linuxmafia.com 2016/linuxmafia.com.tar/linuxmafia.com/pub/skeptic/newsletters/basis/basisfeb.88

Text File | 1997-06-27 | 37KB | 789 lines

----------------------------------------------------------
February 1988 "BASIS", newsletter of the Bay Area Skeptics
----------------------------------------------------------
         Bay Area Skeptics Information Sheet
                   Vol. 7, No. 2
                Editor:  Kent Harker



1987 PSYCHIC PREDICTIONS
by Robert Sheaffer

[Each year, "BASIS" runs the results of the predictions the best
psychics have foretold. One of the most effective tools they have
is the public's poor memory. If one is not called to account for
what he or she says, almost anything goes.

This feature has been a favorite over the years, because "BASIS"
readers can keep it for reference when someone begins to follow how
well psychics do with their foreknowledge. -- Ed.]

U.S. planes did not attack Iran, killing the Ayatollah. Caroline
Kennedy Schlosberg, Princess Diana, Princess Fergie, and Madonna
did not have babies. There were no assassination attempts against
the Pope, and against Mikhail Gorbachev. Ted Kennedy did not marry
(or remarry), and Interstate 280 did not wash out in San Jose.
These were just a few of the many things that had been predicted
to occur during 1987 by famous psychics, but failed to happen.

At the end of each year, many well-known psychics issue predictions
for the coming year. Twelve months later, they issue another set
of predictions, conveniently forgetting those made the year before,
which are always nearly 100% wrong. Each year, however, the Bay
Area Skeptics dig up the predictions made the year before, nearly
always to the embarrassment of those who made them.

Many of the psychic predictions made are so vague that it is
impossible to say if they came true or not: for example, Jeane
Dixon's prediction that Gorbachev "will puzzle American policy
makers," or that "this will be another difficult year for Boy
George," is not clearly true or false. Many other predictions
involve things that happen every year, or else are not difficult
to guess, such as tornadoes in the midwest, hurricanes in
Florida, or continued terrorist incidents.

Many predictions simply state that ongoing problems will continue,
such as unrest in South Africa, or fighting in Central America.
Other supposed predictions are not really predictions at all, but
are actually disclosures of little-known events which are already
under way, such as movie productions, business ventures, or
celebrity activities. While some predictions did of course come
true, especially those that were non-specific, or not at all
difficult to guess, not ONE prediction which was both specific AND
surprising came true.

The famous Washington, D.C. psychic Jeane Dixon, who supposedly
has a "gift of prophecy," predicted a baby for Caroline Kennedy
Schlosberg, a second marriage for her uncle Ted Kennedy, and
pregnancies for Lady Diana and for Fergie. The art market was
supposed to go bust, but record prices were set in art auctions.
The year held "great economic promise," she said, while the stock
market first boomed, then crashed. "Many Americans would be
kidnaped for ransom," she said, "but a rescue mission would be
attempted, leading to loss of life." There would be another
"tragic" airspace confrontation with the Soviet Union, and a new
super-fertilizer would produce fruits and vegetables "right out of
"Jack and the Beanstalk." She DID correctly predict, however, that
Liz Taylor would NOT get married this year, a prediction which was
at least a LITTLE surprising.

New York psychic Shawn Robbins predicted that Prince Charles would
appear on TV to bend spoons psychically, like Uri Geller; that
Monaco's Prince Albert would renounce his throne, and that the
world's biggest oil field would be discovered in Kentucky.

Los Angeles psychic Marie Graciette predicted that Soviet party
boss Mikhail Gorbachev would be wounded in an assassination attempt
by one of his own soldiers during the May Day parade in Moscow. She
also predicted that the mayor of a large American city would
undergo a sex-change operation, then win re-election as a woman!

Denver psychic Lou Wright predicted that Ted and Joan Kennedy would
remarry, and that Burt Reynolds would fall madly in love with Vanna
White, prompting Loni Anderson to sue Burt for "palimony."

Chicago psychic Irene Hughes predicted that the U.S. would launch
a massive military attack on Iran, killing the Ayatollah, and that
Monaco's Princess Stephanie would lie in a coma for months
following a drug overdose.

In San Jose, California, psychic Sylvia Brown predicted that Ronald
Reagan would seek a third term, but would "be vetoed or voted out,"
and that there would be a large earthquake "around Mill Valley and
Grass Valley." (This is an especially peculiar prediction, since
those two small towns are more than 100 miles apart, with
Sacramento lying between them!) She also foresaw that part of
Interstate Highway 280 would be washed away in San Jose in June (a
month which had virtually NO rainfall), that there would be an
assassination attempt on the Pope in London in July, and that a
major breakthrough would be made in the treatment of Muscular
Dystrophy, using amino acids.

While believing that it is important to carefully EXAMINE such
claims, the Bay Area Skeptics emphasize that unsupported claims
are not to be accepted without proof merely because they sound
interesting and exciting. In science, the burden of proof is always
on the person making the extraordinary claim, and not on the one
who disbelieves it. Thus, the burden of proof rests squarely on the
psychic to prove that his or her powers are real -- a demonstration
that not one of them has yet been able to make.

No psychic succeeded in predicting the GENUINELY surprising news
stories of 1987: the Dow Jones Industrial Average soaring to
stratospheric heights, then falling more than 500 points in a
single day; Nancy Reagan's surgery for breast cancer; the downing
of a jetliner by a revengeful ex-employee who shot the flight crew;
or the unexpected withdrawal of Gary Hart from the Presidential
race over a sex scandal, and his equally unexpected re-entry into
the race late in the year. These major news stories were so
unanticipated that someone would have had to be psychic to have
predicted them. Given the number of self-proclaimed psychics out
there, one would expect that somebody would have -- unless, of
course, all such claims of psychic powers are without foundation.



BAS GOES ON-LINE

Starting last November, interested parties have had a new forum:
a computer bulletin board called "Child". This BBS is in San
Francisco at [phone], 8 bits, no parity, 1 stop bit.

The SysOp, Howard Burton, has provided a Skeptics' Message Area
for articles and public discussion. Board members Rick Moen and
Yves Barbero are assistant SysOps for that area, so there are
lively discussions and interesting topics.

Ring 'em up and promote the skeptics in the computer world. Some
of the discussion might come out in "BASIS".

[3-24-89, Rick Moen's note: The "Child" BBS closed down in the
summer of 1988. However, BAS opened its own BBS in October, "The
Skeptic's Board", at 415-648-8944.]



RAMPARTS

[Ramparts is a regular feature of "BASIS", and your participation
is urged. Clip, snip and tear bits of irrationality from your local
scene and send them to THE EDITOR. If you want to add some comment
with the submission, please do so.]

What happens when it is revealed that a psychic cheats? Skeptics
tend to think that parapsychologists will push the cheater aside
with an embarrassed bow to the revelations. Alas, this is not the
case. Such events don't even ruffle feathers on the dedicated skins
of the same. "Sadly," [a parapsychologist] said, "mediums often
cheat but that is no proof that they may not be genuinely psychic,
too."

True. Al Capone's crimes are not stand-alone proof that the guy
didn't have a heart of gold.

This latest pronouncement was reiterated at the Society for
Psychical Research (SPR) international convention held in England
in the address of Ian Wilson, a self-proclaimed debunker. Wilson
declared that he had indisputable proof that (the late) Doris
Stokes, a popular medium in England, was a fraud.

The story, printed in "The Guardian", detailed that Wilson
attended Stokes' sell-out London Palladium performances and then
interviewed the people who had received messages from their
departed. The most startling one had come for a woman named Dawn
from her dead husband, Graham. Doris relayed a miraculous message
that "he had died after a fall from scaffolding, shortly after the
birth of their first baby." Ms. Stokes also comforted Dawn that
"...she had been right to allow the hospital to switch off his
respirator and let him die in peace."

Dawn was deeply moved.

When Wilson interviewed her later, Dawn revealed that in fact she
had phoned Stokes when her husband was on a respirator to ask her
advice about having it turned off. Just one week later, Stokes
called Dawn and offered her a free, ring-side seat at her
Palladium performance. Dawn was dazzled by Stokes' contact with
Graham, apparently making no association whatever between her own
conversation with Stokes before the performance!

Ian then produced proof that ALL THE REST of the front-row seats
were occupied by those who had been previously contacted by Doris.
In spite of the ingenuousness and blatancy of her methods, she
practiced for years, reaping the profits from sales of millions of
books in many languages, personal readings, and performances such
as those in the Palladium. She was never the subject of even mildly
critical investigations until Wilson looked in.

Is there sound reason to believe that Ms. Stokes wrought any havoc
during her sojourn on the planet? Is it safe to say that the
credulity exercised by those bereaved visitors to her parlor likely
cost the patrons more than their money?

If we could contact Doris we would probably hear her laughing.


Skeptic Frank Davidoff got himself on the mailing list of a
publication, "The Etherion Chronicles", that recounts the latest
dope channeled from Etherion, a soul wandering in the etheric
plane.

"Someone asked Etherion in mid-September what teams would play in
the World Series."

Etherion replied, in classic psychic-ese, "There would be some
surprises in the play-offs."

Sure enough, he was right. Some of the staff at the channeling
center even confessed that they had hoped Etherion would be wrong
because they didn't want to see the Giants lose. Of course, had
the Giants won, that, too, would have been a surprise. In most
cases, surprise means unknown, so there's plenty of latitude for
Etherion.

In a question/answer section of the publication, a reader asked
Etherion if someone who had a past life in an ancient
civilization could decipher texts which had not been decoded. In
two lengthy paragraphs of ornate circumlocution, Etherion
enunciated a definite maybe.

We've all wondered what it is like on the other side. Etherion
tells that it's so much like regular hum-drum that most of the
people don't even realize they've croaked.

Maybe that answers Woody Allen if there's sex in the afterlife. If
you want to put such impertinent questions to Etherion, do it
through his (her?) channel, Nancy, at P.O. Box 6324, Albany, CA
94706.


The "Chronicle" warns that psychic forces can be dangerous if they
are not carefully directed. Psychic Mary Cannon of Oakland had been
to a spoon-bending seminar sponsored by the Berkeley Psychic
Institute. She was unable to twist utensils, but she had cranked
up her energies nevertheless. On leaving the meeting, she forgot
to turn them down, and two days later her car would not budge. Her
mechanic found the valves all twisted in a manner he had never seen
before. It was then that she remembered the seminar.

At last report she was trying unsuccessfully to psychically unbend
the valves and had to pay the garage to put new ones in.



CHANNELING ST. MARY

It had to happen. It was only a matter of time. The "Psychic
Reader", a Berkeley New Age paper, printed an interview with the
Rev. Mary Fulton of the Aesclepion Healing Center's Women's Trance
Medium Healing Clinic. The Virgin Mary, wife of Joseph, took time
from her busy schedule to grant a channeling interview with Rev.
Fulton for "P.R."

Some salient comments from St. Mary:

P.R.: "How do you react to people praying to you all the time?"

Mary: "The person with the strongest mockup gets answered first.
I also got to work very fast because a lot of people call at once."

The interview goes on to reveal that Mary had a lot of pain and
joy experiencing her son grow up and die. She tells us that the
way she was able to prepare for all that responsibility was through
the many, many previous lives she had led.

When asked about a message she might have for the world, Mary
replied, "A calm, a joy, a peace, there's no hurry."

So, tell your friends that if they've been praying to The Blessed
Mother oh these many years in a one-way conversation, Rev. Fulton
can tune them in and let them know what Mary herself thinks about
the whole shebang.



SKEPTICS ABOUND

The work of CSICOP is reaching out widely. Examination of the print
medium of late shows a tremendous increase in the number of
articles skeptical of paranormal claims.

Time was that the field was left to the outrageous by default. The
paranormal is unusual, and unusual is what newspapers thrive upon.
Until the founding of CSICOP, there was no concerted effort to
counter the torrent of nonsense parading before a naive public.
Since there was no counter offered, the public has been led to
believe there IS no counter.

The efforts of CSICOP have bolstered the courage of hundreds of
devoted people who have formed local groups like BAS (BAS was the
first group). The results are positive, encouraging, and
measurable.

Local groups are not restricted to the U.S. We don't know if
"BASIS" gets overseas, but we received a news clipping from a Dutch
newspaper about the visit of James Randi. Dutch. In Dutch. "Het
bekendste voorbeeld van debunking door de CSICOP."

Special note: BAS advisor Dr. Eugenie Scott has been nominated to
join the advisory board of CSICOP. Congratulations, Genie.



EDITOR'S CORNER
by Kent Harker

A lot of correspondence is received by the Bay Area Skeptics and
some of it, relating to our objectives, is directed to me. Much is
frivolous, some clearly from cranks -- the rest is hard to define.
These people are serious, however, and most believe they are really
onto something.

One of the things I used to ask myself is why they don't take what
they have to the scientific community for review? It is probably
because the typical inquirer is not a scientist and is not familiar
with scientific protocol. They wouldn't know where to begin. With
BAS they at least have an address and therefore some place to
start.

A case in point concerns an organization called Spindrift. I have
corresponded for a couple of months with some of their principals.

Spindrift was apparently formed about four years ago from within
a group of Christian Science practitioners. They resemble the 19th
century spiritualism movement that led to the founding of the
Society for Parapsychology Research (SPR) in England to discover
a scientific basis for alleged spirit phenomena.

Spindrift seeks to establish scientific evidence for the validity
of healing prayer. In this endeavor they find themselves in a cross
fire. Their fellow religious do not believe that matters of faith
can or should be under the microscope, while people on the outside
openly scoff. The unhappiness of the former probably relates to the
reaction of the latter.

Christian Science, Jehovah's Witness, and other Christian sects
have come under fire in the wake of deaths that have occurred when
medical attention has been refused. Many people accept this but
draw the line when the refusing is being done by parents on behalf
of their children. Spindrift was formed to present evidence that
healing prayers do in fact work -- scientific evidence. And they
have challenged skeptics to accept their work for the skeptic's
challenge. They are after both James Randi's $10,000 and BAS's
$11,000 rewards.

How does one scientifically test the validity of a claim of prayer
healing? It would seem very simple: Pray over someone's verified
compound fracture and then re-xray to see if it is knitted after
the prayer. But this straightforward and modest proposal is not
what Spindrift suggests. They have broken new ground with their
approach to demonstrating the efficacy of prayer. They allege they
are able to influence a random generator to behave non-randomly by
their prayers.

Even if it were conceded that their prayers could somehow influence
the random generator, does it follow that the same prayer could
arrest a metastatic cancer? A successful demonstration only implies
that if you have a good random generator you would like to have
screwed up you could call your local Christian Science
practitioner. (Paranormal effects on random generators have been
claimed before. Parapsychologists report that cockroaches and
unhatched chickens produce the same psychic influences.)

I don't know if any kind of test will ever come out of the work of
Spindrift, but the claim and the way they propose it is interesting
for the way it is a portrayal of pseudoscience.

Spindrift has formed an ad hoc committee, named CSIPHOO (the
acronym is too forced to spell it all out), to challenge skeptics.
Their offer is, for $1,000, "Explain, using only scientific
principles, why prayer is NOT responsible for the non-random
behavior of the random generator." They have thus shifted the
burden of proof and asked their antagonists to prove a universal
negative. Their money is as safe as the sunrise. All the natural
explanations in the world would not demonstrate that it is [not]
due to the prayers. Spindrift makes a claim, and they must
demonstrate that claim on its own merits.

One of the more common complaints raised in communications I have
had with the associates of Spindrift is that James Randi does not
hold any formal qualifications as a scientific investigator
("...[CSICOP] employs investigators who have backgrounds in
professional deception."), and yet he is named as the principal
investigator of CSICOP. Yes, Randi is a professional deceiver all
right. But he is an HONEST deceiver, being a professional magician,
because he tells us he is going to trick us before he starts.

Since many (I think a majority) of the claims offered to CSICOP
involve fraud or self-deceit, there must be someone who is an
expert on fraud and self-deceit. You need an eel trap to catch an
eel. Randi is a highly qualified expert in this. His understanding
of his own limitations is evidenced by the fact that he usually
gathers up a coterie of local physicists, psychologists,
astronomers, etc., who can take over where he leaves off when he
travels some place to conduct an investigation.

So, what, specifically is the claim of Spindrift? A couple of
quotes from the latest correspondence shows what I think is a clear
misunderstanding of science in general and probability in
particular.

"It is easily predictable from our theoretical base that the laws
of probability which govern falling dice (something
parapsychologists would be interested in) don't wholly apply but
are affected by the mind of the individual throwing the dice."

Parapsychologists have in fact been interested in the ability of
"mind over matter" (psychokinesis) for a long time -- they've been
influencing dice for decades in the laboratories, but never in
Vegas. But the fact is, the laws of probability do not govern
anything. The laws of physics govern falling dice. The laws of
probability can only suggest the likelihood of the outcome of a
particular sample assuming the sample is based upon randomness.

Another clue to the problem: "The test is very clean in the sense
that all data is [sic] produced with a computer by the computer
itself. The data is [sic] then analyzed by the computer and the
results are then flashed on the monitor."

Why assume that the test is "clean" because it is accomplished with
a computer? Do computers ever make errors? More importantly, are
the programs that run on the computer free of error and human bias?

It is very difficult to write a program that will consistently
crank out random numbers. Most work for awhile and then break down.
The well-known Bell Curve predicts that even the very best random
generator will sometimes exhibit periods of non-randomness. On the
surface of it, Spindrift's claim appears to amount to the same
amorphous mass as that of parapsychology: statistics are a
substitute for theory. The claim seems to be simply that their
prayers will influence a random generator to become non-random.
Specifically, THEIR random generator, on THEIR computer prayed upon
by THEM.

All in all, the claim is about as nebulous as painting a picture
on a pond. With water colors.

I gave Spindrift an example of a testable claim: On ANY properly
functioning computer, with ANY properly functioning random
generator program, ANY person offering a specific Christian Science
prayer for 20 minutes will cause the generator to become non-random
with p <.001. If a Hindu prayer is offered, the generator will
return to random within 5 seconds. Run this test twenty times.

(For those who sit around the hearth pulling barbecued chicken
apart at dinner, not knowing what the meaning of "p" is, a little
explanation. In English. P is a measure of significance one wishes
to place on a set of trials. The value of p (between 0 and 1) must
be chosen before the experiment begins, and that value may then be
used as a guide to ascertain the significance of a deviation from
expectation. The smaller the value of p, the more significance is
attached to an outcome. For some concerns a significance of .99
would be sufficient because deviation from the norm would be so
unlikely as to make ANY variation strongly suggest that something
highly unusual is occurring. Since random generators may deviate
substantially, rather large variations from expectation are not
cause for great interest, and p values of .05 to .001 would be
reasonable to require.)

There are difficulties in this suggestion, to be sure, but it is
specific enough to be able to say when and how one has failed to
substantiate the claim if the alleged outcome does not occur. The
same cannot be said of Spindrift's statement (I cannot even call
it a claim).

I still think the simplest test would be to pray over a compound
fracture and then x-ray the results and be done with it. Maybe
that's why they don't offer their claim this way.

Is anything useful accomplished by all of this? Yes. And I think
it is education. Not that mountains are being leveled, but people
are becoming aware that there is some earth-moving equipment out
there. The very fact that there is active confrontation to the
stream of nonsense that daily pours upon our heads is significant.
Time was when the nonsense won by default.



'87 PREDICTIONS TRUE

If you are unimpressed because of the failure of the '87 psychic
predictions in the feature article, you have just not heard the
word from the inside. The Berkeley Psychic Institute keeps
records too, and printed the results of a year's work. It's safe
to say they picked their best efforts, and maybe omitted the
stinkers. Let's see how they see themselves. "BASIS" remarks are
in parentheses.

"Looking at the economy, the psychics predicted that the Dow Jones
Average and the stock market would be very erratic, with a general
upward trend." (!)

"The market has had several big rises and falls, but overall has
been gaining...." (!!)

"Gold and silver would rise." (..)

"Major controversy in the Catholic Church. We hit this one right
on." (!!!)

"Reagan would be involved with right-wing churches involving covert
activities. We were close, because of the Bakkers and Contragate."
(?)

"We predicted major earthquakes, and they occurred throughout the
world." (...)

"Many predictions concerned events difficult to track in the
headlines, (read: so vague you couldn't find them at noon in the
desert) such as that many aboriginal groups will reawaken their
spiritual pasts and aliens will become more active.

"Psychics are notoriously poor at being on time, and this affects
predictions, too. Several predictions made in late 1985 for 1986
came true in 1987." (This is the best one. Make a prediction that
will come true SOMETIME. "BASIS" predicts that Shemp will be
channeled by a world leader to give the play-by-play at
Wimbledon.)

Actually, things don't look much different from the inside.



HOW TO THINK: CRUCIAL LESSONS
by David Glidden

[Dr. Glidden, professor of philosophy at U.C. Riverside, writes
frequently for the "L.A. Times" -- he did this article for them.
When I requested permission to run it in "BASIS", I also asked him
to do an expanded, feature article for us in the near future. He
agreed on both requests, and added that he had received a lot of
contact as a result of this article: People calling him to tell
that they, too, were Cheyenne warriors in a past life.

I assured him that "BASIS" readers would not crash by the point of
his writing. -- Ed.]

It's the inevitable consequence of student-faculty contact: A young
woman approached me after class, embarrassed by what she had to
tell me, something too personal to discuss on campus. I agreed to
meet her at a local coffee-house. There, she confessed what was on
her mind: "You were once a Cheyenne warrior in a previous
existence, and I nursed you back to health after you'd been wounded
by an arrow through your heart." The only response that I could
think of was to thank her.

This was a serious student, quite proficient at deciphering Plato
for me and whatever information tasks her other courses required.
She was also quite convinced that she's lived other lives,
convinced enough that, despite grinding poverty and two children
to support, she attends seminars on previous existence twice a
week.

Nothing that she might have learned in biology about how neurons
grow and memories worked could have persuaded her that it is
physically impossible to carry memories over from another life --
 if even such a continuity of life were credible. That there might
be others who have our same personality, contemporaries even, was
not the sort of thing that would satisfy her, especially
considering the implication that there might then be many other
selves of hers living on the planet Earth. There might be something
specifically Californian about incidents such as this, but I
suspect they are not regional; they testify to a certain
persistence of irrationality among people everywhere.

Socrates said that learning was first and foremost a process of
discovering what it is we wrongly thought we knew, of first
exposing ignorance, before going on to knowledge. Merely adding
bits of wisdom to a mass of foolishness will not make people wiser.
It will increase the danger of their ignorance.

Lately, hundreds of thousands of Americans have been worrying about
what has gone wrong with higher education, worrying enough to put
Alan Bloom's "The Closing of the American Mind" and E. D. Hirsch's
"Cultural Literacy" on the best-seller lists. Bloom tells a story
about what went wrong in the stratosphere of Germanic philosophy
and its alleged malign influence on American universities. Hirsch
composes a list of things every American should know. The trouble
is that even if Hirsch and Bloom were right, they would be wrong.
It's not what we do not yet know that is the problem; it's all the
false things that we already believe, in ignorance.

The claim that I was once a Cheyenne warrior wounded in the heart
would be just as false as the assertions that the Earth is flat,
or that the universe was created in six 24-hour days. Covering over
such ignorant beliefs with truths taken piecemeal from philosophy,
history or technology is as useless an enterprise as covering up
a cancer on the skin with make-up; radical surgery is called for.

Socrates's approach to imparting knowledge was to question the
beliefs we have, before then adding to them. He devised a method
to achieve this and called it dialectic, what we now call
conversational reasoning. It was a skill that he taught, how to
search for definitions and follow implications.

It remains a tried-and-true technique of looking for
inconsistencies and detecting ghostly metaphors haunting our
vocabularies, of learning how to construct an argument that will
withstand criticism and prove persuasive.

Taking such an approach to higher education would be to go in the
very opposite direction from that of Bloom and Hirsch, who would
rather teach us only what to think. Learning how to think requires
a rigorous form of training that should begin long before students
reach college age, before it's too late to break through
prejudices.

Disposing of our ignorance will itself not bring us wisdom. Just
because some assumptions are not questioned today doesn't mean they
cannot be or will not be tomorrow, before we finally rest content
with them.

Critical thinking is a technique that also requires the active
participation of teacher and student one-on-one, where, instead of
pronouncements made and memorized, insight is achieved one step at
a time, after honest mutual confrontation.

U.S. Secretary of Education William Bennett has said that classroom
education can just as easily involve large numbers, such as are
found in Japan. That might be true if our society were so
monolithic that our first assumptions were more or less uniform,
or if education were just a matter of conveying facts onto an
already clean slate. But this cannot be so once minds are already
filled with half-truths and prejudices, with so many false beliefs.
Otherwise, ignorance persists right alongside what it is that we
know.

There was once a popular television program called "College Bowl"
(now being revived) in which academic teams competed over the facts
that each knew, spitting them out just as a well-informed computer
might. It gave us the dangerous illusion that this was all that
education consisted of: that you go to school to learn things from
an encyclopedic list, that you do not first need to purge yourself
of false beliefs. That illusion persists, perpetuated by best
sellers and the secretary of education. And destroying that
illusion would be a much more costly matter than merely adding to
the fact that we all should know, for it would require first
learning how to think.



MIRACLES, MIRACLES

BAS Board member and physicist SHAWN CARLSON appeared on a Bay Area
TV program with three women who told us about their miracles.

The first was a nun who has journeyed 18 times to Yugoslavia to
witness first-hand the conversations six teenagers have with the
Virgin. In 1981, the teens first saw Our Lady in what they
described as a flash of light.

The place has now become a shrine, and pilgrims from all over the
world flock by the millions to see the commemorative cross the
villagers have erected on the mountain overlooking the town and to
listen to the teens converse with the Blessed Mother. The nun says
none can see Mary when She is with the youths, but they all know
She is there because the teens are so sincere. (One wonders if the
Pope might not feel a little slighted, not being included in the
epiphany. If memory serves correct, John Paul has never had the
privilege of an audience with the most venerated woman in
Christianity. Does Mary have no sense of protocol?) For the past
seven years, after all these daily conversations, what does the
good nun say the Mother of God has to say to us?

"There must be peace."

According to sister, there have been thousands of pictures taken
of a miraculous occurrence in connection with the cross on the
hill, and she had one ready for the TV cameras. The anticipation
of actually witnessing a picture of a miracle was quickly deflated
as it was so blurry that she had to tell us what it was.

One could barely make out the cross on an almost black background,
and an oblong, white flare from the base of the cross to the bottom
of the picture.  That was the Virgin. Thousands of pictures, and
the best she had to show us was one so fuzzy it could have passed
for one of Robert Sheaffer's famous UFO hoaxes. She said that the
shaft of light could never be seen by the cross itself -- only in
pictures when they were developed. Shawn could have discussed lens
aberrations and reflections in camera equipment, not to mention
poor or fake developing procedures, but he was only given about 4
minutes of the half-hour show.

Sister says her rosary bead chains have been changed from silver
to gold. In fact, this transmutation phenomenon is so common that
it happens here in the States when people are just TALKING about
the place! The alchemists are turning copper green with envy.

When Shaw asked if the chain could be tested, sister hedged and
said that the chain might not be gold, but just a gold color. No
matter. Let's look at the COLOR, then.

"The chains aren't the important thing", she wavered, "the
miraculous appearance of the Virgin is what is important. The
turning of the chain is only to get our attention."

She would not consent to any analysis. Shawn assured the nun that
analysis would surely get the attention of a lot of people if it
turned our like she said.

End of questioning.

The next woman, and Oregonian, had come to tell us about an angel
that appeared on her TV screen. The angel telepathically
communicates with her and the crowds that frequently assemble in
her living room. (Angels know about the video portion but have not
yet learned to use the audio circuitry.) She showed us a picture
someone had taken of her set and assured us the image was not
produced by any of the stations (she had called them) and she
continued her in-depth investigation by asking her neighbors if
they had angels on their screens. Unfortunately, none of her
neighbors were either psychiatrists or TV repairmen, or they might
have had something to tell her.

Shawn was not given the opportunity to respond to her.

With this quality of miracles, could the last one be any worse?
Let's continue to watch. The last lady related her tale of woe
about her allergy condition that had become so debilitating she
could barely function. It was suggested that she try a novena in
a devotion to St. Jude. (For all you irrepressible heretics out
there, the novena consists of nine prayers, nine times a day for
nine days.) In desperation she tried it. The long and short of it
is that it worked and now she is fit as a fiddle. Proof of a
miracle.

Would it work with an octena?

Shawn was only afforded a few minutes to talk about his "weeping
icon" and a little bit about skepticism in general.

The program could have been very interesting had Shawn been given
half the program to ask some serious questions. Perhaps the world
is not quite ready for sober confrontation to some of the things
people hold dear. Shawn's calmness and restraint in the face of
this nonsense was admirable.



STRATEGIES AND TECHNIQUES OF CULT MIND CONTROL

Richard Gallyot, a San Francisco cult-buster extraordinaire, will
be the featured speaker at the February BAS meeting.

In twenty years of investigating cults, Richard Gallyot has
interviewed nearly every survivor of Jonestown, had at least one
source shot and killed, covered the Larry Layton trial for KPFA,
and received a twelve-page fan letter from Charles Manson!

We've got to educate ourselves and our children to recognize cult
come-ons and tricks. In this way we can immunize ourselves against
their mind control. Against this background, Richard will present
a compact lesson in cult tricks and tactics. During the talk, he
will present portions of a rare 1976 People's Temple video tape
showing Jim Jones performing "miracles".

Join BAS for an important and educational presentation.


                             -----

Opinions expressed in "BASIS" are those of the authors and do not
necessarily reflect those of BAS, its board or its advisors.

The above are selected articles from the February, 1988 issue of
"BASIS", the monthly publication of Bay Area Skeptics. You can
obtain a free sample copy by sending your name and address to BAY
AREA SKEPTICS, 4030 Moraga, San Francisco, CA 94122-3928 or by
leaving a message on "The Skeptic's Board" BBS (415-648-8944) or
on the 415-LA-TRUTH (voice) hotline.

Copyright (C) 1988 BAY AREA SKEPTICS.  Reprints must credit "BASIS,
newsletter of the Bay Area Skeptics, 4030 Moraga, San Francisco,
CA 94122-3928."

                             -END-