Unicorn Wings
Guerilla Skepticism is gaining momentum. My recent post about so-called “Telephones to the Dead” sprawned a huge outcry from both sides of the issue. Since “Box of Fiends” hit this blog, I have received replies from hundreds of people; both “experts,” “researchers” and from those of us who just can’t believe talking to dead people is even an issue. Have people gone mad? I have to constantly rein in my anger over the fact that such a ridiculous claim has and continues to draw so much intense emotion. I find myself frequently quoting Issac Asimov’s “Unicorn Wings” theory to myself and whoever will listen to keep from getting drawn into this and other quagmires of self-deception.
Asimov’s excellent advice goes like this: If you find yourself embroiled in any paranormal debate such as whether or not unicorns have wings, you are doomed from the get go because you have acknowledged that unicorns exist before debating whether they have wings or not. Both are obviously part of fantasy-land. BTW: This creature would actually be a pegahorn, or if you want to be technical:
A winged horse is a pegasus, a horned horse is a unicorn, and a unicus is a winged and horned horse so the answer is UNICUS ….. But I digress.
In the case of the latest popular delusion; “Frank’s Box,” “Telephones to the Dead” or whatever new broken radio parts purport to be able to contact dead people, you have to start with the first glaring problem: do the dead talk?
No, they don’t. THEY ARE DEAD.
Forget the “box” or machine, whoever or whatever is claimed to be (as in the heyday of spiritualism) the “spirit guide,” whether or not the box has wings is a pointless exercise unless you tackle the root issue first. By agreeing to discuss the wing matter at all, you risk giving the impression that the starting premise is okay and you give the lunatics who believe both claims a leg up. If you are going to engage a newager: Take the offensive.
I was a guest of radio/podcast: Paranormal View a few weeks back and despite the host’s claim that we were likely to have a rowdy crowd of on-line believers who would try to take me down with attacks of woo, not one person was willing to step up to the plate and have a conversation with me. I even begged, cajoled and dared them to come out from under their rocks with absolutely no takers. Not a peep was heard from a single one of the people who say they can talk with dead people or their followers. Why is that?
Their silence speaks volumes for our cause. When the chips are down and we ask for proof or real evidence to claims of the paranormal, those who populate the dark world of woo either return to the shadows in which they dwell or fall back on lame attacks from the safety of their own website comfort zone. They have no spines.
Why? Duh factor again: Because they are crooks and bottom feeders of the lowest order. I know their ways. I was one of them once upon a time and I operated right alongside them long before Chris Moon was crawling around in diapers.
On May 27 th I will be doing another radio show for Ghost Divas at 11:00 p.m. EST. I invite you to tell your friends, (especially any believers you may know) tune in and hopefully hear for yourself the twisted rationale of people like Moon as they sink their teeth into the rotting meat of the talking dead story. Believers in the supernatural can’t stand up or stand for any rational thought. It’s too bad really. For as I used to say when I was a “professional psychic” myself; there’s nothing I like more than talking with a good skeptic. Conflict and honest debate are what makes life worth living. I’m as open minded as I can get. I wish the situation was different from what I expect to hear: not dead people but dead air when it comes time to face the facts. Unfortunately with most of these claims, we have nothing to start with of any substance and soon become mired in between those pesky unicorn wings. Just the same, I’ll listen to the most outrageous stuff you can muster. So come on all you loonies, bring it on!
Do I sound arrogant? Am I somehow too pessimistic and cynical? I’m not. I’m just bored. I want more. I want you believers to excite me with your enthusiasm. I want you to CONVINCE ME. If you can’t convince me with incontrovertible proof of dead people talking, at least give me more stories to tell around the campfire that has become my seance table. Meanwhile, I’ll continue to subscribe to what the acknowledged Master of the Ghost Story genre, writer M.R. James said:
M.R. James, the master of the ghost story
“I’m prepared to accept the evidence when I see it for myself.”
That’s not asking too much, is it Mr. Moon and the rest of you cowards out there trembling under your wizard’s robes?
As of Monday, May 18th, I have made an official challenge directly to Chris Moon to man-up and take the Randi challenge. I have told him (as I will tell anyone) if they are not interested in the million+ dollars that’s on the table because of some altruistic spiritual calling or devotion, no problem: I will personally help whoever suffers such heartfelt qualms to donate their winnings to the charity or “research” organization of their choice.
Plans are afoot by those of us who care to rock the boat. People are picking up the gauntlet and will continue to slap it like a wet noodle in the faces of the fraudsters. The support is there. Maybe they always were there and I just never took the time to notice and get more involved. That’s the bottom line folks: People DO care and are on the alert. But we can’t get all comfy with that knowledge. No way.
No matter how many of these sorts of fairy-tale claims are made over and over since the Oracle of Delphi, it behooves us as a group of like-minded individuals who see a better world to keep up the activism. It is truly a “Whack-A-Mole” world we live in. The more crap I see, the more I’m finding myself charged up about getting my hands dirty. As I told a few of the people I’m working with; It takes a thief to catch a thief. If ever there was a time to start catching the thieves, the time is now. The landscape is crawling with them.
Yet small time con artists like Chris Moon are only small potatoes when you look at where we have arrived. As we watch the economy crumble before our eyes, anyone with any intelligence (?) can easily visualize the Big Picture and know we are all in the midst of witnessing the biggest crime in American history. Remember when Bond villian Auric Goldfinger made this statement in the classic “Goldfinger:”
“Man has climbed Mount Everest, gone to the bottom of the ocean. He has rockets to the moon, split the atom, achieved miracles in every field of human endeavor, … EXCEPT CRIME!”
If Goldfingerwas one of our illustrious bankers on Wall Street today, no doubt he would be proud of the blatant criminality that has nearly brought America to its knees. Not a shot was fired from any golden gun and yet we have lost trillions of dollars. That’s right….. TRILLIONS to the same sort of crooks who tell us they can talk to dead people. It’s just a matter of relative degrees on the ripoff scale. Add in a few zeroes to the kind of fees Chris Moon charges for his “Telephone to the Dead” services and you are quickly into big bucks. The mind set of the villains in both cases are essentially the same.
Greedy crooks, …every one of them.
Where was the skepticism we needed when the signs were clear and situations started to slide with the savings and loan debacle – and Enron? You didn’t need a psychic to get the picture that we were headed towards the disasterous hard times we are in back then.
Dick
I saw it coming. Didn’t you? There was nothing even remotely “psychic” required to see the writing on that wall. I knew I wasn’t alone. I seem to remember thinking and reacting in a critical and rational way. I smelled a rat. But taken as the sum total of Americans, we did nothing. Like watching a violent Sam Peckinpah shoot-out in ultra slow motion, we are now front row center to an all-too-real train wreck. Where was/is the critical thinking?
Be psychic. What do you see coming in the future?
But then again, who would have believed me or listened to my prediction and what could I have done? My “vision” contained too much common sense and not enough woo. Everyone was busy watching scum like Sylvia Browne telling the world that Shawn Hornbeck was dead in some “rocky area,” effectively destroying his parent’s hopes and sending the police on another wild goose chase or wondering what the hell yellow-cake was. Despicable. I’m so sick of the liars and the phonies and the….. well, on and on really. And we haven’t hit bottom yet, Ohhhhhhh no.
THE DOWNSIDE :Maybe it’s already over for our culture and all that’s left to do is adjust to The New Order, become slowly dumber and dumbest and face the idiocracy we seem to have brought upon ourselves.
or,
THE UPSIDE: There’s still time for The Skeptologists to ride in like the cavalry and save the day. Those of us who don’t want to sound too arrogant or pretentious, but might still have a few precious brain cells left intact should do like millions of teachers, city employees and other hard working folks across the country who are even more fed up than me with the flaming bags of poo left on our National Doorstep are doing:
Get out on the streets.
There’s probably a psychic fair going on in your neighborhood right now or this holiday weekend. Go there and give out fortune cookies. Set up your own stand and do cold readings for free while proudly wearing your Skeptic tee-shirt. Become visible instead of invisible.
You’ll feel much better.
This just came in to me right after I posted this blog. Thanks to Kitty Mervine and Susan Gerbic for getting it all together for me. For more on the Unicorn Wing defense: If you go to badalien.org and click on the “CLEAR” button it has Kitty Mervine’s “Do Unicorn Have Wings” more edited article. She’s on it.
I’m finding most skeptics tend to be more academic than “athletic”. People really do need to get out and do something — whether it’s going to a “psychic” fair or writing letters to the local papers. Word needs to get out to the general public that people are questioning these nonsense claims. I’ve successfully been a thorn in the side of the “healing” magnetic jewelry people who occasionally sell their wares nearby. I’ve managed to have them forced to take down their “healing” claims and now they’re just selling ugly jewelry. They may be saying something to the people who browse their stuff but they no longer have signage claiming pain relief and cures to arthritis. If I can do something, there’s many many more people out there who can do something as well.
Think globally. Act locally.
How did you force them to take down their “healing” claim? Did you sue them? Please let us know what it takes!
I wrote a series of letters. The first letter was a complaint I sent to the Office of the Attorney General, Office of the Governor, and the Consumer Protection Board. The second was a complaint and the offer to supply journal articles. About a week later, the Consumer Protection Board called me and asked for the articles — which I supplied.
The Office of the Attorney General sent me a form letter indicating they had registered the complaint and gave it an index number. I never heard anything more from them. I never heard anything from the Office of the Governor.
The Consumer Protection Board, however, did pursue the complaint. I had initially asked that the magnet hucksters not be allowed to sell there wares but the CPB decided they could sell their products — if they didn’t make outlandish claims. The packet of information I received from the CPB included their communication with an attorney for the State as well as photo copies of some other communication as well as their ruling.
Awesome! I may consider trying that!
Along the same lines:
Today I received a forwarded email from my literary agent – who happens to be a Wiccan shut-eye – wondering why Terry Cole Whitaker is only getting $25.00 for a ticket to her lectures when she used to get $29.00. She asked whether those she emailed thought it was because of the economy (duh) or what could it be? I stuck my neck in the noose and let her know that maybe people are getting tired of the same old BS. I suppose this may have been ill-advised, but since she hasn’t sent out any proposals for any of my books to a single publisher for many months now, as far as I’m concerned, a grain of truth is better than a pound of baloney.
We may be finally seeing the turning of a small but significant tide.
Mark, I like your style. There seems to be a lack of motivation to actually DO something in the skeptical movement, and we need cheerleaders for activism on our side. Even if it is just an email to Oprah, taking her to task about her support of Jenny McCarthy, we can all do something. So keep up the good work,and happy 58th old man!
Happy 58th to you Tracy!
Doh! You blew my cover Suz.
As we watch the economy crumble before our eyes, anyone with any intelligence (?) can easily visualize the Big Picture
I think Eric Idle put it best in the galaxy song: pray that there’s intelligent life somewhere out in space, ‘cos there’s bugger all down here on Earth!
Great motivational blog there Mark!
It’s all about making them fight by our rules, not theirs!
though it should be noted on badalien I’m very kind to the supposed abductees that are honestly usually suffering from something medical. It’s more educational as you never see the REAL avareage abductee on tv. Uncritical thinkers always try to find the ones that aren’t too obviously crazy to stick on tv or write about in their books. Well shall we say people that like to exploit people with real medical issues that are “abducted”? Uncritical thinker is too kind…(See Phillip Klass “Alien Abduction, a Dangerous Game”)
Something I discovered a long time ago, many in the paranormal community are not used to having their beliefs challenged. Once they are challenged with the least bit of logic things tend to fall apart quicker than a cheap lawn chair.
When it comes to Chris Moon at the moment he is a baby rat, given the right conditions he could become as big a rat as Sylvia Browne. I find it funny that Mr. Moon has no problems communicating with the dead but falls silent when challenged by skeptics. With exception to his answer to criticism on his my space page.
http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=43481649&blogId=488439196
I’m sure Mr. Moon wrote this in response to Mark’s first blog. And like any other true charlatan he runs to the naïve arms of his followers. “The big bad skeptics are after me!” Or as he calls us cynics. Mr. Moon you are the one making these outrageous claims. We are just asking for evidence. Or are you afraid that too would collapse like a cheap lawn chair. Edison’s Telephone to the Dead my ASS!
In the last blog we had Frank himself add his colorful comments. Chris it’s now your turn.
This space reserved for Chris.
Guerilla Skepticism, let’s go!!
Chris Moon will play on Oprah, then he will make millions of dollars, because Oprah believes in ALL sorts of woo!
*sigh* *retch* *vomit*
excuse me… :-(
Chris Moon will never apply for the million dollar challenge. I tried to goad him into it a couple of weeks ago on his blog, and his response was that the million dollar challenge is fake. Typical response from someone who knows that what they are doing is not the least bit based in reality…..He has also begun to make the following really bad argument: “Just have faith.” What’s next? We’ll see him as a televangelist promoting his new religion, The Church of the Broken Radio. We look forward to talking with you on the Ghost Divas LIVE show tonight, Mark!! People, both in the general population and in the paranormal community, need to hear what you have to say about this.
“Believers in the supernatural can’t stand up or stand for any rational thought.”
I don’t think that’s a very fair statement. There are a lot of people in paranormal research that are not crazy crackpots that really are looking for logical answers to some of their experiences. I agree there are a lot of people that fit your description, but it’s not fair to say all. You go on to say you’re open minded – but are you, really? It doesn’t seem so when you basically call everyone that doesn’t agree with you crazy. Skepticism is healthy. I have plenty of it. But When you refuse to see any other possibilities then you stop being a skeptic and are just being stubborn.
Chris Moon will never take the challenge. Like TonyaK said, he’s really nothing more than a wannabe cult leader leading the other idiots to the big tent with the kool-aid.
Looking forward to tonight’s show.
Tammy, Tammy! Your comment is a little off the mark. People have been researching paranormal phenomena (some even seriously) for a long, long time. What have they come up with so far? Nothing. Doesn’t that tell you something?
Poor Oprah. She rightly deserves some scorn for her support of some of the crazies that appear on her show. But she has a huge following and she also has people like Dr. Oz explaining (very graphically) what happens to the insides of people who live on junk food. In addition, she did admit to being taken in on a couple of occasions. My point is, she has both good stuff and bad stuff on her show. You just have to be discriminating in deciding which is which.
And, sorry to be so contrary, but i really like Sylvia Browne. Sure, she’s a total flake, but at least she’s moderately entertaining! I just hope the Skeptic show is as fascinating to watch and doesn’t get too erudite or confrontational to succeed.
Awesome post Mark! Probably your best yet, if I wasn’t so late for work I might go out and punch a psychic.
Punch one on the way home then.
Jeshua – all I said was this was not a fair statement:
“Believers in the supernatural can’t stand up or stand for any rational thought.”
I know a lot of people that would be on the believer side that will stand up and do use rational thought.
I’m not claiming in any way, shape, or form to have proof of anything. Just an interest.
Tammy:
I never called anyone crazy. I’m deeply committed to listening to anyone who has something to say about their experiences with the supernatural and what I can do to help them. I do have a very open mind. Ask some of the skeptical people out there who have taken umbrage to many of my exploits in the past and you will find I’m steeped in woo and have been clawing my way out of that slagheap for over 30 years. Ask Michael Shermer, Joe Nickell, Ray Hyman or Barry Karr. If you read over some of my past posts like the “Nine of Spades” incident (or visit my own Yahoogroup page PSI-LIGHT)you will see for yourself that I have always been on a quest to find what I call a “modest psychic.” This has proved an impossible dream and with the excpetion of a small handful of people who did leave me somewhat impressed by their “ability,” it’s been an frustrating ride that eventually brough me here. My quest ends when certain folks tell me they can talk to dead people or provide “comfort” to loved ones by doing so.
The funny thing about “researchers” involved in the paranormal scene, in my opinion, is that they only allow themselves to nurture their belief rather than actually “research” anything. These devices are, in my honest opinion, proof of this. Why people invest so much money on these bogus gadgets is beyond me. Many people who use these devices do so with the excuse that they need to “research” the device’s capabilities. I built one of these devices myself in order to illustrate how ridiculous the claims it contacted “the other side” were. I guess I’m guilty of my above comment.
I stumbled across a group on my brief visit to the US last year who used a device much like Frank’s Box to communicate with the “other side”. Their skepticism of the device impressed me via email but I was not impressed when I saw them in action with the device. “We’ve had interesting results” they claimed whilst relaying their “evidence” of voices they captured.
The fact is, people will believe what they want to believe and genuine “research” has nothing to do with their “paranormal” endeavors.
Jose,
While your comments apply to the vast majority of people who call themselves paranormal researchers, they do not apply to everyone. With that said, I agree wholeheartedly that the use of these devices, by and large, is nothing but woo-inspired, pareidolia-ridden, belief-confirming parlor tricks. Most of what goes on in the paranormal community is either an effort to “get noticed” or validate pre-existing beliefs. Attempts to get these individuals to test their claims using a scientific protocol are met with excuse after excuse after excuse. Offers to help set up a scientific testing protocol have repeatedly been ignored or met with comments such as “you are just a cynic” or excuses are made as to why a specific type of protocol will not work. Efforts that have been made to provide a venue for peer review of research have been virtually ignored and therefore have been unsuccessful.
You are right. People will believe what they want to believe. What always angers me is when these people refer to what they are doing as “science” or attempt to back up their snakeoil salesman’s pitch with their “research data.”
If I had no scruples, I would tell the world that I can send and receive text messages from ghosts and take my show on the road. I’d make millions!
Just a thought…
When skeptics use terms like, psychic, haunted houses, aura and the like aren’t we buying into the unicorn wings? We are saying that people can be psychic, houses can be haunted, and glowy things exist around people, all without any proof that any of this is possible. I suppose we should use air-quotes when speaking of such things, but that becomes awkward and annoying. Still when these words are used without some kind of disclaimer then to the believer and the general pubic we have already bought into the argument. And perception is so important to education isn’t it?
Susan
That’s an interesting point, Susan. Do we have to begin to coin new words in order to discuss these issues without giving the appearance of giving credence to these ideas? How far should this be taken to avoid giving the illusion that one might buy into the flim-flam? Should we never utter the words, “Santa Claus?” (See, I appropriately placed the name in air quotes to avoid giving anyone the impression that I believe an obese bearded man delivers Christmas gifts all over the world in just a few magical hours with the aid of flying reindeer.)
Where should skeptics draw the line at avoiding looking like we might believe something? Do we draw that line so harshly that we end up making ourselves look even more ridiculous than the people making these claims?
I don’t have the answer Tonya. I don’t like having to qualify everything I say either. Yet I think skeptics should understand who they are engaging in conversation and the power of the words we say. When discussing psychics with a believer remember that in their mind psychics exist and we are just determining why the specific psychic may or may not be truly psychic. This can be very confusing to both sides when the words mean different things. Not sure I’m explaining myself well here.
Susan, you are explaining yourself quite well. It is an interesting point to ponder…