of your lungs (which evolved to speak in whalesong).

The Skeptic Podcast: Episode #007

The Skeptic Podcast
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The Skeptic Podcast: Episode #007

From the pages of The Skeptic magazine, this is The Skeptic podcast, bringing you the best of the magazine’s expert analysis of pseudoscience, conspiracy theory and claims of the paranormal since its relaunch as online news source in September 2020. 

On this episode:

Subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts, or to support the show, take out a small voluntary donation at patreon.com/theskeptic.

The Truth of Skinwalker Ranch… probably won’t shock you

Nick Garratt
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The Truth of Skinwalker Ranch… probably won’t shock you

If, like me, you sometimes find yourself awake late at night and struggling to sleep, you may have come across a certain History Channel show about a northern Utah ranch full of unexplained events and mysterious happenings.

The Skinwalker Ranch was named after a Native American legend of shapeshifting demons, or maybe warlocks, that could take the form of animals like wolves or eagles. The ranch wasn’t named that by any local Native American tribe, it was named that in the 1996 by the new owner, Robert Bigelow. Bigelow is an American businessman and UFO enthusiast, who has spent millions of dollars investigating UAPs (unidentified anomalous phenomena) and parapsychological events.

He bought the ranch from the Sherman family, who told of cattle mutilations and unusual lights in the sky above the ranch. While stories of unexplained lights in the sky in that area of the Utah go back as far as the 1970s, they only got specific to the ranch once the Shermans moved in, in the early 90s.

Since then, the stories have got wilder. Initially the Shermans were telling of lights in the sky and strange cattle mutilations… then Bigelow bought it, and described monstrous sightings of giant wolves, unknown creatures that disappear into the shadows, alien craft, and people having strange experiences.

In 2016 the ranch was sold on again to another billionaire UFO enthusiast, Brandon Fugal. Brandon thought all these sightings and paranormal events warranted detailed examination, so he did what anyone who wants to solve a mystery does – he agreed to let the History Channel launch a reality TV show to look into these events.

The Truth of Skinwalker Ranch (aka The Curse of Skinwalker Ranch) first aired in 2020 and is now into its fifth season. The show follows a team of investigators including Fugal, his friend Erik Bard, Thomas Winterton, Bryant “Dragon” Arnold, and Travis Taylor – an aerospace engineer and physicist who has worked with the US Defence Agency and NASA. Taylor’s NASA credentials are hyped up quite dramatically in the show, but it seems (at least from my reading) that he has mostly contributed to papers that look into UAPs, and authored a paper on interplanetary defence against invading extra-terrestrials.

This crack team spend the summer months looking at different ways to, from what I can tell, be professionally confused. There’s lots of talk of telemetry, but very little information. There’s a lot of looking at images on very large monitors and asking breathlessly: “What is that?!”

The ranch has dozens of cameras covering all the key areas they like the focus on, all of which seem to be of incredibly low quality – especially considering the team is perpetually followed around by professional camera operators with HD-quality equipment. Pictures are then shown on screens far too large to display the images captured with any clarity, and the blurred images are pored over by this incredulous crew of ragtag misfit scientists.

A close-up photo of a tan-brown cow's nose, with four flies sitting on the hairy part in the central area between and above its nostrils,
Flies love cows. Via Pxhere, CC0 Public Domain

Our heroes will see something blurry fly over the mountain range of several miles in mere seconds, and ask “how could it move so fast?”, proclaiming “Look at the flight pattern – nothing we have could move like that!” Someone needs to show these gentlemen an episode of Father Ted, because they can’t seem to grasp the difference between something that is small and something that is far away.

These ‘impossibly fast’ blurry black things are more than likely just flies – which are extremely common on a cattle ranch – buzzing close to the camera. Flies can move very fast and erratically. Admittedly they cannot cover miles in seconds, but they can cover a few inches in that time, while being very close to the camera (which also explains them being out of focus, when the mountains in the distance are quite clear).

As for the cattle mutilations, such stories often feature details like the soft tissue of eyes and tongues being missing, with the crew explaining that the blood has been drained from the body. However, actual mutilations receive less focus in the show than the blurred footage of aliens/flies. It’s easy to imagine why; the number of these instances is likely to have reduced with the increased activity on the ranch, as people swarm about with lights looking for alien activity – such bustle is likely to ensure that any natural predators in the area keep their distance.

Mountain cats and coyotes live in the area and are known to attack cattle. Such predators often start eating soft flesh and, if they are disturbed and run away, scavenger birds will eat eyes and tongues. The blood hasn’t been drained, but has settled close to the ground once the heart has stopped beating, giving the top-side of the animal an emaciated appearance.

The show also likes to bring in other “experts” with various different testing materials, such as metal detectors, rockets, drones and drills. They never drill particularly deeply, and they never excavate any areas around their bore holes, ostensibly because of a story they tell of bad things happening to a previous group that worked on the ranch during the Bigelow era who tried to dig on the ranch. Personally, I suspect that it’s more that finding something solid under the sandstone is much harder to be confused about if you know there is a layer of denser rock further down.

An older, white man holds his mobile phone up in front of his face with both hands, outside, squinting at the screen. The photo has a very high quality artistic style, with high contrast. The clouds are dramatic in the sky behind him
Sometimes you just need to get it in the right spot to find the signal… Photo by Neil Moralee, via Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

They also mostly use their devices in wide open areas with poor internet signal – so when a rocket goes off course in the middle of an open field, unprotected from strong winds, it’s a reasonably explainable event. When a fleet of drones has missing data, or when one malfunctions within a formation of dozens, it is always treated as unexplainable – when the answer could be as mundane as a bad connection. Meanwhile, their detectors seem to go off at random… particularly when swung in the direction of the drilling equipment or cars that we know are just out of camera shot.

People are often filmed having strange and unexpected bouts of dizziness and blurred vision on the show – subjective symptoms that cannot be measured well, especially in the middle of a cattle ranch. Mobile phones will be shown going haywire and unlocking themselves – is that evidence of something spooky? Perhaps not, given the phones shown are often pretty beaten up, with cracked screens and the potential water damage, on top of the ability of modern phones to unlock with facial recognition.

But of course, the biggest trick employed on the reality TV show is… editing! We don’t know that all events happen in the order presented; we often get to hear about, but not see, strange events happening; shaky cameras jerk about to try follow a light in the sky; we see cuts between reactions and events happening on totally separate sides of the massive cattle ranch. It’s quite easy to build a story of unusual events occurring all the time when you get to control what people do and do not see.

All of which allows this ranch, which has experienced unusual events ever since it was bought 30 years ago by people that really want to believe in UFOs, and has increased dramatically in value since it became famous in certain circles, can keep finding newer and blurrier reasons to be amazed by the incredible events happening there.

Reactive Oxygen Species are more than just the ‘bad guys’ of the body

Zoё Chernova
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Reactive Oxygen Species are more than just the ‘bad guys’ of the body

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are not completely “neutralised” oxygen molecules: they still have a “hole” where the electron should be, so they are extremely reactive – to fill this hole. They are often thought about as molecules that oxidise membranes and proteins, and cause ageing. But according to the latest data, ROS are more than just a horror story.

Molecules that oxidise are required in the body to burn glucose, and to form ATP, but it’s impossible to directly turn glucose into ATP, so a lot of processes occur during its breakdown. To understand the value of ROS, we need to understand a bit about these processes. These processes result in the formation of carbon dioxide, as well as special molecules, electron carriers. ATP is synthesised on the mitochondrial membrane in a system called the electron transport chain (ETC).

The ETC is quite complex, but at the same time incredibly logical and beautiful: an aqueduct of several protein complexes is built inside the double membrane of mitochondria. These proteins accept an electron from a carrier molecule and then throw it from one complex to another, like children throwing a ball to each other. Along with the electron transfer, protons are pumped into the double membrane, a strong difference in their concentration on different sides of the membrane – the membrane potential – is formed. At the end of the ETC is an ATP synthase, through which protons are driven to set this machine in motion. But where to put the electrons also traveling along the ETC? This is where oxygen comes in: it accepts them and is reduced to water.

It is the mitochondria, or rather the electron transport chain, that are responsible for the majority of ROS produced. Normally, 90% of the oxygen is reduced to water. But sometimes something goes wrong, and the oxygen is not completely reduced – and the molecule ends up with one (an unstable superoxide radical is formed), two (then peroxide is formed), or three additional electrons (a rarer situation of peroxide reduction to a hydroxyl radical) instead of the four that would be needed to produce water.

Superoxide has a very short lifespan and is not very dangerous. Concentrated peroxide is quite toxic; it is a good oxidiser which means it’s very reactive. Reactivity can cause damage in the cell. It is peroxide that is most often found in the body of mammals due to its stability and long lifespan. Normally, peroxide is constantly present in the cell and, to maintain this level, the coordinated work of both the producing and utilising systems is needed. Peroxide is also able to travel significant distances. Finally, peroxide can take another electron, and then the most toxic compound among the active brethren is formed – the hydroxyl radical. It also lives for a very short time, but is very reactive.

Dangerous or… ?

The free radical theory appeared in the 1960s and has only been developing since then. ROS oxidise (react with) proteins, lipids, and membranes. Errors accumulate in DNA… The consequence of excessive formation of ROS in the cell is indeed oxidative stress. ROS also participate in lipid peroxidation and form hydroperoxides: when they disintegrate, they lead to the emergence of toxic secondary oxidation products.

Peroxide causes oxidation of sulphur-containing groups in the active centres of proteins. It is also associated with the development of oxidative stress and apoptosis (controlled cell death). Oxidative stress in humans is associated with a huge list of various diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, diabetes, atherosclerosis. Of course, oxidative stress is also associated with ageing. Oxidative stress also occurs during brain damage.

At the same time, several independent antioxidant systems coexist in eukaryotic cells. Enzymatic systems include proteins that directly destroy ROS: for example, Mn-containing superoxide dismutase converts two molecules of superoxide into peroxide and water. The peroxide is then decomposed by an enzyme, into water and oxygen. There are also assistant molecules that allow themselves to be oxidised in the name of saving more important structures. The most famous molecule is ascorbic acid. Other known antioxidants are carotenoids — the same pigments that give carrots their hue.

It is easy to think that the appearance of ROS in a cell is just an artifact, a random error. But what if ROS are needed for some reason? This idea is a bit unusual, but it seems to be true, and we need to stop demonising ROS. First of all, it is assumed that ROS can play the role of secondary messengers — they help to carry signals.

Superoxide anions can be used by cells of the immune system to protect against infections and tumours. The fact is that during phagocytosis by macrophages and neutrophils of the immune system, an oxidative explosion occurs: quite a lot of superoxide is formed, triggering oxidative stress in bacteria. Our immune system uses ROS as protection. In addition to its protective function, superoxide is necessary for the synthesis of some important substances, for example, prostaglandins which help with inflammation during injury.

Hydrogen peroxide is the most likely contender for the title of “necessary ROS”. Even the fact that it is formed in the body with enviable regularity hints at its “normality”. There are even specialised structures – microsomes and peroxisomes – in which peroxide forms, too, and oxidative stress occurs.

Peroxide, apparently, takes part in the signaling pathways of both animal and plant cells. For example, the production of pigment by young melanocytes is apparently completely regulated by the release of peroxide by mature cells. In plant cells, peroxide has a role in in the differentiation of xylem. Peroxide even helps tardigrades fall into their suspended animation state of cryptobiosis! Under stress conditions, the tardigrade actively produces ROS, which binds to sulphur-containing cysteine ​​and reversibly changes protein structures.

How can we prove whether a molecule is needed or not? One of the important features of any secondary messenger is the presence of specific targets. And peroxide has such. In particular, tyrosine phosphatases, enzymes that destroy phosphate groups associated with tyrosine residues, change their activity under the influence of peroxide. It oxidises the residues of the cysteine ​​in the active centre, and the proposed cascade has a rather complex regulation and many different participants.

ROS are also involved in much more subtle processes – for example, in the formation of memory. Neurons are connected to each other by axons and dendrites, along which they transmit nerve impulses. Memory, in essence, is certain neural connections, like a road map linking different cities together. And ROS, apparently, quite strongly influence the speed on these roads – how quickly the signal is transmitted.

In addition, peroxide is also involved in gene expression. ROS is able to activate the transcription factor NF-kB, which is necessary for the proper functioning of the immune system; without activation the factor cannot work!

But there is also something that does not quite fit into the theory of the need for ROS. First of all, we still do not understand how exactly their concentration is controlled. There are utilisation systems, but there are also systems that produce ROS randomly. If we assume that ROS are signaling molecules and regulatory cascades exist, then all stages of this process should be catalysed, as occurs in classical regulation. However, it is currently unknown whether there is a controlled source of ROS formation.

ROS are certainly extremely interesting: they cause oxidative stress, indirectly influencing the development of diseases, and, at the same time, are important for normal physiology – or at least so it seems to us for now. Their full role has yet to be discovered.

From the archive: Scientology is more dangerous than we might think

Allen Hunt
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From the archive: Scientology is more dangerous than we might think

This article originally appeared in The Skeptic, Volume 5, Issue 3, from 1991.

I was surprised to read John Clark’s article on L Ron Hubbard (The Skeptic, 4.2). Madame Blavatsky was described by Richard Hodgson of the Society for Psychical Research as one of the most accomplished, ingenious and interesting imposters of history. Hubbard might well be described in a similar manner. Ron Hubbard had the ability to anticipate future trends and to exploit them. Up to the second world war, psychotherapy was the province of those who had been medically trained. It was concerned with the rooting out of forgotten experiences of childhood buried in the unconscious mind, which were assumed to be the cause of adult neurosis.

It was implicit that there was something wrong with the patient. Analysis was time consuming and elitist Hubbard introduced Dianetics and suggested that anyone without medical training, could – through a knowledge of Dianetics – achieve results easily and more effectively than the blundering psychoanalysists.

One of the main troubles with the Freudian analysis was that non-directive free association could take years in finding the buried seat of trauma. The patient would protect the guilty knowledge from the therapist. Hubbard, by the use of his E Meter (actually a primitive lie detector) claimed he could quickly (and any Dianetic Auditor, or therapist) locate the source of the trouble, thereby saving hundreds of therapy hours. Dianetics was therefore a streamlined system of analysis, very much influenced by Freud, disguised the use of Hubbard’s own invented jargon. The buried cause of the neurosis, called by Hubbard ‘aberration’, was an ‘engram’. This term had been used by lmmanuel Velikovsky when he was in close contact with the Viennese analysists to describe ‘a permanent trace recorded on biological tissue’. Velikovsky has been described by Martin Gardner as ‘an almost perfect textbook example of the pseudoscientist’.

Hubbard did claim that total recall of all we had experienced was possible even though we were in the womb at the time. He also claimed that we recalled what we ‘heard’ even when were time unconscious. All this seemed to the layman as rather incredible, although Dr Wilder Penfield, a Canadian neurosurgeon, had noted this phenomenon while operating on epileptic patients. This phenomenon has now been generally recognised and has also been observed in hypnotised subjects.

The danger is that the hypnotiser may produce by suggestion, false memories in the mind of the subject. Hereby lies the danger. I suggest that Dianetic therapy, called by Hubbard ‘auditing’, produces a mental state which is analogous to the hypnotised trance. This gives the Dianetic auditor considerable power over a suggestible person, and Dianetics is not controlled by a strong professional code.

It was also suggested by Hubbard that past lives could be recalled while undergoing Dianetic auditing. This was some years before the ‘Bridey Murphy’ craze hit America. It is now relatively common for some individuals to search for imagined past lives whilst hypotically regressed. But Hubbard was there first. Another first for Hubbard was his experimentation with plants. He would wire tomatoes up to E Meters, and decided that plants could feel pain. Clyde Backster was to hit the jackpot some ten years or so later with his book about the psychic powers of plants. Many people are now convinced that plants are now more likely to flourish if spoken to kindly. It is not usually suggested, although the reverse might easily apply, that if they do badly plants could be threatened with the compost heap.

Hubbard’s fantastic idea that the embryo can hear in the womb and can be influenced by the words expressed would seem to have support from Dr Michele Clements of the City of London Maternity Hospital, who in 1979 wrote an article. ‘What the foetus hears, an adult remembers’. It was claimed that it had been demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that the foetus hears things external to the womb after four months, and reacts to these sounds and memorises them. It has also been claimed that surgeons now recognise this danger to patients while unconscious in the operating theatre and those in the theatre are warned to be careful what they say.

A middle-aged L Ron Hubbard in black and white, sitting at a desk in a suit and tie, gesticulating with his arms while speaking to someone unseen to the left of the image.
L Ron Hubbard, Los Angeles Daily News, CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

Scientology emerged in 1952. Whereas Dianetics was directed to the body, Scientology was directed to the ‘soul’. The existence of the latter was said to have been incontrovertibly scientifically validated by Hubbard. What is true is that Hubbard claimed that the aim of Scientology was to make ‘the able more able’. So whereas the emphasis of Dianetics was to cure the individual of mental or physical disability, the aim of Scientology was to raise the level of a person’s ability and consciousness.

Hubbard had again anticipated the leap which so many Freudian and other analysts were to make in launching the Human Potential Movement (HPM). The HPM did not come into the general public consciousness until after the Esalen Institute was set up at Big Sur in California in the 1960’s. Scientology introduced the concept of a ‘Tone Scale’. The aim of method was to raise a person’s consciousness up the tone scale. There were graduations from zero up to an unspecified upper limit, and for normal individuals four was the desired goal. If one was stuck on zero one was dead. It was sometimes implied that it might be possible for some elite members within the movement to achieve such a high level on the tone scale that they would be immortal.

If one ignores the latter absurdity it is possible to see Hubbard’s approach reflected in the HPM. Their aim was to concentrate on the present, not the past as the analysts had done. Hubbard told people that they should be in present time, both aimed at raising consciousness and abilities. The techniques used by the Scientologists included mind expanding exercises, creative visualisation and guided fantasies which were to be used later by the HPM and followers of the New Age movement. Maslow’s ‘Hierarchy of Needs’ produces a scale which reminds one of Hubbard’s Tone Scale. So, one must admit how perceptive the founder of Dianetics and Scientology was in anticipating future trends and enthusiasms.

I strongly disagree with the advice given by John Clark that one should try Scientology and see if the results are beneficial. Clark may have survived his involvement unscathed, and in fact, he seems to have believed that he has benefited over the years. Perhaps he merely grew up and matured. In any case if a person devotes time, energy, money and emotion to a particular cause it is extremely difficult to later decide that it was not worthwhile. This is done to avoid a mental state known as cognitive dissonance. Individuals who are highly suggestible, those who are emotionally vulnerable, those with a weak sense of their identity, and in fact all inadequate personalities should avoid involvement with Scientology like the plague.

An article in The Listener (30 April 1987), based on a BBC Panorama programme, told how the psychological techniques of Scientology could be used to swindle inadequate personalities, mentally entrapped by the cult, out of increasingly large sums of money. It was claimed that the organisation deliberately targetted young people who were possibly lonely and idealistic who had access to large sums of money. Once enmeshed by Scientology such young people could be swindled out of all they possessed. Those who tried to escape would be threatened and put under immense psychological pressure.

Cyril Vosper tells how, as a young man, he was attracted by Scientology, and the hold that the movement gained over him. After fourteen years it took strength of will, great fixity of purpose, resolution and courage to escape from the toils of the organisation. The attraction of Scientology and other cults of psycho-salvation can be understood by reading Eric Hoffer’s The True Believer. Hoffer was writing mostly about the attraction of revivalist religious movements and totalitarian political parties. Scientology claimed to be a religion and was certainly totalitarian. It attracted the idealistic young and those who needed genuine sympathetic counselling. It then perverted their idealism and exploited their weaknesses. Perhaps, worst of all, it resulted in people (as in all totalitarian groups) in handing over their ethical judgement and conscience to an imagined infallible leader.

Whether Hubbard was an original thinker, I would doubt. That he had a considerable flair for anticipating future fads and trends cannot be doubted. But how could any rational person take seriously a person who could write that ‘Dianetics was a milestone for man comparable to man’s discovery of fire and superior to his invention of the wheel and the arch’. Or in his History of Man: ‘This is a cold blooded and factual account of your last sixty trillion years’.

An earlier book was Excalibur (1938); the title again shows the author’s facility for anticipating future trends. The title is suggestive of the ‘sword and sorcery’ phase of science fiction. Hubbard was, about this time, a freelance writer of science fiction. He claims of Excalibur that four of the first fifteen who read the book went insane. Hardly a good selling point, I should think. It was withdrawn but re-issued later with the author’s personal signature for the price of $1,500. It has been suggested that those who went mad were driven insane when they realised what rubbish they had spent so much money on.

Further reading

1. Fads and Fallacies in the name of Science. Martin Gardner. Dover Publications. New York. 1957.

2. The General Practitioner. 13 April 1979

3. The Mind Benders. Cyril Vosper. Mayflower Books. 1973

4. Dianetics, the Science of Mental Health. Ron Hubbard. Scientology Publications.

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