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Skeptic's swap-shop

Less searchable M0rd4nt

22:48 / 20.12.04

Having just had a good laugh at some camera-strap "vortex" pictures, I got to thinking: There's a lot of things that I accept now which I would once have dismissed out of hand (Reiki springs immediately to mind).

I thought it might be an interesting (or at least entertaining) excercise to place some specimens of TishPshawNonsense on display, so that others may swing by with a bag of NoButHaveYouSeenThis? in trade.

To kick off, I have two nice juicy bundles of chinstroke:

1) Ghost photos, photos of energy, orbs, ect.

Has anyone ever seen, heard of, or taken one of these that wasn't a bit of crap on the lens, gnats, a camera strap, someone's hair, someone's thumb, fag smoke, light trails, antique double exposure or blatant Photoshoppery? I mean like ever? (NB:- Please do not post any Cottingly Fairies pics as a vigourous thick ear often offends.)

2) Macro psi.

I've seen encouraging and statistically significant results re: micropsionics. However, big bro macro remains elusive. I can make psi balls (in that I can run through various psi-ball-making excercises and feel like I've got a nice squishy energy bundle to play with) but I can't establish their objective existance in any way. My compass needle refuses to so much as wiggle. (I mean, I've had stuff happen, but nothing I couldn't explain by non-psi means.) Meanwhile, I'm reading stuff online from people who swear all up and down that not only can they make any compass do the Watusi, they can bend cutlery, float paper darts and do all sorts of cool shit with the Power of their Minds.

Pah! say I. What say you?

00:24 / 21.12.04

I've seen plenty of possession phenomena, quite a lot of the whole Exorcist Linda Blair shebang (seemingly impossible strength and vocal sounds, contortions, uncharacteristic potty mouths, etc). But the fact is that it’s really nothing that isn’t otherwise explicable, no matter how utterly impressive it appears.

I’ve seen a lot of faith healing, too. Most of it can be attributed to placebo effects, but I did see one guy’s right leg visibly grow by about two inches until it was as long as the left. I’m not sure how to explain that.

Prophecy (knowledge that you couldn’t possibly have about the past, present or future, give it whatever name you like) is one thing I’m pretty convinced of, however. My mate Chris once described to a stranger the exact layout of their room when they were about ten years old. When he was told he’d got it wrong, he simply stated that the person was remembering the room as if you were standing at the door looking over at the window, whereas he was describing it from the opposite angle. Cue them realising belatedly that he was spot on. My Dad’s been known to tell strangers specific details of what they’ve had for breakfast. I’ve just seen too much of this to doubt that there are some people who seem to have access to insight that can’t be explained right now.

Ooo – I had a good one with shamanic dreaming. It was before I really knew what shamanism was. I had a dream about Lothar Tuppan, and decided that if I dreamed of him the next night I’d ask him if it was really him (this was before I knew about lucid dreaming, or dream incubation/control). Sure enough he figured in the following night’s dream. I emailed him my account, and the description not only fit what he looks like now, but changes that he’s made in his appearance over the years and also the clothes in which he visualises himself in shamanic journeys. I’d never met him, seen a photo or read a description. Needless to say, I started doing tons of research and experiments with dreaming and shamanic technique from that point on (my theory always seems to lag a million miles behind my practise).

Less searchable M0rd4nt

18:55 / 21.12.04

I did see one guy’s right leg visibly grow by about two inches until it was as long as the left. I’m not sure how to explain that.

Isn't there this thing you can do where you sort of pull one of the guy's shoes off a little bit and push the other one on, thus making it appear that his legs are more equal? I'm a bit sketchy on the whole fake healing thing.

21:09 / 28.12.04

Yeah. The foot thing is just a clever bit of acting - it's based on foot positioning, pulling a shoe slightly of and then putting it back in to place, etc.

It's debunked thoroughly in James Randi's "The Faith Healers", which is well worth reading.

23:20 / 28.12.04

Numerology

Take my birthday, 3 23 1976, and add all the digits together, then add all the digits of that number together, and so on, and you get a number which is supposed to have insight into my personality. The repeated addition of digits looks very mysterious and mojo-laden; however, I mathematically proved that the repeated addition process is the same as looking at the number modulo 9, i.e. divide by 9 and look at the remainder. Dividing by 9 and looking at the remainder is easier, less mysterious, and quite arbitrary.

01:11 / 29.12.04

Re: MC's 2) Macro psi:

I'd love to see that, myself. The closest I can come is having somebody else's energy body play palpable games with my energy body... (and vice versa, come to think of it!)

What strains my credulity? These days, the only category (besides the previously mentioned photographs and spoon-bending) that does so is the "Reptilian Agenda" sort of thing. Individuals and their specific claims, youbetcha, but odds are that for every Jon Edwards there's somebody out there who I *might* find convincing...

08:20 / 29.12.04

Yeah. The foot thing is just a clever bit of acting - it's based on foot positioning, pulling a shoe slightly of and then putting it back in to place, etc.

That's quite alarming. Because I had previously trusted the people involved.

18:01 / 29.12.04

1) Ghost photos, photos of energy, orbs, ect.

Well my sister just recently returned from her honey moon and was in Key West for one or two days, and most of the night pictures they took have orbs in them. One that is particularly creppy was taken outside of Gene Otto's house, one of the orbs is right outside the room where he kept a voodoo doll and it has that damn doll's silhouette. Its like a void inside of the orb. Anyway, neither of them (my sister or brother-in-law) saw the orbs or are any good with photoshop or other programs. The camera they used is a digital camera. I trust those photos, can't say the same for others, but I cannot provide any possible explanation.

21:19 / 29.12.04

"The closest I can come is having somebody else's energy body play palpable games with my energy body... (and vice versa, come to think of it!)"

i have a recollection of being in middle school and having a classmate who'd just moved from the caribean astound us with the following routine: one of us (the volunteer) would give her our hand, and she would run her fingers over our wrist in a stitching motion. she would then (with a bit of rigamorole) proceed to pull her hand away from the wrist as if she was pulling the imaginary string out. this never failed to result in a very physical sensation of something being pulled through the inside of the wrist.

anyone had any similar experiences (for all i know, this could be a common childhood trick)? any thoughts on what was happening? it seems like it could have been hypnotism, but none of us that saw it were ever able to do it to others...

04:40 / 30.12.04

Never heard of such a thing. But it sounds like the sort of thing I'm talking about... (except that mine were done with other adults and were rather adult in nature...)

15:11 / 31.12.04

Seth: "That's quite alarming. Because I had previously trusted the people involved."

I did not imply that things are deliberately planned to decieve. That is one of the most difficult questions to ask - whether the person knows it's a scam, or believes it as much themselves.

Here's a little of what Randi says in The Faith Healers:
"Simple observation shows that it is not the left leg that has grown, but the right leg that has shortened! Look at the photos carefully, and you will see that the left shoe did not move at all. The right show, pulled away from the foot, has simplybeen pressed back on again. This is futhere proved by the fact that the woman's slacks have stayed in exactly the same position relative to her left foot! If Grant caused her left leg to grow, he also caused her pant leg to grow along with it. polyester seems to be subject to faith as much as are flesh and bone."

Here are some links:
http://www.physics.smu.edu/~pseudo/faithhlr.htm
http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/faith.html
http://www.letusreason.org/Popteac22.htm

15:49 / 31.12.04

It’s just a sense of sadness. I saw it in a Church meeting when I was about eight years old, and I just never remembered to call the memory back up in the light of growing older. It’s always a bit rubbish when things you remember as a child turn out to be something horribly other.