Today's news briefs

We here at Worldwide Wacko Watch are following several interesting stories this morning.

First, we have news that a poltergeist in Harborne, Birmingham, England is apparently showing himself to be a serious wine snob.

Anne Tyler, manager of the Court Oak Pub, has reported that once again, there was damage to a number of wine bottles on Halloween night, and that this has happened every Halloween for the past few years.  Nuala Gallagher, spokesperson for Sizzling Pubs (the chain that includes Court Oak), says that both staff and patrons have seen the figure of a fifty-something man behind the bar, and that these appearances are often followed by bottles of wine getting smashed.  "It's always the house red and house white," Gallagher said.  "If the pub has a house wine that is not to his liking, he makes his feelings known by smashing bottle after bottle of it in the cellar until it is changed for a wine he approves of."

As a result, the poltergeist has been named "Corky."  If I were him, I think that alone would make me want to break something.


Next, from the "Third Time's The Charm" department, we have news that Harold Camping has retired.

The evangelical minister and owner of Family Life Radio, Inc., made headlines for not one, nor two, but three failed predictions of the Rapture.  When the Rapture once again did not occur on October 21, Camping was dismayed that the Righteous hadn't been assumed into heaven and the rest of us left behind to suffer indescribable torments as Satan turned us into Human McNuggets.

Ultimately, Camping still hedged about the non-event, saying that the postponement of the Rapture was because it was "God's will."  "He could have halted the whole thing if He had wanted to," Camping said in a prepared statement issued last week.  The disappointment comes through loud and clear, doesn't it?  If you've spent all these years looking forward to Rivers Running Red With The Blood Of The Unrighteous, it's kind of a letdown when there's nothing in the rivers but plain old water, day after day.


Now that we've made it past October 21, however, we can look forward to yet another forecast of planet-wide destruction next Friday, on November 11.  This prediction comes from Uri Geller, who is probably the only person in the world who would beat Harold Camping in a People Who Just Don't Know When To Quit Contest.  Geller, you might recall, is the Israeli "psychokinetic" who conspicuously failed to bend any spoons on the Johnny Carson Show, and who was the first fake psychic to trot out the "Your Disbelief Is Interfering With The Mystical Energies" argument.  Geller is still going strong, decades later, and now has left behind bending spoons and moved on to bigger things, namely, the destruction of the planet.

Geller has posted a rambling, incoherent article on his website (read it if you dare, here) about how magical things will happen on 11/11/11, perhaps at 11:11 AM.  All those ones have to mean something, right?  It can't just be that passing through 11/11 happens to be the most convenient way to get to 11/12.  Don't be silly.  And note that all of these numbers made of ones can also be read in binary!  And string theory proposes that space contains eleven dimensions!  And prominent physicists Brian Greene, John Schwartz, and Isaac Newton all have eleven letters in their names!  And 1111 x 1111 = 1234321, which is kind of like a pyramid, which means that the ancient Egyptians are somehow involved!  Well, I think we can all agree that this can only lead to one conclusion:

On November 11, a portal to another universe will open, and the Earth will be sucked in.  This will, depending on how we react, destroy civilization as we know it, or else will lead to a "spiral of evolution."  Whatever the hell that means.

All I can say is, the guy's got balls even to show his face in public, after what happened on Carson, much less to go around prognosticating about cosmic death portals.


Speaking of balls, our final story comes from Glasgow, where The Telegraph reports that a man with a testicular tumor generated a stir when he went in to the hospital to have the thing examined.  The doctors performing the ultrasound were alarmed when they saw, on the ultrasound, the following image:

The doctors proceeded to have a brief consultation to determine if this was a message from an evil spirit, similar to the way Jesus likes to communicate with the faithful by appearing on tortillas.  They decided that no, it wasn't some kind of screaming testicle demon, and they removed it.  (As a brief aside, weren't "The Screaming Testicle Demons" a 90s death metal band?  If not, they should have been.)  Fortunately for the patient, the tumor turned out to be benign, and he's recovering nicely.


So that's it for today's news briefs: snobbish poltergeists, two separate predictions of the end of the world, and Edvard Munch's The Scream shows up on some Scottish guy's balls.  As always, our motto here is "All The News That's Fit To Guffaw At."

A political mandate to trust in god

Yesterday the House of Representatives voted on a measure reaffirming "In God We Trust" as the national motto of the United States.  The measure, crafted by Republican Randy Forbes of Virginia, was intended (in his words) to prevent "rogue court challenges" to religion in public venues.

The measure passed 396-9.

Okay, I can come up with a great many cogent arguments regarding why this is a bad idea.  Can anyone give me an argument why it is a good one?

How does having a national motto that implies a belief in god serve any purpose whatsoever?  Similarly, what earthly reason can there be for mandating that the Pledge of Allegiance -- spoken by millions of schoolchildren daily, and by countless public officials every time a meeting is held -- contain the words "one nation, under god?"  If you believe in god, well and good; you're free to affirm that belief whenever and however you want to.  On the other hand, what if you don't believe in god?  How does "In God We Trust" being printed on every piece of currency printed in the US, how does reciting "one nation, under god" every day, have any positive effect whatsoever on the 18% of Americans who self-identify as non-religious?  In my experience, students who are atheists or agnostics have made one of two choices; to skip the words "under god" when they're recited, or to say the Pledge of Allegiance as-is, i.e., just to go along with it and not rock the boat.

When the subject came up a couple of years ago in a discussion before school, I asked one atheist student who was in my homeroom what he did, and he said that he said the Pledge because he supported his country.  As for the "under god" part -- he said, and this is a direct quote, "That part is meaningless to me, but it doesn't hurt me to say it."

I didn't argue with him -- the touchiness of parents and many students about religion requires that I watch my step when this topic comes up -- but consider the implication of what he said.

"I'm mandated to say words I don't believe in, and rather than questioning it I'm willing to lie publicly about my beliefs every morning of my thirteen years in public school."

I suspect you're feeling pretty smug now, you members of the Religious Right.  And to the 396 Representatives who voted for the measure, I hope you recognize what you've actually accomplished here.  You've given lip service to a national motto whose ultimate aim is impossible unless we turn into the kind of top-down theocracy that is found in Iran and Saudi Arabia; once again showed blatant disregard for the separation of church and state; and in the end, accomplished nothing toward your unspoken goal, which is to turn we godless folks into good Christians.  Handling dollar bills with "In God We Trust" inscribed on them is not going to turn me into a theist, any more than handling currency with no religious message on it would damage your own faith.  You've done nothing here but show how out of touch you are with the real needs of your constituencies -- job creation, economic fixes, smart energy policy -- along with pissing off the growing minority of Americans who are willing to state publicly that they are atheists.

The Religious Right makes much of the alleged religiosity of the Founding Fathers, and some have gone so far as to claim that they never intended a separation of church and state in the first place -- that we are "a Christian nation."  Thus, I'll conclude with a quote from Thomas Jefferson, from Notes on the State of Virginia:

Is uniformity (in religious belief) attainable?  Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned: yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.  What has been the effect of coercion?  To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites.

Riding a Triceratops into the sunset

Recently, the Creation Museum of Louisville, Kentucky logged its one millionth visitor, and its fourth year in business.

Dan Phelps, of the Kentucky Paleontological Society, said, "We're depressed, I think."

So am I, Dan, so am I.

The level of bad science that the Creation Museum presents as fact is staggering.  To take the most famous example, this museum features exhibits illustrating humans cohabiting with dinosaurs.  A placard states further that prior to Adam's fall, all dinosaurs were peaceful herbivores.  Evidently all the big nasty pointy teeth in the Velociraptor were used for nothing more dangerous than munching carrots, and we can only assume that Adam and Eve rode around on a Triceratops when they weren't having conversations with talking snakes.  A recent guest speaker, Dr. Gary Parker (the museum's website doesn't say what Dr. Parker's Ph.D. is in; I assume it's nothing to do with science), states that he became a creationist after examining the bible, then examining evolutionary theory, and deciding that compared with the biblical account, "it was evolution that had holes in it."

This statement would be funny if I weren't absolutely convinced that he's dead serious.  He has apparently carefully studied the account in Genesis, and finds it more plausible than the past 150 years of scientific research.  I can only regard such a stance as so completely mystifying to me that I can almost not comprehend it.

Now, my question is: why should I really be concerned?  If a few people (or even a million) believe that the earth is 7000 years old (give or take), why should I care?  People believe in all sorts of weird stuff -- crystal energies, auras, homeopathy, fairies, astrology -- and honestly, it doesn't really bother me all that much.  This one, however, gets under my skin.  Why?  What's the harm?

Well, first, my background is in evolutionary biology.  I care because it's a fundamental denial of a subject I've spent many years studying and in which I am passionately interested.  But I think it's more than that.  To me, the central problem is the determination with which certain creationists try to push their mythology into public schools, and these same people's hatred of anyone who tries to present a cogent case for the opposite viewpoint.  I am a high school biology teacher in a relatively liberal village in upstate New York, and I have gotten death threats because I am "twisting children's minds."  (This is a direct quote from a note that was left in my mailbox three years ago.)  I have been the target of harrassing letters, and even once had someone show up at my doorstep and tell me that I was going to be meeting god face-to-face "soon," and boy, then I'd be one sorry so-and-so.  (I'm paraphrasing.)  I doubt that any refusal by our physics teacher to teach astrology, or by our chemistry teacher to teach alchemy, would elicit such a strong reaction.

So the homeopaths and the crystal-energy people are wrong, but at the same time, they're not going around threatening people who don't agree with them.  While I'm not exactly expecting that I'm one day going to be assassinated by some nutjob creationist who happens to own a gun, it's certainly not outside the realm of possibility -- given what's already happened.

I don't, however, think that somehow the Creation Museum should be forced to close.  The First Amendment guarantees the right to free speech, and if these folks believe that there are no more dinosaurs because they missed getting on the ark, then that's certainly their right.  (I do wonder how the creationists explain how polar bears, kangaroos, and penguins showed up in Palestine in time to get on the ark, however, and how afterwards they got back to the Arctic, Australia, and the Antarctic, respectively.  But I digress.)   Everyone is entitled to believe whatever (s)he wants to, even if it is contradicted by a veritable Mount Everest of evidence.

It does, however, sadden me to see the number of children who are being indoctrinated to believe that this twaddle is on a par with peer-reviewed science.  There is little that anyone can do about it -- parents will of course teach their children whatever version of reality they themselves believe to be true.  But I don't have to be happy about it.

A friend of mine once sent me a bumper sticker that said, "We have the fossils. We win."  If only it were that simple.

Out-of-body experiences and alien abductions

In her novel Passage, Connie Willis depicts two doctors, both researchers in neuropsychology, who attempt to alter the brain chemistry in their subjects to simulate the sensations of a person having a near-death experience.  One of her main characters, the project leader Dr. Richard Wright, speculates that there is a chemical reason for commonality of images, sounds, and so on that occur in near-death experiences -- that they are caused by a neurotransmitter cascade, the brain's last, desperate attempt to send an SOS.  These sensations don't reflect any external reality, but are simply the sensations activated by a last-ditch effort for survival.

While such a study is still in the realm of fiction, now we have news that an analogous one may have shown a similar conclusion for out-of-body experiences.

Michael Raduga, an experimenter at UCLA, became interested in the whole phenomenon of out-of-body experiences as they connect with individuals who have reported being abducted by aliens.  After interviewing a number of "abduction survivors," he began to wonder if he could induce the same sensations in an ordinary person.  So he has developed a technique (detailed in his book The School of Out-of-Body Travel, downloadable here) by which he claims that 90% of people can achieve an out-of-body experience in two weeks.  (I downloaded it, of course -- and it seems like it requires little more than a disruption of the normal sleep cycle, followed by a series of visualization exercises.)

When he used these techniques with twenty volunteers, he found that seven of them had out-of-body experiences, and a number of them reported contact with alien beings.  That this differs from the 90% success rate he reports in his book he explains by stating that a number of the test subjects were about to have an out-of-body experience, but snapped back to normal consciousness because of "extreme fear."

Here is just one account, from test subject "Alexander N."  (You can read several others on his press release, here.)

I got up from my body in my own room. However, my physical body was no longer to be found in my bed. I tried to employ “deepening” and scrutinized everything around. I lost my bearing and everything naturally became somewhat awkward.

Not wanting to waste any more time, I tried to find aliens. Three of them materialized right before my eyes. They seemed more like creatures from the movie “The Thing” than tadpoles with eyes like Princess Jasmine. They wanted to scare me, not to “make contact”. As a result, I was extremely frightened and regained awareness in my own body.

Despite some inconsistencies, and the inevitable subjectivity of results that rely entirely on the accounts of the subjects themselves, I think that Raduga draws exactly the right conclusion from this research:

The fact that UFOs and extraterrestrials may be deliberately encountered in a controlled manner and within a few days proves that such experiences are a product of the human brain. It was the first experiment to ever prove that close encounters with UFOs and extraterrestrials are a product of the human mind. The experiment also demonstrated that alien contact is not indicative of the existence of otherworldly civilizations, but rather of a poorly studied state of consciousness that people occasionally fall into inadvertently.

All of this brings up a point I've made more than once; that skeptics demand hard evidence in cases of alleged paranormal experiences not because they're obnoxious cranks, but because they are all too aware of the potential for the human mind to be fooled.  I've never said that aliens, ghosts, Bigfoot, El Chupacabra, and the rest are impossible; merely that in order to believe in any of them, I need more than "My Uncle Fred says he saw one."  Much as I like to think I'm a pretty good observer, I wouldn't even trust my own experiences without any kind of corroborative evidence -- especially if they occurred, as most out-of-body experiences do, when I was half asleep.

So, anyway, that seems to be at least a first step toward explaining what's happening when people think they've been abducted.  It'd be nice to have some test subjects induce out-of-body experiences while lying inside a PET scanner -- similar to what Dr. Wright's NDE simulators did in Passage.  This might elucidate what is actually happening in the brain during an out-of-body episode -- although it would still leave unexplained why anyone would see "alien tadpoles with Princess Jasmine eyes."

Finals week for Psychic Sally

Yesterday, you may recall, I posted about alleged psychic James van Praagh receiving a visit from some zombies representing the James Randi Educational Foundation, challenging him to prove that he can do what he claims -- namely, speak to the dead.  And I ended with a fervent wish that the same sort of thing happen to other self-styled mediums, including "Psychic Sally" Morgan.

In a lovely example of synchronicity, I discovered this morning that Psychic Sally is also receiving an unwelcome visit -- from the Merseyside Sceptics' Society.

Psychic Sally has had her share of problems lately.  A month ago, she was accused of receiving information about her subjects in a public "reading" in Dublin through an earpiece, after some of her staff were overheard making suspicious comments in a back room.  Morgan has denied any wrongdoing, stating that they were just off-duty technicians having a chat, and that statement was supported by the theater in which the event was held -- just showing, in my opinion, that both of them know what side their bread is buttered on.

Be that as it may, Morgan filed a defamation suit against the reporters who made the claim, and now is trying to rehabilitate her image.  She has a significant stake in doing so; not only does she perform to sold-out shows, she gives psychic readings over the phone (hundreds of dollars per session; and she has a waiting list almost a year long), and is currently filming the third season of her show Psychic Sally on the Road.  The monetary incentive is, by itself, enormous.

As is just the face-saving aspect.  This woman has spent her entire life building up an image as a psychic; she claims to have seen her first ghost when she was four.  If the allegations of fakery become much louder, she has a lot to lose.

Enter the Merseyside Sceptics' Society.

Just as in the case with van Praagh, the whole idea here is for alleged mediums to put their money where their mouth is.  You say you're a psychic, that you can communicate with the dead?  Okay, let's take that as a working hypothesis.

Now prove it.

The MSS has set up a test for Psychic Sally, to be run on Halloween night -- a time when you'd think the dead would be especially eager to communicate.  All she has to do is to show up at a venue in Liverpool, where she'll be handed ten photographs of deceased women, and a list of ten names -- and she has to match the photographs to the names.  Seven right, and the skeptics who organized it, who include such prominent voices as Chris French and Simon Singh, will give Psychic Sally their stamp of approval.

You'd think this would be child's play for her.  It's what she does all the time -- take photographs from audience members, and "establish contact" with the person in the photograph, and then deliver messages to their loved ones.  If she can really do that, just putting faces to names should be a walk in the park, right?

Interestingly, Psychic Sally hasn't responded to the MSS's challenge.  (Note my shocked expression.)

"If Sally really is able to demonstrate in a very simple test that her skills are in fact psychically derived, as opposed to produced via the various magic tricks and techniques we know fraudulent mediums could use to appear to have psychic powers, then we'll be first in the queue to celebrate her talents," said Michael Marshall, vice president of the MSS.  "But until she can show her readings are genuine, we don't think it's right that vulnerable people are led to believe she's really talking to the dead."

It may not be right, but it is lucrative.  And my guess is that Psychic Sally won't want to risk any further damage to her reputation by taking, and then failing, the challenge.  I'm thinking she's going to skip her exam on Monday night -- which by itself should be damning.

Communicating with the sort-of dead

In a move that left me saying, "Why didn't I think of doing that?", an organized flash mob of zombies recently showed up at one of James van Praagh's psychic medium shows.

Van Praagh, in case you haven't heard of him, is one of the folks who claims to bring messages from the dead to living relatives, and has become filthy rich doing so.  I've always found it interesting that van Praagh's messages to survivors are universally positive -- the deceased are, one and all, in a "place of peace and light and love" and tell the living how wonderful heaven is.  You'd think, statistically speaking, that at least a few folks would end up in hell, and deliver messages such as "it sure is hot down here" or "when you come join me, could you please bring along a fan and a bucket of ice?"

Interestingly, van Praagh's "evidence" that he's actually able to do all this hocus-pocus seems to depend largely on the excellent research abilities of him and his staff.  In a recent appearance on ABC's Primetime Nightline: Beyond Belief, van Praagh wowed Good Morning America's anchor Josh Elliott with information about his life and background -- until it turned out that everything van Praagh said had appeared in a two-year-old interview with Elliott that was available online.

So anyway, you can see why the zombies were pissed off.  If anyone would have a perspective on the whole subject of talking to the deceased, it would be zombies.

Carrying signs that said, "Talk To Us, We Won't Bite" and "Zombies Against Fake Mediums," the zombies demanded that van Praagh come out and chat with them about how he communicates with the dead.  "We'd like to pick his brain," one zombie told reporters.

It probably will come as no surprise that the whole thing was organized by the JREF, the James Randi Educational Foundation, and in fact the head zombie at the demonstration was D. J. Grothe, the president of JREF.  JREF has repeatedly invited van Praagh to give the famous million-dollar challenge a try -- a long-standing JREF offer to the first person who can demonstrate any kind of psychic ability in a controlled, scientifically-monitored setting.  Van Praagh has thus far refused even to respond to JREF's requests.

As far as the zombie attack, JREF claims that they weren't just trying to be obnoxious.  "We're not rabble rousing," Grothe told reporters.  "This is a guy who is taking advantage of people's grief.  He's not performing for entertainment, he's claiming he's giving messages from dead relatives.  He gets people when they are at their lowest and sees them as his target market."

"A magician or psychic entertainer tells you in one way or another that they are going to play a trick on you," he said.  "But Van Praagh looks people straight in the eye and says 'I am honestly communicating with your deceased loved ones, getting messages from them.'  Reasonable people may say, 'You can't talk to the dead,' but others believe this stuff hook, line and sinker.  Thinking that some opportunistic huckster is giving you a message from beyond keeps you from experiencing the natural stages of grief, from dealing with the loss in a healthy way.  It is offensive that he seems to be bilking the bereaved."

"If James Van Praagh is making his living by faking psychic powers and pretending to speak to people's deceased family members, that's truly shameful," Grothe said.

To which I say, "hear, hear."  I would have gladly participated in such an event, and in fact think that while they're at it, the zombies should pay a visit to Sylvia Browne, John Edward, and "Psychic Sally" Morgan.  After all, you're only undead once, you might as well make it count.

Psychic grounding, telepathy, and tinfoil hats

Are you bothered by your psychic abilities?  Do you find yourself unable to tune out others' thoughts?  Is the color of your aura clashing with your favorite shirt?

Maybe you need to do some psychic grounding.  (Read about how here.)

Honestly, I can imagine that it might be inconvenient to be psychic, if such things actually existed.  Especially if you were telepathic.  Consider what it would be like if you really could read the minds of the people around you.  I don't know about you, but my mind is a continuous jumble of random thoughts, most of them inane, weird, and/or irrelevant.  There is frequently musical accompaniment, usually consisting of whatever song I heard on the radio on the way to work.  And like most people, I also often have thoughts that I hope fervently never leave my skull, because of the sheer embarrassment potential.  If my thoughts really could be recorded, sequentially, they'd probably look something like the following:

"I'm hungry...  What did I do with my pencil?... Do I have a faculty meeting today?... Slip slidin' away, slip slidin' away... Wow, she's hot!... Is 'occurred' spelled with one 'r' or two?...  I'm cold... Oh mama mia, mama mia, mama mia, let me go... Did I remember to remind Carol to pick up cat litter on the way home from work?...  Geez, that guy is wearing a dorky-looking hat..."

And so on.  I would think that being telepathic would be at best highly distracting, and at worst the mental equivalent of being trapped 24/7 in a noisy bar.  I know that there are people I have to interact with on a daily basis that I already want to scream "dear god, will you please just shut up!" at, and that's just from hearing what they say out loud.  If I could hear their thoughts, too... well, let me just say that this could well be at the heart of some seemingly unpremeditated homicides.

Be that as it may, if this is you... help is on the way, in the form of the aforementioned article, which was written by someone who signs his name only as "Nathaniel." 

The gist of shutting down your psychic abilities lies, apparently, in "grounding" yourself.  Nathaniel says that you can do this in the following ways:

1)  Stop noticing weird stuff.  Nathaniel refers to this as the "11:11 effect" -- how you notice when a digital clock reads some time that is peculiar, and once you've noticed it, it jumps out at you every time it happens.  He seems to seriously consider this a psychic ability, and in fact says that training yourself to notice such things more is a way to amplify your abilities if you want them to increase.  

2)  Tell yourself you're not going to be psychic any more, until you say otherwise.  It's important to include the last part, because if you don't you could risk losing your abilities permanently.

3)  Don't give psychic readings for yourself or others, and don't mess with "power objects" like crystals or Tarot cards.

4)  Create a "psychic shield" for yourself to stop negative people from throwing destructive stuff at you.  I read all about this here, and I must admit that I still don't see how this could work, as it seems like all it amounts to is visualizing yourself as surrounded by a shield.  Whether this could help with negative aura energies, or whatever, I don't know, but I suspect it might be less than successful if what the negative person had thrown was, for example, a brick.

So anyway, all of this seems to me like a lot of hooey -- if it really was this easy to gain and lose psychic abilities, all of us would be doing it all the time, constantly picking up each other's thoughts, and I would really have to watch myself when I see Dorky Hat Guy.  Most of what Nathaniel is describing is just wishful thinking, combined with dart-thrower's bias -- the tendency all of us have to notice seemingly odd stuff (such as when the clock reads 11:11) and ignore irrelevant background noise (such as when it says 5:48).  Our attention to such things doesn't make us psychic -- all it reflects is that evolutionarily, it's better to give attention to something that turns out to be unimportant than to ignore something that turns out to be critical to our survival.

So, honestly, I found Nathaniel's advice to be a bit of a disappointment.  I'd hoped for more concrete advice -- something along the lines of, "To avoid picking up the thoughts of those around you, fashion yourself a tinfoil hat.  Make sure that you use at least three layers for best effect, especially if you are using the cheap generic stuff and not genuine Reynolds Wrap."  But maybe it's better that way.  If I had to go around all day with a tinfoil hat, I'd be the one people were thinking "dorky" about -- even if, at the time, my "psychic shield" was keeping me from hearing about it.