From March 8 – 12, 2013, I attended and spoke at ConDor XX, a sci/fi and fantasy conference at the Town and Country Hotel in San Diego.

Apparently, there is a whole world of similarly-themed conventions and activities that pop up all over the country. Sure, I’d heard of Comic-Con and Dragoncon, but ConChord (which features music, and community tied to science fiction/fantasy fandom – aka filk), Loscon (Sci/Fi convention), Costume Camp, and the Klingon Assault Group were all news to me.

The main talk I did was called “Bad Science in the Media: Can Paranormal Claims Be Tested?” and concerned the kinds of paranormal claims that are blithely accepted in the media all the time without being questioned or challenged. We see famous psychics, bogus products, and credulous news stories all over TV, radio, and the internet, but too few people know that most of these claims have been tested and roundly refuted.

I also participated in two panels, one of which, “Science Denial: Distrust of Science and Scientists,” I moderated. On that panel, I had both San Diego State University physicist Calvin Johnson, as well as former rocket scientist Kevin Grazier on my side. A later panel I sat on was called “Out of Body Experiences,” which also dealt somewhat with near death experiences. There Judy Lazar, a PhD biologist, weighed in with her pharmacological expertise to counterbalance the New Age tone the discussion sometimes held.

Though ConDor is the one-and-only sci/fi conference I’ve been to, the people seemed to be very friendly and generally pro-science – that is to say more pro-science than the rest of the population at large. I have no data to back that up, but I have been the only atheist or skeptic in the room enough times to know when the tide is against me. These folks at least had an appreciation for science. And why shouldn’t they? It fires their imaginations.

Thirteen years ago CSICOP (as CSI was called then) had been already been around for over two decades—solving mysteries, investigating fringe science, UFOs, monsters and the paranormal. At that time there were veteran paranormal investigators like Joe Nickell, James Randi, Ray Hyman, Phil Klass, and others shedding light on many of the wacky claims that saturated our culture. Of course, the psychics, dowsers, quacks and other purveyors of bogus beliefs they exposed vastly outnumbered the science-based side. They still do.

A telepath transmits playing cards to a friend in another room.

To help tip that scale a bit toward skepticism, I founded the Independent Investigations Group in 2000 by calling for volunteers who wanted to go beyond just reading about paranormal claims and would rather actively participate in investigations and tests. CSI had access to some of the greatest skeptical minds alive, so I thought it was time to add to our side’s power of inquiry.

Joe Nickell is inducted into the IIG Hall of Honor.

Thirteen years later the IIG is—we believe—the largest paranormal investigations team in the world. With affiliate groups in several states and a Canadian province, we are in the process of creating an international network of trained investigators who will not only look into paranormal, fringe science, and extraordinary claims in their own regions, but also administer the IIG $50,000 Challenge.

A $50,000 applicant watches the results of a envelope-matching test. (Photo by Paula Lauterbach)

The IIG $50,000 Challenge (obviously modeled after James Randi’s One Million Dollar Challenge) offers that sum to anyone who can prove paranormal ability under controlled testing conditions. CSI, publisher of Skeptical Inquirer magazine, is now the underwriter of the IIG $50,000 Challenge. Anyone may apply for the challenge. No prequalification is required. And in case you were wondering, no one has ever won the money, or even come close.

The “sending team” upstairs at CFI-L.A. during a test of a clairaudient.

Our decade-plus of activity has the IIG crossing paths with scores of interesting cases and tests and the characters associated with them. We’ve had dowsers, telepaths, and a woman who claimed to be able to see into a human body, travel thousands of miles to fail epically at tests they themselves helped design. We’ve hit the road to see haunted houses, alien skulls, perpetual motion machines, and the highest-paid mediums in the country (John Edward and James Van Praagh). We’ve attended new-age fairs, psychic demonstrations, and both spoon-bending and remote-viewing classes.

The IIG at a conference.

IIG representatives have spoken at many conferences and other gatherings all over the U.S., Canada, England, and even South Africa. We’ve been on Oprah, Dr. Phil, Miracle Detective, Weird or What, 1000 Ways to Lie, Penn and Teller’s Bullshit (twice), Midday L.A., Angels vs. Demons, The WGN Morning Show, History’s Mysteries, and many more shows, including countless radio shows and podcasts.

In our off-duty hours many a friendship has been forged among group members.

In the future, we aim to cultivate and train groups all over the world to put wildly irrational claims to the test. No longer will a dinner party disagreement about a paranormal claim have to end with, “Well, we’ll never know.” With competent investigators everywhere, no allegation need go untested or unexamined.

If you are a science-minded skeptic interested in forming an IIG near you, contact Jim Underdown at the Center for Inquiry-Los Angeles at 323-666-9797 x 101 or write JimU@CFIWest.org. Also please visit www.IIGWest.org for more info about the group.

Members of the Independent Investigations Group and sixteen volunteers, including former Olympic gymnast Dominique Dawes, conducted a test of Power Balance bracelets. The results will not be surprising to skeptics.

Power Balance bracelets are silicone wristbands that are embedded with two Mylar holograms. On October 21, 2010, the Independent Investigations Group (IIG) conducted a double-blind test to determine whether Power Balance’s claims that the holograms on their bracelets (then selling online for $29.95) work with the body’s “energy field” to improve strength, flexibility, and balance by “optimizing the body’s natural energy flow.” The company’s website also included a tangle of information that attempted to draw connections between Eastern medicine, “body frequencies,” and “positive energy.” The following excerpt, once available on the Power Balance site, gives insight into the company’s rationale behind its product: “Most everything has a frequency inherent to it. Some frequencies react positively with your body and others negatively. When the hologram comes in contact with your body’s energy field, it allows your body to interact with the natural, beneficial frequency stored within the hologram. This results in improved energy flow throughout your body.” (See Harriet Hall’s excellent article about these claims, “Power Balance Technology: Pseudoscientific Silliness Suckers Card-Carrying Surfers,” in the May/June 2010 Skeptical Inquirer; also available online.) The company relies heavily on testimonials from blue-chip pro athletes like Shaquille O’Neal of the Boston Celtics, Lamar Odom of the Los Angeles Lakers, and Derrick Rose of the Chicago Bulls. Odom and others are paid to endorse the product and do wear the bracelets during games.

The Power Balance bracelets and their hologram stickers.

Power Balance once used highly subjective applied kinesiology tests to demonstrate that the bracelets work. In these types of “tests,” one person analyzes another’s resistance and balance by applying pressure in various ways. (The applied kinesiology videos are no longer on Power Balance’s website, www.powerbalance.com.)

A volunteer running the test course.

The applied kinesiology method of testing the bracelet’s effectiveness is problematic and full of flaws for a number of reasons. There is no way to know from videos of these tests how much pressure the tester is exerting, whether the technique used to apply the pressure is identical each time, or whether the resistance from the person being tested is the same each time. Most people’s flexibility seems to improve from their first stretch to their second stretch regardless of whether they are wearing the bracelet. (I invite you to try this for yourself using no bracelet.)

Also, the people being tested may unconsciously change their own resistance when they know the bracelet is on and think it should be helping. Indeed, the psychological effect of believing the bracelet will help may be the only real effect Power Balance can claim. Every athlete knows that confidence is an asset.

To remove this suggestive influence of the bracelets, we decided to test sixteen volunteers, including former Olympic gymnast Dominique Dawes, on a brief obstacle course that included a 16’×4”×4” balance beam, a figure-eight–shaped course (which our volunteers ran while holding two thirty-pound dumbbells), and a stretch test. Dawes was there with Yahoo News, which shot some video of our test for a story. Dawes, by the way, arrived with a healthy skepticism that seemed to get even stronger when she learned of the test results.

The test was double blinded: neither the test participants nor the testers knew which bracelet was the “real” Power Balance band.

In random order, each of the sixteen volunteers went through the course four times: once with the real bracelet on and three times with each of the bracelets that had no holograms. The test was double blind; we taped over the bracelets so that no one—volunteers and testers alike—knew whether each volunteer was wearing a real Power Balance bracelet or one that had had the holograms removed. The power of suggestion was therefore eliminated.

By the end of the test, each of the four bracelets (labeled A, B, C, D)—three sans hologram and one “genuine”—had been carried through the course a total of sixteen times. We distributed the bracelets equally among the volunteers through all four rounds of trials to ensure that no bracelet had a numerical or sequential advantage at any given time. (We considered that the experience of running the course in early trials might help the subjects improve their times in their subsequent attempts. To correct for improving scores due to familiarity with the course—sometimes called the “Order Effect”—four people wore bracelet A in the first round, four different people wore bracelet A in the second round, and so on, for each of the four rounds.)

So what happened?

If the one genuine Power Balance bracelet had an intrinsic value that really did confer better balance, flexibility, and strength upon its user, we should have seen cumulatively better scores from the people who wore that bracelet (C) when compared to the people wearing the three “dummy” bracelets (A, B, and D). The overall scores between the four bracelets were in fact very close together: half the participants who wore the real bracelet did slightly better, and half did slightly worse—exactly as would be expected by chance. Table 1 shows the results of the obstacle course. Bear in mind that a lower time indicates a better performance. When it came to flexibility, the results were much the same: the overall scores were very close. This time, the Power Balance bracelet (also C in Table 2) fared slightly better than the other bracelets but, again, not significantly so.

Our initial conclusion was that Power Balance bracelets have no discernable effect when the wearer doesn’t know whether or not he or she is wearing one with a hologram. In other words, the bracelet itself doesn’t seem to be doing anything. These results are consistent with work done by Richard Saunders for the Australian Skeptics (see “Power Balance Down and Out,” SI, News and Comment, September/October 2011) and by John Porcari at the University of Wisconsin at Lacrosse, both of whom conducted blinded tests of Power Balance’s efficacy and found no difference between Power Balance products and dummy stand-ins used to blind the user.

The IIG at CFI–Los Angeles has now added its findings to the growing pool of Power Balance’s negative test results. Although the bracelet might have some value as a sort of rabbit’s foot meant to boost one’s confidence, Power Balance bracelets are a bust as a boon to one’s athletic prowess.

I have to admit that when it was first suggested by members of the Independent Investigations Group (IIG) that we attend something called the SoCal Para-Con (Southern California Paranormal Convention), I was … uh… skeptical. In my eleven-plus years with the Center for Inquiry and my ten-plus years with the IIG, I’ve crossed paths with scores of people who believe in strange things. So the prospect of spending a day with ghost hunters, psychics, UFO enthusiasts, and others from the wonderful world of woo did not initially appeal to me. But because the eagerness of some of our investigators was a bit contagious, and I remembered that not everyone had been to this sort of thing before, the IIG ponied up $25 and bought a booth.

Para-Con was held on October 2, 2010, in a relatively small section of the very large L.A. Convention Center. The organizers charged $35 per person for admission, though there were ticket deals to be had up until a few days before the event. There were only twenty-some vendors present, including the IIG and a few other investigation teams. The whole convention took place in two connected rooms and could be covered at a leisurely pace in forty minutes. We were in the room with the stage featuring ghost hunters, UFO experts, and other paranormal “authorities.” Most of the speakers had a few dozen (or fewer) people listening to their tales, and we suspected many of those audience members were just looking to sit down.

Any good skeptic should touch down in an alien world like Para-Con every now and then, so there were good reasons for us to attend the convention. Here are a few of those reasons:

1. Know Thy Enemy: Ok, enemy might be a bit strong, but there is no substitute for live interaction with people for getting an insight into how they think and what they believe. For instance, we learned a couple of new phrases that people are using: “quantum theophysics” and “We’ve gone over from being believers to being knowers.” This reminded me of people who say “I know what I saw” when they apparently don’t. In any case, face time with believers can be valuable.

2. How Do You Develop Diplomacy? Practice!: As we sat in the belly of the paranormal beast, people dropped by to see what the IIG was all about. With IIG brochures and issues of Skeptical Inquirer on display, we greeted every visitor with a smile. We opted for the attract-more-flies-with-honey approach and tried our best not to be confrontational, even when offering claimants a chance to apply for our $50,000 Paranormal Challenge. (I had to excuse myself when a woman claimed the ability to clairvoyantly identify forty-seven Zener Cards in a row. As the odds of this are slimmer than multi-trillions to one, it was time for me to leave lest I destroy our diplomacy record.)

3. Who Needs $50k?: Many people out there who are blessed with miraculous skills are unaware that they can win $50,000 if they can prove paranormal ability under scientific testing conditions. Under our brand new IIG banner, we posted a sign notifying people that such a prize is available. One woman amazingly claimed she wasn’t interested in the $50,000, didn’t know anyone who’d be interested, and couldn’t conceive of someone needing $50,000. Now that’s a wild claim!

4. NEW Targets: We met people who have interesting claims we’d not heard about before—most notably a man who is visited by aliens (i.e., ETs) two to three times per week. We even chatted with members of a ghost-hunting group who admitted to not finding any ghosts to date. They seemed decent, though, and might be worth tagging along with to see what they’re up to. We were familiar with the kinds of claims made by most of the folks there, but you never know what you might run into.

Overall, attending Para-Con was worth the effort. We got our name out there and introduced a few believers to the idea of organized skeptical inquiry into paranormal claims. And I think we did so without stepping on any toes—not too hard anyway.

The California Board of Registered Nursing (CBRN) oversees and licenses more than 350,000 registered nurses in the Golden State.¹ Nurses in California must complete thirty hours of continuing education units (CEUs) every two years to remain licensed. These units must be issued by certified CEU providers and “must be relevant to the practice of nursing.”² The courses may, however, be related to topics as varied as “social and behavioral sciences . . . therapeutic interpersonal relationship skills. . .and nursing administration.”³

There is no ongoing reporting mechanism to keep track of each individual’s CEUs. Nurses comply based on the honor system but are expected to submit proof of coursework if requested. Correspondence courses can qualify for credit, and the board requires little substantiation that anything has been learned.⁴

A Tectonic-sized Crack in the System

The Independent Investigations Group (IIG) at the Center for Inquiry/Los Angeles has been an active skeptics group since January 2000. When we at the IIG learned that a nursing CEU provider called Clearsight was offering credits for a class in “energetic medicine,” we investigated. “Energetic medicine” is Clearsight’s name for therapeutic touch (TT), the manipulation of alleged energy fields such as chakras and auras over the body. (The practitioner’s hands make no actual contact with the patient.) Clearsight advertised that they were licensed by the state of California to teach the following to registered nurses:

The skills of “seeing energy” to see and diagnose body organs; to scan the physical and energetic bodies for dis-harmonies or illness; and to heal the aura and chakras, the energetic systems of the body.

Clearsight introduces you to the skills of Free Will, the art of energy diagnosis, how to make Separations from your Healee so you do not take another person’s energy or dis-ease home and how to release old patterns and stuck energy in your body and auric field. When you use Clearsight healing skills you clear and clean the entire energy field (chakras, channels and aura) and grow and evolve evenly at the rate of growth you are ready to access.⁵

Our shock at discovering that such a pseudoscientific course had been sanctioned by an ostensibly scientific government agency led us to inquire about Clearsight’s application. Had Clearsight defrauded the CBRN in order to cash in on the CEU market?

Sacramento, We Have a Problem

After some prodding to remind the CBRN that Clearsight’s provider application was public record, the IIG received a copy of the application and discovered that it was blank in some places and that the instructor’s educational credentials consisted of a BA in comparative religion and a ministerial certificate from the Church of Divine Man a psychic institute that offers healings, psychic readings, and other such activities.⁶ The application also made the unsubstantiated claim that “medical science has recognized and quantified the existence of a human energy field which, when blocked, may result in a broad range of physical and psychological ailments.”⁷

From January to May 2006, IIG investigators had a frustrating series of exchanges with the nursing board. Initially, we asked that they withdraw Clearsight’s certification to teach energetic medicine based on the omissions in the application and the lack of supporting medical value for the practices being taught. We naively thought that after we pointed out these (what we thought were stunning) revelations, the board would recognize their oversight and withdraw Clearsight’s certification to teach New Age malarkey. We had no idea our odyssey was just beginning.

In a February 2006 letter, then CBRN Executive Officer Ruth Ann Terry wrote to IIG investigator Owen Hammer that “nurses . . . need to be informed about these techniques in order to understand the patient’s/client’s perspective and learn what is involved in each technique.”⁸

IIG Chair James Underdown addressed the board personally in May and June of 2006 and argued that Clearsight’s course was not a class about energetic healing; it was a course teaching (i.e., endorsing) energetic healing, an unscientific concept. The IIG submitted a proposed rewrite of the current rules that would help prevent future lapses in science standards.

The current rules say (in effect) that content must be relevant to the practice of nursing, related to scientific knowledge, or related to client care.⁹ Our proposed change was that content must be relevant, scientific, and related to client care. We also submitted a clause clarifying the definition of scientific and a change providing for automatic withdrawal of certification from CEU providers who give false information on an application.

The IIG then contacted the California Department of Consumer Affairs, which oversees nursing regulations, and received a reply in July 2006 that defended the granting of Clearsight’s certification. In August 2006, Underdown addressed the board’s Education/Licensing Committee in Sacramento. There, the IIG was informed¹⁰ that the board will “award a CE Provider number to the applicant if the alternative or complementary medicine modality is discussed in the publication Best Practices in Alternative and Complementary Medicine¹¹

Best Practices, which would be key to our investigation, is a hard-to-find publication that is regarded by the board as its guidepost to educational policy. It contains sections on TT, magnet therapy, Reiki, aromatherapy, homeopathy, and qigong. The material on these topics is highly credulous¹² despite poor scientific support and wide criticism in the Skeptical Inquirer and other journals. The board nevertheless defended the licensure of energetic medicine classes and other alternative medical practices by citing Best Practices as an acceptable standard.

After an exhaustive search, we found Best Practices in a library and carefully read the sections that dealt with TT. We then crafted a comprehensive, well-documented refutation of Best Practices’s TT claims and sent copies of this refutation to each board member. This was in addition to literature we had already given the board, including material from Robert Park’s SI piece “Alternative Medicine and the Laws of Physics”¹³; “A Close Look at Therapeutic Touch”¹⁴ by Linda Rosa, Emily Rosa, Larry Sarner, and Stephen Barrett (in TheJournal of the American Medical Association and Kevin Courcey’s “Further Notes on Therapeutic Touch,” which is available online at www.Quackwatch.org.

Oddly enough, Rosa et al’s JAMA paper was cited in the Best Practices literature despite the fact that it elegantly refutes claims that TT works!

The board promised to consider our suggested changes to the regulations, but we never heard from them or saw any sign that the item was listed on any subsequent board agenda or addressed at any meeting. We were stonewalled.

You Want Crazy? You Got It!

We then decided to see for ourselves just how lax California’s CEU provider application process really is. We created a CEU provider called the California Foundation for Institutional Care or CFI-Care and sent an application with the $200 fee to the CBRN. We called our course “Feng Shui for Home Care Providers” and listed IIG investigator Karen Kensek as the instructor because she teaches architecture at the University of Southern California and thus meets the qualifications of a certified instructor. But we didn’t stop there.

The following sections appear on our application for this course aimed at professional nurses:

1. Möbel Kinesiology (Möbel is the German word for furniture, so möbel kinesiology is, essentially, furniture moving.)
2. Feng Shui (a practice in which a structure or site is chosen or configured so as to harmonize with its qi, or life energy)
3. Chinese ShŽy—u (translation: snake oil)
4. Vapor and Reflective Surfaces (another way to say smoke and mirrors)
5. Apophenia (the experience of seeing patterns or connections in random or meaningless data)
6. Anthropomancy (divination through human entrails)
7. Canupiary Flexibility (The word canupiary exists in no language we could find. We made it up.)

When the unfamiliar content on our application was initially questioned, we simply pointed out that the sections we proposed were consistent with material found in Best Practices, the board’s own gold standard for educational content. They would either have to certify CFI-Care or reject Best Practices.

CFI-Care was certified as Continuing Education Provider #15166 on August 28, 2008. We were officially in the for-profit business of teaching wacky ideas to professional nurses.

Feng Shui for Nurses: The Class

After much discussion about how to use our newfound state-sanctioned authority to disseminate false information, we decided to teach the class as-applied-for at the Center for Inquiry/Los Angeles. Part of the class would include revealing our motives to embarrass the CBRN into recognizing the flaws in its continuing education system. We certainly wouldn’t want to see a class like “Feng Shui for Home Care Providers” taught for real.

In late March 2009, we issued press releases announcing that we would be teaching this state-approved class for the first time. We invited nurses, the press, and any other concerned citizens interested in the state’s healthcare status. We even offered nurses free entry, free coffee, and two hours of CEU credit for attending.

But the board had one more roadblock to throw in front of us. Days after publicizing the class to the world, we received a letter (dated March 27, 2009) from CBRN Executive Officer Ruth Ann Terry stating that our certification had been “issued in error” and was now rescinded. We found it interesting that it took the CBRN eight months to discover this (as yet unnamed) error and only after our extensive publicity campaign spotlighting the folly of their approval.

We taught the class anyway, with no promise of CEUs, to an amazed and incredulous crowd. The handful of nurses who attended the class with around seventy-five others were appalled that the class’s ludicrous content had been approved by the board. Jim Underdown reaching into an anatomically correct rubber corpse and flinging an armful of bloody latex entrails onto the stage to read the future was particularly memorable.

As of late July 2009, our inquiries into the reason for the revocation have been ignored.

Arnold Terminates the Board

On July 13, 2009, Governor Schwarzenegger replaced six of the seven appointed members of the CBRN.¹⁵ The following day, CBRN Executive Officer Ruth Ann Terry resigned. It seems that while the board was taking its time responding to our objections over the teaching of pseudoscience, it was also taking its time (an average of three to five years, according to the nonprofit news organization ProPublica) investigating and closing complaints against nurses. The Los Angeles Times and ProPublica reported last fall that nurses with serious or multiple criminal convictions kept their licenses for years before the board acted against them.

We should note that the former board was not unanimously against our efforts and that the IIG is not taking sides regarding the replacement of the California Board of Registered Nursing. We are hopeful that the new board will take this opportunity to reexamine its continuing education polices. We will petition them to support high scientific standards in the care of California residents. Nurses and patients both deserve the best information scientific medicine can provide. l

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the invaluable help and dedication of the rest of the IIG with special thanks to Karen Kensek, Jim Newman, Jerry Buchanan, Wendy Hughes, and Bernie Eisenberg. They would also like to thank Linda Rosa, RN, and Wally Sampson, MD, for their advice and guidance throughout this investigation.

Notes

1. http://www.rn.ca.gov/about_us/whatisbrn.shtml.
2. California Code of Regulations, Title 16, Division 14, Article 5, Section 1456.
3. Ibid.
4. CME Resource Catalogue 2009.
5. www.clearsightaura.com/index.php?topic=engmed (accessed July 20, 2009).
6. See their Web site at http://www.c-d-m.org/.
7. Clearsight application for certification as a provider of continuing education units in the State of California, 1994. Page 1.
8. Letter to IIG investigator Owen Hammer from CBRN Executive Director Ruth Ann Terry, February 2, 2006.
9. Paraphrasing of “Nursing Practice Act with Rules and Regulations,” section 1456.
10. Language copied from the official minutes for the California Board of Registered Nursing Education/Licensing Committee meeting on August 31, 2006.
11. Formally, Best Practices in Complementary and Alternative Medicine: An Evidence-Based Approach with Nursing CE/CME by Lynda W. Freeman. Aspen Publishers 2001.
12. The studies cited had no control group, were not blinded, were never replicated, were conducted in secret, or actually disproved the efficacy of TT.
13. Skeptical Inquirer September/October 1997.
14. JAMA 1998.
15. http://gov.ca.gov/press-release/12803/.

Before the gatherings at the Steve Allen Theater, CFI/Los Angeles announced Darwin Aloud, an international project collecting video from around the world of people reading from On the Origin of Species, Darwin’s groundbreaking book outlining evolution by natural selection. This planet-wide gesture honoring the father of evolution will be edited into a short film this spring in Hollywood. See cfiwest.org/darwinaloud for more details.

On Darwin’s birthday (February 12), more than 100 people crowded into a theater-in-the-round for a staged reading from an episode of Meeting of Minds, Steve Allen’s PBS series that brought together famous historical figures. The reading was the companion piece to the episode staged last year involving the same characters.

Five noted television and movie actors played Darwin, Galileo, Emily Dickinson, and Attila the Hun discussing and debating their ideas with moderator Steve Allen. Reprising their characters from last year were Oscar nominee Robert Forster (Jackie Brown) as Galileo; Dan Lauria (The Wonder Years) as Attila, and Wendie Malick (Just Shoot Me) as Emily. Portraying Darwin this year was Charles Shaughnessy (The Nanny), and bringing Steve Allen to life was Gary Cole (The West Wing). Directing the episode again was Frank Megna, and it was again co-produced by Diana Ljungaeus and Bob Ladendorf.

Steve Allen’s son Bill attended the performance. Jayne Meadows, Allen’s widow, could not be present but sent a warm note (read by Cole as Steve) praising last year’s production and wishing us the best for this year’s performance. The reading was followed by a champagne toast led by CFI/Los Angeles Executive Director Jim Underdown and a Darwin birthday cake.

The following Sunday morning, author David Contosta spoke to more than 100 attendees at CFI/Los Angeles and in Orange County about his new book on Darwin and Lincoln (born on the same day as Darwin in 1809). Rebel Giants: The Revolutionary Lives of Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin (Prometheus Books) was nominated for the Lincoln Prize for the best book about Abraham Lincoln in 2008.

Rounding out the week’s events on Sunday afternoon was a performance of A Dangerous Descent, playwright/biochemist Colin Cox’s Garden-of-Eden clash between Adam, Eve, and Adam’s first wife Lilith (yes, first wife.) The three find a pocket watch and dive into a scorching argument about whether it was intelligently designed or not. Even the primarily CFI-minded audience had to hang on for dear life as the three (fictional) characters blazed through an array of arguments that spanned both centuries and many branches of learning. More than a hundred attended, including the noted actor Michael York.

It was a truly exhilarating week at CFI/Los Angeles honoring the life and ideas of the scientist whose work has withstood the test of time—and creationists.

Feng shui is the ancient Chinese art of creating living space that’s in harmony with the universal energy, or qi, that supposedly flows through it. The practice dates back to the twelfth century and incorporates aspects of astrology, luck, and aesthetics. The aesthetic value of feng shui might have some merit, depending on the individual making the decorating decisions, but scientists are still waiting to see evidence that qi even exists, much less that it influences one’s romantic or financial condition. Besides, there are different schools of thought in feng shui, and masters advising on identical environments have been shown to radically disagree on what changes should be made. (See the episode of Penn and Teller: Bullshit! illustrating this.)

If the value of feng shui for humans is dubious, the joy that it brings into monkeys’ lives seems, shall we say, yet to be established. Indeed, I invite any scholarly research on monkey luck and any evidence showing baboon behavior changing with the alteration of a door’s location.

Since science seemed to be escaping from the zoo, it was time for a visit from CFI. I was the first community speaker to be heard at the zoo’s March 20 Board of Commissioners meeting and was allowed three minutes to try to convince the commissioners that feng shui wasn’t worth forty-five cents, much less $4,500.

To her credit, one commissioner said she was surprised at hearing this had been approved. The zoo staff member who green-lighted the feng fee was not present to defend him or herself, but another staffer said it was an effort to replicate the cultural aspects of a rural Chinese village where these monkeys are from. “Why not just hire someone to recreate the look of a village,” I asked. “You don’t need all that ‘energy’ mumbo jumbo to make it look the same.”

They seemed to agree, and I got the distinct impression there was at least a hint of embarrassment over the whole affair. We can only hope. . . .

Achau Nguyen of Oahu, Hawaii, flew to Los Angeles for a preliminary test of the JREF $1 Million Paranormal Challenge, and for the demonstration phase of the IIG’s $10,000 Challenge. Achau claimed to be able to mentally send words to a person who would accurately receive them and write them down. During the period when the test protocol was being designed, Achau said he could successfully send 19 or 20 out of 20 words to a receiver.

Achau, his friend E., and E.’s girlfriend J., arrived at CFI-West at a few minutes before 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, July 23, 2005. Jim Underdown showed them both the upstairs and downstairs tables they would be seated at during the test to make sure all was in order and in harmony with what they thought the test would look like.

The three were then led to an office where Achau signed statements saying that he understood this was only a preliminary test, that he would not employ any means of deception, that he knew he would be photographed and taped during the test, and that he expected to be successful.

Achau and E. were then separated, and each was scanned with a metal detector. Both were asked to remove their shoes during this check for transmitting equipment, and both allowed us to examine their ears and the inside of their mouths. Mercifully, the body cavity search ended there.

Achau was escorted to a table in a small theater upstairs, while E. and J. were taken downstairs to the lobby of the Steve Allen Theater where another table awaited, directly below Achau upstairs. The upstairs theater had no windows to the outside, or open doors to the level below. The table downstairs faced a wall that contained a small, high window facing a hill across the street.

The audience present was warned — per Achau — that they might experience some of the powerful energy being emitted from Achau during the test, and that they remain at their own risk. All chose to stay.

IIG members filled the following positions: Jim U. conducting, Bernie E. on upstairs radio, Eric E. on upstairs video camera (#1), Brian H. on upstairs video camera (#2), Dave R. and Jerry B. on upstairs close observation, Dennis H. on stairs/entry monitor & radio, Sherri A. on downstairs camera, Matt C. on downstairs radio, Derek B., Myriah D., John S., and Owen H. on downstairs close observation.

Achau was then shown two sealed envelopes, each containing 30 index cards with a word (computer) printed on each card. He chose one envelope, which Jim U. opened, and gave to Achau to choose twenty cards from. He chose twenty without looking at them.

After the twenty cards were chosen and counted, Jim U. removed the discards, and shuffled the twenty cards with his back to Achau. The cards were then placed word-down in a pile on the table in view of a group of ten or twelve guest observers, none of whom would see any of the words until the conclusion of the test.

The items on the upstairs table before Achau included a bowl of ice water, a towel, the twenty word cards, a can of Red Bull, and a tabletop lectern facing away from the audience. On the downstairs table, E. had a pen and two sheets of paper in front of him, with ten blanks each on them, and a cup of water.

As a precaution, IIG member Jerry B. was allowed to see and record the first 3 cards on the pile to be sent. No other IIG member or observer had any way of knowing which words were selected, what order they were in, or what card was currently being transmitted. Only one person — Brian H. — knew what cards were in the pool of sixty potential cards. Brian H. was behind a camera during the test, and was out of Achau’s range of vision during the entire test.

Achau was asked if all conditions were ok and if there was anything present that would prevent him from succeeding. He said everything was all right and said he would be ready to begin after drinking some Red Bull and doing some push-ups. After a couple of rounds of push-ups and Red Bull, we began. Achau’s face was flush, but he seemed upbeat.

When Achau signaled his readiness, Jim U. said, “Sending the first word.” Jim then placed the 1st card (out of the audience’s sight) on the lectern facing Achau for him to see. Bernie radioed to Matt downstairs that Achau was sending.

After E. wrote a word, Matt radioed back upstairs “Word received.” The test followed this sequence throughout with a minor adjustment after the first word or two.

After the first three words had been sent, we requested a brief pause so Jerry could bring them to Dennis on the stairs. Matt C. brought Dennis the first 3 words received by E. Dennis examined both short lists, and sent word upstairs with Jerry that we should proceed. This was our early warning system to alert us in case we were being deceived. None of the first three words matched, so we suspected no cheating at that point, and continued until all twenty words had been transmitted.

Achau paused a number of times during the test in order to do more push-ups. He said the push-ups helped him “feel it” and allowed him to transmit more effectively. About halfway into the test, Achau requested and was given some Coca-Cola to give him more energy and caffeine.

After sending the 20th word, the downstairs crew came upstairs with the results. We asked Achau if everything went well, and he said yes. We asked if he thought he had been successful, and he said yes. E. signed the “received” sheets verifying that they were written by him and accurately received by him.

While the group was making its way upstairs, Achau said he wanted to show Jim U. something. He arranged some of the word cards into a sort of a “Z” shape and said he could put that image into Jim U’s mind. Jim U. didn’t really feel the shape in his mind beyond the fact that he had just seen it on the table. This was unrelated to the test.

To tabulate the results, we brought out a white scoreboard which displayed columns for “Word Sent,” “Word Received,” and “Running Score”. The sequence “sent,” “received,” “score” was read for all 20 words. No “Sent” words were even close to the “Received” words. (e.g. The first word he sent was “ovary”, though E. received “shopping mall.”) The running score became a column of zeros.

Achau seemed initially surprised, then a bit angry, then disappointed, and a bit humiliated. We tried to soften the blow by explaining that people make these mistakes and that he should use the test he just took to check himself in the future.

He e-mailed us the next day with the following:

Hello Jim and the rest of the IIGWest staff,

I just wanted to thank you guys for everything again, I also wanted to apologize for the way I was after the test. I must admit I was really upset, not of any of you guys though, but at my recipient, (E.) I know he didnt even try to put an effort to help me out, everything he wrote was straight out of his ass, Im sorry to say. I guess you can say that’s sorta my exscuse for failing, but whatevers, I did wanted to mention it when Jim invited us into his office after the test and was asking us if we had any ideas or reasons of the failure, but I didnt wanna make a scene.

I know since it was a failure in the testing, that pretty much says, that I do not possess these powers I claim to have, but within all honesty Jim, Derek, Sherri, Brian, Bernie, and Owen if you guys all can actually look me straight in my face and tell me im just halluscinating about everything, and misbelieved about these powers I possess, I totally respect that, but if you can somehow acknowledge and say that I do possess these powers, (that needs alotta tweaking) even though the test was a failure, that would mean the world to me, I guess what im trying to say is I need your guys stamp of approval, so that maybe I could go to soemone (sic) or they could come to me that'd be willing to help me out, and we could like learn and understand to control these powers together, you knows?

I mean winning the million and shutting down Randi would be great, but what I really need rite now is people who know actually know about these things, and can help me out. I know it was my fault for bringing the wrong recipient, and not actually trying these tests more and what so nots, but i beg you guys PLEASE and try to help me out somehow, like I've mentioned when I first came to Randi, I was asking him to help me out, and all he told me was, something like im not here to back up the paranormal, im here to debunk it, or something in that matter, so I beg you guys PLEASE dont do the same to me. I really do believe I possess alot of potential in this field, and even though I failed the test, I hope atleast finally I got somebody, or a group who are very respected and looked up upon in this field, like you guys to acknowledge that the powers are real, I’ll be more than happy. But if you honestly can say, im delusional and just straight tripping and need to go get some help, I totally respect that, and will take up your guys advice on that.

In closing, thanks again for everyhting, especially sherri, she was like a maid for me, (LOL), and thanks EVERYBODY for all of the help and time you guys tooked out today on helping me out with the testing, especially when all I could produce for you guys was nothing at all, a 0 out of 20 score, and my deepest apologies again for my behavior after the testing, usually I do get like, where I cant breathe and start stuttering and what so nots, its the side affects, but mostly it was because that I was mad at (E.), it was like he just stabbed straight in my back, and apologies again if I took out that anger on you guys. I just hope though, some how you guys can help me out, you guys are pretty much my only hope. Thanks again.

Achau Nguyen

At a post-test discussion, we concluded that Achau had made no effort to deceive us, and was sincere in his belief that he possessed the power of telepathy. We all felt a little bad for him, as his expectations of success were clearly not met.

We all made a concerted effort to be kind to him throughout the testing process, but felt no regret that the test had been conducted. We think the reaffirmation of the laws of physics and the methods of science is more important than the comfort of one individual.

See Also:

• Fakers and Innocents by James Randi
• JREF Forums
• The Independent Investigations Group

John Edward MaGee Jr. (known as John Edward) and James Van Praagh are probably the two most famous mediums in the United States today. Their shows Crossing Over and Beyond, respectively, were both running in the fall and winter of 2002-2003. Both syndicated shows had their host speaking with (or "reading”) audiences (or “sitters”) and claiming to make connections with the deceased friends and/or family of the audience members. Some of the shows featured readings of celebrities or individuals with special stories to tell.

Both mediums enjoy considerable success. Van Praagh sells lots of books and has a number of celebrities as clients.

Edward, also, hawks books, and has been on the air since June of 2000. Both men continue to play to large audiences around the country. Even Skeptical Inquirer has included articles about them. (1)

Last August, when Van Praagh started taping Beyond a few blocks from the Center for Inquiry-West in Hollywood, our homegrown Independent Investigations Group (IIG) sprang into action. (The IIG consists of a dedicated group of inquirers who participate with CFI-West staff in hands-on investigations.)

Hot Reading

James Van Praagh

Several IIG members attended two separate Beyond tapings, descending in groups of seven or eight to the studio after a briefing at CFI-West. We split up into smaller groups with our well-hidden recording gear, and went to work.

Before the actual tape date, a number of us who had requested tickets received phone calls from Van Praagh’s production people asking who we wanted to contact and what our story was. These calls seemed to be searching for candidates for the more intense, one-on-one readings Van Praagh included in each show.

On the day of the tapings, we split up in order to have a better chance of spotting plants in line as the audience waited outside the studio. We all signed fake names on the voluminous release form (see below), and engaged in conversations about fictitious friends and relatives. If any of these stories made their way into a reading, we'd know the information had been obtained somewhere in or near the studio.

Upon entering the studio, we noticed standard audience microphones hanging from the ceiling, and speakers placed along the floors. We also monitored both Van Praagh’s and his warm-up woman’s pre-show conversations. That proved to be interesting.

While phone-interviewing audience members might be a conduit of information to Van Praagh, it’s also consistent with the best interest of the producer trying to find compelling content. Indeed, Van Praagh’s in-studio readings were so unimpressive that our suspicions of hot reading were lowered. If he had his researchers gleaning spicy tidbits for his readings, they weren't doing a very good job, for he often struggled in his efforts. Some of the remote one-on-one segments were more impressive, but those generally took place in the sitter’s homes where many clues to his or her life might be noticeable. We don't know if producers leaked information to Van Praagh or not, and we never saw raw footage of what went on at the remote tapings. Editing, as I will discuss later, could have played a crucial role.

We saw no evidence of spies in line trying to draw information from people. We gave no information beyond the contact data on the release form. None of our fake names or stories turned up in readings. Before Van Praagh’s taping began, loud music was played which would have made it extremely difficult to hear a conversation from the audience microphones.

Van Praagh was guilty of at least one cheat that could be considered a hot read. Before tape was rolling, he signed some books and was chatting with members of the audience. He learned during one conversation that a woman in the audience was from Italy. When the cameras were rolling, he asked who in that section was from another country. If one hadn't seen the earlier conversation, the woman raising her hand in the affirmative would have been impressive, when in fact he knew quite well what the response would be.

John Edward

I attended a taping of John Edward’s Crossing Over in Queens, New York, alone in November of 2002. Crossing Over looked like a production that had a few years under its belt. There was a waiting room instead of a long line outside, the security was a little better (I had to show a real I.D.), and they seemed to run a much tighter ship, though I did get my pocket-sized digital recorder inside with no problem.

Again, there were no indications of anyone I saw collecting information. Edward, too, played music fairly loudly, making it tough to hear normal conversation. And again, none of his readings contained the kind of specific information that would raise an eyebrow of suspicion. In fact, during most of the show I witnessed, John Edward was a bad cold reader. He, too, struggled to get hits, and in one attempt shot off nearly forty guesses before finding any significant targets.

Both Edward and Van Praagh potentially have a big advantage when they shoot special segments with celebrities. Many famous people have reams of biographical information available on the Internet that would at least aid in a session with a medium. We saw no direct evidence that such information was being used, but it’s certainly out there for the taking.

Cold Reading

Cold reading, in a nutshell, is an interactive technique where one fishes for information while giving the appearance of receiving that information from supernatural sources. Both of these men rattle off gobs of guesses until they find a vein of hits with one of their audience members. They are very adept at steering out of dead ends and helping the crowd forgive and forget their mistakes.

In the context of a studio audience full of people, cold reading is not very impressive. Consider that the audience at each of the tapings we witnessed consisted of about 200 people, in three sections of sixty-to-seventy each. If the average person’s address book holds about 150 people (2) (mine has well over 300), we can probably be safe in presuming that we actually know many more people than those whose numbers we have. But let’s use the 150 figure as a very conservative estimate of an active database from which most people have to draw.

This means that when John Edward or James Van Praagh asks a section of his audience, “Who’s Margaret?” he is hoping there is a Margaret in the 10,000 people in the database of that section. If there is no answer, they open the question up to the whole audience’s database of over 30,000 people! Would it be surprising for there to be a dozen Margarets in such a large sample?

I submit that these databases are so large that they explain the occasional amazing-sounding home run of a hit. I saw John Edward swinging for the fence by asking who died from getting hit by lightning. When no one answered even after he amended the guess to mere electrocution, he remarked that you'd think you'd remember if you knew someone who passed from something like that.

Let’s not forget that when a medium initiates a conversation with an audience member or group of members, he enjoys the benefit of visually appraising whomever he’s speaking with. When conversing with a group of ladies over sixty, Edward guessed the names Helen and Margaret as the peers and parents of the women, not Tiffany or Courtney, names more likely to be given to younger people. Any good cold reader uses visual clues to refine his guessing.

John Edward in the studio of his show Crossing Over on the Sci-Fi channel on July 7, 2000. Edward chats with recently and not so recently departed people during the course of the show. © Frances M. Roberts

Audience Preparation

Both shows went through a lot of effort to get their audiences in the right frame of mind before taping. People came to the tapings to contact a dead loved one. The Crossing Over instructions put it bluntly. “If you feel you will be too embarrassed, too frazzled, or just not interested, we ask that you give up your seat to someone who is anxious for a reading.”

The audience was admonished not to expect to be read, and that some things the host would say would make sense, others wouldn't. Much of the pre-show rhetoric seemed to be aimed at keeping our expectations low. Both men were very self-effacing, charming, and good-humored, endearing themselves to the audience.

The eight-page letter Edward sent out to his audience included sections entitled "Information For A Positive Session” and “Recommended Things To Think About.” The latter began with the subsection “Know your entire family tree.” He reminds us to remember dates, to visualize spouse’s families, estranged family, and stepfamilies-even pets. Your personal database, after all, is only as good as your ability to recall it.

After a rather New Agey, meditative preface, Van Praagh’s warm-up person was emphatic about reacting openly to what James was saying. How’s he supposed to know if he’s on the right track? she might as well have said.

Please Release Me . . .

Anyone attending either Crossing Over or Beyond had to sign a four-page appearance release. (Standard releases are one page.) Edward’s release had the feel of a document written by someone just accused of cheating. It seemed to focus on representing that attendees had no outside contact with Edward or his staff, or in documenting that fact if they had. This tone was reinforced vigorously in the studio where we were reminded constantly not to talk about ourselves or those who we were trying to contact. It was as if the specter of Harry Houdini were floating above the stage pointing a finger.

Van Praagh’s release-also four pages-included a nondisclosure section that reads in part: “Neither anyone acting on my behalf, nor I . . . shall speak to any newspaper reporter, print or television journalist or other media representative or source about any aspect of my participation in the Series. . . .”

Cut, Cut, Cut and Print

We decided that the best way to see if any editing wizardry was taking place on these shows was to record segments of the live taping and compare those to the edited versions America saw on the air. What we found was one of the keys to the TV psychic kingdom.

I have some experience sitting in an editing room trying to turn large amounts of raw videotape into small amounts of polished gold. So I know that virtually everything you see on TV has been precisely edited for both time and content. We cannot indict these programs for editing the footage recorded in the studios, but it should be understood that the aired tape does not represent how the readings went in the studio. The aired versions of these programs show a much more successful account of the readings. Here are two examples.

This is what aired...

Van Praagh: You were saved by someone. A car thing, or something where you were . . .

Woman: We actually had a car accident four months after my husband died. And we were in a very bad collision.

Van Praagh: You almost died, honey. Because I'm being told by your husband that you were saved, Ok?

This is what happened:

Van Praagh: You almost died, honey. Because I'm being told by your husband that you were spared, you were saved, Ok? You were saved, all right? And I know (3). . . something about Jesus here, Ok? Saved with Jesus, or something about Jesus, and if you believe in Jesus, or a religious element. And I don't know, maybe a church with the name Jesus in it? Or there is something about Jesus. Or there’s . . .

Woman (interrupting): Well, we're Jewish! (Big laugh from the audience.)

John Edward’s editor fine-tuned many of the dead-ends out of a reading riddled with misses. Here, the italicized parts never made it to air.

Edward: Ok, just so you know in my reference, how I got it was a funny thing. So whatever race you went to go see, that you had taped, something funny happened at it, because I would have thought you went to a comedy show. Ok. Just so you know that you viewed it, he viewed it as a funny thing. Ok.

Now the twenty-sixth is significant your grounding birthday anniversary but there’s a twenty-sixth connection. I also feel like I don't know if . . . I think there’s a Michael that’s passed as well. I know your Michael’s [to the woman] here, but I've got a Michael who’s passed who’s connected here as well. And I think he either had cerebral palsy, or he had like a neural muscular disease.

It’s a name like Michael or Mark, Mick, an “M” name I feel like he like cerebral palsy, he had something like spina bifida-there’s like that kind of a feeling. Are you sure it’s not for you? That’s not for you? . . .

Man: No

Edward: Positive?

Man: Positive.

Edward: He’s with you or behind you, but he’s right here. Who would have like a penny or a like coin that’s like laminated or saved?

Woman: I would.

Edward: Then this is for you guys. So somehow you guys are connected to this kid. Or to this-it might not have been a kid, but he feels like he’s a kid to me. There’s an “M.”

We saw James Van Praagh stop tape during a one-on-one, prearranged reading after missing all but one of his first six or seven guesses. He then restarted the tape and used the one correct guess at the beginning of the new session. I think most people would call that cheating. Skeptics and television viewers everywhere should be mindful that a good editor can make a pitcher bat a thousand, magician David Blaine levitate above a sidewalk, and a former-dance instructor sound like he’s conversing with dead people.

Television psychics generally have a pretty good recipe for appearing to possess paranormal ability. Large audiences gobble up these unreality shows like popcorn.

Skeptics have been served these hot and cold reading techniques for ages, and we saw nothing new or surprising in their methods. The “hit” rate we witnessed for both John Edward and James Van Praagh was disappointing at best. But the fat got “cleaned up in post” (production), as they say in Hollywood.

The mixture of a well-prepared and uncritical audience made it easy to create an atmosphere of cooperation and success in the studio. Strict appearance releases and competent editing made it easy to keep the lid on mistakes and make the medium seem impressive.

Postscript

Apparently, Hollywood wasn't big enough for both men; mega-distributor Tribune Media Services dropped James Van Praagh in January 2003. Trade magazine Daily Variety said it best with their headline, ”Beyond Sees White Light.”

Acknowledgments

Thanks go out to the members of the Independent Investigations Group who participated in this investigation, with special thanks to Milt Timmons and Margery Kimbrough for help with transcription, and to Roger Schlueter for editorial notes.

Notes

1. See Joe Nickell’s Speaking to the Dead? In the November/December 2001 SI. Also, Ray Hyman’s “How Not to Test Mediums” (SI January/ February 2003) strongly critiqued the so-called 'Afterlife' experiments that made use of mediums including John Edward.
2. According to Matt Ridley, author of The Origins of Virtue (Penguin Viking 1996).
3. Here, Van Praagh is saying, “I know” to some unseen voice or spirit.