Parapsychologists admit 98% of paranormal phemomena does not exist

[James Cunningham]

Parapsychologists admit the majority of paranormal is bunk

Now I have got your attention, let me show you some parapsychologists who have written that 98% or around that figure of paranormal phenomena does not exist. When I say "does not exist" I mean in the sense that they are not "paranormal". These parapsychologists have admitted the majority of paranormal cases turn out to have naturalistic explanations (fraud, hoaxes, naturalistic explanations, explained by psychological processes etc). They are admitting only 2% (or around that) of the phenomena is genuine.

Please do take note that all the names on the following list were believers. They were believers in paranormal phenomena yet they admit 98% of the paranormal phenomena does not exist and only 2% of the phenomena is genuine! None of these believers can be accused of being mean bad skeptics! Yes that's right, we have believers admitting 98% of the alleged paranormal phenomena has entirely naturalistic explanation. Us mean skeptics only have 2% to work with

None of this has been widely reported. I won't invoke conspiracy theories but it's well known that full blown believer modern parapsychologists such as Dean Radin ignore most of these older parapsychologists work.

Hereward Carrington

Carrington a leading expert in his day on the topic of mediumship in his book The Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism (1907) wrote:

Quote:

There may be much fraud in modern spiritualism, in fact, I am disposed to believe that fully 98 per cent, of the phenomena, both mental and physical, are fraudulently produced, but a careful study of the evidence, contemporary and historic, has convinced me that there must have been some genuine phenomena at the commencement of this movement, in order that the first mediums may have copied them by fraudulent means, and that a certain percentage of the phenomena occurring to-day is genuine.

So Carrington was a believer in mediumship, but was honest enough to admit 98% of the phenomena is fraudulent.

Peter Underwood

Underwood is a leading author on the topic of ghosts. He has been studying the field for over sixty years.

In his book No Common Task: The Autobiography of a Ghost-Hunter (1983) he writes 98% of ghosts and hauntings have naturalistic explanations such as misidentification/misinterpretation, hallucination, pranks etc and he is interested in the 2% of the phenomena that may be genuine.

E. Clephan Palmer

Palmer was a journalist turned psychical researcher who began to attend séances to see if the phenomena was genuine or not. In his book The Riddle of Spiritualism (1927) he came to the conclusion that 92% of mediumship and spiritualistic phenomena are fraudulent.

C. E. Bechhofer Roberts

The psychical researcher C. E. Bechhofer Roberts in his book The Truth About Spiritualism came to the conclusion after years investigation that 98% of mediumship phenomena is fraudulent. Roberts also wrote an introduction to Helena Normanton. (1945). The Trial of Mrs. Duncan claiming Duncan was a fraud who had used a secret accomplice to hide her ectoplasm. This was later proven correct as Duncan's maid and husband had confessed to hiding on her ectoplasm on different occasions.

Simeon Edmunds

Edmunds was a hypnotist, secretary of the College of Psychic Science, London, 1956-62 and a member of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR). His book Spiritualism: A Critical Survey (1966) comes to the conclusion that the majority of mediums in spiritualism have been fraudulent. Again basically supporting the 98% figure of other researchers.

Alfred Douglas

The parapsychologist and SPR member Alfred Douglas in his book Extra-Sensory Powers: A Century of Psychical Research (1982) admits that after a century of research in ESP, the verdict is non-proven!

Tony Cornell

Cornell spent over 50 years investigating the paranormal and came to the conclusion that most paranormal cases turn out to have natural explanations such as the result of fraud, pranks and misidentification. He believed after all the years into investigating paranormal phenomena only 2% may of been genuine. He discusses this in his book Investigating the Paranormal (2002). The book is also useful as it is the only book to document the fraud of the medium Alec Harris.

Ronald Pearsall

Pearsall in his book The Table-Rappers (1972) documented the fraud of mediums, but Pearsall was not a complete skeptic as he believed in telepathy. Again, his book supports the 98% of the other writers.

Henry Ridgely Evans

Henry Ridgely Evans also known as Henry R. Evans was an amateur magician and psychical researcher. His two books Hours with the Ghosts, Or, Nineteenth Century Witchcraft (1897) and The Spirit World Unmasked (1902) documented the fraud of mediums and psychics but similar to other writes he believed 2% of the phenomena (telepathy) was genuine.

Frank Podmore

Podmore a famous member of the Society for Psychical Research, known as a skeptical researcher but was not a full blown skeptic. He admitted in his books paranormal phenomena have naturalistic explanations. He debunked fraudulent mediums in his books, but in his book Telepathic Hallucinations: The New View of Ghosts (1909) he accepted telepathy may exist. Reading his books and you realise the majority of parapsychological experiments have contained flaws and he makes it clear many paranormal cases are in fact not paranormal and have rather simple explanations.

Donald West

British psychologist and psychical researcher. Known for his book Psychical Research Today (1953, 1962) which accepted psychological explanations for most paranormal phenomena (over 90%) but also endorsed ESP.

Guy Christian Lambert

Lambert a past present of the SPR proposed a geophysical naturalistic explanation for alleged cases of ghosts and poltergeist activity which he believed results from the activity of underground water and other factors possibly causing the house to vibrate and move objects. Did not publish a book, but wrote SPR articles. It's clear he believed 98% or there abouts of paranormal phenomena to have naturalistic explanations. He also wrote a rationalist interpretation of the alleged levitation of D. D. Home (which was exposed as a hoax by other researchers).

Hilary Evans

I have not read all his books but from the description and reviews of some of his books such as Gods, Spirits, Cosmic Guardians (1987) it's clear he takes a psychological interpretation to most paranormal phenomena.

Nandor Fodor

Fodor was a psychologist and author of the book The Haunted Mind: A Psychoanalyst Looks at the Supernatural (1959). Critic of the spiritualists, he became more critical in his later years. Interpreted the majority cases of paranormal phenomena in naturalistic psychological terms.

William McDougall

McDougall was a psychologist most well-known for his neo-Lamarckian experiments on rats. Was a firm believer in ESP, but became more critical in his later years. Did not believe in the majority of paranormal phenomena.

C. D. Broad

Broad a philosopher who took interest in parapsychology. Its clear Broad did not accept the majority of paranormal claims. It's hard to make sense of his views. He wrote psi contradicts science, but elsewhere seems to have embraced some sort of psi hypothesis for consciousness surviving death. I find it strange that Chris Carter and some recent parapsychologists quote mines Broad. I don't see anywhere in his works Broad actually admitting psi has been scientifically proven.

Andrew Lang

Lang was en early SPR member and past president. He was mostly skeptical of paranormal claims and was interested in their folklore but it's clear he did believe in some phenomena. He is most famous to skeptics for actually admitting Leonora Piper was a cold reader. Lang also wrote the book Cock Lane and Common-Sense (1894) a rationalistic look at ghosts. The book has been cited by skeptics such as Daniel Loxton.

Michael Schmicker

Schmicker is a more recent parapsychologist. He is the author of the book Best Evidence: An Investigative Reporter's Three-Year Quest to Uncover the Best Scientific Evidence for ESP, Psychokinesis, Mental Healing, Ghosts and Poltergeists, Dowsing, Mediums, Near Death Experiences, Reincarnation, and Other Impossible Phenomena That Refuse to Disappear (2002) which claims 98% of the paranormal cases turn out to have naturalistic explanations and only 2% of the phenomena is actually genuine.

So you can see from the above list that many parapschologists are not as credulous as the modern ones. Most modern parapsychologists such as Dean Radin and Charles Tart are claiming 98% of the paranormal does exist and that only 2% have naturalistic explanation. As you can see the figures have clearly turned round in parapsychology. Most of the modern pseudo-parapsychologists have not even read their own field.

Please note I have not included Susan Blackmore, Michael Goss, John Taylor or Eric Dingwall on the list, they were past parapsychologists who left the field after realising all paranormal phenomena they studied did not exist.

So skeptics only have 2% of "paranormal" phenomena to debunk, as the believers admit 98% of it is bogus.

We should be celebrating

The woo-believers won't like this thread.

[RecoveringYuppy]

Does "Ninety-eight percent of the people [psychics other than himself] are kooks." count?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McMoneagle

[dlorde]

I think what they really mean is that only 2% of reports remain unexplained.

If all reports have mundane causes, I'd expect a small percentage to remain in doubt. If anything, 2% is less than I'd expect...

[James Cunningham]

Originally Posted by RecoveringYuppy

Does "Ninety-eight percent of the people [psychics other than himself] are kooks." count?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McMoneagle

Thanks for this. I had never heard of this fraud. Brian Dunning has an interesting article on him http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4044

It's not surprising to me that the only supporters of McMoneagle are Dean Radin and Charles Tart. Radin is a pseudoscientist:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Radin

Quote:

Radin's books have received negative reviews from skeptics and scientists. A critical review of The Conscious Universe was published by the British mathematician I. J. Good in Nature. Good discovered flaws in Radin's method for evaluating the file-drawer effect and wrote the book avoided to mention evidence of fraud in parapsychology. Victor J. Stenger also made a criticism of the book reflecting Good's arguments, arguing that Radin did not perform the file-drawer analysis correctly, made fundamental errors in his calculations and ignored possible, non-paranormal explanations for the data. Scientists have rejected Radin's paranormal claims and have written he has embraced pseudoscience and misunderstands the nature of science.

[s4zando]

If one-in-fifty paranormal claims are taken to be 100% paranormal in origin, I remain unimpressed by their 'admission.'

[George 152]

Originally Posted by dlorde

I think what they really mean is that only 2% of reports remain unexplained.

.

Probably because no-one could be bothered

[James Cunningham]

Here's another one I missed:

Harry Price in his book Fifty Years of Psychical Research (1939) writes:

Quote:

Not a single case of materialization, levitation, ectoplasm or teleplasm, telekinesis, apport phenomena, transfiguration, spirit lights, psychic breezes, spirit photographs and paintings, slate-writing, voice or trumpet phenomena, spirit writing, ghosts, spirits, hauntings or Poltergeists, has been observed under conditions that would satisfy orthodox science.

Consequently, orthodox science does not believe in them. Not one of the above phenomena can be produced-or has been produced-at all by any person claiming psychic powers under such conditions of control as would satisfy, say, a panel of Fellows of the Royal Society. Not a single alleged paranormal rap has been heard under such conditions as would satisfy orthodoxy that normality was ruled out.

The same can be said for mental phenomena of the seance room. Telepathy, thought-transference, thought-reading, clairvoyance, psychometry, billet-reading, and the rest of the extra-sensory phenomena simply do not exist - and never have existed - for the scientific orthodoxy.

Telepathy and clairvoyance cannot yet be demonstrated at will in the laboratory and there is no scientific proof for such faculties, in spite of the fact that many thousands of experiments have been made by hundreds of investigators who have been trying to prove the existence of these supposed phenomena.

Excellent quote. Back in the day honest parapsychologists existed

[Ersby]

Originally Posted by James Cunningham

Excellent quote. Back in the day honest parapsychologists existed

They definitely still exist. In fact, I'd say throughout most of the history of parapsychology/psychical research, most of the best debunking papers have been from other parapsychologists.

[James Cunningham]

Originally Posted by Ersby

They definitely still exist. In fact, I'd say throughout most of the history of parapsychology/psychical research, most of the best debunking papers have been from other parapsychologists.

Can you give some examples Ersby? Ray Hyman has an interesting article in which he says Dean Radin has written the results from psi research are as consistent by the same standards as any other scientific discipline but many parapsychologists such as Dick Bierman, Walter Lucadou, J.E. Kennedy, and Robert Jahn disagree with that opinion and openly admit the evidence for psi is "inconsistent, irreproducible, and fails to meet acceptable scientific standards."

Source: Ray Hyman. (2008). Anomalous Cognition? A Second Perspective. Skeptical Inquirer. Volume 32.

Online: http://www.csicop.org/si/show/anomal...d_perspective/

[Ersby]

Well, there you go, there’s four right there. Certainly Beirman and Kennedy are on the list. Kennedy, especially, has some pretty strong arguments against using meta-analysis. Caroline Watt and Betty Markwick (who has a new paper about Soal about to be published) are two others. Beloff, Palmer and Stanford have all written in depth about parapsychology, criticising whenever necessary.

George Hansen, too, even if he did come up with the “Trickster” argument (that states that psi may be actively evasive. Not a theory I have much time for) is still worth listening too. He was the guy who found the problem of sound from the target video leaking through to the subject’s headphones in the PRL Ganzfeld experiments.

Those are the ones off the top of my head.

[James Cunningham]

Ersby,

I will give you some opposite examples.

We all known Samuel Soal was a fraud. But when skeptics such as D. H. Rawcliffe author of Illusions and Delusions of the Supernatural and the Occult (1959) and George Price author of the paper Science and the Supernatural (1955) accused Soal of fraud there was an uproar from the parapsychology community who quickly turned to defend Soal and attack Rawcliffe and Price.

Price's paper can be found online here: http://www.psyscape.com/Papers/2%20M...pernatural.pdf

It turns out the skeptics were right all a long, Soal indeed was a fraud. But it wasn't until the 1970's that other parapsychologists would accept this.

Markwick, B. (1978). "The Soal-Goldney experiments with Basil Shackleton: new evidence of data manipulation." Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, 56, 250-280.

Medhurst, R. G. (1971). "The Origin of the Prepared Random Numbers Used in the Shackleton Experiments." Journal of the Society for Psychical Research. 46: 44-45.

You can read about it here:

http://www.skepdic.com/soalgoldney.html

As for Soal's other fraud, you have covered it on your blog.

http://ersby.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/...her-fraud.html

According to Wikipedia:

Quote:

In 1925, Samuel Soal claimed to have taken part in a series of séances with the medium Blanche Cooper who contacted the spirit of a soldier Gordon Davis and revealed the house that he had lived in. Researchers later discovered fraud as the séances had taken place in 1922, not 1925. The magician and paranormal investigator Bob Couttie revealed that Davis was alive, Soal lived close to him and had altered the records of the sittings after checking out the house. Soal's co-workers knew that he had fiddled the results but were kept quiet with threats of libel suits.

How many parapsychology books mention Soal's fraud with Blanche Cooper? None. Only skeptic books do. I don't see much evidence of parapsychologists debunking each other's experiments. They have to wait for the skeptics to do the work for them. For example Ray Hyman found all the flaws and issues of sensory leakage in the ganzfeld and autoganzfeld experiments:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganzfeld_experiment

If it wasn't for a skeptic like Hyman then parapsychologists would probably be claiming those experiments were genuine today. Like I said above it seems to be skeptics doing most of the debunking (I gave examples in this thread of parapsychologists from the past who have done debunking) but I don't know of hardly any recent ones. The modern day parapsychology community seems to be beyond credulous.

[James Cunningham]

Quote:

Caroline Watt and Betty Markwick (who has a new paper about Soal about to be published) are two others. Beloff, Palmer and Stanford have all written in depth about parapsychology, criticising whenever necessary.

I have read Caroline Watt's paper:

There is nothing paranormal about near-death
experiences: how neuroscience can explain seeing
bright lights, meeting the dead, or being convinced
you are one of them

http://www.koestler-parapsychology.p...bbsWattNDE.pdf

It's good but it's no different than what the skeptics have been saying since the 1980s. See for example Ronald Siegel. (1980). The Psychology of Life after Death. American Psychologist 35: 911–31.

The skeptics have got everything correct on parapsychology, the parapsychologists sometimes just tag along

[Ersby]

Originally Posted by James Cunningham

Ersby,

I will give you some opposite examples.

We all known Samuel Soal was a fraud. But when skeptics such as D. H. Rawcliffe author of Illusions and Delusions of the Supernatural and the Occult (1959) and George Price author of the paper Science and the Supernatural (1955) accused Soal of fraud there was an uproar from the parapsychology community who quickly turned to defend Soal and attack Rawcliffe and Price.

This is true, and an excellent and fascinating example of how people react when faced with evidence that goes against their world view. But it is not a reaction unique to parapyschologists.

Let's not forget that the people who really kept digging into the Soal case were believers in psi: Christopher Scott (although he was so disillusioned by Soal's fruad, he became a skeptic and left parapsychology) and Betty Markwick.

Quote:

How many parapsychology books mention Soal's fraud with Blanche Cooper? None.

Not many skeptic books do either, as far as I know. I found out about it by reading a book review in the Journal of the Society of Psychical Research. Hardly headline news.

Quote:

For example Ray Hyman found all the flaws and issues of sensory leakage in the ganzfeld and autoganzfeld experiments

No, George Hansen found them. Ray Hyman included them in his paper.

Quote:

Like I said above it seems to be skeptics doing most of the debunking (I give examples in this thread of parapsychologists from the past of have done debunking) but I don't know of hardly any recent ones.

Give me a few minutes: I'll put a list together.

[James Cunningham]

Quote:

George Hansen, too, even if he did come up with the “Trickster” argument (that states that psi may be actively evasive. Not a theory I have much time for) is still worth listening too. He was the guy who found the problem of sound from the target video leaking through to the subject’s headphones in the PRL Ganzfeld experiments.

I have had many email-exchanges with Hansen, was even going to attend a lecture he hosted once. It's hard to understand his position. I understand he has also pointed out flaws in remote viewing experiments, unfortunately he ruins his credibility by claiming fraudulent mediums such as Eusapia Palladino and Leonora Piper were genuine:

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/George_P._Hansen

He's lectured with Shannon Taggart spiritualist who claims ectoplasm is real. He also misquotes people. Check out his quote-mining of the magician Julien Proskauer.

[James Cunningham]

Quote:

No, George Hansen found them. Ray Hyman included them in his paper.

I have never heard this before. I would love to see a source for this.

Quote:

Not many skeptic books do either, as far as I know. I found out about it by reading a book review in the Journal of the Society of Psychical Research. Hardly headline news.

I agree, not many do but at least some do. I learnt about it in the book by the magician Bob Couttie Forbidden Knowledge: The Paranormal Paradox published in 1988.

A mostly forgotten book, it also contains a chapter debunking the tricks of Uri Geller and fraudulent mediums. It's the only book to contain the quote in full of a séance sitter Frederick Merrifield who caught Daniel Dunglas Home in fraud. (It was originally published in an SPR journal, but they are hard to obtain).

[Ersby]

Originally Posted by James Cunningham

It's the only book to contain the quote in full of a séance sitter Frederick Merrifield who caught Daniel Dunglas Home in fraud. (It was originally published in an SPR journal, but they are hard to obtain).

Do you have a reference? I can get hold of it.

[Brian-M]

I assume that the figure of 98% contains a 5% margin of error.

[Ersby]

Originally Posted by James Cunningham

I have never heard this before. I would love to see a source for this.

The sound leakage problem was mentioned in Psi Communication in the Ganzfeld by Honorton et al in the JoP in 1990. In later interviews, George said he was the one to find the problem.

As for parapsychologists’ honesty...

Markwick, Scott: found evidence for Soal changing the results in his experiments

Kennedy: criticises use of meta-analyses in parapsychology and helped uncover Levy’s fraud when working at the Rhine Centre.

Beirman: debunked Sheldrake’s remote staring experiment.

Hansen: discovered the sound leakage problem in the PRL autoganzfeld experiments

Moreman: debunked (or, at the very least, seriously weakened) the Cross Correspondences

Wiklund: has written on the ganzfeld and also, I think, on Bem’s precognitive habituation.

Stanford: wrote a lengthy piece on the ganzfeld (back in the 1980s) criticising some of the methods and statistics.

Beloff wrote Parapsychology: A Concise History, which is still the best introduction to parapsychology, whether you believe in psi or not.

Parker criticised Sargent’s ganzfeld work and even Jessica Utts co-wrote a paper critical of PEAR’s remote viewing experiments.

[James Cunningham]

Originally Posted by Ersby

Do you have a reference? I can get hold of it.

The reference is mentioned on Wikipedia. One of the guys (an ex-magician called Kazuba) who edited Wikipedia added that reference a few years ago. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Dunglas_Home

Merrifield statement appears as A Sitting With D. D. Home, Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 11 (May 1903): pages 76-80.

Hansen in his book lists the reference as:

[Merrifield, F.]. (1903). A Sitting With D. D. Home. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, 11: 76–80

As does Bob Couttie. So it is clearly the correct reference.

Couttie is the only writer to have included the statement in full. Elsewhere is just chopped-up quote mines.

It's mentioned in The Sorcerer of Kings by Gordon Stein.

Here's Joseph McCabe. (1920). Spiritualism: A Popular History from 1847. Dodd, Mead and Company. pp. 110-112.

Quote:

A Mr. Merrifield was present at one of the sittings. Home's usual phenomena were messages, the moving of objects (presumably at a distance), and the playing of an accordion which he held with one hand under the shadow of the table. But from an early date in America he had been accustomed occasionally to "materialise" hands (as it was afterwards called). The sitters would, in the darkness, faintly see a ghostly hand and arm, or they might feel the touch of an icy limb. Mr. Merrifield and the other sitters saw a "spirit-hand" stretch across the faintly lit space of the window. But Mr. Merrifield says that Home sat, or crouched, low in a low chair, and that the "spirit-hand" was a false limb on the end of Home's arm. At other times, he says, he saw that Home was using his foot."

It's a definite case of fraud. Merrifield's wife also confirmed she witnessed deception. The exposure was not widely reported and only appears in skeptical books.

[James Cunningham]

Quote:

The sound leakage problem was mentioned in Psi Communication in the Ganzfeld by Honorton et al in the JoP in 1990. In later interviews, George said he was the one to find the problem.

As for parapsychologists’ honesty...

Markwick, Scott: found evidence for Soal changing the results in his experiments

Kennedy: criticises use of meta-analyses in parapsychology and helped uncover Levy’s fraud when working at the Rhine Centre.

Beirman: debunked Sheldrake’s remote staring experiment.

Hansen: discovered the sound leakage problem in the PRL autoganzfeld experiments

Moreman: debunked (or, at the very least, seriously weakened) the Cross Correspondences

Wiklund: has written on the ganzfeld and also, I think, on Bem’s precognitive habituation.

Stanford: wrote a lengthy piece on the ganzfeld (back in the 1980s) criticising some of the methods and statistics.

Beloff wrote Parapsychology: A Concise History, which is still the best introduction to parapsychology, whether you believe in psi or not.

Parker criticised Sargent’s ganzfeld work and even Jessica Utts co-wrote a paper critical of PEAR’s remote viewing experiments.

Excellent thanks for this. I had not heard of some of these. I did a search on this forum for Moreman, It came up with an old post you did in 2011:

Quote:

I know of only two attempts at examining the cross correspondences critically. Once was in 1911, with “The Element of Chance in Cross-Correspondences” by Helen de G. Verrall, JSPR 15 and in 2003 “A re-examination of the possibility of chance coincidence as an alternative explanation for mediumistic communication in the cross-correspondences” by Christopher M. Moreman, JSPR 67

I didn't know these sources existed, I am an expert at old skeptical literature. I don't know much about SPR journals. I am not a fan of the SPR.

Anyway, there are skeptics who have debunked the cross correspondences, this books have been ignored.

See the chapter Chapter Mrs. Leonard and Others in Edward Clodd. (1917). The Question: A Brief History and Examination of Modern Spiritualism. Grant Richards, London. pp. 215-241.

Online here: https://archive.org/stream/questioni...ge/n5/mode/2up

There's also pp. 170 - 203 in Joseph McCabe. (1920). Spiritualism: A Popular History from 1847. Dodd, Mead and Company.

Online here: https://archive.org/stream/spiritual...ge/n5/mode/2up

There's also Dr. Charles Arthur Mercier's book Spirit Experiences (1919). It costs around $200 and I have only seen it on amazon once. Chances of getting hold of it are slim, but Mercier published Spiritualism and Sir Oliver Lodge printed by London: Mental Culture Enterprise in 1917.

The book is a debunking of the fraudulent medium Gladys Osborne Leonard, and the "Raymond" communications with the credulous spiritualist Oliver Lodge. Also has a chapter on Leonora Piper's errors.

It is online here: https://archive.org/stream/spiritual...ge/n3/mode/2up

For something more recent, the magician John Booth gave an entirely naturalistic explanation for the cross correspondences in his book Psychic Paradoxes (1986). I have not read the book in a while, I believed he suggested unconscious fraud. The best evidence I have read against the cross correspondences was by Joseph McCabe. It amazes me how people have been duped by such nonsense.

Chris Carter claims they are the best evidence for an afterlife.

[James Cunningham]

Erbsy,

I will give you other examples of parapsychologists ignoring evidence of fraud. Go onto Google books and type in "Creery sisters" "confessed" the results shown only skeptical books i.e. by Trevor Hall, Ray Hyman, Harry Price, Gordon Stein, Barry Wiley, Eric Dingwall, Paul Kurtz and Frank Podmore that mention their confession. Not a single spiritualist book mentions the Creery sisters... lol!

The Creery Sisters (Mary, Alice, Maud, Kathleen, and Emily) were tested in 1881 by the psychical researchers William Barrett, Frederic Myers, and Edmund Gurney of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) and announced them to have genuine psychic ability however, during a test in 1888 they were caught utilizing signals codes and they confessed to fraud. They had duped psychical researchers, there are many cases of this. A large embarrassment to the SPR so the psi and spiritualist believers ignore mentioning it in their publications... lol.

The same thing happened with the fraud of Samuel Soal. Dean Radin avoids mentioning Soal in his book The Conscious Universe.

If you want another example look up Anna Eva Fay, she was a stage mentalist/medium who managed to trick William Crookes into believing she had genuine psychic powers.

Fay confessed how she had performed her tricks to both Eric Dingwall and Harry Houdini. Look up Anna Eva Fay as no spiritualist books mention her and certainly not her confession only skeptical books do.

Many other examples can be given. You don't see skeptics doing this, only paranormal believers because they ignore evidence against their beliefs. The parapsychology/spiritualist community is corrupt. If you spend time reading dishonest believer publications and then comparing them to the honest skeptical ones you would see their lies. The skeptics are not scared to report the truth and they don't ignore things like the believers do.

If you want even more solid proof that believers deliberately filter out any evidence of fraud, then go onto Google books and look up Helen Duncan's former maid "Mary McGinlay". She published a confession that she helped make Duncan's cheesecloth ectoplasm, but this confession is only mentioned in skeptical books such as by psychical researchers Simeon Edmunds, C. E. Bechhofer Roberts and Harry Price, as well as skeptics such as Paul Kurtz. Not a single parapsychology or spiritualist book mentions the confession.

The same thing happened with Harvey Metcalfe during a séance in 1928, in which he took photographs of Helen Duncan's puppet face "spirits". Metcalfe is not mentioned in most spiritualist books. The user "Open Mind" from the Mind-Energy forum spins a conspiracy theory that the photographs were taken by the British Intelligence or CIA to frame Duncan, he ignores that they were taken by Metcalfe (a spiritualist). I have in the past sent him pictures of Duncan's ectoplasm like this:



The above photograph was taken in Harry Price's test laboratory, "Open Mind" has no response, he then says he has no definite opinion on the subject and that Duncan may or may not of been a fraud... The evidence is right there, she was a fraud! Her ectoplasm was indeed analysed to be made from cheesecloth by Price, William Brown and a group of researchers. Yet spiritualists still sit on blogs and forums claiming Duncan was genuine. It gets to the point where you just give up on believers. They have no interest in the truth.

The photographs that depict Duncan at her house with Dolls can be traced to Dundee press photographer W. M. Scott who showed the photographs to Esson Maule at the Edinburgh Psychic College. Esson Maule later showed the pictures to J. B. McIndoe who borrowed the photographs from Scott. Harry Price printed the photographs in one of his books. This is when the pictures became more wider known. This can be confirmed if you read page 153 in Hellish Nell by Malcolm Gaskill. But as explained above that isn't the full story.

The photographs were taken by a spiritualist called Harvey Metcalfe and they were taken in 1928 at the house of Duncan. The photographs ARE Duncan.

Malcolm Gaskill in his book Hellish Nell (2001) states:

Quote:

A great task lay ahead. Every Thursday, and sometimes twice a week, Helen laboured for many months to shape the diaphanous ectoplasm around otherwise invisible spirits, so that their sprawling and wobbling forms gradually grew in size and definition, thereby perfecting a performance which had been merely impressive but now became absolutely startling. Invitations were extended to selected guests. On numerous occasions in 1928, amateur photographer Harvey Metcalfe visited and, convinced by what he saw, arranged with the spirit guide Albert to take the earliest known flash photographs of the materialized spirits. As Walter had done. Albert gave directions and would not allow pictures to be taken until the medium was ready. Of about fifty glass positives taken by Metcalfe, a handful survive showing Helen sturdily seated, wearing a velour dress and a protective blindfold.

Everyone has seen the hilarious photographs of Duncan depicting puppet-like masks. How do spiritualists get round this? They are not in agreement with each other. The spiritualist Open Mind employs a conspiracy in which he says the photographs are not really of Duncan but of a Duncan look-a-like set up by the CIA to make Duncan look bad. This is in opposition to other spiritualists and has no evidence to support it.

In his book, The Story of Helen Duncan (1975), spiritualist Alan Crossley gives us more information on the photographs from Metcalfe with whom he was in contact with:

Quote:

Mr Harvey Metcalfe, F.C.I.S., took a personal interest in Mrs Duncan’s mediumship and its development from the beginning and I am grateful to him for providing the four plates depicting some of the very first experimental materializations to manifest. It should be stressed, however, that these ectoplasmic formations do not represent deceased persons but are produced primarily as an exercise in manipulating and controlling the flow of ectoplasm from the medium.

Crossley tried to get round the evidence of fraud by claiming they were test "exercises" but he still claims the photograph depicts genuine ectoplasm (what he says makes no sense and does help Duncan, he's was not honest to admit Duncan was a fraud and would resort to anything to defend her). Now lets look at the photographs of these puppets:



Clearly not real ectoplasm. It's clearly a doll made from a painted papier-mache mask draped in an old sheet. This was later stated in a confession by Duncan's maid. There is no conspiracy. Other witness reports claim to have seen puppets in Duncan's séance.

So that's two nutty spiritualist theories employed to defend Duncan when all available evidence points to her being a fraud. The spiritualists will not give in, they will invent all kinds of lies and conspiracy theories to defend their mediums. That is not all. It turns out there is another spiritualist theory to why Duncan's ectoplasm looks like dolls (without just admitting they are dolls).

The spiritualist Michael E. Tymn claims that for ectoplasm to be produced the spirit must communicate through the medium telepathically and give the medium a good picture of him or himself. Tymn says the photographs only look like dolls is because the spirits forgot what they looked like when they were communicating with Duncan so they came out with those puppet faces. Unfortunately Tymn is not trolling, he genuine believes this.

Some information about Tymn here:

He claims practically every fraudulent medium was genuine:

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Michael_E._Tymn

So no matter the evidence the majority of these modern parapsychologists and spiritualists will go on believing, even though all their beliefs contradict each other and they have no evidence. It is a case of true-believer syndrome:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True-believer_syndrome

Randi has commented "no amount of evidence, no matter how good it is or how much there is of it, is ever going to convince the true believer to the contrary.

And yes, Chris Carter, John Beloff and Dean Radin have defended Duncan. Most parapsychologists have thankfully admitted she was a fraud. But there are many other cases where parapsychologists go on believing when all the evidence points the other way.

[wakawakawaka]

only 98%? well thats a good start for parapsychologists

[Ersby]

Oh, I don't disagree that there are some (more vocal) proponents who ignore (or even support) work that's already been debunked, but that doesn't mean that there are no honest parapsychologists.

Anyway, thanks for the discussion. Sorry I didn't give as many references as I usually do - I was mostly typing from memory. Here is the article from the May 1903 issue of the JSPR about D.D.Home you mentioned earlier.

--------------------

A SITTING WITH D. D. HOME.

THE Journal for January, 1903, contained a reprint of some letters from Mr. and Mrs. Browning relating to sittings held with Home at Baling in 1855, and a reference to an account by Mr. Merrifield (of 24 Vernon Terrace, Brighton), of one of the same series of sittings, written in 1889 and printed in the Journal, Vol. IV., pp. 120-1, where it is spoken of as representing a recollection 84 years old.

Mr. Merrifield has since found an account of the sitting which he wrote a few weeks after it took place, and he writes to us (February 13th, 1903):

The observation that the account I gave in 1889 represented a recollection 34 years old is a very fair one; in consequence of it I have taken some pains to search for and find an account of the occurrence which I wrote in August, 1855, i.e. a few weeks afterwards, and I now give extracts from that account, comprising all that relates to the appearance of the "spirit hand," and the description of the room and situation in which it appeared. They are as follows :

"After an hour or two spent in general conversation, during which marvellous tales were related of the conviction wrought by these manifestations in the minds of many persons eminent in literature and science, whose visits had preceded mine, we took our seats—about fourteen in number—round a circular table in a room, the floor of which was on a level with the lawn, and communicated with it by two windows opening to the ground. [Then follows mention of the heaving up of the table, tapping, playing an accordéon under the table, plucking of dresses, and patting of knees, etc., but not of any " spirit hands " at that time.]

" Just as we were on the point of taking our leave, the medium professed his readiness to give us another sitting. Accordingly, we took our places at the side of the table, the medium occupying the extreme right, and a constant associate of his sitting opposite to him. I sat nearly halfway between them, and therefore facing the windows. The table was circular, and the semi-circle nearest the window was unoccupied. The lights were removed, and very soon the operations began. It was about eleven o'clock; the moon had set, but the night was starlight, and we could well see the outline of the windows and distinguish, though not with accuracy of outline, the form of any large object intervening before them. The medium sat as low as possible in his low seat. His hands and arms were under the table. He talked freely, encouraging conversation, and seeming uneasy when that flagged. After a few preliminary raps somebody exclaimed that the 'spirit hand' had appeared, and the next moment an object resembling a child's hand with a long wide sleeve attached to it, appeared before the light. This occurred several times. The object appeared mainly at one or other of two separate distances from the medium. One of these distances was just that of his foot, the other that of his outstretched hand ; and when the object receded or approached I noticed that the medium's body or shoulder sank or rose in his chair accordingly. This was pretty conclusive to myself and the friend who accompanied me; but afterwards, upon the invitation of one of the dupes present, the 'spirit hand' rose so high that we saw the whole connection between the medium's shoulder and arm, and the 'spirit hand' dressed out on the end of his own."

I think it will be seen that in all material particulars the two accounts are identical. Though my memory is an irregular, and therefore not always a trustworthy one, I am not surprised that it should have proved retentive and accurate in this case, for it was one in which the lady who accompanied me, to whom I was then engaged, and who not long afterwards became my wife, was intensely interested on account of some to whom she was deeply attached, who had come to be believers in Home, and I was keenly interested also.

The only point of difference between the two accounts, as it seems to me, is that in the contemporaneous one the windows are described as two, while all through the later account I speak of "window" in the singular. There is no discrepancy in the statement of the circumstances under which the exhibition of the " spirit hand " was made, for I well remember that it was not by Home himself, but by some of the rest of the party that we were told that it was not yet dark enough, and we must wait until the moon had set.

At what time the lights were brought in I do not remember. There is a small correction, perhaps, to be made as to the number of the assembled guests—"about fourteen";—according to the contemporaneous narrative that was the number who sat round the table in the earlier part of the evening—I could now give the names of most of them—but there were probably fewer when the " horse-shoe " or " semi-circle " was formed. The nature of the connection between Home's person and the "spirit hand" is described in more definite terms in the later narrative, and it always presents itself to my memory in that form.

There is another observation of some importance to be made, which is that at the time when the contemporaneous account was written I was seeing my wife almost daily, and she saw and approved the account, in which it will be observed that it is stated "we saw" the connection of the medium's person with the "spirit hand," so that in fact the narrative does not rest on the evidence of a single witness.

Mr. Merrifield's daughter writes to us that she has seen the original record of the sitting made on August 18th, 1855, and compared it with the extract sent to us, which she certifies to be an exact copy. The sitting took place in July, 1855.

The close correspondence in all essentials between these two accounts, written at an interval of more than 30 years, is very remarkable, and suggests that great care was taken in the original observations for them to have been so clearly impressed on the memory. The mythopoeic tendency—which in this case would naturally have taken the form of exaggerating the evidence for fraud—seems to have been entirely absent, for the suspicious circumstances described in the later account are quite as conspicuous in the earlier one.

The continuity between " the spirit hand " and the body of the medium is a feature that also appears conspicuously in the case of Eusapia Paladino, or at least the absence of such continuity has never, we believe, been demonstrated in her case. In Professor Richet's report in the Annales des Sciences Psychiques (Jan.-Feb., 1893) the hand is described (pp. 21-22) as appearing once above the medium's head and once behind her back. On both these occasions it was markedly different in appearance from the hand of the medium, and it was seen in a bad light and only for a moment. Again, in the Eeport of the Milan Commission in the same Annales (pp. 54-55) the hand was seen in profile against a luminous screen; two hands were seen together held up against a window, and Mr. Aksakoff twice observed against the faint light of the window something like an arm coming from the side of the medium, and then something large and round, like a head— not black and opaque, as in a case observed by another sitter, but half transparent and cloudy and of an indefinite colour. The position of this object in relation to the arm is not described, and probably was not visible, owing to the bad light.

A similar phenomenon is described in the report of the sittings that took place at the house of Colonel de Eochas in September, 1895 (see the Annales des Sciences Psychiques Jan.-Feb., 1896, pp. 35-36). One of the sitters saw a black silhouette, like the shadow of a head, against an illuminated -portion of the wall. It looked to him flat, as if cut out of cardboard ; it moved to the right and then back again. He afterwards saw a long thin fore-arm and hand against the same illuminated background, the upper part of the arm being lost in the shadow. From the description, it seems that both these objects appeared in close proximity to the medium.

Sir Oliver Lodge also (see Journal, Vol. VI., pp. 320-321 and 329) describes " processes or apparent protuberances from the medium's body "—an " appearance as of extra limbs " seen in a very dim light in some of his sittings with Eusapia in July, 1894; these were either actually continuous with her body or at least very close to it. Similar phenomena occurred at the Cambridge sittings in August and September, 189~5.

It is hardly necessary to remark that the continuity of the " spirit " limbs with the body of the medium is prima facie a circumstance strongly suggestive of fraud.

[Iamme]

I happened to think of this after seeing ad on tv tonight about the return of David Blaine. Is his ability to levitate in the 98% range or 2% range?

[dafydd]

Originally Posted by Iamme

I happened to think of this after seeing ad on tv tonight about the return of David Blaine. Is his ability to levitate in the 98% range or 2% range?

It's in the entertaimnent range. Surely you don't think that he can levitate?

[Iamme]

Originally Posted by dafydd

It's in the entertaimnent range. Surely you don't think that he can levitate?

No, for these reasons: i dont believe he has offered even a convaluted explanation say to the physics of it or that he incorporates devices on his body that he uses to do this. And nobody else can do it. (Well, maybe Chriss Angel can?). And.....if he could really do this he`d be in the news, scientists would be studying him, he` be worth billions, and he`d probably be abducted by someone by now...someone or some country wanting to study him. Stuff like that.

[James Cunningham]

Well done Ersby, excellent work. I have stored a copy. I am amazed that spiritualists on paranormal forums and in books still claim Home was never caught in fraud.

Fraud was caught in fraud six times, here are a few others:

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Daniel_Dunglas_Home

Quote:

The poet Robert Browning and his wife Elisabeth attended a séance on 23, July 1855 in Ealing with the Rymers. During the séance a spirit face materialized which Home claimed was the son of Browning who had died in infancy. Browning seized the "materialization" and discovered it to be the bare foot of Home. Browning had never lost a son in infancy. Browning's son Robert in a letter to the London Times, December 5, 1902 referred to the incident "Home was detected in a vulgar fraud".

The journalist Delia Logan attended a séance with Home in London and during the séance Home positioned himself near a staircase where luminous hands were seen to appear every few minutes. The host of the séance noticed Home had placed a small bottle upon a mantle piece and then slipped the bottle into his pocket, upon examination the bottle was found to contain phosphorus oil.

Quote:

Count Petrovsky Petrovo-Solovo described séances in which Home was caught using his feet to create supposed spirit effects. Home wore thin shoes, easy to take off and draw on, and also cut socks that left the toes free. "At the appropriate moment he takes off one of his shoes and with his foot pulls a dress here, a dress there, rings a bell, knocks one way and another, and, the thing done, quickly puts his shoe on again". Home held a séance at Court, positioning himself between Eugénie de Montijo and Napoleon III. One of the séance sitters known as General Felury suspected Home was utilizing trickery and asked to leave but returned unobserved to watch from another door behind Home. He saw Home slip his foot from his shoe and touch the arm of the Empress, who believed it to be one of her dead children. The observer stepped forward and revealed the fraud, and Home was conducted out of the country. "The order was to keep the incident secret."

Many thanks to David for creating the rationalwiki article, he is a German psychical researcher and spiritualist debunker. He was going to assist me on replicating the accordion experiment with D. D. Home but we never got funding.

Ersby you should check out the stage mentalist Anna Eva Fay:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Eva_Fay

Fay duped Crookes into believing she had psychic powers but confessed her fraud to Houdini. She had cheated on the galvanometer test, which was similar to another galvanometer test William Crookes performed with the fraudulent medium Florence Cook.

A psychical researcher in the 1960s? Attempted to duplicate the galvanometer tests of Florence Cook and wrote his results in an SPR journal.

Christopher J. Stephenson*, a member of the SPR, performed an extensive investigation of the Cromwell Varley-Florence Cook galvanometer séance.

His paper:

C. J. Stephenson "further comments on crimwell varley's electrical test on Florence cook" PSPR, vol. 54 part 198 (april 1966) pp. 363-417.

Not read it... but he came to a weird conclusion.

Also a paper by C. D. Broad:

A paper by C. D. Broad "Cromwell Varley's Electrical Tests with Florence Cook" PSPR, vol. 54 part 195 (march 1964) pp. 158-172

Please have a read of this:

Barry Wiley on Florence Cook and Anna Eva Fay

Magic historian Barry Wiley has a different view on the Fay electrical tests. He says she utilised a secret accomplice Charles Henry Gimingham (1853-90), an assistant of Crookes who had built the experimental apparatus. I won't go over this the user DoomMetal already covered it in his thread on D. D. Home. I have had email communications with DoomMetal I disagree with some of his conclusions, he is a supporter of the accomplice theory (I am not).

Massimo Polidoro claims Fay did not need a secret accomplice and she confessed to her fraud. I go with Polidoro.

Massimo Polidoro. (2001). Final Séance: The Strange Friendship Between Houdini and Conan Doyle. Prometheus Books. p. 177 Writes:

"She told him how she had tricked Crookes at the electric test: she had simply gripped one handle of the battery beneath her knee joint, keeping the circuit unbroken but leaving one hand free. Annie Eva Fay's revelation to Houdini of the way she had gulled Crookes was confirmed years later when psychical researcher Colin Brookes-Smith found at the Science Museum in London one of the galvanometers used by Crookes."

No secret accomplice was needed in my view. See Wiley's book for more information Barry H. Wiley. (2005). The Indescribable Phenomenon: The Life and Mysteries of Anna Eva Fay. Hermetic Press.

DoomMetal sent me a book called William Crookes (1832-1919) and the Commercialization of Science. It the longest biography of William Crookes and goes over all his spiritualist experiments and his relationships with people. It's uncovered in the book that Crookes had a painter have the medium Florence Cook painted naked. Cook was only a teenager... not pleasant.

There's also dodgy stuff involving Crookes and the fraudulent medium Rosina Showers. There's erotic letters Crookes wrote about mediums... most of his private letters were deliberately destroyed by his family after his death, I wonder why? Weird stuff going on. In my view Crookes had no credibility whatsoever and he was sleeping around with the mediums he was investigating. Of course Crookes also believed the fox sisters were genuine, but they were frauds. I won't go over old ground because there's a thread on this forum where the "materialization" of Katie King has firmly been debunked. It's funny that people still think such a hoax was genuine.

As for D. D. Home's levitation it was a hoax, Joseph McCabe and Trevor Hall had exposed it as nothing more than Home stepping out onto the ledge outside the window (all the witness reports also contradict each other about the location and the height of the room), but the psychical researcher Guy William Lambert proposed a far-fetched hypothesis involving a rope (it wasn't needed) but I thank Lambert for offering a rationalistic interpretation (I misspelled his name in my original post). The magician and researcher Kazuba mentioned the paper to me, here it is G. W. Lambert. (1976). D. D. Home and the Physical World. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research. Volume 48. pp. 298–314. (I have not read it).

This thread has got off track... as you can see it is an addictive subject when you get into, but very few people have read the literature...The old days of psychical research had a lot going on, now it's just people hiding behind flawed meta-analyses. I won't be posting on this thread anymore but feel free to paste in those papers if you get the time. Best.

[thaiboxerken]

Originally Posted by dafydd

It's in the entertaimnent range. Surely you don't think that he can levitate?

No, I don't. And don't call me Shirley!

[Iamme]

...or is that Shirley...ha, loved that bit. Anyway i was reading some of those long posts above about the fraud, the arm, the foot, levitation......This reminds me of something similar in another field; Peter Popoff and his supposed power to heal. Ha. I googled him and the first site says James RanDi exposed him! How bout that.

[Sherlock]

Hansen isn't credible. And he's as far as one can get from a neutral source. See my comments elsewhere this week on the thread "Help with debunking skeptikos absurd comments about psychics and skeptics" and also James Cunningham provided a good history link on Hansen at
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/George_P._Hansen

[barehl]

Originally Posted by Iamme

I happened to think of this after seeing ad on tv tonight about the return of David Blaine. Is his ability to levitate in the 98% range or 2% range?

He uses the Balducci method when he is out on the street. However, if you have a step or box to put your foot on, you can use another method where you have a slit in the front of your pant leg and your shoe is attached to the bottom of the pant leg. Alternatively, you can use rare earth magnets or velcro to attach the free shoe to the side of the one still on your foot. These two are actually similar in that one foot is genuinely lifted while the other foot secretly does the lifting. Of course, when you take your foot out, you have to remain unobserved until you can get your foot back in. Balducci is easier since it doesn't require any special gimmick, just a forced angle so that they can't see the lifting foot.

[Ersby]

Originally Posted by Sherlock

Hansen isn't credible. And he's as far as one can get from a neutral source. See my comments elsewhere this week on the thread "Help with debunking skeptikos absurd comments about psychics and skeptics" and also James Cunningham provided a good history link on Hansen at
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/George_P._Hansen

Rationalwiki certainly isn't credible.

[Sherlock]

Anything you can cite on the Hansen page (in the link above) that's not accurate?

[Ersby]

Accurate or not, it is certainly incomplete. So much so, that it doesn't give a proper overview of his work.

[Sherlock]

No biography is ever complete. But there seems to be enough there to showcase him as long being a devoted paranormal seeker.

And too, he appears to have failed to examine equal parts, places, and personnel which exhibit far more credibility and evidence for the non-existence of paranormal events and claims.

[Aepervius]

Originally Posted by Ersby

Accurate or not, it is certainly incomplete. So much so, that it doesn't give a proper overview of his work.

If one starts to hold work as being genuine, and evidence of a phenomenon, all the while that work was shown to be a fraud or poor, then one rightfully can criticize the person as being a "bad" scientist, be that in paranormal research or in entirely normal research.

if I was holding some work that the N ray exists and this provide evidence of the electric universe, i would be rightfully cited as a fraud.

And this is what happens here, whether you dislike it or not.

[jhunter1163]

Originally Posted by barehl

He uses the Balducci method when he is out on the street. However, if you have a step or box to put your foot on, you can use another method where you have a slit in the front of your pant leg and your shoe is attached to the bottom of the pant leg. Alternatively, you can use rare earth magnets or velcro to attach the free shoe to the side of the one still on your foot. These two are actually similar in that one foot is genuinely lifted while the other foot secretly does the lifting. Of course, when you take your foot out, you have to remain unobserved until you can get your foot back in. Balducci is easier since it doesn't require any special gimmick, just a forced angle so that they can't see the lifting foot.

Just a friendly reminder; we're not supposed to discuss specifics of how effects are done. Randi is a magician after all.

[Lukas1986]

I know this is off-topic but he posted this page and the user with the name Mal Yankton claims that I am James Cunningham:

Quote:

James Cunningham "real" username Shen1986 on the skeptic forum Bruce Greysons ectoplasm cheesecloth debunked and has debunked cheesecloth ectoplasm lolz Parapsychologists admit 98% of paranormal phemomena does not exist 98% of parapsychologists admit parapsychology is fraud? 2% ectoplasm cheesecloth left to debunk. Mal Yankton (talk) 00:07, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Taken from: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/User_ta...d1234/Archive1


This is not true. I am replying to this because my user name is Lukas1986 as you can see:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com...73&postcount=4

Ok sorry for the off-topic but I wanted to post this that no more confusion will not be done in the future but I think Mal Yankton is motivated by his belief:

http://www.skepticforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=21905

I am posting it here because he posted these links in there one was on Skeptic Society and the second link send me here.

Ok I am done..

[dafydd]

Originally Posted by Iamme

No, for these reasons: i dont believe he has offered even a convaluted explanation say to the physics of it or that he incorporates devices on his body that he uses to do this.

He's a professional magician and they do not reveal the modus operandi of their tricks. Nobody believed that David Copperfield was actually cut in half. I have no idea what you are getting at.

[dafydd]

Originally Posted by jhunter1163

Just a friendly reminder; we're not supposed to discuss specifics of how effects are done. Randi is a magician after all.

Yes, that was sailing close to the wind of the MA.