In my years at Pinkerton’s, now and then we were retained to determine the true facts of various “supernatural” cases. One such assignment stands out after all these years.

An enormously wealthy but somewhat eccentric client formed an intense dislike for psychics and fortune tellers when a friend in his dotage was victimized. He had us investigate all those listed as such in the Boston telephone book. The total was twenty-five or thirty, and without exception, every one had a criminal record of some type. Several had outstanding warrants and the various police departments involved had a field day picking up these crooks.

The second case was a remarkable coincidence as I had grown up in the area and as a youth was friendly with one of the principals involved in the scam although he was long dead.

This was mechanical genius Charlie Norton, hired as engineer and supervisor by a promotional group who founded the showplace Knollwood Cemetery in Sharon, Massachusetts, just before 1900. Business flourished until the depression struck America in 1929 and within a year the corporation went bankrupt. Charlie, then over sixty five years old, was all that remained of the many employees who were once busy at Knollwood. He lived in a small cottage on the premises with his wife, who soon died, leaving Charlie alone nearly a half mile from the nearest neighbor.

During the decades Charlie spent at Knollwood, he selected his last resting place and his tombstone. This was a huge, jagged, irregularly shaped rock protruding six feet above the ground. It resembled an object pictured in an illustration of a scene in Dante’s Inferno.

When Charlie died on Saturday, July 10, 1948, at nearly eighty four years old, he was buried beneath this stone on the northeast corner of the Bradford section just across from Canton Street, opposite the main entrance of the present Sharon Memorial Park Cemetery, once again a thriving, well kept place. A bronze plaque was fastened to the stone about four feet above the ground. Vegetation soon began climbing on this grim rock.

For some unknown reason, possibly due to a schoolboy prank based on the weird unearthly appearance of the Norton memorial, rumors began to circulate that the area around this distinctive gravestone at the edge of the woods was haunted by the ghost of old Charlie. A whimsical reporter wrote a tongue-in-cheek article about the doings at Charlie’s grave and this resulted in many midnight excursions of college students from Boston tramping through the cemetery and being a pain to the local police. Soon the bronze plaque disappeared, reportedly to grace the wall of a fraternity house. Then another highly implausible tale was invented; old Charlie was a warlock.

All this foolishness led to a more sinister development.

A prestigious Boston law firm contacted the 294 Washington Street office of Pinkerton’s. A worried attorney advised he had reason to believe one of their valued clients, a wealthy widow of quite mature years and a member of a prominent Yankee family, was being hoodwinked by a woman believed to be a gypsy who had convinced the society grande dame that she was a psychic. The lawyer knew no other details but had been advised by the doddering socialite’s banker that she had made substantial withdrawals recently. Pinkerton’s was retained to check this matter out in a most confidential investigation in order to keep things out of the newspapers. We managed to do so.

At the time I was an agency official and was assigned by the manager, the late Walter W. Martin, a lifelong employee and a Pinkerton’s legend, to handle the case. One of our female operatives, using a “suitable pretext” interviewed the widow and to her surprise was informed that the widow and two dear friends were going to interview her husband in the afterworld, the conduit being the famous warlock, Charlie Norton. (I could not believe my ears!) The meeting would take place at midnight the following Friday at Charlie’s last earthly resting place. Plans were made between Pinkerton’s, the law firm, and the District Attorney’s office.

That Friday evening the late Arthur F. Canzano, the best tail man in the entire agency, and I drove to the cemetery, hid our car in the woods, and concealed ourselves in the trees near Charlie’s stone, looming up in the moonlight and casting a ghastly ominous shadow. It was a very effective backdrop indeed for the coming seance.

About five minutes before midnight, a car drove up, parked, and turned out the headlights. In the fairly clear moonlight, three figures left the vehicle and slowly approached the Norton tombstone. The widow, an aristocratic elderly woman was among them. A garishly dressed, heavily built middle-aged woman, the psychic, was the other. A tall man, the driver of the car, the assistant of the psychic, was the third.

Arriving at Charlie’s plot, the gypsy went into a trance, mumbled incantations in some foreign tongue, and after performing suitable gyrations, she reported to the widow that Charlie had spoken to her long-dead husband who requested the widow to pay an additional $34,000 to the psychic; and on their next visit, the widow would be able - using the psychic as a spiritualistic telephone, to talk directly to her husband in the beyond.

As the society woman fumbled with her handbag, that act triggered decisive action on our part. Arthur sprang out of a nearby clump of shrubbery and grabbed the startled psychic who immediately started cursing in really fluent and obscene English. Arthur advised the widow that the psychic was a common, cheap swindler and he was a Pinkerton man. (The widow later informed her law firm that she initially thought Arthur was old Charlie in person.) The tall lad, a quicker thinker than the swearing psychic, and a pretty good runner, sprinted through the woods towards the railroad tracks at full speed. He tripped and was captured. The trio was taken to the police station where a representative of the District Attorney’s office was summoned and swore out the charges.

Even at the police station the wealthy socialite was not fully convinced the psychic was a crook until she was shown mug shots and scrutinized the extensive criminal record of the gypsy. Her companion, naturally had matching credentials.

(If old Charlie really was in the area he must have had a good laugh!)

Skeptical Briefs: How would you describe the status of skepticism in Peru today?

Manuel Paz y Miño: As in many parts of the world there are some astrologers and psychics in the media, many of whom even have their own telephone hotlines. Reports of weeping icons, UFOs, and miraculous cures are not uncommon. From time to time reports in newspapers and television provide a skeptical point of view, but indeed they are few.

As a humanist and skeptical university teacher I launched the Peruvian Journal of Applied Philosophy in 1994 in order to spread a dynamic and practical philosophy examining social problems from both humanist and skeptical perspectives. Currently we publish not only periodicals and books but also organize speeches.

I was only able to talk and show to my philosophy students videos on a few specific skeptical topics. So it was necessary two years ago to found a skeptical specialized group, the Peruvian Committee for the Research of the Paranormal, Pseudosciences and Irrationality (CIPSI). We currently have about ten members, mostly professionals and students. So far we have launched two issues of our magazine Neo-Skepsis and when I return to Peru there will be a public meeting, a video-forum on UFO phenomenon (which was the topic of the last issue of the magazine).

SB: What are the main paranormal topics of concern to Peruvians?

Alternative medicines are very sought after. There are many Peruvian people who cannot afford the very expensive Western medicine and drugs or who have incurable illnesses. So they are very interested in folk medicine and miraculous cures. There are many religious icons and medicine-men in my country, as in the rest of the world.

Peru has also spawned two home-grown UFO cults, Rama and Alpha & Omega. Rama has an international presence in many Ibero-American countries, and Alpha & Omega is a sort of religious Christian cult that believes Christ is coming again-in a UFO.

SB: What are the main challenges to skepticism in Peru?

I think we need to reach out to more people through mass media. Scientific and skeptical education classes, journals, and books are really only available for people who are able to get a place at the university. Auditoriums are too small for the huge number of people who need such critical thinking education. In order to reach to them we are compiling material for our own video program. But in order to do these things I think it is very important to consolidate a strong skeptical group with a great commitment to its goals. I believe that is possible.

SB: What has been the public’s response to your efforts? Are they receptive?

Scientific discoveries are universal and when people are open to science and reason there is a good reception to scientific skepticism. Of course there are many people who are deceived and fanatical, who think science is mistaken. I encounter both types of people in my classes.

SB: What about the reaction from your students?

Some are receptive, others not so much. Many are religious and strong believers, especially in the case of folk healings and miracle cures. I've had some students who used folk medicine for illnesses and were cured, and it’s hard to explain to them about the placebo effect or that some diseases just naturally get better.

SB: How did you get involved in the skeptical movement?

Well, when I became a religious unbeliever I also rejected any kind of supernatural explanations for reality. Also, when I was a university student I found scientific magazines and periodicals, including Free Inquiry and the Skeptical Inquirer. And of course skeptical programs on television are of great help. CSICOP is our great model and we greatly admire the works of Paul Kurtz, Joe Nickell, James Randi, Kendrick Frazier, Massimo Polidoro and other people who have done so much for the skeptical cause.

SB: Were you brought up in the Roman Catholic Church? If so, how did you reconcile that with your skepticism?

Yes, I brought up as a Catholic. As such, I was compelled to go to religious processions and temples as a child. And in my teens I was an Evangelical. In both cases there is the belief that there exists a supernatural and miraculous force acting on the world. But the more I examined my beliefs the more I doubted that an all-powerful and all-caring God could exist. That realization motivated me to found the Peruvian Areligious Movement, a humanist group. So in my opinion one cannot be skeptical and to be a theist believer at the same time.

SB: But in the United States, and throughout the world, there are many people who feel that they can believe in God and yet are skeptics. Are you concerned, given the influence of Catholicism in Peru, that you might end up making skepticism harder to accept by linking it to humanism?

Well, I would accept them as skeptics, but only up to a certain point. After all, part of theist belief is that some actions we see on Earth are produced by an omniscient, all-powerful God: miracles. If you are a deist [who believes that God made the world yet has no role in current affairs] then you retain your faith but don’t necessarily believe in the supernatural or miracles.

The most important thing is to promote rational thinking in society-and that implies rational criticism of religion as well. So our skepticism is a radical one. When we have skeptic meetings, we won’t discuss religious matters. Most people believe [in religion] - it’s their right, and we must accept that to a certain extent.

SB: And of course there are other paranormal beliefs that have nothing to to with religion: psychics, for example, or UFOs.

That’s another question. But you can connect the beliefs with your own religion. For example, if you are a believer, you can accept or reject UFOs. As I mentioned before, we do have a few Christian/UFO sects in Peru.

SB: There seem to be many mystical sites in Peru-Nazca, Macchu Picchu, Chilca, etc. Why do you think your country has fostered so many?

Well, there is a strong nationalism based on the great and rich past of the Incan and pre-Incan cultures. In order to explain why those sites were built, many gave a paranormal explanation instead of a scientific one. And many Peruvians make lots of money from the mystical tourism and tourists; it is a great business. Also some local and foreign writers have books-some of them bestsellers [e.g., Chariots of the Gods?, by Von Däniken] claiming that those “mystical” sites were created by alien forces.

SB: In some governments the paranormal has influences in high places. Astrologers were in Reagan’s White House, for example, and Indonesian politics is famous for its use of psychics and witch doctors. Has this occurred in Peru?

Not really, as far as I know. In 1996 there was a weeping icon of the Virgin Mary in the port of Callao near Lima. Opponents of the government claimed at the time that it was a strategy to divert the public’s attention from the difficult economic problems. The same claim was made about a UFO case about two years ago.

SB: What are some of the cultural differences in the dissemination of skepticism between the United States and Latin America?

There are not many differences; we use Internet and e-mail a lot. Our Web site is at geocities.com/cipsiperu

and our e-mail is cipsiperu@yahoo.com. Also we like to show special video programs in order to discuss skepticism and of course we publish our magazine and give public speeches. And we hope to publish our first skeptical book in the next few months. But of course our group is in an undeveloped country and we struggle with many economic restrictions. For instance, I spent five months’ university salary and borrowed from a relative in order to come visit the Center for Inquiry after years of invitations.

SB: What is the future of skepticism in Latin America and Peru?

I think it is quite positive because now there are more learned and educated people than before who understand the scientific method. But if there were a better policy for public and private education our work will not be so diffi- cult. We, with some other Latin American skeptics, hope to have our own unified Web page soon.