Ghosts-UK - Ghosts - Paranormal News - Poltergeist - Ouija - Recent entries in encyclopedia

328 chase street

19/11/2007 15:31

328 chase street Pennsylvania was the home of Jack and Janet Smurl who's encounter with a paranormal entity (seemingly malevolent) was to form the foundation of many a heated discussion on for for's and against the existence of spiritual beings in American folklore (even to the point of a film being made). it all started in January 1974 when jack and Janet (both devout Catholics) started encountering terrifying occurrences. stains would appear on the living room carpet which no matter how much scrubbing could not be removed. deep scratch marks appeared on furniture and loud rapping noises as though someone was knocking hard on the ceilings and walls of the house. the telephone would continue ringing after the receiver was taken off the hook-this stayed in much the same way for ten years or so-then worse was to come!!. first the voices started-not much to begin with just whispers then the apparitions came. some were smiling but with a sinister smile as if promising worse to come-it did. the Smurls were then subjected to severe physical attacks and more alarmingly sexual attacks by corpse-like creatures. the attacks were not confined to the house as the Smurls were also attacked on holiday-a unique case in anyone's language. the hauntings ceased when the Smurls vacated the house in 1987. there have been no more reported instances at the house since then. it may also be worth noting that the house was built on old mine workings.

berkeley square (number 50)

19/11/2007 15:29

possibly the most famous haunted house in London. the hauntings seem to have begun sometime in the 1830's after a young woman threw herself to her death from an upstairs window (still to be seen today). and reached a peak about 50 years later. the occurrences though seemed to centre around a character called Myers who went mad in the house after his betrothed called of the wedding. he died in 1878. two years later another family bought the house and one evening the housemaid was found in a state of severe shock with an expression of unspeakable horror on her face at the foot of the bed in one of the rooms-the poor girl died the following day. the most famous instance involved two sailors on home leave around Christmas time (the year escapes me for the moment) and having found themselves wandering the streets of London with nowhere to stay stumbled on number 50. they both settled into what was then known as "the haunted bedroom". one of the sailors felt uneasy but the other was soon asleep-after a couple of hours a shuffling could be heard coming up the stairs-the sailor was in the process of waking his mate when some "large dark and shapeless thing" glided into the room and set about attacking the men. one of which managed to get out into the street-his mate was not so fotunate. he was thrown from (presumably) the same window as the girl fell all those years before-a post mortem revealed he was dead before being hurled from the window-he had died of sheer fright. the house is now owned by a booksellers. and there have been no reports of activity in later years-though it is worth noting that a certain room is still avoided during the darker hours by the staff.

Sir William Barrett FRS

06/10/2007 02:17

Professor of Physics at the Royal College of Science for Dublin from 1873-1910 and one of the distinguished early psychical researchers. In fact, it was Barrett who first initiated the founding of both the American and British Society for Psychical Research.
Apparitions

- Sir William Barrett FRS -
"Dare I say
No spirit ever brake the band
That stays him from the native land,
Where first he walk'd when claspt in clay?
[/b]- In Memoriam xciii[/b]

WE MUST now pass on from the bizarre and perplexing phenomena we have so far discussed to the more important question of the evidence spiritualism affords of the continuance of human life after it has, to all appearance, ceased in the material body. Before entering upon the experimental part of this enquiry it is desirable to consider the evidence on behalf of survival derived from apparitions of the dying and the dead. This aspect of our subject meets with wider acceptance, and less objection from religious minds, than the evidence derived from sittings with some medium, which many regard as illegitimate.

One of the most cautious and philosophical among our distinguished men of science of the last generation, the late Dr. R. Angus Smith, F.R.S., wrote to me, forty years ago, that he was not aware of any law of nature, except the most obvious, that was sustained by so much and such respectable evidence as the fact of apparitions about the time of death.(1) In a subsequent interview I learnt from him that this opinion was arrived at only after long and careful investigation of the evidence attainable at that time. Since then the Society for Psychical Research has obtained a mass of additional and confirmatory evidence, which is incorporated in the two bulky volumes on "Phantasms of the Living" published by the Society.

(1) As the whole letter may be of future interest, I give it here in full:

"MANCHESTER,

"October 18th 1876.

MY DEAR PROFESSOR BARRETT, - I see you are deep in that fascinating study, the action of mind freed from the organism. It surprises me much that any man is found to think it of little importance, and that any man is found who thinks his own opinion so important that he cares for no evidence. I have not been able to find a book which contains all the laws of nature needed to sustain the world, but some men are easily satisfied.

"It is difficult to obtain such proofs as men demand for free mind. Visions are innumerable, and under circumstances that seem to render the sight of the absent, especially about the time of death, a reality. I am not aware of any law of nature (except the most obvious, such as are seen by common observers) which is sustained by so many assertions so well attested, as far as respectability of evidence goes. The indications we have point out to some mighty truth more decidedly than even the aberrations of Uranus to the newest of the great planets. If we could prove the action of mind at a distance by constant experiment it would be a discovery that would make all other discoveries seem trifles.

Yours sincerely
R. ANGUS SMITH."

Statistical Enquiry

In that monumental work, chiefly due to the labour and learning of Mr. Edmund Gurney, the interval between death and the apparition of the dying or deceased person was limited to 12 hours. First-hand records were however received where this interval was greatly exceeded, whilst the fact of death was still unknown to the percipient at the time of his experience. After rigorous scrutiny 134 first-hand narratives are given where the coincidence between death and the recognised "appearance "' (whether by a visual or auditory experience) of the deceased to a distant person, who was not aware of the death, is exact, or within an hour; in 39 cases the apparition was seen more than an hour, but within 12 hours of death, and in 38 cases the apparition was seen shortly before death, or when death did not follow, though the person was seriously ill.(1) In 104 cases it was not known whether the percipients' experience shortly preceded or followed the death; owing to this uncertainty these cases were not taken into account.

(1) Proceedings S. P. R.," Vol. V., P. 408.

Mr. Gurney and Mr. Myers contributed a valuable paper to Vol. V. of the "Proceedings of the S. P. R.," where additional first-hand evidence was given of "apparitions occurring soon after death." This was supplemented by a paper Mr. Myers contributed to Vol. VI. on 99 apparitions occurring more than a year after death," where 14 veridical and recognised apparitions are recorded on first-hand evidence.

The result of a critical examination of the evidence left no doubt in the mind of any student that these apparitions were veridical or truth telling, and that their occurrence was not due to any illusion of the percipient or chance coincidence. As regards this latter in order to arrive at a statistical proof Mr. Gurney obtained a numerical comparison of the veridical apparitions with those which were purely accidental, i.e. did not coincide with death. For this purpose he obtained nearly 6,000 replies to the question he addressed to adults, whether they had had any such apparition or hallucination during the preceding ten years. This was followed by a still more elaborate census of a similar kind, taken by Professor Henry and Mrs. Sidgwick, wherein 17,000 replies were received. When the relative frequency of veridical to accidental hallucinations was critically examined the possibility of chance coincidence as an explanation could be proved or disproved. The result showed, in the Sidgwick census alone, that the proportion of veridical and recognized apparitions (i.e. coincidental cases) to the meaningless (i.e. non-coincidental cases) was 440 times greater than pure chance would give. The elaborate examination of this census by experts fills Vol. X. of the Proceedings of the S.P.R., and the definite but cautiously expressed conclusion is reached that:

"Between deaths and apparitions of the dying person a connection exists which is not due to chance alone. This we hold to be a proved fact. The discussion of its full implications cannot be attempted in this paper, nor, perhaps, exhausted in this age."

Apparitions

Such a result refutes the common idea that it was a mere chance the apparition happened to coincide with the death of that particular person, and that the hits are remembered and the misses forgotten.

It was found in the course of these lengthy enquiries that the number of recognised apparitions decreases rapidly in the few days after death, then more slowly, and after a year or more they become far less frequent and more sporadic. This indeed might have been expected; for on any theory as to the nature of these apparitions it is likely that the power of communication between the dead and those living on earth would lessen as the time of transition from this life becomes more and more remote. We need not conclude from this that the soul of the departed is gradually extinguished, for we cannot track the course of the soul nor know its affinities in the larger life beyond. There are, moreover, cases, to which we will refer in a later chapter where evidence of survival has been given more than a generation after the communicator has passed from earth-life.

Those who have witnessed the apparition of a distant deceased friend, of whose death they were wholly unaware, or have heard the statement at first hand, are far more impressed by this single occurrence than by any amount of evidence derived from reading reports of apparitions. This was the case with myself when a young friend of mine narrated to me the following account of the apparition she experienced; nor did the searching cross-examination to which she was submitted at the meeting of the Psychical Research Society where I read the account, shake her testimony in the least. The full report will be found in the "Journal of the S. P. R." for May, 1908. An important feature of this incident is that the percipient was at the time at school in a convent in Belgium, where she had absolutely no access to newspapers, or any other sources of information which might have suggested the apparition. Briefly the case is as follows:

A gentleman, of some note, shot himself in London in the spring of 1907. There can be little doubt that his mind was unhinged at the time by the receipt that morning of a letter from a lady that blighted all his hope; before taking his life he scribbled a memorandum leaving an annuity to my young friend, who was his god-child and to whom he was greatly attached. Three days afterwards (on the day of his funeral) he appeared to this godchild, who, as stated, was being educated in a convent school on the Continent, informing her of the fact of his sudden death, of its manner, and of the cause which had led him to take his life, and asking her to pray for him.

The mother, anxious to conceal from her daughter the distressing circumstances of her godfather's death, waited to write until a few days after the funeral, and then only stated that her uncle (as he was called) had died suddenly. Subsequently, upon meeting her daughter on her return from the Continent, the mother was amazed to hear not only of the apparition, but that it had communicated to her daughter all the circumstances which she had never intended her daughter to know. Careful inquiry shows that it was impossible for the information to have reached her daughter through normal means.

A member of the S.P.R., Miss Charlton, who kindly went to the convent to make enquiries into this case, states that the girls in the convent never see any newspapers, all letters are supervised, and no one in the convent seems to have known of the deceased gentleman; hence "that any knowledge of her godfather's suicide, or of the reason for it, could have reached the percipient by ordinary channels, cannot be entertained for a moment."

The mother of the percipient, who is a personal friend of mine, assured me that neither she nor any of her relatives (had they known of the suicide, which they did not) wrote to the convent on the matter, except as narrated above.

Sometimes, as in the foregoing case, the phantasm is not only seen but also apparently heard to speak; sometimes it may announce its presence by audible signals. We may regard such cases as auditory as well as visual hallucinations. Rapping was heard as well as the apparition seen, in the following case, which was investigated by Professor Sidgwick in 1892, and the house also visited by Mrs. Sidgwick. The percipient was the Rev. Matthew Frost of Bowers Gifford, Essex, who made the following statement:

"The first Thursday in April 1881, while sitting at tea with my back to the window and talking with my wife in the usual way, I plainly heard a rap at the window, and looking round at the window I said to my wife, 'Why, there's my grandmother,' and went to the door, but could not see anyone; still feeling sure it was my grandmother, and knowing, though she was eighty-three years of age, that she was very active and fond of a joke. I went round the house, but could not see any one. My wife did not hear it. On the following Saturday, I had news my grandmother died in Yorkshire about half-an-hour before the time I heard the rapping. The last time I saw her alive I promised, if well, I would attend her funeral; that was some two years before. I was in good health and had no trouble, age twenty-six years. I did not know that my grandmother was ill."

Mrs. Frost writes:

"I beg to certify that I perfectly remember all the circumstances my husband has named, but I heard and saw nothing myself."

Professor Sidgwick learned from Mr. Frost that the last occasion on which he had seen his grandmother, three years before the apparition, she promised if possible to appear to him at her death. He had no cause for anxiety on her account; news of the death came to him by letter, and both Mr. and Mrs. Frost were then struck by the coincidence. It was full daylight when Mr. Frost saw the figure and thought that his grandmother had unexpectedly arrived in the flesh and meant to surprise him. Had there been a real person Mrs. Frost would both have seen and heard; nor could a living person have got away in the time, as Mrs. Sidgwick found the house stood in a garden a good way back from the road, and Mr. Frost immediately went out to see if his grandmother was really there.

The following case was carefully investigated, and corroborative evidence obtained, by Mr. Ed. Gurney, soon after the experience occurred to the narrator, Mr. Husbands(1):

(1) "Proceedings S. P R.," Vol. V., 1889.

"September 15th, 1886.

The facts are simply these. I was sleeping in a hotel in Madeira early in 1885. It was a bright moonlight night. The windows were open and the blinds up. I felt someone was in my room. On opening my eyes, I saw a young fellow about twenty-five, dressed in flannels, standing at the side of my bed and pointing with the first finger of his right hand to the place I was lying in. I lay for some seconds to convince myself of someone being really there. I then sat up and looked at him. I saw his features so plainly that I recognised them in a photograph which was shown me some days after. I asked him what he wanted; he did not speak, but his eyes and hand seemed to tell me I was in his place. As he did not answer, I struck out at him with my fist as I sat up, but did not reach him, and as I was going to spring out of bed he slowly vanished through the door, which was shut, keeping his eyes upon me all the time.

"Upon inquiry I found that the young fellow who appeared to me died in the room I was occupying.

"JOHN E. HUSBANDS."

The following letter is from Miss Falkner, of Church Terrace, Wisbech, who was resident at the hotel when the above incident happened:

"October 8th 1886.

"The figure that Mr. Husbands saw while in Madeira was that of a young fellow who died unexpectedly some months previously, in the room which Mr. Husbands was occupying. Curiously enough, Mr. H. had never heard of him or his death. He told me the story the morning after he had seen the figure, and I recognised the young fellow from the description. It impressed me very much, but I did not mention it to him or any one. I loitered about until I heard Mr. Husbands tell the same tale to my brother; we left Mr. H. and said simultaneously, 'He has seen Mr. D.'

"No more was said on the subject for days; then I abruptly showed the photograph. Mr. Husbands said at once, 'This is the young fellow who appeared to me the other night, but he was dressed differently' - describing a dress he often wore - 'cricket suit (or tennis) fastened at the neck with a sailor knot.' I must say that Mr. Husbands is a most practical man, and the very last one would expect a 'spirit' to visit.

"K. FALKNER."

On further enquiry it was found that the young man who appeared to Mr. Husbands had died just a year previously, that the room in which he died had subsequently been occupied by other visitors, who apparently had not seen any apparition, and that it must have been February 2nd or 3rd that Mr. Husbands took the room and saw the figure. Miss Falkner's sister-in-law, who was also at the hotel at the time, corroborates the above facts, and remembers Mr. Husbands telling her the incident; she also gave Miss Falkner the photograph of the deceased which Mr. Husbands recognized.

Even if Mr. Husbands had heard of the death of Mr. D. and forgotten the circumstance, this would not enable him to recognize the likeness when he was shown the photograph. Mr. Gurney, as I have said, carefully investigated this case, and saw both Mr. Husbands and Miss Falkner, receiving full viva voce accounts from each Mr. Gurney remarks:

"They are both thoroughly practical and as far removed as possible from a superstitious love of marvels; nor had they any previous interest in this or any other class of super-normal experiences. So far as I could judge Mr. Husbands' view of himself is entirely correct - that he is the last person to give a spurious importance to anything that might befall him, or to allow facts to be distorted by imagination. As will be seen, his account of his vision preceded any knowledge on his part of the death which had occurred in the room."

It would extend this book unduly were I to give any further selections from the numerous, remarkable and well authenticated cases of apparitions which are recorded in the "Proceedings of the S.P.R."(1) They are in fact so common and so generally accepted that the chief scepticism regarding them has been as to "the ghosts of the clothes" they wore, as in the last case. This would be puzzling if they were regarded as objective realities, external to the percipient. But if we regard apparitions of the dying and dead as phantasms projected from the mind of the percipient, the difficulties of clothes, and the ghosts of animal pets which sometimes are seen, disappear.

(1) A few other striking cases; are given in Chapter X of my book on Psychical Research in the Home University Library.

Experimental Phantasms

There is nothing improbable in this subjective theory of apparitions, for all the things we see are phantasms projected from our mind into the external world. It is true that a minute and real inverted picture of the objects around us is thrown on the retina by the optical arrangements in the eye, but we do not look at that picture as the photographer does in his camera; it creates an impression on certain brain cells, and then we mentally project outside ourselves a large erect phantasm of the retinal image. It is true this phantasm has its origin in the real image on the retina, but it is no more a real thing than is the virtual image of ourselves we see in a looking glass. If now, instead of the, impression being made on certain cells in the brain through the fibres of the optic nerve, an impression be made directly on those same brain cells by some telepathic impact, it may reasonably be supposed that a visual reaction follows, and a corresponding image would be projected by our mind into external space.

Nor is this pure hypothesis. Actual experiments in telepathy have been repeatedly made where the percipient has seen an apparition of the distant person who mentally desired his presence to be known. The first successful attempt at this, under conditions that admit of no dispute, was made in 1881 by a personal friend, Mr. S. H. Beard, one of the earliest members of the Society for Psychical Research. On several occasions Mr. Beard, by an effort of his will, was able to cause a phantom of himself to appear, three miles away, to certain acquaintances who were not aware of his intention to make the experiment. The phantom appeared so real and solid that the percipient thought Mr. Beard himself had suddenly come into the room; and on one occasion the figure was seen by two persons simultaneously. Similar results have been obtained by at least nine other persons, independently of each other, living, in fact, in different parts of the world, more than one carefully conducted and successful experiment being made in each case.(1)

(1) Full details of these cases will be found in Mr. Myers' Human Personality, Vol. 1, pp. 292 et seq and pp. 688 et seq.

Doubtless these apparitions, though appearing so life-like and substantial, were hallucinations, but by what process is thought able to reproduce itself in a distant mind, and thus cause these phantoms to be projected from it? Either, thought in A. by some unknown means, affects the brain matter in B., and so excites the impression, or thought exists independently of matter. Whichever alternative we take, as Mr. F. W. H. Myers says:

"It is the very secret of life that confronts us here; the fundamental antinomy between Mind and Matter. But such confrontations with metaphysical problems reduced to concrete form are a speciality of our research; and since this problem does already exist since the brain cells are, in fact, altered either by the thought or along with it - we have no right to take for granted that the problem, when more closely approached, will keep within its ancient limits, or that Mind, whose far-darting energy we are now realising, must needs be always powerless upon aught but the grey matter of the brain." ("Proceedings" S.P.R., Vol. X., P. 421).

Certainly amongst mankind a conscious thought always strives and tends to externalise itself, to pass from a conception to an expression. Creation is the externalised thought of God, and this God-like attribute we, as part of the Universal Mind, share in a partial, limited degree. Our words and actions are a constant, though partial, embodiment of our thoughts, effected through the machinery of our nervous and muscular systems. But without this machinery thought can sometimes, as we have shown, transcend its ordinary channels of expression, and act, not mediately, but directly, upon another mind, producing not only visual and auditory impressions but also physiological changes.

The Stigmata

In fact carefully conducted experiments, some of which I have myself witnessed, have shown that startling physiological changes can be produced in a hypnotised subject merely by conscious or subconscious mental suggestion. Thus a red scar or a painful burn can be caused to appear on the body of the subject solely through suggesting the idea. By some local disturbance of the blood vessels in the skin, the unconscious self has done what it would be impossible for the conscious self to perform. And so in the well attested cases of stigmata, where a close resemblance to the wounds on the body of the crucified Saviour appear on the body of the ecstatic. This is a case of unconscious self-suggestion, arising from the intent and adoring gaze of the ecstatic upon the bleeding figure on the crucifix. With the abeyance of the conscious self the hidden powers emerge, whilst the trance and mimicry of the wounds are strictly parallel to the experimental cases previously referred to.

May not the effects of pre-natal impressions on the offspring (if such cases are proved) also have a similar origin? And if I may make the suggestion, may not the well-known cases of mimicry in animal life originate, like the stigmata, in a reflex action, - as physiologists would say, - below the level of consciousness, created to some extent by a predominant impression? I venture to think that ere long biologists will recognise the importance of the psychical factor in evolution.

Adaptation to environment is usually a slow process spread over countless generations, but here also the same causes, inter alia, may be at work. Moreover, even rapid changes sometimes occur. Thus the beautiful experiments of Professor Poulton, F.R.S., have shown that certain caterpillars can more than once in their lifetime change their colour to suit their surroundings. I have seen a brilliant green caterpillar acquire a black skin when taken from its green environment and placed among black twigs. It is no explanation to say that the nervous stimulus which produced these pigmentary deposits is excited by a particular light acting on the surface of the skin.

Through what wonder-working power is this marvellous change accomplished? Not, of course, through any conscious action of the caterpillar, for even the pupae of these caterpillars undergo a like change, a light-coloured chrysalis becoming perfectly black when placed on black paper; even patches of metallic lustre, exactly like gold, appear on its integument, as I can testify, when the chrysalis is placed on gilt paper! Does it not seem as if animal life shared with us, in some degree, certain super-normal powers, and that these colour changes might be due to the influence of causes somewhat analogous to those producing the stigmata, i.e., suggestion, unconsciously derived from the environment? If so, we have here something like the externalising of unconscious thought in ourselves.

Are Apparitions Objective?

To return from this digression. Whether all apparitions are insubstantial and subjective, due to a telepathic impact from the living or the dead, I am not prepared to say. There are cases which this hypothesis covers only with difficulty where several people have witnessed the apparition and where it has seemed to have a definite objective existence in successive positions. In any case we need to be on our guard against pressing the telepathic theory to absurd extremes, as some psychical researchers seem disposed to do.

We are in fact, only on the threshold of our knowledge of this obscure and difficult region of enquiry, and humility of mind no less than confidence of hope should be our habit of thought. As Sir Oliver Lodge has remarked, "Knowledge can never grow until it is realised that the question 'Do you believe in these things?' is puerile unless it has been preceded by the enquiry, 'What do you know about them?'" It is invariably those who know nothing of the subject who scornfully say "surely you don't believe in these things!"

Visions of the Dying

There are some remarkable instances where the dying person, before the moment of transition from earth, appears to see and recognize some of his deceased relatives or friends. One cannot always attach much weight to this evidence, as hallucinations of the dying are not infrequent. Here however is a case, one of many recorded in that useful journal Light, which much impressed the physician who narrates it.

Dr. Wilson of New York, who was present at the last moments of Mr. James Moore, a well-known tenor in the United States, gives the following narrative:

"It was about 4 a.m., and the dawn for which he had been watching was creeping in through the shutters, when, as I leant over the bed, I noticed that his face was quite calm and his eyes clear. The poor fellow looked me in the face, and, taking my hand in both of his, he said: 'You've been a good friend to me, doctor.' Then something which I shall never forget to my dying day happened, - something which is utterly indescribable. While he appeared perfectly rational and as sane as any man I have ever seen, the only way that I can express it is that he was transported into another world, and although I cannot satisfactorily explain the matter to myself, I am fully convinced that he had entered the golden city - for he said in a stronger voice than he had used since I had attended him: 'There is mother! Why, mother, have you come here to see me? No, no, I am coming to see you, just wait, mother, I am almost over. Wait, mother, wait, mother!'

"On his face there was a look of inexpressible happiness, and the way in which he said the words impressed me as I have never been before, and I am as firmly convinced that he saw and talked with his mother as I am that I am sitting here.

"In order to preserve what I believed to be his conversation with his mother, and also to have a record of the strangest happening of my life, I immediately wrote down every word he said. It was one of the most beautiful deaths I have ever seen."

Miss Cobbe in her Peak in Darien gives another instance of this kind, but the following narrative is even more striking. It is vouched for by my friend the late Mr. Hensleigh Wedgwood, who contributed it to the Spectator. Mr. Wedgwood writes:

"Between forty and fifty years ago, a young girl, a near connection of mine, was dying of consumption. She had lain for some days in a prostrate condition, taking no notice of anything, when she opened her eyes, and, looking upwards, said slowly, 'Susan - and Jane - and Ellen!' as if recognising the presence of her three sisters, who had previously died of the same disease. Then, after a short pause, 'And Edward, too!' she continued, - naming a brother then supposed to be alive and well in India, - as if surprised at seeing him in the company. She said no more, and sank shortly afterwards. In course of the post, letters came from India announcing the death of Edward from an accident a week or two previous to the death of his sister. This was told to me by an elder sister who nursed the dying girl, and was present at the bedside at the time of the apparent vision."

This last instance is difficult to explain away, if correctly narrated. I am also personally acquainted with one or two similar cases, which my informants consider too sacred to be made public. Several remarkable cases of visions of the dying are given in the "Proceedings and journal of the S.P.R.," which I regret are too long to be quoted here; the reader is specially referred to the following "Proc.," Vol. III., p. 93; V., P. 459, 460 VI., P. 294. The evidence seems indisputable that, in some rare cases, just before death the veil is partly drawn aside and a glimpse of the loved ones who have passed over is given to the dying person.

Protoscience

24/09/2007 05:17

Protoscience is a field of study that appears to conform to the initial phase of the scientific method, with information gathering and formulation of a hypothesis, but involves speculation that is either not yet experimentally falsifiable or not yet verified or accepted by a consensus of scientists.[1] A protoscience may be distinguished from other forms of speculation in that its formulation strives to remain coherent with all relevant fields of scientific research so as to achieve falsifiability and verification as soon and as accurately as possible.

History of the term

The philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn first used the word in an essay, originally published in 1970:

Quote:

In any case, there are many fields � I shall call them proto-sciences � in which practice does generate testable conclusions but which nevertheless resemble philosophy and the arts rather than the established sciences in their developmental patterns. I think, for example, of fields like chemistry and electricity before the mid-eighteenth century, of the study of heredity and phylogeny before the mid-nineteenth, or of many of the social sciences today. In these fields, too, though they satisfy Sir Karl's [ Popper's] demarcation criterion, incessant criticism and continual striving for a fresh start are primary forces, and need to be. No more than in philosophy and the arts, however, do they result in clear-cut progress.

I conclude, in short, that the proto-sciences, like the arts and philosophy, lack some element which, in the mature sciences, permits the more obvious forms of progress. It is not, however, anything that a methodological prescription can provide. Unlike my present critics, Lakatos at this point included, I claim no therapy to assist the transformation of a proto-science to a science, nor do I suppose anything of this sort is to be had.

� Thomas Kuhn, Criticism and the growth of knowledge[2]

Examples

Scientific intuition is protoscience, being the detection of new patterns � the eureka moment that allows the breakthrough in problem solving � which initiates a new line of fruitful scientific inquiry.

* Isaac Newton is often said to have conceived of the acceleration of gravity while sitting under an apple tree and being hit on the head by a falling apple, whose height inflicted some pain. Should this story be true, this moment of insight into acceleration initiated a phase of protoscience until a hypothesis could be formulated with careful measurements and calculations that allowed experimental falsifiability, (repeatability) and verification.

* Charles Darwin conceived of his concept of evolution when on his journey in the ship Beagle to the Gal�pagos Islands he noticed that finches differed from one island to another. He strongly suspected that the different species of finches must have descended from a single species that was their common ancestor. The protoscientific hypothesis continued to prove useful when other forms of animals, including apes and humans, could be explained as sharing common descent. Only recently, with other scientific fields�especially DNA analysis which verified many of his speculations�did the concept move from protoscience to science with the Theory of Evolution accepted by the consensus of the scientific community today.

Early philosophical disciplines that later evolved into branches of modern science are considered to be protosciences.

* Aspects of alchemy served as the foundation for modern chemistry.

* Early astrology included the study of astronomy, cf. Johannes Kepler. Modern astrology, however, is a pseudoscience.

* The psychological sub-field of psychoanalysis is considered to be a protoscience by some, as many of its claims are not scientifically falsifiable.

Science itself evolved from the protoscience of the Renaissance Period that was then called "occult science" (Latin: scientia occulta), literally meaning "hidden knowledge".[3] Humans were understood to acquire true knowledge directly from God through Divine revelation. However the concept of "hidden knowledge" held that there was also true knowledge that God hid and would not reveal and intended for humans to discover on their own by human reason and effort. Thus the protoscientists of their day employed every method of pattern recognition available to them. As time went on, the term "occult" (hidden) came to refer to the unverified claims (generally psychologically symbolic or simply discredited) whereas "science" (knowledge) came to refer to the verified claims (generally mechanically predictable).

Pseudoscience

24/09/2007 05:17

Pseudoscience is any body of knowledge, methodology, belief, or practice that claims to be scientific or is made to appear scientific, but does not adhere to the basic requirements of the scientific method.[2][3][4][5]

The term pseudoscience is based on the Greek root pseudo- (false or pretending) and science (derived from Latin scientia, meaning knowledge). The first recorded use was in 1843 by French physiologist Fran�ois Magendie[1] considered a pioneer in experimental physiology.

The term has negative connotations, because it is used to indicate that subjects so labelled are inaccurately or deceptively portrayed as science.[6] Accordingly, those labelled as practising or advocating a "pseudoscience" normally reject this classification.

As it is taught in certain introductory science classes, pseudoscience is any subject that appears superficially to be scientific or whose proponents state it is scientific but which nevertheless contravenes the testability requirement, or substantially deviates from other fundamental aspects of the scientific method.[7] Professor Paul DeHart Hurd[8] argued that a large part of gaining scientific literacy is "being able to distinguish science from pseudo-science such as astrology, quackery, the occult, and superstition".[9] Certain introductory survey classes in science take careful pains to delineate the objections scientists and sceptics have to practices that make direct claims contradicted by the scientific discipline in question.[10]

Beyond the initial introductory analyses offered in science classes, there is some epistemological disagreement about whether it is possible to distinguish "science" from "pseudoscience" in a reliable and objective way.[11]

Pseudosciences may be characterised by the use of vague, exaggerated or untestable claims, over-reliance on confirmation rather than refutation, lack of openness to testing by other experts, and a lack of progress in theory development.

Background

The standards for determining whether a body of knowledge, methodology, or practice is scientific can vary from field to field, but involve agreed principles including reproducibility and intersubjective verifiability.[12] Such principles aim to ensure that relevant evidence can be reproduced and/or measured given the same conditions, which allows further investigation to determine whether a hypothesis or theory related to given phenomena is both valid and reliable for use by others, including other scientists and researchers. It is expected that the scientific method will be applied throughout, and that bias will be controlled or eliminated, by double-blind studies, or statistically through fair sampling procedures. All gathered data, including experimental/environmental conditions, are expected to be documented for scrutiny and made available for peer review, thereby allowing further experiments or studies to be conducted to confirm or falsify results, as well as to determine other important factors such as statistical significance, confidence intervals, and margins of error.[13] Fulfilment of these requirements allows others a reasonable opportunity to assess whether to rely upon the reported results in their own scientific work or in a particular field of applied science, technology, therapy, or other form of practice.

In the mid-20th Century Karl Popper suggested the criterion of falsifiability to distinguish science from non-science.[14] Statements such as "God created the universe" may be true or false, but they are not falsifiable, so they are not scientific; they lie outside the scope of science. Popper subdivided non-science into philosophical, mathematical, mythological, religious and/or metaphysical formulations on the one hand, and pseudoscientific formulations on the other�though without providing clear criteria for the differences.[15] He gave astrology and psychoanalysis as examples of pseudoscience, and Einstein's theory of relativity as an example of science. More recently, Paul Thagard (1978) proposed that pseudoscience is primarily distinguishable from science when it is less progressive than alternative theories over a long period of time, and the selective and or lack of attempts by proponents to solve problems with the theory.[16] Mario Bunge has suggested the categories of "belief fields" and "research fields" to help distinguish between science and pseudoscience.[17]

Philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend has argued, from a sociology of knowledge perspective, that a distinction between science and non-science is neither possible nor desirable.[18][19] Among the issues which can make the distinction difficult are that both the theories and methodologies of science evolve at differing rates in response to new data.[20] In addition, the specific standards applicable to one field of science may not be those employed in other fields. Thagard also writes from a sociological perspective and states that "elucidation of how science differs from pseudoscience is the philosophical side of an attempt to overcome public neglect of genuine science."

Both the skeptics and the brights movement, most prominently represented by Richard Dawkins, Mario Bunge, Carl Sagan and James Randi, consider all forms of pseudoscience to be harmful, whether or not they result in immediate harm to their adherents. These critics generally consider that the practice of pseudoscience may occur for a number of reasons, ranging from simple na�vet� about the nature of science and the scientific method, to deliberate deception for financial or political gain. At the extreme, issues of personal health and safety may be very directly involved, for example in the case of physical or mental therapy or treatment, or in assessing safety risks. In such instances the potential for direct harm to patients, clients, the general public, or the environment may be an issue in assessing pseudoscience. (See also Junk science.)

The concept of pseudoscience as antagonistic to bona fide science appears to have emerged in the mid-19th century. Among the first recorded uses of the word "pseudo-science" was in 1844 in the Northern Journal of Medicine, I 387: "That opposite kind of innovation which pronounces what has been recognized as a branch of science, to have been a pseudo-science, composed merely of so-called facts, connected together by misapprehensions under the disguise of principles".

Identifying pseudoscience

A field, practice, or body of knowledge might reasonably be called pseudoscientific when (1) it is presented as consistent with the accepted norms of scientific research; but (2) it demonstrably fails to meet these norms, most importantly, in misuse of scientific method.[21]

Subjects may be considered pseudoscientific for various reasons; Popper considered astrology to be pseudoscientific simply because astrologers keep their claims so vague that they could never be refuted, whereas Thagard considers astrology pseudoscientific because its practitioners make little effort to develop the theory, show no concern for attempts to critically evaluate the theory in relation to others, and are selective in considering evidence. More generally, Thagard stated that pseudoscience tends to focus on resemblances rather than cause-effect relations.

Science is also distinguishable from revelation, theology, or spirituality in that it claims to offer insight into the physical world obtained by "scientific" means. Systems of thought that derive from divine or inspired knowledge are not considered pseudoscience if they do not claim either to be scientific or to overturn well-established science.

Some statements and commonly held beliefs in popular science may not meet the criteria of science. "Pop" science may blur the divide between science and pseudoscience among the general public, and may also involve science fiction.[22] Indeed, pop science is disseminated to, and can also easily emanate from, persons not accountable to scientific methodology and expert peer review.

If the claims of a given field can be experimentally tested and methodological standards are upheld, it is not "pseudoscience", however odd, astonishing, or counter-intuitive. If claims made are inconsistent with existing experimental results or established theory, but the methodology is sound, caution should be used; science consists of testing hypotheses which may turn out to be false. In such a case, the work may be better described as ideas that are not yet generally accepted.

The following have been proposed to be indicators of poor scientific reasoning.

Use of vague, exaggerated or untestable claims

* Assertion of scientific claims that are vague rather than precise, and that lack specific measurements.[23]

* Failure to make use of operational definitions. (i.e. a scientific description of the operational means in which a range of numeric measurements can be obtained).[24]

* Lack of suitable controls. This is particularly common of some alternative medicines, particularly homoeopathy where a demonstration of an effect above and beyond that of a placebo is often absent [12].

* Failure to make reasonable use of the principle of parsimony, i.e. failing to seek an explanation that requires the fewest possible additional assumptions when multiple viable explanations are possible.[25]

* Use of obscurantist language, and misuse of apparently technical jargon in an effort to give claims the superficial trappings of science.

* Lack of boundary conditions: Most well-supported scientific theories possess boundary conditions (well articulated limitations) under which the predicted phenomena do and do not apply.[26]

Over-reliance on confirmation rather than refutation

* Assertion of scientific claims that cannot be falsified in the event they are incorrect, inaccurate, or irrelevant[27]

* Assertion of claims that a theory predicts something that it has not been shown to predict[28]

* Assertion that claims which have not been proven false must be true, and vice versa[29]

* Over-reliance on testimonials and anecdotes. Testimonial and anecdotal evidence can be useful for discovery (i.e. hypothesis generation) but should not be used in the context of justification (i.e. hypothesis testing).[30]

* Selective use of experimental evidence: presentation of data that seems to support its own claims while suppressing or refusing to consider data that conflict with its claims.[31]

* Reversed burden of proof. In science, the burden of proof rests on those making a claim, not on the critic. "Pseudoscientific" arguments may neglect this principle and demand that sceptics demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that a claim (e.g. an assertion regarding the efficacy of a novel therapeutic technique) is false. It is essentially impossible to prove a universal negative, so this tactic incorrectly places the burden of proof on the sceptic rather than the claimant.[32]

* Appeals to holism: Proponents of pseudoscientific claims, especially in organic medicine, alternative medicine, naturopathy and mental health, often resort to the �mantra of holism� to explain negative findings.[33]

Lack of openness to testing by other experts

* Evasion of peer review before publicizing results (called "science by press conference").[34] Some proponents of theories that contradict accepted scientific theories avoid subjecting their ideas to peer review, sometimes on the grounds that peer review is biased towards established paradigms, and sometimes on the grounds that assertions cannot be evaluated adequately using standard scientific methods. By remaining insulated from the peer review process, these proponents forego the opportunity of corrective feedback from informed colleagues.[35]

* The science community expects authors to share data necessary to evaluate a paper. Failure to provide adequate information for other researchers to reproduce the claimed results is a lack of openness.[36]

* Assertion of claims of secrecy or proprietary knowledge in response to requests for review of data or methodology.[37]

Lack of progress

* Failure to progress towards additional evidence of its claims.[38] Terrence Hines has identified astrology as a subject that has changed very little in the past two millennia.[39]

* Lack of self correction: scientific research programmes make mistakes, but they tend to eliminate these errors over time.[40] By contrast, theories may be accused of being pseudoscientific because they have remained unaltered despite contradictory evidence.[41]

Personalization of issues

* Tight social groups and granfalloons. Authoritarian personality, suppression of dissent, and groupthink can enhance the adoption of beliefs that have no rational basis. In attempting to confirm their beliefs, the group tends to identify their critics as enemies.[42]

* Assertion of claims of a conspiracy on the part of the scientific community to suppress the results.[43]

* Attacking the motives or character of anyone who questions the claims.[42]

Use of misleading language

* Creating scientific-sounding terms in order to add weight to claims and persuade non-experts to believe statements that may be false or meaningless.

* Use of uncommon terms for common substances can also be misleading. For example referring to water as dihydrogen monoxide (DHMO) and proclaiming that it is the main constituent of most toxic compounds.

Demographics

The National Science Foundation stated that, in the USA, "pseudoscientific" beliefs became more widespread during the 1990s, peaked near 2001 and mildly declined since; nevertheless, pseudoscientific beliefs remain common in the USA.[44] As a result, according to the NSF report, there is a lack of knowledge of pseudoscientific issues in society and pseudoscientific practices are commonly followed. Bunge (1999) states that "A survey on public knowledge of science in the United States showed that in 1988 50% of American adults [rejected] evolution, and 88% [believed] astrology is a science'".

Commentators on pseudoscience perceive it in many fields; for example Pseudomathematics is a term used for mathematics-like activity undertaken either by non-mathematicians or mathematicians themselves which does not conform to the rigorous standards usually applied to mathematical theorems.

Clinical Psychology

Neurologists and clinical psychologists are concerned about the increasing amount of what they consider pseudoscience promoted in psychotherapy and popular psychology, and also about what they see as pseudoscientific therapies such as Neuro-linguistic programming, EMDR, Rebirthing, Reparenting, and Primal Therapy being adopted by government and professional bodies and by the public.[45] They state that scientifically unsupported therapies used by popular or folk psychology might harm vulnerable members of the public, undermine legitimate therapies, and tend to spread misconceptions about the nature of the mind and brain to society at large. Norcross et al.[46] have approached the science/pseudoscience issue by conducting a survey of experts that seeks to specify which theory or therapy is considered to be definitely discredited, and they outline 14 fields that have been definitely discredited.

A typical concept used in some fringe psychotherapies is orgone energy. "There is an increasing degree of overlapping and blending of orgone therapy with New Age and other therapies that manipulate the patient�s biofields, such as Therapeutic Touch and Reiki. 'Biofield' is a pseudoscientific term often used synonymously with orgone energy. Klee states that there is even small minority of psychiatrists that promote orgone therapy, though such organizations are frowned upon by the general psychiatric community.[47]

However, there is also concern that overzealously striking down methods considered to 'lack scientific support' could be ignoring any therapeutic value observed by clinicians and their patients. Moreover, the very nature of psychology is still under fierce debate, and no single central model has yet been accepted by the scientific community, implying that the rejection of any method on solely theoretical grounds could be in error.[48] This fact in particular, combined with the subjective nature of the phenomena under study, makes it difficult to immediately and unequivocally discount or validate any given method or its theoretical justifications.

Psychological explanations

Pseudoscientific thinking has been explained in terms of psychology and social psychology. The human proclivity for seeking confirmation rather than refutation (confirmation bias),[49] the tendency to hold comforting beliefs, and the tendency to overgeneralize have been proposed as reasons for the common adherence to pseudoscientific thinking. According to Beyerstein (1991) humans are prone to associations based on resemblances only, and often prone to misattribution in cause-effect thinking.

Some transitions from pseudoscience to science

There are examples of presently accepted scientific theories that were once criticised as being pseudoscientific. The transition is marked by increasing scientific scrutiny and specificity within the field and an increased level of evidence to support the theory. Continental drift theory was once considered pseudoscientific (Williams 2000:58), but is now part of mainstream science especially since the paleomagnetic evidence was discovered that supported plate tectonics.

Atwood (2004) suggested that "osteopathy has, for the most part, repudiated its pseudoscientific beginnings and joined the world of rational healthcare."[50]

The field of physical cosmology is a futher example.[51] Currently, string theory has been criticized by certain researchers as suffering from the same problems[52]

Criticisms of the concept of pseudoscience

Pseudoscience contrasted with protoscience

Protoscience is a term sometimes used to describe a hypothesis that has not yet been adequately tested by the scientific method, but which is otherwise consistent with existing science or which, where inconsistent, offers reasonable account of the inconsistency. It may also describe the transition from a body of practical knowledge into a scientific field.[53] By contrast, "pseudoscience" is reserved to describe theories which are either untestable in practice or in principle, or which are maintained even when tests appear to have refuted them.

It is disputed (notably by Feyeraband, see above) whether meaningful boundaries can be drawn between pseudoscience, protoscience, and "real" science. Especially where there is a significant cultural or historical distance (as, for example, modern chemistry reflecting on alchemy), protosciences can be misinterpreted as pseudoscientific.

Demarcation problem

After over a century of dialogue among philosophers of science and scientists in varied fields, and despite broad agreement on the basics of scientific method,[54] the boundaries between science and non-science continue to be debated.[55] This is known as the problem of demarcation.

Many commentators and practitioners of science, as well as supporters of fields of inquiry and practices labeled as pseudoscience, question the rigor of the demarcation[citation needed], as some disciplines now accepted as science previously had features cited as those of pseudoscience, such as lack of reproducibility, or the inability to create falsifiable experiments.[citation needed]

It has been argued by several notable commentators that experimental verification is not in itself decisive in scientific method. Thomas Kuhn states that in neither Popper's nor his own theory "can testing play a quite decisive role."[56] Daniel Rothbart said that "the defining feature of science does not seem to be experimental success, for most clear cases of genuine science have been experimentally falsified."[57] The latter proposed that a scientific theory must "account for all the phenomena that its rival background theory explains" and "must clash empirically with its rival by yielding test implications that are inconsistent with the rival theory". A theory is thus scientific or not depending upon its historical situation; if it betters the current explanations of phenomena, it marks scientific progress. "Many domains in ancient Greece, for example, domains that today are called superstition, religion, magic and the occult, were at that time clear cases of legitimate science." This is an explicitly competitive model of scientific work; Rothbart also notes that it is not a completely effective model.[58]

Kuhn postulated that proponents of competing paradigms may resort to political means (such as invective) to garner support from a public which lacks the ability to judge competing scientific theories on their merits. Philosopher of science Larry Laudan has suggested that pseudoscience has no scientific meaning and mostly describes our emotions: "If we would stand up and be counted on the side of reason, we ought to drop terms like �pseudo-science� and �unscientific� from our vocabulary; they are just hollow phrases which do only emotive work for us".[59] Richard McNally, Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, states: "The term 'pseudoscience' has become little more than an inflammatory buzzword for quickly dismissing one�s opponents in media sound-bites" and "When therapeutic entrepreneurs make claims on behalf of their interventions, we should not waste our time trying to determine whether their interventions qualify as pseudoscientific. Rather, we should ask them: How do you know that your intervention works? What is your evidence?".[60]

Poltergeist

24/09/2007 00:52

German for �noisy spirit�

A general term applied to a variety of site-, or sometimes person-, specific physical phenomena. These can include temperature variations, anomalous sounds, and movement of physical objects.

The word 'poltergeist' was coined back when such phenomena were thought to be due to the presence of some sort of mischievous entity.

Currently, poltergeist phenomena are usually considered to be related either to unusual physical conditions at the affected site, or to be related to psychokinesis.

Anecdotal reports suggest that many poltergeist focus on an individual under some form of emotional stress.

Believed to be German: Polter means �noisy� and the second half geist means, �ghost�.

James Randi

24/09/2007 00:48

James Randi (born August 7, 1928), stage name The Amazing Randi, is a stage magician and scientific skeptic best known as a challenger of paranormal claims and pseudoscience. Born Randall James Hamilton Zwinge, in Toronto, Canada, Randi is the founder of the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF).

The JREF provides the famous million dollar challenge offering a prize of US $1,000,000 to anyone who can demonstrate evidence of any paranormal, supernatural or occult power or event, under test conditions agreed to by both parties. He was a regular guest on the The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, and is occasionally featured on the television program Penn & Teller: Bullshit!.

Early and personal life

Randi is oldest of three children born to a Bell Canada employee.[1] He took up magic after reading magic books while spending 13 months in a body cast due to injuries received in a bicycle accident.[1] The doctors never expected he would walk again, but Randi did.[1]

Randi subsequently witnessed many tricks that were presented as being supernatural. One of his earliest reported experiences is that of seeing an evangelist using the "one-ahead"[2] routine to convince churchgoers of his divine powers.[3]

Randi for many years has been an amateur astronomer, influenced by his friend Carl Sagan. In 1981 asteroid 3163 Randi was named after Randi.[1]

In 1987, Randi became a naturalized citizen of the United States.[4] Randi said that one reason for becoming an American citizen was due to a Canadian police search while on tour with Alice Cooper.[5]

In February of 2006, Randi underwent coronary artery bypass surgery.[6] In early February 2006, he was declared to be "in stable condition" and "receiving excellent care" with his recovery "proceeding well". The weekly commentary updates to his website were made by guests while he was hospitalized.[7] Randi is doing well since his surgery, and was well enough to help organize and attend the 2007 Amazing Meeting in Las Vegas, NV (an annual convention of scientists, magicians, skeptics, atheists, and other freethinkers).[8]

Background

Randi began his career as a magician, but then became a debunker of the paranormal. Then he expanded into writing about the paranormal, skepticism, the history of magic, biographer of Houdini, and even wrote a children's book.

Career as a magician

Randi has worked as a professional stage magician and escapologist since 1946, initially under his birth name, Randall Zwinge. Early in his career, Randi was part of numerous stunts involving his escape from jail cells and safes. On February 7, 1956, he appeared live on The Today Show and remained in a sealed metal coffin submerged in a hotel swimming pool for 104 minutes, breaking what was said to be Houdini's record of 93 minutes.[9][10]

Randi was the host of The Amazing Randi Show on New York radio station WOR-Radio in the mid-1960s.[11] He also hosted numerous television specials and went on several world tours. Then Randi appeared as "The Amazing Randi" on a television show entitled Wonderama from 1967 to 1972.[12] In the February 2, 1974 issue of Abracadabra (a British conjuring magazine), Randi defined the magic community saying, "I know of no calling which depends so much upon mutual trust and faith as does ours." In the December 2003 issue of the The Linking Ring, the monthly publication of The International Brotherhood of Magicians, Points to Ponder: Another Matter of Ethics, p. 97, it is stated, "Perhaps Randi's ethics are what make him Amazing" and "The Amazing Randi not only talks the talk, he walks the walk."

During Alice Cooper's 1974 tour, Randi performed as the dentist and executioner on stage.[13] Also, Randi had designed and built several of the stage props, including the guillotine.[14][15] An incident where the Royal Canadian Mounted Police searched the band's lockers during a performance has been cited by Randi as leading him to apply for American citizenship.[16] Shortly after, in February 1975, Randi escaped from a straitjacket while suspended upside-down over Niagara Falls in the winter on the Canadian TV program World of Wizards.[17]

Early in his career, Randi was sent a contract for a tour in Florida. His friends in New York mentioned to him that he�d certainly be working before audiences segregated by race, so before he signed the agreement, he wrote in a clause specifying that the promoters could not deny tickets to blacks or segregate the audiences in any way. Upon arriving on scene, he found that the concert promoter had ignored this stipulation in his contract. He discovered that blacks were forced to watch the show from the balcony, and he immediately walked away from the tour. Appealing to the American Guild of Variety Artists (AGVA), he was paid in full for the balance of the tour.

Author

Randi is author of Conjuring (1992), a biographical history of noted magicians. The book is subtitled: Being a Definitive History of the Venerable Arts of Sorcery, Prestidigitation, Wizardry, Deception, & Chicanery and of the Mountebanks & Scoundrels Who have Perpetrated these Subterfuges on a Bewildered Public, in short, MAGIC!. The book selects the most influential magicians, and explains their history in the context of strange deaths and career on the road. This work expanded on his 1976 book Houdini, His Life and Art, which focused on Houdini and his cohorts. Randi also wrote a children's book in 1989 titled The Magic World of the Amazing Randi introducing children to magic tricks.

In addition to his magic books, he has written several educational works about the paranormal and pseudoscientific. These include biographies of Uri Geller and Nostradamus as well as reference material on other major paranormal figures.

Career as a skeptic

Randi entered the international spotlight in 1972 when he publicly challenged the claims of Uri Geller. Randi accused Geller of being nothing more than a charlatan and a fraud using standard "magic" tricks to accomplish his allegedly paranormal feats, and he backed up his claims in the book The Magic of Uri Geller.[18][19] Geller later sued Randi for 15 million dollars[20]. Eventually Geller's suit against CSICOP was thrown out in 1995, and he had to pay $120,000 for filing a "frivolous" lawsuit.[21] Randi was a founding fellow and prominent member of CSICOP, the Committee for Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal.[22] Randi later resigned from CSICOP during the period when Geller was filing numerous civil suits against him. CSICOP's leadership, wanting to avoid becoming a target of Geller's litigation, requested that Randi refrain from commenting on Geller. Randi refused and resigned. He still maintains a respectful relationship with the group and frequently writes articles for its magazine.

Randi has gone on to write several books criticizing beliefs and claims regarding the paranormal. He has also been instrumental in exposing frauds and charlatans who exploit this field for personal gain. In one example, his Project Alpha hoax, Randi revealed that he had been able to orchestrate a three year-long compromise of a privately-funded psychic research experiment.[23] The hoax became a scandal and demonstrated the shortcomings of many paranormal research projects at the university level. Some said that the hoax was unethical, while others claimed his actions were a legitimate exercise in exposing poor research techniques.[24]

Randi has also appeared on numerous other programs sometimes to directly debunk the claimed abilities of fellow guests. In a 1981 appearance on a show called That's My Line, Randi appeared opposite psychic James Hydrick, who claimed that he could move things with his mind, and demonstrated this ability on live television by apparently turning a page in a telephone book without touching it.[25] Randi, having determined that the trick was most likely based on Hydrick surreptitiously blowing, arranged packaging peanuts on the table in front of the telephone book for the demonstration, preventing Hydrick from demonstrating his abilities without also giving away the secret that bursts of air were passing over the pages.[4] Many years later, Hydrick admitted his fraud.[26]

Randi was awarded a MacArthur Foundation "Genius" award in 1986, drawing upon his conjuring skills to write and educate the public on superstition and pseudoscientific matters.[1] The money was used for Randi's comprehensive expos� of faith healers including Peter Popoff, W. V. Grant and Ernest Angley.[1] During the course of the investigation Randi was "healed" by these ministers.[1] When Popoff was exposed, he was forced to declare bankruptcy within the year.[27]

James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF)

In 1996, Randi established the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF). Randi updates the JREF's website on Fridays with a written commentary titled Swift: Online Newsletter of the JREF. Randi also contributes a regular column, titled "'Twas Brillig", to The Skeptics Society's Skeptic Magazine.

He has regularly featured on many podcasts that can be found online, including The Skeptics Society's official podcast Skepticality [28] and the Center for Inquiry's official podcast Point of Inquiry [29]. From September 2006, he contributed to The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe podcast with a column entitled "Randi Speaks".[30]

The $1 million challenge

The James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) currently offers a prize of one million U.S. dollars to anyone who can demonstrate a supernatural ability under agreed-upon scientific testing criteria. Similar to the paranormal challenges of John Nevil Maskelyne and Houdini, in 1964, Randi put up $1,000 of his own money payable to the first person who could provide objective proof of the paranormal. Since then, the prize money has grown to the current $1,000,000, and the rules that surround claiming the prize are official and legal. No one has progressed past the preliminary test which is set up with parameters agreed to by both Randi and the applicant. He also refuses to accept any challengers who might suffer serious injury or death as a result of the testing they intend to undergo.

On Larry King Live March 6, 2001 Larry King asked Sylvia Browne if she would take the challenge and she agreed.[31] Then Randi appeared with Browne on Larry King Live on September 3, 2001 and she again accepted the challenge.[32] However, she has refused to be tested and Randi keeps a clock on his website recording the number of weeks that have passed since Sylvia accepted the challenge without following through.

During Larry King Live on June 5, 2001 Randi challenged Rosemary Altea to undergo testing for the million dollars. However Altea would not even address the question.[33] Instead Altea, in part, replied "I agree with what he says, that there are many, many people who claim to be spiritual mediums, they claim to talk to the dead. There are many, people, we all know this. There are cheats and charlatans everywhere."[33] Then on January 26, 2007 Altea and Randi again appeared on Larry King Live. Once again, she refused to answer whether or not she would take the One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge.[34]

Randi has recently challenged David R. Hawkins to win the prize with Hawkins' "arm-pressing technique" (applied kinesiology), suggesting it would only take thirty minutes of easy work, but believing that Hawkins would not even attempt to apply for the challenge for "obvious" reasons.[35]

Starting on April 1, 2007 only those with an already existing media profile and the backing of a reputable academic would be allowed to apply for the challenge.[36] The resources freed up by not having to test obscure and possibly mentally ill claimants will then be used to more aggressively challenge notorious high-profile alleged psychics and mediums such as Sylvia Browne and John Edward with a campaign in the media.[36]

Critics say that Randi has set up the system so that the million-dollar challenge cannot be passed, despite the fact that contestants are required to participate in establishing the conditions for success and failure. Randi himself states that "What if someone wins the million dollars? ... I think it's very highly unlikely", but bases this on the unlikelihood of the paranormal.[37] For details of the disputes, see James Randi Educational Foundation. So far, no one has passed even the preliminary testing procedures, let alone been awarded the prize money.

JREF maintains a log of past participants for the "Million Dollar Challenge" for public access.[38]

Randi's caustic style

Randi uses a harsh, uncompromising style of writing and presentation. His supporters say that there are other organizations of skeptics that have similar standing offers to prove the existence of paranormal abilities, and anyone claiming to be an expert in their field of the paranormal can apply for any of these other prizes, avoiding Randi altogether. In his weekly commentary, Randi often gives examples of what he feels is the nonsense that he deals with every day to explain his lack of patience.[39]

In the book The Faith Healers, Randi explains his anger and relentlessness as arising out of compassion for the helpless victims of frauds. Randi has also been critical of Jo�o de Deus, also known as John of God, a self-proclaimed psychic surgeon who has received international attention.[40] Randi observed, referring to psychic surgery, "To any experienced conjuror, the methods by which these seeming miracles are produced are very obvious".[41]

Also, in his weekly commentary, which he publishes every Friday, Randi often expresses dismay that he has to frequently expose various frauds because few others do so.

Criticisms of Randi

Randi was once accused of actually using 'psychic powers' to perform acts such as spoon bending. James Alcock relates this incident which occurred at a meeting where Randi was duplicating the performances of Uri Geller: A professor from the State University of New York at Buffalo shouted out that Randi was a fraud. Randi said "Yes indeed, I'm a trickster, I'm a cheat, I'm a charlatan, that's what I do for a living. Everything I've done here was by trickery." The professor shouted back: "That's not what I mean. You're a fraud because you're pretending to do these things through trickery, but you're actually using psychic powers and misleading us by not admitting it." (Alcock 2001:42) The famous author and believer in spiritualism Arthur Conan Doyle had years earlier made a similar accusation against the magician Harry Houdini.[42]

Legal disputes

Randi has been involved in a variety of legal disputes, but, in his own words, "never paid even one dollar or even one cent to anyone who ever sued me".[43]

Lawsuits brought by Geller

In an interview with Twilight Zone Magazine, Randi accused Uri Geller and Eldon Byrd of being the ringleaders in a criminal blackmail plot aimed at destroying Randi.[44] Byrd sued Randi; the jury found that Randi's claim regarding Byrd was defamatory, but awarded Byrd $0 in damages (thus preventing further appeals by Byrd).[45]

In an interview with a Japanese newspaper, Randi was presented as saying that Uri Geller had driven a close friend to "shoot himself in the head", which Randi afterwards claimed was a metaphor lost in translation.[46] However, Randi made a similar statement ("The scientist shot himself after I showed him how the key bending trick was done") in the August 23, 1986 Toronto Star that seemed to validate Geller's charge.[1] Since the referenced suicide victim died of natural causes the judge changed the charge from "libel" to "insult". Randi could not participate in the trial, but Geller dropped the charge to protect himself in another case and Randi states "I never paid even one dollar or even one cent to anyone who ever sued me, and certainly not to Geller."[47]

Randi commented that Uri Geller's public performances were of the same quality as those found on the backs of cereal boxes. Geller sued both Randi and CSICOP. CSICOP disavowed Randi because of this, claiming that the organization was not responsible for Randi's statements. The court agreed that including CSICOP was frivolous and dropped them from the action. Geller was ordered to pay substantial damages to CSICOP.[48][49]

By the mid-1990s, Randi and Geller had both run up legal bills amounting to hundreds of thousands of U.S. dollars. In a private meeting they achieved an out-of-court settlement, the details of which have been kept private. This case, as noted above, was directly responsible for the decision of Randi to part company with CSICOP.

Other

Allison DuBois, on whose life the television series Medium was based, threatened Randi with legal action for using a photo of her from her website in his December 17, 2004 commentary without her permission.[50] Randi removed the photo, and now uses a caricature of DuBois when mentioning her on his site, beginning with his December 23, 2005 commentary.[51]

Late in 1996 Randi launched a libel suit against a Toronto-area psychic/self-published author/entry-level web developer named Earl Gordon Curley.[52] Curley had made a number of objectionable comments about Randi on Usenet. Despite constantly prodding Randi via Usenet to sue (Curley's implication being if Randi didn't sue then his allegations must be true), Curley seemed entirely surprised when Randi actually retained Toronto's largest law firm and initiated legal proceedings. The suit was eventually dropped in 1998 when Earl Curley died at the age of 51, allegedly drinking himself to death.[53]

Awards

* MacArthur Foundation Fellowship 1986

* Richard Dawkins Award 2003

* Philip J. Klass Award 2007[54]

World Records

The following are Guinness records

* Was in a sealed casket for an hour and 44 minutes, which broke Harry Houdini's record of one hour and 31 minutes set on Aug. 5, 1926.[1]

* Being frozen in a block of ice for 55 minutes.[1]

Bibliography

An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural, 1995, St. Martin's Press ISBN 0-312-15119-5

# Conjuring, 1992 St. Martin's Press ISBN 0312097719

# Flim-Flam! Psychics, ESP, Unicorns, and Other Delusions, 1982, Prometheus Books, ISBN 0-87975-198-3

# Houdini, His Life and Art. Putnam Pub Group (November 1976) ISBN 0448125528

# James Randi: Psychic Investigator, 1991, ISBN 1-85283-144-8

# Test Your ESP Potential. Dover Publications Inc. (31 Dec 1982) ISBN 0486242692

# The Faith Healers, 1987, Prometheus Books, ISBN 0-87975-369-2. (ISBN 0-87975-535-0 1989 edition) (Foreword by Carl Sagan)

# The Magic of Uri Geller, 1982, ISBN 0-345-24796-5 (later renamed The Truth About Uri Geller ISBN 0-87975-199-1)

# The Magic World of the Amazing Randi. Adams Media Corporation (September 1989) ISBN 1558509828

# The Mask of Nostradamus: The Prophecies of the World's Most Famous Seer, 1990, Charles Scribner's Sons ISBN 0-684-19056-7 or ISBN 0-87975-830-9.

Minster (cathedral)

10/09/2007 20:08

In English usage a Minster is a grand type of church; the term may be extended to apply to a cathedral, such as York Minster and Southwell Minster. Lincoln Cathedral, and Ripon Cathedral, are also sometimes called by their earlier title of minster. However, when the term is used less vaguely, it is a collegiate church.

The word is Old English, mynster or monastery, derived from Latin ministerium, the �office" or �service�, the canonical hours, which were sung at set hours in the minster. Thus minster originally applied to the church of a monastery or a chapter: it was an abbot who presided in the minster, rather than a bishop, as at a cathedral. Westminster Abbey is not the seat of the Bishop of London, whose seat is St Paul's Cathedral. But in pre-reformation Britain, many cathedrals were also monastic.

In England in addition to the above, bishops live in the cathedrals and the following are mainly fine churches, which may have been collegiate before the reformation but they are not the seat of a diocesan bishop: Beverley Minster, Wimborne Minster, Reading Minster, Doncaster Minster, Sunderland Minster, Iwerne Minster, Stow Minster, Dewsbury Minster, Berkeley Minster, Tewkesbury Minster, Howden Minster, St. Botolf's Minster (Iken, Suffolk), South Elmham Minster, Rotherham Minster, Preston Minster, Hemingbrough Minster, and Stonegrave Minster. The name Peterborough Minster is now applied to a district of Peterborough but not to Peterborough Cathedral.

The title of Stoke Minster was conferred on the parish church of St. Peter ad Vincula in Stoke-upon-Trent by The Rt Revd Jonathan Gledhill, Bishop of Lichfield, at a ceremony on May 17, 2005.

In the case of the Ulm M�nster in Germany, the term was used for a particularly prosperous parish church boasting a plethora of clergy.

In other places in Europe, �minster� has become simply a historical term for a particular church, e.g. the minsters of Strasbourg (France); Basel and Bern (Switzerland); Bonn Minster, Essen, Freiburg, Aachen, Hamelin, Doberan (all Germany).

Apophenia

09/09/2007 12:57

Apophenia is the experience of seeing patterns or connections in random or meaningless data. The term was coined in 1958 by Klaus Conrad, who defined it as the "unmotivated seeing of connections" accompanied by a "specific experience of an abnormal meaningfulness".

"While observations of relevant work environments and human behaviors in these environments is a very important first step in coming to understand any new domain, this activity is in and of its self not sufficient to constitute scientific research. It is fraught with problems of subjective bias in the observer. We (like the experts we study) often see what we expect to see, we interpret the world through our own personal lens. Thus we are extraordinarily open to the trap of apophenia."

[1]

In statistics, apophenia would be classed as a Type I error (false positive, false alarm, caused by an excess in sensitivity). Apophenia is often used as an explanation of some paranormal and religious claims. It has been suggested that apophenia is a link between psychosis and creativity.

Origins

Conrad originally described this phenomenon in relation to the distortion of reality present in psychosis, but it has become more widely used to describe this tendency in healthy individuals without necessarily implying the presence of neurological or mental illness.

Pareidolia is a type of apophenia involving the finding of images or sounds in random stimuli.

Examples
Discordianism

The Principia Discordia refers to the act of seeing order which does not really exist as the Aneristic Illusion, and avoiding this illusion is a major tenet of the Discordian religion. The Principia illustrates this with a drawing of five pebbles, and gives several possibilities for the shape (a pentagon, or a star, or disorder). It goes on to state that "an Illuminated Mind can see all of these, yet he does not insist that any one is really true, or that none at all is true".

Fiction

Postmodern novelists and film-makers have reflected on apophenia-related phenomena, such as paranoid narrativization or fuzzy plotting (e.g., Vladimir Nabokov's "Signs and Symbols", Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 and V., Alan Moore's Watchmen, Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose and Foucault's Pendulum, William Gibson's Pattern Recognition, Arturo P�rez-Reverte's The Club Dumas, The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, and the films Conspiracy Theory, Darren Aronofsky's π, A Beautiful Mind and The Number 23). As narrative is one of our major cognitive instruments for structuring reality, there is some common ground between apophenia and narrative fallacies such as hindsight bias. Since pattern recognition may be related to plans, goals, and ideology, and may be a matter of group ideology rather than a matter of solitary delusion, the interpreter attempting to diagnose or identify apophenia may have to face a conflict of interpretations.

The Question, who is portrayed as a conspiracy theorist in the television series Justice League Unlimited, was mentioned to have apophenia. He claimed to see connections between the Girls Scouts and the crop circle phenomenon as well as spy satellites and fluoridated toothpaste.

Rorschach inkblot test

09/09/2007 11:09

The Rorschach inkblot test (pronounced IPA: [ʁoɐʃax]) is a method of psychological evaluation. Psychologists use this test to try to examine the personality characteristics and emotional functioning of their patients. The Rorschach is currently the second most commonly used test in forensic assessment, after the MMPI, and is the second most widely used test by members of the Society for Personality Assessment. It has been employed in diagnosing underlying thought disorder and differentiating psychotic from nonpsychotic thinking in cases where the patient is reluctant to openly admit to psychotic thinking.[1]

History

Originally created by Hermann Rorschach in 1921, the scoring system was improved after his death by, among others, Bruno Klopfer. John E. Exner summarized some of these later developments in the comprehensive Exner system, at the same time trying to make the scoring more statistically rigorous. Some systems are based on the psychoanalytic concept of object relations.

The Exner system is very popular in the United States, while in Europe the textbook by Evald Bohm, which is closer to the original Rorschach system as well as more inspired by psychoanalysis is often considered to be the standard reference work.

Methods

There are ten official inkblots. Five inkblots are black ink on white paper. Two are black and red ink on white paper. Three are multicolored. After the individual has seen and responded to all the inkblots, the tester then gives them to him again one at a time to study. The patient is asked to note where he sees what he originally saw and what makes it look like that. The blot can also be rotated. As the patient is examining the inkblots, the psychologist writes down everything the patient says or does, no matter how trivial.

Methods of interpretation differ. The most widely used method in the United States is based on the work of John E. Exner. In the Exner system, responses are scored with reference to their level of vagueness or synthesis of multiple images in the blot, the location of the response, which of a variety of determinants is used to produce the response (i.e., what makes the inkblot look like what it is said to resemble), the form quality of the response (to what extent a response is faithful to how the actual inkblot looks), the contents of the response (what the respondent actually sees in the blot), the degree of mental organizing activity that is involved in producing the response, and any illogical, incongruous, or incoherent aspects of responses.

Using the scores for these categories, the examiner then performs a series of mathematical calculations producing a structural summary of the test data. The results of the structural summary are interpreted using existing empirical research data on personality characteristics that have been demonstrated to be associated with different kinds of responses. The calculations of scores are often done electronically.

A common misconception of the Rorschach test is that its interpretation is based primarily on the contents of the response- what the examinee sees in the inkblot. In fact, the contents of the response are only a comparatively small portion of a broader cluster of variables that are used to interpret the Rorschach data.

Controversy

The Rorschach inkblot test is controversial for several reasons.

First, because the basic premise of the test is that objective meaning can be extracted from responses to blots of ink which are supposedly meaningless. It seems that evaluating the results of the test requires the blots of ink to have meaning in the first place�though meaning of a very subtle kind that has not been directly explicated. Otherwise, the images projected into the patterns would be of little value in assessing personality traits. Supporters of the Rorschach inkblot test believe that the subject's response to an ambiguous and meaningless stimulus can provide insight into their thought processes, but it is not clear how this occurs. Additionally, recent research has demonstrated that the blots are not entirely meaningless, and that a patient typically responds to meaningful as well as ambiguous aspects of the blots.[2]

Some critics argue that the psychologist must also project onto the patterns. A possible example sometimes attributed to the psychologist's subjective judgment is that responses are coded (among many other things), for "Form Quality": in essence, whether the subject's response fits with how the blot actually looks. Superficially this might be considered a subjective judgment, depending on how the examiner has internalized whatever categories are involved. With the Exner system of scoring, however, much of the subjectivity is eliminated or reduced by use of frequency tables that indicate how often a particular response is given by the population in general.[3] Another example is that the response "bra" was considered a "Sex" response by male psychologists, but a "Clothing" response by females (p. 227 in [4]). In Exner's system, however, such a response is always coded as "clothing" unless there is a clear sexual reference in the response.[5]

Third parties could be used to avoid this problem; however, the Rorschach's inter-rater reliability has been questioned. That is, in some studies the scores obtained by two independent scorers do not match with great consistency (see pp. 227-234 in [4]). It is commonly claimed that the reliability is over 0.85 for all scales; but this is at best percentage of agreement (a much looser criterion than reliability), and not true for all scales (p. 504 in [6]).

When interpreted as a projective test, results are thus poorly verifiable. The Exner system of scoring (also known as the "Comprehensive System") is meant to address this, and has all but displaced many earlier (and less consistent) scoring systems. It makes heavy use of what factor (shading, color, outline, etc.) of the inkblot leads to each of the tested person's comments. Disagreements about test validity remain.

Nevertheless, there is substantial research indicating the utility of the measure for a few scores. Several scores correlate well with general intelligence. Interestingly, one such scale is *R*, the total number of responses; this reveals the questionable side-effect that more intelligent people tend to be elevated on many pathology scales, since many scales do not correct for high R: if you give twice as many responses overall, you are more likely to give at least some seemingly "pathological" responses. Likewise correlated with intelligence are the scales for Organizational Activity, Complexity, Form Quality, and Human Figure responses (see Table 9.4 in [4]). The same source reports that validity has also been shown for detecting such conditions as schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders; thought disorders; and personality disorders (including borderline personality disorder). There is some evidence that the Deviant Verbalizations scale relates to bipolar disorder. The authors conclude that "Otherwise, the Comprehensive System doesn't appear to bear a consistent relationship to psychological disorders or symptoms, personality characteristics, potential for violence, or such health problems as cancer" (pp. 2249-250 in [4]). (cancer is mentioned because a small minority of Rorschach enthusiasts have claimed the test can indeed predict cancer).

It is also thought that the test's reliability can depend substantially on details of the testing procedure, such as where the tester and subject are seated; any introductory words; verbal and nonverbal responses to subjects' questions or comments; and how responses are recorded. Exner has published detailed instructions, but Wood et al.[4] cites many court cases where it was found they have not been followed. Such cases, of course, point toward the failure of some psychologists to follow prescribed procedures, but are not an indictment of the Exner system in general. Similarly, the procedures for coding responses are fairly well specified but extremely time-consuming to inexperienced examiners, and corners may be cut by a psychologist who allows haste to take precedence over accuracy. It seems that with validity in question to begin with, any psychologist using the test should be extremely careful about following all rules of administration and interpretation to the letter.

Another area of controversy is the test's norms. A great strength of Exner's system was thought to be the availability of normative scores for various populations. However, beginning in the mid-1990s others began to attempt to replicate or update these norms, and found they could not. In particular, discrepancies seemed to focus on indices measuring narcissism, disordered thinking, and discomfort in close relationships [7] Lillenfeld and colleagues, who are critical of the Rorschach, have stated that this proves that the Rorschach tends to "overpathologise normals." [7]. However, they may have failed to account for norm changes in the population that may have been drifting in a pathological direction - in other words, that the Rorschach may be accurately reflecting increasing psychopathology in the society. As described by Hibbard, [8] personality and social psychologists have written extensively on increasing narcissism in society, and this phenomenon has been shown in other research [1]. With respect to Lilienfeld's finding concerning difficulty in interpersonal relationships, that particular index has been found to be related to divorce and separation whose rates have also increased since the establishment of Exner's original norms.

The test is also especially controversial because it has been commonly used in court-ordered evaluations: as a major factor in assigning custody, granting or denying parole, and so on. This controversy stems, in part, from the limitations of the Rorschach, with no additional data, in making official diagnoses from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV)[9] That fact, however, does not render the test without value for diagnostic purposes. Irving Weiner (co-developer with John Exner of the Comprehensive system) has stated that the Rorschach "is a measure of personality functioning, and it provides information concerning aspects of personality structure and dynamics that make people the kind of people they are. Sometimes such information about personality characteristics is helpful in arriving at a differential diagnosis, if the alternative diagnoses being considered have been well conceptualized with respect to specific or defining personality characteristics".[10]

Supporters of the test try to keep the actual cards secret so that the answers are spontaneous. This practice is consistent with the American Psychological Association's ethical standards of preserving test security. The official test is sold only to licensed professionals. These ethics were violated first by William Poundstone in his book Big Secrets (1983), which described the method of administering the test and gave outlines of the ten official images. The images have since been leaked to the Internet.[11] This reduced the value of projective testing for those individuals who have become familiar with the material, potentially impacting their care. The Rorschach Society claims the blots are copyrighted; this has been disputed by others who state that the blots are in the public domain under U.S. copyright law based upon when they were first created and how long Rorschach has been dead (over 80 years).

Pareidolia

09/09/2007 11:01

The term pareidolia (pronounced /pɛɹaɪˈdoliə/ or /p�ɹaɪˈdəʊliə/), referenced in 1994 by Steven Goldstein,[1] describes a psychological phenomenon involving a vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) being perceived as significant. Common examples include images of animals or faces in clouds, the man in the moon, and hidden messages on records played in reverse. The word comes from the Greek para- � beside, with or alongside � and eidolon � image (the diminutive of eidos � image, form, shape). Pareidolia is a type of apophenia.

Examples

Religious

There have been many instances of perceptions of religious imagery and themes, especially the faces of religious figures, in ordinary phenomena. Many involve images of Jesus, the Virgin Mary, or the word Allah.

In 1978, a New Mexican woman found that the burn marks on a tortilla she had made appeared similar to Jesus Christ's face. Thousands of people came to see the framed tortilla.[2]

The recent publicity surrounding sightings of religious figures and other surprising images in ordinary objects, combined with the growing popularity of online auctions, has spawned a market for such items on eBay. One famous instance was a grilled-cheese sandwich with the Virgin Mary's face.[3]

Rorschach test

Main article: Rorschach inkblot test

The Rorschach inkblot test uses pareidolia to attempt to gain insight into a person's mental state.[2]

Audio

In 1971, Konstantin Raudive wrote Breakthrough, detailing what he believed was the discovery of electronic voice phenomenon (EVP). EVP has been described as auditory pareidolia.[2]

The allegations of backmasking in popular music have also been described as pareidolia.[2]

Explanations

Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan hypothesized that as a survival technique, human being are "hard-wired" from birth to identify the human face. This allows people to use only minimal details to recognize faces from a distance and in poor visibility, but can also lead them to interpret random images or patterns of light and shade as being faces.[4]

Clarence Irving Lewis

In his 1929 book Mind and the World Order, epistemologist and logician Clarence Irving Lewis, a founder of the philosophical school of conceptual pragmatism, used the question of how to determine whether a perception is a mirage as a touchstone for his philosophical approach to knowledge. Lewis argued that one has no way of knowing whether or not perceptions are "true" in any absolute sense; all one can do is determine whether one's purpose is thwarted by regarding it as true and acting on that basis. According to this approach, two people with two different purposes will often have different views on whether or not to regard a perception as true. [5]

Stone Tape

06/09/2007 01:55

For the 1972 British television play, see The Stone Tape.

The stone tape hypothesis was proposed in the 1970s as a possible explanation for ghosts. It speculates that inanimate materials can absorb some form of energy from living beings; the hypothesis speculates that this 'recording' happens especially during moments of high stress such as murder, or during important moments of someone's life. This stored energy can be released at any given moment, resulting in a display of the occurred activity. According to this hypothesis ghosts are not spirits at all, simply non-interactive recordings similar to a movie.

There is no proposed mechanical explanation for this theory, what sort of energy might be involved is unknown, nor how such 'playbacks' are triggered, rendering the theory completely untestable. Some argue that a specific state of brainwaves is necessary to experience a playback, others claim that the 'viewing' person needs some psychic ability.

The Stone Tape

06/09/2007 01:52

The Stone Tape is a television play directed by Peter Sasdy and starring Michael Bryant, Jane Asher, Michael Bates and Iain Cuthbertson. It was broadcast by on BBC Two as a Christmas ghost story in 1972. Combining aspects of science fiction and horror, the story concerns a team of scientists who move into their new research facility, a renovated Victorian mansion that has a reputation for being haunted. Investigating, they learn that the haunting is a recording of a past event made by the stone in one of the rooms of the house � the �stone tape� of the play's title. Believing that this may be the key to the development of a new recording medium, they throw all their expertise and high-tech equipment into learning how the stone tape preserves its recording. However, their investigations serve only to unleash a darker, more malevolent force.

The Stone Tape was written by Nigel Kneale, best known as the writer of Quatermass. Its juxtaposition of science and superstition is a frequent theme in Kneale's work; in particular, his 1952 radio play You Must Listen, about a haunted telephone line, is a notable antecedent of The Stone Tape. The play was also inspired by a visit Kneale had paid to the BBC's research and development department, which is located in an old Victorian house in Kingswood, Surrey. Critically acclaimed at time of broadcast, it remains well regarded to this day as one of Nigel Kneale's best and most terrifying plays. Since its broadcast, the hypothesis of residual haunting � that ghosts are recordings of past events made by the natural environment � has come to be known as the �Stone Tape Theory�.

Plot summary

Peter Brock (Michael Bryant) is the head of a research team in an electronics company, Ryan Electrics, working on developing a new recording medium in the hope of giving the company an edge over its Japanese competitors. The research team are moving into a new facility at �Taskerlands�, an old Victorian mansion that has been renovated to act as their research facility. On arrival, they learn from foreman Roy Collinson (Iain Cuthbertson) that the refurbishment of one of the rooms in �Taskerlands� remains uncompleted, the builders having refused to work in it on the grounds that it is haunted. Curious, the researchers explore the room and hear the sounds of a woman running followed by a gut-wrenching scream. One of their number, computer programmer Jill Greeley (Jane Asher), sees an image of a woman running up the steps in the room and falling, apparently to her death. Inquiring with the local villagers, they learn that a young maid died in that room during Victorian times. Brock realises that somehow the stone in the room has preserved an image of the girl's death � this �stone tape� may be the key to the new recording medium that he and his team have been charged with developing. Brock and his team move into the room with their equipment hoping to be able to find the secret of how the stone tape works but, becoming more and more desperate under mounting pressure to deliver results, they only succeed in wiping the image. Brock's defeat is compounded when he is informed by his superiors that they have lost confidence in his work and that the �Taskerlands� facility is to be handed over to a rival research team working on a new washing machine. While cleaning up, Jill realises that the recording in the room was masking a much older recording, left many thousands of years ago. Returning to the room, she is confronted by a powerful, malevolent presence and, like the maid before her, falls to her death trying to escape. Following the inquest, Brock destroys all Jill's records and makes a final visit to the room where he discovers, to his horror, that the stone tape has made a new recording � that of Jill screaming his name as she dies.

Background

Nigel Kneale was a Manx television playwright who had first come to prominence in the nineteen-fifties thanks to his three Quatermass serials and his controversial adaptation of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, all of which were produced by the BBC. Going freelance in the nineteen-sixties, Kneale had produced scripts for Associated Television and for Hammer Films. In the late nineteen-sixties and early nineteen-seventies, Kneale had been coaxed back to the BBC, writing such plays as The Year of the Sex Olympics, Wine of India and, for the anthology series Out of the Unknown, The Chopper.[1]

In the middle of 1972, Christopher Morahan, who was Head of Drama at BBC2 and who had directed Kneale's 1963 play The Road and the 1965 remake of Kneale's adpatation of Nineteen Eighty-Four, approached Kneale asking him to write a play to be broadcast over the Christmas period. Accepting the commission, Kneale quickly decided that, in keeping with Christmas tradition, he would write a ghost story, but with a difference � ancient spirits would come into collision with modern science. The concept of mixing the supernatural with high technology had long been a feature of Kneale's work � most notably, his 1952 radio play You Must Listen, which concerned a telcommunications engineer who discovers that a telephone line has somehow preserved the final conversation between a woman and her lover before her suicide, was an important antecedent of The Stone Tape.[2] The science and supernatural theme is also present in Kneale's Quatermass and the Pit which, in addition, shares similar elements with The Stone Tape such as an abandoned house with a reputation for hauntings; the collection of documentary evidence of the haunting (also a trademark of M. R. James, a writer much admired by Kneale)[3] and the sensitivity of certain characters to the supernatural.[4] In addition, the relationship between the scientists and the local villagers echoes that seen in Quatermass II.[5]

For the research facility at �Taskerlands�, Kneale was influenced by a visit he had paid to the BBC's research and development facility which is based at an old country house at Kingswood Warren in Kingswood, Surrey. Similarly, the researchers working at Kingswood Warren influenced the portrayal of the members of the Ryan research team in The Stone Tape. Kneale recalled of his visit to Kingswood Warren, �The sort of impression you got of the folk who worked there was a boyishness. They were very cheerful. It was all rather fun for them, which is a very clever way to go about doing that sort of heavy research. [...] They were nice chaps � and so we got some very nice chaps for the TV version�.[6]

Kneale delivered his script, intitially titled Breakthrough and later renamed The Stone Tape, in September 1972. Because of its subject matter, it was felt that the play would be best handled as an installment of Dead of Night, a supernatural anthology series produced by Innes Lloyd. In the end, The Stone Tape was made and broadcast as a standalone programme but production was handled by the Dead of Night team under Lloyd. Selected as director was Hungarian Peter Sasdy whose credits included adaptations of The Caves of Steel and Wuthering Heights for the BBC and Taste the Blood of Dracula and Hands of the Ripper for Hammer.[7] Cast as Peter Brock was Michael Bryant, who had starred in the BBC's 1970 adaptation of Jean-Paul Sartre's Roads to Freedom and had a reputation for playing �bad boy� roles.[8][9] Jane Asher, playing Jill Greely, had, as a child, appeared in Hammer's The Quatermass Xperiment, the film adaptation of Kneale's BBC serial The Quatermass Experiment.[10] Iain Cutherberston, playing Roy Collinson, was well known for his role in Budgie and would go to become the star of Sutherland's Law[11] while Michael Bates, cast as Eddie Holmes, would later become known for his roles in the sitcoms Last of the Summer Wine and It Ain't Half Hot Mum.[12]

Recording of The Stone Tape began on 15 November 1972 with the exterior scenes of the house, �Taskerlands�.[9] These were shot at Horsley Towers, East Horsley in Surrey. This was once owned by Ada Lovelace, daughter of Lord Byron and sponsor of computer pioneer Charles Babbage.[13] Production then moved to BBC Television Centre between 20 November 1972 and 22 November 1972. Not all scenes were recorded in time and a remount was required on 4 December 1972. Michael Bates was not available on this day and his lines had to be redistributed among the other cast members. Incidental music and sound effects were provided by Desmond Briscoe of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and these proved significant in setting the mood of the play � sections were later used in a BBC educational programme on the effectivess of incidental music.[9]

The Stone Tape aired on 25 December 1972 on BBC2 to an audience of 2.6 million.[9] The Evening Standard praised the play, describing it as �one of the best plays of the genre ever written. Its virtues aren't just the main spine of the story, but the way the characters shift, as in real life, the bitter comic conflict between pure and impure science�.[14] Viewers were similarly impressed: a panel questioned for an audience report praised The Stone Tape as �thoroughly entertaining� and �both gripping and spinechilling�.[9]

The Stone Tape was one of the last plays Nigel Kneale wrote for the BBC. He had become increasingly disenchanted with the organisation, mainly as a result of the rejection of several scripts such as Cracks, a proposed Play for Today, and a fourth Quatermass serial.[15] Moving to Independent Television, he wrote and created series such as Beasts and Kinvig and succeeded in getting his rejected Quatermass scripts produced in 1979.[16] He died in 2006.

The script of The Stone Tape was published, alomg with the scripts of The Road and The Year of the Sex Olympics in 1976 by Ferret Fantasy under the title The Year of the Sex Olympics and Other TV Plays. A DVD was released by the British Film Institute in 2001 with a commentary by Nigel Kneale and critic Kim Newman, sleeve notes by Kim Newman and the script of the play as well as the script of The Road.[17]

Cultural significance

One of the first to promulgate the hypothesis of residual haunting, that ghosts may be recordings of past events made by the physical environment, was Thomas Charles Lethbridge in books such as Ghost and Ghoul, written in 1961.[18] Since the broadcast of the play, this hypothesis has come to be known as the �Stone Tape Theory� by parapsychological researchers.[19]

The Stone Tape was a significant influence on John Carpenter's 1987 film Prince of Darkness in which a group of scientists investigate a mysterious cylinder discovered in the basement of a church.[20] Besides directing the film, Carpenter wrote the screenplay under the pseudonym "Martin Quatermass", and included a reference to "Kneale University".[21] This homage did little to impress Kneale, who wrote in The Observer, �For the record I have had nothing to do with the film and I have not seen it. It sounds pretty bad. With a homage like this, one might say, who needs insults? I can only imagine that it is a whimsical riposte for my having my name removed from a film I wrote a few years ago [a reference to Halloween III for which Kneale wrote an early draft] and which Mr Carpenter carpentered into sawdust�.[22] The play also influenced the 1982 Steven Spielberg and Tobe Hooper film Poltergeist.[20]

The Stone Tape remains well-regarded to this day. Roger Fulton, writing in The Encyclopedia of TV Science Fiction, opines that it is �arguably the most creepy drama ever seen on television�.[23] The writer and critic Kim Newman regards it as �one of the masterpieces of genre television, an authentic alliance of mind-stretching science fiction concepts with horror and suspense plot mechanics�.[20] Writer and member of The League of Gentlemen, Jeremy Dyson feels that The Stone Tape �strikes a note that it just circumnavigates your intellect and gets you on a much deeper level [...] it just has this impact on you, rather like being in the room itself. Extraordinary piece of work�.[24] Writer Grant Morrison recalled The Stone Tape as �really creepy and very memorable. Just brilliant images. That scared the hell out of me!�.[24] Sergio Angelini, writing for the British Film Intitute's Screenonline, has said that �The Stone Tape stands as perhaps his finest single work in the genre�.[25] Lez Cooke, in his book British Television Drama: A History, has praised the play as �one of the most imaginative and intelligent examples of the horror genre to appear on British television, a single play to rank alongside the best of Play for Today�.[26]