George Anderson is one of the country’s three major “psychic mediums.” He may be less well known than John Edward and James Van Praagh, but like the others he charges the bereaved a small fortune for the opportunity to ostensibly communicate with a departed loved one.

The closest I’ve ever been to Anderson was in October 1999 on the now-defunct MSNBC television show Crosstalk, which devoted an hour to discussing communication with the dead after that night’s premier of Linda Ellerbee’s HBO special Life Afterlife. Anderson was a guest in the network studio, while Ellerbee, a couple others, and I were scattered in various remote locations. During the program, in response to one of my comments, Anderson acknowledged that “skepticism is healthy ....t means you’re thinking.” But I don’t think the following is the sort of “thinking” that he would appreciate becoming the norm.

Several years ago, someone (to protect her identity, I’ll call her “Eve”) had lost her twenty-something-year-old son (I’ll call him “Adam”) in an auto accident and sought out Anderson, who charged her $1,200 to connect with her dearly and tragically departed. Fortunately for us “thinking” folks, she recorded the nearly one-hour session (with—amazingly—Anderson’s concurrence) and thoughtfully provided a copy for my review.

The session begins with Anderson’s announcement that “immediately a male presence comes forward... [pause, then under his breath] and two females follow.” Eve’s body language and verbal feedback help establish the sex of the deceased party with whom she desires communication. But age, unlike sex, presents nearly a hundred possibilities. Anderson: “He claims he passed on young? [Here he pauses due to apparent absence of feedback.] Excuse me, relatively young by today’s standards, yes? That means seventy down.” So, Eve’s son did not cry out: “Mom, I’m here!” or, to Anderson, “My name is Adam. I was killed at age twenty-five in an auto accident.” Instead, Adam decided to play a variation of the children’s games “Hot and Cold” and “20 Questions.” After some inane byplay with Eve (of the sort that occupied most of the session), Anderson continues: “He’s already on the defensive, saying [again], ‘I passed over young by today’s standards,’ but he wasn’t a child.” Anderson has obviously gone fishing: Husband? Son? Father?

At this point, only fifty-five seconds into the fifty-two-minute session, any “thinking” person should recognize that this “communication” simply cannot be genuine. The intact sentences that Anderson claims to relay are so ridiculous (the above example being but one) that I can only shake my head in bewilderment at the gullibility of his supporters.

Still floundering for the nature of their relationship, Anderson continues: “He says he’s your sweetheart, understood? [Pause—apparently not.] But not romantically? [Pause—Eve says, ‘I don’t know.’] I think I have two people; one states he is your sweetheart romantically, yes?” But he had earlier specified one male and two females. This sort of transparent game-playing, and Anderson’s excuses (such as, “He [Adam] said [‘sweetheart’] to be funny”) wastes minute after minute—at more than $20 each.

One needs to listen to the entire recording to appreciate the endless stream of wild guesses and proffered questions that don’t offer any specific information from or about the “next level” of existence.

Anderson’s excruciating attempts to divine the departed’s name continue intermittently until finally resolved at about the half-way point. At thirteen minutes: “He is now telling me his first name is short.” Eve offers a “yes” but no more, and Anderson abandons this attempt. At about sixteen minutes he tries again: “He doesn’t have the most common first name . . . but you can shorten it? [Actually, no.] He showed me six letters, but it’s less than that?” [Eve offers another “yes.”] A bit later: “[The] letter ‘J’—anything to do with him?” Then, “Now why did your son say ‘A, B, C, D’ and he stopped, understood?” He offers the names “Kyle” and “Keith,” both incorrect. He again moves on. At about thirty-seven minutes, after playing more letter games and with more help from Eve: success! (Though certainly not in my book.)

At forty-three minutes into the session, we learn why Anderson (and presumably his cohorts) would still choose to play such games even if they truly possessed their claimed abilities rather than spend the hour providing a treasure trove of information about the great beyond to their grieving, paying (through the nose) clients: “To me, it would be boring as hell if you walked into the room and he said, ‘Hi. I’m her son. My name is [Adam]. I died in a car accident.’ Everything would just be an assembly-line bore. This makes it very challenging...and exciting to work it out.”

And, as if he were being paid by the hour like Anderson, at fifty-two minutes Adam decides to “pull back” and depart the premises, having imparted not one iota of information about the afterlife to his beloved mom, aside from Anderson’s platitudes that he is all right and at peace. But he was thoughtful enough to provide Anderson with some time for a coffee or bathroom break before the next assembly-line client’s arrival at the top of the hour.

There was, however, one sliver of a silver lining in this mephitic affair: Eve, though $1,200 lighter in the pocketbook, is now much richer of mind. She has become a skeptic.

Both sides have made significant efforts to establish scientific credibility with the public... . Those favoring action rely heavily on the IPCC-2007 science report [by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change].... In contrast, [the office of dissenter] James Inhofe…the ranking Republican member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works ... has issued a ... report titled United States Senate Minority Report on Global Warming.... As of January 2009, the number of ... individuals identified [in the Report] as scientists who allegedly dissent over [man-made global warming] claims ... was 687 [including] some quite well-known scientists.

Jordan then discusses the efforts of CFI’s OPP to “vet the list [of 687 dissenting scientists] carefully to establish how credible it is overall.” Though he doesn’t mention its official name in the piece, the OPP dubbed this endeavor the “Credibility Project.” And, as Jordan relates, its findings appear devastating for the dissenters.

After thus laying the groundwork for the following ostensible no-brainer, Jordan ends by rhetorically asking “the skeptic who is not acquainted with the relevant science where he or she thinks the most credible scientific assessment lies—with the scientists whose published research is reported in the IPCC-2007 science report or with the much smaller group of scientists collected for the Senate minority report.”

Some background: In May 2009, CFI’s OPP had disseminated a “Dear Citizen” announcement about its upcoming July 18–21 Second Annual Civic Days at the Nation’s Capital (see inset). From its introductory paragraph: “You will hear about ... an OPP-sponsored project exposing fake ‘scientists’ who oppose global warming.” But two months later, in an invitation to the Credibility Project’s July 17 press conference at the National Press Club, the OPP no longer referred to the dissenting scientists as fake. When I inquired as to whether this reflected “an evolution on CFI’s part,” OPP executive director Toni Van Pelt replied, “It is true, Gary, that your many e-mails [I routinely copy her when corresponding on this subject] influenced my decision to commission this research.”

Because I harbor my own doubts about the existence of a man-made global warming crisis, I anxiously awaited the details of the Credibility Project’s assessment of the skeptical scientists. Its most significant finding constitutes the deck of Jordan’s piece: “CFI vets list of 687 ‘dissenting scientists’ in Senate minority report; 80 percent haven’t published peer-reviewed climate research.” Largely for this reason, in its July 17 press release, OPP concluded that its findings “expose a lack of credibility among dissenting scientists challenging man-made global warming.”

But in my follow-up to Toni, I explained why “it simply does not logically follow that [those skeptical scientists] necessarily lack the credibility to speak to the issues at hand,” any more than I lack the legitimacy to critique, for example, medical studies touting prayer and healing, as I have done in CFI-sponsored magazines despite never having published studies of my own in the peer-reviewed literature.

Speaking further to Jordan’s key point that “80 percent haven’t published peer-reviewed climate research,” Skeptical Inquirer columnist Robert Sheaffer e-mailed a letter to the editor (see page 64), which was copied to other interested parties (including Jordan and myself), pointing out that OPP also should have vetted the list of IPCC scientists, since perhaps as few as 20 percent of them have had any professional dealings with climate, much less published in the peer-reviewed climate literature.

In his e-mailed reply to Sheaffer (et al.), Jordan advises:

One of the favorite tactics of global warming deniers is to refer to the [IPCC’s summary] report for policymakers, which summarizes [their separate] science report [authored by 2,000 real climate scientists]. There [in the summary report] it is true that the majority are not climate scientists, because they are presenting a summary, that is based upon the science report, to government officials, in the language of policy recommendations. Clearly this is comparing apples and oranges. The IPCC-2007 report titled “The Physical Science Basis” is a true science report, written by and summarizing the work of approximately 2,000 real scientists.

However, Sheaffer’s letter compares apples to apples—he does not reference the “summary” report, authored by fifty-one members of the IPCC. In an addendum offered after Jordan’s initial response, Sheaffer points out that OPP apparently also failed to ascertain how many of the “2,000 real scientists” actually contributed to the writing of the science report (620), and how many of those have published in the relevant literature.

Thus it seems that the Credibility Project, conceived by CFI’s Office of Public Policy for the purpose of “exposing fake ‘scientists’” who dare dissent from the prevailing climate of climate-change alarmism, has some credibility problems of its own. After polishing the project’s clouded lens, as one again examines Jordan’s question about whether “the most credible scientific assessment lies ... with the [IPCC] scientists ... or with the ... scientists collected for the Senate minority report,” the answer doesn’t appear to be such a no-brainer after all.

Renier, who has been featured in numerous episodes of Court TV’s pro-paranormal Psychic Detectives series, probably trails only Sylvia Browne as America’s—and perhaps even the world’s—best-known self-styled psychic sleuth. But even Browne is notorious for some well-publicized psychic stink bombs, so it’s understandable that Renier might have been clueless that she would get killed in court over the publication of A Mind for Murder, her 2005 memoir.

Renier’s book was promptly pulled when the publisher learned, from Merrell’s attorney, that Renier and Merrell had signed a settlement agreement in 1992 prohibiting either party from ever again publicly disparaging the other. Renier had won a $25,000 libel judgment against Merrell in 1986, which he unsuccessfully contested in two courts, and this settlement, which also included a $23,800 payment to Renier, was to have finally put their battles to bed. It shouldn’t take an attorney, much less a psychic, to recognize that A Mind for Murder’s two chapters devoted to Renier’s history with Merrell, in which she accuses him of lying in court and other misconduct, was a flagrant violation of that agreement. Merrell thus sued Renier in December 2005 for breach of contract.

As the case played out in U.S. District Court in Washington state, where Merrell now resides, a posting (subsequently removed) by Renier on her Web site placed the blame on her publisher for having “neglected to spot the problem that was to materialize in this latest lawsuit, although they were told to be very careful.” I’m no psychic (I don’t even play one on TV), but I sense that they might have spotted the problem had Renier spotted them a copy of her unambiguous, legally binding settlement agreement.

Equally clear was the settlement’s stipulation that, should someone breach the contract, thus precipitating a lawsuit, the prevailing party’s legal fees would be reimbursed by the breaching party. Yet again, Renier’s position strained credulity, with her attorney insisting that, because Merrell failed to claim any substantial monetary damages and his complaints against Renier’s publisher and coauthor had been dismissed, Merrell was not the prevailing party. This was in spite of the judge’s earlier pronouncement that “Ms. Renier breached the agreement.”

Judge James L. Robart’s final ruling, issued on April 5, 2007, reaffirmed that Renier was the breaching party, Merrell was the prevailing party, and that Renier was obligated to reimburse Merrell for his attorney’s fees and other legal costs in the amount of $39,558. All of Renier’s counterclaims were denied. Her book has not been rehabilitated, and her own legal fees are estimated to exceed $35,000.

On his own Web site, Merrell has floated two intriguing, though somewhat fanciful, ideas for Renier to ponder. The first has her coauthoring another book, this time with a skeptic like me or Joe Nickell, revealing “how international psychics have fooled the public and media.” The second has Merrell agreeing to donate $10,000 in Renier’s name to a children’s charity and erasing her $39,558 debt entirely, should she in a timely manner be able to “prove under a qualified and sanctioned test something as simple as her claims of human levitation, psychic sight through clothing, or her two-way communication with trees.” The former—if Renier is consciously aware, and agreeable to confessing, that she is no more “psychic” than the rest—could have best-seller potential. The latter, on the other hand, would require that Renier actually demonstrate psychic ability under properly controlled conditions, and, based upon my own personal history with her, my money says she wouldn’t dare make the attempt—not even for Randi’s $1,000,000 reward.

Dr. Rosenfeld, a cardiologist and professor of medicine, has appeared on national TV talk/interview shows since the 1960s. He has written several books, including the 1996 best-selling Dr. Rosenfeld’s Guide to Alternative Medicine. Upon locating the book, I found a discussion of the operation in question on pages 30-32. My quotations herein are from the Parade article, the book, and several e-mail communications to me from Rosenfeld.

Accompanied on his China trip by several other prominent American physicians (now deceased), the Rosenfeld party watched as a 28-year-old female patient was wheeled into an operating room at the University of Shanghai and prepped for heart surgery to repair her mitral valve. But in lieu of standard anesthesia, a practitioner placed “an acupuncture needle in her right earlobe” (per Parade), with an electrode attached to supply a mild electrical current.

Rosenfeld observed as “the surgeon . . . cut through the . . . breastbone with an electric buzzsaw [and] her chest was split in two [and] spread apart with a large clamp to expose the heart” (per his book). Rosenfeld shortly thereafter snapped the photograph that appears in Parade (it was not used in the book). Because Rosenfeld has denied me permission to reprint his photograph, artist Don Addis has faithfully reproduced its image (figure 1), which is rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise. (Addis, editorial cartoonist for the St. Petersburg Times, is also the cartoonist for the Tampa Bay Skeptics Report.)

Only the patient’s face and incision are visible through the gaps in the surgical sheets. Assume, as the photo appears to indicate, that her head is essentially “face up” as opposed to being significantly rotated right or left. (Her eyes are focused to her left, as if she is attempting to observe the operation but cannot rotate her head.) Drawing a vertical line down the midline of her body, the operative field appears to be displaced far to the patient’s left, rather than being centered where the breastbone and heart are situated. In fact, it appears so far to the left as to exist beyond the border of the patient’s body (see figure 2). There does not appear to be any appreciable distortion in the photo such as might be encountered from the use of a wide-angle lens.

Rosenfeld says that this apparent leftward displacement “must be due to the angle at which [the photo] was taken” (per e-mail to me). He informed me that one of the others present (Dr. Wilbur Gould, ENT) had also taken photos and that his widow “. . . no doubt has all his . . . pictures in her possession.” But he would not assist me in contacting her to obtain the photographs for review, saying that he did not wish to “participate in your project to prove that my four colleagues and I did not see what we saw.”

In addition to the photographic oddities, I asked Rosenfeld how such surgery could have been performed without artificial ventilation: With the chest split open as described, the negative pressure produced by chest-wall expansion could not be created, the lungs would collapse, and the patient would asphyxiate. I pointed out other problems as well, which are explored in a more extensive article on this matter that I have written with Dr. Wallace Sampson, tentatively planned for publication in the Fall/Winter 1999 issue of The Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine (SRAM).

I suggested to Dr. Rosenfeld that his party may have been taken in by a hoax perpetrated for propaganda purposes - a well-documented tactic used by the Chinese during the Cold War. But Rosenfeld scoffed at the notion (as he does in his book) and suggested that I contact Dr. Michael DeBakey, one of the world’s foremost cardiac surgeons, who “witnessed a similar procedure one year later [and] can explain your legitimate technical questions about ventilatory support. I spoke with him yesterday . . .” (per Rosenfeld’s e-mail).

I asked Sampson to speak with DeBakey on our behalf, and the results of that interview were quite enlightening.

DeBakey informed Sampson that despite his conversation with Rosenfeld just a few days earlier, he had neither read Rosenfeld’s accounts of the operation nor seen his photograph, and he was thus unconversant with the details in question. As for his own experience in China, DeBakey recalled that the mitral valve surgery that he had witnessed involved a patient who, it turned out, had received not only acupuncture, but also intravenous medication before and during the operation. Additionally, DeBakey told Sampson that artificial ventilation had not been needed in the operation that he saw because it had been performed through an incision between two right ribs, thus sparing one (the left) lung. He added that, in his opinion, a midline, split-breastbone approach, such as described by Rosenfeld, would likely cause both lungs to collapse, just as we had suspected.

Before I knew of Sampson’s own interest in this case, and at about the time I was initiating my correspondence with Rosenfeld, Sampson had written to Parade editor Larry Smith (Rosenfeld is the magazine’s health editor), pointing out some of the incongruities I've noted here. He asked how he might assist Parade in rectifying “the incorrect impressions given by the article.” Sampson, a professor of medicine at Stanford University and editor in chief of SRAM, did not receive a reply.

A few additional observations about the precision of Rosenfeld’s recollections and his attention to detail in recounting them: He acknowledged to me that, not being a surgeon, he actually “did not pay any particular attention at the time to the surgical technique used.” He says in his book (contrary to the Parade version) that “needles” (plural) had been placed in the patient’s “left” (not “right”) earlobe. He explained to me that this “was a typo, which was not picked up since I did not use the photo” in the book. But the image was presumably indelibly imprinted in his mind. From the book: “I took a color photograph of that memorable scene: the open chest, the smiling patient, and the surgeon’s hands holding her heart. I show it to anyone who scoffs at acupuncture.” Yet, the photo clearly shows the surgeon’s hands to the lower-left of the patient’s heart - hardly another “typo.”

Toward the end of our correspondence, Rosenfeld told me that, in publicizing the China story, his motivation had simply been “to draw attention to the possible use of acupuncture to alleviate chronic pain and suffering. . . . I thought acupuncture was worth looking into. I still do, as does a panel convened recently by the NIH. . . . I continue to keep an open mind on the subject.” While I expressed my appreciation of that position, I also conveyed my concern that many of Parade's 80-plus-million readers could easily have drawn a conclusion that Rosenfeld says he did not intend - that acupuncture appears to possess mysterious and unexplained, perhaps even supernatural, anesthetic properties.

To this point about the important role that authorities such as Rosenfeld play in educating the American public on health-related issues, he replied, “As far as your fear that my readers will opt for acupuncture anesthesia during heart surgery, I think I can reassure you not to worry about it.” Oh. Well, never mind, then.

Everything you could ever want to know about alternative healthcare can be found in this one handy little book. Well, not exactly. But, after all, this is a dictionary, not an encyclopedia.

The Dictionary of Metaphysical Healthcare, by Jack Raso, a registered dietitian with a master’s degree in health sciences, contains entries for more alternative/paranormal health “remedies” than you can shake a stick at, although the author has inadvertently omitted “stick-shaking” from his listings. Reading the definitions of the myriad included entries, I would think that “stick shaking” would be at least as effective as most, and probably more effective than many.

Seven years in the making, this dictionary contains more than one thousand straightforward, non-judgmental definitions of therapies dubbed to be “closer to vaudeville than to science” in a previous review by Marvin J. Schissel, D.D.S. During my initial flip through the dictionary, I was surprised to find that chelation therapy, colonic irrigation, and other such commonly employed “cures” are not included among the listings for “Starlink,” “Spirit surgery,” “past-life therapy,” and the like. I then found, in the introduction, the author’s explanation: This book, unlike most on the subject. concentrates on “unnaturalistic” therapies — those that are “out of joint with the worldview that nature as science maps it is all there is and covers only peripherally medical alternativism’s naturalistic minority, which encompasses such methods as chelation therapy and colonic irrigation. The dictionary’s main section, in fact, is titled “Unnaturalistic Methods”.

Should you ever develop an inexplicable desire to undergo a round of “marma therapy” (or perhaps “Marma Chikitsa” for the more adventurous), this is an excellent reference to turn to, not simply for its concise yet authoritative definitions, but also for its topic-by topic bibliography. And the bibliography’s selections are not what one might expect from a book written by a board member of the National Council Against Health Fraud. No, indeed. From what I can see (and I acknowledge that my eyesight is not what it once was, since I discontinued my prophylactic “image magick” treatments), these consist purely of pro-alternative sources of what the author refers to as “information, misinformation, and disinformation.”

But don’t despair. A recommended reading list can be found on the book’s last page. The introduction also makes quite clear the author’s relative views of “science-oriented” versus “alternative” healthcare.

The Chi Nei Tsang II method?

One of the dictionary’s entries offers hope of settling once and for all the debate between evolution and creationism. The Chi Nei Tsang II method (from Tahiland) posits “at least ten kinds of bodily ‘wind’ (flatus), including the “sick or evil wind,'” which its practitioners can presumably differentiate between with olfactory alacrity. If this doesn't prove that humans and canines evolved from a common ancestor, I don’t know what could.

And perhaps many of our readers might benefit from the “grape cure” for “sex problems”: “By the magical purification of the blood the nerves are stabilized, self-control is established and our God-given heritage of sense and desire is transmitted into divine creative power.” I have had some modest experience with the power of the grape, and at first glance was considering giving this juicy therapy a shot, despite my already legendary powers of self-control and ample supply of divine creative power. But, alas, the dictionary’s disillusioning definition makes clear that fermentation is not part of this therapy’s equation.

“This project was started ten years ago by a group of scientists in different fields of medicine and experimental physics . . . for studying the paranormal immunities [Super Reactions (SR)] to pain, bleeding and infection possessed by swamis and gurus, who can ram sharp objects through their bodies without feeling pain or having serious wounds. . . . We recently became able to . . . bestow SR [spontaneously] . . .to all people without restrictions or reservations. . . . It looks as if this technique [connects] the human body to a certain source of unknown energy which . . . protects [it] from any harm resulting from driving swords and sharp objects into it. . . . These techniques show 100% success when applied to different persons, including those who had had no idea about the expected results of the techniques. . . .We hope that our Programme will be of interest to you so that we can conduct joint research in fields of mutual interest.”

On April 8, after sharing Dr. Hussein’s letter with the TBS members attending our meeting, I replied on behalf of TBS. Noting our standing “$1,000 Challenge” for “verifiable proof of any paranormal phenomenon,” I informed Hussein that if he could demonstrate to us that the claims in his letter were true, “that would suffice.” I continued: “If you would like to visit the United States, specifically sunny Florida, we would love to test your claim, and would be agreeable to increasing our award to $10,000 if you were to exhibit no signs of pain or injury as we passed a knife through your body. Of course, we would have the police present to verify that we were doing this at your request. And, despite your claimed ‘100% success’ rate, as a physician I would be able to properly dress your wounds.”

I then received a May 10 letter from Louay J. Fatoohi of the physics department at Durham University, Durham, England, “on behalf of my colleague, Dr. Jamal Hussein, he will be on the East Coast next month and would be pleased to meet you and members of your committee. Dr. Hussein would therefore like to know how to arrange for the suggested meeting.” I replied on May 15, again on TBS stationery, which contains both our address and telephone number: ” . . . It is hard to believe that your colleague is prepared to be stabbed with knives. . . . Nevertheless, TBS is prepared to put him to the test. . . . You might send me a copy of Dr. Hussein’s plans for visiting the eastern U.S., including specific dates on which he could be available for testing.”

We heard nothing more until a July 25 mailing arrived from Paramann containing seven snapshots and a three-part article (co-authored by Hussein, Fatoohi, and two others) titled “The Deliberately Caused Bodily Damage Phenomena: Mind, Body, Energy or What?” which was published in the September, October, and November 1994 issues of the International Journal of Alternative & Complementary Medicine. An editor’s note accompanying the first installment of the article stated the following: “If the claims which are made in the article can be reproduced please do not try any of these methods on yourself or your patients! we would have a powerful method to use against trauma and pain.”

Unfortunately, despite our efforts, and our $10,000 offer, the Tampa Bay Skeptics was denied a unique opportunity to test these techniques on Dr. Hussein himself.

Update:

Several days prior to publication, I received another mass mailing, dated August 20, from Paramann Programme Labs. Their new letterhead now contains an e-mail address, that of L. Fatoohi, to which I promptly sent an inquiry. In his reply, Fatoohi apologized for not having answered my May letter, and informed me that Dr. Hussein had to cancel his planned trip to the U.S. “for personal circumstances.” I will be continuing my dialogue with Fatoohi, and will submit additional reports.