Terence Hines - Pseudoscience and the Paranormal

It may seem hard to believe that so many people, including highly trained scientists, could be taken in by Geller’s sleight of hand. Note, however, that very few people have been trained in the art of magic. If we go to a magic show, we usually have no idea how the tricks are being performed. We know they are tricks because the performer does not mislead us about it. But when someone claims to be psychic and does tricks that most people can’t figure out, they assume that the individual really is psychic. Few people question the claim or consider the possibility that the person may be misleading them. The psychic helps this assumption along by using the techniques described above. Some parapsychologists, who may have impressive scientific credentials and a career of real distinction in those fields, seem to believe they can’t be fooled. They fail to realize that a Ph.D. in physics, psychology, or chemistry does not confer expertise in detecting trickery. Thus, they are just as vulnerable, if not more so, to the magic tricks of a Geller, as are people who lack their scientific training. This was clearly demonstrated in the Geller case by Targ and Puthoff and more than a hundred years ago in the investigations of spiritualism described in chapter 2.

The Geller episode makes one vital point: In any investigation of psychics or psi phenomena, a trained magician must be part of the investigating team. Only such a person has the skill and training needed to spot sleight of hand and similar trickery. One would have thought this simple point would have been learned following the Geller incident, but, as we will see, one major parapsychology laboratory ignored it, to its shame and embarrassment.

What happened to Geller once his trickery was exposed? P. T. Barnum is alleged to have said that there is a sucker born every minute, and the widespread belief in Geller’s alleged psychic abilities is living proof of that statement. After his widely publicized exposure in the mid-1970s, he faded from the scene, but never lacked for supporters. Some admitted, however reluctantly, that Geller did cheat and use sleight of hand—sometimes. Geller popped up again in the 1980s claiming to be a consultant to oil and mining businesses, using his psychic powers to advise them on where to drill and dig or when to go ahead with a merger. An article that neglected to point out that Geller’s psychic claims had been shown to be unfounded appeared in Forbes magazine in 1984 (Cook 1984).

Even more than in the case of fake spiritualists, the exposure of Uri Geller convinced many parapsychologists of the need for a professional magician to be involved in psychic investigations. Some, however, still ignored this vital point, especially when their psychics refused to perform when a magician was present or when it was discovered that their psychic powers disappeared if they knew a magician was present. Thus, some parapsychologists continued to be hoodwinked regularly by sleight-of-hand artists. To drive home this point, and to investigate just how much could be gotten away with by someone posing as a psychic at a major parapsychology laboratory, Randi set up his now-famous Project Alpha. His detailed reports can be found in Randi (1982–83c; 1983–84).

In Project Alpha, two young magicians, Steve Shaw and Michael Edwards, with Randi’s advice, went to the McDonnell Laboratory for Psychical Research at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. The McDonnell laboratory was probably the best-funded psychical research laboratory in the world; it had been created with a $500,000 grant from James McDonnell, chairman of the board of the McDonnell-Douglas Aircraft Corporation.

Shaw and Edwards easily convinced the research staff at the McDonnell Laboratory that they had genuine psychic powers. They were tested by the laboratory for a period of three years. They rarely failed to achieve “psychic” feats. Metal was bent “paranormally,” minds were read, the contents of sealed envelopes were mysteriously divined, fuses sealed in protective containers burned out, and mysterious pictures appeared “psychically” on film inside cameras (like the “thought pictures” of Ted Serios, discussed in chapter 2). Randi (1982–83c, 1983–84) reports in detail on the simple ways in which these deceptions were carried out.

Before Shaw and Edwards began to be tested at the McDonnell Laboratory, Randi wrote to the director, Dr. Peter Phillips, a physics professor at Washington University. Randi outlined the type of controls that the lab should use to guard against sleight of hand and other such trickery. He also offered to come to the lab, at his own expense and without public acknowledgment, to assist in the preparation of “trick-proof” experiments. Randi’s offer was rejected and his advice ignored. The controls that were placed on Shaw and Edwards were totally inadequate to prevent their use of trickery. Even when videotapes of their feats showed fairly clearly, to anyone watching them carefully, how the trick had been done, the enthusiastic laboratory staff failed to catch on.

In the last thirty years a number of new procedures have been introduced in parapsychology laboratories to study ESP and related phenomena. Unlike earlier experiments, such as those of Rhine and Soal, or the quite recent tests of “psychics” Shaw and Edwards, the new procedures are used largely to test “normal” individuals claiming no particular psychic powers. The remainder of this section will review these new procedures and the results they have achieved.

The remote-viewing paradigm was developed by Russell Targ and Harold Puthoff (1977), the same investigators who were so thoroughly deceived by Uri Geller. Regarding their remote-viewing paradigm, Targ and Puthoff have made a familiar claim: Finally, they say, a method has been found that reliably provides strong evidence for psi phenomena.

The basic procedure in a remote-viewing experiment is simple. A subject sits in the laboratory with an experimenter. Another experimenter and one or two other people, who constitute the “demarcation team,” visit randomly selected geographic locations outside the laboratory, such as airports, bridges, parks, or specific buildings. The team attempts to send information about the location to the subject at a predetermined time. Thus, for example, the team might be scheduled to be at an airport at 10 A.M. At 10 A.M. the subject back in the laboratory gives a description of the location based on any impressions he receives. Of course, neither the subject nor the experimenter with him back in the laboratory knows the locations the team will be visiting.

Following the completion of the experiment, which may include several different locations, the subject’s tape-recorded impressions are transcribed. These are then given to an independent judge who, in Targ and Puthoff’s experiments, visits each of the actual locations and rates each of the subjects’ descriptions on how well it describes each location. If there were no ESP operating, the independent judge should not be able to match the subjects’ descriptions to the actual locations at a rate better than chance. If, however, the subject is really picking up information from the team through ESP, then the descriptions should contain enough information to permit the judge to reliably associate a particular description with a particular location. Targ and Puthoff claim they have conducted more than one hundred such experiments and that “most” of them have been successful (Targ and Puthoff 1977, p. 10). Several of their experiments seem to have been spectacularly successful (Targ and Puthoff 1977; Marks 2000). At least one subject, Targ and Puthoff reported, was able to demonstrate precognition in this procedure, describing the locations to be visited not only before they were visited, but before they were even chosen.