My two 'spirit guides'

A dear friend told me today that I have invisible companionship.

This is not just one spirit guide, but two!  Apparently not everyone is blessed in this way, but it is far from unusual.  My friend claims to have more guides than me.

I find it genuinely interesting that I know people who believe in things that I can't recognise in the world.  My Christian friends know God through his son Jesus (in spite of all that nonsense about the Trinity which makes no real sense to anyone as far as I can tell).  My Islamic friends have faith in Allah and his prophet Mohamed (upon whom I wish no peace or blessing whatsoever).  At least Islam is a little less 'spooky', even though I find it more frightening in other ways.  And my own sister sees ghosts and has always been much more sensitive to the paranormal than I am.

I'm almost jealous of them.  It seems that I am missing this special, interesting, sixth sense.

I don't even believe that we have souls in this dualistic sense, so I find it very difficult to believe in ghosts or spirits.  But I am still fascinated by the idea.

As for these invisible companions who (apparently) know so much about me, very little has been revealed.  They don't have names and nothing is known of the lives that they no longer have.  Both are (or were?) male, which I find genuinely surprising since the minority of my close friends would want to claim that. 

Apparently one is mischievous and the other is 'a free spirit'.  What that happens to say about me is unclear.

What questions can I ask my friend to find out more about my guides?  Your input would be useful.  Please leave a comment if you can help.  I can already think of a few questions.

• Have they chosen me of have I chosen them?
• Do they like me?
• Do they 'guide' anyone else?

Any more?

Sanal Edamaraku at Oxford Skeptics in the Pub

On Monday evening this week, Oxford Skeptics in the Pub will host the Indian star skeptic Sanal Edamaraku.

You can see some of his work in this video from Vimeo.

If you can make it, it will be interesting to see you there.  I won't be carrying a copy of 'The Financial Times' or wearing a pink carnation - but you might find me chatting with anyone who wants to talk.

Links here and here.

Why aren't ghosts naked?

We all know people who claim to have seen ghosts, even if those people are usually sensible enough not to have told you about what they have experienced.

But have you ever heard anyone claim that they have seen a naked ghost?  I'm left wondering how these disembodied spirits have some way of remembering what clothes their corporeal forms used to wear, and indeed how they choose from the wardrobe that must have changed throughout their lives.

You might argue that this is no stranger than the concept that the ghost's former self changed its appearance throughout its life, but that somehow the apparition has chosen a snapshot in time - presumably normally at the point of its final demise.

Maybe they keep the clothes that they wore at the same time.

Or maybe there are just no ghosts and the people who have the requisite imaginations to conjure up such an image in their minds have no trouble conjuring appropriate-looking attire as well.

'Made-up' festivals?

Earlier this year, an Australian bishop called Forsyth said:

"Halloween is a made up festival about death, Easter is a real world festival about life."

Hmm.  Really?  What is wrong with this statement?

Well when you think about it almost all of it is questionable.

One might argue that Halloween was made up, but when you think about it, that invention happened a very long time ago.  Halloween is based on the pagan festivals of Samhain and Beltaine if I remember correctly.  It far pre-dates Christianity.  If we are being pedantic, it isn't really about death.  It might be about the dead, but that is different.  One would expect a bishop to be less semantically challenged than that.

On the other hand, the only basis for evidence of the truth of Easter is the mutually contradictory evidence of the books of the bible (and arguably the way that present day Christians just know things to be true by revelation).

In other words, Easter is just a 'made up festival about death' too.  So what is the difference?

Should I go on about how Christianity's festivals are all coincident with earlier pagan festivals?  I could point out that their origins are all questionable.

Maybe I could ask whether the day after Halloween, All Saints Day, is also a made up festival about the dead (and perhaps even their deaths).

To cap it all, certain Polish bishops have been claiming that celebrating Halloween is actually dangerous.  Archbishop Andrzej Dziega warned that Halloween was behind a "culture of death".

"This kind of fun, tempting children like candy, also poses the real possibility of great spiritual damage, even destroying spiritual life," and that "irresponsible and anti-Christian fun" introduced young people to a "world of darkness, including devils, vampires and demons" in the name of "fun".

So . . . its time to make up your minds.  Is it a made-up festival or is it a real-life world of darkness?

It can't be both.

Here be dragons

A year or two ago I came across this wonderful introduction to Critical Thinking.  It was produced by the great Brian Dunning, the host and creator of one of the very best skeptical podcasts, Skeptoid.com.

At 41 minutes in length, you might need to schedule a little quality time to concentrate on "Here be Dragons" which is available at that link in a variety of formats.  I very much doubt that you will be disappointed, however often you have seen it before.

And if you have never listened to the Skeptoid podcast then it is definitely time to start now.

The 'Versailles Time Slip' and what it tells us about the bible

What could be the connection between the story of The Versailles Time Slip and the bible?  Read on.

In typical style, Brian Dunning's excellent Skeptoid podcast covered the account reported by two highly educated and respected English women, Charlotte Anne Moberly  and Eleanor Jourdain, the principal and vice-principal of St Hugh's College, Oxford.  They claimed that they had slipped back in time from the summer of 1901 to the period of the French Revolution.

Dunning's episode transcript begins:

The year was 1901, and a pair of friends, 55-year-old Anne Moberly and 38-year-old Eleanor Jourdain, were on holiday in France. They were both teachers at St. Hugh's College in Oxford. Moberly was in fact the Principal there, and Jourdain would become her successor fourteen years later. With a Baedeker's tourist guidebook in hand, the two set out to see the vast Palace of Versailles, the center of political power in France until the French Revolution in 1789. They turned to visit the Petit Trianon, a small chateau on the grounds given by Louis XVI to his 19-year-old wife, Marie Antoinette, as a private retreat for her personal use.

Moberly and Jourdain got a bit lost searching for the chateau, and it was during this interlude that they made history, even if only in some small way. They encountered several people in 1789 period attire, carrying out period activities, and passed a handful of structures that had not existed since 1789. Their unexpected visit to 112 years in the past culminated with an encounter with Marie Antoinette herself, sketching on the grounds of her chateau. Read on

Later in the episode (listen here) he describes how these two professional academics, who had a reputation to uphold, gradually elaborated on their story over the following years.

Does this remind you of anything?  After all, all the accounts of the life of Jesus were written down decades after his death (if indeed such an event ever occurred).  Somehow we are expected to believe that the stories of his life and ministry are so important that the story-teller's art did not come into play.  But if you have listened to the story above I wonder whether anyone would dare to claim that all the 'facts' in the inconsistent and demonstrably incorrect bible are unquestionable.

I wouldn't.



Small note (but in suitably large text this time):  Skeptoid.com is a podcast that is well worth following.  It is immaculately researched and very professionally presented.  Usually only about 10 minutes long, it should be a weekly habit for all skeptics.

Ghost hunting gems

I didn't blog about another Oxford Skeptics in the Pub event earlier in the year, but yesterday's post about Trystan Swale reminded me that I had taken some notes when Hayley Stevens came to speak about "I'm a ghost hunter - get me out of here!"  Hayley is co-fonder and host of the Righteous Indignation podcast with Trystan Swale.

She described some of the equipment used by paranormal investigators and had great fun pointing out that whether or not the equipment reveals anything at all, there is no evidence of any connection with ghostly happenings.

The 'ghost box'.  These are actually a hand held transistor radio with a scanning mode.  (AM and FM operation).  You are advised not to raise the aerial (perhaps just in case it picks up actual recognisable radio stations?).  These ghost boxes are sometimes used to detect 'electronic voice phenomena' (EVP), in which the voices are not heard at the time by observers, but appear on recordings that are later played back.

'EMF meters' - strangely seem to be calibrated in gauss - and hence they are not picking up EMF (as in electro-motive force - which is measured in volts)  but magnetic flux.  EMF in this case seems to stand for 'electro-magnetic field'.  However, as a physicist I'm not quite sure where the 'electro' bit comes in as gauss is a magnetic unit, not electric, and of flux, not field.  The typical range of operation is 1 to 10 milli-gauss which is much less than the earth's natural field.  They usually have an variable tone audible output too, and by sweeping them around a room they can be made to make sounds even in areas which had previously been surveyed and shown not to have a measurable signal.  It seems that these boxes are commonly implicated in deliberate fraudulent activities by 'paranormal investigators' who want to 'show' that there is something there.

Trigger objects - investigators often use coins or crucifixes or objects/areas sprinkled with talcum powder to observe whether they have been interfered with.

Green laser with a beam splitter  - which creates a network of beams around a room, making it possible to see any object moving through the room.

Orbs - a well known optical phenomenon that has been known to photographers since the earliest days.  Spots of light are produced by items that are in a field of view but not in focus, often highlighted by flash photography.  Apparently it is 'known' in the paranormal community that each orb represents a ghost.  It is not known exactly how they know this.

Scrying - a technique where the observer sits in front of a mirror in a room that is barely illuminated.  Water is poured down the mirror and it apparently produces surprising results, even to us skeptics.

Table tipping - a common way to make it appear that there is some paranormal activity in the room.  Everyone puts their hands on the table and movements in the table get amplified by the well studied ideo-motor effect.

Another good evening.  It was good to see the range of technological toys that are wielded by the ghost-hunters and to hear some stories from a skeptical ex-hunter.

Psychic astronaut's missing psi

Apollo 14's lunar module pilot, Edgar Mitchell is well known for his interest in the paranormal.  He set up the Institute for Noetic Sciences (mentioned in one of Dan Brown's rambling and predictable novels - which I regret reading last year).  That sounds interesting but on further investigation seems to be a good example of scientism and of course it is a non-profit organisation which is . . . er hmm . . . tax exempt.

Mitchell's wikipedia page includes a reference to his trip to the moon:

On his way back to earth during the Apollo 14 flight he had a powerful Savikalpa samadhi experience, and also claimed to have conducted private ESP experiments with his friends on Earth.

The first of these statements refers to a state of mind where 'the human consciousness is dissolved and lost for a short period of time'.  After being the sixth man to walk on the moon I think I would expect dreams like that.

The second refers to an experiment described by James Randi in his famous 1980 book Flim Flam.  Olle Jonsson was one of three friends who attempted to receive Mitchell's brain waves from outer space, and Mitchell later claimed that the results were more than 3000 to 1 against chance.

What Mitchell neglected to mention was that Jonsson had failed so poorly that the chances were 3000 to 1 against.  This is a phenomenon known in the trade as 'psi-missing'.  In order to get such an unlikely event, surely the paranormal must have been at work.

So next time you hear stories about astronauts claiming that they are specially selected as the most rational people, highly trained to carry out their mission, perhaps you should just ask a skeptical question. 

Was their remarkable claim directly related to the mission?  

If not, then their special skills might be no more relevant to a full understanding of the nature of the universe than your's and mine.

The Forer Effect

The Forer Effect, (or as it is sometimes known, the Barnum Effect) gives a little insight into one of the tools used by psychics in 'cold reading' where they can convince their 'victims' that they know more than they really do, and use that knowledge to gain even more knowledge from the victim's reaction. See how appropriate this seems as a description of yourself.

"You have a great need for other people to like and admire you. You have a tendency to be critical of yourself. You have a great deal of unused capacity which you have not turned to your advantage. While you have some personality weaknesses, you are generally able to compensate for them. Disciplined and self-controlled outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure inside. At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing. You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations. You pride yourself as an independent thinker and do not accept others' statements without satisfactory proof. You have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others. At times you are extroverted, affable, sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, reserved. Some of your aspirations tend to be pretty unrealistic. Security is one of your major goals in life."

Forer's example seems to apply to most of us, and in his experiment people were asked to rate how accurately they felt it described them. The average score was more than 4 out of 5. The Forer effect is the observation that individuals will give high accuracy ratings to descriptions of their personality that supposedly are tailored specifically for them, but are in fact vague and general enough to almost anyone.

JREF's million dollar challenge just got easier

The James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) has for many years offered a large cash prize for anyone who can prove that they can use paranormal skills.  At present the prize is $1 million. 

The claimant has to agree the terms of the test in advance.  Of course all of them fail (so far at least) and then some of them claim that the test was unfair after all.

The qualifications for entry into the testing process have just been changed to make it easier as you can see at  JREF’s $1,000,000 Paranormal Challenge Now Easier Than Ever

Lunar Lunacy

Full moon again.  Two more to go before Easter, which I am sure you know is the Sunday after the full moon after the vernal equinox.  Remember that for the next time someone asks you when Easter is this year!  It usually gets a laugh.

There is a popular urban myth that around the time of full moon hospital emergency departments are inundated with additional cases and that the outcome of major surgery is much less likely to be successful. Indeed, the term 'lunacy' is derived from this belief.

Presumably such an effect would arise from the same mechanism as the other known effects of the moon on Earth which are entirely tidal. The range of the tides is higher at full and new moon, when the Sun, Moon and Earth all line up, and this is observed as and called 'spring tides'. Spring tides have nothing to do with the season, as they happen twice every month, but the highest and lowest spring tides of the year are around the vernal (spring) and autumnal equinoxes.

The strange thing is that the alleged effects on people only occur at full moon and not at new moon.

So is it true? Or are people's observations of strange events just a case of 'confirmation bias' where they happen to notice that the moon is full when some other notable event happens. On other occasions the moon is less obvious in the sky and they don't make a link to a moon that is slightly more or less gibbous than yesterday. The subject has been extensively studied and no correlation has been found.

Of course this is not a great surprise as the gravitational (tidal) forces from the moon are incredibly small. A mother holding her baby has a gravitational effect on the baby 10 million times greater than that of the moon on the baby.

Ghosts or publicity?

In a remarkable story from the Thorpe Park theme park, (South West London), it seems that (those notoriously sensitive) 'construction workers' are being spooked by ghostly events and a major new ride called "Storm Surge" is being moved to a different location.

"Someone was looking over my shoulder" says a worker.  Was it the foreman?

Of course all the newspapers have a different sensational spin on the story.  Just to choose one, here is a link to The Independent.  I haven't yet seen an article from The Guardian which tends to have a slightly more skeptical viewpoint.

Isn't it amazing how the theme park is taking great care not to deny it.  The power of publicity is to set a story running and then know when to start to deny it.  The time is not right!  That helps prolong the publicity if timed right.

"Staff reports of eerie goings-on shot up and the only physical change in the park, at that time, was the beginning of ground preparation work for the new ride. " says a director.  "Director" is often a term for someone who was once good at their job but has lost touch with reality and if you believe the newspapers (which I don't - ever) that would be an appropriate description!  Anyway, perhaps they should have been on the lookout for 'non-physical changes', in these unusual circumstances!)

Under the international quality standard of ISO 9001 I suppose these eerie goings on would be recorded in . . . erm . . . a 'register of eerie-goings-on'?  I have noticed these in several companies so far.  (Believe that if you will.)  Presumably at some anticipated threshhold of eeriness they have planned to start changing their business plan, and instructed their civil engineers accordingly. 

I probably won't be going on Storm Surge, but its not because of the ghosts!  A headless monk illusion might tempt me though.

Astrologers' predictions fail to impress

The recent furore about Professor Brian Cox and Dara O'Briain being suitably honest and straight-forward about astrology leads me to ask a question.

Why couldn't the astrologers predict the occurrence and get their complaint in before it actually happened?  

That really would have been impressive.

See the article in The Guardian.

 . . . Dara was explaining that all of the planets orbit at different speeds and distances away from the Sun. He said only the earth orbits the Sun in 365 days and returns to its own place, showing that horoscopes are nonsense. He then went on to add "Let's get this straight once and for all, Astrology is rubbish" The other presenter, Brian Cox, then agreed and said "in the interests of balance on the BBC, yes astrology is nonsense."

Hallucinations or Hauntings?

The 1894 'International Census of Waking Hallucinations' and repeated surveys since that time have shown that between 10 and 25% of ordinary functioning people have experienced, at least once in their lifetimes, a vivid hallucination - hearing a voice or seeing a form when there is no one there.  More rarely people sense a haunting aroma, or hear music or receive a revelation that arrives independent of the senses.  In some cases these become transforming personal events or profound religious experiences.  Hallucinations may be a neglected low door in the wall to the scientific understanding of the sacred.

My source is Carl Sagan's "The Demon Haunted World", 1996,  p 104.  This book could be described as one of the 'sacred texts of skepticism'.  Read it!  It may be out of print but can be obtained easily enough second hand.

Just last weekend I personally heard a sincere testimony about haunting experiences.  My guest told me that she and her mother both sensed things that others are not aware of and described events in their former home (which is now abandoned boarded up).  I asked a few questions but, out of politeness on a first meeting, I avoided anything that might sound very skeptical.  I'm hoping that another chance will arise to discuss it further.