“Senate’s approval in principle has been negated.” With these words on April 26, 2001, York University rejected an affiliation proposal with the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College. The unfolding of the six-year deliberation process leading up to this announcement provides a good illustration of the current political climate within universities and the temptations they face. Since such pressures will only increase as the popularity of alternative medicine grows, it is important to chronicle York’s story and to reflect on the lessons that have been learned.

York University, located in Toronto, Ontario, is the third-largest university in Canada with over 1,000 faculty and an enrollment of 40,000 students. Though it has a relatively small science faculty-the Faculty of Pure and Applied Science (FPAS)-it has no medical school or large-scale health program.

The Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College (CMCC), also in Toronto, has about 100 faculty and admits about 160 new students annually into its four-year Doctor of Chiropractic (D.C.) program. The College was opened exactly fifty years to the day after D.D. Palmer, the founder of chiropractic, gave his first adjustment, and hence the “Memorial” in the College’s name. More than three-quarters of licensed chiropractors in Canada have graduated from CMCC (Kopansky-Giles and Papadopoulos, 1997) and less than 19 percent “rejects traditional chiropractic philosophy as espoused by D.D. and B.J. Palmer and emphasize the scientific validation of chiropractic concepts and methods” (Biggs, Hay, and Mierau 1997).

CMCC has sought affiliation with Canadian universities over a dozen times in its history (Brown 1996, 1994). Shortly after being rejected by the University of Victoria (British Columbia) in 1992, CMCC adopted a “revenue-neutral” model for attracting prospective partners, meaning that CMCC would remain fiscally separate from its university partner after the merger. York was among three Ontario universities that found this new approach appealing and in 1995 signed an agreement to enter into exclusive negotiations with CMCC. The basic understanding was that CMCC would provide a sum of $17 million (U.S.) for new buildings, infrastructure, etc., while York would mount some courses for chiropractic students and offer a D.C. degree.

Deliberation Prior to “Approval in Principle”

Thus began a seriously flawed, six-year adjudication process at York University that spanned two administrations and spawned numerous committees. Throughout this period, neither York’s administration nor its Senate expressed the slightest reservation that the pseudoscientific and antiscientific attitudes harbored by contemporary chiropractic and evident in CMCC’s curriculum would be legitimized by an affiliation, compromising York’s academic integrity. Moreover, they continually ignored pleas to solicit expert opinion from the external biomedical community on the grounds that York was entirely capable of dealing with this issue on its own, despite the fact that there were no experts on campus. An informed decision was particularly important in this instance because York was poised to become the first major university in the world to merge with a chiropractic college.

The first act of York’s then-Vice President of Academic Affairs was to create an internal six-member Task Force whose mandate was to advise the administration on the academic integrity of CMCC’s programs and curriculum and the opportunities for academic links between CMCC and York University. The fact that the Task Force Report strongly endorsed an affiliation and found no areas of concern for York’s integrity was not surprising: none of the Task Force members was an expert in chiropractic, and the most influential member, one of only two scientists and a distinguished biologist, had been advocating a closer relationship with CMCC for more than two decades. Even had members been aware that CMCC’s course descriptions referred to unscientific “subluxations,” that CMCC supported pediatric chiropractic that has been soundly condemned by the Canadian Pediatric Society, that CMCC officially advocated “choice” in immunization, that its curriculum emphasized chiropractic radiology, etc., it is unlikely the report would have turned out differently, as future events were to reveal. (For more details about difficulties with CMCC and contemporary chiropractic, see De Robertis et al. 1999, Barrett 1999, and Homola 2001.)

The way was now clear to draft an affiliation proposal that would come before the Senate in spring 1998 for “approval in principle.” Why was York’s senior administration so supportive of this proposal and confident of its merits? There are indications that it felt that a merger would make York an instant “player” in the burgeoning field of health-care policy in Canada, something considered important by influential social scientists on campus.

It is interesting to consider the reasons offered by York affiliation proponents at one time or another to justify their position:

1. Chiropractic is a licensed, regulated profession in Ontario and as such there could be no question of its legitimacy as a university discipline.
2. Chiropractic lacks a research maturity largely because the hegemonous medical establishment has marginalized it for years. As a result, chiropractic finds itself in a position analogous to conventional medicine a century ago.
3. Chiropractic certainly needs some reforming, and the best way to do so-and the most socially responsible way-is to bring it within a university environment.
4. Chiropractic works.
5. The “buy-in” price of $17 million.

Each of these arguments is quite facile and easily refutable. The first was by far the most popular defense of this initiative. Few seem to recognize that licensure has little to do with scientific legitimacy or the ability to establish a research culture, the essential issues at hand for a major university. Massage therapy, for example, is licensed and regulated in Ontario, but no one has suggested offering a university degree in it; (b) is simply inaccurate, though it may sound convincing to some academics for whom everything is political. Chiropractic has remained on the margins by choice, refusing even today to reject vitalism in all its guises. And there is considerable doubt that a four-year university program culminating in a D.C. degree is necessary to treat musculoskeletal conditions, something conventional therapists do with comparable effectiveness but without the vitalistic baggage; (c) is entirely irresponsible until chiropractic renounces its antiscientific practices and attitudes of its own volition. Moreover, if social responsibility were the issue, a merger with an institution with a medical school would be far more appropriate; (d) there are no compelling studies that show that chiropractic therapies are safe and effective. Some may even be dangerous (e.g., Norris, Beletsky, and Nadareishvili 2000); (e) though fiscal pressures on universities may be enormous, is academic integrity for sale?

Scientists in FPAS reacted swiftly and proactively to the proposal. Prior to the Senate vote, FPAS formed a committee to investigate chiropractic and CMCC-to take its own look at the issues. The committee’s first act was to solicit advice from external biomedical experts. What it learned was so disturbing that the overwhelming majority of scientists formally voted to have no association with CMCC whatsoever a few weeks before the Senate vote was scheduled.

What transpired at the May 28, 1998, Senate meeting was a chilling reminder how tenuous truth’s foothold is within the contemporary university (De Robertis 1998). Not only were FPAS’s democratically expressed views ignored, but many senators took the opportunity to deliver flagrantly antiscience speeches while extolling the proposal. Scientists were repudiated for their adherence to “the truth” when there are clearly “many truths.” Being “grant-fixated” they were said to be incapable of recognizing that alternative medicine is the way of the future and that York should be a leader and not a follower; affiliating with CMCC would be the first step toward securing a medical school; Qi gong and chiropractic are important to help our dance students . . . and so on. Neither FPAS’s dean nor its senators countered any of this nonsense. Some science senators even apologized for FPAS’s vote. In the face of this tidal wave of irrationality, the Senate voted overwhelmingly to grant the proposal “approval in principle.”

Deliberations After “Approval in Principle”

Fortunately, this was not the end: “Approval in principle” is given to proposals in order to establish a more thorough and deliberate vetting process to be followed at a later time by a final vote in Senate. There was nothing thorough about what transpired, however.

It was during this period that a small group of faculty (three physical scientists and a psychologist), with advice from individual experts from the biomedical and scientific communities in the United States and Canada, mounted a coordinated campaign against the biased and uncritical process. The group’s chief demand was for equal time; since the university had solicited advice extensively from alternative medicine practitioners, it should offer the biomedical community a similar opportunity. How else could an informed decision be achieved?

Yet the administration and Senate ignored or refused all such requests. They never invited a single biomedical expert critical of chiropractic to testify on the merits of this proposal of their own volition and ignored the following compelling testimony provided in 1999-2000:

1. a petition organized by the Council for Scientific Medicine whose signatories included two Nobel laureates in medicine that asked York not to proceed (www.csicop.org/articles/19990203-chiropractic/).
2. a petition from 150 York faculty and graduate students asking for the university to reopen the process, this time soliciting evidence from the biomedical community.
3. a letter from the Canadian Pediatric Society repudiating pediatric chiropractic and asking York not to legitimize it (www.ndir.com/chiro/cps.html).
4. dozens of letters from prominent medical doctors, scientists, academics, and skeptics from around the world asking York to reconsider this proposal.
5. full-page ads in the student newspaper from the “opposition,” drawing attention to the anti- and pseudoscience attitudes within contemporary chiropractic and present in CMCC’s curriculum, as well as serious flaws in the vetting process.

Why no York official felt compelled to address a single biomedical concern is a matter of some speculation. University officials may well have been confident that their support was deep enough that they could get away with ignoring scientific issues.

When FPAS rejected any association with CMCC, the university had to identify another host faculty if it wished to carry through with the proposal. Still strongly supportive, it chose Atkinson College, a Faculty of Liberal and Professional Studies, which had a small nursing program and which aspired to a School of Health Studies.

Atkinson unexpectedly showed little enthusiasm for this initiative. Its first committee established to consider whether to host CMCC issued a split report in June 2000. At that point, five years into the process, CMCC made it clear it was growing impatient. Within two months, another Atkinson committee was created whose mandate was to explore all possible relationships the two institutions might share. The composition of this committee illustrates how desperate things had become: of the six voting members, five were on record as having spoken favorably of the proposal. Of the six nonvoting members, five were chiropractic supporters, including two representatives from CMCC. (The full text of these and other relevant reports can be viewed at www.ndir.com/chiro/ chronology.html.)

While it came as no surprise that the committee report submitted in November 2000 favored a full affiliation, it was a major surprise that Atkinson’s faculty in March 2001 rejected any association with CMCC, thereby putting an end to this nightmare once and for all. York and CMCC agreed to go their separate ways.

Lessons Learned and the Future

In some ways, York University is atypical of major universities because of its lack of a medical school and relatively small science Faculty. But in many ways, the difficulties it faces are symptomatic of the times. With ever-shrinking budgets, university administrations are challenged more and more to devise creative ways of securing funding.

Enter alternative medicine, whose popularity with the public is growing rapidly. Colleges of acupuncture, homeopathy, and naturopathy have become ubiquitous in major centers, along with chiropractic colleges. Can there be any doubt that those with “deep pockets” will seek legitimization through affiliations with universities in the future? Interested university administrations will spin it differently. They will speak about the social responsibility of their institution both for improving the training and outlook of alternative practitioners and in demonstrating the safety and efficacy of the relevant therapies.

But this overlooks two very important points. Chiropractic proponents sometimes referred to a merger between York and CMCC as a “marriage,” while at the same time admitting that chiropractic needs to be reformed. Yet no counselor recommends marriage in order to change a partner. First change, then talk. In the same way, even if some alternative therapies are eventually found to be effective and safe, until colleges adopt contemporary biomedical paradigms instead of millennia-old vitalistic notions-i.e., get rid of the nonsense in their curricula and make an attempt to educate its practitioners-no university should contemplate an affiliation. Furthermore, contrary to arguments made by some sociologists, no university has a responsibility to take in an alternative medicine community simply because a significant minority of the population uses its therapies. Many adults believe in astrology, but university administrators wouldn't entertain a serious suggestion to merge with a school of astrology (one hopes).

Second, a responsible affiliation presupposes that relevant alternative therapies have been demonstrated to be safe and effective. Very few universities are capable on their own of assessing whether therapies are safe and effective. This is the responsibility of institutions with significant budgets and the will to carry out such tests like the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine of the National Institutes of Health.

York’s administration won't be the last to contemplate seriously an affiliation with a college of alternative medicine. Based on the experience at York, the following insights might prove useful for another institution facing a similar situation.

• Scientists must become involved as early as possible in the process in order to impress upon the administration the importance of adhering to scientific, academic, and ethical integrity and to filter out the facile arguments of the type cited above. While it is necessary to have a core group of scientists leading the charge, it is equally important to obtain broad-based support from a number of departments and faculties, especially outside of science, in order to diminish the effectiveness of anti-science attacks. These supporters must include faculty administrators whose position must be made loud and clear. All participants, regardless of their position, should declare any conflict of interest at the outset, and benefits accruing to a department or faculty from a merger should be clearly identified.
• Always take the “high road.” Those for whom scientific integrity is secondary might reject the science faculty’s position if they perceive it has been made in an unscholarly or arrogant manner. For such faculty, it is particularly effective to identify violations of process. Such violations may be an indication that the administration has not thought things through properly, or may be hiding things. It might also help to point out to the community that such an affiliation effectively amounts to the “corporatization of the university.”
• It is important to introduce precedence into the conversation as early as possible. At York University, the more than a dozen previous affiliation attempts by CMCC were unknown to the community until well after “approval in principle” had been granted. If other institutions have turned down a similar affiliation in the past, why should your university even consider this proposal?
• Where an institution has no internal expertise in the area, both the alternative and conventional medical communities should be consulted. If the administration or faculty refuses, then it is up to the science faculty to press its case with all legal means at its disposal.
• Local and national medical associations should be pressed to provide clear statements on areas of concern about alternative medicine. Fearing legal consequences, most medical associations and conventional practitioners now appear to have adopted the “live and let live” approach when it comes to alternative medicine. Yet where biomedicine has serious evidence-based criticisms of an alternative therapy (e.g., pediatric chiropractic), it has a responsibility to alert the broader scientific community, politicians, and the public. It would be convenient if medical societies could provide regularly updated position papers on alternative therapies.
• Never give up! There are a couple of instances when things looked particularly bleak at York, but the sun always seemed to rise again. No single tactic won the battle. For this reason, it is important to mount a campaign that is broadly based. It is likely that you will receive strong support from many colleagues in private, but very few will stand at your side in public. And be prepared for scientists who will support the proposal, defying all logic. Scientists are as susceptible as anyone else to the temptations of politics.

Finally, it is important to view your own struggle in the broader context, as part of a much larger campaign in which all skeptics are called to participate. Cash-strapped, postsecondary institutions will continue to be wooed in the near future by alternative medicine: “Have money, seek legitimacy. Are you for sale?” And the moment the first university succumbs to this temptation, society will have taken a fork in the road that leads away from enlightenment.

References

• Barrett, Stephen. 1999. Evidence of unscientific teaching at CMCC. Available at www.chirobase.org/03Edu/york.html.
• Biggs, Leslie, David Hay, and Dale Mierau. 1997. Attitudes of Canadian chiropractors. Journal of the Canadian Chiropractic Association 41(3): 145-154.
• Brown, Douglas M. 1996. Journal of the Canadian Chiropractic Association 40(2):87-99.
• —. 1994. Journal of the Canadian Chiropractic Association 38(1):41-54.
• De Robertis, M., 1998. Concerns about Chiropractic at York University: Scientific Objections. Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine. 2(2):49-55.
• De Robertis, Michael, J. Alcock, D. Böhme, and S. Jeffers. 1999. Scientific objections to York-CMCC affiliation. Available at www.ndir.com/chiro/ scientific.html.
• Homola, Samuel. 2001. Chiropractic: Does the Bad Outweigh the Good? Skeptical Inquirer 25(1):50-53.
• Kopansky-Giles, Deborah, and Costa Papadopoulos. 1997. Profile of Canadian chiropractors. Journal of the Canadian Chiropractic Association 38(1):41-54.
• Norris, John, Vadim Beletsky, and Zurab G. Nadareishvili. 2000. The dangers of chiropractic neck manipulation. Canadian Medical Association Journal 163(1):38-40.

In Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, the protagonist, Hank Morgan, watches his medieval companion wallowing with some pigs she believes are enchanted nobles, and says, “I was ashamed of her, ashamed of the human race.” Twain’s own shame and embarrassment at his fellow humans wallowing in superstition and pseudoscience can be seen throughout his career.

Like many good skeptics, Twain was an experienced hoaxster and prankster himself. When he was a young newspaper reporter, he wrote a spoof of the numerous spurious archaeological claims accompanying the western expansion. In his “Petrified Man” he described the discovery of such a find. Presented as an legitimate news article, the account included a number of geographical improbabilities that anyone familiar with the local area would have recognized as farcical, or so Twain thought. He was disappointed to discover that his readers and credulous papers across the country (and even internationally) had uncritically accepted the story. If a careful reader pieced together the positions given for the hands and fingers of the petrified man, it would have been apparent that he was literally thumbing his nose at posterity.

The ease with which this spoof was accepted as fact most likely contributed to Twain’s lifelong concern with critiquing and disproving both accepted truths and exceptional claims. No mere humorist, he was an outspoken political, social and literary critic, his targets ranging from American imperialism ("To The Person Sitting In Darkness”), anti-Semitism ("Concerning the Jews”) and anti-Chinese bigotry, ("Goldsmith’s Friend Abroad Again”) to the “literary offenses” of James Fennimore Cooper and the authorship of Shakespeare’s plays.

His critique extended to paranormal and religious claims, heaping scorn on Mary Baker Eddy and Christian Science, arguing that it was unlikely that Eddy was the sole author of Science and Health. He was also skeptical of the Book of Mormon and its claims of divine authorship. It was this hostility to delusion that led to an encounter between Twain and another giant of the nineteenth century, a celebrity in his own right, Lorenzo Niles Fowler.

Both were self-made men rising from humble beginnings to become great celebrities of the day, riding to fame on the leading trends and movements of their time. One, however, remains a household name, the other has faded into obscurity. The two men shared many similarities both in character and outlook, yet they were destined to be at odds over Fowler’s purview, phrenology.

Phrenology and the Fowlers

To understand much of that century it is important to understand phrenology, for that belief colored much of the country’s thinking at that time regarding what motivated human behavior. As taught by its practitioners and followers, no less than the totality of human experience could be explained by the proper application of this science. To this end, Lorenzo and his brother Orson Squire Fowler published books dealing with a variety of applications of phrenology to daily life, from how to discover the ideal mate to what qualities should be sought in an employee. Phrenological influence can be seen in the writings of Whitman, Poe, and Melville.

The Fowlers rose to prominence as the heads of a phrenological empire based at the Phrenological Institute in New York City, where Lorenzo performed phrenological readings on clients. In addition, the brothers trained the next generation of phrenolo- gists. Connected to the Institute was the Phrenological Cabinet, nicknamed “Golgotha,” which housed a huge collection of skulls, used both for research purposes and as a museum open to the public. It was often P.T. Barnum’s most serious competition for tourists. Eventually it became fashionable to have a reading done by the famous phrenologists, and many celebrities of the day had their heads examined, including Julia Ward Howe, Clara Barton, Hiriam Powers, Theodore Weldand, and Edwin Forrest. The Fowlers became celebrities in their own right, even being satirized in the popular press, along with a business partner, Samuel Wells, as the firm of “Bumpus and Crane".

The brothers Fowler also managed a large publishing house, which issued phrenological works written by the Fowlers and others, including the Phrenological Journal. They were not merely phrenologists, however, but considered themselves part of a larger progressive movement that was sweeping away traditional superstition and bigotry and replacing it with rational reform. In service to this ideal they published a rather inclusive and eclectic collection of the nineteenth century’s equivalent of self-help books, including works on hydropathy, homeopathy, and how to inexpensively build one’s own octagonal concrete house. They published works on subjects as diverse as poetry, early feminism, and the new art of photography. They published the first edition of Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, and a photography magazine, Life Illustrated. Their circle of friends included such reformers as feminist Amelia Bloomer and nutritionist Sylvester Graham.

Enter Mark Twain

It was with some irony that the encounter between these two examples of the spirit of American progress was to be set in London. Fowler had moved to London in 1863 and opened a branch of the firm. (Fowler and Wells at various times also had branches in Boston and Philadelphia.) Twain often toured Europe and lived there for extended periods, in an attempt to “better” himself through exposure to European culture. Many nineteenth century Americans had similar feelings of intellectual inferiority.

Twain had some experience with phrenology, having written of the itinerant phrenologists of his youth coming to Hannibal and giving demonstrations. (Some speculate that these unnamed phrenologists may even have included one of the Fowlers, though no proof exists.) He also was familiar with the technique now referred to as cold reading, giving a scornful description of it in the beginning of his “Lionizing Murderers,” wherein the fortune teller starts her reading with, “You have had much trouble, some joy, some good fortune, some bad.” Further, he was aware of how phrenologists had used such generic readings to appease their clients. In his autobiography, he describes the phrenologists visiting Hannibal in his youth:

It is not at all likely, I think, that the travelling expert ever got any villager’s character quite right, but it is a safe guess that he was always wise enough to furnish his clients character charts that would compare favorably with George Washington’s. It was a long time ago, and yet I think I still remember that no phrenologist ever came across a skull in our town that fell much short of the Washington standard. This general and close approach to perfection ought to have roused suspicion, perhaps, but I do not remember that it did. It is my impression that the people admired phrenology and believed in it and that the voice of the doubter was not heard in the land. (Neider 1959)

Forearmed with a knowledge both of phrenology and the tricks of con artists, he performed a simple single-blind reliability test. In 1872 or 1873, Twain visited Fowler’s London office and paid for a reading using a pseudonym. It is unclear whether he attempted to disguise his physical appearance, and whether he wore his trademark white suit. As his likeness had been used in advertising, such cautions would have seemed prudent, yet Fowler gave no indication that he recognized Twain. The result was in keeping with his expectations of a cold reading:

Fowler received me with indifference, fingered my head in an uninterested way, and named and estimated my qualities in a bored and monotonous voice. He said I possessed amazing courage, and abnormal spirit of daring, a pluck, a stern will, a fearlessness that were without limit, I was astonished at this, and gratified too; I had not suspected it before; but then he foraged over on the other side of my skull and found a hump there which he called “caution.” This hump was so tall, so mountainous, that it reduced my courage-bump to a mere hillock by comparison, although the courage bump had been so prominent up to that time-according to his description of it-that it ought to have been a capable thing to hang my hat on; but it amounted to nothing, now in the presence of that Matterhorn which he called my Caution. He explained that if that Matterhorn had been left out of my scheme of character I would have been one of the bravest men that ever lived-possibly the bravest-but that my cautiousness was so prodigiously superior to it that it abolished my courage and made me almost spectacularly timid. He continued his discoveries, with the result that I came out safe and sound, at the end, with a hundred great and shining qualities; but which lost their value and amounted to nothing because each of the hundred was coupled up with an opposing defect which took the effectiveness all out of it. (Neider 1959)

According to Twain, Fowler was willing to commit himself on one quality: “However, he found a cavity, in one place; a cavity where a bump would have been in anyone else’s skull. That cavity, he said was all alone, all by itself, occupying a solitude, and had no opposing bump, however slight in elevation, to modify and ameliorate its perfect completeness and isolation. He startled me by saying that that cavity represented the total absence of the sense of humor!”

Twain states that this same defect was the only notable deviation of his character from the generic when similar tests were done of palmistry, involving mailing an anonymous photograph or print of his palm, to noted palmists in London and New York. Of eighteen readings, humor was mentioned only twice, and then only to note a definite lack thereof.

Twain returned to Fowler three months later and sat for a second reading, this time identifying himself. On this occasion, the reading differed greatly: “Once more he made a striking discovery-the cavity was gone, and in its place was a Mount Everest-figuratively speaking-31,000 feet high, the loftiest bump of humor he had ever encountered in his life-long experience!”

It should be mentioned, however, that this was only a single-blind test, with a subject predisposed to be hostile to phrenology. It is possible that on his second visit, Twain may have conducted himself in a more jovial and humorous manner. However, such attempts at deception were not unknown to the Fowlers, and they claimed to have seen easily through such deceptions before.

In addition, Twain’s memory of the reading may have been flawed. Madeline B. Stern, literary historian and definitive biographer of the Fowlers, claims that Twain’s terminology (i.e., “bumps” and “cavities”) is inconsistent with that employed by the Fowlers. She further doubts that Lorenzo Fowler, known for his prodigious memory, would have forgotten Twain’s features in three months.

Yet Twain claims to have kept the charts of the two readings. (For an additional fee, the Fowlers’ would provide a chart of one’s phrenograph.)

I went to Fowler under an assumed name and he examined my elevations and depressions and gave me a chart which I carried home to the Langham Hotel and studied with great interest and amusement-the same interest and amusement which I should have found in the chart of an imposter who had been passing himself off for me and who did not resemble me in a single sharply defined detail. I waited for three months and went to Mr. Fowler again, heralding my arrival with a card bearing both my name and my nom de guerre. Again I carried away an elaborate chart. It contained several sharply defined details of my character, but it bore no recognizable resemblance to the earlier chart. (Neider 1959)

It is a minor tragedy to the history of skepticism that these charts do not appear to have survived.

Twain, however, was not satisfied and in 1901 he sat for a final reading in New York City. Lorenzo Fowler had passed on by this time, and the business had passed to his sister, Charlotte Fowler Wells and his daughter, Jessie Allen Fowler. It was the latter who most likely gave the final phrenological reading of Twain. (It may have been one Edgar C. Beall, who by this time owned controlling stock in the company and who would later claim to have examined Twain personally. Twain’s own notebook has the appointment listed with Jessie A. Fowler.)

The analysis would later be printed in the Phrenological Journal and attributed to the editor. Whether by Jessie Fowler or Beall, the author is certainly a better literary critic then Lorenzo Fowler was. This last phrenograph of Twain focuses not on his humor, but on his seriousness and concern for humanity, as demonstrated by his largely developed areas of Conscientiousness and Benevolence. The phrenologist interprets Twain’s humor as being merely habitual and a means to the end of his greater social concerns. Perhaps the editor possessed a greater facility at phrenological analysis than Lorenzo, or perhaps he or she merely had a better knowledge of Twain’s writing. Significantly, in the almost thirty years that had passed since Twain’s first reading his work had matured, and his more serious work was much more well known to the general public. His scathing critique of American imperialism, “To the Person Sitting in Darkness,” had been published within the previous year.

Though this analysis was printed, Twain never commented on it publicly. In fact, when in 1906 Twain was asked to contribute to a symposium on phrenology, he mentioned his childhood experiences in Hannibal, and his test of Lorenzo Fowler in London, but did not mention his most recent experience in New York. Madeline B. Stern speculates about the reason for this omission: “Perhaps the analysis had been too telling, the hint at his 'tragic character' too disturbing. Perhaps too Mark Twain balked at disclosing his abiding fascination with the pseudoscience he had scoffed but whose persistent lure he could not resist” (Stern 1971).

Perhaps instead the phrenologists were the beneficiaries of Twain’s benevolence. By 1906, phrenology’s star had fallen far from its heyday when Twain first went head-to-head with Lorenzo. At this point, many no longer considered phrenology a legitimate science, and America was now looking to the most recent European import, the emerging field of psychoanalysis, to explain human behavior. As the fortunes of the Phrenological Institute had decreased, their offices were forced by falling revenues and increasing rents to move further up town and into less posh surroundings. The office in which Twain received his last reading was no longer the tourist attraction of lower Broadway, but instead a more modest location on East Twenty-First Street. Twain was certainly not one to kick someone when they were down, and perhaps it was out of compassion, and embarrassment for the Fowler family, still carrying on what must have appeared to him to be a foolish endeavor, that he refrained from mentioning their continuing efforts.

Twain may have grown more charitable to those he thought gullible, for by this time he himself had sunk thousands of dollars and years of time into a typesetting machine that would prove a failure. By the turn of the century, both Lorenzo and Orson Fowler were dead, having spent the bulk of their lives advocating a mostly discredited theory. Perhaps Twain, described in that last phrenograph as being “a believer in humanity,” “a keen critic of his own,” and “of very strong sympathies,” saw too much of his own gullibility reflected in that of the struggling twentieth-century phrenologists, and wished to relegate their particular fallacy to humanity’s past.

Ultimately, both Twain and the Fowlers were reformers of a sort. The Fowlers’ form of phrenology was a curiously American one. Unlike their European counterparts, they did not believe that a person’s character was unchangeable, but instead, they taught that a phrenological analysis could turn up defects in character that could then be rectified through proper exercise of the appropriate facility, which would then show up, like an athlete’s improved musculature, on subsequent examination. Even the most basic premise of phrenology-that different areas of the brain correspond to different functions-has been held to be true, and is a foundation of modern neuroscience. Their tragic flaw, of course, was the relatively arbitrary assignment of these functions to areas, and the belief in the corresponding shape of the skull. Had they the ability to look at this premise and compare it objectively to controlled data, perhaps they would have been spared such a long exercise in futility.

But as to gullibility, or intuition, many of the causes and ideas championed by the Fowlers were later vindicated, such as the literary work of Whitman, the feminist ideals of Bloomer, or the concrete construction techniques of Orson Fowler. And indeed, many of Twain’s, such as his typesetting machine, proved fruitless. However, unlike the Fowlers’ largely uncritical acceptance of most innovations which fell within the penumbra of “progress” and “reform,” Twain remained critical of both the status quo and its reforms, judging each on its own merits.

Twain’s snare of Fowler can be seen as an indictment of phrenology as a science, or of Fowler as a quack. But ultimately it may be, like the medieval maid who believed pigs to be nobles, an embarrassment to humanity itself, that ones as intelligent and sincere as the Fowlers could be self-deluded for a lifetime.

References

• Neider, Charles (ed.) 1959. The Autobiography of Mark Twain. New York: Harper.
• Stern, Madeline B. 1969. Mark Twain had his head examined. American Literature. March.
• —.1971. Heads and Headlines: The Phrenological Fowlers. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press.

Voodoo

Voodoo-or voudou-is the Haitian folk religion. It consists of various African magical beliefs and rites that have become mixed with Catholic elements. It began with the arrival of slaves in the New World, most of them from the western, “Slave Coast” area of Africa, notably from Dahomey, now Benin, and Nigeria. In Benin’s Fon language, vodun means “spirit,” an invisible, mysterious force that can intervene in human affairs (Hurbon 1995, 13; Métraux 1972, 25, 359; Bourguignon 1993).

According to one writer, “The Blacks suffered under merciless circumstances-their property and their family and social structures all torn to shreds; they had nothing left-except their Gods to whom they clung tenaciously.” In Haiti and elsewhere, there was an attempt to strip them even of that, their “heathen” beliefs being rigorously suppressed. However, the slaves “worshiped many of their Gods unbeknownst to the priests, under the guise of worshipping Catholic saints” (Antippas 1988, 2).

Voodoo’s African elements include worship of loa (supernatural entities) and the ancestral dead, together with the use of drums and dancing, during which loa may possess the faithful. Catholic elements include prayers such as the Hail Mary and the Lord’s Prayer, as well as baptism, making the sign of the cross, and the use of candles, bells, crosses, and the images of saints. Many of the loa are equated with specific saints; for example Damballah, the Dahomean snake deity, is identified with St. Patrick who, having legendarily expelled all snakes from Ireland, is frequently depicted stamping on snakes or brandishing his staff at them (Bourguignon 1993).

Voodoo spread from Haiti to New Orleans in the wake of the Haitian slave revolt (1791-1804). The refugee plantation owners fled with their slave retinues to Louisiana where slaves had previously toiled under such repressive circumstances that their African religion “had all but withered.” However, oppression lessened somewhat with American rule, following the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, and-with the influx of thousands of voodoo practitioners-soon “New Orleans began to hear the beat of the drum” (Antippas 1988, 14).

Voodoo Queen

Voodoo in New Orleans can scarcely be separated from its dominant figure, Marie Laveau, about whom many legends swirl. According to one source (Hauck 1996):

She led voodoo dances in Congo Square and sold charms and potions from her home in the 1830s. Sixty years later she was still holding ceremonies and looked as young as she did when she started. Her rites at St. John’s Bayou on the banks of Lake Pon[t]chartrain resembled a scene from hell, with bonfires, naked dancing, orgies, and animal sacrifices. She had a strange power over police and judges and succeeded in saving several criminals from hanging.

Writer Charles Gandolfo (1992), author of Marie Laveau of New Orleans, states: “Some believe that Marie had a mysterious birth, in the sense that she may have come from the spirits or as an envoy from the Saints.” On the other hand a plaque on her supposed tomb, placed by the Catholic Church, refers to her as “this notorious 'voodoo queen.'”

Who was the real Marie Laveau? She began life as the illegitimate daughter of a rich Creole plantation owner, Charles Laveaux, and his Haitian slave mistress. Sources conflict but Marie may have been born in New Orleans in 1794. In 1819 she wed Jacques Paris who, like her, was a free person of color, but she was soon abandoned or widowed. About 1826, she began a second, common-law marriage to Christophe de Glapion, another free person of color, with whom she would have fifteen children.

Marie was introduced to voodoo by various “voodoo doctors,” practitioners of a popularized voodoo that emphasized curative and occult magic and seemed to have a decidedly commercial aspect. Her own practice began when she teamed up with a “heavily tattooed Voodoo doctor"-known variously as Doctor John, Bayou John, John Bayou, etc.-who was “the first commercial Voodooist in new Orleans to whip up potions and gris-gris for a price” (Gandolfo 1992, 11). Gris-gris or “juju” refers to magic charms or spells, often conjuring bags containing such items as bones, herbs, charms, snake skin, etc., tied up in a piece of cloth (Antippas 1988, 16). Doctor John reportedly confessed to friends that his magic was mere humbuggery. “He had been known to laugh,” writes Robert Tallant in Voodoo in New Orleans (1946, 39), “when he told of selling a gullible white woman a small jar of starch and water for five dollars.”

In time Marie decided to seek her own fortune. Working as a hairdresser, which put her in contact with New Orleans’ social elite, she soon developed a clientele to whom she dispensed potions, gris-gris bags, voodoo dolls, and other magical items. She now sought supremacy over her rivals, some fifteen “voodoo queens” in various neighborhoods. According to a biographer (Gandolfo 1992, 17):

Marie began her take-over process by disposing of her rival queens. . . . If her rituals or gris-gris didn't work, Marie (who was a statuesque woman, to say the least) met them in the street and physically beat them. This war for supremacy lasted several years until, one by one, all of the former queens, under a pledge, agreed to be sub-queens. If they refused, she ran them out of town.

By age thirty-five Marie Laveau had become New Orleans’s most powerful voodoo queen-then or since. She won the approval of the local priest by encouraging her followers to attend mass. While she charged the rich abundantly, she reportedly gave to the needy and administered to the suffering. Her most visible activities, however, were her public rituals. By municipal decree (from 1817) slaves were only permitted to dance publicly at a site called Congo Square. “These public displays of Voodoo ceremonies, however, revealed nothing of the real religion and became merely entertainment for the curious whites” (Antippas 1988, 14-15). More “secret” rituals-including fertility rituals-took place elsewhere, notably on the shore of Lake Pontchartrain.

It is difficult at this remove to assess just how much of Marie’s rituals was authentic voodoo practice and how much was due to her “incredible imagination and an obsession for the extreme.” She staged rituals that were “simulated orgies.” Men and women danced in abandonment after drinking rum and seeming to become possessed by various loas (figure 1). Seated on her throne, Marie directed the action when she was not actually participating. She kept a large snake called Le Grand Zombi that she would dance with in veneration of Damballah, shaking a gourd rattle to summon that snake deity and repeating over and over, “Damballah, ye-ye-ye!”

Once a year Marie presided over the ritual of St. John’s Eve. It began at dusk on June 23 and ended at dawn on the next day, St. John’s day. Hundreds attended, including reporters and curious onlookers, each of whom was charged a fee. Drum beating, bonfires, animal sacrifice, and other elements-including nude women dancing seductively-characterized the extended ritual. Offerings were made to the appropriate loas for protection, including safeguarding children and others from the Cajun bogeyman, Loup-Garou, a werewolf that supposedly fed on the blood of victims (Gandolfo 1992, 18-23).

Magic or Myth?

Claims regarding Marie Laveau’s alleged powers persist. She represented herself as a seer and used fortune-telling techniques such as palmistry (Gandolfo 1992, 26). There is no evidence that Marie’s clairvoyant abilities were any more successful than those of any other fortuneteller. We know that people attest to the accuracy of a reading because they do not understand the clever techniques involved, like “cold reading.” So called because it is accomplished without any foreknowledge, this is an artful method of fishing for information from the sitter while convincing him or her that it comes from a mystical source (Hyman 1977).

Actually, many of Marie’s readings may not have been so “cold” after all. Far from lacking prior information about her clients, she reputedly used her position as a hairdresser for gossip collecting, discovering “that her women clients would talk to her about anything and everything and would divulge some of their most personal secrets to her” (Gandolfo 1992, 12). She also reputedly “developed a chain of household informants in most of the prominent homes” (Antippas 1988, 16).

Doubtless such intelligence gathering would be helpful to a fortune-telling enterprise (just as “mediumistic espionage” was utilized by later spiritualists [Keene 1976, 27]). It could also be beneficial to a business of dispensing charms, like Marie’s:

Most of her work for the ladies involved love predicaments. Marie knew the personal secrets of judges, priests, lawyers, doctors, ship captains, architects, military officers, politicians, and most of New Orleans’s other leading citizens. She used her knowledge of their indiscretions and blackmailed them into doing whatever she wanted. She was then financially reimbursed by her elite female clients. Most of the time, this was how her love potions and gris-gris worked, which is apparently 100% of the time (Gandolfo 1992, 12).

Such tactics may help explain the claim, mentioned earlier, that Marie “had a strange power over police and judges and succeeded in saving several criminals from hanging” (Hauck 1996). But we should beware of taking such claims too seriously. When we seek to learn the facts, we soon realize we have entered the realm of folklore. There are, for example, rather conflicting versions of one case, ca. 1830, in which an unidentified young man was charged with “a crime” (rape, according to one source) and at the request of his father Marie performed certain rituals. Supposedly the case was either dismissed or the young man acquitted, and Marie was rewarded with a cottage on Rue St. Ann. However, as one writer concedes, “No one is sure how Marie actually won the case. . . .” Therefore, of course, there is no evidence that she did (Gandolfo 1992, 14-15; cf. Tallant 1946, 58; Martinez 1956, 17-19).

Legends of Marie’s beneficent aspect are rivaled by those of her sinister one. A story in this regard involves the alleged hex of a New Orleans businessman, J. B. Langrast, in the 1850s. Langrast supposedly provoked Marie’s ire by publicly denouncing her and accusing her of everything from robbery to murder. Soon, gris-gris in the form of roosters’ heads began to appear on his doorstep. As a consequence, Langrast reportedly grew increasingly upset and eventually fled New Orleans (Nardo and Belgum 1991, 89-92).

I have traced the Langrast story to a 1956 book of Mississippi folktales which describes the “businessman” as a junk dealer and bigamist (Martinez 1956, 78-83). Such a man might have various reasons for leaving town. Claims that Marie Laveau invoked a loa to curse Langrast with insanity are invalidated by a complete lack of proof that he ever became insane. In fact his alleged flight could easily be attributed to simple fear, the belief that “Marie Laveau’s followers might kill him if he stayed” (Nardo and Belgum 1991, 90-91).

Marie II

Among the most fabulous legends about Marie Laveau is an often-repeated one alleging “her perpetual youth” (Hauck 1996). According to a segment of “America’s Haunted Houses” (1998) which aired on the Discovery Channel, Marie was “said to be over 100 years old when she died and as beautiful as ever.” Moreover, “There were some unexplained and mysterious sightings of the great Voodoo Queen even after her death,” writes Gandolfo (1992, 29). “People would swear on a stack of bibles that they saw Marie Laveau herself.” Indeed, he adds, “A number of people say they were at a ritual in the summer of 1919 given by the Great Queen.”

The solution to this enigma is the fact that, according to Tallant (1946, 52), there were “at least two Marie Laveaus.” The first Marie, the subject of our previous discussions, died June 15, 1881. Her obituaries say she was then ninety-eight ("Marie Lavaux” 1881; “Death” 1881). One of the same obituaries ("Death” 1881) states more credibly that she had been twenty-five when she wed, consistent with her having been born in 1794, as most sources now agree, and thus about eighty-seven when she died. Indeed, the doctor who attended Marie at the end publicly stated his doubts that she was as old as her family had claimed, and he judged her age to be in the late eighties (Tallant 1946, 117).

Whatever her actual age, far from appearing to be a figure of eternal youth, Marie Laveau spent her last years “old and shrunken,” stripped of her memory, and lying in a back room of her cottage (Tallant 1946, 88, 115). In her stead was her daughter, Marie Laveau II. The younger Marie gradually took over her mother’s business activities, which included running a house on Lake Pontchartrain where rich Creole men could have “appointments” with young mulatto girls (Tallant 1946, 65-66). She died in 1897.

The claim that Marie Laveau was active in 1919 is thought to have been based on a third Marie, possibly a granddaughter (Gandolfo 1992, 29), or another voodoo queen with whom she was confused.

In carrying on her mother’s work, Marie II had business cards printed, billing her not as a voodooienne but as a “Healer.” According to Tallant (1946, 93):

The Laveau ways of performing homeopathic magic were endless. Sick people were often brought to the house to receive the benefit of a cure by Marie II. A person bitten by a snake was told to get another live snake of any sort, cut its head off “while it was angry” and to tie this head to the wound. This was to be left attached until sunrise of the following day. Sometimes her practices contained an element of medical truth, embracing the use of roots and herbs that contained genuine curative elements. For sprains and swellings she used hot water containing Epsom salts and rubbed the injured parts with whiskey, chanting prayers and burning candles at the same time, of course. For other ailments she administered castor oil, to the accompaniment of incantations and prayer.

Like other occult healers, Marie obviously took advantage not only of the occasional “element of medical truth” but also other factors, including the body’s own natural healing mechanisms and the powerful effects of suggestion.

Voodoo Today

Current voodoo practice in New Orleans is a mere shadow of what it was in its heyday. Although an estimated fifteen percent of the city’s population supposedly still practices voodoo, it has largely been subsumed into Catholicism, which remains the dominant religion. It has also been influenced by spiritualist, wiccan, and other occult and New Age beliefs (Gandolfo n.d.). The most visible aspects of voodoo today are tours and attractions in the area of the Vieux Carré (or “Old Square”), popularly called the French Quarter. Laid out in 1721, it is the oldest area of the city.

There, souvenir shops sell that most stereotypical of items associated with voodoo, the voodoo doll. Although in the days of Marie Laveau one might occasionally encounter “a little wax doll stuck with pins,” the fact is, according to Tallant (1946, 93), “despite their frequency in fiction about Voodoo, dolls were rarely used in the practices.” Nevertheless, they are today everywhere. One can at least shun the made-in-China souvenirs for the local variety sold at Marie Laveau’s House of Voodoo, Rev. Zombie’s Voodoo Shop, and the New Orleans Historic Voodoo Museum. The latter attraction is well worth seeing for its display of historic artifacts relating to voodoo and its practitioners, including Marie Laveau.

The museum promotes voodoo-including its commercial, tourist aspect-through various offerings, including annual rituals on St. John’s Eve and Halloween, and for-hire performances offered as party entertainment. Walking tours of voodoo-related sites in the Vieux Carré are also available daily.

Figure 2. Authentic “working” altar in New Orleans’ Voodoo Spiritual Temple. Candles, religious effigies, bottles of rum (as offerings), and other elements are typical.

Tour groups may routinely visit the Voodoo Spiritual Temple on Rampart Street at the edge of the Vieux Carré. I had enlisted a professional guide and was able to gain an audience with Priestess Miriam, perhaps today’s premier voodoo queen. At the end of an interesting visit, she waived the prohibition against photographs and permitted me to document some of the authentic voodoo altars of this religious and cultural center (figure 2). These are “working” altars, meaning they are used in rituals and are modified to invoke and propitiate various spirits.

Tours also take visitors to the reputed tomb of Marie Laveau where they may hope to have a wish granted or glimpse her ghost which allegedly haunts the site. (The secrets of Marie’s tomb will be explored in a future column in Skeptical Briefs, where additional “Investigative Files” also appear.) Although voodoo has declined from the early days, when Marie held New Orleans under her spell, her influence nevertheless continues.

References

• “America’s Haunted Houses.” 1998. Discovery Channel. First aired May 24.
• Antippas, A. P. 1988. A Brief History of Voodoo: Slavery & the Survival of the African Gods. New Orleans, Louisiana: Marie Laveau’s House of Voodoo.
• Bourguignon, Erika E. 1993. “Voodoo,” Collier’s Encyclopedia. New York: P. F. Collier.
• “Death of Marie Laveau.” 1881. Obituary in Daily Picayune, n.d. (after June 15), clipping reproduced in Gandolfo 1992, 38; text quoted in full in Tallant 1946, 113-116.
• Dickinson, Joy. 1997. Haunted City: An Unauthorized Guide to the Magical, Magnificent New Orleans of Anne Rice. Secaucus, New Jersey: Citadel Press, 125-132.
• Gandolfo, Charles. 1992. Marie Laveau of New Orleans. New Orleans, Louisiana: New Orleans Historic Voodoo Museum.
• ---. N.d. Museum guide sheet. New Orleans Historic Voodoo Museum.
• Gould, Virginia. 1997. “Marie Laveau,” in Darlene Clark Hine, ed. Facts on File Encyclopedia of Black Women in America: The Early Years 1617-1899. New York: Facts on File, 123-124.
• Hauck, Dennis William. 1996. Haunted Places: The National Directory. New York: Penguin Books, 192, 193.
• Hurbon, Laënnec. 1995. Voodoo: Search for the Spirit. New York: Harry N. Abrams.
• Hyman, Ray. 1977. Cold-reading: How to convince strangers that you know all about them. Skeptical Inquirer 1(2): 18-37.
• Keene, M. Lamar. 1976. The Psychic Mafia. Reprinted Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 1997, 19-38.
• Klein, Victor C. 1999. New Orleans Ghosts II. Metairie, Louisiana: Lycanthrope Press.
• Krohn, Diane C. 2000. Tour guide, interview by Joe Nickell, December 3.
• “Marie Lavaux [sic].” 1881. Obituary in New Orleans Democrat, June 17, reproduced in Gandolfo 1992, 37.
• Martinez, Raymond J. 1956. Mysterious Marie Laveau, Voodoo Queen, and Folk Tales Along the Mississippi. Reprinted New Orleans: Hope Publications, n.d.
• Métraux, Alfred. 1972. Voodoo in Haiti. New York: Schocken Books.
• Nardo, Don, and Erik Belgum. 1991. Great Mysteries: Voodoo: Opposing Viewpoints. San Diego, California: Greenhaven Press.
• Tallant, Robert. 1946. Voodoo in New Orleans. Reprinted Gretna, Louisiana: Pelican Publishing Company, 1990.

The conference was devoted to examining the rise and development of the paranormal scene, and especially alternative medicine, in the Eastern European countries since the downfall of the communist regimes. The status of alternative medicine in some Western European countries, such as Germany and the Netherlands, was also explored, as well as talks on the UFO phenomenon, the role of Rupert Sheldrake’s alleged morphogenetic fields in crystal formation, the scandal around the French astrologer Elisabeth Teissier (who recently got a Ph.D. in sociology from the reputable Sorbonne university), and many, many more.

Although it is true and well known that a wave of paranormal belief systems swept into the Eastern European countries after the breakdown of their communist regimes, it is also true, though lesser known, that many paranormal belief systems had been present before, in some cases even enjoying state support.

In the Czech Republic, for example, there had existed a long tradition of parapsychological research, as Professor Vojtech Mornstein from the bio-physics department of Brno University reported. Although the official “scientific” Marxist doctrine did not allow for mysticism and parapsychology, such research was fine when sufficiently disguised or cloaked in Marxist terms, or when reference could be made to Russian scientists engaging in such research. Thus, parapsychology was called “psychotronics,” and Kirlian photography was after all supported by the Soviets.

Jan Willem Nienhuys of the Netherlands addresses the conference as Amardeo Sarma moderates the panel.

The situation was similar in the former Soviet Union, where there had also been a long tradition of parapsychological research, as Professor Eduard Kruglyakov from the Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics told the audience. Another prominent field had been pseudophysics, such as research on anti-gravitation. Nevertheless, the big “outburst of the paranormal” occurred only after 1989-and it was sometimes supported by high representatives of the government, in particular the former president Boris Yeltsin, who relied on astrology among other dubious things.

Kruglyakov was happy to report that back in 1998 the Russian Academy of Sciences established a twelve-person committee devoted to fighting pseudoscience. The committee has shown early successes. Astrological columns have disappeared from some newspapers, for example, and other papers have reinstalled a science section.

As for alternative medicine, Professor Jiri Hert from the department of anatomy of Plzen University explained that acupuncture, magnetic therapy, and herbal medicine had been in use in the Czech Republic before 1989. After 1989, the main Western imports were homeopathy and cluster medicine. By contrast, chiropractic and anthroposophic medicine play no important role, although an increased tolerance of the use of mistletoe extract in oncology departments can be observed, as Dr. Leme deplored. As anthroposophic medicine is perhaps most widespread in Germany, it was of particular interest to learn from Dr. Barbara Burkhard that there now are studies indicating that the use of mistletoe extracts in fact accelerates tumor growth in patients with lymph node metastases, and moreover leads to a significant increase in brain metastases and a decrease in overall survival time.

The situation in Bulgaria was described by Professor Tchoudomir Nachev, president of the Bulgarian National Academy of Medicine. In Bulgaria, people were driven into the hands of alternative healers not so much by gullibility as by the capitalist overhaul of the country’s health system. Thus, normal science-based health care as well as most drugs simply could no longer be afforded by many people. No surprise, then, that alternative practitioners were able to thrive by opening offices and clinics all over the country offering affordable and, truly in the two senses of the expression, “alternative” health care.

Left to right: Jiri Grygar (Czech Republic), Amardeo Sarma (Germany), Monique Wonner (France), and Jan Zahradil (Czech Republic) participate on a conference panel.

The European skeptics were especially pleased that the conference was hosted by the Czech Academy of Sciences, and that among the participants there were representatives from various scientific academies. One of the speakers was Professor Pieter Drenth, the president of ALLEA (All European Academies), which is the Federation of National Academies of Sciences and Humanities, representing thirty-eight academies from Europe as well as Turkey and the United States. Drenth informed ECSO that concern about the rise and spread of pseudoscience has finally reached the various academies of science. This is an encouraging sign that in the future the skeptical movement may expect more support by leading scientific organizations. Although the skeptical movement is lucky to count quite a number of outstanding scientists among their members and supporters, too many scientists are still reluctant to join in, usually believing that it is a waste of time to deal with pseudoscience. This may even be true from a narrow research point of view, but certainly not from the wider perspective of educational and societal responsibility.

Finally, some important results of the ECSO board meeting, which always takes place at the occasion of the European conferences, should be mentioned. The long-time chairman of ECSO, Professor Cornelis de Jager, asked to be replaced by a younger person, for, being in his eightieth year, he wishes to reduce his workload. Thus Amardeo Sarma (Germany) was unanimously elected as the new chairman; so was Professor Jiri Grygar (Czech Republic) as vice-chairman. Further board members are Tim Trachet (Belgium), Massimo Polidoro (Italy), Michael Heap (U.K.), and Cornelis de Jager (Netherlands). The Center for Inquiry-Europe in Rossdorf (Germany) will henceforth take over the general administrative and financial business of ECSO. A new directory of the European Council of Skeptical Organizations will be published by the Center in early 2002.

After this successful and well-organized conference in the picturesque city of Prague, the participants now look forward to the next European skeptics congress, which will be organized by ASKE (Association for Skeptical Enquiry, U.K.) and held in London from September 5-7, 2003.