Skepticblog

Wow. Not a single comment about X-Ray vison… I guess we can leave that subject out of the Skeptologist’s bag of tricks. No problem. I’ve got a million of ‘em.  …Well, maybe not a million. How about that old stand by: the pendulum? (continue reading…)

This morning while eating my breakfast, I was bombarded with yet another foray of paranormal hype from my kitchen radio. You can’t even crawl out of bed without hearing about something sensationally weird from the media. This time Paul Harvey was ballyhooing the latest Russian psychic wonderkind, Natalya Demkina. Without a shred of skepticality in his presentation, Mr. Harvey told the tale of the young girl’s ability to see through people and scan their innards, giving out medical advice that he said was astounding scientists all over the world. Mr. Harvey ended this puff piece with his signature, “Now, … that’s NEWS!” Really? (continue reading…)

Another of those pesky belief systems that has managed to hang around for centuries is Palmistry. What makes the reading of the lines of the hand so compelling? It’s an interesting question that covers areas of both woo and science in semi-equal parts depending on what you want to believe. I know a bit about how powerful this branch of pseudo-science can be because I have been reading palms for at least ten years. People really enjoy hearing all about themselves and how it all relates to their hands and I enjoy looking at the myriad of shapes and styles – not to mention the shapes and styles of the people each hand is attached to. I simply pay attention. That’s really the main game when you get right down to it. I don’t pretend to be a swami or have contact with any spiritual guides when I do it, I just read the lines the way I have set up in my own system and lo and behold: I’m amazingly accurate. If my “sitter” or “client” wants to give me credit for being in touch with the vast vibrations of the cosmos, I’m not going to burst their bubble unless pressed and for a good reason. I’m paid well to jabber my observations because my job to deliver this traditionally intimate con with all the ancient trimmings. Think of it as a warmer fuzzier cold reading. (continue reading…)

As a blogger has mentioned, one of those pesky superstitions many people believe in is the old “jinxing” rigamarole. Jinxes are especially widespread in sports, politics or any field where there is intense competition. They are akin to curses, only apparently not just in the purview of witch doctors as they can affect the most innocent person or situation if not carefully avoided. Only specially crafted “counter-jinxes” can turn things around –  if you are a believer. Such nasty little nostrums are available at your local occult shop or corner botanica hoodoo vendor, but only if you literally buy into them.

I must confess that in the past even I have been prone to one of those more recent and certainly regional superstitious beliefs that has grown out of the Hollywood mythos. I’m not sure where I picked it up (it’s like an unwanted virus) but it probably came about from hanging around magicians, filmakers and other hopefuls who spend years waiting for that “break” and subsist in that narrow hinterland where one foot is in the door of a major studio while the other rests on a banana peel. It’s the odd belief that says that if you are in production of a film or television project or even in the earliest writing stages of an idea, talking about it will “jinx” it and it will never happen.

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I have always been fascinated with superstitions. As a kid I wanted to open up a superstition collection agency, but I became a magician instead. It could be argued that the two interests are similarly related. Perhaps this blog or a Skeptologists program could take a closer look at superstitions? By that I don’t mean all the walk-under-a-ladder and throw-salt-over-your-shoulder superstitions we already know about and probably practice even though we think we know better, being skeptics and all that. I mean the really brain hard-wired day to day things we do without thinking because something intangible might have been handed down to us through generations of just doing it and we went ahead and tacitly accepted it for some unknown reason. Particular interest to me are the newer things that may have come around to being accpeted and believed in today’s “more enlightened” society. I remember there was once an agency like this for collecting and verifying predictions that someone in New York City kept for some odd reason, but I think they eventually went out of business. I doubt they predicted that.

There’s probably a million websites that handle the standard run of black cat type superstitions, but what’s new in the world or woo when it comes to modern fear and dread? What do we avoid saying or doing that has absolutely no rational reason to exist? All the countless urban legends out there certainly must have sprouted a few tentacles that reach into this area of the mass subconscious, but which are the beliefs that have managed to trickle down to our semi-conscious minds and how exactly did they get there? Forget about religion or spirituality, that’s just too big an issue for one program or blog. It’s those little crazy twitchy things like knocking on wood – but contemporary non-grammatical physical idioms (from the root word idiot?) that I’m after.

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Of course my predcition for election day was100% correct! Need you ask? The proof is all there printed out in the sealed envelope, honest. But really when we drill down to the bottom line, who cares? Since right now the tabloid media isn’t exactly busting down my door for my visions, the particular sealed envelope in question may have to remain sealed and left as a sort of time capsule to be revealed by some future generation. I don’t even mind taking my accolades posthumously if that’s the way it has to be. Look at how well Nostradamus has done with his rants.

Now if I had been taped beforehand on the air with The Skeptologists, this whole scenario might have turned out differently…  Such is the plight of the unknown psychic: The discerning soothesayer has to have a platform to hurl from. Without that, there’s no place for anything to stick to. Without a following, a meatheaded television interviewer or a publisher, there’s no telling how many fantastic visions and prognostications go completely ignored by the masses. And what a shame that is right? I find most of them that I read hilariously surrealistic. Most psychics put out such ridiculous tripe, it’s like they are not even trying. Give me a break. What good does it do to predict the end of the world – again? Fortunately or unfortunately depending on which side of the fence you are sitting on, there’s always someone somewhere publishing these space-fillers. It could be The National Enquirer, The Weekly World News or possibly even Skeptic magazine. In 1991 the predictions printed in the Enquirer turned out to be only 1.1% correct. A chimp could do better than that. Now with the Internet, there’s no end to the possibilities. Predictions are like finding faces in clouds or patterns on a shag rug. They are all over the place once you start looking for them. There’s no limit to the things anyone can predict and with so much crap out there, it’s possible one or two of them might by the laws of probability actually come true. I only missed predicting that whole Madonna divorce story by a week or two. Damn. Timing is everything. Or is it belief that is everything? I frequently get the two mixed up.

But again, who cares a fig what a person like myself might predict anyway? I could claim to be Jeanne Dixon re-incarnated, but she was not that good at predicting either. She got that one JFK hit right … big deal. How does one get a track record in the predicting business anyway? Is it called “luck?” – which leads to another irritating little belief we might one day examine…

In the meantime, I’ll make a short list of some of the things that “come to mind” and get them ready just in case we hit prime time. Why not? Dogs and pet predicions are aways popular or maybe something about the British royals finally returning to their grey reptilian roots might have to be dredged up if I can’t think of anything better. Right now nobody’s asking so I’ll stick with the “rock-star fall” bit for a few more days. BTW: With self-fulfilling prophecies being what they have sometimes been known to be and in the rare instance that dear old Ozzy is reading this right now, mind the step mate.

“I almost had a psychic girlfriend but she left me before we met.” – Steven Wright

Yes, of course I have already predicted the winner of the election!

The prediction has been sealed in an envelope and placed in a locked safe here in L.A.

Predictions are a subject I would like to see covered by the Skeptologists. I can see the future. I can predict what card you will choose from a pack of shuffled cards, know in advance which ESP symbol you will choose or what image you are thinking about out of thousands. Of course, they have to be my cards, symbols and images, but that’s beside the point when you are in the audience.

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Halloween used to be my favorite holiday. Not any more. After years and years of doing seances and other haunted events, each time I see the season approach and the bowls of candy corn come out, I’m reminded that the doors of the spooky barn are again going to swing wide open and every lunatic fringe paranormal belief will be trotted out once again, without much true history, rational interest or skeptical thought to show what’s really going on. That amazes me.

Don’t get me wrong here. I’m the first to love a good ghost story and I will do my best to put on my most classy and well scripted seance to thrill every person I can and I still look forward to this time of year for the chance to stretch the imaginations and maybe even scare the hell out of a few folks, but these days I’m conflicted.

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I just received an email touting Sylvia Browne’s “Farewell Tour,” with tickets from $65–85. The blurb on her website reads:

After decades of traveling to hundreds of cities around the world to meet new fans like you and share her wisdom and insights about past lives, spirit guides, future predictions, spirituality, and handling life’s biggest challenges — Sylvia has come to the end of this chapter in her life. Before she embarks on a new journey of reducing her traveling time, spending more personal time with her loved ones, and more quality time writing her books, Sylvia would like to invite you to join her on her 2008 Farewell Tour.

Could this be a harbinger of things to come? (continue reading…)