Home Blog Page 130

From the archive: Pyramids, pyramyths and pyramidiots

Barry Williams
-
0
From the archive: Pyramids, pyramyths and pyramidiots

This article originally appeared in The Skeptic, Volume 3, Issue 3, from 1989.

How can such a simple shape inspire so much nonsense?

What is a pyramid? Is it a polyhedron whose base is a polygon and whose sides are triangles having a common vertex? Well, yes, it is, but it is far more than that. The pyramid, which in its megalithic manifestation played a very important role in the histories of two early civilisations. has excited more speculation and fantasy than has any other solid geometrical shape. Cubes and dodecahedrons have never had the press of the pyramid.

Before we investigate some of the more fantastic myths that have attached themselves to pyramids, we should review some of the facts which, to the inquiring mind, are far more fascinating than the fantasies.

The Pyramids of Egypt

The heading of this section is the title of the book widely regarded as the definitive work on the topic. Written by I.E.S. Edwards, keeper of Egyptian antiquities at the British Museum from 1955-72, this book presents the facts in a most readable form and is the reference for the archaeological information in this article.

The history of Dynastic Egyptian civilisation covers more than 3,000 years, of which the Pyramid Age accounts for fewer than 500, although this form of construction continued, in a much-debased form, for a further 500. There are more than 80 known pyramids in Egypt, some of which are so ruined as to appear only as heaps of rubble.

It is not surprising that many people have exercised their imaginations to speculate on the purpose of these massive stone structures and on the methods used in their construction. Although there is much that is unknown about the Egyptian pyramids there can be little doubt that they were built according to funerary rites of the Egyptian religion and that the construction methods used were quite possible within the limits of technology of the time.

The Egyptian religion was firmly based on the existence of an afterlife, which depended for its continuance un the protection of the mortal remains of the former citizen. In pre-dynastic times, important people were buried under a mound of sand the shape of which seems to have gained some religious significance. During the First and Second Dynasties this mound was made more elaborate and became a rectangular, decorated mud brick structure, called a mastaba. Naturally enough, the mastaba of the Pharaoh was the most imposing, although many fine examples have been found of those of nobles and officials.

In the Third Dynasty, circa 2680 BC, the Pharaoh of the time, User, was fortunate in having as his Chancellor, one Imhotep, who is credited with the building of the first pyramid (and, incidentally, the world’s first large stone building). Imhotep was deified by later Egyptians, possibly the first recorded instance of someone ‘coming up through the ranks’.

It is tempting to speculate that Imhotep thought to himself one day ‘If I put another mastaba on top of the first one and then another on top of that, until I reach six, then my Pharaoh will be much more important than his old Dad’, but excavations of Zoser’s Step Pyramid reveal that many changes in design occurred during its construction.

First, an unusual square mastaba was built in the unusual material of stone. Then it was added to, in various stages, until it became rectangular, then built upwards to become a four-step pyramid, then extended on two sides and upwards to become a six-step pyramid, which was its final form. All of this indicates that there was no sudden infusion of new ideas from ‘somewhere else’ that suddenly changed ‘primitive’ Egyptians into brilliant engineers and stonemasons, a theory beloved of the more irrational speculators on matters Egyptian. It is clear that Imhotep was an unusually intelligent man but it is equally clear that his ideas did not spring from mysterious sources. His learning curve is inscribed in stone.

From the first step pyramid, we can trace the development of this form of architecture through the first true pyramid, to the apogee of pyramid building, the Great Pyramid of Khufu at Giza. This is the one about which all the fantasies have been constructed and it certainly is a remarkable piece of engineering. The first notable fact about the Great Pyramid is that the time which elapsed between the invention of pyramid architecture by lmhotep and the construction of this, the largest and best of them all, was only a little over a century.

The Great Pyramid is unique in many ways. When it was built. it was the heaviest building (at around 6 million tonnes) ever built. It still is. It consists of approximately 2.3 million blocks of stone, with an average weight of 2.5 tonnes. Its base is 227 metres square, accurate to within 20 cm on each side. Its original height was 150m, although the top 15 m have disappeared. It is accurately aligned to the four cardinal points, with its least accurate side, the east, diverging by only 5′ 30″ from true north-south, which, for a civilisation that had no compass, was not bad.

Its base covers 13.1 acres, its sides make an angle to the ground of 51′ 52″ and it was built using technology no more sophisticated than the lever, the roller, the inclined plane, stone and copper tools, intelligent minds and hard work.

We should clear up a few popular misconceptions at this stage, misconceptions largely propagated by the works of wilfully ignorant authors such as Erich von Däniken, who surely must hold the distinction of being more wrong about more things than any other person on Earth.

The Egyptians were not primitive people at all. They were every bit as intelligent and sophisticated as we are today, and, although their technology was simple, it was adequate for the task and they were expert in its application.

The Egyptians did not use slaves to build the pyramids but citizens who were paid in food for their work (there is even evidence that the Egyptians invented the strike for better wages). We know that the expert work on the pyramids was carried out by a full-time team of craftsmen, and we can assume that much of the heavy labour was carried out by unskilled ‘casual labour’, probably the local farmers who had nothing to do while their land was inundated by the annual Nile flood.

The Egyptians moved large blocks of stone on wooden sleds, pulled by teams of men with ropes. Von Däniken would have us believe at the Egyptians had no rope and that wood was in short supply because ‘trees did not grow in abundance along the Nile’. Both statements are lies. Many ropes have been found in Egyptian tombs, and the Egyptians used a lot of wood, much of which they acquired on trade with neighbouring countries, and many examples of which have been found.

The Egyptians did not carry out human sacrifice in dynastic times (although there is some evidence that pre-dynastic Egyptians did) and there is no evidence that live humans were sealed in pyramids with their dead Pharaoh. This latter is almost certainly Hollywood invention.

Mummification was carried out for the purpose of preserving the remains of Egyptians for the afterlife and not, as von Däniken would have it, for resurrection by returning astronauts. The techniques of mummification are available to us in some considerable detail, from existing texts. The internal organs were removed and stored separately from the body, and the body was treated with various salts and resins and wrapped in linen.

All of this may have been counter-productive, as some older mummies of earlier Egyptians, merely buried without treatment, have survived better than those of Pharaohs. The evidence suggests that desiccation caused by interment in dry sand is a far better preservative than any of the treatments given to pharaonic corpses.

What really gives the lie to von Däniken, how-ever, is the fact that the brain was removed in pieces, through the nose, and not preserved. The Egyptians believed that the heart was the seat of the soul, and that the brain was not of particular importance. In the case of von Däniken, this may well be true.

Motivation

We will look further at some of the fantasies that have been built around the Great Pyramids later, but first let us consider ‘why build a pyramid in the first place?’

The answer to that is that we do not know. There are many logical hypotheses (and many more illogical ones) but there is no doubt that the purpose was of a religious nature. It may be that the pyramid was seen as a ‘stairway to the heavens’ for the dead Pharaoh to ascend to his rightful place alongside the sun god.

There is not direct evidence that the pyramids were the actual burial site of the kings, as no pharaonic remains have ever been found inside or under a pyramid. The pyramids may have been built as a memorial and not as a tomb, although, in the absence of direct evidence, the latter purpose seems to be more likely.

One hypothesis, proposed by German-British physicist Kurt Mendelssohn, postulates that the existence of the pyramids was secondary to the fact of their construction. Mendelssohn proposes that the rulers of the recently unified Egyptian kingdom needed some work of national importance to weld together the various regional groups into a cohesive and centralised state. Mendelssohn’s theory, propounded in his book The Riddle of the Pyramids, argues this case very well and, whether true or not, it is certainly logical and it does explain some of the mysteries that surrounded these giant structures. This hypothesis falls within the parameters of reasonable speculation, as do many others associated with a period of history which, while better documented than many other ancient eras, is far from comprehensively understood.

What surviving texts tell us about the ancient Egyptians is at considerable variance with the popular mythology that surrounds them. They were practical and intelligent people, not given to excessive mysticism which is an error generated by the fact that the majority of surviving literature is concerned with death, which in turn is explained by the fact that their tombs survived the millennia in far better shape than did their mundane dwellings.

Although there is clear evidence that the Egyptians had sufficient knowledge of astronomy to enable them to devise an accurate calendar, and thus to be able to predict their most important annual event, the flooding of the Nile, there is no suggestion that they developed astrology, a fact that should endear them to all skeptics.

In general, the Egyptians come down to us as remarkably likeable people, with little of the cruelty and brutality that characterises so many ancient civilisations, and not a few modern ones.

We do not know why the pyramid became such an important structure to the Egyptians, but there may be a clue in the sheer pragmatism of the shape. Once the decision is made to build on a monumental scale, the pyramid makes the most sense to people who had not devised arches or free-standing columns. Once you build a pyramid, assuming you do it properly, it tends to stay put. Staying up is far simpler than falling down for a well-built pyramid.

We should also address the claim commonly made by those who know nothing of Egyptian history and culture and who seek to achieve wealth and fame by writing books which are firmly rooted in that ignorance. This claim is the ‘it would be impossible for us today to build the Great Pyramid’.

This claim is both arrant nonsense and likely to be true—nonsense because the reasons cited for the claim lie in techniques the Egyptians were alleged to have and that are no longer available to modern people, and true for an entirely different reason in that it would be hard to conceive of a politician or company director convincing the electorate or the board of the desirability of expending so much wealth on an intrinsically useless structure. (Prince Charles’ opinions on modern British architecture notwithstanding) This question is addressed in Ronald Story’s book Guardians of the Universe? A Japanese construction company estimated in 1980 that the cost of erecting a replica of the Great pyramid, using modern techniques, would be £250 million. If the labour-intensive methods employed by the Egyptians were used, then the cost would approach £18 billion. It would be a brave government indeed that would suggest pyramid building as a cure for unemployment.

As for the ‘lost’ techniques, there is plenty of physical evidence of how the Egyptians chiselled the stones, carried them to the site, used ramps to get them to the necessary elevation and moved them around when there. What techniques have been lost?

Yet another mystery which bedevils the proponents of paranormal explanations is how the concept of pyramid building sprang up in two widely separated cultures as those of Egypt and Central America. The suggestion is that Egyptians colonised Central America and taught the Indians how to do it. This suggestion is difficult to sustain when we consider a few facts.

The Central American pyramids were designed for an entirely different purpose to those of Egypt—ceremonial rather than funerary. All Central American pyramids are at a lower angle than the Egyptian and were designed to be climbed after construction to the temples located on top of them. In the case of the Aztecs, human sacrifice seems to have been the major activity carried out on the pyramids, although this probably was not the case with the Maya.

Methods of construction differed greatly from those used by the Egyptians and, generally, the Central American pyramids were not used for monuments or burial, although one has been found to contain a body of some important person.

The crucial fact that makes any cross-cultural exchange seem to be unlikely is that the earliest pyramids of Mexico are the so-called Temples of the Sun and the Moon at Teotihuacan, about the builders of which little is known, but who have been identified by some mystics as the Lost Tribes of Israel (who else!). These pyramids are comparable in size to those of Egypt, and arc dated at just before the beginning of the Christian era. It would seem to be highly implausible that Egyptians, at the final stages of their long history, would venture halfway around the globe and then teach the natives a technology that they themselves had abandoned nearly two millennia earlier. It is far more likely that the practical significance of the pyramid shape for large construction appealed to two different cultures, neither of whom had developed the arch, quite independently.

We can dispose of the absurd pseudoscientific claims of ancient astronauts, time travellers and remnants of pre-existing high-tech civilisations as espoused by the likes of von Däniken by a simple examination of the facts which have been discovered by genuine archaeologists and other scientists. Such claims can be put down to wilful ignorance on the part of their proponents. Of more interest are some of the weird cults that read mystical significance into the measurements of the pyramids, particularly those of the Great Pyramid of Khufu.

Pyramyths and Pyramidiots

It would appear that the driving force behind the desire to mix measurement with Biblical prophecy, that drove many 19th century British authors to ascribe unwarranted significance to the Great Pyramid, was a distaste for the metric system of measurement, introduced after the French Revolution. No self-respecting and God-fearing Briton was going to take this example of atheistic Frog perfidy lying down. (Readers of middle years or older may have some sympathy with this view.)

Among the first to address this problem was a retired publisher, John Taylor, who believed that the pyramid had been built by Noah, to God’s specifications, and who decided that 25 inches was the size of the Biblical cubit.

Taylor was the first to realise that the dimensions of the Great Pyramid suggested that the Egyptians had knowledge of the ratio pi (π; the ratio of the circumference of the pyramid to its height gives fairly accurate ratio of 1/2π). As it is known that the Egyptians had not developed mathematics on a theoretical level to that extent, this convinced Taylor that the Great Pyramid was divinely inspired and presented a genuine problem to more scientifically inclined scholars.

One possible explanation that has been advanced is that, if the Egyptians used a rolling drum to measure long distances, then pi would have become part of the computation quite fortuitously and Egyptians would have discovered the ratio without being conscious of the fact. Whatever the truth of the matter, Taylor, who was an adherent of the proposition that the British were descended from the Lost Tribes of Israel, was convinced that the Pyramid had been built by these proto-Britons. Obviously, the Egyptians could not have done it, as they were worse than the French. Taylor’s ideas were taken up by no less a personage than the Astronomer Royal for Scotland, Charles Piazzi Smyth. (The real mystery in this story is how someone with such a foreign sounding middle name got to be Astronomer Royal.) Smyth had been a pupil of Sir John Herschell and, like Herschel! and Taylor, he objected to the use of the metric measurement systems, which may help to account for some of the extraordinary theories he later propounded.

Finding that one of the casing stones of the Great Pyramid was approximately 25 inches, equal to Taylor’s cubit. Smyth decided that the inch (one twenty fifth of a cubit and approximately one 10 millionth part of the Earth’s polar radius) must have been the divine unit of length. When it was discovered that the original casing stone was a bit over 25 inches (25.025 in fact), Smyth proposed that the ‘Pyramid inch’ of 1.001 was the actual divine unit (the British unit presumably got worn down a bit in the pocket of one of the Lost Tribesmen).

Of course, it did serve to prove that the British measurement system was divinely inspired, which was one in the eye for those nasty French. Smyth used the pyramid inch and various other measurements made at the Great Pyramid to calculate the density of the Earth, its population and, for all we know, the winner of the third at Ascot.

It is obvious that, given the number of measurements one could make in a huge structure like the Great Pyramid, and with suitably preconceived ideas, one can come up with any answers one likes. This Smyth did.

His book, Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid, contains over 600 pages of these calculations and predictions. The big problem was that all of this was theory—no actual dimension of one pyramid inch has been found. This was put right when Smyth, on a visit to Egypt, found a mason’s boss on a slab of stone and declared it to be the Divine Standard. The ‘science’ of Pyramidology was now firmly established. It survived the revelation that one of Smyth’s followers had been caught trying to file down the boss to make it more accurate and the discovery that surviving Great Pyramid casing stones were all of different sizes.

With the bit firmly between his teeth, Smyth and his many followers, who included the founders of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, using his Pyramid Inch decided that various internal structures of the Great Pyramid were a record of the past history of the world (naturally beginning in 4004 BC), and that was not all. Further measurements showed that the future history of the world was also contained in the stones. The end of the world was variously predicted as happening in 1874, 1914, 1920 and 1925.

As with all failed predictions, when it does not happen you revise the data to get a new date (see Nostradamus). What Smyth and his followers were doing was bending the data to achieve their preconceived outcomes, a practice still followed by many practitioners of the paranormal.

Smyth could multiply any dimension by a suitably large number and come up with a significant measurement, such as the distance to the sun derived from the height of the pyramid (481 ft x 1000 million = 90 million miles). Not very accurate, and certainly not as accurate as God or a space travelling ET would know them, but they certainly fooled the customers.

Unfortunately for Smyth, like an earlier personage of Egyptian fame, he was nursing a viper in his bosom. His theories, largely because of his position, were treated with a degree of respect that they obviously did not deserve. One of his most ardent supporters was a chemical engineer, who along with his son, decided that to further refine Smyth’s theories more accurate measurements were needed to be made on site. These two set to work to design more accurate instruments to make the measurements as exact as possible. As this took a long time, the engineer finally decided that he was too old to travel to Egypt and his son was sent out alone. He conducted several very accurate triangulations of the site and succeeded in proving conclusively that Smyth was talking through his hat (chapeaulallia?).

The young man, William Matthew Flinders Petrie, stayed on in Egypt to become the greatest Egyptologist of his time and to be regarded by many as the father of scientific archaeology. He was, incidentally, the grandson of the explorer of Australia’s coastline, Matthew Flinders.

The fact that Smyth was wrong has done nothing to dissuade a lot of people from believing his predictions and his theories continue to be recycled to this day.

Pyramid Power or Much Ado About Nothing

All of the foregoing can be explained by the inability of some people to accept that ancient civilisations were capable of carrying out major works of construction or that these monolithic structures are intrinsically useless.

The next stage in the saga of pyramidiocy leaves the world of tangible pyramids and enters the realm of pyramid shape. More particularly, we will look at the effect of pyramids on the shibboleth of the New Age, ‘energies unknown to science’, or ‘euts’ as we will refer to them for typographical reasons.

It was probably inevitable that someone, sometime, would hit upon the idea that the pyramid itself had something to do with the process of mummification. This idea flies in the face of all the evidence of how mummification was carried out, including the records left by the Egyptians themselves, but it is in accord with the thinking of those who persist in seeing a problem where none exists.

Martin Gardner, in his entertaining book The Magic Numbers of Dr Matrix, traces the first reference to this idea to the early years of the twentieth century. At that time. a ‘French occultist’, as Gardner describes him, discovered that a dead cat became mummified after being placed in a model pyramid. As there appeared to be no great call for mummified cats in the ensuing half century, no more research seems to have been carried out.

Then, in the late 1950s, a Czech named Drbal claimed that a razor blade placed under a cardboard pyramid retained its edge for longer than would normally be expected.

Next, we find that various film actors (who may well be the descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel) claim to be able to meditate better while sitting under a pyramid. Others have claimed that foodstuffs kept in a pyramid retain their freshness, wishes come true when written on paper and placed in a pyramid, pyramids kill bacteria. This is all remarkable stuff, if true, but how true is it?

Let us first consider euts, whether they obey rules, and how a pyramid might channel them.

Whenever a pseudo-scientist or a paranormalist is challenged to explain some phenomenon that science decrees to be highly improbable, he responds with euts. While not wishing to suggest that there are no such things as euts, we are not very encouraged to believe in them by the claims made for them.

It appears that they can do anything and are not governed by any rules at all. Proponents of pyramid power have claimed that pyramids can, inter alia, mummify flesh, preserve food in natural state and re-sharpen razor blades. It would appear, to the casual observer, that these three acts call for three different applications of energy.

To mummify flesh presupposes an ability to remove water molecules; to sharpen razor blades requires the ability to either add or remove metal atoms; and to preserve food means preserving the status quo. As the material from which the pyramid is constructed does not appear to effect any of these processes (they are available in cardboard, wood, polystyrene, copper, polycarbonate, steel and many other materials) and as they appear to have no con¬trol systems, how is the required process determined? Can the euts itself decide that the object in the pyramid is a razor blade or a dead cat?

If that is so, and that appears to be the only logical conclusion that follows from the claims, then we ap-pear to be dealing with some form of sentient energy. This is an extraordinary concept and would require far more persuasive evidence for its existence than is offered by its proponents. Imagine the problems Einstein would have faced with relativity if gravity could think for itself!

Next, we ask, ‘What is inherent in the pyramid shape that allows it to channel this energy when tidier geometrical solids do not?’ We do not hear about Cube Power or Sphere Power (although this article may generate such thoughts in some minds—it has happened before). The answer is that there is nothing about a pyramid that should give us reason to suppose that this shape holds a privileged position in the world of solids. Far more likely that the proponents of this fallacy are seduced by the supposed mysteries of the Egyptian pyramids and that as a result have invested the shape itself with mystical powers.

There is no reason to believe that pyramids exert some sort of influence on energy, be it known or unknown to science. This, of course, would not matter if there were examples of tests that ‘proved’ the opposite. However, while there are many references in the ‘pro’ literature to such tests, it is difficult to find reference to any properly conducted tests that give factual results rather than subjective opinions. Those tests that have been conducted using a double Hind methodology give no comfort to the proponents of pyramid power.

In a test of French wine, as reported in the Winter 1987-88 edition of the Skeptical Inquirer, wine kept in pyramids was judged to be no different in quality from wine not so stored.

Proponents of pyramid power must fall back on the only rule that ems are known to obey. This is the law that states ‘No paranormal event will occur in any location that contains a sceptic’. This law is better known by its common title of ‘The Psychic’s Cop-Out’, which explains a lot of things other than the failure of pyramids to perform.

To conclude this section on pyramid power, we should refer to the influence of American author and respected sceptic, Martin Gardner, on the level of belief in this unlikely form of energy.

In a satirical article in the June 1974 edition of Scientific American, Gardner made a number of outrageous claims for the powers of pyramids, which were being promoted by his character Dr Matrix. Gardner was astonished at the amount of mail generated by his article, from people who were seeking more details of how pyramids could help them.

Some of Gardner’s tongue-in-cheek claims still form part of the lore of pyramid power, so do not be surprised if cube or sphere power become New Age phenomena in the future.

Although there is nothing particularly mysterious about pyramids, they certainly have exerted an influence upon the imagination of many people for millennia.

Merely reading about how people from early civilisations set about the tasks of construction and how modern people have wrested the secrets from the stones appeals to our romantic instincts. It makes us realise the remarkable mental and physical accomplishments of which the human species is capable and has been capable since the beginning of recorded history. It also makes us realise just how limited must be the imagination of those who cannot take pride in the accomplishments of our species and who must invent super beings to take credit for what humans have done.

As skeptics, we should not resent such people as Erich von Däniken, Charles Piazzi Smyth and the many others. We should pity them for the narrowness of their vision and the meanness of their spirit.

From the archives: Hear our prayers – the Northern Irish prayer efficacy study

Wendy M. Grossman
-
0
From the archives: Hear our prayers – the Northern Irish prayer efficacy study

This article originally appeared in The Skeptic, Volume 3, Issue 3, from 1989.

A few months ago, The Skeptic reader Cyril James wrote to me asking if I could track down a reference he had seen in New Scientist to a Northern Irish study of the efficacy of prayer. I suggested he write to ask the author of the original piece. Recently, Mr James wrote again to say that the author — Martin Schatzman — had written back promptly and obligingly with details.

Schatzman enclosed a couple of pages from P.B. Medawar’s Induction and Intuition in Scientific Thought, published by Methuen, 1969 (and the American Philosophical Society, 1960). These refer to a study by Francis Galton in 1872. Galton’s purpose in writing his Statistical Inquiries into the Efficacy of Prayer (published by the Fortnightly Review, 1 August, 1872) was, Medawar says, to show that a scientific study could be done.

Galton chose three different lines of enquiry. First, he examined the effect of prayers upon the longevity of the Queen and other members of the royal family (they are, one must presume, prayed for a great deal). Then he compared the rates of stillbirths between the devout and the professional classes generally. And third, he considered the fact that insurance companies make no inquiry into the devoutness of applicants for policies.

Galton found that, excluding accidental and violent deaths, in fact the Royal Family live a shorter time than the other classifications he examined. In all fairness, I have to point out that the clergy live longest of all the groups listed in his table!

He compared stillbirths reported in the clerical newspaper The Record and in The Times, and found the rates the same. And Galton pointed out, “How is it possible to explain why Quakers, who are most devout and most shrewd men of business, have ignored [the considerations of whether the insured-to-be is devout and prays daily], except on the grounds that they do not really believe in what they and others freely assert about the efficacy of prayer?”

Mr James adds that his wife worked for thirteen years as a night nurse in a cancer hospital, and noticed over time that prayers said by and for those under her care made no difference to their survival rate. A hospital chaplain Mr James heard on BBC Radio 4 had noticed a similar effect. and was disturbed to find, when he took careful notes, that he had confirmed it.

Mr James finished up by commenting on the appearance of one of the British Archbishops on television, when said clergyman commented about prayer that, one, Yes you can pray, but don’t expect anything to happen’ and two, ‘Just because you believe something doesn’t make it true.” I have myself been told that ‘you can’t bargain with God,’ and ‘you can’t just ask for birthday presents.”

I remember a devout person I knew explaining: ‘God won’t always give you what you ask for—it might not be good for you.’ (Do we know unequivocally that death is a bad thing? Remember the Afterlife.) In which case, since God knows what I need, why pray at all, except to say generally, “Thy will be done.” Which, if God’s up there, it will be anyway.

One must presume, therefore, that the efficacy of prayer lies in the person’s feeling of contact with Someone Up There who knows what’s going on. In very hard times and frightening circumstances, that sense of reassurance may be a cause for atheists to envy the faithful.

From the archives: In the eye of the beholder – Keeping an eye on iridology

Hocus Pocus
-
0
From the archives: In the eye of the beholder – Keeping an eye on iridology

This article originally appeared in The Skeptic, Volume 3, Issue 4, from 1989.

A skeptic has a duty to society and to himself to be a doubter, not an unbeliever; willing to investigate the most bizarre of claims or supposed happenings and to apply care, discretion and judgement to whatever evidence may be presented. At the end of the day he should be satisfied that his conclusion has been fairly arrived at after scrupulous investigation.

For instance – Acupuncture. This extraordinary discipline has been practised and investigated over a long enough period that it should no longer be uncertain whether it is a proven scientific medical method which works or just another old wives’ tale or superstition-an example of how the unscrupulous take advantage of the ignorant and unwary. But are we in fact so sure? It seems utterly absurd to believe that numbers of needles stuck into various parts of the body can influence the course of an illness or induce insensibility or anaesthesia. But it is a medical tool which has been in constant use in China for over two thousand years and is in common use today. There are one billion Chinese. Can they all be wrong?

What would be your immediate and automatic reaction if told that the irises of both human and animal eyes, are directly linked with the body’s internal economy and that one’s wellbeing or otherwise is indicated by marks and lines showing in your irises? And that such guide lines conform with an ordered system that can be mapped and interpreted as an early warning to determine that you are in fact suffering from a condition-or its early onset-of which you were unaware?

It is a fact that the condition of the blood vessels in the interior of the eyeball indicate symptoms of certain diseases – diabetes and cancer being the most obvious – but there are no claims that particular locations within the eyeball are related to specific parts of the body. It is reasonable to accept that if one suffers from a disorder of the blood or lymphatic system, or a condition where foreign substances or microscopic growths are suspended in the blood and circulate throughout the body, expert examination of the eye where blood vessels can be inspected, will betray by their appearance that there is a problem. An ophthalmic specialist who inspects eyes every day will notice unusual symptoms and recognise the signature of various diseases.

Such investigations however are surely very different from the suggestions of the iridologists that every degree around the circle of the iris corresponds exactly with specific organs and parts of the body, so that should a person (or animal) break a leg a mark will show in a particular sector of the iris, enabling a practitioner to diagnose problems and suggest treatments or remedies.

The eyes may mirror the soul but how many readers believe that the soles may mirror the body? This is what another way-out quasi-medical ‘science’ and treatment known as reflexology would have us believe. Is there really any proven basis for belief that certain areas of the soles of the feet relate to other parts of the body? To this writer such suggestions are on a par with the claims of psychic practitioners and mystics who claim to be able to detect the whereabouts of a missing person or body by looking at a map-or the Uri Geller type claims to locate existence of precious substances and valuable deposits in the earth either by examining maps or flying over the territory. · These practices are really not far removed from ‘fortune telling’ by inspection of the soles of the feet or palmistry. I’d just as soon rely on the Tarot-much more fun too.

Once the door to such beliefs is opened even a crack, numbers of similar weird possibilities are disclosed, each mutually supportive and claiming positive results. Nevertheless it behoves us not to prejudge but to examine the evidence. If our readers find this subject sufficiently intriguing, we hope they will submit their views, supported by evidence wherever possible. Who knows, we may even contribute to the ever-growing store of human knowledge.

From the archives: Twitching sticks – the (pseudo)science of dowsing

Anthony Garrett
-
0
From the archives: Twitching sticks – the (pseudo)science of dowsing

This article originally appeared in The Skeptic, Volume 3, Issue 3, from 1989.

Water divining, or dowsing, is the locating of underground water by individuals who walk over the search area, usually holding a forked stick in a particular way. In areas of low rainfall, water diviners can make a good living by telling people where to dig. There is no question that digging in these spots often produces a viable well.

To ask whether water divining works is an over-simplified question. What is at issue is the mechanism. Diviners often talk of underground aquifers and water courses. Except in limestone areas, this is nonsense. Rock below a certain level, called the water table, is saturated. Above it the rock is not saturated. If you dig to below the water table, anywhere, you will have a well. Depending on the porosity of the rock, the well fills quickly or slowly.

With practice, it is possible to learn where to sink a well for best results. In low-lying ground between extensive higher areas, called an artesian basin, the water table is nearer the surface. These areas can be found from contour maps alone. There are other more subtle pointers, such as vegetation patterns, which might be learned, consciously or unconsciously.

Diviners’ sticks move dramatically in the hand at the places they advocate digging. Pragmatic diviners admit not to know why, and are satisfied with empirical success. This category also includes ancestral peoples who were able to survive in arid regions. Theirs is a tenable position, if unenquiring. Others claim psychic powers, or ‘magnetic influences’ of the water—nonsense, as any physicist will confirm. The stick is held tightly, in a ‘sub-critical’ position in which a small movement of the hand can cause a sudden large movement of the twig. The effect is dramatic, but it is perfectly reasonable that diviners, without being aware of it, tweak the stick at the best location according to the lie of the land.

This explanation was indirectly confirmed by experiments performed by conjuror James Randi in 1979-80, which rule out the psychic explanation. A network of pipes was hidden under a test area, and water passed through different pipes at different times. The diviners asserted in advance that they could locate the path of the flowing water. They performed at chance level.

In summary, experience, no matter how it is dressed up, is the best guide to finding water; and there is nothing psychic about the process.

Being a magician wasn’t necessarily sufficient to see through the trickery of Uri Geller

Mike Hutchinson
-
0
Being a magician wasn’t necessarily sufficient to see through the trickery of Uri Geller

This article originally appeared in The Skeptic, Volume 3, Issue 5, from 1989.

For most of my life I looked on doctors with some awe. Doctors were special people. That’s why we called them ‘Doctor’ and not ‘Mrs’ or ‘Mister’, wasn’t it? And they knew all about life, the universe and everything. Didn’t they?

I don’t know exactly when my default respect for doctors – especially medical doctors – began to wane; soon after I learned to be a skeptic I suspect. Hearing of doctors who practice or believe in alternative medicine has led me to a theory about most general practitioners: as their training does not teach scientific experimentation, they are no better than computers. A well programmed computer could – and one day will – ask all of the questions your doctor asks, and arrive at the same (or better) diagnosis. A general practitioner only has to respond like a computer. As long as they have been programmed properly and has sufficient memory they will come up with the same answer time after time.

As the person who becomes a general practitioner is not required to think logically he is left open to holistic propaganda. This doesn’t mean that he is a worse GP. By no means. I wouldn’t want to change my own doctor for a moment. He is an excellent GP in whom I still have a lot of faith. But, he believes in alternative medicine ‘because the patients get better’.

“What is all this leading to?”, I hear you ask. Well, I am reminded of the awe in which I once held doctors when I hear new skeptical groups say “We must get a magician”. It’s as though a magician is going to be their fail-safe system. Is a magician essential? Unless he or she is competent in this particular field, I don’t believe so. A magician might be able to give advice after watching an informal psychic demonstration, although – as I have said before – there are few instances of psychics doing magic tricks. But be careful of over-rating your magician when it comes to an official test. Otherwise, a disaster could occur.

Just as there are ‘doctors’ and ‘doctors who can think’, so there are ‘magicians’ and ‘magicians who can help in psychic investigations’. But having said that, I believe that most intelligent, thinking people should be able to ‘control’ against psychics doing magic, for I cannot recall any trick which can be repeated under properly controlled conditions. This is why one of the rules of magic is ‘Don’t tell the audience what you are about to do’.

A white person's hand with a face-down blue and white deck of cards on a patterned tablecloth. In the photo, the person is sitting opposite the viewer, with their index finger and thumb resting on the top card.
Someone considers their next move with a deck of cards. Image by tookapic on Pixabay.

Another is ‘Don’t repeat a trick’ (they know what’s coming). Consequently, if a spectator (or experimenter) has any intelligence and knows what the effect is, he should be able to ‘control’ against cheating, especially in repeated tests.

If the magician or psychic is using his own faked equipment it is an entirely different matter of course. For a test in which a dowser had to say whether an electric current was on or off, James Randi did allow him to use electronic equipment made by an associate. To do so was taking an enormous chance, although I am sure that Randi would have insisted on keeping the equipment for examination if the result had been positive. But Randi is an experimenter of incomparable experience. He has more than enough knowledge of magic, and just as important he knows an enormous amount about science. In these respects he is probably unique and should not be compared with any other magician, nor indeed with any other psychic investigator.

There are a number of cases in which ‘magicians’ have supported psychics and mediums, and their testimony has falsely been given more credence because they are magicians. One such case involved ‘tests’ of Uri Geller conducted by Artur Zorka and another magician in Atlanta, Georgia, whose pretentious report was reprinted in The Geller Papers.

Zorka’s paper was entitled ‘Official Report: Society of American Magicians, Assembly 30, Atlanta Chapter, by The Occult Investigations Committee’, and took up all of two pages in The Geller Papers. The ‘tests’ were not pre-arranged, but took place in an office just minutes after the magicians met Geller following a television show which they had watched from the audience. A final ‘test’ was even conducted on a pavement. Zorka stresses in his report that “the type of control put on by a magician is different from that of any other investigator. It is a control designed specifically, by those who are trained for a profession in the art of deception, to prevent fraud.” That’s fine in theory, but not good enough when other factors negate these ‘controls’, as we shall see.

The report is very favourable to Geller, telling how the nylon-reinforced handle of a fork “literally exploded” in his hand; how he “made remarkably accurate facsimiles” of drawings made by “the committee”; how he duplicated designs “merely thought of” (Zorka’s emphasis); and how “from a distance of no more than five feet” Zorka saw a key bend “beneath Geller’s touch”.

Zorka’s report is as interesting for what it doesn’t say, especially as some of the details he left out are included in a letter he wrote to Milbourne Christopher, which is also in The Geller Papers. The letter takes up two and a third pages – more than the report. Zorka told Christopher that before he met Geller he had tested a similar fork to the one which “exploded” in Geller’s hand by trying to bend it in a vice because he couldn’t bend it by hand. The handle had cracked. No surprise there. The difference between the Geller fork and Zorka’s was that the metal rod around which the handle had been fitted to the Geller fork was bent. Zorka was wrong in choosing a fork which had a handle made of a different material. He should have used a one-piece fork.

Questions: Did Geller break the handle when trying to bend the fork by force? Did he then physically bend the rod during any distraction caused when the handle had shattered? How did Zorka ‘control’ for this possibility? When did Zorka notice the rod was bent?

In the telepathy tests I am quite happy to accept that Zorka and his associate didn’t let Geller see what they drew. That scenario isn’t necessary given the way that Geller sometimes seems to work. The report simply said:

After a few false starts, Geller was able to make remarkably accurate facsimiles of the target drawings. The target drawings were made on plain sheets of white paper, and when the drawings were finished they were covered.

In the Christopher letter, Zorka says that three attempts at telepathy – in which Geller tried to reproduce drawings – failed. So Geller told Zorka not to write anything, but to think of some object. Zorka thought of one of his dogs. Geller made a drawing, became unsure, discarded the paper and said he wasn’t getting anything definite. He then suggested going back to the original method of drawing the target. Note how Geller was running the experiment.

It is interesting that it is from the letter, and not the report, where we learn the details of a successful experiment during which Geller first asked Zorka to imagine the object was drawn on a piece of paper, and then, not having been successful, imagine the object was on a TV screen which Geller had drawn on a pad. When I have seen Geller doing this sort of thing he has sometimes asked the person thinking of the drawing to close their eyes and imagine they are drawing it on a large screen. While doing this the person often makes small movements of the head from which Geller might be able to pick up a few lines or even a complete simple drawing, not necessarily to scale (some of the Zorka results were not to scale.

Zorka can be excused for not taking this method of picking up clues into consideration. It isn’t a standard method, and to my knowledge hasn’t even been demonstrated as workable. I merely report an observation and a hypothesis.

Let’s now return to the experiment in which Zorka thought of his dog. Towards the end of his letter to Christopher he explains that when:

straightening up the office before we left, I picked up the paper Geller had discarded on one of the first tests. The one where I had not drawn a ‘target’. On it was a rough drawing of what looked like a dog.

Now, if this was the drawing which Geller had made during that experiment, why did Zorka report Geller as saying (and I quote from the report) “he wasn’t getting anything definite”? What’s more definite than a dog? I suggest the possibility that the dog was drawn secretly by Geller after that particular experiment in the hope that it would be found by Zorka later. It’s not a bad bet that someone might think of a dog (or tree, or house, etc) at some time during so many experiments; and if someone is silly enough to make a match after the event Geller is given credit for another hit. Zorka certainly has no right to include this as a successful experiment, and even mentioning it in support of Geller shows his naivete as an experimenter.

The final ‘controlled’ experiment took place on the pavement outside of a hotel where Zorka was to meet his father. As mentioned, the report says that Zorka witnessed the event “from a distance of no more than five feet”. Well, Zorka must have extremely long arms, for in the Christopher letter he later wrote:

I asked him to try, one more time, to bend a key for me. I gave him a very short key which I chose because its length might make it difficult to get a good grip on. He didn’t even take it from me. He told me to hold it between my thumb and forefinger. As I did, he stroked it with his finger and it started to bend. I placed the key into my palm and watched as it continued to bend. I cannot explain it.

With additional contradictory statements like “I gave him a very short key…” immediately followed by “He didn’t even take it…” I think that Zorka’s inability to describe events as they really happened is quite apparent. I must, however, add something about the key ‘bending’ in Zorka’s palm. Zorka was, by his own admittance, unable to explain in conjuring terms anything which Geller had done up to that point. He was therefore open to any excited suggestion which Geller might have made that the key “was still bending”. It’s something which I recall Geller doing since then. And some people will believe they see the key continuing to bend, just as a radio presenter did during one of Randi’s performances in Bristol.

Zorka’s letter to Christopher has added invaluable information about the poor quality of the experiments which just isn’t apparent from the report. There may well be many more things which occurred on that occasion and which Zorka either didn’t notice, or doesn’t mention because he thought them irrelevant. He apparently doesn’t realise the importance of some of the damning things which he did reveal.

This is a classic case where the knowledge of two performing magicians was just not sufficient. They let Geller run the experiments and were not only fooled by him, they fooled themselves. They were also quite happy to issue an Official Report which grossly exaggerates the events. There is much to be learned from this. The next time a skeptic suggests the importance of a magician, recall this story and remind him that magicians only pretend to perform miracles.

From the archives: A look at the world of Tarot cards

Mike Rutter
-
0
From the archives: A look at the world of Tarot cards

This article originally appeared in The Skeptic, Volume 3, Issue 3, from 1989.

We are all familiar with the use of playing cards in games or for divination, and perhaps have vague notions of their great antiquity. In fact, playing cards of the familiar sort first appeared in Europe at the end of the 14th century (they are not mentioned by Petrarch, Boccaccio, or Chaucer, all of whom wrote on games and gambling), and soon became so popular at all levels of society that the Church tried unavailingly to ban their use as an idle pastime, and indeed as a potential source of unorthodoxy; the evidence indicates that, right from the start, playing cards were used for divinatory purposes, and were already being referred to as ‘The Devil’s Prayer-Book’.

However, these were probably cards of the familiar sort, not necessarily those of the Tarot pack, which are first attested in the early 15th century. Many variations of both conventional and Tarot packs have occurred over the centuries, but modern Tarot packs consist of two parts: the first, a set of 56 cards, dividend into 4 suits of 14 (not 13) cards each – the ‘Minor Arcana’ – in principle similar to the conventional pack; and the second, an additional set of 22 cards bearing allegorical or symbolic pictures-the ‘ Major Arcana’ or Tarot Trumps.

Conventional playing cards, in the familiar 4 suit pack, may derive from a set similar to the Tarot Minor Arcana. Here, each suit consists of 10 pip cards (Ace to Ten) together with 4 (not 3) court cards, which in the earliest packs represent King, Queen, Knight and Page (Knave or Jack); it appears that, in modern conventional English and French packs, the Knight and Page have amalgamated into the Jack, whereas in similar packs from Italy and Spain the Queen has been discarded, leaving King, Knight and Knave – also in modern German packs the court cards are King, Ober (Senior Officer) and Unter (Junior Officer). Later ‘Magical’ Tarot packs have changed the symbolism still further.

We are familiar with the conventional suits of English playing cards – Clubs, Hearts, Spades and Diamonds (I use this order for a reason). These designs seem to have been taken originally from the French conventional packs, which still have the suits of Trefles (Trefoils or Clover Leaves), Coeurs (Hearts), Piques (Pikes), and Carreaux (Diamond-shaped Tiles). Standard Spanish and Italian packs have a different set of suit-names: Batons (Rods or Staves), Cups, Swords, and Money (Coins). Swords (Italian Spade, Spanish Espadas) presumably account for the English name of Spades, while Diamonds seem to be a compromise between the French shape, and the Spanish and Italian idea of Wealth.

Our packs have Hearts, instead of Cups – it has been suggested that this transformation stems from either a two-handled drinking-cup, which shows a distinctly heart-shaped profile, or the spiritual associations of Cups (ie Chalices); nobody knows for sure, so you may pick the one that most appeals! The earliest Tarot packs had suits of Rods (Wands, Batons, or Staves), Cups (Chalices), Swords, and Coins (Discs or Pentacles), after the Italian model; contemporary (‘Magical’) packs, still use some variant thereof. An Italian origin for the Tarot pack thus seems likely. The Major Arcana (Tarot Trumps, Atouts) are known in several versions, but the usual arrangement consists of 21 numbered cards, from 1 (the Juggler, or ‘Magus’) to 21 (the World), together with another, the Fool (traditionally unnumbered), which originally came last but which more recently has been placed at the start of the sequence (sometimes described as ‘number 0’!). In modern conventional packs, the Fool perhaps survives as the Joker, the sole remaining Trump.

The other Trumps (2-20) are traditionally known as (some variant of) Papess, Empress, Emperor, Pope, Lovers, Chariot, Justice, Hermit, Wheel of Fortune, Strength, Hanged Man, Death (number 13!), Temperance, Devil, Tower, Star, Moon, Sun, and Judgement. (Many ‘Esoteric’ or ‘Magical’ packs, following the usage of the Golden Dawn, interchange Justice and Strength.)

In Ancient times, perhaps there was a body of sages – priests, philosophers, magicians – who understood the esoteric secrets of the Universe. As they knew the barbarians were going to overthrow their high civilization, they sought desperately for a way to keep their wisdom safe for posterity. At last they thought of the perfect idea – a book which was not a book, which would preserve their knowledge in symbolic form, safe from prying eyes, until it could be rediscovered and made available to a long-suffering world. This book, of course, is the Tarot pack of cards!

Such, at least, was the story that gained ground in the 18th century. Antoine Court de Gebelin and Alliette (Etteilla) proposed that the Tarot contained the secret wisdom of ancient Egypt, coded in the form of symbolic pictures; later thinkers would suggest India, Tibet, or even Atlantis as the primordial source.

In the 19th century Alphonse Louis Constant (Eliphas Levi) suggested a connection with the Jewish Qabalah, while Gerard Encausse (Papus) proclaimed the Bohemians (Gypsies) as the bearers of this knowledge to the European world. (At that time the Gypsies – that is, literally, ‘Egyptians!’ – were thought to hail from India, via Egypt, and of course they often used cards, both Tarot and conventional, for divination.)

The Tarot Trumps’ imagery resembles the doctrines of the Eastern and Hellenistic Mystics, of the Gnostics, Manicheans, and Cathars. More recent resemblances include Jungian theories of the Psyche and its development. Certainly the cards have a strange and often compelling beauty in their design, and have inspired many complex interpretations;

So what is the cards’ real attraction? To foretell the future, or at least to understand the present? But different packs often use widely different symbolism, widely discrepant modes of operation (‘spreads’ or ‘layouts’) and conflicting interpretations of individual cards and groups. One way out of this is the Jungian approach; here the cards are seen as a sort of Rorschach test, allowing for projection of Unconscious material, which might include subliminal perception and subconscious problem-solving – perhaps even ESP. More familiar means of obtaining information include cold reading, fishing, and the prestige effect (if you tell people things in a mysterious way, they often believe you!), which also leads on to self-generating predictions.

The evidence for ESP is slight and highly controversial; also, in spite of believers’ claims, I know of no properly conducted trials of Tarot cards that have really stood up to examination. In practice, believers simply use the cards, and seem quite happy with the (often contradictory) results.

Concerning the question of conventional methods of gathering information, I have known professional and quite sincere Tarot readers who have told me, with no thought of criminal deception, that, when they are in a hurry, a reading can be expedited by noticing their client’s age, clothing, presence or absence of a wedding ring, and so on, and they have seen nothing wrong or ‘unoccult’ in any of this!

Ultimately, the cards appeal to the artistic side of our natures; they call on our imagination, the ‘wholistic’ aspect of our minds. Yes, I know these terms are perhaps ill-defined, but they do refer to something which is often overlooked by professional sceptics; the human mind has its romantic, artistic, intuitive, creative, and indeed mystical side, and the Tarot cards (amongst many other weird and wonderful ‘occult’ paraphernalia) appeal to and perhaps help to develop this area of the mind. Whether mystic understanding and enlightenment can really be obtained in this way, I do not claim to know; but let me tell you a cautionary tale, before you rush off to purchase a pack of your own.

A friend of mine, a young lady whom I shall call Amanda, with a life-long interest in matters occult, was one day frequenting a Psychic Fayre. Business was slack, and one of the Psychics present offered to do a free introductory reading for her, no doubt on loss-leader principles, which went as follows:

Psychic: ‘Well, my dear, the cards tell me that you are young, single, sexy, extremely attractive to men, intelligent, talented, ambitious, certain to go far in your chosen career, highly psychic, and have a deep and abiding interest in the occult!’

Amanda: ‘Oh, that’s nothing – anybody could have told you that! You could have seen all that, just by looking at my aura!’ Walks off, huffily, totally unimpressed – Collapse of Stout Psychic!

May the Farce be with you!

From the archives: Having faith in skepticism – Science, belief and meaning

Nick Beard
-
0
From the archives: Having faith in skepticism – Science, belief and meaning

This article originally appeared in The Skeptic, Volume 3, Issue 4, from 1989.

Paul Kurtz recently gave a talk in London, entitled The Transcendental Temptation. Kurtz was interesting, but the behaviour of the audience left much to be desired. There seemed to be a self-righteous smugness in the air. A section of the audience made a notably ill-mannered response to a man attempting to explain his sense of bliss. This sensation, which he sometimes felt during periods of intense and productive scientific work, had a flavour which disturbed the flat certainty in a simple material world. No such doubt appeared to trouble the lives of many of the audience, who laughed openly and loudly.

Many of Kurtz’s audience would perhaps argue that they run their lives according to the precepts of science – an aseptic technique guaranteed not to allow irrationality to contaminate thought. In what way does this differ from logical positivism? This philosophy, associated with, among others, the late A.J. Ayer, argued that only things which were empirically testable had any meaning (I say testable deliberately to fudge the issue of verifiability versus falsifiability) It fell down by not applying its own metaphysical premise to itself. If metaphysics was untestable – and thus meaningless – so was the basis of logical positivism. A thorough skeptic also runs this risk.

Limits of logic

On the wall of the library where Kurtz spoke is a portrait of Bertrand Russell. Russell tried to set mathematics-and thus the basis of science – on a completely rigorous footing. With Alfred North Whitehead he wrote Principia Mathematica, which was to expound once and for all the essence of logic. They failed. It was proved mathematically soon after, by Kurt Gödel, that their central problem was not solvable. Perhaps they didn’t know it at the time, but their explanation was founded on a great fallacy. It is also one which many who condemn other people’s belief systems suffer from: it is the fallacy of the metaposition. A metaposition is a higher viewpoint, a position from which all can be seen, including other people’s reliance on implicitly contradictory language. My contention is that such a stance cannot be attained. Wittgenstein suggested that language is a ladder that we should dispose of once we have climbed above its constraints. But this ladder cannot be climbed-it doesn’t go anywhere. There is no directed ladder but a large spider’s web which goes off in all directions, and never ends.

Deep down doubts

Can we ever know anything with certainty? A simple starting point is that perception is a constructive process. Sensing is never mere passive reception of data. Data is sorted and processed according to preconceived categories. Whether these categories are a matter of nature or nurture is irrelevant here. The answer is probably both. Outright assertion of the primacy of the subjective may not be the best response, but surely neither is the alternative – which is what sociologist Habermas has called scientism: the belief that the only legitimate source of knowledge is science.

Limits of language

Language divides the random chaos of experience after it has been filtered by very low-level ‘prejudices’, the ‘stereotypes’ mentioned above-into categories which are to a significant extent defined by the language in which they are expressed. This can be demonstrated by the different ways languages divide the light frequency spectrum into different (and arbitrary) sections to label as colours. There are probably basic clusters of sense data which receive corresponding labels in all languages; like dogs, bodily organs and musical instruments; but many of the truly important elements of social existence can lay no such claim to inter-cultural coherence.

Two experiments provide nice illustrations. An experiment involved showing slides of playing cards to people, very rapidly. There would be errors introduced, such as the ‘six of spades’ being red. This would be perceived as either a six of spades, or hearts, without any inkling that anything was wrong. Gradually the subject would be exposed to the cards for longer and longer periods, and eventually would see the errors. In between, a period of anxiety was noted. Subjects began to suspect something, but could not see what. A similar experiment has been conducted using film of people speaking-but with a mismatched soundtrack. The picture would show the speaker saying ‘jump,’ and the sound would be ‘bump.’ Subjects heard nothing unusual, either jump, bump, or perhaps dump.

The pit of solipsism

We must surely, then, doubt even the evidence of our senses. How can such scepticism, such doubt, be ruthlessly applied without falling into the pit of solipsism? Solipsism is the belief that there is nothing the existence of which we can be certain. Everything could be an imaginary construct. Descartes’ way out – which included the famous I think, therefore I am – is doubtless unacceptable to many (Perhaps it should have been rewritten as ‘there is thinking… probably’?). It was based upon the belief that God would not fool us. So if God does not exist, how can we be sure we are not being tricked? It is easy to believe that we are able to manage without any need for faith that we can manage our whole lives according to the certainties which follow verification by science.

Some of this certainty can be wisely diluted by a solution of Popper from which a notion of science can be distilled. Science uses the best available theories to explain the known observations. We can perhaps mark the limits of science, but are these the same as the limits of knowledge? Science helps to explain plate tectonics and the genetics of schizophrenia, but what about aesthetics, or shopping? Claiming to live this rigorous way is reasonably convincing, but does it account for the discomfort associated with the playing cards above or the wrecking of Einstein’s blackboard? Einstein’s only lecture at Cambridge left two blackboards covered in his notes, calculations and explanations. They were kept in the seminar room as a souvenir. A Professor came into the room one morning to find the cleaner kindly finishing wiping one of the boards clean, about to start on the other. An academic horror story? And a true one. A disaster? But no information was lost. Nothing of scientific value – only of sentimental worth. Would a true sceptic feel any discomfort at this? Why?

‘Explanations should be as simple as possible but not simpler, ‘ said Einstein. Perhaps this is a route to a reasonable basis for limiting scepticism? If we are part of a swirling mass of meaningless, arbitrarily divided existence, then we need some rules to judge one thing against another. Simple empiricism is not good enough, unless you are prepared to suspend your scepticism at an arbitrarily chosen point. Perhaps then parsimony is an alternative – arbitrarily attempt to keep the number of arbitrary rules and judgements to a minimum.

It should be remembered that truth and certainty only have meaning in so far as they have behavioural consequences. And perhaps the most immediate behavioural consequence for many people should be the recognition that smugness is usually unfounded.

From the archives: Cosmic Crystal Crankery – An examination of ‘New Age’ crystalline nonsense

Stephen Moreton
-
0
From the archives: Cosmic Crystal Crankery – An examination of ‘New Age’ crystalline nonsense

This article originally appeared in The Skeptic, Volume 3, Issue 2, from 1989.

Having been a mineral collector for 15 years I can say that I am well and truly hooked on crystals but emphatically not in the New Age sense. For me the attraction lies in the aesthetic appeal and the scientific interest. For the New Agers crystals are ‘a perfect expression of the divine mind’, they ‘stimulate healing within the body, based upon the principles of harmony and vibration’ and they ‘ transform and harmonise energies at all levels’.

Crystals have attracted mankind for millennia. Peking man collected rock crystals and Australian aborigines use rock crystals and amethysts in rainmaking rites, and they attribute to them malevolent powers. The idea that they can heal the sick has been around in western culture for a long time but with the recent surge in the New Age religion crystals have become big business. Miners in Brazil and Arkansas, the main sources of quartz crystals, can’t dig them out of the ground fast enough-and prices have shot up.

The idea behind it all is that illness is caused by bad vibrations or disruption of energies in the body and that crystals can put these right, but more of that later. My first impression of these crystal healing, telepathic, New Age, pyramid energy people was that they were mostly a bunch of scientific illiterates with no understanding whatsoever of the subjects they profess to know so much about. In the case of crystal healers I have the distinct impression that the majority couldn’t tell orthorhombic from triclinic, would think unit cell was a place where prisoners were kept and that a space group was a rock and roll band from Mars.

No doubt this is true of the majority (and judging by some of the things I have read about crystals it is certainly true of some). It is not true of Ra Bonewitz, whose book Cosmic Crystals (Turnstone Press, 1983) I forced myself to read as a preparation for this article. Bonewitz is a geologist and the first half of his book is a fairly accurate and scientific description of crystals and their properties, though there are boobs like calling cinnabar ‘an oxide of mercury’ (it’s a sulphide). The second half is about 90 to 95% mystical drivel. I was most disappointed that someone who ought to have known better obviously did not.

I was reminded of an American I once read about (regrettably I can’t remember his name) who had a PhD in astronomy and yet believed that the earth lay at the centre of the universe with the sun, planets and stars orbiting it. I suppose even intelligent and well-educated people are not immune to human psychological weaknesses. Bonewitz’s book is fairly representative of crystal healing belief (perhaps slightly better than most) and the material below was derived from it.

For those who want to take up this crystal stuff Bonewitz gives plenty of instructions. First you must obtain a crystal. Ideally you could find your own but don’t worry if you have to buy one – as Bonewitz explains – ‘you are simply exchanging the energy you have put into acquiring your money for the energy the crystal has accumulated in making its way to you. A crystal that has come half way around the world has acquired the energy of the miner, of the buyer, of the importer, and of the various forms of transportation required to reach the mineral seller. The exchange for money energy maintains the perfect balance of energy that characterises a crystal’.

When presented with a selection of crystals and you don’t know which to choose just close your eyes for a moment and open them and grab the first crystal that you see. The first one that catches your eye does so because you have been drawn to it. Then it must be consecrated. Just will that it be used only for good. Now cleanse it of undesirable energies, i.e., wash it in water and ask the elementals of water (whatever they are) to remove those energies (don’ t forget to thank them afterwards). Alternatively, you can leave your crystal in the sun, ·or breathe on it or wash it with eucalyptus oil.

Now you are ready to programme the crystal. Simply direct a thought into the crystal that its energies should be used for a particular purpose and that the crystal should retain that thought or intention within itself.

The crystal can now be used to focus your energies and aid you in your meditation so that you can reach higher levels and ‘begin to discover the divinity within yourself’. It will also protect you from psychic attack and assist in telepathy.

It seems they also have horticultural applications: ‘If you have problems in the garden, put a perfect image of the garden into the crystal, and place or bury the crystal in an appropriate spot in the garden’. If you have an ill plant, fill a crystal with healing energy and leave it next to the plant. To improve plant growth, plant crops in concentric circles (so that the natural energy of the plants is retained in continuous flow rather than dissipated at the ends of rows) and put a crystal in the centre.

Don’t use them for purposes other than those they have been programmed for. Evidently one London homeopath made this mistake. He used a crystal as a repository of homeopathic information and intuition to be used in conjunction with a dowsing pendulum. He then decided to try using the crystal instead for meditation. The next day he discovered that all the homeopathic programming had been erased! I wonder if the patients noticed.

‘How does it work?’ you may ask. Well it’s all to do with energy. Bonewitz distinguishes between ‘mundane energies’ – those that can be measured by scientific instruments – such as electricity, light and heat, and ‘spiritual energies’ – those that cannot be so measured. According to Bonewitz these are, ‘Energies of thought, will, healing, and the energies that make up the higher spiritual bodies.’

Illness is ‘a reflection of disruption or disharmony of energies in the subtle bodies, and …healing takes place by restoring harmony to the subtle bodies.’ This is done by placing a ‘crystal in the area of energy disharmony (illness) and allowing its transformative power to work to bring the subtle energies back into harmony’. That’s funny – I always thought illness was caused by germs, injuries, bad diet, bad habits etc. Bonewitz also has peculiar ideas about epilepsy: ‘…in an epileptic seizure the subtle bodies often become misaligned or completely separated from the physical body’.

What utter baloney. I am naturally concerned that gullible people with serious illnesses will swallow this mystical drivel and seek out crystal healing instead of real medical help. But this problem is not confined to adults who are free to make their own choices, and to affect their own lives. I have this horrible feeling that sooner or later some crystal crank whose young child complains of pain in the lower right abdomen will put a crystal there rather than have the kid’s appendix seen to. As those who follow the activities of American faith-healers will know this sort of scenario has happened before-often with tragic results.

All this was bad enough but when I got to the bit about Atlantis in Bonewitz’s book I nearly threw up. If you think the beliefs I have described to you so far resemble the excrement of male bovines try reading what these people believe about Atlantis. I haven’t the space for details but according to New Agers the inhabitants of Atlantis used crystals extensively with the largest crystals located at major points of earth power. The priesthood, however, were corrupt and tried to use the crystal energies for their own ends. Eventually they tried to literally move whole continents.

At this point ‘the Hierarchy that oversees the development of the Earth’ intervened. The Atlanteans were threatening the whole solar system. The unafflicted priesthood were forewarned and fled to the rest of the world to influence developing cultures in Tibet, China, Egypt and elsewhere. No sooner had they left than Atlantis was violently destroyed in cataclysmic upheavals.

Never mind evidence for all this – there is none and Bonewitz offers none. I suppose one is supposed just to take it all on faith. It all sounds about as probable as flying pigs. Some of the claims about crystals might be testable. The healing claims could be subjected to standard, double blind, clinical trials, just as with drugs. One could perhaps use cut glass as placebos. One particular claim seemed to me to be an especially easy one to examine – that the energies of crystals from Brazil are different to those from Arkansas even though they look the same. Apparently healers can feel the difference.

I doubt the believers would be moved by any negative findings. For them it is a religious belief. It is tied up with immortality, reincarnation and magical powers. Their emotional desire to believe transcends facts and reason. It is all in the mind and something Bonewitz writes merely confirms this for me. He reports that when people are given a crystal and asked to close their eyes and describe the crystal’s energies they have a great variety of different experiences.

Some see images, some see colours, some feel the crystal to be heavy or light, some feel pulsations, heat, cold, or pain, some hear sounds and a few detect smells. To me this collection of contradictory experiences with the same crystal shows that people are just imagining things. To Bonewitz it’s all a part of the magic of crystals.

1...129130131Page 130 of 131

Expert skeptical analysis of pseudoscience, conspiracy theory and claims of the paranormal.

[email protected]

About

Categories

Shop