Satan Worship

Evangelical Meeting
One of the most interesting phenomena is the world wide worship of Satan, also known as the Lord of this World, Lord of the Flies, King of Demons, Father of Lies etc. An interesting feature of this worship is that most of the worshipers do not know that they worship the Prince of Darkness and Lord of Desolation.

This should not surprise us as Satan is indeed a cunning and ruthless enemy who will use any and all methods to corrupt and destroy the human race and lead us all to perdition. The techniques used by the Deceiver are indeed clever using the human desire for justice, truth and hope as a means to corrupt humanity.

The chief Satan worshippers today, numbering at least in the tens of millions if not hundreds of millions are many if not most of the vast horde of Evangelical / “Born Again” Christians. That they worship Satan is of course obvious, along with their hatred of Jesus. Of course here is where the trick comes in; the vast majority of these people truly believe that they are followers of Jesus and haters of Satan. Their sincerity is not in question. The chief fault they have is an over weaning arrogance that they know the truth and all others are damned and their blissful certainty of their “truth”. They are so committed to the sin of pride it isn’t funny. Further so many of them know in their hearts that their neighbours are damned and they feel superior while piously feeling utter condescension to those not similarly “saved”. They profess love while showing over and over again the most malign hatred of those who think differently from them and their obsession with the sins of others is positively creepy. Further they are obsessed with sex and such trivial things as people swearing and having pornography.

I can remember a broadcast of the TV show 60 Minutes, about Evangelicals that presented two very wealthy looking Evangelicals, who owned prosperous businesses, who intoned in their expensive suits that they were saved because they accepted Jesus as their “Personal Saviour”, whereas Mother Theresa of Calcutta, (who died in 1997) was not saved and her good works meaningless. It requires a very special awe inspiring arrogance for those two wealthy men to feel more virtuous / godly than Mother Theresa. Just exactly what works of a comparable indication of sheer virtue did they do? It is pretty obvious that Mother Theresa’s acts indicate a state of virtue that these men couldn’t achieve if their lives depended on it.1

Also their motivation for their faith is not love of God, Virtue, or their Neighbour, but sheer mindless fear and expectation of reward. It goes like this; if you don’t want to go to hell and suffer for all eternity then you must worship God and follow Jesus. If you do follow Jesus you will be rewarded with an eternity of utter bliss in heaven. From the Evangelical point of view works generally do not count; what counts is belief in Jesus as your “Personal Saviour”. In certain versions of this belief just genuinely saying and believing this before you die is an instant get out of jail free card.2 All your sins are washed away and no matter what perverse, sick, murderous things you’ve done are forgiven because Jesus rewards his grovellers with eternal bliss in heaven. Just utter the magic incantation and all is forgiven and you go to heaven. In other words getting in good with Jesus doesn’t require that you DO anything, just that you massage Jesus’ fragile, inflated ego. So you can be as vile as want so long as just before you die you utter the abracadabra.

Yup sucking up to Jesus pays well and all this love and devotion is prudent. After all for a tiny investment you get an infinity of pleasure and wealth. Talk about a huge return on a really paltry amount of work. After all the only investment is a mouthing of accepting Jesus as your “Personal Saviour”.

Of course not all the Evangelicals are so crass about what their about and many do in fact try to meet rigorous personal demands often about what amounts to moral trivialities. But in the end it all doesn’t matter because nothing pleases their puffed up dictator of a God like grovelling idolatry and adoration. If you don’t grovellingly adore Jesus he might throw a hissy fit and cast you out and punish you because he as a huge ego and really thin skin, and he punishes any personal slight with terrible natural disasters or by giving you a loathsome disease. God as a control freak asshole.

Also if you suck up successfully you will avoid the horrors of the final days before the second coming, (No it isn’t about good sex with repeat performances), by being raptured into heaven where you can watch the Antichrist battle with God for dominion of the Earth, while God along with the Antichrist kills by all sorts of means billions of people. Then at the end you can watch all the unsaved being dragged down to burn in hell forever. For one of the joys of heaven will be that you don’t have to care about the torments of the damned and according to some Evangelical Satanists you will positively enjoy the torments of the damned. Yep kissing the big one’s ass will really pay off.

Given this concept of God the only reasonable conclusion is that this God is Satan, the Deceiver. Certainly this God seems to be a massive, thin-skinned, adulation demanding tyrant and thoroughly Satanic. Of course when combined with how little he/she really demands of humans, aside from ass kissing, it is even more obvious that this God is Satan.

Aside from the followers who are mainly deceived there are the shepherds of this flock who are indeed a nest of vipers and swine. I truly find it very hard to believe that most of this crew of Satanic High Priests don’t know what they are really doing. It seems quite apparent that they are indeed, deliberately out to lead astray and find souls for the Lord of Darkness - Satan.

If the pride and arrogance of their followers is annoying so is the even greater pride of their leaders. Not so much the pride of arrogant belief, but the pride of believing that humans are there to be fleeced and that they, the leaders, have an absolute right to enjoy the fruits of their lies and deceptions. Of course for many of them their contempt for their followers is immense.

The love of power by these people is sometimes a horror to behold. They enjoy sitting at the right hand of earthy power, but not for the purpose of admonishing and correcting, but for the purpose of exercising power and getting more. Especially what they long for and desire, with great desperation is power over others so that they can coerce and oppress with Satanic joy others who think differently.

Also there is their monumental, earth encompassing greed. These are the most devout worshipers of Satan in the guise of Mammon Lord of Wealth. They will resort to virtually any trick to extort money from the desperate, pathetic and lonely and of course the sincere believer. There was the outrageous case of Peter Popoff who scammed millions from desperate people through fake faith healings which were nothing but tricks. One of which included people radioing messages to him to received in his ear, by means of a radio receiver disguised as a hearng aid so that he could fake learning about people’s illnesses through the “power of the Lord”. Shockingly Peter Popoff is still in the faith healing business, presumably with a better bag of tricks. Sadly he is only one of many such fakes.3

To all this, alone with their view of God as a petty small minded tyrant is a powerful indication that they do in fact worship Satan.

One sort of wonders if upon dying all these Satan worshipers will be so in tune with the Satanic mindset that they will think Hell Heaven and Heaven Hell.

1. I can’t remember the name of the 60 Minutes show but it aired in the 1980’s.

2. Jack Chick, who manufactures huge numbers of mind numbing comics, had a comic that makes this point, involving a murderous criminal who murders his victims without remorse and is tracked down by a very virtuous Police Officer and eventually executed for his deeds. Our killer accepts Jesus as his “Personal Saviour” and goes to heaven. (He expresses NO remorse) The Police Officer who caught him and lived a virtuous life does not accept Jesus as his “Personal Saviour” and goes to spend an eternity burning in hell. The particular tract mentioned above does not seem to be in print anymore. Jack Chicks publications can be found at Chick Publications Here.

3. See Randi, James, The Faith Healers, Prometheus Books, Buffalo NY, 1987. The legions of fraud and humbug in the Evangelical world looked at in this book includes, Jimmy Oral Roberts, Pat Robertson, W. V. Grant and many more. For a take from an Evangelical who is sick to death about the overt and subtle cons in involved in much Evangelicalism see Slacktivist Here.

Other Book Consulted.

Standaert, Michael, Skipping Towards Armageddon, Soft Skull Press, Brooklyn NY, 2006.

Pierre Cloutier

Carlos Castaneda and
Anthropological Fraud

Carlos Castaneda Cover on Time Magazine
Carlos Castaneda (1925-1998) was the author of various books, of “Anthropology”, including Castaneda, Carlos. Journey to Ixtlan, The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge, A Separate Reality, The Art of Dreaming, and many other books.1

The other thing to remember about Carlos Castaneda is that he was a fraud and a liar. He said that he was doing research on Yaqui Shamanism who he called Don Juan. It is now very clear that Don Juan did not exist and that Carlos books are clear frauds in that they are not in any sense Ethnographic accounts of Yaqui Shamanism but fiction.2

Rather than go into a long dissertation about why Carlos Castaneda’s books are fraudulent, I will just mention a few facts.

Carlos Castaneda claimed that he was born in Sao Paulo Brazil in either 1931 or 1935. It appears that in fact he was born in 1925 in the city of Cajamarca Peru. He also claimed to have served in the Korean War, also a false claim.3

Further it appears that Carlos claim to describe Yaqui shamanism is completely bogus and his Don Juan nothing but an invention.4 Further Carlos accounts have such absurdities as Carlos wondering about with Don Juan in the desert for days in June with no mention of the heat. Those description of hiking about in the desert when the temperature soars to well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, are just stupid. We read descriptions of climbing up to the top of hills in August and resting in open spaces until noon. What!!5 We also learn that the Sonoran desert is crawling with Mountain lions (Pumas), despite that fact they have nearly been wiped out in the area and are solitary, among other absurdities.6

In 1973 When a lot of people were taking Carlos’ fantasies seriously even Time magazine in a generally positive cover story said:

However, with Castaneda's increasing fame have come increasing doubts. Don Juan has no other verifiable witness, and Juan Matus is nearly as common a name among the Yaqui Indians as John Smith farther north. Is Castaneda real? If so, did he invent Don Juan? Is Castaneda just putting on the straight world?

…

But such endorsements and parallels do not in any way validate the more worldly claim to importance of Castaneda's books: to wit, that they are anthropology, a specific and truthful account of an aspect of Mexican Indian culture as shown by the speech and actions of one person, a shaman named Juan Matus. That proof hinges on the credibility of Don Juan as a being and Carlos Castaneda as a witness. Yet there is no corroboration—beyond Castaneda's writings-that Don Juan did what he is said to have done, and very little that he exists at all.7

If the fraudulence of Carlos “research” and books is now well established how did he end up being so successful and getting a Phd from the University of California? I will explore that later.

Castaneda's books has been under sustained attack for many years, right from the beginning, the refusal of the University of California to openly acknowledge this is a reflection on them but I guess they want to preserve the rather profitable sales of Castaneda's books. Its always hard to acknowledge you've been had especially when it makes you money. I note that vast legion of "alternative" Anthropologists, etc., who have been boosting Castaneda's books have been if anything even more loath to admit they've been had.

If they had followed a few simple rules, that my Prof's in Anthropology were required, and required, to produce Castaneda would never have gotten a Phd.

1, Prove that you went to where you say you went. (tickets, photos, etc.)

2, Turn over your notes to the Phd. committee.

3, If you are working with people who speak a different language provide a vocabulary of some kind indicating a knowledge of said language.

4, Indicate in your bibliography a detailed knowledge of seminal and recent work on the "people" you are studying.

5, Have on your committee at least one person who has some detailed knowledge of the the area / people you are doing the Phd. on.

6, Have the manuscript properly vetted for errors, omissions etc.

It is my understanding that the Committee that awarded Castaneda the Phd., violated those norms.

The University of California is shamefully but not surprisingly refusing to publicly acknowledge this Phd board’s incompetence and negligence.

Carlos Castaneda was and remains a fraud because he invented Don Juan and his research on the Yaqui Indian Shamanism was bogus and false.

He claimed to the Phd., committee he was doing ethnographic research on a Yaqui Indian shaman. He was not. He told the Phd., committee he was doing research on Yaqui religious practice and he was not. He told vast number of people, (those who bought his books) that his books represented a picture of Yaqui shamanism and religious belief; it is not. The books were presented has non-fiction when they were fiction. Finally the books are peppered with absurdities, inaccuracies which indicate systematic falsehoods.It is shameful that Carlos got a Phd., and a further shame the University of California refuses to publicly acknowledge this shoddy episode for what it was.

Carlos was however very attuned to the wave of New Age idiocy that was coming and decided to cash in on that wave by producing works awash in New Age glop and it helped make him rich and famous. Meanwhile it produced works of virtually no Anthropological value whatsoever.8

Some try to excuse Carlos on the grounds that his writing impart a “higher” truth, however Time magazine got it right so long ago when it compared Carlos’ writings to fiction:

The difference is that Castaneda does not present his Don Juan cycle as fiction but as unembellished documentary fact.9

I might be able to discuss the merits of Castaneda's books, (in my opinion minimal) if they had been published as fiction, and not as fact.

1. Journey to Ixtlan, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1972, The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge, University of California Press, Berkeley CA., 1998, A Separate Reality, Pocket Books, New York, 1971, The Art of Dreaming, HarperCollins, New York, 1993.

2. See for example De Mille, Richard, Castaneda’s Journey, Capra Press, Santa Barbara CA., 1976, De Mille, Richard, Editor, The Don Juan Papers, Ross-Erikson Pub., Santa Barbara, Ca., 1980, Kikes, Jay Courtney, Carlos Castaneda, Academic Opportunism and the Psychedelic Sixties, Millenia Press, Victoria BC., 1993, Churchill, Ward, Carlos Castaneda: The Greatest Hoax since Piltdown Man, in Fantasies of the Master Race, Common Courage Press, Monroe MA., 1992 pp. 43-64, Harris, Marvin, Return of the Witch, in Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches, Vintage Books, New York, 1974, pp. 208-222, and Cultural Materialism, Vintage Books, New York, 1979, pp. 319-324.

3. Churchill, p. 45, Wikipedia, Carlos Casteneda, Here.

4, De Mille, Richard, Sonoragate or Tales of Folly, in The Don Juan Papers, pp. 119-143, see also Harris, 1974.

5, Sebald, Hans, Roasting Rabbits in Tularemia or The Lion, the Witch, and the Horned Toad, in The Don Juan Papers, pp. 34-38, p. 35.

6. IBID, p. 36.

7, Time Magazine cover story, March 5, 1973, Don Juan and the Sorcerer’s Apprentice, at Time, Here.

8, Gardner, Martin, Carlos Castaneda and New Age Anthropology, in Did Adam and Eve Have Navels?, W.W. Norton, New York, 2001, pp. 162-171, Harris, 1974 & 1979. For what Carlos was up too later in his life and its ill effects see Marshall, Robert, The dark legacy of Carlos Castaneda, at Salon, Here.

9. Time.

Pierre Cloutier

X-Lies

The show the The X-Files, (1993-2002)1 gives more than the usual feelings of ambivalence about something that is excellent in execution but at its core is fundamentally rotten.

I was never a great fan of the show although I watched many episodes of the show I never got hooked and was frankly non-plussed by the show.

For reasons that I will go into later I wanted to dismiss the show as garbage and leave it at that but I am unable to do so simply because of the overall excellence of the program. Before I go into my critique I would like to go through the excellent features of the program.

The acting on the show was almost uniformly very good. Both of the leads David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson play their roles with accomplished skill and the acting of the supporting players and guest stars is quite good also. Although the acting did slip when David Duchovny left a regular character, (only to return intermittently until the final episode), it remained at a ,( certainly for a T.V. show) high level through out its run.

The writing varied through out the show. Not surprisingly it is very hard to maintain a high level of skill and craftsmanship for scripts through out at 9 season run of a T.V. show but the writers did over all a very superior job in maintaining a very creative and standard high level. If only all T.V. shows were written this well. Of course there were the occasional clunkers but they remained occasional right to the end.

Finally the aspect of the show that certainly for its time and even today elevates the show to a high standard is its almost uniformly excellent filming and cinematography. The show looked and still looks quite good. The editing, occasional multiple camera shots and some multi screen images are high quality T.V. filming. The various directors and producers did a sterling job in making the show look very good indeed.

It was also a very nice even brilliant decision to make the sceptical, rational investigator Scully a women and go against the stereotype of women being emotional, intuitive and irrational. Mulder the intuitive, irrational investigator was a man and that too was a nice change of pace.

The show had the occasional episode which poked fun at its own premises and sometimes did not take itself seriously, (or at least appeared to not take itself seriously). That does however lead itself into the problems with the show.

The main reason I never became a fan was because the show although it sometimes made fun of the “New Age” paranoia it portrayed in the end pandered to it quite outrageously. Like the character Mulder it validated over and over again his mindless whine “I want to believe!” It validated again and again Mulder’s paranoia and “New Age” stupidities. It stated over and over again that rationality, reason and logic where bad that feelings and imagination and fantasy were valid ways of knowing that reality was a construction to large extent in our heads. The show the great majority of the time said ‘Mulder was right!’. So that doubting Mulder’s fantasies was akin to doubting the revealed truth. Mulder was cast as a later day Galileo persecuted for his courageous advancement of truth.

Scully meanwhile being a woman is of course wrong. Virtually all the time she was wrong. She was the doubting Thomas to Mulder’s Christ, who dared doubt the revealed truth. She dared to use such things as reason, logic and gasp! demand evidence. What is all that against the real truth as revealed by feelings! Scully dared to doubt and doubt is well bad; it hides the truth. A truth revealed as said above by feelings and of course intuition and fantasy. So again and again it is rubbed in that Scully was wrong, way wrong, totally wrong!

So in this way the show pandered to irrational fantasies of all kinds. Alien abductions, cattle mutilations, perfect governmental conspiracies, crop circles and so on and so forth ad infinitum.2 Why was this so? Quite simply the viewers were pandered to because one would not want upset the fans by calling their delusions and fantasies just that delusions and fantasies. After all if you do that the fans might get upset and watch other shows instead of this one. Those people cannot accept that the world is not populated by fairies and goblins and want, no demand, that the fantasy world of T.V. validate their 5 year old perceptions of the world.

Thus grown-up Scully is the party pooper who demands the unacceptable, that children grow up and face reality. Mulder is the wide-eyed 5 year old his mind full of engaging fantasies who knows that Santa Claus exists and who clings to his fantasy by hook or by crook. The world is a much more exciting place if it is full of childish fantasies of UFO’s, alien abductions, crop circles, alien / human hybrids, vast perfect conspiracies etc., etc. Much of the audience like Mulder has the same plaintive cry ‘I want to believe!’

The result was quite absurd. The web became full of websites taking The X-Files seriously. Many people took it with complete seriousness. It was referred to in student essays as a source!3

The numbers of people who took The X-Files seriously was disheartening in the extreme what was further disheartening was that the creator, Chris Carter, of The X-Files, didn’t care. As to why the show was so relentlessly pandering to paranormal, paranoid, conspiracy clap trap he quite candidly said:

My intention, when I first set out to do the show, was to do a more balanced kind of storytelling. I wanted to expose hoaxes. I wanted Agent Scully to be right as much as Agent Mulder. Lo and behold, those stories were really boring. The suggestion that there was a rather plausible and rational and ultimately mundane answer for those things turned out to be a disappointing kind of story telling, to be honest. And I think that’s maybe where people have the most problems with my show…But it’s just the kind of storytelling we do, and because we have to entertain… That’s really the job they pay me for, and that’s the thing I’m supposed to do.4

Those stories are of course boring to those who live in the fantasy world of a 5 year old and don’t want their fantasy disturbed by, oh so “mundane” reality. It is especially boring to those who do not want to see anything even on a fictional T.V. show that says ‘you believe fantasies and delusions!’ What they want is validation of their fantasies and delusions even on a fictional T.V. show. What Mr. Carter does not say is that stories that provided “mundane” explanations upset many of the fans of the show who wanted validation of their delusional nonsense. So rather than alienate this fan base Mr. Carter and his associates decided to quite deliberately pander to it in the interests of prolonging the T.V. life of the show and their pocket books.

As Richard Dawkin’s said:

Each week The X-Files poses a mystery and offers two rival kinds of explanation, the rational theory and the paranormal theory. And, week after week, the rational explanation loses. But it is only fiction, a bit of fun, why get so hot under the collar?

Imagine a crime series in which, every week, there is a white suspect and a black suspect. And every week, lo and behold, the black one turns out to have done it. Unpardonable, of course. And my point is that you could not defend it by saying: “But it’s only fiction, only entertainment.”5

In the end as the title of this post indicates The X-Files lies.

1. See Wikipedia, The X-Files Here

2. For a review of those and other bits of pseudoscience see The Skeptic Encyclopaedia of Pseudoscience, (two volumes), ABC-CLIO Inc., Santa Barbara Ca., 2002.

3. Wheen, Francis, How Mumbo Jumbo Conquered the World, Public Affairs, New York, 2004, p. 133-134.

4. IBID. p. 135.

5. IBID. p. 135.

Pierre Cloutier

Brazen Effrontery

Menzies' Voyages

A few years ago Gavin Menzies' book 1421 was published1 amidst a blaze of publicity and controversy, rather than discuss the “merits”, zero in my opinion, of Menzies’ worthless piece of pseudo-scientific garbage.2 I will briefly discuss what we know about how this piece of “scholarship” was manufactured.

I used the word manufactured quite deliberately above, because yes indeed this book was not “researched” or “written” it was manufactured quite deliberately and coldly to make the publisher, and yes the writer, boodles of cash, with of course absolutely no qualms, ethical, moral or simply prudent whatsoever.

Let us go through the steps by which this work of no value was manufactured from the bowels of a shameless publisher.

It all stated when Menzies and his wife traveled to China for their silver wedding anniversary. While visiting the Forbidden City in Beijing Menzies noticed that the dates of all sorts of buildings etc., was the date 1421. Which was the year the capital was moved from Nanjing to Beijing during the reign of the Yongle Emperor.4

Menzies decided to write a book about the year 1421 in China and the rest of the world. The result was a huge book of 1,500 pages. By this time Menzies had acquired an agent who told him that the manuscript has written was un-sellable. However his agent did have a few suggestions…5

In a very small part of the manuscript Menzies had a far out speculation about Admiral Zheng He’s subordinates exploring the world c. 1421. The agent suggested Menzies dump the rest of the book and expand that section massively.

And I then said to him, ‘Look, let's forget what was happening in France and Germany and Britain in the 15th century, let's just look at this one episode and let's make the whole book the story of how China discovered America.’6

Further it was decided to get the media involved in publicizing Menzies’ idea. The agent even decided to rewrite some of the chapters. So a public relations company was contacted and got involved and soon a story was published in the Daily Telegraph and further Menzies gave a talk at the Royal Geographical Society, (they will rent to anyone it seems). Soon major publishers were interested.7

The publisher finally selected was Transworld and one of its subsidiaries Bantam Books. They offered 500,000 pounds for the world rights to 1421. A problem was that despite the extensive expansion of that short section by Menzies the book was still only 190 pages and apparently was badly written and confusing to look at. So Bantam decided to “improve” the manuscript. Supposedly Menzies was told that he could not write.8

It was dry as dust. And Transworld said, "Well" - after they bought it, they said, "You know, this is a great book, potentially, but nobody's going to read it. You know, if you want to get your story over, you've got make it readable, and you can't write, basically." I mean, in a sort of polite way.9

So they had a large staff of supposedly 130 people work on “improving” the book including a ghost writer by the name of Neil Hanson. All the research remained Menzies however and despite the large resources devoted to “improving” the book, zero effort seems to have gone into checking out the books claims.10

As one of the publishers said:

It's very hard to prove that something is or is not correct. I mean, we do have to rely on our authors - we - we simply don't have the time. I mean, we work full - flat out publishing the books, bringing them to press, marketing them, publicising them, selling them - we can't possibly go through all our books and check every single one of them out for factual accuracy.11

Where does one begin with such bold faced cheek! The fact is they devoted extensive resources to “improving” the book, including hiring a ghost writer, and then to marketing the book. It would not have been all the difficult to have the book checked out by a few experts in maritime and Chinese history or to have hired a fact checker to check out a few things.

The bottom line is that the publisher could not be bothered to do anything that might throw a monkey wrench into their desire to earn mega-profits from this piece of dribble.

One of the publishers did say:

What Gavin was claiming, was, of itself, a step away from orthodox history, and anything that says - that does - that is, can be, sensational, or certainly different. And we're always looking for things - as are lots of people - that really go up against conventional wisdom, and this is what I thought this book did.12

Roughly translated we saw this as a bit of sensationalistic clap-trap that would make us much boodle. Of course it was deliberately marked as sensationalistic and a “controversy” was manufactured out of whole cloth, by the publisher as a way of boosting sales of the book.13

Typical of the mindset of the publisher was the claim on the book that Menzies was born in China. He wasn’t; he was born in London.14

The book was published and quite predictably got a torrent of vicious reviews, but well over a million were sold, the book has been translated into many languages and will into the future make even more boodle for Menzies and his publishers.15

The result has been that Menzies is well known and is a sought after public speaker and his book and its equally worthless follow up 1434,16 are selling very well.

This book as been described as:

The most successful book of pseudohistory to appear since Ignatius Donnelly’s Atlantis: the Antidiluvian World over a hundred years earlier. The difference between the books is that when Donnelly wrote his research had some scientific and historical credibility based on the state of knowledge at the time. Menzies’ hypothesis and research has withered under the light of intelligent and informed criticism from the very beginning. His success has been the result of an extensive publicity and marketing campaign that ignored established scholarship and expert opinion in favour of sensationalistic and unwarranted speculation at every step of the way.17

It is clear that the publisher did not and does not care about the truth of Menzies absurd ideas, but cares very much about making acres of cash. By outrageous manipulation and yes “brazen effrontery” they have done precisely that.

1. Menzies, Gavin, 1421, Harper Perennial, New York, 2004.

2. For some critical reviews of Menzies see Findlay, Robert, How Not to (Re)Write World History, Journal of World History, v. 15. no. 2, June 2004, at Here, Hartz, Bill, Gavin’s Fantasy Land, at In the Hall of Maat, at Here,Dutch, Steven, 1421, at Steve Dutch Home Page, Here.,See also this website with lots of articles: The ‘1421’ Myth Exposed, at Here. The above is just some of the critical analysis on the web.

4. Fritze, Ronald H., Invented Knowledge, Reaktion Books, London, 2009, p. 99.

5. IBID. pp. 99-100. The agent’s name is Luigi Bonomi. I hope he enjoyed the money from his pact with the devil. See also Four Corners, Junk History, Broadcast on July 31, 2006, Transcript at Here.

6. Junk History.

7. Fritze. p. 100. The public relations company was Midas Public Relations. See Junk History also.

8. IBID.

9. Junk History.

10. IBID., Fritze, p. 100.

11. Junk History.

12. IBID.

13. IBID. Fritze, pp. 101-102.

14. Junk History.

15. Fritze, pp. 101-102.

16. Menzies, Gavin, 1434, Harper Perennial, New York, 2009. This book seems to be as much a calculated effort to make moolah as 1421. See The ‘1421’ Myth Exposed, above for some well deserved tearing apart of this book.

17 Fritze, p. 103.

Pierre Cloutier

The Shroud / Fraud of Turin

Head of Christ from the Shroud of Turin

One of the most interesting examples of modern nonsense is the veritable cult surrounding the Shroud of Turin or more accurately the Fraud of Turin. It amazes me that people can take seriously the idea that this artifact is in fact the burial shroud of Jesus of Nazareth. What is further amazing is how so much of the time shroud gawkers have turned the onus around against sceptics to prove that the shroud is a forgery.

It does not work that way the onus in proving a miracle is on those who assert the miracle not those who doubt it. The simple fact is that it is unlikely in the extreme that the Shroud of Turin is in fact the burial shroud of Jesus of Nazareth.

One is further amazed about how the shroud gawkers were able to spin away with acres of special pleading and very dubious arguments the carbon 14 dating results done by three separate laboratories in 1988; they tested three different samples from three different parts of the shroud, yielded dates between 1260 -1390 C.E., or an average date of 1325 C.E, +- 65 years.1 The enormous amount of effort to get around and attack these results is positively breathtaking. The chances of such an error are frankly very minimal. Amazingly faced with the carbon 14 results the shroud gawkers still put the onus of proof on the sceptics! Of course it is also common for the shroud gawkers to simply ignore the carbon 14 dating results and act like they do not exist.

What makes the carbon 14 dating results interesting is that the mid 14th century date for the shroud also corresponds to the first literary evidence for the appearance of the shroud. It appears from the Carbon 14 results that the shroud appears just when it makes its first historical appearance.

The document is a letter is from the then Bishop of Troyes Pierre D’Arcis concerning the exhibition of the shroud The letter is mainly concerned with the impropriety of exhibiting the shroud and not with its authenticity. It does however refer to an earlier exhibition of the shroud, in the 1350’s and a investigation by a certain Henry of Poitiers then Bishop of Troyes. Right from the start the shroud was labeled a fraud.2

The letter goes as follows.

[Letter to Pope Clement VII, 1389.]

The case, Holy Father, stands thus. Some time since in this diocese of Troyes the Dean of a certain collegiate church to wit, that of Lirey, falsely and deceitfully, being consumed with the passion of avarice, and not from any motive of devotion but only of gain, procured for his church a certain cloth cunningly painted, upon which by a clever sleight of hand was depicted the twofold image of one man, that is to say, the back and front, he falsely declaring and pretending that this was the actual shroud in which our Savior Jesus Christ was enfolded in the tomb and upon which the whole likeness of the Savior had remained thus impressed together with the wounds which He bore. This story was put about not only in the kingdom of France, but, so to speak, throughout the world, so that from all parts people came together to view it. And further to attract the multitude so that money might cunningly be wrung from them, pretended miracles were worked, certain men being hired to represent themselves as healed at the moment of the exhibition of the shroud, which all believed to be the shroud of our Lord. The Lord Henry of Poitiers, of pious memory. Then Bishop of Troyes, becoming aware of this, and urged by many prudent persons to take action, as indeed was his duty in the exercise of his ordinary jurisdiction, set himself earnestly to work to fathom the truth of this matter. For many theologians and other wise persons declared that this could not be the real shroud of our Lord having the Savior’s likeness thus imprinted upon it, since the holy Gospel made no mention of any such imprint, while, if it had been true, it was quite unlikely that the holy Evangelists would have omitted to record it, or that the fact should have remained hidden until the present time. Eventually after diligent inquiry and examination, he discovered the fraud and how said cloth had been cunningly painted, the truth being attested by the artist who had painted it, to wit, that it was a work of human skill and not miraculously wrought or bestowed. Accordingly, after taking mature counsel with wise theologians and men of law, seeing that he neither ought nor could allow the matter to pass, he began to institute formal proceedings against said Dean and his accomplices in order to root out this false presumption. They, seeing their wickedness discovered, his away the said cloth so that the Ordinary could not find it, and they kept it hidden afterwards for thirty-four years or thereabouts down to the present year. And now again the present Dean of the said church with fraudulent intent and for the purpose of gain, suggested as it is reported, to the Lord Geoffrey de Charny, Knight, and the temporal lord of the place, to have the said cloth replaced in the said church, that by a renewal of the pilgrimage the church might be enriched with the offerings made by the faithful. Acting upon the Dean’s suggestion, who was thus treading the footsteps of his predecessor, the knight went to the Cardinal de Thury, your Holiness’ Nuncio and Legate in the French territory, and suppressing the facts that the said cloth at the time above referred to was asserted to be the shroud of our Savior, and that it bore the Savior’s likeness imprinted upon it, and that the Ordinary had taken action against the canons in order to stamp out the error which had arisen, and that said cloth for fear of the Ordinary had been hidden away, nay even, it is said, conveyed out of the diocese, he represented to the Cardinal that the said cloth was a picture or figure of the shroud, which many people came to visit out of devotion and which had previously been much venerated and resorted to in that church, but on account of the war and other causes, by the command of the Ordinary, had been placed for a long time in safer keeping, petitioning that he might be allowed to set up in the said church this picture or figure of the shroud which so many out of devotion desired to see, so that it might there be shown to the people and venerated by the faithful. Then the said Lord Cardinal, without entirely approving the petition, but probably acting on the facts before him and so far prudently, granted to the petitioner by Apostolic authority that without asking leave of the Ordinary or of any other person he might set up this picture or figure of the shroud of our Lord in the said church or in any other decent place. And under cover of this written authority the cloth was openly exhibited and shown to the people in the church aforesaid on great holidays, and frequently on feasts and at other times, with the utmost solemnity, even more than when the Body of Christ our Lord is exposed; to wit, by two priests vested in albs with stoles and maniples and using the greatest possible reverence, with lighted torches and upon a lofty platform constructed for this special purpose; and although it is not publicly stated to be the true shroud of Christ, nevertheless this is given out and noised abroad in private, and so it is believed by many, the more so, because, as stated above, it was on a previous occasion declared to be the true shroud of Christ, and by a certain ingenious manner of speech it is now in the said church styled not the sudarium but the sanctuarium, which to the ears of the common folk, who are not keen to observe distinctions, sounds much the same thing, and crowds of people resort there as often as it is shown or is expected to be shown, under the belief, or more truly the delusion, that it is the true shroud. Moreover, it is currently reported amongst them that it has been approved by the Apostolic See by means of the letters of the said Lord Cardinal.

Accordingly, most holy Father, perceiving this great scandal renewed amongst the people and the delusion growing to the peril of souls, observing also that the Dean of the said church did not keep within the terms of the Cardinal’s letters, obtained though they were by the suppression of the truth and the suggestion of what was false, as already explained, desiring to meet the danger as well as I could and to root out this false persuasion from the flock committed to me, after consultation with many prudent advisers, I prohibited the said Dean under pain of excommunication, by the very act sufficiently published [eo ipso latae], from exhibiting this cloth to the people until otherwise might be determined.

He, however, refusing obedience and lodging an appeal, in defiance of the prohibition went on with the exhibition as before. Moreover, the knight, maintaining and defending his behavior, by holding the said cloth with his own hands on a certain solemn feast, and showing it to the people with the observances above described, caused himself, by a royal warrant [salvagardia], to be put in formal possession and occupation of the said cloth and of the right of exhibiting it, and had this notified to me; and so under cover of the appeal as well as of the said royal warrant this delusion is shielded and propagated, to the contempt of the Church, scandal of the people, and peril of souls – all which I am powerless to remedy – nay more to defamation of my above-named predecessor who denounced the abuse in this time, and of myself who to the best of my poor ability am also anxious to take such prudent as I may. But Alas! The scandal is upheld and defended and its supporters cause it to be spread abroad among the people that I am acting through jealousy and cupidity and to obtain possession of the cloth for myself, just as similar reports were circulated before against my predecessor; while, on the other hand, others aver that I move too half-heartedly in the matter and that I make myself a laughing-stock by allowing the abuse to continue. But though I have earnestly and humbly cited the said knight and besought him that he would for a time suspend the exhibition of the said cloth until your Holiness could be consulted and should pronounce upon the matter, he paid no attention, or rather without my knowledge he had representations made to your Holiness in the same sense as those already made to the said Lord Cardinal, adding that I refused to defer to the said Cardinal’s letters, that I disregarded the appeal and went on launching inhibitions and sentences of excommunication against those who exhibited the cloth and against the people who came to venerate it. But with all deference to the author of representations, my action in thus proceeding against those who exhibited and venerated the cloth was in no wise derogatory to the said Lord Cardinal’s letters, obtained though they were surreptitiously. This authorization of his by no means conceded that the cloth could be exposed with publicity or venerated, but only that it might be restored to or lodged in the said church or some other decent place. And because they would not keep to the terms of the Cardinal’s permit therefore it was that I proceeded against them according to the ordinary forms of law, as in my duty I am bound, and not without much asking counsel, with the view of removing the scandal and the said popular delusion, believing that I should be gravely in fault if I connived at such abuses. Moreover, having to look to my own security in this matter, I was compelled, acting always upon the advice of prudent counselors, to have recourse to the aid of the secular arm, and this being more particularly because the said knight in the first instance had begun to place the matter in the hands of the civil authorities by causing himself to put in formal possession of the right of exhibiting the cloth by the King’s warrant, as said above, which seems a sufficiently absurd proceeding. Accordingly I took measures to have the cloth placed in the custody of the King’s officers, always with the same end in view, viz., that at least until I could bring the whole story to the notice of your Holiness there might for a time being be an end of these exhibitions. And in this request I prevailed without any difficulty with the court of the King’s Parliament when once they were fully informed of the superstitious origin of this shroud, of the use to which it was put, and of the delusion and scandal to which I have called attention. Indeed it is a wonder to all who know the facts of the case that the opposition which hampers me in these proceedings comes from the church, from which quarter I should have looked for the vigorous support, nay, rather have expected punishment if I had shown myself slothful or remiss. However, the knight above mentioned has been beforehand with me, and, having represented the matter as I have explained, has obtained from your Holiness a Brief in which the said Lord Cardinal’s letters are substantially confirmed ex certa scientia and permission is granted that in spite of all prohibitions and appeals, the said cloth my be shown and exposed for the veneration of the faithful; while, as I hear – for I have not been able to procure a copy of said Brief – perpetual silence is enjoined upon myself.

But whereas the canon law requires me to see that no man be imposed upon by false representations and documents for the purposes of gain, and because I am certain that this Brief was obtained by suggestion of what is false and suppression of the truth, and that otherwise it would never have been issued, while I was neither cited nor heard, especially as a the resumption ought to stand in my favor that I would not interfere in such a cause without reason, or disturb any man in any practice of devotion which was harmless and free from extravagance, I do most confidently trust that your Holiness will bear with me if in view of the foregoing facts I still oppose the said exposition until I have fuller instructions from your Holiness yourself, now better informed of the truth of the case. I would ask you then, most blessed Father, to vouchsafe to bestow your attention upon the foregoing statement and to take measures that such a scandal and delusion and abominable superstition may be put and end to both in fact and seeming, in such wise that this cloth be held neither for sudarium nor sanctuarium, nor for an image or figure of our Lord’s sudarium, since our Lord’s sudarium was nothing of the kind, nor, in fine, under any other ingenious pretext be exhibited to the people or exposed for veneration, but that to express horror of such superstition it be publicly condemned, the surreptitious letters above spoken of being recalled, or more truly declared null and void (for fear that the keen-eyed persecutors and detractors of the Church should rail at the Church’s discipline and say that a more prompt and efficacious remedy against scandals and impostures is found in the secular tribunals than in those of ecclesiastical authority). I offer myself here as ready to supply all information sufficient to remove any doubt concerning the facts alleged both from public report and otherwise, in order to exonerate myself and also to discharge my conscience in a matter which I have greatly at heart. Moreover, if health had allowed I should have presented myself personally to your Holiness to state my complaint to the best of my poor ability, for I am convinced that I cannot fully or sufficiently express in writing the grievous nature of the scandal, the contempt brought upon the Church and ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and the danger to souls; still I do what I can, chiefly that I can, chiefly that I may be guiltless before God, leaving all else to the disposition of your Holiness, whom may the Almighty long preserve, &c.

Pierre D’Arcis

Bishop of Troyes3

Front image from the Shroud of Turin

On January 6, 1390, Clement VII replied to D’Arcis’ letter. The Exhibition could continue so long as it was always declared that the shroud was a figure or representation of Christ’s shroud not the real deal. D’Arcis was told be keep quiet about the whole thing under pain of excommunication. Letters to other Bishops near Troyes instructed them to enforce the above decisions. Pierre D’Arcis died in 1395.4

The key sections in the above letter related to the issue of forgery are as follows:

Some time since in this diocese of Troyes the Dean of a certain collegiate church to wit, that of Lirey, falsely and deceitfully, being consumed with the passion of avarice, and not from any motive of devotion but only of gain, procured for his church a certain cloth cunningly painted, upon which by a clever sleight of hand was depicted the twofold image of one man, that is to say, the back and front, he falsely declaring and pretending that this was the actual shroud in which our Savior Jesus Christ was enfolded in the tomb and upon which the whole likeness of the Savior had remained thus impressed together with the wounds which He bore.

…

Eventually after diligent inquiry and examination, he discovered the fraud and how said cloth had been cunningly painted, the truth being attested by the artist who had painted it, to wit, that it was a work of human skill and not miraculously wrought or bestowed.

Thus the Shroud of Turin enters history as a self confessed fraud.

The carbon 14 results which place the creation of the shroud in the mid 14th century match the statements in the letter about the fabrication of the shroud very well. In fact so well that both pieces of evidence reinforce each other.

Faced with the above the onus is on the shroud gawkers not the sceptics to prove their case.

I will not go into the endless debate and throwing sand in your face antics of the shroud gawkers, all designed to to disguise the perfectly reasonable conclusion that the shroud is a fake. Neither will I go into the various shoddy “documentaries” that appear from time to time on TV that gawk at the shroud and manage to shoddily suppress mention of the letter and the carbon 14 results.5

Of course the main problem with the shroud image as can be seen from the photos used in this post are that the image looks like a painting. If it was actually the image of Jesus of Nazareth “burnt”? onto the shroud by the Resurrection event then the image would be distorted. It is not. It looks painted on. Just wrap any thing in a cloth and gradually unfold it you will see that the image resulting on the cloth will be and must be distorted.

That people continue to gawk at the Shroud of Turin is a sad testement to our times.

1. McCrone, Walter, Judgement Day for the Shroud of Turin, Prometheus Books, Amherst NY, 1999, pp. 245-251, Nickell, Joe, Inquest on the Shroud of Turin, Prometheus Books, Amherst NY, 1998, pp. 150-151.

2. Nickell, 1998, pp. 11-21, McCrone, pp. 1-2, 117-118, Sox, H. David, The Image on the Shroud, Unwin Paperbacks, Boston, 1981, pp. 2-3.

3. The Holy Shroud and the Verdict of History, Translated by Rev. Herbert Thurston, The Month, v. 101, 1903, pp. 17-29 as quoted in Sox, pp.148-152. I put the whole letter here to make it available on the web.

4. Sox, pp. 2-3.

5. The books listed in the notes are a good beginning to do real research on the shroud. I should mention the supposed find of Middle Eastern pollen on the shroud as another example of shroud gawking. The allege pollen find is shall we say like the shroud itself likely fraudulent. See Nickell, Joe, Pollens on the “Shroud”: A Study in Deception, Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 18, No. 4, Summer 1994, pp. 379-385.

Pierre Cloutier

Daniel Dunglas Home Con-Artist.

D. D. Home

One of the most amusing truisms is that it is never really possible to underestimate the intelligence of people, especially of people who think that they are really bright. A classic example is the life and career of Daniel Dunglas Home, (1833-1886). Called often D. D. Home.

Now D. D. Home was a psychic medium who too this day many consider to be genuine.1 Supposedly he could levitate off the ground and up to ceilings, supposedly he could elongate his body, levitate tables and all sorts of interesting phenomena, such as spirit hands appear and unearthly music echo.2

All of which is very fascinating but what does it prove? Basically D. D. Home sold himself as a Psychic, and not has a clever magician. He apparently was charming and rather convincing. Many people thought he was too charming and artless to be a con artist. Such people seemed to have forgotten that a con-artist who comes across has a con-artist will not be terribly successful at it. However a con-artist who appears to be charming and artless will be a stunning success as a con-artist.

A great deal as been made of eyewitness testimony of his miraculous feats. Well twentieth century experience of eyewitness testimony of the feats of psychics has revealed one thing in stunning detail. People, especially true believers, tend to spectacularly misremember such events. They forget key details. This is why the supposed eyewitness, (or witless) testimony of his alleged feats in such places as that house in Springfield Massachusetts, and his levitation in Ward Cheney's house are almost completely worthless.3 Despite what the Wikipedia article implies the fact that intelligent people, including Judges and inventors thought he was for real proves nothing.

The reason is simple. A Magician is skilled in deception, he / she is in effect a liar and deceiver. The pleasure is in knowing that you are being deceived and how clever the Magician is in doing his / her deception. The fact of the matter is that ordinary people are not trained to be Magicians so that they have absolutely no idea what to look for. It is further a truism among Magicians that adults are easier to deceive than children. Children have the habit of looking where their not supposed to look. Adults especially smart adults who think that they cannot be tricked are much easier to deceive.4

What is required is the presence of someone skilled / knowledgeable in conjuring to be present and of course for the subject being tested not to be in control of the experiment. Interestingly D. D. Home very carefully screened who would be present at his séances and was always very uncooperative if a Magician was present. That alone should set bells whistling. But of course the mouse was allowed to control the experiment least he get “upset”.5

What is also of interest is that D. D. Home’s levitations where performed, along with his other manifestations, apparently in the dark! Well it seems that D.D. Home would often start his séances in the light and then the lights would be dimmed and then the real miracles would happen! Today many writers about D.D. Home argue that it is a matter for debate about whether or not some of his feats were done in the dark.6 This is nothing but special pleading it is a verified fact that over and over again believers in D. D. Home’s miraculous feats describe this that or the other feat but neglect to say that the room was so dark you could barely see your hand in front of your face as mentioned by other witnesses. This occurs so often with D. D. Home as be a virtual cliché. Of course since people knowledgeable about magic were rigorously excluded, along with the feats happening mainly in the dark, there is no reason to take D. D. Home’s magic tricks seriously.

Like Geller, Home would not perform in the presence of magicians or even skeptics unless he sized up the skeptic as simple-minded. If a sitter in one of Home’s séances so much as hinted doubts, the spirits would ask the skeptic to leave. Would not such negative thoughts dampen the spirits’ spirits?7

Homes was tested by the scientist William Crookes, who concluded that Homes was for real. However it appears that Crookes tests are worthless as coming from a true believer whose “precautions” were ludicrous.8

Home had a knack for making friends who he could use. Believers made much of the fact that Home’s never asked for payment for his services. However they showered him with gifts, money etc., and made him a very wealthy man. It appears all he had to do was hint that he needed something and it would be given to him without him “asking”.9

D.D. Home also required during his séances that participants not take their hands off the table. How convenient! This of course greatly increased his ability to deceive, especially in the dark. It was also another example of the mouse controlling the experiment. Of course why the spirits would require this is not clear.10

Later in his life (1866) D. D. Home meet a Mrs. Jane Lyon and convinced her to adopt him as her son and give him 24,000 pounds, not including a Birthday gift of 6,800 pounds. Which in those days was a sizable fortune. Mrs. Lyon sued to get it back and a judge ruled in her favour.8 Interestingly Wikipedia relies on Conan Doyle’s very apologetic version of these events, ignoring what the trial judge actually said and the evidence of sleaze. For example the judge accepted as a fact that D. D. Home used alleged spirit messages from Mrs. Lyon’s deceased husband to induce her to adopt him has her son give the above mentioned sums of money and give him the arms of Lyon in her will. The alleged fact that D. D. Home did not lose any friends over this says less about D. D. Home than the boundless gullibility of his marks; opps! I mean friends.11

It is remarkable that so many of D.D. Home’s true believers took his alleged levitations seriously. A description from 1860 describes one of these miracle flights which took place in near pitch darkness. How did the sitters know D.D. Home floated up to the ceiling? Well he left a mark! Just how can anyone take that seriously?! Has for the white glowing hands. Well glow in the dark white rubber gloves were common among 19th century magicians and fraudulent mediums.12


D.D. Home takes a trip
Among the tricks that D. D. Home performed was the unearthly music. It is interesting to note that the music was one octave pieces like Home Sweet Home and The Last Rose of Summer, both easily played on mouth organs that can be easily concealed in the mouth.13

It is said Home was never caught this is debatable. Several incidents such has a viewer seeing that a spirit hand was continuous with Home’s body. Or that on one particular incident a viewer saw D.D. Home handle a bottle that proved to have phosphorescent oil in it. Or an incident were the viewer felt warm human fingers. Another incident involved someone seeing D. D. Home’s foot slip back into his shoe after someone near D.D. Home claimed to have been touched by the spirits.14

D. D. Home having made his bundle and married into wealth retired from the medium trade. However he wrote a book Lights and Shadows, which detailed the fraudulent means used by other psychics, although the book is very careful not to describe how to produce phenomena similar to the phenomena that D.D. Homes produced. I guess D. D. Home’s had to protect his trade secrets.15

It is of interest that one of the most inveterate boosters of the alleged psychic powers of D.D. Home’s was Conan Doyle and to this day people take his writings on spiritualist matters seriously. Why? The evidence is overwhelming that when it came to spiritualist stuff Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Homes, was incredibly gullible. Two examples should suffice. One was Doyle’s insistence, despite Houdini’s persistent denials, that Houdini had genuine psychic powers and that Houdini could dematerialize and pass through solid walls and rematerialize!14 This piece of foolishness wreaked their friendship. Then there is the Cottingley Fairies fiasco. Basically it involved two young ladies producing some, rather crude, photos of Fairies and claiming that they were of the real thing. Incredibly Doyle took this all seriously saying over and over again that the two young ladies could not possibly fool him; he was too bright to be fooled by them! Well in both those cases Doyle was spectacularly wrong. Those are just some indications about just how gullible Doyle was when it came to any thing spiritualist.16

It is fascinating to record that the age of great physical mediums, who could float, conjure ectoplasm, call for music, white hands, and physical spirits is past. They have become an extinct species. One wonders why? If the psychic phenomena was real why did it dry up? The answer is rather obvious; the invention of the flashlight makes it much harder to cheat and trick even in total darkness. So the age in which people like D.D. Home, (only the most prominent among many) who could pull off their tricks in the dark came to a crashing end. Sometimes modern technology makes life so much duller. We are reduced to psychics channelling empty headed bromides in the light.

As for séances to contact the dead T. H. Huxley said it all:

The only good I can see in the demonstration of the ‘Truth of Spiritualism’ is to furnish an additional argument against suicide. Better live a crossing-sweeper, than die and be made to talk twaddle by a medium hired at a guinea a séance.17

D. D. Home being thoughtful
1. See A very favourable piece about him in Wikipedia, Here and Beloff, John, What is your Counter-Explanation?, in Kurtz, Paul, Editor, A Skeptic’s Handbook of Parapsychology, Prometheus Books, Buffalo, NY,1985, pp. 359-377.

2. See Wikipedia, Footnote 1, Gardner, Martin, The New Age, Prometheus Books, Buffalo, 1988, pp. 79-92, pp. 175-178.

3, See Randi, James, The Truth about Uri Geller, Prometheus Books, Buffalo, 1975, pp. 191-216, and Flim Flam, Prometheus Books, Buffalo, 1987, pp. 252-326, Gardner. Martin, Science Good, Bad and Bogus, Prometheus Books, Buffalo,1981, pp. 91-112, Gardner, 1988, pp. 25-31.

4, IBID.

5, See Footnote 2.

6, See Wikipedia, Footnote 1, It appears that D. D. Home’s table levitations and spirit rappings would often occur in the light. But since those psychic feats are easy to pull off fraudulently they cannot be taken seriously.

7. Gardner, 1988, p. 83.

8, Hall, Trevor H., The Enigma of Daniel Home, Prometheus Books, Buffalo, 1984, The Spiritualists, Duckworth, London, 1962, New Light on Old Ghosts, Duckworth, 1965.

9, Wikipedia, Footnote 1, Gardner, 1988, pp. 88-92, 178.

10. Gardner, 1988, p. 82.

11. See Gardner, 1988 pp. 177-178, and Coover, John E., Metapsychics and the Incredulity of Psychologists: Psychical Research before 1927, in Kurtz, Paul, A Skeptic’s Handbook of Parapsychology, Prometheus Books, Buffalo, NY, 1985, pp. 241-273, at 255.

12. Gardner, 1988, p. 82.

13, Gardner, 1988, p. 177.

14, Coover, pp. 254-255, Gardner, 1988, p. 82.

15 The book can be downloaded at Google Books, Here

16 See Doyle, Arthur Conan, The Edge of the Unknown, Echo press, New York, 2006 (Original 1930), see Chapter 1, The Riddle of Houdini, See also Doyle, Arthur Conan, The Coming of the Fairies, Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1921, See Also Gardner, 1981, pp. 113-122, Randi, 1987, pp. 12-41. An over all look at this historical phenomena including a detailed look at D.D. Home is provided in Brandon, Ruth, The Spiritualists, Knopf, New York, 1983.

17. Gardner, 1988, quoting Brandon quoting T. S. Huxley, p. 178.

Pierre Cloutier