Don't Let the Tarot-rists Win!

I just finished a delightful podcast with the latest dynamic duo in the podcast world: Ross Blocher and Carrie Poppy. These two IIG members have banded together to create a whimsical 45 minute show that manages to trump all the rest of the skeptical podcasts by being both highly entertaining and dedicated to avoiding all mention of the dreaded “S” word: SKEPTIC. Their byline is “We show up so you don’t have to.” Their casual approach to looking into all things wooish is working for them. Forget de-bunking. Those days are over.  Ross and Carrie want to have fun with all the wackiness we encounter in the paranormal world and like The Odds Must Be Crazy www.theoddsmustbecrazy.com website that I mentioned in my last post, using humor and good taste to coax the inquiring minds that shun the dickish approach to thinking rationally, Oh No, Ross and Carrie!” www.ohnopodcast.com treats all subjects with an open mind, paving the way for wider exposure and a surer footing in The Big Pictur

Carrie Poppy

While sipping hot tea (a pre-requiste for the show’s stars) and sitting in front of the fireplace in what Carrie described as my “blissfully creepy” living room, we discussed a bit of my background in magic(k) and what brought me to the slippery precipace of woodom, where I had to once and for all make the leap from playing both sides of the psychic/skeptic track and settle into what is now a much more manageable position as an writer and investigator of all things weird. I’m somewhat used to being interviewed and after having played the role of a medium and psychic entertainer, I have learned how to parry with both skeptics and believers who may attempt to maneuver me to come over to their side, or worse; get me on the defensive.

I’m happy to say, this didn’t happen with Ross and Carrie. Both are warm-hearted individuals and that’s what comes across in their podcasts. Both also know me from my work in the IIG so they didn’t push my guilt buttons either way. I’m still quite happy to do readings of any sort.  In fact I enjoy it more than ever. Time has taught me many things and as I told Ross and Carrie, the more you interact with people by talking with them in the context of the “psychic” persona, the better you get in learning how to understand human nature. This is why when paying to sit with an old gypsy woman for advice, it’s not so amazing that at once she seems to know the most uncanny things about you: she’s basically an old wise woman who has probably talked to thousands of lonely and confused people. There’s nothing supernatural about that, unless you count our society’s reticence to communicate anything but surface bullshit in our day to day interactions as something supernatural. We are not used to opening up to anyone except perhaps our spouses or therapists – and even that is frequently difficult. A total stranger, especially when given the “spiritual advisor” placard above their door, is usually much easier (and cheaper) to deal with than either of the former. The key is that most experienced readers will LISTEN when nobody else has either the time or inclination to do so.

Believe me, when you talk to dozens of sitters everyday or do a gig where you speak non-stop for four or five hours without a break – you learn the skill of listening. You have to! Your vocal chords need the rest!  I have found that while my mind and the thinking process involved with giving a good reading becomes more lucid and free-flowing as the hours drag on, my body begins to show signs of stress – especially my throat!  I learned fast to let the sitter rattle off whatever is on their mind if possible, nodding wisely and mirroring back whatever you can glean, adding in a splash or two of some wise platitude that has been gathered from years of reading and testing out what gets the best reaction. Psychic readers of any stripe are superior story tellers –  and not much else. Anything supernatural comes from the sitters expectations and their natural proclivity towards the psychic’s best friend: confirmation bias.

In the Lair of Mystery

Please give a listen to Ross and Carrie’s show.  This is a positive direction skepticism and rational thinking should be taking. Take a few minutes to listen to my show and learn about the psychology and secrets of the psychic while getting a verbal preview of my book “PSYCHIC BLUES” that will be hitting the stands in April.

And if I may be so bold;  If you are interested in knowing the truth about the psychic racket, (and make no  mistake – it is a racket) I suggest three books that should be on every skeptic’s book shelf:

1) “The Psychic Mafia ” by LaMar Keene

2) “Nightmare Alley” by William Lindsay Gresham

3) “Psychic Blues” by Mark Edward (due out in April 2012)

My Own Designs for Contemporary Tarot Cards

* You can join the Facebook fanpage for up-dates and alerts on PSYCHIC BLUES publication at:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Psychic-Blues/281703748518095

Treading Another Dark Path

In an effort to get more people pointed in the direction of skeptical thinking without scaring them away by seeming too rationally challenging, The Independent Investigation Group West members have put up a new “gateway” site that’s all about those wacky weird happenstances we call coincidence.

 www.theoddsmustbecrazy.com is the brainchild of fellow IIG Steering Committee members Wendy Hughes and Jarrett Kaufman. This site grabs people where they need to be grabbed: that area in our brains that likely got many of us who are already involved in the skeptic movement to say, “…what are the odds?” way back when we didn’t know any better. When a strange occurrence happened we might not have had an answer for, where did we go? What did we think? For many of us in those larval skeptic crossover days, the friends we told about what to us was a fantastic moment probably shrugged and said, “Yeah, …that’s weird” and left it at that. This kind of tacit acceptance didn’t offer much of an alternative. The woo reasoning we may have made up in our own minds to deal with what sometimes seemed divine or cosmically charged information may not have taken us to greener pastures. Without  direction, a lot of us might have spent years navigating through endless self motivation siminars – or worse, found ourselves trapped in a woo cult.  

Now inquiring minds have a place to go to hang out, share and archive their most wild experiences. Once there, they will hopefully get the drift on other “wormholes” that will lead to the main IIG website and other like-minded places.  My own entry from a past skepticblog post “The Nine of Spades” is there and I have just posted an experience that happened on a recient weekend. We can’t always explain exactly what’s going on with such adventures, but with TOMBC we can readily show that such experiences happen to everybody at one time or another and that, in fact, if they didn’t happen, that would be the strangest reality of all. Here’s mine from last weekend, I call it:

The Bradbury Befuddlement
This last weekend was Christmas, a time when I usually sit around doing nothing but feeling blue. This time was different. My girl Susan was coming to visit and the only real plans we had were to go and see “The Artist.” That being planned, the rest of the days off were set for winging it and hanging out when and where we felt like going. On Thursday morning, I mentioned to Susan that I wanted to remember to call my friend Ray Bradbury and wish him a happy holiday. Next day on Friday, we drove into downtown L.A. to see the Weegee exhibition at MOCA. Leaving at around noon, we made our way downtown and began the process of looking for a cheap place to park. We finally randomly settled on a spot across the street from Grand Central Market on Hill Street. This classic melting pot of L.A. has always one of my favorite places to wander around and watch the bustling activity, grab a quick bite and best of all; it lies conveniently a few blocks around the corner from the more expensive MOCA district where it has been since 1917. Being a photographer by profession, Susan snaps away at anything that sparks her fertile creative mind and after partaking of a latte and croissant, we found ourselves outside on the busy east side of South Broadway. I chanced to glance across the street and remembered (for the first time in twenty or thirty years) the wonderfully bizarre interior of The Bradbury Building.

Second Floor Landing From "Demon with the Glass hand" (1964)

I had been there a few times in my past and had a connection with the place. Being a fan of the 60’s television series “The Outer Limits” and having had the privilege of a friendship with the series’ producer Joseph Stefano, I knew a bit about the strange workings of science fiction writers and how they had used the building as a location not only in the seminal black and white episode of “The Outer Limits: The Demon with the Glass Hand,” (1964) but also countless other productions including “D.O.A.” (1950), “Chinatown” (1974),“Blade Runner” (1982) and “Wolf” (1994). To many it’s known as “The Most Famous Building in Science Fiction.” It has an odd background. Some might even call it a “paranormal” one. Wiki says:

“A local architect, Sumner Hunt, was first hired to complete a design for the building, but (the originally commissioned Lewis L.)Bradbury dismissed Hunt’s plans as inadequate to the grandeur of his vision. He then hired George Wyman, one of Hunt’s draftsmen, to design the building. Wyman at first refused the offer, but then supposedly had a ghostly talk with his brother Mark Wyman (who had died six years previously), while using a planchette board (Ouija) with his wife. The ghost’s message supposedly said “Mark Wyman / take the / Bradbury building / and you will be / successful” with the word “successful” written upside down. After the episode, Wyman took the job, and is now regarded as the architect of the Bradbury Building. Wyman’s grandson, the science fiction publisher Forrest J. Ackerman, owned the original document containing the message until his death. Coincidentally, Ackerman was a close friend of science fiction author Ray Bradbury.”

Suffice it to say that this building, its history and general noir demeanor are to say the least: bizarre. I hadn’t made any conscious linking between Ray Bradbury and the Bradbury building as we crossed the street and entered the cavernous lobby. That could have been interpreted by some as a coincidence, albeit a rather weak one. No, hang on – it gets weirder. We lingered for a half hour or so and took some nice shadowy photos, particularly shooting from one stairway landing that overlooks the lobby from the second floor. We left the building enchanted with the visual charm of the beautiful wrought iron and stone work and quite invigorated by the experience.
The next day was Saturday, Christmas Eve. We decided we would go and see a matinee of “The Artist.” The film itself is a silent film and shot in black-and-white that captures the era when silent films began to morph into “talkies” (1927-1932) and how the main characters deal with the rocky transition. An excellent film made even better by what happened next.

In stunned amazement, we both sat in awe as a five minute scene un-folded in front of our eyes shot virtually on the exact spot we had been standing on the second floor landing in the Bradbury Building just 24 hours before. What are the odds? Spooky…

 Stuff happens.

Please tell your friends about The Odds Must Be Crazy, especially those fence-sitters who have a ton of these kinds of stories rattling around in their heads. Finding “kindred spirits” and discovering you are not alone in some X-Files universe is an important step in identifying what is real and what is not in the crazy mixed up world we live in. New up-dates at TOMBC include a constant flow of new stories and heavy linking into the social network world. A better comment system went in recently that allows people to tie in their social presence and communicate more effectively. The TOMBC site is hoping to roll out more guest articles from various experts across the world as they pick up steam. It’s a start at breaking that stubborn “de- bunker” tag many of us have been saddled with for far too long.

The Odds Must Be Crazy is a web site dedicated to collecting, sharing, and celebrating stories of the unlikely, inconceivable, and statistically improbable. They accept submissions from anyone and update regularly with new stories designed to revel in the absurdity of what happens in our world when enough random events occur to produce those special, rare combinations that appear to be anything but random. Check them out and submit your story for them to share.

Which has the Capacity for More Evil? The Creature on the Right or Left?

Haven’t we all had enough of this by now? First we had rabbit’s feet, then Power Balance bracelets came along, now yet another scam. This one gets the media attention on the merit of a dead poodle.

What is wrong with us?

Article quoted from Nina Golgowski:

 Woman blames family’s misfortune on Princess the Poodle who was ‘possessed by the devil’

A New York woman claims her home got more than it agreed to when they brought an adopted toy poodle into their home that was demon possessed. Olga Horvat, a certified Lumia Science Color Therapist and writer of a book Paranormal Pooch writes that her pure-bred dog Princess brought with her a string of bad luck on her home and family.”We had her for four months — May through September in 2006 — and she didn’t want to eat, sleep and she couldn’t be trained to learn simple commands,’ Mrs Horvat told the Huffington Post’s Weird News.’ She was happy, but something was manipulating her,’ Mrs Horvat added. Detailing her efforts to help both her family and her small, fluffy white dog, she asserts in her book, according to the Post’s read, it was not her dog’s fault so they all needed to find help.Her husband next found himself in a serious car accident, nearly lost his job and then fell to a sudden and rare illness almost losing his life, according to her website, RoyalDogsGallery.com. The odds seemed stacked against them ever since Princess entered their household, judging by their timeline, and their woes appeared to be only growing worse. By the time her daughter was nearly expelled from her third-grade classroom for inappropriately touching the arm of a Muslim friend with a glove – according to Mrs Horvat because a voice in her daughter’s head directed her to – her family’s trauma was listless. Perhaps fortunately for Mrs Horvat’s family however, though unfortunate for her dog, Princess died four months after they obtained the poodle.

According to Mrs Horvat to the Post, she fell down the stairs at the home of a friend, dying.

Yet the amount of trauma that entered their family’s life in that short amount of time, was enough to write a book which received a written introduction by Joshua P. Warren, author of Pet Ghosts.

The Center for Inquiry, however, which is dedicated to promoting critical inquiry and human enrichment, says Mrs Horvat’s situation needs more hard evidence. The only people who get possessed by demons — and subsequently cured — are those who believe it’s possible,’ Jim Underdown of the center spoke with the Post.

‘You never hear about it happening to atheists,’ Mr Underdown added.

But in the five years since Princess died, Mrs Horvat has dedicated herself to learning more about their situation and how it could have been prevented or better handled.

 

Charmer: Energy Shields start at $197 for people and $189 for pets, harmonizing bad energy

In her results, she is selling energy shield pendants for both animals and humans at $197 for the human and $189 for the pet. The Energy Shield is a device that will support and balance your body’s own magnetic field, while protecting you from the negative energy generated by many aspects of our environment,’ her website describes the small metal objects which resemble tiny water-tight canisters for holding addresses or other slips of paper – with the addition of ‘Energy Shield’ written around it. In addition her pendants, she says that dogs with pointy, opposed to floppy ears, she has learned, are more prone to demon infiltration, ‘because the spirit can get in there easier,’ she explained.

On scientific arguments against the pendants not working, collected by the Post, Mrs Horvat says that none of her customers who purchased them have complained about demon possessions after.

She adds in her defense that she doesn’t bother trying to convince skeptics.

‘They’re not going to change their minds until they’re put in a situation like I was,’ Mrs Horvat said.

 

Little Princess fell down the stairs huh? How many dogs in average health do you know who could acutally fall down a flight of stairs? And this woman gets a book deal? Have we gone mad?

 

 

 

 

 

A Moment or Supreme Terror

If you get a chance to see myself and Brian Dunning (and the ghostly Susan Gerbic) on the recent episode of “Weird or What?” that is all about “Life after Death,” you will see convincing evidence for how easy it is to convince people that a seance is real. William Shatner is hilarious as the bemused and tongue in cheek host, making at least this episode tilted towards a skeptical viewpoint. Using infrared photography, the television audience sees what to each sitter in the desired total blackness of the traditional seance room never suspected. For those in the circle, the fear is real. For the viewers, the famous Scole Experiments are shown to be what they really were: a badly reported series of un-controlled magic effects that took place in the medium’s own home. Where were the skeptics? Happy Halloween!

And the Darkness Falls... Boom!

The Handy-Dandy Medium Reading

Thanks to a brilliant idea from Christopher Brown from “Meet the Skeptics!” and Travis Roy of Granite State Skeptics, here’s the latest project we have been working on. I invite everyone to use this. I shot “The Handy-Dandy All-In-One Do-It-Yourself Medium Reading” (Lesson One) with the help of Susan Gerbic and Stirling Gerbic- Forsyth which pretty much covers every bullshit dodge and cold-reading phrase we could think of in six minutes. Of course there are many more, but for the sake of brevity, we put down as many as we thought generally employed by the grief vampires out there bilking the public. Once converted into a  QR code (see it at top) it can be printed on small inconspicuous cards or larger flyers and posters.  When scanned it will lead the curious  to the “Handy” video here.

Whoever takes the time to do this as they wait in line,  before getting to their seat or while waiting for the show to start at a performance of a John Edward type (or any other appropriate venue where cold reading bullshit is being pitched) they will now have Lesson One to consider.

Spread this around.

Guerrilla Skepticism: Ask Me About It

My latest podcast with “Meet the Skeptics!” is here.

IN OTHER NEWS:

Can you find the link between Guerrilla Skepticism and this video?

Happy Hunting!

John Edward Bingo Cards

There’s not much I can say to add to the brilliant ploy that The Granite State Skeptics devised and put to work last Tuesday night. I applaud them heartily for their efforts.

The article at  http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/news/923692-196/skeptics-psychics-show-no-salve-for-grief.html speaks for itself, both for the efficacy of DOING SOMETHING and the frustrating realization that many in John Edward’s (no relation) audience refused to accept the advice of more level-headed individuals who were there to help them in the truest sense of the word.

Not surprisingly the attached article does not interview anyone who was swayed by the skeptics.

As my friend Jim Newman form IIG wrote:

“Perhaps there weren’t any, perhaps they couldn’t find any or perhaps they found some but didn’t include them in the article.”

Ultimately it doesn’t matter. It’s the thought that counts. When a newspaper like Nashua Telegraph decides to give skeptics a voice, (even a small one) it’s a sign that people are starting to think.

That Other Edward

The actions taken by Travis Roy and his crew shows bravery in the face of a frequently hostile segment of society that doesn’t have a clue. If Edward’s audiences think paying $120.00 a seat to be conned provides comfort to them, they are certainly welcome to do so. It’s their money, their time and their hearts. But with that special Bingo Card in hand (and if they stuck it in their pocket or purse on the way out) I have to believe there’s s good chance that after the spotlights have dimmed down and they are in the privacy of their own home, quite a few will have reconsidered their stance on talking with dead people and have some serious doubts about making the same mistake twice. It may be too late for them, but word of mouth and the realization that you have been burned goes a long way to educate the public in the longer run.

This is GUERRILLA SKEPTICISM with a capital G.

Have you had enough of this fatuous medium rigamorole yet?

In Your Face

On the afternoon of May 21st, a bunch of us troublemakers from the IIG got together with some poster-boards and moved into the faces of several hundred passersby near the corner of Highland and Hollywood Blvd. It was Harold Camping’s Big Day and we took advantage of the moment to capture all the attention we could. And you know what? People loved it.

Even the folks who looked askance at us eventually understood what we were doing and cheerfully thanked us for being there. We chanted, we cajoled, and we ranted just like the televangelista that make millions off of the unwary. And it was glorious. Hollywood’s “Walk of Fame” never looked better.

If you had passed by us, you would have heard repeated mantras like:

“Can I have your car?”

“Free the raptors!” (this one confused a few, but eventually the light came on.)

“I’ll take your car, your cash or negotiable produce!”

“Give me your credit cards!”

“Don’t euthanize your pets!”

“Don’t drive your kids into the lake!”

“What is reality?”

“Question authority,  especially religious authority!”

“Think about it!”

“Take a look at your spiritual beliefs!”

Viva Skepticism!

I took the opportunity to go off the wall as much as I could and I was reminded of those halcyon days of the 60′s when people really did get pissed off enough to get out on the street and DO SOMETHING. My street magic and busking background was on full tilt and I found myself swept up in the ballyhoo carnival atmosphere of the crowd in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theater. After about an hour of gaining positive momentum, I could barely control myself. I was on fire.

On the Street

And you know what? Nobody thought I was being a dick or resented my stance. People were happy, smiling and giving us all the thumbs up. In fact, there were a few people who initially came up to us skeptically themselves, but within a few minutes, had grabbed card-board and felt-tip pens, scribbled their own signs and joined in our countdown to The Rapture. It was an awesome afternoon of solidarity.

Storekeepers came out and joined us and one girl even risked losing her job by coming out from behind her cart full of tourist junk and stirring up the crowd even more. It doesn’t get much better that that.

Clothes Left Behind by The Raptured

IMHO this is what we should be doing EVERY WEEKEND. We shouldn’t be waiting around for another nutjob like Camping or Heaven’s Gate or a Bernie Madoff to invade our lives, instead we need to get ourselves noticed in the Big Time Media as being fed up, angry and skeptical of the absurd, non-rational world we find ourselves immersed in. The corporate media whose products we buy are responsible for paying attention and raising Camping to the status of a fifteen-minute cultural icon in the days preceding this event and those sponsors should now be held responsible for aggrandizing this farce and giving him and his ilk ANY time at all in the future.

Some Lassies Never Came Home

How many loving pets were killed? How many people gave up everything; turning over their lives, their life savings and their free will to this wacko? And now he’s saying it’s really next October? Haven’t you had enough? Are we living in The New Dark Ages? From what I see in the media, I truly think we are.

And not one news camera covered this event. Still there is no comprehensive skeptical programming devoted to revealing these kinds of lunatic scams, outright frauds and fanatical freak shows.

Yes, we may have been seen by a few willfully badly informed people as heathen rabble-rousers or Hollywood nut cases ourselves, but the overwhelming masses who stopped and took even one second to read our signs and think about what we were doing got our point and they knew we were right.

The E-Meter Gets Punked

Amazingly, right beside us sat a table of $cientologist$ “testing” people with their e-meters. It was hilarious to note that when I stealthily managed to palm a few of our new IIG Stealth cards* onto their table, they were so out of it, they didn’t know it was there in front of them for several hours. They must have found it and decided to use it for their own bait, as we noticed that later in the day, it was turned over. At one point a denizen of the rambunctious Hood that Is Hollywood loudly called L. Ron Hubbard out and it looked for a moment like there was going to be a rumble, but I guess that physical confrontations are not in the $cientology handbook – yet. You can see the card sitting next to their “meter” on the red tablecloth in the photo.

*NOTE: If you don’t know what a Stealth Card is, perhaps I should explain. In order to pump up the volume on the IIG $50,00 Challenge, my idea was to have an “all purpose” advertisement for the IIG that wouldn’t be immediately recognized as a skeptical prompt and discarded by believers. We printed a two-sided card that would draw attention to itself whether it would be found one side up or the other. On one side is s cosmic starfield with the words “Do you have special powers?” On the reverse is a white background with bold black words: “Can you show us?” with a special URL address underneath. This URL is set-up to allow us to track the efficacy of the cards each month. Once somebody picks the card up and goes to the URL, it opens to a “gateway” page to our IIG $50,000 Challenge.

The idea is to generate more hits to our IIG website, while at the same time increase the interests of the woo world with something mysterious. These special “bait” cards are not made to be handed out willy-nilly or just thrown about like new age litter. No, …rather they are to be specifically placed in strategic positions (…like the $cientology table) to get people to THINK.

So far, so good. People are clicking on to our IIG site daily and these cards are grabbing hold of an audience we might never have hoped to reach through word of mouth or simply with skeptical means. We have to fight fire with fire. The masses want mystery, so we will give it to them flavored with science. We are putting the world on notice that the IIG is ready, waiting and anxious to meet you more than half way. Look forward to many more tests, challenges and street pieces from this skeptic. It’s about time. And it’s fun too.

Hollywood, CNN, PBS, where are you? While we wait for you to catch up. here’s the video courtesy of the fabulous Susan “Bunky” Gerbic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcRcmTsKVDc

Can you see the writing on the wall?

Two Hours & Forty Minutes to The Raptor (across the street)

Casting My Spell at SkepticCalCon 2011

SkeptiCalCon 2 is now history and I arrived home last night exhausted but energized. It has been a busy two weeks of GUERRILLA SKEPTICISM. The crowd at SkeptiCalCon was a healthy one and I was delighted to meet many new faces. Lots of younger people are picking up the skeptical ball and running with it.

Calling for GUERILLA ACTION!

Although SkeptiCalCon is a newer event (this was the second “annual”) as skeptical events go, it’s a potent mix in its Bay Area reach. I saw more grassroots involvement and less bickering and in-fighting than other groups I have recently been involved with. I’m sure Shane Trimmer will have lots of reports on what went on over at www.skepticalcon.org soon, so I won’t go into too many details. What became most apparent and the general consensus with people about the state of skepticism is that our scared cow JREF is falling apart through mismanagement and the skeptical movement is in serious need of approachable leaders who are media savvy and who can agree on global issues, prioritize and pick those important battles and then get those challenges in the faces of bigger audiences. I heard lots of gossip that interested newcomers are turned off by the same people and stories being told over and over through the roadshow mentality of “educational outreach” and many are fed up with all the dissension and back-biting that goes on between this organization and that other one. So when are we going to get together? And what was that talk we heard a few years back about greater cooperation?

United we stand, divided we are losing ground.

Yau Man Chan

On the up-side, It was nice to meet up with my pal from the Skeptologists days, Yau Man Chan, who held the room in awe with his tales of reality television.  

My room was packed with eager folks excited with the idea of getting out on the street and DOING SOMETHING.  A more activist stance is clearly catching the eye of the younger folks out there who are sick and tired of the what is perceived by many as  cliques that have taken the shape of elitist non-inclusive social forums in recent years. I’m hearing more about action and less about education.

Susan Gerbic: The Wikimaster

Susan Gerbic’s breakout session on how to get skeptical messages out through actively editing bullshit subject material on Wikipedia pages was a packed room of people chomping at the bit to get more active. This way of spreading the skeptical word is gaining momentum by letting people know that even if you might not be the sort of person who likes to get in the faces of frauds and con artists, you can still stay at home and use some ambush skepticism right in front of your home computer.

Anthony Pratkanis

Another stand-out session was Anthony Pratkanis, Professor of Psychology at U.C. Santa Cruz and author of  “Weapons of Fraud: A Source Book for Fraud Fighters.”  This was a hilarious and very moving lecture on social influence how to sell your own flim-flam.  Absolutely brilliant

The train has left the station and the old guard is getting left behind.

Chasing Out the Woo

The IIG was out in force at SkeptiCalCon with our own table of literature, running IIG Promos, $50,000 Challenge Videos and making sure attendees saw with their own eyes how we are actively DOING SOMETHING through tests like our Power Balance Video, Anita Ikonen 50K Challenge and California Nurses Initiative. There’s a bunch of new info at the IIG site at www.iigewst.org that tells the story of committed people who are not only talking the talk through careful protocol negotiations, but walking the walk with tests and interactive live streaming events that bring people together on common ground rather than separating them into camps of commercial enterprise. 

As an IIG Steering member, I’ll be focusing on some really powerful projects in the next few months. One in particular involves methods and protocol that (as far as we know) has never been utilized before in the history of parapsychology. If all goes well, this be a watershed investigation that will blow the lid off the psychic business once and for all. I can’t talk much more about it here, but it’s going to be absolutely HUGE.

On May 21st, several local Hollywood IIGer’s set up a street performance at the corner of Hollywood and Highland next door to Grauman’s Chinese Theater to give L.A. our take on the rapture nonsense. With placards stating things like “Come the Rapture, Can I Have Your Car?” we took over the street for about two hours, climaxing in a loud countdown to the rapture that had a crowd of about 1oo people chanting along with us and generally razing hell. All this went on right next to a Scientology table that took a lot of heat as well from the rowdy crowd. We hammered home our point with old clothes and shoes laying on the sidewalk representing raptured souls. While tourists stopped to get pictures taken with Bruce Lee’s star on the fabled “Walk of Fame,”they got a heaping helping of skepticism to take back home with them as well. It was a bonding experience for everyone involved and IIG’s new “Stealth Cards” are soon to be seen in such events as teasers to get applicants as well as new members to our group. More on this event next time.

I can almost predict the negative comments to this blog well before thay are even written, but you know what?

I don’t care any more. 

You can whine about the efficacy of standing on street corners shouting down the wind and what a useless waste of time it is testing nutty people who have claims of paranormal powers all you want; I know I’m working with like minds and getting something done.

I also know from the comments I’m getting from people like Karla McClaren (who I finally met in person at SkeptiCalCon) that what I’m doing is making a big difference to a lot of people. You can read about Karla here in my blog archive from last year (Feb, 20, 201.) Karla was once a well-published new-age woo priestess. After watching an epsidode of “Exploring the Unknown”  that described my techniques of  cold-reading, she realized that was what she had been doing for years but hadn’t realized it until that moment. She’s now involved in the skeptical movement and spreading the word through her own blogs and writings. Bingo.

Get active.

You will feel much better.

A Happy Pigasus and Yau Man

And Once Again:  Thanks to Susan “Bunky” Gerbic for the fine photography!

Hey Everybody within shouting distance of California (and beyond), The SkeptiCal 2011 Conference is just around the corner! It will be held at the Berkeley Doubletree on May 29, 2011. Tickets are available for purchase now. Last year’s conference sold out past capacity, so please buy your tickets as soon as possible!I’ll be there talking about GUERILLA SKEPTICISM, the publication of my soon-to-be-published book “PSYCHIC BLUES” and reveal the deep, dark secrets of just how psychics and mediums work their cons. I will have several of my books on hand and might even read one or two palms if the spirit moves me. You won’t be diappointed with what I have “in mind. ” Other speakers this year will include Dr. Eugenie Scott of the NCSE, Dr. Bob Carroll, creator of the Skeptic’s Dictionary, my fellow Skeptologist Yau-Man Chan, UC Santa Cruz Professor of Psychology Dr. Anthony Pratkanis, Pacific Institute President Dr. Peter Gleick, and many more! It should be  a fantastic chance to get skeptical.

Hope to see you all there.

Go to www.skepticalcon.org for all the details.

Nick Nelson

On April 30^th the IIG tested Nick Nelson. After nearly three years of protocol wrangling, Nick drove to the CFI building in Hollywood to create what he calls an “energy vortex.” He failed to create anything. We were patient. We were compliant. We were professional. But frankly, I for one still have no idea what an energy vortex is. If Nick meant the optical illusion created by building off-kilter houses and forced perspective like the Mystery Spot in Santa Cruz or the Haunted Shack that once was the only reason to journey to Knott’s Berry Farm, then yes I know what he meant.

Hours of set-up, conferences and phone calls finally paid off with even more long hours of watching a grown man move magnets around the floor, stand stock still while swinging a pendulum over his hand and listening to albeit some great anecdotes about how his world has so many times “blinked” when he has experienced what he calls the “vortex phenomena.’

Myself, John Rael and a seriously dedicated Jim Underdown

Unfortunately when the rules of science are applied, in this case careful measurements (really careful: using engineering calipers) of photographs; first before the creation of the fabled vortex using eight foot high wooden poles, then photos snapped and immediately developed, nothing showed up other than what would be expected from discrepancies consistent with human eye variation that were averaged mathematically and compared.

All this will come out soon in videos and those who missed the U-Streaming will be happy to know that our crack crew of editors will be breaking the whole thing down to a tidy ten minutes or so to fit on Youtube. It’s way too much to go into here. Check iigwest.org for up-coming vortex news. The IIG are DOING SOMETHING.

The best part for me as Lead Investigator was watching Nick get flustered and finally state to all present the he “…felt like a fool” when nothing happened. What did he expect?

It’s a freaking optical Illusion!

Me at The Mystery Spot, Santa Cruz CA 04/2011

Granted, when you see it at specially constructed sites like the aforementioned Mystery Spot and hundreds of other tourist traps across the country, it’s an admittedly compelling visual sight to behold. But such follies fall apart when precise measurements and a non-paranormal explanation is explored.

IIG Member Dave Richards Setting the Camera

IIG member Dave Richards deserves a special credit for the protocol he designed and superbly implemented. There was no wiggle room for any woo. It was a simple and direct confirmation that if you move the camera or one of the poles and change the angles of vision, then yes, you might see something “shrink” or “grow” otherwise it’s a “null hypothesis.” More on this at a later date when Dave and I write up the finished conclusion for submission to Skeptical Inquirer.

In his most eloquent Montana Vortex manner, Nick tried his darndest to convince us that he could make physical objects actually shrink and grow by invoking such terms as “vortex energy,” “Fibonacci Number 8,” and other newage buzzwords too numerous to mention including “spin energy.” The only term I was disappointed not to hear was the ubiquitous “quantum mechanics” subterfuge so prevalent in today’s wooverse.  Spin energy is right.

Nick Nelson "Pedulizing"

Nick tried to spin some truly fantastic yarns  in what quickly became recognized by this performer as careful memorized tour guide style shtick. This was a routine, not a paranormal event. I’m sure Nick is a great asset to any tilt-house tour, but such verbal antics literally fell flat when he tried to pepper his pendulum meanderings with conspiracy tinged new age nonsense.  Rest assured that I copped a few choice lines here and there that I will be appropriating verbatim to various aspects of my own act when the time is right. This part of any psychic test is always most gratifying for me. I no longer have to make up credible back stories for mentalism effects or steal lines from other magicians and mentalists. Now I have people like Nick Nelson to supply me with enough baloney to last for decades – and it’s only the finest in cutting edge contemporary baloney too.  I have never seen anyone anywhere get so much stage time with a pendulum ever in my life. It was enough to warm the cockles of any true carnival barker’s soul.

Since my main task in this session was to watch Nick like a hawk to make sure he never got near enough to the centered poles to jostle or otherwise re-position them in a way that would have affected the photographs, I was reminded of a technique Uri Geller has used on occasion when he would intentionally wear down the attention span of investigators to the point where they become so bored or fatigued they looked away for one brief second – at which time he would bend the spoon or do any dirty work he needed to do. I doubted Nick has mastered such shifty techniques, but I watched him non-stop just the same.

As in most psychic investigations, we soon arrived at that unspoken crux of the issue: Is this claimant a charlatan or merely deluded? Or are these extremes too black and white and can we suppose a “mixed mediumship” explanation for such people? Even in the best of these cases it’s hard to say, but right now I’m leaning towards the showman-tinged-charlatan conclusion. Sorry Nick. Too many excuses and anecdotes were offered to imply a seriously deluded individual.

Best of all and a big hint to where Nick was coming  from came when Nick noticed some of the members in the assembled group who were gathered to watch him start to show some body language that suggested they were getting bored. When arms started crossing, heads nodded to chests and sighs and yawns became manifest,  Nick trotted out the most tired of excuses to try to bolster his claim. He told us that there was “negative energy” present in the room that was countering his best vortex summoning efforts and offered yet another colorfully delivered anecdote (that several of us would hear spoken again word for word after the test) to suggest this has happened to him in his past.  Who let the Spiritualist medium into the room? Oh brother. Did he think we just fell off the turnip truck? Fortunately, we haven’t.

In a attempt to appease an already weak performance and give Nick the best shot we could offer by excluding as much “negative energy” without all of us leaving the room, everyone but the main investigators left. Leaving Nick alone in the room would have been a no-brainer when things suddenly went “vortex” after we came back in. No, we didn’t buy into that dodge.

It went something like this, or as they say at The Magic Castle, it went exactly like this:

55:33
Nick:  “I feel like a fool.  There is a problem here.”
Jim U: What’s the problem?
Nick: All you you.
Jim: All of us?  We could clear the room.  We need a couple of people here to observe.

55:50
Nick: “Like I said, I feel like a fool.  How many people are here?”
Jim U: “Tell us what you need.  You’re in charge of making yourself comfortable.  So, do you need half the people to leave?  Do you need 3/4 of them to leave the room?

56:15
Nick: “I’m not sure that would work, you’ve all been exposed to me”
Jim U:  “Well, we could have them move out for a minute”
Nick:  “Could you do that?”

The Seriously Empty Votex

We did it. Adjourning the room of all but the bare bones left myself, Dave Richards and Jim Underdown to sweat through another thirty minutes of magnet shuffling, pendulum dowsing and squinty-eyed pole sighting until Nick finally gave up. We thanked him and he seemed happy that we had not in any way denigrated him or made him feel bad about losing the test. We remained professional throughout and reminded Nick that he could re-apply again for the $50,000 in one year.

After all, truth be told some of us really want to be proved wrong. Having someone win our $50,000 preliminary test could make us the most important overnight scientific breakthrough in human history. It might even garner a network t.v. series.

Nope. Not this time.

Photos by the fabulous Susan “Bunky” Gerbic