Skepticblog

Next week I will be attending the Chupacabra Cruise to Mexico with the JREF. If I vanish from the face of the earth, trust that it will be only a brief respite from this blog and that I will remain in service to skeptics worldwide, hot on the trail of the fabled beast. In the absence of Big Foot and other high mountain beings, Mexico is full of tales of mysterious blood sucking animals that have been spotted, found rotting or caught on camera. BTW: It’s only goat blood they suck, so any vampire fantasies will have to be left behind in Hollywood. (continue reading…)

Senior scamming is on the rise. Anyone of any age could be taken in by the nefarious scams taking place across America, but because of their inherent isolation or shame of losing money to these schemes, seniors are even more prone to becoming victims. The Babyboomer Generation growing into senior status at a rate that is staggering. I won’t go into the exact numbers and statistics, but approximately 78 million Americans will become seniors in the next ten years. That’s a lot of people. It’s a safe bet that not all of them are thinking critically. Add in the general economic climate and growth of the Internet, and we have a prescription for disaster in the coming decade. (continue reading…)

Last month I was approached by someone to help out with an “ESP Bootcamp.” Sound interesting? It did to me. My mind immediately went to work imagining rubbing shoulders with remote viewers, having good natured contests with bootcampers moving objects around with their minds and perhaps even influencing a few random number generators. You should know by now I can’t resist sticking my nose into such folly. If I can find out for myself what kind of intellects are behind these operations, I’m only happy to step up and play the game. Knowing what I know about psychic fairs, (or “faires” in some parts of town) psychic house parties, corporate seers and the tangled webs they weave, I was cautiously intrigued. (continue reading…)

Back when mind readers first started doing it, today’s fad of “remote viewing” (RV) used to be called design duplication. Before that it was referred to as psychic drawing, thought transference or telepathic imagery. Way back in the heyday of Spiritualism, they called it automatic writing or drawing. It’s been around for centuries. (continue reading…)

Yes, I already know what you are thinking. I’m a mentalist, right?  Coincidence? What’s’ so unusual about it? You are thinking there’s nothing particularly paranormal about coincidence. Science, skeptics and psychologists have taken the concept apart and dissected it down to its constituent elements. It’s been already explained away and nothing worth debating. Yet despite such drab things as facts to the contrary, I’m not as easily convinced that coincidence is just an accidental event as some of my skeptical friends. (continue reading…)

Sai Baba and parrot

In response to a blogger to my last post on levitation who requested something “intellectual” with some “brain meat” on it and at the risk of possibly spoiling your appetite if you happen to be reading this before eating, allow me to ramble on another band of performers that might bear some looking into and who to my knowledge haven’t been given a scientific overview. These are the rare but powerful acts of regurgitators. Why? Read on and I promise that by the end of this post you will understand how it ties in with being skeptical. I will also address several hot issues that have been surfacing here of late and answer another comment with no, not everyone is aware that magic is trickery. Far from it! (continue reading…)

Levitation can be defined as that phenomenon which a person lifts from earth and stays suspended in air. I never grow tired of the endless variations, drama and beauty of a good levitation. I could watch them for hours and still marvel at the purposefully straight faced composure of the standard magician as they float a basic anti-gravity concept as ancient as magic itself, but still performed sometimes three or four times a night at countless venues in Reno and Las Vegas. Meanwhile in other places not so glittery, people like Padre Pio are given credit for gliding above the ground on a regular basis by his adherents as he takes it all in stride as just another daily occurrence. One of his penitents once asked him: “Father Pio, How did you manage to walk above the heads of the people?” He jokingly responded: “I can assure you, my child, it’s just like walking on the floor… “

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Noting with some despair the recent dirge of so called “pet psychics” whilst Googling the term, I was reminded of a time when I was invited to appear on a local cable show and do my thing for invited guests in a live studio audience situation.

The hostess of this charade was a fairly well-known magicianess I had worked with for many years at The Magic Castle. She had been basking in the limelight of local communitycabledom as a non-magician, taking full advantage of the rampant psychic craze that was then sweeping the country back in the mid-nineties and acting as moderator on her own interview show “Brainstorm.” She knew what she was doing. She knew I was a mentalist and not any more “psychic” than the next guy, but she needed something that fit in with her theme and asked if I would consider doing something different. Of course,I jumped at the chance. She would provide the pets and their owners and all I had to do was give a reading for each of them. No pay was involved and it was planned purely for the fun of it as far as I was concerned. Any publicity or monetary advantage I might have expected later would be minimal, given the small local area and interest market this cable company covered. This was long before the BBC trotted out that dotty woman who made being a professional pet psychic so desirable and way before Redford became “The Horse Whisperer,” so I didn’t have much to model my persona on. I figured this kind of shtick wouldn’t be much of a leap from telling fortunes to some of the dunderheads I had been stuck dealing with over the years of doing private readings. With the additional advantage of knowing that a dog or bird couldn’t really say no or argue with what I was “seeing” about them, I theorized I would have a better chance of scoring bigger hits with a setter than with a sitter. It would be up to the owner to provide any feedback as to whether I was right or wrong, and since I was the featured animal expert and psychic, how could they argue with me?

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I have been an animal lover all my life and the reports of supposed telepathic communication between man and the animal world has long held a deep fascination for me. To this day, I still have trouble keeping a dry eye watching the closing scenes in “Lassie Come Home” when the ragged collie finally makes her lonely way home, limping on one paw. As far back as I can remember in my childhood I wondered: how did she travel all those miles and know where to go?  (continue reading…)

A subject that has fascinated me since attending a lecture on ESP back in the 70’s is the use of Random Number Generators (RNG’s) in paranormal investigation. Back then, they were crude mechanical boxes that were alledgedly susceptible to interference by people who possessed “psychic powers.”   (continue reading…)